Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and all related materials are the property of J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Warner Brothers. I am in no way affiliated with JKR, Bloomsbury, or Warner Brothers, and use their materials without their permission or knowledge.

A/N: Still no review? Oh, well. I just have to suck it up and keep on writing to nobody until I either give up or have no inspiration left. But hey, no sweat. Just want to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everybody! I hope you all got what you wish for tomorrow. Anyway, here we go! :)

Chapter 2

Strange Occurrences

Ten years, give or take a couple of months.

Ten years since Lord Voldemort was defeated. On that fateful night and weeks (or months, for some) after that, every witch and wizard came out to celebrate the demise of one of the most dangerous Dark wizards of all time. Every time Albus Dumbledore remembered this event, the ever-present twinkle in his blue eyes would vanish. Every time he recalled it, the thought would always lead back to Gellert Grindelwald, their battle in 1945, and how their friendship had ended, but most of all, the death of his sister prior to Grindelwald's departure.

When the memory of the downfall of his family came to mind, the aged headmaster would associate it with the Potter family, great sorrow in his heart and a lump in his throat. There was a fact that so many people had overlooked: in order to destroy Voldemort, an innocent family had to pay the price. The mother had passed away in her attempt to protect her children. The father had been missing following his wife's funeral. The son who had defeated Voldemort had fallen into a coma and he had yet to regain his consciousness. The daughter was put in the care of her mother's sister's family. Professor McGonagall, after a day of observing the Dursleys, had strictly disagreed to place Grace Lily Potter in that horrible house. Alas, Dumbledore had no other choice.

If Grace grew up in a wizarding family, where everyone heavily respected her, it was more than likely she'd grow up to be overly confident since she was technically the only person to survive Voldemort's attack as a whole, although she didn't encounter him face-to-face to be exact. Besides, the people he was certain Lily and James would trust their child's life with were Remus, Peter, and Sirius.

Peter's death was nothing but tragic. It was unlucky that he was murdered in such a brutal manner that night. By the time the Order members and the Aurors came to the Potter Manor, all that was left of him was a finger.

Sirius, after betraying his friends, seemed out of the question. He couldn't be trusted anymore. Dumbledore heaved a sigh, twirling a quill between his fingers restlessly. He used to believe that Sirius was different, having not followed the ways of his ancestors who looked down upon Muggle-born and half-blood wizards.

Remus was probably the one Dumbledore pitied the most. Due to his lycanthropy, it was hard for him to find a job, forcing him to live meagerly. There was no way he could possibly take care of James' daughter because there was no guarantee she'd survive a full moon under the werewolf's care, which upset Remus even more.

A knock on the door to the headmaster's office brought Dumbledore out of musing.

"Enter," he said.

The door swung open. Professor McGonagall strode into the room, her usually stern expression morphed ten times worse into a look of outrage that could make even the seventh year students cower.

"We should have never left Grace Potter there! Those Muggles, how dare they do what they did?" she said angrily.

"What did they do, Professor?" Dumbledore asked, staring at her over his half-moon spectacles, the twinkle in his eyes returned.

"They sent her to an orphanage!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"An orphanage. The day after we left her, that godforsaken Muggles simply dropped her off in an orphanage. I thought by now she'd have gotten her acceptance letter, so I came to fetch her and she wasn't there. I told you it was a mistake years ago, yet you didn't listen…" she trailed off, pacing back and forth in front of Dumbledore.

"I am already aware of that, Professor McGonagall."

The Transfiguration teacher stopped pacing. "What?"

"I am already aware of that," he repeated, "The reason I have not confided you of this information sooner is because I do not wish for those Muggles to get cursed, nor do I wish you to start worrying about the girl and start searching for her, and therefore forget your duties here in Hogwarts.

"Rest assured, she's in good hands." The wizard, clad in robes a blue shade darker than his eyes, smiled reassuringly at the bewildered witch. "Would you care for a lemon drop?"

IIIIIIIIII

The narrow hallway was almost devoid of life, with a lone girl being the only exception. The redheaded figure was sitting on a trunk, touching a diagonal scar that ran across her left eye absentmindedly. The scar had been there for as long as she can remember. She bit her lip to the point of nearly drawing blood. She tried not to listen to the conversation taking place in the next room, but bits of it could still be heard, anyway, whether she liked it or not.

