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𝕚𝕧𝕪 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕝𝕪 𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕦𝕒𝕝
IVY EVANS DIDN'T think much of consequences when it came to magic. It was why she was expelled, why her parents were afraid of her, why her sisters didn't speak to her. Although, Petunia at least had more reason to despise her. She had been in love with magic from the moment she had first seen it. She was enamored by its intricacies, and how it didn't matter how much she studied it, she'd always find something new.
She always saw magic as a chaotic neutral, and she didn't consider anything about it evil or bad. She could use a spell to bring the dead back to life, but she didn't think it 'wrong' unless she used those dead to attack others. She didn't consider any magic to be 'dark', yet even her own professor McGonagall would call her a dark witch. Ivy would laugh at the thought. She hated that the only one who ever agreed with her on all these points was Albus Dumbledore.
She brushed away those thoughts as she came face to face with the small home. It was circular in shape, with a domed cover. Simple and a little run down. There were flowers and herbs outside, of the sort she recognized by their magical properties in advanced potions and what many would consider 'dark' rituals. Ivy felt Bacia's hand on her back, the memory of their conversation from before. "I don't agree with what you're doing, but there is no way I'll you do it alone," Bacia had said, and Ivy felt grateful, despite how she'd rather go it alone. She didn't know Zimbabwe well enough, but she knew many people from here that she could have saught aid and cash in on old debts.
"Just a little aside," Bacia said, her lips thinning as they approached the small house. "Her deals are not always fair and what you're asking her to do is a big request. Be prepared for her to take something of equal value."
Ivy's brows furrowed, her lips parting. "I am prepared."
Bacia's hand went to her back, "we could still find another way. You have everything to lose and little to gain here."
"Maybe," Ivy said, lips parted as she blocked out all negativity. "But I don't mind. Let's get this over with. It's really hot out here."
Bacia frowned but thankfully kept her further opinions to herself. She knocked, but before she got further than two taps of her knuckles, the door opened on its own.
Nobody waited on the other side, but the inside was vast with bright oranges and reds, tapestries on the walls of spirals, and magical symbols. The walls were crafted of bricks, circling the room. There were two spiral staircases, leading up towards the second story of the room. It reminded Ivy how extravagant magic could be. There were colored banners, made with intricate beads of what she could see as Ndebele. They were geometric in design, looking so human-made rather than magical. Ivy could image the hands that made them.
The home must have had dozens of spellwork, likely more. She could see its intricacies, the difficulty for the magic to make something bigger on the inside. The spellwork that created the bricks, the illusion magic that created the fountain in the middle of the room. Not real water, Ivy could tell just by looking at the edges of the spell. It was something she learned in Tibet when she had been wandering lost and alone. She had learned from her studies there that magic had details one could ascertain just by knowing where to look. For the fountain, it was in the direction of the water moving at the same steady rhythm, the same droplets over and over again. Advanced magic, beautiful magic, and Ivy could stare for hours.
Her examination of it was cut short by a large falcon that appeared from the second story, flying down and turning back into a human.
Ivy tossed a handkerchief towards his privates, using her left hand in a wandless spell to transfigure it into a blanket before it reached him. He rolled his eyes, transfiguring that blanket into clothes. Stylish slacks and a button-down shirt. She scoffed.
"I think it's growing on her," Horus said with a grin. "Ever consider a three-way?"
"Ever consider a lobotomy?" Ivy shot back, but not before considering that three-way. That was to be for another day.
"Where is your grandmother, Horus?" Bacia said with a breathy laugh. "We didn't come here to do anything less."
Horus sighed, "You're so boring." Horus shrugged, motioning for them to follow. "She would like to discuss payment first of course."
"I'd trust her little if she didn't," Ivy said, following his steps towards the doors behind the staircase. Her heels clicked against the marble, watching the double doors open on their own. Standing in front of a desk, inside the brightly lit room was not the grandmother as Ivy had expected her to look. Instead of the wrinkles and old-fashioned woman she had envisioned, there was an elegant woman, tall, in a brightly colored dress. She was bald but had just the right face shape to work the look. Somehow, a woman who didn't look more than forty years old was more intimidating than the old eighty-year-old woman she had been envisioning.
