DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter is property of J. K. Rowling.

WARNING: Mild descriptions of assault. If this is at all a trigger for you - SKIP AHEAD. I will clearly mark it with BOLD at the beginning.

War Masters

4.

Hannah was quiet.

Her quietness was a conscious choice and she put a lot of effort into maintaining it, too. It wasn't that Hannah had nothing to say. More often than not the running commentary in her head would not stop for anything, not even a moment's breath, and she had trouble following it from beginning to end. The thing was Hannah very rarely had something nice to say. When she was younger, before she installed a rigid filter between her brain and mouth, it got her into a lot of trouble.

During Hannah's first term at Hogwarts, she was confronted with the displeasing reality that her personality was… flawed. Not because there was something wrong with it, but because it belonged to Hannah. She was a short first year with pink cheeks, round blue eyes and a pair of long blonde plaits, with a black-ad-yellow tie around her neck and a badger on her breast. Hannah's sorting took less than ten seconds and she fit right in with her house, and therefore her personality often left people a little bit… well. No one expected a Hufflepuff to be sarcastic, snarky and cynical.

No one other than fellow Hufflepuffs that is.

Inside Hannah's house it surprised nobody that she could be as toxic as the nastiest Slytherin bigot when egged on enough, but outside the safe, cozy walls of her common room, if Hannah so much as forgot to add a 'please' and 'thank you' to her sentence, people stared at her as if she were insane. Or just butchered a puppy in front of them.

"How in Merlin's name are you a Hufflepuff?" Terry Boot had asked, barely a month into the school year, during their Potions class, after Hannah muttered darkly about the Professor's appearance and where he could shove his expectations. 'Aren't you lot supposed to be nice?'

'Nice doesn't mean a pushover,' Hannah though but the shock of the question prevented her from speaking.

Wasn't she nice? She thought she was. Hannah always smiled because she liked to smile. She wasn't mean to anybody until they gave her a reason to, she wasn't rude, she didn't believe in any of the prejudices other students had. She was ready to be friends with just about anyone. But Hannah didn't like bullies, and Professor Snape was being exceptionally horrid today - there really wasn't any reason to make Justin feel so bad about having grown up muggle, was there? And Hannah didn't like it when her friends were hurt.

She didn't say anything to Terry then, and she didn't reply three months later when Seamus Finnegan wondered loudly when Hufflepuff's grew a backbone after Hannah poured a can of dirt over Pansy Parkinson's head, and lost her house ten points in Herbology class.

"What was I supposed to do?" she asked Susan later, during lunch, genuinely confused. "She threw a worm at us!"

Susan had shrugged and said nothing. An older Hufflepuff patted Hannah on her shoulder and sighed, muttering something about her learning as she went. And she did. Whether she wanted to or not, by her second year Hannah learned that Hufflepuffs were supposed to be nice, and soft, and kind - and only ever not these things were there was somebody who deserved to be blamed, Like Harry Potter.

She never understood that.

Why was it okay to be a hypocrite if it was directed at Harry Potter? Why was he the exception to the 'nice' rule? Hannah liked Harry. He was quiet, yeah, but she thought it was the same sort of quiet as she - it's not that he didn't have anything to say, it's that he thought it was better not to. Of course, that impression lasted only a week into his 'social exile' during their second year.

Harry Potter wasn't like Hannah.

He remained quiet not because he didn't have anything nice to say, he simply didn't bother speaking to those he deemed unworthy of it. Of course, she doubted he even realised that was the case, but when Harry looked at the entirety of Hufflepuff's second year like they were lower than the dirt stuck to the bottom of his shoe, after Ernie made another stupid comment about the 'Heir of Slytherin', it struck Hannah like a load of bricks.

Hannah lived by the mentality of 'if you've got nothing nice to say, be quiet'. She cared about the opinions of others, she wanted to be liked, she wanted to be friends with everybody because Hannah genuinely believed people were likeable and friendly if you only gave them a chance. Harry on the other hand, was a particular breed of bull-headed bloke - if you weren't his friend you didn't matter. If you weren't his friend but were friends with someone who grated on his nerves - well then, you were the same and that was it. He didn't approach others with a smile, he didn't try to be equally nice to everyone. If he disliked you, it wasn't a secret, he'd say it to your face.

