Rating: E. It's not that rating in the beginning, but it's going to get there, so might as well put it now so everyone knows what they're getting into.
Tags: Foreknowledge, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Sass, Banter, Seriously OP main character, Sorry Not Sorry, Self-Insert/OC – Freeform, More OC Than Self-Insert, this is my sandbox, Main Character Adapts Fast, Magic, Gamer!OC, The Gamer, Snakes, Parseltongue, Seer, Metamorphmagus, Harry Potter Has a Twin (more tags will be added as the story progresses).
Author's Note: … Hi there. Yes, this is a Harry Potter SI/OC fanfiction, in fact, it's a complete rework of my very first published fanfiction The Bonds That Shape Us. I honestly couldn't keep writing that version anymore, however, as I realised that I had written that series' Evelyn as though she was an insert when she wasn't… she just knew stuff was happening without much context. Anyway. This is a complete rework of that series but also vastly different, there are some things that are the same but everything else is new and different.
One of those things being, if you've read the tags, this series Evelyn is 'The Gamer'. I'm not sorry, I love RPGs and 'The Gamer' types of stories. Hopefully, I can write this in a way that works and that people like, but I'm having fun writing this and I think it's working myself so… we shall see. This series also has a lot of my personal loves in it, such as name meanings and constellations and stars, those types of things. A lot of research has gone into this, but if you see something wrong, please let me know. Onwards!
Modus Vivendi
Chapter One
Vagary
an unexpected and inexplicable change in a situation or in someone's behaviour
(Tuesday the 7th of February, 1984. The Smallest Room, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, England.)
(There's a woman with vibrant red hair that flows over her shoulders, who smiles so bright as she smothers a dark-haired baby with kisses and proclaims them as her little princess. A woman who's bright green eyes fill with terror and determination, as tears threaten to overflow as she runs from the flash of green. She leaves kisses on their heads one last time as she places them into their shared cot and tells them that they are loved. Then a droplet of crimson lands on the floor with a shallow splash as she pricks her finger with a needle.
And for a second, hundreds of drawings, on each and every surface of the shared nursery light up like a beacon as the stairs creak. It all still fades to black with a flash of green.
There's a man with round, wireframe glasses and warm hazel eyes, who laughs a booming laugh as he spins a dark-haired baby through the air and proclaims that they'll be on a broom in no time at all. A man who doesn't hesitate when there was a deafening bang, the door exploding inwards. He only has one goal in mind, two little dark-haired babies safe and sound. It doesn't matter to him at all if he isn't around to see them grow, as long as they are safe.
His hand tightens around the grasp of his wand but it all still fades to black with a flash of green.)
She blinked her eyes open, the vestige of deep, heavy sleep insistently tugged at her mind as she struggled to shake away the cobwebs lingering from her unfamiliar yet familiar dream that reminded her of something that she just couldn't place her finger on even though it was just right there, that little bit out of reach.
Then she just sort of stared.
She blinked again, hoping for some sort of clarity to come bursting through her hazy thoughts.
No, still there.
There was a ceiling above her, painted a dark blue, but not the midnight blue she had painted her own so many months ago. In fact, everything about the room she was in was varying shades of blue. The painted walls, the carpeted floor, even the bedding on the oak wood bed. Wherever she was, it most certainly was not her own room.
(Her room had been shades of walnut furniture, with a wooden floor and a midnight blue ceiling with constellations painted across it. It had taken her months to do.)
Moving felt strangely sluggish and was a wholly uncoordinated experience as she struggled to lift herself up onto her elbows, trying to get her thoughts into some semblance of order, struggling to remember where she was. What had happened to her? She looked about the room, trying to place it. Her memory was fuzzy. Had she fallen asleep wearing her glasses again? It would explain why everything seemed so visible; however, she could feel neither the usual weight of them on her face nor see the blur of frames.
A game. Why was that the only thing spinning about in her head? A game. She had agreed to play some sort of game. That was the only thought that was very clear in her mind. What type of game she had no idea, as she didn't know of any games that led to being in a room she didn't recognise?
Maybe this was just another dream, a strangely vivid dream within a dream, but a dream none the less. Even though she couldn't remember actually falling asleep. Actually, never mind that, she couldn't even remember what she had done yesterday at all now that she thought about it. From start to finish the day was a void. She shook her head in confusion. Exactly what had she done yesterday? She frowned for a moment and focused, struggling to dredge up anything about the last twenty-four hours as she flopped back down on her back.
