So, some good news. Progress is looking good on not only Jenny and Harry's Bizarre Adventure, but also my Final Fantasy VII crossover Guardian Angels, which I managed to make some considerable progress on after something of a hiatus. Time will tell if they work out: the former has run into a bump, but hopefully, I can work around it. And there's no guarantees of either becoming a posted story outside the Cauldron. But here's hoping, right?

Anyway, I mentioned in a previous posting how I'm eager to do an Arcane crossover, after hearing the news that it's finally coming out on home video rather than just on Netflix. Now, I will admit, aside from fanfics, all I've seen of the series are trailers and clips on Youtube. But I decided to start writing the rough beginning of one potential story idea. Once I get the series, I may have to change or tweak elements of this particular story idea, assuming I use this one. No matter what, if I'm doing a Potterverse/Arcane crossover, Harry will be paired with Powder/Jinx.

This story idea was partly inspired by Bighead98's This and That, a crossover between Arcane and the Lobotomy Corporation gaming series, specifically Library of Ruina. It showed that, under a better guardian than Silco, Powder/Jinx would thrive. It says a lot when the misanthropic AI in charge of an eldritch library makes a better guardian, and Powder/Jinx turns out saner and more compassionate than her canon self.

Anyway, this one, as always, comes with the disclaimer that it won't definitely become a new fic. But I hope you enjoy anyway...

JINX BLACK AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN

CHAPTER 1:

WHEN HARRY MET JINX

Dear Diary,

So, this is it, huh? I'm actually going to school. I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous, for so many reasons. Back home, we didn't really have school, unless you count the School of Hard Knocks. Oh, and Vander, can't forget him. Then again, what education could we get except on how to survive? It wasn't like the Pilties would let us have a proper education anyway.

Andy and Teddy, however, they were different. True, it's not like they could teach me all the time, what with their jobs, but they helped me, made things fun, helped the stuff stick in my head. Unfortunately, there's going to be a lot of boring crap. And apparently I'm not allowed to liven things up too much, despite the fact that there's a pair of notorious redheads doing just that. Note to self: make contact with the Weasley Twins anyway.

Anyway, Dora's taking me to Diagon Alley. It's like Zaun, only less like you're gonna choke on the fumes farted out by the so-called 'progress' of Piltover. Apparently, she's on some sort of protection detail, and I get to play around in Diagon Alley for a week. Honestly, it's really weird being around her, like she's an Enforcer, only, she is fun, has an actual soul, blah, blah, blah…seriously, if you had an Enforcer friend half as decent as she was, I'd be fine with that.

Of course, there's all that crap like before, only, it's about purity of blood. Andy had to flee her own damned family to get away from that. My mother…she ended up in Zaun because of my bitch of a grandmother. I mean, what's so good about inbreeding? Even the Pilties weren't so stupid.

But yeah. Sister…if only you could see how fucked up our extended family really is (sorry, not sorry, Andy: our family IS fucked up). Andy's own sisters have even worse relationships than we did. I mean, the worst of it was…well, the last words we ever exchanged. But Cissy's a stuck-up bitch who'd fit in in Piltover, and Bella…she was even worse. I think that's why Andy and Teddy took to looking after me, helped me get the right treatment. They saw too much of her in me…and of our uncle.

He's out, Sis. Nobody knows how the hell he broke out of prison, but he did, and everyone's running scared. I still dream of that night, when you left me after hurting me, when that guy with the creepy eye nearly got me, before the aftereffects of that bomb, my stress, and my magic just…took me away. From what was left of the Last Drop, from Zaun, even away from Runeterra. Sorry, I'm rambling, but…my point is, even though I can never shake the guilt, I know at least intellectually (that's the word Andy used) that it was an accident.

But our uncle? He blew up over a dozen people, including one of his best mates, and was found laughing afterwards. And this was not long after betraying other friends. I'll probably run into their kid, the infamous Harry Potter, at Hogwarts. Hope he's not a fame-hungry prat. But yeah, our uncle is supposedly coming after Harry.