"She made the pet kitten we gave her fly!"

"Her nanny somehow grew warts after a day with her!"

"We're sorry Sister Powell, but we don't know how we're supposed to handle children like Grace."

The door flew open at once and the girl sitting on the trunk gave a start. A married couple came out of the room, staring at anything but Grace. Unable to stand the awkward silence, they hurried down the hallway as Grace stood up to drag her trunk to her old room upstairs.

Four different parents had adopted her; and she thought it was going to be different. One strange occurrence after another, and she was returned to the blasted orphanage. She always ended up in the same place. As if she could have prevented those things to happen.

A soft voice called out from behind her. "Grace?"

Sister Powell stood by the doorway and smiled softly at Grace. "Just let a male volunteer get that upstairs, alright? Now you go outside with the rest of the kids."

"Thanks," Grace said. She walked a few steps before stopping and added, "Sister Powell? The next time someone is interested to adopt me, stop them. Tell them everything strange that's happened to me, scare them if you must. It's been, what, four times now? I really hate being in this situation over and over again."

She didn't wait for Sister Powell's response, leaving the familiar old building where she had spent most of her life in. The first time she was sent back to the orphanage, Grace had cried all day long. She eventually realized, though, that there were lots of adults out there wanting to adopt her. Her confidence dimmed slowly but surely as married couples and single parents came and went; every one of them charmed by her personality but shied away as soon as she accidentally showed them her strange abilities.

"Back so soon?"

Graham Webb was the biggest bully in the orphanage. He was surprisingly overweight for an orphan (probably because he stole food from other kids), strutted over to Grace with his gang flanking his sides. She hated him with a passion. After finding out the reason why Grace returned to the orphanage for the first time, he kept calling her a freak. Everyone who tried to befriend her, except for the adults who either worked or volunteered here, was beaten to a pulp. Maybe she was overreacting, but still. Graham Webb was a git.

"I'm not in the mood, Graham," she said, sounding braver than she felt.

"Hey!" he bellowed, grabbing her arm roughly. "Nobody talks to me like that, especially a 10-year-old girl."

"Get your fat little hand off of her," she said firmly.

She thought she didn't really sound like herself at that time. Her voice sounded suddenly deeper, like… a boy. She barely had any time to process what had transpired when her feet could no longer feel the ground. It felt as though she was brought underwater, but there was no water to suffocate her. She was drifting in nothingness. Despite all of this, she could still see everything going on around her, even though she didn't seem to have control over her body. When the redhead finally did, Graham was now sporting a broken nose. So she made a run for it.

To her relief, Grace heard the plump boy say, "Don't just stand there! Help me!"

IIIIIIIIII

The birds were perched high on tree branches, chirping happily to a song that no normal human would ever understand. Sitting under one of the apple trees in the park was a rather disheveled man, reading a book bound in leather. The stranger made no sign of acknowledgement as his friend's daughter sat beside him. Tilting her head to read the title of the book the older man was reading, her hazel eyes went alight with wonder.

"Greek Mythology?" she read aloud. "I never knew you're into legends, Moony."

"Well, you'd be surprised at how similar real world is with the one in fairy tales. Not exactly the same but close enough," he said with a smile. Moony's statement unsettled Grace, as though he knew something that she didn't.

As far as the young girl knew, there was something off with the man. His patched and shabby clothes indicated that he was broke. He didn't deny that fact, either, by telling her that he was jobless. It was surprising to see that underneath the less-than-groomed appearance, laid a knowledgeable person fully capable of understanding, if not participating in, an intellectual conversation.

In the middle of the month, he always disappeared and came back a week later looking worse than before. Although curious, the redhead shrugged it off as 'a bad week on the street' and never asked him about it. Besides, she didn't feel it was right to put her nose in other people's business. If Moony had wanted Grace to know about it, then he would have told her. If Moony hadn't wanted Grace to know about it, then she couldn't have forced him to tell her. The best thing she could offer him was a small pat in the back.

"Remember when we first met, squirt? You were climbing the very same tree we were sitting under right now, trying to rescue a cat. And then I came along just when you were about to fall. But no, insistent as you were, you latched on tightly to the tree branch. You should have seen yourself, you know, hanging upside down, hugging the branch for dear life."

