The Good War

by inwardtransience

Despite her best efforts, Elizabeth Potter is repeatedly drawn into situations she wants absolutely nothing to do with. People just refuse to leave her the hell alone. (fem!Harry, dark!independent!Harry, mentor!Snape, F/F, playing with tropes for fun and profit)

19. Third Year — IV

August 1993

---

The rest of the summer went by hardly before Liz had realised. Though, as quickly as it seemed to pass, that didn't mean there wasn't anything going on.

Most days, the routine she'd settled into over the course of July went on as normal — however bloody weird it continued to be sometimes that she was living in Professor Snape's house. Severus was still busy as hell, constantly brewing or writing or dealing with correspondence or going out on trips to fancy tea parties or hospitals or whatever, the days he didn't leave the house off doing one seemingly random thing or another were few and far between. Liz poked at her new textbooks for a bit — the Runes one was just a dictionary, so mostly useless to play around with, though the Arithmancy books were interesting, if a little over her head in places (by the start of term, Liz would already finish the entirety of Numerology and most of Grammatica, which probably meant she'd be bored in class, whoops) — but spent most of her time on the same topics she had before, reading ahead in Charms and Potions work, and also Dark Arts stuff good little girls probably shouldn't be reading. Of course, Severus was a terrible enabler, even pointing out books on the shelves in the sitting room she might want to look at, so. And also practising spellcasting in the back garden, dealing with her own correspondence — hiding her letters from Tamsyn, because she didn't want to try to explain that (somehow, the timing of the letters was such that Severus never saw Tamsyn's post duck) — and so forth, nothing really special.

And she cooked almost every day too, obviously — they did still get takeaway sometimes, but it wasn't like Severus could cook worth a damn, so. (Which Liz thought was kind of funny, since he was a potioneer and everything, but whatever.) Severus never said anything about it explicitly, but because of cheating mind-reader powers Liz still knew he was weirdly uncomfortable with her cooking for him. Which was silly, for multiple reasons. For one, she wasn't really cooking for him — she'd just...felt like it? She couldn't even express why to herself, honestly, she guessed she just hadn't had access to a kitchen when living on her own? Whatever, it was just a thing she felt like doing, it had nothing to do with him at all, really. But, if she was going to be cooking anyway, just making shite for herself and not letting him have any seemed kind of bad? It was less doing it for him, and more as long as she was doing it anyway, if that made sense. So, really no reason to be feeling all uncomfortable about it, but Severus was secretly a painfully awkward dork, so Liz just ignored it.

The only thing that was different from July was that she started getting results from her visit to Gringotts. Late in the afternoon on the day immediately after her birthday, she got a letter from that Daedalus Diggle bloke, the one who Dumbledore had put in charge of all the Potter stuff. It was pretty short, just asking if she'd been the one who'd removed him from his post or if Gringotts had done it in error. Liz's reply was probably more rude than she should have been, but she couldn't really help it — this man had had complete control of all this stuff she apparently owned, and she'd never met him, she'd never even heard of him until literally yesterday. Which wasn't really his fault, she guessed, but she honestly didn't care that much. Fuck him anyway.

A reply came from Diggle the next day, which just made Liz more angry. Not at Diggle himself — he was kind of nice about it, actually, had written out this big apology that seemed authentic enough. No, Diggle had never thought to contact Liz about anything because Dumbledore had told him that Dumbledore was keeping her informed, all communication should go through him. He had been sending updates and questions about what Liz preferred to do about one thing or the other to Dumbledore, with the understanding that he was passing them on to Liz. The apology was mostly Diggle chastising himself for not confirming Dumbledore was actually doing his fucking job.

Liz had absolutely no idea how to feel about this. Apparently, Dumbledore had been intentionally keeping her in the dark, and actually lying to the person managing the Potter stuff about it for years. That was just... What the hell was the point of doing that?

It was so bloody weird she asked Severus about it over dinner. He didn't have any better guess what the hell Dumbledore had been thinking than she did — besides the speculation that Dumbledore had wanted her to have a humble, normal childhood far away from her wealth and fame, which, well, that had backfired, hadn't it. (Liz failed to hold in inappropriate giggles at Severus's straight-faced, deadpan drawl.) Severus actually knew Diggle, he'd been in Dumbledore's vigilante group back in the war. He was a strange, eccentric man, yes, but rather honourable all told, he was probably very annoyed with Dumbledore right now.

Liz was kind of considering re-hiring him, now that she knew more about what had been going on. She didn't know how to handle all this financial stuff, and the goblin she'd dealt with had said it didn't look like Diggle had been doing anything questionable, and from what Severus said it sounded very unlikely Diggle would go straight back to doing whatever Dumbledore said and ignoring her.

But, it wasn't critical, she had time to think about it.

There were three important letters she got all more or less at the same time, that first weekend. One was from Gringotts, saying they'd finished re-connecting the big fancy family manor thing to the floo network, just use the address she'd chosen — Clyde Rock, because Rock-on-Clyde was kind of hard to say — and she'd be brought straight to the reception hall.

The other two were from the Ministry. One was from Wizengamot Administration Services, asking her to come in and confirm she wanted to fire her proxy — she didn't need an appointment for that, she could just walk into their offices and do it at any time. The second was from the Office of Child Welfare, setting up a preliminary interview for her competency hearing. Both of these could be done on the same trip to the Ministry — though Severus warned her she'd probably have to do multiple interviews, which was annoying — so Liz would be doing those on the next Thursday.

The problem with just popping over to Rock-on-Clyde whenever she wanted was that Liz had never actually used the floo before. She was aware it was a thing people did, she'd seen plenty of people going in and out of the public floo grate at the Leaky Cauldron, even Severus through the hearth here, she'd just never had any reason to do it herself. And it did take some getting used to, accidents happened — for their trip to London, at least part of the reason Severus had apparated them was so Liz didn't have an embarrassing floo accident out in public. (She hadn't known that before, nice of him, she guessed.) Unfortunately, Severus had never been to the Potters' family manor, so they couldn't do that this time. And, in case there was an accident — serious injuries were rare, but she might be sent to the wrong grate, or tumble when it spit her out and break her wrist or something — Severus definitely did have to come with.

So, just after lunch on the ninth of August, she and Severus were standing in front of the hearth, prepared to floo over and explore the place. Severus was giving a lecture about proper floo travel while Liz fidgeted, faintly uncomfortable. Since they didn't really know what they were walking into — the place could be filthy, there might be magical pests around, she might be tossed out to tumble arse over teakettle, showing her shorts to everyone at some public floo grate — Liz was wearing her new denims. She hardly ever wore trousers when she wouldn't be flying around on a broom, and also the material was kind of scratchy, she hadn't realised how distracting that would be when she'd been trying them on.

She would get used to it, right? This was just sort of uncomfortable...

"Elizabeth?"

"Yes, keep moving, tuck in your elbows, I was listening. Are we ready to go?"

Severus arched an eyebrow, a faint hint of irritation simmering in the air, but he didn't say anything. "Your hand, please," he said, holding out his own. Which was unexpected, Liz had no idea what he needed her hand for, but fine. Clasping her hand around the thumb — she meant, the fingers not interlacing, instead coming around together just over the wrist — his wand was suddenly in his other hand, the tip bobbing in little swirls as he hissed a lengthy incantation under his breath, finishing with a harsh slash across their joined hands.

There was a tingle of dark magic on the air, ticklish on her skin and metallic on her tongue. And then Liz jumped at the feel of something clenching around her wrist — like a wire chilled in an icebox wrapped around and pulled tight. She'd pulled away instinctively, going further than she'd expected, since Snape had released her hand immediately. The sharp, constricting feeling had only lasted a second, but the cold lingered a little bit longer; Liz shook out her hand, as though she could fling the magic off. Frowning up at Snape, "What was that?" A suspicious tone might have slipped into her voice, couldn't help it.

"It's a binding spell, attuned to the magic of the floo network — should you be sent to the wrong grate I will be redirected to the same destination, so long as the spell remains in effect and I enter soon enough after you." Snape tapped the stone of the hearth, the fireplace expanding somewhat to make it easier to step through. Not quite enough so he wouldn't have to duck, since he was so tall, but Liz would probably be able to just walk straight through.

Well, that...sounded like a reasonable safety precaution. He could have warned her first, but fine. "Why do you even know a spell like that?" Liz couldn't imagine this was something he'd done enough times he'd needed to look up a spell for it.

With a flash of irritation — not directed at her, and a little muted with age — Severus said, the first few words just short of a sigh, "Some years ago, Narcissa conscripted me to assist her in accumulating spells useful for the mother of a young child. I remember some of them."

Okay, it was slightly irritating that this binding spell was apparently meant for parents helping little kids figure out how to floo, but she was completely new at this, so she was going to ignore that. "Narcissa?" He must have mentioned that name before, it sounded familiar...

"Lady Malfoy, Draco's mother."

Oh, okay. Wait, Draco's mum had asked Severus to research childcare spells for her? And he'd actually done it? Weird...

"Whenever you're ready, Elizabeth."

Right, she was supposed to be doing a thing here. Liz stepped closer to the fire, reached up toward the jar of floo powder on the lintel — since Severus had expanded the thing, she actually had to tip up on her toes to reach. (There was an aborted twitch, as though Severus were about to pick up the jar and hold it down for her, but it was too late for that.) Once she had a pinch of the weird, glittery, crystalline powder, Liz paused for a moment, took a long breath.

Floo travel was extremely unpleasant. Between the forms of magical travel she'd been introduced to so far, it was definitely her least favourite. Everything was bloody spinning, windowpane glimpses of dozens of rooms whipping in and out of sight too quickly for her to pick anything out, immediately making her very dizzy, and she felt like she was falling, her stomach rising up her throat, despite the fact that her feet still felt like they were firmly on the floor. After the first step there was a sudden hard jolt to the side, but not really, Liz didn't feel momentum acting on her, just a wave rippling through the green flames all around her, the other grates switching from spinning left-to-right to right-to-left in an instant. She forced herself to keep moving straight forward, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, and kept walking—

With a burst of hot, tingling magic, the falling feeling abruptly ended with an unpleasant thud, and Liz was tossed back out again. She'd picked up momentum in the floo somehow, scrambled forward a couple steps trying to keep her balance, but that wasn't going to happen, she let herself fall on her knees, skidding a couple inches before finally coming to a halt.

Liz let out a shaky sigh, pushing her hair out of her face with shaking fingers. Right, let's not do that again.

Pop!

She jumped at the unexpected noise, spun around and fell over onto her bum, her wand appearing in her hand. And she stared at what must be the source of the noise, frozen in shock.

That was a house-elf.

"It is Jamie's Hazel!"

What.

Pop! Pop pop pop pop!

By the time Severus appeared through the floo, maybe ten to fifteen seconds after Liz, she was already surrounded by eight chittering elves, silently blinking back at them, dumbfounded.

Liz spent several seconds sitting on the floor staring at the house-elves like an idiot before one took charge. (Which was good, because Liz had no bloody clue what was going on at this point.) The elf introduced herself — Cediny, the Chief Elf of the House of Potter, which was apparently a thing — and welcomed Lady Hazel back to Rock-on-Clyde. And it was welcome back — according to Cediny, she'd been born in this building, which, okay, wild thought but also didn't seem in any way relevant...and the more she thought about it seemed like a strange bit of information to volunteer? Cediny then named all the elves, but Liz didn't expect she would actually remember any of them. Elves all looked sort of similar, and also Liz was not paying that much attention.

