Truly, she should have known that things would change what with the reveal of at least part of the truth to her mother. Yet somehow she had still been blindsided, even when her mother had let her sleep on her bed that night and let her snuggle next to her. The same part of her which had just been waiting for the so-called Dursley Treatment to appear: the treatment where they ignored her and left her to deal with her own issues alone. She should have learnt by that point that Celeste Carter was a Carter, not a Dursley, and she was the mother who loved her so much.
The mother who had loved her enough to live for her, rather than die for her. Not that she knew much about Lily Potter. She didn't have green eyes anymore, and the Potters were something which probably belonged in the past, if only she could manage to leave it behind.
"Harriet?" her mother asked, peering over at her as she stirred ever so slowly. "You didn't have any nightmares, did you?" she questioned, looking so helplessly worried as she brushed a thumb over her annoyingly chubby cheek.
"Mn. I'm fine," she said softly, peering over at her mother, even as she was haloed in the soft light of the sun seeping through the curtains. Her dreams were one of the few things which visions didn't affect. It was the one time she was free from the flashes of gold and the tragedies which, more often than not, followed in its wake.
"That's not an answer to my question," her mother said flatly, staring at her so seriously then. "Whether or not you had a nightmare is another question as to whether you're fine, sweetheart."
Harriet shrugged. "I don't think I had a nightmare. I'd usually wake up if that was the case," she remarked, sitting up and playing with her fingers. They were so terribly interesting all of a sudden, what with how oddly uncomfortable she felt beneath the weight of her mother's attention. "Dreams are nice," she mumbled, thinking of those few good nights where she wasn't hauled off to that train or sucked into the vivid imagery which came with her visions.
"I'd hope they are," she whispered, sliding out of bed. "What do you want for breakfast today, sweetie?" she asked. "We're spending the day together."
"Uh, waffles?" she blurted out, stomach grumbling as she thought of her favourite breakfast-slash-dessert. "Please?"
"Sure thing," her mother said, ruffling her hair. "You want to help me make them? Or do you want to nap for a bit longer?"
She tilted her head, taking a moment to decide, before she grabbed her mother's arm. "I'll help," she decided, pulling herself up from under the covers and padding over to the door alongside her wonderful mother. Celeste Carter had a place in her heart, now and forever. That was undeniably true, Harriet mused, even as her eyes burnt gold and her mother stared down at her with those confused, worried eyes. The same eyes she would likely have to get used to, and Harriet didn't need her visions to tell her that much.
"You can measure things out, yeah?" her mother said, pointing at the recipe book, the weighing scales and ingredients slowly finding their way in front of her. "I'll be doing the dangerous stuff," she continued.
"Mn. It's only dangerous if you're not careful," Harriet mumbled, weighing out the correct measurements for her breakfast and passing them over to her mother in the order they were required. "Or if you don't have good motor control as most children do…"
A finger prodded at her nose, her mother looking down at her as she sat on the counter. "Don't speak as if you're not also one of those children," she said matter-of-factly, and Harriet frowned, uncertain of the truth of that statement. Technically she was older than a child in mind and possibly soul at least, no matter how small her body was. "We also need to talk about what we're going to do going forwards… after what you told me last night…"
"What's there to talk about?" she asked, propping up her chin on her hands as she watched her mother make the waffles she so loved. They weren't quite as good as the ones at the diner she liked, but it wasn't like they could always go there – that was a treat.
"Harriet," her mother said sharply. "I believe there are plenty of things we need to talk about – least of all being the fact that you made a prophecy yesterday… and the fact that you told me that you… that you've seen too many of your half-siblings die."
"And?" Harriet demanded, staring determinedly at the machine making them their waffles. "All that means is that I have save them." Well that was if she could. It wasn't like she was a fully-grown witch with magic and a whole host of spells at her fingertips. All she had were powers which had only thus far brought tragedy to her life and everyone else around her.
"And how exactly are you going to save them?" her mother asked, and she could only grit her teeth at the lack of answers and ideas she had to that simple question. "More to the point, sweetie, what exactly are you going to be saving them from?" she questioned, one red brow rising. "Tell me, Harriet."
Harriet scowled, tearing her gaze away from her mother's. "Monsters," she mumbled, uncertain as to why she felt so very nervous and like she was doing something wrong. "Greek monsters," she explained, shuddering at the memories of those visions where red blood stained the ground and the monsters stood tall and undefeated.
Her mother sighed, deeply, setting out two large waffles onto each of their plates, carrying their breakfast over to the table as Harriet hopped down off the counter, chocolate sauce and maple syrup in her hands. "The same monsters," her mother said quietly, "that seek to kill those half-siblings of yours. The same monsters which would kill you given the opportunity…" Blue eyes met with her golden ones, and Harriet felt her stomach twist. "And you're all but asking me to allow you to serve yourself up to those monsters on a silver platter?"
