Chapter 21: When is my life ever fair?

I don't own 'Harry Potter'

Warning: mentions of suicidal feelings

REVOLUTIONARY ORPHANAGE FOR CHILDREN OF OUR FUTURE

LADY POTTER: CHAMPION OF JUSTICE AND TRAGIC VICTIM

In our world, the unfortunate reality is that we sometimes come face-to-face with circumstances that horrify us, torment us, and make us question why such things should even be a part of reality.

Those of our venerated Wizengamot will already know what it is I am referring to, but for those unaware I shall elaborate.

Orphans.

The sad truth is that orphans are victims of horrendous tragedies and it is a fact we are all aware of, but I regret to inform you loyal readers that such a tragedy does not always stop at simply leaving children with no parents. I regret – no, I am loathe to even acknowledge such a situation, because it shows that we as a society have failed some of our children.

Because some children are abused.

In yesterday's session of the Wizengamot, Lord Sirius Black put forth a proposal to create a body to oversee placement and treatment of magical orphans and build an orphanage to house these children, safe from prospective abuse at the hands of those unfit to care for them. While I along with many others applaud the courage to embark on such a demanding endeavour, I was appalled to understand the reasoning behind its demand.

Why was this reporter so appalled you may ask? Well, I should preface that reason with the revelation that the proposal was not put forth by the House of Black at all. Lord Sirius Black – formerly an unlawful resident of Azkaban prison – not only has control of the vote for the Black family once more, he now also has voting power for the House of Potter, standing as proxy for his daughter and Heiress.

But why is this so strange? The reason, I regret to inform you, is that the proposal to save the 'children of our future' as deemed by Lord Black, originated solely from the young Lady Rose Potter herself. Many may immediately deem the current Hogwarts student to be too young to interfere with proactive political decisions, but I was sickened to realise that Lady Potter is more than qualified to initiate such a project.

Especially as someone who was abused herself.

Yes, you read that right. Rose Potter, The-Girl-Who-Lived, Lady Potter and Heiress Black, suffered extensive abuse at the hands of her relatives during her childhood. After the tragic deaths of her parents Lord James Potter and Lady Lily Potter, our young saviour was sent to her maternal muggle relatives who abused her emotionally, psychologically, and even physically for ten long years before she rejoined our world last year.

While our society rejoiced over You-Know-Who being gone, one young girl was left vulnerable against despicable people charged with her care. Witches and wizards of our world made up fantastical stories and theories concerning a young girl, singing her praises and celebrating, all the while the girl in question was suffering terribly with no way out.

Lady Potter suffered greatly, but the girl survived to become an incredibly courageous young woman determined to save her peers from similar treatment. Thanks to her bravery, allowing the Wizengamot itself to become privy to intimate details of her treatment, she has successfully passed a bill in our governing body at the tender age of twelve. I don't know about any of my faithful readers, but this reporter cannot help but feel awed at her accomplishment.

Even more impressive however is her determined assertions that muggles themselves are not inherently to blame, going so far as to contact various muggle-borns who have deep and caring relationships with their families to support her. A fair number of said individuals were invited into the Wizengamot to give evidence against the suggestion to immediately remove magical children from muggle relatives.

I can honestly say I am astounded that Lady Potter has grown to be such an open-minded and fair young woman, more concerned with ensuring the happiness of these children rather than trying to further her own political agenda.

Applause and praise are the only things I can offer the girl who suffered so horrendously at the hands of those supposed to be her family, and I look forward to what Lady Potter enacts in the future.

Rita Skeeter

"... If you were to hear about something … unpleasant concerning someone's past, would you treat them any differently?"

Cedric swallowed back the bile in his throat as he held the Daily Prophet in trembling hands, gripping the paper tightly with white knuckles. All of a sudden, the blonde girl's words made so much more sense, made horrifying, disgusting sense, and he didn't know what to do.

The small girl, his friend, had been thoroughly abused for a decade and now all of magical Britain knew about it. She'd even allowed it so that she could try and stop it from happening again. She was amazing, and courageous, and he kind of wanted to shake her so it might jolt some self-preservation free from her brain. Rose had made herself vulnerable, made her private business public, all for the sake of helping others.

He couldn't decide if he was more proud or annoyed.

Though to be honest he wanted to reassure her. She'd asked him if he would treat someone differently – treat her differently if he found out about something horrible, and he wasn't about to go back on his words. He might not be as close to her as her friends in her year, but Cedric still cared about the girl and he wouldn't let anyone talk bad about her.

The Hufflepuff looked up and around the Great Hall, seeing horrified expressions that reflected his thoughts in all directions. It didn't help that Skeeter had gone on in a second article detailing some of Rose's specific injuries which painted a sickeningly clear image of the blonde girl's childhood.

