Children of the Gods

by inwardtransience

When the message came, there was little left of Cassiopeia Black in her — soon she would move on, shed her face and her name for another. But, at the last possible moment, she found a reason to carry on, the smouldering embers of her identity sparking to new life. Unfortunately, adopting the Boy Who Lived came with complications. (metamorphs, fairies, AU and very weird)

1. Foundling — I

So I guess this thing exists now. Introductory A/N will be at the end of the third chapter. Let's get this disaster on the road, then...

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October 1987

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It was that earliest time of the morning. The outside world was just starting to wake up, the sun should be peeking over the horizon just about now. There was a faint rumble of engines, the slam of a car door down the street, but most people were still indoors, just getting out of bed or puttering around having breakfast, or whatever it was normal adults did in the morning. (For all the Dursleys might say otherwise, they didn't really seem normal.) Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's alarm would be going off any minute now, and Uncle Vernon would lumber on into the shower, and then Aunt Petunia would be banging on the cupboard door, screeching that it was time to wake up.

But Harry Potter was already awake. It hadn't slept well, again.

There was no point in trying to get more sleep — by the car noises it could barely hear going on out there, it was almost time to get up anyway. Harry sat up in its tiny little cot (which still barely fit in the cupboard), reached up to click on the bulb. It blinked against the light stabbing into its head for a second before it got used to it. It picked up the hand-mirror off a shelf overhead, stared at its own reflection, carefully searching for anything out of place.

Disheveled black hair, check. Intensely green eyes, check. It was a bit harder to tell, all the little fiddly bits that went into the shape of a face, but Harry was...pretty sure that was right? It looked familiar, anyway, which probably meant it was close enough. Harry didn't have a picture to compare against, and it could be annoyingly hard to remember exactly what it was supposed to look like. It was positive its face had slowly changed over time, just because it didn't remember. But it didn't look obviously wrong, so if something had changed it would be small enough Aunt Petunia wouldn't notice — she usually didn't, if it was small things. And, its limbs felt right and its hands were working, so everything else was probably fine too. Good.

A groan of the pipes, and it heard the hissing of the shower coming from the bathroom overhead — Uncle Vernon must be up. Harry put the mirror aside, scrambled to yank on trousers, swapping its ratty old sleep shirt for a proper one — there were a few light thumping noises, a tiny trickle of dust drifting down from the ceiling — it grabbed a jumper rolled up on a shelf and—

Harry jumped at the knocking on the door, the latch rattling with each hit. "I'm up." Did its voice sound off? It thought its voice sounded off...

The lock scraped in the latch, and Aunt Petunia whipped the door open. Pulling its jumper over its head, Harry didn't see Aunt Petunia's judgemental sneer, but it didn't need to, the sneer was on her voice too. "What do you have the light on for? You better not have been wasting electricity."

Straightening its jumper, Harry's eyes settled somewhere down by Petunia's left foot. Speaking low and soft (just in case its voice was off), it said, "I was checking."

Petunia's lips pinched, so tight they paled several shades. But she didn't say anything to that, sweeping off toward the kitchen without another word. Harry clicked off the light and followed.

Sometimes Harry thought the rules it was supposed to follow were very confusing. It tried to remember everything it was supposed to do, and its memory was pretty good, it thought...or maybe its memory wasn't so good, because it always seemed to miss things. Or maybe those were new rules, but when Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon said what it'd done wrong they didn't say they were new rules, even when Harry was pretty sure they were. But there'd been so many rules over the years, maybe it was just forgetting.

One of the big rules that it always had to remember always was that it was a boy — or, not really, because it was a freak instead, but it was supposed to pretend to be a boy, anyway. And boys were supposed to do boy things — not that which things were boy things was in any way connected to boy...ness, it was seemingly just supposed to know these things without being told.

Harry opened a cabinet, reached up for a mixing bowl. It couldn't reach. No, it could reach, but it wasn't supposed to do freakish things, it just had to wait for Petunia to get it down herself.

For as long as it could remember, Harry had always been a freak. It didn't know what that meant, exactly, but as far as it could tell it was because it could make itself change, and ordinary people couldn't. If it wanted to, it could make its arm longer, or make itself taller — that would be better, Harry didn't like making one arm longer than the other, it felt itchy — or change its hair or its face, or pretty much anything it could imagine, it thought.

But that was a freakish thing to do, and freaks couldn't expect to be given food by good, ordinary people like the Dursleys, and Harry liked not being hungry, so it changed as little as it possibly could.

Aunt Petunia was very insistent that Harry was supposed to be a boy — she would even check now and again, just to make sure. And boys doing girl things was also freakish, so Harry wasn't supposed to do that either. But the confusing thing was, starting when it'd been four or five, maybe, it was also supposed to help with the cooking. Harry had sort of assumed cooking was a girl thing? It didn't know for sure, it didn't really understand the idea of boy things and girl things to begin with, but that was the feeling it had. Like, Aunt Petunia (who was a girl) had done all the cooking before, or still now the things Harry was too little to do, while Uncle Vernon and Dudley (who were boys) never had to do any, and there were a few bits on the television that Harry had caught, and the kids at school would talk about their mums cooking sometimes but almost never their dads...

It was very confusing, was the thing. Harry kind of thought flowers were supposed to be a girl thing too — Uncle Vernon had been very clear about that when he'd caught Harry doodling flowers in the margin of its workbook in year 1 — but it'd been told to weed the garden and take care of the flowers and stuff this summer, so maybe that part wasn't a girl thing...except Aunt Petunia had done that when Harry was too little, so.

Harry still wasn't sure whether cooking was a boy or a girl thing, but it had to do it either way. Even now, after helping in the kitchen for over a year, it still spent half the time waiting for the shout to come, to be told it was doing something freakish, be dragged off to the cupboard...

Cooking was kind of scary.

Thankfully, it didn't last too long. By this time, Harry had helped Aunt Petunia make breakfast enough times that between the two of them it took no time at all. Everything was all set up on the table, the tea just set to steep, when Uncle Vernon turned up. Perfect. Even though cooking was a perfectly normal ordinary day thing, and also it was kind of scary, Harry still found itself smiling at how smooth and well-timed everything had gone — Harry liked it when things clicked together.

"What are you smirking at?" Uncle Vernon grumbled. His usual chair also grumbled when he sank into it.

Harry twitched, forced the smile off its face — if Uncle Vernon thought it was smiling at the noise his chair had just made, that would be really bad. "Nothing, Uncle Vernon. Good morning."

Uncle Vernon gave Harry a good, long, narrow-eyed stare, as though trying to find something it'd done worth yelling at it for. Finally, he grunted, "Fix your hair," and turned to his breakfast without waiting for a response.

He didn't mean change its hair, which it could do, but it wouldn't. (Harry preferred to eat.) For some reason, back when Harry had been tiny it'd kept making its hair the same way — jet black and shaggy, chin-length and asymmetrical — no matter what Aunt Petunia had done to it, so she'd eventually just given up. Harry had considered making its hair more normal-looking, but it had the feeling Uncle Vernon actually liked complaining about its hair, and if he was grumbling about that he wasn't finding something else about Harry to yell at it for, so it was probably worth keeping the ugly hair. Harry made a show of trying to comb its hair with its fingers, but it didn't expect that to change anything, and it didn't really intend it to.

Dudley was down some minutes later, whining about how it was too early, and Fridays were terrible, and why did they have school the day before Hallowe'en? Harry thought that was very silly, since it'd been up for nearly an hour already, and Hallowe'en was always a weird, tense day at home anyway. (After all, Hallowe'en was filled with many freakish things, and the Dursleys didn't stand for freakishness.) But since Dudley was here Harry could finally eat — it wasn't supposed to eat before Dudley, which was another confusing rule, because sometimes it was given dinner before everyone else and shut up in the cupboard for the rest of the evening, but oh well.

Harry scarfed down its scone, trying not to scowl. Dudley had taken so long the scones were barely even warm anymore, and they were heavy and dry enough it needed more water to wash it down. It'd probably be perfectly nice with enough butter or cream or marmalade or something, but freaks didn't get to have those kinds of things, so...

By the time Harry had finished cleaning up — Aunt Petunia helped with the cooking but not the cleaning, so it took a little while — Uncle Vernon had already gone, and it was almost time for Dudley and Harry to be at school. Harry slipped off to make sure its school things were put together (it'd done that last night, but sometimes Dudley messed with its things when it wasn't looking), then backtracked to the kitchen when it heard Aunt Petunia calling its name. "Yes, Aunt Petunia? Do I—"

A hand grabbed its shoulder, pushing it against the wall, making a fist in Harry's jumper, pulling the hem up a couple inches. And Aunt Petunia's other hand went down, fingers hooking in—

Harry's heart jumped up its throat, thick and heavy, unpleasant hot tingles crawling across its skin. It squeezed its eyes shut, hard, and imagined as clearly as it could what it needed to look like, pushed it out, desperately. The change came over it, like warm bath water smooth and silky from Dudley's old bubbles he never used anymore, not running over its skin but through it, focused between its legs, its skin moving with the not-water, reshaping—

Aunt Petunia tugged its waistband down a few inches. Harry held its breath — had it finished in time, had she noticed anything? A second, and Aunt Petunia let out a little huff. "Make sure you come home straight after school. You'll be cleaning the upstairs bathroom this afternoon."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." Harry pulled its pants and trousers back up, then turned around and left, picking up its school bag on the way. There was no sound of Dudley stomping about upstairs, and the front door hadn't quite latched all the way, so he must have gone already. It stepped outside, pulling the door firmly shut behind it.

