Content Warning: sexual assault of a minor. not particularly graphic in depiction.

Meaty fingers curled around the collar of her shirt, spittle flying in her face as her uncle loomed over her. His face was the picture of rage, fingers threatening to curl around her throat and squeeze, and it was only Aunt Petunia's sharp shout of "Vernon!" which made him pause there. He was her enemy after all. The fact that he would attack her shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. It didn't mean it didn't hurt in more ways than one. "You think this is funny, girl?" he demanded, despite the fact that she wasn't laughing. "You think this is some joke?"

Harriet stared off blandly into the distance, staring at a spot of torn wallpaper in the hallway wall. Of course, part of her mused. Blame the girl who you knew would be a target of the serial killer rather than the serial killer himself. She blinked, hearing the distinct tones of Charly in her words as she stood there, barely bothering to watch as her uncle waved the damning letter about like a red flag to a bull. Spending so much time around a snarky, cynical ghost had rubbed off on her. Who knew?

"This is all your fault," Vernon declared with the self-righteous pomp only he could exude. "If you hadn't made yourself look like that," he said, gesturing to all of her, and Harriet was only reminded how her improved charisma stat and her choice of race had made her look. Abnormal. An interloper. Freakish. Harriet tilted her head, a well of bitterness and confusion rising within her. If only the stat had improved her relationships rather than a thing called beauty. Beauty hadn't done much for her other than attract all the wrong sorts of people and the wrong sort of ire from her family.

"Vernon, stop… we… we need to call the police – make them save our Duddykins…" Petunia stuttered, eyes darting between her, her uncle, and the damning letter which had all but delivered a metaphorical bomb to her doorstep.

Should anything happen to precious dinky diddydums, then Harriet knew exactly who would be blamed. She knew her life would be made even more of a misery, and the thought didn't come with cold shock or even fear. Instead there was only silent realisation along with a slight, numbing pain to her chest.

"The police…" Vernon's words trailed off. "They've been running around like headless chickens, searching for this perpetrator—"

"Then what are we supposed to do…" There were tears in her aunt's eyes, her voice wobbling with fear instead of the harsh scorn Harriet was used to hearing every time she opened her mouth to berate her for one thing or another.

"Well—" Uncle Vernon spoke, the distinct way he paused. Harriet felt the wry amusement before she realised exactly what it was the man planned. "He doesn't want Dudley, does he?" A manic, almost desperate smile curled at his lips, meaty paws lumbering out to grab her – and something in her reacted to that.

It pulsed from her in a wave, like a magical forcefield, careening into her uncle and knocking him against the wall with a loud thud. The knowledge that her uncle would try to barter with her life for precious Dudley's settled into her brain like the missing piece of a puzzle. She wondered what picture that puzzle would make, completed as it almost was.

Her footsteps felt heavy, something seeming to weigh her down as she stared at the quest which loomed before her, framed by a blue box and a warning that her cousin would die if she didn't do something.

Dudley had never been kind to her. In fact, sometimes he was downright cruel. That didn't mean he deserved to die though, it wasn't something which condemned him to the gallows, and Harriet knew that her killer had only taken him to get to her. Didn't that mean it was partially her fault? She chewed her lip, feet taking her to the kitchen as her mind lingered on the thought that there was probably another emergency quest upcoming. And there was something the emergency quest always seemed to want her to do.

The shrieks of her aunt behind her as she fretted over her uncle were nothing more than white noise, eyes narrowing as her fingers closed around the cool handle of the knife. The sharpest kitchen knife they had. Harriet closed her eyes then, not wanting to think of trying to plunge that into flesh. The very thought of such a thing was abhorrent to her. She had seen ghosts, after all, and she hardly wanted to force that sort of existence on anyone. She didn't want to see the despair and disappointment Elizabeth always made whenever her hands passed through things rather than touching them. She didn't want to listen to Charly's angry words. She didn't want to watch as Rose flitted about frantically, attempting to cling to her own life to gain a semblance of her own.

