Under the Water by The Pretty Reckless

Broken lines, across my mirror

Show my face, all red and bruised

And though I screamed and I screamed

Well, no one came running

No, I wasn't saved, I wasn't safe from you

May 27th, 1977

Bent over her Draught of Peace, which was coming along poorly due to her previous consumption of Elderflower wine, Ivy was certain she knew what Marlene was thinking about. All the nervous glances combined with two spilled vials of syrup of hellebore meant they were going to have another one of their little discussions once class was dismissed.

It had been a point of contention between them for over a year that Ivy wanted to get her Dark Mark and she couldn't remember the last time they had a conversation about anything else. Little did Marlene know, she'd had the Mark for nearly five months.

She missed feeling like there was someone on her side.

Her only company these days was Severus, Ariadne, and the melancholy that had entwined itself throughout her being. Spending time with anyone else was out of the question, as everyone either feared her or was repulsed by her. Worse than that, some of her attempts to make new friends were met with eagerness that worried her deeply.

Sensing that Potions was nearly over, she began to pack her things, though sloshed tipsy caused this process to take longer than anticipated, so she wasn't even halfway through when Slughorn dismissed them.

"Hey," Marlene said immediately as the room burst into chatter. "Can we go over our study schedule?"

"I actually need to run," Ivy sloppily shoved away the remainder of her things. She stood, swinging the half-open bag over her shoulder. "McGonagall wanted to talk to me before class."

As she made for the exit, Marlene stepped in her path.

"This is our last class before the weekend." She leaned in, sniffing. Evidently smelling the alcohol, she lowered her voice with a look of concern. "Are you pissed?"

"No," Ivy said half-heartedly, at a loss for an adequate lie. Whether that was due to the wine or her recently acquired disinterest in trying very hard at anything, she didn't know.

"Come on," Marlene frowned. "We need to go over the schedule."

Already exhausted from lack of sleep and hearing that Regulus and Ariadne were officially dating, Ivy didn't bother putting up a fight. Even as they departed the castle into the warm mountain air and Marlene attempted her usual playful banter, she didn't engage. In fact, she barely spoke a word all the way down to the deserted shores of the Black Lake.

Once they were sitting on the warm grass, Marlene asked: "What's wrong with you?"

Rifling through the schoolbag she had dumped beside herself, she located her bottle of Elderflower wine. "What do you mean?"

Marlene let Ivy's actions speak for themselves as she knocked back the bottle for a long moment. Wine dribbled down her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her sleeve.

"You're not even using one of those obnoxious little handkerchiefs to clean your face," Marlene said pointedly.

"Regulus and Theya won't talk to me," she replied before finishing off the bottle.

"I don't know what you see in them anyway."

"Fuck off," Ivy snapped, standing up in a wobbly, undignified way.

"Fine," Marlene huffed. "I'll get straight to the point then."

"I for one can't wait to hear what you have to say," Ivy told her nastily, stabilising herself enough to heave the empty bottle into the lake, where it plunged to the dark depths.

"Ivy!" Marlene got to her feet. "For fucks sake!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Ivy glared at her, rolling up her sleeves as the alcohol was making her hot. "Am I being difficult?"

"Only slightly more than usual!" She retorted scathingly.

A loud splash sounded from the lake as a ginormous reddish-purple tentacle reached out of the water, a wine bottle curled in its suckers. Ivy barely had time to move before the bottle soared her way. She clumsily dodged it, the glass shattering against a nearby tree trunk. The tentacle hit the water with an indignant smack, before disappearing entirely.

Ivy turned to Marlene, expecting to share a laugh, but her blue gaze was fixed on something near Ivy's waist.

Vision hazy from the wine, it took a moment to register that Marlene had spotted her Dark Mark. It took another moment for her to realise that in her distracted state, she'd forgotten to renew the spell that would've concealed it.

"How could you?" Marlene sounded strangled.

"You know why I had to," Ivy felt nauseous.

"Had to?" She looked disgusted. "You didn't have to do that. Whose side are you on?"

"It's not like that," she took a step forward and Marlene matched it by taking a step back. "You of all people should know that. You're the only one who knows that." She gestured to the black ribbons around her bun. "You know who these belong to. You think I would still wear them if things had changed?"

"I don't know what to think," Marlene looked at war with herself. "Lily told me what you did for Mary MacDonald last year; I know that you helped her get away from Mulciber. But how do I know you haven't changed since then? I thought you could be like Sirius, but this…"

"I've never pretended to be anything like Sirius Black," Ivy pulled her sleeves back down.

