ＴＷＯ
𝕚𝕧𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕓𝕝𝕖
THE VIALS FIT IN HER FINGERS PERFECTLY as she scanned through the contents of the shelves. "Not what you're looking for, Miss Irving?" Douglass Tink asked from across the shop. He was shrewd man, but an amazing wizard who could brew a potion with the bare minimum. She, without a wand and a being a little cheat, got by much off potions and the wandless sort of magic. He had closed up shop when Diagon Alley had exploded—well, the bank exploded. Even then, Death Eaters didn't manage to break into the vaults.
When rejoining the wizarding community, she went by Emilia Irving since Ivy Evans had made too much of a name as a dastardly asshole. Especially when dealing with anyone in the black arts or the magical black markets. "Oh indeed. All are fairly nefarious, but I'm more so looking for the particular." Ivy waved her hand, as if discussing having scones with tea. The shop was a dark maroon, curtsy of Douglass's Gryffindor roots no doubt. There were a variety of tapestries, satin curtains, and trinkets that would likely curse her with bad luck.
"And what, particular, cannot be accomplished with instant death?" Douglass grinned, showing off yellow chipped teeth as he lifted the 'instant death' potion as he called it. The casings of many potions, each likely more deadly than the last, reminding her of her love for the subject. She had been a true talent once, but English potion making was yet another task rendered nearly useless without a wand. At the very least, she couldn't make the potions she once knew and relearning potions from different cultures and languages was a work in progress from the English community of magic.
When Ivy had been stripped of her wand, at first, it felt like a part of her had been broken that day. She wasn't good at anything else.
It was only later that she realized magic came from desperation and pain. She had more than enough of both. She started anew, and found that she was still good at it.
Douglass held up the potion higher, allowing her to inspect all its beauty. It was a stark black, with bits of glittery silver mixed with the liquid.
"I never thought I'd say this, but not all can be solved with killing my enemies, Mr. Tink." She lowered her head towards the vial she came into the shop for. She ordered it special only last month. Tink had certainly taken his time, but the best things were worth waiting for, even if she was getting impatient. Even if she could make it faster and better, if only another wand would only choose her.
She lifted it from the casing, swirling it around with a smile as if she were a child getting sweets. Her ruby red lips were visible from beneath the shadow of her hat.
"Another ward against bad luck." Douglass snorted. "How dull this week, Miss Irving."
"I've caught the evil eye it would seem. My wardings are failing."
"Wand spells are more effective with wards."
"Oh indeed. I'm a bit old fashioned I'm afraid," she replied, tipping her hat. He didn't need to know that she had no wand. Besides, the English often thought their wand spells the most effective versus wandless Asian and African practices. They were wrong. She just didn't know the language as well and these last few years had been about catching up with the parts of magic that she didn't know.
For defensive and offensive magic, she was quite the talent. Dueling had adjusted just fine. Ivy adjusted her hat again, her long nails scraping against the suede. The chill was biting in the shop, and had she not charmed her coat with a warming spell, she might have been shivering. Ivy spoke again, "And I believe a foe has cursed my craft." She suspected one of her magical customers, and now her spells were not going according to plan.
"Instant death, might I recommend." Tink was enjoying her plight, but Ivy only smiled.
"Death is so messy and quick, Mr. Tink. I prefer life in suffrage for my enemies. Would you create a special brew?" With a slight of hand, a small slip of paper appeared in between her fingers. She handed him the paper with a smile, watching him take it with raised, bushy brows.
"I've never made this before."
"It's homebrew. A talent such as yourself can figure out what it does by ingredients alone." She leaned her elbows on the desk, her long sleeves slipping down past her forearms. Her smile was devious, causing Mr. Tink to lean away. "Does that mean you accept the challenge or the defeat?"
"Considering the monumental day of celebration, I accept." Douglass pocketed the paper, but her attention was peaked.
"Celebration? Whatever for?"
"You have not heard, Miss Irving?"
"I have been away." Due to her status, her lack of wand, and terrible personality, it wasn't exactly safe around magical folk. She didn't make nearly as much money with them, but more so, with the wizarding war, she hardly wanted to be involved with them. Non-magic folk were easier to swindle and they didn't ask her questions on a magical war. Didn't ask her what side she was on, what actions or support she planned on giving. When she said she was on no side, magical folk always found it selfish, as she had any reason to fight.
"You-Know-Who has been defeated." He sounded particularly excited about it, and she was talented at reading a lie. It was the truth. Also, she had long since suspected that Tink had been a Voldemort supporter. She had very much misjudged him. Ivy's brows raised as a bit of relief cast over her body like a douse of cold water. "You underreact, Miss Irving." Perhaps all this time, he too took her as a Voldemort supporter. They had both kept a professional relationship, never asking about loyalty with every transaction.
"I'm English," she said, as if that were excuse enough. "How was he defeated? Did Dumbledore finally have a Grindelwald style of duel?"
