Harriet woke the next morning with a drunken start, blinking up at the cobwebbed covered ceiling of the abandoned study she vaguely remembered locking herself into the night before. She immediately noticed the presence of several fluffed pillows comfortably tucked under her head, a warm blanket draped over her along with it. There was a heavy weight pressed on her hip, something soft caught in her hand, and it wasn't until she opened her eyes that she recognized it to be Sirius masquerading as the ever affectionate Snuffles, snoring soundly with his head in her lap. The demanding letter she'd written to Dumbledore had mysteriously vanished from the coffee table, and she could only think he had something to do with that.
Careful so as not to disturb the sleeping mass of black fur at her side, Harriet sat up and rubbed her eyes awake. Scabbers - or rather, Peter Pettigrew -, wasn't in her pocket or curled up in the palm of her hand. Her parent's murderer wasn't watching her grow up through her best friend as a loving pet with mysteriously missing toes, he wasn't there. The dream wasn't real.
It was impossible to tell from the windows what time it was. Sirius had said they'd been enchanted long ago to only ever show sunny, spring weather all year round, but after so long the magic had worn away. One was stuck on a cold, rainy night and the other was closed in by the reddish-brown brick of the neighboring apartment.
The distinct smell of Mrs. Weasley's cooking hit her nose after a moment, and she knew it was not so early that breakfast wasn't being made. Not wanting to wake Sirius, Harriet tiptoed out of the room, the floorboards creaking in her wake despite all her efforts. The door clicked shut behind her, but there was thankfully no sound of movement beyond it.
Kreacher was out of hiding for once, taking an old wirey brush and scrubbing the walls with what looked like equally old murky water. He looked up and snarled at her, as though she were something very grotesque to look at, and his loose gray skin rippled with new creases.
The house elf only ever made an effort to clean when Sirius ordered him to. Even then he didn't use one ounce of magic to do so, taking hours at a time to complete any task. He'd usually stop and glare at someone until he was kicked out again, leaving the job wholly unfinished. Harriet had the feeling Sirius had asked him to clean up around the study because she was in there, which would easily have explained the increase in hostility toward her.
"Filthy wretch, nosey halfing," he sniped, grumbling so low it was hard to make out the words. "Product of sin she is. Rotten. Rotten to the core."
Ordinarily Harriet would have provided him the small kindness of shooing him off back to his hole in the kitchen. She didn't need anybody cleaning up for her sake. But she was already so fed up with him, fed up with everyone. There was only so much she could take. Hermione would have had a conniption if she knew that for even a split second Harriet wanted to kick the elf and see how far he'd go. All over the same pureblood trite he'd been spewing from the second they got there.
"Shouldn't you be cooking our breakfast instead of Mrs. Weasley?" she snapped at him, not at all feeling sorry for wanting to stomp on him anymore as he growled back at her like one of Marjorie Dursley's bulldogs. "Don't you think she has better things to do than pick up your slack?"
"Kreacher does not take orders from the misses yet," he went back to spitefully scrubbing the wall, shaking his head so his wrinkly ears flopped. "Not yet Kreacher doesn't."
"I'd turn you out before you took orders from me." The flash of worry in his eyes assured her she'd hit her mark, but then his features reverted back to their usual sourness all too quickly. In light of the threat, he tossed the brush back into the rusted bucket with a sickening 'plop' and drug his feet all the way down to the other end of the hall. Then he sat down heavily, like a child that'd been scolded. Harriet didn't wait around to see him get back to his orders.
Following the murmur of voices down the winding corridors, Harriet retraced her steps back to the foyer. A low glow stretched out along the floor through the cracked-open door of the dining hall, the only light on in all of the mansion. It really was early, and Harriet wondered if she shouldn't make the trip up the stairs and crawl quietly into bed. At least until everyone else was awake.
"She's only a girl, Remus." At the muffled sound she paused, still as stone.
"I know, better than most of you I'd say. I'm simply telling you that if Harriet thinks it's her only option she'll take it. Once she's decided, I doubt there will be anything we can do or say to change her mind. As I told you before, this is an unnecessary precaution. She won't be leaving without her wand - it shouldn't be brought up to her."
Harriet stepped closer to the light, minding again the creaks in the old floorboards as she moved. She pressed an ear to the wall and held her breath.
"How could he suggest something like this?"
"It wasn't Dumbledore who suggested it... he just gave the order. I don't think he expects her to take it."
"She'll prove him wrong."
"Sirius isn't awake yet. We should wait for him to make the call."
"No. If she wants to start making her own decisions, we'll damn well let her. And if this is what she decides, it'd be better for everyone that he be kept out of it."