Out of sight of Aunt Petunia, Harry let out a relieved sigh, its heart slowly dropping back down its chest — that was close.

Harry was about halfway to school when the change it'd forced just got too uncomfortable — itching more and more as time passed, its parts not clicking together right — so it paused to focus. A moment of thought and the change came again, the warm water flowing high between its legs, reshaping, and then click.

It sighed again. There, much better.

Harry had been able to change for as long as it could remember — which made sense, it'd obviously been born a freak, since its parents had been too. (Though not the same kind of freak? Harry wasn't sure, Aunt Petunia didn't explain things, and when Harry had asked it hadn't been fed for a day.) Though, not all changes were exactly the same. Harry sort of thought of its body like a television with two stations. It could switch from one to the other, and also change the volume and the tint or whatever without switching, see. Small changes on one station were still on the same station, and were easier to do than switching entirely.

...But also every single little bit of its body it could imagine could be set to one station or the other, the settings fiddled with, independently of everything else. It wasn't a great comparison, just the best one it had.

As far as Harry could tell, one was the boy station, and the other the girl station. It could be both, and change whenever it wanted — though it did take a lot of effort and several seconds to change everything from one to the other — but other people couldn't. In fact, the Dursleys thought it very, very weird, and it wasn't supposed to let anybody know about it. Because it was such a freakish thing, see, and it was told normal people hated freaks, and would do bad things to it if they found out — the worst the Dursleys would do if it did something too freakish is withhold food, or maybe smack it around a little, but they'd taken Harry in out of the kindness of their hearts because its mother was Aunt Petunia's sister (who she hated), other people might not be so nice.

(Harry was a little skeptical the Dursleys were really kind, even compared to other good, ordinary people, but it was too scared to take the risk.)

Harry had been very little for this, so it didn't remember very well, but it'd had a lot of very confusing conversations about boys and girls, and what they were supposed to look like, and which one it was supposed to be. It had the feeling it'd been punished many times for being wrong, but not really sure what was wrong exactly, because it hadn't understood what was going on. (It still didn't that much, to be honest.) Eventually, it'd figured out which station it was supposed to be, and stayed in that one.

...When Aunt Petunia could see, anyway. Apparently the only place Aunt Petunia could tell the difference between boy-Harry and girl-Harry was that one spot between its legs, which was kind of silly, because the two were different everywhere, even if only by a little bit. So Harry was actually on the girl station plenty of times without Aunt Petunia knowing. It would just switch to the boy station and stay there — because it did take a lot of effort to switch from one to the other, so might as well not have to do it over and over — but Harry had a bad habit of changing in its sleep. Little things, yes, that's why it always checked in the mirror to make sure everything looked right, but sometimes when it fell asleep as a boy it woke up as a girl. Which was weird, but it was a freak.

Maybe Aunt Petunia was making it do too many girl things, so it had girly dreams, so then it changed without meaning to to match its dreams? It didn't know. Harry still wasn't sold on boy things and girl things really being a thing, so it had no idea how to tell.

But at some point Aunt Petunia had realised she couldn't tell, so she made a point of checking to make sure now and again. Harry couldn't change its whole body very quickly, so when Aunt Petunia decided to check and it was on the girl station, it used to get caught every time (and then punished). But, it could switch just parts of it, so it did the one part Aunt Petunia could tell the difference with. Even that still took a second, though, it'd hardly had any warning this time, Harry thought it'd been caught...

But parts of it didn't like not matching other parts of it. It could make its skin multiple different colours at once, or its hair or its eyes, or make one arm or leg longer than the other, or probably make its body all kinds of weird shapes people weren't supposed to be. Harry didn't like to, though, not matching made it itch. (Not on the outside, really, but the inside, very uncomfortable.) If its hair or skin was multiple colours, bringing it back to being all one colour made a kind of click, everything fitting together, like relaxing. And it definitely didn't like having different parts of its body on different stations at the same time.

It could do it, at least long enough to fool Aunt Petunia. Harry definitely wasn't going to deal with that annoying itch all the way through school, though.

School was annoying enough already without its freakish body being stupid on top of everything.

Luckily, by now Harry had gotten very good at being ignored. Very much like how it stayed out of trouble back at home, being as quiet and out of the way as possible was best. It'd taken a bit of trial and error to figure out how to stay ignored, but by this point it was easy enough. Not talking to the other kids at all was best — they got bored with Harry very quickly if it didn't talk or really do much of anything, even the mean ones would tire of picking on it if it didn't react. The teachers were slightly harder. In time, it'd settled on doing neither well nor poorly at school stuff, just bland and very average, only speaking in class when called on. And they usually didn't call on Harry, because it was being very bland and average.

If the teacher lady almost seemed to forget it was there, Harry was doing it correctly.

Whether Harry could go ignored at break could be hit and miss. It would usually stay off by itself, and that was fine for the most part, the kids would ignore it most of the time. But sometimes there were teachers who would see Harry off on its own, and come over and ask it if it was okay, if it didn't want to be playing with the other kids, and would sometimes even drag it off to a group of them and insist they include it. Which was annoying, because Harry didn't want to be included — quiet and out of the way was safest — so it usually waited until the teacher wasn't paying attention anymore and snuck off again.

The problem was Dudley. Dudley seemed to be most happy when he was making other kids miserable, and his favourite was Harry. Dudley did have other targets (victims), but he'd always go after Harry if he caught sight of it — that was where being quiet and out of the way came in again. But it couldn't always avoid him. Harry was faster than Dudley and his mean friends, so when they did go after it it'd usually just run away, but that didn't always work, which meant it'd get shoved around and hit a little, never anything too bad. Dudley did worse at home, because Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were less likely to step in and stop Dudley from beating up on the freak, but Harry still avoided it if it could.

Today, Dudley tried something new. Harry would never find out for sure, but it thought Dudley wanted to make sure everybody knew Harry was a freak.

(Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had told Harry to make sure nobody knew. They hadn't told Dudley, which had probably been a mistake.)

It started just as any other time Dudley and his mean friends decided to chase after Harry. First Harry spotted Malcolm and Piers watching it, but it wasn't really worried at this point — they hadn't done anything yet, but they were cutting off the trees, so Harry wandered closer to the play area, where there were a whole bunch of kids and it'd be harder to keep sight of it. When it was passing by the slide, Dennis jumped out at it, so Harry started running, but Dudley was toward the school so it couldn't go that way, so it ran back toward the swings, Dennis and Dudley chasing after, kids giggling and screeching as they jumped out of the way. If Harry looped past the swings and went up the ramp at the back and across the monkey bars, it could then slip away through—

Another boy darted out at Harry from the stairs just by the swings — crap, it'd lost track of Piers — slamming into it before Harry could dodge, but he'd hit it at a bad angle, Harry just stumbled a couple steps and kept going, hands scrabbling at it but not quite keeping hold.

Until both of Piers's hands clenched tight in the back of Harry's trousers.

An almost painful thud shot through Harry head to toe, firey tingles prickling at its skin, but it was too late. It couldn't stop.

Piers tripped and fell, dragging down Harry's trousers and pants as he went. Still trying to run, the waist caught around Harry's knees, and it fell to the ground, wood chips scraping at its hands and knees, and then its side and bum as it fell to the side, sliding to a stop, one of Piers's hands still tangled in its trousers.

"Holy crap!" Piers let go of its trousers, flopped back, staring at it wide-eyed. "You are a girl! What the hell!"

They were attracting eyes already, other kids pointing and gasping. No way Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon wouldn't find out about this, Harry was going to be in so much trouble. Its heart hard and heavy and thick in its throat, Harry pushed itself up to its feet, shivering and unsteady, but Dudley was there before it could get up all the way, shoving it back again, landing hard enough, its bum cut by wood chips again, tears came to its eyes, blurring the clouds overhead.

Harry didn't hear what was being said exactly. Kids were saying things, there was a lot of yelling and laughing and Harry didn't even know what. It focused on getting its pants back up — awkward to do without standing, but Dudley wouldn't let it — its face burning almost painfully hot, the pressure in its chest building and building with each beat of its heart, Harry could barely breathe.

But the pressure wasn't just tears that it had to hold in — Uncle Vernon didn't like it when Harry cried — but something else. Like a pot on the hob starting to bubble, and then more and more, and Harry tried to hold it in, gritting its teeth and squeezing its eyes shut, holding its breath, it had to keep it in, it wasn't supposed to let people know it was a freak, it was going to be in so much trouble...

But it couldn't hold it in. The waters of the change flooded through it, roiling with shame and anger and fear.

Harry lost control completely.

፠

Cassie twitched at the unexpected tingle of light magic crossing the wards, watched the patronus resolve in front of her with a raised eyebrow. It was a graceful thing, long spindly legs, cervine, a pair of long horns extending from the back of its head. She wasn't particularly great with animals, but she still felt a niggling of familiarity — she must know who this patronus belonged to, someone in the Department...

