Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Oops, I Accidentally Wizarded
I certainly hadn’t planned for my thirtieth birthday to end like this. In a four-poster bed the size of my old studio, with silk sheets softer than the arguments I crafted in court.
Last night, I was in Saint-Germain, clinking glasses with Laura, my best friend and partner in champagne-fueled crime. We'd had enough wine to make Bacchus blush. I was lamenting the death of my twenties like it was a French New Wave film. Life, I mused dramatically, was slipping through my fingers like overpriced hand cream from Sephora.
I blew out the lone candle on a rather pitiful chocolate cupcake, perched on a bench outside the bar where we’d been dancing. More like flailing rhythmically, mere minutes ago.
“What did you wish for?” Laura had asked, all sly grin and wine-stained lipstick, knowing full well it probably involved a morally ambiguous fictional character with great hair.
“Can’t tell you, ça ne se réalisera pas sinon!” I countered, channeling my inner eleven-year-old, which was ironic in hindsight. I bit into the cupcake like it owed me money, tossed my wish onto the ever-growing pyre of unfulfilled birthday dreams, and we tumbled back inside to dance into the small hours.
The next morning...
I woke up late. Groggy, dehydrated, already preparing my apology to the senior partner for missing our weekly Thursday meeting. Something about food poisoning. Or existential crisis. Or both.
Except… I wasn’t in my flat.
I wasn’t in Laura’s flat either.
This wasn’t even France.
The ceilings soared like opera notes, with ornate Victorian plasterwork twirling overhead like meringue on a wedding cake. Tall windows let in the kind of crisp, clean light that made everything look suspiciously expensive. Mahogany furniture stood around like it had opinions. A delicate perfume of lavender and old books clung to the air like an aristocrat’s ghost.
And me? I was lying in a canopy bed that looked like it might whisper bedtime sonnets if you asked nicely.
I blinked once. Twice. A third time for good measure.
Gosh. Where the hell did I end up? Did I sleep with someone?
No. I remembered the crowd at the bar. Students. Far too young. I was their wine aunt at best.
This place looked like Kensington on crack. The kind of place where scandalous affairs and silk dressing gowns coexist in perfect harmony. It even reminded me, weirdly, of the flat I shared with three overly artistic roommates during my year in East London, if said flat had been scrubbed of mold, dread, and IKEA furniture.
Then:
“CRACK!”
My heart launched itself into my throat like a poorly managed spell.
“Oh putain.”
I must have been drugged. That bloody cupcake! What the hell did Laura put in it? Fairy dust? Weed? A hex?
A figure popped into existence at the foot of my bed with a sound like a bubble bursting in reverse. Wrinkled, wide-eyed, and clutching a silver tea tray like it was Excalibur.
“Mistress Alexandra, would you like tea? Or perhaps warm milk with nutmeg, the way you liked as a baby?”
I stared. The creature had ears like bat wings and eyes like vintage marbles. A House Elf. Wearing what appeared to be an embroidered pillowcase with a family crest stitched in gold thread.
I was definitely high.
Or concussed.
Or dead.
But before I could ask the elf if it happened to moonlight as my therapist, the heavy oak doors swung open with the drama of a film premiere.
Enter: a woman.
Tall. Icy blonde. Regal in a way that made Queen Victoria look like a fishmonger’s wife. She swept into the room in midnight-blue robes that whispered secrets behind her.
“Darling,” she said, with an accent as aristocratic as a Fabergé egg. “Do sit up. You’ll wrinkle your curls.”
She looked familiar, in a my face is on a tapestry sort of way.
“Who… who are you?” I croaked, wondering if I still had wine breath.
Her eyes narrowed, amused.
“I’m your mother, of course. Vespera Rosier. Honestly, Alexandra, what a funny mood you’re in. Is this about Hogwarts? You’ll love it.”
Hogwarts?
Was this a joke? A hallucination? A Potterhead’s fever dream?
I sat up.
And that’s when I saw it — my reflection, faintly mirrored in the polished wardrobe door across the room.
