CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I SHOULD NOT HAVE RETURNED to Ilvermorny, not when there were demons screeching in my ears and the taste of blood like cold iron on my tongue. 

It was the dead of the night, the sky outside was tainted with the sound of harsh winds and the soft troubled howls of the dementors still circling the castle from a distance. I hid myself, upon arriving. I had masked the scent of my magic and I had snickered afterwards. If I could disguise my presence from them this easily, I could wreak havoc on the world if I wanted to and the lifeless wisps outside would be none the wiser. What was wrong with the wizarding government security? Had not heuristic wizards and witches walked the Earth before, what then had they used to keep them in check? 

The dementors were incapable of getting to me, they were worthless and I don't think I've ever seen them as this waste of energy and space as I do now. I don't think I've ever seen them as this excuse in the name of magical prison security. Were the authorities really even trying? Mass prison breakages, rumors of a dark wizard's resurrection, and the simple existence of a heuristic me. The wizarding world security was clueless and pathetic.

It hadn't escaped my notice that if the true depth of my powers was revealed, I would be spending my life caged under government observation—a life spent like a hamster in a muggle's small cage. I was thankful in that regard to my family—my great uncle—for he kept my powers hidden before I even realized what they were. He gave me the opportunity to live a free life—at least in accordance with his own definition of free. 

I reversed the enchantment of my presence, redrawing the self erasement rune I had used and spinning it to revert it's affects. Slowly as I watched, the signs of my life began appearing in the moon washed Ilvermorny dorm room that presently I stood in. My form appeared in the picture on the side table, a laughing girl beside Bridgette Monet, with dark hair and sparkling silver eyes—reappearing with whatever that she was worth.

Bridgette's bed was empty, and I should've noticed it as I had come. I should've seen that she was not there, that she was awake, and standing in the shadows of the dark room. I should've seen her eyes glinting in the dark, watching me come in and intrude in on Ilvermorny's memories, forcefully planting myself where I had erased my feet.

"I know what you did," She spoke as she stepped into the light.

I didn't startle, for I felt as though I had been expecting such a confrontation. I felt as though, this was bound to happen. Bridgette Monet was my better half, a friend that I had like I had no other, yet I spent years by her side fearing that she did not even know that my name was a fake.

Her light brown eyes glared into mine, with accusation, and determination. The former emotion, I realized I had seen a lot of in a certain Durmstrang's eyes.

"Tu t'es effacé," She started, eyes flitting. "You tried to make me forget you!"

My eyes bore into hers, resolution marring them. I didn't want to fight with her, to argue with her—I had had enough of that at present. I had had enough of intrusions in my head, and my body and magic was exhausted because of it.

But how had she managed to loop through it? How had she figured out what I had done? My rune had been stable, it's casting had been—

"I can't forget you, Dom," Bridgette broke in then, her voice shaking as it cracked.

"Lien du sauveur. You saved my life in fifth year, if it hadn't been for you, I would've been dead! Does that mean nothing to you? How could you just neglect the existence of it and pull this shit? I don't care about you doing it to everyone else in this school, but me?"

I blinked at the mention. The lien du sauveur. A bond known all over the wizarding world but with different names and in different languages. It was established between two wizards when one saved the other's life—in the true sense of that phrase. The bond entailed that you couldn't forget the person or people you saved, or were saved by. It was something eternal, everlasting. It remained even after one of the pair was dead, until both or all of them were dead. 

In truth, the bond meant nothing to me when I had first unknowingly constructed it. In my fifth year at Beauxbatons when I had first used the killing curse to save her, it had been the start of everything for me. It was not the heroic act Bridgette or Professor Fabien had made it out to be. I had killed a Demiguise. 

