Chapter 1
Unfortunate Soul

Emma McClain is born in complete silence.

Her mother breaths deep and low exhausted from a long and difficult labor. Her father holding his breath altogether, overawed at the sight of the new life before him. The baby herself is in silent shock, distraught by the ordeal she has just been put through.

This is not Emma McClain's first life.

Nor is it her second.

A dawning sense of horror takes over the newborn as she finally begins to comprehend her fate.

She is still alive. And when she dies she will most likely be waking up again in another body, in another time.

She will never find rest. There will never be an end.

She is trapped.

A shrill cry finally pierces the silence and the earth shakes with her grief.

Emma is a disturbingly quiet baby. Her parents don't mind. Andrew and Camellia McClain are constantly surprised by the overwhelming love they feel for their little miracle. They would be lying if they said they felt no worry over her silence, but when she looks into their eyes with her own honey colored orbs they can glimpse her intelligence. So they take her silence in stride, knowing there was nothing wrong with their princess. If anything she was special.

Every caress she receives, she returns ten-fold. Burying her face in the crook of her fathers neck, resting her cheeks on her mother's breasts. Emma McClain knew how scarce love can be, and even struggling with her deep sorrow and self-pity, she never fails to return the affection she is so freely given.

And so it happened, that as the months passed Emma McClain buried deep her memories of the miserable lives that came before this one and made her parents the center of her world.

At four months old, Emma realized there was something new about this life. Something out of the bright shiny fairy tales of her first life.

Magic.

Her parents both wield wands, waving the deceptively innocent looking sticks around to bend all the laws of physics she had thought to be immutable. They conjure toys out of thin air for her to play with. They clean up her messes with a neat incantation and a quick flick. They light up the room with a softly spoken word...and Emma allows herself to hope. Maybe there would be an answer in this life... A cure for her inexplicable curse.

But such thoughts were for later. Now Emma sat in her crib, chewing upon her dark red locks as she tried to listen to her parents hushed whispers.

"...not safe... Death Eat-...have to...", the hushed sound of her fathers voice pleaded with her mother.

"...but what about...we can't just...", her mother whispered in return.

This seemed to go on for a while until finally her father's voice is raised in a decisive statement.

"Enough! This is what's best for Emma!"

Her mother didn't reply.

The next week they moved into a new home in what appeared to be the bustling city of London(something familiar, she recognized this place from her first life...though the times seemed to be different). Their names were changed to Andrew,Candice and Emily McDougall. The wands were put out of Emma's sight, never to be seen again.

It didn't take her long to realize her parents were hiding.

But what from?

Months passed and Emma began to doubt her sanity. Had her mind simply conjured the idea of magic to cope? There were no signs of it in her life anymore.

Her father went to work in the mornings, and returned in the evening tired but still eager to play with his only child. Her mother took her to a local park in the late afternoons to interact with the neighbors and to let her meet their children. Children that Emma got along with surprisingly well given her peculiar history.

The McDougalls lived a perfectly ordinary life.

Well... ordinary is a matter of perspective I suppose. Emma mused.

There were still some quirks and kinks there. Emma could only pretend to be an ordinary child of her age. And while her young body lent her certain mannerisms that helped her appear like a normal child, the illusion was shattered as soon as she looked into their eyes. Or opened her mouth to speak. She was quick to ascertain their discomfort though, and soon her eyes were demurely downcast, and she spoke only when spoken to. In public she was a sweet if somewhat shy little girl.

Her parents too didn't seem to belong entirely to their surroundings. They had friends of course. People they could talk to about work and share recipes with... but there was always a certain distance between them and the rest of the world. Not obvious to anyone that merely gave them a passing glance. But the closer they looked the stranger the McDougall's seemed.

And then there was her name. Was she Emma or was she Emily? Did it matter though? Was there a distinction between the two? Sometimes she thought there was. Emma belonged in a story book. Emily was just another kid on the block.

Emily turned two, and then she turned three. And life went on quite peacefully. Though there were times she suspected her parents were stressed by some news or the other that they never seemed to want to discuss around her.

But that was alright. Even without being fully aware of what the matter was, Emily (Emma ...her name was Emma) did her best to keep her parents in high spirits.

There was still plenty of love and laughter in their home.

Until February came and with it the end of everything Emily held dear.

Her parents hastily hid her in their bedroom cupboard as their doors were blasted open by a raging hellfire.

