Chapter Text
The war had ended two years ago.
For the first time in her life, Harriet Potter, going by Harri, could honestly say she was living instead of merely surviving.
It wasn't peaceful.
Peace, she'd learned, was a relative term.
There were still Death Eater remnants to hunt, cursed artifacts to recover, grieving families to help, and enough Ministry paperwork to qualify as its own form of torture. Kingsley Shacklebolt was doing his best to rebuild Magical Britain, Hermione was spearheading legal reform, Ron had joined the Aurors, and George... George was smiling again, even if the smile still carried traces of loss.
Life moved forward.
It had to.
Harriet had thrown herself into becoming an Unspeakable shortly after the trials concluded. The Department of Mysteries suited her in unsettling ways. It demanded curiosity, adaptability, and the willingness to stare into impossible things without losing yourself.
She'd always been rather good at impossible.
Outside of work, her greatest responsibility was a little boy with bright blue eyes and messy brown hair.
Teddy Lupin, now Teddy Potter-Lupin.
Remus and Tonks had entrusted him to the world with their deaths, and Harriet had promised at their graves that he would never know what it meant to be alone.
At only three years old, Teddy had already become the center of her universe.
He called her Mum more often than Harri now.
She had stopped correcting him months ago.
"...And then Uncle George made the teddy bear explode."
Harriet looked up from buttering toast.
"He what?"
"It was funny."
"I'm sure it wasn't."
"It was to Uncle George."
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I'll be having words with him."
Teddy giggled before taking another enthusiastic bite of toast.
Watching him laugh eased a part of her soul she'd thought Voldemort had destroyed forever.
It also made the nausea worth enduring.
Harriet discreetly pushed away her untouched tea.
Morning sickness.
Again.
She rested a hand against the barely noticeable curve beneath her loose jumper.
Three months.
Three unbelievable, terrifying, wonderful months.
She still hadn't quite accepted it.
If someone had told nineteen-year-old Harriet Potter that she'd survive Voldemort, adopt Teddy Lupin, become one of the Ministry's youngest Unspeakables...
...and somehow become pregnant after a one-night encounter with a stranger she'd met halfway across the world...
She would have laughed in their face.
Probably hexed them afterward.
Life, apparently, possessed an alarming sense of humour.
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Three Months Earlier
Department of Mysteries
Level Nine
Red warning lights flashed through corridors usually wrapped in silence.
"Containment Breach!" someone shouted.
"Artifact Vault Three has been compromised!"
Harriet sighed.
She had been two pages away from finishing an exceptionally fascinating report concerning temporal displacement when chaos inevitably found her.
Again.
"What happened?" she asked, already walking toward the disturbance.
Croaker appeared from around the corner.
"Rogue wizard. Stole an experimental portkey."
"Destination?"
"We don't know."
Harriet frowned.
"That's impossible."
"Normally."
He handed her a crystal.
She looked inside.
Every magical coordinate attached to the object had shattered.
"Oh."
"...Exactly."
Another Unspeakable skidded around the corner.
"He's activating it!"
Harriet was already running.
The rogue wizard burst through a security door clutching what looked suspiciously like an ordinary brass compass.
"Stop!"
He laughed.
"I'd rather not."
Magic erupted.
The Portkey activated.
Harriet lunged without thinking.
Her fingers caught the wizard's sleeve just as blue light swallowed them both.
The world exploded.
Normally Portkeys felt like being yanked through a very determined straw.
This felt like being folded inside out.
Harriet's own magic reacted violently.
Ancient wards carved into her very soul, the remnants of sacrificial magic, Hallows, basilisk venom, phoenix tears, and things the Department still hadn't identified collided with the experimental enchantments surrounding the Portkey.
The magical pathways shattered.
Reality hiccupped.
Then everything went dark.
She landed face-first on concrete.
"...Ow."
A loud horn blared nearby.
Harriet looked up.
Cars.
Towering glass buildings.
Bright electronic billboards.
People wearing suits hurried down sidewalks while somehow managing to ignore the witch lying in the middle of the street.
"...Definitely not London."
The rogue wizard staggered to his feet twenty yards away.
"You've got to be kidding me."
He saw her.
She saw him.
They both sighed.
Then they simultaneously drew their wands.
The duel lasted less than three minutes.
America, or wherever they were, was completely unaware of what was going on.
Invisible shields redirected curses upward.
Memory Charms subtly erased witnesses.
Harriet danced around blasting curses before stunning the wizard with enough force to send him through a newspaper stand.
She bound him.
Confiscated the Portkey.
Summoned an emergency Ministry mirror.
Kingsley's face appeared.
"...Harriet."
"I can explain."
"I sincerely hope so."
"The Portkey malfunctioned."
"...Where are you?"
Harriet looked around.
A massive globe rotated above one building.
A newspaper floated across the pavement.
The Daily Planet.
"...America?"
Kingsley blinked.
"You aren't asking."
"No."
Silence.
"...I'll have International Magical Cooperation open a retrieval point."
"Thank you."
"And Harriet?"
"Yes?"
"Try not to cause an international incident."
"I'll do my best."
The rogue wizard vanished through the emergency retrieval portal forty minutes later.
Harriet could have gone with him.
She didn't.
Instead, she stared upward.
Skyscrapers stretched toward the clouds like steel mountains.
No one knew who she was here.
No whispers.
No staring.
No "Harriet Potter".
No expectations.
Just...
Harriet, no Harri.
For perhaps the first time since she was eleven years old.
"...You know what?"
She smiled.
"I deserve a holiday."
Two hours later...
"This is ridiculous."
Three taxis had ignored her.
A fourth had driven straight past despite her very obvious attempts to wave it down.
Harriet glared after it.
"Oh, come on!"
Another one passed.
Nothing.
She threw her hands into the air.
"Merlin's left sock!"
People looked at her strangely.
"I have enough gold to buy the bloody taxi!"
Still nothing.
She looked toward the sky.
"Fine! I'll walk!"
Pause.
"...Except I don't know where I'm going."
She sighed dramatically.
"I just want a hotel."
Beat.
"With a comfortable bed."
Another sigh.
"And preferably a bar."
A warm laugh sounded behind her.
"I know one that checks all three boxes."
Harriet turned.
The man standing there looked like he'd stepped straight out of a magazine.
Tall.
Broad shoulders.
Dark hair slightly tousled by the breeze.
Clear blue eyes that somehow managed to look both kind and amused.
His suit fit perfectly, though he'd loosened the tie as if the workday had only recently ended.
He smiled sheepishly.
"I promise I wasn't eavesdropping."
"You absolutely were."
"A little."
"I was having a private argument with the universe."
"The universe seemed to be losing."
"Thank Merlin, I am usually the one who loses."
That earned another laugh.
He offered a hand.
"Clark Kent."
Harriet looked at his hand for a moment before shaking it.
His grip was warm and surprisingly gentle.
"Harriet Potter, well you can call me Harri."
"...Nice to meet you, Harri."
She smiled despite herself.
Maybe staying in America for a few days hadn't been such a terrible idea after all.
Neither of them noticed the impossible coincidence unfolding around them.
One carried magic older than recorded history.
The other carried the power of a dying world beneath ordinary human skin.
Their meeting should never have happened.
Yet somehow...
It felt as though fate had been waiting for this exact moment.
And somewhere far beyond either of their sight, destiny quietly smiled.