A/N: Hello! To first-time readers, I'm just going to take a moment to add some tags. The SSxOC is an eventual romance, so please don't expect anything romantic until way, way, way later. And when it does happen, it will be a slow burn. There will be no love triangles. The story is in third-person POV, despite the prologue being written in first-person POV.

Any feedback is super appreciated :3

Rewritten: 08/15/2020

Prologue

Blinding headlights; screeching tires—

People say that you reminisce in your final moments of life. Well, maybe they had the luxury of time to do so. I didn't—not that I had issues with that. After all, I had always believed that a swift death was the best way to die. Was it morbid? To think of how I'd like to die?

It was a whimsical thought, floating in and out whenever life got a bit boring. Ah, that same relentless repetition where everybody, generations upon generations, seemed programmed to do the same sort of thing: do well in school, get a job, earn money, settle down and start a family… And even when life wasn't dull, it was a terribly twisted game. Hard work could mean nothing in the face of true genius. But even being a genius did not guarantee success because there was this thing called luck where for the same efforts, some were rewarded while others were ignored.

Life is not fair.

I was actually rather fortunate. Supposedly, Life had looked kindly upon me. Intelligence, success, good relationships, and a happy family... I should want for nothing more.

But I did.

Sympathy connected people. Twisting pain, a sharp squeeze in the chest at another's sorrow; a brilliant rush of warmth, pounding heartbeat, trembling in shared excitement.

I didn't feel that. That connection. No attachments.

Life was isolation surrounded by many.

I went on with my life like all the others. Days turned to years as they blurred together. Clockwork. It was a dull, tedious game, filled with empty gestures to maintain a mask of normality.

So, it was a relief when I felt darkness settling in. The clockwork shattered at last. The pain, a distant memory. I waited for the embrace of death.

It never came.

Chapter 1: The Game Called Life

Many villagers had always claimed that there was something magical about the forest. Unnatural in its tranquility, and mysterious in the way it twisted the travelers' path. One could head straight north into the forest then exit south of where they had started. Oh no, it wasn't cursed for it had never brought them harm. The villagers had long made peace with it, enjoying the peaceful gurgle of the trickling stream and the soft melodic trills of the many birds habituated within the forest. The soft morning rays creating pools of light on the leaves-covered ground gave an ephemeral air to the forest.

It was a normal day like all others until a body, small and mottled with bruises, suddenly arched up, disturbing the dirt and leaves that had settled onto it. The child's chest lifted and contracted, and a sharp rasping gasp echoed in the still of the forest.

The birds fled.

Once, once upon a time she remembered the warm fuzzy feelings, the cold bitter pangs; the vibrant colours that emotions painted…

Cyrna Raine had always known that there was something a bit… off about her. Her lack of reaction to certain situations scared even herself. The word callous echoed strikingly since the day she had stared blandly at her weeping cousin. The death of her aunt, someone practically like a second mother to her, should have shocked her into tears, at the very least. There was disgust when her cousin looked at her, eyes red and puffy from crying before she screamed that word in anger.

But she hadn't wanted to be cold. She hadn't been trying to feel nothing—in fact, never before had she wanted to feel something, but like all the other times in the past, Cyrna simply didn't.

The steady throbbing in her temple worsened as she tried to open her eyes, and a feverish chill seemed to have settled in her body, making her burn both hot and cold. A sharp throb raced across her mind leaving behind a trail of blinding pain. Despite this, she grasped desperately at consciousness, forcing her eyes open. She saw blurs of green above her, blending down into a muddy brown that seemed to stretch on forever. The scent of dampened soil just after rain… her fingers twitched, and she felt the moistened dirt cake under her fingernails.

Not dead, since she didn't want to believe that death could feel this awful.

Suddenly, a tiny thing with large floppy ears peered down at her. It snuffled. Something coarse and thin tickled her face as it nudged her. Whiskers. Its nose was tentative and delicate, a wet brush against her skin. Another snuffle before it skittered away.

The wet lingered, the breeze chilling the spot. Where was she?

She could remember the library of her medical school… a school boasting of cold steel and iron rather than the browns and greens of nature. Thirty minutes till midnight—she remembered glancing at her phone. She had been walking… walking back home. There had been a bright light—her breaths felt shallow as her heart drummed quicker and quicker—

A bright light before her world had exploded with pain, sharp and swift.

She remembered it. Her death. Relief.

