CHAPTER TWO: THE MAGIC-LESS REALITY

She was lying face down on the ground again. The smell of the Forest filled her nostrils. She could feel the cold hard ground beneath her cheek, and the hinge of her glasses, which had been knocked sideways by the fall, cutting into her temple. Every inch of her ached, and the place where the Killing Curse had hit her…¹ Killing Curse…

Wait.

Alex jolted awake. What happened? She stumbled to her feet and habitually summoned her wand from its holster. Whirling round, prepared for an attack, all that greeted her movements were the sounds of crunched leaves beneath her trainers and screeching birds scattering from atop tree branches. Her arm dropped heavily to her side.

She was alone.

Emerald eyes furrowed in confusion. The last thing she remembered was walking with Ron and Hermione to Hatchards, so how did she end up in the Forbidden Forest?

Not one to wait, she moved cautiously through the trees, straining her ears to detect the slightest irregular noise, until she reached the edge of the treeline.

"Where am I?" The words fell out of her mouth, as an unfamiliar sight enveloped her vision. The landscape certainly resembled the terrain of wizarding Scotland, but the land was missing everything wizarding about it. The world renown castle of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - gone; the comforting hut of Hagrid the official Hogwarts Groundskeeper - missing; the looping hoops essential to the Quidditch Stadium - nonexistent.

She pondered this bewildering view for a minute or two, distinctly remembering how she had helped Headmistress McGonagall repair Hagrid's home, before adrenaline rushed through her veins. It wasn't a second later when she appeared on the front step of 12 Grimmauld Place. Alohamora unlocked the door, and pristine white walls accosted her face. Kreacher didn't pop out to ask if his mistress needed anything, and Walburga Black didn't yell at her from behind thick black curtains.

"Thomas? Thomas, is that you?" a female voice called from the hallway. "Did you forget something again?" Alex froze with her arm midway to touching a picture frame holding the image of a man and woman surrounded by three kids.

"What did I tell you about skipping class?! Just because-"

The witch apparated away when a foot crossed into the floorspace.

The unique architecture of the Burrow didn't greet her when she landed on the outskirts of Ottery St Catchpole, nor did a 'Granger' mailbox when she arrived at what should've been Hermione's home in Oxfordshire. A dozen phone booths and another dozen toilets didn't transported her to the atrium of the Ministry, the Leaky Cauldron had been replaced by a luggage shop, and Godric's Hollow now appeared to be a village called Lavenham. It was in sheer panic that she apparated to the Forest of Dean.

Leaning a hand against a tree trunk, she closed her eyes and focused on deep breathing. It's fine. Everything is fine. Someone is just playing a joke on me. A Black-less 12 Grimmauld Place permeated her senses. Her eyes clenched tighter. A very elaborate, cruel joke. Exhaling one final big breath, Alex stood, concentrated hard, and conjured Prongs.

"Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley," she enunciated to corporeal apparition. "Tell them: I'm where the Doe found me." This wasn't her first time sending a message through the spell, but her order must have been misunderstood for Prongs didn't react.

"Prongs?" Alex's voice trembled. "Hermione Granger - I'm ok." He didn't move. "Ronald Weasley - I'm alive." No response. "Neville Longbottom - Call me." Nothing. For each name and message that spilled from her lips, Prongs' only response was to move closer and closer to his conjurer. It was when Alex's voice cracked as she tried, "Dudley Dursley" that he butted his head, antlers and all, into her chest.

At the impact, Alex's eyes grew wide as a feeling of warmth rushed through her body. Unconsciously, her hands rose, dropping her wand in the process, and attempted to bury themselves in the apparition's pelt; eerily enough, her fingers sunk into the spell and it felt as though she was holding onto a cloud, if a cloud was made of tender sunlight.

