ＴＨＲＥＥ
𝕚𝕧𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕚𝕟𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖
IT WASN'T LIKE SHE HAD MEANT TO BE THE SORT OF PERSON WHO HURT OTHERS. Ivy was the insensitive sort, even from a young age. Meanwhile, Lily was often seen catching stray kittens and nursing lost baby birds to good health. Lily had always been well-liked, seen as genuine and energetic. Ivy had always surrounded herself with mean-spirited friends with unprecedented cruelty in crowds.
That mean-spirited insensitivity had allowed Ivy to get through the torture of being placed in Slytherin during the height of the anti-muggle-born sentiments. The bullying that came for her, and many other muggle-borns at that time, left her with actual physical scars. She had awoken with her blankets transfigured into rattlesnakes, her school books taken and given back torn up into shred, her robe pockets filled with roaches, her school work spelled to read as actual gibberish.
Many of the kids that had brutalized her during school had turned into Death Eaters eventually. Bellatrix Lestrange, Ursula Avery, Amycus Carrow, Drusella Rosier. Ivy hated all of them. They who thought she didn't have the right to her wand, to her magics, and to even her life. At first, she worked harder at her practice, as if she had to prove that she was meant to be a witch. That she not only liked it but was better than all of them at it.
And she was better. Her talent made her a perfect, made her head girl, and almost got her killed many times throughout the years. She slept alongside Death Eaters, she ate next to them, and she knew what they were like quite intimately.
Sirius Black was nothing like them. He was mean at times, even cruel, but it was cruelty seen in most teenagers. He and James were like brothers, having been taken in by James's family when his own had disowned him. Sirius Black always stood firmly against all the purebred ideologies.
He knew more about muggle music than even Ivy did. He wore muggle band T-shirts on his off-day, he charmed a motorcycle for fucks sake. And now the wizarding world all called him a dark lord serving madman. There were whispers that he was involved with her sister and her brother-in-law's murder. Ivy had a very hard time believing that.
Remus Lupin, the second of James and Lily Potter's good friends, was a mess. An unshaven, sullen mess. His head was face down into the wooden table, his hair was greasy and unwashed, and as Ivy sat across from him, she could tell it had been a while since he'd fucking bathed. She waited for him to lift his head up, but after forty seconds of awkward silence, she could tell that wasn't about to happen. She slapped her palm into the table with a loud bang, and Remus snapped up as if he were under attack. In his freight, he slapped away his ale, knocking it off the table. Before it could make a loud bang into the stone floor, she waved her hand and the cup stopped mid-fall, rising back to the table. The ale gathered together and poured back in the glass, a quarter full.
"Remus," she greeted, taking note of his baggy eyes, bloodshot from lack of sleep and likely excessive crying.
He rubbed his eyes as if he were just imagining her. Instead of greeting her, he began to reach for his ale, as if he could drink it all away. When he discovered that the mug was nearly empty, he tipped it into his mouth, his face practically suctioned into the glass. Only until he was slurping the dregs, did he slam the mug onto the table. Ivy stared, judgment reeling in her eyes when he placed his head back onto the table.
"Get your face out of the table," Ivy said, her patience having run out. Remus didn't move.
"Go away," he told her, his voice without any of his usual polite undertones. Ivy rather liked this version more. Out of all Lily's friends, well, Ivy didn't much like any of them. However, Remus had particularly gotten on her nerves.
"I don't have much time for the pity party you are obviously giving yourself," Ivy said, her voice coming out like knives. Remus leaned back, not expecting the tone. "What? Am I supposed to feel bad for you?"
"I'm not bothering anyone. I'm not hurting anyone. Leave me alone," he said, but a string of nervousness followed the intimidation of Ivy's blank stare.
"Your friend is in Azkaban and you're what?" Ivy leaned her head back, her neck straining as she moved. "Drinking yourself to death? What will it solve?"
"Death, obviously," Remus said dryly, pulling out his wand and with a quick spell, refilled the mug with ale.
"You think Sirius guilty?" There was no other explanation for his compliancy.
"He is guilty," Remus told her, a touch of anger returning to his voice. His hands gripped onto the edges of the table, his knuckles turning white from the strain.
"Sirius loved James and," Ivy's voice broke off, but the weakness of emotion had no place here. "My sister."
As if Remus had forgotten just who Lily was to Ivy made his eyes soften. He spotted the break of her voice, always being the observant sort. "You didn't see what this war did to us."
"He hated the Blacks. He hated everything the purebloods stood for," Ivy told him, angry that the time was being wasted defending Sirius Black.
