Chapter 4: Awakening

20th March 1987; New York City, New York

(Jasmine Potter POV)

I woke up completely disoriented. I felt more complete, for the lack of a better expression, than I ever did before in my life. It was like I was missing something all my life, but now, a piece of myself, but now I was whole. I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet, yet when I took a deep breath, I felt energized.

I kept hearing beeping, which I tried to ignore and return to sleep. But it just wouldn’t go away. Was this some sort of alarm clock? Annoyed, I opened my eyes and was met with the familiar white walls of a hospital. Wait a minute, familiar? I’ve never been inside a hospital in my life. The Dursleys avoided taking her to anyone who would recognize the signs of their abuse of me.

And yet, I could name every single instrument that surrounded me. I was bored a couple of years ago, and with nothing to do, I had chosen to actually understand what the doctors were doing to me.

Again, I have no idea what I’m thinking about. The knowledge was there, and yet it didn’t correspond to the memories. Or maybe they do. I shake my head and take a deep breath. I still had a killer headache, and I could barely speak straight. My musings were interrupted by a kind nurse who spoke up to me, “Hello, dearie; it’s good to see you up and about.”

I nodded, “Where am I?”

“You’re in Manhattan general hospital, one of the best hospitals in New York.”

What was I doing in New York? I had never left London in my life. Oh, right, Uncle Vernon had a business meeting here, and he abandoned me in a foreign country. Uncle Vernon, who is this guy? And why do I instinctively want to flinch at the mention of him?

I looked back at the nurse, “How long have I been here?”

The nurse gave her a nice, warm smile, “A few weeks. Now, sweetie, I need to ask you a few questions, okay?”

I nodded, and she continued, “What’s your name?”

Instinctively, I answered, “Morgan.”

Why did I say that? My name is Jasmine, not Morgan. And yet, my name is also Morgan. How does this make sense? Instantly, my headache started to grow even further. I’m missing something, something important. What is it? What is it?

The Nurse, seemingly oblivious to my minor mental breakdown, continued, “Do you know where we can find your parents?”

“I’m an orphan.”

Well, at least my mind is made up about something. I am one hundred per cent sure that I do not have any parents. The Nurse seemed to give me a pitying look, one that made me silently rage for some reason, “Well, do you have anyone that takes care of you?”

I just shrugged and didn’t answer. The woman seemed put out at this, probably because she had no idea what a British orphan was doing in New York without any supervision whatsoever. After all, my body probably looked underfed, and I obviously had bruises from a physical altercation before the accident. There was a serious case of child abandonment, maybe even abuse, to be considered here, and with me being seven years old, things were a lot more serious. Wait a minute, wasn’t I sixteen? No, I’m seven. I didn’t understand what was happening.

I stopped listening to her afterwards, trying to answer the biggest question in my head. Who am I? What happened to me? Things started to get blurry, and my body involuntarily kept shaking. I heard the nurse yelling for help, but that didn’t make sense. My mind felt like it was on fire, and I fell unconscious.

When I woke up, it was night, and the kind nurse wasn’t there anymore. I was alone and free to gather my thoughts without anyone pressuring me.

Who am I? What a complicated question. What defines the self, an identity of a person? Was it the cumulative memories and experiences, or was there a metaphysical object, like a soul, that is tied to everybody, which contains the cumulative combination of the traits that makes them who they are?

What a strange concept, one that I was uniquely qualified to answer.

My name is Jasmine Potter; I am the abandoned daughter of James and Lily Potter, who had been left at the mercy of my mother’s magic-hating sister. I was a brilliant, cunning girl who understood how the world worked and yet was trapped in a house against her will, forced to serve her relatives, who showed the worst aspects of human nature.

I lived alone, in the dark, without a single friend to help me, with only my unstable magic to keep me company. I absorbed knowledge like a sponge, but even though I was probably a genius, I was still a child, and after learning of my parents’ betrayal, I broke, without anything to live for anymore. I grew a deep, burning, and silent hatred for the parents that abandoned me, that cursed me with a life of pain and misery just because I wasn’t good enough for them. When I was seven years old, my relatives took me to America, and after my uncle’s business deal didn’t go well, I was beaten and abandoned on the streets of New York, left to deal with my needs by myself. Before I could plan anything, I was involved in some sort of explosion that knocked me out and injured me enough to be sent to the hospital.

But that wasn’t it; there was something more to it. My name was also Morgan Evans, I was a sixteen years old girl, and when I was fourteen, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. I was a once in a generation genius, a true polymath that was hailed as the next Albert Einstein, the next Isaac Newton, only for all my opportunities to be snatched away by a disease. The Cancer was strong, and while Chemotherapy seemed to slow it down, it still spread, no matter the remedy.

