Summary:Being the Master of Death made life difficult, especially when you need to save all of magical Europe from inbreeding its way to extinction. At least Death was enjoying watching his Master attempt this over and over again. Harry didn't find it nearly as entertaining. Well, tenth times the charm right?
Notes:This is a cross-post from FF and Wattpadd. I had a fan ask if I could post here as well, so I made some time to start slowly reposting the entire thing.
As you can tell from the total chapter description at the top, there's a lot to bring over.
Please bear with me.
~SugarPhantom
(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)
Chapter 1: Chapter 1Chapter TextChapter 1
It had happened again. Wizarding Europe had destroyed itself, for the ninth time in a row. The air was crisp, the leaves were a beautiful red as autumn set in as they fluttered around the sidewalks. Harriet Potter sat slumped on a park bench, her dark hair short and disheveled, sticking up in the all the wrong places. There was a clear splatter of blood on her pale blue blouse, her breathing coming out in short labored huffs. She had spent her entire life trying to save the wizarding world from itself and it had still amounted to nothing, again.
Muggles passed by without even a glance in her direction. Notice-me-not charms had their perks and Harriet was enjoying every second of it because she knew He was coming to talk to her and she honestly didn't feel like putting up with her partner. At twenty she shouldn't have fought through two different wars, only to be brought into a third one. And, she hated dealing with Him…
Especially when she was slowly bleeding out.
He was going to be very…disappointed, again.
Asshole.
Regardless, she felt a presence next to her, she forced her eyes open and saw the hooded deity she most dreaded meeting today, Death.
"You didn't stop it from happening," Death's voice echoed ominously, at least that's what Harriet assumed he was going for. His voice was more grating than eerie to her at this point. Nine lives spent dealing with Death tended to do that to a person.
"Not like you helped. I saved everyone I could, but multiple megalomaniac Dark Lords within less than fifty years of each other really ruined any chance of repopulating," she ground out through clenched teeth. She was nearly positive that one, if not multiple, of her organs was shutting down.
"I thought you would have gotten it right this time. This was your ninth attempt at saving your magical world," he replied, either not picking up on her sarcasm or he was just choosing to ignore her.
Ninth time going through the same life, making small changes here and there to make the best outcome possible for the future, trying to preserve the wizarding race. It was proving impossible. There just wasn't enough time. "You know, there's a saying that if you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result, you're insane. I'm beginning to believe that they're right."
There was a sigh from the deity next to her. He was just as tired of this as she was. There were only so many times that he could send her back into the past in hopes of keeping magic in Europe alive. Harriet was just born too late into this mess for anything to come out of it. This had proven it. No matter what she changed, no one would take the words of a child all that seriously and by the time she was old enough, wizarding Europe would be too far inbred to stop their imminent destruction.
"I really thought that you had it this time. The laws you had set in motion should have worked."
She groaned, feeling the stab wound in her side throb. She wasn't going to live much longer. "There just isn't enough time. If the laws had been passed forty years earlier yes, but there just aren't enough magically strong enough individuals to repopulate the gifts that were lost."
Death turns to her, his soulless eyes boring into hers and for a moment Harriet swears she sees something akin to excitement in them.
"Time…you need more time."
"Yes, I've been saying that for the past three rewinds. You always said that there was nothing you could do about it. None of my ancestors met your qualifications for my soul or some other rubbish gibberish," she replied, but before she could get another word out she began to cough, a bit of blood came out.
Ah, her lung must have been punctured.
"There is one that I can think of, but she was…damaged… greatly before her death. I could give you her body, but there could be complications."
"Like what?" She asked with a wheeze, her lung beginning to drown her.
"Oh, you'll see. You, my dear, dear, Master, are out of time," he replied before Harriet felt her soul leave her body for the ninth time.
~*~
When Harriet came to some kind of consciousness she was in a grey space, floating through the ether. Nothingness surrounded her at all sides. She waited a moment for Death to come back and explain himself. He didn't disappoint as he materialized in front her.
His hood was still pulled up and his traditional scythe was in his hand. Death, as always, was a walking cliché. "Care to explain where," she motioned to the nothingness around them by waving her arms in a rather exaggerated manner, "this is."
Death chuckled, causing the hair on the back her neck to stand on end. She hadn't heard him laugh before. What idea had she given him?
Jeez, she needed to stop influencing him. Death had been so quiet when she had first met him and now he liked teasing her, the bastard.
Death swung an arm out gesturing to the nothingness. "This is the slowly decaying mindscape of your new vessel. She was one of the potential Masters of Death that never fulfilled their destiny. She was captured by a group of purebloods that ran a magical child dueling ring. Death Eaters killed her in a raid when she was fourteen. She was a vicious fighter, but she hadn't lost all of her humanity, she was perfect, but there was nothing I could do to save her."
Harriet was supposed to take over this girl's life? This was one of the sickest things that Death had asked of her. "How am I supposed to step into this girl's life?" There were so many things that Harriet wouldn't know about her. Someone would figure out that there was something wrong with her. She'd end up in the mental ward in St. Mungo's.
There were too many holes in this plan. When was this girl even born? How was she going even survive the post attack? Would she be left in the carnage of the injured and dying? Would this just be a painful waste of a trip back in time?
"You see, that's why I brought you here. This is the space where humans tend to see their lives pass before their eyes. You will be stepping into this girl's mind while she vacates."
"Wait a minute-"
He began to wave his hands, "Pay attention."
