Yesterday is Tomorrow (Everything is Connected)

Two: It's a Curse

Yesterday is Tomorrow (everything is connected):

TWO

*

Rita: Sometimes I wish I had a thousand lifetimes. I don't know, Phil. Maybe it's not a curse. Just depends on how you look at it.

- Groundhog Day (1993)

*

When anyone asked Leo Evans about his daughters, or Rose Evans, his wife, they would have this to say about them:

Petunia, their eldest, was as curly-haired and blonde as Leo, but as lithe as her mother. She had green eyes and was a proper little girl, always wearing freshly pressed pinafores and shiny black Mary Janes. She had proper manners, "yes sir," and "yes, ma'am," and could be as sweet as pie. However, their eldest daughter, burdened with responsibility as the eldest, also had a mean streak as large as the English Channel and could hold a grudge forever. She might forgive, but she never forgot.

Lily, their middle child and two years younger than Petunia, was bright and inquisitive. She spoke her mind and had a fiery temper that matched her mother's Irish red hair, green eyes, and thin body. She had the grace of a dancer, the spirit of a fey, and the gumption to back it all up. She was polite, to a point, until she thought someone was stepping on her toes and then she made her opinion known.

Hermione, however... well... she was a bit odd. Their youngest daughter was a surprise - where Lily was born in January of 1960, Hermione was due for December but was born prematurely on September 19. Their youngest had her father's brown eyes and curly hair, but a shade of dark brown that was streaked with undertones of Rose's red. She too, took after Rose in body shape but whereas Petunia aimed to please, and Lily aimed to change the world, Hermione aimed to do... nothing. Ever since she was a toddler, the child had been grumpy, despondent, or in the throes of grief.

Leo and Rose had taken her to her pediatrician on a weekly basis and then eventually a child psychologist, who, completely befuddled, had announced that "Hermione seems to be in the middle of the stages of grief," but no one knew why.

Hermione knew, of course.

She was a forty-seven-year-old woman trapped in the body of a two-year-old. Upon realizing what had happened - although she still wasn't entirely sure, but she blamed Harry and the Potter luck - Hermione railed against being stuck in a toddler's body.

Well, first she was in denial. She was in her forties! Not two. Surely that miscast spell didn't send her back in time - rather, it killed her. And this was a horrific form of the afterlife.

Two years of thinking that swiftly turned into anger: anger at Harry, for casting his signature spell in the first place that struck the shelf of artifacts in the Department of Mysteries without thinking of the consequences of spellfire in a dangerous area; anger at Hermione's situation for having to relive childhood; and then anger at realizing it was the bloody 1960s and she had her magic and Voldemort was still alive.

By the time Hermione started nursery, a year after Lily, she was firmly settled into the "bargaining" stage. She prayed to God in church on Sundays at her mother's side; she then prayed to Merlin. Neither heard or answered her prayers, so she got creative: she prayed to Morgana, and Hectate, and then Circe, Isis, Diana, Freyja.

None answered, and she slid into depression, one so deep she knew her parents worried for her mental state and Lily and Petunia were sometimes near tears trying to cheer their youngest sister up.