Nova - Unique HP Character (Read Bio)

The fire would not remain secret forever.

Flames were already climbing above the surrounding trees, staining the night sky orange while a column of black smoke rose high enough to be seen for miles. Whatever precautions had once kept Project Aegis hidden, they had been designed to conceal a functioning facility—not several floors of it burning through the roof.

Sooner or later, the spectacle was certain to attract attention.

Perhaps from someone who recognised that something magical was very wrong.

Perhaps from someone who simply saw a fire and came to investigate.

Auror, traveller, criminal, civilian, friend or enemy—the flames made no distinction between the curious, the concerned and the opportunistic. Nor could they determine who might already have been travelling through the surrounding countryside when the night suddenly turned orange.

For twelve years, almost everyone beyond those walls had gone about their lives without knowing Project Aegis existed.

Tonight, Aegis was making itself rather difficult to ignore.

Another explosion rolled through the trees.

Nova stopped.

Behind her, part of the facility's upper structure folded inward in a shower of sparks.

She watched it collapse for several seconds.

Then she turned away from the fire.

Ahead, the road disappeared into darkness in both directions.

Nobody told her which way to go.

Nova stared at it.

For once, that appeared to be the problem.

Three weeks had passed since the fire.

Nova had discovered that freedom involved considerably more maintenance than she had anticipated.

The little camp hidden amongst the trees had begun as little more than a place to stop moving. A shallow hollow beneath an old oak had provided shelter from the wind, fallen branches had provided the beginnings of a fire, and a stolen blanket had provided the uncomfortable revelation that sleeping outside was substantially colder than observing the outside through reinforced glass suggested.

Three weeks later, things had improved.

A rough shelter now stood between several closely grown trees, its frame assembled from branches and covered with overlapping layers of canvas, foliage and whatever else Nova had managed to acquire. It wasn't pretty, but it kept out most of the rain.

Most.

The small fireplace several yards away had been ringed with stones. A battered saucepan hung above it from an improvised wooden support, something bubbling quietly inside.

Nearby, a length of cord stretched between two trees beneath a collection of drying clothes.

Nova sat on an overturned log beside the fire.

Her long blonde hair had been pulled loosely behind her shoulders, though several strands had escaped and fallen around her face. Firelight moved across the irregular pale-blue scales visible along her neck and forearms, occasionally catching them at the right angle and producing a faint iridescent shimmer.

She frowned at the object in her hands.

It was a rucksack.

More specifically, it was the broken fastening from a rucksack.

Nova turned the small metal buckle over.

Then turned it back.

She had spent the better part of twelve years being taught how to continue fighting after losing a wand.

Apparently nobody involved with Project Aegis had anticipated luggage.

Nova pushed the pieces together.

They immediately separated.

“Wonderful.”

She tried again.

Nothing.

There were magical solutions, obviously.

Nova could have repaired the entire thing in seconds.

That had ceased to be the point approximately ten minutes ago.

“You're a buckle.”

The buckle remained unmoved by this observation.

Nova narrowed her eyes.

“I've met more complicated doors.”

A log shifted in the fire.

She glanced towards the saucepan.

That, at least, appeared to be behaving itself.

Life outside Aegis had developed into a strange collection of little victories.

Some had been obvious.

Finding clean water had taken less than a day. Building somewhere reasonably dry to sleep had taken two. Hunting had proved straightforward enough once she'd stopped expecting every unfamiliar noise in the trees to indicate someone approaching.

Other things had been considerably less dignified.

Her first attempt at buying food had ended with Nova standing silently in front of a bewildered shopkeeper while trying to determine why several pieces of metal apparently possessed radically different values despite looking almost identical.

She had since acquired a purse.

And money.

Some of it even legally.

A folded copy of the Daily Prophet lay beside her shelter, several days old now. Two books sat on top of it, joined by a half-empty packet of biscuits and a small collection of other things which had gradually accumulated as Nova ventured further from the woods.

She knew what all of them were.

That was perhaps the strangest part.

The world itself was rarely unfamiliar.

She knew what shops looked like.

She understood roads, houses, trains, Ministry departments and wizarding newspapers. She knew the layout of places she had never visited and occasionally recognised objects she had never personally handled.

Sometimes she even remembered doing things she'd never done.

Knowledge had never been the problem.

Experience was proving rather different.

Nova looked down at the buckle again.

“Last chance.”

She pressed the fastening together.

Click.

Her eyebrows rose.

For several seconds she simply stared at it.

“Huh.”

She tugged experimentally.

It held.

