Harriet Potter and the World of Pokémon
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Pokémon.
Harriet has doubts about how she survived that night. She wants to know who it was that had saved her and for what purpose, this quest of hers leads her back to the place she had lost what she had loved over most anything else.
Prologue
She didn't know why she thought this year would be any better than the last seven, despite having defeated Voldemort, who had been the cause of most of her misfortunes throughout her rather short life. To think this had all started with her job interview. If she could call it that.
It had been a rather unpleasant Monday morning, in the dull atmosphere of Grimmauld Place. The battle for Hogwarts may have ended on May the 2nd but the war between the wizarding worlds so-called truths and Voldemort's ideals for a world without—what he called—mudbloods and muggles who didn't even know they existed most of the time, the small fraction that does know is when they aren't being obliviated for violation of the Statute of Secrecy. So either they are the parent or caregiver of a muggleborn child or are the non-magical parent of a half-blood magical child. Harriet understood the need for secrecy, especially after what had happened during the witch trials back in the 17th century, she certainly wouldn't want to be burnt at the stake. Having a madman after her on the word of a prophecy uttered by an — in her opinion — equally insane and batty woman, during an interview that had been overheard in a pub. Yes, a pub. And he didn't even know the whole thing at the time, he had only known that there would be a child that would, one day, defeat him. Tom, as that was Voldemort's real name, was just like herself and many others like them—a half-blood. His mother was a squib, a horribly unattractive woman who was infatuated with one of the local muggles.
Being a squib Tom's mother, Merope Gaunt, wasn't capable of accessing her rather insignificant magical core. Or at least not much of it, at best she could brew potions. Which is exactly what she did. Merope was desperate for the muggle man's love, something her brother, Tom's terribly weak wizard born uncle Morfin had mocked and shamed her for. He would even go as far as to jinx the unsuspecting muggle from time to time, something he took sick pleasure in doing. Merope being as desperate — and an adept at brewing potions — had lured the man away at the local pub and spiked his drink with a powerful love potion, known as Amortia. Tom senior had been under the influence of the potion for so long, that Merope had believed he truly loved her and with a child on the way would not ever leave her. But as it happens, Harriet learned, she was wrong. Tom senior had been disgusted with her and went back to his parents to forget about the creature — because to him she could be nothing else — that had enslaved him and used his body. Leaving Merope heavily pregnant and not so well off, she refused to return to her father and brother out of embarrassment and fear. Fear of what they would do to her unborn child. So she sold her family heirloom that she had stolen from Marvolo, her father, the night she had eloped with Tom senior. Her mind made up, barely alive, with how sickly she had become without a decent meal for — Harriet could only guess how long — a long while. She ended up on the doorstep of an orphanage. The same orphanage that had twisted Tom's already unloved soul into the monster he had become in seventy or so years.
Harriet would have believed that it was circumstance that had made them so different if she hadn't realised just how similar their childhoods had been. Shunned and unloved by those you were forced to live with, enslaved — in her case — feared for the hat you could do. When she had asked her Headmaster why h had said it was simply because of Love. Harriet scoffed. Love? She hadn't known love, not with the Dursely's and not with the Weasley's not until she met her godfather, a man who had loved her with every fibre of his being. Every time she thought of love now she thought of her long lost — she forever refused to believe he was dead — godfather, Sirius Black. A man who was known to the public, as an escaped convict. Who actually hadn't been convicted of anything. He had been framed by a cowardly rat, who he had once thought of as a friend. Dumbledore believed that it was not the circumstances of their upbringing that had made them turn out differently, but rather the circumstances in which they had been conceived. Where she had been a product of true love while Tom had been the product of a selfish woman's desire to be loved by a man who could never and would never love her, for who and what she was. A by-product of a love potion, of false love. Leaving Voldemort to grow up without ever knowing or caring about love. Harriet thought it to be just as ridiculous as anything else that she had heard come out of the irritatingly vague and manipulative man's mouth. If it had been because of love potions or whatever rot the old man had been spilling, then Harriet was sure there would be more people like Voldemort in the world.