A beautiful cream furred creature with large amber eyes that my fourteen year old self had been entranced with at first sight. It had ventured far from its pack, and I had been feeding it, caring for it after class. I'd leave the castle grounds, and I'd come back with my shoes scraped in mud and the hem of my uniform skirts dark and patched with dust and mud. Bridgette had stumbled upon it, her ridiculous curiosity on my whereabouts getting the better of her. The Demiguise, perceiving her as an unknown threat, tried to defend itself, and Bridgette had screamed. Everything else had been a giant blur, and the next thing I knew, the killing curse had left my lips and the creature lay dead, unmoving. 

I had thought the lien du sauveur was bullshit. I had thought what happened that day wasn't it, if it even was anything significant. The Demiguise was not truly trying to hurt her, it was just this tale Bridgette had made of her own accord. But now? My self erasing rune not working on Bridgette Monet's memory? I was perplexed, and irritated, and no excuses fluttered to the surface.  

Perhaps that Demiguise was hurting her, perhaps he might've even killed her had I not been a moment too late, still, that creature did not deserve to die. I swallowed as the remnants of the guilt pricked me again, at that time the feeling  had been so strong. I had walked the Beauxbatons castle hallway with students whispering behind my back and crooked fingers pointing in my direction. I was the first student to have actually used the killing curse, and I was just a fifth year. 

I had hated Bridgette for it, I had despised her for what I did to that Demiguise, I had resented her for following me and discovering him in the first place. But I realize now that the lien du sauveur really was bullshit only the privileged in the wizarding world could afford, it was not for helpless creatures that merely sought to roam and dig aside a small home for themselves in the process.

"Why did you do it?" Bridgette Monet's voice brought me out of my reverie. Her tone was sharper still. "Réponds-moi, Dominique, why would you do such a thing? Go to such measure?" 

"I needed to take care of something," I responded simply, my tone flat with no urge to argue or even converse. I walked over to my bed in the dorm, and sat myself on it, a sigh escaping my lips. I didn't realize how sore my muscles were. 

"With Viktor Krum?" 

Startled, I glanced at her to find her inquisitive eyes intent on me. 

"You were speaking to him, those ginger haired Hogwarts boys saw you and then you both go missing in action around the same time?" 

"He's been missing too," Brigette continued. "Mais son cas est différent. Everybody has been looking for him, where as, you? You made them forget that you even existed." 

I turned my eyes away from her, looking at the clock in our dorm. 1:00am. The night outside was still sharp and I realized it had only just begun. 

She scoffed suddenly. "I asked Professor Fabien where you were and he thought I needed to rest! He thinks we have only five participants from Beauxbatons for the Huntlock. Elias avoided me the entire time because he thought I had resorted to talking to ghosts! Madame Maxime wouldn't even listen to me. How could you do this Dominique? Didn't it make you sick to force everyone to forget?" 

I didn't say anything, just offered her a glance and it frustrated her more. 

"Dom," She pressed, light brown eyes pleading into mine. "Tell me why, s'il vous plaît." 

"Were you with Viktor Krum?" 

"Oui," I murmured softly in response to her latter question. 

"Where is he now?"

I blinked. "I don't know." 

Bridgette exhaled sharply, assuming my lie. It was true though, I didn't know where the Durmstrang was. He had apparated us somewhere before I had left him, and I hadn't had the idea of asking where. 

"Dominique," Bridgette insisted, walking over to me. 

"I do not know where he is, mon ami," I snapped, irritation seeping into my bones. "He apparated us somewhere, before I knocked him out and left." 

"You knocked him out?"

"He—he intruded in my head," My jaw tightened. "That Bulgarian bastard." 

"Legilimency? Why would he do such a thing?" 

I looked at her, my irritation suddenly warmed down inside my body, like pouring lava gone cool and hard. Questions. First Viktor Krum, and then her. Would she do the same? were I to refuse to answer, were I to shrug her off? Would she sift through my memories when I was asleep, or would she have the decency to do it in broad daylight, to my face? 

"Dominique, please," Bridgette pressed, sitting down beside me on my bed, her features contorted in desperate despair. 

