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5 Years of Age

EMOTIONS

Anne’s red hair was so matted and dirty that it looked disgusting even while pulled back into the ponytail that she managed to do with an old hair tie. Harry’s hair wasn’t looking as disgusting, probably the dark colour saving it from looking as dirty as it truly was.

He was asleep beside her, or at least trying to sleep and being unable to do so. He was exhausted, and yet he trembled with cold. The fever was going higher by the second, but he was trying to hard to be still and quiet, hoping that if he fell asleep, he would stop feeling that way by morning – with some luck, even Anne would fall asleep and, this way stop trying to spy through the cracks of the door of the cupboard that they shared for one of the Dursley’s passing by so she could, recklessly, beg for food. She was still sitting in the makeshift bed, knees to her chest and hugging them.

“Harry?” she called.

“Hm,” he answered, eyes still closed.

He needed to sleep. He needed to stop thinking about how cold he was.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

Anne couldn’t sleep with her stomach grumbling like that, trying to eat away all her other organs. All of that because she had made the rags that Aunt Petunia didn’t use anymore into a makeshift doll and had been caught playing with it, and now she had been forbidden from getting dinner and she was hungry. She was so hungry.

“It’s locked, Anne, we’ll eat in the morning,” he said.

“No, Harry. I’m really hungry,” she said. “Aunt Petunia didn’t let me have dinner because she found Dolores. She watched you eat tonight, so you didn’t bring me anything this time around.”

“I’ll skip breakfast so you can eat mine, alright?” he said, his voice was starting to hurt his throat to come out. “Now, please, Anne, lie down and go to sleep. I’m tired. I’m not feeling well right now. Anne, I really need to sleep.”

“I’m hungry,” she insisted.

She couldn’t understand why her brother wasn’t listening to her and doing something about it. He was her older brother; he was so powerful. He could lie and cheat the Dursleys like a hero, but he wasn’t doing anything to help her, and she couldn’t understand why.

And now, to worsen her situation, Harry wasn’t answering her. So, she turned to look at him, pulling the small chord that lit up the small cupboard with the only lamp there and glared at him, but her eyes went wide in the next second. His eyes were rolling to the back of his head and his body locked in place, so tense and tight that his face looked like it was about to pop out, and then he started shaking.

Anne was young enough to not know what a convulsion was, but old enough to understand that her brother was in danger, so she did what any child would do. She screamed like her life depended on it, because her brother’s life did; and hers and his were one life alone.

She was screaming so loud that didn’t hear the footsteps, only heard her own screaming and the way her blood thumped painfully in her ear. She barely heard the door unlocking or her uncle putting his head inside the cupboard to scream at her, but she did him calling for Aunt Petunia with a scream of her name. All Anne did was cry and scream and watch her brother slipping away from her without being able to do anything at all to help or to stop this. She was too young to remedy the situation and too young to know what to do.

Uncle Vernon grabs Harry by the shirt and pulls him out of the cupboard, his head hitting the wood of the dram on the way out and puts him on the ground, watching him shaking and struggling to breathe as he screamed at Petunia to call for help.

Anne crawls out of the cupboard, still crying, unable to look away from her brother.

“Mum, what’s happening?” Dudley asked from the top of the stairs.

“Don’t come down here!” Petunia screeched as she ran to the phone, calling the emergency services. “Dudley, love, stay up there!”

“Mum?” Dudley called out once more.

“…my nephew is having a convulsion, please. Yes. Yes. I don’t know how long, we just woke up,” Petunia was saying in the phone. “Oh, my God. Oh God,” she lamented, watching Harry slowly stop shaking. “Vernon, is he dead? Oh, God, is he dead?”

Anne sobbed loudly as Vernon dragged the boy by the shirt, shaking him as if that would wake him up. Vernon gave her a glare to shut herself up, but she couldn’t help herself.

“He’s breathing,” Vernon said.

“He’s still alive,” she said back into the phone. “Please, come fast.”

For the rest of her life beside her brother, if he as much as moved in his sleep, Anne would be completely awake, eyes wide and sitting up to see if he was alright. In the days following his convulsion and his very high fever, Harry was allowed to sleep on the sofa in case another convulsion came, and Anne barely slept, ear against the door of the cupboard locked from the outside just in case she could hear anything.

Anne didn’t hear anything, and yet she never forgot this.

6 Years of Age

LEFT FOOT SOLE

Dudley was bored with Harry. The boy had been so busy in the kitchen helping Petunia with lunch that he didn’t even have the chance to run after him; there had been no ‘Harry-Hunting’, as Dudley liked to call, for days at that time. It was near Christmas and Petunia had said that she needed Harry, so he couldn’t play with him. However, he could deal with his boredom by chasing Anne. Anne was still smaller than him, weaker and – contrary to Harry – she was not faster than him. If he wanted to catch her, he would be able to, but she didn’t seem to want to play.

Anne wouldn’t move from the spot that she was sitting on in the garden.

“Mum said that you need to play with me,” he lied.

The girl looks up at him and away from the neighbour’s garden where the children were playing.

“Why don’t you play with them? I’m sure they’re a lot more fun,” she said, going back to watching the kids play with furrowed brows. The sun was hurting her eyes, and it was so cold outside, the wind was punishing and even the children running and playing had coats on, but she didn’t want to go inside. If she moved, Dudley would give chase. “I’ll just be sitting here.”

“Because I don’t want to play with them. I want to play with you.”

The one he took was almost as if he said: ‘I don’t want that toy, I want this one’. Anne was used to feeling like a thing, but it was the first time in a long time that she felt somewhat offended by the manner that he had referred to her.

“Well, I don’t want to play!” she said, stubbornly.

Dudley tried to kick her to make her get up, but she almost lied on the floor, raising her legs to kick back. He was fast to hold onto her ankles as she tried to move, her far-too-big shoes coming out of her feet during the struggle. He reached down around her kicking legs, taking her by the arm with more strength than necessary and pulling her up to stand with ease. She was smaller than her age required while he was bigger and stronger, it wasn’t a difficult task.

As soon as her feet touched the ground again, Anne was running into the house, ready to scream for Harry to help her, but she realised her mistake as soon as Dudley started to laugh like a maniac, happy that his ‘plan’ had worked. She bit into the inside of her cheek, trying to focus on running faster.

She threw a look over her shoulder to localise her cousin at the wrong moment, because she ran into something that caused her and the objects that she touched to fall to the ground with a loud crash. Her old, big socks had done little favour to help her gain balance in the slippery floors on her way down and she hit her head on the floorboards so loudly that she thought her ear was ringing for a moment.

Dudley gasped for air, both from running and from shock, before opening his mouth to scream.

“MUM! ANNE BROKE SOMETHING!”

Anne glared at him, feeling understandably betrayed at his snitching, though she knew that she couldn’t have expected anything else from him.

Looking around to see what had happened as she slowly pulled herself to a sitting position, Anne felt fear wash over her. What had come down to the ground with her had been the telephone, the table and the vase that resided on it as well. Petunia’s most expensive vase that Vernon had gifted her as a wedding anniversary gift – the truth was that he had forgotten and there were no roses that he could find, therefore an expensive vase was the best he could do in a short notice. It was Petunia’s favourite and she always showed it off to any visitors, and now Anne had broken it.

Getting up slowly, Anne gasped as her eyes filled with tears. Not only she had broken something, but she was also bleeding, and it was hurting – her left foot was covered by a white sock that was turning red quite quickly. She tried not to cry so not to annoy Petunia even more, but it was hurting so much that her tears started rolling down her cheeks as she stood up.

Petunia appeared first, Harry shyly following her as to not be scolded as well, but his eyes widened in helplessness once he noticed what was on the floor.

“YOU FREAK!” Petunia screamed, enraged as soon as she saw the shards of her present on the floor. The telephone was still working if the loud and continuous ‘beep’ coming from it was any comfort; it wasn’t. “What is wrong with you? Why are you running? Inside the house, no less! I’ve told you before that I don’t want any running inside the house!”

“He –” she started, trying to explain herself.

“I DON’T WANT TO KNOW!” Petunia screamed once more. “I didn’t ask!”

Anne held back once she wanted to say that Petunia had, indeed, asked. She was still too young to completely grasp the concept of rhetorical questions.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Petunia,” she whimpered.

Shifting her weight to her wounded foot to take a step away from the shards, Anne made a little yelp before using her healthy foot to balance herself once more.

“You stupid girl! Useless and stupid, just like your father! You have no sense of decorum or understanding of respect for other people’s belongings,” Petunia was saying, clearly not caring if Anne was hearing or not as she fixed the table up and put the phone in it, gathering the shards in anger. She turned around, noticing Anne still standing there and threw the shards in her direction – none actually hit her, but Anne let out a little muffled sob anyway. “Stop crying! I’m the one who was supposed to be crying.”

“I’m hurt,” Anne said.

“I don’t care!”

“Mum, there’s blood on the floor now,” Dudley said, clearly disgusted at the red staining the wood of the floorboards under Anne.

Petunia looked down, noticing the blood.

“I want you to clean this mess and –”

“Aunt –” started Harry.

He was seeing something that she was not, but she was completely ignoring him.