…I miss you. I miss you every day, and one day, I will come back, and find you. Gringotts confirmed it, that you're alive. I can't take back what I did, but…I just want to be a family again…I just hope you still want me…

…Please…

Harry Potter frowned at the letter he had just received just before breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron. He re-read it, just to make sure he wasn't just seeing things. He wasn't sure what to make of it.

Dear Mr Potter,

In light of recent events, and your current (if temporary) residence at the Leaky Cauldron, we have seen fit to send you an Auror for your protection. Minister Fudge had thought that an increased Auror presence in Diagon Alley would be adequate. However, we have decided to take advantage of an Auror who was bringing a relative to Diagon Alley. While a rookie, said Auror, Nymphadora Tonks, is very capable, and is of good character.

As a means of identifying each other, Auror Tonks has requested a passphrase based on a recent film she watched. She will say 'The Sun is shining'. You will reply, 'But the ice is slippery'(1).

I should caution you on a few points. Firstly, while your recent outburst of accidental magic towards one Marjorie Dursley was understandable, given how she and your guardians treated our Aurors, Obliviators, and (from their testimony) you, the Ministry as a whole may not see it that way, potentially seeing it as Muggle-baiting at best. Please try to refrain from such things in the future. On a personal note, you have my deepest sympathies, and I would recommend finding a good lawyer and consider finding placement with new guardians. I have met many Muggles in my career, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the Dursleys, according to my Aurors' accounts, are most certainly ugly in their attitude, one I have encountered too often amongst our people as well as Muggles.

Secondly, Auror Tonks is personable and willing to answer questions you may have, particularly about the fugitive Sirius Black. However, I must point out that some questions will not be answered, for the sake of operational security. As she is not involved in the search for Black for various reasons, the questions she will not answer will be minimal, but it is best that I clarify this now.

Thirdly, kindly address Auror Tonks as such, or as 'Tonks', unless she gives you permission to do so. She despises her first name. The last person to torment her about it ended up in St Mungo's for weeks, and it took almost as long to clean the room to the standards required by the hospital.

Please, stay safe and well, Mr Potter. And, in the words of one of my best men, despite his semi-retirement, "Constant Vigilance!"

Yours sincerely,

Amelia Bones

Head of the British Department of Magical Law Enforcement

Harry stared at the letter again, before folding it and putting it away. An Auror, assigned to him, for his personal protection? What the hell was going on?

He was just about to go down for breakfast, when he heard a knock on the door. "Wotcher, Harry? You in there? Oh, right. The Sun is shining."

"…But the ice is slippery?" Harry replied uncertainly.

"Oh, good, I hoped Madam Bones' letter had come through. Sorry about that. I just wanted to try the secret agent thing. Did you watch The Shadow?"

Harry blinked. Had she referenced a movie? Very unusual for a witch. "No, but I saw it advertised. Just a moment…"

When he opened the door, it was to an extraordinary sight. The young woman had bubblegum pink hair, styled in a somewhat punkish manner. So too were her clothes. While she would have stood out in the streets of London, she would probably be dismissed as a punk or something similar, not a witch. And certainly not an Auror. "Hey. The name's Tonks. Just Tonks."

"…I've never heard of a first name called 'Just'. Justin and Justine, yeah, but 'Just'?"

Harry wondered if he had offended her with her snark, but she chuckled. "Okay, you know what? I haven't actually heard that one before. So, Harry, let's go get some breakfast, and then we can get down to brasstacks. Oh, and I've got to get my sister situated here. She's starting Hogwarts this year, and she wants to do a bit of exploring around Diagon Alley. Amelia, you know, Madam Bones knew about that, and asked me to keep an eye on you."

"But why?"

