She was exhausted, but that was nothing new.
The long hours, the cold calls, the endless meetings behind polished glass—she had learned to survive them all. She had become indispensable, not through kindness or warmth, but through precision. Ruthless reliability. She could read people like spreadsheets, anticipate betrayal before it turned into damage. No deal moved forward without her eyes on it. No lie passed without her silent nod.
To the powerful man whose empire she helped maintain, she was more than a secretary—she was a blade. Sharpened, trusted, hidden.
But no one asked how she was. No one noticed how her smile had withered into a formality. Or how, over the years, she stopped decorating her desk. Stopped hoping for anything beyond the next task. Somewhere along the way, the world had made it clear: it had no use for softness.
She had adapted.
But that night, walking alone through the parking lot—her heels clicking in rhythm with her fatigue—it was harder to hold herself together. The dim lights above cast long, stretched shadows. The car waiting for her was sleek, expensive, a reward for a life she didn't want anymore.
Then she saw him.
A young man, maybe twenty, maybe less. His face was pale, not with anger, but fear. His hands trembled so hard the gun seemed to shiver with him. He looked like someone who had made a terrible decision and didn't know how to back out. Eyes swollen with tears he was too ashamed to let fall.
She stopped, not out of fear, but resignation.
In a strange way, she felt relief. Like something inevitable had finally arrived. She didn't scream. Didn't run. Her first thought wasn't of self-preservation—it was of how tired she was. How tired she'd been for years.
She looked at him, and there was no judgment in her gaze. Just… understanding.
"You don't have to do this," she said softly. Her voice almost surprised her with its gentleness. "You have a bright future—"
She never finished.
The shot was quiet, but the pain was loud—sharp and hot, blooming in her stomach like a betrayal she should've seen coming. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto the concrete, cold rushing through her spine like water.
She lay there, staring up at the empty sky. The boy had vanished—maybe he ran, maybe he cried, maybe he didn't even look back.
None of it mattered.
She thought of her apartment. The untouched books. The plants she forgot to water. The voicemail from her sister she never returned. She thought of herself—not the woman she had become, but the girl she used to be, who wanted to write poetry, who wanted to fall in love, who wanted to be seen.
The tears came then, not for the pain, but for the life she had quietly mourned every day.
So this is it, she thought.
Maybe it's better this way. Maybe I was done long before tonight.
And then the stillness came—gentle, almost kind.
She let it take her.
---
Darkness swallowed her whole.
Not the darkness of sleep, nor the peaceful void of death. This was something else entirely—vast, eternal, and oddly weightless. She floated, untethered, through its endless folds. No pain. No sound. Just the echo of something… missing.
Time lost all meaning. She couldn't say how long she had drifted. Minutes? Years? It all blended into a blur of silence and thought.
Her memories were there, but distant. She remembered the feel of cold concrete, the warm bloom of blood, the boy's face—too young to be holding so much grief. She remembered the shot. The way her body folded. The ache in her soul more than her skin.
Was she dead?
She might be.
But there was . No tunnel. Just the still, breathing dark.
Then, without warning, something changed.
A faint chime echoed in the void, artificial and crisp, like a notification in a dream.
Before her, suspended in the black, a glowing panel shimmered into existence—simple, white text against translucent glass:
She blinked. Or thought she did. She had no body here, no hands, no breath, only thoughts strung together like floating beads.
ID: Petunia Evans
Her mind reeled.
Petunia? she thought. Evans? What—
<'Huh… what's going on?'> she murmured aloud, though she couldn't hear her own voice.
Then another chime rang out, almost cheerful, as if someone had just won a prize at a carnival:
She braced—if you could call it that when one had no body—for whatever came next.
— Skill: Fourth Wall (Rare Insight)
— Trait: Warlock Witch (Rare Hybrid Class)
Warlock Witch? Targaryen bloodline? Fourth Wall? What kind of twisted fanfiction did I fall into?
She didn't know whether to laugh or scream.
But as the surreal updates continued scrolling before her, something strange began to settle in her chest.
She wasn't afraid.
No—if anything, she was… intrigued.
The darkness around her began to shift. Swirls of color like spilled ink in water slowly enveloped her, forming something vaguely… solid. She could feel gravity returning. A heartbeat, not her own. The hint of breath and warmth.
She was descending—anchoring—into a world of magic, of prophecy, of war and wonder.
And this time, she would not be silent.
-----------------------------
And just like that…
She became a newborn.
Petunia Evans.
The name anchored her now—not just as a label, but as a thread connecting her to a body, a history, a world. Her senses returned slowly, muffled and strange. Sound came first—the lull of voices, the rustle of linen, the distant cry of an infant—then the overwhelming flood of color and sensation. Her limbs were small. Weak. Her vision blurred. And yet, somewhere behind those newborn eyes, her mind—her—was still intact.
She wasn't just reborn. She had been installed.
