Chapter One - The End of the Nadir

Summary: Harry Potter was raised in an orphanage, aware but confused about his magical powers. Near his eleventh birthday, he discovers he has a twin sister raised by abusive relatives for reasons he does not understand. Yearning for a family, he delves into a messy and violent Magical Britain that is yet to shrug off the effect of the latest blood war.

Warning: This story will not figure an absurdly powerful Harry Potter, but it will be a Harry Potter stronger than canon. It is important to remember that plot armor aside, Harry is still a teenager fighting in an adults' war against much stronger opponents magically and politically. No bashing.

Serpentine Advice: My other main story will still be uploaded frequently. Stories where Harry Potter is actually not the Boy-Who-Lived but retains a certain level of relevance are few and far between, and generally not very well written. This is an attempt of developing a guilty pleasure of mine.

Children are remarkably contradictory.

At once, they are capable of incredible cruelty and tremendous affection. Unfiltered by the expectations and unwritten rules of adult life, children are only pure as far as unruliness and unpredictability can go. They are, in many ways, the counterevidence to Rousseau's famous adage that man is good and society corrupts him. In other ways, they also disprove Hobbes's predictions of life without order to be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

The biggest contradiction in children's lives is internal. There is nothing that excites a child more than to be better than their peers. Having the newest shoes, the best brands, the newest dolls, the most expensive action figures, the newest football jersey, the shiniest hair. Being the best in all that matters to a child's mind is the very pinnacle of their existence.

Simultaneously, children also desire for belonging to a group. Being outside that group is akin to a sin that should be purged out of existence. One must strive to be the best, but only within the acceptable parameters. Be too smart, and you're a nerd. Be too daft, and you're stupid. Be too aloof, and you're a git. Be too high-strung, and you're a teacher's pet. Greatness amidst normalcy is a fine line to walk across, and the years before puberty are where all children everywhere learn this delicate dance.

It was this second point that doomed Harry Potter.

The ten-year-old was adored by almost every adult that passed his way. He was polite and kind, with a soft voice that endeared him to everyone and a small smile that might as well be etched permanently unto his face. His messy hair made him look innocent and childish, his emerald green eyes made him distinctive and cute for his age. He was a bit short and quite scrawny, but in his PE classes, his agility and fast reflexes made him a respectable athlete, one of those things that earned him the grudging respect with his classmates. No one likes to antagonize the star midfielder.

However, weird things kept happening around him. The kids in the orphanage kept insisting that books would somehow float towards him, or that in this or that schoolyard brawl he would fling attackers away without touching them, or that his hair had turned blue that one time out of nowhere before flicking back to its normal black color. Those odd happening, combined with the pop-culture idea of orphans possessed by demons, made the older kids in the orphanage demand an exorcism to be performed on Harry.

The teachers were swayed against that course of action by the unblinking wide green eyes that just sparkled with unshed tears at being isolated.

That was another thing that annoyed the other orphans about Harry. The boy was way too clever for his age, and never got caught doing anything. It was like he had a sixth sense about him to tell when and what he could do while remaining undetected, and when he did get caught or reported, he always wiggled his way out of it with the adults.

Maybe, they would say, he used his weird psychic powers on them.

Harry ended up lonely and friendless in the orphanage as a result of the older kids' suspicions of his powers. The younger kids quite liked Harry, who always helped them with homework and never bulled anyone, but they were cowed into their distance by the fists and harsh words of the teenagers that ruled the place when the adults' eyes were elsewhere.

Harry wasn't too distraught about it, but it did bother him that he had few conversations with other people. Adults were weird, always doting on him. He wondered if his parents would have doted on him too if they were not killed when he was a baby. All he remembered from that day was a weird green light and words that made little sense, and then nothing. Then again, Mr. Spencer, the biology teacher, told them that all memories before they were three are probably fake or too fuzzy to be reliable. The orphanage psychologist told him kindly that the memory of that night (if it even was a memory) was probably the way his brain would cope with the violent end of his family's life. It would not do to dwell on possibly fake twists of his imagination when there were tests to be braved and fun to be had, he would say.

