Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

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One could say that Helena Jaime Potter had gotten used to magic.

Of course, one might also say that magic had never really bothered her all that much in the first place, considering the fact that she had never spent any of her time actually thinking about all the bursts of accidental magic she'd had as a child… but still. Magic as a whole had only gotten so much weirder after she had started her life at Hogwarts, and yes, she had indeed somewhat reluctantly grown used to that.

Looking back on it, that was probably a good thing, because otherwise she might just have gone crazy before she could have ever even reached the age of seventeen.

Helena’s accidental magic before Hogwarts felt like some weird kind of drug-induced hallucination—everything had been strange, from unintentionally turning her teacher's hair blue, over accidentally apparating straight onto the school roof, to freeing a giant Boa Constrictor and setting it loose onto her cousin. Life before Hogwarts had been so incredibly strange—which probably made it all the more worrisome that all the really strange shit had only really begun happening after she had started her schooling.
All of a sudden, something being strange meant fighting a troll with only a bunch of loose rubble, some broken pipes, and a total of one (1) spell (and braincell, too). Life being strange now became slipping past a giant three-headed dog called Fluffy, using her non-existent musical talent to fight her way through flying keys and living chess pieces, only to watch the teacher that had tried to murder her while she was flying on a bloody broomstick crumble to dust beneath her fingertips—all because the Power of Love™ prevailed.
Strange turned from unintentional makeovers to flying a somewhat sentient and sometimes invisible car to school, only to crash land it right into a moving tree; it was learning that she could speak to snakes and ultimately stabbing an absolutely huge one through the brain in her desperate fight against the evil diary that had possessed her best friend's younger sister.
In the magical world, strange meant finding out that your favourite teacher was not only a werewolf but one of your late father’s best friends. It meant being forced to fend off hundreds of government-sanctioned beings that fed off of your happiness and tried their hardest to eat your soul. It meant to literally travel through time to break your wrongfully imprisoned mass-murderer of a godfather out of prison.
Something turning out to be strange swiftly became watching a semi-sentient goblet spew out her name to add her to a deadly tournament against her will. “Strange” now meant “being forced to compete in said tournament that ultimately ended with her witnessing what could only be described as a resurrection, which she had only escaped thanks to her dead parents' ghosts coming to her aid”.
Stranger yet was her becoming society’s scapegoat in the face of a dark lord’s return, though. Truth be told, the word strange reached a whole new level when it described her leading a literal teenage rebellion and underground fighting club to oppose the people in power who were actively torturing them. And then, of course, that stupid Death Veil in the equally stupid Department of Mysteries in the even more stupid Ministry of Magic. Which she had broken into at barely fifteen years of age, with nothing but a half-baked plan and an unhealthy amount of rage.
All of which did absolutely nothing to prepare her for the utter strangeness that the pensieve-thing Dumbledore made her do ended up being. Or Tom Riddle’s childhood as a whole. Not to mention the absolute nightmare that had been the inferi-infested cave.
And then, finally, the utter strangeness of the whole Horcrux and Immortality thing her nemesis had going on, their rather epic escape from Gringotts (Dragon!) and the very sad and kind of traumatic part that involved her dying. Literally dying. Of dying and meeting the literal embodiment of Death themselves and then being claimed as its official Master before being booted back to life right after to finally put an indisputable end to her prophesied enemy.

All of which was way too closely followed by the complete weirdness that had been her life in the last year, ever since the end of the war. She had finished school by not going to school, had tried her best to raise a godson she never really saw, and had taken weekend trips around Britain and other European countries to catch what remained of the Dark Lord’s forces—her first ever vacation, wasted on hunting down fascist criminals.

Yes, Helena Potter had grown very used to the strangeness of magic and the world its people had created.
Not like she had much of a choice in that decision, anyway.

