She had been claiming to be 100 years old for the last 20 years, and why? Because, what person in their right mind would believe she was 120 years old when she barely looked 70? And she didn't look like a 70-year-old with a limp and Alzheimer's. Harriet Potter wasn't just any old fool, oh no, she was someone who had lost the fear of what people would say. Since Voldemort had died, she had rebuilt her life, got a job, married, had a family, retired... She had done everything she was supposed to do and then what she wanted to do. Learned everything and more.
As time went by, it became easier for her to care less about other people's opinions, most of them being sheep. The truth was that she didn't care if they didn't believe her if she said she was 120 years old. She said she was 100 because messing with people was one of her few pleasures at "her age," as her granddaughter reminded her every time she got it into her head that she had to behave like a "normal" grandmother. Harriet responded with sudden selective hearing until she got tired and gave up.
Of course, she knew that sooner or later her retirement would come to an end. What she didn't think was that it would come so early. She didn't die dramatically, betrayed by her supposed right-hand like Dumbledore, nor did she die in battle after being hit by a ridiculous expelliarmus spell after screwing someone over for years like Voldemort, nor did she die peacefully in her bed after suffering from such a strange lung disease that it turned out to be incurable like George... No, fate had a humiliation prepared for her as punishment for laughing so hard she broke a rib at last year's Gala after causing a series of catastrophic mishaps with Weasley's joke products.
One summer day, she was playing with her youngest granddaughters, drawing on the walls with colored chalks, eating junk food, taking out her clothes and using them as costumes. The attic was trashed, but Harriet didn't care because her granddaughters were happy amidst the chaos, and at 120 years old, being able to fix the mess with a wave of her hand, she didn't care much either. Hours later, they had moved from the attic to the playroom on the second floor until Caroline had the brilliant idea to play tag.
What she didn't foresee was the stupid plastic doll left on the second step of the stairs. She ran, laughing, with her granddaughter chasing her as fast as her six-year-old legs could, and of course, she tripped. Before she could realize the precarious and pathetic situation, she hit her head on the stone banister and was instantly knocked unconscious, falling and tumbling down the remaining 25 marble steps when, if she had been conscious, she would have stopped the fall with a snap of her fingers. During one of those hits, she broke her neck like it was butter, and that was the end of her long existence.
Voldemort hadn't been able to kill her countless times, nor had her uncles, who had passively and actively tried to get rid of her, nor the cerberus, the basilisk, the acromantulas, the dragon, the inferi, Nagini, or the criminals she had hunted... Nothing had managed to. A simple marble staircase had killed her. Contrary to what she would have speculated, she didn't meet anyone on the other side of the mystical veil where all living mortals, for some unknown reason, thought someone awaited them once dead. It simply felt like she had been put in a giant washing machine, whose spinning made her nauseous. After what seemed like centuries, it stopped, and she saw a faint light while the screams of a woman made her ears explode.
Completely surprised, as she hadn't had time to process her death or the subsequent hellish trip, she found herself in silence, waiting to figure out what was happening. She was surrounded by a liquid substance, something sticky, and she almost thought she could feel a touch of skin against her body which, now that she thought about it, was naked. Suddenly she felt everything contract around her and slowly, she was almost pushed until she put two and two together and realized, as if she had been slapped, that she was being born. Her surprise and amazement were such that when she came out, she was as silent as at a wake.
"What's wrong with her?", asked a voice, and she recognized the words even though they were spoken in Japanese, but if being an auror, having money, and time had served her for anything, it was to learn languages, "Why isn't she crying!?"
The female voice asked tiredly, but quickly started screaming again, and she realized that she was giving birth again. She had a brother or sister. The sensation was so strange. She had never had any living blood relatives besides the ones she had engendered, and now she was within reach of her mother, with a brother or sister on the way, and surely the arms she had just been placed in were her father's.
"There's nothing wrong with her," cooed a female voice but rough with age, "Some babies don't cry."
