Disclaimer: If you recognize someone, they belong to JKR. The others are creations of mine to fill the gaps. Plus, any similarities are accidental and completely unintentional.
A/N: Something Lost is Part 3 of a four part story. I DO NOT recommend continuing without checking out Part 1 The Quidditch Trials and (especially) Part 2 Something Found. This story picks up directly where they left off. You'll be missing things if you don't. Don't miss things.
This story and its companions are a continuation of the world I began way back with my original Ted/Victoire series. While this trilogy will stand completely on its own and does not require you to check out the previous stories, those that have will notice that details travel in between. I personally would recommend starting from the beginning of the T/V series, but I also took the time to write everything. I obviously want you to do that. :)
Dominique Weasley's eyes opened, though she wasn't entirely sure this was true since her surroundings were currently as dark as the inside of her eyelids. Blackness. That was all she could see. In every direction, complete darkness; there wasn't even a hint of light anywhere to be found. All she could sense was cold, dank air. Wherever she was, it was musty and cold and she didn't like it.
She'd been lying on the ground—on her side—though the surface below her was soft like a thin mattress or a very thick blanket. There was nothing else she could feel—no pillows, no top covers, nothing like that. She felt herself—first her head, then her face, working her way down. Everything felt normal, though she didn't recognize the clothes she was wearing. This was not the sweatshirt and joggers she'd worn to Quidditch practice, but rather something different entirely. It was tight fitting and rather intricately detailed. She also realized she didn't have shoes on as she wiggled her toes in a completely unobstructed manner. She quickly put together that she was somewhere dark, on a soft surface, in strange clothes and no shoes.
For whatever the reason, she wasn't afraid. Confused, yes, but not afraid. The last memory she'd had was from McGonagall's office, and she'd known then that she would end up in some precarious position one way or another. She was actually a bit relieved she wasn't underwater, but—then again—her aunt had always said she had been blacked out during the entire challenge and remembered nothing; waking only once it was over. Dominique had blacked out, but she was awake now and it didn't seem as if anything was completed. Had Louis finished whatever this was? If so, why was she still here? Why was it so dark? Why weren't things moving along?
She reached for her wand, happy to see it was still on her person, and immediately said, "Lumos." She went to stand, but she was suddenly afraid of what else lay beyond this soft surface. What if the mattress was the only solid surface in the room and the rest was open abyss? She tentatively reached out to feel around while shining her wand light on where her hand currently was. A stone floor. That was all that surrounded her mattress. She shined the light around the room and saw entirely stone surfaces. A large stone room about the size of the common room back in Gryffindor Tower.
A noise startled her and she immediately shined her light in the direction of what she now could just make out as a door. She pulled herself up and kept her wand at the ready as the door seemed to be opening rather slowly. Now she felt a little afraid. Something in the air had shifted and she felt the hairs on her arm stand at attention. The door pushed open to reveal the lit silhouette of a door frame backed by firelight. A figure stood there, though she couldn't make out who it was or whether it was even a male or a female. This was not the same as being blacked out at the bottom of a lake whatsoever.
Her room suddenly illuminated itself as four torches that had been mounted on the walls—she hadn't noticed them before—allowed for flames to burst out of them. They cast a warm glow over the room and revealed that she really was sitting in a stone, dungeon-esque room with two sealed doors on opposite walls. The light also allowed for the figure in the doorway's identity to now become obvious. It was Louis. He was standing there, drenched in sweat, with his wand raised directly at her and wearing as serious an expression as she'd ever seen him make in almost eighteen years on this planet.
She lowered her wand once their eyes met, but he didn't do the same. It actually didn't seem as if he had any intention of doing the same. In fact, it was bizarre how he was looking at her—as if he didn't know what to make of her or as if she were some strange creature who was about to pounce on him. She'd be lying if she said she hadn't been anticipating a more pleasant reunion.
"What are you doing?" she asked him, noticing that he'd only taken a few tentative steps into the room. His wand was still aimed directly at her.
He didn't say anything. He continued to stare and point his wand.
Her wand was still resting at her side, but she suddenly felt the need to grip it tighter. Not that she could ever out duel or spellcast her brother even on her best day, but for whatever reason, it made her feel better about the fact that he was still aiming his directly at her.
"Seriously, Louis, what are you doing?"
