Please read this fic on literally any site that isn't FFN. I'm putting in less than zero effort for this upload. Read it on MSPFA, AO3, SB, SV, anything. I'm only putting this here because some people read it here, but I want nobody to read it here. Thank you.
Rose woke to the hospital matron gently dabbing a cool, wet towel on her scar.
"You don't have some magic way of towel-dabbing?" she groaned. She raised a hand to her head, trying to steady herself.
"You're awake," noted Madame Pomfrey. "And you're mentally here enough to be sarcastic. That's good. For the record, by the way, it is a magical towel."
"Really?" Rose blinked.
"Only slightly. It's got mild restorative properties, but I do have to physically apply it to your forehead and dip it in this solution."
"Huh," said Rose.
Despite all of her reckless adventuring, Rose realized she'd never actually ended up in a hospital in either of her lives. She took the opportunity to appreciate the blend of the "olde castle aesthetic" with spatterings of clean modernity - the beds were all separated by curtains on hooks, for example.
"Did you design this room?" asked Rose. "It's nice."
"Child, get some sleep," said Pomfrey. "I'll fetch the headmaster soon."
"I'm not tired at all," said Rose with a yawn.
Madame Pomfrey re-wet the towel. "You'll feel better when you sleep," she said. "I promise."
Rose's perception blurred away into unconsciousness.
She had been waiting for his goddamn reply for hours.
Rose found herself intimately frustrated. Her dress was long and insulating, which was a good feature to have on Jade's planet, but the waves of heat from LOHAC made waiting much longer into a fairly unbearable prospect. Lava bubbled away in her periphery, and the planet's titular clockwork clanked constantly around her.
Finally, she gave in and opened Pesterchum and started a new chat. The incoming messages from Jade and... her other friend whose name began with J... could wait.
[QUOTE][COLOR=#b536da]TT: It's quite warm here on Lohac.
TT: I think I've been patient enough.
TT: When will I receive further instruction?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]Now.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: So,
TT: I could have contacted you at any time?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]No.
Only now.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Well.
TT: That feels rather arbitrary and pointless.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]Nothing is pointless.
Especially the pointless stuff.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: You're just filled with quips today, aren't you? [/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]What can I say? It's a good day for me.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: How so?
TT: And why do I get the distinct feeling I don't wish to know?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]It's nothing that would worry you, actually.
A great and terrible man was defeated today.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Lord Voldemort?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]Why, yes, Ms. Lalonde.
Your perception astounds even me sometimes.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: I killed him today.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]Only mostly.
Well, mostly is a strong word - he is completely gone now, but you were not the primary person destroying him.
You entirely destroyed two of his soul fragments, even if you were just a baby for those.
And you did a very good job physically weakening the soul fragment that had taken hold of poor Professor Quirrell.
Of course, there is always a price of doing good.
Luckily for you, Ms. Lalonde, a yet-to-be-named contractor of mine decided to bravely take the cost upon herself.
For the moment, at least, you are off the hook.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: ...
TT: This isn't what we were going to talk about originally.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]No, it wasn't.
In fact, for the first time in my omnipotent life, I find myself talking to [I]someone else[/I] who already knows the outcome of the conversation we were going to have.
Talking about a different Dark Lord for once has been distinctly refreshing.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Was Quirrel ever possessed by Jack?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]You know the answer to that one.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: The man possessing my teacher did kill my mother - I was right about that.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]The wrong mother, but it was an astute observation.
You might have been great friends with Lily Potter.
I say this without irony - it is a deep shame that her death is required for the preservation of the Alpha Timeline.
She would have been brilliant.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Did you manipul8 her too?
TT: Sorry, manipulate. Typo.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]I've manipul8ted nobody.
Typo.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: You're omniscient.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]Yes.
Was your own mother not one to make ironic typos?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Low fucking blow.
TT: Why am I still talking to you?
TT: This is just a dream. [/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]Yes.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Do you have any more important information to give me?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]No.
The time isn't right.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Fuck you.
TT: The information you gave us last time led to Dave and I creating the source of your power.
TT: And, of course, our immediate deaths. Turns out children aren't meant to survive in the epicenter of a semi-magical nuclear fusion blast strong enough to create a star. [/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]Language, Ms. Lalonde.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Forgive me for being uncharitable, Doctor, but I can't help but feel like the entire situation I'm in is your fault.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]You were but a child when I spoke to you.
You're a whole sweep younger now.