She had house-elves? Like, really, there were Potter elves. This was a thing. And this apparently wasn't all of them either, according to Cediny just the ones at Rock-on-Clyde. Elves.

...And she'd been sent off to the Dursleys? Why?

Liz and Severus had arrived in what Cediny called the formal reception hall, which was in the guest wing. (Because Liz owned a house that had wings.) The room was rather large, considering the only reason it existed was to receive guests, but not huge — okay, the floorspace was probably pretty similar to Severus's entire house, but not, like, Hogwarts entrance hall huge — the ceiling only a little higher than normal. The space was mostly empty, a couple shelves to one side of the (human-height) hearth, a couple sofas squirreled away nearer the walls to both sides, but other than that.

Absolutely everything, floor and walls and ceiling, were made out of this pale white granite, bits of quartz in the stone here and there giving off little sparks of rainbow colour when the light hit it. The ceiling actually only covered maybe two-thirds of the space, most of the wall opposite the hearth open to the outside, the ceiling held up with pillars along the rim, giving way to a wide balcony looking over a forest, green hills gently rolling out into the distance.

Or, not all the way out into the distance — looking carefully, Liz could see cleared spots far off, a few muggle-style buildings poking out of the trees here and there, she was pretty sure that long, thin break in the trees out there was a road. So, not quite in the middle of nowhere, but pretty close.

Set into the middle of the floor a couple metres in front of the hearth — Liz had fallen right on it, actually, she hadn't noticed it at first — a design was set into the floor, one of those fancy...heraldry things, though not really as complicated as some Liz had seen. There was a shield coloured in quarters, alternating between bright red and white, bordered with gold — the same as the little sign that had marked her dorm room the first day at Hogwarts both times, she noticed — flanking it a pair of... Hippogriffs! Right, those were hippogriffs. Underneath it was a curving scroll, written in fancy, stylized script: constamvs ivge, nos fideles. Which was completely meaningless to Liz, of course, bloody Latin...

(Were those Vs supposed to be Us? Liz was pretty sure constamvs was unpronounceable...)

While Liz had been distracted, Cediny had kept babbling along. Thankfully, the Potter elves seemed to all speak in proper complete sentences, so it was easier to follow what she was saying than most of the Hogwarts elves. They were in the guest wing right now, which was mostly shut up — the House of Potter wasn't likely to be holding formal events or whatever any time soon, so the elves hadn't bothered keeping it all perfectly maintained all the time. Really, very little of the manor was actually livable at the moment — Liz was the only Potter alive, after all, Cediny didn't expect to need most of it any time soon — but the lord's apartment could be prepared in less than half an hour, and the private library was fine of course, and they had food on hand, but if there was shopping she wanted them to—

"Wait, hold on a second." Cediny cut off immediately, she and the other elves — crowding around her a little bit, though they had backed off some, her unease must have been obvious — staring up at her with colourful, impossibly large eyes. "I'm not staying." She glanced over at Severus, standing nearby, trying not to look like she was asking for confirmation.

There was some disappointed-sounding chittering from the elves, a couple to her left moving as though to grab at her. Lyra tensed, but before she had to do anything Cediny snapped off something in a language that definitely wasn't English — all twittering and sing-song, must be elvish. The grabby elves immediately backed off, shooting Cediny chastened glances.

Once the distracting part of that confrontation was over with, Severus said, "You could stay, if you wished." What? She'd thought he was all serious about having a competent adult mage around at all times, just in case Dorea's dad turned up and did something stupid. Severus wasn't actually in her head, but he must have picked up enough to explain without being asked. "The seats of the noble families, like this one, have some of the most extensive warding of any location in magical Britain — I suspect that, were I not here with you, I would find it impossible to leave this room by any means save back through the floo. Also, elves can be...surprisingly formidable, when their charge is threatened. So long as you check in with me on occasion, I would not be opposed to your staying here."

...He meant the elves would do just fine against a mage who'd accidentally killed a dozen people with a single curse? Were elves really that powerful? They didn't look it... "Then why didn't you suggest moving here right away?" He couldn't actually like having her in his house...

Severus shrugged. "I was not aware there were still Potter elves here. I'd assumed they'd all been felled alongside your parents."

There was more chittering among the elves, this time a mix of anger and sadness. One of them, Liz didn't remember his name, said, "We elves weren't to be in the cottage in Somerset."

"Jamie says we make Lily uneasy. She is muggleborn, and is still learning."

"None of us were in Somerset that Hallowe'en." Hallowe'en, not one of the old Celtic terms? The Potters were a Light family, she guessed... "We weren't knowing anything is wrong until it was too late."

"Jamie and Lily might not have died, then."

Severus gave the elf who said that a flat, unamused look. "You would have fought the Dark Lord?"

Glaring up at him, the elf chirped, "We would help!"

"You would die — the Dark Lord was both able and willing to kill any number of people set in his path, be they human or elf." Either Severus was trying to be nice, saying there was nothing the elves could have done and it wasn't their fault, or cruel, that the elves were completely useless and were partially responsible for James and Lily's deaths, and Liz honestly couldn't tell which one it was.

"Humans are always—"

"Honish has the foolishness of youth," Cediny said, speaking over him. "We would have popped the family away." One eyebrow arching up a little, Severus shrugged — silently acknowledging just running away from the Dark Lord might have worked, so...maybe ordering the elves to stay away had been a bad idea... "I am sorry we weren't there that night, my lady."

Liz had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to say to that. Obviously it wasn't okay, if they really could have so easily prevented James and Lily from dying — she never would have been sent to the Dursleys in the first place, and none of this would have happened — but they also couldn't have known that, could they? James had told them to stay away, so. But, since it wasn't okay, she couldn't say that. (Elves were slightly annoying in general, and tended to be very emotional, if she said something even unintentionally mean and made them all cry or something...) In the end, she decided to just not say anything about it at all. "You don't have to do all that my lady stuff, you know. It's kind of weird."

There was a little bit of tittering around her, Cediny smiled. "Yes, Hazel."

"It's— Why do you call me that?" Cediny just looked confused, so Liz added, "Hazel, I mean. The mages all call me Ellie, for the most part, but you lot call me Hazel." It was her middle name, sure, but anybody had ever called her that before.

Cediny blinked up at her. "It's what Jamie and Lily called you."

...Really? Liz glanced up at Severus, but he quite nearly rolled his eyes at the silent question. "I'm certain I couldn't say, Elizabeth — your mother and I were hardly speaking by then." He paused, just for an instant, only long enough for Liz to notice it was there. "I do know she decided she would like to name a girl Hazel when we were fourteen."

"Fourteen?" That was hardly any older than Liz was now, and she couldn't even comprehend thinking about having children already, that was just absurd.

"I suspect she decided to muse aloud on that particular topic solely to irritate me, but it appears the decision stuck."

Oh, never mind, that made total sense, then. "Right, well," she said, turning back to Cediny, "it's Liz, actually."

Her long ears flopping a little with her firm nod, Cediny chirped an agreement. She asked why Liz had come here, if she wasn't staying — Severus seemed faintly surprised about that (though it was hard to tell), but it wasn't like Liz had had any intention of staying here in the first place. (She'd thought she wouldn't know how to use, like, the kitchen or the showers or whatnot, but now she guessed the kitchen was probably intended for house-elf use anyway, and also she didn't want to share a house with eight elves, they could be irritatingly enthusiastic about literally everything, sounded exhausting.) She had been vaguely curious about the place, but really, she was just here for her pensieve, because memory-scrying sounded neat.

The elves were very disappointed that she would be leaving again, but thankfully there weren't any outbursts. (She hardly knew what to do with crying humans, it was even more uncomfortable with elves.) Cediny insisted she would be getting a brief tour — skipping the guest wing and the north wing and the terraces (whatever those were), just the residence for the main family. And also the library, Cediny suggested, giving her a surprisingly canny look for an elf, she'd probably want to see the library. Apparently realising having all the elves around was making Liz uncomfortable, Cediny said Nilanse would be showing her around, the rest of them would go back to what they'd been doing before.

The littlest of the elves — Elves were usually somewhere around Liz's elbow, though this one was a head shorter than even that — let out a squeak of surprise but, after a half-panicked glance up at the elf next to her, shakily nodded her(?) head.

Soon the rest all popped away, and Nilanse, her voice shivering with nervousness, lead Liz and Severus through one of the doors and into the rest of the place. As they walked through a glittering granite hallway, Liz stared down at the elf, trying to process the mess in her head. The Potter elves were dressed somewhat nicer than the elves at Hogwarts — they had these sort of toga-like things (Liz had no clue), that looked like they'd been stitched together from scraps of spare cloth, so kind of asymmetrical and colourful, but less plain and...cheap than the Hogwarts elves. (Liz wondered if there was a reason for that, but despite spending some considerable time in the kitchens last year while some people had been freaking out about her being the Heir of Slytherin, she really didn't know that much about elves.) Liz was getting the feeling Nilanse wasn't just short, her spindly limbs, the almost comically oversized eyes (the irises a peculiar simmering red), her general nervousness, she must be young. Though, again, Liz didn't know anything about elves, really, she didn't know how they aged, so that could mean anything.

But that wasn't what she was really wondering. The mess in her head had resolved enough, enough of the confusion falling away, that Liz was starting to realise she was angry. Hanging back a little bit, closer to Severus, she whispered, "Can elves take care of a human kid?"

"Yes," he said, hissed so quiet she hardly heard it over Nilanse's anxious rambling, "though I understand at least some human contact is preferred. Visits with other children, at the very least."

She'd thought so — she couldn't really imagine most of the fancy magical lords and ladies she'd seen in pictures in the Prophet now and again dealing with a screaming, messy infant themselves. Taking care of unpleasant things like that was what the help was for, she'd assumed. "So...why was I sent to the Dursleys?" Surely, Dumbledore could have had Liz put up here, have one of his allies stick around to supervise things...

"I do not know, Elizabeth." By the sharp chill around Severus's mind, he was almost as annoyed about it as she was, but didn't have any answers either.

Well. That was irritating.

The guest wing apparently had a fancy ballroom, a big formal dining hall, plus a bunch of bedrooms tucked away in carefully magically-expanded space — after all, a good host doesn't kick their guests out when the party ends in the middle of the night. (Apparently, flooing while drunk was a terrible idea.) The north wing held the work spaces — potions and alchemy labs, an enchanting and wardcrafting workshop, a few greenhouses with environmental enchantments to hold exotic plants (which the elves continued to maintain in the family's absence), and even a dueling circle. The terraces, expanded down the hill as the family had grown centuries ago, held living spaces for the other households in the family and even vassals and clients sometimes, if needed for emergencies or special events, or even just if they felt like living here for whatever reason. From how Nilanse described them, they were larger than the guest bedrooms, more like complete flats.

