The Serpentine Subterfuge

by murkybluematter

Harriett Potter survived her first year masquerading as a pureblooded boy, but sinister forces are now moving through the wizarding world, and when something sinister starts moving through Hogwarts as well, Harry and her friends are pulled into another maelstrom—whether Harry likes it or not. Book two. Alanna the Lioness take on HP.

3. Chapter 3

A/N: Hello all. I've been on vacation for a few weeks, but I'm back now (with a new record for longest chapter ever) and ready to write more adventures for my poor heroine. So first off—yes, we are still in summer. This is because summer is three months long—1/4 of the year, so it was inconceivable to me that nothing exciting would happen since so much happened during the year. Don't worry though, they also get back to school in this chapter, which is both incredibly long and incredibly varied in content. Hopefully this makes up for the time it took to get it to you some small bit. Also, to reassure those who need it, I am not, nor will I be, abandoning this story. Even if it takes longer between posts (and I am sorry about that) it will still get finished.

A/N2: Also—For all my lovely anonymous reviewers, it's totally fine with me if you keep your anonymity, but could you come up with a name of some kind to distinguish your review from all the others called 'Guest' ? It's just gonna be harder to answer your reviews if they're all signed the same way ^^ Thanks. And…I guess that assumes that I'll continue answering reviews, which I do plan on doing!...Sometime. I sort of suck right now. Sorry.

A/N3: Finally—for anyone wondering at Harriett's true appearance, though with shorter hair, of course, I drew inspiration from the following art found on tumblr at: narglesstealmystuff. / post/21486843521 so delete the spaces and go see this lovely pic on Catrine's page. Full credit is denied by me for this art—definitely not mine! (And neither is HP or SotL)

The Serpentine Subterfuge:

Chapter 3:

Harry stepped out of the fireplace in her house's floo room and was immediately confronted with the business end of her father's wand. She inhaled sharply and froze; the dim illumination from James' Lumos Spell cast just enough light for Harry to see that her dad wasn't fooling around.

"Who goes there?" the elder Potter demanded, wand arm as steady as Harry knew his aim to be, "How did you get past the wards?"

Harry swallowed, realizing the remnant of the floo fire at her back was keeping her face in the shadows, "It's me, Dad. Harry."

"Harry?" James squinted against the darkness but didn't move forward or change the angle of his wand, both of which would have allowed him to see her better. He was too good an Auror to give up his advantage at the word of a potential intruder, "My daughter is in her bed—or she should be."

Harry winced. That was a fair point. She was out much later than usual for a Thursday night. Originally she had planned to be back from her errands well before her parents got home from work. They didn't exactly know what she did most of the day—though she was pretty sure they assumed studying took up a lot of it—and Harry wasn't one to explain things to her parents that she didn't have to. It was just easier that way. Today, though, Harry had been sidetracked from her agenda by an unexpected stroke of bad luck—followed, it turned out, by a bit of rather good luck, which was in turn followed by a spectacular heaping of really bad luck that spiraled into a situation that could only have been drawn from a nightmare. She felt her soul shiver with weakness and fear just thinking about it…

[Earlier That Day]

Harry finished unloading the last crate of potions in Mr. Krait's storerooms with a small sigh. Leo was busy doing something with the Rogue that day, though he had been rather vague about exactly what it was, so Harry had been on her own hauling the crates of potions from the Leaky Cauldron to the Serpent's Storeroom. She wasn't worried about the danger of walking down Knockturn alone anymore. Harry had been up and down the alley so many times that she recognized all of the usual faces that traversed the street and thought that most of them probably knew who she was as well. Or maybe not who she was, but what she was, at least. She was Leo's friend, and as much as being seen as the King of the Rogue's shiny new toy irked her at times, at least nobody bothered her as she went about her business. No, it wasn't the risk that had Harry sighing with relief once she was free of the last crate. She'd just forgotten how heavy they were.

Serves me right for relying on Leo to carry them for so many weeks, Harry thought with a fair bit of self-disgust, Not that I asked him to help, but now I've gotten all weak-armed.

She hadn't really had time for things like exercise lately. Archie asked her to play Quidditch about once a week, and Sirius still hadn't gotten rid of that pool in his basement, so it wasn't that she lacked the opportunity. There just always seemed to be more important things to do. Still, that would have to change. Every year she survived the delicate artifice she was enacting was another year the boys in her year grew taller, broader, and generally started looking less like effeminate boys and more like men. If she wanted to pass for one, she'd have to start keeping up physically.

"Oi, kid!" Krait's voice called through the open door to the storeroom, "Bring out a couple of those Blood-Replenishers while you're back there!"

"Yes, Mr. Krait!" Harry called back, stepping on one of the now-empty crates to reach the top shelf, where the Blood-Replenishing Potions were kept.

She carried the bottles out into the main room and glanced around for Krait. He was standing by one of the potion isles, talking to a customer who had his back to her. Krait waved her over and she approached them.

"Thanks, kid," Krait said gruffly, taking the bottles and presenting them to the customer, "Take a look at these, then. What do you think?"

The other man took one of the potion bottles and held it up to the light coming through the dirty shop windows. He studied the bottle from all angles, and uncorked it to sniff at the contents with a considering frown on his face, "Good color…hmm, yes, just the right consistency. The smell is…different, though, isn't it? You've changed the recipe, my friend. Go on, then, what did you put in it, Edgar?"

Krait smirked, "You tell me."

The other man raised an eyebrow and wafted a bit of the scent toward his nose once more. Harry looked between the two men, confused as to what exactly they were doing with her potion. The man handling the sample looked familiar to her, too. He was big and somewhat beefy, with a thin mustache under his nose and very little hair left on the top of his head.

When it came to her, Harry had to suppress the urge to whirl around and hide her face. It would only draw attention to her, so instead Harry remained very still and very calm. The man holding her Blood-Replenisher was the wizard Professor Snape had been talking to that night just before he left to find ginseng on the continent. He was the one who she'd overheard telling Snape via floo-call about the ginseng shortage in England during the peak outbreak of the Sleeping Sickness. She recognized the tone of voice he used when speaking, like the kind you'd expect a savvy businessman to use: confident and gently cajoling, persuasive in a frankly experienced kind of a way.

"Well, it's definitely something new," the man, whose first name Harry thought was Horace, said thoughtfully, "It's faint, but there's a hint of citrus to it, am I right?"

"I wouldn't know," Krait said with a lazy grin, "Didn't make it."

"Didn't—" Horace-what's-his-name scowled at Krait, "What the blazes am I inspecting it for, then? I thought you'd finally gotten me a B-R potion I can sell, and it's not even yours." The man shook his head and gave the potion back, "Shame, too, cause you know I hate buying from that Rotridge bloke. Let me know when you've got a potion like this in stock, Edgar."

"Now, now, Horace," Edgar said quickly, "I am looking to sell it. I just haven't made it myself, that's all."

"Ah," Horace gazed consideringly at the Blood-Replenishing Potion in Krait's hand once more, "Contracted out, have you? I don't usually buy through middlemen, you know. Messy business, working out cuts and all."

"Nothing like that," Krait said, glancing over Horace's shoulder to where Harry had retreated and was now watching, with no small amount of trepidation, the situation unfold, "You'd only have to pay me for the potions, as I pay the brewer separately."

"I see," Horace said, "Well, in that case I may just have to cancel my contract with Rotridge. Provided that the potions I can expect are all as good as this sample, of course."

"Of course, Horace," Krait said, "My brewer never delivers anything but the best."

Horace nodded his head seriously, "Good, good. Expect my owl in the morning with the paperwork. I'll pick up the first order in two weeks." He clapped a large hand on Krait's slighter frame jovially, "Great to be doing business with you, Edgar, as usual. Oh, and I'd very much like to meet this new brewer of yours when it's convenient. Sounds like a rare find if he has you changing your recipes after such a long time."

Krait blinked and shot Harry another look over Horace's shoulder, "Well in fact he's—"

Harry shook her head discretely, eyes wide and pleading.

"—ah, well, he's accustomed to his anonymity," Krait finished weakly, looking confused, "I'm sure you understand. I'll talk to him about it, of course, but I can't guarantee anything."

Harry smiled slightly in gratitude, and busied herself re-organizing jars of bat brains a few isles away until Horace took his leave of the shop.

"What was that about, kid?" Krait frowned at Harry when she came over to the front desk again, "Don't you know who that is?"

"Not really," Harry said, "Thanks for not telling him who I was."

Krait shook his head, "That was Horace Burke. He's an extremely influential businessman in Wizarding Britain."

"Burke, as in Borgin and Burke's?" Harry asked curiously.

"That Burke is Horace's cousin," Krait said, "Horace Burke is…well, I guess you'd call him a profiteer. He prides himself on being able to provide anything to anyone. Owns a bunch of warehouses in the Lower Alleys, and runs an owl-order company through them. You can order anything from Burke, and its quality and timeliness is always guaranteed. If he can't get it for you, it doesn't exist—at least not in Britain."

"I can see how he'd make money on things that are hard to find," Harry said slowly, "But who would buy things like Blood-Replenishing potions from Mr. Burke when they sell them in shops like these? Doesn't he raise the price to make a profit?"

"He does," Krait said, "But on the other hand I sell the potions to him cheaper than I sell them to customers, because his order is certain, while I don't always know if potions I put in the shop will sell. Also, you'd be surprised how many people are too lazy to go shopping around themselves. Then there are those who don't trust the quality in self-run shops like mine, and would rather pay more to have a product they know will work."

Harry nodded, "I guess that makes sense. So he's buying Blood-Replenishers through you now?"

"Looks like it," Krait said, looking smug, "He gets a few others from me, but always said my Blood-Replenishers were off a bit. Guess he likes your variation better."

"About that," Harry said, "Sorry for changing things without telling you."

Krait shrugged, "Can't argue with what works. A few of your potions have been selling significantly better than the old ones did—not with my average customers, but with the folks who come in with a distinguishing eye. I figured you must be doing something different, so I had Horace take a look and see if he liked the new version any better than the old versions."

"Well, I'm glad your sales are up," Harry said, "But could you keep my identity as the brewer a secret?"

Krait fixed her with a frank look, "That shouldn't be a problem, seeing as I don't actually know your identity, Harry No-last-name."

Harry shifted uncomfortably, "Yeah, thanks for not being overly concerned about that, too."

Krait shrugged, "I'm used to strange types in these alleys, but I gotta ask this: are you in some kind of trouble? Running from someone, or something? I'm not gonna fire you, kid, but if I don't know, then I can't help you, and I might give something away to the wrong person."

Harry shook her head, "It's nothing like that, Mr. Krait. I'm not caught up in anything funny, and I'm not going to bring trouble to your shop. I just prefer to keep a low profile. So if anyone asks about the potions, could you just tell them you have a brewer who doesn't like to be associated with his work? Heck, you can take credit for the potions yourself if you like. That might even be easier. I don't care, as long as I get paid for them."

Krait grunted, "You're something else, kid. No pride in your work, that's for sure."

Harry privately disagreed. Pride was not about the world knowing what she could do. As long as she knew, there was pride and satisfaction in doing the work alone. After all, she took pride in the secret homework she did for Flint, didn't she? It was so much harder than the first-year work, and she did it all with competence, while no one but Flint knew. She also was proud of getting into—and staying at—Hogwarts, despite being ineligible due to her blood status. Just because she didn't tell anyone, didn't mean she wasn't proud of it.

Harry suddenly had a strange thought, and glanced up at Krait with a frown, "In all these weeks, you really never went and asked Mr. Tate about me, even though you know he recommended me? Weren't you curious?"

Krait stared down at her blankly, "If I want to know something, I ask the person I'm curious about. I don't waste my time rooting around behind people's backs. None of my business, anyway, I suspect."

"Thanks," Harry said, and picked up a couple of empty crates for the next day, "See you tomorrow, Mr. Krait."

"Sure, kid."

Harry left the shop and made her way slowly up Knockturn alley. She had a couple more stops to make on Diagon before she could go back home, and she was debating dropping off the crates at the Leaky Cauldron first when she accidentally knocked into a passing pedestrian. She was about to apologize for not seeing them when she felt it—a slight release of pressure from the left inside pocket of her robes.

The pocket she kept her money pouch in.

Cursing, Harry fumbled with the crates in her hands and tried in vain to hold them steady in one hand while reaching out for the person she'd bumped into with the other. It was fruitless. The person was agile and twisted away from her with the ease of skill and experience in evasion. She caught a glimpse of wide blue eyes and a taunting grin below a dark brown cap before the person—no, boy—raced off on light feet, her money bag no doubt securely tucked away in his fist.

Harry set her jaw and moved as fast as she dared back along the alley. She paused for barely a moment to set the empty crates down none-too-gently in a shadowed nook before picking up the pace and racing in the direction she'd seen the boy take off in. The crates might be gone by the time she got back, but the money in that pouch was worth five times what the crates and all the bottles were. One of the stops she'd been planning on making in Diagon was an antique bookstore, where she'd reserved a copy of a manuscript on blending magic. The shopkeeper requested payment in gold, so she was carrying much more money than she would usually risk.

Most of her savings, including the money she would need for she and Archie's little project, was tucked away safe in her room, but Harry was not going to let the amount of gold in that pouch get away without a fight. It was the principle of the thing, after all.

She ran swiftly to where Knockturn met Kyprioth Court and skidded on the cobblestones around the corner. Kyprioth Court wasn't as crowded as Knockturn, and by craning her head a bit Harry caught sight of a slight figure in a dark brown cap jogging casually toward the far end of the alley. The boy, who she could now see was dressed in shorts and an oversized t-shirt, had slowed down considerably, apparently confident that his target wouldn't be fool enough to pursue him through the Lower Alleys.

Shows what he knows, Harry thought grimly. She would have been smirking as she closed in on the boy if she wasn't so out of breath. Seriously, she needed to work out more.

She was only a few feet behind the boy when by some terrible chance he glanced behind him. His eyes widened at the sight of her bearing down on him and he let out a startled yelp before taking off once more. The boy in the cap darted left, down an alley Harry had never taken, and swerved in and out of foot traffic to try and put some distance between them. Harry doggedly kept after the kid. He was fast—faster than she was, and he obviously knew the alleys better as well. He led her through twists and turns, over fences and under clothes lines, and Harry was thoroughly winded after just a few minutes of the brutally quick pace the boy set. Not to mention thoroughly lost.

She did have the advantage of being the follower, though. The boy had to look out for obstacles and waste precious seconds deciding on what paths to take, while she just had to mindlessly pursue him. Also, what Harry lacked in agility and speed she made up for in sheer determination.

Still, the kid was quick. He scampered and clambered over any and all obstacles in his way, jumping around barrels and litterbins with barely a pause in his stride. Harry could see him pulling further and further ahead of her, and knew that soon he would be out of her reach.

If only she could use magic over the summer holidays. Harry could feel her magic building inside of her, eager to come to her aid as her emotions surged forward, but she tamped down on the urge. She would get in trouble—though with Hogwarts or AIM she wasn't entirely sure—if anyone saw her, and in any event she had no idea what kind of a spell she could use. She didn't want to hurt the kid, as she might if she levitated something in his way or tried stunning him. She just wanted her money back.

Just as she was cursing her own shortsightedness at not having exercised her body while she was training up her mind all last year, Harry caught sight of a huge cart of cauldrons backing slowly into the alley ahead of them. It was too high to jump over and hung too close to the ground to try sliding beneath. Harry felt a rush of elation at the sight of it—here was her chance! The boy would have to stop.

Yet he didn't. Harry frowned. He wasn't even slowing down. Harry realized with an ugly dread that the boy didn't see the cart he was speeding toward. He was staring at the ground—no, at his shoe—trying to shake loose a piece of rope that had gotten tangled around one of his feet while he ran.

Harry called out a warning, but it only made the boy look back at her with confusion, and he was running so fast that even if he turned back around and realized the danger there would be no time for him to stop.

Her magic welled up inside of her again, and this time, Harry didn't push it back down. She reached out with a hand—no time for her wand—and released it toward the boy ahead, whose wide blue eyes widened further at the sight of her reaching for him so intently. Her magic caught up to him faster than she ever could have. Mere seconds before he would have—should have—careened headlong into the cart of heavy cauldrons, he froze, suddenly suspended in mid-air as his momentum was arrested by raw magic. Harry ran the last few feet to where the boy was hanging, looking like some kind of strangely realistic statue hovering about a foot off the ground.

Harry grinned at the boy, whose face was now almost at her eye-level, and clamped a hand down gently but firmly on the boy's arm while at the same time asking her magic to let the boy go.

"Got you," she said breathlessly, "Good run, though."

The boy, who couldn't have been older than nine, scowled up at her after a few frustrated tugs got him no further away from her hold, "Lemme go."

"Sure thing," Harry said, "Just give me my money pouch back."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the boy said, wrinkling his nose up and averting his gaze.

"Then why were you running from me?" Harry asked, "Come on, just give it back and you can go."

The boy opened his mouth to reply but was cut off as a middle-aged wizard came jogging around the cauldron cart, a look of concern on his face.

"You two all right there?" He asked, glancing between Harry and the boy anxiously, "I thought for sure the lad was gonna hit my cart. Sorry about that, but I really didn't see anyone coming when I started backing into the street."

Harry smiled at him, "It's all right, neither of us got hit."

"Make him lemme go!" the boy piped up, looking pleadingly at the older man.

The cauldron merchant frowned and tugged at what little hair he had on his head unsurely, "Here now, what's this? Are you detaining this boy for something?"

Harry nodded, a bit apologetically, "Only for a moment. He was just about to return something of mine."

"He's a liar," the boy scowled, "I haven't got nothing of his."

The man looked a bit at a loss for what to do, "Well, ah, that is—are you sure he has something of yours? You couldn't be mistaken perhaps?"

He looked quite hopeful, but Harry shook her head slowly, "I don't think so. I'm missing a moneybag. It's dark red, and there are exactly seventeen galleons and four knuts inside. My initials are embroidered on the outside—HP. Here," Harry dug in her pocket with her free hand and pulled out a letter, "This is a notice from one of the shops in Diagon Alley. See? It has my name on it, Harry Potter, which matches the initials that are on the money bag if this boy has it."

The cart owner glanced over the piece of parchment, a pale, uneasy look on his face, "I see. Well, I suppose it's simple enough to resolve. Do you have such a moneybag, young one?"

The boy glared defiantly up at them, "So what if I did? Maybe I found it."

Harry pulled the boy around and used her other hand to dip into his shirt pockets. She pulled out the moneybag within, which was clearly red and inscribed just as she had said, and raised an eyebrow wryly, "Lucky we ran into each other then, so you can see it safely where it belongs."

She released the boy, and he quickly backed away from her. Unfortunately, the cauldron cart was still behind him, blocking his escape that direction, and he seemed hesitant to try and dart past her and the merchant to the other end of the alley.

The cauldron man turned a face filled with trepidation toward her, "Well, that's all settled then, don't you think, young sir? No need to involve the Aurors really, since everything worked out."

The boy blanched at the mention of the Aurors. Harry blinked, taken aback, "The Aurors? Why would I—oh." She nearly rolled her eyes. Sure, technically the boy had committed a crime, but who called the dark wizard catchers for a case of petty theft? Besides, her dad was an Auror, and bully if she was going to try explaining what she'd been doing in Knockturn alley with that much money in the first place. "No, I don't care about that. I just wanted my bag back. Sorry to trouble you, sir," she told the cauldron merchant, "And next time steal from someone who looks too fat to run after you," she suggested sarcastically to the boy.

The kid, realizing he wasn't going to get into any real trouble, tipped his cap at her cheekily and scampered around her with a spry sort of grace, running off into the early evening without a glance back.

The cauldron merchant smiled with obvious relief at her, "That's a merciful thing you did, young man."

Harry blinked up at him, "You would have done the same, wouldn't you?"

The man looked taken aback, "I would have, yes, but you're not—"

He broke off and coughed in an embarrassed kind of a way. Harry wondered what he'd been going to say, but politely continued the conversation as if he hadn't aborted his sentence, "Well, it was nice to meet you. Good evening."

"Oh, good day," the man returned, lifting a hand in a vague kind of wave, then glancing down at his hand as if wondering why he'd done such a thing.

"Thanks," Harry waved back bemusedly as she walked away, then paused and turned around, "Um, do you by chance know how to get back to Knockturn alley? Or at least to Kyprioth Court?"

The man smiled indulgently, "Yes, of course."

He gave her directions, which were so complicated that Harry had him repeat them twice to make sure she would remember them all. Apparently she'd run further into the Lower Alleys than she'd thought.

She thanked him once again and set off back toward Kyprioth Court. She was already going to be home much later than she'd anticipated, but maybe if she hurried she would make it back for dinner. Not that her parents checked up on her or anything. While she usually attended meals, if she missed one they'd probably assume she was working on a potion that couldn't be interrupted.

Harry was just a couple of streets from Kyprioth Court when she passed a window with a bright red sign that caught her attention. She slowed, hardly daring to believe her luck.

FOR RENT

One Bedroom Apartment

9 Galleons / Week

Utilities and Floo Connection Included

Inquire at Number 5

She grinned. It was perfect. In the wizarding sector, so no worries about being asked for muggle identification, cheap, not too big or too flashy. The street it was on was called Dogwood Lane. It was narrow, but well-kept, with small flower boxes on every windowsill and sturdy shutters in the color of the corresponding door. The apartment that was for rent looked to be on the second story, and there were pale pink curtains hanging in the window behind the for rent sign. The number next to the window was 8, and the apt below it on the ground floor was number 7. Number 5 was on the first floor across the street, so Harry crossed and knocked gently on the door that went to apartments 5 and 6 and waited.

