Chapter 3

The next day Marianne took for the first time since arriving here really notice of her surroundings, where she was, how she looked, what summer homework she had to do, etc.

The Abbotts lived in a magical London, two blocks down from the Leaky Cauldron. They also had an estate in Essex but lived in London because of her father's occupation. Her father, Lord Thomas Abbott was a potion master even in spite of his status as family patriarch, who worked for St. Mungos as a brewer, a very skilled one at that. Her mother Zara Abott nee Miller, who had been a muggleborn, died when Marianne was nine years old during a brewing accident, she had been one of the foremost potion researchers in St. Mungos and had met Marianne's father through their work.

The first thing that really surprised Marianne was funnily enough the Daily Prophet; to be exact the date of the Daily Prophet and well wasn't that a surprise? At first she had thought she had landed in the book time frame, well think again dear Marianne, it was the 16th July 1976. She had landed in the 'Marauder era' as most fanfic addicts called the timeframe between 1971 and 1978. So James and co should be sixteen at the moment, Marianne thought, the young witch couldn't help but let her thoughts wander to the many yummy fanarts of the Marauders she had found in the internet and blushed, she was quite excited about meeting the originals and comparing them to the characters of the Rowling books. Calling herself to order Marlene tried to recall everything she knew about the Harry Potter timeline. To help herself she wrote it down, as well as all the information about the individual characters, during the writing she noticed that the memories of the other Marianne came forth when she concentrated on a known person like James Potter.

James Potter: born in 1960, Harry's father, Quidditch captain, loves Lily Evans, glasses, brown hair, brown eyes, Marauder, Animagus, likes pranks, part of the Order, James Charlus Potter, likes Yorkshire Pudding, abhors red currants, plays chaser, Transfiguration prodigy, builds every year with Sirius a snow castle, could have ten girls on every finger but always rejects them, has a soft spot for first years, keeps Sirius in check from going overboard in his pranks on the younger years.

During writing more and more little facts sneaked into her thoughts that were picked straight from the younger Marianne's memory. The Marianne that now occupied this body was relieved, that meant that the knowledge about all the things that had happened to the original person would be accessible to the new one and she could avoid being conspicuous. After paying close attention to herself for the day Marianne had come to the conclusion that both the witch and the muggle had merged, with the older Marianne being the dominate personality while the witch was more of a subconscious now, she was responsible for the blushing and slightly stuttering as well as her diminutive body language that was even worse than the one of the muggle Marianne.

In a good mood Marianne joined Michael for lunch in the winter garden before continuing with her work. In the evening she had filled a notebook with old and new information about the people in the Wizarding world.
The next thing she did was talking with Trilly, her personal houseelf, about changing her dietary to help her lose weight; Trilly was at first in tears but then agreed to the adjustments pretty quickly, she was always eager to help Marianne.

To integrate herself better into her new family Marianne took great care to remember the details of the live of the witch. Her father and her older brother had always been very busy and normally didn't really take notice of Marianne. After her mother's death the young witch had been raised as a pureblood by the house elves. Although her mother had been a muggleborn Marianne hadn't had any real knowledge of the muggle world until now.
Michael was eighteen, a former Ravenclaw who had just graduated the week before and would now start his career in the ministry on the second of August in the department of International magical cooperation. Thanks to his status as Abbott, a known and wealthy Wizarding family that had been working for generations in the Ministry, Michael hadn't had any problems because of his halfblood status. From what she had heard others weren't so lucky, since the regime of Voldemort had started a lot of restrictive rules and laws had been passed and a lot of Michael's former schoolmates had problems.

The thought of Voldemort made Marianne uneasy, the Wizarding world would suffer strongly under him and a lot of innocent people would die but she wasn't sure if she should attempt to change anything, what if those changes would make the future even worse? Of one thing she was sure, even if she didn't think that Dumbledore was evil and had fun manipulating people, she was still very aware of the fact that he wasn't infallible like most wizards liked to think and so she would not, under any circumstances tell him about her knowledge.

He would just keep the information to him and do nothing or very little.

Trying to get rid of her dark thoughts she concentrated on her current situation, as pureblood raised witch she wasn't expected to know anything about the muggle world and should she let something slip people would get suspicious, no she would have to find a way to explain her knowledge away.
In the evening she asked her father after dinner about exploring muggle London during the day. At first Thomas Abbott had been very bewildered about this question but in the end he had caved, he still had cautioned Marianne about the more dangerous places in London and told her that he felt uncomfortable with letting her go.
Furthermore he gave her hundred pounds as spending money and promised to convert more on the next day. Marianne had thanked him for the opportunity and given him a hug for the money, she was sure that he had no idea how much money he had just given her. From what she could remember from her history and business lessons was that because of the inflation hundred pounds were nearly twice as much worth in 1975 than in 2012.

The next day Marianne wore the clothes that were the most suited for moving in the non magical world. Her brother escorted her to the entrance and asked her one last time if she really wanted to do this, after she had affirmed this he had given her a muggle London map to help her navigate. The first two hours the young witch spent familiarizing herself with her environment, in the last forty years a lot had changed in her home city. Finished with her small sightseeing tour Marianne visited different book stores and picked up various books on technology and history of the muggle world so that she could explain her sudden knowledge away.
Shortly before her curfew she found a music store close to the entrance of the Wizarding world, in the window she saw a guitar and had the sudden need to buy it. Marianne had always loved to play the guitar but since she had finished college and started working she had little to no opportunity to use it, most of the time she had just used the radio or CD player when she sang with her kids, maybe now she could use the instrument again.

Arriving home Marianne told her family excited about her day, describing her tour through the streets and the different machines she had seen, Marianne had to concentrate not to let too much slip but somehow managed, her brother and father just gave her indulgent gazes and small smiles before they turned to the newest potion discoveries.

Marianne had found that she not only had the knowledge of already existing potions as well as the talent to brew them but also had ideas concerning them popping up in her head for experiments. Until now the witch had been too shy to voice any of them in front of her family but now with the slow and steady encouragement of her father and brother the new Marianne started to give her opinion to the different topics.

The following day the blonde witch bought herself the guitar that she had seen in the window of the music store as well as a song book with easy to middle hard songs, she was determined to refresh her memory of playing, now that she was a teenager once again. And wasn't that daunting, Marianne had at first despaired about this fact, to be a teenager again with all the silly mood swings and social interactions had scared her more than a bit the first time as a muggle.

This time around she was in an even more precarious position as witch with a brewing civil war on the horizon.