Unfortunately, the hope her patronus produced did little to ease the stark grief that enveloped her. The only reason Prongs wouldn't be able to deliver her message is if the receiver no longer existed; if Prongs wasn't running off into the distance, that could only mean…

Alex wasn't sure how long she held Prongs in her embrace, but eventually he faded away. Drained, she bent to pick up her wand. She took one step forward, then another, and lost herself in the endless maze of trees.

Alex Potter was fine.

44 days had passed since waking up in this new land and she'd grown content with the life she managed to make. Sure, her home was the Weasley-loaned, magically enhanced camping tent warded in the middle of the Forest of Dean; sure, her only source of monetary funds was pawning off her limited hoard of galleons, sickles, and knuts; sure, the only people she really talked to were the checkout cashiers when she made grocery purchases; and sure 27 of those 44 days had been spent moping and denying and yelling and stalking of past haunts that should've been housing magical beings but weren't. But hey, her nightly nightmares had reduced to haunting her only twice a week now, and starting from Day 28 on, she began a new more productive routine: aka, she pulled a Hermione and began attending courses at Oxford University. What better place to gain information than a place that educates other people. Plus Hermione had always talked about taking classes there, so Alex figured she might as well take them for her.

Thus, since Day 28, Alex spent her days slipping into classes while hiding behind either a disillusionment charm or her Invisibility Cloak, and lo and behold, her Hermione-esq plan worked - she learned. A lot. She discovered things she probably should've found out on Day 1 (like the fact that it was currently year 2006 and not 1998), discovered things Hermione had lied to Ron and herself about (like the fact that William Blake's poetry was absolute garbage and not incredibly riveting), and discovered technology was far more advanced in comparison to what she previously knew (like the fact that cell phones could do a lot more than just make calls and send text messages).

However, the information that impacted her most was ones that proved she no longer resided in the same world she had been born into. The London Bridge hadn't collapsed in 1996 (Bellatrix's proudest moment behind torturing the Longbottoms). Tianshui hadn't been demolished by a series of terrorist attacks in 1955 (the muggle cover story for what had actually been fourteen female Chinese Fireballs razing the city in revenge for poachers stealing their eggs). And today, today after sneaking into an African Studies course, she just received the most devastating news of all: the country of Uganda didn't exist. Never existed. This in itself wouldn't have been as monumental if not for the fact that Uganda had housed the internationally reputed, magical school of Uagadou.

She sat there in silence when the class was released. Though the projected image had long since been taken down, Alex could still see the bolded name, WAKANDA, lying directly over what should've been UGANDA.

A substantial part of her had feared that she couldn't find any trace of magic because the magical world, and everyone in it, had finally decided to reject her. It had been an irrational fear, seeing as there would be no way for the magical community to cut ties so completely with the muggle world, but it had been a prominent fear none the less. Now, as this newfound fact, as this acceptance that she really was somehow living in a magic-less reality, assuaged her irrational fear, it also highlighted a very rational fear she had been even more afraid of acknowledging: how was she suppose to get back to her original world, to her friends and family?

She couldn't breathe!

Alex tore off her Cloak, panting harsh breaths into the air. Her eyes clenched shut. What was she suppose to do now? If she at least knew how she came to this world in the first place that might have made the solution more visible, yet at this point all she knew was nothing. No matter how much she strained her mind, the last thing she remembered was walking with Hermione and Ron through muggle London, mindlessly joking around.

"Dammit," Alex muttered. "Dammit." Alternate realities, different dimensions - those were topics discussed in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries, topics she couldn't have cared less about when researching how to destroy horcruxes. She still had dozens of books stored in her trunk, but those were all about defensive magics, advanced transfiguration and charms, potion making tips for everything from healing tonics to explosive bombs, even some about the history of the magical world in general (because Hermione insisted). She had zilch on dimension travelling.

Maybe science could help? She wiped her tears away and adjusted her glasses. Science and technology brought people to the moon in 1969 (that hadn't changed), and space was sort of like another dimension. Right?