But just because she had accepted this strangeness as a part of her life didn’t mean that she wasn’t ridiculously confused when, after definitely going to bed in her room in Grimmauld Place the night before, she found herself waking up in what she could easily recognise as one of the hidden side alleys of Diagon Alley instead.
The location’s unique magic swirled around her as she heaved herself off the dirty cobblestone path. It tingled her senses; the smell of mingling magic itching her nose and the taste of happiness heavy on her tongue. Not her own happiness, of course not! How could she ever be happy waking up somewhere where she hadn’t fallen asleep, wearing not the typical loose shirt and light trousers she usually donned for bed, but an entire set of fancy, oddly old-fashioned robes? There was the weight of an unfamiliar necklace around her neck; the stone she had once lost in the Forbidden Forest—resting heavily between her collarbones just above the spot where her mokeskin pouch was still dangling from its leather cords. The legendary item had been woven into an intricate gold and black pendant, while the other two Hallows were safely tucked against her side under the veil of her robes.

Her beloved holly wand was, to her great distress, nowhere to be found.

And yes, sure, Helena was incredibly confused by that particular turn of events, but she was sure that she would have been able to deal with it somehow. She would have dealt with it. She always did, after all.

Just as she managed to calm herself, Helena turned her head to one of the windows and caught sight of a particular shade of beautiful blood red; a shade she had only ever been allowed to see in the memories of other people… the memories of Snape and Voldemort both. This was the exact same shade of her mother’s hair, and it was (somehow, unbelievably, impossibly) connected to her own scalp.
Growing on her own head.
For the past nineteen years, Helena had been living with an unruly mess of the blackest hair she had ever seen on anyone besides her own father (in the same memories she had seen her mother in), only keeping it long enough to wrestle it into a ponytail every morning, disliking the way the Sleekeazy's Hair Potion made her hair look rather similar to Snape’s. That man might have saved her life, but he was still a gigantic arsehole and bully with the fashion sense of an unhinged bat and the beauty routine of a demented swamp monster. She'd rather deal with a bird's nest on her head for the rest of her life than resemble him for even a day.

Looking into the reflecting glass before her, she saw what could only be described as a waterfall of her mother’s hair falling down her back, a mess of wild and messy curls tickling her elbows and framing her face.

Her young face.

Now, Helena wasn’t old by any means; her nineteenth birthday had only just passed three days ago after all, and while she wasn’t particularly certain whether or not she had actually aged since her death in the Forbidden Forest, she knew for a fact that she’s had a big growth spurt in her sixth year. She had gained almost three inches, knobbly knees finally becoming a little less knobbly, any traces of leftover baby fat finally leaving her face with a bit of a button nose, almost aristocratic-looking cheekbones, and a terrible amount of freckles that were, luckily enough, only barely visible when the light hit them just right (or wrong, in this case).

The face that now stared back at her instead (from the window of a shop she had never seen before, neither in Diagon Alley or anywhere else) was the same one that had stared at her in the summer after fourth year, young and filled with leftover baby fat, a scar visible at her temple that she knew for a fact had long since faded into nothingness in the following year. The face of a maybe fifteen-year-old not-quite Helena Jaime Potter, stranded in an unfamiliar Diagon Alley in a robe set that must have been outdated by at least a century.

She’d like to think that she’d grown used to magic’s strangeness, alright. But this? This was a new high.

Helena was no stranger to the fact that time travel existed; her third year was more than enough proof of that, but she also knew that no one had ever travelled further back in time than a day at most, maybe a little more. She knew for an absolute fact that no one had ever been de-aged quite the same way she had now, years younger and looking oh so different from the person she had been at that time of her life. She knew that there was no reasonable way for her to be in Diagon Alley when she should be at Grimmauld Place—to not have her holly wand at her side but the Death Stick she had tucked away into the safest corner of the house a little over a year ago and hadn’t touched since. There was no reasonable way for her to be missing the bloody scar on her forehead, that very same scar that was supposedly unhealable and something that she had been told would remain with her until the day she died.

The only explanation?

This was, somehow, not only Death’s fault, but also the fault of their wife.
Fate.
Helena had never gotten along with Fate; she had tempted the deity too often and been awarded with that bloody prophecy as an answer. Whatever this was, it was definitely her fault.

The problem?

It didn’t really matter if she knew who got her into this rather terrible situation in the first place or not because, frankly, she still had no bloody clue what situation she was now stuck in to begin with.