Suddenly, there was gravity pressing against her, with nothing underneath her. She caught of glimpse of Death's mouth. The shit-head was grinning.
Harriet fell into the nothingness with a scream.
~*~
It was like watching a movie, seeing pieces of a past that wasn't your own. The vessel's name was Jasmine, she was born in Austria, she was the last of the main branch of the Peverell line. Her father, Matthew, had moved from England to Austria when he was child with her grandparents to throw off Grindelwald. He had hunted down and murdered the majority of the Peverell family and they decided to hide right under the mad man's nose in his home country of Austria.
It had worked, and the family survived, for a time.
Jasmine remembered the stories that her father would tell her at night, the way he met her mother and about his research.
Jasmine's father had fallen in love and married a young witch named Elizabeth Brunner. They'd met while he was researching squibs and her future squib aunt, Anna, had agreed to an interview. Anna had been bit by a werewolf when she was young and even though she didn't have active magic, she was still magical enough to survive the bite and transform monthly.
It had been love at first sight and they married shortly after, and three years later Jasmine was born. Harriet watched her grow up in a loving household for the first eight years of life, until her parents died in a rather gruesome car crash. Jasmine always knew it was a staged accident. Her father had always told her that his research was experimental and tended to make people angry. He was attempting to prove that magical purity was poisoning the wizarding world and by looking at the squibs and muggleborns he could prove that no magic was stolen and having children with muggles didn't destroy magic but brought out the rarest of magical gifts. He had warned her that powerful purebloods didn't like it. So, he gave her his research, hidden in a family locket she was never to take off, and she never did.
And, when people searched and nearly destroyed the house during their funeral, Jasmine had never been happier to have the locket around her neck and away from prying eyes.
After that, she was sent to live with her aunt, who despite her monthly affliction loved her niece very much, but their happiness only lasted a year before she was murdered for being a werewolf by purebloods that would soon become her dueling patrons.
It had been a quiet night. The full moon was in three days, so Jasmine was getting the house ready for her aunt to stay in the basement while she rampaged around in her feral furry fury. That's when she saw the lights of wands in the distance and she quickly packed everything she could find into the locket around her neck. She called for her aunt, but she was too weak to move quickly, and the wizards were on top of them before they could get to the car.
The lead wizard killed her aunt with a single killing curse.
Jasmine screamed, but nothing changed, her aunt was dead, and the wizards turned their attention onto her. They gave her a single glance before the one in charge told her, in English, "grab a bag and pack your things. You have five minutes."
Harriet watched as the young girl rushed up the stairs and put her clothing into the backpack that she took to school and some books her mother left for her. Anything truly important was in her necklace.
The scene jumped, jarring Harriet, but she was put into a different bedroom, one that was rather opulent. Jasmine was crying her heart out. Information flooded Harriet's mind as she realized that this was the day after they'd taken her. She had woken up in a strange house, the door locked. It wasn't long before her abductors came into the room. One man and one woman. They were tall and imposing, primely dressed in wine red robes, not a hair out of place on either of their heads.
Jasmine was plastered against the far wall, trying to keep as much distance between them and her as possible. "Why am I here? Where am I?" She cried, wiping away stray tears her English a near garbled mess under her Austrian accent.
"Stop your crying, child. As of today, you are a ward to the house of Chester. You are going to be trained to win in battle or die trying," the woman snapped, her wand out in an instant. Jasmine cringed and hunched in on her herself, waiting for the attack. The man put a hand on the woman's wrist, lowing her wand.
"Now, Mary, don't attack her yet. We can't damage our goods. This girl will be strong, but we can't break her. Not like the last one."
Jasmine didn't know what those words meant in that moment, but she learned quickly.
Images flashed before Harriet's eyes watching as Jasmine trained to fight with the Chesters. She watched as Jasmine's left eyes was permanently damaged by one of Arnold's stray curses and the way they "fixed" it by burning a rune near it. She watched as Jasmine fought against other young witches and wizards in the same predicament as her. Watched as she fought her way up the ranks, maiming, injuring and nearly killing various other participants.
Years passed, and nothing changed. Until a ministry woman showed up in disguise during one of the tournament weekends at the Chester's manor. She had cornered Jasmine while she was waiting to fight. Occasionally, certain patrons would talk to the advanced fighters, so they could place better bets. It also showed that the patrons had total control of their fighters, since they didn't run. They'd excepted their fate.
The young woman introduced herself as Amelia Bones. She promised she'd help and Jasmine didn't dare hope that someone had finally found them. All the kids were going to get out this never-ending hell. The woman told her that within the next few days someone would be coming to arrest the patrons.
Amelia's aid didn't come fast enough, because Voldemort raided the Manor first, killing everyone inside.
Harriet saw this vicious girl kill various Death Eaters and quite a few patrons while they weren't paying attention. Many of the advanced fighters were being used as human shields against the Death Eaters.
Two bright green lights raced towards her and then Harriet was back to the nothingness, expect this time, Jasmine was in front of her. They looked surprisingly similar in appearance, Jasmine had the same dark hair, though hers was significantly longer, her face shape was similar, her eyes were different, a bright blue, but she was young, about fourteen and it was sad to see she died so young. It seemed that Death had a certain type when he picked a chosen master.
"So, your Death's chosen?" She asked, a slight Austrian accent peppered her words, a smirk on her face.
"Apparently, do you mind me taking over from here?"
"As long as you save the kids in the manor. They're in the lower cellar. Death owes me for letting you take over. Consider saving the lives of my friends repayment for taking my body. Remember this for me, Harriet," she begged her blue eyes wide and pleading.
