Chapter 12: Double
Worried about the danger I heard behind the familiar voice, I cast, "Lumos."
At first, I was relieved to see that it was definitely Mira who was pinning me to the wall of the alley. I was much less than comforted as I studied her, however. Her eyes were deep red, her face gaunt with hunger, and her expression like a wild animal. And then I knew:
This was not my Mira.
"What do you think your wand will do? You and your magic are nothing against me," Mira taunted. "And you smell so sweet – you will be quite the feast."
"You haven't fed in a long time," I said, noting her obvious hunger. "You won't have the strength to fend off my spells," I said as confidently as possible.
The vampire tilted her head slightly in curiosity. "Have you faced a vampire before?"
"Yes," I said with a nervous smile, tilting my neck slightly to show the bite marks that Mira had left me. This other Mira from the past looked quite astonished.
"And you survived? With blood that smells as delicious as yours?"
"She has a point, Lucius. You are lucky to be alive."
Both me and the other Mira turned to look at a shadow approaching from the darkness. "Mira?" I glanced at the vampire in front of me and back to the one who had bitten me. "Don't you know better than this?" I said warningly, knowing full well the possible effects of seeing oneself in the past.
"You're one to talk," Mira said, stepping into the light of my Lumos spell.
The Mira who had accosted me gaped, taking a few steps away from me as she shook her head in astonishment and disbelief. "You – you're – but – that's not right. That's so not right. You fool, I'll go mad!"
"I'll be fine," Mira said quietly, coming up beside me. "I remember this meeting. I remember seeing myself."
"This explains so much about you," I said, doing my best to keep a straight face.
"Lucius," Mira said warningly, but with an amused grin. "I remember you doing this, as well." Her hand darted towards me, grasping my wrist so tightly I momentarily feared she would break the bone, and she pulled my hand up toward her mouth. My breath quickened as she brought my hand closer to her lips, her fangs glinting in the light at the end of my wand, although she did not bite.
"I don't understand," the other Mira said. "How do you know me? I mean, know her? Who are you?" she asked Mira. "When are you from?" Before the confused Mira could step further away, the Mira I knew grabbed onto the collar of the other Mira's clothing.
"You aren't going anywhere, not yet." Mira turned back to me, eyeing the blood dripping from my hand hungrily. "May I?"
Swallowing with difficulty, I said, "If you can refrain from -."
I did not even have a chance to finish before Mira's tongue darted out and licked the blood from my hand. Her lips gently touched my skin as she began to suck ever so slightly, drawing a little more blood from my veins. "Mira…" I said fearfully.
Mira drew back, licking my blood from her lips before turning back to the other Mira. "Sorry," she said under her breath, her eyes glowing. My heart pounded with fear and a strange thrill at the sensation as I looked down at my tingling hand.
"Now I know this is all a lie. You aren't really me," the other Mira said harshly. "I would never hold back, not with him. Him and his precious pureblood nonsense. It's those like him that keep those like me underground. He even betrays his own kind when it suits him. He deserves nothing short of a horrific death," Mira spat angrily.
Stunned, I turned to my Mira. "You hated me?"
Mira averted her eyes from mine. "More like loathed with a passion. But I know that she's lying; she would hold back."
"I would not!" the other Mira protested.
"You wouldn't because of Narcissa," Mira countered. "You wouldn't really kill your only friend's husband." Mira appeared angry, but did not deny it. "But back to the point. The reason why I'm here, in Hogsmeade – doesn't that interest you, Lucius?"
"How do you know?" the other Mira gasped.
"I'm you, remember?" Mira responded. "Care to tell dear Lucius what exactly you are here for?"
"I'm supposed to believe that he's going to become dear Lucius? Bullshit." The other Mira tried to pull away from my Mira's grip, but Mira grabbed onto her with both hands and shoved her forcibly against the nearby wall. After a moment of silence, the other Mira said, "I promised not to tell him."
"But why? We've never met before," I said in confusion.
"I've been sent to kill Ginny Weasley," my Mira said blatantly.
My mouth dropped open in shock. "The little Weasley girl? But who would want to kill her?"
The other Mira scoffed, and in unison the two said, "Your wife."
"She found out what you did with the diary. She, unlike yourself, was wise enough to realize how important an item it was," the other Mira said with spite.
"Out of fear for you and your son, she sent me to kill her," my Mira added.
"You would never be suspected," the other Mira continued without pause. "You would never associate with someone like me."
"If Ginny realized what you had done and told, you could have been ruined."
"If the Dark Lord returned because of it, your family would be in danger."
"Either way, it was better off for her to be dead," my Mira finished.
This sudden revelation was even more disconcerting for the fact that two Miras were standing before me. I could hardly believe what they were telling me. "So…" I said, trying to get my mind around all the new information. "My wife caused the change in reality?"
"Actually I think we did." Mira stepped away from her former self. "Don't move. I can catch you," she warned her former self before moving to speak in my ear. "We messed with time, Lucius. That's how we got here. That's how I remember this meeting. Something happens here, now, that changes the future."
After a brief pause to think, I said, "Killing the Weasley girl."
"What of it?" Mira asked quietly.
"If Ginny Weasley is dead, the Dark Lord can't use her life force to come back. You – she – has to go through with it."
"No!" Mira's strong response startled me. "No. Lucius – I killed Ginny Weasley." Again she surprised me. Mira did not seem the type to kill the innocent – of course, I did not know that she had hated me previously either. What else did I not know about my friend? "And the Dark Lord returned. I think we have to assume that not killing her leads to the life you want, with Narcissa and Draco safe."
"You killed her? But I wasn't going to," the other Mira interjected. "It's too risky. Not to mention that I'm not going to kill an innocent girl."
"Oh, I'm sure you've never kill anyone innocent," my Mira said under her breath. She grew distant, calculating all the threads of time faster than I could even make any sense of the basics. "All right. You, come with me, I need to talk to you," she said, pointing to Mira. "And you, go do something else for a while," she continued, waving her hand at me as though shooing me away. "I'll find you, and you don't need to cut yourself."
"Are you certain you want to do this? You want to choose that reality?"
"I want Narcissa back too, Lucius," she said quietly.
"But - ."
"Look, this happened to me before, remember? I know what to do."
I sighed, looking curiously at the two vampires before turning and walking away. I went to the Three Broomsticks and had a butterbeer, than two. After my third I became worried and walked back towards the Hog's Head.
Looking through the window, I saw that Lupin was no longer inside, or at least not visibly, and the two vampires were seated at a table together. My Mira was writing something on a parchment and speaking urgently to the other. Something about how she told me this had happened to her before suddenly felt like a lie. I moved away from the window quickly when I saw the two Miras turning to look toward me. When I again ventured a glance a minute later, Mira was handing a sealed envelope to her former self.
Mira stepped out of the pub alone shortly after. Her expression was incredibly sad, with a look that a person has when they have committed themselves to doing something dreadful, but when she saw me, she immediately brightened. I would never have noticed her true feelings if she had not shown them a moment before.
"This should all work out. Hopefully the Dark Lord won't return, and then you can live out your life with your family," she said with a smile.
"What about us?" I reached out to touch her cheek. "What do we do now with the rest of our lives if this works?"
"I…I suppose we need to find some out of the way place. We'll have time to talk about it. If it doesn't work, we don't have another chance, not now that the Time-Turner is gone."
Her eyes were so deep and beautiful, yet no emotion was betrayed in them. "Let's go keep watch on Hogwarts and hope for the best."
We traveled up to a mountain overlooking Hogwarts so we could watch anyone entering or leaving the grounds. Now we just had to wait.
