august 25, 1977

PERSEPHONE WOKE WITH a start. Her head was pounding, and her limbs were aching. Light cascaded down into the room through the window by her bed. Her eyes slowly opened, trying to adjust to the light.

The first thing she saw was an old poster of Fleetwood Mac. For a second, it didn't click that the room she used to share with James did not have any posters on the walls. Just pictures.

And then she saw her old electric guitar that she had broken right after graduating from Durmstrang. That had been almost four years ago. But there it was. Resting against the wall right underneath the band poster. Perfectly in one piece in all of its former glory.

Persephone hand instinctively shot to her stomach the way it always did when she was worried.

Her hand rested against her flat belly.

Eyes widening, she looked down as if she was somehow not feeling the bump. But her belly was flat. As if she had never been pregnant.

For a second, one horrible second, Persephone wondered if the entirety of the past four years had been a dream.

A terrible, beautiful dream.

But she knew that it wasn't. It couldn't have been. Not even she could dream up someone like James Potter.

She glanced around at her surroundings. She was in her old room back in Norway in the house she grew up in after her parents died. This was her aunt's house. Her kind, gentle, beautiful aunt who taught her everything she knew and raised her the best she could as a widow who had just lost her younger brother, sister-in-law, husband, and her unborn child in a miscarriage.

The last time she had seen her aunt was about a month after James's funeral. She had stayed with Persephone for weeks after the death, consoling her the best she could, knowing the exact pain she had been feeling at having lost her lover.

But how had Persephone ended up here? In her aunt's small home, in the bedroom in which she grew up?

She glanced back down at her childless stomach, her chin trembling with withheld sobs.

She was unable to keep them in.

Tears streamed down her cheeks in a warm and constant path, unyielding and steady. Sobs racked her body, the weight of her grief too unbearable in that moment. She had no idea why she was there, how she had gotten there. Her baby was the only thing she had left of James, and now that baby was gone just like his father.

Persephone cried and cried, her voice growing hoarse and her cheeks wet. It was suddenly too much. She wanted James back. She wanted to feel his arms around her. She wanted to feel his lips against her skin. She wanted him to whisper in her ear that things would be alright.

The door to her old room suddenly opened, a tall, older woman walking in.

"Persephone, sweetheart," her aunt's soft voice called out, warm like honey.

Persephone cried even harder. Ophelia sat down on the bed and pulled her niece into her arms, holding her tight the way she always did when she had gotten scared of thunderstorms as a kid.

In her aunt's arms, Persephone turned once again into a child.

Her tears would not stop. Ophelia smoothed her hand over Persephone's hair, providing her the comfort she so terribly needed.

"Mitt barn," she spoke softly. "What is the matter?"

"I m-miss him," Persephone choked out. "I miss him so much, Tante."

Ophelia ran her hand up and down her spine. "Miss who?"

Another sob left the brunette girl's body. "James. I-I don't think I can live without him."

Her only reason for living after his death had been their unborn child. But if her child was gone, what was the point?

"Darling, who's James?"

Persephone froze. She reeled back.

It was only then that she noticed that her aunt looked much younger than she had the last time she had seen her.

There were fewer wrinkles by her eyes when she looked down at her niece in concern. Fewer strands of gray in her hair. Her body was not as fragile as it had turned in the last couple of years from prolonged sickness.

"Tante," Persephone whispered.

Ophelia reached forward to wipe her tears from her face. "Sweet girl, please tell me what's wrong."

"Tante," Persephone repeated with a strange sort of realization creeping into her bones. "What year is it?"

The older woman frowned. "What?"

"What year is it?"

"It's 1977. Percy, are you feeling alright? School starts again in less than a week. It's your last year. You don't want to start the new year ill."

Persephone paled.

She suddenly felt very, very sick.

She pushed off from the bed and raced toward her bathroom, straight to the toilet. She felt like throwing up, but nothing came out. She wasn't sure when the last time she ate was.

Her aunt quickly followed her, kneeling down and rubbing her back. Persephone could feel the concern radiating off of her, and she couldn't help but feel guilty.

It's 1977.

The world must have been playing a cruel prank on her. That was the only explanation for why she was here right now. How she seemed to have traveled back in time without the use of a time turner.

1977.

That was a year before she had met James. An entire year before the summer they both went to auror training.

She was seventeen. She was no longer twenty-two but seventeen.

She stood and looked at herself in the mirror, immediately noticing that she did, in fact, look like her seventeen-year-old self. Her hair was longer than she now wore, and the freckle on her collarbone was darker like it used to be.

1977.

Three entire years before he died. Three entire years before she got preganant.

James Potter was still alive.

A strangled sort of cry left Persephone's mouth.

"Darling, what is it?" Ophelia asked worriedly.

Persephone suddenly turned to her aunt.

"I need to go to Hogwarts."

Ophelia frowned in confusion. "Hogwarts? Whatever for?"

"Tante, please. I have to go. I need to complete my final year of school there."

"But, honey, why?"