"The fact that we're even discussing this is - is - barbaric!" screeched the unmistakable voice of Mrs. Weasley. "If she can't be trusted to behave she may as well be sent to Hogwarts with the rest of them, wand or no wand! She'll be safer there."
"That'd be sending one hell a message to the Ministry."
"She will be safer with Sirius, Molly."
"Like hell she will be. I'd sooner take her home with me than leave her here with him. FIFTEEN years in Azkaban-"
"For a crime that he did NOT commit-"
"And you'll have her living here alone with him! Merlin knows what could be going on in his head."
"You forget I'll be here with them."
"Not all the time!"
"Nothing is going to happen. Sirius cares about Harry, he'd do anything to make up for his absence. He wants to spend this time with her while he can. I cannot believe you would suggest, Molly, that he would ever-"
"We trust Sirius. None of us think he'd try to hurt her," Mr. Weasley cut in before his wife could tell them all otherwise. "Besides, sending the girl to a wizarding school without a wand is like throwing a kitten into a pack of lions. I'd... I'd even say it's more cruel than this. At least here she has a chance. She can get some rest. Study. Prepare herself while we figure this out."
Get to know her godfather... her family."
"WE'RE her family, Arthur-"
"She'll be able to leave the place as soon as it's safe to. It's only until the end of the war, or sooner if something comes up. I don't think this is as bad as everyone is setting it out to be. Dumbledore has obviously put a lot of thought into this, he's... setting some ground rules, is all."
"But the Unbreakable Vow... surely you must all agree that it is overstepping our bounds? There must be some spell we can put around the doors and windows-"
"We can't risk her undoing them," said another voice. "And that would shut us all out, would it? Then there's Flu Powder to consider, and portkeys... those are only the popular ones. She could get creative. Real creative. This might not fix the problem, if she's crafty enough. The girl has friends."
"I'm sorry," Having heard enough, Harriet pushed the door the rest of the way open, the sound of it swinging harshly on its hinges evidently earth shattering as heads snapped in her direction. There was Lupin and Mr. Weasley sitting at the table, along with Bill, Mundungus, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Mad-Eye Moody. Mrs. Weasley stood behind her husband, her knuckles going white as she clutched the back of his chair. "The Unbreakable what?"
It became so quiet Harriet could hear Mrs. Weasley grinding her teeth.
"There's no keeping it from her now, I don't think," Lupin said to them all wearily and then looked back at her, an unplaceable expression etched on his weathered face. "Sit down, Harry."
Harriet pulled out the empty chair beside him, watching their solemn expressions closely. She was still sore from the day before, though she didn't want to admit it. "So I can't be trusted to behave then?"
Mr. Weasley's brows furrowed, eyes locking meaningfully with hers, and then in a small voice said, "...No, Harry, I'm afraid not."
"Frankly, we're all very scared for you," said Bill. "You see, Harry... you have a history of... well, putting yourself in the front lines. We're afraid if we tell you everything you want to know whenever you want to know it, you'll do something... for lack of a better word, Harry, heroic."
"We can't have you running off the second something goes wrong," Mundungus added gruffly. "You running out of the house for who knows what, without a wand, no training - it'd be suicide. And you're too valuable to go and get yourself killed on us."
"Glad to know I'm so valuable now you've got your back alley cauldrons and I've lost the only means of protecting myself." Harriet retorted scathingly, and Mundungus glowered. She should have been blaming the Ministry, Dumbledore, the Order, not him, but her blood was boiling. Was it so wrong to want to help people? To take responsibility for something that half the time she caused?
Looking around at them all, her chest hurt. They thought she was doing it for attention like the Daily Prophet said, didn't they? The people who were supposed to be on her side... "Heroic... you know, if you're so worried about my history you might take a look at my track record as well."
"No one's doubting your ability, Harry. But certainly you must see why this a concern?" Bill asked of her imploringly, worrying his scarred hands on the table.
"If we are expected to meet every expectation you addressed in your letter to Dumbledore last night, your membership, your...participation in this war," Kingsley paused, as if the second half of the sentence was too hard to say to her. "He's going to want you to take the Unbreakable Vow."
"No, no! We haven't decided on that yet," interrupted Mrs. Weasley. "Only dark wizards use the Unbreakable Vow, Harry. It's savage and we won't be using it on you."
"What happened to trusting Dumbledore, mum?" Bill gave his mother a look from the side and she gaped at him.
"This is wrong!"
"And I thought we talked about me not being a bird in a cage." Harriet almost laughed.
