New fic! And my NaNoWriMo 2018 project. Chapter two is partly written and some future scenes written that need to be cobbled together, so updates will be kinda slow.

Also, all words / sentences written in a foreign language will have a translation at the bottom.

I think that's all, so onto the fic!

Chapter 1: Open at the Close

In one world, Angela Juliette Hall dies fighting. The lead suspect in a crime scene she's investigated; fearful that she had discovered evidence of their involvement, breaks into her home and kills her. She died choking on her blood.

In another world, thousands of miles away, almost forty years in the past; Anastasiya Nikolayevna Sokolova is born deathly quiet. A cause for concern for the doctor, he fears something has gone wrong in an already complicated pregnancy. The baby is pronounced healthy after a few tests and given to her parents. The doctor walked away from the room, congratulating himself on a job well done. Not knowing that the Sokolov's child was special. Not knowing that their newest child was born with a secret. One that will change the course of the world.

Nikolay Sokolov watches quietly as Olga, his wife, fusses over their youngest child. Their eldest, Galina, sleeping in his arms.

Another daughter.

'This is my legacy?' he thought bitterly'Two children and they're both girls?'

All of his colleagues have sons to carry on the family name and skills, he can't make Vory[1] out of girls!

He shifts in his seat and watches as Anastasiya looks around the room with intelligent eyes. He narrows his eyes slightly, 'Intelligence would be useful', he notes idly before he can catch himself.

He leans back in his seat thoughtfully. 'There have been women Vory before.' he muses, 'Not often, but it has happened.'

Nikolay locks eyes with his daughter's intelligent ones and makes a choice.

Olga Sokolova née Kuznetsova knows her husband is disappointed that she's given birth to another girl, but she doesn't care. She's too relieved her baby is healthy to care about his disappointment. She cuddles Anastasiya snuggly to her chest, dead set on ignoring Koyla's schemes.

The next three years pass quickly. Nikolay and Olga try unsuccessfully for another child. Galina begins her lessons in stealth, lock picking, combat, and ballet. Anastasiya reaches her first milestones rapidly. It's in her third year when Nikolay decides to put his plan into action.

He doesn't know it yet, but that's when things start to go wrong.

Anastasiya is three years old. She is three years old and holding a knife when she finally comprehends that she's been reincarnated. She stares at the knife in her hand, hysteria bubbling up. She flinches slightly when her father barks at her in Russian, "Snóva![2]"

"Da, Otets.[3]" she murmured, the Russian coming automatically.

She quickly squashes the hysteria for later and dutifully goes through the stabbing motion again.

Her father nods tersely, "Good enough."

He takes the knife from her and slides it into his boot.

"That's enough for today, go play," he commands.

"Yes, Father."

She scampers up the stairs to her room and closes the door behind her softly. She leans against the door and slides down it to the floor. Anastasiya curls up into a ball and shakily covers her mouth to muffle the sound as she starts to quietly cry. Quietly mourning the life she left behind.

Her dad, who raised her after her mother left.

Her friends, who encouraged her when she was down.

Her co-workers, who could keep up with her babbling.

Her very life, cut violently short.

Anastasiya Sokolova broke quietly.

Coming back to herself sometime later, Anastasiya sits up and scrubs her face free of tears. She's worn out mentally and emotionally. Levering herself up, she ambles to her bed and clambers on to it. She curls up on top of the covers, she's asleep before her head hits the pillow.

"Stasya! Lunch!"

Anastasiya sits up blearily at the sound of her mom's voice from downstairs. She rubs her face tiredly, then stares at the wall blankly as what happened starts coming back to her. She clenches her fists, breathes out slowly, then relaxes her hands.

Anastasiya pulls up the armor she learned in her last life to guard her heart and steels her spine.

"Coming!"

The person in the mirror isn't her, yet it is. Pale skin instead of tan, blonde hair instead of brown, blue eyes instead of brown. Anastasiya hates her reflection, just a little. Hates that there's nothing in the mirror that connects to her last life. Hates that she didn't keep anything from that life.

Avoiding her reflection for weeks probably hasn't helped her come to terms with her situation.

