Chapter Text
Harry didn’t know where she was going, she was just flying, flying away from reality, a small bird in a very large world. It had been a long few months, and full of waiting, pretending and suffering from the inescapable guilt. The guilt like a never ending sea, flashing at every instance, it flashes when she sees her parents, when she recognizes schoolmates walking in Diagon Alley. It flashes every time she brews a potion, remembering that all the friendships, the experiences, everything, was so she could brew potions. And they now were a permanent reminder.
Harry didn’t have a sense of direction of where to go, she just followed where her magic leads her. Under the clear night sky, over forests and valleys, passing over muggle towns, away from the wizarding world.
Her parents didn’t understand, they never would. They were treating her like some child who had gone rogue, but they didn’t know, that she was Rigel, that she had fought a sleeping curse, fought a basilisk, been starved and tortured for weeks, had gone through an entire tournament, had blackmailed Lord Riddle himself.
Her friends, Draco, Pansy, everyone. The hurt, the disbelief, the sorrow that was in Draco’s eyes, that final night of the Tournament. Draco, begging for it not to be true. Those eyes would forever haunt her days.
Professor Snape, the one who she had confided in, the most, apart from Archie, would never know, could never know. Harry would never be able to work under him as herself, gain a mastership under him, it was too risky.
Archie knew who she was, knew what she went through, but Archie was innocent, Archie didn’t see her in the hospital wing, after the basilisk, after the weeks under time, Archie couldn’t see how she felt like Draco could.
Flying away from reality is the only escape, even if only temporary, watching muggle towns, the moonlight leading her way.
Another muggle town came by, a town that looked like it was polar opposites. Half the town was dirty, dirtier than the alleys, barely holding onto itself. The other half was posh, rich, clean and well going. Harry landed down in the poorer section, feeling her magic call her there. For some reason, her magic wanted her in this town. Transforming back into herself, Harry walked quietly through the streets, following the call. Her magic ringing and singing, this is what she needed, this was where she needed to go to be at peace.
Her boots made no noise, dampened by magic. Looking up at the stars, Harry saw a broken wooden sign, half falling off its post spelling out ‘Spin-’. No one was walking the streets, in muggle fairytales, Harry supposed this is what they called the witching hour.
Foot after foot Harry walked down the gravel path between wooden and stone houses, following the call, the call of home, until she reached a door. A door of a house, more respectable than the rest of the houses in this area, however still far worse off than the other side of town.
Harry raised her hand, pausing, debating whether or not to open the door. Her magic sung yes, but something nagged in the back of her mind, something.
Harry turned the doorknob, which was unlocked, whether because it was originally or her magic opened it, she didn’t know. Harry opened the door, into a relatively small corridor.
Walking in, following the call Harry stumbled into the main living room, which was minimally furnished, clean tidy, with multiple bookshelves filled with books, but one thing stood out amongst everything else.
In the centre of the room, sitting in a runic circle, sat a man, clothed in black, a hooked nose, humming with the most concentrated look Harry had ever seen on his face.
Snape ended the humming, turned and looked Harry dead in the eye, holding a perfectly green cylinder of her magic from the first year.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, his wand, which was being clenched tightly in his other hand, dropped to the floor.
“Rigel… how?”
This was a trap.
The magic that had been singing to her, had been artificial. Harry couldn’t run, that would confirm she was Rigel. Though she was already rather doomed.
“I’m not Rigel,” She denied, taking one step backwards.
“Miss- Harry, do you not realize what this is, it is a siren call, I called your magic, this is the only reason you would be here at this present time,”
“I-” Harry stuttered, she didn’t know what to do, all sense left, there was no way to deny, except, come up with an insane reason, that always happened anyway.
“Rigel and I swapped magic’s that night that Rigel was in the prison, locked by time, it was how Rigel escaped the resonance,” There, that would hopefully explain how she was powerful later.
“Don’t lie to me Potter, though often has Rige- you completed impossible feats, some of which I still do not know how to this day like the resonance, it is far too obvious that you are Rigel, though taking Polyjuice to change your gender for four years is incredibly reckless, who knows the consequences you may face later."
Kid, there is no possible way to convince Snape otherwise, unless you want me to interfere, in your best interest of course. Dom sung to her ears.
“NO!” Harry yelled, before clasping a hand over her mouth, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“No what?” Snape inquired, tilting his head, looking Harry dead in the eye.
Kid, not that he will, but he is attempting to enter. Dom warned, with a playful tone.
“Stop trying to get in my head,”
“Despite the extensive wards, and protections I have on my home, it would be more prudent to have this conversation, where others cannot follow,” Snape stated.
“My head isn’t the best place to be right now, why can’t we go into yours,” Harry said calmly, Dom was in her head, Snape couldn’t find out about him.
“Because entering mine would cause harm to you, because of my defences, which I would wish to avoid,” Snape sighed.