Emily/Emma stayed perfectly silent as she watched a procession of black robed(Robes like her father used to wear before they moved and the magic was gone) men enter her home. Their faces covered in skull white masks. From within their ranks emerged a man (monster) with blood red eyes and a sibilant voice.

Emma could not not make out what words were said... but she understood the following screams perfectly.

She stood in that little cupboard for hours ... eyes shut tightly and hands pressed to ears so hard they hurt.

And hours after the men had left, their cruel laughter still ringing in her bones...the police came to investigate and found her still stood there. Eyes still shut upon tear-streaked face, unwilling to open to this new reality.

Years later Emma would recall the first thought she had about magic in this world. How it was like something out of a story from her first life. And would laugh at the bitter irony of it all.

Emily spends her fourth birthday in Madam Olivia's Orphanage.

She doesn't stay there long.

It's obvious to her care takers that Emily McDougall is an exceptional child. A prodigy even. Within the year she has given tests to qualify for a scholarship to a school of gifted children and is shipped off to her new residence.

Emily can't say she would miss the orphanage. The children there were very different from those of the neighborhood she had lived in. She tried to stay out of their way to the best of her abilities. But unlike the children she had been used to up to this point they were not content to let her be. These children had little enough of their own, having to give up the precious little attentions of the orphanage caretakers to the 'gifted' new girl bothered them enough that they made it their mission to heckle her every chance they got. 'Freak', 'Weirdo' and 'Creep' were only the kindest of their words.

Had Emily truly been four years old, they might even have managed to bother her for real. As it was, even without her previous life experiences Emily had suffered enough in this life to let their words roll over her without consequence (or so she liked to tell herself).

It was hard to go from her mothers hugs and her fathers kisses to the the care taker's distant praises and the children's cold glares. But she moved on (she always did).

The Kingston School for Gifted Children is an intense experience for those unprepared for it. It allows for year round residency, and makes no room for exhaustion or stress. If you can't keep up, then you don't belong here.

Emily never has trouble keeping up.

She tends to focus on subjects new to her, things she hasn't been as well acquainted with in either of her previous lives. History, Geography and Political science... They are new to her here. The year is 1982, and history is both similar to and different from what she expected it be. Even with new material to study she finds some spare time on her hands. She decides to learn the piano, it's something she had wanted to do in her first life, but never got around to.

She is terrible.

Her teachers are horrified at the abomination she dares to call music, and consider that she might be tone deaf.

She doesn't care and keeps playing anyway.

It's the most fun she's had in years.

Eventually she manages to play a tune without making her teachers and audience wince. It's the happiest she has felt since her parents... she stops that thought just there. She still can't think of them without breaking into tears.

Her teachers often offer to move her up several classes in her best subjects, but she always refuses. She has seen the other children burn themselves out in their race to improve as fast as possible, she has no interest in adding on that sort of stress to her life.

Besides moving up would mean graduating early... and what would she do with herself then? Where would she go? It's not that she had a lack of options, but rather a lack of purpose. Since she had lost her parents she had kept moving forward out of a sense of inertia. She wasn't quite sure what she was living for.

In the summer of her tenth year she receives the answer to that question via a letter.

A letter addressed to one Miss Emma McClain.

She softly traces the half forgotten name and old memories slot into place.

A book...a story she read long ago(a lifetime ago), about a boy who lived, about a magical school, about wands and potions, spells and creatures.

About men in masks and their red eyed leader. A monster who desecrated his soul to cheat death.

Hogwarts had sent her their acceptance letter ... and her life was turned on it's head yet again.

Realizing that she was in what she once saw as a fictional universe wasn't as shocking to Emma as one might expect. Her second life had been in very different world after all. She had accepted the existence of multiple universes a lifetime ago. The fact that this one was fictional in another world only gave her a moments pause(and maybe she moved on real quickly from the thought to avoid an existential crisis).

She replies to her Hogwarts letter immediately, requesting a professor's aid in acquiring her supplies.

Then she sits down and tries to remember what she can about this story...it's not much.

She only vaguely remembers the name of some of the characters and the basic premises of each book.

She takes a moment to consider Voldemort, and a fire ignites in her heart. That was the man that had killed her parents. She stews in her grief and rage for a few minutes and then lets her anger go(or at least she tries). There was nothing she could do about it now. He would get his comeuppance soon enough.

More importantly she couldn't change anything in the story. As it was, this tale would come to a more or less happy end. Avoiding any death at all was completely impossible. It was a war after all. Her interference could change the outcome altogether- and that to her was unacceptable. Voldemort would die in the end. She would make sure of it.

Regardless of who else had to die along the way.