Magical Lineages
XXX
Magic was a complicated thing.
In truth, it was never a 'human' thing in the first place. Magic came from... a lot of things. Everything from dragons, to veela, to goblins, to giants, to hippogriffs. Magic came to humans from a great many different directions.
That was the truth of it. The undeniable and unavoidable truth.
Humans with magic were humans born from a union of human and non-human parents.
In the beginning, they were the legendary heroes of their times. Born into greatness, corrupted into madness, fallen into ruin. A magical human was inevitably linked to a life of extremes, because they were different from those around them.
Some were worshiped as gods, others were ostracized and hunted, and still others just... never quite fit in with their surroundings.
But as time passed, they too had children of their own, and humans and non-humans continued to have children together.
From having been rare to the point where a magical human was unlikely to meet another magical human in their entire lifetime, to becoming common enough that there could be several of them within just a couple of villages.
Time passed and things changed, but magical humans were still different. They saw the world differently than either of their parents, a mental and emotional shift that left them unsuited for life among either side of their family-trees.
But like seeks out like, and so the magical humans started to form small communities. Places where their oddities, whilst still different from the oddities of those around them, were simply accepted as a part of who they needed to be.
A part-giant who could never quite let go of the thrill of violence, a part-veela who'd descend into a murderous rage if deceived-... Magical humans all had their own little quirks, their own inhuman traits.
As the communities grew, their various lineages intermingled. Sometimes with disastrous results, when truly inhuman traits surfaced.
A part-acromantula mingling with a part-manticore, leaving a child who irreversibly hungered for human flesh. A part-veela suddenly inheriting a dragon-trait of murderous rage if their hoard was threatened.
Some of these things could be... accounted for. Everyone knew better than to steal from a dragon, or to be rude to a hippogriff. But a veela? Why should a veela care if someone called them names?
This type of intermingling became a problem, because nobody knew what to expect from the magical humans. And trying to avoid a problem could easily leave people walking on egg-shells in ways that just weren't feasible long-term.
That said, as the 'old blood' settled in, those inhuman traits often started to fade. Not completely, of course, but they became manageable even for those who possessed them.
A descendant of a giant could acknowledge that they did enjoy a certain thrill from violent things, and could simply shrug that enjoyment off and focus their desires on something else. After all, just because they found joy in something, didn't mean they had to somehow build their lives around that thing.
Thus came the first real separation in magical society. The gap between the 'old blood' and the 'new blood'.
The new-bloods were inherently volatile. Powerful and at times maybe even predictable – if you knew their heritage – but they would never quite settle down into roles not defined by their own inhumanity. Their inhuman heritage was too strong for that.
The old-bloods were a much more settled sort. Excepting for where two long lineages mixed, since nobody could every wholly predict what traits might resurface.
So old-bloods monitored their lineages closely, and tried to make certain that their children only inherited the 'best parts' of their own inhumanity.
But magic was magic, and it never entirely belonged to humanity. Not like that.
So old-bloods started giving birth to 'squibs'. Humans without magic. Sometimes, they were just as unpredictable in temperament as the new-bloods, but without the magic to back them up, they were never considered as such.
Squibs were discarded, hidden away, and even killed. A shame upon the good name of the old-blood family who birthed it, because they'd clearly failed to predict how their own line would be affected by whomever they'd chosen as a co-parent.
By the end of it, even speaking of their own well-known inhuman lineage became something of a taboo, because it hinted at an uncertainty in their lineage. And with the passage of time, the old-bloods had hastily swept the origin of their own lineages under the rug, until the idea of mating with a magical creature was considered a deviant one by any and all.
And then came the Statute of Secrecy, and the new-bloods practically vanished over-night.
Without muggles being allowed to in any way interact with magical creatures, there simply were no more children being born of such unions. So they stopped appearing.
It didn't quite spell the end for new-bloods, because even with the social stigma attached to it, some old-bloods fell in love. Or simply fell into bed. But they were a dwindling population.
But even as the new-bloods dwindled and squibs continued to be born, muggleborns entered the scene.
It was theorized by some that muggleborns came from the lineages of squibs, where the magic had suddenly reappeared in their descendants, but with how hidden away those squibs had become over the centuries, no investigation ever managed to prove anything at all.
This was the truth of the history on the origin of the Wizarding World, even if most old-bloods knew nothing about it. And even those who did know, would never admit to knowing it in public, on the risk of being ostracized by all members of their society.
Holly knew these things perhaps better than most.
She'd done the research-... Well, technically it was more that she'd helped Hermione do the research, and then slowly begun poking hole into her theories.
Hermione was a brilliant witch, but she had a righteous streak a mile wide, and was the kind of person who'd force 'salvation' down someone's throat with violence if she thought that they needed it. And the idea of someone having sex with a hippogriff offended her on an instinctual level, to the point where she'd constantly been trying to shift her own evidence into disproving the idea of it having ever happened.
Holly couldn't exactly blame her for that. She'd have hexed someone if they'd implied that her mother had had sex with a hippogriff.
No, the reason why Holly had been able to be a bit more... 'objective' about it had been because of Hagrid.
There had never been any doubt that Hagrid had giant-blood in him, whether that be because of his size, his resistance to magic, his factual family-history, or his fascination with violent magical creatures. Every sign pointed to exactly what might be expected of someone born with giant-heritage.
And Hagrid was a good man. A kind man.
The idea that somewhere in Holly's family-tree was a 'false name' of something inhuman covered up? It made Holly feel a bit closer to her first and oldest friend. A small shred of shared family-history, when Holly knew that there was very little of it to go around.
So Holly poked holes in Hermione's excuses, forcing her to confront the realization that at some point one of her ancestors likely had had sex with a hippogriff. Or with something similar.
And Hermione despaired about it, because whenever she tried to show anyone else the proof of it, they called her a liar. A liar and a deviant.
Of course Holly sided with Hermione, and so did Ron, even if it nearly saw him being disowned by his mother. But that just saw mud being flung in Holly's and the Weasleys' direction as well.
The Wizarding World refused to believe. And after making a valiant effort, both Holly and Hermione decided to simply let sleeping dogs lie.
The 'origin of magic' being known and wildly accepted wouldn't somehow save the world from injustices. And really, there was very little to be gained from continuing to push for it to become known.
The outrage slowly dwindled, Holly's relationship with Ginny didn't survive Molly's displeasure, and Ron basically cut contact with his parents. Things mostly meandered along.
And then another Dark Lord showed up, and Holly got pulled into another war.
After that business was dealt with however, someone started censoring literally everything in the hopes of forever stopping a new Dark Lord from ever showing up. After all, if all of the Dark families are in prison and all of the Dark Arts are punishable with lifetime in prison, then nobody can become a 'Dark' Lord.
Hermione had had opinions about it, and Holly had a few too many memories of Umbridge to be comfortable with the idea, but even as war-heroes their words could only do so much. And so, inevitably, things that were vaguely inconvenient to the Ministry of Magic became labeled as 'Dark'.
