I have been accused of being a pathetic abuse apologist without much detail, and I think it was because of this chapter.
First thing you should know about me: I'm not. I don't condone abuse in any shape or form. But I have also never been abused either, except by that one girl in third-year who verbally bullied me for a year before stopping, so I barely remember anything about it. I might have trouble spotting anything that would remind anyone of their own bad experience, so here's your warning, I guess.
The Dursleys aren't good people. They are better than in canon and especially what is often depicted of them in fanon and Dahlia lists off 'reasons' behind their horrible behaviour. Another commentator has pointed out that her line of thought is pretty on par with how people in those situations think about the abuse. She was three when she went to live with them. With her age and Dumbledore's spell on her (it's in the chapter), there was nothing she could have done. Police would have attempted to remove them from the location and fail because of it. Plus, even if they did somehow miraculously manage it, Dumbledore would have sent them back the moment he realized they are gone. So, she gradually got used to it. She had to and she told herself that as long as they weren't hit or starved, she was fine with it since words didn't usually bother her much. She justified their behaviour because otherwise she'd have been very miserable.

Chapter Two

The next morning, she's the first one up. After a short trip to the bathroom, where she spends most of her time fighting with her hair, she slings her schoolbag over her shoulder and leaves the dormitory just as the other girls start stirring awake. The Curse of the Potter hair is real, guys. Trying to tame it every morning was an exercise of patience, and cutting it short would be a horrible fashion decision on her part, so she was stuck with Sleekeazy's Hair Potion and Scalp Treatment potion.

James was already waiting for her, impatiently pacing in the Common Room.

"Morning." He greets.

"Good morning to you too." She replies. "Shall we?"

The Great Hall is still almost full when they arrive with the Slytherin table as the only exception.

For generations, older Slytherins had passed down their knowledge of secret corridors and passageways to their newest Housemates at the start of every year. As a result, while a student from another House might take fifteen minutes to walk from the Great Hall to the dungeons, they only needed five. They were Kings of the Hogwarts' Basement, having left no corner unexplored, no stone overturned in their investigations. Their small kingdom was full of secrets only they knew, and that would remain so for as long as the castle stood. Plus, they got to have loads of fun watching the other Houses huff and puff as they attempt to reach the potions classroom in time, as they leave much later and still arrive earlier than them.

She suspected Salazar Slytherin or some other powerful Slytherin had been a cold bastard that hated wasting more time than needed walking from place to place and had decided to fix the problem by literally carving shortcuts into the walls of Hogwarts. It was a very nice perk for the rest of them.

The same principle applied to their mornings. They were able to sleep in and still have ample time to eat, unlike the tower-dwelling Gryffindors and Ravenclaws which is why their table only filled up fully about half an hour before classes began.

Hufflepuffs were cheats who lived next to the kitchens, so they didn't count.

Breakfast is a lively affair, the tables laden with porridge, toast, eggs and bacon, and pitchers of pumpkin juice which she avoided in favor of a cup of freshly brewed black tea. That drink was vile, and she is never touching it again.

Eventually, the House Heads start moving along the tables handing out the course schedules.

"Miss Potter."

She looks up from her plate. "Hello, Professor Snape."

Severus Snape's physical appearance really wasn't as bad as Rowling had portrayed him. His skin was sallow only because he spent so much time in the dungeons brewing, and similarly, his hair was oily only due to the fumes from his potions. And his nose wasn't that big, either. Very Jewish.

His personality… Well, he'd never treated her badly, despite being a Potter and as such his nemesis' daughter. He seemed mostly content to ignore her as long as she caused him no trouble. He had been more attentive to her during the first year, but he had been probably looking for signs of her father's behavior in her. She supposed her Slytherin sorting had thrown him and had made him more willing to really see her and not a female James Potter copy with Lily's eyes. The lack of glasses had possibly helped too.

Moreover, his teaching style wasn't bad. In the books, Harry's dislike for the man had colored his descriptions of him, she had decided two potion classes in. He was strict, yes, but it was because he needed to be. Historically, potion classes had one of the highest death tolls along with Care of Magical Creatures. It was a highly precise art where a single wrong step could spell disaster not only for the brewer but for those around him too. A pinch more of an ingredient than needed could lead to an explosion. Stirring in the wrong direction could lead to poisonous fumes. Chopping instead of mincing could turn an otherwise perfectly good Pepperup into something that will boil alive the one drinking it instead of merely warming them up. Professor Snape couldn't afford to be nice. Especially not to dunderheaded Gryffindors who threw fireworks into cauldrons full of unstable and potentially explosive liquid.

