(revised, 9th March, 2014, another round of punctuation corrections; typing error corrected in author notes 5th September, 2014)

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following is a short sketch set in an alternate universe where the Killing Curse on Hallowe'en 1981 got 'bounced' one step earlier in Lord Voldemort's raid on the house the Potters were in in Godric's Hollow, and things end up getting very different from that point.

Marigold Potter? Really?

Marigold Honesty Potter. The girl sitting under the Sorting Hat practically snarled back at the hat mentally.

It was September of 1993 and Lord Voldemort had returned to Hogwarts to be sorted along with the other first years.

Except these days she was known as Marigold Honesty Potter, the daughter of The-Woman-Who-Lived and the sister of The-Boy-Who-Was-Bloody-Lucky in one of those nasty little quirks which proved that if there was a fate that he/she/it had a vicious sense of humour.

And apparently Marigold's mastery of the mental arts wasn't good enough to stop the Sorting Hat from accessing all sorts of things about her existence to date.

It was cheerfully rummaging through her memories right now, whilst performing the mental equivalent of whistling merrily. Memories such as that of the fateful moment when Lord Voldemort/Marigold at the end of his/her previous physical existence had made the mistake of inviting James Potter to step aside because – let's face it – the Potters had been an old pure-blood line and it was the boy Lord Voldemort was after anyway, and he'd already promised to possibly spare the muggle-born for Severus Snape. It seemed a bit hypocritical to offer the less worthy one mercy, and not James Potter too.

But the arrogant man had stood there, defiantly, and said something stupid like 'Over my dead body!' and Lord Voldemort had obliged.

That had been a big oops moment, in retrospect. Killing a man of an old and noble house in defence of (however temporary) hearth and family after offering to spare him.

Lord Voldemort had not bothered himself much over that though (at the time) and, annoyed by James Potter's refusal to be reasonable, had only made the muggle-born the most perfunctory of offers of continued existence before turning his wand on her.

At which point everything had gone badly wrong, as there had been a flash of reflecting green light which travelled far too fast to evade and then a sense of discorporation – and of desperately seeking any possibility of life and physical existence to latch onto – and then darkness.

The darkness had been followed up by a pervasive sense of almost nonentity and limbo for what seemed like an eternity, before gradually vague senses began to return, accompanied by a sensation of unbelievable weakness and feebleness.

It had taken him a while to figure out the full ghastly truth, and at the point at which he had done so he had lost his mind temporarily. She had gone absolutely insane. Several times over.

She was an unborn female child in some woman's womb.

That a switch of sexes had occurred too and that 'he' was now a 'she' had proven highly traumatic to what had been left of Lord Voldemort's by then fragile ego. Worse still had been not having any research materials to hand to try and work out just what was going on.

She'd managed to just about work out what had gone wrong in terms of the James Potter and bouncing killing curse thing, but beyond that her sanity had not been able to hold out more than to reason that at least the horcruxes appeared to have prevented the otherwise state of non-existence which she had been sure that death was.

Although given the whole traumatic experience of being given birth to, there were moments she fancied non-existence might have seemed preferable.

The final twist had come when, several weeks after being born, she finally managed to get the hang of the trick of focusing her newborn eyes just enough to identify the woman who was currently her principle caregiver and feeder, who she'd just spent however many unpleasant months inside gaining what form she now had to do with – and that said mother was in fact the same Lily Potter whom she'd tried to kill on October 31st 1981 with her last action as Lord Voldemort.

Oh the vicious irony of that.

At that point, she'd given up on the plans she'd been half-forming of revealing her 'identity' as soon as possible in an attempt to accelerate her 'comeback' and simply tried to bury herself in becoming this 'Marigold Honesty Potter' that everyone apparently assumed that she now was.

Marigold's mother was obviously Lily Potter, and it was assumed that her father had been James, as Lily hadn't exactly had intimate contact with anyone else, although she'd been a bit puzzled about the timing of Marigold.

Marigold wasn't sure if there'd been another Marigold she'd subsumed in the process of being reborn (or who perhaps more disturbingly had subsumed Lord Voldemort) or if something about the backfiring curse had reincarnated her out of the flesh of her enemy in a fatherless conception – but to be honest that didn't exactly matter much right now. As far as everyone around her was concerned, she was Marigold Honesty Potter, daughter of Lily and James (the latter deceased), and younger sibling of Harry.

And at any rate, it was a better existence than that orphanage Tom Marvolo Riddle had grown up in. Considerably better. Even if having her believed arch-enemy and nemesis, Harry Potter, as an older brother was a torment. The werewolf, Remus Lupin, was awful in encouraging him to prank his younger sister, and the Weasley family (whom Lily was sociable with) unfortunately included those terrors Fred and George who were nearly as bad in their egging-on.

