A Riddle to be Solved ch8 (Patreon)

Harriet Potter fiddled nervously as she waited in the Headmaster’s office.

It was jarring, how different this space that had always been so familiar now looked.

Gone were Dumbledore’s collection of gadgets and widgets that whirled around and made odd noises and sometimes blew puffs of smoke. This office was spartan, with the only decorations being the many pictures of young girls and women, along with a very handsome young man. These pictures were not only placed on top of the desks, but they actually replaced the portraits of the old Headmasters she remembered from Dumbledore’s office. That had truly shocked Harriet, she hadn’t thought it was allowed to remove those portraits. It made her wonder where they were being kept, since Dumbledore had obviously put them back up in his time.

The largest portrait in the room left her feeling supremely uncomfortable. It looked like a renaissance painting, but it was clearly recently made. A gorgeous brunette woman, who she recognized from the other picture frames, was lounging against a marble throne, heavily pregnant and with a toga draped over her.

Well, draped over her for a second. The moment she locked eyes with Harriet, the woman removed her toga and smirked at the teenager's tormented look as she exposed her naked body.

Harriet turned her head, deciding to look at a much more wholesome picture. It was that handsome, green eyed man, holding a young girl with black hair and green eyes in his arms.

The more Harriet looked at the man, the more she realized two things: he bore a passing resemblance to her father, and he had her exact shade of green eyes.

She wondered if the man was her ancestor, somehow, but she figured she would have known. Dumbledore would have told her if one of her ancestors had been the Headmaster of Hogwarts, especially so recently. Well, maybe not Dumbledore, the man liked to keep secrets from her, but definitely, Hermione would have found out about it and told her by now.

Thinking of Hermione sent a pang through her heart. She still held out hope that she’d be able to find a way back to her own time, but she needed to find this era’s Professor Dumbledore first if she wanted any chance to do that.

...

It had been a wild twenty-four hours for Harriet. First, she’d gone off with her friends on a poorly thought out mission to save Sirius, who was being tortured by Voldemort and his Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries.

Except he wasn’t. It had been a trap, and things had quickly devolved into a struggle for survival as six fifth year Hogwarts students tried to escape the clutches of the Dark Lord’s followers.

Then the Order had arrived, and things had looked up. For just a fleeting moment, she thought that her stupidity would not cost anyone their lives, not today.

But then her godfather had dueled his cousin, and she’d felt a knot in her stomach, as if she already knew exactly what was about to happen, deep down. Time had slowed down when Bellatrix’s curse had struck Sirius, when she’d seen the look of surprise on his face as he fell through the veil.

It was so innocuous. Sirius couldn’t be dead, not from that.

Her friends tried stopping her. Ron grabbed her sleeve, Remus saw her from across the room and tried to rush over, but he was stopped by two Death Eaters whom he was forced to engage, even as his desperate eyes pleaded with her not to do it.

But Harriet Potter had always been impulsive, and once she’d snapped her hand away from Ron’s grip, she’d not hesitated to rush off towards the veil and dive right in.

In hindsight, a dumb move amongst a series of dumb moves.

She’d come out the other side, finding herself in the same room, the same dais with the same veil, but it was absolutely empty.

Harriet was in a daze as she walked back the way she came. Some rooms were just as she’d left them, while others were missing crucial features. She'd gaped as she passed by the hall of prophecies, where every single shelf was empty, save for a single glass ball tucked away in a high nook.

She’d taken the lift out of the Department of Mysteries and back to the Atrium, which was as empty as it had been when she and her friends had walked into an ambush. The Fountain of Magical Brethren, the one that had featured a witch and a wizard towering over a centaur, goblin and house elf, was replaced by an even more grandiose statue. This one was of a wizard with a globe representing the world floating in the palm of his hand. The globe spun as it hovered, water cascading down the orb in a spiral pattern.

If Harriet had had any doubts before, they were completely erased when she passed by a newsstand, where she could clearly see that the date on the day’s Prophet read July 26, 1951.

She’d gone back in time, back in time over four decades. Her friends, her godfather, most of the order members, even her parents, none of them had been born yet.

