In the architecture of any grand narrative, the protagonist acts as a supermassive black hole. They possess a terrifying, undeniable gravity that warps the reality around them, dragging secondary characters, bystanders, and villains into their chaotic orbit. To stand too close to the protagonist is to guarantee that you will eventually be struck by the debris of their destiny.
For the sixty-year-old survivor inhabiting the golden-haired, eleven-year-old body of Sunshine Addams, Harry Potter was the ultimate hazard.
She had spent the first two months of her Hogwarts education perfecting the art of absolute, mundane invisibility. She sat at the back of her classes, diligently taking notes on magical theory while her peers waved their wands. She took her meals in silence, chewed her food politely, and offered wide, tragically vacant smiles to anyone who cast a pitying glance her way. She was the Hufflepuff Squib. The broken toy. A ghost in beige.
But staying invisible required constant, hyper-vigilant tracking of the castle's primary threats, and the Golden Trio—though currently only a fractured duo of Potter and Weasley—was at the top of the list.
It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon in late October. Sunshine was seated at a heavy oak table in the deepest, dustiest corner of the Hogwarts library. The Restricted Section loomed behind her, securely cordoned off by enchanted ropes, holding tomes of dark magic that Sunshine knew intimately from her family's own archives. She was not reading dark magic today. She had a thick, incredibly dry volume titled A History of Magical Jurisprudence in the 15th Century propped open before her.
From her secluded vantage point, she had a clear line of sight to the main study tables.
Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley were sitting three tables away. They were supposedly attempting a Transfiguration essay, but were primarily engaged in a whispered argument about Quidditch statistics.
Sunshine watched them with cold, clinical detachment.
In her past life, she had read their adventures with desperate affection. She had rooted for the boy with the lightning-bolt scar and the fiercely loyal redhead. But viewing them in the physical reality of her new existence stripped away the romanticized gloss of the fictional narrative.
They were not heroes. They were incredibly loud, easily manipulated, deeply traumatized children.
Harry moved with the distinct, recognizable flinch of an abused child. He hated loud noises, he avoided prolonged eye contact with adults, and he possessed a desperate, starving need for validation. Ronald was drowning in the shadow of his older brothers, masking his profound insecurity with brash, unearned confidence. They were a psychological disaster waiting to be weaponized, and Albus Dumbledore was currently sharpening them on the whetstone of his grand design.
Sunshine took a slow, quiet breath, turning a page of her legal text. I cannot save them. To warn them is to step onto the chessboard. To step onto the chessboard is to invite the Headmaster's gaze.
Her golden sunflower locket pulsed with a dull, heavy throb against her sternum. The suppressed Addams magic inside the goblin-silver trap agreed with her logic. Survival meant avoidance.
"Excuse me."
The voice was sharp, bossy, and entirely unwelcome.
Sunshine did not flinch, though her sixty-year-old mind cursed silently. She slowly lifted her head, letting the sharp, calculating intellect drain from her bright blue eyes, replacing it with a look of mild, startled innocence.
Hermione Granger stood by her table. The Gryffindor girl was clutching a massive stack of books to her chest, her bushy brown hair frizzy from the damp Scottish weather. Her prominent front teeth were digging nervously into her lower lip.
Hermione was not yet part of the Golden Trio. She was currently a pariah, isolated by her own desperate, socially inept need to prove her intelligence to a world she didn't fully understand.
"You're Sunshine Addams, aren't you?" Hermione asked, her tone carrying the unmistakable, grating cadence of a child attempting to sound like an authoritative adult. "From Hufflepuff. I noticed you in Potions class. Professor Snape was incredibly unfair to you."
Sunshine carefully folded her hands over her book. Step one: The Empathetic Deflection.
"Hello," Sunshine whispered, her high voice trembling just enough to project fragile vulnerability. "Yes, I am. But Professor Snape wasn't unfair. He was right. I am a Squib. I can't brew the potions properly because I don't have a magical core to bind the ingredients."
Hermione's face softened instantly. The bossy, rigid posture melted, replaced by a surge of overwhelming, eager sympathy. Hermione possessed a dangerous, deeply ingrained savior complex. She desperately wanted to help people, primarily because helping people allowed her to demonstrate her own competence.
"That's awful," Hermione said, setting her heavy stack of books down on the table and taking an uninvited seat across from Sunshine. "I read about Squibs in Hogwarts: A History. It must be terrible to be surrounded by magic and unable to perform it. But you shouldn't just give up! You were reading a legal text just now, weren't you? Magical law doesn't require a wand!"
Sunshine looked at the Gryffindor girl. Hermione was brilliant, observant, and fiercely loyal. She was exactly the kind of person an abusive system targets first, because her desperate need for structural approval made her incredibly easy to exploit.
If Sunshine befriended her, she would have an invaluable intelligence asset. Hermione noticed everything.
But Hermione was also tethered to the narrative gravity of Harry Potter. To befriend Hermione was to tie a rope around her own waist and hand the other end to a sinking ship.
"You are very kind," Sunshine smiled, a sweet, melancholic expression that looked absolutely heartbreaking on her rosy, cherubic face. "But my parents sent me here for observation, not to fight the system. I just want to read quietly and not cause any trouble for anyone."
Sunshine lowered her eyes, her golden curls falling to obscure her face. She made herself look as small, pathetic, and utterly defeated as possible. She projected the psychic aura of a wet, shivering mouse.
"I don't belong here," Sunshine murmured, injecting a single, perfectly timed tear into her voice. "I just want to get through the year without being in anyone's way."
The trap snapped shut flawlessly.
Hermione's mouth opened and closed. Her fierce, argumentative nature hit the impenetrable wall of Sunshine's absolute surrender. You cannot argue someone out of their own perceived biological inferiority if they refuse to fight back. Hermione looked deeply uncomfortable, her savior complex entirely disarmed by a victim who politely declined to be saved.
"Oh," Hermione whispered, her cheeks flushing slightly. "I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."
"You didn't," Sunshine offered a frail, brave smile, looking up through her lashes. "Thank you for checking on me. You must be very smart, being in Gryffindor."
The compliment was a calculated distraction. Hermione puffed up slightly, a pleased flush replacing the awkwardness.
"Well, I do read a lot," Hermione admitted, gathering her books back into her arms. "I should let you get back to it. But if you ever want to study theory together... just let me know."
"I will. Thank you, Hermione."
Sunshine watched the bushy-haired girl walk away, rejoining the main section of the library. Hermione passed Harry and Ron's table. Ron muttered something under his breath, and Harry snickered. Hermione's shoulders went rigid, and she hurried out of the library, her head bowed.
The sixty-year-old survivor sat in the shadows, her face returning to a mask of cold, unyielding gray apathy.
She could have intervened. She could have told Ronald Weasley exactly what a pathetic, insecure, emotionally stunted little boy he was, using the Addams verbal venom to crush him into dust. She could have offered Hermione the ruthless, gothic confidence of her own family.
But doing so would change the timeline.
If Hermione wasn't crying in the bathroom on Halloween, she wouldn't be attacked by the troll. If she wasn't attacked by the troll, Harry and Ron wouldn't save her. The Golden Trio would never be forged, the timeline would shatter, and Sunshine's predictive knowledge of the war would be rendered entirely useless.
Sunshine picked up her pen and turned back to her legal text.
I am not a hero, she reminded herself, the golden locket pressing cold against her chest. I am a wallflower. The narrative demands blood, and it will not have mine.
She ignored the Golden Trio, sinking back into the protective, absolute invisibility of her beige camouflage. The pieces were moving exactly as they were supposed to, and the Golden Child was perfectly content to remain off the board.