Prologue

The Girl Who Died

I was born at 12:03 am on Sunday, September 1, 1979 at St. Mungo's Hospital in London, England. My mother said I must have been determined to come on that day because I refused to leave her a second earlier. It had been a difficult birth and at one point the Healers were sure they were going to lose me. I stayed in the hospital for weeks afterwards before I got my strength back and my mother was finally allowed to take me home. I was a very small and very quiet baby. I rarely ever cried unless I desperately needed something and even then it wasn't a very piercing drawn out cry or many crying jags for no reason.

I was born at 1:00 pm on November 18, 1991 at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. My mom had arrived at the hospital at 12:30 and liked to joke I'd been so impatient they almost didn't get a doctor there in time for me to be born. It had been one of the quickest births the hospital had ever had and my mom similarly recovered in no time at all. We were barely in the hospital a few days before dad took us home. I was a fat baby and during the time I didn't spend crying I was pretty friendly "chatting" with people constantly. Not that there was much time not spent crying. I think my parents barely slept those early months of my life.

My mother was named Amata and she didn't work, staying at home with me. I eventually figured out it wasn't that she didn't want to work, it was because she wasn't allowed. It was fairly hard for a Squib to get a job in the Wizarding World, especially a respectable one. My mother's family refused to let her settle for any "common" job and no one wanted a Squib for any better ones even if they didn't strictly require magic. I got the impression that mother was rather sheltered having been born, raised, taught, and lived in her family home. It was pretty obvious she rarely left and I think having me there to distract her and take up her time helped her with the idleness that seemed to bother her.

My mom was named Claire and she was probably one of the best lawyers in the state. She got through school with scholarships, loans, and sheer force of will. She made associate at a pretty decent firm quickly after graduating and rather than accept a partnership she, along with a few select friends, moved to help her open her own firm. She told me that building it up cost more sweat, tears, and blood than childbirth and if it wasn't for Dad being her cheerleader the entire way she didn't think she'd have been able to get through the stress. She had though and she got a reputation for ruthlessness, efficiency, and willingness to work pro bono for causes she supported. The work exhausted her, but she enjoyed it.

Amata was a rather short woman with a moon round face, narrow amber colored eyes, thin smiling lips, and long well cared for brown hair. She wasn't exactly an attractive woman, a bit on the plain side, but she took great care in how she looked and she was so lively it was hard to realize she wasn't that pretty. Her hair was shiny and cut in a way that made her face look thinner, she smiled constantly making her eyes crinkle up with a friendly warmth, and she had a well-kept and put together appearance every morning, despite never leaving the house.

Mom was always tall, towering over everyone including dad, and would tease us by calling us her "hobbit family". I always said she was one of the prettiest women I'd ever met. She had a face that was all angles like a knife, but lovely in its sharpness. Her hair only made the impression of a blade more profound as she'd started to go white early in life and by the time she was forty had a head of white into a short professional bob that met with her pointed chin. Her eyes were large and grey and the softest thing about her face, while her lips were oddly full and given to smiling when she wasn't in court. Mom was a bit of a slob outside of the courtroom and liked to walk around in sweat pants and comfort clothes. She has bags under her eyes from late nights that she hid expertly with makeup, but her nap schedule when off work gave away her exhaustion.

My father was not in the picture and any mention of him was shot down with a growl from my Uncle Albert and a pinched expression from Amata. Sometimes though when we were alone at night, Amata would get a faraway look in her eye and tell me about him. She talked of how he'd been alright with her being a Squib and how he could be charming when he wanted to. She told me of midnight adventures to Muggle London where both of them were a little lost, but didn't care. She told me that he made her smile and wasn't scared of Albert or his overprotectiveness. She never told me what happened to him. If her was dead or just gone, but her midnight talks were always quiet and had a bittersweet quality to them as she spoke with a smile through tears.