I decided then, none of them will ever touch my mind again. I will tell them what they want to hear. It was fucked up, how they were all so bent on knowing. Bridgette's always been like that, inquisitive, curious, with a feet always in my business. I hid what Gregorovitch told me from Krum because I had been thinking of him. I had been thinking it would endanger him to know, but he had still stolen that information from me. And, it was alright. If he wanted to doom himself, who was I to decide otherwise? If Bridgette wanted the same, who was I to say no? 

Besides, it was just knowledge. I had planted both my feet on this, I had drilled it into my head. The Elder Wand will come only to me, and while having others know about it makes it harder, I would grind myself to dust to get it. I was too far in this to let that wand just go now, to let it slip out of my path. It may not be destined to be mine, but that won't stop me from acquiring it. And I would be saving the wizarding world wouldn't I? That was Gregorovitch what had emphasized. 

So I turned to face Bridgette, and with a resolved expression on my face, I told her everything Viktor Krum had stolen from me. For she was a thief as well, and this time I was willing to give what she wanted before she too stole it from me. I would rather have will, than be caught by surprise without it. 

She remained quiet as I spoke, her eyes widening at some points. But her expression schooled itself to resolution. I told her no more than what Krum already knew, except that part that he suspected of me. His suspicion that I require the wand for selfish purposes instead of noble ones. The rest I would protect, the rest, I won't risk for either of them. 

"So where is Gregorovitch now?" Bridgette Monet asked after a pause, her voice hitching on the wandmaker's name. 

She wasn't familiar with him, she had no tie to him like Viktor Krum or even I had. Her wand was made by Édouard Didier—an infamous French wandmaker who's stories and influence was spread as vast as the white freckles on his dark aged skin. He was the source of every student wand at Beauxbatons for centuries, and he would've been the source of mine as well were my great uncle to not have done me the courtesy that he did. 

"I have sent him away," I sighed, turning my eyes away. "He is safe. In hiding." 

"Wow," Bridgette exhaled, the information catching up on her. "So Viktor Krum sees it as his.. duty to aid you?" 

I scoffed. "I don't care what he sees it as. If I had it my way, he wouldn't be seeing anything at all." 

"He's right you know," Bridgette got up, and started pacing about the dark dorm, her eyes fixed in thought. "Gregorovitch called him. The wandmaker trusts him. He gave you a task, and he found you help in your conquest." 

"I don't need any help," I hissed, eyes sharply on her. Why can't anyone get that? I will figure this pit hole out on my own.

"Oh vraiment? What is your plan then?" She paused, turned to me and folded her arms across her chest. "How do you plan to get the wand? You don't even know where it is. You have to ask Grindelwald! And he probably won't even tell you. You're just a student witch, why would a dark wizard—" 

"You think only Krum can use Legilimency?" 

She pursed her lips, finding no argument in her. Then she turned her eyes away and fixed them at a nearby wall, before speaking. 

"I'm going with you." 

"What?" I let out, my brows furrowing. I should have seen this coming. Bridgette Monet was far more curious than to be just knowing of a concealed Demiguise, she had to see it, to touch, to hold it. To have me kill it. 

"You're not doing this alone," She hurried over to her bed and pulled out her suitcase, clicking it open with a spell from between her lips and her wand pointed to it. 

"You are not," I asserted firmly, but she only cast me a glance. 

"I am, Dominique," She spoke, her tone determined. "Soyez rationnel un instant, s'il vous plaît. You need help, now that you refuse to accept that Durmstrang's. You're my best friend, I am not letting you walk into this alone." 

"Besides," She pulled out a book from her case, flipping it to find a page. "I can help. I read about wizard prison security all of today since you've been gone. I researched quite a bit. I know of Nurmengard's security and I think we can find a way in." 

"Stop," I stood up, a hand raised. "Are you even listening to what you're saying? Je pense que c'est toi qui n'es pas rationnel. You were terrified at the prospect of Voldemort being alive, and now you want to break into a prison with me to seek another dark wizard?" 

