Were not in Kansas anymore
The young dark haired witch stares into the mirror, an expression of fascination and contempt written on her aristocratic features. Her fingers graze upon the pale, youthful flesh that peeks out from her nightgown. She is both elated and horrified to see every scar, every wound gone. She closes her eyes, and as the pads of her fingers travel over her collarbone and she can almost feel the dip from the scar that used to lay there. The result of torture, the physical proof of her survival.
She had woken in a room that was undoubtedly hers. Bookshelves filled and moving photos of a young child-her, adorned the room. And yet, she still felt a sense of disjoint between her and Maxima Potter. No, she was not the girl she had been as Hermione Granger, but the women who had written in that journal, whose desperate pleas she had read, that women was just as a stranger to her. It was if she existed in limbo; not one nor the other. She touched the dark curls that framed her face and wondered if the world she had escaped had really been destroyed, or if it was a moral fault in her that the thought of it gone turned a sense of unease in her stomach.
She bathed and dressed slowly, her body despite its appearance, sore, and her mind distraught. She found only dresses and gowns in her closet, another reminder that in this time she had never worn muggle clothing or trousers. Perhaps she would acquire some, a tribute to Hermione Granger.
A small elf appeared in the room to lace up the dress.
"mimsy here to help" the elf declared, lacing up the dress tightly despite her complaints. She tried not to gawk at the clean dark grey dress and socks the elf wore. It did a lot to assuage her uneasy feelings of elves and their aid to wizarding kind.
"mimsy has been waiting for misses to return" the elf declared brightly as she pulled smartly at Maxima's hair. The witch hissed in pain but one glare from the elf had her silent in her discomfort.
"you've been waiting" she questioned, curious on what the elf, or her now family knew.
"misses has been sick with time sickness, and gone of years, back now she is, and all is well again" Maxima felt guilty, for not thinking of her family, a mother and father and brother who had grieved her loss. Who had seen her return covered in blood. Her family that did not know the kind of monster she had become. She reached up to feel the finished plaits but was prevented by tiny but efficient elf hands.
"Don't touch. Mimsy worked hard on misses hair" Maxima smiled at the elf, who looked at her attentively.
"Thankyou" she told the elf earnestly, who blushed furiously at the compliment and disappeared quickly. Maxima looked at the plaits in the mirror, it had been years since she cared enough to do her hair, and even longer since she had anyone do it for her.
She should feel safe, here in her home, but still her heart pounded at the open windows, waiting for danger to strike. She was waiting for monsters to breach, and hoping her family would not discover her darkened heart.
James was waiting outside her bedroom and escorted her to breakfast. He is dressed in a white shirt at slacks, his hair sticking up at all ends. "Thank merlin you're up, I'm starving, and mum and dad won't let me even near the food" He scowled, and Maxima found herself smiling at his dramatics. He was so young, and now she supposed so was she.
He looked at her; "mums going to have a bird if you go downstairs without shoes" she just grinned, shrugging her shoulders and he laughed in turn. In truth, the only shoes that had been in her room had been heels or pointed shoes and she had already put on the dress, she really had no desire to shove her toes in any of those death traps.
Breakfast was extravagant. Even through all her years at Hogwarts she had never seen such a thing. Platters of pastries and fruit lay about along with eggs and cereal and every kind of jam she could ever think of. James had only eyes for the bacon and toast.
"we weren't sure what you would like, so we had Mimsy prepare an assortment" Spoke Dorethea Potter. She had heard about her mother before, in stories passed around order members but none prepared her for the sight that was her mother.
Dorthea has long black hair placed in a perfect chignon, dark green robes and striking features. Familiar blue eyes stared back at her, Dorthea was the epidemies of grace seeming to glide across the floor as she walked. "I..uh..wow.. this is a lot.. thank you.. I don't know what to say" the words tumbled out of her mouth void of anything resembling grace or control.
"my dear, I seems we have work to do regarding your cadence, but for now we shall eat" Dorthea smiled taking a seat at the head of the table.
"thank MERLIN" James exclaimed shoving three long strips of bacon in his mouth. "James" Dorthea admonished but she laughed at the young boys antics. James did, however, attempt to eat in a slightly more civilized manner after that.
"Maxima, tell us of your travels" asked Fleamont, her father. To her own surprise, she spoke sharing stories of another childhood, of dungeons and dragons, of spells and of course lots of books. She didn't speak about the darkness, of the magic that even now ached beneath her skin, or of the death she had both witnessed and caused.
They listen to her speak attentively, speaking to ask questions. James was particularly interested in dragons. She had never been so seen or so heard before, not unless she counted the order meetings where she recounted new deaths, and she did not count that, not at all.
"my little asteroid" her father spoke an unrelenting look upon his face "you have had quite the adventures, but I think I speak for us all when I say we are so glad to have you home".
Home Maxima is not sure she had ever had one before, her parents' home she had always felt like an outsider, a freak. At Grimmauld Place, she had been but more than a guest. But in this enormous house, with these people, her family, she was home.