Archive of Our Own

Harriett Potter, of Lily and James, blinks electric green eyes open, and a mere three days later Arcturus Black joins her—as if he could not bear her being in the world without him. Mother Magic blesses them, and she hangs sweet and heavy over their cribs like a summer storm just waiting to fall. Their parents laugh and rain kisses on the two’s cheeks. Friends come to coo at the dark-haired lovelies sleeping peacefully beside one another, to pinch the rosy faces and marvel at their tiny hands. They may not know the meaning of it, but each and every one of them senses something different in the air. Almost all brush it off—except for a family of redheads that smile mysteriously at one another. They have gone through this before, and these two, they suspect, will be powerful.

Harry and Archie, as they are nicknamed, grow up brewing and broom-racing, reading and running with wild abandon. They’re a little too much for their parents to handle, but there is no doubt that this family loves one another. When Harry buries herself in her lab, when Archie stacks AIM pamphlets in his room and immerses himself in all the healing texts the Black Library can offer, the adults turn to one another helplessly and shrug—none of them willing to dim the impossibly bright light burning in their souls. Diana Black’s illness leaves her infertile, but her son's desperation brings her back from the edge. Perhaps it is slightly suspicious that all in their circle remain impervious to ailments of all kinds, but no one spares a thought to it in the midst of their innocent happiness.

All golden childhoods must eventually end, however, and upon their eleventh year Archie and Harry are ordered off to the school the other wishes so dearly to attend.

(From the very get-go it was terribly foolish.)

Practically the moment “Rigel Black” boards the train to Hogwarts she’s accosted by two whirlwinds with silvery-blue eyes and fiery red hair. They take to her almost immediately, and somehow the knowing air about them calms rather than unnerves her.

“Hello, little one,” Fred grins, ruffling her hair.

George lounges on the plush red seat, a study in casualness. “I do think a grand adventure is about to begin.”

The starlight winking in their eyes agrees, and Rigel can’t help but smile. Exhilaration is pumping through her veins, a pounding fear of getting caught and a delighted wonder at being on her way to Hogwarts. Everything is bright and marvelous and beautiful. She’s ready.

The air hums.

(one)

Rigel likes Hogwarts. It gives her Draco and Pansy, Binny, Master Snape. She doesn’t appreciate Flint, but he leads her to Percy, so it isn’t so bad in the end. Her classes are difficult—her magic sparks restlessly under her skin, refusing to do what she wants, and she finds herself spending most (if not all) of her time in the library. It’s not perfect, but it’s good, especially Potions.

Of course there’s the matter with her wrist. She can deal with classes and Flint’s blackmail, even the eyes she feels boring into her during mealtimes, but breaking her wrist is something she has no idea how to deal with. She can’t go to the Infirmary. It hurts, though, and even without Archie’s Healing obsession she knows it’s not supposed to be at that angle.

“Gryffindor Tower,” Ron says firmly. “Fred and George can fix this.”

Rigel wants to ask what makes him believe his third-year brothers can fix a broken wrist. He seems very confident, though, so she might as well give it a shot.

“What happened?” Fred asks, cradling her wrist gently.

Ron grimaces. “He fell down the stairs,” he says, and the twins hiss in sympathy.

“Healing isn’t exactly our specialty,” George says, cupping his hands around her wrist, “But—”

Her wrist feels uncomfortably hot before fading away into painlessness. “You fixed it,” she says, awed, her face relaxing. Fred and George exchange looks before the simmering unease between them melts until Rigel’s not sure it was even there in the first place.

“Of course, pup,” Fred says lightly, grinning. “Don’t be a stranger, hm?”

She promises not to be and ignores the voice niggling at the back of her mind, telling her George didn’t even have his wand out, that silver had colored his irises for a brief moment. Everyone has secrets, and the twins are no exception.

So she puts it out of her mind in the midst of essays and new friendships. Rigel, Pansy, and Draco are closer than ever, and the twins seem to have officially adopted her if the constant hair-ruffles are anything to go by. There are still eyes watching her and footsteps dogging hers, though. The Stinging Hex is one of the most childish things she’s dealt with in years, and she grew up with Sirius Black as an uncle.

“Ow—it hurts when you touch it, Pan,” Rigel says, tugging her arm back.

“Rigel, there’s something here,” Pansy says, brow pinched delicately.

Examining her arm closely, it almost seems as if there’s a faint symbol impressed into it. It reminds her of the little cages she and Archie used to catch grasshoppers in.

“What is that?” Draco frowns, making an aborted motion to prod at it.

Rigel sighs, uncomfortable with the fussing. “I have no idea. Probably just a fluke.”

The raised, red welt certainly doesn’t look much like a fluke, but she doesn’t have any ideas on what else it might be. It fades overnight, but she still wonders, and she sketches the odd symbol into her next letter to Archie. He doesn’t know any better than her, though, and soon enough Rigel is much more concerned with the raging Gryff-Slyth prank war. “The snakes are quite up in arms,” Lee Jordan teases in passing, sauntering past her and Percy at one of Gryffindor’s study tables. Percy questions her about it, pushing his glasses up on his nose, then nods solemnly and summons Fred and George from who-knows-where.

“Puppy!” Fred cries out, wasting no time in sitting cross-legged on the table, pushing some of Percy’s journals to the side. “Working at this hour? Your scholarly dedication truly knows no bounds.”

“Fred,” Percy scolds, pushing his journals back. “I think—”

George claims the seat next to her with a yawn and a fond nudge. “Even beset by vicious Gryffindor attackers in the dungeons, you refuse to waver,” he teases, stretching lazily.

“Actually, George—”

“We don’t know for sure it was a Gryffindor,” Rigel says absently, taking care to note a footnote she was sure would come in handy writing Flint’s next essay. Looking up at the sudden silence, she frowns quizzically at Fred and George’s incredulous expressions.

“Are you saying you really were attacked?” Fred demands, leaning forward.

“Yes, Fred, that’s what I was trying to tell you,” Percy sighs, evidently feeling put-upon. “Apparently Rigel has been attacked, again.”

“Again?” Fred repeats, bewildered.

George scowls, blue eyes icy and flat. “How many times has this happened?”

“Three, I think,” Rigel says hesitantly. Fred groans.

