Unwanted

The world seems not the same

Though I know nothing has changed

It's all my state of mind

I can't leave it all behind

I have to stand up to be stronger

- Within Temptation

                The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the pink.

                Seriously, it was like Barbie had a house party that went seriously wrong. The kind when the parents—does Barbie even have parents? – come home to find everything trashed and covered in paint and who knows what else.

                The next thing I noticed… once my eyes adjusted enough to see anything beyond pink was that the room I was in appeared to belong to a six year old girl.

                I had no idea how or why I’d ended up here. I cast back, searching for the memory of whatever had happened before my period of unconsciousness in an attempt to find out who or what was responsible at least.

                The memory of my arrival here slammed into me like a two-ton freight truck on the highway.

                 Gold. There was golden light everywhere when I came to. I had no idea where I was or what had happened, but I could feel the light healing my body of mortal wounds. I lay still, like the dead, keeping my breathing shallow, in an attempt to figure out what was going on without giving away my alive, or at least my conscious state.

                I heard fearful murmuring near, so someone had noticed something, but who were they? Friend or foe?

                “Wormtail! Check and see if the girl is actually dead!” called out a voice. I had to fight the urge to stiffen, because that voice… could not – he was dead! But my scar gave a twinge as if in contradiction and I knew, the voice undeniably belonged to Voldemort.

                I didn’t have time to focus on how this situation had come about, footsteps were drawing closer, and if the name was to be believed Voldemort’s miraculous return to living was not an isolated incident. I allowed my eyes to open a fraction, as the owner of the footsteps crouched down near me.

                The moment his hand reached out I was in motion. I grabbed his wrist and twisted, kicking out at his knees at the same moment. I heard his wrist give with a snap as he fell, but I was already grabbing his wand out of his pocket and rolling to the side as his silvery hand flailed in my direction and he screamed. I pulled out of the roll into a crouch, a cutting curse flying off my tongue, and then it was over. Wormtail collapsed with a gurgle, blood spraying from his neck.

                I slowly stood, eyeing my shocked audience.

                My shocked audience of people who should be dead. But I couldn’t focus on that now, as Wormtail had demonstrated they were very much alive. I could focus on the hows and whys later.

                But almost against my will a theory formed as my stomach dropped. Because I recognized my surroundings. We were in the graveyard of Little Hangleton, and sure enough the Tri-Wizard Cup glowed behind a headstone, though Cedric’s body was nowhere to be seen.

                 I forcefully cut that line of thought off as Voldemort spoke.

                “So the girl has teeth after all… That was almost, cold-blooded of you. Mayhap you could be useful to me after all. What do you say? You could have everything you’ve ever wanted. Out from under your brother’s shadow. All you have to do is join me.”

                I took a moment to absorb what he’d said, brother? And then I realized what he’d actually said.

                I couldn’t help it, I burst into uncontrollable laughter.

                “You… you can’t be serious!” I said through the laughter, “The apocalypse wouldn’t be enough to tempt me to your side. I should be the one telling you it’d be smarter to join me. ‘Cause I’m not sure how things have been before now, but there’s a new power in town baby, and it ain’t takin no prisoners”

                “You will pay for your presumption Potter.”

                And with that there was the bright red of a Cruciatus curse flying in my direction. And this, finally something I could deal with, could handle, when nothing else made sense.

                I took a half-turn to the right, acknowledging the body’s warnings that it would not put up with the strain of a battle for long—remembering that it had close to if not fatal injuries when I arrived. That in mind I decided I needed to keep this short. I didn’t know where the wand that belonged to the other me was, if it was even whole, but I had the wand I’d stolen from Wormtail, and it responded well enough to my desires.

                So as curses began to fly thick and heavy in my direction, I began to return fire, as I used my dodges to slowly make my way closer to where the cup lay. I didn’t see Cedric’s body, didn’t know if it had been there at all, and I didn’t waste time I didn’t have looking.

                When I was finally close enough to not be stopped once they realized what I was doing, I stood still and held my ground, unable to resist one last taunt at my first true Monster.

                “Keep my words in mind, any of you who ask nicely enough might be spared. ACCIO CUP!”

                The last I saw before the world blurred was Voldemort’s considering look as I somehow heard him murmur, “You are not the Hadrea Potter who arrived here tonight.”

                The note of curiosity in his voice sent a shiver of warning down my spine as the portkey took me from the graveyard to the Quidditch Stadium of Hogwarts, in the middle of a group of people who were both achingly familiar and completely unknown.

                “Voldemort, he’s back.” I stuttered, before my body finally gave out and collapsed from under me. I held onto consciousness by the skin of my teeth, memory telling me there was one more scene to be played before the act was over.

                There was confused screaming and shouting surrounding me, before someone pulled me to my feet.

                “Come-on Potter, let’s get you inside.” A gruff voice said.

                I allowed myself to be led, leaning heavily on the man who was wearing the skin of Moody but whose mannerisms gave him away as Crouch Jr. I fell back on my memory then, responding to questions and events the way I had the first time, clinging to consciousness with the last of my fading strength.

                I finally let go as the door slammed open, revealing not only the three rescuers I remembered, but three additions.

                So that answered the question of what happened before I fell unconscious, and lent credence to the idea I was relatively safe where I was, though as Wormtail’s wand was nowhere to be seen I would hold-off on accepting that idea completely.