He was ten feet away at this point and now that she got a good look at him, he looked wrecked. His hair was matted to his forehead in sweat and the shirt he was wearing was stuck to him as if he'd just gone swimming. He was also dirty and definitely a bit paler than usual. He seemed to be studying her, watching her mannerisms and her face. She found herself anxious under his strange gaze.
"Would you say something?" She stepped forward to knock his wand away with her wand—something she'd always done when he was pestering her when they were younger—but Louis immediately went on the defensive and jumped back in a startled fashion.
"Don't!" he yelled, pointing his wand with a certain feriosity at her. "Stay back!"
She froze, her eyes wide and her wand still outstretched. What was happening? She'd never seen that look in his eyes before. It was wild and almost unhinged. What had they done to him?
"Lou, it's me."
"Yeah, that's what the last three said," he stammered, his wand never leaving the ready position. "You've all fucking said that!"
"'You've all'?" she repeated, not understanding what that meant. "I don't know who you're talking about or what they're saying, but I'm me. Dominique. Your sister. If you can't see that—"
"This whole fucking maze of a place had been filled with my sister!" he yelled again. "You're the fourth one I've seen since I've entered! I'm just waiting to see what you're going to try and do to me. Melt. Attack me. Disappear."
She made a face. She wasn't following. Had he said melt? That didn't even make sense. "I don''t know what you're talking about. I just woke up here in this weird place and now you're doing this. I haven't—"
"How the hell am I supposed to know what's the truth?" he said. "You're all fucking different. Each one of you. But only one of you is actually you. Every single one of you seems real until you're not."
"Ok," she said, slowly piecing together what she thought was happening here. He'd claimed to have seen several versions of her, and they'd all gone and done something or attacked him. Did he have to find the real her? Which was her. She knew that. He didn't. She had to make him see that.
"Well, I'll spoil the fun for you because you've got the right person this time. It's actually me."
"They've all said that!"
Made sense. They probably would all have said that if the entire challenge was for him to find her. She had to convince him. A small memory of McGonagall saying something about her being the person he knew best. She was starting to see what this challenge was all about. Figuring out real truths.
"So, ask me something only I would know," she said to him. "I'll prove it to you I am who I say I am."
"That's the fucking problem," Louis said. "You all know everything about my sister. Everything! They've gone and somehow made copies of her and each one is as real as the next. You feel as real as the last ones."
Well, shit. She stood there fairly gobsmacked. That had to be what the stupid orb was about. It had somehow allowed them to figure her out and copy her. Someone really didn't know what they were thinking when they decided to bring multiple versions of her into the world. Here's hoping Louis had gone and destroyed them all because even she knew that one Dominique Weasley was more than enough.
But that needed to stop now. McGonagall has promised she wouldn't be hurt, but what exactly was stopping Louis from cursing her and causing her some serious damage? Did she have protective spells around her? If he tried something, would she disappear somehow? He had to find her, so it seemed that cursing her seemed counterproductive. Would he have to stay in this weird place until he discovered she was who she said she was? She was suddenly having second thoughts about agreeing to any of this.
"What's your gut telling you?" she asked him, staring directly at the tip of his wand pointed in her face. "Am I me? Am I not?"
"I don't know," he said quietly, though the tip of his wand lowered slightly as he seemed to take her in and observe her. "I want to say no because my sister wouldn't wear that." He used his wand to gesture to her. "But that could also be a trick. This place loves it's tricks."
She immediately looked down to what she was wearing, having not bothered to pay attention until this very moment. She was wearing a dress. And not the type of dress she would have worn, but a frilly, Natalie-like, sequined dress that she'd never have been caught dead in on any day of the week.
"Oh, this is a trick, alright," she said, looking back at him. "I wasn't wearing this when I got here. I came from Quidditch practice. I don't know where this—" she swatted at the dress as if it were a bug, "came from. I'd never wear this."
"Now that actually sounds like her," Louis said. "But this place is all about fucking with me, so it's hard to say."
Dominique gawked at him. "Louis, they clearly put me in an ugly dress to confuse you."
He stared at her. She couldn't tell if he was processing how stupid that all sounded or whether her story seemed to check out. He was so much closer now—the closest he'd been since entering the room—and even with all the extreme doubt and trepidation in his expression, she still found herself overwhelmed with how happy she felt just to see him. If a person could take the form of a security blanket, her brother was that person. She felt better knowing he was here and that he was safe and that he wasn't trapped somewhere or facing man-eating dragons, even if he looked as if he was going to blast her at a moment's notice. She knew it was him which was why she could feel this way; she just had to convince him she was her.