She’d felt a surge of panic, but also a sense of excitement and determination. She had lost so much, but she’d gained an opportunity. Voldemort had yet to rise, he was still probably working at Borgin and Burke, if she could just get to professor Dumbledore and explain her situation, the two of them could figure out a way to stop Tom Riddle from starting the bloody conflict that had left the wizarding world in ruins.

The only issue right now was how exactly to get to Hogwarts. She hadn’t brought the broom she’d flown in on, obviously, and she had absolutely no money. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized she needed to find a way to Dumbledore and hope he believed her, otherwise she had nowhere to go and no way to pay for lodging.

“Are you alright my dear? You look lost?”

Harriet snapped out of her contemplation as she looked over towards the speaker. It was a kindly old man who was sitting near the main entrance to the atrium, manning the wand-inspection checkpoint. He was short and looked almost blind with glasses that threatened to consume his entire face and a thick, walrus-like mustache.

“Oh, er…” Harriet hesitated, before deciding it wouldn’t hurt to simply ask the man for directions to the school. “I…I need to get to Hogsmeade, but I don’t have any money.”

The man’s bushy eyebrows disappeared up into his shock-white hair, and Harriet feared she’d made a mistake somehow. “Why would you need money, dear? Are you planning on buying something there?”

She was confused by his response, but hoped that she could play along reasonably enough to not raise the man’s suspicions. “Yeah, I am actually, I was planning on getting some sweets.” She tried to be as vague as possible, worried that somehow things like Honeydukes or Chocolate Frogs didn’t exist yet.

She really should have paid better attention in History.

The old man leaned his head to the side, inspecting her with his right eye, which she guessed must be his good eye. “Are you not from England, young lady? I don’t know if the customs are different elsewhere, but there’s no need to pay for anything like sweets of floo here, not since the Great Day.”

“The Great Day?” Harriet asked, feeling a bit queasy at the way the old man had spoken those words.

“Indeed.” He said with a soft smile. Harriet waited for a moment, but the man refused to elaborate, and she was sure that asking about what this ‘Great Day’ was would put her under scrutiny. She needed to go see Dumbledore now, so she could get this stuff sorted out. “Silly me, I’m from the states, you see, first day in England…where could I find the floo then?”

The old man pointed his thumb behind him, where a line of about a dozen fireplaces were completely visible.

“Oh! Silly me! Thank you! They look completely different back in America.” Harriet rushed by the man, who just kept his same kind smile as he watched her grab a handful of floo powder and yell out “The Three Broomsticks” before being whisked away by the green flames.

Harriet arrived at the pub and, upon seeing that there was no one to greet her immediately, slipped on her invisibility cloak. She ran out of the pub and off to Honeydukes. She took only a momentary glance at the rest of the village (had it always been this big? Did the first war against Voldemort end up destroying all those houses she saw?) before she snuck into Honeydukes. In through the cellar and out the secret passage, and she’d arrived at Hogwarts.

...

Now, she was sitting in wait as she heard footsteps approach. Dumbledore wasn’t the headmaster, but this handsome young man was definitely not Armando Dippet, whom she remembered from Tom Riddle’s memories from the diary. The more she thought about it, the less sense things made to her. How could there have been such a young Headmaster right before Dumbledore? She didn’t remember his portrait at all from her multiple visits to Dumbledore’s office either. She was on the cusp of a realization, when the door swung open.

She had to hide a blush. He was good looking in pictures, but he was much more handsome in person, especially with that charming smile that made her heart flutter.

Behind him was the young McGonagall that still left her flabbergasted, along with a pair of overly excited young girls. She swore that one of the girls was a veela, considering the aura that wafted in with her as she and her sister both made a beeline for the headmaster’s desk.

The Headmaster smiled down at her before sending his daughters a stern look. "Girls, that's my seat."

The two girls had pulled back his chair and squeezed into it, hopping on the cushion in giddy excitement as they giggled while shooting Harriet mischievous looks. As she looked at them, Harriet noticed a nameplate, which should have been the first thing she’d looked for when entering the room, which read:

Harry J. Gaunt

Headmaster

At least she had a name now. Harriet smiled back at the girls as Headmaster Gaunt sighed, making his way around the desk as his daughters hopped off to allow him a seat before they jumped back onto his lap.

