Chapter 8
After Harri's intense first meal with her House, Harri was called over by Snape to head to Dumbledore office and he accompanied her to his office.
"SweetTarts" Snaped muttered, hating to say the sweets' name. Harri kept silent and kept pace with Snape's long strides as they extended the long spiral staircase into Dumbledore's office.
As Harri entered his office, she noticed that the other head of houses were also there. Harri rose her eyebrows at them and took a seat when it was offered to her. The other head of houses also took a seat around her and she noticed the sorting hat in the back shelf, and she felt her ire raise back again, but Snape put his hand on her shoulder to keep her down, already guessing where her thoughts were directed. Harri huffed and rolled her eyes and sat back down pleasantly like nothing even happened.
"Welcome to Hogwarts, Harriet my girl" Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. Harri nodded at him and simply said,
"Thank you, sir." Harri studied the other head of houses and noticed that they were also studying her reactions. Harri kept her gaze trained on them until McGonagall spoke out,
"In all of my years! I have never seen a student cause such trouble before being sorted" Harri awarded them with her first smirk taking pride in that. Everyone in that room noticed her James Potter smirk and realization dawned on them that they still had 7 years with her. How could Lily's face have such an expression like that, they didn't understand. And the Sirius Black puppy dog eyes was even more of a concern to them.
"Well young lady what do you have to say for yourself?" McGonagall demanded.
Harri relaxed and then spoke the honest truth, "Professor Snape told me I had do some damage control today and a prank was the best way to make people aware that I am not out for blood." every eye turned to Snape, and he glared at the little girl. She glared back at him and jutted out her chin out just like Lily did to him when they had arguments and he softened just a bit.
"Not like that, you idiotic child!" he yelled at her. Harri pretended to flinch and stepped closer to McGonagall trying to turn on her maternal instincts that she felt for her Lion pride. It apparently worked because Professor McGonagall defended her right away,
"How was she to know how to deal with damage control Severus?" Professor McGonagall scolded him. But he didn't back down and instead got enraged for manipulating McGonagall's emotions to her advantage, he stared at Harri and sneered down at her.
"She should have thought about that before revealing her Parseltongue in front of the whole bloody ball" Harri smiled at his foul language, reminding her of her own rant, and Harri was proud to say that she enjoyed getting all of that off of her back. Harri wasn't surprised to see that no one else was surprised by her gift.
"People would have found out eventually" Harri shrugged making Professor Snape even more furious.
"POTTER!" Severus roared. This time she made sure to hide behind McGonagall and use her like a shield. Professor McGonagall instincts kicked in and she once again defended Harri.
"Severus! You are scaring the poor girl" and Harri secretly let her eyes wonder to the two professors that hadn't said anything so far. She smiled at Professor Flitwick, giving him a small wave. He smiled fondly at her and waved back at her, neither of the professors realizing that she was communicating with her other professors. In the meanwhile, Dumbledore heaved out a heavy sigh at his two most trusted colleagues, and also noticed that Harri had already moved on to other thigs besides the temper of Severus.
"Harriet, you should not have conducted a prank of that magnitude on the train" Harri nodded, wanting to get this over with and go to her room.
"I thought that Professor Snape was aware that I would do something of that nature" Harri threw Snape under the bus, and he was about to go on another temper tantrum when Harri cut him off and said,
"Sir, give me detention if it makes you feel better, but you can't scare me with anything in this world. I have already lost my family, what more could I possibly lose but a couple of house points that have no value but pitting students against each other?" Harri stared at Severus and making a quick decision she took off her cloak and then outer robe leaving her in a camisole and her skirt. Harri faced the wall and gave her back to her professors and lifted her camisole upwards to show them the belt marks that stayed imprinted on her pale back. She heard three horrified gasps and turned to look at a horrified and haunted look on Snape's face.