"I can't tell you everything, but I'll tell you more, once we've got some breakfast…"

Harry had to admit to being a bit irritated, given that he was carrying the meals in boxes (courtesy of Tom at Tonks' request), but Tonks pointed out reasonably that she was an Auror, and needed her wand-arm ready. And she was also rather clumsy. His irritation was chased away by some wonder when Tonks took out a shrunken trunk from her jacket, placed it on the ground, and then, it grew back to a normal size. She then opened it up, and stepped in, gesturing for Harry to follow.

As they walked through what felt like a small mansion, Harry said, "It's like the TARDIS."

"Nah, it's not. If nothing else, it can't travel through time," Tonks said, leading him to a door, which opened onto a small dining room. She took the boxes from him with a "Ta, thanks", and began setting them at different places, and then casting spells on them. "Stasis Charms, to keep them warm. So, I guess explanations are in order. Firstly, just to be clear, my full name is Nymphadora Tonks. Just call me Tonks, and we're cool."

"Okay. Madam Bones warned me about that in her letter."

"Oh God, she mentioned that wanker I hospitalised, right?" On Harry's amused nod, she groaned. "That guy also tried to slip me a roofie. Wanted to shag a Metamorphmagus. He's also been dismissed."

"…Oh," Harry said in realisation. "I'm sorry that happened. Though, what's a Metamorphmagus?"

"What's a…oh, right, you were raised by your Muggle uncle and aunt, of course you didn't know. And they sounded like real pieces of work, if what Shack told me is true." Tonks shrugged, before her hair began changing colour. So too did her face, even her eyes. She ran through a whole set of different faces, before she returned back to her original look. "Metamorphmagi can basically change their appearance, to some degree. That's the short version, and honestly, we've got a lot to go through. So, got any questions?"

"…Yeah. I guess the biggest one is, why is an Auror being assigned to protect me?" Harry asked. "I get that Sirius Black is a dangerous criminal, but…I'm nobody special, being famous aside."

At this, Tonks gave him a small, sad smile. "That's not what I heard from Arthur Weasley. I heard you saved his daughter a few months back. He didn't go into details, though. But you're right in most ways. Hell, the Minister didn't want you to have an Auror specifically for your own protection, because he thought the increased presence here would be enough to deter Sirius. But after I got to talking with Madam Bones about my sister, how she wanted to spend her last week before Hogwarts exploring Diagon Alley, well, she suggested this. Honestly, it's just as well. I'm still just a rookie Auror, and I need to learn how to do a protection detail to some degree." But then, her expression became stern. "But Harry, I need you to promise me this. When I tell you about why Sirius Black is after you, you need to promise me not to go haring off after him."

Harry stared at her, bemused, before reluctantly nodding. "Fine."

Tonks peered at him sceptically, before nodding herself. "Right, so, bit of a history lesson. My mother is Andromeda Tonks, but her maiden name was Black, right? The thing is, the Black family is notorious for being not only one of the oldest and most powerful Pureblood families in Magical Britain, but also one of the nastiest. One of my aunts is married to Lucius Malfoy, and another of my aunts, who's thankfully still in Azkaban, was one of V-Voldemort's top lieutenants. And she was probably shagging him too, the nutter."

"…Okay, so, the Black family is full of idiots obsessed with Blood Purity, right?"

"Right," Tonks said, nodding. "My mum ran off with a Muggleborn, Ted Tonks, despite being in Slytherin and all that. Got disowned by that bitch who fancied herself the Black family's matriarch, Walburga. But Mum wasn't the only black sheep, or rather, white sheep of the Black family. Or at least so we thought. That so-called white sheep was Sirius."

"Really?"

"…Yeah. He'd had it out for Walburga ever since that bitch sabotaged a Floo journey of a Squib older sister of his, had her disappear into the ether. She even bragged about it to the family, saying that was what Squibs and Mudbloods and traitors deserved. The thing is, she pretty much ruled the roost from then on. Anyway, Sirius went to Hogwarts, and believe it or not, got Sorted into Gryffindor. That nearly got him disowned then and there, but it was made official only a few years later. So, where does he shack up when he got kicked out of his old home? The Potters."