A small smile appeared.

“Thought so.”

The saucepan chose that moment to boil over.

Nova swore and dropped the rucksack.

A flick of her hand pulled the saucepan sharply away from the flames, hovering several inches above the ground while its contents continued bubbling furiously.

“Oh, fuck off.”

She lowered it onto the grass.

Dinner, apparently, had survived.

Barely.

Nova leaned forward and stirred it with a wooden spoon.

The camp wasn't much.

She knew that.

There were houses beyond these woods. Inns. Villages. Entire cities filled with people who slept beneath actual roofs and purchased meals without first determining whether the meal possessed claws.

Nova had seen some of them.

She simply kept coming back here.

Nobody asked questions in the woods.

Nobody stared at the scales along her face.

Nobody wanted to know where she'd learned magic without a wand, why she had no family to contact, where she'd attended school, or why a woman her age occasionally encountered something perfectly ordinary and examined it as though someone had neglected to provide the instructions.

The woods expected considerably less.

Food.

Shelter.

Warmth.

Awareness.

Those were problems Nova understood.

What came afterwards was less obvious.

She tasted the contents of the saucepan.

Paused.

Added something from a small paper packet.

Tried again.

“Better.”

The sun had disappeared behind the trees some time ago. What remained of the evening light was fading quickly now, leaving the camp illuminated primarily by the small orange fire.

Nova settled back onto the log.

Somewhere overhead, branches moved gently in the wind.

An owl called from deeper in the woodland.

Nova looked up automatically.

Through gaps in the canopy, the first stars had begun appearing.

For a while, she simply watched them.

No reinforced glass.

No observation window.

No ceiling.

Just sky.

Nova rested her forearms against her knees.

Three weeks ago she had walked away from a burning building without knowing where the road beyond it led.

Nobody had come after her.

At first she'd expected them to.

Every unfamiliar sound had brought her upright. Every distant crack of Apparition had tightened something in her chest. Every time she ventured near civilisation, some part of her had expected to see a familiar face waiting amongst the crowd.

Nothing.

Aegis remained silent.

Perhaps they really did think she was dead.

Nova wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.

She picked up the repaired rucksack.

The fastening immediately came apart.

Nova stared at it.

“No.”

She examined the buckle.

“You and I had an agreement.”

A faint sound came from somewhere beyond the firelight.

Nova stilled.

The rucksack remained forgotten in her hands.

For several seconds there was only the quiet movement of the woods.

Then—

Leaves shifted.

A branch moved.

The soft compression of earth beneath a foot.

Nova slowly lowered the rucksack.

There.

Another step.

Too measured for an animal.

Her head tilted slightly as she listened.

The sound had come from beyond the trees to her left, somewhere outside the little circle of orange light thrown by the fire.

Nova had chosen this place precisely because people rarely came through it.

There was no nearby road.

No obvious footpath.

Nothing worth finding unless someone already knew where to look.

Or had become spectacularly lost.

Another footstep.

Nova set the rucksack aside.

Her posture had changed almost imperceptibly. She hadn't reached for a wand. She hadn't needed to.

Her bright green eyes remained fixed upon the darkness between the trees.

“Whoever that is,” she called, her voice carrying easily through the quiet woodland, “you'd better have a damn good reason for interrupting my evening.”

Silence answered her.

Nova waited.

Then glanced briefly at the broken rucksack beside her.

“And if the reason is murder, kidnapping or unsolicited advice—”

Her attention returned to the trees.

“—I've had quite enough of all three.”

Diagon Alley was busier than Nova had expected.

Shop doors opened and closed constantly. Owls complained from cages. Children dragged parents towards broomsticks and sweets while witches and wizards somehow navigated the narrow street carrying parcels, books, cauldrons and occasionally all three.

Nova stood outside Flourish and Blotts and watched the crowd.

She had been coming further from the woods recently.

At first because she needed things.

Food. Clothes. Newspapers. Money she could actually spend without first wondering whether she'd accidentally handed someone enough to purchase their shop.

Then necessity had acquired competition.

Curiosity.

Nova had spent twelve years learning about a world she had never actually been permitted to enter.

Diagon Alley had appeared in lessons, reports and conversations overheard between people who hadn't realised she was listening.

Occasionally, it appeared in memories that weren't hers.

That had become apparent almost immediately.

She'd entered through the Leaky Cauldron, looked along the crowded street—

—and known exactly where Gringotts was.

Nova had stopped.

The white marble building stood precisely where she'd expected.

She had never been there.

Someone else had.

