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Chapter Text

The curse hits Lily square in the chest.
She feels her body go cold.
But she, her soul, is still alive.
She watches over her screaming son as Severus comes to cradle her body and ignores her injured and afraid infant.
Severus swears that the room gets colder and darker, but he shrugs it off, unaware that Lily is reaching for him with murder in her heart.
She isn't a ghost, he can't seem to see or sense her. But she isn't a wraith either. She's a spirit, which she remembers is different to a ghost, as she had completed her goal, but had simply refused to leave out of force of will.
Rage settles in where her stomach should be as Severus sneers at her infant son for his dark hair and leaves him in a crumbling building, his little pale hands reaching for the cooling corpse of his mother.
"Hush hush, sweet one." She comforts him, and he seems to look for her. At least Harry can hear her.
"It'll be okay, Ionuín." She whispers, and he begins to close his eyes sleepily.
Lily herself feels exhausted, and she finally let's herself rest when she hears Sirius.
It's okay now, Padfoot will look after her baby.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

They gave her fucking child to Petunia, and Lily knows that her will hasn't been read because it was spelt out in every way she could think of at the time to tell them not to do that. She would willingly have given Harry to Lucius Malfoy before her sister.
So Lily now has to hover as her sister treats her son like a slave, and allows her husband to beat him.
Harry is older now, so much like James but only in looks. The darkness in his emerald eyes is all Lily, the way he holds himself and grits his teeth is Lily. The way he sits awake at night and his eyes track every little cobweb and muse on every question in the universe.

When Harry turns seven, and his accidental magic starts to be punished with beatings, Lily loses what little she has left of her temper and affection towards the thing that was her sister once.
She has had six years to practise her magic in this form, and now she uses it.
Her sister spends exactly 43 minutes in the bathroom each night. She showers, moisturises, brushes her dark hair (that she dyes as Vernon said the red natural hair was alarming), and inspects her face for wrinkles.
On the evening of the 15th of July, a figure with fire red hair and green eyes stood within her mirror, and spoke.
Softly, sweetly.
The tone did not match the words.

☆☆☆☆☆

Harry doesn't know what's happening, but he woke up in the morning to his aunt Petunia fidgeting in the doorway of his cupboard, and asking if he would like his own bedroom.
He nods, and bites his tongue to keep from smiling when he hears his mama snort from the side.
Aunt Petunia helps him move his clothes and the few toys he has that he stole from Dudley, and she doesn't comment on the books she knows were gifts to her son who will never read them.
"You can sort through the things in here, pile up the broken things in the hallway and I'll take them to the bins." She says, and Harry watches her with a tilted head. He nods, and thanks her softly, and the woman all but runs from the room.
"What did you do, mama?" He asks the air, and Lily widens her eyes. Harry has never tried to directly speak to her before, usually just listens to her on his bad days when she whispers stories or magic and Hogwarts to soothe him.
"Told her some home truths." She decides to say, and her son gives the ceiling a sly look that tells her he knows she's full of shit, before he moves to the full shelves in the room.
The books all get kept, it seems Harry is a reader, and Lily makes a note to make sure Tuney takes him to get glasses that fit him. A soft plush of a moth gets kept, is placed gently on the bed. A tub of legos next, which he slides under the bed.
Things that get tossed out are the broken toys, the sports related items, and anything Harry remembers coming from Aunt Marge. Lily growls a little at the memory of her sister allowing that woman to unleash dogs against her son.
Eventually, the room looks like a child's room, with a neat floor, bookshelves full, plushes on the bed and the beginnings of a lego spaceship on the windowsill.
Harry gazes around in wonder, then lays back on his new bed.
"Can you tell me about the time Auntie Marlene dyed her hair green again, mama?"
Something old and bruised aches in Lily when she thinks of Marlene, Dorcas, Alice, Frank, Sirius, Remus, Fabian, Gideon and James. (Who may not all be dead but they better hope they are because if none of them checked on her son, she will kill them herself).
Nevertheless, she will not allow Harry to grow up without the memories of the aunts and uncles who would have doted on him.
"Marlene was going on a date with the cutest girl in our year, Dorcas. Your auntie. We were sixteen and Marlene was a total mess. The rest of the dorm tried to calm her down, but it wasn't for happening. Marlene decided to dye her hair, thinking a small change would ease her nerves. She asked a Ravenclaw called Marcus Abbott to give her some. He did so, saying that the bottle had been meant for Peony Parkinson but she had changed her mind last minute. Little did Marlene know that your dad had been trying to prank the Slytherin girl, and had changed the colour of the dye-"
She loses herself in the story, giggling along with her son.
"Did auntie Marlene marry auntie Dorcas?" Harry asks sleepily.
Lily thinks she might cry if she could.
"No, sweetheart. The bad man took her away before they could marry. They're both together again now though." She tells him, and Harry falls asleep, leaving Lily to watch him and grieve before she leaves to find Petunia.
"How much does Dumbledore pay you to look after him?" Lily asks her sister, who flinches and tells her.
£5000 a month.
"Quarter of that goes to him. Open an account in his name and put £800 in each month. Give the rest to him to buy things for his room." Lily commands, and Petunia cowers.