It was almost scary how much insight her charisma stat gave her into the intricacies of others. Dimly, she wondered if the world would be a better place if everyone had a higher charisma stat. Yet that was hardly a pressing issue compared to the long night looming before her like a ghostly spectre creeping from the bushes.

Moonlight glinted off the cold steel in her hand, and Harriet stood in front of the back door, knowing that if she stepped outside, then she was leaving whatever strange protection the house gave her. If she stepped outside then there was a significant chance that she wouldn't come back. Because she'd be dead. And yet—

The lock clicked open, an eerie sense of finality to the sound, like the eerie sense of finality there was to the thought of sinking a knife into human flesh. Did someone who killed other humans really deserve to be called human? Or were they supposed to be monsters? Harriet tilted her head, stepping foot outside that door with barely more than a murmur of the skills she wanted to activate. What did that make her – what with how she was going out to kill another, to 'eliminate' another? "Am I a hypocrite?" she wondered, ratty trainers making barely a sound as she stalked out from her house with no red letters or question marks in sight.

No other sound escaped her, mouth feeling as dry as sandpaper as she couldn't help but glance down at the weighty knife she carried in her hand. It wasn't like she could rely on magic, after all, what with how she was going to eliminate the monster which haunted her so. Nothing would change if he stayed alive. They would be stuck as they were, clearly divided into prey and predator.

Harriet didn't want to be prey anymore, so becoming a hunter it was.

[RANDOM QUEST: THE RESCUE OF DUDLEY DURSLEY]

· Go to the forest and rescue Dudley Dursley from the hands of his kidnapper!

[REWARDS: +1000 EXP, +1 STAT POINTS, +RANDOM ITEM BOX, +DUDLEY DURSLEY LIVES]

It was almost strange how she had her cousin's life quite literally in her hands. That was a heavy thing indeed – just like the knife in her hands. She swallowed thickly, whispering then to hear the voices of the trees for once – rather than the ghostly whispers she had been focused on for what felt like a lifetime. She felt as though she had aged rapidly over the course of a matter of weeks since she had gained access to that game. Though it was hardly fun when there were lives at stake.

Her breath misted in the air in front of her as she stepped into the shadows of the murmuring trees, an unearthly chill settling into her very bones, and Harriet was struck by the distinct sensation that something was both wrong and incredibly right. There was something else at play, and she had the inkling that the good old m-word was to blame as she strode into the shadows of the tree, watching as her stealth skill bar crept across the screen at a snail's pace.

Stealth was a good skill of hers – one of her highest levelled skills, and she was putting it to good use, creeping through the shadows as she was. Silently, she prayed that magic wouldn't be able to see through her skill. Her heart thumped in her chest, feeling as though it might burst out from inside her chest as she tried to calm herself and think about how she was most definitely going to get out of that forest alive. Her eyes narrowed, the backdrop of murmuring voices suddenly feeling as though they were concealing the sounds of his approach. Was he creeping up on her? Did he know she was there? Harriet didn't know. All she knew was that the fate of her cousin was within her own hands. Well – his fate, and her own.

Translucent hands rippled into view, a burst of static crackling in her ears, the sounds of the trees becoming distorted – like a television with no reception. Wincing, she grabbed at her head, wondering why it almost felt like her brain was being pulled in two different directions. There was something at war within herself, two things clashing. Harriet didn't have the slightest idea of what – only that she wanted it to stop.

There were bigger things to worry about – if she didn't want to end up like the ghosts around her, all black-haired, green-eyed, and gory sights. Fear came back to bite, an odd silence cutting through the static, the sound of her heartbeat the only thing she could hear as she stood there, watching as ghostly mouths moved.