It was, of course, insufficient advice. Then again, Harry was only ten, and far from the only child whose parents died abruptly in the orphanage. Mrs. Roberts, the psychiatrist, would likely have more in-depth conversations with the teenagers that actually witnessed their parents' deaths and remembered it vividly. He didn't begrudge the woman's slightly condescending tone because her kind brown eyes signaled that whatever omission she was perpetuating was well-intentioned, and not the superiority that shone in his own tormentors' gazes.

All in all, Harry liked being ten. Having to write his age in two digits instead of just one made him feel special and grown-up. He was looking forward to being eleven because then his age would be symmetrical. And he would be closer to an age where the older kids would be gone and he could live his life without being ostracized for being different.

Many parents would try to adopt Harry, and he even made friends with his prospective siblings sometimes. If they were older, they would teach Harry about math and science and give him chocolate, or discuss football with him. If they were younger, Harry would show them his toys and they would play together, or he would read them a story from one of his books. That always made his potential parents very happy, so he kept doing that, in the hopes that one of them would take him from the orphanage. Adults always liked him a lot, and more than once they said they would try to adopt him and he would be quite happy, but something always happened in the week or day before they were to sign the documents, and the adoption would fall through.

When he crossed ways with the same adults on the streets near the orphanage in his way to school, none of them would look at him properly and they would frown and give him odd looks if he greeted them. It was as if none of them remembered him at all.

Over time, Harry came to accept that he would never be adopted, which made him quite sad for a long time. When he was sad, the odd things around him happened more, so he would grow even more isolated whenever an adoption would fall through.

It was a week before his eleventh birthday that the matron of the orphanage, a nice and intelligent elderly woman that insisted on being called Esther instead of Mrs. Ross under punishment of no pudding after supper, knock on his door and opened it gently.

"Harry, you have a visitor. Can you come to the lobby in five minutes, please?"

"I can go now, Esther," Harry said sweetly, but internally he was frowning. None of the adult visitors would ever take him in, and their children stopped visiting soon after. He didn't want to be rejected again.

"No, you can't, mister," Esther said firmly, pointing to his clothes and frazzled appearance, "it is already past noon and you haven't even switched from your pajamas yet. Have you gone to the bathroom after waking up today?"

"It's Sunday," Harry whined slightly, his usual politeness forgotten in the frustration of having to do anything that day, "I have nothing to do."

"You do have something to do," the woman said in a clipped voice under a stern gaze, her fists attached to her hips, "as I said, you have a visitor."

"What difference does it make," the boy grumbled softly, "no one ever takes me in any way, and I'm the boy with the most visitors in the orphanage."

The woman's gaze softened and she gave a weary sigh. Esther Ross was the only adult in Harry's life that saw through his behavior when he tried to play his innocent card. Harry had, after finally conceding defeat against the older woman in the past year, asked how she knew what he was doing, and why she didn't disapprove of what was essentially lying on his part.

Her answer stuck with him.

"Harry, I have seen and raised orphans in this building since the war. I have seen them go in so many directions as they grow up. All of the children that stay here are special, but very few are truly unique. What you do now has been done by many other intelligent boys and girls your age in these halls. I will not punish you for finding a way for dealing with the pain of having no family. Just remember to never hurt anyone with your actions."

"I think," the woman said softly, hesitating a bit, which made Harry confused. Esther was nothing if not sure of herself, "that this meeting will be different than you are expecting, Harry."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see," she said quietly, before her eyes focused again, "now go dress up. I will not have my good name sullied by children that do not know how to present themselves."

She closed the door and walked away. Harry dressed quickly and went to brush his teeth, thinking all the while how this meeting of all the meetings he had in his life could be different. Come to think of it, it was odd that an adult would specifically call for his name. It happened before. When he was eight and won the local spelling bee and appeared on the neighborhood newspaper, or earlier this year when his school team won the under thirteen London football championship with him as the youngest starter, some adults would request him specifically, but those families would never be very good. He had the impression that they wanted a distinctive child more than a son, and Harry didn't like the idea of being a glorified Christman ornament.

Still, he couldn't think of anything he did recently that would warrant attention. Shrugging to himself, he went to the lobby putting on his best wide-eyed innocent look, which always amused Esther.

