𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐱 | 𝐏𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐁𝐨𝐲

    𝕵𝖀𝕻𝕴𝕿𝕰𝕽 strolled through the corridors of Hogwarts as though she owned the castle. Headphones were placed over her ears as she explored the corridors, her minidisc player was hidden under her robes in one of the many pockets.

For the majority of the day, she had been avoiding the student population and exploring the castle during the hours of class. In that time, she had been able to learn much about the castle. She found a variety of secret passages including some sort of tunnel guarded by a whomping willow tree.

Jupiter decided to put off exploring that tunnel until a better day.

Instead, she bopped her head and allowed her feet to move to the rhythm of the song she was listening to as she walked. Salt-N-Pepa had released this song relatively recently, and it was hit in the muggle world of California.

Seeing as Jupiter and her family lived in California, Jupiter was pretty immersed in the pop culture of it all. Her brother was worse than her; however, she had no doubt if he was in her place he would be moonwalking through the corridors listening to Michael Jackson or something along those lines.

Mouthing the lyrics ever-so-slightly, Jupiter paused to spin on her toes before nodding her head dramatically and walking with style. She was somewhere on the seventh corridor floors now, and as most classes for the day were finished it was a good thing she was on the least busy floor of all.

It was why after she spun and shuffled her way around the corner that she was surprised to find Harry Potter staring out of one of the large windows. She immediately became quiet (not that she was making much noise, to begin with) and debated her options.

Standing still for a few seconds, allowing Salt-N-Pepa to drift through her ears blankly: Jupiter made a game plan on the spot. Jupiter was quick with her thoughts, she was amazing at coming up with stuff on the fly. Not quite as good as her older brother, Titan, but a close second surprisingly. She beat out both Kingston and Arizona in that aspect.

Jupiter had been planning on approaching Harry in two days' time after she had attended at least one day of classes. Originally, she wanted to approach him shyly and as a quiet new girl individual who was friendless. The lost puppy approach nearly always worked, especially on guys.

But now, she had an even better plan. While she did not need to be outlandishly loud, she could come across as interesting and unique. She doubted many students here used minidisc players to listen to music.

But then again, she was pretty sure Hogwarts grounds normally messed with technology like that. Thanks to her genius of a friend, Timmy: he had tinkered on her player to make it immune to the forces of magic.

And thank God for that.

Choosing to approach Harry, Jupiter's footfalls were relaxed and her body moved with rhythm. She only wished that she was wearing normal clothing: the uniform was not doing her justice with this song playing.

She needed her baggy and Nike shoes. A camisole would hurt either.

"I want to take a minute or two, and give much respect due
To the man that's made a difference in my world
And although most men are ho's, he flows on the down-low
'Cause I never heard about him with another girl
But I don't sweat it because it's just pathetic..."

She sang it smoothly, her ability to change the tune of her voice coming in handy. Harry's head had never snapped faster, and his green eyes widened behind his glasses.

He was pretty sure he recognized the song as something his cousin had been listening to over the radio all summer. Harry was at least sure it was a muggle song. It was hard to keep up with muggle pop culture though as he spent nine months out of the year in the wizarding world with Hermione being the only link to the muggle world he had.

However, as he watched this new student shuffle and move her shoulders in such a relaxed way: Harry could not help but smile. Everyone had practically hated him as of late that this change in treatment was nice.

"I'm Jupiter," she finally spurted with a contagious smile.

Harry was grinning back, his attention toward the outside of Hogwarts long forgotten. He had been watching Ronald hang out with Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas with envy: he missed his best friend.

It took him a second to realize she was waiting for his name. As much as Harry hated it, he had grown used to people immediately knowing his name without an introduction. However, it appeared this girl had no clue who he was, or if she did: she was being extremely polite in allowing him to actually introduce himself.

Harry briefly wondered if she was perhaps a muggle-born, not that it mattered, of course. But then that would explain why she did not know who he was.

"Harry," the boy finally found himself responding in an excited tone.

She was a rather colorful individual, that much Harry was already sure of. It was also nice that she did not do that ridiculous thing where students referred to each other by last names. Harry never understood that but admittedly grew used to it as that was how everyone regarded each other.

This girl was a breath of fresh air.

"Well, Harry," Jupiter had taken her headphones off, "you a fan of Salt-N-Pepa?" And before he could register it, she had placed her headphones over his ears and a catchy tune was flowing into his head.

