"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." — Mark Twain
POV: Harriet Nicole Potter
Consciousness returned the way answers usually did when you were just about to give up.
Not gently. Not politely.
It crept back in with that unbearable sensation of almost knowing. The feeling of standing right in front of a locked door, key already in hand, fingers brushing the handle—while your brain stubbornly refused to turn it.
It was uncomfortable. Irritating. Borderline offensive.
And then—
Click.
Everything snapped into place.
The memories aligned. The fog lifted. The pressure vanished.
For a single, glorious moment, Harriet Nicole Potter felt relief. Real, honest-to-Merlin relief. The kind that made you want to breathe deeply and think, Ah. Yes. I understand now.
In a better story, that would have been the end of it.
In a better story, relief would have been followed by peace.
Instead, it was followed by pain.
A lot of pain.
Not just the sharp, skull-splitting agony one might reasonably expect after being hit by an Avada Kedavra and somehow surviving. That part was unpleasant, yes, but manageable. What came next was worse.
It was everywhere.
Her muscles screamed. Her nerves burned. Her bones felt like they had been rearranged by someone with poor spatial awareness and no sense of responsibility. Her chest tightened as if her lungs were deeply offended by the concept of breathing.
She very much wanted to scream.
Her body disagreed.
So Harriet did the only sensible thing.
She stayed still.
Very still.
Remembering her previous life hadn't been violent. That part surprised her, in hindsight. There had been no mental explosion, no sudden personality overwrite, no dramatic collapse of identity.
It had been… gradual.
Like background music you'd been hearing your entire life without realizing it. Always there, muffled, distant. You could tell something was playing, but you couldn't quite reach it. Couldn't touch it.
Until someone turned the volume all the way up.
The memories had always existed. Waiting patiently. Layered behind everything else. Not forgotten—just inaccessible.
The human brain wasn't a computer. It didn't open folders on command. It protected itself. It blurred. It delayed.
And apparently, what it took to finally unlock everything was getting hit by a killing curse.
Harriet would not recommend the method.
Her thoughts, however, were now crystal clear.
Which was good.
Because she was currently lying face-down on a graveyard floor, pretending to be dead, while the most dangerous dark wizard in modern history celebrated his return approximately ten meters away.
Focus, Harriet.
Priorities.
Step one: Do not die.
Step two: Leave.
Everything else was optional.
Right. How had things escalated this badly again?
Oh yes.
The Triwizard Tournament.
A spectacularly stupid event designed to entertain the magical masses through a combination of nostalgia, nationalism, and highly avoidable death. It was tradition, they said. It built character, they said.
Harriet would like to formally disagree.
It might have been tolerable—borderline enjoyable, even—if she hadn't been forced into it against her will. But of course she had.
Because if a year passed at Hogwarts without someone attempting to murder her in what was allegedly the safest place in magical Britain, it simply wouldn't be her life.
Consistency was important, after all.
And yes.
She had said her.
Not his.
A young girl with chin-length, slightly tousled dark brown hair framing a soft, delicate face, clear light-colored eyes, and fine, well-balanced features, her overall appearance slender and understated, with a natural, unadorned look—and notably, unlike her male counterpart, she had never needed glasses.
Being Harriet Nicole Potter instead of Harry James Potter came with differences. Some subtle. Some… less so. Growing up as the so-called Girl-Who-Lived had been a unique experience, and not in the charming, storybook way people seemed to imagine.
Turns out female and famous did wonders for sharpening one's survival instincts.
You learned early not to wait for help.
You learned even earlier not to expect fairness.
And you learned very quickly that if you didn't advocate for yourself, no one else would.
Harriet had adapted beautifully.
Which was why, when she touched the Triwizard Cup and felt the familiar pull of Portkey magic, she had known instantly that something was wrong.
She had been transported. Bound. Immobilized.
Her blood had been taken.
And that blood had resurrected him.
Voldemort.
A parasite wearing a man's body. A lich with delusions of grandeur. A megalomaniac who, after thirteen years of planning, had decided that the best way to reintroduce himself to the world was to duel a fourteen-year-old girl.
To prove himself.
To an audience.
Harriet found that deeply embarrassing for him.
Still, it was better than remaining tied up and surrounded by masked lunatics with poor emotional regulation.
