Chapter Text
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Stella was born with the complete lyrics to every Beatles song ever recorded already imprinted in her mind. She realised this when Grandpa Evans made a joke about it, back before he died, but she recognised the statement as truth. Dad had foolishly tried to argue with her about it once when she was about eight. Mum let it get to the stage of screaming and shouting before she stepped in and calmly told Dad to, “Just drop it, James. You can’t win,” with a knowing smile at Stella as Dad fumed and didn’t see.
That was when Stella knew that Mum was on her side. They could still have horrible fights, but Mum knew when to misrepresent Stella’s behaviour to Dad. And Stella alone was entrusted with Mum’s best-kept secrets, the location of her Hob Nobs, for instance. Even Uncle Sirius, employing everything from puppy dog eyes to the most heinous tickling charms, had never once gotten her to break.
Stubborness was Stella’s greatest virtue. Once, for a solid year, she had gone to bed early, without dessert, every single night her parents served broccoli. Shrieking sobs from her bedroom to remind them of her displeasure. And when they cast silencing charms, she shrieked louder. Just so they would know, when they healed her throat the next day, how much she had suffered. It had taken a year, but they had learned.
It was when she found out that there were no cd players at Hogwarts that Stella knew she didn’t want to go.
“What do you mean there are no cd players? What about turntables?”
And the grown-ups had all looked at each other (Remus and Sirius were over, which meant they had been blasting their old glam LPs and jumping around and singing like idiots), trying to wordlessly agree on what to say.
“Well, it’s like this, kid, they’re not exactly… allowed…” Uncle Sirius had that gleam in his eye that meant he was up to something. Stella didn’t care.
“You want me to go to school to a place for months and months and it doesn’t allow cd players?!”
“Stella, hon, you know that electricity interferes with magic. That’s why we built this special room.” Mum, trying to reason with her.
“And Hogwarts has a special room?”
“Well, no, but there are ways around…”
And they tried to explain to her – decoding charms, amplification charms, the proper application of arithmancy, a bit of finesse… Stella was having none of it. It made no sense to learn all that when she could just plug it in and hit ‘on.’ She made up her mind. If this was an indication of things to come, she was having none of it. She didn’t want to go. She said so.
And so the battle began.
Harry, who had just turned seventeen and gotten his apparation license, took to rolling his eyes and vanishing the moment Stella or Dad opened their mouths in the same room. Ned felt that the entire fight was a personal threat, a conspiracy to make it hard for him to study. He would march up to him room and slam the door, then play music, dark and furious symphonies, on the stereo he had charmed, with the volume all the way up, just to make a point. Stella considered this behaviour very immature.
Dad was also being an arse. It went without saying. Now he punished her foreverything. Didn’t clean her room, didn’t study her maths, kept talking back. Well of course she talked back! What, did he think she would just stand there and take it? He was being a right bastard, and she told him so. Shouted it, actually, and his hair had caught on fire.
That earned her her worst punishment in three years. She couldn’t really remember ever seeing her father so angry. It was almost impressive.
Mum had proved just as unreasonable. Saying that Stella had powers and she had to learn how to control them, even if, later, she chose to live as a muggle and never, ever used magic again. Pleading with her to just submit. Finally, standing up tall and slim and Stella suddenly remembered that her mother used to wear platforms, with her long hair ironed straight. How impossibly tall she must have seemed then… “You’re going, Stella, and that’s that. If you want to drop out when you’re sixteen, we’ll talk.”
Then Stella’s hope was broken, and it was no more yelling, no more arguments or insults, just pitiful tears of misery by the time they were physically dragging her onto the platform. It wasn’t an act. Never had the world seemed so unfair. She had fought and fought, but her ultimate powerlessness was staring her in the face. She wanted to die.
“For God’s sake, Stel, will you give it a rest?”
“Fuck off, Harry,” she sniffled. Harry chuckled.
Despite herself, Stella felt herself starting to laugh in return; it made her hiccup. She hadn’t really expected a reaction from Harry. He tended to forget that she even existed. But here he was, sitting next to her not saying anything even though he had his own friends. The train had already started to move. Ned was still mad at her and had sulked off to another compartment without a word. Stella suddenly realised that she was here, it was real, it was starting, she couldn’t stop it, and she was terrified. Harry, her stupid older brother who only cared about his broomstick, was suddenly a huge comfort, just by being there. She even pitied him, unfortunate enough to look so much like Dad. After all, he hated Dad, too.
She was almost calm when the train stopped. She fought hard not to be impressed by Hagrid, by the lake, by the giant squid. It was all stupid, anyway. John, Paul, George, and Ringo hadn’t needed a big spooky castle with floating candles, ghosts. And the staff would have to spell the ridiculous pointed hat onto her head if they expected her to wear it… Stella didn’t care that none of the other students seemed to mind. There was Ned, at the Ravenclaw table; he looked like a cheap muggle halloween costume.
“Potter, Stella!”
Stella used to want to be in Gryffindor, back before she hated the idea of Hogwarts altogether. That was also back when she looked up to her oldest brother. Now she stared over at that table with distaste. Everything suddenly seemed miserable again. She wished she had tried harder to get Mum and Dad to keep her home.
The hat dropped over her head.
And the hat… laughed.
It was so surprising that Stella forgot to be miserable for a moment. And then she heard, still a sound like chuckling in the powerful, leathery voice: “Well, well, the youngest Potter. I must admit I had a feeling about you when your older brother was here… How nice to see I was right. I trust you’ll have no objections to SLYTHERIN!!!”
He didn’t even give her a chance to argue. Nevermind that she probably would have wound up agreeing. Dad would never, ever forgive her… That thought didn’t feel as triumphant as it should have. Stunned, she slid off the chair and made her way to a table with a bunch of big, scary, mean-looking students, few of whom were clapping or looked happy to see her at all. A much older blonde boy, probably in her brother’s year, was sneering at her like she was something he had wiped off his shoe.
Stella sat up a little straighter. She didn’t want to be here. She hadn’t asked for this. And if those jerks thought they could push her around just because she was small… Well. She figured there was one advantage to being forced into wizarding school. Here, Mum and Dad weren’t around to stop her hexing people senseless when they made her mad.
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