*I don't own Harry Potter.*

*Credit to chapter titles goes to Of Monsters and Men*

When she opened her eyes, she wasn't sure what to think. After all, she was pretty sure that she had just died a few moments ago.

Large bright blobs of light entered her vision, and everything else was a smudgy blur of grey and pale shades of other colors. A sharp, deep red suddenly entered her field of vision and she blinked hard, enamored by the clearest color she had seen in the short few seconds of what she had experienced.

A jolt ran through her body. Why the hell was she suddenly nearly blind?

"Lily, Petunia, this is your new little sister, Zinnia." A soft and feminine voice stated, with an undertone of pride and adoration. Distantly, she could feel arms holding her; warm, firm arms. Loving arms.

She blinked. Stared. And then ever so slowly lowered her gaze to her hands.

The hands were tiny. The hands were chubby. The hands were those of a baby's. Those hands were not hers.

It felt like time had stopped and the world had ceased to exist as she stared at those hands with an intense amount of focus. She felt strange, disoriented; like she was there but she didn't have a body. But somehow, she was there.

The arms around her shifted and she vaguely recognized the uncomfortably fresh smell that belonged specifically to hospitals.

Sounds, sights, smells, people, and everything ohgod around her disappeared as a crazy, sudden realization struck her with all the force of its insanity-ohgod. She was a fucking baby.

Panic seeped through her veins like ice water but she stayed quiet, repressing her rising hysteria and instead choosing to bask in the gentle warmth that surrounded her. It was unfamiliar yet strong, and she couldn't help but like the feeling. It masked the overwhelming confusion threatening to send her into a fit of screaming and kicking and lots of violence and—

-She had no idea what was going on.

— small squeal of joy broke the peaceful atmosphere, and she turned her head towards the sounds.

The tiny red blob, which she now presumed to be one of her "sisters", was being held in the arms of a much taller and masculine blur, with a smaller, blonde blob by standing by his side.

She glanced up at the woman holding her. Who were they? An aura of happiness and pure love emanated through the air, and she frowned with a strange sort of puzzlement—a cold, yet scared sort of thing.

It was the kind of confusion that chilled to the bones, because she knew something was so, very wrong, and a part of her knew what was going on, even if she didn't want to know.

(She had died, and now she had been reborn again.)

Sometimes, she couldn't help but wonder why this was her life-lives, now.

As the people crowded around her and jabbered to each other (though the red-headed one couldn't really speak too coherently yet) she considered her situation.

It was a strange feeling to be dead and alive.

The swiftness of her death, the single, resounding heartbeat of the moment when she knew she was about to die echoed through her and she felt an involuntary shudder chill her body.

(She was dead. Dead as a fucking doorknob.)

And now—and now—she felt the new life thrumming through her veins even though she had just died only moments ago.

God, there were a whole slew of expletives she could string out right now, but none of them would even come close to expressing her situation.

It hurt, because she knew her brother and mother were dead, and she was here, alive and well, albeit in another body; and she would never see them again. And, fuck, she was dead and alive and dead and—oh, what the hell did she know?

What was this life even supposed to be?

She wasn't even sure what she wanted—she didn't fucking care about these strangers around her; these strangers who expected her to be their daughter, "Zinnia". She wasn't Zinnia and she sure as hell wasn't their daughter. But she was alive.

Silently, she snorted to herself with self-deprecating humor. She sounded like a broken record, continuously questioning if she was dead or alive. But the scary part was, she didn't even know.

Well, it was official now. She'd survived and it had already been a few days and she was 99% sure she was alive.

And that was the problem.

Being alive was great—in a larger sense—she'd been too young when she'd died and now she was given another chance at life. But would it be alright to live on as someone else? Could she even live with a new family after she'd just gotten ripped out of her old one? Who was she? She wasn't Zinnia but she didn't even know if she was herself anymore.

Every single day, countless questions and thoughts filled her head, and the people around her were oblivious to her internal torment. After all, she was only a baby, and babies were supposed to be, well, stupid.

The only things she could really do right now were eat, sleep, shit, cry, and make random noises. Oh, and let's not forget the best part-stare at the same fucking walls she'd been staring at for the past few days.

