Chapter 1: The Obscurial Girl

Harry woke to Daphne's knock on the stair above his cupboard, their secret knock. He reached up, knocking back as quietly as he could. He turned on the tiny light in what served as his bedroom in the cupboard under the stairs, and looked at the small clock. 2:36AM. He didn't hear Daphne walking down the stairs, which didn't surprise him. He was always in awe of how quietly she could walk.

Daphne unlocked Harry's cupboard and stepped inside. "What's wrong, Daph?" Harry asked. The tiny child shook her head silently. Harry hugged her gently. "You're shaking — did you have another nightmare?" Daphne clung to Harry tighter and he guided her to sit on his small bed.

"Daffodil," Harry said soothingly, using the name Daphne's mother had sometimes called her. "What was your dream about?"

"I don't remember," said Daphne meekly. Harry peered at her carefully.

"You always say you don't remember," he said quietly. Harry wasn't sure he believed his sister. Why was she so afraid if she couldn't remember her dreams at all? "Are you sure? You don't remember anything?"

"Harry, I can't remember the dreams," insisted Daphne. She was letting a spider crawl on her arm, and lifted it up. She gently moved the spider toward her hand and turned her hand this way and that as the spider walked on her.

"Well, at least you're not scared of spiders," said Harry lightly. "Shall I read you more from the story?" Daphne's eyes brightened.

"Can I read it?" asked Daphne.

"Sure," said Harry, handing her the book, Charlotte's Web he had been reading to her. Petunia used to buy whatever books her daughter wanted, but now, if it was just up to Petunia, she would refuse. Vernon still bought Daphne whatever books she wanted. Harry couldn't pinpoint exactly when Petunia's attitude toward her daughter had changed, he just noticed that she had started to treat Daphne with coldness.

Daphne was extremely intelligent for her age, which used to make both her parents proud. Harry's Uncle Vernon still treated his daughter as his pride and joy, but Petunia had stopped treating Daphne that way. Harry was used to the Dursleys hating him, but he found Petunia's shifting attitude toward Daphne peculiar.

It started before all the things that had happened at Daphne's school a few years ago, so he knew it wasn't about that. Daphne had stopped going to school after she saw her teacher die, and Vernon and Petunia had paid for tutors to help homeschool her. It seemed to Harry that Daphne's dreams got far worse after her teacher had died, but her nightmares had always been bad.

Harry and Daphne were about three years apart. His birthday was at the end of July, and Daphne's the end of October. But the Dursleys never celebrated Harry's birthday, so Daphne shared hers. She would ask Harry what he wanted and ask the Dursleys for those things. She'd pretend to get bored of the gift and give it to Harry. In turn, though, Harry shared his clothes. The Dursleys only ever bought Harry used clothes from thrift stores, but always bought Daphne brand new clothes. Daphne hated the way they dressed her though, and Harry sympathized. They dressed her like a doll, always putting her in frilly dresses which she hated.

They had invented their secret knock when Daphne was four and Harry was eight. Daphne had horrifying nightmares that woke the whole house sometimes, but not always. She didn't always scream in her sleep. Petunia had taken the child to some hospitals and specialists and Daphne was supposed to take medicine to help her sleep, but she sometimes hid it or threw it away. Sometimes the entire house would shake when Daphne had her nightmares. Once there was a terrible storm, a wind that shattered every window in the house. But theirs was the only house on the street affected. Petunia had been cold to Daphne after that, as though she blamed her for what had happened.

Daphne had been in the hospital for a long time after her teacher died. That was the longest she'd spent in a hospital, though she had been in hospitals for days after that or sometimes a week. Petunia and Vernon had treated Harry particularly harshly when Daphne was in hospital. She wasn't crazy she just had a lot of nightmares and sometimes had nightmares while she was awake. And she had an imaginary friend called Mab who was a fairy girl with rainbow antlers. But a lot of little kids had imaginary friends. And Daphne hadn't mentioned Mab in a while now.

They had never treated Harry like he was a part of their family. At Christmas, as well, the Dursleys never gave Harry any presents. The Dursleys always grumbled about having to buy Harry anything, even clothes and food. Daphne had been sneaking Harry food for as long as Harry could remember, whenever he was sent to his cupboard without meals, which was often.

When Daphne was only five years old, she'd also decided to become a vegetarian. She refused to eat meat, and though her parents thought it was a phase, she never changed her mind. Sometimes Petunia would be harsh with her daughter about not eating meat, she'd threaten that if she didn't eat the meat she'd prepared she wouldn't eat at all. But Daphne's father, Harry's Uncle Vernon, would always counter that and tell his wife to let the child be.