Harry did need to admit, muggle music always had been and always will be far better than wizard music. Although his earlier suspicions were right, this was the son he had caught Dudley jamming out to once or twice.

"What a man, what a man, what a man
What a mighty good man
Gotta say it again now.."

And Harry wanted nothing more than to simply forget and let loose. He did not want to think about this tournament of death hanging over his head, he did not want to think about how the whole school now hated him, and he especially did want to think about his dreams that frequented around Voldemort.

So, Harry bopped his head and followed Jupiter along with her shuffling. It took a few minutes and a little bit of directing on Jupiter's part, but soon he was shuffling like a pro and dancing terribly with his arms. But it made Jupiter laugh loudly and honestly, the girl nearly falling down from how much this amused her.

Out of all the things in her life, she never would have expected to witness the "boy-who-lived" shuffling.

Minutes later, Harry and Jupiter sat side-by-side on the window seal: Harry breathing heavily but smiling nonetheless. Jupiter was in the middle of placing her headphones over her neck, but she sat facing Harry.

"So, Harry, you got some moves. What year are you?" She questioned in a friendly manner, and Harry could not help but notice the way her Cardiff accented syllables stuck.

"Fourth year," he hurriedly spoke, and at that moment he could not help but admire the way her indigo eyes sparkled.

Her eyes appeared almost purple and her hair was such a shiny midnight one might actually mistake it for blue. In fact, Harry could swear that there was some sort of sheen of blue that encased her hair.

However, it was not this girl's beauty that excited him, but rather the fact that she truly appeared to have no clue who he was. She was obviously a new student, she must have arrived either last night or early this morning. Therefore, she had no bias like the rest of the school, she did not know him as the-boy-who-lived nor did she recognize him as a cheat who got his name pulled from the cup.

"How about you? Are you new here?" Harry questioned, the music from the headphones around Jupiter's neck low.

Jupiter nodded, "Yeah, I got in last night: I am a fifth-year,"

"Oh, where are you transferring from?" Harry asked in slight surprise.

It was not often that people transferred to or from wizarding schools. The only instance he could think of this happened was back in his first year at Hogwarts. There had been a girl in his year, a cute freckle-faced girl who was black in descent with hair curlier than ever.

As far as Harry remembered, she got along rather well with Hermione and spoke to him and Ronald on occasion. However, she had surprisingly been close with Malfoy (who was known as the school bully) even though she was far too kind for him.

It mattered not though, for after their first year: the girl had transferred away from Hogwarts, and no one ever heard from her again. Hermione mentioned something about the girl's mother passing away that summer and that was a large portion of the reason she had not returned to Hogwarts.

"I didn't go to a wizardry school," Jupiter purposefully blushed, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, "I'm a half-blood, you see: mother's a witch. She and my father believed it was important for me to get a proper muggle education, so my mother has homeschooled me in witchcraft for the past five years. But, seeing as I only have two years of muggle education left, they thought it was best I spent the last two years in a wizarding school..." she trailed off at the end, making sure to tilt her head while rolling her eyes as though peeved by this.

Mentally, Jupiter was clapping herself on the back. What a phenomenal liar she proved to be.

Harry nodded his head, the excuse made sense. And it also made sense as to why Jupiter was not familiar with him. She may have been a half-blood, but it sounded like her parents sheltered her from the wizarding world quite a bit.

"Ah, I didn't see you at breakfast this morning," Harry carefully mentioned, not wanting to offend her.

"Yeah..." Jupiter said awkwardly, "McGonagall didn't have my schedule prepared, so she said I could skip out on classes for the day. I just slept in through breakfast since I don't know anyone to sit with... except that one girl who was awake last night,"

Harry shrugged and mentally wished himself luck, "Well, you can always sit with me if you want," he suggested kindly, hoping she would so he didn't need to sit alone again. Hermione rotated who she sat with, she mostly chose Harry since Ron was with Seamus and Dean usually, but sometimes she still had to sit with Ron as to not pick favorites.

"Thank you, I will definitely be taking you up on that offer for dinner tonight," Jupiter laughed, "you don't happen to know a Lottie, do you? She's the one I met last night,"

Harry's eyes lit up, "Oh, Charlotte Jones? Yeah, she's friends with my best friend..." Harry choked on the word "best friend" before quickly fixing himself, "she's friends with this guy in my year, his older twin brothers. They are nice, but they are nasty pranksters, watch out for it,"

Jupiter noticed the way he tiptoed around "best friend". However, she also had the sneaking suspicion that these two brothers were the damned Weasley twins she had already heard so much about. Although, she had to admit she was impressed, for them to already have such a reputation for themselves.