"He is a pureblood," Remus reminded her, some anger entering his voice. Ivy was nearly startled by it, but she quickly got control over her expression, schooling it into something without passion or emotion.
"And you are a werewolf," she reminded him, her voice in a low hush. "The same breed that demolished Luxembourg under whose orders do you think?" Luxembourg was a same country, but mostly occupied by muggleborn magical folk. At least, it had been. A legion of wolves descended upon city after city. No organization, no pattern, just slaughter after slaughter.
His brows furrowed, a moment of surprise entering his face. "Who told you?"
"No one. I'm just not an idiot, Lupin. Your name literally means wolfy wolf." Ivy told him, her voice harsh. "Surely you have a better argument than that, wolf."
Remus Lupin stared at her, as if coming back from the haze of alcohol. "The Potters used the Fidelius charm, Ivy. You're a smart girl. I'm sure you know it."
The Fidelius charm was an immensely complex spell involving the magical concealment of a secret inside a single, living soul. With it, the information would be hidden inside the chosen person. The Secret-Keeper. Voldemort could search Godric's Hollow for years, could look through every one of their windows, could stare right at Lily and James Potter, and still not see a thing. Unless that Secret-Keeper were to divulge the information.
It was an advanced spell, and Ivy knew of it, even if she never used it. As she was processing the bits of information that coincided with what she already knew, Remus spoke again. "They chose a Secret-Keeper. Who else do you think that person was?"
"Logically, I would choose Dumbledore," Ivy said, even if she knew that there was no way that Albus Dumbledore would ever be forced to give the information. He would never be caught, so the fact that the Potters were dead told her that the headmaster could not have been it.
"You've figured it," Remus said, taking another drink. "They are dead. Sirius is in Azkaban. Connect the dots, Ivy."
Ivy was connecting them, and they pointed at Sirius being an easy target. Where did Peter Pettigrew fit into this? "Sirius Black would die before selling them out."
Remus looked as if he wanted to die as he gulped down more of the ale. "Maybe. Maybe once that was true. As I said, this war changed all of us. There had been incidents these last couple months that pointed to a spy being in the Order." Of course, Ivy knew of the Order, having been asked to join it by Dumbledore himself. She had rejected, not wanting to have anything to do with the war. "Information leaked, safe houses raided, missions compromised. How do you think the McKinnons were murdered? Their family was in hiding. The only ones who knew where they were, were the Order."
Ivy nearly punched him in the face for how stupid he sounded. "Marlene and Sirius were sweethearts. You think he would ever cause her death." She may not have liked Marlene's choice of men, but her friend was brilliant. She wouldn't choose anyone who didn't want her. Who didn't love her?
Ever since the first year, Sirius and Marlene had made a connection. By the time the fourth year dragged along, they were already going steady. Ivy had never really been close to much of anyone, but she knew love when she saw it. Her parents loved each other, and she saw that same emotion reflected between Sirius and Marlene.
"People change," Remus repeated, and in his grief, Ivy suspected that he lost some ability to think critically.
"Not like that."
"You were never really friends with Sirius. You don't know him as I do. As I did." Remus's voice raised, his anger brimming over the top as he stood. His brows were gathered together, his hands gripping the wooden table. It effectively gathered the attention of those around them, but Ivy had no time for listeners or their stares. She waved her hand in silent, wandless magic, creating a bubble of muffliato.
"I don't need to be friends with him. I want to find out who really killed my sister. Orphaned her child," Ivy said, biting her tongue at her words as she leaned into him. Their faces were close, their eyes connected. "Your emotions are clouding you. They are making you stupid. Why Peter Pettigrew?"
"What?" Remus asked, his confusion tangible as Ivy finished connecting the dots of all the information she had gathered in her last few weeks. Nothing made sense. She didn't know enough, but the Fidelius wasn't something that just failed. It worked perfectly, but none of this would make sense if Sirius was the Secret-Keeper. It wouldn't make sense if Dumbledore was the Secret-Keeper.
"In Sirius's last acts. His last moments. What did he do?" Ivy didn't let Remus speak. "He attacked Peter Pettigrew. Don't you want to know why?"
"It doesn't matter. Sirius is in prison. Justice has been served," Remus said, dispassionately, sitting down as if his body had lost its bones.
"Without a trial."
"What?" Remus glanced up, his brows gathered together once more.
"The witnesses were obliviated. No testimony, no trial. They didn't even let Sirius speak. They didn't do anything but take him straight to Azkaban. Why?"
