Author's Note: One rule I have about my insert stories is that the insert never tells anyone about the life they had Before, nor tell anyone the foreknowledge they have. Evelyn isn't going to be much different. She's never going to tell anyone about her life Before, nor about her gamer abilities, and very few people will know she's a seer. Her metamorphmagus and parseltongue abilities, however, I haven't yet decided on.

Modus Vivendi

Chapter Three
Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est
knowledge itself is power

(Thursday the 13th of December, 1984. Labyrinth Library, Magnolia Crescent, Little Whinging, England.)

Beverly Robin had been the head librarian at Labyrinth Library, named for its irregular passages, for almost twenty years but she had never met children quite like the Potter twins.

The little boy currently sat in the far corner of the children's area, almost completely engulfed by the chair he was sat on, was oh so polite. He was well-spoken and full of smiles whenever he would come up to her desk to ask for help picking another book. From what she had gathered, having watched him for weeks, he wasn't enrolled in Reception. But, from what she had seen from the books he would read, he was already ahead of her own granddaughter who was about the same age herself.

His older sister on the hand was… a little odder than most children she saw. It was now the fourth day in a row where she found the girl sat on the floor next to her brother, repeating the same series of motions over, and over, and over again for countless hours. The girl had picked a simple book that Beverly knew was far below her reading level and balanced it across her lap. She opened it, glanced at the title page, and then closed it. She then opened it again, glanced at the title page again, and then closed it once more. Again. And again. And again.

Her dedication had long since left the territory of childish stubbornness and barrelled into the realm of worrying obsession. However, the brother always had the same answer for Beverly whenever she would decide it was past time for an intervention. "It helps Evie increase her intelligence!" The girl would simply look over the top of the book and stare, green eyes unsettlingly bright, until Beverly had to return to her desk.

And if the young girl wasn't sat next to her brother, intently focused on whatever book she had picked for that day, Beverly could find her wandering through the many rows of bookcases. One moment she would be in the Science section, another she could be found in near the Language books, and she had even once been found in the adult section.

When asked what she was doing or if she needed help, her reply was a simple, "I'm looking for the blue ones."

Beverly had directed her towards many blue covered books, but the girl had simply stared at her before wandering off again. Yes, Evelyn Potter was a very odd child indeed. Beverly did so love it when they both trotted in through the doors at twelve o'clock sharp, however, as it allowed her to keep an eye on them. It wasn't hard to see that the Potter twins were unwanted by their guardians. It hadn't taken long for her to figure out why the girl would break from her routine whenever she saw someone come near them.

The Potter twins wore only spare, ratty clothes that never fit them and was held up by belts and other such things.

Harry flinched whenever someone yelled too loud, whenever someone moved in his general direction too fast.

And Evelyn would continuously stare at anyone who she didn't know that would stand too close. At times the girl's gaze was terrifying. They could have a weird, unfocused look to them, but the look would also be accompanied by a cold, steely gleam that looked very out of place on her round, childish face. She knew it too and wielded it like a weapon.

One of the few times Beverly had seen the young girl smile—when it wasn't directed at her brother—was when another child had commented on the bright colour, calling them freaky and weird. Evelyn had smiled, or more like smirked, and replied: "I like how they can unnerve a person."

The Potter twins were as different as night and day, but anyone could see how much they loved each other.

. . .

Every morning, after their many, many chores had been finished to the hag's high standards, Harry and Evelyn would begin the long walk from Privet Drive to Magnolia Road. They would pass through Wisteria Walk, where there was always a golden exclamation mark or two that would bring Evelyn to a stop for a small while. Magnolia Crescent, however, was where the twins spent the most time lingering about before then continuing with their walk—Harry was always more than happy to help people.

Quite the number of adults had come to know the young twins that would stop and help them with whatever task, no matter how big or small.

It was always around about ten o'clock that the twins would leave Privet Drive. By quarter to twelve, they were rounding a street corner on Magnolia Crescent, where the large Labyrinth Library was nestled as twelve o'clock was when the doors would first open for the day to the public.

It had taken quite a while for Evelyn to find the library, as her Map only ever showed her places that she has already discovered. The rest was blank and greyed out. However, each night, after she had read her brother to sleep in their shared bed, the young witch would sneak out of the house and wander further and further away from 4 Privet Drive.

She had quickly discovered that she didn't require sleep like Before, but she still went for about a night a week.

If she was awake for too long, she felt herself becoming a little stir-crazy. Sleep was good for her, even if she no longer needed it.

Still, the late-night wandering had been worth it, as she had discovered a lot of new places for her to explore, along with a place that she could take Harry so that he wasn't stuck with the Dursleys all the time. Petunia didn't care where they went, she just wanted them out of the house as soon as the chores had been done. Something about the less time they spent in her house the less freakiness they would leave behind. It was fine with Evelyn anyway, the sooner she could figure out how to get Harry and herself away from them the better.

