Chapter 8 - Soul Sisters

"Were you expecting that?" Ian asked Teddy in their dormitory.

"What? Annie?" He asked. He'd been deep in some thought and quiet for an overdue, uncharacteristically long time. Ian raised his eyebrows for a response.

"Honestly, something doesn't feel wrong about it. I thought maybe it'd give her a choice, Lizzie has said countless times it nearly put her in Slytherin... I was surprised at how quickly it decided," he explained.

"Do you think she'll be alright? I mean considering Cyrus? Now the Malfoy kid? Lot of those students have parents in Azkaban or narrowly free from because of her mother..."

"I think they'd have a death wish to try anything considering her mother... and Charlie..." Teddy responded. Cyrus gave him chills and sudden goose pimples filled with rage.

"I hope you're right. Allyssa in Gryffindor though, that's a relief, considering the muggle upbringing. Though I don't think she knows anyone..." Ian said. "I swear I thought they were two heads of the same type of coin. Thinking maybe they're opposite heads of the same coin... Lizzie has always had two sides, has she not? I read her books..." Ian contemplated out loud.

"Lizzie... has dissociative identity, a personality disorder. Annie is her, they're two of the same... but so is Ally in terms of Lizzie's childhood at least. Both of them had much better lives than she did though, the most ideal version of what Lizzie grew up with... Ally's sister is missing. I was sort of hoping she'd end up in Hufflepuff. I know Lizzie was hoping one of us could keep an eye on her," Teddy explained.

"Well, to divert from the deep sea fishing expedition here, did you notice Casey Moon? She couldn't stop looking your way at the feast..." Ian said. Teddy shrugged not registering a care in his bones even if he wanted to. "Stay away from Cyrus this year, Ted. Seriously... take the high road..."

"Yeah. I'll try," Teddy said shortly, pulling on night clothes and climbing into bed before shutting off his light.

Ally followed the line of first years sorted into Gryffindor as the prefect took them up to the tower and gave them the password for the fat lady's portrait.

"Anyone tell you that you look a little like Professor Potter?" a boy asked. She thought she remembered his name as Lionel, but could have been mistaken. The girl in front of her, Emma, turned her head at the comment with some thinly veiled curiosity.

"She's my cousin and my God mother. My father is her cousin. So yes, I've heard that before," she explained. His eyebrows raised curiously.

"What's she like?" He asked.

"In what way? I haven't a clue what she's like as a professor. She's sort of like a chill aunt, older sister type figure to us though. I guess that's the best way to put it..." when she said us, she thought of Ivy immediately, and her chest sunk with the weight of lingering dread.

"Interesting. Her daughter is Rhiannon, right?" The girl in front of them asked. Annie had been on her mind too. They weren't particularly close, not like Annie and Teddy, but she knew her well enough to know she'd been dreading even the possibility of being put in Slytherin and wished they were together in the house all of Annie's family had been in, on both sides, for generations.

"Yes, Annie. She's Lizzie and Charlie's daughter," Ally confirmed.

They made their way up into the dorms and she moved around her section of the dormitory to get acclimated with everything. Her owl sat perched on the window ledge. Her trunk had been brought up, clothes were set out. She rummaged through her belongings looking for something, but couldn't find it.

"What's wrong?" Emma asked when Ally started to appear flustered.

"Nothing, I'm... well I guess I don't actually remember packing it. I must have left it at home," she said. Emma looked confused but didn't pry.

"Sorry, I'm not usually this agitated. I have a rosary my sister gave me. It's one of the only things I have from her... she's missing. It's sort of a superficial charm of sorts to me. We're catholic..." she explained.

"Your sister is missing? Does she go here?" Emma asked.

"No, my family, all but Lizzie's at least are muggles. She went missing right before term started. They're looking for her," she said hoarsely. Something about not having the cross made her feel naked. The feeling was disorienting.

"I'm sorry, I hope they find her..." Emma said. The other girls in the dorm introduced themselves as Dorothy, Kate, and Ember. Ally stopped paying attention to their icebreaker stories and dozed off when they became quiet enough to permit.

Something Ally always noticed was a distance about her mother. Something her father seemed to deliberately overcompensate for. His good natures were often complicated by a sudden stern or demanding demeanor. He never crossed a line, but as she got older it was easier to tell when he came close to. Too often his anger was redirected at her mother. There was an animosity and resentment both her and Ivy speculated about through their childhood. They were by the ocean this time in her dream. One of her fondest memories at least she thought it was a memory until it proved otherwise.

