Lord, what fools these mortals be!

A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare

(III, II, 115)

A scrawny young man with stunningly green eyes slammed the door. He yelled through the window next to it, "OKAY! I'll get your bloody, flaming . . . um . . . um . . . eggs! But don't blame me if Volde-bloody-mort comes while I'm gone, or if I get kidnaped by one of the dark lord's followers and the Order gets pi-" The Boy-Who-Lived moved his head quicker than he had previously thought possible, narrowly avoiding losing it in an unfortunate window-closing accident. He gave the prim house and perfect "award winning" garden (in which he had labored many a day) one final glare, and jogged off.

Harry pushed his messy, jet black hair out of his eyes, and slowed down as he began to feel the effects of jogging several blocks. He was pale from not leaving the house in a month or so, and rather out of shape. At Hogwarts, Harry had been kept in some degree of fitness by walking up and down the numerous flights of stairs, and running between classes, and before Hogwarts he had run from Dudley for miles, but while in his 'house arrest', he hadn't really gotten any exercise. Harry panted hard, and kept on going forwards, walking now.

Harry turned left on Wisteria Walk. He glowering across the street at Dudley's gang, who were smoking in the alley between wisteria Walk and Magnolia Crescent, and they sniggered as he walked by, a few calling out, "Mad Potter!", or "Wanker!" He flicked them off, and in their stoned state, they were too high to do anything other than growl. One, who seemed slightly more lucid than the others, walked forwards towards him arrogantly, but seeing that no one followed, quickly moved back and straightened his coat, pretending that nothing had happened.

Harry muttered a few expletives under his breath, before turning right on Magnolia Road. He surreptitiously looked around himself, feigning stretching his neck, and seeing neither a minder, nor Death Eaters, he advanced briskly. A woman, seeing that he was walking in her general direction, pulled her child along with herself to the other side of the street, but Harry ignored her, and just kept on walking forward.

On Magnolia Road, a block or two before the store, he had the disturbing feeling that someone had turned up the temperature in Surrey, since the abnormally cold July day was instantaneously an average and warm July day, and his overly large hand-me-down sweatshirt was now overly warm, as well. He pulled it off, and kept on walking towards the store. He noticed a house with a cool blue exterior as opposed to the white of all the other, that he could've sworn was a light green, but quickly forgot about it, assuming that he must have a faulty memory. Another family, consisting of a moth, a father, and small child, seven or eight years old, passed by him, barely noticing him, although the mother smiled down at him, and the child waved happily at him. Barely believing it, he waved back, and the child beamed, before walking past him. Odd . . . the parents didn't run screaming. The child might not have been old enough to know about 'watching out for the Potter boy', but Aunt Petunia should've gotten to all of the families by now, unless they're new . . . . Ah, they must be new to this part of Surrey. He pushed this too from his mind, and thought about the task at hand. Eggs.

Harry crossed the street to the grocery store, entered it confidently, and walked towards the refrigerator. Then, he panicked, realizing that he had completely forgotten what kind of eggs to get. How many? Oh, a dozen. Or two? No, one dozen. But medium? Or large? Or extra large? Or jumbo? Hell, better go with jumbo. Aunt Petunia wouldn't want anything less than the biggest. Look at her most prized possessions, Vernon and Dursley. Smiling, and thanking Merlin for life's little victories, he picked up a carton with "Dozen - Jumbo" labeled on it. He tossed it from his left hand to his right, nearly dropping it and turned to go to the cashier. Oddly enough, the cashier wasn't looking suspiciously at him, but at the moderately pretty, pale girl with long black hair that cascaded down her front and back, partially covering her face. She had just entered the store, and was walking purposefully with her head down, towards the refrigerator where he was standing.

