Full Summary: Henryka Mikaelson died a thousand years ago, leaving behind nothing but a bloody blanket and a set of wolf prints. Henryka Potter was found in the woods, alone, taken in to fight another day. The story should end there, but when Esther preforms the linking spell long buried hurts are unearthed and everything goes to hell in a hand basket. Mikaelson Siblings/Fem!Harry. Incest. Strong M.
Warnings/Tags: Mikaelson Siblings/Fem!Harry. Incest. Strong M. Dumbledore Bashing. Genderbent Harry. Genderbent Henrik. Strong Language. Smut. Henrik as Ansels Son and not Mikael's. Henrik survives. Fem!Harry is Henrik. Not Elena friendly. Pro Caroline and Pro Bonnie. Strong language. Hurt and comfort. Some Angst that gets resolved. More Tags to be added later.
Chapter One:
Never The Same.
I
They had all loved Henryka, their youngest sister, in their own way, and they had all lost her before she had turned twelve moons old.
For such a short life she had left a larger shaped hole behind.
Finn Mikaelson, the oldest brother, had loved Henryka silently.
She had been a cheerful baby, gleeful and giggling and gummy, and Finn, always the most sensible, always the most reliable, had been as much a father to the babe as Mikael had been for the short year they had her with them.
Born so far after, it came natural to him. Twenty and eight, Finn was a man grown in their village, and as his mother took the washing to the pond, or his father took off into the woods to hunt for supper, Finn would take Henryka in his arms and watch over the child.
Sometimes, they merely sat outside their hut, on the step's dirt-trodden path, and gazed up to the clouds rolling overhead.
She had liked the clouds, Finn remembered.
She had adored the sky in whole, happy most with it open before her, as if any second she would take flight and disappear into the blue. She had been such a small babe, bird-boned and crimson feathered and-
Little Redbird.
That's right… That's what he used to call her, wasn't it?
Little Redbird with a red curl.
Unfortunately, as the eldest, Finn also remembered another sister, Freya, and he remembered the plague, the illness, and he remembered the day they had to-
He held little Redbird closer on the days he remembered Freya.
He had promised Henryka would not be the same.
She would live a long, happy, sky-filled life.
As with most things, Finn could not keep his promise.
II
"Look-"
Henryka Potter's arm snapped out, barring Malfoy from taking a step further down the incline deep in the Forbidden forest. She could not see the sky up ahead, the foliage too thick, too dense, too dark.
It didn't sit right with her. Made her feel… Closed in. As closed in as her cupboard felt-
Something bright white was gleaming on the ground, a splash of something that glowed.
The two children inched closer.
No doubt about it, Henryka thought. It was the unicorn all right, and it was dead.
Henryka had never seen anything so beautiful before, and anything so sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had been forced to the floor, where it had fallen, and its mane was spread, pearly-white on the dark leaves below its still torso.
Henryka stole a single step forward when a slithering sound made her freeze where she stood halfway down the hill.
A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered-
Out of the shadows, a hooded figure came crawling across the dark, sodden ground like some stalking beast, unnaturally smooth in its gate, snake-like, Henryka realized.
The children and Fang stood transfixed.
The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the weeping wound on the animal's neck, and began to drinks its blood.
Malfoy booked it, squealing as he clambered back up the hill, back into the treeline, back to safety, Fang barking and running after the distressed child.
The blond prick's shouting had alerted the hooded figure to the children's presence.
Henryka was left alone on the hill, alone to face the hooded figure, alone and terrified.
The thing raised its cloaked head, and though Henryka could not see its face through the unnatural gloom of the forest, only the bottom half of its jaw, only the smear and stain of unicorn blood over snarling lips, she knew it was looking right at her.
The creature got to its feet and came for her.
Henryka could not move.
She could not run.
She could not scream.
She was left silent.
III
Rebekah Mikaelson had loved Henryka sombrely.
It was them against the rest of the family, two girls, the only ones left, and it was going to be so much fun, they could talk about boys once Henryka learned to talk, once Henryka was old enough, and whisper secrets to each other in their bedspreads, and-
And Henryka's death killed a piece of her soul.
