Chapter Nine
"But you don't understand," Ron's yelling was audible even through the thick wooden door, almost drowning out the sweet playing of the harp conjured earlier in the evening. "Snape's going to steal the Stone!"
"Mr. Weasley!" Professor McGonagall sounded absolutely scandalized by the accusation. "I can assure you, Professor Snape would never!"
Dahlia exhales heavily through her nose and steps out into the third floor's corridor. "It was Quirrell."
"What?" The bewildered faces of the Golden Trio turn towards her in unison.
"Quirrell was trying to steal the Stone." She repeats.
"But," Poor Harry looked lost. "Snape tried to kill me."
"What's this about?" She abruptly straightens from her tired slump. Hadn't she prevented this when she had forbidden Harry from playing on the Quidditch team?
"Foolish boy, I was saving you." Professor Snape sweeps by, Quirrell's wrapped in a conjured sheet body bobbling in the air behind him. After Voldemort had theatrically fled, the former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had been unable to handle the strain of having been possessed for so long. He expired minutes after. It had been all very distressing and she didn't want to think about it. "Come along, my Potter. To the Hospital Wing with you."
"Is that –" Professor McGonagall begins, but cuts herself off, eyes darting to the kids. "Bed. You're going to bed right this second, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger. I'll escort you to the Common Room."
"But!" Harry protests.
"Go on, Harry." Dumbledore encourages him kindly, shutting the door to Fluffy's room behind him.
"We'll talk later." She hisses at her brother and hurries after Professor Snape as fast as her battered body allowed her to – along with an impressive collection of bruises from shards of stone chessmen, a common side-effect of the Cruciatus made her muscles occasionally twitch painfully. From what she could tell, the spell's primary function was to attack and destroy the nerves in the body, which is why it was so excruciating. The Longbottoms were likely held under the spell for so long, their brains were eventually affected and that's why they went mad.
Trailing up the stairs like an old lady with arthritis after Professor Snape who was kind enough to walk slowly for her even though if she mentioned it he would have angrily denied it, Dahlia musses on the plot and if it had deviated badly enough for her to do damage control.
The Philosopher's Stone wasn't… Well, it wasn't safe exactly, but it wasn't in Voldemort's hands. In canon, it was destroyed too, so it wasn't that big of a deal. The Mirror hadn't appeared again after the first book, another thing whose destruction doesn't matter in the long term… Ron didn't get his moment. He didn't sacrifice himself for his friends during the chess game. Was that going to cause problems? No, she didn't think so. It was important for his character development, but he'd have plenty of other opportunities in the future.
On the bright side, Harry didn't kill someone with his bare hands. He might not have realized that's what he was doing – at least, the books didn't make it seem like he did – but the experience would have still mentally scared him. She's glad he avoided that.
"Oh, Merlin! Who is this?"
"Quirrell." Professor Snape divulges to the shocked Madam Pomfrey. She was wearing a frilly, pink nightgown and her hair was in a disarray. Evidently, she had just been woken up by the wards when they had come into the Hospital Wing. Dahlia hadn't noticed how late it had gotten. "He's dead. Kidnapped one of mine and attempted to steal the Stone."
"Well," The woman huffs, collecting herself. "put him on a bed, we'll deal with him later. Do draw the curtains around him, will you? We don't want to scare the students." She turns towards Dahlia. "Now, young lady, why don't you sit down right here? Have you been hit with a spell? That tremble of yours doesn't look like simple shock."
"Cruciatus." She says, sitting down on the nearest bed with a groan of relief.
"What?!" Professor Snape snarls, whipping around from Quirrell's corpse. In two strides he was at her side and casting some sort of diagnostic spell on her. "He did." He confirms to Madam Pomfrey who clasps a hand to her mouth in horror. "A minute at most."
"And thank Circe for that!" The matron exclaims. "Any longer and he would have caused irreparable damage!" With a whip of her wand, a set of pajamas fly out from a cupboard and land at the foot of her bed. "Change dearie, I'm afraid you aren't leaving here for a few days."
Madam Pomfrey bustles off to her office and there is a sudden awkward silence in the room.