The elegant, tall woman was searching through an old tomb, holding it with ease as she flipped through pages, despite how heavy it had to be. Around her neck was a totem of a lion, a beautiful thing, elegant and unnatural somehow. Odd in that Bacia had the same one around her own neck. The woman turned towards her then, her lips pulled into a subtle smirk, glancing between the two young witches and the single wizard. Bacia was nervously biting her thumb, Horus was adjusting the buttons on his shirt, and Ivy was appraising the study, filled with old books in Arabic and Shona and Japanese. Ivy knew Arabic well enough to call herself fluent, and Shona just enough to call herself lazy for not learning more. She also studied mannerisms and customs so as not to offend the woman into giving her an unfair deal. Ivy curtsied, bending her knees to appear lower to the woman of higher age. At that same time, Bacia did the same, greeting the woman in a respectful manner.
"I am Anodiwa Shonhiwa. I've heard so little about you, little Ivy," the woman spoke in Shona, which Ivy understood due to the potion she had taken just before coming here. It made learning languages less important, but it wore off too fast for her to consider it a long-term option. Anodiwa was appraising her, but when she held out her hand, Horus beckoned Ivy forward. "I'm afraid my dear Ahmed only ever shares the physical. I feel like I know you scarcely."
Ivy only stared at the outstretched hand. "Madam Anodiwa Shonhiwa," Ivy greeted, bowing her head again. "Do you need to know me so long as I pay you?" Anodiwa looked insulted for a moment, her brows drawing in as she looked down at Ivy's appearance with a look of judging appraisal. Ivy had made certain to wear her longest dress, reaching a small distance past her ankles without dragging on the floor. The top was something that immediately caused discomfort in the baking sun, being a thin, green, mock turtleneck with long sleeves. Ivy held out her hand, and from it was a small wild loquat seed.
"I brought you a gift, madam Shonhiwa," Ivy said, running her left hand over the seed, and in wonderous, wandless magic, she proceeded to use a spell she learned in Laos from a wizard farmer who could grow fruit and vegetables from seed, without a wand. She had traveled for years to catch up on what much of the world knew when her wand was snapped in half. She had once, in Hogwarts, thought herself exceptional at wandless magic. Only when out in world, did she discover that she knew nothing at all. She proceeded to say a small incantation in Laotian, of the sort she spent months learning how to pronounce the bare minimum.
They all watched as the seed began to grow, to germinate, to sprout, and form into a seedling with roots and shoots and small little leaves. She made it bigger until it was the size of her arm. "If you plant it, you will have quite the magical fruit free."
Bacia let out a low laugh, "Such a show-off." Ivy smiled, and Anodiwa looked unimpressed, but carefully handled the miniature tree. "Ahmed, dear, do plant this with non-magical means. A wondrous gift." Despite her words, there was no warmth in her eyes.
"How is it that whenever my guests bring you gifts," Horus said with a tight smile, grabbing the small tree. "I get chores."
Anodiwa let out a breathy chuckle as Horus walked out of the room, but not before sending Bacia and Ivy a wink. "I ask to know you, Ivy Evans because the magic you ask of me is extensive, old, and quite easy to put to insidious use," Anodiwa said, her cold voice reaching Ivy's ears. "I think you are a smart woman. Smart women are not like smart men, driven by power or sex or, well, I'm sure you know." Anodiwa took another step, her skin glowing in the sunlight, hitting the sharp cheekbones just right. "Smart women tend to use power for selfish gain that often hurts other people."
Ivy opened her lips, before closing them. Bacia spoke instead, "Ivy isn't like that, ambuya." The woman's eyes ran to Bacia, lids heavy with judgment. "I vouch for her."
"Do you truly?" Anodiwa's gaze ran back over to Ivy, her fingers still clasped around the tomb before she closed it with a loud thunk. "Then give your hand, child, and I'll see if I can vouch for you on my terms."
Ivy knew that it would require lifting her own mental barriers, allowing this woman to see into her conscious thoughts, and deeper if she wanted. Ivy didn't need to look at Bacia to know she was there, and Bacia didn't shove her forward, only placing a palm on the middle of her back. Anodiwa had already let go of the tomb, but instead of dropping to the ground, it hovered and floated back into place in the huge study of books. She held out her hand expectantly.
