This was it. She had done everything she could conceivably do to prepare/put off the inevitable.

From taking her Ordinary Wizarding Levels a year early, to tricking her 'father' into formally removing the control he had over her and her sisters as the "Head of the Potter Family" and as their "Father". Honestly, her mother had been harder to trick, and that was only because she bothered to read the official documents.

Her twin had almost been a problem, but while he was a glory hound he at least vaguely recognized her when she brought the documents to him.

Rosemary was beyond thorough when it came to protecting her younger, more vulnerable siblings. And she wasn't due to inherit, so there was no reason she couldn't slip this entire mess she was about to leave behind for her "family" under the rug until someone bothered to look for them.

Officially, they were "removed from the family, but stand to inherit only if no other heirs are possible or viable".

It was a very telling sign of how far her family had fallen when her two younger sisters honestly thought their parents were the "nanny" and the "boy-who-lived's PR manager" that just happened to live with them.

They honestly thought Rosemary was their mother until they were seven, when she realized she would have to explain why she had to leave them with the "nanny" for months on end and they made the error of calling her mommy on Christmas.

Seeing their faces when she explained she was their older sister, not their mother had hurt. But it wouldn't hurt as much as the knowledge that the 'nanny' who only paid attention to them very rarely and left the house elves to raise them while Rosemary was unavailable was in fact their real mother. And that both parents were too busy with the fame of the eldest son and heir to bother with them.

She desperately wanted to spare that painful knowledge from them for as long as humanly possible. Preferably when they were old enough to understand the truth on their own, long after she secured them a school where the name "Potter" wouldn't automatically be equated to their brother.

She had put off their departure for as long as she could justify.

Now one might ask why she was so desperate to leave her family and cut all ties with her parents behind.

The answer was both simple and complicated and it all boiled down to two things.

Money and marriage.

Two things that went hand in hand with an old family, and one would assume that she was being married off to someone she couldn't stand, to be so quick at leaving.

The truth was that James Potter, under the rather dubious leadership skills of one Albus Dumbledore, had been convinced to donate large sums of gold to the war effort without once bothering to make a repayment schedule once all things were said and done. As annoying as that was, it wasn't why Rosemary was furious with both men.

No, that had everything to do with the fact James had more or less hit the main vault for as much as the goblins were willing to justify before they found out what he was doing and cut him off...with very good reason. Finding out that the main vault had been removed from his access until his heir took over and reinstated him and his wife, he had gone looking for other sources of gold to satisfy Dumbledore's "requests" and make himself look better.

And then he stumbled upon the three trust vaults of his daughters. He would never dare hit up his own son...the potential backlash from that wouldn't be worth it if found out. But Rosemary, Iris and Aster were fair game in his mind.

He only vaguely remembered what his daughters looked like, and as a pure blood he was accustomed to 'selling off the spares for the good of the family' and all that rot. In short he wouldn't hesitate to break out the marriage contracts and marry off his children to bring the family fortune back up to snuff.

Rosemary was never more thankful that her grandparents had the foresight to put her rather sizable dowry in escrow, along with her sisters firmly in their control, not James or Lily. James could borrow off it with many loans as long as his daughters remained in the family and he remained head of the house of Potter.

She had honest doubts James Potter had the sense magic gave a flobberworm if he thought she was going to let his attempted pilfering of their vaults go down without a fight, or that after finding out what he did she would allow him to chose her husband to pay off the debts he kept accruing.

The goblins had given her all the forms to formally disinherit James and Lily as her parents, and a lesser version stating her brother could reinstate their possible children back into the Potter family, but they wanted nothing to do with it or the people that claimed the name.

She would more or less cut all ties James and Lily had on their daughters in one move.

Rosemary walked into Gringotts, paid them to file the paperwork and keep it quiet, then got the international portkey from the broker.

Portkeys leaving the country were technically illegal at the moment, but she had paid good coin to get this one to Japan, along with a waiver that she and her sisters (both considered minors and almost ready for formal magical schooling) would accept the month-long quarantine to prove they were only entering the country to attend school, were not part of the current magical terrorist group, under polyjuice, or a unknown werewolf.

They also had to enter into a rather extensive interview and go into a magical dead zone for one week to cancel any glamours, potions, and other spells to insure they weren't trying to sneak in.

Considering the trouble Voldemort caused and the stupidity of Dumbledore and the English Ministry, she didn't blame them one bit for being overly paranoid.

Rosemary gathered Iris and Aster with the promise of the park, and made a point to collect everything that truly belonged to them.

She didn't want the Potters to try and claim line theft because she had accidentally taken a book from the family library that hadn't already been in her dowry vaults.

