So I have decided, for the 100th time, to attempt to rewrite this plotline. Partially because the idea of Harry having a sister appeals to me and partly because there are not nearly enough twin stories on this site and they seem to be dwindling faster every day. I cannot guarantee that this will end up being more satisfying than any of my other attempts, but as I grow older I feel that I expect more out of my characters and how I want them to progress. So I can promise to try to make the ride as enjoyable as possible. I will also say that, as it is my freshman year in college, I may not be able to update quite as frequently as any of you lovely readers (or even myself) would like me to. Just stick with me.

As a side note: Constructive Criticism is welcome but no Flames please and thank you. If, at any point in the story, there is something you wish to see, feel free to drop a review or message me to let me know and I'll do my best to include it.

Anyhow, enjoy the first chapter and I will try to update as soon as possible!

Disclaimer: I'll only do this once because it gets annoying after a while, but I do not own any characters except my OCs. All story line plot and characters belong to JK Rowling and/or Warner Bros. and I make no profit off this story.

Summary: As her third year of Hogwarts looms and a strange house-elf appears to coax Harry to stay away from the school, Nessa can already tell that this year will likely be just as stressful for her as the last. And with newfound attention from George Weasley and Ginny Weasley's strange behavior, how will she ever survive this one?

Chapter 1

It was not for the first time that Vanessa Potter found herself basking outside in the afternoon sun, reading one of the many novels that she'd found somewhere in the depths of her aunt's untouched bookshelf. There was nothing she loved quite as much as reading, and if it got her away from her family's death glares and angry spats then that was just an added perk. Aside from the fact, she needed a break from all of the happenings that occurred on Privet Drive and the end of her summer. Unlike Harry, the summer's end for Nessa came with mixed feelings of elation and dread.

Hogwarts was by far one of the most beautiful places that she had ever visited in the entirety of her life and the part of her that desired so deeply to travel could not help but be excited to see the castle again. Though this would be her third year at Hogwarts, there had yet to be any site better than the one she glimpsed when the carriages rounded the corner and pushed their way past the gate. She enjoyed discovering the castle's secrets during her nighttime wanderings and she absolutely loved strolling through the castle grounds in the morning before breakfast. She loved the challenges of her coursework and lounging in the common room in the late evening when everyone had gone to bed. And she absolutely loved the food, something that was a commodity here at Privet Drive. Just thinking of the mashed potatoes and baked chicken and Yorkshire pudding and treacle tart made her mouth water with anticipation.

But with the return of Hogwarts came all of the other students as well. While Nessa was not entirely opposed to being around other people, she could admit that she wasn't exactly what one would call a people person. She was perfectly amiable for the most part, but she was socially awkward and shy at the best of times and completely silent at the worst. Not to mention she found herself frequently overwhelmed by the constant socialization that her classmates seemed to enjoy so much and had a tendency to hole herself up in the library for days until she felt ready to see people once again. As such, she barely had any friends at Hogwarts and sometimes she dreaded being the awkward loner who followed her best friend around like a lost puppy because she really had no one else.

Her only friend, Victoria Hastings, was exactly her opposite: loud and obnoxious, opinionated, and rowdy. Her position as Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team also provided her with the social skills required to maintain a large group of friends. As different as they were, Nessa sometimes found it hard to believe that they had even managed a friendship at all. In hindsight, they almost hadn't.

Nessa had first met her on the Hogwarts Express playing a prank on another innocent first-year with two red-headed twins. Which normally may not have bothered her had the first-year not burst into distressed tears and run off in the opposite direction. She'd had no idea what they'd even said, but watching them snigger at another person's panic was enough to make her angry enough to dislike all of them. This was only amplified when she realized that Victoria, or Tori as she preferred to be called, was just as obnoxious and rude in class as she was to those in her year. It was not until Professor Snape, noticing her distaste for the other girl, had vindictively made them potions partners after Tori had blown up her cauldron trying to create a simple Cure for Boils. To his dismay, the two seemed to hit it off upon a few minutes of terribly awkward and tense minutes. They had been joined at the hip since.

Her friendship with Tori, however, did not extend to the Weasley twins. Not because she didn't like them, because she certainly found them amusing once she got past their sometimes insensitive pranks, but because they made her nervous in a way that Tori did not. If Tori could be considered rowdy, then the twins were positively explosive. And, while she had been invited to join them all on several occasions, she always found some excuse to avoid an encounter with them. The twins were likely the most well-known of anyone at Hogwarts. Their positions on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team coupled with their jokester persona and good looks made them quite easily the most popular pair of people to grace Hogwarts. She was hardly going to spend time with them and awkwardly make a fool of herself.