The first time he noticed that something was amiss was when that trick didn't make her smirk, her face instead adorning a small sad smile. Harry didn't like it when his actions didn't warrant the expected results. When that happened with the older kids, it always resulted in his toys hidden away or his books stolen. Once or twice he was even punched for his troubles. Unpredictability was always alarming.

The second thing that broke Harry's expectation was the appearance of the woman next to Esther Ross. She had the same stern and vaguely Scottish airs about her that his matron had, but was taller and more imposing. If anything, she was a more intense version of eccentric but stern Esther, with perfect posture and piercing blue-grey eyes that seemed to study him quickly, an odd green coat covering her body, her arms folded lightly on top of her belly. The woman seemed like a supporting character on Pride and Prejudice, but with weirder clothes and a pointy hat.

"Mr. Potter?" The stranger asked with a slight cock of an eyebrow, in a strong brogue Scottish that took Harry by surprise and made him abandon any attempts at charming the woman. By experience, elderly Scotswomen could read him like a book, and he wasn't going to tempt his luck considering how he kept being caught off-guard that day so far. Harry restricted his answer to a small nod. The woman was satisfied and turned to his matron. "Can you arrange a private room, Esther?"

"Of course, Minerva."

The two women lead Harry to one of the closed rooms used for meetings between orphans and their prospective parents. As they sat down, the third oddity of the day happened as Esther sat down by the Minerva woman instead of by his side, leaving him with the feeling he was about to be interrogated. He wrung his hands below the desk nervously but tried his best to keep his expression calm and unassuming.

"Mr. Potter, my name is Professor Minerva McGonagall."

"I'm Harry Potter, ma'am," Harry said automatically, as he always did in these meetings recently. The woman seemed amused by the interruption but said amusement was only expressed by the tiniest relaxation of her wrinkled gaze before she controlled herself.

"I am well aware of who you are, Mr. Potter," she said before picking a letter out of her dark green coat and putting it on top of the table. She did not retrieve her hand from the letter as she continued, "in fact, your identity is the very reason I am here. I knew your parents well, Mr. Potter."

"You did?" Harry asked surprised and eager, his eyebrows shooting up to his forehead and his eyes brightening. "No one ever tells me anything about them, and I only know their names because of my birth certificate."

Again, the stern expression changed slightly, this time in either fond remembrance or deep sadness. Harry was happy with her reaction. He did not like being pitied by his orphan status, but whenever adults seemed genuinely sad, he felt warm with affection. That such a serious-looking woman seemed saddened by his parents' death made him feel less alone.

"Yes, I did. Lily was a brilliant young woman, and James was my favorite student."

"You taught them both?"

"Indeed," she said with the ghost of a smile in her lips, "they were both exceptional, and from what Esther has told me, you greatly resemble your mother. You have her eyes, but otherwise, you are the spitting image of your father."

Harry felt the sting of tears coming and struggled to control his smile. He didn't like not being in control of his reactions, again fearing unpredictability and knowing that his strange powers were connected to his emotional status.

"Do you have a picture of them?" Harry said, imagining a strong and tall version of himself with kind eyes and messy hair smiling softly and a woman with a loving nature and his bright green eyes. He didn't know how, but he couldn't imagine his mother having anything other than red hair. "I have never seen them before."

"Not with me, Mr. Potter, but I promise I will show them to you as soon as I can."

"Thank you very much, ma'am," Harry beamed at the woman, wiping his eyes with his sleeves and receiving a surprisingly warm smile and nod as a response before the woman shifted in her chair and pushed the letter in his direction, fixing her posture.

"You are probably wondering why I am here, Mr. Potter. Before you read this letter, I want you to be assured that this is not in any way whatsoever a lie and that it will explain a great manner of oddness that has happened in your past."

Harry froze, a denial in his lips dying as the woman patted the letter in front of him. How had she known? This woman that taught his parents seemed assured that his powers could be explained away. Was it a family thing? Would he be locked up and studied as the older kids told him he should be? Sensing his negative reaction, Esther intervened.

"Trust me, Harry. Minerva and her fellow professors have come to this orphanage before to talk to children in the same situation as you."

Harry was so surprised by this affirmation that he completely forgot his reluctance to admit his powers to anyone else.

"Wait, you know about them?"

"Your powers, you mean?" When Harry nodded, still wide-eyed and scared, Esther continued. "I did. You are not the first child with powers that went through this orphanage in my time here."