Harry moved to the left of the refrigerator, and disinterestedly watched her pick her product. She reached for the medium, two dozen eggs, before stopping, moving her hand back again, and straightening up. A frown appeared on her face, and her eyes darted from the top shelf, with medium eggs, and the shelf right below it, with jumbo eggs. Finally, she picked the eggs labeled "Dozen - Jumbo", and smiling, attempted to go towards the cash register. Without looking up, she unintentionally head-butted Harry in the chin, making him exclaim "Ow!" rather loudly, and rub his chin. She quickly backed up, and looked at Harry in surprise, blushing fiercely. He was blushing pretty hard too, since he felt almost like a voyeur, for some odd reason, watching her pick her groceries. He also though he saw a glimpse of red on her forehead, but it was only for a second, before her hair covered it again.

She muttered, "Excuse me," and quickly maneuvered around him. She went towards the grocer, who sniffed angrily at her, before accepting her fiver. Harry got in line behind her, face still red, and noticed that in her excessively large pants, she had put her wand in her back pocket. A bit of holly was visible between the shirt and pants, and he smiled at seeing a fellow magician in Surrey, before blushing even harder, realizing where he was looking, now feeling like not only a voyeur, but also a major pervert. She walked out of the store, the shop owner still looking at her as if she were a serial killer on parole, and Harry pulled a fiver from his pocket, and threw it absentmindedly onto the counter. The grocer's attention snapped to Harry, and the grocer smiled amiably at Harry, before giving him his change. Harry arched an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Harry jogged out towards the girl, and then slowed to a walk. He called forward, "Hey! You! Slow down!" The girl slowed down, seeming rather surprised that anyone wanted to talk to her. She looked back, and arched an eyebrow at him. He grinned, and moved up, next to her. "I know this is kind of random, but, you know, I'm doing a survey on . . . stuff. What did you think of Bambi? You know, the Disney movie."

She arched her eyebrow again, but still answered, "Um . . . well, I thought the stuff with the . . . um, hunters, was really sad and everything, and the bit with that hedgehog. . . . . Um . . . Thumper? Really . . . adorable. Yeah." She was mumbling by the end, and looking to her right.

He smiled smugly, enjoying the feeling of knowing something she didn't, and being in power, asked, more liked stated, really, his voice full of laughter, "You've never seen Bambi, have you." She tensed, and looked at her feet, and he laughed a little more, before saying, "That's okay, I haven't seen Bambi either, and I"m not really taking a survey. Just wanted to know if you had seen it." She sped up a little, and Harry jogged forward to catch up to her. When he caught up with her, he leaned over her should, and whispered, "Don't put your wand there, girl! What if it ignited? Better witches than you have lost buttocks, you know" She jerked heard around, and quickly pulled out said wand and pointed it at him.

"Who the fuck are you?" She queried accusingly, eyes wide.

He smirked. "Another wizard, and don't worry, I won't kill you. . . unless you're a Death Eater." He pulled his own wand quickly, and pointed it at her.

She whispered, "Forearm," and both pulled their sleeve back, each revealing perfectly smooth, pale skin.

She grinned, and putting her wand back, said, "The Bambi thing was mean. I've heard of it, but I really didn't know anything about it . . . and. . . . Damn, thumper was a rabbit, wasn't he."

He nodded, and started walking again. He questioned, "Which school do you go to?"

She responded easily, "Hogwarts. Just took my OWLs, going into sixth year. What year are you going into?"

"Sixth, too," he answered, delighted. "What house?"

"Gryffindor. If you don't really know the houses, Gryffindor is the house of bravery, courage, and . . . foolhardiness." She looked sadly at her feet again, shuffling forwards. Harry was remorseful as well, remembering his foolhardy rush into the Department of Mysteries, and the subsequent . . . relocation of his godfather. Maybe he really is in heaven, he thought to himself, morbidly, Or then again, maybe he's in hell, roasting along with Hitler . . . Although more like roasting Hitler along with the Devil, takin' down a few beers with the big man in red. He sniggered inwardly at the thought, not laughing out loud so that she wouldn't be offended. However, he was also racking his brain for who she could be, since he thought he knew all of the Gryffindor girls. He pondered, Definitely not Hermione, not Patil, she's Indian, not Lavender,wrong colour hair, and there aren't any other girls, are there? Some more investigation is required.

