Chapter Text
It was a turbulent period in history when James and Lily Potter had their first and only child, and some might have argued that it was rather irresponsible to bring a child into a world that was being ravaged by war. Some would quietly claim that they should have waited until after the fall of the Dark Lord who was, at the time, doing his utmost to destroy every pillar and foundation of magical society in an attempt to plunge the entire world into chaos and anarchy. There were even a few whispered comments from their closest friends that the two were being quite selfish and that they should have thought of what would happen to the child if they were to be killed or incapacitated, given that they had repeatedly opposed the Dark Lord already and were currently sitting at both the number one and two spots on his list of eye-twitching annoyances. They never did quite find out which one of them was actually at number one in the end, however they debated about it frequently and James especially enjoyed creating a playful competition for the coveted (or for those who were sane; feared) spot at the top of the Dark Lord’s kill list. They were Gryffindors after all; they didn’t spend seven years in the ‘House of the Courageous’ at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry without learning a thing or two about reckless and brash behaviour. When they had learned of Lily’s pregnancy however, the couple were forced to abandoned their guerrilla warfare tactics and bold battles with Death Eaters, focusing instead on keeping Lily, and their child, out of harms way. It was difficult for both of them to do, however James especially found his wand-hand itching whenever he read the ever-darkening news of the magical world. It took more than a few words of comfort and reassurance from his wife to keep him from charging off into the frontlines once again and it was merely the knowledge that he needed to protect his child, who was peacefully growing inside of his beloved wife, that caused him to keep his feet planted within their charming little cottage.
Despite what may have been said about the two young adults and their boldness (or perhaps recklessness), one thing that was never even remotely considered by any who knew the couple was the idea of their child growing up in an unloving or uncaring home. James and Lily had already begun to lavishly pile love and affection upon the future heir (or heiress) to the Potter line while still in the womb; before Lily was even six months into her pregnancy, the child had a spot reserved and paid for at Hogwarts and James had already excitedly begun preparing his quidditch lessons and training regime, while Lily would lovingly caress her growing belly with fondness and excitement. The magical world may have been in a state of civil war, and the Potters placed deep in hiding from it, however that didn’t stop the couple from dreaming of the world they had been fighting for and eagerly planning exactly how their child was going to grow up when the Dark Lord was defeated.
Unfortunately the Dark Lord wasn’t defeated before the birth of their child, as they had hoped, yet they were still in awe of the life that they had created regardless. They had realised prior to their child’s birth that it would be a home delivery, conducted in secret away from the eyes and ears of the Dark Lord’s spies, and they were protected by some of the most powerful charms that the magical world had ever seen, courtesy of Albus Dumbledore. Now that the Potters were in hiding to protect their child, the aging (though powerful) headmaster of Hogwarts was the only other living thing standing between the Dark Lord and his domination. Dumbledore was far more powerful in magical ability than the Dark Lord was and everyone knew it, yet it was also well known that he was getting older, slower and frailer. The Dark Lord had all the time in the world and he knew it, while Dumbledore was sitting squarely on a ticking clock that reminded him constantly of his own mortality. With a surprising sense of patience, the Dark Lord had managed to avoid Dumbledore entirely during the war and instead used his followers to strike at places of importance before retreating from the battle when a fatigued Dumbledore would arrive. The Dark Lord may not have been able to best Dumbledore in a duel, but with how he played the battlefield; he didn’t have to. Where once James and Lily would show up to heroically save the day and best the Dark Lord’s elite, now it was up to Dumbledore to be everywhere at once and he simply could not be. With one side having far superior numbers and complete control of the board, it was an inevitability that either through time or strategy, the Dark Lord would eventually win out in their little game for control of society. James knew this and he crumpled newspaper after newspaper in his hands; day after day, week after week.
On the eve of the 31st of July 1980, inside their cosy little cottage with a medi-witch who had been sworn to secrecy, Lily and James held their newborn daughter and cried tears of joy.