"No!" Harriet hissed, climbing up to her chair, and beginning to dig into her waffles which didn't taste quite as delicious as they usually did. "I'm going to… kill them," she declared, feeling that festering well of hatred for those monsters rise up within her. They were like Tom, and they would continue killing unless she got rid of them. "So they can't hurt anyone else…"
Her vision flashed with gold, the image of a dog-like creature with burning red eyes chasing—hunting a group of four as they ran through the streets of Brooklyn. Only that dog-like creature was ten times the size of any dog she had ever seen. Hellhound. The name came to her as she watched it bound after its prey in giant loping strides which shook the earth as it ran.
"Harriet."
She blinked, the sight of her mother sitting solemnly across the table from her as she sat there, forkful of chocolate-covered waffle halfway to her lips. "Mn," she mumbled, resigned as ever when another vision hit her with all the force of a steamroller.
Blood seeped across the tiled floor, a growing puddle of red seeping across the white floor to the marble staircase where it trickled down the few steps. Her feet were bare as she stood there, blood pooling beneath her toes, sticky and still warm as she trudged up to find the very source of the bloody carnage. The sounds of flesh being rent and devoured met her ears, and Harriet only sighed at the knowledge that she could tell such a sound apart from everything else. Really, she didn't need to walk up those stairs in that strange vision to know what had happened.
Monsters were having a meal, and Harriet knew exactly what that meal consisted of, without even seeing that discarded necklace with lots of strange charms threaded along its leather cord. Harriet stared over the scene of carnage awaiting her at the top of the stairs with something akin to detachment, fear wriggling in her belly as she spied those hellhounds chewing on flesh and bone. The sounds of snapping bones weren't unknown to her, but the cracking sounds still made her shiver, fear bubbling in her belly. Yet she hadn't been a Gryffindor for nothing, and all she wanted was to get rid of those hellhounds somehow, if only so she didn't have to see blonde hair matted with blood.
Her fingers twitched, and then she was back in her dining room, eating opposite her mother, shovelling another sugary waffle into her mouth in an attempt to wash away the taste of blood which lingered in the back of her mouth.
"Harriet," her mother spoke again, and Harriet looked up, meeting her mother's gaze once more. "Why?" she demanded, her teeth grinding against each other as she clenched her jaw in anger or frustration – the reasons for which Harriet wasn't quite sure of. "Why do you expect me to let my child to go into danger?"
Tears bit at the corners of her eyes, realisation flooding through her at the resigned expression on her mother's face. The same expression which told her that there would be no compromise. The same expression which told her that she would rather her keep having terrible visions rather than trying to change the futures she saw. "I have to," she hissed, hands curling into fists on the table, teeth sinking into her lower lip as frustration burned within her.
"You are a child, Harriet," her mother stated flatly. "Saving others is not your responsibility. The more important thing is for you to grow up well and safe… So, please. Please don't ask me to allow you to charge into situations where you could die. You're my child, and it's my responsibility to keep you safe." Blue eyes bore into her own with the force of a thousand suns, and it was then that Harriet saw it – the damning stubbornness and insistence which had led one of her mothers to her death in a bid to keep her safe. Part of her despised the fact that she was seeing signs of it once more, because Celeste Carter was not supposed to resemble Lily Potter aside from her red hair. "I do not know much about the powers of prophecy, but I know it's never a wise idea to meddle with fate."
Toes curled, fingers twitching and tensed, irritation rising within her because it wasn't like it was her fault she was stuck in the body of a child. She had been an adult when she died. She had been able to look after herself, and yet now she couldn't—and yet she had to save them. It wasn't like she had been ready to face Quirrellmort in her first year. She wasn't even the same as she was back then. She could prepare far better than an actual child her age could. "So," she said, hating the tears in her eyes as she met her mother's own tearful stare. "You're asking—no, you're telling me that I just have to sit back and watch it all happen."
"Harriet—"
"That I have to just stay here and be safe when my siblings – my family – are dying?" she hissed, voice shaking, limbs twitching in anger. "That I have to listen to their screams and do nothing?"
"We can try and dissuade your twins from going to that Camp Lagoon, and so long as we don't mention the future then I think we should be fine…" her mother trailed off, trying to placate her then.
Gold filled her vision once more, the image of scissors snipping through two yellow threads burning into her retinas as she sat there at her dining table and clutched at her blonde locks. "That won't stop it," she muttered. "I have to," she whispered, knowing that only she could directly intervene and change things – to stop that definite snipping point. She wasn't entirely sure of how she knew, beyond a vague feeling and that wording of her prophecy, that it wasn't a possible snipping point the twins were facing. It was certain death.
"Harriet—no!"