Harry wakes up the next day to crisp notes on his bedside table, and a note inviting him to eat breakfast with them.

He goes down, expecting to have to cook, but is instead greeted with a plate of pancakes. While smaller than Dudley's, it's still a meal, and it's endlessly precious to Harry.
Dudley seems to have been spoken to, as he won't look at Harry, and Vernon isn't anywhere to be seen.
"Thank you, aunt Petunia." Harry says softly, and he goes to wash up and make everyone cups of tea without being asked. He's a kind boy that way, and Petunia feels guilt pool in her stomach when she thinks of what she allowed Vernon to convince her to do to a child. She hopes the divorce papers go through quickly, Lily's words ringing in her ears.
"What if Dudley one day makes a mistake in his eyes? What if Dudley turns out to be gay or really be a girl trapped in a boys body? I know you would love him all the same, but can you look at your husband who has been abusing you since you were seventeen and tell me that Dudley would be safe from the same fate or worse that you dealt my son?"

Lily was right.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

The years passed quickly, and Petunia starts to make up for the things she did. She still hates magic, but how more for the things it caused her to lose than bitterness towards her sister and Severus. Who now haunted her house, and somehow Petunia was okay with that.
She had more than enough money in the monthly stipend and from the divorce settlement that they could live comfortably, and Harry turned out to be a very sweet boy who she began to love as an aunt should love her nephew.
Dudley's grades began to improve, and he confessed that Vernon didn't want to have a swot for a won. Petunia had promised her smart boy that it was okay to do well, and told him that it was also okay to hang out snd study with Harry if both boys wanted to.
A tentative friendship began between the boys, and Lily watched over them like hawks. Eventually, she began to talk to Dudley too, willing him to hear her.
By the time they were nine, Dudley loved his cool aunt Lily.

Things were okay, Harry was safe.

Lily gives a feral smile that chills the house to the core, and she tells the boys and Petunia that she's going to visit someone.
Petunia had an inkling who, and smiles towards her sister who is a little more corporeal these days. She promises to take the boys to the zoo.

Lily departs, and within moments she is in Scotland.
Now it's Dumbledore's turn.

Chapter Text

Dumbledore sits in his office.
He will die there.
Lily Evans (invisible, unnoticed, feral and ethereal, looked down on by the gods who will smile upon her blood thirst) reaches out a hand, and when the ice cold soul-flesh wraps around the old man's heart, the last thing he sees are emerald green eyes.
She floats through the halls, giving a wink to Peeves who bows to her like he used to bow to James, and she reaches the kitchens.
House-elves are funny little creatures, and they can see spirits as easily as they can see ghosts. They remember their little miss Lily who was kind and employed the ones who the wix deemed too old or too disobedient and gave them homes. They see the murder that stains her soul and they smile with their pointed little teeth, and when she asks that they lay Dumbledore's sins out for the aurors to see when they are called, they cheer and dance with her until she feels the gentle magic that is her sweet little boy searching for his mama.
She leaves, and she smiles, and when the Daily Prophet arrives in the morning, Petunia gives her a knowing smile.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

