CHAPTER ONE:

No Choice.

Horatia Potter's P.O.V

The Medici family came from the agricultural Mugello region in the north of Florence, and they are first mentioned in a document from 1230. The origin of the name is uncertain. However, Medici is the plural of medico, meaning "medical doctor". Nevertheless, the dynasty began with the founding of the Medici Bank in Florence in 1397, and they swiftly-

The book crashed shut with the slap of leafs and leather. The tick of a wall clock beat through the silence. Gingerly, Horatia loped a finger over the embossed painted cover. The History of House Medici, it read, stretching over a shield of gold with five red spheres crowned by a blue one embellished with three fleurs-de-lis.

Her hand snapped back to her lap as if the leather burned her.

The weight of her necklace threatened to strangle her where she sat.

She had it since she could remember.

A gift from her mother, Dumbledore once told her.

Keep it on, keep it safe, and find courage in her love, he had made her promise.

It was here, in a stuffy room in the Ministry, awaiting Minister Shacklebolt, Horatia realised the old bastard might not have been talking about Lily Potter as she always thought he had.

Worse still, she did not feel as brave as she typically did when she wore it. Her golden shield. She only felt anger. Anger and hurt and something deep inside that wept bitterly.

The tick of the wall clock echoed on.

Unbroken.

One of the only clocks left working correctly these days.

Horatia wanted to shatter it to microscopic specks, so small it felt like sand in the palm of her hand, and watch it blow away in the wind. Of course, she did none of that. Instead, she sat at her tiny table in the stodgy chamber, and stared down hard at the book before her.

Certainly, in the next ten minutes, Horatia would reopen the Merlin damned book again, flick to the first page, and for the eighth time read that introductory paragraph, lose her nerve, and slam the book shut all over again.

Then she would think of smashing the clock, just because she could.

She would decide against it.

Stay sitting.

Glance back to the book.

The cycle would start anew.

Another tick, another turn, and nothing changed. She didn't wake up back in her bed at Grimmauld Place or Godric Hollow from this nightmare. She didn't wake up in a cot in Saint Mungo's after having been poisoned or hallucinating. She didn't even wake up on Ron's sofa after a night out getting blind drunk. She was here, in this boxed-can't-breathe-in room, with a book about House Medici and one truth.

Horatia Potter wasn't a Potter.

Perhaps it was that truth that made the room walls close in on her.

Somewhere in the afterlife, if there really was such a thing as Hell, she thought Tom Riddle was laughing at her through the brimstone and flames. Albus fucking Dumbledore would be right beside him.

"Horatia?"

A cautious voice leapt out from the doorway, timid in a way she had not heard since their first year. Horatia didn't flinch at the voice interrupting her thoughts. She didn't have it in her for anymore shock or surprise, as if all her astonishment had been used up and gobbled in one moment, and all she was left with was a dry, cracked ditch where the pond used to be. Sluggishly, she glanced over, and immediately her gaze fell away.

She couldn't look at them.

"Hermione?"

Hermione Granger edged into the room, the door clicking shut behind her. It was silent for a long while, silent apart from that maddening clock ticking away, counting down Horatia's time.

"Shacklebolt thought I might keep you company while you wait for him. The… Meeting should be finished soon."

Meeting.

It was a nice word.

Unassuming.

Definitely not a word Horatia would use to describe a hurriedly assembled jury of all wizarding Heads of Houses of Britain, who were going to decide what happened to her in a closed Wizengamot. Undoubtedly, one or two would be throwing around the possibility of an execution to stop the Calamity. A few more, perhaps even Arthur Weasley, would advocate her own choice being the answer. Most would likely demand she be sent careening into the past, whether she liked it or not, and with each hour wasted debating was an hour closer they crept to destruction.

"How are you feeling?"

Right. Yes. Hermione was talking to her, and ordinarily, a conversation took two participants. Reaching up, Horatia scrubbed at her face tiredly.

