Breathe in... Breathe out.
With every slow, rattling breath they took, they could feel the paper thin walls of reality shudder around them.
In... Out.
They could feel the fractures in said walls, so impossibly tiny that an atom would be the size of the universe compared to them. Yet, they were there all the same.
In... Out.
Though their body was at rest, their magic was not. With every breath they flexed their power, forcing it deeply into the walls, through the fractures, into existence itself. Intertwining with Everything as much as they could.
It was almost a religious experience to them, or as like one that they would ever have. They were both One and All at the same time. In this instant, they were both male and female, gendered and not, multiple and singular. It was hard for them to truly comprehend, and all they could do was let it wash over them.
The cracks in the universe that their magic flowed through did not merely flow through space, but through time as well. Reality was fractured, deeply and horribly fractured. Everything in existence, every being, every object, every concept had the cracks throughout the entirety of them. It was simply part of them.
It had been since that night. They could still remember the laughter of the others, the pain in they felt as their own throat was torn apart by their screams of denial. The rage that had infused their entirety. That was still part of them, simmering hatefully even now.
They could remember it all.
In... Out.
They only had one chance to fix it. To put it all right. And they could not fail.
In... and hold.
Reality itself froze. So deeply intertwined was their magic that as they held their breath, so too did the universe hold itself. Creatures across the world frozen in place, rain drops hovering in the air, the very stars themselves stuck in a single moment...
And out.
The universe broke and reformed around them, taking the same form that it had many many years ago. Or rather, almost the same form, as this time they remembered everything that had happened.
Their magic shattered...
And Harriet Potter opened her eyes.
Harriet Dursley woke up on a day that seemed off a bit from the very start.
Oh, it wasn't anything obvious, nothing that she could point to and say "That, right there! That's wrong!" And yet, as the day passed her by and she continued with her assigned chores, she could not help but feel that something was off.
It wasn't her Aunt or Uncle, the Dursleys still pretended that she didn't quite exist until they had to interact with her.
It wasn't her cupboard, as that was as cramped and dusty and full of spiders as ever.
It wasn't even Dudley, he still smiled softly at her when she saw him, and passed her extra food beneath the table when the Dursleys weren't looking.
No, it was something she could not quite place her finger on. It was incredibly frustrating, the same feeling you get when you're just a smidge away from getting an incredible revolution, the same feeling of something being in the tip of your tongue. Yet no matter how hard she thought about it, she could not find something wrong!
It was only later that night, as she was thrust back into her cupboard and heard her Uncle lock her in that she finally got the answer to her unasked question.
She watched from her cot, staring perplexed at a small glowing crack in front of her. She could see it, and yet could not see it. It was attached to nothing, floating in the air, yet she very clearly understood that it was a crack in something, and instinctually understood that it was wrong.
Be afraid, it seemed to cry out to her.
And yet even as she knew that it was wrong and horrible and she absolutely under no circumstances should touch it, she felt it calling out to her. She could barely hear it, not as a noise but as something tickling the back of her mind.
She never even realized when she touched it.
Instant searing pain flowed through her as for an infinitesimally small moment she knew. Everything was revealed to her and yet, being human, her mind could not grasp it all. With the amount of knowledge that was slamming into her, erasing everything she was, her mind latched onto the only familiar thing it could.
Harriet Dursley died that night, and Harriet Potter took her place.