“Well take the defences down,”
“That would take far too long and more magic than I have at my disposal at the present time, having been nearly drained from the siren spell,”
It was then that Harry really looked, Snape looked as if he had spent many sleepless nights, his clothing wasn’t orderly, and he had that tired look in his eyes, the one you would expect from a parent who has lost their child.
Did Snape really view her like a child?
“Fine we can go into mine but give me a minute to get things ready.” Snuffed Harry, sitting down on the only couch in the room and entered her mindscape. The sand blowing.
“Dom, you need to hide, also let Snape in, but make sure he can’t access anything important, just set up one of those tea tables, and change the landscape to Rigel’s”
Dom waved his hand, changing the scene to the mountain, and making a tea table appear with two seats, “Done, though I still think this is an idiotic idea” and went to the other half of the mindscape, the Harry half. Harry shook herself as she got out of her meditation.
“You can come in, though don’t go where I don’t want you to,” Harry said, in the real world. Snape went and sat down on the other half of the couch and looked into her eyes, his black obsidian eyes.
The world blurred around them as they were sitting at the tea-table.
[SsSsSs]
Snape never expected the siren to work, it required the recipient to want to leave in the first place, though when he saw Rig-Harry, everything fit in place, like a potion that was missing the main ingredient.
Snape needed to get into Harry’s mind see how far along h-she was in occlumency, he knew she could stop Voldemort, but did that equate to being able to stop Lord Riddle himself.
His surroundings shimmered as he entered Harry’s mind, staring into those bright green eyes, brighter than Lily’s ever were. Snape found himself sitting on a seat, with tea, in the middle of a desert.
“Ri- Mi- Harry, the reason I called was because I wanted to find you so I could protect you, not to reveal you to the SOW party, or anyone else,” Snape breathed, putting one hand on Harry’s. “Who else knows?” He added as an afterthought.
“As if-“ Harry started, fury rising.
“I will first also make it clear that memories from minds cannot be put in pensives, nothing you say here can ever be used against you, I wish to understand, to help,”
It was true, he had spent countless nights trying to figure out a way to contact Rigel, he had thought Rigel was sleeping on the streets or some dodgy apartment. Snape could see the internal battle in Harry, the debate of whether or not to open up.
Finally, Harry decided.
“Archie knows, of course, I never told anyone else, though one other figured it out, but I’m not telling you who,” Harry found herself speaking, the emotions she had kept locked away, all these years, were spilling out.
“I never polyjuiced into a male you know, I know the dangers, I just hid the entire time, that’s why I never let Madam Pomfrey or anyone else use that diagnostic charm on me,”
That caused Snape to stare in shock. Surely the Hogwarts system wasn’t that inattentive that for four years, and possibly more if the Tournament had never happened, no one would know that a girl was hiding as a boy.
“This whole time?”
“Always, though from second year onwards I was under Polyjuice that made it so Archie and I were halfway in-between, that really helped with the feminine features.”
It clicked, that one time, Harry mentioned using amber in a potion to prolong its use. The one time he had suspected someone impersonating Rigel was when he saw the symptoms of Polyjuice wearing off.
“You used amber didn’t you?”
“Yes,”
“Why?”
“Why did I use amber?” Harry asked, tilting her head.
“No, why did you do this,” Snape flung his arms up, “Why swap places in the first place, why go through the risk of Azkaban, just to attend Hogwarts.” It didn’t make sense, Harry could have learnt all of this, only delayed by a few years, if she had waited.
“I wouldn’t have been able to learn under you, I wouldn’t have been able to learn freebrewing, I wouldn’t have been able to get as good as I have if I hadn’t studied at Hogwarts,” Harry shouted, distressed.
Surely, Snape contemplated, Harry did not do all of this… to just study potions.
“Harry, are you telling me, the whole reason you went to Hogwarts, committed blood identity theft, was so you could learn under me,” Snape said, slowly as if tasting the words in his mouth.
Harry blushed, looked down, anywhere to avoid looking at him, “Well, yeah, kinda, it sounded like a lot better of an idea when I was eleven to be fair,”
“How on earth did it ever sound like a good idea in the first place,” Snape shouted. How insufferably idiotic could Rigel get.
“I wanted to do potions for the rest of my life! This would have all gone more smoothly if I hadn’t been fighting for my life, and others every single year, if that whole Tournament never happened, like a normal school, I would have been going back to Hogwarts for my fifth year! Besides, we would have swapped back once education was done, and no one would have been the wiser.” The words came pouring out of Snape’s apprentice.
Snape stared in shock, he realized, that if Hogwarts had been normal, like all the previous years, the whole ruse would have had quite the chance, to never have been noticed. He went and took a sip of the tea that was on the table.
Snape didn’t gape, as that wasn’t something he would do, but his eyes widened. This tea, from an imaginary world, was far, far better than any tea, he had ever had in the real world. The amount of time and effort, it would take just to be able to create tea this well, this perfect, should not be possible, even for someone who was mad about tea.
Rigel was most certainly not mad about tea.
“Is something wrong with the tea?” Harry queried, doing that tilt thing with her head.
