Chapter Text
“Do you know the feeling of your life shattering around you?”
Harriet Potter wouldn't say that she exactly knows the feeling. It was true that everything she had ever known was put to test when her parents revealed themselves to be less dead than she thought they were, it was true that she may have felt like everything around her was breaking into small, tiny, irreparable pieces, and it was true that, at the time, she believed that her life did, in fact, shatter around her like one of Aunt Petunia's favorite crystal vases.
However, Harriet was no longer that dead eyed, 11 year old girl she once was. She was older now, more mature, and had a lot more wisdom than she did when she was 11 ('just a child-').
It was later when Harriet became a grown woman with a new life and a new definition of family that she understood that her life- it didn't shatter around her at all. It never did.
What happened was that a new window had opened- a slot where new possibilities of all kinds flooded around her like a typhoon- a maelstrom of ideas and decisions that would dictate the course of the rest of her life.
Yes. Her life may have cracked a bit- seemingly too broken and irreparable; however, it did not shatter.
No.. it never did shatter.
It's funny how a single instance in your life could turn everything you ever knew- everything you thought you ever knew- upside down.
Harriet Potter got hurt on the day the truth was uncovered. You may even say that a part of her had died that day, in the living room of the house she was a slave in. Scared, gentle, sweet little Harriet Potter; The-Girl-Loathed-And-Belittled-By-Everyone.
'I feel lifeless,' She had thought, 'I feel numb.' She had reiterated for the benefit of her stricken brain.
It didn't help the blistering agony inside her chest.
It didn't help it never helped it never will it never cOULD-
Pain pain pain loneliness loneliness loneliness who am I what am I why is this happening why DID this happen how why?
Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy-
Why…
In the summer of 1991, just a little over a day after the final hour of July, Harriet Potter knew what it was like to lose control of her life.
Her thoughts. Her feelings. Her relationships.
Her life as she knew it. Her meager happiness.
Though she never did quite feel the joy that the others around her dipped in on the daily, she was content. She hated her life, but she at least could rest knowing that her parents wanted her- that they probably died for her.
She was content and was more than willing to bide her time until the day she gets to leave her Aunt's care.
Then a knock came on the door and changed everything.