"No, I suppose you haven't," she said coldly. "He had enough courage to leave it all behind, consequences be damned. He never would have gone so far as to get the bloody Dark Mark. What did you have to do to get it? The rumours I've heard are… Unthinkable."

She was silent, swaying slightly on the spot.

"Tell me!" Marlene demanded through gritted teeth.

No words came to her, and it was taking a good portion of her focus to keep upright. But apparently saying nothing was saying too much, as heartbreak crossed Marlene's face, and she took another step back.

"You didn't," her voice cracked. "You didn't."

"It was the only way," Ivy said quietly.

"The only way to what?" Marlene started crying, covering her mouth with a shaking hand. "I haven't heard a word of this grand plan to take down You-Know-Who from the inside, aside from becoming one of his most trusted bloody servants!"

"I-" She stopped, horrified to realise that she had no idea what to do now that she had her Mark.

"You have no plan," the look of betrayal on Marlene's face cut deep. "Y-You murdered someone in cold blood and you have no plan? You wasted a life for nothing?"

"Of course not!" Ivy hadn't realised that she'd started crying, as though her body knew what was going to happen next before her mind did. "I don't have a plan now, but I'll figure one out. And you can help me. We can do this together."

"I don't trust you," she turned away, a mess of tears and rage. "And I n-never will again."

Ivy reached for her, only for Marlene to swing around and punch her square in the nose.

Tumbling backwards, she hit the ground hard, her neck snapping back, head slamming into the cold earth. After a moment of shock and trying to mitigate the pain, she tried to get to her feet. Instantly, she was hit in the chest with an unknown spell and her body crumpled, going limp.

"You're the biggest disappointment of my life, Selwyn."

Ivy couldn't move from her place on the ground, couldn't beg Marlene not to leave her, even after she was long gone. Incapacitated, her mind spun with dizziness, pain, and intoxication until she was consumed.

May 28th, 1977

Something was nudging her in the ribs and from behind her eyelids, she could see a bright light.

"Selwyn?" An indistinct voice came from somewhere around her.

Opening her eyes slowly, she tried to comprehend what was happening. Her entire body was bitterly cold and stinging from it. Both her head and nose throbbed. There was a single searing light and all else around it was pitch black, so she closed her eyes again dazedly.

"Selwyn?" The voice repeated, this time prodding her cheek with what she thought might be a wand.

Ivy tried to ask for help, but something unintelligible came out of her mouth.

She felt hands under her armpits, lifting her as her head lolled back. Someone was trying to place her on her feet, but she couldn't find the strength to support her weight, so she felt her body fall through freezing air.

The person cursed and caught her.

"Alright," the voice said as she registered for the first time that it was male. "Doing this the hard way, I see."

Hearing a grunt, she had the distinct feeling that she had been thrown over somebody's shoulder. Then, there was another sensation like someone had thrown a sheet over them both.

The man began walking, occasionally grumbling about her heaviness. Every so often, Ivy opened her eyes blearily. There was no bright light anymore, just shadows and what she thought was a star-filled sky overhead.

When the sky vanished and they entered what she could thankfully distinguish as Hogwarts, she tried to take in her surroundings. There was little she could glean aside from the stone underfoot, as her hair had come partially undone from its bun. Still unable to move beyond opening her eyes, the long strands of white created a sort of curtain around her field of vision, limiting her to brief glimpses of indistinguishable corridors. Ivy was unsure whether she had managed to take the Thestral pin with her, though she could see grass and leaves clinging to her loosened ribbons. Not only that, but her hair was stained by dirt and dried blood.

With a start, her memories rushed back to the forefront of her mind.

Instead of feeling recovered, however, she felt worse. The knowledge that she had burned her last important friendship to ashes made her even more weary and even less willing to move. Not that she could.

After everything that had happened with Regulus, Theya, and now Marlene, it was just her luck that she would end up passed out on the grounds at the mercy of nature and anyone who came across her. Of course her limp body was being carried like a sack of fucking potatoes by a nameless stranger. And seeing as most everyone in the castle hated her for one reason or another, the odds that her carrier would treat her well seemed low.

Ivy closed her eyes in defeat.

When her carrier finally paused, she stole another look. The man muttered something she didn't catch, then stepped through what she could only assume was a doorway.

Upon being laid on a soft velvet couch, she realised with horror where she was.

It was the Gryffindor Common Room. And her carrier was James Potter.

"Fuuuuuck," she tried to say.

Potter's hazel eyes connected with hers. Apparently unsure of what she'd said, he frowned and flicked his wand at the empty fireplace the couch resided in front of. Fire burst to life, instantly warming her involuntarily shivering body.

He crouched beside her, though at a distance, looking uncomfortable.

