I woke up to a pleasant smell.
It seeped into my sleep before I realized I was even awake — a warm, buttery scent of fresh buns. I lay with my eyes closed, breathing it in, and somewhere on the edge of consciousness a thought flickered: This is what home smells like. A real home.
Then I remembered everything.
The hut. Marvolo. Morfin. The escape. The road. The shed with the rats. And the woman who took my hand and brought me here.
I opened my eyes.
Sunlight poured through the window, filling the room with golden light. The room was small but cozy: white lace curtains, a dresser with porcelain trinkets, an embroidered bedspread on which I lay, and — I ran my hand over the fabric — clean, soft, warm.
I sat up. My body obeyed better than yesterday. The bruises hurt, but not as sharply. My head was clear.
On the chair by the bed lay my dress from yesterday — washed, dried, and mended in several places. Beside it stood a pair of old house slippers.
I dressed slowly, savoring the feeling of clean fabric against clean skin. My hair — wet yesterday — had dried and turned into a tangled mass. I tried to comb it with my fingers and only made it worse.
From the kitchen came a voice:
"Awake? Come eat before it gets cold!"
I stepped out of the room and found myself in a small kitchen, just as cozy as the bedroom. A wooden table covered with a floral oilcloth, a stove where something was sizzling, shelves with dishes, and at the center of it all — Mrs. Cole, skillfully flipping golden pancakes with a spatula.
"Sit," she nodded toward a chair. "Eat."
I sat. A plate piled high with pancakes appeared in front of me, along with a butter dish, a jar of jam, and a mug of hot tea.
"This is all… for me?"
"Well, who else?" Mrs. Cole sat across from me and poured herself tea. "My appetite isn't what it used to be when I was young. One smell and I'm already full."
I looked at the food and felt my eyes start to sting again. How embarrassing. Crying over everything.
"Thank you," I managed and took a pancake.
It melted in my mouth. Warm, sweet, buttery. I ate and couldn't stop until there wasn't a single one left on the plate. Only when the last pancake disappeared did I look up and see Mrs. Cole watching me with a strange expression — pity? sadness? — but when our eyes met, she smiled.
"Good that you've got an appetite. Means you'll pull through."
"Pull through?" I repeated.
"Out of trouble," Mrs. Cole said simply. "I've seen many like you. You're young. Things will get better."
I wanted to tell her she didn't know anything. That I wasn't just a "girl from trouble." That I was from another world, another time, and another dimension altogether. That my past life had been in the twenty-first century, and now I was stuck in the body of a girl from the past, in a world of magic I only knew from books.
But I only said:
"Thank you. I'll try."
Mrs. Cole nodded as if that was exactly the answer she had expected.
"So," she set down her mug, "you can live with me as long as you need. There's space, and it's lonely alone. But you can't eat bread for free. You'll help around the house. Cleaning, cooking, working in the garden. All right?"
I nodded, hardly believing my luck. Work? In exchange for food and shelter? It was the best thing that could have happened to me.
"All right."
"Good then." She stood and walked to the window. "Now come on, I'll show you the village properly. Yesterday you probably only saw the church and Toby's shop."
We went outside.
The village in daylight looked completely different. People didn't shy away; they greeted Mrs. Cole, glancing at me with curiosity. Children ran along the street, rolling hoops. Somewhere chickens clucked, a cow mooed.
"This is Merope," Mrs. Cole introduced me to everyone we met. "My distant niece, from London. An orphan, she'll be living with me."
I looked at her in amazement. She had invented a story for me in just one night. And now everyone nodded, sighed sympathetically, and wished me luck.
"Stay close to me," Mrs. Cole whispered when we moved away from another neighbor. "The village has its own rules. They don't like outsiders, but they protect their own. You'll be my niece — you'll be one of ours."
"And if someone finds out the truth?"
"What truth?" she raised an eyebrow. "The truth is you're an orphan and you were mistreated. The rest is none of their business."
We approached the well in the center of the village. Mrs. Cole took out a bucket and drew water.
"Here, have a drink. The water's good."
I tilted the bucket — and suddenly froze.
In the reflection, a girl looked back at me. Light hair arranged into a hairstyle (Mrs. Cole had braided it before we left), pale skin, large eyes. The bruises had almost faded, only a yellowish shadow under the left eye remained.
"That's me," I whispered.
"You, who else," Mrs. Cole snorted. "Quite pretty, actually. Skinny as a stick, but we'll fatten you up."
As for "pretty," I suspected Mrs. Cole had slightly embellished the truth to encourage me. But I had my own eyes, and I could clearly see I was far from any beauty standards. Still, I decided not to argue with her.
I looked at the reflection and felt as though I wasn't seeing Merope Gaunt at all. I was seeing myself. A new self. The one who had managed to survive all of this.
"…All right, let's go," the woman picked up the bucket. "I'll show you the garden. There's plenty of work, and the day is short."
I only nodded and followed her.
The garden was behind the house — neat beds of onions, carrots, cabbage, and greens. Mrs. Cole explained what grew where, how to water, when to weed. I listened with half an ear, but then suddenly realized I could almost feel the plants. They were… alive. Not just green mass, but something living, reaching toward the sun, breathing.
I touched a lettuce leaf and almost jerked my hand back — it seemed to me I felt a strange tremor at my fingertips.
"What's wrong?" Mrs. Cole asked.
"Nothing," I said quickly. "Just thinking."
Magic. Could magic really be awakening in me?...
Honestly, I could hardly believe it. Maybe I had just imagined it?
After all, Merope Gaunt, as far as I knew, had been considered a squib, and her magical abilities were actually minimal.
In any case, I decided that perhaps I had indeed only imagined it. I chose not to think about it for now.
The day flew by unnoticed. I weeded beds, carried water, peeled potatoes for dinner. My hands hurt, my back ached, but it was a good pain. The pain of honest work, not beatings.
In the evening we sat on the porch and watched the sunset. Mrs. Cole knitted, I just sat and breathed in the warm evening air.
"Mrs. Cole," I asked. "Why are you helping me? You don't even know me."
She set her knitting aside.
"You know, child, I've lived alone many years. My husband died, no children. Sometimes at night it's so quiet you can hear the house creak. And you think — that's how you'll grow old, and no one will even hand you a cup of tea. " She sighed. "And then you came. Beaten, dirty, hungry, but with light in your eyes. The kind people with hope have. I remember those eyes. I had them myself when I left my husband."
"You left your husband?"
"Mm-hmm," she smirked. "He beat me. I endured it for a long time, thought — it'll pass, love will come. It didn't. I packed a bundle and left. On foot, in a snowstorm. Thought I'd freeze in a snowdrift. But I reached the city, found work, survived. And then God took him too — got drunk and ended up under wheels."
I stayed silent, processing this.
"So I know what it's like — when the one who should protect becomes the executioner," she said quietly. "That's why I help."
I looked at her and felt warmth spreading in my chest.
"You're amazing, Mrs. Cole."
"Oh, nonsense," she waved it off. "Ordinary. Just haven't forgotten what it's like to be at the bottom, that's all."
We sat until dark. Then we went to sleep.
I lay in my room, staring at the ceiling and thinking. Mrs. Cole had given me more than food and shelter. She had given me hope. If she had managed to survive and build a new life, then so could I.
In a way, I had already managed to change my future. After all, I had decided not to become the mother of the Dark Lord and not to condemn myself to a tragic fate.
I fell asleep with a smile.
Yes, now everything really was in the past.
In the morning, new work awaited me. And a new life.