"The Dursleys have threatened me and to be honest so have I. They aren't my family; I hate them, and they equally hate me. When I was younger and before I knew that I could speak to snakes, that threatened to send me to a brothel so that I could earn my keep" No one spoke a word and Harri continued speaking.
"I didn't know what a brothel was so Vernon explained to me in excruciating detail what they would do to me at the brothel" Harri whispered to what happened in her original time, something that she had only told Mathew and Theo. Harri was glad that she looked like her mother and Petunia took pity on her and decided that she couldn't do that to a girl that looked so much like her sister.
"Petunia told me of all of the nasty diseases that sluts get and explained what each one did so that I wouldn't get knocked up and bring another freak to feed" Harri spoke evenly looking at each of her professors and finally stared into Dumbledore's blue sorrow filled eyes. Professor Sprout let out wail out at what has to be the worst case of abuse she had ever heard in her years of teaching.
"I wanted to go into Gryffindor because my parents were there, and I wanted to feel closer to them in at least that sense. But it's impossible for me to take after parents that didn't raise me and didn't show me their core values and morals. Yeah, I'm a little fucked up, but that's how I survived. In order to survive, I had to have Slytherin traits to live by." Snape stormed out of Dumbledore's office and went to his private sleeping quarters where he took out some fire whiskey and tried to forget what the daughter of his beloved Lily had to go through.
"Everyone watched Snape leave and then Harri said "my home situation also explains my colorful vocabulary. I've never been raped, but that is only thanks to my self-preservation and death threats" Harri shrugged staring out from behind McGonagall. Harri stared into the eyes of every adult. She has had time to get over it and continue with her wretched life, but to them she was only 11 and was already speaking like it was done to her a long time ago.
"Also, just to let you know, I'm not going back to the Dursley's ever again, if they threatened me once more, I'll probably do more than just scare them with some snakes." Dumbledore only nodded somnolently at her, agreeing that she would not go back. Harri put her outer robe and cloak back on.
"I am sorry about the sorting hat fiasco, not so sorry about my vocabulary, but I am sorry about the impact it had. I had my heart set of for Gryffindor and had already made plans for the possible next 7 years" Professor McGonagall heart softened knowing that Harri wanted to be one of her Lions.
"Miss Potter, you are all right, just don't go making it a habit to curse everything that doesn't go your way" Professor McGonagall replied kindly back to her, almost in a motherly way. Harri nodded slowly pretending to think about it.
"Harri smiled at her and then said "Don't feel bad about the Dursleys, that past is in the past, and I want to move on and never see them again"
Professor McGonagall pursed her lips before agreeing. "Miss Potter, 25 points to Slytherin for the bravery that it must of took to speak of such an experience" Harri smiled at her sadly and just nodded her head, sort of ashamed that she had manipulated her way out of trouble by using her past and weaseled her way out of punishment, gotten points added instead of points taking away from her.
Harri was excused to go back to her dorm room meanwhile they continued discussing about her, she was escorted by the Bloody Baron who didn't pay her any mind to her delight. When Harri entered the Common room using Parseltongue because she didn't know the password, everybody in her house was still up.
"What's the verdict Potter?" some random 4th year asked. Harri smirked and saw that everyone had already bathed and then said,
"I got 25 points for Slytherin and no punishment or detention" She smirked at them giving them her best cocky smile and Pansy glared at her. She was mad that she hadn't received any punishments and hadn't been expelled. Draco asked her almost demandingly,
"How did you do it?" Harri relaxed her smile and simply said,
"I'm a Potter, of course I would be able to pull this off" many people rolled their eyes at her statement, as she started to sound like Malfoy. But then Harri surprised them all by giving them a clue.
"Potters have always been light." And with that she sat down next to Tracey and Daphne and waited for their Head of House to dismiss them into their dorms and explain some Slytherin core house rules. But he never came to greet them, and by 12:30 the prefects had sent the first years to sleep meanwhile the rest of the house waited for their head of house. At 1:30 the second years were excused and then so on.
