Author's Notes: The muse is really jumping around. That being said a lot of the chapters that have been posted in the last month have been just been holding at the last scene. This chapter of this story was not one of them. It got stuck after the first scene. I'm happy to say that it is moving a lot quicker now.

For this chapter I'd like to thank the following for their assistance: Matt Arnold, Callum, Alysson deMerl, Clell, and the irreplaceable Jim Trigg.

This chapter has been updated 7/30/18


Chapter Ten: Preventive Dosing

Since Harry had acquired his longer red hair, he'd developed a habit of twirling it around his left index finger when he was thinking hard. It had started as a fascination at the color, and the fact that Professor Snape had said that it was exactly like his mother's hair. He'd had to look at it, and wonder.

Professor Snape had even found a picture of himself with Harry's mother, as well as one of just his mother. Both of them now resided in frames on Harry's night stand, along with matching pictures of Harry with Professor Snape. They'd went to great lengths to find the exact place that the pictures had been taken. Harry had even found a matching green sun dress to wear, though it had immediately been put away never to be worn again, as it made him feel a bit uncomfortable, especially since it couldn't be worn with any of her bras.

At the moment she was sitting on the chaise longue in Doctor Chalice's front room, trying to figure out what to say. Earlier conversations had pretty much exhausted the Dursleys, and as for her current state as a girl, well, she was used to it now, and knew it was just for part of the summer. In fact she'd just found out that there was a good chance she'd get to go to the Burrow, possibly as early as the tenth of August. When that happened she'd be able to get off the suppression potion. It couldn't happen too soon.

A cover of a book caught Harry's eyes. "You know, I can talk to snakes."

"I had heard that."

"It's not a good thing. It seems like every time I get something special, it bites me. Apparently being able to speak parseltongue is a sign of a seriously evil wizard. After I spoke it at the bloody dueling club, every one was shunning me, and were calling me the Heir of Slytherin as a dark wizard. They were saying that I was just like the dark lord that killed my parents! I'm not evil! I'm good. No one ever believes me. Well, accept for Ron and Hermione, and Hermione ended up petrified. They just think the worst of me. Slytherin's Heir!"

Harry found that his eyes were filled with tears again. Doctor Chalice had told him that he wasn't supposed to hold them back, not in this room. In this room, fine was not an answer. In this room, everything could be said, and nothing would get out. Harry was not a very trusting boy – at the moment, he wasn't a boy at all, actually – but he trusted that. So, the tears flowed, and the remembered frustration was expressed by his hands being thrust into his hair, and then spreading it out wildly as his hands flew out.

"You know, under ancient wizarding law, you probably could actually claim to be Slytherin's heir, now," Doctor Chalice said.

Harry looked at the doctor incredulously. The sudden interjection was a bit of a shock. The doctor rarely interrupted a rant, preferring to let them run out naturally, for the most part, and Harry had felt one building. "Really?" he couldn't stop from saying.

"Albus assures me that You-Know-Who's claim has some basis in fact, and by defeating him in near mortal combat three times, if the law was sill in use, you could claim his titles," Doctor Chalice said. "Now, tell me, how do you think you should deal with the next time someone calls you a seriously evil wizard, Dark Lord, or the like?"

"You actually think I can deal with them? Draco and his gang have been after me since right after I was sorted into Gryffindor. I've never found a way to deal with them. I just kind of try to survive them."

"Don't just survive."

"Surviving is what I do best," Harry said. "That and saving people. My role in life is apparently being pounded down until I'm needed to save someone. Then suddenly I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread.

"I go from Quidditch star to late night pariah. I save someone from a snake, and they accuse me of making it attack them! Can't I at least have one year where everything goes at least fair?"

"Perhaps this year will be the year," the Doctor said, as Harry flopped back down on the chaise lounge.

"I doubt it. I'll probably be attacked by a demonic horde this year, or maybe vampires."

"Then I'd stock up on the holy water," Doctor Chalice dead panned. "And learn how to sprinkle it at a great distance."

Somehow that struck Harry as funny. He didn't know why, but he was suddenly giggling. It felt good. He let himself go, flopping back on the chaise longue until the giggle naturally concluded. It felt good to giggle.

Only when the giggling stopped did Doctor Chalice start again. "Since you brought up Draco, I have to ask, how do you plan on dealing with him? It seems that he is quite a source of turmoil in your life."

"Oh is he," Harry confirmed. "You know, if he hadn't insulted Ron when we met the second time, I might have tried to be his friend? It probably wouldn't have lasted though. He's a bigot and bully. I can't stand him."