But Nilanse didn't show them to any of those. Instead they walked out of the guest wing through an open courtyard — absolutely crackling with wards, an electric tingle around her ears, she'd had to formally welcome Severus into her home (coached by Nilanse) for him to get through — and into what Nilanse said was meant to be the home of the main family — the Lord and Lady, any surviving parents and grandparents (mages lived a long time, the Lord could and usually did retire and let the title pass early), and their children and grandchildren. This place was a lot less...overwhelming than the grand granite guest wing, seemingly made mostly of warm, rosey wood, the floors carpeted, the lighting the softer yellow-orange of simulated firelight. The opposite end of the courtyard opened into an office of some kind, with a desk and bookshelves (too even and regular-looking, a bunch of trinkets here and there meant more for display than use), a couple of vaguely fancy chairs around a coffee table.

The home office, where the Lord of the family met with allies and such to do business or whatever, Severus muttered into her silent confusion. There was a more formal office under the Wizengamot Hall, and there would also be a private one deeper in the house where actual work was done — being invited to have a meeting in this one was meant to signal a degree of trust the formal office didn't, only close allies of the family would ever see it. (The private one wasn't for guests to see at all, apparently.)

Liz didn't see why one person would need so many offices, but fine.

Nilanse peeked in on an adjacent room, seemingly just because she thought it was funny. It was rather smaller, a liquor cabinet on one wall, the floor dominated...by a billiards table. Okay? Liz hadn't even known mages played billiards at all. Or, apparently they didn't — her great-great-grandfather Esmund had put this here, later updated to a more modern table by her grandfather Charlus, and they both (plus her great-grandfather Boniface) would bring people they were meeting with to play while talking business. Some of their guests had never even seen a billiards table before (or at least not a modern muggle one), they'd apparently done it at least partially to take people's measure by throwing the unfamiliar game at them, Nilanse explained with an almost sadistic giggle.

So, apparently, the Potters weren't just disproportionately potioneers — they were also disproportionately fucking weirdos.

A short walk through switch-backing halls — wood-panelled and carpeted, surprisingly normal-looking, really — brought them to the Lord's apartment. And Liz decided, firmly, that she would not be staying here. For one thing, it was fucking huge — there was the bedroom, with an obviously magically-built bathroom attached (the fixtures were completely foreign-looking, which she guessed made sense, it probably predated indoor plumbing on the muggle side), and then a sitting room and an office and then a second office (for a little private potions lab or whatever). But then there was another whole bedroom (with attached bath), and another sitting room and a third office, these meant for the Lady — Severus explained it was perfectly normal among the nobility for husband and wife (at the very least in the case of the Lord and Lady of the family) to have separate bedrooms, though whether they actually slept together or not varied couple to couple. (Liz didn't know what that was about, but okay.) The big suite opened up into a larger sitting room and game room and tiny little library, at the end of which were smaller suites for the couple's children, and...

It was, just, big. There was no way she'd ever use all this space, and honestly she suspected she'd get lost more times than she liked before she got used to it. Also, the bathrooms were weird. No thanks.

Liz noticed there was an extra, smaller, somewhat less fancy bedroom off both Lord and Lady's sitting rooms, which Severus explained (when Nilanse didn't) were for favoured lovers. Because, keeping mistresses in the house was apparently such a normal thing for these ridiculous magical noble families to do they even set aside rooms for them. That was a whole other degree of strange, she didn't even know what questions to ask, just moved on without a word.

A short distance away from all that shite, the wood transitioned to stone — though less fancy than the glittery white granite, just a plain grey that could be anything. Nilanse explained the kitchen and the laundry were over here, and also a big open bath, like the one underneath the Slytherin common room Liz had never even seen — though Nilanse admitted it hadn't been used in generations now, before private baths had been put in the childrens' rooms — and, more importantly, the library. The library was a circular tower, maybe ten to fifteen metres across, wide enough for a few sofas and chairs and little tables in the middle. There were also a few little pedestals and display cases, a couple with larger, ancient-looking volumes, a few enchanted devices she didn't know enough to recognise.

The entire wall was made of bookshelf, every inch crammed with hundreds and hundreds of books, stretching all the way up to the ceiling, surprisingly high over her head, the equivalent of...maybe three or four storeys? There weren't actually floors, a gently-inclined ramp instead spiraling along the wall, up and up all the way to the roof — for elderly Potters to climb it more easily, she assumed. Nilanse said this book right here (one of the ones on a pedestal) listed every single book in the collection and where they could be found (the shelves were labeled with little gold numbers every two metres or so), but they generally got more exotic and less kid-friendly as you went up. (Technically, since Liz was only thirteen she wasn't supposed to be allowed past the twentieth marker, but since she was also the Lady she could ignore that rule.) And that was Eustacia Potter's pensieve right there on that pedestal — a big porcelain bowl, a deep red threaded with veins of black and blue, thin enough the rim seemed to glow slightly with a hint of light passing through, the entire surface practically covered in runes — she could just pick that up and take that with her if she wanted.

(Nilanse included the information that Eustacia was Liz's great-great-great-great-grandmother, which seemed unnecessary.)

Liz didn't go to the pensieve right away — she didn't really need to peruse the shelves, since she had enough books on her to-read list already, but she was vaguely curious what the dangerous books were like. (Severus hid his amusement, badly.) So, she walked in circles all the way up to the end of the spiral, the last few sections of the library, the level ceiling now much closer to her head. (By the edge of the last shelf, she could nearly touch it stretching up on her toes.) A lot of the books here were very old-looking, leather and parchment bound by hand (or magic, more likely), but also mostly useless. They didn't have titles printed on the spines, or even the covers most of the time, but carefully pulling them off — ignoring the ones that tingled threateningly when her fingers got too close (cursed?) — and checking the first few pages, she realised most of them were in Latin. She found a few in Cambrian, but while she was good enough with the language after a couple years at Hogwarts she could understand a few words here and there, she couldn't read any of these — certainly not well enough to actually learn potentially sensitive magic from them.

Damn it. She guessed she had to learn Latin. It couldn't be that hard, could it? Cambrian class wasn't so bad...

Quickly giving up, Liz returned to the ground floor. Severus was standing next to the pensieve's pedestal, ticked an eyebrow up at her as she approached. He pushed at something on the wood surface of the pedestal, there was a little click, and then he pulled out...an array of little phials, hung on wire hooks. He pulled the rack out and out, longer than the pedestal was wide, there had to be dozens of them. Then he poked at another spot on the pedestal, and pulled another rack out of another face of the pedestal — and then he stopped, giving her a peculiar look she couldn't read. She got the clear impression he was making a point. Probably that these weren't the only racks of bottles, there were several more panels just like those. Each of the phials, she noticed, was filled with this swirling silver-blue...stuff, neither gas nor liquid but a weird combination of the two, clearly magical.

Memories. There had to be hundreds of them.

...Holy crap.

But, Liz didn't really want to sit here and go through them any more than she wanted to go through the shelves — it wasn't like they were going anywhere, she could come back and check them out any time she liked. After the racks were pushed back into the magically-expanded pedestal, Liz reached up with both hands to lift the pensieve. It resisted, clingy electric magic clawing at her hands, but it let go after a second, the surprisingly light bowl lifting off of the wood so easily she might have imagined it. She was certain she hadn't, though. (If she were anybody but the Lady of the family, Liz suspected she wouldn't have been able to lift it.) Cradling the overlarge bowl in both arms — it wasn't heavy, but it was large, kind of awkward to carry — Liz asked Nilanse to show them out now, please.

Some minutes later — the place really was unreasonably huge, she couldn't imagine anyone needing this much space — they were back in the reception hall. Glancing between the hearth and the fragile-looking pensieve in her arms, Liz grimaced. "Can we apparate out instead?"

It seemed to take a second for Nilanse to realise Liz was talking to her. "Ah! Yes, eh, the wards will let you through, but not your...Mister Snape," Nilanse finished, giving Severus another uncertain, slightly distrustful glance. (Severus had given the elves his name, but neither of them had explained anything beyond that.)

"Well, I don't know how to apparate. Is there... Can we do something so the wards will let Severus through too?"

The elf blinked her overlarge eyes at her, too dumbfounded to answer right away. She took long enough Severus spoke first — though, she thought he was surprised too, but it was hard to tell with him. "You realise that if I'm keyed into the boundary wards, I would be able to enter and exit the manor as I wish."

"Yes?" Wasn't that obvious? "As long as you don't spill anything on my books, I think we're fine," she said, referencing a line from his lecture about the books back when she'd moved in a month ago now.

Severus gave her a very weird look. No idea what that was about.

She suspected that Severus hadn't realised she trusted him that much, which was sort of silly, when she thought about it. She regularly took potions he brewed for her, had done for years, and was sleeping in his house. He could horribly murder her whenever he wanted, easily — compared to that, letting him poke around the ridiculously enormous ancestral home she hadn't even known existed a week and a half ago if he felt like it was hardly that big of a deal. Maybe a couple months ago she might have hesitated, but now, well.

Nilanse called Cediny, who reappeared with a pop. After quick confirming Liz wanted to name Severus a friend of the family — she didn't really know what that meant, but if it would let them apparate out instead of taking the bloody floo again, she really didn't care — Cediny reached up to take Severus's hand, and then snapped her fingers. There was a crackle of magic in the air, Severus grimaced for a second, and then it was over.

(Severus would later tell Liz that, if James had had any idea his daughter would allow Severus free access to the family manor, he would have thrown a terrible strop. Honestly, Liz didn't give a single shite — she'd never met her father, and he was far too dead to have an opinion on the matter.)

Before they left, Cediny insisted one of the elves be bound to her — if Liz called for them inside the wards of any Potter property they would be able to hear her, but in the outside world that was much less certain; forming a magical connection directly between her and an elf would get around that problem. Liz made to refuse instantly, but then hesitated. Elves were very sneaky, she hardly ever noticed they were around in the castle, so it wasn't like an elf would bother her. Besides, they would probably spend most of their time here anyway, since it wasn't like Liz really had anything for them to do. Also, elves could apparate, so when she wanted to come back and look through the library she wouldn't need to floo, or ask Severus to apparate her.

Also also, Severus had explained what felt like hours ago now that elves could be very dangerous if they wanted to be. Especially with how her first instinct was still to mentally flail at anyone threatening her, any competent defence leaving her overextended and disoriented, having an elf she could call to back her up might well save her life one day.

(Liz remembered the smirk on Nilanse's face, talking about Charlus forcing hidebound purebloods to play muggle billiards — if she had to deal with an elf, she guessed this one wasn't so bad.)

So, grudgingly, she agreed. Cediny asked Liz and Nilanse to hold hands for a moment — Nilanse jumped with surprise, letting out a little squeak, her eyes widening even more than usual, but she obeyed, holding out her hand toward Liz rather anxiously. Liz still thought elf hands were kind of odd, shaped slightly off and with an extra joint in their overlong fingers, and Nilanse's skin was surprisingly hot to the touch, apparently elves ran a higher temperature than humans. Cediny snapped her fingers.

Liz winced at the ice-cold wires of dark magic twining up her arm toward her heart, unpleasant and sharp and constricting. But it only lasted for an instant, the pressure quickly evaporated, leaving behind a gradually easing chill. She didn't think she liked binding spells.

With a last quick round of goodbyes, Severus gripped her by the shoulder, and they apparated away. Liz had done this enough times by now that she didn't lose her balance anymore, but she was a little dizzy, so she set the pensieve down on the sofa, just in case. (She would have to find somewhere permanent to put that...) Once her head stopped spinning, she said, "Well, that was a—"

Pop!