"I will, don't worry," Harriet replied as she attempted to move forward to embrace the girl in front of her, but she stepped backwards.
"Hold my memories tight, you're Jasmine Peverell. Now, wake up."
Harri-no- Jasmine fell into darkness.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2Summary:Jasmine learns when and where she is...
Notes:(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter TextIt hurt to breath.
Never a good sign.
Jasmine had never quite felt so tired in any of her nine lives. Her magical core was drained, and she had no idea where she was or what had happened after she had been hit with the curse, but she heard voices in the room with her. A weak hand went to her neck and a wave or relief washes over her when she feels the necklace her father gave her still resting there even after all of the fighting.
She hoped the people around her weren't the Chesters. She remembered watching them die, but her mind could have been playing tricks on her. Entering the body of a supposed to be dead girl could distort her perception of reality.
Though, as her mind caught up with her, she realized that the raid had indeed happened and the room didn't smell like the manor that had been her prison for last five years. It smelled like bleach. A hospital?
Bloody hell. She hated hospitals.
Death had a lot to answer for. This "vessel" was beyond damaged, she was nearly dead, had been dead. Merlin only knew what was physically wrong with this body. She was somewhat hesitant to test it out.
She forced eyes to open, but only one was functioning properly. That was going to take some getting used to. "Oh, she's awake!" A female voice comes from her left and Jasmine can sense the person coming in closer and she rubbed the rune next to her eye as it activated. So, that's what it did, she knew it had meant sight when she watched it get burned on in that rush of memories, but to actually feel its use...she hadn't realized that it truly created artificial sight.
Fascinating.
She could almost see the people in the room with her as phantom shapes in her vision. This would be helpful in fights to come.
The woman came closer followed by a second set of footsteps, another woman if her sight was right. They both came into view a few moments later, both were middle aged, with a few greying strands in their hair. The woman on the left was dressed as a matron, in white robes from head to toe, only her greying blonde hair tied tightly into a bun gave the woman any color, she had to be a nurse.
When she saw the woman on the right her breath caught. She now knew what era she was in at least.
Jasmine recognized the woman as, Euphemia Potter, her soul's future grandmother. She was dressed in official robes, ones that she knew the DMLE wore. She had never known much about her grandmother, no matter what life she lived, Sirius and Remus never spoke about her or her grandfather. Their death had been a blow on the Marauders and they never really spoke of them in her presence, but she had seen pictures of them in her family's manor.
Death was getting a fucking ear full when she got her hands on him.
"Dear, do you know who you are?" The nurse asked as she waved her wand over Jasmine's body for a full scan. It tingled and made her twitch as the magic coursed through her body.
"I'm Jasmine Peverell," she rasped, her Austria accent thick, slurring the English words together. She suddenly realized how dry her throat was. How long had she been here? A cup of water appeared on the bedside table next to her. She quickly picked it up and took a sip of water. Relief never felt quite so good.
Euphemia gasped, and Jasmine's good eye moved towards her. "You're a Peverell? I thought that the Peverell line had ended with the murder of Matthew and his wife Elizabeth years ago."
Jasmine let out a dry, mirthless chuckle that turned into coughs near the end. "And their daughter Jasmine went to her squib aunt's home, until she was killed, and their daughter was stolen by the Chesters, assumed dead."
The two women shared a look with one another. Euphemia motioned for the other woman to leave. The nurse gave a brief nod before exiting the room. Euphemia sat down on the plush chair next to her bed and pulled out some ink, a quill and a piece of parchment. She looked regal, her long chestnut colored hair elegantly braided, her hazel eyes serious and her mouth a hard line.
"Now, Jasmine, I'd like to introduce myself, I'm head of DMLE, Euphemia Potter. Please tell me what happened the night of the attack two days ago. Don't leave out any details." Right to business, Jasmine could respect that.
Jasmine took a deep breath and began to explain. "The Chester and the other families there that night run an illegal dueling ring. They hunt down magical orphans and make them "disappear" and suddenly the kidnappers have children that they've rescued, it's all a hoax. They forcibly taught us to fight and if you didn't you suffer the consequences," her hand went to her left eye and Euphemia stared for a moment, scribbled something down and motioned for her to continue, "I had been fighting for the Chester family for five years. Then last night, in between matches, a bunch of men in masks came in, attacking everyone and anyone they could. I remember the Chesters demanding I protect them and fighting the masked men, but then nothing. There was a man leading them, he disappeared after ordering them to attack. Ironically, he said to spare the children, but he didn't stick around to watch his people."
"Can you describe the men that attacked you? Any more details that you remember? Maybe about the masks or the robes?"
Jasmine bit her lip pretending that she didn't really know what these men looked like, but even if her original host hadn't seen them, Harriet knew that these men looked like. "They wore masks, that looked like skulls. They were in dark robes...I don't know what they were doing at the tournament or why they killed everyone," she explained, looking away, biting her lip.
Euphemia let out a sigh and put a comforting hand on Jasmine's. "You were a victim to an attack by a group of pureblood radicals. They call themselves Death Eaters," she explained calmly.
"What happens to me now? I have nowhere to go...no family" Jasmine asks, voice quivering. She had been a magical orphan in nine other lives and it was always terrifying not knowing where she was going to live one moment from another.
Euphemia put a hand on Jasmine's bony, but muscled, shoulder. "Don't you worry, dear. Now that we know your name we're going to do a line trace to find your closest living relative. The nurse that left went to go and do that. You'll have a home soon."