"Cassiopeia, I know you've retired—" Ah, little Amy Bones! That was it. Or, not so little anymore, she guessed — Cassie mostly remembered her as Cynaddar's granddaughter, and then a young apprentice Auror early in the war, but that was years ago now. Wasn't she the Director these days...? "—but Adjustment urgently requires assistance with an event which occurred earlier today involving a muggle-raised metamorph. Please report to the Ministry as soon as possible." The message delivered, the spectral deer-like creature dissolved, the unpleasantly warm aura of light magic dissolving with it.

Despite herself, an ember of curiosity sparked to fitful life — she'd been fully prepared to refuse, the Ministry could get on quite well without her, thank you very much, but... A muggle-raised metamorph? Really? How the fuck had that happened?

Her fingers tapped at her glass for a moment, debating with herself. As fascinating as the thought of a muggle-raised metamorph might be, did she really want to allow herself to be dragged into the Ministry to deal with it? She hardly ever felt like leaving home to deal with other people at all these days, much less to the Ministry, of all places. She'd hardly liked spending time at the Ministry when she'd worked there, and Cassiopeia Black had still felt real.

She was even more leery of going to the Ministry again than she would have expected herself. She didn't know if walking those halls again would seem natural, or if she'd only feel even more an alien in her own skin than she already did.

But, she had to admit, she was interested. The poor dear probably had no idea what a metamorph even was, must be so confused...

Right. She would go. The worst that could happen was that she'd feel so uncomfortable playing the character of Cassiopeia Black that she'd decide to move on — at this point, that day couldn't be that far away anyway.

Cassie tossed her book aside with a sigh, pushed up to her feet. Her head spun for a second, but it quickly settled, she plucked up her glass before sauntering back to her bedroom. Her eyes scanned over her closet, sipping at her whiskey. What did Cassiopeia Black dress like, again? She meant, she knew what she felt like wearing most of the time, but there were people who'd known her at the Ministry, and they would be expecting to see Cassiopeia, and she didn't remember...

Oh well, it probably didn't matter. She wasn't sure she could play the character very well anymore anyway, getting a detail like the way she dressed a little off wasn't going to be a big deal. She plucked a black dress off the the rack, tossed it through the door back toward her bed, picked up a pair of matching boots and gloves — she had the feeling Cassiopeia had worn a lot of black, it was in the name — took another sip of her whiskey before setting it aside so she could change.

The process was annoyingly complicated, enough she was tempted to just throw up her hands and show up at the Ministry in her hopelessly improper sundress. (Oh, her mother would just hate the way she tended to dress these days.) This did seem like a Cassiopeia Black dress, all black and silver and dramatic, so it might actually be a holdover from before the war, but it was surprisingly little — she'd tended to go about much slimmer and rather taller back then than she did now. By the time she'd reshaped herself — her flesh warm and tingling, the excess magic flooding the room, cool and sharp like the taste of lightning about to strike — enough to get the dress over her head and settled, her bustier was hanging off her, hugged around her waist with an arm to keep it from falling, and her knickers were down around her ankles, slipped off her now much narrower hips. Cassie rolled her eyes, took the dress off to replace her underclothes. She slipped the thing back on again, and there, better.

Boots, gloves, one wand in a holster under her sleeve on her upper left arm, the other slipped into a boot, her knife in its sheath hidden high up her thigh. Cassiopeia Black used to wear a lot of weapons, she remembered that — it felt a bit excessive to her now, but oh well. (She had been an Auror and then fighting in a war, if she hadn't been would she still have done this? Hmm.) Once she was done, she stood in front of the mirror, changed her hair into long bouncing black curls, then lingered a moment longer, frowning at herself critically. She thought she looked like Cassiopeia Black, but she didn't have a great handle on who she used to be anymore. Maybe make her face a little narrower...

What the hell had she used to have against colours? Or, having tits, she was so scrawny, and she was used to being blonde these days...

Oh well, looked close enough, it would do. Cassie threw back the rest of her whiskey and made for the floo.

It was only when she was standing in the Atrium that she realised Amy hadn't told her where in the Ministry she was supposed to be reporting to. Since she was here, she guessed she could just go up and ask Amy directly.

Cassie had known the Department of Law Enforcement under three different Directors. She'd joined the Aurors when the Department had been headed by Cynaddar Bones, her godfather. Magical Britain had been at peace for some decades, save for occasional mutterings from the goblins and a brief Dark Lord scare when she'd been a child, so the DLE had had a certain casual air back then, Aurors and Hit Wizards loitering around waiting for an alert they didn't expect to come, chatting or playing cards, the occasional poor sod doing actual work — at their desk, like a sucker. It wasn't unusual for family or sweethearts to drop by, the place often disorganised and...unprofessional-looking, by modern standards.

Honestly, Cassie had rather liked it, though it had gotten boring at times. She recalled she'd seriously considered quitting and starting a professional dueling career back in the 30s.

Right around the start of the 50s, Cynaddar had been replaced by Erin Scrimgeour. Over the course of five years or so, Erin had streamlined the Department greatly, dismissing many of the superfluous employees — mostly pointless make-work jobs given to some unimpressive member of one noble family or another, a façade of actually accomplishing anything for silly Society reasons — and whipping the rest of them into shape. The offices had been cleaned up, in some places entirely redesigned, barred to everyone but those on Department business, procedure and bylaws about how exactly things were supposed to operate in Ministry offices much more tightly enforced.

Not to say Erin had been a vicious hardarse, exactly — as faintly guilty as it might make her to think ill of her beloved and now deceased (murdered) godfather, Erin had been a much better Director of Law Enforcement. She was fine with officers socialising when they had nothing pressing to occupy their time, or prettying up their personal space a little, they just couldn't hold spontaneous family reunions in the halls, as Erin had put it once, or obstruct other people's ability to get around with their shite scattered all over the place. The Department had still had some personality, it'd just also worked much more efficiently.

Crouch was fucking lucky he'd been going into the war against Voldemort with Erin's DLE — as much as she'd loved him, if they'd gone into the war with Cynaddar's DLE, the Ministry would have been completely fucked.

Now, Crouch had been a vicious hardarse. He'd taken over from Erin halfway through '68, and Cassie had quit by '73. The first little while had been mostly fine — Crouch had been even more of stickler for rules and procedure than Erin, to the point many DLE officials just started avoiding him whenever possible, and he'd had a frustrating habit of sticking his nose in the Aurors' investigations, second-guessing them at unexpected turns. But in the last couple years, he'd started taking far too much of an interest in Cassie in particular. She'd been one of the most senior Aurors at the time — the job often aged people hard and fast, people retired after an average of only thirty years, and '73 had been Cassie's fiftieth — and Crouch had been all on her arse about setting a dignified example for her junior Aurors and the other Department officials, had tried to shift her toward training and desk work. Attempting to funnel her toward taking over as First Auror, she knew, but that was a political career track and she had absolutely zero interest, she'd quit rather than put up with it anymore.

Cassie hadn't been to the Department since...'83? She'd been brought in to answer questions about a few Death Eaters she'd killed years earlier, and Erin had been in charge then — she'd been brought back for a year and a half or so to sort out the shambles the Department had been reduced to over the course of the war — so she thought that'd been '83. (It was '87 now, right? or was it '88 already? Cassie wasn't sure.) She hadn't been here since little Amy had taken over, a couple years ago now.

At first glance, the Department looked much as it had back when Erin had been Director — which made sense, she had put the pieces back together and Amy hadn't had much time to fuck it up yet. The main hallway was clean and clear of obstructions, a smattering of informational posters (explaining various Ministry rules and notices of forthcoming events) and bulletins (alterations to contraband strictures, updates on the operations of major criminal groups, images and sightings of fugitives) posted along both walls. Cassie peeked in on the LEP lounge out of curiosity, and the place did have a bit of personality — potted plants and enchanted doodads and posters of musicians and athletes on the walls — but the place was clean and orderly, very much like it'd been under Erin. A couple Patrolmen, loitering ahead of the start of their shift, shot her curious looks, but she just nodded and moved on.

She was about halfway down the hall when she was finally accosted by someone. A young man in a dueling kit in LEP colours, the gold trim indicating he was on the Ministry security detail, he approached with an almost entirely hidden hint of caution, his hand subtly prepared to draw his wand — not subtly enough for her to miss it, of course, but not bad. "Can I help you, Miss?"

Cassie gave the boy an unimpressed look, one eyebrow disdainfully raised — consciously attempting to imitate her aunt Bel (and trying not to notice how fake it felt). "I rather doubt it." The boy scowled, opening his mouth to respond, probably to insist she tell him what her business here was. "I've been walking these halls since your grandparents were in swaddling clothes, I am well capable of finding the Director's office on my own."

Blinking for a second, taken aback a little, he gave her a skeptical look head to toe — of course, she didn't look that old, but that was the way of metamorphs — before his face settled into a light glare. "Is Director Bones expecting you?"

"I would hope so, considering she sent a patronus not fifteen minutes ago demanding I come in." The boy's eyes widened a tad — sending messages by patronus was rare due to the difficulty of the magic, and only ever done in emergencies. "Now, if you'll excuse me."

Somewhat surprisingly, the boy didn't just let her sweep off, but escorted her all the way to the Director's office. Cassie fought to keep any sign of approval off her face — he shouldn't let just any random person wander around the Department, but a daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black couldn't possibly deign to acknowledge she could ever be mistaken for just any random person. Apparently, Ministry security had been selected for their ability to stand firm against haughty, pushy nobles. Good thinking.