The curtains in the window closest to the door fluttered and parted, revealing the face of a thin woman with soft brown hair. The woman waved at her before leaving the window. A few moments later the yellow door opened and the woman from the window smiled down at her.

"Hello, dear, what can I do for you? Or were you knocking for number 6?" the woman asked kindly.

"Actually, I was hoping to inquire about the apartment across the street," Harry said, "Number 8. Is it still for rent?"

"It is," the woman said, surprised, "Come in, child."

Harry stepped through the yellow door into an entryway that had a staircase going up and a door on the right hand side. The woman led her through the door and invited her to sit while she fetched the apartment owner.

"I'm Mrs. Botting, by the way," she said over her shoulder.

Harry waited for a few minute and then a white-haired old lady came slowly tottering into the room, leaning heavily on a wooden cane. Harry jumped up and helped her sit.

"Thank you very much young man," the woman said, her voice squeaking with age, "Now, I hear from the dear Mrs. Botting that you've come to ask about Number 8, is that right?"

"Yes, ma'am," Harry said, "Are you still looking to rent it out?"

"Oh, yes," the old woman sighed, "I just couldn't bear to let the old place go completely, you see. So many memories. But I had a nasty fall last month, and if Mr. Botting hadn't stopped by to check on me that afternoon…well, I'm just too old to be living alone anymore I guess."

"Are you all right now?" Harry asked.

"Fine, just fine," she said, "Maywell saw to that."

Not knowing what she was talking about, Harry just nodded in what she hoped was an understanding way.

"The Botting's are being so kind to me," the old woman said, "Just so kind. Letting me stay here, they are, though they've no extra room to speak of as it is. Are your parents looking for an apartment to rent? It will be so lovely to have a way to repay the Botting's for their kindness. I've no mind to be a burden to anyone, and every little bit helps around here."

Harry nodded, "Yes, ma'am. It's not my parents though. I was actually looking to rent an apartment myself, if that's all right with you."

"Oh, well," the woman frowned, "Are you living alone? Dangerous business, I should know. Can't you find a place at a shelter? The Rogue would take you in, you know, no matter who your parents were."

"I'll be all right, ma'am," Harry said, "Can I rent the apartment right away?"

"Yes, yes," the woman said, "If you're sure about it you can move in as soon as you like."

"Thank you," Harry said, "I promise I won't be a troublesome neighbor. You'll probably never even see me, since I plan on using the Floo connection to get in and out when I can."

"I'm sure you'll be a lovely neighbor," the elder said, patting nodding her head judiciously as she did so, "Now then, as you probably read I'm hoping for 9 Galleons a week, but you can pay by the month or bi-weekly or whatever works for your situation."

Harry smiled, "If it's all the same, I'd rather pay the first year up front in cash, so that I don't have to worry about getting the payments on time."

The old lady's brows rose, but she didn't ask how Harry was going to get the money. Harry had the impression she was used to seeing self-reliant young people around the alleys, if the way she barely protested at a kid renting an apartment on their own was any indication.

"That's fine as well, of course," she said after a moment.

"Great," Harry smiled, "I'll bring payment the day after tomorrow, if I can. Also, could I ask a neighborly favor of you?"

The old woman blinked her wrinkled eyelids, but nodded slowly, "Yes, what is it?"

"I had originally budgeted more than 9 Galleons a week for an apartment," Harry said, "So I was wondering if I paid 11 Galleons a week, could you possibly keep my personal habits to yourself, should anyone ask?"

"Personal habits?" the woman repeated, nonplussed.

"Yes, you know, comings and goings, anything peculiar you might hear—or not hear—from the house, things like that," Harry explained innocently, "You can tell them Harry Potter rented the apartment if someone like from the Ministry or anything should ever ask of course, but I'd appreciate it if you kept any other kind of information to yourself."

The woman raised both her brows skeptically, "For 11 Galleons a week I'll tell the Ministry whatever you want—not that the likes of them ever come down here. You're a right strange little thing, aren't you?"

"So I've heard," Harry said, "Thank you so much, ma'am."

"Not at all, young Mr. Potter," the woman said, "And please, just call me Mrs. Whitlock."

Harry smiled easily, "As you like, Mrs. Whitlock. It was lovely to meet you."

She stood to leave, but Mrs. Botting came in at that moment with a tea tray and set it down on the coffee table, smiling expectantly at her

"Won't you stay for dinner, my dear?" she asked, handing Harry, who had sat back down out of politeness, a cup of sweet smelling tea.

"Oh, I don't know," Harry said hesitantly, "I should probably go home and get something to eat there."

"Nonsense," Mrs. Whitlock pursed her lips dismissively, "What's the use going home to have dinner alone when you can stay right here and get to know your new neighbors?"

Harry blinked, not sure what to say to that. It wasn't as if she could tell the women that her mother and father had a dinner of their own for her, because that would take credence from the idea that she was renting an apartment to live in on her own, despite only being almost-twelve. She prevaricated for a second, but couldn't think of a good excuse not to stay, and they had been very kind to invite her to their table in the first place. Her parents would probably assume she was working, so as long as she was home before dark she would probably be fine.

Harry accepted their invitation, and twenty minutes later was sitting around a small but abundantly laid table in the Botting's kitchen. She met Mr. Botting as well as the two children of the house, Jim and Clara Botting, who were seven and five respectively. The meal was pleasant, and the Botting's were all very welcoming to her as a prospective new neighbor, though Harry warned them several times that they likely wouldn't see very much of her.

When she finally left the Botting residence at Number 5 on Dogwood Lane, it was a good thirty minutes past dusk. Harry sighed. There was no way she was making it home before dinner. She also suddenly remembered that she'd left Krait's crates just sitting in a nook off of Knockturn alley when she started off on this prolonged detour of hers, and thought that it would be a miracle if they were still there. Great.

Harry walked quickly through the darkened alleys. This was not the shadowy dark caused by the buildings' overhangs, but rather the complete darkness of a summer night that was broken only by the rare shaft of moonlight. Luckily, the signposts on every street corner were charmed to be lit up, so she found her way with little trouble.

Approaching Kyprioth Court, Harry felt the first prickling of unease. She had never been in the Lower Alleys so late before, so at first nothing had felt strange or off about the deserted nature of the streets she walked. When she noticed that the street up ahead was lit by something other than moonlight, however, something red and flickering, she started to think perhaps there was something ominous about how empty and silent the alleys were.

Except that they weren't silent. There were faint sounds on the wind, coming from up ahead of her. Part of her was thinking she should turn back, avoid the eerie red glow coming from ahead, but the other part reminded her that she didn't know any other way to Knockturn alley than through Kyprioth Court. So she continued forward, though at a slower and more cautious pace.

As she grew closer, sounds became clearer. There was shouting, and beneath the shouting small explosions, like rock imploding and gravel spraying. The orange-red glow flickered against her eyes, but offsetting that were sharp, erratic flashes of multicolored lights that refracted and cast quick-moving shadows across the alley wall. These flashes were easily recognizable to anyone who had ever seen serious magic used—they were the heralds of magical duels—several, judging by the frequency and variety of the flashes alone. The persistent red glow, though, was something Harry had never seen before. And yet, once Harry reached the mouth of the alley and caught sight of its source, the dark truth hit her with the gut wrenching force of something a deep, unacknowledged part of her had known instinctively all along. Like how an infant knew his mother's face or a dog knew the fear of thunder.

Fire. Something was on fire. No, she sagged against the rough alley wall with the realization, the Dancing Dragon was on fire. She opened her mouth to call for help, but snapped it shut again as the full extent of the scene before her impacted like a sledgehammer against her brain.

Kyprioth Court was littered with rubble, and between the rubble—bodies. Some standing, some fallen, most male, all covered in a gritty layer of dust and debris. Harry had seen fights before—schoolyard skirmishes and the occasional tavern brawl that she had sworn to Sirius not to tell her mother about—but this was nothing like that. It looked like what she might have imagined a muggle gang fight to be like, had she given enough credence to the propaganda spread by the SOW Party about the violent nature of muggles to try imagining one. There seemed to be two distinct factions warring against one another, but the dueling was so fluid and indistinct that she couldn't be sure. It didn't look like a free-for-all, though. There were definitely groups of people fighting together, so there had to be some kind of organization and reason to the mad scene. Harry just didn't know what it was.

The fighting was centered in the half-circle of street before the Dancing Dragon. After squinting against the blaze, Harry was able to discern that it was the upper floor that was burning. The entire right side of the second story was up in flames, but in addition to the continuous fighting going on in the street outside of the inn, there were several witches and wizards with water much stronger than what a mere Aguamenti would produce gushing out of their wands. The fire didn't seem to be spreading, but the effect of the impromptu fire fighters was the production of great gusts of steam as the water met the burning building. It drifted down the court, hot and heavy, casting a hazy film over everything it touched.

The fight itself could only be described as barely restrained chaos. Fighters on both sides were dodging and weaving around one another in what might have been a beautifully choreographed dance, had there not been so many things going clearly wrong. Instead of the eye-catching spectacle of flashy moves and successive near-misses one might find in a staged fight, the exchanges between fighters were as fast as they were brutal. Light and sound battered the night. The twinkle of reflective steel and the sudden spurt of blood unaccompanied by a corresponding flash of magic told her that at least some of the participants were free dueling. Once she was aware of it, the occasional clashing of mixed weaponry could be picked out above the shouting and the dull thudding of missed spells against the surrounding buildings.

Her mind was cataloguing all of this rapidly, but her consciousness was frozen with abject horror. She hadn't been prepared when she'd first heard the sounds of trouble, however uneasy she had instinctively felt, for who could ever be prepared for such a thing? Not twenty feet away from her people were fighting—and dying, she thought numbly, if the amount of blood now running into the gutters on the sides of the alley was any indication. She didn't know what she'd stumbled into, and as her presence of mind recovered from the original shock and reasserted itself she realized she didn't want to know. She stumbled back from the mouth of the side alley she'd been watching from with the intent of finding another way home. Any other way.

But her sudden movement must have been somehow noticeable against the still and silent backdrop that was the area immediately outside of the conflict zone, for no sooner had she staggered a few steps back from the grizzly scene than one of the fighters broke away from the battle and headed straight for her alley.

She would never know what the man in the blue vest had wanted with her. Did he think she was an enemy fighter, sneaking up on his flank? Did he realize that a third, oblivious party had inadvertently stumbled upon the field, and come over to warn her off? Had he even seen her in the first place? Or had he been trying to do something else, like send a message or run away from the battle completely? She would never know, for he had barely reached the mouth of the alley she was in, the same alley she had so recklessly followed a young pickpocket down just hours before, when he was struck in the back with a what she later learned was a large throwing knife. At the time all Harry knew was that one moment the man was running toward her and the next he was falling forward, and there was something protruding from beneath his shoulder blade, and his body was landing awkwardly in a shallow puddle of alley muck. The fall dislodged the knife in the man's back and his pretty blue vest was stained so red with what seemed to Harry to be impossible amounts of blood, impossibly fast.

He died, there in the alley, before her eyes. Far enough that the pool of seeping fluid couldn't quite reach her shoes, but close enough that the look of surprised denial on his face would haunt her dreams for countless nights to come.

She shook her head back and forth slowly, too caught up in the horror she was witnessing to even scream. All she could think was, why was he so surprised? Didn't he know what was happening? Shouldn't he have expected—or at least suspected—that such a thing might happen on a night like this? In a fight like this?

Maybe death was always a surprise, Harry thought, but she didn't want to know that about the world either.

It was time to leave, Harry knew. Time to run and possibly to hide and definitely not the time to stand there gaping at something she couldn't change. And she couldn't change it. She could heal bruises, cuts and scrapes, sure, broken bones even, but stab wounds? Ones that, from the way the man in the blue vest had gurgled and choked before stilling, had pierced a lung? No, she couldn't fix that, and she had to stop thinking about it or the stinging in her nose and eyes would signify something more than the effect of breathing and squinting in smoky air. It would mean tears. Breakdown. Collapse.

No, no. Harry took a deep breath, ignoring the smell of burning wood that assaulted her senses as she did so, and swallowed hard. She would get away. She would get home. And then she would let the brittle façade crack.

Harry took another deep, calming breath—and promptly vomited against the alley wall. That time she had smelled more than smoky wood. That breath was an attack of sweet copper perfume and her stomach rebelled vehemently. All of Mrs. Botting's wonderful cooking came spilling onto the ground, wasted and smelling a lot worse than it had when she last experienced it. Harry gagged for a moment, but managed to haul herself away from both noxious odors by struggling backwards, further away from the fight, the dead man in the blue vest, and the blatant evidence of a weak stomach.

She didn't back away fast enough. She wasn't far enough when the second man came into the alley. He moved quickly to the fallen man and stooped down over him. His objective became clear when, with a slight grunt of effort, he pulled the knife the rest of the way free from the man's back and stood once more. He went to reach for his shirt—to clean the blade, she realized with a sick jolt, to clean his blade—but noticed her standing not-far-enough away and darted forward faster than she could convince her shell-shocked limbs to evade him.

There was an instant of confused movement as he grabbed her, and then she was freezing with fear at the touch of a wet blade against her neck. It was accompanied by the tip of a wand pressed to her lower ribs, and Harry could only think that she had never known terror until that moment. It was an ugly, consuming thing, which drove all thoughts from her head except those that might somehow help her to survive. Don't move. Don't cry out. Wait for the opportunity to run. Wait. Wait. Her magic swelled up inside of her and she felt it searching for an outlet, but she had no will to direct it with. Her mind was blank. No intention meant no form for her magic, so she just stood there, frozen in the arms of danger, waiting for something to shake her free.

The man chuckled low in her ear, "Nice try, little rat, but no one escapes tonight. Thought you could run, did you? Scared once you saw the true might of the rightful King, were you? Too bad, little rat, and too late."

"Please, I'm not—" Harry whimpered at her own inadequacy. Not what? A rat? She didn't even know what was going on, "I'm not whatever you think I am. I don't know what's going on, or who you are, or anything about a rightful King. I just want to get home."

The man spat carelessly on the ground beside them and scoffed, "Don't matter. If you aren't with Claw, you're against him."

His grip on the knife changed ever so slightly and Harry felt the air grow thin. This was it. She was going to die in a dirty alley, not even worth a Killing Curse. She tensed automatically though she knew the muscles in her neck would be as butter before the knife. She felt the edge of the blade begin to dig in, and then there was a blinding flash of light and the pressure was gone. She fell to her knees as whatever had been supporting her was suddenly removed. Was that the end? Just a flash of light and then everything falls away?

No, that wasn't right. Harry blinked rapidly to regain her stolen vision. The spots caused by the flash cleared and she could see the alley once again, from the mucky ground she was sitting on to the prone form of her attacker. Her eyes widened at the sight. He was collapsed at the base of one side of the alley, bent double in a way that suggested he'd impacted heavily with the wall before falling to the dirt. Standing over him, face grim and eyes aglow in the dim red light, was Leo.

Harry shook her head to jump-start her brain once more. Leo was in the alley, just standing there in his usual sleeveless black shirt and slim-fitting trousers, as if anything about this night was usual. Leo had saved her from that man with the knife, the man who had killed Mr. Bluevest. Leo had shot the spell that made the world turn white for an instant, and Leo had blasted the man with the knife away from her while he was distracted. What was Leo doing there?

She didn't realize she'd voiced the question aloud until he answered.

"Me? Harry, what are you doing here?" Leo snapped, bending over to grasp her arm and haul her to her feet briskly, "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be wandering around tonight? Sweet Mother, I thought he'd got you the way you collapsed like that. What were you thinking?"

Harry swallowed painfully—her throat was bleeding from a long but thankfully shallow cut where the knife had almost…she shook her head, "I was just trying to get home."

"Trying to—now?" Leo wrapped both arms around her fiercely, his wand clenched in one hand and a long knife in the other. He transferred sweat and blood from his hands and arms to her robes, but Harry didn't care, "Don't ever scare me like that again, Harry. Not ever."

He released her, and Harry nodded obediently, too shook up to really think or react the way she normally would to things.

"You've got to get out of here," Leo said quickly, "The fight isn't through, and there's the Dragon to deal with as well. I can't go with you, but you need to get somewhere safe. Go to—" he cursed softly, "No, that's no good, not at this time of night. Okay, Harry, listen carefully. Are you listening?"

Harry gazed up into Leo's face and nodded, though she still felt dazed and lost.

"Good. You're going to go to the end of this alley, away from the fighting. You're going to turn right. Then you run straight down that street until you get to the fountain with the statue of Arthur Pendragon standing in it, got that?"

Harry nodded again, "King Arthur statue. Run."

"Yes," Leo said, "At the statue, turn left and on the right hand side of the street you'll see a big lit up sign for Maywell Clinic. It's always open, so just go inside and tell the lady at the front desk you're there to see Mrs. Hurst."

"Your mother," Harry said, blinking slowly.

"Yes, you'll be safe there. Run there as fast as you can and don't leave until I come and get you," Leo said.

"Safe?" repeated Harry.

"Yes, Harry, safe," Leo said, "I have to go now. Run fast."

Before Harry could say, 'what about you?' Leo was gone again, moving like a shadow back toward Kyprioth Court. She steeled herself against the new emotion battling for dominance in her confused psyche: worry for Leo. Harry turned determinately away from the flickering lights coming from the fight in the court and began moving. It was slow at first as her muscles seemed to be frozen and her joints clumsy, but soon she was jogging, running, sprinting away, right then straight then left at the fountain. She didn't slow at the sight of the brightly lit sign for Maywell Clinic, and instead burst straight through the front doors and staggered to a halt in the well-lit lobby. The woman at the desk half-stood at her entrance, eyes scanning over her sharply and zeroing in on the blood soaking her robe collar from where it ran down her throat.

"I need to see Mrs. Hurst," Harry said quickly, her voice raspy from the exertion, and possibly from the pain around her throat as well.

"Oh, child, what's happened to you?" the lady fussed as she rounded the front desk and started toward her, "Come, sit down and let's stop up that bleeding."

"Please," Harry said tiredly, "I just need to see Mrs. Hurst."

The woman shook her head disapprovingly, "You need to see a Healer, young man, before you pass out from blood loss."

"Isn't Mrs. Hurst a Healer?" Harry asked, "Please, ma'am, couldn't you just take me to her?"

"Well, it isn't really procedure to just…" The desk woman trailed off, taking in the sight of Harry's muck-ridden clothes, bloody neck, and desperate expression, "Oh, very well then. Come with me, lad."

Harry followed her behind the counter to a long hallway dotted with numerous doors. The woman knocked on one perfunctorily and ushered Harry inside.

"Healer Hurst will be with you in a moment."

Harry sank down gratefully onto the padded wooden chair in the small patient room and closed her eyes. She had done it. She was safe. Harry felt very lightheaded now that she was sitting down, so she bent over to put her head between her legs, trying to stave off the vertigo. She heard the door open a few minutes later, but didn't look up until a woman's voice said, "Oh, dear, what has my Lionel sent me this time?"

Harry raised her head and the woman's eyes widened. She whisked out her wand and Harry couldn't help but flinch when it pointed at her. The woman, who had to be Mrs. Hurst, stepped toward her, though her eyes were soft, "No, child, I'll not be hurting you. I'm going to help."

Harry nodded, feeling foolish. She knew that, it was just an automatic reaction she had apparently picked up within the last hour. Harry kept very still as Mrs. Hurst went to work, though she tensed a few times when the kindly woman's wand gave an unexpected flick or twist. After a while, Harry was able to relax a bit, and her anxiety over the wand pointed at her was greatly lessened by the fact that her neck was healed and the blood siphoned away almost immediately. The woman healed several scrapes Harry hadn't known she'd picked up, either stumbling around in the alley or chasing the pickpocket earlier in the day. The woman also repaired her robes in the places they had ripped and cast a strong cleaning charm over the rest of her. When she was finished, Mrs. Hurst stepped back and met Harry's blank look with a very fixed one.

"Now, I don't pretend to believe my son when he tells me he never gets up to anything dangerous," she said, "And so I don't usually ask questions when Leo sends some poor soul along to be patched up in my clinic, but when I see a lass your age in here with a sloppy knife wound and hands too soft to belong to any Rogue rat I just can't keep my peace. What in the Great Mother's name are you doing here, child?"

Harry just stared at her, "You…you know I'm a girl?"

The woman looked taken aback, "Well of course I do. I'm a Healer, child. I also know you're not yet twelve years old, you've broken your wrist within the last year, and I've a strong suspicion you're a vegetarian, in which case I'd advise you to eat more protein because it's going to stunt your growth otherwise."

Harry's jaw dropped open a little bit. This woman was good. "I see," Harry managed eventually, "Well, you're the first one to recognize me as female on sight in a long while, ma'am, even as a Healer."

Mrs. Hurst smiled, "Perhaps you simply don't have very observant acquaintances."

Harry smiled wanly back, "Perhaps you're right. Either way, thank you for Healing me, ma'am, and to answer your earlier question…I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. This whole day has been so…fast. I just want to go home."

Mrs. Hurst gazed down at her sympathetically, "Well, you're as Healed in body as a body can be. You're free to go home whenever you like."

Harry shook her head, "Leo told me to stay here until he came and got me. He said I'd be safe here."