“I’m not quite sure you’re at the appropriate level of concern there, pup,” George says, pushing his hair back agitatedly. “Do you have any idea who it is?”

“No, I wish,” Rigel sighs wistfully. All three Weasleys look concerned at that.

“You should walk him back,” Percy says firmly. There’s a near imperceptible pause before ‘him,’ and Rigel wonders briefly what he meant to say instead. If it was ‘pup’ she might have to seriously consider the effect Fred and George’s nickname was having on her reputation.

“Will do, boss,” Fred cheers, saluting.

“Oh, he hasn’t had dinner yet, either,” Percy adds, gathering up his things.

“Dinner?”

“Lose track of time, pup?” George says, amused. “We’ll take him to the kitchens, no worries, Perce.” Percy’s brisk, approving nod is so parental Rigel is abruptly reminded that Percy has four younger siblings. It’s unexpectedly endearing.

Fred and George pack up her things so efficiently Rigel barely has time to blink. “I wanted to stop by the Owlery,” she protests lightly.

“We’ll go there too,” George assures her, ushering her towards the portrait hole. “Bye, Perce!”

“So,” Fred says conversationally once they’ve settled into the kitchens. “You didn’t fall down the stairs due to your natural, puppy-like clumsiness.”

It isn’t a question, but Rigel nods anyway.

“You’ve officially got a stalker, pup,” George says, grimacing. Him and Fred exchange heated looks. “Hey, Binny, could I get some parchment?”

George sketches out the symbol she’d seen on her arm. “Do you know what this is?”

Rigel shakes her head. “I’ve seen it before, though.”

“Where?” Fred asks, alarmed.

She explains the situation with the Stinging Hex, and Fred exhales. “Okay. I’m not sure how to explain this, but if you see this symbol on anyone, it’s probably your stalker. It’s called the Roman Lantern.”

“It’s the symbol of traitors,” George says. “Wizarding thing. Basically, not a good sign.”

“All right,” Rigel accepts, although ‘Wizarding thing’ is a tad too vague for her tastes. “Thanks.”

“Nothing to be thanked for, pup,” Fred says gently, jumping to his feet. “Off to the Owlery!”

Back in her dorm, Rigel stares up at the ceiling and wonders who up there loved her enough to give her such wonderful friends.

Rosier and Rookwood are a little less wonderful, obviously, but she passes their test in the end. Knowing they hadn’t really had her wander the forest alone gives her a little more faith in them. She even gets a new wand, although October is difficult nonetheless. She thought it would help, and she does seem to have a better connection with it, but her magic still feels restless. At times it’s like it doesn’t want to use the wand as a medium, but Rigel’s grown past the stage when wandless magic was cute. The combination of her extra credit assignments with Flint’s makes for a rather overwhelming workload, and her friends have grown noticeably weary of hearing she was in the Library. The Feast will be a nice reprieve from the work she’s been drowning in, or at least she thinks so until she hears Hannah Abbott cry out over her shoulder.

“NO!”

Oh, that burns. Rigel yanks Pansy out of her seat and watches the acid eat away at her sleeve in horror. The entire ordeal is thoroughly exhausting, and Rigel does her best to ignore the part of her mind whispering that the Hall is missing two redheads. It doesn’t help that they seem to be not-so-subtly avoiding her, and she has no time to confront them given the way her Housemates have been borderline stalking her recently. She hardly sees the twins all through November, and Ron just shrugs when she asks.

It ends with a friendly kidnapping and Miss Norris. The twins are noticeably perturbed, words tripping one over another until—

“You weren’t in the Hall,” she blurts out, an anxiety she didn’t know had lingered was surfacing.

It’s to their credit that they understand her immediately. “We’re sorry, pup. The fireworks were ours, you know, but we didn’t set them off that night, I swear,” George says, sincerity evident. 

“Our plans aren’t working,” Fred says hurriedly, “So we had to warn you in the meantime, try not to get caught alone with—”

She never hears what they have to say.

Rather Lee Jordan ambushes her in the dungeons with a greedy smile. He squats before her, studying her bound form curiously. Eventually he snarls and springs to his feet, pacing irritatedly.

“Jordan?” she ventures tentatively. He hasn’t said anything, no explanations, just a bone-deep hatred in his eyes that mystifies her. They’ve barely spoken, although she knows him peripherally. “You okay?”

He gets even angrier at that. “No, I’m not okay, and neither are you,” he spits, advancing on her, eyes gleaming, hands reaching, but they’re growing. Rigel watches in horror from the stone floor as his nails elongate, curving and yellowing. Is he an Animagus?

No, something else is wrong. His eyes have bled black, no pupil to be seen, wide and endless and dark. His long nails unfurl around what looks like an amulet, and he starts chanting in a language she doesn’t recognize. Rigel’s chest is aching something bad, like a giant ladle has scooped out all her warmth. She’s getting colder and emptier, chest rattling with every breath.

“Help,” she rasps out, coughing, “HELP!” It’s not loud enough, she can’t shout properly with the horrible chill creeping along her insides. She doesn’t know what Lee’s doing, but her instincts tell her that if she doesn’t stop that awful hollowness she won’t be anything more than a husk.

Thwack!

It takes her a second to realize George has just knocked Lee Jordan over the head with his book bag. Jordan crumples on the stone and a torrent of warmth floods Rigel so suddenly it nearly hurts. Gagging, her magic roars back to life and shreds the hemp rope into confetti.

“All right, pup?” Fred asks casually, stepping in front of her. His body is taut with fury.

“I think so,” she gasps, cheeks wet with tears. Looking around, she sees the charm he was holding off in the corner. There’s a familiar symbol engraved into it.

“Don’t touch it, pup,” George says firmly, catching her arm.

“That’s the symbol you showed me,” Rigel says, numb.

Fred kicks it away, grimacing in distaste. “Lee always did have a flair for the dramatic. Come on, let’s get you back.”

Footsteps sound on stone, and Percy skids around the corner, panting, Ron close at his heels. “Is that—”

“Yeah. Can you take care of it?” George says grimly.

Percy stares at the figure on the floor, something cold in his gaze. “Ron, owl Mum.”

The younger Weasley nods and takes off, presumably to the Owlery.

Fred and George take a still shell-shocked Rigel to the kitchens and wrap her in a blanket. George pushes a cup of warm milk into her hands, and the two sandwich her between them. “Mum’s here,” Fred says at one point.