She eyes the bruise on her right cheek - a souvenir from her father for refusing to fight her sister. Curling her lip briefly in anger, she smooths out her expression and moves away from the mirror before she gives in to the urge to smash it. She's already drawn enough attention as it is with how strangely she's been behaving.

Anastasiya quietly makes her way downstairs, making her way to the kitchen. She avoids the room where her father is speaking quietly with his friends. The last time she tried to listen in on them, he hit her for it - she doesn't want to repeat that experience.

Galina waves at her from where she's carefully picking a lock at the table as she comes into the room. Anastasiya smiles slightly before ambling to where her mom is at the stove.

Her mom smiles down at her, "Hello Stasya. Do you need anything?"

"Water, please?" she asks.

"Of course, Zaika.[4]"

Olga is worried. It's not a new thing, especially with her lifestyle. But her youngest has been acting strange lately. She's not sleeping. Her appetite has gone down. She rarely speaks anymore. And her eyes have gotten defiant, Olga's only noticed that recently. Kolya hasn't noticed yet, but she's terrified what will happen when he does, her husband doesn't like being defied.

She loves her husband or the person he was before they got married. When he wasn't bitter. When he wasn't obsessed with power. When he only drank occasionally. When he only smoked weed. When he didn't hit her. When she was the only woman he loved. She doesn't know when he changed, or if he was always like that and he just hid it from her, but she can't leave him, he'll kill her if she does, and who will protect her children then?

Rubbing her arms to get some warmth into them, Anastasiya gets out of her bed. She shuffles over and snatches up a pair of socks off the floor. The blonde wanders back to her bed, clambers back on to it. She pulls the socks on then slips back under the covers; curling up into a ball for warmth.

The cold never leaves her now, like the cold grip of death is still embedded into her skin.

"You're still too noisy when you walk, Anastasiya," Father chides.

"Sorry, Father," Anastasiya apologizes.

"Step lighter. Try again."

"Yes, Father."

Anastasiya walks carefully from the front door to the living room, stepping lightly as Father instructed.

"Good enough for now," he grunts.

Father moves away to a cabinet nearby and pulls out a lock and a set of picks. He sets them on the coffee table.

"You have sixty seconds to unlock this," he proclaims.

She scrambles to the table, knowing if she doesn't get there by the time he says start she'll be punished.

"Start."

It's three months later when Anastasiya realizes that her parents are in the Mob, the Russian Mob at that. She berates herself for not catching on sooner because the clues were all there. Her father's friends and their cryptic conversations, the stealth training, the lock picking, the combat lessons. It's all so obvious now.

The one thing she doesn't understand though is why Father is pushing her harder than Galina. She has vague memories of Galina starting her combat lessons last year when her sister was five. So she doesn't understand why she's starting now when she's three. Anastasiya is sure he's planning something; she doesn't know what exactly he's planning, but she'll make sure that his plan fails.

No matter what.

Glass shattering.

A gunshot.

Agony.

Bloodbloodblood

can'tbreathecan'tbreathecan'tbreathe

Anastasiya startles awake, panting. As she curls up on her side, heart-pounding; Anastasiya reminds herself to breathe. The nightmare (memory) fading. She shakily brings her hand up to her chest; halfway believing that she'd find a gunshot wound. She pulls her hand away, relieved that her hand is free from blood.

Anastasiya breathes a sigh of relief and rolls on her back. She stiffens in confusion, gazing at the unfamiliar ceiling blankly. She sits up and takes in the light pink walls and white furniture.

'Oh right,' she thinks in disorientation, 'this is my room.'

Anastasiya lies back down. She hates that sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night and doesn't know where she is. Hates that sometimes she looks into the mirror and doesn't recognize herself. Hates that sometimes she has to remind herself of who she is now, not who she was Before. She doesn't think that'll ever change.

Anastasiya huddles against her bedroom door, covering her ears to block out the sound of her father yelling at Mom. Her ribs are aching from where Father kicked her. He didn't like that she tried to stop him from hitting Mom. He'll make her suffer for it in her next lesson, she's sure of it.

'Fucking abusive piece of shit,' she rages internally, glaring at the far wall. 'I can't escape because Mom and Galina will suffer for it. I can't call the police because I don't even remember what the number for nine-one-one is in Britain. I hate him. I hate him so fucking much.'

