Chapter Four;

As soon as the girl had gone, Remus looked at Severus and found the exact same expression gracing his face. Rosie Hunter was meant to be dead. That also couldn't be her daughter because they'd found the little girl dead on the floor of the Department of Mysteries. So if Rosie and her daughter were dead...who was that girl? She looked, acted and spoke exactly like Rosie but she couldn't have been her. Could it?

Before all his thoughts could correctly order themselves, Remus was tearing down the corridors, taking as many secret passageways as he could to shorten his trip, all the way to Dumbledore's study. If she'd just been with him, he'd had some idea what had happened to her. Or who this young woman was. But Remus couldn't help but remember how the faint light had reflected off something on her right arm...the exact way the light would sometimes reflect off of the scars covering Rosie's arm.

He knocked loudly on the door to Dumbledore's office, his breathing heavy. He needed answers and he needed them now. Relief washed over him completely when he heard the familiar voice from the other side call him into the office. "Come in, Remus."

A slight shiver went through him. He absolutely hated when he did that. It creeped him out just the slightest bit. Remus opened the door and let himself into the office. Inside the circular room, sat behind the desk was Albus Dumbledore, his face thoughtful as he stroked Fawkes the phoenix. Standing in front of him, in her floral dressing gown and slippers was Minerva McGonagall. Dumbledore took one look at Remus and sighed.

"So, I take it you've ran into her already?"

His only response was a nod as he looked at the headmaster in bewilderment, not physically able to say anything until Dumbledore ejected some sense into his jumbled brain.

Another sigh followed the first and he gestured to the two chairs in front of the large desk. "Take a seat. I was just about to inform Minerva on the situation of our ol...new student."

Remus didn't laugh as he and Minerva made their way to the chairs and made the selves comfortable. He understood that Dumbledore as trying to be funny, but it was not funny. Nor would it be in any situation. Minerva looked exceptionally confused and Remus guessed in that moment that he was okay with knowing, even though he wasn't okay with how he'd found out.

"New student, what new student, Albus?" She asked as she sat down, her fingers fiddling with the clasp of her dressing gown.

"A new student joined us tonight, Professor McGonagall. A young witch by the name of Rosie Hunter." Remus saw the witch freeze beside him and the expression on her face clearly read that if Albus was joking, the joke was nowhere near funny. He had to remember that McGonagall had taught Rosie- if this was the same Rosie- all the way through her Hogwarts education.

"Albus! That isn't funny! What a harsh joke!? You should know better than to bring up the poor dead girl." Remus flinched, she was dead. Of course she was...but that girl looked so real, so much like the Rosie he'd fallen for during his third year.

Professor Dumbledore looked unfazed as his eyes switched to Professor McGonagall's.

"Minerva. Tonight odd things have been happening. Hagrid found a young girl just outside the forest, apparently she looked a fair sight. She knew nothing about where she'd come from, only that she thought she would be just beginning her seventh year." He tapped his fingers on the desk as he continued to explain. "It was rather peculiar. She looked, acted, remembered the same things Miss Hunter would've if asked when she'd just begun her seventh year, but she didn't remember anything past. Not her life with Mister Black," Minerva's eyes grew hard, her mouth in a tight line. Sirius Black was not a common subject that usually ended well. "not even those scars on her arm. But they're there. It was rather curious, to see her reaction to the life that was hers but isn't." His voice grew slightly thoughtful and Remus wanted to jump across the desk and shake the man until he gave him the answers he wanted, instead of a whole bunch of jumbled thoughts that didn't answer his main question.

Is that girl really Rosie? And if it was really Rosie, how is she suddenly seventeen year old Rosie and not the grown woman who had fallen into the veil?

Rosie's POV;

The way up to Gryffindor tower was the same and she found herself enjoying the familiar walk. Everything else had been so nuts lately and she'd felt like banging her head against a wall. Or some of the people who'd been making her feel how she was. The Fat Lady was exactly the same and she happily said the password and the portrait opened. Rosie stepped in gingerly, her eyes moving from side to side as she tried to figure out if the common room looked the same. Then she saw James. He looked slightly younger but a rush of warmth filled her and absolute relief. She ran to him and hugged him tightly, yet he didn't hug her back. "James!" She cried happily, but he stilly didn't hug her back, like he didn't even recognize her. That was odd because usually James would hug her back, probably swing her around. It was like, seeing James, made her believe that everything that had just happened had been a trick.

That was until a boy with red hair and freckles everywhere pulled her off James and looked at her angrily.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at!?" The red headed boy snapped, his eyes scanning hers as she shrunk back. It hadn't all been a trick...so if that wasn't James...that was...that was Harry.

"I'm so sorry! I wasn't playing at anything, honestly. Everything has just been a bit crazy lately..." The boy still looked angry and a girl with bushy hair was leading Harry away. But Rosie ducked away from the red-headed boy and ran after him. "Harry! Harry wait! I knew your parents!"

The boy stopped in his tracks and turned around to face her slowly. He had Lily's eyes, those big green eyes. But everything else, he was a complete clone of James. Her James.

"What do you mean, you knew my parents?" Harry asked softly, as if he didn't believe her and thought she was pulling his leg. But there was hope there, hidden in the eyes that Lily had.

Rosie took a deep breath and started to explain, under the impression that she sounded completely nuts to the group. "I...I went to school with them."

The hope vanished and the boy with the red hair grabbed her and said softly. "Don't you dare come back near us. Are we clear? If you do, there will be consequences." She nodded numbly and walked off, making her way to the seventh year dorm. She felt horrific. Like no one she talked to would believe her, let alone her best friend's child.