"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." – Friedrich Nietzsche
No one came to pick her up.
They never did.
Harriet stood at the edge of the platform for a moment longer than necessary, watching families reunite in small, messy explosions of sound and movement. Mothers pulling children into their arms, fathers lifting trunks with exaggerated effort, siblings already arguing about who got the window seat on the ride home.
She felt nothing about it.
She hadn't since she was eleven.
The first summer after Hogwarts, she'd waited too. Not because she expected them to come—she wasn't naïve—but because part of her had wanted confirmation. A definitive answer. She'd gotten one. Vernon and Petunia Dursley had not even pretended. No letter. No excuse. Nothing.
She'd figured it out on her own.
She always did.
The station smelled like oil and dust and warm stone. Harriet walked until the magic faded completely, until the world became duller, heavier, noisier. She hailed a taxi with practiced ease, gave the address without hesitation, and leaned her head back against the window as the car pulled away.
Privet Drive loomed closer with every mile.
Neat lawns. Identical houses. Carefully trimmed hedges. A street designed to convince the world that nothing bad had ever happened there—and certainly never would.
She paid the driver, stepped out, and stood in front of number four.
For a second, she just looked at it.
Then she opened the door.
"I'm hoooome," Harriet called brightly, stepping inside. "Your favorite niece has arrived!"
The response was immediate.
"Oh, for God's sake, shut up," Vernon snapped from the living room. "No need to announce yourself like a bloody foghorn."
Petunia muttered something sharp and unpleasant under her breath, as she always did.
Harriet smiled.
She dragged her trunk upstairs without asking for help—never had, never would—and dumped it unceremoniously in her room. The space was exactly as she'd left it: small, clean, impersonal. A bed. A dresser. A narrow window overlooking the neighbor's identical garden. The narrow window filtered the late afternoon light in sharp rectangles across the floor, illuminating dust motes that danced like tiny spirits.
It was here, in this small room, that she had spent a long stretch of her life. And no matter whether it was before or now, she still did not feel at home here. The walls remained the same—familiar yet cold—as if they had never truly belonged to her either.
She left her things there and went back downstairs.
The Dursleys were exactly where she expected them to be.
Vernon sprawled across the armchair, face slack, eyes glued to the television. Petunia sat stiffly on the couch beside him, arms crossed, lips pursed in permanent disapproval. Dudley wasn't home yet—probably out stuffing his face somewhere—but that almost made the scene worse. The room felt stagnant. Heavy.
They didn't even look at her.
Harriet leaned against the doorway, arms folded, and watched them.
She remembered this room.
The shouting. The slammed doors. The insults disguised as jokes. The constant reminder that she was unwanted, inconvenient, wrong. She remembered learning to exist quietly, efficiently. How to disappear without actually leaving.
"Standing there like an idiot won't make you useful," Vernon said without turning his head. "If you're going to loiter, at least stay out of the way."
"I won't be around much," Harriet replied calmly. "Got things to do."
That earned her a look.
Petunia turned first, eyes sharp, scanning Harriet as if searching for something—dirt, damage, proof of wrongdoing.
"And what exactly do you think you're doing?" she demanded. "You live under this roof, girl."
Harriet tilted her head.
"Funny," she said lightly. "Since I started doing magic, you've both been remarkably… restrained. Almost polite, by your standards."
Vernon's jaw tightened.
"I suppose," Harriet continued, voice casual, "you tell yourselves it's only two months. Two months of putting up with me, then I'll vanish again and you can have your precious little lives back."
Petunia stood abruptly. "How dare you—"
But then they looked at her properly.
Really looked.
Harriet hadn't realized she'd stopped smiling.
Her posture was relaxed, almost lazy—but her eyes were not. There was no fear in them. No caution. Just something sharp, burning and cold.
Something that judged.
The room went quiet.
Vernon shifted uncomfortably. Petunia swallowed.
They weren't afraid of magic.
They were afraid of her.
That was new.
Harriet blinked, surprised—and then understanding hit her like a punch to the chest.
It wasn't just anger.
It was everything she'd never allowed herself to feel. Every possibility she'd narrowly avoided. Every scenario that could have gone wrong if she hadn't learned, early and painfully, how to fight back.
If she hadn't broken that door at six years old.
If she hadn't learned to be clever. To observe. To retaliate just enough.
Her voice came out low.
"You're the worst people I've ever known," she said. "And believe me, I've known a lot of garbage in my life."
Vernon opened his mouth. No sound came out.
"I can only thank whatever higher power exists that I had the sense to defend myself when I was young," Harriet continued, the words spilling now, sharp and controlled. "People like you—no morals, no limits—I'm certain you'd have been capable of anything."
Petunia's face went pale.
"You're monsters," Harriet said flatly. "Freaks. And not even human, not really."
She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to calm.
"Don't worry," she added. "You won't see much of me this summer. And after that—hopefully—never again."
She turned and left the room, closing the door behind her with a firm, final click.
Upstairs, in the safety of her small room, Harriet leaned against the door.
And then she slid down.
She didn't understand why it happened.
She hadn't cried in the graveyard. Not when she'd nearly died. Not when she'd been isolated, doubted, watched. She hadn't cried since she was six years old, when she'd learned that tears didn't fix anything.
But now?
Her breath hitched.
Tears came, hot and humiliating, blurring her vision as she covered her mouth with her hand. Silent. Shaking. Ugly.