“And I want you to clean up this blood. This is a pathetic scene. You broke it, then you fix it!” Petunia was saying.

“Aunt Petunia –”

“WHAT?!” she asked with a roar, turning to him.

She understood as soon as she turned around to look at what the boy wanted.

The vase was put together again, completely unspoiled as if nothing had ever happened.

Petunia screamed, letting go of the vase and letting it fall to the ground to cover her mouth with the shock, trying to muffle it from the neighbours. It didn’t break. It just rolled, harmlessly to the side.

“Annie –” whispered Harry, trying to get the little girl’s attention.

Anne’s eyes were wide, but the tears seemed to slow down a bit. She was still bleeding, but the shock was bigger than her pain. It was fixed! It was like magic!

“What happened?” Dudley asked, frowning in confusion as he tried to get closer to see the vase better, unsure of what had occurred. He had seen it broken in little pieces; he couldn’t understand of had made it whole again. “I –"

Once the shock died down, Petunia realised that her precious son was getting closer to the vase that had been tainted with magic, so she reached for him and pulled him away with wide eyes.

“Don’t touch it!” she exclaimed.

“But I want to see!”

“You cannot touch it! Stop it! Go to your room!” she said.

“NO!” Dudley screamed. “She was the one that broke it, not me. I don’t want to be punished for it.”

Petunia shook her head. She couldn’t think straight. She needed her husband to fix it all for her; it was just like staring at her sister all over again – Anne staring at her, searching for an answer in her eyes because she, too, was confused about what happened and Petunia was older (the adult this time around) and it was expected that she knew what was happening.

“Mummy will punish her, baby, but you need to go to your room,” she managed to say.

Anne took a step back, already dreading what was about to come. Days without foods? Being locked away in the cupboard?

Dudley, smiling smugly, quickly made his way up the stairs and showed his tongue to Anne before disappearing from her sight.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break it,” she said, turning to look at her aunt.

“What did you do?” Petunia asked, ignoring what the girl had said.

“I was running –”

“How did you fix it?!” Petunia exclaimed her question again. “You freak! Answer me! How did you fix it?”

Confused, Anne blinked a few times.

“I don’t know,” she said, almost like a promise.

Petunia lurched forward.

Anne yelped when Petunia’s hands held onto her arms and pulled, dragging her to the floor as Harry made a tiny little noise in shock and worry. Anne tried not to cry when her aunt held her to the floor.

“HOW?”

“I DON’T KNOW!”

“YOU LIAR!”

“I’M NOT LYING, PLEASE. PLEASE, I’M NOT LYING. I DON’T KNOW. I PROMISE. I DON’T KNOW!”

“SHUT UP!”

That was when one of the hands went up and came down so suddenly that Anne didn’t have the time to prepare herself for when the palm connected with her back, behind and legs several times over the clothes. All she did was scream and cry, kicking to get away and failing while Harry just stood to the side, frozen in shock and fear, also crying as he watched the scene unfold in front of him.

Anne still has the small scars scattered on the sole of her left foot from shards of a vase that was never broken in the first place. Still, her mind never dwelled on it for too long, usually being stuck on the fact that it was the first time that her aunt had spanked her, but not the last.

Regulus had kissed the sole of her foot once and it had made her giggle, she did not think of the scar very often.

7 Years of Age

EMOTIONS

Anne woke up without even realising that she had fallen asleep, but everybody in the class seemed to know it, because they were all looking at him.

“Miss Potter, dearest, is my class boring you so?” said Miss Crider, looking at her with her eyebrows raised.

Anne’s eyes widened as she sat straight on the small chair that she always sat in and looked around; she was still the nearest to the door, the spot easiest to run out from in case there was a trouble. But she couldn’t run away from this problem, not with Miss Crider looking at her like that.

The problem was that Miss Crider never got angry, especially not with Anne. She was such a sweet teacher and so understanding of all the things happening in the lives of her students, no matter the way that they behaved in her classroom. However, Miss Susa Crider was having a bad day – her boyfriend broke up with her the night before, her mother had just found out that she had cancer and she certainly had not slept very well at all. Catching Anne, the one kid in class that never got in trouble, sleeping through the whole geography class was not only a shock, but an outrage that she couldn’t control her reaction to.

“I’m – I’m so sorry, Miss Crider,” said Anne, looking around.

Someone snorted, trying to control their laughter, and failing miserably. Anne turned to glare at the girl across the room from her, but the girl didn’t seem to care much about her glare, just cared about the fact that Miss Crider reached for Anne, grabbed her shoulder so tightly that it became painful quickly and pulled her to stand up.

With a yelp, Anne stood and stared at her teacher with her eyes widening even more in surprise.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“Do you know how disrespectful it is to have someone sleeping while you’re trying to teach them something? It’s not like you can afford sleeping in class, Miss Potter. You are behind in geography and mathematics. If it were up to me, I’d fail you right here and now, because I can’t stand this anymore. I can’t stand how completely unbothered and uncaring you are about everything!” Miss Crider said.

Anne shook her head.

“I care,” Anne tried to say.

“You don’t seem to care,” Miss Crider insisted.

Anne shook her head once more.

“I just… I just haven’t slept well, that’s all,” she tried to say.

And she really hadn’t.

How could she sleep with her whole body hurting the whole night? Her Uncle Vernon had spanked her because she had broken a plate. It was Dudley’s favourite plate, she was giving it to Harry for him to wash since she was cleaning up the table, but it slipped from her hand, and it broke. Unfortunately, Harry didn’t have the time to take the blame for it because Uncle Vernon saw it all happen since he was still sitting at the table, drinking his coffee before going to work at Saturday. Anne had to deal with the consequences of her own actions, which led her for the legs and behind to be burning since he spanked her when he came back from the office (it was rare that he worked on Saturdays, but when he did, it usually ended by four or so in the afternoon).

If she paid enough attention to her own body, she would still feel it hurt, perhaps not as much as it had been burning during the night, but it was still present and it was still embarrassing.

“I DON’T CARE IF YOU SLEPT WELL OR NOT, ANNE. THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME. I’VE TOLD YOU BEFORE TO STOP SLEEPING IN CLASSES!” screamed the teacher, so close to Anne’s face that the girl took a step back. She felt her jaw click as it locked in place. She couldn’t react. It wasn’t safe to react, not when Miss Crider was so angry. “LOOK AT ME! STOP LOOKING AT THE GROUND!” Anne looked up from her shoes and into her teacher’s eyes, not even having realised that she had looked away. “CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME? DO I HAVE TO SCOLD YOU AND SCREAM AT YOU TO MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND?”

Anne shook her head.

“ANSWER ME!”

“No, Miss,” she whispered her answer.

“ANSWER ME CORRECTLY!”

“No, Miss Crider, you do not need to scream or scold me to make me understand. I’m sorry,” she answered. It was louder this time, but barely spoken.

Still, Crider didn’t seem to like it very much.

“THEN WHY DON’T YOU OBEY ME WHEN I FIRST TOLD YOU NOT TO SLEEP IN SCHOOL? WHY DO YOU MAKE ME LOSE MY PATIENCE WITH YOU AND SCREAM AT YOU?”

“I don’t know,” Anne whispered. “I – I don’t know, Miss,” she whispered again when Crider didn’t say anything.

That was the moment that Susan Crider realised what was happening and what she was doing. It took Anne’s eyes to be cold, distant, and completely devoid of any emotion that not submission for her to realise that the expression didn’t need to be in a child’s face, especially not at school, where they needed to be and feel safe. Anne’s body was tense, her arms behind her back and her hands with her fingers intertwined as a way to ground herself as she squeezed her own hand; her jaw was tightly locked, and her nostrils enlarged as she tried to keep her breathing even and silent.

Susan took a step back as well.

She had messed up and she was aware of it.

“Anne –”

“Yes, Miss Crider?” Anne whispered.

The adult wasn’t sure of what to do or how to react to the situation. So, she did what so many adults did: she pretend she had made no mistake and continued her life as if Anne had been the one in the wrong.

“You can sit down now,” she answered.

Anne bit down on her bottom lip as she sat down, the inside of her cheek already too sore and the taste of blood already on her mouth. Miss Crider had been her favourite teacher, but no more – the shame and embarrassment had been more than enough to make the liking die and the excitement for her classes to wither away with every second that their eyes met.

Anne never spoke in her classes again and she never slept again, but her grades dropped once more and, this time, nobody tried to save her.

8 Years Old

BACK OF THE HEAD, UNNOTICIABLE

It was in moments such as these that Anne noticed how terrible dependable that she was of Harry’s presence to make her happy and to make the time go on by faster. Without him, she had already done her chores and had been freed by Aunt Petunia to sit on the backyard (never the front, Petunia was too afraid someone would say that she would leave the girl out there for too long if she was in the front of the house), but Anne didn’t know how to play by herself, so she was there doing exactly that, sitting.