“How did you manage, to create, perfect tea?” Snape had a certain, odd look of wonder on his face.
Harry very suddenly got shy, “Oh, well, I just made it,”
“I never took you for one to be into tea, tell me the truth, I only wish to understand and help,”
“No,” Harry said firmly, holding his gaze. His apprentice was going to be the end of him, how could she not see that he could help. “I have lived through what you have seen and more, I do not need your help, I need your silence,”
The resemblance in the gaze between Rigel and Harry made him wonder how he never saw it before.
“Very well, to get my silence, I wish to know all that happened in these past four years, no details left out, then you shall have my silence, a sealing curse would do well.”
Harry’s face went impassive, as it always did when she was thinking hard.
“Fine, but beware that though you did catch me on numerous times, there have still been quite a few… things I have gotten away with, that you are still unaware of,” Harry sighed.
“And since you are no longer in Hogwarts, you can neither lose house points nor get detention,” Snape smirked.
“I guess we should start in the beginning.” Harry started, taking a sip of her tea. “Archie and I were both eleven, I have been in love with potions my whole life, and honestly cannot see myself doing anything else. Archie wanted to go into healing… after his mother passed away, however Sirius was absolute on Archie going to Hogwarts, which as you know, doesn’t have the best healing program.”
Snape nodded, eyes focused.
“So, being eleven years old, we came up with the idea to switch places, I would get to go to Hogwarts, even though I’m a half-blood, and I could study under you, Archie would get to go to AIM and learn healing. We both cut our hair short, and for school in the first year, we used contact lenses to change our eye colour. On the day we left, we used Polyjuice-”
“How did you manage to get your hands on Polyjuice at that age, you couldn’t have brewed it at that age yet.” Snape's eyes piercing. Harry looked down and mumbled, “I stole them from dad’s Auror kit.” Causing Snape to smirk in amusement, “Continue on,”
“Anyway, we swapped, I went to platform 9 ¾, let Sirius leave earlier, went to the bathroom for the Polyjuice to wear off, put my contacts on and got on the express.” Harry shrugged.
“So in your first year, you looked as you truly were, with the exception of contacts,” Snape questions, resulting in a nod from Harry. Snape, thinking ahead to the next part of the story, realized there was the sorting.
“How in the name of Merlin, did you manage to fool the sorting hat?”
Harry, who was taking great amusement in his question spoke, keeping back the giggles, “Oh, the sorting hat knew who I was the moment it went on my head, but as I quote “I’m a hat, not a snitch” and the hat just never told anyone, and sorted me into Slytherin like I wanted to be,”
“Like you wanted to be? Weren’t you always told how Gryffindor was the best house since before you could walk?”
“Well, yes, but it wasn’t enforced that much, I was never meant to go to Hogwarts in the first place, anyway, I needed Slytherin so I could learn under you, I doubt you would have taken me in if I had been in any other house,” Harry said, with a small smile.
“Let's get back on track, after the sorting, there were the classes which I didn’t do well in the ones that required spell casting as the wand wasn’t the right match. That time that we were talking and went into each other’s minds, I was completely scared. You have to realize, that having heard you were in my mind, I thought you had just seen that I was actually Harry Potter, a half-blood, in Hogwarts, but you didn’t.”
“So if that had gone differently, I could have found out within the first few weeks,” Snape was slightly shocked, that he had been so close to figuring it out, but didn’t.
“Yes, and that isn’t the first time as well. Going back to school, there was one person who recognized I wasn’t Archie, since he had already met Archie at quidditch regularly, and Archie forgot to mention that to me. That was how I found myself blackmailed by Flint, to do his homework.” Harry paused, looking at Snape, trying to gauge a reaction.
A million things were flying through his mind, finally glad to have the mystery of who was doing Marcus Flint’s homework, but then, it was Rigel, a first-year, always trust Rigel to be behind all the greatest student secrets.
“You are telling me,” Snape started, in the deadly soft voice, “That you, a first-year, was doing Flint’s this whole time.”
“Well yeah, though I did ask Percy often about Transfiguration, and later down the line Blaise about Runes,”
Snape sighed, yet another mystery solved, and it being Rigel’s fault no less. To think he had the pieces, knowing that there was something linking it together but didn’t quite put it all together. This was going to be a long night.
“Continue on,”
“I avoided the Hospital wing when my hand was broken because well, I didn’t want Madam Pomfrey to find out. The rest of the first year was mostly normal apart from the whole sickness deal, which I did solve exactly as I said it then, though you may have noticed that my mental image of myself was different because I was used to long hair, though I managed to change my eye colour.”
“What about your wand?”
“Oh, that was the same as Ollivander said, everything magic wise is true, all the problems and what you call impossible did happen. Thankfully Ollivander didn’t recognise me.”
“Very well, shall we move to your second year,” Snape stated, still trying to wrap his head around Harry being Rigel, and all the signs he missed.
“Yes, second year was harder, I have to admit,” Harry started, her eyes glazing over as she reminisced the memories.