A/N: (1/28/21) I'm breaking the rules a little here by not making this a crossover story (TVDxThe Magicians), read at your own peril? So this is a one shot I had to get out of my system. I intended to write it so that if you haven't seen The Magicians (TV show), it would still make sense, but I got lazy. I think it should still hold up, you just might not get all of the references if you decide to read on.

It's a Jenna centered fic, I tried to keep her in character to the best of my ability, but I took a lot of liberties with Jenna's background, it probably doesn't all match cannon.

Warning: TVD cannon violence, infused The Magicians cannon violence/ darkness (A tad more explicit, but if you're an avid fanfic reader, probably nothing that'll make you blink). Sexual Assault warning.

Summary:

(Jenna Sommers was fifteen when it occurred to her that magic might be real, but she was still little ways off from accepting that she was a conduit to the magic sprinkled plentifully throughout her atmosphere...)

The protective wards she had placed on the house blared with a ringing only Jenna could hear, but when she looked for what the trigger could possibly be, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Now she realized they tended to activate whenever Stefan, Damon, and Elena were in proximity of the house.

Jenna had just thought it was her shoddy magic work. Nothing to overthink, because even though her hometown was fraught with emotional minefields, it was never an explicitly dangerous place. Well, there were the "animal" attacks but at a certain point, those became white noise and she was never one to pay especially close attention to the news.


Jenna Sommers was fifteen when it occurred to her that magic might be real, but she was still little ways off from really knowing that she was a conduit to the magic sprinkled plentifully throughout her atmosphere.


Fifteen was not a good year for Jenna. She was too pale, too skinny, and looked far too much like her father, according to her mom.

That year, Jenna often wished she didn't look so much like her dad. ( Well , if she was making wishes, she would wish that he didn't abandon them in the first place.) But then, her mother would coldly remark that Jenna was looking particularly trashy when the young teen young returned home late from a party, to be careful to not open up her knees for the wrong boy, or she would end up shriveled and alone just like her. (My baby girl, the town slut- You're sister is making a good name, a good family for herself, and you're not helping her by being found in your underwear with the Lockwood boy every chance you-)

(That had been the first and only Jenna ever went skinny dipping, and with Mason, the only redeeming person in her shitty, suffocating town.)

During moments such as those, Jenna simply wished her dad had had the decency to take her with him.

At fifteen, Jenna pulled back from her sister. Older, kinder, prettier Miranda, the apple of their mother's eye. Miranda, also the daughter of a drunk from the wrong side of town, had leveraged her beauty and charm and ensnared the golden boy himself, Grayson Gilbert.

It was hard to hate Miranda and Grayson, Jenna really had to work at it. In spite of Miranda's soft spot for their vindictive mother, her older sister knew that Lila Sommers didn't nurture her youngest daughter as she did her eldest. And so, Miranda made sure to always tuck Jenna into bed at a reasonable hour when she was a child, restocked their kitchen with groceries every week, and when she and her husband moved into their own beautiful home, made sure to let her baby sister know that she was always welcomed.

Jenna had taken her sister up on her offer a few times, but every time she did, she never wanted to leave. Being around Miranda and Grayson, who lovingly doted on their two young kids, kids who were actually wanted, it hurt. It was agonizing, actually.

And with Elena being five and Jeremy four, Miranda had her hands full with the pair of them that she didn't notice Jenna wasn't around as much.


School had just been deemed closed for the summer in Mystic Falls, Virginia, and her best friend in her too-small, hornet's nest of a town insisted she go with him to the keg party at Logan Fell's.

Logan, who had been her second kiss at age thirteen during a high-stakes game of spin the bottle (the title of first kiss belonged to Mason). Jenna had initially denied Logan's personal invitation. Even at fifteen, she was wary of his too smooth words, his almost offensive charm. But if there was anyone who could get her to second guess her good first instinct, it was Mason Lockwood. Mason with his pretty, always genuinely happy to see her blue eyes and sun kissed brown hair.

That year, Jenna spent an hour every morning on her heavily applied, inky dark eyeliner, and, if her mother was to be believed, favored jean skirts that were consistently too short. Not wanting to deal with her mother's scathing words, she opted to sneak out of her bedroom window the night of the party.


Besides his warm, initial greeting, Logan Fell left her to her own devices in his home. Jenna was then promptly abandoned by Mason in favor of Rachel Carthy. She was a year ahead of them, and finally giving the soon-to-be junior the time of day.

Jenna fell into the fringes of the party, not in the mood for mingling. In an effort to calm her spiking social anxiety, she had drank too much too fast. Giggly and sleepy, her limbs loose and her inhibitions low, she collapsed onto the wooden bench in the dark and moonlit back yard.

This is where Andrew Richards found her. Skinny, pimply, bean-pole Andrew. Freshly graduated and salutatorian of his class, Jenna retained just enough clarity to wonder what he was doing at a lowly junior class party, and not the Senior exclusive bash at the Falls.

Jenna's movements were too sluggish, her words slurred as she attempted to fend off his awkward, sleazy advances.

In seconds, it seemed, he was sandwiching her against the rough, rickety bench- His breath rank against her ear as he told her how he couldn't stop thinking about her, how hot she was, how hard she made him-

No, no- Stop, she whimpered as his wandering hands worked her skirt higher up her torso. He told her how he didn't want to start college the loser virgin he had been all throughout high school-

Panicked dread shot through her- She tried to push him off, but in spite of his weak build, he all too easily kept her pinned beneath him.

Get off, get off, GET OFF! She shrieked in her head, if only her lips could say the words-

Her eyes had been open as he seemed to be thrown off of her, some invisible force keeping him pinned as she had been to the wet grass before her.

Sitting up, Jenna sniffled, wiping her tears and what she thought had been snot with the back of her hand. She was startled to see her pale skin smeared in dark blood.