Younger bodies deserve rest. [/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Do you know how creepy that sounds?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]It's not creepy.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Yes, it is.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]No it's not.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: We did this already.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]No, we didn't.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: I'm not engaging with this anymore.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#FFFFFF]I did say that I had no more important information to tell you. Go to sleep.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Ugh.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
Rose switched tabs to Jade's message - she could forgo looking into the crystal ball that a salamander was desperately trying to give her. She remembered what came next. Might as well see this dream return to some semblance of what she remembered happening.
[QUOTE][COLOR=#b536da]TT: Sorry for the delayed response.
TT: Answering seems to be what to do right now.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#4ac925]CB: роуз боже!
CB: наконец-то
CB: ты похоже полностью поглощена тем что ты там делаешь на своём компьютере...
CB: ты с кем-то говорила?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: Um.
TT: Fuck me, I guess.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#4ac925]CB: аллё?
CB: роуз?[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#b536da]TT: I don't know why my dream decided you were suddenly Russian, but for the sake of my poor, addled young mind, I'm going to just... move on to the part where I go on a self-destructive rampage.
TT: See you around, Jade.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#4ac925]CB: ладно поговорим потом тогда
CB: увидимся, когда тебя увижу[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
Rose leaned over to the babbling consort by her side and grabbed the familiar cue ball.
When Rose woke up again, she wasn't shocked to see her friends and family. The familiar warmth of her loved ones enveloped her. All of the Slytherin girls were there - worry and relief in their eyes - as well as Dave and Hermione, who both looked fine. Roxy was there too, and there was a deeply familiar parental glint in her eyes.
However, she was [I]extremely baffled[/I] as to the presence of one man in the room: the CEO of Skaiatech, famed adventurer and explorer, adoptive brother to Jane and ectobiological grandfather to Jade and John - Jake Harley. Indeed, it seemed like she wasn't the only person who couldn't stop staring at the old man. Tracey kept glancing back and forth between her roommate and her childhood hero.
"Bloody hell, all," said Jake. "Give the girl some room."
"Hi," said Rose. "That was a fun time, wasn't it?"
"Rose, you blooming idiot!" shrieked Pansy. "We woke up and you were missing, and then you were in hospital, and Pomfrey wouldn't let us see you-"
"Calm, children!" snapped Jake. "Lordy almighty I'dve hoped this school would have taught you all some flipping fucking bedside manners but apparently you all can go and shout whatever you want at the girl who saved the world!"
Jake Harley was an older man, though younger than Rose remembered him. He was tall, and moustached. His eyes were barely visible through the thick corrective lenses he was wearing.
He was of course dressed head to toe in the same kind of protective gear one would need to face beasts in the Amazon, let alone a school in Scotland.
"How did you get here?" asked Rose. "I thought you were busy exploring the unexplored, or with CEO duties, or whatever richer older men do with their free time. Shuffleboard? Croquet? What's 'in' with the geriatrics?"
"Skaiatech has been selling especially well with a very small section of the British population," said Jake, ignoring her attempt at humor, "so I got an invite from the local government to visit. Little did I expect to hear about a freaking warlord, let alone that you defeated one on your lonesome!"
Rose thought back to her dream. "Not on my lonesome," she said. "I wasn't the only person who defeated him."
"Well, yes, the brave sacrifices of the wizardy heroes, yes."
For some reason Rose wasn't in a rush to correct Jake about which defeat she was talking about - let alone that there were multiple defeats.
"Well," said Rose. "Is there anything you wanted to..."
Jake cleared his throat. "Yes, of course, there is the small matter of reimbursement..."
[I]"Reimbursement?"[/I]
"Yes. After a thorough internal investigation, I was displease to have discovered that young Dirk had taken many invaluable items from Skaianet's research facilities, and that you and he continued to profit off of those items, including but not limited to-"
"Are you [I]kidding me?"[/I] Rose scoffed. The [I]audacity[/I].
"Afraid not, my dear! Business is an expensive business, and all that."
"He took our phones a few minutes ago," confirmed Millie. "Said they were company property."
"I thought Roxy had cleared our use of the phones and stuff!" exclaimed Rose.
Jake seemed to have been taken off guard.
"Roxy?" he asked.
"...Roxy," confirmed Rose. "You know, my ectomom? Your employee?"
"Roxy, Roxy... Ah! The babysitter!" Old man Harley seemed to be very excited that he remembered the existence of the girl he'd raised like a daughter.
