6 The Truth?

Ultimately, I wasn't sure whether Eva believed my oath or not. To be fair, from her perspective, they were just the words of a four-year-old. When we returned home, she returned to her room and went to sleep. I sent two house elves to keep watch over her and attend to her every need.

Meanwhile, I set myself upon my family's financial statements. I took out piles and piles of paperwork from the bag Sarah had given me before she died. Fortunately, my mother – or one of her subordinates – had sorted everything quite nicely. All companies and investments were grouped under their country, with important contacts and financial details summarized on the front page.

As I read through it all, I was in awe. The Eilean family was rich! I'm not talking about a typical rich person who placed in the top one percent. No, I'm talking about wealth that puts the one percent to shame.

In Gringotts alone, I was now in possession of approximately 300 million galleons, which equated to $30 billion or about 23.6 billion pounds. And that was just the cash. Beyond the priceless artifacts and books in the Gringotts vault that couldn't be valued, the vault also contained valuables worth nearly 17 million galleons.

Outside of Gringotts, the Eilean family had investments in practically every wizarding community throughout the world. However, it was here in the UK and over in America that our presence was the strongest, with myself now being a majority shareholder in several companies in addition to holding the debts of many other witches and wizards.

Obviously, I couldn't be any happier. Of course, having wealth came with its own challenges, but they were far outweighed by the advantages I would have. It gave me the freedom and ability to achieve my goals.

While I was researching my financials, it was also interesting to learn about the Ministry's tax system. Compared to the overly complicated and flawed ones muggles have, the Ministry's was simplistic and beautiful. Individuals only had to pay a 10% income tax. Period. Excluding certain taxes for dangerous goods and similarly specialized products, businesses were only taxed at a 12% rate. Period.

At first I was wondering how the Ministry got away with charging such a low tax. However, I then realized, once again, how easy witches and wizards really had it. They could wave their wands and repair practically anything. There was no massive infrastructure network. A group of Aurors substituted for a large standing army. Indeed, as strange as it may be, employee salaries probably made up a good chunk of the Ministry budget.

After I finished going through and getting a decent sense for my new assets, I then set myself upon the history and law books I found in the mansion's large library. Of course, I really wanted to start learning magic, but I knew it would be more prudent to know as much as I could about the world as a whole before I proceeded to develop personal strength. While my mother had left me with the contact information of business and legal retainers, their effectiveness would be reduced if I didn't know what questions to ask them when the time came.

What stuck out to me as I learned this new history was how many similarities it had to muggle history. In other words, it was downright bloody. If there wasn't a conflict with goblins or other magic creatures, then there was a new dark lord would spring up somewhere in the world and would need dealing with. In truth, I shouldn't have been that surprised. We're all human, after all.

All this studying took me two weeks to accomplish. Probably due to having two souls, and thus consciousnesses, in one body, my ability to study and retain information was higher than ever. Considering I had been genetically modified to have high mental faculties in the first place, this could be considered an incredible boon.

During the first week of study, I had rarely seen Eva. I think she had been avoiding me, though for what reason, I couldn't be sure. She could have been worried about how she could replace my mother as my caregiver. Or, she could have been embarrassed about how she had acted at St. Mungo's. Had I known how to help her alleviate her depression and worries, I would have - I had tried discussing magical creatures again, but it did nothing to help her mood. However, being someone's emotional pillar was far from my forte.

Thankfully, she was a strong woman and seemed to work out her emotions through her own efforts and, by the end of my second week of study, she had mostly returned to her normal self.

While I was in the middle of reading about Asia's history of dark wizards, Eva came into the library and casually said, "The elves are saying you've been holed up in here for the past two weeks. What've you been up to?"

"Studying," I replied. "I thought I should learn more about our history."

Eva's brow crinkled ever so slightly in concern. "I thought you hated studying?"

Hearing her question, I took a deep breath. I had been wondering when someone would bring this subject up. I had been trained to blend in with many kinds of people, but I had never needed to imitate a child. It was only a matter of time before someone called me out for behaving strangely. As such, I had given what I would say in this scenario a lot of thought.

"I can't be a child forever. I'm now the Eilean Family Head, after all."

Eva smiled at me and rubbed my head. "It's okay to stay a child a little longer. It's okay to be sad and act spoiled, you know. I may not measure up well to your parents, but I promise I'll take care of you and protect you."

A burst of emotion from the original Keira welled up me and I yelled out, "I can't!"

Eva's hand stopped rubbing my head, surprised by my outburst. Before she could say anything, I had regained my calm and I resumed speaking.

"I miss my parents. Every day I think about them. But I can't bring them back, can I? Instead, I can try to make sure no one else goes through what I have."