"Can you hear me?" He asked, taking a wary but surprisingly gentle tone.

Ivy tried to say yes, but she heard gibberish come out.

Running a hand through his messy hair, Potter stood up and began pacing.

"What the hell?"

Her gaze moved from Potter to see Sirius Black standing at the foot of the stairs. He was wearing only sweatpants that hung low on his hips and was accompanied by Remus Lupin who was, thankfully, fully clothed.

The humiliation was enough to make her eyes well up with tears, but she choked the emotion back as best she could. If she was lucky, whatever spell was affecting her would make her unable to cry.

"I saw her on the…" Potter glanced at her. "The you-know-what. Thought, you know, she was up to something. But she was just… Out cold on the ground. She's bloody lucky something from the Forbidden Forest didn't get to her before I did."

"But why did you bring her here?" Sirius walked over to her cautiously.

"I couldn't very well dump her in the Hospital Wing in the dead of night. I'm one detention away from suspension. And considering my record, they might even expel me over something like this."

"Could've taken her to her bloody Dormitory," Sirius replied pointedly.

"Yeah," Potter rolled his eyes. "I'm sure walking into the snake pit with her slung over my shoulder would be very well received. Especially when she's covered in blood and can't move or talk."

It occurred to her at that moment that if one of them felt inclined to pull up her sleeve, they would see her Dark Mark. As if her situation couldn't get any more humiliating, Ivy started crying.

All three boys started, looking considerably more panicked than before.

"Regulus would want to know," Sirius's voice was high-pitched.

"Regulus is the last person who would react well to this," Lupin rubbed his forehead.

"Right," Sirius replied hastily. "Well, what the fuck do we do then?"

The Gryffindors stared around at each other, all uncomfortable and apparently stumped.

Another set of footsteps sounded from the stairwell and Lily Evans appeared, her pyjamas and hair fussed from sleep. "What on earth-?"

Ivy cried harder.

"Evans, thank Merlin," Potter sounded relieved. "Selwyn's here and she's crying!"

"I think the bigger problem is that she's covered in blood," Evans snapped. "What did you three do?"

"Us?" Potter sputtered. "We-We found her in the corridor!"

"And just what were you doing out past curfew?" Evans narrowed her eyes at him. "If you found her in the corridor, why is she covered in flora?"

"Flora?" Sirius frowned.

"Really?" Evans sounded exasperated. "You know, an array of plants, leaves, or – this is so not the point. Tell me what you did to her!"

Sirius and Potter broke into a chorus of protests, trying to defend their honour, while Lupin calmly explained the situation to Evans. Ivy just laid there, helpless, and more mortified than she had ever been.

After a minute or so of Ivy soaking in her humiliation, Evans hushed everyone.

"All of you go to bed," she ordered. "I know a few healing spells. If I can't… fix her, then I'm taking her to the Hospital Wing."

The room erupted again into protests, this time from all three of them.

"Bed!" Evans roared. "Now!" She rounded on Potter. "And I will deal with you later, don't think you're going to get out of this easily!"

Ivy's vision was blurry from crying, her eyes growing puffier by the second, but she heard three sets of footsteps fade upstairs. Blinking furiously in order to see clearer, she watched with surprise as Evans covered her with a knit blanket. She then knelt by her side, staring at her intently like Ivy was a Charms essay she didn't know how to write.

The redhead was silent for a few moments before taking a breath. "Alright. Blink three times if you can hear me."

Blinking thrice, she ceased crying upon realising she could communicate.

"Can you move? Blink once for yes, twice for no."

No, Ivy blinked.

"Can you speak? Same blinks."

No.

"Can you feel?"

Yes.

Evans rubbed her lips together in concentration. "Did Potter, Black, or Remus do this to you?"

No, she blinked.

"They were telling the truth, then?"

Yes, she responded.

Evans nodded slowly, then looked into the fire, tucking her messy hair behind an ear.

As the quiet dragged on, Ivy felt a spark of jealousy ignite. Not so much for the girl's elvish good looks, but for the life she had. Evans was widely loved at Hogwarts, and generally for good reason. Not only was Ivy hated for the wrong reasons, but she was loved for them too.

The thought sent another prickle of sadness through her.

"Did anyone…" Evans turned back to her, surprising Ivy by taking her cold hand. "Touch you?"

No, Ivy replied immediately, though the thought that anyone could have made her feel sick.

"Are you sure?" Her green eyes held a gentleness Ivy had rarely received from anyone. "I know we have our… I'll just say differences. But if something happened, you can tell me. I'll take care of it. And you. The way this all looks… I'll only ask one more time, I won't press you further. Were you touched?"

No.

