Hermione leaned back in her top row seat, the late June sun beating down incessantly. She watched critically as Harriet and her defeated competitors were ushered onto a platform covered in banners showing the crests of all three schools, but with the Hogwarts H blown up at least twice as large as the crossed wands of Beauxbatons and the double-headed eagle of Durmstrang. Harriet appeared distinctly uncomfortable at all the attention she received, ducking her head at camera flashes and shifting away from reporters—most noticeable of whom was the pushy and unscrupulous Rita Skeeter, sharply attired in a fashionable red robe, with long nails painted to match and an ostentatious pair of jeweled spectacles perched on her nose. Hermione didn't like the term "bitch" and made it a point to never refer to anyone as such, but Rita was the exception. Her frequent insulting articles about Harriet with headlines like "Hogwarts Champion Will Fail Without Fixing Her Attitude", "Hogwarts's Cheater?: The True Story of How Harriet Potter Won the First Task", and "Picky Potter Snubs Her Yule Ball Date" made Hermione absolutely furious. Harriet did her best to ignore them.
Hermione's fury was enough for both of them. Rita had a secret that could get her thrown in Azkaban for a decade. Unfortunately for her, Hermione knew it. But oh dear, she didn't much like blackmail... Skeeter's amorality was contagious.
Leroux—beautiful, blonde, and Muggle-Born—and the Durmstrang champion, a dark-haired Russian girl named Ludmilla Vronskaya—looking not terribly dissimilar from Harriet herself, embraced the ubiquitous attention, their faces stoic, showing nothing of their disappointment.
"She needs to relax, like, a lot," Ginny Weasley said, sidling up next to Hermione and speaking close to her ear so as to be heard over the crowd's excited babble.
"No kidding," Hermione agreed. "Skeeter will eat this up later."
"She's still hot," Ginny added hurriedly, grinning. "Don't think she could possibly do anything to change that."
Hermione laughed in exasperation. "Don't think everyone agrees with you." Harriet had asked Ginny to the Yule Ball in perhaps her greatest misjudgment during the entire stupid Tournament. Ever since, Ginny had talked of little else—excluding Quidditch, her kitten, and her new "Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Right Fucking Now" pranks that her illustrious twin brothers never thought of. Harriet remained uninterested in a long-term relationship, but Ginny was gently persistent. "Anyway, she's not into you," Hermione said.
"I know, I know. I still don't understand what Chang had that I don't."—Harriet had dated the Ravenclaw Seeker Cho Chang during her fifth year, with disastrous results.—"I'm a way better Quidditch player than she was, I'm not a bitch... I mean, what the fuck?" Ginny frowned, but then broke out in an excited smile. "Did you hear? Blaise Zabini asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him!"
"Congratulations!" Hermione said, punching Ginny playfully on the shoulder. "Now hush, it's starting," she hissed, as the four remaining judges of the Tournament joined the Champions and the fifth judge—a bouncing Ludo Bagman—on the platform, to thunderous applause.
For Hermione, this moment was a culmination of their seven-year friendship she never asked for. It was as though Harriet needed to prove herself, but to whom Hermione couldn't guess.
"Miss Potter, please come forward to officially accept the Triwizard Cup on behalf of your school," Cornelius Fudge, Britain's flamboyant yet forgettable Minister for Magic announced, standing in the midst of diplomatic representatives from the other Champions' countries, beaming and hopping excitedly from foot to foot. He tightly clutched his iconic lime-green bowler hat, occasionally jamming it over his gray hair, before removing it again in discomfort from the heat.
"But I wanted to do it," Bagman protested.
"Quiet, Ludo," Fudge grumbled. Bagman positively wilted, his boyish face infused with disappointment. As Harriet walked forward and Fudge droned on about her bravery and persistence in the face of nigh impossible odds, Hermione remembered back to the beginning.
#
"Can I sit here?" Hermione asked, finding a compartment on the swiftly-filling Hogwarts Express with a single occupant, who had her nose buried in a copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One.
"I suppose," the girl said, marking her place with a scrap of paper and setting the book aside. She wore patched secondhand clothes that were at least a size too big. A pair of glasses—repaired liberally with tape—balanced lopsidedly on her nose. Brilliant, almond-shaped green eyes peered at Hermione through scratched lenses.
"What's your name? Did you know you were a witch before your letter arrived?" Hermione asked in a breathless rush, afraid the girl would lose interest in her and send her away.
"I'm Harriet Potter, and I had no idea," the girl replied, smiling hesitantly. "You?"
"I'm Hermione Granger. My parents were ever so pleased when they learned I was a witch. It's so exciting, isn't it? There's so much to learn! How will I ever remember it all? Oh, I hope I've studied enough..."
"Yeah," Harriet said. "I'd do anything to leave my aunt's house. She doesn't like me much." From the casual tone in her voice, Hermione guessed the feeling was mutual. "The kids raised with magic probably know loads. I've read through all the books, plus some extras. I'm sure it'll be enough."
"Me too," Hermione said in relief. Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by a round-faced boy with a panicked expression pushing open their compartment door. "Have either of you seen a toad? Mine ran away, and I have to find him. He was a present from my Uncle Algie, and if I lost him—" The boy sounded close to tears.