Her father was stringing along a boogie board for her sister to ride waves on. Ally hovered at the shoreline a little too frightened to swim in the salty sea.

"Go, Al!" Her dad yelled as he tossed the second board out toward the waves. "It will keep you afloat, I have the rope. Don't need to be scared at all!" He shouted over to her. He was in his element. Dad mode was activated. Ivy was about nine, and she was five. They were both in one of his oversized t-shirts to keep some sun off their easily burned skin. She looked behind her and watched her mother stare out absently at the waves.

She braved the journey into the water after the board and held onto to the sides for dear life as the waves crashed under them.

"Ally! You need to paddle! Keep up!" Ivy yelled. Ally looked back at her father who waved in the distance, but her mother was gone. She turned on the board and looked up and down the shore. In the distance she saw the yellow dress her mother was wearing seemingly floating among the shallow waves. She paddled closer to shore and it became clear it was still affixed to a body. Her mother was lying face up in the sand, waves crashing over and consuming her body before retreating again.

"Mum!" She yelled and waded toward the shore where she broke out in a run when her feet made contact with sand. "Mum!" She screamed as waves crashed over her again. Surely she'd drowned. Had she?

"Dad! Help!" She screamed back. He reeled Ivy in to shore and jogged down the shore after Allyssa.

"What's wrong?" He yelled. "Ally! Honey, stop!" She stood there looking down at her mother in horror. Her body had already seemed to decay, and she screamed.

"Baby, what's wrong?!" Her father knelt down beside her and grounded her shoulders concerned.

Ally shook clutching beads in her hands desperately muttering to herself. "Al, look at me!" Her father yelled.

She looked at him and then back down at where her mother was. She was gone. Rather Janine was running from the shore to see what was wrong.

When Ally reoriented herself, they retreated back toward the picnic set up.

"Ivy!" Dudley yelled, realizing they were three instead of four. "Ivy!" He jogged down the shore looking out at the waves before diving in. "Ivy!" He roared. He'd reeled her in a few moments prior but she'd vanished.

Janine stood frozen in place gazing absently back out at the waves again. Dudley was soaked through to his skin when he emerged from the water empty handed. He approached Janine aggressively and she took a step backward. "Where is she?" He yelled. She shook her head. "Jenny! What did you do!" He roared. She shook her head and started to tremble. A wet hand came down hard on her face and she whimpered.

"Ivy!" He yelled again. Nothing. Ally looked back out at the waves and had a vision flash of her sister sinking to the bottom of the ocean struggling with a hand holding her under. The blurred image of her mother holding her down from the veil of salty water was difficult to make out. Her father picked her up in a quick swoop and headed away from shore, away from Janine. His grip on her was possessive and protective and he refused to look back.

Ally woke up with a war drum beating in her chest. Surely it wasn't her mother. It couldn't be. Even though she was the last to see her sister that day in London.

"No," Janine breathed. She paced around the bathroom with a pregnancy test in her hand shaking her head in wide motions of complete disbelief. There was a knock on the door.

"Hey, can I come in, I need to shower," Dudley said from the other side. She opened the door and her face was pale white.

"What's wrong?" He asked. Her lip trembled violently.

"I'm pregnant," she breathed. Tears welled and cascaded down her cheeks. Dudley's eyes widened and he exhaled excitedly.

"We're having a baby?" He asked. He fought back some tears of joy but watched her face get small. She shook her head.

"No, can we make an appointment? Please?" She asked, her voice was desperate and he frowned at the implication.

"I'm... no..." he said, shaking his head in wide motions.

"I'm not having another baby," she said. Her hands were shaking. "I almost died and I was seen as a failure for it, I'm not doing it again. I love Ivy, but I'm not doing it again!" She said as her voice climbed with intensity.

"I'm not Dennis, I'll do anything I can, I'd keep you safe," Dudley protested.

"There'd be nothing you could do. I had serious issues with the first, they told me not to have more, we've been over this... you helped me before," she reported.

"He raped and beat you, his baby, that was different," Dudley snapped back.

"NO! Not different. It doesn't matter if it's his or yours, it was being pregnant and giving birth again I was terrified of! This baby isn't magically more valuable! Ivy is his baby, is she less valuable than yours!?" She yelled. He shook his head in disbelief.

"I'm not letting you kill my baby!" He shouted. "That's a sin! That's evil, Janine!"

