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Chapter Text

Cordelia was having a good day. She’d gotten into the flow of working with the team finally, making coffees, cappuccinos and hot cocoa without delay. Shauna gave her an extra marshmallow after the lunch rush with her pistachio milk latte as a congratulations and best of all, the Christmas rush was finally over!

‘Iced tea for Leah!’ She called out in a pleasantly exhausted manner, feeling the last of her adrenaline ebb away as a classic blonde in Ugg’s came up to the counter, StarkPhone in hand. She took the cool drink with nary a smile Cordelia’s way, practically running out the doors. Oh well, thought Cordelia, disgruntled. Her roots needed done, anyway.

‘Wipe down counters, C,’ said Shauna, tossing her the washcloth and spray. Cordelia got right to it, sliding past Jordan at the toaster-oven to get around the countertop. Soon enough, she was spraying away with the anti-bac, wiping away circular stains and stray crumbs.

It was a menial job, but it needed done and it was a lot safer than working with the expresso machine. Cordelia could people watch without being obvious about, too.

There’s Rob, she clocked him at the window on a laptop wearing brand Nikes, a regular sit-in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He was most likely to get a plastic tub of granola and strawberry yoghurt with his americano and on days they didn’t have any, a toasted croissant with ham and cheese. Beside him was Martin—a woman who only used her last name and refused to use anything other than a takeaway mug, despite the fact that she sat down even more often than Rob. Today, she was reading the newspaper, the one with the article about the crap going down in Washington.

The high schoolers will be around soon, Cordelia thought as her gaze drifted off towards the door, wondering when kids started coming to coffee bistros. Probably when we started doing milkshakes.

Then there were the randoms—the folks who come in once and then are never seen again. Cordelia noticed one come in as she cleared up a trays worth of mugs and sugar packets, squinting at the menu board and pushing her thick tortoiseshell glasses closer to her face to see better. Inconspicuously, Cordelia looked the other girl up and down, wondering if she was into 90s glam. Her pink dress was cut like something out of Charmed and almost sheer, patterned with faded cherries and clashing with her bright copper hair. Only her jean jacket made it seem remotely fashionable, but it was all ruined by the scale boots. The green shimmered.

For a random customer, she was certainly an eyesore of one.

Not that I can talk, wearing this, Cordelia thought glumly, glancing down at her baggy black uniform. The apron made it bearable. Still, though…

‘Hi,’ the random then said, voice echoing through the practically empty bistro. ‘Could I get a tall hot chocolate, please?’

British?

Cordelia—and all her co-workers—paid more attention to the woman as Jordan went through the motions, which were quickly put off-track onto a more explanatory vein as he told her how it all worked. Luckily, Jordan made a point of telling her about the different milk types before she could ask about them, too. Cordelia could see her frowning at the jugs.

‘Could I try the almond milk?’

‘Sure. That’ll be five seventy-five. Who’s it for?’

The girl made a face, which wasn’t as unusual as people thought it was for first-timers to coffee bistros like theirs. ‘Hally. Just Hally, thanks.’

‘One tall almond milk hot chocolate for Just Hally,’ Jordan nodded with a grin, scribbling it down in black sharpie on her cup. As she twisted to take out her wallet, Cordelia saw a dark green shape on her neck like a bruise and immediately put her head down. I’m not getting involved in anyone’s love-life.

Cordelia got back to wiping down tables. Soon enough, she finished, popping back behind the counter just as she accepted her finished drink. ‘Just Hally’ went and sat in the farthest corner, letting her drink cool with the lid off as she slid out the newest model of StarkPhone—still in its box—onto the table. She seemed confused as she undid the packaging, showing off a sheet-like pane of glass containing the most advanced tech on the market, but while Cordelia felt a brief surge of jealousy over the expensive item, the waitress soon got distracted cleaning the expresso machine.

The next time she looked up, the girl was gone, her table cleared of any rubbish from her new purchase. Cordelia prodded Jordan in the back, whispering with a grin, ‘Why would someone who could buy the new StarkPhone wear weird clothes?’

‘Rich people are freaks,’ Jordan immediately replied with a grin of his own, before a small horde of high schoolers burst through the doors. The grin became less genuine at the sight, before he muttered, ‘Showtime.’

Cordelia rolled her shoulders and stepped up to the till, customer service smile already in place. The girl was long forgotten by the time her shift ended, only to be abruptly recalled again as she saw another New Yorker pass by in high heeled leather boots, just outside the store window.

‘Weirdo,’ she muttered, thinking of Just Hally and her green scale boots. Cordelia would probably never see her again.

Three days later, she was proven very, very wrong.

BLACK WIDOW FOUND DEAD IN MANHATTAN!

It was Just Hally on the front page.

‘She’s got my hair.’

James leant over his wife’s shoulders, making faces at the newborn in the Department of Mysteries bassinet. Why the Department of Mysteries had a baby bassinet to hand, James had no idea—probably for situations like these, he supposed.

‘Easier to pull off, I suppose. We’ve got maybe two hours before I have to announce the Potter’s have an heir to the Wizengamot.’

Lily elbowed him roughly, waiting for him to stop coughing to reply, ‘We don’t have to do this. Who would believe us, anyway? How will Sirius and April take knowing we supposedly kept an entire pregnancy from them?’

In the corner of the room, the hooded Unspeakable coughed delicately. ‘My team is on standby to make the necessary…changes.’ The way they said changes told James they meant the memory kind, which didn’t sit well with him. Even just the idea of memory-charming his friends made his stomach squirm uncomfortably.

‘I want a kid,’ he admitted, almost whispering. Lily’s nose twitched, telling him all she thought about the idea. Within moments, he was trying to convince her and he didn’t even know why. ‘At least this way, you don’t have to actually get pregnant! One whole kid for the price of tricking our friends!’

‘We’re barely twenty, practically kids ourselves,’ said Lily, except she made yet another face, the kind that meant I really want to trick our friends. People always thought Lily was some kind of delicate flower, but James uncovered the truth in their seventh year of Hogwarts—if there was one thing Lily loved, it was getting one-over on her friends. Very few people could ever claim to be more important than Lily’s egomania.

If James was lucky, Lily might even turn that overprotective zeal onto their newly adopted child.

Firm in the knowledge that Lily wouldn’t resent him for it, James turned to the Unspeakable and said, ‘She’s ours. We agree to your terms.’

‘Excellent,’ they said. ‘Would you like us to inform your associates of her new name?’

‘Uh.’ James immediately drew a blank, but Lily—precious Lily, fiery Lily, always wants to get one-over on her friends Lily—came to his rescue.

‘Lily Hallen,’ she said, triumphant in her glory, ‘the Second.’

‘That’s not how it works,’ James tried to argue, but his wife had already picked up their new daughter and the image of them together made his heart turn to goo.

‘Yes, it does,’ she told him.

‘Yes, it does,’ he agreed, before glancing back at the Unspeakable to repeat, ‘Lily Hallen Potter the Second.’

The Unspeakable didn’t seem amused or judging, because neither James nor Lily could see their expressions beneath their cloak, but when they finished speaking, they created a tiny paper aeroplane with their wand which sailed off into the depths of the department. When it disappeared into the gloom, they produced the contract Lily and James agreed to sign.

‘Due to the nature of the agreement,’ they said, ‘you cannot have your lawyers read these papers. You acknowledged this before you entered the Department of Mysteries and waived your rights prior to arrival.’

‘Yes,’ nodded James, glancing back at his wife, Lily, and their new baby, Lily. That would get old very quickly.

‘To summarise the contents of these papers, they bind your knowledge of what you have learnt within the Department of Mysteries, including everything regarding the newly-named Lily Potter Junior. You will not, in any way, be able to discuss what you have learnt here with anyone but yourselves and other employees who already know.’ They stressed the last sentence, imparting the seriousness of their choice. Grimly, James nodded along, only for Lily to query the worker.

‘Will I get permission to study her arrival through the Veil under my consultant contract with the Department, or will we have to cede rights as her parents to a different Unspeakable?’

The line of his shoulders broadened, briefly, as Lily spoke of her work with the Department of Mysteries. Already, James could feel a faint buzz along his thoughts, warping what he’d heard as the tension in his back increased. James had learnt the hard way alongside Sirius when they eavesdropped on Cassiopeia Black, just how Unspeakables kept their knowledge safe. Even as Lily and the Unspeakable discussed her contract and how it intersected with the one they were about to sign, he felt a migraine brewing, a loud whine growing in intensity inside his head that made his eardrums feel fit to burst.

‘Stop,’ he eventually muttered, shutting his eyes and placing his hand to his head, a useless gesture meant to stem the pain of his migraine. Immediately, Lily cursed under her breath and grumbled about stupid defences, demanding the contact. It took a long time for the loud whining and the migraine to fade, but when it was gone, it was fully vanished. James happily accepted the warm bundle Lily passed over to him, when she went to sign her altered work contract.

The blood quill itched when he signed his own, but once it was done, the Unspeakable produced a much more familiar document: one he would be handing to the Wizengamot clerk to file away into the depths of the Ministry Archives less than two hours from now.

‘Anything else we need to know?’ James asked, eager to be off. He was still over the moon at becoming a parent so quickly—a parent! He had a child!—and the shine didn’t feel like it would wear off for a long time, yet.

‘The only relevant thing you need to be aware of, now you’ve signed, is that we anchored her here for security purposes,’ the Unspeakable explained, as Lily tucked the birth certificate into his robe pocket. ‘As an alien to this world, she wasn’t tethered automatically to the magical core of the planet. We artificially bonded her and now that you’ve claimed her as your dependant, that bond should naturally shift soon enough to filter through yourselves. Magical inheritances from either bloodline, keys tied to family lines, etcetera, should all transfer soon enough. This may or may not include the ability to wield magic itself.’

What was James saying about the shine of it all? Ah, yes. That vanished immediately.

‘She might not have magic?’ He exclaimed, stricken.

‘If she forms a magical core, it’s certainly possible,’ said the Unspeakable, ‘but whether she’ll be a wand-wielding magical or not will remain to be seen. Unlike her peers, she hasn’t had nine months to soak in the sights, as it were.’ If James had the capability right then, he would have been angry at the sarcasm lacing their voice there at the end. But the Unspeakable ultimately shook their head. ‘All she needs is time. Give her it—you might be surprised, in the end.’

‘I’ll monitor her progress,’ said Lily, with an edge to her voice that said I’ll do it, whether you like it or not. The existence of it soothed a part of James in a way that Sirius would laugh at—there was a reason he didn’t tell his brother about his sex life, after all.

Curling his arms tighter around his new daughter, James peered down at her slack face, absorbing every last curve and wrinkle, every last strand of hair and eyelash. He didn’t know babies could have so many eyelashes.

Your mum called you Lily Hallen, he thought, my precious baby. My little Hally. I hope you grow up to be as strong-willed as your mother and as beautiful as her, too. For the briefest of moments, he wondered about her birth parents, whether they missed her or not, before tidying all those thoughts away into the corner of his mind to think about another time. Hally was his, now. Theirs.

I love you already. I love you to the ends of the universe and beyond. James kissed her forehead, feeling the impossibly soft warmth beneath his chapped lips. We’ll do just fine, he thought. Lily, standing closer, slipped her arm around his waist and propped her head up on his shoulder to look at her, too.

Yes.

They’d do just fine.

The nature of Hally Potter’s life was one for storybooks. Her parents may have loved her, but they died too soon and left her in the care of people too hurt and suspicious to ever care for her too deeply. Her aunt, Petunia Dursley, might have once felt an ember of love that smouldered on for some years, but it cooled eventually and when the two finally parted one muggy summer evening, neither looked back on their lives together with fondness.

Hally Potter faced other monsters. She faced murderers, Dark Lords and creatures beyond true imagining. She became a powerful witch in her own right and proved her worth time and time again, until the fateful day came where Lord Voldemort summoned her into the dark forest surrounding Hogwarts. She held the Ring of Resurrection and called out to shades of the dead who she’d so often been compared to, despite the lack of blood relation.

Albus Dumbledore did always wonder why the wards were so weak.

Where they once were carbon copies of each other, where childhood friends saw Hally Potter at eleven and thirteen and didn’t know where Lily began or ended, now they stood nearly as equals—and the discrepancies were fierce. Lily had hair like fire and eyes like jewels, but Hally was as copper-haired as any Weasley and her eyes could be described as murky sea-green, rather than emerald.

‘If you survive tonight, you will come back changed,’ her father told her. Hally, desperate to see herself in the people she lost, searched for any sign she was related to him at all. It was only coincidence their smiles were the same. Sombre and afraid of what could be, he reached out a ghostly hand and held it close to her cheek. He could not touch her, so he did not try.

‘How could I come back?’ She asked him, choked and bitter. ‘I’m going to die. Dumbledore knew it had to happen.’

‘Your mother would be better off explaining,’ said James, before blowing her a kiss and stepping back to join his friends, Hally’s old professor and parted dogfather at his side. Beside them, it just became ever clearer how young he was when he died.

Hally turned to her mother. ‘Mum?’ she whispered.

‘The tether will break,’ Lily hissed and the anger in her voice startled Hally. Her eyes widened in shock at the furore her mother emitted. ‘I was bound by oath in life not to say a single thing about my work to outsiders and now I regret ever spinning my web around them all. I made a mistake. They could never tell you without my permission where you came from—what you were, really.’

‘What?’ Hally breathed, but Lily spoke over her.

‘The Veil of Death is one-way to wizards,’ she said, ‘because they are attached to this dimension with a magical umbilical cord. Wizards who go through die, because their physical form is shunted through the walls between worlds into another—and their souls cannot follow. But you’re different, Hally. Everything that has ever come through the Veil from the other side has been able to live and grow, so long as it was alive to begin with.’

Her anger faded, replaced with certainty. Lily Evans looked Hally Potter in the eye and told her the truth.

‘When Voldemort destroys his horcrux, he’ll destroy any and all tethers you have to this dimension. That’s how the killing curse works. How it’s always worked. Murder and violent death disrupt the tether and avada kedavra is the very definition. It’s how you get ghosts,’ she described.

‘Mum,’ Hally shook her head, ‘I still don’t understand. What does it all mean? Did- are you trying to say I came through the Veil?’

‘We adopted you the day you arrived,’ said Lily, admitting it freely, ‘and we loved you from that day until now. We always will.’

Hally tried—she tried to understand. ‘So,’ she blubbered, unable to stop the tears from rolling down her face, ‘so, I’ll become a ghost? I’ll just float around, unable to get back into my body?’

‘Your body will be dead,’ Lily cut in. ‘The moment the tether is severed, your body will cease to function ever again. If you’d been born in this world, it would be a different story.’

‘I really don’t understand what’s going on,’ then said Sirius, interrupting, ‘but I have to ask if the Pole Problem is in effect here.’

‘The Pole Problem?’ repeated Lily and Hally, before the ghost of Remus Lupin blanched.

‘It’s a magical phenomenon,’ he said in an agitated hush, eyes darting between his old departed friends in half-fear, half-fury. For a moment, he stared over their shoulders, before looking his pseudo-niece in the eye. ‘Like a rubber band, Hally. Portkeys take advantage of it, using an anchor until the keyphrase releases it, returning the portkey to the original destination.’

‘What he’s trying to say,’ Sirius interrupted again, while Lily and James began to freeze in horror. ‘If you belong in another dimension, when you finally lose the connection anchoring you to your body, you could be flung all the way back to your point of origin. So, I have to ask—Lily. Is the Pole Problem in effect?’

All eyes swung to Lily, who looked so very, very young, then. She looked at her daughter with confused apology. Hally put a hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs.

‘So- so not only am I going to become a ghost,’ she said brokenly, heaving a gasp, ‘but I’m going to be a ghost in a different universe? Will anyone be able to see me at all?’ Because if there was one thing she knew about ghosts, it was that muggles couldn’t see them.

The quiet that overtook the glade was not happy. Nor was it peaceful. In fact, it took almost too long for Hally to come to terms with things. War had made her efficient, but she was still a teenager and so much information to absorb so as to adjust her world-view took time.

But some things are meant to happen.

She was only two minutes late to her own death.

When Hally Potter faced oblivion…there was no train station. No Albus Dumbledore to give her that one piece of information that would have proved she truly reached the afterlife and talked with her dearly beloved, late headmaster.

What there was, instead, was a bright kaleidoscope of colour as Hally traversed between dimensions at faster than light speed. It burned her eyes and so, she closed them, right before crash-landing in a deep crater full of snow that ultimately, did little to soften her landing.

Sprawled out on a white landscape, Hally was a dot of colour in an otherwise endlessly white world, floating in and out of consciousness. The action that truly brought her to alertness was the calm presence of another, wearing long yellow robes and a heavy necklace in the shape of an eye.

‘…where am I? Who are you?’ Hally questioned the figure, realising her glasses were lost moments later as she tried and failed to make out their features. All she could tell was they had no hair at all—and that they were, in fact, see-through. Then Hally realised she was completely naked and gasped, curling her arms around her admittedly small chest, bringing her knees up to hide the apex of her legs. The figure chuckled.

‘You are in a spectral form, young one. Unusual, considering astral projection is usually undetectable. Come, now. I will return you to your body and follow.’

The words filtered through her mind and made Hally remember. ‘I’m dead,’ she said, shocked.

‘No,’ the figure—the woman—disagreed, almost fond. ‘Only astral projecting.’

Hally shook her head, hesitantly standing up in the snow, in a cold she couldn’t really feel, twisting to the side so the woman couldn’t get a good look at her. ‘I’m dead,’ she repeated, hesitantly saying, ‘I’m untethered from my body.’

In moments, the fondness melted away. ‘Explain,’ the woman demanded, her voice calm, yet commanding.

‘It’s a long story—one I’d rather have clothes for,’ Hally said, beginning to feel aggravated. No doubt, Voldemort was already parading her body about in front of all of Hogwarts and Hally forced herself to concentrate on that, on the desecration of her corpse to beat down the morale of the Light Side, to stop herself from thinking of everything else.

She’d just lost her whole world. Her whole dimension.

‘I’m Hally,’ the witch tried, unable to stop the flatness of her voice. ‘If you could help me out here, I’d be grateful.’

The other woman was silent for a time, before finally inclining her head and holding out a hand. ‘I will guide you to Kamar-Taj, the home of my Order.’ After a moment, she added, ‘Do not fear that any other than I shall see you undressed.’

Hally was glad the woman said that last part, because it made it easier for her to accept the whole nude thing as she tentatively stretched out her arm, edging closer. The woman only waited, clasping her hand gently when she was finally in reach. They stood there for a long moment, before the woman began floating backwards, quickly picking up speed—and pulling Hally along for the ride. It was almost like flying, except Hally would much better prefer if she were a) clothed and b) controlling her own flight via broomstick. Preferably, her Firebolt.

Eventually, however, after the world stopped blurring by, they stopped in an Eastern-style building located in a busy city, where the woman led her into a private tea room that her body sat in, eyes closed. The woman returned to her body once she let go of Hally’s hands, opening her eyes and gesturing for Hally to sit opposite her.

‘I apologise for not knowing how to offer spectres garments. It is a rather unusual situation—probably caused by a lack of tethering to keep your soul from proverbially colouring your spectral form,’ she said, before finally introducing herself. ‘I am known as the Ancient One, Master of the Mystic Arts and Sorcerer Supreme.’

Hally, despite everything, couldn’t help the bubble of laughter from escaping her throat. After all she’d been through, she’d found another Dumbledore, ready to give her advice and help where needed—while also being appropriately shady and mysterious.

The Ancient One seemed amused by her giggles and Hally forced herself to calm down, introducing herself properly. ‘Hally Potter. Otherwise known as the Girl-Who-Lived, Undesirable Number One and the Chosen One. I’m a witch and was the subject of a prophecy to defeat a Dark Lord, called Voldemort. I died doing it.’

‘And how did you end up untethered, if I may ask?’ The Ancient One queried. ‘Is it usual for witches of your world to end up so post-mortem?’

‘No. I’m a special case,’ she explained, suddenly going quiet and looking at her knees. She didn’t want to think about being adopted or coming from another dimension. She’d have to, eventually, but Hally wanted- no, needed time. Time to come to terms with dying. Time to come to terms with forcefully being removed from everything she ever knew.

The Ancient One hummed understandingly, pouring herself a cup of tea. Unable to feel changes in temperature, Hally doubted she could have her own heated cup, but she yearned for one, anyway.

After a long time in silence, the Ancient One eventually asked her another question.

‘This is not your home dimension. Knowing you are untethered, I may still be able to help you return, regardless. Is this something you would wish?’

Hally sucked in a breath, wishing furiously. She did. Yes. So much. But then she remembered the Pole Problem and explained as such to the Ancient One, who frowned heavily and nodded again in understanding.

‘What belongs to one dimension will forever attempt to return to it. In your vulnerable state, it would be especially difficult to keep yet another tether in place.’

‘Because I don’t have a body?’

‘That,’ the Ancient One inclines her head, ‘but also because reality has will. It wants to keep you in your proper place and now you have returned, it will try very hard not to let you go again. While having a physical body would no doubt be a great boon in this endeavour, should you return, you may find you have trouble accidentally slipping between different dimensions as this dimension calls you home. A secondary anchor would be required.’

What Hally was hearing was that it was, if not impossible, increasingly difficult to get her back home to her Earth and her Hogwarts on a permanent basis.

‘Well,’ she mumbled, ‘at least you still speak English in this dimension. Imagine if you didn’t?’

Again, the Ancient One became amused. ‘Quite a coincidence, yes. You come from a variant Earth, I suppose. Considering what you have so far disclosed, I can make several guesses as to which one, too.’ Then, appallingly, she looked at Hally’s scar. It was as if the world was suddenly flipped on its end.

‘No way,’ Hally said then, fearing the worst—though she didn’t know what that really was. ‘You know about me?’

The Ancient One chuckled under her breath and oh yes, Hally could see the resemblance to Dumbledore. Damn it, she whined to herself privately, in the privacy of her own head.

‘You will find, Miss Potter, that stories have a way of spreading to even the farthest reaches of the universe—or in this case, dimensions.’ Finishing her tea, the Ancient One stood and bowed her head in a small measure of respect. Hally slowly stood and joined her. ‘I shall endeavour to find a solution to your unique problem, but I’m afraid that many sorcerers in the Order will be able to see your astral form.’

Cringing, Hally asked, ‘Is there somewhere I can stay without getting stared at?’

‘I’ll have a room set aside from you in one of the emptier wings of the complex,’ the Ancient One promised, smiling. ‘Don’t despair, Hally. You’ll find the world is still accessible to you, even in astral form.’

Hally glanced back at the tea. ‘Not food or drink, though.’

‘No,’ she agreed, ‘but we have a vast library and a new dimension’s magic for you to harness. I suspect it shall keep you as busy as you want it to. And those whom you may come to trust might eventually join you in the astral plane, so do not fear a loss of touch from others, either.’

A surge of gratitude exploded out of her. The outpouring of feeling, coupled with the events of the last year, caused poor Hally to burst into tears. The Ancient One seemed thrown, but then she offered her hand, a faint astral version causing a double image over the top. Hally took her hand, squeezing tight.

‘Thank-you,’ she sobbed. ‘Thank-you.’

Hally didn’t even know what she was thanking her for.

‘It’s no problem, Miss Potter,’ said the Ancient One. ‘No problem at all.’

Chapter Text

The first sorcerer in Kamar-Taj to meet the infamous ‘teenage ghost’ the Ancient One had not-so-secretly adopted was a woman called Chau Ly. Chau had heard the rumours from her neighbours down the hall and in all honesty, hadn’t expected to ever meet the girl, much less stumble across her up in the rafters as she collected a stray pigeon.

Chau glanced her way as she found her footing on the wooden beam, not really registering her, focused on the bird as she was—but then she realised what she’d seen and looked back at her, eyes widening as the ghostly girl froze behind a support, arm clasped across her chest. Chau, a former native of an island village outside Haiphong, Vietnam, was no stranger to the human body. Somehow, however, she never thought she’d meet a nudist in the centre of all magical learning on Earth. That it was a ghostly nudist just took the cake,

‘…good afternoon, friend,’ she greeted the girl hesitantly, glancing back at the pigeon she’d accidentally let into the compound. Chau was still mastering her sling ring and the bird was just as unexpected as the ghost girl. ‘It is quite cold today.’

The girl shifted slightly, then mumbled back, ‘I could tell from all the snow.’

Unwillingly, Chau found herself smiling. ‘I’d never seen it until I came here. Are you a student, too?’

‘…sometimes. I’m Hally,’ said the ghost girl—said Hally. Chau forced herself to remember the name.

‘Chau,’ she returned. Hally seemed somewhat startled.

‘Cho?’ The girl repeated, using the wrong pronunciation. Chau forgave her—it was a similar sound.

‘Chau,’ Chau repeated, listening in interest as Hally murmured it to herself, arms still wrapped around her bare body. Chau kept her eyes firmly on her face, figuring her nudity might be why she didn’t interact with others, but refused to ignore her completely. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Britain,’ said Hally, red hair falling over her shoulders. It was quite the unique colour to Chau, who was used to the vast majority of her peers being brunette. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Vietnam. I hope to assist the Sanctum Master in Hong Kong, once my tuition is to their satisfaction.’ Sharing her dreams, Chau saw the pigeon begin to walk towards her and eyed it keenly, waiting for her moment to snatch it up. ‘Do you expect to call the London Sanctum home, in the near future? I imagine it might be difficult for you, but…’ The pigeon came closer and Chau reached out to grab it with ease, tucking the struggling bird against her chest.

Hally tilted her head further around the support beam, watching it. ‘I’m not really sure what’s going to happen to me. The Ancient One hasn’t found a way to give me clothes, yet.’

‘What about a relic?’ Chau queried. ‘Surely one amongst many might be able to breach the astral plane.’

‘Huh. Maybe. That’s a good idea—thanks,’ said Hally, sounding genuinely grateful. Chau glanced at her, once again forcing herself to look directly at her face. Catching the tick of her chin, Hally winced, curling into a ball. Chau could faintly see where she floated in place just above the wood, her pale toes clenched together while her hair fell across her knees.

‘If you ever want company,’ Chau found herself offering, ‘I don’t mind nude visitors. Neither would the communal baths, either.’ She saw Hally’s expression spark, then. ‘You didn’t know about the baths?’

‘No,’ said Hally, clearly intrigued by the prospect of not being the only one physically vulnerable.

‘Follow me from above,’ she beseeched her, lifting up the pigeon. ‘I’ll put this one back where it belongs with the help of my friend, Clea, then we can go—unless you can open a portal to Zaragoza?’

Chau Ly became Hally Potter’s acquaintance in 1998, nearly a year after her original arrival on the 9^th of May, 1997. They did not spend much time together—and ultimately, the venture to the baths was a failure, as the wards did not allow astral projections for fear of peeping toms—but they kept a cordial relationship for some few years before Chau joined the Sanctum Sanctorum of Hong Kong, where their friendship, to both their surprise truly began to blossom.

But in truth, it was that first meeting which marked an important milestone in Hally’s life.

‘Relics,’ said the Ancient Ones, ‘are magical artefacts imbued with power. Think of your invisibility cloak. I understand that ownership of that particular relic was…prized.’

‘Yeah,’ Hally agreed, wishing she had her Cloak with her now. It was to her deepest surprise that she felt a gentle weight across her shoulders, shimmering fabric settling over her bare body. Shock ran through her and Hally grasped the edges of her Cloak with a confused form of joy, looking up at the unsurprised Ancient One.

‘I know many things,’ she intoned, ‘but whether my suspicions were correct was not a certainty. The books yet to be published that shall record your life—or rather, a version of your life—speak of sister relics.’

Hally hesitated, thinking of the Elder Wand and the Ring of Resurrection. Neither appealed to her, as when she imagined wielding either, it was to her own detriment. Her old holly and phoenix feather wand was lost to her when she passed through realities, but just the idea of bearing the Elder Wand in its place felt like a betrayal. But I need a wand to use my sort of magic, she thought, before raising her hand. As with the Cloak of Invisibility, the Elder Wand came to her palm with but a thought and once more, she felt her grief like a knife.

I can’t call the Ring, she then told herself, as much a statement as it was a warning. Cadmus Peverell summoned the shade of his lost love and she did not thank him for it, when he refused to let her leave. Hally didn’t imagine it would go down well, should she attempt to drag her own dearly departed through the walls of the worlds, just for her peace of mind.

‘You can walk around, now,’ said the Ancient One in a mild voice. ‘Be careful not to become a real ghost story. I’ll expect you for tea at our usual time each month and for you to keep up your language studies.’

‘I promise not to abuse your trust,’ Hally swore to her, knowing without words that she was being given free reign. Most sorcerers were, but the Cloak was Death’s own and Hally doubted the Ancient One could see through it. The Ancient One would never see Hally again, if she didn’t want to be seen.

And perhaps it was a mistake to give her that allowance, for Chau Ly was one of only three people to whom Hally revealed herself to afterwards, whether willingly or not. The second was Sol Rama, Sanctum Master of the London Sanctum, when he came on a brief visit to Kamar-Taj’s libraries and to see the Ancient One. Hally quietly informed him of where to find their esteemed Sorcerer Supreme, lowering the hood of the Cloak so he might meet her eyes.

‘You are the Ancient One’s ghost,’ he presumed, his accent thick and Brummie to the core. Hands pressing together, he bowed slightly. Hally returned the greeting somewhat lopsidedly, as the Cloak didn’t exactly have sleeves. Sol Rama barely spared what glimpse of her body he got a glance and it made her feel relieved—for it was as much a fear of being stared at and devoured by others as it was her own shyness keeping her from making walking around bare-skinned.

‘Hally Potter,’ she introduced herself, but refrained from speaking further. Without a sling ring, she’d never be able to travel by portal herself and one needed the Sanctum Master’s approval to use the Doors. Hally herself felt a desperate need to see her home country, but another part of her knew that if she saw it, all she’d want to do was go to all the places where her world didn’t exist.

The third person Hally met was by accident. She roamed Kamar-Taj’s library and, without meaning to, smacked right into another person astral projecting themselves between the shelves. Tumbling head over heel, gasping in fright, Hally fell to the floor and looked up to see the other.

That was the day she met Kaecilius.

He was younger then, still ignorant to truths he would discover in the depths of Kamar-Taj. With dark hair and a face like a frog, Hally saw him and wrinkled her nose. While she would eventually come to know him as a kind man, that personality would be wiped away as anger and fury overtook him and reforged the heart of him. Nevertheless. It was an auspicious, yet poor meeting, made up only in his eagerness to see her in physical form once more.

‘I’ve known you nine years, now,’ he said to her later, in the early spring of 2010. The thirteenth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts approached. While Hally perused a spell-book, absentmindedly practicing her own take on the wand movement that would usually be cast by hand, Kaecilius watched her with a frown tugging at his lips. ‘The Ancient One has not found a cure in all this time.’

‘It’ll come to her.’

‘You don’t sound so sure.’

Hally paused, considering her own words. In truth, if she thought on the matter, she found her focus slipping. In astral form, she had no need of sleep, of food or water. All she relied upon was entertainment—anything to keep abject boredom from setting in. Sniping at the quiet and self-assured Kaecilius was one of her few hobbies she sought out on purpose, whenever he was in the mood to chat.

‘I don’t think I’m the same,’ she told him slowly, speaking as it came to her. ‘Life isn’t…life. Not as I remember it. I survive as I am. My perception I have on events isn’t the same as your own. The disconnect I feel…it’s- it’s strange. Natural, in a way. But I feel like I’ve not aged a day in my own head, though I’ve got emotions and opinions and all that.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, somewhat wryly. ‘Your last opinion was on the colour of my robes.’

‘You don’t suit red,’ Hally scowled. Huffing at him as he shook his head, the witch waved her hand, closing the book upon her lap and returning it to the shelves with an easy levitation. Wandless magic came easy to her after so many years of practice—almost twelve, now—and she preferred to use it, too, with the exception of when she duelled other sorcerers. Those battle spells she’d found in the many tomes belonging to the Masters of the Mystic Arts, Hally had adapted as well as she could to her wand, which thrived on the challenge. She’d learnt, since summoning it, that the Elder Wand had a mind of its own.

‘Do you not wish for a body at all?’ Kaecilius pressed. ‘If I had found a ritual which might work, would you try it?’

‘But have you?’ Hally returned, not believing him. Kaecilius pursed his lips.

‘You didn’t answer, Hallen.’

The witch made a face. ‘I should never have told you my full name.’

‘Be glad I’m not calling you Lily—it’s much prettier.’