How can you tell? Rigel wants to ask, but her eyelids are drooping.

“We’ll stay until you fall asleep, pup,” George says comfortingly. “Mum can sort it out with the Headmaster.”

She wakes up the next morning in her bed, and the whole thing seems like a dream. For days after, though, her fingers still get cold easily and her teeth chatter in the dungeons. The Weasleys seem to collectively understand this, if the way Percy chooses study tables close to the fire or Ron crams his gloves clumsily onto her fingers is any indicator. Jordan gets expelled with little fanfare, and as the weeks pass it’s like he was never at Hogwarts in the first place. Speculation runs rampant but soon dies out. Todrick Moon seamlessly replaces him as Quidditch announcer, and according to George, his bed and all his things vanished from Gryffindor Tower the day after he attacked her. She doesn’t understand what’s happened, and she’s not sure she wants to.

She relates the entire thing to Archie over winter break. He’s appropriately outraged on her behalf, and they spend a good chunk of break scouring the Black library for any mention of the Roman Lantern or clue as to Jordan’s mysterious transformation (another good chunk devoted to improving her Occlumency). Either there’s nothing to find or they’re not searching for the right things, so they put a pin in it and return to school.

“Be careful, cuz,” Archie warns her.

“I’ll try,” she says.

“Not reassuring,” he groans and hugs her.

The memories have faded, so a refreshed Rigel Black returns to school with a delicate optimism soon crushed by the advent of the Sleeping Sickness.

She brews and brews, but there seems to be no end to the magic simmering under her skin. Her friends’ concern is touching but stifling. She has a system, and she knows when she’s going too far. Being scolded only holds so much charm, unfortunately. Perhaps that’s why she accepts it quietly when Fred puts pastries on her plate and George tugs her bookbag off her shoulders. There are no admonitions or demands, just a quiet supportiveness she appreciates beyond words. Doing this, helping, is important to her.

All that disappears once Draco falls ill.

Draco is going to die, Rigel thinks breathlessly, rummaging desperately through the Hogwarts Library. He is going to die. I need Professor Snape. I need Mum. I can’t do this on my own—

“Pup.”

Rigel jerks her head briefly. “Hey, Fred, George, now’s really not a good time—”

“Harry.”

Her breath stutters. “What?” she whispers, terrified.

“It’s alright, little one,” George soothes her quietly. “Think of everything we get up to—”

“—no way we’d rat you out,” Fred finishes. “We just want to help.”

Rigel’s mind is churning, but the twins’ eyes are bright and fixed on her. She has come to know that they are always in motion; Fred’s lips spit jokes quicker than hexes and George’s limbs tumble around corners, into compartments, over Alicia Spinnet’s bookbag. But when she speaks those Galleon eyes zero in until she is, in that moment, the only person who exists. The only one who matters. It makes her apprehensive, but another part of her is proud, because Fred and George will still and turn and listen like she is important.

They do this despite knowing who she is, a halfblood, a liar, a cheat. Later, she will clutch onto that fact with both hands, hopeful, wondering, a little afraid.

Now, though, she is more than a bit preoccupied. “Help how?”

“You’ve scoured these books over and over again,” Fred says firmly. “They’re not going to help you.”

“There must be something I’ve missed,” Harry argues. “Some article, or ingredient, or study—”

George’s calm expression stokes her anger, white-hot and irrational. “What are you saying, that there’s no answer? I’m just supposed to let him die without even trying?”

“No,” Fred says. “You can save him, but this stuff is a waste of time. You’re smart, pup.”

“I’m eleven,” Harry says. “I can’t save anyone.”

“You can.” George’s words carry an odd weight. He says it like it’s another one of those facts. The grass is green, Draco likes blueberry tarts, Harry can do this.

“And you will,” Fred adds, tugging her journals out of her hands. “Go.”

She goes.

After what seems like years, she exits the Hospital Wing and finds them there. Fred leans back against the wall, grinning, George more restrained but still smug.

“You were right,” she says, wondering.

“When aren’t we?” Fred teases.

She rolls her eyes and the tension seeps away. “I’d like to trust you,” she tells them, quietly. Honest and vulnerable in a way she is around no one but Archie. “I don’t know why, though. I think I should be panicking.”

“What can we say, pup.” George tousles her hair fondly. “Guess there’s just something special about us.”

“We can swear Vows, though,” Fred assures her nonchalantly, picking at his nails. “If that would make you feel better.”

It would.

But Harry is eleven and tired, and children who have to keep secrets never have quite as much fun as those who choose to. Sometimes the most reassuring thing in the world is someone older who knows the terrible things you have done and still cares.

Harry is cautious. Rigel even more so. This is wildly out of character and still—

“It can wait,” she says amicably. “I’d really like to go to bed now, by any means.”

The split-second surprise in Fred’s eyes and slight tightening of George’s fingers around the strap of his bag makes her feel like she’s done something unexpected. And that’s nice, given how the twins seem to have been running circles around her all year.

She means to follow up, she truly does, but with classes and curing the Sickness and Potions (always Potions) she never quite gets around to it.

So Rigel boards the train, Archie gets off it, and Harry appears in her bedroom next to the person she trusts most in the world.

“I’m never living up to this,” Archie whines playfully, holding up the Daily Prophet detailing Rigel’s ‘miraculous’ curing of the Sickness. “Seriously, cuz?”

“Seriously,” Harry says faux-sympathetically. “Sorry, Arch, you’ll just have to resign yourself to high expectations.”

He snorts and tosses the paper off to the side, rolling over on his stomach and propping his face up on his hands. “So, fill me in!”

A lot’s happened this year. She saved her friend’s life, accrued a life debt, cured a mysterious disease. She met a boy with eyes made of moonlight and a girl sharp and warm. She acquired a prickly and brilliant mentor, and became friends with four Weasleys, who undoubtedly deserve their own mention. Archie waxes poetic about a Hermione Granger and Healing classes he’d never dared to dream of.

“I think we’ve covered all our bases—anything else?” he says, yawning.

Burning smiles and gentle eyes and quick fingers through her hair—a Vow she didn’t swear—

“No, nothing else.”

Harry has never kept a secret from Archie. She thought it would taste bitterer going down. The residual guilt fades in the whirlwind of summer, though, and this first summer is when she meets Leo.

