x. why does your hair have blue streaks?

Harriet paled and took a deep breath before nodding. "Alright, should I go first?"

Dudley nodded instantly, being very scared of the process. Griphook said that it'd hurt really bad, so he wanted to delay it as long as possible. Stella looked reluctant though.

"Are you sure, Harriet?", she asked worriedly. "I can go first, too. It won't be too much trouble."

But Harriet shook her head. "No, it's okay. Really. I know it's going to hurt, but I just want all those blocks, spells and potions out of me. And that horcrux…" She shuddered. She smiled encouragingly at her aunt, who didn't really relax, but nodded anyway.

"Alright", Stella said. "Good luck." She kissed Harriet on the forehead last time, now not seeing Harriet Jamila Potter, her brother-in-law's spawn, but Lily. She looked into Harriet's eyes and tears fell from her eyes. She knew she wouldn't lose Harriet, but those glowing green eyes reminded her so much of Lily, and add to that the fact that she's willingly putting her only niece into that kind of pain. No matter how old Harriet really was, or how much she's already had to experience, it was hard to let her leave the room with Griphook.

"Is she going to be okay?", Dudley asked. "Mr. Griphook said it's going to hurt real worse for her than for us. Is that true?"

Stella glanced down at her son and embraced him, knowing that he will be in the same kind of pain, even if it'll hurt less.

"It'll be okay, sweetums. Harriet will be okay, I will be okay, and you will be okay, too. Alright?" Dudley nodded and hugged his mother back, sniffling a bit.

While they were hugging, Harriet was following Griphook out of the room and through the halls of Gringotts. The way was a short one, but it felt like it took years to get to the Cleansing Room. Harriet was fidgeting at her still hand-me-down clothes as she looked around in the room they were now in.

It was big. A huge room with grey cement walls and one table in the middle of it. On the sides of the table stood five goblins in uniforms. They looked just like Griphook's, only in white. Probably Goblin Healers, Harriet thought. Slowly she was getting really nervous. Sure, she'd experienced pain far worse than imaginable, but it went only so far as the Cruciatus Curse, and this was supposed to be ten times more painful.

"Come on in, Heiress Potter-Black-Peverell-Gaunt-Slytherin-Gryffindor-Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw", one of the goblins said and Harriet grimaced at the use of what she supposed was her full name with all the heir titles she had. She walked forward, wringing her hands nervously as she approached the hard table.

"Please strip all your clothes except your underwear and lay down on the table. It'll make the process easier." Harriet didn't feel too comfortable with it, but she complied nonetheless and laid on the table with only Dudley's old underwear on. The goblin healer raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. She supposed they all knew that Stella and Dudley had spells on them.

"I'll tell you this once, and only once. We will remove all the blocks, spells and potions from you and cleanse you off the horcrux, but it will hurt. It will hurt more than you'll ever be able to imagine. I'm not telling you that to scare you off, but to make sure you know what you let us do on you. If you're ready, we'll start."

Harriet took a deep breath and gripped the edges of the table very tightly. "I'm ready."

Two minutes later and she regretted ever saying anything. The pain started lightly at first, just tugs at her body, until it went over to migraine kind-of pains in her forehead and pain like she'd felt all her old childhood life already. The next level was the Cruciatus Curse level of pain, where she tried to stop herself from screaming by biting her lip, but when she bit through it nothing could stop her from screaming anymore. And the pain got worse. Imagine Voldemort and the whole Inner Circle all casting their most powerful Cruciatus Curses on you at the same time and you have the result. Harriet tried to write and claw at herself, but someone must have secured her body to the table so she couldn't move.

And then it was over. It felt like her whole life just went by, but really it had only been five minutes. Poor Aunt Stella and Dudley, having to feel that, too, Harriet thought. The only comfort she got was from knowing that they didn't have to expect those kind of pains she just did.

She tried getting up, but felt the soreness in her body and laid back down. A second later she saw a potion flask hovering in front of her.

"It's pain reliever", the goblin healer said and Harriet nodded, snatching the flask and drinking the whole contents in one go. She didn't notice the black stuff oozing from what was once her scar, or her hair and eyes changing colours so rapidly that you almost couldn't see the different colours.

"Thank you", she said at last and the goblin healer nodded.

"It's our job. All your blocks, spells and potions have been removed, as well as the horcrux in your scar." She gave Harriet a tissue so she could remove the ooze from her forehead. "Now, on the other side of the room, there is a mirror, of you want to see what you look like without the blocks, spells and potions, not to mention that vile scar horcrux. It's a much greater difference than you'd think, Heiress Potter-Black-Peverell-Ga-"

"Just call me Potter-Black or Harriet, please. It's shorter."

"Alright, Heiress Potter-Black. If you're ready, you can go look at yourself in the mirror."

Harriet nodded slowly and sat up. She looked around and noticed a tall mirror standing just to the door's right. Swallowing, she stood up and made her way over to stand in front of it before looking at herself and promptly jumping back in shock. Her hair settled on the colour light green. Harriet was confused. Why would her hair be green? Suddenly her hair turned yellow and she understood and relaxed, making it turn a middle coloured blue. Like, not light, but not dark, something in between.

"My metamorphmagus skills were unlocked…", she muttered and only now noticed that her eyes were the same shade as her hair. She shook her head. Could she change it right now? She concentrated on what Tonks had told her about being a metamorphmagus and thought hard about looking just like earlier. Well, as similar as she got. Her nose was slightly different, her cheek bones were a bit higher, and her hair wasn't as unruly, and instead it was just wavy. And it worked. Sort of. She got her hair to turn black, but there were still some blue streaks in it, just as her green eyes still held a blue tinge to them. She's got to practice that later.

She turned around at the sound of the healer. "If you're quite finished there, you can get dressed and follow Griphook out and to Mrs. And Mr. Dursley."

Harriet nodded and set right to getting her oversized clothes back on. She noticed that she didn't look as skinny and pale as before. Sure, her six-year-old body was still terribly malnourished, but some of what it was earlier probably was from the potions and probably even glamours that didn't show on the test.

She quickly finished getting dressed and jogged after Griphook, thinking about her name change. Being Harriet Potter was something she never wanted to be again. Don't get her wrong, she liked being a Potter, and she definitely wanted to keep something of her parents, but being Harriet Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived wasn't something she was about to repeat. No. For this time she had to be someone else entirely. She may tell people she really trusted the most, like Remus or Sirius if they wouldn't go directly to Dumbledore, but for now…

"HARRIET!", she heard Dudley and Stella shouting and sure enough she was enfulged in a hug by them.

"Are you alright? Did it hurt badly? Why does your hair have blue streaks?", Dudley started asking quickly and Harriet laughed.

"I'm alright, Dudley." She grimaced. "Yes, it was really painful, but they gave meh that potion that made all the pain better! And I'm a meta- metamorphmagus!" She stumbled over the word purposefully to pretend to be new to it. "That means I can change how I look whenever I want! It and my eyes were blue when the process was finished, so I tried making it black and my eyes green again. Didn't really work completely, though…"

Dudley looked awed and about to say something, when Stella butted in. "Should I go next?"