"...the babysitter, yeah," confirmed Rose.
"Well, if it is all authorized," said Jake, "I suppose I'll return the phones then."
"Yeah," said Millie.
"Quite right," said Jake.
He uncaptchalogued the phones and placed them on Rose's bed.
"Go ahead," said Jake. "My apologies for the inconvenience."
The girls took their phones. Even Tracey, starstruck as she was, seemed a little put out by the ordeal.
"Yes, well, then," said Jake. "If it's all in order then no reimbursement is needed."
"Wonderful," said Rose weakly.
"I'll be off then."
"Bye," said Rose.
He left.
"I... was in the room the whole time," said Roxy.
"I know," said Millie, scoffing. "Tracey, you [I]like[/I] that man?"
"...Don't meet your heroes, I guess," said Tracey after a silence.
Roxy took the opportunity to push through the crowd, and sat down on the edge of Rose's bed.
"Sorry about the bossman, heh. He can be like that sometimes."
"Roxy..." Rose began.
"Hey," said Roxy. "This isn't about Jake Harley. Let's agree to not talk about him today, okay? From what I heard you were very brave."
"It was fine," said Rose. "The worst part was the shapeshifting monster that could see your worst fear and become it."
Roxy didn't press the issue further. Rose took Roxy's hand in her own and squeezed it.
"I'm glad you're here, Mom."
"I'm glad I'm here too, sweetheart."
"Oi!"
Everyone turned to face the door.
Hulking in the doorframe, barely able to squeeze through, was the groundskeeper, Hagrid.
"Lil' Potter! I'd heard you were all injured n' the like, so I thought I'd stop by, but seems like there's quite a gatherin' already, ain't there? I'll come back later."
"No, Hagrid," said Rose. "You can come."
"Er, I wanted ter give ya a gift, but it was a little personal."
"Rose," said Daphne. "We'll come back later."
"Sounds good," said Rose.
The Slytherin girls filed out. Millie hugged Roxy(?!) and Tracey side-eyed Rose, but they left without much of a fuss. Dave, Roxy, and Hermione remained.
"So, er, this gift is kind of personal," said Hagrid, gesturing at the room.
"It's fine, they're my family, or close enough to it that the specific label doesn't matter," said Rose. "What is it?"
"Oh, alrighty then," said Hagrid, though he seemed somewhat uncomfortable, side-eyeing Hermione. "I just wanted ter give yeh this."
Hagrid removed from a pocket in his massive coat a somewhat rectangular box, wrapped in parchment and twine. Rather than try and make his way through the room, he handed it to Roxy, who handed it to Dave, who passed it to Hermione, who finally actually had to walk a few steps to hand it to Rose.
Rose undid the packaging to find a photo album with two strangers waving back at her.
"They're yer parents," said Hagrid. "James n' Lily. Brightest minds of their generation, they were."
She flipped the album open to a random page. There were her birth parents in this world, apparently, even though she looked nothing like the genetic child of Lily and James Potter.
Hell, she looked nothing like the smiling baby in the photograph. For one, the baby's skin wasn't literally paper-white like hers was.
Hagrid craned his head.
"That's a good picture, that one, o' the whole smilin' family!"
The baby gurgled and stuck its fingers in its mouth.
Hagrid continued on. "We hadn't known ye were a girl quite yet, yer fambly were quite protective of lettin' you have that experience ter find your gender out on yer own, and of course by the time yer parents went into hidin' yer skin started turnin' white - not that I were there to witness it, no, that'd defeat the whole purpose o' goin' into hidin'!"
There was a lot to unpack in that statement, and Rose chose to ignore the entirety of it.
She turned the page again.
"That's you with yer godfather Sirius, before he turned yer parents over to the Dark Lord," said Hagrid. "Was a real debate fer me as to whether or not to include it considering he then went on to murder ten Muggles in the street, but I thought it was important fer the sake of history."
The long-haired man in the image held the baby and smiled for the camera, but he kept sneaking glances at the baby in his arms, his face melting a little.
Rose hadn't thought it was possible for Hagrid's prior statement about her parents to be one-upped in confusingness, but here she was, confused.
Even her internal monologue was practically incomprehensible. Rose shook her head.
"Thank you, Hagrid," said Rose. "It's a very thoughtful gift."
"Well, a thoughtful gift fer a thoughtful kid, is what I always say," say Hagrid. He smiled, and his voice softened. "Yeh mean a lot to everyone around you, Rose. An' I don't mean just killing You-Know-Who, though you did a right fine job with that."