Everything from inheritance-rituals – which would stop lineages from disappearing without heirs, thus allowing the Ministry to claim their Gringotts-vaults – to defensive spells that could see people putting up resistance against the Ministry's aurors.
Of course they spoke up against it, Ron in particular had had a massive shouting-match with the Minister at the time, but that just saw the Ministry point out how 'unsavory' their methods in either of the wars against Dark Lords had been. How they were clearly only speaking out out of self-interest.
Holly was forty-three and rather tired of politics, when the aurors finally arrived on her doorstep with a warrant for her arrest and immediate imprisonment in Azkaban.
And that was the story of how Holly finally snapped.
Burning down the Ministry of Magic with Fiendfyre was a cruel thing to do. It targeted completely innocent people who'd simply been trying to live their lives.
But at this point Holly's blood was boiling in a freezing cold rage, and she honestly couldn't bring herself to care about it.
Nor could she care about shattering the wards of Hogwarts like an egg, and murdering her way through nearly a dozen different teachers who were trying to teach the next generation of wizards and witches that these new laws were very important for the continued survival of their society.
She honestly lost count of how many people she killed in that cold haze of insurmountable rage.
And then she was at King's Cross, and Dumbledore was there, frowning at her like she was a disobedient child.
So Holly grabbed the fabric of that place, and she pulled, and she buried her fangs in Dumbledore's neck and she ripped, and King's Cross ruptured into the shredded void of reality.
Only then did Holly pause to take a long and deep breath. Only then did she start to wonder about what exactly she'd done to get to that point.
In hindsight, perhaps Holly had always been suspiciously at ease about thestrals.
In the beginning, she'd been confused about why she could see something that others couldn't, and she'd started to worry about her sanity as a result. But she'd never really looked at them and seen something ominous.
There was a certain regal beauty to them that Holly had never been entirely unable to admire.
They smelled like home-...
So perhaps it wasn't a hippogriff in her family-tree, specifically. Not that it really mattered much.
Holly took another deep breath, and then... let go of the shredded reality, let herself float away unhindered into the void.
It was peaceful.
Holly reluctantly acknowledged that her mad rampage through Britain would inevitably scare its people to force more oversight on people. And she felt guilty about that.
Holly acknowledged that murdering her way through a bunch of teachers in front of their students would likely traumatize them in ways that would make it all the easier for people to push that kind of censorship down people's throats. And she felt guilty about that.
Holly acknowledged that her actions would likely ruin the lives of Hermione and Ron and Teddy and probably anyone else he'd ever been close to. And she felt guilty about that.
Holly acknowledged that she'd just killed a lot of innocent people, hurting even more innocents who loved those people. And she didn't feel guilty about that at all.
Death was an inevitable fact of life, and if anyone was foolish enough to take a look at a Holly Potter who was so furiously unhinged that her magic flickered, and decided to stand in her way? Then they'd taken their life into their own hands.
Holly took another deep breath.
Holly acknowledged that someone had likely killed her during her rampage. And she didn't feel much of anything about that.
If she died, she died. To be willing to kill someone, you had to acknowledge that someone would be willing to kill you in return.
In that sense, the moment you decided to live life by killing others, you had in fact already killed yourself. A corpse that continued to move, regardless of if it was to protect or to destroy, was still just a corpse.
Holly couldn't blame someone for killing a corpse, even if that corpse had been herself.
Then the void began to shift around her. An acknowledgment to this truth, an acknowledgment to a great many truths.
Holly opened her eyes to light, and she screamed.
XXX
Holly wasn't entirely sure what to think.
The cold rage had faded completely, and something had clearly changed.
The ceiling was white. The kind of spotless that Holly only really associated with a stay in St Mungos, or maybe the Hogwarts Hospital-Wing.
Blinking numbly at the idea that she'd somehow survived her rampage and not been immediately tossed into Azkaban, trial or no, Holly looked around the room. She was definitely in a hospital, though she couldn't help but feel like something was... off.
She didn't have her wand, but that wasn't it. She couldn't hear anyone, which implied that there were silencing-wards around the room, but that also wasn't quite it. There weren't any windows, and the lighting came from a rather normal-looking magical lamp, so that wasn't it. She wasn't even tied down, which whilst weird, wasn't the 'off' thing either.
Holly twitched her fingers and toes, and counted ten of each, so that wasn't it either. Though-... Wait. Where had the scar on her hand gone?
Holly stared at unblemished skin where once the scar of Umbridge's cruelties had been carved. There weren't any signs of it. There also weren't any signs of the scar on her arm from Wormtail, or any of the other many scars that she'd received over the years since. Not even any marks from the basilisk-fang, which Holly knew was literally supposed to be impossible to remove.
A vague feeling of dawning horror in her gut, Holly pushed her way out of the bed, noting the bone-deep weariness throughout her body, but pushing through anyway in order to make her way to the attached bathroom.
The bathroom had a mirror in it. And the face staring back at Holly from it wasn't her own.
The same black hair, the same green eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. For example, she actually only had one green eye. The other was a milky white. Blinded, likely by whatever had carved a jagged line across half of her face.
She was in the body of someone else. She was in the hospital, feeling a bone-deep weariness that Holly associated with a recovery after severe injuries, and had the kind of scars that made it obvious that she'd ended up on the wrong side of a Dark Wizard.
Holly wasn't sure where the 'original owner' of this body had disappeared to, but the scars were large enough and recent enough, that Holly was pretty sure that the body had been in a coma by the time she woke up in it.
Possibly a coma that they would never have woken up from, not that Holly could be sure about that.
It just made more sense that Holly was inside of this body in particular because there hadn't been anything inside of it capable of tossing her back out.
Soul-magic was weird. And Holly wasn't any kind of expert on the stuff, even if it always felt strange how unintuitive other people found the theory of it. Maybe it was because Holly had lived with a horcrux attached to her head, maybe it was because she'd died at least once before. Even Ron had called it 'illogical' which was... quite something.
Still, Holly didn't understand soul-magic any more than Hermione did, probably less so actually, considering that Hermione had studied it extensively. Despite that, she'd always had a good grasp of how it should work, even if she couldn't always explain why.
So, the best explanation she could come up with was that she'd done something to mess with 'the path to the afterlife' when she'd gotten into a fight with Dumbledore, and then she'd 'landed' back into life again, inside of a body that'd already been supposed to have passed on.
A hollow shell doomed to fade away, now occupied and capable of continuing onwards.
The body had wanted to live, even if the person who'd been inside of it before hadn't been capable of clinging onto it any longer. And Holly had-...
Holly had lived a long life, filled with hardships and friendships and happiness and grief. She'd raged against the direction that the world had taken, and she knew that there would be peace in the afterlife, but even so-... Even so, Holly wanted to live.
And now she was alive again. In the body of a young woman-... Actually, she was pretty sure there was something in the face-structure that-...