"So," she asked, cutting through the silence, "if we just stand here all day and I don't melt or attack you, will that convince you that it's me?"
"You'll disappear after eight minutes," he said. "Every room so far, you've either turned into something, attacked me, or disappeared. I keep going—keep doing this—until I can claim to have found the real you."
"Let me save you some time," she offered, stepping toward him to look him in the eyes. "It's me. You have to know it's me."
He stared back at her and for the first time, seemed a little emotional as he let her get within arm's length. "You have no idea how similar each of you have been. You all seem like her."
"I don't know whether I should be offended by how little you can pick me out of a crowd or impressed at how good these copies are."
"Probably both."
She smiled for the first time. "Banter, Louis. Come on! This is us! Do those copies banter as well as the real me can?"
She noticed his wand dropped ever so slightly. "I feel like the real you would be swearing a lot more," he said. "Especially given the circumstances."
"Fuck you!" she yelled loudly. "Fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck you!"
He still didn't seem entirely convinced; he actually seemed even more frustrated and confused. There had to be something she could do to convince him. But if these Beauxbatons' task planners really had just copied her personality into multiple versions of her, then how was she supposed to even have any secrets? They apparently knew everything about her to the point that they could convincingly banter with her brother as only she knew how. What weird fucking magic was this? What was left for her to even use?
Like a Bludger to the head, she suddenly had an idea. This wasn't something someone could copy because it wasn't something about her, or about him. It was just something they could do, like a sixth-sense. There was no way to forge this skill.
"Think of a number," she said to him.
He stared at her, his eyes were either watering from sweat, stress, or tears, but once she said that, he closed his eyes and took an incredibly heavy breath. When he opened them and looked directly back at her, he even went so far as to lower his wand entirely. They stared at each other for a long moment. For whatever reason, the number seven came screaming back at her—as clear as day.
"It's seven."
His ridiculously pained expression suddenly broke into a laugh—an almost doubtful laugh, but there was amusement there. "I swear to Merlin if it's not you—"
"It is me," she said, watching as Louis stepped forward and wasted no time to hug her. She wrapped her arms around him and felt as if she'd never once in her life had him hug her like that before—as if his life depended on it. He was soaking wet and smelled like a dirty sock, but it didn't stop her from hugging him as tightly as she could. "And the fact that you can't pick me out straight away hurts my feelings, you git."
As they broke apart, Louis was still taking giant breaths, as if his body was attempting to calm itself down. She could sense his pent up anxiety and could only hope he'd been taking his potions in order to stave off one of his notorious anxiety attacks. When they'd been smaller, they'd been rather debilitating for him,
He noticed her watching him and waved her off in a reassuring way, "I'll be ok. I'm just coming down from a serious adrenaline rush."
"Have you been taking your—?"
"Yes. I'm not having an anxiety attack. I'm just relieved."
"No judgement if you were. This is stressful."
He laughed at that between heavy breaths.
She looked around the room, wondering what was supposed to happen now. He'd identified her and she hadn't melted away. Shouldn't this be over? Shouldn't something be happening? "Is someone going to let us out of here?"
Louis nodded, gesturing toward her wand as he suddenly reached into his pocket for a small box, just a bit bigger than a ring box. He popped it open to reveal—the ball. The orb she'd touched at the Ministry was sitting inside looking well protected. Why did he have that?
He held it up to her. "We need to both tap it with our wands at the same time. It'll end the task. That's what they told me."
Dominique was a little hesitant, considering the last time she'd come into contact with that thing, very strange things had occurred. Then again, how much stranger could things really get considering the two of them were currently standing in a dungeon room surrounded by fire burning torches and she was in a cocktail dress.
"Count of three," Louis said, gesturing for her to lift her wand up. "Just tap it. Ready?"
She held up her wand to signal that she was.
"One, two—"
They both tapped on three. Once again after coming in contact with that orb, the strangest sensation surged through her. She felt as if she were falling through a tunnel of light—blinding light—though it quickly turned into images. These images flashed by so quickly that she couldn't have identified one if she tried; it was as if someone was rapidly flipping the pages of a picture book in front of her face in a never ending sort of fashion. Hundreds and hundreds of pictures whirled by in a daze until suddenly, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. For the second time within hours, she'd completely blacked out.