"Because he's a murderer."
"Even Kakaroff had a trial, Remus. Bella likely will too."
"What are you implying?" Remus rubbed his temples, his exhaustion clear.
"Albus Dumbledore is the leader of your order. He has power over the Wizengamot, yet, hasn't once pushed for a trial? Why?"
"Are you implying that Dumbledore was the secret-keeper and just," Remus's voice was incredulous, "used Sirius as a scape-goat?"
"Of course not. Dumbledore was against Death Eaters. Always had been," Ivy said. "I'm just stating facts. Are you a sheep? Are you cattle? Do you not have the ability to question anything? Or have you just resigned to drinking yourself into an early grave next to James and Lily Potter?"
"How dare you say their names so callously," Remus stood up again, his anger re-entering his voice. Ivy's face smoothed out. "You may not have loved them, but they are family to me."
Ivy's top lip curled, her anger nearly overbearing. "She was my sister. Of course, I loved her."
"You've never even seen her son. You were never there. I was there." Remus placed his palm against his chest as if he were in physical pain. "I would have died for them. Yet, they placed their trust in Sirius Black. A pureblood fanatic in the end."
Ivy saw his pain, saw his guilt, but neither would answer her questions. "Then help me find conclusive proof of their killers. Their real killers."
"He's found and he's being punished." Remus's repetition of Sirius's guilt only served to cause a rise of hatred in Ivy's blood. She gripped Remus by the lapels and dragged him to her.
"All that was left of Peter Pettigrew was a finger. Twelve muggles dead in one spell. Sirius Black deciding to kill Pettigrew. Of all people. Why then? Why there?"
"Peter probably figured it out. He accused Sirius, and in his madness, Sirius killed him," Remus said, the voice of a lifeless man. Ivy dropped his lapels, watching him slump into his seat.
"You're pathetic." Ivy was harsh in her voice, her eyes narrow. "Even if he did, don't you want to know why?"
Remus let out a sardonic laugh. "As if there would ever be a good enough reason."
"What if he didn't?"
Remus glanced away.
"Humor me. What if, the friend you loved and respected, was innocent? Don't you owe it to him to find out?" Ivy scoffed, looking down at his drinks. "The Fidelius. At least I learned that much. Nice to see you again, Remus." She waved her hand, turning the ale into water. "Sober up. When you get it out of your system," she said, leaning against the table, her hands flat upon the wood. "Maybe you can ask yourself why no one looked into the spell history on Sirius's wand. Why they snapped it in two? Sober up and ask questions."
️
Ivy Evans never got along Lily. They were fraternal twins with very little in common. They liked different food, different colors, different styles. Where Lily preferred bell-bottoms and her platform shoes, higher than an inch into the air, Ivy had a taste for crop tops and high-waisted long skirts. Growing up, Lily had been better at everything. When they started their little garden at eight years old, Lily showed a particular talent and green thumb. Meanwhile, Ivy could kill anything she touched. Lily was the better student, the one who entered the spelling bees, the one who skipped first grade, the one who made all the friends she wanted.
Meanwhile, Ivy could never focus in school. She would spend lectures shaking her leg with a nervous twitch. She would fall asleep. She never made friends as easily either, as the other students often called her a bitter bitch. Meanwhile, Lily was moved up a grade, scheduled to enter secondary school at 11.
No matter how she tried, Ivy always felt as if she could never catch up to her sister. When the Hogwarts letter came, it came for Lily.
"It's probably a hoax,"Ivy had said from the background, Petunia nodding her head as if that were the only possibility. As if Lily hadn't been showing signs of magic for years. After all, the flowers she grew always bloomed. A daisy should take, at minimum, ten days to grow, but when Lily planted one, it grew in full bloom by the next day. It had been Lily who made the cats around the neighborhood suddenly dance. It had been Lily who complained about the blue painted walls in the sitting room, only for everyone to awaken the next morning to see them a perfect and vibrant red.
Ivy had been furious, awaiting her letter. They were twins. It didn't make sense to her that one got an invitation and the other did not. Petunia had a similar sentiment, but the thought of being left out with her little sister made the resentment boil.
"I'm sorry," Lily had told her, as if it were her fault that Ivy wasn't invited.
"What makes you so special?" Ivy was tired of hearing from everyone how sweet Lily was, how sacrificing she was, how smart, how talented. Ivy wanted to say she was magical too, but where Lily's magic erupted in flashy bursts of childlike wonder, Ivy's display would only make her grounded.