How old was she? Holly frowned, ignoring the way it made her face contort in a rather intimidating manner, and tried to remember if she knew any spells that could tell her how old she was. Or what year it was.
She couldn't think of anything. Even a 'tempus' only really checked the 'position of the sun'. It didn't give you 'dates', let alone 'years'.
She'd just have to... ask someone.
Holly took a deep breath, and then turned back to her bed.
There was no indication that the hospital-staff would be trying to attack her, and if the body had previously been in a coma, then there was absolutely the possibility that they would've woken up without any memories of who they were or what had happened. A slim possibility, make no mistake, but it was believable enough that nobody would start aiming a wand at Holly's face and declaring her a body-possessing impostor.
XXX
They didn't know who Holly was either.
She'd been found by aurors during a raid on a bunch of Dark Wizards. She'd been bleeding out in a cell, and had clearly not been part of the group.
How long she'd been there, they didn't know. What her name was, they didn't know. How old she was-... They could make a few educated guesses about how old she was, and it put her firmly in her early teens, definitely not older than fifteen.
Which meant that she needed a magical guardian, so they asked her for a blood-sample. To see whom she might be related to. It could give them a clue to her actual identity, about who to contact on her behalf, and if that didn't pay off they could at least – hopefully – find a distant relative to dump her on.
Holly wasn't overly thrilled about the idea of possibly ending up with some random family as her guardians, was in fact not very thrilled about the idea of having a guardian at all. But if it was between a 'blood relative' and Hogwarts' new headmaster – whoever that turned out to be, considering that Holly murdered the last one in a fit of rage – Holly would bet on the unknown magical family.
If nothing else, it'd be better to get it over with early, rather than have some kind of dramatic reunion where an actual family was horrified about Holly having been 'stolen'. Holly had lived through enough political scandals to not be particularly thrilled about the idea of that kind of scenario playing out.
Holly hadn't managed to get any hints about what year it was, but she'd get her hands on a newspaper sooner or later. It wasn't like it really mattered.
The actual blood-test was... a bit awkward. It wasn't anything as convenient as pouring a bit of blood on some parchment and watching the family-tree work its way backwards. Instead it included some kind of fist-sized device from the Department of Mysteries that made a whole bunch of buzzing-noises, and then spat out some kind of aura-reading that helped 'narrow down' possible candidates.
Turns out, there were a lot of laws about both blood-magic and the storing of blood-samples. Namely, that storing blood-samples of literally anyone at all was the kind of thing that could see even a Ministry-official sent packing to Azkaban with accusations of line-theft nipping at their heels.
There were a lot of things that a person could do with a sample of someone's blood. A lot of very nasty things.
So the device was very specifically designed to 'remember' the properties of the blood given to it, rather than somehow 'store' samples to properly compare it to. And the only reason even that worked as well as it did was because all Wizengamot-members had to provide blood-samples upon taking their seats.
Supposedly, it was a safety-measure to make certain that nobody was lying about being a Lord of a House that they weren't a part of. And Holly could vaguely recall that there'd been some kind of scandal about it at some point. Something about someone inheriting the Lordship without actually being an heir by blood.
Holly hadn't exactly been paying attention to the story at the time, and she hadn't become any more interested in the subject since.
The end result being that... Holly's blood was actually most closely matched to that of the Potter-family.
Which was... weird. Holly knew that she hadn't had any living relatives, not unless Dudley had somehow managed to have kids. And she was pretty sure that even they wouldn't have registered as 'Potter' enough to classify, so-... So who the hell did this body belong to?
And what did the official-looking man mean when he said that they'd contact the Potter-family? What family? The Potter-family died with Holly! She ought to know, because Ron had never stopped ribbing her about never getting laid.
Had-... Had someone stolen her blood?
Holly took a deep breath, and pretended as if she couldn't feel that cold haze of rage seep into the edges of her mind. There might be other explanations after all. And maybe the 'Potter' name had become as common as 'Smith' at some point? And even if it was, why did Holly need to care about someone committing line-theft on her? She was dead, and it wasn't like she was some kind of pureblood-fanatic who desperately cared about keeping her line 'pure'.
Holly was just-... Just going to take another few deep breaths.
XXX
Euphemia Potter and Fleamont Potter were the proud parents of James Potter – currently fourteen – and were very curious as to what branch of the family Holly might've come from.
They had a wide list of theories, and considering how they'd sometime mentioned 'this or that' person, Holly was forced to reconsider her initial assumption.
Holly hadn't somehow accidentally reincarnated inside of the body of a comatose person after her bloodied rampage across Britain. Holly had somehow gone back in time.
Holly was in a body born into the same generation as his parents.
The people who would at one point become Holly's grandparents interpreted Holly's stunned silence upon meeting them as her being 'shy'. Which, whilst not entirely untruthful, wasn't at all the cause of her current troubles.
Holly knew that she didn't really like dealing with people. She'd done it anyway because someone had to do it, but talking to strangers was very far down on the list of things she was comfortable with doing.
Still, unable to come up with any arguments about why Holly shouldn't come with them, she'd been released into the custody of the Potter family. Which meant that she was now technically the adopted sister to her own father.
Even the Gaunt family-tree didn't look quite that convoluted, surely?
Regardless, feeling stunned down to his bones, when they asked if there was any name Holly specifically 'wanted', since no identity could be tracked down. Holly had just blurted out her own name.
That had led to another bit of poking at her supposed lack of memories, because she hadn't encountered anyone named 'Holly', so the logical assumption was that the name was related to something from 'before'.
Not that their attempts to 'help' Holly with remembering things went anywhere. She had no intentions of telling anyone at all about her time-traveling and body-possessing.
Best-case-scenario they'd just label her as 'insane' and leave it at that. But there was always the unfortunate possibility that someone would've believed her, which would've meant that she could easily have been spirited away to be prodded at by the Department of Mysteries for the rest of her days.
Having seen some of the messed up horrors that the Unspeakables played around with on a daily basis, Holly had no intention of ever allowing herself to become one of their 'experiments'.
Regardless, with Holly being able to show some kind of name-preference, that was the name she ended up with. 'Holly Potter', unknown relative of the Potter-family, and the adopted daughter of the Potters.
XXX
James Potter was a spoiled prat.
To some extent, Holly had already been aware of that. But it was hard to look at someone who was undoubtedly a teenager and think 'parent'.
Also, at this point Holly was convinced that the time-line was never going to turn out the way it had in her own time. It didn't matter what Holly did, her mere existence in this point of time would be enough to do something to the time-line.
Hell, even if she went and got herself killed immediately, it might just serve as some kind of morbid wake-up-call to James about the harsh realities of the world. Which could shatter his group of friends prematurely, or simply inspire him to do something absurd, like reaching out a helping hand towards a younger Snape.
In other words, the time-line was buggered. No point in worrying about it, because there was no way to fix it.