She interrupted his thoughts, and noted the gang on Wisteria Walk, telling Harry, "That fat fuck right there is my cousin."

At first, Harry thought she meant Dudley, but then he realized that there were at least four 'fat fucks' that she could be referring to, and gravely informed her, "Well, it appears that our fat fuck cousins know each other. Mine's one of the other ones."

She giggled, before stopping herself, horrified. Harry was kind of horrified, both that she was a giggler, and also that he was having fun while Sirius was . . . elsewhere. She seemed remorseful as well, but didn't appear to be as sad as Harry felt. She appeared to be telling herself something, and she shrugged her right shoulder towards the most lucid of the boys. "That one was hitting on me, and I had to slap him a few times to get him to let go of me," she bragged.

The aforementioned boy noticed their looks, and quickly tried to make himself as small as possible, which would have been much simpler in the folds of the coat that Harry vaguely remembered him wearing. "Nice," Harry replied.

She grinned, and nodded, almost arrogantly. A silence fell upon the two of them, and Harry suddenly realized that it was the silence of the oldest of friends, a comfortable silence. Harry reluctantly broke the silence, intending to do that investigation that he had resolved to do.

"Who're your friends at Hogwarts?" he innocently inquired.

"Mmmm . . . Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, his sister Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and Neville Longbottom. Er, Ginny and Luna are both a year younger than us, and Luna Lovegood is actually in Ravenclaw, the house–"

Harry cut her off, slightly alarmed, but still acting as casually as possible, "Oh, right, I forgot to ask– what's your muggle cousin's name?"

She looked oddly at him for the sudden, and slightly off topic question, and answered, "Cousin's Dudley. His mum calls him 'Ickle Diddykins', thought."

Understandably confused, Harry kept up his facade of being ignorant of Hogwarts, and that this girl hadn't just almost stolen all of his friends from him, and feigning irritation with himself, shook his head once, very quickly. "Oh, bloody hell. What's your name again?"

Her grin faded slightly, and she looked slightly rueful. "Er . . . Hera Potter."

Harry's eyes widened, and he walked forward a step, before lifting his hand towards her face. He hesitated for a second, before roughly brushing the hair off of her face, revealing way bright green eyes, and a light pink scar zigzagging across her forehead, starting at her hairline, and ending right before her right eyebrow. He quickly retracted his arm, and just stared in disbelief. "Well, the Girl-Who-Lived, eh?" he asked nervously, completely nonplused.

Hera looked at him oddly, fiddling with her fringe until the scar was completely covered, before replying, "Well, I haven't heard that one before, but I suppose." She sighed, putting her hands in her pockets. "The typical one is, of course, The Last Potter."

"Of course." Harry was once again, understandably, dumbfounded. Part of his mind was telling him that it could be a Death Eater trap, no, must be a Death Eater trap, part of his mind was telling him that she was telling the truth, and that she really had experienced the same things as him, and then a small part of his mind was telling him he was insane. He ignored the first and third, hoping the second was closest to the truth, and smiled broadly. "You know . . . I've always wanted to talk to you!"

"Really?" she asked, skeptically.

"No. But that's beside the point." He paused, thinking rapidly. "You know, you can help me."

"How so?" she again asked, equally skeptically.

"I'm an import from Canada. Er . . . that guy wasn't actually my cousin, I was just kidding, really. My parents always wanted me to see England– They were British you know, you've got some great history – but we were never very well off, and it was all my parents could do to portkey me here. To make a long story short, I'm broke. You've got friends, and just your name carries power. If you would give me a recommendation. . . ."

"And what's in it for me?" Hera countered, pleased at the thought that her fame could actually help someone.

Harry smirked. "I've been to Diagon Alley before. Stores like Gambol and Japes, WWW . . . you get the idea. I could get you some . . . gifts for your . . . delightful cousin." He tried the 'puppy dog face' but it failed dismally– he couldn't stop smirking. "And, of course, out of the goodness of your heart."

"Yeah. Right. But 'Big D' could use a canary cream or two. . . . I'll do you one better. Fred and George owe me one or a thousand favors. I'll give you a note. They'll take you on. C'mon."