When alone, she liked to look at the sky, but the day was cloudy and grey that it was beyond boring; there were no fluffy clouds for her to get shapes off, for the whole sky was completely a single cloud apparently. So, she took the moment to wonder what Harry and Dudley could be doing in the aquarium where the school had taken the year above hers in a field-trip – Harry probably wasn’t having a very good time, most likely would’ve liked a lot more to stay at home with Anne and be done with his chores early so they could play outside, but Dudley was most likely having the time of his life with his friends and mocking Harry. She wondered if the teacher would do anything to stop them.

She lied on the grass.

She would’ve liked going to the aquarium, but only if Harry was there.

A scream made her sit up with a start.

It hadn’t been very long or very loud, seemed mostly a scream by a startle. But the complete, dead silence that followed left her worried.

“Aunt Petunia?” she called out.

No answer came.

Slowly, as if her whole body was hesitating with the fear that she felt, she got up and stood in the middle of the backyard. She took a few steps forward, opening the back door, but not going into the house.

“Aunt?” she called out once more.

“It’s nothing!” her aunt answered immediately. “Stay out there.”

Anne, not believing how her aunt sounded, voice wavering and very tiny. She seemed scared. Anne wondered if she would be able to help (because, perhaps, if she helped, her aunt would love her, even if just a tiny little bit more than before).

Following her intuition and where the voice had come from, Anne appeared at the door of the kitchen.

“Aunt Petunia –”

“I’ve told you to stay out there, you stubborn girl!” she scolded as soon as she saw Anne.

But Anne didn’t even know what to say, so she froze exactly where she stood.

Petunia had a hand on the counter, clearly balancing herself by the way she stood in front of the sink, where she had been washing dishes. She was slightly leaning forward, legs apart as she tried to look in between them. Underneath her knee-length skirt, there was blood running down her smooth, white legs and dripping on the white floor, mixing the with the water that dripped from Petunia’s hand and with the bubbly soap that followed.

“Auntie,” Anne’s voice was as small as she felt.

Petunia looked up, face pale and eyes wide.

“Go outside and play.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m not. Go outside and play and leave me alone!” she scolded.

Anne walked forward, reaching for her aunt, the plan was to leading her to the couch and making her sit down as she called the ambulance (she had learned the number in school, because at least once a year the firefighters and the police would go to school for assemblies where they would talk for far too long about things that made Anne and Harry very uncomfortable, because it was ‘home’ and they couldn’t call for help from ‘home’, because they had nowhere else to go to).

Petunia, at first, accepted the help, the shock still far too fresh for her to have an immediate reaction. She took at least two steps with her niece’s assistance before understanding what was happening.

“No. Stop it,” Petunia said.

“You… you are hurt. You’re bleeding,” Anne said, confused by her reaction.

“I’m fine. Stop it, Anne,” she said, pushing the girl away slightly.

“No. No! The teacher said that if there’s blood you need to talk to a grown up and ask for help. We need to ask for help.”

“I am the grown up.”

“But you’re the one who’s hurt. We need someone… we need a doctor,” Anne insisted.

“ENOUGH!” Petunia screamed.

This time, the push was a lot stronger and Anne, standing on the wet spot of water, blood and soap, slipped easily due to how light she was. She barely had time to react and reach for a place to hold onto so she wouldn’t fall, though her hand reached out, she grabbed a small tin of something that fell with her.

Petunia yelp as Anne gasped. The back of her head hit the kitchen counter so loudly that Petunia screamed when Anne fell, hitting her head once more on the floor.

There was a moment of tense silence as Petunia stood there and watched. Anne lied on the ground for a second before her bottom lip wobbled and her eyes filled with tears of pain, slowly she took her hands to her head and tried to muffle her sobs by biting her lip, a loud whimper filling the house with sound.

“Oh, stop it!” Petunia said, watching as Anne didn’t move from the ground. “It can’t be that bad, Anne.”

Petunia stopped talking as blood started to appear on the white floor, coming from the back of Anne’s head.

Anne stopped trying to find something to say as she noticed the tin that had fallen to the ground with her: rat poison. And she was pretty sure that it wasn’t for her, because on the kitchen counter there was a brandy bottle, already half-empty for it was the one that Uncle Vernon liked to drink.

They never spoke of the baby that Petunia lost, of the rat-poison tin that was meant to free them or the trip to the hospital where only Anne was examined after ‘falling and hitting her head on the bathroom during her shower’.

Anne didn’t get spanked or slapped by Petunia or Vernon, for her aunt never shared a single thing that happened that day.

9 Years Old

KNEE SCAR

Harry had to redo his work that day.

Dudley had copied Harry’s homework and lied after it, which wasn’t surprising at all, saying that Harry had been the one to copy his homework and the teacher, too afraid to confront Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia, had completely ignored Harry’s argument that he would never – ever – copy anything that Dudley had written, because Dudley barely knew how to write (which wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the smartest thing to say either, especially in front of Dudley, who would totally tell it all to his mother once he got home).

Unfortunately, not having Harry as a target on the ‘race’ back home from school meant that Anne was completely vulnerable to Dudley’s teasing.

Words barely ever got the better from Anne, especially coming from someone with such limited vocabulary such as Dudley. He would stick to teasing her about her red hair, how skinny she was and – if he was adventurous that day – on how tall she was, which was indeed something that got the attention of many children since Anne had hit a growth spurt perhaps a bit too early in life, already taller than boys two years older than her, which meant that she was taller than both Dudley and Harry. That made her an easy enough target to find in the school-children’s crowd and, therefore, Dudley and his friends would have no problem finding her on their way back home.

“FIRETRUCK!” one of the boys screamed, clearly trying to find new insults for her.

Anne rolled her eyes, tightening her grip on her school bag.

“FIREBALL!” Dudley screamed.

That one was a classic. She had heard it from other people besides her cousin.

“SOMEONE GET WATER, HER HEAD’S ON FIRE!” screamed another one of the boys, trying to get the attention of the neighbours.

An older couple passing by shook their heads in disappointment but said nothing about the treatment that she was receiving. Anne didn’t even them to say anything after all, so she showed no reaction to their silent disapproval, unfortunately neither did the boys.

“Hey, Anne, how fast as you?” Dudley asked.

That made Anne hesitate on how to continue her way towards home. Dudley rarely asked something such as this without the intention of giving her a head start before running after her, he was probably already plotting how to hit her and where to hit her so it wouldn’t show the next day (he had learnt his lesson when Harry gotten a black-eye and Uncle Vernon got mad for having to explain to the people who asked that Harry had gotten in a fight, not with Dudley, of course).

“Not very fast, Dudley,” she admitted.

If she was honest, perhaps he would be somewhat bored of her and find another target and she didn’t care who it was.

“It’s alright, I’ll give you ten whole seconds of head start instead of just five,” he said, overly sweet.

Anne knew kindness when she saw it, and she was glad to have it.

She threw her bag to the side and sprinted as fast as she could forward because if she reached the house before him, Aunt Petunia wouldn’t let Dudley actually hit her, just poke and pinch her, which was a lot better than his punches. Dudley started chasing her before he got to ‘eight’, clearly thinking that Anne was far too fast for his fun, and she wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t stuck to the words of their agreement.

Though taller and with longer legs while Dudley was short and fat, Anne wasn’t faster than Dudley’s stronger friends. She was quite aware of the small chance of getting home before any of them reached slimming down with each step, so she did what any other child would do in that situation: she climbed a tree. Of course, they could climb right after her, but the chance of her managing to stay up there and kick them away once she had the high ground was a lot higher and, therefore, more desirable. She threw herself against the tree so hard that she lost the air in her lungs for the split of a second before she reached up for one of the taller branches and tried to pull herself up, kicking her way up the three with a scream of effort and a grunt of pain as her knee scrapped against the wood.

“No, don’t run away!” Dudley mocked, still far away from her, but close enough to see her.

She didn’t have any other reaction besides holding onto the tree even tighter. Her knee was hurting, but there was nothing that could be done besides letting it bleed as she waited for them to get bored and leave.

“Archie, get her!” Angus screamed.

Archie laughed loudly, trying to reach the first branch, but he needed to give a little jump for that and pulled himself up, but it was clearly more effort for him than for Anne since he was so much heavier. It was harder for him to slip through the branches since he was bigger sideways. It didn’t take him long before deciding that he couldn’t go up further.

He reached up, taking her leg.

“Get off!” she exclaimed, kicking.

“Come down, Fire-head!” he said.

Grunting when his fingers touched her scrapped knee, she kicked once more. This time, that made Archie lose his balance and fall back. He wasn’t too high up on the tree, so his fall on the grass was more a reason for a laugh than a reason to make Dudley scream so high-pitched the way that he did.

It took another long hour for them to give up on waiting for her and getting bored.

It was dark outside when she finally came down.

The infection sat in the day after.

Harry stole medicine for her the night after.

The scar stayed forever.

10 Years Old

BACK SCAR

Sometimes, Anne Potter felt less like a person if Harry Potter wasn’t by her side. She felt less and less like a human the longer she had to take the situation with her family without Harry beside her to withstand any wind that blew her way. Now, to worsen her situation, it seemed that Dudley – during the Christmas Break – also realised that Harry wasn’t coming back any time soon and found the expected target to torture while his main-target was away: Anne.

However, this time, his first attack was a lot worse than Anne would’ve expected.

