Note/s: I like a good SI fic. There, I admitted it—my shameful secret. I've even been tempted to write one on occasion. The problem is that my personality isn't conductive to an exciting plot. But you know what I decided? Stuff it. I'm gonna write it anyway. So here you have it: me in the Harry Potter universe—the real me, with zero Mary-Sue-like alterations of personality or super-powered advantages—doing what I would actually, honestly do.

No Gryffindor

"Lavender?" a voice called from a distance. "Lavender, for the last time, wake up and get ready for school!"

I groaned and rolled over, wondering who the heck Lavender was. New neighbour? Must be—for the woman's voice to be so loud, they had to live somewhere close by.

Suddenly there was an insistent hammering on my door. I startled awake, rolled over and fell off my bed. I sat there dazed for a moment before realising something odd.

"This isn't my room." And then I gasped, because, "That isn't my voice."

"You've three seconds to make sure you're decent!" the voice from earlier shouted from just outside the door. After a countdown it was opened and an unfamiliar woman stood there, one hand planted firmly on her hip and a frown on her face. She raised an eyebrow at my location, but didn't otherwise comment. "I've been calling you for five minutes. I swear Lavender, if you're not ready in time I'll drag you to school in your pyjamas. Don't think I won't. Now get dressed and downstairs for breakfast."

Having said her piece, the woman stomped off.

"Lavender? Me?" My stomach sunk with a—crazy, so impossibly crazy—suspicion.

I stumbled to my feet. Yes, stumbled, because for some reason I felt unsteady on my legs, like they weren't quite the right size. My eyes spotted a young girl's dresser with a mirror. I hesitated before steeling myself to approach, eyes closed. I waited till I was standing right in front of it before taking a deep breath and opening my eyes.

Curly dark-blonde hair, blue eyes, milky-pale skin…

"That's not my face," I whispered.

That was when it hit me—memories and knowledge not my own rushed into my mind. It was too much, far too much, and my eyes rolled back before I fell, unresponsive, to the floor.

I awoke in a hospital the next day with half my hair shaved off and stitches in my skull.

"You hit your head on the corner of your dresser when you tripped," the same woman from yesterday explained as she gripped my hand tight. "It caused a bleed in the brain—they had to operate to relieve the pressure." She covered her mouth and blinked away tears. "My baby girl. I'm so glad you're okay."

I just blinked at her, nodded, and said I was tired. She quickly insisted I get some rest and pulled the blankets up, then curled up in the uncomfortable chair at my bedside with one of those steamy romances she liked to read.

I shut my eyes, pretending to sleep as I contemplated just how I knew what the woman liked to read. The answer was simple enough at first glance: she was my mother … sort of.

I had somehow, inexplicably, found myself in the world of Harry Potter, the world JK Rowling created, and my mind had been dropped down into the head of none other than Lavender Brown.

My first reaction was complete and utter confusion. Things like this just didn't happen. Not outside of fanfiction, anyway.

My second reaction was excitement. I was in a world with real magic. I had magic! I was going to learn spells and potions and all sorts of amazing stuff at Hogwarts.

But then I realised: Hogwarts.

Oh dear.

Because that was when my third reaction kicked in, as I recognized I was destined for a school that would host the Dark Lord several times over the next seven years, along with a range of Death Eaters, deathly creatures and horrific amounts of danger.

This was a disaster.

By the time my Hogwarts letter came, the summer holidays had arrived and my hair was of a uniform length again. I'd just gone and shaved it all off, because having just a patch of missing hair had looked ridiculous. By now I'd sprouted the very short beginnings of curls. It didn't look as bad as I'd feared.

"Oh," mum said quietly, staring at the letter the owl had delivered. She gave me a wistful smile. "I've been expecting that all summer. I wish your dad was here for this. He'd be so excited. Go on then—open it up."

As Lavender, I was a half-blood. My mother was a Muggle, but my father had been a wizard. He was an Auror who had survived the war only to die in a car crash of all things when I was six.

I stared down at the envelope as if it might bite me, but finally, cautiously, I opened it up and pulled out the letter inside. It was about what I'd expected.

"We'll take you to get your school things tomorrow," mum said. "I'm pretty sure I remember where to find the alley. Are you alright?"

"Fine! Just fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?" I'm not really a great liar.

Mum frowned, bemused. "Just thought you'd be a bit more excited."

"I'm totally excited!" I was totally not excited. I was dreading this.

Mum was confused by my huge purchase at Flourish and Blotts—Lavender pre-me wasn't exactly bookish—but she didn't object. The doctors had told her that personality changes were something I might experience after the head injury, which was awfully convenient for me. Mum was pretty supportive about it all.

Once we got home I began devouring the books at a lightning-fast rate. I read every spare second of every minute of every hour I was awake. Well, almost every waking moment…

"Not at the table Lavender," mum scolded when I tried to read up on wizarding law over dinner. Trying to take a book on pureblood customs and culture into the bathroom with me resulted in a, "You are not reading in the tub, honestly. You'll drop it and what a waste of money that will've been." And when I attempted to stay up all night reading about recent magical history mum just rolled her eyes, said "No Lavender, go to sleep," and turned off the light

Apart from such situations though, you couldn't part me from those books with a crowbar. I was on a mission—a mission with a time-limit. September first drew ever closer and I needed to get things in order before then.

A week before Hogwarts was due to start, I sat mum down in the living room, telling her I had a 'matter of grave concern' to discuss. She raised an eyebrow but went along with it, seeming amused by my very sober manner which was … okay, a bit annoying. I was pretty sure she'd start taking me seriously when I explained though.

Sure enough, half an hour later, as I wound down my prepared speech, her expression was pale.

"Here," I said, handing over several photocopied and hand-written pages stapled together. "References and notes for everything I've covered, so you can double-check it."