"Shut up," she hissed, thinking then of everything she had once stood for. "Tell me what I'm supposed to do? I was born with these powers for a reason, wasn't I? What good does it do if I cower and hide? What good do they do if I don't use them to save people? What's the point?!"
"I am your mother, Harriet," she said, expression steeled and unrelenting, and something inside her despaired at that look. "I have a duty to protect you, even if you despise me for it—"
Harriet gritted her teeth, her temper running away from her in the blink of an eye. "Fuck this," she hissed, shoving her chair away from her as she stood, the screams of the dying ringing in her ears. "Fuck that, fuck you, and fuck fate!"
"Language, young lady!"
Harriet slammed the door to her room with a loud bang, the reminder of her being a young lady who was so pathetically weak and unable to save anybody ringing in her ears as she threw herself onto her bed, burying her head in her pillow and screaming away her frustration.
::
Void-like scenery raced past as that strange dark train continued on its unending journey through one place or another. Harriet wasn't entirely sure where they were, beyond the fact that she was stuck in a dream not of her own making. He sat opposite her, as per usual, staring at her with a smile on his lips as he gazed at her with those unfathomable eyes of his. Pale blonde hair swayed with the motions of the train, and Harriet felt her gaze fix upon it like she was a cat chasing a laser pointer. "So," he murmured, breaking the tense silence which had stewed between them for a few moments. "You've decided then, haven't you, little oracle…?"
"Was there ever a choice?" she wondered, staring at her hands – the same hands which hadn't saved anyone as of yet. "You should be well aware of my views on prophecies…" Namely that she was fed up of having her actions dictated by them. She was hardly about to allow a prophecy – least of all one of her own making – to dictate the lives of others. Especially not the only two friends-slash-probable-siblings she had.
"Oh, believe me, I am well aware," he said. "You forget how long I have been watching over you, and the glimpses I have into your true past." In the blink of an eye he shifted positions, no longer seated opposite her as he always had. Instead he sat next to her, and she was cast in his shadow, unfathomably long and dark as it was. "I will try to conceal you as best as I can, my darling little champion, but I have my limits too."
"I can't keep my powers hidden if I want to save them," she murmured, trying then not to dwell too much on the possibilities of what would happen if her father discovered her. Yet that could be something to worry about when it happened. Did it really matter what happened to her, so long as, at the end of the day, they lived? Harriet didn't think so, no matter that slight stir of unease at the thought of her uncertain future. Though it wasn't the first time she'd lived with such an uncertain future.
"Then you will probably need this," he remarked, holding out a weapon to her then. Black metal glinted in the light, glimmering ever so slightly like there was a raiment of stars trapped within its surface. "Though I must say that you should only use that in extreme emergencies. That is no ordinary knife, even for one of your kind. In fact I would go as far to call it a one of a kind. Only the best for my darling champion."
She looked at him then, glancing between him and his apparent gift to her, watching as the surface of the blade warped, wrapping around her wrist to become a thin onyx black bracelet.
"A blade of the Void," he explained. "It is capable of killing a monster and banishing its essence into Chaos. In essence, killing the monster forever so it cannot reform."
"So it could get rid of those monsters," she murmured, thinking on all the monsters she had seen time and time again, coming back and killing her siblings and the others like them. "For good…"
Her watcher sighed deeply then. "The world has a way of balancing things, darling little oracle. Even if you were to slay monster after monster, then something worse would take their place." Ancient eyes bore into her own, heavy and solemn, and Harriet bit her tongue at that. "Use it only when you must. It is something which could easily upset the balance of things."
Harriet tilted her head. "Isn't that what you want?"
He sighed, smiling and shaking his head, even as he reached out and grabbed a hold of her hair, ignorant to the way she stiffened at the contact. "I might revel in chaos, but that is something different to shifting the balance."
"Oh," she mumbled.
"Just be wary and conscious of your actions, and all should be fine, little arbiter," he said, ever ready to remind her of what she was to the world, whether it be the arbiter of fate, an oracle, or otherwise. "Do not lose yourself to anger constantly and act rashly – lest I be forced to intervene on your behalf, for that is something which would likely not end well." Dark eyes stared at her once more. "Additionally, it would probably be wisest to practice your abilities beneath the light of the moon rather than the light of the sun. Your father, after all, sees everything beneath the sun – that being one of his domains, as you might have guessed."
"I can do that," Harriet said, staring at the black bracelet wrapped around her wrist, reminding herself then that it was only for emergencies if there was a monster which deserved to be put down for good. Her fingers traced over the obsidian black metal, cold to the touch as it was. "I will do that."
"That is the spirit," he murmured. "Good luck, champion mine."
::
The arrow soared through the air, slamming into the warped section of the target she'd been aiming for. She took care, as always, not to aim for the gold specifically as Laurel and Alexander always did. After all, she could improve her aim without going for gold. Yet that in itself wasn't enough, or so she mused to herself as she fired another shot, letting it slam closer to that golden ring as a 'lucky shot'.