Vernon knew how much his daughter loved animals, and joked about her becoming a dog breeder like his sister, Marge. Daphne wanted a pet more than anything in the world, it was the only thing she ever asked for at Christmas and for her birthdays, but Petunia hated animals and wouldn't hear of it. They would buy her stuffed animals, but she only wanted magical ones, like dragons or unicorns, which infuriated Petunia for reasons Harry couldn't understand.

Harry was nearly eleven, and things with the Dursleys were worse than ever. He'd started receiving letters, and whoever sent those letters knew that he slept in the cupboard under the stairs. Petunia had suggested that Harry take the smallest bedroom upstairs, but Vernon had refused. "They'd be sharing a wall, Petunia, I don't want his nasty influence on Daphne."

To hide from whoever was sending the letters, the Dursleys had left their house, driving Harry and Daphne as far away as they could. They had finally arrived at a hut on a rock in the middle of nowhere, a distance from shore.

The night Hagrid arrived at the small hut on the rock, Daphne and Harry were awake. Daphne had taken a packet of candles from the house when Vernon had told them they were going away. She had tried to fit eleven candles into a cream-filled cupcake she'd begged her parents for at a petrol station.

"Sorry, I don't have anything to light the candles with," said Daphne quietly. "Happy birthday, Harry. Make a wish."

"I wish my parents were alive and they'd take us away from the Durleys," Harry whispered. He and Daphne made this wish often. Daphne didn't hate the Dursleys, though, and Harry didn't expect her to. They were her parents, after all. And they did love her, even if they didn't understand her and tried to force her to be something she wasn't.

The thunderous boom of Hagrid at the door frightened Daphne, but Harry was more curious than scared. The pounding on the door had started so shortly after he'd made that wish. He was eleven, he was too old now to believe in the fairy tale that his parents were somehow secretly alive. Still, though, he was curious.

The door was knocked off its hinges and a man who looked twelve feet tall squeezed in through the doorway.

Hagrid immediately recognized Harry as he entered the hut, but the little girl who clung to Harry reminded him a lot of Lily. She had white hair, but other than her hair she looked almost exactly as Lily had looked as a child. She had the same face, the same bright green eyes. The likeness startled him at first, for he had seen the Dursleys and the child looked almost nothing like either of them.

"Am I a wizard too?" Daphne had asked, as Hagrid explained Hogwarts and magic to Harry. Hagrid couldn't sense any magic about the girl at all, she seemed to him to be a Muggle. But he couldn't be certain, and the girl's eyes were so hopeful, he didn't want to crush her dreams.

"No!" Vernon had shouted, then. He stepped forward, dragging Daphne up off the sofa where she sat next to Harry. Daphne yelped in pain, but Vernon hugged her close to him. "You're not a freak like him," said Vernon. "And he will not be going!"

"No, please, no," whimpered Daphne. "Let me go."

"Settle down, Dursley," said Hagrid, getting to his feet. "You're hurting the girl. Let her go."

"I will not be ordered about in my own home!" shouted Vernon furiously. But the hut was shaking, the whole hut, as though an earthquake were rumbling through. Hagrid glanced at Harry in surprise. It was magic, strong, powerful, uncontrolled magic, that made the hut shake like this. But it wasn't Harry casting it, Hagrid realized. He looked back at the Dursley girl.

"Please let me go," whimpered Daphne meekly. Hagrid stepped forward, gripping Vernon's shirt collar.

"Don't touch him!" Petunia shrieked.

"Let her go," said Hagrid quietly. Vernon's eyes were squeezed shut in terror, but he let the girl go, and just like that the house stopped shaking. Daphne ran to Harry, who hugged her tightly and protectively.

"You all right?" Hagrid asked Daphne softly. She nodded silently. "Okay, well, Harry in the morning I'm taking you to get your school things. Best get some sleep now, yeah?"

"Can I go too?" Daphne asked quietly.

"Absolutely not," Petunia fumed.

Hagrid dropped Harry off back at Privet Drive after helping him get his school things at Diagon Alley, though Harry was bewildered as to how the Dursleys were able to get home from that rock. Hagrid Apparated to Hogsmeade, then. Normally he would have stopped for a drink at the Three Broomsticks, but he set directly toward Hogwarts, to speak with Dumbledore.

Hagrid gave the Headmaster the Sorcerer's Stone he had retrieved, and told him about Harry and the Dursleys. Dumbledore seemed a little surprised that the Dursleys had told Harry nothing about the magical world, and had lied to him about how his parents had died.

"Wait, that isn't everything," Hagrid said when Dumbledore had stood up to see him to the door. "It's the little Dursley girl. I think she's an Obscurial."

"Are you certain of this?" Dumbledore asked Hagrid.

"'Course I'm certain," said Hagrid. "She read like a Muggle when I first saw her, but then when Vernon grabbed her and she was terrified, she summoned an earthquake. She's suppressing her magic so much she seemed to be a Muggle at first."

"I see," said Dumbledore quietly. "Thank you, Hagrid."