With all of these feelings put together, it really was no wonder that she needed a break from her relatives and Harry. Reading was the easiest way to do so, but she had to be wary of her aunt catching her out in the backyard. It was well-known to the household that the bookshelf was used mostly for appearances sake. Her uncle and Dudley were hardly intelligent enough to determine where to start reading and her aunt was always too busy spying on any of the neighbors to spend her time reading. Even Harry couldn't be seen near the thing. If there was one thing that Harry wanted to read, it was their schoolbooks and homework under the cupboard they'd once shared. Something Nessa found ironic, considering that he never wanted to complete any of his homework while they were actually at Hogwarts.

Despite this lack of interest in the family's reading material, if Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon caught wind of her taking books off of the perfectly managed and underused bookshelf, they'd have a conniption. The books were solely for the Dursleys and she was not entitled to touching things that did not belong to her. For reasons unknown to her, her aunt and uncle seemed to have a much stronger dislike for her than they did for Harry.

So it really was no surprise that the sound of the back door slamming made her jump so high that the book she'd been reading fell out of her hands and she had to scramble to hide it behind her back. She sighed in relief when she recognized it was Harry.

She'd disappeared after having helped him make breakfast, skipping the meal herself in her attempt to escape her family and enjoy the warm, sunny day. She'd heard the argument about Hedwig from upstairs before she'd managed to sneak outside. To top it off, she and her brother had been told several times that they would be staying upstairs for the duration of their uncle's dinner party tonight, pretending they didn't exist. But in her own attempt to get some peace, she'd forgotten that today was much harder on Harry. The Dursleys had, of course, pretended to forget that it was Harry's birthday, something that angered her a great deal.

Sighing dejectedly, she stood up to take a seat next to him on the garden bench and caught the tail end of his sarcastic birthday wish.

"…Happy birthday to me…"

He stared miserably into the garden hedge without saying anything to her at all. She rested her head on his shoulder and held the silence; she didn't want to push him to talk, especially because she had been insensitive to him before in her own attempt for alone time.

She also knew that it was hard for him, having his birthday in the summer, because he had not received any cards or gifts from anyone at Hogwarts. Not from Hagrid, who was rather fond of him, or from his best friends, Ron Weasley (she seemed to be surrounded by Weasleys these days) and Hermione Granger. His eager behavior and happiness at being able to return to Hogwarts at the end of the summer had slowly begun to dwindle to nothing when he hadn't received one single letter from any of his friends. In a selfish way, Nessa was happy that his friends hadn't written him. She'd always been jealous of Harry's ability to acquire friendships with ease, despite his shy personality. Which of course made her feel guilty for even thinking it to begin with.

"Do you ever think about it?" Harry asked quietly, disrupting her thoughts, his gaze never leaving the hedge. "Leaving here, I mean. Just the two of us."

"A couple times," she admitted, leaning her head back to look at the sky above them. "But then I think about how we could never possibly survive without money and food and water—"

She was interrupted by the laughter that erupted from her brother. He was finally looking at her, mirth in his eyes.

"Always practical, you are," he said, shaking his head and looking back at the hedge, this time with a grin on his face.

She shoved him off the bench.

"Well one of us ought to be." She said, rolling her eyes as he continued to snigger below her.

They had been so interested in their own conversation that neither had heard the back door close as their cousin walked outside. It was not until they heard his loud, jeering voice that the Potter siblings stood to face him, Harry standing slightly behind his sister's smaller frame, a matching glare on both of their faces.

"I know what day it is," Dudley jeered, coming right up to him.

"Well done," said Harry. "So you've finally learned the days of the week."

"Today's your birthday," sneered Dudley. "How come you haven't got any cards? Haven't you even got friends at that freak place?"

"The only cards you get are from your parents, you great spoiled prat," said Nessa, her voice cold. "Run along, Diddykins. Mummy misses you."

She'd never quite seen her cousin swell to that particular size before, but she smirked at having angered him so quickly. Harry's voice interrupted her amusement.

"Better not let your mum hear you talking about my school," said Harry coolly.

Dudley hitched up his trousers, which were slipping down his fat bottom. "Why're you staring at the hedge?" he said suspiciously.

"I'm trying to decide what would be the best spell to set it on fire," said Harry.

Dudley stumbled backward at once, a look of panic on his fat face. "You c-can't — Dad told you you're not to do m-magic — he said he'll chuck you out of the house — and you haven't got anywhere else to go — you haven't got any friends to take you —"

"Jiggery pokery!" said Harry in a fierce voice. "Hocus pocus — squiggly wiggly —"

"MUUUUUUM!" howled Dudley, tripping over his feet as he dashed back toward the house. "MUUUUM! He's doing you know what!"

Harry would normally have laughed at having scared Dudley so easily, but his words seemed to have hit him hard. He sat dejectedly back on the garden bench, glaring sullenly at the hedge once again. Nessa crossed her arms over her chest.