On the way, Cassie spotted on the wall a KOD poster for Arianna Yaxley. She scowled — hadn't they caught that bitch yet?

The hallway hit a T junction — toward the left Wizengamot Administration Services, to the right various muggle- and Secrecy-related offices — opening up a little to make room for a receptionist's desk, a few armchairs for people to wait for the Director's time. There was one woman seated her already, by the fine robes and her meticulously correct, painfully stiff posture almost certainly from one noble family or another. Cassie sauntered up to the desk, said to the woman behind it (her ears were pierced, probably muggleborn), "Please tell the Director Cassiopeia Black has arrived, as requested."

The boy gaped at her — apparently he recognised that name. Cassie smiled.

She was waiting for maybe thirty seconds before the door was thrown open, a relatively short, hard-lined woman with a dusting of ash-blonde hair stepping into the hall. As soon as she caught sight of Cassie, she broke into a grin. "Aunt Cassie, it's good to see you." She stepped forward, clasping Cassie's hand and drawing her into a sort of rough half-hug.

Cassie was slightly taken aback by the enthusiasm of the greeting, enough it took her a couple seconds to gather herself. "Ah, you too, kid." She realised Amy was in her thirties now, but— Fuck, thirties, Amy was so old — she remembered her being born, Cynaddar had been all pleased and smug for weeks. She'd been such a little shite as a kid. Cassie hardly recognised her anymore, must have lost a decade at some point... "You know, you can call me over when it's not an emergency."

Releasing her, Amy gave her a narrow-eyed...almost worried look — she had no idea what that was about. "Maybe when things finally settle down, in another year or two. I'm far too busy for social calls, Susan hardly sees me three days out of the week as it is."

"...Susan?"

Amy's frown deepened. "Dilwyn's girl."

Oh, right, Cassie knew that Amy's elder brother (Cynaddar's first grandchild) had died late in the war, before his daughter had even been born, his wife (Liz Prewett, sweet girl, beautiful wedding) murdered barely a year later. She vaguely recalled something about Amy taking the girl, but Cassie had been preoccupied with the war at the time.

Leaning toward her receptionist, Amy said, "I need that portkey DAC sent up earlier, the Surrey incident." While the muggleborn pulled open a drawer, Amy leaned a little closer to Cassie, her voice dropping. "Auntie, have you been drinking?"

Damn, Amy must have smelled it on her. "A little." Sort of a lot, actually, but she hadn't been that deep into it when the patronus had come. "Don't worry, I'm sober enough for this."

"If you need to talk to someone..."

Cassie gave her a crooked smile. "...I'll find someone who has the time for social calls."

"Auntie..."

"I'm fine, kid, don't worry about it." Besides, she seriously doubted Amy would at all understand the melancholy that came with losing touch with her birth identity — it wasn't something anybody but metamorphs ever really dealt with. Would probably just confuse the poor kid. "You got a portkey for me?"

The portkey deposited her outdoors, the cool wind gently tugging at her hair and her skirt. (Cassie immediately cast a warming charm, since she wasn't wearing leggings.) It was sort of a miserable day out, the sky nearly (though not quite) overcast with sullen grey clouds, the air cold, wet with a hint of withheld rain. The sun was hidden at the moment, the light wan and colourless, giving her surroundings an almost grim cast.

She was at a primary school, she was pretty sure. The building was behind her, blocky and bland and modern, ahead of her a play area, with... Well, she didn't know what they were called — mages didn't build these sorts of things, for the most part, and Cassie didn't think the muggles had had them either when she'd been young. There were a couple Adjusters nearby, marked by their green cloaks, joined by a Hit Wizard in black and blue.

The Adjusters noticed her arrive right away, one of them — a brown-haired woman, maybe fifty — speaking before she'd hardly gotten her bearings. "Hold there, are you the D.L.E.'s specialist?"

Oh, so she was a specialist now? "I suppose that depends." Cassie eyed the Hit Wizard — he had his wand in hand, though he hadn't pointed it at her, apparently just a precaution. Jumpy, but okay. "I understand you have a situation involving a muggle-raised metamorph. That the kid up there?" she asked nodding to a small child in ill-fitting, baggy clothes, sitting on one of the swings.

"The situation is well in hand," the Adjuster insisted, somewhat snootily.

"Yes, I'm sure Director Bones called me out of retirement to assist you because the situation is well in hand." (The Hit Wizard's lips twitched a little.)

The other Adjuster — a rather pinch-faced man, younger than the woman but not by much — gave her a baffled look. "Retirement? You can't be older than— Oh! Are you a metamorph?"

"I am. Are you going to explain what's going on here anytime soon?"

Right around noon (which was over an hour ago now), the Oracles at Adjustment had had a moment of foresight concerning a potential major threat to the Statute of Secrecy. They'd put a team together, and arrived at the site just as the event was occurring. (The Oracles might not give the Adjusters enough time to prevent incidents from happening very often, but even a few minutes of warning was enough to assemble a team and contain the leak before it spreads.) It didn't take very long for them to figure out the cause of the incident was a young metamorph having something of a fit — the Hit Wizards cast a powerful pacification spell over the area, which stopped the muggles from fleeing and also calmed the mage down. The Adjusters and Obliviators had gone through the muggles one by one, editing their memories as needed, which hadn't been a quick process, since there had been dozens of witnesses.

The situation had been dealt with, but the problem of the young metamorph remained. The child had managed to go this long without being discovered — excluding their family, presumably, it would be impossible to hide it from them — which was quite exceptional, all things considered. Metamorphs generally didn't have much self-control at that age. However, the child was young, only seven, and somewhat emotionally volatile — it was a near certainty that there would be more incidents in the months and years to come, and there was no telling whether Adjustment would make it next time. After all, the innate magic of metamorphs was extremely difficult to detect — they'd have to rely entirely on the Oracles, and they'd barely caught it in time today.

"Okay, I understand the problem." Probably more than the Adjusters did, since they hadn't mentioned the possibility that the child was in real physical danger — muggles used to pitch young metamorphs into fires or abandon them out in the wilderness to die, there was no counting how many had been murdered by their own families over the centuries. Old superstitions of changelings were long dead in the modern day, of course, but Cassie didn't expect muggles would be any more receptive to such an inherently magical child now than they had been then. "What, exactly, do you expect me to do about it?"

The Adjusters looked slightly annoyed, but they were clearly trying to keep it off their faces — she had given them her name at some point, and back-talking nobility was rarely good for one's career. (Not that Cassie gave a damn, but they couldn't possibly know that.) The man said, "We were hoping a specialist — an Unspeakable, we assumed — would be able to cast a glamour, or something of the like. Perhaps, since you're a metamorph yourself you have tips you could give him, teach him to keep it more under control..."

Cassie shook her head, glanced toward the kid — waiting patiently on the swing some metres away, silent and almost entirely unmoving. A glamour was a neat trick to hide any signs of weirdness to muggle eyes — Cassie herself had worn a bracelet enchanted with a glamour whenever in the muggle world back when she'd been a teenager — but there were serious issues with it. Even assuming an Unspeakable could cast a glamour stable enough to last until the kid started Hogwarts (which was impossible), charms or illusions designed to alter one's appearance tended to interact peculiarly with metamorphs. They would hide unthinking changes, but the first time the metamorph changed themselves intentionally the spell would break — when she'd been younger Cassie had changed herself in imitation of basic cosmetic charms rather than use them, because they simply didn't work for her. An enchanted trinket of some kind might work, so long as the kid remembered to wear it at all times...and also had an adult mage on hand to renew the image as he grew. So.

Also, there was no way in hell Cassie would be able to teach him enough to not attract attention in the muggle world in a single brief meeting. Cassie had been in her early twenties before she'd developed enough self-control to stop unthinkingly changing things — it was remarkable that the kid had lasted this long, there was nothing Cassie could tell him, it would simply take time.

No, Cassie thought, staring contemplatively at the unnervingly still child, this problem would require a more long-term solution. "We'll see. May I have a moment to speak with him?"

In her peripheral vision, she saw the trio shoot each other significant glances. After a too long pause, the Hit Wizard said, "There is something you need to know before you do. I trust that anything you learn here today will be kept from certain...parties of interest."

Cassie turned to look at him, one eyebrow stretching up — the way he said certain parties of interest gave her the feeling he really meant Death Eaters. "I assure you, given my own actions in the last decade and change, certain parties of interest are hardly likely to invite me over to gossip over tea. Why, is there something more sensitive than usual going on here? I was under the impression accidental magic incidents were already sealed under child protection laws."

"You could say that," the Hit Wizard drawled, lips twitching with wry amusement. Nodding toward the child, "That's Harry Potter."

She blinked. "Well, that makes sense, I guess." At the bevy of surprised looks she was getting, Cassie smirked. "The talent runs in families — Potter's grandmother was my sister. May I?"

The real question was why the hell Harry bloody Potter was being raised by muggles in the first place. Albus had refused to tell her where he'd put her grand-nephew, just that he was safe and happy, wherever he was. With the Prewetts, maybe, or the Fawleys or Atwells — the Prewetts were more consistent allies of Albus's, but the Fawleys and Atwells were more closely related to the Potters, and would be more likely to know how to properly raise a child to head the family. She would say the Longbottoms, but after Frank and Alice...