Hera walked to #4, before opening the door and ushering him in. "Quiet. Don't want Aunt Pet–"

"Dudley?" a shrill voice asked of them. The banshee herself lookd up from where she was vacuuming, but sneered when she saw Hera. "Oh, it's you. Well, don't waste time! Go on, put the eggs on the table. And–" Petunia stopped midsentence, gaping at Harry. She whispered, "Potter . . ." her eyes wide.

In the awkward silence, Harry realized that she must have thought he was his father, back from the grave. "Sorry, I'm not a Potter." He smiled tightly, putting a hand on Hera's shoulder. "That's only your niece, I'm afraid." The silence grew more uncomfortable, and Harry remembered the new piece that his Aunt liked to brag about. "Nice place you have here." He glanced over to the mantle, and pretended to notice the paint for the first time. "Whoa, is that a Dali? An actual Dali? I thought they were all in museums. . . ." Harry practically drooled in his fake awe. Hmm, this acting bit is kind of nice.

Shaken out of her shock, Aunt Petunia began to warm to this James look-a-like. "Why, yes, it is. . . ." she smiled widely at Harry, before glaring at her niece. "I hope she hasn't been giving you any trouble, Mr. . . ."

Thinking quickly, for muggle names, Harry was reminded of Hermione. She knew a lot about muggles. Speaking of muggles, she met a muggle over the summer named Mortimer . . . "Mortimer." And when she went to France, she complained about their rare meat. It was . . . too raw? And literally . . . "Saignant. Mortimer Saignant." Harry suddenly realized that he had just designed a new name for himself completely based on random stuff that had popped into his head, and barely managed to prevent himself from slapping said body part. "And no," he added, "Mrs. Dursley, Hera has been wonderful."

Aunt Petunia smiled again at Harry, a rather odd expression for him to see directed at him, and then gave Hera a dirty look. "Another of those ruddy . . ." she glanced at Harry, "things came by, and left a box on the table. I put it by your room. And put down those eggs."Hera nodded, put her eggs down (Harry did the same), and sprinted up to the smallest bedroom, Harry on her tail. "That was bloody great!" she howled, pulling him over to her trunk, opening it, and pulling out a piece of paper.

She quickly wrote, 'The bearer of this note needs a job. See what you can do.' After carefully printing her name, and scribbling out her signature, she handed the parchment to him with great aplomb, and stage-whispered, "Keep it safe."

He nodded seriously, assuring her, "Anything for you, milady." Getting down on one knee, he bowed his head. Hera flicked his bowed head, then grinned, and picked up the box by her door to examine it. It was a plain box, which oddly enough had all of the characteristics of wand wood, such as a complete and utter lack of knots or blemishes, and gave off a slight tingle, a peculiar vibration. The box had a sliding top with a small indentation for fingers to pill it. Hera pit it on her bed, and pulled it open, revealing folders, and two small wooden boxes in an obviously enlarged space. She pulled out the folders, and was somewhat surprised when the inside shrank a little. Hera passed the grey folder with a castle in the middle of a pond, in the corner to Harry, taking the black folder with the white skull in the corner for herself. He took it, and opened it after she mimed doing it with her own folder. On the first page, at the top, it said in reddish-brown ink, "Summary of Potter Account." It went on to describe the two houses that Potter owned, a small cottage by the channel, and the House at Godric's Hollow (Destroyed). Apparently, the Potters had roughly 200,000 galleons, a relatively modest fortune. Below the number in parentheses, it read, "Approx. 1 million pounds,." Harry began to hand the folder back to Hera, before a small piece of parchment fell out of it, landing on the bed. Quickly skimming it, Harry blanched, before handing the note to Hera in place of the folder.

Surprised at the state of Harry's visage, she began to read it aloud. "Sorry pumpkin– pumpkin? Well, I suppose I was one years old at the time– anyways, sorry pumpkin, but because you're a woman, there are some artifacts that you can't inherit. You're only inheriting . . . blah blah blah . . . patriarchal . . . okay, so my parents transferred all of the Potter's cash into my mom's account, and I can get that from there. Okay. So I lose some enchanted crap, and a house, that's not so bad," she muttered, under her breath. "Certainly, this didn't warrant a completely change in the colour of your face, Mortimer."

