Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)
Assignment #3 - Veterinary Sciences
Task #6 - Iguana: Write about someone comforting someone else in need for whatever reason.
Warnings: implied/referenced abuse
Further prompts are at the end.
Word Count: 1,367
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and its associated universe belongs to J.K. Rowling, and not me.
My knowledge of Dissociative Identity Disorder also comes entirely from the Internet, and though I hope my portrayal of it is accurate, there are other sources out there that are much more reliable than me.
Her day starts like any other, with the alarm at five and a still-snoring roommate, before she stumbles her way to the bathroom, then the wardrobe, then the kitchen, and then off to work. She listens patiently to Sofia's complaints that Abe's late again as she calibrates the espresso machine, pushing away the thoughts that lurk at the fringes of her consciousness because Ariana and Albus and Gellert and Abe are just imaginary friends, made-up stories, nothing more.
They've just barely finished setting up when Abe comes in, five minutes before the café opens, and she watches the clock tick down to six so she can nudge at Sofia to stop berating Abe before she turns on the 'Open' sign and the first customers stream in.
"Good morning!" she chirps to each customer. "My name is Carrie, are there any drink orders I can get you started with today?"
And so, her day continues like any other, with the regulars who order the same as they do every morning and the less-familiar faces who answer 'Cappucino' to her 'How are you's, with the morning rush that's ebbing by eleven.
Which is when her day changes.
"Hello! My name is Carrie, how can I help you?"
"Your name's… Carrie, you said?" the woman, a pretty redhead who's looks about forty, asks, peering at her before shaking her head suddenly. "I'm sorry, you just look so familiar. What's your last name, if you don't mind me asking?"
Carrie frowns a little, because she's sure she's never seen this woman before. "It's Dumbledore."
The woman pales, so quickly Carrie wonders for a moment if she's about to faint, as she stammers, "D-Dumbledore? You're a Dumbledore? How-?"
"I'm probably not related to any of the Dumbledores you know," Carrie says quickly. "I'm an orphan, and I'm pretty sure I don't have any family left."
The woman shakes her head. "No - that's where I recognize you from. You're a splitting image of Ariana."
What. "A-Ariana?" It's a coincidence. It has to be, right?
"Yes. Ariana Dumbledore. She's a- someone I knew of." The woman frowns. "You didn't go to Hogwarts, did you?"
"Hog…warts?"
"No, obviously not," the woman says, almost to herself. "There would've been something about that in the Prophet, especially if you're using that last name. But I didn't know… Not Albus, if what Harry says is true, but I don't think Aberforth married-"
Someone behind the woman clears his throat pointedly, and even as she jumps Carrie's thanking Merlin for the interruption so she doesn't have to ask the woman who Albus and Aberforth are, whether there's a Gellert in there as well-
"Can I come back, after your shift ends?"
Carrie hesitates, and for a moment it feels like she's drifting further away from her body, away from the confusion and nervousness and fear, and oh her head hurts- then nods, because there's something- "Two-thirty."
"Finally," the man behind the redhead grumbles, once she's stepped aside. "Venti, soymilk, sugar-free vanilla latte."
When Carrie hangs up her apron, two minutes after two-thirty, the woman is there.
"Walk with me?"
They're almost two blocks away from the café by the time the woman speaks again. "I- I'm not sure where to start," she admits. "I knew your, some of your relatives, before they passed away. Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore - but I guess that wouldn't be the best place to start. Sorry. First. Do you know anything about… magic?"
Magic-
It's a sudden switch, not like before (what before?), because she's suddenly watching her body like it's from over her shoulder as it- she - starts trembling, jerking, strange black ribbons emerging from around her as-
The woman curses, takes out some kind of stick as she grabs Carrie's arm and suddenly they're twisting and-
Everything goes black.
-oOo-
"-that sounds almost like- well, I'm not sure if they actually exist, I've only heard the stories. But that circle you've described almost sounds like a faerie circle."
Carrie blinks. A what? It's the redhead woman from before who's talking, but their surroundings - how did they get here? They're seated in a cozy-looking living room with soft lavender walls, turned to face each other on a muted cream-colored sofa by a coffee table.
"But the stories - that would explain a lot. They say that time passes differently in there, that what feels like a minute can be a year outside the circle. So that… Sally?"
Carrie frowns. "I'm… Carrie," she says slowly - wasn't this woman so caught up about her name earlier? How has she forgotten?
"Carrie," the woman repeats, closing her eyes for a long moment before opening them again to stare at Carrie, as she says quietly, "You don't know."
"Know… what?"