Curly, pale blonde hair down to my waist. Skin like porcelain. Eyes the exact shade of stormy weather.
Not. My. Face.
“Oh. Putain de merde.”
Okay. As dreams go, this one was teetering on the edge of madness.
But hey, hallucinations weren’t unheard of when space cake was involved. Laura had probably laced that innocent little cupcake with something that would make even a centaur question reality. So maybe this was just one very thorough, very themed birthday trip of the mind. A Harry Potter-style fever dream, complete with costuming, accents, and questionable child labor in the form of a tea-serving House Elf.
Frankly, who was I to say no? For my thirtieth birthday? I’d take it with whipped cream and a side of magical delusion, merci beaucoup.
I climbed out of the absurdly plush bed, which creaked like an old wizard with secrets, and made my way across the polished wooden floors. My feet made that soft pat-pat noise that somehow felt entirely inappropriate for the level of grandeur in the room.
And then I saw it.
My reflection.
Or… someone’s.
Staring back at me from the antique mirror was a girl. But not just any girl. No, this one looked like she’d stepped out of a Pureblood perfume advert. Pale, porcelain skin. Long, icy-blonde curls that cascaded like enchanted spun sugar. Grey eyes the color of judgment and fine china. I looked like a Veela who moonlighted as a cursed doll in a haunted manor. Barbie meets Claudia from Interview with the Vampire. If someone sold me at Borgin & Burkes, I’d come with a curse and a handwritten diary full of sass.
This was not my face.
This was a face that belonged to someone who judged your entire bloodline before breakfast.
“I was never considered ugly growing up,” I mumbled, examining this suspiciously symmetrical stranger. “Sure, I had my awkward chubby phase, volleyball and unrelenting cardio saved me post-fifteen... but this? This is ancestral elegance. This is lineage in HD.”
My brain felt like it was buffering.
I turned around sharply, seeking answers from the woman who claimed to be my mother. The very embodiment of elegance, Vespera Rosier stood there like she was born in a thunderstorm and raised by peacocks.
“Mother,” I asked cautiously, hands perched on my bony eleven-year-old hips like a tiny Parisian judge, “what day is it?”
She didn’t blink. Just gave me a look like I’d asked whether Bertie Bott's beans were organic.
“The first of August, chérie. You’d better hurry, we’re taking the Floo to Diagon Alley to fetch your wand and your schoolbooks for the year.”
I froze.
My mouth went drier than a stale baguette abandoned in the Sahara.
Schoolbooks.
Floo powder.
Diagon bloody Alley.
My brain short-circuited. Somewhere deep inside, a single, deranged neuron screamed: You’ve Pottered yourself straight into the canon, you absolute lunatic.
“Wait…” I croaked, voice thin as a ghost in a corset. “Hogwarts?”
The word came out like a curse — or worse, a plot twist in a fanfiction I’d had no hand in writing.
She arched a perfectly judgmental brow, the kind that said I wear silk to breakfast and could hex you with a spoon if I felt like it.
“Of course Hogwarts. Where else would a Rosier go?”
A Rosier.
A Rosier.
My stomach plummeted through the floor like a disgraced pure-blood at a Muggle rave. I felt faint. Like I needed a fainting couch, a goblet of elf-made wine, and perhaps a light exorcism.
Because not only was I in the Wizarding World...
I was in the aristocratic, Black-adjacent, might-accidentally-kill-a-house-elf-for-sport side of it.
Send help. Or at least a fanfic author with a sense of mercy.
I could practically hear the dramatic thunderclap. My knees buckled slightly under the weight of that revelation. Rosier, as in "Dark magic and dinner parties with Death Eaters"? The kind of name that shows up on cursed heirlooms and Ministry watchlists?
Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock chimed. It sounded like it judged me too.
My head was spinning like a Hippogriff in a washing machine. I followed Vespera out into a hallway so long it could have hosted a duel and a fashion show simultaneously. The walls were lined with family portraits that moved, of course they did, and every single Rosier looked like they could disinherit you with a single glance.