Anastasiya growls under her breath at her helplessness. She whimpers when she hears glass break.

'I hope Mom is okay.'

A movement out of the corner of her eye causes her to glance over. Her jaw drops when she sees a few of her toys floating.

'What the fuck.'

She drops her hands, gets up, and slowly makes her way over. The toys wobble a little as she gets closer, and she swipes her hand through the air below the toys. She furrows her brow in confusion, her hand hit nothing. She reaches over to do it again and they start falling. She snatches them up before they hit the floor and stares at them in confusion.

'Why the fuck were they floating? What the fuck is going on?'

The Toy Floating Incident, as she's started calling it in her head, eats away at her over the next few weeks. She's taken to watching her toys when she doesn't have lessons to see if it'll happen again, but the only thing that's happened is sleep deprivation.

Which isn't a bad thing in her book right now, anything to not think of the nightmares plaguing her of drowning in her own blood.

She can't think of a logical explanation for the Incident, the only thing she can think of is ghosts.

Which is… no.

Just no.

Anastasiya didn't fuck with the supernatural Before and she's not about to now.

The next Incident is a month later.

Anastasiya glares at the book on her dresser, she can't reach it and the dresser is too wobbly for her to climb. She growls in frustration and barely refrains from stomping her foot. She just wants to read the book!

Her eyes widen when the book lifts and hovers in front of her. Hesitantly reaching out, she grabs the book. There's no resistance.

'What the shit. Is it a fucking ghost helping me or am I Matilda?'

Sitting in the living room, in a chair out of the way; Anastasiya watches fascinated as Mom teaches Galina ballet. Mom's movements are so graceful and Galina is trying to imitate her with marginal success.

Usually, she'd be in combat training right now, but Father received a call and had to go take care of something for Grigoriy. Grigoriy being his Boss and "take care" being code for Someone Did Something Stupid And I Have To Kill Them For It, as she's learned recently. Father gets a lot of those calls.

Careful listening in, usually when Father is drunk or high with his buddies, has revealed a lot of information that she didn't know about the Russian Mafia and what her parents do for them; what they expect Galina and Anastasiya to do.

For one, there's no Crime Families like in the Italian Mafia, just loose groups of criminals that work together under a Pakhan[5]. Father is a Brigadier, which means he's in charge of his buddies (gang), gives out the jobs they go on, and pays tribute to Grigoriy.

The second thing she learned is that Father's cryptic conversations are mostly comprised of Russian slang, she just doesn't understand it yet.

Another thing she's learned is that Mom was in Father's gang, mostly just stealing before she had Galina.

Anastasiya is pretty sure that Mom is training Galina to follow her in footsteps, but she doesn't think that Father is training her to follow his footsteps. Father's a Vor[6]and girls can't be Vor!

Anastasiya shoots up in her bed as her bedroom door slams open. She's bowled over by a blonde missile.

"Stasya! Happy Birthday!" Galina shrieks in her ear.

"Ow," she complains.

"Oops. Sorry, Stasya," Galina says remorsefully.

"It's fine, Galya," Anastasiya assures sleepily.

Galina frowns at her, "It's your birthday, Stasya, be more excited."

"Too early."

Galina giggles, "Sorry."

Anastasiya grunts, "S'fine."

Galina snuggles up to her and they fall back to sleep curled up together.

Olga coos at the cute picture her babies make curled up together. She spins away from her youngest's room and hurries to get her camera. She needs to take a picture to capture this moment.

She snatches up the camera from where it's on her dresser and rushes back to Stasya's room. She smiles when she sees that Galya and Stasya haven't moved. She can't believe Stasya is four today, her little bunny is growing up so fast! She quickly brings up the camera and snaps a few pictures. She then returns it to her room before making her way back to where her children are.

"Children, it's time to wake up."

Anastasiya glances at the calendar on the fridge as Mom brings out her cake.

'December Seventeenth, huh. At least I still have a winter birthday I guess.' she thought, 'It's 1983 now, so I was born in 1979? My birth year is still the same.'

It's such a small thing to be happy about, but she is. Because at least that isn't something she's lost.

She grins as Mom sets a chocolate cake in front of her, "Happy Birthday, Zaika."

"Happy Birthday," Galina echos loudly.

Father smiles slightly, "Happy Birthday."