She'd forgotten Albus was a commoner. It was all well and good for an ordinary mage to be raised in anonymity among muggles, but Harry was the only remaining Potter, with the entirety of the family's long legacy on his shoulders, and he'd have to take on the mantle of a Lord of the Wizengamot when he was grown. Without the exhaustive education his peers were given, he was going to be woefully underprepared.

Oh well. She could ask Albus about it later, she guessed.

The boy was a tiny little thing, short and slight — Cassie thought he was even small for his age, but she didn't exactly spend much time around...seven(?)-year-olds these days, so that was just a guess. Of course, being a metamorph he could be any size he wished, it was just curious he was so little. (Cassie recalled making herself tall as a child and a teenager.) His solid black hair was somewhat long for a muggle boy these days, perhaps down to his chin if it were lying flat, but of course it wasn't, instead scattered about in a disheveled, asymmetrical mess, the ends fluttering playfully in the cool breeze — rather like Jamie often wore his, but Jamie's had clearly been intentionally mussed up, Harry's just seemed to be this way naturally.

As Cassie neared, she noted his clothes were faded and threadbare, and horribly ill-fitting. Which was odd, there was no reason for a metamorph to wear clothes that didn't fit, since they could simply change themselves to fit them. Left on the woodchips nearby was a little paper bag, sketched with the logo of a sandwich shop in Charing, along with a Cauldron Cake wrapper, both pinned to the ground with an empty bottle of apple-strawberry fizz. (Cassie's lip curled involuntarily — she hated carbonated drinks.) One of the Adjusters must have run off to get the boy lunch while waiting for someone to figure out what to do with him.

The boy didn't look up as she approached, head bowed to the ground, sitting listlessly on the swing. Or, he was looking up at her, little peeks every couple seconds, but with his messy hair half-hiding his face Cassie hadn't noticed at first. Cassie came to a stop a few steps away, self-consciously folding her hands behind her back.

How does one speak to children again? It'd been a long time since Cassie had been around little kids much — not since her nieces and nephews had been little, Alphard, Walburga, Cygnus, Lucretia and Orion... And little Doe, of course, Cassie had been fifteen when her baby sister had been born, so there'd been several years between Cassie graduating from Hogwarts and Dorea starting, she'd been around quite a bit. And then their children, sometimes...though not as often, she'd been getting more serious by then, and then came the early years of the war, wasn't around as much... Yeah, it'd been a while.

She distinctly recalled — playing with Doe, and sometimes Ced and Charis, Bella and Andi and Sirius and Reggie — she'd aged herself down to match them, more often than not. Adults were more intimidating than other children, and even if she wasn't really a child anymore being child-sized was better. Besides, it was just easier to keep up if she were child-sized, so. She should probably do that.

Luckily, this dress felt transfigurable, but everything else...

Right, first thing's first. "Hello, Harry. My name's Cassie."

There was a short pause, stretching long enough Cassie would almost wonder whether Harry had heard her at all, before he said, "Hello, Miss Cassie." His voice was small, thin, cautious.

She nearly scoffed, barely held it in — the boy was quiet enough already, shouldn't give him the impression she was laughing at him. "Cassie's my first name, dear, you can skip the Miss."

Harry gave a sheepish nod...and then continued to just sit there, silently staring at the ground.

Okay, then. Shy kid. (She'd been around even fewer shy kids than kids in general — most of the children she'd known had been Blacks, after all.) "Mind if I sit?" she asked, nodding at the swing next to him.

He glanced up at her, showing confusion for an instant before looking away again. "If you want." He sounded uncertain why an adult would want to do something so silly like sit on a swingset next to him, but he was apparently too polite to just blurt that kind of thing out.

"Okay, I'm just going to get comfortable first quick." A tap of her wand to each unlaced her boots and she peeled them off, quickly followed by her socks — a quick charm on her feet would stop the wood chips from damaging them — and then her gloves. Her holster and sheath had both been enchanted to resize with her, so she didn't have to worry about those. Her brasier, though, would not change with her — she cast a void switching spell to instantly remove it, the thing appearing in mid-air next to her, she caught it and set it down on top of the pile.

The change was a little complicated to work, since she had to transfigure her dress down with her at the same time. It was easiest to do it slowly, to make sure her body and her dress were changing size at more or less the same pace, so she didn't accidentally tear something — of course, she couldn't change herself gradually, she had to break the full transformation into a bunch of smaller segments then transfigure the dress down to match, which was rather tedious, but not particularly difficult. Of course, she was about halfway through the process when she felt her knickers start sliding down, she'd forgotten about—

Oh shite, these were magical-woven silk, and enchanted, they weren't transfigurable. Grumbling to herself, Cassie conjured a pair of muggle-style cotton pants, and switched them with her knickers, stupid things. She transfigured the pants up into place — which was a neat trick, the kind of thing that had sent Albus into delighted grins when she'd been a student...though with this particular thing he'd probably demand she stop showing her pants to the class — then continued on with her changes, remembering to transfigure her dress and pants as she went. A good fifteen seconds after she'd started, Cassie glanced between Harry and herself, before deciding she must be pretty close to his age, good, that would do.

Harry was staring at her, eyes wide, so still with shock he hardly seemed to breathe. Oh hey, he'd kept Lily's vibrant green eyes. He wouldn't be able to remember Lily, of course, they must have stayed long enough for Harry to have caught a glimpse in a mirror or something — still, neat, Cassie had always thought Lily had beautiful eyes.

(Lily had been very pretty in general, Cassie thought, but it was bad manners to lust after one's nephew's wife.)

Cassie grinned at the boy for a second, then spun around to plop down onto the swing next to him. "You know, I don't think I've ever been on one of these before."

For a few seconds, Harry just stared at her some more — she didn't mind it, he'd certainly never met another metamorph before. (As far as she knew, there were only five in the country at the moment, and that was including the two of them and the Morrigan.) Cassie was playing with shifting her balance with her legs, sending her seat rocking gently back and forth, when the boy finally recovered. But even then, it was only enough to mutter, "Really?"

"Nope! You didn't see them around as much when I was a child." Of course, they weren't hard to figure out, basic physics, but since Cassie was supposed to be having a conversation here she probably shouldn't get going too high. No matter how weirdly tempting it was.

(Cassie had noticed she always felt more childish and playful when shaped like one. She really had no idea why that was — it wasn't like she was actually becoming younger or anything...)

"How old are you? I mean, er..." He trailed off, apparently having realised it was rude to ask a woman her age, but also not knowing how to take it back.

Cassie just giggled, silly boy. "Um... It's Eighty-Seven now, right, autumn?" She glanced his way in time to catch his nod. "Right. I'm eighty-two." She wasn't looking at the moment, but she could practically feel his skeptical stare. "No, really. I was born in Nineteen Oh Five, but I can make myself whatever I want. Like you. I've just been doing it longer.

"But we're not here to talk about me. How old are you, Harry?" He would have been an infant on Samhain '81, but Cassie wasn't sure how old exactly. She vaguely remembered it'd been a summer birth... It'd been the height of the war, she'd been distracted.

"Um..." He watched her slowly swing back and forth for a couple seconds — wondering whether she was serious? "I'm seven."

It was slightly surreal to think her baby sister's grandson was seven. Time was weird. "Ah, and when's your birthday?"

"July, er, Thirty-One..."

"Oh darn, missed it. You'll have to forgive me for not getting you a present."

Harry gave her a weird look, twisted and uncertain. No idea what that was about.

Of course, she was being kind of silly all of a sudden, couldn't really blame him for that. Probably better if she didn't do the talking. "I'm sure you have all kinds of questions, Harry. I'll answer whatever I can."

That was definitely disbelief, more than a little bit of suspicion, before he looked away again, staring down at the woodchips under his feet. Weird reaction, but okay. He was silent a long moment, fingers absently twisting the links in the chains holding up his seat. Finally, his voice low and almost fearful, he asked, "Who are you people?" His shoulders hunched in a little, making himself look even smaller than he was already.

Which was...concerning. Abruptly, he was reminding Cassie of Bella as a child, whenever Cygnus looked at her wrong. Her brother's elder son had been scum — Cassie couldn't claim to have mourned his death, when Bella finally murdered the bastard. If Bella had told Cassie what he was doing to her Cassie would have done it herself. (Of course, if Bella had told her right away Cissa probably wouldn't exist at all, but still.) Any child reminding her of pre- Death Eater Bella was not a good sign. "Didn't they tell you about the Ministry?" Cassie asked, nodding at the Adjusters and Hit Wizard still standing waiting. Not that Harry probably noticed, with her still gently swinging and Harry not really looking her way.

"They said they're from the Ministry of M-Magic, but there's no such thing. Is there?"

"Not one that's part of the United Kingdom government, no. We're our own thing." Cassie paused for a moment, considering the problem — she'd never had to explain the existence of magical society to anyone before, and certainly not a child. "The people you're living with, have they told you anything about magic?"

"I'm sorry, no." Harry's voice was low, shaking slightly, as though worried he would be yelled at for saying the wrong thing. (Now that Cassie had noticed, the signs were obvious.)