"I know not, Miss. Just that he's gone and his followers are scattered." His eyes dragged over her posh robes and the dark brown of her eyes. It was as if, odd as the timing was at the end of a war, that he was assessing her loyality. If she had seen someone of her description, asking for homebrews and casting dark charms, she would likely think herself a Voldemort supporter as well. Throw in her Slytherin house and the very public expulsion, she made for a very dark reputation. If, one always abided by stereotypes.
"Best buy up their properties then," she said, her eyes scanning over the potions before straying back over to him. Tink was a sturdy man, fit and lean, but it was his eyes that told a story. She always took her studies quite seriously and knew her magical creatures well enough to know a half-breed when she saw one. It made sense, as Tink's shop was in the most shadow cast part of London and how, despite even in the peak of summer, his skin was always a pasty white. Her thoughts on his heritage were why she very much doubted he could ever support the prejudiced, ignorant, dick-headed views of one such as Voldemort. "While they are on the run."
Tink slowly grinned, the suspicion in his deep hooded, almost blood-red eyes, dimming. "You are a devious sort, aren't you?"
"Extra cash has to go somewhere. Jump on it before others get their hands on it." Yet another reason she had been so reluctant to join the war effort. While wizards were fighting for some senseless battle, she was using every means to consolidate wealth when the competition for finances weren't as high. The ministry's regulations had been abysmal, allowing her to get away with things that never should have been possible before the war. That included all the stealing from muggles that used to be under strict watch. Now, she had an abundance of wealth protected by the greed of goblins.
She paid for the potion in silence. As she left, she took a hard left towards upper Diagon Alley, instead of right towards the worse side of town. In the sky were fireworks, all looking as intricate and magical as can be. She had seen them that morning but hadn't been too interested in the origin of the celebration. People were cheering, hugging their families. Ivy felt out of place immediately as a wizard gripped her shoulders.
"He's finally gone," the man shouted over the cheering.
"Oi, get the hell off," she ordered, but the man didn't mind her tone as she was tossed into the crowd. She grabbed her bag, pulling out a small compact mirror that she always carried but never opened. She went to open it, but hesitated, slipping it back into her bag. Through the crowd, she noticed a stiff-looking cat, up on the roof of the broom shop.
Ivy's brows furrowed as a spark of familiarity rang in her mind. She brushed it off, rushing forward since crowds were noisy and annoying. They also had no sense of personal space and she wasn't about to join their Kumbaya circle. She rushed towards the public transport, picking a random fireplace and flooing out of Diagon Alley.
️
It was the dead of night, and Dumbledore stood in the middle of the empty street. His thick bushy brows were still, even as he heard the soft steps of a cat turn into a woman. "I've heard the rumors, but I wanted not to believe them."
"They are true," Dumbledore said, and heard Minerva sniff.
"And you mean to leave him with muggles? They are the worst sort of people."
"If it displeases your, Lily had another sister."
"A criminal, a murderer, and a thief."
"The only family he has."
"One's a cruel muggle and the other a rotten apple dealing in black magic."
"Not any options. She is removed from the community. It is best he grow up away from it until he can handle knowing just how famous he is."
"You think she will make a good mother. That either of them would?"
Albus Dumbledore didn't understand why that was important or relevant to the greater good.
"I think one sister will grow into the role of a good protector." Dumbledore's voice was grave, his mind going in places that Minerva could never follow. She analyzed the shape of his trimmed beard, the old wrinkles, and the new ones. Minerva loved the old man deeply, respected him, admired him, and tried never to doubt him. However, her Ravenclaw mind was always spinning, always questioning, but Dumbledore was forever the mystery she could never truly understand. She knew, despite her doubts, that he never did anything without reason, even if he trusted no one with those reasons.
"There must be other options. I've watched them both all day. Both sisters are the absolute worst sort of people. Albus, he won't be safe with either." Minerva never understood Albus's odd fixation on one Ivy Evans. While Minerva could admit that the girl had a cunning mind and a prodigy-like talent, Minerva also saw that said mind was clouded with greed and arrogance. Such terrible qualities are made even worse when tied to a magical genius. Minerva had been one of the many in support of both Ivy Evans's expulsion and snapping of her wand.
Minerva's mentor and current headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, had been firmly in favor of forgetting about Ivy Evans's crime. The transfiguration professor could never figure out why, but suspected it was due to this 'greater good' that he was so fond of putting above all else.
Dumbledore met her gaze with a twinkle in his eye. "They are the only ones he would be safe with."
Minerva saw his absolution, his clear confidence, and belief in everything he said. It was only the singular fact that his face and voice were without a doubt that she relented. "Which one?"
"Like a game of roulette, do you not think so?" Dumbledore said with wry amusement that did not reach his eyes. Minerva doubted that either would take a child without a fight. Often, there was very little that Ivy Evans ever did without fighting. She had been a nightmare to teach, to guide, as she often got up to troublemaking of the sort much different than anything Potter, Lupin, Black, and Pettigrew ever attempted. Minera, often in times of weakness, wondered if it was because she had given up, that the little Evans had gone astray.