She had relaxed a lot from the time that Harry was there. With her uncle and aunt mostly ignoring her and just making sure she’s doing her chores without hurting her (still too afraid that her magic would be a lot more responsive and violent that Harry’s), she had created a routine that was comfortable. Her family had not even continued to lock the bedroom door from the outside as they usually did.

That was how Dudley attacked.

Anne was half-asleep when he entered the room. It wasn’t even ten yet, but she had been so tired after all the cooking that she hadn’t been able to stay awake for longer than that, so she went to sleep. Usually, Harry would be with her in bed, probably half-asleep as well or holding her (she rolled out of bed far too often when she was younger, something that stopped once she was in her late teens) and perhaps a lot more alert than she was, ever so used to being the one responsible. But not Anne. Anne was the baby of the family, and she was just learning to somehow function without him beside her. The most important thing, however, was that Anne had yet to develop the overwhelming sense that being asleep was weak and therefore making her sleep so light that it would destroy her body; at this point of the story, anyone could walk into the room unannounced, and she wouldn’t notice.

Until he pulled her hair.

With a yelp, she turned, arms stretched out and elbows tensed to push someone out of the bed. Soon after, her leg kicked before her eyes were completely open and kicked Dudley out of the bed.

Both fell to the ground with a loud thud that would’ve probably have been more concerning if Anne wasn’t infamous for rolling out of bed and falling to the ground with loud thuds in the middle of the night at that point.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Dudley asked, face burning in shame.

“Why are you here? What do you want?” she asked. “Why did you pull my hair?”

“You’re so stupid,” Dudley said, getting up from the ground and pushing her back down as she tried to get up, too. “Fucking stupid!”

Her eyes widened. It was the first time Dudley had cussed at her. She didn’t feel offended like she usually did when Uncle Vernon would slip a bad word here and there, no, in the lips of someone like Dudley, a bad word sounded a lot scarier.

Anne didn’t get up from the ground.

“Dudley, I’m tired. May I, please, go back to sleep?” she asked, eyes still stuck in Dudley’s.

“I want to play.”

“You have many toys. Do you want anything from this room?” she asked. “I can help you find it.”

Dudley rolled his eyes.

“There’s snow outside and I don’t have a target,” he explained, as if she was supposed to know that already.

“I don’t want to play.”

“You have to. Mum said that if I wanted to play outside during Christmas Break, I could, as long as I came back before midnight,” he said.

Aunt Petunia was guilty of allowing Dudley to overindulge in his whims, which often caused Anne and Harry to also allow him, even if they wanted nothing more than to curse him right then and there.

“I’m sure Aunt Petunia didn’t tell you that I could play,” she tried.

Dudley’s smile grew.

“Well, you won’t be playing,” he said.

The answer was clear. She was just a toy. He would be playing and she would just be… there, an asset, a reminder that was barely human to his eyes.

It was in moments like this that Dudley really looked like his father, and Anne hated it very much. There was a time that Dudley probably tried to play with her and Harry as if they belonged with him and the family, even if she was too young to remember she had to believe that Dudley used to be a human being and used to see her as one as well, otherwise being in the presence of someone like him would be unbearable.

“Exactly. I won’t be playing, so let me sleep. I’m tired,” she insisted.

Dudley didn’t stop her from getting up from the ground and sitting down on her bed, nor did he say anything as she lied down, giving her back to him and covering herself with the thin duvet that was in the bed. He stared for a long minute, which made Anne unable to fall asleep. But she closed her eyes and sighed in relief when she heard him leaving the room and closing the door again.

Allowing herself to relax again was fast (too fast).

She didn’t even notice he was in the room again until the door whined, by the time that she turned to talk to him, the knife was already in his hand.

With a scream, Anne was standing in the bed.

“DUDLEY!” she screamed. “STOP!”

She jumped off the bed and ran to the door.

“MUM, ANNE DOESN’T WANT TO PLAY WITH ME!” Dudley screamed.

However, he seemed to find the chase quite fun, because he quickly ran after her with the knife in hand.

“AUNT PETUNIA!” Anne screamed.

“SHUT UP!” Vernon screamed.

Anne ran down the stairs, feet slipping easily with the socks on her feet, but her hand held her tightly on the railings of the staircase. As she came the turn towards the living room, where she knew her uncle and aunt to at, she fell.

That was when the pain came.

Anne screamed again.

“SHUT UP!” Vernon screamed.

“OH MY GOD!” Dudley screamed as well, but this time panic painting his voice.

That made Petunia and Vernon jump up from their seats and run towards the sound of Dudley hyperventilating and Anne’s whines and whimpers as she tried to keep herself from crying loudly.

Dudley had tried to cut her back, yes, but he had never meant to do a cut so deep and so… big. He didn’t want so much blood. He didn’t Anne to be on the ground, unable to move in fear that it would hurt even more than it was already hurting.

“Oh my God,” whispered Petunia, freezing in place.

“Dudley, what did you do?” Vernon asked, as confused and surprised as his wife, but not nearly as scared.

“I just wanted to play,” Dudley said.

Vernon shook his head and took the knife away from his son.

“It was an accident, girl, stop the drama and get up,” he said, but his voice sounded unsure, as if he wasn’t sure that Anne could get up from the ground.

Petunia took the knife from Vernon’s hand, looking at it with attention.

“Dudley, Mummy was throwing his knife away for a reason,” she said, voice wavering. Her son and husband looked at her. “The knife is rusted. It was under the sink during the infiltration. It’s lost.”

Vernon’s fat face pale as he saw Anne slowly sitting down, tears running down her cheeks as she cried as silently as a ten-year-old could manage.

“It was an accident, Petunia,” Vernon insisted.

Accident or not, the cut was made. Accident or not, Anne bled through the night as Petunia made sure she wouldn’t pass out and tried her best to close it without taking her to the hospital. Accident or not, Petunia had to staple the deepest part of the cut near her lumbar. Accident or not, Anne had to get a tetanus shot from a doctor that Vernon trusted as if he was a brother.

Accident or not, Anne had a long scar that extends from the middle of her shoulders to the very start of her lumbar, disappearing into the waistline of most trousers that she wears.

It’s Regulus’ favourite place to caress while she sleeps, his finger brushing up and down as if to remind himself that the strong woman he shares his bed with every night was that strong because she had been weak before.

11 Years Old

EMOTIONS

Ginny Weasley was writing in that small, ugly diary again and Anne Potter had no one to talk to as she hugged her own knees against her chest.

“Ginny –” she tried again.

“Go to sleep, Annie. It’s late,” Ginny said, dismissing whatever it was that her friend was going to say. “I’m studying.”

A lie. They both knew that the lie was clear enough for Anne to glare at her, but Anne couldn’t confront her and she wouldn’t dare do such a thing and lose her best (and only) friend in the process.

The downside of being sisters with someone like Harry Potter was that, once she was sorted into Slytherin, nobody but Ginny Weasley (the girl who was more than eager to stay beside her all the time and even got the bed beside hers to be near her in her sleep) seemed too eager to talk to her. Any interaction with her was often glared by Draco Malfoy, a bratty wanker, who unfortunately came from a rich and powerful family that had control not only of the school (literally the educational system, not in the ‘teenage hierarchy’ that she had seen in films before) and involved in politics, which left many of the students fearful to go against his wishes; with their parents in politics or particularly dependent of Mister Lucius Malfoy’s favours, it was hard to go against his spoiled son.

Draco Malfoy, however, was slightly better than Dudley in one thing: from all his teasing, none of it had been physical or directed to the colour of her hair, just the simple and unchangeable fact that she was unable to choose a new brother. Unfortunately to him, Anne would choose Harry regardless, which seemed to stun him and made him stare at her face for almost a whole minute in complete shock and asking, voice concerned and almost genuine, if she had any mental conditions that he needed to be aware of. Anne had terrible choice-words for him and only left him behind when his ears were as red as her hair.

She had, for months after that, depended completely on Ginny Weasley and her friendly and strong manners to get through socially until she could make her own network of people. Now, it was backfiring, because Ginny was starting to be seen as the odd one out and Anne couldn’t bring her out of it, not while she had that diary.

“You’re being weird again, Ginny,” complained Anne. “Pansy already said to the older girls that if you don’t leave that bloody thing in the dorms tomorrow, they’ll tear it out of your hands and throw it away. You can’t go anywhere without it.”

“Pansy can shove it,” Ginny answered immediately.

“That’s not how this works,” Anne said, rolling her eyes because that lesson had been Ginny’s and she had taught it to Anne in the first few days in the House. “Pansy is close to Malfoy. He’ll do it if she asks him to.”

“Malfoy can also shove it.”

“That’s how you get left without any potential jobs in the future, Ginny,” Anne said.

“I’m doing something really important, Anne,” Ginny said. “I might not get a job in the future if I do this right. I might get a husband. I’m writing down ideas of Valentine’s Day.”

Anne groaned, throwing herself against her pillows. She knew that Ginny was talking about Harry, after all he had been the sole reason their friendship had started due to Ginny’s massive crush on him.

“My brother hates Valentine’s Day and often forgets it,” Anne warned.