...Right, that was completely unacceptable. The future Lord Potter being raised away from magic was bad enough to begin with; the future Lord Potter being raised entirely ignorant of magical society even existing was another whole degree of what the fuck, Albus?! "Ah. Well, there are some people who can do magic, like you. There are lots of us, but we're still only a small portion of people overall. Three hundred years ago, we decided to hide ourselves from non-magical folk, and so it is to this day.

"The two in green over there are Adjusters. Their job is to show up at a place where magic happened, and make sure non-magical people don't find out about us. None of the other children will remember what happened here today. The man in blue is a Hit Wizard, a...magical policeman, I suppose." The LEP were the best comparison to muggle police, the Hit Wizards closer to the military, but that wasn't a particularly important distinction to explain to the boy right now. Especially since it might only frighten him.

Through her short explanation, Harry stared off into the distance — thoughtfully, maybe, but it was hard to tell when he was looking away from her, with all his hair obstructing her view of his face. There was another short pause before he asked, "Am I in trouble?"

"Oh no, dear, you're not in trouble. Children have accidents sometimes, the Adjusters just came here to make sure non-magical people don't learn about us, that's all."

"They didn't let me go back to class..."

"Well no, that's because—" They had no idea what to do about a muggle-raised metamorph — honestly, Cassie didn't know either. Having him go to muggle school was probably a bad idea. Children could be terrible to each other, and if Harry got too worked up...well, something like today might well happen again. It was astounding he'd lasted this long without a major incident...

But then, as she thought about it, maybe it wasn't — Cassie was starting to get the nasty suspicion that Harry's guardians didn't let him out much.

"One of the problems with hiding magic," Cassie started, tentatively, "is that some magical things are very hard to hide. People like us are one of those things. The way we change is... Well, I didn't learn how to hide it all the time until I was much older than you, so." And even now, she doubted she could keep her face consistent without a photo to use as a template — with how muggles were using photos and video these days, it was starting to become impossible for her to maintain the same muggle identity long-term.

"So you are a freak too." Harry said with an air of having confirmation of something he'd been wondering about, and very matter-of-factly, as though he wasn't saying anything unusual.

Cassie slammed her feet into the ground as she came down, quickly dragging herself to a stop. (That would have been very uncomfortable without that protective charm.) At the sudden noise, Harry startled, leaning away from her, watching her tense and wide-eyed, almost frightened — no almost about that, really, but he stayed in his seat, pale and apprehensive. "You..." Cassie struggled to find her voice for a second, hot rage bubbling intense enough her throat narrowed. "The people you're staying with, is that what they call you?"

A little bit of the fear trickling away, Harry's brow stitched with confusion, eyes jumping up to hers for a second before falling down. Watching her centre of mass, she noticed, waiting for a blow to fall, fuck... "Isn't that what I am, though? They always say—"

"Nope!" Cassie sprung back to her feet, the chains holding up her swing clinking a little — Harry jumped again at the sudden movement, but immediately relaxed (if only slightly) as she sidled to the side, to her pile of clothes. "No, no, no, that is completely unacceptable! I don't know what the fuck Albus was thinking, sending you to people who don't even know enough to appreciate—" Cutting herself off with a hiss, Cassie focused on changing herself back, reversing the transfiguration on her dress as she went. She could just apparate home to drop off her things, but she expected she'd be frightening a few muggles soon — it was much easier to be properly intimidating when one was adult-sized.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"You didn't do anything wrong, darling. Your guardians on the other hand..." The transfiguration on the dress was gone now, and it fit more or less right, and the knickers felt right when switched back in place, so. Pulling on her socks — couldn't do these with a void switching spell, unfortunately, sometimes did really weird things when she tried — she said, rage simmering on her voice, "What you are, Harry, is nothing to be ashamed of. Metamorphs are— Well, I can explain all that later. Suffice to say, my family threw a party when I was born, my parents never stopped bragging about it until the day they died." It'd been slightly irritating, honestly. "It's not you I'm angry with.

"Those ignorant, abusive sacks of shite you're staying with, though, them I might flay alive."

Harry's pretty green eyes had gone very wide. "Uuummmm..."

"I'm only joking, Harry."

...She was mostly joking.

፠

Harry didn't think this was a good idea. But it didn't know what else to do — Cassie was kind of scary, it didn't know what she'd do if it told her no.

This day, Harry thought, might well be the scariest day of its entire life, and it wasn't even over yet. Piers pulling its pants down in the middle of the play area, with all the other kids around, that had been bad enough, but when Harry had lost control — it didn't know what had happened, exactly, though it'd felt the warm silky-smooth feeling all over, and the kids had started yelling and screaming, must have been doing something obviously freakish — and then the air was filled with these weird popping noises, and there were people with funny cloaks standing around, waving little wooden sticks...

Its embarrassment and terror — Uncle Vernon was going to be so angry when he found out, Harry was going to be in so much trouble — had disappeared in a blink, like all the problems in the world had just been swept away on the wind, leaving Harry feeling calm and cool and comfortable... It'd been kind of nice, actually. Once whatever magic they'd done had worn off, Harry had started feeling kind of scared again, because these funny-looking people had just done magic on its brain, but still, it'd felt nice at the time.

Because, magic was real, apparently? The people in the weird colourful cloaks hadn't explained things very well — Harry wasn't supposed to ask questions, as much as it might have wanted to — but it'd understood that much. They'd appeared out of thin air, like magic, waved their little sticks to make magic happen. There was a whole Ministry of magic. And Harry was magic too, besides just the changing thing.

It had kind of known that? Harry had made strange things happen before, but not very often, it was usually just the changing. And it'd always kind of wondered, because Aunt Petunia called Harry and its parents freaks, if they were the same kind of freak, but it was starting to think now that they weren't — maybe its parents had been like these people with the funny clothes and the little sticks, could make magic happen, but they stayed the same. Normal people, but could do stuff. Harry hadn't seen any of them change at all, so, different kinds of freak.

Kind of nice, though. One of them had gone away — pop! and he was gone, just like that — and then with another pop! was back with food, a sandwich and a little cake and a bottle of fizzy pop — Harry didn't think it'd ever had fizzy pop ever! The pop was so sweet, and the sandwich still warm and all cheesy, and the cake was chocolate! It was the best lunch Harry had ever had in its entire life, more than it had in a whole day sometimes, and delicious.

So, as weird and scary as this day had been so far, it wasn't all bad.

Most of the weird people were gone by then, done waving their sticks at everyone and sending them inside, but they didn't let Harry go in. They were waiting for someone to come and decide what to do with it. And then it'd been scared again — it didn't know what this person wanted or what was going to happen, and this was all just weird and confusing. So Harry had sat on one of the swings and just waited, still and quiet, trying not to look like it was freaking out at all.

(It had been, a little bit.)

Cassie had seemed kind of scary at first too. She'd appeared with another pop!, so Harry knew she was magic too, but she didn't have the funny colourful robes everyone else did, just a black dress with little silver stitching in places. Though, as she got closer, Harry noticed it was a fancy dress — the cloth shimmered like Aunt Petunia's best dresses, the silver glittering, little patterns stitched into the fabric if you looked close enough. Harry didn't know anything about dresses, but it still knew this one was expensive just looking at it. And she had heavy leather boots, like the important military people or scary biker gangs in snatches of films Harry caught while cleaning, and a narrow, sharp, glaring face, she was just kind of scary.

She had silver eyes — Harry thought they were a pale blue at first glance, but no, silver. Harry was pretty sure people weren't supposed to have silver eyes.

After only a couple seconds talking she'd, just, shrunk into a little kid, right in front of Harry. Its first thought was that she was a freak too, the same kind of freak, but maybe not? Harry couldn't change its clothes — well, it could, but not the same way it changed itself, it meant — and she'd had her magic-making stick out, so, maybe there was magic to do that. Also, Harry had never changed that much before, she was half the size she'd been before! That sounded really hard...

Their talk had been weird. Kind of nice? Harry had thought saying it could ask questions was a trap of some kind — Aunt Petunia had done stuff like that before — but she'd actually answered them, all nice and friendly, if still weird and kind of silly. (Harry wasn't sure if he believed she was really eighty-two, but she had made herself a little kid...) She'd explained what was going on much better than the other people had, so.

And then Harry had accidentally made her angry, and that was scary. It'd almost thought Cassie was going to hurt it for a second there. The air had gone all cold, thick and snapping, like during a lightning storm, and Harry had... Well, it almost thought it'd seen fire, crawling over Cassie's skin — in weird colours, red and blue, and hard to see, see-through — but it'd only been for a second, Harry might have imagined it.

It was pretty sure it really did see Cassie's eyes glow, though — cold and hard, and angry.

Cassie, Harry decided, was very scary.

So, when Cassie — grown-up again, wearing her boots and her gloves — had told Harry to bring her to the Dursleys' house, it'd been too scared to even think about saying no.

But, walking along the streets on the way for a while now, Harry had calmed down a bit. And it was starting to think this was a really bad idea. But if it'd been too scared to tell Cassie no before, that wasn't any different now. Harry didn't really think there was anything it could do about it really. It just had to hope Cassie wouldn't do anything too bad.

Because Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were going to be very angry with Harry once she left.