"This has to be a mistake, 'Mione. If not for me then for Lily and James. They weren't the type to… To… To what? Jump back and kidnap children? Lily and James Potter? The couple who gave their lives to end Voldemort would now risk the world by stealing a child? It doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense."

The clack of heels on marble. Hermione was wearing her nice shoes from Harrods. The ones she only wore on business. Horatia bit hard into the side of her cheek. The sour taste of Copper crested on her tongue. Was that it? Was she business now? A problem to solve?

No. That was her resentment talking. Antipathy of a child who spent their youth locked in a cupboard, barely fed, who grew to be a young woman suspicious of all apparent kindness.

Morgana, she couldn't think clearly.

Hermione Granger was the type of woman who wore their clothes like armour, each choice scrupulously examined. Those nice shoes made her feel brave.

As Horatia's necklace once had.

She hoped, truly, it worked for her dearest friend.

One of them needed to be a Gryffindor right now, because Merlin knew how violently her hands shook when she stretched them out before her.

"Perhaps it wasn't on purpose. Don't look at me like that, let me finish. Perhaps… Perhaps this family, the Medici's, were magical too. The fifteenth century is when Wizards first began dabbling in Time Magic. Perhaps they lost you in an accident and Lily and James came across you and took you in."

Horatia scoffed. Unlikely. Of all the records and archives the Ministry had combed through, they had only found reference to these Medici's in muggle libraries and collections. That could mean only one thing, for how well purebloods watched their family trees like magpies searching for the cuckoo who didn't belong.

The Medici's were muggle, and she, Horatia, was a cuckoo chick.

Italian too, if the book was correct.

Horatia's birth parents were muggle Italians from the bloody fifteenth century.

"Or perhaps Dumbledore wanted the war won no matter what, and for whatever reason, thought I could ensure a favourable outcome."

Horatia could not see any angle of this mess that could not be answered by adding Dumbledore into the equation. He was powerful, enough so that he could go five hundred years into the past if he figured out a way to do so.

He was secretive. He raised her like a piglet to butcher to end Tom Riddle, and risked Severus Snape, his once pupil, for years to have a spy in Voldemort's midst, had not told anyone of the swap of secret keeper between Sirius and Pettigrew, and, blimey, not once in Voldemort's climb let slip that, perhaps, that was fuckin' Tom Riddle, his old pupil who he suspected had murdered in his precious school.

Most importantly, there was nothing, Horatia was sure, he would not have done if he truly believed it was for the greater good.

He was a good leader.

Not a good man.

It was crucial to always remember that one did not equate to the other. In fact, Horatia thought, they often worked opposingly. A good man could be a good leader, but a good leader could not always be a good man.

Still, she didn't know the when. The why. The how. Any specifics, really. She only had a hunch that somehow, someway, this involved Albus. It had his stench reeking from it. A hunch, by the way Hermione fell quiet, was shared. And if this was him, if Albus caused this, if he did this to her, as much as she loved James and Lily Potter, adored them with every scrap of her heart and soul, they were human. Flawed.

It was sometimes easy to forget that.

The original Order of the Phoenix had been comprised of Dumbledore's avid followers. If he clapped, they would have jumped for him without question. If, one day, he turned up with a baby that needed to be taken in, well…

Here she was.

Horatia stood from her chair, marched over to the single, punched window of the room, and stared out at the grey landscape of London in twilight. Grim. Gloomy. Home.

This was her home.

"Even, and that's a big even, this is somehow… True."

She faltered over the word, her tongue tying itself into a squirming knot, so close to the window her breath fogged on the glass. She saw her reflection. Jaded green eyes, red hair a rats nest of curls, exhausted and sickly pale. A deep breath in through the nose. She held it in her lungs. Held it until it burned in her chest before she let it go. Pain was good. Pain grounded her in the present.

"It still doesn't make any sense. If I wasn't meant to be taken, this mess, this Calamity as they're calling it, would have begun years ago. Long before I went to Hogwarts. Why have we seen nothing until now?"