She'd already left what she assumed was the hospital, and now she was in someone else's home. And she was in a crib. In a room. By herself. Joy.

The woman—who was Zinnia's mother-always came in and fed her and talked to her but it was so, so boring. There were even two little girls who came to visit her every once in a while but she really wasn't getting enough human interaction to remain sane.

So now there were only her dilemmas to tackle: Who the fuck was she, what the fuck was she doing here, and more importantly, where the fuck was the t.v.?.

(She was bored, damn it.)

(Also, who in their right mind named all three of their daughters after flowers? She could already feel all the bullies in her older years.)

...okay, she admitted it. She was bitter and angry and everything annoyed her and she was confused and she just wanted to go home.

So why, why was she stuck here, where everyone dressed like they were from the 1960s and she couldn't even find a goddamn t.v.

The more she thought about it, the more furious she got. She'd never asked for this; she'd never asked for an afterlife or rebirth. All she wanted was to be with her family and have nothing to worry about. She was a simple gal; that was all she asked for.

But no, the universe had to fuck her over and make everything overly complicated and miserable.

Grimacing, she shifted as much as her barely developed limbs would allow her in her really comfortable crib and tried to ignore the throbbing migraine currently invading her head.

It was as nice and peaceful as it could get for all of three seconds before the door suddenly slammed open with a loud bang; doorknob slamming into the wall. She winced. That was gonna leave a mark.

"Hey!" A loud, obnoxious voice resounded throughout the room. She shifted her eyes to see a tiny blonde head quickly approaching her crib. Ah, shit.

The little girl, Petunia, as she'd learned, was what she liked to call a brat. Overly noisy, demanding, self-centered, and irritating. Kinda like a fly that just wouldn't leave you alone.

She—Zinnia (for godssake she was just going to call herself Zinnia to save herself all the mental angst and identity crises)—tried to roll over to the corner as far away from the blonde menace as possible.

A tiny, flailing hand reached up through the cribs right as Zinnia reached the edge of the crib. She heaved a mental sigh. Crisis averted. She did not need those gross, highly volatile hands coming anywhere near her delicate baby body.

(She'd seen Petunia pick her nose, eat her boogers, and destroy a glass vase all in the same minute.)

"Play with me!" Screamed Petunia at the small, defenseless, unresponsive baby (otherwise called Zinnia). Zinnia ignored her shrill voice as best she could but it only worsened her already aching migraine.

Petunia frowned at Zinnia's lack of reply and slammed the crib bars as best she could with her four year old hands. "Play!" She shrieked.

Zinnia didn't want to play. She didn't want to be anywhere near this blonde monster. She just wanted to be left alone.

She tried to say "fuck off", but couldn't, so she decided to her mouth and started to cry and wail as loud as she could.

(It was the first time since her rebirth that she'd cried.)

As if on cue, Petunia's parents came rushing in, for some reason, looking relieved, and the mother rushed to pick Zinnia up.

"Oh thank god," the mother breathed to her husband while rocking Zinnia, "I thought there was something wrong with her since she never cried."

The man smiled, voice tinged with joy. "It's alright; everything is gonna be alright."

The woman's face was ablaze with elation as she leaned down towards Zinnia. "Did you hear that, Zinnia? Everything's going to be alright. Shh, shhh." She smoothed Zinnia's forehead with a gentle hand and Zinnia found herself leaning into the touch.

She'd missed this. Affection and love and happiness; actually having a family.

(They weren't her family yet, were they? But they could be.)

Finally, she stopped crying—when had she started crying real tears?—and the woman placed her down into the crib with care. She kissed her forehead; long, red hair tickling Zinnia's face, and whispered, "Sweet dreams, my dear". There was a faint fragrance that reminded her of fresh laundry as the woman pulled away. For some reason, it was overwhelmingly familiar and it smelled like home.

Zinnia yawned, feeling more tired than usual, and felt a soft tingle in her chest before her heavy eyelids finally slid closed, lulling her into a deep sleep.

Three years passed and Zinnia found herself falling in love with the family raising her. She couldn't help it. They were like termites, infesting the wood around her heart and she finally, grudgingly accepted that maybe, just maybe, she had a new family.