"Maybe your letter was lost in the mail," Lily had assured her, as always, not arguing or snapping at both Ivy's tone and words. If anything, that passive stance, that avoidance of conflict, made Ivy even more irritated.
The childlike disputes were dumb like that, but they had never really managed to understand one another. Ivy had sent many letters to the same address listed on Lily's letter. She never begged to be reconsidered, never asked if they made a mistake. Instead, she addressed it straightforward and bluntly.
Dear warlock/witch
It appears you made a clerical error in your letters. My sister, Lily Evans, received an invitation to your magical school of Hogwarts. It appears mine never came. I must assume this is a grievous mistake on your part, as I'm every bit as magical. I'm not certain your methods of checking magical talent, but it is obviously lacking.
- Yours truly and awaiting her letter Ivy Evans
Ivy had grown more irritable during that summer, prone to fits of rage and temper. She had taken to siding with Petunia in more arguments, where both sisters often ganged up on the favorite child. They hid her socks, tied her laces together in thick knots, and more of those childlike mean pranks.
"What's so special about being magical anyway?"Petunia had told her older sister, both girls swaying on the swing. Ivy dug her feet into the sand, her long hair in two thick braids, flapping in the wind. While Petunia leaned her head against the chains, Ivy had been dragging her feet through the sand, her fingers tapping against the metal.
"I'm tired of mum talking about Lily. It's always about Lily. We share a birthday and Lily's name is even written first on the cake. 'I' comes before 'L' in the alphabet. Why is my name second?" In hindsight, Ivy thought this was such a petty thing to be so angry about, but she was eleven.
"Your name is prettier," Petunia told her, glancing towards her sister.
Ivy had gone silent for a long moment, before turning her head towards her sister. "I've been practicing something. Can I show you?"
Petunia's brows had furrowed at Ivy's mysterious question, but she nodded at her sister.
Ivy lifted her hand, her eyes narrow. She was focused on the sand, her head panging in her skull as the small grains of sand began to shift around. Petunia must have seen it as the small girl stood up from her swing, screaming, "what are you doing? You look ridiculous?"
"I'm moving the sand," Ivy had told her, not breaking concentration.
"It's just the wind. Stop being stupid."
Ivy's concentration didn't break, her anger pounding in her body. She was practically overpouring with it, with the unresolved tension, with the resentment, with her burning envy. Slowly, from the sand, a small vine of ivy began to grow from the sand, seemingly out of nowhere. It was small, the only thing Ivy was ever able to grow.
Petunia had grown silent, and Ivy glanced over at her with a smug smile. Even Lily had never done magic on purpose. It was always accidental, leaving Lily with no idea how to recreate anything. However, Ivy had done this, not once, but four times. She had spread ivy seeds everywhere, trying to get one to sprout. Most had been a failure, but she had to find a way to prove that she had magic. A way she could show someone that magic.
"You're a freak too now," Petunia had shouted, her face red from the anger. This reaction had not been what Ivy had been expecting. She had been expecting praise, the same sort Lily had received when she made the cat dance. She had expected compliments, as her parents always gave towards the older twin.
She hadn't expected Petunia to look as if she were about to cry. Ivy stood up, reaching out to comfort her sister, but Petunia had flinched from her touch before running off back towards the house. When Petunia was out of sight, Ivy looked back at her proof of magic, but the Ivy root, small and protruding from the sand, had already died.
And when Ivy had gotten home, there was an owl on her doorstep with a letter in his small beak. Ivy felt her heart lurch and couldn't control the anticipation as she grabbed the letter from the beak and saw the envelope was sealed with a wax stamp. Ivy had torn it open, her hands shaking as she saw the words in beautiful cursive.
Dear Ivy Evans
Your letter was dropped, rather unceremoniously, during a particularly clear day. I read it under the lovely sun. In my contemplation of your particular concerns, it is unlikely that the magical quill misses a child of magical ability. However, there is always that possibility for the unlikely.
Feel free to join me for tea
-Albus Dumbledore
Ivy's brows furrowed, turning over the paper for some sort of time and place for tea, but the only thing on the back was an ink stain. "What a waste of paper to say nothing at all." She would write a strongly worded letter in return, she thought, as she opened the door to her family house. As she turned the knob, pulling it open, it almost felt as if she had just fallen. She stumbled forward, nearly tripping over her feet as a gust of wind hit her in the face. It blinded her, and in that hard rush, she squeezed her eyes shut, stumbling forward into the house.