“Wonderful.”

She'd become quite good at deciding not to think about things like that.

A boy hurried past carrying a broomstick almost as tall as he was.

“Matthew!”

His mother followed several seconds later.

“You nearly hit that woman!”

The boy looked back.

“Sorry!”

Nova raised a hand.

“No casualties.”

His mother gave her an apologetic smile before hurrying after him.

Nova watched them disappear.

That woman.

For some reason, the phrase amused her.

Not Subject.

Not asset.

Not experiment.

Just some woman who'd nearly been assaulted by an enthusiastic child with sporting equipment.

Progress.

She continued towards Gringotts.

People noticed the scales.

Of course they did.

Pale-blue patches framed her temples and continued down her neck, with more visible along her bare arms. Most people looked once. Some looked twice.

A teenage witch attempted a third.

Nova looked directly at her.

The girl immediately became fascinated by a shop window.

Nova's mouth twitched.

The attention was irritating.

It wasn't dangerous.

That distinction had taken some learning.

Aegis had taught her to notice eyes: who was watching, for how long, where their hands were, whether they stood between her and an exit.

Nobody had explained that sometimes people stared simply because they'd never seen a blonde woman with blue scales buying lunch before.

Nova emerged from a bakery several minutes later carrying a warm paper parcel.

She took a bite.

Stopped.

Looked at it.

“Oh.”

Another bite followed.

That was going on the list.

Hot bakery food had immediately entered serious competition with hot showers amongst things the outside world had inexplicably failed to warn her about.

Nova continued towards Gringotts.

Then stopped.

A queue stretched down its steps.

People crowded around the entrance. Two witches were arguing. A goblin stood inside wearing the expression of someone reconsidering the entire concept of customer service.

Nova considered joining them.

“No.”

Gringotts could wait.

She turned back.

Unfortunately, Diagon Alley had become even busier.

The afternoon crowd flowed around her. Conversations overlapped. Shopkeepers called from doorways. Somewhere nearby an owl appeared to be losing an argument with its cage.

Nova's awareness widened instinctively.

Movement behind.

Two exits.

Someone standing against the wall.

Hands—

She caught herself.

Nobody was attacking her.

Nobody was containing her.

Nova exhaled.

“Too many people.”

She moved with the crowd until she reached one of the narrower passages branching away from the main street.

Nova stepped into its entrance.

Better.

The noise remained, but the buildings cut away much of the movement. She leaned one shoulder against the cool stone and opened the paper parcel again.

From here, she could simply watch.

Friends stopped to talk.

Children ran between shops.

A witch argued cheerfully with a merchant.

Two Ministry employees passed without noticing Nova at all.

Hundreds of people crossed paths for hundreds of different reasons.

Nobody marched in formation.

Nobody waited for permission before deciding where to go.

Nobody seemed to find that remarkable.

Nova took another bite.

For twelve years, her world had been built around locked rooms and the people authorised to enter them.

This one appeared to have no centre at all.

A shop bell rang somewhere along the street.

Behind Nova, deeper within the narrow passage, a door opened.

Another group emerged from the Leaky Cauldron and disappeared into the crowd.

People continued coming and going, each occupied by lives Nova knew nothing about.

For the moment, she remained at the edge of it all, visible without quite joining in.

Nova looked towards Gringotts.

Then at the remainder of her lunch.

The decision wasn't particularly difficult.

“Ten more minutes.”

She took another bite, and if she was to be interrupted, well... She would cross that bridge when she came to it...

Nova hadn't intended to visit anyone.

She hadn't known there was anyone nearby to visit.

The countryside had seemed quiet enough when she'd wandered into it that morning: rolling fields broken by hedgerows, narrow lanes, patches of woodland and the occasional distant house. After several weeks living largely beneath trees, Nova had begun ranging further simply because she could.

Nobody had given her a boundary.

So she walked.

It was sometime after midday when she became aware of a house in the distance.

Nova stopped.

The building appeared to have been constructed according to the architectural principle that gravity was more of a suggestion.

Several crooked storeys rose from what might once have been a relatively ordinary stone building, apparently supported by magic, optimism and complete disregard for structural engineering.

Nova stared at it.

“Huh.”

She had seen stranger things.

Admittedly, most of them had been inside laboratories.

Nova continued along the edge of the field.

She had no reason to approach the house. Whoever lived there presumably had their own affairs, and Nova had become quite comfortable with the arrangement whereby strangers left her alone and she returned the favour.

Then a woman's voice carried across the garden.

“Hello?”

Nova stopped.