"If you knew, why did you not say anything to me?" Harry asked, hurt that the woman could have spared him so much pain of isolation but chose not to.

"Mrs. Ross had no choice, Mr. Potter," the other woman said, calling attention to herself again and making Harry fear the worst, "there is a law that prohibits Muggles to talk about magic without the presence of a witch or wizard?"

"Muggles? Magic? Witches?" Harry asked weakly, now completely thrown off. "What do you mean?"

"Yes, Mr. Potter. Magic is real," the Scot said, looking intensely at him as if daring him to contradict her, "I am the Professor of Transfiguration and Deputy Headmistress at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the same school your parents attended when they were eleven."

"My parents were wizards?"

"Indeed. Your father came from an old and respected family of wizards, and your mother was born a witch to non-magical parents, or Muggles, we call them."

Harry, having his world be thrown off course multiple times in a very short amount of time, latching unto the desperate life-line of every orphan on the planet.

"I have a family?" He asked, desperately. To his dismay, once again the Professor's reaction softened sadly.

"I am sorry, Mr. Potter, but your father's family, old as it was, has died out in this past century due to certain conflicts in the Wizarding World."

"And on my mother's side?"

"You have an Aunt and Uncle that live in Surrey," the woman said, making Harry's chest fill with hope that he could have a family, but the angry frown in the woman's face killed that sentiment very quickly, "sadly they are rather detestable people."

"Is that it?" Harry asked dejectedly.

At this point, the fourth surprise happened that day. The woman hesitated. Other children might not have noticed, but Harry grew up knowing how to read people very well, and as his gaze narrowed in suspicion, both Esther and this Professor noticed that whatever they were hiding had to be revealed.

"We will talk about that soon enough. First, please read the letter."

Harry refused to nod, feeling anger bubbling inside at the prospect of having family denied to him. Who took an orphan's hope of family? It was beyond cruel. But he did retrieve the letter and opened it slowly, not deviating his gaze from McGonagall's face. To her credit, she did not flinch or got angry. It was as if Harry was looking at a statue, for all the emotion apparent on the woman's face.

He read the letter slowly.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

A second page fell from the envelope and he read that too, without glancing at the women patiently waiting for him to finish reading.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

UNIFORM

First-year students will require:

Three sets of plain work robes (black)

One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear

One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)

One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)

Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags.

COURSE BOOKS

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk

A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot

Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling

A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore

Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble

OTHER EQUIPMENT

1 wand

1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set glass or crystal phials

1 telescope

1 set brass scales

Students may also bring and owl OR a cat OR a toad.

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

Harry carefully folded both letters but did not look at the two women. He was still angry that no one had ever told him about this. It was unbelievable. It was a connection to his parents that was denied to him, just as getting a new family was denied to him all his life. He noticed that the decorative cacti that adorned the table that separated him from both witches spontaneously combusted. Startled, he did notice how both women were staring at him speculatively, McGonagall in surprise at the level of magical energy surrounding the boy and Esther scared at how his green eyes dulled greatly before shining almost supernaturally. The fire was promptly put out by a firm swish of a stick that the Professor retrieved from her green coat.

'Guess that's the wand the letter was talking about.'

The presence of the wand made Harry think about the rest of what the letter was saying. Owls delivering letters, cauldrons for potions, dragons being used for gloves, and cloaks and robes for uniforms. Defeated, he gently put his forehead on the table and murmured.

"This is a thing, isn't it? You're not just taking the piss."

Normally, Esther would have chastised him for the language and questioned who had taught him that expression, but she stayed quiet. The cacti being lit on fire and the heavy atmosphere surrounding the meeting told her it was better to allow Minerva to take the lead, but the witch also remained respectfully quiet.

The room stayed quiet for a long while as Harry breathed to calm himself down and retain control of his emotions. Every time he thought he had himself under control, his mind reminded him of one occasion where the teenage orphans tormented him for his powers. He appreciated the solemn silence the two women provided. Esther was probably feeling too guilty to tell him anything, but the other woman, McGonagall, probably dealt with meetings like these all the time.

He had gathered, by what little the woman had told him, that his situation was not unique, given the description of conflicts erasing his father's entire family. Still, it explained the green lights and odd words that haunted his nightmares.