He passes her a piece of parchment and moves on, cloak flaring dramatically behind him. Now that was something to admire. He made it look so easy, but she's caught more than one person attempting to recreate it with no success. She had money bet on it being a spell of some sort. If a man could invent a curse that could cut a person open, he could definitely invent such a charm for his cloak.

"Muggle Studies first…"

"Be grateful, I've got Arithmancy first thing this morning, instead." She tells James, returning her attention back to her timetable. "And then we've got Care of Magical Creatures together with the Gryffindors."

"Potions and Defense are with them too." He grumbles in reply. "At least, Herbology and Transfiguration is with Ravenclaw."

"They always put us with Gryffindor," Burke says. "You'd think they'd have learned by now."

They laugh, thinking of the various explosions that happened during their two years of schooling. Some have been accidents, that's true, but others? Not so much.

It helped when Professor Snape was willing to turn a blind eye when it was his Slytherins doing mischief.

And it wasn't anything too dangerous. They'd learned their lesson concerning that too.

Pucey is acting out Alicia Spinet's frankly hilarious reaction to her Babbling Beverage splattering all over her as they leave the Great Hall when someone interrupts with a loud exclamation. "What are you doing here?!"

"Going to school. Honestly, what else would I be doing here, Harry?" She steps to the side of the doors leading to the Great Hall, mindful of the coming and going of the other students.

"You're a wizard?" He splutters sounding shocked.

"A witch, actually, but yes, I have magic." She peers at her brother in concern. "Is everything alright?"

"NO!" He almost shouts. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't allowed to at first. And then you got your letter." She explains, bewildered. She's absolutely certain Hagrid told him their parents were wizards, and she had been disappearing to a mysterious school she never spoke about since she turned eleven. It seemed fairly obvious to her even if no one straight up told him. "I thought you knew."

"How long did you know about this?" He demands. "How long did you know about magic?"

"Oh, Harry." She says helplessly. "Always. One of my earliest memories is of Mum making my toys dance in the air for me." In this life anyway.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asks again, only this time with less anger and more betrayal.

"Yeah, why didn't you tell him?!" Ron pipes up from beside him, indignantly.

"Because Dumbledore didn't want me to tell you. He wanted you to have a normal childhood." She defends herself. Naturally, it was more complicated than that, but she really didn't want to get into this in the middle of the Entrance Hall during breakfast. Or while Harry was eleven. Actually, it was a conversation she wasn't planning on having with him for a long while yet.

"With the Dursleys?" Harry says incredulously, and she winces.

That hurt. She knew she hadn't been the best sister, but she had thought Harry had been at least somewhat happy.

"Listen, Potter," James suddenly interjects harshly while the others threateningly finger their wands. "I don't know about you, but we've got classes to get to. Save this for later. Much later."

Faced with eight or so older Slytherins, the two first-year lions back off, and walk away, shooting them angry glances. She stands watching them, clutching the strap of her bag.

"I think I just ruined his very first day of school." She says glumly.

Zabini sneers. "It's not your fault, Potter. Your brother's a Gryffindor idiot, that's all."

"Thanks." She replies in a dry voice.

James gives her a one-arm hug. "We can talk about this after class if you want. Get Ava too. She'll know what to do."

"No." She smiles gratefully at him. "It's fine. I'll see you in Care."

Despite previously having been excited about her Arithmancy class, she finds herself dragging her feet now. She'd hoped to fix her relationship with Harry when he started attending Hogwarts. She'd imagined mentoring him through his classes and subtly helping in his adventures with her almost Potterhead-level knowledge while staying out of them. She thought he'd understand why she hadn't told him about the truth about their parents and their magic. A month, she had assumed, would be enough for him to calm down from his justified anger. But that he hadn't even realized that she also could use magic… She hadn't been hiding it either, leaving her textbooks and assignments lying around everywhere in their shared room when she was home. How in the world could he have missed that?

"He doesn't look much like you," Pucey observes.

She startles slightly, having forgotten she wasn't alone. "Who, Harry? Everyone always says we look like our father." Though she didn't quite agree. Her brother, maybe. Her? She thought she looked more like Katie McGrath, for some reason. A Morgana Katie McGrath before she went mad.

"He's got your coloring, but you've got that casual Black elegance he doesn't."

"My great-grandmother, the one who married Henry Potter, was a Black." She recalls faintly.

"We know," Zabini says. "You simply must read Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy, Potter."