"I need to find James Potter."

And because Persephone trusted her aunt more than she trusted herself, she told her everything. Her love, her little life with him, the future, her baby.

She didn't expect her aunt to believe her, not until she told her about how she knew Ophelia had been diagnosed with breast cancer. That in the future, she hadn't told Persephone until a year after she had been diagnosed.

They both cried, they both embraced, they both wiped the other's tears.

And then Ophelia promptly enrolled Persephone into Hogwarts for her final year.

꘏

"DO PROMISE TO write, my darling."

Persephone stared at the worried lines on her aunt's face and offered her a comforting smile and an embrace.

"Of course, I'll write. Don't worry, Tante. I'll be fine, I promise. After all, I've been living alone for the past four years."

Ophelia pursed her lips. "So you've been telling me."

The younger girl smiled at her aunt's pout. "I promise to write everyday. But you have to promise to tell me about all your checkups and treatments."

Ophelia rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, I will. Go on then. The train is leaving soon."

Even as she said it nonchalantly, her eyes glistened with unshed tears. Persephone threw her arms around her favorite person and hugged her tight. They wouldn't be seeing each other until Christmas break, and though this wasn't any different from how it had always been at Durmstrang, at least then they were in the same country.

But Persephone had to do this, and Ophelia understood.

"I love you, Tante."

Ophelia kissed her niece's forehead and offered her a smile. "I love you too, Persephone. I hope you save your James Potter."

She smiled. "I will. Whatever it takes, I will."

Her aunt nodded and patted her shoulder once before Persephone stepped onto the train right as it started moving.

She stood at the door and waved at her aunt until she was nothing but a mere dot of flesh fading into the shadows. Persephone hastily wiped away the stray tear that had fallen and turned around to find her seat.

The further she walked into the train, the faster her heart started beating.

James Potter was here somewhere.

She could feel him the way the moon could feel the sun at the cusp of sunrise and sunset. She could feel him the way one feels the breeze on a summer day. She could feel him the way the sand could feel the salt waves crashing onto its shore.

She felt him in every way possible, just beyond her grasp, just out of her reach.

Her heart warmed and then melted the way it always did whenever she was near James Potter. She was merely a raindrop basking in the warmth of his sun as she evaporated from a single heated glance.

It was torture. Knowing the love of her life was so close and yet so fucking far.

She continued walking down the train, discreetly trying to look into the different compartments to see if she could catch a glimpse of the boy who stole her cold heart and then broke it into millions of pieces when he left.

She used to think her heart was made of stone. She hadn't learned that is was actually made of glass until James Potter came around and made her melt with a single smile and then broke it with the weight of his love.

As she was turned a certain way to peek inside a compartment, her shoulder collided with someone else's. A sharp sort of feeling rushed through her. Quick and strange and then it was over. She turned her head, and her eyes met eerily familiar ones. A boy around her age stared back at her with a cold look. Tattoos ran down his arms and a light frown touched his lips.

Persephone felt a chill run down her spine. She wasn't quite sure if it was the uncomfortable kind or the warm kind felt with someone you might care about.

She didn't have a chance to decide as the boy just turned away without saying anything. She blinked at his retreating back, not understanding what had just happened.

Shaking herself out of it, she continued down the train. She had a mission at hand, and she could not lose sight of it.

A restroom happened to be conveniently located in the middle of the train, and she decided that if she was going to be seeing the love of her life after five long months, she should make herself look presentable.

Her fingertips touched the doorknob. A sharp zap seemed to shoot through her body. She didn't realize what was happening until her entire hand was wrapped around the knob.

Something that looked very similar to fur started to appear on the back of her hand and then her arm. When she tried to take her hand away, she found that it was impossible. It was stuck.

More and more fur grew on her skin, and she groaned in frustration. She knew exactly who was behind this so-called prank.

On her twentieth birthday, Sirius Black had played the exact same prank on her. Remus Lupin, the kind soul that he was, told her the spell to undo the hex which she was eternally grateful for.

Especially now that she found herself in that exact situation.

"Sirius Black, you fucking bastard," she grumbled as she started to perform the spell that Remus had taught her so long ago. "I hope you rot in hell, you stupid motherfucking idiot—"

"What the hell are you doing?"

Persephone froze.

Her heart started beating rapidly. Her palms grew clammy. Her breathing grew erratic.

She had not heard the voice in so long that she had started to ask herself if one day she would forget how it sounded. She woke up from nightmares at night where she couldn't remember how he looked, how he sounded, how he tasted. She would get up in the middle of the night and play the cassette tape he had made for her twentieth birthday, and the sound of his deep, soothing voice would ease her back to sleep.

She didn't think she would ever hear it again. But there she was.

Taking a deep breath, she tried her best to calm her broken, beating heart and then turned around.

James Potter, in all his teenage glory, stood there staring at her.

𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿'𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 !

this is a very different story from what i usually write and it's gonna be a lot longer/more slowburn and i'm sooo excited!!

thoughts so far??