Hello there! Call me Sil ans I'm a new writer so be gentle with me okay! I own nothing. Not the Harry Potter series neither FF VII. Just the plot. Have a good read!

Chapter 1

Ok, Bella knew her job could be a hazard but this was ridiculous.

She was exploring an abandoned potion lab in an old castle – one of those that the line they housed had died out so long ago there were no descendants – when one of the old shelves gave out and the potions stacked on it dropped to the floor. The merging had caused an explosion – like most potions' mishaps do – and she was caught in it. Next thing she knows she wakes up in a forest and some unholy amalgamation she couldn't even begin to identify was about to eat her. An earsplitting screech, copious amounts of swearing and several reductos later the thing was dead, dissolving into green tendrils and leaving behind…wait a minute, was this money? It looked like bunch of bills. The hell? Where had she ended up?

At least she had her work trunk with her and war induced paranoia had her filling it up for every possible situation under the sun. That included suddenly being stranded in the middle of nowhere, and Hermione wasn't always gonna be there with her miraculous clutch.

And because a lone trunk in the middle of the forest was weird even for her, she set up a perimeter of wards and then set up her tent. More like a mansion really. It was one of those the purebloods own, it even had a library.

After that she took out her scrying equipment and tried to find out her location.

She came up with nothing. That was problematic.

Taking a look outside she realized it was late so she decided to sleep on it and try to find out where she was tomorrow. After checking the perimeter and making sure it would last, she went to sleep.

The next day she gathered her things and hit the road . She wasn't a stranger to long treks so she had no problem. She had a problem with being jumped by the wildlife every three minutes though. On a positive note she had gathered quite a few coins and a couple of trinkets after killing them.

At about noon she had reached a village and had rented a room for the night. After that she seated herself on the bar of the tavern and probed the other patrons with legillimensy. And so far she had concluded that she wasn't anywhere near anything she knew. Not even a thought of America for crying out loud! That had her thinking that the potion accident was a coincidence.

This seemed like a certain vampire's cup of tea. She had dealt with the bastard for two years at least. Not that she regretted it. Clock Tower was one of the best things to happen to her.

Actual magical training!

Back to the matter at hand. There were many mentions of something called SOLDIER and apparently magic was common knowledge, materia they called it. Also this planet was called Gaia. The more she thought of it the more alcohol she drank. Screw the hangover, she needed this. The way things were going she would need to make headway with the kaleidoscope.

No matter. She would think of something to do in the morning. She needed sleep.

linelinelinelineline

Next morning she woke up with a hangover. No surprise there.

More specifically, she woke up with the unholy spawn of the mother of all migraines with the father of all hangovers.

In other words she was in pain. A lot of it.

So she was excused to not have noticed the straight piece of white wood sitting on the nightstand along with a strangely shaped stone.

After she had managed to find a hangover potion in her trunk and stopped acting like a zombie, she finally noticed the items and swore. Viciously!

The. Hell.

How had the two remaining deathly hallows found their way to her nightstand? She took them anyway and resolved herself to looking into it later. She wanted to take a look at the materia shop.

And wasn't that a doozy? Magic was common knowledge and readily available to everyone for a fee. In the form of oversized marbles! No wonder it is not a secret. Everyone could use it so no one was afraid of it. No witch hunts!

The epitomy of sore losers. Bet that if it was a priest to possess magic it would have been hailed a miracle from heaven. Yeah she was bitter about that. Why couldn't she have been born here? She wouldn't have had to deal with the Dursleys.

"Morning lass! Wow, you still alive?" it was the barkeeper. Well, she did drink quite a lot last night.

"Don't you worry Sir! I can handle liquor just fine." she said perkily. The people were so friendly here…

"I can quite see that! You drank so much yesterday and still are up so early. Not even wincing!" he gave her a big smile.

She giggled.

"So, you're gonn' be leaving today?"

"Probably. I want to get to a city sooner rather than later. And on those grounds, could you point me to the materia shop?"

"Of course, lass! Its just down the main road, next to the equipment shop. You gonna be Ok traveling on your own? The monsters can get quite vicious." He sounded concerned.

"If they're anything like the ones I encountered on my way here, then there's not going to be any problem. I'm a quite proficient magic user, you see." She said a bit cockily. She was proud of her magic.