"I– I thought you'd be severely disappointed."

Hera laughed, not a silly giggle like before, but a full throated laugh, that sounded vaguely like a peculiar cross between a horse and a dolphin. A good laugh. "Mortimer, I'm offended!" she exclaimed. "I'm not half that shallow." She made sort of rebuking hand motion, by quickly moving the tip of her right index finger down the length of her left, and said, "Tsk, tsk."

Harry smiled weakly, as he had never believed that she was that shallow in the first place. In truth, he had blanched because to him, the paper read:

Dear lucky bloke reading this. This, the Potter Vault, is all yours. That's right. Ms. Hera Potter can't inherit because she's a woman. She'll be getting the cash, and you'll be getting the stuff. Happy fucking birthday.

Sincerely, James S. Potter

Head of House Potter; Order of Circe, Third Class

PS Goddamn you if you're a bastard.

PPS Vault 97, just a few drops.

So Harry was, understandably, pale. It felt, somehow, like he had just stolen something from his counterpart, although he realized in a more logical part of his brain that it was his to begin with, and blazed the number 97 into his mind, for later use.

Shortly, Harry was forcefully taken out of his thoughts concerning the morals of the taking of the inheritance away from Hera, when she burst out laughing. "Look at this," she exclaimed, her laugh turning into a choke. Harry looked at her face, and saw two conflicting emotions, horrible pain, and overwhelming amusement. She thrust the folder with the skull towards Harry, and he skimmed it over. There were a bad puns, some tasteless jokes, and the silly metaphor or two, but it had a lot of serious information. Sirius, who had written the will, regretfully informed Hera that news of his death had not, in fact, been exaggerated. It also said that she was going to get a lot of cash, somewhere in the hundreds of millions of galleons range.

Harry let out a low whistle. "Meh, I suppose the stuff you're losing to the hypothetical 'Other Potter' isn't worth half that, right?"

Hera stopped laughing, stopped beginning to cry, and cooled down to a neutral medium. "Yeah," she said simply. Harry was unsure whether it was in response to what he had asked, or to something she had resolved in herself. It made him feel slightly uncomfortable.

"Hmm." Harry did some quick figuring in his mind, and his eyes practically popped out of his head. "Holy shit," he muttered, quickly followed by the exclamation of, "You're a fucking billionaire in pounds!"

"I suppose you're right," she replied quietly, and somewhat introspectively.

Harry handed the folder back to her, and she put both of the folders back in the box. The Potter folder abruptly disappeared, and a small, bronze coloured dragon flew in seconds later, clutching another, significantly smaller box between its front claws, using a peculiar device that seemed to be designed to allow it to carry objects such as it was. However, before Harry could get a good glance at it, it dropped its cargo onto Hera's bed, and sped out again, much faster than any owl that he had ever seen.

Harry let out a breath that he hadn't known he was holding, exhaling loudly. "I suppose Gringotts does have dragons," he murmured.

Hera nodded in agreement, and replied, "Could be someone else, but somehow I doubt it." She opened the tiny black box, and both Potters were rather surprised to see a plain silver ring.

Harry whistled appreciatively. "Should've expected a family ring," he said. Neville had said that he was probably getting House Longbottom's ring, seeing as he was the oldest living Longbottom male, and with very little urging, McClaggen, a sixth year at the time, had very proudly shown off his own ring. Presumably, Hera had seen the same thing. Hera simply stared at it, her eyes full of trepidation. Harry nudged her to put it on, but she placed it on the bed.

"I somehow feel like I'm killing Sirius all over again, if I put it on," she whispered in response to another of Harry's nudges, staring at hands, palms facing her.

Harry sighed, and took it out of the box himself, slipping it onto her left ring finger. "Well, don't worry, I'll kill Sirius for you."

