april 1945
brief suicidal ideation
sicaria's sense of magic came to long before her body did, and once she finally did regain her senses, touch was the first one she could recognize.
from the moment she awakened, she could feel tom's all-encompassing presence near her, though she could not pinpoint it. sicaria was uncertain whether she just recognized his scent, heard his breathing patterns, or just knew he was there waiting for her like he always was.
once he noticed her moving, sicaria heard the sound of pages ruffling, as if he had moved everything he was previously working on only to watch her wake up.
"where's dumbledore?" she asked, before she had even fully opened her eyes. to her own ears, her voice sounded surprisingly alert, as though she had not rested at all.
he was whispering at her, hissing in a way that made the words feel sharper. "i swear to every star in the sky, sicaria, if you ever do such a thing again—"
"i'm not going to let you get hurt or die for me." she provided no further defense for her actions because they both knew that if it had been tom in that situation, he would have done the very same thing.
he stared at her, face unmoving and unblinking as they stood off against each other, mentally, of course, considering sicaria could be mistaken for being asleep by anyone who happened to enter.
"i mean it, sicaria. i'll make you pray you never met me."
"as do i. there is not a thing you can say that will change my mind," she said, not backing down. "now if you are going to storm off, please do it soon—"
"enough," he whisper-shouted at her. tom was already messing up his plan; there was just some quality about her and only her that was able to make him act out of rage. he remembered himself quickly though, putting his emotions aside to continue his plan. "stop acting petulant, i know your tricks and you are not fooling me, no matter how good you think you are at it."
in her hand, she could feel his heart beating rapidly with the force it took for him to restrain himself. when she did not respond, he spoke again.
"do you get some kind of enjoyment from having me care about your life since nobody else you've ever known has?"
she gasped and her eyes flung open at the statement because she could not believe it had been tom who said it if not seeing him. and there he was, when she opened her eyes, unflinching and uncaring of neither her hurt nor her wrath.
he stood and she only watched, unable to think of a response considering he had never been so outright malicious to her— not with words, anyway. her mind immediately started to race with things to say— instinctually jumping to thinking of some way to get him to feel remorseful for what he had said. she opened her mouth to say something about how much pain he had caused her but froze because none of it was genuine, and he would surely know it.
two sides of her were warring with each other— one calling tom an enemy that she needed to have the upper hand over or else he would kill her, the other wondering why she was trying so hard with tom when he was entirely right (though she scarcely wanted to admit it) and love her either way.
when her lips closed around her response, he stood, face betraying no thought or emotion to sicaria, and walked toward healer miranda's office, letting sicaria linger in her internal confusion.
she heard him mumble something that essentially amounted to, "she's awake," before crossing the room once again, apparently to leave.
sicaria did not know why, but this set off alarm bells in her mind. no matter how angry he had been at her in the past, he had always stayed by her side, or was always sure he was able to have an eye on her at all times. he was smothering her before, but now he was detached and borderline uncaring, or rather, faking it convincingly.
but then— he had never insulted her so. never just out of arms reach. it felt unnatural almost, as if sicaria had suddenly stopped being the object of all tom's attentions, which after the long past months, she had grown accustomed to. she did not particularly like feeling as though she was a secondary concern, yet was still hesitant to admit that a fragment of what tom had accused her of was true— she could not deny that there was part of her that clung to the attention, whether positive or negative, that the five boys consistently regarded her with. it had become such an expected and integral part of her view of her own self-importance that to have it removed from her felt targeted and insulting.
ultimately, she could not let him go unscathed. she had to fight back, at least somewhat, or else she would feel far more defeated than he had already caused.