Harriet and Hermione glanced at each other, smiling at how adorable the boy was. "Sure, we can help," they agreed. The three of them returned to the compartment a few moments later, having successfully located the boy's—Neville's—toad in one of the bathrooms, discussing everything from magic (Neville was raised with it, to the girls' excitement) to Houses (Gryffindor for all three, they hoped) to interests as varied as could be. That first terrifying yet exhilarating night, all three were indeed Sorted into Gryffindor.
Harriet and Hermione studied hard for all their classes, dragging Neville along with them. They teamed up together in Potions against Professor Snape's snide remarks and intimidation attempts. They cheered Ron Weasley when he dueled Draco Malfoy in Flitwick's dueling club (and multiple times in the corridors). In third year, however, something changed.
A new Defense professor was hired, after the retirement of Alastor Moody, who held the post for some thirty years. (He'd gone a bit mad, they said, and lost an eye in an inexplicable accident.) His replacement was a much younger man named Remus Lupin, who said he'd known Harriet's parents and that he was her godfather.
For weeks, Harriet was devastated at this news, and gone was the calm and patient girl Hermione first met. If Lupin had known her parents, why didn't he ever come for her? Instead, she'd grown up with her aunt and cousin, who maybe loved her, but didn't necessarily appreciate her.
Hermione blinked, almost coming back to the present. The expression Harriet wore now resembled the expression she'd worn on discovering Lupin's lycanthropy and thus the reason he couldn't raise her: A mix of mild horror and teeth-clenching determination. "Wizarding laws are—" she choked, gripping Hermione's hand painfully tight. "Let's change the goddamn world."
"All right," Hermione replied. With that declaration, Harriet began studying with a vehemence Hermione had never seen before. Fifth year onward was an academic free-for-all between them, with no guaranteed winner. Neville was left in the dust. Overwhelmed by their now stringent homework schedules, he inadvertently befriended Luna Lovegood when taking a walk one evening.
"I win the Triwizard Tournament," Harriet said out of the blue one day just after the Tournament was announced, "and Pureblood supremacists and Dumbledore won't be able to ignore me."
Hermione disagreed. "It isn't worth the risk," she pleaded. "Maybe you'll win, but you're more likely to be humiliated!" Harriet had ignored her, and now here they were. God, she hoped Harriet was right.
#
Neville and Luna came hurrying up the stands toward Hermione and Ginny, Neville looking anxious and Luna serene. "Have we missed anything?" Neville asked, panting.
"Nothing terribly exciting," Hermione assured him. "Only Fudge giving a speech and being a dick like always." The two of them settled into the seats on her left.
"Cornelius Fudge doesn't want to speak," Luna noted thoughtfully. "He is doing the bidding of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement's heliopaths."
Hermione tried to keep a straight face, imagining Amelia Bones commanding a mass of flaming monsters, while Neville and Ginny simply nodded in sage agreement.
Fudge finished his diatribe with "And now, let's recognize the accomplishments of our winning Champion!" Harriet waved from beside him. "All right, Potter, hold that Cup high!" Fudge encouraged, and she did, to wild applause and chants of her name. She looked regal—wild hair and tapping fingers or no. Her robes brought out the color of her eyes, her head raised and her back straight.
Huh. Maybe Harriet Potter could change the world...
#
While Hermione reminisced, Dumbledore observed.
Until the Tournament, he never had much cause to pay attention to Harriet Potter. To him, Hermione Granger always seemed the more consequential of the two, with her vocal—though likely fruitless—advocacy for house-elves and her nearly unmatched academics. Thus, he'd fully expected Miss Granger to enter her name for the Tournament. When she hadn't, he began to doubt his assessment. When it was Potter's name that emerged from the Goblet, he knew he'd misread the situation entirely.
Potter now walked down the line of judges, shaking hands as she went. When she reached him after brief handshakes with Igor Karkaroff (who had no compunctions whatsoever of showing his annoyance at her victory) and Olympe Maxime (whose congratulations appeared sincere), he tried to sense beyond her projected yet unfeigned anxiety, to understand what he'd missed. There was nothing. Reaching for her outstretched hand, he grasped her wrist and drew her to a halt.
"I noticed your detour to the library," he said, in an attempt to break her composure. "Did you research Tommie Riddle?" Suddenly, he was afraid that his suspicions of Potter were true. When before he had only been prepared to keep down Riddle alone, now he may have to contend with both of them.
"I just won great honors for your school, sir," Potter replied, her expression fixed. "Is this really the time and place to question me about such things?"
"Yeah, what the hell, Dumbledore?" Bagman said, hurrying up behind Potter to see what held her up. "She's got more hands to shake. Come on, Potter, let's keep moving here."
Potter nodded gratefully, and walked down the line to shake hands with Amelia Bones, the intrepid head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Well.
He had to give it to her, Dumbledore supposed, watching Potter continue on her way. Sorted into Gryffindor, an orphan with something (but what?) to prove... He was a fool for not seeing it sooner. So it goes.