No one had ever written Iris a letter. Ever.

She couldn't even begin to think of who would send her something like this, let alone on such fine parchment. She briefly considered the pen pal she was assigned in Year 4, but it had been over three years, and she had never received a response in the first place.

"What's taking you so long, girl?", Petunia's shrill voice spoke up from the kitchen.

"Nothing ma'am, just sorting through the mail!" she said back, quickly stuffing the letter in her overlarge waistband to read later.

Iris's day seemed to pass by with agonizing slowness. Every chore seemed to require extra effort: the snow was extra thick, the toilet needed more bleach, and the floors seemed to have more mud than usual. But eventually, finally, her daily chores came to an end, and she retreated to her cupboard to read her letter by the dying light of the early evening.

Dear Ms. Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find–

Iris crumpled up the paper in disgust. She'd give Dudley credit where credit was due, it had been a long time since anyone in the Dursley family had managed to get her hopes up. Iris went to sleep shook by her own sobs, and she scolded herself for believing that the Dursleys would ever let her have someone that would write her.


The next day, Iris awoke to Petunia's loud screech, and the loud banging of her cupboard door flying open.

"YOU LITTLE BRAT, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" Petunia yelled, yanking Iris's out of the cupboard, waving the prank letter in her other fist. As Vernon walked in from the car, still in his Sunday best, Petunia shoved the letter in his face. "Vernon, look! He promised me that he wouldn't be like Lily, he promised! He said that she didn't have an ounce of magic in her, so we'd never have to see any of his freaky kind again!"

Iris was shocked. She had seen Petunia angry at her before, true, but never to this extent. She would normally attribute this type of spittle-flying rage to Vernon, not to his wife. Petunia expressed her anger through biting, acidic comments, not curses and fists. For the first time in quite a while, she could honestly say that she had absolutely no idea what was going on.

"What's going on mummy?" Dudley asked from the kitchen his head buried inside of the refrigerator. "What did the freak do now?"

"Nothing Diddy-sweetums, mummy and daddy just need to have a little chat with the girl about her freakiness. Can you please head up to your room?". It truly was incredible how quickly Petunia's voice could change to a syrupy sweetness when taking to her son.

A few minutes later, once Dudley had left to play on his game console, Petunia motioned for Iris to join them at the kitchen table.

"Girl, we haven't been completely honest with you about your… heritage."

It was sign of how disoriented Iris was that she didn't even wait to be called upon to speak. "What do you mean ma'am?"

"Well, you already know that you're not a normal person, like us."

"Yes ma'am", Iris said, nodding.

"Well, you're not normal because you're a witch, from a whole society of witches."

"…"

"…

"…What?"

"Don't take that tone with me, girl. Lily got the same letter on her twelfth birthday, talking about how she had freaky powers and needed to go to a school to control them."

Iris was shocked. This was the most candid or honest she could ever remember Petunia being, and the story she was spouting sounded too fantastical to be made up. Surely, if Petunia wanted to torture her, she could have found a much more believable way to do it, one that didn't look like it physically pained her to go through?

Was it true? She had heard all her life that she was a freak, but was it just that she was really a witch? Did her relatives' abuse spring out of nothing more than petty jealousy of something they could never have? Was she really abused by Petunia and Vernon not because of some innate awfulness, but because she was more than them, better than them?

She began to re-examine her entire childhood. Vernon didn't beat her because she had cursed his luck, it was because she could curse his luck. Her neighbors didn't like her much, did they know? Were they jealous too? Just how many people were involved in this conspiracy?

Petunia interrupted her thoughts with a cruel smirk: "When you were left here, your freak father promised us that you wouldn't be like Lily. Seems like he lied, and you were just too freaky even for the freaks, eh girl?"

Iris reared back in shock.

"Wait my fath–"

Her question was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door.

"That'd be him now, he told us he'd come over to explain everything to you, and take you back to the rest of them. Good riddance, I say."

Iris was still in shock, gaping at Petunia.

"Well? Stand up girl! Go on and meet the man who spared you the abortion! Shoo, and don't come back!"

Iris, in a daze, didn't even register Petunia's acerbic comments. She walked into the entranceway and opened the door. On the step, she found a black-haired man standing on the front stoop. His hazel eyes were glowing brightly, just like hers did when she was in the cupboard at night.

