It was an utterly miserable day. The sort of muggy that suggested rain, but it hadn't quite broke which meant that the air was thick and humid. The clouds overhead were thick and heavy, and hinted at a heavy thunderstorm.
She had escaped the house because if it was bad outside, it was even worse inside and not just because of this Merlin-forsaken heat. At some point she gave up trying to listen in to the news because it was apparent Voldemort was laying low. Considering what the magical papers had been saying, that cowardly Minister was trying to play her up as a liar and a braggart rather than acknowledge the problem.
She was already thinking of ways to utterly screw over that bastard and take down anyone who agreed with him in the process.
In between occasional letters to her friends, who were utterly useless in this matter, she was also secretly sending letters to the only person who could act as a neutral party...Susan Bones.
Her aunt was very helpful and was already helping her start the process of allowing her to be considered an adult witch so that she could make her own bloody decisions and live her own life without having to deal with old fools and their so called "good intentions".
The Tri-Wizard Tournament had given her an opening, and certain old laws would insure that it actually stuck. Sure, she would lose the "protections" provided to a pure blood heir, but they weren't being used in the first place and there had to be a barrister who would be more than interested in the fact the Ministry was trying to slander the heir of two ancient and noble houses...particularly if one of them was the house of Black, which still held some sway over the other families. The Potter family had more or less fallen, especially thanks to Dumbledore's mismanagement.
Madam Bones was not a fan of Dumbledore and his half-assed methods. She also wasn't happy that a minor had essentially be tricked into a life-threatening tournament or half the things her niece hinted at during her vacation. So if she could deliver some overdue justice to a young witch who was being shafted by all the adults in her life, then she was all too happy to do so...especially if it showed up Dumbledore's mismanagement.
In an effort to avoid the house, Rowan went to the dilapidated playground. She had to grimace when not even thirty minutes later her idiot cousin showed up. And while she did have her wand, she wasn't inclined to hex Dudley or the dipshits that followed him to prove a point.
She wouldn't rightly remember the full events of what happened next in sequence, but she would forever remember the key points.
Dudley spotted her, wisely went to avoid her until one of his idiots mentioned beating her up like they used to or hinting at something worse since she was female and girls were starting to look interesting. After all, she was the black sheep of the neighborhood so obvious she had already started sleeping around.
The storm overhead was slowly started to darken, though it had yet to start raining. It was almost guaranteed to be a nasty downpour.
Dudley managed to convince his 'friends' to leave because he didn't feel like chasing his cousin in the rain. But not before she drew a fake stick out to scare him with a threat of her own.
She did have to wince when she realized Dudley could hear her nightmares of Cedric's death. The cold glare of her eyes was enough to convince the boys that Dudley was in the 'right' about not messing with her, because suddenly chasing the freak didn't sound so appealing. Not when she had eyes that said she could kill them in their sleep and not give one damn about it.
Neither of them noticed or cared that the sky above was starting to light up. If they had, they would have guessed it was the lightning signaling the rain to come.
It happened so fast that neither cousin could properly react.
There was a massive crash a little too close for comfort, and whatever it was hit the earth so hard that it created a massive crater. Due to how dry the earth was, and how close she was to the crater, the moment she shifted her weight even slightly the earth gave way.
She let out a yelp of surprise, causing Dudley to flinch.
The crater was steep, but not so much that she couldn't climb out...Petunia was going to be pissed as hell from the sheer amount of dirt on her though.
Rowan carefully got up, after checking herself for injuries. It was when she scanned the area around her that she saw it.
A handle bound in some sort of leather, connected to something made of metal. It was shaped like an older version of hammer, like you'd see in some medieval blacksmith's shop. It looked nothing like the common, weak hammers anyone could get at a hardware store.
If someone got hit with this, it would do some major damage.
Rowan would state honestly when asked later that it was her own experiences and fickle luck that had her approach the thing. It was obviously magical, she didn't even need to get close to see that.
Her small hand wrapped around the handle...she had to use both hands because it was made for much bigger hands than her own. For a moment she thought she would fall back on her arse trying to pick up the heavy thing.
There was a crackle of electricity that tingled up and down her arms and through her body...almost like it was testing her.
To her surprise, the thing lifted easily from where it had landed. It had some weight to it, but not enough that she couldn't pick it up and lift it.
Hearing the loud crack of thunder above, she did her best to scramble out of the crater...Dudley, to her surprise, was still there.
As if that was the signal for the clouds above, the first drop fell to the ground. Both cousins immediately scrambled to the nearest source of cover in a nearby overpass. It wasn't perfect but at least it was dry and safe from the lightning.
So of course her luck had to go from 'strange' to absolutely 'shitty' in that moment, as the thick humid and overbearing summer heat swiftly turned into a chill that went bone deep. The moment she heard her mother's voice, her spine went ice cold.
Of all the piss-poor luck...
Dudley being a fool ran towards the opposite end of where they had entered...and damn near ran straight into the first dementor. She didn't know why she grabbed the hammer instead of her wand, she just knew she couldn't let her idiot cousin be killed by that foul thing.
He might be an entitled bastard, but he was still a child who had simply been the product of truly horrible parenting.
As much as she hated her aunt, uncle and cousin, she didn't quite hate them enough to wish the fate of having their souls devoured by such foul beasts.