(two)

Her second year is full of accusations, lies, suspicion and danger. Students are dropping like flies. The halls of Hogwarts have sheltered students for centuries, keeping secrets, dripping knowledge. Now they’ve turned traitor, and Rigel isn’t sure she will ever forget seeing Miss Norris dead on the wall or Pansy still as a corpse on the Infirmary bed. The great drama of the petrifications overshadows her joining the Quidditch team and Daphne Greengrass’ jealousy, even Lockhart’s annoying incompetence. Given her Parseltongue Rigel’s become the biggest suspect. Fred and George seem to think this is hilarious, given the way they prostrate themselves before her shouting “Great Dark Lord Rigel!” until Percy happens upon them, at which point they whisk her away to an abandoned classroom on the fifth floor. There Fred’s fingers steeple and George’s jaw squares into a facsimile of the greatest generals. Percy sits stiffly in one of the desks with one of the younger Weasleys on either side of him. (The newest Weasley is all hard edges and blunt words. Rigel likes her despite how easily she riles up Draco.)

“What is this?” she whispers to a grim George the first time it happens.

“Our war room,” Fred answers for him, holding court. “We need to figure out these petrifications.”

Rigel looks around dubiously. Other than the five Weasleys, a petite blonde lies serenely on the floor, staring up at the ceiling dreamily, and a bewildered Cedric Diggory occupies another one of the desks to Percy’s right.

“That’s Luna and Cedric,” George says promptly. “We need a representative from all four Houses. Cedric’s our neighbor, and Luna’s a hoot.”

“Thank you, George,” Luna says peacefully. “You could be a hoot too, if only you got rid of all the Yilly-Rovers.”

“Noted, Luna,” George says seriously, “I’ll get to work right away.”

“No, you won’t,” Percy interjects. “Can we get to the point?”

“Right,” Fred says, and promptly begins interrogating Luna, Cedric, and Rigel on certain movements within their House. Cedric goes along gamely, although he has even less to say than Luna and Rigel. Fred warns them to keep an eye out and dismisses them until the next meeting. The eight of them continue in this fashion until their movements are restricted by the teachers. It’s in this way that Rigel learns Hannah Abbott has a debilitating crush on Blaise, Luna’s Housemates don’t exactly appreciate her differences, and someone has strangled all of Hagrid’s roosters. All this information is useful, but they get no closer to solving the petrifications until Ginny kidnaps Rigel from right under Fairister’s nose.

Weasleys and kidnapping, Rigel has time to think exasperatedly.

Ginny isn’t Ginny. The basilisk is dead. Tom Riddle monologues in depth about his grand plans, but Rigel’s mind is much more interested in how the littlest Weasley smiles just like Pansy, curling and knowing.

“I will gain a foothold behind enemy lines,” Riddle chortles, and Rigel zeros in on Ginny’s still form. Too many have gone still and silent this year. Ginny will not be another.

“And Mordred will reach a new dawn,” Riddle says gleefully, but all Rigel can remember is that Ginny scribbles a little star wherever her essays need to end before she even starts writing it, so she knows how much farther she has to go. Her fury is building steadily. She pushes, and her magic explodes. It blankets the Chamber in thick, warm waves, and Rigel takes the opportunity to escape into her mindscape, and from hers to Ginny’s.

It isn’t over yet, though. Now she has a re-animated basilisk to contend with. Even possessed, she knows fighting is rather useless.

With the basilisk’s coils tightening around her, she remembers all the people she knows who have come to trust her. She remembers Addy. Archie, her family, Leo. Draco and Pansy, the rest of her year- and House-mates, even Greengrass. She remembers the Weasleys and everything they’ve done for her.

She stabs herself.

And Fred and George are there.

Her fingers are slick with blood, eyes blurring, but she sees Fred sprint towards the basilisk, sword in hand, and feels the heat from George’s fists explode against its side. There’s no mistaking it, their eyes are silver. The construct roars, the basilisk falls limply on its side, and Rigel succumbs to sleep just as Ginny, professors in tow, storms back into the room.

How did Fred and George get here before them? she wonders.

After she’s sorted things out with the professors, they sneak into the Hospital Wing with ruffled hair and piping hot pastries in hand.

“Glad to see you’re alright, pup,” Fred says.

“Yeah, I am.”

They grin like it’s all over, but Harry can’t ignore the buzzing she felt in the air when they came into the Chamber.

“Who are you?” She asks, just as they’re about to leave.

Fred and George blink, then turn to her with identical looks of mischief. “Now then, pup, is that the right question?” Fred teases.

Harry huffs. “Fine. What are you?”

“Well, to know that, you’ll have to come to the Burrow.” Fred sniffs. “Mum’s much better at explaining it than we are.”

She frowns. “Is that okay for me?”

“You saved Gin’s life,” George says, and there’s an endless wealth of untouched gratitude there. “There’s no escaping it now.”

Harry might be more curious than she’s ever been in her life. But then Diana and Sirius threaten to come up to the school, and she cries in front of Draco, so she resigns herself to waiting and going to the Burrow as soon as summer arrives. Her questions come back, though, upon seeing the basilisk, there are giant wounds in its side that bring back the memory of George’s fists—had they truly been on fire? The scorching seems to suggest it, and Rigel ignores all the questions she can feel brewing in Snape’s gaze.

Rigel finishes packing the morning the train leaves for London. She gives Selwyn a scale and reiterates her promise to visit the Weasleys, feeling in need of answers more than ever now.

“What if they’re dangerous?” Archie argues.

Harry hesitates. “They’re not.”

“You don’t know that, cuz, and you’re two-for-two years with life or death plots here,” Archie says.

Harry refrains from saying it’s more like three if one counts the Sleeping Sickness, which she might be able to given how close Draco had come to dying. “I do know,” she says simply. “And we need answers.”

So Rigel Black shows up at the Burrow and is immediately ushered inside, Molly clucking over her supposed thinness. Something is odd, though, and it takes her a second to pinpoint it.

The air in the Burrow feels old, like Hogwarts-old.

Slytherins usually dance around the point, even sometimes during the point, but Rigel figures the Gryffindor Weasleys would appreciate something a bit more direct. “Fred and George said you might have some answers for me?”

At that, the kitchen clears out so suddenly she’s left blinking at the residual dust.