A small tentative smile graced Jasmine's lips before a thought suddenly struck her. "Am I the only survivor?"
There was a nod solemn nod from the Auror. "Yes, you were the only living body in the manor."
Her chest tightened. "Even the kids in the cellar were dead?"
Euphemia's head snapped up. "Cellar?"
"There's a hidden cellar in the basement. There should have been around thirty kids in there. There were some rations last I had checked, hopefully, the older kids distributed them correctly," Jasmine replied quickly, her heart racing.
Were her friends still alive?
"Jasmine, you might have just saved quite a few live," Euphemia said, standing up and making her way towards the door, but before she left she turned around to tell Jasmine one last thing, "I'm the head Auror dealing with you case and will continue to do so until I bring all those in the Chester's smuggling ring to rest. I'll speak with you further after I send a team out to find this cellar you mentioned."
Something in Jasmine's soul lightened and she let out a sigh. One promise down, now she just needed to fulfill Death's near impossible task.
She sat on the bed for some time, counting the white ceiling tiles around her. Everything was white, the sheets, the bed, the tiles, the floor, her cup, and her clothes. It was so dull. She hadn't been told what her injuries were and didn't want to aggravate any of them by moving around, but she really needed to use the loo and it was only a few steps away. The nurse hadn't been back yet and Jasmine was slowly losing her mind.
Jasmine waited another five minutes before slowly sitting up and testing her weight on her legs. She bent them a few times and jumped a bit, nothing was broken and her muscles seemed fine. So, she made her way ten steps to the right and into the bathroom.
She took one look at the mirror and nearly screamed at her reflection. She was going to kill Death. It sounded impossible, but she'd find a way.
Her face was scarred. Not horrendously, but enough that people would stop and stare at her. She had a lightning bolt scar over her left year running from the tip of her eyebrow over the lid and to the flare of her left nostril. Then there was the one running over her mouth, which was less noticeable unless you were looking closely. No, the biggest difference about her face were her eyes. When she had seen Jasmine, she had blue eyes, not mismatched green and grey.
Her functioning eye was same green she had been born with in her past nine lives and her left eyes was a pale unnatural grey. One that she knew had Death's interference written all over it.
Jasmine sighed, rubbing her temple before she heard a knock on her door. Her head snapped to the left watching the door warily. "Who could that be?" She muttered to herself. She didn't know anyone that would want to see her and she doubted that it was the nurse, she would have announced herself before entering.
Maybe they had the wrong room? She could hope that was the case. She quietly crept back into the main room, squinting at the whiteness of it all.
So, Jasmine made her way over to her bed, covered herself up before the stranger knocked on the door again. This time the knock was louder and more insistent. She turned her left eye towards the door, wondering if she would be able to sense the person the other side to get an idea of who she was dealing with, but sadly, the rune's reach only extended a meter or so. It was nowhere near enough to see through the door. Maybe when her magic was stronger she'd be able to sense farther distances.
"Come in," she said, just loud enough for the person on the other side to hear. It wasn't long before the knob turned and rather familiar set of magenta robes greeted her. What was Dumbledore doing here? He wasn't quite as tired as she remembered and seemed infinitely younger. There was a spring in his step and his hair while white, wasn't quite as long and thinning. She supposed that two wars aged him.
Now, after nine different lives she had grown tired of his games and this life would be no different. This man had honestly attempted to kill her just as many times as Voldemort, if not more, but in a more convoluted and underhanded manner. He would never get his own hands dirty, but he'd let others do it for him.
That isn't to say he was a bad person. He was just so blinded by his "light magic is better than dark magic principles" he didn't see what he was doing to the people around him. His greater good was all that mattered, even if it would lead to destruction of Wizarding Europe with the help of two different dark lords.
Though when he looked at her, noticing the scars on her face and the odd coloration of her eyes, he winced slightly.
Ass.
"Do I know you?" Jasmine asked her Austrian accent prominent in her voice and she swore Dumbledore flinched. She knew that she had never met this man in this timeline, so what was he doing here?
"I heard that there was a survivor of the manor attack of schooling age. I'm Headmaster Albus Dumbledore from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
Jasmine doubted that the papers had given any details regarding survivors with the way that Euphemia seemed to handling things. She wondered who Dumbledore had gotten his information from. It seemed he had his hands in the Aurors already, no doubt for the Order of Phoenix.
"I haven't agreed to attend you school. I don't understand why you are here, sir," she replied sitting up a bit straighter in her bed. Defensive. Ready to strike. She hadn't been trained with a wand for close to two years, none of the kids in the ring were allowed wands past the age of eleven. They were solely taught wandless magic. It proved for better entertainment when they needed to resort to physical violence when their magic ran out. She was just as deadly with a wand as she was without. He wouldn't expect that, no one would...it would make things interesting, that was for sure.
Despite knowing Dumbledore in the future, this was a completely different circumstance. She was literally nothing to him, she was less than a pawn on his chess board. Jasmine certainly didn't feel like being sacrificed for his greater good at the present moment.
"Ah, but when a guardian is picked for you, you will no doubt be attending Hogwarts. I thought that I would get to meet you before you entered the school. Now, what's your name?"
How bloody presumptuous. She refused to look him in the eyes, instead she kept her eyes on the sheets clenched tightly between her fingers. "My name is Jasmine Peverell," she answered, her voice never wavering, but she could hear his sharp intake of breath.
