THIS CHAPTER IS AN AUTHOR'S NOTE CHAPTER

First of all, I would like to thank Feenrai, who has kindly beta-read this story. Her feedback has been invaluable, and I can't thank her enough for putting up with my pages of geeky emails about characterization and themes and ridiculously overly-obsessive magical theory essays.

As with the first story in this series, I plan to avoid A/Ns within the chapters, so there will be this chapter discussing the story and how it differs from canon, and then one chapter at the end where I will address reviews for the class and add updates on progress/hiatus/etc.

'Mary Potter and the Heir of Slytherin' is a sequel to 'Mary Potter and the Call to Adventure' and parallels 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.'

THIS CHAPTER MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION CONSIDERED SPOILERS, ESPECIALLY FOR THE FIRST STORY IN THE SERIES.

If you would rather skip straight to the story, or to the disclaimers at the end of this chapter feel free to do so: nothing in this chapter is essential to your understanding or enjoyment of the rest of it, especially if you've already read the first story in the series.

*RECAP*

In this AU, Harry was born a girl: Mary Elizabeth Potter. Her personality is slightly different from Canon Harry's, largely due to different treatment by the Dursleys as she was growing up.

When Mary received her Hogwarts letter, Vernon Dursley (who didn't hate Mary quite as much as he did Harry, for various reasons outlined in the Preface to 'Call to Adventure') insisted that he and Petunia take the opportunity to get rid of the little brat for good. They sent a letter to Dumbledore which was intercepted by Minerva, who took steps to remove Mary from the Dursleys' custody while Dumbledore was out of the country on business.

Dumbledore didn't fight it because he interprets the prophecy to mean that the Chosen One is yet to be found – It can't be Mary because she's a girl and the prophecy specifies 'he.' Dumbledore isn't evil or excessively manipulative toward Mary, at least at this point, just a bit pre-occupied with his other duties. (And concerned that she occasionally reminds him of Tom.)

Minerva becomes Mary's official guardian in Magical Britain and takes her to Hogwarts. They go to Diagon Alley with Hermione's family, the Finch-Fletchleys, and Dean Thomas for the Annual Muggleborn Shopping Trip. Hermione invites Mary to stay at her house for the last few weeks of summer, and Mary (reluctantly) agrees.

On the train, Mary and Hermione meet a number of interesting people, both first-years and older students, and learn about the unwritten law that is The Truce – the reason Magical British Society is still able to function (despite the fact that it's an open secret that the most powerful Death Eaters got off scot-free and are still highly influential) and children from both sides of the recent civil war (though with the size of Magical British society, most muggles would consider it more of a gang war) are able to attend school with only minor hallway scuffles.

Mary is sorted into Slytherin House, which is much more internally organized and structured than Gryffindor. They have a plan for everything, and their upperclassmen make sure the new students aren't embarrassing the house, which translates into giving them a lot of help compared to what we see Harry receiving from older students in Canon.

Hermione is sorted into Ravenclaw. Hermione and Lilian Moon become Mary's closest friends.

Mary initially is faced with a good deal of prejudice from within Slytherin and is shunned for being the Mary Potter. After an incident with Draco Malfoy and a flying lesson, this escalates into a series of ever-more-dangerous pranks. She ends the hazing period by (dramatically) revealing herself as a parselmouth within Slytherin. This of course spreads quickly throughout the entire school, with the result that everyone from all the houses now firmly believes that Mary belongs in Slytherin and treat her accordingly.

There are several life-threatening moments (intentional or not) over the course of the school year: The troll let loose on the dungeons; her broomstick cursed during a flying lesson; the run-in with Quirrellmort in the forest; Quirrell cursing her during his exam; wandering into the middle of Snape and Quirrellmort's duel; and of course there was the Norbert incident and the Snake Prank that almost sent her head-first down a staircase, though neither of the last two were actually intended to kill her.

Mary reminds Snape of himself more than Lily or James, and he distances himself from her for most of the year while he tries to come to terms with the fact of her existence. She sees him a bit less guarded after the duel with Quirrellmort. She reminds Dumbledore of a certain other orphan child from fifty years before, but he hasn't decided what to do about that yet. She reminds Remus of Sirius, and Minerva of Remus.