Then he paused for a moment, and recalled Malfoy's visit. "You know he tried to hit on me when he visited last week? It was just after my period started, and I had to tell him to get his hand off my hip or he'd never lift it again."

"And would you have said the same thing if he'd encountered you alone and insulted you during your first and second year at Hogwarts."

"No." Harry stated.

"And why not?" Doctor Chalice asked.

"It never does any good. It just makes things worse, and no one would believe how it started when it escalated."

"I see," Doctor Chalice replied, meeting Harry's eyes. "And has it escalated when you didn't say anything."

"Yes," Harry said, recalling one nightmarish journey from Potions to the Great Hall during his second year shortly before the Dueling Club incident.

"And what was different about that time, and when you stood up for yourself against Draco?"

Harry was silent for a moment, thinking about the two incidents. He hadn't said anything and Draco had kept following him, delivering insult after insult, slur after slur, making Harry cry. "I let him get to me," the words escaped his mouth without thought. "I let him define what I was, and what I could be. When Draco hit on me though, it made me feel sick. I couldn't stand it, I couldn't allow him to even say another word that showed he thought I was something he could possess. I would have crushed his hand if he hadn't moved it. I didn't let him define me."

"Remember that. Don't let them define you. Stand up for yourself, not just for your friends. You are important for what you are, Harry."

"But what am I?" Harry asked. "Am I the Boy-Who-Lived, not that I'm a boy at the moment, some hero for something my mother did before I was even old enough to remember? Am I the freak, whose magic apparently ruined my uncle's life? Or am I just Harry, about to be third year Gryffindor, seeker, but no one special."

"What you are, Harry, is for you to define. Others may call you this and that, and try to slot you into their definitions, but it is only you who can choose what you are, what you live up to. You can be the hero, like you were to Ginny. You can be the star, catching every snitch. You can be the student, always learning, and trying to be better. You can even some day be a husband and a father, raising children of your own. It is your life, and your decision."

"I wish that was true," Harry said, slumping back into the chaise lounge.

"Someday, you will make it true."


Ginny Weasley watched as Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle left Spinner's End. She'd been allowed to attend what Professor Snape had called remedial potions for just finished Second Years, as a just finished First Year. They'd made three potions before the Slytherins had to depart. Ginny had been the only one to correctly finish all three.

She'd even been praised by Professor Snape for her efforts. Gryffindors were never praised for their work in potions. But as Ginger Prince, she'd got praise. Professor Snape had even made her show the others how to properly back slice ingredients.

It was probably a good thing that Harry had to go to see Doctor Chalice, as he wouldn't have been able to stand Parkinson's remarks about him. If there was one thing that made Harry go out of character, it was remarks about his real identity, particularly when they were saying things that were absolutely false about him.

"Ginny," Professor Snape said from behind her. "Please join me in the lab. I have a few potions that I want to run through with you."

"Yes Professor," Ginny said, spotting Harry leaving Doctor Chalice's house. "It looks like Harry's on the way back. Should he join us."

Ginny turned around in time to see the Potions Master's frown. The professor stepped past her to look out the door. "Normally I wouldn't consider it, but perhaps today. If you will go down to the lab and put up the potions that my Slytherins made, I shall talk to him first."

Ginny went down the hall, into the kitchen, and then through the door to the steps leading to the basement. There really wasn't much to put up. Crabbe hadn't even started the third potion when the time allotted was up. Still, she carefully labeled each potion and placed it on one of the racks labeled students. She'd actually spent more time down in the potions lab than Harry, and knew exactly where the professor liked everything to be stored.

The arrangement wasn't quite like the stores in the classroom at Hogwarts. For one thing, it was maybe a third of the size. There were also some very costly ingredients stored rather openly. Ginny was sure that some of them would have been under lock and key at Hogwarts, but here they were not.

By the time Professor Snape returned to his lab, everything was in place. The potions were on the rack for evaluation, the ingredients that were not used were carefully placed in containers, and the tables had been cleaned.

"How long have you been doing advanced potions?" Snape asked as soon as he reached the foot of the stairs. "Watching you work with Parkinson leads me to believe that you know a lot more than I expect from someone who has just completed her first year."

"I've been helping Fred and George with their prank potions since they came back from their first year at Hogwarts," Ginny said, shrugging. "You can't get in trouble for doing potions underage. I help Mum with her cleaning potions too."