Bridgette paused, lowering the book onto her lap. "It's for a good cause, is it not? We save The Elder Wand from falling into the wrong hands."

"So, If it's for a good cause, then the danger doesn't matter?" I pressed, irritation in my veins. 

"No it doesn't!" She cried, desperate. "If Voldemort is really alive and back, it must be him seeking that wand. He is the wrong hands Gregorovitch told you about. Who else could it be?" 

Possibly one of the dozens of prison escapees out right now. I bit back the response. 

"Voldemort is not back," I spoke, my words clear. There was no evidence that he was, not even his death eaters know anything. They were partying with just acolytes for Merlin's sake! 

"You don't know that," She murmured. "But all that aside, I'm coming with you Dominique. You can't make me not come. You can't try that spell on me again, though I don't know how you did it in the first place with your faulty wand." 

I stilled, shooting her a schooled look. 

"I know you've been struggling with it," She got up and walked over to me. "I know it's been letting you down. You can't hide your frustration with it from me, despite how much you try to." 

I didn't answer, turning my eyes away. 

"What is wrong with it?" Bridgette asked, not knowing I won't tell her. "Perhaps, the librarian knows? He must have something on wands, a book or a forgotten guide or something." 

"The library!" She jolted the word out, "That's it. You need to see to your wand and I can find more on Nurmengard there. We can look for ways to protect ourselves when faced with the dark wizard Grindelwald. Come." 

With that she took hold of my arm and pulled me out of the dorm and then as our dorm door clicked shut behind us, we stepped down the dark stairs, footsteps soft and slow in this dark night. I was exhausted, and my muscles still ached with each movement, but Bridgette's enthusiasm drowned my protests. If only she knew how much more to all this there actually was.

The Ilvermorny hallways were cascaded in darkness. A single firelight from a burning log of wood hung on the wall glowed every fifty steps, and the portraits on the brick walls around us were delved into the peace that night had brought along for them. Some wizards and witches snored outright, dozed off in their chairs and beds, or whatever miscellaneous item they had been posing against when being painted. 

Our footsteps clattered against the stone floor, and I noticed for the first time how every Ilvermorny hallway had not been carpeted. The moon light poured in through every glass paned window we crossed, Bridgette holding tight onto my hand as I followed beside. I didn't need to go to the library, but she was right, it would help to know of Nurmengard's defenses, considering if such a book did exist in one of the shelves in this castle. 

Suddenly, stranger footsteps sounded, coming fast towards us from the darkness up ahead. Bridgette and I paused, her form shuddering slightly and I knew it was the thought of being caught wandering in the dead of the night by a professor, the most concerning thing to her at present. It made me want to scoff. If I did need help getting to Grindelwald, it would be from a different source than this. 

As we looked ahead, two figures appeared in our view as the firelight on the wall next to us shone on them, washing the two approaching Durmstrangs in the yellow orange light. 

"Krum," I spoke, my expression molding into that of amusement. He looked.. fine. Shaken perhaps, and he sported a few cuts on his face, a deeper one against his jaw. But other than that, he looked fine.

His stone features were contorted into fury and rage as he glared at me. I folded my arms across my chest, my eyes going from him to Zubair Dimitrova, the second Durmstrang. Dimitrova looked as amused as I felt, though the latter's expression conveyed a hint of curiosity and intrigue tucked under his dark features. 

"C'est tellement agréable de te revoir, Krum," I smiled, tilting my head slightly. "How was your journey back?" 

In an instant, the Durmstrang leapt at me, a hand going around my throat as I was slammed against the left wall of the hallway. I felt a portrait hard against my back, as he pressed me into the wall. His hold on my throat was tight, but not tight enough for me to not be able to breathe. He couldn't hurt me. I would never let him hurt me, but still, he liked to show that he could. And this was exactly that. 

"Hey—," Bridgette uttered before her testament was cut short, Zubair Dimitrova's hold firm on her elbow, holding her in place, as she turned to look at him in newly found shock and anger. 

