The first thing Lorelei became aware of was the pain. She felt like she had been hit by a train at full speed for lack of a better description, but that wasn't all. It also felt like her blood had been set aflame as it rushed through her veins. It was intense enough that her whole body was trembling, but she refused to give into it. She was stronger than that, she had proven it three years ago. She forced her eyes open to reveal pitch darkness surrounding her on all sides. She breathed out harshly through her nose and grit her teeth before carefully pushing herself into a sitting position, arms shaking under her weight. Once somewhat upright, she put her back to the wall beside her.
Quiet pants escaped her as she thought, Okay Lorie, think, what's the last thing you remember?
That turned out to be harder to answer than she expected, not because she couldn't remember at all, but because two sets of memories seemed jumbled together. She shook her head slowly.
Okay, new plan. Ominis taught me Occlumency, didn't he? Let's try using that to sort this mess out.
That would be easier said than done at the moment though. It was hard to meditate when every inch of your being radiated pain, but she had found the trick to it before, she just had to find it again. Slowly her mind turned to focusing on the two Slytherins she saw as her boys. Ominis' milky eyes that had a starburst nestled in the center, Sebestian's chocolate brown ones that always seemed to sparkle with mischief and adventure. Ominis sharp tongue but gentle hands, Sebastian's effortless charm and rough handling. On and on her thoughts went until she found herself in her mindscape. It was based on her little pocket of the Room of Requirement, a place that had been her safe haven all through the traumatic events of her first year in the wizarding world and that she shared with only her boys for the following two.
But now it had been thrown into utter chaos. Everything destroyed, emptied, or thrown about so she no longer knew where anything was, her memories and thoughts floating free through the air instead of contained where she kept them with new ones she both did and did not recognize at the same time added to it.
Best get to work then. She thought resignedly.
Time was always a strange thing in her mindscape so she couldn't be sure how long it took to set everything to rights, but at a guess it had to have been at least a couple of hours. The memories she definitely recognized went back in the spaces she always kept them, but that left the strange yet not memories to be sorted. They confused her even more because the last memory she had sorted had contained what she was certain was her death, but if that were true how was she here?
A deep sigh escaped her, but she slowly caught each one and went through it. That was how she discovered that the impossible seemed to have happened to her once again. She had been reincarnated into the late 1900s, the current year being 1985, and she was five years old again. Worse still, she was an orphan yet again, but this time she had lost her parents when she was still a baby.
She had a few blurry memories about that as well, interestingly, even though she was fifteen months at the time. She didn't remember much about the lead up, just tension and fear filling everyone she saw despite them trying to put on a brave face for her. She thought there was some kind of war going on and it had driven her parents into hiding. One night the door was blasted open, and her dad sent her mum off to get her and escape, she could hear him telling her that he would hold him off. Whoever he was. He failed though, and she remembers the man telling her mother to move, that she didn't have to die and that he was there for her. She didn't understand why, she was a baby at the time, hardly a threat, but that's what he said. Her mum refused though and so he killed her with a familiar flash of green that signaled the killing curse. Then there's a brief memory of flying and the sound of a motorcycle – goodness the muggle world had changed a lot in the last near century – and then she's being woken up by her aunt's shrill voice.
The nearly four years since have not been fun for her either. Apparently, her aunt's family hated her on sight, and given they were muggles she had to guess it was jealousy on her aunt's part directed at her mother and fear on her uncle's; her cousin simply didn't know better because they had taught him to treat her horribly. She was aware they were neglecting and abusing her something awful now she had better memories to compare it to, but yesterday had been a step too far in her opinion.
It had been her first day of primary school, but she hadn't known her own name to respond when the teacher took role – her first name hadn't changed but her last was now Potter – so her cousin Dudley had pointed her out for him. They had contacted her aunt about it and the fact she had thought her name was Freak Girl as that was all they had ever called her. Her aunt managed to convince the school it was a horrible prank and that she was a terrible troublemaker – which had been true in her last life, but not this one – and then she was beaten black and blue by her uncle for almost getting them in trouble with the authorities.
As if it had been her fault.
Still, this did explain the hit-by-a-train feeling, but not the weakness or the burning in her veins—scratch that in her magic channels as she was able to better identify it now. Maybe... maybe it was because now that she had her memories her Ancient Magic had also returned in full force? Normally those with the ability to see and wield Ancient Magic didn't awaken to any form of magic until their fifteenth birthday or so. She was currently five.
If the delay is because the body can't handle having active Ancient Magic that young, then that could be the cause of the burning and weakness. Her body was having to rapidly adjust to it so she didn't burn herself out. That meant that she wouldn't be able to use magic at all for the foreseeable future, but that wasn't a problem. She could adapt some of the techniques she had learned in her first life while trying to survive in an orphanage in the late 1800s using what she had learned in this one. She was more than confident in her ability to survive on the streets, the only thing that was uncertain was access to shelter.
She'd manage, she always did.
Coming back to the present she found it was still night, which was lucky, and that her eyes had now adjusted to the dim light filtering into the cupboard that was her room through the vent. She scooped up the bent metal hanger she had been given for her most recent birthday and untwisted it. She put a small loop in one end and stuck it through one of the slits in the vent. It took a few minutes since she couldn't see what she was doing, but she managed to use it to slide the bolt open and then opened the door.
Lorelei then grabbed her ratty backpack and emptied it out before raiding the kitchen. She made a small meal that she ate quickly and packed up as much food as she could that wouldn't go bad without a fridge or needed a can-opener since they only had an electric one. She then went to her aunt's secret stash of money hidden on the mantle of the fireplace and emptied it of every single pound.
Finally ready, she made her way out the front door and disappeared into the night.