‘Anyway,’ she blustered, waving him off, ‘I trust the Ancient One to find a solution. I’ve got a whole mentor-mentee attachment going on, there and I’ve learnt in a past life not to rock the boat with my teachers. It just messes things up.’

‘You fear change.’

‘I fear a lot of things,’ said Hally flatly. ‘So, unless you’ve got a solution to bring to the table, shut up about it. I don’t pester you about going back to your parents. You ran away, right?’

Predictably, Kaecilius flinched, one of the few topics that could rattle him. He stood up, however, crooking his finger in a silent command to follow. Hally breezed through the table, twirling in place just for giggles as he led her to a relatively dusty shelf. She watched him pull out a book and flip to one of the last pages, where the writer had clearly gone off on some kind of mad sprawl, the text miniscule, pressed up against half a dozen rough sketches of an enchantment circle.

‘This is one of the far-ranging astral projection spells, meant to send your astral form into far-flung dimensions that you may not be able to reach otherwise,’ Kaecilius described, gently drawing the ritual circle itself up into the air above the page. It glowed gold, forming like a hologram as it began to turn counter-clockwise. ‘Look,’ he said.

Hally did as she was bid, squinting at runes she couldn’t decipher without glasses. It was never something she’d been able to remedy, while in her current state. Kaecilius, patient as he’d always been, waited some time for her to figure out what he was showing her.

‘This creates the Pole Problem,’ she said, disturbed. Her hands ran through her hair in frustration. ‘What is this, Kaecilius?’

‘The purpose of this ritual is for a sorcerer, in astral form, to bring a formless soul into a body.’ He stated, dispersing the image. ‘I’d imagine this classes as necromancy in the modern era, however, only drawing power from the Dark Dimension and casting forbidden spells are prohibited. All it requires is a golem and DNA from the corpse of the formless soul.’

‘My body is in another dimension.’

‘That isn’t the difficult part,’ said Kaecilius, who to Hally, sounded inappropriately happy. ‘My friend, this is the way you can return to the physical form. I’m sure of it.’

With dry lips, Hally croaked out, ‘We’ll ask the Ancient One.’

And they did.

Her answer left Hally terrified.

‘It must be a masterwork,’ said Hamir, an elder of Kamar-Taj, his voice laden with all the seriousness he possessed. In the centre of the circle of masters, Hally listened to them discuss the ritual Kaecilius had found—one so very simple in execution, yet so very easy to get wrong.

‘The London Sanctum currently holds the best crafters. We can build the golem.’

‘I will oversee the expedition to her former dimension,’ the Ancient One claimed, hands tucked beneath the sleeves of her yellow robes. ‘Alone, if you please.’

‘Can’t I come?’ Hally asked, quiet as a mouse.

The Ancient One was immeasurably kind as she said, ‘You shall not be burdened with the sight of your own corpse, Hally. I won’t allow it.’

‘An understandable decision.’ Clea Jiao-Orini, the newly-instated Sanctum Master in Hong Kong, slipped Hally a pitying smile. Hally only remembered her as Chau’s friend but figured she must have earned her place as Sanctum Master, to gain her role so young—even if her hair was already going white.

‘If I may,’ said Daniel Drumm, New York Sanctum Master, demurring politely, ‘I shall leave this quest to those better suited.’

‘I’m sure Hally would appreciate your skills as a warrior, in the days to come,’ the Ancient One told him, explaining to Hally, ‘Your new body, once settled, may feel strange to inhabit. Master Drumm will finish your martial training and keep a weather eye on your acclimation.’

Eyes darting between the two, Hally looked to the Sanctum Master, silently questioning if that was alright. She shouldn’t have worried, however, as Master Drumm merely smiled at her, as kind and as welcoming as any of the sorcerers she’d met in Kamar-Taj.

‘I’ll give you a proper New York welcome. Have you ever lived in Greenwich Village, before?’

Hally shook her head shyly. ‘No,’ she said, ‘just Surrey, in England, and the middle of nowhere, Scotland, for boarding school. I think I went to Wales once, on a camping trip.’ Only Kaecilius and the Ancient One knew her ‘camping trip’ was time spent on the run from the Ministry of Magic.

‘The two of us will have a great time together, then,’ he winked in a friendly manner and Hally couldn’t help but smile back, despite her nervousness.

The Ancient One seemed pleased by their newfound fondness and finished the meeting soon after, calling Hally aside along with Kaecilius, as the other Masters departed.

‘You fear what might happen,’ she said to Hally, reading her hidden emotional state just as well as any book. Chagrin, Hally looked away, feeling the astral form of Kaecilius’ arm at her back. It was a small comfort.

‘It’s just been so long,’ Hally said, unsure of herself, ‘and I- and I haven’t changed. I said it to Kaecilius. In my mind, I’m still the same. What if I go into this golem and then, then I don’t age? My body withers, but my brain thinks it’s seventeen forever? And what if I don’t adapt? If I don’t assimilate? Master Drumm sounded so eager to help, but what if-’

The Ancient One raised a hand to halt her words. ‘Calm your thoughts, Hally. First, you must remember that this resurrection will be permanent. Your body will be your own, even if it was a golem first. Like how I imagine you were when you first arrived in your dimension, you will be tethered permanently to your new form. It will be you—forever.’

‘And my head?’

‘That, I cannot say—though it may be that here, the Tale of Three Brothers is more relevant,’ she said, eyes flashing in warning.

This, Kaecilius did not know, and he looked all the more curious for it.

‘…could it be reflected on my body?’ Hally asked anyway, trying to be at least somewhat circumspect. Judging by the look on the Ancient One’s face, she didn’t do a very good job.

‘Perhaps,’ said the Sorcerer Supreme, ‘Only time will tell. I suspect by the week’s end, you shall be flesh and blood once more. Spend what time you have with your acquaintances. Kaecilius has done you a great service today and it is unlikely you will leave New York for some time, once you arrive.’

Anxious, Hally looked to her…to her friend. But there was something strange about the way he looked at the Ancient One—something cold and afraid all at once. It chilled her to the bone and Hally felt a deep urge to dig, to find out what was wrong.

‘Kaecilius,’ she whispered his name, snapping him out of whatever fugue he was in. Their eyes met. ‘Will- will you spend time with me? Before I go?’

Her questions were awkward and they felt like a step too far, despite how she had always pushed herself on him in the past. That disconnect she had felt for so long was still alive and well—but there was a degree of presence, of honesty to her words. Her life would begin again next week, and she wanted to spend as much time with Kaecilius as she could, before this half-life she’d been living so long ended. Before she closed the book on this chapter of her existence.

Slowly, he smiled—but it was a small smile. ‘Of course. Shall we take a walk through the Sanctum?’

‘Y-yes. Yes, please.’ Hally stuttered for a moment, then forced some joy into her voice as she teased him, ‘So long as you don’t mind people staring at you for chatting with thin air!’

‘That’s my problem,’ he replied smoothly, offering his arm—real and astral—for her to take. Hally did, pretending it was easy. She hid how her hand shook from nerves.

‘Let’s go, then,’ she said, glancing back at her mentor to wave goodbye. Except when she did, the Ancient One only had eyes for Kaecilius. Hally felt a stirring in the world, then, fate at her back and destiny whispering in her ear. There was something going on between Kaecilius and the Ancient One—something dark and dangerous.

As she turned back around, walking with her friend through the corridors of Kamar-Taj, Hally wondered just what that dark and dangerous something was.

I was always a sucker for a mystery.

In the days following Hally’s return to life, Daniel Drumm became her newest teacher and confident. He reminded her of Remus, but less distant by far and as willing as any of her old friends to catch her when she fell. The physical therapy itself was gruelling, as even a golem built to the standards of her old body didn’t know how to walk or even how to breathe. Hally wore an enchanted necklace that acted like a ventilator for several weeks, pushing and pulling air into her lungs.

To Hally herself, things like breathing seemed automatic, except they really weren’t—not then, at least. While she originally feared that her mind had frozen in development at seventeen, the reality was that it instead took time to synchronise her brain to her new body. Her body was capable, but the transmitters in her brain hadn’t yet fully aligned.

Daniel admitted that from a neurological standpoint, it was all very fascinating.

‘I got you this,’ he said to her at the end of summer, holding out a box. It was striped pink and white with, the type that held pastries and traybakes, with the logo of a bakery on the lid, and when Hally opened it in curiosity, she found a blueberry muffin iced with lemon buttercream. On top, there was a blue and white marzipan 18. ‘I couldn’t fit a candle in the box,’ Daniel told her, but with a twist of his hand, a tiny flame bobbed into existence above it.

Carefully, Hally excised the muffin from the box, attempting to hold it level, but still nearly dropping it. Daniel, without censure, joined their hands around the base, steadying her loose grip.

‘Happy birthday,’ he murmured. ‘Make a wish.’

‘Thank-you,’ Hally said in return, before squeezing her eyes shut. His fingers cupped around her own were warm and solid, grounding her in the moment and Hally felt so much gratitude to all the sorcerers in the Order. To the Ancient One, for taking her in; for Daniel Drumm, for caring for her in her weakness; for the sorcerers in Hong Kong for making her new body; for Kaecilius, who made this all possible in the first place.

I wish they all have good lives, that reflect the good they give to the world, she wished with all her might, blowing softly. The act of using her lungs again weighed on her, as it always did when fighting the amulet.

‘Good,’ said Daniel, praising her. He began to do something with one of his hands, to the base of her muffin and Hally opened her eyes to watch him undo part of the wrapper, leaving the rest to her. She thanked him for it silently, knowing she would have messed it up on her own—although, just a small helping hand was enough for her. Daniel always knew her limits, somehow, to accepting assistance.

‘Thank-you,’ said Hally once more, before cradling the muffin closer to her chest, elbows trapped against the curve of her waist. The silken fabric of the robe she’d been given slipped against her skin, smooth like water, and Hally made a decision, then, asking, ‘Can I have new clothes?’

‘What kind?’

‘Modern ones—no offence,’ she said, referring to the Order’s uniform. There already was a set of acolyte robes waiting in her wardrobe, for when she wanted to officially take up the mantle of student again.

Daniel didn’t seem to mind. ‘I’ll have some magazines delivered. Unless you’d like to brave the outside.’

Immediately, Hally shook her head. ‘No,’ she disagreed. A lump formed in her throat at the idea of- of outside. Of being seen by so many people.

‘Your fears are valid,’ Daniel assured her, voice soothing. He knew her fears. They’d discussed them several times. ‘You don’t have to rush.’

Hally forcibly swallowed down the lump. ‘Next year,’ she promised him, though it made her stomach do somersaults.

‘You don’t have to rush,’ he repeated calmly, before taking the muffin box and unfolding the edges, walking with her slowly through to the kitchen, where Hally unfolded the rest of the paper wrapper and put it in the recycling. Together, they sat at one of the dining tables, Hally making a face after tasting the marzipan numbers and giving them to Daniel, who made fun of her dislike.

The New York Sanctum was located, specifically, in Greenwich Village, what Hally learnt was once the centre of the American bohemia movement. She didn’t really know what that meant, except perhaps that hippies were involved. She would look out the window to the street below, watching the people walk on by day in and day out—and somehow, she found herself sneaking out the door one day, months before she ever expected herself to even think about leaving.

It’s so loud, was her first thought, hesitantly entering a colourful shop that turned out to be full of paintings and watercolours. Metal tubes of acrylics lines the shelves, plastic-coated boxes of bright pastels on sale by the counter. It was a rainbow of colour. The Sanctum, in comparison, was all dark woods and carvings, a museum full of old relics, waiting to be claimed. Her fingers brushed along the chalky dust below the pastels, staining her skin green and orange.

Hally didn’t stay long, but she began visiting regularly, staring at the avant-garde canvases and thumbing the thick sketchbooks, slowly coming to understand why Dean Thomas enjoyed drawing. There was something to be said about learning, just so you could handle materials such as those. Her departures from the Sanctum came such a regularity, that one day, Hally found a bundle of American dollar bills in the pocket of her jacket—a blue denim affair that reminded her of Hermione, if Hermione liked patches sewn onto the back.

‘Would you like to eat out?’ Daniel asked her at New Year. ‘There’s a celebration in Kamar-Taj everyone is invited to, but most Sanctums usually hold their own parties, due to the different time zones.’

Having seen what classified as a party at Kamar-Taj, Hally welcomed the new traditions, letting Daniel and the half-dozen other sorcerers who called New York home—not the Sanctum itself, but the actual city—drag her to a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, where they gorged themselves on a veritable buffet of options. Hally had never eaten so much spice in her life and unfortunately paid for it the next day, for the first time in over fifteen years.

Then Hally took a backslide when a man in the art shop approached her. Clearly flirting with her, an easy smile in place, the man seemed harmless in retrospect—but when he sidled up to her when she was browsing through books all meant to teach beginners how to draw, Hally almost had a heart attack.

‘Woah!’ he exclaimed after she jerked at the sound of his voice, knocking over half a display. ‘Woah, pretty girl, I didn’t mean to scare you. You good?’

No, she didn’t manage to say, her heart already pumping at triple speed as adrenaline surged through her chest. Her breath caught and Hally stumbled back towards the door, anxiety spilling across her shoulders like spilled paint. She almost expected to see nothing at all if she looked down, even though she felt the weight of her clothes and the tightness of her boots around her shins.

The owner of the shop—a woman Hally had learnt several weeks ago was named Kay—hurried the other man out of the way, meeting Hally’s eyes and trying to get her to calm down. Her tone of voice was soothing, but the shop owner had no way of knowing that being recognised—being noticed—only made things worse.

In all honesty, Hally didn’t know how she made it back to the Sanctum. Everything blurred in her mind and when she came back to herself, curled up in the far corner of the relic display room, her knees were scuffed and bloody, and there was a deep cut on her chin. Bruises littered her skin. Daniel, when he finally found her, unaware of her state, was quite alarmed indeed.

But perhaps that was for the best.

On February 19^th 2011, a day after the incident, Hally Potter looked in the mirror and realised she hadn’t aged a day.

There were no cuts or bruises to be found.

Taking tea—real tea—with the Ancient One reminded Hally again of the strange relationship between her and Kaecilius, but her mentor was focused on the topic of concern that brought Hally to her door.

‘And you are sure?’ Solemn, the Ancient One sipped from her cup, gaze locked on Hally’s features, tracing the curve of her cheek and the shape of her eyes.

‘Sure,’ Hally said, copying her. Her beverage wasn’t Tetley’s or PG Tips—in fact, it was probably a more authentic tea than either brand could ever be, considering where Kamar-Taj was located—but it was hot enough and distracted her from the truth. ‘It feels true.’

‘And you have not summoned the Ring?’

‘No,’ the witch shook her head, distinctly aware of the Elder Wand holstered at her thigh and the Cloak, where she’d bundled it in her pocket. Something she’d always taken for granted was that the Cloak fit in any crevice on her person, no matter how small, but now she didn’t have somewhere safe to put it like her school trunk or Hermione’s beaded bag in the daytime, she was grateful for the enchantment.

The Ancient One hummed quietly, clearly thinking things through. ‘This will not go down well,’ she said. ‘Immortality is an unnatural power, among humans.’

‘Good thing I’m not, then,’ said Hally, proposing, ‘I’ll just say that I thought it would have worn off, now I’m not in my old dimension. Wizards there can live till six hundred.’

‘I would not have you lie to the members of my Order,’ she scolded Hally gently, though she grimaced, ‘However, stretching the truth may be the way of things, in this case. Magic does make your kind live longer than average. If you have noticed, so will others—especially those who have seen you in astral form.’

It was a silent warning against Kaecilius, she knew, and probably both Sol Rama and Chau Ly. Hally felt her heart dip at the idea of avoiding them for the rest of her life, an impossible feat if she remained in the Order in any case.

‘I need a new life, outside of the Sanctums Sanctorum,’ said Hally. The Ancient One agreed grimly.

They drank their tea.

Chapter Text

It was ultimately decided that Master Drumm would be informed of her situation and for some time, Hally avoided her new mentor, who looked at Hally as if she was the answer to all the secrets of the universe. Eventually though, Daniel cornered her and apologised, promising to treat her as he would any acolyte and follow along with the Ancient One’s plan.

Said plan was to arrange a new identity for her and slowly transition into ‘young adulthood’, using her agelessness to their advantage. They borrowed details from her previous life, such as her name and date of birth, modified to fit the new timeline, but arranged for records to appear in an orphanage located in Hell’s Kitchen, run by nuns. Daniel nor the Ancient One told her how they managed it, but on a day-trip into the city, she met several of the nuns there that who had already sworn to coincidentally ‘remember’ her, should they ever be asked.

‘We have one more person to visit, to solidify the story,’ Daniel told her the day they visited St Agnes. Hally agreed to meet them on a provisional level, considering her trip to Hell’s Kitchen had been the farthest she’d gone from the Sanctum since her panic-attack.

Simultaneously showing her how to use the subway, Daniel explained to her who they were meeting on the way there the next day.

‘His name is Matthew Murdock,’ he said, ‘He was one of the long-term residents at St Agnes’ as a child. While the nuns are amenable to pretending you lived there, your childhood self needs peers who remember you, too.’

‘Why would this Matthew guy help me?’

Daniel led her off the subway into Hell’s Kitchen again, walking her up out onto the street. ‘Matthew Murdock is blind. He won’t be able to point you out in a line-up incorrectly. He’s also a lawyer soon to leave his current post at a law firm to start up his own defence attorney enterprise with a friend. The Ancient One has already allocated funds to gift he and his partner, regardless of whether or not he agrees to become your childhood friend—take a right, here.’

As Daniel steered her around a bend, Hally asked, ‘Is he important?’

‘Apparently so, but that’s none of our business,’ he said. Hally sighed. The Ancient One had a habit of being mysterious, as was her clichéd right as the great and powerful Sorcerer Supreme. Generally, however, when she gave either advice or specific instructions, it was best to follow it.

They walked a few more blocks through Hell’s Kitchen, before finally arriving in a glass and steel area full of skyscrapers, with a high traffic of suited pedestrians. Daniel murmured to her of a doughnut cart they were supposed to find, Hally helpfully pointing it out a few moments later, which they lined up in front of. Hally didn’t know how doughnuts came into the scheme of things, but she wouldn’t say no to one with caramel and sprinkles.

‘Strawberry jelly is the best,’ Daniel decreed, to Hally’s wrinkled nose.

‘Jam belongs on toast. And in pastries.’

Sighing, the Sanctum Master shook his head sadly. ‘Woe is me, to have such a wronged apprentice. I must endeavour to correct this poor opinion.’

‘Caramel is the best.’

‘Car-mal.’

‘Car-ah-mell,’ Hally corrected his correction, before making him pay for her doughnut and a hot chocolate off the cart. He pouted over-exaggeratedly at her ruthlessness but paid nonetheless and meandered with her to stand nearby, keeping an eye out for what should most likely be an easy man to spot in a crowd.

However, no man with a cane walked past them for another ten minutes and Hally started to doubt the Ancient One’s—probable—precognition. She’d already finished her doughnut.

‘Do you think if I asked at the desk,’ she said, peering sceptically at Landman and Zack LLP’s receptionist through the glass, ‘they’d tell us where to find this Murder guy?’

‘Murdock.’

‘I know his name is Murdock,’ Hally huffed, ‘but if he doesn’t show up soon enough, I might make him change his name to what I’m going to do to you.’

‘Pushy—I’m proud of you,’ he said quietly, with an edge of contentment. Hally faltered despite herself, glancing at him under her lashes. It was then, just over his shoulder, she saw a blind man at the doughnut cart, standing in line with another blonde man whose hair was almost longer than Ron’s had been in their fourth year.

‘There he is,’ she pointed him out, Daniel quick to turn and follow her gaze. ‘Do we just…walk up to him?’

‘How do you want to say hello?’ Daniel returned, which was the real question. While Hally would be happy to follow his lead, everything was about her. If she got panicky while Daniel was busy talking, he’d not be able to watch out for the warning signs that she was about to take off—something he didn’t have much practice in anyway, in a public setting. Hally usually went out by herself.

Biting her lip, Hally watched him for a bit, waiting until he was already ordering to step forwards, not rushing herself as she watched to see which direction he was going in. Strangely, as they approached, he already seemed to be turned their way, stepping towards them as his friend paid for their drinks and snacks.

He knows, Hally thought, instinct guiding her. She didn’t understand how he knew they were seeking him, but she knew he did. Part of her rose to the challenge. It wasn’t a surprise anymore—it was a battle of wills.

Murdock’s friend noticed something amiss and followed him with a frown, still chatting away, but it died abruptly as they stopped in front of each other, Hally taking the lead.

‘Hey, Matthew.’

‘I don’t know you,’ he said evenly.

Jerking her thumb at Daniel, she glanced at his friend, who she assumed was his partner. ‘This is Daniel Drumm. He represents an interested party in your potential future business.’

‘You’re not affiliated?’ Murdock clued in, tilting his head. ‘Who are you?’

‘Hally. If you don’t mind, I need to talk to you for a bit. Daniel can chat to your friend about everything else. He’d have tracked you down regardless, I think.’

‘Hey,’ said the friend, sounding wary, ‘How do you know Matt?’

Hally weathered the pounding in her chest, pushing her anxiety flat out inside her skull. It could go the hell away. She needed Murdock’s help and she would be getting it.

‘Foggy, it’s fine,’ Murdock intervened, waving him off. ‘I’ll just go down the street. Wait here.’

‘…if you’re sure.’ His friend said. Hally thought Foggy was a strange name, glancing at him as his wariness washed away, replaced with a jovial smile. ‘So!’ Foggy looked to Daniel, ‘What’s this about interested parties in Nelson and Murdock at Law?’

As Daniel began a friendly spiel about future prospects, Hally joined Murdock in walking down the street, stopping after some fifteen metres. They measured each other up, Hally eyeing Murdock’s halfway decent suit and tie and his dark-lensed glasses. The circular silver frames made her unusually nostalgic for her own lost spectacles, which were replaced by a set of brown tortoiseshell frames when she was first learning how to walk around again.

‘I don’t know who you are,’ Murdock said again, rehashing his first words to her.

‘Yeah,’ said Hally, admitting to it, ‘but I need you to. To be frank, I need you to pretend to know me as a kid. I’ve already been set up with the nuns at St Agnes and they don’t mind. My name really is Hally—Lily Hallen Potter, to be specific. I would have always been there, according to the story we have set up. I’m legally only fifteen.’

‘The investor, Drumm,’ mentioned Murdock, ‘He’s involved?’

‘He really is giving you money,’ Hally felt the urge to say. ‘Not even as a bribe. Well, if it helps, then that’s fine…’ An awkward silence fell between them both, unbroken even by the sounds of the city around them, from cars to construction to the many businessmen and women talking into phones and headsets walking down the street.

Shifting in place, hands clasping around his white cane, Murdock said, ‘Can I ask why a new identity is being made for you?’

‘It’s not witness protection,’ Hally said, not wanting to lie to him. Already, they were involving him in something shady. He was the lawyer. He knew this was illegal when it was outside of the local government’s purview. ‘I just genuinely don’t have an identity. I’m not trying to make trouble-’

‘You have to go to church.’

The non-sequitor blindsided her. ‘What?’

‘You have to go to church,’ he repeated. ‘The one next door to St Agnes. Go there tonight, at eight pm. I’ll talk to Father Lantom, so he can meet you and decide whether he’ll play along.’

‘Is he a minister?’ Hally questioned, tentative. She didn’t really understand why he was bringing it up, but clearly there was someone else he thought needed to know.

‘He leads the congregation at Clinton Church. If you’d lived at St Agnes, you would have gone to sermons there from a young age.’ Murdock told her, ‘If someone is trying to pretend they lived in a church-associated orphanage, the person they never approach is the minister. Unless they’re corrupt, they can’t be trusted to lie to authorities. Father Lantom is like family to me—if I ask, he’ll cover for you.’

Oh. It all clicked into place. Matt Murdock might be important, Hally realised, but the Ancient One was ensuring the minister was covered. If anyone investigated Hally’s origins, this Father Lantom could keep her lies from being discovered.

‘I will,’ Hally agreed. ‘Thanks, Mr Murdock.’

‘Matt.’

‘Matt,’ she nodded, though it felt strange to refer to him by his first name. She barely even knew him. ‘Thanks, Matt.’

‘No problem. Just remember this: if you cause any harm to come to any of those people at St Agnes, or Father Lantom, you’ll regret it.’ Voice low, he actually sounded threatening and Hally couldn’t help her hackles rising at the tone he used. Clenching her fists and revelling in the anger that rose instead of anxiety, Hally nodded stiffly in acknowledgement.

‘Good,’ he murmured, before standing straight and loosening his shoulders, a mild expression overtaking his face. ‘Come on. I’ll introduce you to Foggy properly. Are you living in New York? How are you explaining the accent?’

‘Greenwich Village, at the moment. I’m looking for a place. And I got a scholarship at a boarding school in Scotland during my teen years.’

He dipped his head, then led her back to where Daniel and Foggy were coming to the end of their conversation. They stood at the edge, waiting until they shook hands, Daniel slipping back towards Hally when he was done. She appreciated the silent look of question, asking her if she was alright. A subtle nod in return had a pleased look flash across his eyes.

‘So,’ Foggy said, looking between Hally and Matt, ‘Did you figure shit out? Do you know each other after all?’

‘Funnily enough, yeah,’ said Matt, chuckling. ‘My bad. I didn’t pay much attention to her when we were kids, but she remembered me.’

‘The only blind guy I’ve ever known? Of course, I remembered you,’ Hally grinned with teeth. ‘I don’t blame him for forgetting me. I went to boarding school abroad, in any case. I only spent my summers in the orphanage after I turned eleven—though Matthew was long gone, by then. He’s never heard me with a British accent.’

Matt nodded along, then said to her in a commanding voice, ‘Definitely reach out if you’re having trouble. It was good of you to ask in the first place before you got yourself into something you can’t get out of.’

It’s like that, huh? ‘Yeah,’ Hally said, turning up the wistfulness. ‘Wouldn’t want to take after you at my age. Sister Margaret told me a fun story about you at fifteen.’

Immediately, he scowled, but his friend looked entertained to the max. ‘Fifteen year-old Mattie? What did he do?’

‘Nothing,’ cut in Matt, before grabbing onto his arm. ‘Our breaks over by now. I’ll see you tonight, Hally.’

‘Seeya later,’ she replied, watching him drag Foggy off towards Landman and Zack HQ.

Daniel asked her, ‘Do I want to know?’

‘We were both bullshitting,’ she promised him, but noted aloud for his benefit, ‘He’s a very good liar.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I noticed, too. And tonight?’

Hally puffed out a bit of air, dislodging a stray strand of copper that had fallen in front of her eyes. ‘Pray for me. Apparently, I’m going to church.’

‘Good luck,’ Daniel joked, before they set off back to the Sanctum. It was only noon, at that point, so Daniel told her how to get to St Agnes on her own and back later that evening, giving her a dark grey flip-phone to tuck in her pocket.

‘For emergencies,’ he told her. ‘Call nine-one-one if you’re hurt. My mobile number is programmed into the contacts already.’

‘Okay,’ she nodded, hesitating in the entrance hall. She’d been outside more times in the past two days than she had in months. Her panic-attack had been in February. It was August, now. Hally could count on one hand how many times she’d visited anything in New York, since.

Daniel put a hand on her head, leaning in and down, almost to her level. ‘You don’t have to go.’

‘I do.’

‘You don’t,’ Daniel repeated, ‘and so long as you remember that, I believe you’ll do well tonight. I trust you to know your own limit, Hally, just don’t forget to step away before you reach it.’

‘I won’t.’ Hally said, before indulging herself and reaching forwards to give him the briefest of hugs. She felt him hug her back, right as she pulled away, practically running out of the door.

The journey to Clinton Church was fraught in the sense that Hally didn’t know if she’d overstepped. Daniel had been looking after her for nearly a year, been so patient with her at her lowest of lows and continually made sure she felt safe and secure in her environments. It sounded stupid in her head that he would begrudge her a hug, of all things, but anxiety made her irrational. What if it wasn’t stupid? What if she made him uncomfortable?

So, really, it wasn’t that unexpected that when she reached the church ten minutes before Matt invited her, Hally was a nervous wreck. She forced herself to sit down on a bench, keeping the Statute of Secrecy firmly in her minds eye so she wouldn’t randomly bring out the Cloak to hide herself from the world. No. She couldn’t do that outside of the Sanctums Sanctorum.

At eight o’clock, there was a small procession from the church—a large group of people exiting after evening mass, dispersing around her. Matt was one of them, though he was one of the last, accompanied by a minister all in black with the requisite white band under his collar.

‘Hally,’ Matt greeted her, concern audible.

Keeping her lips firmly closed, Hally wrapped her arms around herself, staring out onto the street. Daniel might ask me to leave, she thought, which was a lie. He never would. But he might. But he wouldn’t.

‘What’s her name?’ she heard the minister ask Matt.

‘Lily Hallen Potter.’

The old man came to crouch in front of her. ‘Lily,’ he said, which uprooted her focus enough for her to look directly his way. He was like any older man, with a plain, lined face and a surprising lack of pockmarks and freckles. ‘I’m Paul Lantom, Holy Father here at Clinton Church. We’re a Roman Catholic congregation. Have you ever attended, before?’ Hally shook her head mutely. ‘Have you ever been inside a church?’

Again, she shook her head, but this time Father Lantom stood and gestured her to follow. ‘Come and see, then,’ he invited her and after a moment’s hesitation, Hally followed. They traversed the stone steps, entering a small lobby that turned into a taller space than she expected, with dark pews and organ pipes rising high into the ceiling.

Hally had lied when she denied having been inside a church before, but her only memories of the steeple church in Little Whinging were of a tall ceiling, just like this one, and Dudley pinching her so hard that she cried. Aunt Petunia had to drag her outside, hissing that she was causing a ruckus, even though her cousin was causing just as much, if not more noise. She’d been made to wait outside on the grass beside a gravestone until the service finished and afterwards, neither she—nor Dudley, for that matter—ever came back again.

Discretely rubbing her eyes under the mottled brown plastic of her glasses, Hally turned away from Matt and Father Lantom in shame. Matt, at least, seemed to sense she didn’t want to speak, but he spoke to her and expected an answer, anyway.

‘I’ve told the Father what you asked of me. He’d like to hear why you need our help. Why should he trust you?’

‘Matthew,’ Lantom said in an almost scolding voice, though Hally didn’t know why. He waited for Hally though, just like Matt.

The pressure to speak, just like earlier that day, didn’t cause her anxiety to flare. Something about how Matt didn’t presume anything or coddle her made her want to stand up on her own two feet. That he knew only what she told him gave her the confidence to speak—though her eyes stayed locked on a stained glass window.

‘I don’t have a legal identity. The people looking after me built one, but I can’t stay with them forever. I can’t tell you why-’ because I can tell no-one ‘-and I can’t tell you who they are. I don’t even know what they call themselves, outside of our home. I asked Matt to cover for me, pretend he knew me as a child, if anyone came around asking. I doubt it’ll happen, but I need all the bases covered.’

‘What do you plan to do with your life?’ Lantom asked her.

Hally hesitated. ‘I- I don’t know. Get my own place. Get a job, probably. Live a normal life.’

There was quiet for a time, until Father Lantom finally spoke. ‘I have two conditions.’

‘What kind?’ she frowned, wary. A fleeting thought occurred to Hally that at some point during their conversation, she’d forgotten all about why she was so worried about a simple hug.

Lantom gestured to Matt. ‘I often partake in my position as a confessional, to those who need advice or simply wish to tell me their sins. I talk them through their trials and offer guidance, if I can. I would like you to talk to someone. If not someone you know, then me or a professional.’

‘Why?’ Hally asked, overly harsh for what she knew was a valid concern. He’d met her while she was panicking in front of his church, for Merlin’s sake. Wincing, she offered her apologies. ‘Sorry. Yes, I can talk to someone. I’m already working on it…slowly.’

‘That’s all I ask,’ he said, before stating his second condition, ‘I want you to keep Matthew’s number on hand.’

Once again that day, Hally was startled by a Catholic. Speechless, she could only stutter out, ‘What?’ before Father Lantom explain himself—to Hally and Matt both.

‘You both would benefit from staying in contact with each other. Matthew needs reminded of the good in people and you, forgive my presumptuousness, would seem to be advantaged by having someone of Matthew’s calibre present in your life. He has a solid foundation in American law and other talents which may present themselves, if needs must. New York isn’t safe for the lone young.’

‘Father,’ muttered Matt, piqued over something. Hally looked at him in confusion. How could he protect her? He was just a random lawyer from Hell’s Kitchen. Hally was magic.