“You are the brightest star in this; the darkest of nights,” Lily whispered through her fatigue to her daughter as she cradled the newborn child in her arms, “I love you so much.”
James simply stared down at his daughter and felt a pure, unequivocal desire to protect this child from anything and anyone that would seek to harm her. He had never felt anything like it; he knew that he loved Lily and he knew that he loved his friends, but as he stared down into the small, delicate, beautiful face before him, he realised that he hadn’t truly known what love actually was until now.
A year passed by before their eyes as their daughter rapidly grew, to their immense pride and joy. She advanced faster than they had expected; magical children tended to mature at a much faster rate than non-magical children however their daughter was something else entirely, even by magical standards. She was clearly intelligent and creative, even at her very young age, which caused no shortage of pride from James who puffed every time she demonstrated any kind of creative thinking.
On the 31st of October, the two were alerted that the protective wards on their cottage had finally failed as the Dark Lord comfortably strolled through the barrier, courtesy of a certain friend of theirs who had enabled his entrance. Neither James nor Lily knew why the Dark Lord had suddenly been able to walk right into their front yard, despite not having been able to find them for over a year, however they didn’t exactly have time to question it.
“He’s here!” James cried out to Lily from the front door as Lily scrambled to her feet in the living room, “take her and go! I’ll hold him off!”
Lily turned and ran for the upstairs bedroom with fear pounding in her heart, stumbling slightly over the first few steps as she went. She reached the landing at the top of the stairs and burst into their daughters room, startling the girl who had been sleeping rather peacefully. The sounds of loud explosions and unsettling crackles in the air echoed up the stairs and brightly coloured flashes of light illuminated the entire house like terrifying bursts of lightning in a raging storm. The sound of the fighting didn’t terrify Lily however, nor did the flashing lights. What terrified Lily was the sudden cessation of noise as the sounds and lights stopped almost as soon as they had begun.
“No…” she gasped out as she looked back to the bedroom door, knowing within her heart that James would have never stopped fighting, not while he still had a single breath in his body left. She knew what that meant, even as she denied it vehemently to herself.
The floorboards outside of the bedroom creaked slightly and Lily knew that she would not be able to make it out in time, not through the doors. She placed a hand on her daughters arm and closed her eyes, however she realised that there was an anti-apparation ward around the house, preventing her escape. The sound of footsteps behind her let her know that her time was up and she simply turned to her daughter in her crib, who seemed quite aware that something was not right. Lily smiled fondly at the unusually intelligent girl, even as a single tear spilled from her eyes.
“You’ve always been so smart,” Lily whispered as she stroked her daughters cheek, gazing down into the emerald green eyes that were so similar to her own, “you are so clever. Now I need you to be brave too. I need you to be strong.”
A noise behind her alerted Lily to the fact that she was no longer alone in the room and with one last squeeze of her daughters cheek, she stood to her full height, turning slowly to face her husband’s killer.
“You will never win,” she said simply to the cloaked figure that towered over her within the colourful and warm bedroom. The dark and imposing presence was starkly out of place within the childish and slightly silly environment that had little moving snitches painted on the wall and brightly coloured books in all directions. Lily took one last look around the place that she had so lovingly crafted with James over the last year; this room was the home of everything that they valued, and not a penny was stored within it.
“You will meet your end. If not by my hand, then by the hand of another,” she said flatly.
“There is no end,” the cloaked figure said coldly, “for I am legendary, and legends never die.”
“You aren’t a legend,” Lily said with a humourless laugh as she stared into the bright scarlet eyes before her, “you are a ghost that is still walking among the living. You are already dead, you just don’t know it. But you will.”
The cloaked figure responded only with two words and upon completion of those words, Lily Potter lay crumpled in front of her daughters crib. She let out one final breath as the world was stripped of one the greatest witches that it would ever hold, and one of the greatest mothers that it would never know. She departed the world to find her husband in the great beyond, leaving behind a confused girl who simply stood in her crib, holding onto the small side rails to support her wobbly legs.