In the end, she believed it was her shortcomings as a teacher that led to Ivy Evans's last days at Hogwarts. However, the memory of Evans's bitterness, anger, and icy temper reminded Minerva that she was the absolute worst choice to take care of a baby. The Boy Who Lived would become the Boy Who Died of Dehydration and Neglect. Minerva saw her mentor's resolve and felt true worry for the bundle in Dumbledore's arms.
Petunia Evans and her family were not much better, even if Minerva knew them less than she did the Slytherin nightmare. They were not only deeply concerned for their image, but of how even the shape and trim of the ferns affected their own image. Minerva could remember the many times Lily Evans would come to her in tears over the lack of letters Petunia would send, wondering why her sister hated her so. As there was no love between these sisters, how could anyone expect Petunia to love her sister's son?
"What of Sirius Black?" Minerva asked, her voice riddled with desperation. Dumbledore had grown deathly silent at the utterance of the name. "He is the boy's godfather. Should he not have that right?" She thought Sirius Black a reckless terror, dreading the thought of teaching a kid raised by a genius prankster. However, Sirius had grown in the years of the war, becoming a man that Minerva was proud of. More than that, where Petunia Evans was bitter and ignorant, and where Ivy Evans was cruel and devious, Sirius Black was a man of morals and kindness. "Do we have the right to decide anything while Sirius Black is the rightful godfather?"
There was a moment of silence, and the air around Dumbledore grew unreadable as he stared down at the bundle. It was as if the thought of Sirius Black had never even crossed his brilliant mind. Minerva felt a flicker of hope in her chest. A small ember of hope that this little babe who lost everything would go to a truly loving home. That hope became ashes when Dumbledore's gaze met hers. "I suppose Mr. Black does issue a problem."
"Why must the child go to one of the sisters?" Minerva asked, desperate to change his mind.
"Because Lily's love created a shield around the child," Dumbledore explained, holding the child as one would a particularly useful weapon. "That sort of old magic fades with time. We must make certain that the spell keeps in place."
"So what of Sirius?" Minerva felt the hope fade as logic set in.
"We must deal with him later." Dumbledore transfigured a nearby piece of plywood into a small wicker basket, placing Harry, still bundled in the blanket made by his grandparents, inside. "For now, we do what we can." Dumbledore paused, as if considering something. His wonderful mind always working, going places that no one could follow.
️
Sirius Black thought it was difficult, losing Marlene. He had been so certain, after the war, that somehow, through the endless death and destruction, that they would make a life with one another. He regretted pushing her away in the last few weeks before her death. He regretted many fucking things, but asking her to marry him was definitely never one of them. It had been a spur of the moment, brilliant idea, said in the midst of battle.
The fact that she was stupid enough to say yes had made him happier than he could ever describe. When she died, there had been a tether, and it had snapped before him. He became a husk of a thing, a lifeless shell that had once been Sirius Black. He began to throw himself, more reckless than before, into battle. He searched for the Death Eater that had killed the most powerful and kind woman he had ever met. He found nothing. He might have even offed himself, but it had been James that kept him grounded, who was there for him even when he wanted so badly to just die.
"Lily is pregnant," James had told him, and Sirius had felt a spark of his old self, a small ember of that man who had been snuffed out in the weeks following the annihilation of the McKinnon family. "So you're basically an uncle. And between you and me, mate, I'm a rather shitty excuse for a father." James had put his hand on Sirius's shoulder, a spark of humor in his rather terrified voice. "So I figure, if we put both of us together, we can become some semblance of the man that Lily needs for Harry."
Sirius felt absorbed in the memory, of the smell of the Azalea flowers that Lily loved to grow. Of the little waving vines of ivy plants that Lily liked to grow, despite them being so high maintainace. Sirius didn't have to be a genius to know that she only kept them because they reminded her of her sister. She even kept little petunias, even though everyone in the house knew that Petunia Evans hated her sisters. Then again, both of Lily's sisters were raging bitches, but at the very least, Ivy had always been hilarious.
"Not sure if I'm ready to be a father, mate," Sirius had told James, a wry grin on his face as he felt James's hand tighten on his shoulder.
"I'm not sure if you're getting what I'm asking of you, Sirius," James said, and his affectionate tone was always one that put people at ease. They were rather close now, to which Lily undoubtedly found amusing, judging by the scoff she gave from behind them. There she leaned, her swollen belly held by both hands as she lifted her stomach a tad, as if the action gave immense relief.
"Probably because you haven't actually asked, James darling. Instead, I've got material for my newest nightmares of you two running off and eloping," Lily had said with that dry sort of humor that only she could manage. Sirius found the concept hilarious, earning a slight smile, a ghost of his usual, but the best he could provide.