"Avada Kedavra" he muttered, with his head still down.

"You remember," the Professor said sadly.

Harry nodded without retrieving his head from the table. "It's a spell, right?"

"The Killing Curse."

"Who killed my parents?"

"That's a complicated question, Mr. Potter."

Harry did get his head up from the table this time and looked passively at the woman with a sad expression that he did not have to fake. "Please?"

The woman sighed and rubbed her hand through her forehead lightly, before looking at Harry.

"Your parents were fighting in a war against a Dark Wizard, Mr. Potter." Her eyes assumed a distant tone about them, even if she did not look away. "He was a truly vile and evil man, wiping out entire families that opposed him. He was seemingly undefeatable. Whenever a wizard or witch fought him, no matter how formidable, they would almost always die. Just surviving him took everything from you."

Harry was tremendously proud of his parents for fighting against evil and imagined them being war heroes like the ones the BBC showed from the Gulf or the Falklands War. But then he frowned.

"In my nightmares, those words came from inside a room. It looked like my room, I remember a crib and those spinning things for babies above my head. It wasn't a battle or anything."

The woman closed her eyes warily and allowed her countenance to sag slightly.

"Yes, Mr. Potter, your parents did not die in a battle. They were assassinated personally by this Dark Wizard."

"Why?" Harry asked tearfully, angry at the world for taking his parents away so violently and suddenly.

"I do not know, Mr. Potter."

Silence once again reigned over the meeting. Minerva McGonagall was starting to get a sense of discomfort that was thoroughly unusual for meetings such as this. The most she had grown used to expect from Muggle-born meetings was the obsequious denials from religious zealots that denied the idea of witchcraft strongly and threatened to call a priest. As the children from parents that lived through the war started to come of Hogwarts age, the meetings did grow heavier, but war orphans were always brought up in other magical families, or at most in a magical orphanage. Not for the first time, she cursed Albus's foolishness when it came to the Potter family.

"How did I survive, then?"

'Ah. There's the million galleon question'. Minerva feared that this would come up today, but something inside her had foretold that this was inevitable. She grimaced slightly, knowing that it would be too cruel to hide this aspect of the child's life from him. Before answering, she thought of her brother Robert and her husband Elphinstone and as always her sternness faded away. Harry noticed that something was up, and for the first time, Minerva refused to hide it from the boy. He was too perceptive anyway.

"When He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named atta-"

"Sorry, what?" Harry asked, confused at the too long and too conspicuous name.

"For a variety of reasons I will not go into," Minerva explained, some of her sternness returning at the displeasure of being interrupted, "this Dark Wizard's name is not spoken in Wizarding society, Mr. Potter."

Harry couldn't imagine this happening in the regular world. He considered all the times he heard Saddam Hussein's name when the television was talking about the war, and how Esther would always switch channels quickly when the reporters started talking about the crimes of his government. By this omission of the man's name, either magical society was a lot more cowardly or this man was awful beyond his understanding. By the ghastly expression that shone briefly in the older professor's eyes, he figured it was the latter.

"Regardless," McGonagall continued, "when this Dark Wizard attacked your family home, he killed both your parents with the Killing Curse. It was his signature spell. However, when he went to cast the Killing Curse for the third time that day, it somehow rebounded and killing him instead."

"Wait, he attacked me and didn't kill me?" Harry said, quickly doing the math and paling significantly at the thought that he was alive due to a quirk of luck.

"Not exactly," the woman sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly, "he attacked your twin sister."

"I have a sister?" Harry asked quietly, suddenly sensing that the room was getting too small. Breathing was getting more difficult because of a lump in his throat and his chest hurt from how quickly his heart was beating. He was trembling heavily and kept glancing from Esther to Minerva and noted with the slightest amount of anger that the first woman did not seem surprised with the existence of his sister. He was freaking out way too much to truly feel anger or hurt, and he could not discern between any of his emotions when a horrible thought passed through his head. "I-is she?"

The final word didn't come out as his throat kept closing, but the Professor understood what he said and quickly answered.

"She is alive, Mr. Potter. We do not understand why, but your sister survived the Killing Curse that day. No one else has ever survived that curse," the woman looked like she was remembering the occasion, "because of that, she became quite famous in the Wizarding society."