So, he was still interested in the Deathly Hallows. Too bad he was never going to get them all. She was already Death's master. He needed no other.
"Are you sure that's your surname? You've been kept captive for quite a long time and your captors could have lied to you."
She scoffed, folding her arms across her chest. She might have been living with the Chesters for five years, but that didn't mean that she forgot everything about her family. They wanted their charges to remember who they were so when they fought, whether they won or lost, they would feel the agony of knowing that they would never return home to their home or families.
"I know what my last name is, Headmaster."
"Very well, what do you remember about the attack?"
She wrinkled her nose. He really shouldn't be asking her these questions without a DMLE officer present, but Jasmine knew that a girl from Austria wouldn't know British Wizarding laws.
"There were men in skull masks and they broke into the manor, interrupting the monthly tournament. We were nearing the finals. They killed everyone in their path, so we, the charges, fought back, either for our lives or for our patron's lives. Death was everywhere, I took down a few of these men before a few cursing hit me. That's it," she replied, touching the fresh scars on her face.
"You fought and killed Death Eaters?" Dumbledore asked aghast, she glanced up to see a wrinkled hand over his mouth.
Drama queen.
"It was either that or die and I didn't plan on dying for the sins of the patrons," Jasmine responded with no remorse in her voice. It was a feeling the original Jasmine had when she was fighting the Death Eaters. She hadn't been afraid of dying and wanted to take as many of them with her if she didn't survive.
"Miss Peverell, you should have run. Killing is never the answer," he preached, putting a hand on her shoulders, which she shrugged off.
"There was nowhere to run. If I turned my back on my opponent, I would have been killed. You sound upset that I survived and a few murderers didn't. Am I to assume that my continued existence is problem, Headmaster?" She inquired with a slightly quirk of her lips that had she been older, used to send people running in the other direction.
Dumbledore paled behind is moon rimmed spectacles. She hoped he was sweating. Jasmine wasn't going to let him push her around. Not again.
"That wasn't what-"
A quiet knock and then the nurse poked her head in, "Sir, the DMLE are due to return any minute. You know how Euphemia feels about things like this."
Ah, so the nurse let him in, traitor. Jasmine glared at her and the woman rolled her eyes before escorting the Headmaster out of the room.
As soon as the door closed, Jasmine slumped against the pillows. She was exhausted, eye lids suddenly heavy. She forgot what it felt like to empty her core. She just hoped she woke up tomorrow and not a week from now. She heard her door open one more time before she drifted to sleep again.
~*~
Jasmine was jerked back to consciousness when a cold hand caressed her face. Her eyes met the hooded figure of Death. They were sitting in the park again, but this time there was no one there and it was pitch black out, save for a single street lamp above them. There were no sounds save for her own erratic heartbeat.
"Dream?"
A single jerky nod.
She relaxed against the bench for a moment and wondered why Death had a fascination with parks. He liked having her die in them, specifically park benches. It was a quirk that she never would have associated with the deity.
"The vessel has more damage than I thought it would and for that I am sorry," he told her as he traced the scars now marring her face. His thumb hesitated over the rune next to her eye. He was one of the few people that ever treated her like something precious.
Jasmine shrugged as his cold waxen hands left her face and back to resting on his lap. "The scars aren't that bad. It's the vision that's a pain. I don't quite understand how it works yet."
"I wasn't talking about the physical maladies. I was talking about the soul transfer. Speaking to you is proving difficult. This vessel is not ready for the power of the Master of Death. Communicating with you causes the body to have adverse side effects."
Jasmine felt her eyes twitch and fists curl. What did he do now? Was there something else wrong with Jasmine's body that she didn't know about? She had seen the girl's entire life and she had never been ill beside a cold every now and again.
"What side effects are you talking about?"
"Seizures," he replied tersely. Obviously upset with himself at his own oversight. Having his Master at anything other than full functioning compacity was a shame to his pride as a deity.
"So, I'm having one right now?"
"Several. It's quite frightening to the nurses and the officers needing to ask you questions. The seizures aren't going to kill you, but they will make you tired and drain your magic. They should stop happening after your majority at seventeen, but that's another two years and a few months away," he explained and Jasmine wished he would just let her go so she could wake up. He was killing her.
"Will they have any effect on my brain? My learning capacity? My ability to function on a regular basis?"
He shook his head. "Luckily, no. But, this means that I can't speak with you that often. If I do, I could very well kill you."
There were worst things that could happen.
"Stop smiling. I feel insulted," Death snapped before Jasmine felt herself falling into the void again.
~*~
"Will she be alright?" A frantic voice asked from her left. She reached out with the power of the rune in her left eye and realized that it was Euphemia next to her, as well as the traitor nurse who let Dumbledore in her room. Mrs. Potter was wringing her hands under robes. Was she really concerned for her? It made Jasmine feel warm that someone cared enough about her wellbeing to be worried.
That nurse on the other hand...Jasmine wanted her fired.
"Her vitals stabilized two hours ago. It's all a matter of when she wakes up. The girl was lucky that her heart didn't stop. This wasn't a complication that we've ever seen before. She has the healers scratching their heads," the nurse replied rather bored.
Jasmine groaned, opening her right eye, finding no point in making the effort for the left since she couldn't see out of it anyway. The two rushed over, the nurse running scans. "You gave us quite a scare, young lady. Can you speak?"
"Yea, what happened? I remember falling asleep after the Headmaster left and then nothing," she replied weakly. Jasmine noticed that Euphemia bristled at the mention of Dumbledore. What did he do to piss her off?