"Sir, how did you know where to find me?" She finally asks.
Professor Snape looks down at her thoughtfully. "Mrs. Norris found your wand."
And being incredibly intelligent for cat, brought it back to her master in hopes of getting whoever trespassed on the forbidden floor in trouble, she filled in. Filch, in turn, had brought it to the teachers and they must have realized something was wrong from there.
"Thank you for saving me." She says and was about to add that she hoped it wouldn't cause him difficulties proving his loyalty to Voldemort later, but rethinks it. She wasn't supposed to know he was a spy.
But boy did she put him in a tough spot. The only way he could explain himself to the Dark Lord when he truly returns was by saying he had meant to miss and that he's been unwilling to blow his cover as a spy – as Voldemort's in Dumbledore's camp – which is why he had attempted to curse him.
"Get some sleep, Miss Potter." Professor Snape tells her gruffly and walks out of the Hospital Wing.
She covers her snort of amusement with a cough. Is this what tsundere were like in real life?
Madam Pomfrey returns with various potions floating after her, including a Calming Draught – to help you sleep, Miss Potter. She hoped it wasn't addictive. She was drinking it distressingly often those days.
Within half an hour, she was under soft covers and drifting off to blessedly dream free sleep.
She is not all too pleased to wake up to Dumbledore sitting by her bedside. His lime green robes were an eyesore this early in the morning. Or any other time, really. The man's fashion sense was atrocious. A crime against humanity.
"Headmaster." She greets blandly.
"Miss Potter." He smiles a grandfatherly smile at her, and she represses the urge to grimace back. "How are you on this fine morning?"
"Better than last night." She says dryly and sits up, sheets pooling in her lap. The twitching seemed to have stopped and now all she felt the kind of tenderness one felt after an intense workout. "Sir, if you don't mind me asking, what are you going to do about the Dar – You-Know-Who?"
"The fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself, Miss Potter." He tells her wisely. Didn't he say something similar to Harry in the books? "Calling him Voldemort reminds us he is a man, and men can be defeated."
She rolls her eyes, stifling a yawn. "Well, Voldemort isn't his true name either is it? What kind of parents would call him that? And anyway, I heard about the taboo during the war. Nothing prevents him from doing the same thing again. Better get in the habit before I slip up when he does." Also, it would have painted a target on her in the Pit. She needed to show some sliver of respect towards the Dark Lord or she'd have been lynched. Even if he did kill her parents.
"That's an interesting way of thinking, Miss Potter," Dumbledore says.
She blinks, confused. "Not really. I think it's only sensible."
The Headmaster watched her thoughtfully. "You are certain he will return in truth."
"He's still alive and on the loose." She points out mildly "Eventually, he will find another method of getting back his body. This time he failed, next time he might not."
"Hmm. Do you remember what we talked about last, Miss Potter?"
"No?" She answers slowly, thrown by the sudden change in subject. "Something about Harry? It's been a long time." Did he really expect a traumatized three-year-old to recall that conversation?
"Your brother must remain with your aunt and uncle," Dumbledore tells her. "He will be safest at their house during the summer break." Translation: Don't let him accept invitations to stay at a friend's house.
There's a lot she had to say about that, but she's not going to argue with a man who wields the Death Stick and who is an accomplished Legilimens. If he wanted her to do something, he'll make her do it regardless of her own wishes. She'll just have to do her best to keep Harry out of the house. Maybe have him visit Hermione? Without Ron's lazy influence, the girl might succeed in bullying him into studying properly and that's only a good thing. With any luck, his go-to spell won't be an Expelliarmus of all spells in this life. It only worked so often for him, because nobody expected it. It wouldn't take his enemies long to adjust if that was the only spell he used when fighting and it was easily countered.
"I'll see what I can do." She promises.
Dumbledore stands. "Very well, I must be going now, Miss Potter. I wish you a good summer."
"Thank you, sir. You too." Dahlia scowls at the man's retreating back. He hadn't answered her question about what he was planning on doing about Voldemort now that he knew the Dark Lord was back for sure.