Nilanse had appeared in Severus's sitting room, only a couple feet away, big red eyes scanning over the walls. "Hey! What are you doing here?"

The elf looked up at Liz, frowning a little. "Cediny says I'm to go with you."

"Yeah, but I thought she meant—" Liz cut off with a sigh, resisting the urge to run a hand through her hair. Was Nilanse going to be following her around everywhere all the time? That was not what she'd had in mind when she'd agreed to this.

Severus, weirdly, seemed amused, the faintest twitter echoing across the air. "How old are you?"

Nilanse glared sullenly up at him — that might almost be unnerving, with the alien features and bright red eyes, if she weren't so bloody tiny. "Twelve."

Liz gaped. "Twelve?" How young was that for an elf, exactly? Cediny had picked Nilanse, but had she expected her to just be a go-between, or...

She'd seemed annoyed with Severus a moment ago, but Nilanse's expression was almost sheepish now. "I was born six months after you, in January. But it is okay!" she insisted, perking up a little. "I'm still knowing all the elf things! My mother taught me everything already! Some of the trickier things with wards, maybe not, and healing is hard..."

In the end, they managed to convince Nilanse that they really didn't need her help here, they were fine. Nilanse was a little surprised to learn Liz was living here — she kept glancing between Liz and Severus, head tilted in confusion — which she guessed was fair, they hadn't explained that to the elves at any point. After an annoyingly long discussion about it, Nilanse popped away again, with assurances from Liz that, yes, if she actually did need help with anything she would call Nilanse, she promised.

Liz let out an aggravated sigh. "I think I'm going to regret agreeing to this."

"I have learned to never underestimate the earnest persistence of house-elves." There wasn't the slightest trace of it on his voice, but Liz still felt a twitter of amusement on the air.

"Oh, shut up." She scooped up the pensieve, started off toward her room.

"That was a bland statement for such a sharp reaction, Elizabeth."

Was that supposed to be chastising her? Whatever, knowing him he was just being a sarcastic bastard anyway. "Don't give me that, I can feel you laughing on the inside."

Severus didn't respond to that — just continued to laugh on the inside.

It did take a little reinforcement to rub it in that they were fine, honestly, Nilanse. Liz was just starting on dinner when she popped back into existence in Severus's kitchen, offering to take care of that (sounding incomprehensibly offended about something). It took a couple minutes for Liz to explain to the silly elf girl that, seriously, she liked cooking, it was fine, she had this covered. Nilanse gave her a doubtful look, but finally popped away again.

Yeah, this having an elf hanging around thing was definitely going to be annoying. Oh well, it couldn't get that bad — Nilanse couldn't possibly be more annoying than Pansy, and Liz had learned to (mostly) tolerate her. This was fine.

(She wasn't certain whether she was lying to herself or not.)

Only a couple days after all that nonsense, it was time for her appointment at the Ministry.

The offices of the Ministry of Magic were somewhere in London — probably not Westminster, but Severus didn't know exactly, and also it didn't matter. Nobody walked there, instead coming in through the floo (or apparating, if they had special permission). Which meant, unfortunately, Liz had to go through the floo again. This trip was actually less disorienting than the other one — there was still a lot of spinning, and the feeling of a free-fall despite being on a solid ground, but at least the spinning didn't abruptly reverse directions in the middle — but she still picked up speed during the trip, for some inexplicable reason.

Tossed out faster than her feet could keep up, she fell to her knees again, getting awful friction burns from the hardwood floors on both palms and one knee. Severus had healed them with a careless flick of his wand once he was through — smooth and easy as you please, his ridiculous billowy black robes dramatically fluttering in the breeze from the floo, because of course — but still, ugh.

(Because the people of magical Britain apparently had nothing better to talk about, the 'news' of the Girl Who Lived showing her face at the Ministry for the first time ended up getting into the society section of the Prophet the next day. Complete with a big colour photo of Liz falling over like an idiot — when she saw it, she accidentally set the paper on fire. Luckily Severus wasn't there, she knew by now accidental magic at thirteen was kind of embarrassing...)

(Liz really hated the floo.)

Liz and Severus had spent a few hours over the last week discussing how exactly she should handle her interview with Child Welfare. There were multiple considerations she had to balance. She needed to leave her interviewer with the impression that she could take care of herself, and didn't need Dumbledore controlling her life for her anymore — which, obviously, she could, and she didn't. The problem was, she couldn't let them know about the greatest proof of her ability to take care of herself — after all, when she'd been living on her own, she'd kind of been committing a lot of crimes. Like, a lot, go to prison for decades, a lot.

Or, probably not, actually. Severus explained that there were all kinds of exceptions in the laws against using magic on muggles. In the first place, she'd only get decades in prison if she were being tried as an adult — since she was under Dumbledore's trusteeship, that was legally impossible. Even so, she might not be charged with anything at all. Mages were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted to muggles so long as it was an emergency, and not having anywhere to live was obviously an emergency. She would have to convince DLE officials of that, though, and they might not agree what she'd done had been necessary. (She did own all these stupid big houses, you see...never mind that she hadn't known that at the time...) The really big problem was the Statute of Secrecy, but since none of the muggles had actually realised anything weird was going on, she might only get a fine — especially since people couldn't be tried as an adult for offences related to the Statute until they had their OWLs. So, it might be fine, but it could go badly, if she was unlucky.

Besides, if she admitted to all that, she would definitely need to admit she was a mind mage. And she wanted to hold on to that secret for as long as possible.

So Liz and Severus had come up with an official story, a combination of fact and fiction. Everything happened as in real life up to the moment Dumbledore dropped her off at the Dursleys, back in the summer of '91; then, once he was gone, Vernon had flown into a rage — he hadn't wanted the freak in his house in the first place, but he definitely didn't want her here now that she was learning freakish stuff. (Not Severus's words, he didn't know about the "freak" thing.) He'd been so angry, Liz had been frightened about what he might do to her — how much she wanted to tell the Child Welfare people about things he had done was up to her — so she'd run away rather than risk staying. She'd returned to London and stayed in a muggle hotel, bluffing the muggles to not think too hard about that with a combination of accidental magic and blind luck.

During first year, in her one-on-one meetings with Severus, she'd eventually admitted she'd run away from home, and why — which wasn't something she'd ever told him in real life, actually, he'd found out by reading her friends' minds, bloody cheater. (She had no right to talk.) Severus had quickly realised Dumbledore was forcing Liz to stay in an abusive muggle home for no apparent reason, but that there was nothing he could do about it, legally speaking. So, he'd decided to do something not legal about it. In their version of the story, Severus had apparated her straight from King's Cross to his house last summer, where she'd stayed until it was time to leave for school again. This was her second summer with Severus.

There were a couple downsides to this story. For one, this meant Severus had kidnapped her. (Technically, he really had kidnapped her, just a year later than in their story — she somehow hadn't put together on her own that's what this was, legally.) But Severus wasn't particularly concerned they'd bring any charges against him, due to extenuating circumstances. Plus, there were witnesses who could refute her story: there were probably muggle hotel staff who would recognise her, and also the Dursleys. The chances of the Ministry finding the former to question them were nill.

The Dursleys, on the other hand, were a problem — Severus had disappeared for an hour or two last night to solve that problem. He'd carefully edited all three Dursleys' memories of the night she'd left forever with mind magic (the memory charm was reversible), and sealed them with a quick soul magic ritual, the alterations practically undetectable. (Occasionally, Liz was reminded Severus was a very, very dangerous man.) He'd changed only their memories of that night, and nothing else, which meant their memories of her mind magic use were still there, but he didn't think that was a problem. It was maybe 50-50 whether Child Welfare would interview the Dursleys at all, and if they did they wouldn't make a point of scrutinising their memories — any claims of Liz controlling them or reading their minds would almost certainly be taken as magophobic paranoia and ignored. Well, not ignored, they'd use it as further evidence that Liz couldn't possible stay there, but they wouldn't believe them, which was the important thing.

There was also Dorea, but she wouldn't be telling anybody.

Of course, another downside was that everyone would know Liz had been staying at Severus's house, which they'd been trying to avoid. Severus wasn't happy about it, but unfortunately he didn't see any other options — any other reasonable story they could tell the Child Welfare people would quickly be proven false with minimal investigation, which would make it almost impossible to cancel the trusteeship. It probably wouldn't come out immediately, since the Child Welfare people kept these things close, but once they submitted their findings to the Wizengamot it would leak. Depending on how long their investigation took, and how long before it was leaked, it could hit the Prophet anywhere between October and January. They'd certainly be at school.

It would be a shit-show, Liz was certain, but they didn't have any other options. She didn't want to be legally stuck under Dumbledore's thumb until he deigned to release her, and this was the only way to make it happen. She'd just have to...deal with it. No matter how fucking annoying the other students blowing up over that bit of news might get.

(Also, they might decide to transfer the trusteeship to Severus instead of ending it entirely — in their story, they wouldn't prove that Liz could take care of herself, but they would prove that Severus could. But Severus said he would move to dissolve the trusteeship right away anyway, so that was really just as good.)

Liz really couldn't say for certain — Dorea insisted she was actually a terrible liar — but she was pretty sure the woman doing her interview bought it? She did seem angry, but the anger wasn't focused on Liz at all (angry for her, not at her), and her questions seemed mostly sympathetic, if rather skeptical where Severus was concerned, but... The whole thing was incredibly awkward, like those early one-on-one meetings with Severus where they'd actually kind of talked about the time before Hogwarts (they mostly didn't anymore). Bad enough she even ended up taking a sip of calming potion — not a lot, but the echo of it had started lingering in the air like a bad smell, she definitely didn't want to start freaking out in the middle of the Ministry, so.

The woman asked what that was, obviously, so Liz explained — Severus had been making it for her since early in first year, he said she had post-traumatic stress, you know. (She very consciously used his first name every time, to sell the story better.) Startled, the woman took a second to process that, then asked if Liz knew what that was, which...no, actually? Severus had used the phrase a few times, so she'd remembered it, but he'd never actually explained. The woman admitted she was kind of surprised Severus knew it at all, since it was a muggle term and kind of new. (It was weird how few people remembered Severus was a half-blood.) Then she went on talking about it, that it was a relatively common mental illness, described what kind of symptoms people tended to get, which...

Yeah, that checked out. She had a mental illness, apparently. Which wasn't news, exactly, she'd already known she was fucked up, but turned out it was an actual thing, the phrase wasn't just something Severus had made up. Good to know, she guessed?

Anyway, the interview lasted maybe a little less than an hour, all told. By the disorienting mix of feelings going on in the woman's head, Liz was pretty sure she believed her. Probably. So far so good? On the way out Liz was told — Severus, actually, but Liz was there too — that they'd be sending someone to visit them at home soon, so, Liz guessed they had that to look forward to. Sure, Severus had warned her they probably would, but still, that just sounded awkward...

And also pointless, since she wouldn't even be living at Severus's house next summer anyway. But whatever.

Compared to her long meeting at the Office of Child Welfare, dropping by Wizengamot Administration Services was quick and easy. She just walked in, got the attention of a clerk, talked with an official for a couple minutes, then signed a piece of paper — boom, done, Doge was fired.