Helena had no time to blame some deity or another; she needed answers.

△

Most wixen would, when faced with a problem they couldn’t possibly hope to solve on their own (and when faced with a lot of minor problems, too), go to the Ministry of Magic for help. It was only natural, she supposed, considering the fact that the Ministry was the government of the British wizarding world, no matter how incompetent they had proven themselves to be over the course of history.

Helena, of course, wasn't like most wixen, though.

Even after the war was finally over and Kingsley Shacklebolt had been firmly established as the new Minister of Magic, she had never been able to truly trust the Ministry again.
Not after all the things they had done—to her, to Sirius, to Remus, to her entire family. Not when it had been the bloody Ministry, the ones that had ruined her life, who had first tried to use her name to further their own agenda, when it had been they who shunned and literally tortured her and her fellow students for a year, who had slandered her name in The Daily Prophet because they were too afraid to face the truth. When it had been them who had turned around, trying to win her back as a poster girl to tell the people of the wizarding world what a good job they were doing when, in reality, they were doing nothing at all. When it had been oh so easy for more than half of their workers to flourish under Voldemort’s rule of the Ministry. Not when, even after the war, the majority of them still wouldn't agree to recognise werewolves as victims instead of monsters. When they would recognise her precious Teddy as a monster instead.

No, Helena had absolutely no love left for the Ministry of Magic, and as such, when faced with the undeniable fact that she had probably been thrown back in time by quite a few decades at the very least, she went to the only other help she could think of.

Gringotts.

In her own time, they would have chased her back down Diagon Alley as soon as they caught sight of her—red hair and younger face or not—so it was only further proof of her time travel theory that the goblins stationed at the entrance merely bowed as she approached them, no hint of recognition in sight.
A gesture that Helena returned without hesitation.
She had made herself enemies out of the goblins once before, and she’d be loath to make the same stupid mistake a second time. She hadn’t been able to shop in Diagon Alley without fear since the end of the war, and she’d rather not go back to that if she didn't absolutely have to. Manners and respect went a long way with this race, she knew, and she would do whatever it took to stay in their good graces for as long as possible.

They seemed vaguely confused by the gesture, sure, but Helena simply chose to see that as a good thing.

On the inside, the bank was emptier than she had ever seen it before, even during their break-in last year, no human in sight and only a handful of Tellers manning the reception desks.
All of them looked up from their work when they heard her footsteps come closer, eyes narrowing in obvious distrust and sharp teeth bared in warning—what an absolute joy!

Feigning confidence she certainly didn’t have at the moment, she stopped in the middle of the gigantic hall (standing on the same floor she would one day destroy while sitting on the back of a dragon—don't think about that, don't think about that, don't think about that), raised her chin, and called out: "Who do I need to talk to, to get an inheritance test?"
She was hoping against all hope that those tests were actually a thing in whatever time she had ended up in.
Helena had never taken one of them before, in truth. She had only ever heard of them because Neville had briefly mentioned the topic some months ago during one of their outings. He told her how it was a shame that she would never be able to take the test due to Gringotts hatred of her, because it would have been so interesting to see just what exactly she had inherited—from her parents, from Sirius, from Dumbledore, and maybe even the defeat of Slytherin’s last heir. Right of Conquest was a thing, he had explained not all that thoroughly, and there was apparently a reason people had taken to calling her the Woman Who Conquered instead of the Girl Who Lived after the final battle at Hogwarts.
(Something, she had privately found, that would have been very nice to know—something she would have liked to be told deliberately, and not by accident like some unimportant afterthought.)

Now, hopefully, that exact same test would provide her with an identity for whatever time she had ended up in.
Times may have changed, along with her appearance, but her magic and blood, she hoped against all hope, hadn't undergone the same treatment. 

The relief she felt when one of the Teller stepped down from his desk to sneer a, “That would be me”, in her general direction was unlike anything she had ever felt—probably, she silently mused to herself, because she hadn’t been this alone since Hagrid had taken her shopping what felt like centuries ago.
This was the first time she had to get through an unwanted adventure all on her own—no Ron, or Hermione, or anyone else to watch her back. Just her, Helena.