Both Voices of the Trees and Whispers of the Dead were active – she should have been able to hear the dead girl. Dimly, she wondered where Charly, Rose, and Elizabeth were. Her grip tightened on the knife, the images of Elizabeth's bloody corpse springing to mind as she waited there, glancing every now and then at her static stealth skill bar—

Static?

Harriet froze, a murmur of a tree's voice cutting though the silence, hurried and sharper than ever before, crackling with static – with interference – of some sort.

"Behind you!"

She spun on her heel, knife lashing out wildly. Yet he wasn't right behind her – instead he was a good few metres away, hand raised, a stick between his finger. A spell wand, she realised numbly as a jet of red light shot towards her, slamming into her chest.

Then—nothing.

Her eyes felt crusty, her brain fuzzy as she slowly came back to consciousness. Her brow furrowed, wondering where the sharp rap of her aunt's fingers against the door was. That was usually what she woke up to.

The surface beneath her was hard – not the flimsy mattress with springs which stuck out in places – and there was an alarming amount of air brushing against too much exposed skin. Oh. Memories of what she had been doing came back to her in a flash, and Harriet could only briefly wonder about what she could have done to stop herself ending up there.

Her eyes flickered open, staring up at the moon which hung heavy in the sky, like an eye of a distant god staring down at her, proclaiming the judgement for her own stupidity. Really? What had she been thinking, rushing off to face a grown adult with magic which he could use far better than her own? The conclusion must have been obvious for everyone besides herself.

Thick straps which felt alarmingly similar to her uncle's belts bit into her wrists and ankles, arms pinned out from her sides, feet spread wide as she lay there, numbness and dread clawing at her. Was that it? Was that how it ended? Harriet could only presume that much. It wasn't like adults ever tended to come to her rescue. All she had was herself and her whispered commands.

She opened her mouth, ready to call on the nature magic she had used before along with overboost. Yet no words escaped her, and Harriet could only freeze as she tried to speak – tried to scream, but nothing happened. Her lips moved. No sound escaped her.

"Silly," a horribly familiar voice murmured, a hand caressing her cheek, and Harriet froze once more as she finally stared at the face of her stalker and probable killer. "Of course I silenced you. It's not like anyone your age can silent cast…" he said, and Harriet stared up at him.

Clear blue eyes looked down at her hungrily, marred with dark shadows slightly sunken in. He might have been handsome once, before his skin took on a translucent tinge, bluish veins standing out beneath the light of the moon, and a thick scar marred his forehead, a symbol so like the lightning of her own scar burnt into flesh which had bubbled and warped. Blonde hair fell around his face, framing the picture of her killer in her mind.

"It's already a testament to your power that you managed to manipulate those trees and vines," he said, an almost loving tinge to his words. He spoke to her like Aunt Petunia cooed over Dudley, exalting her and placing her up on the pedestal which she had once longed to be put upon. Yet all she felt was disgust, regret, and a whole different cocktail of emotions in sharp contrast. "It's almost a shame I have to use you like this…" he said, and Harriet wondered if somehow, some way, she could prevent him from taking her life.

A familiar ding rent the air, his words fading out as she stared at the familiar quest box which appeared in front of her. Part of her wondered why it had taken so long for it to appear – why it hadn't appeared earlier to warn her of what was to come, of what had found her somehow in the depths of the trees.

[AN EMERGENCY QUEST HAS BEEN ISSUED!]

[EMERGENCY QUEST]

[There is someone nearby who intends to harm the player!]

• Escape your enemy's clutches successfully. Run, hide, or fight – the choice is yours!

• [BONUS QUEST] Eliminate your enemy!

[REWARDS: +800 EXP, +2 STAT POINTS, +2 RANDOM STAT BOXES, +BLESSED/CURSED RANDOM BOX]

[BONUS QUEST REWARDS: ?]