Though there was the whole Peter Pettigrew angle, at the edge of the circles in which she moved now, which gave Marigold the creeps. Lily had noticed him hiding in animagus shape at the Weasleys' dwelling over Christmas in 1981 and instantly recognised him, but had apparently believed that Sirius had been the Potters' secret keeper like everyone else. Lily had said as much out loud and speculated Peter must be in hiding because he thought Sirius was after him still, and had reassured him that 'that traitor' had gone to Azkaban.

Peter had allowed himself to be coaxed into revealing himself, Peter mumbling things that pretty much went along with what Lily had already voiced out loud, and looking pathetic and helpless.

Marigold knew what he was. Marigold – who had been Lord Voldemort – knew that Peter Pettigrew had not only been the Potters' secret keeper, but a master of the spell obliviate, but at the time that Peter had come out of hiding she hadn't even been (re)born yet and by the point she was old enough to talk and credibly be able to show even a passing interest in 'adult things' Peter was long-established as a respectable figure in magical society. And how exactly was she supposed to expose him? By explaining that she knew the truth about him because she was the Dark Lord, reborn? As Lord Voldemort she'd never even got around to putting a Dark Mark on the bastard, intending to discover if the Potters actually were where Peter had claimed that they had been, before any reward other than holding onto a pain-free life would be forthcoming. She couldn't even produce his having been formally being inducted as a Death Eater as evidence against him.

The pervert had got himself a job at Hogwarts several years back, and Marigold was worried, because she was now a student at Hogwarts. And a couple of months ago Peter Pettigrew had got himself yet another award (to go with his Order of Merlin for surviving Sirius Black) and even more fame and recognition by exposing Gilderoy Lockhart as the fraud that he was during that basilisk business. Gilderoy might have been more-than-competent with the use of obliviate, but Peter was a past-master in it and recognising its use and effects. Not that Peter had mentioned his own skill in the field or had the first idea about how to stop a basilisk, but he'd exposed Gilderoy. Peter was an even bigger 'hero' now, yet more difficult to expose and take down.

The basilisk had given Marigold nightmares.

She'd been stuck at home with mum, helpless, but knowing exactly what was going on from the moment the first reports emerged from Hogwarts.

Clearly the diary Lord Voldemort had left with Lucius Malfoy had gotten to Hogwarts somehow and was wreaking havoc, and the only Parselmouth she knew of (herself – not that anyone else knew about it) able to stop the diary and the basilisk wasn't able to get anywhere near the scene.

How was she supposed to stop the school from closing before she was even old enough to go to it?

And how the heck would she be able to explain her own several decades' worth of knowledge of magical lore credibly once she'd gone through the tiresome business of growing up (all over again) if she ended up having been home-tutored by Lily Potter and had never (as Marigold) had access to anything like the Hogwarts' library?

Unlike with the episode in Harry's first year where she'd been only mildly interested in what had turned out to be a rampaging Quirrell bedevilling the school desperate to seize the philosopher's stone for his own riches, she'd been genuinely concerned for the fate of the school and (even) her wretched older brother.

There were some things she had been able to do during the basilisk/diary crisis. She was able to study historical reports of the previous case (against Hagrid) and finger weak points. She'd raised sufficient questions about who this 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' was who'd gotten a special award for services, that her mum had asked Dumbledore, which had at least exposed the original perpetrator and cleared Hagrid conclusively.

And with some of the misconceptions regarding the original case and the ridiculous belief it had been a monstrous spider responsible cleared out of the way, the real agency for the petrifications (basilisk) had been speedily identified by the appropriate authorities. They still hadn't had a clue where it was coming from or why it was suddenly active now, though.

Finally, Marigold had pestered her mother about the girl who had died the last time, and 'hadn't Harry said she was still a ghost hanging around Hogwarts?' pointing the dimwits in the Ministry and in charge at the school to the general vicinity of one particular girls' bathroom.

The teachers had set a watch and caught a possessed Ginevra Weasley with the diary trying to head down to the chamber.

There was relief all around. The basilisk had never been found or caught, but nobody had died and the only known means of letting it out into the school had been located and dealt with.

The strain had proven too much for Marigold. She'd felt genuine regret over what had been going on, and had ended up in hospital for most of the summer.

Her mum had believed that that had been the result of months of escalating worry by Marigold about her brother, followed by tremendous sudden relief.

Marigold herself hadn't understood at first but had eventually realised she'd inadvertently wiped out all her own horcruxes in that moment of crazy remorse and the shock had almost killed her.

At some point she was going to have to start all over again with making horcruxes.

Maybe.

Maybe there were better options for immortality.