"Nice!" Laurel exclaimed behind her, and Harriet allowed a smile to slip onto her face.
Truly, she wanted to practice shots which curved through the force of that power within her chest. Though that wasn't a good idea to do while the sun was up, lest the game be up and her heritage revealed to her father who would soon realise that which she was. Her stomach twisted at the thought, and she shook her head, stepping back from the shooting line and seating herself on the bench with Laurel as she waited for the rest of the group to finish their shots.
"You're getting better," Laurel declared, playing with her hair as they sat together, watching as Alexander fired his arrows with an unnerving grace and a growing accuracy. "You might not be as good as us, but you're still real good," she stated, and Harriet only leaned back into her friend's embrace, tilting her head to peer up at her.
"Mn," she grunted, ever her default sound for everything and anything. If anything, she was better than the pair at archery. Part of her wondered if her use of that power within her was considered a cheat. It wasn't like her possible siblings seemed to use that power – which they presumably shared – the same as she.
"Neh, you wanna see the music piece me and Alex have been working on?" she asked, pulling out a sheaf of papers, revealing musical scores handwritten in a rough, childish script. "We'll need more input for your bit, but Miss Summers said it was really, really good! She said she was gonna put it forward for some competition or something… and if we get so far or something then we'll be able to perform it in front of a load of people!"
"Cool," Harriet mumbled, already well in with the habit of translating musical scores into the music it would make. Another something – another cheat – she could probably lay at her father's feet. "I'll think of something," she said, thinking then on her progressing musical talent. It was one of the few things not marred by memories of tragedy. Dimly, some small, cynical part of her wondered for how long that would remain the truth. "Though we should probably get ready"—the whistle blasted, a signal that the last archer had finished shooting—"to collect our arrows," she continued, leaping to her feet as Laurel stuffed her papers away and hurried to their shared target board, heeding the command to walk slowly lest they want to wind up impaled on their own arrows. Harriet felt as though she had seen enough death to last a lifetime, and she didn't particularly want to see anyone impaled on their own arrows. That would be embarrassing for everyone involved.
"I scored better than you this time, Alex!" Laurel declared, a bright grin on her face even as her twin scowled at the knowledge.
"Just you wait," he muttered. "You might be better at archery, but I'm better at making music!"
"Sure, sure," Laurel said airily, pulling her arrows out from the straw target. "Whatever you say, brother dear."
Harriet smiled, looking between the two of them, ever reminded that they weren't Fred and George. And that there was no way they would wind up with anything of a similar fate to the twins she had once known and cherished. Her vision flooded with that golden tinge, a smiling face coming into sight, blue eyes and blonde hair glistening in the light of the evening sun.
"C'mon, Lil Sis," he called, and Harriet could only blink, knowing in an instant that she was who he was speaking to.
Yet visions could never be truly happy – because she recognised that face, even bloodied and misshapen as it had been in death, burnt within the confines of the golden shroud he had been wrapped in. Another brother destined to die. Her jaw clenched, hearing her mother calling her name then. The same mother who would let that kind older brother she had seen die if only to keep her safe.
Harriet looked down at her hands, even as her mother stood behind her, having collected her arrows for her. She turned, walking towards the shooting line once more, ignoring her mother as she stared at the ghostly speckles of blood she could see lining the smooth skin of her hands. Her eyes burnt gold, clenching around thin air, as if she could somehow grab a hold of the fate awaiting her brother and rip it to pieces. Her family wasn't allowed to die. Not again. Never again.
She didn't understand why her mother couldn't see that.
::
Night fell, the sun vanishing beyond the horizon, and with it, her father's gaze. Silvery moonlight peeked through the pale curtains to her room, the soft golden light of the lamp in the living room creeping beneath the door as she lay there, unable to sleep properly as she wondered about what exactly she was supposed to do. Her mother refused to let her run off and save who she needed to, and all she could do was sit there and obey. It wasn't like she had the power to save anyone as of yet – and that was the main problem. She didn't have her wand. She didn't have the spells she had known. That time around there was no one to give her spells to learn and incantations to recite. All she had was her wits and her creative thinking, and perhaps those visions to help.
She concentrated then on that bubbling inferno of power in her chest, musing on how it had only grown as the years went by. It had many facets and faces, each as deadly and problem-causing as the next – because, truly, that was what she was at the end of the day: a problem child.
Harriet ignored the seething whisper of a life bygone which whispered that she was a nasty unwanted burden on that world. Her stomach twisted, and she acknowledged that power within her then, despite the casualties it had already accumulated. Left unchecked it would only grow stronger and more uncontrollable, she decided. Besides, she wanted to use it to protect her siblings. That reason was more than enough for her to try and overcome that crippling fear which surfaced at the thought of her abilities running rampant once more. And revealing that which she was to those who would kill her for her simple existence outside of that world's fate.