Then I saw it... in the study. An open newspaper resting on a polished walnut desk, ink still gleaming. The date stamped in ornate wizarding script:
August 1st, 1991.
Nineteen. Ninety. Bloody. One.
I was in the same timeline as Harry Potter. Probably a year below him. And a Rosier. In this hair. With this mother. In this cursed dollhouse of a mansion.
Somewhere, back in Muggle Paris, my real body was probably still passed out with chocolate on its face and no idea it was now starring in a magical identity crisis.
I took a deep breath and whispered to the room:
“Okay. Sure. Let’s get a wand. Maybe a time-turner while we’re at it. And a strong drink, if eleven-year-olds are allowed absinthe.”
***
Getting dressed was… an experience. Somewhere between Victorian mourning child and gothic porcelain doll resurrected by moonlight. The kind of look that said: “I crochet hexes and drink tea made from your tears.” Honestly? I loved it.
Layers of raven-black velvet and lace enveloped me like I was about to haunt a piano. There was a high collar so stiff it could slice butter, pearl buttons that looked like they came with generational trauma, and boots that clicked like I was auditioning for a cursed ballet. A silver snake-shaped hairpin kept my curls tamed — just barely — and made me feel like I could either seduce a poet or summon a basilisk. Maybe both.
Sure, jeans were a no-go for “pureblood heiresses,” but I used to adore wearing skirts and dresses anyway. Femininity as power? I could work with that. I looked like the final girl in a ghost story… who was also the ghost.
I tiptoed down the wide staircase, two floors of brooding banisters, ancient portraits, and chandeliers that looked like they’d once belonged to a French opera house. The Rosier manor was grand in that we-own-things-you-can’t-pronounce way: gilded molding, velvet wallpaper the color of dried blood, and floral arrangements that probably had better table manners than I did.
I arrived in a hallway the size of a Parisian flat, where one wing opened onto what could only be the dining room. And there it was: a full English breakfast, steaming invitingly under silver domes. Eggs, sausages, toast, roasted tomatoes, the whole symphony. Très chic, très cholesterol.
No croissants in sight. Honestly? Merci, Dieu. Croissants are overhyped, flaky little liars that crumble the second you commit to them.
I sat at the long table. Long enough to host a Ministry negotiation or a family feud, and poked at some scrambled eggs while doing what I did best: overthinking.
Rosier.
The name tugged at something in my memory, like a fangirl trying to identify a side character in the Marauder-era fanfics she used to read under the duvet. Evan Rosier. That was it. Associated with the Dark, always brooding in the background. Friend of the usual suspects: Regulus Black, Barty Crouch Jr., maybe Severus Snape if the fic got particularly emo.
But… what happened to him? Was he dead?
I squinted into my eggs, as if they might reveal the secrets of the wizarding world. Regulus? Dead. Barty? Soon to be a deranged Polyjuice problem. Snape? Still alive, and unfortunately awaiting my arrival at Hogwarts.
A tiny voice in my head whispered: Merde.
If I really was a Rosier, I had the social status of a hexed cauldron. No one would want to be friends with me unless they were Slytherins… or extremely bored.
I decided it was time to question my (newly acquired) mother, Madame Vespera Rosier, a woman who looked like she powdered with pearl dust and slept in an upright coffin lined with Chanel No. 5. Cold, yes, but elegant. The kind of cold that wore couture.
I was halfway through buttering a slice of toast shaped like it had social anxiety when I decided to broach the subject. Casually. Like a girl who definitely already knew who her father was and didn’t just wake up in a fancy manor with haunted paintings and a backstory that smelled suspiciously like plot development.
“Do you think,” I said, lightly swirling my spoon in a teacup like a refined Victorian gossip, “people at Hogwarts are going to talk about… papa?”
There. Casual. Subtle. Nothing to see here, just a well-informed daughter expressing vague social anxiety.
