Disclaimer - I own neither Catwoman or Harry Potter.
Shocking revelations.
Selina jumped when she heard the voice, spinning round she saw the speaker. A man wearing a long cloak sat on the rooftop with her, a broomstick leaning against the brick chimney next to him. Catwoman took him in, knowing it was her brother. He'd changed greatly. His face was more leaner, showing a man who'd exercised greatly. Daniel was wearing a black cloak, as was already mentioned, and most of his gear was black. Catwoman couldn't see much of Dan's body; his outfit reminded the feline burglar of the dynamite version of Zorro, one of the many comic book characters who'd inspired her looks. That incarnation wore neither flashy cape or a cloak that made him look gaudy, but a cloak that made it harder for enemies to strike him.
Clearly her brother was using his brains when he designed his look. But what was he doing here? Then Selina noticed the katana strapped to his back.
Surprised her brother had deduced her identity so quickly, Catwoman tried to bluff, " I don't know who you are, personally, but I know you're Daniel Potter, the former boy who lived." Catwoman closely watched for Dan's reaction. She was expecting a puffed up and pompous reaction with her brother boasting about an accomplishment before he could even walk and speak. What she got wasn't what she'd expected, no matter the circumstances of how she'd left Dan. It wasn't everyday when you discover your friends are arrogant bastards in the pay of a senile old man, and your parents turn their attention away to someone else.
" Don't call me that!" Dan snarled, keeping his voice down, mindful of the Order on the ground. If they heard them then they'd be caught, and Catwoman and he would need to fight their way out. Catwoman was the better one at magic, not Dan.
" Why not?" Selina asked curiously; in all the years she'd known her brother, Daniel had never shied away from the attention. Catwoman had been surprised when Dan had emigrated for Japan and gotten a girlfriend. She hadn't expected to see him, and she was interested in what he'd been doing since then.
Dan's jaw clenched, " Take off your mask, Sel, I want to see your mask. Not your true face."
Catwoman's gasped at the implications of that request; when she put on her Catwoman outfit she felt complete, a real person. Was Dan right, was Catwoman Selina Potter's true face? She'd never have expected her twin brother to become so perceptive; clearly his time abroad had broadened his mind.
Hands shaking slightly inspite of her control, Catwoman slowly removed her mask, exposing her face. Dan nodded, his lack of surprise cementing Selina's growing fear that her masked identity wasn't as secure as she'd hoped, " Aunt Bella's kept in touch with me like she has with you, don't be angry with her." Dan looked his hands, " I think we need to talk somewhere else."
Selina nodded, she knew just the place.
Bellatrix was as surprised to see Dan like Selina, but she was unrepentant about not telling her goddaughter about being in touch with him.
" He came to me, Sel, I told you that. I thought it was obvious to you that I was in touch with him." Bellatrix said calmly. When she'd seen Dan after so long she'd been as surprised as her goddaughter, just like she was when she laid eyes on the sword the boy was carrying. In truth Selina wasn't angry, but she was still curious about what was going on. She turned to face her brother, who was sitting at the table in Bellatrix's home, a look of placid patience on his face, his cloak draped on the table in front of him, revealing what looked like body armour, but it was his face that was making Selina's surprise even more profound; she'd never seen the boy look so composed.
Daniel smiled, " I know you've been in training. I've been as well." Dan looked at his hands, " After the Order meeting in Dumbledore's office, after you exposed Ron and Hermione of spying on me, and that Dumbledore was planning your life like he'd done me, my parents changed. It grew so bad that they forgot I even existed.
" Welcome to the club," Selina said sarcastically.
Dan carried on as if his twin hadn't said a word, " I wanted to get away, especially from Dumbledore and the Weasleys. I saw them for what they were. The Order was no better. They were looking for you, Sel. I decided to take your advice, and get away whilst I still could. I went to Aunt Bella, and asked her for help."
" I was surprised at first," Bella remarked softly, speaking for the first time since Dan started his story. " I was least surprised when I heard how Lily and James were treating you. I couldn't resist helping you, and showing you that you and your sister had been born to two arrogant people who'd taken over from the good people they'd been before they were attacked."
Dan pointed at her, " Bellatrix got me out of the country, gave me a translation potion. I travelled to Japan, and whilst I was there I soaked up the culture, got a job selling potion ingredients in their version of Diagon Alley, for this kind family. The potion helped me learn the language. I met my girlfriend there. I can speak Japanese brilliantly now."
Selina couldn't resist, " Really?" She asked in Japanese.
" Really," Dan replied with a smile. He'd missed this; he'd undertaken occlumency training and he'd found that when he'd been a baby, he and Selina had had competitions. It was a pity people like Dumbledore and their parents had taken that away from them.
Selina nodded, satisfied. She could see that the potion was no longer working. That would only happen when the taker had learnt the language. " Carry on. What happened next?"
" I told the family about what happened, the attack on Halloween, Dumbledore and our parents treatment, Voldemort's return to power...I told them about how Voldemort was gunning for you." Dan closed his eyes as he revealed something his pride had had trouble revealing to that wonderful family, " I told them I knew you'd fight back against the bastard, and I told them I wanted to help you."
" So the family taught you about how to become a samurai?" Selina asked with her arms folded. She was aware that the samurai arts were passed down through the generations so they'd never die. Her beloved sensei had come from a long line of samurai trained warriors.
Dan shook his head, " No, but they knew someone who would. A sorcerer. Cutting a long story short, the magical training was pointless. He told me straight that my ability to wield magic had diminished."
" Diminished, how?" Bella asked.