By the time he turns eleven, Harry knows about his family, has been to Gringotts with his mama by his side (seen and grinned upon by goblins who call her Máthair Rua, red mother, bloody mother, vengeful mother), and is caught up to other heirs in his education.
His heir ring sits on his finger, a thing of flashing silver and opal stones. His title is Heir Hadrian James Potter, Heir to the Houses of Potter, Black, Peverell. Saviour of the Wixarding world.
As Lily watches Harry and Dudley play tag in the garden after he responds to the letter, she flashes away to a modest cottage in the Highlands.
Remus Lupin is dragged back home kicking and screaming by the furious spirit of his best friend, and he cannot be happier when he lays eyes on Harry after ten years.
Remus takes Harry to get his shopping, and in hindsight, Lily should have known not to let the pair of them anywhere near a bookstore with a heir ring connected to a trust vault that could buy the country. Spells were needed to expand Harry's bedroom for the sheer amount of books he purchased, but to be fair to him, he did get all the necessary texts for at least his first three years at Hogwarts.
Lily tells him a story every single night, about his father or his grandparents (Dorea and Charlus, feral like lions and murdered like they meant nothing - Lily would avenge them on behalf of their son and grandson).

Harry fell asleep each and every night dreaming of a magical castle, and wonders how he will ever sleep without her voice.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Harry gets on the train with minimal tears after his mama (invisible to humans, but her voice tells him that purebloods have as much creature in them as wix, and how neither Potter nor Peverell were on the human end of the spectrum) tells him to reach for her with his magic like he always has done and she will come to him always.
The boy smiles, and turns to bid goodbye to Petunia, who ruffles his hair and presses lunch in a bento box that Dudley helped her make into his hands. Dudley sniffles beside her and makes him promise to come home for Christmas, and Harry grins at the bigger boy and nods.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Harry glamours his compartment, needing time to adjust alone to the concept of not having his mama beside him. He reads his books and plays with the playful Eagle owl that bonded to him, and feels more like Heir Potter by the time the train reaches Hogwarts.

They're greeted by McGonagall, who Harry remembers from his mama's stories, and explains the process to them. Harry tones her out, having known about it since he was a little boy, and instead gazes out to the children who surround him.
When the headmistress leaves, Harry smiles and corrects his posture, and approaches a pair of boys who seem to be building up into a fight.
Red hair, freckles, kind brown eyes. A Weasley, likely one of the children of Molly that his mama told him had cared for her when she was sick.
The other boy has ice white hair and grey eyes, and he is doing his best to appear cruel but Harry can sense that he is just afraid.
"A fight in the entrance hall will be detrimental to our reputations no matter what house we join." He states mildly, and they both spin to see him.
The blonde recovers from shock first, and smoothes his sneer into a pleasant smile after glancing down and seeing the gleaming heir ring on his hand.
"Well met. I'm Draco Malfoy, Heir to the House of Malfoy." He states, and Harry raises an eyebrow at the scoff the Weasley gives in disgust.
"Well met. Hadrian Potter, Heir to the Houses of Potter and Black. I believe we are cousins." He says, and the blonde relaxes and smiles as they clasp hands.
"You're Harry Potter!" The Weasley blurts loudly, and quite rudely. Harry did not give him leave to use his name.
"Hadrian, please." He corrects. Harry is a name reserved for his mama, Moony, Aunt Tuney and Duds.
"But-" The ginger looks affronted, and a girl with honey blonde hair and a sweet smile intervenes.
"Just because he is a celebrity for something he may not even remember doing, does not mean he deserves any less the respect you would give any other. He has asked you to use his full name, and I encourage you to do so. He saved our world. The least you can do is call him by the correct name." She says, her tone even and polite and never changing, even when her eyes flash with rage for a moment or two.
She reminds him of his mama.
When the ginger nods and leaves, and Draco goes to find another cousin, Harry smiles to the girl.
"Thank you for the save, I was trying to be polite. Well met, I'm Heir Hadrian Potter, of Houses Potter and Black. You are?"
"Heiress Susan Bones, Heir to the House of Bones. Well met, Heir Potter." She says, and he gives a bow. She gives a smile that is all diplomat, and takes his arm as the doors open once more.
In pairs, the children descend down the hall with echoing claps in their ears, and the sorting hat upon a stool before them.
In another world, Susan Bones is a Hufflepuff. In this one, she wears green and silver, an unflappable smile on her lips. A politician more than a child.
In another world, Draco Malfoy follows his parents into Slytherin. In this one, he is kind and sweet and assured of his mother's love. He wears yellow and black and is kind to the point of cruelty.
In another world, Hadrian James Potter is a lion through manipulation from old men with too much power. In this world, his eyes gleam with knowledge and his pockets are weighed with books, and Rowena Ravenclaw would have wept with joy to see him sorted within her house.
Helena Ravenclaw watches from the shadows with Peeves, and they smile feral smiles when they feel fate shift the second Hadrian's body touches the bench.

