"Squib!"
Absolute. Dead. Silence.
The child under the hat barely moved, either from shock or fear was unknown.
No one, no one would have guessed the hat would yell out 'Squib' instead of one of the four hours. Especially that child!
McGonagall slowly removed the hat to reveal a child with green eyes, messy black hair and a familiar curse scar. The poor thing seemed absolutely timid and had no idea what to do now.
"Ms. Potter, please go wait in the ante chamber," she told the poor girl. How was she going to explain this to Lily and James in the afterlife, that the magic that their daughter had barely survived had turned the girl into a squib!
The girl couldn't meet anyone's eyes, and seemed on the verge of breaking down in tears.
It was absolutely dreadful, and McGonagall reluctantly went back to the sorting...however anyone could tell her heart wasn't in it. The silence continued right until the food appeared, but once it did the hall almost exploded in hushed whispers of what just happened.
The girl-who-lived was a squib!
The next morning...
Seeing the familiar sight of Privet Drive, Willow Cerridwen Potter, meekly went inside.
However the second the professor left, after leaving vague warnings about keeping an eye on her, the girl's back straightened and she looked Petunia dead in the eye.
"Pathetic fools. As if I would be stupid enough to actually attend that backwater school when I could be doing something productive," sneered the girl.
Petunia blinked at the sudden change of attitude, and before she could attempt to reassert control over the girl she had basically treated as a live-in slave for the past ten years, the girl had her 'aunt' up against a wall with a dagger in her other hand.
Petunia wisely kept her mouth shut and her eyes on the girl.
"Let's get one thing straight, bitch. I don't want to be here and your pathetic family would be better off if I disappeared from England entirely. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to calmly explain to Vernon that he is going to pay for a first-class ticket to Italy, and you will assist me in getting a normal passport. If you don't, then I have absolutely no issue with murdering you all in your sleep, one at a time starting with that fat husband of yours. Are. We. Clear."
Petunia looked in the dead eyes of her niece, found that there was absolutely no empathy or anything resembling mercy in them, and carefully nodded.
She had absolutely zero doubt that the girl would happily follow through if her demands were not met, with great enthusiasm and no little creativity involved.
Vernon was just glad to be rid of the 'freak', even if he twitched at having to pay for a seat that the girl deemed 'acceptable'.
It would be some time before the "mix-up" was discovered, and by then she would be long gone.
Back in Hogwarts, Headmaster's office...
"Really Albus, there was no need to banish that poor girl because she was sorted into Slytherin! Plenty of fine witches and wizards have come out of that house that didn't turn evil!" scolded the hat.
It had spoken up because the topic of discussion was the tragic knowledge that the killing curse had rendered poor Ms. Potter a squib.
Dead silence. Considering this was the first staff meeting of the year, almost a full month had passed since the shock at the Sorting.
"Forgive me for asking this..." said McGonagall slowly, as if in disbelief at what she was hearing. "But are you telling me you sorted young Ms. Potter into Slytherin, rather than declare her a squib in front of the entire school?!"
The hat looked offended she had to ask that question.
"I have done my duty to sort the young lady, and you all looked quite devestated at her placement. I cannot believe you have fallen so far as to banish a child because of which house she was sorted in! I almost sorted her into Ravenclaw after all! The girl has quite the mind for Arithimancy if the equations I saw going through her head were any indication!"
Flitwick and Sinistra perked up at that information.
"Just to be clear here, you did not actually declare her a squib, correct?" said Dumbledore baffled.
The hat 'glared' at him.
Dumbledore pulled out his pensieve, and to a man each of the professors re-watched the sorting.
There, clear as day was the sound of the hat declaring "Squib!" to the entire school. While on Ms. Potter's head.
To their frustration, they could not find a single clue as to how the girl had fooled them all into believing she was a squib, instead of a newly sorted Slytherin.
Either way, they needed to reclaim Ms. Potter and find out the truth, before things got even more muddled.
A young witch walked into the Italian branch of Gringotts, spotted a less than amused Goblin, and calmly waltzed up to the desk.
"Time is money, so do not waste too much of mine or you will find yourself eviscerated in the most creative fashion I can devise while bored," she said bluntly.
The goblin stopped what it was doing, and actually Looked at the eleven year old girl who said this in a tone that said volumes of the fact she would Do Bad Things to anyone who did not operate in a timely manner.
"...What is it you want?"
"I want to sort out my vaults so that I am assured that I am not being swindled by brainless sheep who do not understand the proper value of money and seem to believe that passing around the same gold to slightly different people is considered profit. I would also like to claim several bounties and reparations from the idiots who run the British ministries for their incompetence as well as demand a very large cut of several books that were published without authorization or agreement from the subject in question. Oh, and create a very sizeable fine for a certain set of phrases."