"Hmm, thanks for letting me know," Jupiter hopped up, "now, do you mind giving me a tour around campus, Harry?"

She held out her hand to help the younger boy up, and not that either of them knew it, but this was the start to something amazing. Harry's eyes gleamed at the prospect of a new friend, someone who would not treat him like absolute shit.

And so, as he grabbed her hand and allowed her to pull him up (she was actually really strong for how small she was) this was the start of years worth of friendship. Also, the start as Jupiter practically adopting Harry as her cool younger brother: and not the annoying self-proclaimed twin that Atlas served as.

———————

Jupiter had never felt so comfortable in her own skin. Of course, when she was with her friends at Arcane, she knew she could trust them to an extent and they were the most fun she had. She said trust them to an extent because of the way Arcane taught its students.

Yes, they were all best friends and loved each other as such; however, Arcane was very stern in teaching that if so ordered: you always turn your back on those closest to you no matter what. This rule was set in stone, and they were taught from the second they stepped through the iron barrier of Arcane Prep.

It is because of this that you can never trust anyone completely, no matter how close you are to them. Technically speaking, the people that Jupiter should and would trust the most was her siblings, because as soon as all of them graduated, they would be a team in the SCMD.

Titan would be their leader, but it was still a debate as to who would serve as second-in-command. Kingston, of course, was thirsty for the spot but so was Arizona. And Jupiter and Atlas were still in the running as well.

Eventually, once Jupiter and Atlas graduated then the four would compete against each other in competition. Whoever should win would gain the spot of second-in-command of their little team.

Nevertheless, at the moment Jupiter had never felt so free. She felt free to be herself, to actually be her own age. She spoke and laughed with Harry all day, both of them walking through the school grounds.

Harry explained many things about himself: he told Jupiter of the Triwizard Tournament and how everyone thought he was a cheat. He explained how he survived "he-who-must-not-be-named" and he told Jupiter of his many adventures throughout his Hogwarts years thus far.

By telling her this, Harry was not by any means trying to "show-off" or brag about himself. However, he figured that within the next few days, Jupiter would find all this out from others around the school. And the last thing he wanted was for her to find out from others perspectives and believe them and in turn start hating Harry as well. So it was better that he himself was the one to explain it and not for Jupiter to hear some bullshit from other students.

Jupiter was the one with the real bullshitting nature though. She was the one totally lying to the poor boy. Everything about herself (except her favorite color) was a total lie. The way she was an only child, the fun she used to have at muggle secondary school, or the fact that she had a dog named "DOT" at home.

At the moment, she truly did not feel guilty though, because she knew that this was only her mission and that she was protecting Harry by lying to him. She did not realize that in the months to come this would change, and sooner she might just be crumbling from all the lies.

They spoke animatedly as they walked through the castle. The sun had set and disappeared over the horizon leaving the Scotland lands drenched in a darkness only filled by the sparkling star-filled night sky.

The corridors were warmer with nightfall and illuminated by a soft orange glow of the fires. It was a spell placed upon the castle to warm it up in the mdist of the night. Few students were stationed around the corridors as they walked through it, but those that were eyed the popular boy-who-lived and the new girl.

It was dinner time and almost the whole student population was in the Great Hall filling their stomachs with one of Hogwarts many beautiful feasts. If it was any other day then Harry might have tried to avoid eating by being one of the first in, stuffing his face and darting out as quick as possible.

He could barely stand the nasty looks students threw him. Especially without the backup of his friends. Now, the difficult thing was that it was not Gryffindor doing this, in fact, most Gryffindors were ecstatic for Harry to hopefully win.

But every other house practically hated the poor boy.

He was only glad that while Ron was upset, the rest of his family seemed to not care as much.

Although, it was awkward seeing as their brother expected them to have his back in the middle of this fight: so that put talking to Fred and George off the table. Thankfully, Ginny did not give a fuck and straight-up told Ron to his face.

"Yeah, I don't know, but I am not excited for classes tomorrow," Jupiter laughed as she and Harry crossed the threshold to the Great Hall.

The fact that Harry was entering the Great Hall in the middle of dinner, prime time where almost the whole student body was present was kind of a big deal. Because the second they entered, much of the Great went quiet.