"Uh… Hi Iris", he said, shuffling awkwardly.

Iris just started.

"Man, I practiced this a bunch, but I was never any good at long speeches."

Iris continued to stare

"Well, what I meant to say is: Iris… I'm… I'm your dad…"

Iris's knees buckled.

"Your birth father I mean, not like Vernon, I wouldn't try to–"

As the black-haired man continued to nervously babble, Iris sunk to the floor, hyperventilating. Witchcraft? Magic? She had a family? Abandoned? Vernon, her father figure? The continual revelations of the day proved too much for Iris's mind to handle, and chest heaving with great gasps, she blacked out.

"So…" James said over his ice cream, to Iris's blank stare. "I bet you're wondering why you didn't grow up with us."

"…"

"They told me you were dead", Iris responded in a dead tone, still half-convinced she was in a dream.

"Well, we thought it would be better that way" he said, ducking his head to hide his blush, "we thought if you never knew you had parents and siblings, you'd grow up happier".

Iris quickly hid her disbelieving look behind what she termed her "Dursley mask". If this man had even the slightest desire to take her away from Privet Drive, it wouldn't do to anger him.

James continued, "Well, y'see, Danny—your twin brother, that is, you'll meet him later—is right famous in the wizarding world, so I thought it'd be dangerous for you to grow up with him."

Despite his sheepish blush and ducked head, Iris could hear the faint stirrings of pride in his voice.

"He beat this awful dark wizard who tried to kill you two when you were babies, and so a lot of that dark wizard's followers, the Death Eaters, wanted to seek him out for revenge. I thought you were a squib—someone who doesn't have magic—so you wouldn't have been safe with Danny and me."

James raised his head, and stared directly into Iris's eyes, an earnest, almost pleading expression on his face.

"Iris, please believe me, if I had any idea that you were a witch, I'd never have sent you away. I mean, Dumbledore himself, the most powerful wizard in the world, told us that you were a squib! He said you'd be better off away from Danny! How was I supposed to know any differently?"

"…"

"So…" Iris said, "you sent me away to live with other squibs? My relatives, that is."

"Basically… yeah. Well, the term is 'muggles', not squibs, but other than that you're right."

Iris just stared at him flatly. "Why didn't you check up on me?"

"Oh, well…" James said, looking back at his lap, "we thought a total separation from the magical world would be best. I mean, if you had grown up as a proper muggle like you should've—"not that it's bad you're a witch, it's right amazing actually—you'd have been all confused by why you couldn't live with your family. I mean, we couldn't have told you about magic, so what would you think of a father that left his daughter to live with relatives while he had his own family?"

Good question, Iris thought, suppressing her growing anger.

"And also, you know, Danny was growing very famous around that time too, so I had a lot on my plate, managing him and all that. I mean, even after I married Miriam, where was so much to do, stuff you couldn't have been a part of! And then Cassie and Charlie were born, and we were occupied with them, and you know… the time wouldn't have worked out regardless. I thought it was better that you weren't a part of that crazy life. I promise, fame and fortune may sound incredible, but that's only until you experience it!"

"Wait, Miriam, Cassie, Charlie?"

"Oh, right! Well, y'see, when Danny was around one—and you were as well I suppose—I had this wardmaster named Miriam Edgecombe come over and plan new wards for Potter Manner, where our family lives. Well, she needed to come over twenty-seven times to make sure the ward kept, and we just started talking and getting to know each other, and the next thing I know we're married a year later! Cassie and Charlie are your younger siblings, born to Miriam and me a year or so after we married, and then two years after that. Cassie is ten right now, and Charlie is eight. You also have an older sister, Marietta, who came with Miriam from her first marriage."

"So… you have other children?"

"Oh yes, but they're all magical, you know? We knew with them right from the very beginning."

Outwardly, Iris put on a small smile, even as inwardly she shoved a dense ball of shock, grief, rage, and incredible sadness to the dark place in the very back of her mind she called Dursley-space. Iris thought that despite the lack of beatings, she might even prefer the Dursleys to this. At least with the Vernon, she knew where she stood, even if it was under his boot. This new language from adults confused her; she was used to sharp commands and utter contempt, not sheepish explanations and familial affection. Silently, she finished her ice cream, and followed James out the door of the shop.