She had run.
Left. Right. Left again.
Death Eaters scrambling, shouting, tripping over their own robes as their precious Dark Lord hexed them for being in his way. The irony of being attacked by your own leader while he yelled at you to stop interfering was almost funny.
Almost.
Then he stopped playing.
Green and red spells filled the air. The ground exploded around her. Her shields cracked under the pressure. She lasted maybe ten seconds after that, and frankly, she was proud of it.
Fourteen. Exhausted. Terrified.
Ten seconds was impressive.
Then came the green light.
Avada Kedavra.
And she fell.
Which brought them neatly back to the present.
Harriet lay motionless on the cold earth, eyes half-lidded, breath shallow and carefully controlled. She didn't dare move. Didn't dare react.
Voldemort was monologuing.
Of course he was.
She could hear him pacing. Hear the screams of his followers as he punished them for their failures. Apparently, he was displeased with the level of enthusiasm shown during his resurrection.
She almost felt bad for them.
Almost.
No. Actually, no. Not at all.
The Triwizard Cup sat a short distance away. Close enough to see. Too far to reach without being noticed.
Cedric Diggory was not a concern. She had stunned him earlier, hard. His golden-boy charm might have worked on the original Harry Potter, but Harriet was immune to that particular brand of nonsense. And she certainly wasn't risking her life to retrieve a corpse if he was here anyway.
Hard pass.
Now.
There was one thing she could do.
Harriet had always been cautious. Some might say paranoid. She preferred the term thorough. Growing up with a target on your back tended to encourage research, and blood magic was a topic she had never ignored.
She'd read the horror stories. The contracts sealed without consent. The rituals that bound victims for life. Blood mattered. Intent mattered. Will mattered.
Magic cared about boundaries.
And buried deep in the Restricted Section—thank you very much—she had found reference to a spell capable of purging foreign blood used in rituals, provided it was cast within six hours.
Which, conveniently, it was.
Her blood had been taken without consent.
That mattered.
Especially now that the Horcrux was gone.
There was nothing binding them anymore.
Prophecy or not.
She couldn't let them all walk away.
That simply wouldn't sit right.
Call it spite. Call it principle. Call it a personal character flaw if you liked. Harriet preferred to think of it as maintaining standards.
Besides, if you survived being murdered, you were entitled to a little revenge.
A plan came together quickly.
Then she moved.
A cold stillness clung to the graveyard, thick and suffocating. Pale mist coiled lazily between crooked headstones, swallowing the ground in a ghostly veil. The air felt heavy, as if even the wind had abandoned the place, leaving only an unnatural silence behind. Moonlight struggled to pierce through the darkness, casting long, distorted shadows that seemed to shift when no one was looking. It was the kind of place where sound carried too far… and where something terrible could happen without the world ever noticing.
"Really," Voldemort drawled, his voice echoing through the graveyard, "your respect for me remains as overwhelming as ever. Respect I deserve."
His followers writhed on the ground, screaming, clutching limbs, begging for mercy as he paced before them like an irritated lecturer.
"My faithful servants," he continued, "you have disappointed me—not only by failing to seek me out properly, but by entertaining the absurd notion that a one-year-old infant could defeat me."
He stopped before Lucius Malfoy.
"What a joke. To fixate on a little girl. To lose to her. And to fail even then."
He raised his wand.
"I expect better."
"M-my Lord—"
Lucius never finished the sentence.
Bombarda.
The explosion tore through the air, missing Voldemort's face by centimeters.
No one expected it.
No one even considered that direction.
Because it came from where the corpse was supposed to be.
Lucius barely managed to shield his head. His left arm was obliterated. He was thrown backward, crashing into another masked figure with a wet, sickening sound.
Chaos erupted.
And Harriet ran.
Voldemort recovered faster than the others.
Surviving an Avada Kedavra was a miracle—but Lily Potter had been dangerous. Sacrificial magic was… inconvenient.
A life for a life.
But this time—
What had been exchanged?
He raised his wand.
"Avada—"
"Sanguinem Refractare."
The effect was immediate.
It felt like his blood rebelled.
Like something inside him tore apart.
It wouldn't kill him.
But he was immobilized by the sheer, nerve-wracking pain.
A minute.
That was all Harriet needed.