☆☆☆☆☆☆

Minerva McGonagall has no idea what to make of the Potter boy. She expected someone just like his father, that is what Albus had told her to expect.
Then again, Albus had lied alot, hadn't he? Found dead at his desk surrounded by documents no-one could forge detailing his manipulations. His letters from his lover Grindelwald about how he is breeding hatred between wix for no reason other than how own power.
So Minerva really shouldn't be surprised when the boy she expected to be suave and arrogant appears in her school and her classes with Lily's eyes and her razor smile on James' mouth. Minerva remembers that Lily, sweet dead Lily, had been more of a monster than any of her other students had been. Curses on a wicked tongue, red hair that sparked with her own rage, with a heart so full of love that it could kill.
It had killed. Minerva isn't an idiot, and she knows that Albus' tale to the media about how baby Hadrian had murdered the Dark Lord.
Minerva McGonagall knows a blood ritual when she hears about one.
She smiles at the picture she has of the graduating class of '78.
"You'd be so proud of him, firecracker Lily." She says reverently, like a prayer, using the name that Sirius had used oh so playfully for the girl.
Oh.
Albus lied. About everything.
It was his testimonial that put the sweet boy in Azkaban.
Fury finds a home in Minerva, and ink splatters across parchment in a letter to Amelia Bones.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

"Hi Padfoot."
Sirius blinks. He's finally gone mad. Because there's no way that Lily Maria Evans is in his cell.