“Not if there’s someone singing him all these songs that I’m writing down,” Ginny said. “And Tom –” She stopped herself so suddenly that Anne turned her whole body to her in bed to make sure that she was still there. “Forget it.”

Anne frowned.

“Who’s Tom? You’ve mentioned him before, but you never talk to me about him. Where did you meet him? Who is he?” Anne asked, excited that Ginny was finally talking about it again.

“Nobody.”

“Is he an older boy?” Anne asked, pressing her friend.

Ginny nodded, cheeks flaming red.

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Is he helping you write these poems?” Anne asked.

Ginny nodded again, but still didn’t look at Anne.

Knowing that, like many other conversations that they had before, had been cut and would not continue without dry and short answers, Anne gave up. With a sigh, she turned around and closed her eyes, but did not sleep.

Anne wondered what would’ve happened if she had insisted on the conversation that might’ve saved Ginny Weasley from falling deeper and deeper into Tom Riddle’s possession.

12 Years Old

RIGHT-HAND ANELAR FINGER

Walking in the odd line that Sirius had insisted them to make under the moonlight only made Anne feel like she was in one of those fantasy books that Ginny liked to read so much and insisted that they were very adult due to the kissing scenes.

The moon was big, close and wide, whitening the whole campus in a greyish light that made everyone extremely pale and perhaps slightly ghostly, but even then Anne was in a good mood and all of that because Sirius Black wasn’t a mass-killer and, if he was proved innocent, it meant that Anne and Harry didn’t have to go back to the Dursley’s house to suffer once more under their violent hands.

“You’re smiley right there,” Ron teased, looking over his shoulder at her. He was in pain and his tone had been more bitter than he intended, almost as if he resented that she could walk and he was in a whole lot of pain with a broken leg.

Her relationship with Ron Weasley was friendly to the same extent that her relationship with Pansy Parkinson was. They were both polite and cordial, but they both shared only one thing in common: a sibling. With Ron being Ginny’s brother, Harry being Anne’s and Pansy’s little cry-baby of a little sister being in the same dorm room and needing comfort from Anne, they all shared some level of cordiality that would never be erased. Her actual friendship was with Hermione Granger, who was smart enough to look past the situation of her falling into the green House with more pride than Ginny had done at first.

“I’m leaving that fucking place,” she answered, a huge smile in her face, unable to be erased. “You have no idea how happy I am.”

“I do. I am, too,” Harry said, looking at Anne with a huge smile as well.

Sirius, seemingly as happy as Harry and Anne but with a smaller and more controlled smile through his age-lines, looked at the two children with some admiration in his eyes, as if they were both the most beautiful things that he had ever seen in his life.

“We’ll be a family once all of this is over,” Sirius said.

Anne, sometimes wondered, as an adult, if Sirius could’ve been more right and more wrong at the same time.

“HARRY!” Hermione yelled out, voice squeaky all of a sudden.

Though she had called for one, all of them turned to look.

She stood, frozen and pointed as something. That something being Remus, who was also frozen in place, whole body tense and mouth agape at the moon – the full moon. The full moon that threatened to turn him into a monster.

“No,” Anne whispered.

“Remus!” Sirius said, jumping forward and towards his oldest friend. “My old friend, have you taken your potion tonight?” But Remus didn’t answer, he gasped and whined in the absolutely blinding pain of the werewolf transformation. Sirius held him in place, digging his heels into the ground. “You know the man that you truly are, Remus! This heart is where you truly live!”

“We go to go!” Anne said, taking a few steps back.

“No. We can’t leave them,” Harry said.

“Yes, we can. And yes, we shall! Come on!” Anne said, reaching for her brother’s arm.

Harry pulled her arm away from her at once, pushing her away more gently than anyone else would’ve done. Anne whined, not wanting to be exposed to a werewolf without potions for any longer than she needed to.

She looked around, searching desperately for a way out. But Severus Snape was still unconscious and Peter Pettigrew was the most useless adult that she had ever seen in her life, which meant that the children would have to fight all on their own.

“Fuck,” Anne moaned in annoyance and fear. “SIRIUS!” she screamed when Remus dropped his wand.

Sirius said a mantra that he seemed overly familiar with to notice Peter Pettigrew reaching for the wand.

“This flesh is only flesh!” Sirius insisted, trying to reason with the man in his arms.

Anne ran forward as the man started to transform, becoming smaller and smaller as she got closer. She jumped, not caring that her whole body hit the ground and her nose brushed the dirt as she managed to get the rat in her hands.

“Got you, you little shit,” she grumbled.

The rat scratched, trying to fight its way out, but she held firmer.

“I don’t have a problem squishing you to death, mate, so stop moving!” she exclaimed.

The rat screamed, squeaked, and scratched, but she did not let go of him, but both she and the rat froze at the loud howling that came.

She looked over her shoulder at the fully transformed werewolf standing with its elongated body to the moon, howling with complete freedom, as thirsty for blood as any other savage animal, looking directly at her, the long pink tongue out and saliva dripping.

Anne screamed.

Had she known that Remus would hardly react, barely sniffing her before deciding that she was pack enough to be left alive, she would’ve focused on the rat in her hands, but she didn’t know anything. She was terrified and all that a 12 year-old girl can do when terrified is scream as loud as she can.

However, it was before she could react that Severus Snape stood in front of her, arms stretched out and screamed almost as loud as her, hoping that it would be enough to mask the fear that he was feeling and masking it as an attempt to save her life.

A sharp fain in her yelp and let go.

Peter had bitten her.

The noises of battle beside her were not distraction enough to her. Her battle was set in being the rat’s prison.

She jumped up, ready to run after the ran again when Professor Snape held her by the back of her neckline and pulled, choking her for a second before she turned around.

While the black dog that she now knew to be Sirius Black fended off the werewolf, Severus pulled her by the arm and pushed her into Harry’s open and waiting arms as he screamed her name.

She still has a scar in her finger to remind her that she failed to get the traitor the first time around.

13 Years Old

EMOTIONS

Dinner was quieter than usual.

Uncle Vernon usually was the one that talked the most during the meals, talking about his day and his business deals in great, boring detail that Anne usually didn’t care to follow and would try to distract herself by making up and scenario and daydreaming about it for as long as she could. But this time, the table was completely quiet and they were all eating, all confused to the change.

Anne looked up, trying to see any change.

However, his eyes were already on her.

Anne froze.

Vernon’s eyes dark. Darker than she had ever seen it before, not that she paid attention to his eyes for a long time, but there was something different about him this time and Anne couldn’t find a word to describe it. She thought, for a second, it she had done something so wrong that he was punishing her with silence until she broke and begged for some sort of communication, but Anne had gotten to the house the night before and that was the first time that Vernon seemed so interested in her… and in her clothes.

Anne tried her best to breathe through her worry, but her diaphragm seemed to tense up.

Something bad was about to happen.

Anne puts down her fork and does not eat for the rest of dinner, nor does she eat at breakfast or lunch the next day. She takes a bite or two during the next dinner, but once again refuses breakfast and lunch.

Her mind screamed that she was in danger. Her body screamed its answer. Anne tried to find a solution. If she was a kid and continued to look like a kid, perhaps the eyes would look away. If she was thinner, smaller than the eyes would see her as invisible once more.

It was the first time that she fainted from hunger around the 36^th hour of no food.

14 Years Old

EMOTIONAL SCAR

MAJOR WARNING (IMPLIED SEXUAL ABUSE)

Not eating doesn’t work.

The food in Hogwarts made her gain back all the weight that she had managed to keep out of herself from the summer before and now she looked as much as a teenager as any other girl in her class. Anne could fight her own thoughts, her nightmares and all her struggles in school, but she couldn’t fight time. Time was a lord that she needed to submit to no matter what she did or planned on doing.

It is already on the way that Vernon opens the door of the house to let her and Harry in that she notices that his neck makes an odd noise, cracking as he turns to watch her pass by. Anne doesn’t understand why. She’s in baggy trousers that she bought and had stolen Harry’s (Dudley’s) shirt; it was so baggy in her body that even Aunt Petunia commented on how she looked like a delinquent from the telly. She didn’t understand why Vernon was looking at her with such… weight… heat… desire. Desire that she did not wish for.

The first night was torture, she ate little and was in complete silence, promising Harry that she was just very tired – and with Cedric’s death, Voldemort’s return, there was so much in her brother’s head that he didn’t have the time or energy to go against her words in any manner, he just accepted all she said as truth and went on with his life. She didn’t sleep and neither did Harry, but Harry cried and Anne pretended not to hear.

The second night was hell.

Harry had finally fallen asleep. His danger had already passed and, though he hated the house and the people, he was safe inside, but her danger seemed to grow with the waiting and the waiting was the worst type of torture that she had ever felt in her life. Anne stayed awake once more even though her eyes burned and her hands shook, her body begging her to reboot itself.

She wondered if she had slept, it would’ve been less scary. If she had fallen asleep, she might have woken up with the door opening and unlocking, perhaps even with Vernon poking her or he would’ve just given up if she was entangled with her brother for some warmth and comfort. But she didn’t sleep. She was awake and with her back to the door, admiring the moonlight coming into the window to try to distract herself when the door opened.

