Chapter Text
for the last five years, [ name ] has been suffering of headaches.
they started unprompted, doctors say they might be related to the stress in her life, but they start at the end of june and stop at the beginning of september like clockwork. she dreads those months, she can't enjoy her summer break without feeling like her head is being crushed by a hydraulic press.
nothing seems to soothe them, it doesn't matter how much medicine she takes or if she's standing up or lying down, the pain only goes away on it's own, she can't do anything to control it.
one funny thing about these headaches is that they dissappear at night, as if they themselves were taking a break. [ name ] knows she should take the chance to sleep when the pain is away, she can never sleep well with these headaches going on anyways, but she's only human, can you blame her? she wants to do the things she likes without her head exploding, so she usually pulls all nighters to have painless fun.
tonight, she decided to binge watch the harry potter saga. the pain stopped around eight p.m earlier, so she's had time to watch the first three movies of the saga, her eyes are glued to her cellphone screen as she watches harry potter and the goblet of fire.
if she's being honest, she has watched these movies seven times already, yet she enjoys rewatching them to find details and little easter eggs she might have missed in any other watches — even though she could tell you how many wands daniel radcliffe has broken behind scenes —
but still, it's nice to watch these movies without the pain of brain damage.
her eyes feel heavy with sleep as she watches the movie, even though it's one of her favorite scenes: barty crouch jr. teaching dada while pretending to be alastor moody.
[ name ] feels her earpods nearly falling off her ears yet she's still able to hear barty jr. ask how many unforgivable curses there are.
"three, sir."
she mumbles the answers under her breath, even though there's no one around to hear her.
a yawn escapes her as the scene proceeds with normality, she adjust her earpods to listen better and she answers as well when barty jr. asks why they're called like that.
"because they're unforgivable."
excuse the redundancy.
[ name ] watches the scene the same way she has a million times before, just enjoying herself.
but she can't even have that, can she? no, of course not, because she feels a headache coming.
"motherfucker..."
[ name ] can't keep the curse word in her mouth, she's naturally frustrated by this chronic pain of hers. she doesn't pause the movie even though she should, she only holds her head in her hands and buries her face in the pillows.
it's as if something was drilling into her brain, [ name ] rolls back and forth in an attempt to distract herself from the pain even when she knows it's useless. she groans and whimpers, her voice thick with pain.
all headaches are bad, yet this one is particularly unbearable. she knows there's no use in distracting herself, but it brings her comfort, even if it's less than a placebo effect.
'well, my dad did tell me about one. the imperius curse.' [ name ] should really pause the movie and go take every painkiller she finds, but she's afraid her head will fall apart if she's not holding it.
'oh, yeah, your father, would know all about that,' [ name ] rolls and rolls on her bed, she feels herself sweating cold. 'gave the ministry quite a bit of a grief a few years ago.'
she can't keep herself from groaning and whining, her headaches have never been this bad, she can feel her eyes welling up with tears and her breath getting quicker, she just keeps rolling back and forth.
'perhaps this will show you why.' god, this hurts. 'come here, little beauty.'
back and forth, back and forth— yeah, this isn't working, it's only getting worse, but she can't stop herself, the pain will only become more unbearable if she doesn't move.
'engorgio.' [ name ] begs whatever god is up there for morphine.
or for a quick death.
"imperio."
[ name ] falls to the ground.
suddenly, the pain goes away, as if it was never there— damn, did she really just needed an impact to feel better? if she had known that earlier, she would've smashed her head to the wall a long time ago.
she brings her hands up to her ears and she can't feel her earpods, they must have fallen off. with a groan of annoyance, [ name ] sits up on the ground and opens her eyes.
...where the fuck is she?
she expected to be in her bedroom, cold and dark and empty, not this... well, this.
[ name ] finds herself on her knees in clothes that aren't hers, her sleepwear replaced by a long black overcoat, she doesn't have time to see what clothes she has under it before she hears a voice in front of her.
"imperio!"
a man exclaims and [ name ] looks at him— he's wearing eccentric clothes as well, as if he was matching hers. the same black coat, there seems to be a suit under it, tie and all. it's like he came out of a period film.
he's also holding a stick up to her nose, [ name ] frowns in confusion.
"...huh?"
she has a terrible poker face, she can't help but show her confusion and, for some reason, the man in front of her seems to share her confusion. he stammers for a second before he exclaims once again:
"imperio!"
both the man and [ name ] wait for something to happen. she speaks after five seconds go by.
"...excuse me?"
his eyes widen ever so lightly, he looks down at the stick he's holding and smacks it against his hand a few times, the same way [ name ] does when the remote control doesn't want to work. carefully, she stands up fully, dusting off her clothes that aren't really hers, and she glances at the stick in his hand.
now that she looks at it more carefully, it's less than a stick and more of a wand, like the ones you'd see in a harry potter movie. it's pretty, [ name ] thinks, but then the man points at her with the wand once again.
"imperio!"
he exclaims once again, louder than before, and this is just getting absurd at this point.
"i don't think it's working, dude."
[ name ] tells the man, in case he hasn't noticed.
"oh, really?!"
it seems he's very well aware of that fact though, a hollow laugh escapes him and [ name ] can't help but feel a little uneasy. she has an unknown man speaking dead languages as she kneels in front of him in a place she isn't familiar with. this is out of an horror movie.
the man looks over her figure with a frustrated expression, eyebrows furrowed, but then he notices something.