Alex groaned, her head falling with a thunk onto the table. She was rubbish with both science and technology. Science was hard because magic broke a lot of limitations science set (the day Hermione tried explaining the law of conservation of mass to Mr Weasley cost Alex hours she'll never get back); and technology, well seeing how her engagement with technology had been severely limited during the years spent with the Dursleys, and seeing how technology had been mostly non-existent in the magical world, landing in a technology-laden universe basically doomed her from the start.

Mentally drained, Alex stood up, returned her Cloak into her trunk, re-shrank the trunk to fit back in her pocket, and left the classroom toward the main quad. It was sunny outside so she figured she might as well try to get some warmth out of the day.

Unfortunately for the teenage witch, this was not fated to happen. She had been so caught up with her new dimension travelling conundrum that unaware to her surroundings, she knocked headfirst into the back of a man. If she hadn't returned her Cloak to her trunk, this impact wouldn't have been a problem; she would've simply apologised unseen and continued walking without a backwards glance. But she had stored it. So when she bumped into this brunette guy, her apology died on her lips as green eyes met chocolate brown and instead, the words that spewed from her lips were, "You can see me?"

"Of course I can see you. I'm not blind," the man retorted as his face remained stagnant. "Well, are you going to apologise?"

Alex liked to think that if she had bumped into this guy a mere hour earlier, she'd just go on ignoring his haunty attitude. However, it wasn't an hour earlier and she was already annoyed to hell, so she went with, "Why? You were the one standing in the middle of the walkway."

Alex watched as the guy's eyebrows rose over the rims of his lightly tinted sunglasses. "You had ample time to walk one pace to the left," he argued.

"Your posse has taken over everything to the left and right. What was I supposed to do?" Alex glared and crossed her arms.

"Not knock into me."

"Who do you think you are? The Queen of England?" Alex regretted the words immediately. Not only did Shades actually take off his sunglasses, but all the students who surrounded him ceased their previous mutterings and stared at her as if she was the third coming of Voldemort. She felt like a second year student again, being accused of being the Heir of Slytherin.

"You don't know who I am?" Shades asked incredulously. He took a step away from his followers and closer to her.

"Well," Alex stood her ground, "It's not like you know who I am."

She raised an own eyebrow as he pointed his shades at her while saying, "You're serious. You really don't know me."

"Sirius was my dogfather," the line came out automatically. "And should I know you?" Murmuring broke out through the posse and Alex took this as a sign to get moving. "Right," she looked down at her wrist. "Look at the time. I'm late for class."

Shades frowned. "Classes aren't in that direction."

"I know," she gave a half smirk as she walked away. Nothing about this day was turning out well.

"Don't you at least want to know his name?" a random student asked as she passed him by. She couldn't help but stop at his words. Taking a glance back, she noticed how the posse had subconsciously split enabling her to make eye contact with Shades.

"You say that as if his name defines everything about him," Alex heard herself speak. Names had haunted her her whole life - freak, witch, The Girl Who Lived, parselmouth, Triwizard Champion, The Chosen One, The Savior, Undesirable No 1, The Girl Destined to Die, The Girl Who Lived Twice. She grew up in a world where every child in the wizarding community knew her name; she grew up in a world where everyone who knew her name believed they knew her.

A sudden realization flashed through Alex's mind. No one knew her here. These students, this world, they could all care less about her. No one knew her history. No one knew the ordeals she survived through. She had been living the past 44 days as Alex. Just Alex.

Maybe I should stay here.

Her heart burned.

Bad mood turned worse, Alex frowned, cut eye contact with Shades and continued walking away.

"Wait! What's your name then?!"

Alex didn't respond. As soon as she was out of sight, she apparated back to the Forest of Dean. She entered her tent and threw her trunk on the ground. Popping the lock, she jumped down into the rooms Professor Flitwick had charmed for her. Choosing to invade Hermione's den, she grabbed the first book of many and flipped to the title page. There had to be something about dimensions in one of the texts, she just needed to find it.

