Chapter Text
“Harrie. Take it.” The man who had grown so close to Harrie Potter stood mere meters away from the Cup that they had been fighting for months. Stood there like it was nothing to him.
The Girl-Who-Lived didn’t answer Cedric, and instead walked closer to him ignoring the throbbing in her leg that spiked up violently. She grabbed her boyfriend’s hand before smiling shyly up at him.
“We’ll take it together. It will still be a win for Hogwarts, Cedric.”
Still, with hands holding they reached out together to grab the golden Cup and the seventh year bent down quickly to kiss Harrie as they touched the metal.
***
The Portkey returned the way it left— with two people attached to it. But how things had changed in the hour that they had been gone. Cedric was dead and Harrie was left holding the body of her boyfriend and the Cup in her hand in the slight hope that she would get to safety.
As they were Portkeyed back to Hogwarts, the crowd erupted in a great cheer which quickly turned into a scream of terror.
Harrie Potter couldn’t stop sobbing as she held the Hufflepuff close to her, her green eyes trying desperately but with no avail to find something but the blank stare in Cedric’s hazel eyes.
“Don’t think about the ones you will lose in this War, Harrie.” The ghostly form of Cedric had said, floating around her with her parents next to him. “Think about the ones that will be saved. Keep fighting, and please.... take my body back. Harrie... I am so sorry.”
Harrie sobbed louder as the words the seventh year had spoken rung in her ears.
Molly Weasley grabbed her closest child—Bill— and held him tight to her as she stared over the scene, the rest of her red haired brood moving close to her as if she could protect them from the scene that was happening.
Amos Diggory screamed a sob before he bolted out of his seat and ran towards
the Quidditch pitch, his wife following him with tears streaming down her face, dodging the Professors that tried to step in her way. Nothing would stop two grieving parents.
Remus Lupin who had been invited by Harrie herself, was dragged down to the pitch by the pure black dog that was on a lead, his robes billowing behind him and his face deathly white. Snuffles howled as he made his way down to his goddaughter unable to transform into his human form to do something.
People tried to pull the Girl Who Lived off Cedric’s body, but she kept crawling back to him to crouch over his chest with her wand in her hand as if she could protect him from death. It was Dumbledore that touched her shoulder gently but with enough power to stop her going back. His face was pale but his eyes shone with pain yet also control.
She latched onto the nearest person near her and sobbed and screamed and cried while the werewolf held her soundlessly and Padfoot growling at anyone who got too close. Anyone that he didn’t trust.
A gnawed hand grabbed her competition robes and pulled her up from the ground- Professor Moody.
***
A yellow curse shot out from Malfoy’s wand, it flew towards her feet— pushing her backwards with invisible hands. The Lord of House Malfoy didn’t want to kill her, just incapacitate her enough to get the Prophecy. The Veil of Death was close enough that Harrie would have fallen towards it if Sirius hadn’t been in the way. Knocked aside by the blunt force of the curse, the man tripped over his feet for a couple of meters and completely missed Bellatrix’s stunning curse. Crumpled at where he once stood, Harrie Potter lifted her right hand and slammed it down onto the rocky platform the Veil stood on, smashing the glass prophecy and sending little shards through her hand painfully.
A masked Death Eater who had been watching the scene play out with almost no contribution, held his short wand in the air at her godfather and wordlessly did a motion of complex movements before thrusting the point at his victim.
It seemed to be a beam of a phlegm-like green transformed into a more sinister curse as it traveled. It hit the Marauder who seemed to crumple to the ground unconscious as if he had lost feeling to his legs, hitting his head on the pillar of the Veil. He didn’t move any further.
Bellatrix cackled like an evil witch from muggle story. “Good riddance to the last Black. He was unworthy for the name anyway.”
It was as it the sounds and flashes from the battle faded away as the words sunk in.
Oh my god. He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.
The Girl Who Lived crawled up on her hands and feet, before running toward the body. The pain in her hand seemed to disappear, the Death Eaters that seemed to follow her dared not to move closer. She could feel the rage that Voldemort had been transmitting towards her for the last year bundle into a massive clump and roar through her veins. It was as if she had an electric current in her body; her hair seemed to stand up on end with her anger. As she reached her godfather’s still body she screamed.
“He’s not breathing!”
Lupin was the first person from the Order to approach them- the wanted convict and the vanisher of the Dark Lord. The old scarred hands felt for a pulse on the neck and the wrists of Black. The werewolf pulled out his wand in a flash, and cast a stasis charm before he tried to revive the man on the ground. Shacklebolt was the next to teach them, offering aid wordlessly.