Hagrid gestured broadly, almost hitting the wall with his hand.
"I see around here all these people who care about yeh, Rose. You've got a blessed life, to have a family, even after yer first one got taken away from yeh."
Rose's attention was captured by sniffles from the other side of the room.
"Dave, are you crying?"
"No!"
"Yes!" said Roxy. "He totally is!"
"You are too!"
"Okay, and?" Roxy laughed a watery laugh. "Doesn't prove me wrong!"
Rose realized she had no choice.
"Everyone come here," she said. "Group hug."
"Even-"
"You too, Hagrid. And Hermione, that should go without saying."
Everyone gathered around Rose's bed, and she spread her arms out, gathering her family as close as she could.
Perhaps inviting Hagrid was a mistake, because he squeezed tightly enough that Madam Pomfrey had to officially shoo everyone out of the room out of concern for Rose's health, but still.
There was a spark of warmth in her that she'd not truly felt in months.
Rose wrapped the invisibility cloak around the part of her body under the blanket, and slowly drifted off to sleep.
The next two full years of school were utterly unremarkable, by magic school standards.
There were no major incidents. No close calls with death. Well, there [I]was[/I] Quidditch, but Rose didn't play, and Quidditch players seemed to practically become cartoon characters with the way they shrugged off injury. Thank the gods for specialized medicine, Rose guessed.
Rose simply attended magic school. Learned spells. Passed classes. 'Nuff said.
Towards the end of her third year at school, an unfamiliar letter and package arrived by owl during breakfast. Some instinct told her to wait to open the package until she was alone, so she added it to her sylladex and didn't think about it until that night, when she had a moment to herself.
Once she was in her room (the rest of her-dormmates all busy), she examined the letter and package. Aside from the scrawled "Rose Potter," on the letter there were no hints as to the sender.
She decided to read the letter first. It read as such:
[I]Hullo, Rose.
[S]You don't know me, but I know[/S]You might not remember me, but I'm your godfather, Sirius Black. I know people said I was a murderer, but that's [S]a load of horsesh[/S] not true.
Today I got out of jail because [S]those motherf[/S] the people in charge realized I didn't kill any innocent people. They didn't catch the guy who did it, but he's been exposed. So it's going to be alright.
I've been reading about you in the papers - is it true you're near the top of your class? James and Lily would have been so proud - and I [/I]am[I] proud!
I'm going to meet you over the summer once you get out of school, but here is a gift I found in a secondhand store. You had one just like this when you were a kid, but it didn't have the same enhancements to it, but, whatever.
Hope you like it, and see you soon.
With love,
Sirius Black[/I]
Hesitantly, Rose turned her attention to the package. The box was small, but not too small - Rose estimated she could fit a few pairs of clothes within it, though they'd have to be folded quite tightly. The box was wrapped in brown paper, and held together with twine.
With a flick of her wand and a muttered incantation, the twine untied itself, and the paper fell to the ground. Another swish of the wand and the top of the box opened up. Rose gazed inside.
Staring back at the Seer was Liv Tyler, the bunny.
Rose-
She hadn't-
Rose hadn't expected this, but perhaps she should have. After all, the two people who had been plucked from death and reborn in the UK were the two people who were present for the creation of the Green Sun. Who's to say that robot companions didn't get to come with, as well?
Hell, maybe Derse's moon was around here somewhere. Some of the gothic cathedrals across Europe reminded her a little too much of certain details of Dersite architecture, minus the purple. Who knows? Maybe that came along as well, just several hundred years back instead of the few decades early that Rose arrived in time.
What the fuck were the rules? Why did the stuffed robot bunny with the eyepatch get to show up, but not John or Jade? Why was it that she had to live with just-slightly-unfamiliar versions of her loved ones, had to be deprived of those whose friendship she was only truly beginning to value as it was taken away, to be left only with her brother, and now, a bunny, a bunny who was only here because it was at the right place at the right time?
Why [I]her? Why was Rose Potter the Girl-Who-Lived?[/I]
The bunny, nonplussed, climbed out of the box and began to walk around the dormitory.
"Hey," said Rose.
The bunny turned around.
Rose's mind went blank for a moment as she tried to think of something to say.
"...Where have you been?" she finally settled on.
The bunny shrugged.
"Do you want me to get you a map of the area?" she offered.