"Last September, a prank was played against my Slytherins," Snape said. "A masterful one, that I secretly found quite well done, and thus punished your brothers a great deal less than I would have otherwise. It involved a great deal of shrinking solution, something that I'm quite aware that your twin brothers have some difficulty making. I'm also aware that they are quite unlikely to be able to afford the purchase of the quantity necessary to shrink and place every Slytherin boy in their year into a dollhouse for the day."

"Please tell me someone got pictures?" Ginny asked. "They said they weren't able to, and promised that I'd get to see the occupied dollhouse we built. Well, they built, since I did the potions for them."

"Parkinson has pictures," Snape said. "Tell me, how do you brew a shrinking solution?"

"Start with five sliced caterpillars, preferably deilephila porcellus; the slice should be on the underside, and not complete, done right before placing them in the cauldron filled a third full with water," Ginny began. "Heat until they dissolve, stirring very slowly counter clockwise. Potion should be red. Peeled shrivelfig should be added slowly, with all liquid having been shaken off before adding. When the potion turns yellow, stop adding. Bring the potion to a simmer, and wait for it to turn purple. Then add four rat spleens, which should be filled with minced daisy roots. Stir in a figure eight until the daisy roots cause it to turn green. Poor the resulting potion into cool cauldron, containing five drops of leech juice and a second shrivelfig. Stir until it turns pink. Add one more sliced caterpillar, preferably smerinthus ocellatus, this time sliced completely through in no more than an eighth inch thick disks. Allow the potion to simmer until it turns a brilliant green. Bottle and cap with cork."

"And the resulting strength of the solution?" Snape asked.

"A standard teaspoon dose will shrink the average human to one eighteenth of their size for eighteen hours," Ginny replied. "Properly mixed, it can be baked into ginger snaps without a reduction in affected size, though it will make it last four hours longer, due to the ginger."

Snape looked at the just completed first year Gryffindor. Ginny could feel him weighing options as he considered her answers. Then he looked away, and headed over to his common ingredient stores. "Do we have enough stocked in the kitchen to make ginger snaps ?" he asked.

"I think we're low on ginger," Ginny replied, thinking to what she'd seen upstairs. "But I'm not sure."

"Check, and we'll send Harry to get what needs to be obtained," Snape said, pulling down ingredients. "We will be making shrinking solution this afternoon."


Severus Snape sat in his study considering a bottle filled with shrinking solution. There was no way around it, he had a student who was in the wrong year of potions. In fact, he was considering the possibility that Ginny Weasley might fit better in Fifth Year potions with her brothers. At the very least he was going to move her to third year potions. She made a better shrinking solution than he could.

He had used just Smerinthus ocellatus in his solution, a solution that the common texts didn't tell which caterpillar to use. More advanced texts advised that the caterpillars be alike as possible. When he'd questioned Ginny, she'd said that she'd found that you had to match the first five, but which one you used for the last one seemed to affect the strength. It had been an accident that she'd tried something else, an accident that had her twin brothers and Ron spending after dinner until nearly dinner the next day in her dollhouse.

Severus had already determined that he had seriously misjudged Harry. He wasn't skip a year in potions material, but Harry was a lot better when not under pressure than expected. It had made him wonder how others would preform with a less stressed environment. His Slytherins did seem to do better when he pulled them into a more private lab for help, or invited them over during the summer. Perhaps he should test it with a few non-Slytherin invites to Spinner's End.

He grimaced as he realized that it would mean that more of his students would know where he spent his summers. Well, most of his Slytherins knew, already. It was not a great secret, just not one that spread to other houses.

The question was who should he start with?

He stepped out of his study and looked towards the door. It appeared that Harry was on the phone again. That could mean that one of two people had called, Dudley or ...

"Hermione, I'm not going to talk about that," Harry said. "Not over the phone at least."

...Granger then. "One moment, Harry," Severus interrupted. Harry placed his hand over the receiver. "You may invite Miss Granger over for your birthday, but she must be willing to keep your identity and location secret. I shall also require that she do one potion in my lab."

Severus watched as a rare smile brightened Harry's face. It was a smile that made her look so much like her mother had in happier times when he and Lily had been Harry's age.

"Sorry Hermione, the Professor wanted to tell me something," Harry said. "He says that you can come over for my birthday!"

Severus turned quickly away, more out of habit than anything, hiding his expression at Harry's glee. He knew the boy turned girl had not had any good birthdays before. Letting a friend come over was the least he could do. Of course he was really doing it to help him reconsider his class evaluations, he told himself. He shook his head. No, inviting the insufferable Gryffindor know-it-all really did nothing for that.

