//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1:  A Hairy Situation 
// Story: Gift of Divinity 
// by computerneek 
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“Sunset Shimmer,” Professor Dumbledore spoke calmly, looking over the rims of his glasses.  “I expect you already know why you’re here.”
The girl shook her head with an air of polite confusion, but Dumbledore could tell it was a lie- she wasn’t quite as skilled as some of the trickier Wizengamot members.
That was one of the many things that were confusing about her.  In late July, she had suddenly stumbled out of the base of a statue of Boris the Bewildered on the fourth floor of Hogwarts Castle and slammed head-first into the wall opposite, instantly knocking herself unconscious.  Argus Filch, who had happened to be waxing the floor in that very corridor, had been furious- and rather than helping her, he had gone to get Dumbledore to punish Peeves.
But magical scans of that statue had indicated that it wasn’t Peeves.  For whatever reason, a strange, interdimensional portal existed within the statue.  It was beneath the surface of the stone, making it inaccessible from Hogwarts’ side- but the stone didn’t seem to stop things from coming through it from the other side.
Like Sunset Shimmer.
She had still been unconscious in the Hospital Wing when an owl had visited Madam Pomfrey to deliver a Hogwarts invitation destined for the girl.  When she had awoken, she had initially panicked at her surroundings, and apparently even at seeing her own body- and when Madam Pomfrey had tried to restrain her, she had demonstrated tremendous control of her Accidental Magic and fled…  only to get lost in the passages of Hogwarts.  Even the ‘navigation spell’ she mumbled about a couple times hadn’t helped her- most likely because, on her way past him just outside the Hospital Wing, Dumbledore had hit her with a Confundus Charm from the Elder Wand.
As a result, she’d ended up right back where she came from three times in a row, finally given up, and allowed them to talk to her.
She hadn’t let on any more than her name.  She still refused to talk about whatever past she had in that other world- but she had allowed Dumbledore to explain his findings about the portal.  She had spent two days helping him try to find a way to get through it- but neither of them had managed anything, even though she’d said something about ‘two skilled mages’.  So, while Professor McGonagall took the girl to Diagon Alley, Dumbledore had erected some powerful magical barriers around the statue to make sure nothing potentially harmful came from that world.
He had been too late.  Something harmful had already come out of it.
Her.
Even at a glance, she was…  abnormal.  Her exotically-colored hair, a mixture of red and gold that made it look almost exactly like a bonfire, was completely undyed, and had not been touched by color-changing charms either.  It just…  grew that way.
Finally, the Sorting had taken place, and she had become a Ravenclaw.
Had he known what was coming, he would never have allowed her to enroll.
He had since learned that she was a deceitful little monster.  In just the few short months before the Christmas holidays, she had managed to destroy most of the friendships in the school and even- in some cases- get his staff against each other.  In the two months since the Christmas holidays had ended, she had kept going.  By now, hardly the beginning of March, basically the entire school was afraid of her.  Students would do whatever she told them to, and even teachers- all of them- were very careful around her, and reluctant to punish her.
Which meant that the time had come for some direct action.
If he was entirely honest, that time had come and gone a long time ago, but he hadn’t realized it at the time- apparently, she had taken steps to keep him from realizing what was going on.
But he had finally realized, and called her to his office.  Now that he laid his eyes on her for the first time since August, he realized that she now had a smug, aggressive look to her, like she knew what she wanted and was going to get it no matter what.
It would certainly explain the magical experiments that had put a fair few students in the Hospital Wing over the last week.  Two of them had been transferred to St. Mungo’s, but all were expected to survive.
He paused for a second to decide how he was going to broach the subject, and sighed.  “I cannot have your experiments hurting my students,” he told her calmly.  “If you keep doing this, I will be forced to expel you from this Castle.”
A tiny glimpse of fear appeared in her eyes, but it was rapidly washed out by determination.  She obviously understood what he was talking about…  and it looked like she was disappointed, too.  Had she tried to keep him from finding out about that, and failed?
She bowed apologetically.  “Understood, Professo-!”
Her hand shot forward, and a blast of magic shot out of it.
But Dumbledore had done his research.  He knew what that spell was, even if he couldn’t figure out how to cast it himself- it was some sort of mind control or memory modification spell, which had been involved in a few of her experiments.
And, he was ready for her.  Both his hands were beneath the surface of his desk, in his lap- and the Elder Wand was in one of them.  He had hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, but alas, he had to.
Blocking her spell was easy.  He immediately counterattacked- but she was also ready for him.  She didn’t use her wand, only her strange Accidental Magic, as she projected a powerful shield of her own to block his stunner.
Then she attacked him again…  and he blocked it.  She wasn’t all that good of a duelist- he definitely had the upper hand.
Except that her shield wrapped entirely around her…  and she could attack through it, while he couldn’t get in without using spells that would surely kill her.
Which meant there was only one possible outcome…  Unless one or the other of them gave up.
They had only exchanged a few more blows before she seemed to acknowledge the same thing, and stopped shooting spells at him, staring at him as she evidently thought about what to do next.
Then it crossed Dumbledore’s mind exactly why he didn’t have an omnidirectional, always-active shield charm like that.  It was simple, really- if he hermetically sealed himself inside an enclosed magical environment and fired spells out of it, it wouldn’t be possible for any magic to enter that environment- so he would necessarily eventually run out.
So, by using that shield, she had placed a limit on her own magic supply…  whereas he was still open to his surroundings, and could still absorb additional energy as required.  Thus, if the fight went on, he was the one that was guaranteed to win, not her.
“Fine,” she muttered, and raised her hands over her head.
Magic started to swirl through the air above her- and amidst the center of it, a tornado of energy sparked to life, controlled by her magic.
So, she had a limited magic supply, but huge reserves.
“You know that’s not going to work,” he told her.
She laughed.  “Oh, it will,” she told him.  “It’s a higher form of magic, after all.  And one I was able to perfect in those-!”
A sudden squeal made both of them jump.  One of Dumbledore’s many gizmos around the room was whirring fast, screaming and flashing with various colors as it emitted puffs of red smoke.
Very few people realized that his gizmos were actually nothing of the sort.  They were designed to look like gizmos, while they served as the physical manifestations of a number of different monitoring charms.
This one monitored danger to Dumbledore himself.
The rest of the duel happened very fast.
Dumbledore wasted no time at all in casting the most powerful shields he knew between himself and the deadly ball of magic floating over the girl.
And even so, he was only barely in time.
The girl wasn’t.  She was still staring uncomprehendingly at the contraption, face full of alarm and shield faltering, when the ball of magic tilted…  then ran into a set of instruments.
These three were actually a set:  Together, they informed Dumbledore of any dangers to young Harry Potter- one physical, one emotional, and one spiritual.
For a split second before the magic made contact, all three of them went nuts.
Then the ball smashed firmly into the one monitoring for spiritual dangers.
All three instruments and the ball promptly vanished in an explosion of bright white light.