The cloaked figured peered down at the child in the crib who stared back with wide, innocent eyes.
“Nothing personal,” he said quietly to the girl, “but only I can live forever.”
Without hesitation, he cast the same spell that had just ended both her mother and father, pointing his long, black wand down at the child without mercy. Without compassion. Without regret. The girl raised a confused hand in his direction, opening her palm out to him at the very last moment. Was it a sign of surrender? Defiance? Perhaps even forgiveness? The Dark Lord did not know.
What he did know was that it was the last thing he saw before he was ripped from his body in the most painful experience of his life. He screamed and thrashed wildly as pure agony terrorised his every nerve and every sensation. It was as though hot knives were piercing his body while his skin burned from the fire of a dozen suns. He could feel his very mind being destroyed as his body crumpled and he was ejected like a virus or a plague; expelled as mere unneeded waste to be disposed of. He no longer knew where he was, nor if he was even alive or dead, as he was cast away from his former body and sent screaming out into the night. He fled in no particular direction, not even knowing how he was traveling or where he would go, simply knowing that he needed to be anywhere that this girl was not.
He had been a legend mere moments ago, yet in one fell swoop, he was now nothing but a ghost.
The child simply stared at the strange occurrences that were happening in front of her eyes. She did not know what was going on; she had been contentedly asleep and having a rather pleasant dream about strange, flying, winged balls that needed catching when all of a sudden she had been rudely awoken and now, two people lay on the ground outside of her crib, unmoving.
To add to her confusion, another man that she did not know entered her room a moment later; a man with long, black hair and a large, sharp nose. He looked rather funny to her, however there wasn’t anything overly amusing about the way he fell to his knees as he observed the scene and sobbed tears of raw pain and anguish. The man, weeping openly, crawled forward and cradled Lily’s body as sorrow and regret poured forth from his very soul. She could almost see the energy pouring out from him and she reached out towards him with her palm open, but once again, she was denied as the man ignored her completely. At the sound of a loud crack from outside the cottage, the man suddenly got to his feet and wrapped himself in a strange cloak, disappearing from view entirely.
How bizarre.
While her tiny mind was struggling to comprehend what was happening, another person entered her room shortly after the first man had disappeared. This man also had long, black hair and this man was also crying openly as he entered, however he did not cradle Lily’s body as the first one had, nor did he pour the same kind of energy out into the room. He simply cried over the scene for a moment until the child found herself being abruptly lifted from her crib by this strange man and she began to cry; he was unfamiliar, he stank of smoke and he had a strange beard. It was all too much for her but she could do little more than loudly complain about what was happening in the only way that she knew how. A strange rumbling that came from outside only served to confuse and overload her senses even further.
Her cries were ignored and she was swiftly taken outside, however she became aware of a very large man who was blocking their path through the front yard of the cottage. Broken pieces of glass and wood lined the formerly beautiful garden as the front half of the cottage had been blown outwards during the violent struggle between James and the Dark Lord, however the large man simply trampled all over it without concern, knowing that the state of the garden-bed was not his priority right now.
“Sirius,” he said gruffly, “I’m here on Dumbledore’s orders. Gotta take the girl back to ‘im.”
“Hagrid,” the man who was carrying her spoke at last, “she… she has no-one else… I’m her godfather… I promised them I would look after her…”
“You gotta trust Dumbledore,” Hagrid said softly, “he knows what to do with her. What do you know about lookin’ after a kid? Think about what’s best for her.”
The man who was carrying her, Sirius, laughed at that, and he turned the girl around in his hands to look at her for a moment.
“I’ll see you soon kiddo,” Sirius said with a teary laugh, “I just gotta do something important first and then I’ll be back. Promise.”