"Do you remember that Headmaster's name, Jasmine?"
"Dumbledore, I think. The nurse let him in. I thought that you okayed him to ask me about the case."
Euphemia rounded on the nurse, her wand drawn. "How dare you threaten a case like this, Ms. Pince. You could be fired over this. I don't care what the Headmaster told you, but he is not allowed to visit patients that aren't family. He has no right to question this girl," Mrs. Potter scolded and woman had the decency to look ashamed of her actions.
"He told me that he was going to be made her legal guardian within the day, so there was no point in denying him access to his soon to be ward," she answered with a whimper and Mrs. Potter put her wand away, but looked even more enraged. "I'm assuming he lied to me, Madam Potter?"
The Head of DMLE nodded her head, obviously not trusting herself to speak. She took a deep breath. "Albus Dumbledore did not gain custody of Jasmine. Her closest living relatives were found and after long careful deliberation, have agreed to take her. Now, Ms. Pince, please leave me to explain Ms. Peverell's living situation with her in peace," she replied, dismissing the nurse who fled the room without needing to be told twice.
Smart woman.
The sound of a scraping chair brought Jasmine's attention back to Euphemia Potter. The woman hadn't look like she slept in days and Jasmine wondered if that was her fault.
"Now, I bet you have questions for me."
Jasmine nodded. "Did you find my friends?"
The Auror nodded and Jasmine sagged against the pillows, a small smile found its way onto her face. There was a special kind of relief that came with that simple gesture. "All the children in the cellar were brought to here for exams and then they will be getting line tests done to attempt to find them new families or reunite them with the family's that they had lost when they were abducted."
That was good. Jasmine had completed the promise to her vessel, which despite everything made the situation a little bit more bearable. It was odd being in another person's body and taking it over as your own, even if it was consensual and the original Jasmine seemed relieved to let her soul go onto its next big adventure.
"Are you wondering where you are going to be living, Ms. Peverell?" Mrs. Potter asked an amused smile on her face. It was one that she had seen in various pictures of her father that Remus and Sirius had shown her. She had always thought he had gotten his mischievous side from his father, but maybe she had been wrong.
"I suppose so. Who was my closest living relative that wanted to take me in?" She asked, slightly worried about the answer. What if it was a family of Death Eaters that the DMLE didn't know about? She could be being sent to her death and no one would be the wiser.
Euphemia smiled, pushing a wayward strand of hair from her face. "You will be coming to live with me and my family. Your closest living relative is my husband, Fleamont. He was more than happy to take in another family member. We also have a son who is about four months older than you. He's overjoyed to finally have a sibling. Since it is the summer holidays, he is coming to visit while the healers finish running a few more tests to make sure that you're well enough to come home with us. If that's alright with you?" She explained hesitantly.
Jasmine knew how hard it was for them to even have James and how happy they were when he was born. She couldn't imagine their what they must be feeling to know that they had another chance at raising a second child, even one as damaged as Jasmine.
"I would like to come live with you," Jasmine replied quietly, watching as Mrs. Potter's face light up. She took Jasmine's hand in her own and squeezed, a bright smile on her face, hopefully mirroring Jasmine's.
Notes:I hope you enjoyed!
Leave a kudo and/or review below!
See you all soon!
~SugarPhantom
Chapter 3: Chapter 3Summary:Jasmine meets her new family and some of his friends...
Notes:(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter TextJames had come to visit a week later while Euphemia cleared up different things with the healers. No one had really been allowed to see her while the healers attempted to figure out what had caused the seizures. She had been given medication to take whenever she felt one coming on, but she knew that nothing would work to stop them. She fiddled with the potions vial as she waited for someone to knock on her door.
Now, Jasmine had only ever seen pictures of her father, that or ghostly afterimages, she'd never met him before. All she knew was that he was a prankster and if memory served, he was still a prat at the moment, which left her extremely wary. She didn't want to deal with a vindictive pranking Gryffindor. James was an only child…Jasmine just didn't want to have another Dudley on her hands. At least Sirius wasn't here to egg him on.
There was a quiet tap on her door before the matron poked her head in, followed by a teenager.
Though, when she spotted him, her breath caught. He looked just like she had imaged, only a lot younger. He was in his lanky teen phase, or right near the end of it, since his limbs seemed a bit too long for the rest of him. No doubt by the end of the summer he'd have grown out of it. He had just turned fifteen from what Euphemia had mentioned, which put him right at the end of his fourth year. Jasmine knew that he was training to become an Animagus with Sirius and future traitor Peter Pettigrew. But, now was not the time to be thinking about the rat, now it was time to meet someone who she once regarded as a father.
He seemed nervous when he walked up to her hospital bed. He was twiddling his thumbs, his robes slightly frayed at the ends from picking at them. His glasses were square and slightly askew on his nose, his hair was a mess, and his eyes were looking anywhere, but at her. It seemed that the floor in front of her was particularly interesting.
"You're James, right?" Jasmine asked, attempting to break the ice. The silence in the room was nearly suffocating her.
His head snapped up, his hair flopping around. Their eyes met, and his hazel eyes widened slightly when he saw her scars. "Wicked- I mean- yea, I'm James. My mum told me a bit about you, Jazz," he replied, the nickname bringing a smile to her face.
Jasmine was a mouthful, like she had honestly expected a Marauder not to give her a nickname. "No one has ever called me Jazz before…" she mused and James' nearly tripped in his haste to apologize.
