Two:

Love all, Trust a Few, Do Wrong to None.

Part One of Four


Pairings: Mikaelsons/Fem!Harry


Strasbourg, France; 1909

"Now what are you doing all the way up here when the party is all the way down there, love?"

Crouched over the top landing of her aunts home, Heloise Pechette tensed with her head slung over the banister, caught, as she typically was, red handed. Sluggishly turning around to the owner of the voice, a man standing far too close behind her for propriety, though she heard the English were a little uncouth that way, who must have come up from the west wing for the bathrooms on the second floor, she tried desperately to keep her expression as innocent as possible.

Her aunt had one rule and one rule only when guests were present, as such with the case of her cousins Dugard's coming of age party; don't get seen.

Clearly she had failed abysmally.

The handsome young man seemed startled at her appearance when she catches his eye, a momentary flare of unnerved shock creasing the corner of his dark blue-green gaze at it lands on her face. It left her feeling contrarily disconcerted and exposed. It's gone as fast as it came, that creased confusion, replaced with a startling wide grin punctuated by dimples in his cheek.

Almost as if he was happy to see her.

Which, of course, was wrong.

No one was ever happy to see Heloise Pechette.

"Please don't tell my auntie."

Heloise says before she can stop herself, and the man's grin falters a fraction, a waver in the corner that deepens his dimple. He's wearing evening attire like many of the guests milling about below, well built and tall without being too broad. His blond curls were slicked down the best that could be done with curls like his, curls Heloise herself intimately knew how rebellious they could be, and when he took a moment too long to study her curiously, nearly familiarly, Heloise flushed with embarrassment.

She doubts Dugard's old school trousers and the stained linen shirt she wore were half as respectable as the lovely ballgowns the women were wearing down stairs, and she doesn't understand why he's looking so long, so hard, so… Intently at her.

The same way uncle Vernay looked at money.

"Now why would I go and do a silly thing like that?"

He held his hand out for her to take, an offer in an open palm. Heloise doesn't recognize that he doesn't ask who her aunt is exactly out of the crowd below, doesn't spot that he, himself, doesn't question whether she was just some lost servant girl.

"It can be our little secret if you give me this dance?"

Heloise pressed herself harder into the banister digging into her lower back, fiddling with her fingers.

"My uncle says secrets pave the road to hell."

And uncle Vernay, as a Father in the local church, would surely know what led a soul to hell, would he not? He seemed convinced Heloise was going there one day, at least.

The man, nevertheless, doesn't seem to fight her on this, or her uncles supposed gospel.

"Ah-"

He chuckled, wiggling his fingers in a playful approach. The pianoforte playing from below filtering up the winding staircase. Heloise had never been asked to dance before.

"But we would both have fine company for the trip, would we not? One dance is all I ask. What could the harm be?"

Much, much, much harm.

Heloise takes the extended hand, warm calloused skin in the hold of her smaller one, and she dances with the strange man on the landing of her aunts home, and she laughs and he grins, and he comes back the next night, and the next time they dance again, and again-

And three days later, Heloise is dead from a freak lightning accident.

It's not the first time she's died and it won't be the last.


Mystic Falls, America; Present Day

Heather Potter yawned as she shuffled into the kitchen still in her pyjamas, dancing dream still hazy in her thoughts like a horse on a carrousel ride she barely remembers the tune of, spotting her cousin fretting and pacing near the coffee pot on the counter. She sagged in the doorway at the sight, green eyes rolling heavenward in silent prayer.

Fat load of good it would do her. If God was real and up there, he sure as hell wasn't taking calls from Heather.

"What has the marvellous band of Mystic Falls fuckwits gotten us into this time?"

Caroline Forbes, a cousin on her mother's side, a family that had taken her in when Heather had turned sixteen after the Battle of Hogwarts, old enough to win a war but not old enough to live by herself according to the Ministry of Magic who had tracked her cousins down and offered Heather up like a tossed prized piglet, span to face her.

"Heather! Don't call them that!"

She griped, but the fire was lost in the wake of her wince.

"Katherine's in town."

Heather huffed and marched for the coffee. If she was dealing with the latest Salvatore backfire of the week at nine A.M in the morning, having been through enough of them during her last year of Mystic Falls residency, she needed all the help she could get.

