A/N: Yes, this is an OC-centric story. If that's not your thing, that's fine. PS - this chapter is when the plot, as we say, thickens...
Disclaimer: These characters are totally not mine - they belong to JK Rowling.
September 16th, 1990
When I woke up, I struggled to open my eyes. The wrappings had been taken off while I slept, and I could finally - oh my God.
Something was different. Let me take that back - everything was different! Nothing was the proper color anymore, and it was hurting my eyes.
Mira was covered with wisps of purple smoke, and a gold, red and green glow surrounded Harry. The entire room had traces of glowing colors that all tried to grab my attention at once. I did the only sensible thing a ten year old could do.
I screamed.
Mira and Harry woke up with a start.
"What is it?" Harry asked quickly. "Lisa, are you okay?"
I covered my eyes and groaned loudly.
"My eyes – my head – it hurts!"
"Is it a sharp pain?" Healer Pye had run into the room.
"Yes – the colors are making my brain throb," I complained.
"What colors? Is the light too bright?"
"No! But Mira's gone all purple, and Harry's glowing all sorts of colors…" I tried opening my eyes again. "AHHH! You're all yellow, Healer Pye!"
Through my squinted eyes, I noticed her look of shock.
"It couldn't be..."
"What?" Harry yelled frantically. "What's wrong with her?"
Healer Pye simply shoved a potion vial to my mouth, and I quickly drank it.
"What's wrong with my sister?" Mira demanded.
"The accident had some unintended aftereffects -"
"Duh!" Mira was upset.
"What is it?" Harry demanded, and Healer Pye got right to the point.
"If my suspicion is correct, your sister can now read magical auras."
"Huh?"
A few hours later, the pain was gone, and I could look about normally.
"Aura Sight is very rare, even rarer than True Sight," Healer Pye had explained earlier. "You're to take this potion once every week for the next few months, to help you adjust to the added strain on your eyes. Now, with your power, you'll be able to detect a witch or wizard's strongest magical talent, which is often a guide to their true character. I have here a comprehensive book on Aura identification, which I think will be helpful to you. It was written by an Aura Reader in the late nineteenth century – there have been only four Aura Readers documented worldwide since then."
"Thank you…" I looked at her sharply, then winced, and just squinted at her instead. "Healer Pye - please don't tell anyone besides my parents about this talent, will you?"
"Of course," She nodded, looking rather affronted. "There is such a thing as healer patient confidentiality."
Then Mira and Harry took turns reading sections out of the book out loud. It had some incredibly useful information in it…
I soon learned that Healer Pye's aura, which had been pale yellow with flecks of orange, told me that she was kind, caring, and passionate – with a magical talent for healing. Mira's aura was mostly royal purple, with a hint of dark green, which indicated that she was versatile and creative, loyal and hardworking, and would probably possess a transfiguration talent and perhaps some herbology skills.
Harry's aura was a mixture of dark red, which indicated that he was strong, bold, and unwilling to give in, light blue, which meant he was curious and a good listener, and a strange swirl of combined bronze and gold, which showed that he had great magical power, was charismatic, and would be a good leader.
Most of the healers running about had some of the same pale yellow in their aura that Healer Pye had, though none of the others had quite as much of it as my Healer did. Unfortunately, quite a few people had a lot of light red, the sand element, in their auras. Light red, I had learned (as well as sensed) indicated mental weakness and the tendency to follow others.
When I finally started examining my own aura, I wasn't very surprised. I was predominantly dark blue, the moon element, which indicated intelligence, ingenuity, and a charms talent, although I had some dark brown, an earth element, showing sensibility, practicality, and talent for languages, and white, the star element, which indicated a bright personality and great magical skills.
Harry encouraged me to go for a walk with him and Mira about the hospital, which turned out to be a rather brilliant idea. My legs grew stronger with each step, and I also got to examine the patients' auras. Sadly, most had their true auras dimmed by sickly gray glows, which I could easily figure meant that sickness was consuming not only their bodies, but their auras as well.