Both of them broke into a fit of laughter at the memory.

When the laughs had subsided, the 10-year-old sighed and ran a hand through her hair, continuing the story from her own point of view, "I remember closing my eyes and prepared myself for the impact. For a second there, I thought I was going to break my back or something like that. Good thing I wasn't too high up, eh, Moony?"

The addressed adult nodded.

"Anyway, the first thing I felt after that was… I hit the ground. I didn't fall; it was more like landing softly. I opened my eyes and you were there, the cat safely in your hand," she paused. "Wait, how exactly did you do that? The branch, though not too high up, wasn't too low down, either."

Now was Moony's turn to sigh. "Squirt, have you done anything bizarre lately? Something you can't explain? Something you do when you're in a situation you don't particularly like?"

Her mind immediately went to her old pet kitten that defied gravity when it decided to use her journal as its new litter box, to her old nanny that grew warts when she gave her a timeout for accidentally spilling a cup of lemonade on her white skirt (it looked quite hilarious to Grace, personally), and to Graham Webb who she punched when he angered her. At first, Moony didn't find anything bizarre with the latter, but after the young girl explained about her voice changing into that of a boy and having no control over her body, he seemed worried.

"Is there something wrong with me?" Grace asked after a stretching silence. She didn't want to admit it, but she didn't like her companion's expression at all.

"Are you sure you said, 'Leave her alone'?"

"Positive. I have no idea why I said that. I mean, I would have told Graham to leave me alone, right?"

His brown eyes widened for a second before narrowing into slits. "Could this be—?"

"What is it? Moony, y-you're scaring me."

"Grace, I'm here to tell you that all this time, you're a witch. Those unexplainable things that have happened to you; they're called accidental magic. But this… you losing control of your own self… it rarely occurred in our world."

"Are you saying that I was possessed back there?" she said, bewildered. It was the only thing she could say, despite the many shocking things Moony had just said. Maybe he was insane; maybe she was wrong to have let herself get close to him.

"Do you think I'm crazy, Grace?" he guessed correctly. One corner of his mouth curved up, forming a crooked smile. "Let me show you something. Grab something small, but heavy, if you please, so that it won't get blown away by accident."

Grace hesitated, searching for a way she could somehow run away. Albeit deep inside her heart, the last thing she wanted to do was get away. Surely, if Moony had wanted to injure her, he would have done it years ago? Besides, she was intrigued by the idea that she was a witch. Sure it sounded mad, but those odd things she had done sounded as mad as a hatter, too. She wouldn't have believed the older man one bit if she hadn't experienced the crazy stuff herself. So the 10-year-old girl picked up a random pebble and held it out in her hand.

"That'll do," Moony said, taking out a thin bar of wood the length of Grace's forearm.

"Is that supposed to be a wand?"

He nodded his affirmation. He pointed his wand at the pebble in her hand and muttered an incantation under his breath. At once, the small rock began to rise up into the air. Higher and higher it went until it stopped; suspended midair by an invisible force right in front of the captivated girl's eyes.

"And now do you believe me that magic really does exist?" he asked after taking the stone and threw it away now that it had served its purposes.

"Yeah, absolutely!" she said, bouncing in her seat in excitement. "Just show me some more great tricks! What else can you do?"

"I can do lots of great things, Grace, but I have something to show you. Quite frankly, it's about your past. You sure wonder what family you're from once in a while, right? Where your parents might be, if they're not deceased yet? Why they left you here?"

"But I thought… I thought my parents are dead. Isn't that why I'm in an orphanage? If they're still alive, then—"

She didn't have time to finish her sentence when Moony gripped her shoulder so tightly it hurt and turned on the spot. Grace distinctively felt like she was being forced into a rubber tube. Her lungs constricted painfully and all she wanted to do was put pressure on her chest to overshadow the throbbing inside. No sooner had she lifted her hand than the pain cleared out almost immediately.

Throwing up was the first thing she did.

Staggering upright, Grace found out that she was no longer sitting underneath the apple tree in the park.

A/N: Now where can Moony Apparate both of them to? One word: Potter. Just saying. And Moony, come on, that's pretty obvious who he actually is. I don't have a clue how orphanage works, really. My little research I did before writing this chapter didn't help much, so I'm just going to assume things. Tell me if I messed something up, alright? Thank you.