AN: Yes, here I am, starting another story. Fingers crossed that I actually continue this one! Anyway, this is basically my take on the classic fem!Harry storyline. Just as a warning, there are a lot of quotes straight from the book in the first few chapters. Primrose will start out with very slight differences to Harry, but as this fic progresses they'll start to add up and the story will really change. So, hope you like it!

The Dursleys were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley had a young son who they thought the world of, a nice house in a suburb, and a pristine garden which had won Best in Show three years running. In fact, the Dursleys had a nearly perfect life. The 'nearly' came in the form of their young niece, Primrose Potter. If you were to visit Number Four, Privet Drive, you wouldn't even know a second child lived there. She was absent from all the photos in the house, and none of the Dursleys talked about her unless it was to spread nasty rumors about her. The only evidence that Primrose existed was the cupboard under the stairs, which had been her room ever since she had come to live with the Dursleys.

Primrose woke up as she usually did - to her Aunt Petunia rapping on her cupboard door. "UP!" Aunt Petunia commanded. Primrose rolled off of her cot and pulled on her clothes, making sure the worn belt around her waist was cinched tightly, otherwise her trousers would slip. She made sure to turn her trainers upside down to get any spiders out before she put them on, and then she made her way to the kitchen, where her aunt was puttering around arranging things.

"Hurry up and look after the bacon!" she ordered Primrose, before hurrying to get the ringing phone.

Dudley was sat at the kitchen table, his pudgy forehead wrinkled in concentration as he tried to count his presents. Uncle Vernon, who was watching proudly, spared a moment to bark, "Comb your hair!" at Primrose.

He said this to her a couple times a week, though he really should have known better at this point. Primrose had thick black hair that curled in every possible direction, and nothing she did could change it. Dudley and his friends had made a game of who could pull her hair the hardest - it was called Primrose Plucking. The school had called Aunt Petunia loads of times to say that her hair was distracting the other students, and once Aunt Petunia had even set upon it with a pair of kitchen shears. It was awful - when she was done, Primrose's hair was almost entirely gone, except for some front pieces that would "hide that hideous scar." Primrose had cried herself to sleep, but in the morning, she had woken up to find it curling down to her waist, just as it had before the haircut. She'd gotten a week in the cupboard for that.

Primrose was snapped out of her thoughts when Aunt Petunia came back in and said, "Mrs. Figg said she broke her leg. She can't take her."

Primrose pretended not to listen as she carefully scooped bacon onto a serving plate. Mrs. Figg normally watched her anytime the Dursleys wanted to go out, and she always spent the whole time showing Primrose photo albums of her cats.

As her aunt and uncle argued over who could watch her, Primrose's heart began to lift. "You could just leave me here," she suggested hopefully. She would be able to watch tellie and maybe even play one of Dudley's computer games.

"And come back to find the house in ruins?" Aunt Petunia scoffed. "Maybe we could bring her to the zoo and leave her in the car."

"I just bought that car," Uncle Vernon growled. "I'm not leaving her in it alone."

And so Primrose found herself, unbelievably, going to the zoo for the first time. She was so excited that sitting in between Dudley and his friend Piers while they 'accidentally' bumped her too hard didn't even bother her much.

Of course, she should have known it would end horribly. On the way back to the house, Primrose sat hunched in between Dudley and Piers, who were still hysterical over the snake. She hadn't even done anything! She knew she'd get punished once Piers left, though, because he'd calmed down enough to mention that she had been talking to the snake. She hunched over a bit more as she accidentally met Uncle Vernon's eye in the rear view mirror. She was definitely going to get it.

She was infinitely lucky that all he did when they got home was throw her forcefully into her cupboard, where she was to stay for who knew how long without meals. Normally he would have taken a belt to her, but he was too upset to get any enjoyment out of it.

She stayed locked in her cupboard for hours. Eventually she smelled dinner cooking, and she hugged her knees to her chest, knowing she wouldn't be getting any. If she had a light, she could do something besides stare into the darkness. She could play with some of the broken toys she'd filched from Dudley's second bedroom, or color with her bits of crayons. The longer she sat in the dark and thought about it, the more desperate she was to have some sort of light, any sort of light.

Suddenly, a bright light flared out of nowhere, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut for a second. Then, she blinked several times in surprise. There, in her sad little room, was a floating, pulsing yellow light.

"Oh," she exclaimed in awe, dazedly wondering if she was going mad.

She was distracted by the sound of heavy, stomping footsteps, and the light flickered a bit before dying out completely. Her cupboard door slammed open, and she only had time to squeak in surprise before being hauled out by her upper arm.