Harry Potter wasn't quiet out of niceness. He was quiet because he didn't care.

After that realisation Hannah observed the rest of her classmates and learned something new about each one. Often it was a fact she wilfully ignored before.

Hermione Granger had a severe inferiority complex. Ron Weasley was starved for attention. Draco Malfoy was terrified of his family. Padma Patil desperately wanted to not be a twin. Justin Finch-Fletchley really didn't like magic. Fred and George Weasley couldn't stay still or pay attention for longer than ten minutes without calming spells. Cedric Diggory bit off his nails out of stress. Professor Flitwick avoided professor Sinistra, and Professor Dumbledore would look at the students with something like heartbreak all the time.

And still, every last one of them behaved in the way that was expected of them, without toeing any lines or testing limitations. That's how, by the end of her third year at Hogwarts, Hannah has learned to bite her tongue, stretch her smile wide and act just like everybody else: she was a Hufflepuff, they were always nice. If she had nothing nice to say it's better to stay quiet. She should never lash out, never talk back, never - ever - lose her cool.

But then Cedric Diggory came back dead from the maze, Harry Potter screamed about the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the entirety of the British Wizarding Community set out on a smear campaign against a child.

To Hannah, it seemed like the world had gone insane overnight, so finding herself elsewhere with a woman who was not a woman, being told things that made no sense and witnessing magic that looked more like miracles - all of that was taken in stride. Hannah didn't argue with Inanna like Harry and Tracy did, nor did she actively listen to the stranger's words like Roger. It all seemed like a dream, an odd dream that began when the Third Task ended, and Hannah treated everything like a spectator.

Like an outsider.

So, Inanna made her into one.

A serving girl at a temple had no name, no status, no presence. She need only preform her duties, quiet and obedient, polite and respectful, nice, day after day without end. Hannah was half-used to it already: the only difference from her normal life was that now she wasn't required to speak, ever.

Barefoot, dressed in a simple tunic made of rough-spun wool, Hannah scrubbed the marble tiles of Inanna's Grand Temple. She polished the columns, wiped the Goddess's statues, tended to the altar and followed the priestesses wherever they went, quiet as a mouse, obedient as the most loyal dog.

No one spoke to her.

Not the priestesses, patrons or other servants. It didn't bother Hannah since she couldn't understand their language anyway. She'd tried to learn, managed to memorise some words - mostly related to worship, but as she lived in silence it was difficult. However, it didn't stop her from trying to make friends, from being nice and pleasant, the way she always was.

Hannah was given a larger portion, probably because she was brought there by the Goddess herself - not that anyone other than the Head Priest knew of it. When she noticed it, she shared her bread with the thinnest servant girl everyday, without hesitation.

When winter came, and it became apparent that Hannah's clothes and blankets were twice as thick as others', made of better quality, she shared those, too. There was no reason for the blatant favouritism, at least in her opinion. She was no different than anyone else.

It never occurred to Hannah that she was, in fact, different.

With blonde hair, blue eyes, clear white skin. At least a head taller than any other girl, stronger, bigger. Unafraid of her own shadow, obedient but not subservient. She didn't think it strange to step up and protect the girls that were bullied by other girls, or to interfere when a handsy worshipper tried to grab a serving girl a third of his size and drag her away.

All these things - they were what she wanted to do, what was expected of her. Hannah was a Hufflepuff, they were just and loyal, nice to the marrow of their bones. Even when her food portions began to shrink to match those of the other servants she still shared, and as the quality of her clothes and blankets dwindled, she never batted an eye before offering them to others. When the more aggressive servants began to bother her, instead of the meeker girls, and nobody stepped up to her defense, Hannah didn't think much on it. It was always difficult to stand up to others, twice so when it was your friend, thrice when it was a past bully.

She remembered Neville Longbottom and his deep-rooted fear of Professor Snape at those times, and she forgave everyone, even though her forgiveness wasn't asked for.

She lived like that for three years, always being nice and forgiving, until Hannah, thinner than ever before and weak after a day of hard work, was grabbed by a handsy patron, thrice her size. And nobody stepped up to help her.

"No!"

Hannah kicked out at the grinning, bearded man with all her might but found that she wasn't as strong as she'd thought. As she'd used to be. The ever-dwindling size of the food portions had taken its toll on her. Arms that were as bony as a child's couldn't inflict the same harms ad muscled ones.