He reluctantly handed her over to the large man, who wrapped her in a rather fluffy blanket. It was quite warm and cosy, and the very fatigued girl found herself slowly drifting off to sleep, her right palm held open loosely with a deep, star-shaped scar displayed in the middle.
***********************
Albus Dumbledore truly believed that he was making the right decision when he left the girl on the doorstep of the Dursley residence later that evening. After spotting the very distinctive scar on the child’s hand and understanding what it meant, Dumbledore knew without a shadow of doubt that he could never again rely on the Fidelius charm to protect her. He had been reluctant to delve into any form of dark magic in the protection of the Potters and he knew now that it had cost Lily and James their lives. He knew far more about magic than most and he knew that if he had of cast the blood wards that James and Lily had both asked him about, it would have protected them against anything, even the Dark Lord Voldemort. Blood magic was dark and dangerous however, it was widely known, and rather than risk such magic he had reassured them that the Fidelius charm would protect them and keep them safe instead. He had put all of his faith entirely in the good nature of humanity, using loyalty and love as the strongest line of defense against the darkness by tying the Potters fate to that of their close friend, Peter Pettigrew. He had of course been planning on doing so with Sirius Black as the Secret Keeper, however Sirius raised a rather excellent point that he would be a clear and obvious target, while many did not even know that Pettigrew had been one of their closest friends at all.
He shook his head at his own foolishness as he reached down and painlessly drew a drop of blood from the sleeping child with his wand. He levitated the drop of blood through the air and placed it on the front door; sealing it in with a powerful curse that would ensure her safety, so long as she called that place home. It was entirely dark magic at its core, however as he mourned the passing of Lily and James within his mind, he realised that he must be willing to do whatever was necessarily to protect this child from any further harm. He had failed to protect her parents and he owed it to her to ensure that she, at least, got to grow up and experience a world without Voldemort, just as her parents wanted. She would grow up in an ordinary home with her non-magical relatives; she would live a normal, peaceful life until the time came for her to attend Hogwarts and when the time came, he would honour her parents reservations of her place within the hallowed castle walls.
He rang the doorbell and disappeared from sight, hovering only for long enough to see that the child was safely taken indoors.
“Do you think this is wise?” Professor McGonagall asked the headmaster, “these people are awful. I’ve been keeping an eye on them.”
“She is family,” he said confidently, “and besides… she is well protected within those walls; even from them. She will never have any harm befall her while in their care and they will do their utmost for her, I assure you.”
He was completely and utterly right; the girl was well looked after for the entirety of the time that she was with the Dursley family. They fed her, changed her, wrapped her in new blankets and gently patted her on the back, even as they drove out of town and left her with Vernon’s cousin, who was a highly successful businessman and had controlling interests in several major companies. Naturally, the man was exceeding wealthy and highly-organised so the child was clearly better off in his care than their own, when they only had Vernon’s meagre salary to look after two adults and two children with. To the Dursleys, it was objectively the right thing to do by the girl.
It seemed that Dumbledore was right in the end and that the Dursleys did everything in their power to give the girl a better life. Such was the twisted nature of dark magic and Dumbledore simply continued with his own life for the next ten years, blissfully unaware that James and Lily’s daughter was not, in fact, at number four, privet drive.
Unsurprisingly Vernon’s very wealthy cousin, who had more money than he knew what to do with, had very little interest in looking after a child that was not his own. After discovering the child at the gates of his estate, he had one of his staff escort the child to the house of his sister in law, as he knew that she had miscarried last month. Unfortunately, the woman struggled to think of any way that he could have been more insensitive and so she took the baby to the first orphanage she could find, before returning home to angrily shout down the telephone at the man about the thoughtless and unwanted act.
So it was that the beloved daughter of the Potters was found on the doorstep of a run-down old orphanage on the outskirts of London. She was found by the Matron; an old, world-weary widow, who simply pursed her lips at having had yet another child dumped upon them. Did people not know the nightmare that was involved in attempting to leave a child like this? There was paperwork, legal proceedings, medical costs… as if she didn’t have enough trouble and children on her hands already.