"Want me to go stab her again?"

Caroline chuckled, some of the stress easing from her small shoulders.

"You know, she asked Mason Lockwood if you were still around. I think she might be a little scared of you."

"Good."

Heather gave as she blindly pulled a cup free from the cupboard above the coffee pot, pouring herself a steaming mug, reaching for another to do the same for Caroline.

"She's lucky a little neck break and lung puncture was all she got last time. I warned her not to come back."

Taking a sip of her drink and skimming the other over for Caroline to take, Heather kicked back against the counter.

"So what is it this time? Oooh… Let me guess… Elena's stubbed her toe? Damon's summoned a zombie horde because he got his wittle-feewings hurt? Stefan's brooded so hard his face has imploded?"

The slap that came to her shoulder was harder than necessary, but softened with the barely supressed smile on Caroline's face as she joined her shorter cousin lounging against the counter, accepting the cup of offered coffee to match.

"Stefan said Katherine's on the hunt for something and is using Mason Lockwood to get it. A Moonstone I think he called it? We don't know what she wants it for yet, but it can't be good if Katherine is after it."

Downing the last of her coffee, Heather dashed the cup in the sink.

"Why can't anyone be hunting for… I don't know, the treacle buffet? The chocolate fountain of youth? Fuck, a cheesecake key? Why's it always have to be blood curses, Moonstones and death daggers?"

Caroline cocked a brow, but Heather didn't back down.

"Okay, I might be a little hungry, but the point still stands. Why can't our enemy of the week ever be interested in... Fuck, beer brewing?"

Helplessly, the blond shrugged. Heather, begrudgingly, headed back for the kitchen door, to her bedroom where she could quickly get changed.

"Best get a move on before Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber kickstart the apocalypse, then."

Caroline's voice called her back from the bottom of the stairs.

"Are you alright? You look tired? Like… Really tired."

Anew, the foggy recollection of the dream Heather had danced through her thoughts, a snap-shot of smoke and music and someone's hand in hers. She, adamantly, shook it off. It wasn't the first strange dream about strange people and stranger places she'd had, she was always having weird dreams since childhood, and though they were coming faster lately, barely leaving her a night of restful, blissfully dreamless sleep, they were, in the end, nothing new.

Dreams couldn't hurt a person, after all.

"Cheers Caroline."

Heather scoffed as she began looping up the stairs two at a time.

"That's what every girl loves to hear so early in the morning. How shit they look."

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"


Mystic Falls, America; 1001

Helgi Þormóðurdottir dipped sharply to the right, ditching the hunted rabbit she had slung over her shoulder to snatch at the elbow of the girl seconds from falling over the hidden branch obscured in fallen foliage. The blond stumbles only a little, spills even less of the water in the buckets she was carting back to her hut, and when she looked up, startled at suddenly being saved from a rather embarrassing plunge, only to find Helgi grinning at her, she smiled back just as brightly.

"Helgi! You're back!"

The buckets lose more water this time when the blond dropped them unceremoniously to fling herself at the redheaded girl, wrapping her arms around her shoulders.

"Rebekah."

Helgi greeted warmly, returning the hug, her tired muscles laxing in the warm grip. They had known each other since childhood, had spent a youth playing in these very woods, these brooks, in those treetops. As an orphan who's parents had died on the boat over to the new world, Helgi had a lot to owe the Mikaelsons for their kindness growing up.

Without them, she'd likely be wolf feed years hence or, she suppressed a shudder, still stuck with her aunt.

Helgi tried to pay it back any way she could, even if it was only a rabbit from a two-day journey.

"How was the hunting trip?"

Rebekah asked as she finally pulled back, and when Helgi gestured to the lone rabbit now on the floor beside them, she grimaced.

"That bad?"

Reaching down to retrieve her rabbit, Helgi sighed and rubbed at the back of her neck, the sweat of a heavy walk back to the village cresting on her skin.

"These woods grow thin these days. There's not much game to be had. We might have to start hunting further out, past the falls. The wolves are getting desperate. I fear they might grow bold enough to attack the village if they have no food in the woods to slake their hunger."

