3rd July

Numb.

That was all she could feel. She stared at the faces before her, her previous elation that they had come to rescue her from her relatives' long drained away. She should have known that wouldn't be the case. She had barely stayed three days in the Dursleys house. She wasn't miserable enough to be rescued yet.

"Harry, pup, I'm sorry."

Harriet gave the man before her a blank stare. She didn't feel that usual joy and relief at his presence suddenly. His words no longer sparked a warmth in her, nor did the memories she had of the few sparse moments she'd spent with him in the past.

Everything seemed cold. Fake.

"There's no going around this for the moment. Those bastards – "

"When?" she cut in, uncaring of how cold her voice was.

She was tired, honestly, of hearing the excuses. And no matter what anyone said, she knew that all they were spouting were just that. Excuses. Flimsy, spineless excuses.

"They haven't confirmed pup."

The nickname made her skin crawl for some reason. She wished the man would stop using it. She certainly was not his daughter or charge. Not anymore if she could help it.

She glared at him for his useless reply.

"Do you have anything worth sharing at all, Black?" she snapped.

That flinch she was bestowed with rather vindicated her numb soul. The way the others around her stilled and paled with worry also made her feel rather elated too though.

"Pup –"

"I asked you a question, Black," she cut in coldly.

The man sighed and exchanged a look with the weary looking man on his right.

"There has been word going around that they are going to pair you off with," Sirius grimaced. "Malfoy's son."

Harry clenched her fists.

"How convenient," she muttered. "Planning to let the right-hand man's family finish off what their Lord couldn't do, hmm?"

"Now my dear –"

"I am not you dear anything," Harry snarled. "It's Miss Potter to you."

Harriet glared at the lot of them sitting across her. Traitors all of them. Acting concerned when they didn't even care.

"It's Miss Potter for all of you," she ended with an icy glare.

"Harriet – "

"Don't make me repeat," Harry cut in, voice deadly soft. "I'm not above cutting off your tongues, bastards."

She ignored the affronted gasps that went around her "guests".

Drama queens, she thought with a scoff. What were they expecting? For me to make them garlands and worship the ground they walk on? When they are as good as selling me off like this to warm some murdering bastard's bed?

Harry shot the man directly before her another cold look.

"What's going to happen to Mione?"

She understood now why her muggleborn friend was not part of the group. She couldn't really imagine Helena and Jaden Granger letting their daughter off with these disgusting people if they had gone to break the news of the latest crap the British Wizarding government has pulled to them like they were doing here with her.

Judging from the way the groups all winced before her, Harriet knew she was right.

"The Grangers have forbidden Hermione from returning to the wizarding world at the moment. They refuse to let their daughter be married off against her wishes. They're not going to like it when the authorities come knocking on their door – "

She scoffed, making Black cut off his words.

"Unlike you, Helena and Jaden are good guardians. Good parents," Harry told the man. "They will be prepared, I assure you, to protect their daughter no matter the extreme lengths they'll have to go to."

Sirius' eyes were glistening. Harry enjoyed watching the despair in them.

He should rot in hell, in her opinion.

"Pup I –"

"Any other things I must be aware of?" she cut in coldly for the nth time.

She was done listening to excuses. She had known before, when she had been locked in her cupboard as a child, that it was her against the whole world. It was the fate of orphans. It was the way of the world.

She had made the mistake of hoping when she was introduced to the wizarding world. Against all the lessons she had learned under the cruel treatment of the Dursleys and the neglectful environment of Surrey, she had let herself depend on others. Let herself trust others to take care of herself.

She wasn't going to repeat her mistakes again.

"Pup please I –"

"If that is all the useless information you have to offer, Mr Black," Harry cut in again. "Then I suppose this meeting has come to an end. All of you leave."

"Harry – Miss Potter," Remus corrected with a pained face under her glare, as he spoke up for the first time. "We can bring you over to Grimmauld now –"

Harry's harsh, bitter laugh interrupted the ex-DADA professor's words.

"Was that an attempt to placate?" Harry asked with a sneer. "Offering to move me from one miserable prison to another, before I get sold off to a Death Eater's household?"

Harriet shot the werewolf a disgusted look before levelling all the people sitting across her another glare.

"I'm not going to repeat myself. Leave. Unless you have information on when I'll be shipped off next, leave."