‘Okay,’ she agreed anyway, not sure if she’d ever call him, but accepting the condition all the same. Father Lantom seemed perfectly reasonable—even if whatever he said put Matt in a snit.

Under the minister’s watchful eye, Matt gave her his number and Hally warily used her common sense to work the flip-phone Daniel had given her. When Matt commented on her not knowing how her own phone worked, Hally scowled at him, feeling a hot flash of embarrassment.

I don’t need to know how it works, she thought rebelliously, which might have had more impact on her psyche if her conscience didn’t have the voice of Hermione Jean Granger, insisting she learn for the sake of learning—and Hally was weak to the voice of Hermione Granger, after thirteen years apart.

‘You’re always welcome in the house of God,’ Father Lantom said after she said goodbye, standing with Matt on the steps as she walked to the subway. To be honest, she didn’t really consider coming back—how could she believe in God when magic existed?—more concerned about catching the right train.

The sooner I get a sling ring, the sooner I can just basically teleport home.

…Hally stopped in the middle of the street.

A great, roaring CRACK echoed through the Sanctum Sanctorum of New York City.

Thirty hours by car and nearly two thousand miles away, in the New Mexico town of Puente Antiguo, Darcy Lewis woke up to a rapid series of beeps from a Foster-finangled device, which she was pretty sure was supposed to beep when it detected an unnaturally-occurring wormhole.

…Darcy shot up.

‘JANE! THE WORMHOLE DETECTOR IS BEEPING!’

Across the lab, microwaving the last of the leftover takeaway, Dr Jane Foster, Astrophysicist, blinked tiredly, then frowned at Darcy’s words.

‘Really? Are you sure it isn’t the-’

‘NO!’ Darcy interrupted, plugging the machine into the nearest laptop and booting up the original programming software Jane had somehow written for it—and really, how did Jane do it? She’s an astrophysicist, not a computer programmer—to look at the data. The machine had already stopped beeping.

Opening the microwave early, Jane brought her takeout over along with a fork, a portion already halfway to her mouth when she saw the readouts on the computer screen. Immediately, the food was abandoned.

‘Holy shit, there really was a wormhole opened on Earth! Did it ping a location?’

Darcy, checking the detector device, soon gave it the big old Smack, glancing at the laptop only to sadly turn to her boss and shake her head. ‘Nope. Sorry, boss-lady. Too small. The satellite barely picked up the reading at all.’

Now, Darcy would never think about betraying her boss, but sometimes she wondered just how certain government agencies would react if they knew Jane had hijacked their satellites in search of proof that Thor’s mythical ‘Bifrost’ wasn’t the only example of a working Einstein-Rosen Bridge. Jane’s priorities had really switched up since the alien beefcake visited. Not that Darcy could blame her—if she got a piece of that extraterrestrial ass, she’d want it back, too.

‘Let me at it,’ Jane said, shooing Darcy away from the desk. Forced to leave her favourite sleepy-time chair, Darcy guiltlessly stole Jane’s takeout, hoping that the faint taste of refrigerator wasn’t anything to do with it being too old to eat safely.

‘Woo,’ she cheered with mediocre enthusiasm. ‘Go Jane.’

Progress was progress, after all.

‘Apparation tears a tunnel through space-time. You were noticed, Hally.’

Looking up from her sketchpad to where the Ancient One had appeared in the doorway, Hally frowned in thought.

‘Hermione said apparation could be to do with wormholes, once. Is that what they are? And who noticed me? How?’

‘There are scientists in this dimension who study wormholes, just like in your old world,’ said the Ancient One, sitting down on the end of her bed. Hally, sat at her desk located in her private rooms, twisted around to face her properly, listening intently. ‘However, the difference between here and there is that here, there are not hundreds of thousands of wizards creating wormholes every day. To observers in this dimension, you are an anomaly. Technology has grown to be able to detect the difference between natural fluctuations and the unnatural—such as your own.’

Heart sinking, Hally asked, ‘Does that mean they’ll search for me? Can they follow the tunnel?’

‘Not presently, no,’ the Ancient One replied, ‘But repeated instances will be noticed and eventually, focus will turn onto where those repeated instances are taking place. I urge you, Hally, only to use this skill when you are in great need. It is too dangerous for you to risk yourself in such a pointless way.’

‘I won’t,’ she shook her head, seeing the truth to what she said. ‘It’d be a stupid way to get caught.’

The Ancient One smiled, her lip twitching in brief amusement. Hally though that for someone usually so placid, she showed her emotions quite clearly on her face.

‘Good. Then I believe it is about time you learnt the alternative…’ From her pocket, she then withdrew a sling ring and Hally’s spirits soared.

‘Yes!’

‘Yes,’ the Ancient One gently tossed it, which Hally caught happily, used to small dexterity tasks now, after a year of practice. ‘You’re doing well, assimilating into your new body. Master Drumm has many excellent things to say. I hear you’ve decided to see a therapist from the London Sanctum.’

‘Father Lantom said I had to talk to someone, as a condition of him keeping my alibi as a child in St Agnes,’ Hally explained. ‘I’m talking to Maura about what kind of things trigger my anxiety attacks right now. I like her.’

‘Considering how many of your deepest fears have come true, I believe it is a good idea to talk to a dedicated professional about what troubles you,’ said the Ancient One, pride lacing her words. Hally beamed. The Ancient One gestured to her sketchbook. ‘A new hobby? You were visiting the art store down the block regularly, at one point.’

‘Finally decided to take it up,’ she told her, eagerly showing off her flat case of charcoal sticks, the fresh oil pastels that Kay had recommended to her to try so she could get a feel for the medium, and the basic watercolour palette set in a red metal case. ‘I wish I tried when I was younger—properly, I mean. Dean used to draw things all the time and Luna created this big giant lion hat all by herself for my quidditch game. It looked hard to make, in retrospect. I didn’t tell her how cool it was.’

‘Do you regret much, over your former life?’

‘I mean, a little,’ she said, enthusiasm softening into something reflective. ‘I died for a good reason. I have to hope they all lived to see another day. That we won. Regretting every moment I wasted with my friends isn’t something I want to do. No offence, but a lot of my anxiety is tied up in how I live here. Belonging here even after dying…I’m more torn up over not being able to spend my afterlife with my parents, than what could have beens with the living.’

‘A complicated perspective,’ said the Ancient One, with that old tinge of mystery to her voice. Hally was so used to it be now that she disregarded it, trusting the Ancient One to tell her whatever it was when she needed to be told. ‘Speaking of your parents—did you ever wonder who you were here, before being flung across realities?’

‘Huh?’ Hally replayed her question through her head and realised that no, she hadn’t. ‘Oh. I…have parents.’

The Ancient One folded her hands over her knees. ‘Hally, there is something you may wish to know. Do you remember where I first found you?’

‘There was snow, that’s about it,’ Hally said, uncomfortable remembering her beginnings here.

‘You arrived in Serbia. I took the liberty of inspecting the crater where you landed,’ she told Hally, ‘which was unusual in itself. Deeper investigation proved the former facility there…well. It is not what you may expect.’

‘If you didn’t think I should know, you wouldn’t have begun to tell me.’ The witch frowned, waiting for her to continue. The Ancient One inclined her head, then began to lecture.

‘As you know, I have delved into the many mysteries of magic. This includes research into the Eye of Agamatto,’ she gestured to the heavy-set necklace she always wore, ‘a relic of great power. When I tell you that the information I share about it must never be told to another, please treat it with all seriousness.’

‘Of course,’ Hally said, baffled that the Ancient One wouldn’t trust her to keep it secret.

‘The Eye,’ the Ancient One explained, ‘is a cage. A construction meant to contain and manipulate an ancient artefact within. It allows the guardian who bears it to use this artefact without dying in the process. I—admittedly—use this artefact more than I should, but I do not trust the universe at large to protect it to my personal satisfaction. It uses me as much as I use it.’

‘What has this got to do with my…with my parents?’ Hally was struggling.

‘Because the facility where you were born was destroyed in an event that I suspect was the original impetus to banish you from this dimension,’ she said. ‘You arrived in a crater, Hally, and I know you left it like that because I used the Eye of Agamatto to see into your past.’

‘…okay. Now I’m really confused.’

‘When you were in your third year of Hogwarts,’ the Ancient One reminded her, ‘you travelled backwards through time using a time turner originally given to your best friend. I know you are already familiar with closed loop time travel. What I did was much the same, except rather than returning to the past personally, I became the centre of all time and space and spun back the clock. I saw them grow you in a laboratory from the DNA of two subjects never referred to by name. You were an experiment.’

If that wasn’t enough—and in her mind, Hally began screaming, the unexpected information causing an avalanche of feeling—the Ancient One continued.

‘Coincidentally, the same facility also held an artefact similar to that which the Eye of Agamatto protects, and experiments with it grew wild and out of control. It was sheer luck you were transported to your world and survived the trip. Many others did not. The facility itself was vaporised—completely wiped off the map.’

Despite only having met Hally once, Maura was not pleased with the Ancient One, to say the least.

‘…I can’t believe you have to keep her.’

Hally stuffed the throw pillow over her head, trying to ignore Foggy’s not-so-quiet whispering in the kitchen. She heard Matt sigh, before he explained her problem.

‘Her therapist says she needs a break from her current environment. One of her mentors told her something damaging regarding her birth family.’

‘Isn’t she supposed to be at boarding school?’

‘She graduated early.’

Hally attempted to block the two men out, feeling slightly guilty for crashing at Matt’s apartment, but it was like Maura said: Hally deserved a break. That kind of news being broken to her without another trusted confidant there was a mistake on the Ancient One’s part, forget about it being in her bedroom, somewhere Daniel had always made sure was a ‘safe space’ for her to decompress and abandon her worries in.

The voices came closer. ‘Hey, kid. You want anything special for dinner?’ Foggy asked her, only being a little gentle. Hally appreciated the effort not to sound condescending—he didn’t know she was an adult and not fifteen years old, which actually put Matt’s understanding acceptance of the whole situation into perspective. She should thank him again.

‘I’m not picky,’ she told him after a moment, flopping over onto her back and telling Matt, ‘Your couch needs replaced.’

‘I keep telling him that,’ said Foggy, elbowing Matt pointedly. ‘I keep telling you that!’

Another sigh came from Matt. ‘Go get us takeout. Hally’s in loco parentis guardian left us some cash from her sponsor organisation.’

‘Daniel Drumm’s people?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You know,’ Foggy started, going over to the envelope of cash Maura had arranged, ‘I looked into Boksi Incorporated- holy shit, how much are foster families expected to get for keeping kids, again?’

‘It’s not from the government. I assume Boksi Inc. have different standards.’

‘Dude, this is like, three grand! How long are you expected to look after her for?’

‘Not very long,’ Hally interrupted, sitting up. It felt like there were bees under her skin. ‘Maura is basically giving my mentor a run-down on how not to mess up a traumatised teenager. They’re also searching for an apartment I can move into as soon as possible.’

Hally didn’t mention how it had been the plan all along, just sped up now the Ancient One had overloaded her with information. Daniel had given her his blessing the moment she decided she needed a new life outside of the Sanctum.

Foggy winced, then took a few bills out of the envelope, hiding it in a drawer. ‘I’m going to get dinner. Be back in an hour. We thinking Eastern European food? Because I’m thinking Eastern European food.’

When he left, Matt hovered behind the couch for a bit, then finally asked, ‘You aren’t in trouble, are you?’

Her heart pounded inside her chest. The bees buzzed beneath her skin, prickling at her nerves. ‘I’m trying to get my life sorted out. I wasn’t lying when I said my mentor put me off-kilter and that it’s messed me up. Things are just going faster than I ever expected. I need a minute to breath…and really, thank-you again for letting me stay here. It means a lot, Matt, especially when you don’t know me all that well.’

‘…any time,’ the lawyer muttered, before adding wryly, ‘I don’t think Father Lantom would forgive me if I didn’t, anyhow.’

‘Glad we could come to an accord,’ Hally replied, shaking out her wrists. The Elder Wand was banished to wherever it went, when Hally didn’t want to hold onto it. Apart from her bag—in which she had a change of clothes, her favourite denim jacket and the Cloak of Invisibility—Hally only had a wallet with her American ID, library card and ‘Boksi. Inc’ credit card, her glasses, Daniel’s flip-phone and her sling ring, which sat on her left hand weighing across her middle and pointer fingers.

It was funny how everything she owned fit into less than a single bag. Clearly, she thought sarcastically, the answer is to buy more clothes. When her new apartment was ready to move into, Hally had no doubt the Order would continue to fund her living costs for another few years, but what might happen after made her wary. When she lived in the Wizarding World, all she had to worry about was living to the next year. Never did she think ahead to the next, from what she wanted to do in her exams all the way to what she’d do once she defeated Voldemort. But now, older and wiser, knowing that she lived on the charity of others, Hally saw the future coming and she was racing forwards into the unknown.

Hally only realised she’d been brooding when Matt touched her shoulder lightly, knocking her out of her daze. Even blind, she could see the concern in his features. The bees were replaced with ice as she saw Foggy in the kitchen, unpacking Styrofoam boxes of Polish takeaway from a bag.

How much time did I lose?

‘I don’t think you’re ready to live on your own, Hally,’ said Matt, too quiet for Foggy to hear. Hally ate her dinner in silence, mute when Foggy tried to include her in the conversation. After he left, Matt rifled through the pocket of her jean jacket, then shoved her flip-phone into her hands, practically ordering her to call Maura, despite how she was probably asleep at this time at night in the UK.

Thankfully, Maura had something positive to say.

‘Unless it becomes repetitive, it’s nothing to worry about, Hally. People zone out, sometimes. Keep track of it and tell me if it happens again, maybe keep a diary of the things that concern you. Don’t be shy.’

‘Okay,’ she said and that was that. Maura wished her goodnight and said she’d see her the next day to look at apartments, then hung up. Hally accepted the blanket Matt gave her and curled up on the couch, making a pillow fort over her head to block out the constant, white neon glow from the billboard outside his curtainless windows.

That was that.

Chapter Text

On May 4^th in 2012, Hally Potter’s apartment was blown to bits by monsters from outer-space. Luckily for Hally, she—like every other sorcerer in New York—was summoned to the Sanctum Sanctorum by Master Daniel Drumm, at the behest of the Ancient One.

Hally would go home a few hours later and discover the whole building reduced to rubble, with a good third of her neighbours trapped, dead and alive, beneath all the cement and collapsed iron supports. In that moment, seeing old lady Greta being laid out on a stretcher as she sobbed for her grandson, who Hally saw lying dead on the street before he was covered up by a volunteer, she forgot all about her belongings. Clothes and nick-nacks could be replaced. Greta had sat with her through four different panic-attacks during times where Daniel was too busy to come to her aid.

Later, Maura told her she was allowed to be sad that she’d lost all the mementos she’d been collecting over the last nine months, but Hally in the moment lost all need to go dredging through the rubble. What she wanted to do instead was go looking for people.

Using magic was out of the question, where people might see at least. She used wandless magic to make pieces of rock lighter than they looked, cast tergeo on surface wounds as she wiped survivors down with damp cloths, and repaired broken toys for the screaming toddlers who’d lost all they’d ever known. She assisted as much as she could, uncaring of the possibility that she might be caught on camera. Where people needed help, Hally offered a hand.

‘Quinn! Quinn!’ A mother sobbed as the firemen dragged her out of a fissure, her arm reaching out limply towards where she’d been recovered from. One of the paramedics were already putting a dozen bandages around the stump of her leg. ‘My baby, you have to go back, my baby-’

The call of heroism was too great for Hally to ignore. She stepped past a truck, calling the Cloak to her shoulders. She felt it lay across her, light as the wind, before she slipped past the orange barriers and looked down through the excavated hole. Grasping the edges of a stone wall, Hally levered herself down, aware that this was a time that she should apparate away, heedless of the Ancient One’s warnings, if someone tried climbing down on top of her.

Where the woman had been rescued, there was a puddle of still-wet blood, which Hally avoided the best she could. She tried looking for a child and eventually had to resort to a quick lumos, having to trust the firemen wouldn’t send anyone else down anytime soon, seeing as they hadn’t been so quick to return in the first place.

The magelight didn’t reveal much of anything, the air so clogged with dust. Hally nearly missed it, barely catching sight of an edge of a pink fabric, stuck under a wooden board. It looked like a door of some kind, maybe a wardrobe or cabinet.

Dreading the worst, Hally pressed her ear close to the door, listening close. She had to ignore the sound of the calamity above, but eventually, she heard it: the high-pitched rattle of shallow breathing. Got her, Hally thought, before trying to figure out how to fix it. There was no way for her to move the board without potentially disturbing the surrounding rubble. If she were still a ghost, she could just look and see…

‘Oh, you idiot,’ she cursed herself.

Astral projecting her head forwards, through the wooden board, Hally first had to adjust to the change in light, until she brought her magelight through the board into the tiny space where the kid was curled up. Hally felt a relieved breath escape her as she realised the space was the inside of a kitchen cupboard. The mother had probably got her daughter inside, deeming it the safest structure in her apartment. Maybe they were trapped. It would have been a last ditch effort to save her.

‘Quinn,’ she called out, trying to wake the toddler. ‘Quinn, you need to wake up.’ The girl didn’t move an inch, however, and Hally abruptly wondered if she was running out of air.

She returned to her body, pressing her hands up against the door. Tracing a circle, Hally used the magic of the other dimensions this one could reach, amber glyphs appearing as she bore through the wood, displacing it. There was an audible catch in the girl’s breathing, so Hally abandoned learning and embraced instinct, vanishing the circular cut-out and reaching forwards into the space to haul the girl out.

Immediately, she whimpered and Hally praised Merlin, tucking her under the Cloak with her and looking up to the opening. A brief thought—nox—dispersed her magelight and Hally climbed up towards the sky, determining that the best thing for her to do would be to find someone who was looking for her, if not the mother herself. Hopefully, her ambulance hadn’t left yet.

Invisible to the firemen, paramedics and civilians alike, Hally sought the mother, once again thanking Merlin when she saw her on the other side of the street being loaded up into an ambulance surrounded by law enforcement. They seemed to be quelling some stupid riot, a group of panicked New Yorkers trying to hijack the ambulance. Hally rushed over, depositing Quinn behind the paramedic through the open back door as they looked inside the supply cupboards.

‘Quinn? QUINN! Oh, my baby,’ the woman sobbed, seeing her daughter a few seconds later. The sheer relief in her voice got the paramedic looking her way and Hally knew it was a job well done. Once again, she slipped away, narrowly avoiding a bulky police-officer as she aimed for a partially-intact alleyway.

Hally could do more good if she knew where to go and the Seeker in her called for a good vantage point, high in the sky. Peering up into the orange evening sky, Hally apparated to the top of a tall building and searched for her next rescue, heedless of the danger.

What was that famous quote, again? The one from Dudley’s comics…

…with great power, comes great responsibility…

The Order of the Mystic Arts had supported her through the worst period of her life, treated her with an unparalleled kindness and generosity. It’s my turn, Hally thought, choosing her next disaster, Elder Wand thrumming against the palm of her hand. To give all that goodness back to the world.

It was Hally’s duty to do all she could to help, even if it meant ultimately being revealed to the world at large.

Let’s get started, she thought, before apparating into the thick of it.

Hally didn’t tell anyone but Maura the full account of what she did that day, eventually joining her neighbourhood in cleaning up the street by hand, when she was tired of acting as first-responder. Except, within a day of hitting the streets with her neighbours, Matt had found her and dragged her to his—miraculously—intact apartment. Hally then spent the next three weeks camping out on his sofa and the floor, rotating with Foggy, whose apartment was totalled by a floating leviathan.

‘Until Boksi Inc. drags you away, you’re staying,’ Matt told her flatly, ignoring her every time she told him she’d be fine. It took Maura taking a day-trip to New York to convince him in person to let her go, which is when Hally discovered that the Ancient One wanted her to become a true acolyte in earnest.

‘There is much you can learn and the coming years will only see more need for skills such as ours,’ she explained. Hally moved back to Kamar-Taj in Kathmandu on her word alone, only to discover that recruits by the dozen had suddenly made Kamar-Taj their home—and the numbers were only growing, all around the globe.

‘Not all of them will be warriors,’ the Ancient One explained, ‘but they will know that there exists more than what is known to the vast majority of the world. Their belief in turn will open the eyes of others.’

Hally felt her stomach flip, memories of her time on the run returning to her in an instant. ‘You want me to fight.’

‘I want you to know how. You, of all people, know that ignorance is not the blessing some think it is.’ Though the Ancient One looked at her with pity, there was an expectance there—a presumption that Hally knew what she was talking about.

The thing was…she did. Denial never helped anyone—especially not when those who were in the most danger didn’t think there was anything to fear. That was how Voldemort began to win. Because the Ministry refused to see and spread the truth, endangering the lives of everyone at risk from Voldemort’s prejudices.

‘Alright,’ she agreed, studying under the Master Sorcerers. Her book learning was far past her fellow acolytes’, but her physical training was far behind. They focused on her speed and dexterity—and it was to Hally’s disappointment that she found she was still far, far behind even the most average of sorcerers in speed and fitness.

‘It’s all a matter of training,’ Daniel assured her. ‘Speed will come in time. Remember, you’ve only been back two years. These things take practice.’

Grumbling, Hally attempted a kick, only for Daniel to gently bat it away. The slow ease in which he did just pissed her off even more than she already was and Hally couldn’t help the frustrated growl that escaped her.

‘How long?’ She demanded, almost accusing. ‘When you’re old and grey?’ The light look of censure, for once, didn’t affect her. Any guilt she possessed was drowned by a tsunami of rage. ‘I want to learn faster!’

‘No,’ he disagreed quietly, ‘You want your body to match your mind. Speed will come with time, Hally. You must have more patience with yourself.’

Hally slumped. The rage was still festering, deep in her chest, but the immediacy faded. ‘Sorry for being rude.’

‘Setbacks are part of life. We must learn to move past them. Patience.’

‘I got it, I got it,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll remember, this time.’

Daniel smirked slightly. ‘I’m sure you will,’ he mocked, causing Hally to come at him with a flurry of blows. He blocked each one.

The rest of 2012 passed on by and the world grew louder. Hally got some of the newer acolytes to teach her how social media worked, in exchange for tutoring sessions in various magical arts she’d mastered. One of her students, Jonathan, was more interested in learning how to use dimensional energies to cure his paralysis, but enjoyed her company in the capacity of teacher.

‘Why aren’t you considered a Master, already?’

‘I might have lived here a long time, but I didn’t have the facilities to get a rounded education,’ Hally told him, bending the truth. ‘I still don’t. One of Daniel’s—Master Drumm’s—favourite things to tell me is to take my time.’

‘You’ve been through some shit,’ Jonathan laughed, accurately pinning her down. Hally grinned through her urge to retreat, tapping his knee. His control barely bent under the pressure of her magic, an improvement to say the least. Jonathan glanced down. ‘Not perfect.’

Hally smiled, her eyes glittering. ‘Have patience. Mastery takes time.’

ghost girl @seeker7

Hello, twitter. Merry Christmas.

3:17 pm – 23 December 2012

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I am Enlightened @pangmecha

@seeker7 Merry Christmas, H. Gotta say, you could have had a better first tweet.

3:39 pm – 23 December 2012

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ghost girl @seeker7

@pangmecha Would you rather I went wild and said something like: I’m a witch, fear my power?

3:40 pm – 23 December 2012

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I am Enlightened @pangmecha

@seeker7 Cooler than ‘hello twitter. Merry Christmas.’

3:42 pm – 23 December 2012

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ghost girl @seeker7

@pangmecha At least I’m not sad like you saying you’re Enlightened in your title thing

3:45 pm – 23 December 2012

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I am Enraged @pangmecha

@seeker7 It’s called a header, kid.

3:49 pm – 23 December 2012

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No harm ever came from reading a book @beyonbae replying to @pangmecha

Stop teasing Tao’s protégé. @seeker7 you can reply to posts. Don’t bother @ing, it wastes characters. There are only 140 available.

3:51 pm – 23 December 2012

Hally learned how to ‘follow’ celebrities and newscasts. Once she got a Twitter, a dozen sorcerers on social media came out of the woodwork, telling her who to follow and watch TV to watch. By spring, 2013, there was a group-chat dedicated to getting her ‘caught up’ as her ghost story was widely shared throughout the various Sanctums and the new recruits. Recommendations kept getting added to her Media Bucket List, often interspersed with arguments over which version of different programs were the best. For example: Hally apparently had three different versions of Pride and Prejudice to watch, now, no buts about it.

Matt and Foggy, who got a filtered story about her school didn’t believe in teaching expressive subjects or computing classes, also had their own opinions on what classed as ‘good entertainment’. Naturally, Matt leaned towards audio books and other blind-friendly things, teaching her how to read Braille in his free time. He liked making her read his adapted law books aloud, which was both torture and her ‘payment’ for eating him out of house and home whenever she visited. Hally denied doing both, but alas, Foggy thought it was hilarious and helped enforce Matt’s ridiculous rules.

Foggy, however, unlike his compatriot and other unknown rivals for her attentions, preferred to expand her cultural horizons, feeding her a variety of different foods and drinks, and often inviting her to events throughout New York, from music festivals to haunted house tours.

‘You can afford it, which not a lot of teens your age can say,’ he made a point of saying, which—well. Fair does. He was right. Hally might as well take advantage of it. That wasn’t to say Foggy and Matt didn’t pay out of their own pocket half the time, but Hally was used to paying for her friends and didn’t begrudge them for their silence when it was time to pay the bill.

The Order got a hold of a new flat for her a few weeks after her birthday—which was celebrated as her sixteenth rather than her twentieth—when one of the new sorcerer’s called in a favour with a friend to get her an interview with the building manager of a guarded high-rise. The Order bought it for her after she got the okay to move in, rather than renting it, due to the rising value of the housing market in NYC, post-Invasion. Manhattan took a big kick in that area, apparently, so Hally got her place just off Broadway for relatively cheap money—at least, when you considered the cost of the place before the Invasion. Some minor structural damage and close proximity to the newly-renamed Avengers Tower—formerly Stark Tower—further reduced the asking price.

‘Wow,’ said Chau, who visited when she moved in, come to help Hally and Daniel put together furniture. Kaecilius was putting away her new crockery, quieter than ever, while Jonathan was organising her fridge-freezer. ‘This is like a palace.’

‘It’s larger than I expected,’ Hally admitted, looking around the wide open space that made up her kitchen-dining-living space. There were two bedrooms on the east side, each with their own closet and a shared bathroom, while on the west side there was a small laundry and another small bathroom. Through the kitchen, a plain black and white debacle with dark green tile lining the space between the sink and the window, was a private balcony that looked out onto Central Park. Hally thought she could happily live here with three other people if she shared her room. She was in closer quarters with a whole dorm of girls for six years, after all.

Kaecilius, closing one of the windowed cabinets where he’d placed her glassware, called out softly, ‘You’re very lucky. The Order has treated you well.’

‘Without it, I’d have nothing,’ Hally said, very seriously. She went over to him and put a hand on his arm, looking at him searchingly. When he spoke of the Order, she only heard doubt, and she had to know why. She’d known him long enough to sense something was wrong.

Kaecilius was older, now. Unlike Hally, he’d not had the bad fortune of gaining immortality and his age showed around his eyes and in the greying of his hair. Hally ignored Jonathan’s curious expression as she met her old friend’s eyes.

What’s wrong? She tried to ask without saying.

He put his hand up over hers, gently pushing it away. The silent admonishment offended her as much as it hurt. He murmured, ‘I must go, now. I wish you good luck establishing yourself outside the reach of the Order.’ Then, he brought her hand to his lips and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. It felt too much like a goodbye and it sickened her.

Hally beseeched him with her eyes as he stepped around her into an empty space, using his sling ring to return to what looked like the Hong Kong Sanctuary, when Hally had only ever known him to live in Kamar-Taj. Jonathan’s curiosity didn’t fade, even as Chau looked away.

Daniel, however, only stared at the place where Kaecilius left with grim determination.

‘Do not investigate what has upset your friend,’ his order brooked no argument and for once, Hally bent under the respect she owed him for his position as Sanctum Master, rather than accepting his decision out of love. Hally did not want to let Kaecilius walk into trouble alone—but Daniel was like a father to her and held her trust. She had to hope that whatever was causing Kaecilius’ faith to waver, it would be dealt with peacefully with the help of the Masters and the Ancient One.

That decided, Hally forced a smile onto her face, offering her helpers food. ‘I can order something, or we can cook in.’

Hesitantly, Jonathan pointed out the fresh food in the cupboards, putting out ideas for what to eat. Chau leapt on the idea, the two getting into a fast back and forth over what they had available, leaving only Hally and Daniel to ruminate over Kaecilius’ departure.

 True to her word, Hally didn’t seek out Kaecilius, even when he publicly denounced the Order and took off in the night with books on the banned mysteries, stealing relics for himself and followers he had convinced to his cause. For once in her life, Hally decided to ignore it, refusing to take a single step in the direction of the confusion that had taken over Kaecilius’ life.

Her ignorance was a mistake.

When not studying in Kamar-Taj, Hally lived a simple life in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, traversing the busy streets from her apartment in Midtown West all the way to Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan once a week. While she had secured a part-time job as a junior security guard at a jewellery store, Hally still took time to draw and paint, practicing with every medium she could get her hands on—and her loyalty remained all the while in that little supply shop four blocks from the New York Sanctum.

Browsing through the different types of paper, Kay telling her which thickness was best for each type of art, Hally nearly missed their entrance. Out of the corner of her eye, through a set of shelves, she saw the door to the shop open, admitting three focused individuals. It was the red facial tattoos that gave them away and Hally reached up to clap her hand over Kay’s mouth an instant later, to the woman’s surprise.

‘Shh!’ She hissed at her without pause. Kay’s eyes went wide as Hally dragged her back towards a stock room, opening the door and pushing her inside, just as one of Kaecilius’ followers stepped around the corner. Hally twisted to face them, keeping an eye on the row behind her and hoping to Merlin that Kay would stay in the stock room.

The sorcerer, a stone-faced blonde woman with bright red slashes down through her eyes, readied several layers of amber concentric circles around her wrists, clearly meaning to subdue her.

‘You don’t want to do this,’ Hally warned her, eyes tracking movement through the pile of canvases to her right. ‘Is he here?’

‘You’ll come with us,’ said the woman, before Kaecilius’ voice boomed through the store—harsh and grating, so unlike the soft, snarky man Hally was used to.

‘Come with us, Hallen! Learn the secrets the Ancient One has kept from us!’

Tensions rising dramatically, Hally brought them all into the Mirror Dimension. The sorcerer in front of her didn’t hesitate to begin attacking her, but Hally had a trick up her sleeve. Calling the Cloak to her shoulders, Hally mimicked a shift sideways into the real world again, as if she had the power of the Ancient One, able to leave the Mirror Dimension at will without the power of a sling ring.

The sorcerer, confused, looked around, but Hally was already running. Hidden under the Cloak, she exited the store through the warped expression of its front door, the ring of the bell echoing strangely. They’d follow her, she knew, but that was for the best; Hally didn’t want to leave Kay at their mercy when they eventually escaped the Mirror Dimension.

Hally needed to leave. Kaecilius knew where she lived, but likewise, he knew she’d warded it with spells he could never learn in a thousand lifetimes. She’d be safe either there or the Sanctum—the question was, which one to go to?

Stopping in an alleyway, Hally silenced her person, watching the trio of sorcerers bound past her hiding spot. Kaecilius led them and her heart turned to the stone at the sight of him, empty of what once made him the best of them all. She watched them split up soon enough, Kaecilius using his sling ring to escape the Mirror Dimension while his zealous followers searched for her there.

Hally took a shuddering breath, closing her eyes for the longest of moments. She could go home later. Right now, she needed to tell Daniel that Kaecilius had attempted to abduct her. Lashes fluttering, she raised her arms into the usual motions to open a portal, walking through when it was tall enough and closing it behind her instantly, just like the Ancient One taught her.

Wong, the librarian of Kamar-Taj, was conversing with Daniel when she spun in, but fell quiet as Hally approached them, eyes flashing when she lowered the hood of her Cloak and released her spell of silence.

‘Kaecilius tried to kidnap me,’ she informed him shortly, causing his eyes to widen. Daniel put a hand on her shoulder, inspecting her with a brush of magic, only slightly relieved by her perfect condition. ‘I’m fine,’ she promised.

‘Where?’

