Unwanted

Chapter 3: Hope of Morning-

My mind's a kaleidoscope, it thinks too fast

Blurs all the colors 'til I can't see past

The last mistake, the choice I made

Staring in the mirror with myself to blame

Sometimes I'm afraid of the thoughts inside

Nowhere to hide inside my mind

I'm scared that you'll compare and I'll look a lifetime past repair

Hope of Morning- Icon for Hire

Previously-

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.

            “Oh, my poor baby’s finally awake! Thank Merlin! We were so worried about you! It’s okay, you’re safe now, and we won’t let anything happen to you ever again!” A woman who could only be Lily Potter exclaimed, flying across the room to smother me in a monster embrace, tears soaking the shoulder of the nightdress I was wearing.

            I froze. ‘Ummm… what?’ This was so far from anything I had ever experienced before—except maybe a few times when I had freaked Hermione or… Luna out, but that comparison was hardly an accurate one, and I shoved the painful memories to the side; allowing my face to freeze in a vaguely terrified expression and my body to remain relatively stiff and still.

            “Lily what?--” a man’s voice asked, before James Potter walked in the door. “Oh, Hadrea, you’re awake. Lily, you’re smothering her. Are you alright princess?”

            Prin-cess? I was officially in the fucking twilight zone now. The only people to ever get away with calling me princess had been Draco fucking Malfoy and Dean fucking Winchester, mostly because they were a pair of stubborn bastards who delighted in winding me up anyway they could and as such refused to be broken of the habit.

            I had to react; I wanted to come across as traumatized yes, but not to the point of needing a trip to Saint Mungo’s.

            “Dad?” I questioned hoarsely, as Lily finally let go.

            “Yeah, princess, it’s me. Do you remember what happened?” he asked gently, as if I was a freaking piece of glass that would shatter at the slightest touch.

            I looked at him blankly for a moment before allowing a horrified look to cross my face before bursting into tears— I’d been able to cry on command since I was four… it was a useful skill to have.

            “Vo-Vo-Vo, he’s back!” I stuttered in between sobs. I was immediately wrapped in a hug from both sides. I gave a mental shudder, sharing Dean’s dislike of so called chick-flick moments.

            They continued comforting me, Lily talking to me like I was a baby. I tuned them out in order to avoid breaking something… or someone.

            Finally, I allowed the ‘sob session’ to end.

            “Why don’t you get cleaned up baby? Your brother will come get you when dinner’s ready,” Lily cooed.

            I nodded; anything to get them out of the room. Once they’d left I realized I was facing a dilemma. While my so-called brother would be fetching me for dinner so I would be able to pretend I knew where I was going, I had no clue where the bathroom was. And I really wanted a scalding shower.

            Well, I wouldn’t find it lying here, so I got up to explore the room, shuddering again looking at all the pink. That would definitely have to go if I was going to be spending any length of time in here. I could not live like this. It was worse than the time the twins had dyed all my things pink as a joke, at least they’d used different shades and threw in the occasional splashes of purple, white, or black to keep things bearable the 24 hours I had to put up with it. I’d gotten my own back though. They’d had no idea what had hit them. This was much worse however. It was all the same shade of pretty princess pink, with the occasional splashes of white lace. And there were ruffles. So much ruffles. And hearts. And stars. And glitter. Sparkles.

            It was traumatizing. How anyone could live in this without going absolutely batshit insane was beyond me… unless they were a four-to-six year old girly girl—like I would have imagined Lavender Brown or Pansy Parkinson.

            Looking around as little as possible, I made my way to one of the two doors my parents hadn’t come through in the room, surmising that one of them was likely the bathroom. The door opened to reveal it was a closet… though in my opinion it could hardly qualify. Finding something to wear was going to be a trial and a half. I could just hear Loki laughing at my situation. The jerk would find this absolutely hilarious. I didn’t even want to think of Dean or the twins’ reactions. Draco, at least, would understand my pain and be just as horrified. Shuddering, I began rifling through for something… tolerable. A task made infinitely more difficult by the fact that there were no trousers… everything was dresses or skirts. I finally pulled out a white short-sleeved collared button up from the very back, and a knee length, flowy purple skirt.

            Looking through the shoes along the floor I ran into another problem, they were mostly flats or sandals… which I tended to avoid. I dug around until I was finally able to find a tolerable pair of low-heeled, white ankle-boots.

            I then returned with trepidation to the long dresser in the room itself, in order to find some manner of underthings. And discovered my trepidation was while not totally unfounded, ultimately unneeded, as there was a very nice white satin bra and panty set available. Unfortunately that was where my luck ended, as I was only able to find panty-hose and stockings… no socks. Deciding I’d dealt with worse, I decided to go without… praying the boots were already broken in. No-one liked blisters.