"Pup – "

"It's Miss Potter, Black! You're as good as dead to me for a godfather so don't try to play like we are close," Harry snarled finally, saying the words she had been supressing all evening. "Seriously, sitting here trying to tell me there is no bloody way out from selling me off like common cattle and you have the audacity to act like you care?"

Harry stood up, feeling the numbness coating her soul rapidly fall off. Any moment longer with the crowd, she'd have to live with the humiliation of letting the bastards see her even more vulnerable.

"You lot are good as Wormtail to me from henceworth Sirius Black."

Sirius flinched back violently and Remus paled beside him. Harry didn't bother checking over the others for their reaction to her words.

"Don't bother showing your faces around any longer. All five of you," she snapped, glaring pointedly at the Headmaster and the Weasley parents.

She left after that to go back to her room, not waiting to see if the lot of them had actually left at all. She couldn't be bothered anymore. Not at all.


Harriet leaned against her bedroom door after locking it. Her vision seemed oddly dizzy and she had to take a few moments to breathe and force air into her lungs that seemed to refuse to work suddenly.

She stumbled over to her bed after a few beats and crawled under it, squeezing herself between the space that existed between the floor and the bed's bottom. If she pretended, she could almost make herself believe that she was back in her cupboard. Her cupboard where no one could touch her no matter how shitty of a bedroom it actually was.

She stared unseeingly ahead of her, knees curled up to her chest as she lay on her left on the floor.

Marriage Law. The Wizengamot had bloody passed a marriage law.

"Who does that?" she thought as she absently took in the shadows that danced across the floor due to the lone window with broken bars in her room.

A lone tear slipped down her face, unbeknownst to her.

Married.

She was going to be married. In less than a few months if she was lucky enough to last that long.

She bit back a sob.

She had dreamed of such a day before. Long time ago.

She would be dressed up in wedding robes, hair pinned up beautifully, bouquet in one hand as she walked down the aisle to a man she loved. Vows would be exchanged and– in the matter of a few seconds – she would be legally wed.

She would have a husband.

Legal family.

She would no longer be known as an orphan.

A sob escaped her.

This wasn't it though.

This was not how she wanted to be wed off. Not to some stranger for the pure sake of producing babies. She wasn't just a baby-producing machine, dammit!

Harry curled into herself as tears blurred her vision.

She didn't want to be a baby-producing machine.

"Haven't I done enough?" she thought desperately. "Haven't I suffered enough? Can't the world just let me live my life now at least?"

She had lost her childhood being abused and starved just so that those morons could keep their weapon "safe" from death eaters. She had lost her youth fighting to survive and kill off an insane Dark Lord that wouldn't leave her be.

She had stained her hands with blood as she killed a man at eleven, slayed an ancient beast at twelve and eventually kill the Dark Lord himself before her sixth year ended.

It was barely two months since she was freed from the prophecy tying her and that stupid, evil man for good. She had barely lived her life, having been shipped back to her relatives as soon as school ended for "safety reasons".

But now? They were going to dash her dreams to live freely again.

Harry broke down further.

Then there was also the unexpected betrayal of her godfather.

That man.

She had trusted him.

Merlin, she had trusted the man so much despite all her instincts and wariness.

And that man had just sat there and told her he couldn't do anything for her. For his goddaughter. She had left the safety of Hogwarts to face Voldemort for him, when she had thought he was in danger. She had packed baskets of food and sent Hedwig off for him when he had been on the run.

And now? Now that she needed a support, he couldn't even try to do anything?

What happened to all those promises? Of being family? Of being her protector? Her bloody godfather.

Harry twisted the Black heir ring resting on her left index finger as tears streamed down her face. With an angry cry she pulled the ring off and threw it away, watching as it skidded across the floor before hitting the wall and clattering on the floor for a few moments.

She should have known that wishing for family was not in her fate. Not for a freak like her no. It was only her against the world.

It had always been.

She was foolish to have believed otherwise.

Harry curled into herself further as her body shook from the heart-wrenching sobs that escaped her. Despair and betrayal gripped her, curling around her chest.

Was it that impossible for her to wish that someone out there would care about her? Plain, old Harriet James Potter. Without needing to look at the scar or think of her inheritances.

Without needing to use her.

Her magic flared around her, wrapping around her like a blanket as she continued crying.

She wanted vengeance she did. For every tear she had shed unfairly in her life. For every cut she received, every broken bone she suffered and every drop of blood she had bled unjustly in her life.

Silver orbs swam across her scattered mind again. Red hair and knitted jumpers drifted across her memories.

Her magic roared as her despair renewed itself.