It felt like a betrayal to her old family, but Zinnia loved her new family—British accents and all. Some of the words may have been hard to pick up but she was finding this a lot more interesting than the American accent she'd been accustomed to speaking.

(It was kind of like pretending to be someone you really aren't, and then slowly becoming that someone. Although at times, she still slipped up and forgot to use a British accent. Good thing she didn't speak much.)

Her memories lingered in her mind, ghosting on the edges of her thoughts, but she could handle the pain, the loss. Grief was something that she'd gotten accustomed to in her previous life, and it'd taught her to be strong.

She would never forget her old family, but it was time to move on. It would always hurt, but she was good at stomping down her feelings until they were nothing but specks of dust left on an empty table.

She was Zinnia now, and Zinnia Evans had a mother, a father, and two older sisters. Not a mother and a younger brother.

But here's the thing: the parents of Zinnia Evans weren't stupid. And Zinnia wasn't exactly an Oscar winning actress herself.

She was… weird. She wasn't normal.

She was quiet, bitter, sarcastic, and most definitely not naive or innocent like a young child her age should be.

And it was even harder to pretend she was normal when everything around her just felt so… unnormal.

The life here; it was completely different than anything she'd ever experienced. Things she'd been used to in her past life weren't there, and things that were here were entirely unfamiliar. Damn it, even the clothes were strange.

And her parents-her parents, they noticed this. They'd stopped trying to make her wear stockings and dresses all the time, and Zinnia mostly just ran around barefoot. She was lucky that her parents didn't uphold the ideal feminine image too strictly.

But they had their suspicions. Zinnia was a child of the twenty first century, and she would never be able to really become a child of the 1960s. From the way she always frowned in distaste at the small television sitting innocently in the living room, to the way she begged them to buy trousers and not skirts, it was all blatantly obvious.

Julie and Max Evans were not stupid. And Zinnia wouldn't delude herself for one second by thinking they were. They just loved her enough not to say anything about it. They'd probably figured that Zinnia wasn't one to talk about her feelings when asked and were waiting for her to one day go to them and tell them of her own volition.

One day, Zinnia promised herself. One day, she'd tell them. But not now.

And then, things somehow got a lot crazier.

It all started out rather simply: A typical day in the Evans household, with Petunia off in primary school, Lily and Zinnia playing around in the house (or lazing around in their shared room, as Zinnia was prone to doing), Max away at work, and Julie taking care of all the housework.

Lily had been trying in vain to make Zinnia play princess with her until she'd given up and dragged the two of them outside to their backyard. Now Lily was four, and an adventurous spirit, so she'd somehow ended up balancing on the edge of the small, yellow plastic slide that Max and Julie had gotten the sisters for Christmas while Zinnia tried to doze off under the shade of a big oak tree. Zinnia wasn't really paying attention until she heard a yelp that sounded way too much like Lily and jerked upright, her gaze quickly snapping to the source of the sound.

Lily was currently trying not to fall off the slide as she tilted precariously on the edge-one foot dangling in the open air and the other just barely hooked on the slide.

Horror filled Zinnia as her heart nearly stopped in her chest, and she quickly got to her feet, running over to Lily. "Lily!" She cried, "Don't move, I'll go get mum!"

"No!" Lily shrieked, flailing helplessly with one hand and the other clutching the slide in a vice grip. "I'm scared." She whimpered, and Zinnia immediately reached forward, futilely, before remembering she was three years old and not even tall enough to reach the sink without a stepstool.

"Please. Just stay calm, I'll get mum, it'll be okay, just wait—"

"—No!" And in her panic, Lily accidentally lost the grip that was keeping her safely attached to the slide.

At this very moment, Zinnia felt her heart stop in her chest, and time seemed to freeze.

And then—Lily was floating. Lily. Was. Floating.

In mid air.

Zinnia couldn't breathe, much less speak, and she just stared as Lily slowly descended to the ground, safe and sound.

As soon as Lily's feet touched the floor, she turned to Zinnia with a look of excitement and awe on her face. "I flied!" She screamed ecstatically, "I wished that I wouldn't get hurt and then I flied!"