They all felt Henryka's loss acutely, in their own styles, and often, Rebekah thought of the other sister, the older one, Freya, and how she too was gone, and if that was the case, was she next? Was-
Mother told her, teary-eyed, that Henryka was not alone, that on the other side Freya was there, protecting her where they could not no longer.
It brought little comfort for a life snatched away too soon.
Mikael built the pyre, and though the body had gone missing three days on from seeing that strange man lurking at the edges of their village, a strange man who must have been from the werewolves across the woodland, who else-
Mother said it was for the best, building the pyre. A way to say goodbye.
But Rebekah didn't want to say goodbye.
You don't always get what you want, darling.
That's what her mother had told her, bleary eyed and puffy cheeked and… And that was that.
Mother placed Henryka's linen dress, so small, tiny, into the flames first. It was tradition, and one by one, they all put something on the pyre for Henryka to take with her on her way to Valhalla.
Elijah put the leather throng she had enjoyed chewing into the flames, a bracelet too little, a woven band he had taken to wearing since that day.
Finn a set of bird feathers, red and freshly plucked.
Niklaus had placed a toy next, a little timber thing carved from Elder wood, whittled with by his own hands, a set of moon and stars that strung together on thread. She had loved that thing, always grasping out chubby little hands with indented knuckles, reaching for the sky.
Kol set to fire the rune of her name on a twig, so she might remember where she came from, who she was, who had given her the name Henryka, Kol.
Mikael gave nothing. He merely turned from the flames and left them alone in the clearing to tend to the fire.
That was, perhaps, the first time Rebekah had hated her father, turning from their grief, turning from them, his children, when they needed him most, and sadly, it wouldn't be the last.
Rebekah did not put clothe, or toy, or bead upon the flames as her brothers and mother had. Instead, she placed a sword. A sword for a fallen sister, a sword so she might protect herself as clearly they had not done, a sword for a lost soul who had said her name as her first word like the chopping of a tree. Bex, Bex, Bex.
There would be no more Bex's.
No more sisters.
Henryka had been the best of them, Rebekah had later realized.
And she was gone.
IV
Henryka was on her feet, sweaty, ready, sword in hand. The Basilisk's head was lunging, striking in fast swift swings, its body coiled around, tail lashing at pillars and twisting this way and that so that terrible mouth could reach her.
She could see its eyes now, bloody, scarred sockets weeping down slit cheeks. She could see the maw, gaping, stretching wider still, wide enough to swallow her whole if it chose, and it wouldn't choose that, too quick and too painless, lined with fangs as long as her sword, thin, glittering, venomous.
Again, it lunged blindly, and Henryka dodged the hit by slamming herself sideways, into the Chamber wall.
Again, it dived, again Henryka evaded, its forked tongue whipping her leg.
She raised the sword in both her hands, sturdy, and the Basilisk lunged one last time, its aim finally true. Henryka threw her whole weight, which was not much at all, behind the attack and drove the damned sword to the hilt through the roof of the serpent's mouth.
Warm, black blood drenched Henryka's arm, and she felt a searing pain just above her elbow.
One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into her arm, and the tooth snapped clean off, lodged in her arm, as the Basilisk keeled over sideways, twitching on the floor before, finally, all was still, all was silent.
Henryka slid down the wall at her back, hand clutching the fang embedded in her flesh, sword clattering to the floor. With a groan and a grimace, she pulled the tooth free, but it was too late.
The venom was in.
White-hot pain was spreading from the wound, up and down her arm, to her chest, her neck, her face, her legs-
Everywhere.
Even as the fang dropped too, and Henryka watched her own blood begin to soak her robes to burgundy, her vision swam, the Chamber dissolving in a whirl of dull colour. Something red darted past, and she heard the soft clatter of claws beside her collapsed form.
"Fawkes."
Henryka muttered thickly.
Just one word, the only one she could manage through the pain tearing its way through her body. She could not see Fawkes, but she felt him lay his beautiful head on the spot where the serpent's fang had pierced and ripped.