The clock ticked, tocked, and ticked again, as Hermione tapped on the table with the beat.

Time.

There was no escaping it.

It was in everything.

A heartbeat.

A whisper.

The blink of an eye.

Where there was life, there was time.

Cancel one out, and bingo, Calamity indeed.

"Maybe you were meant to be taken… For a short while. We were always meant to have a Horatia Potter. Time isn't linear, Horatia, even if we think of it that way. Time, the force that turns our world, is all at once, not a series of events, and it's bigger and more complex than any man can comprehend. Maybe the wound to it occurred not when you were taken, but when you didn't return when you should have. Maybe you were always meant to come here, live here, for a time or two. Yet, by the looks if it, you were always meant to go back too."

Hermione's voice died with an aggravated sigh. She always did hate not knowing. The truth was, as with all of this, everyone was simply guessing. It was the best they had. Even for Wizarding kind the finer intricacies of Time were lost. The Ministry had a whole department dedicated to understanding and utilizing it in magic, and still, they were no closer to true understanding of how and why it worked the way it did than muggles.

"It's not fair. After everything I've done, everything I've given… It's not fair."

The scrape of a chair pushed back, footsteps behind her, a gentle hand coming to rest on her shoulder.

Horatia still couldn't bring herself to look at Hermione.

"I know."

That's it.

I know.

It was all Horatia needed to hear. Validation to her erratic emotions. Her pain. Hermione did not tell her she was overreacting or being silly. Hermione did not dismiss her upset with a flapping hand and a swift stiff upper lip ol' girl and move on. Hermione gave no empty promises of it will all be alright.

I know you're hurt and I hurt with you, and that's okay.

Horatia's hand lifted, slipped over Hermione's on her shoulder, squeezing. She found her bravery there, across the sloping, freckled knuckles and nimble fingers. She found her courage in her best friends hand because, indeed, she wasn't really alone despite how lonely she felt right then.

She had Hermione Granger.

She always had Hermione Granger.

There was a decidedly dry cough from behind her, the kind of cough that obscured a blocked throat and damp lashes, but when Hermione spoke it was full of cheer and sunshine.

Forced.

"Who knows! If there's a way around this, Shacklebolt will find it. They'll… Figure something out. They can't just force you to-"

Force you to leave everything you've ever known and everyone you've ever loved.

Hermione said nothing, puttering off.

She didn't have to.

They both knew the Ministry could.

They wouldn't, Horatia thought, if only because the post-Tom Ministry was still vulnerable, needing to earn back its shattered reputation in the masses and the faith of its citizens. They would offer her a choice that, surely, was no choice at all. Everyone would know it. They would only save face.

Hermione, however, held onto her hope like it was the only thing keeping her afloat.

"They'll give you a choice. They have to. They don't have the public confidence to carry out sentencing or executions yet. They wouldn't survive the backlash from killing or imprisoning the girl-who-lived. You can decide and… And if you stay, we'll think of something. Anything. We'll fix this. Together. As we always have."

And how long would they have to repair this?

Stay and devastate the world, watch as all those she loved died in one freak accident after the other, and watch the sun burst in the sky as all recorded disasters, wars, accidents and conflicts happened at once? How long before it came to the end? One month? Two? Is that the price she would have to pay? An extra month with her friends just to see them shrivel and wilt as the fuckin' continents reformed to Pangea? Or, shit, the meteor that hit the Dinosaurs came sailing back around?

If they didn't know how to fix this without sending her back now, what hope of discovering an alternative did they have in four weeks?

Billions of lives against her own?

Yeah.

No choice at all.

Nevertheless, it still hurt. Hurt to be right back here at square one, back to where she stood a year ago, once more about to give all she had, all she adored, everything she was and would be up. She was dying all over again. Dying slowly, painfully, gradually. Bit by chunk by shard. Merlin, she didn't even have her name anymore.

Her hand was at her necklace before she truly knew what she was doing, thumb stroking gilded, bobbled shield. An age-old action. Maybe she did not have her name any longer, but she did have a name.