‘The art shop—I won’t be going back,’ Hally said, before he nodded in agreement. Wong looked at her curiously, questioning her.

‘I’d never heard of your relic before rumours of its existence in the astral plane came to me. Where did it come from?’

‘I inherited it in my first dimension,’ she explained briefly, saying, ‘My adopted father’s ancestors met the personification of Death, centuries ago, and one of the items they and their brothers acquired with a piece of Death’s cloak. It can hide from anything.’

‘Though you still create noise beneath it,’ said Daniel, pointing out a problem that the Ancient One still insisted to this day was caused by the expectation that sound couldn’t be hidden.

Brushing him off, Hally banished it from her shoulders, though she summoned the Elder Wand in the same moment, spinning it between her fingers. It was a token effort to keep her paranoia at bay, focusing on keeping it fluid in her grasp even as Daniel swanned off to strengthen the wards surrounding the Sanctum.

‘Kaecilius controlled his zealots like puppets on a string,’ Hally muttered to Wong, needing to tell someone. ‘They did everything he told them to. They even let him leave them in the Mirror Dimension alone—and I doubt they had two sling rings between them.’

‘Zealots,’ Wong repeated her descriptor quietly to himself. It was an apt term.

Hally told him, ‘I’m going home. If anyone asks, tell them I’m raising my other wards. They won’t be able to portal in without consequences.’ Wong nodded in understanding, watching as she summoned another to return, collapsing on her L-shaped couch the moment the portal closed.

Kaecilius, she thought, what did you discover?

Hally hoped she never found out.

Kaecilius never attempted to approach her again and all Hally heard of his Zealots—capitalised, now—were their various thefts around the world from magical tombs and archives. They stole knowledge for power and killed any who stood in their way. It wasn’t uncommon for them to be held back by particularly powerful Masters of the Mystic Arts, but given Kaecilius’ broad theoretical knowledge, Hally wouldn’t put it past him to know exactly where to find magical artefacts that hadn’t had guardians for an age or three.

To her bemusement, Hally was promoted at work shortly after, her status as a ‘sixteen year-old’ turning her job-title of junior security guard into plain old ‘security guard’. Apparently, she was legally classed as an intern before then, so they wouldn’t get in trouble with the law. With the promotion came paperwork, however and Hally had to start doing her taxes and paying insurance, which was a pain in the ass.

Layla, her only other female co-worker, deliberately asked for their shifts to be scheduled together so she wasn’t ‘stuck with all the guys’. Hally didn’t mind that, not at all…even when her conscience pointedly reminded her that she shouldn’t be ogling her co-worker. Who could blame her, though—Layla was built like a tank and pretty, with muscles the size of Hally’s head and a toothy smile. She even invited Hally to work out with her at her local gym.

The change from part-time to full-time sucked though and Hally barely had time to keep up with her studies in Kamar-Taj. Eventually, she just completely overhauled her week, using her waking study hours to practice spells and practice sparring, and astral projecting to the New York Sanctum to both tutor newer acolytes and doing an hour of dedicated reading that Daniel had set aside for her. Her weekends were spent exclusively with her friends in Midtown and Hell’s Kitchen, doing ‘culture things’ either with them or by herself, and making art for the fun of it. She was going through a bit of a sketch and watercolour phase.

Sadly, she got less and less opportunities to spend time with Matt and Foggy as their law firm took off the ground and they began picking up cases. Matt made it up to her by joining her at Layla’s gym once a week—and considering that Hally went every second day, except on Sundays, that wasn’t a lot. Foggy, meanwhile, had a depressing chat with her about money and why he couldn’t hang out with her more often. Hally didn’t begrudge either of them for their choices, but that didn’t stop her from missing both of them.

Her phone calls started winding down with Maura, as well, scheduled for twice a month instead of every seven days. Hally didn’t call as often out of the blue, either. It was progress, except just like with Foggy and Matt, she felt like she was losing her friends. With the whole Kaecilius problem compounding the issue, Maura gave her some new advice.

‘Take a class at one of the local community colleges. Get to know some people your own age. Everyone you know has either a significant age-gap or are in very different places in their lives from you,’ her therapist pointed out. ‘If you feel up to pretending to be your legal age, get in contact with a high school and ask if there’s any senior activities you can join. Your cover of someone who graduated early and needs some social development isn’t that unusual in big cities like this. Home-schooled teenagers do it all the time.’

‘Okay,’ Hally mused, deciding to humour her. Quidditch was the only activity she actually took part in at Hogwarts, though she knew there was a gob-stones club and a casual chess tournament that Weasley’s were banned from wholesale after Fred and George exploded their marble trophy. Ron had been angry as all hell once he learned.

She told Layla about Maura’s idea and, to her despair, Layla thought it was a great idea. ‘I have a cousin on scholarship here in Midtown. It would take a few phone calls and probably a deposit, but she could definitely get you into some of the clubs given time.’

Hally frowned, guessing it was an expensive rich-kid school of some kind. ‘Wouldn’t something like…Harlem, be cheaper?’

‘Yeah,’ Layla’s face did something then, ‘But it isn’t the safest of neighbourhoods. Harlem’s barely recovered after the Hulk first got loose back in oh-eight. Seriously, though, I’d feel a whole lot better knowing you were safe and sound somewhere around kids your own age more often.’

That attraction Hally felt? Yeah, that went down the drain. It had to, because clearly Layla was following in the footsteps of all the adults in Hally’s life and getting parental.

‘You’re like a sister to me, Hal.’

Damn it.

the cake is a lie @seeker7

tfw your crush says you’re like a sister to her AHHHHHHHHHH

8:02 pm – 10 November 2013

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I chase pigeons for fun @chaumein replying to @seeker7

Gurl i thought you were british

2:53 am – 11 November 2013

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the cake is a lie @seeker7

The fact that I know what you’re referring to breaks my heart

4:01 am – 11 November 2013

‘-and this here is Hally, she’ll be joining us here from now on after classes have finished. Come on now, give her a hello.’

‘Hello, Hally,’ said the group of art students in a somewhat monotone voice. It was awkward and Hally was supremely uncomfortable. Ms Kramer, the art teacher, was extremely welcoming in comparison to the reluctant teenagers.

Ms Kramer touched her arm, pointing to a spot in the corner, where only two students were seated at a table for six. ‘You sit just over there. We’re going to be doing print-work today. They make for nice backgrounds in collage pieces.’

Hally sat down with the two students, who offered quiet hellos as Ms Kramer started doing a demo at the front of the classroom. Slowly, the ice seemed to melt as the teens all began watching in earnest, Hally included, and soon they were all choosing their paints and their A3 sheets of paper.

‘Home-schooled?’ A young guy asked her. He was twelve at most, with square glasses and a sweet smile. ‘Welcome to Midtown High. I’m Eugene!’

‘Hally—and I went to boarding school, I just finished school right before I turned fifteen. Got nothing better to do, when I’m not working.’

Eugene’s eyes went wide. ‘You have a job?’

‘Security guard at a place called McPhee’s Jewellery.’

‘Wow,’ said Eugene, before going back to his seat with a plastic tray dotted with red and gold paint. Hally realised he was right behind her and just for the fun of it, sat at an angle so they could keep chatting. ‘So, like, do you catch robbers and stuff?’

‘We get about five guys a week trying to steal stuff, whether it’s the safe money or the diamond necklaces,’ Hally described, scoffing as she recalled the week’s favourite for Dumbest Robbery Attempt. ‘We had this guy in last Tuesday, this real idiot. He kept talking, deliberately goading one of the jewellers, trying to get that whole ‘I want to see your manager’ thing going. Arse. Nora wasn’t having it. Kept asking him to repeat himself, telling him he was giving too many queries at once. Guy gets angry, tries to do a Hulk-smash on the counter and breaks his wrist. Since the Invasion, all the glass has been upgraded to withstand practically every scenario known to man, so we had to phone the guy an ambulance, along with the cops.’

‘Stupid,’ muttered one of the girls at her table. Hally nodded along, focusing on her paints. She’d chosen a pale green and a beige-y yellow, hoping to get an underwater effect on the lower portion of her paper. Depending on how well it went, she’d change up the colours on the upper half for some neat shades of blue and turquoise.

The after-school club itself only lasted an hour and a half, but by the time it finished, Hally was happily conversing with some of the kids there. Eugene, funnily enough, was the youngest there except for Michelle, a classmate of his. They were both twelve. The other students ranged from thirteen all the way to a single seventeen year old, who had to give up art when they decided to take college-level molecular biology. Midtown High was a STEM school, meaning it focused on science and technology and apparently, there was an actual name change in the works, as the program had only been implemented the year before the Battle of New York, when half the school got blown up and rebuilt. With the new departments and the success of the STEM program, the school was really kicking off.

Among the group of kids that day, Hally could happily say she’d made at least five friends who she’d say hi to on the street, if she saw them. Eugene, the super adorable chatterbox; Michelle, the one younger than Eugene, who was probably a better sketcher than Dean Thomas; Barry, the seventeen year old; a goofy Spanish kid who was deliberately mysterious over their gender, calling themselves Angel, pronounced on-jel; and Tasmin, who had butterflies all over her clothes and backpack. One was even hennaed on her wrist, which she said was done by her mother with the leftover henna from her sister’s wedding.

Hally was also invited to join the running team by a lanky girl named Kiara, when she heard Hally was the star of her school ‘lacrosse’ team, which Hally took her up on the next week on the Monday. The coach didn’t mind her tagging along, on the condition that she registered with the school office when she came onto campus—an agreement that was already in place with the principle for the days she came in for art club. Ms Kramer ran it on Wednesdays twice a month and Fridays four times a month, so Hally had to pencil it into her schedule when not to come around.

‘Sounds like you’re having fun,’ said her boss speculatively when she told him about it all, which made Hally glance across at Layla in worry. Whenever Ducky—the nickname he’d had since long before even Hally was born, probably because ducks were his favourite thing in the world—got that tone, something always changed. This would be the first time Hally had ever taken the brunt of it, however.

Whispering to her, Layla said, ‘I heard he wanted to scout out another intern your age. You might have just pointed him straight at Midtown High.’ Only slightly worried at that, Hally kept an eye out for her distinctive boss, knowing his ‘undercover’ getup consisted of a tweed jacket and a baseball cap reading YANKEES. Unfortunately, she must have missed him, because the next thing she knew, Michelle started showing up Thursday afternoons for art credits.

‘And this way, I don’t have to take the electrical engineering class to learn how to solder,’ she told Hally, which actived big alarm bells in her head.

‘Why do you want to learn how to use a soldering kit?’ Hally demanded an answer, worried that the kid—the child, the baby, Merlin, Michelle was only twelve, why did her parents let her take an internship up at twelve years of age?—was going to get herself hurt.

Michelle, who before long Hally would learn was a brat—a genius, but a brat—didn’t answer.

Great.

ghost mum @seeker7

Hey twitter how do I parent this random child at my work? she’s twelve and working with blowtorches on the regular

4:32 pm – 19 December 2013

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wth hally @pangmecha

uh rewind to the part where you adopted a child???

2:14 am – 28 December 2013

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I am a mother now @seeker7 replying to @pangmecha

She is my child

6:07 pm – 29 December 2013

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I am a mother now @seeker7

@pangmecha also you left the order BOO!!!

6:10 pm – 29 December 2013

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WTH HALLY @pangmecha

@chaumein apparently you are now an aunty. congrats

7:29 pm – 29 December 2013

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WTH HALLY @pangmecha replying to @seeker7

as your father, i am disappointed in this behaviour

7:33 pm – 29 December 2013

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iron man what about iron ASS? @chaumein

rip @pangmecha drumm has to kill you now to reclaim his title. @seeker7 pics or it didn’t happen

9:59 pm – 1 January 2014

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I am a mother now @seeker7 repling to @chaumein

[artclubnyepartyeditmichelle.jpg]  o h ?

11:00 pm – 1 January 2014

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I am an auntie now @chaumein replying to @seeker7

Not to change the subject but I know T in pics ext. family in HK. Might be aware of ghost story. Beautiful bby,she got papa drumms frown

11:58 pm – 1 January 2014

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I am a mother now @seeker7 replying to @chaumein

Copy. I am very proud.

12:06 am – 2 January 2014

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I KNOW IT WAS YOU @pangmecha

why would you tell him chau????? rip my burger

4:11 am – 3 January 2014

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I am a mother now @seeker7 replying to @pangmecha

rip jonathan’s burger

11:19 am – 3 January 2014

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I am an auntie now @chaumein replying to @pangmecha

HAHAHAHA

2:57 pm – 3 January 2014

Chapter Text

Hally sat on the subway, one leg tucked up onto the seat as she read through an article in the paper. It was all about the sudden death toll following the SHIELD/Hydra data dump the previous week and the fire at the Triskelion in Washington DC—it had been burning ever since the Helicarrier crashed into it, occasionally flaring as another weapons cache was ignited within the rubble.

A man standing opposite her nodded at the pages. ‘It’s a mess,’ he said, right before the doors opened at the next stop. Hally stayed seated, eyes drawn to the black and white photographs of a family who’d been found dead in their home, after rogue SHIELD agents raided the Hydra family member’s basement office. The collateral damage of the Black Widow and Captain America’s decision was staggering.

‘Oi,’ grunted a man, his accent catching most of the train car’s attention—even Hally’s. She looked up in time to see him glare at a woman in front of him, spitting, ‘Don’t ever come near me again.’

The woman, looking up at him, terrified, suddenly began backing away in a daze, making her way down the train car. Hally was instantly alarmed, her brain not computing for several seconds, until she finally realised what he’d done. Immediately discarding her paper, Hally lunged, shoving the man up against the window.

Bearing a startling resemblance to Barty Crouch Jr., the man was momentarily stunned by her, shocked at her audacity. Then he glared, as if his automatic reaction was anger, and ordered her.

‘Let go of me.’

Hally felt his voice in her brain and it wasn’t the gentle oblivion of the Imperius. No, it was pure force, wrapping around her thoughts and pushing. Unfortunately for him, Hally was far, far more stubborn than he was, and the longer she stood there, pushing right back against his commands, the more his anger faded, turning into something like fear.

‘…no,’ she said. ‘You don’t get to just walk around mind-controlling every person who stumbles into you.’ Hally’s grip tightened on his deep purple suit and then, she summoned her magic. It burned the fabric of his pinstripe jacket, smoke rising from between her fingers, and then she weaved a spell on him—a better, more efficient version of Legillimens that the Ancient One taught her for this very purpose.

‘What are you doing to me?’ Kevin Thompson, Kilgrave, mumbled dazedly. Hally wrapped her magic in a knot around his brain and felt who he was—saw the sick things he’d done. Everything from rape to murder sat in his ugly mind and Hally gave up on subtlety, using side-along apparation to pull him from the train-car to a grassy field in Chester.

Hally didn’t need to touch him to bespell him. Truthfully, all she wanted to do was kill him. She wanted to bury him in the ground. A man like him shouldn’t have the privilege of living. Hally knew that woman he ordered away from would walk to the ends of the earth to get away from him, never knowing why. Her life was ruined in an instant.

I can’t kill him, Hally thought, before an even crueller punishment occurred to her. Personally having coined it as the Sleeping Beauty curse, it was forbidden without good reason, as the one under it was awake inside their own mind as long as their body was asleep…but Hally had a feeling that the Masters would agree with her that he deserved it. Eternal imprisonment for as many lifetimes as he ruined seemed balanced enough.

Using an over-powered stunning spell to keep him under, Hally laid him out on the ground in a deliberately haphazard manner, sitting down in the mud beside his limp body, cross-legged. Then she astral projected all the way to Kamar-Taj, calling out for her mentor.

‘Ancient One! Ancient One, I seek your counsel!’

Sorcerers watched her curiously as she flew through the halls of the Sanctum of Learning, those that knew her pointing her in the right direction. Hally was led to one of the balconies overlooking Kathmandu, where the Ancient One was already frowning at her.

‘You have changed the future of the Defenders. Their union is in peril.’

‘If what they’re defending from is a man who can control minds, then good,’ Hally said ruthlessly, laying out the past five minutes. The Ancient One seemed to understand her reason for coming long before she explained.

‘I do not advise this,’ the Ancient One warned, ‘but from a moral and ethical standpoint, I agree with your proposed course of action. I suspect such a man would have a short life-span, otherwise, however. Keeping him alive in a state of living death may pose problems for the future generations.’

‘Killing is never a good idea either, though,’ she replied. She knelt in front of the Ancient One and begged her for advice. ‘Please. We need to do something. I thought imprisonment was a better alternative than death, but…’

The Ancient One closed her eyes and Hally waited.

‘And there is no chance whatsoever for rehabilitation?’

‘None.’

‘…someday in the near future, I will not be here to make these choices for you, Hally.’ The Ancient One opened her eyes and reached out as she knelt in turn, clasping her shoulder with an astral hand. ‘Few may judge such a man as he and be able to dole out the consequences of his actions. In this case, Master Hallen, I believe it is the duty of our Order to dispose of Kilgrave permanently.’

For a second, Hally sagged in relief, missing the obvious. Kilgrave would die, whether at her hand or another’s. For a moment, she breathed.

Then the name clicked and she spluttered, ‘Master Hallen?’

‘Do you like it? It is time, I think,’ said the Ancient One, remarkably amused at Hally’s disbelief. She tapped under Hally’s chin fondly. ‘You have a prisoner to deal with. Best get back before he wakes. Don’t let him speak—desperation makes monsters of us all, and he already has the disposition of one.’

Nodding rapidly, Hally leant forwards and pressed a ghostly kiss to her cheek, unable to speak out of sheer gratitude. Returning to her body in a blur, Hally blinked away the sudden tears and looked on the unconscious body of Kilgrave.

It occurred to her, as she dug him a twelve-foot grave with her magic, that she had apparated away in clear view of a train full of muggles. Biting her lip in thought, Hally rolled Kilgrave’s still-sleeping body into the hole and then crouched by the edge. The Cloak came to her with nary a thought and for the first time, the Ring of Resurrection appeared on her left ring finger. Hally considered the placement. Am I married to Death, now? She thought in morbid amusement before the Elder Wand appeared in her opposite hand.

Hally had never held all the Deathly Hallows at once before. Nothing happened—and then everything did.

On the other side of the living grave, a tall woman in black sat with her legs crossed, leaning boredly on the palm of her hand. Golden blonde hair tumbled over one shoulder, tied in a loose braid that fell past her hip to drag across the ground and her forest green cape that laid idly across it. She didn’t seem to notice her change in location at first, but then her eyes slowly dragged across the sleeping Kilgrave and her eyebrows rose. She looked up, discovering Hally. Green eyes met the void, no white to be found around the black of her iris. If she looked closely, Hally could see her pupils expanding, but then she blinked and her focus moved to the thick line of her jaw and the curve of her nose.

‘What are you?’ the woman asked in interest, gaze roving over Hally’s banal form. She wasn’t even wearing anything nice beneath the Cloak—just a plain blue button-down shirt and jeans, with her favourite green boots she’d found in a thrift shop in Queens last October. Nothing matched and compared to the other woman’s sinfully tight bodysuit, Hally seemed horrifically underdressed.

‘You’re clearly up to something devious,’ she continued, glancing down at Kilgrave in amusement, ‘and those objects call to me. What is the little girl doing with such dangerous things? And how could they have summoned me, when I was imprisoned by the Allfather himself?’

Still hunched over so she could better stare at Kilgrave, Hally clenched her hand around the Elder Wand, trying to recall what she’d learnt under the Ancient One. The Allfather she knew from Hermione, oddly enough. It was the name of Odin, king of the Aesir—a myth in her old dimension, but very alive, here in this one. The Ancient One had taught her only a little of the famous ‘Thor’ of the Avengers.

‘I’m not as young as I seem,’ Hally eventually began, pursing her lips as she tried to figure out who and what this woman was. She decided to tell the original tale of the Peverell’s and see where that got her. Gesturing with the Wand, she asked, ‘Would you like to hear of their creation?’

‘Oh,’ said the woman, her eyes glittering, ‘Do tell. Perhaps I shall share a story in kind.’

Levelling out her breathing, Hally sat up straight, recalling the story that had long since burnt itself into her mind. ‘In a time long past, there lived three brothers who each wielded the power of magic. Wizards all, the brothers once journeyed across the land and found a river that had claimed the lives of all who wished to cross.’

‘Waving their wands,’ she described, gesturing across the unfilled grave, ‘they created a bridge. But Death, who felt cheated that the brothers had so easily escaped its grasp, appeared to them there and pretended their feat of evasion was worthy of a prize. To each, he offered a gift of their choosing.’

‘Antioch, the oldest and most arrogant, asked for the most powerful wand in existence,’ said Hally, lifting the Elder Wand between them. ‘And Death carved it from the bough of an elder tree near the river’s edge. He gave it to the first brother and then turned to the second.’

‘Cadmus, who sought to humiliate Death, in his pride asked for the power to recall loved ones from the beyond. Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to him, promising should he turn it thrice, his loved ones would appear before his very eyes.’ Curling her fist, Hally showed the woman the Ring of Resurrection where the black stone etched with the Hallows’ marking laid twisted between two bands of gold.

‘Finally,’ she said, ‘Death turned to the third brother. Ignotus, humble and clever, asked for something which would let him walk freely from that place without being followed. And so, Death reluctantly handed Ignotus his own Cloak of Invisibility.’

‘Not to interrupt,’ the woman then drawled, ‘but how old was this version of Death? Because that’s one of the most immature, idiotic things I’ve ever heard of our patron.’

Letting out a short laugh, Hally shook her head, not knowing the answer to her question, or what she meant by the word patron. ‘I don’t know. Do you want to hear what happened next?’

‘Of course—it’s just getting interesting!’

Stifling another laugh, Hally described the first brother’s hubris. ‘The first brother travelled to a distant village where an old enemy lived. Duelling the fellow, Antioch won the fight in an overwhelming fashion, but then proceeded to drunkenly boast of his great gift, which granted him such power. People overheard his tales and in the night, when Antioch was sleeping, the wand was stolen—and his throat slit for good measure.’

‘It would come to be known by many names,’ Hally described, twirling it in hand, ‘Such as the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny. Those who bore it wielded great power, but most often died a bloody, devastating death. It passed from hand to hand, often lost to history until it was found again and its bearer made the same mistake as Antioch Peverell, boasting of their possession. Eventually, by chance, its loyalty fell to me.’

‘Yes,’ murmured the woman, staring at Hally in curiosity. ‘I see. And the second brother, who so bore the Stone of Death?’

‘Cadmus returned home and turned the Stone thrice in his hand, as instructed,’ told Hally. ‘He had once loved a woman and meant to marry her, but she tragically died. However, Death’s power was true and her ghost was summoned from the afterlife as promised. For a time, they were happy, but the ghost of the woman he loved did not belong in the land of the living and so she grew cold and withdrawn. A shade of herself. Cadmus let her go in the end, but took his own life soon after out of grief. With that, the Stone was lost to the history of men, kept secret by the descendants of they who inherited it.’

‘As for the third brother,’ began Hally, an almost invisible smile of fondness growing on her face, ‘Death searched for him. Years past and Death could not find him. It was only when Ignotus was old and grey, with children and grandchildren of his own, did he finally release possession of the Cloak. Passing it onto his son, Ignotus met Death and they walked happily side by side as old friends into the afterlife. The Cloak, like the Stone made into a Ring, was passed down through an unbroken bloodline—until me.’

‘Again,’ the woman smiled. ‘How did the Ring fall into your grasp?’

‘I faced a Dark Lord, who was also a descendant of the Peverell Brothers like my adoptive father and his father before him. My enemy was ignorant to the truth of what he held and used it instead as a container for a shard of his soul, one of many keeping him alive when his body was destroyed. When my mentor destroyed the shard, he passed on the Ring to me. I didn’t know I possessed it until my last hour, after I had hunted and destroyed what remained of his shattered soul to finally render him mortal. Legend said that whomever wielded all three of the Deathly Hallows would become the Master of Death—and that’s what I became, without knowing. I haven’t aged a day since,’ she finished with a flourish, hands clasped together over the Elder Wand, the Ring bared for all the see as the Cloak slid up and over her head in a gentle breeze, hiding her eyes.

‘A fine tale,’ the woman replied with all due respect, before uncrossing her legs and laying them to the side, leaning her outstretched arm on the grass. Languid, she raised her spare hand, conjuring an image of the galaxy—golden lines forming a network of stars in the shape of a tree. At the very peak was a hazy image of a golden city, making up one of the nine brightest stars.

‘This is the World Tree,’ she told Hally, who pushed back her hood once more and settled in for a story. ‘Yggdrasil.’

With a wave of her hand, the city grew until Hally could see even the smallest details, the streets bustling and alive with people dressed in medieval-style clothes. Warriors walked the street in both silvered steel and bright golden plate, bearing spears and swords alike.

‘Asgard,’ the woman proclaimed, ‘Home of the Aesir. A proud kingdom of warriors, among the first to ascend to a higher plane of existence. Asgard itself was made by Buri when he felled a Celestial and built a planetary body across its humungous corpse. Buri’s grandson, whose son Bor begot, was Odin Allfather. Even on the most primitive of planets in the Nine Realms, Odin is known for his warmongering ways and all-encompassing rule.’

Her illusion of Asgard faded, returning to the World Tree. In turn, she gestured to each of the nine bright spots—which were not stars, Hally discovered, but planets.

‘Alfheim, home of the Elves of Eternal Twilight,’ the woman—princess?—decreed, summoning an illusion of a planet in darkness, lit only by the glow of a dozen trees that towered over an unending jungle. Then came a new illusion—one of a dusty crag of a planet, bare of anything but rocks and dust, the sun hidden permanently behind a moon almost bigger than it was.

‘Svartálfheim. Abandoned and gutted. Bor warred against the Dark Elves for control of their realm and ultimately abandoned it after the leader of the Elven people sacrificed his own sky-navy to run off into the depths of space. The Dark Elves were notorious for recruiting every last civilian for the war effort and at the time, the Elves of Alfheim—colloquially known as the Light Elves—hated them as much as the Dark Elves hated the rest of the universe. The Light Elves hunted the remaining Dark Elves down for pleasure. They’re poncy cunts and hope you never meet one. They’ll make up reasons to kill you, if they dislike you.’

Hally wrinkled her nose at the coarse language, but paid attention as the image changed to a great ring built around a whole sun.

‘Nidavellir, home of the dwarves,’ the woman described, sounding somewhat bored. ‘They build weapons, yada yada, their reputation is unprecedented—moving on.’ The illusion changed into a green planet with lots of forests and fields, with what looked like yurts all grouped together in small villages. The image blurred, so she could get a good look into one of the only cities the planet seemed to have, built up with similarly-styled buildings made of stone and shaped like pincer. ‘Vanaheim, home of the Vanir. The people are generally nomads and they only have one city, but it’s a centre of culture galaxies over, home to some of the most learned sorcerers in existence. Vanaheim and Nidavellir have treaties with Asgard, because if anyone tried to conquer either realm, they would come to the other’s defence and be summarily decimated, due to a long-standing alliance that’s older than Asgard.’

The illusion vanished and the woman took a moment to pause, slowly cracking her neck with a sigh. She glanced at Hally in a lazy manner. ‘Excuse the exposition, but you need to be aware of the general state of the realms to understand the meat of my story.’

‘Moving on,’ she said, summoning an image of fire and brimstone, ‘this is Muspelheim, where Surtur rules. I was once engaged to the brute and I was very unhappy with such an arrangement, so I conquered the planet in my father’s name and broke the engagement. My father was beginning to think that perhaps peace was a better option than war, despite our traditions and the fact that Jotunheim had yet to bend.’

‘Midgard,’ the woman waved a familiar blue and green planet into existence, ‘is a backwater. The most primitive of the realms, full of Midgardians who are remarkably short-lived for such a populous species, and is worth absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things apart from its location in the quadrant. Even Niflheim is more advanced.’

‘You’re currently looking at a Midgardian,’ Hally felt fit to inform her, making the woman look at her blankly. She added, ‘Also, we’re currently witnessing an age of enlightenment. We went from basic machinery to space travel in the space of a hundred years. Certain peoples aware of…all that-’ she gestured to her illusions ‘-guess that we’ll be roaming the galaxy commercially within the next few decades.’

‘Fascinating,’ said the woman, who while not sounding that interested, at least held a degree more respect than before. Hally decided not to tell her she was from another dimension entirely.

‘Is that all of them?’ asked the witch, prodding a continuation of her oration.

The woman hummed in the negative. An illusion of a vast ice world appeared above her hand and this time, her story kicked off for real. ‘Jötunheim was near-equal to Asgard in military might for thousands of years. There were many skirmishes and few agreements. The Jötuns were the true enemy in my mind, and if we defeated them, then the Nine Realms really were all Asgard’s for the taking. I was a High General, a leader to Odin’s army of Einherjar, raised for war and intergalactic carnage. It was no surprise to any that I became the Goddess of Death. All that death and destruction…I enjoyed it. Revelled in it. I saw it as the natural cycle of life and claimed the Mantle just as you did: without realising. I was harnessing the energies of life and death in one moment and embracing my destiny the next.’

‘But ambition ruled my life,’ she told Hally, holding her gaze, ‘and I strategised a plan behind my father’s back. As he began to deescalate the conquest he had raised me to believe in from the cradle, I struck at the heart of Jötunheim. She bore a close resemblance to your First Brother, known for her strength in war and just as arrogant. She also happened to wear the Crown of Ice, as the child of Farbauti-Queen—my peer, in other words.’

Something changed then, as the void of her eyes somehow darkened even further and she looked away, the line of her brow furrowing in muted anger.

‘Love is fickle,’ said the goddess, barely managing not to spit. ‘It only harms. I seduced the princess and used a rare concoction to lull the hardy Jötun to sleep. Then I stole her Crown, which might have saved her otherwise, and severed her connection to the heart of the planet. It killed her instantly. If she were anyone other than a princess of the blood, unconnected to the life-force of the planet, it wouldn’t have worked. As Farbauti had no other heirs at the time, resting all her hopes on Helblindi, it invited other Jötun Clans to war with her in an attempt to seize the Skull of Mimir.’

‘Why a skull?’ Hally questioned the concept, puzzled over this one detail.

‘The Skull,’ the goddess emphasised, saying, ‘Mimir was a Celestial allied with the Aesir in the early days of Bor’s reign, before he was slain and his living head placed in the Sacred Well of Yggdrasil. For millennia, Mimir offered wisdom to those who asked, but eventually his flesh rotted and all that was left was bone. The Jötuns had the easiest access to the Well and were his primary keepers, the guardians there sworn to peace, unlike their brethren. Mimir’s Skull was eventually stolen by an ancient Jötun, who had united the Clans in democracy and created both an actual throne made of Mimir’s decapitated head and a metaphysical connection to the core of the planet that would pass to his heir upon his death. He was assassinated soon after and Farbauti eventually claimed the throne for herself, through some admittedly clever legal jargon that indicated she was the primary claimant of what came to be known the Skull Throne.’

‘So,’ Hally gathered that all, speaking slowly as she cut out all the extraneous information to get to the heart of it all. Gods are aliens, she thought, struggling to fuse each individual definition of the words in her mind. ‘You caused a succession crisis? But then, what happened next?’

‘The Clans went to war for the first time in millennia,’ she told Hally, eyes gleaming in bitter satisfaction. ‘They destabilised their own planet and Farbauti-Queen was forced, for the sake of their continued survival, to tie the bond of the Skull Throne to an artefact made out of Mimir’s bone.’

Stomach rolling, Hally tried to imagine Voldemort’s war causing harm of that magnitude. She couldn’t. The two World Wars were the largest conflict she could feasibly imagine—but this was different. This was intergalactic.

But the Goddess of Death didn’t wait for her measly comprehensions of war to align, telling her again of Odin. ‘When my father learnt of what I’d done,’ she told her, ‘he admonished me and only stopped short of giving me over to the Jötuns for trial. I often imagine what could have been, had I won the ensuing conflict. I challenged him, my loyal battalions sworn to my future queenship, and attempted to seize Valaskjalf, the Royal Palace.’

‘Is that your favourite hobby?’ Hally asked sarcastically, ‘Causing chaos and destruction among royal families?’

‘No,’ the goddess said, lip twitching, ‘Though the son Helblindi bore us within her ravaged body took Asgard by storm when he arrived there. An unfortunate consequence of my mistakes, but mine indeed.’

‘Her biology must have been interesting if she could have a baby after she died,’ muttered Hally, which amused the goddess well enough.