Electricity seemed to be coursing through her at that moment, it had been at her fingertips. A painful euphoria. It had been her who somehow yanked Andrew off of he, she just knew it.


Or- Had it been that Andrew was falling down drunk himself? A coward who had wanted to use alcohol as an excuse for forcing himself on the younger girl, and Jenna's weak pushes had managed to fight him off.


It had been Logan who found her first, who believed her at her word right away. Her assault could have easily ruined Jenna, who the founding families daughters passively-aggressively sniped about, often spreading wicked rumors about her and Mason- Who felt the need to take her down a peg and not let her think too highly of herself simply because Grayson Gilbert proposed to a stunning girl from the wrong side of town.

He and Mason had gathered their friends and beat Andrew into a bloody pulp. The Sheriff had turned a blind eye to the brutal bashing the next morning.


Remembering how sweet and comforting Logan had been that horrible night was why Jenna initially ignored the rumors of his cheating with Monica. But then, once it was Mason who confirmed them, she had no choice but to believe them.

Mason, who had prioritized her against his other friends, girlfriends, and founding family politics since they were five out of some misplaced loyalty over her taking the fall with him over the Crayola graffiti on their shared desk.

It was Mason who had been at her side when she experienced her next heartbroken burst of magic at seventeen. They had both been dazed and sleepy after the hit of pot they had taken, which Mason had been gifted from his college girlfriend. Ellie? Eliza?

"He's a piece shit, Sommers. You were always too good for him," Mason had soothed as they laid under the bleachers of their high school. He had talked her into ditching their last period, not that she needed much convincing.

Just last weekend, she and Logan had finally-

She thought she had been ready. He was her first, but she knew she wasn't his. He was sweet, took his time, took it slow.

The following Monday, whispers of him and Monica littered her first period class.

Her tongue felt heavy, her words were slow. "I need 'nother hit."

As he passed their makeshift apple bong back over to her, she thought of her drunken (never sober) attempts to access the power she had channeled that singularly horrible night, the summer before her junior year. When she was just deluded enough to believe she had some sort of magical power. Telekinetic. That was the word for what she was capable of, right? Moving stuff with her mind.

A lulling, herbal scent surrounded her as she blew out a steady stream of smoke. She squinted at the hollow apple in her hand, her tongue poking out of the left corner of her mouth, as it was suddenly floating mid air above her and Mason.

She felt that same, warm kinetic energy from last time, from her head to her toes. A bright guffaw escaped her. " Holy shit - I did it!"

"The hell," Mason said as he raised his arm to swipe his hand at the faded red apple, catching it as it fell.

Later, they would shrug off what they had seen. They had been high out of their minds, of course.


TEST THIS WAY.

Jenna whirled in a circle, double-checking her surroundings, surprised to find herself in a expansive hallway. Ceiling to floor glass windows overlooking a beautiful, lush sunny courtyard on one side, and blank white and slate gray walls on her other.

Not a minute ago, she had been in Miranda and Graysons spare bedroom, tipsy and agonizing over what to do with the rest of her life. She had graduated the previous May, and her impressively put together older sister and her well to do doctor husband were not great company for lost and confused recent graduate.

When Miranda had been 23, she had been married with a baby on the way. Only ten at the time, Jenna had been in awe of her very grown up and adult sister. Now that age, it occurred to her how young Miranda had been, and envious at how easy she had made everything look.

Jenna shook her head as she continued to walk down the hallway, following the arrow in the sign. Adult life had proven to be so God damn fucking bizarre and tragic as is, why not this surreal illusion?

She was surprised to find herself suddenly… Sober. Alarmingly clear headed.

Eventually, she reached the end of the hallway, and found herself in a spacious classroom packed with fellow twenty-somethings. She walked down the center of the room, rows of desks on either side of her, and took a seat on the first available chair she saw.

At the very front of the classroom, a professionally suited, severe man was pacing with hands clasped behind his back.

"Welcome," he said in a steady baritone voice as he came to a halt, placing his hands in his pockets. "You may address me as Dean. I know you have questions, they will be answered in time. Now, your only job is to pass the examination before you." He flipped the hourglass at the front desk. "Begin."


"Jen- You didn't even tell us you applied. Congratulations!" Miranda cheered as she reached over to hug Jenna.

Thanks to impressive illusion spell work, the Gilberts were under the impression Jenna was attending NYU's master program for psychology on a full ride.

In truth, she was going to spend the next three years at Brakebills University for classically trained magicians . Jenna was going to be a fucking magician .

Brakebills tracked individuals with nascent abilities, and after a rather disorienting screening process, invested in those with satisfactory magical potential.

Jenna was telekinetic. It hadn't been a trick of the light, or being too high- She was magic.

"I didn't want to get my hopes up, and even if I did get accepted, I definitely didn't think I qualified for this grant," Jenna said as she appraised her "scholarship" paperwork.

"You worked hard, you put in the hours, and it paid off," Grayson said with a proud smile as he walked by the pair of sisters on his way to the kitchen stove. He then raised his voice so Elena and Jeremy could hear him in the next room. "Kids,you should be very proud of your aunt Jenna."

Jenna, feeling guilty over the secrecy and huge lie, picked at the already chipped nail polish on her nails. She had survived high school by the skin of her teeth. College had been okay, being away from her mom and her ideal, clearly favorite daughter had been just the breath of fresh air that she needed.

"Hey hey- None of that," Miranda chastised as she placed a glass of white wine in front of her. "Kelly's dropping Matt off here in an hour, and then we're taking you out to celebrate- Grayson can take kids for the night."


Jenna groaned in frustration and dropped her head into her hands, flinging the book in front of her against the cottage wall as an afterthought.