Thunder crashed overhead, revealing a second dementor behind the first. Dudley was in the grasp of the first one, and it was slowly lowering itself towards him.
Without even thinking about how foolish it was, she threw the hammer she picked up. It slammed into the dementor holding Dudley and by lucky chance, crashed into the second one as well.
That was enough for her to draw her wand, and cast the one thing she knew would drive these foul things away.
"Expecto Patronum!"
Prongs erupted from her wand, smashing into the two dementors. The light magic sent them fleeing, though they seemed weakened by the hammer.
Dudley collapsed onto the ground, shaken to his core. He wasn't a gibbering wreck, though it was a near thing.
Rowan grimaced. She wasn't about to stick around with dementors loose. Whatever protections the house provided wasn't much, but it was better than nothing at all.
She carefully leveraged her cousin upright. Strangely, it wasn't nearly as difficult as she thought it would be.
As they walked out of the underpass, she paused briefly from where the hammer had fallen. On one hand, it was a pain holding Dudley upright. On the other hand, some instinct told her leaving it there was a bad idea. She cautiously bent down to pick it up, and nearly dropped Dudley.
She should have felt surprise when the thing practically leaped into her hand. At this point, she was just so done with this night that she could care less.
In retrospect, the fact Dumbledore had watchers on the neighborhood wasn't that surprising.
The fact Mrs. Figg had been watching this entire time and had been reporting her life to the old man her entire childhood pissed her off. There was no way she could have missed the way the Dursleys had treated her for her entire life.
Which meant that old bastard knew her aunt's family disliked having her around and still made her come back.
After all the crap she went through tonight, she was just done with Dumbledore's idea of "protection".
The second she got a letter from the Ministry about her patronus, she waited for the Aurors to show up.
They didn't.
Rowan just started packing and preparing to leave.
She sent letters to Sirius, Ron and Hermione...though at this point she suspected they were all in the same house for some reason. However she told Hedwig to deliver Susan's letter first and to make it clear to her aunt that no aurors had come to investigate why a patronus had been cast in a muggle residential area.
If she had wanted to show off, then there were less magic intensive spells to cast...especially since the patronus was on the watch list for the right reasons. Specifically because of the things it defended against.
The only reason she knew this was because she had looked it up after Remus started teaching her about how to cast it. In the one book she had managed to track down on the subject, it spoke about how the Aurors were legally bound to investigate whenever it was cast outside of practice or a school setting. Especially if it was near a residential area, much less a muggle one where it had no business being cast at all!
The next morning, Petunia opened the door to find an unamused Amelia Bones there with one of her most loyal subordinates.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my house?" demanded Petunia.
"I was informed by a trusted source there had been an... incident. I am here to perform an investigation," said Amelia crisply.
Both of them were dressed in muggle casual, at least enough to pass cursory inspection and had arrived by Ministry car.
Originally she would have apparated to a discreet location, but after hearing there was someone watching the neighborhood with magical contacts, she opted for discretion.
A few spells and laced catnip took care of the kneazles they had spotted. Mrs. Figg found herself having to deal with a surprise inspection regarding a complaint about the kittens she was selling to the magical pet shops and to see the state of the cats she was breeding. The auror was keeping her well away from the windows that were anywhere near number four.
If Amelia was displeased about the lack of investigation, she was positively infuriated discovering the girl's bedroom. There was no excuse for a cat flap on a door inside the house, or that many locks...particularly since to the best of her knowledge Ms. Potter did not own a cat in the first place.
Rowan was just happen one adult was at least on her side in this matter. In short order Amelia came up with a bullshit excuse of having to 'take her into custody' regarding her use of magic in a mundane setting. Petunia was all too happy to see her niece and the visitor gone and didn't question why the girl's room was promptly emptied in short order.
Unknown to the older witch, a massive hammer was hidden within the trunk.
Amelia was utterly appalled, mostly at the sheer lack of disregard towards the young witch. It was absolutely unforgivable that the girl had been forced to live with such dreadful muggles, especially with such piss poor wards around the home. It was abundantly clear that no one had taken the girl's health or happiness with any due consideration in quite some time.
Learning no one had properly questioned her regarding the death of the Diggory boy was even worse. All they knew was from hearsay and the lies the minister had been spreading for months now. Add in the lack of any response regarding the patronus she had cast, and Amelia was not a happy witch.
It was one thing to expel someone for underage magic use in front of a muggle. It was another to not do their damn jobs, especially regarding a spell that was on the watch list for very strong reasons!
The girl had yet to see a specialized healer for trauma or even half the crap she had gone through. Madam Pomphrey was a good school nurse, but she was best suited to general care and not specialized matters.
It was past time someone helped this girl gain some measure of control over her life before she became a legal adult and was left out in the cold with no clue how to handle serious matters by herself.
The first thing Amelia did was have a trusted Auror take the girl's statement under veritaserum...with explicit permission. The next thing she did was get a copy of her memories as per standard procedure and arrange a meeting with the underage magic division to have the case thrown out before someone bungled it up.
Rowan was just glad to be in the care of someone who actually knew what they were doing and bothered to ask what she wanted rather than do what they wanted and tell her after the fact as if that was what she would have wanted for herself.