"I am." She protests because she's surrounded by high-class pure-bloods day in and day out. "There's a lot to get through, and I'm always getting distracted by more interesting reading material."

Pucey sighs sympathetically. "That thing's a bore."

She gives him a pitying glance. Most pure-blood heirs had to memorize their entire family tree by the time they were six. It was at times like those she was glad to be part of the blood-traitors community. No unrealistic expectations from her parents for one had they not been offed by Voldemort.

In the Arithmancy classroom, she joined by Ava who takes one look at her, and her mouth thins into a line. "Something happened." She deduces.

She shakes her head, reaching into her leather satchel for her things. It was her third most expensive possession, bought in a muggle store for about a hundred-and-twenty pounds, and then charmed with an Undetectable Extension Charm by a wizard for a couple of Galleons, but it was extremely useful and well worth the money she paid for it. That she could use it in both worlds without attracting strange looks was just a bonus.

"Something must have happened." Ava insists. "Was it your brother? Is he upset that you're in Slytherin?"

Her second most expensive possession was a set of intricate fountain pens with cartridges of different colored ink she also bought in an antique muggle store. After a year of dealing with quills, which needed meticulous maintenance and often broke, she's called it quits and never looked back. Archaic nonsense, she thought. It was the same reason she used parchment for only the final copy of the homework she was going to hand in to her teachers. All her notes were taken on lined paper which she kept carefully organized in leather-bound three-ring binders. Why leather-bound, exactly? Well, she did have appearances for her to keep up around her more Muggle-hating Housemates, and plastic would have looked a little out of place.

"Dahlia, either you tell me, or I will ask James. You know he'll tell me."

"Harry is angry at me for not telling him about magic." She gives up.

Ava tilts her head, confused. "Why didn't you?"

"Because I wasn't allowed too." She hisses aggravated. "When Dumbledore left us at the Dursleys he specifically told me not to utter a word about wizards to Harry. He even cast a spell on me to make sure I wouldn't. Hell, I couldn't even write it."

Professor Vector enters the classroom, and Ava turns to the front. "We'll talk about this later." She promises with steely determination. "This conversation is not over."

She groans in reply, defeated.

Arithmancy turns out to be very much like muggle mathematics were using the magical properties of numbers and many complicated equations competent Arithmancers could predict even the future. It had nothing of the wooliness Divination had and was heavily based on logic and probabilities. She could see why it would become Hermione's favorite class. It was very logical.

Their teacher, Professor Septima Vector, reminded her of Professor McGonagall, a strict and no-nonsense kind of witch. Already, by the end of their first class, they had a pile of complicated homework assigned for the next week.

Most of the students came out of the classroom looking shell-shocked and were clearly regretting taking the class. Except for the muggle-born; they looked smug.

"I knew something of our so-called useless pre-Hogwarts education will be helpful." One says to his friend gleefully.

Their Care of Magical Creatures teacher was Silvanus Kettleburn who was missing all his limbs but an arm and half of one leg. He was reckless but brilliant, and best of all, he didn't teach from the Monster Book of Monsters, preferring Newt Scamander's harmless Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. She'll miss him when he retires.

It was unfortunate they had to share the class with Gryffindor. They were starting with Nifflers, Professor Kettleburn's favorite creatures, and perhaps one of hers now too – they were just so cute! – and the Weasley twins along with Jordan had looked frighteningly contemplative amidst their disruptive horsing around. She had spent more time than she'd liked watching them suspiciously. They had a bit of a rivalry going on, you see… Nothing serious, but it had landed each of them, including her to her slight chagrin, in detention more than once.

It had all begun by them pranking her in the middle of lunch in the Great Hall the second week of school. She had her pride and was having a tough time getting along with her new Housemates because of her so-called tainted blood, so she had snapped under the pressure and humiliation. Turns out, the twins hadn't liked being cursed right back. They upped their game and pranked her again. She cursed them. By Christmastime, they were dueling in corridors.

It was worth noting she was never to one who initiated the conflict. She was better than that, both as an adult albeit only mentally and a Slytherin, though she wasn't above dishing out revenge. She could hold grudges pretty damn well if she felt like it, and boy did she dislike the Weasley Twins and Lee Jordan by association.

By the end of the day, she was feeling content again, and it was with a smile she enters an unused classroom in a long-abandoned wing of the fourth floor after dinner.

