Prologue

The last things I remembered were the blinding headlights of a car, the screeching of tires as it attempted to halt, then finally, a moment of excruciating pain.

People say that you reminisce in your final moments of life. I found that to be untrue, but then again, I didn't have the luxury of time to do so. I had no issues with that, after all, I had always believed that a swift death was the best way to die.

Morbid, I know, but when you live in a world of relentless repetition where everyone seems programmed to do the same sort of thing—do well in school, go to college, get a job, earn money, settle down and start a family—life becomes dull, dull enough to contemplate about the twisted game called "life" where hard work means nothing in the face of true genius and where some people's efforts are rewarded while others' efforts are ignored.

Life is not fair. A statement I found to be very true when I saw my friend, who had worked much harder and much more passionately, fail at an exam that I had passed with relatively little studying. Then again, there were always those one or two students who seemed to excel without needing to open their textbooks during their whole college life—a feat that I could never dream of accomplishing.

Intelligence, success, good relationships, and a happy family. One would say that I should want for nothing more. But I did.

The intelligence that had established a road for a successful future, friends who would lend a helping hand whenever I was in difficulty, a family that always stood by me… still I don't think I could say that I was happy.

… and now when I think about it…

Perhaps Life, in its own twisted way, was fair.

I wasn't an emotionless person. It was just that I simply lacked the basic sympathy required for a human to be normal. Of course, I never acted coldly towards other people, but that was because I was able to reason out how I should act in certain circumstances.

A comforting touch on the arm at times of distress. A hug. A gentle pat on the back when the person was sad. A smile. Offering to help whenever your friend was in trouble. Saying caring words…

There is a list of things that I could go on and on about the actions that I had mastered in order to blend in with society. Mastered, but never felt.

And suffice to say, the issue with a lack of sympathy is that it isolates you.

Not physically. But emotionally.

I think I could have owned the world, and still I would not have been happy. There was only so much joy that material objects could give to me; without sympathy, I could form no bonds with others—I simply had no attachment to the world.

And so I went on with my life. Days turned to years as they blurred together, and somewhere along the line, I realized that while I existed, I had stopped living. The days started and ended like clockwork and life became a dull, tedious game I was forced to partake in. I never thought of ending it, but I did question the reason of my existence. So, I can honestly say that it was with great relief when I felt darkness settle into my vision as I relaxed and prepared myself for the embrace of death.

That embrace never came.

Chapter 1: The Game Called Life

The sounds of a nearby trickling stream and the soft melodic trills of birds could be heard. The gentle breeze rustling through the woods and the morning rays creating pools of light on the leaves-covered ground gave an ephemeral air to the forest. Many villagers who lived near here had always claimed that there was something magical about it—and they were not wrong. For there was indeed magic at play.

However, on this seemingly peaceful summer day, the beauty of the forest was marred by the broken, emaciated form of what should have been a fair-skinned child. The child's body was mottled with bruises and her raven-coloured hair, filthy and disheveled, hid her face.

More important was that she had been dead, at least until a few moments ago.

Suddenly the child's chest lifted, and the rasping sound of pained breathing could be heard. Agony was the first thing that was apparent, next came an influx of the child's memories into the new soul that now inhabited the body.

Cyrna Raine believed that while she was perhaps not a good human being, she had done nothing to deserve this torment that she was currently experiencing. Despite being unable to care, she had acted as if she did. She treated people kindly and returned help to those who had helped her before. But above all, she had tried to sympathize. In fact, it was one of her sudden ideas to learn sympathy that led her to what was now her second year of medical school.

Through the haze of pain, she remembered that she had been walking back to her apartment after a late night at the college library when a driver, probably drunk, had crashed into her. She winced, recalling the impact of her head to the hard asphalt road; so what, she puzzled, was she doing lying on the ground that smelt of fresh soil and decaying leaves?

She gave up her ponderings when a sudden massive headache attacked her. Images, she believed to be memories, flickered through her mind like a film in fast-forward. There she saw a man that she somehow knew to be the father of the person whose memories she was experiencing; she saw a beautiful blonde-haired woman with strange elf-like ears that she knew to be the mother.

She saw a dim-lit room that appeared in the majority of the memories.

She felt the person's strange craving for sounds—even cackling, jeering, as long as it wasn't the oppressive silence that usually reigned.

She felt the hope when she saw the light, only for it to turn into absolute terror when the people, who she recognized to be the parents, fell upon her viciously until pain was all she felt.

Well, more accurately, they were doing this to the person to which these memories pertained to. However, all that mattered right now was that Cyrna was feeling and living out these horrid memories.

