Chapter Two

Althea was kind of amazed how well her new "uncle" appeared to handle her oddities. At first she'd come to the decision to keep her obvious differences hidden and attempt to act like a regular child. But in all honesty that got old fairly quickly and she wasn't very good at it considering how often her uncle caught her in the act.

So she'd decided on another strategy. Not bothering to hide. After all magical folk were rather eccentric and if she grew up like this it would be less suspicious than her suddenly developing any oddities later. As she suspected Albert quickly got used to her and she slowly eased Amata into it.

Besides she doubted she would matter in the long run of things. After reading a few newspapers and figuring out her age she had a pretty good idea of when exactly she was and when she would start Hogwarts. In all honesty she'd have prefered not to have had to deal with being in the Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Die's year at all. It would have given her a better chance of avoiding all that heroics and prophecies. She comforted herself with the knowledge that she couldn't actually remember the name Runcorn so more than likely she was just nameless First Year Number 3. So long as she avoided the main players she was pretty set.

It hadn't taken Althea long to decide that messing with the Plot was not in her best interest. She was to be quite honest a rather ordinary person. She was fairly smart, she knew that much, but she wasn't a prodigy child like Hermione Granger or Albus Dumbledore. She wasn't going to flounce in save everyone, get the main character on her arm, discover she was some part creature, and lead a life of glamour and fame. To be quite frank she had absolutely no desire for any of the Golden Trio's adventure. Magic and Hogwarts would be quite enough. Fame had never appealed to her much. Well she had fantasized about being a famous author like her dad, but that had ended quickly. She liked recognition for her accomplishments as much as the next person, but she didn't need it. Also considering how much younger the main characters would be Althea was determined to wait until after Hogwarts to date with a minimum age of twenty. Otherwise it was just a little too creepy.

Her plan was to let fate run its course and interfere as little as possible. Though she did fully intend to just live and have fun this go round. Her last life had ended a little too early for her to fully enjoy last time so she fully intended to begin on her newly edited bucket list as soon as possible.

Considering how minor how family appeared to be in the grand scheme of things, her mother a Squib and her uncle pretty low-level ministry, it wasn't as if she was likely to meet anyone important anyway.

Life was nice.

. . .

"I've been promoted." Albert announced seriously over his plate of smiley face omelets.

It had taken Althea weeks to convince Winnie to make them and it had taken everything in here not to burst into triumphant applause when they'd appeared that morning. She was still smugly looking over the juxtaposition of the silly looking breakfast food with her uncle's cutting severe image when he spoke. It took her a few moments to actually register the words he'd said and by the time she did Amata was already smiling and congratulating him.

"Huh?" Althea questioned eloquently as she looked towards Albert.

He scowled a bit at the response, but didn't bother to try and scold her for being unladylike. That ship had hit its iceberg and sunk ages ago.

"I've been promoted Althea." Albert told her seriously. "I'm now the deputy of the Administrative Registration Department. Mr. Crouch recommended me for appointment while the Department was still under his management. Apparently with the transfer of leadership the recommendation was lost in all the paperwork."

The statement led to an impressively intimidating looking glare that made Althea sure Albert had words with whoever had misplaced the paperwork and that the person deeply regretted it now. The next second his face cleared though and he continued just as serious.

"It's gone through now though. Madame Bones herself apologized for the inconvenience. Considering the rumors going around though the Head of the Department will be retiring in the next few years or so. He mentioned something about wanting to be with his grandchildren. As long as he likes my work and thinks I'm trustworthy it's a good step to becoming his successor."

"And you have to have headed a subdivision to be in the running for a Department Head!" Amata chimed in face blossoming into an unrestrained sort of joy and realization. She actually clapped a little. "Oh, Albert that's wonderful! Mother and Father would be so proud!"

Uncle Albert smiled at that transforming himself into something a little less fierce despite his thick black beard and impressive height.

"Exactly."

Albert looked ready to start plotting his takeover immediately, while Amata just sat there beaming look a proud mom.

Althea was distracted by another matter. Crouch. As in Crouch Senior? Her uncle was close enough to Crouch Senior to get a personal recommendation in the middle of the war? The man was not only a character who had always rubbed her the wrong way, but he'd never even learned Percy's name. What in the world had Albert done to not only be remembered but actually praised? Had he sold his soul, made a deal with a demon?

Althea quietly crossed herself, eyeing her uncle warily. She'd known he was ambitious and she also realized this was a pretty big deal. To put it plainly Uncle Albert was rather young. Only about twenty-eight or nine. Close to what Althea would have been had she lived, though mentally she still only felt an odd mixture of twenty-three and actually three. Considering wizards and witches tended to have longer lives than their non-magical counterparts he was considerably young to be in line to be the Head of anything.

Clearly Albert was a bit more skilled than Althea had originally thought. Had he not gone on to be someone important? Is that why she'd never heard of him? Or was he just not mentioned in any of the books or later on? She had the strangest feeling that she was missing something, but shrugged it off. It's not like the Ministry had been described in depth. There wasn't any reason to suspect anything was up with this. Even if the mentions of Crouch did bother her a little. She had absolutely no desire to be near that dysfunctional family anytime soon.

"So what do you think sweetheart?" Amata's soft voice asked interrupting Althea's musings.

"Huh?"

Albert grimaced, but also looked a little defeated.

"Uncle Albert wants you to go to dinner with him." her mother explained. "But we'll need to go shopping to get you a dress, it's a very special dinner."

Althea perked up instantly at the mention of shopping despite her initial aversion to the thought of "dinner" with Uncle Albert. There was only one place she could think of for them to go buy her something new to wear. She felt the wide smile break across her face as she leaned eagerly to her mother.

"Does that mean we're going to Diagon Alley?" Althea all but screamed.

"I-Yes." Amata said looking a little thrown by the enthusiasm, which made Althea wonder if she was not supposed to know about the wizard shopping district. Surely they had to have mentioned at some point in her relatively short second life. She decided to ignore the slip as inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. She was sure she could find a book to blame the knowledge on. Instead she did her best to not literally leap out of her seat in sheer joy.

"When can we go? Tomorrow can we go tomorrow?" Althea asked breathless.

Amata looked a little thrown, wearing a slightly helpless expression, but gave a small nod.

She was going to Diagon Alley. She was going to see magic! Which admittedly Albert had done some magic around her and Winnie was fully willing to give into her greedy requests for demonstrations of elf-magic, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement not to use too much magic around Amata if they could help. Althea saw the reasoning behind it, of course, as her new mother had been forced to grow up with the knowledge that she couldn't do magic. But it had left Althea with a strong desire to see as much as she could.

Well there's one thing to check off my list. She decided and mentally tried to remember the stores she knew would be there that she wanted to visit.

Across the table there was a small choking sound and Althea looked up to find Albert looking at his eggs with a perplexed, horrified expression. Althea beamed at her uncle in reply. For the first time ever her mother and uncle looked like obvious siblings wearing identical looks of helplessness.

Amata offered Albert a weak grin. "At least she's finally excited about something other than naps."

Albert shook his head and dug into his smiley face.

Author's Note: These chapters or rather short, but at least that means quick updates! Though that doesn't mean I will be updating this often usually. Reviews are nice so thank you! Also thanks to the Follow/Favs you make me smile! Remember the poll. Diagon Alley soon!