"I'm asking you to be our child's godfather," James said with a grin. "But if an elopement is the condition for you saying yes, I can take one for the team."
"I don't know how that would be beneficial to me?" Lily said with a question in her voice.
"I don't know what to say," Sirius replied, feeling his heart ache with the gratitude and affection for the two in front of him.
"Say 'I do'," James suggested.
"Of course I do," Sirius had agreed.
"Get a room." Despite the words, there was a level of amusement in her tone.
"Lily, darling, we had a room until you barged in here."
"James, darling, this is the sort of talk that earns you the couch."
Sirius fell to his knees, his pants sinking into the broken remnants of the Potter house. The wood underneath, which had been painted a baby blue, was now charred with the remnants of a destructive spell. Sirius began digging through the broken bits of the Potter house with his bare hands. The two-story building was barely balancing together, with a huge portion of the foundation having been blown up. Sirius was certain that the smears of blood, leaving a trail against each broken part of wood and drywall, was from a nail or the corners of sharp broken wood, but Sirius didn't care. He kept searching through the rubble, the dead night too quiet, and for a moment, he might have thought perhaps no one was here.
It was unlikely, as the Potters were not supposed to leave the safehouse, but Peter hadn't been in his hideout either. Perhaps they had went somewhere, perhaps Peter had come and taken the Potters to somewhere safe. Sirius's mind was spinning with hopeful possibilities when he found the hand, buried underneath the wood. Sirius began to toss the boards aside with his wand as if he only now remembered he was a wizard. When he saw the lifeless body of his friend, his brother, buried underneath, Sirius felt as if he were a marionette and his strings were just cut. James's wand was nowhere to be found, leaving Sirius to the horrifying conclusion that he hadn't had it on him.
Sirius wiped away stray tears, rushing towards the staircase. While the house had been thoroughly destroyed with the entire front portion of the outer wall blown off, the stairs remained intact. Sirius rushed up to them, running straight down the hall into the baby's room. Sirius heard not a single cry, and he felt as his entire world was in a haze, looking out as if he were a fish with the ability to see only blobs of color. On the ground, crumpled and broken, was a clump of red.
Lily was always a beauty, with red, mermaid-like hair. Like a muggle fantasy mermaid, not the ones living in the black lake. If James hadn't made his crush on Lily as noticable as him breathing, Sirius knew that he himself would have asked her out just by her beauty alone. Something was wrong, however, as her cheeks had none of her flush. Lily was absent of the mirth, absent of the judgemental, yet kind gaze. The life had been sucked right out of her.
Whatever tether that had managed to keep Sirius together had snapped and he fell to his knees with a loud scream. It was a pained cry, and he felt as close to death as he had ever been. It was only when he was about ready to lose all sense of reality that he heard the first sobs of a baby. Sirius's head snapped up, watching the small child, barely even one year old, clutching onto the railings of the crib and staring, trapped and helpless, at his lifeless mother.
Sirius forced himself back together just enough to stand up, just enough to walk to Harry, to pick him and bury his face into the soft black curls of Harry's hair. Sirius sobbed, holding the child tightly as he tried to figure how this could happen. After all the careful planning, after every attempt to keep them safe, they were gone. Sirius's fingers tightened into the small, knit of Harry's top. Of course, I know how. As terrible as it was, as absolutely unbelievable as it was, Sirius knew how this could happen.
Peter fucking Pettigrew. Sirius wanted to vomit, but not as much as he wanted to snap the little rat bastard's neck. He didn't get far with the train of thought as the sound of a cry echoed from downstairs. Sirius ran down the steps, wand out, ready to fight, willing to fight. Instead of a Death Eater, instead, he got a half giant, bearded man, sobbing over James's dead body.
Sirius couldn't look at James. If he looked again, any fight that he had, any will to live that Sirius could have, would seep straight out of him. He would be just as dead as all his family, as his friends, and as Marlene and her family. He held Harry's body close, hiding the scene by forcing Harry's face into his chest. The likelihood of Harry remembering a thing of this night was a small one, but Sirius wouldn't risk it. It was bad enough that he saw his mother. That he saw his mother's killer. Sirius wanted to protect the last remnants of his friends.
Hagrid was a giant, barely fitting in the small house. The 'safe-house'. Sirius was brimming with anger, with untapped rage with no outlet. "How could this happen?" Hagrid asked, his shoulders shaking as he asked the question that Sirius would spend hours, days, years, contemplating.
"Lily's gone," Sirius said, unable to utter out 'dead'. They couldn't be dead. They had been so alive yesterday. There had always been an air of dread around everyone in the Order of the Phoenix, but Lily and James worked hard to keep the house as happy as they could. They had been alive. She had been discussing a future, the schooling she wanted for Harry, the life after the war.
Hagrid's face crumbled. "I-I." The man couldn't get his words out, but he must have known something because he was here and at this timing.
