Chapter 23: Meeting Rose

Hogwarts, 31st of October 1994

After the talk with James and Lily Potter, I wander aimlessly in the school that was once a home. Everywhere I look, I see ghosts of my time here. The wards told me that the students had returned to their dormitories. So, I slowly walk in the great hall, and I instinctively walk towards the great hall. To be honest I kinda forgot that the Potters even existed or that Voldemort was a thing. I have lived for so long that my previous life is but a dream now. What are a couple of decades compared to the thousands of years of life I lived? It's like trying to remember a day in a normal human lifetime.

It's funny that they think that they're my parents and also kind of sad. I was not angry, very little makes me angry these days, but I am truly disappointed with how they treated their daughter. It's weird calling their daughter as if she was someone else but it's the right way to see it. The truth is that Jasmine Potter is dead and that was tragic. At least with me here the Potters can get a semblance of closure.

What the Dursleys did to me is but a dream now. It doesn't even feel like it matters anymore. I didn't even need to take revenge; my AI, Alfred, hacked into their accounts and sent evidence to the police that he has been embezzling funds from his company. After the police searched their home, they found evidence of child abuse and the disappearance of their niece, Jasmine Potter, who is now considered dead as she wasn't seen for a few years.

Let's just say that both Vernon and Petunia were given a life sentence in prison and that their son is in a foster home. I kinda feel bad about Dudley, he was a victim as much as Jasmine was. Spoiling your child is one thing but what the Dursleys were enabling their child to do and his lack of any type of discipline was just horrible. He was guaranteed to become a criminal in his adulthood.

Speaking of my AI, Alfred has been very helpful in running my business. He is the perfect secretary. He's the one doing my investments, scheduling meet and greets for my fans, responds to fan mail and manages my poker website. Honestly if it wasn't for him, I would have killed off the Evanshade family and screw the money. I had enough stuff amassed in my lifetime to do anything I wanted. Like hell I would respond to fan mail. I have no idea how that Lockheart ponce does it for fun. Life is too short for that, and that's me saying it.

Arriving to the main hall, I am greeted with an empty large hall that's divided by four extremely long dining tables, each with sheets the color of their house. Large flags floating above them, each representing a house. I look up the floating candles, I am still baffled that nobody thought to replace them. There are so many objects that are enchanted to light up in a white light like a Lumos. I haven't even seen any candles when I visited the magical community in the United States.

I guess they're tradition or something. I have to admit the enchantment is beautiful in a simplistic way, and very powerful considering how long it lasted. The wax doesn't melt and the wick doesn't get burned. The flames themselves are not hot. A few children tried to play with them when the school was founded and got burned so we added that enchantment too.

We never wanted the school to be divided like this. The houses were meant to act as a list of apprentices to each founder. There was a bit of a rivalry between them but that was it. There was no hostility, no true division. An apprentice of Salazar Slytherin could ask Godric Gryffindor for help in transfiguration. The opposite was also true. It showed as the great hall was made of multiple tables and not just four big ones. I remember not even a single table only had students from a single house.

I look up and see the enchanted ceiling that Rowena made. Truly a piece of art. Illusion magic mixing with an observation enchantment on top of the astronomy tower. The enchantment was anchored by the runes. It took Rowena months to do it, it was her first project in this scale. I sometimes didn't have the heart to help her with it since I would be done in a couple of hours. She looked so proud of herself when she it finally worked, it still puts a smile on my face.

I remember how outraged she was when Godric manipulated the illusion to spy on Salazar. He couldn't sit down for a week. Unfortunately, the other founders didn't grasp that magic was more that, more than a movement and an incantation. They couldn't accept it, only Salazar had even come close due to his fascination with blood magic and the idea of gain through sacrifice which gave him and his line the ability to speak with snakes.

I was so lost in my memories that I didn't notice that a student had snuck up on me. She looked around 12 years old had long wavy red hair and hazel eyes. Dressed up in Hufflepuff robes, she looked like a doll. From her resemblance with Lily Potter, she must be her sister.

"Hello, I don't know if you heard of me, my name is Rose Potter."

I stay silent and look at the poor girl.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"You're Jasmine, right? My sister?"

I take a look at her eyes, almost overflowing with tears and hope. I don't have the heart to squash it. I hadn't realized that my absence caused her so much pain. She wasn't even born yet when the Potters left me to the Dursleys. I reply with, "My name is Jasmine Evanshade. I suppose that, yes, I am your sister."

I was not prepared for her to practically tackle me into a hug, babbling something about missing me and how glad she is to have a sister. Looks like I have a sibling now. Huh, I didn't plan for that when I woke up this morning.