"I'll take your word for it, Biwako-sama," a male voice whispered enchantingly.
Then she heard the powerful cries of another baby and her mother's sobs of happiness.
"Look, Minato..."
"I'm watching you, Kushina."
Her eyelids felt heavy, as if someone were forcibly pressing them shut, and she fell asleep. She did it so quickly but not without first learning that now, supposedly, her name was Seina Namikaze. There were several things that almost kept her from sleeping. First, she had died and been reborn practically at the same time. How was that possible? Was the baby's body she inhabited soulless? Second, she had a younger brother, a brother... She didn't know how to process the news. In the end, she fell asleep and thought she would have time to assimilate it all. Or so she thought.
Shortly after, and by that, she meant a few minutes later, she woke up forcibly. With her blurred eyes, she could barely understand what was happening. She felt totally helpless with her small, uncoordinated limbs, compromised vision, and magic out of reach. She had something inside, something like magic, but at the same time totally different. So different that it was impossible to determine how to use it as she wanted. At most, she could have caused some damage like small children do when their magic rebels accidentally.
The screams and roars were deafening, and she wondered if she really wanted to know what was going on. Her brother cried loudly beside her while she stayed quiet, trying to catch something, anything. After what seemed like an eternity, she felt something enter her, and although she wanted to scream and ask what the hell was happening, she only gurgled and cried, unable to use her newly acquired vocal cords.
Days later, when all that nightmare passed and she regained consciousness from what seemed like a constant period of sleep, she found out that her parents had died. Wow. What a surprise. Despite having heard her new parents' farewell, she harbored the hope that, somehow, they had survived, but fate existed to screw her over in any dimension. The next thing she understood was that she and her brother had been sent to an orphanage because apparently no one could adopt them since their existence or rather, their parents' identity, was a big and terrible secret, and being adopted by one of their many friends was a no-no.
She hadn't heard such a bunch of nonsense in over a century, but of course, with exactly five days of age, how could she complain. Then she found out that she lived in a ninja village and that her parents had been ninjas, and the best part was that her late father had been the most powerful ninja in the village. Wow. She felt like she was in one of those movies her fat, clumsy cousin Dudley liked, though this was real life and she was more screwed up than the protagonist's.
This is how she found herself waking up day after day next to her brother, who no one had dared to separate from her side due to the incredible tantrums and fits he was capable of throwing whenever someone even thought of feeding him out of her reach. She didn't know how, but either her twin brother was a genius or the fact that they were twins had something to do with him sensing her presence. When she pondered over it, having nothing else to do except stare at the walls of what she supposed was the worn paper of the orphanage and look out the window, straining her vision to its limit at the idiotic wall of the same building next door, day after day, she realized that if she tried consciously, she could sense where Naruto was even with her eyes closed. Perhaps Naruto, with his infantile mind and dulled senses, found it easier to locate her than she did him, since she couldn't stop thinking and was so aware of her surroundings that she sometimes overlooked her brother's innocent presence.
Slowly, the days passed, and she tried to grasp everything she could about her surroundings, but the truth was that she barely knew anything new. The orphanage matrons avoided contact with them as much as possible, unless they had to feed them, change their diapers, and bathe them. It was a ritual where no words were exchanged, perhaps because they were too young to speak. Still, it became clear to her what her new situation was when one of the girls called her 'demon.' In fact, she was sure the girl would have tried to drown her if it weren't for the fact that the orphanage was being watched by a hidden presence that she was aware of thanks to that strange power inside her, which she occasionally touched with her metaphorical internal fingers out of curiosity.
After a month, she wondered if she still had her mental barriers and, realizing they were still intact, she set about reviewing them. To her surprise, after seeing everything was intact, she noticed there were two doors that hadn't been there before. Seeing the marble stairs behind the first door made her let out an ironic laugh, but it wasn't difficult, after creating a mental avatar of her former self, to go down the stairs to see what mystery awaited her below. Despite her 120 years, what she saw left her speechless for a few minutes.