"dude..?"
he seems confused by her usage of the word, panic pools in [ name ]'s stomach.
"who are you calling dude?"
"i—"
"you do know who i am, don't you?"
he asks, [ name ] is sure there is a correct answer to that— an answer she's unaware of.
"i... i don't think i do."
she answers shakily, and the man in front of her looks even more distressed than her.
"you don't know who you are, do you?"
[ name ] stays quiet for a few seconds, his piercing gaze is making her nauseous.
"what... what are you talking about?"
her wavering voice sets all alarms off in the man's head, he roughly lets go of her face and [ name ] nearly falls, even though she manages to hold herself up.
she sees him stand there like a statue, like count orlok, his eyes open wide as he takes in her form. [ name ] doesn't like that expression.
"...what's happening?"
she takes a few steps back, her movements slow as she keeps her eyes glued to the man, she feels like he's going to jump her if she looks away.
at the sound of his voice, the man finally blinks, his empty eyes immediately filling with an emotion that [ name ] can't put her finger on.
"oh, [ name ], i'm so sorry."
what.
"what."
he approaches her, and even though she takes a few steps back, he doesn't get the hint, holding her shoulders to keep her close.
"painkiller spells always made you feel better, kid, i know how hard those headaches are for you, i only wanted to help, but i must've done something wrong or— and now you're—"
his hand hovers over her cheek, and she feels very uncomfortable right now.
"you're [ name ] pendragon."
she's certainly [ name ], but definitely not pendragon, yet she decides that it's better to stay silent for the time being.
"you remember that, don't you?"
he's desperate for her to remember, yet [ name ] can only shake her head no. a sigh of disappointment escapes his mouth, and he finally let go of her.
"i erased your memory."
"you what."
the man only nods his head, his palm pressed against his forehead. she doubts he erased her memory because she can remember her name, her family, her birthplace, all the important stuff.
but the stuff she remembers doesn't add up with the stuff she sees.
"listen, sweetheart, we— we need to go out, and i can't cancel right now, so i'll let you know the basics on the way there, alright?"
[ name ] doesn't have other choice but to nod her head.
"do you want rainbow cotton, kid?"
"uhm.. yeah, sure."
[ name ] is proud of herself, she just found out she's in the harry potter world and she hasn't broken down completely just yet. that's an achievement.
she glances up to the man —whose name now she knows is vergil — buy a "rainbow cotton" from a seller; it's like a cotton candy, but it's constantly changing colors like a rainbow. wizard food, y'know.
the vergil guy has explained most of her background to her: she's a fourteen years old witch who has just moved to the united kingdom because of vergil's job in the ministry of magic or something like that, and since he married her mother back at her homeland, he brought them both to live with him in europe.
she hasn't seen her mother yet.
"kid,"
Vergil calls for [ name ], taking her out of her little bubble. He has the rainbow cotton on his hand, giving it to [ name ].
"there you go."
"thanks.."
also, they're at the quidditch world cup.
people roam around the stadium as they look for their seats, but they're not normal people, no, they're all wizards and witches, one could barely hear her own thoughts among the sea of chatter. [ name ] sticks close to vergil in order to not get lost, gripping the rainbow cotton tightly as if it would protect her or something.
"now, kid, i want you to be nice, alright? we're seeing a few friends, so you need to be on your best behavior."
vergil starts speaking and [ name ] doesn't understand why, it's not like she can hear him anyways.
"uh huh."
he keeps going on about... something that [ name ] doesn't quite catch thanks to all the chatter surrounding them, but she only nods her head as she walks right behind him, acting like she heard him.
she feels out of place, being surrounded by so many magical people when she's basically a muggle. her eyes wander around her surroundings as she takes a bite out of her rainbow cotton— a hundred thousand witches and wizards were taking their places in the seats, which rose in levels around the long oval field. everything was suffused with a mysterious golden light, which seemed to come from the stadium itself. the field looked smooth as velvet from their lofty position. at either end of the field stood three goal hoops, fifty feet high.
it's still hard to believe she's actually in the wizarding world, the idea that she died when she fell from her bed and that this is the afterlife lingers in the back of [ name ]'s mind, yet she ignores it as she eats her rainbow cotton. she can start coming up with theories when she gets back home, not when she's surrounded by this many wizards, she doesn't want to risk having anyone reading her mind.
eventually, her eyes wander to vergil's form. she'd like to trust him, he's the only one who can tell her what's going on after all, but the fact that he tried to use the imperius curse on her and then tried lying about it still creeps her out. a shiver runs down her spine just at the memory of being on her knees as he tried to mind control her. creepy, but she knows better than confronting him.
he's still a stranger after all, everyone is.
[ name ] wouldn't be able to bring herself to calm down even if she actively tried to, she obsessively observes the wizards around her as she tries to find a familiar face. she logically understands that there wouldn't be much of a difference if she saw a character from the saga, but it would make her feel a little more safe.
but it's the quidditch world cup, for god's sake, the chances that she meets a character are pretty slim, she's going to meet a side character at most—
"oh, lucius! there you are!"
you've got to be fucking kidding me.