“Sirius Black is dead. Sirius Black is dead.” Bellatrix sang- her voice pierced the soundless bubble that Harrie had created for herself.
The anger and rage turned from everyone who was on Voldemort’s side, and focused on one person— a pureblood witch with her bushy hair, crazy eyes and sunken face from years being surrounded by Dementors. The pureblood witch that had just expressed her glee over Sirius being dead.
The Phoenix and Holly wand was out before Harrie realised, but she smiled a humourless smile and ran at the older women, her body thrumming with power and grief.
***
She walked around aimlessly in the courtyard of Hogwarts. Dawn was breaking and the pale hues of blue mixed itself into the black sky. Harrie had just come from Dumbledore’s office after the content of the prophecy had been revealed to her. The world seemed to fold and collapse on its axis while one thing stayed fresh in her mind. Neither can live while the other survives.
She knew what it meant— but didn’t want to think about it, ignoring Gryffindor’s renounced bravery. It was the reason she had been pacing on the grounds for hours and not went up to her tower and slept or showered. Being alone with nothing to focus on gave her mind time to think. Pacing around waiting for news of Sirius gave Harrie some distraction. The cold winds that blew gave another distraction. Watching the smoke rise from Hagrid’s hut gave another. Watching the mundane, as if she wasn’t waiting to know if her godfather had died or not.
A lone figure appeared on the horizon, walking towards her slowly. The Chosen One stood still as she waited for it to come closer, her wand out in her hand ready. She wasn’t afraid of a duel should it be an enemy; she had fought Bellatrix and Voldemort in the last few hours and Harrie stood alive still. One of three that had walked out of the Ministry by themselves.
The figure walked closer; Lady Potter noticed that it was a tall person, abnormally tall yet they still had figure so thin that it was borderline sickly. She knew only one person that looked like that. Harrie ran towards the werewolf with the Headmaster’s words echoing in her mind, Lupin has taken Sirius to St Mungos. Harriet, he might be caught but it is his only hope.
The former professor looked disheveled and like he could sleep for a week with bags under hazel eyes. The grey robes he wore were faded and ripped badly over his shoulder, showing one of many signs of a battle. His face has a smear of blood across it, his scars shinning sliver next to it. None of these things halted Harrie as she ran to him. But the look on his face did.
Her stomach dropped and it felt like her chest was caving in. “No.” It’s all that would pass her dry throat.
Remus grasped Harrie by the arms and crouched down to her eyesight. “He’s not dead. He’s going to be fine. But the Ministry have put Sirius under arrest. I don’t know the spell he was hit with from the Death Eater but he shouldn’t have survived it.”
When he pulled her in for a hug, Harrie didn’t know who is was more comfort for.
***
Harrie Potter’s head spun and her scar throbbed but she ignored it all as she pulled away from Albus Dumbledore’s arm. Apparition wasn’t pleasant whatsoever; it felt like she had been pulled through a straw by hooks into her skin in a millisecond. Apparently, from what she had read, it wasn’t always like that but it always had some discomfort to it.
A loud pop sounded as Remus Lupin arrived next to Harrie and the Headmaster. All stayed silent while they stepped out of the Apparition station and walked into the Ministry for Magic, the sounds from their shoes echoing. Paper planes flew overhead but few people were about on the early Saturday morning. They all handed their wands in for inspection before they were allowed to pass the guard.
On the fourth floor, they stepped out from the elevator and walked straight to the office for the Minister— Cornelius Fudge. Dumbledore opened the door without knocking which revealed the man who lead Magical Britain with his head on his desk. To say that he had had a hard night, would have been an understatement, the man after all had just seen Voldemort in the flesh after denying it for about a year and also captured the man who had escaped Azkaban and been on the run for two years.
The Chosen One smiled grimly. She was about to make his life a whole lot harder in a matter of minutes.
Apparently Fudge had enough of visitors. “Get out! I swear to Merlin—” His eye widen as he lifted his head. “You!”
The Headmaster helped himself to a chair, and Harrie took the other. She wore her school robes, the pair that weren’t damaged after the battle, and looked like an average teenager. But this raven haired young women who was destined to destroy the Dark Lord was nothing but average.
She cleared her throat before she placed her hand on the desk, her holly wand resting loosely in it. “You will give Sirius Black a trial before the whole Wizengamot. Take his memories for evidence, or test him under Veritaserum but you will give him a fair trial.”
She heard a low groan from Remus behind her but she looked into the blue eyes of Fudge willing him to understand just this once. Yet the man in front of her ran a hand through his sparsely spread hair and let out a laugh.