"No no, you almost had it that time. You're too tense, sweetie," resident third year, Margo Hansen, had tsked at her. "El- Jen here is in need of some sangria-"

"Say no more, Bambi," the fabulous sophisticate, Elliot Waugh, declared as he strode over, a drink in each hand. "There you go, Sommers."

Screw it, Jenna thought as she took her first, huge gulp.

Her first month at Brakebills was coming to an end, and she was wondering if it had been a fluke that she passed the entrance exam.

For the first time in her life, she was prioritizing her education. Spellwork, the poppers and exact finger work her spells required, didn't come as easy to her as it did for some of her classmates.

She had spent the better part of her night perfecting popper 15, which was necessary if she was going to advance to Magellans Lasso.

Jenna had drank her way through high school, spent college in a blaze.

She was determined to be, if not a master magician, at least a competent one. To not flunk out and have her memories of magic wiped and erased would be a start.

To that end, aside from the occasional glass of wine, she was almost a teetotal these days. Ditto on all the good stuff Jenna used to partake in.

And it still wasn't enough.

"Look, dear, telekinetic to telekinetic, Bambi's right- You need to unwind." Elliot tilted his head thoughtfully as he took a seat on the couch across from her. "Better yet, get laid."

"You didn't give me the abstinent vibe when you were first sorted here," Margo speculated as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. Gorgeous, a lot bitchy, and enviously self possessed, Jenna couldn't help but quietly admire the girl.

Jenna laughed, instinctively covering her mouth when it turned into a snort. "Believe me, I'm usually not- But I'm actually taking school seriously for once, so I decided to cut back-"

Elliot and Margo caught each other's gaze, then turned to face Jenna with disapproving eyes.

"Big mistake," Margo emphasized.

"Colossal," Elliot agreed dryly as he sipped at his own drink..


Jenna was sorted as a Physical kid, with telekinesis being her specialty. New students slummed it in general dorms until their magical discipline was determined, and then they were sent off to live with their cohort to be amongst peers with kindred disciplines.

For Jenna, this meant her home for the next three years was the Cottage, the campus's resident party house.

Of course, she had thought jadedly when she first moved in, dejected that she was not meant to shake off her party girl ways.

But for all her initial doubts, the Cottage was home. It was distinctly cozy, with an overabundance of pillowed couches and a relaxing fireplace. Thanks to living right by a train station when she was kid, and then being subjected to her roommates snoring and the loud pulsing of music when she was in college, Elliot and Margo's all night ragers were somewhat soothing instead of debilitating when Jenna was studying through the night. (Although, were it an issue, Elliot's kinder half, Quentin, had made it a point to teach Jenna soundproof charms.)

Not that Elliot wasn't kind- He was, in own aloof way.

Jenna was baffled when Elliot and Margo took a lowly first year under their wing. Her only friend at this point had been second year Todd.

Elliot and Margo were responsible for up keeping the Cottages Studio 54 reputation- They were the party, really.

She had quickly gained their respect by dancing the night away with them with the aid of their friend, Josh Hobermans', suspiciously euphoric home-baked cookies.

She had woken up the following morning in bed with Josh and Margo.

Flashes of her very experimental night played out in Jenna's head- They were a very enthusiastic pair and Josh had been unexpectedly limber.

"Oh, she's adorable," Margo had drawled as her eyes blinked open, taking in Jenna hastily redressing. "You're welcome to be our third anytime, Sommers."


Margo and Elliot had been right- Spending her time Brakebills abstinent and sober was no way to live. It wasn't Jenna's way, at least.

Learning her spell casting would never come easy to her, she certainly had to work at it, but the boundless illicit drugs eased her stress, relaxed her movements.

"Been there," Quentin mumbled to her as Margo topped off her drink with a shimmy and a wink at the next party. "Her bite is worse than her bark, but she means well-"

"Don't you dare explain me, Coldwater," Margo snapped as she walked away.

Jenna's mouth dropped open. "You and Margo-"

He let out a put upon sigh. "And Elliot."


Sweet, nerdy Quentin and his best friend, the beautiful and especially brilliant Julia Wicker, befriended Jenna after Margo and Elliot more or less vouched for her.

As much as Jenna grew to love Margo and Eliot, they were most definitely clubbing friends- Academics were most certainly not their focus despite how obviously talented they were. It was nice, in a way. Never had Jenna's party-goer ways and stamina had been so appreciated and revered.

"You're a life saver Julia," Jenna said after she finished her exams for the semester.

"You're really talented, Jenna," Julia said with an earnest smile. "Stop thinking otherwise, You remind me a little too much of Q, and not in a good way, when you do that whole self-deprecating schtick."

Quentin rolled her eyes as he tied his hair in a low bun. "We'll make a master of magician of you yet, Jen," he smiled.


Jenna was in her third and final year when she got the news.

Miranda and Grayson were dead, and Elena had come so close to-

Jenna screamed, creating a devastating vortex that tore through the cottage. It's walls came undone, books and glass and beloved knick knacks circulating dangerously through the air.

"Jenna- Jenna!" she heard Quentin scream.

"No- Stop! Stop!" she cried as he wrapped his arms around her, compressing her arms, her magic.

"They're dead, she's dead," Jenna said as her legs collapsed. Quentin caught her before she could fall to the floor, simply holding her as she sobbed.


"They made me their sole guardian- I mean, I know 'Randa never liked John that much, but I never thought-" Jenna let out a rather boisterous burp, disrupting her slurred train of thought.

Julia rubbed her back, nodding encouragingly.

"I can't believe I'm the sole guardian of two kids- They're babies-"

"Isn't your niece 16, and her brother not that much younger-"

"Yeah, but I can't- How can I- Miranda was the best mom. She and Grayson practically raised me! I- I'm a mess, Jules. One look at me, and Elena and Jeremy will know I'm a fraud. Maybe- maybe I should reach out to John-" Jenna compressed her lips into a thin line at the thought.