"Thank you."

Lying awake that night, stomach full of cake and other good food, Anastasiya makes a decision. She can't keep just going through the motions, this is her life now and there's no changing it. She's gotten a second chance and she won't waste it. For the first time in almost a year, she falls asleep easily and sleeps through the night.

Galina wakes up excited, it's Christmas! She slinks out of her bed and sneaks to her sister's room. She freezes when the door creaks, straining her ears to hear if her parents woke up. Breathing a sigh of relief, she makes her way to Stasya's bedside.

Galina pokes the younger blonde, "Psst! Stasya. Wake up!"

Stasya cracks open an eye, "What."

"It's Christmas! Let's sneak downstairs to see what Santa brought us!" Galina whispers.

Stasya blinks in surprise then scrambles out of bed, grinning widely. Galina grabs Stasya's hand and pulls her downstairs quietly.

Galina makes a sound of surprise when she sees that their parents are already in the sitting room.

"Did you think you could sneak down here without us knowing?" Dad asks, amused.

Galina grins sheepishly while Stasya giggles.

Mom smiles gently, "Get in here, let's open presents."

Olga sets the camera on the tripod, setting the timer before hurrying to the couch where her family is sitting. She pulls Stasya in her lap, sees Galya wrap her arms around Kolya's neck, feels Kolya wrap his arm around her shoulder, and she beams. Her family all together.

The flash goes off.

Mom begins teaching her to read and write a week later, in Russian and English. Anastasiya's having fun learning Russian, even if learning to write Cyrillic is a little complicated. English is easy, though some words trip her up because of the differences between British and American English. And she has to downplay her ability with it.

Anastasiya was a bit startled at first to realize that she has a Russian accent when speaking English. She'd been speaking Russian exclusively since she became Aware, mostly out of fear that she had kept her American accent. How do you explain your child suddenly speaking English in an American accent? Especially when she's never actually met an American before.

Reincarnation is weird. Anastasiya has a sinking feeling that this won't be the last time she feels that way either.

Nikolay frowns thoughtfully as he sharpens his knife. Anastasiya is four now, in less than two years she'll have to start Primary and her lessons will have to be cut back like Galina's.

'Unacceptable. I need to push her harder.'

Anastasiya feels like she's about to collapse, she's spent the last three hours learning more knife fighting techniques. She just wants to take a bath, curl up in her bed, and sleep for a week. But unfortunately, Father won't let her rest until she gets the last technique perfect. Which is a problem because her arms feel like lead, and her palms are starting to form blisters.

"Do it again," he demands.

Anastasiya tries to keep her mouth shut, but her tolerance is officially gone.

"Or we could stop and do it tomorrow," she hisses.

The sound of Father's palm striking her cheek and the thud of her falling on the floor rings loudly in the silence left by her outburst.

"Get up," Father commands dangerously, "And don't you dare back talk me again."

"Yes, Father."

An hour later, Anastasiya stands seething in the bathroom. Her face hurts, the blisters on her hands feel like they'll bust open at any moment, and she's pretty sure her ribs are bruised. She got the last technique nailed down within three minutes, channeling her anger into her strikes just so she can be done. But then as punishment for her outburst, Father made her fight him. The only reason training stopped for the day is because her mom intervened.

Glaring up at the mirror, Anastasiya tries to find her calm. It's a little hard to do that though when every part of her wants to find the knife she was fighting with and use it on the piece of shit she shares blood with.

The next minute or so is spent fantasizing about the various ways she can pay back Father for the way he treats her family. Mom wouldn't miss him too badly, right?

Anastasiya is distracted from her revenge fantasies by the sight of the mirror starting to ice over. She stares at it in disbelief. She hops up on the footstool by the sink and leans forward. Poking the ice with a finger, she snatches her hand away and stares at it.

'That's actually ice,' she thinks in complete bafflement.

She watches in astonishment as the ice slowly melts.

'This is weird. Do I actually have some sort of power?'

Anastasiya isn't in a good mood. She only got an hour of sleep because she spent most of the night agonizing over the "Ghost or Powers?" question. And when she finally got to sleep she had a fucking nightmare. And now Father wants her to fight one of his friend's sons. Yuriy is two years older and a head taller than her.

