"Who opened the curtains?" Harry demanded in alarm when she came back from the bathroom to find all the dorm curtains had been pulled back.

"Is it you who keeps closing them? Oh for goodness sake, Potter. You have to let a little lake light in here! Come on, we're going to be late for charms." Millicent told her, and the other girls agreed.

"Why do you keep closing them, anyway?" Asked Daphne.

"Because of the, THAT!" Harriet shrieked, dashing forward to cover the dinner plate sized eye that came into view in the window right beside her bed! "I hate squid. And any eye that big isn't natural -"

Pansy took her arm and pulled her out of the room with the others – they really would be late if they didn't hurry. "Why were you so insistent on swimming in the lake then? Lady Malfoy was so mad I thought she was going to expel us all after that particular misadventure of yours." But Harry brushed off the question, too consumed with thoughts of terrifying cephalopods.

"Its beak is so strong it can snap right through you, of course that's if the suckers and hooks on its tentacles don't just tear you apart first. And its throat goes through its brain! It's unnatural!"

"What's this now?" The boys were waiting in the common room, but all made to leave when the girls arrived. They had all gotten used to the fact that Harriet Potter never went anywhere alone, and that nine times out of ten Malfoy or Nott would be her escort.

"Harry's afraid of the giant squid." Pansy told Draco.

"We've been over this – you can't be a Slytherin and be afraid of the squid." Draco said as Harry began to walk beside him.

"Can too. Am too." She was going to have to ask Tom if he could get rid of the squid somehow. She loved looking out into the lake, and seeing all the wildlife therein, but she had a heart attack whenever the squid went by. Why couldn't they have a view of something nice? Oh! That reminded her. "We're getting a tiger!" Harriet whispered excitedly, as she and the others shoved their way out into the busy corridor of the second floor. It wasn't really the place to be talking about such things, no matter how quiet she was but, because having a tiger was a wonderful thought, Draco whispered back immediately:

"A tiger? Whatever for?" If Harry had managed to convince his parents to buy a tiger, he needed to up his game! A day off school and tickets to the Cup final at the very least! "How did you swing that?"

"How so?" Pansy asked, having overheard she'd assumed Harry's 'we' referred to the students. A tiger at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, neither Draco, nor Harry heard her in the din.

"Well, just because! Tigers are cute." She lowered her voice, and took Draco's arm so she could lean into his ear. "And, well, I guess I can't be sure. But I tried to convince…" she skipped Tom, he was a 'no' anyway, "Narcissa – she didn't really seem too convinced. But then I tried with Sirius: he said no, but then I told him that if he bought me a tiger, I'd keep it at Malfoy Manor – for some reason he seemed quite keen after that."

Draco shook his head. His father wouldn't like that at all, but he doubted the Dark Lord would allow Harry to keep a wild cat at his base.

They reached Charms and broke up into pairs in order to practice the levitation charm. It was rather difficult, and only a handful of students managed to make their feathers float before the end of the lesson. Harriet was paired with Ron Weasley. She thought it would be a nightmare, but he wasn't too bad.

He shouted the incantation in a way that suggested he'd been denied the type of training and education due to someone of his blood status. She's never known a Pureblood to be so uncouth.

"I think it's meant to be Levi-o-sa." Harry tried to correct him, if only to prevent him taking someone's eye out with his rabid wand waving.

"How do you know?" He asked gruffly, clearly frustrated with his own failure. Harry was in a good mood, and she had the patience to realise she might have been likewise ignorant if she didn't have Tom – and Lucius, Narcissa, Sirius, and everyone else that had helped guide her.

"That's just how I heard it." Maybe it was just a confidence thing? The difference was striking when she compared Weasley to the boys she knew like Draco and Theo and Blaise. Just what had his parents done to him? He should have been confident, and knowledgeable in magical theory. The importance of proper pronunciation was basic stuff.

"I think there's something wrong with the stupid feather." He groused, and Harry had to close her eyes a moment, her patience running out.