Sitting alone in a random pub near some street whose name she'd already forgotten since she was currently halfway to plastered, Alex could easily say how she became reduced to this state. She glared heatedly at the arrangement of whiskey bottles before her.

She hadn't been able to find crap.

One week. One whole week of pouring over Hermione's hoard of textbooks and she found one measly sentence in a book written by Gilderoy Lockhart of all people: The Veil, although rumored to be a gateway to another dimension, has thus been proven to be a direct link to Death.

Alex paused her glaring as she took another swig of whiskey that was not as fiery as she would've preferred. Bloody Lockhart; he couldn't even back up his claims. Why had it been rumored to be a gateway in the first place? How was a link to Death even proven? Why was he the only person writing on other dimensions?

She swallowed the rest of her drink and motioned at the bartender to send another her way. Now that magic was off the table, at least for the moment, she needed to turn to science to get her home. The Hogwarts dropout was not happy about this.

"Long day?" the bartender asked, breaking her mental self-anguish. Alex blinked, surprised at being acknowledged after all her days under her Cloak and disillusionment charm, and gave Bernard a small smile.

"Long week," she stated, gratefully clutching her fourth, possibly sixth, glass of the night. "Whiskey is the only key to my continued survival."

"A girl who knows how to drink," a familiar drawl slid into both the stool on her right as well as the conversation. A smirk lit his stupid face as Alex turned to recognize familiar sunglasses. "Next round's on me."

"Ignore-" Alex began her refute, though Bernard had already rushed off, muttering inaudible words under his breath as a red flush rose up his neck. "-him." It would have taken a lot of effort not to drown the new glass in front of her if Shades hadn't taken away her temptation.

"You're a hard person to find," Shades admitted as he stole her drink and took a sip. "Huh. Smooth."

Alex could only stare.

"Absolutely no one knows you from Oxford and seeing how you're camera-shy-"

"You were looking for me?" Alex interrupted, unable to hide the tint of dread lining her words. She thought this had just been an awful coincidence, something not unheard of with her dismal luck in life. But the fact that he had been readily searching for her, and found her, was a worst case scenario she never saw coming.

"Of course. You said you didn't know who I am. Everybody knows who I am," were the words Shades said, yet all Alex heard was: You're different. Different means secrets. I don't like secrets.

Her eyes narrowed. She needed to leave.

Drawing blindly into her pocket, she drew whatever bills she had and placed them on the counter. After dropping to her feet, she made it but a step until a hand clutched her above the elbow; the instant it did, her mind flew back to the war - to Remus holding her back from following Sirius, to Malfoy restraining her as his aunt tortured Hermione.

Screams echoed in her mind as she turned hard eyes on Shades. "Let go of me." Everything seemed to go quiet. The small amount of customers halted their own conversations, Bernard stopped shaking a tumbler, even the music appeared to soften.

"Now." Out of the corner of her eyes, Alex saw two burly men getting to their own feet, in her defense or Shades she wasn't sure, though it didn't matter in the end as Shades' fingers slowly peeled off one-by-one. Satisfied at his compliance, Alex left, allowing the door to swing shut behind her.

The brisk air upon her face was as refreshing as it was relieving. She hadn't been prepared, hadn't anticipated someone holding an interest in her. Unconsciously she had let her guard down when she couldn't afford to.

Groaning, Alex shook her head, adding Shades to her list of things to worry about. Maybe she should have obliviated him before leaving, though it's not like he did anything beyond trying to find her. "Out of all the people, it had to be-"

"A genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist. Stop me when you hear something you like."

Alex whirled around, wand in hand and a disarming spell halfway out of her mouth. "Expelli - Why do you keep following me?!"

Shades stopped at her outraged tone and slowly raised his hands in the air, that is until his eyes squinted slightly at her choice of weapon.

"Is that - Are you pointing a stick at me?" he asked incredulously.

"You're one to talk. You're wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night." Alex slipped her wand back in it's holster and debated the merits of simply apparating from the spot right then and there. Unfortunately, Shades seemed like the guy who would become more obsessed if she took that route.