Yuriy eyes her and laughs, "I'll give you the first shot."

Anastasiya narrows her eyes in annoyance, 'Oh, you'll regret that you little shit.'

She slants a glance to Father. He just raises his eyebrow. She refocuses her attention on the little shit in front of her.

"Begin," Yuriy's father commands.

Anastasiya darts forward, brings her fist back and plants it straight in Yuriy's face.

He goes down.

She backs away, just in case, but he's knocked out.

The stunned silence left in the wake of the knockout is glorious.

Yuriy groans as he comes to, "What happened?"

"You lost," Father announces smugly.

Yuriy's father makes them fight four more times after that, unable to accept that his son lost to a girl. Anastasiya is mildly proud that she won every fight and that she only got hit once.

The rest of the fights weren't over as quickly as the first one, Yuriy learning his lesson quickly about underestimating her just because she's a girl. He got a lucky hit in, in the last bout. Her stamina needs work, but she knows that's something that will only get better the more she practices.

Anastasiya doesn't know how she feels about the fact that Father was so proud of her he lets her skip her next combat lesson. Because on one hand, she thinks that her beating Yuriy was part of his plan and she doesn't want that to come to fruition. But on the other, she's not about to get beat by some kid.

Anastasiya just knows that competitive streak is gonna bite her in the ass eventually.

Anastasiya stares at her ceiling later that night, thinking. About how much she enjoyed fighting, how much she was grinning as she dodged blows meant to hurt her, how she wanted to keep fighting until one of them stopped moving, how she felt alive.

The rush was amazing and she was jittery for hours after they were done fighting. Bouncing around like she'd had a bunch of sugar. 'Fighting is fun,' she realizes in apprehension; it's weird to like fighting so much, isn't it?

She wasn't like this Before, or maybe she just never had a chance to find out. The only time she got into a fight was when she was murdered.

Anastasiya pulls her blanket tighter around her and rolls onto her side, 'Maybe it was just a one-off?' she tries to convince herself. Deep down she knows she's lying.

Time passes. Anastasiya grows. She learns that her parents' tattoos have meanings when Galina gets her first tattoo; a cat -thief. Knows that she'll eventually get one.

Her mom starts teaching her ballet when she turns five.

Her life is routine.

During the week; in the mornings she does stealth, combat, and lock picking; in the afternoons she learns to read and to dance.

The weekends are for sparring against the children of Father's friends and putting her budding thief skills to use, just around the house for now because Father doesn't think she's quite ready for the real thing.

It's in September of her fifth year that the routine is disrupted.

Staring at the building in front of her, Anastasiya clutches her mom's hand tightly. It's the first time she's gonna be away from her family in this life and she's nervous. She barely knows how to interact with Galina and now she has to interact with more kids? No thank you.

Mom ducks down and smooths her hair, "You have a good first day of school, okay Zaika?"

Anastasiya nods silently. Galina bounces over and grabs her hand.

"It'll be fun, Stasya!" she says in an unsuccessful attempt to calm her down.

Mom straightens up, "Keep an eye on your sister, Lastachka[7]." she orders.

"Yes, Mom." she says, "C'mon Stasya."

Galina pulls her to the school building absolutely teeming with children.

'I can do this.'

'I can't do this!' Anastasiya yells to herself, as she's jostled by some fat, blond kid.

The kids in her class are running around and screaming. Some are crying. Some are getting into everything and she just wants to go home. It's too fucking loud.

The blonde spots a kid sitting quietly at a table by himself and she hurries to sit in the empty chair next to him. He looks at her in surprise, she smiles slightly at him.

"Hi, I'm Anastasiya Sokolova," she introduces herself.

"Hi," he echos quietly, "I'm Harry Potter."

TRANSLATIONS
[1] Vory - Thieves
[2] Snóva - Again
[3] Da, Otets - Yes, Father
[4] Zaika - Bunny
[5] Pakhan - Boss
[6] Vor - Thief
[7] Lastachka - Little Sparrow

If you have any questions drop me an ask at either my main tumblr: ekrizdis or my writing inspiration tumblr: rowles

Thanks for reading and please review or favorite or follow!

EDIT

-Made some edits to chapter 1 + changed story and chapter titles [21 March 2020]