"You can do it, Harriet," she muttered to herself, ignoring the nest of worms squirming in her belly as she concentrated and reached out. "You can do it… preferably without causing another bloody pandemic too…" she trailed off, a bleak sort of amusement rising within her at the thought. To think there'd be a time when she could joke about causing a pandemic… Talk about poor taste.
Yet plague and disease weren't the only things she had control over. They weren't the only domains her father had control over.
"Think," she told herself, pondering then on how she was supposed to call upon each different facet of her powers. The tugging sensation in her chest when she had fired that arrow which curved had been different to the boiling rage of when she had infected those two bullies who were still mild annoyances to that very day. Unless it was as simple as picturing or thinking about what domain she wished to draw from, which Harriet wasn't entirely sure of. Such a method seemed far too easy, and if there was one thing she thought she knew it was that life was never easy for her.
Still, it probably didn't hurt to try, or so Harriet mused to herself, given she couldn't think of another starting point beyond that or throwing herself into a dangerous situation and hoping her cursed luck held out and saved her. Though she hardly wanted for her luck to fail, and for her to leave her family to their tragic fates. She was tired of tragedy, especially when she was fairly certain there were already far too many Greek tragedies as there were.
She saw Greek monsters in her visions. Really, it wasn't hard to put two and two together and get four.
Frustration burned within her, anger at her own helplessness rising as she sat there on her bed, focusing on her power, the image of the sun's light coming to her then. She thought of lumos then – the spell which had so often brought a ball of light to the tip of her wand. Power stirred in her chest, and Harriet had the vaguest thought of the fact that it couldn't be that easy before she opened her eyes and stared at the ball of soft golden light resting between her two hands. "Huh," she mumbled, staring at the light which illuminated her room, frowning then as she wondered on how she was supposed to use light as a weapon.
As if having a mind of its own, the light turned from ball to beam, slamming into her wall and through it with a vague hissing sound and the scent of something burning filled the air. "Oh," she grunted, pondering then on how very laser-like that had been. And how very deadly such a thing could be… A smile curled at her lips, part of her feeling that much more secure. That was the basis of an attack, and that combined with her arrows would make for a good arsenal of weapons.
"HARRIET!"
She blinked.
"Why is there a hole in the walls?"
"Mn," she grunted, huffing as her mother opened the door to her room, finding her there sitting on her bed. "I'm busy," she grumbled, staring at her mother, still irritated at her refusal to let her go the Camp Lagoon and change the twins' fate.
"Busy doing something other than sleeping at this hour?" her mother asked, hands on her hips as she stood in the doorway, light haloing her, blue eyes boring into her gold ones with exasperation and worry. "You need your sleep, Harriet," she said, stepping closer, pausing only when Harriet turned her head and huffed. "You're a growing girl – you want to grow taller, don't you?" One red brow rose, and Harriet only scowled – her height being something of a sore spot for her. "Though I suppose that's besides the point. Why is there a hole in the wall, Harriet?"
"Mn," she grumbled again, concentrating then on her power, thinking of lumos once more, twisting the surge of power rising from within her to her fingertip. A satisfied smile curled at her lips at the way a ball of light formed on top of her finger, filling the room with a golden light, flickering and oddly unsteady as it was. "I'm playing with laser beams," she said matter-of-factly, her smile only widening as she turned her head, eyes glowing gold as she stared at her mother.
Her mother's eye twitched. "Could I ask that you don't play with your… powers… inside?" she asked, gaze darting to the smoking hole in her bedroom wall.
The smile dropped from her face. "Could I ask that you let me go to Camp Lagoon when it's time?" she asked in response, watching as a scowl twisted at her mother's face.
"Harriet – we've talked about this," she said.
Another beam of light slammed into and through the other wall for good measure. "Oops," Harriet mumbled. "How clumsy of me—"
"Do you want to go to archery practice with Laurel and Alexander tomorrow?" her mother questioned, one red brow raised, face the picture of disapproval. Harriet scowled, light dissipating in the blink of an eye as she folded her arms with a huff and threw herself back on her bed with a rattle of springs. "That's what I thought."
::
Films and animations, surprisingly enough, had a whole host of ideas to give her, or so she discovered on the weekly arranged film nights with Laurel and Alexander. There were such fascinating ideas for different uses of her abilities. Though she could no longer practice the more dangerous ones in her home, if only because her mother would notice and make threats. Harriet scowled at the reminder that her mother refused to acknowledge the fact that she was getting stronger and therefore more able to defeat the monsters which still haunted her in dreams and visions.