"makes you feel guilty, doesn't it?" she crowed at him as he walked away, back facing her. her voice cracked, and she could not tell if it was from the sudden desire to cry, or from the pain and exhaustion waking up in her body. "knowing that i would have survived if i had never met you?"
he did not turn, or act as though he had heard her at all.
she knew, logically, that it was not true; that of course he had not waited by her side as she rested solely to insult her the moment she woke. the act itself contradicted everything she knew about tom and the way that he acted when faced with obstacles.
tom was never someone to walk away from problems. in all the time she had known him, he had beat his enemies and barriers into submission by the sheer force of him. sicaria had never known tom to lose to anyone, both except and including herself. he did not compromise, nor did he ever let anyone have the impression that they had beaten him, regardless of the reality. so for him to resign now, and let sicaria believe that she had hurt him so deeply that he could no longer fight for her was suspicious and extremely painful.
he's given up on me, sicaria started to think, attempting to rid herself of the irrational insecurities that frequently jumped at the opportunity to tread upon her. tom had almost never given sicaria any reason to doubt that he loved her, so when sicaria's uncontrollable train of thought received even the most inconsistent, out-of-character evidence that tom might have had even the smallest bit of resentment toward her, it struck.
dumbledore was in the ward within minutes of tom leaving, and sicaria, through all her exhausted senses, could instantly see the stress practically secreting off of him. he was wearing only the dress shirt and slacks that she saw him in when he was at macusa, rather than his robes that he typically wore at hogwarts. he held his wand in his hand and what looked like another spare wand in his front pocket, along with some other item that made a slight tinkling noise every time he took a particularly large step. he had what looked like several burns spanning across all of his fingertips and slightly up his wrist, and his hair was all pushed backward, as if he had given it only a passing thought when he rose this morning.
"i know you have only just awakened, miss edwards, but you must come with me at once," he said without greeting, nor glance toward an obviously irritated healer miranda, who sought to interject the moment dumbledore took a breath between sentences. "i shall return her immediately after we are done, miranda, but this matter is extremely urgent— please, miss edwards."
"she cannot, albus! look at the state she is in! i am surprised she can so much as stand, let alone move at the pace with which you are rushing her!" she protested as dumbledore helped (or rather, forced) sicaria to her feet. miranda stood opposite to dumbledore, so sicaria could not see her, however she could hear the metal and glass tools and flasks clinking against each other as she rushed over to feebly attempt to stop dumbledore from taking her.
"i am well aware but we have so little time, so if you would, miss edwards."
and suddenly, sicaria was on her feet and hurrying as quickly as her shaky legs would take her. nausea began to form in her stomach from the sudden movements, but she hoped that the oncoming wave of adrenaline would begin to placate her sickness, as well as the strengthening draught that miranda was forcing down her throat. sicaria nearly choked from the taste.
once they were out of earshot of miranda, who was still cursing dumbledore from the open doors of the ward, sicaria spoke. "where are we going? has something happened?"
neither of them paid much attention to the suspicious nature of their actions to miranda (who had extensive knowledge of sicaria's frequent unexplainable injuries as well as virulent drug addiction) or to any of the stray onlookers in the hallway watching sicaria and dumbledore nearly jog in the direction of his office.
"to my office, and yes, sort of," he said, casting a muffling charm around the pair of them as she struggled to keep up and breathe through the strain on her lungs. however, there were few people in the corridor to see them. "eileen and members of the regulatory commission are demanding to see you immediately."
almost subconsciously, sicaria's steps slowed and a pinprick of fear struck her, only for a second. "she's here?"
dumbledore nudged sicaria as gently as one could push someone. "we must hurry, or else she'll get the next portkey here and demand to see you in hogsmeade."
sicaria attempted to quicken her pace in order to get a look at dumbledore's expression, but her body resisted the excess movement. "why can't she?"
dumbledore's pace slowed only for a second before speaking. "she'll bring aurors with her to 'take you', and the moment you set foot outside the walls of this castle, grindelwald will have you before you have time to raise your wand."
her head snapped to his, feet stopping even as he continued to pull her urgently.
"they're here?"
"they've always been here. to spy on me."
sicaria swallowed, suddenly feeling the dryness in her throat and lungs. the potion was starting to kick in. "why is she so adamant now to see me?"
"because she had convinced herself that you are dead."