Footsteps in the dark, moving closer.
"You're dead, Henryka. Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing? He's crying. How sweet."
Tom Riddle crouched before her, magnificent and dreadful in equal measure.
Henryka blinked at Fawkes, his beak sliding in and out of focus, fat, glistening tears trickling down the glossy feathers.
"I am going to sit right here and watch you die, girl. Take your time. I'm in no hurry."
She felt drowsy now, hurt, everything around her spinning and twisting at sickening intervals.
"So ends the famous Henryka Potter."
Riddles voice was distant, cold.
"Alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by her friends, defeated at last by the Dark Lord she so unwisely challenged."
Laughter, cooler than the frigid brick at her back.
"You'll be back with that filthy muggle family of yours soon enough. Perhaps even that dirty Mudblood and blood traitor that took you in. Poor little orphan Henryka, lost alone in the woods… Alone again for one last moment. Lily Evans may have bought you twelve years of borrowed time, but Lord Voldemort got you in the end as you knew he must."
If this was dying, Henryka thought, it was not so bad. There was just one last thing to do.
And so, she smiled.
And she grabbed the fang.
And Riddle noticed the discarded diary by her hip far too late.
"I'm not the only one on borrowed time, Tom."
The fang came sailing down, splitting through leather and parchment, and Tom Riddle screamed.
V
Kol had loved Henryka the brashest, almost unapologetically.
He had been the only one around, barring Mother, when she had come squawking into the world. Father had gone on a long pursuit of buck and beast, readying for the winter months where their stocks needed to be filled or they would not be, and had taken Finn, Elijah and Niklaus with him, old enough now to join the hunt.
Rebekah had gone to stay with Mother's friend, Ayana, and Kol, not quite man, not quite boy, had been tasked by father to stay close to mother and protect her in his and Kol's brothers' absences.
He had taken the task unusually sincerely.
No one had expected the babe to come a full two moons early.
And she had came fast.
Mother had felt a twinge, and then she had been bleeding, and Kol, unsure of what had been happening, had dashed about the hut, fetching linen strips and bowls of water and the herbs mother groaned out between clenched teeth, and perhaps Henryka had not come swiftly at all, perhaps she had been slow and Kol's panic had simply sped time up.
Fear could do that, his father once told him, and so you had to be faster than the fear, swifter than the dread.
She came into the world at moon rise, and she was small, strangely small, and Kol had not known people could be so little.
Had he ever been that tiny? Surely not?
So little and in need of much protection.
Mother washed her off in the basin, and wrapped her in soft linen, and that was all Mother could do, exhausted by the ordeal.
Kol was the first to hold her.
"I suppose Henrik will not be appropriate, now."
Henrik, the name of the boy mother and father believed they would have.
Kol ran a finger down a tiny cheek.
So small, and yet so bright, painted in the colours of sunrise.
"Henryka, then?"
Mother smiled from the bed, tired but pleased.
"Henryka it is."
She fell asleep in his hold that night, and sometimes, as the days drew to months and Henryka would wail or cry, it was only there she would be silent, content, happy.
Kol turned the tears to laughter.
Later, much later, it was not always the best kind of laughter.
VI
"I trusted you!"
Henryka shouted at Lupin, her voice shattered and out of control.
"And all this time you've been his friend!"
Lupin winced, oddly woeful.
"You're wrong. I haven't been Sirius's friend for a while now, but I am now-"
He dared a step closer, the wand point jerked up to his neck.
"Let me explain-"
"No!"
Hermione cried.
"You can't trust him, Henryka. He's been helping Black get into the castle. He wants you dead too. He's a werewolf!"
There was ringing in the silence, Lupin, remarkably calm, though rather pale, did not back down.
"Not at all up to your usual standard, Miss Granger. Only one out of three, I'm afraid. I have not been secreting Sirius into the castle, and I certainly do not want 'Ryka dead."
An odd shiver passed over his scarred face.