Harry went into her room, as the younger two were already asleep in the trunk.

"So this is it? You're finally leaving?" he asked quietly.

People do either one of two things when forced to deal with the level of fame her brother had. They either go along with the flow, or tried to bend and not break under the pressure.

Harry had, under the convincing of their parents, gone along with it.

Only two people had known how unhappy Rosemary was being the shadow of the "boy-who-lived".

Harry, who did his best to shield her from the worst of it when he realized what was happening, and Sirius, who had gone out of his way to name Rosemary his heir as opposed to Harry.

After the mess with the Ministry officially taking a head-in-sand approach to Voldemort's return, Sirius had more or less handed over the title as "Head of the Black" to Rosemary, despite still being very much alive.

He had been the one to tell her exactly what she needed to do in order to keep James from drowning her in debt and draining her vaults and dowry dry.

James had no idea Sirius had immediately cut him and Lily off from the Black vaults the day Rosemary had told him James was dipping into her trust account through his access as her guardian and head of family.

Sirius might be a prankster and a vindictive bastard, but he wasn't as naïve as James. He might loan books to the headmaster, but he always made it clear he expected them returned within a reasonable time frame and in the same condition he loaned them. He never handed over bags of gold like James had been doing.

Hence why the moment Rosemary turned seventeen or if Sirius died, she would be named head of the Black family and all the vaults and properties put in her control. She just had to claim the title, whether in Gringotts or in a Ministry and allow magic to verify the claim. Her Heir ring would then be switched to the proper one once it was verified.

"I have to go. If I stay here there's no telling what Dumbledore (she spat out the name like a vile disease one caught while being unhygienic) will convince that man to do. I refuse to be married to Ron, or worse, Draco, in some foolish attempt to bring the idiot back."

Ron was Harry's former best friend, but after the Tri-Wizard he had dropped the red head without hesitation. Rosemary had never liked him, and would have either killed the bastard or cut her own wrists if she even thought James was stupid enough to write up a betrothal between them.

Harry had his own contract with Ginny, so it wasn't like they wouldn't become family anyway.

And she had noticed the terrifying speculative looks Dumbledore kept giving Draco and her when they were in the same room. It didn't take a genius to figure out he might write up a contract in an effort to "bring the Malfoy heir into the Light".

If she knew Draco like she did, he might pass her around like a toy for his friends and his father's friends the second they were married and laugh at Dumbledore's foolishness. That wasn't taking into account that being around the ferret-bastard made her skin crawl.

Thank Morgana, Morrigan and Maeve James forgot she existed and Dumbledore was too busy covering his own ass to remind him of his oldest daughter long enough to convince James this was for the greater good.

By the time Dumbledore had the mind to bring it up, Rosemary was determined to be long gone with her sisters.

Harry passed her a book. It was a simple two-way diary.

"So we don't lose touch. It's keyed only to those who's blood is on the book, and I have one already."

Rosemary easily bleed onto the book, connecting it to her magical core. She knew how such artifacts worked, and was surprised her brother had thought to get one.

She looked at her watch. It was almost time.

Harry gave her a quick hug...and she vaguely noted he put something around her neck. It was a ring...more specifically a copy of the Potter Heir ring, for when there were twins.

"But..."

"I don't trust Dumbledore either, and I think he's planning something. This way even if mom or dad have more kids, Dumbledore can't mold them how he likes. Dad never lost the spare."

Rosemary stared at him, before a sad smile came on her face.

This was Harry's way of telling her even if something happened to him, she would never stop being family. They might not be as close as twins should be, but they were still connected.

Rosemary floated the trunk to the area where portkeys could enter through the wards...and exit. By tomorrow the summer social would be in full swing, and there would be more than enough port key signatures to muddy up the one she was using.

Harry had agreed to keep their parents from noticing anything wrong until a week after they were safely away. It wouldn't be very hard, he just had to focus on socializing like normal.

They would be too busy playing host and hostess to bother looking for the girls unless someone brought it up, and Rosemary had always kept them far, far away from Harry's gatherings.

She hated them with a passion.

Rosemary felt sick, but then again she hated magic travel. The younger two were safely asleep, having been placed in the portkey instead of their normal beds. They thought it was one big adventure, and loved every minute of it.

She was hit with a sleeping spell, and blissfully fell asleep while the Japanese Ministry placed them all into secure quarantine.

Aster and Iris were kept together, since they were minors, but Rosemary had to endure a not-so-fun week of interrogation, confirming she was the legal and magical guardian of the 'twins' (the girls had been born less than a year apart) and hadn't kidnapped them from their parents, and proving she had zero connection to Dumbledore, the Ministry or the Dark Lord.