“Well, dearie, it’s been a long time since we’ve had to have this talk,” Molly sighs, like they’re about to discuss recipes or laundry instead of why Rigel’s magic hums under her skin and leaps off her fingers instead of flowing through her wand like it’s supposed to.

Molly sits Rigel down in the sunlit Burrow and explains gods with kindly, maternal briskness. She speaks of aspects, of powers, of magic that’s just a little Other. “You have the potential,” she says frankly. “Many do. Not everyone awakens, though, so we usually don’t tell them until after they have. You and your cousin are quite likely, so make sure you go home and tell him, alright, love?”

Rigel’s nodding before she registers the ‘him.’ “You know?” she asks, alarmed, looking sharply out the window at Fred and George in the yard.

“Oh, no, those two didn’t tell me,” Molly says fondly. “It’s a sense. I can teach you, if you’d like. You’ll be able to sense the others.”

“Others?”

“There aren’t many,” Molly says apologetically. “No one you know has awakened yet, as far as I know, although I expect that to be changing soon, your generation is chock-full of potential. There are a lot more things to say about it, but I think it might be better for both you and Archie to hear, no?”

So Harry and Archie come back the next day and hear it all in full, although Archie is understandably skeptical. He hasn’t seen Fred and George Weasley puncture basilisk scales that are supposed to be impenetrable, though.

“An aspect is just something fundamental about you,” Molly explains patiently. “It can be something you love to do, or the way you live your life. Most of the time it’s a principle that has interwoven your life until it becomes a defining part of you. They can change, though, so don’t stress too much on yours. Some people have more than one.”

“What’s yours?” Archie asks, and Molly’s eyes gleam cheerfully.

Molly and Arthur, Protection and Patience, moving throughout the eons. Their aspects are remnants of ancient deities, reincarnated through dozens of different forms, but they’re usually parents.

“We woke up the day Bill was born,” she says, indicating a picture on the mantle of a wailing baby.

The way Harry understands it, the wizards are a secret society from the Muggles, and the gods are a secret society within a secret society that usually lies dormant and does their best to stay low-key. It all seems very complicated, although it’s made more so by Molly’s next explanation.

“When you fought that Riddle boy, did he mention anything about Mordred’s Vision?” she asks.

“He mentioned Mordred,” Harry says, trying to remember. “What is it?”

“It’s a cult,” she sighs, and Harry is struck by the absurdity of it all, Molly Weasley wringing her flour-covered hands as she tries to explain cults and aspects and gods. “They believe in stealing magic, and they think they can steal ours, and that Muggleborns have stolen theirs from Squibs. We usually get stronger right around when they do. There are quite a lot of experiments done on children who have the potential, which is why we’ve stopped telling them about it—excluding our own children, obviously. It’s just too dangerous, and sometimes they don’t even awaken. It’s obviously a bit difficult to believe, as well.”

The rest of the summer is spent either with Leo or at the Burrow, learning the sense Molly spoke of. The others help her practice, and the day she and Archie feel the hum around them Harry can tell by Archie’s awestruck face that he’s gotten over his doubt.

“Some wizards can do it, too,” Percy explains. “It’s less instinctive, though.”

Once Harry becomes more familiar with that spark, she understands how Fred and George knew she wasn’t Rigel (it seems as if all the other Weasleys knew, too, which is unfortunate). There’s something so distinctive about each one it’s virtually impossible to mistake. The one exception seems to be the twins. Their auras have the same flavor, same shape, same color, by all means they’re the same person, except something very important is different.

“A god is still a person,” Molly says in one of their sessions.

She feels the hum walking down the street in Diagon, belonging to a short man wearing a violet top hat. Archie’s becomes a familiar pulse, as does Leo’s. (People without the potential still have an aura, but it lacks electricity. The day she realizes Ron’s is one like that is a sad one.)

“Be careful, dearie,” Molly warns her. “We met you and Archie at birth, so we know who was who, but if you keep switching, anyone with the sense will be able to tell.”

The ruse seems small, now, in wake of all she’s learned. But it’s too late for her and Archie to swap back without suspicion. They’re both learning so much, at Hogwarts and at AIM.

“We’ll just have to trust the Weasleys to keep the secret,” Archie says, “They must be good at it.”

Harry feels a pang at how good they’ve both become at deception. Potter and Grimmauld Place have been full of tension lately. The arrival of Addy has sent Diana into a bit of a depression regarding her own infertility, and the Guild internship is a good excuse for Harry to leave as often as she does. (She hadn’t thought it was possible for her to dislike anyone as intensely as she does Caelum Lestrange, but he seems to exist to push buttons. She ignores the way the air vibrates around him simply because he is so terribly annoying.)

“Oh, and follow your instincts,” is the last thing Molly tells her before she returns to Hogwarts. “If you think you don’t need that wand, you probably don’t. Percy likes his, but Fred and George do much better without them. Charlie too.”

(three)

When she goes back to Hogwarts for her third year, the hum is everywhere. Cedric and Luna. Rosier, but not Rookwood. Even Pansy.

“They wake up or they don’t,” Fred shrugs when she asks.

She still hasn’t learned him or George’s aspect, although their similarity has her suspecting they might share one. The twins are fun and mischievous, whip-smart and undeniably good. No one characteristic of theirs sticks out except for pranking, and that can’t be it. Her instincts tell her it’s something a lot more powerful than pranking, the way Percy always lets them be first through the door.

“I’ll figure it out,” Archie had sworn, and the twins had just snickered. Harry makes the same vow silently before throwing herself into classes and homework and the delight that is the Time-Turner, as well as the problem that is Uncle Remus becoming Professor Remus.

When Halloween arrives with its characteristic misfortune, the world of Hogwarts splinters into madness.

Here our paths diverge in a way that is very important. A different Rigel, from a different world, marches off to find her uncle Remus alone. This one has had her life saved by Fred and George Weasley twice. She’s spent a summer in the warm, sun-dappled Burrow with magic swirling around her and Molly Weasley doing her utmost to make her gain ten stone. She knows people know her secret but knows also they would never betray it. This Rigel has been forced by circumstance to know a little more about trust and friendship and how the two can walk hand-in-hand.