Her mind screamed at her. How could she be alive, and—oh my god where the hell was she? She should be in a bed. In a hospital, not—

"Laufeia…"

Cyrna stilled at the sudden voice that pierced the humming buzz of her thoughts. It was quiet first, but then it repeated, louder and louder and louder till it was all she could hear. Her head pounded as if someone had taken a rod and had repeatedly smacked her temple. It was pain and terror, not sharp and abrupt like her death, but one that lingered on and on ever increasing in intensity.

Images began appear before her: a circle of elders, faces severe as they stared down at her. Dim-lit room. Walls that trapped her in solitude—She tried to make sense of them, for they had none, but before she could touch them, the scene faded away like the wisps of cigarette smoke, and a new one took its place:

One of the most beautiful women she had ever seen if not for the absolute look of disgust on her face. Mother? a quiet voice which did not belong to her had cried out. Then the woman was replaced by a sneering raven-haired man. Father?

A strangled sound as things she had never seen, never said, never felt, flooded her mind. The joy, the curiosity, the fear, the sorrow and desolation. She could feel them all as if they were her own.

Hers.

The whine which had been building in her throat poured out into the still of the forest. A keen. Sheer pain. She clutched her head, biting her lips in an effort to silence herself as pain, indescribable to any other sensation she had felt before, built in her chest.

It bubbled; then burst.

She screamed; a loud guttural cry ripping from her mouth.

In the creeping darkness of her vision, she could hear a faint "pop"—a pop that was awfully reminiscent of the times she played with bubbles as a child. Cyrna smiled. Perhaps she was dead, and this was all just one mad dream. But dead people don't dream, do they?

o - o - o - o – o

Consciousness was slow in returning. But when it did, it was painless. She was lying on something cushy. The whole world seemed to be blissfully soft and warm. Perhaps this was death.

"Nicolas! Did you see the state she was in!?" The sound pierced her ears, its pitch high and distinctly feminine.

Not dead. Dread began to curdle once again.

Carefully, she cracked open her eyes, and once she did, there was little she could do to keep her mouth from falling open. Right in front of her, a distance away, was a stone-cobbled fireplace lit with a hearty fire, dusty bookshelves that stored not only books but also jars filled with strange colourful things and—

—Eyeballs. The round shapes bobbed up and down in the liquid suspension with its optic nerve, still attached, trailing after. The way it was stored was unnatural. It deviated so much from the standard procedures of preservation that Cyrna was fairly certain it had no medical uses anymore. And how sick; how twisted was the person who displayed them like decorations? She blanched when she saw a lizard with bulging eyes in another jar. Dead in the same liquid that held the eyes.

"Not normal… black hair…"

Her eyes darted to the sound, catching a passing glimpse of a cauldron that contained a sickly green glow and.

Oh. She must be dead.

Floating candles simply did not exist.

She forgot about the occupants, about the danger, as a breeze blew in from a nearby window, stirring the candles as they bobbed gently along with the wind. Their flames flickered but never died, and squint as she might, Cyrna could see no strings.

"I'm not sending her back!" the woman said more insistently, and the sound resonated so loudly, so passionately that Cyrna could not deny its presence.

If she was not dead, then this must be a dream…

Right?

Her throat tightened. The couple continued to bicker as if she was not here. She watched them as one would watch a scene in the movie. The dream would end at any moment. Cyrna waited, staring blankly at the couple. But they did not disappear, and neither did the scene blur and morph when she pitched herself of the bed, somehow landing upright on her feet.

The floor was steady and solid beneath her, and its cold seeped into her skin.

This was real, and she finally noticed the silence that had fallen. They were now studying her—the sick people who decorated their house with death.

"Hello," the woman called softly, kindly. Her forehead was creased with wrinkles and her eyes were hinted with concern.

Cyrna did not believe it, not her warm gaze nor her soft smile. It was in an instant that she found the door and dashed towards it, trying the handle to the point where she was basically trying to rip the thing of the door. It didn't open. There was a drumming beat in her ears, a rushing noise that felt like she had been submerged underwater. "Where have you brought me?" she demanded; hissed in anger, in fear, in confusion. Her emotions were scattered. She often felt nothing, and now she was feeling everything.

"You're with the Flamels—in our cottage," the male said in a clipped tone, unmoved by her panic.

Flamels? Something about the word shook her enough to stop yanking at the door.

"You were injured in the Lost Forest, so we brought you back with us, little one," the woman soothed. "Though I've no idea of how you managed to find yourself—"

"Yes, how did you get into the Forest?" The man's expression was dark, eyes flashing with steel as he stood up and stalked towards her. Somehow, he did so, despite being ancient. White hair and hunched back… His gaze narrowed suspiciously at her as she stared blatantly at him, fear paralyzing her. Her widened eyes fell to his hands and she absentmindedly noted that his fingers seemed to have been stained permanently with different colours. "Witches like you shouldn't be able to enter."