With her whole mind in shock, the only reply Zinnia had was, "It's flew, not flied."

"Yeah! I flied!" Lily grinned wider than the horizon and flew at Zinnia, grabbing her hands and rapidly shaking them up and down.

Zinnia just stood there numbly as Lily babbled continuously into her face, not really seeing or hearing anything.

Holy motherfucking shit. Lily had… magic? Lily was-Lily was her sister and she'd just floated.

Lily Evans.

…

And then it all somehow suddenly made sense.

Lily Evans. Harry Potter. Magic.

It couldn't be a coincidence if all the points were lining up.

She was in the world of Harry fucking Potter. And to make things better, he hadn't even fucking been born yet and she was the sister of his mother and somehow his aunt and what the actual fuck was going on.

Her knees suddenly felt like jello and she sunk to the ground, still staring blankly at nothing.

How could this even be real? Maybe she was in a coma and this was just a really fucked up dream. Maybe this was a punishment or a trial she had to go through before she could pass on to the afterlife. Maybe—maybe—

—maybe it was real. Zinnia was living in a completely different time period and country. Which logically, didn't make any sense, because wasn't the flow of time supposed to be linear? And now she was some kind of time traveller in a different dimension.

"Zin? Zinnia? Hullo?" Lily waved a hand in front of her face.

"Urgf." Was all Zinnia could manage from her non functioning throat.

She was talking to a goddamn legend. The little girl who would grow up and go to Hogwarts and fall in love with James Potter and-

—Shit. Shit.

Lily was going to die.

Suddenly, the world was too big and small all at once and the future looked way too vast and uncertain.

God. What the fuck was she going to do?

She didn't get born into another family just to lose it.

And—she—she'd wasted three years. Three fucking years. Three precious years complaining and pitying herself for her situation when she really should have been planning and learning more about the world around her. When she should have been protecting her family.

God, she was so, so stupid. So stupid.

Aching pain choked her throat and she felt the corners of her eyes getting wet.

So stupid. So useless.

Why hadn't she seen this before?

Stupid.

A strangled sob burst from her throat and she buried her face in her legs, wrapping her arms around herself and pressing her eyes into her knees so hard she wouldn't be surprised if she went blind.

Stupid stupid stupid.

Everything was overwhelming her and her feelings were bursting from her chest and she couldn't stop them. She was so stupid and lonely and lost and confused.

It was 1963 in England and she'd just been alive in 2015 in America and technology was different, fashion was different, people were different, culture was different, everything was fucking different and she was fucking stupid and useless and nothing was making sense.

Tears wracked her body and she didn't even notice her mum wrapping an arm around her until she heard Julie's soft, gentle voice.

Her mum's hand smoothed back Zinnia's sweaty hair away from her face. "What's wrong? Can you tell me what happened?" Zinnia tried to open her mouth to say something but all that came out were sobs. "Hey, hey, it's alright." Julie shushed her, pulling Zinnia closer in a comforting embrace. Her arms were warm and safe and Zinnia felt loved.

Zinnia's throat burned and her nose was running and her eyes throbbed, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that she was going to change things and she was not going to let anyone she loved get hurt.

Family was everything to her and she wasn't about to lose them again.

Zinnia had one goal in her life and she was going to do everything she could to achieve it.

It would help, she mused, if she had magic as well. Then she could keep an eye on Lily at Hogwarts and protect her during the war.

Not having magic was a setback she didn't want to face, so Zinnia decided she'd have to take extreme measures to see if she had magic. If she was to save Lily, she'd have to have magic and go to Hogwarts; so she was willing to bet her safety on this.

The next day, Zinnia asked Julie to take her to the library, and because Julie was already used to her reading habits (which was pretty much devouring as many books as she could in one sitting before she was pulled away by Lily and Petunia, or food) she found nothing out of the ordinary.

When they arrived at the library, her mother let Zinnia run off alone to find the books she wanted to read while she looked for some books for Lily and Petunia—but mainly Lily, who was the other bookworm in the family.

She managed to get a pile of books that would be helpful, but she tottered around with the weight of them.

The stairs to the bottom floor where her mum was loomed ominously in front of her, and she stared down at the bottom, her head already spinning with the thought of what she was about to do.