Viktor Krum glared into my eyes when I turned my own towards him. He was so close, he smelled of grass and rubble. I could see the dust and remnants of snow in his hair. He had only just returned from the mess I had put him in. But of course, he wouldn't see why I had done what I had done. Of course it was only the retaliation that mattered to him—only the goddamned retaliation that damaged his ego. 

"You bitch," He hissed, his hot breath fanning my face. I wanted to laugh in the face of his anger. "How dare you use your cursed magic on me?" 

I didn't answer, my eyes only trailing his tight jaw and the skin on his face. He had rough stubble that I hadn't noticed before. Perhaps it had been our outings that had rendered him incapable of setting time apart and shaving. Though, I think I preferred him like this. I felt my ears grow hot, and I quickly shook the thought out of my head. 

"I know what you are now," Krum continued, his anthracite eyes reflecting his hatred. I couldn't figure what it was directed at, my magic or me? 

"You're heuristic," He accused, the word rolling off his tongue as though he was a snake speaking parseltongue. "The last heuristic witch was one of Zubair's ancestors. Without him, I wouldn't have been able to place your goddamned sorcery." 

My eyes snapped to Zubair Dimitrova, the dark skinned Durmstrang who had affirmed Gabriel Chevrolet's observation and referred to himself as a Casanova on our first interaction. Dimitrova. His family name was not familiar, though I knew nothing of the heuristic wizards and witches of the past. I bet he did. If he could recognize my magic by just what Krum told him, I bet he knew something more about my power than even I did yet. 

"I could hand you over to the fucking dementors right now," Viktor Krum hissed again, his finger tightening slightly around my neck. 

I glanced back at him, my eyes narrowing in face of his threat.

"They aren't programmed to neutralize heuristics," Zubair Dimitrova spoke up, his tone smooth as butter as he made his declaration. "They will see it as a threat and chuck you out to MACUSA or Azkaban, or they could place you under government supervision. The government too will be happy to have you, considering the world hasn't seen a heuristic witch or wizard for four centuries." 

"What?" Bridgette's incredulous voice came, her anger completely vanishing and replacing itself with desperation. "What are you both talking about? Dominique hasn't done anything, let go of her, Viktor Krum." 

"Yet," The Bulgarian seeker spat, his eyes glaring still into mine, unblinking. "She hasn't done anything much yet." 

"The day you drew that symbol," He continued, "It fucking makes sense now. How long have you known? Did Gregorovitch tell you what you already knew?" 

I didn't answer, just kept my eyes on him, observing every twitch of his skin, the intensity of his eyes—like I was goddamed painter observing his muse. Except, Viktor Krum was no muse, he was a muse's unraveling, a painter's downfall. 

"I don't trust you any longer with his request," A vein in his jaw visibly throbbing as he leaned forward, our lips just an inch away, noses halfway to touching. "You're not going to Nurmengard without me, and when we get to that wand, I'm going to be the one taking it." 

"Why?" I spoke, my tone purposefully light. "Did I break your own wand accidentally?" 

His nostrils flared at the mention of the attack I inflicted on him. It was hard to imagine the way his face had been when he had been apologizing to me just seconds before that. I'm sorry, didn't feel like words that ever left his mouth. Did I imagine them? 

"You are going to pursue that wand," He demanded, ignoring my jest. "And I'm going to be right fucking next to you every step of the way. I don't know what your intentions are, Lavigne, but get rid of them because that wand goes to the government once I get it." 

The government? He's intending to hand it over to the authorities to keep it safe? The same authorities who couldn't manage to hold their prisoners any longer? Wow, Viktor Krum was oblivious and more of a fool than I thought. 

"Zubair is going to be coming along. He knows about the shit you can pull, so don't you fucking assume I won't see any of it coming." 