Dan shrugged, it had been a big a mystery and surprise to him and the sorcerer as well. " The sorcerer found magical core blocks on my magic, and he suspects they, and the attack made by Voldemort, might have damaged my magic. He can't see how though, considering the wand wasn't directed at me."
" So, when he discovered your magical limitations, this sorcerer taught you hand to hand combat. Something that doesn't require a magical focus?" Selina asked.
Dan nodded, " The sorcerer and I trained. I can't tell you how hard it was."
" No, you do not," Selina replied softly, recalling her own training only too well. The only difference was Selina had been prepared for it, running, weight lifting, going on all sorts of activities to make her strong. The only heart pumping activities Dan had ever done was Quidditch and signing autographs.
" I thought he would teach me moves, but he had other ideas. He made me learn meditation, punching holes in wooden panels with my fist. Making me eat fish heads with my fingers when they were bloody, saying if I ate like an animal then I should eat off the floor. It took me three years before I was able to fight with him and hold my own." Dan added.
Selina wasn't surprised, " The master would always hold back some of the knowledge until the student was ready. It gives them an advantage, if the student pissed around then the teacher would surprise them."
Dan nodded, " I got cocky once or twice, but I managed to hold my own. I was best when it came to using the katana, and the master made me forge it."
Bellatrix asked, " When did you come back?"
" I got back here 3 days ago. I found out what Catwoman had done, and I knew it had to be Selina," Dan turned to his sister, a smirk on his face, " That's how I knew it was you. Only my sister could drive people that crazy,"
Bellatrix snorted when she saw the glare pointed at Dan from her goddaughter. She asked a question that had been bugging her for a long time since the news had come from Daniel.
" You's the girl, Dan?" She asked. Selina rolled her eyes at her aunts curiosity, but she too was curious about who the girl was. Dan's eyes gleamed proudly as he thought about the girl, " Hoshi. Hoshi Sato. Her family run a number of businesses, potion ingredients is one of them. It was thanks to their connections that I got trained in the first place."
Selina nodded, noting the meaning of the girls name at once, liking it's otherworldliness. Now she'd heard the story from her brother she was delighted to see he'd taken her advice, upto a point.
" I thought I told you to stay away from the fighting?" Selina asked.
Dan shook his head, " I know," he replied in a voice that said that he'd tried hard to do that, but he couldn't find it in his heart to do it. " But I couldn't. I owed you, Sel, for all those years of grief mother and father put you through. I know you see me as an arrogant jerk, and I was. But I've changed, I'm different now. You think your life's been ruined, guess again. Thanks to that fucking prophecy, and Dumbledore's obsession with our family, I haven't had a normal life. Leaving for and working in Japan was an eye opener; no one cared who I was, as long as I worked hard to earn something.
" The sensei that taught me ground my Potter arrogance to dust, Selina. If I'd learnt from him since childhood, then I would never be arrogant." Dan looked deep and hard into his sister's eyes. " Dumbledore's training was spoilt by mother going on about how rough it was, the sensei would never have tolerated that."
" I know. Sensei's love getting at the good things, and they don't let little things get in the way of their training obligations." Selina said, " What made you come back?" She asked again.
Dan ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes tiredly, " I wanted to get revenge, on Dumbledore, on Voldemort. I know you're the one that's supposed to kill him, but I want to make him pay for coming and destroying lives. I wanted to gain redemption, for the lies that I've told, and others."
Whilst Selina was sickened that some of Dan's motives weren't as unselfish as he'd led on from the start, she understood what he was getting at. She'd noticed, and from what she could see on the face of Aunt Bella as well, that Dan had said ' gain redemption,' not ' get ' as she'd have expected him to say.
Turning her attention to Dan's outfit, she remarked drily, " I see you've foregone the traditional Japanese samurai gear?"
A typical samurai wore ceremonial armour; padded for arms, chest, legs and thighs, topped by mask and helmet. In truth, Selina was delighted her brother had designed his own gear. Japanese armour had many issues, besides Selina didn't think it was practical. Body armour, no matter how light, could be restrictive in some areas, and for a thief that wasn't a good move.
Dan smirked, he could see what his sister was getting at, and he wasn't surprised, " Too bulky, especially on a broomstick,"
" So, what's your M.O?" Bella asked, " Fly over the death eaters on a broomstick, slice their heads off, fly away and laugh at them?"
Dan ignored the mocking way Bella had asked that. She was right, in some parts. " Aside from the laugh at them and fly away part, yeah. That's my plan. I haven't started yet. I was about to, then I heard about Catwoman. It didn't take long for me to figure out her identity, or the person who knew who it was, There were too many clues," Dan looked up at his sister.
" Oh, like what?" Selina asked, folding her arms, her expression challenging Dan to respond. Bella leant back, a small smirk on her face. She wondered how Dan was going to respond to this challenge.
Dan didn't disappoint, " My sister has never liked magic, despite her skills in using wandless magic. The few times I've followed Catwoman around, oh yes," Dan added when he caught his sister's look, " You were easy to follow over the rooftops, and when I saw you use magic, you didn't use a wand. I don't know anyone else who could do that."
Undaunted by his sister's narrowed gaze, Dan carried on, " You may hate magic, and everything the wizarding world stands for, but you would never walk away from a fight. Besides, Catwoman appeared in New York not so long ago, before she disappeared. Aunt Bella told me that you'd gone to America. It's far away from Magical Britain, just the way you like it.'
Dan smirked, " Need anymore proof?" he asked Selina with a smile, the challenging glint saying beat that, sis.
Selina glowered at Dan her eyes glowing with fury, dismayed that her disguise seemed to disappear like a breath of wind every single second.
After that, Dan and Selina agreed to stick together, and also help each other with what was to come. What they didn't know was that they'd need all the help they could get.