[FAILURE: SEXUAL ASSAULT, TORTURE, DEATH]

Harriet almost wanted to scoff. She could see who exactly intended to harm her, and yet she could do nothing. She couldn't speak. She couldn't run. She couldn't hide. She couldn't fight. Her knife was gone and her limbs were tied. And there were hands on her, again… She gritted her teeth, eyes following him as his fingers trailed over her bare skin, an unholy gleam in his eyes which told her that nothing he had planned for her was good. She had already known it though – she had known such a fact for weeks. Yet still, there she was, thanks to her brashness and desire to save someone she didn't like all that much. She wondered why she didn't regret such a thing, hopeless as her situation looked.

Maybe that was why there was so many rewards for completing that emergency quest – because there was so little hope for her to overcome such a thing. Loathing stirred in her belly, and for once Harriet loathed somethings. She despised the man who had chosen to assault, torture, and murder her. She despised the fact that he was taking what he wanted with no regards for anyone other than himself. She despised her own weakness, and how she had been caught so very easily.

Yet what was she supposed to do when her skills malfunctioned and her knowledge of spell wands and spells were so very flimsy. She barely knew anything about the world hidden from the eyes of muggles, and it was showing in the worst of ways.

"It's okay, Harriet," a familiar staticky voice resonated from by her ear, Rose smiling ever so sombrely down at her. "It'll end eventually," she murmured in what Rose could only think to be comforting. It wasn't.

She didn't want to die, and yet—yet what could she do?

The image of her uncle flying back from that strange force – her magic – came to mind, and frantically she tried to remember how she had done such a thing. Her uncle had loomed over her, ready to throw her to a killer and she hadn't wanted him to. Gritting her teeth, she thought of Ian Strange and the hands on her and how she wanted them off. A smile curled at her lips as she felt that sensation within her again. Intent had something to do with it.

He moved first, slashing that stick – that wand – through the air as that power within her surged out like a bubble, a smile curling at his lips. "Silly," he murmured. "Do you really think accidental magic will save you?" he asked, tilting his head, hands never leaving her body. "You shouldn't worry though," he said, the sensation of his fingernails digging into the flesh of her thighs making her try to clamp her legs together as best she could. He tutted, ignorant to the black spots which fluttered across her vision as her heart throbbed in her chest. "Don't look so scared, silly. You'll enjoy this, I promise," he crooned, oblivious to the shudder such words sent down her spine.

How exactly would she enjoy sexual assault, torture, and death? Harriet could only ponder on such things as she lay there, wondering when exactly she had given up on those two currently active quests. Was she just going to lie there and take it as it came? It wasn't like she could fight back.

It wasn't like fighting back had ever worked well for her… well, until she had been invited to the game. But she wasn't particularly good at fighting back. She wasn't sure where to start from then, bound and voiceless as she was.

"You've always been a special girl, Harry," he said, and she stared at him blankly as he stood between her legs, a flick of his wand making it so that new restraints closed over her thighs and yanked them apart.

Tears leaked from her eyes, the light of the moon ever so bright and pretty as those hands wandered ceaselessly, touching and feeling places which Ian Strange hadn't managed to lay his grubby paws on. He was taking what he wanted – whatever that was. Harriet thought she might rather hate people who did just that.

Pain at her collarbone made her jolt, fingers pulling at folds of skin making her squirm as cold air brushed against something between her legs. A part of the body the older kids in year six learnt about. Lines carved themselves into the skin of her chest, the sensation of an invisible blade carving odd symbols into her almost distracting her from the hands touching her.

It hurt.

[ALERT! -4HP]

Compared to the pain of the invisible knife, the sensation between her legs was strange. She didn't understand why he was standing there, rubbing an odd little nub of flesh which made her feel strange. She didn't know why he kept on crooning at her that she would beg for it by the end.