"Oh, I see! Then best of luck, lass!" his smile was back as he waved her of.

The materia shop was a simple one. Shelves lined with orbs categorized by colour. A lot of green and blue ones and some yellow. She learned that the green ones housed spells, the yellow ones were support and the blue ones command - whatever those two meant.

What to buy… she had to check the equipment shop too.

"Would you mind if I checked the equipment shop first and came back later?" she would need to make sure she was covered on that front first. She wasn't exactly lacking in magic right now.

"Not at all dear. Come back whenever you want." The clerk said kindly. She was an elderly woman, probably in her seventies, with gray hair in a bun and a simple faded purple dress with long sleeves.

"Good morning. I was wondering where I could sell these." Right to business while showing the trinkets she had gotten from the monsters to the equipment shop clerk. He was a tall man, buff, with a bit of stubble.

"Well the bracer is at 500 gil and the rings come at about… I would say 3000. The quality is good. Where did you come by 3 silver rings anyway?"

"The monsters I killed on my way here dropped them."

"You must be a good fighter then. They are rare drops, only found in the strong monsters. Not sure why. They're just pretty things with no real use" well she had kept one just because of that.

"So that's 3500 gil. I'm about to head out, would you have anything to recommend?" Best be sure she was ready.

"Well, you would need a map of course, then a tent and basic tools" ' check' " a few potions" ' not check' " a weapon preferably but I'm sure you got that covered" ' damn straight I do' " and provisions" ' check'.

"I would like a map then, and what kind of potions?" she couldn't help but ask. She had an entire room in her trunk – because the extended spaces of the different compartments were huge , not to mention the main storage space was a small apartment she filled with all the paraphernalia gathered from her job – filled with all kinds of potions. She was paranoid. Enough said.

"Healing potions of course. And a few ethers. Those are the most basic." He looked a bit surprised by her lack of knowledge.

"I see. What do ethers do?"

"They replenish your magic of course." This guy had a thing with "of course", or she just didn't know shit. Probably the latter.

"Is there a book with recipes for those potions?" If the teacher wasn't Snape she was quite a good brewer.

"You can find one at the bookshop."

"Thank you. One map please, and is there a library in the village?

She walked out with instructions to the bookshop and 3400 gil. Apparently the village was too small for a library.

The recipe book was quite cheap, at 100 gil, since apparently no one was interested in brewing and the botanical guide was 200. She had still 3100 gill from the loot she sold and 4000 from the monsters. She didn't need clothes or provisions because paranoia so she could go back to look at the materia.

She was torn. Should she go for the fire or the blizzard? And the wind one looked good too. Her incedio was decent and she could always use the special heads for her Japanese issue wand but if she needed something stronger she would have to go for fiendfire and the fire runes would have to be written manually with either her hand or wand and that could take precious time.

If she wanted ice she would have to create water and freeze it mid launch which would also take up precious time.

As far as wind goes she could use deprimo or overpower a flipendo. Or really a wingardium leviosa . Wind could wait. On that end so could Quake. If she wanted to throw her opponents of their feet she could do plenty of things.

On second thought, she could overpower a heating charm if she wanted to go with fire. Didn't certain gasses explode if overheated. Or it could just produce a large gust of hot wind. She would have to test it out.

Blizzard it was then. So 1000 gil.

It was still noon. "May I ask you a question Ma'am? Where does materia originate from?" it was a valid question.

"Materia is created by the Lifestream. It is found in Mako pools which is basically liquefied lifestream. They are most commonly found in Mako reactors." That did not make any sense. She would need to find a library. It sounded like common knowledge and she didn't want to seem suspicious.

"Thanks a lot Ma'am. Have a nice day!"

"You' re welcome dear."

linelinelnelineline

She headed toward the nearest Reactor indicated in the map, in a village called Nibleheim. It would take her a week to get there on foot.

She spent the week picking as many fights as possible with the wildlife in order to get used to materia and integrate its use in her fighting style. (That was a mistake.)

The fact that she was a witch didn't mean that she relied solely on her magic. The capture and her stay in Malfoy Manor was rather telling. She never wanted to feel so helpless again.

After the final battle things went…well…sideways. The Prophet started another smear campaign. Only this one was worse than fifth year. This time she wasn't an attention seeking liar. This time she was the new Dark Lady.