"… belt marks … malnutrition … burn marks …"

The clinical descriptions of Rose's suffering had led to a couple of people fleeing the hall looking like they were about to throw up, and he could see more than a few faces with tears shining in their eyes. Headmistress McGonagall in particular looked to be about to start sobbing, the woman barely holding herself together as she appeared to be lost in memories.

Everyone with a paper in front of them looked to be united in their horror at Rita Skeeter's words, and Cedric found it to be a sickening sense of irony that Rose had wanted to combat House rivalries and had now seemingly brought everyone together through this article.

He wouldn't have minded if it hadn't taken something like this to do it.

The boy looked over at the Ravenclaw table, noticing hundreds of others doing the same thing, and saw the girl in question quietly eating her breakfast and seemingly not paying attention to anything around her. The regular motion of her fork going back and forth from plate to mouth was a little too mechanical to be normal though, and her face was completely blank of any emotions.

Occlumency.

Cedric had never learned the complex art but his dad had explained it to him. Not only did it protect against mental attacks, it could also be used to compartmentalise emotions and even lock down any and all emotions when used properly. The mind magic was often used by practitioners of dangerous jobs to avoid making decisions based on emotion, instead using Occlumency to lock away everything that would impede a totally logical thought process.

Rose had obviously managed to become startlingly efficient at an unusually young age, though considering her past it perhaps wasn't as unusual as he'd like it to be.

The boy pushed away his plate and stood up, walking over to the table of blue and bronze in a determined manner. He'd told Rose what he thought and he wasn't about to go back on his word. Cedric passed a pale and tearful Granger and sat down next to the last Potter, watching as she turned blank blue eyes onto him. He grabbed some toast nearby and murmured to her, quietly but clear enough for her to hear.

"I said you can't pity a victim who doesn't act like a victim. To me you've never been a victim, you're my friend."

The Hufflepuff noted a brief flicker in the younger girl's eyes before she turned and pulled a pot of blueberry jam towards him. His favourite.

He smiled and moved closer to her, muttering a running commentary of his roommates' antics as he stayed with her.

He was a loyal Hufflepuff after all.

Being more or less certain that your friend had been abused as a child was one thing, but having the conformation laid out in front of you for all to see was like a punch to the gut.

Blaise might have thought his quirky friend had had a shitty childhood but he hadn't anticipated suffering like what Skeeter had published in the paper. While it was true that a fair few pure-bloods were beyond strict in enforcing proper behaviour on their children, sometimes edging into psychological abuse territory, nearly all old families were united in their disgust for any form of abuse.

The danger of a child's magic becoming an Obscurial was too big an issue to ignore, and everyone knew that any form of abuse resulted in wild and unpredictable magic that was a danger to them and anyone around them. By the looks of these horrid articles his friend had been trapped in a never-ending nightmare; being abused and having her magic react badly, only to then be punished for it, which in turn affected her magic again.

It was a disgusting cycle and his best friend should never have had to go through it.

Why the fuck hadn't she gone to any of her magical relatives? Her recent genealogical research had turned up a bewildering number of cousins for the girl who'd grown up thinking she had no family, and even if a few of said relatives were arseholes there were plenty who weren't. The Greengrasses, the Browns, the Blacks … There had been no shortage of people available at the time to care for Rose properly, so why did she end up living with muggles?

He glanced at the staff table to see the one and only Cassiopeia Black sitting stone-faced and not moving, and while her expression didn't reveal anything there was a certain aura of fury radiating from that part of the table. (Blaise would have wished the muggles luck for their continued existence if he wasn't so eager for Madam Black to enact some brutal revenge himself.)

The Italian looked over at his best friend who was currently the subject of random chatter from Diggory. Going over there and comforting her wasn't the best course of action right now; their friendship was something that was only shown openly in private and he would have to wait to give Rose a hug or three.

Besides, he really had to calm Draco down before his Housemate did something stupid in his obvious blind anger.

… gebo, wunjo, hagalaz, naudiz, isaz …

… Step two: Add powdered root of asphodel. Step three: Stir twice clockwise. Step four: Add sloth brain. Step five: Add Sopophorous bean's juice. …

… the falcon is a deadly enemy, the sun is great happiness, a cross means trials and suffering …

Over and over again, Rose kept repeating various facts about anything and everything that came to mind, desperately trying to keep her shields up and not have a massive breakdown in front of every single person in the school who kept watching her.

Ever since the paper had been delivered this morning, she'd been the subject of stares upon stares, faces looking at her and eyes following her with a myriad of expressions. Misery, anger, frustrated confusion, pity …

She was now once more the starring act in the circus that made up the magical society of their country, and she was trapped in a castle filled with overly-curious and gossiping teenagers who were more concerned with scandalous news of what had happened to her rather than what it meant for their world.