"Safe from what, child?" Mrs. Hurst took out her wand again and Harry barely flinched at all. She conjured a second chair and sat down across from Harry with a concerned expression, "Perhaps you'd better tell me everything. Start at the beginning."

So Harry did. She told Mrs. Hurst about her job working for Krait at the Serpent's Storeroom, and about being picked while she was walking back toward the Leaky Cauldron. She then had to explain quickly why she'd been so foolish as to carry that much gold around Knockturn. Mrs. Hurst smiled in veiled disbelief when Harry told her about chasing, and eventually catching, the young pickpocket because of the opportune timing of a cauldron cart. Harry told her about stopping to look at an apartment, though she glossed over the reasons she was interested in it, and related how she'd been asked to stay for dinner by the neighbors. When Harry got to the part about coming across the fight on Kyprioth Court, she paused, overcome by the hugeness of it all.

"The Dancing Dragon…it was on fire," Harry said, frowning. Mrs. Hurst drew a sharp breath and clenched her wand without seeming to notice. "I think they had it contained, but it was so awful. The fire was making everything smoky and red, and there were people fighting everywhere in the court. I didn't know what was happening, and I was scared. I was going to leave, to run somewhere else, but then a man came and died right in front of me." Harry looked up at Mrs. Hurst imploringly, "I didn't mean to let him die, I swear. I just couldn't…all I know is cuts and bruises. I can't heal deep muscle tissue fast enough to be of use in an emergency yet, and I don't know how to fix a lung once it's punctured. Please, ma'am, you have to believe me, I couldn't—I didn't—"

"Hush, child," Mrs. Hurst leaned forward and scooped Harry's whole body up into her arms. Harry clung to the older woman's Healer robes and started to cry. The tears leaked out everywhere, no matter how she tried to stem them, and Harry started mumbling apologies between her sobs. "No, child, don't fret about it. You just let it out, now, that's it," Mrs. Hurst stoked Harry's hair softly and Harry cried harder thinking that her own mom would be doing this if Harry hadn't been keeping so many secrets from her, "It's not your fault, child, so don't you take that darkness into your soul. His life was in the gods' hands, not yours. Not yours."

Harry sniffed loudly and slowed down her breathing to try and control the spasming of her diaphragm. She leaned back from Mrs. Hurst's hold and wiped her eyes on her newly cleaned robe sleeve. "Thank you," she said, sniffing one last time, "I didn't mean to fall apart on you like that."

"It seems to me you're over-due," Mrs. Hurst said kindly, "Are you all right, now? I can make you a cup of tea, if you like."

"No, thank you," Harry said, "I'd rather just tell you the rest of it, so you know."

She related the rest of the tale as quickly and accurately as she could. She hoped Leo wouldn't mind her spilling her guts to his mother about what had went on that night, but she figured he wouldn't have sent her to his mother's clinic if he didn't expect Mrs. Hurst to find out about the fight.

The fight she still wasn't sure how Leo had gotten mixed up in, now that she thought about it. Really, what were the odds that Leo had been in the exact right place to save her when she hadn't seen him all day?

Mrs. Hurst just sighed when she was done telling her story, "What a mess you've gotten yourself into, child."

"Do you know what the fight was about?" Harry asked curiously.

"Anyone who keeps up with the Court business could hazard a guess," Mrs. Hurst said, "Fights like this don't happen much—they aren't supposed to, as long as everyone follows the code and settles disputes directly in single combat. If the fight was as bad as you say, with the fire in the Dragon on top of it…well, there's only one person I know of in the Court who would dare such a thing right now."

"Claw," Harry breathed, suddenly recalling the words that man had spoken to her, "The mad with the knife, he mentioned Claw's name."

"That would be a good assumption," Mrs. Hurst said distastefully, "That man will never be worthy of my son's crown. A bad thief and a worse coward. Stupid, too. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd let his plans slip into some of Leo's ears. That would certainly explain what my son has been so busy doing all day. Not doubt preparing for it."

"Is that what the fight was over?" Harry asked, fearing for her friend's safety, "The position of the Rogue?"

"Nothing else is worth attacking the Dancing Dragon itself," Mrs. Hurst said darkly, "Though it's a fool's errand. Even if Claw somehow bested my boy, no thief would answer to him after he broke the code like that."

"Why would he even try, then?" Harry asked, frowning.

"He doesn't understand the Court of the Rogue," Mrs. Hurst said, "Claw's an outsider, come into the Rogue less than a year ago, and from the very start he was dripping poison in folk's ears, turning them over slowly but surely to his own circle. We all thought he was building a base of support for when he challenged Leo to a duel for the crown. It looks now like he was just building an army of thugs to take the Court like a barbarian tyrant would."

Harry bit her lip, thinking things over, "Is that why he sent that false recipe to Mr. Krait? To try and get rid of one of Leo's supporters before he attacked?"

"Too right, young lass," Mrs. Hurst said, brows raised, "That's a sharp mind you've got there. Eddy wasn't the only one to get targeted though. Aled's house was broken into last week and everything ransacked. He only wasn't home because he'd stayed over at the Dragon to help old Solom out that night. Some thugs got to Marek not two nights ago, pulled him into an alley and beat him something fierce. I patched him up myself, but he was to be on bed rest for the rest of the week. I imagine he'll be upset to have missed the fighting, the big idiot."

Harry considered this silently, "Is Rispah all right, at least?"

"Fine," Mrs. Hurst said, sounding a bit miffed, "Claw doesn't waste his time with women. Yet another reason I hope my Leo trounces him tonight."

"Aren't you worried about Leo?" Harry asked, trying not to sound critical, "He's not even of age yet, and there were so many people fighting…"

Mrs. Hurst patted Harry's hand gently, "My son has been giving me grey hair since he learned to run before I knew he could walk. Always the trickster, never where he should have been, Leo drove my husband and I to distraction trying to keep up with him, and that was before he ever started leaving the house. I learned long ago to just support him where I can and pray for him where I can't. Leo is a rare soul. He goes after what he wants and he'd rather good at getting it. He's also quite talented. No man like Claw is going to win out against Lionel Hurst."

Harry marveled at the woman's complete faith in her son. She didn't think she'd ever had that much faith in any one person. People were just so…fallible. Perhaps one had to be a mother to completely understand it.

Mrs. Hurst finally got around to making tea, and the two of them sat and talked about various things to pass the time. Harry's schooling came up at some point and she automatically fed Mrs. Hurst the line about her attending AIM and wanting to be a Healer. Mrs. Hurst just looked at her with frank disbelief.

"What?" Harry asked defensively.

"You're a pretty good liar," Mrs. Hurst said calmly, sipping at her tea, "Calm-faced and unhesitant. Either that or you've told that story of yours so many times that it's become routine. Still, that's all it is. A story."

Harry took a careful breath, not daring to look up from her teacup, "You think so? I suppose any stranger's life might sound like a story if you don't know them very well."

Mrs. Hurst laughed, "Oh, child, stop your pretending. I'm not asking for the truth, mind, but lies irritate my magic. I can always tell—and good thing, too, with that son of mine. The boy lies when the truth would sound better, sometimes just to see if I'm listening, I think. But apart from that, a few things don't match up very well. If you'd lived in America for nine months, your accent should have gotten a bit weak, but you talk like someone who's never left the country. Also, you claim to want to be a Healer, but you've been talking here with me for a good forty minutes and not once have you asked me a single question about Healing."

Harry blinked, then winced internally. By Merlin, the woman was right. Now that she thought about it, Archie did talk a bit differently ever since he came back from school. His accent wasn't that noticeably different, but he used American slang every now and then, and annunciated better, probably because he was used to compensating for Americans who didn't have an ear for the British accent. Also, Archie would have jumped at the opportunity to question an actual Healer about his or her profession. He always, always took the time to ask questions when they visited Sirius at the hospital.

Harry wasn't sure what to say, "I'm sorry," she tried, "Honestly, you're right. I am lying, but I'm not trying to trick you or anything. I lie to everyone, and I know that sounds horrible, but I just…it's important to me, and…I'm not explaining this very well. I can't tell you the truth about me, though I really am Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter?" Mrs. Hurst gave a little start of surprise and her eyes widened slightly.

"Oh, did I not introduce myself?" Harry smiled sheepishly, "How rude of me, yes, I'm Harry, ma'am—well, Harriet, but nobody calls me that."

"Goodness, that certainly explains a lot," Mrs. Hurst murmured distractedly, "I know who you are—perhaps more than you'd even guess. If you're Harry, my son has been talking about you almost non-stop for weeks. Everyday it's 'I'm going to meet Harry' or 'Sorry I'm late, mum, Harry and I went for ice cream.' I admit I'd thought you were a boy the way he talked about you, but now..." Mrs. Hurst looked over Harry with a new gleam in her eyes. Harry felt inexplicably nervous. "Well, this certainly changes things."

"Does it?" Harry asked nervously, "Really, my being a girl doesn't matter that much."

"Whatever you say, dear," Mrs. Hurst smiled knowingly, "Now then, what was I saying? Oh yes, did Leo tell you about what I do for a living?"

"He said you work here, at this clinic," Harry said, nonplussed.

"Indeed I do," Mrs. Hurst, "In fact, I own this clinic. I founded it a year after Leo was born. Malcolm had just gotten his Mastery, and the Guild pays a very generous stipend to its researchers. Also, the Hurst's left Malcolm with more money than either of us knew what to do with, so I decided to open a clinic here in the Lower Alleys, exactly where the little apartment I grew up in used to stand before a Ministry raid on the building caused it to become structurally unsound and it collapsed. This clinic is officially a charity outpost of St. Mungo's, though the Hospital actually only pays sixty percent of the clinic's expenses. The Rogue funds thirty percent of the expenses, and my husband and I take care of the last ten."

"How did you get St. Mungo's to agree to open a clinic in the Lower Alleys?" Harry asked curiously, "Even if they only pay sixty percent, that's still a pretty big venture to take on all of a sudden."

"Before I opened this clinic, I worked for St. Mungo's. I used to run the children's ward, as a matter of fact, and I still volunteer there twice a week. Interesting people, the volunteers in that ward. One in particular always gives me a laugh—a Mr. Sirius Black, perhaps you know him?" Mrs. Hurst laughed at the look of utter panic on Harry's face, "Oh, yes, your 'uncle' talks about you a lot, young lady."

"Is that so?" Harry asked weakly.

"Yes, indeed," Mrs. Hurst said, "Enough that it's apparent to me that you do 'lie to everyone,' as your uncle, too, seems to think you've been off at AIM for the last year. No, don't fret, I'm not going to say anything to him. I won't even tell him I've seen you, since I very much doubt your family knows where you are right now. I imagine your life is very complicated, though, isn't it? Just know what if you ever need to confide in someone, I've an open ear and a closed mouth."

Harry nodded silently, though of course she would never take the kind woman up on her offer. It was too much of a risk, no matter how trustworthy Leo's mother seemed.

"Anyway, we were talking about how I got the clinic opened. It helped that I was influential among the staff, and of course it didn't hurt that I was married to one of their highest grossing researchers in experimental potions," Mrs. Hurst said fondly, "That's how we met, you know. He would provide new, better potions for the children in the ward and I would shout at him for using innocent children as test subjects, and then we decided to move in together."

Harry felt her mouth hitch into a slight grin at Mrs. Hurst's description of her relationship with Master Hurst, but didn't interrupt.

"The Hospital held both of us in such high esteem that when I proposed the idea they didn't immediately reject it," she went on, "I argued that a free clinic in the Lower Alleys was a good move logistically, because most folk from the Lower Alleys don't have easy access to a floo, and by the time they can get to St. Mungo's their injury is likely worsened considerably. Also, most of us in the Lower Alley don't hold much stock in the Ministry, and that can include the sort of identification requirements St. Mungo's has for all of its patients. I said they would be treating even more people more effectively with a clinic like this, and of course they told me I was a naïve fool who wanted to waste hospital resources on the undeserving."

Harry gasped, "They really said that? Of all the snobbish things to—" she broke off, too upset to even finish her sentence, but added bitterly, "Soon they'll only be serving purebloods, or only people who have passed their NEWT's."

Mrs. Hurst chuckled without much humor, "Yes, well it's lucky I had my Malcolm with me, because he speaks bigoted asshole rather well, having been sired by one. He told the board that opening a clinic was a good political move, since it would make them seem sympathetic to the 'plight of the unfortunate' and also that it made sense economically, because a new clinic meant plenty of excuses to hold elaborate fundraisers. They agreed almost immediately after that. Still, the point is that we got the clinic in the end."

Harry nodded seriously, "Sometimes the end justifies the means. Sometimes you have to play by their rules for a while, or at least pretend to, even though some might say you're being hypocritical or a coward by giving in to the system instead of trying to change everything right away. Sometimes the only way to get what you want, to help other people by getting someplace that can really make a difference, is to keep your head down and your mouth shut about things you don't agree with, just for a little while. Just until you have the power to really change things instead of just complain about them. Right?"

Mrs. Hurst fixed hazel eyes on Harry's earnest face, "I think, sometimes, you're right, Harry. In circumstances where going along with the crowd in order to accomplish a long-term goal that will undermine it doesn't hurt anyone, it's not a bad strategy, and in some cases it might be the only way."

"Yeah," Harry said softly, "The only way."

Not ten minutes later, the door to the patient room was flung open by the woman from the front desk.

"Healer Hurst, come quickly," the woman said urgently, "There are at least a dozen young people in the waiting room, bleeding and shouting and carrying on. Your son is out there, too," Harry breathed a silent sigh of relief for Leo's sake, "No doubt somehow responsible for whatever the blazes is going on in these alleys tonight."

The desk lady left once more, still muttering agitatedly, and Mrs. Hurst stood and set aside her teacup. "We'd better go see who needs patching up, don't you think?" she said to Harry.

"Um, Mrs. Hurst," she said cautiously, "Those things I told you—"

"Healer-patient confidentiality," Mrs. Hurst said, winking.

Harry smiled back gratefully and followed her out the door.

The waiting room was in chaos. Men and women with varying degrees of health stood, sat, or leaned on one another. They were all dirty and all smiling broadly. Leo stood in the midst of them all, a grin of equal brilliance on his own dirt-smeared face. He was shouting over everyone, directing them to one side of the room or the other. Harry got the feeling he was trying to get those with the worst injuries in one area so they could be treated faster, but everyone was too excited to pay attention, and instead shouted congratulations at Leo and slapped him on the back, cheerfully ignoring his suggestions.

Mrs. Hurst took one look at the mess, shook her head in amused disgust and whistled so sharply the closest people winced. "You lot, pay attention!" She shouted as everyone turned toward her in surprise, "Anyone bleeding see me immediately. Anyone who got hit on the head at any point tonight, see Janice. If you can't remember if you've been hit on the head or not, see Janice. If you've a broken bone, see Carol. If you're just here to wait and celebrate go sit in those chairs and the Mother help you if you disturb the actual patients. Go now!"

People scurried, scampered, and generally bent over backwards to appease the formidable Healer. Two other Healers, presumably Janice and Carol, stepped forward from the chaos and started collecting patients. Harry stood to the side and watched as the worst hurt were treated quickly and efficiently by the three Healers. Leo broke from his friends and came to stand by her with a relieved look on his face.

"Harry, thank the trickster you made it," Leo said, looking her over, "All in one piece?"

Harry nodded, looking him over in turn, "I'm fine, but you're bleeding."

Leo looked down at himself in surprise, as though he hadn't noticed the blood dripping down his wrist and hand from a puncture wound just below his elbow, "Huh. Guess I am. Still, there are others with worse, and my dear old mum has enough to work on. I'll get it Healed later."

Harry shook her head and reached out to pull Leo's left arm toward her. It was shining with sweat in the places it wasn't streaked with grime, so the first thing Harry did was pull out her wand and cast a basic cleansing charm that all first-year Healers learned over the area close to the wound. Leo looked on with bemusement as she closed her eyes and focused on what she wanted her magic to do. Archie had taught her all of the fancy theory behind it, but Harry still found it much easier to simply focus her magic into Healing the muscle and skin the way she wanted it to.

She forged the magical connection to the injured area easily enough, but when she sank into the connection with her consciousness and started to direct her magic toward the area, Leo's magic, which had already surrounded the wound protectively, rose up and gave what felt like a magical hiss at her. Harry paused, taken aback by the aggressiveness of Leo's magic. She pushed forward once more, slowly, and projected Healing intent toward the magic. She felt it hesitate, before moving back ever so slightly from the wound. Harry asked her magic to move in immediately and began the tedious process of re-directing blood flow until she could get her magic to knit the tissue back together seamlessly and rebuilding the lost and damaged skin cells. Her magic flowed out of her and into Leo's arm with a pointed impatience that very clearly communicated the idea that she should have been using it earlier. Harry ignored her magic, since she already felt three times the fool for freezing up in the middle of danger like she had.

When the wound was Healed, Harry pulled the connection back and wiped a hand up under her bangs to get rid of the few beads of perspiration that built up when she used her magic for Healing. It didn't tire her much, but Healing was very intense. It was satisfying in an odd sort of way, but Harry didn't think she'd ever enjoy it enough to do it for a living.

Leo flexed his arm for a moment, then smiled brightly down at her, "Full of surprises as ever, I see. Thanks, Harry." He reached out to ruffle Harry's hair, but she ducked away, scowling.

"Don't mention it," Harry said, then, feeling stupid, added, "So, you guys won, right?"

Leo laughed, hazel eyes dancing, "Yes, Harry, I guess we did."

"Oh," Harry said, "Good."

Leo laughed some more, "Harry, you—"

"MAREK SWIFT! WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING?!"

Leo and Harry both turned to watch as Mrs. Hurst apparently caught sight of Marek in her line and railed into him.

"Umm," Marek looked like a child caught with a fist full of cookies, "Bleeding?"

Indeed he was, Harry thought. Marek had several shallow gashes on his arms and legs that were bleeding sluggishly.

"You are supposed to be on bed rest!" Mrs. Hurst scowled, "Not running around getting stabbed left and hexed right."

Marek smiled helplessly, "Well, Leo needed me, Mrs. Hurst. I had to, um, help him fight Claw."

Mrs. Hurst pointed her wand at Marek and Harry noticed with amusement that he cowered dramatically, "Don't you bring my Leo into this. I told you not to do anything strenuous for at least a week."

Marek shrugged his big shoulders, grinning, "It weren't that strenuous, ma'am."

Several people laughed along with Marek and Mrs. Hurst just shook her head and started Healing Marek's wounds.

Harry felt that she was no longer needed there, and she had calmed down considerably since she came sprinting into the clinic a couple of hours earlier. So she went to Mrs. Hurst and asked if there was a floo connection in the clinic. Luckily, there was one, so Harry wouldn't have to brave the dark streets again that night. She promised herself she would look for the crates she'd abandoned tomorrow, when the sun was up again.

She went to tell Leo she was going, but he was surrounded by his closest confidents, including Marek, Aled, Solom, Rispah, and to Harry's surprise Mr. Krait. She didn't want to tear him away from his friends in the midst of what was very clearly a victory celebration, and she didn't feel that she could join in the celebration for several reasons. One was that she simply wasn't a part of the Rogue. This was their victory, not hers. Also, no matter how victorious they were, Harry was all too painfully aware that they, too, had lost people. She had watched one, the man in the blue vest, die in front of her, and she would be a fool if she assumed he was the only casualty of the battle. Harry understood the need to celebrate life before mourning death, but she had come too close to death herself to revel in it.

Instead, she called a quick goodbye to Leo over the crowd. He smiled and waved at her, shouting something indistinct over the noise of everyone packed together in the clinic waiting room. Harry wasn't sure he'd even really heard her, but she had to be getting home anyway. It was lucky she knew the password for her parents floo, or there was no way she'd be able to get in at this time of night, after the wards were up.

And so Harry had flooed home, using the password to bypass the night wards, and ended up…here.

Trying to convince her father she wasn't a burglar before he hexed her and called in his Auror buddies to arrest her.

Harry took in the distrustful expression on James' face and knew she had to talk fast. "Dad, I promise it's me. Remember on Uncle Sirius' birthday when we had a pool party in his basement? And Sirius brought all of his silly snakes onto his raft, and then tipped them into the pool when he and you tackled Uncle Remus off of his raft. It was lucky they could swim, really, or mother would have broken her promise about not disagreeing with Sirius on his birthday."

Harry watched her father frown and step backwards slowly, "Harry? Step forward until I can see your face. Slowly, and don't reach for anything."

Harry moved forward as slowly as she could, lifting her face up so that the light of the Lumos would catch it when she was close enough. She knew the moment James recognized her, because his face muscles slackened with relief, but he didn't lower his wand still.

"I'm sorry, Harry, but just to make sure—what did I tell you to never forget in the last letter your mother and I sent you before you came home from school?" James asked.

Harry froze. She had read through the letters Archie both received from and wrote to her parents when she got home that summer, but she had read them all at once, and she couldn't remember which one of them had said what, as she might if she had read them one at a time over the course of a year.

"I…I don't remember, Dad," Harry said shakily. James immediately looked on guard again and took an aggressive step forward, "I'm sorry, Dad, please ask me something else. I can't remember those letters right now, they all blend together. Please, ask something else."

James frowned into her face, but said, "Then tell me this. Who are we planning on marrying you to if the new marriage legislation gets pushed through?"

Harry blinked, well that was easy—wait. Too easy. It was a trick question.

"No one," she said, "Everyone will think I'm marrying Archie, because we'll get engaged to protect me, but in reality the engagement will have a clause of unsuitability which will allow us to dissolve it when we turn seventeen."