She had some power over light – mostly of the sunlight variety. Photokinesis, or so it was called, and there was something rather subtle that she could do with it while, ironically, avoiding her mother's gaze. It was almost ironic how similar it was to some of the things she had been capable of in her last life, and yet more limited, which had in turn, led to her becoming more creative in her methods of using what abilities she could.
Harriet didn't need the Cloak of Invisibility that time around, rather she could become invisible without that fabric which had long since been lost to her. It was something to do with bending light or otherwise distorting it so she was no longer visible to others. Part of her found it amusing to be sneaking around in what should have been plain sight, had it not been for her photokinesis abilities. The only problem, same with the invisibility cloak, was the sound her feet made, and the sound of anything else she was doing. All it meant was that she had to be more conscious of not making noise and alerting others. She had to be stealthy, and unfortunately none of her father's domains appeared to be stealth. In fact, Harriet would gladly wager that her father was the complete opposite of stealth. She looked like her father – golden-haired, and golden-eyed as he was supposed to be, and those were hardly stealthy colours. She even seemed to glow with rage sometimes, and that was something even her mother had noticed, blind to her normal appearance as she apparently was.
Yet handy as invisibility was for helping her practice with her not-magic, it wasn't really a combat skill besides for the fact it allowed her to sneak up and kill her enemies. While she had an appreciation for guerrilla warfare thanks to the second war with good old Tom, it was hard to figure out exactly how she was supposed to attack an enemy. It wasn't like she had wielded a dagger before. The closest she had got was wielding the Sword of Gryffindor, and that had been mostly a combination of determination and her traditional luck.
Luck wasn't really her best friend, nor would it save her right then and there should anything decide to pop out of the woodwork.
::
Summer came, her seventh birthday looming on the horizon, the weight of the sun almost seeming to bear down on her. Harriet wondered at times if somehow her father had found her and he knew. Yet there were no strange golden-haired, golden-eyed figures who appeared before her to smite her for existing, so Harriet went on with life, grateful that the twins who had just turned ten-years-old weren't due to head off to Camp Lagoon that Summer. She didn't know what she would have done if they had, obstinate as her mother was being.
Harriet had time though – at least a year's worth – and she thought she'd be able to figure something out by the time next summer came around. She had made plenty of progress already, sneaking around the house with her wonderful powers of invisibility, particularly at night to grab herself a drink of milk with her mother being none the wiser. She had only nearly been caught a total of five times, which she thought was rather impressive, given how much noise she had made when she first began her little kitchen raids.
She wished she had those abilities, along with lock picking, when she was back with the Dursleys. Maybe then she wouldn't be so familiar with the gnawing pains of hunger and have an odd confidence in the depths of the darkness. It wasn't like there had ever been much light in her cupboard. Harriet only wondered why she was thinking about the Dursleys after so long.
The sun dipped beneath the horizon, and Harriet felt as awake as ever as she sat on the floor of her room and mused on what she wanted to do that night. It wasn't like she could practice either archery or anything as destructive as she needed to. The threat of being grounded and unable to meet her only friends was real and rather dangerous, given how she thought she might go mad trapped within their little apartment for so long.
Days when she couldn't go out and exhaust herself were the days when visions came in earnest, dark and grim as ever they usually were. Harriet hated days like that, so not getting grounded it was.
A soft sigh escaped her, and she pushed herself to her feet with aplomb. Part of her wished that she could still apparate. Then maybe she could've gone to the archery range and practiced archery beneath the moon. She could still remember the so-called three D's of Apparition. "Destination, Determination, and Deliberation," she said aloud, smiling almost nostalgically at the memory of learning that in the Great Hall all those years ago. Long gone were those days, yet there she was, about to take up the mantle of being a hero once more. Though, maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't be alone in bearing such a title. "Destination," she said again, thinking of those archery targets at the range and that field they always practiced on. "Determination," she murmured, thinking then on how much she wanted to be on that archery range, shooting arrows which could curve through some strange breaking of physics. Harriet had never really given muggle physics much thought, what with how often magic had broken many a laws of that discipline. "Deliberation…"
Harriet laughed, her eyes shut as she twisted on her heels, yet a sharp crack sound never came. It wasn't like she could apparate or otherwise teleport. Yet it was nice to entertain the thought, wild as it was. In fact, she could almost feel the wind on her face—
Her eyes snapped open, jaw dropping open at the sight of the archery range surrounding her and the faint remnants of light seeping from beneath her skin. She stared down at her hands, head twisting about wildly as she took in the fact that she had just—well, it wasn't apparition, given how it lacked that crack and the sensation of being shoved through a rubber pipe. Rather, she had just teleported. She had moved instantaneously from one location to another. It took a few moments for that fact to sink in.
