Harriet

What if H. Potter was a girl?

Note: most characters in this story are the opposite sex from what they were in the books.

Harriet knelt uncomfortably on the filthy basement floor, shovel in hand. Cleaning out the furnace ashpan was her job. Just one of the many dirty jobs she was forced to do. Waiting on her family hand and foot was just plain demeaning, especially since this was not even her real family. Her real parents, Jane and Billy Potter, were dead. Murdered. Harriet was basically a slave. A posession of her aunt and uncle, Virginia and Cotton Dursley, and their three ditzy daughters, Rose, Violet, and Schauntielle. They treated her like shit, and they always had. Harriet did all the chores while everyone else did as they pleased. "Harriet, dig up the potatoes!" .. "Harriet, unclog the toilet!" .. "Harriet, get the boiler going!" This was her life. And if she complained, if she didn't finish every chore, if something wasn't just so, Cotton Dursley would beat her to a pulp.

Or worse.

Sometimes, after whipping her with his belt, Cotton would decide that she needed a little ...extra... something. Down in the basement, on the pile of old wornout blankets and shirts that served as Harriet's bed, Cotton would give Harriet her "just desserts", as he called them. Shoving her over backwards, he would lower his flabby form onto hers and squash her nearly flat as he forced himself repeatedly into her. After awhile, his face would get red, and he would start laughing. When he was done, up the stairs he would go, leaving Harriet bruised and sobbing. So often she had wondered what she had done to deserve this. So often she had wished that something would squash Cotton Dursley and his whole goddamned family. So many times Harriet had held that heavy coal shovel in her hand, and wondered why she didn't just bash their fucking brains in.

This was not normal, she knew. Harriet knew many things, despite having never had a book to read, despite having never gone anywhere, despite having no contact with the outside world. She knew that the money her "family" used, with its "pounds", and "pence", was stupid. Real money was called Galleons, and it wasn't made of paper. She also knew that most of the things she and her moron masters did by hand, shouldn't have to be done by hand. You were supposed to just wave a wand, and things would just get done. And she knew that her real family were nothing at all like these jerkwad dorks.

She knew these things because of Cruella, the witch who had tried to kill her.

Cruella was ruthless old hag of a witch whose name was a household word and synonymous with evil. She ran an extensive black market in magical creatures, torturing phoenixes to sell their tears, killing unicorns for their blood, and various other depravities. With her long pointy nose, sunken eyes, and sickly-looking anorexic body draped in a plethora of furs, the mere sight of her was enough to terrify most. And if that didn't do it, the smell would. She chain-smoked, with one of those uppity-snot long long cigarette holders that was supposed to look classy, and perhaps it would have if the rest of her hadn't been so gaudy. And as for her laugh, well, I wouldn't exactly call it mirthless; but when she laughed, you knew she was laughing not with you, but at you.

When Harriet was just a baby, Cruella had paid her parents a visit. "Jane dahling, I hear you've had a daughter!", Cruella announced as she breezed in uninvited on the Potters. Jane moved carefully, wondering if she dared tell Cruella about her child. But the sound of a baby crying gave it away, and Cruella swept into Harriet's room. Taking a long drag from her cigarette, she carelessly puffed smoke all over the crib. "Mahvellous, she's just the picture of youth and vigor, I'd like to purchase her from you. I have wizard gold; would twenty galleons be enough?"

Jane was completely aghast. "Twenty-- what? You can't buy..." But Cruella had already opened her pocketbook. "Here, I'll make it thirty!" Billy, angry and yet terrified, pointed his wand at Cruella. "N- No! You c-can't buy our daughter, she's not f-fr-fr-fr-for sale! Now j-just go, ok?" Cruella glared at him with a look that made him drop his wand on the floor. "BHaaaaa hahahaha!", she guffawed. "Dahling, I do believe you've wet yourself!" Jane stood beside her husband. "You can't have her, and that is that." Cruella, smirking, drew her wand. "Expelliarmus!", shouted Jane, who had drawn hers as well. But it was too late. Billy, who had just retrieved his wand from under the credenza, looked up just in time to see the unforgivable curse striking his lovely wife right between the eyes. And before Billy could get his own wand aimed, he was dead as well.

Stepping casually over the corpses, Cruella returned to the baby. "All right, my pretty!", she cooed through a toothy smile. "In a few moments, I'll be young and beautiful again, and you will be a wrinkly old hag! Aahahaha!" She pulled the cigarette from her mouth, and offered it to the infant Harriet. "Here, you want some? No? Ok, your loss." Cruella's left hand closed around the infant's throat, and she took aim with her wand. "Tempora Transferra!", she incanted. The spell was supposed to have given Cruella the youth and beauty of a teenager, leaving Harriet to carry the burden of age. But something went wrong. No sooner than the spell had left her wand, Cruella forgot what it was she was going to do next. In fact, she forgot a good many things. "What the hell?", she mumbled, staring at a room she no longer recognized. Staggering out the door, she was confronted with a street that for all she knew, could have been in Timbuktu. And for all the wizarding world knew or cared, Cruella might very well have gone to Timbuktu. What mattered was that she was gone, and so was her influence on the wizarding world.