She passes the few remaining desks that had been pushed to the side and walks up the stairs that lead to what used to be a teacher's office. When they had found it, it had been a small, mostly bare room but ever since they had started using it for themselves, it had slowly changed. The shelves along the walls had been filled with interesting books, remnants of the professor who once occupied the space and who had a wide-ranging interest while the floor was covered by a plush carpet and what must have been several dozen cushions of various color and size. A fire now permanently burned in the fireplace, and in the corner, an enchanted phonograph played soothing music. It was messy and cluttered, and it might not have been the Room of Requirement, but neither did it need to be.

She and her friends were the only ones who knew about the room except for the Weasley Twins against who the place was heavily warded. The last time they tried coming in, it ended with a trip to the hospital wing for them. It was sometimes nice to have pure-blooded associates despite their rampant bigotry. Got you access to otherwise untouchable recourses like their well-stocked family libraries.

Ava was already curled up in one of the two lumpy couches they had managed to transfigure after many trials and errors, and Kyle had claimed the other, so she drops down on a pile of cushions instead. Behind her, James closes the door and joins her on the floor with a relieved exhale.

"Finally." He grunts, stretching. "I've missed this place."

"I think we all did," Ava says, and with a wave of her wand and a few muttered words fills four floating mugs with hot cocoa. She grabs one of them from the air when it drifts by and blows on the steam carefully.

"I hear we need to have quite the talk today," Kyle says, eyeing her prudently over his own mug. Evidently, his sister had filled him in.

James sits up, leaning his elbows on his crossed knees, and Ava uncurls on her couch, sitting properly and looking attentive. She wasn't getting out of this one.

"When You-Know-Who killed our parents, my godparents were already dead, and Harry's turned out to be a Death Eater." She begins haltingly, deliberating on what she should and should not say. Sirius Black, for example, was innocent, but she had no proof and no way to explain why she thought him as such. "I believe we were supposed to have gone to the Longbottoms – Alice was Harry's godmother – but…" Here, she shrugs helplessly. The fate of Alice and Frank Longbottom was not an unknown one to most British wizards. "Maybe they suspected they would be attacked because when Hagrid found us, he didn't take us to them, but rather to our muggle aunt's house. There, he met Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall."

"What was McGonagall doing there?" James asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

"I have no idea." She shakes her head, staring into her mug. "You have to understand, I was three-years-old, exhausted, and terrified. I wasn't in any state to question anything. It's a wonder I remember as much as I do."

"What happened next?" Ava prompts.

"Dumbledore made me promise to never speak a word of magic to Harry because he was afraid that being famous for something he didn't remember, for something he did before he was walking or talking, would be enough to turn his head. He cast a spell on me to make certain I wouldn't accidentally blab, gave me Harry and a letter for the muggles, and sat me down on the doorstep. Next thing I know, I'm being woken half-frozen by Aunt Petunia's terrified scream in the morning."

"He left you in an enchanted sleep on a doorstep, at night, in November, with no blankets or warming charms, with a baby and a single letter to explain your presence to the muggles?" Ava exclaims horrified. "He expected them to take you in just like that? Did he ever check if they were able to afford to take care of two more children? Muggles do use money, correct?"

"Yes, they use money, they're not animals. But I don't know if they could afford it." She says.

The Dursleys weren't filthy rich, but they used to be a stable middle-class family. And while she was not entirely certain, she did think that her and Harry's presence started straining their finances in the long run. Why else would Aunt Petunia start working part-time as a secretary? Raising three children at the same time wasn't easy, and especially not when two of them had been unwanted in the first place. Dudley had still been spoiled rotten, of course, but he received piles of presents only on his birthdays and for Christmas, and they never reached the numbers Rowling's had claimed they did. What was it again, thirty-six? Thirty-seven?

It did explain some of their behavior Harry had described in the books, though. And she had born witness to some occurrences that her brother had been too young to remember but had explained much of the rest. For instance, the cupboard under the stairs. When they had first arrived, he'd been so scared of everything and everyone he'd spent days screaming for their parents. He only calmed down once he crawled into the cupboard and had locked himself in there by accident when Aunt Petunia had been cleaning the house. The Dursleys had been so thankful for the quiet when they had found him again that they had set up a crib for him in there when he'd restarted his screaming fit the moment they tried to pull him out. She hadn't complained either, because she'd finally been able to sleep properly without a pounding headache for the first time in weeks, and she had gotten him out and into her room eventually. Not the smallest either, which had been the one Harry moved into after his Hogwarts acceptance letters started arriving, and Dudley had kept his broken and unwanted toys in Rowling's universe. Aunt Petunia had declared that bedroom too small for both Harry and her, and it was Dudley's now. She shared the bigger one with Harry.