"Yes!" Harriet threw her hands into the air, fists pumping as she leapt for joy. Then she felt the tell-tale signs of an all too familiar nosebleed coming on. "Uh," she mumbled, excitement and enthusiasm ever so slightly dimmed as she realised she didn't have a tissue on her, despite her proclivity for getting bad nosebleeds at least once a week if she was lucky. "Crud," she muttered, desperately wiping beneath her nose with her wrist, already knowing her mother would worry if she ever saw the sight of the bright red blood smeared over her arms.
Though that didn't matter too much – all that mattered was practicing archery, and then figuring out how to get back to her room—or so she thought. Then her vision flashed gold, and her heart stuttered at the scenery which looked exactly like the archery range she was standing on. Given how, more often than not, she saw terrible things happening in her vision, she paused. Sounds of wind whistling through the trees of the little forest bordering the field the archery range was situated on greeted her ears. There wasn't a peep of a bird. In fact, other than the sound of the wind, it was almost unearthly quiet.
The only time that generally happened was when there was a predator around – something which frightened the animals.
Her stomach dropped to her toes as something made her twist her head around in that vision to face those trees. There came a loud snort of air, like a horse. Yet there were no horse stables in those forest, and what stepped out from the shadows of the night was no horse.
Instead it was an odd bipedal bull.
One she had seen before.
One which had killed people before.
"Pasiphaë's Son," the woman with brown hair said, vision changing into another as the aforementioned Pasiphaë's Son lifted a car above his head and threw it across a field.
Harriet blinked, her vision no longer awash with gold. A shiver ran down her spine, the first beginnings of dread settling in her stomach and twisting it into knots. That vision could have been any night—and yet she had a creeping sense of horror and impending doom. "Oh no," Harriet mumbled, turning to the forest, thinking desperately of her home, her room, and her mother as she shut her eyes and followed the three D's of apparition. That was how she had gotten there, and so that had to be the way to get her back. If only her luck decided to be merciful for once, rather than the utter nightmare it usually was.
She opened her eyes to the field still, a pounding beginning in the back of her skull – like a gorilla had taken up residence in the back of her skull and was playing the drums to top it off.
"Oh," she muttered, feeling a fresh wave of blood trickle down her nose as she turned to the forest and watched as it stepped out into the moonlight. "Oh no," she mumbled, feeling like a record on repeat, taking a shaky step back because she wasn't ready. She had always expected to face her first monster once she was sure. Once she could kill a monster in a magical single hit. She had thought that summer would be fine, seeing as how the twins weren't off to Camp Lagoon. She really should have known that her luck was absolutely abysmal.
Part of her wished that she had just stayed home that night. Maybe then, she never would have had to see that monster.
She knew exactly what it was, even if she didn't dare say that name aloud. Names had power. Her visions had taught her that much, and the dive into the internet and books had cemented that knowledge. She had, after all, done some research into Greek monsters and myths, steering clear of looking into the gods if only because the more she knew, the more danger she'd be in.
Though she was already pretty certain about who was her father. It wasn't like there was nothing named after those Greek gods in that day and age. She simply didn't admit it aloud – because then, like her mother said, she'd be in more danger. Or maybe she was already in as much danger as she could be, given that was the bloody minotaur standing in front of her in all his furry glory.
Pasiphaë's Son stood seven feet tall, arms and legs seeming the size of her apiece. Brown matted fur covered him in his entirety, from his legs to the top of his furry head, aside from the bright white underpants which really, really didn't suit him. Harriet shut up her inner Lavender though – because that was really not the time to be critiquing fashion. Rather, that was the time to be skedaddling out of there.
Only she couldn't.
Meaning there was only one course of action.
"His sight and hearing are terrible," Brown-haired lady informed her son in a timely placed vision – or at least she assumed the boy was her son, given he resembled her somewhat, black-haired and green-eyed as he was.
"Meaning there's only one thing it tracks by," Harriet muttered to herself, cursing because it wasn't like she could conceal her scent. Somehow she didn't think that was her father's domain. Rather her father seemed to have control over light and music – sight and hearing. Neither of which would be of any use to her.
A roar bellowed across the field, the bronze ring through the snotty snout gleaming in the light, and Harriet had the briefest of instances to shoot off some Greek curses which her mother would scold her for before she sprinted around the tables and benches, all too aware of the pursuit fast behind her. She blamed it on the blood she undoubtedly reeked of.
And monsters just loved bleeding prey.
Never before had Harriet despised the fact she had such frequent nosebleeds as much as she did in that instant. Her legs moved faster than ever, adrenaline lending her strength as she went for the metal crate beside the stone brick building. The large shipping container being a storage for the bows and arrows they used on the range. "Oh," Harriet muttered for what felt like the hundredth time that night, heart beating a mile a minute. The lock securing the bows and arrows seemed to sparkle beneath the moonlight, and Harriet pressed her hand against the silvery lock which taunted her. "Dammit, dammit, dammit," she muttered, mind racing a mile a minute. Her hand pressed against the metal, wishing she could rip it off or otherwise get rid of it.