"How did this even happen? We're always careful!" She said, exasperated. "You still have the church's stupid view of birth control, but we're still careful!"

"I promise it will be fine, you won't regret doing it once you're holding your bloody child..." he pled. At the word bloody she shuddered. There was so much blood with Ivy. The thought made her ill.

"I'm not doing this!" She yelled back.

"Yes you fucking are!" He roared. He slammed the door on his way out and she crawled into a fetal position on the bed and cried into a blanket to muffle the noise. She felt exactly the way she felt in Dennis's home. Silenced. The only difference was that her face and backside didn't hurt from a hard backhand or his belt. Dudley didn't hit her, but she felt punched in the gut.

He came back about an hour later. "Lizzie is leaving," he said shortly. She'd heard them arguing downstairs but nothing specific.

"Why?" Janine croaked.

"Because she's going back to the father of her baby, as she should. Even she knows that's the right thing to do and is repenting for her abandonment..." he didn't tell her it was because he told her to leave or that Lizzie accosted him for trying to force Janine to have his baby.

"Did you tell her? What did she say?"

"She asked what kind of mother does what you want to do. She yelled at me for even entertaining the idea of letting you," he lied. Janine didn't believe him.

Ivy ran in and grabbed a rosary off the table before her little feet ran back down the hall. Janine followed and watched her daughter give it back to Lizzie on her way out the door.

"Please come back," Ivy yelled. "Don't leave me... I want to meet your baby!" Lizzie kissed her head lovingly and left with a sad look up at Janine at the top of the stairs.

Janine felt lightheaded and went back to the room, by the time she made it to the door of the bedroom her stomach was impossibly huge, she felt a sharp contraction and arms carry her to the bed. She closed her eyes tight around a familiar pain. She opened them to a bundle in her arms that was bloody and deformed and screamed. The bed was covered in blood. Dennis stood at the end of it with his hand tight around his Ivy's tiny wrist.

She screamed and threw the bundle from her arms as hands came down to caress her face but she thrashed at the contact and struck Dudley hard in the nose.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" She screamed before she realized who he was, that she had not just given birth, and that Dennis was nowhere in the room. Dudley held a bloody nose in both hands as he watched her curl back up into a fetal position and shake uncontrollably.

"I don't want to do this," she whispered.

He knelt down at the side of the bed to look at her face. He had tremendous compassion for her but it wasn't surfacing. "You're going to have to," he said with resolve. She glared back disdainfully and he grabbed her chin. "Or you go back," he added, but his voice cracked because it hurt to say. She spit into his face at the implication and he stomped from the room.

She was now sitting in a hospital bed as Dudley bounced a newborn daughter gently in his arms. Allyssa, they named her Allyssa, Petunia after his mother for her middle name. "It was always about Lizzie, wasn't it?" She asked.

He stopped in motion and stared confused. "You saved me from Dennis because you did nothing to save Lizzie from Damien. You raised Ivy in the way you thought your father should have raised her. She's your only family, but you pushed her away. Now your daughter was born on her birthday, and that's somehow a coincidence?" Janine explained.

"I did what I did because I cared about you," he responded.

"You barely knew me. You cared about my fate. Now you have a family you don't need to be ashamed or scared of. That's why you forced me to do this," she responded.

"I knew you'd regret it if you didn't," he said evenly. She shook her head.

"No, you would have made sure I regretted it, there's a difference... I love you, but you don't get to silence me. I'm never doing this again," she stated firmly. He held onto his daughter a little tighter and possessively. but nodded in understanding.

Years seemed to flow like a montage in her mind of the girls growing up. Somehow she always fantasized about them disappearing. Entertained the thought of what life would have been like if she hadn't been forced to have Ivy at barely 16. Freedom from even a beautiful family was quietly and shamefully welcomed. She never dreamed of hurting either of them, but she didn't choose them. She didn't choose Dudley, he chose her, he chose them. They were his covenant, not hers. What was the saying she tried to remember? The blood of the covenant was thicker than the water of the womb.

Ivy's face started to fade. First it was her smile, then it was just shadows where her eyes should be. She saw her in the distance on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Her daughter was holding something in her arms. The closer she approached the more foreboding it became. The bundle was a baby and she held it in outstretched arms and let go, keeping the blanket in balled up in her palms. Janine screamed and ran for the cliff, turned her daughter around to look at her face and saw only herself staring back.