Harry felt an immeasurable amount of relief, a sentiment he couldn't entirely understand. Until a minute ago, he didn't even know he had a twin, but knowing she was alive brought him so much positive emotion he didn't know what to do with it. Was this what being part of a family was like?

'Wait. I didn't even know I had a twin until a minute ago'.

Understanding the workings of his own limited and local fame, he asked with a deep sense of resignation.

"Is her fame the reason why she did not grow up with me in the orphanage? A magical family adopted her young and left me behind?"

"She did not grow up in Magical Britain, Mr. Potter."

"Wait, what?" Harry asked confusedly, "If she is so famous in your world, why would she grow up in this one? Was she adopted into a normal home?"

"She was never put into adoption," McGonagall said slowly. It was unlike her to try to delay explaining anything to a child, but this specific situation brought her an enormous amount of shame. She was secretly hoping that Harry would not be so inquisitive so that he could learn the circumstances of her sister's life slowly, but this meeting was quickly becoming an interrogation into some of her greatest shames.

"Wait, she was never put into..." Harry interrupted himself as he remembered a previous observation of the conversation. His eyes widened as he got up quickly, knocking his chair down. At that moment, McGonagall knew he had connected the dots and again cursed Albus, "She's with my Aunt and Uncle, isn't she? You said they were awful people and my sister was put there? What were you thinking?!"

Harry again began to panic. He was too familiar to living with awful and cruel people, but at least there were too many children around the orphanage for it to become a routine of his life. He knew how to blend in with adults and younger kids and how to protect himself using others to be alone and unsupervised as little as possible around the teenagers. His sister lived with awful people and considering how stern and firm the woman in front of him appeared, her description of detestable people entailed true horrors.

"Mr. Potter, calm down!" The stern warning would be much more effective if the voice shouting it did not crack. That hesitation triggered Harry's simmering anger.

"Calm down? Calm down?! How can I calm down? Do you have any idea of how bad things can get around bad people? She's alone there without any help around her! How bad are my Aunt and Uncle?"

"Harry, please!" Esther finally reappeared in the conversation, but her pleas had nothing of the stern and assured tone normally used by the woman. Harry noticed that she was afraid.

"Please what? You knew!" Harry sneered angrily. "You knew everything and told me nothing! You knew how bad it got here with the older kids and did nothing! I was lonely for years! I just wanted a family and never got one no matter how much I tried or wished. They just forgot about me!"

At this, McGonagall startled slightly, and it didn't go unnoticed by Harry.

"Wait, they just forgot about me. This isn't a coincidence, is it?" Harry pointed angrily at McGonagall. "A wizard is making the adults trying to adopt me to forget about me, isn't it? That's why none of them remember me. Someone is keeping me stuck here and without a family."

"I had no idea," Esther said paling quickly. McGonagall seemed just as surprised, so Harry at least knew not to blame either woman. But at this point, his anger was too charged to not have an outlet. Harry was entirely unaccustomed to hot anger. His anger had always been cold and firm, not fiery and uncontrolled, but this was simply too much. He did not notice that he was crying, but he did notice a surge of his powers and let out a silent scream of anger and sadness that shook the room and created a bright light, making all the furniture in the small room tremble or float.

"Mr. Potter, calm down!"

"Harry, stop! You have to breathe!"

At this point, he was too far beyond reason to even listen to what either woman was saying, let alone follow their instructions. He simply continued his quiet desperation, his vision blurring and his entire body shaking as the magic within him discharged violently and out of control.

"Incarcerous," sounded in a firm brogue the voice of Minerva McGonagall. This time, Harry did take notice, more because thick ropes surrounded his body and limited his trashing, but he kept trying to fry off his restraints with an uncontrolled burst of magic. To his panic, the more he tried to fight back, the stronger the ropes bound him.

"Let me go! Let me go! Let me GO!" He yelled, his eyes widening as the Professor retrieved a vial of blue liquid from inside her robes and approached him. Fearing what she was about to do, he recoiled into a ball and tried to scuttle away, but the ropes kept him still for her to forcefully down the liquid down his throat.