But compared to her other shenanigans, she was already off to a rather good start, if she could say so herself. No one was actively being attacked or dying, at least.

Dropping into another quick bow, one hand pressed over her heart, she greeted, "Well met, Master Teller", and hurried after the goblin, grateful that her response seemed to have stunned him just long enough for her to catch up to him. He was already moving again before she reached him, of course, opening one of the countless doors leading to the back of the bank, barely waiting for her to make it through before speeding off again. Goblins, it seemed, were even ruder in this time than they had been in her own. Granted, they hadn’t been overly friendly even when she had still been in her good graces, but it had never quite been this bad.
Perhaps she had ended up in one of the… more goblin critical times of wixen history? Damn, she would hate to have to deal with one of the goblin rebellions; they sounded exhausting even if it wasn’t Binns talking about them.

Shoving the thought aside, she followed the teller around a left corner, another turn to the right, another right, left once more, straight ahead at a crossing and another left before they reached a tiny little office. The goblin (who still hadn't bothered introducing himself) sank into the large, fancy-looking office chair behind the desk, looking for all purposes like he owned the place, and left her with a rather uncomfortable wooden chair.

So much ruder than the goblins she was used to.

“Now,” he told her in a very no-nonsense tone of voice, folding his hands and looking down on her along the path of his long nose in a way that told Helena that she was probably going to understand only half of what he was about to say; “there are multiple tests you can choose from. The cheapest offers you your own general information as well as your parents', as long as they are registered with either Gringotts or a Ministry. The most expensive one creates a family tree dating back at least five generations under the same conditions and offers an overview of all your assets and titles. They all take at least two hours to complete, so which one do you want?”

That, at least, was straight to the point.

Helena probably wouldn’t need anything as thorough as the most expensive option, simply because there was no way for either of her parents to be registered with anyone yet, considering the fact that they most likely hadn't even been born yet, and having a possible ten-year-old show up on a family tree as her great-grandfather or something like that would probably open quite a few unwanted questions.
On the other hand, a list of titles and assets would be an absolute godsend right about now; thanks to her bad relationship with the goblins, she had never actually been able to see if she received any more assets than the Vault 687, which she had used ever since her reentry to the wizarding world—a vault she had recently been told to be her trust fund. She could only hope that now, in a time where she wasn’t the only Potter left alive and therefore the obvious Head of the House, she'd still have access to some sort of money—because otherwise she might get back into these goblins' bad graces far faster than she would have liked.
They hated nothing more than people who couldn’t pay for the service they had asked of them.

“I’d like something in between, please.” She told the goblin, trying not to let her uncertainty show. “Only my parents and I are to be shown on the family tree, but all the details on assets and titles.”

The grin the goblin offered told her that she had probably said something right for once.

“A middle ground, then.” He agreed, and Helena refused to bodily react even as the grin he gave her sent cold shivers up her spine. Merlin, she really didn’t like having to deal with goblins—but they were a far better alternative than the Ministry could ever be. Maybe, she mused to herself, she just had an inherent dislike for dealing with anything remotely social as a whole. That certainly sounded like a sound theory.
"And how much would I need to pay for that middle ground?” She asked primly, uncomfortable with the way the goblin's smile only grew sharper in reply.
“A test like the one you requested,” he told her, “would cost you a total of thirty galleons.”

Thirty galleons.

That was a lot of money. Merlin, that was a lot of money.
It was over three times the price of a new Ollivander Wand, in fact, and much more expensive than just about anything else she had ever needed to buy. If that was the price for a middle-class test, she really didn’t want to know how much she would have needed to pay for the most expensive one.

Merlin and Morgana, she could only hope that she would have access to some kind of money stored at Gringotts!

Summoning all the confidence she had projected in the entrance hall, she simply nodded, leaning back in her uncomfortable chair with a hopefully graceful air about her.
“That won’t be a problem.” She told the Teller, lying out of her arse, and prayed that Fate wasn’t as much of bitch as she generally believed her to be.

△

The test turned out to be far more complicated than Helena had assumed it would be.