And neither did she see much of his favorite eccentric grandfather persona. She shouldn't have asked about the Dark Lord straight away. That had been a mistake. Did Dumbledore already suspect there was something off about her?
Ugh, her head hurt. Why did everything had to be so bloody complicated?
"Here you are." Madam Pomfrey comes bustling in with a tray of food. "Your breakfast. I understand if you don't have much of an appetite, Miss Potter – it is a side effect of the potion regime I have you on – but I want you to try and eat half of this, alright?"
Dahlia stares despondently at the tray which was laden with enough food to keep her feed for the next two days. "That's way too much, Madam Pomfrey!" She protests.
"Half." The elderly woman says, non-compromising and clearly intending to stay hovering above her until Dahlia ate a satisfactory amount.
Groaning, she picks up her fork, already feeling ill with the thought of stuffing herself with that much food.
"Professor Dumbledore told us what happened," Harry tells her, sitting down on the recently vacated by Dumbledore chair.
Oh? She raises an eyebrow, moving her food tray – she'd managed a quarter before Pomfrey took pity on her and left – to the bedside table and dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. What exactly did the meddling old man know?
"And what were you doing there?" She asks. "I was there because I got kidnapped, but you had absolutely no reason for being on the forbidden third floor after curfew."
Harry flushes. "We – I mean me and Ron and Hermione – had it all figured out about the Philosopher's Stone. We thought Snape was going to steal it."
"And you were going to stop him by yourselves?" She laughs lightly and it came out more condescending-sounding than she would have liked. "Harry, Professor Snape fought in the last war. He's very strong. The three of you together wouldn't have lasted a minute against him."
Harry flushes darker. "McGonagall didn't believe us. And Dumbledore was gone."
That was indeed a problem. How could she prevent her brother from rushing headfirst into danger when the adults who should be doing it instead didn't listen to his warnings? "Come to me next time. If there is a next time." Which there will be. "I'll be able to convince them." Mainly by going to Professor Snape. He'll listen to her. He knows she wasn't fucking around with her brother's safety and wouldn't invent say, a Basilisk living in a supposedly fictional Chamber of Secrets for shits and giggles.
"Okay," Harry says quietly.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, considering her brother contemplatively. "What did you mean when you said Professor Snape tried to kill you?"
"I was practicing with the Quidditch team for the next year," Harry explains. "and I lost control of my broom. Ron says he and Hermione saw Snape near the Pitch staring at me and mumbling something when it happened."
"How did you get down?" She asks evenly. At least, she thinks it was evenly.
"Oliver Wood says Madam Hooch put all kinds of enchantments on the school brooms for safety after Neville fell. They don't go beyond a certain high anymore, so I was able to jump down safely."
She nods distractedly. Was this the timeline attempting to go back to how it would have gone without her interference or was this just a coincidence? If she truly attempts to change things, what would happen? For example, if she saves someone who was meant to die, will they live long? Will somebody else who was supposed to live die in their place?
"Why didn't you tell me about magic?"
She jerks in surprise, having forgotten Harry was still there. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Why didn't you tell me about magic?" He repeats.
They were doing this now? She isn't prepared mentally!
"I had no idea how to find Diagon Alley or how to contact a wizard." She anxiously twists the sheets in her hands. "It would have changed absolutely nothing for the better. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon could have been even meaner to you if you knew. And," She licks her lips. "knowing about magic, that the time your teacher's hair turned blue was your fault or when you shrunk that hideous sweater of Dudley's, you'd have attempted to recreate it. There would have been more instances of accidental magic and those are tracked in the Ministry. If a You-Know-Who follower got their hands on the records, if they remembered Mom had a muggle sister and they knew both who she married and where she lived – it was a favorite tactic of theirs; to target the families of muggle-borns, it's how our grandparents died – and realized she had two magically strong kids living with her… Guessing it was us wouldn't be hard."
They had a whole Department at the Ministry for that. From what Kyle explained to her, a child's accidental magic resonated differently than the one channeled by magically mature adults which happened at the age of seventeen – hence the coming of age. It was possible to track it using specialized runic equipment and whenever there was an outburst, the Ministry was notified and they could send out Obliviators to clean up the mess when it happened in muggle territory. As magical children, they were left untouched along with their families, but Mrs. Dodds certainly did not remember the time Dahlia had turned her ears into donkey ones. Without this Department, the secret of magic wouldn't stay a secret for long.