When she reopened her eyes, she wasn't in her house, and instead, she had just walked into a little tea shop in the middle of a bright mid-day. She glanced around, disoriented and rather nervous. What caught her attention first, oddly enough, was the clock. It had been 3 pm when she had last checked, but the clock read 4.
She rubbed her eyes, staring around the shop in awe, stepping out and inside, as of expecting the scene to somehow change. However, it did not. The bright summer sun hung in the air, the clouds nothing like the English sun above her house. She stepped inside, brows furrowed and confused.
"Ah, you've agreed for tea then," said an old man from the left. He was holding a teacup with a pinkie up into the air. He wore eccentric robes, his beard reaching well below his neck, and he had eyes that could calm down anyone. By process of critical thinking, Ivy assumed this was Albus Dumbledore.
Ivy walked towards his little table, noticing the empty cafe and the sound of the busy streets behind her. "Are you here to give me my acceptance letter?"
"I'm here because this place has the best scones in Paris," Albus said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. Ivy glanced down at his plate. She was still reeling, but this was a chance to prove she was magic and magical folk shouldn't be so swept away by the use of magic.
"Those are macaroons."
"I hardly want to grow tired of the scones."
Ivy decided not to enter a pointless conversation about scones, so she just sat down. She stared at him for a long moment, and he gestured for her to drink the tea that just appeared in front of her. She glanced down at it, at the beautiful porcelain, the flowers, and the dainty shape. Slowly she brought it to her lips, taking a sip. The steam drifted over her face, covering her in an array of warmth. The taste was rather fragrant, a tad lemony, and had an overlining degree of roses.
"I am Albus Dumbledore," he greeted with a kind smile that could light up the room. Ivy tilted her head to the side, her blinking gaze and steady eyes. Her heart was the only thing she was unable go control and it was beating out her chest.
"I figured. Ivy Evans. You made a mistake," she said, clearly and confidently as everything she said in her life. Where Lily often took a more humble approach, likely from low self-esteem, Ivy was quite certain in what she did or said.
"It's a rare thing to happen," Dumbedore admitted with a white bushy brow going up.
"How did you do it?" Ivy couldn't keep the question in any longer, practically bustling with curiosity. "Take me here? One moment I was in Cokeworth, the next I'm in." She glanced around, noticing the voicing in the background, the time on the clock, and coming to her own conclusion that he wasn't lying about where they were. "Paris."
"Magical folk have many methods of travel," he told her, his voice airy and light. "I chose one that would do you, as a muggle, the least amount of freight."
"Muggle?" Ivy didn't like the term but liked not knowing what it meant even less.
"Those without magic," he explained, and her anger came back.
"I see," she said with irritation at the word. "But the magic you used, can you explain it?"
Dumbledore took a sip of the tea, his frivolous aura contrasting her own mood and rising temper. "A charm actually, on the door of your front porch. Should you accept the invitation, it would open a little pathway between doors. Used mostly for all exclusive parties."
"I never accepted the invitation."
"It works as a matter of physic telepathy. You only have to think it, and it counts. Even a muggle can do it."
"You made a mistake," she told him, rather calmly considering the anger inside her was beginning to boil over like water in a pot.
"Interesting," he told her, taking another sip of tea. She didn't find it interesting at all. She wanted to have him check her. Test her. There had to be some way he could test her. "I admit. Twins are complicated."
"Hm?" Ivy was staring at the cup, begging to make it move, to make it sing, anything to prove that there was something in her that reacted.
"They are complicated. Especially muggle-born twins. It is possible for the quill to have confused one's magic with the other," Dumbledore admitted. "Which is why I am here."
"Just, teach me how to do magic," she asked, her hands now gripping the table. "Let me try. I've done it before. I made a vine grow from a seed."
"You don't have a wand. Magic without one isn't something I can teach over tea," Dumbledore said with a smile. "Besides. I don't need to see your trick twice." He pulled a letter out of his robes and slid it towards her. It was a mirror image of the one Lily had opened in front of her. "I have a gift at reading people."
"Like," Ivy said, pausing. "My mind?"
"Little Ivy Evans. I expect you to be quite the talent."
Ivy felt like crying. She had been called many things, but those words of praise were often only reserved for her sister. She glanced back towards him, in the process of opening her letter. "It's all real?"
Dumbledore took another sip of his tea. "The school? Oh indeed. I imagine it must all seem like a dream."
"No," she said, perhaps too quickly, setting down the opened letter. "I feel like all this before was the dream. Now, I am finally waking up."
