Heather stumbled upon a lady with bright pink hair as she came out of the bedroom she shared with Hermione and Ginny. Or, more accurately, the unfamiliar witch stumbled over her. Only her grip on the door handle saved her from taking a tumble onto the hideously grimy floorboards. The loud thud told her that the other witch had not been so fortunate.
"I'm so-"
"Oh damnit-"
"-sorry!"
She looked at the stranger as their apologies ran over each other. Their eyes met and before they knew it, both burst into laughter. Heather offered a hand to help the other up, turning it into a handshake when they were both stood facing each other.
"Hi, I'm Heather Potter. Sorry again for the crash."
The witch grinned cheekily, showing that there was no harm done. "Nah, don't worry 'bout it. Happens to me all the time. The name's Nymphadora Tonks, but you better call me Tonks or I'll have to hex you!"
Tonks' cheeriness was infectious. She seemed like the kind of person that could befriend anyone. She just had that sort of air about her. Or perhaps it was just her hair.
"Nice to meet you. Not to be rude, but what exactly are you doing here? Are you a friend of Sirius'?" Because she didn't think just anyone would be allowed in when it was being used for a safehouse. They even had a Fidelius for Morgana's sake!
Her new acquaintance smiled wryly. "I'm actually more of a cousin, actually. My mum's a Black. But anyway, I'm here cos' I'm a member of the Order!"
What?
"Tonks!" Both of them tensed when another voice growled harshly. "What are you thinking, going around telling others about top secret information!"
Heather turned towards the man, surprised to see Alastor Moody standing a few feet away. He seemed recovered from his time being trapped by Bartemius Crouch Jr.
"It's not like she can't be trusted!" Tonks said, rolling her eyes. "She's one of the Potters. Besides, she's not a kid. She's already 17." Technically, she hadn't officially been a kid since being emancipated at 15, but Heather didn't bother to say it.
The retired Auror pointed accusingly at Heather. "Anyone could be impersonating the brat! Remember, Constant Vigilance!"
She raised an unimpressed brow. "Rest assured. I am, indeed, Heather Potter."
"I'll be the judge of that, girl," the man said, still not letting up on his suspicious glare. "Who were the Potters' Secret Keeper?"
"Peter Pettigrew," she stated in a bored tone.
"What is Heather Potter's Patronus form?"
"A snidget." Were these questions really supposed to ascertain her identity? Anyone could answer these if they were really one of Voldemort's men. It would be better to simply ask her to cast the Patronus. In fact...
"Expecto Patronum," she cast quickly, before Moody could get a little wand-happy. Her tiny ball of misty fluff shot out of her wand, fluttering around her head. The wizard's glare finally let up, though his eyes remained narrowed on her as he backed away out of the hallway.
"Wow! Jeez, I never really expected a Hogwarts student to be able to cast a Patronus!" Tonks exclaimed brightly. "Is that a snidget? How adorable!"
Heather smiled at the excitable woman. She really knew how to lighten up the mood. To her shock, she saw Tonks' hair shift from her pink shade into a startling violet. Seeming to catch onto her surprise, Tonks said, "Oh, yeah, I do that sometimes. I'm a Metamorphmagus!"
Hmm, that was quite a rare skill to have. She had only read a few mentions of it in a few books. It was probably nifty to be able to change her appearance at will. "That's cool." She paused, remembering their earlier train of conversation before Moody came in. "But what was it you were saying about the 'Order'?"
Tonks pouted a little, probably expecting more interest in her shapeshifting abilities than that. She quickly bounced back, though. "Well, it's actually an organisation spearheaded by Dumbledore to oppose You-Know-Who. It's sort of underground, though - very hush-hush. I probably shouldn't be in it, being an Auror and all." She shrugged casually, as if saying, 'Well, what can you do?'
"So like a vigilante group," Heather stated dryly. Dumbledore seemed just like the kind to be involved in this kind of thing. Heck, the old man had probably been 'subtly' trying to recruit Rian since his first year! To be honest, she was more shocked at the fact that Tonks was an Auror, with how clumsy she appeared. Though the shapeshifting was probably really useful for undercover operations.
The now orange-haired witch just smiled slyly at her. "Well, look at the time. Mrs Weasley should be setting out breakfast right about now. Boy, am I starved! I could eat an Abraxan! Night shifts are the worst!"
Heather rolled her eyes at the obvious topic change, following her downstairs to get some food. Still, she wondered who else was in this so-called Order.