Not that Holly really wanted things to turn out just the way they had. They'd lost a lot of good people to the war, and then at the end there'd been all of the damnable 'anti-Dark' reforms.
With this in mind, Holly was trying to treat the James Potter in front of her as a completely separate entity from the man who'd in one time-line grow up to be the loving father of one 'Holly Potter'. And the James in front of her was a spoiled prat who did not appreciate the idea of suddenly gaining a sister.
Holly could vaguely recall Hermione once mentioning something about how single children would often end up worried that they were 'being replaced' when a new sibling entered the picture. Holly couldn't exactly say that she understood that kind of reasoning at all, but then she would have been left feeling pretty uncertain if Hermione and Ron had started hanging out with someone else, back when they'd been in Hogwarts.
She understood jealousy just fine. She just didn't really understand how there being 'another sibling' would somehow make a parent love their child any less.
Except maybe if the parent was a 'Dursley'. Holly could easily see both Petunia and Vernon doing exactly that.
She couldn't say anything about Dudley, because – as far as Holly was aware – the man had never had any kids at all. And also, for all that he'd been raised spoiled, and for all that Holly would still be pretty reluctant to piss on him if he was on fire, she could acknowledge that he wasn't a complete bastard.
As the Potter-family clearly weren't the Dursleys, James' jealous worrying was completely pointless. But obviously Holly couldn't just tell him that.
Ignoring how she technically wasn't supposed to have any memories of anything at all, and that she therefore shouldn't be insightful enough to guess at what James' problem with her was, trying to confront the problem directly would just end up making him defensive about it.
It was a bit like breaking into someone's house and then loudly telling them to 'not worry' because they 'totally weren't stealing everything'. Basically, it didn't exactly sound very convincing, and would likely just be considered an insult to the person who was supposed to be 'reassured' by the proclamation.
A much better way was to just ignore it. Or, at least, it was a much more palatable option to Holly.
She didn't want to pay attention to James being a prat, and she really wasn't comfortable with being adopted by her ex-grandparents. She hadn't even been entirely comfortable with the Weasleys before she and Molly had had a falling-out.
Holly just didn't really have a good frame-of-reference for how to deal with actually being part of a 'loving family'. So it was easier for everyone if Holly just politely ignored it and found a quiet corner to hold up in.
She needed to be studying anyway. Apparently, they'd decided to send her to Hogwarts, and considering her age they needed to make sure that she'd be able to keep up with the curriculum.
Holly wasn't surprised in the least to hear that Dumbledore would happily accept her transferring in at the beginning of the next school-year. The man always enjoyed having favors to call in, and this could definitely classify as such.
Undoubtedly, Dumbledore would be keeping a very close eye on her to make sure that Holly wasn't somehow 'Dark', but since she was apparently connected to the Potter-family somehow, it was unlikely that he'd be all that wary of her.
It was one of the things that Holly had been forced to reconsider in her previous life. Dumbledore's treatment of the Slytherins, and of anything 'Dark' felt – in hindsight – eerily similar to some of the 'anti-Dark' dog-shite that the Ministry had begun pushing through.
Maybe he would've greatly approved of those policies, maybe he would've been outraged that his ideals had been taken to such a ridiculous extreme. Holly didn't know, and it was hard to make an accurate guess.
Dumbledore had always been a very private man. A manipulative old bastard on many accounts, but then he'd just come from one war, only to get caught up in the rise of another Dark Lord. He'd been trying to do good, and even if he hadn't always succeeded at it, Holly wasn't going to go around comparing him to Umbridge without good reason.
Specifically, some kind of proof that he would approve of the Ministry's later policies, rather than just be 'disappointed' in her for going on a murderous rampage. Benefit of the doubt and all that.
But with returning to Hogwarts as a distinct possibility in Holly's near future, there was plenty of studying to be done. Which made it all the more obvious that the curriculum would change fairly significantly in the next few decades.
Charms that had yet to be invented, hexes yet to be banned from use, potion-books yet to be written-... Some of it was small and innocuous, others were pretty blatant. And it made Holly wonder on the details of why some of the things had been changed. Had perhaps Dumbledore's disapproval of 'Dark' magic influenced things to such a degree?
The only thing that really hadn't changed was History of Magic. In fact, Binns hadn't changed anything at all. Hell, Holly wasn't even certain if there was a difference between his First-Year classes and his Fifth-Year classes. It was goblin-wars all the way through.
XXX
Holly was weird. That was James' unbiased impression of her.
She looked like someone had gone at her face with a knife, and one of her eyes looked really creepy as a result. James wasn't sure why she hadn't gotten it replaced or something.
She had no memory of anything at all, which was really suspicious. What if she was a secret Death Eater spy or something? And James' parents had just gone along with it, because she was supposed to be 'family' somehow, despite how neither of them could point to where in the family-tree she might be attached.
Also, she seemed to know plenty about magic, and she was supposed to come with him to Hogwarts after summer-break. She was even supposed to begin in the same year as himself. Which was ridiculous, because she wasn't supposed to remember anything. Like classes.
Did they expect him to babysit some kind of idiot and explain to her what an 'essay' was? He had things to do!
The Marauders had been trying to figure out a way to make a map of Hogwarts for ages now, and they were so close to figuring out the charm-work needed to properly align the timing of all of the different staircases. They'd still need to add passwords, and maybe figure out some way to point to where they were on the map, for emergencies. And maybe even where other people were. That would be amazingly useful.
For now they were still working on just the staircases though. And it wasn't like they could do that if James was constantly forced to babysit his supposed 'cousin'.
Not to mention their pranks. Or how they needed to make sure that Snape didn't stick his big nose into decent people's business.
And they still hadn't succeeded at becoming animagi yet. They were close, but they weren't quite there yet. What if Holly found out and snitched to someone about it? Or told someone about Remus being a werewolf? He'd get expelled, maybe even attacked.
Also, there was Sirius and his family. Sirius didn't exactly talk about the details, but it was clear to James that he might need a place to stay if they ever followed through on any of his mother's threats of disowning him. And now Holly was suddenly taking up space in their home. What if she started trying to poison his parents to the idea of keeping Sirius around?
Also also, she was such a nerd. She spent most of her time in the mansion's library, doing homework for school. As if that would somehow help her compensate for not having any memories of any kind of education at all.
She was so creepy, reading all alone in a dark corner with that whitish un-seeing eye of hers.
XXX
Euphemia was more than a bit frustrated with her only son.
James was a good boy, with a kind heart. However, he was clearly also... a bit too judgmental for her comfort.
It was blatantly obvious that he didn't like Holly. Which was sad to see, because there weren't really a lot of Potters left in the world, and having him actively disliking a precious rediscovered new relative was-... It was making her angry with him.
She knew that they'd maybe spoiled him a bit. But they'd tried to make sure that – for all of his mischief – he treated the people around him with kindness and respect.
The fact that he was clearly uncomfortable with Holly's blind eye, and that he obviously resented the idea that he might be forced to 'babysit' the girl-... Euphemia was really just making herself angrier at him at this point.