A voice not spoken but transmitted rang out inside her skull like a crystalline bell:
She couldn't move much, couldn't speak, but her consciousness throbbed with awareness. So this was her world now. Not a dream. Not a delusion. Something had chosen this world to be hers—because it mirrored something essential in her. Or perhaps, because she had the potential to shift its story.
Another chime followed—cool, clinical:
Ability Assigned: Mutant Storm's Gift — Weather Manipulation.>
The words echoed deep, as though stitched into her very cells.
---
That was how it began.
For the next ten years, she lived two lives—one as a child of the mundane Evans family, and another, hidden within, as a silent observer.
At first, it was disorienting.
The world of 1960s England was ordinary on the surface. A middle-class family in Cokeworth, with two daughters—Lily, the bright and lovely one; and Petunia, the older, quieter girl. No one saw anything unusual in Petunia. They thought her merely reserved. Stern. Thoughtful beyond her years.
But inside, she watched. She learned. Her memories—fragments of the life before—lingered like faded ink on the edges of paper. Her old name no longer mattered. What mattered was adapting to this new existence without drawing suspicion.
By age three, she discovered her first hint of power.
The system didn't give without reason. The ability—Mutant Storm's Gift—wasn't dormant. It was alive in her blood. She could command the weather, subtly and instinctively. But it wasn't infinite. It required mana—a type of energy she was only beginning to understand.
And more curiously, the more her life intersected with the story, the more potent she felt.
---
This isn't just a simulation. It's alive. The story… feeds everything. My skills. My strength. Even my magic. They respond to my place in the narrative. When I'm part of the story—when I'm close to Lily, to magic—I can feel the pulse of it. As if the world itself is breathing through me.
The system is smart. It isn't forcing me to act. It's watching. Measuring. Rewarding immersion, not disruption. This isn't about changing fate with brute force. It's about understanding the world well enough to bend it.
---
By age five, she had learned to keep secrets better than any child should.
She let her parents believe she was simply obedient. She let Lily take the spotlight . But beneath it all, she was training herself—studying the rules of the world. Quietly testing the limits of her control over weather. Practicing restraint. Observing Lily's accidental bursts of magic.
And through it all, the system remained silent. Waiting. As if preparing her for something.
She had no missions. No urgent goals.
Just time. And the slow, deliberate unfolding of a role that had once been nothing but a bitter side character.
Not this time.
Now, Petunia Evans had power. Magic. Bloodline. Awareness.
And five years in, she had one thought that rang clear, calm, and certain:
The story might belong to Lily.
But the game? That belongs to me.
---
At just ten years old, Petunia Evans stood barefoot in an expanse that no map could trace—a green plain stretching into eternity under a vivid, cloud-spotted sky. The wind rolled softly across the grass, carrying the scent of wildflowers and untouched air. Here, there were no walls, no noise, no eyes—only freedom.
The system had called it an inventory, but it was unlike any storage she'd imagined. It wasn't a bag, a scroll, or even a vault. It was a realm. A world. And though she had no control over it—couldn't reshape it, couldn't command it—it gave her something far more valuable: access.
This was where she trained.
---
The real world was limited, riddled with rules and watched by institutions like the Ministry of Magic. But here, she was alone, far from sightlines and suspicions. The system's reward allowed her to hone her powers undetected—her Fourth Wall skill acting like a sealant, keeping her magic from leaking into the world around her.
But even with that control, Petunia had learned quickly: if she intentionally cast magic in the real world, the Ministry would know.
So she didn't.
Not until now.
---
For years, she'd avoided full storms. They were too volatile, too draining. Her ability—Mutant Storm's Gift—was majestic, but not economical. A single full storm drained her reserves to the edge. But if she dissected the storm… if she broke it into pieces—air, water, static, pressure—she could wield them more efficiently.
And she did.
She learned to weave gusts with her fingers. To coax lightning into her hands. To pull water from the earth and freeze it mid-air.
She became her own weather.
And in the stillness of the scenario plain, day after day, she danced with the sky.
---
By now, she was nearly unrecognizable from the Petunia the books had painted. Her hair fell in straight, ink-dark sheets that gleamed in the sunlight, and her eyes—a strange fusion of violet and deep blue—held a glint that drew attention even in silence. There was something ancestral in her, no doubt a trace of her Targaryen bloodline, pulsing faintly beneath her skin.
She knew she didn't fit the mold. And that was exactly the point.
But more than appearance, what stood out most was her focus. Even at ten, her thoughts were sharp, her observations constant. She had already begun noting divergences in the timeline—like Lily only being two years younger instead of several.
That, more than anything, reminded her that she was in a scenario, not a carbon copy. The story might feel familiar, but it wasn't set in stone.
And she would not be caught off guard.
---
Now, the real woods near the Evans house.
It was quiet—afternoon light streaming between tall trees, casting lattices of gold and shadow on the forest floor. She'd chosen this place carefully: close enough for the Ministry's sensors, far enough for privacy.
