Prologue
Prologue
The universe is all about Balance, which is not to be confused with Order. Order is one side of the coin, Chaos the other. Balance is just about that: a balance between both.
And when the scales fall in favour of one side, the universe conspires to restore the balance.
It happened many times throughout history, a prime example being when the Celestials became corrupted by the power of the stones.
And that is exactly what happened when the Mad Titan thought himself to be above the laws of the universe, believing he knew best, and began the journey of his self-imposed mission. The delicate balance that reigned was destroyed and the scales began to lean towards a side…
…and the universe conspired.
Fates were changed, lives never to cross were intertwined together and, in the middle of it all, a young girl was born.
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July 31st, 1923. The day, a Tuesday, started out as a normal enough day. People went about their business as usual, though some strain leftover from what was known as the World War was still noticeable in a number of places. Nothing special happened, or at least that’s what most people thought.
They would be wrong.
It was as the day came to an end and a new life was welcomed into the world that a small family both rejoiced and mourned.
For although the new Potter Heiress’ existence was a gift to her parents and the dying bloodline she’d been born to, she’d also been born in the midst of a prophecy.
Destined to defeat the greatest threat to her people and with the potential to be just as, if not more, great.
Her small shoulders held a heavy burden even from before her birth.
And even though the original prophecy was not the one that was acted upon, its words long lost to time and its meaning forgotten, it still held true. The burden she bore was heavier than anyone could suspect for many years to come.
No, it’s the last prophecy that pertained to her that interested some of the brightest minds at the time, a prophecy that only had one purpose: to be the catalyst for all that would come to pass.
Two wizards had heard the words Sybill Trelawney spoke on 1922, and both acted upon them. War broke out on the wizarding world as Lord Voldemort arose.
On October 31st of the year 1924, the latest Dark Lord in the history of wizardkind attacked the Potter family, killing the then only 20 years old Lord James Charlus Potter and Lady Lilly Jean Potter. Their only daughter miraculously survived the attack and the curse that claimed their life, becoming the mysterious only survivor of the Killing Curse, and Lord Voldemort was vanquished.
The wizarding world celebrated the end of the First Blood War whilst the newly orphaned saviour was whisked off to her remaining relatives.
And there she would remain until her eleventh birthday, when she’d be welcomed back into what should have been her rightful world.
The little girl kept growing, shedding tears and blood and sweat at each new trial that stood on her way but always surfacing victorious.
She fought giant reptiles and spiders, survived werewolves and befriended centaurs, she outmanoeuvred mermaids and wizards, taught and led her fellows, flew with beasts and duelled a Dark Lord.
Her story grew, forged in pain and fire and loss.
A fighter and a survivor in a war that had been brewing long before she was a thought in her parents’ minds.
Until the little girl became a woman.
It was a year later when, on May 2nd 1940, Tom Marvolo Riddle was finally defeated by said woman and wizards and witches around the world sighed in relief at the same time as they acclaimed their saviour again.
With the end of what would come to be known as the Second Blood War, they switched their attention to the war that had broken out between the muggles but a year before. A war eerily similar to their own. World War II was in full swing.
And yet they did not offer their aid.
‘Why should we mix in muggle affairs after all the grief they’ve brought us?’ some thought. ‘They hunted us down and now they hunt each other. Muggles brought this upon themselves’ thought others.
But peace had never lasted long in the wizarding world and conflict brewed easily. And as they discovered soon, they were already involved in the war even if they hadn’t known it at the time. The Second Blood War had hidden the signs, giving the german Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald ample time to prepare his rise.
It was 1941 by the time that witches and wizards all around the world accepted the fact that they couldn’t keep out of the conflict.
The International Confederation of Wizards sanctioned the creation of a taskforce to join in the war effort, made up of the best fighters the wizarding world had to offer.
The muggles came to know of them as the PHOENIX Division.
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He didn’t know how many days they had already spent in those cells when they brought the new prisoner in.
But he remembered the tight feeling in his chest; the shock and the rage at their captors.
He understood that it was war, and war was ugly and unfair. He’d been overseas for almost a year now and had seen his fair share of horrors. He’d seen men lose their legs over having taken one wrong step, had seen men shot down without even knowing where the shots were fired from, he’d even seen a man with his innards spilt out of his body in a gruesome display of how terrifyingly brutal humans could be.
So, yes, he knew how ugly war truly was.
But even so he couldn’t understand how they could’ve sunk so low as to do this.
Because the new prisoner wasn’t something he’d seen in this war yet.
The new prisoner wasn’t even a man.
She was unconscious when they dragged her in and tossed her into the empty cell next to theirs.
He could feel the shock of the men, his fellow prisoners, and hear the muttered curses a few spit out at the sight. They had joked, quite often, that they’d give an arm or a leg to see a woman again, but this definitely wasn’t how they imagined that happening.
It didn’t help that she was so small and her pale skin made the bruises stand out clearly. Her dark red hair was a tangled mess and what was visible of her face was covered in sooth and maybe some blood.
At the time, Bucky could only think that she didn’t belong there.