Medici.

She was a Medici.

She may not know precisely, right now, what that entailed, but she hoped it could give her the nerve she needed to do what she had to.

The hand slipped from her own, falling from her shoulder, although Horatia still felt the presence at her back.

"Tell me about them?"

She peeked behind to the book still perched on the table, but promptly looked away, shrugging.

"They're farmers, I think. Something about agricultural land and banking… I can't get past the first page."

Hermione hummed.

"Have they found the particular year you were taken from yet?"

Horatia shook her head.

"Not yet. They've only tracked the residual Time Magic to the fifteenth century. My necklace, which I left at Grimmauld Place and they retrieved from their search, led them to the Medici's. After a lineage spell kept showing up the Potter family tree, they figured Lily and James had… Adopted me. Turns out, if your adopted in the magical world, your magical markers and signature come up from that family if you don't ward the potion with the adoptivus charm. You learn something new every day."

Like learning your life was a lie.

One day, everything had been exactly as it should be, and the next, nothing was the same and you realised, horribly, it never had been. It was… Dizzying. Similar to groggily waking up from a dream and, with aching loss, you missed being asleep because everything was better there.

"And the family tree after it was charmed?"

Horatia swallowed deeply.

"I didn't get a good look at it. They didn't want me to see-… They wanted to make sure they found my time before telling me if I would have any family when I go-… But I saw the name on the top of the parchment. Medici. My blood is… Medici. They think I was born muggle; you know? I heard them whispering behind the door. I got my magic from Lily and James adopting me. I was never supposed to have magic. They must have used an old blood ritual in some obscured text. I… They gave me…"

They gave me magic.

How different would her life be had this never happened? A muggle in fifteenth century Italy? A muggle woman in fifteenth century Italy? A muggle woman in fifteenth century Italy who never knew when to shut up or mind her own business?

The chuckle that came bubbling up her chest was dry and itched in her throat like sandpaper.

She would likely be dead.

Dead dead, at the very least.

Perhaps burned at the stake.

Beheaded.

Bloody hell, muggles did so love a good beheading back in the day.

"Then, in a way no one can take from you, Lily and James are your parents. They birthed you in a way. Their magic runs through your veins as much as this Medici blood. Even now, they protect you, and they always will. Every spell you cast comes from their love."

That hurt most of all.

They gave her magic, they gave her everything they could, a home, a family, even for the short time they had together, a bloody year, and no matter how or why she ended up five hundred years in the future, it was Lily and James Potter who made her the woman she was.

And that was why the choice would never be a choice.

She was their daughter.

Perhaps not by blood, but by love.

There was something greater, more visceral, in that, Horatia thought.

And, if Lily or James were standing in her shoes, she knew exactly what they would choose to do.

As she must too.

Who knew? She may have family back there, somewhere in the past. A father. A mother. Maybe an aunt or uncle; she wasn't too overjoyed at that thought. Brothers? Sisters? Nephews? Nieces? Blimey, grandparents?

Suddenly, belatedly, it all hit her like a tidal wave.

Horatia might have a family.

She might be a big sister to a scrappy kid who, like her, ran his mouth. She might be the granddaughter to a woman who burned as easily in the sun as her. She might be the daughter to a man who was as good as chess as she. She might be the younger sister who, just for the fun of it, could spend hours winding up her siblings.

This wasn't just a loss.

This was a win too.

And isn't that all she ever wanted?

A family?

It was a heavy price to pay for it, but, in her relatively short life, when had anything come free without a pound of blood, sweat and tears? She could do this. If she concentrated on that, she could do this.

She would.

Horatia would do anything for family.

The door to the room creaked open, the unshaven, weary face of a tired Auror darting through the crack. If he appeared tired, it was nothing compared to his exhausted voice.

"Minister Shacklebolt's here to see you."

