Author's Note: My upload schedule for my stories has gone all over the shop. However, I will say this. If a story is still up on my profile, then it will be uploaded. Be it in a week or seven months. I don't force myself to write; I go with the flow of my muse. Which is why I try to write a few chapters before uploading the first one. I can only hope that all my lovely readers will be patient with me in turn.

Modus Vivendi

Chapter Six
Flectere Si Nequeo Superos, Acheronta Movebo
if i cannot sway the heavens, i will raise hell

(Monday the 5th of August, 1985. 12 Grimmauld Place, Islington, London, England.)

The palms of her hands slid up the cold bannister as Evelyn slowly climbed the never-ending stairs. Every step creaked under her light footsteps and she almost worried that the aged wood would give out beneath her feet. It was dark and musty, very much the grim place she had imagined it would be. It was also so much bigger than what she had been expecting. She distinctively remembered the scenes from the movies and the description from the books and found that only pieces of those fit into the hidden house.

There were countless stairs, leading both up and down. Endless corridors and doors that without her [Eidetic Memory] or her Map she would have become lost within seconds. It was like the Tardis from Doctor Who, due to the fact it contained far more on the inside than the outside hinted at.

The only light came from the gas lamps that hung from the walls. She had pictured peeling wallpaper and worn carpet but found that none of those things greeted her as she walked through the house, taking her time to look at everything it had to offer. It was dark and musty. But it was also still the same grand place she had once wondered it could be. Walburga Black had only been dead a few months now, after all. Not nearly enough time for the house to fall into disarray.

Despite leaving the Dursleys house on their fifth birthday, the twins hadn't arrived at Grimmauld Place until a week later.

There had been buses, mundane buses, and a lot of walking. Sirius had delayed their arrival so that they could go shopping. They had spent their nights in a hotel in central London and had spent their days walking through all the stores they could fit into their days. Sirius had wanted them to have everything their hearts desired. Whatever they wanted. Price had been no issue for him. He hadn't blinked when the zeros came in and had only grinned when he had handed over the money.

Clothes. Furniture. Books. Games.

He had brought them anything and everything they had looked at with interest. No matter what it had been, Sirius had had no problem with buying it, so eventually, Evelyn had been forced to place herself into the responsible adult position, as neither Sirius nor Harry could be trusted with money.

She had had to physically wrangle her brother away from a gold chessboard in some fancy, expensive store she hadn't looked at the name of. Harry was obsessed with gold. He was a niffler in messy-haired human form. Sirius hadn't been much surprised by it and he had laughed boomingly, as he explained that their father had been much the same. There were things that Evelyn had never been able to tell her brother, for the simple fact that she didn't know the answers, but Sirius did.

There was sadness in his eyes whenever he would speak about their parents, but he still answered every question thrown his way about the people James Potter and Lily Evans had been.

Her hand wrapped around the knob of the door and Evelyn pushed it open with a shove, before then stepping into the drawing-room she knew held a tapestry of the family tree on its walls. It looked much like she had expected it to. The same faces and names painted onto the tree. The same scorch marks where people had been blasted from the tree. She stepped beside the wall slowly, carefully, taking in all the faces and names. Burning her family into her mind. She brushed her fingers across Sirius' black mark and Regulus' solemn face.

Brushed her fingers across the destroyed portrait of her father, lingered on the script of his name.

As he was connected to Dorea Black, the twins were too connected to him.

Harry had had his portrait burnt as well, but not Evelyn. Her portrait had been left as it was. A small little portrait of her five-year-old face, with those killing curse eyes. She tilted her head to the side as she examined it. Questioned to herself why it had been left alone while the rest of her family had been blasted from the wall like crushed bugs under a boot heel.

Maybe she could fix them.

There were so many names and faces that had been blasted, long before Walburga had taken over the job of doing so. All because they hadn't fit into the cookie-cutter idea of perfection the family held. Her grandmother remained on the tapestry intact, however, her portrait still visible. Her marriage had been an acceptable one then, even if it had been to a Potter.

She shook her head before then turning to leave the room behind and continue with her tour. A figure crossing the landing stopped her in her tracks, however. He was easily recognisable. There weren't many house-elves that would be walking through the Black ancestral home as he was, after all. Sirius hadn't mentioned much of the wizarding world. There had been a few pieces of magical information sprinkled in conversation throughout the week, but nothing too major. The only magic they had seen had been moments before Grimmauld Place had appeared before them, pushing the opposite houses out of its way as it slid into place.

He hadn't mentioned Kreacher either.

She wondered how her brother would react to the slavery of the wizarding world.

"Filthy blood traitor and mudbloods in Kreacher's mistress' home."

Evelyn let an eyebrow creep up her forehead as she stared at the elf. There were only a few inches of height between them. Kreacher glared at her from the corner of his eye as he slowly moved through the hallway. Then the warm touch of scales against her bare skin drew attention, as Cassiopeia began to slither her way out from under the large jumper Evelyn wore. She watched as the snake slowly climbed her body like a beanpole, before wrapping herself around Evelyn's neck.

Then the viper turned her head towards Kreacher, and her forked tongue flicked out as she tasted the air.

"Not much meat on it."

Without taking her attention from the elf, Evelyn smiled in amusement at her familiar's words. Filthy. Filth. That was how much of the wizarding world viewed members of her family. Blood traitors and mudbloods. Half-breeds. As though the fact that they had broadened their family past incest made them filthier than the rest.