Politics is more complicated than just Dark-Neutral-Light, where the Dark houses support independence and a small government and the Light houses support cooperation and increased governmental powers and authority. A secondary axis that is important in this story is Traditionalist-neutral-Progressive, where traditionalists want to preserve their cultural values and progressives want to accept muggleborns' more modern values. A lot of the Neutral Houses like Bones and Urquhart are traditionalists, as are most of the Dark houses. Theo's mum is Dark and neutral on cultural issues. The Moons are a Neutral House with a neutral stance on the cultural issues as well. McGonagall is a Light Traditional family. The Weasleys and Dumbledore are Light Progressive. Hermione is actually neutral as far as the cultural stuff goes (because she thinks it's fascinating and wants to know all about it before she passes judgement), though most muggleborns are progressive.

Most Slytherin students come from 'traditionalist' families. Slytherin house, therefore (unofficially) still celebrates the Old Holidays (Samhain, Midwinter, Imbolc, Spring Solstice, Beltane/Walpurgis, Midsummer, Lammas, and Autumn Solstice). Mary participates in the Samhain and Midwinter rituals. Most Slytherins are from Dark families, so they don't bother with a house-wide Imbolc or Spring Solstice ritual. Walpurgis is for adults only, so you have to be at least 15 to join in. Mary completely forgets about Midsummer with the excitement of meeting Quirrellmort in the Forest (and then exams and yet another attempt on her life,) and she was being shunned during most of September, so she wasn't invited to join in with the Autumn Solstice.

Sometime in October, Snape learned that Voldemort was born Tom Riddle, and broke in to Azkaban to taunt Bellatrix with that knowledge.

*END RECAP*

This story will not follow canon quite as closely as the first story did (which I expect most readers will be pleased to hear), though most major events will still take place at about the same time: Mary's activities have done nothing to affect Lucius Malfoy's feud with Arthur Weasley, so the Diary is still put into play, and there is still a confrontation between "Tom the Diary Ghost" and Mary, though she is not the one who instigates it. There are still illegal potions-brewing activities (much more illegal activity, actually, than in canon, as the Twins get involved), and someone is turned into a cat. Mostly. Dobby is still hanging around, but Mary doesn't free him (on the advice of Cammy, who assures her that House Elves have their own ways to deal with people like Lucius Malfoy).

I was pleasantly surprised how many people seemed interested in the inclusion of more ritual magic and the expanded traditional wizarding holidays. I was originally intending to let them fade into the background, much like class activities, explained in detail the first time they happen, and after that only mentioned in passing unless an important plot event occurs during one of the ceremonies, or someone is clarifying an important theoretical point for Mary. Regarding ritual magic, that all the holiday observance rituals or celebrations are intended to simply honor the turning of the year or the power associated with the holiday, and in some cases to give a person more insight into themselves and their relationships with others. They all involve dipping into magic greater than oneself, and are largely benign. There is a different class of rituals (Black and White Arts) that are intended to affect an outcome through sacrifice to one of the Dark or Light Powers. This is the sort of ritual magic Lily Potter was notorious for using in the war (and what Voldemort uses to get a body back), and it is illegal because the Ministry doesn't want that kind of power thrown around on a regular basis. There are a lot of rituals in this book (they all seemed important at the time – what can I say?) so if that was your favorite part, awesome! If not, well, you can probably skim at least a quarter of this story. Sorry.

As implied by the fact that this is posted on a fan fiction website, I do not own most of the characters in this story, or the general plot, or most of the settings. I don't claim to. Even things that are not taken from canon may bear a striking resemblance to other fan works, due to the fact that I've read far too many such things. No plagiarism is intended. If you see something that looks familiar from fan fiction, PM me and I will add a reference.

This story is written for fun, not profit, and I have and will receive no money in relation to it. Furthermore, as this is a single-point-of-divergence universe (or it's supposed to be), there will be points where dialogue which is not affected by changes to canon thus far is lifted directly from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In order to preserve the pacing of the story, these passages have not been marked. I do not claim ownership of those lines. If you recognize them, you doubtless know who does.