Trying to divert the conversation away from the gloom of an oncoming, harsh winter and possible wolf attacks, Helgi nodded down to the buckets.

"What are you doing carrying those? I thought it was Elijah's job to fetch the water?"

Rebekah couldn't stop her gaze from flitting left, over the cooking pit in the heart of the small village, and as Helgi followed it, she already knew what she was going to see.

Elijah was across the way, skulking under a pine tree, watching the new woman in the village, a Tatia Petrova, talking coquettishly to Niklaus by the warm fire.

No wonder Elijah was frowning so darkly.

Helgi moved towards them, taking a long stride before Rebekah held her back, shaking her head.

"Leave them be, Helgi. It's just one day."

But it wasn't just one day. Niklaus had missed grain harvest two days ago because he spent the morn following the Petrova woman around the village. Three days ago, Elijah had ditched fixing the hut roofs because he'd spent the evening meandering around with her through the woods.

Winter was barely a moon-tide away, and while Helgi tried to fill in the for the currently missing brothers, there was only so far the young woman could stretch herself thin.

They couldn't afford losing food or warmth so close to the snows coming.

She wouldn't have minded, really, truly, if neither Elijah or Niklaus didn't seem so… Miserable now.

"Do not listen to my sister, Helgi. She is only happy she no longer has to share your attention with our brothers if they're busy being infatuated."

Helgi swivelled on her heel at the newcomer, turning from the sight across thee camp fire, grinning from ear to ear.

"Finn!"

Rebekah, nevertheless, was less enthused about her brother's sudden appearance circling out the treeline.

"Finn. Must you not join our brothers in their own pursuit? You three do so like picking berries from the same bush."

Helgi had never really understood why the eldest Mikaelson had yet to marry though he was well above the age to do so, as she didn't really understand Rebekah's snipe and suddenly sour disposition at his arrival, though Rebekah, while they had been bathing out in the west river, had told her once he'd taken interest in someone and was merely being a coward about it.

Someone that had caused the longest quarrel between the Mikaelson brothers, Kol included, three moon-tides ago, where they had not spoken to each other for five full days before Esther had to intervene.

The truce, even to this day, seemed tentative.

Helgi didn't understand what Finn could be worried about, however, and she understood even less why Elijah or Nik might be misgiving on them, why Kol and thrown that punch at Finn that had seen a bruise blossom on his jaw.

Finn had a hut of his own, land of his own, he could hunt and fish and was handsome, almost nauseatingly so, like every other Mikaelson.

Helgi's prospects for marriage were less… Bright. As an orphan, she had no family to retain a dowry, no land but the square the Mikaelsons had let her keep for herself on borrowed means, and the ramshackle nature of her hut left much to be desired for a prospective bride. She held no delusions about her appearance either. Long limbed and thin from years of hunting, most often found in breeches and leather than dress or flowers, she was neither soft or unblemished. She was angled and harsh, too bright in some places, like her red hair and her green eye, and yet pale in others, short and soft skinned.

Ayana Bennett once said her too-thin hips would snap in childbirth, and her small chest was manly.

"They are making fools of themselves. I will not do the same to myself."

Helgi shrugged at Finn's assertion.

"Some would say love makes fools of us all."

Finn scoffed, glaring over the pit.

"That is not love. It is merely a poor attempt to instil jealousy without realizing the target of that attempt wouldn't lower themselves to such things. She would only be happy they were happy."

Helgi laughed kindly, confusedly, feeling like she was only hearing half a conversation, the tweet of a song bird in the treetop joining her tune.

"Ah, then what is love, oh wise one?"

Finn refused to meet her eye.

"Love is sacrifice. It is to give yourself and expect nothing in return. To do what must be done, to put someone else's needs above your own, to… give and not take. My brother's have yet to figure that out."

Rebekah rolled her pale blue eyes, wiggling herself between the two almost pointedly, resentfully.

Helgi hadn't even noticed the space had been closing.

"Now look what you've done. You've set Finn off. Come on, then, if you're both here, you can help me with the buckets."

Scooping a bucket up and settling the rabbit over her shoulder tightly, Helgi joined the Mikaelson siblings in their stroll back to their home.