This is literally the stupidest idea I've had in years, she thought to herself dryly.

She glanced down again, and she clenched her books tighter, feeling butterflies in her stomach.

It's okay, Zinnia tried to console herself. The worst I'll get is a few broken bones and possibly a cracked skull-maybe even a snapped spine. No biggie.

Her heart clenched with fear, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to readying herself for what she was about to do.

And then she took a step forward, hands trembling, threw her books onto the ground with a loud and decisive thump, and jumped off the stairs.

Please, please, please, she begged, and by the time she opened her eyes, she was at the bottom of the stairs, safe and sound, save her aching bum.

Adrenaline was pumping through her veins, and her eyes were wide with the sheer incredulity of the situation and her almost-death.

Her heart stuttered in her chest and she felt her body relax with relief as she realized that she was, in fact, safe.

After the initial shock wore off, she grinned wildly. Excitement pumped through her veins, and her head was alive with exhilaration and racing thoughts.

She had magic.

The stairs had been like an inflatable bouncy house; and her books had actually appeared right next to her.

It was a brilliant thought, one that opened her up to endless possibilities, and she couldn't help the breathless giggle that escaped her.

It felt so unreal, but it was real.

Padding quietly toward her mother, she dragged her towards a shelf filled with books about spirituality and the East Asian ideas of chi and energy. It'd be a good place to start before she could get any books from Diagon Alley.

Julie looked at her and raised an eyebrow-Zinnia's taste in books were quite strange for a child her age. Zinnia just grinned happily, and her mother laughed and started pulling the books that she wanted out.

On the car ride home, Zinnia remained quiet as she contemplated accidental magic and the origin of magic.

What was magic? Did it originate in one part of her body, or did it flow throughout her?

If she were to manipulate and concentrate her accidental magic, she'd have to figure out where it came from first.

After settling down and reading a couple of books, she mused over the nature of magic. Was it something to be controlled, or was it already there, ready for her molding?

She tried to activate her accidental magic again, but she couldn't pull up the same feeling as she'd had while she was falling down the stairs.

Maybe a wand was necessary to control her magic, and pinpoint it into a spell. But wands had magical cores, so what did wands really do? Amplify magic?

All these unknowns were making her frustrated and angry, and she really didn't need a headache right now.

After they got home, she brought all of her books with her, making sure to ask her mum to help her carry them, lest she fall and trip on her face.

She had magic. Like Lily. It was an insane thought, but it was a comforting one.

The stairs had only been the beginning.

Now that Zinnia knew she had magic, she was trying to figure out how she could control her accidental magic. It was like having a shitton of money but not knowing where and how to use it. And as cliche as it sounded, with all its wildness and unpredictability, it was like magic was alive.

She'd noticed that accidental magic usually went along with the person's mental state and emotions. In Lily's case, she used accidental magic all the time. Their parents hadn't really put the pieces together yet, but they'd begun to notice that something strange was going on. Because Lily was so young, her fluctuating emotions helped her use her magic more often. But for Zinnia, she was so used to controlling her emotions that accidental magic wasn't simple in the least.

But everything changed when Zinnia realized that she was somehow having infrequent dreams about the future. Accurate ones.

At first, she'd just thought they were manifestations of her stress and knowledge from the books. Which, to be fair, she didn't remember the exact details of, but she got the gist.

But they'd gotten more and more vivid, until finally, one night, she'd heard the screech of metal against metal ringing in her ears, and seen a car go flying; flipping in the air before landing on the ground with a horrifying, decisive sound. It was the most disgusting thing Zinnia had ever heard in her life, and there was no way to describe it. And then everything went eerily silent.

There was blood, broken glass, twisted metal, and gouged flesh.

Zinnia couldn't breathe, much less move, but she saw the woman's face.

It was her mum's friend, Natalie. And she looked dead.

Zinnia had woken up, her mouth tasting of blood and her hands stiff and cold.

Her breath had come in ragged gasps and she couldn't get the image out of her mind.

At the sound, Lily had woken up, rubbing her eyes blearily to look at Zinnia. "What's wrong?" She'd asked.