Although, with the era of the internet and social media fast approaching, they will have to greatly restructure themselves if they wanted to continue remaining unnoticed. Hiring tech-savvy muggle-borns would be a good first step.
Harry didn't look convinced. "And after? After you started Hogwarts?"
"Still too dangerous." She lies firmly. "It was for your own good, Harry. Dumbledore himself asked me not to tell you."
It never made sense to her that Dumbledore had left Harry unaware of his magic. Even if Voldemort was gone, Death Eaters remained at large. There got to be one or two just chomping at the bit to have revenge for their Lord's death with a willingness to throw everything away to achieve it. Harry entered the Wizarding world absolutely unprepared. With the Order of the Phoenix currently dissolved, she didn't think he had guards hiding nearby during his first trip to Diagon Alley. Had one of the Death Eaters acted on their wishes, he'd be dead in seconds.
If it had been up to her, Harry would have been trained from childhood. Sure, she understood the need for him to have a normal childhood or a semblance of it – part of the reason why she didn't tell him about Dumbledore's machinations once she was able to – but some self-defense skills against magic users wouldn't hurt. Just enough to give him a fighting chance to run for safety.
…
Hold up. Wizards can teleport. They have several means of teleportation. Why the fuck wasn't Harry given an emergency Portkey? Are wizards fucking idiots?
She exhales forcefully. "Do you have plans for this summer?"
Reminder to self: bug Kyle into getting her a book on Portkeys. She'll fucking make one herself since no one else will. It'll have to be something so commonplace people wouldn't pay attention to it. Something he could carry with himself everywhere without running the risk of accidentally losing it. A cross necklace! Or a saint's depiction. Genius. It wouldn't be considered too girly, and he wouldn't be teased by other boys for wearing it. She thinks. Boys can be stupid.
"Why?" He asks suspiciously.
But where would it send her brother to when activated?
"Because I want to spend time with you?" She says, mouth pursing at his tone.
Duh, just outside Hogwarts' wards, of course. Dumbledore wouldn't let her get in trouble for creating an illegal Portkey and saving his precious Boy-Who-Lived, right? He'll cover for her.
"But you don't like me," Harry claims, voice small. He appeared smaller in his chair, shoulders hunched and head lowered.
She shifts uncomfortably in bed. "I… Yes, I resented you. I blamed you for getting our parents killed and making me a target for Death Eaters. I don't understand you. You're rash and reckless and poke your nose into things that are none of your business. Trouble follows you everywhere and I don't like trouble. But despite all that, I still love you." She smiles down at her lap, a bit wretchedly. "You don't have to like a person to love them, Harry. And I want to do better. I really do. I want us to have a good relationship. So," She takes a deep breath. "can you forgive me? Can you give me another chance for us to be a family?"
Fuck Dumbledore and his plots, she had been already planning on spending the summer with Harry. She wasn't lying; she did genuinely want to rebuild their relationship.
There is a fragile light of hope shining in Harry's eyes and he nods silently. She itches to tell him about Dumbledore, to urge him not to trust the old man, but she can't. At this age, he'll only react negatively to the talk. Harry had already problems trusting people. Telling him Dumbledore was playing games, could break him completely. He would never trust another adult again. He'll never have another close friend and he might ruin his relationship with Ron and Hermione. He'll turn into a reclusive hermit after school. Okay, she's exaggerating, but you get the idea.
Mental issues could last a lifetime and she was trying to get Harry through the war as healthy as possible. Some things were unavoidable, but she could mitigate the damage. She'll tell him when he's ready to handle it. Meaning, when he has finished developing his critical thinking. And probably with a mature Hermione to help her calm him down and think it through.
There a chime from a clock on the wall, and Madam Pomfrey hurries out of her office with more potions.
"We'll talk during the holidays if there you have more questions." She tells her brother as he leaves.