"what?" sicaria did physically stop this time, shocked by the opportunity that dumbledore was leading her away from. almost subconsciously, she patted the part of her clothes where her pockets normally were, feeling for her wand. "how?"
dumbledore seemed to realize his mistake instantly, starting to fret in his urgency to get her to move. "please, miss edwards, you must walk, quickly!"
"i need answers—"
"i have answered every question, but you must continue to walk," dumbledore commanded, and sicaria followed, albeit somewhat hesitant. "after the fire, one of the aurors assigned to surveilling you reported that after you escaped the building, he watched you apparate, but that you seemed so disoriented that he was unable to tell if you ever landed. once mr. rosier sent word to me of what happened, i made macusa aware that you had lived, but they were— skeptical."
"but- the emblem. doesn't that—?"
"merely the physical location of your body and whether or not you are interacting with magic."
sicaria mumbled, "i never knew that. why do they think i am dead?"
"because of your history and recent pattern of behavior."
the answer was sufficient enough for sicaria. "you didn't tell me i was being surveilled."
"it didn't occur to me that you did not know." the pair reached dumbledore's office, but he did not yet open the door, lowering his tone and speaking rapidly, as though attempting to dump all relevant information into sicaria's head before they could enter. "nobody really wants you gone from here. the ministry thinks that they can pull some credit from grindelwalds capture if they get him here, which is where he likely knows you are. macusa— well picquery, really— wants any battle that happens on your behalf to happen off of american soil. people are protesting almost daily now, especially after the piece in the prophet about american spies in europe. it's less risk if it happens here, for picquery, because if they don't get him, at least it wasn't the americans who let him get away."
"why does it seem she's the only one considering they won't actually get grindelwald?"
"because she's the only one who knows you won't put up a fight."
"if picquery wants me here, and eileen doesn't, how can she overrule picquery?"
"she can't, but the regulatory commission can vote to get a subpoena and force you out."
"that woman is a fool."
"decoloro," dumbledore cast, and she could see bruises and swelling appear on her face in the reflection of the marble floor. "the correctness of her choice is irrelevant now, but he has chosen you. now if you want to come out of this as unscathed as possible, you must heed my advice. say as little as possible. i'll be just out of view of the fireplace, so if she asks a question and i raise my hand, deny whatever it is she asks."
sicaria nodded tiredly as dumbledore opened his office door.
the fireplace was already burning brightly when the pair entered, and sicaria could see the silhouette of eileen's head turned to the side, talking with someone in her office, though sicaria could not see nor hear who. as they entered, dumbledore quickly moved himself out of sight of the fireplace, but made a loud step, ensuring eileen turned to see sicaria.
"there you are! for a moment, i thought i was going to have to come through at get you myself," eileen said, squinting somewhat at the image.
sicaria only moved closer to the fireplace, kneeling about a foot away from the flames, unresponsive.
"merlin, sicaria! you look ghastly." her tone was both disbelieving and relieved. sicaria could faintly hear someone in the back ask 'are you sure that's her?' to which eileen nodded absently, not taking her eyes away from the fire.
"how'd you expect me to look?" sicaria asked dryly, wondering how bad dumbledore had truly made her look. "why have you called for me?"
"well it is protocol, after a mishap like this, to give a statement on what occurred."
"not over a fireplace call."
"well," eileen said, sighing. dumbledore shook his head at her, reminding her that now was not the time to toy with her. "circumstances and whatnot."
sicaria, both physically and mentally exhausted, went over each and every detail of the previous day in as little detail as she felt would be acceptable. eileen interrupted only twice, realizing after sicaria ignored both times, that she was not going to be able to get a rise from her.
dumbledore caught her eye as she was nearing the part of the story in which she first apparated to her safehouse, attempting to convey to sicaria to leave that part out entirely. she understood, because it would make little sense for her to travel back and forth, looking for a fight.