Ivy slowly raised her own, before deciding to rip off the bandaid, placing her palm in the older woman's hand. Before she felt her hold on her mind, the woman tugged Ivy forward, none-too-gently. "Tell me, little Evans, what do you seek this ability for? For more power? Whatever is the reason?"
"I love magic," Ivy said, her eyes burning, her body burning, all with humiliation at even having to answer. "I want to be able to do everything. I want to know everything. The truth is, even if I didn't need to do this to be able to find who betrayed my family, I'd do it anyway just because I want to."
Anodiwa's lips pulled up into a smile, her thumb rubbing circles on the back of Ivy's hand, in a way that felt more like dominance than comfort. "Is there an end to what you want?"
"If there is," Ivy said, eyes narrow. "I haven't found it."
Anodiwa's smile was cold, a touch of warmth echoing somewhere in her eyes. It was a conflicting sort of thing, but Ivy found it comforting. Better a cold truth than a warm lie. "What would you be willing to give me in return?"
Ivy's nostrils flared, wishing she could just pay with the insane amount of money she had, so much that she didn't even know what to do with it. "You have all the cards here, Madam Shonhiwa. What is it you want from me?"
"Please, call me ambuya. I earned the title after all," Anodiwa said, her eyes narrowed into crescents. "I saw your beautiful display of power. Your lust of it. I don't deal with money, dear. I don't need it, and clearly neither do you. What I find most beautiful is scarcity. Do you understand?"
"I don't know what I understand."
Ivy glanced down at the bright colors in Anodiwa's dress, the intimidating lion totem around her neck, and the bright brown of her eyes. The older woman spoke again, her grip tightening. "I think you are a spectacular witch. I want to see your magic grow." Ivy's brows furrowed. "I want to see it grow when placed in the unfamiliar, as I am sure you are quite familiar with." Her callous mention of Ivy's expulsion, the snapping of her wand, the struggles Ivy went through to rectify knowing so much magic, yet unable to do much of it as she had before, then realizing she knew nothing at all. All of it brought a spike of insult in Ivy's heart, but she stayed silent. She had spent years trying to regain the knowledge that had been stripped from her, the potions she could no longer do, the spells lost to her.
"What are you asking from me?" Ivy asked, a tiny glimmer of worry, unsettling her stomach. Anodiwa didn't look unkind, or sadistic, just curious, with just hunger for the same thing Ivy had been hungry for her entire life.
"I'll do the ritual, you will be able to do amazing magic, wonderous things in the astral world, able to go wherever you want, see whatever you want. No door could keep you out." It sounded even more wonderful when Anodiwa said it out loud. "In return, I will take your hand." At Ivy's horrified expression, Anodiwa laughed. "The magic of your left hand, dominant is not?" Anodiwa smirked. "I will take that magic, and you will relearn all those spells with the right one."
"Ambuya," Bacia said in breathy horror. "Why?"
Ivy's jaw clenched, her stomach churning with disgust. Anodiwa didn't look towards Bacia when she spoke. "You use your magic for everything, yes? You learn so well, Ivy Evans. A truly wonderous student, bright as the Zimbabwean sun. I am not punishing you. The most beautiful magic prospers when it is constricted. I want to see it."
"Where does the magic go?" Ivy asked, and Bacia sighed, pressing her face into palms, horrified that her day was turning so drastically.
"Ivy," Bacia whispered but knew there was no changing Ivy's mind when she made a decision. She could only support and protect her however she could.
"You ask good questions," Anodiwa said, and finally dropped Ivy's hand. The moment the skin-on-skin contact was gone, Ivy's shoulders relaxed, as if something had finally loosened its grip from her throat. Anodiwa walked to her desk and picked up a small monkey's paw. Something about the item being there, looking shrunken and grotesque and almost human-like, made Ivy wonder if Anodiwa had always known exactly what she was going to take as payment.
It made Ivy have the sense of being swindled, handed an apple while Anodiwa kept the tree. Ivy took a deep breath, the trepidation settling in her gut. The older woman looked at the paw with reverence, like it was a scared thing, before she said, "I will keep it in here. Safe and sound."
"And there's nothing else you want?" Ivy would be a fool not to ask. "If not money, then instead objects, mythical, ancient, cursed or otherwise?"
