Trelawney shuddered as she was thrown back in time. She didn't have to open her eyes to know where she was, there was a reason she'd been so desperate to get hired at Hogwarts. See, Cassandra of Troy was not, infact, a seer. There was some quirk in her magic that made her get caught up in the backlash every time someone decided to time travel. Unfortunately the quirk was genetic. That wasn't really a problem when she was alive, time travel took a lot of power, and powerful wizards were usually concerned with getting more power, not losing it for the chance to change the past. Her family lived quietly for years, only getting tossed about around once or twice in their lifetimes. But then time turners were invented. They'd find themselves getting thrown back in time on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. They took precautions, setting themselves up with a reputation as seers, lobbying to have time turners regulated, and having every generation live in the same house to avoid confusion.

..

Unfortunately, Sybil was unlucky. Her parents were killed early on and she was sent to live with relatives who did not really want her, and refused to homeschool her. By the time she graduated, the third time, her house had been sold. The fifth time, it burnt down. She didn't plan to have children to pass this curse down to, but she still needed a place that wouldn't confuse her when she 'reset'. relearning who you talked to, where things were, and what you were working on could be quite confusing. One time, she'd nearly been attacked when she went up to one of her friends and asked why she was out and about on the full moon...three years before she'd been bitten...In front of the friends' father...who hated werewolves...yeah. Of course, when she was bitten, that friend became convinced Sybil arranged it in revenge for her father's actions. The next reset, Sybil took up her family's favored persona, the dotty seer.

..

"See, people wanted to control seers. Someone who can see the future? Unnatural! Or, too powerful! Or, I want that! None of which had good outcomes, her family would know, what with them reliving their lives all the time. But a fraud? Anytime she slipped up and mentioned something that hadn't happened yet, it was obviously a fluke. People wanted to control seers, but they were desperate to prove 'false prophets' wrong. So sure that they were right, that they discounted it when she 'accidentally' made predictions. But that lead to people not wanting to rent her those easy-to-memorize cookie-cutter houses. She needed a place that she could wave away getting lost in, someplace out of the public eye, teenagers didn't count, that one such place had one of the only copies of long distance time travel rituals rumored to be in it's walls? All the better! She would track it down and destroy it, and then she'd only have to worry about small resets from time turners.

..

That lead to her worst mistake ever. The first time she lived through that period, Voldemort had made the rounds of the blood-traitor families, but hadn't gotten to the Potters until Harry was six. He'd tripped over a toy, and bashed his nose into his brain on the crib bars. Albus tracked down all of the horcrux(i, es?) as soon as the fighting trailed off. Harry had grown up with the Longbottoms, happy, and with only a scar on his cheek where Voldemort's wand had struck him as the man fell. The second time she gave that 'prophesy' and Voldemort was taken out early. That was good. Lot's of families lived. Also good. But Albus hesitated on the horcrux hunt. He believed her a bit too much... Even her dotty act couldn't make him reconsider! Since then, she'd lived this timeline thousands of times as every one of Potter's classmates tried to 'make it better'. Of course, none of them traveled back to before the prophecy was made, nooo, then she could take it back.

..

She opened her eyes and glanced at the calendar. Ugh, third year, the worst ever. For her at least. The ministry overturned that law that said only heads of noble houses could access the time turners, and as a show of faith, gave it to a muggleborn. At hogwarts of course, so she could be watched. And if the child abused it, reliving her days over and over, going to every class period every day instead of alternating and borrowing notes, but not turning any time to sleep? Well, proof that they needed to be locked up in the Department of Mysteries full-time. Politics! Meanwhile, poor Sybil had to deal with stutter-stops every day the whole year! Her poor head...

..

For some reason, it seemed to be especially popular with Harry's friends. She shuddered as she thought of the times the Granger girl came back. It was bad enough when she had enough trust in authority and determination to Oce her exams that she barely abused it. When she had the looser future view of such things? And that time she took over the ministry! It went okay for the first few years as the even out the discriminatory laws. But then she passed the legacy laws. Sure, not allowing people who were related to marry each other made sense..But extending that to in-laws whose kids divorced before procreating, from six generations back? They weren't related! Not by blood, not by law, she only did it to make Purebloods unable to marry each other. And halfbloods. They had to marry muggleborns or muggles. She added a sterilization penalty when she caught some old-fashioned families making back room deals. If you weren't at least engaged by thirty you were assumed to be giving up your right to have children. Nevermind that Witches were fertil 'til their sixties, and wizards longer.

..

The government collapsed after just two generations, when all of her muggleborn classmate's grandkids were of marrying age. After all, their grandparents were magical: they were purebloods and had to marry accordingly. Too bad there was a record low amount of muggleborns that year. Her own grandson was sterilized after he got out of his six-year stay in a mental hospital when he told his girlfriend about magic a bit too early. Malfoy was the one who reset that timeline, and the following one was actually pretty happy. Then a half-blood Ravenclaw reset to save her sister.

..

Sybil sighed. Maybe this time she'd find and destroy that ritual.