~~~
So the full name of the group was The Order of the Phoenix, which explained the Secret for the Fidelius. Sounded grander than it needed to be, in her opinion. Also, they were having a meeting tonight. Of course, the only reason she knew that was the twins. And they knew because of their Extendable Ears.
And of course they just had to tell Ron. Who told Hermione and Rian and Ginny.
Which somehow led to all seven of them crouched in the boys' room around a rubber ear.
And yet somehow this wasn't even top ten of the weirdest situations she had found herself in. How had this become her life?
Dumbledore's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. The meeting started off fairly innocuously. Just normal pleasantries first and welcoming a few new members. She was surprised to find out Bill (wasn't he supposed to be in Egypt?) and Charlie were two of them, along with Tonks. Perhaps she shouldn't have been, since she knew Mr and Mrs Weasley were members. Then they moved on to giving updates on Voldemort's movements. A man Dumbledore referred to as 'Howell' talked about some odd happenings in Knockturn Alley while Tonks spoke of an attack in muggle London in an uncharacteristically serious tone. The next part really caught her attention, though.
"And Severus? Any news?" Dumbledore's worried voice came out of the ear.
"I was Called three days ago. After managing to convince him of my continued loyalty to his cause," here the sneer was evident in his tone, "he sent me away with instructions to spy on the Light's movements, as per usual."
The sound of Professor Snape's smooth baritone, even with the crackling static of the Extendable Ear (she, Fred and George would have to look into that), brought an unconscious smile to her face.
Unbeknownst to her, this was witnessed by her brother and best friends. Not knowing what that meant, they shrugged it off and put it away. For now.
Meanwhile, Heather couldn't believe that she hadn't considered that the Professor could be a part of this Order. She knew that he was a spy for Dumbledore, so it was perfectly reasonable that he was in this group dedicated to taking down Voldemort. From his words, it seemed he was a double spy. It worried her that he was playing such a dangerous game (but of course it wasn't a game at all). Well no wonder he was so skilled in mindmagic. She would be too if she had to conceal her real loyalties from a powerful, albeit slightly-deranged, wizard like Voldemort.
It also hammered it home how important it was for her to not give away how close they really were. His life was a stake here. Knowing that, however, didn't lessen her reluctance to treat him, if not antagonistically, then coldly at school.
"Voldemort's such an arse," she couldn't help but mutter irately.
The abruptness of her utterance must've been hilarious to the others, because they didn't even flinch at the name and burst out in guffaws instead.
"That, Heather-harp, has-"
"-got to be the worst understatement-"
"of the century." Both twins looked at her bemusedly, even as they tried to quell the twitching of their lips.
"Yeah, what they said. I mean, all those attacks on muggle villages and all you can come up with is 'arse'?" Rian asked in disbelief. Oh, she must've missed the part where they talked about that, lost in her thoughts as she had been.
"Looks like Heather needs a lesson in Grade O swearing, eh?" Ron said teasingly.
"Don't you dare, Ronald." Hermione stared at the boy, unimpressed.
Ginny waved her arms in a cutting motion. "Shh, guys! They're still talking!"
The rest of the meeting discussed strategies for them to counter the Deatheater's movements. Which was difficult, since they seemed completely random. The only thing in common was that there was a lot of destruction.
"It's not fair at all! We should be in that meeting." Hadrian grimaced, throwing his arms up in frustration.
The Weasley children all nodded. Ron said, "We've been fighting You-Know-Who since first year!"
Hermione huffed in exasperation. "Honestly, do you really think us children," she ignored the twins' protests at the word, "would be able to help to fight Dark wizards? We should just leave it to the adults to handle." Heather was glad to see another voice of reason in the room.
"Hermione's right. Dumbledore's on it." She glanced reprovingly at her brother.
Fred scoffed. "Oh puh-lease. Dumbledore makes-"
"-mistakes too!" George exclaimed readily. "We tricked him didn't we?"
"Okay, of all people, I'm the last to say Dumbledore's infallible." She and Hadrian were living proof of that. "I'm just saying that we should let the adults do the adult work. They're the fully qualified wizards and witches."
"We're graduating in a year!" twin protests sounded out.
Ron perked up. "Y'think you'll join the Order then?"
Snorting, Ginny shook her head at the identical grins. "As if Mum's going to let you two."
"She let Bill and Charlie."
"They're older."
Before this could descend into a full-blown argument, Heather tried to step in. "Hey, guys-"
"I've got it!" Hadrian exclaimed. Everyone turned to him, curious. "If we can't join the Order, how about we create our own group?"
That was-
"BRILLIANT!"
-outrageous.
