Author's Note: The timeline of this story is going to be slightly different from the original, due in part to some mistakes Rowling made, so expect things happening at times different times than they had originally.
Modus Vivendi
Chapter Two
Condemnant Quod Non Intellegunt
they condemn what they do not understand
(Tuesday the 7th of February, 1984. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, England.)
The seventh stair creaked slightly under purposefully light footfalls and Evelyn froze, before glancing down to glare at the carpeted salmon pink monstrosity beneath her. Thankfully, however, it seemed as though no-one else in the house had heard, masked as it was by the loud cartoons emanating from what she presumed was the living room. Hunched down into a crouch was a terrible way to go downstairs, but here she was like some peculiar squirrel as she tried to avoid detection from the unfriendly hostiles—her maternal family.
It had also given her the self-explanatory [Sneak] skill, so the crouched descent down the stairs continued.
Unsurprising the downstairs of the house was decorated much the same as the upstairs, in pastel shades of beige, peach and more salmon pink. Evelyn was barely able to contain the cringe that wanted to ripple out of her. She hated salmon pink nowadays. It was the colour everything had been in her room at the orphanage Before. Granted, she had been sharing a few with three other girls at the time, but she definitely remembered reading somewhere that pink had been a boy's colour once, and well, they could have it back.
The only thing that seemed to be prominent from the hallway was that her captives liked taking pictures. The wall opposite the staircase was covered in frames of all varying sizes, all of which depicted the Dursleys in some sort of perfect family lighting. There was not a single picture of her or Harry, but she hadn't been expecting much different. She and her twin were the smudges on the Dursley name that they no doubt wished they could blast off the map as Walburga Black did with the Black family tree.
'What does that look like now?' she wondered since the world had been shaken up with fanon like no-one's business. Or was it just her own personal headcanons? The Evans being related to Salazar Slytherin had been one she had read years ago and applied to her own vision of the world of magic… She would have to investigate that at a later date.
There was a half table nuzzled against the wall opposite the stairs where sat a telephone and a small pad of post-it notes. Every single pencil in the little pot next to them was sharpened to a fine point and in general, everywhere she looked was orderly and straight. She was mildly impressed, as it was no doubt hard to achieve with a family like the Dursleys.
She continued through the hallway, only to stop before the famous cupboard under the stairs which was opened the smallest of cracks. She peered through the gap and was surprised to find that there was no small cot sandwiched inside, only numerous pairs of stacked shoes, a couple rather ugly looking umbrellas and a few extra bits and bobs.
"Girl."
She paused.
The tone of thinly veiled disgust was not one she had much experience with, but she had dealt with enough bullies in her time that she managed a look of indifference as she turned towards her disgruntled caretaker, who was stood in the doorway leading into the kitchen. With the dull blonde hair and dishwater blue eyes, paired with the off-colour, cake-like foundation and the bright fuchsia painted lips it was no wonder that Petunia Dursley née Evans had been so jealous of her younger sister.
Especially with that neck. Rowling hadn't been joking around.
"I see that you've finally decided to grace us with your presence, so you can go help that brother of yours with breakfast."
Evelyn tilted her head slightly at the word choice but said nothing as she watched the hag turn on sharp heels and disappear into the living room which was through another doorway off to the side. She was guessing that the other door between it and the kitchen was a downstairs toilet. And with just the woman's appearance, she was able to determine that she was in the book-verse, and not the movies, which meant that considering she was three then it was either eighty-three or eighty-four, depending on how many months into three she was.
Before she hadn't even been born until the very end of the nineties and had grown up in early two thousand. It was a vastly different experience considering Evelyn had absolutely no clue on how to fully operate the telephone before her, all she knew was to spin the wheel to the number until it… clicked? No doubt she would say something about something or someone that hadn't yet happened too, so she also had that experience to look forward to.
Although if that did happen, she did have the excuse of saying that she had seen it in a vision—one of the perks of being a seer she guessed.
] - Quest Alert - [
(Lv.: 1) Breakfast at the Dursleys
It's time for feeding at the Zoo and as per usual, little Dudderkins and Papa Walrus need more food than an actual zoo.
Time to shake a tail feather and help your little brother with the cooking before he gets bacon grease over him.