They'd already passed Magnolia Crescent, the turn onto Privet Drive was coming up, and Harry's chest was feeling too tight, its heart crawling into its throat, uncomfortable tingles itching at its neck. But there wasn't anything it could do about it, and...

It swallowed. "It's a left here, Miss."

"You're still allowed to call me Cassie, darling." Well, she'd said that, but Harry wasn't supposed to call adults by their first names, it was impolite. "Which number?"

This was a terrible idea. "Four."

"Is there anybody at home right now?"

"Yes, my Aunt Petunia. Uncle Vernon is at the office, and Dudley is back at school."

"Good. Let's go say hello," Cassie said, her voice casual, but at the same time low and cold, with the curl of a smirk Harry couldn't see from here.

Oh, Harry was going to get in so much trouble...

Cassie smoothly turned onto the walkpath from the pavement, quick enough her skirt swished a little, walked on toward the front door without slowing, her hair fluttering in the breeze. She didn't stop to open the door, or even touch it, just as she was about to run into it it flew open, slamming into the wall, the rattling making Harry wince.

Pausing quick to check if anyone was looking (it didn't think so?), Harry stepped in after her, closed the door.

Aunt Petunia had been in the sitting room with a book and a cup of tea, but she'd jumped up and started yelling before Harry had even gotten inside. By the time it caught up, only a couple seconds, the yelling had cut off. Aunt Petunia was standing, stiff and rigid, arms clamped against her sides, her head tilted up, as though someone were pushing up on her chin. And Harry guessed someone was — Cassie was standing in the doorway between the sitting room and the hallway, one hand lifted toward Petunia, her fingers halfway curled into a fist. "Do quit that screeching for a moment, won't you. I need to concentrate."

...Okay, Harry was still going to be in trouble, but that was kind of cool anyways.

One of those magic sticks in her hand (Where had that come from?), Cassie closed her eyes, her lips twitching. After a long, awkward moment — at least Harry felt awkward, it had no idea what it was supposed to be doing with itself — Cassie moved, her stick swishing, as though drawing something in the air. And then she made a quick slash, and Harry heard an odd sizzling crackle, just for a second before it went away again.

"There we go," Cassie chirped, cheerful. "I suppose it's understandable the Ministry has monitoring charms on your house, but we can't have this little visit getting back to the authorities, can we?" She dropped her hand.

Aunt Petunia let out a gasp at being let go, but she didn't stand still, scrambling for the door into the kitchen. Somehow knowing where she was going, Cassie swept down the hall, got there only a couple seconds after. Harry was a moment behind, by the time it got there the phone had been ripped off the wall somehow, torn wires dangling out of the hole. Aunt Petunia had picked up one of the dining chairs, holding it with the legs pointing out at Cassie, to keep her away.

Cassie snorted. "Really?" A sideways flick of her stick, and pop! Aunt Petunia and the chair switched places, she fell on it hard at an awkward angle, started tipping over. A jab of her stick had a length of black rope whipping out of the tip, wrapping itself around Aunt Petunia in a blink, Cassie pulled back on it, stopping the chair from tipping over. "You've got spirit, I'll admit that, but—"

"HELP!" Aunt Petunia screamed at the top of her lungs. Harry cringed, taking a step back, its skin tingling. "HELP! HELP, SOMEONE HE—" A flick of Cassie's magic stick, and Aunt Petunia's voice immediately went silent. Her lips were still moving, she was still screaming, Harry could tell, there just wasn't any sound — like someone had hit the mute button on the television.

...Harry wanted one of those.

"Fuck, Evans, got a pair of lungs on you," Cassie said, grumbling a little. "You know, I already put a silencing barrier up, nobody would have heard you anyway."

Aunt Petunia didn't seem to be listening, still trying to yell, struggling and rocking back and forth in her chair, trying to loosen the ropes. She must have leaned too far one way, because the chair suddenly tipped over, she slammed against the tile floor on her side.

Cassie snorted. She turned back to Harry, one eyebrow raising. "Harry, I don't think your aunt is very smart."

Despite how scared it was, Harry had to try not to smile.

"Right, let's wait for Evans to calm down for a moment. Why don't you show me around?"

"Oh. Um. Okay?" They were just going to leave Aunt Petunia lying there? Harry thought about asking Cassie to untie her, but...she'd probably just run out and try to get help, and if the magic police had to deal with a second thing to do with Harry in one day they probably wouldn't be very happy...

Not really sure what Cassie wanted it to show her, Harry just led Cassie through the house. She'd already seen the kitchen and the sitting room, and the dining room was in here — they almost never used it, just when Uncle Vernon had work people over — and that was the bathroom. Upstairs, Harry didn't show Cassie inside Aunt and Uncle's room, it wasn't supposed to go in there, just pointed out the door. And then there was the guest room — Harry didn't know if anyone besides Aunt Marge had ever used it — and here was another bathroom, and this was Dudley's room.

"Is this your room?" Cassie asked, looking around Dudley's second bedroom.

Harry felt a little embarrassed — the room was kind of a mess. The bed was unmade (which was especially silly, because it wasn't like Dudley even slept in it), there were old toys strewn here and there, some of them looked busted, there were marbles and puzzle pieces scattered across the floor. Harry noticed a few crisp packets and candy wrappers, empty cans sitting next to the television, ugh, Harry needed to remember to clean this up before it started to smell... "No, this is Dudley's second bedroom."

"His second..." Frowning, Cassie looked around quick — eyes flickering around, as though taking everything in, measuring the house — before turning back down to Harry. Her brow furrowed, her voice low and slow, she asked, "Harry, where's your room?"

...It didn't want to answer that question.

"Harry?"

But it didn't look like Cassie was going to let Harry get away with not showing her. Cassie could probably make it do whatever she wanted, or something, who knew what magic could do, Harry didn't know, it wouldn't be good. So it took a long, slow breath — in, out — then turned around, heading back toward the stairs. It didn't take very long, far too quickly Harry was standing at the cupboard door. It slid aside the latch, pulled the door open, and stepped out of the way so Cassie could see in.

And Harry waited, staring down at the wood tile under its shoes, too afraid to look.

Cassie was silent for what felt like a very long time. Crazy shadows were thrown on the floor and the wall, from a light that hadn't been there before — Harry guessed Cassie had made a magic light of some kind to fill up the cupboard. And she stood there, standing in front of the door, and...did nothing. Said nothing.

Harry had been told for as long as it could remember that it wasn't supposed to tell people what went on at home. People weren't to know that it slept in a cupboard. Harry had never been told why exactly. Putting together that freaks didn't deserve nice things, people did terrible things to freaks, and that the Dursleys were especially good for taking it in and feeding it and everything, Harry had kind of assumed the neighbours would think they were being too nice to it, and would... It didn't know, exactly. Something about that didn't sound quite right, but Harry had no better explanation, and in any case telling people would be against the rules, so Harry would definitely be in trouble if it told, and would be punished as soon as Uncle Vernon found out. It was a big important rule, one it had never broken ever.

Uncle Vernon was scary, but he couldn't do magic — Cassie was scarier. Maybe if Uncle Vernon was here right now, being all big and angry and mean, there would have been a question which one Harry thought was scarier in the moment, but as it was doing what Cassie told it was less dangerous than breaking the rules. It thought. Maybe.

(It wasn't sure, it was trying to not think about it. Harry was going to be punished bad once Cassie left no matter what happened — she'd used magic to tie Aunt Petunia to a chair — so it probably didn't matter anymore.)

After too long not doing or saying anything, Harry staring at the floor and trying to keep breathing normal, Harry started to feel...weird. It wasn't an inside feeling, but something on the air around it. It was starting to feel cold, but not really? It meant, Harry didn't think the temperature had gone down all of a sudden, but it felt cold, somehow. And a sharp, tangy crackliness, like a summer lightning storm, loud and dangerous but also weirdly exciting.

But mostly just really cold — Harry wrapped its arms around itself before it realised what it was doing, almost felt like it was about to start shivering.

Cassie moved, and Harry jumped in surprise, but she wasn't moving toward it. Slipping past Harry, pushing the cupboard door against the wall as she went, Cassie walked down the hallway back toward the kitchen, her steps heavy and quick, her shoulders rigid. Harry noticed, blinking, that Cassie was changing a little, her skin shifting even paler and her hair suddenly a deep, strong blood-red. Her hair also seemed to be whipping out behind her as though in the wind, which was weird, they were indoors. The weird lightning storm feeling went with her — Harry could still feel it, but it weakened with every step she took further away.

Harry didn't want to follow her — that weird feeling really was very cold — but it was probably better Harry know what was going on, so it scrambled after her, stepping into the kitchen as Cassie stomped up to Aunt Petunia.

"You put my nephew in a cupboard?!"

Aunt Petunia said something (it seemed she could talk again) but Harry didn't hear it. All Harry could do was stare at Cassie, eyes wide and mouth probably hanging open, which it would be yelled at for, but it really couldn't help it at the moment. Had she said her nephew? What?

And then Aunt Petunia started screaming. It wasn't the same screaming before — not words, just noise, high and long and awful. Not screaming for help, but screaming in pain. Harry didn't think it'd ever seen someone in so much pain they could do nothing but scream, Aunt Petunia could hardly breathe, just screaming and screaming and screaming. She was shaking, struggling against the ropes, throwing herself back against the chair, as though trying to slide away, her feet kicking, coming nowhere near Cassie's legs.