Now, both Rigels refuse to endanger Pansy or Draco, but this one has seen Fred and George face a basilisk and win. She knows Percy’s mind is sharp but kind, and that Ron feels inadequate when it comes to his siblings but is just as brave and good and true. She knows Ginny works harder than anyone else in the hope she will stop hearing Riddle’s whispers every night.

She goes to the Weasleys.

And when she saves her Uncle Remus her eardrums still rupture. But Percy finds a familiar amulet clutched in Professor Pettigrew’s hand. The symbol of traitors—and Mordred the proponent of the most famous magical betrayal of all time. (In another, very distant universe, Sirius Black is known for the second, but this one has never even laid eyes on Azkaban.)

“We can only assume he wanted to pinpoint all the Others in the castle,” Arthur says. Rigel’s met him twice, maybe three times? But the gentle, patient man she met then is not the one before her now in the Headmaster’s office, demanding Pettigrew’s removal from the castle. Molly is equally firm at his side, and Hagrid becomes the new Care of Magical Creatures professor.

This Rigel is lucky. There is no Dominion Jewel in her head nor trauma in her bones. By previous standards she ends the year rather uneventfully, discounting the disaster that was Hagrid’s Blast-Ended Skrewts. Now that was a story for Archie.

(four)

Harry likes to count the summer after her third year with the fourth (contrary to how previous summers have been told in this story) so she can claim that her third year was relatively peaceful. She is our heroine, so we will abide by her wishes.

So, the summer before Harry’s fourth year (not the one after her third, no matter how one might think they are the same) contains multitudes. She becomes an entrepreneur, a free-dueler, proficient at Apparition but lacking a license. She becomes one of Leo’s most precious people seemingly by accident. She adds her life in the Lower Alleys to her life at home, her life at the Burrow, and her life as Rigel. Leading so many lives feels a little heavy, undoubtedly, and she has no Archie to lighten the load as he is in South America. Perhaps that’s why she is so looking forward to the World Cup.

The event itself is very exciting, and she watches Draco and the Weasleys bond with a touch of envy.

When the pamphlets rain from the sky, the Top Box has not been split in two. What kind of people would the Weasleys be if they let that pass for the sake of concealing themselves? No, these Weasleys hold the Box together. They leave Ron and Ginny with Harry and the others and disappear into the fray. Harry uses her Weightless Draughts to bring everyone else to safety, and as soon as the anti-Apparition wards fall Lily brings her back home—no matter how much Harry wishes to stay, that should never be a fourteen (fifteen, if one adds the Time-Turner, but few know to do so) year old’s call to make.

Despite the Weasleys’ best efforts, people still die and tents still burn. Harry decides that night to follow her instincts, as Molly advised her what seems like so long ago. She is still devastatingly afraid of her magic. She’s been channeling it forcefully through her wand, muting it with the suppressor for the sake of her dreams, but she never wants to see Death brush so close again and be unable to use the strength she has at her disposal. Rigel wants a year like the last, but is beginning to sense life taking a darker turn. Indeed, any hopes she had for a peaceful year are dashed almost immediately by the Triwizard Tournament. (She would have gotten the Time-Turner back if not for the Tournament, actually. Apparently the Ministry had thought it prudent to be more vigilant with all the foreign influences entering the castle, which Rigel interprets as paranoia and xenophobia, and is not incorrect.)

After gathering her courage, she takes a deep breath and goes to find the twins. “Fred, George, I need help with my magic,” she says, and they help as they always have. Rigel thinks guiltily that she will never make it up to them, but they sense whenever this thought is in her head and flick her playfully on the nose.

“Pay it forward, pup, if you feel obligated to pay it at all,” George tells her, working with her in that abandoned classroom Fred had dubbed their ‘war room’ a million years ago.

And it’s surprisingly simple. Fred confides that he and George had struggled similarly, especially upon awakening. “Don’t thrash it into submission,” he says. “People will tell you magic’s not sentient, but if you think it is then it is. How would you get any other sentient being to cooperate with you?”

So Harry asks and explains and talks to her magic, feeling a little silly but persevering nonetheless. She learns something new, and finally she takes off the suppressor for good. (It will still be in her trunk, years later, because fear is difficult to conquer. I daresay she can be excused this one time.)

On that day, something clicks and aligns so surely she knows she’s just awakened. There’s a new, heady thrum in her magic, and she laughs with the exhilaration of it.

“Well well, pup,” Fred says proudly. “Look at that.”

The rest of the year is a piece of cake. She holds her wand for the benefit of her peers, but the magic rushes straight out of her fingertips, and nobody will look close enough to tell, excepting perhaps Riddle.

“Is Riddle part of Mordred’s Vision?” she asks after a particularly infuriating conversation with the man.

“Probably not,” Fred says. “But the construct should be. He found out about us when he was in his—teens, I think? And he couldn’t take the fact that he didn’t have the spark. Dedalus had to memory-wipe him.”

Dedalus Diggle had cleaned up after the Weasley’s interference at the World Cup, too. His aspect is Memory.

“Annoying, for sure, but as far as we can tell Riddle Sr. doesn’t remember, and the crazy diary guy didn’t see fit to tell him,” George adds.

Rigel takes that surprising piece of news and tucks it away for later. “Do their ideals and S.O.W’s usually overlap?” she asks.

“With the whole stealing magic thing, yeah.” A rare expression of distaste crosses George’s face. “Not so sure about the other stuff.”

The Triwizard Tournament is annoying, sure, but she feels a familiar buzz around Fleur and Tahiil and grins. She wins most of the tasks, because Rigel has Parseltongue, freedueling, Lord-level magic and wonderful friends. There’s not much that can beat that, and she’s determined to get the Marriage Law taken off the damn table, no matter what Rosier tells her about Riddle’s schemes.

The Yule Ball poses a conundrum. Pansy takes Ron, surprisingly. Four girls and two guys have asked “Romantic Rigel” already, and turning them down was a new exercise in awkward. Zhou and Draco have both been eyeing her speculatively, and she doesn’t want to take either of them, because there are things she knows she will never be able to tell them. If it comes to it she’ll take Archie, but he was hoping to take Hermione as friends.

She stumbles across the answer when she meets Luna shoe-less and feels anger swell in her chest. Luna smiles sweetly when she asks, and Rigel now has a good excuse to turn down anyone else who asks, so it’s overall a win-win.

“I already have a date,” she says when Nott poses the question to the group.

