Posted: 5 March, 2015

Warning: there will be sex eventually (so adults only!) and maybe some violence.

Will also contain: fem!Harry (named Alice [who takes the place of Twilight's Alice, who never existed]), Harry(aka Alice)/Jasper, dimensional travel (or is that 'universe'...?)

Author's Notes: So, I decided to be incredibly trite with the title and follow the Twilight series' naming theme. 'Aurora' is another word for dawn, aka a new day. And Alice finds herself in a new world/life/etc. Yeah … it's a stretch. I just couldn't think of anything better. Sorry.

If Alice had known when she chose to return to life that she'd come back different … well, she wasn't sure what she would have done, to be honest. It certainly would have made her second-guess her decision though.

But the choice was made, she had returned, and now she had to deal with the consequences. Chief among them at the moment: misplaced expectations.

"You have a duty," Scrimgeour stressed.

"I have no such thing," Alice stated coldly.

Kingsley, in whose office the meeting was taking place, watched on warily as the discussion grew more heated.

"You're the Girl Who Lived, the Chosen One, the Witch Which Won—"

"Titles that mean nothing."

"They mean everything. Wizarding Britain gave them to you in honour of all you've done for them."

"The press gave them to me to sell papers!" Alice snapped. "And if I've truly done so much for everyone, then it's you all that owe me, not the other way around."

Scrimgeour glared. "So that's it. After always being there for our community, after becoming a figure of hope, you're going to be selfish and turn your back on us now?"

"I never asked to be a figure of hope."

"But you are. And your gift could be the very hope of our nation."

"Minister Shacklebolt," Alice said, standing from her seat, ignoring Scrimgeour now she was sure he wouldn't see reason, "I think we're done here."

"Alice, just…" Kingsley trailed off, darting a helpless look between his nation's hero and his senior undersecretary. "Please, just consider it."

Alice froze. "What?" she said flatly.

"We've been crushed by Voldemort's war. Our economy is quite frankly for shit, our population decimated, and our foreign relations have never been so rocky. And I'm not just talking about foreign wizarding communities—wizard-creature relations are in a crisis too. The war might be over, but peace hasn't been achieved yet, and we're so far from prosperity it's not funny." He gave a heavy sigh and ran a hand over his head and down his face. "Look, I respect your choice to turn down the Aurors —Merlin knows you've probably had enough of fighting— but maybe you'd be interested in becoming a Ministerial Advisor instead?"

"Kingsley…" She shook her head. "No."

"Right, of course you'd be wary of joining the Ministry. Every administration you've witnessed has had machinations and corruption to one degree or another." Kingsley ignored Scrimgeour's offended huff. "It could be an unofficial position? We could have lunch once or twice a week and—"

"Stop! Just … stop." She closed her eyes a moment. "You're entirely missing the point. I don't want to use my new power at all. It's… To call it overwhelming would be a huge understatement. It's too much, all at once. I can hardly think."

Scrimgeour scoffed. "Oh, I see. So the suffering of a nation isn't as important as your comfort then, Miss Potter?"

Alice glared at him. "Not my comfort you arse, my sanity. I nearly went mad before they found a way to supress my visions. As it is, some of my memories are out of order or missing entirely. I can't remember a single thing that happened to me before the age of eight, or the first few months I attended Hogwarts, and second year is spotty at best. My head's like Swiss cheese in places."

Kingsley looked worried. "I didn't know that."

She sighed. "I barely like to think on it, let alone bring the topic up in conversation. I'm working on getting it back, but … it doesn't look promising. Meanwhile, I can't access my new power without severe risk. I'm training in some mind-magics that might help, but it's going to take a while. I just can't help you right now. I'm sorry."

There was a long silence.

Finally Scrimgeour broke it. "I can see where you're coming from," he said in a less confrontational, but still persistent tone. "But we're talking about the good of thousands against the good of a single individual."

And yet, Alice shook her head. "I know that. And only a few months ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to volunteer my help." She frowned, thoughtful. "I'm different now. My personality is different. Hermione thinks, and the healers agree, that in losing so much of my early years —at least half my formative years— a lot of the experiences that shaped me as a person were lost.

