When she was little, she used to dream of a grand palace on the moon. It had parties, feasts, and beautiful flowers that only enhanced the view of the earth in the sky.
She never spoke of her dreams, because only a fool would have spoken of such a magical place in the presence of her 'family'. Petunia barely tolerated the idea of allowing her to keep a pet in the house. And growing up, they had done their very best to beat the idea that magic existed from her.
So when she blew up Aunt Marge and turned her into a human balloon, she fled the house. At first, she planned to hit Diagon Alley, withdraw everything she had and make a run for it.
Then her common sense, something that was sadly lacking in most wizards and witches, reared it's head.
She couldn't use Diagon. That's what the aurors would be expecting, and if she wanted to escape with her wand intact, she had to be damn sneaky about it.
For once, it was time for her Slytherin half to take the reigns, as opposed to the Gryffindor side which only seemed to want to get her into trouble.
She dragged her heavy trunk to the curb, and was reaching for her coin pouch when she almost hit her head on the lid trying to whip her wand in the direction of a broken stick. Once her eyes adjusted she found herself confronted with a massive black dog that had clearly seen better days. It had no collar and it's fur was matted and dirty.
Slowly, making sure the dog saw what she was doing, she pulled out some of the food she had snagged off the table while her 'family' was too preoccupied trying to rescue Marge. She held out the sandwich and the dog's eyes narrowed in on the food. It wagged it's tail hopefully and gave her the most pitiful puppy dog eyes you had ever seen.
Sighing, she handed over the food and a nice juicy drumstick before going back into her trunk. She pulled out her coin bag and silently counted what she had.
The bag still held money from her first trip to Diagon, because what Hagrid counted as a handful would have filled a normal sized purse. Not to mention the fact she had found a bottomless bag her second trip there, and promptly filled it with as many coins as she could get away with, to see if she could convert them to normal money.
Had she not been under the hawk-like gaze of Molly Weasley, she might have gotten away with it. Fortunately the woman hadn't known she grabbed a bag that wouldn't bulge from coins.
She had more than enough to get far, far from England and possibly to another country. Planes were out of the question, and she would have to sneak across borders since she didn't have a passport...yet...but she still had her broom. And with her invisibility cloak, she was reasonably assured she could escape any who tried to follow her.
As she slipped her bag into her oversize pocket, she found a pair of blue gray eyes giving her the stare down. A pair of far too intelligent, almost human-like eyes.
A sudden suspicion overcame her. Most people tended to dismiss animals in the common room, but she sometimes caught McGonagall slipping into the place in her cat form and listening to the students. More than a few times she even busted the twins after a prank in which they had successfully avoided detection.
Animagi weren't that common, and there was a law requiring that you register once you mastered the ability. But she would bet her family fortune that there were families with less than savory habits that would 'forget' to register their form.
And considering there was a mass murderer on the loose, she had every reason to be suspicious.
She leveled her wand at the dog again.
"You have ten seconds before I start hexing," she said clearly.
For a few brief moments, she thought that maybe her heightened paranoia was a bit much. Then to her shock, the dog shifted into a human. A very familiar human.
Sirius Black.
"Well you're more observant than James ever was, I'll give you that. And ol' Moody would definitely approve of the fact you didn't put your back to me the entire time," he said far too calmly.
"...You knew my father?"
"We were practically brothers. And before you say anything, I didn't kill those people."
"Why are you here?"
"I found out that the man who really betrayed James and Lily was still alive. Naturally I had to find you in order to make sure you were safe. I never thought they would be stupid enough to hand you over to Petunia," he said, spitting out the name like it was a vile disease one only caught while being stupid.
"As fascinating as it is, I have to get out of England. No doubt the Aurors will be after me for blowing up Marge, and I really don't want to be found."
Sirius blinked. It was like she expected to be expelled for what sounded like accidental magic. Mind made up, the next thing he said caught her off guard.
"Where to then? No way am I letting my only goddaughter run off to another country without me to keep her out of trouble."
Left unspoken was the fact that he'd have an easier time as well avoiding British Aurors. Not all countries were inclined to kill him on sight before giving him a chance to speak. And if he were quick enough, they could dose him with Veritaserum and let him get the truth out first.
"Godfather?" she repeated incredulous.
Sirius hung his head.
"To my eternal shame, I chose to go after that damn traitor Peter than make sure you were safe. I trusted Hagrid and he's impossible to reason with if he's got orders from Dumbledore himself, and Dumbledore told him to bring you. Had I known he was taking you to this place, you can bet your arse I would have apparated straight to Gringotts and demanded that they file the adoption forms before he had a chance to stop me. I snapped when I realized Peter had not only killed your parents, but that he had successfully blamed me for their deaths."
She stared at him.
"So basically the reason everyone believes you're a murder is because a Death Eater got a lucky shot in and you suffered a psychotic break at the worst possible time, combined with the fact that most of the Ministry is filled with complete morons," she summed up.
Sirius let out a bark of laughter.
"So where are we heading?"
She made a quick decision. People were less likely to question an adult traveling with his daughter than they were to question a minor traveling on their own. And if it was on Dumbledore's orders that she suffered her aunt's idea of child care...well, he had made plenty of questionable decisions during the mess she always found herself in for the past two years.
Honestly, why had no one questioned Myrtle's ghost before, if they knew she had been killed by the Monster? If Hogwarts and it's graduates were lacking in that much common sense, then perhaps it was better she jump ship now before it was too late.
A few days later...