She knows; it had surprised her too.

The chores? That was because Harry couldn't stop getting in trouble even as a young child. Leave him unattended for a second, and he'd be trying to make friends with a venomous adder. Or he'd be running into traffic because he spotted something shiny on the other side. Or he'd be eating candy given to him by some suspicious shady character. In short, Harry had almost gotten himself killed often. The chores kept him concentrated on his task and most importantly out of trouble, and they never were more than what he could safely handle. She'd supervised him herself when he had started learning how to cook at the age of eight. He was absolutely not preparing complex dishes by the time he'd turned three like she'd heard some people assume in her previous life in the Harry Potter fandom.

Oh, and the food. What did the fans say again? The Dursleys were starving poor Harry? Depriving him of meals as a punishment? About that. Turns out, Harry had been a very picky little boy. Feeding him properly was an incredibly difficult task, so Aunt Petunia finally gave up and started giving him exactly what he wanted even if that meant feeding him bread and cheese every day. She had never been able to eat a lot, being able to live healthily off less food than most, but even that looked reasonable compared to the amounts Harry would eat without complaining. Everyone got so used to his empty plates at dinnertime they forgot he needed more food, and even Harry had never said a word when he got over his picky tendencies.

And there had been no physical abuse from the adults either, although they certainly had not minced their words. There were absolutely no frying pans being swung to the head or burns from being forcefully pressed to the hot stove, and Uncle Vernon took out his belt only once or twice when they really had deserved it. He had also pulled his blows and hit their soft bottoms, not their backs. They weren't scarred to hell and back. They hadn't needed to hide broken bones or bruise marks from fat fingers from other adults.

It was Dudley who was a bully, and he'd been smart enough to never do it in front of grownups, so if Harry had avoided confrontations he'd been fine. Besides, she made sure Dudley would know what would happen if he thought of continuing his little hunting game with Harry pretty early. He might have been heavier than her by far even then, but she had several years of martial arts under her belt from her previous life. Against a couple of little kids? They didn't stand a chance. Dudley learned his lesson and never again went further beyond prodding and pinching.

It hadn't been great. Verbal and emotional abuse never was okay, but it could have been worse, and anyway, it had been mostly name-calling and badmouthing James and Lily with the occasional 'lazy' and 'ungrateful' and the ever-popular 'freak' thrown their way. The Dursleys might not have been parents of the year, and they might have been neglectful, but they were far from 'the worst kind of muggles' Professor McGonagall. Neither of them had turned into Obscurials, have they? Neither Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon were the second coming of Mary Lou Barebone.

"Why Hagrid?" Kyle asks when his sister looks too dismayed to says anything else.

"I don't know." She says heavily. "Truth to be told, the first one to find us was Sirius, and it's only after he coaxed me out of my hiding place that Hagrid appeared. He said something about Dumbledore having sent him for us, so Sirius gave him his flying motorcycle and disappeared. It's only after I returned to the Wizarding world that I learned what happened to him." That last part was false, but how could she have known the truth being stuck with the muggles? She was trying to keep her knowledge from the books and movies secret.

"Then why didn't Black kill you? If he was a loyal Death Eater he should have finished the job for his Lord." Kyle musses.

"Never mind that," James says impatiently. "The man was obviously mad. I want to know why you didn't find another wizard to help you."

"I couldn't. It must have been a boundary spell, like the one they cast on little children to prevent them from wandering off. I couldn't leave beyond a certain distance from the house. Drove the Dursleys mad too, before we figured it out. It only faded away once I received my first Hogwarts' letter."

"How awful," Ava whispers, clutching her mug close to her chest.

James gestures with his hands widely, almost spilling his hot cocoa. "This has to be illegal! You were essentially a prisoner of your own home!"

She laughs bitterly. "It isn't. Not for Dumbledore. He'll claim it was for my own safety or the safety of the Boy-Who-Lived, and he'll get away scot-free."

"Not even with a slap on his wrist." Kyle agrees with her.

Dumbledore was so well regarded by most wizards, few would be willing to believe he was in the wrong. They would say she was an ungrateful child who knew little of the world and didn't understand the honor of having The Great and Powerful and Noble Albus Dumbledore worry about her well-being. She'd spent eight years of her life unable to step further than the local school, and there was nothing she could do about it. There had been no trips to the zoo or the movie theater. No restaurants, or shopping. Aunt Petunia had to measure her at home and buy clothes for her without knowing if they fit properly or if she would even like them. She always worried that the neighbors will know there was something wrong by realizing that her forever polite and respectful niece wore ill-fitting, outdated clothes. She'd made sure the Dursleys couldn't say anything bad about her by working summer jobs and babysitting year-round throughout the neighborhood. It had been a little harder to fix her brother's reputation.