Throwing his cone away in a street-side bin, James pulled an old shoe out of his too-small pockets, as he smiled down at her. "This is what's called a 'portkey', it's a kind of magical transportation device. With this, we can travel directly to and from Potter Manor. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah…" Iris replied absently, still working through the last conversation in her head.

James tapped the shoe with his wand, and he and Iris disappeared into the ether with a swirl of color.

Potter Manor was a grand, imposing place, Iris thought, straight out of one of Petunia's high-society dramas.

Its whole exterior was a bright white, and almost gleamed in the early afternoon sun. The manor had a tall central section, rising three stories above the ground, and two longer, two-story wings continuing off to both sides. From her position, Iris couldn't tell how far back the manor went, but considering the treeline, she suspected that the manor was far, far longer than it was tall or wide. This was where she could have been living?

She and James walked down the paved pathway that led up the front door, and she marveled at the numerous fantastical creatures she could see in the forest surrounding the manner. She thought she could recognize most of them thanks to her brief monster-obsessed phase when she was eight years old and hiding out from Dudley in the school library. Look! There was a griffin, chasing down a deer close to the treeline! And oh my god was that a unicorn?

Bemused at her shock and wonder, James pushed her along the path, and away from the forests, due to Iris's disappointment. As he guided her into the door and through the foyer, beaming proudly, Iris looked around in wonder. There were massive, imposing portraits on the back wall (wait did that one just move?), a large golden chandelier overhead, and dozens upon dozens of torches lining the walls.

But the thing that shocked Iris most of all was right in in the middle of the foyer. It wasn't the one portrait that was moving, or even the strange-looking six-legged creature that she could see walking in the next room. What really shocked Iris was the sight of five nervous-looking people standing on the marble steps: her… family.

Before she could blink, a boy with wild crimson hair and hazel eyes ran up, and threw his arms around her in a crushing embrace. As Iris reflexively tensed up, he stepped back with a minor frown, but almost instantly regained his wide grin as he started excitedly shaking Iris's hand.

"Hey Iris, I've been waiting so long to meet you! It's me Danny, your twin brother! I can't wait to get to know all about you, and show you the magical world! Don't worry, just stick with me and you'll be caught up in no time!"

Still in a minor state of shock, both her first exposure to both a true magical environment and her estranged family, Iris could do nothing but shove her emotions further into Dursley-space and begin to shake his hand back.

Finally, with a prim politeness drilled into her by her Aunt, she replied: "Hello Danny, I'm Iris. It's very nice to finally meet you."

Taking this as their cue, the other three Potter children rushed up and began to introduce themselves.

"Hiya, I'm Charlie! I'm your younger brother!" said the youngest, bouncing in place with excitement, pushing Danny away and pumping Iris's hand up and down. Iris could see that like he had their father's face an eyes, like Danny, but inherited his curly orange hair and prominent freckles straight from his mother.

Arriving behind him, the older girl, another curly, freckled redhead, pulled him back, with fond amusement. "Let her breathe, Charlie" she said, placing him on the ground. "Hello Iris, it's so nice to meet you. I'm Marietta, your older sister."

"And this", she said, grabbing another, nervous-looking, black-haired, blue-eyed girl by the arm, "is Cassie. She's your sister. Don't worry, she probably likes you, she's just nervous because she's shy."

"MARIETTA!" Cassie said, blushing, as Marietta snickered. Ice broken, she gently took Iris's hand. "Cassie Potter, nice to meet you Iris."

As Iris, overwhelmed, tried to figure out how to respond to all three of her half-siblings at once, until she felt a taller presence come up behind her.

"Hello Iris", the presence said, "my name is Miriam Potter. But you can call me 'mum' if you want"

Iris turned around and stared, wide eyed. The blue-eyed woman had a large, hesitant smile on her face, and suspiciously shiny eyes.

"Iris… Welcome home."


"Honey, could you pass the salt?"

That was the first thing that had been said at the table in the past minute and a half. The Potters, it seemed, didn't know how to act around her yet. That was fine thought, she didn't know how to act around the Potters either.