Harriet Potter, fortunately, was not made old or wrinkly. But she did recieve something from Cruella. Memories, feelings, and thoughts. They were vague, but they were there. And they were memories, feelings, and thoughts of sheer evil. And that is how Harriet lost her parents. Within hours, word of the double murder and the disappearance of Cruella was all over wizarding society, and the now-orphaned Harriet had to be seen to.

Virginia and Cotton Dursley had just finished supper when they heard the sound of a diesel horn outside. Cotton went stomping out onto the front walk. "Where's that damn noise coming from?", he bellowed. Virginia, her eyes wide, pointed at the source, a pair of headlights up in the night sky. Cotton stepped backwards and nearly tripped over his own feet. "Holy shit, a UFO!" As the UFO approached, it became clear that it was a dump truck. The big, yellow kind, the kind of dump truck you see at rock quarries and strip mines, the kind you could almost fit a house into. The dump truck landed gingerly, taking up the entire sideyard and part of the street. The cab door opened, and down the metal steps walked a big butch broad with gleaming blond hair. "Virginia and Cotton Dursley?" Cotton simply stood there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed over, petrified with terror. But Virginia nodded, and the large woman continued. "I'm Helga Ericsson, a friend of the Potters.", she explained. "There's been a horrible tragedy. Jane and Billy are dead." Virginia put her hand over her mouth. She and Jane had not gotten along that well, but still, they were sisters. Helga opened a huge pocket in the coat she was wearing, and pulled out a baby, wrapped up in a blanket. "This is Harriet, your niece.", said Helga, holding out the child to Virginia, who seemed hesitant to touch even the blanket, much less the child. "You're the only family she has left."

And that had been ten years ago. Ten long, miserable, stinking years of sheer hell. Harriet had finally finished her chores for the day, and, as this was Friday night, was preparing to go to sleep. In the potato hole. That's right, on Friday nights, Harriet could not even sleep in the basement, because that was where her cousin Schauntielle would be. For the last year or so, Schauntielle had been bringing home boys. Virginia and Cotton thought she was in her bed. But Schauntielle would be in the basement, fucking her 270 pound boyfriend. Of course, Harriet could have slept indoors anyway, but that would have meant listening to Cousin SlutMuffin telling Buffalo Butt how to do it. "Deeper... No, I didn't mean faster, I meant stick it farther in... What, are you done already?" Harriet shuddered at the thought of being anywhere near those two. "I hope he squashes her flat!", fumed Harriet under her breath as she gathered up her old blankets to drag out to the potato house for another night in the cold. "What's that?", demanded Schauntielle, approaching Harriet from behind. Harriet turned around to see Schauntielle and her not-worth-naming half-naked lardass of a boyfriend confronting her. And through the haze of her barely supressed rage, Harriet could see Mr. Fat Boy twisting up a towel, preparing to whack her with it.

But as he let fly the towel, its sharp "Crack!" was drowned out by a thunderous blast of steam, twisted pipes, and chunks of jagged metal. About twenty feet behind the happy couple, the boiler had exploded, taking the furnace with it. All the basement windows were blown out, and the house was very nearly knocked off its foundation. The only reason the house did not burn down was all the water from the boiler system, which kept the fire partially under control until the fire department could arrive. Virginia, Cotton, Rose, and Violet were all badly shaken, but not seriously injured. The same could not be said for Schauntielle and Lard Bucket. Rescue squads pulled their steam-broiled dead bodies from the wrecked basement amid screams of horror from the rest of the Dursley family.

And then they found Harriet.