James nodded, "Yes, that's right." He lifted his wand so that the light encompassed both of them, "Harry, what are you doing out so late? We thought you were down in the lab, and assumed you'd go to bed when you were finished with whatever project you were working on." James frowned down at her, "Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to realize you have no idea where your only child has been all night?" Harry winced as James started toward her, but he only embraced her, exhaling tiredly into her hair, "Never did I imagine you would pull something like this. Your cousin Archie, maybe, your Uncle Sirius, definitely, but you? You're supposed to be the smart one. The level headed one who doesn't do stupid things like stay out till midnight without telling anyone. What if something had happened to you? We wouldn't even know where to look, and it would be much too late to help by the time we noticed you were even gone."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, "Believe me, I didn't mean to stay out so late. You know me, Dad, I would never be so unthinkingly foolish. I just…things came up and it wasn't really my fault."

That sounded weak even to her, and James gave her an unimpressed look, "I'm sorry too, Harry, because this kind of thing just isn't okay. I never, and I do mean seriously never, thought I'd say this, but…you're grounded."

Harry gaped and stared at her father, who was looking puzzled at the taste of his own words, "Grounded?"

"Yes," James nodded slowly, "Yes, Harry. You are grounded. You will not leave this house for a week. Not to Diagon alley. Not to your friends' homes. Not even to Grimmauld Place. You will stay here and every night at nine pm you will be responsible for setting the wards. With any luck that will help you remember when exactly your curfew is."

Harry blinked in utter incomprehension. Grounded? She had never, as far as she could remember, been formally disciplined in such a way. In any way. She couldn't recall the last time her parents had taken her to task for something. Every now and then they offered advice, cautionary suggestions, or intelligent input on her plans, and she respected their council and took it under consideration. They gave her chores, of course, and asked for her respect and obedience in minor matters that were of little consequence to her, but punishments? It was like James was speaking a foreign language.

"Harry?" James prompted.

"Oh, yes," Harry shook her head, "Okay, Dad. Um, so I'm really grounded?"

James grimaced a bit, "Yes. I'll tell your mother in the morning."

"Don't tell Uncle Sirius," Harry said, still a little dazed at the very idea of being grounded, "He'll think you're starting a dangerous precedent."

James' face softened and he even smiled a bit, "You'll have to come up with convincing excuses then, if he asks you to go somewhere."

Harry was about to respond when the dinging alarm on the floo went off as the fire turned green once more. James snapped his head around and barked out the acceptance password and a head appeared in their fireplace.

"Auror Potter?" a man with dark skin and a deep voice called.

"Yes, Auror Shacklebolt?" James bent down to answer the man, "What is it?"

"We're using your on-call shift tonight," Shacklebolt said quickly. Harry nodded to herself, understanding now why her father had been so quick to respond to her flooing in. He must have been awake already and felt the wards fluctuate. "There's been reports of a fire in the Lower Alleys, and we've already got both squads out dealing with a domestic dispute that turned violent and injured several muggles living in the apartment above the magical couple."

James fingered his bangs distractedly, "Okay, Shacklebolt, I'll be right through."

The Auror's head nodded, then disappeared.

James turned to Harry and said, "I've got to go, Harry, but please think about how dangerous it is for you to be out so late. You're only a child still, however grown-up you feel with a wand in your hand. Please don't let this happen again."

"Okay, Dad," Harry said, "I'm sorry. Be safe tonight."

"Will do," James said. He reached out to ruffle Harry's hair and she let him, though she really didn't appreciate when people did that. Yet another reason she mourned her long hair. No one ruffles long hair. "Night, little Fawn."

He left, and Harry walked wearily upstairs to her bedroom. At the sight of her bed she nearly groaned out loud. It was as if her body had been refusing to admit how tired it was, but gave way under the sudden temptation of four fluffy pillows and a heavenly down comforter. Her limbs carried her forward and onto the soft mattress in a trance, and she didn't even take off her shoes before allowing her head to hit the pillow. She could scarcely believe the day she had had. She closed her eyes with relief, not knowing that she would snap them open once more in just a few short hours after a paralyzing nightmare visited her dreams. A nightmare about fire and death, blue vests and red ink. For now, however, she drifted eagerly into oblivion, and her last thought before sleep was a fervent wish that the rest of the summer went by as uneventfully as humanly possible.

[HpHpHp]

Harry got her wish. Between being grounded and starting to prepare for the coming school year, the next few weeks passed in a blur of normality. Her twelfth birthday came and went with little ceremony, though she and Archie did have a cake that shouted rude insults every time you cut into it, courtesy of James and Sirius. She received a few presents, mostly academic in nature, including a new pureblood etiquette book from Pansy and a school planner that automatically color coded assignments from one Hermione Granger, which she stored with 'her' school supplies so that Archie could take it with him to AIM in September.

She had to owl-deliver her potions to Mr. Krait for the week she was grounded, which was a tedious and annoying process involving much smaller packages and numerous owl-induced wounds on her hands from dealing with unfamiliar birds, and she apologized profusely to Leo in case he had looked for her those days, but he waved it off. The Court of the Rogue was picking up the pieces after Claw's attack, and rebuilding the Dragon took up a lot of Leo's time in the weeks following the fire in any case.

Harry used the week she was grounded industriously, and soon she'd finished the first-year owl school curriculum and taken the final exam. It occurred to Harry that the people at Sphinx Correspondence School of Magic were inordinately trusting, if they let her take the exams at home without a sworn proctor or at least a parental signature, but perhaps the parchment was charmed not to allow cheating. It didn't make much difference to Harry, who had learned the material twice now, and she finished her first year as Harry Potter nearly a month ahead of schedule.

With all of her schoolwork out of the way, she had more time to devote to Polyjuice Potion research. Harry had found a very interesting spell that was traditionally used by magical couples who were looking to have children and wanted to see how their genes mixed.

The spell was in the book on blending she'd gotten from the shop on Diagon Alley, and as such it essentially blended two people's physical characteristics. It required the same input that the Polyjuice Potion did, but instead of adding one hair, you added two. Technically, one could add whatever part of a person they could get their hands on, but everyone in the potion community agreed hairs were the easiest and most ethical thing to take—if ethical was indeed a word that could be applied to the impersonation of another wizard. After all, a hair didn't generally cause pain in appropriation, unlike fingernails or blood, both of which also carried magical signatures in them. After scanning the magical signatures via hair, the spell required an input command to determine the sex of the 'child.' Then the spell took both hairs and transformed them into one. It blended the hairs together, and the idea was that the parents could then use the blended hair in a Polyjuice Potion and transform some random kid into their theoretical kid so they could get a good look at him or her. The book suggested using a muggle child and obliviating him afterwards, but the book had been written in the medieval period, so Harry ignored much of the author's opinionating.

The best part was that the discovery of this spell meant most of Harry's work was done for her. Clearly the spell didn't blend just the hairs, but the magical signatures attached to the hairs. This meant that Harry didn't have to worry about trying to figure out what characteristics a person who looked halfway between she and Archie would have. More importantly, however, it meant she didn't have to try and simulate the impossible task of creating a unique magical signature that coded for the physical characteristics she needed. The spell took care of that by blending the signatures instead of trying to create a whole new one, and it also consolidated the two signatures into a Polyjuice-friendly package. One she got the hang of the spell, all Harry would have to do is find an ingredient to make the potion semi-permanent.

Smiling down at her extensive notes on the spell she was about to attempt, Harry ran through the instructions once more, then went to find Archie. He would definitely want to se this.

She bumped into her mother upon leaving the Lab, and the beautiful redhead smiled with pleased surprise at the sight of her.

"Harry, you're surfacing rather early today, aren't you?" Lily asked teasingly.

Harry smiled in acknowledgement—it was only four o'clock in the afternoon, and even on the weekends it was true that Harry was rarely seen before dinnertime at six. "I'm going to find Archie. Have you seen him?"

Lily pursed her lips delicately in consideration, "I think he and Sirius were going to the Hogsmede branch of Zonko's today to check on the Marauder sales. They had to run a few errands first, though, and they only left about an hour ago, so you could probably catch up with them if you flooed directly to the Three Broomsticks."

Harry hesitated, but really, what else did she have to do? It would be somewhat suspicious if she told Lily she couldn't talk to Archie about what she needed him for in public or around Sirius. Also, it wasn't likely that Madam Rosmerta would recognize her from the one time Snape had brought her through the Three Broomsticks' floo, so there was no reason she couldn't go to Zonko's to see her cousin and uncle. She really should take more of an interest in the Marauder line anyway. Archie loved pranks, after all, and it would help her credibility as him if she was at least up to date about her family's latest joke products. "Okay," Harry said decisively, "I'll go meet them there. Thanks, mom."

"Sure, darling," Lily said, adding, "Oh, could you pick me up something from Honeydukes while you're in Hogsmede?"

"Of course," Harry said, "More ice mice?"

Lily smiled a bit helplessly, "I don't know what's gotten into me lately, but the last couple of weeks I've just been craving the stuff. You don't mind? I just need a few more boxes and then I'm sure I won't want any more…"

Harry nodded agreeably, well aware that Lily had been saying that she only wanted a 'few more boxes' of ice mice for a good three weeks. Poor James was heading to Honeydukes every other day it seemed, so Harry would try to get a bunch of the squeaky little sweets this time to hold Lily over until she got through this strange craving of hers.

She grabbed her trusty red-velvet moneybag, and with a speed only magic could engineer, Harry stepped out of the fireplace and into Hogsmede barely five minutes later.

The street was packed with shoppers that Saturday afternoon, but Harry ducked and weaved through the crowd with ease. She'd been traipsing through the crowds on Diagon alley for so long now that the masses of people didn't even phase her. She reached Honeydukes in no time and began looking around for the ice mice. It seemed that the owners had re-arranged the shop since she'd last been in, so it took her a few minutes to find her mother's new favorite sweet. The ice mice were now by the window, and in between loading box after box of the sweet into her basket and ignoring the curious looks she was getting from the other customers—none of whom seemed to have ever encountered a person with a healthy taste for ice mice before—Harry happened to glance through the glass at the crowded street. Her eyes were immediately drawn to a wizard who seemed to be parting the crowds with sheer willpower, and Harry resisted the urge to shrink away from the window in sudden alarm.

It was Professor Snape. He was striding purposely down the street, in the direction of what Harry thought might be the apothecary. He stood at least a head over most of the other wizards on the street, but it was his aloof and unapproachable expression that set him apart from everyone else. She stared at him with no small amount of frustration. If she were really who she pretended to be, would she be standing here, denied the right to cross the street and strike up a conversation with her mentor? Better yet, if Hogwarts still allowed Halfbloods and Harry could simply be herself, would she perhaps be striding alongside Snape at this very moment, helping him with his summer errands as she soaked up potions expertise and sought advice on her Polyjuice experimentations?

No, Harry shook her head, it was a silly thought. If Snape knew who she really was, he would likely be even less keen on accepting her as his student than he had been in the beginning. He loathed her father more than he did Sirius, after all, and though Harry was hazy on the details, she knew it had something to do with her mother, who had been childhood friends with Snape before going off to AIM. Harry didn't really want to know more than that, though she strongly suspected the hatred had begun when they were all eleven. James met Lily at Kings Cross station when she went to see Snape off to Hogwarts, and immediately declared his passionate love for the pretty red-haired child and proposed marriage, completely ignoring a young Severus Snape's possible prior claim to Lily's affections. Or something. Harry shuddered. It was quite simply too gross to contemplate.

In any case, being herself would probably never have helped in her goal of earning the Professor's academic esteem, and if she had been allowed into Hogwarts in the first place she probably wouldn't be studying Polyjuice Potion at all. Her thoughts were nothing but ungrounded fancy, so she turned from the window and purchased her basket full of ice mice without further consideration of might-have-beens. Harry did check to make sure Snape was still inside the Apothecary before she darted over to Zonko's, however. She really wasn't prepared to have all of her plans explode in her face because of one ill-fated sighting of her notorious green eyes in Rigel Black's familiar face by one of the few men probably shrewd enough to put it all together in an instant given the right information.

Harry entered Zonko's quickly, and immediately spotted her uncle Sirius near the Marauder display cases, surrounded by children of all ages who were eager to meet one of the famed prank legends. Archie stood off to the side, watching with exasperated fondness as his dad played the crowds, hamming it up and sending all the children into delighted fits of laughter. Not that it wasn't completely condescending of her to refer to the kids gathered around her uncle as children, being herself only recently turned twelve, but obsessive public displays of adoration and those who either committed or basked in them had always seemed to Harry to be a bit childish. It wasn't just that she herself hated attention—or perhaps it was. Maybe her own dislike of the lime light had made her look just the tiniest bit down upon anyone who truly enjoyed fame or infamy, as Sirius and James often did for their pranking expertise.

Archie, at least, seemed to share her opinion, as he shook his head with an expression that revealed complete acceptance without any understanding and moved away to look about the shop while Sirius entertained his fans. Harry went over to intercept him.

She tapped him on the shoulder and Archie spun around with an expression that was impatient before he caught sight of her.

"Harry!" Archie blinked, then smiled broadly, "What are you doing in here? My birthday was last week, you know, so it's a little late to be shopping for me."

"Surprise," Harry said mildly, "I wanted to talk to you about something, but you weren't home, so Lily sent me to find you."

Archie lifted an unconvinced brow, "Aunt Lily was out of ice mice again, wasn't she?" His eyes flicked meaningfully toward the Honeydukes bag in her hand, and Harry shrugged helplessly.

"My mother is now a slave to her own strange cravings," Harry said, "Although I really did want to talk to you."

"What about?" Archie asked curiously.

"Our little project," Harry said as softly as she could to still be heard over the din, "I've had a major breakthrough. I think the next stage should be ready before we go back to school."

"Really?" Archie asked, sounding impressed, "You can finish everything in three weeks?"

"As long as what you and I are going to do when we get home works out," Harry said, "Yes."

Archie grinned, "Right on. So as long as you're here, we need to take care of an aspect of your education you've been seriously neglecting."

Harry sighed a bit, "I suppose we do. So tell me what the cutting edge of the pranking business is, Arch."

"I'll do you one better," Archie said, "I'm gong to buy all the basics while we're here and explain them, then when you get to school you'll know what to do—and you'll have to do something this year, Harry. The first year I can say I'm settling in, but this year you have to cause some mayhem in my name or my dad will think I'm abandoning the family traditions."

Harry winced. She still felt pretty bad for inadvertently messing up Archie and Sirius' relationship. "Okay," Harry said, "I know what most of this stuff is already—I might not participate, but I have been a member of this family for a decade or so. Just go over the new stuff with me and pick out the ones I'll need."

Archie happily agreed. Twenty minutes later Harry and Archie were laden with everything from all-purpose pranking tape to ever-changing fabric dye. They'd even picked up a few of the Marauders' newest product, which had been officially dubbed the Barrier Button. The only thing Harry firmly declined was dung bombs. She still couldn't stand the things.

"But all of this stuff is just the accessories that make pulling off a prank easier," Archie had cautioned her before they proceeded to the checkout stand, "A good prank isn't tossing a stink pellet at someone or turning their food blue. The best pranks are original, creative, and remarkable, and that comes from the prankster. It's about finding obscure spells that no one imagined could be used in comical situations, or about using mundane objects in a way that is so hilarious people tell their children about it. If you aren't going to really try, don't bother pranking anyone, okay? I mean it, Harry. I'd rather be known as a stick in the mud than a copycat prankster without class or finesse."

Harry scowled slightly, "Yeah, I'll try not to embarrass you with my inexpertise in this area, cousin."

"Much obliged," Archie grinned, "Now lets get this stuff paid for so we can drag Dad away from his adoring fans. I think his head is blown quite big enough for one day."

That evening, Harry asked her parents if she could sleepover at Archie's house and the two of them holed up in Archie's bedroom where Harry explained the finer points of the spell.

"So we have to do it twice, right?" Archie said, "Once for a boy and once for a girl, if we're sticking to the plan where neither of us actually change our gender."

Harry nodded firmly. Definitely they would be sticking to that plan. "Ready?" she asked, face alight with excitement. They were just so close.

Archie nodded, "Let's do it."

They each plucked a hair from their heads and placed them into the correct positions in the runic circle Harry had drawn in temporary chalk on Archie's bedroom floorboards. All she knew about runes was what she'd picked up from doing Flint's OWL-level Ancient Runes homework for a year, but the book on the blending spell had very helpfully included a diagram of the required circle, so Harry had simply copied it out onto the floor. Her understanding of the runes was good enough to be able to tell that they at least weren't summoning demons or making blood sacrifices, so Harry wasn't terribly worried about using a runic configuration she didn't fully understand.

Once the hairs were in place, Harry sealed the circle and began the chain of wand movements she'd memorized that would channel the spell properly through her wand. More importantly, at least for Harry who wasn't exactly familiar with the theory behind the magic she was attempting, she concentrated her will very strongly on the desired outcome of the spell. She willed—read 'asked nicely'—her magic to act as the spell required and blend the magical signatures of the two hairs in the circle. When the long chain of wand movements was complete, Harry waved her wand in a pattern that mimicked the rune for 'man,' which would indicate a preference for a male result, and intoned the words of the spell carefully and clearly.

"Miscetis Essentiae."

Harry stiffened as the spell began to work. She could feel the magic course through her, like no spell she'd ever attempted. Instead of a small stream of magic being drawn from her outer core, it was as if the spell had forced a floodgate to open at the very heart of her inner core. The magic came pouring out of her. It flooded the runic circle she was standing over until the chalk lines lit up with an eerie glow, as if the magic within its boundaries was so strong it had to be manifested in a physical outlet. And still the spell demanded more. Harry could actually feel her magical core draining steadily, and when the feeling did not stop after a moment or two, Harry became slightly alarmed. The spell had her in its grip at that point, however, so there was nothing she could do except grit her teeth and keep her will focused on the proper outcome, so that at least the magic would not be wasted.

The runes began changing before Harry's eyes as magic continued to fill the circle. They shifted and transformed, faster and faster until they blurred, and Harry's limited knowledge of the art couldn't make heads or tales of the process. Was this supposed to happen? Harry had no idea, but it was both mesmerizing and terrifying, like watching a great majestic dragon being just barely contained by its keepers. It was awe-inspiring, but there was an element of danger always present, because if at any time the magic found a weakness in either the circle or Harry herself, she knew instinctively that it would break free of its constraints and roam free, wild and at the current levels devastating. Harry held firm, but in the back of her mind was the idea that runic magics were definitely not things to be messed with.

It was her good fortune that the runic circle she'd copied had been a good one and held the magic firmly in the desired form until the spell's processes were complete. The runes settled after a final burst of light, and where there had been two hairs in the circle there was now one hair, innocent and completely unextraordinary despite the sheer amount of magic that had gone into the spell. The final phase of the spell dissolved the runic sphere completely, as if it had never been there. Harry blinked, thinking that this must be why the book made no mention of what kinds of material to draw the circle with—clearly the medium didn't matter, as it was consumed by the spell in any case.

Archie reached forward to pick up the hair carefully, saying, "It's almost anti-climactic, looking at this tiny strand of hair after all that."

Harry smiled tiredly in response. Her limbs felt heavy and weak, while at the same time her head felt lighter than the air around her. Was this magical over-exertion? It was terribly disorienting, she thought idly. "I don't feel very well," Harry said out loud.

Archie peered at her with concern, "Did the spell do something strange to you?"

Harry shook her head, then stilled abruptly when the action made her dizzy, "No, it just took a lot of magic from me, I think."

Archie nodded, "I could feel it even from over where I was watching. Do you need a Pepper-up Potion? I think Dad has one in the downstairs bathroom."

Harry was going to decline, but a good look at her core with her magical senses had her reconsidering. What was once a ball of fire surrounded by writhing snake-like tendrils was now unrecognizable. There were a few stray coils of magic hanging like loose skin around her inner core. Usually her true core was a tightly-compressed ball of fire and superheated gas, not unlike a miniature sun, but now it looked like a weakly spinning sphere of magical glitter. Just the barest specks of magical power swirled around and around in a lazy way, and the snakes that were supposed to hide the true core from view were just resting, as if exhausted, in suspension above her pitifully drained core. Already, she could feel her core working quickly to replenish itself. She felt the generation of more magic like hot internal combustion in her chest, but even as fast as it was rejuvenating itself, it had never been quite so depleted.

"Yeah, I think I'd better take one," Harry said, a little uneasy at how low her magic levels had gotten without her control. Even in the midst of the Sleeping Sickness, Harry didn't remember ever being this pressed for magic. Still, it looked like the spell had worked.

Archie ran and grabbed the Pepper-up Potion for Harry, who felt immediately better, if not fully recovered, after taking it.

"So do you think it worked?" Archie asked.

Harry grinned a bit, "Only one way to find out. Want to test it now?"

Archie nodded eagerly and Harry hauled herself up to root around in the overnight bag she'd brought with her. She pulled out the small vial of Polyjuice potion she'd taken from one of the many control batches she'd been making over the summer and held it out to Archie. He put the hair in and watched with badly concealed impatience as the mixture turned a deep blue-grey. A mixture, she presumed, of the electric-blue Archie's hair usually turned the potion and the deep charcoal grey her own hair normally effected.

"Bottoms up," Archie said, and he tipped the dose into his mouth as quickly as possible.