He stared at her for a long moment, and for that silent stare, she felt something in her mind. It was like a tickle, but more invasive. She remembered his comment of mind-reading, feeling that invasive thought take root. "You are quite perceptive. I owe my apologies, little Evans. I did make quite the clerical error."
"Is it normal, with magic, to be able to control people?" Ivy had to ask, her lips tightly pressed together. She shut him out of her mind, imagining a cage, a door, anything to make certain the wizard couldn't see.
"There are spells of control, but it is advanced and forbidden magic," he said, now intrigued. "That's not how to keep out someone using legillimency."
"What is legillimency?" Ivy asked slowly.
"It's not mind reading. The mind isn't a book to be opened and read at one's own leisure," he said, watching the small girl digest that information. "Magic at a young age can get out of control. You won't be punished for it. That's what school is for, Ivy Evans."
"Then, it's normal?" Where Lily's magic surfaced in turning the teacups pink and changing all her clothes into deep shades of red, Ivy's magic had appeared violently. "Even if it hurt someone?"
"We've all hurt someone with magic," Dumbledore said vaguely, watching her bite her lip. Finally, she took another sip of her tea.
"Can you tell me more about this school?"
️
Peter Pettigrew was petrified. In rat form, colors were always distorted, making his view of the world like that of dark grey. The red signs now grey blobs as he ran in circles around Diagon alley. The pitter-patter of his heart, the sorrow of his guilt, the desire to die that was fighting with the instincts to live. He couldn't show his face as a human again. Sirius was after him. The Death Eaters were after him.
The ground was covered in wet puddles when he rushed for the cover of a building so as to escape from the rain. He had to run for cover. He just wanted to go home. To see his mother and cry into her arms. He wanted to tell her. If anyone would understand why he did it, she would. The sludge of mud-covered him snout to tail, and if he hadn't been so used to the mess, he might have been more sickened.
He had been eating trash and thrown out food for weeks. By now, Sirius had to have gone to Azkaban.
"Ew. Mummy, it's a rat," a small girl shouted, pointing at the little thing, shivering a small distance away from her. Peter had been devastated at the end of the animagus ritual, to see Sirius the brave dog, James, the noble stag, and Peter, the worthless rat.
"Shoo, vile thing," the mother said, reaching for her pockets and pulling out a wand. Despite Peter's exhaustion, despite his shivering, he took off before she could utter a spell.
He ran past many crowds, larger than ever since the war's end. Peter should go back to the Death Eaters, should find any remaining supporters, but with all of them being rounded up and facing persecution by the ministry, Peter couldn't risk the association. He had nowhere to go.
Just as that thought went through his small rat mind, her noticed a paper on the ground, the wet leftovers of the daily profit. On the front page, there was Sirius Black, screaming and looking every bit the killer and traitor that Peter knew he wasn't. The guilt that was supposed to be screaming at him was nowhere to be found. Instead, Peter just felt exhausted, hungry, and terrified.
He needed to survive, and he couldn't do that alone on the streets. He glanced around, spotting the Magical Menagerie in the distance. As a kid, Peter always found the place to be unpleasant, smelly, but shopped only by wizards.
Peter had to survive, by any means necessary.
️
Ivy always admired Albus Dumbledore. She admired his brilliant, logical mind. She admired his magical talent that she based all her spells on. She looked up to him in ways that she had never looked up to anyone. When she had gotten to Hogwarts, she knew it was because he had made an active effort to get her there. As she had told him, Hogwarts felt as if she had awoken from a dream and stepped foot in real life for the first time.
She had been lost when her wand and her school were taken away by the man she so greatly admired, the man she had considered her mentor. She had told herself she didn't need any of it. When she was expelled, she had traveled to the Mountains of the Moon in Uganda, determined to not let it be the end of it all.
"Sweet little Nakato," the voice was a friendly one, no accent apparent except for a tiny hint of northern English. Bacia had learned her English from Doctor Who, so it meant she gained a strange mix of different English accents. "I heard the terrible news."
"The war is over," Ivy said with a rather empty smile as she ushered the dark-skinned woman into her newest home. "It is tremendous news."
"But the cost was quite great," Bacia told her, brows raised up as if she was daring her to say otherwise. "You've yet to mourn."
"I didn't call you to mourn," Ivy said, walking over to her table where black coconut bowls and herbs all rested. "I've been practicing, but magics work better in pairs."
