Chapter Text
Melina Rodriguez lost her damn cat. Little Minerva, obviously named for the Transfiguration professor out of Harry Potter whose animagus form in the movies was the spitting image of her monster of a cat. So Melina was walking the warm, empty streets of La Jolla, California searching for her. Out of the corner of her eye, Melina saw her cat dash behind a building and quickly went after her. Meli sprinted across the street, whipping her head around both ways though it wouldn’t have done much good, having already been in the middle of the road. That’s when she was promptly struck by a car. Her vision blurred and she fell into darkness, her legs hurt and it felt like every bone in her body snapped. Her last thought was about who would feed Minnie now that she was dead.
Melina shot up in bed and screamed. She jumped from the oddly familiar bed and scrambled to find the door as her eyes adjusted to the darkened room. Was it a nightmare?
“Calm down my girl.” Commented a gentle voice from the corner of the room, “No harm can come to you here.”
“Who are you? Where are we? Am I dead?” Meli gasped out the questions, they fell from her lips before she could even think to ask them. She scrambled to look at her surroundings but the light was so dim she couldn’t make out much.
“Ah my dear, we are somewhere in the middle of life and death, manifesting itself as somewhere that was a transitioning place in your life.” The man stood and she saw a figure in the darkness.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe this, I can’t believe I’m dead.” She flopped down on her bed, which she now recognized as her bed from her childhood, in her father’s apartment he got once her parents had separated, her transitional place.
“Forgive me, Ms. Rodriguez. I have forgotten to introduce myself and I’m sure given you quite a shock. My name is Albus Dumbledore.” Snapped his fingers, the lamps on either side of her bed clicked on and Melina gasped.
“What the fuck is happening? Are you the grim reaper or something? Manifesting as a book character? That’s really weird of you.”
“You misunderstand me, my girl. I am Albus Dumbledore, there is no grim reaper here. I was hoping however to direct you somewhere you are needed. I have been observing many people and I believe that you are the best person for this job.”
Melina’s head was spinning and she was starting to believe this wasn’t a hallucination her dying brain was conjuring out of trauma. He certainly talked in circles like Dumbledore. “How can you be Dumbledore? You’re from a book, how does that even work?” Melina pinched herself just in case, it did in fact hurt.
“I'm not quite sure myself, however in death I believe that we cease to be divided, whatever universe we are from we come together in the end.” Dumbledore's voice was light but gentle in a way that made her think that he thought she was going to snap, she wasn't so sure she wouldn't either, Melina felt a bit dizzy.
“Okay listen, let's say that I did believe you and you are Dumbledore. What job are you even talking about? What use could be for you? You're a wizard and I'm a muggle, if all of this is true then why can't you just do it?”
“ I can't do much of anything dead, now can I? I could not bring myself back from the next life, however you have not passed the point of no return, you could be sent somewhere that you will have more of an impact. Somewhere you could make a real difference in someone's life. You see, in my life, I overlooked a great deal of things and treated certain people in ways that I now regret deeply looking back. There is nothing I can do now but I believe that you could create hope where there once was none.”
“I’m still not picking up what you're putting down, who is this person that you're talking about? What could I do for them that you couldn't?” Melina felt like she was about to faint. This was either her worst nightmare or a dream come true. It still remained to be seen which.
“A young Severus Snape is the one I'm speaking of, I would like to send you back to his fifth year at Hogwarts to be a confidant of sorts, that year was the first time that I greatly failed him, one of the many over the years. I propose that you befriend him and do right by him where I have done him wrong. Talk to him and show him there is love and safety in the world even for people that are not rich or beautiful in the ways that are most valued by society. You may be able to change his mind on many subjects.” Dumbledore looked truly regretful and Melina actually believed what he was saying.
But it was just too good to be true. As if it was a coincidence he was the literary love of her life and she just so happened to get hit by a car and suddenly she could be transported back to 1975, Scotland in a fantasy book. This is some fanfiction shit, something she would have read like 3 years ago when she was 15, honestly she was so dazed that she would just have to roll with it.
“Alright, I've decided I'll do it, I’ll befriend Severus Snape. But what will I do when the first war comes? If I stop him from being a Death Eater won't that ruin the whole timeline? Will Voldemort still be at large if I do this? I don’t know if I can handle wizard racism.”
“Near as I can tell, my dear, there is a universe for every possibility, every choice diverges into a new universe. In my universe, Voldemort has already been defeated for 22 years. I will be sending you into a universe in which Voldemort has never existed. The world is a much more accepting place, it is not perfect but there really is no such thing.” He reasoned happily, apparently he thought this would be a harder sell than it was turning out.
“Okay I guess, is there anything else I should know before you send me on my way?” Melina just wanted to get this conversation over with and see what happens, she didn’t want it to turn out to all be fake but she really didn’t want to be dead in her world either, seriously who was going to feed her poor cat?
“There is one thing that comes to mind, Pumpkin Pasties.” And with that Melina’s bellybutton felt like it was being sucked inwards and twisted somehow, the rest of her following suit and soon she was twisting through space and time. ‘How do I get myself into this shit?’ was Melina’s last concious thought before she was disapperated.