Her next visitors, after a long argument with Madam Pomfrey where she proved she wasn't tired and recovering well, were the Notts and James.
Ava throws herself into her arms with a sharp cry the moment the strict matron had gone back to her office. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Dah!"
She looks up at Kyle, confusion clear on her face.
"She blames herself for not realizing you were missing earlier." The second blond explains. "We went looking for you only nearing curfew time."
"It's not your fault." She says gently to the sobbing girl. "Hogwarts is supposed to be safe. There was no way you could have known I was in danger."
"We were with Professor Snape explaining about your disappearance – that was past curfew when no one had seen you since the last exam and you had yet to come back to the Pit – when Filch came with your wand." James sits down on the mattress by her feet. "We were worried. Dahlia, what happened? We weren't told anything other than that you were recovering in the Hospital Wing."
She pats Ava's hair comfortingly. "The Headmaster was hiding the Philosopher's Stone on the third-floor corridor." She says glibly.
"I'm sorry?" Kyle manages after a moment of shocked silence. "The what?"
"The Philosopher's Stone." She repeats brightly. "You know, created by Nicolas Flamel? Transforms any metal into pure gold and creates the Elixir of Life?"
"We know what it is." James grinds out between clenched teeth. "Why was Dumbledore hiding it in Hogwarts?"
She shrugs. "No idea. I think somebody tried to steal it this summer from the Gringott's bank vault it was kept in and Flamel asked his good friend and student Albus Dumbledore to help out? Quirrell wasn't feeling very chatty when he kidnapped me to use as a hostage in case his own attempt to steal it went wrong."
"How was the Stone protected?" Kyle asks, rubbing his forehead with a grimace.
"A series of chambers on the third floor. The first one had a full-grown Cerberus, the next, a Devil's Snare, the third, flying keys, brooms and a lock unlockable only with one of the aforementioned keys, then one with a giant chess set you needed to win against to get through, one with a mountain troll in it, the sixth had doorways protected by magical fire and the potions needed to pass through the flames unharmed standing hidden among several other bottles with clues provided in the form of a riddle and the Stone was hidden inside a magical mirror in the final chamber." She cheerfully lists off. "And get this, turns out Quirrell was possessed by the Dark Lord's wraith. The entire year. And no one noticed."
Kyle falls heavily into the chair. "That's…"
"Mmh."
"I can't believe…"
"Oh, yeah."
"Did Dumbledore want the Stone stolen?" Ava exclaims, pulling away from her.
"I think it was supposed to be a trap for the Dark Lord actually." She muses aloud.
"Inside a school full of children?" James scoffs. "If that was true, he would be knowingly putting all of us in danger!"
"I'm surprised you aren't surprised about the Dark Lord." She notes.
Kyle waves it off absentmindedly. "There were always rumors of his survival among the loyalists."
Her eyes narrow. "And are you? Loyalists?" She didn't think they were but she had never thought about it either, having been so grateful to finally have friends she hadn't been willing to look the horse in the mouth.
Ava's mouth quirks up. "Would we be friends with you if we were?"
Her head tilts to the side as she considers the question. "You could be lulling me into a false sense of security and kill me when the time is right."
Kyle smiles too. "Well, I suppose you can only trust us not to be."
Yeah, she did, didn't she? She had no way of knowing to who their allegiance belonged. James' family worked with muggles, Ava didn't seem like the type, but Kyle… he could go either way.
"What next?" James asks. "Are you going to raise another fuss like with the spiders?"
"Is there a point?" She asks in turn. "Quirrell is dead, the general populace won't believe me about the Dark Lord and the Stone had been destroyed in the fighting. The Gryffindors had been playing with the obstacles the entire year and no one had been hurt that we know of, so they clearly couldn't have been that dangerous."
"And Dumbledore gets away with endangering his students yet again." Kyle sighs.
"Yep." She pops the p. "And something tells me won't be the last time. Dumbledore's too used to doing things the way he wants to stop now."
"Grand Sorcerer, Supreme Mugwump, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Headmaster of Hogwarts, that's too much power for a single man." James declares angrily.