“Who?” Draco demands, and she shrugs, enjoying the flabbergasted look on his face.

“You’ll see,” she says vaguely.

He certainly does. Luna dresses to the nines, all yellow fabrics and butterbeer corks, and Rigel enjoys the Ball more than she thought was possible. She dances with Luna a couple times, (whose ethereal qualities don’t translate well to gracefulness, but more than makes up for it with enthusiasm). After that, Rigel politely rejects any other requests and makes her way out to the garden.

Fred and George are there (when aren’t they?) and Fred offers her his hand gallantly. She’s about to decline when she sees the twinkle in his eye, and embarks on the wildest dance she’s ever seen. He seems to make up all the moves as he goes, and her eyebrow twitches when he picks her up and twirls her around for the finale. George’s dance is a lot more traditional, and her final dance of the night is with both of them. It’s not a dance, given they’ve just pulled her down into the grass to lie down, but they insist on calling it one.

“Listen to the music, pup! Our souls are dancing!” Fred cries, hushed.

She rolls her eyes, but listens to the faint music from the ballroom. She hears George’s steady breaths and Fred’s heavier ones, still a little out of breath from their earlier romp. Their hands tangle with hers, and she sees the starlight winking above them, just as she saw it in their eyes on her very first train ride.

She thinks they have become her best friends as surely as Draco and Pansy have.

Harry blames the stars and the music for the way her heart speeds up. It’s a romantic night, and she’s been swept away. Nothing for it.

The final task is a catastrophe. Tahiil will never have the chance to awaken. The way his aura drained and drained away, until there was not just no spark but no life, will haunt Harry’s dreams for decades. She knows what he felt, in those final moments, that horrible cold.

She returns with their ruse intact, but something much more important shattered. That summer is dark with nightmares. Sometimes she comes to the Burrow and just sits, remembering the way he screamed. The circle of figures chanting, the Roman Lantern drawn with Tahiil’s blood. And it had all been for naught. It hadn’t worked, and Harry would have been next if not for the agony that sent her magic screaming out to meet Voldemort’s. She tells Archie and the Weasleys that Mordred’s Vision is growing in strength and daring, and they gather up their own organization—the Order of the Phoenix. Not everyone in it knows about the gods, in fact most have no idea, but it will serve its purpose anyway.

(Dumbledore leads it, not because he is Other, but because he, like Tom, had discovered their existence but much unlike Tom had not sought to take what was not his. He knows the price of greed.)

The rest of her summer is frustrating. Harry cares for Leo, truly, but he is a king and he knows how to push. She can’t tell him this, for his own sake, so she brushes off his concern and spends a quiet summer brewing and training. A storm is coming. The international incident that is Tahiil’s death keeps her father away from home at odd hours.

There are good things, though. Addy says “Hawwy” for the first time. George ruffles her hair and says it’s getting long, setting off a long afternoon in which Fred absolutely butchers her hair with a pair of kitchen scissors before Ron rolls his eyes and fixes it.

(five)

Fifth year at Hogwarts is one of hormones. Somehow, it is simultaneously the most and least eventful of her Hogwarts years. A war may be brewing, but there is another war of young love and confessions and puberty. Pansy, Ron, and Draco are caught in some nightmare of a love triangle. Ginny kisses Luna who then offers to kiss Rigel as a way to ‘pass it on.’ Blaise and Abbott get engaged, as does Millicent, and Rigel feels uncomfortably like everyone has grown up too soon.

Rigel isn’t immune. Suddenly she’s aware of Fred’s grins and George’s hands in a way she’s never been before and doesn’t appreciate. Romilda Vane tries to love potion her but gets Theo instead, resulting in a thoroughly hilarious evening in which the entire dorm tries desperately to stop him from going to her—eventually resorting to Stunning—while Rigel brews the antidote and Snape castigates Vane into a puddle of regret and lost House points.

Meanwhile things are moving behind the scenes. Political opinion is swaying away from Muggleborn acceptance and inclusivity, helped along by Professor Umbridge's snide comments and endless detentions.

“We’re leaving, pup,” Fred tells her one day. “There’s nothing here for us anymore, and that toad’s banned us from Quidditch. We’re going out to help with the war. We’re opening our joke shop, too, so tell your uncles to watch their backs.”

“Figured we’d give you a heads up,” George says.

Harry’s words feel stuck in her throat. “Why a joke shop?” she forces out, aiming for playfulness.

“Think about it, pup, what makes life worth living?” George asks her, in that inscrutable way of his. She still can’t figure out their aspects.

Harry has the sudden urge to say You, but that would be unreal levels of much-too-real, so she settles for shrugging and keeping her face carefully neutral.

“What’s that look for, we’ll still see you all the time,” Fred teases. The twins are better at reading her than most anyone, and that includes Draco and his empathy.

”Will I?” she says, but it sounds much more vulnerable than intended, so she compensates by fluttering her dark lashes like she thinks a distraught widow might. “Who knows, your joke-shop fame might swell your heads until you forget all about poor Rigel.”

”Perish the thought!” They cry, scandalized. Fred even clutches at his heart, both of them breezing past the fragility she’s shown with careful thoughtfulness. At times their acute consideration is so humbling her heart twinges painfully. She’s not ready for them to push, so they won’t.

“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing your shop,” she says sincerely.

”It’ll be something to marvel at, surely,” Fred guarantees smugly.

”Ignore him, his head’s getting big already. Don’t get too weighed down here, pup,” George says kindly, eyes knowing. One day last summer, she had confided in them about how frightened she has become by the lives she leads. And they had told her—

”You’ll always be you,” Fred finishes her thought. “Harry or Rigel or pup, you’re still the same at heart.”

”Look out for any more Lees,” George says, lips twisting into something bitter, and fifth-year Rigel remembers what first-year Rigel hadn’t, that Lee Jordan had been the twins’ best friend, once upon a time.

The thought is saddening. She surprises them with a hug, figuring it’s the least she can do. “Thanks. Is there anything I can help with?”

There is, actually, and Rigel finds herself distracting Umbridge with polite questions about the Defense work until Fred and George can light the castle up with fireworks.