The last part had been the hardest. The twins had been under a truth ward...they were too young for truth serum, and with her status as their guardian, they couldn't give it to them without her present which could compromising the entire questioning... but Rosemary had been given the adult dose of veritaserum and questioned thoroughly the entire time she was under it's influence and made to sign a magical contract that everything she said was true to her full knowledge.

If she had lied, the girls would have been sent back exactly where the portkey had originated in England, and she would have been rendered a squib if she were lucky. Those contracts were vicious.

After the week was over, she was reunited with her sisters and tentatively given full custody in the mundane (they quickly and firmly corrected her on the use of the word muggle) world once she left quarantine.

Finding out they would have to attend normal school had come as an odd surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Aster and Iris were thrilled at the idea, since they had been home schooled...more or less. They couldn't wait to make actual friends.

Rosemary looked at the home she had paid for with her money. It had been a near thing, getting this set up so she could pay it off without a loan based on her dowry money.

She refused to fall into that trap of borrowing against it. She honestly didn't mind getting a part-time job, and the school she picked (because the high school was right next to the elementary school) allowed jobs so long as a certain level of grade point average was maintained.

Then again, that's what time-turners were for.

Iris and Aster raced inside to pick their new room. They already loved their new home, mostly because they would be allowed to actually leave the house and be normal girls.

Lily hadn't really noticed her daughters enough to take them to the parks like Rosemary did, and they didn't like their 'nanny' enough to ask. They did play in the yard, but they had to be careful in case the PR manager yelled at them again.

They really didn't like him.

Once everything had been sorted out (who got which bedroom, what the colors of the wallpaper would be, what they would order for dinner) Rosemary almost collapsed onto the couch exhausted.

Being the adult of the house was tiring.

Rosemary cracked open the two-way diary and immediately found an entry. She had only just regained all her things after the Japanese Ministry had professionals go over everything to insure she wasn't trying to bring something illegal or cursed in.

She had narrowly kept the time turner, and was under strict orders to only use it for one half day per week. Which meant twelve extra hours a week, and she found it perfectly reasonable.

You escaped just in time, and Dumbledore is furious. Mum and dad are beyond confused right now.

Rosemary reached for a pen and wrote back.

Who and how long before they find out we're no longer under their control?

Blaise Zabini, and right now they're trying to remember they have any recollection of my twin sister. Dumbledore did mention he plans to marry Iris into the Malfoy family with a larger than normal bride price from the ferret as payment.

Rosemary was pissed. Iris was barely eleven, and already Dumbledore was trying to sell her off to a known Death Eater.

Old bastard.

She just needed to survive until she was seventeen, and her sisters would permanently be out of his reach forever. For now...she just had to survive high school after a lifetime of being disconnected from normal people.

Keep me informed. For safety's sake I won't tell you where we are, but I am the legal and magical guardian of Iris and Aster...and magic has verified my claim.

It had shocked the Ministry and goblins how quickly magic had agreed to her claim of being their guardian despite being a minor herself.

To be fair, she had basically raised them as best she could in the absence of their mother doing her job.

And tomorrow she had to go to school, in a place were she would be completely unknown and with no magic to fall back on. More than that, she would have absolutely no support, because if the Ministry thought she couldn't handle living on her own they wouldn't hesitate to stick her and her sisters with a "trusted adult".

And she had lost a lot of trust in adults growing up.

When Touya heard of a transfer student from home school abroad, he didn't think much of it. Then he saw her.

Pale skin, deep green eyes that looked like leaves, hair as red as blood with tints of gold, and an open look of paranoia.

Rosemary was an English girl, and she had the look of a princess, but not of the Miyazaki variety. No, this was a down-to-earth, warrior princess who held power and knew it.

And as he would learn, the legal guardian of two younger sisters who had quickly befriended his own baby sister, Sakura.

Rosemary was almost like the perfect girl. She was beautiful, had just the right amount of curves, motherly, and if the state of her clothes was any indication, rich but not arrogant.

But looks were deceiving. Touya was nothing if not observant, and his powers allowed him to sense there was more than what most people saw.

Rosemary had magic, a lot of it coiling under her skin and throughout her soul. She also held herself like someone who had to be the grown up of the house at a far too early age. The fact she didn't have any parents and it was only her and her sisters living in the house said a lot Touya didn't like.

However, he wouldn't interfere. It was her life, and however much he wanted to help, he knew some people were rather stubborn about people trying to "help".

Rosemary looked very much like the sort of person who would be suspicious of any aid, unless she had absolutely no other choice.

So he would keep his distance and watch.