Holly picked up on it too, of course. The girl might have lost her memories, but she was clever, even outside of her impressive grasp of academical things. She picked up on the hostility, and she retreated from view, sequestering herself in the library, trying not to impose on anyone at all.
Which was frustrating in a different way. The girl clearly didn't want to upset James, so she was hiding from everyone.
They were her effectively her adoptive parents now, but she behaved as if she was an unwanted guest, rather than a precious family-member in need of sanctuary. It made Euphemia wonder if it was something that had carried over from her time before, or if she was just naturally hyper-aware of social situations like that.
Either way, it made Euphemia all the more disappointed in her son's behavior. Holly was a nice young girl, polite and a bit shy, clever with magic and words both – from what few times Euphemia and her husband had managed to coax her into speaking. She didn't deserve to be made a stranger in her own home, as new to her as it might be.
Of course, the investigation into Holly's true identity continued, but there really didn't seem to be any traces. And of course, the Death Eaters who'd been caught during the raid were claiming the Imperius-curse, and that they didn't know anything at all about the injured girl who'd been found in their midst.
It was the same defense that they usually gave whenever the aurors managed to hit them when they were busy attacking muggleborns. Which could imply that they hadn't even known that the girl had been a Potter by blood – somehow, Fleamont was still looking for what branch on the family-tree she might've come from – or it was just the only legal defense they could think of.
The worst part was that the defense was actually working. As long as the Death Eaters in question paid the right price to the right people, of course. Bribery was unfortunately far too common of an occurrence these days.
Euphemia and Fleamont both tried to make her feel welcome of course, and they had spoken with James about his behavior, but being any harsher about it than they'd already been would've likely just made him dislike Holly even more.
XXX
Holly didn't mind the isolation. It'd let her think some things through, and to check how much she'd need to relearn in order to fit in with her classes.
Wizarding Britain wasn't exactly the forefront of inventiveness, so outside of a handful of spells and potions that was now 'off limits', pretty much everything else was 'old news' to her. Not necessarily something she was good at, as could be attested by her trying to read through a potions-text filled with things she knew she must've known at some point. But things that at least wouldn't trip her up as 'knowing too much'.
It was fine if Holly became famous for being terrifyingly competent with a wand, but it was better to not accidentally 'invent' new spells, when she'd never been very good at inventing any spells at all. Less chance of being caught in a lie when she would inevitably be asked about inventing more new spells.
So a bit of time in isolation was fine. It even let her think about what she might do about the Marauders.
Holly didn't want to get Remus expelled, so hinting at her somehow knowing about his 'furry problem' was probably a bit too antagonistic. It might help her intercept Snape before he found out, but that was a long-shot at the best of times.
Also, Holly was generally convinced that being Sorted into Gryffindor wasn't in her best interest.
She very much didn't want to end up in Slytherin and get labeled as a Death Eater in training, or to further antagonize the Marauders. But something like Ravenclaw, or even Hufflepuff would be preferable to watching the younger counterparts of her parents dancing around each other.
It would also maybe stop James from being forced to interact with her, which would cut down on the amount of antipathy he might feel towards her. Probably.
Holly couldn't exactly say that she was a good fit for Ravenclaw, because she'd never really enjoyed studying. Not even studying weird things that had nothing to do with classes. Holly had always needed to have some kind of purpose behind hitting the books, even if that purpose was oftentimes just to keep Hermione from hexing her for not helping.
Hufflepuff was... a bit too friendly for Holly's comfort, but then they were supposed to 'accept everyone' so it should work out fine. Unless the Sorting Hat started screaming about time-travel, because Holly really didn't need that in her life.
Knowing her own luck, Holly wasn't really holding onto a lot of hope about being able to decide where the Hat put her, but it would be nice to have some kind of goal to aim for. Most plans more complicated than that tended to fall apart around her anyway, so it was better to just keep things simple.
The general plan of action was to avoid the Marauders, maybe try seeing if there was some way to tempt some of the Dark families over into 'neutrality' in the upcoming war, and to not lose control of her temper.
She'd never had any issues with her temper before. It'd burned hot and fast, frustration spilling over into grief. But with the memories of that cold haze of rage still lingering in her mind, Holly very much didn't want to go on a killing-spree again.
Less because of any guilt she felt towards killing those people, and more because she knew that that was horribly unproductive. Murdering people would just make people upset, and then they'd all run off into their own little corners and arm themselves against the threat that was 'her', whether the weapons they went for were magic, politics, or to simply swear themselves into the service of someone who seemed even scarier than herself.
The end result would just leave the Wizarding World even more polarized than before she started.
Also, Holly might be forced to step in, depending on how the Marauders behaved on a regular basis. Perhaps they only tormented Snape on extremely specific occasions, perhaps they targeted a lot of mostly-innocent people, or perhaps their 'pranks' amounted to little more than sneaking out after dark and throwing parties.
Holly had never really gotten any real responses on the matter from Sirius or Remus. The two of them had suffered a lot, and their happy memories had all been irrevocably tainted by war, death, and betrayal.
The fact that Sirius in particular was barely sane at the time, and that Remus had been even more traumatized by Sirius' death afterwards, probably hadn't helped. Holly had heard a few stories, but nowhere near enough to be able to guess what type of troublemakers the Marauders had been in their youth.
These were the things on Holly's mind as she sequestered herself amidst her books, far from the distrustful glares that James might throw her way.
But all things must come to an end, and in this case it came with the sudden and unannounced arrival of a certain Heir Black.
Not that Sirius was likely aware that he was still 'heir' considering how his mother had blasted him off the family-tree in a fit of rage.
Walburga had always been a nasty piece of work.
XXX
"Then just poison her." Holly finally interjected, feeling more than a bit annoyed at the discussion.
They'd spent the better part of an hour, circle-complaining about Walburga being the main problem with Sirius' home-life. He liked his brother, for all that he thought that he was a soft-headed idiot, and his father was apparently stubbornly refusing to disown him officially.
So if Walburga went and croaked, everything would work out okay. Mostly.
It wasn't the most noble of solutions, but nobility just led to walking to your death because of 'fate'. And it wasn't like anyone would care if Walburga went and got herself poisoned. Even her husband would likely breathe a sigh of relief.
The trick would probably be to do it without getting caught, but Holly was fairly convinced that Regulus would be perfectly capable of convincing Kreacher to do it. And if that wasn't on the table, inviting the harpy in for tea and then giving her something slow-acting enough that she died in her sleep shouldn't be all that complicated.
Wasn't Fleamont a Potion Master or something? Surely he had a bit of poison just collecting dust on a shelf somewhere.
Holly met the wide-eyed stares of the rest of the people at the table, and reluctantly admitted to herself that at least Ron would've laughed.
Hermione would've gone for it, because it was a good solution and she'd never been all that good with 'morals' when she wasn't following 'rules'. But even if Ron would've disagreed with it, he would've at least considered the solution elegantly simple enough that it would've made him laugh.