"I'm sure Ron and Hermione are just busy, Harry." She said softly. "You'll probably hear from them soon."

Harry opened his mouth to say something when he jumped up out of his seat, staring at the hedge with wide eyes.

"Did you see that?!"

Nessa eyed the hedge warily before looking back at her brother.

"See what, Harry?" she said slowly, looking back and forth between him and the hedge that Harry was still staring at.

"There was—someone was staring at us."

Nessa took a step back in reflex, watching the shrubbery in nervous anticipation. Never mind the fact that it was completely ridiculous for anyone to be staring at them from inside a hedge in their backyard.

"I…I don't see anything, Harry." She hesitated, wrapping her arms around herself and staring at her brother.

Harry spun around to look at her, his hand still pointed at the shrub, and opened his mouth to say something when the sound of their aunt yelling at them from inside the house reached their ears. They gave each other a look before marching themselves inside to face their punishment for tormenting poor, innocent Dudley.

Nessa hesitated behind her brother in stepping over the threshold, looking back at the hedge they'd been watching earlier in a last attempt to see what he had seen. When nothing crazy appeared, she sighed in relief and followed him into house, closing the door with a snap behind her.

They paid dearly for their moment of fun. Though Nessa had barely said a word to Dudley at all, her aunt seemed to believe that she had been encouraging Harry to frighten her son. It didn't matter that neither the hedge nor Dudley had met any harm, so it was unlikely that Harry was doing any magic at all. She'd sent Harry outside to do yardwork and had kept Nessa inside to scrub every crack and crevice of the house before the Masons came over for dinner.

It was not until half-past seven that she and Harry had finished with their work, the smell of roast in the oven permeating the house and the sight of a pretty whipped cake sitting atop the fridge. The Potter siblings, however, were both given a plate with two lumps of bread and a slice of cheese. Nessa sighed, her stomach rumbling from lack of food the entire day, already regretting having skipped breakfast as she choked down her meal and was shooed up to their shared bedroom by her aunt.

She tiptoed quietly behind Harry and shut the door softly behind her, before turning around to collapse on the bed with her brother when she noticed Harry had frozen just behind her.

She pushed him in the back.

"Move, you oaf. I'm exhausted."

He stepped aside to show her the tiny creature sitting on the bed, staring at them with green eyes the size of tennis balls, floppy ears, and a disgusting tea towel wrapped around his body.

"That's the thing that was staring at us earlier." He whispered in her ear.

She shot him a panicked look, not feeling at all comforted by the fact as she heard her relatives greeting the Masons downstairs. She wrapped her arms around herself self-consciously and was about to ask the creature to leave before her brother spoke from her side.

"Er—hello" said Harry, nervously.

He took a step forward, but Nessa grabbed his arm to pull him back.

"Are you mad?" she whispered fiercely. "You don't even know what he is. He could be here to kill you."

"Yeah, well he'll have to get in line." He whispered back before smiling awkwardly at the creature sitting on their bed. He sidestepped over to the desk chair and sank into it.

Nessa continued to stand with her back to the door, her arms crossed over her chest awkwardly, eyeing the creature on her bed shrewdly. He didn't look particularly dangerous to her. And he was a great deal shorter than her so she figured that if he made any sudden moves she could just give him a solid kick across the room.

"Harry Potter!" the creature said, in a high-pitched voice that grated on her ears and may or may not have traveled down the stairs. "So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir…Such an honor it is…And you Miss Vanessa…"

"Call me Nessa," she replied automatically at the same time that Harry stuttered out a thank you and asked his name.

"Dobby, sir. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf," he replied in his squeaky voice.

Nessa had read about house-elves briefly in one of her days hiding out in the library and relaxed minutely. They were not known to be very violent creatures by nature, but she did not know whose family this elf belonged. More than likely a prominent and rich pure-blood family.

She was startled from her thoughts when Dobby let out very noisy tears.

"S-sit down!" he wailed. "Never…never ever…"

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I didn't mean to offend you or anything —"

"Offend Dobby!" choked the elf. "Dobby has never been asked to sit down by a wizard — like an equal —"

Harry, trying to say "Shh!" and look comforting at the same time, ushered Dobby back onto the bed where he sat hiccoughing, looking like a large and very ugly doll. At last he managed to control himself, and sat with his great eyes fixed on Harry in an expression of watery adoration.

"You can't have met many decent wizards," said Harry, trying to cheer him up.

Dobby shook his head. Then, without warning, he leapt up and started banging his head furiously on the window, shouting, "Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!"

Nessa shot forward much faster than Harry to rip him away from the window and pulled him to sit on the bed, where she soon joined him.