"Leave me alone!" she yelled, in her familiar English, still unfamiliar with the local language. The man grunted when she scratched him but didn't let go. "Please! Anyone! Help me!"

'No one will help you.'

Hannah hadn't heard Inanna's voice in three years, but she still recognized it. At the first syllable her entire body shuddered, as if she were dosed with cold water on a freezing winter day. Then again, the man had ripped the skirts of her robe up to Hannah's thighs so that could've been the reason for her shudder.

'Inanna!' she begged, 'you can help me! Help me!'

'Why?' the woman who was not a woman sounded genuinely confused.

'You can help me!'

'Yes, but why would I?'

Hannah never expected that. She wanted to yell that it was the right thing to do, the just thing, the nice thing, but the man had clamped a hand over her mouth, and she was too busy thrashing, wiggling, desperately trying to shake him off. She could still hear Inanna's condescending drawl, as if she were whispering directly into Hannah's ear.

'No one will help you, beautiful Hannah. No one. You may have helped them, but they never asked for it. In their eyes, they owe you nothing. You are nothing.'

Hannah screamed, or maybe it was a sob, she did not know. But at Inanna's words something at her very core echoed that she'd already known that. She was a Hufflepuff, she was always nothing for everybody who weren't a Hufflepuff.

'You are Hannah,' Inanna said coldly. 'Until when are you going to hide like a coward? This man - what is he?'

'A person,' Hannah thought, and then changed her mind. 'An animal, a demon, a vile, disgusting -'

'A muggle, is what you call the likes of him.'

Hannah ceased her struggles to stare blankly at the ceiling. It took her assailant by surprise and he nearly tripped over their entwined feet, taking both Hannah and him down - down onto the harsh, cold marble floor behind Inanna's altar. A place where only priests may go.

A priest assaulted her.

'A muggle priest,' Hannah thought, disoriented and dizzy. She'd not used that word in three years, not since this strange dream began.

'Wake up then, idiot.' Inanna snapped. 'What are you?'

A… a witch.

Hannah was a witch, and this - the past three years, really - they were not a dream. She was a witch without a wand, but not without magic, and she was Hannah Abbott - Hufflepuff, yes, but not a meek little toe rag. She was a witch.

Hannah's magic erupted violently, a powerful display she'd never produced before. The priest was flung off her, past Inanna's altar and onto the Goddess's marble statue. His head cracked loudly against the harsh stone and he fell down, like a marionette whose strings were cut, to crumple on the pristine floor. The sound attracted attention and soon, the previously deserted hall was filled up with priests, priestesses and servants. All were gaping at the fallen man, who laid in an ever-expanding pool of crimson blood, his skull cracked open like an egg.

'Witchy Hannah,' Inanna cooed, as if she were talking to a dear pet. 'Have you woken up? Have you remembered who you are?'

Hannah stood up shakily and blinked slowly, as three priests stormed her way, yelling and gesturing wildly. She didn't need to understand their tongue to know they were accusing her. Condemning her.

'Now wake them from their illusions of superiority, my girl.'

"Bombarda."

Hannah had never cast wandless magic before, nor did she think that it was possible, but her body moved of its own volition. Her mouth spoke the spell she was best at, her right arm pointed harshly, as if she were a judge of Hell, deciding the fates of lost souls. The magic rushed through her - blood, bone and muscle heating up with the force of it, after so many years of disuse. The three priests were thrown in three directions, each collided with a marble pillar, each fell down dead.

It should've bothered Hannah. She'd murdered four men. But all she remembered were forceful hands and a musty breath. All she understood was she had been awake, all this time, but lived as if she were in a dream. All she could remember was that she was Hannah Abbott, and she was going to do as she pleased because -

Because Hogwarts didn't exist here. Hufflepuff didn't exist here. She was free.

"Oh, thank fuck, I thought I'll shrivel up and die before either of you showed up! What's up with you, Abbott? You're a sight for sore eyes!"

"Tracy," Hannah tilted her head, unsure of how she'd gotten to this new, enormous temple or why she wasn't dressed as a servant. Unsure, but not displeased. She took in Tracy's smirking face, found the genuine relief in them and allowed herself a bright smile. "Shut up, will you?"

She was awake, present and alive.

And she was done being nice.