Chapter Text
The first thing she remembers is that she likes coconut.
She really likes coconut. But she hasn’t ever tried it and Aunt Petunia calls it an ‘exotic’ flavor, so she doesn’t think she’ll try it soon.
But, she likes coconut. She doesn’t know how she knows this, but she does.
She likes peanut butter, too, and she sneaks out of the cupboard at night to eat it from the abandoned jar in the back of the pantry. Nobody else in the house likes peanut butter so they never notice. It’s the only way to stop her stomach from growling but the extra jar only lasts two weeks and it doesn’t take long before she’s feeling hungry again.
The second thing she remembers is that she isn’t an only child. She has a sister and a brother and a mom and a dad, but she doesn’t know where they are. The only relatives she should know are her Aunt Petunia and her Uncle Vernon and her cousin Dudley.
But, she knows she has a family somewhere because her brother’s name is Alex and her sister’s name is Sal(Sally), and she hates her mother, and she sometimes hates her dad, but –
They’re not here.
She doesn’t know anybody named Alex or Sal and she’s an orphan who doesn’t have a mom or a dad, and she’s only 4-years-old so why would she think that she celebrated her 17th birthday yesterday.
She remembers another girl, ‘Grace’, her honorary sister. She remembers her family always being late to trick-or-treating on Halloween and how Grace would always be halfway through all the houses when they got there.
She remembers a black cat and a white-haired dog and a best friend who she always calls ‘weird’ and who always calls her ‘basic’.
But she doesn’t have any friends and she’s a freak, not basic. She would really rather be basic because then Aunt Petunia might like her, and she might get new clothes for once.
She really likes pretty clothes.
But, she’s a boy, and that’s weird, but she knows she’s a girl, so she must be wrong.
She understands why the Dursleys hate her.
When Uncle Vernon yells at Aunt Petunia for not shearing the bushes in the backyard evenly, she remembers divorce.
She doesn’t like divorce, so she goes out and trims the bushes until they’re perfect and round and Uncle Vernon apologizes because ‘he must have seen them wrong’.
She remembers police-men handcuffing her mother and a broken pottery jar in the foyer of their house and she knows that she doesn’t like divorce.
But she also hates her mother.
She remembers a boy. She remembers lots of boys. They are kind and cruel, loving and distant, but she ends up hating all of them but one.
‘Elijah,’ she remembers, is a romantic. He writes her love letters every week for six months until she wishes that love letters were never a concept to begin with.
But, he brings her roses and she practices her makeup on his face and she loves him. For good and for bad, she loves him.
She remembers that he is going to go to college a year before her.
She remembers being scared.
She doesn’t know why she’s scared of him going to ‘college’ and she doesn’t know why he’s in America.
She’s 99.9% sure that Little Whinging is in England and 80% certain that she has always lived in England.
She remembers cornfields.
She remembers Christianity next. It isn’t happy like Aunt Petunia pretends it is. It’s her friend getting kicked out of their private Christian school for coming out as bisexual.
It’s her best friend, ‘Avery’, arguing with teachers and secretly confiding in her that she, herself, is a lesbian.
It’s her wishing for friends at a place where everyone is so full of hate that even just being neutral earns you animosity.
She remembers being forced into church pews.
She remembers that she was 17 when she died.
She remembers that her name is Kendall, but it is also Harry Potter.
She remembers reincarnation.
She remembers a book series and cries because she shouldn’t remember.
She is 5-years-old when all her memories settle. They come in strange bursts that leave her unsure of what is what until she knows for certain who she is.
Her name is Kendall, but she goes by Kenzie, and she died in a car crash 2 months after her 17th birthday. She grew up in a mansion and loves the guitar and wants to become a band manager. But, she is not 17, she’s 5-years-old and she lives in a closet and she just wants to survive the next day.
She wants her family back.
She wants her friends.
She is a wizard.
She is a witch.
And her name is Harry Potter.
(But she goes by Kenzie.
But she goes by ‘boy’.
But she is a girl.
But she is a boy.)
She is scared.