12 Grimmauld Place was dark, depressing and just plain unpleasant. And the less said about the house elf, the better.
However what it lacked in ambiance it more than made up for with one important fact.
It was close to a disreputable alley that had some questionable people in it. People who were more than happy to acquire things for gold without asking any odd questions.
Like why a supposed "mass murderer" would need two passports, one of which was for a thirteen year old girl.
Thank god there weren't any cops or Scotland Yard detectives around. Sirius might have gotten lynched if they even thought he was kidnapping a young impressionable girl before he could explain.
Still, with enough gold a lot of things were expedited...like the procurement of passports that could fool almost anyone. Especially when Sirius added a bit of magic so that the muggles wouldn't notice anything amiss.
With the passports and a makeover courtesy of his goddaughter, Sirius was able to slip past air port security. From there it was laughably easy to leave England behind like a bad dream.
They were busted almost immediately by the Japanese version of Aurors the moment they cleared customs.
She shrunk in on herself as she was made to stay in a cell where magic was suppressed to the point it wouldn't work, and her wand was confiscated.
A woman walked in with a file.
"Amelia Lockhart. Age thirteen, female. Why is an English minor trying to sneak into Japan with a known criminal?" asked the woman bluntly.
She winced.
The woman seemed to look closer at her, before quietly swearing.
"Or should I say why is the 'Girl-who-lived' fleeing England? Last I checked you were their darling."
"Yeah right. Like I'd be stupid enough to stick around a place that was so quick to turn on me when they found out I could talk to snakes. Or the fact that everyone assumes I'm some pampered princess that understand everything about their stupid society, when I'm just as ignorant as any other muggleborn," she said bitterly.
Like she wouldn't hesitate to leave after the "discussion" she had with Dumbledore second year where he basically told her she would be stuck with her cruel aunt until she graduated, whether or not she liked it.
And considering the Dursleys had found out that she wasn't allowed to use magic during the summer, her freedom was stripped the moment she left King's Cross station.
Vernon was more than happy to make her absolutely miserable for the slightest provocation once her one defense against him had been stripped. And after she blew up Marge, only an idiot would have stuck around.
"Look, trying to enter a country illegally is a serious charge, and not everyone will go easy on you just because you're a minor. Not to mention the fact you snuck in with a known criminal. Be honest, did he coerce you into joining him, or use magic?" she asked gently.
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
"Just because most teenagers go around with rose-colored glasses doesn't mean I do. I learned early on that expecting adults to be 'helpful' is just going to get you hurt in the long run. I could tell he was just going to follow me anyway, so I figured we might as well travel together so I could keep an eye on him."
There was something about her tone that spoke more than what she had said.
"Ms. Potter...is there anything you'd like to tell us about your living arrangements?"
She laughed bitterly, before lifting her shirt just enough to see the skin under where her training bra was.
"Does this tell you enough?"
The skin had scars on it, far too old to have been inflicted by Black, who only recently escaped. There were also some fading bruises that were in the last stages of healing, not to mention the fact you could almost count her ribs.
All in all it didn't paint a happy home life in the least.
"And Sirius Black?"
"If he wanted me dead, he wouldn't have let me see him in the first place. I'm sure a fully grown wizard would have been perfectly able to kill a thirteen-year-old witch before they had a chance to save themselves and I was distracted by trying to get something out of my trunk when he showed up."
She nodded in agreement. By all accounts Black would have had the perfect opportunity to kill the young witch before she had a chance, yet instead he followed her to Japan. That didn't fit with the reports they had of the man.
Though she would quickly learn that the English had a lot of explaining to do when they put him under Veritaserum...only to get more than they had bargained for. Putting an innocent man in that awful prison of theirs for twelve years. It was unthinkable!
Several hours and a few meals later...
Sirius looked at his goddaughter, who looked very much like she's love to curl up on a bed and sleep for the next few days. The combination of stress, jet lag and a solid meal meant her main priority would be sleep. Well that or a bowel movement, but mostly sleep.
The woman came in again, and it hadn't been until they confirmed Sirius Black was innocent and that the girl-who-lived had opted to run away from a bad home life that they had allowed to two to be put in the same room as each other.
"What's the verdict?" asked Sirius.
"You'll be put under quarantine for at least three days, mostly so we're sure you're not carrying anything that might do harm like the dragonpox. During which you'll undergo a full physical and psychiatric exam, so we can figure out what to do with you. Once you two are properly awake and have been processed, then we'll figure out if we'll grant you asylum or not. Best case scenario, you two will be given new names and a place to live, though if that does happen she'll have to attend normal schooling. Unlike England, most of our children learn magic in special cram schools at least three times a week, so they have a proper education to fall back on," she replied.
"And the worst case?"
"You'll be shipped off to a different part of Europe with actual passports and have to deal with one of their Ministries. If you're not in Asia or Japan, you're not our problem," she replied flatly.
"You never did give us your name."
"It's Tomoe, and that's all you're getting. On the bright side, there was a consensus that the United Kingdom would not be on the list of countries we could dump you in if they decide you're more trouble than you're worth," she said far too cheerily.
Though considering how much they could rub the nose in Dumbledore and the English Minister's face that they had 'rescued' the girl-who-lived and an innocent Sirius Black from their piss poor idea of 'safety' and 'justice', odds were they'd be allowed to stay.
And really, when they put the girl under a full physical while she was half awake (thus allowing them to get a broader idea of what she had gone through while under her aunt's "care", since she was too tired to hide it) they had some serious doubts about the English's idea of 'safety'.