Chapter Text
It's been three months since the war ended in its big finality. Barely the age of seventeen and still flinching and nightmare-ridden from spending the last year on the run. Solaris Black had met the golden trio by chance and she'd been helpful as much as a girl of her standing could be.
Even if that meant being the one that helped them in committing one of the most dangerous and foolish stunts in history.
Robbing Goblins.
After breaking into Gringotta Wizarding Bank, dhe had spent the last months of the war in their company, respite at Shell cottage, and to Hogsmeade where she made a distraction to help them escape. Solaris flinched again from the invisible hands running across her body. Thank Merlin, Rosmerta had stunned the bastards before they could do much more than rip her dress off her shoulders and force slimy kisses across her neck.
Those final hours were what haunted her the most. She was one of the rare few Slytherins that had joined in the fight and had been the one to rush at Rookwood and used the half-blood prince's spell that almost killed her cousin Draco to slit his throat before he could make a bomb go off. She had been the first to step forward and spit at Voldmort's feet causing the Weasley Twins to shove her behind them in an effort to keep her alive after what she'd done for Fred.
So many horrors, blood on her hands, smoke, and ash in her lungs, and the never-ending chill of death hanging over her shoulders.
Two years ago, when Solaris lost her father, she had never been the same. Death clung to her skin like perfume because a part of her died that very day in the Ministry when their cousin killed him. She knew unlike Harry, there would never be a resurrection for her.
She barely had Sirius in her life. She got a summer and a Christmas. Her existence was a welcome joy in his life as much as he was in hers. He didn't know about her until after Voldemort's return. Harry had been the one to tell him about her, unable to keep the secret for much longer after Draco Malfoy - her annoying git of a cousin - decided to tell him in hopes of hurting him.
Harry had been the complete opposite, maybe it was because Solaris was the oddest Slytherin in history. She kept to herself and hardly spoke to anyone with her nose always stuffed so deep in a book or pestering a professor for more information about a spell or something. Truly it was a wonder she hadn't been sorted in Ravenclaw. She was sharp enough for it and put many of her seniors to shame in the house of eagles.
But it was hard to cope with the fact that she only got one holiday with him, one Christmas... only had one birthday... And one summer.
Harry blames himself and Solaris feels terrible about blaming him too. If he hadn't gone off without thinking first and rationalizing what was so very obviously a trap then she would still have her dad. That's all she ever wanted; her dad.
With nowhere to go, Solaris stayed hidden in what was now hers, Grimmauld Palace with Kreacher for her sole company instead of being with Sirius as he had promised her. She had adamantly refused to return to Narcissa even if the woman was the only mother she knew. She couldn't. Not after what Bellatrix had done. Not after Lucius tried to kill her for being a blood traitor.
Solaris became so filled with rage and a thirst for pain. On her return to what would be her fifth and final year at Hogwarts — She blew up a lot, no longer meek and shy. She had her whole house subdued under her anguish. She tore into Draco daily uncaring how he was already so fucking miserable and all the other baby Death Eaters were too terrified to get in arm's length of her lest she makes them feel what was true pain was.
Snape was too busy to care about an uncontrollable Black who was showing the signs of madness that someone ought to get a reign on before it suffocated her the way it did Bellatrix. Nobody helped her, nobody cared, so she did what she needed to do and a lot more. Realistically, the throne of Slytherin was hers but she didn't care for the hierarchy in her house. But that didn't stop her from using it to her advantage. Knowledge was power and all the snakes were quick in gifting her books of concerning nature to keep her from snapping her fangs at them.
Then Dumbledore died and her sixth year didn't sound like such a good plan, even if she was sixteen at the time. Solaris locked herself away in Grimmauld once more with Kreacher. She hid away, pouring over every single book in the Library, the hidden alcove she found, and the not-so-surprising vault she discovered in the back of the pantry heavily warded with blood runes.
But then the war happened.
Solaris was shocked that Harry, Hermione, and Ronald had intruded on her home - all three were just as shocked to see her there too. She let them stay, told them to use what they wanted, and ordered Kreacher very kindly to find the bastard that stole what Harry was looking for.
"Why aren't you at Hogwarts?" Hermione had asked her after weeks when a new school year had begun.
"I'm as much a blood traitor as you lot," She said stiffly. "And I'm a Black by blood even if I don't carry the surname. I fought the Death Eaters when they infiltrated Hogwarts... Cousin Bella would see me dead like my dad upon first glance."
None of them asked her any more questions about why she stayed holed up the way she did. Hermione had noticed how withdrawn she was more than usual and really, they had more to worry about than her mental health.
Remus showing up wanting to run away with the three to forsake his duties to his unborn child and wife had her seething alongside Harry who took the honor of blowing up on him before she could so much as open her mouth. As if that wasn't enough, the golden trio had broken the fidelus charm on her sanctuary and home by bringing Yaxely back with them forcing her to go on the run for months on end.
Nowhere was safe. From village to village, to forest to forest. Trying to buy an international portkey on the black market had been too difficult so she was stuck wandering and praying that the Snatchers didn't get her like she saw them get Dean Thomas and Ted Tonks.
It was horrifying.
But her metamorphosis ability had saved her arse a time or two.
Even when the war ended, it was as if they all still had too much time to worry about a poor orphan's mental health. Solaris had returned and packed up all of Grimmauld's valuables and things that she wanted to keep. Kreacher's magic had protected anything from being stolen after she ordered him to lock it all down with sticking charms that only he could undo. She then headed straight to Black Manor after receiving the keys from the Black Vault and did it all again once more.
