27 Harry Potter – wrong twin who lived
The Potter Twin – Aiden
It was a scene straight out of a KFC ad – father, mother and son were sitting around the kitchen table and talking animatedly over dinner, smiling all the while. You could feel the warmth and love just radiating off them, making up the picture of the perfect happy and normal family.
Well, that scene was misleading on so many levels that it could make one's head spin.
Exactly what could make such a simple scene so different from the first glance would make an observer wonder, and rightly so.
Well, one glaring difference from a 'normal' family was easily picked – they were witches and wizards able to use magic.
Another difference would be that the small dark brown haired boy with hazel eyes had been famous throughout the world since he was a year old. His title was known to almost every member of the magical community; he was the much vaunted 'Boy-Who-Lived' – famous for living after being hit by the Killing Curse where everyone previously had died instantaneously. And in doing so had destroyed the Dark Lord Voldemort (better known as You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or even He-Who's-Name-Must-Always-Be-Hyphenated) which had skyrocketed his fame throughout Britain – a one year old was described their Saviour. The wizards clung to this new celebrity and story – it had all the good elements of intrigue, miracles and triumph over evil.
Seriously, there was even a series of fictional books with him as the main character, talking of brave feats and his knight-in-shining-armour heroics, apparently a shot at guessing what he would accomplish when he was all grown up.
The story of the night's events was known throughout the world. Voldemort had broken through the wards on their property and blown the door down. That was when James Potter ordered his wife, Lily, to go upstairs with little Dominic Potter to try to escape. James was hit with a bad Bone Breaker curse that had him unable to move and the Dark Lord moved up the steps.
Voldemort broke into the nursery with absurd ease to find Lily Potter standing protectively in front of the crib. They spoke a few pre-death-duel insults, after which Lily fell to the ground, struggling to find a way to remove the slow moving asphyxiation curse that had hit her, having bounced off a mirror on the wall.
With no opposition left, Voldemort had moved forward to the crib to find two children staring up at him.
Yes, that's right. Two children were sitting, completely vulnerable and alone; in front of the most insane megalomaniac that Britain's wizarding populace's prejudice had created in the last fifty years or so. But only one was acknowledged by the world as having ever been that close to the Dark Lord. The Potter children were twins, both having been born minutes apart in St Mungos on the 31st of July, 1980.
Hazel and green eyes stared uncomprehendingly at what would be probably the biggest turning point in their whole lives. But in Voldemort's twisted mind, there was only one child there; only one possible candidate for the Chosen One that the Prophesy mentioned.
You see, there was one large, age-old flaw and prejudice that went back centuries and centuries and would probably never be completely erased.
How could a female, a little girl, be responsible for the downfall of a Dark Lord? Sure, any baby was not any kind of threat, but in the future it was impossible to imagine a girl bringing about his downfall.
It was preposterous.
So when faced with the choice between Dominic and Aiden Potter as his future enemy, Lord Voldemort calmly levelled his wand at the chubby little boy that was sucking his thumb.
He gathered all of his hate, malevolence and sadistic pleasure and hissed the fateful words, 'Avada Kedavra' a mere five meters away from the baby.
Even Voldemort would not be certain just what had happened next.
The world was suddenly green as the bright flash clouded his vision, making it impossible to see what had happened on the other side. Before he could bemoan his lack of witnessing the actual murder, all thoughts were abandoned due to the agonising pain of having his soul forcibly ejected from his body.
You could say that it wasn't exactly the best day for the Dark Lord.
Back in the cradle, just as His-Dark-Fierceness cast the lethal curse, the little girl had stretched her arm out to try to catch the pretty light, just as babies are wont to do.
She was left with a perfectly carved lightning bolt scar on the palm of her right hand.
Another thing came out of this.
Unbeknownst to anyone, Voldemort had left a piece of his fractured soul behind. The soul had been torn between attaching to one of the twins, and it was this hesitation as it touched both at the same that caused it to be scattered to the winds, leaving behind some abilities in the two bubs but propelled away by their pure and unblemished souls, having lost its chance to anchor itself to the mortal plane.
But no one would know that a little piece of Voldemort's soul had been accidentally left behind that night, nor how close one of the Potter twins had come to being a vessel for a Horcrux.