So, off to the library, the twins would go, where Harry could read to his heart's content and learn all the things he was meant to be at the Reception he wasn't allowed to attend.

Each day that Evelyn saw her little brother engulfed by the chair he would pick in the furthest corner, the more she was reminded of Matilda.

Harry had such a childlike sense of curious wonder for the world and she was always more than happy to fan the flames of his burning desire to learn. Thus, the library. The twins had been going daily for the last seven months and she was fairly certain that it had resulted in Harry growing past the Reception-level of schoolwork by a few years. After a few days, she had even gotten a shared library card for them, so that Harry would pick out books that he could then take home and read.

They never told Petunia, nor showed them to her.

The books were kept safe within the confines of her Inventory, with Harry thinking that they had been placed in the little satchel she had gotten from a quest. One day she was going to enchant it with an undetectable extension charm so that it would become her pretend inventory. It had become a fairly easy process for her to now open her Inventory inside of it but one day someone more observant than her little brother was sure to ask her questions about the number of things she supposedly kept in it.

The library was the twin's safe place.

It helped that the librarian, Mrs Robin, was someone who adored the twins. Or, rather, adored Harry and was confused towards Evelyn. It probably didn't help that Evelyn would just stare at her if she interrupted her, or if the librarian took something she had said a different way than what Evelyn herself had intended it as. She didn't get along much with others.

Evelyn's mannerisms and habits probably didn't help her case, but she couldn't find it in herself to care.

The only person she cared for was her brother, and she needed to figure out how she could get him away from Privet Drive as soon as possible, without breaking the protection it gave him. It was far too easy to imagine metamorphing into an older version of herself and then just running away with him.

But, for now, Evelyn made do with improving her stats and building her arsenal of skills.

Her Intelligence was easy enough to increase, considering that by simply reading the title page of a book she gained a fourth of a point towards it. That mechanic was abused heavily, along with her [Evans Origins]. If she found any books that had a blue glow to them, she would take advance of her level 43 [Sneak] and then pocket them into her Inventory. Books with a blue glow meant that they were either skill books or stat increasing books. Either way, that meant they dissolved into light particles when read—well, more like flakes really.

By the time Reception had then been let out at half three, the twins had already made their way back towards Privet Drive. The hag was very punctual about when she wanted things done and the second half of their chores started the moment she got back with Dudley and if they weren't back by then… well, she definitely knew how to make their lives unpleasant. So, Evelyn would drag a reluctant Harry from the library at two o'clock on the dot and they would begin their walk back to the house.

It didn't take them an hour and a half to walk from the library, but she liked to give them enough time to stop and complete any new short quests that had popped up whilst she had been building her skills and stats in the library. Harry was always more than happy to help others with whatever troubles they were having. He thought that whenever Evelyn would say someone needed help that she had seen it in a vision and that she had a helpful nature as he did. She had never seen the point in correcting him that she was, in fact, a game completist.

And she was rewarded for helping people. It wasn't as though she was doing it for free.

There usually weren't too many quests on the way back, but she could always count on the fact that Mrs Figg would have the same miscellaneous quest for her to repeat. She had done it so many times at this point in time that she could probably complete it blindfolded. Harry disliked it the most, as the squib's house apparently smelt like cabbage, so Evelyn usually ended buying him sweets at the corner shop. But she herself was more than happy to repeat them as they gave her [Creature Care] experience and wizarding money. Usually sickles.

She had a grand total of two galleons now from just repeating Mrs Figg's Lv.: 4-Quest [A Kneazle in Need].

The conversion of galleons into pounds she hadn't yet figured out, and she was dreading it honestly. It could either be £5 like Rowling had once said in an interview, or vary between £50 and £200 as the first three books had suggested…

It was a mess.

Still, she currently had over £140 sat comfortably in her Inventory so she would have some money when she decided to dip her toes into the wizarding world without letting anyone know she was Evelyn Potter. What better way to make use of her metamorphmagus ability than undercover intelligence gathering before she had even hit eleven?

No-one was going to stop her from discovering every little nook and cranny in the world hidden behind the Leaky Cauldron.

(There was a small object in her hand, she looked determined, bright green eyes aglow—words fall from her lips, the snake around her neck hisses in reply, tongue flickering out as she tasted the surrounding colours—the dark musk of the room surrounds them, they will not fail…)

"Evie?"

She blinked, before turning to look towards her brother. His face was twisted with concern, his eyes filled with worry and she smiled. Harry had gotten used to the glassy and unfocused look in her eyes whenever she had a vision, but the concern never faded.

