Her Journey To Greatness

Chapter 2

When Albus Dumbledore convinced the potters to let him take dahlia away, there was a reason why he refused to tell them where she would be going. The Dursleys are infamous among the marauders due to Lily's stories of her horrid sister. If they knew that their daughter was going to be left at their mercy for the next 10 years, they never would have agreed. But the fact of the matter is, that they didn't care enough to find out. They will come to regret their blind faith in Albus dumbledore.

The old man appeared in a muggle street in Surrey, called privet drive and walked to number 4. He had already written the note he would leave with the child while he was waiting for them to say goodbye. In his letter he says that Dahlia needs somewhere to stay until she's 11 so that her brother can achieve his potential unhindered by a jealous sibling. He says that she needs to be kept control of or else her magic will gain a mind of its own. He leaves some not so subtle hints towards being able to beat the magic out of her. He knows that these words will doubtlessly make the Dursleys do exactly what he wants.

His intention is for her to be raised in an unloving environment, abused, so that she will arrive at Hogwarts desperate for affection and to be saved from the Dursleys. He can then swoop in and gain her trust easily and she will do anything in her power to please him and keep him happy with her. She will be a mere puppet in 10 years, ready and waiting for Dumbledore to pull her strings. Only, in 10 years, will he realise how wrong he was..

He left the girl in a basket on their doorstep, with the letter in there with her, to be found when one of them opens the door the next morning. Not even thinking to cast a warming charm on her on this freezing night, he travels back to Hogwarts.

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The Dursley household started off as a tolerable place to live. The conditions weren't ideal, but Dahlia isn't one to complain unless she truly can't cope. At first it wasn't too bad, she got fed enough to live off and she had a space to call her own, even if it was the cupboard under the stairs. She still kept that light in her eyes, she still found joy and interest in everything she saw. Her relatives were very vocal about their hatred for her, they mentioned many times that her parents didn't even want her so she should be grateful that they decided to take her in. And despite her knowing that she deserves better, she chose to listen to them and be grateful. Until it started getting worse..

When she turned 4 she started getting lists of chores to do every day, getting longer as time passed. Soon enough she was doing everything: cooking (as soon as she was tall enough to reach the stove using the step stool) , sweeping, laundry, gardening, dusting, tidying etc. Whenever she made any mistake or, god forbid, didn't finish the chores quick enough she got punishments that gradually got worse as she got older. Starting off as missing a meal, a slap to the cheek, being locked in her cupboard for day, but they got much worse: starving her for a week in her cupboard with only a bit of water, burning her whenever she accidentally burned their food, full blown beatings (including belt lashings) when she dared to ask for a bit more food, and of course she was also a target for Dudley and his friends.

She is under no delusions that she deserves this treatment, no matter how much they try to convince her that she does. She knows that she is not at fault for it. And she knows that she will escape eventually. And all of this is because of her dear friend, Mortem. He has been present through it all, where only she can see him. He doesn't have the power to do anything physically in the mortal world but nevertheless, his help was priceless. He helped her mentality whenever she started doubting her worth; he helped her intellectually, teaching her anything and everything possible. She learnt how to control her magic completely, she learnt hundreds of spells in varying levels of difficulty, both light and dark in equal measures, she learnt all about potions theory to an extent where she would be confident to brew pretty much anything if she had to right now. He also explained the goings on in the magical world lately, talked to her about dumbledore's manipulations, about the potters going on as if she never existed, and about the dark side (now including dear Sirius and Remus) essentially shunning the potters for what they did to dahlia. The majority of the magical world cherishes children because of how much trouble many have with conceiving, so the thought that the potters had thrown one child away as if it meant nothing infuriated a lot of people. The knowledge about her parents and Dumbledore makes her increasingly confident that her hatred of them is justified. However, she is reserving judgement on Jamie for now; because as much as he sounds like a brat, he hasn't actually done anything bad to her yet. She can remember a surprising amount of things from when she was with the potters. As annoying as Jamie was, she loved him, and she still does; it's hardly his fault that he got the credit for what she did that night. So, she plans on waiting until she meets him again to make her judgement.

Mortem also gave her a couple of gifts with some of his own magic, teaching her how it can be used. According to him, one of the gifts has similarities to the abilities of dementors. It basically made it easy for her to drop the temperature around her and exploit some people's deepest fears; It wasn't an insanely powerful gift on its own, but it was an incredible method of intimidation, and coupled with her own natural magical abilities, she can be downright terrifying when she wants to be.

The other gift was the ability to talk to the dead. She can't see them as if they're ghosts, but she can talk to them in her mind. This ability was used the most to talk to the Hogwarts founders, who ended up teaching her even more stuff. Salazar focused most on politics, potions, occlumency and runes, Godric focused most on duelling tactics and defence, Rowena focused most on charms, transfiguration and arithmancy, and Helga focused most on herbology and care of magical creatures. A lot of her knowledge is just theory in all subjects that don't require active magic or spell work, because she has no way to put her knowledge into practice yet, especially with subjects like care of magical creatures, but it is still undoubtedly a lot of priceless knowledge.

She had learnt all of this by the time she was nine years old. Every day she would go through the motions of cooking, cleaning, other chores school/homework, getting punished for some random reason, pushing through the pain, getting food if she was lucky and eventually making it back to her cupboard at night where she would cast a wandless silencing charm and spend a couple of hours being taught by Mortem until she went to sleep and then did it all over again.

It was a painful routine, but dahlia was nothing if not a survivor. She would either make a good enough plan to escape early, or she would wait until her 11th birthday to escape then. Either way, it's not too long of a wait now.

The latest news from Mortem and the founders gave her a renewed sense of hope. Apparently the Founders set up a sort of failsafe in their vaults and lordships. They each made it so that they reserve the right to choose a new heir in the future. It was just in case their portraits met anyone they considered worthy, especially if their line had died out, or was close to dying out. They never thought they'd ever communicate with anyone like they do with Dahlia, but it still counts and with the help of Mortem, they each named Dahlia their heir, ready for her to claim at Gringotts when she wants to.

So, now with financial independence, and even some properties from the founders, she knows she can finally escape the Dursleys; without having to wait another 2 years for her 11th birthday.

Her plan is fairly simple. The next morning, she plans to take some money out of her aunts' purse, get the bus to the leaky cauldron in London, get to Gringotts, and ask the goblins for an inheritance test. When that's done she can get as much money as she likes and go shopping before making her way to one of her properties. And if she feels brave at the end of the day, she might try to contact Sirius and Remus.