On the way out, Severus reminded her that Dumbledore would definitely realise something was going on now — he was the Chief Warlock, he wasn't likely to miss the Potter seat suddenly going empty — but they'd deal with that when it happened.

The next day, her letter from Tamsyn came wrapped around a little phial, swirling inside a little bit of blue-silver memory stuff. Tamsyn explained the memory was her own, and that Liz might find the contents interesting. Which, despite herself, she had to admit she was fascinated — at this point, even after writing letters back and forth for months, she knew practically nothing about Tamsyn. That one time they'd met (which Liz still preferred not to think about), she'd looked like she could be a sixth- or seventh-year, but Liz hadn't recognised her at all, and also mages aged weird, she could be thirty for all Liz knew. She hadn't asked Tamsyn what the ritual she'd sacrificed the Weasley girl in had been for — the less sensitive information she had, the less reason Tamsyn had to silence her permanently — and that might be the only reason she'd been at Hogwarts to begin with. They mostly just talked about neat magic stuff, hardly anything personal at all in either direction — Liz didn't know where she was from, how old she was, what she was doing now, nothing.

She didn't even know her last name.

So, yes, if Tamsyn was sending her memories now, she was extremely curious.

Of course, she didn't actually know how to use the pensieve — she'd still been working on the charmwork needed to copy memories, so she hadn't stumbled across that problem yet. Didn't mean she didn't feel like an idiot for not thinking of that. She ended up calling Nilanse, asking if there was, like...an instruction manual, or something? Turned out, there was, a little pamphlet of folded up parchment (as in, actual parchment, made from sheepskin, not the heavy paper mages called parchment). Weirdly, the parchment was dyed a warm red (though faded a bit at the edges), which was something she'd known people used to do — though it was a fancy thing, since it took extra effort — and it was written by hand in meticulously proper, easily-readable script. The spellings were a little off in a few places, but this had been written in 1827, so.

After reading a couple paragraphs, Liz realised this had been written by Eustacia herself, instructing her new Potter in-laws in how to use the pensieve. Liz was reading something hand-written by her great-great-great-great-grandmother.

Wild.

Anyway, it didn't seem too complicated. The slope of the sides of the pensieve wasn't continuous, arching up for a bit before leaning out at a noticeable angle, the wide, relatively flat, shallow rim absolutely littered with runes. She first had to fill it up to that angle with a mixture of three parts water (that is, pure potion-making water) and one part tincture of moonstone. Luckily, tincture of moonstone was a relatively common complex product used in a lot of potions, they'd even brewed it in class last year; less luckily, she didn't have any prepared already, so she had to brew some. She first filled the inside with water, then poured it out into a measured glass to see how much it fit — she had to know the total volume to measure the parts properly — and then went downstairs to make the tincture.

Tincture of moonstone wasn't exactly simple, but it wasn't difficult either. She wasn't sure exactly how much the recipe made, so she quadrupled it, just in case — she'd end up using whatever was left over eventually anyway. She measured out the half white alcohol (it was called half, but it was actually 60% alcohol, because mages were terrible at naming things), quickly realising she'd need two cauldrons to brew all of it at once, but Severus had extra bronze cauldrons, no big deal. She crushed several moonstones, tipping the fine, silver, faintly glowing powder into the alcohol, dribbled in some syrup of hellebore, covered both cauldrons with a glass lid, set at an angle to let it vent just a little, and set them both to boil.

After five minutes, Liz briefly lifted the lids to toss a handful of lavender petals into each, then covered them again. Soon the lavender petals had dissolved — neutralising the poisonous properties of the hellebore, which probably didn't matter since she wasn't drinking it, but Eustacia had said tincture of moonstone so Liz was making tincture of moonstone — so Liz switched off the heat. After allowing another five minutes for everything to cool off a little, Liz sprinkled on some sea salt, then switched the dial around the other way, setting the burner to negative fifty degrees — because magic was neat, they could do stuff like that. The flame looked odd, more like shifting shadows with the occasional flicker of blue or white here and there, but magical fire sometimes looked odd, neat things like anti-fire especially so.

(Magic was just so cool sometimes, Liz doubted she'd ever entirely get over it.)

Right, the glow was gone, and the stuff had taken a slight purplish sheen, that was it. Switching the burner off again, Liz waited for the bronze to warm for several minutes, before pouring the stuff out into several bottles. (She definitely had more than she needed, but better more than less.) It had thickened quite a lot during the process, coming out pretty syrupy, but it was supposed to — she wasn't a Master of Potions, but it looked pretty close to perfect to her. She ended up with five bottles of the stuff, when she'd only need...about two and a half, it looked like. So, after a moment of thought, Liz sealed the two extra ones, then carefully labelled them, set them up on the shelf with the other complex products. Severus did a lot of brewing, and if he wanted to use her leftovers as a shortcut for something, that was fine with her.

In the kitchen, Liz measured out the water and the tincture, and poured them both into the pensieve — the mixture came right up to that angle in the middle, so, perfect. She slowly swirled the stuff around with the tip of her wand, until the remaining crystals in the tincture had properly dissolved (which they shouldn't do in water, the enchantments on the pensieve must be doing something). The mixture had faded to a pale blueish-white, tinged almost violet by the red porcelain beneath, little wisps of it starting to rise from the surface, too heavy to actually escape the pensieve, dancing over the surface and bouncing off the shallow rim, seeming to trace over some of the runes. Which was the effect Eustacia described as a sign the pensieve was ready for use, so, perfect.

When Liz pulled her wand out, the mixture didn't stick to it at all, the stuff immediately dribbling back down. The wood wasn't even wet to the touch, which was weird but also good, she hadn't been certain of the wisdom of sticking her wand into a potion...

Back in her bedroom, Liz set the pensieve down on the floor, dropping a pillow down nearby. She popped the cap off the phial of memory, and held it upside down over the pensieve — the stuff moved weird, not quite dribbling out like a liquid or spreading out like a gas, but somehow both and neither at the same time. It seemed to sink into the mixture, as soon as contact was made the weird not-cloud of memory swiftly contracting into it, as though actively reeled in. The mixture was glowing now, with a soft silver-blue light, which was what Eustacia said it was supposed to do, so. Success?

Only one way to find out: Liz closed the door, laid down on the floor, resting her head on the pillow, and reached over to dip her fingers into the pensieve.

A gasp was torn out of her throat as she was yanked sideways, hard, dragged bodily toward the pensieve, and then down, vague shapes of blue and white and silver swirling around, broken here and there with unreadable shadows, and she was falling, down, down, she grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes—

Everything came to a sudden halt with a jarring thud, pitching her down onto the...damp flagstones? The air shook with the ear-splitting crackle and booming of thunder, uncomfortably close, enough her chest vibrated with an echo. Liz jumped to her feet at the noise, whirled around. Then froze, blinking.

She was in the Astronomy Tower. It was the middle of the night — so thick she could barely see a thing, indistinct shapes looming in the darkness, occasionally illuminated with a flash of lightning, harsh lines and planes and deep shadows — but she'd been up here enough times by now she recognised it. Liz was closer to the middle of the tower, the wide circular enclosed area just outside the door, which she was slightly thankful for: it was also storming something awful, the rain coming down so hard and thick it was a constant low roar, between the darkness and the wall of water the features of the valley over the battlements completely obscured. Even the occasional flashes of lightning didn't help at all, the light reflecting off the droplets producing a featureless, solid glow. With a roof over her head, the rain didn't reach here, but this space wasn't protected by the environmental wards, the wind still blew mist this way, the stone all around her slightly damp, glimmering in the light of the lamp hanging in the middle of the ceiling.

She was only standing alone for a couple seconds before the door leading to the stairs down burst open, hard enough to slam against the wall nearby. (There was a gasp of surprise from somewhere in the opposite direction, hidden in the shadows of the braces holding up the ceiling, Liz felt an intense tingle of excitement from a pair of minds over there.) "—going to be a damn pansy about it, maybe I should have asked someone else." Glancing back toward the door, stepping out was...

Oh. Hello, Tamsyn. She was maybe slightly younger than the girl who'd appeared in Liz's room back in April — though it couldn't be by very much, Liz thought, she wouldn't seem out of place among the fifth-years. And she must be a student, she was wearing the Hogwarts uniform robe marked with the green and silver of Slytherin. The wind whipped at her hair (so black it nearly vanished in the shadows), nearly hiding the giddy grin on her face.

Following shortly behind her was a taller boy in casual day robes, his hair a very familiar white-blond. He didn't look exactly like Draco, his face was a bit rounder, but Liz didn't think she'd ever seen anyone else with that precise hair colour. (Honestly, she'd always assumed it was a glamour or something.) Despite the obvious differences, and the fact that he was a few years older, looking at him Liz instantly thought Malfoy.

"I don't think I'm being unreasonable, Tamsyn," the boy said, a clear note of exasperation ringing from his head (undercut with simmering concern he kept off his voice). "Surely you could do this somewhere safer — the Clock Tower, perhaps, I could soften the courtyard before you—"

"I told you, it doesn't work like that." Tamsyn came to a smooth halt, her robes swaying around her, only a couple feet away from Liz. "Hold that thought." Her wand appeared in her hand, a harsh jab sent a flickering orange spellglow flying straight at the hiding couple. The spell didn't seem to really do anything, just exploded into a dozen sizzling lights, little fingers spreading across stone and metal. The couple shouted in surprise, scrambling away from the spell, popping to their feet. Liz noticed they both looked rather disheveled, their clothes askew. (Seemed like a terrible place to fool around to her, but what did she know.) "Go on, then!" Tamsyn said, fingers flicking dismissively at the door. Raising her voice over another boom of thunder, "Get out of here and we won't give you detention!"

The boy watched the pair dash for the door, his head flickering with reluctant amusement. "I still can't believe Slughorn made you a prefect."

Tamsyn shot him a crooked grin. "Of course he made me a prefect — I'm the best witch he's seen in years, didn't you hear?" It was said like a joke, in a way that suggested to Liz this Slughorn said that kind of all the time.

"Also you buy him crystalised pineapple."

"Also that. Here, hold on to this," Tamsyn said, removing a wand holster from her wrist, sliding her wand back into place before handing it over.

Liz blinked — Tamsyn had just handed her wand over to this boy? That was...sort of a big deal, in magical culture. Also, when the fuck was this happening? Liz had never seen anybody else with Malfoy hair, he had to be, what, a father or grandfather or something, and she was pretty sure Tamsyn wasn't that old...

"I still think this is far too dangerous."

"It needs to be dangerous, Andy — I need to actually be in danger for the ritual to work. I know you know that." Sweeping past Liz, moving out toward the open area of the tower, Tamsyn shifted the folds of her robe aside, reaching for the laces.

"It doesn't need to be this dangerous."

"The more extreme the conditions the stronger the effects. I've explained this a hundred times, there's no use whinging about it."

The boy, Andy, grimaced at the use of whinging, but didn't argue the point. "Why am I even here if you're not going to listen to me?"

Tamsyn pulled her robe over her head, leaving her in a pale linen underrobe that didn't really cover much — she must be cold, it was sort of chilly out here... Smirking, "If it doesn't work, and I end up smashing myself flat against the roof of the Transfiguration department, I'll need someone to go get help." She threw her robe at him, started pulling her underrobe over her head.