A short, plump woman with red hair stood near a washing line, a basket balanced against one hip.

For several seconds they regarded one another.

The woman's eyes naturally found the pale-blue scales framing Nova's temples and running down her neck.

Nova waited for the usual second look.

It came.

Then the woman's attention moved lower.

To Nova's clothes.

Her weathered rucksack.

The mud on her boots.

And whatever conclusions Molly Weasley reached appeared to have absolutely nothing to do with scales.

“Goodness, how long have you been wandering around out here?”

Nova blinked.

“What?”

“You must be freezing.”

Nova looked down at herself.

“I'm not.”

“Nonsense.”

It wasn't particularly cold.

Nova opened her mouth.

“Come inside.”

That brought her up short.

“No, thank you.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

Nova narrowed her eyes.

“That feels unrelated.”

The woman set down the basket.

“I'm Molly.”

“Nova.”

“Well, Nova, we certainly aren't going to have you standing out here getting cold.”

“We?”

“You and I.”

“I wasn't aware we'd formed a committee.”

Molly's mouth twitched.

“No committee. Come along.”

Nova stared at her.

She had faced professional interrogators with less confidence.

“I really am fine.”

“Yes, dear.”

There was something deeply unsettling about the way she said it.

Molly picked up the basket and started towards the house.

After several steps she looked back.

Nova hadn't moved.

“Come on.”

Nova glanced towards the road.

Then towards the impossible house.

Every instinct developed over twelve years suggested that voluntarily entering an unfamiliar building at the instruction of a complete stranger was an appalling idea.

Something smelled remarkably good from an open kitchen window.

Nova looked back at Molly.

“This is a terrible security policy.”

“Inside.”

Nova sighed.

“Fine.”

"Just mind the others, the house does like to get a bit chaotic at times, Dear"

And whatever Nova had planned for her day previously, was about to be upended entirely with whatever new manner of fun would be found inside the precarious, impossible, house...

Nova had learned that government buildings shared one important characteristic with secret experimental facilities.

They had far too many corridors.

She moved quietly through another deserted passage beneath the Ministry of Magic, one hand trailing briefly across the polished wall as she checked the numbers beside the doors.

Nothing.

Again.

Nova exhaled through her nose.

“Of course.”

Breaking into the Ministry had seemed considerably simpler when it was still theoretical.

Getting inside had not actually been the difficult part. Twelve years of Project Aegis had left her with an unfortunately comprehensive education in restricted doors, surveillance and the general principle that somewhere labelled authorised personnel only was usually considerably more interesting than somewhere labelled welcome.

Finding what she wanted was another matter.

Project Aegis had existed.

Nova knew that much rather intimately.

Somebody had authorised it.

Somebody had funded it.

Ingredients had been purchased. Personnel had been assigned. Reports had been written. Subjects had been acquired.

Institutions produced records.

And if any trace of Aegis remained outside the facility that had burned behind her, Nova intended to find it.

She reached another door.

Locked.

Nova glanced along the empty corridor.

Then raised two fingers.

The lock clicked.

“Better.”

Inside waited several rows of filing cabinets.

Nova stared at them.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Twenty minutes later, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by folders.

Avery, M.

Bagnold Administration — Restricted Expenditure.

Experimental Charms Oversight Committee.

Classified Artefact Recovery.

Nothing.

Nova tossed another folder onto the pile.

Perhaps Project Aegis had been optimistic.

She hadn't expected to find a drawer conveniently labelled ILLEGAL HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION — PLEASE DESTROY BEFORE AUDIT, but twelve years ought to have left something.

A requisition.

A name.

A location.

Anything that might tell her who had decided what her life should become.

Nova reached for another file.

Stopped.

Her head lifted.

Silence.

Then—

A distant sound.

Muffled by several walls.

Nova remained still.

There it was again.

Not footsteps.

Something sharper.

A crack that reverberated faintly through the stone.

Magic.

Nova slowly stood.

Another sound followed.

Then another.

The unmistakable report of spells being cast somewhere deeper within the Ministry.

“At this hour?”

She looked at the scattered files.

Whatever was happening elsewhere was none of her concern.

Nova crouched again.

Opened another folder.

A distant boom shook dust from the upper corner of the room.

Nova stared at the page.

“No.”

Another crash.

“Absolutely not.”

Somewhere far beyond the archive, a voice shouted.

Nova closed her eyes.

She had spent twelve years being trained to investigate disturbances.

She was free now.

She could ignore one.

That was what free people did.

Presumably.