She chuckled a little bit, causing him to stop. "No, I like it. Jazz, it sounds very English," she said, making her accent just a little bit heavier.
It seems that he had just noticed she might not have been from the United Kingdom, but he pressed forward. "It is, isn't it? My family is too bloody English for its own good. Who in their right minds names their child Fleamont, honestly. I'm just glad that they named me James," he retorted with a dramatic sigh that put him in the chair next to her bed.
Now, that was more of the James she was expecting. "Well, I guess Jasmine fits right in, right?"
He snorted, "Yea, mum and dad have been over the moon that you're coming to live with us. Mum's always really wanted a daughter," James muttered the last bit more to himself than to her, but she could hear the hurt.
So, she figured that she'd share a little about Jasmine's past that might put him at ease. "My dad always wanted a son, but my mum couldn't have any more kids after me. They were thinking of adopting before they died. I know how you feel, somewhat. I never got to the part where they picked another child, but I was eight and every jealous, being an only child. Now, I'd give anything for a family."
James fidgeted slightly before he turned to her with a surprisingly vulnerable expression on his face. "I've always wanted a little sister…though I always thought she'd be a lot younger, but four months isn't so bad."
She held a pale hand out to him to take. He took it without a second thought, gently squeezing her fingers. "I'd like a brother."
It didn't take long for James to start talking about Hogwarts and his friends and Jasmine honestly wasn't sure how much was exaggerated and how much was true about their exploits. That was how Euphemia found them. Jasmine was dozing on the bed and James was giving a detailed description of one of his more convoluted pranks.
"And then, Sirius lit the cat hair on fire and water sprayed all over the Great Hall that caused everyone's hair to change colors all day. It was amazing! Remus missed it since he was sick and in bed, but he got to be the only person in the entire school without his hair changing colors, it was worth all the detentions," he explained with a flourish of his left hand.
Jasmine gave a tired chuckle and heard Euphemia clear her throat. "And, while I love hearing about your misadventures, I think it's time that we left Jasmine alone to rest."
James bound over to his mother, a huge grin on his face. "When is Jazz coming home with us?"
Euphemia seemed honestly surprised by how excited James was acting. And Jasmine wondered how he had been acting before he entered her hospital room to garner that kind of shock.
"Within the week. She is still weak from the attack. The healers want to watch her for another three days and then she will be coming home with us."
"Can Sirius come visit with me tomorrow? He is coming over and leaving him alone in the house with dad could lead to another cauldron explosion."
Euphemia let out a long sigh and tapped her chin in mock thought, causing James to let out a whine. "Well, I suppose so, as long as it's okay with Jasmine."
Jasmine gave a weak smile and nodded.
~*~
The next day started with a letter from the Headmaster of Hogwarts explaining that she would not be allowed to attend unless she was proven mentally sound in mind and body by various medical professionals. Just the other day he had been telling her that she was going to be attending Hogwarts, no questions asked, but that was when he assumed that he was going to get custody of her.
Jasmine could only image what Dumbledore would do with access to the Peverell heirlooms. Mrs. Potter had already sighed away her right to access the vaults and gave sole access to Jasmine, the rightful heir to the family line. Euphemia had explained that neither she nor her husband were going to take over the Peverell family money and vaults. They were going to teach her how to handle her family's monetary assets and manage an Ancient and Noble H ouse on her own. It was kind of them and would help in the long run, but none of that would matter if she couldn't get a proper education and despite everything, Hogwarts would give her the best education.
She read the letter over twice more, committing it to memory. She'd give it to Euphemia to read. She didn't want to ruin her day with James. He had been looking forward to Sirius coming to meet her today and she didn't want Dumbledore to ruin it for them.
Jasmine was honestly worried that Sirius would wreck the day all on his own. She had been told in more than once life about Sirius causing more than one problem with his wild and possessive nature. James was his friend and Sirius didn't like sharing. That was one thing that he inherited from his family.
Sirius was skeptical about Jasmine, this much she read from his stiff posture when he looked at her in her bed. He was very different from the man that she knew in the future, then again, Azkaban tended to change people. Sirius seemed lighter, more carefree and very rebellious. He had come dressed in muggle jeans and a Beatles T-shirt. His hair was long and wavy, and his grey eyes danced with mischief. They weren't empty, haunted by the sins of his past, not yet.
And, here he was just watching her with James standing next to him. The lead Marauder seemed nervous waiting for Sirius' reaction. Did he expect this to go badly?
"Did you really kill all those Death Eaters?"
James stomped on his foot loud enough to echo and for Sirius to swear and hop around the room demanding justice for his injury.
Some things truly never changed. Sirius was still Sirius even if he wasn't haunted by Azkaban, he still had the mouth of a sailor.
So, naturally, his first question wouldn't be her name or something civil. He'd go right for the throat like the grim he was and ask questions that everyone had been avoiding. She liked that about him. Of course, at this point both James and Sirius were arguing with each other, hands on the other's collar in some sort of dominant alpha male pissing contest that she'd never bothered to understand.
"I did," she said, cutting through their petty fighting.
Both heads swiveled to look at her. She hadn't talked to James about the attack. He hadn't asked and she wasn't going to bring it up on her own. She figured that Euphemia had forbidden him to talk about it with her. It was a touchy subject after all. Especially after the Auror had gotten more of the gritty details out of her. It wasn't something that James and Sirius should really be exposed to at their age, or at any age really.