Many miles away, a three year old boy with a shaggy head of hair and a lightning bolt scar bolted awake with a small scream of pain and fright.  He breathed heavily, clutching at his forehead, for several seconds before the pain went away.  Finally, he curled back up under the covers.  “Just a nightmare,” he told himself.  “Just a nightmare.”





Professor Dumbledore shook his head to try to remove the dizziness, but it didn’t work.  He struggled to move- and managed to free his right hand…  Which, miraculously, was still holding an undamaged Elder Wand.
So he pointed it at his own head and muttered a quick healing incantation.
It worked.  His mind was instantly clear, his vision unbroken- and the various pains in his lower body gone.  He was still being crushed by the pile of debris on top of him- but he was no longer injured.
His next spell removed the debris so he could rise to his feet and examine the aftermath.
Nearly everything was destroyed.  All of his instruments- and the monitoring spells they displayed- were gone.  His desk- everything.  Even the photos of old Headmasters had been shredded by the blast- fortunately, a quick repair charm was all it would take to restore them.
But he could worry about that later; the pictures couldn’t die.
The girl, however, could.  She was lying, her body twisted in a way it definitely shouldn’t, against one wall, and covered in blood and debris.
He pointed the Elder Wand at her, and cast a few charms.  The first one stopped the bleeding.  The second cleared the blood and debris off of her.  The third gently moved her into a decent lying position- and the fourth conjured a stretcher for her to land on.
Even with the Elder Wand, injuries like this- it did seem she was still breathing, though it was faltering from all the blood loss- were not his specialty.  The healing charm he’d used on himself only worked when cast on one’s self, after all; a tradeoff for being safe to cast even with a concussion.
So he rushed her to the Hospital Wing.