Especially for a man like Dumbledore, she silently agrees. Deep inside, he remained the same boy who was in love with Gellert Grindelwald and dreamed of ruling the world. He was just doing it from the shadows now, having learned from the mistakes of his former boyfriend.
For the greater good – that phrase and all that it entailed still ruled over him with an iron grip.
"You're still here?!" Madam Pomfrey interrupts. "Visiting hours are over!"
The decorations of the end-of-year feast were predictably green and silver. She cared little for the House Cup since you didn't really win anything other than bragging rights, but it did feel nice to lord their seventh victory in a row over the sulking, dead last Gryffindors.
This time around, Dumbledore isn't able to save his favored House by awarding points for stupid things like for 'the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years' or for 'the use of cool logic in the face of fire' or for 'pure nerve and outstanding courage' or whatever else he could have thought up. The Slytherins won fair and square and no amount of favoritism could take that away from them.
That scene had always annoyed her. If Dumbledore had wanted Gryffindor to win so much, why hadn't he awarded the points earlier in private? Doing it the way he did had been petty and meanspirited.
Imagine you are a seventh-year Slytherin student who is having your last feast at Hogwarts. You have worked your ass off all year doing everything possible to earn all the points you can despite the bias most of the teachers have against your House. At the end of the year that effort pays off. The Slytherins won the Cup – only for that feeling of victory and accomplishment to be snatched away by Dumbledore giving points he had days to give out for very vague reasons to four kids who did… something. You don't actually know what they did either. You've heard they saved the school, but they're firsties, so the rumors were probably way overblown. It got to hurt, being humiliated like that in front of the entire school by your own Headmaster. Nice goodbye to your home of seven years, isn't it?
She'd have much fewer problems with that scene if Dumbledore hadn't made such a spectacle out of it and given the points in the days between when Harry had been in the Hospital Wing.
Their exam results come out and she had unsurprisingly done well on all of them. Not top of the year well – the first five spots were usually Ravenclaws – but well. Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology were her lowest marks and they were both in the Exceeding Expectations range percentage-wise.
Soon enough, she was packing everything up into her trunk and taking a Thestral carriage down to the train station.
The ride back to London is peaceful. She informs James she was intending on spending the summer with her family and that her Abraxan riding lessons will have to be postponed till another time. The Slytherin firsties pop in for a while to wrangle out of her one last heavily edited and slightly exaggerated recounting of her unwanted adventure – she's still miffed Dumbledore hadn't awarded her points for not only surviving but also taking down a madman. Zabini stops by to invite her to a Litha celebration which she has to decline. She never gets to celebrate this particular Sabbat since it usually fell on the end of the term day.
About fifteen minutes before they arrive at King's Cross, she sends the boys out of their compartment to begin changing out of her uniform. Like always, Ava's nose wrinkles in distaste when she sees what she pulled out of her trunk and that was part of the reason she didn't immediately dress muggle when she woke up in the morning. With her Housemates coming by to chat one last time before separating for the summer, Dahlia didn't want to remind them more than necessary of where she lived during the break.
She had two distinct wardrobes. The one she wore at Hogwarts or at any other magical location consisted of the usual school uniform and mainly of a pairing between long and loose skirts with blouses, many of which had a minimal amount of ruffles. Her shoes were heeled Mary Janes and she sneakily wore stockings with garters because she absolutely couldn't stand the more socially accepted tights. Overtop everything went robes which were typically the most elaborate of the garments. And honestly? She didn't really mind. In fact, she loved it. She'd even call wizarding pureblood fashion something of a weird mix of Victorian gothic without the goth part, steampunk without the steampunk part aesthetic with something uniquely wizarding so she literally got to cosplay every day and no one batted an eye. It was awesome. She couldn't wait until she looked old enough for the more adult designs. Especially since – she had been very excited to find out – those ginormous hoopskirts and corsets were out-of-style.