The backlash of the rebounded Killing Curse proceeded to destroy the wall behind the former Dark Lord. Little Dom Potter was unfortunate enough to get in the way of an overheated piece of photo frame – more specifically the metal 's' off of the original full wording, 'James'. This acted as a brand, landing heavily on the right side of his forehead, leaving an angrily burning but perfectly carved 's' that would not be capable of being moved, even by magic. After all, magic couldn't heal everything, even things as mundane as scars that were in no way associated with Dark Magic – unless you counted the act of heating up the metal, obviously.
This is where the tale becomes clear and straightforward once again. Lily Potter, having been released from the dark curse when Voldemort lost his powers, managed to struggle out of the rubble and get to her children. After a minute of hysterically hugging them she managed to pull herself together and run for the fire place, placing a firecall to Albus Dumbledore.
She would be reunited with her husband after Sirius Black bolted upstairs with the news that he was alive, though with quite a few broken ribs.
Albus Dumbledore arrived in a flash of bright orange robes and bunny slippers, demanding to see the body of Lord Voldemort before he burned it and then to study the twins after hearing a recount of the night. He would see the screaming Dominic Potter who was clutching at his forehead. Once he managed to cast some numbing charms and coax the cubby hands away from the wound he did a double take upon seeing the livid S burnt into it. He knew immediately that Dom was the Chosen One from the prophesy. What would Tom use other than Slytherin's own mark to Mark his competitor, his equal?
He did have evidence to support this theory, however. The wound had traces of dark magic – a concentration of it, different to what had been coating the room.
The public had then been informed, and Europe-wide parties erupted in order to celebrate the one who had ended the reign of terror who was dubbed the 'Boy-Who-Lived.'
In the chaos of organising a Healer for James and sorting out the minor issue of the subterfuge involved in the selection of their Secret Keeper, no one noticed that Aiden even had a scar until a few weeks later, at which point it was assumed to be more recently acquired.
And the rest, as they say, was history.
This tale leads nicely into another difference about the family. There was one member – young Aiden Potter – who was watching the laughter from the outside wistfully. Normally a family would not tend to forget about someone who was so obviously sitting at the table with them.
The KFC advertisement certainly didn't include a quiet nine year old watching from the background.
Fortunately for Aiden, she was of the more introverted type; happy to watch and listen before volunteering opinions. And there was also no way in the ninth circle of hell that she would ever envy her twin his fame. She actually found it extremely freaky when he created a stampede, even though she enjoyed the blind spot that landed on her when this happened – she would use the time to sneak away and get some different things that were probably not what her parents would approve of, and meet up with some friends that would certainly never be invited over for the family dinner, even if she was a main component of it.
Aiden wasn't by any means or description a typical child.
At the age of five she had petitioned her parents to allow her to attend the muggle primary school for her education, a suggestion that Lily whole-heartedly accepted and supported for her daughter. Lily had even tried to convince Dom to go as well, but Aiden's brother was far more interested in playing with his toy broomstick and finding ways to expand his bedtime to start a conventional school – not to mention the fact that James had gotten to him and said that it was really boring. After all, as a wizard he had not attended a conventional school before the age of eleven – he wouldn't see a need.
Aiden had enjoyed her time at the muggle school.
The best thing would have been the fact that they were totally ignorant of the whole 'Dominic Potter the Boy-Who-Lived' thing, and this allowed her to make true friends without the glory hounds mixing in. She also got a taste of a normal life that had nothing to do with the fact that she and her family could use magic – she enjoyed that fame and the magical public had no part in that part of her life.
This early separation from her family gained the five-year-old Aiden a measure of independence, as well as helping with her self-esteem and self-worth. At school, she had a large group of friends as well as being hailed as a 'prodigy' by the teachers. In a desperate effort to keep this part of her life as her own – not Dom's or the public's or her parent's – she had unwittingly used accidental magic when they called down her mother. Instead of her mother showing up to the discussion of whether she could be pushed up a grade or two, a fully working illusion had showed up and agreed to everything, even signing the proper forms.
After the initial accident, Aiden had panicked, worried that her mother would find out about the meeting. When the school year had continued as normal – albeit Aiden in a more challenging class, she had been amazed. She had studied zealously after that realisation in the Potter library – which was accessible from any and all of the Potter properties through a simple series of magically linked doorways – to find a way to recreate the incident, to keep this to herself.
As a six year old, Aiden was greatly naïve in the proper workings of magic. Therefore, a six-year-old would ignore all the irrelevant instructions such as 'wand movements' and all the so-called limitations of magic that are imposed and stamped into the young minds when they attend a magical school.