His scoff of annoyance cut off with his scramble to catch the robe, Andy drawled, "Oh yes, that'll be easy to explain. Everyone's favourite muggleborn fallen from a Tower, found naked and near death, it won't be at all suspicious that her noble, pureblood lover just so happens to know about it — and is also carrying her wand and all her clothing." With a quick charm from his own wand, he hung Tamsyn's robe up in midair, which was kind of neat. When Tamsyn tossed the underrobe over, he hung that up too.

"I'm sure you can spin a story. Dippet likes you."

Andy glared at her. "He likes you more."

"Yes, well, I didn't say it would be easy. Do you mind?" Tamsyn asked, turning her back and pulling her hair over her shoulder. "You already have my wand."

With a low, long-suffering sigh, Andy stepped closer. Tamsyn was wearing...well, it wasn't a corset, exactly — it was made of similar heavy cloth, but without the obvious harder, shape-holding bits in there, just wrapped and cinched in place. (Liz had seen similar things in magical shops, but she didn't know what they were called.) A drag of Andy's wand top to bottom, and the thing quickly unraveled itself.

Tamsyn pulled it off, then chucked it at Andy, he barely managed to catch it. A couple quick pulls at the ties, and Tamsyn was stepping out of her loose mage-style knickers — and she was, just, standing in the middle of the Astronomy Tower, completely naked.

Er, had Tamsyn realised the memory she'd sent to Liz involved her taking off all her clothes? She couldn't imagine she didn't, but, seemed like a...weird thing to do. This whole thing was kind of weird, Liz had no idea what Tamsyn was doing, but she'd basically just...sent naked pictures of herself, but more than that, because this whole pensieve memory thing was very, very realistic. Just. Very weird. (Liz was half-heartedly trying not to stare, because it was kind of, well, but that sounded like Tamsyn's problem — if she hadn't wanted Liz to see her naked she shouldn't have sent her this.)

Andy also failed to not look, eyes tipping down for a second before rolling with a huff. "I still think this is a terrible idea."

"You worry too much." Tamsyn grabbed a potions knife, floating in the air nearby — Liz somehow hadn't noticed it until just now, she must have charmed it to hang there until she was ready for it. "When's the last time you've seen me fail at anything magical?"

"The Liquid Luck, last month."

"Shut up, that was Julie's fault and you know it." She slipped a little closer, tipped up onto her toes to drop a quick kiss on his lips. "Now be quiet, I need to concentrate." Tamsyn stepped out from under the roof and into the rain. In seconds she was absolutely drenched, her hair heavy and clinging to her skin. She walked right up to the edge, pushed herself up onto the wall, and stood on the top, one step behind her the tower and one step in front of her the long, long drop to the castle below.

After a moment of hesitation, Liz stepped out after her. Unfortunately, the pensieve made it real enough it actually felt wet, and cold — fuck, how was Tamsyn not freezing? Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth and ducking her head against the rain, Liz walked up to the wall, to Tamsyn's right, looked up. By the time Liz got there, Tamsyn had already cut open a line down one wrist, was passing her knife to the other hand to open up the other. They weren't shallow cuts either, by the time she tossed the knife behind her to clatter on the flagstones her wrists and hands were already streaked by her blood mixed with rain, darkening every second. (She was probably going to need a blood-replenishing potion after this.)

For a second Tamsyn just stood there, pelted by the rain and buffeted by the wind. There was another lightning strike, the boom reverberating in Liz's chest, the light throwing Tamsyn into sharp relief, streaked with seemingly random shadows. What was she doing? Then, she let out a sharp breath, and—

Liz instinctively stepped back at the sudden flare of magic, sharp and giddy and cold and intense. The air around her crackled, and a wave of ghostly flames crawled over her skin — black and green and silver, too ephemeral to be real fire, what was that? — but the effect only lasted for an instant. The tingly, ticklish weight of magic heavy on the air remained, though. Tamsyn finally moved, fingers going to her wrist, and then painting on her face with her own blood, with one hand and then the other, and then on her chest, drawing something — runes? Liz leaned closer, trying to see, but she couldn't find a great angle (and also it was really dark). She did make out enough to tell the blood wasn't running, despite the rain, she must have done something to make that happen. After a minute she was done, and she went still again, her hands open at her sides, her head hanging, her lips twitching with some kind of incantation, Liz couldn't hear it over the storm.

The words were so unexpected Liz jumped. "You staring at my arse, Malfoy?"

"Stop reading my mind, Riddle." (Was that Tamsyn's last name?)

"I wasn't," Tamsyn drawled, amused. "I just assumed."

Andy scoffed. "Yes, well, fuck you."

"Mm, kind of busy at the moment. Maybe in...five minutes."

"If you don't die."

"If I don't die." Tamsyn paused for a second. "Though really, when you think about it, if I'm dead I guess it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other what happens to—"

"Oh, just do it, already!"

Tamsyn chuckled. Then she took in a long breath, tipped forward...and she fell.

Oh shite! Liz had kind of seen this coming, but still, shite! She tipped up on her toes to lean over the wall, trying to keep Tamsyn in sight as she fell. (She dimly felt Andy run up next to her, leaning over the wall just a couple feet to her left.) Tamsyn was a pale blotch in the night, falling, falling, falling, and she was already so small, blurry in the rain, falling, falling, she couldn't be that far away from the roof below, falling—

Another pulse of raw magic, weaker from distance, just the faintest tingle on the air, another flicker of ephemeral fire.

—and then she wasn't. The little pale blur abruptly swerved off to the side, skimming over the sloping roof of the east wing, soon it was past the edge of the roof entirely, and arcing back up again, seeming to fall up...

Tamsyn was flying! Liz had guessed that's what was going on here, but still, fucking hell, Tamsyn was flying!

She looped back around to the tower, whipping through the air — so fast, she could easily be on a racing broom — before reaching them again, floating several feet over their heads, tipped over at an angle, her arms wrapped around her middle and giggling maniacally, her hair, clumped into thick strings by the rain, floating in a halo around her head as though weightless...

As Tamsyn floated around (still dripping blood), taunting Andy below her, joking and giggling, Liz could only stare, pelted and freezing in the simulated rain, her breath harsh in her throat and heart pounding in her ears. Tamsyn was flying!

That was. So. Cool!

A moment later the scene twitched around her, and then abruptly dissolved, and Liz was flying up through a storm of blue-white light and shifting shadow, and then she was pitched back into her body, rolling over with the momentum, banging her elbow on the floor.

(Which hurt, but at least she was warm and dry again.)

Once she got her breath back, her head no longer spinning, she scrambled up to her feet, whipped out a sheet of paper — she had a letter to write, right now.

፠ ፠ ፠

Tamsyn Riddle

I'll write a proper response to your letter later, I just had to get this out right now. People can fly? How?! That is so cool! How do you learn that? It's not really hard, is it?

Okay, okay, I had a couple other questions. Who was that boy with you? He looked a lot like Draco, so, a Malfoy? I don't know if there are any other Malfoys.

When did you attend Hogwarts? It would have had to have been before my first year, I met all the Slytherin prefects and you weren't one of them.

Also, you did know you're naked in that memory, right? Seems like a weird thing to be sending to people...

Liz

፠

Elizabeth

You're adorable sometimes, you know that? Yes, people can fly. It is really hard to learn, however — the magics involved are simple, but the channelling capacity necessary to perform unassisted flight is greater than most people are capable of. Even I cheated, and used a ritual to force it. I could tell you how to do it, but you shouldn't even think about it until you can consciously flare your aura.

The boy was Candidus Malfoy. I understand he died over a decade ago now.

I'm not going to tell you when I attended Hogwarts. You're a clever girl, figure it out for yourself.

Did you stare at my arse, Potter? It's okay if you did. I am very pretty.

But seriously, of course I knew what was in that memory — I won't say that was the best night of my life, but it's definitely up there. Achieving unassisted flight isn't the sort of thing a person is likely to ever forget.

I did cut the memory off early, though. I assume you aren't interested in watching what Andy and I got up to after I landed.

Tamsyn

፠ ፠ ፠

Forcing out a frustrated scoff, Liz folded up the letter and pitched it away, the paper fluttering down to land on the floor. Clear as mud, as always.

Since Tamsyn apparently wasn't going to give her clear answers, Liz asked Severus later that day. Luckily, Candidus Malfoy was a name Severus knew — he was Draco's great-grandfather, a well-respected man in his time. He'd been a vicious bastard sometimes, sure, but he'd also been fair enough, one of the more popular Lords of the Wizengamot for a decade or two.

Of course, he'd also been associated with the Death Eaters. This was before Severus's time, so he didn't know for sure, but his understanding was that Candidus had been one of the Dark Lord's closest confidants. He'd died under mysterious circumstances in the early 70s, before the war had really started picking up, and a couple months later Éloïse, his wife, had committed suicide. The official line was that Éloïse had murdered Candidus and then killed herself rather than be caught, but the Death Eaters (and associated people) mostly believed they'd both been assassinated — there were several theories as to who'd done it, but none of them really stood out. It was still an unsolved mystery to this day.

Candidus Malfoy had graduated from Hogwarts at some point between 1940 and 1945, Severus wasn't certain which year exactly.

Severus didn't recognise the name Tamsyn Riddle. He said it sounded vaguely familiar, like he might have seen or heard it before, but he had absolutely no idea who it was. So, that was a dead end...but, if she'd attended Hogwarts at the same time as Candidus, she would have to be in her sixties or seventies by now — Tamsyn did not look that old.

So, yeah, clear as mud. Liz would ask Tamsyn about that, but she was positive there was no way in hell she was getting a straight answer, so why bother.

The second half of the month, thankfully, had less crazy shite going on than the first half.

Dumbledore did figure out something was going on pretty quickly, and insisted Severus bring her to Hogwarts to talk. He'd actually gone to Privet Drive to find her himself, but obviously Liz wasn't there, so he'd called Severus in a low-key freak out about Ellie Potter being missing — Severus had had to tell Dumbledore where Liz was, so he didn't do something mad like tell the Aurors she was missing and have the whole fucking country go insane.

Liz refused to meet him, obviously — she hadn't forgotten their first meeting, she tried to avoid him whenever possible — so they communicated in writing instead. Dumbledore's letters were more confusing than anything, but it didn't really matter. Liz was not re-hiring Doge (unlike Diggle, this one hadn't even written her asking what was up), and she was not going back to the Dursleys, so Dumbledore could just go shove his false concern and idiotic advice and unwanted meddling right up his arse.

(His rambling about love and family and whatever honestly just confused her more than anything — he had read both her and the Dursleys minds, right? If nothing else, it should be very clear to him that there was nothing at all between them but fear and hatred.)

Severus later told her, sounding somewhat amused, that Dumbledore was completely at a loss about what to do with her. Apparently, even Dumbledore had expected her to be their good little Girl Who Lived — which was ridiculous, for multiple reasons — and really didn't know how to handle Liz turning out not at all like he'd expected. He was at least slightly reassured that, since she was with Severus, she was still in his sphere of influence, however indirectly.

Which was fucking hilarious, because Liz was pretty sure Severus didn't even like Dumbledore, but whatever.