In the absence of any kind of context for her situation, Iris fell back on the old, ingrained habits she learned from countless dinners with her neighbors on Privet Drive.

She turned to Miriam. "So ma'am, how did the two of you meet?"

Miriam looked grateful that Iris had finally started speaking.

"Well!", she said happily, "A few months after the night Danny defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, James decided that he needed someone to upgrade the wards on Potter Manor. You see, a lot of the Manor had been damaged by the war, and that included most of the wards."

"Now, if I do say so myself, I was a member of the best warding team in Britain" she said, smirking playfully as James elbowed her in the side and muttered something about humility, "and when James approached us for help warding the home of the Boy-Who-Lived, well, we couldn't accept fast enough!"

"Now, I couldn't tell you exactly why, but the specific ward my boss wanted to use needs to be cast spread out over twenty-seven days. James wanted the wards done as fast as possible, so he offered us a place to stay in Potter Manor until the wards were completed."

James took over, smiling fondly at the memories: "I didn't know it at the time, but offering her team a place to spend the nights was probably one of the best decisions I ever made in my life."

"I'm not gonna lie kid," he said, grimacing, "I was in a really dark place after the death of your mother. But getting to know Miriam started to drag me out of there. I swear, there was this joke she told over breakfast on the second day about a troll, a vampire, and a veela, and that was the first time I laughed in dam–… dang near months. She was just so fully of life and love and happiness, and getting to know her was exactly what I needed."

As James spoke, Miriam's face got redder and redder, until she finally cut him off: "don't make it sound so one-sided! I needed to meet you just as much as you needed to meet me!"

"After the death of my first husband—Angus, Marietta's father—I felt alone and lost. I felt like no one would notice if I dropped dead at that moment, that there wasn't anyone to protect or take care of me in the whole world."

"But when I met James", Miriam continued, smiling lovingly at her husband, "I saw a man who had a heart that was full of love, and who would do anything for the people he cared about. I saw an incredible man hurting from the murder of his wife, who still managed to make me laugh every time I saw him. I saw a man of incredible courage and dignity, who would do anything to protect his family. I saw a single father whose son was the center of his universe, and I just wanted to be a moon in his orbit."

"You're wrong James," she finished, "I might have saved you, but you saved me just as much."

As the couple stared into each others eyes, and Marietta cooed over their mutual affection, Iris's mind was stuck on something Miriam had said at the very beginning.

"Miriam, you said that my mum was killed? What happened to her?"

Miriam floundered awkwardly, not really knowing how to phrase her answer, or if she should even be the one to give it. She quickly turned to her husband and clutched his hand supportively, as a mournful expression overcame his face.

"What a question Iris…. Well, I guess you deserve to know, don't you? Petunia really never told you?"

Iris shook her head.

"For the best I suppose. Lily… well, Lily died protecting you and Danny on that awful night. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named knew that Lily and I were champions of the light, and so he tried to attack our house, and… take us all off the playing field. One of our friends, Peter Pettigrew, helped him sneak past our wards, and he managed to take Lily away from us before Danny managed to defeat him."

Iris wanted to ask for more details, but she could see how uncomfortable the subject was making James, so she decided not to.

As the silence made by James's words grew to over a minute, Danny spoke up. "So sis, what type of stuff do you like to do? I love playing Quidditch and hanging out with my friends Neville and Ron, and I really don't like it when I have to learn magic and stuff. What about you?"

"Oh… well, the Dursleys don't really want someone like me to have hobbies like that…. But I guess if I had one, it would be doing chores? That's what I do with most of my day when I'm not in school. Sometimes if I finish early I can sit on my bed and listen in to Aunt Petunia's historical dramas."

Danny seemed to look horrified at the thought of chores, and interested at the idea of television, while James just snorted, broken out of his thoughts of Iris's mother.

"Be careful kiddo, with a work ethic like that, you'll end up in Hufflepuff!"

"End up in a what?"

"Oh, that's right!" Danny said, "you don't know anything about Hogwarts, do you!"

When Iris shook her head, he continued. "Well, Hogwarts is the best school in all of Occidentia! Kids from all over get sorted into houses, based on what type of people they are.

