For two exactly two blocks, Harriet’s world was a safe, sane and normal place. For two blocks, she had followed her Professor assuming they would be boarding a bus to get to the train station he had mentioned earlier. For two blocks, Harriet had assumed that her life, while taking a very unexpected turn, would remain the normal everyday life of all the 3000 or so days of her life.

Instead, they turned off the street and directly into a copse of trees in a smal local nature preserve. Harriet was suddenly very sure she was about to die.

“I followed a strange man to a strange school, and now hes learning me into the bushes to cut me up and murder me,” Harriet thought, stopping dead on the very outskirts of the trees. She was frozen for several seconds until Professor Snape turned and looked at her, annoyed.

“What are you doing? We are going to be…” Snape never had a chance to finish his sentence, because Harriet suddenly screamed, “I'll never let you touch me!” darted to the left and ran straight into the deeper part of the forest.

Snape POV

Snape was stunned, confused, and very, very angry.

“When I get ahold of that girl,” He muttered to himself, imagining all the most disgusting potions ingredients she would be preparing. He grunted as he stumbled over a tree root as he quickly navigated through the forest, following the trail of magic Harriet left in her wake. What had gotten into her? He knew portkey travel was unpleasant, and perhaps a little scary for the uninitiated, but this behavior was uncalled for.

When he had spoken to the Social Worker through the floo (she had been placed by Dumbledore when the Dursley’s list custody), she had assured him that Harriet was familiar with her magic, with Hogwarts, and that she was a bright and happy child. This child seemed… damaged. Sullen. Deeply unhappy.

He was also surprised at the feel of her magical aura. He had expected it to be powerful, a result of her heritage and whatever special skills allowed her to survive the killing curse, and it certainly was. Her aura shown faintly to his practiced eye, shimmering golden and a faint red, looking like a scent trail weaving through the forest. However, there was something strange about it. It seemed...pressurized almost. Almost like a very young child about to have a bout of accidental magic.

He didn’t have time to wonder about the idiot girl’s aura, he reminded himself, as his cloak ripped slightly on a branch. Snape was tired of this nonsense, and used a wandless spell he had invented when Draco, his godson, was a toddler.

“Locus Hicvenit,” he thought to his wand. This was a particularly unpleasant spell, and Snape felt this would be an adequate part of Harriet’s punishment for this little escapade. He didn’t have to wait long. Out in the darkness in front of him he heard a screech, and then the sound of branches and leaves rustling. Harriet burst out of the bushes to his left, being dragged by the back of her jacket by a ghostly hand.

Snape eyed the girl and thought again how something seemed off about her. For one, the child seemed terrified, he could see the whites of her eyes like an animal caught in a trap. Her magic was also exploding outward and then collapsing inwards in short bursts. Her magic should be reacting sluggishly at her age, moving quickly only in cases of accidental magic or when she was in mortal danger. Snape shook his head and filed it away for discussing with Dumbledore.

“What do you think you are doing?” Snape began, getting louder and louder as his anger took over. “Leading me on a chase through the woods? Your birth parents paid a great deal of money for you to attend this school when you came of age, and instead of gratitude…” He trailed off as he realized Harriet’s magic was becoming increasingly violent, and her breathing was getting more rapid.

“Child what is WRONG with you?” Snape fairly snapped, more concerned as he took in her white face and terrified demeanor. He moved towards her, thinking to put a hand on her shoulder, when suddenly Harriet’s magic exploded outwards in a golden wave so intense that he could see it through his closed eyelids.

“Oh shit.” He thought.

- - -

Snape opened his eyes to a strange sight. He realized immediately, being an accomplished Legilimens, that he was inside a memory. Harriet’s he assumed.

“Even her memories have that same feeling of pressure,” he thought, staring around at the Dursley’s house. He could sense Harriet, and followed her aura to a small cupboard under the stairs. When he opened the door, he was surprised to see that it was not a memory version of Harriet, but Harriet’s actual consciousness inside the cramped space.

“Something is very wrong,” Snape thought, eyeing her sobbing form on the floor of the cupboard. She didn’t seem to be aware of him yet, and so Snape looked around inside the cupboard. His eyes grew wide as he realized what she had done.

Harriet had built herself a mind palace, something only the most skilled users of mind magic were able to do. A mind palace was a place of refuge skilled wizards built in the event that their consciousness was invaded. It kept them safe and sane until help could arrive. Trained wizards could store memories, emotions, even skills inside their mind palace so they would be completely inaccessible to any mind readers.

Unfortunately, untrained as she was, and still a child, this section of her consciousness was unstable and disorganized. Children were still growing, emotionally and physically, and a mind palace could easily interfere with their normal growth. Memories and skills the child should have could be hidden even from themselves inside an unstable mind palace…

“Oh shit,” Snape said mentally for the second time that night as the realization hit him. “She doesn’t know who she is…”