When everyone started discussing the new idea, Heather knew she would be fighting a losing battle. Even Hermione looked reluctantly convinced by the tentative idea to have training sessions to improve their duelling skills. The traitor.
Now they'd be having hare-brained ideas about fighting back Deatheaters. Her brother was trying to drive her absolutely mad with worry. Nevermind that Voldemort had a personal vendetta against him. Their opponents were capable to taking down skilled Aurors!
She resigned herself to joining this new group, if only to keep an eye on all of them. Merlin help her, she was surrounded by impulsive children!
~~~
"I guess the first thing we need is a name," Hadrian announced. "Any suggestions?"
"The Order of the Gryffin?"
"Excuse me?" Heather gave an offended look to George who waved cheekily.
"Okay, no house-related names?" Hadrian said placatingly. "And not Order? Since that sounds too close to Dumbledore's."
"How about the Freedom Fighters?" Ginny offered.
Hermione shook her head. "That sounds too much like the rebellion rather than the defenders."
"Hey, Defenders sounds pretty cool," Ron said.
"The Defenders of Justice!" Fred intoned deeply, standing and striking a pose. They all laughed, but passed over the overly-dramatic name. Fred sat down, pouting. It seemed he had really taken a shine to it.
"Hey Heather," Rian said, nudging her, "what do you think?"
She rolled her eyes. Were they really going to do this? "Defender's Alliance," she tossed out casually. The room stilled, thinking it over.
"That...doesn't sound half-bad."
"Kind of has-"
"-a nice ring."
"It's short and simple."
"It's really meaningful. Our aim is to defend innocents from You-Know Who, isn't it?"
Hadrian beamed, sitting straighter. "Seems like we're all in agreement. Defender's Alliance, or even DA for short!"
Everyone gave their agreement and they huddled in a circle. Heather joined them, smiling slightly. Well, she might as well get into the spirit of things.
"Defender's Alliance!" they cheered together.
Loud sounds from downstairs spurred them all into movement. The girls hurried back to their own room while the Fred and George quickly summoned the other end of the Extendable Ear and lay on their beds, feigning sleep. Sure enough, not ten minutes later, the Weasley matriarch checked in on all her children (yes, including Heather, Hadrian and Hermione). Fooled into thinking they were asleep, she left for her own bed.
What Mrs Weasley didn't know was that they started up their discussions again, this time with a pair of Extendable Ear-Mouths (they were still working on the name). They talked about the newly-formed DA well into the night, only dropping off to sleep at an ungodly hour.
~~~
Molly clucked disapprovingly at the listless children. "Why are all of you so tired this morning?" Ginny was slumping towards her porridge, barely keeping her face out of it. Ron was so knackered he was eating slowly. Hermione had to put aside her book to put all her energy into eating. Even Fred and George, her hyperactive pranksters, were obediently tucking into the eggs without any shenanigans. The only children looking alert and well-rested were Hadrian and Heather.
"Good morning Mrs Weasley!" Hadrian greeted brightly.
"We were playing a vigorous muggle game called 'Twister' yesterday," Heather lied smoothly. "It was pretty exhausting."
Molly frowned but let it go. Perhaps she would spare them from the cleaning today. After some contemplation, she shook her head. There was nothing like some physical labour to wake young wizards and witches up.
"Well, eat up then! You'll need the energy to tackle all the dust in this ramshackle place!" The protests were a symphony to her ears.
~~~
"How is it that you two are still so perky?" Ron grumbled. He dunked his dirty cloth into the murky water, grimacing.
"Heather and I don't need much sleep," Hadrian replied. He wondered if he could use magic to clean this all up. Just all the grime and dirt, of course. More delicate cleaning was always better done manually.
Hermione pursed her lips. "At our age, we should be getting at least 7 hours of sleep every night."
Entering the room, Heather heard that comment and offered, "We're used to getting about 4 hours, maybe less." Looking around the drawing room, she shook her head and cast a wide-range Scourgify. It met resistance the first time, so she repeated it with more force. The dark miasma hanging about the place really needed to go. The younger three sighed in relief at the much cleaner room. "Don't slack off now. The brass still needs polishing. I suppose the armchairs can't be salvaged. We should ask Sirius about replacing them."
Hermione looked aghast at the older witch's casual words. "4 hours! That's nowhere near enough!"
Both Potter siblings shrugged. "We could barely stay awake at first, but we soon learnt."
"But why-"
"Well," Heather cut in, "I'll leave it to you guys. You have magic; use it if you need. Hadrian, you know what works better by hand." She quickly escaped the room to find the twins.