Still, despite the concern she had filled her brother with, it had also allowed her to tell Harry about the world they came from. She used the excuse of being a seer to tell him tales about the wizarding world, and while curious, what Harry usually asked her for was tales about their parents. Every single night without fail since she had told him about being a seer, Evelyn would tell him a story as they laid in their shared bed about their parents and their family history.

"I'm okay, Harry. It was nothing." She smiled again and could see he didn't believe her.

Her little brother never seemed much affected by her Lv.: 35 [Bluff]. She often wondered if it was a twin thing as everyone else she used it on was, with varying levels of success.

"Shall we do the garden first?"

He stared at her in silence, seemingly judging her with his big emerald eyes that no longer squinted at things due to the big-framed glasses he wore. After a moment, he seemed to have decided on something, as he nodded with a wrinkle of his little nose. "The white flowers smell better than Dudley."

Evelyn snorted, shaking her head in amusement. Whilst the valerians that Petunia had planted in the flower beds some weeks ago were pretty, they did also smell quite a bit and Harry hated them. Maybe that's why the hag brought them because she herself didn't seem to notice the smell… or was pretending not to. The flowers apparently smelt like Dudley to her brother and she would have to agree with him, as they did have a smell of sweaty, old gym socks to them.

But she would take preening and watering them over having to smell Dudley for any longer. She didn't have the faintest idea what her plumb of a cousin did all day at Reception, but he always came back smelling to the high heavens. It was so bad that the twins' eyes always watered whenever they were around him for too long.

She thought it said a lot about Dudley's hygiene when Harry would prefer to tend to the valerians.

"Evie! Come here!"

At the sound of Harry's whispered yell, Evelyn turned away from the flowerbed she had been tending to. Her little brother was crouched down in front of one of the hedge bushes that enclosed the back garden and he seemed to be looking at something hidden within them. Last week he had found a frog and had been extremely worried that Dudley would find it.

He had ended up carefully depositing it into the pond in number three's garden, wherein all likely hood, was where it had come from in the first place.

Brushing off the dirt on her hands—no gloves for the twins in the garden, the hag didn't want to spend the money—she stood and began to make her way over. Then she too crouched down near the bush and tilted to the side so that she could see underneath the bush that was perfectly trimmed. She would know, the hag had her trimming them for three hours before she had been satisfied. And not with a pair of hedge clippers or anything of that nature, but with a pair of safety scissors.

The things she did for quest completion…

It took a moment for Evelyn to find what her brother was pointing towards, and when she did, she blinked in surprise.

"You shouldn't be here," she muttered, more to herself than anything else.

What her brother had been so excited to show her was coiled up into a small ball, barely visible in the shadows of the bushes. And by small, she meant that the little creature coiled into a ball could have easily fit on a penny. For a moment, Evelyn found herself entranced by the beautiful keeled scales that ran down the entire length of its body. Then her [Creature Care] finally kicked itself into gear and she realised what kind of snakes had keeled scales and a triangular head like the one before her and her little brother.

"Don't touch it, Harry."

Harry frowned. "Why? It's pretty!"

"It's also venomous, so it can kill you."

"Oh." A pause. "So, I can't pet it?"

Evelyn glared at him from out the corner of her eye, and he pouted like the four-year-old he was as he sat back on his knees and folded his arms across his chest. Still, he didn't move closer to the snake or attempt to touch it as Evelyn observed it in an attempt to find out why it was there. One didn't typically find a viper in an English garden.

It didn't pose much of a threat currently since it was apparently only two months old, which meant that its venom glands were small and their fangs short, and half-starved. Still, she wasn't taking any chances with the safety of her brother, who was mostly hidden behind her so that if the snake did decide to strike, it would strike her and not him.

] – Quest Alert – [

(Lv.: 5) My Kingdom for a Snake!
A poor little snakelet has wondered into the Frying Pan wielder's garden, half-starved and close to death
But what better way to find out what a Parselmouth can do than with your very own snake?

Objectives:
Nurse the snakelet back to health
Don't let the Dursleys find it

Rewards:
Pet
100 EXP

Failure:
Dead Snake Body
1 week in the cupboard under the stairs

] - - - [

Evelyn sighed.

Of course.

She looked to where the snakelet was coiled up and found herself already wavering. It really was such a beautiful creature, with the colour of its keeled scales shifting between different shades of blue and green. There were even moments of black beneath the scales, with its underbelly lightening further into a white.

Still, quest or not, beautiful creature or not, Evelyn was uncomfortable with keeping a venomous snake anywhere near her brother. Never mind the fact that she had always wanted one Before, and had even made plans to buy one after the term had broken up. She had always had a strong love for animals. But still… Harry's safety was the most important thing to her.

"Hungry… cold…"

Harry gasped behind her. "Evie, it's cold! We have to save it!"

