November Snow

s i x t y - s e v e n

"Can I have a moment with Harry?" November asked.

Draco helped her get out to the bridge, she couldn't walk on her own. Imagine being tortured for months, then being dragged around like a little puppet on a string with your father draining your strength, it was already excellent that she wasn't in St. Mungo's yet. Draco nodded and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead as he sat her down on a large rubble before he left. Hermione and Ron both gave her a tight hug before returning to the castle.

She sat there and Harry stared at her. They stayed in that silence for a while before Harry decided to break it.

"Who are you really?" He asked.

"I guess I don't really have a good explanation." She shrugged "I wish I knew where to start."

"Start with why I saw you in Snape's childhood memory." Harry sat down next to her.

"We were friends back then." She started "It was complicated. I was a Slytherin, just like Severus. I was his friend, but I was also friend to your parents, James and Lily, Sirius and Remus. I loved them."

"Oh my goodness, James, just ask her out." She exclaimed, looking at Lily.

"Yeah right, as soon as you ask Sirius out." James said.

"James, you do realize we don't like each other that way, right?" Sirius said "No offense, Cryssie, I love you."

"Love you too, Pad." She laughed.

"And you say you don't like each other that way." Remus shook his head, chuckling.

"We had a great friendship, I kept them out of trouble, they went looking for more. We were just like you, Hermione and Ron, we never really separated, unless I had to go with Severus." November smiled at the memory "When I was young, I didn't know who my father was. I only knew my mother, a part-veela wizard who loved experiments, like Luna's mother. She was all I have, along with James, Lily, Sirius, Remus and Severus. They were all I had."

"Merry Christmas, Crys." Everyone shouted as soon as she stepped downstairs.

"Guys, I just woke up." She exclaimed and they all laughed.

"We were just talking about you." Her mother, Leah Avery, said.

"Is that supposed to be good, Mum?" She raised her eyebrow as her mother conjured a cup of warm milk for her "Give me a cookie, Pad."

"Catch." He threw the chocolate cookie and she caught it.

"For the last time, I'm not your dog, Pad, you're my dog." She took a bite "This actually tastes good."

"That was until I was fifteen. My mother, being part veela, loved being young and beautiful. She spent years finding the right potions to maintain her youth. So she did experiments, and she found it. But the day she did, it went horribly wrong. The explosion effected me too, I couldn't grow any older since that day. Even though I was aging inside, I forever looked like a fifteen-year-old girl." She said "She also stopped aging, and she was happy about it. Years later, she was killed."

"I'm sorry." Harry said "Your mother had lived a good life."

"Funnily enough, that was the exact same thing James said to me." November smiled "Since then, I started living with Lily, your mother. She was excellent in many aspects, I could totally understand why your dad was so in love with her. Many years later, we still remained as great friends. Then, the First Wizarding War began. That was when I found out Voldemort was my father, that I was a Riddle."

"That doesn't sound good at all." She mumbled.

"Cryssie, don't worry--"

"Are you listening?" She exclaimed "My father is a freaking power-lusting monster who killed so many people and tortured even more! But that also means he'll come for me!"

"We're not letting him." James said "We'll protect you."

"It should have been me who protected them, not them protecting me." November said bitterly "That night, I was thinking of visiting them for Halloween and to see you, Harry, and I just came into a wreckage with a dead body on the staircases and another next to your cribs. Sirius came a moment later, and he left swearing he would make Pettigrew pay for what he did. I waited for Hagrid to come and take you, then I went looking for help, knowing that Voldemort wasn't dead and he would eventually find me."

"Professor, what do I do?" She asked Dumbledore, Snape was there with her.

"I'm afraid there is only one way." Dumbledore said "The only way to make something unknown is to not know it as well. I have to take away your memories."

"Do what you have to do, Professor." She nodded.

"I will find someone close to your mother to be your new mother, and Severus will be your Godfather."

"You want to do this, Sev?" And he nodded.

"So here I am, a Hogwarts student again." November said "The reason why Dumbledore decided to let me jump one level and study in same classes as you was to protect you. And then after the incident in the Ministry of Magic, Dumbledore gave me back my old memories."  

"So technically..."

"Technically, I'm thirty eight years old and my real name is Crystal Merope Avery, or as Voldemort liked to call me, Crystal Riddle." She said "Your parents called me Crys, Sirius called my Cryssie."

They watched the whirling sky and the smoke rising from the battle fields. November took a deep breath, inhaling the prickling air of victory as Harry sat there, digesting the information. He never thought Voldemort would have a daughter, let alone all these things she had gone through. This girl next to him, this girl who knew everything, he never thought she existed, and she was born a daughter of the most ruthless and cruelest person in the Wizarding World.

"Does Draco..."

"Does he know?" She shook her head "I'm no longer Crystal, Harry. As you all know Crystal is now my aunt. I'm November Avery. I'll forever be November."

Harry turned to the castle, all wrecked and burnt. He watched his friends and those he didn't even know their names talking to each other. They all missed something, but at the same time they had something. They had each other's shoulder to lean on.

"So what now?" He asked "It's all over."

"It's not all over, Harry. It's the beginning of a new story." November smiled gently "Now we build."

It ended, and a new chapter began for each of them. But they will never ever forget that day when they had each other's back. And they will forever cherish these moments of childhood, even if it was tough and painful.