Three days later, she'll understand Finn's meaning of love all too well. Jumping between a leaping wolf and a Mikaelson, she doesn't manage to save Henrik, but she buys enough time for Niklaus to take his body back, and in turn, his own life with him and the boys corpse.

Love is sacrifice, and it costs Helgi her life.

Again, and again, and again.


Mystic Falls, America; Present Day

Heather Potter lifted the stone up to the window, watching the light play refracted rainbows through the pale, fat face. She winces at the brightness of it, her eyes having trouble with light that day. She put it down to a lack of sleep, the stiffness of her neck, and the thrumming at her temple.

"It looks like a bar of fuckin' soap."

She snarked as threw it back to an awaiting Stefan, who had to scramble to catch the one-of-a-kind gem before it rolled underneath the Salvatore's settee.

"Are we sure this is the Moonstone and not a fancy hockey puck?"

Damon, lounging on the furthest couch with a glass of bourbon in hand next to some vampire called Rose, glared hotly her way. Heather pointedly ignored him, instead rolling her neck in a futile attempt to ease the strain steadily building there.

"We're sure. And according to Slater, the only way to break the Sun and Moon curse is with that stone you just tossed to the side like a used reciept."

Turning her back on the window and the light that burned, Heather shook her head.

"And according to your little friend, Rose, was it? This Sun and Moon curse can only be broken from either side; Werewolf or Vampire. Werewolves break it, and they can shift whenever they want, Vampire's get to the finish line first, and they no longer need SPF 1000. Oh, and… These super old Vampires-"

"The Originals. They are the first of our kind."

Rose cut in sharply, and Heather waved her off.

"These not so original Originals are now coming after Elena, who has Petrova blood, another ingredient needed, in order to break the curse?..."

Heather lingered before incredulously searching the room for a sign of intelligent life.

"Does no one else smell the bullshit on this?"

Rose reared back, affronted.

"I'm not lying. Damon was there when Slater told us about the curse. He and Elena have already met Elijah-"

Heather cringed back, nearly bumping into the window sill, a thrum of pain arching sharp in her temple suddenly.

Fuck, as if what she needed right now was a migraine.

"Look, love, I don't disbelieve you think the curse is real, but trust me, as someone who's lived through prophecies, war and mad-men in the pursuit of immortality, let me tell you curses are never so bloody simple. If you guys can't see that this is too good to be true, a poison apple hiding as a golden egg, you're all dumber than I thought you were and I didn't give any of you much credit to begin with."

Stefan heaved himself up from his chair with a exhausted sigh.

"Then what do you propose this curse is? People are after the Moonstone, have gone so far as to die for it. The Originals are real. Something is going on."

Still rubbing at her temple, Heather glared back.

"I don't know, do I? It seems impeccably perfect that two warring species just so happen to have a way out of their singular weakness's while locking the other into theirs and, oh, would you look at that, the oldest family in existence are lurking around the corner just as everyone convenes on this accidental fuckin' plot point. That's not coincidental at all, is it? And if you can't tell with your delicate sensibilities, Stefan, I'm being fuckin' sarcastic."

Throwing her hands up, Heather gave one last provocation for consideration.

"Look, all I'm saying is maybe we run some references on this curse before we try breaking it, yeah? Or handing it over to someone who's going to try and break it because you two want to get your jollies off with the local bloody Doppelganger."

"This isn't just about the curse, Heather-"

Stefan argued.

"Elijah's seen Elena, he knows she exists. How long before this Niklaus turns up-"

Heather doesn't remember taking a step forward, but suddenly she was moving that way, and oh, the ground was coming up to say hello-

Stefan zoomed towards her before she could face plant the oak floor, wrestling her suddenly weak form into a kneel.

She knew it was bad when he looked worried for her.

"Maybe you should sit down. You look ill-"

Heather yanked her arm back, forcing herself to a stand on shaky knees.

It was a headache.

Just a headache.

Nothing more.

"I'm fine."

She grumbled, scrubbing wearily at her eyes, if only to masquerade the tears gathering on her lashes.

"I just haven't been sleeping properly these last few days and your voices are grating on my last nerve."

The barb doesn't land, they're used to her prickly nature now, but thankfully they dropped the matter, Damon standing to hold out the Moonstone for her to take.