There, behind a wall of what seemed to be the largest red bars she had ever seen, and whose 'door' was a simple seal that could be mistaken for a jumble of runes if it weren't for the fact that it was in Japanese and she didn't recognize the design, was a gigantic fox. Its fur was dark orange, almost red brown, and it had 9 tails lying placidly around it. She closed her mouth when she realized it was open and retreated as quietly as possible up the stairs, trying not to wake it.
Naturally, when she emerged from her mental sewers, she reinforced the door with runes and all the protective spells she knew until, when she finished, she realized she had used magic when, initially, she had been unable to sense its presence at birth. The first thing she had noticed was that strange energy so abundant inside her that perhaps, now that she thought about it, had eclipsed her magic. Maybe it was easier to use magic in her mind since she was used to it, and with an adult mental avatar, she could have control over her body that she didn't have in reality…
In any case, she was grateful for it and told herself she should meditate on the new discovery. The second door was, to her surprise, a corridor directly to Naruto's mind. Apparently, her twin was also minimally magical because, otherwise, how could she explain such a magical conduit? Although, on second thought, maybe it was due to her magic.
When she explored Naruto's mind, she realized he was really a baby. She didn't know what she had expected, but she felt a weight lifted off her shoulders when she saw that her brother's innocence was still largely intact. Seeing the identical door in her brother's mind gave her a pang of fear. She went down the stairs and, as she had thought, there was the fox, but its fur was noticeably lighter than her inner demon. She seriously wondered what her brother and she had gotten into without wanting to, just days after being born.
She left there as if Filch and his stupid cat were chasing her on one of her nights at Hogwarts, running. She spent hours thinking about the matter. Studying that strange energy that had become her main source of power became secondary, but no matter how much she racked her brain, the only clues she had to solve the mystery were that strange sensation on the day of her birth when she felt something being introduced into her and the fact that the matrons constantly called them 'demons.'
The answer came to her a week later when, just a month old, she found herself in the arms of an older man everyone called Hokage-sama. From the deference they showed him, he must have been someone important, but even he didn't realize that the baby he was holding in his arms, and wasn't crying, was straining her hearing as much as possible to gather all the information she could.
"The orphanage matrons adequately care for the babies, Hokage-sama, despite the obvious hatred and resentment," a ninja reported, though she could only notice his outline kneeling on the floor.
"Why do you say that?"
"They frequently call the babies demons, sir, and talk among themselves when they think I can't hear them."
"Mmm… I see," sighed the old man, "However, this is the fate that awaits them since Minato decided to seal each half of the Kyubi in his twins. For better or worse, we can't do anything as long as they don't directly harm them."
"And what about the secret? The whole village is whispering about the demon's whereabouts. The matrons are trying to influence the older children to leak the information."
"The nurse guilty of the crime is already being interrogated," the Hokage said harshly, passing her to the ninja, who stood up, "Why don't you give this scroll to the head matron? I would like to talk to her about the matter"
"I will do so, Hokage-sama."
And that was how she put the pieces together. A demon that her father had somehow split in two with some ritual and had sealed in his children. Despite wanting to hate him, she couldn't feel a shred of resentment. She had lost her scruples many years ago and had been screwed over so many times that she had learned to take her anger and use it for more productive things, like getting revenge and coming out victorious in any situation.
Besides, her father hadn't seemed like a bad person during the short time she knew him, so she was sure he had done what he could in a desperate situation. If he hadn't killed the fox, it was probably because he couldn't. The last thing he could try was to seal it somewhere, and apparently, the first thing that came to his mind was his newborns. What a miserable life, she thought.
At least now she had a second chance to live. With a brother. With new powers to discover. In a new world. She couldn't complain, really. She had lived her old life to the fullest and had no regrets. Her family was safe, they had a great and substantial inheritance, and they were happy. She couldn't ask for more after dying playing with her granddaughters, actually her great-granddaughters, and enjoying every last second. And yes, she had died from a fall on the stairs, but at least she hadn't suffered for months like George before dying sedated to the gills. It was clear she couldn't complain about how it all ended.