"You'd be promising to never leave this house without another member of the Order present with you," Kingsley continued regretfully, as though getting it all out in the open was a requirement. "It's his way of making peace with how you want things. You'd be giving up your freedom for this. And there's not much you can do from behind these walls. I'd tell you it's not worth it."
The entire room went still. All eyes were drawn to Harriet, no one daring to so much as breath lest it influence her decision. It took longer than it should have for the words to sink in, but once they did she was quick to weigh what felt like all the options. "I don't have a wand. There's not much I can do outside of them either." she finally said.
"The Unbreakable Vow is a promise. Sealed by magic," Lupin emphasized in a last ditch effort to reach her. "Harry, if you take one step out that door without one of us with you... you die."
"If I take one step out that door without someone to protect me? I die anyway. Don't lie to me and say I'd be able to leave whenever I wanted, you'd never let me. It's not safe for me anymore. I'd rather be here, in the meetings, than locked up in my room with no way of knowing what's going to happen. If Dumbledore wants me to take the Vow, I'll take it. He can't scare me anymore than I already am. Voldemort's coming for me, and I'm not going to be caught waiting for it. I already told you, nothing is going to keep me from being apart of this."
The silence that fell was deafening.
Finally Mr. Weasley turned to her. "Are you sure about this, Harry?"
"Arthur!" Mrs. Weasley gasped.
"I am." she answered.
"Take his hand then," Mad-Eye's rough voice instructed. At Lupin's questioning look he explained, "It's better if the family does it. They're easier to forgive. Come around. You hold the wand, Remus."
Mr. Weasley's palm, much larger than her own and marred by years of tinkering, laid open on the table. It was spotted with freckles and sunspots, fingers thin and uncurled waiting for her. They were hands so familiar to her that... Harriet moved to lace them with her own. They were clammy and hot, and for a moment she wondered how they'd both ended up there.
Lupin got out of his chair, pulling his wand shakily from his waistcoat pocket. He placed the tip of it in the small space provided where their hands connected.
Mrs. Weasley gave a shudder and paced to the back of the room like a cold wind, putting her head in her hands.
"Harriet Lily Potter, daughter of Lily and James Potter, do you swear," Mr. Weasley swallowed hard. "To never leave Black Manor, unless otherwise escorted by another member of the Order of the Phoenix?"
"I do," A stream of hot, red fire slithered out of Lupin's wand and around their wrists, circling their joined hands in great knots. The rings burst into flames, licking their skin, the crackle echoing Mr. Weasley's words. Never. "I swear."
The color turned shimmering gold and then shattered like glass. The pieces evaporated into the air. Never. Their hands were still stuck, sweaty and clutching at each other. Mr. Weasley was the first to let go. Lupin tucked his wand away, eyes cast down to the floor.
"That's enough for now. You can tell Dumbledore it's done," said Mr. Weasley coldly as he stood up from the table. He pulled Harriet up gently and into a quick hug. After which he said, "Alright, love. You go back up to bed."
Harriet managed the order this time, trudging up the stairs to her room. Sirius had given her the one just to the right especially, with new enchantments on the windows that changed with the seasons and snow white silk curtains. It seemed to be the only part of the house he had bothered repainting as far as she knew.
Sirius had covered her eyes with his hands that day, lead her up the stairs, and apologized in her ear for it not being quite finished. He'd not been expecting her to arrive so early of course. But he was too excited and pleased with himself to sound truely sorry about it.
Harriet threw herself onto her large bed, pulling down a pillow from above her head and holding it over her face. She'd promised herself she wouldn't cry - not anymore -, and she didn't. She contemplated screaming instead.
One step out that door... you die.
She'd find some other way. Mood was right; she could be crafty. She had friends. This would be on her terms from now on, not Dumbledore's, but he was free to think that if he wanted.
Harriet knew she needed a plan. This couldn't be like any other time where she'd slipped up under pressure and things somehow magically worked themselves out. She had to be calculative, for once. No distractions. No rash decisions. No mistakes. Lives were in her hands, but that was a stress she'd grown used to over the years.
This was far from over, and Harriet thought that if it was all to get her hands on that monster she'd gladly do it. She had no choice. She had to do it.
Above the headboard hung an empty black canvas, one that normally would have sported a portrait of some witch or wizard, but instead had remained eerily blank for the whole of her stay. It was the last thing she saw before drifting back to sleep, wondering if she'd truly seen the flash of green robes in it or if she really had been driven mad after all.
AN: Leave me a review and let me know what you think! I've had a real tough time working through all the kinks in this chapter, so any reaction or suggestion is a helpful one. The next chapter should be the end of edits and new for everyone, so stick with me while I get to posting it sometime this weekend!