Harry watched carefully as Archie transformed, but he didn't seem to be in any more discomfort than what was usually experienced with Polyjuice. As usual, Archie's face began to slowly look more like Harry's did, but unlike in the past, it reached a certain point and then…stopped. Harry cocked her head consideringly.

Archie's hair hadn't changed at all, except for perhaps becoming messier. The color would stay the same and the theoretical magical signature didn't code for hairstyle, so Archie had kept his short-but-shaggy haircut. His eyes were also the same color, which gave Harry the hope that the girl version of their fused physical characteristics would have grey eyes as well. She was really getting tired of the contacts. His face had become just the tiniest bit more delicate than it already was. His chin was a tad bit more rounded, and his nose was a hair smaller, his eyes just a bit bigger. His eyebrows were a little thinner and his top lip curved just a tiny bit more than usual. Archie's eyelashes were perhaps noticeably thicker, but Harry hadn't ever paid enough attention to her cousin's eyelashes to be able to say for sure.

All in all, Archie looked like himself, only…different. It was hardly noticeable, Harry thought, though as she looked at him she was having trouble remembering just what exactly was so different about his old face. She started the smile slowly.

"This…is going to work," she said, taking the full effect in by stepping back a step, "Yes. Archie, you look like yourself."

"Isn't that…bad?" Archie asked, walking over to his bathroom to take a look in the mirror.

"No, it's good," Harry said, "Because this means that we look enough alike already that changing half-way into one anther doesn't dramatically alter the way we appear. It means that after the take the potion, no one will be able to say with surety that we've somehow changed our appearances."

"Does this mean we can nix the whole 'potion regimen' idea?" Archie asked, "Because honestly the idea of slowly over the course of forever changing our appearance seems overly complicated. For one, it would be difficult to conceal all those different potions, not to mention hard to keep it all straight without you there to differentiate the doses. For another—what's the need? We haven't seen our friends since early July, and two months is probably enough time to dull their memories of us—or at least enough time that they will assign any lingering confusion about our appearances with the time we've been away. Also, if we take the potion before we see our friends but after we leave our parents, our family won't see us till winter break. They'll be more likely to notice the difference, but we can blame it on puberty. A lot can change in five months."

Harry stopped to consider this for a moment. "I suppose…that makes sense. I'll have to run the spell again for a girl to make sure the changes aren't too extreme for me either. Actually, I'll have to run the spell three more times once to test the girl version of our hybrid and then once more for each of us with the modified Polyjuice recipe." Harry frowned, "That might take a while, depending on how long it takes my magic to recover from the spell casting, but if everything goes smoothly…I guess it would work if we took the potions as you said, just before we see our friends but after we say goodbye to our parents."

Archie grinned, "This is going to be so cool. Like being in costume all the time, only no one else knows! Will we have to keep taking the potion as we get older?"

Harry nodded, "Yes, we will. Well, we don't have to, but it will look strange if we never change at all after this year. So each summer we'll re-do the test to reflect our aging, okay?"

"Sounds great," Archie said, "And you've got the modifications for the potion all worked out?"

"I think so," Harry said "Though of course it's only theory until I test it."

"That's just so comforting," Archie muttered half heartedly, "Still, I'm really impressed we've even gotten this far. The only bad part about this is that no one will ever know how awesome we are."

Harry smiled ruefully, "And that's the best case scenario."

[HpHpHp]

Harry had one more thing to do before school started. It was this that found her several times a week in the Potter Library, researching something she'd never really paid much attention to before, despite training in the Healing arts.

Nutrition and Fitness.

If the night of the fire had taught Harry nothing else, it was of her fragility. Never in her life had she been so aware of her own physical weakness, helplessness, and mortality all at once. It had scared her, demoralized her, and then it had inspired her. She took it as a lesson well learned, and before the school year started she was determined to get started on a program that would help her slowly start overcoming the limitations of both her female form and her comfortable upbringing. Harry vowed to train until she was fit enough to chase and catch a pickpocket, and to learn to defend herself with and without a wand, so that she would never be put in a situation where she didn't know how to keep herself safe. What if Leo hadn't come? Worse, what if someone else had been depending on her that night, and freezing up under attack had put more than just her in immediate peril? Harry couldn't afford to let something like that happen again, and since disasters were notoriously hard to predict and therefore avoid, the only solution was to make herself into someone who could handle herself in the midst of danger.

So her new side project was to become capable in the most basic meaning of the word, and the start of her plans for getting into shape revolved around what Mrs. Hurst had said to her.

Apparently, she needed to eat more protein, because being a lazy vegetarian was stunting her growth. Harry would be the first to admit that she wasn't a very good vegetarian. She avoided meat more because she didn't really care for it than for any misplaced sympathies for her fellow barnyard animals. She also didn't exactly take great pains to make up for the lack of meat in her diet, as true vegetarians were supposed to, so Harry couldn't say she was terribly surprised her slight stature was due in part to her diet. Hadn't she thought when she started Hogwarts that keeping a vegetarian diet would be a great surface reasoning for anyone wondering down the road why she was smaller than the other boys in her class? Unfortunately, however, the 'excuse' turned out to be a little too close to the truth and she actually was going to make herself smaller than the others in her class—the other girls, that is.

Perhaps it was time for the truth to become a pretense, Harry thought wryly, that would be a nice change. And yet, it was probably the best plan. She would begin eating meat once more in secret, despite not having much taste for the stuff, but to everyone else she would remain a vegetarian, to explain her slight stature in case she ended up her mother's height, which was a rather modest 5 foot 6 inches.

In addition to the changes in her diet, Harry had been researching various exercise regimens. Mostly, this consisted of going through her mother's Witch Weekly magazines until she found the weekly workout and trying to find one that didn't sound ridiculous. She didn't exactly see herself jazzercising her abs into shape in the middle of the Slytherin common room. Even Pansy would be too embarrassed to speak to her. Eventually, Harry decided she needed to talk to a professional.

With this in mind, Harry flooed to her uncle Remus' two-bedroom condo in London one afternoon in mid-August to get some expert advice.

"Uncle Remus?" she called quietly into the small house, "Are you home?"

A moment later a faint voice came up from the direction of the basement stairs. While none of the surrounding condos had basements, Remus' condition required him by law to keep a secure holding cell in his home. He didn't ever actually use the 'cell' in the basement, preferring to spend his full moons with Sirius and James at Grimmauld Place under the influence of the Wolfsbane Potion, so he had transformed his basement into a gym instead.

"Harry?" Remus called back, and though his tone was questioning, Harry knew he knew who she was. Very little confused a werewolf's senses, and their hearing was particularly keen, "Be right up!"

"Don't," Harry said, "I'm coming down."

She descended the stairs and passed through the barred gate that separated the stairs from the rest of the basement, creating the 'cell' when the gate was secured and warded. The basement was victim to a very obvious expansion charm, and was several times wider than the condo itself. It hosted various sets of weights and several different machines that must have been muggle in origin, as Harry had never seen their like outside of Remus' basement. Machines you ran on, machines with chords tied to weights that you pulled or pushed on in various positions, and a good third of the gym was dedicated to a mat-padded sparring floor. Harry knew most of the machines were gifts from Sirius, who as a pureblood wizard with naturally slim genetics found his friend's gym hobby to be terribly amusing, but they all looked well worn, so clearly Remus made good use of them no matter how ingenuine the intent behind them was.

Remus set down the weight he was squatting with and grinned a bit lopsidedly at her. "What's up, Harry?" he panted, wiping his face with a nearby towel, "It's a rare day for you to go out of your way to find someone."

Harry blinked, a bit taken aback by that statement. Was she really so distant from her family?

"I actually came here to ask you for a favor," Harry said, a bit apologetically, "I feel kind of bad about it now, though. Do I really never come to see you?"

Remus shrugged easily, "I didn't mean it like that. There's no need for us to seek one another out, since we see each other nearly every night for dinner at the very least. I wasn't rebuking, just commenting. What can I do for you, Harry?"

Harry glanced around the gym, "I've been thinking lately that I'm not very fit. Since you're the only person I know who exercises seriously, I figured you'd have some ideas of where to start."

Remus raised his eyebrows, "You want to get in shape? Isn't Quidditch enough? I know you enjoy it, and it would be easier to stick to sports than to try and plan a weight-regimen for someone your age. It's important not to damage the bones or muscles in the back by adding too much weight too soon at your age."

"Quidditch is good," Harry said, "And while I do want to be physically stronger, I was actually thinking something along the lines of self-defense training. That's good exercise, isn't it?"

"It is," Remus said slowly, "And good to know in general for a…well, girl." He smiled apologetically, but Harry nodded in understanding. "What brought this on, though?" her uncle asked, "Did something happen?"

Harry shook her head, hoping Remus wasn't paying enough attention to her heart rate to catch the lie, "I just read something about how girls were at an increased risk for predators of all kinds starting at around twelve or thirteen. So I thought it would be a good thing to learn now, rather than not learn it and wish I had later. Also, I really do need to start exercising."

Remus considered her quietly for a moment. He seemed to be sizing her up, weighing her request against his better judgment, and Harry felt herself grow unexpectedly uneasy at his contemplation. She had honestly never considered that he might refuse, for all that she had phrased the request politely. After all, why wouldn't he want to teach her self-defense? It was a good idea, and Remus liked spending time with her…didn't he? Now she was thinking perhaps she had gotten a little too used to her family's infinite generosity and care. Maybe she was taking more things for granted than she realized.

Finally, Remus said, "If I agree to teach you, Harry, I want you to understand what you'll be getting into. I'm not saying this to discourage you, but I've never been under the impression that you..." he trailed off, clearly uncertain of what he wanted to say, "What I mean is that you've always been very focused on some things and very apathetic about most other things. Learning a self-defense style takes a lot of dedicated effort, and I'm just wondering if you've got the…focus to commit the time and energy necessary."

Harry took a moment to respond, "I understand what you're saying, Uncle Remus, and I agree with a lot of it. I admit I have a tendency to devote my energy with extreme prejudice to the things that interest me most. What I would say, however, is that fitness and in particular self-defense has recently become something that interests me greatly. I honestly think that your teachings would not be wasted on me now, thought they might have been if you'd tried teaching me as recently as a few weeks ago."

Remus had that concerned look again, but he didn't pry further. Instead, he said, "If that's what you think, then I will teach you. It's important to realize that this cannot be done in the little time we have before you go back to America, however. For now what I will do is design a regimen for you to follow once you are back at school, and when you come home in December we can evaluate your progress, okay?"

Harry nodded seriously. Remus was speaking to her as a student, not as a niece, and she instinctively reacted with respect, "Yes, sir."

Remus nodded in acceptance of the new dynamic, "We will begin immediately. I will start by teaching you a series of stretches and strengthening exercises. Learning to throw a punch won't help you if there's nothing behind it. I'll figure out what style, if any, I'll try to teach you tonight, so tomorrow morning report back here at six am and I'll let you know what I've decided while you join me on my morning run."

"Yes, sir," Harry said, feeling a bit overwhelmed. She had been right to come to Remus with this, she thought, but she was a little afraid of how quickly he was taking to his role as fitness coach.

"What are you waiting for, then?" Remus asked, "Go home and change into something you can sweat in."

Harry went.

She spent all afternoon under Remus' expert tutelage. Many would assume because of Remus' shabby and often-tired appearance that he did not take very good care of himself. Those that knew him, however, knew the truth. Remus had spent his life fighting the wolf within him, and that battle was waged on multiple plains. Remus was extremely well versed in multiple academic subjects, because studying hard in his youth helped him become mentally disciplined enough to hold the wolf at bay with his mind. His body, too, had to be conditioned to withstand the strain of both the monthly transformations and the wolf itself, which constantly sought control over the wizard's physical body as well as over his mind during the full moon. There was a reason werewolves often died young and tired. The wolf ate away at them one full moon at a time until there was nothing left. All the Wolfsbane potion in the world would not help if Remus did not have the will and the strength to fight the wolf at every turn. He was strong in mind, body, and spirit, but this was no accident—Remus had made it so.

He showed her how to limber and stretch both to reduce the chances of injury and to increase flexibility, of which Harry quickly discovered she had none. When he found she could barely press the weighted bar on the dumbbells, Remus set her a series of arm and wrist strengthening exercises that she was to do every morning, noon, and night with a set of balls that looked like Medi-minis, only heavier. They seemed to grow heavier still as she went through her lifting, curling, and clenching exercises, but Remus assured Harry that it was merely an illusion of her own weakness. She was greatly reassured by this.

Remus made a rather good teacher, Harry found. He explained things before he expected her to do them, and he corrected her firmly but with boundless patience. He also didn't just stand there watching her work. He did all of the stretches and exercises himself, which Harry found helped her keep her pace and motivation up. When Harry's arms were shaking from the number of push-ups, pull-ups, and other various arm-torturing exercises she was instructed to perform, Remus let her go home for dinner with the promise that he would have some light leg weights for her to wear on their run the next day.

She groaned at the pain involved from merely lifting a hand to the floo pot in Remus' living room. Still, Harry could not regret her decision to do this. All she had to do was think back to the night she stood frozen and helpless in the arms of death, and her determination sparked violently anew. She would see this torture through, and she would never be a victim again.

[HpHpHp]

The rest of the summer went by fast in a blur of activity. Before she knew it she had gotten school supplies, switched them in secret with Archie, said goodbye to her friends in the Rogue, Polyjuiced into her cousin for what would be (hopefully) the last time, and arrived at Kings Cross Station with Sirius for the start of her next year at Hogwarts.

She said goodbye to Sirius with as much good cheer as she knew Archie would have, if he were here and not back at the Potter residence, waiting to go to the airport for his flight to America.

"Be careful this year," Sirius said before she got onto the train, "No curing mysterious sicknesses or incurring life debts from dubious politicians. Just have fun, okay? And for Merlin's sake, go out for Quidditch."

Harry glanced awkwardly away, "It's just not the same without Harry there. We were always a team."

"The best chaser-beater team since the Prewitt twins, I'd say," Sirius winked at her, "But try out anyway. Who knows, maybe you'll find someone just as challenging to play with as Harry."

"Okay, Dad," Harry said, mustering up a big smile, "Love you."

"See you in December, sport," Sirius said, pulling her into a strong hug.

"See you," she smiled, stepping back. She waved and headed off toward the train, pausing to look one last time over her shoulder and smile reassuringly at Sirius before she shut the door behind her.

She ducked into a boy's bathroom and closed a cubical door behind her firmly. In her pocket, next to Archie's miniaturized trunk, was a vial of modified Polyjuice potion that Harry's fingers were itching to uncork.

It had taken her several days of straight research (in between breaks for Remus' merciless training exercises) to find an ingredient to add to the Polyjuice recipe that would make it permanent but also reversible. It turned out that the key wasn't in adding an ingredient to the actual recipe, but to the cauldron while the potion was being prepared. At first Harry didn't see the difference, because if you added something to the cauldron while you were making a potion, then surely you were adding it to the potion, but in the case of certain additives, you could add without adding, if that made sense.

Amber was the key. She had never used stones in potion making before, which was perhaps why it had taken her so long to come up with the solution, but once she started looking into it, she found that amber was a stone of permanence. The ancient Egyptian wizards used to place amber stones inside caskets, because the magical energies the stone gave off preserved the body and ensured that it would forever remain whole. Gems, like many things in the world, were excellent magical lodestones. They absorbed natural magical energies from the earth, but because each type of stone had different properties, each stone shaped the wild magic a different way once it was absorbed.

It was similar to the way a witch or wizard's magical core shaped magic in different ways depending on the wizard's personality, physical condition, disposition, etc. Each type of stone imbued the wild magic it absorbed over time with different tendencies as it shaped the magic—passively, of course. Stones were not like wizards, who could overcome their natural tendencies toward shaping magic with simple intent and willpower. The magic in an amber stone would be similar to the magic in all other amber stones, because the nature of the stones were similar, and that was the entire determining factor in how the magic from the stone was shaped.

When a stone was added to the cauldron while a potion was brewing in it, the magic interacting in the cauldron drew out the magic stored in the stone. It was much like what she'd done with the modified Weightless Draft, in that it was a matter of adding shaped magic instead of imbuing the potion with only raw magic, only the shaped magic came from the stone, not from her. She couldn't have accomplished the same effect with her own magic because unlike with the imbued Wingardium Leviosa spell, she didn't know how to shape it into the sort of magic that would cause permanence on the scale she needed. The stone, which was dipped in a protective potion to protect its physical form, didn't interact with the potion in any way except to release its magic into it. The type of magic released depended on the stone. Amber was not actually made of minerals from the ground, as other gemstones were, but was in fact tree sap which had fossilized over millions of years. Its magic, when included in a ritual, could lend anything from power to protection to the wizard invoking it, depending on the controlling runes involved. In a potion, however, it almost always increased the length of time the potion was effective—exponentially.

If her calculations were correct, the Polyjuice she had brewed on one pea-sized stone of amber should hold the ingredients which effected the reverse transformation in stasis for a little less than a year, thereby keeping the drinker in the transformed state for at least that long. Which was perfect, because she and Archie were going to re-do the blending spell every year and re-take the potion anyway. The only down side was that, because the potion could only be reversed by waiting for it to wear off, they would be unable to resume their original appearances immediately if the need arose. Not that she thought such a need was likely.

Probably the reason no one had done serious studies in the use of amber in Polyjuice was because so little increased the active time by so much that it was impractical for anyone who didn't want to remain transformed for months at a time. Really, who would want to be someone else for that long? The need was for a Polyjuice that worked for three, maybe four hours at a time, not three or four months.

Unless of course you were prepared to lie both explicitly and implicitly to everyone you knew for several years, in which case amber was the perfect solution to the Polyjuice problem.

She fingered the vial nervously. She had waited a good fifteen minutes for the Polyjuice she took to look like Archie for Sirius' benefit to wear off, and now she was ready to take the modified version. Once she drank it, there would be no going back for an entire year. With one last, deep breath as Harry Potter, she dropped in the blended hair she'd prepared and knocked the dose back in one gulp. Rigel Black, Hogwarts second-year, stepped out of the cubicle a few moments later, grimacing at the too-familiar taste in her mouth and moving toward the mirror to inspect her new image.

She really hadn't changed that much. Her face was perhaps a little sharper, less delicate in the minutest details. Her eyes were unequivocally grey now, the exact shade that Archie's were, though perhaps a shade lighter than the contacts she wore last year had been. They now had that indescribable sheen to them that always set the Black's apart, though they weren't quite the silver that the Malfoy's were known for. Her bottom lip was a bit thinner. Her hair, to her secret pleasure, looked significantly more manageable than she remembered it being, despite the fact that it was now grown out a bit from the close-cropped curls she'd had at the beginning of the previous year. She also felt slightly taller, but that was probably wishful thinking.

All in all, Rigel thought she looked noticeably different, but not unrecognizable. More importantly, she now looked exactly like Archie did, while still remaining a girl beneath her clothes. That meant she didn't have to worry about many of the things she'd worried about last year. She could try out for Quidditch and not worry that if she made it Sirius would want a picture of his son in his Slytherin robes. She could see people who knew her as Harry and still pretend to be Archie—as long as she didn't have to pretend for long. Most important of all, Rigel Black was now a distinctly different person, at least in appearance, from Harry Potter, and the differences would only increase as she grew older. In a couple of years it would be impossible for anyone to trace Rigel Black back to her without information that only she and Archie knew.

Rigel left the bathroom to find her friends. The train had long since started moving, so she was fairly sure she would find them all settled into the same compartment. She found them without much effort and slid open the compartment door after knocking politely.

She was met with various expressions of exasperated relief from Draco, Pansy, Millicent, and Theo, while Blaise just smirked superiorly and said, "See? I told you Rigel must be on the train. He was probably chatting with those Gryffindor cohorts of his."

Draco scowled in mild annoyance, "You went and saw those lion-hearted idiots before you came to see us?"

Rigel smiled uncomfortably, "Well, I'm here now. Good to see you all."

"And you as well, Rigel," Pansy said, "Come and sit. Tell us about your summer. You look different, did you do something new with your hair today?"

Rigel took the window seat beside Pansy and across from Draco, "If wetting it before combing counts as different, yes. As for my summer, nothing much to tell. Draco's birthday party was really the highlight of my break."

Draco grinned in a way that Rigel knew meant he'd forgiven her for being late and worrying him, "As it should be. So, excited for the new year?"

Rigel shrugged, "I suppose, though it won't really be much different from last year."

"Except for the part where we aren't the fresh meat anymore," Millicent said.

"And the part where everyone falls prey to a mysterious illness that our friend Rigel just as mysteriously cures," Theo added. He raised his brows at the mild glares and eye-rolls he got from the rest of the compartment, "I'm just saying."

"You're all forgetting the most important part of this year," Draco said grandly. The look on his face was the one he wore when he was about to say something outrageously self-important just to get a rise out of everyone else. Rigel was of the opinion that Draco thought being a Malfoy was in itself a sort of inside joke that he could play on the uninitiated. The Slytherins all knew better than to take him seriously by now, but anyone else became affronted and/or insulted by Draco's over-the-top narcissism. Their offense only seemed to fuel him.

"What's that, Draco?" Pansy asked solemnly.

"Last year Terence Higgs graduated," Draco said brightly, "Which means that this year I'm going to be starting seeker. I expect you all to cheer with gusto."

"Don't you have to try out again?" Millicent pointed out.

"The tryouts are a formality," Draco said, "The only position that really needs filling this year is beater. Derrick is banned from extracurriculars because his grades fell below the cut off last semester."