"i was primarily on defense in my apartment. i was outnumbered. i got to a point where i had a small opening of time, not enough to apparate without being hit, so i ran out to the hall and down the stairs. the fire had already been going, so debris was falling and i was caught in the crowd of muggles also pushing toward the exits."
"did you cast spells in the presence of the muggles?" eileen asked accusingly, despite having heard sicaria say only seconds before that she had. "to where did you apparate after leaving the building?"
"a safehouse."
"where?"
"it's under fidelius," sicaria said. macusa was not permitted to force any property owner to give up the location of any land under a fidelius charm without a search warrant for the property. "you can't make me tell you where it is."
"did you leave the country?" eileen questioned sharply, now grasping at straws to make herself appear to be in control of the situation to whoever was on the other side of the fireplace with her.
"no."
sicaria could see vota fishing for something else to complain about— a certain look in her eyes that she got at times when she was looking for a job to do.
"saving those muggles was a borderline breach to the statute of secrecy. anyone else doing such an egregious offense would be recommended for indictment, and— where are you going?"
sicaria did not respond, nor did she turn back to continue listening. dumbledore spoke in her stead. "she has gone, eileen," dumbledore lied, seeing sicaria take up the spot he had previously been standing in.
"oh, i didn't realize you were here, albus. and please address me as director vota, now."
"of course, interim director vota, i've forgotten myself. miss edwards has gone."
"yes, well," she said, chuckling somewhat disbelievingly to herself as she seemed to organize some papers. "i suppose that was everything we really needed from her. ensure she remains in good health, will you?"
her job could not have been that bloody difficult if she had time to take out of her day merely to taunt sicaria for no reason other than to ensure she'd still have a job tomorrow. eileen truly was one of the worse bureaucrats sicaria had worked under. she was so unashamed in her mediocrity, and made no attempts to do anything other than plagiarize and piggyback off of sicaria, after having lucked upon her. there had been few people sicaria had ever known, with so little self respect.
"i certainly shall. good day, interim director."
eileen's scowl disappeared and the flames suddenly turned from green back to their natural orange.
dumbledore turned to her, giving her a somewhat grateful smile.
"i am going to speak to president picquery now."
"alright."
"you are welcome to stay, or if you wish to return to the hospital wing first, i shall escort you."
"i'll listen," sicaria responded, not knowing really why she cared.
"out of view, then, if you would, ms. edwards."
in moments, dumbledore had reconnected his office fire to the floo network, yelling, "office of seraphina picquery," into it before throwing only about a pinch of floo powder into the fire. instead of president picquery appearing, though, a seemingly automated version of her assistant's head appeared in the fire.
"state your name and meeting time with president picquery," she said.
"albus dumbledore," he called before looking down at his watch. "right now."
"you are number— 9— in the queue. president picquery will be with you in a moment. please wait, and do not leave the floo."
the head disappeared and only the crackling of the floo could be heard. however, in only seconds, the nothingness in the fire was replaced by the profile of seraphina picquery, breathing rather heavily, as if she had run a lap to the floo.
"seraphina?"
"albus!" the president was whisper hissing into her floo, both seeming as though she was waiting on this moment, and entirely did not have time for it. perhaps she had allowed dumbledore to skip the queue, and it made sicaria wonder if her situation was truly that high of a priority. it gave sicaria some relief to see that picquery looked just as bad as everyone had been telling sicaria she looked. "i told you under no circumstances to let her leave hogwarts!"
"eileen gave her specific orders t—"
"i do not give a damn what that woman says! you are not to let her leave that castle. restrain her if you have to!"
"you forget yourself, seraphina," dumbledore said hotly, somewhat offended, apparently, by the implication that he would physically force sicaria to do anything. "i am under no obligation to take orders from you, and i will lay no hand on that girl. though i doubt that she will attempt to leave, if she does, i will not attempt to stop her."
"you're going to let her get herself killed."
"i have no control of how she gambles with her life. have i mistaken you?"r
"you know as well as i do that i cannot do what you want," she spat, as though the mere suggestion was bitter in her mouth. "you know i have always been grateful for your assistance in my campaign, as well as my administration. i ask you this only because i believe it is what is best."