"You just have do a potion with the Professor, and keep my real name secret here," Harry said as Severus returned to his study.

Severus was sure that if there was one visitor that Harry could have from his friends who wouldn't out him it was Hermione Granger. He certainly wasn't going to invite Ron Weasley over, even though he had Ginny here. Both Ginny and Harry had become a lot better at playing their roles since that first visit of Draco to Spinner's End. Of course, allowances should be made for the fact that Harry had been on her period, not that he was going to admit that. They'd been much better with the last few of his Slytherins' visits. They'd even properly played their roles when a muggleborn and his parents had came to visit last week.

Still, inviting over any Weasley boy was a risk, no matter how much he wanted to tease out the abilities of those infernal fraternal twins. There might be a way though, especially if he could arrange for a day where they were the only ones he had to worry about. He would have to think about that.


Albus Dumbledore had been invited to visit Spinner's End over a week before, by Harry Potter. He'd been a little too busy at the time. So it was late evening nine days later when he finally stepped out of the pouring rain into the entry of Number Seven Spinner's End. It was not the first time he'd visited Severus's ancestral estate. In fact he'd assisted Severus in installing the concrete tables in his basement lab. Severus had not wanted any magic used to set up the tables, and Albus had spent the next two weeks with an aching back.

Severus always required that you arrived at his door by normal means. He was not on the floo nor was it possible to apparate into his house. Albus was not certain how he'd managed the latter, but it seemed that all of Spinner's End was in a no apparation zone. So Albus had to dress in muggle clothes, arrive in the park, and walk to Spinner's End. He thought that the mauve jacket made him look rather spiffy.

Reaching the door of Number Seven, he rang the bell, only to hear the response of "Enter." Opening the door he found the speaker to be standing on the landing of the stairs, about five steps up from the floor. He hadn't seen the young girl before, but the deep green eyes focused right on his gave little doubt as to who it was that invited him into the house, even given the changes.

"Good Evening, Harry," Albus said to the flame haired maiden standing, her arms crossed as she glared down at him. She wore a blue-silver reflective tank top over a pair of faded blue jeans. Somehow she projected an air of cold fury, even in the heat of the late summer day.

"At the moment, thanks to you, it's Harikleia Prince," Harry said icily. "Thanks to you I'm not spending the summer as an about to turn thirteen-year-old boy, but unnecessarily changed into a girl who just finished her first period five days ago. I'd ask what you were thinking by making me go through this, but then I really should start by asking why you left me in on a doorstep in a cold November night hoping that my magic hating aunt would take me in? Ever think that I was a toddler who could have gotten up and walked away?"

"Protections were cast to prevent you from waking up until your aunt picked you up, and the basket had a rather good warming charm on it," Albus said. "That being said, I must admit to making a rather poor choice in your placement. Unfortunately, though I did tell your parents; 'tempus fugit, memento mori,' they chose not to leave a will. In those cases, the closest living relative receives custody, which was your Aunt Petunia."

"And you never checked up on me," Harry growled, her eyes flashing.

"I did ask Mrs. Figg to look in on you from time to time," Albus replied, trying to keep himself from looking away. "Unfortunately I often find myself without a great deal of time. I'm afraid that I have been shanghaied into more roles due to the curse of insufficient reluctance."

"That doesn't explain why you thought turning me into a girl for the summer was a good idea," Harry demanded firmly.

"No one will see a girl as being the Boy-Who-Lived," Albus replied. "As you are not under the protective wards at you Aunt's and Uncle's house, it is very important that you be protected as much as possible. Protection by redirection, coupled with the not inconsiderable talents of Professor Snape, was the best I could arrange. And I can not tell you that Voldemort's followers are not after you still. Last summer we convicted someone who used the Imperious Curse on a London cabbie trying to get him to follow you home with the intent of killing you.

"I have made many mistakes over the years, but I will not make more of them by providing an insufficient disguise. I know you are not known to lie. You do not tell stories, preferring silence to letting things out. I was afraid that a slight change would not be enough to allow anyone to dismiss the inevitable mistakes.

"You, as well as Miss Weasley, needed the assistance that Doctor Chalice provided. So I arranged for you to get the care you needed. I suppose you could have traveled back and forth from Privet Drive, but that would have left you in the very place that had harmed you in the first place. So, you needed to stay elsewhere, and that is why you are staying with Professor Snape. I imagine that it has not been a bad place to stay?"