Considering the horror on James' face, the stricken look on Euphemia's face, and the dawning outrage on Fleamont's face however-... Perhaps going through two separate wars changes people, just a little bit.
"How would that work?" Sirius asked, face scrunched up in distrustful annoyance at her presence.
"You invite her for tea. You poison the tea-pot with something slow-acting. You drink the antidote after she leaves. She doesn't, and then she dies 'peacefully' in her sleep, possibly a few weeks later." Holly summarized the general idea of it.
"Poison-" Fleamont started, now actually vibrating from sheer outrage.
"Is a good way to kill people you don't like." Holly interrupted him, still more than a bit annoyed. "Breaking into their homes and stabbing them to death sounds exciting, but it really narrows down the potential suspects."
Euphemia was staring at her in pale-faced horror, and even Fleamont had apparently been stunned by her interruption.
"Wouldn't it be pretty easy to detect?" Sirius asked, sounding by now only hesitantly skeptical.
"It depends on the poison." Holly admitted with a nod. "Some poisons would be obvious, others would cause symptoms that might see her reaching out to someone who would check, a few are ridiculously hard to make and seriously limits the potential suspects. But there are definitely a few options for it."
Holly paused, thinking it through for a bit more. Hermione had always had a long list of ways to sneakily kill off people that she didn't like. Ron kept vetoing her ideas for various reasons – mainly that 'murder was wrong' – but the concepts were solid.
"There's also the possibility of transfiguring a mosquito to inject air into a person. Air directly into the blood-stream would give them a heart-attack, which would theoretically be untraceable, though not necessarily lethal." Holly continued, seeing as Sirius was starting to actually look really interested in the subject.
"Holly!" Euphemia hissed. "Killing people is not the answer!"
Holly blinked at her. Killing people could absolutely cause more problems than it solved, but after the second Dark Lord that Holly killed, it was hard to really think that not-killing people was somehow inherently a better option.
Sometimes it was better to let people live. Sometimes it was better to kill them. It was a complicated subject, and Holly really wasn't philosophical or idealistic enough to weigh-in on things.
Holly tried to avoid cold-blooded murder and assassinations, that was more Hermione's side of things. She'd always been good at compartmentalizing things. Holly just killed everyone who aimed a wand at her.
Unless it was a kid or something. Holly wasn't going to kill some dumbass kid just because they happened to get in her way.
Ron was the one who spared people's lives, and even that was mostly because he tended towards extremes. Either he was too squeamish to kill anyone at all, or he was so furious that he didn't care if he killed everything in front of him.
Holly and Hermione had both knocked Ron out on separate occasions, just to make sure that he didn't kill someone that he'd regret later.
But the idea of clearly pointing out that there was a person who nobody liked, who was causing massive amounts of problems, who had never shown any signs of wanting to do better, and who was willing to attack children, and then saying that 'killing this person is wrong'?
"Ideals and reality are not directly comparable." Holly told her with a carefully blank face. "There will inevitably be exceptions to any rule, and since nothing else would work in this case, it'd be better for everyone to just solve the problem from the start."
The silence following that statement was deafening.
Finally, there was a small scoff of laughter from a rather pale-faced Fleamont. "Well, perhaps that will at least narrow down her spot on the family-tree."
XXX
James very much didn't appreciate his best friend's enthusiasm for his 'cousin'. She was not 'cool'. She was creepy and weird.
And he also very much didn't appreciate Sirius asking really pointed questions about why she was 'creepy and weird'.
"Fine! I'm being a prat!" James finally exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "What do you want from me, Sirius?!"
Sirius rolled his eyes at him. "I want you to stop being a prat to her. It's not like she's going around cursing people, or calling people 'blood-traitors' or whatever."
James glared at him. "No, she just casually suggests poisoning people she doesn't like."
"People that I don't like. Try to keep up, Jimmy." Sirius threw him a small grin.
"Don't call me that!" James snapped back reflexively, annoyed as always about the nickname.
Sirius sighed, collapsing backwards onto the bed. "Look, I get that poisoning people is bad and all that, but like-..." Sirius made a vague hand-gesture. "She doesn't remember anything, right? So if anything she'd be a 'really creepy toddler'."
"She says that she can't remember anything." James corrected him.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Not the point." He took another deep breath. "The point is that she's not trying to hurt people. She suggested an option that would 'minimize the damage' of us trying to deal with my mother. And she's right, because Merlin knows nothing else would work."
"Murder is wrong, Sirius."
"And so is everything my mother does!" Sirius barked back at him in a flash of rage. "Why do we have to play nice with someone like that?!"
James leaned back, a worried frown on his face. "Because we shouldn't sink to her level."
Sirius scoffed. "Yes, because throwing rocks into a gaping pit makes us so morally superior."
James glared at him. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."
Sirius paused, fingers twitching for a few moments, before sighing. "Sorry. I just-... I hate her so much."
James sighed, sitting down next to him on the bed. "Yeah. I know."
And perhaps he should try to be nicer to Holly. She was still creepy, but she didn't deserve him being a prat to her like he had been.
XXX
Holly couldn't really say that she missed her time alone, but she did have school-things to do, and the closest thing to a hobby that she'd still had before she'd died had been flying.
Not quidditch, because-... Well, you needed a certain number of players before quidditch would be fun, and Holly had been running rather low on friends who'd be willing to participate.
Hermione and Neville had always hated flying, Ron was up for it, George could sometimes be up for it – but usually, even on those days, he'd be crying to himself before the end of the day – Luna would usually get distracted mid-match by a flower or something, Teddy liked it well enough, Ginny got annoying about being a professional, and-... And that was about it.
Without being able to form full teams, the whole thing just felt empty. So Holly had just gone off on her own, flying through thick forests at high speeds, doing tricks, just-... Just something she could do on her own.
It'd made her a very good flier, but the game that she'd once been so attached to had lost a lot of its charm as a result.
In comparison to Holly's hobby-less existence, it seemed like James and Sirius had an immense amount of ways to pass the time. Card-games, some kind of 'tag', hide-and-seek, pranks, quidditch-...The list went on.
Holly tried to turn them down, and usually she succeeded, but apparently James had decided to make an effort to not be a prat, and Sirius seemed to like her. Sirius always seemed to like people who suggested that horrible things ought to happen to his mother.
So, for all that Holly had a lot of classes to catch up on, the two boys were determined that she spend some time focusing on more 'important' things in life. Namely, whatever they decided would be most interesting to do at that particular moment.
After a few days of continuing to try burying herself in her books, she finally relented to play a very empty-feeling game of quidditch.
They only had three players, so they'd limited themselves to one goal and one Keeper, leaving the other two as Chasers. Of course, they rotated the Keeper-position between them, because none of them were really very fond of it.