The bunny shook its (her?) head, and instead chose to return to the self-guided tour of Rose's dorm that she was giving herself.
"Erm, that's Pansy's bed," she said, indicating the bed that Liv was staring at. "Pansy Parkinson. We've been roommates since year one. She's interested in theater, you see, so those aren't real people - I go to a magic school. They've got enchanted posters, and that's the Grand London Magic Troupe."
Liv Tyler pointed at another bed.
"Daphne Greengrass," explained Rose. "Her bed isn't made right now because she's trying to figure out a bed-making charm, and it's been going haywire. If you get too close to the blankets right now they'll probably try to strangle you so be aware of that. Next to her is Milicent Bulstrode, ignore the portrait that she hung up of her mother and the portrait will ignore you, and the other bed belongs to Tracey Davis, and yeah, that's a poster of Knuckles the Echidna." Rose shrugged. "Sonic 3 just came out a few months ago in the UK, so she's understandably excited."
Finally, Liv Tyler made her way to Rose's bed, and gestured at it.
"That's my bed," explained Rose.
Liv stared as if she was expecting more.
It suddenly occurred to Rose that she hadn't taken the opportunity, any time within the last three years of schooling, to decorate her space in the dorm at all.
"I sleep there?" she tried.
If it was possible for an unmoving stitched face to look disappointed, that expression sat on Liv Tyler's robo-bunny face right now.
"I'm sorry," said Rose. "It's just that- it's hard to find time to engage with hobbies like I used to. School is just..."
She gestured weakly.
The bunny didn't argue, mostly because it possessed no text synthesis output, and started to exit the dorm.
Well, what's the harm in showing a robot bunny around a magic school? After all, they were going to be leaving for the summer in only a few days. Finals were done.
She could afford to indulge.
The bunny accompanied Rose back home. Rose had a feeling she wouldn't be able to get rid of the damn thing even if she wanted to, which she really, really, didn't want to.
She hadn't even shown Liv Tyler to Dave. Part of her recognized her selfishness, but the other part wanted to greedily hoard the bunny she'd grown up with, the bunny she'd assumed her mother got her. (As events during the game revealed, it was actually John who'd gifted the oily bunny to her as a baby. She'd planned to give him a slightly altered version of the bunny for his thirteenth birthday, but this new information turned a heartfelt hand-altered present into a bit of a weak regifting.)
(As her emotions stood, however, she still considered this to be an heirloom from her mother, an heirloom that was now walking and talking as if they'd not been separated from each other by multiple lifetimes on the bunny's part.)
Liv tried not to make a nuisance of herself within the house. Rose appreciated that - while she could obviously "take care" of the Dursleys with some needle-based (rather than regulated, wand-based) magic, she preferred to avoid confrontation with her new guardians when she could.
Frequently, during a long summer night, Rose would be reading a book on her bed, or penning a letter, or struggling to beat Sonic 3 (Sega Mega Drive provided courtesy of Tracey, of course), and she'd hear the window open, Liv Tyler having climbed back inside the house.
Liv tried not to make a nuisance of herself [I]within[/I] the house. Whatever she was doing outside of the house, Rose actively tried to not know about it.
Around the end of the first month of summer, Sirius Black arrived at the Dursley doorstep.
"Rose!"
[I]What was it now?[/I] By now, the fourteen-year-old girl was fairly certain she'd successfully pavlov'd her guardian into not contacting her unless it was an emergency.
Sighing, Rose put down her knitting, kicked off the invisibility cloak she was using as a blanket, and headed downstairs.
There was a man in the foyer.
Sirius Black blinked at Rose, as if he wasn't sure she was there.
"Rose," growled Petunia. "Please remove this man from my house."
"Who is he?" asked Rose, because she didn't recognize the face.
"A serial killer," spat Petunia.
"[I]Exonerated[/I] serial killer," clarified Sirius with a grin. "The only thing I killed were my own hopes and dreams!"
"That's extremely depressing," said Rose. "Why don't you come in for tea?"
"No!" Petunia held out her hand. "You are not to step [I]foot[/I] in this house! Go to a café."
They went to a café.
"So," said Rose, once their orders were placed. "I got your letter, but there was no return address."
"Oh," said Sirius. "Yeah, I was kind of displaced around then. Wrote that letter from the temporary housing they gave me while my old place got cleaned."
"Old place?"
Sirius shrugged. "Haunted family home. Everyone else is dead, I think, so I legally own it, but I couldn't exactly hire a maid in prison."
