She clenches her fist, the one held casually at her side, to repress a shiver.  She had a past life active in the wizarding world - who was a figure of mystery and fear - and now she's getting the sister wand to Maledict Gaunt, a shadowy mysterious fearsome wizard criminal - it feels like being found out - 

 - she needs to react to this in some way Maledict Gaunt absolutely would not, but she doesn't know anything about Maledict Gaunt - 

"I don't want to be anything like Maledict Gaunt," she says.  "She's just some murderer."

It's a lie, of course.  A dark wizard-overlord, shrouded in mystery, so cloaked in secrecy that people wonder whether or not she's real - even having discovered a brand-new world full of magic it's the most enticing thing she's ever heard of.

( - but she killed Petuna Evans' sister - )

She keeps her face on.

He studies her face.

"Perhaps, then," he murmurs, "something is looking for a second chance."

McGonagall strides forward and clears her throat.  "I think that's quite enough.  Whatever reasons this wand had for choosing Clover, she's an eleven year old child, and quite frankly I find this line of speculation tasteless and irresponsible."

"My apologies," Ollivander says, and leans back.  Had he been leaning forward?  "Perhaps our business should conclude here."

Clover retrieves seven galleons and places them on the table.

"Thank you."

Departure.

She hurries down the street.  "It seems I owe you another apology, Miss Evans-Potter."

She doesn't really want to figure out how to play somber, or rattled or uncomfortable, in whatever way McGonagall will expect her to be.  So she does a little sigh and puts on a smile and says, "It's all right.  I still got my wand, in the end."

" - if you're quite sure, Miss Evans-Potter."

"I am," she says, and puts a little skip in her step.

And behind her face, she thinks.

That evening, alone in her room with the excuse of a wealth of new books to read, she lets her childsface drop.

She had a past life active in the wizarding world, who was a figure of mystery and fear; and now she's gotten the sister wand to Maledict Gaunt, a shadowy mysterious fearsome wizard criminal.

The obvious thought, which she tried to steer both McGonagall and Ollivander away from, is that Clover Evans-Potter is the reincarnation of Maledict Gaunt.  Ollivander - was hard to get a read on, for all that she's pretty sure everything he said was sincere.  But McGonagall, unless she's as good at faces as Clover is, was probably genuinely outraged when she interrupted Ollivander's speculations, at the suggestion that the poor innocent bright young girl that Clover has been pretending to be might be connected to Maledict.

So she's safe, in the near term; but having the sister wand to a dead dark wizard is probably going to continue to prompt speculation.  If it becomes known, that is.  McGonagall probably won't spread it around, if her outburst was sincere; she pretty clearly wants Clover to be treated normally, screened off from the effects of her complicated history.  But she doesn't know how much of a gossip Ollivander is.

And is reincarnation a known phenomenon?  She still has only a vague idea of what magical tropes might have secretly corresponded to reality all along.  Ollivander didn't raise the possibility, but she doesn't know if she can bank on it not entering anyone's minds, if they notice the wand-siblinghood or other connections between her and Maledict.

But there's not much she can do about it either way, except not bring it up herself, and continue presenting herself as someone who holds Maledict Gaunt in contempt.

But leaving all that aside...

Is she the reincarnation of Maledict Gaunt?  It is the most obvious guess, considering the wand connection, and the parallels between how Clover remembers being and how everyone else remembers Maledict being.  But supposedly she was already one year old when Maledict came to her birth parents' house to kill them.  How can she be the reincarnation of someone who was still alive after she was born?  Could reincarnation go back in time like that?

And if she and Maledict are both the same person... it's an awfully big coincidence, Maledict dying right when she goes after Clover's family.  Did she know, when she was Maledict, what would happen?  Did she, Clover, kill her own mother?

If anyone knows why Maledict went after the Potters - or Potter-Evanses or Evans-Potters or whatever they'd been - there might be a hint, there.

She can't make much progress on any of these questions, tonight - except to see if any of her new schoolbooks contain references to reincarnation.  She's going to spend some time reading after all, then.

By the next morning she has found - nothing.  If wizards do ever reincarnate into other wizards, they don't want first-years to know about it.

