Okay, nick_carragay mentioned the idea of a Harry/Ron Hamilton crossover over on ao3 in the comments of the challenges we're facing. This morphed from that.
death is only the beginning
John Laurens gets shot from his horse on the twenty-seventh of August, 1782, by British soldiers unaware that the war they have been fighting has ended.
As he lays there dying, he finds he doesn't actually mind it all that much.
He leaves behind father he had always disappointed, siblings he had not conversed within years, a wife he had never loved as such with a child he had never met — nor any real desire to — and the other two members of the gay trio. The Marquis de La Fayette and his dearest Alexander. The former now a son in all but blood to the General, the latter married to a woman he honestly loves.
He closes his eyes.
They are the only two people that will miss him, John thinks, but they have their own families. They will be fine, and probably happier without him.
He takes his last breath and his heart beats for a final time.
Except that there's something else after it, something that is decidedly unlike the fires of hell he had been expecting.
There are voices, but John can't make out what any of them are saying. He can't see anything but vague shapes and colors and his proportions feel all wrong. He can tell he's being moved, but that's about all he can do right now. That and cry.
He's wet and covered in things he doesn't even want to know, but they suddenly vanish, just as he is pressed against something.
Or maybe someone? It feels like he is being held by a hand behind his head, certainly, but he feels too small by comparison.
Almost as if…
No, it cannot be possible.
But then again, what else could it be?
He has just been born again.
Or at least, that is what John is going to assume until further notice.
His assumption proves to be correct.
This time around his name is Ron and not John, which is close enough that it doesn't take long to get used to it.
He figures out that he has multiple older siblings in what he guesses is a few weeks and nails down the number when he is sixth months in this new body.
Five. That is more than he ever had younger siblings at once — too many have died young, Henry at twelve and multiple others even younger.
And he's pretty sure his mother is pregnant again.
Maybe this time he can get this whole sibling bonding thing right.
Also apparently magic is a thing.
Decades before, Alexander Hamilton gets shot by Aaron Burr.
He's not as surprised by the outcome as he probably should be.
He would not go as far as to say that he hoped for this but saying that he is sad about the end result would also be a lie.
He misses his mother, he misses the general, he wishes nor nothing more than to see Philip one more time, and his heart is yearning for John.
He is not happy he dies, but that is only because he is leaving his other children and Eliza — as well as the few friends he has left — behind.
Alexander gets hit right between his ribs.
He doesn't stop talking even after he cannot be understood anymore.
He dies in Eliza's arms, Angelica close by her side.
He wishes he was more distraught about the whole ordeal, but that doesn't change anything about it.
Harry — no longer Alexander — is born to two loving parents, with multiple uncles. Every person in this household has a different skin tone, this is one of the first things he learns.
It takes him a while to discover that he uncles aren't actually living in the house, which just seems odd. Why wouldn't a person you claim as sibling live with you while they're unmarried? Are both of his parents orphaned and if not where are their parents?
This new world he has been born into is quite odd and that is before you take the magic into account.
When Harry is one and a half, his family is attacked.
His parents die, his mother in front of him — and personally he really does not think that it is fair that he has had to watch his mother die twice now.
He does not know where his uncles have disappeared too and he is very confused when he is picked up by a man bigger than he had any right to be — granted, he had said this about Jefferson before, but this man is double his old enemy's height without exaggeration.
Before Harry has quite figured out why they are flying over the English countryside in his Uncle Sirius's bike — and yes, he is far from delighted to be British in this life — he has fallen asleep.
His body has not reached his second year on this earthly plane quite yet, so it is understandable. That, however, does in no way mean that he has to like it.
He wakes up being screamed at by a woman he later learns is his aunt.
She is not a nice person and neither is her husband. They should not have been put in charge of a child or created their own.
They spend so little time calling him Harry, that he almost shifts back to thinking of himself as Alexander again.
At least that gives him enough time to figure out if and how he will handle this whole 'reincarnation' conversation because these people certainly do not deserve to know.
Eliza Schuyler Hamilton passes away in her sleep at the ripe old age of ninety-seven.
She has accomplished many things in her long life, and she is content, even if she worries if she has done enough.
She has watched most of her children grow up and create families on their own, not to forget the hundreds of children she had raised in the orphanage.
She has lived her life and she is at peace, ready to see her husband and sons again.
Then — instead of being greeted by Saint Peter at the doors of heaven or the eternal wait of purgatory — she is born again.
This most certainly is a surprise.
Her name is now Hermione, and the whole neighborhood knows her as a very curious little girl.
Two and a half years in this new body and she has decided that she wants to know all about how the world has changed while she was gone.
Because she can tell it has.
The fact that her parents — whose skin among the darkest ones she has seen in either of her lives — seem to be working in as something that requires higher education is an indication just as much as the television is.
A lot has changed and Hermione will have to figure out all of it.
So she starts reading young. She reads and reads and grows to like it more the more she does it. She reads to her little sister, Desdemona, too, whenever she has the chance.
What is odd is that sometimes she will find books near her bed that her parents swear had been downstairs earlier, as well as a few other odd happenings of that sort.
That is something Hermione will still have to figure out.
It will probably be a while before I continue this one, but I will.