Hey everyone,
Yeah, this is going to be a cluster of Previews and I will happily add them all to the poll that has been given new life and is now once more at the top of my account for you to vote on. As for this preview, it has been something I thought of a while ago, but I just couldn't get the motivation to put it down the way it deserved.
Oh well, have fun,
Venquine1990
Preview #17
Adeline Potter
1st of September 1995
Great Hall, Hogwarts
Albus Dumbledore's POV
I knew since the minute that Cornelius told me that Dolores Umbridge was his choice as Defense Against the Dark Against teacher that things would be most unusual and different from how I hope and love for school years to go here at the school I have tried to lead to the best of my ability for all these many, many years.
Yet when Minerva told me that one of the First Years is actually a Third year, who has been homeschooled for most of her life yet was send here on the recommendation of her apparent representative and her parents wanting to give her a chance to visit Hogsmeade, I had felt even more concerned for the strange year.
I have watched over the Sorting so far with a careful eye, the girl in question striking a familiar cord with her slightly round face, her amber brown eyes and her long dark ruby-red hair that is braided to hang across her left shoulder and lean down her left side, yet for some strange reason I can't point where I have seen her features before.
And so I wait till I hear her name, yet when Minerva is already halfway down the name calling, do I start getting a strange sense of excitement, as if part of me already knows that the girl's name will be up soon and this strange sensation grows more and more powerful within me as Minerva passes the M's, N's and the O's.
Then she reaches the P's and yet after calling for Paddeline, Emily, Peterson, Peter and Philodamus, Sisi, does she actually gasp and we all look at her, me feeling my body tense and move forward in my seat alongside several other teachers and I see several students do the same as Minerva looks from the list to the First years.
Then she starts to stutter and my own eyes widen, my heart misses a beat and I feel as if I just got punched with a sledgehammer in the heart as she says: "P-P-Po-Pot-Potter, A-A-Ad-Adeline?" And instantly the whole hall turns silent, all the distracted students turning to the girl in question, an older man standing beside her.
"Is there something wrong? Surely my client's name isn't anything that important?" The man then asks and Ronald Weasley is the first to respond as he jumps up in a raging anger and shouts: "It is if the name is meant as a joke to hurt my best mate. You and your client sure have a really low sense of humor, you heartless bastard."
And the man looks at him, me doing the same even though I try hard not to look to his side where Harry Potter is seated and the girl herself gasps in shock as she must recognize the famous Potter looks before she says: "It – it can't be. M-mu-mum and dad said – they said he died in that horrible attack. How – how is he alive?"
"How are they alive?" Harry asks her and she says: "Dad was really popular when he was in school and he became even more popular when he became an Auror and joined the Order. His reputation for defeating both Death Eaters and defying him soon became a legend and – like with all Potters – it went to his head.
However, when that legend brought him closer and closer to death and caused more and more near-death experiences, dad's emotions got the better off him and he wanted out. He tried, but couldn't because the magic he wanted to use would hurt mum as long as she was pregnant of my older brother, so he waited for the birth.
After that, he used extensive, powerful magic that dates all the way back to our first ancestor and gathered all of the magic together to take him somewhere he could have the same kind of fame, but without the threats to his family. Only, for some reason, the magic didn't work on my brother and it was irreversible too.
Mum really wanted to come back and find another way to take my brother back to where they had ended up, but dad didn't want to risk her and before he could have trained her enough he felt her capable of doing so, there was an attack on the Family Manor and the family magic that was supposed to be there merged with dad.
Dad knew this meant that the Manor had been laid to waste and knew that, if that had happened, my late brother had been taken from him as well. He felt horrible that his magic had failed his first heir, but he was determined to live a better life, a life worthy of what my brother would have lived had he actually managed to come with."
At this I turn to the boy in question and while I feel as if Harry must be heartbroken that his parents gave up on him so easily, does the boy seem more angered than pained and he then shocks me with how caring he is for others as he asks: "So because they believed me dead, they just went and gave up on their friends?
They just left people like Remus, Peter, Sirius, Alice, Frank, Benji, Amelia Bones, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hagrid and others to their fate? And what of the people who cared for me after the Manor was destroyed? In case you didn't know, I believed my whole life I lost my parents in a cottage, not a Manor."
The girl looks shocked at hearing this and the man says: "Someone close to the Potters must have seen their struggle and must have been keeping an eye on them in case something went wrong with their escape method. When it failed on you they must have taken you and cared for you, all the way to their actual day of death."
"Yeah, and I doubt either of them care who those two heroes are; the people that saved their son's life not once, not twice, but actually three times. Once when they took me in after the escape plan failed, once when I was supposed to be in the destroyed Manor and once when Voldemort actually found and killed these heroes."
"You really think they don't care for that?" Young Adeline asks and Harry growls: "They didn't even come when their closest friend ended up in the worst prison on the planet; I doubt they care for two people who did their job for them. If they didn't want me, I don't care for them either. I haven't know them for years anyway."
"I never said they didn't want you!" Adeline shouts and Harry spats back: "They weren't willing to take the risk of actually coming to find me and just believed me dead after one attack.""So they should have risked their lives to come for you?" Adeline spats and then reels back when Harry retorts: "Isn't that what parents do?"