In all honesty, she wasn’t even sure what exactly she had expected; maybe some kind of goblin ritual that wixen would usually classify as dark and illegal? Maybe some kind of parchment that would use her blood and magic to create a family tree for her that would then be matched up to whatever assets she might have access to? Or maybe it was not a parchment but an entire book; she didn’t know. How could she?

Whatever it was, she certainly hadn’t expected to be asked to give them some of her hair, blood, and saliva, as well as a portion of her magic, like they were about to perform some kind of really weird magical DNA test. She most definitely hadn’t expected them to ask her to see a goblin healer beforehand to make the withdrawals as professional as possible and to simultaneously scan her for any kind of compulsions or other hidden spells. 

Going through the entire thing, Helena could certainly understand why the goblin had told her that the procedure might take some three hours to be completed—it was truly extensive.

And, she discovered after being told to wait for another hour after the tests were finally over and done with, so were apparently the results. It was a different goblin that entered the slightly more comfortable office she had been waiting in, one she hadn’t seen before, and that was far better dressed than the teller she had been dealing with up until now. He was clad in an elegant three-piece suit made out of expensive-looking materials, his golden buttons branded with what she could only assume to be some kind of House crest, and what little hair he had was brushed neatly across his scalp. 

Well, she privately thought to herself, at least she could be sure that she was inheriting something.

There was no way Gringotts would send a goblin this well-dressed and fancy-looking if they didn’t believe themselves to be dealing with some kind of high-profile customer. This probably meant that she was eligible to inherit more than one measly Potter trust fund because, even if the name was old money due to various inventions and investments made over time, it had only really come to overwhelming fame due to her own unfortunate circumstances. No, her family tree must have revealed some kind of other heritage, because they wouldn’t bother with something this extravagant for one single member of the Potter family, especially when the family still had more than just a single member left.

“Good evening, Milady.” The goblin greeted her in a smooth voice and hell no.
No.
Helena was perfectly aware that the wizarding world was still ruled by nobility, how could she not when the Potter family were minor nobility themselves—but this was ridiculous. They were calling her a Lady despite there being an actual Head of the Potter family alive somewhere out there; this must mean that she was somehow the sole heiress of a different family line, and she was not ready for something like that. At all.
Helena was no Lady.

“My name is Gornuk,” the goblin went on to introduce himself, unaware of her inner struggle as he slid behind the desk, a short look of disdain flickering across his face, “and I’m your primary account manager.”

She wasn’t sure what she wanted to focus on in that statement—the fact that she had an account manager at all or the fact that she apparently had more than just one if he claimed to be her primary account manager. Merlin, she had come here hoping to get some money and a way to verify her identity as a Potter— she hadn’t signed up to be settled with some kind of estate or something like that.

This was so not going according to plan.

“Well met, Manager Gornuk.” Was all she ended up replying because what else was she supposed to do? Ask him what exactly it was he was managing for her? Yeah, no. She was not ready to have that kind of identity crisis sooner than absolutely necessary, thank you very much. She would put that off for as long as possible, even if that only got her a minute or two. She had absolutely mastered procrastinating, and she was ready to prove it.
Her answer, meanwhile, only served to make the goblin's smiles grow sharper, seemingly delighted by her formal greeting. That was logical, she supposed. If she really was stranded in a time that wasn’t overly fond of goblins, then people surely wouldn’t be polite when meeting them. And while she probably should feel bad for them, she couldn’t help but be happy about the fact that everyone else’s bad manners now made her effort all the more impactful. Small mercies.

Manager Gornuk watched her for one silent minute, as if to gauge her reaction to his appearance, waiting for her to say something more, but ultimately, when she didn’t, he simply slid the folder he had brought with him over the desk towards her.

“In here,” he started his explanation, “you will find the general information we were able to gather on both you and your parents, as well as the details of your various assets.”
Various assets.
She really didn’t like the sound of that.
Just for a second, she wanted to stand up and leave—to not take that folder and the responsibilities that it would undoubtedly come with, to instead leave and do literally anything else. But what good would that do? She’d still be a lost, probably underaged child who had no clue what year it was and no money or place to stay to boot.
She didn’t have much of a choice.