Harriet was filled with a warm feeling. It was similar to what she felt whenever she witnessed the Weasley family dynamic, but this was even stronger. She could actually picture herself being the Headmaster's daughter, picture herself sitting on his strong lap as he stroked her hair, letting her know what a good girl she was.

She shook off those weird thoughts, hoping the headmaster didn't notice the blush on her face.

"I'll leave you to it then, Headmaster." Young McGonagall said with a weird smile on her face before she made her exit.

It was such an uncanny experience for Harriet, seeing her professor not only be young but also act so playfully. Never in a million years would she have pictured her McGonagall with that smile on her face.

"So, Minerva tells me you're a transfer student from America."

Harriet braced herself, she would need to use her well-honed skills of deception to make the headmaster believe her hastily-concocted cover story. She needed to be at Hogwarts, she needed to find Dumbledore and she needed to make him believe her, only then could Voldemort be stopped before he sank the world into a reign of terror.

...

While Harriet had been quietly organizing her thoughts, preparing her lie, Harry had been reading her mind at a leisurely pace.

She was fascinating, so very very fascinating. Another version of him, from a world where the only noticeable difference was that he’d been born a girl. Everything else, from the cupboard under the stairs down to Hedwig and S.P.E.W. were carbon copies of Harry’s own life up until his fifth year at Hogwarts. She’d had a crush on Cedric instead of Cho, which led to even higher levels of teenage angst during most of her fifth year, but besides that, she was just as he had been: brash, innocent and in desperate need of love.

“Yes, I am.” Harriet said with a smile. “I moved here this past month, been getting settled in.”

Harry had a playful smile as Delphi and Fleur leaned forward, elbows on the desk as they looked like they were hanging off every word Harriet was saying.

Thankfully, as troublesome as the twin terrors were, he knew they were not going to interfere in this little game of his.

"Why haven't we received a letter from your guardians? That would be the most appropriate way of applying for entry." And he would enjoy playing with her ever so much.

Harriet's face fell, but she managed to play it off very quickly. "M-My parents were killed sir, during the war."

"My condolences." Harry said, using the appropriate amount of sombreness in his tone. "And you've been alone ever since? It must have been very difficult for you."

Harriet swallowed a lump in her throat, thinking about how difficult it truly had been for her. Her life had been a constant struggle, with very few moments where she could truly say she'd felt content. "It has…but I'm trying to move past it."

Harry nodded in understanding. "What year would you be entering in? Are you familiar with how the Hogwarts system works?"

"Erm…yeah, I've been reading up on it. I should be going into my sixth year."

"Do you have your grades? The O.W.L. equivalent…I always forget what you Americans call it."

She shifted around uncomfortably, "S-Sorry, no. I…I've been self-taught, ever since my parents passed."

Harriet looked up at him in worry, but Harry's kind smile assuaged her worries. He reminded her of the way Dumbledore could make it seem like everything was going to be fine.

"No worries, dear, I understand. I'm an orphan myself." Harry looked down at his daughters. "Girls, why don't you run off and try to find your sister?"

The two girls groaned in disappointment, but they knew not to argue with their father. They hopped off his lap, and Harriet swore she saw them add a little bit of extra oomph when they pushed their bums off his crotch.

"Nice to meet you, Harriet!" Delphi said in a sing-song voice.

"Can't wait to play with you!" Fleur added. The two girls devolved into giggles before they scurried off down the staircase, leaving Harry alone with himself.

"Sorry about them, they can be a bit of a handful."

"It's alright." Harriet said with a fond smile. "I'm kinda surprised, back in Ilvermorny, we didn't really see little kids running around."

Harry chuckled. "You'll find that holds true for Hogwarts as well. My situation is special, as the Headmaster, I chose to live here, and my family has its own wing in the castle."