‘Jötun children have eaten their own bearers before when the situation was dire. Coupled with my Godly Mantle, it’s not illogical to suppose he could survive. The only surprising aspect of that tale is how Farbauti-Queen actually managed to lose him in the war to follow. She was already in a precarious political position, and then she lost her grandson!’ The goddess was gleeful at the thought, cackling joyfully for some long few seconds, wiping a glistening tear from her eye.

Shaking her head, Hally could only smile dumbly. She already had to accept that gods were aliens—what was a demigod-alien hybrid growing in the dead body of his mother and eating her, to that?

Laughter fading away, the goddess sobered somewhat. ‘My coup failed, unfortunately. Odin banished me to Helheim, an abandoned province on Niflheim, the last of the Nine Realms.’ Her hand waved and the last planet appeared, the illusion soaring over the lands like a bird. Hally caught sight of great fissures in the dirt that glowed green, broken building half-toppled into endless ravines full of unholy power. Even through the illusion, Hally could sense that it was an unsettling place.

The goddess was likewise captivated. ‘There was a cataclysm there, eons ago. None know what happened, though Mimir the Wise once spoke a poem that created more questions than it answered. Scholars have spent lifetimes studying it—preferring to focus on what could be outright lies instead of the physical evidence. I was there for what felt like years before my battalion finally arrived with their warships.’

‘By that time, I had learnt how to control my Mantle,’ she said, before her expression grew hateful, ‘But Odin’s wife, my mother Frigga, the Queen of Asgard, saw the future in her pools and tapestries. Just as I had used my time well, so had she, connecting to the core of Asgard and taking on a Mantle of her own. She was known from then on as a Goddess in her own right, with so many Mantles that you can’t say them all in official settings, for fear of calling her an upstart, beside my father.’

‘Frigga was from Vanaheim,’ she told Hally. ‘A Vanir witch who so held that title because her mastery of what would become her Mantles were so great. When she became a goddess, she suddenly saw my future and wept, for she had already lost so many children to mine and Odin’s wars. My brothers, Baldr and Víðar, and my sister, Váli—all perished long before. Few of even Odin’s bastards remain.’

‘Frigga told Odin how to defeat me,’ she described, ‘then willingly succumbed to a deathly sleep. Taking on her Mantles, no matter how deserved they may be, damaged her. She was Vanir, not Aesir. Odin, who has always loved his wife dearly, heeded her words and sent the Valkyries ahead of him to destroy my battalion—whom I murdered to the last in revenge—before arriving on Niflheim himself.’

The goddess grit her teeth, then. ‘The old goat proceeded to take advantage of a metaphysical connection that existed between myself and Mjolnir, a hammer gifted to me by the Nidavellir contingent when the Vanir-Nidavellir-Asgard Alliance was finalised. Oh, the betrayal I felt. I had spent so many centuries wielding Mjolnir that I forgot it—I forgot one of the very few things directly bonded to the soul of me.’

‘What happened then?’ Hally queried, on the edge of her seat.

The goddess grinned and it was cold. ‘He harnessed the cosmic energies of Niflheim and wrapped it around my soul. To this day, he still keeps the spell active, using himself as anchor. I am nothing, here—a lonely Queen of Niflheim. The only reason I know what happened before and after are because of the shades of the dead. The Valkyries spilled their metaphorical guts, lording my mother’s sacrifice over my head until I figured out how to feed their souls to Niflheim’s core.’

‘And after? Is that how you found out about your son?’

‘Helblindi lingered for centuries afterwards,’ the goddess explained. ‘She watched over her son as he grew in her corpse and as Farbauti-Queen entrusted him to the Keepers of the Well. She should have known they’d abandon their duties once the Skull Throne was reworked into the Casket of Winters. Odin took off with both when he finally deigned to involve himself in the Clan Wars, bringing things to a halt in one fell swoop. They were apparently spilling into Midgard after some Clan Chiefs got greedy, which he took insult to. Midgard was his, after all,’ she mocked.

‘When Odin took my son and the Casket, he crippled Jötun society. Any and all restrictions he placed on the planet were followed, as he held their fates in his grubby little hands. Farbauti-Queen apparently became a roaming diplomat, keeping the peace between the squabbling Clans while Laufey-King runs the city. Their only son, Býleistr, is practically an infant.’

The goddess continued to say, ‘And due to her unique perspective, Helblindi could see that Odin had taken on Frigga’s cursed sleep when he came to Jotunheim. Rumour has it he regularly slips into a coma called the Odinsleep, so he must be bearing the weight of her mistakes. Helblindi let herself be dragged across the Nine Realms to Niflheim out of some misplaced sense of duty to inform me of Loki’s existence and current custodial arrangements,’ she rolled her eyes, ‘She annoyed me, so I fed her to the planet core.’

‘You’re kind of insane,’ Hally told her.

‘Thank-you,’ she said, winking at her. Hally winced, then looked back down at Kilgrave for the first time since she summoned the Hallows. He still hadn’t woken up. The goddess peered at his sleeping form, asking her, ‘Were you going to bury him alive?’

‘We decided he’s going to die, definitely. I just didn’t know how…but probably. Yeah. Couldn’t come up with any better ideas.’ Sheepish, Hally ran a hand through her hair, but the Goddess of Death only smiled. Figures.

‘Did you enjoy my story, little Master?’ she asked the witch.

‘It was a rollercoaster ride,’ Hally blew a strand of hair away from her face, ‘but ultimately, yeah. Wacky. How old are you, anyway?’

‘Millennia,’ she boasted.

‘And you’re Aesir?’ Hally pressed.

The goddess flipped her braid with a scoff. ‘Aesir-Vanir. Pay attention!’

‘And your name?’

‘Hela, you impudent-’

For a single moment, Hally grinned with all the force of a thousand suns.

Thank-you, Fred and George, for teaching me that bloody excellent game.

Chapter Text

Hela, Goddess of Death and Princess of Asgard, had a scowl like thunder. Her chin dipped in fury as she swallowed down her rage, before she reluctantly muttered, ‘Well played.’

‘I’ve been calling you the goddess in my head for the last half hour,’ Hally complained in a gamely manner, ‘What else was I supposed to do?’

‘Ask, perhaps?’ Hela returned sarcastically.

‘Yeah,’ said Hally, ‘but you could have, too.’

‘I did.’

‘You asked me what I was,’ Hally said correctly, before tucking the Elder Wand into her thigh holster. ‘And how I summoned you. Which, to answer your question, I don’t know. I summoned the Ring for the first time, then you appeared. The grave was just a coincidence.’

Hela looked down at Kilgrave in disgruntlement, gesturing at him in a violent manner. Hally blanched as a knife sprung from nowhere, piercing his neck. She scooted back away from the grave, watching as Hela stood tall and banished the pile of grave-dirt on top of his body, casually brushing off her thighs as if she had any dirt on them at all. When she summoned her knife back to her hand, a small frown graced her face before she shook it off.

‘I’m still tied to Niflheim,’ the goddess informed her, ‘so this has something to do with our shared Mantle. The change of scenery is admittedly refreshing.’

Hally swallowed roughly at her words and got up to stand on her own two feet. ‘We’re not married or anything, are we?’ she asked, ‘Because the Ring appeared on a pretty important finger.’ Hally waved her hand to show it off.

Hela looked as equally disgusted by the prospect as Hally felt, but her grimace settled into something firmer after a moment.

‘It’s possible,’ she hedged, which really made Hally’s day, it really did. ‘You’re a mage, yes? You know that the cosmic forces would consider our closest shared approximation of permanently shared duties as an appropriate solution to intersecting Mantles.’

‘Considering Mantles are completely new to me, no,’ said Hally, swallowing roughly at the theory Hela proposed. It made a horrifying amount of sense, when laid out that way. ‘But I get it. I don’t want to, but I do. Merlin’s saggy y-fronts. Destiny hates me.’

Hela looked at her in pity. ‘I doubt it. Death is the end of everything. Destiny probably never wants to meet you, but Fate probably loves you.’

‘Fate bloody well adores me,’ Hally muttered under her breath, shaking out the anxiety in her arms. The bees were back. Damn it. ‘Okay, right—Hela? Do you mind if I call you Hela? I have really bad mental health right now and this is all kind of sending me over the edge. Don’t disappear or anything, please. I need someone to watch me, in case I go catatonic.’

‘What in the Allfather’s name do you mean by go catatonic?’ Hela seemed horrified. ‘This is my wife? Why do I have to deal with this madness?’

Luckily for Hela, Hally decided that last bit was aimed at the world in general and not Hally, as she forced herself to start pacing. Movement staved it off. The bees were vibrating all the way down her arms, itching around her shoulders like a bad rash. Go away, she thought desperately, but all her irrational fear was overwhelming her. Fight, flight or freeze—and in recent years, it was freeze that had a tendency to win.

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Hela, clearly speaking to herself. There was a subdued huff and Hally wondered if she’d committed herself to watching Hally break down. That was something, at least. An actual goddess caring enough—or being curious enough, at least—to do as she said.

‘Tell me another story,’ Hally found herself demanding, though her voice felt very far out of her grasp.

Drawling, Hela said, ‘Are you sure about that? My stories are quite gruesome.’

Hally couldn’t help but scoff, her mouth running away from her. ‘I burned my Defence Against the Dark Arts professor alive when I was eleven years old. I wasn’t grossed out by you knifing the rapist murderer, just shocked you took it out of my hands.’

‘Oh, well that makes more sense. How did you burn him?’

Hally remembered ash beneath her fingertips. ‘My mum sacrificed her life for me. The blood protection hurt him, until he found a loophole ‘round it a while later. When he realised I was hiding the philosopher’s stone, he had Quirrell grab me, but he just started burning up. He was possessed by Voldemort,’ Hally added, to give Hela context. At some point, she’d stopped pacing. Hally resumed it when she realised.

‘I didn’t internalise it for years. It took his whole resurrection and Cedric dying for me to realise I’d killed Quirrell. Maybe I was lucky I didn’t realise, but it still wasn’t a good time to work through it. Couldn’t stop drowning in ash in my dreams for days, on top of remember Cedric’s death…’

‘A lover?’

‘A peer,’ Hally murmured, realising she’d stopped again. Then she felt cool hands run along her elbow to her wrist, just centimetres away from the Elder Wand in its holster. The jerk away was instinctual, but Hela deliberately made eye-contact a second later, drawing them close together, until their arms were grasping the others at the elbows and the Cloak hid Hela’s wrists from sight. Hally held her breath as she looked up into her endless eyes. They weren’t like anything she’d ever seen before.

Standing there, staring into the unknown, Hally felt oddly grounded for once. The bees didn’t exist anymore. The world kept on turning as her heartbeat thumped in time with Hela’s. Wisps of blonde framed her angular cheeks, making her look prettier than ever, and whatever Hela saw in Hally’s face as she calmed seemed to be what she was looking for.

‘Your battle sickness is near its end,’ she observed, telling as much as saying. Her hand—larger, longer than Hally’s own—reached up to twine in her copper hair briefly, tugging gently at a bright wave, before she disentangled both her hand and her body from Hally’s immediate presence.

Taking her own half-step back, Hally felt a small sort of embarrassment in being so messed up in front of someone who was not only a veritable stranger—or perhaps acquaintance, at this point—but at someone who presumably had similar responsibilities to her own. There was a level of connection between them that couldn’t be replicated with anyone else in this dimension. It was…soothing.

‘Thank-you,’ she mumbled. Hela continued to observe her, even as she inclined her head in understanding.

‘We will experiment with the summons,’ she told the witch, Hally agreeing with a nod as Hela ordered her, ‘Free me.’

Go, Hally thought in her direction, at the very concept of Hela, Goddess of Death. She imagined it much like apparation—deliberating over her genuine wish and then determining it was what she truly wanted. Return to whence you came, Lonely Queen of Niflheim.

Hela’s expression morphed for a moment, a small smile gracing her face. Before she vanished into the ether, Hally heard a voice in her mind.

I will see you again, Lady of Death.

And it was to Hally’s utter mortification that, after all they’d talked of, from parents to murder to marriage—she realised she had still never told Hela her name.

why is it called the skull throne are celestials that ginormous @seeker7

idk whether to tweet about her

9:03 pm – 18 January 2014

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my wife is neat @seeker7

I mean she stabbed kilgrave without hesitation, that deserves SOME recognition

9:09 pm – 18 January 2014

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Jessica Jones @whiskeytfoxtrotjones replying to @seeker7

Where is he

10:47 pm – 18 January 2014

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my wife is neat @seeker7 replying to @whiskeytfoxtrotjones

??????????? Are you looking for him? Like REALLY looking???

10:52 pm – 18 January 2014

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Jessica Jones @whiskeytfoxtrotjones replying to @seeker7

Wtf do you think??? He went out, then my head went fucking back to normal

10:54 pm – 18 January 2014

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my wife is neat @seeker7 replying to @whiskeytfoxtrotjones

ohhhh this is good actually. means the commands broke the moment it happened. sorry, this just makes me excited for literally everybody else who he’s interacted with.

10:59 pm – 18 January 2014

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Jessica Jones @whiskeytfoxtrotjones replying to @seeker7

Are you in New York? I want to meet.

11:40 pm – 18 January 2014

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my wife is neat @seeker7 replying to @seeker7

Can you get to Bleecker St. in Greenwich Village? I know people there who you’ll want to talk to about all… This. Him. All That.

11:45 pm – 18 January 2014

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Jessica Jones @whiskeytfoxtrotjones replying to @seeker7

Give me an hour.

11:53 pm – 18 January 2014

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Jessica Jones @whiskeytfoxtrotjones

@seeker7 and if this is a scam I’ll beat your ass, you little fucker

11:54 pm – 18 January 2014

Ten minutes after Jessica Jones first started talking to the Ancient One about Kilgrave, she ran steaming out the door. Hally, not thinking, followed her out.

‘Hey!’ she called out as the broken woman stormed down the street, tripping down the stone steps. ‘Hey, Jessica—Jessica! It’s after midnight in New York, don’t be stupid!’ Jessica ignored her, only swaying around a corner. Hally ran to catch up with her, feeling the chill of the evening.

‘Jessica!’ She called out again fruitlessly, grumbling under her breath as she followed her out towards Soho. Another few blocks and they’d be leaving the Village entirely. The wind picked up and she saw a freaky shadow across the road, but put it off as the jitters as she sprinted again to catch up with the other woman.

‘Leave me alone!’ She roared, but Hally wasn’t so easily deterred.

‘It’s late out, at least let me help you home-’

‘You’ve already helped!’ Jessica yelled, panicking. Her breaths came shorter and Hally didn’t know what to do, never having been on this side of things before. ‘He’s dead,’ she choked out, ‘Your freaky girlfriend killed him.’

‘She knifed him and buried him under twelve feet of dirt—if he does come back, I’ll rip him apart myself,’ Hally promised, not addressing the fact that this whole escapade forced her to admit to the Ancient One in front of a stranger that she was, in fact, married. When she got back to the Sanctum, Hally would no doubt be forced to explain everything that happened from the moment she thanked the Ancient One for her advice.

Jessica grabbed onto a nearby fence, clenching it so hard it bent. Hally stared at it for a long moment, nearly missing when Jessica started walking off again. Quickly, she started walking beside her, letting Jessica take them wherever she wanted. It was like she said: the least she could do was get her home.

If she knows where that is right now, Hally thought sceptically, keeping a poker face as she smelt the pungent odour of whisky waft off her again. Of all the types of people she expected Jessica Jones to be, a rip-roaring drunk was not one of them. Each to their own, she supposed in an uneasy fashion, remembering Aunt Marge and the putrid scent of brandy that always overtook Number Four when she visited.

At some point, Hally saw that shadow again. It set her off, the hairs on the back of her neck rising and slowly, she swept the area with her eyes, transitioning into alert mode. Jessica, who seemed to become extra aware when she was drunk, picked up on it immediately.

‘What is it?’ she asked, also scanning the street and nearby alleyways. Hally, meanwhile, had pinpointed their stalker at the end of the street, half-hidden in the shadow of a truck.

‘You should go home,’ Hally whispered to the older woman, ‘I can deal with this.’

Jessica scowled. ‘Are you fucking kidding? No damn way. I owe you, kid.’ And then she tried to step in front of her, which distracted Hally from their watcher as she tried to impress on her the need to get out of there.

‘Leave,’ she said, ‘Jessica, go-’

Then Hally heard a clicking sound echo across the street, one she barely recognised, before a loud BANG went off. Jessica dragged her down a second later, wide-eyed, and the restaurant window behind them fell to pieces with a loud smash.

‘He’s got a gun!’ hissed Jessica before she grabbed onto Hally’s arms and flung her with impossible strength, right down the street. Hally went flying through the air, slamming against the concrete sidewalk just before the intersection.

Gasping in pain—pretty sure she was scraped up and bruised, to say the least, and her new StarkPhone was totalled—Hally looked up in time to witness Jessica push a whole car towards the tall figure stalking forwards. They were definitely a he and they were definitely aiming for Hally, not Jessica. When the car came at him, he picked up speed and slid over-top, shooting in Hally’s direction. This time, one of the bullets hit and Hally couldn’t help the scream that escaped her a second later.

It was like fire, digging into the flesh of her shoulder. She could feel it wedged against the bone—something was splintered, she could already feel the tiny, needle-like shards spreading towards her arm—and another shot rang out and hit her thigh, causing it’s own fountain of pain.

It was everything: pain. Pain, pain, pain. Hally hadn’t ever felt pain like it before. The Cruciatus curse might be hurt, but at least it stopped. The bullet wounds only got hotter and more torturous as time went on, blood soaking into the fabric of her dress, top and bottom.

‘HALLY!’ She heard Jess scream, before she called out to the guy, ‘Hey, asshole! Pick on someone your own size, you little shit!’

Hally managed to turn enough that she could see Jessica get a few hits in, but the guy was well trained. He punched Jessica so hard she staggered back against a car and slid down in shock, hand rising to her cheek in a dazed manner. Then he made his way towards his true target.

Hally couldn’t think. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she really thought she was going to die. Trying to move only made her wounds scream at her, a pained yelp drawn from her throat as the man knelt down at her side, hand reaching out to roughly grasp her face.

‘Recruit,’ he muttered, as if identifying her. Under the dim streetlights, Hally could barely see his face, lank hair falling around his shadowed eyes. The most recognisable feature was the sound: gears whirring softly in the background as he moved his arms. ‘Stop following me. Termination is more than suitable for a rogue Widow…’ he trailed off and Hally didn’t know what he was talking about. She sobbed, deep in her chest, which only pulled at the wound in her shoulder.

She saw the man raise his gun and felt it press against her forehead, dragging against her lightning bolt scar. There was a BANG-

Hally didn’t remember what happened next. She thought she had a conversation with…something.

Niflheim was just as foreboding as she suspected, but the green magic floating out of cracks in the ground didn’t hurt her, warm underneath her fingertips. She laid out on the dirt, not really feeling her surroundings as she played with the wisps of light that reacted to her playful touch.

Faintly, footsteps could be heard behind her, getting louder and louder until they were right behind her head. Hela’s familiar touch pressed against the cool skin of her forehead, before she tucked a strand of red behind her ear.

‘This won’t do. What happened to you, o lady wife?’

‘Hm?’

Hela rolled her eyes, then forcibly dragged her to her feet. Hally stumbled, but she wasn’t really stumbling—she floated, like she did as a ghost. She looked at her feet, playing around with gravity for a moment, until Hela snapped her fingers in front of her eyes and recovered her focus.

‘Wife,’ she growled, ‘What happened? How are you here without me summoning you? There’s something wrong with you. Don’t say you were experimenting.’

‘Huh? Oh, no.’ Hally blinked slowly, remember what happened. She didn’t really have any opinion on it, at the moment, though faintly, she knew she would usually be panicking. ‘I got shot.’

‘You…got shot.’

‘In the head.’

‘In the head.’

‘I think I died.’

‘You think you- no.’ Hela cut herself off, shaking her head. ‘No, we can’t die. The source of your power has to be taken from you or handed off if that little saga about your artefacts was correct. You aren’t dead, dearie.’

‘I am dead,’ Hally argued, frowning. ‘I was shot. Humans are fragile, you know. Brains need to be intact for us to walk about all fine and dandy, and mine’s not right now.’

Hela narrowed her eyes. ‘It isn’t? How long until it is?’

‘Well, it took me a day to heal my cuts and bruises the first time I got injured,’ she told her, not sure why Hela was bringing it up. ‘I once broke my hip landing wrong and it still only took a day. But I think brain matter might take longer. I wouldn’t want to risk it.’

‘No, let’s not do that,’ her wife muttered, clearly thinking. While she thought, Hally got back to playing with the green magic, using her toes this time. It seemed to like her. When a bigger tendril came out of the ground, which cracked to accommodate the energy, Hela absently kicked it back down away from them both

‘Everything is food here to Niflheim,’ Hela warned her off in an unconcerned manner, still scheming. ‘Don’t tease it.’

Hally heard herself giggle. She floated higher into the air, but Hela dragged her back down to ground level. ‘It’s your planet—what if it just wants to play?’

‘It’ll play with it’s dinner,’ said Hela with another roll of her eyes, before looping her arm around Hally’s waist. ‘Come. We shall return you to your body and watch over it until it heals. That’s what you should have done in the first place.’

‘Okay,’ Hally replied, before feeling Hela’s intent dragging them both through a field of stars to the dense chill of a morgue. They stood as ghosts in the shadow of the spotlights—for once invisible, rather than coloured with their souls, as the Ancient One once described it. That’s what astral projection is really supposed to be like…

But the moment Hally saw her body laid out on the table, all her scars on display, the disconnect she felt from reality abruptly faded. Her hand pressed over Hela’s wrist where it wrapped around her torso, as she gasped for breath she didn’t yet need.

Hally had never really taken the time to think about what she looked like. Her scars were a part of her, never anything she saw as particularly ugly or devastating. But on the outside looking in, suddenly she knew why people stared.

Her infamous scar was silver against her skin, clear and bright where it was once bleeding red, sprawling from her hairline all the way through her left eyebrow. Maybe it would have faded in time, but Hally’s body was stuck in stasis, unageing and undying. On the back of her right hand were scribbled words in deliberate chicken-scratch so she wouldn’t have to read Umbridge’s branding words when they healed, and a half foot above that was a long thin scar from Wormtail’s knife, roughly bisecting the gruesome basilisk bite that not even Fawkes’ healing powers were able to erase. The venom was never eradicated, she learnt later, only neutralised. Over the years, it had discoloured her skin and many of the larger veins in her arm a mottled green, occasionally bursting to the surface on her legs and torso and would continue to throughout her lifetime as the venom slowly puddled in her extremities, or so said Madam Pomfrey. Seeing it now made Hally feel sick, Lavender Brown’s continued attempts at trying to make her glamour over it finally making sense. She looked like she’d been poisoned—like that was what killed her. It made the almost unnoticeable numbness she felt in those spots far more understandable.

There were other injuries from times long past. A ring of faded teeth marks on her thigh from Ripper’s jaw at five, stretched and translucent. Long scratch marks down her clavicle where the dementor froze her skin in the summer of ‘95. Heck, even her knobbly knees were grazed and permanently scuffed and shiny from how many times she tripped, running away from Dudley and his gang as a child.

Combined with the lifelessness of her hair and the empty blankness in her sea-green eyes, it just made the healing bullet-hole in her forehead all the more stark. Tiny bits of flesh and brain matter were being slowly pushed out, down into her hairline, as the bullet wriggled its way to freedom.

‘I might be sick,’ Hally muttered, queasy. Hela grunted in agreement, a sneer pulling at her lip.

‘I know not the funerary practices of Midgard, but do you not have rites? Sacred cleansing rituals for the spirit?’

‘This is a hospital, probably,’ Hally explained, glancing towards a set of doors labelled EXIT. ‘Earth law in most countries requires a doctor to examine your body in a morgue in sterile conditions to determine cause of death, usually to make sure natural deaths really were natural and to investigate murders and suicides. I was involved in a crime, so they’ll have to officially autopsy my body as a murder victim.’

‘Ah, so the funeral rites come afterwards?’

‘When the body is released to the family, I think, yeah. The Order should claim me,’ Hally muttered, ‘and fight for religious exemption before that. The government shouldn’t be allowed to realise I’m healing post-mortem.’

‘Hm,’ murmured Hela, hand stroking along the soft skin of her torso in an idle manner. It took Hally a ridiculous amount of time to register the touch as one upon her bare flesh.

UH-

‘Oh look,’ said Hela, chin brushing the crown of her head as she looked to the entrance to the morgue. ‘Someone’s here.’

Hally, frazzled, looked over at the doors and almost did a double take. I’m blind without my glasses. It can’t be him. Speed-walking into the morgue was a man in an expensive suit and sunglasses, a harried morgue assistant at his back.

Except, it was.

‘Mr Stark,’ said the assistant, panicked, ‘I know she’s your- uh, associate, but-’

‘But nothing,’ Tony Stark snapped, stopping by Hally’s body and looking at her face. A moment later his face spasmed and she watched, captivated, as he took his sunglasses off to stare at her dead body.

‘We really didn’t expect to have her here,’ the assistant told him, squirming, ‘I mean, no-one expects the Black Widow dead on their table.’

Excuse me? Hally listened in on the conversation, baffled.

‘That’s not Natasha,’ said Tony Stark, swallowing, ‘Just a kid who looks stupidly like her. But it I didn’t know better-’ he cut himself off, turning back to the morgue assistant. Pointing his sunglasses at the young man, he said, ‘You keep her here. I need to track down Romanov and get her in here, ASAP. I can’t have anyone claiming the body before I show her this disaster.’

Hela murmured in her ear, ‘I’d ask what was going on, but this man is explaining adequately enough.’

‘Yeah,’ Hally hissed harshly, ‘but you’re missing the context that is the fact he’s Tony Stark, the Iron Man. He’s one of the Avengers, a superhero surrounded with people like Thor and Captain America. I was staying under the radar. This is not under the radar!’

Meanwhile, the conversation in the living world continued, the morgue assistant looking between the body and the millionaire, questioning, ‘Is she her sister?’

‘We’d better hope so,’ said Stark, grim. ‘God help us if someone has gone and cloned her, or worse. You can figure that out, right? Cloned cells look different from normal cells.’

‘I mean, the markers could have indicators-’

‘Do you have a lab? Can we test that? Jay,’ he put his glasses on and Hally watched as tiny holograms appeared at the edge of the frames. ‘Seriously, we need to track down Nat. Any luck?’

Even craning her ears, Hally was barely able to hear the reply. ‘Captain Rogers has reluctantly agreed to put out the word. He has said he will inform her of the emergency.’

 ‘Good, keep tabs on the hospital,’ he said, tapping the edge of his glasses again. The holograms disappeared. He pointed at the assistant again. ‘Don’t let anyone claim her. A direct relative is on the way.’

Despite the entire conversation they’d just had discussing the matter, the assistant was quick to agree, vacating the morgue on Stark’s heels. Hally felt a headache coming on.

‘This is a nightmare,’ she said, glancing at the still-present bullet hole. What she wouldn’t do to slip into her body again and escape. A maw grew deep in her stomach, a void that she wanted to swallow her up. Hally didn’t even know where her belongings were. Did the hospital have them? Were they in police custody?

Even her sling ring was gone. That couldn’t be allowed to fall into the hands of strangers. Hally didn’t know what the Order’s protocol was there or what the Ancient One would have her do, either. If it came out she couldn’t die, how would her fellow sorcerers react? All her fellow acolytes- no. Hally rubbed her face. No, she wasn’t an acolyte anymore, was she? Master Hallen, that was what the Ancient One called her. She was a Master Sorcerer.

The arm around her bare waist tightened, reminding her of her vulnerable state. Hally forcibly ignored the aching pit in her stomach growing wider as Hela spoke again.

‘I can smell you spiralling,’ she pronounced, before drawing her across the room to a convenient desk, demanding she sit.

Once Hally was seated, Hela stepped back and sat herself on the edge of an empty body bench, glowering at her.

‘Tell me about your death,’ she ordered her, to Hally’s morbid amusement. But Hela wasn’t finished. ‘The first one.’

A chill passed through her and for a long moment, Hally considered denying her. Hela wasn’t owed her life-story. Hela didn’t have the right to ask her about that. But then she remembered the story Hela had told her just yesterday afternoon, about toppling a monarchy to prove to her father her beliefs were just and falling in love to do it.

What was her son’s name? Hally wondered, sure that Hela gave her enough clues to guess, if she hadn't said it already. It was so personal a piece of information—and Hela had sounded so proud of how he sowed chaos across Asgard, despite how she spoke of him and Helblindi’s assumptions.

And then she was imprisoned on a cursed planet. How long had it been since someone visited her? Since Hela talked to someone equal in power to her?

‘…okay,’ she said, heart quickly growing full with sympathy, despite the ruthlessness and militant nature of Hela’s decisions. Hadn’t Hally put her loved ones first before? Hadn’t she been willing to hand over the prophecy to Lucius Malfoy if it meant her friends leaving the Department of Mysteries alive? From what Hela had told her, Hally thought, she only wanted the approval of a father who went on to become the worst sort of hypocrite in the eyes of his people and the universe.

Hally grasped the arms of her chair and nodded. ‘Okay,’ she repeated, before beginning the long, sad tale of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Chapter Text

much cake such delishus @mikejawowski1

@seeker7 You missed all of your clubs the past two days and work shifts, too. No-one knows where you are. If you don’t reply soon, Layla will call missing persons.

7:32 pm – 20 January 2014

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the ping pong life @chaumein replying to @mikejawowski1

As a friend of hers at @BoksiInc trust me when I say we’re all worried. The company will be coming out with a statement directed at affiliates and family members.

10:14 am – 21 January 2014

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@chaumein tagged @mikejawowski1 in a post

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Boksi Incorporated @BoksiInc

[LHPStatement14-01-21.pdf] The following attached document contains the official statement regarding the disappearance of L. Hallen Potter/@seeker7 .

12:00 pm – 21 January 2014

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Boksi Incorporated @BoksiInc

Ms Potter is a beloved member of the Boksi Inc family and would ask that official inquiries on her disappearance be directed to our public relations team.

12:02 pm – 21 January 2014

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Jessica Jones @whiskeytfoxtrotjones

@BoksiInc Wow if that isn’t the shittiest statement I’ve ever seen. Fucking dude with a metal arm is on the loose and you monks don’t even let me tell the cops

1:15 pm – 21 January 2014

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You Know Who I Am @TonyStarkOfficial replying to @whiskeytfoxtrotjones

Expect a call from my team.

5:01 pm – 21 January 2014

Studying her bleeding corpse, staring at where the bullet had finally wiggled its way out of her brain, Hally plucked the bond between her astral form and her physical body in an experimental fashion. There was a rightness, like they were perfectly in key. Unlike even just as hour ago, Hally felt like she could slip inside and wake up like after any normal astral projection, with zero consequences.

‘I think it’s time,’ she said, informing the snoozing Hela, who grumbled to wakefulness in the corner of the room. Hally repeated herself. ‘I think it’s time. My body is all healed.’

‘Fabulous,’ the goddess groaned, stretching out her limbs with several liberating cracking sounds. Hally likened her to a panther, sleek and dangerous as she stood up in a single fluid motion, prowling forwards to where Hally’s body laid on the slab. ‘Took you long enough. Perhaps practice will make it easier in time.’

‘I hope so,’ Hally muttered to herself, before tentatively reaching out to briefly touch her partner’s arm. ‘Thank-you. For staying.’

Hela avoided her eyes. ‘I only did it to get away from Niflheim. It wasn’t even very pleasant.’

‘Alright,’ Hally entertained her lies graciously, hesitant to prod the issue. They’d still only known each other a little less than two days. Hally couldn’t expect Hela’s trust immediately. ‘Will you be going, then?’

‘Banish me,’ she demanded, even as her flexing hand surreptitiously snaked around Hally’s freckled hip. Hela didn’t seem to acknowledge the faint flush it caused, Hally in turn stubbornly refusing to bring up the issue of her nudity, reflected on her astral form by her undressed body. One would think that after thirteen years existing in such a state, she would be used to it all—but even Hally forgot sometimes that she was invisible for the vast majority of it.

Standing like that in front of Hela without remark was a matter of pride, however. Hally rejected the idea of being seen as vain or self-conscious by such a put together woman, especially after having to explain her mental health issues. Hela’s own lack of admonishment for Hally existing as she did, made Hally even more determined not to cause a fuss over something Hela probably found little issue in.

It’s just my body, Hally reminded herself, repeating it like a mantra twice before Hela forcibly stepped into her personal space again and locked eyes with her. The sheer challenge she radiated from her eyes and the tilt of her shoulders caused an instinctual reaction in Hally—pushing her to fight right back, as she always used to. Return to your queendom, she ordered. Leave me.