Taking one last deep breath, she grabbed the folder off the desk and flipped it open.

It only took her reading the very first line to regret that decision, bile rising in her throat while her blood rushed from her face, leaving her shaken and ghostly pale.

That, she thought rather faintly, was not her name.
Her name was Helena Jaime Potter, and it had always been Helena Jaime Potter; she was more than just sure of that. Someone would have told her if anyone had changed her name before giving her to the Dursleys, if not Dumbledore (who had never told her anything anyway), then surely Sirius, or Remus, or even one of her Professors. She would have known if her name was… that. She would have known. (Right?)

But at the same time, the name made a frightening amount of sense, didn’t it?

The Potters (of which she was undeniably a part) were descendants of the youngest Peverell brother, Ignotus Peverell, who had received the invisibility cloak from Death. And Helena (if that even was her name) had been the one who had reunited all the Hollows—the Death Stick, the Stone of Resurrection, and the Invisibility Cloak. She was basically the Peverell, wasn’t she? The Hollows were a Peverell Legacy, and she had been the one to accept that legacy. If there was anyone who could ever be allowed to wear that name again, wouldn't it be her?
And the other names—Alya Azalea?
Well, Azalea was the name of a flower, something both her mother and her aunt had been named after. And Alya… though she was pretty sure that she was not actually a Black by blood; it was still the name of a star, something that was a long-standing tradition in the House of Black. And she was Sirius’ heir, wasn’t she?

It wasn’t her name; it simply couldn’t be, but at the same time, it made so much sense!

And in the end, looking into a mirror, could she truly claim to be Helena Jaime Potter any longer? Could she really?
Her body was no older than fifteen instead of the nineteen it should be; her hair was no longer the black it had always been but that beautiful red colour she had wished to call her own ever since she had first gotten a glimpse of her mother; and even the tanned tone of her skin had faded to an almost ghostly white, so dainty and pretty that she could barely recognise it as her own. Her pale skin that was scarless. No sowilo rune on her forehead or chest; no words carved into the back of her hand; no puncture wound on her upper arm where the Basilisk’s fang had once pierced flesh and muscle.

Could she truly call herself Helena Jaime Potter when she was evidently no longer living inside the body that belonged to that name?

Could she still call herself Helena Jaime Potter when Magic herself was apparently calling her Alya Azalea Potter-Peverell instead, a name that made such a startling amount of sense?

No, she thought, dismayed, still staring at the papers in her hands. No, if Magic had declared her to be Alya instead of Helena, she couldn’t really refuse her. What was she supposed to do anyway? It wasn’t like there was anyone in this time who could prove the opposite to be true—she had no parents, no friends, she didn’t even have enemies that would know her name, no Malfoy to taunt her, no Voldemort to haunt her. Absolutely no one here had ever met her before, and the safest and most reliable way of identifying an unknown person was calling her Alya. There was nothing she could do but accept this new fate of hers.

To accept this new, probably very troublesome life.

△

△

The truth was, Helena-now-Alya didn’t remember much of whatever happened next.
Not necessarily because she went into shock or something like that (although that probably played some kind of role in all of this as well), but mostly because she decided to lock those memories behind the thickest wall of Occlumency she could manage and never think of them ever again. She only kept a rough summary of the events in her head, a short reminder to herself of what exactly the wizarding world of bloody 1890 knew about her now that she had the goblins do the test.

Because they knew something, alright.

It was Gornuk who (after telling her everything she did and didn't want to know about the results of this test and then giving her a bunch of very fancy-looking magical rings) informed her that, as part of the treaty she had already read about in her test results, the goblins were obligated to notify the Ministry whenever someone came to Gringotts to register themselves, which she had apparently done by first requesting and then going through with the test. Which meant that the goblins had already sent a notice to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Because, apparently, a child appearing out of thin air was a job for the Department since it had a sub-department dedicated to the welfare of children.

Privately, Hel Alya wondered where that Department had been while she had been stuck with the Dursleys.