"..."
Viper was rather pleased when they were swiftly moved into a much more expensive looking part of the bank, and put together with some quite ruthless and rather 'mercenary' looking lawyers all too happy to listen to what she had to say so long as they got a decent size of what was looking to be a very sizeable profit from idiots too stupid to keep their gold anyway.
Considering she knew something of the future, Viper made a point to convert a large amount of gold into normal currency, make several off-shore bank accounts, and then invest heavily in stocks she knew would explode upwards in value.
Including a few that belonged to a number of companies that were involved in scandals that would eventually bankrupt them.
The Miserly Mist of the Arcobaleno had a dark smirk on their face.
Then they looked at their naturally eleven-year-old body and scowled.
It looked like they would have to take a page out of Lal's book... and a few others...before anyone took them seriously as a major player.
It was a good thing they were an excellent information broker. Finding an arm's dealer willing to honor their agreement and not try to cheat them from their apparent age would take ages otherwise.
A few months later...
Viper was humming pleased. It had taken a few pointed warnings about pissing them off, but their lack of empathy and sheer willingness to blow anyone who looked at them funny up made up for their age.
It had taken a mere three months before they secured a cheap apartment in Mafia Land, where they could focus more on increasing their information network to their satisfaction.
It amused Viper greatly that people thought she was a Storm or possibly a Cloud, but never once considered her to be a Mist.
To be fair, she did have a few secondaries she had never really played around with.
Unfortunately her information network was still lacking a great deal, which meant the primary source of money from before was barely making ends meet. Mafia Land was expensive, and not just because of the attractions.
Which was why Viper rented out a massive warehouse, and then advertised a "fun adventure" for bored mafioso.
Which was less a fun adventure and more of a reason for them to let loose with their guns. She charged them for their time, the weapons that were available at the 'start' and for discreet advantages once they really got into it. It was child's play to set up the entire thing along with 'save points'.
The second word spread about the 'mock zombie apocalypse' and the fact they got to kill zombies with realistic effects, Viper was making an absolute killing. What real mafioso would turn down the chance to shoot zombies or play their video games for real? The second most popular 'scenario' being, ironically enough, Super Mario complete with costume.
The irony being that it was a fat "Italian" plumber made by the Japanese for the Americans.
Viper couldn't wait for Pokémon to come out in a few years.
The miserly mist smirked. While her information network wasn't nearly up to what she considered 'acceptable' standards, this was a nice way to kill time and make an obscene amount of money for almost nothing.
Best of all, no one could really force her into joining their famiglia since she sent out an illusionary manager to deal with others while she did her accounting from her apartment.
The amount of money she was racking in from the warehouse alone was making her a very happy Mist.
So you could imagine her annoyance when she saw an owl that was decidedly not her familiar Hedwig attempting to bother her.
Viper was many things, but an idiot was not one of them. So long as she passed the international tests, the English morons couldn't touch her or force her to attend their wretched school. And she had already insured that there wouldn't be any repeats of her fourth year by magically changing her name to Viper Black.
A magical ritual needed certain factors in order to work, especially when it involved unwilling parties. She had negated most of the factors that had dragged her into that accursed tournament simply by changing her name and using a few rituals to alter her original magical signature.
All highly illegal by many Ministries to perform within their jurisdiction, not to mention expensive for the ingredients required, but the security of knowing that she wouldn't be dragged back to England was well worth it.
Besides, most of those she had done once she settled into Mafia Land, which meant the odds of her being arrested for using them were zero. They didn't have a magical ministry, the island itself remained in international waters (which meant she could beat the ever living shit out of anyone who crossed her and not get arrested for it, regardless of what their nationality was), and the fact it was essentially a neutral playground for the criminal underworld meant no would have given a damn about how illegal anything she did was so long as she didn't make it their problem or brought the Vindice down on the place.
For now she just had to lay low, study up for the tests so she could legally claim her full inheritance a little early, and prepare for the headaches that could very easily follow her if certain parties actually managed to track her down. Not to mention build up her information network.
To say Viper was flustered was an understatement.
What the hell was FON doing here?!
The Chinese Storm, who had yet to grow into the man she had always harbored a crush on but was too cowardly to admit to, was in Mafia Land.
She knew it was him because she had practically memorized his flame signature over the years, and while it was unrefined she had recognized it in a heartbeat.
Fon was clearly looking for something, but his presence threw her off enough that she decided to avoid him instead.
Besides, she was currently undergoing the headache known as puberty a full year and a half earlier than she remembered and the last thing she wanted was for the Storm to have more ammunition to tease her with.
He was annoying enough as it was.