            I considered going barefoot, but as I was in an unknown environment ultimately decided against it.

            Crossing my fingers I then opened the last door. I found the bathroom, but it was no better than the bedroom sadly.

            Before I got into the shower, I happened to catch a look at myself in the mirror. And abruptly dropped the brush I had been running through my hair in horrified shock.

            I’d realized, objectively, earlier that I was younger, and it was impossible to ignore the new extreme length of my hair… but I’d failed to fully comprehend what that meant. I’d also failed to realize how sheltered my alternate must have been.

            I was pale as freaking snow—like I’d never seen the light of the sun in my life. My hair fell in long, loose curls past my hips. I was about three inches shorter than my ultimate height. Worse, I had no muscle mass to speak of, as if I’d never done anything more strenuous than walk up the stairs in my life. But all of that paled when placed next to the blankness. The body was untouched. There was no scars baring the damned lightning bolt, no calluses, no piercings, and I realized with a minor jolt of terror, that all the protections I’d had tattooed in the other world were missing—and any internal ones were just as likely to be missing. There weren’t even any marks from the injuries present when I arrived, which I put down to the Grace I’d arrived with.

            I hated the body. In short I looked like a porcelain doll, and probably would be about as difficult to kill. This body would have none of the reflexes I’d spent years training into mine, gods dammit—hopefully the fact that they were still instinctual mentally would help. ‘Fuck’ I thought… I was probably a virgin again too—and that was unlikely to change as I was fourteen and unfamiliar with anyone who I would’ve considered at that age and one night stands were frowned upon, illegal, and likely to be dangerous at my age. Double fuck. Or rather no fuck…

            It was settled. Something was going to have to change. To calm my paranoia if nothing else… though it wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you was it?

            The bottom line was I felt helpless like this, and if there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was feeling helpless.

            I thought that decision might be easy enough to carry out without revealing anything—for all anyone else needed to know I was scared after my ordeal and wanted to be able to defend myself if something like that was to ever happen again. As long as I was circumspect with some of the more, controversial portions of my training, I was unlikely to face too much opposition—hopefully. Unless Lily picked up on the fact that hunting was involved. Considering what Aunt Petunia had told me about her feelings on the subject, that was likely to be a big no-no.

            Actually getting in the shower I discovered another problem. I had no idea what half this shit was for! I mean I was familiar with beauty products—indulged occasionally when I had the time and opportunity, but this was just ridiculous. I couldn’t even find the shampoo or conditioner! Why on or off earth would anyone need all of this? I was finally able to find the basics—shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and a face scrub, at the very back of the array of product and left the rest of that minefield alone, not finding a need to bother with any form of shaving at the moment—as a matter of fact feeling rather too well shaved, as there was well… no hair anywhere not my head… and it made me feel slightly pre-pubescent, which I really didn’t want to focus on right now.

            So instead I took my scalding shower, unfortunately having to keep it short as I had no idea when my… brother—I flinched at the thought—would be coming to get me… or what the door policy was here. At Bobby’s the rule was if you didn’t lock it you were askin’ for the company, but unless it was an emergency locked doors were typically respected—unless you were an angel with personal space issues but that was another problem altogether, and at the Evan’s compound personal rooms had always been off limits unless you were invited in.

            I quickly started to dry off when I hit my next snag. I hadn’t really thought through the logistics of hair this long… but it was still dripping well after I’d started to towel dry it, and it didn’t seem to be getting any drier—this hair was going to be a menace to put up with and it was going to be the first thing to go when I started making changes—regardless of my decision on how visible those were going to be, there was no way I was going to put up with this regularly. I eventually ended up just braiding it to try and get it out of the way… and when that still didn’t work I twisted the braid into a bun to keep it out of the way—being fourteen again and nominally bound by underage magic laws sucked, and I was going to have to dig out the memories of how to circumvent them as soon as I had a chance.

            Finally having dealt with the hair I threw the clothes on and stepped back into the room. I glanced at the vanity where I could see an array of make-up of some sort, but decided to leave that for another day, I didn’t feel like dealing with it at the moment.  I ended up sitting on the bed after I’d made it up through sheer force of habit, and trying to clear my mind.