I glanced at Dimitrova again, to find his brown eyes fixed on me, calculating, observing. He could know some things, but there was no way he would know everything. When my great uncle, a dark wizard wreaking havoc on the entire wizarding world, didn't know the depths of my magic, then how could this Durmstrang?

"I broke up your party back there too," Viktor Krum continued. "I got in touch with the ministry of Germany, gave them the Fischer address. They must be loading the escapees in heaps back in as we speak." 

"So whoever your friend is, you ask them to be on guard and bring Gregorovitch back from wherever he's been taken to. I will protect the wandmaker, he's nothing to you." 

"Let go of me," I uttered, anger pulsating through my body as I bore my eyes into his. "Let go, or you will regret it." 

Then, a grin broke through Krum's face as he slowly loosened his hold on my neck, maintaining our close proximity. 

"No," He shook his head. "You will regret it if you don't do as I say. I can get you behind bars, Lavigne. I can ruin your fucking life with one word." 

I swallowed, fear coursing through me as I maintained my composure. What would my great uncle think now? The magic in me he tried so hard to conceal, out in the open, in the hands of people who could use to it play me like a sick marionette. All because I let guilt overrule me, all because I was too weak to do proper occlumency. 

"We head for Nurmengard, we drill the shit out of Grindelwald and find out where the wand is. And then you lead me to it." 

I forced a laugh. "You will use my cursed magic regardless?" 

"Until it serves my purpose."

His features had frozen solid in his hatred. And I hated him too, then, I hated him so hard I could use the very magic he thought cursed and dig his eyes out of his sockets and crush them one by one. 

Suddenly, a shuffle sounded right beside us and I turned to look, only to be greeted by the vision of the fourteen year old Hogwarts boy I had heard much about and seen little of, since I first stepped inside Ilvermorny. He appeared from within a silvery sheet that he now rolled up and tucked under his arm, his other arm, occupied in holding a sleek dark wand at us. I felt fury emanate inside me at being pointed at, before I saw the light coming out from the tip. 

He was only using Lumos, to spy on us. Merlin, how much had he heard?

"Harry Potter," Viktor Krum scowled, he too, furious at being spied on. "You shouldn't be here." 

The boy looked at all of us, his big eyes under his spectacles going from Krum to Bridgette and Dimitrova, before they settled on me. He blinked, recognition flooding in his eyes. 

"Gregorovitch is safe," The boy spoke and I startled, my eyes widening slightly. "But you're not." 

No one said anything, and I too, grasped at something acceptable to say. Viktor Krum was shocked and didn't want to give him anything, nor did Bridgette and Zubair—despite the little they knew. 

"What do you mean?" I asked then, schooling my composure. 

"I—I saw him," Harry Potter stammered then, and I saw a hint of that infamous red scar on his forehead, peeking out from amidst his black hair. "I saw him when he was searching Gregorovitch's memories. I can see him, you know. I can't explain it, it's like I'm inside him." 

"What the fuck are you saying?" Krum snapped then, his eyes pinning Harry Potter in place. And I thought back to the time he had sympathized for the boy and called me out on Gabriel's behavior. It seemed Viktor Krum was a man of colors, he never wore one for too long. 

"He knows Gregorovitch's head was wiped clean by someone," Harry Potter hastened, fear and urgency tightening in his small frame. He stood significantly shorter than all of us. "He is looking for you and he is looking for The Elder Wand. He asked some of his death eaters to find you. He doesn't know what you look like—or anything like that, but he knows it was heuristics. He can sense it wasn't normal magic."

My jaw fell open, as my mind rushed with thoughts faster than a golden snitch in the air, or an arrow whizzing towards its target. 

His death eaters?

"Who is he?" I swallowed a lump in my throat, eyes bearing into the boy's. "Who is he, Potter?" 

"Voldemort," The boy answered, shutting his eyes briefly and opening them again, resolve taking over his features. "It's Voldemort." 

***

A/N: 
omg harry potter in the story??? everything may look like it's tying up, but don't worry, I'm going to scatter these threads soon enough lol