It made no sense.
Crying in this house. Over them.
And yet—it was everything she'd never processed. Everything she'd survived by refusing to feel. The sheer terror of what could have happened if she hadn't fought, if she hadn't been lucky, if she hadn't been stubborn.
She stayed like that for a long time.
Eventually, the tears stopped.
Evening crept in slowly, turning the light outside her window gold, then gray. Harriet wiped her face, stood up, and began to reorganize.
Methodically.
She unpacked what little she'd brought. Checked her wand. Her clothes. The necklace at her throat. The grimoire stayed quiet, solid against her skin. Even though she could make it disappear and store it inside her soul, she liked it there.
She looked out the window.
No watchers.
No strange figures. No obvious magic.
Probably the first day. Or maybe whatever protection was on the house did its job quietly.
She frowned.
If there is a protection here, she thought, I'd really like to know what it actually is.
She made notes. Mental ones. What she'd need for Gringotts. Identification. Keys. Proof. She listed possible complications, dismissed most of them.
Money meant options.
And options meant freedom.
Harriet lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, she'd take the first real step.
Away from this place.
Away from everyone who thought they knew what was best for her.
Toward something that was finally, unquestionably hers.
Sirius Black
Sirius still wondered what had made him agree to offer Grimmauld Place as the meeting spot for the Order. He wondered, just as much, why Molly had insisted on setting up there with her children. But now, it was too late. Beyond being annoyed, what else could he really do?
Grimmauld Place was loud.
Not the obvious kind of loud—no shouting, no spells flying across the room—but the kind that settled into Sirius's skull and refused to leave. Voices overlapping. Chairs scraping against the floor. The low hum of urgency that people mistook for purpose.
The Order had gathered quickly.
Too quickly.
Sirius leaned against the mantelpiece in the drawing room, arms crossed, jaw tight, watching them assemble like moths to a flame. Moody stood near the center, barking clipped instructions as if the war had already restarted and they were simply late to it. Kingsley spoke in a measured tone to Tonks, both of them pretending—badly—not to notice how much tension hung in the air.
Molly Weasley hovered near the doorway, wringing her hands, eyes darting anxiously from one person to another.
Dumbledore sat at the head of the table.
Calm. Serene. In control.
That, more than anything, made Sirius's teeth grind.
"So," Moody growled, tapping his magical eye toward the ceiling as if he could see through several floors at once, "we know You-Know-Who's back. We know he's already begun regrouping. That means movement. We need watchers, patrols—"
Sirius remembered how things had been in the last war—patrols, watchers, all the busywork that had accomplished almost nothing—and he snorted at the memory.
"And the girl?" Sirius interrupted, voice sharp.
The room stilled.
Several heads turned toward him.
"Harriet," he clarified. "What about her?"
Dumbledore's eyes flicked up, blue gaze thoughtful. "She is resting. Madam Pomfrey assures me—"
"She's back with the Dursleys," Sirius snapped. "Alone."
Molly inhaled sharply. "Oh Merlin—"
"She's been going back there every summer," Dumbledore said gently.
"And that makes it better?" Sirius shot back. "She nearly died yesterday. She exposed a Death Eater. She stood in front of him—and now she's been dumped back into that house like nothing happened."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Sirius paced, boots heavy against the floorboards. "You're all sitting here talking about strategy and patrols while she's stuck with people who barely tolerate her existence."
"She'll be protected," Dumbledore replied calmly. "The blood wards—"
"The blood wards protect the house," Sirius cut in. "Not her."
Dumbledore didn't answer immediately.
That hesitation told Sirius everything.
He ran a hand through his hair, laughing bitterly. "Unbelievable. You know, for people who keep calling her 'brave,' you're doing a brilliant job of leaving her to fend for herself."
Tonks shifted uncomfortably. "Sirius… she's strong." As if everyone already knew it.
"That's not the point," he snapped. "She shouldn't have to be."
His mind replayed the image of her at the end of the maze—pale, bloodied, eyes far too aware for someone her age. He hadn't been there. Couldn't be. Still trapped by the consequences of a war he'd lost years ago.
And she'd stood there anyway.
Dumbledore finally spoke again. "Harriet has made it very clear she does not wish to be… coddled."
Sirius barked out a humorless laugh. "That's what you heard. Or what you wanted to hear?"
The room stiffened.
"That child," Sirius continued, voice lower now, dangerous, "has spent her entire life learning how not to rely on adults. And instead of asking why, you all just accept it because it's convenient."
Molly's eyes glistened. "She's just a girl."
"Yes," Sirius said softly. "She is."
And that was the problem.
They talked. Of course they did. Plans were made, names written down, watches assigned. The Order moved like a well-oiled machine, everyone feeling useful, needed.
Sirius felt sick.
When the meeting finally broke up, he stood by the window, staring out into the dark London street. Somewhere out there, Harriet was unpacking in a tiny bedroom that was barely hers.
No Order members. No protection detail. No one asking if she was all right.
Dumbledore approached quietly. "You're worried about her."
"I don't trust you with her," Sirius replied without turning.
A pause.
"I am doing what I believe is best," Dumbledore said.
Sirius finally faced him, eyes burning. "That's what scares me."
But the reality was there too—being a fugitive Animagus in the form of a dog, there weren't many things he could do on his own without giving away more than he could afford.