An intrusive image of John Egbert in a maid dress flashed in Rose's head, before she managed to clear it away.
"What kind of hauntings?"
"Can we cut the small talk?" interrupted Sirius. "Sorry, I don't care about the hauntings at Grimmauld Place, and if we're being real, I don't think you care about them either."
Rose [I]was[/I] actually mildly interested in the hauntings, but it was more that she had forgotten how to have a normal conversation during the long isolation of the summer.
"Okay," said Rose.
"It's just-" and here Sirius paused, and lowered his voice. "Prison is kind of awful, if you didn't know. Magic prison even moreso."
"I would assume that that would be the case."
"They didn't let me hear about you," he said. "I asked. I asked a [I]lot.[/I] But they try to get to your happy memories. Losing you was not a happy memory, and so I got to keep it."
A waiter put their orders down on the table in front of them - chocolate cake and hot cocoa for Sirius, and some tea and biscuits for Rose.
The man sitting across from Rose took out his wand and muttered a spell above the drink. The steam Rose had seen rising from the mug slowed down.
"Cooling spell," said Sirius. "My god, it feels good to do magic again. They've got me on probation, so it's household charms and apparition only for now, but you can do a [I]lot[/I] with household charms and apparition." He sipped from the mug, and grunted affirmatively. "Good drink, too."
"How did you know my parents?" asked Rose.
"I was your dad's best friend since Hogwarts," said Sirius. "We lived together, studied together, and when the war came, we fought together."
"Oh," said Rose. "And my mother?"
"She came as a package deal with yer da'," said Sirius. He used his fork to take a bite of cake. "This is so good, by the way. Have you had any of your order yet?"
Rose hadn't, and, out of social obligation, took a sip of tea.
It was good tea.
She stirred her tea with a biscuit as she asked Sirius, "So where did you find Liv?"
"Liv?"
"The bunny," she said.
He shrugged. "Secondhand store."
There was a moment of silence as Rose took a bite of the biscuit.
"Why are you really here?" she asked.
Sirius stared, as if the answer couldn't be more obvious.
"To check up on you, kiddo," he said. "You're family."
"And then?"
"Find out how you're doing. Ask you about your day. I dunno. Whatever godfathers are supposed to do, I guess."
Rose shifted in her seat.
"I wouldn't know," she said. "The question leaves me confused. The role of godfather is one given to older men, traditionally, and I've been socialized almost exclusively around preteen girls. I never really had any opportunity to see a godfather in action, either - Hogwarts doesn't have visitor days, as I'm sure you're aware, and the potential brief glimpses of godfatherly activity I could've gotten at platform nine and three quarters weren't exactly my priority, you see."
Sirius's eyebrows furrowed.
"I had to get my trunk from the train," explained Rose, unhelpfully. "So I wasn't studying godfathers."
"I suppose that makes two confused people, then," said Sirius. "You're not what I expected."
"How so?"
"I dunno," said Sirius. "Just different. I'd be comparing you to one of your parents, but my mind is fucked, if you pardon the French, and I don't really remember them clearly enough, as much as it really fucking hurts to say that."
Rose grunted in affirmation, a bite of delicious biscuit in her mouth.
"Dementors," said Sirius. "Not even once."
He took a big swig of hot chocolate, and stood up from the table. Sirius craned his head to look across the street from the cafe, his face away from Rose.
"Where are you going?" asked Rose.
"Dunno," said Sirius. "Probably home for the day."
"Do you have a job?"
"Not really," admitted Sirius. "Been in talks with Dumbledore about maybe teaching a class when I'm in a better place emotionally but I'm kind of a wreck right now if you couldn't tell." He finished his sentence with a shaky, barked laugh. "Though it was nice seeing you, Rose."
"We can do this again," Rose offered. "My summer is pretty empty."
"Yeah," said Sirius, turning back to her. She wasn't entirely sure, but she had the feeling Sirius was on the verge of crying. "I'm going to head home, though."
"Sounds good," said Rose. "Let me know, owl me, or whatever. Do you have a phone?"
"No," he said. "We can work that out next time."
"Okay," said Rose.
They left the cafe, and Sirius separated from Rose, and she watched him as he walked into an alleyway. Then there was a loud [I]crack.[/I]
Rose rushed to the alley she'd seen him walk into, but he was gone.
Wizard teleportation. Apparition. Right.