After all, she had no idea that what she was doing was supposed to be impossible. And in that mindset, it wasn't. Magic has mysterious ways of working – it is undefined. If you were to believe it as such, why are rules and limitations imposed as to what is possible and what isn't? The only limits on magic are the limits that you give yourself. An older Aiden Potter would realise this and be amazed at the limits that wizards gave themselves. But at that moment the six year old was just concerned with making sure that any letters sent to her parents would only appear to her.
At a young age, Rose learnt how to forge both of her parent's signatures. She breezed through the muggle education system. The only reason her success wasn't in the papers was the fact that she had gotten her 'parents' to make the school sign confidentiality contract so that none of her achievements would be made public knowledge – or to be more precise, the papers. Wizards would never go any farther than that to check up on muggle news, and Rose knew that it was pretty much unheard of for muggleborn students and graduates to keep their feet in both worlds – European wizards were notorious for taking the 'all-or-nothing' approach – rarely was their a witch or wizard that kept in contact with the muggle world.
Aiden graduated high school with honours at the tender age of nine and a half. She was hailed as a prodigy and had attended the top school in the country on a scholarship. To her relief, it never reached common knowledge or the newspapers.
She had found great amusement in setting up and using a Narnia-like closet that connected to a broom closet at the school that was a direct link to her bedroom as the method of transportation – she had found a book that talked about the doorway trick and something called 'connecting cabinets' and changed it to her advantage, making sure that it would only become a portal to her magical signature, something that was keyed into the Potter doorways, albeit you had to be a Potter. She had destroyed it upon graduating – she was pretty sure that it was illegal even though there were no restrictions to creating connecting closets… probably because the knowledge had been lost to the general public, but still.
And that was how Aiden had gotten to where she was. Sitting just outside of her family's laughter, feeling keenly the immaturity of her brother, Dom, after having been amongst eighteen year olds for most of the last year. She wouldn't trade her experiences with the muggle world for anything, though – she had earned every praise and acknowledgement that came her way and was confident in the knowledge of who she was – something she knew wouldn't have been possible if she only had access to the wizarding world where everybody would be wanting to talk to Dom and marvel at the 'S' stamped into his forehead.
Just because she wasn't as in-the-loop with her family as she might have been had she not experienced the outside world didn't mean that she was ignored. Quite the opposite, infact – she and Dom were close, although not as insanely close that most twins were – they had lead quite different lives, after all; with Dom being sort after and given presents and being mobbed by fans whenever he ventured out to the magical hotspots and Aiden going into the muggle schooling system and generally growing up and independent.
They were as different as fire and ice – Dom was hyperactive at the best of times, joking and light-hearted, whiny about studying, gullible, quick to anger, relishing of attention, trusting and forgiving, always trying to emulate his father… while Aiden was calm, serious, had a vicious temper when provoked, extremely focused and directed, despising of attention born of gossip, trying to be her own person and deviate from the beaten track, brilliant and sharp of wit and easily seeing to the heart of people's motivations. A lot of their traits could be both to their advantage and against it.
Aiden enjoyed the amusement and spectacle that her brother provided, and he was also very obliging when it came to setting up any distractions that she might need in order for her to slip away – provided that she'd later help him prank their father, Siri and Remy of course. When they paired up the house shook in its foundations – sometimes quite literally – although it didn't happen all that often, for which many people were grateful.
Aiden allowed a small smile to cross her face as she leaned closer to her family. Even though they were slightly dysfunctional – after all, she had managed to go completely out of notice of their parents for a large part of her life, which was a result of having to deal with her brother's fame and all the hassles that went with it – she thought it worked for them. She liked having her secrets, of which were quite a few that she knew would never have happened had it not been for the almost total freedom of dictating her life.
There were quite a few things that Aiden had discovered about her magic. The first was that it must have been subconsciously helping her studies. It took her a while to notice that when she read for hours she would sometimes finish and notice that the time only said she had been at it for a few minutes. That was one of the bigger things, but she had also trailed across a book after tripping on it in the library titled 'Occlumency: Master your Mind' which she had studied and afterwards enjoyed an almost photographic memory and improved her understanding of herself – you had to learn to identify and deal with your emotions which had actually helped her grow up quickly in that aspect – lots of adults never bothered to learn to control their temper or rage.