At least the members of the Wizengamot had been so appalled by her childhood that it had shocked them into acting as actual human beings with a heart for once. A body of people from varying backgrounds was now being set up to monitor magical orphans and remove them from their homes if it was needed. Apparently, the members would be decided upon during next week's Wizengamot session.

According to Sirius, the orphanage was going to be a hell of a lot easier to actually get up and running, not least because her sometimes passive-aggressive dad had decided to donate one of the lesser-used manors belonging to the Black family to be converted into an orphanage. He'd airily said something about how his family would have been thrilled with the opportunity to assist with the protection of magical individuals. Though considering a vast-majority of those magical individuals were muggle-borns she rather doubted it. (If there was a way for the dead to come back at will, Sirius would be haunted so badly by his furious pure-blood supremacist ancestors.)

Rose sat at the dinner table in the Great Hall and was thankful the day was almost over. She couldn't wait to retreat to her room and relax, or hide in her trunk and gorge herself on sweets. She would have used one of the passages to sneak out and run home but she couldn't constantly run to her parents whenever something went wrong. Not to mention they had their own lives, Sirius even being married now, and she didn't want to get in the way.

She was a grown woman and she would handle her own problems, even if seeing her childhood splayed across the pages of the newspaper had caused her PTSD to rear its ugly head. Hers was a rather fucked up mind in comparison to a lot of people, and though logic told her that certain things weren't linked to each other, her emotional responses didn't quite match up.

The abuse happened as a child, it was her fault she was there, she was a burden, it was her fault her parents died, they died because of Voldemort, Voldemort murdered so many people, Sirius died, Remus died, hundreds died in a war, she fought in a war, she killed in a war, she didn't deserve to live, she should stop …

Rose clenched her fingers as the thoughts edged rather close to suicidal. She didn't like to talk about it but she had been there before. After Sirius dying, after the war … Even if she hadn't been consciously thinking about ending things, she hadn't exactly been too concerned with looking after herself. Drinking, disastrous relationships, not eating enough, practising dangerous magic … She'd been living with a devil-may-care attitude and hadn't cared if her lifestyle killed her.

Until Andromeda had ripped into her.

The woman had been genuinely terrifying and had given Rose a metaphorical slap in the face at how she was failing as Teddy's godmother, and Rose had essentially broken down. Andi had gotten her to talk things through before helping her life get back on track. She'd started eating, studying properly to take the Auror entrance exams so nobody could accuse her of using her fame to get in, she'd cut the alcohol, and while her relationships never quite got better that had never been her fault.

Teddy had been her saving grace through everything and she missed him more than ever. She missed having Teddy happily snuggle into her arms even at twelve, she missed Andi admonishing her with an indulgent smile on her face, and she missed the three of them sitting down to eat together every week. Her godson had always known that Rose had a few problems and he'd always been so good to her, making sure not to do or say anything to trigger her like Andi had taught him.

Now she was in a castle with hundreds of people that didn't know her triggers.

The abuse and the war were both swirling around her head and she was on edge, a moment away from having a breakdown in front of everyone and ruining everything. She didn't want people questioning her mental state or reviling her family so she had to keep things together. Classes had been just barely manageable, sitting in her usual seats with her head down and dutifully taking notes. She had to keep going until she got to her room.

None of these people, bar a scarce few, knew anything about her and she refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing her break. She was Rose Potter damn it, and if there was one thing she was, it was stubborn. No matter what people thought about her she was a Potter, and as a Potter she could be bull-headed about a lot of things. This was one of them.

She carefully finished her dinner and stood up carefully, maintaining the grace that future-Andi and Aunt Cassi had beaten into her and strolled out the Great Hall with her back straight and head held high. The trip to Ravenclaw Tower wasn't exactly short but she passed the time mentally singing some of her favourite songs that hadn't been released yet.

Once in her room she noticed that Hermione wasn't back yet and spelled her curtains shut, grateful that her roommate wasn't yet as adept at discerning the spells she used. She made her way into her trunk, appreciating the privacy and slowly lowered her shields, trying to acclimatise herself to the feeling of rising misery.

Rose laid down on the bed and closed her eyes, enjoying the silence of her personal space.

Day one over, however-many left to go.

A/N: Hey guys!

As I've mentioned before, Rose does not have a happy mind and is rather messed up. She tends to use Occlumency as a crutch and shove things into the back of her mind, and she definitely wasn't doing good after the war. That's one of the biggest issues I have with the canon epilogue. Everything about the war and its potential ramifications just get brushed aside like everyone was fine and perfect after Voldemort died. Like, no. Just no.

Anyway, like I said today I've posted three chapters for this fic, so there's still another one after this. Check it out :)

See ya!