The minotaur charged closer, closing the gap between them, and the metal door she was leaning on seemed to vanish—or rather, her hand went through the metal. The same metal which now had a red-rimmed, glowing hole blasted through it and the lock which had been there. There was a split second where she stared at her hand, remembering the penetrative power of that bolt of light she could summon.
Really, she had been turning herself invisible for too long for her to forget how very destructive that power could be.
Or maybe adrenaline had made her stupid.
Who knew?
Power stirred in her chest, rising at her command, and she shoved it down to her finger, not waiting for it to finish gathering as she swiped her finger across the landscape, watching as that condensed beam of light shot out from her finger, the sheer force of it sending her backwards a couple of paces as she tried to direct it to where the minotaur was charging at her.
Pain throbbed in her head, more blood leaking down from her nose, and Harriet gritted her teeth, scowling as the light puttered out before reaching and bisecting what she'd wanted it to. "Dammit," she hissed, feeling as though she had cursed more that night than the rest of her existences combined.
Horns gleamed beneath the moon, lowered, ready to gore her to death. She'd seen that happen before. Her teeth clamped together, a hissed breath escaping her as she leapt forwards, tucking into a perfect forward roll, dodging the attack by a hair's breadth and rolling to her feet and sprinting towards the benches.
Her vision flashed with gold, the monster's next motions captured, and then she was switched back to the present moment with the hope that there'd be a future for her beyond that night. She'd seen herself far older than she was right then. Which meant there had to be a way to survive – there had to be a way to kill the minotaur. And she'd figure it out.
Wind at her back told her of how close Pasiphaë's Son was as she planted a foot on the bench and leapt into the air, praying that her timing was on point as the minotaur slammed into the bench and table in a splinter of wood.
Gravity took hold, hands grabbing a hold of two white horns as she landed on that furry back and held on for dear life as the minotaur realised he had acquired a passenger. "Shit. Stay still!" she hissed, swaying back and forth as the monster bucked wildly. "Now or never, I guess," she muttered, letting go with one hand, pulling her power forward. She couldn't miss from such a distance—
Her grip slipped, vision blurring, mouth filled with the coppery taste as blood rolled down the back of her throat. Typical. She went flying, back slamming against the hard ground as she rolled across the dry grass. A low moan escaped her, the world swimming in and out of focus, and Harriet could only wonder how much blood she had lost as she pushed herself to her hands and knees.
"Dam—"
A leathery hand closed around her throat, cutting off her words and her air supply, and then she was dangling in the air, legs swinging helplessly off the ground. Panic set in because she couldn't breathe. Her fingers clawed at the hand wrapped around her throat and squeezing until it felt like her neck might burst like an overripe grapefruit. Black eyes, cold and satisfied bore into her gold ones, and all Harriet could think of was not like this.
She gritted her teeth, a wheezing, hissing sound escaping her lips as she lifted a hand in front of the minotaur's oversized furry head. Power surged from her chest, down her arm, to her hand. Lumos, she thought, picturing that spell and letting it build and build. Golden light burnt her eyes, and Harriet could feel the heat emanating from it as she let that ball grow and grow. Black specs danced in her eyes, light surging and bursting forth, leaving in its wake a hornless, headless body.
Gold dust shimmered, the monster's form breaking down in front of her eyes, and the arm holding her up vanished in the blink of an eye. Her knees impacted the ground, hands going to her sore, aching throat as she gasped for air. She waited until the black spots vanished from her vision, sitting up only when she felt she could without collapsing. Tremors wracked her body, the knowledge of how close she had come to dying again rattling about her brain as she sat there.
Vaguely, a popping, crackling sound met her ears, and Harriet frowned, looking up and silently cursing at the sight she was met with.
Foliage and grass, dried by weeks of sun, had ignited. The forest, with a few of its newly felled trees – courtesy of her – was alight. It was on fire, and it seemed to be burning rather well in the grand scheme of things. She took in a raspy breath, knowing then that she really, really needed to get out of there and ideally go home.
The three D's of apparition came to her then, and slowly, ever so slowly, she dragged her aching, beaten body to her feet. She thought of home – of how much she wanted to be home – light flaring behind closer her eyes as she crumpled to her knees, skin meeting carpet rather than grass. Her body fell to the floor with a loud thud, face flush against the carpet as she stared at the gap between the couch and the carpet.
Movement sounded from a little further away, the light flicking on, and Harriet could only curse at how badly her mother was going to freak at the sight of her.
"Harriet!"
"Mn. 'm fine," she slurred, looking up at her mother.
Harriet wasn't entirely sure whether or not to be offended when her mother pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. Deeply.