Holly found it very unintuitive to move into collision-course with a speeding ball, even if it wasn't technically a Bludger. James and Sirius were better at it, and were better at scoring. Holly was better at catching the Quaffle when it was thrown out to the Chasers, but otherwise her main contribution was staying on her broom.
It'd been a long time since she played quidditch. It felt vaguely nostalgic, for all that Holly knew she was a terrible Chaser – and an even worse Keeper.
Holly was a Seeker through-and-through. And even that wasn't quite as exciting as it used to be. Circling around and around, looking for a tiny glimmer of gold, and then a brief and hectic dive for the Snitch.
Maybe if Holly had tried for that distraction-Seeker play that'd been popular for a few years before falling out of fashion again? She'd rather weave between the Chasers and Beaters, distracting them from scoring and try to find the Snitch from that much more disadvantageous position. It'd be less boring.
Less efficient, and well, there was a reason it'd quickly faded out of fashion, because it made it a lot harder to compete for the Snitch if it was spotted by the other Seeker. But again, it'd be a way of playing that would be more in line with Holly's idea of 'fun'.
So it stood to reason that – despite Holly's skill on a broom – she was laughably outclassed.
It was a bit like playing against Ginny, except with less not-entirely-friendly taunts.
Holly and Ginny had broken up mostly okay, but things hadn't exactly conspired to keep them 'okay'. And for all that Holly did admire her in some ways, she couldn't help but feel like Ginny had grown up to be just as stuck up as Percy at his worst, and with Ron's temper to match.
However, Holly also knew that she was probably pretty biased on the topic, so she'd been keeping her mouth shut about it. Though she got the feeling that Ginny had probably been aware of her feelings on the matter, considering some of the looks she'd sent Holly's way.
The taunts that Sirius and James shouted at each other and her were more of the friendly variant.
It reminded her a little bit of what playing quidditch at the Burrow had been like, once upon a time.
XXX
Holly did get to meet the rest of the Marauders before September rolled around.
Remus was... polite. A little bit on the quiet side, and clearly not sure about how to deal with Holly being there. He did offer to help look over some of her essays, but it was clearly something he did more out of politeness than interest in schoolwork.
Hermione would've been salivating at the thought of reading through a whole stack of essays, if only so that she could prove that she was smarter than the person who'd originally written them. Holly knew her old friend well, and she loved her dearly, flaws and all.
Remus was simply defaulting to a person-interaction that he knew something about. He understood schoolwork a lot better than he did small-talk, so he either kept his mouth shut or he shifted the conversation towards that.
Peter though... Peter was funny. He was cheerful in a way that Holly really couldn't equate to the Wormtail of her own life at all.
He wasn't caught up in 'trying to be cool' the way James was. He wasn't constantly trying to roll himself in the mud just to thumb his nose at his stuffy relatives the way that Sirius was. He didn't have the understated sneakiness that Remus did.
Peter was the kind of person who enjoyed life.
Honestly, Peter reminded her a little bit of Lockhart. Not that self-obsession or the inherent creepiness of constantly trying to get Holly alone. More in the sense that she could easily see Peter fill his own office with pictures of himself.
It was just that she wouldn't be surprised in the least if at least half of those pictures were of him in a tutu or something. And he'd flirt with his own mirror-image, but only because he'd think it'd be funny to do so.
He was such a little brat, and Holly kind of wanted to ruffle his hair.
Considering that this was the same boy who'd one day betray his own friends to the Dark Lord in a war fueled by hatred and fear, the fact that he was so disarmingly charming was actually a little bit disturbing.
He wasn't good with magic, but he didn't really seem to mind that any more than Ron had ever minded his lack of amazing grades. And for all that he clearly admired James and Sirius, it was from a place of love rather than a source of envy.
It made her heart hurt, to wonder what in the world could've had him turn on his friends like that. What it was about the war that'd changed him to the groveling coward that Holly had known.
XXX
"I don't have a crush on your cousin, James." Peter rolled his eyes.
"You sure?" Sirius asked.
"Oh?" Peter grinned at him. "Are you jealous because I can talk to a girl, Sirius?"
Sirius scoffed. "I've seen you talk to girls."
"Peter's usual lack of game aside." Remus interjected before they could get started. "You seem unusually interested, Sirius. Is there something you want to share with the class?"
Peter was caught between glaring at Remus, and joining forces with him to press Sirius for details.
"She suggested we kill his mother." James explained with a sigh.
Peter winced. "Oof. Yeah, that'd do it." He shook his head in mock sadness. "He's going to follow her around like a little puppy, isn't he?"
"Hey!" Sirius glared at him, face turning a little bit red.
"Well, he is a dog." Remus ignored Sirius with the ease of practice. "But I didn't think he'd be hitting puberty for another decade or so at least."
"Moony!" Sirius whined at him.
"Love works in mysterious ways." Peter agreed with a grin.
James rolled his eyes at them. "Is it really 'mysterious' if it's that blatantly predictive?"
Sirius was by now blushing all the way to his ears, so it came as no surprise to anyone that he went for his wand.
Thankfully, that just meant that everyone were well-prepared for tackling him down, because they hadn't gotten back to Hogwarts yet and so weren't allowed to do magic.
Not that that was the most enforced rule, but it was the kind of thing that usually led to having a sit-down with a Ministry-official and the Headmaster. And that wasn't exactly a great way to start the new school-year.
XXX
Holly's fingertips brushed against her wand. A wand that wasn't the same one that she had once received, but which fit in her hand in a way that made something deep inside of her purr.
The Hogwarts Express hadn't changed at all. A nostalgic kind of feeling, considering how she hadn't really seen it since Teddy-... She hadn't seen it in years.
The people around it were a bit different though. The divide between 'Slytherin' and 'not' was much more apparent, with both sides keeping their distance as if worried about catching something if they came too close.
It was sad, that children were already forced into these kinds of rampant polarizations.
Holly knew better than to assume that 'just being nice' to the Slytherins would somehow solve all of the problems, but pushing them into isolation when they'd inevitably receive more members every year as more children were Sorted into the House? It wasn't helping.
As long as Slytherin remained a haven for blood-purist, and as long as impressionable children were met with antipathy by everyone else just because of their House, those blood-purists would be able to continue recruiting new members among their Housemates. And so the cycle would continue.
Holly's personal solution would've probably been to just expel everyone who so much as hinted at being a Death Eater sympathizer, and then aim a wand at the face of anyone who complained about it.
However, Holly also knew that that wasn't exactly a 'politically viable' strategy. In no small part because it would likely see the Slytherin House dissolved from lack of members, which would cause even more outrage.
But then Holly was a firm believer that any tradition that caused harm to the people caught up in it was a tradition that should be torn to shreds. And with Voldemort's war, allowing the Slytherin House to remain as it was was causing harm.
Still, she knew better than to say any of that out loud. If only because it would be less of a headache if she just kept her head down and got herself Sorted into Hufflepuff. That way she'd probably be able to dodge most any of Dumbledore's schemes, without having to deal with junior Death Eaters trying to pick fights with her.