"It's a shame," he murmured, and Harriet felt blackness creep into the corner of her vision at the pushing, prodding feeling. The feel of something inside her – a finger. "If I didn't have to sacrifice your heart to make the old gods notice me, then we could have been together forever," he whispered. "We could've played the game together… They thought me mad but I knew… I always knew… I know it exists…" She couldn't focus on his words, almost faint as they were to her ears, her brain far too occupied by those hands which were going places she didn't want them to be. Her stomach roiled, limbs trying desperately to flounder for purchase. Or maybe she was trying to kick him away? Harriet struggled, part of her wishing fervently that the straps holding her down to that stone plinth she lay on would somehow up and magically vanish in the next few moments.

They didn't.

Harriet wondered why the world felt so very distant. She wondered when she had started to feel so cut off from the world around her. She wondered why she distantly felt a surge of pleasure and heard a moan escape her lips and why she heard him crowing in pleasure at that. She wondered why his body felt so heavy as he settled atop her right then and there. She wondered when exactly she had turned her head sideways, looking blankly out into the forest. She wondered when she had stopped moving, stopped trying to struggle.

Nobody was going to come and magically save her, and she couldn't even save herself.

[ALERT! -3HP]

Harriet blinked, staring at the odd dark space which had appeared her in the space of an instant, blinking once more at the so very familiar blue box which appeared in front of her with a soft ding.

[ALERT! You have learnt Mindpalace (Lvl.1)!]

"Huh…" she mumbled, smiling almost hopelessly as she stared at the dreary darkness which surrounded her. There was no way to tell the time in that place, and Harriet could only wonder how long she had been there. It was like time didn't exist. Yet she knew it did, and hers was ticking and growing so very close to the end.

[ALERT! You are in a Forest!]

Harriet blinked.

[ALERT! You are surrounded by Souls of the Dead!]

"Oh," she mumbled, thinking then on the glimpses of other green-eyed, black-haired girls she had seen in incorporeal form in those woods. They were there with her – his other victims – Rose, Elizabeth, and even Charly. Harriet wondered if that made her feel more comforted – to not be alone with her killer when he was about to—

Your conflicting natures reach a harmony!

The notifications popped up before her one after another, the boxes a lurid bright blue in that dark space.

[The Trees have detected murderous intent towards the individual with the Subclass of 'Druid' and the Active Title 'The Last Druid'!]

Harriet blinked, wondering why she felt the oddest surge of hope as she sat there in the darkness of what could only be her mind. She had learnt the skill mindpalace after all, and there was just a bit of a clue in the name. Or maybe she was already dead and this was some odd imagination of hers? Harriet didn't know.

[The Souls of the Dead have detected murderous intent towards the individual with the Subclass of 'Necromancer' and the Non-Active Title 'The Necromancer of the End'!]

"Wha…?" Harriet blinked for what had to be the thousandth time, staring at those blue boxes which almost made her think she was going to get out of that situation alive. Through no power which was her own. Or at least not a power she could consciously use.

Otherwise she would have been able to stop him before—

Harriet paused, wondering what was going on outside that space she had retreated to. Dimly, she could hear a wet slapping sound, feel the sensation of her limp body being used in a way she didn't really understand. Why would someone want to do that? She didn't understand why he was so pleased over her being so tight. She didn't understand half the words she had been able to listen to before things became too much and she had run away in a sense.

She rather thought she hated the idea of running away – that was what prey did. She didn't want to be that anymore, even though that was what she was right then and there. Caught prey which was being slowly devoured by the hungry predator atop her.

[ALERT! The Skill: Wrath of the Forest (Novice) Lvl.1 is automatically activated!]

[A Hidden Skill reveals itself!]

[ALERT! The Skill: Wrath of the Dead (Novice) Lvl.1 is automatically activated!]

Pain.

That was the first thing she felt as her eyes fluttered open, brain feeling as though it were full of cotton wool as she… Harriet paused, noting how she was sitting up, her chest feeling stiff with dried blood. There was something crossing over her chest, keeping her in place like a seatbelt. She glanced down, freezing as she spotted the small skeletal hand and forearm interwoven with a flowering branch holding her there on a chair of skulls, bones, branches, and flowers.