The rest of the year feels surprisingly dull. Rigel hadn’t realized how much Fred and George’s absence would affect her, but she finds herself wanting to talk to them about new pranks and the first-years she feels the buzz from only to remember they aren’t in the castle anymore. She wants to write them, but her burgeoning feelings are frightening beyond words, so she swallows that urge and dives back into studies. Months pass without contact, and eventually the dull ache of missing them fades away.

That summer, two very important things occur: Rigel gets her Mastery, and the war begins in earnest.

(six)

Sixth year, Rigel is the war inside of Hogwarts. She runs the Room of Requirement, hiding students away and emerging to smile blandly at the Carrows. She nurtures all those who make her senses hum, and they awaken right after another, pieces falling into place. The Others push the war effort the best way they know how.

Harry’s eyes positively glow with her awakening. She is Passion, Invention, Revolution. She is the manic energy of a genius, the sparking whirlwind of the brand of new ideas that set the world ablaze. But she is also the aloofness of a scholar withdrawing from humanity, the vicious power of a movement that charges through society and leaves corpses in its wake. Her domain is driven solely by the need to discover, which often walks hand-in-hand with the desire to improve the world, but every invention can be turned to evil, every flower ground into a poison. She heads the efforts inside Hogwarts with her Potions and her conviction, and it draws people to her side like moths to a flame.

Speaking of poison, Archie’s aura shimmers with the knowledge of Medicine and the rainbow beauty of Dreams. He excels at AIM, surrounded not only by Healers but by the young and fanciful, who dream perhaps more than anybody else. Taking to godhood with an almost suspicious ease, Hermione Granger wields her hungry Righteousness like a knife-sharp blade at his side. They work with the American government, convincing them to offer Britain’s struggling forces some aid, and it’s startlingly effective. Hermione’s connection with the Lower Alleys means a stunning information network, and in return she absconds with all the people she can.

Luna Lovegood remains one of their strongest despite her sole domain: the elaborate creatures she’s brought to life dog her steps and prove the strength of her Imagination. She dances through divinity with a grace that makes Harry smile and Molly fret. No one knows when she awakened, although Harry thinks she might’ve just been born knowing. Luna’s Nargles and Crumple-Horned Snorckacks carry their messages, and it’s more foolproof than any system Harry knows of. The Carrows cannot stop a message carried by a creature they will never believe exists, and Luna keeps floating through the castle, comforting first-years with her dreamy smile. Neville guards her steadily, his broad frame and strong jaw communicating his Growth. Harry remembers the round-faced boy she met first year and smiles.

The day Draco admits to her he doesn’t like what’s going on is one of triumph. Rigel brings him into the fold that very day, because she’s known this boy for years, knows he is petulant and spoiled but has never been evil. He teaches the little ones how to dodge and duel and throw up shields in the blink of an eye. Pansy teaches them a different method of protection, one of pretty compliments and innocent eyes, how to make yourself soft and tired until the tigers go away. Rigel grins at sweet Pansy's strong sense of Duty coupled with her mastery of Deception and loves her just the same.

Ron and Astoria pore over maps and plans, having been some of the first to retreat the room entirely. Snape and McGonagall grit their teeth and persevere, brittle but unwilling to break. They save the children they can, and the ones whose tongues are too sharp and tempers too hot they send to Binny, who takes them to Rigel. The Order works desperately outside Hogwarts’ walls, some Other, some not, saving children from experiments and workplaces from Death Eater attacks. Selwyn, Rookwood, and their son flee the country, Rosier covering their tracks while Zhou forges their identities and countless others. Riddle Sr. remains carefully neutral, which Harry will take if the alternative is him and his followers joining Voldemort.

Ginny’s Endurance is strong, and Harry’s known that since the end of her second year. She remains with Rigel outside the Room of Requirement until the very end, ignoring the comments that make her teeth grind and her nails dig into her palms.

This is the war.

And Rigel returns to the Room at night with her shoulders carrying fear. But there is laughter too, when Neville bites into a Canary Cream or the Animators send dancing caricatures of Fudge across the walls. Friendship and trust in interlinked hands and children who in those last days forgot about colors and wore hope writ across their faces and clutched in their palms.

What makes life worth living?

Harry learned love in a crib next to her brother in all but blood and a sunlit Burrow. She's touched fierceness and camaraderie in the Alleys and let Snape engrave discipline into her bones. Her double lives and facades fade away in the wake of what she has always been, something Fred and George have always found so effortless: good.

When Rigel's forces meet the Order, they clash head-on with these forces of hatred and discrimination, and they win. It isn’t because they have other powers, deeper powers, although that was certainly a vital part of it. It’s due to love and strength and conviction. Courage and loyalty and wisdom and ambition, so in the end it remains the same as it is in so many other universes, and the final battleground is Hogwarts. Children is where this war started, and it is where it will end.

(seven.)

The aftermath is messy. The contribution that is the might of being Other does mean fewer casualties than other Rigels and Harrys will know, but war will never mean no casualties. There are still bodies to bury and mourn (will she find Adrian among them? Caelum's mother?), and traces of Mordred’s followers to stamp out. Harry and Archie’s ruse is revealed to the world, and the shockwaves of that echo throughout all the people Rigel has touched during her years at Hogwarts.

But the first thing Harry does, once she has a moment to breathe, is to look for Fred and George. Because she’s figured it out, in that final battle, what makes life worth living. Upon seeing them, that dull ache she thought had faded roars back to life so aggressively it makes her knees a bit weak. It never really faded at all, she realizes.

“You guys are Life,” she pants, wheezing, “How?”

“We’ve always defied explanation,” Fred jokes. “Now, we haven’t seen or heard from you in quite a while, pup.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she says, quieting. “I had to pay you back for first year, though, didn’t I?”

“It’s a bit different when we’re in the middle of a war,” George grouses, and Harry laughs, because there’s really nothing to say to that.

“Alright, I was scared,” she admits, “But this past year I’ve learned certain things make life worth living.”

Fred and George perk up at that one.

“I’m not giving up my Potions,” she says stubbornly.

“We were never going to ask you to,” George says, voice hopeful. “So…”

Harry smiles. “So—”

Harry is a Slytherin. But she’s also a reckless one, as almost all her friends are fond of telling her. After years of staying quiet and being careful, she wants to be impulsive. She wants to do something just because she wants it.

So she kisses Fred, and then George, and then both again, blood roaring in her ears. What comes after is anyone’s guess, but I think we can hope for a happy ending.