Holly was just a completely normal girl, and there was no need to think about the last time she'd watched Hogwarts.
The boiling chill in her veins, the desperate magic failing to lash out at her, the castle's walls coming tumbling down under the weight of her fury-...
Holly kept breathing. In and out. In and out.
All the way to the carriages, and the thestrals that pulled them.
In and out. In and out.
And never mind that the closest one turned its head towards her, acknowledging her presence like one might indulgently greet an unknown toddler.
In and out. In and out.
XXX
"Hmm?"
Holly twitched as a voice that sounded like mothballs spoke in her ear.
"I might not have Sorted you, young lady. But Sorted you already have been, and I don't go back on my decisions, even if I wasn't the one to make them. So, I'll say it again, GRYFFINDOR!"
Holly knew that the Hat would never reveal what it saw in someone's mind. It was part of the enchantments that it'd been created with. To stop unscrupulous people from digging for family-secrets in the heads of innocent children.
So Holly knew that the Hat knowing the truth about it wasn't bad or anything. It couldn't tell anyone even if it wanted to, couldn't even really hint at whatever it might've found out.
But she'd been hoping for Hufflepuff, and the idea that it refused to consider giving her a 'second chance' was frustrating. Also kind of relieving, because she doubted that she'd ever really be able to entirely stop thinking of herself as a 'Gryffindor', despite the decades that'd passed since, but-...
Holly really didn't want to be rubbing elbows with Lily Evans, with the Marauders looming over her head at all times.
It wasn't like she could really do anything about the war anyway.
Kill Voldemort? Sure, she could probably manage that. Even without accounting for her knowledge about his horcruxes, Holly had enough experience with fighting Dark Lords that she'd give herself good odds to emerge victorious.
Or rather, she would've given herself good odds before the boiling chill crawling through her veins. As she was now, she sincerely doubted that Dumbledore and Voldemort working together could actually stop her if she decided to kill them.
Oh, she probably wouldn't survive the fight, but survival was-... Holly wasn't even entirely certain that she could die anymore. Once was a miracle, twice was a calculated risk, but three time was starting to showcase some distinct patterns. And that wasn't even accounting for the many near-misses.
So Holly could theoretically end the war by defeating the Dark Lord.
Except that wouldn't solve anything. Long-term, anyway. Short-term it would stop people from dying, and so it probably was something that she should care about, but it-... Death was death, and life was life.
Holly was keenly aware that her teenage self would've been horrified by her. By how jaded she'd become, by how apathetic she felt. Holly had fought to make the world a better place. She'd fought and fought and fought, until her hands were completely drenched in blood.
And then the world she'd fought for had decided to turn on her out of fear. Out of cowardice.
If the world wanted to be saved, then it could damn well save itself.
Because Holly refused to fix a short-term problem only for the world to decide again and again that the long-term problems that they'd arisen from didn't actually need to be addressed.
Holly rose from the stool, handed the Hat back to Professor McGonagall, and walked over to the applauding Gryffindor-table. James made a spot for her, so she took that.
She was already wearing the Potter-name, everyone already knew that they were related somehow, so she might as well just go along with it. And it wasn't like she really minded his company, even if he was still a bit of a prat.
XXX
Lily wasn't sure what to think of Potter's new cousin.
She was-... As far as appearances were concerned, she was 'striking'. She probably could've been 'pretty' if not for the massive scar across her face and the milky-white of her blind eye, but as it was she came across as more intimidating than anything.
She was pretty quiet though.
Lily had barely heard the girl say more than a handful of words to her cousin and his friends. And she'd said even less than that to the rest of her new Housemates. Something that hadn't changed once the lessons started up.
Holly Potter tended to keep to herself, do her homework without fussing, and was-... Honestly, she was infuriatingly talented with a wand.
Lily was used to the Marauders competing with her for succeeding at a spell first during a lesson, but from the deliberate way that Holly Potter never got that spot, Lily was convinced that the girl already knew the spells. She already knew the spells, and was using the 'talented kids' to determine when she could showcase that without drawing attention to herself.
Alright, so maybe she'd learned those spells wherever she'd been before arriving at Hogwarts, and she didn't want to offend anyone by stealing their limelight. Whatever. Lily could deal with that.
Except some Slytherins had targeted her for being a 'friend of the Marauders', and been completely decimated in return.
Lily had barely had enough time to begin reaching for her wand, and it'd already been over. And Holly hadn't even said the spells out loud. Just leaving them stunned, disarmed and solidly tied up in conjured ropes, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to do with a flick of her wrist on her way to breakfast.
Hell, if she hadn't stopped to write down the names of the Slytherins involved, Lily wasn't sure if Holly would've even broken her stride.
So, the girl was very good with a wand. And Lily was more than a bit jealous about it, because she used to think that she was good in a fight.
It made her feel like a small fish in a small pond, suddenly spotting a grown shark.
Beyond that, Holly did talk a bit with her cousin and his friends. But contrary to any good sense, she seemed closer to Sirius and Peter than Remus.
Lily might've written that off as the girl having weird tastes, but she was fairly sure that it was Sirius who brightened up whenever he spotted her. Like a puppy with a crush. Which was a bit weird, because Lily hadn't ever seen the boy pay attention to girls at all.
Sirius liked her, James was sort of grudgingly including her because they were family, Remus kept to a polite distance, and Peter-... Lily couldn't actually remember Peter being popular with girls at all.
Standing next to Sirius and James – the prat had a nice face, even if admitting that pissed her off – Peter came across as imminently forgettable. And at least Remus had the gently polite and studious thing going for him, Peter just had a cheerful smile and a bunch of annoying jokes.
It was of course possible that somebody had at some point had a crush on Peter, but Lily definitely hadn't seen any signs of it. So, seeing the way Holly's lips would twitch upwards into fondly amused smiles when sitting next to the boy-...
It'd caught Lily a bit by surprise.
XXX
A/n: This was written with the intention of making it a "Fem!Harry/Peter"-fic. In no small part because it would piss off so many people.
As for the "magical creatures are the origin of magical humans"-lore? It was an interesting idea that stuck with me, and it worked well with turning our Fem!Harry into a perfectly pleasant person who would be down for a casual bit of murder if it came to that point. If it wasn't obvious in the text, her ancestor fucked a thestral. Possibly, several of her ancestors fucked thestrals. She's got a lot of creature-blood in her, is what I'm saying.
But yes, a big part of the motivation here was just to make a Marauders-story where Peter wasn't "cowardly and evil" but more "horrifically traumatized by the war, to the point of betraying even his closest friends".
The idea spinning around in my head circled around Holly being so fucking sick of both sides of the war, and her deciding to just wipe out Voldemort and his whole crew in an overnight super-massacre. Before going on a honeymoon with Peter to some distant country without an extradition-treaty with Britain, because everyone is able to guess who murdered the shit out of all of those people.