Not a chair, she realised belatedly, hands resting on the armrests of the throne she was sitting upon. The same throne she sat on, covered in blood and that odd, almost foul-smelling white liquid which had covered Elizabeth's corpse in the same manner. It hurt. More than that though, there was the strangest sense of loss and disgust which went to war in her stomach.

She felt sick, and she looked up—and promptly leant off her chair to retch in the bushes.

? ? – The Acolyte of ? (Corpse)

There was no name – it still being unknown to her for one reason or another, but Harriet supposed that didn't matter all that much. He was dead, after all. He was a corpse. And it was her skills which had made him as such. The Wrath of both the Forest and the Dead was not something to be trifled with, it seemed.

Branches had pierced him, thick and bloody, one bursting out through the back of his eye socket where it had burrowed into and through his brain, and Harriet only had to glance at the forest floor to find the stringy, bloody eyeball there before she promptly dived off her chair and into the bushes to vomit once more.

He was dead.

He couldn't kill her anymore.

He was strung up like a macabre piece of artwork.

He couldn't harm her anymore.

She was probably supposed to feel relieved, and Harriet wondered why she didn't. There was no relief in seeing a dead body of her would be killer in front of her. Instead, all she felt was numbness and disgust. She hated death. Even, it seemed, the death of her enemies. She didn't like the blood, the stillness, or the finality about it. She didn't like the way the image was carved into her mind, captured there to stay whenever she closed her eyes.

She wondered if there had been anyway to capture him alive. She wondered if she'd have felt better if that were the case – if she'd feel less sick to the stomach. There probably had been a way. She was just too pitifully weak and uninformed to use such a thing.

[QUEST COMPLETE!]

[EMERGENCY QUEST COMPLETE!]

[EMERGENCY BONUS QUEST COMPLETE!]

"Harriet," a voice filled with static graced her ears, and she turned, not wanting to look at the blue boxes which proclaimed that she had survived and that she had eliminated her enemy for once, the macabre throne and the twisted body decorated with bloody branches and hungry skulls out of sight. But not out of mind – Harriet didn't think she'd be able to forget either of them, much like how she couldn't forget the sight of Elizabeth's corpse, crowned with red flowers and petals as it had been.

[REWARDS ARE AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPTED!]

[ALERT! You have levelled up!]

[ALERT! You have levelled up!]

[ALERT! You have unopened reward boxes!]

Something dripped down her leg, white and red mingling as she stood there in the forest, bare feet against the cool earth. "What?" she murmured, her voice finally back with her. She wondered if there had been a time limit, or whether whatever magic had taken her voice had ended with his death.

"Silly," his voice seemed to echo in her ears, and she shuddered at both that word and the way he had purred it.

"Thank you," she whispered, ignorant to the rock which settled in her stomach at being thanked for killing someone.

"Why are you thanking me?" her voice came out oddly hoarse, cracking as she stared at her, hating yet confused by the tears which built in her eyes. "I… He's dead, and yet…" She could still feel his hands on her, still feel the violent tearing sensation as he had forced himself onto her. Into her. Her hands shook, the urge to vomit rising once more.

"Because now I can move on," Rose told her flatly, smiling then. Harriet's brow furrowed. "He was the one keeping me, or well, this remnant of me, anyway. I guess you'd call it unfinished business, in a sense," she mumbled, evidently having spied her confusion. "It's what necromancers can apparently help with – there's a ghost in Little Whinging's Memorial Grounds who's really knowledgeable about your kind. It's where I was the past few days… Why I wasn't here when…" she trailed off, looking terribly guilty at that even as her form seemed to blur around the edges just a little bit. "Anyway… It's, well… time for me to go, I guess."

Harriet blinked, wondering why she felt so sad at that. It was good that Rose was 'moving on'. Wasn't it? "Oh," Harriet mumbled, watching with a sad smile as that incorporeal form of hers seemed to burst into little winged glowing creatures which lingered – the only remnants of one of the few girls her age who were willing to speak to her.