"Are you going to tell Harry about Dumbledore's spells?" Ava inquires in a low voice several minutes later. They'd been all sitting deep in thoughts and had been unwilling to be the one to break the uneasy silence first.

"No. Not yet, at least." She amends immediately. "In a few years, maybe. When he's older. He doesn't need to know Dumbledore was willing to go such lengths to keep us with the muggles he hates just yet."

"And the other Slytherins? Will they give you grief over this?"

She snorts, amused, but doesn't answer.

"They know how to be discreet," James assures the siblings. "They'll be curious, but they won't ask. Family matters stay family matters."

"That's a relief." Ava sighs, and takes a sip from her mug, before grimacing. It had gone cold.

"But what should I tell Harry?" She wonders. "He won't forgive me without a good reason."

"Tell him bad people were looking for him, hence Dumbledore hid you where they wouldn't look," Kyle suggests. "He didn't let you speak of magic because he feared Harry would go looking for it alone and without protection and get killed."

"I wouldn't be lying either." She hums considering it. "For all we know, that's exactly why he gave us to the muggles. Death Eaters would have looked for him after their Lord's death, and they would have never thought to look for our mudblood mother's remaining family."

Of course, she knew the real reason they went to the Dursleys was because of the alleged bond of blood charm Dumbledore has cast on Harry after Lily had sacrificed herself for him. As long as he called 4 Privet Drive home or until he turned seventeen, Harry could not be touched or harmed by Voldemort from the moment Aunt Petunia agreed to take him in. Only now that she thought about it… She had been so concerned with following the storyline she forgot one crucial thing. She existed. She was Harry's closest blood-relative. There had been no need for the Dursleys. And that changed things.

They could have just as easily stayed in the Wizarding World as long as they stayed together. If Dumbledore had been so concerned about Death Eaters he could have given them to some of his most trusted members of the Order of the Phoenix. God, she'd have happily accepted even Alastor Moody or Aberforth Dumbledore as an adoptive parent over the Dursleys.

And if it was the fame he was worried about, then he could have changed their names until it was time for Harry to attend Hogwarts. With a few glamour charms and makeup, they could have been made virtually unrecognizable.

Or they could have been sent out of the country to France, to China, to fucking Alaska!

There had been no need for the Dursleys. From the beginning, Dumbledore knew Petunia Dursley would not cheerfully take in her magical nephew and niece. And particularly not after magic took away her sister, because despite their estranged relationship, she still loved her. Aunt Petunia would never let herself get close to them, never let herself love them because she would always be afraid they will also die. She would forever worry their magic protection – if it ever existed in the first place because how was she to know she wasn't being lied to – will fail like it had failed for her sister and her family will suffer. That her husband and her son will die by magic, unable to protect themselves because she agreed to raise Lily's children.

She glowers into her cup feeling frustrated. Trying to accurately guess what Dumbledore was thinking was impossible. She could only accept it happened the way it did and move on. "I'll give Harry some time to calm down. Maybe he'll think of an explanation on his own." She says without much hope.

Her friends exchanged doubtful glances. She glares at them, daring to say anything about her happy fantasy. They – smartly – don't. Instead, Kyle pulls out his homework, and James falls over into the cushions with a dramatic groan, cocoa almost spilling everywhere again.

Everyone laughs, and the morose atmosphere is broken. Their own homework is quickly pulled out too, and they set themselves to completing it. That was the good thing about having a Ravenclaw upperclassman for a friend, they were never late handing their assignments in. Kyle made sure they had everything done almost as soon as it was assigned. He also made certain to check it over for any mistakes and proofread their essays. When he found the time while doing his own work perfectly, she had no idea. He was scarily efficient like that.

On the plus side, they always had good marks and never had to cram for their exams last minute.

Their very own Hermione Granger. Only less know-it-all teacher's pet and more hardass honor roll student tutor. Both she and James knew the moment they attempted to have him do their work for them, he'd drop them like hot potatoes. He didn't stand for that kind of shit. Predominantly, it was because he couldn't bear putting up with stupid people. Needless to say, he found the majority of the school intolerable. She and James became friends with him only because they had befriended Ava first. He'd have never given them the time of the day otherwise.

I don't own Harry Potter. Anything you recognize is Rowling's.