She was unconcious, lying face up across a heap of twisted metal and splintered wood. Her hair was all swept straight back and her clothes were in tatters. But somehow, Harriet herself seemed completely unscathed. Opening her eyes, she yawned, stretched, and got to her feet as though simply climbing out of bed. Then she noticed the wreckage around her, as well as the surviving Dursleys, who were all glaring at her. Blushing several shades of "Oh shit, what is all this?", she ducked their horrified looks and ventured outside, only to have the first thing she saw be the bodies of Schauntielle and Blubber Butt, lying on stretchers, the steam still rising from their scalded corpses. It was then that Harriet's memory of the moments leading up to the explosion returned to her, and she knew that somehow, she had caused this. It wasn't as though this was the first time Harriet had ...somehow... made things happen. Whenever her anger was near the boiling point, there had been weird and unexplained occurances. Once she had caused every light bulb in the house to blow at the same time. Another time, she had turned all the food on the supper table instantly rotten. And there were others. But this time, people were dead. This was bad. Very bad. And yet, at the realization of having brought such death and destruction upon those who had been so abusive, Harriet had to resist the impulse to giggle. And that was all the worse, because try as she might to stifle it, an audible "snork" escaped her, along with a crooked smirk. Behind her, Harriet heard a metallic scraping sound. Turning back to look again at the Dursleys with guilt written all over her face, she could see that Cotton Dursley had picked up a crowbar. "YOU!", he bellowed.

Simultaneously, they all lunged at her, screaming in primal rage, and Harriet, her blood running cold, her mind on instinct, did the only thing she could. She bolted. As fast as her legs could carry her, Harriet tore out across the yard and into the darkened backlot. Running through a briar patch and across a barbed-wire fence, she lost what remained of her already shredded attire and ran streaking naked into the city streets, until out of breath and shivering from the cold, she ducked into an alleyway where warm hamburger-scented steam was pouring out from a vent in the wall.

And as she huddled in the veil of hamburger-scented steam, a nearby door opened. "Come on in, I'll warm ya up.", a voice called out from the dimly-lit doorway. He was holding out a blanket. Harriet hesitated, unsure of whether to trust the man. But she couldn't run anymore, and despite the steam, she was too cold where she was, and so she reached out for the blanket. And as she did so, the man pulled her inside.

----

The ceiling was purple, and curtains of beads hung in the interior doorways. The air was thick with sweet-smelling smoke, and soft music was playing. The lights were dim and multicolored, and they turned slowly, casting patterns of light, dark, and color upon the furnishings inside. There were sofas everywhere, and people were lounging about on them. Hell, they were lounging about on each other. The smell of food was coming from another room, and Harriet, following the smell, found herself in a kitchen where pots of soup were boiling and hamburgers were frying on a grill. "Here, this'll warm ya up good.", the man told her as he handed her a bowl of chicken noodle soup. As Harriet sipped on the hot soup, the man introduced himself. "My name's Zachary Picceldeich, but most people just call me Zap." "Harriet Potter", she replied, still sipping on the soup. "What is this place?"

Zap gave a semi-thoughtful-looking smirk. "It's a place where you can stay." Reaching into a nearby closet, Zap pulled out a small bright-red bathrobe and handed it to Harriet. "This should be better than the blanket." And it was. It was warmer, and it fit her well. Zap led Harriet to a luxurious bathroom, and let her take a real bath. In a real bathtub, with soap, and plenty of hot water. And afterwards, he showed her to a bedroom of her very own, with an actual bed in it. Zap closed the bedroom door, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He was holding a large bottle and two plastic cups. Pouring from the bottle, he filled both cups, and offered one to Harriet. "Here, try some of this." Harriet sniffed at the strange, fizzing liquid. Zap took a drink from his cup. "It's called sham-pane", he told her, and, hesitantly, Harriet took a drink. After finishing off a cupful of this "sham-pane", Harriet was feeling a little lightheaded, and apparently, so was Zap, who was now sprawled all over the bed.

"Ok babe, let's see what you've got", drawled Zachary Picceldeich, and he rolled over onto Harriet, trapping her beneath him. "No no no.. -hic-", protested Harriet. But Zap would not let her up. "Don't panic, this won't hurt you.", he reassured her. But he was already forcing himself on her, much as Cotton Dursley had so many times before. His face grew red, and he began to laugh, and with that, Harriet knew he would soon get up and leave. But before he left the room, he gave her the news: "You're going to be getting a lot of guys in here. Just let'em do pretty much whatever they want, and you'll be just fine." Harriet lay alone at last, pondering the situation. At least he hadn't beaten her. Yet. But still... She didn't like having anyone in, or on, her. She felt like she was being used for a toilet. And as the days went by, a plethora of utter dorks were led by Mr. Piccledeich to Harriet's room. Some of them gave her gifts. Some of them gave her compliments. Some of them beat her up. But there was one thing they all wanted. They all wanted to squash her, to do their stupid wiggle dance on her, and to leave her with their gross disgusting slimy goo. All Harriet wanted was to find somewhere better to go. Certainly the whole world couldn't be like this. But while simply running away was sure to get her somewhere else, it could just as easily land her somewhere worse. Meanwhile, she was stuck in the House of Weird, being well fed and housed, with no chores to do, but being used for a human trampoline. This continued until the dead of winter, when deepening snows began to keep the perverts away.