The hand left her hip and the presence of the Goddess of Death evaporated, her power fading from Midgard-Realm. Hally still didn’t understand how their connection worked and suspected she wouldn’t for some time, but she felt secure in knowing that neither of them would surprise each other, provided the summoning worked equally both ways.

Left alone in the morgue, Hally turned to her body and was about to slide into place when the doors opened. Immediately, Hally stopped, not wanting to wake up in front of someone who might…start…screaming…

Copper hair just like her own was pulled back into a loose bun, revealed when the new woman pushed back the black cotton hood of her otherwise leather jacket. Hally was the same height as her and the same build, though Hally was frailer from what Daniel called childhood malnutrition—it stunted her growth, he said—and the woman’s eyes were an indistinguishable colour in the dim light, dark against her pale skin.

The woman was also older than Hally, with differently defined features to match, though there was something to be said about doppelgangers looking identical, even decades apart. Hally would place her at around thirty-five, which was one of the many things she found herself cataloguing as the other woman inspected Hally’s cold body.

Slowly, Hally saw her chin begin to tremble, her hand ghosting over her cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to her body, ‘He thought you were me, god…I’m so sorry.’

‘He was after you?’ Hally flinched, before her eyes widened in realisation. This woman, she was- ‘You’re the Black Widow!’

The super-assassin was still staring at Hally’s body, almost teary. For a moment she looked away, cursing in a foreign language, kicking the next slab along before turning back to Hally’s corpse. Then she moved to touch Hally’s thigh, pressing her fingers deep into the muscle, as if searching for something. Hally almost burst in indignation, but the Black Widow—Natasha Romanov, according to the papers—seemed ridiculously relieved when she found nothing, the same hand quickly brushing over the equivalent location in her own leg as she retreated.

‘What were you trying to find? Why are you even here?’ Hally didn’t understand how the Avengers had gotten involved with her murder. Iron Man, and now the Black Widow? Who was next? Captain America? Maybe they found the guy who shot her—maybe he came after Romanov after he realised Hally was the wrong person.

Frustrated, Hally clenched her fists and yelled, ‘Who are you? And why do we look the same? Is that why you’re here?’

Romanov didn’t answer. Obviously. And whatever thoughts she had, she kept them to herself. Hally was weirded out by how she entwined their hands together, not understanding why Romanov was acting as if she knew her.

I don’t know her, she thought, before Hally was suddenly struck by her own presumption like a smack across the face. Wait…do I?

Sometimes Hally was dumb, she’d admit it, but she always got to the point eventually. It was that simple question—do I know her?—that prompted the idea that no, maybe she didn’t. Which maybe was why Romanov was acting so goddamn guilty.

The Ancient One said Hally was grown in a laboratory. And they were nearly identical.

‘…Mum?’

Still trembling, Romanov started speaking to her dead body in that same foreign language from before. Hally had no idea what she was saying, but she could hear the emotion in her voice. It all sounded like an apology and a promise all rolled in one—a story, or maybe an explanation. There were some questions. Hally desperately wanted to ask her own, though the more she listened, the more she began to firmly believe the Black Widow was speaking Russian. For the first time since learning all the major languages used throughout the Order, Hally wished she had branched out, past Mandarin and Welsh and Tamil and all the other tongues she needed to speak to her friends. For Merlin’s sake, she learnt Danish for Kaecilius.

What do I do? Hally thought. Clearly, the Black Widow was invested. Hally would already have had trouble integrating back into the land of the living, but if she had the attention of the Avengers, it would be nearly impossible…unless they helped her disappear. They saw themselves as the defenders of humanity. Hally was newly immortal and couldn’t hide it by herself. They would help her…right?

Hally considered her options, licking her cracked lips as she added in the possibility that the Black Widow was her mother. It didn’t make a relationship, but traditionally, humans involved in making babies—especially when there were no other people to muddy up the pedigree—quickly got attached, to the point of self-immolation.

Should Hally pursue her idea of informing the Avengers she was especially long-lived, what would Romanov think? It was a heavy burden to bear for even her dearest friends in this life, knowing they were leaving her behind. Hally was lucky enough not to have reached that point yet. Equally, if Hally didn’t inform Romanov of her circumstances and ran off after she vacated the morgue, then it was more than likely she would be hunted—by not only both her and the other Avengers, but probably law enforcement trying to find her dead body. Not only was that unideal for Hally personally, but it could mean catastrophe for the Order, who were publicly associated with her.

Romanov then came to the end of whatever she wanted to say to Hally’s corpse, reaching up to brush her hair. Hally’s window was closing if she wanted to resurrect in front of her. Proving she was what she claimed was only the first step, for that route.

It was only when Romanov began to turn away that Hally gave in. ‘Screw it!’ she muttered, before hurriedly diving back into her body.

Like hell was she letting another mother disappear from her life.

Hally’s first thought upon resurrecting was that it was freezing. Her second was that she needed air. Gasping, Hally almost immediately choked as what air she inhaled froze her from the inside out. She sat up on the slab—which might have been a mistake, in retrospect—and struggled to regain her equilibrium as her head spun viciously and made her oxygen deprivation that much harder to handle.

She heard a voice echo through the morgue, but Hally could only ignore it as she pressed her hand up against her chest. Her heart was stuttering, struggling to restart.

Come on!

A warm hand pressed against her shoulder, before another came to settle on her knee. Hally looked wildly at the other woman through the gloom, voice cracking as she—madly—attempted to speak.

‘Who-’ Her lungs failed her instantly and Hally felt a soul-deep instinct, telling her she was in trouble. She almost gave in to the urge to cast the same spell that ventilated her lungs, from the early days, but then her heart thudded in an even beat and her lungs expanded. Blessed air filled her chest and within seconds, everything calmed, though her heart was drumming almost painfully against her sternum.

Romanov, she found, was still standing at her side, badly hiding the shock on her face. Hally glanced at her through the curtain of her hair, a wave of awkwardness prevailing as she struggled to form words. What could she say to her? Oh, hey there, I’m your immortal witch daughter who grew up in another dimension!

Yeah, that would totally go down well.

Luckily for Hally, Romanov took the lead. ‘The headlines have been screaming I’m dead for the past two days. They even have a photo of your corpse in The Times. It’s a good thing they’ve yet to identify you, or you’d be legally dead already.’

‘I think I am legally dead,’ Hally rasped, gulping down air as she took a second to breathe before continuing. ‘Just because I haven’t been identified, doesn’t mean I haven’t been labelled dead yet.’

Romanov’s smile was fleeting, oscillating between humour and panic. ‘Did the Red Room raise you?’

Hally shook her head, a migraine forming between her eyes. ‘What’s the Red Room?’ Coming back from the dead was awful.

‘No, then.’ The Black Widow glanced behind her, then said, ‘Wait a moment. I’ll get you something to wear.’

Hally flinched on automatic, barely preventing herself from summoning the Cloak as Romanov slipped past her, the reminder of her nudity prodding the old wound sharply. Romanov was not Hela.

Hela was the only exception she had, apparently.

Glancing back, Hally saw the older woman bring over what she assumed were a set of hospital scrubs. The world was blurry without her glasses, but Hally could still see the pale shade of blue, the same as the morgue assistant had been wearing the day before with Stark, and later, when he put her in the fridge. A doctor in white had been the one to bring her back on the slab and cut her fingernails, for whatever reason.

Romanov gave her space after Hally accepted her offering, but watched closely as she ripped open the thin plastic bag. Bees prickled under her skin.

‘Your effects are upstairs,’ said Romanov as Hally hauled on the shirt, before proposing, ‘I can collect them, if you want.’

‘Yeah. If that’s alright.’ Hally stood to put on the trousers, willing the bees away. It didn’t quite work.

Critiquing her outfit with narrowed eyes, the Black Widow said, ‘We’ll get you a hospital gown and take you out through the main entrance. Some paraphernalia from the gift shop should help us blend in. If I lead you to a public bathroom, will you wait there for me?’

Hesitating, Hally ran the plan through her mind, guessing the Black Widow would retrieve their excess inventory. ‘I can,’ she said, before asking, ‘Why are you helping me?’

There was a stony silence until, finally, she said, ‘You can’t guess?’

Hally swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded.

Jerking her head roughly towards the door, Romanov finished with a short, ‘Come on,’ leading her out of the morgue.

She followed without a word.

In the underground parking of Stark Tower, Hally tried to focus on the carved texture of her sling ring, fiddling with the golden bar linking the two individual rings beneath together. The Black Widow had only looked at her curiously when she prioritised it among the few personal effects the hero returned with, Hally trusting her Hallows to remain beyond the veil, after assuming with some certainty at their lack that they followed her to the other plane when she died.

Her StarkPhone, miraculously, was undamaged from the confrontation, but she ignored it and stuck it in her back-pocket, hearing the ghost of Mad-Eye Moody growling about blown-up buttocks in her head. Similarly, her glasses had barely been scuffed at all, though Hally occasionally got distracted by the new mark on her right lens.

‘Anything you see here remains private,’ Romanov instructed her when they entered an elevator, the doors closing behind them with only the faintest bit of noise, more related to the changing pressure than any mechanism. For a short while, they rode the lift together in silence, until finally, Hally cracked.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me anything? Not even my name?’

Romanov’s gaze was hawklike. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Hally,’ she said, bold and certain. The bees finally disappeared. ‘Lily Hallen Potter, Junior. My adoptive mother named me after herself. My dad was the one who got the whole Hally thing going, though.’

The hero softened minutely. ‘You grew up with parents.’

‘Yeah,’ she shrugged, before purposefully remembering her falsified backstory. ‘Though they died when I was a baby. Grew up in an orphanage. I didn’t know anything about them until I went to their old boarding school. I’m lucky the school managed to get in contact with me—they arranged it all after I was born, a full ten years before I went.’

The lift doors opened and the two of them exited into a wide, open space, some kind of living area with a kitchen tucked into a corner. Hally could see stairs beside a long corridor leading up to a second floor overlooking the living area, and a whole entire pool behind tinted glass on the opposite side. It was the most expensive apartment Hally had ever seen and made even her poncy flat look pretty average.

‘After they adopted you,’ the Black Widow then corrected her in an uneasy fashion. Hally blinked in confusion, glancing back at her as they slowed to a stop by the long velvet couch, which conflictingly was littered with cheap-brand Avengers cushions you could get at the local Walmart, and even a kid-sized Iron Man blanket.

It was at that point Hally realised that she’d said after I was born, which probably made the Black Widow feel…something complicated, to say the least.

‘…yeah,’ she replied eventually, just as apprehensive.

Blowing out a puff of air, Hally decided to be the mature one, dropping down onto the nearest armchair, laying back on the luxuriously stuffed fabrics. Romanov was quick to mimic her, sitting on the sofa itself and kicking off her shoes, tucking them under the coffee table. Hally, only wearing a set of flip-flops that were sold at the hospital gift-shop for some reason, didn’t copy her. She felt weird not wearing boots, after so long wearing both her tall green ones and the set from Kamar-Taj—and in any case, Hally couldn’t convince herself to take her shoes off in someone else’s home. That was just odd.

Again, there was quiet. The moment Hally felt the bees begin to prick down her arms, she jumped into conversation in an attempt to ward them off.

‘I don’t know where I come from,’ she said rapidly, apropos of nothing, ‘Except that the facility where I was born was in Serbia. It was completely wiped off the map the same day I got out. Oh, and I was grown. They didn’t use a surrogate.’ Hally added the last bit on whim in case Romanov got any ideas.

Something in her wanted this woman to be her mother, a desperate, lonely part of her, and Hally didn’t want her even thinking for a moment she belonged to anyone else, just because she never developed inside of her. Even if it wasn’t true, she wanted this option—this first option—to be as true as she could make it.

Romanov rubbed her eyes at the words, swallowing audibly.

After a moment, she spoke to Hally in a blunt manner. ‘The organisation that trained me from childhood removed my reproductive organs when I was fifteen. It was younger than usual, but it fits the time-frame and wasting a chance to experiment wouldn’t be like them. You- you are a spitting image of me.’

Romanov stopped abruptly enough that Hally thought she was finished sharing, but then she looked away in what looked like fear.

‘I don’t know who your father is.’

It was said in a murmur and Hally found herself rubbing at her eyes under her glasses, unusually upset—and not her usual kind. This was loss and sympathy rolled into one, instead of fear and paranoia. But her disquiet was clearly shared and there was nothing Hally could do to make it any better for either of them.

I might as well go for the hard questions, she thought, wanting to wrap a shield around her heart.

‘I’m not supposed to exist, am I?’ She stumbled over her words nonetheless, faltering as the Black Widow refused to reply. A kind of furore rising, Hally repeated in a brittle voice, ‘Am I?’

Her mother’s scorn burned. ‘No. No, you’re not supposed to exist.’

‘Then what do I do? Why am I here?’ Hally demanded answers. Her fists curled on the arms of her chair. ‘You got me out of the morgue, brought me here, of all places. I could have gone home. I could have told my friends everything was fine, that they didn’t have to worry.’

Romanov scoffed. ‘And where’s home, huh?’

With pinpoint accuracy, Hally pointed east. ‘Six blocks that way.’ She saw her mother’s surprise but didn’t let her reply. ‘I live on your doorstep, regularly walk past this very tower and you still didn’t know I existed. Getting rusty?’

‘I kept my picture out of the papers until recently,’ said Romanov in return, lightly accusing, ‘Did you consider it, before now?’

Her flush gave her away. Grinding her teeth, Hally admitted the truth. ‘No.’

‘Then neither of us bear any blame for the matter. Be angry at the whole damn world for its unkindness, but don’t lay the onus of others’ choices on yourself or me,’ she then said and Hally…Hally was unprepared. It was like speaking to Daniel, if Daniel included himself in his own edicts.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled immediately, reflexively, dragging her hands from the chair to her lap. A large part of Hally still wanted to fight, to rage and cry at the injustice of it all—and Romanov was an easy target. She broke away from her Scarlet Room, whatever it was called; couldn’t she figure out pieces of her body were being used to create Hally, too?

But what little Romanov said resonated with her. Hally thought of Regulus Black and the locket horcrux he stole for the greater good. Professor Dumbledore died for that fake and while Hally remembered obsessing over his identity and his cleverness, she also remembered blaming him for Dumbledore’s death. If Regulus hadn’t stolen the original horcrux, then maybe her headmaster would have lived—or at least lived long enough to tell her what to do. Intellectually, she knew Snape would have killed him as planned anyway. Still.

She had blamed Regulus for something he could never have known would occur. It wasn’t fair of her to blame him for a death that happened because he did something very brave and very right. It wouldn’t have been fair to confront him either over Dumbledore’s death, like she was now with Romanov not knowing she existed, had he lived for her to try.

‘I’m sorry,’ Hally said again, calmer after she’d had a second to think. Romanov nodded in acceptance, before listening as Hally continued. ‘If you want to, I’d like to know you. As- as my parent, I mean. If that’s what we are.’ She had to add the last part, however belatedly. Despite everything, their only proof was looks and those too could be coincidental, no matter how unbelievable it may seem.

Romanov didn’t quite flinch, but there was a certain taken-aback expression she let slip. Maybe it was because it was her own face, but Hally felt she could read her. Nevertheless, her head dipped as she let out a shuddering breath, before giving a firmer nod.

She stood, gesturing to the overhanging floor. ‘We’re the same size. Let’s get you some real clothes. How are you with black?’

‘I prefer primary colours.’

‘Ha,’ the Black Widow laughed, her lip curling upwards as she teased. ‘Maybe I’ve got red. Maybe.’

Hally forced herself to grin, standing to walk alongside her to the staircase. ‘I was on my house team in boarding school. Red and gold. Our rivals were silver and green, so I hated green, obviously…but then it grew on me. Yellow and blue, too. I have these super neat green boots, the scaly type. Chau says I’m a fashion disaster.’

Romanov shook her head in, if not true, then extremely well-acted bemusement. ‘Clint’s going to laugh himself sick. I’m known as a femme fatale in certain circles, and you can’t be a femme fatale without designer clothes.’

Hally snickered genuinely then, before they went upstairs into a long corridor. It split off halfway down into a crossroads and Hally counted at least seven doors on each of the eight walls, though she couldn’t see if there was another one straight down at the far end due to a convenient ceiling-high pot plant. Romanov made sure to point out a hidden spiral staircase left at the end of the cross, on the side that didn’t face the waterfront, explaining that it was a fire-door leading all the way from the penthouse to the basement floors.

‘It’s locked tight, normally,’ she said. ‘You need either a keycard with access or permission from JARVIS to enter and exit.’

‘What’s JARVIS?’ Hally asked curiously, raising an eyebrow as Romanov glanced at the ceiling.

‘JARVIS? Want to introduce yourself?’

‘Good evening, Miss Potter,’ said a quiet British voice, baffling Hally for a moment before JARVIS further explained himself. ‘I am JARVIS, an artificial intelligence created by Mr Stark to manage his affairs. I have taken the liberty of creating a limited access security clearance for you on Ms Romanov’s behalf. You may pick up a physical copy at reception tomorrow morning or have it delivered to the Avenger Suite.’

‘Oh, uh, thanks, Mr JARVIS,’ she replied, quickly comparing the concept with that of the Hogwarts ghosts, but more intense.

‘You’re welcome, Miss Potter. I am available at all times, should you need assistance.’

‘Yeah,’ Romanov said when he finished, still smiling, ‘That’s JARVIS. One of a kind.’

‘That is quite untrue, Ms Romanov. As a matter of fact, I have several proverbial ‘siblings’, who each have their own unique responsibilities.’

Entertained by the conversation, Hally listened to her mother and the AI banter for the short time it took to reach the next door past the crossway. Inside was a simple suite, a double-bed pressed up against the farthest wall from the floor to ceiling window, with a long chest of drawers parallel and two doors between on either side. One was plain, blending into the wall, while the other was the sliding type and made of a dark mahogany wood, open to reveal a deep-set closet that seemed to run along the full breadth of the left-hand wall.

‘In here,’ Romanov directed her to the closet, ‘unless you’d like a shower. Not to sound rude, but you smell like disinfectant—the type they use to clean dead bodies with.’

Hally blanched, not at the disinfectant, but at the reminder that her corpse had pushed a whole bullet plus gunk out of her forehead—gunk which was barely wiped off by the bamboozled attending mortician that morning. Hally had seen streaks on her skin while in her ghost form. ‘I’ll take the shower, thanks.’

Romanov gestured to the plain door. ‘Over there.’

‘Thanks,’ said Hally in a hasty manner, before diving for the bathroom. The sooner she got the all the brain matter off her forehead, the sooner her nightmarish daydreams of being covered in the grossest substance in the universe would end.

And then she’d talk to her mother again.

Chapter Text

‘JARVIS,’ Natasha mumbled the moment the bathroom door closed, hiding her face in her hand, like it would make her forget the events of the past two days. ‘Get me everything you can on her, please. I don’t know if I’m allowed to ask that of you, but-’

‘But nothing, Ms Romanov,’ said JARVIS, unusually sombre. ‘While Mr Stark has had previous dealings with potential heirs to his legacy, none have been quite so clearly related to him in the visual aspect. Unfortunately, as per protocol when adding security clearances for others to shared floors, I have already discretely informed the other Avengers of your company.’

Natasha waved him off with a minute gesture. She’d learnt from Clint about the protocol when he asked about inviting in secret guests, wanting to give Laura a tour while the kids were on summer camp. It wasn’t ideal that everyone knew about Hally, but it would have come out imminently. Might as well let JARVIS take the initial heat.

‘Thank-you,’ she replied, after a second of thought. ‘Send it to my phone.’

‘Your StarkPhone or your Nokia?’ His voice was even, but the implicit judgement was palpable.

‘My StarkPhone,’ Natasha answered, picking it up from her side-table and turning it on. She left it behind when she followed Steve—searching for the Winter Soldier while Hydra still roamed the globe in search of him too would have been dangerous if she had a technological calling card such as a StarkPhone—and had almost forgotten about the background she’d set. Even as the files began arriving on her device, she looked fondly at the picture of her and Bruce in full formal dress at a charity gala. The paparazzi had taken it, so they looked damn good.

‘Miss Potter is requesting the use of your toiletries,’ JARVIS informed her politely.

Natasha’s lip twitched, wondering if she believed the no bathroom camera policy or not. She wouldn’t put it past Hally to be suspicious, especially after JARVIS answered her query. ‘Tell her to have at it. Is this all you found?’

‘I am currently in the process of retrieving her records from Social Services, but I have yet to find any publicly accessible data on where she was educated.’

Frowning, Natasha began sifting through the information. Preliminary information on her current address pointed at an apartment block that—as she said—was only six blocks from Avengers Tower, in a building that was brushed by a leviathan during the 2012 Invasion. It didn’t collapse, but had major structural work done to one corner, according to the building report JARVIS sent across.

Hally’s previous building on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen had apparently been demolished in a similar crash, but that one was caught on camera. The video was shaky and short, but Natasha saw a clear outline of the Hulk grabbing the tail of the downed space whale and using it as a baseball bat against one of its fellows. A neighbouring building was hit a moment later and she winced. The first invasion hadn’t been pretty in the clean-up—but then again, they were lucky the National Guard were called in time to assist in the battle at all. Natasha doubts the six of them would have been able to keep it contained to the island for much longer. Even then, they all made a mess of things, trying to take down the Chitauri.

Forcing herself not to think on the Invasion any longer than necessary, Natasha delved into the other files. Hally’s qualifications weren’t accessible as of yet, according to JARVIS, but her employment records showed she worked at a jeweller’s nearby as a member of security, with notable ties to a company called Boksi Incorporated. Through the company, JARVIS had also managed to find her Twitter again—@seeker7. Natasha wondered where the name came from.

Suitably for someone her age, there wasn’t much else of her private life available online without hacking Social Services and her personal bank accounts, both of which Natasha guessed JARVIS was working on somehow in any case. Knowing that, she took a dive into Hally’s social media, ready for anything.

Natasha, of course, was aware Hally had a Twitter before she went to the hospital morgue, as it had been Tony who had picked up the mention of the Winter Soldier via JARVIS on the website. He had sent her what information she needed, including how suspected prostitute Jessica Jones had been with her during the attack—Natasha’s next stop after the morgue, until Hally’s rude re-awakening from the dead—and that they had the ID of the dead girl with her face. In truth, JARVIS had probably been information-gathering for somewhere around seventeen hours, by that point.

The first tweets were, funnily enough, Hally’s original discussion with Jessica Jones that led to their meeting. With a white-knuckled grip, Natasha reread the conversation that implied Hally had been in contact with a man who could work mind control from an unlimited distance and had in fact been there when the man was stabbed by her ‘wife’. It was to Natasha’s misfortune that it was the first time Hally had ever mentioned such a woman—the first domino to fall that led to the ensuing series of dramatic events.

But after she passed the exchange, things lightened. Hally clearly had several friends, family even, whom Natasha briefly investigated and found were also affiliated with Boksi Incorporated, each possessing different relationships with her. With a word to JARVIS, Natasha had the names of two: Daniel Drumm, one of the few public faces of Boksi Incorporated, and Jonathan Pangborn, a mechanic in New York. The AI even found the identity of the girl, Michelle, from the cropped picture of what turned out to be a group photo of the Midtown High School of Science and Technology Art Club.

Natasha was distracted by the picture. She stared at the full shot, hypnotised by the sight of her younger doppelganger standing in a group of nine, grinning from behind two preteens. One was the girl, Michelle, and the other, a boy with his hair spiked into a silly mohawk. Hally’s arm was casually draped over his shoulder around his neck, her banded ring ever-present on her fingers that Natasha suspected meant something to her. Hally looked happy in the photo. You can’t give her that, her mind whispered, before Natasha catalogued the lack of noise from the bathroom. The water might be muffled, but it wasn’t silent, no matter how much Tony liked to brag about smart design and sound-proofed walls.

Setting her phone aside in lieu of collecting Hally a change of clothes, Natasha ducked briefly into her closet, taking out a pair of grey joggers, some underwear and a t-shirt two sizes too small that she’d been meaning to get rid of. Natasha had moved on from acting the young college girl who squeezed into tight clothes on missions—she’d passed that point a year or two ago, actually. Hally, at least, might benefit from taking them, given her smaller frame at the moment. Natasha swore she saw the bumps of her spine when she sat up on that morgue table.

Pressing down her instinctual shiver at the memory, Natasha attempted to concentrate on what to do next, but she couldn’t help but wonder. How did Hally do it? Was it magic? Did she have a healing factor and was it that strong? If it was, Natasha almost pitied her, but functional immortality could not have come at a better time, considering their re-evaluation on the existence of alien life. Thor alone had lived thousands of years more than any mere human could, and he was barely even considered middle-aged.

Still, it didn’t stop Natasha from being spooked at seeing a corpse come to life.

As she predicted, Hally exited the bathroom soon after she’d collected clothes for her, clutching the towel like a lifeline around her chest. Her red hair had darkened under the stream of the shower, already looking a bit scraggly at the ends and in need of a brush. It was too much like Natasha’s own for the assassin to ignore the pounding in her chest that screamed her it’s her it’s real.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled when Natasha offered the pile, quickly returning to the bathroom. Natasha was left waiting impatiently for another few minutes, struggling to keep her heartrate level. She nearly jumped when her phone hummed with a message, eyes dragging across the bed to the lit-up screen.

Tony: Lunch in the penthouse with the whole Scooby Gang. Bring Chuckie.

The screen darkened in sync with her narrowed eyes as Natasha absorbed the newest of nicknames. ‘JARVIS?’ she said, perfectly calm. ‘Tell Tony that had better be a Rugrats reference.’

With an audible sigh, JARVIS dramatically informed her, ‘I’m afraid that sir was indeed referring to the nineteen eighty-eight classic, ‘Child’s Play’.’

‘I can kill him with a single paperclip,’ she replied, before Hally exited the bathroom again with her glasses in hand, nose wrinkling as she overheard Natasha’s comment.

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Tony Stark,’ Natasha told her, wondering whether to explain. Hally didn’t seem terribly interested, though, just slightly amused. She was also suspiciously…dry. Natasha wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of the light or not, but the Black Widow genuinely believed Hally’s hair was barely even damp, an impossible feat given it was soaking a few minutes ago.

Clearing her throat slightly, Natasha pasted on a bland smile and grabbed her phone, saying, ‘He invited us to lunch. It’s nearly twelve.’

Hally predictably balked. ‘Lunch with Iron Man?’

‘Lunch with me and my friends,’ Natasha hesitantly corrected, not wanting to give her the wrong impression. If Hally really was related to her, then their earlier agreement stood. Natasha would spend time with her as a parent. That meant, Natasha believed, that Hally should know her friends as more than just their superhero identities.

‘Uh, okay,’ the girl muttered, vulnerability visible for a few moments before she breathed in, clearing her face. Standing there with a straight back and an expectant expression, Natasha could imagine Hally in the Red Room, taking her place in every fight, every lesson. ‘Are we eating in the tower?’

‘Upstairs,’ Natasha said, before going to the door, waiting for Hally to catch up before she finally opened it, fingers brushing the sleeve of her tiny yellow shirt. It fit her perfectly. Natasha wasn’t sure that was a good thing or not.

Glancing back at her from the corridor, Hally smiled nervously, pushing her tortoiseshell glasses further up her nose, asking, ‘Do you think they’ll like me?’

‘Yes,’ Natasha said, plainly and honestly. Already, she thought Hally had wriggled her way into her heart. There was a place there she’d kept all to herself, meant for things she couldn’t have, and Hally had found it and made a home there. ‘Yes,’ she said again, believing it.

Hally ran a hand through her loose hair and took another breath. ‘Onwards, then, I suppose.’

'Onwards,' the Black Widow murmured in agreement, finally closing her door. She gestured down the corridor with her chin. ‘This way.’

God, Natasha thought, scared out of her mind, I’m going to make a terrible parent.

Merlin, Hally thought, scared out of her mind, I’m going to make a terrible daughter.

The Penthouse was unlike the Avenger Suite, sprawling instead of efficient, with a view of the city even better than the floors below. Hally figured it was because of the height—it was one of the tallest buildings in the area.

There were a few sofas near the windows, but they were abandoned at the moment, the kitchen set into a dark wooden wall full of people standing around and sitting at the island bar. Hally could recognise most of them on sight: Tony Stark, Captain America, War Machine and Dr Bruce Banner, the latter of whom was Eugene’s second favourite scientist after Stark himself.

On their arrival, one of the few who Hally didn’t recognise, a blonde man with a kind of squashed face, raised both of his eyebrows in surprise. He tapped two hearing aids in each of his ears simultaneously, then called out, ‘Nat! So, it’s true?’ His gaze darted between the two redheads like a ping-pong ball, soon copied by the rest of the Avengers.

Romanov glanced at Hally encouragingly, replying to him, ‘Everyone, meet Hally. Hally, everyone.’

‘…hi,’ Hally said shyly, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘Nice to meet you.’

Stark looked over her critically, a familiar sensation after her life as the Girl-Who-Lived, but it was Captain America who stepped forwards to offer his hand, not looking at her any differently.

‘Steve,’ he introduced himself. Hally shook his hand gently, feeling a slight flush in her cheeks when she realised his hand dwarfed her own. ‘Is that an English accent?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ Hally said, flustered. ‘I went to boarding school in the UK.’

Steve smiled, eyes crinkling as he stepped aside, gesturing to each of the Avengers in turn. ‘This is Tony, Bruce, Sam, Clint and Lieutenant Rhodes, who we call Rhodey…though you probably knew our names already.’

A laugh bubbled up. ‘Not really! I mean, I know you’re all Avengers, but, uh-’ Hally glanced at Romanov, ‘I don’t really know what to call you.’

‘Just our names are fine,’ said Dr Banner—Bruce. He smiled hesitantly at her, reminding Hally of herself.

‘Except me,’ said the blonde man, Clint. Hally guessed he was probably Hawkeye, as there weren’t many pictures of him at all online. On second thought, he did look familiar. ‘Me, you can call Uncle Clint. Your mom and me have been friends for a long time.’

‘Wait,’ interrupted Stark—Tony. Hally wasn’t sure she could call him that. ‘Why are you the only one who gets to call himself uncle? I want to be an uncle.’

Hally blurted out, ‘We don’t know if it’s true, yet.’ An awkward silence fell, Hally shuffling slightly and looking anywhere but at the superheroes. ‘That she’s my mum, I mean.’

‘Not quite,’ then said Stark, eyes locked on Hally. ‘I already had them do a DNA test this morning. The results came back half an hour ago. Welcome to the family, Anastasia.’

It was like a punch to the chest. Welcome to the family. Hally looked at Romanov wildly, somehow not surprised to see the wide-eyed expression on her mother’s face. Her mother. She had a mother.

‘Well done, Tony, you broke my niece,’ Clint drawled, before getting up off his seat at the island bar. He walked over to stand by Romanov, nudging her with his elbow. Hally watched her mum look back at him and communicate silently through eyebrow wiggles, shock fading in moments.

At the bar, War Machine—Rhodey—smiled wryly and said, ‘Congratulations, both of you. But it’s also lunchtime soon and it’ll take forever to decide what we’re ordering in.’

‘Hally should choose,’ Steve decided, staunch in his decision. If it didn’t suddenly put a whole heap of pressure on her, Hally might even have enjoyed choosing.

‘Uh…how about no to that,’ she said lightly, feeling boxed in. No-one here knew her. Hally itched to go back to the Sanctum, or her flat, or even her work. ‘I’m fine with anything you get.’

‘I vote for Ukrainian food,’ Clint piped up, his silent conversation with her mother finished. At his words, Romanov nodded in agreement, though she glanced at Hally through her lashes as if seeking approval.

‘Sounds good,’ she said hesitantly, never having had it before. Maybe she’d find something new to like.

When the rest of the Avengers chimed in positively—with the exception of War Machine, who requested a pepperoni pizza alongside everything—JARVIS ordered a veritable buffet from the best-rated Ukrainian takeaway that would deliver to the Tower, the group immediately meandering over to the sofas. Hally was dragged along by Clint, who wrapped an arm around her shoulders like Chau did.

‘You can sit with me,’ he said, which Hally found agreeable up until she realised it put her between a stranger who insisted she call him ‘uncle’ and her newly discovered mother.

‘So,’ Stark laid back, looking at Hally, ‘Tell us about yourself, kiddo. You had a rough week.’

‘Came back from the dead, even,’ added War Machine in disbelief, clearly finding the concept absurd.