Anger flooded through her body and she shoved her hard over the edge, only to see her daughter break on the rocks below, the sound of serpents hissing deep in her ears. Someone grabbed her hand and she looked up to see Lizzie staring back, only her eyes were pure white and her smile was weakly sinister, almost satisfied.

Janine bolted upright and looked around her bedroom in a panic. Dudley wasn't in bed with her. She left the room and headed downstairs where she could see a light glowing dimly from the kitchen.

She pushed the kitchen door open and found him leaning into the counter, a brandy in hand that looked empty, with enough fingerprints on the crystal glass to indicate it had been refilled once or twice prior. He startled at the sight of her and then laughed.

"Hey, sorry," he said, putting the glass in the sink. "I haven't been able to sleep," he added. "Thought this would help." He put the bottle back in the cabinet.

"What's wrong?" He asked. Noticing her pale and flushed demeanor from the nightmares. She shook her head in wide motions not wanting to explain.

He approached her close and wrapped large hands around her hips. The kiss he planted rather assertively tasted strong of brandy. She backed away slightly and he held her head firm to continue invading her mouth with his, backing her into the wall.

"What do you say, we..." he broke contact with her mouth but moved to her neck and cheeks, planting hard kisses as he smoke. "One more," he added. "Something to take our mind off this nightmare until we find her?" He started pulling on his trousers and tugging down her knickers. She reached for them quickly, but he stopped her hand and hoisted her up with her legs open so she was pinned to the wall with his weight between her legs. She broke her mouth off with considerable effort and gasped for air.

"No. I told you, no more..." she breathed.

"I think, I can change you mind..." he said through a smile. He ran a hand over her belly and she shuddered. He leaned in for another kiss and she slapped him before she could stop herself. He put her down and stared at the floor for a moment to orient himself in a drunk haze.

"I'm sorry. I just... didn't know if you'd stop..." she whispered. She was holding her breath deep in her chest. He put a hand on her face apologetically even though she flinched, realizing some demons would never die. He kissed her forehead in concession but started to pace slowly toward the sink.

"I tried, Jenny, I tried to make sure she'd never..." he said in a broken voice.

"I know you love her. I think you love her more than I do...Dudley, you're not your father..." she said back and watched his face contort in pain. He hugged her tight and pressed her face against his heart. She counted the beats back from 1000 as they marched her back in time to a safer haven where her daughters were upstairs in bed.

Lizzie went back to her chambers that evening to find Charlie waiting for her. They were silent and it made her uneasy.

"Who has Jamie? Is he staying with your mum?" She asked. Charlie nodded and clenched his jaw.

"You seem disappointed, Liz," he said sadly. She hesitated but shook her head.

"No, I think Annie will do well in Slytherin. She's ambitious and resourceful. I would have done well there too..." she reasoned.

"I agree, I think she'll do well anywhere. You're not worried about that, it's what that represents. Isn't it?" He asked.

"I've wondered if something happened the day the war ended. I'd died. She was a speck of life at the time, it didn't make sense that she didn't die with me..." Lizzie explained. "I've thought maybe it was all still connected. But I can't place how. I feel like I'm missing something that would answer it... I don't remember when we conceived her even..."

"I do," Charlie said weakly, but kept his gaze out the window. "She's ours, there's no connection. But she's like you, and you had the choice didn't you?"

"It gave me the choice, that hat didn't even touch her head... it gave me the choice, I thought, because I still had a piece of him..." she explained.

"I don't think you should dwell... I'm going to go back home tonight and pick up the lesson plans I left, check on the lab. I don't have classes tomorrow so I might spend the day with Jamie... will you be alright?" He asked. Lizzie nodded. He wrapped hands around her hips and leaned in for a very assertive kiss. One hand wrapped firmly around the back of her neck and he began unbottoning her blouse with the other. She undid his belt and his pants but he took the leather strap from her used it to pull her body in tight to his. He kissed her neck and collar bones before spinning her around to face away from him and running firm hands over her chest. Her knickers came down and she was bent over the bed. She welcomed him and relaxed around the pleasure. As it intensified, she tried to pull away before he released, but was too late and gasped.

"No. Do you have a potion?" She asked. He was breathing heavily still but shook his head.

"Let's risk it. I'm getting old, we should have another before I'm ancient," he said, the smile was almost convincing.

"No, are you kidding?" She asked sharply. "Fuck!" She groaned. "I'm making a potion in the morning..." she said. "We've been over this, don't try that again," she said firmly.