Horcruxes hadn't exactly done much for her physical looks as Lord Voldemort, which had certainly helped her to come across as more powerful and intimidating, but might have deleterious effects to the image of a female. Plus she'd been somewhat frail of health as Marigold up until the horcruxes had gone away. She felt much better now that they had done than she had done in ages.

Maybe a philosopher's stone was the idea. Dumbledore had sent Flamel's back to him, by all accounts, after he discovered it was only a crazy defence teacher trying to steal it.

Let's face it, her career as Lord Voldemort had demonstrated that there weren't any witches or wizards out there both powerful enough to kill her and interested in doing so, and that consequently the only things dangerous to a wizard or witch of her skill, determination, and ruthlessness were her own bloody stupid mistakes – especially when they involved out-of-hand use of instantly fatal magic.

Age was more of a problem than rival magical practitioners. Especially now she was Marigold. When Remus wasn't too busy teaching her nemesis of an elder brother how to do annoying things to her, he had a habit of annoyingly ruffling her hair and telling her he was sure she was going to grow up to be a beauty.

It was only his sincerity of tone which had kept him off her revenge list so far. She wouldn't permit him to get away with ruffling her hair otherwise, without serious long-term retribution being lined up.

Was she vain? Surely vanity implied unjustified sentiment. She was going to grow up (this time) to be the most beautiful and powerful witch since Morgana.

Oh yes, and Lucius Malfoy was going to suffer. For the whole almost-closing-Hogwarts incident.

She wasn't sure if Severus Snape was going to go down too or not? Apparently he'd betrayed her as Lord Voldemort to Dumbledore, motivated by his infatuation for his favourite muggle-born (Lily) – though admittedly daring to double-cross the Dark Lord for a little extra insurance policy to protect what had been of greatest value to him had been both ballsy and exceedingly Slytherin. Severus was of course sufficiently cautious that he wouldn't have ordinarily revealed this treachery to anyone except Lily, since the dark-marks were still around (as what was fundamentally their creator still was) and Severus clearly anticipated the possibility he might have to infiltrate the Death Eaters again some day – but he had mentioned it to Lily, and Harry had been listening at the keyhole and there'd been a shouting match and temper tantrum from Harry, which poor innocent little Marigold whom nobody would suspect of being Lord Voldemort (reborn) had overheard. Severus and Lily had sworn Harry and Marigold to secrecy on Severus' double-agent thing, once Lily had finally calmed Harry down, but by then the person whom it was potentially most damaging to know about it did know, and what was absolutely brilliant was that they didn't know she knew. Well obviously they knew she knew, but not that she was formerly Lord Voldemort.

Anyway, there was a chance that Severus was going to become Marigold's step-father, so she was holding off on revenge plans for now on him for the whole betraying-Lord-Voldemort thing. Given how everyone commented on how much she had her mother's eyes (her nemesis elder brother did, too, but he was a boy so nobody commented on that with Marigold around) Marigold was reasonably sure she could wrap Severus right around her little finger now, far more effectively than by any means she'd been able to employ before as The Dark Lord. Severus had already shown Marigold (and Lily – although Harry was bored by potions and took no interest in the offered private lessons) half a dozen useful and highly interesting things in the potions-making line that he'd invented but somehow kept secret from Lord Voldemort in Marigold's former existence.

Yes, Marigold was certain that Severus Snape could be at least as useful and reliable this time around as he had been last time, and considerably more loyal.

Hmm. What's that? LOYALTY? Only one house for you then, this time, Miss Potter. The hat snickered.

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

And with that one word, the Sorting Hat went straight to the top of Marigold's revenge list. How dare it! How dare it sort the Dark Lord (or rather the next Dark Lady) into Hufflepuff. Well she was going to work tirelessly to show it exactly what a stupid mistake it had just made.

Work tirelessly? Fitting right in already, Miss Potter. The hat added.

I'll get you for this. Marigold Honesty Potter swore, as she got to her feet. I'll get you for this, just you wait…

Author Notes:

Sirius Black is (as with canon) in Azkaban for betraying the Potters. Possibly the news that Peter is at large, part of society, and has just gotten another award might encourage Sirius to breakout (if he does at all) in this particular alternate universe.

Despite having been a Marauder, Peter Pettigrew doesn't seem to me to have many talents in canon other than being able to turn into a rat and hide for years. I thought it might be interesting (and vaguely in character) if he'd actually had a special faculty with obliviate spells and that it might well go with so few people apparently having any clue as to whom the real Potter secret keeper was. And Marauder specialising in obliviate beats Lockhart, any day.

That's it for this particular alternate universe. I wanted to keep this piece (relatively) light-hearted, and if it went much further, I see it getting bogged down in questions of conflicting loyalties, treachery, innocence, atonement, redemption, damnation, and all manner of other rather weighty things.