Mia Potter was the other Potter. Looking almost identical to her mother, she was a force to be reckoned with. But there was only one person who could reckon with her, and his name was Draco Malfoy.
In which the youngest Potter twin finds herself fa...
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"Mia?"
The ginger girl looked up. She was back at Hogwarts, sitting in Dumbledore's office, completely unaware of how she got there.
Everything seemed to have repaired itself during the headmaster's absence. The delicate silver instruments stood again upon the spindle-legged tables, puffing and whirring serenely. The portraits of the headmasters and headmistresses were snoozing in their frames, heads lolling back in armchairs or against the edge of their pictures.
Mia looked through the window. There was a cool line of pale green along the horizon: Dawn was approaching. The silence and the stillness, broken only by the occasional grunt or snuffle of a sleeping portrait, were unbearable to her. If her surroundings could have reflected the feelings inside her, the pictures would have been screaming in pain.
As Dumbledore's tall form unfolded itself from the fire, the wizards and witches on the surrounding walls jerked awake. Many of them gave cries of welcome.
"Thank you," said Dumbledore softly.
He did not look at Mia at first, but walked over to the perch beside the door and withdrew, from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny, ugly, featherless Fawkes, whom he placed gently on the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the full-grown Fawkes usually stood.
"Well, Mia," said Dumbledore, finally turning away from the baby bird, "you will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students are going to suffer lasting damage from the night's events."
Mia tried to say "Good," but no sound came out. It seemed to her that Dumbledore was reminding her of the amount of damage she had caused by her actions tonight, and although Dumbledore was for once looking at her directly, and though his expression was kindly rather than accusatory, Mia could not bear to meet his eyes.
"Madam Pomfrey is patching everybody up now," said Dumbledore. "Nymphadora Tonks may need to spend a little time in St.Mungo's, but it seems that she will make a full recovery."
Mia nodded.
"I know how you are feeling, Mia," said Dumbledore very quietly.
"No, you don't," said Mia, and her voice was suddenly loud and strong. White-hot anger leapt inside her. Dumbledore knew nothing about her feelings.
"There is no shame in what you are feeling, Mia," said Dumbledore's voice. "On the contrary . . . the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength."
Mia felt the white-hot anger lick her insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling her with the desire to hurt Dumbledore for his calmness and his empty words.
"My greatest strength, is it?" said Mia, her voice shaking her eyes glowed red. "You haven't a clue. . . . You don't know. . . ."
"What don't I know?" asked Dumbledore calmly.
It was too much. Mia turned around, shaking with rage as her eyes flickered between red and blue.
"I don't want to talk about how I feel, all right?"
"Mia, suffering like this proves you are still alive! This pain is part of being human. . . ."
"THEN — I — DON'T — WANT — TO — BE — FUCKING — HUMAN!"Mia screamed and a blast of dark red energy escaped her body and smashed the delicate silver instruments from the spindle-legged table beside her. They flew across the room and shattered into a hundred tiny pieces against the wall. Several of the pictures let out yells of anger and fright, and the portrait of Armando Dippet said, "Really!"
"I DON'T CARE!" Mia yelled at them, her eyes glowing red as a lunascope levitated and went straight into the fireplace. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T GIVE TWO SHITS ANYMORE. . . ."
Sparks of red energy left her hands as the table on which the silver instrument had stood broke apart on the floor and the legs rolled in different directions.
"You do care," said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Mia from demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. "You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it."
"I — DON'T!" Mia screamed, so loudly that she felt his throat might tear, and for a second she wanted to rush at Dumbledore and break him too; shatter that calm old face, shake him, hurt him, make him feel some tiny part of the horror inside Mia.
"Oh yes, you do," said Dumbledore, still more calmly. "You have now lost your mother, and your father, and your brother has lost the closest thing to a parent has ever known. Your brother's pain hurts you more than you care to admit. Of course, you care."
"HE MIGHT DIE!" Mia screamed. "THAT STUPID FUCKING BALL THING SAID NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER TWO SURVIVE! YOU DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL!" Mia roared. "YOU —STANDING THERE — YOU —"
But words were no longer enough, smashing things was no more help. She wanted to run, she wanted to keep running and never look back, she wanted to be somewhere he could not see the clear blue eyes of Dumbledore staring at her, that hatefully calm old face. She ran to the door, seized the doorknob again, and wrenched at it. But the door would not open. Mia turned back to Dumbledore.
"Let me out," she said. She was shaking from head to foot as a ball of red energy appeared at her fingertips.
"No," said Dumbledore simply. For a few seconds, they stared at each other.
"Let me out," Mia said again.
"No," Dumbledore repeated.
"Let me out," Mia said, her voice shaking, "or I will destroy this fucking place."
"By all means continue destroying my possessions," said Dumbledore serenely. "I daresay I have too many."
He walked around his desk and sat down behind it, watching Harry.
"Let me out," Mia said yet again, in a voice that was cold and almost as calm as Dumbledore's.
"Not until I have had my say," said Dumbledore.
"Do you. . . . do you think I want to. . . do you think I give a. . . . IDON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO SAY!" Mia roared. "I don't want to hear anything you've got to say!"
"You will," said Dumbledore sadly. "Because you are not nearly as angry with me as you ought to be. If you are to attack me, as I know you are close to doing, I would like to have thoroughly earned it."
"What are you talking. . . .?"
"It is my fault that Sirius died," said Dumbledore clearly. "Or I should say almost entirely my fault, I will not be so arrogant as to claim responsibility for the whole. Sirius was a brave, clever, and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they believe others to be in danger. Nevertheless, you nor your brother should never have believed for an instant that there was any necessity for you to go to the Department of Mysteries tonight. If I had been open with you, Mia, as I should have been, you would have known a long time ago that Voldemort might try and lure you to your brother o the Department of mysteries, and you would never have been tricked into going there tonight. And Sirius would not have had to come after you. That blame lies with me and with me alone."
