Life was strange, Ophelia mused as she held hands with her mother and father as they went near the train departing for Hogwarts.
Ophelia would never tell anyone, but once upon a time, she'd lived a different life.
She had once been named Lily Evans. She had lived as a daughter of a different parents, lived as a younger sister to a jealous woman, lived as a wife of a man she'd once despised, lived as a mother to a son she'd died to protect.
She, Lily Evans, had died that day. She had given up her own life to protect her son. That's why when she found herself being born for the bloody second time, everything blurred together. Well, that, and she just stopped to understand what was going on. Nothing made sense, and so she let go trying to make it so.
From that day onward, she wasn't Lily Evans anymore. She was Ophelia Cassiopeia, adopted daughter of Ignatius and Lucretia Prewett. Ophelia was born to Ignatius Prewett's sister shortly before she died of Dragon Pox, on the thirty-first of January, 1960, just a day after Lily Evans was born.
It wasn't that surprising when being born a second time is possible, but the first time she found that she was in the past, she... well, she went numb for a day. She was just a four-year-old girl back then, innocently asking what year it was. Well, maybe not innocently, but she had asked her mother because it was her own birthday that day.
"Oh, dear, you didn't know? You turned four today. It's nineteen sixty-four."
Yes. Lucretia, her dear adopted mum, apparently didn't find it odd that her little girl suddenly grow still and not speaking a word for hours after hearing what the year was. Lucretia was like that, absent-minded and too gullible, and Ophelia learned to love her over the years. Anyway.
After that, Ophelia suddenly felt resigned. Magic was a wonderful thing, but apparently, it was also cruel to her. Maybe it was a comeuppance because she used a Dark blood ritual to protect her son? She didn't know. All she knew was that she didn't regret a thing.
"You have everything with you, right, dear?" Ophelia nodded. Lucretia frowned with worry. "Write us whenever you can."
"Of course, Mother."
Lucretia knelt down and embraced her daughter, which Ophelia appreciated. Purebloods weren't this affectionate in public, after all.
Ignatius rested his hand on his daughter's shoulder. "Take care, Ophelia. Do us proud."
"I will, Father."
As Ophelia Prewett stepped into the train that was going to take her to Hogwarts, a thought came to her.
Well, maybe she did regret a thing.
Staring back over her shoulder, Ophelia waved her parents goodbye.
It was this that she regretted.
Harry. Her son, Harry James Potter. She'd never see him off at the King Cross as a parent because she'd gotten herself killed.
As the train was departing, Ophelia mourned for what could have been if Voldemort never existed.