Apparently they realized that they had shoved so much on her plate that it was impossible to deal with all of it herself, and thus living up to their expectations labeled her abnormal even by magical standards. What a load of crap!

And it gets worse! The only way for her to "come clean" was to "forge ties" with a known light family. "hint-hint". Well, not that explicitly said but that was the gist between the "trust of the public", "compromise for the sake of ensued safety" (go figure that out) and of course who could forget the classic "we must make sacrifices for the common good".

Yeah, no. Fuck you.

Of course she could count on Ronald Freaking Weasly to throw her under the train! Again! It happened in fourth year, it happened when they were on the run by Voldemort himself, of course it would happen again. Especially since he was going to profit from it this time.

She will never forget the moment she received an owl from Mrs. Weasly telling her they should set up a date for her marriage with dearest Ron. What about Hermione you dick? She knew she had to leave. Asap. She knew what this was all about. The Ministry was too afraid of her now to leave her unattended, so they were trying to manipulate her in a position she would be more controllable in.

As if!

Which is why she gathered everything she owned and went to Gringotts intent to clear everything out and ready to weather whatever consequences.

In the end the Goblins were impressed by her show of bravery and honesty and showed some lenience. They took the cost of the repairs and loss from her account and she gave an unbreakable vow not do it again. And leave and never return to any branch. With everything she had in her vaults. Yup, rather lenient indeed.

So she took everything from her vault, stuffed them in a series of expanded trunks and left the country.

Or, she tried to leave the country. She caught the attention of a trolling vampiric pain in the ass and that's how she ended up for the two next years hidden in Clock Tower. Apprenticed to said vampiric pain in the ass.

It wasn't easy. She had to deal with snide comments about how being the savior landed her in special places all the time. And there were too many harassment attempts to count. So she retaliated. Marauder style.

The attempts stopped, the comments lessened and Zelretch was proud.

She sped through her studies. She picked runes like she originally wanted in third year ( damn you Weasly ), she aced potions because there was no overgrown devilbat hovering over her this time, took an interest in alchemy and reinforcement, and of course put her all in physical education.

Two years after she was in Japan, a proud runes and potionsmistress ( go figure, Snape must be rolling in his grave ), with a letter of recommendation from Zelretch looking for job. She was going to live in her own terms from now on.

This is how she ended up with her job. Oh, her job…what to say about her job.

She had let it slip that she had found, explored the chamber of secrets in Hogwarts and killed the basilisk inhabiting it and she ended up doing that again. For a living.

No, that was her job. She was sent to places that possibly contained magical artifacts like shipwrecks and abandoned castles and cleaned them up before the non magicals found them. She usually searched old residences that used to belong to magical families that had died out and thus had no one to renew the ward, that were subsequently failing. That way the statute of secrecy was kept and everyone was happy.

She was a glorified cleaner. 'Special Retainer of Secrecy' they called her. Well if she happened to keep some trinkets, no one was saying anything. As long as she filled the appropriate paperwork her employers never said anything. She had the common sense to take proper measures after all.

The job had its good points too though. Like traveling all over the world, all expenses paid. Peculiar, yes. But the only other people capable of doing it were curse breakers and the majority was kind of occupied in Egypt. Also, recommendation from Zelretch. Those were rather rare.

Ah… taking trips down memory lane always made her feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.

She eyed her work wand. Its shape was particular. The handle was wooden and carved, with the polish creating waves on the surface. The rest of it was made of specially crafted metal alloys that channeled magic much easier and it wasn't as susceptible to breaking. It was longer than normal wands, well, the British ones, almost as long as her forearm. It didn't end in a tip. Instead the head had one bar going vertically to the body with two small, metal, slightly curved decorations under it attached to it. From the bar, two metal pieces curved, initially inwards and then outwards and ended in sharp tips. The protrusions were connected by another curved metal piece, in the point of connection of the two curves in the initial pieces of metal. In the center of that piece was a small spike.

There were different heads that could be attached there, depending on what she wanted to achieve. Those wand were issued to members of the Japanese Magical Police Force and the different heads came from your own pocket. And man, were they far more useful that the British ones.

She whacked a monster that had gotten too close with it. Yep, far more durable. Japan was outclassing Britain so badly it wasn't even funny. Goes to show that accepting technology was a very good choice.

