Chapter 24: Traced
Wings was gone. Captured by HYDRA.
At first, SHIELD didn't take that as a thing, until Sylvia told them that Wings was a killer and has mental issues.
She didn't know how she lived with a dark spirit inside her for such a long time, but that wasn't the point. Nor did she know what HYDRA would do to that poor little girl for their own projects. They made Wanda and Pietro discover their mutant powers, after all.
However, she was still dark. Though brighter than she was when Wings was with her, but still, she was odd and unsociable. Unlike Matilda, who was really open up to most people, or Wings, who would say the important things when necessary.
She missed Wings. Even she wanted to get out from her control, she missed the little killer. Wings was cool to the world, no matter what happened, and she always had her back whenever she was hurt.
She wished to have someone who had her back, no matter how the person was.
Tim was a choice, but he was a mortal. Wings could be with her forever because she was a spirit. Loki was another, but he had his own problems.
Worst of all, Sylvia knew what HYDRA was going to do with Wings. Making that poor spirit live in a body of a killer, perhaps, and then become an assassin of HYDRA.
She didn't know why there were so many communities that just wanted to make powerful weapons. Even SHIELD did that with Thor and his hammer before. SWORD was tearing Vision's body apart and attempting to use the vibranium of it. Wanda went to stop them and nearly got a whole town killed. She became the real Scarlet Witch after that incident.
But still, Wings was something to worry about.
Sylvia knew it wasn't over. HYDRA wouldn't let her go just like that. She wasn't afraid, of course, because she literally could just run back into the Wizarding World or use her powers or do some simple Unforgivable Curses to let them leave for once and for all. But that wasn't the solution. She couldn't risk hurting the others, not again.
Matilda died, Professor Bowen died, Tim nearly died and so did Loki, and Frigga went to Helheim. All of them, they were related to Sylvia and her powers.
There were also the innocent Muggles and animals that died in the fire she set up in the forest on the night she met up with Thor, while Joey McCubbin had a close shot when werewolves attacked Hogwarts. She nearly killed Mora and Michael during the fight, not mentioning the Muggles that she killed with her powers.
She just couldn't risk it, ever.
She walked down the narrow stone road of an unknown ally. She didn't care about what the ally was called. It was narrow and dark that reminded her of the dark times, and that was all.
Someone was behind. She knew. She was followed.
But who would -?
It turned out that it was a woman. An assassin. One to kill her, perhaps.
Sylvia continued walking as if she knew nothing and prepared for anything that might happen.
And she was right to be prepared.
A knife pierced the air and flew at her back. She made the air stop it and threw the knife back. Before the assassin did anything else, she controlled the bricks of that walls to make thick needles that struck the middle.
The killer dodged the attack, hissing as sharp ice pieces came from nowhere. Just when Sylvia thought that everything was going to be over, the assassin went invisible and reappeared behind her.
"Tell me, mutant or witch?" She threw out the question, followed by a ball of fire.
"You'll see," the woman in black growled, "because I am you."
"Wings?!" She knew what that meant at once.
"Hello again, Gloomy."
She didn't waste another second and slashed out her wand to cast a full body-bind curse. The body was soon at her mercy.
"Come on, Wings, I know you can get control of her again." Sylvia sighed, walking to the limp body of the assassin.
"I can't." A voice in her head murmured weakly, "Her brain's too strong."
"I'm sorry, Wings." She made up her mind. She could let this spirit do any harm to anyone else in the world anymore. Even though she missed her, even though she knew that she might need her one day, but Wings was a killer. A killer that would harm people.
"For the Greater Good." She tipped her head to one side, "Obliviate."
Silver light shot from her wand and Sylvia found Wings in the woman's mind.
"Gloomy, you can't do this, you won't do this." The little girl looked up to her innocently, "You can't use a spell I taught you…"
"How do you know I can't? I've only got to mean it." She responded and pointed her want at her, "Avada Kedavera."
"I don't need you to control my powers." She growled and left.
The spirit faded away instead of being dead. Perhaps she was dead, but still living as a soul.
When she exited the woman's mind, she decided to kill the assassin as well.
Two people for today.
The thought struck her hard. How many people have I killed?
Should I kill?
Should I continue to kill?
Dark Magic was illegal, after all. She wasn't arrested at the moment was only because of her being mental.