"What magics are you dabbling with, little Nakato?" Bacia's smile was as vicious as her animagus form. The girl could transform into a particularly terrifying lioness, which was one of the many reasons Ivy had decided not to fuck with her. Meanwhile, Ivy's own animagus training had been terrible, start to finish with her partly afraid her animal form would be something embarrassing like a fly or a cockroach. Bacia had laughed at that, commenting that Ivy's core nature was hardly that of an insect. She had been correct.
"Nothing you haven't taught me," Ivy said, her voice flippant and vague as Bacia sent a raised brow, walking over to the table and looking through the ingredients.
"I did not teach you this," Bacia said, picking up the essence of a Silene undulata in a vial. "Are you planning on a dream walk?"
"You certainly earned your degree," Ivy said, waving her hands so the lights all lit in the room, adding some vibrance in the darkness. "Dream messengers are quite a method of mass communication for Uagadou acceptance."
"You certainly deserve a Hogwarts graduation," Bacia said, overlooking Ivy's extensive notes. "How did you figure so much of the spell out?" It was a safely guarded secret, something only the headmasters learned how to do in Uganda. Or, if born of the right family, word of mouth. Bacia, the genius that she was, hadn't even known this much.
Ivy wasn't about to brag. She was a persistent witch, and part of what made her a target at Hogwarts was that same persistence, was that same talent, and the raw ambition. Her pursuit of magic had turned her into a sort of addict, seeking every aspect of magic she could, devouring it, yet it being never enough. If she could just see the libraries in Uagadou, she could learn from the most gifted sorcerers in the world. Dumbledore was a talent, a genius, but the spells in Uganda were leagues above anything he ever taught.
He was the one who told her that no matter how hard she worked, there would always be someone better than her.
"I read. A lot," Ivy said vaguely, sitting down and going through the notes. "My math is right."
"The math is the least of your concerns," Bacia said, sitting down across from her. "Your bootleg dream messenger spell could get you killed."
"Then help me complete the spell." Ivy reached over and grabbed the girl's hand.
Bacia frowned. "Why else do you think I'm here in a house not belonging to you?"
Ivy glanced at the photo on the mantle of a happy couple holding one another and smiled. "I don't do commitments."
Bacia snapped her fingers, and from the kitchen, a bottle of wine came floating towards her. The spell, wandless and wordless, was a very simple one. A pair of wine glasses followed it and only once it was near them, the wine uncorked itself and poured. "I won't do anything without a drink and a conversation. I came to see you, not a bunch of equations."
Ivy felt her heart swell, but she didn't have the time to reminisce like old friends. She couldn't do it now. "I don't want to talk."
Bacia snorted, the ring prominent in the way she wrinkled her nose. The dark curls were hanging over the chair, her long heals scrapping against the hardwood floor as she leaned back. "Then you can listen instead. Even if it makes for boring conversation." Ivy barely looked at her friend from over the notes as she continued to write down more of her work. She had combed through old books, picked up from magical emporiums from Africa, France, and India. The information on dream magic was scattered, as it seemed that whoever knew the practice had decided to not write it down.
When Ivy had first been expelled from Hogwarts, for a month or two, she had been lost. However, she was used to learning things on her own, she was used to finding her own way, and she couldn't bear to look at the disappointment in her sick mother's face every time the woman looked at her. It had been like, through those silences, her mother had finally given up on her.
"I heard about your sister," Bacia told her, lips pressed together as she drank a sip of the wine. At the topic, Ivy reached into the air and picked up the full glass. As she breathed in the scent of the wine, remembering that muggles really had the best alcohol, she finally took a big gulp. "You have yet to grieve."
"I've grieved," Ivy replied, putting down her pen. She doubted Bacia would let her work without some sort of conversation.
"You can't schedule mourning, Ivy," Bacia said, and in her using of Ivy's real name, it allowed her to know just how seriously she was taking this talk.
Ivy bit into her lip, nearly ripping into the skin. "I don't see the point in crying. I need to find out the truth."
Bacia took a good look at the mess on the table. "And you think that this dream magic will do that for you? Who are you planning to enchant?"
"If I told you," Ivy said, biting harder into her lip as she set down the glass. "You would make me stop."
Bacia pursed her lips as if trying to read her somehow to no avail. Bacia wasn't much for legillimancy, and even if she were, one of the things Ivy liked so much about the woman was her levels of respect for privacy. "Tell me anyway. If I do not know who it is, how can I really help you."
"You said you didn't know anything about dream walking."
Bacia smiled. "And I don't. But I attended Uagadou. I graduated. I kept in contact with my peers." Bacia tapped her glass with a long, manicured nail. "One of which did love to astral project."