"Peregrine Derrick?" Pansy asked, "I wasn't under the impression that he was particularly thick."

"He's not," Draco said, "A lot of the starters fell behind in their school work last semester, though. Flint was scheduling practices almost impossibly often, though somehow the captain still had the best grades on the team. He's inhuman."

"Beater?" Rigel said, "Will there be a lot of people trying for the position?"

Draco fixed her with hopeful eyes, "Interested? You should try out. It would be great to have you on the team, and you're an excellent flyer when you don't have a broken wrist to hide."

Rigel smiled slightly, "Maybe I will."

"All right, I'm going to stop you two before the Quidditch talk goes any further," Millicent said, "I am not about to sit here and talk sports for the next three hours."

"Seconded," Blaise said lazily, "Let's talk about something more interesting."

"Like what?" Theo said, "Politics?"

There were murmurs of interested agreement at the suggestion, and Harry smiled wryly to herself as even Draco gave an amiable assent to the change of subject. Only Slytherin produced twelve-year-olds who thought politics more interesting than Quidditch.

Then again, for the children of those witches and wizards who lived and breathed according to politics, it was a lot less like theoretical ethics and a lot more like gossip.

"Anyone else feel like there was something really big supposed to be going on this summer that…didn't?" Theo began tentatively.

The others exchanged looks of dark agreement.

"It was some sort of legislation," Millicent said, "I know that much from listening to my parents talk while they think I'm absorbed in my reading. It was supposed to be pushed through this summer, but instead it was taken off the agenda."

"Not completely, though," Pansy added, "It was tabled for revision, at least that's the official story. Unofficially I believe the party reconsidered the timing of the proposed legislation and opted to wait for fairer weather in which to introduce it."

"But what was the legislation?" Theo asked, concerned, "It must have been the SOW Party's if they decided to wait—it's no secret that Dumbledore's credibility and base of support swelled after the curing of the sickness, so I'm not surprised the Party would hesitate before making any major moves against Dumbledore's faction, but what was it going to be?"

"It's big," Millicent said, "Very big. And highly anti-muggle blood, I believe."

"Aldon said something last semester…" Pansy trailed off, looking hesitant, "I thought he was teasing me, but this summer I caught my mother going through the books of Gold and Silver, making a list of names. Male names."

Draco frowned, but Theo just shrugged, "What's so shocking about that? I mean, all the society mothers make lists like that for their daughters at some point. I'd be more surprised if your mother didn't have one already."

Pansy bit her lip, "I would agree, except that I saw a few of the names before she folded the list away. They didn't belong to purebloods."

Blaise finally spoke up, "All of you are correct for the most part. There is very controversial legislation being cooked up by the SOW Party, and they were indeed planning to introduce it this summer. It also has a lot to do with why your mother was looking up half-blood lineages, Pansy. Part of the legislation is a Marriage Law that severely disadvantages those of muggle blood. There is more to it than that, of course, and there are revisions and additions being made to it even now, but that is the heart of the situation."

"How do you know this, Blaise?" Millicent demanded, "Even your mother wouldn't spill Party secrets to the uninitiated."

"One hears things," Blaise said vaguely, "But I'm not the only one. Rigel doesn't look surprised at all by this, does he? Grimly resigned, perhaps, but certainly not surprised."

The others turned to look at her, and Rigel winced internally at the slightly betrayed look Pansy in particular was giving her.

"You knew of this, Rigel? You knew there was going to be new marriage legislation and you didn't say anything?" the blonde girl asked, the hurt thinly masked by stiff effort.

Rigel nodded slowly, "I was aware of the possibility of such a law, yes, but I didn't tell you for several reasons. One is that I didn't expect the law to pass, particularly after the SOW Party's plans concerning the sleeping sickness did not exactly pan out the way they expected. Another is that the law will mean only what you want it to, for purebloods like—us." She had almost said 'like you,' but luckily caught herself in time, "There is nothing for you to worry about, Pansy. Your mother was likely just exploring all options, but the law would not require purebloods to marry halfbloods by any stretch. It is quite the opposite."

Blaise raised his eyebrows consideringly, "You are even more informed than I'd realized. I was able to glean only the bare bones of the legislation, but you speak as though you've read through a copy of it at your leisure."

Rigel shrugged uncomfortably, "This legislation will have far worse consequences for my family than it will for any of yours. I'm not saying this to make you guys uncomfortable or anything, but it's the truth. Some of the people I hold closest to me have muggle blood. Because of this, my family had a more vested interest in the proposed legislation than perhaps yours did. I didn't want to bring it up when it might make you all feel sorry for me or resent me for complaining when you yourselves had nothing to do with it."

Draco finally spoke up, "I understand that, Rigel, and I don't think any of us blame you for not wanting to talk about it, especially when it was only a possibility, not a certainty, but there is something I don't understand. You said the SOW Party had plans concerning the sleeping sickness. What did you mean by that?"

Rigel gazed sadly at her friend, "You already know what I mean, don't you? I could see it in your eyes when people were falling ill. You had a vague idea that the sickness wasn't accidental, didn't you?"

Draco looked away, an uncomfortable frown on his face, "I can't believe that my father, all of our fathers and mothers, would knowingly endanger their Heirs for strategic gain. Even if that's what makes sense politically, I know that my parents would never do that to me."

Pansy spoke up tentatively, "But we never were in danger, Draco. I know, I know how close it was for you, but the only reason you became so ill was because they unexpectedly switched the ingredients in the sustainment potions to something you were allergic to. Your parents would never have foreseen that, if they did in fact know about the sickness." She looked a little disturbed, "Somehow it makes too much sense. Like I always knew but never wanted to admit it to myself. Rigel, I think you're right. The SOW Party did have something to do with the sickness."

"Of course," Millicent said slowly, "Yes, because if kids fall sick, Dumbledore loses credibility, and Dumbledore's faction is what stands in the way of anti-muggle legislation. If the sickness was as benign as it was intended to be, then no harm comes to us, but the sickness can't be logically traced back to the SOW Party, because all of our parents are big supporters of it and people will assume exactly what Draco did—that parents would never endanger their Heirs. It all fits."

"Except it wasn't as benign as it was supposed to be," Draco said angrily, "You're telling me that I almost died for a piece of legislation to be passed. A piece of legislation that sounds like it has nothing to even do with us. It's just some law about halfbloods getting married, and for that we lived in constant fear for months at Hogwarts. Just pawns in some political maneuver that obviously wasn't well-planned out if it went so horribly wrong that the Heir to the Party's biggest supporter nearly died."

He was breathing heavily, scowling so hard none of them could meet his eyes.

Rigel spoke softly, "Someone made a mistake, Draco, but it wasn't any of us, and it wasn't really your parents, either. They weren't there, so I'm sure they didn't understand how it was when the sickness hit. I'm sure it made a lot of good sense to the Party leaders when it was proposed, if indeed any of them actually knew about it, which we're not sure they did."

"Don't act like it isn't obvious now that it's said," Draco scoffed, "You all read the interview my father gave the day I fell ill. He wasn't worried at all about me, just worried about putting the right spin on the situation."

Rigel bit her lip, wondering how long Draco had kept quiet in loyal denial about these thoughts.

"Exactly, Draco," Pansy said, "He wasn't worried because he knew the sickness wasn't going to harm you, not because he didn't care. When he realized the danger to you, didn't he and your mother come to Hogwarts immediately? Didn't they stay there for days under Quarantine?"

"They were really scared for you, Draco," Rigel added truthfully, "Your father nearly killed me when he realized who had been brewing the potions that caused your allergy. He didn't sleep, and he barely ate a thing. He moved mountains to get Snape home ahead of schedule just on the off chance that the Professor might be able to save you. Don't blame your father for this, Dray. It truly was an accident."

"And you didn't die," Theo put in, "Rigel saved you. I guess that means that you're the reason this legislation was tabled, doesn't it, Rigel? Since you cured the sickness and then turned around to give the credit to Dumbledore, thereby restoring his political clout."

Rigel fidgeted under the others' scrutiny, "I suppose in a round-about way that's true."

Pansy just shook her head, "So you've known at least since you cured the sickness that it was a political move. I did wonder why you made it sound like Snape and Dumbledore had done all the work when anyone asked." She considered Rigel seriously, "We might make a decent politician of you, yet."

"Except he's playing for the wrong side," Millicent pointed out, "I mean, shouldn't we be upset that Rigel foiled the Party's plans? He basically made it so that we all fell sick for nothing."

Draco and Pansy glared at Millicent, but the dark-haired girl just shrugged, "I'm not saying I'm not grateful to Rigel for saving Draco, I'm just pointing out the political technicalities of the suggestion."

"Because the sickness went so wrong, not even the Party can truly blame Rigel for curing it and setting back their plans," Blaise said thoughtfully, "It would be far worse if the Malfoy scion had died, even if it did get the legislation passed. The Party would lose a lot of support if the reason for the sickness got out, as it surely would if the Malfoy's turned on the Party in their justified grief and anger."

"Well, as mercilessly as Blaise just phrased that, it sounds about right," Theo said, "And I for one can't blame Rigel for working against the Party's political agenda if the legislation means bad news for his family. I mean, even the biggest Party supporters understand that family comes before politics and even House loyalties."

The others agreed with various degrees of vehemence, and after that the conversation drifted to other things. All of them were aware of the tentative balance they had achieved, though. They had never brought it up, but Rigel knew her friends had always wondered just who she was loyal to, despite having said repeatedly that she had no interest in politics. As it was now abundantly clear that Rigel both understood and even actively influenced politics when it became necessary, it was much harder for them to act as though she was no different than the rest of them. Thankfully, they were too polite to voice any distain or disgruntlement concerning Rigel's conflicting loyalties. She wasn't sure, however, how long such a situation could last in the face of the ever-thickening political soup that was seeping into their lives as they grew older.

When their true loyalties were eventually called upon, could any of them really remain her friends?

That was a thought for the future, however, so she ignored it. She didn't want to worry about politics just then. Instead, Rigel made a promise to herself that she would not get caught up in anything serious or complicated that year. She wanted to focus on enjoying the friendships she'd formed but neglected the previous year, and on furthering her studies and extracurriculars. This year she wouldn't distance herself from her housemates. She would get to know them in truth, rather than in passing. Rigel told herself she wasn't going to care about anything that happened outside of Hogwarts until June. She would concentrate on her studies and her friends, and actually enjoy herself.

After all, what was the point of risking her very soul for her dream if she didn't even stop to appreciate the fruits of her labor? She was at Hogwarts, for Merlin sake. She, a halfblood, was attending Hogwarts and studying under Professor Snape, the greatest Potion Master that ever lived. Politics could wait. She had good friends and a great opportunity to learn, and she was not going to waste either one.

[HpHpHp]

Their group got off of the train and, instead of following Hagrid, set off toward the carriages for the first time. Rigel had caught glimpses of the carriages the previous year, as they were the same ones used to ferry the third years to Hogsmede, and so could be seen coming and going from the grounds every other month or so. There was something different about them, though, and Rigel couldn't put her finger on what it was until she realized with a horrified jolt that the last time she'd seen these carriages they had been pulling themselves.

Now, however, great black horses with soulless white eyes and wide, leathery wings stood restlessly before the carriages. The horses were thin to the point of unnaturalness, and their heads were shaped more like a small dragon's, long and pointy, than any horse she'd ever seen.

"What are those?" Rigel blurted, stunned into voicing her thoughts abruptly. She got a feeling of unease about the creatures, which only intensified when one of them turned its glittery, white eyes on her and seemed to sniff the air in her direction with interest. She was pretty sure she caught a glimpse of fang, as well.

"What are what?" Pansy said absently, scanning the cue around them and smiling politely at people she knew.

"Those horses pulling the carriages," Rigel said, "They weren't there last year, were they?"

Pansy looked toward the carriages, then back toward Rigel, then back to the carriages, before shaking her head, "There's nothing pulling the carriages, Rigel."

Rigel blinked, then frowned, "You can't see them?"

"Of course she can't," Theo spoke up from behind Rigel, "None of them can, Rigel."

Rigel turned to Theo, who looked upon the skeletal horses with an expression of great distaste. "What do you mean?" she asked, "You can see them, can't you?"

"Yes," Theo said shortly, "I can."

"What are you two talking about?" Draco scowled, looking between them and the carriages with frustrated confusion, "They're horseless carriages."

"No, they aren't," a voice spoke from behind them. It was Aldon Rosier, and his expression was unusually serious, "Those beasts are called thestrals, Black. You aren't imagining them, most people just can't see them."

Edmund Rookwood, who was standing behind Rosier beside a blank-faced Alesana Selwyn, nodded his head in agreement, adding, "A fact they should be thankful for."

Rigel narrowed her eyes, "But why—"

"Come on, Aldon," Rookwood interrupted her, "Let's get inside."

The three of them went to climb into a carriage, and Rigel, suddenly possessed with a fierce curiosity, started after them.

"See you at the feast," she said quickly to her friends, before jogging over to jump into the carriage with Rosier, Rookwood, and Selwyn.

The upperclassmen looked at her with raised eyebrows and expectant expressions. Rigel flushed slightly at her own rudeness, but she had to know.

"Why can only Theo and I see the—the thestrals?" she asked.

Selwyn frowned and opened her mouth, but Rookwood put a hand on her shoulder repressively. "There's no use trying to protect the boy if he can already see them," Rookwood pointed out in his deep, mountain-voice.

"Then why didn't you just tell me?" Rigel asked, trying not to sound petulant.

"Pansy didn't need to hear," Rosier said, gazing at Rigel with an emotion that was hard to unravel. It was something like interest, but tempered with a solemn sort of pity, "She worries about her friends too much. It would only upset her."

Rigel was becoming more and more uneasy the longer they hinted and prevaricated, "Are you going to tell me why, or just make vague generalities until I look it up myself?"

"It's death, okay?" Selwyn snapped, her kohl-rimmed eyes roiling with suppressed emotion, "You can't see a thestral unless you've witnessed death."

"And accepted it," Rookwood said. His voice was sad, but his sharp, half-lidded gaze was directed at Selwyn, not at Rigel. The dark-haired beauty didn't seem to notice as she turned her face to the window and stared, unseeing, across the dark grounds. Rigel felt that she had upset the older girl, but also felt that it would make things worse to try and apologize when she had no idea what Selwyn had gone through to make her sensitive to death.

Rigel herself was taken aback by the idea of a creature that one could only see after being basically traumatized in some way, but she was suddenly grateful that most of her friends couldn't see the thestrals as well. It made her sad for Theo, who was obviously bitter about whatever death he'd seen. She recalled that his mother had died when he was younger, and hoped fervently that that hadn't been the death he experienced. Rigel then remembered that while she had not been there for Aunt Diana's last moments, Archie had, and wondered if he would be able to see the thestrals, too.

"Black," Rosier's voice called her back to the present. She turned to look at him, and was surprised to see the fifth-year almost…hesitate, "Would it be correct to assume that you were unable to see the thestrals last year?"

Rigel nodded, suddenly reminded of her own brush with death over the summer. A man, running through an alley. Blue vest. Blood, so much blood, and a knife that gleamed in the light of a blazing—no. She shook her head slightly, banishing the images. Yes, she had seen a man die. She understood that, accepted it even, but she didn't have to relive it. She had moved past the terror and numb horror of that night. She was training with Remus, and even more on her own, growing faster and stronger so that nothing like that would happen before her eyes again. Never again would she be a witness to death without actively seeking to prevent it.

"Our condolences, Black," Rookwood said softly, finally looking away from Selwyn, who was ignoring the conversation.

"Thanks," Rigel said absently, "What? Oh, no, it wasn't anyone I knew personally. I mean, I just happened to…see it." Blood. Smoke. Fire. Wand. Knife. Rigel blinked hard to dismiss the images that for some reason just would not leave her mind. She obviously hadn't tucked them away securely enough in her mindscape if they flashed across her eyes without her summoning them.

Rosier's gaze sharpened and the interest seemed to win out over what Rigel now recognized as sympathy—or perhaps it really was just pity. "You just happened to see the death of a complete stranger? Do you volunteer at St. Mungo's with your surrogate uncle?"

"No," Rigel said, "It was just an accident. I was out running errands and it just sort of…happened." She was quiet for a moment, then said, "So, can you all…sorry, that was insensitive."

"I cannot," Rosier said, "Though Edmund and Alice can."

Rigel wondered who Rosier was talking about until she realized that Alice was a nickname for Alesana. The tension in the carriage seemed to go up another notch and Rigel shifted uncomfortably.

"Let's talk about something else," Rookwood said firmly. Rosier shrugged, and Rigel nodded her agreement.

"Actually, I was going to speak with the two of you about something anyway," Rigel said.

"What about?" Rosier asked with polite interest.

"Pansy's birthday," Rigel said, "Last year we weren't good enough friends to celebrate it, but it's September sixth, isn't it?"

"It is," Rosier said, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly, "What are you planning?"

Rigel grinned slightly, "I'll tell you, but I need your help."

"Doing what?" Rookwood asked.

"Distracting Pansy," Rigel said.

"A surprise," Rosier said, his honey-gold eyes glinting, "Count us in, Black."

Soon the carriage came to a stop and she disembarked, keeping her eyes away from the grim, black thestrals as she went to join her friends, who were climbing out of the carriage behind hers.

They all filed into the Great Hall and took their seats. Last year's sixth years were now in the coveted seats at the end of the table closest to the doors. The seventh years traditionally got to sit furthest from the teacher's table with the sixth years next to them, then fifth, and so on. Rigel and her friends were in the lowest occupied portion of the table, but of course one-seventh of the table on the end closest to the Head Table was empty now, reserved for the new Slytherins that would be sorted before the night was out.

They waited quite a while for the first-years, and Rigel supposed it took much longer to take the boats across the lake than to ride in the carriages. Eventually, however, McGonagall went to fetch the new first-years and the Sorting hat was revealed.

Rigel could have sworn she saw the hat smirk before it began its song.

"Every year begins this way

With faces old and new

And first-years filing in the hall

And standing in a cue

Most of you look scared to death

As you await your turn

I promise it won't hurt much but

There's something you will learn

You see it is my job to tell you

Where you ought to be

And look inside your mind and judge

Your heart on what I see

Now here's the part where I explain

What different Houses mean

This knowledge gives you some idea

Toward which House you should lean

But sometimes hats get bored you know

And sometimes they get tired

Of singing self-same songs to you

And so I got inspired

To really shake things up a bit

And have a little fun

And tell you all a story of

A song that wasn't sung

For once there was a wizard kid

Who walked through that same door

He listened as I told him of

The mighty founding four

He got it in his head that one

House stood above the rest

And when he put me on his head

He thought that he knew best

And though I told him otherwise

He stubbornly resisted

And did not go where he belonged

Despite what I'd insisted

And though this boy obtained his wish

His needs were never met

He spent his school life looking back

On that day with regret

If only he had listened when

He heard his destiny

He spent his years in shackles when

He could have been set free

This year you won't find differences

Of Houses in my song

You'll come to me unbiased

And you'll go where you belong

So please forget the things you've heard

Or what your friends might do

The most important thing is finding

What is right for you."

There was a moment or two of incredulous silence before applause slowly started up from the students around the hall. Even a few of the professors looked entirely bemused by the hat's song, but the sorting proceeded nonetheless.

Rigel thought it was a bit optimistic for the hat to think that not going over the stereotypes just before the sorting began was going to help much, especially considering that all of the students were purebloods, and had no doubt been hearing of the four Hogwarts Houses for years. Still, she supposed a talking hat was entitled to its eccentricities, and it did have a good point. There was a lot of bias embodied in the House system—not just in what each House represented, but in who went to each House. Weasley's went to Gryffindors, Macmillan's went to Hufflepuff, Malfoy's went to Slytherin, and the Turpin's went to Ravenclaw. It was one of those universal truths that only changed when people like Sirius Black rocked the boat. Then again, Rigel thought, as a Slytherin who is also technically a Potter, it's not as though she had room to talk about upsetting natural orders.

The newest Slytherins sat stiffly to Rigel's left. She glanced over during Dumbledore's speech to take in the new faces and saw a couple of first-year boys with dark hair sending quick looks up the Slytherin table. The boys were remarkably similar looking, though Rigel didn't recall them having the same last name. They'd look over at the upperclassmen, then look quickly away again, heads bent together, whispering quietly, then look at a different section of upperclassmen. Rigel raised a brow at the two of them when they happened to look her way, but instead of flinching or blushing at being caught they both grinned at her with identical mischievous winks. Rigel felt a shiver run down her spine and fervently began hoping those two never met the Weasley twins.

The feast itself was glorious. Rigel stuck to meatless dishes for posterity—she was planning on sneaking into the kitchens in the early mornings to get her major proteins in. Everything was moving along smoothly until Adrian Pucey cursed loudly from a little further up the table. It wasn't loud enough to carry to the other tables, and certainly not the Head table, but it was noticeable enough above the chatter that every Slytherin within ten seats of Pucey turned to stare at him. No one could accuse Slytherins of being overly concerned about other people's sensibilities, but rarely would one be so crass as to curse out loud over a dinner table for no apparent reason.

Pucey didn't even seem to notice the attention he was garnering. He had his neck bent looking at something in his lap, and he seemed from where Rigel was sitting to have both hands in his lap as well, as though he were struggling with something. Many of the girls gave disapproving murmurs and averted their eyes, but Rigel seriously doubted Pucey was doing whatever they thought he was in the Great Hall. Most seemed content to watch Pucey mutter and curse to himself, though Lucian Bole, who was sitting next to him, finally hauled Adrian's shoulder back so he could see just what exactly his friend was doing. A second later, Bole reared back, knocking against the person on his other side and nearly spilling his pumpkin juice everywhere. His eyes were wide and his lips were pressed tight together with muted shock.