"Wow!" Harriet couldn't help but be mesmerized by the thought of getting to live at Hogwarts. As dangerous as the school had proven to be over the years, it was her one true home, and she couldn’t count the amount of times she’d daydreamed about just hiding away when the Hogwarts Express came along to whisk her off to her relatives.

“Anyways, I don’t see why we can’t find a place for you at Hogwarts, Miss Peters. Of course, with no O.W.L.s in hand, I and some of my staff will need to do a quick evaluation. We can schedule for you to take the examinations over winter break just to have everything on paper.”

Harriet smiled nervously. She couldn’t believe it had been this easy, to just walk into Hogwarts and talk herself into a spot with not a single slip of paper in this world that could attest to her existence.

“Thank you! Thank you so much Headmaster!” She exclaimed, genuinely elated. After all the stresses she had been through over the past day, over the past year, she felt a deep need to relax. Maybe she’d take a few days before talking to Dumbledore, to just bask in a world where Voldemort wouldn’t rise for another two decades. A world of prejudices and evils and troubles all the same, but a much safer world than the one she’d come from.

There was only the issue of where she was going to stay. The old man at the Ministry had said many things were free here, but she doubted that would extend to lodgings. Maybe if she went to The Three Broomsticks and gave them her sob story, they would allow her to stay over the summer in exchange for work.

As if reading her mind, the next words out of Headmaster Gaunt’s mouth addressed just that. “I don’t mean to pry, Miss Peters, but…do you have permanent lodgings?”

Harriet’s throat felt dry as she prepared a quick lie that died before she could even spit it out. As she looked into the Headmaster’s gorgeous eyes, she found she could not lie to him, not about this, at least. “N-No sir. I…I’ve been moving from place to place, but I don’t really have much money.”

His smile warmed her heart, it made her wish he'd run the back of his hand over her cheek and comfort her, tell her everything was going to be ok.

"Well that just won't do." He tutted. "You'll be staying in the castle. And don't even think to say you're intruding." He stopped her before she could even open her mouth to protest. "Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."

Harriet stifled a gasp as he echoed the words Dumbledore had spoken to her a few years before. "Thank you, Headmaster." She said with a slight hitch in her voice.

"Please, you can call me Harry." She sent him an incredulous look. He responded with a wink. "At Least until classes begin, it might be more appropriate to call me Headmaster Gaunt then." He chuckled.

Harriet giggled, a silly little giggle that made her feel more self-conscious than ever about her short stature and her thin figure.

"Now come, Harriet, let me show you to your quarters."

Harry looked on in amusement as his female counterpart pretended like she didn't know the castle like the palm of her hand.

...

He led her to a room in his family’s wing of the castle, though she didn’t know that.

Harriet looked around the bedroom, the sight of the bed itself instantly reminding her just how exhausted she truly was. After all that had transpired, she hadn’t even had time to truly process the fact that Sirius…she would find him! If she’d ended up in the past after falling through the veil, then the same must have happened to him!

But first, she needed to rest.

“I think we can get you a new wardrobe when we go purchase your school supplies.” Harry said, giving Harriet a mini heart attack as she realized how suspicious it must seem that she had literally nothing on her person outside of her wand. Well, she had her cloak, but she wasn’t going to reveal that little tidbit. Either way, she was starting to think that Headmaster Gaunt knew or at least suspected that she wasn’t telling the full truth. She couldn’t help but be thankful that he was choosing to help her. She was sure many other Headmasters would have kicked her to the curb or at least gotten the Ministry involved if they thought there was some kind of deception involved.

“Thank you, for everything, Harry.” she said, testing out his name for the first time.

“Don’t worry, just rest. I’m sure you’ve been through a lot, Harriet, but you’re safe now.”

She watched him leave, her eyes lingering on his broad shoulders. She threw herself on the bed, thoughts of Sirius and her friends and Voldemort swirling around in her head. But as her head hit the pillow and she passed out completely, the most prominent images were the handsome face of her new Headmaster, and those bright green eyes that looked so much like her own.

...

Harriet awoke to a dark room. For a second, she panicked, not recognizing where she was, until it all came flooding back to her. The Department of Mysteries, the veil, traveling to the past.