Eyes all on Hally, she squirmed for a second, wondering how to explain everything. She couldn’t tell them anything about magic without consulting the Ancient One and likewise, she couldn’t tell them she was from an alternate dimension, because they had already confirmed she was born in this one. Not to mention, the Harry Potter franchise was infamous in this dimension and from what little Hally had seen online before she blocked as many mentions of it as she could, they knew exactly what the Deathly Hallows were.

What to do?

‘I, uh,’ she cleared her throat awkwardly, ‘It happens. Sometimes. This is the, uh…third time.’

Stark whistled lowly. ‘Tough luck.’

She shrugged, still nervous. ‘My therapist is probably having a field day. This is the first time I’ve been picked up by the morgue.’

‘Therapist?’ The guy introduced as Sam perked up, raising his eyebrows. ‘You’re probably the only one here who has gone voluntarily.’

Snorting, Hally said dryly, ‘I needed it, so I went. I’m still chatting with her a few times a month about stuff,’ she waved her hand in a vague manner, trying to avoid talking about the content of her therapy sessions, while making it clear that there are people aware of her circumstances.

Picking up on that, Romanov asked her, ‘Is she from Boksi Incorporated?’

‘Yeah.’ Hally wasn’t surprised they’d found the connection—the Order had tied themselves to her quite openly in her public life. ‘London Branch. I’ve been seeing her for two years?’ Hally paused, not able to count back to when their first session was. She’s pretty sure it was at least a few months before the Invasion…

Unfortunately, the nosier of the group was concerned. Steve frowned, asking her, ‘How did this group discover your ability? Are you safe with them?’

‘Safer than I ever was as a kid,’ Hally frowned right back at him. ‘They’re good people.’

‘Speaking from experience, corporations aren’t inherently good,’ said Stark, chiming in with a similar tone to Steve.

‘Boksi Incorporated is run by monks,’ Hally replied, swearing not to give anything else away—she just didn’t like hearing the Order being talked about like that. Apart from Kaecilius and his traitorous Zealots, no Order member she knew was even mildly corrupt. Magic was power incarnate. The Order had standards for a reason.

‘…huh. So, are they like…a charity? A faith? Are you religious?’ Stark seemed confounded with the idea that she could be religious, though Hally shook her head at his questions.

‘I follow a lot of their ethical and moral principles, but I don’t believe in higher powers like God or Allah. I think I meet Death every time I die, but they’re probably just a concept incarnate,’ she added, recalling the sense of having a conversation, though not who with. Death with a capital D was her best bet.

Humming in thought and noting to herself to talk to the Ancient One about it, Hally continued on to say, ‘And anyway, we know from people like the Aesir that there are beings who take responsibility for various things in the universe.’

‘Nah,’ Stark disagreed, ‘Sure, Thor can control lightning, but that’s just…whatever. Superpowers that come from belonging to an advanced civilisation.’ He threw his hand up in the air, unable to name it.

Sceptical, Hally let it go. She was the Master of Death, holding a mantle, as Hela called it. Though she didn’t yet know how to use it, Death was hers for the taking. It was better to keep that to herself.

In any case, what little they said on the topic clearly made Sam, at least, uncomfortable. War Machine and Dr Banner looked mildly disbelieving, while Sam and even Steve, to a degree, looked overwhelmed. Hally didn’t blame them.

‘Will you change your name?’ Clint asked out of the blue. For a second, Hally didn’t realise he was talking to her, but when she did, her eyes widened in surprise. He glanced over her head at Romanov. ‘I don’t think your mom would mind.’

‘I- I don’t know,’ said Hally, stuttering. She rubbed her arm, out of her depth, thinking about the possibility of becoming Hally Romanov. Was that even the right way to say it? Weren’t Russian names weird, somehow? It felt like she was losing something, changing her name on a whim.

‘It wouldn’t be very safe,’ her mother then hedged, which Hally realised was correct only after she said it. She was surprised at the sadness that overtook her the next moment, like she wanted to be called Romanov.

She’s my mother, Hally thought, thinking of the Potter’s—her adoptive parents. All her life she’d thought she was theirs, until that fateful moment in the Dark Forest when her beliefs were shattered. She had clung to her name as a child, wondering why she was called Hally by her aunt and uncle when it was Lily her nursery teacher called out during register, until Hagrid explained on the train trip to London that James called her Hally for Hallen, her middle name, so no-one got mixed up. Every part of her name had meaning: Lily for her mother, Hally for her father and Potter, which proved she wasn’t a Dursley.

In all the time since the Ancient One told Hally of her origins, Hally had never even imagined changing her name. Even just finding one of her birth parents was a long-shot. I’d still have my- my magical parents, if I changed my last name, Hally thought tentatively, feeling relieved at finding something to call Lily and James that worked. Finding out she was adopted didn’t change how much she loved them, thirty-three years after their death.

Merlin, has it really been thirty-three years?

A part of her recoiled at the idea, because it meant she was thirty-four and Hally certainly didn’t feel thirty-four. All those years as a ghost meant nothing to her psyche and with her lack of aging, it was becoming crystal clear how little she was developing mentally. Hally tried not to think about it, intellectually knowing that her thirteen years a ghost didn’t mean anything, but it was hard. The three years since hadn’t exactly been a piece of cake, either.

But her name—the Potter name. Could she give it up? Should she? Romanov was right in saying it might not be safe, especially since the SHIELD/Hydra data-dump. People knew her mother’s name, now, her picture free to be stared at to your heart’s content. The Romanov name was dangerous—Hally knew that, even without owning it. After all, the Winter Soldier came after her just because she shared her mother’s face. How worse could it have been if she openly used the name ‘Romanov’?

She must have zoned out some, because the next thing Hally knew, Clint was playfully nudging her side, repeating her name in a sing-song voice to get her attention.

‘…Hally…Ha-lly…’

Blinking rapidly, Hally swallowed the lump in her throat at his grin, blushing. ‘Sorry. Was thinking.’

‘Got the braincells for that?’ He smirked, asking, ‘Is thinking hard?’

‘It’s easier for me than you,’ she shot back, watching him paste on a faux-shocked expression, hand on his heart.

‘Are you calling me dumb?’

Hally reached up to pat his cheek sympathetically. ‘It’s terminal, unfortunately. Sorry you have to live like that.’

The Avenger cackled with laughter, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her against his surprisingly firm body, facing her towards Romanov. Hally stifled a giggle as he proclaimed, ‘She’s mine! No returns allowed.’

Romanov raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure you want to try that, birdbrain? I beat your butt in the ring nine times out of ten.’

‘That one win will be next,’ he boasted, easily letting Hally go when he was done, returning her to the spot beside him. Hally sat just a little closer than before.

On his phone, Stark hummed loudly, then informed them all, ‘Thor is on his way over to join us. JARVIS, add a couple more pizzas to Rhodey’s order.’

‘Done, sir.’

‘You’ll like Thor,’ Stark promised Hally, before asking her, ‘Do you want a room in the Tower? I’m sure we can set something up, unless you’ve gotta go back to school for the year.’

Hally shook her head. ‘I’m fine, thanks. I’ve got a flat nearby looking over Central Park.’

‘And school?’ he prompted.

‘Graduated early,’ she answered, smiling a little at his raised eyebrow. Hally recalled her original plan that didn’t have anything to do with her mother and jumped into her spiel. ‘I have a job that will have been wondering where I’ve been though. Can’t exactly explain the morgue thing, though. It’ll be tricky going back to my life, after all this.’ Her implication was clear that she’d appreciate the help and after a few shared glances between the Avengers, Stark nodded along.

‘We can help with that,’ he said, voice firm. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll say you and the Jones woman were witness to a crime of the Avengers variety, though you were legally proclaimed dead due to an experimental drug injected into your system. That works, right? Right? The hospital will accept that if we put a classified sticker on it.’

‘Sounds good,’ agreed Romanov, nodding shortly. She looked to Hally. ‘Can you bullshit a story like that? We’ll scrub your Twitter exchanges with Jones.’

Deciding to forgive the fact that they’d already done their homework, Hally approved of the plan. ‘I’ll need to talk to Jessica. Privately. Actually, it would probably be best I went back to see Daniel and the others. I don’t know what they might have done to try and help.’

‘What was the deal with Kilgrave?’ Romanov queried, frowning slightly. Hally struggled to remember what she tweeted, feeling a distinct curl of panic in her gut at not keeping it all a secret.

‘My- my girlfriend dealt with this guy who was trying to do bad stuff,’ Hally said, twisting the truth.

‘And by ‘dealt with’ you mean stab,’ her mother pointed out. Her face was porcelain. ‘Your exchange implied he had some kind of mind control power.’

She felt Clint stiffen behind her. ‘Yeah,’ she said shortly. ‘He did. We were on a train and-’ Hally cut herself off suddenly. The train. How did she forget about the train? She apparated in front of muggles, stole Kilgrave away in broad daylight and probably on camera.

Oh no.

Romanov tilted her head, looking to Stark. ‘A train?’

Stark leant over to a nearby table, picking up some kind of tablet, before gesturing up—causing pale blue holograms to appear above it. ‘You’re from Manhattan,’ he said, looking at Hally through the light with a thin smile on his face, ‘and JARVIS is more than just a computer. Now, I know privacy is a thing, but if there’s a guy running about imperio-ing random civilians, it’s the Avengers’ job to deal with him. It would have been SHIELD’s, but SHIELD was infested with Hydra rats, so—what’s your choice? Tell us or let JARVIS show us the footage of whatever happened. He can either play the whole incident, wherever it was, or get a still of this Kilgrave guy’s face.’

‘This is blackmail,’ Hally said, fists curling at her sides. She felt cold. She was sure she looked pale, to the Avengers. If only she hadn’t taken offence to what Kilgrave had done—if only she had stood aside.

They’ll find out, anyway.

Her StarkPhone was in her back pocket, so she took it out and unlocked it, scrolling through her contacts. Standing, Hally went to go over to a nearby wall, but paused when she saw a stylised J across the notification banner.

Had JARVIS connected to her phone?

Swallowing roughly, Hally went over to the wall, calling Daniel. She stood at an angle so they couldn’t see her face well, but so she could see them if they came up to her, waiting for the line to connect. She was in luck.

‘Hallen.’

‘Daniel, I’m with my mum,’ Hally told him quietly, the world shrinking around her. All she could hear was his voice. ‘In Avengers Tower.’

There was a pause. ‘The headlines were semi-correct, then. Are you being watched?’

‘Stark made his own…Skynet, that he called JARVIS. I think he’s listening to my call,’ she told him. ‘They know I’ve come back to life before, but that’s it. The stuff that went down with Kilgrave came up and how I met Jessica Jones. I need permission to talk about stuff.’

‘Hallen,’ Daniel said, an edge of warmth to his tone, ‘You are a fully qualified Master of the Order. While it is against the rules to bring anyone within the Sanctum itself without permission of the Sanctum’s Master, telling others you trust to keep the secret is not. And seeing as the Ancient One has not called an urgent meeting, I believe that whatever you choose will not threaten the integrity or sanctity of our people.’

Hally let out a nervous laugh. ‘That doesn’t make me feel better. Tell me what to do.’

‘As much as I enjoy caring for you, Hally,’ he said gently, ‘You must make these decisions for yourself. There is no folly in seeking wisdom, but you cannot let others make your choices for you.’

‘Daniel, I love you, I really do—but please just tell me what to do right now, Master Drumm. As disciple to master. This isn’t all just about me being a wreck,’ she promised.

There was quiet for a few long moments. Hally heard the Avengers murmuring to each other on the sofas, Stark’s holograms spinning through different sets of security camera footage from various platforms, high rails and subways. Clint and her mother had drawn closer together, watching Hally in between shared whispers.

‘As Sanctum Master,’ Daniel finally said, ‘I offer temporary passage to two in your keeping. I recommend that one, if possible, be Prince Thor. You may divulge the secret of our existence to the group, but of your true past to those two you choose, with help from myself and the Ancient One, if she is available. Are those clear enough instructions, Master Hallen?’

‘Thank-you, Master Drumm. Yes. We’re about to have lunch, but I’ll bring them by the Sanctum this afternoon. They’ve agreed to help with my publicly dead problem as well, but we’ll need Jessica Jones’ cooperation.’

‘I will invite her for tea,’ said Daniel, before giving his goodbyes. Hally returned his farewell, then hung up, standing there for a moment with her StarkPhone clutched tight in her grasp.

Blackmail from the Avengers. She never would have expected it—but then again, what did she expect? Suspicion, yes, but invasion of her privacy for the assumed greater good? Not so much. Hally, for the first time, was glad that Kilgrave was already dead. And now she had Daniel’s support to tell everyone about the Order of the Mystic Arts, as well as an invitation for two others into the New York Sanctum Sanctorum. Thor, of course, if he agreed…and her mother. Hally didn’t even have to think about choosing another.

An interruption of her thoughts came from the arrival of the last Avenger, the Aesir prince himself gently knocking on the glass door to the balcony, mythical hammer in hand. Simultaneously, JARVIS informed them of the arrival of lunch. The gathered group split in three—Rhodey going to open the glass door for Thor, who was dressed in normal clothes rather than his battle armour, leaving everyone but Steve on the sofas, who went to the elevator to pick up their food from downstairs. As he passed her, he gave her a concerned but questioning look, which Hally decided to reply to positively. He looked relieved as he exited the Penthouse.

Feeling reinvigorated, Hally put her phone away and went over to the living area again, catching Thor’s double-take at the sight of her. Adjusting her glasses, she waved hello.

‘My lady Natasha, I did not know you had a child of your own,’ Thor broached the topic, his high echelon accent causing Hally to blink thoughtfully.

Huh. She thought carefully, coming to a realisation as she remembered Hela’s own voice. Aliens are British.

‘Neither did I,’ said Romanov, diplomatic. ‘Hally, this is Thor Odinson of Asgard. Thor, my daughter, Lily Hallen Potter. We call her Hally.’

Thor’s eyes crinkled as he smiled, bowing his head respectfully. ‘Lady Hally. Well met.’

It was in times like these that Hally wished she was wearing a skirt. For once, I don’t hate Aunt Petunia for treating me like a doll, she thought wryly, offering her own perfunctory bow, hand behind her back. That, she learnt by copying Viktor. Hally had had fun messing around with him back when he was dating Hermione—one of her biggest achievements was catching the snitch in a seeker race against him one time out of five.

‘Fair tidings to you, Prince Thor. I hope Asgard is doing well.’

A slightly down-crested expression formed on his face. ‘Aye,’ Thor said, before saying in a mournful tone, ‘My mother, Queen Frigga, passed quite recently and Asgard grieves—but these things are natural. My father sits the throne alone, at present.’ He paused, before carefully saying, ‘Though I would not imagine a young one would be so interested in politics.’

Hally refused to fidget, glancing just once at her mother before ripping off the band-aid. ‘I’m a Master Sorcerer of the Order of the Mystic Arts. I actually have an invitation to pass on to you to visit this afternoon, along with my mother, now that we’ve met.’

Reactions were varied. Hally tried not to watch them, hearing Stark splutter out a misheard rendition of her title and seeing at the edge of her vision how her mother stiffened. She kept her focus on Thor, who only seemed a little surprised at her correction.

‘I had not thought Midgard’s magicians to be so organised. An entire Order, you say, Master Hallen?’

Hally nodded in a clipped manner, before finally relaxing her arms and bringing her hands together to rub at her wrists in a soothing motion. The stress wasn’t causing her anxiety—though she expected it might, later on in the day—and she didn’t want to overdo it too quickly.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t say anything,’ she said to her mother, turning to face her and only feeling a little guilty. ‘I’ve tried not to lie very much. Boksi Incorporated is a cover for the Order.’

Romanov didn’t look happy. She didn’t look anything, except perhaps pissed. ‘Did they bring you back to life?’

‘Oh, no, that was all me,’ Hally shook her head, deciding to focus on one person at a time as Thor’s eyes bugged out. There were just too many personalities to manage.

Not wanting to try regaining her spot, Hally went across to the kitchen to grab a stool of her own, returning with it to set between the sofa corners just as Steve exited the elevator with their food. She said to her mother, ‘Can we talk over lunch?’

‘I suppose we’ll have to,’ she replied, before Steve set down the bag of plastic containers on the coffee table, looking between the members of the group cautiously.

‘Alright, I can tell something’s happened,’ he said slowly, ‘What’s wrong? Thor?’

Thor seemed ruffled. ‘Master Hallen is a sorcerer of some renown.’

‘A…sorcerer?’ Steve glanced at her on the stool, to which she nodded silently. ‘Like Loki?’

‘Never met him, so I wouldn’t know. There are different ways to use magic.’ Hally ran a hand over the scar on her arm, where Wormtail had stolen her blood for Voldemort’s resurrection. ‘The Order specialises in the Mystic Arts—conjuration, dimensional travel, etcetera. The school I went to preferred Wanded Magic, but we had other electives and some banned magics that were forbidden. The Order has those, too.’

‘Loki’s talents vary, though he has mastered over a dozen schools of magic,’ Thor said, remarkably understanding compared to his fellow Avengers.

Stark suddenly pointed at Hally. ‘That’s why your records are non-existent! Your magic school doesn’t exist in normal folks’ systems!’ He looked triumphant at his realisation, leaning forwards to grab a plate from War Machine, who had slipped around them all to grab cutlery and crockery. ‘Thank-you, Rhodey-bear.’

‘It’s my duty as your trophy-husband,’ War Machine replied in a deadpan manner, making Hally grin. When Stark pulled him down to smack a kiss on the crown of his head, he pulled away dramatically, kicking his shin.

‘Ouch! Honey-buns!’ The inventor whined, before War Machine—Rhodes, Hally decided to upgrade him to—sat down on the armchair next to him with a grin on his face.

‘Have you ever been to normal school?’ Hally looked to her mother, who asked the question. She looked deceptively calm.

‘Before I turned eleven, yeah,’ she nodded, twitching.

‘So, you’ve never actually been to high school,’ Romanoff deduced, ‘You don’t have qualifications.’

‘I do! Just not in things non-magical people get them in,’ said Hally, somewhat affronted by the idea. Unbeknownst to the group, but Hally was touchy around the idea of ‘being qualified’, not ever having had the chance to take her NEWTs because of the war. Yeah, she missed some things, but that didn’t make her any less capable.

‘Aye,’ agreed Thor, ‘I may never have studied magical arts myself, but I remember Loki’s complaints in the difficulty. The full education that can qualify oneself as a Mage includes a variety of subjects that intersect with more commonly studied topics. Indeed, Loki learnt more of what you would call ‘science’ than I ever would be able to fathom, in search of his mastery in illusions.’

Hally chimed in, wrinkling her nose, ‘Manipulating the laws of nature is hard. We learn how to break them years before actually learning what we’re defying. It’s three times as difficult doing it the other way around.’ For Hally, even just thinking about how long it took to memorise and actually understand the Five Exceptions of Gamp’s Law of Transfiguration made her want to cry.

Theory sucked.

Sam shook his head in disbelief. ‘This is some shit. You really deal with this kind of stuff every day?’ he directed the question at Steve.

‘Nope,’ the super-soldier replied in bemusement, ‘More like once a year, kind of deal.’

‘Great.’

Curious, Hally asked, ‘Do you really deal with things like me regularly?’ before leaning over to serve herself a portion of some kind of tomato salad and a dumpling sprinkled with colourful things.

‘Depends on what you’re like,’ said Clint, finally speaking again. Hally glanced at him, wondering if the news that she was a witch had upset him, somehow. He gestured to Steve. ‘Hydra isn’t all super-soldiers and space bombs. Sometimes it’s just bad people with lots of resources. On the flipside, we faced aliens on our first team-up.’

‘What did he say to her?’ Stark suddenly asked. Hally looked over casually, freezing at the sight of his holographic tablet out and repeating a video on loop. She could see a subway cart and herself as she pushed Kilgrave up against the window, visible smoke rising from her clenched hands around his jacket.

Stark spun the video back before she could apparate away with him, pointing at the woman who bumped into the psychopath and asking again, ‘What did he say to her?

Breathless, Hally struggled for words, eyes glued to the recording. It was clear from an outsider’s perspective that the entire cart had watched the altercation—had seen what Stark was, now. When she finally vanished in the rewound recording, Kilgrave in hand, she deposited her plate shakily on the arm of the sofa, covering her face.

You idiot, she called herself, you stupid, stupid girl. You broke the Statute.

‘Hally,’ came a soft voice. She took a moment to realise it was her mother, seeing a hand reach out to gently brush her shoulder. Peeking through her hands, Hally found her mother—confused, hesitant, but somehow determined—moving closer, slipping off the couch to kneel in front of her. Their eyes met and it reminded her of Sirius, how he cared, even though he barely knew her. That man was never supposed to have been responsible for her and circumstances tore away any obligation he had to care for her.

But he had cared.

And it looked like her mother had decided the same thing, for less reasons by far.

‘Did you keep this a secret your whole life?’ The super-spy asked her, coming to rest her hand on Hally’s knee instead. ‘You did. I can see it. I’m sorry we’re barging in on something we could never understand—but could you answer the question anyway? What did he say that made you react like that?’

Hally considered lying. She considered running away and portalling out—apparating, even. She didn’t have to say anything.

I can choose to, though. ‘He told her to get away from him,’ Hally told her, ‘but that kind of power wouldn’t have just made her move a few feet to the left. She would have run to the other side of the globe, trying to get as far away as possible to him. The way he moulded that command around her brain-’ she held out her fist, fingers clawing at the air ‘-so it was everything she knew, that magic is dangerous. It’s abominable. Kilgrave wasn’t magic—he was powered—but what he’d done throughout his life to the people around him could never be forgivable.’

‘And Jessica?’

‘His girlfriend. He made her do everything he wanted, from sex to maiming herself, after she tried to jump off a skyscraper.’ Hally told her, ‘I took him away and an accident on my part led to him being stabbed in the face. She buried him in front of me. His commands faded the moment he died.’

Romanov looked at her critically, saying, ‘You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.’

‘It was my responsibility,’ she disagreed, ‘I saw it and I was dealing with it. It’s not the first time I’ve killed someone who misused their powers.’

‘You’re just a kid,’ said Clint with a furrowed brow. ‘Are the wizards making you do it?’

‘Sorcerers. They use magic with their hands and tap into energies.’ Hally corrected, ‘Wizards and witches have either wands or staffs and magic of their own—and no. I’ve consulted with them on things before, but usually it was in self-defence.’

The thumb of the hand on her knee rubbed lightly. Romanov asked, ‘Is this normal for magical people?’

Hally struggled not to grimace. ‘Trouble finds me.’ It was as much an apology as it was a statement. Reaching for her knee, she took her mother’s hands, twining their fingers together like how Romanov did in the morgue. ‘I was watching, by the way. When I died,’ she clarified. Romanov stilled. ‘I don’t speak Russian though, so whatever you said, no-one heard.’

‘…you were meant to hear it,’ her mother murmured, before standing and dragging her by their entangled hands back to their sofa. Clint was on the end, this time. Steve politely handed Hally her plate and Hally reluctantly let Romanov’s hand go to take it, grabbing her cutlery before it could fall. The stool was left where it was.

Returned to a more even setting, the group gathered more of their lunch, more than one watching Hally with curiosity. Eventually, Rhodes started chatting to Sam about the American Air Force and his time in Afghanistan. Hally listened curiously, asking the occasional question—like, for instance, why was there a war in Afghanistan?

The looks she got for that were mixed, just like when she previously dropped a bombshell, but they were of the what are they teaching kids in schools these days rather than she’s not just a girl, she’s magic. What followed was a very confusing explanation from several members of the Avengers who were ex-military, plus Stark, which eventually culminated in Clint drawling out a Cliff’s Notes of the entire conversation.

‘The Taliban refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden, a terrorist who hijacked a couple of planes and freaked out the entire country, so the USA got pissed and invaded Afghanistan, with the added benefit of saying it was for women’s rights,’ he said, shrugging when Rhodes denied it.

‘Everything was more complicated than just that,’ he defended, but Romanov shook her head.

‘Let’s leave it there, then. Hally can do her own research.’ When Stark looked about to cut in, she sent him a glare. ‘No more talking about the Middle East. Afghanistan or Iraq.’

‘That was very confusing,’ said Thor, Hally huffing with somewhat wide eyes.

‘You’re telling me,’ she muttered in reply. If there was anyone she related to the most out of the Avengers, it was Thor.

That being said, she was just like Steve as she tried everything on offer, from pizza to dumplings to holubtsi, something made of cabbage and rice that came with a red sauce. It was her favourite after the dumplings—because no matter where you went, dumplings were dumplings, and Hally already knew she liked them. Honestly though, apart from the weird meat jelly, Hally enjoyed everything on the table.

Steve joked, ‘At least you would have liked Russian food, if Natasha raised you.’

Choking on her last potato pancake, Hally flushed bright red, knocking her own glasses off in an attempt to regain her ability to breathe. The world blurred and she coughed, even as her mother parried back, ‘Coming from the garbage truck,’ neatly taking the attention off of Hally as she reclaimed her dignity.

The other Avengers all continued to ignore her as she fetched her glasses—taking them from her mother where they had already been folded on her lap. It felt…nice. Nice to be respected, instead of teased for something she couldn’t control.

Russian food, Hally thought, feeling dizzy. He was right, though. Russian takeout was something she’d eaten before and a lot of it was like Ukrainian food—probably the reason why she’d liked it all so much, today—but the idea of having home-made Russian food as a child, it just…bamboozled her. Yes, she’d already thought about being a native Russian speaker, or a heritage speaker if not that—but all the other stuff? The simple things like food, where she might have lived other than ‘Russia’ and traditions she’d have grown up with…

No. She hadn’t thought about them at all.

Romanov took her hand again discretely, squeezing, and Hally squeezed back. What else was there to do? Romanov had provided cover when she was embarrassed, offered sympathy when she clearly needed it.

An uncontrollable urge overtook her, Hally slipping her arms around Romanov’s waist to hug her. Chin tucked into her shoulder, she feared for a second it would be unwelcome, but then Romanov embraced her in return and ran a hand over her hair. It went on for longer than a normal hug, but when Hally finally tried to pull away and let Romanov have her arms back, she felt herself being manoeuvred so she was tucked tightly, low down Romanov’s side, and leant back against the sofa.

Hally hadn’t ever been held like it before, except once, when Ron forcibly made her come lie with him in bed after a nightmare at the Burrow—and now, when it happened again, she felt like she was being protected, hidden from the world. An arm wrapped around her shoulders, keeping her in place, while Steve looked on the two of them with a crinkly-eyed smile. When more of the Avengers noticed, sending them grins and teasing smiles, Hally flushed again, but laughed when her mother threatened them.

‘Not a word. Any of you—especially you, Clint.’

Clint laughed freely but didn’t argue with her. Idle conversation filled the room and both red-heads stayed quiet, just watching. Hally revelled in the sensation of being cared for by a parent, no matter how new, catching when Stark took a discrete photo with his tablet, holograms vanished as he used the touch interface and camera, instead. Desperately, she wondered if she could get a copy, physical proof that they’d met.

But she couldn’t ask, not while she was sitting with her mother. She’d have to talk. Move. Leave the warmth and the closeness. Maybe it was stupid, she thought, but Hally would rather have this single moment than any number of photographs.

Chapter Text

Natasha saw Tony pretending ignorance with his tilted tablet—she’d get copies of whatever pictures he took later—but didn’t say a word. Hally was warm against her side, small and making Natasha’s heart grow larger by the minute. She never thought so much love could live in one person.

You’ll never be able to show it, taunted her mind, but Natasha pushed away that thought. She’d do anything to have always had Hally at her side, wished with all her might that she hadn’t missed so much. She wanted that baby she’d been, wanted so badly to have birthed her and raised her, been there the moment she started putting off sparks—or whatever Harry Potter bullshit magical babies did when they were developing—and treasured every bit of closeness her daughter allowed.

Hally had asked to spend time with her. Had known she was an assassin, a killer, and still wanted to get to know the mother that had been stolen from her. Natasha didn’t deserve her, but whatever Hally wanted, Natasha would do. Just that very thought reminded her of something Clint once said, about her niece and nephew: “I’d do anything for them, even put down my bow.”

It hadn’t completely made sense to her at the time, though she respected his feelings. Cooper and Lila were dear to her, they really were—but now she had her own daughter, Natasha finally knew what Clint meant when he talked about everything being about his children. Why he started turning down actively dangerous missions in exchange for high-stagnancy/high-reward details, which sometimes, unfortunately, required his expert skillset; why he quit his SHIELD job in exchange for the lower annual salary that came from being an Avenger.

Every possible scenario ran through her head. Impossible things—heart-breaking things. She imagined Hally living her life and visiting on the weekends, laughing over a stupid story Natasha told with ice-cream in her hand. Maybe there’d be some world-ending event and while Natasha was in the thick of it, Hally would use her magic to hold back their enemies so civilians could escape. Equally, she could imagine Hally deciding she didn’t want to see her outside of the holidays, flinching back from her because she blamed Natasha for not rescuing her as an embryo.

God, how did that even work? Who did they use as a donor? Natasha ran a hand through her hair—just as copper-red as her own—and tried to find the features of a trainer from the Red Room, or a Hydra leader. But Hally was too much like her to see anything different, except perhaps her brow, which was flatter and straighter than her own. A remarkably male trait, in comparison to the rest of her. Even then, though, that was no guarantee it was from her biological father—it could be from Natasha’s own parents, her grandparents, whom neither of them had ever known.

The logical side to Natasha knew that she could at least cross a few people off the lists. Dreykov, for one. He saw the Widows as his own daughters—he would never use his own DNA to offset a Black Widow’s in a genetic experiment like this. Similarly, most of the male handlers who answered to Dreykov and Madame B were out of the running, not high-ranked enough to be considered for that kind of project. The only person that was high enough in the chain of command, and aware of the Widows, was Colonel Petrovich, and he was like a real father to them—real enough that they killed him for it.

Knowing Petrovich well, Natasha didn’t believe he would have volunteered the requisite biological materials to the Red Room scientists, even without knowing they’d be used to make Hally. And if he had, it was long before he had any real power in the organisation and unlikely to work. Dreykov wouldn’t risk it.

As she thought through the various options, she caught Thor glancing their way and remembered that he, specifically, had been invited by Hally’s Order to meet with them. Natasha bet he had been quietly frantic upon hearing the headlines announcing her death, probably only stymied by Tony calling to say it wasn’t her. She’d found with the big lug that when you gave him a reason to worry, he worried.

Feeling regretful, she tapped Hally’s arm, murmuring to her, ‘Will we head off, then? I think Thor’s ready.’

Hally tilted her head up to peer around her, seemingly agreeing with her on Thor’s disposition as she sat up reluctantly. ‘Yeah,’ she nodded to them both. Thor didn’t waste any time, picking up Mjolnir in a loose grip and attracting attention from the others.

‘Going so soon, Lightning McQueen?’ Tony questioned.

‘We have an appointment to make,’ said Hally, answering in his stead. Standing, she stretched out her wrist, saying, ‘We’ll portal in. Don’t try following us through it—I might shut it on you unexpectedly.’

‘Portal?’

Natasha empathised with Tony’s aghast tone, before Hally shuffled out past the sofas, raising her arms in the direction of the wall. Natasha watched her turn her bare hand in a circle, causing orange sparks to flare into existence, following the motions of her hand to form a six-foot tall portal in the middle of the Penthouse.

‘Well, shit,’ said Tony, startled. Hally struggled to contain her smile. He pointed at it. ‘This isn’t how you left the subway.’

‘I teleported. Like in Harry Potter.’ Hally paused, then said, ‘That’s another me thing. I’m not supposed to do that except in emergencies. The dimension I learnt it in had loads of people who could do it, but I’m one in a million, here.’

‘Dimension?’

Natasha sighed fondly, knowing Tony was revving up to a science rant, moving towards Hally as she awkwardly stated, ‘It tears a hole through space-time. A wormhole, basically.’

‘You create a Bifrost?’ Thor queried, joining her at Hally’s side. He towered over her, much like Steve, but Hally didn’t seem to mind.

‘Uh,’ Hally mumbled, ‘Maybe? I don’t know.’ She gestured to the portal—through which Natasha could see a dark wooden staircase, in front of which stood the infamous Daniel Drumm in a plain suit and a mysterious figure, standing there hooded and disguised in layered brown robes.

Thor, a little slowly, revealing his uncertainty, stepped through into the room. Natasha looked briefly at Hally, before glancing back at Clint.