Objectives:
0/10 Pieces of Bacon
0/7 Pancakes
0/5 Eggs
0/7 Pieces of Toast
0/2 Coffees
0/1 Orange Juice
0/5 Hash Browns
0/8 Sausages
Rewards:
100 EXP
1 Piece of Toast
1 Sausage
1 Piece of Bacon
£1.00
Failure:
No food
] - - - [
At the sight of the list of food that she and Harry were required to cook, Evelyn's jaw almost dropped. Then the last sentence of the quest description finally registered in her mind and she shot into the kitchen as though a dementor itself was behind her. The sight that greeted her made both her stomach drop and her heart jump up into her throat.
Wobbling on a tiny, broken stool with even more unstable toddler limbs, her little brother's squinted green eyes were just barely able to see over the hood of the cooker as he steered around the pieces of bacon sizzling in the pan. He wobbled again, and almost bought the pan with him, and Evelyn was removing him from the situation before he had even registered she had entered the room. She pried his hands from the panhandle and wrapped her arms under his armpits, carefully moving backwards until his feet touched the floor.
While the scene of Matilda cooking her own pancakes had been adorable to watch, seeing a similar scene happening before her very eyes with her own gender-bent version of the little magical girl had almost aged her ten years. Having a sibling to look after was going to be detrimental to her health, she could see the grey hairs already.
After a beaming smile so familiar to the one she had seen their father give in her dreams directed her way, Evelyn then suddenly found herself with an armful of weepy, happy, confused toddler and she blinked in surprise at the sudden change in situation, because why on earth was Harry now crying at the sight of her when he had been so happy two seconds before?
Through a messy combination of toddler speech and tears, she could just about piece together the story of what had happened before she had woken up. Apparently, the hag had gotten annoyed with something Harry had done during breakfast and had hit him over the head with a frying pan, and after seeing that, Evelyn had unleashed a blast of uncontrollable magic. Fast forward and Evelyn had landed herself in a deep sleep because of the strain the blast had put on her little body and off to sleep she went until the new Evelyn had woken up.
Apparently, that event had also led the Dursleys to move the twins from the cupboard under the stairs and up into Dudley's spare bedroom.
She struggled to hold the anger burning in her chest in check at the thought of tiny, underfeed Harry unconscious on the ground after being hit with a frying pan and she knew then and there that she had already somehow gotten far too attached to the little brother she had never had before and knew she would do anything to protect him from harm. Considering all the dangers she knew would befall him in the future she most certainly had her work cut out for her.
Luckily for her, she had the power of video game logic on her side.
Unfortunately, it didn't seem as though she also had the power of anime on her side too, but considering all the bonus powers being [The Gamer] gave her… she was fine without.
After a moment of soothing Harry's tears, Evelyn laid a kiss on his forehead—which led him to beam up at her in a way that made her heart flutter—and sent him off to prepare the toast and juice while she handled everything else they were required to cook as there was no way that she was making him cook anything that could spit grease into his eyes at any time.
She took her time to move through the kitchen to familiarize herself with the area, before then gathering up all the ingredients that Harry himself hadn't gotten to yet. After having turned down the flame for the hob the bacon was cooking on, of course, as her little brother had been attempting to cook ashy bacon and while she would have loved nothing more than to serve the Dursleys burnt bacon, she knew that such an action would lead to suffering in one way or another for Harry.
It took maybe half of an hour for her to get everything all done and dished, during which she had apparently levelled the [Cooking] skill to two without beforehand knowledge that she had even unlocked the skill. Still, she preferred the opinion she had picked of having new notifications being sent to a blinking scroll located in her peripheral vision that needed opening then having a random box popping up, interrupting whatever it was that she was doing at the time.
She then paused as she was about to place the mugs of coffee on the table, a thought jumping to the forefront of her mind.
Looking over her shoulder, she watched as her brother set about moving all the dirty pans into the sink. In the moment that he was semi turned towards her, Evelyn caught sight of the scar she had somehow not noticed. It wasn't the weird scratched N right above his eyebrow, but a scar that looked almost like actual lightning itself crackling across the skin.
'Well, that's… different.'