But instead of saying that, she sighed instead, accepting her fate and settling down to wait for the arrival of the exact people she had intended to avoid for as long as she possibly could. Now it would seem that “as long as possible” wasn’t all that long after all. Which was honestly a bit of a problem because Alya had no bloody clue what to tell them.

Alya had not expected to end up with the last name Peverell attached to her person; she had been so sure that she could simply pass off as a Potter bastard who had never known her father and had been left in a Muggle orphanage after her mother had died giving birth to her. And yes, that backstory was totally stolen from Voldemort, and it might still work, but that didn’t change the fact that the public would look at her and… no. Just no. Hell no, even.

Helena Potter had spent the past eighteen years as a famous person, and Alya was not ready to do that all over again.

Still, she went along with most of the things the Officer asked of her when she finally arrived, dutifully answering all the questions with her imaginary backstory firmly in place.
Admittedly, she struggled a little when the woman asked her why she had never gone to Hogwarts, but ultimately she answered with the truth. Alya Peverell (which she had shortened her name to because, Merlin, saying Alya Azalea Potter-Peverell was kind of tiring, even if it sounded really fucking cool) had never received a Hogwarts letter.
She almost wanted to laugh in the poor Officer’s face at the look of utter confusion she gave her.

The next day (she had spent the night at the Leaky—which was slightly less dodgy than she remembered it to be, but also kind of weird without Tom’s familiar face standing behind the counter to greet her), she got a Hogwarts letter.

Of course she did.

And then she cried for what must have been a good ten or fifteen minutes when she saw who it was that had signed the letter instead of any of her Headmasters—Phineas. Nigellus. Black. That absolute arsehole. Even seeing Dumbledore’s name and his ridiculous list of achievements would have been better than this heartbreaking reminder that things were different now.
As if to make matters even worse, she then found the name of the person who had actually sent the letter further down on the page, eyes zeroing in on the name.
Weasley.
Alya felt more tears form in the corners of her already sore eyes the very second she saw that stupid name on the letter, heavy sobs rattling her chest as she crumbled into her pillows like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts was one Professor Matilda Weasley, a name Alya had never heard of.
She wasn’t one of her Weasleys. 

Not Molly or Arthur, not Bill or Charlie or Percy or Fred or George or Ginny or Ron. Not hers.

Because she was no longer Helena Jaime Potter but Alya Peverell, and Alya Peverell knew no one with the name Weasley, she had never even met one in her life, and she would probably never meet a Weasley named Ronald or Ginevra or any of them or even a Hermione Granger because she’d be even older than Dumbledore had been by the time they would ever be born. And while she hadn’t visibly aged for the past year, that wasn’t actually all that unusual, and it didn't mean that she was immortal all of a sudden—Alya knew her luck.
She would die before her family would ever even be born.

The realisation only made her cry harder.

By the time Alya had managed to pull herself together just enough to answer that yes, she would be absolutely delighted to attend Hogwarts in September, the sun was already way past its highest point, and the owl that had delivered the letter was impatiently pecking at her fingers. Something, a little voice in the back of her mind whispered, that Hedwig would never have done. She had heard those damnable whispers for over a year now—ever since her first-ever friend had died to protect her, they had been a constant shadow haunting her waking hours. Whenever her mood was bad, and she was forced to interact with a post owl, they would appear, little voices reminding her that it was her fault that Hedwig had died.
That so many of her friends and allies had died.

It was sufficient to say that she didn’t get anything done that day; she was too busy crying her eyes out.

In retrospect, that was probably a bad thing. Not only had someone knocked on her door at some point, her apparently rather noisy crying alerting the neighbours that something wasn’t right (which she had managed to clear up when she stumbled down the steps for dinner), but she had also wasted an entire day doing nothing. Seriously, she hadn’t even ‘processed her feelings’, as her therapist would say; she had just cried.
Alya hadn’t managed to do shit.
Sure, she didn’t have a booklist yet, since Professor Weasley had told her someone named Professor Eleazar Fig (maybe an ancestor of the Mrs Fig she had known all her life?) would take her shopping and help her get ready for the school year. But she was stuck in 1890, and while her own time had made some incredible advancements like Time Turners and the Wolfsbane Potion (not to mention all the little improvements Snape had subtly integrated into his teaching style—if you could even call that unsubtle form of bullying a style), it had also spent half a century beneath Headmaster Dumbledore's thumb and another few decadess with the old fool whispering into Dippet’s ear before that.