"Shit, Lucian!" Pucey threw his friend a glare, "You startled it! Oh, crud."

A flash of panic flew across Pucey's face before he froze and looked up. His gaze moved from one Slytherin to the next and he swallowed heavily, "Um, nobody move, okay?"

The other Slytherins within hearing became instantly motionless.

"What have you done, Pucey?" a boy Rigel recognized as Miles Bletchley narrowed his eyes at Pucey from his seat across the table.

"It's a snake," Bole snapped, glaring at Pucey, "Adrian's got a snake and he's lost it."

"Adrian, what the hell?" A fourth-year girl with long, blonde hair said. Everyone was speaking as softly as they could and trying not to glance at the Head table. They might think Pucey was an idiot, but no one was going to get him in trouble on purpose.

"Just don't move, okay?" Pucey said, "Spread the word to everyone at the table to stay very still. It's under the table, and we don't want to startle it."

Surreptitiously, each Slytherin student turned to his or her neighbor and explained the situation. Rigel passed it along to Draco, though both of them had been paying attention from the start, and Draco explained it quietly to the first year on the other side of him. The eleven-year-old girl had a pair of long, dark pigtails that quivered slightly when she stilled.

"Is it poisonous?" The first year whispered back.

That, Rigel thought, was a very good question. Just then, Pansy, who was sitting on Rigel's right side, closer to Pucey, stiffened in her seat. She let out the barest hint of a squeak, then said, in a very calm and quiet voice, "It's on my foot."

Pucey looked over from where he was sitting, "You feel it, Pansy?"

Pansy nodded slowly, "It's moving across my shoe now, headed toward you, Rigel."

Rigel nodded her acceptance. She was used to snakes, thanks to Sirius' little collection of them at Archie's house, so she was prepared when she felt the first flicks of a questing tongue against her ankle, which was bared by the way her robes rode up a bit when she sat.

"Yes, I can feel it now," Rigel said evenly. She kept her face blank and slowly slid her hand under the table.

"Don't, Rigel," Draco frowned, but didn't make any sudden moves, "You don't know if it will bite or not."

By the worried and uneasy look on Pucey's face, Rigel would say the odds of avoiding being bitten weren't good—at least for anyone else.

She felt the snake wrap itself around her ankle and then slide higher. Rigel put her palm beside her knee and waited. Sure enough, she soon felt a small tongue flicking against her palm, testing her scent. Rigel slid down in her seat slowly, very slowly, and bent sideways at the waist so that she could stick her head under the tablecloth. It was dark, but with the sounds of the feast muffled slightly she could now clearly hear the hissing coming from the snake, which was coiled quite firmly around her right leg now.

"Too many ssoftlingss," the snake complained, "Too many ssmellss…hungry…tired…sso cold…"

"Come here," Rigel hissed as quietly as she could, though of course Parseltongue was already a very quiet language.

The snake stilled, then shifted higher on her leg, "Sspeaker?"

"Yess," Rigel said, "Come here, pleasse. I will feed you, and then you can ssleep."

"Food?" the snake wound it's head around Rigel's hand and loosened its hold on her calf a bit, "Promisse me, sspeaker. Promisse me food."

"I sswear it," Rigel said, "But you musst come now, and wind about my wrisst. If you bite me or the other humanss, you will get no micce."

"Agreed, sspeaker," the snake wound its way quickly from her leg to her wrist. Rigel used her other hand to cover the snake with her robe sleeve before re-emerging from the table slowly. She brought her right hand, with the small, black snake hidden around her wrist, into her lap, using her left hand to pick up her goblet and take a sip as though nothing had happened.

"Rigel, where's the snake?" Draco asked quietly.

Rigel glanced pointedly at her lap, and Draco inhaled sharply.

"You are such an idiot," her friend muttered, "What if it poisons you?"

"You're just upset because Black handled it while you were too scared to," Daphne Greengrass said snidely from diagonally across the table.

"I am not afraid of snakes," Draco said, "I just don't like surprises."

Rigel ignored them. "Tell Pucey I'll give it back in the common room," she told Pansy. Pansy nodded tightly and turned to relay the message down the table.

Rigel was the recipient of many apprehensive glances for the duration of the feast. Dumbledore introduced the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, who was smiling awfully brightly considering the track record of his predecessors. She was trying to ignore the snake's disgruntled complaints about sitting still and staying hidden, as well as its demands for her to speak with it. Instead she ran a soothing hand down the snake's coils every now and then and when the feast was over she slipped away as quickly as she could and headed to the kitchens to beg a mouse from Binny.

The cheerful elf was very accommodating, even giving Rigel a bag of stunned mice for the road. Rigel promised to stop by and see the elf before breakfast the next day, and then left to head back toward the common room.

She arrived just as the first-years were being led through the portrait hole by Selwyn, who was head girl that year. Rigel followed the new Slytherins into the common room and was momentarily surprised to see all the Slytherins still sitting or standing about the large, low-ceilinged space. Then she remembered that Snape would be coming in to give his start of term speech, and that the only reason he hadn't the previous year was because something had 'come up.'

Rigel spotted Pucey arguing quietly with a few other upperclassmen near one of the fireplaces and went over to them.

"—Can't believe you would be so idiotic, Adrian," Bole was saying quietly, "Bringing that to the table—what were you going to do with it?"

"Nothing," Adrian defended, "I just didn't want to leave him with the baggage. He was a gift from my uncle, and I'm supposed to take care of him."

"We're not even supposed to have snakes," Bletchley snapped.

"I didn't think anyone would find out," Adrian said, "I was just gonna keep him in the dorms, but as soon as we got into the Great Hall he started freaking out on me. Wouldn't stay in my pocket."

"You'd better hope Snape didn't see anything from the Head table," Bole said lowly, "If Black hadn't taken care of it—"

"Eh-hem," Rigel coughed pointedly and tilted her head to the side in a way that she knew made her look especially innocent.

"Black!" Pucey rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, "Listen, I'm really sorry about—"

"I have your snake," Rigel said, holding out her right wrist and peeling back her sleeve, "He's had a mouse just now, and he's warmed up a bit, but I think he's very tired, so it would probably be a good idea to put him up in your room for now, and feed him one of these mice," Harry pulled out the bag and handed it to him, "When he wakes up."

"Uh, thanks," Pucey said, accepting the snake from Rigel's wrist gently, and tucking the mice away into his robes, "I'd best do it before Snape gets here, then."

Rigel nodded, and turned away to find the other second years. They asked her a lot of questions, but Rigel gave the standard answer that her father kept snakes as pets, so she had a lot of experience with them.

Ten minutes later, Snape made his entrance. Rigel was momentarily frozen as her mind raced back to that night just one year ago, when she had first laid eyes on the greatest Potion Master of their time. She had thought him the truest embodiment of genius and authority. Now…well, he was certainly a genius, and he still exuded the kind of authority that seasoned Aurors could only dream of, but Rigel felt as though she didn't look at him with nearly the same amount of starry-eyed idolization as she had last year.

She had worked with Snape now. Learned from him. She had seen him darkly amused whenever Ron Weasley answered a question incorrectly. She had seen the lines of tension in his forehead after brewing for hours on end to stock the Hospital Wing during the Sleeping Sickness. She had seen his triumphant smirk when Slytherin won a Quidditch game, and his stiff relief when Draco awoke from his coma. Snape was everything she'd ever imagined him to be—snarky, competent, brilliant and cold—but he was so much more human than she'd anticipated, as foolish as that sounded.

Snape gave his customary speech, and told Selwyn to show the first-years their dormitories. Then he turned to the rest of them and scowled darkly, adding, "I don't know what was going on at the dinner table during the feast tonight, and I don't want to know. Suffice to say that none of you are as subtle as you think yourselves, and I trust it does not happen again."

The Slytherins all murmured various versions of, "Yes, sir." After that, they were free to go to their dorm rooms. Rigel followed the other second-years down their hallway, but was taken aback to see Blaise continue right past the dorm he'd lived in last year and turn into hers. She exchanged a bewildered look with Draco, but when they reached the door to their room it became rather obvious. Where once it had read: Arcturus Black, Draco Malfoy, and Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini was now tacked on underneath.

When they entered the dorm room, several changes were immediately apparent. It was significantly bigger, for one thing, and on the left side of the dorm there was an extra bed between Rigel's and Theo's, with Zabini's trunk sitting at the foot. An extra wardrobe had appeared along the wardrobe wall, and an extra desk was sitting to the right side of the room as well.

Theo turned to smile incredulously at Blaise, "You're in here with us, now? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Surprise," Blaise said mildly, "Yes, I requested the switch at the end of last year. Sorry about the inconvenience, though I did argue that if Snape agreed to my request he should add a second bathroom to this dorm, since the girls and now Crabbe and Goyle only have to share in twos."

Sure enough, when Rigel looked over there were two doors where previously there had only been one bathroom door. Rigel shrugged and headed over to her trunk to find her toothbrush, "I don't mind."

"I definitely don't," Theo said, grinning, "It's so boring in here with just those two. Rigel's almost never here except to sleep, and Draco just studies or writes letters to his parents when he's in here."

Blaise glanced at Rigel with an expression she couldn't decipher, then turned to Draco and said, "And you? Are you all right with the change?"

"I wouldn't wish Crabbe and Goyle on anyone," Draco said, "Welcome to our dorm."

"Thank you," Blaise's smile was very wolf-like, but perhaps he couldn't help it.

Rigel cleaned her teeth and kicked off her shoes before climbing into bed. She didn't bother with the hangings, as it would be better logistically if she had a clear view of the room in case something happened in the middle of the night. She had been thinking more and more in terms of strategic safety since the night of the fire, and was now in the habit of sleeping with her wand under her pillow, rather than on her bedside table or even in her trunk.

A few minutes later, Draco called irritably, "Aren't you going to douse that light, Blaise?"

Blaise answered back slowly, "I am, I was just waiting for Rigel to change so he doesn't have to in the dark."

"Oh, Rigel sleeps in his robes," Theo said from his bed, "You can just douse it."

"In his clothes?" Blaise's voice was clearly incredulous, "Why?"

"Well," Theo said slowly, "I guess I've never thought about it. He's always done that, since the first night last year."

"Still here," Rigel said mildly, mentally groaning. Of course Blaise would think it strange. When she first got here, Draco and Theo hadn't been well enough acquainted with her to comment on all the strange things she did, like sleep in her clothes or change in the bathroom after her shower, and once they'd become friends they were used to it. Blaise, however, now had the unfortunate position of being both new to her habits and good enough friends with her to question them. Joy.

"Well, why do you sleep in your clothes?" Draco asked suddenly, "I can't believe we never asked you this before."

"Nott asked me if I owned nightclothes once, I think," Rigel said thoughtfully, "But after that you just let it drop."

"Oh," Draco said, "No—wait, you still haven't answered the question!"

Rigel shifted uncomfortably, "It's in case there's an emergency in the middle of the night. I'd feel more prepared to deal with it if I had my robes on and wasn't hampered by bedclothes." Originally, that was even sort of true, though she had been expecting her dorm mates to prank her for being the son of a blood traitor. Now, she trusted her dorm mates, and was more concerned with intruders. Then, of course, there was the fact that she felt significantly more vulnerable as a female in her nightclothes than she did in her form-hiding robes.

"Wow, Rigel," Theo said, "You're really paranoid."

"As he should be," Draco said, "Considering how much trouble he attracts. He did have someone trying to attack him all of first semester last year."

"Yet he began sleeping in his clothes before all the trouble even started," Blaise said, "Interesting."

"Not really," Rigel said shortly, "Could you put out the light, now? We should get some sleep."

Blaise chuckled softly, but he put out the light nonetheless.

[HpHpHp]

The next morning, Rigel woke much earlier than her roommates. She quietly grabbed the drawstring pouch she kept her workout clothes in from her trunk and crept out of the dark room and into the quiet common room. Part of the exercise regimen Remus had her on involved a long run every morning before breakfast, and Rigel fully intended to keep up with his prescriptions while at school.

She changed in a bathroom on the ground floor, near the Great Hall, and strapped on her leg weights. Her workout clothes were more comfortable than her robes, and lighter, too, but still baggy enough that her burgeoning figure—which was admittedly non-existent at this point, but might be of worry in a year or so—remained indiscernible. Rigel stowed her bag, which now held her school robes, in an alcove by the front entrance to grab when she finished, and slipped out of the castle doors.

The lake was choppy from the brisk morning wind, and the sound of the small waves beating against the shore helped to block out everything around her as she began her run. She decided to try running all the way around the lake once, and then see how tired she was. Running, Rigel found, was a lot like meditating. It cleared the mind and made your breathing sound much louder than normal. It was also good for thinking, and one of the things Remus had warned her of was that it was nearly impossible to defend yourself without knowing yourself. If you couldn't understand yourself, how could you understand your enemy? He made it very clear that her greatest flaw at the moment was her tendency to bury things.

If something bothered her on a conscious level, she didn't think about it. She pretended nothing upset her, and by doing this never came to terms with events in her life that should have changed her. Instead, she accepted things that happened to her, let them sink into her mind, then helped them sink further, until they lay so hidden beneath the surface of her consciousness that they didn't bother her.

Rigel accepted that Remus was right in this case, but didn't really see what was wrong with that. After all, once you acknowledge that something happened, you can forget about it and move on with—no. She was doing it again. Remus had warned her how hard it was to change yourself. He had predicted that her mental patterns would reassert themselves wherever possible. She was not supposed to give in to that. She was supposed to let her life experiences change her, instead of treating them like an interesting fact she'd read about, or a story she'd heard about someone else.

She ran faster, frustrated with her lack of progress mentally. Remus said he would teach her basic self-defense without a wand, but that he wouldn't teach her proper dueling until she had the correct mind frame to handle the instruction.

Rigel supposed it was a bit like what Professor Snape had pointed out when he diagnosed the problem with her magic last year. When she first performed accidental magic, she had either been frightened, or she had received negative feedback about it, and as a result Rigel had developed hyper-control of her unconscious magical output, to the point that later on she couldn't even use her magic consciously without great effort. Rigel had eventually come to a compromise with her magic. She asked it nicely to do what she wanted, and it didn't try to escape her control at inopportune times via the outlet of her phoenix wand, which seemed to side with her magic more often than it did with her prior to the unspoken agreement. Still, Rigel couldn't control her magic like her peers did. They demanded their magic obey them, and if their willpower was strong enough for the spell they were attempting, it worked. Rigel had to coax her magic to work with her, and while the system worked well, she was yet unable to relax her unconscious controls on her magic.

She didn't leak magic like most wizards did, according to Snape and Riddle. She also couldn't imbue potions unconsciously. Snape accepted it as simply a fact about her level of magical control, but deep down, in a part of her mind Rigel didn't like to focus on, she knew it for what it was. A symbol of her fear. She was afraid, on a subconscious level, to release her tight hold over her magic. On the surface, they were in synch, but underneath Rigel still couldn't trust her magic not to…what? Hurt anyone? As Archie had pointed out, her magic had never actually hurt anyone. It had blown things up, whirled them around in the air, even disintegrated things when she got really upset as a child, but through all that it had never injured someone she cared about.

Perhaps it was the fact that the potential for destruction was there that made her tamp down on her magic. It was the idea that one day it could hurt someone that she didn't trust. No, Rigel shook her head as her feet pounded on the grass, that wasn't true. It wasn't her magic that Rigel didn't trust.

It was herself.

The magic only responded to Rigel's will, although sometimes that will hadn't reached the point of intent yet. What she feared was that the more she relaxed her control, the more sensitive that response would become. What if, once she freed it, the magic started responding to her vague inclinations? To her whims? What if one day it acted in response to a thought? All it would take is one unkind, frustrated thought, and someone around her would get hurt. And it would be her fault, not the magic's, for having that thought. She would never consciously will harm to another person—she didn't think—but what if for one instant she had a weak desire and her magic chose to act upon it? She couldn't take that risk. Not when the year before her magic had already shown itself to be capable of acting without her express intent. How many things had it blown up in Quirrell's classroom, just because his constant picking annoyed her?

So she acknowledged that she had too tight of a hold over her magic, but she wasn't going to do anything to change it.

Only, wasn't that the same thing Remus had warned her about? Mentally she was in a similar habit. She started ignoring things she didn't want to think about young. Like when her father had rolled his eyes at her potions magazines and bought her a broomstick. Then again when he presented her with the snitch and frowned when she pointed to the bludgers. Like when her mother uncomfortably changed the subject when Rigel asked her what she knew about Severus Snape. Little disappointments and uncomfortable truths all got stored away safely in a place where she didn't have to think about them. After all, she didn't want to be frustrated with her mother, or feel like a let down to her father. Since she didn't want to feel that way, why should she? Emotions were natural responses to environmental stimuli, and if she didn't want to feel a certain way, she simply had to ignore the experiences that might prompt a certain emotional response.

It was easy, and it was familiar, but according to Remus it was going to hold her back. Because ignoring events, he said, didn't help you come to terms with them. You had to accept that the event happened, yes, but that wasn't enough. You then had to allow that event to change you to shape you into something new, though for better or for worse was up to you.

Rigel understood, sort of. The night of the fire, for instance, had been the kind of event that deeply affected a person. She had first broken down a bit, but then after crying on Mrs. Hurst she'd accepted it. Next, Rigel had used the event as fuel and impetus for changing herself for the better. She had started learning to protect herself and others around her. Then, once the experience's usefulness to her was past, she ignored it. Apparently, however, ignoring was not enough. And using it as a springboard for personal change was not enough. Rigel was missing something, some step in the process, but she couldn't figure out what it was.

She finished her lap and doubled over, panting, by the shore. She was dripping with sweat, and her legs were shaking quite a bit. She knew that Remus could have run around that lake four times without stopping, but she felt accomplished with her paltry one lap all the same. After a few more minutes rest, she began the strengthening and flexibility exercises that she was still convinced were some sort of torture regimen.

There were the usual push-ups and sit-ups, and then there were all sorts of convoluted stretches that she hoped no one ever saw her doing. After that she had to start on her weights. She removed the weighted balls from her pockets, where Remus-the-sadist had bade her to keep them while she ran, as if the leg weights weren't enough, and began lifting, curling, squeezing, and otherwise punishing her arm muscles for being weak and girly.

When she had practiced her basic punches and kicks until she thought Remus could not possibly fault her for stopping, Rigel jogged back up to the castle and retrieved her bag from the alcove before making a bee-line down to the kitchens.

When she entered, the house elves seemed to be just starting their preparations for breakfast, and Rigel realized she must have woken earlier than she thought. She really ought to get a watch or something. Archie's was fine and well for special occasions, but as a 'pureblood' Heir, she should have one all the time.

"Binny!" she called over the noise of plates and silverware being set out.

A house elf with a necklace of champagne corks and a pretty pink tea cozy separated herself from the throng.

"Young sir," Binny curtseyed and then bounced happily on her toes, smiling up at Rigel, "You came!"

"I promised, didn't I?" Rigel smiled back, "So do you have time to talk?"

"Well, Binny is working…" Binny hesitated, "Is you needing something that Binny can be doing while we is chatting?"

"Um, sure," Rigel thought quickly, "Could you sit with me while cutting up some meat for me to eat?"

Binny's eyes widened, "You is eating meat now?"

"I'm going to try to eat more meat this year, but I don't want to eat it at the table," Rigel said carefully, "So I was wondering if you could keep sending vegetarian stuff upstairs, but if I could come down here in the mornings to get some meat as well?"

The house elf nodded seriously, "Binny can do that. What kind of meat is you liking?"

"I'm not sure," Harry wrinkled her nose, "Maybe chicken?"

Binny gave her a very unimpressed look, "I is making you lots of meat, and you is trying them all."

Rigel grimaced, but agreed. Binny bustled about picking up different pre-cooked meats and things, then perched herself with a cutting board and several bowls of seasoning.

"So how was your summer, Binny?" Rigel asked, "I mean, what do you guys do all summer?"

Binny glanced amusedly at Rigel over the large knife she was wielding, "I is working over the summer, of course."

"At Hogwarts?" Rigel asked curiously, "I'd have thought there wasn't much to do."

"There isn't being much," Binny agreed, "The oldest elves is staying at Hogwarts, but the rest of us is finding work elsewhere. Binny is working at the unicorn stables on Madame Touraine's estate."

"Really?" Rigel asked curiously, "Is that in France?"

"Yes," Binny nodded enthusiastically, "It is beautiful there. I is liking the unicorns very much. If we is finishing work quickly, Madame Touraine is letting the elves play with the baby unicorns until they is going to sleep." Binny gave a dreamy sigh, "I is liking work at the stables almost as much as I is liking Hogwarts."

"Do you speak French, then?" Rigel asked.

"Oh yes," Binny nodded quickly, "French is being very fun to speak."

Rigel smiled, "What other languages can you speak?"

"All kinds," Binny shrugged, "A house elf is never knowing who is needing them to work."

"That's so cool," Rigel said, a bit wistfully, "Was it hard to learn?"

"Not so very hard," Binny said earnestly, "It is being easier than flying."

"What?" Rigel said, smiling in amusement.

"It is being a house elf saying," Binny said, "When things is seeming hard, we is thinking they is not as hard as flying, and they is seeming better."