With a week and a half left in the month to go, someone from the Office of Child Welfare showed up to do their stupid home visit thing. She was one of those soft, sweet ladies, vaguely reminding Liz of some of her less pushy primary school teachers, but she was also accompanied by an Auror, in full black and silver dueling robes and the trademark vibrant red cloak. Liz was slightly blindsided by the Auror, but Severus explained (later, after they'd left), that he had expected that — it was standard practice, to check for any mind-controlling enchantments or potions in the house, or just anything that might be too dangerous for people to be living around. Apparently Severus had already moved all of the illegal shite in his potions lab to Hogwarts (she'd been sleeping at the time, hadn't noticed), and the Auror wasn't going to take the time to check their books one by one, so he wasn't worried.

The whole visit was brief and relatively painless. She wasn't made to actually talk about personal things with the Child Welfare lady, just ordinary daily life stuff, which was fine. (Slightly awkward to be talking to a stranger about, but fine.) There were two little hiccups, but nothing that bad. The lady noticed the absence of a lock on the doors of both the bathroom and her bedroom, but Liz always used locking and sealing charms when she wanted privacy, it wasn't a big deal. (And that was something she was allowed to admit, since apparently it was only against the rules for children to use magic away from school without adult supervision — and by "adult" they meant a qualified mage. Hermione had been livid when she'd found out.) The second was when the lady pointed out that the kitchen wasn't built for elf use, but Liz actually liked cooking — though she still couldn't explain why even to herself — so that really wasn't a problem. No, Severus wasn't forcing her to do it or anything, honestly...

The Auror spent half the time suspiciously glaring at Severus, but he actually seemed a little impressed by the wards on the house, softening a bit once he analysed them — Liz got the feeling he thought Severus had upgraded them when Liz had moved in, but they'd always been like that, Severus was just a paranoid bastard sometimes. Also, he was rather relieved when Liz mentioned Nilanse, or more to the point that there was a house elf following her around who was loyal to her alone and didn't have to listen to Severus at all. He was almost even pleasant after that, whatever concerns he'd been harbouring having vanished already.

Other than that, the last couple weeks of the summer were rather uneventful. Weirdly, considering how busy the first week of the month had been, Liz didn't even end up getting to everything she'd been planning on doing before school started up again. The biggest thing that ended up being dropped was a visit to Godric's Hollow — the Ministry had apparently turned the house her parents had been murdered in into a memorial of some kind (instead of doing something actually useful with it), and Liz wanted to check the thing out before deciding what to do with the property. It wasn't out of the question that she'd let the Ministry keep using it, but if whatever they'd done annoyed her enough she'd reclaim the house and...probably demolish it, honestly, it sounded like it was already halfway ruined anyway.

By the look Severus gave her, she expected she wasn't going to like their stupid memorial thing, but still, she was reserving judgement until she'd seen it herself. Severus had seen it, he admitted — Lily (and James) were buried in the churchyard there, he visited at least once every year, on her birthday (in January, apparently). Which, kind of weird? Liz had never understood the visiting-people's-graves thing. They were dead, what the hell was the point? She didn't say anything about it, because she could tell he felt weirdly embarrassed for some reason, and she didn't want to annoy him too much, but still, weird.

But, if she were to go to Godric's Hollow she wouldn't be able to go alone. It was actually one of the places where Sirius was somewhat more likely to be loitering around, Severus thought, so if she were going to go she definitely needed escort by a competent, trusted adult. Given that the only person on the list of mages Severus considered competent that Liz actually trusted was Severus himself, he was literally the only option. But in the last couple weeks of the summer Severus had become very busy. She wasn't sure what all he was doing, presumably preparing the school for the impending arrival of students.

Severus had been gone during the day the whole summer quite often, yes, but he would still be around sometimes, and always in the mornings and evenings. But now, he was never home during the day, was usually gone before Liz woke up, and most days returned long after dinner. A couple times, he even stayed at Hogwarts overnight — those days he asked that she remain within the bounds of the wards, but it wasn't like she left that often anyway.

And that was fine, it just meant that she had the house to herself most of the time. (Which meant it was really easy to find enough time alone to re-up her blood magic thing, so.) But the last few things she had wanted to get out of the way this summer had to be postponed. Slightly annoying, but not a big deal, she realised he was very busy, it was fine.

It wasn't like she didn't have the rest of her life to figure this shite out, after all.

With only two days to go before the train, Severus told her — in a note he'd left stuck to his neat enchanted coffee machine, because he was so absurdly busy he didn't even have the time to talk about it in person — that if she got everything packed up by the night before the train left, he could just apparate with her trunk straight to Hogwarts. That way, she wouldn't have to worry about carrying all her shite onto the train, and also flooing or apparating with luggage could be extremely awkward for people not used to it yet. Which was good thinking, she should do that.

Packing up her stuff was...annoyingly tedious. Way back during her first extended visit to Charing, she'd splurged a bit and bought a trunk with multiple expanded compartments. It had been way more expensive than the standard models, but also had extra convenience and safety enchantments. Also, she'd been operating under the assumption that she'd be using it to hold all of her earthly possessions for the foreseeable future, so the more space the better — given that she had ended up doing exactly that for two years now, she considered that a wise investment. (Besides, she could definitely afford it, though she hadn't known by just how much of a margin at the time.) The problem was, she'd never had quite so many earthly possessions before.

The volume of books she owned had increased by quite a lot since those first days. Of course, she'd always gotten more than the supply list called for, but now she was on her third year of that, so, quite a lot of books by this point. They did still all fit in one of the compartments, if only just. And then there was all the potions stuff. Part of it was just all the big stuff they needed — there was a cauldron of pewter, "copper" (bronze), and "iron" (steel), and also all the knives and stirring things and bottles and phials in all kinds of shapes and sizes, really a lot of shite — and then an array of components, which had both gradually increased as they got to more complicated potions in class. And then, of course, alongside her (recently refilled) supply of calming potions and also the nutritional supplements Severus insisted she keep taking until she learned how to feed herself properly or puberty had passed (whichever came first, so probably the latter), there were all the potions Liz had made herself, just to have on hand if she needed them, which while not a lot wasn't nothing either. It'd all fit in one compartment last summer, but this summer it'd spread into a second one.

Also, she had a lot more clothes now than she'd ever had before. It wasn't actually that much — most of the other kids she knew, especially the girls, brought more than this — but it still seemed like a lot to her.

She had two pairs of shoes. Had she ever owned more than one pair of shoes at the same time in her life? She didn't think so.

Of course, over the couple months she'd been here her stuff had also kind of...migrated around the house. Not a lot, since Snape's house really wasn't that big, but a bunch of her potions stuff had been left downstairs at one point or another, along with her dragonhide gloves, and she'd left her telescope by the back door — she'd confirmed the positions of the planets and certain stars and used Unfogging the Future to make a few predictions, and then been entirely unsurprised when they all failed to come true — and her books were scattered here and there, one of her potions books downstairs, two of her Ciardha Monroe novels in the kitchen, one textbook on the sitting room table, and a few she finally managed to track down on the shelves, which was weird, how did that even happen, Severus had an organisational system and everything...

It was kind of a mess, was the point. Scouring the house to find everything was just making her more and more annoyed.

It was only as she packed up her pensieve — the contents poured out into a few spare potion bottles, themselves double-wrapped in socks, the pensieve bundled in an old robe — that what was going on in her own head finally clicked. Liz could be annoyingly oblivious about these things, if she didn't sit back and pay attention to what she was thinking and feeling it was very easy to miss things. Which was especially fucking stupid, because she was literally a mind-reader, she'd think she'd have at least her own mind down pat, but no, apparently not.

She didn't want to go back to Hogwarts.

And it wasn't even about the Ministry apparently having decided to post soul-sucking demons around the school — though those did sound terrible, Severus was furious about it. It wasn't that something was keeping her from it, or anything, she just...didn't want to go. Like at all.

But this wasn't new, exactly. Her introduction to the magical world had been...mixed. The first mages she'd met, wandering around Charing, for the most part they'd been just as defenceless against her mind-control superpowers as the residents of Little Whinging. Perhaps slightly more perceptive, so Liz had kept it to a minimum, but, she'd still had just as much power over them as she had over everyone else. The idea of other magical people had been vaguely concerning at first, but once she'd realised that her abilities were just as freakish in her new world as they were in the old, she'd stopped worrying about it.

But then she'd met McGonagall. And then, later that same day, Dumbledore had handed her her arse in a lightning-quick mind magic fight, before she'd even fully realised what was happening she'd already lost.

And suddenly the magical world had become much more scary.

She'd still gone to Hogwarts, because there was no way in hell she was going to not learn as much magic as she possibly could — especially since her mind magic wasn't the universal make problems go away trick she'd thought it was, it was only more important now. (Also, she'd kind of assumed Dumbledore would appear and drag her off again if she didn't show up as expected.) But the instruction at Hogwarts was...kind of terrible? Not to mention slow, Flitwick was probably the best teacher but even in his class they crawled through new spells at a maddeningly sluggish pace. She had absolutely no doubt that she'd learned far more magic by reading and practising on her own than she had in class. Having to go to classes, and do the essays and exams and everything, it was so much wasted effort that she really didn't think she got that much out of.

Also, the professors (and sometimes the older students) made her faintly nervous. She couldn't know for certain which were vulnerable to her mind-control superpowers without trying it, but she still wanted to keep that a secret, so she really couldn't. Having to hold back from looking too closely, not knowing what they were thinking and feeling, and not knowing if she would be able to... She tried to avoid being alone with any of them, if she could help it.

Except Filch, he was fine. If she was going to have detention with anyone (and she had, a few times), she would prefer it be with him — her friends thought that mad, but really, he was a squib, what was he going to do? He was the least threatening person in the castle, but whatever...

The other kids she could take or leave, for the most part. The other Slytherins weren't so bad — sure, half the first-years had been awful before she'd beaten them down, but now that she was on the quidditch team, and Draco had started playing nice for the sake of staying on the quidditch team, it was fine. Having other people around when she was studying or whatever was fine, as long as they didn't get too loud and annoying, some of their conversations could be interesting to listen in on. They made very few demands of her, and they weren't too annoying, they were fine.

Friends were another thing, though. Liz had never had friends before, and if she was being honest — the sort of thing she thought in the privacy of her head and never said aloud, because it wouldn't be taken well — she still wasn't sold on the concept. People to talk to and do things with, if and when she felt like it, sure, but beyond that, it was all kind of weird and confusing? And they kept expecting things of her, and she was hardly ever sure what she was supposed to be doing, and their feelings kept clinging at her, it was just awkward and uncomfortable all around. She put up with it, because it wasn't completely terrible, and she did like them...most of the time...for the most part...but she still didn't really get it.

And she remembered, it'd occurred to her a few days after the incident with Quirrell in first year, Dorea had gone down after her, for no real reason other than that Liz was her friend, she could have died. She could have died, coming after Liz. She...did not like that feeling. She didn't know what to call it, but she didn't like it.

(It'd also occurred to her that the best solution to that problem was to just stop talking to Dorea entirely, then it would never happen again. But Liz didn't like that feeling either.)

But, she didn't need to go to Hogwarts to have friends. She was fine with sending letters and just meeting up in person every once in a while. There was no reason she had to deal with everything else at Hogwarts just to have them.

