Please read the author's note at the end. It contains important information.
I do not own Harry Potter.
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Philomel tumbled out of the fire grate and hit a shelf.
"Damn wizarding travel. If they're so smart, why don't they make easier ways of traveling?"
She looked around and didn't see Anila or Abiram anywhere. She did, however, hear voices from the front of the shop that she fell into; one of them very familiar.
Making her way to the front, Philomel took the time to look at the things that literally littered the halls of the small shop. One of the things caught her eye, however; a silver object glinting in the dirty sunlight that streamed through the windows.
It was a grimy silver coronet, nothing more than a beat up band. The point that would rest in the middle of the forehead slopes downward to a peak on which was attached to a disk of obsidian that would lie on the ridge of the brow. Carefully picking it up with gloved hands, Philomel walked to the counter.
"Messrs Malfoy, Mr. Borgin, I presume? Forgive my intrusion; I am not used to travel by Floo. Perhaps one of you could enlighten me on my whereabouts and how I might go about getting to Diagon Alley? And, of course, help making myself presentable again could not go amiss."
Draco stared at Philomel, not recognizing her for a moment. "Ms. Faye? What are you doing here, pray tell?"
Philomel lowered her head demurely to Lucius and Borgin. "Forgive Mr. Malfoy and myself on not introducing me sooner. My name is Philomel Faye. I also wish to purchase something from you, Mr. Borgin."
Lucius tapped his cane on the store counter. "It is a pleasure, Ms. Faye. We will finish this business later, Mr. Borgin. You have a customer."
Philomel carefully set the coronet on the counter and watched as Borgin inspected it carefully.
"I'll sell this to you for one hundred galleons."
Philomel's eyes were hooded coquettishly. "That's outrageous." she said softly. "Any muggle silversmith could do a better job for a lower price. It is dented and smudged, there is patina, and the obsidian, a common stone, is scored. It is a mere trinket, but I will give you twenty-five galleons for it, and be happy that it is even that much."
"Twenty-five is much too low for a piece with such history! But out of the goodness of my heart, I will take it down to fifty."
"If there is such history, then you should take better care of it. I will pay no more than twenty-five, and if you do not stop insisting on such inflated prices, I will walk out of here and go to a muggle silversmith. Be sure I will mention your unwillingness to deal with me fairly to all my associates."
Borgin blanched and hurriedly rung up the twenty-five galleons before handing the coronet to Philomel. "Thank you, Mr. Borgin. May you have a pleasant day. Messrs Malfoy, shall we?"
Lucius and Draco opened the door for Philomel and allowed her to go out first. Lucius performed scourgify on Philomel and they began to walk down the street.
Draco walked alongside Philomel, a little ways in front of his father. "Would you have really gone to a Muggle to get a piece of jewelry, Ms. Faye?"
Lucius unconsciously leaned forward, eager to hear this. Philomel sniffed primly.
"Yes. I rarely say things I do not mean, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco looked puzzled. "But, a muggle! Muggles could never be better than magic-users at anything."
"That is ignorance speaking. Non-adepts work materials with their hands and machines, which facilitate the working. Magic-users are dependent on magic; I doubt that many would survive if they could no longer rely on magic to bring them through."
Lucius, interested in the way the conversation was turning, decided to intervene. "Magic will never be taken away from those with pure blood." he refuted with conviction.
Philomel shruged slightly. "You know, I have heard that the Egyptian Pharaohs of old were magic-users. Is this true, Mr. Malfoy?"
Wondering slightly at the dramatic turn in conversation, Lucius gave his assent.
Philomel smiled, green eyes flashing with mischief. "Well, blood dilutes, as the Pharaohs have shown. Not through the marriage to magical children of non-adepts, but through the marriage and production of children with close-relatives. Make no mistake, messrs, be it now, be it later, your prided blood will dilute.
"And with that dilution, will come the fading of your magics. Already it has begun, and it will continue. Perhaps it will not be noticed, but, eventually, the purebloods will become nothing more than witches and wizards who do parlor tricks for the entertainment of the more powerful."
Philomel cocked her head to the side to look at the two wizards and smiled innocently. "Of course, that may not be so."
Lucius' eye almost twitched. Draco gaped. Philomel disappeared under an enthusiastic jump by Anila.
"Philly, I thought we lost you! Loony said that you got caught by the chimney shrikles, and not to worry; but I was so worried!" Anila wailed, nearly choking Philomel.
Philomel punched Anila in the stomach and jumped away, panting. "Don't do that, Anila!"
Anila mock-pouted. "I was worried."
"And I was choking!"
Lucius and Draco recovered, and the elder cleared his throat. Philomel started.
"Ah, forgive us for making a scene, Messrs Malfoy. This is my friend, Anila Thomas. Anila, these are Lucius and Draco Malfoy."
Anila smirked. "Of the French Malfois? It is a great pleasure to met two members of such a notorious family."
Philomel's fingers twitched like she wanted to choke something; preferably her friend.
Lucius raised an eyebrow and nearly sneered as well. "It is rare that someone recognizes the main branch of my family. Tell me, Ms. Thomas, how do you know this?"
Anila tilted her head back and to the side. "My mother did business with their Indian contacts, up until her death a year ago. I believe you have her to thank for many of your medical patents."
"Ah, yes, Cithara Thomas. Such a tragedy."
Abiram wandered up, Hermione and Michele in tow.
"Hello, Lucius, old friend; how are you?"
Lucius inclined his head with a smirk. "I have been fine, Abiram. You must stop by the mansion sometime this year; we have quite a bit to catch up on; wouldn't you say?"
"Yes, yes. Is that your son?"
"Is that your daughter?"