John, only a year older than her, was just so much more annoyingly put together than her.

Jenna was a mess. Flighty, prone to binge drinking, and always up for Josh's drugged-up masterpieces- She was in no position to parent two teenagers.

"Jen, you have to trust that your sister and her husband knew what they were doing when they chose you. And you know what, I don't think you would be agonizing this much over what's best for your niece and nephew if you weren't the best person to look after them. Trust me, it's already a lot more than what most people have. They are so lucky to have you, believe me."


"Toast!" Jenna exclaimed. "I can make toast." She was woefully underprepared for their first day of school. The passage of time seemed to sneak up on her these days.

"It's all about the coffee, Aunt Jenna," Elena assured her as she poured herself some.

Jenna nodded, remembering how Miranda had to cajole her with sugared and buttered toast most mornings when she was going through the awkward hell that was middle school.

"Is there coffee?" Jeremy asked tiredly as he entered the kitchen. He was decked in his usual black, and Jenna was relieved to see that the whites of his eyes were bright for once. Either he finally discovered the magic of eye drops, or he needed to restock his stash.

Either way, he seemed sober enough this morning, and Jenna was going to take the win.

"Lunch Money?" Jenna offered hectically, wanting to make sure had everything they needed. What else? She was forgetting something.

"Don't you have a big presentation of something?" Elena wondered.

"I have a presentation with my thesis advisor-" Jenna raised her wrist to check her watch. "Now. Crap." Shit shit shit.

"Then go, we'll be time," Elena reassured her, her confident expression all Miranda.

Jenna shot her niece a grateful look as she hurried out the door.


"You're late," Alice said without looking up as Jenna entered the predictably somber and depressing Library.

"I'm sorry, it was the kids first day of school-"

The impassive blonde waved away Jenna's words. "I covered for you, just get started with the Queen's collection."

Pulling her hair up into a ponytail, Jenna settled in her seat at her oversized desk, every inch of its surface space piled with old books and loose papers, and got to work.

She was surrounded by piles and piles of huge novels, endless shelves and rows of books, some containing devastating magic and some considerably less so. Transcribing these tombs, organizing, and figuring out where the hell to re-shelve them was not the exciting career Jenna imagined she would have embarked on after surviving frakin' magic school, but it was a necessary evil.

Early on in the summer, the library somehow seized the means of magic, and now they controlled how it was dispersed, who got what, and how much. Magicians these days were surviving on ambient magic, which was just enough for your basic spells, nothing too crazy.

Jenna worked every day of July warding up Miranda's and Grayson's house, her new home, with every sort of protection she could think of, a typically hours-long process taking up the whole month since she only had so much ambient magic to work with.

Not that the library would ever admit it, but they were blatant with their favoritism. The new status quo meant nothing to well-connected master magicians, in which nothing had changed. It was the undesirables who were fucked over. The hedge witches, who for one reason or another weren't accepted to a school such as Brakebills, had to forge their own path to the discovery of magic. A strong stigma was attached to them. Classically trained magicians snobbishly looked down on the lowly hedges who were desperate for scraps of real magic. Jenna had looked down on them once until she was responsible for shelving their journeys, their stories.

Other undesirables include your average magicians who wouldn't (or couldn't) flock to the cities, where the Library agreed to infuse with higher levels of magic. Some magicians like Jenna, in her desperation to maintain her connection to magic, agreed to an internship at the multi-universe encompassing Library of the Neitherlands. An internship that paid in cooperative magic (within the confines of the library) and a stipend paid to her bank account- It was more than generous and nothing to sneeze at. (Still, the stipend wasn't exactly a livable wage, and it took a huge weight off of Jenna's shoulders that Grayson and Miranda were fortunate enough to have paid off their home and ensure that Elena and Jeremy weren't left wanting.)


"I like a man who can dine alone- A quiet strength." Jenna had a weakness for pretty men.

"I thought you were still into that whole Logan- depression thing," Jeremy said as Jenna attempted to subtly check out the man about her age a few tables over. They were having dinner together at the Grill, and what a fortunate time they arrived.

"Oh- I've sworn off men forever," Jenna made clear. "But it doesn't mean I can't observe them from a safe distance," she smiled. Jenna still had terrible taste in men, if her decision to give it another shot with her high school sweetheart was any indication of. Case in point.

"Well, I can introduce you," her nephew offered. Jenna's eyes flitted from cool as a cucumber Jeremy, and the man intently focused on the book before him as she shook her head.

She was so proud nephew's turnaround, as baffling and abrupt as it was. As it turned out, that man was his history teacher, who was not only gorgeous but was also giving her lost nephew the opportunity to raise his grade.

"Have you picked a topic?" she asked as he told her of the paper he was writing for extra credit.

"No, not yet. It's gotta be local, and non-internet research, so…"

"Well, that's easy," Jenna declared. Finally, a compelling reason to go through all of Grayson's founding family clutter. With her day job, she wasn't exactly eager to sort through yet more files and papers and books, but for Jeremy's sake… "You got all your dad's stuff."

Jeremy stared at her with focused eyes. "What stuff?"

"The Gilberts came over on the 'Mayflower' stuff." Them and every other founding family. "All that family lineage from way back- Your dad really loved all the family history stuff, it's all boxed up in the closet." Jenna smiled in remembrance of how dorky Grayson had been.

Feeling eyes on her, she gazed to her left- Oh God, the history teacher was making his way to her table. This was not a safe distance.

"Jeremy, what's up man?" he grinned, still having yet to meet her eyes.

"This is my Aunt Jenna," Jeremy said, pointing to her.

"Alaric Saltzman, nice to meet you," he nodded amicably.

She thanked him for the opportunity he had given Jeremy, and his gaze definitely lingered on her as he said it was no problem.

Mm. Alaric Saltzman.