She felt a headache coming, though thankfully it wasn’t one of the Voldemort induced ones she’d become so well-acquainted with over the past year.

Moonlight shone in through the open window. It was a waxing gibbous, or an almost full moon in common terms. She glanced down at herself and blanched when she saw she had been changed into some plain white nightclothes at some point during her sleep. She whipped her head around in a panic, searching desperately until her eyes landed on the nightstand next to her.

Her invisibility cloak was neatly folded with a note lying on top. It was written in a scribble that looked familiar, though she could not currently place it.

She reached out gingerly and grabbed onto the note, which read:

I took the liberty of having the elves clean your clothes and change you into proper nightwear. They handed me this, and I asked them to return it to you.

Just, please, don’t let my daughters see you using it.

Harry

Harriet fell back onto the bed, letting out a deep sigh. Harry truly was one of the kindest men she’d ever met, and she’d only known him for half a day. She was now more sure than ever that she could trust him. Trust him about Voldemort, and trust him in her search for Sirius. She would confide in him even before talking to Dumbledore. More than anything, she felt the burning need for him to hold her close, to soothe her pain.

Sleep claimed her once more as she snuggled deeper into the thick comforter.

...

The next morning, Harriet found the elves had left her a change of clothes. She showered and got changed, leaving her invisibility cloak behind as she left her room.

She immediately made to walk downstairs for breakfast, an automatic reaction borne from years of repeating the same action when she woke up.

She didn’t make it far past her room before she bumped into a girl that seemed to have been heading for her room.

“Oh, hey, you’re up early.” The girl said as she stopped in her tracks.

Two things popped into Harriet’s mind when she saw the girl. The first was that she could easily picture her being her little sister in another life. She shared many of her features, though her hair was nowhere near as messy and her face was heart-shaped compared to Harriet’s more rounded facial structure.

The second was that if you put her and Harriet next to each other and asked people who the time traveler was, Harriet was certain most people would pick this girl.

She wore all black. Black lipstick and liberally applied black eyeliner that made her skin look that much more pale. Her hair was cut short, with the longest strands barely reaching past her ears. She wore a studded black choker. Her nails were painted black, though each nail also had hot pink runic designs painted on. That was the only discordant color, as her t-shirt, skirt and shoes were also black, along with the elbow-length fingerless gloves she wore.

Harriet was thrown for a loop. How could this girl exist in this decade?

“It’s rude to stare, you know.” Lyra said after Harriet’s silent gawking stretched on for far too long. “Ugh, daddy told me to bring you over for breakfast, so could you please come along before those little monsters try to steal my food?”

“S-S-Sorry!” Harriet said hastily, a bit taken aback by the girl’s attitude. “By monsters, you mean your little sisters?”

Lyra’s face softened, “Yeah, they’re a bit more than a handful. I’m Lyra, by the way.” She stuck her hand out.

Harriet shook it, noting that she felt many callouses through the thin fabric of the glove, not at all the smooth skin she was expecting. “Harriet.”

“Nice to meet you, Harriet, now come on, not even daddy can keep Delphi and Fleur reined in for long.”

‘“Fleur?” Harriet gasped out, her face paling.

“She’s the blonde one, she likes to burn anything she can get her hands on so don’t even think about leaving stuff around for her to grab or it's gone.” Lyra’s voice carried on the annoyed tone that only an older sibling who had dealt with their bratty little sister for years could achieve.

Harriet followed as Lyra led her down a few hallways. She realized they were in what in her time had been the Faculty Tower, though now it looked much more like a family living space. None of the portraits from her time at Hogwarts were there, replaced by pictures of Harry and his family.

She felt a twinge of something, a queasiness in her stomach.

None of it made any sense.

The Headmaster’s daughter was named Fleur. He was so young, Hogwarts was so different. Heck, the Ministry and Hogsmeade had been so different when she’d seen them. She remembered all those extra houses she’d caught a glimpse of when she’d run through Hogsmeade. She realized that if Harry was the Headmaster, and McGonagall was already teaching transfiguration, that didn’t leave much room for Dumbledore to be teaching anything.