"First, he said, you have Gryffindor, the best house! It's where our mother and da' were, and it's the house for all the brave and courageous people. All the greatest heroes in history have come out of Gryffindor, like Merlin, and Mimir, and Aristotelesm and Dumbledore!"

Miriam shot him a bemused and skeptical look, but he continued, unabashed. "Then there's Ravenclaw, where all the people who love to study go. That's the house mum"—he gestured to Miriam—"and Marietta are in, and they're both really smart!"

"Then there's Slytherin, which is the house of all the tricky and slippery death eaters" he said, a frown overtaking his face. "They're mostly dark wizards, and they hate muggles and muggleborns like our mother, and half-bloods like us. Don't worry, I'll make sure to protect you from all the Slytherin's after we get to school. You're my sis after all, we Potters always stick together!"

"And what about this Hufferpuff?", Iris asked, shoving away in incredulity at Danny's words on "sticking together".

"Oh, well yeah, they're everyone else, the one's that don't get into any other house."

At this, Miriam interrupted: "Well while I wouldn't put it quite like that, Danny is mostly correct. I'd like to clarify though that Hufflepuff is not the house of leftovers"—she glared at Danny—"it's the house of dedication and hard work. We'll still be very proud of you if you get into Hufflepuff, don't you worry."

"So…" Iris said, turning to James, "are Slytherins really as bad as he says? Wait, you said that the person who murdered my mum practiced this 'dark magic'? What is it?"

James blanched, and leaned forward, his eyes taking on a fervent gleam. "Iris, dark magic is the type of magic that You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters practiced and advocated, and it's the worst type of magic there is. It's addicting, and slowly turns you into a more and more evil person the more you use it. It's like a wild beast, and it destroys everything it touches!"

Suddenly, his eyes full of fury, James paused, almost thoughtfully, and then whipped his head towards Iris.

"Promise me Iris, promise me, that you won't go looking into it."

Iris paled at his familiar look.

"I know it can sound so tempting, but it's twisted, unnatural! It's a magical cancer that'll destroy you, and everyone around you!"

Oh God, he was the same as Vernon.

"It'll eat you up inside, and turn you into an awful, sinful monster!"

Where did the happy family man that was sitting there go?

"I swear to you, I will not have a dark wizard or witch in this family!"

Iris knew she hadn't left Privet Drive at all.

"If you ever try anything with dark magic, so help me, I'll do my duties as a father and straighten you out 'til you can't sit down!"

"…"

"…Shit."

Another silence fell across the table in the wake of the speech. James had come down from his rage, and was looking down at his own hands, disbelieving and mortified. Iris had curled into herself, nearly hyperventilating, falling back on her hard-earned survival instincts from the Dursleys. Danny glared at his father, while the rest of the Potter family awkwardly squirmed in their seats.

"Dad, what the hell!" Danny yelled, seemingly unable to contain his ire any longer. "That's ridiculous! She might not have been raised with us, but she's still a Potter! She's my twin sister, and I can't believe that you'd suggest something like that about her! Her, a dark witch, really?! Look at her, she's nearly catatonic! What type of first impression of her family is this!?"

The table, with the obvious exception of Iris, looked at him in shock. Danny idolized his father, and did everything in his power to try to please him. For Danny to so openly yell at him was almost unheard of.

Closing his gaping mouth, James sat back, and sighed. "You're right Danny, I'm sorry. Thank you, that was very brave you to call me out when I'd done wrong, even thought I'm your father."

Embarrassed, he turned to Iris, still curled up in her seat, taking on a soothing tone. "Iris honey, I'm so, so sorry"

"I shouldn't have been so intense. I know you'd never practice dark magic, and it was awful of me to suggest otherwise. I've barley just met my wonderful daughter, and here I am talking about discipline and falling into darkness."

"It's just that I've spent my whole life fighting the dark agenda, whether that's cursing Death Eaters during the war or blocking Lucius Malfoy's legislation in the Wizengamot, and so I know more than anyone else how easily someone naïve can fall prey to it. I worked myself up into a rage, because of Malfoy, and Faoláin, and Nott, and Trask, and all the rest of those evil bastards. I didn't mean to aim it at you, and I'm so sorry that you had to see that. Forgive me?"

