Navigating Hogwarts

The Journal

When she opened her eyes, she was a kid. Not even a kid, she was a baby. A baby, born May 15, 1960, at two in the morning, as Lyra Alex Johnson, a halfblood witch.

Her parents, Jane and Dan Johnson, were kind and caring parents. She was, unfortunately, an only child; she would have liked to be a role model for someone the same way Alex was to her. In a way, she felt as if her new middle name was a tribute to Emma's brother, and was content to honor him by becoming someone he would be proud of.

It took her a year to realize she was reborn into the world of Harry Potter, or at least a parallel word with similar bases. It took her another year to start referring to herself as Lyra, but she eventually got used to it.

Lyra, a child with a wonderful family, had a wonderful life. She reveled in the simplicity and casual kindnesses she was being shown - ones she did not know in her previous life as Emma. She cherished her childhood, though she kept herself aware of the fact that she may have been born into a world on the brink of war.

She kept a journal, under her bed, that recorded every event in both the first and second wizarding wars that she could remember from the Harry Potter books and movies. She recorded deaths, births, battles, dates, pranks, and people. Anybody and anything that could prove she was in the Harry Potter universe rather than just a normal one that happened to have magic (not that she was hoping for that; the Harry Potter world was filled with tragedy). She tried to rewrite as much of the books as she could remember, and wrote a comprehensive timeline of all the important war-related events. It seemed a bit excessive, but she was extremely bored - she did have another eight years until she got to go to Hogwarts.

Her parents had always known she was odd. She was too smart, too calculating, and too mature for a kid. They never fully talked about it, but they still loved her all the same. Alex had been her only source of unconditional love in her previous life, but in this one, her parents cared for her and loved her like parents should. Lyra was happy.

Unfortunately, tragedy followed her as well. It may have been a curse, or just crappy luck, but it followed her in a cloud. First, the death of her mother in childbirth, then the abuse, living on the streets, the foster families, her brother's death, the school shooting, her own death, her rebirth, and now this.

The death of the Johnsons. Two half blood adults, who had chosen to live in the muggle world, were driving to their daughter's school to drop her off, when a truck ran a red light and crashed into them, leaving both adults dead.

At age ten, Lyra was sent to an orphanage. Again. She was alone. Was this her curse? To love, and have those she loved be taken away, then die alone, just to do it all again?

The next month, when she got her Hogwarts letter, with the same green ink and creepily accurate address, signed by the deputy headmistress McGonagall, she knew exactly what world she was in. So, instead of preparing herself for a joyous seven years of magical education and friends of a lifetime, she steeled herself for more loss. More pain. More death.

Lyra Alex Johnson knew exactly what she was getting into. But she would not turn her back on the wizard one world, because she could save it. She could save people who died too young, people who were forced to grow up too fast, and people who had lost someone they loved. She would save everyone she could.