Oh. That's right. She had died.
She cursed as she jerked upwards in surprise. A patchwork blanket tangled itself about her legs and she went rolling over the side of the small, rather lumpy bed she had awoken in. Her forehead ricocheted off the floor and she tumbled onto several toys that had been scattered across the floor rather painfully. She groaned at the feel of a train in her back before pulling herself up to sit on the cluttered floor only to then freeze, eyes growing wide as an unexpected obstruction invaded her vision.
The obstruction in question was a box; green, semi-transparent, with white text.
Critical Hit! -15HP
HP: 160 / 175
[Eureka! They say a hit to the head can make a genius; they were right. Your INT has increased by 1]
[Due to afflicting pain upon yourself, a new skill has been created and added to your list]
[Physical Endurance] [Lv.: 1] [PP to next Lv.: 95]
[Passive]
Increases physical endurance, decreasing damage from physical attacks by 3%
] - - - [
She stared. When it refused to go away on its own, she found the [X] in the upper right-hand corner of the window and tapped. Then she froze again after noting the size of her hands. Hands that were not the size of hands belonging to an adult. A feeling of trepidation began to crawl up her spine as something dreadfully heavy settled at the bottom of her stomach. It had hurt when she had fallen off the bed, rightly too, as she was fairly certain that she had fallen onto some Legos in the mix of all the other broken garbage thrown about the room.
'Lucid dreams hurt, right?'
She looked about the room, taking in the fine layer of dust that seemed to cling to just about every surface there was. The room was a mess, cluttered with broken toys and furniture. There was a bookcase lodging dusty books that looked like they had never been touched, what looked like a bent air rifle under the bed and beside the single wardrobe sat a big-bodied television with a broken screen that looked like someone had jammed their foot through it.
A tall, broken mirror rammed into the far corner, wedged between the wardrobe and the end of the bed she had tumbled off then caught her attention and she shuffled closer. It looked as though something had been thrown into the top half of it, shattering the glass but not rendering it unusable, and she was immediately caught off guard by the green eyes that were just that little bit too vibrant, just that little bit too bright and framed by thick black lashes. Dark hair fell to her shoulders with the slightest of curls, but she was still focused on the eyes.
She paused, taking in the baby fat that clung to her cheeks and the fact that she was three foot at a stretch before her attention focused back on the eyes as she struggled to figure out just what they reminded her of before it suddenly popped into her head. The brilliant green meteor that had been pictured lighting up a small town in the mountains of India.
She really liked these eyes; they would give anyone a pause.
Then with a blink, she noticed a piece of paper that was suddenly stuck to the frame of the mirror, a piece of paper which hadn't been there before she had closed her eyes. She reached out with tiny, childlike fingers and pulled. It was written on paper a rich emerald green, and the words seemed to have been printed in a font that reminded her of Harry Potter.
Welcome, Gamer!
You have been randomly selected as the lucky player that gets to experience a once in a lifetime experience in the World of Magic!
Good Luck!
Just as she had finished reading the last word, but before she had even taken in what it all meant, the paper then shattered into pixels before disappearing into the ether. She stared at her hands in utter disbelief as her mind raced to absorb what she had just found out. She was half tempted to slap herself across the face. This… world couldn't be what she thought it was, could it? Because if it was, then her new eyes were reminding her of something else entirely, something that she remembered from her dream.
Or was it a memory?
The sinking feeling in her stomach was back and materialised even further.
'Shit.'
She stared at her new self in the mirror, at the eyes that were even brighter than the woman in the dream's had been. She couldn't think of any way to explain the fact that she'd not gotten Lily Evans' emerald eyes, but emeralds that looked as if they'd been dropped into liquefied killing curse. Her mother's eyes and not. Because that was who had been in her dream, memory, whatever, in that familiar and unfamiliar scenery the night the Potters had gone up against Voldemort for the last time.
But, even as her mind raced at the fact that she was a Potter, she couldn't help but smile at the fact that she seemed to be a blend of both of this body's parents. It was a little something to remember them by when she looked in the mirror. Something to remember the parents that had given their lives for a child that wasn't their daughter, not really.