It started with a few students closest to doors who noticed, but as they went quiet it spread alike to a wave as the rest of everyone noticed why others were going quiet and what they were staring at. Because how often did wizarding schools get transfers? Never.

And how often did those transfers befriend the fourth Triwizard champion? Never.

Until now apparently.

Thankfully, rather than glares, it was mostly curious stares. Other than Slytherin, of course, because Malfoy just could not stand that "Saint Potter" already befriended the pretty new girl. Then again, of course the pretty new girl was placed in fucking Gryffindor, Dumbledore probably had something to do with it because he just needed his own house to have all the attention.

Malfoy clutched his fork a bit tighter and glared even harder when Pansy nudged herself closer to him.

Harry almost felt empowered as the Great Hall went quiet. Because Jupiter did not bat an eyelash, she continued talking to him normally and led him to the end of the Gryffindor table. It took a lot to ignore the stares from Durmstrang at Slytherin or Beauxbatons from Ravenclaw.

Dumbledore sipped on his pumpkin juice and eyed the pair with a twinkle in his eye.

"Damn, Harry, what'dya think I should stuff my face with first?" Jupiter snickered as she sat next to Harry, still ignoring the silence.

Harry shrugged, "try some of the turkey leg: it's most students favorite,"

Slowly, the curiosity wained in favor of previous conversation and soon chatter filled the hall once more. Although, there was still the few glances and whispers that went around. Ronald Wealsey and Hermione Granger, in particular, though they were in the middle of a fight: Harry was still their friend. It was odd to see him so buddy-buddy with someone other than them or one of the other Weasleys. Ginny, from where she sat next to her older and plotting twin brothers could not help but purse her lips.

One of the twins caught Ginny staring at something and leaned down.

"Something on your mind, little sister?" Fred teased.

"Or rather a certain someone?" George echoed while waggling his brows.

"No, shut up," Ginny grumbled, quickly looking away, but alas: both the twins found where she was staring.

Fred yelped as George pushed his head down and used it to sit up straighter. He pushed George back, the both of them mini fighting before their gaze settled on a peculiar sight.

"Heyyy, Harry's talking to a pretty girl, I see?" Fred wolf whistled dramatically.

"That what got your knickers in a twist dear sister?"

Ginny growled and slapped both of them in the abdomen harshly. George cried out and fell back down, but Fred allowed his gaze to rest on the pretty new girl for a bit too long. His attention was broken by Ginny hitting him down, he groaned and soon all three Weasley's were in a play wrestling match.

Ronald was cheering on Ginny while Hermione rolled her eyes but smiled lightly.

"I'm not surprised Defense is your favorite class, you seem like a defense type of boy,"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Harry laughed.

"It's mean you look like a right nutter, Potter," a playful voice entered the conversation and both look up only to see Lottie plopping down across from them.

Harry rose a brow, Lottie had not spoken to him since last year. Then again, he doubted it was anything personal seeing as Lottie never really spoke to him much to begin with. She was the twins' friend more than anything. Although her and Hermione were extremely friendly with each other as they were both muggle borns. Harry was pretty sure Hermione had once tod him something along the lines of "muggle borns need to stick together,".

"Of course, thank you Lottie," Harry huffed.

Lottie ignored him and turned to Jupiter. "So, new girl, how was your first day?"

Jupiter smiled and shrugged, "as good as ever I suppose, haven't actually been to classes yet,"

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Lottie puffed, "what is your schedule tomorrow?"

Jupiter shrugged, "to be honest, I kind of forgot

"We have the same first class, we can walk there together if you want?"

"Sounds good to me, as long as Harry escorts us?" Jupiter nudged her newest friend and waggled her brows humoressly.

Harry breathed out a small laugh, happy she was not ditching him for the likes of Lottie. Charlotte Jones was cool. Period.

However, see as she was slightly leaning toward the rest of the school in that Harry was a cheat, but she was supporting him so Gryffindor could have a victory: it made his opinion of her go down just a bit.

"Sure," he breathed with a smile.

"Good," Jupiter smiled, finishing off the food on her plate.

And she need to say, this was the best food she had ever had. Like holy shit, Hogwarts knows what its doing in the kitchens.

"And by the way, you were right about the food," she stood up.

Lottie and Harry followed her.

"Back to the common room?" Lottie questioned.

Harry and Jupiter nodded, and the group of three was off. Now, it was no Golden Trio by any means, but it would due for now. Ron and Hermione could not help but share a glance of worry, and Ron was suddenly rethinking all of his choices for the past few weeks.