She wanted vengeance on all those who had led her on too. Letting her think she mattered. Letting her believe.

"God dammit!" she thought. "Why did they have to pretend? Why me? What did I do? All I wanted was a fucking family! Just one fucking person to bloody care!"

Her magic swirled around restlessly, reflecting her agony.

She hated them all, she did.

Hate.

Hate.

HATE!

Harry hiccupped as all her tears ran dry. The shadows on her floor were lightening, signally the fact that the sun was starting to come up. She ignored it all, uncaring that she had yet to catch a wink of sleep since the news of the marriage law had been broken to her last evening.

She glared unseeingly as the faces of the people she knew from wizarding world flashed across her mind.

Betrayers.

They were all, filthy, spineless, cowards and betrayers.

Loathing washed through her veins, swamping around the horrid feeling in her chest that had settled there after she had cried her heart out.

All she had left in her life was her control and ownership over herself. Her own body and mind. Her goddamn virginity.

She didn't want to give that up to some stranger. Not under the dictation of some corrupted politician especially.

No.

Her emerald eyes glinted, cold fury and loathing swimming in their hidden depths.

She wasn't going to play to the moronic wizarding world's tune. Not anymore.

She had stayed a good girl. She had stayed selfless and kind.

But what good did that do to her?

She was still a nameless orphan who was being used and abused as the bad people saw fit.

No.

NO.

She had enough.

If the world couldn't bother saving the good people, if the world couldn't bother punishing the bad people – well then.

Harry snarled furiously, hugging herself tighter.

"There's no point being good is there?" she thought.

Harry closed her eyes, letting every ill will in her heart out.

Anger coursed through her veins. Disgust swamped her mind.

Hate – hate engulfed her being.

Never has she felt this much pure utter hatred. She breathed it in. It burned beneath her skin, a searing inferno, egging her to unleash her righteous fury. To not hold back her pain and suffering.

She heeded it. Those bastards sitting in the wizengamot and strutting around the Ministry of Magic had gone too far this time.

Harriet snarled. Her magic roared, mirroring her fury.

She was done playing the good girl. That got her nowhere.

It was time to fight fire with fire.

They wanted to string her up like a puppet?

She would show them who exactly was the puppet master in this game.

_But how could you do it?_a traitorous voice whispered across her mind. _You're an orphan. You have no connection. No allies. You're worthless. If you had mattered, you wouldn't be trapped in this position.

Harry snarled, curling into herself as she berated her own cruel logic.

No. No. NO.

There had to be a way. She had to find a way.

She refused to be sold away like cattle. Refused to warm someone's bed against her will.

Disgust flared across her gut.

She thought of Malfoy. Of how that disgusting Pureblood minded boy would have to touch her. Undress her. See her vulnerable and spill his seed within her so that she would bear and birth his heir like a bitch.

Harry shuddered and shook her head.

No. No. NO, NO, NO!

She only had her dignity and body to her name. She refused to give those up.

_You can't do anything by yourself against political sharks. You barely know politics_

Harry screamed, uncaring of what her relatives or the neighbors would think. She had enough rage to kill them all off with her bare hands if they interrupted her now.

She had to find a way! There was bound to be a way! She refused to be wed off to a man who would likely treat her like a slave.

And she was certain Malfoy would.

Her magic seethed around her.

_Face it, you can't do anything alone_

Harry screamed in frustration again, thoughts all over the place.

Dammit it all, then she would find herself people who would help her if she needed!

Her magic swirled around her and imploded into her skin, hearing her desire and aching to help her out.

Its Mistress needed it, magic knew. And it would serve its Mistress to its best abilities.

Harry's eyes turned white.


She wasn't known to be kind-hearted. At least not to strangers. Yet, she couldn't deny herself from helping the child before her.

It wasn't due to said child's identity. Or even the pitiful way she had found the child, curled up under a barren tree with shredded clothes and tear-stained cheeks.

Rather the reason for her yearning to help was due to the child's eyes.

Those, dull, dead eyes.

She knew them well, those lifeless eyes. She had seen them in the mirror herself, once upon a time. Those were eyes of the woman who has gone through the utmost betrayals.

She knew then, how she had likely come across this stranger's mindscape when she was miles away physically. It was because this child was now her kindred without blood ties.

For betrayals may sever the deepest of ties. But they also form strongest of bond between those that have been burnt and left to wither.

She smiled.

It was going to be fun teaching the game to someone else for a change.