"As our resident magical powerhouse, we just need you to sit on this and keep it warm for a bit. You know the drill, while we do a bit more digging."

Eyeing the stone, Heather eventually took it.

"Fine… But first sign of any skulking Vampires and I'm blowing this thing sky high. You two along with it."

Heather doesn't wait for a reply before leaving with the Moonstone out the backdoor of the kitchen, and it's only as Damon hears the click of the lock does he turn to his brother.

"Is it just me or was she more of an asshole than usual?"

Stefan shrugged.

"Hard to tell underneath that self-righteous British stiff upper lip."


Ostrožac, Bosnia; 1277

Hasnija Plakalović hugged the tallow candle closer to her chest as she worked her way deeper into the dark bowels of her godfather's castle, gliding down the granite steps of the narrow corridor. The cool winter wind from the windows rattled the iron caged glass, and her flimsy night dress did little to ease the chill as the breeze made the small light in her hold flicker and blink unsteadily, dunking and tugging her from the dark in sickening intervals.

In her other hand, the dagger she clutched trembled as the last scream muffled by stone and mortar cut off abruptly.

Something was in her home.

Something was prowling in the dark of the servants quarters.

Something was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

She should have run when she had the chance, out into the snow and the night with her bare feet, but people were being hurt, badly by the sounds that had awoken her only minutes ago, and with her godfather away on courtly duty, their safety and wellbeing were her responsibility.

"Whoever you are, I beseech you to leave with haste! My Godfather's guards are coming as I speak-"

The candle at her chest wavered to black, an unnatural wind gushing up the stairs, so strong it nearly knocked her sideways into the wall.

Hasnija dropped the dagger, and she could hear it, her last defence, bounce down the remaining steps with a clink, clink, clink.

"Helgi?"

The voice came from behind, male, coaxing, struck with unmasked wonder. Hasnija whirled on her step, the now unlit candle hissing small plumes of fatty smoke that clogged her throat like ash. She couldn't see the man's face in the dark, the window light a wedge of a prison separating the two, but she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

He took a step down-

"Helgi, darling, is that really you? It's me, Kol-"

And into the light.

His face was handsome and monstrous, boyish in youth and smeared in blood, and his eyes, his terrible black eyes, veined unholy in demonic delight.

Hasnija screamed, dropped the candle, foot catching on the hem of her nightdress as she flailed backwards, and then she fell. The last thing she saw before her neck struck stone and snapped was the monstrous boy reaching for her.


Mystic Falls, America; Present Day

"Heather?"

Caroline called as she entered the Forbes house, slinging her purse on the coat hook before making her way inside.

"You back yet?"

When no answer came from upstairs or downstairs, Caroline shrugged it off. It wasn't the first time Heather had come home late after school, Caroline often had Cheer practice and Heather sometimes stayed late in the library, and the two normally met back up for dinner at six. That gave Caroline some time to kick her feet up and do some shopping-

It takes her a while to realize, as she enters the kitchen for her laptop left on the counter that morning, that the crumpled form on the cold floor was not, indeed, a discarded red coat, but the motionless, face down body of her cousin.

"Heather?!"

Caroline cried as she darted for the girl, falling to her knees beside a hip, scrabbling to turn her over.

Her green eyes were open, frozen, blank, and there was blood trickling out her nose, down her chin, dark and dried, in her hand was clutched the Moonstone.

Caroline fumbled for her cell, nearly dropping it as it slipped from her back pocket, clumsy with the keys.

The dial tone rang three times before someone on the other end of 911 picked up.

"Please, I need an ambulance! I just found my cousin on the floor and-… Oh god, I don't think she's breathing-"


In Part Two: Heather wakes up in the hospital after suffering a brain aneurism, Elijah runs into a familiar face in Metabetchouan–Lac-a-la-Croix, Canada in 1811, and everything goes as well as you expect it to with Mikaelsons and a Potter involved...


A.N: No smut yet for this short story, but it will come a little next chapter, and the last two are filled with it lmao. Hope you're all looking forward to this little piece of nonsensical filth!

If you can, don't forget to drop and review, and I will catch you all soon. Until then, stay beautiful! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21