Sirius's face darkened as if he could protect Harry from anything. "How did you know to come here?" He doubted Hagrid had a bad bone in his giant body, but the Imperious curse existed for a reason. Despite all the jokes and innocence in his big body, Hagrid was a terrifyingly powerful wizard and Sirius only had one hand. He had to protect Harry first. His life meant nothing.
"Dumbledore sent me," Hagrid managed to get out the words, the effort to do so taking extreme measures in his face. How Dumbledore knew likely had to do with the wards that he had placed. If any were broken, which they undoubtedly were, then the wizard who placed them must have gotten the alarm. Sirius's body relaxed, only a small amount, as the thought went through him.
"I have to take Harry," Sirius announced. "I am his godfather. I will protect him." Sirius felt as if Harry was the last thing holding him together, keeping him strong, and with the small hands clenching his shirt into fists, Sirius almost felt as if he could walk and talk again. Hagrid frowned, as if what he was about to say had to be said, but he didn't want to be the one to do it.
"Dumbledore said we have ter get Harry elsewhere," Hagrid urged, talking a step closer. Sirius's eyes were red, covered in dark circles from lack of sleep. The exhaustion not yet setting in as he forced away any trace of it. Hagrid said this as if Dumbledore's law was absolute, as if Sirius gave two shits about anything Dumbledore had to say right now.
"I'm his godfather," Sirius repeated, as if those were the only words he knew how to say. Hagrid looked pained, but his resolve was firm.
"Who else would be better ter take care of the child? Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard, he is," Hagrid told him, his voice grave. Sirius looked down at the child, who was finally asleep, as if the sobbing had taken the last bit of strength he had left. "Yeh are barely standin' right now. You got to let 'im go."
Everything Hagrid was saying was all the truth, but Sirius was hardly ready to hear it. James had trusted him to take care of Harry, and Sirius had already failed his friends tonight, he would die if he failed them again. He would fight if he had to, but Hagrid must have been expecting that, cutting him off before he could get out any sort of argument.
"The people that did this could be here they could. We ain't solving anythin' by muddling 'bout. We 'ave to make sure 'arry is safe.Come along with me."
Who did this was still out there. Sirius felt his blood boil with untapped rage, unbridled anger that made it hard to breathe. Peter Pettigrew. Sirius, years ago, fuck, even months ago, would have never thought the idea possible. He would have reasoned that there had to be another explanation. However, the war had changed everyone. Lately, Peter had been standoffish, prone to sullen moods and bouts of temper. All of which were unlike him. The Order had been theorizing of a rat in their mitts for weeks, Sirius had just never thought to look literally at the rat.
"You're right," Sirius told the half giant, feeling his hands shake as he carefully pried Harry from his shirt. The child was so small, and with his eyes closed, Sirius didn't have to see Lily staring back at him. The child's forehead was covered in blood, proving that he hadn't been without harm. The anger in Sirius only grew more heavy. He held out the child to Hagrid, who took him with a light gentleness that many would think impossible from a man of his size and strength.
Hagrid had always been a good man, and seeing the careful way that he held the child put a small part of Sirius at ease, even if his heart was breaking. "Where will yeh go?" Hagrid must have sensed a change in him, being oddly perceptive at select times. Sirius saw no sense in telling him, Harry had to go to safety and Sirius had no time to get his jumbled thoughts in order.
"You can take my bike," Sirius told him, handing over the keys. "You can't aparate."
Hagrid nodded, taking a last reluctant glance at Sirius Black.
When the giant man left with Sirius's flying bike, only then did Sirius look at James. Sirius didn't have time to cry. He had to kill a rat.
️
Ivy didn't know what to think when she spotted the child in the arms of the old man, Albus Dumbledore. He was the one who ultimately expelled her, but tried to have her leave with her wand. Unfortunately, powerful people wanted the opposite. She glanced down at the child, his forehead stricken with a red cut, fresh and untouched. His eyes were squeezed shut, his face in a restless sleep. She could not help but stare at the shape of the cut, finding the pattern rather peculiar.
"I think you have the wrong house mate," she said, her brows furrowed together. She glanced behind her former headmaster at the cat who transformed into the strict transfiguration professor. They both likely judged her choice at squatting at a random muggle's home, the sort who was vacationing in Hawaii. It was a common practice for many homeless wizards, and it allowed her the ability to have no commitment to the location. It was supposed to keep her hidden, but who could truly stay hidden from the great Dumbledore?
Ivy made a note to adjust the wards, already picturing different rune combinations that might actually hide her from Dumbledore. She didn't need a wand for runes.
His face was stoic, unreadable, but McGonagall's eyes were glassy. It let Ivy know that the woman had been crying.
"These weren't the circumstances I would have liked to drop by," Dumbledore broke the awkward silence. Her gut lurched, and she forced herself not to look at the baby.
"There are no circumstances I would have liked," Ivy said, brows smoothing as her composure returned. Dumbledore did not reply.