Three ghosts had come into her life all of a sudden, and they had left just as quickly. She glanced up, staring at the pale ice blue fireflies which seemed to light up the forest in the darkness of the night. The number of them was rather telling of the number of victims. Yet it was over.

The acolyte of someone was dead and he couldn't kill anyone else.

Yet it didn't feel like it was over, like it had ended. Not when she could still feel him touching her. Not when his words were still ringing in her head.

"Profile," she murmured, wanting to have something there to distract her. She didn't want to think of hands or how silly she was, thinking to face a serial killer who she had only survived thanks to skills automatically activating.

Harriet Lily Potter – Lvl.11 – Age: 8

Race: Elf Sponsor:?

Class: Arcane Archer Subclasses: Druid, Necromancer

Title(s): The Last Druid (Other Titles Available)

HP: 63/110 MP: 160/180

Exhaustion: 311/550

"Stats," she mumbled soon after, wanting to peer at them for once as the weight of her exhaustion seemed to finally catch up with her. She had levelled up twice and received rewards from two—technically three quests, if she included the 'bonus' quest as a separate one.

VIT: 11, STR: 6, DEX: 13, INT: 18, WIS: 18, CHA: 30

Unallotted Stat Points: 31

Another blue box flashed up.

[ALERT! You have two unused RANDOM STAT BOXES and one unused CURSED STAT BOX!]

[QUESTION! Would you like to use these rewards now?]

"Uh," Harriet blinked, clinging to those boxes and their notifications and questions. "Yes?" she said, blinking and watching almost warily as two boxes with spinning slots opened up. Numbers spun, from one to nine, as did the names of all the stats she had, spinning from VIT to CHA and back again.

They spun around and around, coming to a stop after what felt like an age of her just standing there and watching them.

[+2 WIS!]

[+2 INT!]

Considering she could have got nine of each stat, Harriet felt vaguely disappointed, only to be startled as another ding rang out.

[The Cursed Stat Box gives you the stat you most need: +5 CHA!]

Harriet stared at her stats, watching as they shifted all of a sudden.

VIT: 11, STR: 6, DEX: 13, INT: 20, WIS: 20, CHA: 35

Unallotted Stat Points: 31

Her stats looked rather high, aside from her strength, and she had the most unallotted stat points she had since that game had opened up for her. Ever since she had started playing that game. She had only had to be sexually assaulted and narrowly escape death to gain that number and two levels to boot. Shudders rolled down her spine, the sense of nausea returning to her at the bleak sarcastic thought which she would happily blame Charly for, gone as she was.

Neither Elizabeth nor her had seemed to say goodbye.

A sharp crack rent the air all of a sudden, and Harriet felt her head snap around. She knew that sound – the sound of wizards teleporting – and a mix of fear and desperation filled her. She knew by then just how weak she was to their magic, and she despised such a thing.

She needed to be stronger, faster, and better.

"Fifteen points to strength," she muttered, curling her hands into fists, eyes darting about as she hunkered down in the bushes.

VIT: 11, STR: 21, DEX: 13, INT: 20, WIS: 20, CHA: 35

Unallotted Stat Points: 16

"What dark magic is this?" an unfamiliar voice sounded out, high-pitched and utterly terrified.

"Evidently he dabbled in things he shouldn't have, and he paid the price," a more familiar voice rang out, the familiar clunk of a wooden peg leg sounding, and Harriet felt herself relax – up until the moment a familiar red bolt of light shot towards her in the bushes. She dived out of the way.

"In the bushes!" somebody cried out, and Harriet made a split second decision. She wasn't going to let another wizard rob her of her consciousness – and she wasn't going down without a fight.

Snarling, she leapt from the bushes, slamming the nearest largest stick down on the nearest wizard's wrist, grabbing a hold of the spell wand they dropped. She bared her teeth, holding the wand out threateningly.