"Jeremy totally ditched me," Jenna said as she channeled her inner Margo and confidently approached the cute history buff at the bar. She had definitely regressed since returning to Mystic Falls, she hasn't been this gaga over a guy she just met since she was a teen.


So much for swearing off guys. She and Ric had somehow powered through the uncomfortable tragedy that was his young wife's death, and it was difficult to shrug off that kind of immediate chemistry with an easy on the eyes stranger.

"Some other time then," he smiled charmingly as she decided to not invite him into her home.

Think of what Miranda would do, Jenna reminded herself. A responsible guardian would not invite an absolute stranger into their home.


Her relationship with Ric had progressed quite nicely, and Elena and Jeremy didn't hold it against her for dating their history teacher.

It probably helped that the teens had their own romantic (hormonal) distractions to keep them busy.

There was something that was… Peculiar- about Elena's boyfriend, Stefan. Jenna wasn't sure what it was, but like Elena, he had grown up faster than he had to and seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. She couldn't thank the boy enough for putting a smile on her niece's too-serious face.

Jenna was similarly relieved when Jeremy's very inappropriate girlfriend, Vicky, left the picture, and he started talking about home-schooled, age-appropriate Anna.

Unfortunately, with Stefan Salvatore came Damon, with his alarming blue eyes and palpable lewdness. Jenna didn't like how his eyes trailed over her niece, and his fondness for high school girls in general.


Jenna's stress levels had risen considerably now that she had to share a house with Jonathon Gilbert, Grayson's severely less endearing younger brother. The vile excuse of a man told their nephew of Jenna's regretful tryst with him. (It had happened in the immediacy of her mother's death, a winter break during her undergrad. She was sad and drunk and he was there. May her niece and nephew have more self-respect than she did.)


"Aunt Jenna, on my word, you will take this knife and stab yourself with it." The imposter's words were calm, her eyes cold, and her smile sinister.

Jenna nodded numbly, the wards in her head igniting under the duplicate's focused stare. She had just gotten off the phone with Elena, and whatever was in front of her was not her niece.

With a beaming smile, in the blink of an eye and a rush of air, it was gone.


Animal attacks had been all over the news. A bizarre amount of animal attacks.

Jenna recalled the vampire stories Miranda used to tell her when she was a kid, which she later learned her older sister had heard from her then-boyfriend, Grayson.

I am unbelievably fucking stupid, Jenna berated herself as she poured over a volume of Nightcrawlers, Vampires, and Starworms. 5th Edition.

The vampiric species is over a thousand years old. A Wiccan witch, a practitioner of New Magic, is the sole creator of this plight.

The text went on to say how those who turned into vampires, after a blood exchange and the loss of their life, would be gifted with speed, strength, immortality, and compulsion.


"Please, Zelda- I don't even have to check it out. Just please let me see my niece's book."

The library recorded each and every life, from beginning to end, and Jenna was making a plea to her boss for Elena's volume.

Jenna managed to confirm that vampires were likely infesting Mystic Falls, and had been for quite some time based on the accounts of Grayson's apparently not insane ancestors. This still didn't account for why there was a vampire who looked exactly like Elena was running around, who Jenna herself had probably invited into their home.

The protective wards she had placed on the house blared with a ringing only Jenna could hear, but when she looked for what the trigger could possibly be, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Now she realized they tended to activate whenever Stefan, Damon, and Elena were in proximity of the house.

Jenna had just thought it was her shoddy magic work. Nothing to overthink, because even though her hometown was fraught with emotional minefields, it was never an explicitly dangerous place. Well, there were the "animal" attacks but at a certain point, those became white noise and she was never one to pay especially close attention to the news.

Because of this misconception, her wards only alerted her of potential danger, they didn't do jack shit in the event someone or something dangerous broke into the house.

Combative wards were complicated, explosive magic, and Jenna couldn't figure out how to place them without also endangering Elena and Jeremy. She now realized they may be worth looking into.

"I'm sorry Jenna, but material having to do with any doppelgangers is restricted-" stated Zelda matter of factly.

"Doppelganger-" began Jenna.

"I can, however, lend you your nephew's book."


Everything beyond the current date and time was redacted, but the major plot points of Jeremy's life thus far were more than informative.

How he was compelled by Damon to accept Vicky's disappearance, him finding out the truth of vampires thanks to Elena's journal, his infatuation with the immortal Anna. Jesus Christ.

I'm so sorry, Miranda, Jenna thought. A little less than a year in her care, and her teenaged niece and nephew were dating immortal beings over a century old. Ric was in on it, and at Elena's word, everyone Jenna loved was hiding this all from her to protect her.

The fuck. She could understand Elena and Jeremy being misguided enough to think this was acceptable, but Ric. That stung. All of it did.

This was her family in danger here, and it was her niece who was the target of a thousand-year-old psychopath. Jenna was meant to do the protecting.

As if vampires weren't enough, there was also the second strain of werewolfism in Mystic Falls to consider.


"Niklaus Mikaelson's book is on reserve at another branch. I can place an order for you, but you would be on the waiting list to receive it. My estimation would be sometime in the next 70 years."

Are you kidding me.

All of the original vampire's books had a similar waiting time, and the book of the witch who created them was considered dangerous enough that it was in the poison room.

"A word of warning, Jenna," Zelda said in that halting lilt of hers. "Since vampires are made with a different sort of magic, any spellwork you would use directly on them will be distorted due to the drastically different circumstances at play."

Jenna nodded in thanks as the first piece of advice Zelda ever gave her echoed in her head.

Be sure of yourself, Jenna. You're an admirably competent magician, but you'll never realize your potential until you accept the inherent chaos of magic and trust in your ability to channel it.

That comment may have stung coming from anyone else, but it had been genuine praise and word of advice from the always sincere Zelda. Uptight, rigid, and a stickler for order, it was easy to forget the tall, impeccably dressed librarian was a master magician.