Harriet didn't think her professor's claims of love could get any more preposterous, that is until he told her about her mother's sacrifice. Not that she meant any disrespect to her parents, but if that had been so. Wouldn't more have done the same? If they loved their children enough to give up their life in exchange. A mothers love is indeed a powerful thing, if they do love their children. Harriet had known several people who's mothers didn't particularly care for them due to how they had been conceived. In fact, she knew that many mothers despised their children if they had been born because of less than desirable conditions, blaming them for all of their misgivings in life. Which was hardly fair given the fact that nobody asked to be born. Reborn maybe. But not born. So Harriet would apologise if she didn't particularly believe she survived the killing curse because of her mother's sacrifice. No, she believed it was something else that had saved her as a child, and that her mother might have asked whatever that something was to save her. But she hadn't been the one to do it. In fact, that night in the graveyard, old Tommy boy, had revealed to Harriet that right, as he fired the curse at her golden tendrils of light had kept in from the windows. After that, he could only recall a blinding pain. He also didn't believe any of the codswallop that well over aged nosy Headmaster, that was Dumbledore, had been spilling. Honestly, love being stronger than hate? If that was so then why is it that hate is created to protect love and not the other way around?
Until this particular Monday, Harriet hadn't even bothered with thoughts of her old enemy. Or her godfather. The memories were too painful. Even if she was reminded of him every day in her house. She would never call the old house her home. That title would always belong to Hogwarts, the first place she felt she had truly belonged. Just as Tom had. Harriet groaned, here she was at... What 5 am. Comparing her life to his, again. Something she also hadn't done in a very long time she noted. Absently waving her trusty Holly and Phoenix wand about her dusty room, opening the curtains for what minimal light would seep into the relatively empty house. Kreature was due to clean it any day now. Her too-green-eyes squinted at her reflection in the vanity mirror a frown formed on her lips at her rather chaotic looking hair. She hummed, that was nothing new, her hair had always been unruly. But her great-something grandfather's ingenious hair gel, sleek-easy, made her life so much easier. Harriet let her eyes fall to the faded scar barely hidden beneath her messy jet-black bangs, then to the small black smudge on her collarbone.
The mark of Death, or rather the Deathly Hallows. It wasn't a tattoo, it was a brand. Something that had come with her second survival of the killing curse. The wand, her cloak and the stone had all disappeared when Voldemort, turned to ash in the wind. Just when the mark had appeared, or she assumed so. She hadn't noticed it until she had returned to Grimmauld after the cleanup.
Kreature pointed it out. Well, he started muttering under his breath about it. But Harriet still heard him. Promptly starting at it in the bathroom mirror for a good minute or two before she snapped out of her trance and let out a furious yell to the heavens.
Harriet stopped her humming when her eyes landed on the calendar on the door. More specifically the date circled in red ink and an underlined time. Her eyes widened, she cast a quick Tempus and cursed when she read it.
7:10
It wasn't as early as she had originally thought. No, in fact, it was rather late. Or rather she was rather late. For her interview with the Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries. She had gone and resat her last two years of newt tests for her to qualify for the job, deciding against using her fame, it would just backfire on her anyway, for something so basic as getting a job.
"Shit! KREATURE!" The petite young woman hollered for the house-elf, who appeared with a pop right behind her.
Startled, Harriet spun around wand at the ready... Only to slump. Old habits don't leave one so easily. Her brooding was cut short by the impatient wrinkled old elf.
"Kreature warned Mistress not to drink so many bottles of Ogden's. But Mistress never listens to poor Kreature, no instead Mistress does exactly the opposite. Kreature did tell's his Mistress not to, but did Mistress listen? No Mistress never listens to poor Kreature. Kreature has prepared the ungrateful Mistress' breakfast, and a bath just as Mistress always have's it." Kreature informed his Mistress before popping off to who-knows-where not leaving her anytime to thank him.
Not that the elf particularly cared for it though. He still loathed her, but the feeling was mutual. She wasn't going to waste her breath and instead dug around in her trunk that sat at the foot of her four-poster bed. She could have used her magic, but not many people can think properly when they were in a hurry.