She wasn’t only in the past, she was in a completely different world. A world where Voldemort might not even exist.

The room started spinning as Harriet was certain she was going to faint.

“Hey! Glasses! Don’t you dare throw up on my shirt!”

Harriet snapped back to reality. Lyra was holding her up, and she realized that though the girl was clearly younger, they were both the same height. Harriet felt the knot in her stomach untangle, and her nausea receded almost as quickly as it arrived. For some reason she could smell dittany.

Lyra held up her hand with a grin, “Well, at least I know it works.”

The girl had in her hand a fan, just like the small handheld electronic ones Harriet had seen the few times she’d gone to the mall, or in infomercials on tv. Except this fan was made of wood, and it was etched all over with roughly carved runes. The rotating blades of the fan were made of dittany leaves.

‘What is that?” Harriet asked, forgetting for a moment her earth-shattering realization.

“I just finished it yesterday when you arrived. It can transfer the healing properties of magical plants and herbs through the air. Doesn’t work as well as potions do, but it’s really good in a pinch, like when your guest is about to hurl all over you.”

Harriet blushed. “That’s brilliant. I thought you were a first year.”

Lyra shrugged. “I was, will be going into my second year now.”

Harriet was awed at this girl’s absolute genius with magic. She hoped Lyra was a special case, and that not everyone here was this skilled, otherwise she might be embarrassed and end up a first year.

For her part, once she was satisfied that Harriet wasn't about to collapse on her, Lyra resumed their short march over to the family dining room.

“Hey, Lyra, is there a professor Dumbledore teaching here?” Harriet asked tentatively, hoping Dumbledore wasn’t some mass murdering dark lord in this world.

Lyra shot her a weird look. “Dumbledore? Definitely not.” the girl glanced up in thought, “I think he was teaching when I was really little. He got blown up in Paris.” she shrugged.

Harriet was stunned. Dumbledore, blown up in Paris? This was definitely a completely different world.

She needed to know what had happened here, as soon as possible. But, a large part of her had bubbled with a selfish hope. This place seemed so nice and peaceful, with a kind Headmaster whose family lived with him in the castle and invented cool little things like dittany fans. Maybe, just maybe, she could forget all about Voldemort, all about the war and her friends and saving the goddamn world.

Maybe she could just be Harriet for once.

She needed to know more, she would need to make a trip down to the library.

Lyra had stopped in front of one of the few portraits that was just like her world, an oil painting of a trio of owls huddled together for warmth on a cold winter’s night, which swung open without the need for a password.

This room struck Harriet by how…normal it was. It could almost pass for the Weasley's kitchen, if the table hadn't been made of marble and and the chairs weren't all tufted leather and the tableware wasn't all gold and silver.

But the way Delphi and Fleur threw food at each other, ignoring a dark haired young woman who continued to scold them in between long suffering sighs made Harriet want to tear up. Especially since the woman reminded her of Sirius, for some odd reason.

McGonagall was there as well, and once again Harriet was taken aback as she saw her professor giggle at the little girl's antics.

Then there was the head of the table. Harry was there, and all Harriet wanted to do was run over and hug him, to ask him to protect her and cherish her and hold her close.

Next to Harry was a woman holding a baby, a very young baby. Harriet was sure it was a newborn. A newborn baby girl with violet eyes that seemed to be looking at everyone with great curiosity.

And the woman holding the baby was the woman from the painting, the one that had flashed her so lewdly. Harriet met her eyes, and she felt equal amounts of dread, familiarity and something else she wasn't quite sure about.

She was absolutely stunning. Her dark hair and eyes, along with her bombastic figure, made the words 'demon queen' pop up in Harriet's head for some reason.

"Ah, Harriet! You're here. You must have been really tired, slept on right through the night!" Harry said jovially as he waved her over.

Harriet sat down next to Harry, with Lyra at her right. Everyone introduced themselves, and she almost spit out her sip of lime juice when the lady that had been scolding the twins turned out to be Walburga Black. Sirius' mother!

How could this nice, demure lady be the same person as the screeching banshee from her world?