"Thank you, Zelda. For everything."


Liars. Every single person in her home was lying to her.

She wasn't sure how to confront them about it, parenting books were rather lacking in this sort of area.

Taking a page from her niece's book, Jenna decided it didn't need to be done right away. Ric was another matter. Yes, his heart was in the right place, but being with him hurt rather than helped her right now.

She pulled away from him, but was too much of a coward to take that final plunge.

If she was so ready to break up with him instead of trying to figure out how they might be able to salvage their relationship, surely that was a sign that breaking up was the right thing to do. Her trust was shattered.


Elijah practically caused her wards to self implode. Honestly, why did she even bother.

Jenna knew the basics of the originals, how they started off a Viking family living in hunter- gatherer, kill or be killed times.

Under the circumstances, she couldn't afford to not invite him into her home.


She did take into consideration her own hypocrisy. Jenna omitted from her family that she was a magician. There were no hard and fast rules with this sort of thing, just a general understanding in her magical community that those with no magic were better left unaware. She did plan on telling her family this soon, but Jenna knew that meant that Stefan and Damon would be in the know as well. The two highly inappropriate suitors were infatuated with her niece to a disturbing degree.

Most magicians wouldn't touch this situation with a ten-foot pole. If her family wasn't involved, neither would Jenna. The fact that vampires were involved threw off the circumstances completely.

Jenna did further research on the subject, and the older the vampire, the more ridiculously convoluted her spell work would become. Not to mention, even if she could sort out the details, she imagined taking on an original would require a substantial amount of power. Even with the extra bit of magic the Library gifted her, Jenna just didn't have that kind of battery power.


A girls night had been exactly what she needed. Ric being at the Grill had put somewhat of a damper on things, and without meaning to, Jenna felt that she was leading him on.

And when in doubt, she drank. A lot.

Later that night, Elena found her pigging out on ice cream in the kitchen.

"Are John and Jeremy asleep?" Jenna asked as Elena joined her, stealing her spoon to take a bite for herself.

"Think so."

God. There was so much of Miranda in the girl. Her self assuredness, her compassion.

Jenna knew she relied too much on her niece in the wake of her own parent's death. No wonder Elena felt maternal towards the older woman.

It had blurred the lines for Jenna too, causing her to see Elena as an equal rather than the kid she was. Some of Jenna's anger over the betrayal had been tempered once put herself in her niece's shoes.

"If I go to bed right now, there's a chance I might wake up hangover free," Jenna thought out loud. Elena smiled and nodded in agreement when the doorbell rang.

"Who's that?" Jenna wondered as she walked over to open it.

"Hi. You must be Jenna," the woman on the other side greeted as soon as she opened the door. A sleek, beautiful woman with Elena's coloring. She was about Jenna's age.

"I'm Elena's mother."

Jenna's eyes teared as the shock settled. She hadn't known Isobel was back in the picture. Isobel, who had also been Ric's wife.

A protective ward specifically charmed to alert her of vampires she had not yet met was blaring in her head, and with the twitch of her fingers, she shut them off.

"Isobel," Elena breathed as anger flooded her eyes.

Jenna's head turned slowly from her niece back to- Isobel. Jenna had not known about her. Her face grew flushed. How is she supposed to save her niece if she doesn't know all the key details? All the players, all the dangers.

"Hello, Elena," Isobel went on. "It's nice to see you again."

"Again," Jenna parroted.

"So you're the woman who's dating my husband," Isobel smiled. "I need to speak to Elena, may I come in," she asked amicably. The woman was running a campaign of shock and awe.

"N- No!" Elena stuttered out, her face clouded in distress. "D- Don't invite her in," Elena said to her.

Isobel asked again, and her daughter slammed the door on her face.

The tears finally began to fall. Jenna paid them no mind, the alcohol giving her the courage she needed to confront her niece over all the secrecy.

"You knew she was still alive?" Jenna asked. The answer was all over the teenager's face. Jenna got angrier. " Ric. John. Did they know?"

"I can explain everything, Jenna-"

Jenna had more research to do if she was going to save her niece from herself, and she didn't have the stomach for any more lies. "No," Jenna declared as she walked away.

"No, Jenna, please," she heard Elena beg as Jenna stormed up the stairs.

Seeing her niece's tearful eyes would break her resolve. Jenna hurried to her room, slamming the door in Elena's face, locking it as she did so.

She slumped against the door, and slid to the floor, cradling her head in her hands.

Elena continued to plead, as Jenna did her best to hold back her sobs.

This was Miranda's daughter and son whose lives were at stake. Jenna was by no means a master magician, she had no idea who they were up against, and she was charged with their protection. She had no clue how they were going to survive any of this.


"Jenna please, just stop," Ric pleaded the next morning as Jenna hurriedly prepared to leave, also promising to explain everything to her.

She was genuinely curious about whether they would tell her the truth for once, but that was a fool's hope.

"Jenna please," Elena asked again.

"I don't have it in me to hear any more lies from you."


At a trashy dive bar en route to New York, where it was a workout to take steps on the suspiciously sticky floor, there was a door- A portal, to a similarly tacky bar in the Big Apple itself.

A nifty shortcut when Jenna was willing to make the two-hour drive.

This was where Jenna met Julia and her hedge witch friend, Kady.

"These spells should help you hold your own against an Original," Kady said as she outlined the specific battle magic for Jenna. "But I can't guarantee they're enough to kill him, and they're impossible to get right if you're not completely centered, or you risk lethal friendly fire."

Jenna nodded, the expression on Julia's face making her nervous.

"I tried to calculate the circumstances as best I could but- It's still really dicey, Jen. This is last resort shit, if there's any other way for you to get your niece out of dodge, then do that instead."