"Can I hope it doesn't work..." he said facetiously.

"If you have a death wish," she grumbled and he laughed. He left the chambers and she fell into bed exhausted.

"I brought you some tea," Dudley offered at the door to Lizzie's room. She gave him a reproving look.

"Is coffee really that bad during pregnancy?" Lizzie asked. He smirked.

"Probably should be safe. It's not a permanent condition," he said. She rolled her eyes. Her bump was getting big and she was getting nervous.

"You still have this?" He asked. She looked at what he picked up curiously. He was holding her rosary from first communion.

"You can give it to Ivy..." she offered. Part of her wanted to be rid of it despite holding onto it as a superficial crutch all these years, it had been through war with her. Something about it felt different to her since the war ended. Some sort of anchor to past life.

"She really likes you, I think she'd like having yours..." he said, accepting the offer. He remembered the day she received it.

"After you threw up, what did they do?" He asked quietly, largely not wanting to know the answer. All the muscles in Lizzie's face tightened. First communion, rat poison, the reason she used the same to kill his father.

"I don't think you want to know that," she breathed. She heard a door shut in her mind and lock. Her hand reached for the knob in the dark but it was futile. The closet of the prayer room was a merciless place to be put. She sunk to her knees, knowing the expectation and jolted back into reality. "Just take it, Dudley..." she said a little sharply.

He put it in his pocket. "Are you hungry? Can I get you anything?" He asked. She shook her head but stared at him curiously. He was a lot more different from his father than she had assumed. She didn't have the courage to go back to Charlie. The war was over but she disappeared that evening without a word. Now she was having his baby, at nineteen, but was too frightened to tell him.

Dudley set the beads down on his bedside table as he undid his clothes for bed. Janine was asleep and so was Ivy in the other room. Janine slept peacefully and he nudged her to see if he could wake her for some much desired intimacy.

After a few moments of stroking her hair with the back of his fingers and admiring her peace, his hand sqeezed the back of her neck. Fear flooded his body of her leaving him, returning to Dennis perhaps, or somehow worse, finding someone new entirely. His fabricated fear of rejection was all encompassing and he couldn't fathom the sudden severity. He was alone in the world without her. Completely alone. His hand moved down her back and tugged her night dress above her hips, she was lying on her stomach and didn't stir. "Jenny" he whispered. Nothing. He tried to hesitate but his mind wouldn't let him as he tugged down her knickers to her knees and move his hand between her thighs. He massaged her groin softly until it became warm, but she didn't stir. They were usually careful, she didn't want another baby. If she was awake she'd insist on it.

She was his at the moment though, no protest. The guilt flooded his body as soon as he finished. He stumbled into the master bathroom to wash his face and stared up at his father's hooded eyes in the mirror. The floor looked wet and a much smaller image of his cousin was floating at the surface of the tub. He stared at Janine, still sleeping, from the doorway as his mouth salivated with a metallic taste. He cleaned her up with a warm cloth, hoping to erase the evidence. He compressed the urge to vomit. Secretly he hoped she'd conceive. He'd have a daughter of his own. He'd have her forever.

Lizzie woke up with a small Ivy curled up by her baby bump. "Hey sweetie," Lizzie said groggily.

"I like to feel her kick," Ivy said. "I think I can hear her," she added.

"Hear her?" Lizzie laughed. "How so?"

Ivy made a soft hissing noise and Lizzie shuddered, suddenly jarred. "I smell pancakes," she added quickly and bounced out of the room and down the stairs. Lizzie waddled down after her slowly. Ivy was now fifteen and standing in a meek position at the center of the living room while a man chatted with Dudley about arranging a ceremony. Lizzie grabbed her hand in a sudden panic and apparated. She'd landed without Ivy, but on her knees in a graveyard looking at her headstone.

"NO, NO!" She shrieked and started digging at the grass with her bare hands. She stood up shaking and the gravestone to the left caught her eye. Nadine. She paced to the right staring down at another in horror. Alyssa. Her pace quickened to the next and her heart stopped entirely. Rhiannon. Her stomache writhed, she ran a hand over the bump. The pain that rushed through her scar was like nothing she'd ever experienced. Her sheets in the bed chambers at Hogwarts were soaked through. There was a knock at the door. She got up and opened it, still breathing heavily and looked back at a very frightened Annie before pulling her in almost violently for a desperate and possessive hug.