Heaving a puff of air out of her lungs, she narrowed her eyes at Shades' widening smirk before turning and taking off again. Unhurried footsteps followed in her path.

"Who are you?" She ignored his question.

"You attend courses at Oxford, but you're not a registered student or any part of the staff. You have a distinct southern English accent, yet not a single camera in the entire country has captured your image until 51 days ago when you just began appearing in locations all across England within mere minutes of each other. The dog tag around your neck has the name Alex Potter on it. Assuming it's yours, Alex is short for what - Alexandra, Alexis, Alexa? Well, out of all the variations of your first name and all the people in your age group - 16 to 18 right? - not a single 'Alex Potter' matching your general description was born within the years of 1970 to 2000."

Alex didn't noticed when she stopped moving.

"Now perhaps the name on that dog tag isn't yours, perhaps you were raised in some other country around the world, perhaps you've just aged extremely well," the sound of his smug glee sent goosebumps down her spine, "but I'm not wrong, am I. So, Alex - Who are you?"

Out of everything, it was the sound of an explosion that saved Alex from acting on her panic and going through with the memory charm. One moment she was fingering her holly wand because this muggle was hitting too close to the truth for her comfort, and in the next her wand was aimed in the night sky where a trail of smoke rose above the line of buildings

"What…" she heard Shades' voice from behind, but she didn't take her eyes off the smoke illuminated by the colors of red, yellow, and orange.

Other than Shades' one word, silence enveloped the vicinity. One beat, two beats, then the yelling began - male and female, high and low, alarmed and frightened. Shades drew to her side and they both watched a large amount of people run away from the lighted area.

"BOMB! OH MY GOD! JIM! JIM! HE HAS A BOMB! I SAW IT!" The sudden exclamation from behind drew the duo to turn back around. A lady was screeching from the top of a double decker bus which had stopped to pick up more passengers. Her finger pointed accusingly at one such passenger who was in the midst of stepping onto the vehicle. He was a nondescript caucasian male wearing a thick winter jacket and lowered ball cap.

"BOMB! BOMB! HOLY SHIT! JIM, DO SOMETHING!"

At first, no one knew how to react. People on the bus, people across the street, they all just stopped and stared. But then the accused man stepped back, tilted his neck to seemingly look the screaming woman in the eye, and raised a hand that appeared to be holding something small. Even from 20 feet away, Alex could make out his hair-raising smile. The woman screamed bloody murder as the street turned to chaos.

Alex saw it all in slow motion. Other people on the bus rising to to their feet, the bus driver starting to close the welcoming door, pedestrians turning tail to flee in whichever direction brought them further away from the bomber.

Her mind whirled. Terrorists. Casualties. Innocents. She never anticipated surviving the Second Wizarding War, let alone finding herself in another warzone. A part of her wanted to flee herself, head back to her tent safe in the middle of a sparsely populated forest because she could still picture them - Colin, Lavender, Dumbledore, Cedric, Dobby, Tonks, Remus, Fred, Sirius - so many. Too many.

Milliseconds ticked by. She could run. It would be easy to just apparate away. No one would be able to follow. No one knew her here. She didn't owe anyone anything. There was no prophecy hanging over her head this time. And… She was tired. Tired of the violence, of the death. She should just focus her attention on finding her way back home where she belonged. But… She could see a family of four through a window on the bus. A mum, dad, two kids - a boy and girl. The mum's eyes were widened in terror, the father was wrapping his arms around his children.

Well, Alex had never been too good at running anyway.

Time returned to normal and Alex did what she knew best. "Immobulus! Accio!" The spells flew direct and true in quick succession, lighting a path of blue that directed the small black phone into the Seeker's grasp. She pocketed the device without a second look and strode toward the now frozen man whose neck remained tilted up and arm outstretched.