"Judging by what I do remember of the Dursleys," she added grimly, "I'm not surprised I valued myself so little, and was so eager to do anything, sacrifice anything of myself, for praise or kindness or approval." She gave them a defiant look. "I have more self-respect now. I value myself more. And I'm not apologising for that.

"Britain will struggle, I understand that, but it's hardly doomed, and I won't risk my sanity for anything less desperate than that." Not unless her friends or loved ones were in danger anyway. Alice was no longer the sort of witch who cared to sacrifice herself for strangers and the fickle wizarding public, not any longer. "The ministry will just have to put in the work to fix things without my help, as is their job."

The meeting ended shortly thereafter with no one really happy about how it had gone. Alice was in the elevator on the way to the Atrium when there was a jolt and it stopped.

"Power outage?" she guessed. But no, that didn't make sense. "Ministry doesn't use electricity, so…"

When it started again, Alice relaxed.

"Level eight," the elevator recording announced. "The Atrium, including…"

Alice straightened and prepared to exit, only the doors never opened. And then the elevator was moving again, continuing downwards.

She tensed. Sure, it could be a glitch. The elevator had stopped for a moment. But on the other hand, she hadn't survived the war without becoming a little paranoid. And so Alice dug into the mokeskin-pouch attached to her belt and pulled out her invisibility cloak. She wrapped it around herself and retreated to a corner of the elevator, waiting.

"Level nine: Department of Mysteries…"

Would the door open here, she wondered, or would it continue on to the courtrooms on level ten?

A pause.

The doors slid open and—

She silently cursed even as she praised her forethought, huddling down smaller as spellfire strafed into the elevator car. Wedged into the corner near the buttons, she was thankfully out of the direct line of fire.

Someone else cursed, out loud and loudly, then declared, "She's not here!"

"Remember, she has that invisibility cloak."

"Homenum Revelio," someone cast.

Alice felt something swoop over her and said, "Shit!"

"She's in there! Round the corner on the left!"

Time was limited as she saw a grey-cloaked figure —an Unspeakable— lean around the open doors with wand drawn and ready to fire. The ministry's anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards were too strong to escape that way. There was only one thing she could think to do.

"Dammit!" one of the Unspeakables cursed as she surged out of the elevator, knocking him over as she barrelled past them and took off. "Where is she now? Homenum Revelio! Everyone! Get a lock on her!"

"Homenum Revelio," the others cast and then the chase was on.

Alice sprinted through rooms familiar and not: the time room, looking rather sparser than before fifth year; a library that put Hogwarts' to shame; the planet room; an underwater room that almost had her drowning, until she quickly cast a bubblehead charm…

Eventually they cornered her. Alice looked around and wanted to laugh at the irony of the location. She was in the Death Chamber, being herded up onto the platform as they ringed the room around her.

"There's nowhere to go. Just roll your wand away and surrender."

"Like hell," she spat. "What are you all even doing?"

"You're master of the Elder Wand and a newly-awakened Seer," the one who seemed to be in charge said simply. "Did you really think we wouldn't investigate such a 'mystery'? It's the whole purpose of our department."

"There's no way Kingsley authorised this."

"No, but in situations where we believe the Minister is affected by a conflict of personal interest, we can go over his head and instead get a majority agreement from the department heads."

"Over his head? Behind his back, more like." Alice was bitter, but not surprised, at the realisation that the Ministry was as morally bankrupt as ever. "And what did you have to bribe them with?"

The man shrugged, not even trying to deny it. "Not much. Just that your visions would be used to the benefit of the ministry and magical Great Britain as a whole … and a small favour for each of them. Lottery numbers, betting advice, that sort of thing. Just as a one-off."

"I see. It's like nothing's changed, isn't it?"

"Now put down your wand Miss Potter."

She laughed harshly. "And be taken into custody and, what, experimented on?"

"You really have no other choice here. And we'll do our best to make any tests as painless as possible. We're not sadists."

She didn't believe him, not for a second. Besides, a cage was a cage however you fancied it up, and Alice was sick and tired of being at the mercy of everything and everyone, even up to Fate itself. Yes, she was through with having her choices taken away from her.

Many things may have changed since Alice's memory loss, but one trait that remained constant was her ability to be completely, utterly, recklessly stubborn about something if she thought it worth fighting for.