"Well, don't think about the feather. Think happy thoughts. Think of something you like." Learning to make things float was one of the first things she learned to do wandlessly, and emotions fueled her efforts greatly – sadness, desperation and hunger, not the easiest emotions to replicate, but positive emotions had helped in more recent years.

"I like quidditch." Ron perked up, but Harry spoke before he was able to start enthusing about the new subject.

"Ok, so go with that. Close your eyes, and imagine you're on a broom, dressed in Gryffindor pride and wearing the captain's armband. You've just won the Cup, and are descending to the trophy. You want to lift it, to share your victory with the cheering crowds. So you take out your wand, loose wrist, swish, flick, and…"

"Wingardium Levi-o-sa!" Ron's feather lifted far too quickly, shooting up to the ceiling, but neither he nor Harry cared, because he'd done it! Even Flitwick praised his accomplishment, which made him light up like a fire engine, much to Harry's amusement.

"Thanks Harry. I was dreading being partnered with you, but you're alright." He told her at the end of class.

"Erm, thanks, I think."

"No really. I was stuck with Granger last week and she's an absolute nightmare!"

Harry winced in sympathy. "The Mu-ggleborn? That's rough. Where is she today anyway?" She asked, now noticing the girl's absence.

"Dunno. Maybe she had bad news," Ron suddenly looked guilty, thinking maybe he'd been bitching about Hermione while she lost her parents. "How are you so calm?" He asked quietly. "You're doing really well in everything. How can you concentrate when everything is so insane?"

It was a fair point really. There was certainly enough going on to be a distraction. Harry's friends just found it all very exciting though. Many of them rushed down to breakfast every morning to see the latest development – the muggle atrocities, vague muggle death tolls, magical governments being overthrown, and the civil war in Germany. People were hooked, until Dumbledore banned newspapers, claiming the content was far too distressing for the students. It hardly mattered, news still came in the form of letters, it just took a little longer.

"Well nothing going on out there has anything to do with us. We're completely isolated from it." Tom wouldn't have let her come to Hogwarts if they weren't.

"Harry! Let's go." Pansy called her over, sneering at Ron as he hurried by. "Were you just helping Ron Weasley?" She asked with disgust.

"Why shouldn't I? He's from a good family – Why shouldn't he excel?" Defended Harry.

"Look Harry, I know you were raised, I mean, lived with muggles, but you should know that just because someone has pure blood, it doesn't mean they're worth your time."

"No," Harry agreed, "but they do deserve a decent education!"

"Leave it, Pans." Theo came to Harry's rescue, Draco following right after, trying to explain to Pansy:

"It's Halloween, it makes people act peculiarly." Draco saw it every year, every Halloween, every anniversary of her parents deaths – Harry turned into a little goody-two-shoes monster. He didn't think she was even aware she was doing it, but it was super annoying. Last year she'd decided to cook dinner at Malfoy Manor, for the Malfoys, the Lestranges, and the Dark Lord. The food hadn't been too terrible, but Draco remembered she'd made such a mess in the kitchen that Narcissa had dismissed the elves for the night, and made Harry clean it herself – after the Dark Lord left.

Harry put it all from her mind and moved on with her day… until she slipped into the girl's bathroom just before dinner and found Hermione Granger. The girl was standing in front of the mirrors, trying to pull herself together. Judging by the mess that was her face, Hermione had been crying hidden away in here all day.

"What do you want?" She snapped after catching Harry's eye in the mirror.

"To use the loo, obviously." Harry snapped back, not appreciating being attacked just for walking into the room. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing I'd expect you to understand. You go about like none of this affects you at all!" That was the second time she'd been accused of not caring in one day. Of course she cared! She felt dreadful, but that didn't mean she didn't agree with it. What was she supposed to do but go about her business – why did everyone expect her to solve the world's problems?!

Harry did her best to ignore the attack, just this one time. "Did you receive bad news about your folks?" She tried tentatively.

"No! I've had no news at all! Over 60 days, and I haven't heard anything from my parents." She was silent for a moment, before quietly admitting; "This morning Justin received news that his, that his parents are… they're gone." And she burst into tears again, obviously assuming the worst about her own parents.