Solaris was going to be gone awhile. She had discovered a very illegal object in the Black Vault from things Sirius had inherited straight from his Uncle's home which were now hers. She bought one of those Suitcases that acted like a home and filled it to the brim with every fucking thing she pleased. She was going to be gone for a very long time, and she had no plans of staying in England once she returned.
Solaris signed Kreacher and Grimmauld over to Harry in one last ditch to please her dad. She knew if she didn't exist it would have been his anyway. She would be long gone before Harry realized he was now the owner of her ancestral home and her manky arse of a house-elf but at least hid manky arse would be well cared for. She loved that damn elf.
Shrinking the trunk, she stuffed it down in her satchel ignoring the clinking sound of every galleon and sickle she took from the vaults being knocked down before picking up the time turner from around her neck.
"Little Mistresses fix messes," Kreacher had said to her only days before. "Little Mistresses get good Master Regulus and save the blood traitor father, she wills be happy... Kreacher will be happy."
In a way, Kreacher loved her too.
Solaris planned on stopping her family from dying. Maybe even saving her mum from dying by forcing her into Saint Mungos - nevermind her being a fucking muggle.
The long process of spinning the dials began, it heated up like a scalding cast iron as it wasn't meant to go back as far as she was forcing it to.
Turn... Turn... Turn... The world spun around her making her feel sick to her stomach as the scenes flashed in a blur unable to grasp her surroundings. It felt like the time Turner was melded into her very bones now. It began to hiss but she kept going. She needed it to keep going.
"Come on," She hissed. "Just a bit further."
Solaris was unprepared for the dial to click and the spring to break and the large hourglass began to spin at a rapid pace, time turning back around her was no longer nauseating but utterly dizzyingly.
It could not be helped when she collapsed, breaking the chain in the process and stopping the blurry world around her. She barely took notice of the heavy woods around her where the manor should have been.
Vomit sprung from her stomach and Solaris fainted.
🕊
Waking up under the canopy of luscious green foliage and looking at trees was unexpected. It didn't help with the nausea curling in her stomach either. Everything was spinning. "Fuckin' hell..." She murmured, easing herself off the ground and struggling to her feet.
She took a step and something crunched under her foot. Lifting it up, dread filled her at the sight of the time-turner turning to ash.
"No..." She breathed, horrified at the thought of being stranded in the past.
A past that she had no idea the year she was in. She wasn't prepared. Not anymore.
After having a good cry and shooting off blasting spells at the trees around her, Solaris apparated to London right outside the Leaky Cauldron only for it to look so much different than what she remembered it to be. The sign above the shop of the swinging cauldron was shining in what little sun rays peaked through the clouds.
That wasn't the only thing odd.
The air seemed stuffer, more potent in smog than she had ever seen it. Which was hardly ever. Muggles had gotten a little better about polluting the air after that whole smog incident that blanketed London for several long days and killed a bunch of people. Not to mention how everyone was dressed...
Solaris took a deep breath, her body still jittery from going so far back in time. Her silvery grey eyes zoned in on the gaggle of women on the other side of the street. They were looking at her too, all three of them had the kind of face Mrs. Weasley had when she heard her say some colorful words to the Twins during Christmas at Grimmauld.
Scandalized.
And Solaris knew why.
The women were wearing long skirts that fanned around their calves, long suit jackets with wide lapels, and hair too prim and proper that looked like they came straight out of one of those Jane Austen novels that half-blood Sally Lee let her borrow.
And Solaris, herself, was wearing a pair of tight ripped denim shorts that went mid-thigh and was sporting a plain white bell-sleeve crop top with little black flats. Her belly ring's emerald that she got to piss off Narcissa was shining in the sun. Why she was good as naked or running about in her stays.
Her skin flushed. Solaris quickly yanked her cloak from inside her satchel out and pulled it taut around her as she rushed down the street. She couldn't go into the Leaky Cauldron without alerting the muggles to something sketchy. She needed to blend in. The further she went the more she realized she was most definitely not in 1975.
I can't believe it.
I can't believe it.
I just can't bloody believe it!
That thought kept running through her head making her a nervous mess. Things around her were looking odder. At least there were some women wearing trousers though they were baggier than usual but where were the men? There were hardly any men around apart from young little boys and the elderly. There were posters plastered to the walls, each one nagging in the back of her head. She remembered seeing some of these before.
Solaris had been raised by Narcissa and Lucius since she was a newborn. Lucius hadn't been fond of having a tainted half-blood in his home sullying it with her dirty blood half the time but Narcissa was adamant she remain in Malfoy Manor because whether or not she'd been sullied with Muggle filth, she was still a Black. Sirius - the last male heir of their house- daughter. She would be his heiress when he became Lord.
It didn't stop Solaris from sneaking out off the grounds as she got older to explore the muggle the side of Britain. She was curious about them. She was curious about her mother too.
WOMEN URGENTLY WANTED
FOR
THE W.A.A.C.
It clicked.
Merlin's beard... Was this 1900's!?!
It became an urgent task to find the first bloody newspaper she could get her hands on which wasn't a hard task to do seeing as London was still just as filthy as it was in her time. She snatched up the wafting paper that clung to a gas lamp. Flipping it to the front page, her eyes scanned immediately for the date.
August 8th, 1916
She fell against the wall, sliding down until her bum rested on the cobblestone. She felt numb. Frozen. Frightened.
1916...
She went almost a hundred years back in time.
Time turners were just a theory right now. They wouldn't be invented until after the 1950's and even then the public would remain ignorant of them until the late '60s.
She was stuck here.
Solaris was stuck in 1916 in one of the worse fucking times to be stuck in the past.
"Sweet Circe," she mumbled, her vision going in and out as panic set in. "Oh dear... Oh dear..."
For the second time since waking up, Solaris bawled her eyes out with gut-wrenching sobs.
Fuck her life.