Anodiwa tapped her finger against her chin. "Child, if you do not like the bargain, simply walk away."
"There are others who can do it," Ivy suggested, trying to get a different deal, a better deal.
"I can find someone else," Bacia suggests, desperate to change Ivy's mind now that she saw her uncertainty.
"Maybe, but if you walk away from me tonight, you will never get another deal from me," Anodiwa said without smiling, her eyes hard as if they looked straight through Ivy and were unimpressed with what she saw.
"Ambuya," Bacia whispered in a breathy complaint, her brows drawn, her thumb returning to her teeth as her eyes ran back to the stiffness of Ivy's back.
"You swindle, you steal, and you lie," Anodiwa said, and Ivy's eye twitched. "Take the deal or walk away from it forever. Your choice. Always your choice."
Ivy looked away at the words, bringing back memories she buried. A time when she looked up to someone who saw right through her at every turn. "I don't want to do this anymore," Ivy had told him, her head hung, vulnerable in a way that Ivy couldn't believe she ever could be. Dumbledore hadn't cared.
Always the harsh truths with him. What had he said? Ivy remembered. "We don't have a choice. Not in this war."
"I accept," Ivy said, her eyes going to the monkey's paw, looking just as grotesque and as a dead animal could. Anodiwa left it on the desk as she approached.
"The ritual can be done if you are awake," Anodiwa said with a sharp grin at the greed that glinted in Ivy's expression. "But of course, I cannot let an outsider know how to recreate something close to my traditions. So you will be asleep. It will be excruciating, for I will be cutting the tether between your astral body and your physical one. Are you prepared still for the bargain?"
Bacia wanted the walls to swallow her up when Ivy said, "I accept."
"I didn't ask if you accept," Anodiwa said with an almost sympathetic expression as she placed her palm against Ivy's shoulder. "I asked if you were prepared."
Ivy was prepared for anything. This wasn't purely selfish. This wasn't purely for personal gain or her additions to magic. It was about Lily. It was about revenge. And, she supposed, it was about James Potter too. Perhaps even their son. She didn't care about pain, she didn't care about suffering, she just had to know what the fuck happened.
But, everything proved that even the memory of a cut was just as sharp as the cut itself. Ivy wondered if it ever stopped bleeding or if she never bothered to close the wound. In Anodiwa, she saw Albus Dumbledore, offering the choice he never gave. How pathetic is that?
"There's no such thing as being prepared for something like this," Ivy said, deciding that honesty was the best thing for the woman who seemed to be able to read her. "But I'll do it anyway."
"You are a determined one," Anodiwa said, a small amount of respect in her voice. "We will begin straight away. My granddaughter's wedding is tomorrow, and I'd like to go."
"Niya is getting married," Bacia said, trying to distract herself from her anxiety. "Huh. I didn't know they were serious."
Anodiwa smiled, looking human as she did. "I don't like him, but if I tell her no, she might elope. Young people these days, little respect for family." She turned her eyes away from Bacia, looking upon Ivy as if she were her own grandmother. "You have little genuine respect too, but," Anodiwa said, her smile for Ivy gentle. "You do love your family, don't you?"
"Little good it matters," Ivy said, bowing to the woman one last time, leaving the room as her throat felt as if it had closed up. Bacia said some kind words to Anodiwa and followed her friend.
Ivy leaned against the stairs, her heart hammering in her chest. "I wish you wouldn't," Bacia told her, running her hand over Ivy's back, hugging her. "I really wish you would just talk to me."
"I'm okay. I just," Ivy paused, her left hand trembling. "I'm okay."
"Okay," Bacia whispered into Ivy's hair, and not once did the girls cry. They just held each other. Bacia held her in the way that Ivy should have held Lily. Somehow, that thought made everything hurt more.
"Bitch. Couldn't you have given ambuya a lamp or something? I had to dig a hole with a shovel, like a," he paused as if remembering what he was to say, "like a Mugloo," Horus said, walking in and pausing as he saw the scene.
"You could have just used magic carefully," Ivy said, brushing Bacia off of her, gently.
Horus glanced between the two, but with an expression that suggested he was going to ignore what he saw, he said, "She'd know. That woman is a-" He lowered his voice into a whisper as if Anidiwa would hear from the study, "a monster."