"I- I'm definitely not the best person to explain this - I mean, I just learned about this, an hour ago. But I don't know- and I'm assuming you want answers."
"Yes."
The woman nods slowly. "Carrie. Have you ever heard of Dissociative Identity Disorder?"
Carrie doesn't believe her, at first, but then- then she hears Sally. Her… alter. The gatekeeper. And then she meets Sani, the phoenix she - Ariana - remembers seeing, except he's part of her, and then Ana. She can't really talk to any of the other alters, Ariana and Monster and Mia, and she is a little too scared of them to really try - with Monster especially.
The woman - Ginny Potter, she learns, when she finally thinks to ask - is kinder and more understanding than anyone Carrie's ever met, in either of her lives, as she explains about what she and Sally have pierced together of Carrie's backstory; as she tells Carrie, watching her reaction carefully, about magic; as she helps Carrie get in touch with her friend, Cho, who apparently 'isn't as modern-phobic as the rest of the magical world' and 'actually did a course on Mind Healing, or whatever Muggles call it'. Cho's never dealt with DID, herself, but she reaches out to people she knows, and somewhere in there, in the end, Carrie ends up getting the therapy. And it helps, helps with the knowledge that she's more than a hundred years out of her time (though she doesn't remember, herself, with her vague memories of her life before, all of the other alters do, both their life and… the people they knew), helps with the feeling that she doesn't want all of these other people in her brain doesn't want to all of these memories missing just wants to be normal. Except she's not, and, well, there's not really anything she can do that'll change that fact.
"I'm never going to be able to go back to being a barista, am I," Carrie says wryly, some months later.
"Probably not," Ginny agrees. "I'm really sorry, Carrie-"
"It's fine," she interrupts. "No, really. You've helped me so much, outside of it, financially and emotionally and everything, and I never would've known, even if I'd realized I have DID, since there's all of that magic complicating everything. I'm glad you told me. I could never blame you for helping me learn the truth."
"…Ravenclaw."
"Squib," Carrie disagrees, and Ginny tenses, glancing at her cautiously. "What?"
"I- Nothing. It's just, I didn't expect you to say it so easily, but I guess you didn't grow up with - don't remember growing up with - the same stigmas most people have, to the word."
"But… that's what I am, right? I have magical parents, but I can't do magic, myself. All of us are Squibs, except Monster."
"I… yeah, you're right," Ginny agrees. "It's just… weird to think of." She shakes her head quickly. "But anyway. You probably won't be able to be a Muggle barista again, so what will you do? The magical world isn't too… accepting, of Squibs."
"You said there weren't any magical cafés - not any good ones, at least."
Ginny tilts her head from side to side. "Essentially."
Carrie shrugs. "I always wanted to start my own coffee shop. And… Sally says she's surprised at how little the magical world has changed, but what if we gave it a push?"
Winter Seasonal Challenges
Days of the Year & Religious Events: January 27th - Punch the Clock Day: Write about a character with a Muggle career/job.
Hot Tea Month: Fruit Tea: (AU) Fairy
Black History Month: Alice Ball: Write about someone making an advancement or discovery in the medical/healing field.
Colours: Lavender
But Can You Spell It? T - (trope) Time Travel
Writing Club: February
Character Appreciation: Plot Point: Going to therapy
Showtime: I Don't Need Your Love: (restriction) no male characters
Amber's Apothecary: (character) Ginny Weasley
Elizabeth's Empire: (au) coffee shop
Liza's Loves: Cleric - Write about someone healing or in a healing profession
Scamander's Case: (word) mourn
Film Festival: (word) Paralysed
Lyric Alley: You're looking at me like you don't know who I am
The Forecast Says… 19th: Rain: Sleeping somewhere unusual
EnTitled: Skin - Write about mistaken identity - alt - Trying to frame someone
Would You Rather? Write about a Muggle in the Wizarding World OR about a Wizard in the Muggle World?
Stop! Hamper Time: Drinks: Colours - Cream Soda: Cream
Stickers Club: Nagini - Write about the last of something
Resolution Evolution: Write a fic that includes one of the following characters: Cho Chang
Fantasy February: Day Seven - As a teenager in the early 1900s a couple of bullies pushed you into a faerie circle. Today you stumbled out of it to find decades have passed and you have not aged a day. You remember nothing of the time spent in the fae circle or how you left but strange things keep happening to you as you attempt to readjust to life in this new era.
365: (au) coffee shop
Scavenger Hunt: Write a story about a Healer (canon or not)
Fantastic Beasts: Alkonost - AU: Amnesia
