Curse of the Temu Potter

The Temu Potter

The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall sparkled with a thousand tranquil stars, casting a warm, golden glow over the students as the Sorting Ceremony reached its climax. Eleven-year-old Harry Potter, his heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs, practically collapsed onto the Gryffindor bench, immensely relieved to have finally found his place. A few seats down, fifth-year Joule Era Sabia Potter, who happened to share the boy's surname but possessed absolutely none of his DNA, watched the nervous first-year with a faint, dignified smile. The applause was just beginning to die down, making way for the anticipated feast, when the massive oak doors of the Great Hall didn't just open; they were violently kicked inward with a thunderous CRACK that made half the student body shriek and caused Severus Snape to abruptly choke on his goblet of wine.

Standing framed in the grand entryway, backlit by the flickering torches of the corridor, was a creature of pure, unadulterated chaos. She looked to be about ten years old, though there was something deeply unsettling and vaguely weathered about her manic features. Her "uniform" was a catastrophic tragedy, a fraying, moth-eaten robe that was distinctly more rust-orange than Gryffindor crimson, appearing as though it had been aggressively haggled over at a magical flea market and then dragged behind a Thestral carriage.

Her hair was a disaster of epic proportions: a stiff, greasy bird's nest of jet-black tufts that defied gravity, logic, and basic hygiene. Perched crookedly on her nose was a pair of thick, round glasses that had been brutally snapped in half and mummified in what looked like dirty Muggle duct tape. The lenses were so thick they magnified her wild, unblinking eyes to the size of Galleons.

She didn't just walk; she stomped down the center aisle between the Great House tables, her oversized, scuffed boots slapping aggressively against the ancient stone floor. With every aggressive stride toward the staff table, she radiated the frantic, unearned confidence of a badly written self-insert. She was a walking, screaming copyright infringement. A cheap, budget-brand anomaly who looked as though she’d been ordered out of a shady mail-order catalog and severely damaged in transit.
Ignoring the hundreds of staring, horrified faces, she pointed a splintering, remarkably crooked twig, which she was clearly trying to pass off as a wand directly at the Gryffindor table.

"I AM JOULE EVANS SNAPE POTTER!" she bellowed, her voice a screeching siren that completely shattered the majestic atmosphere. "I am Harry Potter's younger sister! I have the black hair! I have the glasses! And I'm in Gryffindor too! Snape is my godfather!! I'm the real Joule Potter! If you don't have black hair, glasses, and are not the godchild of Snape, then you are NOT a Potter!!"

At the Gryffindor table, eleven-year-old Harry Potter froze, a dinner roll slipping from his suddenly numb fingers to bounce sadly off his empty gold plate. He had spent his entire life locked in a dusty cupboard, desperately dreaming of the day a secret, long-lost relative might come and whisk him away. But looking at the screeching, duct-taped gremlin currently aiming a splintery twig at his face, he suddenly decided the Dursleys weren't that bad. He shrank down on the wooden bench, his green eyes wide with sheer, unadulterated terror, desperately trying to fold himself into invisibility. I don't know her, his panicked, pale face silently screamed to the rest of the Great Hall. Please don't make me know her.

Up at the High Table, the Hogwarts staff had completely short-circuited. Professor McGonagall had a hand clutched tightly over her heart, her mouth opening and closing like a suffocated trout as she stared at the catastrophic violation of the school uniform policy. Beside her, Albus Dumbledore sat perfectly still, his usually twinkling eyes frozen in a stare of profound, magnificent bewilderment.

But it was Severus Snape who looked fully prepared to cast a highly illegal curse. Having finally cleared his airway of the wine he had inhaled, the Potions Master was now gripping the edge of the staff table with enough force to splinter the ancient wood. His sallow face had drained of whatever minimal color it usually possessed, leaving him looking like a freshly disturbed corpse. The absolute audacity, the sheer, universe-breaking insult that he, Severus Snape, would willingly stand as godfather to a screaming, misspelled, discount-bin Potter was offensive on a cellular level. His upper lip curled into a sneer so violent it looked physically painful, his dark eyes snapping toward the headmaster as if demanding immediate permission to vaporize the intruder where she stood.