“What in the name of Merlin happened to her?” Madam Pomfrey asked, once she’d satisfied herself with her spellwork.
“She decided to use some higher form of magic,” Dumbledore answered the school nurse.  “It backfired.”
Madam Pomfrey sighed.  “She’s got over a hundred fractured bones and even more dislocated or fully separated joints,” she muttered.  “She’s got fragments of her right forearm bones in her liver and even her heart, and that forearm is simply beyond repair.”  She sighed.  “She’s lost everything from just above the elbow on that side- and that’s not even counting that her right eye is also gone for good.  And her ear.  And…”  She trailed off, then sighed.  “I doubt she’ll be able to survive on her own after this.”





When Harry Potter climbed onto the bathroom counter the following morning to brush his teeth, he immediately noticed that his hair seemed to have gotten longer overnight.
But, he was three.  He thought it looked pretty while he missed his toothbrush with half a tube of toothpaste and subsequently chewed the end of the brush.
The Dursleys had yet to successfully teach him to do it properly.





Petunia Dursley sighed.  “Vernon?” she asked.
Her husband, Vernon Dursley, was a busy man.  He was a director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills- and he devoted as much of his time as he could to it, in his effort to provide everything that Petunia wanted- and quite a bit that she didn’t, sometimes.  He was still learning to tell the difference between the two.
“Yes, Petunia dear?” he asked shortly.
Petunia decided not to mention the toothpaste and damaged toothbrush that she’d cleaned up from the bathroom sink that morning.  He was evidently in a hurry- and there was something more important.
“Harry,” she said.  “His hair…  got longer again.  All the way to his waist this time.”
Vernon shrugged.  “So cut it off.”





When Vernon got home that day, it was to find the living room practically carpeted with black hair- with a huge mound in the middle.  “What the-?” he began.
Petunia looked up, looking desperate.  “I- I cut it,” she told him.  “Then it was back a minute later.  So I cut it again, and…”  She sighed.  “Then Dudley started playing in it, so it got everywhere.”  She gestured around the room.
“And…  And the boy?” Vernon barked.
“He seems to be having fun,” she muttered.  “No sign of exhaustion or anything else from growing so much hair so quickly.”
Vernon sighed.  “I guess we’ll have to tie it up in a ponytail or something, maybe tuck it into his shirt,” he muttered, then bent down and scooped up a handful of it.  “Hmm.  This is…  This is oddly soft.  How possible do you think it would be to weave a cloth from it?”
Petunia looked around.  “Um…  No idea.  Might be worth trying, though.”





As it turned out, when Petunia put Harry’s hair through the weaving loom, a machine she still couldn’t understand why Vernon had bought her the year before, it wove like a dream.  The resulting cloth looked and felt like silk, could be stretched twice as far as even spandex, and was so strong that the chain they used to test its strength broke before the thin strip they were testing did.  Neither she nor Vernon had been able to tear it, no matter what they tried.  Vernon’s drills and even chainsaw had been unable to cut it after the kitchen shears and knives failed- yet the sewing scissors had no real difficulty.  It was almost like it knew what was cutting it.
When they thought about that, and about how Harry had been given to them, the implications terrified them- so they agreed never to tell anyone.
But they still started making things from it.  The clothes were almost stupidly comfortable, and as fashionable as all get-out.  The blankets were decently warm when they were cold, and pleasantly cool when they were hot.  The towels worked like a dream- and didn’t drip, but when wrung out, it was effortless to get them completely dry.  The sheets soothed Petunia’s tired muscles in only a single night of sleeping on them- and when she made a pillow, and stuffed it with more of Harry’s hair, Vernon stopped snoring.  As a result, he was so full of energy the next day that he came home because he’d run out of work to do at Grunnings!
And of course, when they needed more, Harry seemed to think their war with his hair was funny.