Dumbledore, who had believed that everything dark and powerful, and even remotely useful in a fight, must also be evil.

Dumbledore, who had therefore used his various political positions to outlaw and demolish far over three thousand books, traditions, and spells—all things that, in 1890, were still perfectly legal to buy and readily available. 

She might be able to buy some other books when this Professor Fig person would take her shopping in the following days, but for now, it looked like she’d have to wait until she arrived at Hogwarts. The Restricted Section of the Library should be able to hold her attention for at least some time (Dumbledore had destroyed over two-thirds of the books stored there, according to records and a very enraged Hermione), and whenever that might get old, she would just have to sneak into Hogsmeade and apparate to Diagon Alley. Risky, but perfectly doable.

And, apparently, also her only option, because Professor Fig (an older man that was friendlier than any other Professor had ever been to her—at least any Professor that wasn't looking at her and seeing the shadows of her parents) arrived bright and early on her second morning of her stay in 1890, magic tingling with overwhelming enthusiasm and the calming smell of old books and spilled ink. His enthusiasm as he was telling her about all the things they would need to do before the start of term was contagious.

Sadly, that didn’t change the fact that there wasn’t actually all that much for them to do.

It took them two days to shop for all the bare essentials. Professor Fig was under the impression that she had no belongings whatsoever (her mokeskin pouch with its undetectable extension charm was her little secret and it would stay that way because most of the things in there weren’t supposed to exist in this century), so he insisted on her buying everything: new robes for all occasions, potion ingredients, the equipment needed for brewing, books (tons and tons of books, to her utter happiness), a telescope, materials for writing, and even seeds to grow her own ingredients with.

The only thing he didn’t make her buy was a wand for reasons she didn’t really understand.

Something about having better control when the wand she first used magic with wasn’t attuned to her? She had never heard of anything similar, and ultimately, it didn't matter anyway because she had been using magic for over eight years now. 

And it wasn’t like she was doing much actual magic practice in the first place!

On the third day, the Professor had shown her how to do something that was apparently called a ‘Basic Cast’—a minor blasting hex, as best as she could figure. It seemed to have no actual name besides that or even an incantation, only intention and magic (and it was probably one of the first things Dumbledore had gotten rid of because Alya had never even heard of a spell like that, and it didn't actually have much of a purpose besides attacking and destroying things), and it was bloody brilliant.
He, essentially, showed her how to force raw magic through the wand he had given her until she managed to condense it into the form typical for spells, shooting straight at a conjured target, and then he instructed her to practise doing that for two hours each day. Apparently, it would help her with her spells in the future.

And that was the only magic she practised for the entire month; every other hour available was given to learn Magical Theory (which she had never actually been taught before because it was no longer a class offered at Hogwarts—as it most definitely should be), the basic rules of the British wizarding world and, weirdly enough, a crash course in etiquette to teach her how to behave as Wizarding Nobility. Which was probably not that weird after all, considering the fact that these people believed her to be a new Noble Lady, unaccustomed to the ways and whims of the upper class.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for anyone who actually had to start Hogwarts any later than eleven, because she was not sure how anyone was supposed to catch up to their yearmates without even learning more than one basic spell.

Luckily, that was not actually a problem for her. Before she had been Alya, she had been Helena, after all, and Helena was a fully trained witch with both the O.W.L.s and the N.E.W.T.s to prove it.

Standing in front of the carriage that was going to take her and Professor Fig to Hogwarts on the morning of September 1st, 1890, Alya was relatively sure that she would be able to deal with whatever it was that had made Fate throw her back in time. She was Helena Potter, The Woman-Who-Conquered, a war veteran, and the person who had been widely regarded as the most powerful witch of the century.

She could deal with whatever was to come.
Probably.

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