The orphanage was one of the last of a dying breed; as legal conditions began to tighten, more and more orphanages were being shut down in place of ‘foster parenting’ or ‘care homes’. The Matron, Beatrice, was entirely on board with the program and was more than happy to give the children into the state’s care for rehousing, however, for all of the ‘lip service’ that the government gave about their dedication to putting children into loving foster homes, they were rather slow at actually taking the children off her hands or giving them anywhere else to go. It was all well and good to determine that children should be with their own loving carers by law, yet most people still wanted their own flesh and blood, not to adopt some stranger’s child and in order to house children in the ideal situation, money was required. A lot of money; a lot more money than people were actually willing to part with, even though they supported the ‘idea’.
She had heard it all before; people supported adoption in theory because it made them feel superior as human beings, but they just ‘didn’t want to adopt themselves’. The children were obviously damaged from abuse, or had bad genetics because their parents were clearly meth-heads, or didn’t have the right hair colour that they wanted, or the right skin colour, or eyes, or body proportions…
Beatrice could do little more than scoff whenever people spouted propaganda at her about modernising foster homes. She had almost two dozen children within her care of all ages and for the three that had been adopted in the last two years, she had gained six more. Seven now, including this one. She couldn’t even lie to the older children anymore and was rather brutally honest about the fact that if they were over the age of ten, they were probably not going to be adopted anymore and had best start thinking about what they were going to do when they turned eighteen. It was a horrible fate, and she was all too aware of the children’s plight, but there was little more she could do than give them a roof and whatever she could afford to give them with their measly donations and grants (that were themselves at risk of disappearing in favour of these elusive ‘care homes’ that were spoken of, yet never actually seen).
On the positive side, a very young child tended to be a lot easier to unload onto new parents so she had that going for her, even if it meant that it had just reduced the chances of adoption for every other child in the building. An unfortunate truth, but, a young child offered the promise of potential; you didn’t yet know whether it would be tall, or pretty, or funny. A young child offered the dazzling promise of all of those things that prospective parents desired, while an older child had already removed the charming ideal of potential by existing as they were. How dare they.
Her thoughts were interrupted and she did a double-take; were her eyes mistaken or was the child, who was formerly on the top step, now down at the bottom? How did it get there?
She shook her head, she must have been mistaken. The stress was clearly getting to her.
“Let’s see, do you even have a name?” she wondered aloud as she moved down to pick up the child who was surprisingly sleeping quite peacefully in her bundle of blankets, despite the chilly morning air. Her exposed (and rather cute) little nose was even warm to the touch, which was rather odd.
“Of course, no note, no money… always the same…”
With no other choice, Beatrice simply sighed and took the child back inside with her, along with the newspaper that she had actually gone out to collect in the first place. She laughed as she realised that the postman would have seen the child and casually ignored it.
What a charming world they lived in.
“What are you chuckling about, Beatrice?” A young woman asked with a slight smile as she mopped the floors in the entrance hall of the old building. She had beautiful auburn hair and a warm nature about her, even as she sloshed away with a very old mop and some water that didn’t look any cleaner than the floors she was attempting to improve. The only charming thing about the floor was the smile of the woman who was mopping it.
“Oh, nothing dear, don’t trouble yourself with the thoughts of this old woman,” Beatrice said with a wave of her hand. The young woman, Sarah, was a new addition to her team and had started volunteering just last week at the orphanage. Beatrice was not in a position to turn any help down, although she clearly pointed out to the young woman that she was unable to pay her and would probably never be able to do so. It hadn’t troubled her at all however as she had simply said that she wished to help the children. Beatrice occasionally got ‘good samaritans’ like her coming through, however none stuck around for more than a few months at best; once they realised that the work they were doing hardly ever led to actual positive outcomes they tended to move on to something that felt more rewarding, like community firefighting or putting band-aides on people at festivals.