She suddenly had an urge to hit her head on something very, very solid. Why hadn't she used her phone? The thing was running on magic and it could, theoretically contact other dimensions. That was how the Japanese University of Magic functioned. It was a separate dimension with time running differently since the Japanese Ministry recognized that some students had to deal with mundane studied as well. One hour outside University walls was five hours inside University walls. Honestly the system was ingenious.

She took her frustration out on the newest attacking monster. She would try to contact her coworkers or her employers when she set up camp.

In the end she didn't need to set up camp. In between memories and picking fights she had set up a much quicker that anticipated pace and had reached Nibleheim two and a half days earlier than estimated.

It was turning dark and she was about to go to the tavern to rent a room when she stopped dead in her trucks. Her blood burned with rage for in front if her a bunch of teenagers had cornered a younger boy and were beating him. And the adults were just watching doing nothing!

Her own miserable childhood run in front of her eyes and she saw red. If there was one thing Mellania Belladonna Potter could not stand, it was bullying.

She fired a medium powered aguamendi, her anger making the originally planned splashing effect a blasting one, since her emotions created a jet of highly pressurized water. It didn't blast them to far, just threw them of their feet and got their attention.( Hmmmm that's another idea for fighting monsters….)

The boys turned angrily at her probably thinking it was another kid fooling around. What greeted them was the visage of a pissed-of witch. She must have been pretty intimidating, what with the hair not caught in her bun floating around the wind created by her magic, along with her long skirt and coat, the crystals at the end of the sticks securing the bun glinting ominously along with her eyes -which were glaring daggers at them- and the tip of her wand spewing red sparks while it was clutched tightly in her hand, the metal itself reflecting the light the swirling green and white magic was creating.

Thinking about it, that must have been why none of the present adult were reacting as well.

"What do you think you are doing?" her tone showed her anger. "Give me one good reason why you are treating the poor boy like that?"

One of the boys took a step forward, trying to look important. Probably the leader. Also the stupidest judging by what he said next.

"Why do you care? He deserves it either way. Strife is such a freak!"

Oh no he didn't ! That was their justification?

"Hell yeah that's why!" She must have said that one out loud.

"Yeah!" "Right" the others had started to chorus. They were digging their grave and they didn't know it.

Her magic exploded outwards from her. The boys got quiet again, terrified. A quick flick of her wrist and a small expulso went of in front of their feet, making them stumble back.

Her voice was frigid and brimming with power and anger. " How dare you? You should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you." She was referring to the gathering crowd " Treating a child like that. How despicable!" her voice got louder making many flinch away. "Scram!" her magic exploded again and no one needed further prompting.

She took a deep breath to compose herself. ' Good job Bella. Nice impression you made.' Meh, she was here for the Reactor anyway.

A tugging at her coat broke her from her musings. Looking down she saw the same boy that was being bullied. He had brilliant blue eyes and his hair was blonde in all over the place spikes reminding her of her own rat nest of hair when cut short.

God he was adorable!

Her expression faded to a gentle smile. "Are you alright sweetheart?" she made sure to kneel to his eye level and made her voice as kind as possible.

He nodded bashfully. " Mhh-hmm. Thank you for helping me. But why did you?" he asked curiously.

Her heart clenched in her chest. He reminded her so much of herself.

"Because I wanted to and because I could. Is there any other reason required?" She directed a kind and gentle look at him. "What's your name kid?"

"I'm not a kid! My names Cloud!" he said indignantly. Good he wasn't scared anymore. "What's your name Nice Lady?"

She couldn't help but giggle. He was adorable.

"You can call me Bella, Cloud. Now, let me walk you home. I wouldn't want the brats I just chased to corner you again." She said decisively, standing up from her crouch.

She offered her hand for him to take, which he timidly took with some hesitation. He was so adorable!

"So what bring you to Nibleheim Miss Bella?" his eyes filled with curiosity. "Not many people come here."

"Well, I am here for research." Deciding to indulge him a bit more "Mostly I am here for the Reactor."

Soooooo. That it folks! I hoped you liked it and thanks for taking your time to read my story. I would appreciate it if you reviewed since I would like to know your opinion, no flames though please.

See you next time and nice day

~ Sil.