The bus had long since tore down the street and everyone else had either fled into a nearby building or raced to another street, so it was only Shades who joined her in approaching the terrorist. To his credit, he only spared her a small speculatory look before placing all his attention on the problem at hand.

"Whatever you did froze him in place," he stated unnecessarily. "How long will he remain that way?"

"As long as necessary," Alex spoke back. She reached out a hand to tug at the zipper holding together the man's jacket, but Shades physically stopped her with his own hand. It was an awkward filled moment as they both remembered the bar scene mere minutes before. He quickly let go and she took a step back.

"My name's Tony Stark," he said, breaking the tension and taking off his sunglasses. He also drew a screwdriver out in the same moment.

Alex rolled her eyes. "I don't care-"

"I'm also know as the Da Vinci of Our Time," he spoke over her as steady hands gently opened the garment to reveal a complex system of wires connected to a large device on the bomber's chest. "You should care because-" This time he cut himself off with a sharp exhale.

"What?" Alex brushed closer, wand at the ready. "Is something wrong." She watched as one of his fingers brushed over the faint lettering upon the black bomb.

"This is mine," Shad- Tony responded. His tone turned livid. "I made this."

"What are you talking about?" Alex questioned, getting frustrated at her own ignorance. Nothing he was saying made any sense. "What do you mean you made this?"

"I'm the head of Stark Industries, the largest weapons manufacturer in the world. Bombs, guns, aircrafts - I build weapons to protect American citizens. It's what I do. It's what I'm known for - I'm the Merchant of Death," Tony gave her his 30 second elevator speech as he tore a myriad of wires from the device. Alex felt she should probably be worried about how his movements appeared more careless than purposefully.

"This," he pulled out a few more wires, "has only just been released for testing. The schematics, the concept, should not even be known to the military, let alone a terrorist cell in the middle of London. Phone."

Alex looked down at his outstretched hand. "I'm sorry?"

"Phone," he repeated whist continuing to mess with the bomb. "The phone you took from him. Give me."

The witch followed through with his command before taking a step back to fully observe the man at work. He surprised her. She had pegged him as a Malfoy - rich, haughty, the type of person who expected others to fall at their knees before him - and yes, he did seem rich (going by the well-fitted suit he wore), and yes, he was certainly haughty (he radiated smugness when he analyzed her), but there was more to him than just that. He could've fled from danger like everyone else, but he stayed; he spat out titles and accomplishments but the only time heartfelt emotion colored his words were when he spoke of building weapons for others - for protection; and when he realized one of his creations was being used by the enemy and he took responsibility for it.

She knew this was the perfect opportunity to obliviate him - he was distracted, the only other witness was frozen in a position where he could only look up, and she could effortlessly vanish the bomb into non-existence - but, as he continued muttering curses about the shoddy additions the terrorist added to his weapon, about his shoddy company not doing well enough with their security checks, and about someone called Pepper and how it was all her fault he was here in London in the first place, Alex couldn't help but cast a different spell.

"Ok. That should do it," Tony announced. He pulled away and tucked the screwdriver back in his pocket. "Authorities should be here in 10 minutes and don't worry about-"

Alex smiled from behind her disillusionment charm. She liked Shades, Tony, even after his stalking and frightfully accurate theories. His focus and his intellect reminded her a lot of Hermione, and his protective instincts reminded her of Ron - how could she not like a man who acted like the combination of her best friends. Unfortunately she couldn't afford to be asked personal questions, and Tony would definitely ask those personal questions; that inquisitive gleam in his brown eyes were way too similar to one bookworm Gryffindor for him to do otherwise.

Watching as Tony looked this way and that then grinning when he hopelessly tried to question the terrorist who still remained frozen in speech and movement, Alex only walked away as the police sirens rang louder. Tony and her may have stopped a second bomb from detonating, but that didn't mean anything for the first one. People still needed help and, as Hermione once pointed out, she has a thing about saving people.

¹ Taken from J.K. Rowling's, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

CHAPTER THREE: HER SAVING PEOPLE THING