December 1996
Danny summoned her magic into her hands once more, projecting the barrier as high up and as strong as she could. She could feel droplets of sweat rolling down her temples and her back, her school t-shirt sticking to her skin in places. She'd shed her robes and sweater over an hour earlier and chucked them to the corner of the room provided by Dumbledore for her training.
She just had to hold the barrier successfully for half a minute and she could go to bed. She was exhausted, and it was past midnight.
Thank Merlin, Dumbledore had taught her how to cast a perfect disillusionment charm at the beginning of her special training sessions.
Her barrier flickered and dissolved before she reached twenty five seconds in her mind, and she huffed and dropped to the floor, exhausted. She sat back and tried to catch her breath. She needed to get this right. Dumbledore and McGonagall were counting on her.
I need to keep Harry safe.
After losing Sirius, she felt even more responsible for everything that happened around them. If she'd stopped Harry before leaving Hogwarts and tried to contact Grimmauld place or any Order member to make sure Sirius had been taken away, they wouldn't have fallen into the Death Eater's trap and Sirius would still be alive.
Harry would still have his godfather. Professor Lupin's face flashed in her mind after that. He'd been so devastated. His last childhood friend. He'd lost everyone. He was such a good man, and yet life had been so cruel with him.
I need to get this right.
She'd not only been training with Dumbledore and McGonagall when school started to make sure she didn't have a repeat of her magical explosion at the end of last school year, but she'd also been researching the Wolfsbane potion and the transformation into an animagus for the last couple of months. Needless to say, she hadn't been sleeping much, and she found herself needing to exhaust herself before going to bed anyway.
Hermione and Ginny were worried about her. Harry had noticed she looked tired, but he had enough on his plate and took her word when she told him she was okay, just working hard on her 'special lessons'.
Ron was oblivious to everything.
It was probably around one o'clock at night when she threw her robe over her shoulders and made to return to the tower. Her feet dragged across the stone floors of the castle, and in the last staircase, almost on the seventh floor, she failed to step over the last step, tripped, and hit the stone slabs with her legs, her hands scraping as they tried to stop her fall.
Unfortunately, the staircase decided to move right then, and Danny felt the ground moving under her hands. She got lightheaded and failed to move back enough, and felt herself falling forward over the end of the staircase. As her arms fell over the edge, she hit something right on the underside of the moving staircase, and a blinding light flashed before she felt her body fall down and her sight go black.
15th November, 1977
Dumbledore walked her to the gates, allowing her to cast a disillusionment charm on herself to avoid the stares again until they were almost out of the school. Once outside the gates, on the path to Hogsmeade, the elderly wizard offered her his arm. "We'll be side-apparating to Diagon Alley." He informed her so as not to catch her by surprise.
"I have no money here, professor." She reminded her, feeling uncomfortable. She'd never had to worry about money before. Her parents had always provided for her, and the reminder sent a sharp stab to her heart.
Dumbledore nodded, not very concerned. "I know. I will be paying for your shopping."
She had assumed as much, but she still didn't like feeling like a charity case. "I will work to pay you back. Whatever needs to be done around the school, I'll do it."
"Nonsense. I have no other people to spend my money on, and I would hate to just let it pile when it can be put to good use." He waved her worries away with his free hand, and Danny once again noted that there was no darkening of the skin, like there'd been in her time.
Their first stop was a stationary shop near Flourish and Blotts. When she'd asked Dumbledore if there weren't any second-hand books left behind at Hogwarts for her lessons, he nodded and asked if she didn't prefer new ones.
"There's nothing wrong with second-hand books. I won't have you spending money unnecessarily."
While he'd been about to assure her that he really didn't mind the spendings, he realized that she wasn't comfortable with that. So he let it go. There really was nothing wrong with the second-hand books at Hogwarts. Some of them were still in excellent condition.
This led her to ask him if he knew of any thrift shops in Muggle London. He transfigured their clothes to emulate Muggle ones before leaving Diagon Alley through the Leaky Cauldron and walking into the busy Muggle London streets.
They stopped on the way to the closest thrift shop they could get directions for to buy some new underwear for the girl. That was something she wouldn't get at a thrift shop.
They knew they looked like a grandfather and his granddaughter as they walked among the non-magical people, but Danny was used to being among Muggles, and Dumbledore simply observed everything with interest.