This is it, she thought. Time to make a bang.
She stepped into the clearing and exhaled slowly. The air around her stirred, responding to her intent. Her fingers twitched with anticipation.
"Heh," she murmured under her breath, grinning slightly. "Better make it loud."
Her eyes flashed. The wind surged.
Around her, leaves scattered like startled birds. Her hair lifted as her body slowly rose from the ground—weightless, suspended by currents only she could see. The sensation was euphoric, like dancing in the sky's breath.
With a sweep of her hand, she beckoned water from the nearby river.
It came willingly—liquid strands twisting upward like serpents of silver. She spun them into a sphere, dense and shimmering, above her head. Then with a flick—
Swish—
She launched it skyward.
It exploded mid-air into fine mist. Droplets descended like soft rain.
"Not yet," she whispered.
She raised her hands again, reaching toward the low-hanging clouds above the trees.
And the sky answered.
From cloud to mist, lightning cracked through the air—white-blue and feral. It lanced downward, kissing the raindrops and traveling in jagged paths to the trees below. Bark splintered. Smoke curled from scorched trunks.
Crackling. Roaring. Magic.
And in the eye of the storm—small, soaked, and solemn—floated Petunia Evans.
She slowly lowered herself to the earth. Her boots hit the moss with a soft crunch. She lifted one hand, and with a twitch, most of the water vanished from her clothes.
But not all.
The fabric still clung damply to her arms and sides.
Still too complex, she thought. Liquid displacement I can handle. Moisture woven into fabric? Not yet.
A small failure, but she noted it without emotion. That's what training was for.
---
She glanced up through the trees, where the sky was quiet again.
The Ministry would have felt that.
She'd finally left her magical signature in the open—intentional, controlled, and impossible to ignore.
Now, all she had to do… was wait.
The storm had barely dispersed when it happened.
A sharp ringing—like a clear bell inside her skull—cut through the calm like a knife.
[Ding! — Fourth Wall Skill Notification]
[Long-range location spell detected — Origin: Magical Source (Unknown)]
[Purpose of Spell: Pinpoint physical coordinates of target]
Her eyes narrowed.
A second notification followed almost immediately.
[Mental-Type Spell Detected: Passive Inquiry in Progress]
[Purpose: Gathering Basic Information — Identity, Magical Status, Lineage]
[Deflection: Available. Proceed? (Yes/No)]
There was no hesitation in her voice.
"Yes," she said aloud, the word slicing through the mist like a blade.
The scenario responded instantly, pulsing around her like a living thing.
[Spell Deflection in Progress...]
[Request: Total Erasure of Presence or Modification of Accessible Data?]
And then, the question hung in the air like the echo of thunder:
Petunia's lips parted—ready to speak.
But she hesitated.
---
Her mind flashed back—not to this world, but the last one.
To the woman she used to be. The quiet, razor-sharp secretary to a man with power in his palm and ice in his veins. Every conspiracy, every transaction, every betrayal passed through her hands like sealed envelopes.
She was capable, flexible, indispensable.
And alone.
The name Petunia Evans—the name she now carried—belonged to someone who, in another timeline, had been overlooked, neglected, and broken by her own mediocrity. A ghostly presence in a house that never embraced her.
In this life, she knew that loneliness all too well.
From the day she became this world's Petunia, there had been a hollow distance between her and her so-called family. It wasn't dramatic. No abuse. No violence. Just a steady, aching absence. An unspoken belief that she didn't belong—not quite.
It reminded her too much of before.
Of floating through life like a shadow in someone else's office. Someone else's empire.
That name, Evans, it felt like a cage. A thread tying her to a past she'd been discarded by—twice now.
At first, she was tempted to cast it away entirely. Invent a new name. A new identity.
Start fresh. Clean.
But then—
She didn't.
She took a breath. Deep. Cold. Steadying.
"No," she murmured. "Keep Petunia. Change the surname."
A pause.
Then louder:
"Put in: Petunia Targaryen."
The system responded immediately.
[Confirmed: Identity registered as Petunia Targaryen]
[Magic Signature Modified]
[Long-range spell misdirected — false data broadcast to inquiring source]
[Magical registration under name 'Petunia Targaryen' complete]
---
She closed her eyes and let the cool forest wind press against her face.
It wasn't about vanity. Or legacy. Or dragons.
It was about survival—and identity.
She kept Petunia because she needed the reminder.
Of what was behind her.
Of what she refused to become.
The fragile, forgotten girl in the books—hollowed by envy, consumed by resentment, fading behind her sister's shine—that was never going to be her.
Not in this world. Not in any world.
The name would be a scar she carried proudly.
A symbol that said: You can be born a ghost and still carve your name in fire.
She exhaled and looked up. The clouds above were quiet now, but the air still crackled faintly with residual magic.
The Ministry had seen her.
Soon the world would know her.
But it would not be as Petunia Evans.
It would be as the girl who rewrote the storm.
Petunia Targaryen.