"WHAT THE DEVIL ARE YOU DOING?" Uncle Vernon roared, and she belatedly realized he must have seen light from under her door.

"Uncle Vernon-"

"Bad enough to do freaky things in public, I'll not abide by you being freakish in my own home!" Primrose twisted her hands in her hair with a feeling of dread as she watched him take off his belt. She really wished, more than anything, that she had never wished for that dumb light.

A week later, Primrose wearily pulled herself out of her cupboard when her aunt rapped on the door. Aunt Petunia's gaze lingered on the visible bruises and welts, as it had every day for the last week, as it did every time Uncle Vernon punished her physically. Then, her eyes slid right past them, just as they always did, and she coldly ordered her into the kitchen to finish making breakfast.

Primrose glumly prepared breakfast, then sat down at the table with the portion she was given. She was on her second bite when she heard the sound of the mail slot clanging open and shut.

"Dudley, go and get the mail," Uncle Vernon said from behind his paper.

"Make Primrose get it," Dudley said.

"Primrose, mail."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Hit her with your Smeltings stick, Dudley."

Primrose dropped her fork in frustration, dodging Dudley's stick as she left the kitchen. She grumbled as she snatched up the pile of envelopes, only to pause as she noticed one that didn't quite fit in with the rest. She pulled it out of the stack and inspected the thick, old paper.

Miss P. Potter

Cupboard Under the Stairs

Number 4, Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her skull, and she wandered back into the kitchen in a daze, handing Uncle Vernon the rest of the mail. She began to tear open the wax seal on the envelope, only to have it jerked out of her hands.

"Dad, look what Primrose had!"

"Give it back," she demanded. "It's my letter!"

"Nonsense," Uncle Vernon said, chortling as he took the letter from Dudley. "Who would be writing to you?"

Suddenly, he froze, his beady eyes trained on the envelope. "Petunia!"

What followed was a shouting match in which Uncle Vernon told Primrose and Dudley to leave the room, Dudley refused as he wanted to know what it said, Primrose demanded that she stay as it was her letter, and Vernon forcibly threw them both out. The whole time, Aunt Petunia only stared at the letter, her shaking hand pressed to her mouth.

By the time another week had passed, they were, for all intents and purposes, on the run from the mail. The strange letters had kept coming, spilling out of the mail slot. When Vernon nailed it shut, they came in through the window, and when that was closed, they shot out of the fireplace by the hundreds. Primrose managed to catch one at one point, but she wasn't quick enough to get into her cupboard before it was wrenched out of her hands. She'd been so angry that she'd tried to fight Uncle Vernon for it. She'd got another belt punishment for that, and it hadn't even been worth it as she still didn't know what the letter said.

She shifted uncomfortably on the cold, stone floor she was laying on. She couldn't imagine how they could possibly get any mail on a rock in the middle of the ocean, so she was in low spirits, and the soreness on her back didn't help any. She glanced at the watch on Dudley's pudgy wrist as it dangled over the edge of the couch. When the alarm she'd set on the watch beeped, she reached over and shut it off before it could wake Dudley. Then, she sighed, imagining a giant birthday cake with her name in icing and eleven glowing candles. "Happy birthday," she told herself, blowing out her imaginary candles.

Bang!

Primrose flinched at a sound that was most certainly not thunder. She jumped up in time to see the door of the shack hit the ground with a deafening crash. A giant shadow lurked in the doorway and Primrose backed into a corner and tried to make herself as small as possible. Then the figure crossed the threshold, and said,

"Sorry 'bout that."

Uncle Vernon raced down the stairs, Aunt Petunia close on his heels, and pointed his shotgun at the huge man. "Whoever you are, get out of here now!"

The man finished replacing the door and turned to face them, looking quite amused to see the gun. "Shut up Dursley, yeh great prune." Then he took the gun, bent it into a knot, and tossed it into the far corner of the room. "Now, where's little Primrose, then?"

Dudley beat a hasty retreat to his mother when the giant's black eyes passed over him in search of his cousin. Primrose squared her shoulders and hesitantly stepped out of the shadows. "I'm Primrose," she said.

"Well o' course yeh are," the man said. "Yeh look just like Lily, same eyes and all - course your hair is all James! A very happy birthday to yeh. I've got summat here for yeh. 'Fraid I might'a sat on it at one point, but it'll taste fine just the same."

Primrose edged closer as he pulled a huge box out of his pocket. When she opened the lid, she found a cake iced with chocolate, with green icing that said 'Happy Birthday Primrose.'

She was unspeakably touched - it was the first birthday cake she'd ever had - but all she could force out of her suddenly tight throat was, "Who are you?"