Vespera Rosier looked up from her eggs Benedict like a cat who’d just sensed a mouse pretending not to be a mouse. Her curls; those infamously perfect icy-blond spirals, bounced slightly as she tilted her head, examining me with the practiced poise of a woman who once told someone off using only the flick of her fan.
“Maybe, ma chérie,” she said, voice smooth as French silk and just as expensive. “But remember, in Slytherin, we might be all ambition and plotting, but we stick together. The snakes protect their own.”
She dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin embroidered with the Rosier crest, naturallyn, and continued:
“Your father, Evan, was an amazing young man. Brilliant. Charming. He didn’t deserve to die so young.”
Her voice wavered just slightly. The kind of emotion so tightly corseted it could barely breathe.
“Yes, he made choices. Choices not everyone agreed with. But he didn’t deserve to be killed by that stupid Auror with the one weird eye.”
Her upper lip curled ever so slightly, the way most people look at moldy cheese.
“He was not a monster. He was… dazzling. A bit reckless, yes, but magnetic. Everyone adored him. Especially the snakes. You’ll see, they’ll remember. And they’ll protect you, too.”
She smiled then, softly but with something steely behind it, as if daring the world to cross her daughter and see what happened.
I nodded slowly, chewing my toast with the theatrical solemnity of someone attending their own preemptive scandal. Okay, so my father was a dead Death Eater who worked in “diplomacy” and got obliterated by a paranoid cyclops. Not ideal PR.
Still, there was something reassuring in the way Vespera spoke about him, like he wasn’t just a tragic footnote in wizarding history. He was a Rosier. And now… so was I.
Death Eater. Dead. Definitely not dinner party conversation material at Hogwarts. I was going to have to work overtime to make friends. Maybe offer free legal advice. Or charm the House Elves.
I wandered the House in a daze, digesting both bacon and the grim legacy I’d inherited. And surprisingly, the house wasn’t all darkness and gloom. It had high ceilings painted with celestial murals, parquet floors that clicked comfortingly underfoot, and windows so tall you could mistake them for glass doorways into another century.
I paused in front of a portrait in the west salon. A young man, barely twenty, blond hair falling into eyes the same stormy grey I now wore. Evan Rosier. Handsome, in that tragic aristocrat way. The kind of face that’d look good on a wanted poster or a stained-glass window. My father.
Beside him, another painting: Vespera in her youth, curls identical to mine, wearing a knowing smirk that said I do not suffer fools, but I may marry one for politics.
So here I was.
Alexandra Rosier. Eleven-going-on-thirty.
Daughter of a Death Eater. Dressed like a cursed doll. About to enroll in the same school as Harry freaking Potter.
***
Vespera handed me a small pouch of glittering green powder with all the ceremony of a sacred rite.
“Remember, speak clearly,” she said. “Diagon Alley, nothing else.”
Right. No pressure.
I stepped into the fireplace like I was about to be sacrificed to the god of soot and bad ideas, tossed the Floo powder with more flair than necessary — blame my inner theatre kid — and pronounced, as precisely as I could:
“Diagon Alley!”
The fire roared emerald, sucked the air from my lungs, and then — WHOOSH — I was off.
It was exactly as Harry Potter described it in Chamber of Secrets. Not that I was panicking, or thinking of Knockturn Alley, or clutching my elbows like my soul had temporarily dislocated. But you know. I was being flung through the magical plumbing of the United Kingdom, spinning like a sock in a cursed washing machine.
There was a deafening roar, a blur of green, a flicker of fireplace grates, and then with a dramatic whump, I landed in a soot-splattered pile on the rug of the Leaky Cauldron. Ten points to grace and composure.
My curls were a bit scorched, my pride severely bruised, but at least I was still in one piece. And not Knockturn Alley. Victory.
Seconds later, Vespera stepped elegantly out of the flames as if she did this for sport. Her robes were uncreased. Her lipstick intact. I wanted to sue.
“Lovely landing, darling,” she said with a soft, superior smile. “You didn’t scream once.”