She started at the soapy tub, for a few seconds before vanishing her clothes and quickly scrubbing herself clean and lathering her hair in sleek -easy shampoo then the conditioner. Before leaping out and bowling herself off and hurriedly pulling the clothes Kreature had picked out for her without actually looking at it. Had she done so she probably would have ripped it off and cast a hundred Fiendfires at the atrocious thing? It reminded Harriet of Bellatrix Lestrange. What with how it screamed insanity and pureblood supremacy. Or insanity. Possibly even strangled the house-elf. She grabbed a piece of toast and her moke-skin pouch from the kitchen counter before bolting back up the stairs to the apparition point in the house tripping slightly on a wrinkle in the carpet. Her hair had been dried off with all her whizzing about the house to get prepared to leave. Another Tempus.
7:55
Five minutes. She was so going to be late. A time turner would have been great about now. She scowled briefly before clearing her face of emotion and breathing out as she spun on the spot disappearing from 12 Grimmauld Place with a loud crack.
She reappeared in the refurbished Atrium in the Ministry of Magic. Stumbling slightly as she made her way over to the security check handing over her wand rather impatiently. Blocking out everything else as the man behind the desk scribbled down her name in the appointment book. Her wand measurements and anything else on protocol Harriet hated these check through's. It was tedious and a waste of her time.
The kid looked new Harriet noted with a scowl. Brilliant. She was late and stuck with greenies. His golden hair was annoying her about as much as his blue eyes and the naivety hidden behind them. When he was done she snatched her wand back and trudged off in the direction he had pointed to. Not that she needed his guidance. She had been to the Ministry more than once. Mostly in support of Hermione and her laws of whatever it was she was protecting at whatever month it was.
Harriet came to a full stop when she realised the door she had come to a stop at was the one she hadn't wanted to be reminded of so soon. It had been roughly five years since that incident. But it felt like yesterday, as if she had failed the only person who she cared about only one day before.
"Miss Potter I presume?" a voice drawled behind her. A vaguely familiar one, no, not vaguely she heard his damned voice nearly every night, Draco seemed to love to tell her of his problems.
Her hands fisted and un-fisted at her sides as she turned to face him. She looked at him from top to toe. His platinum blond hair was slick back and was tied in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. His dragon skinned robes shimmered in the mage-lights that lit the door room. His left arm was still metallic-like from the elbow down, a magical permanent prosthetic, none too dissimilar in appearance to the one Wormtail, Peter Pettigrew aka the rat, had been "gifted" by the Dark Lord. The very same rat do have had been strangled by said hand. Draco's was the same in appearance but different in its functionality, it worked as a normal hand did yes but it also changed shape to whatever he willed it to, it didn't have it's own will like The Rats did. She nodded cordially back at him gesturing at the door.
"Mr Malfoy. It is good to see you again."
"I know it is. You must feel honoured."
"Not likely Malfoy. Lead the way why don't you." Harriet said shifting slightly trying not to let her anxiousness show. didn't particularly want to stay out in the open longer than necessary. He was the only one in the Ministry she could trust. Sure they had a past but they had moved past all that. Now that they have aligned goals. Or at least one goal that met with each other. Hers was simple, she wanted to find her grandfather and Draco wanted out. Out of the Ministry, out of his father's shadow and out of the wizarding world.
The whole interview was a hoax they had arranged in the one place they hoped would hold the key to their freedom. Draco peered over Harriet's head just as she leaned to the side to check behind him before nodding a clear.
"Let's make this quick then Potter." He said as he ushered her into the Chamber of Death closing the door securely behind them.
Harriet breathed out and glared at the towering structure, structure eyes scanned the room for anyone else that may have been waiting for them. Which it seems there wasn't lucky them. She crossed the threshold her wand in it's holster on her wrist at the ready just in case the blond ponce tries anything. They may have come to a truce in the past years but she was still sceptical. Harriet peered at the strange markings of the Veil archway, it reminded her of some of the poorly done graffiti near the skate park back in Privet with how chicken scratchy it looked. She let her fingers run over the indentions. A cough sounded from behind her and she tossed Malfoy a look.
He raised an eyebrow at her, but when she turned back to the archway she felt as if she was being pulled forward panicked she grabbed wildly behind her and latched onto his wrist.
Honestly by, now she should have expected it. In no immediate danger yet somehow still a trouble magnet.
Started 11/11/20—Finished 12/11/20
Look this is a new story for me to focus on until I can get back on track with my Dbz/HP one. So no it isn't abandoned just on a Hiatus of sorts.