Another thing she had noticed a while after joining a martial arts class was the strange flow of her magic that increased the force of her punches and kicks. She had been dragged into a class by a friend way back at the start of her education and had practically been begged to keep her company. Apparently Mindy's mother was paranoid about her daughter's ability to defend herself and by some twisted 'mother' logic decided that she would get Aiden in on it too.
She had found, three years after starting the discipline, that magic enhanced the physical aspects of it. She had been curious to see just how that happened and spent weeks looking for a way to see magic to find out how it worked. She had managed it – through use of something called 'mage sight' – and was down right shocked at what she discovered. She had used it alone first, and after seeing the movements had focused on doing it consciously. She had decided to use it in a lesson and, to her complete shock, saw that the muggles all tapped into magic this way as well. She found that their form was weaker and less consistent generally, but judging by the level that their sensei channelled, concluded that it must build up over time. She was sure that it would be impossible for them to use it for anything else or apply it consciously, but it was amazing that they had discovered how to tap into any magic at all.
After the discovery she had made a point to explore the uses of the magic. She found mention of it in a book, actually – it was described as 'body magic' and was totally legal due to the fact that so little was known about it and that not many witches and wizards could use any form of wandless magic, not to mention the fact that wizards never trained themselves physically. It was 'too much hard work' for a population that harnessed magic and could perform amazing feats with a wave of a wand and a thought. It was truly disturbing to see just how complacent and lazy most of the population was.
The body-magic could be applied to strengthen muscles, allowing the user abnormal speed levels, inhuman strength, the ability to jump extremely high by use of propelling yourself off the ground, as well as stick to flat surfaces – walls, ceilings – as well as balance themselves on unstable surfaces – water, ice, loosely packed snow – when applied properly and through a lot of hard work of refining the ability to put out the right amount in precise doses.
Aiden was lean and slightly smaller than average which was extremely misleading as to her physical capabilities – she had body magic down to an art, just as a lot of people found out in the martial arts competitions she had entered, not to mention the odd person who would try to bully the young 'tag-a-long' in classes she was too young for – although she was mostly tutored separately due to the sheer rate she picked up the subjects.
Yes, Aiden truly was nothing resembling normal.
And that's the way she liked it.
The floo alert call went off and all at the table turned to see a black haired man in his early thirties step out of the large fireplace, grinning like a loon. He was followed a moment later by a ruffled man of the same age although older looking – he had a scar that was prominent on his face and sandy yellow hair.
"Prongsy! I'm home!" Sirius Black practically sang audaciously.
Lily snorted and James rolled his eyes at the statement while Dom jumped up and sprang on the old Marauderer in question only to narrowly avoid knocking them both to the floor. "It's nice to see you too, Paddy. It's been so long… a whole five hours!" Was the token reply from James as he grinned at the scene his old friend was making.
Remus sidestepped the two and took Dom's vacated place at the table, rolling his eyes congenially.
Sirius shook his head, eyes wide, "Has it really been that long? Hmm must have forgotten to drop in and inform you I was alive sooner. Sorry about that – I know how antsy you get when my continued existence is under question." He shook his head sorrowfully at the last part.
Lily cut in then, "Sure, Sirius. Whatever helps you sleep at night."
Sirius mock pouted and started to pry off Dom's arms.
James just laughed. Remus turned to the fourth at the table and said, "It's nice to see you down here with the living, Aiden! It feels like we never get to see you between your school and all the time you're doing homework!"
Aiden grinned and stared u at him innocently with wide eyes, "S'not my fault I got a lot of work to do, Remy! But I've finished school now and in a month I'll be at Hogwarts!"
Remus sighed when she referred to him as 'Remy' – one of the twins had called him that back when they were unable to wrap their tongue around 'Remus' and it had stuck – but non-the-less smiled at the exclamation. Really, she spent more waking hours holed up in the library or at school than with the family.
Sirius had managed to shake of Dom and strode over to ruffle Aiden's hair playfully, "It'll be great to have you here, little A."
Aiden pouted and ducked her head. Long hair was a pain to make presentable after someone messed it up like her uncle did! She had silky auburn hair that was naturally set in loose curls that trailed almost to the middle of her back and it was rare that she had them loose because of all the activities she did – it just got in the way.
Aiden saw Sirius glance at her father quickly while her mother wasn't looking. Uh oh – they had some kind of crazy scheme cooking. Something that obviously wasn't going to be good for the future sanity of the Potter matriarch.