“Girl.”

She didn’t move.

She overdid with her breathing stopping.

“I know you’re awake. Come with me.”

Vernon’s voice was low in a whisper and his tone was lower than it usually was as well, almost as if he was a teenager trying to pretend to be more grown-up than he really was. But Vernon was a man, and there was only one reason his voice was like that.

Anne turned, eyes wide in fear and to see better in the dark.

“What it is?” she whispered her question.

Her uncle was never a very patient man, so there was no surprise in the way that he walked into the small bedroom, took her by the arm with a painful grip and pulled her from the bed as quietly as he could. He dragged her along with him out of the room, stopping to lock the door with Harry still inside, but he did not soften his grip on her arm before dragging her through the corridor to the bathroom in the corridor – the one that Dudley, Harry and her shared, not the one that her uncle and aunt used. Vernon didn’t want to wake his wife up.

“You are a little whore,” he said, voice low. He let go of her with a push and she stumbled further into the bathroom as he locked the door, the both of them inside. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“What? What did I do?” she asked. “I can stop.”

“You will not stop. Those eyes of yours… calling for me, inviting me.”

“No.”

“Shut up!” he answered. “You look at me like you did the past summers and then you pretend nothing is going on. I can’t go anywhere without your eyes stuck on me, and now you pretend you don’t want me.”

“I –”

She couldn’t explain that her eyes were stuck on him because he was the enemy and, therefore, knowing where he was and what he was doing was safer than not looking at him at all. She had never spoken to him unless he had spoken to her and had thought that was enough to not get his attention, but, clearly, she was wrong.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

She shook her head, arms going around her body in an improvised embrace. Some sort of unconscious defence. A last line that she was begging him not to cross.

“No, please,” she whispered.

“Listen to me. You either do what I tell you or I will go to the bedroom over there and beat the shit out of your brother, as I usually did before those fucking freaks came into my house and threatened me and my family. It’s not difficult,” he said, glancing at the door. “Four steps, that’s how far away from your brother’s bedroom we are. How long do you think I have until he wakes up? How many punches can he take before he passes out?”

Anne’s eyes teared up.

Her brother, her protector, was being used against her and she didn’t know what to do. There was no one she could call, no one that she could beg for help and nobody that would come running if she screamed – Dudley would laugh probably, Aunt Petunia would ignore it and Harry was locked inside his bedroom. She couldn’t use magic without being punished and she certainly couldn’t hurt Vernon because Harry needed to stay with the Dursleys, the blood-ward was more important than anything and now there was so much danger on the outside of their house, with Voldemort, Death Eaters, sympathisers, the Ministry of Magic and its people. She couldn’t even ask for help from Sirius (who was in hiding), Remus (who had gone to Portugal) or Dumbledore (who seemed to answer only to Harry’s worries and dismiss hers).

Severus, her mind whispered. No. She didn’t want him to know. She didn’t want his pity when she had to work so hard to prove him that she wasn’t some spoiled child that he had seen in her brother, work so hard for his neutrality and intended to work so hard for his approval. She needed him to like her – she needed someone to like her not because of her brother, but despite of him.

She looked at Vernon.

“Take off your clothes,” he repeated, eyes stuck in hers.

And for Harry, she did.

Her eyes seemed tainted with the flashes of the instant cameras by the time the sun came up. She wondered if she had blinked at all that night, because she never registered doing so.

15 Years Old

ROUNDED SCAR ON THE HAIRLINE

Anne Potter missed Professor Snape’s classes in potions. Though the man was rude, curt and aloof, he had been a good enough professor, especially when compared with the hot mess that Professor Slughorn was.

Since Severus had found out about her home situation, especially the ‘bathroom-situation’, as she had started to call it, he had become closer when they were alone. Not the closer that many people would’ve assumed, no, he had been the closest thing to unreasonably kindness that she had ever watched, losing somehow only to Molly Weasley, who too had been kind to the point of senselessness towards her and Harry. As an adult, Anne would’ve noticed how similar to a father he had tried to act towards her, perhaps colder than most fathers and slightly less interested in her personal life, but he had tried his best and she knew that. But as a professor, he had barely changed.

Slughorn was everything as a professor that Severus was not: kind, understanding, interested and utterly useless.

It was almost June when the accident that had caused Slytherin House to stare at Anne for longer than usual happened.

Some girl from the Hufflepuff House, still crying because of a terrible argument that she had with her best friend, had dropped powdered unicorn horn in a potion with centaurs’ tears, which caused the acid to become so strong and the fire to become so hot that the bubbling made many people take steps back, but one of those bubbles burst and the acid flew to the table beside it – Anne’s table.

“FUCK!” she screamed, terrified.

The first scream was out of shock and fear, the next several ones were because the acid burned through the skin, fat and flesh, starting to sink towards her bone when Slughorn finally took the decision to stop shoving her head under the water and actually take her to the Hospital Wing, screaming for someone (anyone, please,) to get Harry Potter and Severus Snape – Harry because he was, after all, her brother (though sometimes Slughorn had his doubts since she had not a drop of her mother’s personality in her, unless he counted the annoying stubbornness) and Severus because he was the Head of the House, and therefore should be warned of any accident.

Slughorn was not counting on Severus getting to the Hospital Wing before him.

With Anne, now barely conscious, floating behind Slughorn, Severus had no problem throwing himself in Slughorn’s way and letting Anne’s invisible bed fly past them before he dragged the man inside as well.

“What is wrong with her? What did you do?” Severus asked.

“It was an accident. Accidental acid, I stopped it before it got to the bone” Slughorn said, turning to add the second part to Poppy Pomfrey who did a bad face at him before starting to work. “I really didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Where were you?”

“I was on my desk.”

“And you didn’t notice it had happened until it got to her bone? Several layers of skin, fat and flesh and you stopped it before it got to her cranium?!” Severus said. “How slow can one person be? You’re a professor, you need to be professional and attentive to accidents such as these. She could’ve died. She could’ve been blinded!”

“It was an accident!”

The door opening stopped the both of them from arguing even louder. Madame Pomfrey was already glancing at them in clear distaste that they were discussing this in her Hospital Wing when she had so much work to do – acid burns were so hard to take care of, not that they seemed to care.

Harry Potter entered, pale and shaky.

“Anne?” Harry called.

“She’s over here, Mister Potter, and she’ll be fine,” Madame Pomfrey said, finishing her examination and starting the regeneration. “The professors got more nervous than needed, probably.”

Harry glanced to the side, finally noticing both men standing there.

Severus couldn’t blame him.

“They’re fighting, Harry,” Anne said, voice strained as she tried not to cry in pain. She looked at Severus. “At least I know that they care,” she added the joke.

Severus gave her a warning glare, but she smiled at him, eyes fluttering closed.

Harry left for dinner and was not allowed to come back to spend the night, but Severus did not leave at all and he was still there when the sun came up and Anne opened her eyes after a nightmare. His presence allowed her to go back to sleep.

When she woke up the second time and for good, Severus was nowhere to be seen, but there was some chocolate on the bedside table.

As an adult, Anne usually woke up with her husband beside her, but sometimes (especially when she was sick) Severus was also nearby, usually on a chair or working in her house instead of the store just so he could be nearby. Though he tried to say that it was because he couldn’t do something without Regulus’ help, she knew it was because he couldn’t focus without knowing that she was alright.

They had never had anything romantic or slightly similar to that, she barely had a name for whatever it was that they had (more than friendship, more than siblinghood, more than romantic – it was some sort of kinship that she had never seen described before; he was hers and she was his, but they would never touch in more than a friendly pat of the shoulder unless the extraordinary hug). Regulus had never been really jealous, barely a passing dark thought in the back of his mind, but he knew that whatever it was that they had, he would never find himself and he was envious of it, and admitted it openly to the both of them.

Regulus knew that, if something ever happened to him, Severus would take care of her, but if something happened to her, the both of them would lose their minds together.

16 Years Old

Left Hand Palm

Dumbledore had seen more children than most people that he knew in his life. He had seen ill children, psychological messed up children, rebels and evil, but he had never seen someone so… out of it before.

He loathed to be the one taking care of the girl that had presented herself to him as Anne Potter, confusing the hell out of him, but not spilling a single lie about the world that she had come from or who she was.

Anne was awake, but she wasn’t at the same time.

Her eyes were open and wide, unfocused in something real and her mind working on the memory that she had yet to put into words completely for him.

“The wall collapsed…” she said. She had been throwing broken sentences to him but had not seen his reaction to them, not even tried to see if he was believing in her. It caused him to think that she wasn’t exactly present. “I tried to drag the stones off… they’re heavy.”

“I see,” he said, gently.

He was trying his best to be kind as he took the pieces of glass of her right-hand palm. It was a mixture of glass and sand that he had recognised as a broken Time-Turner, as she had initially explained to him. She flinched whenever he touched her, so he was sitting in front of her, trying to use only his magic (without holding her arm and hand in place) to take off the shards the glass without making the cuts deeper or bigger.

“Harry’s dead,” she whined.

Her brown eyes filled with tears once more and he stopped, giving her some time.