Maybe that was the advantage of being mental.
Yes, and that was why she used that advantage.
Do you really think Wings is real? She isn't. she never was.
She was made-up, just like her weird temper.
It was all made-up, only for me to use Dark Magic legally.
. . .
To trace down her memory was hard, but she did it somehow.
It all had to begin from the point when she learned Dark Magic for the first time.
And when did she do that?
It was when she found out her identity was from one of the purest and darkest families. The Blacks, and the Malfoys.
Dark Magic was restricted in Hogwarts because of its back kicks and its ability to corrode hearts. But Sylvia didn't get mad because of it. Instead, she knew what she should do after learning them.
She knew what happened before the disaster when she was five.
Her mother, Martha Malfoy, was a time-traveller. She invented a Time-Turner without the time restrictions and used it a lot. She was the sister of Lucius Malfoy, seven years younger than him.
When Martha went to Hogwarts, she was sorted into Slytherin at once and fell in interest with a boy in second year, Regulus Black. He was nothing like his elder brother, Sirius Black, nor like his relatives. He was quiet, timid, and even, shy, somehow.
As the Seeker of the Slytherin Quidditch team, Regulus was the smallest player of the whole team, both in age and in size. Martha, on the other hand, was shadowed by her big brother and didn't know what to do in this huge castle.
She and Regulus spent much time in the library together, both quiet. They grew closer to each other during Martha's third year.
But all changed when Voldemort rose and started to gain followers.
Martha didn't know the danger of it at first. But then, when they were close to graduation and Regulus disappeared, Regulus died.
She didn't want to suffer the dark time and remind herself of her lover again and again. That was when she used the Time-Turner and came to the present. She chose to live in a small cottage on a faraway grassland, where Sylvia landed from Asgard. Martha adopted the young girl and they lived together for a few years.
The Time-Turner, however, wasn't all great. It had a connection to the maker, Martha Malfoy, and would react to her feelings. In the extreme occasions, like the night she died, it would bring its surroundings to another time.
That was why Martha would go out every day when Sylvia lived in the cottage. She didn't want to hurt the child.
And the time which the Time-Turner took them, was when Blood Devil rose.
Sylvia knew everything when she detected the magic with her Asgardian senses, but the Order arrived soon and wiped her memories. She only had the chance to put some traces around the people she touched and hoped for that she would discover it again sometime in the future.
And she was right. She found a book in the Ollivanders' Manor and it was about time magic. It ticked something in her mind way back then, but she didn't know the other pieces yet.
After she went to Hogwarts, she remembered some things from the traces on Professor Bowen, but she didn't know it was her trace when the Boggart turned into the fire ball. There was something on Professor Winger too, and she remembered some knowledges from her talk with him. Then, after Professor Bowen died, Professor McGonagall's piece came in when she talked in the Headmistress' office.
Tonks, Teddy, Aunt Drommie, Professor Longbottom, Harry Potter, more and more people came into her life with more and more pieces of memories. She finally put them together in third year and found out her identity.
That wasn't it. She met Kreatcher in Grimmauld Place and learned more about Regulus and Martha's stories. That was when she worked out what really happened and what she should do.
She started planning about her revenge on Blood Devil and began to practice Dark Magic. But because of her own mind from when she was Sylvia Hoderta, her heart was dark enough in the first place and didn't become darker with the Dark Magic.
Now it was over, but it wasn't really over, yet.
She killed Blood Devil, which meant the timeline would be changed, again.
She sat in front of her father's portrait again and sighed with the complicated memories.
"What could I do, father?" She whispered, "What would you do? What would Uncle Siri do…"
The word "Siri" activated something inside the portrait, she could feel it. Her hand touched the portrait by instinct, and it vanished like a portkey, taking her along.
When she landed in a dim-lighted living room, she slashed out her wand at once.
"Who are you and what do you want?" she hissed viciously at the man seated in the armchair.
"Merlin, I could ask you the same." The man looked startled as well and pulled out his wand to.
"I asked first."
"Right, prove that I can trust you."
"Fine." Seeing that he wasn't looking like he was going to attack, Sylvia lowered her wand and cleared her throat, "I'm Sylvia."
"Sylvia what, pray tell?"
"None of your business."
"Okay, I'm Regulus."
"Regulus what?"
"You say it first."
"Black." The two of them said in unison.