Sirius bounded up to her, a victorious grin was thrown over his shoulder to James, who was giving Sirius a rather disapproving glare. "How did you do it?"
She shrugged, "with skill and a bit of magic anything is possible."
He whined, high pitched, sounding more like a dog than a person and James nudged him with his elbow obviously noticing the noise as well. It seemed their transformations were close to becoming complete. "What? I was just curious! It isn't every day that I get to meet the person solely responsible for nearly causing my mother to have a heart attack. Your cousin is my hero and telling my mother that I met her, might just kill her! So, if it doesn't, I need to know battle details to horrify my fool of a little brother, so he doesn't join the Death Munchers."
Jasmine hadn't realized that his mother was already trying to force her children to join Voldemort. She thought that it would be at least another year when Sirius was closer to reaching his seventeenth birthday when his mother started pushing her agenda on Sirius. Then again, he did run away at fifteen. Had he run away yet?
It didn't quite matter at this point in time. They had just met and any opinions she had about his life didn't matter. Sirius was currently a teenager and that meant that he was a completely different person than the one she had known.
So, she supposed that she'd need to just take things one step at a time and attempt to make friends with the Black Heir. "It isn't that easy, Sirius. I've been trained in magical combat for years. I would be put in lessons for hours until I got a spell right or my patrons would take my failures out on me. Those men that attacked the manor, they were good duelists with no form of honor. They came to the manor to kill children. Nothing about that fight is worth praise, Sirius."
Sirius pouted. "Aw, James, your cousin is lame."
James looked from Jasmine to Sirius, seemingly unaware of what to do when his best mate insulted his soon to be family member.
"I'm blind in one eye, not lame. I've still got both of my arms and legs," Jasmine retorted her accent coming out towards the end, defending herself with a weak joke, that had James smacking his forehead. But, of course, the joke sent Sirius into a fit of giggles that turned into a full laughing fit.
James raised an eyebrow at Jasmine, who gave a weak smile as they watched Sirius pounding his fists on the bed, bouncing Jasmine up and down.
It seems that awful jokes and puns were Sirius' weakness.
Once he got a hold of himself he jumped onto the foot of her bed nearly causing her to fall out, James needed to steady her. "I take it back, James. Your cousin is amazing! We're keeping her and when she comes to Hogwarts we're going to induct her into the Marauders."
There was s an odd twinkle to his eyes that worried Jasmine, but there was another issue that she had wanted to address with Mrs. Potter in the room. "I don't know if I'm going to be attending Hogwarts. I received a letter from the Headmaster saying that I needed to pass an extensive evaluation with a mind healer as well as other exams to even transfer in," she replied somewhat timidly and James' honestly looked scandalize at the mere thought that she wouldn't be attending school with him.
"Have you told mum about this?"
"I gave her the letter when you all got here."
"Why is Dumbledore giving you a hard time? He's usually really laid back…" Sirius asked, brows furrowed, and arms crossed in genuine confusion.
"I'm not sure. I've only spoken to him once, but he didn't seem to like that I had to kill someone to save my own life," she replied, sounding unsure, but she knew that was the reason. Dumbledore knew he wouldn't be able to convince her to only use light based magic if she was already willing to kill to defend herself. She'd never get to be a part of his little Order. She'd be a dangerous free agent. She'd survived one Death Eater attack, taking out five or six of them with her. Who was to say that she wouldn't be able to survive another.
Suddenly, Sirius was sitting next to her, an arm wrapped around her shoulders. He smelt like motor oil, dog, and…chocolate? "Don't worry, Jazzy-Pants, Mrs. P is going to make sure that everything works out."
He was not going to get away with calling her Jazzy-Pants. That nickname was not going to stick.
"What did you just call me?" She asked and Sirius' grin just got wider. He shared a mischievous look with James, who for the first time since he'd entered the room seemed like he was going to play a prank.
"Not sure what you mean, I called you by your name, Jazzy-Pants?"
"Look, I'll let you call me Jazz, but anything else, and you'll see why Death Eaters should have fled when I started firing spells at them," Jasmine threatened, somewhat seriously. She wasn't a fan of mocking nicknames after living with the Dursely family so many times.
Both boys took a step back. Sirius going so far as to put his hands up in mock surrender. "Whatever you say, sorry."
There was a quiet knock at the door and Euphemia poked her head in and looked at the scene before her. James and Jasmine were grinning while Sirius was slowly backing away from both of them. It was a rather comical moment and it brought a smile to Euphemia's face to know that Jasmine was making friends with people her age. She had been so closed off and formal. It seemed that Sirius and James were able to bring out a more playful nature in her.
Though, this happy moment wasn't meant to last. Euphemia was going to need to talk to Jasmine about school.
"Boys, why don't you floo yourselves back to the manor. Jasmine and I need to have a talk."
Jasmine recognized this as Euphemia's Auror voice and no one messed with her when she used that tone of voice. James and Sirius seemed to know this as well and left immediately without any form of protest.
So, Jasmine sat there, hands folded on the bed, waiting to hear her fate. "Don't look so solemn, Jasmine. I've spent the better part of this afternoon talking with various Healers and they're going to clear you. You've been speaking to Mind Healers since you were admitted, and they see nothing wrong with you starting school in September. They still want to see you on a bi-weekly basis while you're at home, but other than that you are free to come home with us tomorrow."
It had been a long time since Jasmine had honestly felt this happy.
Notes:I hope you enjoyed! =)
Leave your comments and kudos below.
~SugarPhantom