Voldemort did not scream.
That alone was terrifying.
The magic around him surged—not outward, not violently, but inward, compressed so tightly that the air itself seemed to recoil. The ground beneath his feet cracked in fine, spiderweb fractures, dirt trembling as if unsure whether it was allowed to exist in his presence.
Harriet felt it immediately.
That pressure.
That suffocating weight that crawled along her spine and whispered a very simple truth:
If he moves now, you die.
Good.
That meant the spell was working.
Barely.
She did not move.
Not yet.
The Death Eaters, however, did.
Confusion rippled through them, subtle but fatal. Masks turned. Wands wavered. Several of them glanced instinctively toward their master—then stopped themselves halfway, as if remembering too late that fear punished curiosity.
Harriet counted.
One heartbeat.
Two.
She adjusted her stance by half an inch, careful not to look like she was preparing to run. Running invited pursuit. Hesitation invited control.
Lucius Malfoy shifted on the ground.
That was her cue.
She tilted her head, expression thoughtful, almost bored, and spoke again—lightly, conversationally, as if they weren't standing in a graveyard surrounded by corpses and homicidal cultists.
"Do you know what's funny?" she said. "You all look like you're waiting for permission to breathe."
Several wands twitched.
Good.
She took a slow step backward.
Three meters from the Cup.
No one moved to block her.
Because they were all watching her hands.
Amateurs.
Lucius finally found his voice again, hoarse with pain and fury. "You filthy little—"
She cut him off without raising her voice.
"Oh, don't strain yourself," she said kindly. "You've already lost an arm today. Wouldn't want to overcommit."
A few of them flinched.
She could almost see the calculation forming behind their masks.
Is she bluffing?
Why isn't the Dark Lord stopping her?
Why isn't he moving?
Because Voldemort was standing perfectly still.
Too still.
Pride was a powerful thing. It kept him upright. It kept him silent. It kept him from collapsing to one knee and revealing weakness in front of his followers.
Harriet had bet everything on that.
She took another step back.
Two meters.
Her pulse hammered in her ears now. The spell on Voldemort was fraying—she could feel it, like fingers slipping on wet stone. He was pushing against it, forcing his magic to obey through sheer will.
Any second now.
So she delivered the final distraction.
"By the way, Lucius," she added casually, as if remembering something amusing, "you should really tell him about the diary."
That did it.
Voldemort's head snapped around.
Not toward her.
Toward Malfoy.
The silence that followed was absolute.
The Death Eaters froze.
That single moment—less than a second—was the opening she needed.
Harriet moved.
She did not sprint. Sprinting drew spells.
She lunged, dove the last meter forward, fingers brushing cold metal—
—and closed her hand around the Triwizard Cup.
Magic tore through her instantly.
But even as the Portkey activated, she forced herself to turn her head.
Just long enough.
Just long enough to meet Voldemort's gaze.
She smiled.
Not wide.
Not cruel.
Just bright. Certain. Unafraid.
"This isn't over," she said clearly. "I'm very hard to get rid of."
The world collapsed inward.
She reappeared on the grass at Hogwarts with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs.
The roar of the crowd crashed over her the moment she hit the ground. Blinding light replaced the suffocating darkness, cheers echoing wildly through the stadium. The stands of Hogwarts Quidditch Stadium loomed around her, packed with spectators who had no idea what had just happened. The golden glow of the Triwizard Cup slipped from her grasp as the noise, the light, and the sheer normalcy of it all clashed violently with the horrors she had just escape.
Sheer noise and applause, with her name being shouted from a hundred different directions.
Harriet lay there for half a second longer than necessary, letting the noise wash over her while her body caught up with reality.
Alive.
Still alive.
Good.
She forced herself upright, blinking against the lights, against the movement, against the hands already reaching for her.
Her vision blurred—but her mind stayed sharp.
She scanned.
Quickly.
Moody.
The flask.
There.
Found you.
She raised her wand with what little magic she had left. No speech. No warning.
Fire bloomed around the flask.
Glass shattered.
Someone screamed.
And as the Polyjuice wore off and the real face began to surface, Harriet finally let herself relax.
Just a little.
Safe, she thought hazily.
For now.
The darkness took her mid-breath.
This time, she welcomed it.