Marauder's Daughter (Eventual Tom Riddle X OC)

Prologue: Death

A psychopath. A trap. An explosion. Desperation and fear. My beloved family fearfully screaming my name. 

Those are the last things I remember before I died. It was a rather violent death this time, and sadly not my first.

"I'm not ready, please don't make me leave them, leave him." I plead with Death as soon as I feel the familiar pulsing, moving, living darkness of Death's realm surrounding me. 

I know my pleads are in vain though. If I'm here, facing Death yet again, then I can't go back. They explain again as such, and offer me the gift of seeing my loved ones lives after my death, showing me my funeral and my niece and nephew I never got to meet. All I can do though is stare sadly at my twin brother's broken heart, the light now gone from his eyes with my death.

"What happens now?" I ask Death, wiping the last of my tears away as I turn reluctantly away from the screen as it fades out back into the darkness of their realm. It was the same as the last time I was brought here, after the last time I died, the screen showing me the after effects of my life. A gift, to see my loved ones moving on and living, but also a curse, because I was not there with them.

"Now, your journey shall continue." Death says succinctly. "It shall not be as dark as this last one, not as painful, but still just as important. A darkness, one that was always there from your origin, has grown in you from your first two lessons. While it is not bad to have, it has further buried a component of your soul and stopped it from growing. I will send you somewhere where that buried piece can be brought into the light."

"Is this my final lesson?" I ask Death curiously, but they don't answer.

Their form disappears back into their realm and the darkness around me changes. Instead of the heavy, pulsing darkness, I'm now in a constricting, tight darkness that is wrapped firmly around me, and my body ceases to feel like it did a moment ago. 

I am about to be reborn again.

I know I'm not ready to move on. I need my family from the life I just left. I miss them already, but I have no say in the matter. It's just like when I died in my first resurrection realm, when I left my first brother and all my friends. 

I take this moment while sitting in the new darkness to reflect back on the realm I just left. I hated it so much when I arrived there moments before my new twin brother. I hated our lives, I hated the people and city and everything about it. I loved only my twin brother for the first chunk of our life, keeping everyone else away due to distrust. 

When we were teens and adopted by a hero, I saw it as a game, playing at being a sidekick. It was a dark game, dangerous, often painful, but I was at least together with my brother through it all. It wasn't until I lost the one thing that mattered most to me that it stopped being a game, it stopped being a story. I took charge of it then, and I grew so much as a person. I also gained so much by getting my other brothers later, those not related by blood but bonded just the same. I grew more with my guardian when we both rebuilt trust for others over our years together. They all wormed their way into my heart, filling it up to the brim, and became my new family, my real family. I won't forget a single moment with them all. I'll keep those memories of them alive in me, and keep them alive as I do it. 

I have to remind myself, people die, it's natural, it happens. I'm the unnatural exception, I get the gift of being able to remember my lives as I move on from them. I could think of it as a curse, having to live with only my memories of my loved ones, no longer having them with me, but I won't. I wouldn't trade my memories of my friends from my first resurrection for anything, and I wouldn't trade my memories of my family for anything either. I could live with the pain of loss if it gained me so much happiness in the first place.