But something strange happened when we reached the long term spell damage ward.
This was the ward where people like Frank and Alice Longbottom were kept. There were a couple dozen people here, wizards and muggles alike, who had been tortured out of their minds by Death Eaters in the last war with Riddle.
All they had left was their bodies, because their minds had been destroyed long ago. These people were technically alive, but incapable of truly enjoying life. Those that could still walk around and talk were luckier than the ones that lay still, unmoving and unknowing. But even if they talked, it was incoherent ramblings that nobody could understand. It was sad, but understandable that society had given up hope on finding a cure.
The patients in the long term ward were mostly visited once every few years, if they were lucky – most of their families had long since given up hope.
Today, though, there was a small boy sitting by a woman's bed, stroking her hand as he talked to her quietly and patiently. I knew who it was immediately.
It was Neville Longbottom, small and plump and earnest faced - not much different than the first of Hermione's memories showed him as. I was about to leave him to it when I realized something strange about these patients.
I couldn't sense their auras properly. They weren't even covered with gray, like most sick people should be. Instead, there seemed to be a glimmering wall around their auras, keeping them from getting out.
My mind whirled with ideas.
"Hi," I said to Neville as he stood up. "Do you mind if I talk to your mum as well?"
"I – I guess not," he said, quite surprised. "Wh - why do you…"
"I heard she was a wonderful Auror," I said honestly. "One of the bravest ones out there, alongside your Dad, of course."
"Yeah. I've heard that too," Neville said sadly.
"Can I – do you mind if I try something?"
"Try what?"
"I can't read her magical aura, but I wanted to try and find it. I can see magical auras, maybe I can manipulate them as well."
"It won't hurt her, will it?" Neville frowned. It was clear that he loved his mother, despite how little he knew her.
"It won't."
"All – all right then."
So I sat on the stool and began focusing on Alice. It took a few tries to find a place in her mind to slip into, but I found it. A blur of memories – of objects, and single words, and feelings. Everything was jumbled – but there was a strand.
Afterwards, Harry and Mira would tell me that I grasped Alice's hands tightly and my hazel eyes turned as black as my pupils. I was too busy concentrating on what was inside Alice.
The Cruciatus curse hadn't just frayed her nerves; it had also blown her mind – and her magic – until a million little pieces.
It was the most interesting puzzle I'd ever worked on. First I found all the strands of her aura, and once I'd connected the dark red to the bright orange, her aura was complete. Her magic was eager to mend her mind – and it helped me piece together the memories.
In a rush, I could see everything Alice Longbottom had ever seen – every lesson she had ever learned, every boy she had kissed, her wedding to Frank, her absolute joy upon first holding her baby boy, and the last memory, that of her passionate defense of her family when faced with Death Eaters invading her home, then falling, hurting, thinking she was dying…
When it was complete, I sat back and looked at Alice. She opened her eyes and looked at me.
I had never seen someone so happy before, and I blinked so as not to cry.
"Thank you." She said, knowing exactly what I had done.
"M - mum?" Neville's eyes were wide with shock.
"Neville," she breathed. In one moment, she flung back the covers and stepped out of bed to take her son in her arms, for the first time in almost nine years.
I stepped back, wiping at my eyes furtively, leaving them to cry and hold each other tight.
After putting together Alice's mind, I got to work on Frank. It was bit easier the second time around. His aura was interesting – dark green (loyalty and hard work) alongside pale yellow for kindness and compassion.
I finished with him, accepted his thanks, and stored all of his memories away in a safe compartment in my mind.
The next hour was a blur. I moved from bed to bed, restructuring auras and minds until they were perfect. I even took care to make the memories of the torture they had suffered much more faded than it ought to be, instead choosing to highlight the best moments of their life for them. After all, why shouldn't these people be happy? They'd lost many years off their lives, they deserved much more than I could give them.
I was so absorbed in my work, I barely noticed the surprised cries of the Healers who entered the ward and realized that their patients were awake and fully cognizant of their surroundings. They quickly started performing medical checks on the cured patients, but they were all seemingly normal again.