Before I could even gather my dignity, which had scattered somewhere between the green flames and my left shoe, Vespera was already mid-swish, wand in hand, eyes narrowed like a Vogue editor confronting a fashion crime. “Tu es toute ébouriffée, ma pauvre,” she sighed dramatically, as though I’d just committed social suicide by existing with soot on my face. A soft shimmer of iridescent magic unfurled from her wand, like someone had weaponized the glow of a luxury beauty ad. In seconds, invisible hands smoothed my skirts, buffed my shoes, and coaxed my curls into perfect glossy spirals that defied both gravity and common physics. A final sparkle danced across my cheeks, leaving behind the exact kind of blush one might earn from laughing at a clever joke, not from barreling out of a medieval fireplace.
“Voilà. Now you look like a Rosier, not a chimney sweep from Les Misérables,” she said, clearly pleased. “We may travel by soot, but we arrive in style.”
Honestly, it was less a cleaning spell and more a magical makeover montage, if Fairy Godmother Barbie had gone to Beauxbâtons and had a flair for theatrical perfectionism. I offered a dry smile.
Just as I opened my mouth, likely to deliver a very well-deserved tirade about the ethical hazards of traveling via fireplace, someone stepped into view: tall, lean, and draped in so much black he could’ve been summoned via shadow.
“Professor Snape,” Vespera purred, approaching him with the confidence of someone who owned three fur-trimmed capes and a murder of ravens.
Oh. Oh. That was Severus Snape?
Not hideous, not handsome, but definitely carved from the same stone as stormy moors and existential dread. He was tall and thin, with skin so pale it looked like it hadn’t seen sunlight since the Goblet of Fire was still a teacup. His hair hung in dark, shoulder-length curtains, not greasy exactly, but with the slightly wilted air of a potion that had been stirred one too many times.
And the nose, oh, it was there. Grand, hooked, and utterly unapologetic. The kind of nose that could sniff out a lie, a misbrewed potion, or a first-year's unwashed socks from three corridors away. It suited him, in the way lightning suits thunderstorms, not pretty, but perfectly on brand.
His robes billowed around him like they had places to be and grudges to hold. The effect was very Batman goes to boarding school, if Batman had a wand, a deep distrust of teenagers, and a strong opinion on cauldron thickness.
And he was younger than I expected. Thirty-something. Still had that brooding wizard bachelor with an unnecessarily tragic past aura.
I tried not to stare. Or blush. Or look like an eleven-year-old who’d just realized her fictional potions professor was kind of… weirdly intriguing. Ew. Abort.
“Severus,” Vespera said, gesturing to me with a hand that probably cost more than my whole outfit, “this is my daughter, Alexandra. We’ve just returned from France. Her early years were spent abroad, you see, but she’ll be starting at Hogwarts this September.”
She said it like it was both a joyful announcement and a low-key challenge.
“She may not know many of the children yet,” Vespera continued, her smile tightening just slightly, “and with Evan’s reputation being what it was… I wondered if you might… keep an eye on her. Just at first. Until she finds her feet.”
His eyes flicked toward me. Dark. Deep. Possibly bottomless. Was he using Legilimency?
Don’t panic. Think natural thoughts. Puppies. Books. Baguettes. No inner monologue allowed. Stop narrating, brain!
“Obviously,” he said at last, his voice as smooth and cool as a draught from the dungeons.
Short. Decisive. With all the warmth of a winter breeze and none of the hostility I’d half-feared. He looked me over once more, and there was something in his expression — not quite a smile, but the ghost of one, buried beneath a mountain of well-earned skepticism.
“Welcome to Hogwarts,” he said, turning with a swish of his cloak so dramatic I nearly applauded. “Try not to get lost.”
Vespera chuckled softly. “He’s always like that.”
“I… kind of like it,” I murmured, watching his silhouette disappear into the shadowy back corner of the Leaky Cauldron like he was about to interrogate a vampire or file a complaint about the lighting.
And just like that, my first wizarding celebrity encounter was done.
Not bad for a Rosier.