"…What?" Harry hissed in shock.

"Yep. He made friends with your parents and a few others, Harry. Except…well, something happened. I honestly can't figure it out. Was he seduced away by some Death Eater, or was he rotten from the beginning? Or maybe he went mad. The Black family has a history of mental illness. Anyway, the upshot is, when Voldemort began targeting your parents, they hid their house under something called the Fidelius Charm, old and ancient magic that can hide something so thoroughly, unless you know the secret, you can't ever find it. And this secret is locked within the soul of someone called a Secret Keeper, who is the only one who can divulge the information."

"Sirius…he was their Secret Keeper?" Harry asked in horrified realisation.

"Yeah. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people don't want to tell you, because they don't want you haring off after Sirius for revenge. I asked Madam Bones, and she said, 'Use your discretion'. I heard that you didn't know you were famous until after you got your Hogwarts letter, so I thought you'd appreciate not being fed bullshit and being kept in the dark."

Her crude phrasing broke through to Harry, cutting through his shock and anger at just the right time, and he nodded. "Thanks, Tonks. I appreciate it. But…Sirius, he betrayed them?"

"Yeah. Then, he got into a fight with Peter Pettigrew not long after that. You've seen the news, right? Pettigrew got to accusing him of betraying your parents, and then, Sirius fired off a curse that wiped out thirteen people. I think he hit a gas main deliberately. Pettigrew was pretty much at ground zero, so all they found of him was a finger. And the Aurors found Sirius, laughing like a madman, on the edge of the crater he made. Dunno why he escaped at this time, though, I'm not in the loop for that much. Sorry."

"…That's fine, Tonks. I just appreciate someone being honest with me," Harry said. And he meant it, too. He still felt shock, anger, and a desire for vengeance. But the fact that someone had been honest with him helped, even if it was just the short version.

"Sure. Just…promise me you won't seek him out, okay? Don't get me wrong, if he makes the mistake of coming for you, you do your best to take him to the bloody cleaners. But he's also a dark wizard who was once a Hit Wizard, an elite Auror, and might have been part of V-Voldemort's inner circle. You're fourteen. I mean, I'm a rookie Auror, and I'm not sure about my chances to take him down. So please…promise me."

"…I…promise," Harry said. Not wholly sincerely, but he could understand Tonks' reasoning behind her plea.

Tonks peered at him sceptically, before nodding. "Okay. Now, with that crap out of the way, we should go fetch my sister. Well, she's more of a cousin. Just be warned, she's…a bit eccentric…"

Harry wasn't sure whether this counted as eccentric in his eyes. In fact, it felt oddly normal. They'd gone to another room in the Expanded Trunk, and opened it, only to be hit with a wall of sound. It took him a moment to recognise the song as the theme music to Beetlejuice.

And bopping along to the music while she sat on an office chair, fiddling with something at a bench, was a girl, slender, almost painfully thin, dressed in jeans and a shirt, a pair of long braids of blue hair reaching down her back. He could smell an acrid burnt smell, and realised that this seemed to be some sort of workshop, decorated in a riot of colours. A tape deck was sitting near the door, the responsible party for the loud music.

Tonks cleared her throat and called out, "SIS! SIS!" But when the girl didn't answer, Tonks turned off the tape. "Sis!"

"That's meeee!" said the girl, spinning around, with goggles on her eyes, and a big grin on her lips. "Oh, sorry, Dora! I was just working on the mechanism for a new Chomper. You know, the one that dumps fluorescent paint on people tagged by them? Lodgok seemed very interested in having some for Gringotts, so…"

"I know," Tonks said, gently drawing the girl into a hug. "We've got breakfast, and as you can see, we have a guest."