When I finished, twenty-seven people from the long term spell damage ward were perfectly healthy and sane, and ready to go home after all these years. Next, I had everyone I healed, as well as all of the Healers, swear a Wizarding Oath to not tell anyone that I had healed them.
"I thought you liked publicity," Mira whispered to me, quite confused.
"Sometimes," I admitted with a flush. "But I didn't want to give away all of my talents. Anyways - what if someone wanted to use my powers for something bad?" I pointed out.
When that was finished, I went back to my room and collapsed on my bed.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked.
"I'm just so tired," I sighed.
Yes, I wished I could feel on top of the world right now, but I was entirely too exhausted. I've been doing too much lately… Trying to make time for everyone, while also brewing and helping running the business.
Did you know England is already calling me the 'Girl Wonder'? The new sister of the 'Boy Who Lived', the young heroine of the people - symbol of the middle class, half-blood families.
Witch Weekly said last week that 'Miss Turpin had struck out for herself, showing the world just how anybody could succeed in the Wizarding World.'
I've become a symbol - much like Harry. What does that mean? Probably, that I will be on the front lines of the war to come.
But I will be right alongside Harry, which is where I know I ought to be. I've put things in motion to change the future irrevocably for hundreds - no, thousands, of people. Even when I'm exhausted, I know that I'm responsible for changing things so much - and therefore responsible for making sure things end up right, and not worse off for what I've done.
September 17th, 1990
Yesterday afternoon, I was carefully examining Harry's aura… Guess what I found?
Firstly, there was a strange bit of silver aura near his heart, in addition to a black aura on his scar.
It only took a few hours for me to move the black aura from his scar - clearly the horcrux - to a piece of parchment, which I threw into a poison I was brewing. The parchment, and the horcrux, had dissolved in seconds. One horcrux down. I had to sleep for about fourteen hours afterwards - but it was worth it.
Today I went back to Harry's aura, and after some studying of the book, and a few intuitive leaps, I discovered that the silver aura was another unnatural bit of Harry's aura, another 'gift' that Riddle left him with. Although this gift was useful – it eventually became clear to me that the silver was what gave Harry his parseltongue talent.
I had talked to Harry about a little bit of manipulation of his aura, and he agreed to give me free rein over it - he's so trusting…. He thinks that he simply had a bit of dark magic in his scar, and that I simply vanished it. I did tell him the truth about what I did with the silver parseltongue aura.
We were sitting outside, in the backyard,
Carefully, I tugged on the silver strand, and discovered that it was rooted to Harry's magical core, and couldn't be removed. But when I pulled it far enough, it naturally elongated, and grew to three times its normal length. I then snipped off two-thirds of it, halved that, and shared it between me and Mira, so now the three of us can all talk to snakes.
I imagine this might come in handy some day in the future...
September 22nd, 1990
I should have known things were far too good to be true.
When I was chatting with Mira this morning, casually wondering what house she would be in when she went to Hogwarts, we couldn't decide between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor.
So that evening, I perused my memories of the dream very carefully, to try and see which house Mira was in.
But I discovered something strange – Harry had never seen Mira in the dream of the future: she simply wasn't at Hogwarts. In fact, he had never seen Cody or Nathan either, despite the fact that they were to be in their sixth and third years during Harry's first year.
Why weren't any of them at Hogwarts?
I was terrified, especially when I finally examined Harry's view of myself. The Lisa Turpin in Hermione's memories was in Ravenclaw, never spoke out in class, and usually sat by herself at meals and in classes. I had never been one of the top scorers in the year, and seemed completely insignificant.
Why had I changed so much in the dream? What had made me change so drastically?
There was one simple answer to all of my questions.
Somehow, before Hogwarts started next year, Mira, Cody, and Nathan will be dead.
That would certainly be enough for me to give up on my plan and wallow in my depression, explaining my anti-social ways in Hermione's memories.
If something happened to three of my siblings – and possibly Tomas and my parents as well – I had no idea what it could be.
I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.