Harry wasn't sure what to do, and shifted uneasily. "I know the, I mean, I've met the people in charge of finding families – I can ask that the Grangers are given priority. You know it might just be that they can't get in touch. They might be fine." She tried to reassure.

"What?! So they can be moved to a hog farm?!" Hermione asked hotly, before thinking about it, and adding: "Could you?" The idea of segregating people made Hermione deeply uncomfortable, but at least if they were under the Ministry's care, she'd know they were alive!

In theory, the Ministry had set up a task force to locate the immediate families of all school age muggleborn wizards and witches, and ensure they were safely escorted to one of the three Homes of Grace for Associated Refugee Muggles. In reality, they weren't breaking backs to find them. The homes were large country estates taken from, or abandoned by, muggles. They could be self-sufficient eventually. Tom planned that the muggle families would clean and maintain the properties, while also tending to the attached farms and cooking, while their magically gifted children would be educated on site to the degree Tom thought appropriate. Mostly just enough to serve their superiors.

If not for the fact Lily Potter was a mudblood, Tom would have left them uneducated and doomed to the same fate as their parents. Some might even take themselves, and possibly their families, out by developing obscurus. Maybe he could feed mudbloods to the Dementors. It was fun to imagine all he could do, and he resented the concessions he made for Harry's sake. He wondered when he'd stopped trying to deny most of the disgusting weaknesses she wrought, and simply started to accommodate them, but he imagined it was sometime between her nearly dying and her killing someone in order to make him feel better.

"Sure, I'll write to Sirius. He has two seats on the Wizengamot – they have to at least meet with him." She tried again to reassure the mudblood. Harry truly didn't want anyone to lose their family, but mudbloods shouldn't be here at all, they should be with their families at the grace homes, and if they were then the rest of the school wouldn't have to deal with the wretched sadness and fear they exuded.

Dumbledore ran into Harry leading Granger to the great hall, and carefully asked to speak with her. He'd struggled to reach her all year, but thought having her parents in mind on this awful anniversary, she might let him see through a little of the mask she wore so well.

Her contempt for the headmaster was easily felt the moment she stepped into his office. She really didn't want to have to deal with him today. Her stress tolerance was always lower on Halloween. He explained that he only wanted to check up on her, to make sure she was ok, and that he felt a responsibility to ensure she was. Apparently, it was a duty he owed to her parents.

Harry scowled.

"Please don't patronise me, Mr Dumbledore." She ground out as nicely as she possibly could. "If you felt any duty of care for me, you'd have rescued me years ago: I know you know I ran away from home! You didn't care about me then, and I don't expect you to care for me now!" It was only after she spoke that Harry realised just how much she'd messed up. She would never be able to fool Dumbledore in the long term! He was wise and experienced, and she was an eleven year old emotional spaz… She took a long, deep breath. "I'm sorry, sir – professor. I've been feeling a little emotional today, but shouldn't be taking it out on you." She tried to repair the damage with vulnerability and contrition.

"It's only natural that you should feel angry. You have every right to be." Dumbledore had been taken aback by the sudden outburst, and by her knowing of his involvement in her childhood, but he didn't mind too much, because this was the most genuine emotion he'd seen from her, a crack in her untouchable façade. "So many things have happened in your life that seem unfair. Too much has happened to you." He sympathized.

This time Harry was able to catch herself before giving a knee-jerk reaction. She was so incredibly angry that he hadn't even tried to defend himself for abandoning her! What kind of arsehole doesn't question why a little kid tries to run away from home? God, she hated him. She also managed not to correct his assumption that her life was some terrible thing – She obviously had tragedy in her past, but Harry actually thought her life was charmed. She didn't really miss the parents she'd never known – she'd take the Malfoy's over the Potters any day, because she did know and love them. All the pain she'd suffered had come from being placed with the Dursleys, and that was the headmaster's fault! That stupid old idiot! That evil… Stop it! She told herself. Thank goodness she had such excellent Occlumency shields.