“Here, take this,” Beatrice said airily, “I think it needs changing.”
Sarah’s eyes widened as she realised that Beatrice was holding out a bundle of blankets that looked suspiciously like-
“Is, is that a-”
“A headache is what it is,” Beatrice huffed, “we’ll need to report this immediately. The police can do a check to see which births occurred that match her age and who knows, they may get lucky and find something that stands out.”
“And if they don’t?” Sarah asked, shocked at what she was seeing.
“Then we have another mouth to feed it seems,” Beatrice said, rather annoyed at the thought.
Unfortunately for Beatrice, it turned out that James and Lily Potter’s daughter was not easily found in the muggle databases and, with no name or knowledge of who she was, the police were rather baffled about what to do with the child now.
“I’m not really sure what we do here,” one of the officers admitted to the other quietly, though Beatrice’s hearing was a lot sharper than people gave her credit for, “don’t we have to fill out a form-eight for this? Take protective custody of the child?”
“Can’t consider it a missing child if no-one has reported it,” the other officer countered, “and what are we going to put on the form? It doesn’t have a name and we have zero details about it. We could file it as child abuse, but we have no-one to charge. These cases can take years to get sorted in the courts,” he added with a small sigh, “especially for one with no identification.”
“I have a solution,” Beatrice said, interrupting the two, “how about I just take the child back, find an appropriate carer and have her adopted with some creative paperwork. I bet I can get this girl to a family within a few weeks, given her age. All I need you to do is to create a file that gives her a date of birth and an ID of some kind, so that I can use it as a reference to fudge through adoption forms later. No-one is going to look closely into something like this, don’t worry. No-one ever does.”
The offices looked at each other for a moment.
“Or,” Beatrice said pointedly, “you can send this child down the legal rabbit-hole of which she will never come out of by attempting to submit a report of having found an unidentified child, and effectively ruin her chances as she will probably be several years old by the time your department has finished chasing its own tail and the courts have had their back and forth. What’s it going to be for this little one? Adoption? Or state-ownership?”
Fifteen minutes later, Beatrice strolled from the police station with a child that now had a very vague file on record of her birth. She had been given a randomly selected name and a randomly selected date of birth by the two officers for the file and only Beatrice knew it for the paperwork; however she elected not to share it and in the end, she took that secret with her to her grave.
“Why not give her a name?” Sarah asked when Beatrice explained that the child was to stay with them in the hopes of adoption, and that she was to remain nameless for now.
“This little one will be in and out of here, given her age,” Beatrice explained, “it’s a benefit not having a name; prospective parents will be far more drawn to the idea of giving her their own name. It makes her feel more like their own child. Trust me, it’s very effective. People do it with puppies all the time.”
“Yeah but this is a little girl…” Sarah said slowly.
“... that we are trying to get adopted out,” Beatrice finished, “whatever works.”
Sarah had to begrudgingly agree that in a twisted way it did make sense, but she felt rather bad for simply called her ‘the child’ or ‘the girl’. Despite electing to avoid giving her a name just yet, Sarah couldn’t help but grow attached to the young girl anyway. She was remarkably quiet, incredibly easy to entertain and had the most beautiful emerald green eyes that Sarah had ever seen. Her black hair was surprisingly long and thick for such a young child and it almost seemed unnatural, yet it was quite charming in its own way. Sarah knew that it was a terrible idea to grow overly fond of the young girl but, she simply couldn’t help it. The girl was an absolute delight to be around.