My dad was named Daniel and was the undisputed master of the house. Mom liked to joke he was half-hobbit giving evidence of his short stature, curly hair, love of food, and how comfortable he kept the house. He was the homebody in the family, working from his office to write his books. He had warm blue eyes and the moment Mom started teasing him about being a hobbit, dubbing him her "Frodo", he would tease back that he'd gone and married a giant calling her "Titaness". He was a warm man and somehow managed to wrangle all five kids into being ready each morning while making us breakfast. It was because of him that I loved fantasy books. Though his, in my biased opinion, were always the best.

I looked like my father I knew. My first time in front of a mirror I'd spent well over an hour examining my small childish face. I was a cute kid I suppose. I didn't really have well defined facial features yet due to the baby fat, but at the rate it was thinning I was fairly certain I hadn't inherited my mother's round face. I had a mess of black fluff on top of my head growing thick and wild up top. My eyes were interesting a blue filled with quite a bit of white. Gunmetal blue was a good description for them, they were striking and a sharp color. I liked them I decided quickly and remained there examining my features until Amata found me and laughed at my fascination before carrying me back off to the nursery.

I had my father's curl, but not his blue eyes, something that I'd always been a little disgruntled about. Instead I had soft grey eyes, a tall build, and dark brown hair with a few rebellious strands of white popping up in high school. I loved my dad's eyes though and was terribly jealous that all my siblings managed them when I didn't. Getting mom's height and premature whiteness was not a fair trade off in my book, something that I often despaired over with my oldest little sister, who laughed at my plight, but helped me dye my hair the right color to cover it.

I was an only child. I didn't even have any cousins as Uncle Albert was steadily and consistently single, something Amata teased him about in his more friendly moments. Besides Amata and Albert the only others in the house was a house-elf named Winnie who assisted Amata in caring for me and the portraits of our deceased relatives. I knew we had some more distant cousins somewhere, Albert mentioned them a few times, but I wasn't introduced to them and they never visited.

I was the oldest of five with three sisters and two brothers. Mallory, my oldest little sister, was only two years younger than me. After her was Alex and Angie, a set of fraternal twins in middles school who looked so a like they were practically identical. Followed by Sara, a loud seven year old who loved dinosaurs, and Henry the sweetest toddler in existence. On top of my siblings we had a ton of cousins through Dad's two sister and Mom's four brothers. Our house was never quiet and if our bunch wasn't visiting them, than they were visiting us.

I didn't like to think about how I died. In fact I went whole weeks without thinking about it. Around six months old though I started to have nightmares about it and woke up shrieking. The next few months had been tense as Amata wasn't sure what to make of the sudden change and I had finally admitted to myself that this wasn't just a dream. Those months were a dark scary thing for me filled with anger over my death, grief for my losses, and terror over what was happening to me. I didn't remember them very clearly which was probably for the best as I wasn't in the best mindsets at the time. I slowly started to recover though by the time my first birthday came around.

I'd only been living alone for a few months when I died. Dad insisted I call every night and my siblings usually turned the "quick" phone calls into hour long affairs regaling me on every little detail I'd missed. The night I died I'd only just finished hearing one of my youngest sister's epics when I'd heard something fall over in the kitchen. I hadn't really been fazed assuming it was just the cat acting up again. I'd walked to the kitchen listening as the phone was hand off to my brother and didn't understand at first when I saw the window open and a strange man standing there. It hadn't been my cat.

My name was Althea Runcorn and this was my second life in a completely different universe.

My name had been Stevie Dalton and I'd been murdered at exactly 10:13 pm July 1, 2015 at the age of twenty-three.

Author's Note: While I realize I should be working on a chapter for The Hatake Legacy I couldn't help myself okay. Writing OC SI's for Naruto was fun, but then I considered Harry Potter and this happened. I blame some really good ones I read okay. Any who this is Al, she might seem a bit depressing right now, but the story should get more cheerful as it goes one. I don't have any idea where to sort her yet, but I suppose I'll figure it out as time goes on. Feel free to tell me your opinion of her and anything you want to see happen! This stories a pretty blank canvas right now!