"Miss Evans...Ivy," McGonagall's voice was serious, and that tone made Ivy want to retreat. She might have run if her audience weren't so adept and equipped at magic. She had a few ways of quick travel, but saw no such reason to escape as of yet. Breaking into muggle homes wasn't actually illegal in the wizarding world. There weren't many laws that actually protected muggles from wizards. It was just frowned upon as tacky. Ivy didn't care what they thought.
There were actually very little laws that prevented wandless magics. Nothing to trace and all that.
"Minerva," she said with a forced smile.
"Your sister and Mr. Potter..." Minerva's voice broke, and Ivy couldn't keep up her smile. Finally she looked down at the baby, whose hair and face looked so much like James Potter.
Ivy pressed her palm against her mouth as Dumbledore handed her a letter. "They were murdered, Miss Evans."
Dumbledore cut straight to the point, and Ivy felt as if she were falling as the baby began to cry. "I can't..." Ivy took the letter, but she refused to take the baby. On the front was her sister's familiar handwriting that made Ivy physically ill. "What is this?"
"She wrote you this last month."
"Why didn't I get it last month?" Ivy's voice didn't raise, and her eye contact stayed intense.
"Correspondance was not ideal for their situation." Dumbledore had that look, as if he was saying one thing without saying anything at all.
Ivy glanced down at the child. "I can't take him."
"You are his family."
"Mr. Black is his godfather," Ivy said in return. She gripped the letter tighter, but she couldn't look at the child again.
"Mr. Black is gone."
Ivy felt her world crush her, her lungs on fire as she kept her composure. "And yet, I still cannot take him. If I wanted a child I would have one."
"You don't even want to hold him?" Minerva was stunned and the disgust was in her tone. Ivy did not mind. She was ten minutes from vomiting.
"He defeated Voldemort. There will not be a single person who does not know his name," Dumbledore told her, an event he knew since extracting memories was a particular talent of his. Gathering memories from a child was one of the easiest things to do due to their untrained walls of magic.
"Which is why I cannot take him. My life is built on anonymity. Lily," she felt her throat close. "Had two sisters. You came to the wrong one."
Dumbledore pressed his hand against the door before Ivy could close it. Slowly, he handed her a wand. "Your sister would have wanted you to have it." Ivy's composure broke as she went to grab it, her hand trembling. The wand felt light in her fingers, and she felt the pulse of magic down the core. The wood was a smooth willow, her memory flickering with Lily's smile as she displayed her first act of magic in the little wand shop, so many years ago.
"Look Ivy! Look Petunia!" Lily had shouted, not minding that Ivy was staring with obvious bitterness, on her thirty-eighth wand that rejected her. Meanwhile, Petunia was stewing in loud resentment, looking upon the small feather quill that hovered in the air above Lily's head.
Ivy broke away from the memory that seized her, the pain becoming so sharp that she was losing the ability to form words. She held the wand into her chest, and Minerva watched the girl, a glimmer of sympathy slipping into her face. She had thought that Ivy had been taking the news perhaps too calmly, but she remembered well the mask that Ivy was so good at upholding. "How?" Ivy asked, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Does it make a difference if you knew?" Albus asked, and Minerva hated the man's lack of tact. Luckily, the graceless method of delivery worked well on an unemotional Ivy Evans.
"I need you to leave," she said calmly. Ivy avoided looking at Harry Potter, she avoided reading the letter, just as she avoided many things at Hogwarts. At times, Minerva felt immensely disappointed at the waste of potential, but, judging by the clear wards around the house, Ivy hardly gave up magic.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" Albus Dumbledore said, but Minerva had every inclination that the outcome had been something he had anticipated. "To let the child go to your sister and live as a muggle?"
Ivy finally looked at the child, still screaming as his emerald eyes met hers with piercing familiarity. It wasn't fair to ask her this. It wasn't fair that Harry lost everything in the span of a day. The word wasn't fair, and she was ready to say goodbye to the ghosts on her doorstep. "I can give him nothing."
"Your presence is protection enough. If it's instability you worry about, I can have your crimes revoked. You can walk amongst the wizarding community again as a part of it."
Ivy felt sick. It was as if he had just offered her everything her heart desired, but it came with a terrible catch that she could never hold onto. The wand, pulsating in her grip, was grieving. Since she was a child, Ivy had been sensitive to magic. Ollivander had said this over sensitivity was perhaps why so many wands refused her, much like Lily's wand was refusing her now. The rejection, reminding her of her last words to her sister, was the ultimate cause of the splinter that had cracked open her heart like an egg. "Petunia had a child. She's capable of taking care of another."