As time went on, both Sarah and Beatrice began to notice that there was more unusual things about the girl than just her luscious hair or excellent behaviour. Beatrice had been holding the girl in the lobby one afternoon, who had been completely empty handed, when she looked down once again to see that the girl was suddenly holding a toy car. Beatrice had no idea where she had gotten the car in the first place since they didn’t have choking-hazard toys in the building as a flat-rule. Besides, unless the girl had extendable-arms, there was no way she could have reached the floor or desk to pick it up. It was slightly unsettling but she did her best to brush it off. Sarah had her own odd experiences with the girl as she noticed the flowers in every room becoming more lively and visibly brightening whenever she walked past them with the girl in her arms. They sometimes even changed their position entirely, which was incredibly disturbing. It wasn’t that unusual for plants to change in order to follow the source of sunlight or to avoid certain temperatures, however it was very unusual in the orphange since all of the plants were fake and shouldn’t have been doing anything at all, in any capacity, ever.
Beatrice continued to grow more and more concerned about the child’s behaviour and odd occurrences over time, however she didn’t think that she had anything to fear as the girl was quiet and rather friendly, with beautiful eyes and an infectious smile. It didn’t take long until there were soon several prospective parents that were interested in adopting her, to Beatrice’s immense relief. Unexpectedly, Beatrice found herself being in the unusual position of having to narrow down her choices of prospects, although the couples were only interested in the bubbling young girl and didn’t even bother to look at any of the older children at all.
Everything went smoothly with a few couples that she picked out; background checks were cleared, proper forms were filed (with some creative problem-solving when it came to the girl’s details) and everyone absolutely adored the quiet, young and friendly girl…
…right up until they had their ‘meetings’ with her.
In order to finalise any adoption, it was required that the prospect parents had several ‘meetings’ with the child, in order to get to know them better and to ensure that both were a good fit for each other. They were supervised by Beatrice and were usually harmless bond-building exercises like playing with blocks together, or reading a book together. It was an important process for the older children who were capable of forming their own opinions, however for a girl this young it was more of a formality than anything else.
Unfortunately, the formalities all turned rather sour as there were many strange things that happened at each ‘meeting’. As soon as the child got excited or began to play, bizarre occurrences would happen; blocks would float in the air, lights would flicker on or off and crayons would start to draw on the walls of their own accord. It was an utterly terrifying experience for both Beatrice and the prospective parents, only made worse by gleeful cackles of laughter coming from the young child as she happily played with her toys.
“She’s cursed!” the final couple yelled at Beatrice as they hurried for the door, “she’s evil!”
“No, she’s just…”
Beatrice didn’t even have the heart to disagree anymore, as she wasn’t sure that she actually did.
After she had exhausted all of the best applicants, Beatrice was forced to accept some of the more ‘questionable’ parents who had come seeking the girl. Even those prospects quickly fled however, and it didn’t take long before the girl had developed something of a nasty reputation for herself. The other children did little to aid the girl; they would eagerly spread the rumours to anyone they met or would casually let slip that the girl had been through a dozen prospects already, and that she clearly had something wrong with her that was stopping her adoption.
Beatrice was forced to reluctantly come up with a more permanent home for the child as it became clear that no-one was interested in adopting the ‘demon-child’ as she was starting to be known as. It was admittedly rather scary for Beatrice to be under the same roof; she had lived her life by the word of God and found herself being torn between a desire to help the charming and misunderstood child and a desire to dump the demonic child on another orphanages door in fear of retribution from above. The child had never actually harmed anyone and had only ever looked at Beatrice with a fond or playful expressions, which only served to confuse her more. ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ was a little harder to enforce when faced with an apparently demonic, yet very friendly and rather cute, orphaned child. Against her better judgement, she prayed for forgiveness and squeezed an old, decrepit crib into one of the bedrooms that housed another younger girl. The girl wasn’t particularly happy about it, but, what else was Beatrice to do?
And so the only daughter and sole heiress to the line of Potter began her strange journey in the orphanage where she would spend the next ten years learning about life, and how she hated it. As the young child lay in her cold crib by a dusty and broken window, she stared up into the sky and saw a shooting star dart past, winking to her slightly as it bid her farewell, good luck and goodnight, before fading into the dark and falling to earth, with none aside from the drowsy child in the crib being aware that it had even fallen at all.