In Evelyn's eyes, it was the other way around.

The purebloods were the ones with dirty blood.

"Even if there was, you would still be barred from eating him."

Kreacher froze as her hissed reply echoed, as though a petrifying curse had been thrown at him. He slowly turned on the spot to face her, his eyes blown wide as he noted the snake that was coiled around her neck like a questionable scarf. She rose a hand to lightly rub across the blue and green keeled scales that lined Cassiopeia's back, a small smile etched across her lips.

"Shame. Rude thing asking to be eaten."

The elderly elf didn't look as though he knew what to do with the information before him. A filthy mudblood, a half-breed, possessing the gift of Salazar Slytherin? Evelyn briefly wondered if the older generation of followers had known the true blood status of their precious Lord. She couldn't see why they wouldn't have. They would have attended school during the same time, with her second cousin a year older than the 'Dark Lord' himself, who would have gone by the name of Tom Riddle.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

I am Lord Voldemort.

The half-blood who pretended to be pure. The snake who had murdered her parents because they had dared to stand against him. The one who had tried to kill both her and her brother, and who will undoubtedly try over and over again until it finally stuck. That is, if Evelyn didn't put a stop to him before then.

She wondered if those in the wizarding world said it without the t, as it was meant to be said, or with it, like the world Evelyn had come from Before.

"It was nice to meet you, Kreacher."

Evelyn slipped past the still frozen house-elf and mentally rolled her eyes as Cassiopeia slid down her body slightly so that she could hiss into his face. She was possessive, her slippery familiar. The young witch planned to grow a friendly relationship with the elderly elf. She wouldn't have a relationship with him as Sirius did. Not when it led to what it did.

Her eyes hardened momentarily.

Sirius Black would live for years to come if Evelyn had her way. His canon death would never come to be. She would never allow it to. There were many deaths in the series that she had no plans of changing, no desire to save the person. Evelyn had her little bubble of precious people and as long as these within it were safe, she didn't much care for the rest of the world.

"I couldn't smell it."

Evelyn paused and briefly closed her eyes.

Salazar Slytherin's locket, the locket that held a piece of Tom Riddle's soul, hadn't been in the room it was supposed to. Had Kreacher moved it? Had someone already come and stolen it as it had been in the series? Walburga Black had died months before Sirius had shown up on the steps of 4 Privet Drive.

She then titled her head to the side.

Kreacher had moved it once the Order had moved into Grimmauld Place. He had placed it into his cupboard, which was located in a corner opposite the pantry. Evelyn needed to find it. She needed to know if it was there or if it had been moved, or if it had simply not been removed from the cave it had once been kept. The original timeline no longer existed.

Her existence had changed it already.

Sirius taking the twins away from the Dursleys had changed it.

It was at times like this that Evelyn wished she could force a vision, but she couldn't. They came to her on their own. There was simply no way for her to learn how to control them, make herself see what she wanted to see. Everything would be so much easier if she could.

"Evie!"

She turned at the familiar sound of her brother's voice and smiled at the sight before her. Harry looked much the same as he always did. However, there was also a glow to him that she had never seen him have before. At least, not while they were in presence of the Dursleys. Lately, he had been aglow with joy and happiness wherever they went.

"What is it, Harry?"

"We're making food soon, but Padfoot said he can't cook very well." He then blinked, green eyes thoughtful and concerned behind the lens of his glasses. "Should we teach him?"

She laughed at the expression across his face. "If you wish to, Harry, I imagine that Sirius would love to learn from you."

"Okay." He smiled back at her, before disappearing down the stairs and around the corner, towards where the kitchen was located. Evelyn stood where she was, smiling to herself as she listened to Harry and Sirius happily converse. She would have never imagined that this would be her life. At least, not so soon.

She had had plans, of course, to make sure that Sirius would be proven innocent. She had had plans of making sure she and Harry, or at the very least Harry, would be removed from the 'loving care' of the Dursleys and placed into Sirius'. She had had plans in case none of the others worked.

Evelyn would have run with Harry and never given the United Kingdom a passing glance. Neither she nor her brother owed the wizarding world their lives. Evelyn was selfish. If none of her plans for making sure Harry had a loving family to protect him had worked, she would have left the wizarding world to fend for themselves.

Her brother might have the destiny of being the hero of the wizarding world, but Evelyn did not.

She would be the shadow behind him, the one that would deal with the threats that he didn't know about. She would do everything she could to protect her little brother and make sure that, for once, he would have as normal as a childhood someone could have in a world of magic.

Even if that meant she had to turn to the darkest side of magic to accomplish that goal.

After all, Grimmauld Place boosted the progression of all [Dark Magic] related skills by 100% while inside its walls.

There was no way that Evelyn wasn't going to be taking advantage of that. Taboo magic meant little to her. She would learn it all, master it all, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop her. All spells, in the end, could be used for both light and dark purposes.

Evelyn had no use for ridiculous good and evil labels when it meant power at her fingertips, power that could be used to save those she had claimed as her own.

Dumbledore was going to hate her.

Author's Note: I wonder who can guess what else has been changed in this story. Sirius Black has been proven innocence, but what else is there for Evelyn to discover? I would love to hear some of your theories!