Rose sighed, metaphorically thumbed her strife deck (feeling the cool imprint of the needlewands in her metaphorical hands), and turned towards Privet Drive.
A week before school began, Rose got another letter. It read as such:
[COLOR=#f2a400][QUOTE]Hey.
First of all, congrats on getting to fourth year. Personal best for being in school, right? What, you'd gotten to seventh, eighth grade by 2009? Either way, nice going. Hogwarts isn't the best school, but it's definitely not the worst - even though I think I might end up homeschooling Dave.
Oh, yeah, the reason I started writing this letter. I'm heading to the states this year. Your mom's probably coming with me, just for organization's sake. Obviously, it's 1995. You might be wondering, hey, what the fuck, didn't I get born in 1996 last time around? The answer is yeah, theoretically, but all of Harley's research indicates that it's this year, not next year, that your baby selves arrive on the planet. Timetable's been moved up, so we've gotta start setting up actual habitable locations for baby-you and baby-Dave. Then a few months for baby-John, by the summer, and I'll probably want to invite you to Jane's funeral when she dies.
Don't worry about her, by the way. She's been preparing for this meteor all her life, even if it's a decade early. And, anyway, she comes back in a decade or so. It'll be fine.
Most parents have a couple months to set up cribs 'n shit for their kids. Sure, it's true that Roxy and I graduated school last year. Are we ready for parenting?
[I]Fuck[/I] no. But it's going to... well, I dunno.
I'd like to say I have a good feeling about it, but I can't help but remember the past three years I've spent with you and your brother. Dave and I... it's hard for him. Because of what his older brother did.
Because of what I'm probably going to do.
Some things are still so unclear. How much do we even have to follow continuity from your memories? Were you supposed to be here, in the timeline? Is it someone's fault that the meteors are early? If not, if this is how things are meant to happen, does that mean that you grew up in a world where, somewhere out there, a different Rose, Rose Potter, just kind of thrived somewhere else in the world?
I'm really not sure. It fucking pains me to admit how much I don't actually know about Paradox Space. And I'm not about to fucking ask the old man.
Maybe the uncertainty is better.
On the other hand, I lost Cal. No fucking clue where he is - not even anything close to a lead on his location. And Dave made it clear that he remembers having grown up with the puppet.
I don't think that that's going to happen.
So maybe the loop won't be closed. I dunno. It's called Paradox Space for a reason - maybe there will be a paradox after all. Maybe your mom and I will be fucking competent this time.
I guess we'll see, right?
Attached to this letter is stuff I think might help you this year. I'm obviously not in the country right now (checking out apartments in Texas on the phone as I write this letter), so you'll be on your own this year for supplies.
I will say that I did hear some rumors about a Hogwarts festival from some school friends. Something about a tournament, I dunno. Either way, don't think about joining the Quidditch team this year, because it's cancelled for whatever the fuck it is.
Good luck out there, Lalonde.
-DS[/QUOTE][/COLOR]
The letter included some fireproofing cream, some gillyweed, a how-to guide on Portkeys, and a review of certain magical traps for mazes.
Rose had absolutely no fucking idea how she'd be utilizing any of this.
As it turned out, she wouldn't need to - Dirk had gotten his information slightly wrong.
"So this year, we are proud to announce - the newest, semi-semi-semi-annual, safer and re-regulated, internationally cooperative, Triwizard Tournament!"
Dumbledore clapped his hands together as he finished his sentence, and the students in the Great Hall followed his example.
Eventually he put his hands up, and the room quieted down. "Some of you may have considered, however," he said, "that many events traditionally taking place during a Triwizard Tournament would take place upon a Quidditch Pitch. Unfortunately, I regret to announce that due to the tournament, Quidditch events will not be taking place this year."
Boos. He was met with boos from all four houses. Rose was surprised to note that even her usually disinterested roommates were sticking their thumbs down in the direction of the Head Table.
The headmaster, ever the skilled crowd-controller, held up a hand again, calling for silence.
"Because ceasing student sports activity for all but a single school representative would be an outrage," said Dumbledore, and Rose saw a few nods, especially from the Gryffindor table across the room, "we and the Triwizard Committee have restructured the tournament almost entirely! Greater participation, greater excitement, and, of course, great fun for all."
Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling brightly.
"The school will be hosting seven Triwizard Tournaments at once."
And at [I]that[/I] announcement, the room [I]really[/I] erupted.
This was going to be an interesting year.