"Ah, that's where you're wrong," she said smugly, taking a step back. She saw the way he tensed in sudden realisation, the other Unspeakables doing the same.

"Miss Potter." His voice was anxious. "Just—"

"Live caged or die free," she mused, and gave them all a vicious, victorious grin. "I choose freedom."

Then, before any of the sudden spells could reach her, stop her, Alice threw herself back and through the Veil of Death.

"Well, this is … not what I expected," Alice said slowly as she got to her feet, dusting herself off.

Not that she knew what she'd expected. Dumbledore in a ghostly King's Cross once more? Heaven, and being reunited with her lost loved ones?

Slowly, the runes on the Veil of Death lost their glow, plunging her into absolute darkness.

"Lumos." Alice craned her neck to peer up at the rocky ceiling above and repeated, "Not what I expected. At all."

She glanced again at the Veil of Death. It was eerie to see it so unmoving. Every other time she'd seen it there was an unfelt breeze gently blowing the curtain that hung from the stone arch. Now … nothing.

"Is it even the Veil I know?" she murmured.

It was a fair question, since this certainly wasn't the Death Chamber she knew. No, this was definitely a cave. A dark, echoing cavern, replete with stalactites, and with little to no resemblance to the chamber she had just been in.

"What's that?" she wondered as the light from her wand caught and reflected something back at her.

She climbed over a ridge of boulders and around a corner, and there found the remains of a dagger of some sort. It looked very old, nearly rusted away. Alice was surprised there was enough glimmer left to catch the light at all.

More interesting though was the wall above, for carved into it were lines of runes—a message.

"Suddenly very glad I decided to follow Hermione into Ancient Runes, instead of taking Divination with Ron." Alice stepped closer, holding her lit wand higher as she did her best to translate. "World, realm, kingdom…? Something like that. Traveller, if, belief… Suitable or acceptable? Or, no, worth makes a better translation. Then spill your life … no, blood. Spill your blood here and … judgement? Raise, rise up … worthy. Death to … unworthy?"

Putting it all together, she read, "Realm-traveller, if you believe yourself worthy, then spill your blood here. The worthy will be raised up, and the unworthy killed."

Well that was … equal parts interesting an ominous. But not really helpful. What she needed to do was find the exit to this cave.

Several hours later, Alice was both frustrated and extremely hungry.

She'd explored every nook and cranny of the cave system and come to an unescapable conclusion: there was no exit. There was a small side-chamber a few meters from the main cave with a pile of worryingly human-looking bones, however.

With a huff, Alice conjured a glass of water, hoping it would stave off the hunger for a bit. She regretted skipping breakfast now.

"I refuse to be trapped here," she grumbled. "And I refuse to starve to death of all things. Not after everything else I've survived."

Apparition and portkey had proved as useless as her search. She could apparate within the cave, but not out of it. The same went for the illegal portkey she created.

She figured there were really only two options left open to her.

Alice approached the Veil. It was still unmoving in a way that sent shivers down her spine. Alice wondered if the Unspeakables were still waiting on the other side. She'd have a fight on her hands, but better a fight than a slow death of starvation.

She gathered her courage and, for the second time, stepped through the Veil of Death.

"Huh. Once again, you surprise me," she told the Veil. She had passed right through it and out the other side. It hadn't taken her anywhere. She could even see her discarded glass over on a nearby rock, exactly where she left it. "Well, that leaves just one option then."

Alice picked up the glass and transfigured it into a knife as she approached the wall with its carved message. She glanced down at the rusty dagger, having a good idea now why it was there, as she dragged her own knife across the palm of one hand with a wince.

"Now what?" she wondered. "Do I swipe it on the wall, like at Voldemort's cave by the sea?"

Before she could decide, a droplet fell from her hand and struck the floor. A low, throbbing, bell-like note sounded out, more felt than heard, as the ground below Alice began to glow. She tried to step back only to find her feet glued to the floor. The glow grew brighter, twisting up around her ankles like a fog of light. It reached her knees, her hips, her shoulders and then her neck.

Eyes wide and head tilted back like she was trying to stay above-water, Alice prayed, "Merlin, please let this not have been a mistake," right before the glow enveloped her fully.

All her recent training in the mind arts was useless. The fog seeped into her, through every little crack in her mind. It saw her, all of who she was, and it judged.

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