"What I witnessed of her, the ignorance, the judgments, the constant striving of normalcy," Minerva listed, but had a sense that wherever Ivy's mind had gone was out of reach. There was an emptiness in her face that Dumbledore must have already seen was unapproachable. That must have been why he wasn't even trying to convince her. Minerva didn't stop, hoping to find that eleven year old girl she had met straight off the boat to Hogwarts. The same girl that had made friends with the mermaids of the Black Lake, the same girl that excelled in every aspect that she put her mind to, the same girl who had not only been good at magic, but had found true joy in it. "Do you think Petunia Evans would give your sister's son the childhood he deserves?"
"The only thing he needs is a bed, food, and water. Other than that," Ivy said, her voice clear and steady. "Even Petunia can't muck that up."
Minerva's face filtered with disgust, but Ivy wasn't finished.
"I am sorry...for not being who he needs."
"Not as sorry as Harry will be," Minerva told her, and those words echoed in Ivy's mind as she shut the door.
Harry Potter, Ivy thought as she clutched the letter and the wand to her chest. Not a moment later, she slid down the door, her red curls dragging along the wood. She lowered her face into her knees. She didn't cry, and only after she heard the sound of a snap in the air, a sign of both the ghosts of her past apparating away, did the crash explode the house. The dishes, the furniture, the chandelier all began to crush and smash as if they had a life of their own.
The weeks that followed passed fell into a blur of white noise.
️
Ivy did not have a permanent home. When one deals in black magics, scamming muggles and wizards alike, and the overall avoidance of following the rules, she found it much simpler to live life on the run. It threw the ministry of magic off her arse and left her with no unnecessary attachments. She traveled the less than safe roads. She couldn't afford to be spotted in any respectable wizarding communities with five illegal magical objects in her rucksack.
Pulling her hood over her face, hiding the pale skin, she was quick to dip into the back alley behind the large muggle businesses as her boots slapped against wet cobblestones. Despite her face, blotchy and red from the lack of both sleep and makeup, being pulled into a calm expression, her racing heart was anything but calm. She stopped in front of a brick wall, placing her fingers flat against specific bricks. Wandless magic, her particular talent, was quite useful here. The bricks parted, traveled away, and revealed an old oak door which she opened with a quick motion.
The inside was dark, damp with excess moisture, and lack of proper ventilation. It smelled like smoke, and the cloud of smog in the air did nothing to hide that this was hardly the sort of place that her mother and father would ever want to see her in. Luckily for her, they were dead. She noticed no one turned to look at her, a sign that this place was shady in that no one wanted to get in anyone else's business. That did enough for her. She turned a hard left, away from the front of the bar as she walked to the corner of the room where a woman in an old-fashioned sort of robes and a thick cloak, covering her face, sat. The woman's light blonde hair was visible through the glint of candlelight in the middle of the table.
Lidia Mirova Illyinishna was a shrew, a cheat, and perhaps the only person Ivy could have a proper conversation with these days. Ivy sat across from her, where a small mug of ale rested and waited for her. "Just as punctually predictable as ever, Evans."
Ivy hated ale, yet it was a warmth that she wouldn't mind. Ivy's robes had been charmed to retain heat, yet at the news, a sort of dread and horrid awareness had made its way into her bones without relief. She prided herself on unhealthy detachments, yet little bastards had managed to weasel their way into the caverns of her heart. Now, she was choking on a sense of mourning and grief. She showed neither as she nodded in greeting to the shrew witch, Lidia.
"It's a transaction," the woman said, the soft ruminants of a Russian accent slipping into her words. Lidia dealt in snark and information, having a particularly high ranking in the wizengamot. She was a crooked noble, much like all the council. Due to this position, Ivy had yet to see the witch without the effective polyjuice potion. Since the noble was a rich bitch, Ivy knew that their meetings had nothing to do with money. Like Ivy herself, she suspected that Lidia just liked the thrill. The fact that Ivy had a particular gift for stealing priceless artifacts of magical properties was a hard plus.
"You don't need to remind me," Ivy said taking a gulp of the ale. The taste, enough to usually make her wince, did nothing. A numb chill had settled over her since the first article printed. The whispers of the gossip had done nothing but solidify the chill. Ivy grabbed a small coin from her rucksack, making it appear between her fingers and soon disappear with all the talent of a good magician. At the emerald glean, there and gone, Lidia's eyes shined with a familiar greed.
"Sirius Black isn't scheduled for a trial," Lidia confirmed, and Ivy felt her chest vibrate with dull irritation.
"Why?" Ivy knew the rumors of what he had done, but she had a hard time believing a word. Gossip was an insidious monster, and she refused to believe anything without proof of her own.
"They are the parents of the child that destroyed the dark lord," Lidia said, her voice a soft rasp. "People are clamoring for punishment. The Black family is even pushing for his execution."
Ivy couldn't even think of those parents or the child. She pushed that away, all business as usual. "Is it not odd, the Black family, known Voldemort supporters, wish the death of a 'supposed ally' of said dark lord."
Lidia leaned into the booth, having no problem with speaking since the area around them was surrounded in a bubble of soundless magic that kept the privacy. "I didn't say it wasn't suspicious. I am merely telling you what I know."