With that epiphany, she truly began her new life, and within her was born again that mischievous feeling that pushed her to move forward and, more importantly, to take on this new reality she now called life and maybe even make fun of some people meanwhile. Starting with the orphanage matrons.
If there was one thing she had learned with 3 children, 6 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren, it was how babies develop. Who had been the fool who, retired, had cared for her grandchildren for long, tedious hours? Harriet Potter. Who had been vomited on, sneezed on, spit on, peed on, and pooped on a trillion times? Harriet Potter. Yes, she had a few things clear about a baby's growth, so she knew that at one month old, she should behave like a nearly blind vegetable that cries and soils itself. Just thinking that she would have to be like that, pretending, for a long time made her stomach turn, and she told herself that sooner or later she would slip up and make a mistake that the orphanage's invisible guardian would notice. So, it was easier to let it be known that she wasn't a normal baby so that they would slowly get used to the mischief in Loki's name that she would soon be doing. That way, she could pretend her adult behavior was more like a baby genius.
However, despite wanting to move, her body was still a hindrance. Until she was 4 or 5 months old, it would be impossible even to sit up, so she resigned herself to hoping those months would pass quickly, or she would go completely crazy. In the meantime, she thought, looking at the gray ceiling of her room, she would do the only thing she could: figure out how to use her new power and strike up a conversation with her inner demon.
"Hello," greeted Harriet, Seina, descending the mental stairs, "You're finally awake from your slumber. You've been making quite a racket in here. Are you okay?"
"Mmm… You'd make noise too if you were stuffed into a wretched human like you," retorted the dark half of the Kyubi, who had awoken a couple of days ago and had vented his frustrations to the four winds when he thought no one was listening, "Although, now that I see you... Curious, very curious. Where's the brat they've put me into, woman?"
Harriet smiled. She had been debating whether to appear in her new form, presenting herself as a child with a more developed brain, but she had ultimately dismissed that option. She didn't know much about the demons they talked about in this dimension, but she didn't believe the Kyubi was one, or at least not the type of demon she knew from her original dimension. Taking that into account, and the fact that it seemed she was going to have the demon inside her for the rest of her days, she knew that if she wanted to gain his trust and have any kind of relationship that didn't end in tragedy, she had to be honest.
"I am that brat. This is my former body, the body where I died just over a week ago."
Kyubi watched as she changed her appearance, showing him her current face, with a raised eyebrow, but he seemed to believe her.
"You reincarnated into the Fourth's brat."
"I don't know who the Fourth is, but I suppose you're talking about my father, to whom, apparently, my brother and I owe our appearance."
"You resemble your father, but you have your mother's eyes."
Harriet felt her heart skip a beat at those words. The same ones that had haunted her for years. It was curious that her destiny repeated the old patterns. Seina. That was her new name. The name her parents, once again sacrificed for the greater good, had given her with love. She was thankful for having lived a full life because, otherwise, the similarities between her two selves would have traumatized her for years. Now, even though it didn't seem like it, she was an old woman who was cured of frights. Changing names, homes, parents, powers... was nothing new to her.
"This isn't the first time I've been told that. My name was Harriet, now I'm called Seina. I know our circumstances aren't the best, me being a helpless baby and you a demon trapped in here... but if there's one thing I've learned in my previous life, it's survival."
The Kyubi's large red eyes followed her attentively as she approached his cage.
"What do you want?" he finally asked, reclining on his paws and bringing his eyes as close to the bars as possible.
Harriet smiled dangerously.
"I want to cooperate."