“It won’t happen. Black’s lucky he hasn’t been Kissed yet.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You can give him the truth serum or use the Pensieve to look at his memories—“
Fudge cut her off. “Dumbledore, control the girl. It’s obvious that she’s—“
“She isn’t mad.” Remus said quietly, his voice matter-of-factually. “Don’t even bother trying to suggest that. Harrie wasn’t lying about Voldemort after all.”
Everyone ignored the grimace that Fudge pulled hearing the Dark Lord’s name.
“She wants me to give the notorious mass murderer Black a trial in front of the Wizengamot. He escaped Azkaban! He killed all those muggles and killed her parents. Black will be getting the Kiss—”
Harrie was running on nothing but adrenaline and she felt it surge up with new power. She felt the last of her emotions drain away, the last little bit that she had been holding on for hours, all being directed at the Minister for Magic.
She slammed her hands on the desk, rising while she spoke. “He didn’t kill my parents. He doesn’t work for Voldemort. Sirius doesn’t even have the fucking Dark Mark!”
“Harriet.” Albus Dumbledore said for the first time in the office. It was a warning that fell onto deaf ears.
“You slandered my name for a year, telling the public that I was insane.” She barked out a humorless laugh. “The Girl Who Lies I was called several times. You brought hatred and pain onto a girl of 15 years of age. You didn’t listen when I told you that he’d return and instead placed the evil toad of a woman at Hogwarts who gave me this scar from a Blood Quill. Umbrigde also set the Dementors on me during the summer so I would be expelled.”
Harrie took a deep breath and pulled her hand away from the Minister. “Fudge, you owe me. You owe me for having been ignored for a year over Voldemort while you called me crazy. Do this last thing before you get kicked out office and I will let it all go. Give Sirius Black the trial he never had with everyone to witness and I’ll be the Chosen One that the public need me to be.”
***
Sirius strolled out of the chamber doors with his wand in his hand, white gauze on his arm and in Azkaban robes but the man had the biggest smile on his face in almost two decades.
“Remus tells me I have you to thank for this, Bambi.” He laughed as he pulled her in for a hug, ignoring the camera flashes from all the reporters witnessing the moment he was finally set free.
***
“It’s just got to be us.” Both Gryffindor girls said together, giving Ron a pointed look.
The red hair shrugged his shoulders casually and raised his hands defensively. “Look, mate, I understand but it would be helpful to have someone with more experience—“
“Use your brain for a second Ronald.” Hermione said with little patience. “It’s going to be a stretch to convince The Ministry that you are sick enough not to attend Hogwarts. It would be totally inconceivable to have both Lupin and Sirius away as well.”
Harrie handed Hermione another book- Unfogging The Future- who threw it into the largest pile of books with only a single glance. “Besides, it would be to hard for a full moon, with both of them out—“
Ron cut her off quickly. “I get it, alright?” The images of Remus third year when he turned into a werewolf were still clear for all of them. She saw the Weasley repress a shudder. “It will just be us on this quest.”
***
The sun set beneath the trees at the Burrow. Overall, it had been a nice birthday party. Molly had spoilt her by making all Harrie’s favorite foods and giving her the old dinted watch that had belonged to her brother. (When that happened, both women tried not to cry in the arms of the other). Yet Harriet couldn’t ignore the feeling that it was the calm before a storm.
Someone touched her shoulder, and she whipped around with her wand out in less than a second. Sirius stood behind her, a grim smile on his face.
They said nothing as she lowered her wand and put it in the waistband of her pants but there was a understanding. It was the grim realization of what a war does to ones self.
“I know what you three have been planning.” The Lord said, his voice soft as he looked at her.
The Chosen One considered lying, but this was Sirius Black, the only one who had given her nothing but truth in the years she had known him.
“I haven’t told Molly. And I won’t.”
“Thank you.” She said softly.
He raised his arm and put it over over her shoulders. She looked over at him to see Sirius swallow thickly. “James and Lily would kill me for letting you go by yourselves.”
There was nothing to say that would comfort the older man.
The Animagus pulled something out of his pocket and handed it over to her. “It’s another two-way mirror. I’ve got the other one and I want you to call me every couple of days while you are away. I need to know that you’ll be okay Bambi.”
***
“HERMIONE!” Harrie screamed desperately, trying to ignore the sob rising in her throat. The wedding guest had made mayhem now and were either Disapperating or trying to hold the wards up against Death Eaters.
So far she hadn’t found Ron or Hermione in the tent and knew that they needed to leave quickly otherwise be caught.