Danny was very satisfied with her findings at the store. With several bags full of clothes of all types hanging from her arms, they both made their way back to Diagon Alley, where Dumbledore was able to shrink the bags and place them in his back-to-normal bright blue robe pockets.
They went into Madam Malkin's for her school robes next, then stopped at Potage's Cauldron Shop, and finally at Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment for her scales and potions phials. She felt like a very depressed first year on their school shopping trip. She'd loved going to Diagon Alley before the beginning of term before, but… it wasn't the same. No friends. No family. No excitement. She could hardly keep her composure while she tried her new school robes.
But her mamá had raised her to be strong and not slouch, even when she felt like her world was crumbling down.
And yet, the end of last school year felt even worse. Sirius is alive and well here. She allowed herself the small comfort of knowing she'd see Sirius and Remus later. That she wasn't completely alone. And that they shared part of her secret.
She wondered once more what they'd seen in that oracle.
When Dumbledore and Danny returned to Hogwarts, the headmaster immediately summoned an elf to carry her things to her new room, while they both headed to his office once more. She kept herself invisible and walked just behind the headmaster to avoid knocking into anyone, and the old wizard did a great job of not giving her away.
"Tea?" He offered as he sat behind his desk, gesturing for her to do the same in one of the chairs on the other side. "We have much to discuss yet."
"My cover story?"
"Indeed. Keeping your real identity a secret and not drawing attention to yourself is imperative. If Voldemort were to know of you, of what you know of the future, you would be in great peril."
She bit her lip and breathed in deeply. The desire to tell him of everything she knew was so overwhelming that she had to physically prevent herself from doing it. She almost drew blood, but then closed her eyes and breathed in and out several times until the urge was at least diminished. She'd taken a Magical Oath. She knew that it would be excruciatingly painful to break it, and it might cause her an actual magical maladie to do so. And she needed to stay sharp.
So he explained his cover for her. It wasn't too difficult to follow. Part of it they'd already discussed in the Infirmary. She was French, a former Beauxbatons student and her family had been killed by dark wizards. While she wasn't going to outright say killed to anyone who asked, she guessed she could do what Remus had done. She'd lost her family. That wasn't a lie. Keep as close to the truth as possible, and it was easier to maintain a lie.
She was seventeen -lie -, she was sent to Dumbledore for protection but had had an accident with the portkey on arrival -lie - and he was currently her only guardian. She was half and half - truth -, she had two sisters and a brother -truth, kind of -, she had barely any possessions from her past life -truth - and no friends she could contact outside the school -truth.
When they were about to leave for dinner, she noticed the dark sky outside his window and paused.
"Professor, when's the full moon?"
"Ah, I should have known you'd know about…" He didn't finish the sentence, just in case.
"There is… a potion. It… it hasn't been… invented yet, but it will soon. I… was researching it back in my time, to help p… Lupin. It is very difficult and expensive to make but… it would really help him. If I manage to figure out how to brew it completely, could you help me make it for him?" She bit her lip. She'd need to work a lot since it hadn't been invented yet so the sources she'd been searching before didn't exist, but with research into the separate ingredients, which she had memorized and taken notes of, and a few tries, she was confident she would be able to brew it.
She didn't mention this to Dumbledore, but she was obviously going to ask Sirius and James to help her become an animagus too.
"Would this potion cure Mr. Lupin's condition?"
"No." She shook her head regretfully. "But it would allow him to keep his human mind during the transformation. He wouldn't hurt himself anymore. He would be able to just sleep the night away if he so wishes to."
Dumbledore's face lightened at that, and he nodded. "When you are ready to brew it, tell me, and I'll make sure to provide the ingredients. It would certainly help Mr. Lupin a great deal. The full moon will be in a bit over a week. Do take good care of Mr. Lupin when he's… under the weather."
Dumbledore walked beside her until they reached the entrance hall, where he nodded his head in the direction of the approaching Marauders, including Peter.
"Remember your vow, Miss Delacour." He spoke quietly, his eyes on the group.
"I remember, Professor. Doesn't mean I'll be nice to him or befriend him. I have limits too." She schooled her face and looked at the Headmaster. "I won't attack him, but don't expect me to help him in any way."