But she did have to deal with Hogwarts. Dumbledore was still in charge of her life — if she didn't show up he'd certainly drag her back to the school, like he'd dragged her back to the Dursleys the very first time they'd met. He might not be able to find her, especially if she ran off to France or Holland or something, but she still didn't know how Severus kept tracking her down, and Severus worked for Dumbledore (and would probably be worried about her himself), so, same difference. She had no choice but to go to Hogwarts.

And she didn't want to go. She really didn't.

(Sometimes, she really wished the whole damn magical world would just leave her the fuck alone.)

So, when the morning of the 29th of August dawned, Liz woke up in a sour mood.

Severus was already gone by the time she got out of bed — she had expected that, with how absurdly busy he'd been this last week. After a shower and breakfast, out of a lack of anything better to do, she sat at the kitchen table, idly reading through Reflections of the Unseen. Distracted by other things, she hadn't spent much time on her Divination books yet, and since she needed to have a book on her for the train ride — she would always get bored, and her friends would mostly oblige her and leave her alone when she was trying to read — she'd decided it might as well be this one.

Unfortunately, scrying wasn't quite as useful as she'd thought. She'd flipped through the book at the shop, but she hadn't actually read the introduction, which had a very important bit of information in it: it was only possible to scry people, things, or places a person had already seen in real life with their own two eyes. Also, wards to block it were rather common, and put over pretty much every private building as a matter of routine. Scrying itself wasn't particularly difficult to do, since it really only required a reflective surface and a moment of concentration, but its actual applications were somewhat limited.

Or maybe that wasn't such a big deal. Immediately after listing off a bunch of limitations (that would be discussed more in depth later in the book), the introduction then went about hinting how those limitations could be circumvented, if a person was clever (which would also be explained more thoroughly later). One of the big ones couldn't be gotten around — you couldn't scry what you've never seen — but it worked on all the senses, not just sight, so that could sometimes bring in funny loopholes. Like, an example the book gave, if you're trying to find where someone is, and you've never been to that particular place so the details don't come in clearly, you might still, say, smell bread baking, hear chickens squawking, the rattling of cart wheels and the dinging of bells, and guess they're in a market in a town somewhere — you might get enough detail to narrow it down, at least. Also, scrying on different mediums changed the quality of the magic somewhat, so it was possible scrying on water in a porcelain bowl was blocked by a place's wards but scrying on polished steel instead went through just fine. And sometimes wards were bad at blocking all of the senses, focusing on the ones thought most important (sight and sound, usually), while missing subtler ones. For example, it was very difficult to block the scrying of magic, so people who were sensitive to such things would still have that to work with, at the very least.

...Wait a second...

The first time through the pensieve, Liz had picked up on the feelings of the people in the memory, though she was so used to always being able to do that that the significance of it hadn't occurred to her at first. She'd felt like a bloody idiot when it finally did, so her second time through, a couple days later, she'd actively tried to read Andy's mind. (Not Tamsyn's though, she'd been too intensely focused on what she was doing for Liz to get a grip on it.) So, she'd discovered she could read people's minds inside a pensieve. It was limited — she could only see what the person was explicitly thinking at the time and the associated memories primed by whatever was going on, and the memories were also rather vague, since she couldn't redirect the person's attention to them to make them remember more clearly. But still, she'd read Candidus Malfoy's mind...from hundreds of miles away...and also fifty years in the future.

(So Liz knew he had been staring at Tamsyn's arse, but mostly he'd been worried she was about to die. And also that he'd get blamed for it somehow, but really more concerned for her than anything.)

It'd occurred to her that, if she really wanted to know what someone was thinking but didn't want to risk being discovered, she could put her own memory of it in the pensieve and read their mind there, perfectly safely. It was a neat little workaround she'd figured out...just as soon as she learned the charm to copy her memories. (She was working on it, it was annoyingly complicated.)

A pensieve worked through scrying the past, using a memory as a focus. If she tried to scry the present...

No way. Oh shite, no way, that was just...

Liz tore through the rest of the introduction, looking for anything that would contradict the logical leap she'd just made, but nope, nothing. The author claimed scrying transmitted all senses, including magical ones. She wouldn't be able to interact with people's minds from a distance, of course, but...

Okay, maybe scrying was actually way more useful than she'd thought. Neat.

(Magic continued to be the best thing ever.)

"Do they trouble you?"

Liz twitched, her heart giving an unpleasant surprised thump — no reason to freak out though, it was only Severus. "Does what trouble me?" she asked, her own voice sounding slightly distracted as she tried to focus on her book. Honestly, he'd startled her in mid-sentence...

"Your scars."

For a moment she frowned in confusion, before realising she'd started absent-mindedly rubbing at her chest again at some point. She forced herself to stop, slipped her parchment bookmark between the pages and folded the book closed — if Severus was here, it was probably almost time to leave. "Sometimes a little, I guess." It'd started...she didn't know when, exactly. A few months ago, maybe? It wasn't bad, not like back in first year, just a sort of...low, dull ache, that was more vaguely distracting than actually painful. (More toward the right than the left, which was weird, the scars were actually less bad there.) Honestly, she hadn't even been aware of what she'd been doing, it didn't really bother her that much.

Severus was in the doorway, back in his very black, very heavy, very overdramatic, totally-a-very-scary-and-intimidating-dark-wizard robes. After seeing him in casual muggle clothes all the time for months, it was honestly a little surreal going back to normal. "I suppose some discomfort is not unexpected, but if the pain worsens you should bring it to the attention of myself or Pomfrey. There are possible complications you would do well to watch out for."

"Complications?" She'd sort of thought she was fully healed, had been for a long time now.

His lips twitched a little, a shiver of something she couldn't quite read in his head. "In a word? Cancer."

...Oh.

"Should such a thing present itself, it would not be the end of the world — magical healing techniques reduce most malignant growths to a relatively trivial nuisance. But the sooner it is discovered, the less...drastic the necessary intervention."

Right, she might have guessed that. "Okay. It's fine, I think, not really that bad. I'll keep that in mind, though."

Severus nodded. "We may leave any time you are ready."

"I'm ready now, just give me a minute quick." She had the feeling it was still really early, but she preferred to arrive early to avoid the crowd. Back in her room, she stuck her book in her bag, quick searched for anything she might have forgotten, but nope, her room was nearly as spotless and empty as it'd been when she'd first seen it. (Though it wasn't really her room anymore, was it? All of her stuff was gone, and she'd probably never be coming back.) She quick dropped by the bathroom to pick up her shower stuff, she'd already packed her toothbrush, so, done.

She met Severus back where he was waiting in the main room, idly flipping through a potions journal he'd picked up from the table. "And you have packed everything?" he said, without looking up. "If I am later asked to search the house for one item or another you've forgotten, I would be most irritated."

"I'm positive." Well...almost positive — she had stayed here for a while, she'd never had so much stuff before, and while his house wasn't big it was larger than the hotel rooms she was used to. "And if I did miss something, I can just ask Nilanse to come find it."

Severus's eyebrows twitched. "True enough." He tossed the journal aside, glanced down at her dress quick. "I suppose we are apparating."

"The floo is terrible."

His lips twitched, a faint ring of amusement echoing from his mind, but he didn't say anything. "Come on, then." Liz took his offered hand and, a brief moment of uncomfortable, twisting tightness later, they were on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. (That was still a stupid name.) On the opposite end from the illusory gateway she'd gone through every other time, there was a sizeable alcove with a line of fireplaces built into the wall, nearby a large section of floor with very obvious yellow and green lines in the tile, sectioning off parts of the floor — marking the hole in the anti-apparation wards, she assumed. There was a long counter against the wall there, a newsstand that also sold coffee and tea and sandwiches and pastries, for people who arrived early and wanted a snack while they waited.

And there were people about, despite the fact that they were— Okay, wow, it was barely half after nine, they were an hour and a half early. There were some people about, but not very many, several adults with young children attempting (and mostly failing) to sit quietly, a clump of older students sat in a circle on the floor over there chatting over a card game of some kind.

There was an attendant sitting on a spindly chair nearby with a copy of the Prophet — in case someone had a floo or apparation mishap, she assumed. The young man, too old for Hogwarts but not by much, glanced up at their arrival for just a second before returning to his paper, then gave them a double-take, mind shivering and eyes widening and mouth gaping with shock.

Liz was going to go out on a limb and guess he recognised them.

As soon as Liz stepped over the lines in the tile, there was a muted crack, and Severus was gone. That seemed...rather abrupt, considering she had just been staying at his house for two months. Rolling her eyes at Severus once again being so very weird and awkward (he hadn't even said goodbye), Liz made straight for the train. She picked a compartment at random — so far as she could tell they were all identical, though some of the other kids had inexplicable preferences for some over others — closed the door behind her and, after a moment of thought, closed the shades too.

She'd assumed Severus (she'd have to start calling him Snape again) was still trying to avoid drawing attention — she was wearing a muggle dress so it'd be more inconspicuous out on a muggle street, where she'd assumed Severus would drop her off. But apparently he didn't mind just appearing with her on the platform. There weren't a whole lot of people around, true, but still. People were going to find out anyway, it would be in the bloody papers in a couple months — because apparently where the Girl Who Lived lived was so important the whole country needed to know about it, ridiculous — so she guessed it didn't matter that much anymore. If she'd known they'd be apparating straight to the platform she would have been in her robes already, but at least she had time to change before people started showing up...

She did like her new robes, with the laces up the side, very comfy.

Once she was dressed, she opened the shades again — her friends would be looking for her, so she shouldn't make herself harder to find. And she paused for a moment, staring out the window at the mostly empty platform, toward the gateway out to the rest of the station. It wasn't even ten in the morning yet but she felt, inexplicably, tired.

She really didn't want to go to Hogwarts. She was honestly surprised by how much she...didn't want to deal with it all. Maybe it would blow over in a couple days, but...

...Severus would probably agree she didn't have to go Hogwarts if it was necessary for her mental health...probably...but she had absolutely no idea how the hell she would convince him of that. So.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Liz flopped bonelessly onto one of the benches, tried to relax. Hopefully she'd be reasonably normal by the time her friends got here.

She almost had to laugh at the thought — she was hardly reasonably normal on her best days, when she wasn't wishing that she hadn't woken up this morning and the world would just go away for a bit please...

Aaaannd clearly just lying here not doing anything was doing her no favours, she needed a distraction. Liz pulled out Reflections of the Unseen again, and settled in to wait.

---

[29th of August] — Headcanon, the Hogwarts Express runs on the Sunday of the first week of September — that is, the Sunday of the week September begins, not the first Sunday of September. (The latest it can land is on September 2nd, when the 1st is a Saturday.) In 1991, that's September 1st; in 1993, it's the 29th of August.

Bleeehhh, not super happy with this chapter. These things happen.

Turned out stupid long, but believe it or not I actually cut out things. This whole skimming through a significant span of time thing is not something I think I've...ever done before, kind of an experiment for me, and I'm not at all certain it turned out the way I wanted it, or in any way readable. So, sorry if it was just really boring, I guess?

This fic is getting pretty long, and I've been contemplating the pros/cons of splitting this into two parts — this one would be through the end of fourth year, and then the second one would carry on from there. If anyone has a strong opinion, neat.

That's more than enough from me, then.