"Not to mention," Kady spoke up, "I seriously doubt there's enough ambient magic in Virginia to pull any of this off- My best guess is you'll only have enough juice to take one shot."

A protective gleam shone in Julia's eye. "I'm sorry Jenna, but if we're being realistic here- With all the stress you're under- You'll kill yourself attempting any of these spells."

Jenna's lower lip trembled, the stress of yesterday and the possible suicide she may have to undertake to protect her niece getting to her. "No no, that's a fair point," she said as she wiped away the stray tear. Even so, Jenna had to try.


Jenna stayed with Julia for the rest of the week, getting the circumstances as good as they were gonna get.

Kady had given Jenna some Hedge tips on how to pull ambient magic from a wide distance, but tried to talk Jenna from her plan as she did so.

"Look, I can't exactly teach you battle magic, okay. Not only is there a time crunch issue, but most people can't even do it, except in spurts. Like, baby under a car type shit."

Jenna nodded. "But you can do it on cue."

Kady eyed her in frustration as she explained that battle magic spells can only be done clean, and mastering them had been something she'd put year's of effort into. Reluctantly, the hedge which shared a shortcut that might allow Jenna to pull this off.


Jenna tucked the fluorescent, bright candy cane red makeshift bottle necklace she was wearing under her shirt. In a sturdier than it looked miniature glass bottle, was her emotions.

She had bottled them as soon as she'd returned to Mystic Falls the following Sunday night.

She had about three hours to track down Klaus, subdue him, and trap in a snow globe Julia had finagled to contain him. For how long, it was difficult to say, but it would buy Elena time.

But wearing her emotions around her neck any longer than that- It would not end pretty for Jenna.


Jenna's locator spell had brought her to the Grille. The spell work she had used made the world back and white. She surveyed the grayscale room, and at the corner of her eyes, a bright, almost blinding light.

She turned to the bar, where she spotted Ric. She remained expressionless as she raised her hands, forming a makeshift square, and peeked through the makeshift lense with her eye. Blonde, blue eyed, and deceptively angelic looking.

It wasn't Ric, it was Klaus. Jenna's best guess was that he was inhabiting Ric's body.

She lowered her hands as Klaus spotted her, and she nodded at him, gesturing with her hands to come to her, and walked out of the bar. She trusted that Klaus did his research, and would know who Jenna was on sight.


"Jenna," Ric's voice called out to her as she walked toward the alleyway at the back of the Grille. "Please wait, let me explain."

"No time for that, Klaus." Without lifting a finger, she had him pinned against the brick wall.

Ric's face was mystified as he took her in, and then a slow, delighted smile spread across it.

"A witch, are we?"

"Of sorts," Jenna acknowledged as she stepped a few paces from him to test a theory. "You're clearly inhabiting Ric to gain intel-" She paused as she moved her hands into place, to launch a spell that roughly translated in Magic Missile. Jenna's head was completely clear, and being free of her emotions allowed her to sagely acknowledge she was willing to kill Ric to keep Elena safe. Anything to protect Miranda's children.

She didn't know the mechanics of the spell that allowed Klaus to do something like this, how much of his strength he was able to maintain when taken out of his body, but she had to assume he wasn't up to par. This could be her only chance to be rid of him once and for all.

Before she could launch her attack, he just had to open his mouth.

"I feel compelled to inform you, should anything happen to this body, I'll just host a new one- Perhaps you're nephew Jeremy?" He asked amicably.

Well, there went that plan. She turned around and closed an eye for extra precision as she laughed her spell at a tree. And down it went, the tree eviscerated in a rather startling explosion.

"That could have been Ric's body, and it would have been for nothing," she said with no affect as she turned to look back at him.

His expression turned inscrutable as he studied her.

"Maybe the snow globe will be necessary," she muttered, mostly to herself.

"Well well, aren't you more intriguing than Katerina described you to be- A shame you're allied with the doppelganger." Eyes on her, he pitched his voice slightly higher as he called out for someone named Maddox.

Jenna felt an assault against the wards in her head, and was forced to relinquish her hold on Klaus as she turned to assess the threat.

Klaus witch-henchman was powerful, managing to stay on his feet as she tried to pin him to the wall as she did to Klaus. All her research, and she had forgotten to calculate the circumstances surrounding these mother nature, hippy dippy witches. As Jenna hesitated, a rapid, hair whipping breeze brought her to a crouch. The constant rushing of air caused the clasp holding her bottled emotions to become undone.

If Kady was right, the force of battle magic was more than sufficient to make up the difference. With a quick jab of her fingers, she sliced his head off.

"One less thing to worry about," Jenna remarked as she looked up to stare at Klaus, who seemed to be appraising her. She looked down to the paved ground and saw that her bottled emotions had rolled over in his direction.

"Hey- Wait a sec," Jenna said as he began to step towards her. It was too late- The glass bottle crunched and shattered under his foot. He looked towards his shoes with a frown.

Jenna immediately felt strangled as she tried to take in more air. Her chest heaved in a dry sob, the tears in her eyes having yet to catch up.

"Oh God, oh God," she gasped as she stared at the stray head in front of her. "What did I do? What did I do!"

She looked up to meet Ric's eyes, surprised to find that they were… Understanding. Almost soft. As he crouched before her, she was startled as she remembered it was actually Klaus at her side.

"You were willing to use any means necessary to protect your family," he said calmly as he grabbed her hands and encouraged her to stand up with him. "It's just a pity that its me you're pitted against."

Tears blurred her eyes as her gaze remained fixated on him. As she blinked them away, for just a second, it wasn't Ric's face she saw, but Klaus's. Burned gold curls framed an unfairly beautiful face, his blue eyes maybe just a shade darker than Ric's in the moonlight.

Jenna could barely keep standing, almost collapsing again as she stepped forward.

"C'mere love," Klaus said, wrapping an arm around her, steadying her.