"And this, of course, is my gorgeous wife, Emily." Harry finished the introductions.

Emily smiled at her, and Harriet felt like she was a gazelle being sized up by a hungry leopard, ready to strike at her delicate neck. She had the eyes of a predator.

"Its a pleasure, Harriet." Her voice sent a shiver down her spine, and Harriet hesitated when the woman held her hand out for her to shake. The long, spidery fingers of her pale hand made Harriet's stomach turn in knots, reminding her of another hand, this one ashen white and monstrous.

She gulped, but she held her hand out to shake Emily's all the same. She expected her hand to burn, for pain to flare up in her scar, but when their hands touched, she felt none of that.

But there was definitely a jolt of electricity that passed through them as she shook the woman's cold hand. Almost reflexively, her hand went to touch her scar, which she realized had not bothered her ever since she'd arrived here. Even under normal circumstances, there was always a dull throbbing pain emanating from it that she'd just learned to live with, but even that was gone now.

"What a peculiar scar." Emily said as her eyes drifted over her forehead. And then the woman did something brash, she actually brought her hand up to Harriet's forehead, moving her bangs away from her forehead to run her fingers over the scar.

Harriet hissed, but more out of instinct than anything. She felt no burning, and Emily's cool fingers felt soothing over the scarred flesh.

Then another hand went to her face, and this one felt warm and paternal.and just right. Harriet leaned in as Harry's hand was on her cheek, his thumb rubbing her soft flesh.

"Is Harriet going to be our new sister?" Fleur asked from the other side of the table.

Harriet's eyes snapped open and she pulled her head back, realizing where she was and who else was on the table. She looked at the others with a blush, but none of them seemed at all surprised by what had just happened. Delphi and Fleur were smiling at her. McGonagall and Walburga were too, lookin at her kindly as they continued to eat their breakfast.

Lyra was looking at her with interest, urging her to say yes.

"It depends, dear." Harry's voice, that deep, masculine voice that sent tingles running up and down her body, made her head snap back over to the two adults that were still touching her. "Do you want to be my daughter, Harriet?"

"W-W-What?" Harriet tried to pull her face away as it burned with the deepest blush of her life, but their hands kept that from happening. Even the violet eyed baby, which hadn't been introduced yet, was looking up at her with an expectant look.

"Do you want to be daddy's baby girl?"

She stared up into his handsome face, those emerald green eyes that promised safety and security and warmth. Her throat dried, she felt mortified, her heart pounding into her chest, but she also felt a well of excitement.

After all that had happened to her, all the pain and suffering, Harry's offer made her feel like the moment she'd opened her Hogwarts letter for the first time, like she could finally find happiness.

"Y-Yes." She heard herself say in a shaky voice. Harry and Emily smiled, their hands pulling back from her face.

"Wonderful. Then come, sit on daddy's lap." Harry pulled his chair back a few inches, giving enough space for Harriet's scrawny frame to fit through.

Harriet felt her breath leave her. Once again, she looked around. The twins were giving her jealous looks, but no one else batted an eye. Lyra nudged her with her shoulder, trying to get her moving.

Harry's wife, Emily, still had that same smile, the smile that both terrified and excited Harriet in equal measure.

Harry patted his lap, and he smiled at her in a way that made her hate to have made him wait at all. She got up from her chair, took two steps and settled down on his lap.

She'd never been this intimate with someone. She'd never even been able to kiss, not after her first crush had died at the hands of the Dark Lord.

She settled into Harry's lap, blushing as she wriggled her bum around to get settled in, feeling something massive press up against her bum.

This whole situation was insane, it was absolutely crazy, and yet she felt nothing but comfort as Harry's strong arms wrapped around her waist and he placed a warm kiss on the back of her neck that sent electricity running throughout her whole body.

And then, things just continued on as normal. The family kept eating their meal. Harry insisted on feeding her, and Harriet found herself happily accepting forkfuls of eggs and bacon from Harry. The baby cried, and Emily handed her over to Walburga, who without any compunction pulled one of her large breasts from her white halter top and cradled the babe in her arms, who immediately latched onto her nipple and began nursing.