I am Hadrea Grace Potter

My friends know me as Mystwhich is short for Mystery

My mother was Lily Potter nee Evans

My mother was brave

My mother was a coward

My mother was dead

My father was James Potter

My father was a bully

My father was loyal

My father was dead

My family is not bound by blood ties

My family was bound by blood, sweat, and tears

Aunt Petunia and Dudley Dursley were family

Fred and George Weasley are family

Blaise Zabini was family

Neville Longbottom was family

Draco Malfoy is family

Hermione Granger was family

Luna Lovegood was family

Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were family

Bill and Fleur Weasley are family

Sam and Dean Winchester are family

Bobby Singer is family

Ellen and Jo Harvelle were family

Cas is family

Gabriel is family

I am not in my universe

The people who exist here are not my family despite sharing the same faces

I am a natural-born witch

I am a soldier

I am a commander

I am a martyr

I am a friend

I am part of Team Free Will

I believe in truth

I am a hunter

I ended the list on the foundation of my truth when I heard the door open, looking up to see a boy of about 14. He was maybe an inch taller than me and had a chaser’s build—not bulky, but not exactly small either. His hair was dark like James’; in fact he looked like a carbon copy of the pictures I’d seen of a younger James Potter… except for the eyes. His eyes were a hazel green, not the pure hazel of James, but not the emerald of Lily either, sitting somewhere in between. This must be my… I couldn’t think of him as my brother, the only person I had ever called brother was Dudley and he was long dead now. I didn’t even know his name, I couldn’t let him into that space, not now.

“Hey, Hadrea,” he said softly, not quite looking at me. “Dinner’s finished, are you ready to go?”

I just nodded and followed him out of the room, taking care to memorize the hallways we turned down to get to the dining room. The house seemed to be practically a manor! I thought about that for a minute and realized that while I didn’t often acknowledge it, the Potter’s were just as much of an old pureblood family as the Malfoys, or the Longbottoms, or the Black’s… so there was every chance that this was in fact a manor…

We finally made it to the dining room and James and Lily looked up, “Eric, Hadrea, there you are,” James said. So Eric was his name.

Before we could say anything Lily did a double take, “Hadrea! What on earth are you wearing?! Where are your stockings? You didn’t do your make-up? What if we’d had guests?”

She looked like she would have gone on if James hadn’t put a hand on her shoulder before turning to wait for my answer. I realized Eric was looking at me as well. Balls, I hadn’t expected to run into trouble for how I’d dressed— I should have thought about the fact that given what I’d seen of the closet this was definitely not how the other me normally dressed. Oh well, I was planning on playing the traumatized survivor anyways, might as well start now.

I blinked at Lily blankly before slowly looking down at myself as if I’d only just realized exactly what I was wearing… and missing. “Oh,” I murmured, “I just wasn’t paying attention I guess.” I left it at that, and didn’t put any inflection into my voice. I could see them all wince before immediately softening.

            “Oh, my poor baby, it’s okay, we’ll get you better. I’ll help you in the meantime so we can make sure you look your best, even if you don’t feel it. Alright angel? It’s okay, you’re not in trouble. You were just confused, but a few more days of rest and you’ll be okay. Do you feel alright? Oh you must be so tired standing there, come-on sit down. Dinner will be out in just a minute,” she prattled as she hugged me and then proceeded to steer me to a seat.

            I hadn’t quite prepared for this outcome… help me? This was going to be a nightmare, I just knew it. I wasn’t sure how to correct it however, so I would just have to cross that bridge when we got to it.

            I didn’t speak much during the rest of the meal, but it didn’t seem like they expected me to. However they did seem to be keeping the topic to inconsequential things— probably worried about traumatizing the poor innocent baby further. I hid a grimace. However the conversation wasn’t entirely useless. I was able to gather information on some of who was still alive. Remus was mentioned, as was Sirius—though both with wary sideways looks my way. The Weasley’s were apparently very close with the Potters, but the one time Eric mentioned Neville it was with distaste and I wondered what had happened there. I also gathered that James and Sirius both worked for the Ministry in some capacity.

            The only time I was spoken to was when James turned to me to say, “Oh, and Professor McGonagall sent over the work you missed the last few weeks of school. She said that as your Head of House she was able to excuse you from your end of year tests this year, not that Dumbledore was arguing but as he is a very busy man it had slipped his mind.”

            I nodded absently, but my mind was in shock. McGonagall was my head of house? But that would make me…. a Gryffindor. If I hadn’t known I was in an alternate universe before I was certainly aware now. I mean, yeah I’d had the option, but there had never been any doubt that I was a Slytherin at heart.

            Not that I’d been acting it recently, I thought with a mental snort. Jumping in front of the blade for Gabriel? Though, given, I’d always had a so called saving-people-thing… that was only amplified when it was someone I knew and was close to. However mouthing off to Voldemort like I had? I had obviously been spending too much time with Dean… that was a stupid Gryffindor move if ever there was one. And one that was probably going to come back to bite me later I thought with a wince thinking of his words as I left.

            Just as I was about to beg to be dismissed as I was really tired still the fireplace flared green as the wards chimed. Which reminded me that I would have to figure out what wards were in place and what they did before I did anything. Shit just kept piling up. And to put the fucking cherry on top, out stepped Albus fucking Dumbledore.