In a strangled voice, Zinnia had answered, "Nightmare."

Lily had stayed silent, not saying anything, and padded across the room, her bare feet making quiet sounds against the floor, until she'd gotten to Zinnia's bed. And then she calmly climbed in, pulled the covers over her, and wrapped her small arms around Zinnia.

Zinnia had never felt so thankful for Lily.

A week later, Julie came home, eyes rimmed red and throat scratchy. She didn't say anything, and Max had only said "Something very bad happened to your mum's friend. So be nice to her, okay?". But the funeral came and the whole Evans family went, and Zinnia realized her nightmare wasn't just a nightmare.

Max and Julie had pulled them aside after that, trying to explain death and funerals as best they could to a four year old, a five year old, and a seven year old.

It was the first exposure Lily and Petunia had to death and it wouldn't be Lily's last.

Predictably, Zinnia freaked the fuck out.

She'd somehow had a prophetic dream, which wasn't supposed to be part of the whole witch package, if memory served her right.

There was a possibility that she was a Seer, but she was a fucking Muggle. She wasn't supposed to have the bloodline of a Seer.

And someone had died.

It was official- the world was insane.

She was insane.

And magic was fucking scary. It wasn't all fun and games-it was also death and destruction and tragedy.

Zinnia wasn't sure if she was ready for that responsibility, but for her family, for Lily, she had to be.

In Zinnia's humble opinion, time passed way too fast.

Figuring out how magic wasn't a piece of cake, especially since she lived in a place where magic wasn't even supposed to be real. In fact, no one knew about it, except Lily, who didn't even quite fully understand what was going on. Zinnia hadn't quite gotten around to telling her yet. She needed to know how to control her magic first before she could teach Lily anything.

So she split her time between taking care of her sisters when she could, and trying to become stronger. Strong enough to protect Lily. And she'd have to start teaching Lily sometime soon.

Zinnia was six now, and Lily was in her first year at primary school, which meant that they only had five years before they went to Hogwarts. That definitely wasn't enough time.

And school-she wasn't even going to get started on how much of a waste of time school was.

Children, in short, were fucking annoying.

Lily and Petunia had been annoying in their younger ages- still kinda were, actually. But they were her sisters and they loved her and she loved them so it was fine when she wasn't mad.

They were hard to deal with but they were family. Children by nature, were hard to deal with anyway, so Zinnia wasn't about to go blaming them for throwing temper tantrums when they didn't get what they wanted or when they always, always wanted her to play with them.

But other children? Them she couldn't forgive. They were little shits that she didn't want around her and a lot of them were goddamn bullies.

Plus, they had grubby little hands that tried to grab and push everything, which hurt, and they had no concept of empathy. It was terrible. It was hell.

School was hell. It was full of children and unnecessary homework and lessons of things she'd already learned (except for the fact that they used meters and kilograms here, which was really confusing).

Frankly, Zinnia gave zero fucks about school and it was basically nap time all day every day. Home was for studying and reading about things useful to her, and the nighttime was for practicing magic. So obviously, school was for sleeping.

It only took one day for teachers to realize that they hated her.

A/N: now before any of you send me scathing comments like, "i hate zinnia! She's so terrible!" and etc, let me explain: that's kind of the point. you're not supposed to like her. this isn't a story about a hero. terrible people are people too.

also: this story is being rewritten and i am well aware of its many, many flaws. it was my first story and it was terrible, i'm not gonna lie. and it still may be terrible, but i'm trying, and i'm rewriting, so please, bear with me.

in addition, it may be fairly obvious but zinnia doesn't have the greatest mental health. she often overreacts and puts all the blame on herself, doesn't like people, and is generally a bitter person. she ain't great. she's terrible. and that's how she's gonna be. sorry.

(jumping down the stairs is crazy and is NOT something you should do if you want to know if you have magic but it kinda ties into the whole mental health thing since familyself well-being in zinnia's eyes. and there's a whole bunch more of issues but i'm not opening that can of worms yet)

it also may be obvious that i am in fact, not british, and i can't write like a british person, and i am genuinely sorry that you have to deal with my american bullshit.

anyway, thanks so much to everyone who is reading/read this!