She looked up, her lips pursed, and Harry nearly fell off his trunk, as she changed before his eyes. Where Hera Potter, daughter of Lily and James Potter had once sat, now sat Hera Black, scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Her bright green eyes had darkened ever so slighter, the hair fell obediently down her back, perfectly straight, with a slight sheen to it. Her cheekbones had risen, and her legs lengthened ever so slightly, and shoulders slightly broadened.

Seeing Harry's reaction, she delicately arched an eyebrow, an action that would've seemed out of place on the old Hera, but looked just right on the new.

Harry raised an eyebrow himself, although his action was clumsy, and unpracticed. "You look different," he said bluntly.

Hera, grabbed his arm, and still scowling, dragged him to the nearest mirror, the one in the bathroom. Hera began examining her new body, taking its existence much more calmly than Harry. She began talking, half to herself, and half to Harry. "Well, I sure look like a Black now," she mentioned, unconsciously reiterating Harry's thoughts. "I suppose he gave me a magical adoption when I put on the ring. I guess he really wanted this to happen," she reasoned, purging the last of the guilt she felt for obtaining what felt like blood money. "Sneaky bastard. Ooh . . . nice hair . . . tamable . . . nice face . . . aristocratic," she made a face in the mirror. "Ugh, like a Greengrass." she paused, and looking into the reflection of Harry's eyes in the mirror, muttered, "Oh fuck, my tits are smaller." Harry blushed, and she laughed, her voice much deeper. "Not bad, Sirius . . . not bad at all for a dead man." After her last sentence, Harry painfully remembered that Sirius was, in fact, dead, and would never be coming back. He bowed his head, and supposed that he had learned everything that he had needed to learn in order to survive in this foreign world.

"I should go, if I want to contact the twins before they close up." Harry began to walk towards the door, Hera close behind.

The two of them were nearly at her door, when Hera suddenly came up with a rather good question. "How the hell are you going to get to London?" she asked.

Harry shrugged, and frowned. "Knight Bus?" he ventured.

"Isn't that just for at night? Ergo the name?" she countered.

Harry shrugged again, walked out the door, down the walk, and to the road, where he inconspicuously stuck out a bit of his wand. Thirty seconds later, a black cab rolled up, and Harry got in, waving good-bye.

Right before Harry slammed the door, he remembered that he had forgotten a necessary bit of his cover story, and went back up to Hera, who was waving from her steps leading up to the porch. "By the way, next time you see me, I'll look different." Hera delicately arched her eyebrow again, as if to say, 'Oh?' and Harry continued, "My family originally located to Canada because they had some enemies, so this is a disguise. I purchased it from Cos-zard on the Alley. You know what it's called?"

Hera rolled her eyes, and bluntly replied, "No."

Harry rolled his eyes, too, and gave a lopsided grin, tilting his head to the side. "C'mon, humor me."

She sighed, but did as he bid. "Okay, Mort," she said, wearily, "What's it called?"

Harry grinned wickedly, and pushed aside his hair, revealing his scar. "Harry Potter."

She gaped, as if at a train wreck, not wanting to look at it, but not being able to look away. "That's disgusting," she breathed.

Harry smirked, and went back to the taxicab. Hera yelled for him to owl soon, and he nodded absentmindedly, reflecting on the start of his new life.

Just deleted a really long A/N. You should be thankful. Anyways, I'm sorry I didn't update my other story, (whatever it's called, Wit of the Raven or something silly like that) but this wouldn't let me go until I retyped this. I actually wrote this ages ago, and when my computer crashed, I was too desolate to retype it, but with Amerision and Silver Aegis with THEIR boy!Harry meets girl!Harry stories on the scene, I figured that I might as well venture my luck.

This chapter is subject to change, since I'm excruciatingly low on sleep, and may have to fill in holes in the plot, later on. Writing may seem stilted, as I wrote most of it around a year ago.

Er, right. The quote should be on the right, but ff doesn't like putting stuff on the right. this is the best I'm getting.

Edit: Got some typos.

Edit2: Got some more typos.