The Hidden Magic
Veronica had always found comfort in her stories. She had always written, whether it was in her previous life or in this strange, new existence as Petunia Evans. Writing was the only time she felt truly free—the only time she could escape the crushing weight of responsibility, of magic, of being the “older sister” in a world that wasn’t hers. What Veronica didn’t know was that her writing was more than just a form of expression. It was the manifestation of her magic, a magic that had no place in Petunia’s body, and yet, it was there all the same.
In the world of Harry Potter, Petunia Evans was a squib. Her parents were Muggles, and there was no magic running through her veins, not in any traditional sense. But Veronica, the soul that had taken over Petunia’s body, was something else entirely. She was different. Her soul had traveled from a time and place that wasn’t meant to exist in the world of Harry Potter—a world where magic was real, where wands and spells were commonplace.
Veronica had no idea, not yet, that her deep belief in magic—the years of obsessive fascination with the Harry Potter books, the way she had dreamt of the Wizarding World before all of this had even happened—had opened her soul to something far beyond her comprehension. She didn’t know that her magic wasn’t something inherited from Petunia’s body. It was hers—an essence that had transcended the rules of the wizarding world. Veronica’s soul had carried with it the power of her previous life and knowledge—visions of the future and past, glimpses of the lives she had once lived and the lives she was about to live.
Her magic, though foreign to this world, was a connection to something much older, something more primal. It was known in other parts of the magical world—parts of Asia, perhaps—where ancient magics had long been practiced. Veronica’s connection to these powers was growing stronger every day, even if she didn’t fully understand it.
What she did know, however, was that her writing was beginning to feel different. When she wrote, she wasn’t just spinning stories. She was creating worlds. The more she wrote about magic, about her own visions, the more real those worlds became. It was as if she could touch them, see them, move through them. Magic wasn’t just a thing to read about anymore. It was becoming part of her, part of her very soul.
But there was a price to pay for this unchecked magic. What Veronica didn’t know was that the more she used her imagination to create, the more she was pushing magic into a body that wasn’t capable of holding it. Petunia’s body wasn’t meant to contain this level of magical energy. She was a squib, and squibs—by the nature of their birth—had no magic. And yet, Veronica’s magic had nowhere else to go. It began to push against the core of Petunia’s body, straining the physical vessel.
Six months after Veronica had become Petunia, things started to change. It began with small things. She’d wake up in the morning feeling unusually tired, her energy drained for no apparent reason. A cold would come on suddenly, lingering far longer than it should have. Her temperature would spike with fevers, her body growing weak and aching, as though it were fighting something inside of her that it could never overcome. She’d chalked it up to stress, to the fact that she was constantly on edge, trying to keep Lily’s magical disasters in check while grappling with her own growing powers.
But the truth was, Petunia’s body was slowly being overwhelmed by the magic that Veronica’s soul was pushing into it. It wasn’t just fatigue; it was a sign that her body couldn’t contain the magic much longer.
Veronica, of course, didn’t understand the cause of these symptoms. She had no idea that the magic she was using through her stories, her imagination, was slowly deteriorating Petunia’s body from the inside out. She had no idea that the cold and fever she suffered through so often were her body’s desperate attempt to reject the magic. It wasn’t just physical exhaustion—it was the body’s way of saying, I can’t hold this.
But even worse, Veronica’s family didn’t understand. To them, her repeated fevers and exhaustion were just Petunia being dramatic. It didn’t help that Veronica’s magic was also healing her faster than her body could manage. Whenever she fell ill, she recovered more quickly than any normal person would. In fact, her recovery seemed so abnormal that her parents began to believe she was simply trying to gain attention, maybe even out of jealousy for Lily’s magical abilities.
“Petunia, you’re just trying to get attention,” her mother scolded one morning when Veronica had spent another day in bed with a fever. “Lily’s magic is a wonderful thing, and you should be happy for her. Stop making such a fuss over a little cold. You’re not sick. You’re just being dramatic.”
Veronica felt a tightening in her chest, a frustration she couldn’t express in words. She wasn’t being dramatic. She wasn’t making a fuss. But how could she explain the truth? How could she tell her family that something far stranger was going on—that her body was slowly breaking down because of the very magic she had longed for in her previous life? She hardly knew it herself.
The more she pushed herself—writing, imagining, creating—the more she felt the strain on her body. It wasn’t just the physical ailments. She began to feel disconnected from her own family, as if she were slipping further and further away from the life she had once known.
Lily’s magic was becoming more difficult to ignore. Veronica was starting to see the ways Lily’s uncontrolled bursts of power were affecting everyone. But it wasn’t just the magic itself that was starting to wear her down—it was the pressure. The weight of being the older sister, of taking care of things, of always being the one expected to fix the messes Lily left behind. And now, with her own body beginning to fail her, the pressure felt impossible to bear.
Her parents’ increasing insistence that everything was fine—that there was nothing wrong with Lily and her magic—only deepened Veronica’s sense of isolation. They didn’t see what she saw. They didn’t understand the struggle that was quietly tearing at her from the inside out.
Every time her magic flared, it was as if her body and soul were at odds. The more she wrote, the more her body pushed back, and yet, the more she felt the pull of something greater, something more powerful than her.
One night, after a particularly bad fever, Veronica sat alone in her room, shivering as she held a quill in her hand. Her mind was foggy, her body heavy, but still, she found herself writing—writing about a world she barely understood, about magic and power, about a world beyond the one she now lived in. She scribbled feverishly, as if she could lose herself in the words, as if the magic would make her feel whole again.
But something strange happened as she wrote.
Her vision blurred, and she felt a strange sensation wash over her—like she was being pulled through the words she had written, pulled into a place that wasn’t here. For a split second, she wasn’t in Petunia’s room anymore. She was somewhere else. Somewhere magical.
It wasn’t a vision. It wasn’t a dream. It was real—so real that she could feel it deep within her.
But before she could understand what was happening, the sensation vanished, leaving her breathless, heart racing, and confused.
What was that? What had just happened?
Her body was still weak, and the fever had subsided slightly, but there was something more at play than she had realized. The magic inside her—her imagination—was more than just a force for creativity. It was a power in its own right, one that had the ability to break through the barriers of time and space. It was that magic that had transported her to another world, another reality.
And she still didn’t understand how it worked.
But as Veronica stared at the page, her hand trembling, she knew one thing for sure: whatever this magic was, it wasn’t just tied to the world of Harry Potter. It was tied to her—Veronica. And the more she wrote, the more the lines between her world and the world she imagined would blur.
She wasn’t just creating magic. She was becoming it.
And that—was the beginning of her discovery.