Sadly it seemed fate was working against her. Fon had come to the island looking for the "top information broker", though her reach in Asia wasn't as good as she would have liked. Her European and American network, on the other hand...
Viper sent out an illusionary double, and kept out of sight. She had gotten to the point that she could see and hear everything the double could, which made it that much harder for "interested parties" to catch her.
Forced recruitment, especially by Skies, was heavily frowned upon on Mafia Land. To the point that if they failed to convince the one they wanted into joining that they could be kicked off and banned for a period of time. The length of which was usually dependent on how much of a nuisance they made themselves.
Skies usually got a longer "sentence" than usual unless they had a full compliment of bonded guardians. No one appreciated it when Skies tried to shove their flames on people, driving "free" Elements into causing a massive ruckus that would only piss off the Vindice to no end.
"What do you want? Bear in mind information will cost you money and that attempts to coerce me into joining any group will only bring pain upon you and any friends you may attempt to bring," asked Viper through the mouth of the double.
The art of Ventriloquism was seriously underrated, but oh so useful. And in the hands of a skilled Mist, made them even more effective at distracting the enemy.
Though Viper had to hide a smirk at the number of times she had pissed off Renato or Lal by mimicking the voices of people around them into saying something they shouldn't. Lal in particular was so easy to rile up.
Fon seemed to look at her curiously.
"I am a freelancer myself," he replied easily. "So I understand your dislike of being forced to join with another group. My clan has been having certain difficulties in Europe regarding some rather foolish individuals, so I was hoping you might have information that could help lead me to their location."
Viper's double stared at him.
"Do these 'certain individuals' happen to answer to something other than the Vindice, yet weild an energy not unlike Mist flames combined with Sun?" she asked carefully.
Fon's calm smile sharpened a bit.
"Perhaps."
Viper's double was good, but it couldn't tell her anything about whether Fon had magic or not. And while she didn't give a damn about the Statute she wasn't about to air the fact that there was another community of easily exploited fools who could use powers other than flames.
"This area is too open for such sensitive information," said Viper.
"I agree. Would your warehouse be sufficient?"
"It closes to the public around eight tonight. Come at nine so the stragglers will have been ejected and I can secure it."
Fon nodded agreeably.
Later that night...
Fon arrived at the warehouse, and was mildly surprised by the limited defenses around it. It was nice to know that his honor as a martial artist had earned him that amount of trust...from what he had heard, the Black Viper was extremely paranoid and rarely interacted with their customers directly, preferring to use a Mist double instead.
"What is it you wish to know?" asked Viper.
Fon blinked... the figure before him couldn't possibly be more than a year or two younger than he was.
"Are you a squib?" he asked bluntly. It was better to get directly to the point and that was a harmless enough question.
He could feel Viper roll their eyes at him.
"Just because I fooled everyone into believing the Sorting Hat yelled 'Squib' rather than 'Slytherin' doesn't mean I am one," they snarked.
Well that answered which particular enclave Viper came from.
Fon kept his hands visible.
"My clan has been having difficulty acquiring certain magical ingredients and potions from Europe, several of which are from the UK. They would like to know who is hindering their business and what would be the most effective method of fixing the issue."
Viper snorted.
"The English morons are finally starting to feel the pressure from their money being siphoned off by their general idiocy and are likely trying to 'fix' the issue by keeping everything in house rather than exporting good to foreign countries," replied the Mist. "I know for a fact they hold a very ill view of foreign wizards and barely tolerate those with creature inheritances such as Veela."
Fon frowned at that.
"What is causing the problem?"
"Their precious 'savior' is finally calling them on their general bullshit and put a 'fee' on the multiple nicknames they were given, along with putting the squeeze on those who would make a profit off their so-called legend," said Viper bluntly. "Anyone over the age of fifteen that tries to mention Willow Potter in conjuction with her status as the girl who survived the killing curse is charged two sickles without exception. Considering those idiots have been pushing around the same gold for over a century at least and calling it profit, and the fact that most Hogwarts graduates are generally laughed at once they leave the UK unless they kept their grades up, it's rather hard for them to make up what they're losing."
Fon openly frowned at that.
"So there's no viable way for my clan to deal with the issue directly?"
Viper smirked.
"I said that it would be too difficult to deal with the problem in the straightforward manner you were planning. However there are indirect methods which would solve the issue without actually involving your clan with the civil war that is almost certain to erupt within the next decade, if not sooner."
Seeing his interest, Viper elaborated.
"I have certain...investments...in Europe. If I had a list of what your clan is attempting to acquire, it would make it easier for me to act as middleman for a small fee."
Fon smiled with relief. At least this trip wasn't a complete waste of his time, though why he was sent was still something of a mystery.