Witches?

"I… w-what?" Cyrna stammered, backing away because there was something about the old man that screamed of danger.

The man scowled, took out a stick—

"Nicolas!" the woman exclaimed.

"It's suspicious, Perenelle! You know that only creatures live there, and you know how they are like!"

"But perhaps—"

"No! There's absolutely no way she could be one. Look at how black her hair is for Merlin's sake."

Merlin's sake?

Cyrna's eyes lingered on the stick that was being lowered down to the man's side. She forgot the door entirely as her eyes darted around the room, her mind quickly supplying her of something—something that should not be real. Her eyes caught onto a mirror, and it supported what he had said. Black hair. But how could her hair be black when it was supposed to be brown?

The man closed in on her, and she had to tilt her head back to keep him in view. But he hadn't seemed tall. She was tall. The tallest among her friends. Cyrna's back hit the door.

A child with raven-black hair which framed a pair of wide blue eyes. Laufeia, Laufeia, Laufeia, Laufeia—

Tears crept into her eyes. This couldn't be happening. It was impossible.

Life had always been a game where people were never dealt equal hands. It was a pathetic game, one that she had grudgingly suffered through once. To think that she had to play it again in another world with another set of rules. Oh, she had realized then, because how could she not? Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, Merlin, cauldron, jarred ingredients, floating candles…

A twisted smile insistently tugged on her lips despite the tears running down her face.

"We should obliviate her and just get this over with," the man—Nicolas said.

The woman—Perenelle—frowned disapprovingly.

Obliviate?

A bitter laugh escaped.

"So has Dumbledore, sorry, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, contacted you yet?" Cyrna could barely speak without laughing again.

"He hasn't." Perenelle stared at the child with no little concern. Terror and panic leaked off from the child's magic. It was a building, a growing wave as it tensed and fluctuated in peaks and sharp edges. "Is there a reason we should hear from him?" she asked in a gentle tone, wanting to calm the child.

Cyrna had never viewed Life as a friend. And now, she had to wonder what trespasses she had committed against it as she recalled that Dumbledore had not been the Headmaster during Riddle's childhood. Add that to the fact that the Flamels were still alive, and she determined that she could be at any time between the rise of Voldemort to the start of the Hogwarts Era. She cursed bitterly. It didn't ultimately matter which part of that period she was in. Even if it was the moment of peace before Harry Potter's life, it didn't change one simple fact:

Voldemort was still alive.

She was going to be stuck in the middle of a war.

It felt like her heart had stopped beating; she stared blankly with twisted amusement at the faces of the couple who didn't even know they would soon be dead. It was ridiculous. This was supposed to be a story. This… Her mind spun. She needed to leave Britain and head to America—or anywhere else. But she had no money and what even was the minimum age to work? The walls of the house seemed to close in on her as her breathing quickened. Trapped. She was trapped, trapped in another game Life had decided to play.

The safety, her stability—family, friends, her career, success—everything that she had painstakingly cultivated… she watched it wither away, amounting to nothing in this new and strange world.

Was she laughing or crying?

She couldn't seem to get enough air as she gasped. Laugh after laugh following quickly after the other, so quickly that she choked on her own breath.

The body she wore shook uncontrollably. It was only the laughter echoing through and through her mind that she noticed. She could not hear the screams, she could not hear the crackling of stone, she could not hear the shatters of the glass as they broke. But what was impossible to notice, even when she was so stuck in her head, was the thundering boom as the house was torn apart.

She halted mid-laughter, shock paralyzing her as she finally saw the destruction she had made. There was broken glass and debris everywhere as the winds whistled, whipping powerfully around her. It was like she had summoned a storm. For a moment, her mind was blissfully empty. White. Then a sudden spark, a small thought drew on its canvas.

How could she forget?

She was in a world of magic, meaning that there had been a possibility that she could do magic as well.

Cyrna surveyed the remains of the house; the rubble, the splintered wood…

Had she done that?

She looked at Nicolas and Perenelle who were both inside a translucent shield, staring back at her with a mix of shock and wariness. Her eyes widened and a hesitant grin crept onto her face. Every single negative emotion she had felt suddenly smothered by the sharp unadulterated excitement that coursed through her veins. This was different. Her heart thumped faster.

She had done this.

She had done magic.

Giddy with excitement, she missed the softly spoken words of stupefy and the red light heading her way.