If anything, it looked like some of the fan art she had seen Before of what people imagined the scar looked like before the movies had come out. To Evelyn, however, it looked exactly like her brother's head had been split open and then healed jagged and wrong. It reminded her of just was hidden within the scar and her lips thinned.
Then the sound of the stairs creaking under a heavy load reached her ears, and she took a step back from the table. Just in time to see both the hag and her spawn walk in. Much like his mother, Dudley looked very much like his book counterpart with his wide girth and dull blonde hair. It was an impressive size for a toddler only a few weeks older than the twins themselves. Overindulgence towards a child's behaviour was counted as child abuse as well, right? At least, that was what Doctor Phil had taught her.
She gave a mental shrug as she moved to help Harry plate up his breakfast, which consisted of a single unbuttered slice of toast, one sausage and a tiny piece of bacon. And a small glass of juice. It looked like a shot glass more than anything and Evelyn's left eye twitched. She was definitely going to be hoarding food and drink in her Inventory for him.
As Dudley made his approach to the table, the man of the house arrived. Where his wife had twice as much neck as the average person, Vernon had hardly any. The sight of him reminded her of Mister Potato Head, especially with the moustache, but then that was insulting to the toy potato. Did he crush Petunia when they—?
Nope.
She wasn't going there, felt sick just thinking about it. Curse her morbid curiosity.
It was only after the Dursleys had finished their breakfast and disappeared out the front door that Harry and Evelyn were allowed to have their own breakfast. After they cleaned everything up, however, as the table looked like a pig feeding trough. The only clean part of it had been where Petunia had sat. Evelyn fought the urge to just throw the entire damn table through the glass doors that led out into the conservatory. She didn't know how the hag had survived before the twins had been dropped off at the doorsteps.
Probably saw it as her being a great housewife as she cleaned up after her husband and son. At least she cleaned the rest of the house herself, seeing as how she didn't trust the twins to live up to her level of cleaning expectations. That suited Evelyn just fine. All this cooking was already far too much for her brother to do, and they still had more chores after that.
] - Quest Complete - [
(Lv.: 1) Breakfast at the Dursleys
Rewards:
100 EXP
1 Piece of Toast
1 Sausage
1 Piece of Bacon
£1.00
] - - - [
She didn't think it was in the Dursleys nature to reward either her or Harry for the work they did, so she presumed the money was simply a part of the changes the world had been forced through when it had been made into a game for her. Usually, all quests had a money reward and while a pound to her Before would have been nothing at all, she knew that times were different in the eighties. She was pretty sure she remembered someone complaining outside of a shop once that a pound would get her crisps, pop and sweets.
Before, and in the future, it would get her maybe one if she was careful of where she shopped.
The first thing she was buying once she saved up enough, however, were a pair of glasses for Harry, so he'd finally stop squinting at things, even if it did make him look even more adorable. Maybe some rectangular ones would look nice on him, the ones with the bigger frames like what she had worn Before. She wasn't going to be missing those, that was sure.
Poor little brother with mother's eyes, but father's eyesight.
With a sigh that didn't suit coming from a three and a bit's mouth, Evelyn grabbed Harry's hand and set off to finish the chores the hag had left to them before leaving them behind in the house on their own. She was of the mindset now that one finishes all the work beforehand, then they didn't have to worry over it later on. Especially since half the time Before she would forget the time and look up to find it was three in the morning, she had a class at eight, and she hadn't finished the seven-page assignment.
No wonder her Pottermore patronus had been an owl, she barely ever slept during the night.
… Did she need to sleep now?
Author's Note: Honestly, I had a hard time picking what the Dursleys house looked like. I was using the Wikia description for the most part, but it's pretty vague at parts and the films are no help. One moment the living room is off from the kitchen, another it has its own arch in the hallway. Ugh. If the twins were the same gender, they would be identical. As it is the only difference between them aside from that is Harry's scar and Evelyn's brighter eyes.
Also, has anyone else noticed how hard is it to find a twin fiction where one isn't the fake boy who lived and the other is left at the Dursleys? Finally, speaking of family trees, you all should see the monster I've made for this story over on family echo. I've done over five hundred members so far and that's not even halfway done.