The headmaster watched her expression for a few seconds before nodding and walking into the Great Hall, leaving her to meet the group. Several people around the entrance hall were already watching her, the unknown student in the Gryffindor uniform, even before the Marauders joined her.
"Hey, Danny, you made it back in time." James greeted her, grinning easily.
"Yeah, we came back a while ago. We were only doing some paperwork before dinner." She smiled lightly back, trying not to look at the traitor.
"Here, this is our friend Peter, you didn't meet him earlier because he was in detention for not handing in his homework to McGonagall." James introduced the boy, who flushed in embarrassment at being introduced as such.
Danny eyed him for a moment, then nodded, not a trace of a smile on her face. "Nice to meet you." She greeted, eager to get away from him. He was very short, which was quite evident beside his friends, especially Remus, who towered over all of them.
All the boys seemed surprised at her cold introduction, but didn't mention anything as she moved beside Remus to go into the Great Hall.
"I'm starving." She commented to the werewolf, who smiled lightly down at her, a light blush on his face at her closeness.
"Me too." He nodded, guiding her toward their usual spots on the table.
Sirius moved to walk on her other side, grinning at them both. "Moony's always starving. He'd eat the table if we let him." He teased.
Remus rolled his eyes but blushed even more. Danny, instead, flicked Sirius' arm. "Well, I give you permission to eat the table if you're that hungry. I'll hold them back." She grinned at the werewolf, making Sirius chuckle beside her.
Remus blushed even more, remembering some of the memories he'd seen in the oracle. She didn't know, and he wouldn't look her in the eye when he thought of those images. He subtly moved his robe to cover himself better while he looked away.
The Gryffindor table fell silent when Danny sat with the Marauders, everybody watching, even those from other houses. Danny kept her eyes low or on her friends, uncomfortable with the attention. "Subtlety is not part of the curriculum, I see." She muttered to Remus and Sirius, who sat on each side of her, James and Peter in front of them. The boys laughed at that, but sobered up when Dumbledore stood at the staff table.
The whole room fell silent, expectant.
"I expect a lot of you have noticed a new face among yourselves. Many of you, like myself, are probably hungry and eager to start dinner, so I'll keep this short. I would like all of you to welcome Miss Danielle Delacour, who has transferred from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and is as of today a student of Hogwarts." He extended his hand in her direction. "Miss Delacour has been sorted into Gryffindor in a private ceremony and will be joining the seventh year students starting tomorrow." Danny felt her face burn at the feeling of a thousand eyes on her, but managed not to hide her face and instead keep her chin up while Dumbledore introduced her. "I expect all of you to make her feel welcome in the coming days. Now, dig in!" He clapped his hands and the tables filled with food, just the way they would in the coming years.
Luckily, this gave Danny something to focus on other than the way people stared at her. She served herself from several different dishes around them, as well as a couple bread rolls and plenty of pumpkin juice. Her stomach had been growling for a while by then, she felt like she was digesting her own body by that point.
"So, do you know your timetable yet?" Remus asked, trying to establish comfortable conversation and distract her from the people's staring.
"No. When do you think they'll give it to me?"
"Probably at breakfast tomorrow. They usually give it to us the morning of our first day here." Sirius explained, pouring more pumpkin juice in her goblet when she drained it. She thanked and smiled at him, and he smiled charmingly back.
"What subjects do you take?" She asked the boys, avoiding looking at Peter while not being obvious about it.
"Transfiguration, DADA, Charms and Potions, all of us except Pete. He dropped Potions." Sirius explained, pointing with his spoon toward his friend, who flushed and ducked his head. "Then James, Pete and I take Astronomy and Herbology, while Remus here takes Arithmancy and Ancient Runes."
"We have double Herbology tomorrow at first period, then Transfiguration before lunch, DADA after lunch… at least during those you'll be with us." James looked thoughtful, trying to remember his schedule.
"Hmm, so I'll have company for everything but Ancient Studies." She commented and grabbed her wand to levitate the plate of chocolate cake that had been slowly emptied by people further down the table and placed it beside her, on Remus' side.
James blinked when he realized she had non-verbally levitated the plate, but shook his head and didn't give it much importance. "Lily takes Ancient Studies, she'll keep you company. In fact, I think that's tomorrow after DADA."