As soon as the words were drawled out, Kingsley Shacklebolt came striding in, an intimidating man of towering height, straight backed and proud. Everything a Minister should be, unlike his predecessors, frail Fudge and suspect Scrimgeour. The Auror disappeared around the bend as Kingsley instinctively reached back and shut the door behind himself.

Strangely, Horatia wasn't as nervous or frightened as she thought she would be when this time came. She wasn't even furious. She was… Calm. Not the sort of cool that came from a resigned heart, but a calmness of… Knowing.

Knowing what she had to do, and appreciating that it was all right.

She would survive this, as she survived Tom Riddle.

This wasn't the end.

Not for her.

This was a beginning, and as all beginnings were, it hurt, it was hard, and there would be more pain to come, she was sure, but, as with death, there was always another journey. Sometimes, you had to take those journeys alone, and that was right.

"The Wizengamot has convened. They have decided it is your choice. You can-"

Horatia, for the first time since she came in, looked to Hermione. Really, truly, genuinely saw. There was a mole on her left nostril Hermione loathed and always tried to cover. Her eyes were never just brown as Hermione moaned they were, but an amber as rich as whiskey. When she smiled, her grin was askew, forever pulling up on the right side higher than the left. Though her monstrous hair had calmed in the years since childhood, it was still a beast all of its own, sweeping the breadth of her shoulders, a tangled crown of caramel.

This was her best friend.

The one who hated not knowing. Who still, to this day, rattled off facts from the copious books she read as if they were gospel. Who always left coffee stains on Horatia's dining table from never putting her mug on a coaster. The smartest person Horatia had ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Hermione was destined for great things, Horatia thought. She would be the first female Minister of Magic. The youngest too, Horatia knew. She would change things from the inside. Create a better world for all the downtrodden. She would marry Ron Weasley and they would have genius, half-mad reckless children who would drive McGonagall to lunacy when they went to Hogwarts. They would be as smart as their mother, but with Ron's deep loyalty.

Horatia would never see that day, but she knew it would come, and that was enough.

This was her best friend, and Horatia would remember this face, mole, lopsided grin, mammoth hair and all, till her dying day.

This would be the last time she saw it.

Horatia's shoulders squared as her spine locked, glancing up to the dark gaze of the Minister.

"Stop. There's no need. As soon as you make the Time-turner or spell to send me back… I'll go."

It was no choice at all when you did things for love.

Hermione bristled at her side.

"Horatia, no! We can-"

"I'll go."

Hermione spluttered; however no coherent argument came forth. There wasn't one. Everyone in this room knew what her staying would lead to. It was a nice dream, to be sure, but a hopeless dream all the same.

It was time to wake up.

Shacklebolt smiled at her, a sad little grin filled with melancholy. He, like her, knew it was always coming to this.

"For what it's worth, Horatia, you're a good person."

Not really.

She was too reckless, impulsive, and obstinate to ever be a wholly good person.

Yet she tried and, in the end, that's what mattered most.

Woo or Boo?

Next Chapter: Florence 1469: Piero Medici has barely survived a harrowing assassination attempt on his, and his families, move back to Florence from the Tuscany a search to unmask the perpetrator before the next attempt comes, Lorenzo and Giuliano Medici begin scrutinizing Jacopo Pazzi's movements over the last few days. The trail leads to a little tavern on the edge of Florence, The Dove, where the would-be-assassins slept. The Dove just so happens to be the home of a wayward traveller who, startlingly, resembles their grandmother, bares their missing younger sisters name, and wears the Medici signet necklace, the very same that had vanished with their sister sixteen years ago.

A.N: So, as I'm in self isolation, it seems updates will be coming pretty quick over the next few weeks, as I'm having real fun with this story. For those waiting for updates on my other fics, don't worry, I am working on a few, so they'll be coming pretty quickly too.

Remember, if you wish to see more, don't forget to drop a review! They keep the muses singing and the fingers typing. Thank you to those who have reviewed, followed and favourited, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Hopefully, I will see you guys soon, and stay safe.