Iris's head snapped up to look at James in shock. For an angry male authority figure to not just apologize, but ask forgiveness? This was uncharted territory for Iris, and she did the only thing she could think of.

"…y-yes d-dad, I… I forgive you" Iris said, mustering up a shaky smile.

James let out a massive breath of relief and sagged back into his seat.

"Well, let's move on to some lighter topics! Charlie, how are your lessons with Mrs. Weasley coming along? Learning lots of new things?"

As the conversation wore on, and smiles and laughter returned to the rest of the Potter Family, Iris sat in her seat, as silent as she was at the beginning of the meal. Even though he had asked for her forgiveness for his actions, Iris still couldn't get the picture of James-as-Vernon out of her head.

She was calmer now though, smiling along with the lighthearted conversation at the table. She knew her father may not have been the greatest of parents to her, abandoning her to hell while he lived in a comfy manor, but she knew from his apology that he at least wasn't going to start abusing her like Vernon did.

…didn't she?

Vernon never apologized to her, but would it have changed the beatings if he did?

And wait, James never really said that he wouldn't 'discipline' her if she was a 'dark witch', did he?

Was she any safer here at all?


AN: Sorry, these are gonna be long. Actually, I'm not at all sorry, because my Authors Notes contain lots of valuable behind-the-scenes worldbuilding information, that you otherwise wouldn't get to see!

I'm using Kenwood House as the model for Potter Manor's exterior, if you want to google it for reference

Yes, the wards needed to be cast around the house over 27 days for the same reason Lily Potter's ritual design was a 27-sided star in the last chapter.

For anyone that thinks that James's anti-dark outburst is out of character or forced in, I promise you, it isn't. I'm basing him partially off of my own father, who has an absolutely terrible temper, and would occasionally work himself up into a rage like that when he'd had a stressful day, and was dealing with something he hated.

I remember this one time that he thought I had bought two separate pizzas from Papa Johns, because I bought one and didn't like the toppings, and he absolutely lost it. Screaming, ranting, as bad as anything James did, or will do in the future. And personally, I think a $20 pizza is a lot less weighty than (in James's mind) his daughter's immortal soul.

This doesn't mean that James—or my father for that matter—doesn't love his family, or is some sort of evil monster. They're both proud, stubborn, loving men who, like all people, have flaws. The good doesn't wash out the bad, but the bad doesn't wash out the good either.

James talking Iris out for ice cream is an homage to the best "abandoned twin of the BWL meets James" scene I've ever read, in Chapter 3 of Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin by The Sinister Man. Seriously, I wish Iris was more self-confident and witty, because the Harry-James interactions in that story are some of the best things I've ever read. Hell, the whole story's fantastic, you should read it.

If you're wondering why the first thing out of Iris's mouth was "help I'm being abused!", you have to remember what Iris's childhood was like. Now, Iris is very intelligent, and mature for her age (even by the standards of mages, who mature much faster), so she doesn't have canon!Harry's inability to understand that his household is abusive, but even so, she isn't going to go talking about it to whoever asks. Like many kids who grow up in abusive homes, she has a very hard time trusting others, and has internalized a lot of the Dursleys insults into a deep amount of shame and self-loathing.

Furthermore, you have to remember that Iris hasn't had a single other person care about her, in her entire life. She's especially mistrustful of authority figures, because looking back, she knows that her abuse was incredibly obvious, but also knows that not a single adult ever said anything, even the teachers who she openly told about what was going on.

James is not only an authority figure, but, by many standards, the person that abandoned her to the abusive household in the first place. Is it any wonder that Iris is having some trouble opening up?

And yes, as you can imagine, Iris's inability to understand friendship is going to be a pretty big theme for a while. Can you say, " desperately latching on to the first people who empathize with her"? Oh, you can't, because you're a half-giant from canon with an incomprehensibly thick West Country accent? Guess you'll have to find your savior somewhere else then, sorry!

In all seriousness, Hagrid isn't making an appearance because Dumbledore thinks that his role of priming her towards Gryffindor will be filled a lot better by James. I mean, random tall hairy dude versus an orphan's estranged father? That's not even a contest.

Also, I hope you all realize that Danny has a very poor understanding of history, and neither Merlin nor Mímir nor Aristotle went to Hogwarts, as they all lived far before it was founded.