"Can you not push for a trial?" Ivy leaned forward, her elbows scraping against the damaged wood. She didn't mind, as the sharpness of the chipping wood scratched against her in numb prickles.
"I could," Lidia said with both brows raised. "But I will not. I gain nothing from such actions and the council would not ever follow my actions in kind."
"And what is Dumbledore doing with all this? Does he not always stand for justice? If they can offer Igor Karkaroff a trail, and even with the evidence around him, still allow him to go free, why not Sirius Black?" Ivy watched the amusement leave Lidia's face at the mention of her cousin. Her lips pursed, and Ivy wondered what stain their distant relation had caused a cloud to erupt on Lidia's career. Of course, Lidia was morally grey, greedy, and vain, but she had never and would never be a Death Eater. "Not only that, but to be reinstated as headmaster?"
"The trials aren't for the sake of up keeping law and justice," Lidia said, her lips thinning. Despite her greed and her moral ambiguity, Ivy knew that her sense of justice, while askew, was unrelenting for finding the truth. "It's a witch hunt my dear. If we make it seem as if no action is being done, no consequences for all the death and violence, my peers and I believe someone might take over the dark lord's work. The last thing we need is for someone to become his successor."
"So instead you will tear down an innocent man?" Ivy asked, and Lidia's smile came back.
"Is he?" Lidia asked, that inquisitive expression coming back in kind.
"Is he what?" Ivy asked, her lips eyes narrowing.
"Innocent?" Lidia had a grin in her words. Her long nails scratching along the pale cheek, showing off a small face that didn't belong to her. Blonde, wispy bangs framed her face and her button nose twitched. "The fact that he killed Mr. Pettigrew is known. There were witnesses. After the explosion, all that was left was a finger. A finger that was confirmed to be one Peter Pettigrew."
Ivy didn't know the truth, she didn't know why Black did anything. She didn't know Pettigrew much, even when they went to the same school. They danced in different crowds, but her sister—Ivy felt her heart clench. She couldn't afford the weakness of grief. She had to know why. Her sister trusted him. She trusted him enough to make Sirius Black a godfather, and when he came to visit months back, he had been so adamant on mending a doomed sisterly relationship. People who did that did not strike Ivy as murderers. At least, not without due cause and not to the Potters.
"A finger? Not even body? How many spells do you know of that leave such parts?" Ivy asked, her voice hard. She didn't understand many things, but she knew magic. In fact, without her wand, she knew magic better than ever. "In fact, what spell leaves something so specific? And what of the these witnesses? What was their testimony?"
Lidia smirked, but the anger in her eyes showed that she was hardly happy about her next words. "There wasn't one. The muggles that saw were obliviated. The ones that were of first hand experience were killed."
"Obliviated without testimony?" Ivy let her irritation show, her brows coming together as Lidia took a long sip of her ale. "Who approved that?"
"The only one who can. Our lovely, justice-seeking leader. Albus Dumbledore of course," she explained, looking ready to leave. "All roads lead back to him, don't you think?"
"I see," Ivy whispered, her voice losing what little passion she could muster. "Why would he do that?"
"Life is much simpler if we stop attempting to figure why that man does anything." Lidia stood, holding out her hand. "Merlin coin, please."
"If I find a way to get allies, would you support a trial?" Ivy asked, meeting Lidia's eyes as if she could see the person behind the glamor of magic. Behind the disguise of another woman.
Lidia's arm slowly fell. "He is the reason your sister and brother-in-law are dead. Why do you want to help him?"
"Because," Ivy said, standing, the passion re-entering her voice. "The proof is abysmal. The evidence is circumstantial. If he did it, I want to know for certain and why. If he didn't." Ivy's voice broke, the only sign of grief on the stoic mask of her face. "I don't want the real traitor to be free. Truly, justice isn't even what I want."
"Revenge then?" Lidia scoffed. "I won't support anything that damages my career. My cousin has done enough. If I support a person whom everyone thinks a madman and a murderer, I am ruined."
"He isn't a idiot," Ivy said. "If I believe anything it's that. The way this was done doesn't sound like Sirius."
"If Dumbledore supports a trail, then you have my aid, Miss Evans." Lidia smoothed her robes. "Now my coin."
"It's in your pocket," Ivy said, and Lidia reached into her robes to find the feel of smooth silver and emerald. The magic coin of Merlin, said to have been embedded with an old rune that could grant entrance into Avalon. Supposedly, though Ivy could not make sense of it.
"Ever the magician," Lidia whispered. "Why didn't you take the baby?"
"Cause he has her eyes," Ivy said, before leaving the bubble of silence. "And I'm an irresponsible, selfish bitch."
"Well, Ms. Selfish Bitch, some parting words of information. Sirius's wand was not checked of last spells. It was snapped in half on the scene. Curious, no?"
"Indeed."