The man chuckled. "Rubeus Hagrid, but just call me Hagrid, Groundskeeper and Keeper of Keys of Hogwarts." He went over to the sad little fire and bent over it. She didn't see what he did, but when he stood up straight again, the fire was much bigger.

"Sorry," Primrose said as he settled himself on the couch. "But I'm not sure what that is."

"Oh, I care for the grounds at Hogwarts. Course, you've heard all about Hogwarts, haven't yeh?"

Primrose shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said, because suddenly Hagrid looked very angry.

Primrose trailed behind Hagrid like a duckling, twisting her head this way and that to take in all the sights. Up until they'd entered Diagon Alley, she'd still not been totally convinced that magic was real. Her first instinct when Hagrid had told her that she was a witch had been to say, 'That's not very nice.' Even when he'd given Dudley a pig's tail, she still hadn't been completely sure she wasn't dreaming. And of course, Aunt Petunia had taken away what little happiness she'd felt when she'd talked about her mum.

"Mother and Father were so excited," she'd said, curling her lip. "'We have a witch in the family! Isn't it wonderful!' I was the only one to see her for what she was, a freak. And then she met that Potter. And then she had you and I knew you'd be the same, just as strange, just as abnormal. And then she went and got herself blown up, and we got landed with you."

Aunt Petunia had said plenty of mean things to her over the years - like that time they'd been at the shop and she'd slapped her hand away from a soft dress and said "dresses are for pretty girls, not for you" - but last night had, by far, hurt Primrose the most.

Still, she would listen to those words a thousand times to be in a place this magical. Now that they were in a more open area, not many people even noticed her, which was much preferable to the veritable mob in the Leaky Cauldron.

She and Hagrid stopped at Gringott's, where Primrose collected some of her money (her money!), and Hagrid collected a mysterious package that was really nothing at all, just running an errand for Dumbledore. Then, they set out to buy all the strange, wonderful things on her school list. Hagrid left her in Madam Malkin's by herself while he went to run another errand, and she shyly let the woman lead her to a small footstool where she was measured for her robes. When she was measured to the woman's satisfaction, a robe was slid on over Primrose's clothes and the woman began pinning it, murmuring about accounting for the extra bulk of clothing underneath.

There was another kid there, waiting on the footstool next to hers, and she just barely stopped herself from looking around for someone else when he started talking to her. At her old school, people never talked to her, Dudley made sure of it.

"Hogwarts too?" The boy asked, tilting his shiny blonde head in question.

"Yes," Primrose said.

"My mother's next door buying my books, and my father's looking at wands," he said imperiously. Before she could figure out what to say to that, he asked her what house she thought she'd be in.

"I'm not really sure yet," she hedged, trying to remember what Hagrid had told her about the houses.

"Well no one really knows until they get there, do they?" he said. "As for me, my whole family's been in Slytherin. Imagine if you were in Hufflepuff! I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

Primrose hummed noncommittally, acting like she was distracted by the lady pinning her robes in place.

The blonde boy suddenly made a disgusted sound. "I say, look at that man!"

Primrose turned and saw Hagrid waving merrily at her through the shop window. "That's Hagrid," she told him. "He works at Hogwarts."

"Isn't he a sort of servant?"

"He's the groundskeeper," Primrose said stiffly. This boy was reminding her more and more of Dudley.

"I heard he lives in a grubby little hut and sometimes he gets drunk and tries to do magic, but he just sets his bed on fire."

"I think he's great," Primrose said firmly.

"Do you," the boy said snidely. "Why are you with him, anyway? Where are your parents?"

"They're dead," Primrose said shortly.

"Oh, sorry," the boy said, not sounding sorry at all. "But they were our kind, weren't they?"

"They were a witch and a wizard, if that's what you mean."

"I don't think they should let the other sort in. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get their letters. I think they should keep to the traditional families. What's your surname, anyway?"

Primrose wanted to say I never heard of Hogwarts before I got my letter and it's funny how much you don't like muggles considering you act just like my muggle cousin and there's not 'another' sort, we're all just kids going to school. Before she could say anything, however, the woman removed her robe and told her she was done. Primrose quickly escaped before Thin Posh Dudley could spout anything else.

Primrose sat at her new desk in her new bedroom, petting her new owl that her new friend had given her. It was a good thing she had lots of practice at not crying, or else she might have made a right mess of herself when Hagrid had given her the beautiful snowy owl - "your birthday present," her first ever actual birthday present. Of course, the rest of her school things, including her wonderful new wand, had been locked away in her cupboard the moment she got home, but at least she had Hedwig, and her schoolbooks, and her special ticket for Platform 9 ¾ - whatever that meant.