Invisible String | TVD x WIZARDING WORLD

BE HAPPY Y'ALL

The candles were lit.
Not necessary, but they made the room look spooky in a sexy way, and honestly, aesthetic matters when you're pulling your dead friends out of a psychic hellscape.
A salt ring surrounded me. Again, not required. But Bonnie always did that stuff and she's kind of the Beyoncé of witchcraft, so I figured... when in doubt, do as Bonnie Bennett does—just add a sprinkle of Hogwarts and a whole lotta desperation. Also, Conan Gray was playing in the background because, duh, emotional damage is best served with soft indie heartbreak.
I sat in the center, criss-cross-apparently-about-to-die style, with my palms open and my fingers stained from crushed herbs. The grimoire from Harry was open in front of me, ancient Latin scrawled across the pages like a cursed lullaby. My heartbeat echoed in my skull, but I didn't flinch. Couldn't.
The air shifted first.
It got heavy. Like grief. Like the moment right before someone says goodbye. Then the wind picked up inside the house, and yeah, okay—that part was new.
My voice was steady, but my bones weren't.
"Ex umbris, ad lucem. Per vinculum vitae, audite me. Stefan. Enzo. Lexi. Revertimini."
The salt rose.
The candles flared.
My body? Decided to betray physics and gracefully lift off the damn floor.
I was levitating. Like full-on, glowing-eyes, witch-in-her-power-core moment.
And that's exactly when they walked in.
The family.
My lovely, dramatic, overpowered, emotionally constipated family.
Dad—Damon—froze like someone had just stabbed him through the chest. His face went full brooding panic, eyes locked on me like I might explode at any second.
Caroline gasped. Like, gasped. Her hand was over her mouth in a very "my daughter is floating and possibly summoning demons" sort of way.
Bonnie? Bonnie looked like she was watching a toddler juggle knives—concerned, impressed, horrified. She had no idea what spell this was. Probably because I Frankensteined it together from old Black family magic, Hogwarts banned books, and one of Kol's drunk scribbles on a cocktail napkin.
And speak of the devil.
Kol whistled low.
"Damn, I knew she had flair, but this is next-level. Are we sure she's not auditioning for the next Coven Queen?"
Klaus side-eyed him so hard it might've counted as attempted murder.
Kol shut up real fast.
In fact, Elena actually looked like she hadn't witnessed magic beor she went all sleeping beauty mode.
But I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.
The magic had taken hold now. The room thrummed with it. My hair whipped around like I was in the middle of a storm that only existed in the veil between life and death.
Then—
A pulse.
It wasn't sound, it wasn't light—it was presence.
And I felt it. Three of them. On the edge. Close enough to touch, but still behind the veil.
"Almost there," I whispered, or maybe I thought it. My voice wasn't entirely mine anymore.
"Stefan. Enzo. Lexi. Come back."
There was a scream—mine, I think—but I barely noticed it over the way the walls shook, how the flames danced, how the world cracked open around me—
And then—
Silence.
My body hit the ground hard.
I didn't even have time to breathe before I saw them.
Stefan.
Enzo.
Lexi.
Standing there in the candlelight, looking very confused. And very, very alive.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then again just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating on spell fumes and trauma.
Because there—standing just outside the salt ring, in the warm flickering glow of now-alarmed candles—were three very real, very solid people I hadn't seen breathing in forever.
Stefan. Enzo. Lexi.
Holy. Actual. Sh*t.
They looked... a little ghosty. Pale. Dazed. Like they had just crawled out of a psychic blender. But they were there—no veil, no smoky afterlife filter, no dream-sequence nonsense. Flesh and bone and holycrapthey'reBACK.
And then—
"Diana?"
It was Stefan's voice. Broken. Raw. His eyes locked on mine like I was the only fixed point in a storm, like he'd dreamed of this moment and didn't believe it was real.
I couldn't breathe.
Enzo stumbled forward next, his usual charming smirk flickering to life like muscle memory. "Tell me I'm not hallucinating. You didn't just drag me back from the dead looking like a crypt keeper, did you?"
Lexi just laughed. That bright, raspy, Lexi laugh. "Girl, you did not bring me back in the middle of a candlelit séance. Is this what the cool kids are into now?"
I hit the ground running—literally. I crossed the salt circle like it didn't exist and threw myself at Stefan. My arms wrapped around him before I even registered I was sobbing. UGLY crying. The kind that makes your chest hurt and your nose all gross.
Stefan held me so tight I felt the bones in my back pop. "You're okay. You're okay. You're real," I kept repeating. My voice broke around the words like glass under pressure.
Then Enzo pulled me out of Stefan's grip and spun me into his arms with that same dramatic flair he used to use when stealing someone's bourbon. "I knew it was you calling me. Thought I was going mad, but no, just our little witchy-tribrid angel raising the dead like a damn boss."
Lexi grinned from behind them. "I don't know who she is, but I love her."
I laughed and cried and shook all at once, like my body didn't know what emotion to commit to. "Hi, um, yeah—welcome back from the abyss. Sorry if it was bumpy. I was kinda winging it."
Then—
A sound.
Not a loud one. Just... a gasp. Sharp. Human.
I turned.
And oh.
Dad.
Damon hadn't moved from his spot. His eyes were locked on Stefan, wide and stunned and shining in a way I'd never seen before. Like all the sarcasm had fallen off him in one breath. Like his soul had just walked back into the room.
"Stefan," he whispered. And it was a whisper. Like saying it too loud might break the spell.
Stefan stepped forward.
And Dad—he just crashed into him. Not in a dramatic, vampire-sprint way. But like a little brother who finally got his big brother back after losing him too many times. They didn't say anything for a full minute. Just stood there, clinging to each other, forehead to forehead like kids again.
Caroline broke first. Tears streaming, hands covering her mouth, knees buckling, the whole nine yards. Bonnie grabbed her just before she collapsed. "I—I thought I'd lost him," she choked out.
"Yeah," Bonnie whispered, eyes locked on Enzo. "Me too."
And then—of course—Kol, who clearly had no understanding of sacred emotional moments, clapped and said, "Well. Now that the dead are undead again, is anyone going to address the fact that Diana floated like a full-on banshee queen? Because I'm sorry, but that was hot."
Klaus, naturally, didn't even need to speak. The look he gave Kol? Absolutely withering. Like "I will unresurrect you myself" energy.
I rolled my eyes so hard I saw the Other Side.
"Okay," I said, still sniffling, "anyone else wanna talk about how I almost died again to do this? Or are we just going to skip to the group hug part?"
Lexi raised a hand. "Group hug sounds good."
And that's exactly what happened.
Chaos. Tears. Caroline ugly-laugh-crying. Dad trying to pretend he wasn't crying (he was). Bonnie hugging Enzo so hard he looked winded. Even Klaus got pulled in—Lexi basically bulldozed him into it. Kol took selfies. Classic.
And me?
I just stood in the middle of it, heart still racing, mascara wrecked, but more whole than I'd felt in months.
Because they were back.
Because I did the impossible.
Because for the first time in what felt like forever—my family was whole.
Even if only for now.