As silence hung over us, I considered my next words carefully. Obviously, there was no way I would reveal the existence of my soul nor the fact that I had transmigrated. I would get thrown in St. Mungo's if I went down that path of conversation. Instead, I would reveal half-truths.

Lowering the top of my shirt to show the scar on my chest, I asked, "Do you know which curse gave me this?"

Eva looked hesitant as she said, "At the time, I thought I saw a green light. So, I figured it was Avada Kedavra, but considering the situation…"

"You were right. It was Avada Kedavra," I bluntly replied.

"But then… How? You and Potter are the same?"

"No. Potter rebounded the spell at Voldemort," I said. Eva visibly flinched as I said his name. "He survived thanks to an ancient magic that resulted from his mother's death. How I survived? I don't know. But the process was very different."

I closed the book I had been reading and stared down at my hands, as though in deep thought. Eva reached out and hugged me to her body. "It's alright. You're safe now."

"But I'm not," I whispered. "No one is."

"What do you mean, honey?"

In response to her, I turned my voice even quieter and put long pauses between my sentences to give the impression that I was scared and confused. "When I blacked out after being hit by Avada Kedavra, I received a Divination. I saw Voldemort return in fourteen years and, though he was defeated three years later, so many witches and wizards died. I also saw how far the muggles would develop in the coming forty years, and I know it will be impossible for the Wizarding World to remain hidden from them for long."

"I know I've probably seemed very different since that day," I continued. The look I saw her give from the corner of my eye confirmed that she had indeed noticed my personality had changed. "While for you I was only unconscious for minutes after being struck by the killing curse, for me it seemed like decades had passed by. I may have the body of a four-year-old still, but I feel so much older. Deep down I may still love fluffy things and cute dresses and playing games, but I refuse to let my childish desires get in the way of removing our dark future."

I kept my faced turned away from her, acting like I was afraid she would reject my explanation. I may not have been good at acting like a four-year-old, but I definitely had some experience in lying.

Instead of responding directly to me, Eva called for a house elf. She then ordered the elf to bring her the quill and pad of parchment by her bedside. Moments later, the elf returned with those items. Eva then arranged the items on a nearby desk. The quill, which had obviously been enchanted, stood upright, ready to write.

Finally, Eva spoke to me. "I need you to tell me everything you saw, down to the tiniest details."

"You believe me?" I asked, incredulously. I found it hard to believe she bought everything so easily.

However, Eva shook her head. "No, not yet. I don't have enough information to say one way or another. On the one hand, this divination sounds different from anything I've ever heard. On the other hand, ever since I transitioned from the muggle world to this one, I've gained a respect for how the impossible can become the possible."

Then, for the rest of the day, I told Eva the details of my 'divination.' Every event I remembered from the books and movies was recorded word for word by the enchanted quill. All the technological advancements, economic events, and political upheavals in the muggle world were written down. I won't say my memory of these things was perfect, but it was probably 95% accurate.

From start to finish, Eva often interrupted to ask clarifying questions that helped me dig out more details. As my recounted of events proceeded, her face slowly transformed from being neutral to being extremely solemn and serious. When the quill wrote my final word, Eva let out a sight and said, "So, it true."

"Yeah," I responded. "What made you realize it?"

"Many things." She looked at the many meters of filled parchment and gave a dry laugh. "For one, no child could come up with such a detail-ridden story. Second, as someone whose entire family are muggles, I have some sense for how rapidly they're progressing. Nothing you've said went outside the realm of possibility."

"Third was you knowing about this so-called 'Room of Requirement.' When I was younger and very foolish, I sometimes liked to enter to outskirts of the Forbidden Forest in search of magical creatures. One day, I found a baby unicorn with two broken legs. It was small and malnourished. Thinking I could help the poor thing, I tried sneaking him into the castle at night. Unfortunately, Filch nearly found me and I had to flee from him. Eventually, I found my way to the seventh floor and entered a room I had never seen before. Besides food, it had everything I needed to care for the little unicorn. Afterwards, I tried to find the room again but never could. Considering I didn't know the nature of that room until now, it's impossible that you could have."

"But," she continued, "even if none of that convinced me, your story is still impossible to ignore. Even if there's only a one percent chance your divination is true, the ramifications of future events at too severe to simply ignore. However, you do know divinations are tricky things, right? Just as what you've said about Voldemort: by trying to stop the prophecy he actually kick-started it."

"I know. But as I had the divination, I got the distinct feeling that what I was being shown was only one possible future. Nothing was set in stone." I paused a moment. "My divination's nature is already different from any other on record, so why wouldn't this be different as well?"

We stared at each other in silence for several minutes. I knew Eva was contemplating what she should do. Having already said everything of top importance in my pseudo-truth, I remained quiet, knowing this was something she would have to work out for herself. I wouldn't force anyone to follow me.

Finally, she smiled. "So, where do we go from here?"