"Hold," Alastor Moody barked out in that gruff voice of his.

"But sir – she needs to be obliviated—"

"What part of hold do you not understand, you nitwit?" Mr Moody hissed, making it so very clear exactly what he thought of the other man's intelligence. Scowling, he moved closer slowly, and Harriet found herself at war with her instincts as she wondered whether or not to back away from the man she knew had been hunting her would-be killer. Who was since dead at her and her skill's hand. She swallowed, blinking almost confusedly when the older man shed his coat and draped it over her, doing up its first few buttons carefully. "Don't suppose you'd be willing to give back that idiot's wand?" he asked, nodding then at the man who was glaring at her and holding his injured hand.

Twenty-One Points worth of strength apparently packed quite the punch. Harriet felt terribly gleeful about such a fact. She wouldn't be weak – she wouldn't be held down again. She wouldn't hesitate next time; to use the stat points she had to improve that which she needed to.

"I know what the protocol is," he declared, glaring at the one who had originally spoken, standing back up, red robes for once on full display, and Harriet felt something cold and untrusting settle in her stomach. Was she going to have another wand pointed at her, ready to do something or another again? Was she going to just simply let such a thing happen?

Harriet bared her teeth, dropping the wand which was of no use to her as she pulled her too small fist back and slammed it into Mr Moody's robes, knowing she had hit something vital as an odd whimper escaped him. She thought then on how she wanted those people away from her, baring her teeth in a grin as she felt her power – her magic – swell up and out in that same way she had sent her uncle flying.

The wizards went tumbling unlike the last wizard she had tried to use such a thing on. Because they hadn't been expecting that, for some reason. She turned on her heel, fleeing back towards Privet Drive then, reaching the safety of the garden and then the back door before she realised that Dudley was still in the forest.

The bell rang while it was still dark, her aunt and uncle who had been sobbing and fretting in the living room going to the front door then. Harriet watched quietly from where she hid in the kitchen, memories of her leaving to face the killer feeling like aeons ago as her aunt started shrieking.

"Dudley!" she cried, welcoming the small boy back with open, bony arms. "Oh, Dudley. Diddykins!" she murmured, hugging him as though her life depended on it, murmuring things under her breath to the rather terribly confused boy. "You're home! You're safe!" she declared, all but dragging the boy into the living room.

Harriet only watched as her uncle thanked the normally dressed policeman who'd dropped the boy off, closing the door before he went to lavish his son in affection. She walked to her cupboard under the stairs, long coat dragging behind her as she sealed herself away in that cupboard. Her cupboard. It was like the puzzle had been completed without her realising it – the fact coming to her cold and hard as she watched the family of three together in the living room.

The Dursleys would never love her.

Tears burnt in her eyes, the feeling that it wasn't fair stirring as she stared at her cousin who was seemingly completely fine. Untouched and intact.

The air in front of her shimmered, a familiar form appearing in front of her, even as she cried.

"You're the necromancer," Charly muttered, her staticky voice ever so familiar, and somehow making her feel less alone and isolated as she sat there in her cupboard. "But I guess you're too dumb to know why I'm still here – why I can't follow Rosey and Beth…" she said, hands curled into fists, teeth clenched. "He's dead, and yet what does that change?" Charly demanded, tears just about visible on her pale, dead face. "I'm still dead."

Harriet shrugged, sitting there, feeling just as sorry for herself as she realised she didn't have a family either. She might as well have been dead to the Dursleys for all they cared.

"It's not fair!" Charly blubbered. "It's not! Why did he have to kill me? Why can't I see my family again? Why can't I just hurry up and move on…? It's not fair…"

"No," Harriet mumbled, staring at her knees as she hugged herself as best as possible – a terrible mimicry of the hugs given to Dudley by his loving family. The same people who didn't love her – their so-called niece. "It's not."