She looked around the room, praying for a distraction. The office was just as much a mess as the last time she was here, but with one addition; the strange mirror that was supposed to show your heart's desire.

When she didn't respond to his commiserations, he tried to lighten things up a bit. He didn't rejoice in playing on a child's emotions, or making her uncomfortable, but she had to understand what a large target she was. She had to know and be prepared for the fights ahead. The fate of the wizarding world might rest on her shoulders. It wasn't fair, but he could do nothing but try to help her.

"I believe you know what this mirror does?" He asked, with an indulgent twinkle in his eyes that made Harry's heart race. Had he been watching her? Did he know how close she was to Draco?

"I think it's broken. It didn't show me anything. There was nothing." She admitted, if only to appease him. Surely he'd let her leave soon!

"I assure you, it's working quite well. Perhaps you simply need to think more about what 'nothing' means to you."

"Really, it would work on anyone? Even someone like Voldemort?" And me? She wondered.

"Yes, though I can't begin to imagine what he would see – perhaps he'd be Minister of Magic." Again he tried to keep it light, but thought maybe he did need to lay it on a bit thicker when Harry only shrugged in response. She just didn't seem to comprehend the severity of the threat! "That doesn't seem to bother you?" He asked, concerned and curious.

"Why should it?" Harry questioned back. On this topic she knew exactly what was expected of her, and she knew she couldn't give it to the old man, because if she tried he'd see though her in an instant.

"Well, he killed your parents. He wants to kill you." He thought that much should be obvious, so he didn't even try to be tactful anymore.

"I don't think it's healthy to hold on to resentment for a decade, sir. Voldemort killed my parents, but lots of people killed lots of people in the war. The aurors were allowed to use Unforgivables back then – I'm sure my dad killed people, but I'd like to think their families weren't still holding on to that. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

"And how does Sirius feel about this acceptance." He pushed carefully. He didn't know what was going on with Black, but he had always been fiercely loyal to his friends, and Albus couldn't imagine the man forgiving so easily.

"He doesn't want me holding hate in my heart." Well, there wasn't much Dumbledore could say to that. "The world is in a mess, professor, and a lot of people seem to think Voldemort has the answers. I don't like it, but maybe it's time someone new was given a chance to rule." Dumbledore's jaw dropped, and the only thing that stopped Harry bursting out in laughter was the thought she could extract the memory for Tom. Besides, she couldn't quite shake the stress of pretending – it was exhausting. She was treading a fine line: she couldn't be seen as supporting Voldemort, but she could not appear to be actively against him either. Tom didn't want her being dragged into the Order. And nor did she.

When was he going to let her go?!

"I believe I misspoke before: Voldemort doesn't want to be Minister. He wants to be," Dumbledore thought for a moment about how he could make her understand the absolute power Tom was after. He didn't want to be Minister, not even a king; he wanted to be something more absolute, "He wants to be something like a pharaoh." This time Harry couldn't suppress the laughter – just the mental image of Tom dressed up broke her.

"Or like Apophis?" She managed, her back shaking with more suppressed laughter. Tom's previous snake-like visage was well known.

Albus almost gave in to the urge to shout in frustration. She just didn't get it! No matter what he said. It was almost like she was being purposely difficult. Maybe it was time he took more seriously her complaints of his part in her childhood.

"What I meant," He tried, "is that Voldemort doesn't want to respect the will of the people, he wants the people to drop to their knees before him. He's already managed to subdue many powerful families."

Oh, Harry knew that. "Why? I mean, I've got to know a lot of Purebloods lately, and I can't imagine any of them groveling in submission without good reason. Voldemort must be something special for such proud people to follow him." Harriet quietened down and gulped, when she saw the headmaster's face close off. Internally, she panicked about going too far. Had she given herself away?

With her last words, Dumbledore finally came to the realization that Harry Potter had fallen victim to Tom's power and reputation. Like so many naive fools before her, she'd become enamoured by him. Instead of fearing him, she was impressed and maybe even intrigued. And it would get her killed.