Because Cassie was hurting her. One hand clenched in a fist at her side, shivering just a little, the other around her magic stick, pointed straight down at Aunt Petunia. She had to be doing something, somehow — Harry couldn't see anything happening, but nothing else made sense.

Aunt Petunia's screaming was echoing in Harry's ears, high and stabbing, it couldn't not hear, and it hurt. Without really thinking about it — if it did it might not have, because Cassie was even more scary now than she'd been before — Harry ran up, grabbed on to the sleeve above Cassie's empty hand. (Harry didn't want to get too close to her magic stick.) Tugging on her dress, it said, "Stop it, you're hurting her! Stop!"

It took a second, Cassie going even more rigid, but only a second — the screaming stopped, Aunt Petunia drew in a shaking gasp, shivering and sobbing, her eyes squeezed shut she curled up in the chair as much as the ropes would let her. After another couple seconds, Cassie turned to look—

Harry jumped, tipped back a couple steps — Cassie's weird silver eyes were glowing. Not really bright, Harry might not have noticed if Cassie weren't looking right at it, but holy crap! Cassie stared at it for a moment — Harry's heart pounding in its chest, breath caught, skin prickling painfully (and it was very, very cold) — and then finally turned away, took a couple unsteady steps over to the kitchen counter. Both of her hands on the surface, she leaned over. She took one breath in, and then out, slow and deep, then another, and another.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Cassie's hair stopped fluttering in a breeze that Harry couldn't feel, the air gradually warming up, the lightning storm moving on. When Cassie turned back around, her eyes weren't glowing anymore. Her hair was black again, some of the colour back in her face, no longer deathly pale. Her lips twitching with a smile that wouldn't quite come, Cassie muttered, "Sorry, Harry. Got carried away. I didn't mean to scare you."

...Harry had no idea at all what to say to that.

Cassie looked around the room for a little bit, frowning, thinking about something. Then she glanced down at Aunt Petunia — still moaning and shivering, tears streaked across her face — a corner of her lips pulling into a sneer. It was gone when she looked back up at Harry, trying to go for a friendly smile, but she didn't quite pull it off right. "Do you know about family trees, Harry?"

"Um." They'd done a project about that, back in first year. Harry hadn't been able to do it at all, because it didn't even know its parents' names, much less grandparents and whatever else. "Yes?"

"Come on, I want to show you something." Cassie led Harry back into the hallway. A tap of her stick on the wall, and all the picture frames and stuff fell off, crashing down to the floor. There wasn't any glass on the floor, but some of them cracked. Harry winced — it was going to be in so much trouble later. Cassie pressed the tip of her stick against the wall, paused for a second.

When she pulled the stick away, a drawing made of light had appeared on the wall — a triangle, glowing white, inside of it written in red letters: Henrik Potter. "Is that my real name?" Harry asked, pointing at the red lights. That was kind of a funny thing to assume, but it couldn't think what else Cassie could be doing...

Cassie blinked down at it. "Yes. Didn't you know that?"

Harry decided not to answer that question. Honestly, it hadn't even known its name was Harry until it was time to start school...

Thankfully, Cassie didn't wait for an answer, tossing another glare toward the kitchen before turning back to the wall. A red line went out from the white triangle, then split, turned into two more glowing white shapes, a circle and a triangle — more red letters appeared, James Potter and Lily Evans. Harry could only stare at the names for a moment.

Its parents' names were James and Lily. Its parents' names were James and Lily. Its parents' names were James and Lily...

Cassie said something, but Harry wasn't listening — something about not knowing Lily's parents' names, it thought. Another red line was growing out of James's (its dad's) triangle, and then into another triangle and circle. The triangle was white with red words too, but the circle was different, the shape black and the words a winking silver — the triangle was Charlus Potter, and the circle Dorea Black.

Its grandparents? Honestly, Harry had never even thought about having grandparents...

Cassie paused for a second, before adding another circle on the other side of Charlus's triangle, this one in orange and blue, Ceinwen Fawley written in the middle. The line between Charlus's triangle and Ceinwen's circle sprouted another line, this one coming to another circle, a little bit above James's triangle — it read Elizabeth Potter, but the colours were a bit dull, a line put through the words, as though scratched out. Harry had no idea what that was about, and wasn't sure if it should ask.

Cassie's magic stick went up to Charlus's triangle, sprouting out to another triangle and circle — the triangle was in the same red and white, reading Boniface Potter, the circle in red and black, reading Teàrlag Longbottom. Its great-grandparents? ("Longbottom" was a funny name.) Cassie's stick slid over the wall, coming back to Harry's parents. "James and Lily, as you know, died in the war."

Um, Harry didn't know anything about that, actually? It'd been told its parents had died in a car crash. Had there even been a war going on back then? But it wasn't sure if it should interrupt, so it just noted the new fact and tucked it away to think about later.

Moving back to the right, then up to Ceinwen Fawley, "Your grandfather's first wife died early, though I don't know what from. Their only child, your father's half-sister, was disowned by the family, long before you were born, but I believe she's still alive. She's living somewhere on the Continent, I think." ...Harry had another aunt? What? "There was an attack on the Longbottom and Potter families in Nineteen Forty-Two — many Potters and Longbottoms were killed, including your great-grandparents on the Potter side. There are no more living Potters, and the last Longbottoms are from a different branch of the family. The Black side, though..."

Cassie went back to Dorea's circle, a silver line grew out of it, then angled down a bit before zig-zagging back right, sprouting into another circle and triangle. The triangle was in the same black and silver as Dorea's circle, reading Cygnus Black; the circle was in green and yellow, reading Violetta Bulstrode. Then more shapes appeared beneath Dorea's circle in the same black and silver, her brothers and sisters — a triangle (Marius Black, faded and struck through like Harry's mystery aunt), a circle (Cassiopeia Black), and the last one another triangle (Pollus Black). Once they were all made, her stick went back up to Cygnus and Violetta. "Your great-grandparents on the Black side died a long time ago, I think before even your father was born. Marius was disowned, and I never did learn what became of him — he's almost certainly gone now, in any case. Pollus is still around, though he spends most of his time in Greece these days.

"And Cassiopeia..." Her stick settling on the last circle, Cassie turned down to look at Harry, a crooked little smile on her face. "...is me."

What?

"Your grandmother was my baby sister. I'm your great-aunt."

...What?

"Harry..." Cassie glanced over the family tree for a moment, then crouched down a bit — not quite down to Harry's height, but pretty far, her legs folding up enough her bum almost came down to the ground. (Harry noticed Cassie's knickers were showing. It could almost hear Petunia snarl something about sluts, not that Harry knew what that meant, just one of those words she used for women she didn't like.) For a second, it looked like Cassie was about to reach for Harry's hands, but she wrapped her arms around her knees instead. "When your parents died, a very powerful man, a man I trusted... He told me you'd been put somewhere safe, with family. He wouldn't say where. But I trusted him, so I didn't question him."

Do what you're told, and don't ask questions!

"I didn't know you were..." Cassie's eyes flicked toward the cupboard. "I'm sorry I didn't ask him, Harry. If I know what was going on here, I would have come sooner. Much sooner."

Harry felt its eyes widening, something warm and hard starting to fill up its chest, until it could hardly breathe, held at the back of its throat, waiting. It had a feeling what Cassie was about to say. But that couldn't be, no, Harry was just letting its old fantasies get away from it, that wasn't actually happening, Harry was never that lucky, nothing good ever happened to it...

"It's been a...very long time since I've cared for a child, and I'll probably make mistakes. But, if you want to get away from here, I will—"

"Yes!" The word had forced its way out of Harry's throat before Cassie could finish the question, without Harry doing it on purpose. Because it was happening, this was for real, Harry wasn't just imagining it!

As much as Harry had been told that how the Dursleys had treated it was as much as a filthy freak like it could hope for, it'd still been very...bad. Harry wasn't happy here. Sometimes it made it feel terribly guilty — an ungrateful useless freak, like Uncle Vernon said — but it couldn't help it. It'd seen Dudley growing up, and other kids with their families, and...

Harry had imagined, it'd dreamed, it'd prayed, more times for longer than it could count, that someone would come. That it had some other relatives out there, maybe another freak like it (it had to have gotten it from somewhere, that was how kids worked), that they would appear one day, and tell off the Dursleys for being mean and cruel, and not actually the good, ordinary people they always said they were, and they would take Harry away and everything would be better, even if it was still a freak and everyone else hated it at least it would actually have a family, and if it was weird and awkward it—

For a long time, Harry hadn't really believed anyone was coming. It'd been years, and no one had come.

But it was real.

"Yes, I want to go with you." It felt tears prick at its eyes, and it tried to hold it in, its throat hurt and its vision blurring a little. (Uncle Vernon hated it when it cried.) "Please, I'll be good, just— I don't want to stay."

Cassie smiled — not really a happy smile, crooked and a little shaky, Harry didn't know what that was. "Okay. Let's get you out of here before someone responsible tries to stop us."

Harry felt its chest twitch, a noise pushed out of its throat. It couldn't tell if it was a sob or a laugh.

---

I'm using the Potter and Longbottom family histories and the Black family tree from my headcanon. For the record, I'm aware it conflicts with canon, but fuck the police.