"But I will not deny that I am a werewolf… And you are too, Henryka. I can smell it. The wolf in you, just sleeping below the surface. It's in your blood, cub."
Henryka laughed, and she laughed loudly.
And it was possibly the most broken she had ever sounded.
VII
Elijah had loved Henryka the best. He was the most attentive out of his family, and for a babe who seemed to be besieged by trouble like bees with honey, his perseverance fixed many a mishap.
He caught the knife on the table she had been reaching for before her tug could bring it down upon her leg.
He picked her up before she could crawl over that sharp rock by the creek.
He stopped her from picking those poisonous berries and shoving them into her mouth, and falling into the pond, and-
And he was not there the day she went missing, a torn, bloody blanket dangling from an Elder tree and wolf tracks heading deep into the woods the only things left in her wake.
He had promised to love her, to keep her safe, and he…
That was all children wanted, was it not? To be loved best, and to be loved more, and to be safe… And Elijah had failed.
In some way, as much as he loved his brother too, he could not forgive Niklaus for not watching her closely enough that night, for falling asleep when he should have been there and-
Perhaps it was not Niklaus at all that he could not forgive.
Perhaps it was himself.
VIII
Henryka felt her feet slam into the ground, her injured leg giving way as she fell forward, dizzy, her hand letting go of the Triwizard Cup at last.
She raised her head from the cushion of moss it had stuck.
"Where are we?"
Cedric Diggory shook his head, looking as lost as she felt. He was the first up, pulling Henryka to her feet as the two teens glanced around them.
This was definitely not Hogwarts anymore, they had clearly travelled miles, perhaps hundreds of miles, for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. Instead, there they stood in their colours, yellow and red, bright streaks in a dark and overgrown graveyard, the black outline of a small church visible beyond a large yew tree to their right, a hill cresting to their left. Henryka could barely make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.
Cedric glanced between her and the Cup.
"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?"
Henryka edged closer to the boy. Something was… Wrong. Death.
This place reeked of death and blood.
"I don't think anyone knew."
Cedric took a step forward, between the headstones, names worn away by time and rain.
"Do you suppose this is part of the task?"
Henryka followed him down into the dark, wand gripped tight in her hand.
"I don't know."
They were being watched. She could feel it. Eyes on her, watching, waiting.
"Someone's coming."
She said suddenly, squinting tensely through the darkness, as a figure drew nearer, walking steadily towards them amongst the tombs. Henryka could not make out a face, but by the way the shadow was walking and holdings its arms, she could tell that it was carrying… Something.
Whoever their visitor was, he was a short and squat fellow, as tall as he was round, wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over his head, obscuring his face. Several paces passed, the gap between them closing all the time, and Henryka spotted the thing in the persons arms.
A baby… Or a bundle of robes?
Cedric lowered his wand, and Henryka snapped to him.
"Don't! Yo-"
It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them, and Henryka never got to finish her sentence, would later forget what she had tried so desperately to say, to warn.
Without notice her forehead exploded with pain, hot and white and blinding, and her wand fell as she, too, fell, to her knees, whistling out a breath that stung, and then she was there, on the ground, unable to see anything at all but the pain, screaming, searing pain, her head feeling as it was about to split open.
From far away, she heard the voice that haunted her dreams. Cold and sleek.
"Kill the spare."
A noise of rushing air, a shout, and Henryka could do nothing but whither under the onslaught of pain.
She could not help, and that hurt worst.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A blast of green light blazed through the white, and she heard something heavy fall beside her.
The pain crested, so high and strong she retched dryly, empty, hoarse, and-
And then it diminished, a throb, nothing more.
Terrified of what she was about to see, somehow knowing deep down what that thudding noise had been, but still hoping, still wishing, she opened her stinging clenched eyes.
Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside her.
Dead.
For a second that felt like an eternity, she stared into Cedric's face, a mere inch from her own, at his open, grey eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at the gape of his half opened mouth, still twisted in surprise, and the way he was so still and silent and static.
An image that would be imprinted in her mind forever more.