The redhead looked a bit sceptical, but mostly relieved.

"Alright," Evans gave a slight smile and dropped her hand. "Now, I'll see what I can do. This might take a while and it might be uncomfortable. Ready?"

Yes.

Evans was only able to fix Ivy's nose.

This was followed by two hours of failed attempts to fix the rest of her, and thus McGonagall had to levitate Ivy to the Hospital Wing alongside an ashamed looking Evans.

Thankfully, it was still nighttime, so they encountered no one on the way. The sun only began to rise once Ivy was laid in a clean bed and the curtains were drawn around her. Fortunately, the Wing was empty of other students, which was the only stroke of luck Ivy had that night.

Madam Pomfrey got to work immediately while McGonagall scolded Evans loudly. One failed Reparifors and three spells Ivy didn't know later, McGonagall departed with the redhead and Ivy was still incapacitated.

Madam Pomfrey eventually sighed. "I'm going to give you a few potions that, combined, should do the trick. I'll also give you a Sleeping Draught. I imagine you've had a very long night."

Ivy's head was lifted, and four different potions were poured down her throat, most of them tasting so awful she nearly spat them back up.

But within seconds of ingestion, she once again faded from consciousness.

Ivy was staring into a mirror, unable to see anything around her.

But her own reflection was not there. All she could see was death, each fading into the next.

A broom swerved, and with it the rider's wand, causing a police car to fly, rolling four times… A hate-filled curse struck a witch with silver eyes directly in the chest and she fell to her knees, then eventually to the polished floor, as a silken voice echoed about the room… A man was overcome by reanimated dead bodies, his shouts echoing throughout the dark cave before he was dragged beneath the black water…

Seven masked figures stood in a circle around a man with medium brown hair, severing his limbs one by one… A creature with scarlet eyes dealt a bolt of green light, which limpened the body of a kind-faced woman… A blonde family sat in their living room, each holding their sides from laughter, until the house exploded…

A wandless man with dark, messy hair had wide eyes for only a brief moment before a jet of emerald light deadened them… A weeping redhead begged for mercy, flinging her arms wide in front of her child's crib… A wand was pointed directly into the face of a crying infant…

Yellow and black adorned the unmoving chest of the teenager who had been called a spare… A laughing man fell backwards through a stone archway, vanishing behind a tattered black veil as wicked laughter and unbearable screams echoed throughout the chamber…

A witch tumbled over the edge of a bridge, slamming into frigid water, already deceased… Silver hair fluttered in the wind as half-moon shaped spectacles disappeared into the breeze, before the body hit the ground with a resounding crack… Just as a small man vanished into thin air, a green curse exited the wand of a scarlet eyed creature, knocking a large wizard off his broom…

A silver hand wrapped itself firmly around the neck of its owner, squeezing until both no longer moved… A house elf was being cradled in the arms of a sobbing man, a small knife staining both their dirty clothes with blood… A man with sandy blonde hair crumpled to the ground beside his dead wife, reaching out to touch her one last time, though contact never came… A massive snake sunk its fangs into the neck of a man with black hair and a crooked nose, who gasped for air, choking on the venom… Green light lit the forest and dozens of faces, as another met death before their time...

The last image faded until she was staring at her reflection.

"Stop it," her reflection said.

By the time Ivy awoke, it was nighttime.

Staring up at the vaulted ceilings, which were dark and barely discernible, she blinked away the image of her reflection. It wasn't the first strange dream she'd had, but it also wasn't the first dream she'd had where people died continuously in a mirror.

It was certainly the most memorable, as she realised she had seen some of those deaths before.

Disturbed, she sat up in the hospital bed.

The first thing that surprised her was her ability to move.

The second was the Headmaster, who was seated in a purple armchair next to her bed.

Ivy cursed, though she was relieved to hear her voice working correctly again.

"Apologies," Dumbledore smiled, long fingers crossed in his lap atop vibrant robes that matched the armchair. "Poppy informed me you would be awake soon, but perhaps I should have lingered outside until you were. Nevertheless, how are you feeling?"

"Pretty shite, actually," Ivy told him, as her body was stiff and strangely sore.

The Headmaster chuckled lightly. "I would imagine so. Poppy's healing concoctions are prodigious, but the side effects typically are as well."

Ivy glanced down at herself, happy to find that the sleeves of her smelly robes hadn't managed to ride up in her sleep. When she looked back at him, she could have sworn Dumbledore's gaze had also been on her left forearm, but the look was so quick that she couldn't be sure.

Narrowing her eyes at him, she remained silent.