Chapter Text

Sirius Orion Black is having a really shit 33rd birthday.
Admittedly, all the birthdays since he turned 22 (and was tossed into Azkaban for something he did not do) had been fucking awful, but on his 33rd?
Sirius wakes to see a dead woman in front of him.
"Ah, so I've finally gone mad. Wonder what changed." He mused to himself, and almost went ass-ways when a hand that wasn't entirely solid connected with the back of his head.
"Don't be stupid, Padfoot. You were born mad, it's why I loved you so much." Lily says, and Sirius gapes at her like a fish.
Oh Merlin, Morgana, Arthur, and Magic herself.
"Lily?" He asks, hope a fragile thing in his chest that he tries to keep hidden so it can't be stolen from him.
"Hi, Sirius." She whispers, pressing warm lips to his cheek. Sirius isn't ashamed of how he began to sob like a child.
"I didn't betray you, Lily. I promise, I swear I'd never. We switched to Peter." He promised her, and Lily gathered her magic reserves to make her form flicker just a little more solid so she could hug him.
"I know, don't worry. Dumbledore knew too and left you to rot. I killed him because he would have hurt and used Hadrian like he did us." She said, and Sirius began to laugh. Dumbledore was dead by firecracker Lily's hand, just as Sirius had predicted decades ago.
"Good." He grins, his tongue bloody with satisfaction.
"I need to leave, but you'll be out soon. I swear it, and we can be family again." Lily says, and she pressed a slightly cold kiss to the smiling man's cheek before disappearing. When the dementors came on their rounds, they could not touch Sirius Black.
*****
Narcissa Malfoy (nee, Black) was the youngest child of the Black blood. She was born a month after her cousin Regulus, and while she puts on a show for the ages, she is not free from the Black Madness.
In some ways, it curls around her more than it ever had around Bellatrix, she just didn't lose herself to it. The Black Madness was a form of family magic, and she had seen what it had done to her sister, to her aunt Walburga. She made the magic earn her mind, and in return she became the thing that she is.
Really, she would never have turned out this way if not for an important factor. Her mother had contracted dragon pox when she was ten years old, her sisters had been at Hogwarts along with her cousin Sirius, and her aunt, uncle and Regulus were in France. And so, with no one else to care for her without risking her health, Narcissa Persephone Black is sent to stay with her uncle Alphard and his wife Ivelia for the month necessary for the dragon pox to fade.
It was there, in the dusty old Black Château, that Narcissa learnt about power. It was not just cruelty, not fear. It was politics, it was etiquette, it was the way one speaks and moves their body. It was in the bat of an eye, the twitch of a wand, the widening of a woman's eyes. The false tears that weakened men.
Womanhood was an armour, her aunt Ivelia taught her, and with it? You can slaughter millions. Wars have been fought at the whims of women for millennia, she tells the little dark haired child, and only fools and men believe that girls and women are helpless glass figurines.
Too many women believe this themselves, but Ivelia is clear to her niece, too-white veela eyes sharp like ice.
"If a man so much as looks at you with lust in his eyes without your consent, burn that man and everything he cares about to the ground. And if he ever deems himself worthy to touch you? Well, that Black Madness is more prevelant in women for a reason. Use it." The veela, chained into a marriage with a human, tells the little girl with eyes so startling a grey they might be silver, and little Narcissa?
She turns those words over and over in her mind, and at ten years old, she begins to weave her armour.

She attends Hogwarts, her armour wrapped around her. She paints her lips so deep a red that eyes stay there rather than looking at what she does with her hands. She applies perfumes she brews herself with a floral scent that hides the altared corruption potion within it, allowing her very scent and presence to manipulate people.
When she is told that she would be married to Lucius Malfoy, and that she must choose a chaperone for their time together before their marriage when she turns 16, Narcissa smiles with those red, red lips and requests her aunt Ivelia.
Lucius Malfoy leaves the meeting with starstruck eyes and bruises across his body from his attitude. He falls in love with a raging inferno of a woman, and when they have their child, he does not argue when she glares at him and tells him no more.
With bloodied thighs, she clutches the child to her breast and calls him Draco. Draco Deimos Malfoy.
Her boy grows knowing love so fierce it would make the Dark Lord cower for cover (he had seen the violence of a Black woman before, and even immortal and insane, he was not confident he would win - it is why he never forced his mark upon Narcissa, she looked too much like Ursularis Black), he grows up happy and taught by his mother about love and joy and peace.
He is sorted into Hufflepuff, and when Lucius opens his mouth to sneer, his wife's wand is thrust into his throat.
"He is happy. He is loyal, and kind, and that will be lethal. This is not something to sneer at, Lucius." She tells him, and the man swallows hard.
He sends a warm congratulations to his son, and buys him a scarf with his new house emblem.
Narcissa kisses him with hibiscus tasting lips, and he remembers why he married her.
********
Weeks later, Sirius has his trial, and under veritiserum he tells of the plan to switch secret keepers. How Dumbledore had cast the spell and had known that Peter was the Secret Keeper all along.
He was freed quickly, the wizarding world no longer as shocked when more of Dumbledore's trickery was brought to light.

Waiting for him outside the Ministry was a blonde woman, a child that looked like her, and a boy with dark hair, green eyes and a face that looked exactly like James.
Hadrian holds out his hand and smiles.
"Let's do home, Padfoot."