[Due to the continuous observation of your surroundings, a new skill has been created and added to your list]
[Observe] [Lv.: 1] [PP to next Lv.: 90]
[Active]
A skill which allows the user to gather detailed information about persons, landmarks and items. The higher the level of this skill, the greater the data obtained
] - - - [
She blinked, before remembering that game mechanics were also a part of her world now. She then paused as a thought occurred to her. 'Universal commands are universal…' Running through her options, she picked the one that might just tell her the most. "Character? No. Stats? Ah-ha!"
(Her voice broke halfway through the sentence. Seemed like voice exercises were needed.)
] – Status – [
Name: Evelyn Rose Potter [Lv.: 0] [Exp to next Lv.: 1000]
Age: 3
Class: The Gamer
Title: Orphan
HP: 175 / 175 (0.02/s)
MP: 111 / 111 (0.02/s)
STR: 1 / VIT: 2
DEX: 2 / AGI: 1
INT: 15 / WIS: 12
CHA: 0 / LUK: 1
Stat Points: 0
Currency: £0 / ʛ0
Defining Traits
[ - Potter Origins* - ] [ - ]
25% PP towards Potioneering
+1 DEX and 2 CHA per Level
[ - Evans Origins* - ] [ - ]
Gain an additional +2 skill points for every skill book read and an additional +1 ability point for every ability bonus book read
+1.5 INT and 1.5 WIS per Level
[ - Gamer's Body - ] [ - ]
Grants a body that allows one to live life like a game. After sleeping in a bed, HP and MP will be completely restored and most status ailments will be cured
[ - Gamer's Mind - ] [ - ]
Allows one to calmly and logically think things through
Allows peaceful state of mind
[The Gamer] is immune to all mental disorders
] - - - [
'Hm.'
She rested her chin on her raised fist as she stared at the screen before her, fairly surprised by what the game had already given her. The bonuses from her father's origins while were nice, they weren't extra points like her mothers. She could already imagine all the hours she was about to spend in the local library. She—
—oh right.
Evelyn. Her name was Evelyn now. She needed to internalise that.
Tapping a baby-sized finger against a fairly chubby cheek, Evelyn thought of all the possibilities her new ability had unexpectedly opened up for her. What would happen if she were to die in this world? She guessed it would really depend on the rules it was operating on, and the letter hadn't come with an instruction manual or guidebook.
Moving on, the fact that she had both Luck and Charisma confused her. Normally games she played that had a Luck score didn't then also have a Charisma score and vice versa. To have both… well, that just opened even more possibilities. She had once done a playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas where she had pumped everything into Luck.
It had made for an… interesting time to say the least.
Her stats themselves, now that she looked at them from a critical point of view, seemed to be leaning towards a magic build already. That was fine with her, she was in the world of magic, but she did typically play characters that were a mixed bag of tricks types and Evelyn wasn't seeing much reason why she couldn't do the same here too, what with the Charisma score. Her go too kind of character to play had always been a combination of rogue and mage; a bard, so to speak.
Able to talk their way out of any situation and encourage others with just their words? Check. Able to use a range of weapons, pickpockets and locks, and cast magic? Check.
She was going to make the most of her new life, one that played by video game rules and she was really good at exploiting those for all they were worth. The random glitches that hadn't been patched in forever that let you duplicate skill books? Places where you could fall through the world and skip a hard boss? She knew them all off by heart.
She almost made to rub her hands together like some evil genius but refrained. Barely.
All that seemingly sorted out in her head, Evelyn was just about to close the window so she could go explore the world and find out just when she was in the timeline when with a tilt of her head she realised that both her origin traits seemed to have little stars beside them. She tapped on the Potter one first and was rewarded with a small screen on top of her [Status] window. Without looking at it, she dragged it off to the side and then opened up the Evans one so that she could see them both side by side.
] – Potter Origins – [
Grants access to the Seer ability through Peverell lineage
Grants access to the Metamorphmagus ability through Black lineage
] - - - [
"What."
] – Evans Origins – [
Grants access to the Parselmouth ability through Slytherin lineage
] - - - [
"What."
Author's Note: Mwhaha, maximum power! I have a thing for making OP!OC-stories and then trying to make the story work around them in a way that makes it fun and work and doesn't seem like they just one-shot their way through the story. And, as you can see, this isn't the normal magic world we're used to it. It's full of headcanons and fanon!
I hope this doesn't turn you off from the story, but I get it if it does. It's not everyone's cup of tea. Also, yes, I know I haven't uploaded the new chapter of Through the Valley of Shadows yet but I'm having massive writer's block. It should be up by next month at the latest though!