"Don't — what are you doing?" Harry hissed, springing up put of his seat in shock— Hedwig had woken up with a particularly loud screech and was beating her wings wildly against the bars of her cage.

"House-elves are enslaved, Harry," Nessa spat with disgust. "Anytime they step out of line they're asked to punish themselves or suffer beatings from their masters."

She'd only read a little about house-elves that day, but she'd learned enough to be disgusted by their treatment. In some ways, she couldn't believe how accepting the Wizarding World could be, and how they could be so barbaric and oppressive in others.

"Dobby had to punish himself, sir," agreed the elf, who had gone slightly cross-eyed. "Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, sir…"

"Your family?"

"The wizard family Dobby serves, sir… Dobby is a house-elf — bound to serve one house and one family forever…"

"Do they know you're here?" asked Harry curiously.

Dobby shuddered. "Oh, no, sir, no… Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir —"

"But won't they notice if you shut your ears in the oven door?"

"Dobby doubts it, sir. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something, sir. They lets Dobby get on with it, sir. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments…"

Nessa tried to not look at him with pity. Of all of the things that Dobby must want and wish for daily, she doubted it was her pity.

"But why don't you leave? Escape?"

"A house-elf must be set free, sir. And the family will never set Dobby free… Dobby will serve the family until he dies, sir…"

Harry stared. "And I thought I had it bad staying here for another four weeks," he said. "This makes the Dursleys sound almost human. Can't anyone help you? Can't I?"

Almost at once, Harry wished he hadn't spoken. Dobby dissolved again into wails of gratitude.

"Please," Harry whispered frantically, "please be quiet. If the Dursleys hear anything, if they know you're here —"

Nessa tried to soothe the elf as calmly as possibly, despite her own panic that the Dursleys would hear him wailing and forbid them from ever seeing the daylight again.

"Harry Potter asks if he can help Dobby… Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but of your goodness, Dobby never knew…"

Harry, who was feeling distinctly hot in the face, said, "Whatever you've heard about my greatness is a load of rubbish. I'm not even top of my year at Hogwarts; that's Hermione, she —"

But he stopped quickly, because thinking about Hermione was painful. Nessa tried not to pity him too.

"Harry Potter is humble and modest," said Dobby reverently, his orb-like eyes aglow. "Harry Potter speaks not of his triumph over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named —"

"Voldemort?" said Harry.

Dobby clapped his hands over his bat ears and moaned, "Ah, speak not the name, sir! Speak not the name!"

"Sorry," said Harry quickly. "I know lots of people don't like it. My friend Ron —"

He stopped again. Thinking about Ron was painful, too.

Dobby leaned toward Harry, his eyes wide as headlights.

"Dobby heard tell," he said hoarsely, "that Harry Potter met the Dark Lord for a second time just weeks ago… that Harry Potter escaped yet again."

Nessa tried not to be annoyed with Dobby's high praise and open curiosity of Harry. As modest as her brother was, she had a hard enough time trying to keep Harry in line without other people showering him with compliments.

Harry nodded and Dobby's eyes suddenly shone with tears. "Ah, sir," he gasped, dabbing his face with a corner of the grubby pillowcase he was wearing. "Harry Potter is valiant and bold! He has braved so many dangers already! But Dobby has come to protect Harry Potter, to warn him, even if he does have to shut his ears in the oven door later… Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts."

Nessa stared out into the night sky, looking out at the stars three days after their encounter with Dobby. Well, looking out at the stars to the best of her ability with the bars that impeded on her ability to see much at all. She could hear Harry snoring loudly on the floor behind her, but her insomnia seemed too strong to pass tonight.

She sighed, curling her legs up into her chest and resting her forehead on the cool window.

In hindsight, she really should have been faster in grabbing Harry when he'd raced downstairs after Dobby in an attempt to snatch his stolen letters. Really, it would have just been easier for Harry to lie and say that he wouldn't return to Hogwarts in order to get his letters and rid himself of Dobby's pestering. Her brother, though dishonest when it was necessary to tell the truth, also had a tendency to be honest when it was best to lie.

Upon the disastrous end of Uncle Vernon's dinner party and subsequent loss of a promotion, the Dursleys had placed bars on their windows, a deadbolt on their door, and a cat flap to pass one bowl of cold vegetable soup through for both her and her brother to share. It had been three days since Nessa had eaten a decent meal and holding her bladder until they let the pair of them out twice a day was beginning to irritate her to an end she'd never reached before.

She'd never quite been more excited to return to Hogwarts. And like an answered prayer, she was startled awake moments later by none other than Ron Weasley and his mischievous twin brothers.

So, there we have it. The first chapter. I'm not sure when I'll be able to update again, but the next update will feature our favorite twins and we'll get to meet Tori! Thanks for reading!