Days later, Harriet, no, Seina, had devised a routine. When she was awake, she interacted as best she could with her brother, Naruto, who apparently was as blond as she was and who, unlike her, had three faint parallel marks on his cheeks that seemed to be a birthmark. She also practiced using her new power, which, compared to her magic, had reserves so gigantic that she could hide her magical core inside. Which left her dumbfounded, as she was one of the most powerful witches on the planet in her previous life. Discovering that her magic was still there was a relief. In fact, her magic seemed to have fueled Naruto's magical core. Although, in comparison, he was practically little more than a squib. He wouldn't do great things like her, but at least he could use runes, arithmancy, potions, and other more passive branches.
Her chakra, as the Kyubi called it, was a much lighter energy than magic, almost like air. In fact, the best analogy to explain chakra was like the air that fills a balloon. Chakra was light like a gas, shapeless on its own but easily moldable once you knew how to introduce the air into the balloon. Magic, on the other hand, was denser, like honey; capable of maintaining its form long enough to be used without a spell. That's why children, and some adults, were able to use magic without a wand, although it was easier to try to mold magic to cast spells with a magical focus.
The most curious thing of all was that no one seemed to be able to detect magic. The first time she used it to enlarge the Kyubi's cage, who still didn't fully trust her, the giant fox was dumbfounded.
"How did you do this!?" asked the Kyubi, and she shrugged.
"With my powers, obviously. Don't you want me to improve your cage?"
"It's impossible! I haven't sensed your chakra!"
Harriet, no, Seina, debated whether to tell him the truth, but in the end, she told herself that it was a matter of trust. And who was the fox going to tell that she was really an old woman trapped in a baby's body with powers different from chakra?
"It's magic. In my past life, I was a witch. Magic resides in the soul, you know?" she explained, conjuring a chair and sitting across from the astonished gaze of the demon, "My soul is the one trapped in this body."
"So not only do you have chakra but also magic... What else can you do?"
Seina smiled widely. To the Kyubi's stunned gaze, she enlarged the cage, turned the ceiling into an enchanted sky, transformed the concrete floor into earth, stone, grass, and forest, and conjured a mountain in the distance with a snow-capped peak from which a river flowed into a grand lake. The sewage water vanished completely, and that piece of her mind turned into a forest on both sides. To finish, she shrank the demon and conjured all kinds of animals to share his cage with him.
She got up from her chair, conjured in the middle of a meadow right now, and approached the cage. She looked at the small fox that now only reached her waist.
"What do you think of your new home?"
The Kyubi looked at her with something indescribable in his red eyes and then ventured into the forest. Seina let him go without further ado. Not only had she destroyed his worldview, but she had also treated him much better than any other jinchuriki. Simply because she had the power to do so. Right now, he must be in an emotional crossroads: he tried to hate her, but she wasn't to blame for his imprisonment, and, what's worse, she was able to improve his life if he put aside his old resentment, but how could he do that if it was all he had known for years?
She left her mind, content to see her protections, and having learned that magic left no trace, unlike chakra. The problem with using her magic was that she was being watched every hour of the day. Sooner or later, they could realize that something was happening, not necessarily by noticing her magic but by seeing the effects of her spells. After all, if the matron started treating them like royalty when until now, she seemed to want to suffocate them, it would be strange. Still, that left plenty of leeway.
To start with, she cast a locator spell on her brother Naruto. Since only she could sense it, she wasn't worried about using it. Then, she used a medical spell that would alert her if Naruto was in danger of death. The last spell she wanted to cast on Naruto was a protective one, but there was a problem. Unlike the other two spells, this spell would make her brother glow for a second. Irritated, she mentally noted to cast it as soon as she could. What she could do, however, was protect the room where they slept, a room the size of a shoebox with a single crib they shared. That way, when sleep inevitably overtook her, she would rest easy.
She considered protecting the entire room but ultimately decided to focus on the crib. After all, despite the numerous ninjas watching over them, none of them dared to take them from their crib except for the orphanage matrons. Still, she cast a spell to alert her if anyone with ill intentions entered their room. If she found herself in that situation, she would figure out what to do. That was precisely her plan for everything else, as for now, all she did was sleep, eat, and excrete.