Danny smiled at that. A chance to spend some time alone with Lily. She wanted to get to know her better. "Good." She looked down the table to where Lily was sitting with several other girls, and smiled when she glanced their way.
She froze when she noticed the girls around the redhead. She recognized a couple of them from the Order photograph. Moody had mentioned them in passing. Dead or mad, almost all of them.
"Danny?" Remus' voice called her softly, shaking her from her dark thoughts. "Are you alright?"
She blinked and realized they were all staring at her, worried.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She cleared her throat and went back to her food.
"You look terribly pale, kitten." Sirius whispered to her, making her clench her jaw and will herself not to cry. Kitten. He'd called her that before too, an affectionate nickname only he had used with her, while they stayed at Grimmauld with him. She hadn't heard that in seven months.
"Just… I remembered something. I'm fine." She insisted. She stabbed a couple potatoes with her fork and kept her head low.
From the corner of her eye she noticed Remus had finished his plate and was reaching for a pudding to his right, while side-eyeing the piece of chocolate cake she had grabbed before.
"That's for you, you know." She commented, making him halt just as he grabbed the pudding.
"What?" He turned his face toward her, confused.
She nodded toward the cake. "That. It's for you."
His eyes flickered from the cake to her, surprised. He gaped for a bit, then croaked: "Why?"
She frowned at the question, thinking it obvious. "Don't you like chocolate?"
James, Peter and Sirius laughed at that, making the werewolf blush bright red.
Sirius managed to speak between bouts of laughter. "That's like asking Prongs 'don't you like Lily?'"
Danny ignored the teasing remarks that followed, Peter and James adding similar comparisons, much to Remus' embarrassment. She grabbed the plate with the cake and placed it in front of him.
"Well, ain't she moving fast." Came a voice from behind them, which made both boys beside her tense.
Danny straightened in her seat and turned to look a bit over her shoulder. Two girls sitting at the Ravenclaw table were watching her over their shoulders, glaring at her.
"Got a problem?" She quirked an eyebrow at them.
"Ignore them, kitten." Sirius told her, placing a hand on her shoulder and shaking his head at her. He seemed familiar with them.
Probably past conquests. Thus the hate toward the new girl sitting with the boys. She shrugged and turned back toward the table, Remus digging into his cake when he saw there'd be no altercation. Danny finished her dinner and engaged James and Sirius in light conversation, Remus didn't utter a word until he was done with the cake.
The boys walked her up to the Gryffindor tower, Remus and Sirius almost always flanking her, Lily joining James soon after leaving the Great Hall and walking hand in hand with him while talking with Danny. Sirius flung an arm around Peter's shoulders as they walked, the shorter boy occasionally pointing out things about the castle to Danny. She nodded politely, but could feel her nails dig into her palms every time she heard his voice.
Lily had a cat, Ringo, who apparently spent most of the day asleep. The redhead helped her organize her stuff and looked confused when she noticed almost everything was new. The other girls were just coming in when Lily commented on the pyjamas in Danny's hands and the school material she had been organizing.
"Everything is brand new. Did you buy everything just before coming?" She questioned, twirling the quill she had been about to place with the others in her hands.
"I couldn't take anything but the clothes I had on, my bag and my wand with me. I… had a bit of an accident on my way here, the Portkey malfunctioned, and… well, I was at the Infirmary for a bit. I actually arrived two days ago. And I can't really go back to get my stuff." She blinked the tears away at the reminder that she was stuck in a time not her own. It made the story Dumbledore and her made up earlier more believable.
"I'm sorry, Danny." Lily whispered, placing a hand on her arm and squeezing a bit. "If you ever need anything, anyone to talk to… I'm here, alright?"
"Thank you, Lily." Danny blinked back the tears at the girl's words and placed her other hand on top of hers on her arm. "Really, it means a lot."
A throat being cleared behind them made them both jump and notice the presence of three other girls, who Lily quickly introduced and welcomed her to Hogwarts.
That night when they all went to sleep, Danny missed her brother more than ever. She couldn't sneak out of her dorm and into his to sleep together. That bit of childhood comfort was gone, out of reach. And though James looked so much like him, she doubted he'd be comfortable with her sharing his bed. Lily wouldn't like it either, for that matter.