I grew up alone in an empty house, where my parents chose to homeschool me after they figured out my increased intelligence. I didn’t go to school and, thus, didn’t have any friends.

Even after my diagnosis, I lived alone in the hospital, only being taken care of by doctors and nurses. My parents had given up on me halfway through the treatment. They felt guilty, of course, but they barely ever visited, in the end, probably out of guilt or grief. It was then that I realized that I truly didn’t have any parents who loved me unconditionally. I was strangely numb to it; I just didn’t care and chose to find solace in books and stories. For a man who reads has lived a thousand lifetimes, and considering how limited mine was, I was ready to experience it as much as possible, even if it was through stories.

In the end, I died alone, in a hospital room, in pain, having lived a half-life, if even that. In my last moments, I remembered sobbing in sorrow for a life that I didn’t have, a bright future that was cut too short. I didn’t want to go, and yet, I did.

Who am I? Jasmine or Morgan? No, I was both or perhaps neither. I remembered being them, feeling their feelings, and yet, when I thought of Jasmine’s parents, all I felt was indifference mixed in with mild irritation. When I thought of Morgan’s parents, all I felt was a slight sense of disappointment. When I thought of magic, I felt a sense of wonder and happiness that I didn’t feel when I used to be Jasmine. She always had bitter feelings towards her magic, both because of her lack of control and the fact that the Dursleys hated her because of it. Magic was associated with pain, feelings were associated with disappointment, and yet, the new person that I am now can feel awe towards the power that Jasmine held all her life.

What I do know is the fact that I am currently living Jasmine Potter’s life. My current body was that of a seven year old child who has been physically abused all her life. My entire body was aching, but it wasn’t even close to my memories of having cancer, where I was constantly in agony.

For some reason, I recognized my current parents’ names from Morgan’s life. They were James and Lily Potter, the dead parents of the protagonist ‘Harry Potter’ in a fantasy story. It seemed that I was in some sort of alternate universe of this place; for one thing, Harry Potter had never left London in the story, and he was a boy. That’s not to mention that James and Lily Potter were supposed to die in 1981, whose sacrifice was supposed to protect their child from the killing curse. Harry also didn’t have a sibling, just like I did.

Was there a prophecy between Voldemort and me as well? I have to say that I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the man who many consider to be one of the darkest wizards in history. Of course, it’s probably exaggerated, but he was crazy enough to cut up his own soul in the vain hope of being immortal.

Starting to panic, I take a deep breath. This doesn’t mean anything. I cannot consider what I know of the books to be relevant to this story. I wasn’t in a fairy tale; this was real life, and I will not make plans based on a children’s book from a different dimension. It’s not like it would involve me either way. I lived in a different country, and if I used another name, I could live as a regular magical orphan that isn’t anyone important. Voldemort only cares about Britain, after all.

But now, let’s ignore the whole Voldemort fiasco and let’s focus on the fact that I had the memories of a teenager from another dimension. Was I Morgan’s spirit who was possessing Jasmine’s body, or was I Jasmine who had the memories of another girl? I was unwilling to make a conclusion since I felt strangely detached from both of their lives. Perhaps, I was something more, something new, the merger of two broken souls, becoming one complete person. It would explain why I feel fundamentally better after the incident.

It’s time to let go of my past, of both of my pasts, and move on as a new person. This was a new life with countless possibilities. I didn’t know much about the American magical communities, but they should also provide schooling to muggleborns to control their magic. Breaking the statute of secrecy because some untrained wizard accidentally used magic was a recipe for disaster.

This meant that, at the age of eleven, maybe even sooner or later, I would be invited to a magical school, which would be my ticket to a better life. All I have to do now is to get myself into an orphanage in New York and figure things out from there. I don’t want to return to Britain and deal with either the Potters, Dumbledore, or Voldemort. It’s better for them to think I had died at the Dursley’s hands and be completely out of the equation.

All I had to do was to keep my magic under control to make sure I wouldn’t be labelled a freak in the orphanage as well. I tried to channel my magic and levitate the blanket in front of me, which rose up in the air with far more ease and control than I ever did as Jasmine Potter. Did my magic stabilize or something? Before, it felt unruly, like I was cupping a cup of water with my hands, where the magic kept slipping and changing, being more and more chaotic the more I held the spell. But I had no problem using it right now, and it didn’t seem out of control. Did Morgan’s memories help me control my magic this easily?

Before I could theorize anything, I was accosted by a large noise. It felt like people talking. I tried to make up what they said, but they kept getting louder and louder. I couldn’t take it. I didn’t even realize that I was screaming in pain when I fell unconscious once more.