‘Call me,’ he signed to her surreptitiously. Natasha looked back at the portal, knowing her phone was in her jacket pocket, then walked through with her head held high. The only thing that really changed, to her senses, was the smell—turning from the crisp air of the Penthouse into old wood and dust.

Behind her, she heard Hally say she’d open a return portal later, before joining them and closing it. Natasha watched her brush past them both to embrace Drumm, who looked on her fondly for a brief moment, before his expressions flattened into something more serious.

The sorcerer beside him spoke, then. ‘Welcome to the Sanctum Sanctorum of the New York branch of my Order.’ Lifting their arms, they pushed back their hood, revealing a bald head and a truly unreadable face. ‘I am known as the Ancient One. Master Hallen has arranged for you to come here today as guests to discuss her past in a closed setting. Be aware that you will not be permitted to return here once you leave, unless once again invited.’

‘Or if there’s an emergency,’ Hally added, standing beside Drumm as an equal, in line with both sorcerers. It set her apart from Thor and Natasha.

The Ancient One nodded slightly, agreeing. ‘Or if there’s an emergency, though I do not believe I will be the one you speak with, should that occur. Master Drumm-’ she gestured to her compatriot ‘-is meeting with Ms Jones down the street, as she does not wish to return here. If you have a message, now is the time to give it.’

Natasha nodded, though it was something of a let-down not to speak to her in person. ‘Stark is arranging things with the media and the doctors who saw Hally’s body. The story will be that Jones and Hally witnessed an altercation and that Hally was accidentally exposed to an unknown chemical which made it seem as if she were dead to paramedics. A cover-up, in basic terms.’ Recalling the traumas she may have from Kilgrave, she added, ‘And we can offer her assistance regarding any medical or financial trouble she may have, due to Kilgrave’s offenses.’

‘And by we, you mean the Avengers,’ Drumm stated, nodding in acknowledgement. ‘I will tell her. Ms Jones was already aware of Hally’s survival before she caught Mr Stark’s attention on Twitter, more concerned over the Winter Soldier’s escape.’

Wincing, Natasha said, ‘We’re working on it, but he’s good. Trained me when I was still with the KGB under Dreykov.’ She saw Hally’s curious expression and promised to explain her life in more detail later, but for now, it was apparently her daughter’s turn to come clean.

‘If I may ask,’ said Thor, interrupting, ‘but why have you invited us so?’

The Ancient One deferred to Hally, who explained, ‘Most of this is about me talking to my mum about…well, everything,’ her brow furrowed as she glanced at Drumm in question, ‘and I guess you’re here because you’ll believe it easier?’

‘Something like that,’ said the Ancient One, the first ghost of a smile appearing on her face.

‘Perhaps,’ interjected Drumm, ‘You could use one of the sitting rooms to talk. I shall go to see Ms Jones.’

‘See you later,’ said Hally, watching him sidle past the two Avengers out of the front door. When he left, Natasha saw a normal New York street, but barely managed to make out the name of a chain deli store before the door closed. She would have liked to use a marker to figure out where they were—to see if it was Bleecker Street, like Hally tweeted—but there wasn’t enough time.

Hally gestured for them to follow. ‘This way.’ She turned, only for the Ancient One to put a hand on her arm.

‘Go and change into your normal attire and call Master Ly to assure her of your continued survival. I will explain to them what our Order is in the third meeting room. Join us there in thirty minutes, when your business is complete.’ Hally seemed hesitant to leave, looking between the Ancient One and Natasha herself, who—personally—didn’t want her daughter to leave her sight for the next ten years. But after a moment, Hally nodded, turning away and bounding up the carven stairs without a second glance.

Natasha watched her leave with an ache in her chest, feeling Thor’s comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘She shall return,’ he promised, though it wasn’t something he could control.

She gave a tight smile in thanks, nevertheless.

‘Come,’ the Ancient One led them away into the depths of the building. They passed by oak walls covered in tapestries, ancient vases and vessels, a myriad of weapons on display, and at least half a dozen closed doors, before finally showing them into an open room that probably had a variety of uses, currently set up with a low table surrounded by flat cushions in the centre of the room. A suit of strange armour stood against the main wall seemed to be the key attraction of the room, daylight stretching into the room through frosted windows.

Motioning for them to sit, the Ancient One waited until they were settled, Thor placing Mjolnir politely on the table between front of them. Without much further ado, they began to speak.

‘There has been much turmoil throughout the cosmos in recent years. You have been the in the centre of most of it where Earth is concerned, and will now be informed of certain other matters that exist in your peripheral. To be clear, this is not an invitation to interfere in things you do not hold a full understanding of—simply a moment of shared intelligence. To smooth relations, let’s say.’ The Ancient One turned to the Asgardian, querying, ‘Prince Thor, you are aware of the numerous dimensions that sit alongside our own, yes?’

‘Aye,’ he said, nodding. Glancing at Natasha, he put his hands up beside each other like walls, whispering loudly, ‘Imagine it like an onion.’

Amused, the Ancient One agreed, clearly aiming to fill the gaps in Natasha’s education—not Thor’s. Natasha started to understand why he was invited. ‘Yes. Like an onion. Our dimension is one of many thousands, located somewhere in the middle of all those proverbial layers. You have already dealt with a relic which holds the power to traverse them: the Tesseract.’

Natasha’s attention snapped to the sorcerer, as did Thor’s. The Ancient One was unbothered.

‘As you may have realised, Hydra had possession of said artefact as long as SHIELD did,’ they explained, their next words ringing alarm bells in her mind. ‘Coincidentally, one of their experiments took place where Hallen was born, in nineteen ninety-seven.’

‘Lady Natasha’s daughter?’ Thor looked at her, distressed, but Natasha was close-lipped as she realised, feeling angry and embarrassed, that Thor would shortly be getting the unfiltered truth of what counted as a ‘graduation ceremony’ from the Red Room—and not only that, but what they did afterwards.

So much for leaving everything behind me, she thought, her stomach doing somersaults.

‘Your friend’s reproductive organs were poached and used against her will in a laboratory in Serbia. Hally was the product of much experimentation and no doubt, was meant to be raised as a Black Widow from birth. However, the neighbouring tests with the Tesseract destroyed the laboratory and everyone inside, in an explosion so vast that it was felt across the many dimensions of our universe.’ The Ancient One paused, then said, ‘I have not told Hally of the Tesseract’s involvement in her displacement. Some things, she is not ready to hear.’

‘You told Hally you would be telling us about the Order,’ Natasha cut in, both wanting to and not wanting to hear about the decisions the sorcerer had made for her daughter. The idea that Hally didn’t have autonomy in a place she felt safe didn’t sit right with her, the woman who had her own autonomy stripped from her for over half her life by an even worse group of people.

There was a thin line and it seemed like the Ancient One was already overstepping.

‘I did. I lied,’ said the Ancient One, catching Natasha’s gaze and holding it. ‘Did you believe her when she told you she lived in an orphanage?’

‘Yes.’

‘That was also a lie, created to protect her. She has told it several times to those around her—but you were never meant to be one of them. Ideally,’ they said, still staring at her, ‘the both of you shall keep the information learned here today to yourself. I know that will not happen. A secret can only be kept if the secret-keepers are willing to keep silent.’

‘And?’ Thor pushed.

‘And the truth is,’ said the Ancient One, ‘that when the facility exploded, Hally was flung to the far reaches of our universe, through the dimensions and right into the lap of another order of magicians. They treated her kindly and arranged for her to be adopted, but the nature of her existence there meant that when the tether to her body was broken by magical means, Hally was immediately returned from whence she came: here.’

‘Oh.’ Thor winced, as Natasha’s mind spun in circles trying to understand. They had gone from the Tesseract to accidental interdimensional travel—which only made sense when she remembered it created portals through space. ‘That sounds painful.’

‘Far from it,’ the Ancient One promised him, finally breaking their gaze. ‘The spectral self represents the physical self and at the time, Hally didn’t have one, so there were zero physical injuries. I detected the anomaly the same day as the explosion, which, again, was an event of some magnitude in its own right, and found the ghost of a traumatised teenager. She stayed in that state for the following thirteen years, until a once-dear friend of hers discovered a process that would return her body to her.’

Not keeping up, Natasha asked them, ‘What do you mean? A ghost? Like, an actual spirit?’ And what do you mean, thirteen years?

‘She was a teenage spirit,’ the Ancient One repeated. ‘One who sprung like a rubber band to exactly where and when she originally left this dimension. She did not age in her mind for what time she spent as a ghost, but did use that time well. She adjusted to her new circumstances and learned all the magic she could. Only because part of becoming a Master here involves a mental metamorphosis, did I not afford her the Mastery she was owed, not until her therapist agreed it was time. She had long passed the level of learning to become one.’

‘So, Natasha’s daughter is older than she looks,’ Thor stated, only for the sorcerer to disagree.

‘No. As I said, she did not age in her mind. She may have experienced more years, but they do not reflect on her psyche. Anything more of her life is hers to tell, but I had to insist on explaining this first,’ they said firmly.

Dizzy in the head, Natasha could see why.

Thirteen years a ghost. Thirteen years a ghost out of time, even. Hally lived a whole other life in another dimension. Was she adopted there? Or was that a falsehood, so she could keep her real name here? The spy was torn. Was the school Hally went to really divided into houses? Was she really on her school team? Everything she’d let slip, talked about, seemed so normal and stereotypical of a British boarding school…

Natasha wondered how much of what Hally had told her was a lie.

‘Ms Romanova.’ Her eyes snapped up to meet those of the Ancient One. ‘The moment Hally returns, she will tell you of her life. Do not judge what she has told you already until you have the full story.’

The question that came out her mouth was clipped. ‘Was she really adopted?’ The idea that she wasn’t made a pit in her stomach, weighing it down like lead. Natasha didn’t want Hally to have lied to her.

‘Yes,’ said the Ancient One, voice softer, attempting to soothe. ‘Her parents sacrificed their lives to defend her. It left a mark on her soul that protected her from many enemies who likewise had magical powers. The world she comes from…you will recognise it, eventually.’ Their eyes shifted. ‘I recognised it. It is a common occurrence that dreamers will unwittingly tap into other dimensions and publish literature that reflects what they saw.’

‘The Weavers of Distant Fate,’ Thor said, clearly recognising the concept they described.

To Natasha, it was too much. Who could blame her? A lot had happened in the past month, her whole life practically falling apart around her. SHIELD, Hydra, and now Hally—Hally, with her sorcerers and other dimensions, who had been through so much and told so little. Natasha bet that Kilgrave—ha, and didn’t that seem so far away, now?—was the least of Hally’s problems.

Eyeing her as if they knew what she was thinking, the Ancient One turned their body towards Thor, asking him of what he knew of the ancient Midgardian sorcerers. It was a pause in conversation—a chance for Natasha to catch her breath. Natasha appreciated the gesture, even if all she wanted to do was grab Hally, spirit her away, then make her explain what the hell was going on. In that order.

Thor babbled easily, questioning and answering in turn with ease, a beaming smile appearing on his face. The Ancient One seemed to know more than just the basic premise of Asgardian society he had told the Avengers and it made him happy to talk in a normal fashion about things Humans found esoteric and wild. It was difficult seeing that expression on his face, knowing she’d never be able to make her friend happy in that manner, but Natasha tried not to begrudge him for her planet being dumb.

Eventually, however, the half-hour mark the Ancient One gave Hally passed and Natasha’s daughter joined them with a refreshed and sated look on her face. She’d also changed into what Natasha assumed were her own clothes, exchanging the shirt, joggers and flip-flops for a navy turtleneck, pale blue jean jacket and a long silk skirt with pink and yellow flower patterns, over green scale boots. Topped with her bright hair and thick tortoiseshell glasses, Hally certainly was the fashion disaster she claimed to be—but Natasha doubted she was anything but supremely comfortable in the mishmash of clothes that she, personally, would never be able to stand.

The Ancient One, not saying anything, silently motioned for Hally to sit down beside them, opposite Natasha and Thor. She could see that Hally was used to the setting, watching her layer her skirt over crossed legs and roll the sleeves of her jacket up past her elbows. With that, Natasha got a clear view of the scars on her right arm, from the strange scribbles on the back of her hand to the mottled, forest green marks under her skin that spread outwards from a large, cracked circle, where it was so dark it was almost black. Natasha wanted to ask her what happened—if it was intentional, or accidental.

‘What you cover, then?’

Omitting practically everything, Natasha replied, ‘Not much. It’s mostly been Thor having fun talking about the universe. I lost track of what they were saying a while back.’

Frowning, Hally asked them, ‘Do you at least know about the Order?’

‘I told them how dimensions function in our universe,’ the Ancient One answered, regaining control of the conversation. ‘What I did not say is that we are the planet’s designated protectors against extradimensional threats. We safeguard this realm from horrors beyond reckoning and do our part in holding back the tide of evil.’

Thor chuckled. ‘Warrior mages. Loki would love it.’

The Ancient One smiled wanly. ‘Prince Loki would become bored within a month.’

‘So, you were just waiting for me?’ Hally queried, seemingly daunted by the prospect. The Ancient One nodded their head again, declining to mention what they had discussed like Natasha had. Thor seemed to silently come to the same decision, as he didn’t deign to elaborate either.

Sighing to herself, rubbing at the silver scarification on her forehead, Hally slowly began her tale, retelling what they’d already heard. Like the Ancient One, she talked about the facility in Serbia, but as soon as the dimension changed, so did her story—and with it, the last puzzle piece clicked into place, finally affording Natasha the full picture.

‘The Department of Mysteries found me,’ Hally said, looking at Natasha nervously. ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever read the Harry Potter series. The Ancient One has explained it to me before, but basically, the books here are my life, almost. He’s a boy and I’m a girl, but the major events…yeah. That’s my life.’

‘Lily Potter,’ Natasha said, realising it had been staring her in the face. The red and gold house- ‘You were in Gryffindor.’

‘Ta-dah,’ she said weakly, jazz hands waved awkwardly by her ears. Thor, for his part, was keeping a straight face. If Natasha hadn’t known that Jane Foster’s intern had practically shoved the series down his throat when he decided to live in London with them, then she might never have guessed whether he’d read them or not.

‘When I went to face Voldemort for the final time,’ Hally continued, ‘a magical tether that kept me in that dimension broke. My magical parents appeared to me when I used the Ring of Resurrection and told me before it happened, so I wouldn’t be confused. They actually had a theoretical discussion about it in front of me and came to the correct conclusion after a while. When I did finally die, my spirit was pulled back here.’

Hally didn’t seem to know how to explain further and Natasha decided to break the adults’ pact of silence, putting her hand up to stop Hally from continuing. When she closed her mouth, Natasha came clean.

‘Your mentor over there told us already.’ Natasha watched Hally look at her, betrayed, and went on to elaborate. ‘Not that you were Harry Potter. Hally Potter, I mean. Wow, that must make you mad.’

‘I’m currently mad at the Ancient One,’ she muttered, her growing outrage clear.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. ‘You could be more grateful. Their explanation was better than your own. What if I’d never read the series?’

‘Thor hasn’t and he’s doing fine!’ she said defensively, only for Thor to correct her misapprehension.

‘I have read the entire Harry Potter series. I thought the child’s life was unfair to the point of cruelty and wanted to know what happened in more detail than the epilogue described.’ At her confused expression, Thor said, ‘Harry Potter grew old and had children with Ginny Weasley, whom he named after his parents and, of all people, the men who manipulated and hated him the most throughout his life.’

Natasha shot Thor a warning look, hissing his name. ‘Thor!’

But it was too late. Hally had already narrowed her eyes, declaring, ‘I wouldn’t name kids after anyone who manipulated or hated me.’

‘There are lots of interpretation of Harry Potter’s life,’ Natasha said, wanting to make a distinction there. ‘Not yours. And we’re not here to talk about literature.’

‘Well said,’ the Ancient One agreed with her, turning to Hally. ‘I did not reveal anything that could not be inferred by others, Master Hallen. I promise you that.’

She raised a threatening finger and Natasha could see the genuine upset on her face. ‘You’d better not have!’ Lowering her hand, she hugged herself with two arms, while the Ancient One lost none of their poise in the face of their protégé’s distress.

‘Mayhaps,’ segued Thor, attempting rather clumsily to change the subject as he pointed to the armour on display, ‘you could tell me about this armour?’

‘It belonged to Agamotto, our founder,’ said the Ancient One. ‘He created several relics which have stood the test of time, enchanted for various purposes.’

Thor’s eyes swept over to Hally. ‘Have you relics of your own from the Order? Or do you keep the famed Deathly Hallows on your person?’

‘Just the Hallows,’ she said, sounding strained. ‘And my sling ring, but everyone has those.’

‘Can I see?’ he continued to ask, eager. Hally still seemed uncomfortable, but Natasha got to watch her pull a working wand out of thin air, swishing it around to make golden sparks. Thor was ecstatic.

Hally couldn’t help but laugh confusedly at his reaction, placing the wand in a holster on her waistline that hadn’t been there before. Natasha wondered if it came and went with the wand as she watched her show off an actual invisibility cloak. Not a chameleon mask or a retro-reflector panelled sheet—no. It was a magical invisibility cloak made with magic.

Natasha had really thought earlier that she had been surprised enough today, confident she wouldn’t be able to feel any more. Boy was she wrong.

‘This is insane,’ she murmured, before Hally finally summoned a ring to the last main finger of her left hand, unable to put it anywhere else with her chunky sling ring in the way. The pleasant air died as she awaited judgement from her, Natasha not sure what to say at the sudden attention.

‘I- I have a flat,’ Hally said, apropos of nothing. Silence reigned until she added. ‘You could…visit.’

‘…I would like that. Sure. Uh-’ Wow, Romanov, you really have all the words today, don’t you?

Thor glanced at Hally’s mentor in question. ‘Is Master Hallen free to leave these grounds?’

‘She is free to do as she wishes.’

Nodding to himself, Thor picked up Mjolnir and stood, bowing in respect. ‘Then I will return to my lady, Jane. She will be relieved to know Lady Natasha has not truly met an untimely demise. T’was good to meet with you, O Ancient One.’

The Ancient One stood and bowed in turn. ‘I’ll walk you to the door.’

‘Thank-you.’

Leave me under the bus, why don’t you… Natasha thought as her buddy left. Hally played with the edge of her invisibility cloak in an anxious manner, an awkward silence filling the room as either tried to find words to say. Was this what every new mother-daughter relationship was like?

‘…do you want to go back to the Tower?’ Natasha proposed after a moment, struggling to fill the emptiness.

Hally’s face twisted, showing her opinion on the idea. ‘If you want to.’

‘Only if you do.’

‘…this is a mess, isn’t it?’ her daughter muttered, huffing quietly to herself as she shook her hand. The Ring vanished from her finger. As if to excuse herself, she said, ‘I don’t like having that one on me. Stupid stuff.’

‘Is it tempting?’ Natasha asked despite herself. ‘To summon the dead, I mean.’

‘Not really—I’m too frightened to do it,’ Hally shook her head. ‘All the people I know are from another realm of Death. They don’t belong in this dimension. What if they couldn’t get back?’

‘Don’t they have a…tether?’ She didn’t know if she was using that word right, but Hally seemed to consider it.

‘…yes,’ she said eventually, smiling depreciatively, ‘But knowing me, I’d have to learn how to summon them from their dimension through trial and error. I don’t want to risk their souls like that.’

‘Understandable.’ Wanting to keep the conversation going, Natasha requested, ‘Can you show me your magic?’

Hally only hesitated for a moment before nodding. Natasha watched in quiet admiration as she shaped bronze-gold lines out of nothing, creating a kaleidoscope of shapes that twirled on their own as she created more and more patterns. It lit her face in soft light, but even as she created a piece of art in the air, Natasha couldn’t help but look at her instead—watching the sharp focus emerge to shape her brow and darken her eyes. There was something familiar there, Natasha realised, a flash of recognition at the way her face tightened and observed the world around her.

Where do I know that look? She wondered, even as Hally’s magic finally ended, the prismatic shape hovering in the air between them before rushing to engulf her daughter in gold. Natasha startled, but then saw the grin on her face and the unusual tint to her eyes.

‘I can see the closest dimension to ours,’ Hally explained, gaze shifting from side to side. ‘It terrifying. Absolutely gorgeous, but terrifying all the same. I’d better not watch it for long—who knows what might start looking back.’ The gold faded in a few blinks, though Natasha could almost taste the remnant of power that radiated from her.

‘And that’s magic you learned here?’

‘Yeah,’ said the girl. A lopsided grin grew on her face, before she scrambled to her feet and offered her hand. ‘Come with me, I’ll take you to my flat.’

Natasha stood, eager to follow, tangling their fingers together with what was almost a breath of relief. I have a daughter, she revelled in the idea, letting Hally guide her back through the Sanctum to the main stairway, where the Ancient One stood at the precipice, watching on. Hally only offered the sorcerer a brilliant smile before letting go of Natasha’s hand to call another portal, one which led into a higher-end apartment than Natasha ever thought a teenager would be able to afford.

‘Home sweet home.’ Hally closed the portal behind them, then smiled at Natasha like she’d made her year. ‘Tea?’

‘Please,’ said Natasha, just as euphoric.

The two Romanov’s shared a smile, then went to the kitchen.

Chapter Text

With the power of Niflheim at her back, curling around her soul like a particularly clingy primate, it was easier than she would ever have expected to project her consciousness to Asgard. Hela was still connected to the planet, constantly siphoning off energy from the core itself, so all she had to do was follow that connection back and voila, she was home.

Home was more golden than she remembered, to be perfectly honest. The palace shimmered with magic unused in centuries, meant to protect the palace and then the city itself—in that order—from attack, its image reflecting its wealth of power. Hela could almost taste the healing fractures in the columns and tiled floors, but even then, the sheer amount of energy held in stasis was almost dangerous, sat idle like that.

‘Where are you?’ she asked aloud, having expected her father’s attention immediately. Her little brother Heimdallr surely would have noticed her presence, at the very least, with those well-trained gifts of his…

But when no-one came, a flutter of unease blew through her chest. Hela struggled not to play with her hair, then eventually gave into the coping mechanism borne of thousands of years alone, winding the very ends of her pale braid around her fingers. Green dyed the tips at a thought, the banal use of magic finally making the palace magics react. Hela saw Valaskjalf’s wards fluctuate, recognising their former mistress—and then they swam around her like eels, calling out like a child for her.

‘Who are you?’

Hela looked up in surprise, dropping her braid with a raised eyebrow as she began to stare at the being wearing her father’s face. Though Odin’s appearance was draped over the imposter like a fine veil, undetectable to her eyes, Hela’s bindings to Niflheim knew the being in front of her did not hold sway over them. The incongruity meant only one thing: this was not her father.

‘I think the question here,’ she purred, pushing Valaskjalf’s wards away with a firm press of magic, only briefly wondering why they were being so insistent, ‘is who are you?’

‘You come into my palace-’ they began, but Hela cut them off with a sharp laugh.

‘Ha! Your palace? This is the demesne of Odin Allfather, my jailor. Do not think that by wearing a pretty glamour that you can fool me,’ she said, raising her chin. A sneer sharpened into existence. ‘Where is the fool?’

The being tilted their head to the side, an altogether unfamiliar action that belonged to the imposter and not the Allfather, before they leant on Gungnir as if it were but a walking stick, the glamour disappearing in a rippling flash of golden green. Then Hela got a true look at them, eyeing the deep greens and blacks he wore with growing understanding.

‘I’m afraid I won’t be entertaining unexpected guests this eve,’ said Loki, the Dark Prince of Asgard—or rather, the true King of Asgard as Hela now understood him to be, acting or not. ‘The Allfather is currently enjoying his twilight years abroad, through no choice of his own, I will admit,’ and his smile was wicked then, just like Helblindi’s. ‘I am Loki of Asgard. Answer my questions and I might let you live. Who are you?’

‘Hela,’ she replied dryly, amusement drowning any unease of before. ‘Formerly of Asgard. Eldest living daughter of Odin.’

His brow furrowed. ‘An untruth. Odin’s only child by blood is Thor.’

‘Woe betide him to acknowledge any others,’ Hela drawled, walking a slow circle around him. She could not feel any other souls within the vicinity, including her son’s, which was a great feat of magic indeed. Raising her hand, she pointed at him lazily, asking, ‘Do you know not the names of the dead? Crown Prince Baldr, he who was poisoned by a mistletoe arrow shaft in the early days of Odin’s subjugation of the Nine Realms. Víðar, my berserker brother, fallen to the jaws of a troll’s familiar.’

Loki stood taller beside Gungnir at her words, his eyes dark in thought and learning. Hela continued speaking, still circling in a way akin to the ravens of battle—ready to feast, should blood be spilled.

He might be her son, but that did not mean he was safe.

‘Princess Váli. She tried to avenge poor Baldr and killed the perpetrator, but he had taken refuge in a temple. Her life was taken by the priests for spilling blood under the power of guest rite. Regrettably, Höðr himself was a son of Odin, born centuries before Baldr was ere thought of—acknowledged, but left to fend for himself. His jealousy was his end.’

‘No-one speaks of them,’ Loki told her, speech measured and thought through carefully. ‘To Asgard at large, the only living son of Odin is Thor.’

‘And where do they think you are?’ She questioned him, letting her curiosity show. He was clearly aware he was not a son of Odin, as Helblindi once told her the King had claimed. But what else did he know? ‘Without the child of the Allfather’s daughter present, surely a succession crisis would seem imminent.’

She saw his immediate confusion. ‘A grandchild?’

‘Yes,’ Hela drew the word out as if he were stupid, though there was a sensation of loss in her chest that she didn’t quite understand. ‘You. Loki, son of Hela. Lost heir to the Skull Throne of Jotunheim and direct descendant of the Allfather himself. Is this ringing a bell, perchance?’

Alas, but it seemed her son was unaware of his status after all. He stumbled backwards, clutching Gungnir like a lifeline, further removing himself when she approached. His uncertainty was palpable, and Hela felt revolted at the trace amount of pity she felt. This was her son. She should never have a reason to pity him.

‘What?’ She snapped, ignoring the well of grief slowly but surely sparking to life inside of her. ‘Did you think your place in the House of Odin was out of kindness? That the Allfather would deign to adopt a child he found in the ruined body of its mother? You’re an idiot if you think such thoughts would ever cross his mind, if you were not already belonging to his bloodline.’

Loki dropped. The stairs leading up to the gaudy golden throne of her father were used as his seat, chiming discordantly when they clashed messily against that stupid, stupid staff. Hela hated it, all of a sudden. Before, Gungnir was a sign of Odin’s power and the right to rule Asgard, but now it was just something for her son to cling to.

Familiar rage brewed in her gut and Hela let it bubble out of her, feeling Niflheim beneath her feet rumble and crack, the surface of her planet erupting like a volcano. Even in Asgard, an echo of her power came through, Loki’s despair sharpening into wariness as his gaze darted from the middle-distance to Hela herself.

‘If you are my mother,’ he told her, ‘then I would advise controlling yourself.’

Hela scoffed. ‘Don’t tell me what to do, child. My respect is earned and the moment you have it is the moment I begin considering a single word you say.’

‘And how,’ Loki laughed, as if the idea was absurd, sneering, ‘would I earn your so-vaulted respect, Mother?’

‘How?’ Hela thought on it for a second and realised it would need further thought. Her anger settled. She thought of Fenrisúlfr, her beloved companion. It had been his sire, the goddess thought idly, which had killed Víðar. He had taken his battalion to the Ironwoods of Jotunheim, a series of small asteroids which circled the icy planet, in an attempt to take hostage the Jötun population of mages…but more than just witches lived in the Ironwoods…

Laughing to herself, Hela realised what might indeed impress her enough to give Loki the attention he so seemingly craved. Why else would he cling to Gungnir, if not to remind himself he belonged? Gaze dancing over Loki’s hunched form, a smile forming at the calculating look in his eyes, Hela dipped her head.

‘In the Ironwoods,’ she told him, ‘lives a witch by the name Angrboða. She was loyal only to Helblindi, she who wore the Crown of Ice—your bearer,’ she added. Loki frowned but didn’t interrupt. Hela silently commended him for it.

‘When I killed Helblindi, all her allies who previously endured me became quite vengeful. I’d fended off more than a few attacks from them by the time Odin imprisoned me, but Angrboða was not one of them. Angrboða once birthed my mount, Fenrisúlfr-’

‘Birthed?’ Loki repeated, perturbed. Hela pursed her lips.

‘Jötun witches become trolls when they delve deep enough into forbidden things. Trolls can birth all manner of monsters—for a price.’ Rolling her neck with a sigh, she said in a temperamental tone, ‘You’re able to hide from me, the Goddess of Death. I cannot begin to believe that this is the one thing you haven’t learned.’

Her son scowled at her, claiming, ‘There aren’t scrolls on the topic in the Library of Vanaheim.’

‘Of course, there wouldn’t be,’ Hela scoffed, ‘Jotunheim doesn’t share their secrets so freely.’

‘Where is your mount, now?’ He then asked her, a touch more respectful. He got to his feet, too, which made Hela more inclined to actually like him. He was a King—he should act like one.

‘In the crypts, most likely,’ she told him, gesturing below. ‘If my army isn’t hidden beneath the seat of Odin’s power, then I’m not the Queen of Niflheim.’ Hela saw his sudden stillness and smiled with all teeth. Yes—Niflheim, boy-king. What do you think of me now? ‘Fenrisúlfr’s corpse will be below and I will summon him from the beyond again, eventually.’

‘Again?’

Hela stepped closer to her son, almost surprised by how far below his mothers’ heights he reached. Truly stunted—and most likely caused by his irregular gestation in Helblindi’s womb.

‘He has died many times before and will again,’ she said, before returning to her quest-giving. ‘Angrboða owes Helblindi another monster and as her child, you are entitled to that debt. If you manage to reach her in the Ironwoods, convince her to create your beast and do it all unscathed…then perhaps we can come to an accord.’

His eyes met hers. For some reason, the green reminded Hela of her new darling wife. ‘An accord? Not your respect?’

‘You’re interesting,’ Hela dismissed him, lying. He was her son, but he was full-grown and she could never expect him to submit to her. That was the real truth. She could not afford to trust someone who had no reason to stake their life for hers. An alliance with the King of Asgard, however? One of her blood, no less…

Hela gestured for him to follow and his curiosity won out as they walked the halls of her childhood, away from the cavernous state room to a servant’s stairwell. Gungnir was banished so he could follow more easily and when they reached the corridor above, there was a balcony, one which Hela led him to stand on, so they could look over the western quarter of Asgard.

The sight of it took her breath away. Hela had not been home in so long that she’d nearly forgotten what it looked like. Oh, there were superficial changes, but the general ebb and flow of the people, the placement of the rivers and roads—they were all the same. Hela could remember stealing her father’s eight-legged mount, Sleipnir, to ride through that very quarter she looked upon presently without abandon. How she had laughed! How Víðar had groaned and panted, chasing after her on foot.

‘This was my home,’ she said to Loki, wanting to make a point and not being sure what it was. So little time had passed since her unexpected summoning to Midgard, yet meeting her wife, as ordained by the universe, had disrupted something in her. Hela had wanted to speak to Odin and taunt him, scream at him and show him what power he’d given her, trapping her on Niflheim—but faced instead with her son, all Hela could think about was what used to be.

Loki, bless the Norns, seemed too wrapped up in his own thoughts to pester her. Instead, he told her, ‘I thought I was Loki Laufeyson. Not Loki Helason, or Loki Helblindison’

‘Helason,’ she corrected him. ‘Jötun folk don’t use patronymics or matronymics. They just call themselves by their names. Aesir tradition would have you take my name, in any case.’

‘Loki Helason,’ he repeated his name, as if he were tasting it on his tongue. ‘Is Laufey anyone to me?’

‘Your grandfather, like Odin.’

‘Hm. My family grows larger by the day.’ He spoke to her mockingly, ‘Do I have any other siblings, Mother of mine?’

‘No,’ she said, waiting a moment to add, ‘just a Human step-mother.’

His expression twisted into one of disgust. ‘You took a Midgardian to your bed?’

Chuckling lowly, Hela said, ‘It is far more complicated than that. Perhaps next time, we’ll discuss such things.’ She glanced at him, then reminded him once more. ‘Angrboða. The Ironwoods. Don’t forget.’

‘I will endeavour to find the time,’ he swore calmly, before giving a regal nod.

Hela, feeling childish, stretched out languidly on the stone railing, then replied in her best drawl, ‘Till the next time, King Loki.’

Releasing her spell, Asgard faded away—but even as Niflheim rejoiced her return, Hela shut her eyes, wishing she had never left.

Loki will return

in

SIGYN AND THE SNAKE