Another spell cracked through the building.

Nova opened her eyes.

“Fuck's sake.”

She returned the folder to the cabinet.

Not because she cared.

Because whoever was currently demolishing portions of the Ministry might eventually attract enough attention to make remaining here rather inconvenient.

That was all.

Nova stepped back into the corridor.

Several floors below, Harry Potter had considerably larger problems.

“RUN!”

A curse struck the wall behind Neville and exploded against the stone.

Harry dragged him around the corner as Ginny fired blindly back down the passage.

“Where's Hermione?”

“Behind us!”

“Harry!”

Hermione appeared through another doorway with Ron and Luna close behind.

Another spell flashed past them.

The six teenagers scattered.

Behind them came laughter.

Bellatrix Lestrange rounded the corner.

“Little children shouldn't play with things they don't understand!”

“Keep moving!” Hermione shouted.

Harry didn't need telling twice.

The Department of Mysteries had become a maze of shattered doors, overturned furniture and rooms which seemed determined to make surviving Death Eaters unnecessarily complicated.

Somewhere within it was the way out.

Somewhere behind them were considerably more experienced witches and wizards.

And in Harry's hand was the reason any of them were there at all.

The prophecy.

Nova heard the next explosion much more clearly.

She had followed the disturbance down several levels, initially intending only to determine whether it threatened her route out.

That explanation had become increasingly difficult to maintain.

She reached a junction.

Left.

Voices.

Right.

Nothing.

Nova went left.

A door ahead hung crookedly from one hinge.

Beyond it, something had reduced part of the wall to rubble.

Nova stepped over a chunk of stone.

Whoever was fighting down here wasn't exchanging warning spells.

A flash of red illuminated the corridor ahead.

Someone shouted.

Another voice answered.

Young.

Nova frowned.

She continued.

“Stupefy!”

Hermione's spell struck one of the masked figures squarely in the chest.

He flew backwards.

Ron whooped.

“Yes!”

“Ron, MOVE!”

Hermione shoved him aside as another curse tore through the space where his head had been.

“Oh.”

“Honestly!”

Luna raised her wand.

“Reducto!”

Stone erupted from the doorway.

Ginny ducked.

Neville didn't.

“Sorry!”

“Fine!”

“You're bleeding.”

“I KNOW!”

Harry barely heard them.

He could hear Bellatrix laughing somewhere behind the others.

He could hear Lucius Malfoy shouting for someone to get the prophecy.

And somewhere ahead—

Another door.

“Through there!”

Nova reached the end of the corridor.

And stopped.

Whatever was happening ahead was no isolated exchange of spells.

The Department had descended into chaos.

Voices echoed through adjoining chambers. Footsteps pounded across stone somewhere beyond sight. A flash of red illuminated one doorway before disappearing, followed seconds later by the unmistakable crack of another curse from somewhere else entirely.

Nova stepped carefully through the remains of a shattered door.

A masked wizard hurried across a distant opening without seeing her.

Mask.

Black robes.

Wand.

She knew enough about the outside world to recognise that combination.

“Death Eater.”

Well.

That complicated things.

Another spell flashed somewhere ahead.

Then came a shout.

Younger than she'd expected.

Nova frowned.

She moved further into the Department.

The fighting wasn't confined to one room. Whatever had begun here had scattered through corridors, chambers and adjoining halls, leaving overturned furniture, shattered stone and abandoned objects in its wake. People were moving in several directions now, sometimes pursuing, sometimes fleeing, sometimes apparently having lost track of whichever they had originally intended.

Somewhere amongst them, Harry Potter and five other Hogwarts students were trying to escape with a prophecy Voldemort wanted badly enough to send Death Eaters into the Ministry to retrieve.

None of them knew Nova existed.

Nova knew nothing about them beyond whatever scraps of public information had reached her since escaping Aegis.

And the Ministry itself was considerably larger than either group.

Offices, corridors and entire departments surrounded the fighting. Not everyone who might be somewhere beneath the Ministry that night had arrived for the same reason, belonged to the same side, or even understood what was happening.

Nova certainly didn't.

She had come looking for records.

Instead, she'd walked into a battle.

A figure suddenly crossed the corridor ahead.

Nova's attention snapped towards the movement.

Before she could identify them, another explosion shook the Department and a nearby door flew open, spilling light across the passage.

More footsteps sounded somewhere behind her.

Nova looked one way.

Then the other.

“Oh, for fuck's sake.”

Somewhere deeper within the Department, the battle continued.

And Nova had just wandered straight into the middle of it...