                But I still needed to know how I’d ended up in this world, for I had no doubt now that I was able to examine the situation with a clear head that I was actually in a world not my own, there were too many differences for it to have been as easy an answer as time-travel.

                I cast back further, looking to fill in the gap between pulling up to the Elysian Hotel with Sam and Dean and waking up to golden light.

                Rather than slamming into me like the last one, this one simply slid into place, but with a latent ache like being sliced with an extremely sharp blade.

                I remembered the meeting of the pagan gods. I remembered the humans meant to serve as refreshments. I remembered Gabriel showing up as Loki and trying to get the three of us to leave, and then to convince the Pagans that it would be a bad idea to go after Lucifer. Remembered Lucifer actually showing up. Remembered Gabriel telling the three of us to grab the humans and go. Remembered Sam and Dean leaving, as I pretended to follow before slipping away when they were suitably distracted. Remembered slipping under the invisibility cloak and watching Lucifer strike down the pagans. Remembered Gabriel standing up to his brother. Remembered the fight that followed. Remembered the look on Gabriel's face—the resigned look of someone who knew that they weren’t making it out of this fight alive, but were determined to buy as much time for their allies and take as many enemies with them as possible. Remembered Gabriel using the trick that had fooled Sam and Dean when first they met. Remembered seeing Lucifer begin to move to stab the fake, but knowing instinctively it was a feint. Remembered making the decision before I had even thought about it, and rushing forward to shove Gabriel away in the nick of time. Remembered the burning pain as the angel blade went completely through me. Remembered thinking ‘in one side and out the other’ hysterically as I fell off the blade, the cloak floating down gracefully to my side. Remembered how everything froze for a moment as the angels took in what had happened. Remembered Gabriel’s wordless exclamation of denial. Remembered Lucifer’s look of curiosity before he shrugged and left. Remembered Gabriel gently lifting me up and the quick flight from there to the road in front of the impala. Remembered hearing the screech of the breaks as Dean slammed to a halt, and Gabriel spreading my cloak on the side of the road before laying me atop it. Remembered Sam and Dean's anxious faces as they ran up to us and started asking questions. Remembered hearing a gentle flutter of feathers before Cas was there as well. Remembered the warm, wet, stickiness of the blood seeping out of my body. Remembered what should have—and it’s always should have isn’t it?—been my last moments.

                “Why-- why the long faces?” I choked out between coughing up blood.

                Dean gave a bitterly amused snort, as Sam and Cas just frowned in silence and Gabriel seemed to be ignoring me entirely as he stretched his senses out to investigate the wound.

                “Tough crowd,” I muttered as my vision began to black out at the edges.

                Gabriel shook his head as he withdrew and I knew there was nothing he could do for an injury from an archangel's blade… not one this serious.

                “Bit anticlimactic really…” I mused, my voice faint.

                Normally by now I would have felt the rarely used magic of my station intervening as it had every time since the first, but though I could feel it straining, something about the angel blade seemed to be interfering. It being Lucifer I wouldn’t be surprised if something extra was coating the blade… though most poisons were ineffectual on me with the mix of Basilisk Venom and Phoenix Tears battling in my blood.

                “Myst…” Gabriel trailed.

                “Had to happen sometime right… something out there had to be able to actually take me down. Who knows it might not even manage to stick…”

                “It never does…” I added in a slightly bitter aside.

                Unfortunately my comment seemed to spark something in Gabriel. The same type of determination I’d seen when he’d finally made the decision to face down Lucifer.

                Without a word he began emitting a golden glow bright enough Sam and Dean had to turn their heads. I couldn’t even though it burned my eyes to continue looking as he became radiant. He placed his hands on my chest, said something in Enochian, and pushed.

                Except it wasn’t a physical push. And before I could grasp what was happening I seemed to fall, except sideways.

                I remembered nothing more until waking up with a flash of gold.

                Oh. I wasn’t sure how to react. Gabriel shouldn’t have—but something about the angel blade had been interfering with the magic of my station, I had felt it then, and there was no way we could have known which would have won out in the end, though I felt Death would have in the end merely through virtue of being older—though what the consequences would have been there was no way of knowing, especially when I remembered that Lucifer had bound Death to him, for a time at least. So in the end I found I couldn’t fault him for his decision, though I may yet come to rescind that decision I thought, looking once more at the abomination of pink I was surrounded by.

                I supposed this must have been my alternate’s room… though I couldn’t believe any version of me would ever be okay with this much pink. And then I was faced with another question. If I was here in this body, in this world, what had happened to the Hadrea of this world?

                Remembering the injuries to the body when I arrived, and the words of Voldemort, I was forced to acknowledge that the Hadrea of this world was very likely dead. Which created another problem for me, because I had no knowledge of the world I had ended up in, and as already demonstrated it was very different from my own, and furthermore, from what I had observed the Hadrea of this world and I were different enough that it was unlikely I would be able to hold up the guise of still being her for long. Unless… considering where I was when I arrived I may have some leeway given the level of trauma I would be expected to be going through. I would just have to play the traumatized victim until I had enough information to make a decision on where to go from there.

                It was lucky I had come up with a temporary solution when I had, because not 2 seconds later the door opened.