Chapter 2
Prometheus wakes up to crying. It puts him on edge because he lived alone but then he realises that he's in a stiff hospital chair. The night before filters in slowly as he stands and stretches, the glow of a lamp reflected off the edge of a blade, the familiar bite of his skin being split open, the smug grin the man in front of him had until he realised that being three times Prometheus' size meant nothing to the wizard who'd taken down giants. He closes his eyes and sighs before making his way to the bathroom where the sobbing was, where his charge was. Because until they did the blood test and situated her with her family Prometheus would be her legal guardian.
It strikes him again, as he raises his hand to knock on the door, how perfect this job is for Harry. The boy who had always wanted a big loving family that now had at least three kids living with him at one time, all just a little broken like him but willing to give having a loving family a shot. Not that it hadn't been a fight to get it all together, Merlin, it had been such a fight because no one wanted to believe that Muggle-borns could be related to them. Apparently, they were completely content thinking that muggle-borns popped out of the ground for no reason whatsoever. That had ended when Harry, in a fit of anger, had gathered all of the muggle-borns that he knew and marched them all down to Gringotts for a mass blood test. He'd even paid for every one of them so the ministry couldn't fight him, they still tried to cover it up but one-hundred and twenty-seven tests connecting muggle-borns to magical families through the squibs they tossed out would never be hidden for long. It still makes him laugh when he remembers the look on Draco's face when he'd first called him cousin because somewhere along the line Prometheus turned out to be a Malfoy and wasn't that just hilarious. All the trouble Dumbledore had gone to keeping Harry from one Malfoy drove him into the arms of another, the only thing about the situation that Draco agreed was amusing.
He knocks on the door. "Is this good crying or bad crying?" He asks through the door as the sobbing stutters, tact Prometheus, you weren't nearly this bad in Hogwarts... right? "Because I know I cried a lot when I first woke up too. I think it's the shock, you know? Of finally not feeling wrong-footed, or the missing puzzle piece you lost for years but then found so you can finally finish it. Or..."
"You cried too?" He looks down and sees watery amber eyes looking back up at him.
"I balled like a baby." He tells the girl solemnly. Somehow he's not completely traumatized her which is a miracle in itself but he'd never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth... that's a lie, sometimes it's all he thinks he does anymore but years of waiting for the other shoe to drop makes it hard to be any other way. "For days but eventually I stopped expecting to wake up feeling wrong. It'll be easier for you since you're younger than I was but don't be ashamed if it still takes time."
”You did this when you were older?” The little girl asks with wide eyes. “Why?”
Well, she’s obviously not ready to leave the bathroom. Which is completely fine, he knows intimately how different everyone’s paces was. So instead of hurrying her along, he uses the wall to sink so that he’s sitting on the floor.
”I didn’t know that I could.” He admits to her, only slightly amused when she copies him. Merlin, it’s like he’s acquired a duckling, which is not great for her since he’s currently abysmal at social interactions. “When I was your age the whole system was different for new-bloods, there was no one who checked to see if they were okay and it was always assumed that we knew what was going on but ignore it. It actually took a situation like this for me to realise what was going on.” He waves his hand between them.
”What happened? … if you’re allowed to tell me.” She asks. She sounds like she only added the last bit to be polite but that she was going to get her answers. She really was a duckling and Prometheus knows without a doubt that Minerva McGonagall is going to kill him for it. For not giving her the ten-year warning that she demanded for when one of them had a kid like them so that she could get her affairs in order.
”I was accompanying my younger brothers to Gringotts and we came across this mother and their kid arguing. The kid was insisting that because magic was real then a way to magically change a persons gender had to be real too. The mother was arguing that it would still be dangerous and that they should wait until the kid was older. Then Draco swans over and informs them both that, yes, they did have a gender-changing potion and, no, it wouldn’t be safer to wait. In fact the longer you waited the more dangerous it was…”
“But you did it after school!” The little girl cries, cutting him off. “That means that you did it when you were already old!” Wow, kid, that’s not insulting at all.
”It was dangerous and I almost died twice. My brothers kept trying to convince me not to do it, Draco even researched muggle methods which was really sweet because he’s one of those stuffy pure-bloods who dislikes all things muggle.” … oh dear, that might not have been the right thing to say because now the girl is crying again.
”Y-you almost died?!” She wailed as she burst out of the bathroom to hug him. “I might not have met you! And I would have never known it!”
… So Prometheus has a problem, he has no idea what to do. He’s sure he did at some point but it got lost between Harry thinking that Sirius killed his parents when they were thirteen and when they found out that Nigina was puppeteering a corpse. His knowledge only extends far enough to know that he should hug the girl back, no further. He’s going to have to find a book about it.
“But the main thing is that I didn’t.” He points out. “And you didn’t either so really everyone’s winning.”
The girl sniffles a little but nods so he’s choosing to assume that she understands even if she refuses to get up meaning that he’s stuck sitting on the floor. He’s too old to fall asleep on the floor.
“… I have a really important question to ask you.” The girl says finally which makes him laugh.
”Wow, you’re really going to just throw my words back at me? I thought we were having a moment.”
The girl giggles and slaps his chest. “This is serious.”
”Alright, alright.” He huffs as he playfully puts his hands up. “Ask your question mini-me.”
The girl giggles more before trying really hard to be serious. “If *giggle* you could go back in time and take the switching potion before you went to magic school, would you?”