Ivy smiled. "I wanted to make a magical impression," Ivy said, but the entire thing seems rather ironic after everything.
"You made one on me," Horus said with a scoff, wiping the dirt from his clothes with a spell. "Anyway, what did you trade."
Ivy made a sound that sounded like a growl from the back of her throat. "Magic of my left hand amputated like a bad leg."
Horus winced, "Yep. Sounds like a casual Saturday with ambuya. Classic." His brows furrowed. "Is she putting it in a monkey paw?"
"Mmhm," Ivy said with an unimpressed cross of her arms.
"Huh," Horus said with a whistle. "She's finally doing it."
"Couldn't she want money like a normal person," Bacia said, running her hand through her hair.
"What does a magical monkey's paw do?" Ivy asked, and Horus shrugged.
"Just a little light hoodoo," Horus said, avoiding Ivy's eyes.
"It's not light," Bacia said with a snort.
"Let's get you something to drink. Best not eat before the ritual," Horus said, avoiding the topic that Ivy was too emotionally exhausted to ask about.
As she followed Horus with Bacia's arm around her shoulder, Ivy stared down at her left hand with an expression, not unlike horror.
️
Sirius Black watched the dementors float in and by his cell like specters, ghosts. Although, perhaps not any ghost lurking in the halls of Hogwarts. Those had been friendly, or rude, but very human at the end of the night. These things were the objects of muggle nightmares, movies he'd seen in his youth before the war had consumed him. He saw them when awake, he saw them when asleep, feeding on every good memory, every happy thought, anything that might have lightened the darkness he felt surrounded by.
Peter Pettigrew was out of reach. Yet, Sirius felt no more unburdened by him than when he had initially gone after him. He was weighed down in regret, in everything he did wrong, and everything he should have done right. He hated how he was weighed with the happy memories, remembering meant the dementors got to feast on them too.
He dreamed of Hogwarts, he dreamed of a time when Remus didn't look at him with disdain that he mirrored. Why had he ever thought Remus capable of being on the Dark Lord's side? He was a fool who could never apologize for anything he had done and said. Dementors flooded past his cell again, but they took the warmth from the air with them.
He shivered in his cell, feeling as if every fiber of his being was crystalizing with the cold. He could find some way to jump from the broken rubble of his cell, he could climb to the hole in the bricks, fall to his death at the rocky, black shores underneath. He didn't want to die. He needed to live. Death was easy.
He had to live to atone.
But he didn't deserve to be here. Sometimes, on the bad nights, he even disagreed with that.
"I want you to be my secret keeper, Sirius," James Potter had said, and Sirius had felt warmth, the love for the man who had become like his brother, flooding him. Sirius had rejected, thinking it was obvious of a choice.
"Everyone would expect that. I would never give up your family, but should I be captured, the other side has obvious ways to pry open secrets." Sirius had told him, and this was the memory the dementors never took.
It was as if their twisted minds had seen it, leaving it behind to torment Sirius, torture him when they were off torturing other prisoners. He deserved for being such a fool. "So I should choose who?"
"Someone nobody would suspect," Sirius had said.
Lily had sat there, quiet, staring between the two. She had just gotten pregnant, and it was starting to show on her. She held her stomach, her eyes looking tired. "Like who, Sirius?"
"How about we find Petunia or Ivy?" James said with a snort.
"Petunia would sell that secret out of spite and Ivy might just sell it," Sirius said with a scoff that made Lily frown.
"They would never," Lily said, always defending the sisters who were never there for her.
"Either way, the choice is obvious," Sirius had said, blinded by his own mistrust of Remus's allegiance, that foolish mistrust that Sirius would regret till the day he dies. "Peter Pettigrew."
Sirius felt his throat tighten at the memories the dementors forced him to relive. Ice had long since formed on his beard, making those crystals fall into his lap when he hid his face in his knees. He tried to pull out something that shook away the horrid despair, but everything about Marlene was hazy and unreachable. He couldn't remember the smell of her hair or the taste of her lips or the sound of her voice. He tried to remember how she felt in his arms, but it was only her shadow, dark and cold and hallow.