In fact over the next few weeks she continues to find nothing on the subject!  McGonagall takes her exploring in Diagon Alley and doles out a few galleons of gold to try snacks and restaurants or purchase knickknacks for herself every so often.  After many days of appearing earnest, responsible, polite, and obedient, McGonagall even lets her out of her sight for a day or two.

She's not sure whether, since McGonagall is in charge of her vault, Gringott's will tell McGonagall if Clover shows up there to make change for a sapphire; so she finds a promisingly seedy little side street off Diagon Alley and pawns it.  It's probably conspicuous for an eleven-year-old to be pawning off a sapphire, but at least the owner probably doesn't have a line on any of her legal guardians.

She gets two hundred and fifty galleons for it.  Probably less than she could've gotten at Gringott's, but it's still nice to have a rainy-day fund that she can get to on short notice without going through any grownups.  A little tension eases inside her, that she hadn't realized she'd been carrying.

Little by little, she's starting to feel more like whoever she used to be.

She purchases an extension-charmed drawstring pouch, that she can pull open wide enough to fit larger objects than coins and gems into, and she purchases a wizarding first-aid kit, to keep inside it along with the rest of her rainy-day fund, and she keeps the pouch itself hidden discreetly up her sleeve.  (Wizard robes often have pockets sewn into the insides of their long flowing sleeves, enchanted to keep small items in place for easy retrieval.)

There is little else to do in Diagon Alley, in the leadup to the start of term.  Clover purchases a few extracurricular modern-history books, aiming to learn about Maledict Gaunt to the extent she can.  (McGonagall somberly notes her interest, and makes herself available to talk, and Clover manages to hit a nice sad-but-accepting note: she just wants to understand what happened, and why, and the world that she's coming into.  This seems to satisfy McGonagall.)

September first, she and McGonagall meet with Petunia at King's Cross.

"Promise you'll write?" her mother says, and she promises.

"I got you a late birthday present," she says, and she hands over two journals and a pencil box full of Muggle pens and mechanical pencils.  "You can of course use either or both of the journals for whatever you like, as much or as little as you like.  I know the one with the lock on it is a bit childish, but I thought the lock may make it easier to magic it shut, if you learn to magic things shut.  And the pens are just - well, your mother took to it fine, but I can't imagine always writing with quill feathers and ink bottles."

"Thank you," she says.  McGonagall left the two of them alone, so she has her childsface off, and it's strange to talk to someone without wearing a face, but she doesn't mind so much with her mother as she would with anyone else.

Her mother smiles, warm and - understanding.  "You're welcome.  Have a good term.  I love you, Clover."

"I love you too."

She doesn't completely know how to mean it, but - it's not a lie in quite the same way it'd be a lie to anyone else.

She puts her face back on as McGonagall takes her through the brick wall between platforms nine and ten, into platform nine-and-three-quarters.  They got there early; McGonagall leaves via one of the floo-fireplaces set into the opposite wall, to get to Hogwarts and help set things up for the first day of term.  There are stalls set up on the platform, selling newspapers and snacks; it reminds her a bit of a Muggle airport.  She purchases a few snacks, secures herself a compartment on the train, and waits.

Train departs.

She managed to get a miniature compartment at one end of one car, and keeps her trunk on the other seat; so she's not disturbed by other students looking for their own seats.  She reads her history books, waves off the candy lady.

Sky darkens, train arrives.  The face she's going to be wearing for the foreseeable future wouldn't be unfriendly, so she makes light, brief conversation with the other kids as they're led away from the station, down to and across the lake, into the entrance hall of Hogwarts.

McGonagall addresses the group.  They're each going to have a private conversation with the Sorting Hat, then stand in the Great Hall in a line while it ceremoniously announces everyone's houses.

She's read up on the Hat in advance.  The Hat is very well known for never betraying any secrets it learns in the Sorting ceremony, up to and including knowledge of or participation in actual crimes, without the permission of the students whose head it learned them from. More than once, enterprising Hogwarts faculty have tried to apply mind-reading magic to it to extract those secrets from it, with no success.

So she's probably safe.

Still, she's ill-at-ease, behind her face.

She places the hat on her head.

Hello, Miss Evans-Potter.

Hello.  It's exactly like talking except that her mouth doesn't move and her throat makes no sound.  Can you only perceive things I say like this?