”Yes.” He says because it’s true. He may like his school memories but he’s always wondered how much better they could have been if he’d been, well him through them. The girl nods to herself. “Now, if you’re feeling up to it, we could head down to Gringotts for that blood test. The faster we get it done the faster we can get you settled.”
Instead of getting up the little girl snuggles into his chest. “I don’t want to leave yet. Can we stay here a little longer?”
Prometheus sighs but sinks further into the floor, hid back is going to hate him. “Sure kid but in exchange I want you to tell me your name.”
“But... You know my name...”
“No, I know the name of Justin Meriegold but he's not here anymore is he? So, what’s your name?”
And the girl looks like she’s going to cry again. “… I like Cleo…”
He nods. “It’s very nice to meet you Cleo Meriegold.” He says. Cleo bursts into tears and Prometheus ends up falling asleep giving her what he hopes are comfort cuddles on the floor of a hospital room.
This time when Prometheus wakes up it's in pain. Which he had expected because sleeping on the floor was no joke but this, this was different. There is no small aches or strained muscles, instead, all Prometheus feels is fire.
It rushes through his veins, carves out his bones, boils his organs. He thinks that he screams, he must have because at this point he would step in front of a Crucio to get a breather.
"Hermione?! Oh god! My baby!" It's his mother? Why is he hearing her? "Michael! MICHAEL! Call the hospital! Shh baby, everything's going to be okay. I don't know what's going on but we're going to fix it. MICHAEL!!!!!"
Everything is blinding, the world is spinning and his parents are here? Calling him by his dead name in his childhood bedroom?
"H-hello?! I need an ambulance! Please! It's my daughter!" He hears his father cry. "I don't know what's happening but she woke up screaming and now she's crying blood!"
What the fuck is happening?
“If *giggle* you could go back in time and take the switching potion before you went to magic school, would you?”
... No.
"O-oh god! Michael, her ears are bleeding! She's bleeding out of her ears!"
"I know Jean! I can see it, FUCK! How long until the ambulance gets here?!"
“If *giggle* you could go back in time and take the switching potion before you went to magic school, would you?”
No, no, NO!
"I-it's going to be okay baby, mommy's here, everything's going to be okay."
"What do you mean HALF AN HOUR! DO I SOUND LIKE I HAVE HALF AN HOUR?!"
“If *giggle* you could go back in time and take the switching potion before you went to magic school, would you?”
He hadn't meant it! He'd been fine! Lava scorches his throat as it travels up and up and up.
"Michael... oh god."
"Shit, shit, shit!"
“If *giggle* you could go back in time and take the switching potion before you went to magic school, would you?”
Prometheus swears to Merlin he's having fucking words with Cleo Meriegold when he gets back because THIS IS NOT OKAY! You don't just displace people in time because they think they could have done something different, everyone thinks that!
The liquid lava bubbles forth and he sprays his mother in red. He just vomited blood on his mom who was lost in Australia yet somehow here. Because he's back in time, because the universe fucking hates him, because Cleo fucking Meriegold did some very targeted accidental magic. There is a crack, then another and another until his mom is pulled away by... "Mr Weasley?" He manages to choke out over the blood spewing out of his mouth.
Arthur Weasley snaps his eyes towards him in confusion but doesn't stop chanting until a sheet of paper sprouts out of the tip of his wand, he looks so young. Arthur's eyes roam over the page until he spots what he's looking for, Prometheus can tell when he finds it because he goes very pale. "Julianna! Kid's got a switching potion in them! Looks like someone tried to reverse it." The woman holding his sobbing mother back swears violently and tosses his mom at the wizard holding his dad.
"What's happening?! Who are you people?! What the fuck is a switching potion and why the hell is it in our daughter?!" His father roars as he fights the wizard holding him.
"My name is Arthur Weasley, head of the Dangerous Artifacts in Muggle-hands department of the ministry of magic. Your child is in a very dangerous position right now and every second counts so I'm going to make this very brief. Magic is real, your child has it which is why the lights are being affected. Someone gave your child a potion that changes their gender then tried to reverse it. This is dangerous because the switching potion is permanent, it can't be reversed and now your child is dying trying."
His mom sobs as Julianna crouches in front of him. "Hey, kid, you're going to be okay. I'm going to make sure of it. I just need you to drink this for me, can you do that?" He recognises the switching potion instantly and understands their plan. The potion made her a boy the first time around and if they can do it again it could cancel out the negative effects being back in his female body was causing.
"What are you doing?! What is that?! Hermione, don't drink that!" Her dad shouts.
"Listen, I'm not going to lie to you, sir. There is a very small chance your child makes it out of this." His mom sobs harder. "But that potion my college is holding is the very best chance we have. You can say no but if you do then they will die."
"DO IT!" His mom shouts.
"Jean!"
"No! Fuck you! She's not dying today! My daughter is not fucking dying today!" His mom roars.
“If *giggle* you could go back in time and take the switching potion before you went to magic school, would you?”
Prometheus pukes again, this time he almost suffocates on a large object forcing its way up his throat. When it's finally out he feels like he's going to be sick for a new reason. That's his liver, his liver was inside him a moment ago but now it's sagging on his pile of biology books. The irony is not lost on him. "Mr Weasley..." He gasps as the room quietens in horror. "You gotta... you gotta avoid snakes... gotta..."
His parents screams chase him into darkness.