Abiram laughed. "Right, right, silly question to ask. Thank you for bringing Philomel back; she is not used to wizarding travel."
Lucius smirked. "It was my pleasure. Ms. Faye is a delight to converse with. I look forward to meeting her again, perhaps. We must be going, Abiram; do stop by."
\/\'/\/'\/\'/\/
The rest of the summer was spent, with a certain amount of relief from Philomel, with the Thomases and Luna.
Despite Dumbledore sending an owl requesting that she return to her relatives Abiram politely denied the Headmasters request and sent him a free copy of The Quibbler, his brother-in-law's newspaper.
In fact, despite frequent trips back to Surrey for the summer schooling; Philomel was not in the country for most of the summer. Instead she went on trips with the Thomases to places ranging from Paris to Buenos Aries, on nearly every single continent.
The reason they took so many trips, Philomel found out, was Abiram and Cithara's business partners.
Apparently Anila's mother was a famous potions inventor and her father was an equally famous spells inventor. Together, they created many medicines and treatments for various illnesses around the world.
It was when Cithara was working on a potion to cure HIV/AIDs that she contracted the disease herself through a dirty needle; stabbed through her neck by terrorists who wanted to stop her work. She tested positive almost immediately and died only months later from smallpox, having refused to stop treating patients: even at her own risk.
The trips were to inform all their business partners of Cithara's death.
Philomel also discovered that Anila showed promise of inheriting her mother's gift and that was why Abiram wanted his daughter to go to Hogwarts: to study potions under the Potions Master Severus Snape.
The only problem with this new life was that Philomel was dreading the return to Hogwarts and her Harry Potter persona.
She knew that bad things would happen this year at Hogwarts; something in her bones insisted that terrible things were going to happen—starting after her meeting with Draco and Lucius Malfoy in Knockturn.
As Philomel stared into the darkness of Anila's room, she thought about the things she'd have to tell her newest friend.
\/\'/\/'\/\'/\/
Ottery St. Catchpole, The Burrow
\/\'/\/'\/\'/\/
At the far end of the only road in Ottery St. Catchpole was a dirt pathway that led quite a ways into the surrounding trees and groves. At the end of this pathway was a house much like the Thomases' home, only a bit more precariously built and held up. This house was home to the Weasley family.
In a bedroom she had to herself, the youngest child sat up, her new/old wand glowing with a soft light. She was not dreading the new school year, far from it. No, the reason the youngest Weasley was still up at that time of night was because she was writing to her diary.
This is fairly normal for many young girls everywhere, but there was something different about young Ginny Weasley's diary.
It wrote back.
Now Ginny did not see anything wrong with this, she was only a young witch after all, and didn't have much experience with these things. But as she poured out all her young hopes and fears to her precious diary, the memory in it grew stronger.
\/\'/\/'\/\'/\/
Philomel was up well before Anila was, and she just watched the other girl sleep.
/Sirrush, do you think she'll still want to be my friend? Will she understand why I do this? / hissed the girl sadly.
The snake—who had grown quite a bit over the summer, and now wrapped twice around Philomel's arm—looked up at her mistress. /Even I do not underssstand why you do it, missstresss. But the odd girlsss will ssstill like you. They will not sssee you any differently. /
Anila smirked, her blue eyes flying open. "Ha! I knew it! That's your familiar! And you're a Parselmouth! I totally knew it!"
In her surprise, Philomel nearly dropped Sirrush; the snake only being saved by a few quick beats of her rapidly growing wings.
"Uh, you're awake Anila?" Philomel smiled sheepishly. "Well, yes, that's all true, but I have to tell you something else before we go to Hogwarts…"
A bright smile spread across Anila's tan features. "What, that you're Harry Potter? 'Cause I already knew that. Your last name is Potter, and there ain't that many magicals around with that last name. Anything else you need to tell me?"
Philomel gaped like a fish for a moment before she regained her senses.
"There are a couple people I want you to meet."
\/\'/\/'\/\'/\/
Luna, Philomel, and Anila boarded the Hogwarts' Express quickly after saying goodbye to Abiram, finding a compartment almost immediately.
Anila quickly settled into the seat, rambling on about some of the places in India that she'd been while Luna worked out a crossword puzzle and Philomel immersed herself in a book on advanced defensive spells—too advanced for her to be able to perform, but she liked to read the theory.
It did not take long for Hermione to find the compartment, and she threw herself at Philomel.
"Oh, Harry, I missed you so much! How was your summer? I hope the muggles weren't too bad—oh, who's this?"
Philomel gently returned Hermione's enthusiastic hug, before she waved at Anila. "That is Anila Thomas, and this," waving at Luna, "is Luna Lovegood, her cousin. Anila is transferring to Hogwarts in our year. I met her at muggle summer school and spent a good deal of my summer at her house. So don't worry, she knows. How was your summer?"
Hermione looked critically at the two other girls, before she smiled. "They've obviously been a good influence. Summer was good; my parents were very interested in everything I had to tell them. Hello, my name is Hermione Granger, I'm Harry's friend."
Anila beamed, while Luna just waved vaguely. "Hi!" replied the elder of the two.
Things immediately settle back into a routine, this time with Anila and Hermione chatting about the places they've traveled to with their parents.
:::
I'm sorry to tell you all this, but I will not be writing anymore for this story. It breaks my heart to do so, but I no longer have any inspiration for it. I will be posting what notes I have as well as the rough drafts of the ends of what would have been the next two stories. This was supposed to be a trilogy. I'm very sorry to do this, and I really did love writing this while I had the inspiration. Thank you all for reading this and sticking through my many and long hiatuses while I tried to find anything at all that would let me not have to do this.