"It slipped my mind that you don't care for pleasantries," Dumbledore chuckled again. "I could blame old age, but truthfully, I did encounter an earwax-flavoured Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean earlier today. I must say that I've felt off ever since." He saved her the annoyance of a response by continuing. "I understand you were found unconscious near the Black Lake by Mr. Potter. Incapacitated and unable to speak, as I hear. Do you recall how you ended up that way?"

"Yes."

"Do you care to recollect?"

"Not particularly."

"I thought you might feel that way," Dumbledore inclined his head. "I must say, your mental defences have improved since we last spoke."

She had noticed him plucking at her mind here and there throughout their conversation. He was right that she had improved. At least, she'd improved enough that his attempts -though admittedly minor- were rebuffed as easily as if she was slapping his hand away.

"It seems I am unable to breach your mind as easily as before," the Headmaster added.

Ivy immediately understood the implications of his words. Not only could he breach her mind if he pleased, but he had already done so that day in his office over a year ago. If he had seen her mind already, who was to say that the Dark Lord hadn't?

But… She would be dead if he had.

She attributed the fact that she was still breathing to the amount of preparation she did whenever she knew she was going to be around Death Eaters or the Dark Lord. At bare minimum, she spent hours testing her own defences and constructing protection. Sometimes, since she was increasingly paranoid, she did this for days at a time.

Even so, she felt on edge and glanced around herself and the Headmaster, noting for the first time that the curtains had been drawn.

"The curtains are enchanted so that only staff can hear what is happening within," Dumbledore told her and she wondered whether he had gotten around her mental defences again. "On an unrelated subject, Poppy decided to take an evening stroll."

"Hm," she raised a brow. "Forcibly breaching a student's mind is rather invasive for a Headmaster, don't you think?"

"Indeed it is," Dumbledore said apologetically. "But one can find out some of the most valuable information that way."

"And what, exactly, did you find out from me?"

"Far more than I am currently able to gather. Without doing serious damage, that is."

"What do you know?" Ivy demanded, ignoring his feeble attempt at a peace offering.

"I'm very sorry about your sister," Dumbledore sounded sincere. "I suspected but could never confirm."

Ivy shoved down the pain that continuously threatened to eat her alive.

"I'm also very sorry to hear about your current position," the Headmaster's voice took an edge. "I believe congratulations are overdue."

A mixture of regret and despair surged forward, a wave so great that she had to clench her fists with the effort of keeping her face neutral. Despite herself, images of a grotesque corpse flashed through her mind.

"If I have my timeline right," Dumbledore continued severely. "It will be five months tomorrow that the Algier family was murdered."

It was both clever and cruel of him to use her weakened state against her in such a way. Knowing that he was trying to get her to reveal her hand, she dug her nails into her palms hard enough to make them bleed. She did what she could to mitigate her emotions, knowing if they got too close to the surface, he would sense them without needing access to her mind.

"I believe the Ministry of Magic described the scene as one of the most disturbing they had ever encountered. The bodies were barely even identifiable as human-"

"Enough!" Ivy snapped, so far past the end of her rope that she began to cry again. "What do you want me to say? That I'm a sorry excuse for a human being? That I'm a bloody omen of death?"

The Headmaster opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

"Do you want me to tell you that I see them at night, those who have died and those who will? Do you need me to admit that I don't know what the fuck to do about any of it? Do you want me to feel like I have nothing and no one? I've been here an entire day and no one has even deigned to visit me! I'm well fucking aware of the disappointment that I am!"

Ivy stopped for breath and Dumbledore, for once, looked mildly surprised.

Leaning forward onto her hands, she hung her head with a mixture of exhaustion and defeat. She waited for him to rub salt into the wound, as Marlene would say, but he didn't.

Instead, they sat together in silence for a long time.

Only when Ivy was dry-faced did Dumbledore speak again.

"Forgive the intrusion," the Headmaster began, the irony of his apology not lost on her. "But you mentioned seeing the dead at night, presumably when you sleep. Who do you see?"

"Lots of people," Ivy said hesitantly. "Classmates. Strangers. Friends… You."

"Did you have one of these dreams tonight?" He looked wistful.

She nodded slowly. "The most vivid I've ever had."

"I'm sure that must have been extremely unpleasant," Dumbledore eyed her before standing. "Those with a, let's say, aptitude for Divination have been known to consume a mixture of rue, dragon claw, and salamander blood to enhance their abilities. I believe the potions Poppy gave you contained those ingredients."

Unsure of what to do with that information, Ivy was saved a response as Dumbledore opened the curtains, revealing her to the still empty Hospital Wing.

"Before I go, Ms. Selwyn," Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled. "I think it prudent to remind you that I deigned to visit you."