Unable to cope with such extreme mental, physical, and emotional pain, her mind began to shut down. A faint "pop" and a sharp intake of breath was heard just before she gave in to oblivion.

"… but how do you know that she isn't dangerous? We both know that neither humans nor wizards, besides the select few, can enter the forest…"

"…black hair…"

Hushed murmurings were heard as Cyrna slowly drifted back into consciousness. Immediately, she noted that her body was in significantly less pain than it had been in before. The ground she was lying on also felt a lot softer…

It was tempting to just go back to sleep.

"Nicolas! Did you see the state she was in!?" a woman shrieked, "NO MATTER WHAT, I WILL NOT SEND HER BACK!"

Cyrna's eyes flew open as the volume assaulted her ears, leaving her with a mild headache, and all thoughts of remaining asleep left abruptly. She quickly looked around, and immediately she realized that she was most definitely not in her bedroom or in the hospital.

She was on a bed. There was a fireplace. There were tons, and tons of bookshelves storing not only books but also jars filled with strange things—

—Were those eyeballs?

'Don't think too much of it,' Cyrna thought to herself. After all, she did know a couple of friends who had to bring eyeballs home for some sort of strange biochemistry experiment.

Then she saw a cauldron. The medieval sort.

She tried to reason that away as well.

But what she couldn't ignore though were the floating books.

As one who heavily relied on logic rather than emotional impulse, she could not seem to fit "floating books" into any of the schemas in her mind; so, she did what any reasonable human would do in her situation.

She panicked.

Immediately, she tried to get out of bed, but strangely enough, the bedsheets seemed to be tying her down. She struggled for a bit longer before she grew frustrated and decided to force her way out.

Suddenly, the restraints that had seemed to be holding her loosened, and she tumbled out of bed, entangled with the clean white sheets.

Cyrna winced when she heard the loud thump that had echoed in the small room from her fall, and she stilled once silence had settled in. Evidently, the attention of the two arguing strangers was now trained on her.

Oh, she knew that they were probably not going to harm her; after all, she had heard what the woman had said. If that was their desire, they would have left her for dead in the forest.

But at the same time, the only thought she could coherently run through her mind was, "Where the hell am I?"

In her panic, she must have voiced her thoughts out loud, because a male voice responded in a clipped tone, "You are with the Flamels."

"Yes, dear, we found you heavily injured in the Elven Forest, so we brought you back with us," said the woman who seemed to have been the one shrieking previously. "Though I don't know how you got into the fo—"

That was as far as she got before she was cut off by the male speaker.

"How did you get into the Forest?" he barked. "The elves would never allow a common human or witch like you to enter. So, what are you?"

What am I?

Cyrna thought for a while before the strange memories flooded her mind again.

"No, I believe the question you should be asking is 'who am I?'," she murmured as she dazedly stood up from the floor. More than preoccupied with her thoughts, she missed the glances exchanged between the Flamels. One concerned, the other suspicious.

"Very well then," said the man in a sardonic tone, "Who are you?"

Snapped out of her thoughts by the question, Cyrna could only stare at the strange elderly man in bewilderment for she did not know the definite answer.

"Great. Now she's mute," he growled.

The female spun around to face who Cyrna assumed to be her husband. "Nicolas!" she scolded in a voice filled with displeasure.

"Perenelle, this entire thing is just suspicious! You know as well as I do that only creatures should exist in that forest. You know how the elves are like with their secrecy!"

"Perhaps she's—"

"—Most definitely not an elf. Elves are characterized by their beauty, their ears, and their golden hair—look at her!" he gestured wildly, "Her hair is the exact opposite. It's pitch black!"

Cyrna frowned. What he said about her hair troubled her. She was sure that she was a brunette…

A quick glance at the closest window pane answered her questions, though it had the unfortunate effect of creating a multitude of questions to replace the answered ones.

'Since when was I this short?' Cyrna thought as her reflection barely made it halfway up the pane.

She definitely remembered towering above many of her other classmates with a height of 6'2 ft.

Many things could be said about Cyrna Raine, but unintelligent and slow were adjectives that had never been used to describe her. The simple reason, though illogical, was that her psyche had somehow ended up in the body of a child that lived in an alternate universe. She wanted to laugh hysterically at the hand that the game of life had dealt her.

Unfortunately, she realized any strange reactions from her would probably result in her getting kicked out immediately without gathering any sort of useful information that could be vital for survival in this new world.

She restrained herself and managed to gaze calmly at who she now knew to be Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel. She studied them.