“I know, you said it,” he said, sympathy making his heart ache. He knew the ache of losing a sibling. “You’re safe.”

“Hermione. Ron. Draco. Luna. Ginny. Cedric. Harry –” and she went on, name after name of people that he didn’t know, that were still to be born but that were terribly important to her. Important enough for her to put her own existence in risk to save theirs. “Sirius. Remus. Mum. Dad.”

“They’re here,” he tried to say, to calm her down.

But Anne didn’t answer.

Dumbledore feared, not for her, but for anyone that would stand in her way. Unseeing, Anne was a lot more dangerous than understanding what was happening around her. Her hands shook and blood dripped on the floor and she had yet to feel the pain of what had passed already, her body already preparing itself for the pain that was about to come.

Dumbledore didn’t know that the saviour of the world that he had dreamed off sat in front of him in the form of a terrified, traumatised child that sent him shivers down his spine for reasons he had yet to find out and name.

MANY YEARS LATER

STOMACH SCAR

C-SECTION

Anne’s water had broken during lunch when all the Marauders (including Peter), her and Regulus were meeting. Harry, Laurie and Peter’s nephews were playing outside, barely caring for what was happening inside.

Regulus had panicked immediately, and James had almost thrown up, causing chaos to descent on the table that Sirius (poor Sirius) was sitting on. But an hour later, the baby was nowhere to be seen and the contractions were somewhat bearable still, so she had sent Regulus away to try to distract him and get him away from her ear, where he was talking non-stop.

“Go talk to your agents, write a song or something, just… I just need a little break,” she said, sitting on the bed. “Don’t worry, I won’t be upset. Mum’s already coming home and she said she’ll get Mia from her friend’s house so they can both stay with me for a while. But you have several concerts coming, and you need to cancel tomorrow’s.”

“Yes. No concert tomorrow,” he said, nodding. “Got it. I’ll be back in a little while, Princess, I promise.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, dismissing.

And as soon as Regulus was out of the room, James was inside. She tried to smile at him, but she was annoyed and the contraction was hitting her right at that moment – she was hungry, too, she noticed as the contraction disappeared.

“I sent Sirius and Remus away with Harry and Laurie. They’re going to Peter’s house so they can keep playing for a while and when it gets late, they’ll go spend the night at Sirius’,” James told her.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said.

“You’re in pain?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Not really,” she admitted. “Overly annoyed. A bit dizzy, but I think it’s the contractions.”

James nodded, sitting on the chair near her bed (now turned king-sized, after all she was a married woman even if she still lived in her ‘childhood bedroom’ with her husband, her parents two rooms down the corridor). The nursery had been made in Sirius’ old bedroom out of Sirius’ own request, asking Mia not to keep his bedroom; Harry had been kept there for a while before he had been moved to another bedroom, which he shared with Laurie because the boys had asked to.

Her father looked down at his wrist-watch.

“It’s 14:00 right now,” he told her.

“On the dot?” she asked.

He nodded.

She took a deep breath, knowing that she had to start timing the contractions to make things easier and safer for herself and her baby. She took her time going to the side of the bed, fixing her pillows and sitting against the headboard.

“So, are you really going to keep the mystery about if it’s a boy or a girl?” James asked, raising his eyebrows. “You’re killing Regulus.”

“He likes being tortured a bit,” she dismissed, back resting against the pillows of her bed against the headboard so comfortably that she made a little noise of relief; that was a position that she really liked, it made her hips hurt less with all the weight that they had been carrying. James did a face. “Your mind’s in the gutter! We’re not one of those couples. I just meant that he really is excited to have it as a surprise.”

“With the way you two are, you cannot expect Potter to have another reaction,” Severus Snape said by the door.

Anne smiled at him as he walked into the bedroom.

“Snape’s right,” James mumbled, clearly noticing that he would be put aside in the conversation that was about to come, as it usually happened when Anne was with Severus.

“Hi Sev, when did you get here?” she asked. “Who called for you? I’m fine.”

“I know you’re fine. Can’t I come make sure to not miss you screaming in pain in a little while?” Severus teased. “If I was the first one that you told that you were pregnant, I think I have a bit of an entitlement to be nearby when the baby’s born. How are doing?”

“I’m fine – oh,” and she held her breath.

With a little moan of pain, she leaned forward, trying to find a position where the pain was less sharp. It was annoying, but it wasn’t blinding as Elizabeth had described her it would be, perhaps she was going to have a calm birth as Harry’s had been when Lily had barely felt anything until right about the birth and Harry had come out quickly.

“It’s 14:10,” James said.

“Oh, this one was sharper,” she complained once it started to dull before disappearing. “Just a few seconds with almost ten minutes in between. I still have time.”

Severus sat at the edge of the bed.

“You’re pale,” he told her.

“I’m just leaving a contraction and it hurts. Paling isn’t surprising,” she said, shrugging it off.

With his hand, Severus pushed some hair out of her face.

“Ask your dad to braid your hair,” he said. He raised this stump. “I can’t do it, sorry,” he said, not all that honest. Severus never had much patience for hair caring or any sort of caring at all, but he liked Anne’s hair enough to touch it.

James was quick enough to get to the bed, sitting on the other side of the bed and reaching for her hair, braiding it quickly and reaching for the bedside table’s drawer before Anne stopped him and shook her head lightly.

“On the other side, Dad,” she said. “That one is Regulus’. You’ll find nothing but notebooks and music sheets, I fear.”

Severus reached out to the other drawer, the one nearer to him, opened it and took a ribbon. He gave it to James and he tied the braid. Still, freshly tied, the braid allowed a few curls to escape, and they went in all directions, hardly something pretty but Anne was sweating and the thought of hair being stuck to her neck and face annoyed her.

“I have the feeling that I’ll hate tonight in equal measure that I shall love it,” Anne commented. “A lot of screaming involved, perhaps some crying.”

“Oh, like your wedding night, I’m sure,” Severus teased.

James grimaced, but said nothing when Anne smiled. With the amount of pain that was coming, she deserved some joking airs around her before it became the very reason for her pain and she told half the world to shut up, or as Lily had said: ‘eat shit!’.

“Oh, dearie. What sort of wedding night do you think I had?” she asked, falsely worried.

Severus smiled.

The noise of loud and heavy footsteps made Anne look at the open bedroom door to see Lily and Mia almost running into the bedroom, both with hair messy and eyes wide. Lily was still trying to shrug her coat off when she walked into the room.

“Did I miss anything?” Lily asked. “Where are the Healers?”

“They’re yet to arrive,” Severus said. “You missed, what? A few contractions?” he asked Anne, who nodded. “Nothing important just yet.”

“Oh, dear, my poor dear,” Mia said, wobbling forward, her feet hurting her in the old age that she had reached. “Everything will be alright, the pain shall pass soon enough and you’ll be left with the most beautiful baby.”

“The pain’s bearable,” Anne dismissed.

Lily shook her head.

“That must come from your father’s side because I was struggling. I wonder why I decided to do it twice in your timeline,” Lily said.

“I doubt you had another option, Lily,” James said, kissing her cheek as she walked nearer to him.

“Yes, Dad, go on and on about how you think I was an accident, it is very – oh, fuck!” Anne stopped again, grabbing the pillow behind herself for control as she tried to breathe through the contraction that came two minutes before she had expected it to. “Fuck, shit, cunt,” she whispered. “Oh, this one hurt!” she added as it died out.

“And it’ll get worse,” Lily said.

“Fuck off,” Anne grumbled, tried to recuperate her breath.

“Oh, I’m just being honest,” Lily laughed.

But Mia wasn’t laughing, she was staring at Anne with very careful eyes, trying to see something that the others were not seeing.

“You look pale,” Mia said.

“I’m always pale,” Anne answered. “Especially when in pain.”

“That’s not true. When in pain, you look reddish because you forget to breathe,” James said. “You are, indeed, pale.”

Mia took Anne’s hands into her own, trying to look for something in the nailbeds, eyes narrowed to will herself into seeing better.

“I’m fine,” Anne insisted.

“Let’s wait for the Healers to get here and they’ll tell us if you’re indeed fine,” Severus said.

Anne rolled her eyes.

“You seem to forget that I am a Healer.”

“And you seem to forget that I’ve seen you forget necessities because you were busy with something else. I trust you to take care of anyone, I trusted my life to you more than one, but I do not trust you to take care of yourself, Anne,” Severus said, as honestly as he could be, but more delicately than he probably would be in a normal day.

Anne tried her best to glare at Severus, but he didn’t seem to be taking her very seriously at the moment, and she understood why. Dressed in an old, long dress (that because of the belly she had developed got only to the middle of her calves) in the oddest shade of blue that Regulus absolutely loved – it was a dress that would be tied around one’s body and therefore provided easy access in case things went amiss. The Healers had said it would be perfect for the birth.

“Is Regulus coming back soon?” Anne asked. “He’s taking a long time.”

“Maybe one of his managers decided to talk to him before letting him take some time off,” Lily guessed.

James got up from the bed, letting go of Anne’s hand.

“I’ll go look for him, don’t worry,” he said, starting to move towards the other side of the bed. He gave Anne a kiss on her forehead and started moving towards the door. “I’ll be back before my grandson’s born, do not worry.”