A hand grabbed her wrist and she screamed, her black hair flinging around as she span and a wand that was already pointedly, ready to start dueling if needed.
It was Remus Lupin holding on to a red leash with Padfoot growling next to him.
“They are over there. You need to leave now.” Harrie had never heard the old Professors voice be so stern, but she didn’t stop to ponder it.
As she ran across the tent with a ripped green dress, she heard Lupin yell “be safe” and a loud dog’s bark.
***
The door opened, and Remus Lupin walked into Shell Cottage with the biggest grin that Harrie had ever seen to grace his face.
Instantly, he looked years younger and more like the man in his late 30’s rather then ten years older. Sirius Black followed him in the door, scanned the room and walked over to where the Golden Trio stood and threw his arms out wide to engulf them in a hug.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again Bambi.” He murmured into Harrie’s shoulder before he pulled away from the teenagers. “Moony has news.”
The former professor straightened up as he looked around the room, and then cried aloud. “It’s a boy! Teddy Lupin.”
Remus flicked his wand, levitating several glasses towards everyone in the room. The Trio, Bill and Fleur gave him congratulations as he stood beaming, and Sirius smirked.
“You’ll be godmother, Harrie?” The new father said softly as he pulled her a away from the cluster of people. “Dora and I both think that you’re the—”
Sirius pushed Remus aside. “We’ll be the best godparents the world had ever seen!”
Harrie raised an eyebrow. “You chose him for godfather?” A grin bust across her face. “This poor child. A Marauder as father and godfather, a mother that can change her appearance in a second and the Girl-Who-Lived as the godmother. Merlin, Teddy’s got some reputation to uphold.”
***
She held the mirror in her hand, the room silent as Hermione and Luna both slept on the space mattress in Shell Cottage. Dawn was seeped though the curtains, lighting the room in a pale glow of orange. Harrie Potter wandlessly put her hair up into a messy bun while she called for her godfather.
“Merlin, what time is it?” He mumbled while all the mirror showed was the roof of a room, painted in a pale grey. She guessed it was the living room at the Tonks’ place. The slight glimpse she had from the other two-way mirror shook as it was grabbed.
Sirius Black had bed hair worse then Harrie had. It stuck at all angles, yet still managed to be all over his face. The grey eyes that looked at her were still half clouded with sleep. He was also trying to shrug as shirt on while he spoke.
“Harrie? What’s happened? Where are you—”
“He saved me. Wormtail. A week ago while we were at Malfoy Manor. I should have told you when I saw you.” The words seemed to fall from her mouth in a gush. “We escaped and he caught us. Had my throat in his silver hand, and then let go. For a second, he let me go. Then the hand turned on himself. He died gasping for air.”
“Bambi...” the Animagus said softly, wide awake now.
“He deserved to die... he sold my parents out and let him kill them. But he still saved me. You knew him, Sirius, why would he?” Her voice broke, but all Sirius could do was look at her with pity.
***
“Harrie Potter,” Voldemort hissed out as a smirk rose on his face. “The Girl Who Lived... come to die?”
She raised her head defiantly, green eyes staring down the red. The wind flicked her hair all over the place after it had fallen out from its braid, but she still stared down the man who would have killed the last thing that attached him to immortality.
***
“No!”
This scream was the most terrible because she never expected or dream that Professor McGonagall could make a sound a sound. It mingled in with Hermione’s sobs of grief, and Ron denial-filled shout and Sirius’s own cries in such raw pain.
“She is dead!” Yelled Voldemort, his voice not overly loud it it carried in the silence.
Harrie closed her eyes and tried to ignore the sounds of her friends crying ringing in her head. She had never known Professor McGonagall to let herself be ruled by emotions, and she hadn’t realized that Ron would make a sound for her identical to the cries for Fred. Hermione cried uncontrollably, the pain of losing her best friend felt so deeply.
She hasn’t thought that her godfather, a man who had gone though Azkaban, who yell so loudly in grief over her death. She didn’t think she meant so much to them- a girl who they had all seen in oversized and faded clothing stumbling her way into the world where she was a hero.
But here they were, with the last hope for peace and goodness— lying dead in Hagrid’s arms
***
Dolohov fell to Sirius’s wand— yelling at the top of his lungs, as his chest seemed to cave in. Blood bubbled over his lips and spilt on his black robes. The Death Eater took heaving breaths as his lungs were drowning in his own blood. Sirius stood in front of him, with blank look on his face but his wand raised aloft. An Unforgivable passed the lips of Black, and Dolohov attempted to scream through the torture. It was a sudden realisation as Harrie looked closer at her godfather and saw the clean tears falling on his dirty face, that the painful death wasn’t just because Dolohov was a Death Eater.