And the girl looks thoughtful before she sighs and says: "Good point taken." Making Harry smile at her and the man beside her says: "Mss. Potter, if you will take on the Sorting Hat and do what you must, I will go and floo your parents to tell them the good news. Heir Potter, is there anything I should relay to them for you?"
And Harry tonelessly says: "Just that I want to know what they are going to do to make it up with their friends for abandoning them when they thought only their son, but not their friends, to be dead." And the man nods, apparently accepting that Harry isn't jumping for joy at finally reuniting with people he long thought dead.
"Harry, what about –?" Hermione Granger then asks and Harry answers: "That was to represent people who died for me and for the sake of their friends, not people who let fame get to their heads and who gave up after one setback. People who accepted they could live the good life while their closest friends suffered."
And the girl in question seems to have no retort to this while Ron grimaces, obviously knowing that, while Harry is acting careless, he is actually hurting quite bad over the fact that the reality of who his parents are isn't who he always dreamed, envisioned and got told that they were and that the difference hurts him even worse.
Of course just looking to my sides and at the Sorting Hat location do I know that Harry isn't the only one angry and hurt with this apparent case of betrayal as Minerva is standing as if she is Petrified by the Basilisk next to the Sorting Hat Stand and both Filius and Severus are gripping their arm rests with restraining cases of anger.
Yet then our anger gets a reason to be replaced as shock overtakes all four of us when the Sorting Hat shouts: "HUFFLEPUFF!" The trim on young Adeline's robe turns yellow as a badger with a yellow and brown shield behind it appears on the breast of her robe and everyone looks at the girl in shock as she moves to the Badger table.
"She really is something else. Hasn't your family been in Gryffindor for generations?" Ron asks and Harry looks at him angrily as if asking: "Why are you asking me?" At which Adeline says: "Actually, grandma used to be a Black and was a Slytherin. And grandpa's mother was a Spinnet and was Sorted into the House of Ravenclaw."
And instantly Harry turns to the other Spinnet in the hall and asks: "Wait, we're related?" And Alicia nods as she says: "Your Great-grandmother is the sister of my grandfather. She died in battle against Grindelwald, but that was because she had just given birth to your grandfather and was fighting to give her husband a chance to save him."
At which Harry rolls his eyes and says: "And yet my own dad wasn't willing to do the same for his own son as his grandfather did for his dad.""He did try and get back for you." Adeline says, but then she sighs and goes on: "Still, you are right in one thing. After he thought you dead, he really should have come back for his friends."
"Especially seeing what happened to poor Severus, Remus and Sirius." I can't help but think and while Minerva takes care of the last ten or so students, do I feel my eyes constantly move between the small stage in front of me at the Head Table and the door behind the table that leads to the Antechamber where the man is.
"James, Lily, what have you become? And what would have become of Harry had he actually been raised in the Magical World? Would the fame of the Boy-Who-Lived have affected him the way your fame for your school popularity and your Auror skills? Would he have been anything other than the selfless boy he is today?"
Yet while I wonder all this, do I then turn to Severus, the man only blinking my way, yet as he takes a short sip of his goblet, do I see exactly why he does this. The man nods without anyone noticing that he is, telling me he will investigate the mystery. The mystery of who the heroes were that saved Harry that one faithful Halloween.
Yes, who were they?
To be honest, I don't really have any ideas just yet. I have a few possibilities in mind and one of them is actually going to be pretty darn tragic, tear-jerking possibility, but I am not entirely honest if that will be the direction I will take in regards to who the heroes were. Other things, however, I am sure about.
One of them is that Harry will be giving his parents the cold-shoulder treatment, that there will be NO UMBRIDGE (JAY) and that Molly will be her usual controlling self. However, Harry will actually have both Adeline as well as several former friends of the Potter elders to support and stand behind him, Snape included.
Hope you enjoy,
Venquine1990
Further Story Parts:
House Potter is represented by a wizard named Alisté Rendown
James and Lily don't believe that Harry is close enough to Sirius, Remus and the others to choose them over his parents
Molly believes that she can return of the Potters to have Harry's future play out the way she wants it to.
When Harry hears of the plans made by the Potter elders and Molly, he denounces himself as a Potter on the fact that none of the three of them are emotionally close enough to him to have the right of making such decisions in regards to his life
A fight ensues between Lily, James, Molly, Percy and Harry, Adeline, Albus, Severus, Minerva, Sirius, Remus and others as Harry and Adeline feel furious over how hypocritical and stupid Lily and James are being
Adeline gets Sorted into Hufflepuff, yet demands a Resort within the first week as she can't believe that her own House is slandering her own brother over something they would never believe another student to have done
Umbridge leaves Hogwarts before her first class as she believes that her plans for discrediting Harry are ruined by the representatives as well as the Potter elders, yet she never finds out that Harry doesn't give Lily and James the chance to defend him
The heroes who saved Harry from James and Lily leaving, the attack on Potter Manor and Halloween Night get recognized for all of their sacrifices and Harry loses his title as Boy-Who-Lived, to his own relieved enjoyment
Little by little Adeline makes sure that Harry has everything he ever wanted in life; people accepting him for who he is, someone to love him for who he is and be his partner in life, a home he can come to in case he needs shelter and a family that wants to share their home with him