“To the world, it’s your nephew,” Anne reminded him.

“I’d love them either way with as much love as I can bear,” James said. “I don’t care how the world calls them.”

Anne smiled at him as he slipped out the door.

It was barely ten minutes (and a contraction) later that the Medi-witch Jennifer Lawrence, or Jenny, as she had insisted to be called, got to the house, bag in hand and a smile on her face. She had worked with Anne before and was more than excited to deliver a healthy baby of someone so important as the war-hero that she so admired. She was starting to get rid of her Cornish accent and struggling through the common English that the Potters used, ever so posh for someone like her.

“Missus,” Jenny said, smiling at Anne. “Glad to see you well.”

“Well in pain,” Anne said.

“Aye, a normality, I fear,” she answered. “Let me take your vitals, Missus. Present me to everybody.”

“Those are my mother, Mia Potter, my sister-in-law, Lily Potter, and my best friend, Severus Snape,” Anne said.

The lies came easily, burned into her mind ever since Monty pulled the stunt of pretending she was his daughter; thought he world knew Mia as her stepmother, Anne made sure to always present her as simply ‘mother’, and Mia was ever so proud about that, shoulders squaring and a grin growing, but right now Mia wasn’t smiling, still too worried about the feeling deep in her stomach that the others didn’t seem to be feeling.

The Healer, Allison Morrison, got to the house not long later. The contractions were eight minutes apart, going onto to seven and were clearly stronger than the one that she had felt during lunch.

Healer and Medi-witch talked in whispers when Regulus burst into the room with James right behind him.

“Darling, I’m so sorry. I got caught in a meeting that they wouldn’t allow me to leave. James had to scream at my boss to let me go,” Regulus said, running to her side. He kissed her face several times, not caring that she had a thin layer of sweat over her skin. “How are you feeling? Are you in pain? You seem to pale.”

It was 15:40 at that time, and Anne was starting to understand the Healers’ eyes on her.

Her vision wasn’t the greatest and it had taken her longer than she wished to realise so and she was starting to understand Mia’s eyes on her hands that were not swollen and sensitive. There was something wrong with her and her mind couldn’t put a word for it – pregnancy, birthing were not her areas and it had been years since she performed Elizabeth’s birth, which was considered easy and smooth Now, Lily’s birth had been done at home with the help of Healers specialised in such situations, Anne had just sat on the corner and watched.

Now, she felt like she was sitting on the corner and watching again, being brought back into her body only by pain.

Such at that very moment.

With a muffled scream, Anne leaned forward, curling around her belly as if that would protect her and the baby from whatever was happening. This contraction was longer, and the space between it and the one before had been barely five minutes.

“We were waiting for you, sir,” Healer Morrison said. “Your wife’s vitals are not too good.”

“What is it?” Regulus asked, turning to them.

“Her blood pressure is high. Dangerously high,” the Healer said. “Her hands, feet and legs are swollen, and she can’t keep her water down. We believe that she might be entering a dangerous state of birth and would like to move it all to the hospital.”

Regulus paled almost as much as Anne.

“Listen to them, Reggie, they know what they’re doing,” Severus said from near the bed’s feet. “Anne’s not looking too well. She might need help.”

Anne looked at Severus.

“I’m not feeling well, but damn, did you need to say that I look bad,” she tried to joke.

“What are you feeling? Why didn’t you say anything?” Mia asked, holding Anne’s other hand.

“I can barely feel my lips. Am I slurring my words?” she asked. Mia nodded. “I’m dizzy, but I thought I was tired. But now my vision’s gone blurry.” She turned to the women. “What does it mean?”

The Medi-Witch started to clean everything up, reading herself to go back to the hospital with an emergency patient as Allison turned to Mia, whom she knew well enough to show sincerity in her eyes.

“It means that we have less time than we wished, Missus Black. We –”

“Lady Black,” Regulus corrected. “And Lady Black’s going to the hospital.”

Anne wasn’t sure when it happened, but her eyes rolled to the back of her head and everything went black.

When she came back to herself, Regulus was standing beside her, body leaned forward as he towered over her. They were running, or at least he was – she was lying down on a moving invisible bed that Severus had conjured, and they were all moving fast through the corridor that she recognised as the hospital she worked on, St. Mungus.

“Anne? Annie? Princess?” Regulus called out.

“What happened?” she managed to ask, there was an odd taste in her mouth and her tongue burned. She tried not to spit.

“You had a convulsion,” Regulus explained. “Your blood-pressure’s too high. They’ll have to do a muggle procedure.” His eyes teared up. “I’m sorry for deciding, but they said that it was a way to save you.”

“Baby?”

“Well. Alive,” he said. “Are you willing to do it? Please, say you are,” he cried.

Severus appeared on the corner of her vision. Her head rolled with significant effort and took a deep breath once she managed to look at him completely.

“What do they want?” she asked.

“A caesarean delivery,” he explained. “The baby’s in the right position, so it’s safe for them, don’t worry. But you don’t have it in you to go through the whole birthing process. You might seize again, and that might hurt the child.”

Anne rolled her head back to her husband as the door of the emergency operation room opened near her feet.

“Come with me?” she asked, eyes tearing up. “I’m scared.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Anne-Girl,” he said, holding her hand tighter.

As they crossed the door, Severus stopped running, staying behind. She looked at him, confused.

“Can he not come?” she asked, even more scared now and confused.

Regulus followed her line of sight before realising she was talking about Severus.

“He might feel uncomfortable. You’ll be undressed, Anne,” Regulus said.

Anne’s tears ran through the side of her face and dripped on the invisible table carrying her. She allowed herself to be selfish.

“If you don’t mind him seeing me undressed, I want him there, Reggie. I want my friend, please,” she said.

And Regulus didn’t have it in his heart to deny her, so he made a signal for Severus to come in. He expected hesitation and some embarrassment, especially when Severus noticed the Medi-Witches taking Anne’s dress off, but Severus barely blinked, running into the room as if the child were his as well.

“Sev,” Anne called.

“Right here,” he said, not holding her hand, but appearing on her line of vision.

Regulus almost smiled. Had it been any other man, he might be jealous, but how could one be jealous of Anne and Severus – whatever spirits were made off and all the context of books that Regulus didn’t have the time to read anymore. While Anne’s spirit and his were the very same in different bodies, Anne’s and Severus were the same body with different spirits. In another life, Regulus liked to image Anne and Severus would be brother and sister, father and daughter; or perhaps, they were best friends in all universes.

Regulus kissed the side of Anne’s face.

Anne turned to him as the witches raised curtains of dark green colours to block their view of the gore that would happen.

“I love you,” she said to him. “I’m yours.”

“I love you,” he answered. How could he not. “I’m yours. You’re everything that I’ve ever wanted.”

She held his hand tightly as the witch on the other side of the curtain gave him a potion – she drank and, before she knew it, she was out.

The second time that she came to, there was someone crying. At first, she thought it was the baby, the whole story of how she got to the hospital being her very first memory, not the war and the suffering, but a good thing: her baby. Then, she noticed it wasn’t, it was an adult – an adult male. Slowly she opened her eyes to see Regulus copiously crying as he held the baby in his arms, both of them waiting for the mother to wake up, but Regulus was so happy that he couldn’t control his tears anymore.

“This is pathetic, mate,” Severus said, clearly uncomfortable with his friend’s antics.

“I’m father, Sev,” Regulus said.

“You’re already a father. Did you forget Laurie?”

“No, of course not. But this time, this baby’s mine. It’s not just my blood. It’s part of me,” he explained. “My daughter.”

Anne blinked a few times.

“A girl?” she asked.

Both men looked at her and Severus stood tense and still while Regulus jumped up, still cradling the child as carefully as he could as he moved towards the hospital bed that she was lying in.

“You’re awake. Hi. Welcome to the world of the living again, Anne-Girl,” he said gently. “I believe it’s time to make your acquaintances with this dear girl over here; your daughter, Anne. This is our daughter.”

The baby was smaller than she had expected it to be, but there was no shortage of beauty. Though her eyes were closed, the thick, black hair on the top of her head made sure to yell that she was the perfect likeness to her father – and there was no problem in it, Anne always thought Regulus to be prettier than handsome.

“Hello,” she said. Her voice was slightly hoarse, but maybe it was because she was trying not to cry.

“I was waiting for you to wake up to make sure we agreed on the name,” Regulus explained. “Severus and James have a bet going on, but I believe Severus will win this time around.”

“James thinks her name will be Ginny, but I think you wouldn’t dare,” Severus explained from his corner of the room. “I think you’ll name her over someone that doesn’t exist just yet, because you’re petty like that.”

She smiled.

“You might just win,” she said, looking down at her baby, who slowly opened her eyes and met her mother’s eyes for the first time. “Welcome, Esme.”

And the scar at the foot of her belly was, by no comparison, her favourite. Regulus liked kissing it, Anne liked letting her fingers accompany the way the scar healed. It was the favourite scar because it was the culmination of all the others that she had; the implication that all her scars left her with one last one, one that meant something good.

Because all had not been for naught.

Anne was well and her scars held memories and did not scare her anymore.