Curse her squishy heart and the fact that the twins shared a Parselmouth trait—even if Harry's was the result of the filth in his head.

Carefully Evelyn scooped the snake into her hand, which caused it to turn a single, beautifully dark purple eye her way. However, it made no further movements that would suggest that it was about to strike so she hid it under the cup of her other hand as she and Harry then quickly, quietly, and carefully moved back through the house. Dudley was sat in front of the telly with a pot of ice cream in his lap while Petunia was sat in one of the armchairs, sorting through a huge basket of washing that seemingly contained only the pudgy boy's clothes.

Vernon wasn't due home for another two hours.

The twins made it to their shared bedroom in record time, managing to avoid both Petunia and the trick seventh stair that creaked at the slightest of pressure. In the last few months, the room itself hadn't changed much, aside from the massive clean-up Evelyn had forced herself to go through that had taken days to complete. One can only stand on Legos so many times before they feel like committing murder upon tiny blocks of plastic.

For the most part, the broken toys had been shoved into her Inventory as they seemed like they would be great practice for Reparo when she finally got her hands on the skill. What little had been left out were things that Dudley had either never wanted to play with, so they were mostly intact or things that were only slightly broken. Those went into a plastic container within their closet as it hadn't fit under their bed. Petunia had either not noticed that half the toys were missing, or she simply didn't care.

Either way, she never mentioned it and the bedroom had become seemingly bigger without all the garbage that had been stuffed into it.

"Harry, can you get the mustard jumper?"

"The one you said looked like puke?"

"Yes, that one. It's in the cupboard."

Whilst Before Evelyn would have never been able to recall where she had put the jumper, in this world, with each new point into Intelligence her memory bank grew. She remembered more and more, with her being able to recall some memories down to the smallest detail. Thus, why she was gunning for the [Eidetic Memory] bonus she received at 100 Intelligence.

And with her Intelligence currently sat at 58, she was well on her way to gaining the extremely useful bonus that made it so she could recall everything with perfect clarity. She was aiming to get it before she had to go to Primary the following year.

"Here Evie."

Evelyn blinked at the ugly mustard monstrosity that had been thrust into her face. "Thank you, Harry. Can you make it into a nest for me?"

"A nest?"

"Like the bird one you showed me in the park, remember? The empty one that had fallen from a tree?"

"Oh, yeah!" Harry grinned after a moment. "Is the snake going to sleep in it?"

"Yes, it will keep her warm," she replied as she watched Harry set about his task with great enthusiasm and care. After a few moments, a nest of ugly, orange cloth was sat in the middle of the twins' desk. It wasn't much to look at, but for now, it was all they had. The lamp they had on their desk should also help with the much-needed heat slightly.

Carefully Evelyn deposited the snakelet into the makeshift nest. She then took a step back so that she could look around the room for a better place for it. It had to be somewhere where the lamp could reach, but it also had to be somewhere where the snake couldn't be easily found if Petunia or anyone else came snooping in the twins' room.

"Evie, what about this?"

Harry was holding up a small, plastic container that had been thrown into the twins' room some weeks ago after Dudley had snapped off a side of it when he had thrown it at the wall during one of his infamous temper tantrums. She was pretty sure it had been about taking a bath…

Soon enough the container found itself underneath the twins' bed, sandwiched up against the bedside table so that it wasn't visible from the side. There was a gap between the bedside table and the bed that would just about allow the lamp to shine down into the nest without then seeming suspicious to the Dursleys. With the nest then moved into it, it was finished.

For now, at least. It needed more in it, but they were limited in what they had.

Thus, the twins found themselves the caretakers of a venomous magical snake.

Or, rather, that was how Evelyn found herself looking after the snake. Harry liked to look at it and boop it on the top of the head occasionally when it hissed at him. Evelyn was the one that ended up feeding it with what she could find in the gardens and made sure it was warm enough by adding little ripped strips of cloth to its nest.

The snakelet was named Cassiopeia after a week, a name Evelyn had chosen for just how beautiful she was.

… 'What in Merlin's hairy ball sack is Parselmagic?!'

Author's Note: Of course, Evelyn has a pet snake, pfft. Cassiopeia was originally just a normal bush viper but then I re-stumbled across the monster blog of monsters and I found the rippling bristlescale which is a magical bush viper in looks. I've tweaked a few things, but it's mostly the same and through game logic, she turned up at the Dursleys garden. Bush vipers have always been my favourite type of snakes. They are just so beautiful and come in so many different colours, thus the name Cassiopeia, for the vain queen who boasted about her unrivalled beauty.

I hope that beginning was okay and didn't seem too out of place! It's very different to how I usually start characters, but I wanted to show a little of how the twins seem to other people. I've also just realised that 1984 is the year that the mobile game starts… Mhm…