Rigel laughed, "If only everyone saw life that way."

"Maybe I is teaching you?" Binny suggested slyly.

"To be more optimistic?" Rigel blinked, "I guess it couldn't hurt."

Binny giggled and shook her head, "No, no. French. Maybe I is teaching you French, if you is so interested in languages."

Rigel was about to decline politely, figuring she had enough on her plate, but then she paused. It would lend credibility to the back-up story that she was a poor pureblood from the continent if she knew a European language or two.

"Won't it interfere with your free time?" Rigel said tentatively.

Binny beamed, "Yes, exactly."

Right. House elf. Rigel smiled a bit ruefully. She was definitely going to find Binny a selfish hobby one of these days. "Well, if you're sure you want to," Rigel said, "I would love to learn French. How about….hmm, no we won't have enough time in the mornings, and you have to work anyway…evening is no good, either. I've got too much work to do, and I might be brewing with Snape…say, Binny, do you work during lunch?"

"Binny is making lunch," Binny said.

"I mean, after it's made. Do you work during lunch?" Rigel asked.

"No, Binny is eating during lunch," Binny said with a smile, "And young sir is eating, too."

"Why don't we eat together?" Rigel asked, "I'll get a book on French from the library, and learn it in my free time. Then over lunch you and I can chat in French."

"And Binny can mercilessly correct young sir's pronunciation!" Binny squealed happily, then leaned forward and said, in a very serious tone of voice, "It is being the only way to really learn."

Rigel raised her eyebrows, "Whatever you say, Professor Binny."

Binny looked momentarily horrified by the address, before she collapsed into giggles once more, "Five points to Slytherin! Oh, this is being fun."

Rigel stayed for a while longer. She tried the various meats that Binny presented her with, finally deciding that chicken was the closest to fish, and therefore the one she liked best. She could stomach a little steak and pork, but she would definitely be sticking to birds and other white meats if she could. She said goodbye to Binny when it seemed that breakfast was almost ready and headed back to the common room to shower and change into a clean set of school robes.

When she entered her dorm room, it was to the sound of raised voices. Well, one raised voice.

"What do you mean you don't know?" That was definitely Draco, "You were awake first."

"And he was long gone by the time I was," Blaise's voice sounded bored and annoyed, "He's probably in the library."

"It's the first day of school! We have nothing to be in the library for," Draco said.

"Who are you looking for?" Rigel finally spoke up. Blaise and Draco turned to the door and while Draco brightened visibly, Blaise rolled his eyes.

"Who do you think?" Blaise muttered.

"Where were you this morning?" Draco asked.

"It still is morning," Rigel said mildly, going around Draco and fishing in her trunk for a clean robe and pair of boxer shorts, "I've got to shower, so you guys should go ahead."

"Why do you have to shower?" Draco called after her, "And what on earth are you wearing?"

Rigel smiled briefly over her shoulder, "See you at breakfast, Draco."

[HpHpHp]

Her first day of classes went fairly smoothly, until they got to double Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Hufflepuffs.

It was pretty clear, to Rigel at least, that Dumbledore had fired Quirrell at the end of last year because of his involvement with the sleeping sickness. Rigel herself had overheard Snape confronting Quirrell about being the one to expose the population of the castle to the sickness, and if Snape was as loyal to Dumbledore as he seemed, then there was no doubt the Headmaster knew exactly who was responsible for that fiasco and had fired him posthaste. She supposed he didn't have enough proof to file criminal charges, but a Headmaster didn't need a specific reason to fire his teacher—there weren't exactly unions in the wizarding world. It was good that he'd taken what action he could to remove a threat to the school.

On the other hand…looking at Gilderoy Lockhart posturing at the front of their DADA classroom, Rigel was a little less convinced that Dumbledore knew what he was doing.

"Welcome, welcome all of you," Lockhart said, beaming down at them all from the raised platform he'd installed in front of the blackboard, "When your Headmaster showed up personally at my mansion in the south of Wales and begged me to instruct you all in the ancient art of self defense against the dark forces, I was a little hesitant."

Draco and Pansy looked at each other, looked at Lockhart, and then looked back at one another and raised simultaneous eyebrows.

"I mean, it isn't really in my nature to hesitate," Lockhart went on grandly, "But was I ready to take on the immense responsibility associated with the molding of young, impressionable minds of innocents like yourselves? After a bit of soul-searching at my vacation home in Peru, however, I came to the conclusion that yes, yes I am. For the next year you will embark on a journey of knowledge, the likes of which I seriously doubt your past professors could even dream of. You will learn things you've never known, and do things you've never done, but don't be afraid. I will be with you every step of the way."

"Is he serious?" Draco muttered, "What a joke."

"Learn things we've never known?" Pansy scoffed quietly, "As if there was anything else possible to learn."

"Now I'm sure all of you have read my books by now, and think you know the real me," Lockhart went on, "But in this room you will see the truth behind the legend—the mountain beneath the mist, if you will. For in this room we shall face the things which test the mettle of even the bravest and most fiercest of men—even me. We will face them down together, however, and when I am through with you the world of the dark arts won't stand a chance. Who is ready to fight the forces of darkness?!"

He raised his fist dramatically and tossed his cloak behind him to strike a pose.

Several of the second-year girls, to the rest of the class' shame, answered back, "We are!"

Draco's face was so incredulous that if he hadn't been a Malfoy he would have face-palmed.

"Now let's see who is, in fact, here and ready to learn," Lockhart said jovially, pulling out a roll of parchment from the desk. He unrolled it and cleared his throat. "Hannah Abbott?"

Hannah raised her hand and said, quietly, "Here." Rigel noticed Blaise, who was sitting in front of she, Draco, and Pansy, cock his head to the side slightly, as though he were some kind of canine, responding to an octave of sound no one else could hear.

"Ah yes, young Hannah, such a pleasure to see you here today," Lockhart said. Hannah blinked, probably unsure how to respond to a professor using her first name, but Lockhart didn't appear to need a response. "Arcturus Black?"

Rigel raised her hand just high enough to be seen above her head, "Here. I prefer Rigel, however, if you're going to go by first names, Professor."

"Rigel Black, Rigel Black, now where have I heard that name before?" Lockhart said with a tone of mock concentration, "A-ha! Yes, I recall hearing something about you last spring. You did a small service for the school or some such thing, isn't that right? I think it even made the papers, though of course that was when I won my fifth Witch Weekly's Award for the Most Charming Smile, and in light of that everything else sort of fades into the background, doesn't it? In any case, I suppose you got a little taste of fame back then, did you? Well let me be the first to caution you about fame, Rigel. It is a fickle, fickle friend. Remember that, and come to me if you are ever in need of that sort of advice."

Rigel raised both eyebrows, but kept silent for fear of setting Lockhart off again. He really was quite a character.

"Now then, where is Susan Bones?"

The roll call went on. Lockhart seemed to have something to say to every. Single. Student. By the time he told them all to open their copies of 'Magical Me' so that they could 'begin a lively debate on which of my many accomplishments was the most daring and difficult,' the bell had rung.

"Is it really time to go already?" Lockhart said, glancing at the clock with exaggerated surprise, "I guess we were having too much fun to notice. Never fear, my precocious pupils, there will be plenty to learn on Wednesday. Toodles!"

He did a little finger wave, which too many of the girls in their class returned, then dismissed them. Rigel shook her head rather ruefully. It looked like DADA was going to be yet another thing she'd have to study in her ever-diminishing free time.

After DADA, Rigel went to Snape's office to see if he would open up her personal lab once more for the school year.

He wasn't in his office when she looked, so instead she went to check the Labs. The wards to Lab One were down, and light was coming through the door, so Rigel knocked quietly and peeked her head inside. The difference between now and the last time she had been to that Lab were extreme. Snape was brewing at only one station, instead of six or seven, and he looked like he'd gotten at least six hours of sleep the night before, which, as she had come to learn, was pretty good for Snape. His face was relaxed as he worked, and he didn't snap at her or sigh with exhaustion when she walked in. All in all, things were looking much better than last semester.

"Mr. Black, good," Snape said as he stirred the cauldron a final time and turned to address her, "We need to iron out the details of your accelerated schedule for the year. You are still determined to complete the OWL curriculum and reach NEWT study by the end of this year?"

Rigel nodded. That would mean she finished NEWT Potion work by the end of her third year, meaning she had four additional years of tutelage under Snape before she graduated.

"In that case, I have a syllabus that should last you through December in my office. I will give it to you at dinner this evening. I will also be re-opening your lab for you tomorrow morning, but I expect you to clean it thoroughly and inventory your supplies before you brew anything." Snape fixed her with a stern look, "If at any time you feel that you cannot both get all of your work done and complete the accelerated syllabus, your regular school work comes first. I do not want to explain to my co-workers that you are failing out of school in an effort to learn everything there is to know about potions in seven years. There will be plenty of time, so take it at a pace you can handle."

Rigel nodded and agreed, but the look Snape gave her said clearly what they both understood. She would pretend to give her normal second-year classes her priority, but she would get the extra potions work done, or collapse trying. Not that she was terribly worried. Adults always seemed to think things took longer than they did. Each teacher assigned about an essay every two weeks, and each essay only took a couple of hours to complete. At most homework took five hours a week, and most days they got time at the end of class to work on their assignments quietly. Then there was a bit of time between classes, meal time, time before class if you woke up early enough, and at least six solid hours every evening of free time around dinner and before curfew. If anything, Rigel imagined everyone who didn't have her workload must be terribly bored all day. She had plenty of time for her homework, Flint's homework, extra brewing, studying Healing, Occlumency, and now French, her new exercise regimen, and hanging out with her friends.

Rigel liked being busy, at least when there wasn't an emergency at hand, and she honestly didn't think she'd have any trouble keeping up with everything that year.

[HpHpHp]

The week went on and Rigel settled easily into the swing of things. Classes weren't all that difficult, unless one counted the difficulty Draco had holding his tongue during Lockhart's classes, or the difficulty Pansy had getting Rigel to pay attention during History of Magic, which she preferred to spend buried in a Healing textbook.

At breakfast on Friday morning, their section of the table was bombarded with owls. It was Pansy's birthday, and it seemed as though everyone she knew had sent her a card or token. She smiled delightedly as she collected them all, and accepted her Housemates' well-wishes with graceful aplomb. Pansy wasn't the only one getting mail that morning, however. Draco received a thick letter of his own, which he tucked away without opening at the table, and when the flock of owls surrounding Pansy had cleared, Rigel found both a letter from Sirius and a large, paper-covered package from the apothecary in Hogsmede.

She was still brewing for Krait, though most of what she made was Blood-Replenishers for Mr. Burke, only now she did everything by owls. It was a good thing school owls were both free and unmarked, as it meant she could send the potions, heavily padded of course, in as many bundles as she had to without letting Krait know where the owls were coming from. Rigel couldn't use the ingredients in the Hogwarts storerooms for her own personal gain, of course, so she had to order the ones she needed from Hogsmede and charge them to Archie's account. He had given her permission to take what she needed from his school account, and reimburse him later.

Pansy finished neatly stacking her birthday cards and turned to Draco and Rigel primly, "Well, it looks like I've gotten a present from everyone. Oh, wait, my two best friends haven't actually given me anything. How upsetting."

Draco sighed, and said, "Not as upsetting as learning that your best friend has no faith in you."

"And to think that the Parkinson's are known for their patience," Rigel said archly, "I guess I owe you a galleon, Draco. I was sure Pan would last until lunch."

Pansy huffed, "You two are impossible. I take it that means you'll give me my present later today?"

"I guess you'll find out if and when we give it to you," Draco said, grinning, "Until then, you live in the agony of ignorance."

"Well at least I'll be aware of being ignorant, which is after all a far better position than the unknowingly unknowing, as Socrates would say," Pansy said, "So, what news from home, Rigel?"

Rigel looked down at the letter from Sirius and scanned it, "Nothing much, just the usual. Sirius talks about his work in the children's ward. Uncle Remus says hello, too, as do Aunt Lily and Uncle James. Everyone's doing great, I guess, though my Aunt Lily is apparently still consuming ice mice in unnerving quantities."

"You know all that would mean more if we'd ever actually met your family," Draco pointed out, "As it is, you could be making all this up for all we know."

Rigel looked at Pansy, who nodded her agreement a bit apologetically. "Oh," Rigel said, "I didn't realize you felt that way. Well, why don't I introduce you over the Christmas break? I'll tell Dad to meet me at the platform this time, and everyone can meet each other. If it's all right, I'll invite Remus along, too."

"Of course it is," Pansy said quickly, "We'd love to meet them both, and the Potter's, too, some time."

"Great," Rigel said, smiling, "Owl your parents about it, will you? I think Sirius would be more comfortable with me going over to your homes if he could actually talk to your parents civilly without school rivalries in the way."

"I'll ask my father about it immediately, though I already know my mother will agree," Pansy said.

"Same goes for my parents," Draco said, "We'll let you know for sure, though, before break."

They finished breakfast and the day continued normally. During lunch, Rigel and Draco slipped away. Rosier and Rookwood distracted Pansy during lunch so that she didn't notice their absence as much, and Rigel and Draco went to Hagrid's hut to see that everything was ready for Pansy's surprise.

All through Herbology, Draco kept shooting excited glances at Pansy and tapping his foot restlessly. Pansy shot him several questioning glances, to which Draco just beamed back with a knowing gleam in his eye. Rigel finally elbowed him pointedly in the side once Sprout dismissed them.

"Ow, what?" Draco whispered.

"Not exactly subtle, Draco," Rigel whispered back.

"So?" Draco sniffed, "No sense in being subtle when she already knows something's happening. As long as she doesn't know what, it will still be a surprise. Besides, subtleties are so easily ignored. I hate being ignored."

Rigel had to laugh at that, and when Pansy asked them what was so funny they just smiled innocently in her direction.

She narrowed her eyes, "Don't think I didn't notice you two missing from lunch. I know you're planning something."

"Then you won't mind playing along," Draco said brightly, "Come put this blindfold on."

"What?" Pansy backed away quickly, "No way."

"You actually don't have a choice," Rigel said sadly, "Hold her arms, Draco."

"Wait, stop!" Pansy tried to make a break for the door, but Draco caught her quickly.

Pansy let out a breathless laugh and shook her head as Rigel approached with a strip of dark green cloth in her hands, "Don't you dare, Rigel Black."

"Well I guess we don't have to give you your present," Rigel said, a look of ponder on her face, "What do you think, Draco, should we just take it back?"

"No!" Pansy seemed to struggle internally for a moment before sighing, "Okay, fine. But don't mess up my hair, and if you play a prank on me or let me trip, I will get even and then some."

Rigel and Draco exchanged amused glances. Pansy wouldn't know how to 'get even' any more than she'd know how to fly an airplane. More likely one of Pansy's many upperclassman friends would make their lives hell if they ever hurt her. Pansy inspired great loyalty in the people who knew her, seemingly effortlessly. Not that either Draco or Rigel ever would do anything to knowingly hurt her.

They led her from the greenhouses, across the grounds, past Hagrid's hut, and to the edge of the forbidden forest.

"I smell pine," Pansy said, "Are we in the forest?"

"No, Pans, just at the edge," Draco said reassuringly.

"Wait here," Rigel said. Draco held Pansy's elbow so she had something to ground her while Rigel set off at a quick walk a little ways into the forest.

Hagrid was waiting in a near-by clearing, "Hello there, Mr. Black. All set, then?"

"Yes," Rigel said, "Pansy is by the edge of the forest with Draco. I just wanted to make sure we were ready before bringing her in."

"All set," Hagrid said cheerfully, gesturing to his charges, "These fellas are ready when you are."

"Great," Rigel grinned at the animals pawing the ground around the clearing, "I really appreciate you helping us with this, sir. I'll have the potion for Fang's digestive system for you on Monday."

"Well that's right kind of you," Hagrid said, "But I woulda helped anyway, you know. They're sweet creatures, and they deserve to be appreciated."

"They will be," Rigel said, grinning, "I'll be right back."

"Hold on," Hagrid said, striding forward, "Take a few of these." He pressed a handful of sugar cubes into Rigel's palms, "Put them in Miss Parkinson's pockets."

Rigel nodded, "Okay. Thanks."

She hustled back to where Draco was entertaining Pansy by describing their surroundings in unconvincing details.

"And of course with the sky being green, the grass has gone into a jealous fit—Rigel! Ready?" Draco grinned, bouncing on his toes.

"Yes," Rigel said. She slipped the sugar cubes into Pansy's pockets quickly.

"What are—"

"Don't worry about it," Rigel said, taking Pansy's other elbow, "Step lightly."

They guided her slowly through the sparse trees and into the clearing where Hagrid was beaming nervously and giving she and Draco two big thumbs up. Draco grinned infectiously at Rigel, who smiled back.

"Ready for your surprise, Pans?" Draco asked with barely contained glee.

"Yes," Pansy said, nodding decisively, "Also, more than ready to take the blindfold off."

Rigel reached behind Pansy's head, saying, "Keep your eyes closed." She untied the green cloth and motioned Hagrid to move quietly forward with his smallest charge. She waited until it was right in front of Pansy, then said, "Okay, open!"

Pansy opened her eyes and froze, inhaling sharply. There before her, shining like gold in the afternoon light, was a baby unicorn. "It's….oh! He's beautiful."

Rigel wondered how she knew the unicorn foal was a boy, but Hagrid simply nodded his head and patted the young unicorn's flanks fondly, "This one's about fourteen months. He won't get his horn for another few months, and they don't turn pure white until around two years old, though of course their hooves will always stay this golden color. His name is Calanon."

Pansy reached out a tentative hand and waited for the foal to sniff her. Calanon gazed up at her with a look that was two parts calm intelligence and one part childish inquisitiveness. The unicorn foal stepped forward, but instead of sniffing Pansy's hand, it ducked its head and nudged gently at Pansy's pocket. Pansy looked down, clearly bemused, and Calanon whickered softly, nudging her robe pocket again. She reached a hand down and into her pocket, then laughed as she pulled out several cubes of sugar.

"Is this what you were looking for?" Pansy held them out and offered them to the young foal. The unicorn tossed is head with excitement and went the take the cubes, but a sharp whinny from one of the older unicorns made Calanon freeze. The baby unicorn looked almost sheepish. It stepped back and very distinctly bowed its head to Pansy carefully, as if thanking her for the cubes, before coming back and delicately nibbling them out of her hand. Pansy laughed delightedly, "You're welcome. Is that your mom back there?"

Hagrid positively beamed at Pansy, "Good eye, young miss. Have you had experience with unicorns before? Only you seem to really understand them. Anyway, that beauty is indeed Calanon's dam. Her name is Fainauriel."

Pansy threaded one hand through the golden unicorn's soft coat and stepped toward the other unicorns. There were six adults, all pure white with hooves of gold and eyes of softest silver. With the promise of another sugar cube, Pansy coaxed Calanon over to his mother and the rest of the herd, so she could admire them all at once.

Rigel and Draco watched from a distance as Pansy greeted each unicorn and spoke quietly to them, praising and crooning sweet words of esteem into their ears. The unicorns seemed to love Pansy, circling her and brushing against her as they passed. The little one seemed rather put out when Pansy informed him she was out of sugar, but Hagrid pressed another handful into her palms and Pansy happily treated all of them, giggling when Calanon nipped playfully at her fingers and butted her cheek with his nose in a parody of a chaste kiss.

Draco and Rigel had been warned by Hagrid when they were planning this that the adult unicorns wouldn't like being touched or even approached by male humans, thus the reason for them hanging back. Rigel supposed that as she was technically a maid she could approach the herd, but she felt no real desire to. This was Pansy's present, and besides, Rigel felt somehow tainted by her recent experience with the thestrals that pulled the school carriages. Surely someone who could see the heralds of death shouldn't also attempt to cavort with unicorns. She felt as though, maiden or not, she was no longer as innocent as Pansy was, if indeed she ever had been. Innocence, she imagined, was a state of being, not necessarily a chronological precursor to adulthood. It involved a certain level of trust and faith in the world, something that Rigel had never had in abundance, even before learning that an accident of birth could and would prevent her from achieving her dreams unless drastic action was taken. Still, it was rather appealing from afar. Pansy looked so happy with the unicorns, utterly at peace with her place in the world. If Rigel reached out with her magical senses, she could actually feel Pansy's magic humming with contentedness.

It occurred to her suddenly that the pool of mercury she had seen in Pansy's mindscape during the sickness was the same exact shade of silver as a unicorn's eyes.

Draco took a moment to look over at Rigel and whisper, "We did well, didn't we?"

"Yeah," Rigel said softly, "I think we did."

[HpHpHp]

[HpHp]

[Hp]

[end of chapter three].

A/N: Soo nearly 40,000 words later…this chapter sort of got away from me. It's like I do an outline and say, okay I want to reach this event before I post. Then I'm like—but chronologically this has to happen first, and I really wanted to introduce this subplot before jumping into that, and then suddenly my cute little baby outline is a diabolical monster chapter with fangs. In any case, I hope anyone still reading this story liked the chapter. Thanks so much for whoever has stuck with it. Much love. -Violet

A/N2: FYI their class schedule is the same as last year except for Flying:

Monday: Charms, HoM, Lunch, DADA

Tuesday: Transfiguration, Herbology, Lunch, Free Period

Wednesday: Charms, HoM, Lunch, DADA, Astronomy

Thursday: (no 1st period b/c up late for Ast.), Potions (theory), Lunch, Transfiguration

Friday: Double Potions (practical), Lunch, Herbology