----------------------------------------

An hour later,

I’ve been talking with Rose for about an hour now, and the girl would not stop talking. I guess she's trying to fill a decade worth of time with me in an hour. I have learnt a lot about what the Potters have been doing in the last few years.

The most concerning thing was how they delt with my absence. It was one of the unhealthiest ways of coping possible in this situation and that's what makes it so sad. They treated me like I was there at home, constantly talking about me and reminding both Nathan and Rose of my absence. They created a hole in their lives that they couldn't fill and just accepted my absence like it was something that they could not change.

I still don't understand why they didn't just pick an empty place or something and build a new house. It's not that hard with James being a transfiguration prodigy and Lily being a charms mistress. They could just use the Fidelius Charm on it. That's not counting the number of purifying rituals out there. Dumbledore might have banned them in Europe but they still exist elsewhere.

Instead of solving the problem, they just made their lives miserable and turned Jasmine into an image of their ideal daughter. It's times like this that I’m sure that I want nothing to do with the Potters.

They're not only neglectful parents but they are also still extremely afraid of Voldemort even though he's barely a shade now. They projected their fear into their children, over exaggerating his feats and magical prowess. It's funny how much their fear of him makes him seem like the worst dark lord to ever exist.

Speaking of their dark lord, he seems like a joke to me to be honest. Any man that tears his soul apart is an idiot craven that doesn't understand the repercussions of his actions. Adding the fact that his personality never evolved from one of a child, he's a joke of dark lord really. Even his famous temper tantrums, torturing and killing everyone that annoyed him, are funny in a way that he has killed more of his men than all his opponents combined.

I explained to Rose that while I had no problem being her sister, James and Lily are not my parents anymore. It was kinda awkward and she cried for a bit until I fully reassured her that we were still family. Now to steer the conversation into a more familiar topic.

"How has your time in Hogwarts been? What type of magic do you like the most?"

"I like a bit of everything but I love ice spells and illusions, they just feel right when I use them. Especially during winter, I just love to play around in the snow, it feels like home, you know?"

"You're the whole Loki package, aren't you?", I joked.

"Who?", she asked. How could she not know who Loki is?

"You know. Loki, the Norse god of mischief and illusions. He's also a Frost Giant. It's kinda funny that you're the one with a similar affinity as Loki and Nathan is the prankster."

"What do you mean by affinity?"

"How could you know not know about affinities? It's supposed to be common knowledge. Every person has an inclination towards a certain field of magic. It's not usually as pronounced as yours but even then, people find certain types of spells easier. Your father for example has an affinity for transfiguration, my talent in the mind arts is unparalleled. You can either be born with an affinity which is normally the case or you can create one by practicing a certain type of spells which is common for muggleborns. Our case is a bit rare because, from what I can sense from your magic, our affinities are very pronounced. Guess it runs in the family or something.

"This also means that you'll have a greater degree of control over your affinity, even being able to do them without a wand or incantation, even sometimes without an actual spell. Magic would do your bidding. You can actually do all these things for any type of magic but you'll have to learn to control your magic, which is something your wand normally does for you."

She looked at me in wonder. "How is that even possible? You need a wand to use magic."

I smiled and answered, "Magic is everywhere, it's an energy that binds us. Life itself is magic, there is magic in the earth, in the air and in us. Wizard have the ability to harness that energy and store them inside us to use later. We use them to craft spells but that is the tip of the iceberg. With enough knowledge, you can manipulate our realities. There might be some rules but even then, nothing is truly impossible, it's the consequences of certain spells that can be disastrous. The only limitation we have are ones we created ourselves."

Open my palm and a ball made of water slowly grows to around the size of an apple. Suddenly, it turns into a glowing beaver and then freezes and turns into ice. The beaver runs around in the air like a Patronus and explodes into tiny sparks.

These sparks reform and turn into a cloud above both our heads that starts snowing on my new sister's beaming face.

"See, you can manipulate the elements but that's not it. You said you like illusions, right?"

Suddenly, we were no longer in Hogwarts but in Niagara Falls.

"Illusions do not just altering your sight and hearing, they can change your sense of smell, taste and even touch to a degree. But contrary to popular belief, we do not have five senses. We have so much more.

"We have temperature." Suddenly, the temperature rises to almost the same as of a desert. Rose starts to sweat from the heat.

"We have balance." We were suddenly sent flying through the air. Rose is screaming in fright as she nears towards the ground but suddenly stops inches from the ground.

"And we can do so much more with just illusions."

She looks around, we are still in the great hall. All of this was in an illusion.

"Do you see now how powerful magic truly is, how much we limit ourselves with preconceptions and rules. Magic is wild, magic is free, magic is not good or evil, it simply is."

She looked at me, eyes full of astonishment and wonder, "Teach me!"