It was because the man dying on the ground in the Great Hall, had killed Remus Lupin. Sirius’s best friend since first year, alongside James Potter. And now, Sirius was getting revenge. Just as Harrie would do so for her mother and father and countless others.
She didn’t look at him for long. She had to find Voldemort.
***
The Woman Who Conquered was passed around as dawn broke fully over the castle of Hogwarts. Everyone wanted to see the woman who had died for cause, yet had come back. Everyone wanted to hug the Lady who had killed the Darkest Lord that the World had seen.
What seemed like countless redheads had crowded around her to weep and to see how their adoptive sister had survived. Molly Weasley held Harrie close, and so did Arthur as she sobbed over Fred’s death apologizing profusely as if it were her fault he wasn’t alive.
Nobody seemed to know what to do, but Kingsley Shacklebolt took up the role of leader quickly, putting a stasis charm on all of the Fallen that were in the Hall before getting groups to find the bodies of friends and foes alike that were littered around the castle. House Elves lead by Kreacher started clearing away most of the rubble to the sides of each wall, making pathways.
Nobody knew what to do now that the final battle had been fought.
The Battle of Hogwarts.
***
Harriet Potter; the Girl Who Lived; The Chosen One; the Woman Who Conquered, went to every single funeral after the War.
To honor all those who had fought for her and resisted the dictatorship of Voldemort, and say her finally goodbyes. She went to every single one- all 53 of the Fallen Fifty, Professor Snape’s (which was done as directed from his will at Godric’s Hollow) and to all the Hogwarts students that had perished regardless for which side they fought for. In some cases, there wasn’t a body to bury or burn. But she still watched as the family of the deceased stood in front of a casket sobbing.
For Harrie, all days were hard. Every single one of them. But some she found much harder then others. Watching Remus and Nymphadora being lowered into the ground while she held their child in her arms was terrible. Seeing both Sirius and Andromeda cry with arms around the other as they watched both daughter and lifelong friend leave forever, was one of the hardest things she had seen in the weeks after the War
Another was at Fred’s funeral— the Weasley crew all sitting in the front row in various shades of grief. Molly who sobbed silently as Arthur held her hands, tears running down his own face. George sat next to Charlie and Percy, who watched the body of his twin emotionless with dead eyes. The dragon tamer of the family, was utterly shocked and blamed himself for not fighting the final battle and Percy sobbed loudly, carrying the blame with him for not protecting his younger brother.
The rest of the Weasleys sat almost stoic with a constant flow of tears When it time for Fred’s body to be moved out from tent and into the grave that was dug for him underneath a willow tree near the Burrow Harrie was the second person to take her place to carry it, George was the first. As the rest of the Weasley children (apart from Bill) joined in, she had felt more tears wash down her own face. Ron stood across from her his eyes rimmed red and brimming with tears, and she placed her left hand on his shoulder and watched as the rest of them did so to the person across from them, giving the support that each needed as they carried Fred Weasley to his final resting place.
The funerals were all hard, but she went to every single one of them. Not because she was expected to as the Woman Who Conquered, but because Harrie felt like she had a hand in all their deaths and she owed them all better.
***
It took weeks for Harrie to fall asleep in bed. To fall sleep voluntarily and not when she ran her body down so much she passed out where she was. The first night that Harrie had crawled up to her bed with the intent to sleep a long fulfilling night’s rest, she had felt that the world was slowly righting itself.
But that’s when the nightmares began haunting her during every bit of darkness.
***
“I think I’m going to go for the Mastery in Defense when classes start again at the University.” Harrie said suddenly as she pulled back her collarbone length hair into a ponytail. Teddy climbed onto her legs to follow the small blue toy car that she had enchanted to float around him. As she pushed a hair through her godson’s messy brown hair, he changed the colour of it to match her own raven hair hue.
Both she and Teddy were at Sirius’s apartment in muggle London, where the ex-prisoner had been living since before the war, giving Andromeda a well deserved break from raising the mischievous little Metamorphosis.
Harrie looked over at her godfather, who had aged considerably in the past year. The loss of the final Marauder had hit Sirius hard, and his dark brown hair had quite a few flecks of grey in it. Not enough to be extremely noticeable, but enough that Harrie has noticed. The elder man raised his wand while his face broke out in a huge shit-eating smile, summoning a bottle of Firewhiskey and two glasses. “If anyone can do it, it will be you Bambi.” The use of his old pet name for her made her grin
As they both toasted for Harrie’s future, Sirius said softly “They would be so proud of you, Harriet