There was a tense silence as my mother read through them meticulously, then set the papers aside with a shaky hand.

"Mum?"

"Oh Lavender, this is…" She shook her head, eyes wide. "Your father fought in that war, fought for an ideal that … that you say never came about."

I winced. "I… yeah." I fidgeted with a sleeve. "I mean, You Know Who was killed and some of his Death Eaters imprisoned, but a lot of them seem to have claimed 'Imperius', but the details behind that are really sketchy." I continued reciting my findings: "And then there're the laws that disadvantage anyone with Muggle heritage, and the lowered job prospects for anyone not a pureblood, and—"

Mum held up a hand to stop me. "Just… You don't need to go over it all again. I heard it all the first time." She rubbed at her eyes. "So, what am I to do with you then? Your father made me promise to make sure you got a magical education, but I don't want to send you to Hogwarts anymore."

I sighed in complete and utter relief. I wasn't going to Hogwarts! I wasn't going to a school with at least two known mind-reading wizards and, oh yes, the Dark Lord posing as the defence instructor.

As for mum's concern about my magical education, I had already thought ahead.

I perked up and said, "Actually," as I pulled out some more papers, "I had a few ideas about that."

Mum sent an owl, withdrawing my acceptance to Hogwarts, and applied to several alternate schools in what I'd identified as more progressive wizarding communities. In the end I was accepted into a few different places, but ultimately chose the Australian School of Magical Studies.

"It's rather a fitting choice," mum said, amused. "With your accent you'll fit right in."

"Hmm," was all I said, once again oddly-grateful for that horrible head injury, to which my suddenly altered-accent—like my personality changes—had been attributed.

Fortunately the ASMS's school year started in January rather than September. That gave mum and me four months to pack up our lives and move abroad. We settled in a little beach house in a coastal town.

"It's perfect. Just look at all that beautiful inspiration waiting to be used," said mum—who was a moderately-successful artist by trade—as she stared out at the ocean admiringly.

Personally, I wasn't much a fan of the location. I didn't like sun—it burned. And sand just got everywhere. As for the ocean itself? Well, millennia of sea creatures had to go to the loo somewhere … just think on that. But mum loved the place, and even took up surfing of all things. And since she'd uprooted her whole life for me—and I'd sort of possessed and replaced her real daughter—I felt I owed it to her to be as supportive as possible, and so stifled my complaining.

ASMS turned out to be quite a different experience from Hogwarts as I'd read about it.

We didn't take a train, but instead were sent Portkeys to get to the school. The school's location wasn't anything like the brisk Scottish highlands. Instead the Portkey deposited me in the scorching-hot, red-earthed desert in the middle of the continent.

Along with the other arrivals, we were met by one of our new teachers and led down a set of earthen stairs and into what turned out to be a massive complex hidden underground. The temperature cooled significantly beneath the earth's surface. Even in the rooms where the ceiling was charmed like Hogwarts' great hall, such as the Quidditch field and Herbology gardens, the temperature was quite bearable.

Classes were similar to Hogwarts, but they didn't teach Ancient Runes or Divination. On the other hand, it had classes in magical languages, which I was interested in, and a compulsory and very practical Muggle Studies course—"You all ought to know how to fit in out there without risking the Statute of Secrecy," the teacher explained, "… or at least not look like you're sartorially dyslexic."

School started at nine in the morning and ended at three, and then I went home. While it did offer options for boarding—and allowed students to stay late or come early for studying purposes—most students, like me, returned to their families every afternoon. My trips were facilitated by the Portkey that had come with my acceptance letter, which took the form of a ring with the school crest.

I finished my first year at ASMS with good grades.

"In the top ten, Lavender," mum had said with pleased surprise when I showed her my report card. "I'm so proud of you!"

My second year went much the same, as did my third.

Part-way into my fourth year, when my age-mates were wrapping up their fourth year at Hogwarts, the Wizard's Herald—Australia's top newspaper, and much more reputable than Britain's Daily Prophet—reported the death of a competitor in the Triwizard Tournament, and hinted that it thought the Boy Who Lived had lost his mind.

I stared at the smiling picture of Cedric Diggory for a long time, but eventually set the newspaper aside. I felt guilty, but I couldn't have changed a thing without revealing my knowledge. Such an action would undoubtedly have put me in a lot of danger. No, it was for the best that I kept—and would continue to keep—my mouth shut. It was safer for me, no matter how cowardly that sounded.

I wasn't the Lavender that could have been … I was no Gryffindor.

"Thank god we got out of that country," mum said when, a year later, Voldemort's return was confirmed, and then again when Albus Dumbledore's death was reported the year after that, during my sixth year at ASMS.

"Yeah," I agreed.

It was as I was winding up for my NEWTS—I planned to go into teaching: magical languages or Charms—that the Wizard's Herald finally reported Voldemort's defeat. The Boy Who Lived had triumphed, it wrote, with the aid of his two best friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.

"Lavender?" Mum knocked on the toilet door again, her voice radiating worry. "Lavender, are you alright?"

I retched one more time then got up to rinse my mouth out. When I unlocked the door mum hurried in and pressed a hand to my forehead as I brushed my teeth.

"You coming down with something?"

"Yes," I lied. "I think I'll take today off."

"Alright. Back to bed with you. I'll contact the school and let them know."

Back in my bed, huddled under more blankets than was really comfortable in the Australian heat, I stared blankly at the ceiling.

I hadn't realised the stress I carried around until it poured out of me with such force that my stomach heaved. Even now my hands shook with sheer, utter relief.

The knowledge I possessed from JK Rowling's works was finally all but useless.

I finally felt safe.

The war was won, and I hadn't—even with Lavender's absence, it seemed—acted to change a single thing.

The End

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