It was on one such snowy day that Harriet was sitting on her bed, propped up against a pile of pillows, enjoying the peace and quiet for once. And then, there was yet another knock at the door. It was, of course, Zachary "Pickle-Dick" again, bringing in some perv who was either intrepid enough or desperate enough to brave the snowstorm. "Ya might wanna watch yerself with this bloke.", warned Zap. "He's a finicky one. Told me just what he wanted and described you to a 'T'. " As Harriet turned to face her latest visitor, she was met with an absolute visual shock. Damn he was ugly! He was wrinkled, and his skin was dark and greenish. He was only about three feet tall, and skinny, with a pointy nose and pointy ears. And he wasn't wearing anything but a potato sack! But as Harriet was staring blankly at this bizarre sight, she realized two things. One, someone his size probably wouldn't squash her, and Two, the sooner she got him done, the sooner he would leave. And so, standing up, she untied her robe and let it fall at her feet. And this time, it was Mr. Potato Sack who stared blankly, his jaw dropping as he beheld Harriet Potter standing full-monte before him.

And then he covered his eyes.

"Oooohmygodohmygodohmygod... Don't look, mustn't look!", he yelled at himself. Opening one eye, he peeped out from between his thumb and index finger for a moment before closing it again. "Harriet Potter is a witch!", he blurted out. "Harriet is invited to..."

"A witch?", shouted an outraged Harriet. "If I'm that hideous then why did you even come here?" "No no no...", the little man explained, "Harriet is not hideous. Grubbs covers his eyes to keep from ogling her. Harriet is invited to attend the Hogwarts school of Wizardry and Witchcraft to develop her magical powers." Harriet stared incredulously, not quite believing what she had just heard. "I am not like Cruella, ok? I would never do anything like... like..." Harriet trailed off, remembering the boiler explosion and the death of her cousin. So here was this anemic little troll of a man telling her she was a witch. Cruella had killed, and so had Harriet. But... could he be comparing Cruella's intentional double murder to Harriet's freak accident? She would set that straight right now. "I never meant for the fucking boiler to blow up, ok?", screamed Harriet. "That was an accident! But Cruella killed on purpose!"

Harriet would have said more, but Grubbs had uncovered his eyes and was staring unabashedly at her. "Grubbs already knows that, Cruella is evil and you are not! Not all itches are weevil! That is, not all weeches are... um... aaaaa..." Grubbs covered his eyes once more. Harriet, realizing that she was still naked, but her robe back on. "All right, Grubbs, I'm dressed now. So how do we get to this Hogwarts School of yours?"

"Grubbs has a plan", exclaimed Grubbs, gesturing towards a distant hill that was visible out the window. "Helga is waiting for us at Heregon Hill. She has a truck. Best if we leave just after sundown." All Harriet could think of to say was "Ok..." Because it did sound like an ok plan.

And so she started getting ready to go. Removing her robe (and causing Grubbs to instantly cover his eyes yet again), she wrapped a blanket around herself, with part of it over her head like a hood. And then she put the robe back on over it. One of her pervert visitors had given her a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers, and those would keep her feet warm. As for her hands, she had pockets, and just after the sun went down, the two of them went sneaking quietly out the laundry room door and into the snowy night. For about an hour they trudged through the snow as the distant hill became less distant. As they approached Heregon Hill, Harriet could see that it was surrounded by a deep open-pit mine. Walking up to the rim of the mine, she scanned the lifeless scene for some sign of Helga. But all she could see was an enormous hole in the ground, and beyond that, the hill.

And then she heard the sound.

It was the sound of a diesel horn. She could not quite place it, but somehow she knew that this was to be her salvation. Night was chill upon the mine, and all the Tonka Behemoths were aslumber amidst the grime and the dust at the base of what was left of Heregon Hill. All but one. Harriet turned towards the sound, and that was when she saw it. Perched high atop Heregon Hill like a giant raven upon its roost, silhouetted against the dawn of the rising full moon, was a dump truck you could almost fit a house into. And like a giant raven taking flight, the dump truck lofted into the sky, to land gently beside Harriet and Grubbs. The cab door swung open, and down the metal stairway walked a big butch broad with gleaming blond hair.

"Harriet Potter?", she asked. Although Harriet had no memory of how Helga looked, the sound of her voice and the scent of her hair were somehow familiar, a long-lost friend from a lifetime ago, and Harriet, at a loss for words, simply nodded. And as the three of them piled into the cab of the Helga's truck, Harriet felt for the first time that she was among friends.

End of chapter 1. R/R plz, any and all reviews or comments welcome.

Notes:

Heregon Hill -- Here today, Gone tomorrow. That's strip mining for ya.