Harry ducked her head, no longer meeting Albus's eyes. "No." Then after a pause, right before Albus was ready to continue, she said, "It's actually been rather nice."

"I admit that there was something of a risk to you staying here, given the number of students of a certain house that tend to come by for extra potions study, but as I said, they will not see you as the Boy-Who-Lived."

Albus barely heard Harry mumble, "I wish they would do that at Hogwarts."

"So I needed to hide you. Miss Weasley gave me the best opportunity to do so. A single student staying with Professor Snape is suspect, but a pair of sisters? Especially with a man whose family is not known to many? No, no one will suspect you are staying here. It would not have worked if you remained as you had been. So I found a potion to change you. A spell could be reversed. That limited me somewhat. There are minor change potions, but they tend to be poisonous when used too long. Genetic suppression potions though are ideal, if a bit archaic. The particular one I chose is actually one created by accident. I believe that Perenelle was trying to turn a girl into a boy. It didn't work, but when her son accidentally drank the potion, well, you know what it does."

"Yes, it makes me look like the spitting image of my mother," Harry said, still somewhat icily. "Might that be a problem? I mean everyone says I look like my father, save for my eyes that look like my mother's."

"If they were looking for girls, perhaps," Albus acknowledged. "But as I said, they will not be. That they are still looking for you are looking for the boy who lived, and they are still looking for you. No less than six potential tails were distracted to losing where you were going when your Uncle picked you up last Summer. I have not read the report from Alastair on this year's effort.

"No less than eighteen volunteers took polyjuice last year to look like you. Then we changed some hair colors, and did a few other things, and still they followed those as well. Your uncle's habit of running reds helped immensely in losing a few of them. Still the last one to lose their tail was last year's head boy who was a blue-eyed blond version of you wearing a Manchester United T-Shirt. It is a major task to prevent you from being followed home. The wards may prevent them from coming into your neighborhood, but the further out they're stopped, the safer you are."

Harry's mouth had dropped open. It was clear to Albus that she had no idea how far he'd gone to protect her. "You did all that?"

"Yes," Albus confirmed. "This year involved even more aurors and a few more seventh-years than before. I can honestly say that there are a great number of students at Hogwarts that volunteered beyond those we used. I do think that some of it was due to their guilt on the Heir of Slytherin/parseltongue affair, though."

Harry seemed to suddenly find her legs to be weak, at least that's what Albus assumed as the boy-turned-girl found a seat on the steps. Albus moved around the bannister to sit beside her on the steps, though he knew that it would be hard for his old bones to get up from the position.

"Last year when you were in the Hospital Wing, I told you that there was a reason that Voldemort was after you," Albus began, making a decision that he believed was now overdue. He really should have pulled Harry aside after his last encounter with Lucius as the man was on his way out of Hogwarts.

He'd been so serious with his reply to Lucius's somewhat sarcastic line about always being there to save the day. Harry's reply, "Don't worry, I will be," had sent chills down Albus's spine.

"Voldemort went after you because of part of a prophecy that one of his servants had overheard the year you were born," Albus said. "Like many prophecies, acting it may make it more likely that it is a prophecy that applies to you and Voldemort. If you should chose to take Divination next year, and even if you do not, I would recommend having a discussion with Professor Trelawney about acting on prophecies. It is best, therefore, that the exact text be kept secret as much as possible. It foretold that the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord would be born at the end of July that year.

"You were one of two wizards born then that met the requirements in that prophecy. Hence Voldemort went after you and your parents. Due to a betrayal, he was successful, and thus firmly marked you as the one who could defeat him."

"But haven't I already defeated him?" Harry asked.

"You have banished him, but not defeated him," Albus said. "To truly defeat Voldemort, he must be defeated beyond the ability for him to ever return."

"How can I do that?" Harry asked, her voice trembling. "I'm just Harry. I don't know anything special. He's the strongest Dark Lord, ever. I'm just Harry."

"You will be able to," Albus promised. "Starting in September, I shall make time to personally tutor you in how to defeat Dark Lords. As the one who defeated the last one, it is only right that I do so. Meanwhile, you need your Summer to recover from the past. You must return to Hogwarts fully healed, relaxed, and ready to meet the challenges. Can you do that for me, Harry?"

"I will," Harry said, in a tone that matched the one that he'd used that day after the Chamber.

"Good," Albus said. "Then, if you'll help me up, I understand there is still some left of your most excellent apple pie. Severus says it should not be missed, and I've never found him to be wrong about dessert."