Before Henryka's had accepted what she was seeing, before she could feel anything but numb disbelief, she felt herself being yanked to her feet.
She would never forgive Tom for that.
Cedric had been innocent.
He had been loving, and kind, and warm, and now he was gone.
His death had been needless.
And, perhaps, she would never forgive herself for it either, for not being fast enough to finish the sentence she could not remember, not being smart enough to just reach out and grab an arm and pull.
Cedric's death was her fault, and she would carry that urn to her grave.
IX
Niklaus had loved Henryka the most. More than Finn and his steady hand, more than Kol and his grins, more than Rebekah with her dreams and Elijah with his steadfast step.
Perhaps because he needed that child's love more than the others.
And she did love him, right from the get-go, with no secret wants or manipulations or outside influences. He was the first person she had took her doddering steps too. When she was hurt, as rare as that was, it was to him she held her hands aloft and flexed little fingers, merely wanting comfort. When she wanted something, anything at all, it was his breeches that she tugged.
And he loved that girl as much back.
He gave her the moon and stars, made from his own hand, and when that was not enough, he took her out at night, to gaze up, and told her tales, tales of princes and kings and treasures untold, and-
And, one night, there was a bright red light and-
And she was gone.
Dead.
He had promised her so much, and she had asked for so little, and perhaps that was why it was so easy to love her. Back then, Klaus had been full of love, brimming with it, and softness, and light.
That all changed the day he was awoken to his father's shouts, in a ditch, arms empty, wolf prints trailing in the mud.
X
Henryka saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light, laughing as he dipped and weaved and played.
"Come on, you can do better than that!"
His voice bounced around the cavernous room, muted by the voices coming from the Veil.
The second stream of light hit Sirius squarely in the chest.
Henryka would remember Sirius's face in that moment, the way the laughter had not quite left his features, the way his eyes were widened in shock.
She released Neville, who she had dragged behind a pillar, and she was jumping down the steps again, wand in hand, as Dumbledore turned to the dais too.
It took an age for Sirius to fall, his body curving in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ragged Veil filled with voices, so many voices Henryka could hear, and she watched as the look of mingled fear and surprise on her adopted Godfather's wasted, once-handsome face as he stumbled through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the Veil.
It fluttered for the beat of a heart, as though in a high wind, before dropping back into place.
She heard Bellatrix Lestrange's triumphant scream, but knew it meant nothing.
Sirius had only just gone through the archway; he would reappear from the other side any second.
But Sirius Black did not reappear, and there was no other side when the door was to death.
"Sirius! Sirius!"
It was her voice yelling now, out of her control, blaring and weeping like she was some lost lamb separated from its mother in a slaughter house.
She reached the floor, her breath coming in searing gasps. Sirius must have been just behind the curtain, and she, Henryka, would pull him back out again and-
But as she reached the bottom and sprinted for the dais, Lupin slipped in behind her and wrapped steely arms around her chest, holding her back, holding her away.
"There's nothing you can do, 'Ryka-"
"Get him! Save him! He's there! He's just gone through! Let me go!"
He did not let her go.
"It's too late-"
"We can still reach him-"
She struggled. Circe, how she struggled against Lupin, relentless and vicious and kicking, but he did not let her go.
"There's nothing you can do, Henryka... nothing... He's gone."
She was never the same after that day.
A.N: This is actually part of a little challenge/competition I have going with another author GoWithTheFlo20. The challenge was to write for a fandom you've never wrote for before, in this case TVD/TO we decided, to which she has already published her two (How she writes so fast is beyond me), and to keep it in line to the tropes that you predominantly write with, but to try and make it something new. GoWithTheFlo20 typically goes the Master Of Death route, and me, poor little me, who mainly has fics about bloody Targaryen's, has Incest and Adoption angst to fall back on lmao.
So here we are folks! The Incest TVD fic no one asked for, that may be an affront to God themselves!
Thank you to GoWithTheFlo20 for Beta reading this for me, and putting the challenge up!
Hope you all liked it and are looking forward to the next chapter! Until then, stay beautiful ~AlwaysEatTheRude21