Dahlia had spotted Narcissa once walking down Diagon Alley, and her dress just… Chef kiss. It had a mermaid fishtail ruffle asymmetrical skirt and the top was designed like one of those blouses with the ruffles at the neck and wrists. Her robes weren't that far off from a tight coat that cinched at the waist with several horizontal rows of buttons and flared open at the bottom until the helms dragged slightly on the ground. As she walked, from her long skirt peaked out the pointed toes of heeled Victorian boots. In the ruffles around her neck, she wore a brooch, and large earrings dangled from her ears. Her small, cocked-to-the-side hat had veils at the back and flowers and feathers attached to the ribbon.
Lucius, walking beside his wife, had been no less striking. He had been wearing an equally ruffled at the wrists shirt which he had paired with a tucked-into-a-vest cravat. The piece of silk around his neck had also been secured by a brooch. Similar to corsets and hoopskirts, pantaloons had gone out of fashion a couple of decades earlier, so Malfoy had been wearing normal dress pants. His robes weren't neatly buttoned up like Narcissa's and his dress shoes were polished to a shine. His ever-present snake-headed walking stick had menacingly struck the cobblestone with his every step.
So yeah, she's stating it again; she loved it. True, many preferred to go over the top with eye-searing bright colors (CoughDumbledorecough) and miles of fabric, but she had taste and went with a subtler style. Dark colors like green and crimson and blue and black and the occasional white for contrast were her primary picks. There wasn't too much ruffle and lace and embroidery. She wasn't dripping in expensive jewelry, like Avery. Still, she could see why muggle-born who weren't familiar with terms like gothic and steampunk would consider wizard fashion weird and outdated and continue to stubbornly wear their jeans at school.
The wardrobe she wore during the summer entailed mainly of muggle fashion which meant lots of jeans and flannel shirts combined with plain Keds, though she had also splurged for a pair of Dr. Martens. Very grunge, and neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon were very happy with her choices, but she blended in with the rest of the teens her age so they didn't complain much. It helped that even in her first life she much preferred Kurt Cobain over Justin Bieber. Had she been born a decade or two earlier, she'd been right there with the punks and the rockers. Hell, she still was. She'd blown a lot of her hard-earned money on a Walkman as a kid and she still brought it everywhere when she wasn't at Hogwarts where she suffered from music deprivation. Fuck did she wish for a good hard rock song after ten months of listening to the same Celestina Warbeck album for the thousands time the Gryffindors played it on the wireless outside. And the Weird Sisters had nothing, nothing on their muggle counterparts. Her Housemates? She usually didn't mind the operas and orchestras they softly played in the Pit since it was very soothing when studying, but it all blended together after a while with absolutely no originality. There was never anything new on.
They are among the last to get off the Hogwarts Express and as soon as they step foot on the platform, they are accosted by a woman. Malfoy blond and grey-eyed, her delicate features bared a remarkable resemblance to the ones of the Nott siblings.
"Kylian, Avalyn, there you are." She snaps harshly. "Do hurry up, I have places to be."
"Hello, Mrs. Nott." Dahlia politely inclines her head and James bows slightly in the proper wizarding etiquette.
The woman looks taken aback. "What on earth are you wearing?!"
"It's muggle fashion, mother," Ava interjects. "I promise she wears proper clothes at school."
"Well, I do hopes so. How unsightly." Mrs. Nott sniffs haughtily.
"Girl!" Uncle Vernon's impatient bellow is audible even through the gateway leading back to the Muggle world.
She winces and lowers her head again. "I apologize, my uncle is calling for me. I wish you all a good summer."
After a hasty goodbye to her friends, she flounces off towards the barrier and her muggle relatives. One hopefully normal summer avoiding her unpleasant relatives coming up.
Dumbledore is hard to write, guys. Trying to portraying a manipulative bastard as a caring eccentric grandfather (I don't think I have quite managed that part) while writing from the point of view from someone who knows he's a manipulative bastard and he doesn't know actually knows they know… Eugh. I mean, I know Rowling's didn't intend for him to come out that way, but honestly, I can't imagine him as anything else. He might be trying to do some good, but the way he goes around doing it isn't exactly the nicest.
Snape's hard too, by the way. For different reasons. I keep making him all soft and fluffy. Which he isn't.
Please review. I can't improve if I don't know what you think.
I don't own Harry Potter.
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