Perenelle had a kind face, one that you would be tempted to trust. Her gaze was warm with a hint of concern as she stared at Cyrna; her smile soft. She wore some sort of garment… a strange medieval looking dress… no… Cyrna decided as her gaze flicked towards Nicolas who wore a similar piece… a robe.

Nicolas was old, no, ancient, she corrected herself. His gaze narrowed suspiciously at her as she continued her observations. He wore a robe as well, but unlike Perenelle, his fingers seemed to have been stained permanently. From what, she could not guess. He had a hunched-back—much worse than Perenelle's, so he must have spent an excessive amount of time doing something that required a decent amount of slouching or bending over.

Her eyes flickered towards the cauldron, then to the jars containing strange ingredients. The lack of electricity was apparent by the use of the fireplace and the many candles—which, like the books, were still floating.

A sickening, but this time, both logical and reasonable thought began to form: assuming this was not some messed up nightmare, if being reincarnated in a child's dead body was possible, then magic was most definitely plausible. In fact, Cyrna decided, the existence of magic was a more parsimonious explanation for the floating candles when compared to the alternative, which was probably some sort of localized, complex scientific phenomenon that she didn't want to figure out right now.

And the words "Flammel" and "magic" triggered a fond childhood memory of hers.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone had always been one of her favourite books in the series. It was light-hearted, innocent, and filled with adventures. While she had never been one to actively seek escapism, she did enjoy a solid fantasy novel. It was like a breath of fresh air to the dullness that was her life.

Still, she had never wanted to live in this world. Never. And if Life had decided to plop her anywhere from the First Wizarding War to the Second Wizarding War, she was completely and utterly fucked.

The last thing she wanted was to exist in the middle of a war between the light and dark forces...

But her mind had never misled her.

"You said that the elves valued their secrecy," Cyrna began reluctantly, dreading the answer, "Yet, you have told me so much about them. What is there to prevent me from sharing?"

Perenelle and Nicolas gave her a slight look of confusion. Both thought how of how unnatural the words sounded flowing out from the mouth of a child who didn't look a day past the age of ten.

"My dear—" Perenelle started as Nicolas simultaneously chirped, "We'll obliviate you, and don't you worry about what obliviate means either, because you'll soon forget this conversation too!"

Cyrna blanched. Having thought that Nicolas was like another Dumbledore—kind, gentle, somewhat manipulative, he definitely sounded way too excited to hex her.

Nevertheless, she had her answer. She was now very certain that she had somehow found her way into the Harry Potter Universe.

That left her other suspicion.

Cyrna sighed. "Has Headmaster Dumbledore contacted you yet?"

"No, the Headmaster has had no reason to seek me yet—" Nicolas gave her a wary glance. "He and I are good friends… do you know him?" he asked skeptically.

Dumbledore had not been the Headmaster during Riddle's childhood, which meant she was anytime between the end of Grindelwald's Reign to the start of the Hogwarts Era—

The Flamels were alive.

Unfortunately, this also meant that Voldemort was either very much alive and causing chaos right now, or this was the calm before the storm otherwise known as Harry Potter's life.

Cyrna had never viewed Life as a friend.

Now, she had to wonder what trespasses she had committed against it.

She didn't want to be in this mess. It was the last thing she wanted to do.

Who in their right mind would want to be mixed up between Voldemort and whoever he was fighting against?

She should just attempt to leave Britain, and head to America…

…but she couldn't. Not for a long time at least. She had no money and was probably—unless the minimum age to work had somehow changed significantly, too young to earn any.

The larger issue was that she was not even in her universe.

For the first time in many years, she felt a rush of fear and anger well up in her. She was trapped in another game Life had decided to play—but this time, a much more dangerous one. She would never see her parents, 'friends', or her dog again.

Embroiled in thoughts of self-pity and anger at the injustice of the situation, she failed to notice the magic swirling around her as silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

She failed to notice as the room filled with magic and continued to fill until the magic was almost palpable. She failed to notice the screaming for her to calm down.

I'll never see my family or colleagues again. My life, everything I know, is gone. My stability is gone. In a new world…I'm in a new game…I don't know the rules—I don't know what to expect. Is this my consequence of calling life dull?

That inner monologue stopped when she heard the loud crackling sounds of the windows being shattered, and a thundering boom as the house was torn apart. All thoughts came to an abrupt halt, and incredulity overtook the feelings of anger:

She had done magic and had destroyed the house in the process.

But… she had done magic.

Giddy with excitement, she missed the softly spoken words of stupefy and the red light heading her way.