Rowena selected to revive her character, fascinated by the possibilities that this 'Adventure' game suggested. Muggles had invented something truly incredible — she needed to do more research on these things. Not only were they entertaining, they clearly required some small level of intellect to design. It could make for a pleasant hobby alongside her smaller magical research projects.

Now if only her baby muscles would stop spasming randomly and getting her character eaten by dragons. This was the third time, and it was starting to frustrate her.

When she was eaten for a fourth time, she threw down her controller in disgust and crawled over to her computer, a 'Sinclair ZX81.' It was an odd little thing, and rather limited, but as she fiddled with it Rowena knew for certain that in the years to come computers would become something amazing. She needed to adapt one for her own magical research purposes — the thing was almost as fast as she was at computing basic mathematical equations, though she was far faster for anything remotely complicated. If the speed was enhanced, it would allow Rowena to set up a computer to do her arithmancy for her while she handled more interesting things. That was an incredibly tempting thought. She would need to look into designing her own — magic would almost certainly be able to produce a superior product.

Between the Atari and the ZX81, Rowena didn't think she'd have any trouble entertaining herself while waiting for the time that she would be able to start learning more about modern magic. She was starting to get hungry again, though, so she shut down the computer and turned off the television it was plugged into. She caught sight of her reflection in the now-dark screen, and her eyes widened — how had she not known about that hideous scar on her forehead?

Rowena tried to focus some healing magic on it, willing it to go away, but it resisted her. She prodded at it with her magical senses and discovered why — it wasn't just packed full of dark magic, it had a fragment of someone's soul in it! Rowena's lip curled in disgust and she made to squash it, but then an idea hit her. She closed her eyes and delved deep into her own mind, seeking the soul fragment. It didn't take long to find, disgusting parasite that it was, and she smiled.

Several minutes later, she had fully assimilated the knowledge of Tom Marvolo Riddle, the self-proclaimed 'Lord Voldemort,' and eradicated the soul fragment. The scar healed over, leaving no trace of its presence, and Rowena found herself laughing uncontrollably.

'Voldemort' had been an idiot, but he wasn't as terrible at magic as most of the idiots Rowena had known in her last life. He had experienced a full magical schooling at Hogwarts only a few decades ago, and he had avidly kept up with advances as he delved into other kinds of magic. In one fell swoop, Rowena had made up for all of the time she'd missed with no need to read anything at all, leaving her able to focus on learning more about muggle technology.

Rowena had also learned that she'd been dead for nearly a thousand years, and that 'Voldemort' had defiled her diadem with another soul fragment. She'd deal with that eventually, if she remembered to do so. The diadem hadn't actually had any magical powers — she'd made up the whole thing as a test of prospective students, because anyone who coveted it would be too stupid to teach. Still, as unimportant as it was, it was a part of her legend, so leaving it in such a state would probably be bad or something. She wasn't entirely clear on why, but Helga had always insisted that leaving cursed objects lying around was bad, even if the curses were of an interesting sort.

So she'd probably deal with it at some point, out of loyalty to Helga's memory if nothing else. The woman had been oddly dedicated to what she called a 'conscience,' but she had been Rowena's friend anyway, if oddly touchy-feely sometimes. Rowena wouldn't allow that kind of behavior from anyone but Helga, so she hoped that nobody saw her current child-state as a reason to do something as ridiculous as hug her, let alone assault her cheeks with their filthy lips. She'd have to work on getting her magic back into shape to ward off any attempts to treat her as a cute child, but that was unlikely to meet with much success until she was capable of walking freely again. She would just have to rely on hardening the air like she had to stop Petunia from slapping her, which was an effective defense, if limited against anything other than raw physical force. Salazar had originally developed the technique to intercept tackle-hugs from Godric — the man's face had gotten even flatter from repeated collisions with invisible walls. Rowena shuddered at the memory — she didn't envy Salazar at all. Godric had been a large man, and she had no doubt that poor Salazar had ended up quite bruised before developing the spell. At least Helga had been gentle.

The fitter you were, the better your magic responded — an uncoordinated, clumsy infant body just wasn't capable of properly channeling magic without an absurd amount of concentration. While Rowena was the most brilliant magic-user to have ever lived and thus was obviously more than capable of supplying enough concentration to do anything she wanted, she wanted wielding magic to become effortless again. As such, she would need to design a proper exercise routine in preparation for the day she could implement it. Her old workout would be far too intense for her current body until it was quite a bit older.

Rowena's stomach growled, and she sighed. Being a baby was a pain.


It took Rowena a couple of months to notice the other baby in the house, in large part because Petunia and Vernon had been going out of their way to conceal his existence. Once she had noticed him, she was distinctly unimpressed. He already appeared to be taking after his father in size, and his parents were encouraging this distressing trend by providing him with excessive amounts of mush.

"Petunia," Rowena called.

"What is it?" Petunia muttered, hurrying to the doorway. Her eyes widened when she realized Rowena was staring at Dudley. "Leave him alone!"

"I have no intention of doing anything to him," Rowena sniffed. "I simply meant to inquire as to what your plans are for this child."

"W-What are you talking about?" Petunia stammered.

"Well, look at him," Rowena gestured clumsily. "You're fattening him up so much that you're either planning to eat him or planning for him to suffer." She tilted her head and had to regain her balance — her head-body ratio was messed up enough by being a clumsy baby that moving her head too far always threatened to tip her over. It was intensely frustrating. "If you're planning to eat him, there's a recipe I got from a hag that you may want to try. I can dictate it to you." Rowena had never eaten a baby before, but her hag associates had always insisted that their meat was very tender. She hadn't thought muggles engaged in such practices, but it appeared she may have been wrong. What a fascinating cultural difference.

"He's just a healthy eater!" Petunia snapped.

"If you say so," Rowena replied, trying for a shrug. "Just remember my offer." She crawled away, leaving a shaking Petunia behind.

Rowena didn't notice, but Dudley's meals grew much, much smaller after that incident.


I'm probably going to do single chapters for most of the years prior to Hogwarts, but those will trend a little longer for years when she's got a body old enough to do more than crawl around a little. I pity her teachers once she's forced to go to school