Instead of them, she found Sirius engrossed in clearing out the office. He was removing various artefacts from a safe underneath the desk which contained far more than its physical dimensions could hold. Bless wizard space. Or not, in this case.
She peered at the growing pile of objects inquisitively. Some just looked morbid, like the chattering skull, and was that a Hand of Glory? Others were priceless jewels that looked exquisite, but were stewing in Dark magic. Case in point: the gold locket at the corner there. Her instincts practically screamed for her to get away from it. Fighting off the feeling, she walked over to inspect it.
A firm hand on her shoulder halted her movement. "Whoa, Heather. Better not. That thing's bad news."
She turned, shaking her head. "I wasn't going to touch it Sirius. I know better than that."
"Still, I'd feel better knowing my little fawn isn't anywhere near that. It's as Dark as they come."
She rolled her eyes. "It looks familiar, is all. I wanted to take a closer look. You can go back to doing whatever you were doing."
"No can do, missy." He tried to steer her away from the locket. "How about those cursed necklaces? Once you de-curse them, you can have them."
"Sirius, I'll go cleanse those things after I inspect the locket. Besides, you were thinking of selling all these off, weren't you? You can't just leave them cursed. That would be dangerous!" Seeing that he wasn't at all convinced, she offered a compromise. "How about we take a look at it together?"
She could tell he wasn't much appeased by this, but agreed knowing it was the best he'd be getting. "Had to just get their stubbornness too," she could hear him mutter under his breath.
"No touching!"
She sighed and pointedly swished her wand to levitate the locket to the table. She did it quickly; her magic didn't like the feel of it at all. The sooner they broke the curse, the better. No wonder the house felt like this, with all these objects in it.
"What do you know about cursebreaking?" Sirius asked.
"I've asked Bill about it some and I have a few books he lent me. I was thinking we should identify the type of curse it is first before researching how to break it. I really doubt that it'll be a simple reversal like those trinkets over there," she said, indicating the jewellery on the other table.
"Maybe we should save it for when Bill comes, then," Sirius said nervously.
She smirked at her godfather. "And here I thought you were a Gryffindor," she lilted, "Here I am, a Slytherin, willing to take the risk and there you are, chickening out."
As expected, the needling made him puff up in indignation. "Fine then, go ahead!"
Her smirk widened. "Gladly." She cast a few identification spells to discern the family of curses that was placed on the locket.
Deflating, Sirius pouted at her. "You just played me, didn't you?"
"Slytherin," was her only reply. Sirius was just too easy.
As she cycled through the different spells, she kept getting negative results. She frowned after the last spell gave her the same outcome. She had made sure to memorise the tests for all the families of curses, but had she missed one out after all? She recalled the spell at the beginning of the cursebreaking book she had read. She'd thought it redundant, since it was for checking whether there was a curse in the first place. This was definitely cursed...wasn't it?
'No harm trying,' she thought to herself.
The spell glowed a dull red.
That...was not the reaction she had been expecting.
"There isn't a curse on this," she said, shocked.
"What do you mean?" Sirius demanded. "Sure it's cursed. You feel that too right?"
That, of course, referred to the thick darkness pouring out of it.
"Yes, but it's not a curse!" she snapped, suddenly irritated. "Must be some other type of spell." She bent down to look at it closer. It really did look awfully familiar. Where had she seen it before? The large serpentine S, the intricate gold chainlink. She paced around the room, frustrated.
"Knock it off, your pacing is making me nervous," Sirius complained.
"Well, apologies Lord Black," she retorted sarcastically.
"What's your problem? You're not usually this prissy!"
Heather stopped in her tracks, "I- you're right. Sorry." She shook her head roughly. Why had she gotten so annoyed? She usually had a cooler head than this. She gave a hard stare to the gold locket.
"I'm sorry too. I wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows either," Sirius admitted.
"The darkness must be affecting us more than we thought." That was the only reason she could come up with to explain why she was so irritable.
"Must be pretty serious shit then. I literally grew up around this stuff." A baleful look stole across the wizard's face before disappearing. "I'm mostly immune by now."
"...Maybe we should ask Bill to look it over instead." That was as close as she would get to admitting that she had gone in over her head.
Sirius, in a rare fit of self-preservation, very wisely refrained from saying any variant of 'I told you so!'. "Yeah, we'll just keep it safe in the meantime. Wouldn't want anyone touching this nasty thing."
After sealing the Locket (and yes, it deserved a capital now) into a conjured box, they went on to tackling all the other cursed objects. Although, Heather wasn't quite sure what she would do with her new assortment of broaches, necklaces and earrings.
She didn't even have pierced ears.