Ivy's heart beat loudly in her chest, and she leaned closer. "Why didn't you say that earlier?"
Bacia took another sip of her wine, lips curled and eyes narrow. "If you won't be forthcoming with information, why should I?"
Ivy paused, glancing away for a moment, a habit she had made before she contemplated a lie. Bacia snorted at the girl's tell, but was respectfully silent, waiting to see if what Ivy was going to do was lie to her. Instead, Ivy said, "I want to ask some questions to Sirius Black."
Bacia leaned forward, now fully invested. "The one in Azkaban? Oh Nakato, and you were going to hide that?"
"I didn't think it mattered whose dream it was," she admitted.
Bacia now grabbed one of the parchments, most of it messy, but some details of runes in between the nonsense. "If you thought it irrelevant, you wouldn't have been so difficult." The light brown of Bacia's eyes caught a bit of candlelight, making her look every bit the lioness she could transform into. "Do you know what a dementor is?"
"They haven't exactly been extensively studied," Ivy admitted, ashamed by her lack of information. Hogwarts had minimal knowledge of dementors, even when she studied them in her fourth year. It had been a while back, and she had been so interested in the wizard that made them.
"Because they cannot be studied. They cannot be dissected. They are a magic void. And you want to dream walk straight into Azkaban?" Bacia looked incredulous.
"I could have gone it alone and been killed. I called you here for help," Ivy said, surprised when Bacia reached across the table and gripped her hand.
"I will always help you, my love. I just want you to tell me when you're ready."
Ivy glanced down at their conjoined hands, a shred of ice that encased her heart slightly melting. "Tell you what?"
"What it is that is weighing your heart so much. I am an empath, my love. You cannot hide your burden forever."
Ivy gently pried her hand out from underneath Bacia's hold. "I told you. I've mourned. I just need to know the truth. I need to know if Sirius betrayed my sister. If he didn't." Darkness entered Ivy's gaze, and it told Bacia everything she needed to know without feeling the hatred in Ivy's heart. "I need your help in dealing with the one who got her killed."
"I will call my friend then," Bacia said, as if they were just discussing tea. The community Bacia had come from was a big one, but closely knitted. They all loved each other, helped each other as if every neighbor were a brother or sister. When there was a traitor, and if that traitor got another killed, the community did not report that person to the magical government. They dealt with the traitor in a way they saw fit as punishment.
Ivy had long since become part of that same family.
"Good," Ivy told her, not bothering to say thank you. "Bacia. Thank you for coming."
"Drink your wine, Nakato. It will make you feel better," Bacia said, taking out a small piece of paper from the table, scribbling a message, and setting the paper on fire with a flick of her fingers. It was certainly a fast form of communication, one that the English community considered barbaric because they hadn't thought of fire messages.
It was certainly a cheaper form of communication since most of the magical community refused to adhere to muggle technology. Ivy would never understand why the magical community would rather clean up bird shit and the slow communication of owls over installing a phone. At least those in Uganda and Egypt had realized the archaic nature of owls. "Your friend." Ivy paused, in thought as Bacia waited for her to drink more wine. "Was astral projection taught in your school?"
"It was an elective. He decided on mastering in it instead of ancestral charms with me," Bacia said with an amused voice. "Astral projecting is a lot like divination. Some people simply can't do it. At the beginning of our second year, we are tested to see what sorts of magic we can even do, and if we pass certain tests, we are invited to attend those classes to better our abilities. I was told my spirit was tied securely to my body and I could never travel."
Ivy looked intrigued, in a way that expressed her love for magic. "What does that mean?"
"It means that the gods made me to stay in my body, blessing me with other talents. I am tied to the earth, and all those who can go elsewhere are those of the air spirits. Their spirits are travelers by nature, but we were warned that astral projecting was quite sepitable to magical entities." Bacia gave Ivy a knowing glance. "Dementors, for example. In my culture, we call them soul eaters. That is the extent of what I know about them. Horus knows more."
"His name is Horus?" Ivy's brows furrowed together. "Like the sky god?"
Bacia shrugged. "His name is Ahmed. He won't answer to it though."
"Is he crazy?"
"He's insane. But in bed, I call him god," Bacia said with a grin. "We should get something to eat. I've been craving dry, bland English food all day."
"I'm not really hungry."
"I didn't ask. I want food. I am a guest. Where are your English manners?"
"What if he answers the message?"
"He won't send a fire message. He's a show-off."