Nothing weird about that, just a nursing mother. Though Harriet noted that none of the women here looked like they'd given birth recently.

Harry pulled her against his broad, muscular chest, and all Harriet wanted to do was sink into it. She kept shooting glances at Emily, but Harry's wife only smiled at her. At one point, she ran the back of her hand down Harriet's face, and the girl had to admit she was warming up to the woman's touch.

Meanwhile, Harry's hand had dropped to rest on her thigh, and she felt a burning sensation where his hand was touching her bare skin. She realized that the skirt she'd been given to wear had been rather short, and the cotton of her pink panties was clearly visible as Harry's hand trailed upward.

"W-What is going on?" She gasped as Emily's hand trailed down her collarbone.

Harry shushed her. "Just relax, daddy and mummy will take care of you from now on. You've been fighting long enough, you can just relax and be Harriet here. There are no Dark Lords for you to fight, only love, the love you've been searching for for so long."

Harriet's eyes widened in shock, even as their hands continued to roam freely over her body. "Y-You know?!"

It was Delphi who smacked her lips. "Duh! You think daddy would fall for that stupid story?"

"Delphi, don't be a bitch." Lyra warned, both her sisters stuck their tongues out in response.

She felt Harry slide her panties down her thigh as Emily's hand slipped under her shirt, groping at her small breasts.

"Don't worry, Harriet, we're all family here. We'll love you unconditionally. You'll have a daddy and a mummy and all the little sisters you always wanted."

"And aunts, too." Minerva added from her place across the table.

Her panties were at her ankles now, and when Harry sat her back down on his lap, she felt skin on skin contact.

Her heart almost burst out of her chest as her eyes shot down and widened into saucers.

Poking out from the cleft of her virgin pussy waw a towering, thick slab of meat. It looked almost grotesque, especially since it was out here, in the middle of what should have been an innocent family breakfast.

"Daddy! That's not fair! She just got here and she gets to ride it before us?" Delphi whined.

"Now, now, you girls know you're still too young." Emily warned.

"Are not! We can fit our whole arms in each other now!" Fleur said with crossed arms.

Harriet felt Harry's cock twitch against her at those words, clearly aroused by his daughters words.

The innocent world she thought she was living in twisted as she looked around. All the women on the table were shifting around in obvious states of arousal. Even Walburga, who was still nursing the baby, was sultrily biting her lips.

She felt a pair of lips press up against her ear.

"I'm going to fuck you now, Harriet. I'm going to make you mine."

She squeaked, her whole body burning up as her breath quickened. She needed to put a stop to this, had to. But she felt so right in his arms, and she felt so at home at this table, and the pain in her scar was completely gone. It all just felt so perfect.

"Yes daddy." She heard herself answer.

Harry lifted her up. Emily's hand went down to hold his cock in place as he sat her on it.

Harriet had masturbated, she'd used toys she'd gotten off Lavender, so she was no stranger to penetration.

But the feeling as Harry sank her down on his cock, the sensation of his massive stick of fuckmeat spreading her open and slowly sliding into her velvety walls, that feeling was indescribable, and it was heaven on earth.

"Daddy!" Harriet yelled as she was finally filled completely by Harry's cock.

There was a hand under her chin, tilting her head to the side. Emily was there, that predatory smile still on her face. She leaned forward and began kissing her jawline, and Harriet moaned once again.

All around her on the table, she saw the other girls begin to move. Skirts were hiked up, exposing fresh young cunts. Lyra was wrangling Fleur in order to force the younger girl to eat her out, Delphi had climbed on Minerva's lap and the older girl kissed her as if she were a long lost lover.

All Harriet could think as her daddy began to move inside of her was that she'd finally found what she'd most wanted. After all those years in the cupboard under the stairs, after the trials and tribulations of Hogwarts, after having her hopes with Sirius so cruelly snuffed out, she had finally found a family.

Note- I usually don't cut smut scenes in half like that, but I felt like the chapter would go too long if I wrote the scene out completely. You can expect the next chapter to start out right where this one left off