Jenna sat on her couch trembling. She was hugging her knees to her chest as Klaus sat on the coffee table across from her.

"Wh- Why Elena? Is there any other way-"

"I'm afraid not sweetheart," Ric's cadence said matter of factly.

A sob settled in her throat. She had depleted all the ambient magic in town - for nothing. She had no more tricks up her sleeves, she had failed.

"A witch of sorts," he said with a raised eyebrow.

Jenna frowned at him.


It wasn't bad enough that she was being held captive in the midst of the worst, most head splitting, grinding hangover she's ever had, but Jenna was also subjected to Katherine's delightful company.


"Run along now, Alaric."

"Now without Jenna-"

Klaus stared down Ric. "You will leave now and inform the doppelgänger that the ritual happens tonight."


"Jenna- What's going on-"

Jenna watched in horror as Klaus snapped Matt's neck.

"Why- Why bother keeping me alive!" she demanded. As he oversaw the preparations for his ritual, he kept Jenna at his side like a lapdog. "Sacrifice me instead! He-," she closed her eyes as her voice cracked. "He's just a kid."

"It's a compliment- I'm afraid I find you too fascinating to sacrifice," Klaus said, rolling his eyes as Jenna fell to her knees beside Matt, tears streaming down her face. "Is his loss really worth all these dramatics? Was he an especially astute boy scout?"


"I've met some of your kind before- Desperate, seedy, gauche individuals who weren't good for much more than parlor tricks. Nothing like you."

Hedge witches, most likely.

"My kind know better than to get involved with you," Jenna spat.

"Do you now?" Klaus's smile cut like a blade.


Klaus ended up compelling Katherine to strong-arm Jenna home once the ritual was ready to take place.

"Rest assured, we will meet each other again, Jenna," he said as he raised her hand to kiss the back of her palm, his eyes staying on hers.


"How could you just leave me in the dark?! I could've protected Elena, gotten her away from the Salvatores before it became a zero sum game. You arrogant piece of shit-"

Jenna had sat in her house in shock, frozen in place, unable to move. Katherine had longed abandoned her, now her niece was out there-

Then John came home.

"Well, now you know," he said with a dark smile. "And what are you doing to help? What's your plan for saving her? You're useless, Jenna. Helpless. Even my daughter could see that- And that's why, on her word, even Alaric didn't tell you-"

Jenna screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

All the glass windows in the kitchen splintered, then shattered. In the time it took to blink, she had John pinned against the wall.

"I could have saved her, but thanks to you, and thanks to her," Jenna choked on a sob, "I was working with both my hands tied-"

John was looking at her with wide, beseeching eyes. "You can still save her. You can still do right by both Grayson and Miranda."


"Please Jen, we need all the help we can get-"

"My niece is dead, Julia. All I have is John's word to go on that she's going to wake up again-"

"I know we look down on it because of some bullshit superiority complex being trained at Brakebill's gives us, but wiccan magic is pretty powerful stuff in it's own right."

"Yeah. Maybe," sighed Jenna as she looked at her niece. Silently pleading for her to wake up.

"I know it fucking sucks that you weren't able to get to your niece on time, but you did the best you could with the information you had on you at the time. Have faith that she will wake up again, we know that magic is capable of some insane fucking shit."

Jenna nodded silently, still not remotely okay.

"In the meantime, you can still do good, Jen. There are literal monsters roaming around New York as we speak, and we could really use your help to put them away."


Sunlight had broken through the windows when Elena finally woke up.

"I'm so sorry Jenna," Elena sobbed as Jenna wrapped her arms around her.

"It's okay, it's gonna be okay," Jenna soothed. There would be plenty of time for yelling later.

Just as Jenna pulled away from the puffy eyed teenager, a white cotton tailed rabbit seemingly manifested out of thin air and plopped itself right between them onto the couch.

"Now," it rasped in a heavy smoker's voice.

"What the-" Elena said with wide eyes as a wild giggle bursted out of Jenna. She had been expecting a phone call, but this worked too.

"I promise, I'll explain everything, but right now, I have to do this," Jenna said steadily as she stood up and began with Popper 45.

Elena watched on in shock for the next almost half hour as Jenna raised her arms and moved her fingers in practiced, precise motions. Elena couldn't see the magic at work before eyes, but Jenna could feel it. She was immediately intoxicated by the rush of such incomprehensible, cooperative magic. She felt the presence of hundreds of fellow magicians and hedge witches, as if they were in the room with her.

All too soon, it came to a stop. They had done their part. Now it was up to her friends to trap an unkillable monster the old gods had created into another world.

At least Jenna could say she had helped put away one evil.


John's funeral had been a somber, confused affair.

Elena was unsure how to grieve for him, her uncle-father who she had regarded with great disdain, who in spite of his smarmy front, had loved her a great deal. He sacrificed himself so that she was able to continue living, and she didn't know what to do with that.

A day after the funeral, Jenna frowned as she let Stefan in her home so that he could go upstairs to help comfort her grieving niece. From what she gathered, he had made a deal with the devil, and through no choice of his own, wouldn't be in Elena's life for the foreseeable future.

"Jenna," he said before he began a human paced trek upstairs, "Klaus… He wanted me to deliver this to you. It was the only way I could get away to say goodbye to Elena."

Klaus didn't know that Elena had survived his brutal ritual, and Jenna was going to do everything in her power to ensure it stayed that way.

She stared on with unsettled eyes at a sketch… of herself. She was on her knees on the pavement, looking up with teary eyes. In spite of herself, she couldn't help but be impressed at how the artist captured the absolute devastation on her face, the debilitating confusion.

Maybe she was giving Klaus too much credit, she thought as she crumbled the expensive sketch paper and threw it into the trash can along with a navy velvet, ring sized box.

Until we meet again, sweetheart, he had written in neat letters.