"I'm not blind, Dora, even with these on," the girl said. She stripped the goggles from her head, and dumped them on the bench.

Harry stared at the odd girl. She was a slight, bony thing. Yet she was quite pretty, in a nervous, uncertain way. Something about her wary posture, her too-frequent blinking, unnerved him. Sky blue eyes peered at him, flicking to his scar briefly, before giving him a shaky smile.

"Hey there. You're Harry Potter, right?" she asked, her accent sounding vaguely American. "The name's Jinx Black. Nice to meetcha."

She held out her hand, which Harry, after a moment, took. He was wholly unaware that such a simple gesture would cement a bond between two damaged souls. "It's good to meet you too, Jinx…"

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

So, there you have it. Powder/Jinx has somehow ended up in the Potterverse…and she's actually a Black? Oh, and the cast are a year older than canon, so Harry and Powder/Jinx are both 14, and the events of Book 3 take place in 1994-1995.

Now, keep in mind, I am trying to portray a version of Powder/Jinx who never ended up in Silco's filthy clutches. Instead, she ended up with caring family. True, she's still got something of a bad case of schizophrenia, and she's got a hell of a guilt complex for blowing up Vander and Claggor (not so much Mylo, but he was an arrogant and spiteful dick anyway, he had it coming as far as I am concerned), and Vi's last words before they parted have made a lasting impression, and not for the better.

But Powder is still Powder. She still has a sense of empathy (by the time she becomes Jinx in the series, she seems to be severely lacking in empathy), is capable of feeling love for others (though she struggles with self-loathing), and wants to be reunited with Vi. True, she's found a caring family in the Tonks family, and she loves them too. But thanks to a Heritage Test at Gringotts, she knows Vi is still alive.

I also have it in my personal fanon that the wizards and witches of the wizarding world, despite their many faults, do have some better elements. I decided that applied to the mentally ill to some degree, or at least that better treatments exist compared to Muggle psychiatry for some conditions. So Powder is on the wizard equivalent of antipsychotics, potions that have far less side-effects than the antipsychotics given to schizophrenics in real life. She also uses aerobic exercise, something proven to actually alleviate symptoms of schizophrenia. She's still skinny as a rake, though.

This version of Powder is saner, more compassionate, and less prone to violence. This isn't to say she doesn't have her canon self's fascination with explosives and firearms: she does. But she's at least capable of recognising that the lethal variants are socially unacceptable.

It's also telling that, growing up with at least one relative in law enforcement, she's a little more open to police not being all corrupt. It helps that Nymphadora is a bit of a non-conformist and a warm big sis figure. So, when Powder discovers that Vi and Caitlyn are in a relationship, after stifling the initial jealousy and kneejerk rage against any law enforcement, and doing some research on Caitlyn, she'd give Vi the thumbs-up. Oh, she'd happily harm Caitlyn's bitch of a mother, but Caitlyn herself?

Also, nomenclature. Powder is deliberately calling herself Jinx as a form of reclamation. It doesn't mean she won't answer to Powder at all, but she calls herself Jinx rather than Powder to everyone but her most trusted people because Powder was the impulsive little girl who fucked up and killed her father figure, a friend, and Mylo. She calls herself Jinx as a reminder to be better than whom she used to be. But to those who become close, she'll allow them to call her Powder again. Of course, if and when she meets Vi again, Vi's idiotic insistence on calling her 'Powder' will strain their relationship, as, given that she already hurt Powder by calling her 'Jinx', she's lost her 'Powder' privileges. Powder wants nothing more than to be close to her sister again, but on something of her own terms. Once Vi and Powder have patched things up properly and Powder thinks Vi's accepted her, then Vi can call her 'Powder' again.

Anyway, more on how Powder is related to the Blacks later.

1. The Shadow came out on the first of July, 1994, or at least the film with Alec Baldwin did. The Shadow, of course, is much older than that, with Orson Wells voicing the character for a radio series…