He tried to remember Lily and James, to remember their laughter and their love that came out of nowhere to Sirius, who watched with apt interest. As he closed his eyes and tried to picture the memories that didn't want to come to him, he shivered in place. The dementors would come soon, delivering food from the mainland that tasted old and rotten.
He remembered James Potter. He remembered how much he loved that man. How much he saved Sirius's life after he was disowned by his family. He missed the four am conversations, musing about nothing at all.
"Sometimes I think in barks," Sirius had said, staring at the ceiling of their Gryffindor dorm room. Remus had been reading some textbook, James had been on the next bed, tossing the snitch he caught the night before, up in the air before catching it again. Peter had been sitting on the ground, playing solitaire of all things.
"Liar," James had retorted with a snort.
"Don't pretend that when you see Lily-pad in a tight jumper, that deer noises don't go off in your head," Sirius said and watched as James had nearly dropped the snitch he was about to catch.
"What does that even mean?" James asked.
"It means to go to sleep," Remus commented from a couple of beds down.
"Yeah, go to squeak," Peter said, grinning. "I mean sleep."
The dementor, opening the cell door, interrupted the memory that Sirius was using to keep himself sane. Moldy bread and murky water were placed before him. In return, the dementor sucked out the life from him, and with it, Sirius's memories turned hazy again. Sirius was alone, remembering once more what it was like to hold Marlene in his arms.
But, she was mangled and covered in blood.
️
Ivy had been coated in oil again before she was put to sleep. It was the same process as Horus's ritual to take away all her senses. She was no more relaxed than the last time it happened. She was never relaxed. Her muscles had been tense for years. This time, when she was put under that cloak of darkness there was that senseless falling without reaching a bottom, but she was able to feel something in her burning.
If she had lit herself on fire, it would be a good indication of what this felt like. She could not speak or think or form words. Everything was fuzzy and she wasn't breathing. She saw it then, a little cord made to look rather like an etheric cord of glowing, braided rope. It was connected to a shadow in the darkness, and that cord was so bright that she wished she was capable of closing her eyes. That, as it was, was impossible. It connected to an anchor-like shape, digging into the chest of the shadow she wondered was hers.
She couldn't see or feel her own body, but she knew that the other end of the cord had to connect to her somehow. Somehow, that was her. And in a swift motion, as if someone had taken a hatchet to it, she saw the cord snap, break apart in a way that frayed both ends. She missed, in those milliseconds, the first time she ever went under this spell, unable to feel anything but weightless falling.
The pain of it all was worse than burning. It caused light to re-enter her eyes, her ears ringing as the sound came back, her body burning as touch came back, and her voice coming too, for her to let out a piercing scream that filled the room, making these blobs of shadow jump back in surprise.
It felt as if someone had just hacked her in half, and her blood had spread over the table in which she layed. She couldn't stop screaming, but the pain was over the next moment as she felt as if her entire being was leaving it behind, and she was floating. She opened her eyes, again the world looking odd, without light, and she knew where she was.
Anodiwa was staring straight at her, but Ivy was staring at the lifeless body below her. "You aren't supposed to float away."
Bacia was wiping away tears, her anxiety obvious in her face. Even Horus looked shaken by the events of the ritual that Ivy hadn't been able to see, only feel. Anodiwa was still staring at her, unblinking, unmoving as Ivy floated further, unable to control it.
"Bring her back," Bacia ordered in a way unlike herself, as she was the last one to talk back to an elder. "Now."
Anodiwa made a tis-tis sound, "This is what she wanted. To travel."
"She doesn't even know how," Horus commented, looking around the room as if he'd be able to sense her. Ivy felt lifeless, drained, and tired as if she were in a state in between sleep and consciousness.
"She will learn or she will not," Anodiwa said, watching as Ivy floated further and further away. "I suggest going back to your body. Nobody can get you there you, little Evans."
Ivy knew that should matter, but it felt so nice to feel nothing at all. She wanted to close her eyes and enjoy it, but she didn't. She stared at the lifeless husk from below, so small and frail and weak. Ivy didn't want to go back, but she did anyway. She wanted everything that going back entitled.
And that was what it took this time around, wanting it enough. And that wasn't too hard, because Ivy Evan had an unending yearning, an infinite supply of want.