Slowly, Harry's tension etched away from his body, and his anxiety diminished greatly. He was still angry, but he felt under control for the first time since the topic of his sister came up. Seeing he had calmed down, the Professor waved her wand and the ropes disappeared. Harry sank heavily on his chair, breathing deeply to control his residual trembling.

"What was that?" He asked after a while, still panting lightly, but feeling much better.

"A Calming Draught. It's a potion we use to calm down people in emotional upheaval."

Harry nodded and said nothing as he waited for the potion to fully impose itself on his nerves. When he finally felt sufficiently strong to talk again, he croaked out, without looking at anyone.

"Why?"

"Your sister was put into the Dursley's household for her protection," the woman sighed, sounding old and tired, "I don't know the details, but I do know that living with her family's blood relatives creates a magical form of protection against wizards with bad intentions that followed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

Harry laughed mirthlessly. "Last time I checked, I was her blood relative. She could have lived with me and not be abused."

"You don't know if she's being abused, Harry," Esther intervened. Harry shut her up with a 'don't be stupid' look, knowing full well what bad people did when confronted with things they don't understand.

"It was my understanding that she wasn't put into the orphanage with you because they wouldn't be able to control whether or not she was put into a family following He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," McGonagall explained tightly.

"Well, they're controlling my permanence here very well, so that isn't it," Harry snapped icily. McGonagall's lips thinned, whether in disapproval of the retort of anger at being misled was not clear. She acquiesced with a quick nod.

"I did protest your separation and your sister's placement into the Dursley's home, but I was overruled."

"By whom?" He demanded firmly.

"Harry," Esther warned.

"By whom?" He asked louder.

"Albus Dumbledore." McGonagall sighed, knowing she was potentially destroying a bridge with the brother of the Girl-Who-Lived with the Headmaster, but this conversation was too far from salvaging already.

Harry frowned and picked up his Hogwarts letter.

"The Headmaster? Why the hell did the Headmaster of a school have any say in where my sister was placed?"

"Albus Dumbledore is not just the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Mr. Potter," the Professor explained cooly, her respect for the man diminished by this episode but still great, "he is considered the most powerful and most important wizard alive and leads just about every political institution relevant in Magical Britain."

"You said there was a war going on. Did my parents not have a will in place?"

"I do not know."

"You said these relatives were awful people, surely my parents wouldn't allow their daughter to be taken by them?"

"I do not know."

"Did no one keep an eye on her to see how she is being treated?"

"I do not know."

"Do you know anything?!" Harry snapped, losing his patience again and leaning forwards in his seat.

"Don't get snippy with me, Mr. Potter!" McGonagall countered angrily, finally cowing Harry back, as he laid back on his chair and sighed heavily.

He had quickly figured that the subject of his sister was going to be a big hole in his normally strong emotional control for a while.

"Does she know I exist?"

"Not before she will have this meeting, no."

Harry sighed, and rubbed his eyes tiredly. This day was a mixture of hopeful and awful he was having a hard time figuring out. He looked at the letter on the table written in the nice letters and this odd paper talking about things he would grow up with had his parents survived the war. It was a connection with his parents he desperately wanted to pursue, and an escape from the orphanage that had been his friendless and uncomfortable home for as long as he could remember.

At the same time, it was an entry into the world that killed his entire family, under the auspices of a man who had an uncomfortably large amount of power in a strange and essentially foreign land, who had separated his sister from her twin and put her into what he strongly suspected was an abusive household. At least in the non-magical world, he could navigate the adults and teenagers well enough to be minimally independent.

"Is my sister going to Hogwarts?"

McGonagall hesitated. The girl had not been contacted yet, but deep down she knew that Dumbledore would never allow the girl to not attend the school. Her heart clenched slightly at the thought of her old friend being so imposing, but she was not stupid. Dumbledore's heart was in the right place, but he was absolutely in love with his level of control.

"Yes, she will be going."

Harry hummed and stared at nothing for a second. He got up without looking at either woman and left the room. At the doorframe, he said above his shoulder but without having the emotional strength to look at anyone, "I'm attending."

"Mr. Potter, wait."

"What", he said, still without turning back.

"I will be coming next week to accompany you to Diagon Alley to purchase your school materials."

Harry nodded wordlessly and went to his room.