Remus spoke up, "Lily, Alice asked me to invite you over for some 'girl time' tonight – Neville's going out with Frank to one of the Auror got-togethers and she said that you needed time to catch up."
Lily smiled and sprung up, kissing James on the cheek as she swiftly walked to the fireplace, "Well, I can't leave Alice waiting now, can I? I guess you guys will have to take care of the twins – make sure they get to bed by eight o'clock and don't give them sugar. I'll see you boys later."
Aiden grinned along with the three remaining 'ex'-pranksters finding amusement in the quick reaction from her mother – it was rare that Lily got out to just have fun with her friends as she was in charge of taking care of her and Dom most of the time and thus the reason for her eagerness to leave the men with the twins.
Which was definitely not the soundest of logic, especially considering the strange gleam in said men's eyes.
All was silent as the green flames vanished. And then Sirius grinned triumphantly and said, "Coast's clear, Agent Prongs, Agent Moony. Plan's a-go!"
James' grin matched the black haired man and he turned to Aiden and Dom, who had decided to position himself next to his sister to present a united front against any pranking which was undoubtedly going to happen in the near future.
Remus, Sirius and James pulled chairs out and sat down facing the twins, managing to look extremely serious.
"Aiden and Dominic Potter, you have been chosen to continue the Marauder tradition. First of all, so you accept this honour?"
Two sets of eyes brightened and glanced at each other quickly, both wearing identical shit-eating grins as they cheered, "Yes, of course!"
"Are you sure you are ready to uphold this honour?"
Dom cheered and Aiden raised an eyebrow in a 'get-on-with-it' manner.
Sirius held his hands up in a placating manor, "Fine, fine – keep your hair on! Now, the main component of the Marauder Tradition is that its members must be able to turn into animals – whether that be voluntary or involuntary." The gleam in his eyes could have started fires.
Aiden drew in a sharp breath as she caught the allusion. They were talking about becoming animagus! She saw Dom start bouncing and knew that he had gotten the general idea as well. She couldn't help feel thoroughly that she probably had the best adult influences ever. Really? Ministry laws? Who cares! Even if this did get found out she was pretty sure anyone would shrug it off because of the whole 'defeat of the dark lord' anyway.
She had heard that her father and Sirius had learnt to be animagus on their own without adult help or supervision – which was both extremely dangerous and highly illegal on so many levels that it didn't care to be mentioned. It seemed like they had decided to get them started early and put it under supervision so they could control the transformation so it didn't get out of hand – she knew that Dom was certainly the kind of person to do that to follow in his father's footsteps and she certainly would have wanted to dabble in the art sooner or later – probably would have already had she had much training in conventional magic.
If you thought about it from that direction then they were almost being responsible. A very scary thought. That was probably how Sirius and James had managed to bring Remus over to their side.
The three adults spent the better part of two hours explaining the process and telling horror stories of failed animagus transformations to ensure that they would only attempt anything under their supervision.
The first step was to discover if one had a form, which was the easiest once you had the proper supplies. You had to drink a potion that would send you to sleep to search your subconscious and find the animal that represented you. That's why they had started this training now – the potion was ridiculously complicated and when you could brew it/obtain it, you needed to drink it at a certain time – there was also the problem that it had to be in a certain year and when the planets aligned in a certain way… suffice it to say that it was the time that the potion was drinkable and would work to its fullest potential as well as the fact that the next such time was in roughly seven years.
When you found your animal, it would be accessible once you could visit your magical core – which happened through extensive mediation. They had actually had the twins meditating at a young age – Lily joked that it was solely for their sanity, but old pureblood families generally had their kids doing it because it allowed a greater control over magic.
You had to research your animal inside your mind, familiarising yourself with it and also 'accept' it as a part of yourself – just as the animal had to accept you. That was the most time consuming part of the process because you had to manipulate your mind and connect with your subconscious. Once that step was complete, you went on to transforming. You used your magic to 'become' your animal – a mental willing that brought magic to the surface to make a physical representation of your personality. Generally, a person had one animal, but some theorised that it would be possible to have more than one representation of your inner personality because humans were so complex in their emotions.
The men explained all this and more to their rapt audience before they produced two small bottles of a clear blue potion that seemed to be shimmering.
The twins were taken up to their individual rooms before drinking down the potion that tasted mildly like cough syrup and promptly both went into deep trances, to all appearances being in a deep sleep.