"it would be different if you could guarantee it. but you cannot be certain that you will get grindelwald when he comes for her. you should probably be far more skeptical than you are."
sicaria god bored of their brief conversation quickly. once they had moved from the topic of sicaria onto more specific details regarding some ministry bureaucrat that dumbledore was friends with, she stopped listening. she did not have to wait for long, though, because president picquery was doing her best to ensure that she rushed through the details as thoroughly as possible. it was evident both in her tone and her fidgety demeanor that she was short on time, and trusted dumbledore enough to essentially read her mind as she skipped through her points. they were done talking within five minutes, and before the flame had even fully extinguished, dumbledore had turned back to her.
"i'd ask you not to repeat any of that, but..." he trailed off, and she did not know if he was referencing the fact that she was not listening, or that she did not have anyone to tell. either way, she ignored the comment.
"what is it she thinks you want her to do?" she asked, knowing that if dumbledore had not been explicitly giving her permission to ask questions, she would not have been permitted to listen to the conversation.
"it doesn't much matter, since she won't do it."
"what would you have said if i wasn't here?"
dumbledore smiled. "you enjoy confrontation even when there is no cause for it," which was his polite way of telling her she did not have anything to truly complain about.
dumbledore soon dismissed her as politely as he could to get back to whatever world-saving plot that would inevitably continue long after she was gone.
sicaria sat in the hospital ward for the rest of the day, alone, and ignorant to the whims of the castle beyond the doors. occasionally she would hear footsteps out in the hall, or feel a slight twinge of the magic that linked the six of them in her arm, but whether or not she was imagining this, none of them came to see her.
it was tom's doing, she supposed. perhaps he truly was upset this time, for he was cutting her off at her knees by forcing her to wallow in loneliness. it made her want to cry, only slightly, but she did not let herself.
she was going to die alone, and her last conversation with any of them would have been meaningless. the last thing he will have said to her would be an insult borne out of frustration, and she truly did not know if it would haunt him as it would have haunted her had the roles been reversed.
perhaps he had thought he'd been as good to her as he could have been. he nearly said it a few times, that he had loved her in the only way he was able to— in the only way she allowed him to.
she spent hours in the hospital bed, sitting and thinking, and waiting for anyone to walk through the door, but no one came. she felt betrayed somewhat. she had come to see abraxas even when she was furious with him, if not only to see that he was going to recover. she could be on her deathbed, and none of them would know.
she corrected herself internally. tom would know immediately.
"when can i leave the ward?" sicaria asked healer miranda when she made her final round of the night, extinguishing all of the lights. it was nearing ten o'clock, and sicaria felt much like she had spent the day rotting rather than healing.
"when you're better," she responded, not turning to sicaria. miranda had given up on her too. "although, i can't make you stay here. you are very much here of your own volition, sicaria."
sicaria shot her a questioning look. the hostility was relatively unprompted considering that the offhand question did not even make the list of rudest things sicaria had said to the healer, but she had been in a bit of a mood for the past few days regardless. sicaria had just been so consumed by her own wallowing that she had failed to give miranda's attitude any excess thoughts.
"half the year you begged me to stay here, and now you want me gone," sicaria mumbled under her breath, purposefully letting her words evade miranda's ear.
in truth, sicaria knew she was right, but she could not bring herself to want to leave. if she did, she would have to concede a loss that she knew did not matter, but sicara was not a chaser. she would not go out and grovel and beg for them to care about her. she could not let herself appear so weak after she had been the one in the right. that part was the most annoying, in her mind; that tom and all the others knew that they themselves would have done the exact same in her position. of all the awful things that they had all done to each other, this offense seemed like the least worthy of this treatment.
however, after only three days of this silence, she was grasping at the final straws of her dignity not to break her promises to herself.
there was no need for her to stay in the hospital wing, but there was nothing out there for her, and when she inevitably had to leave her dorm for sustenance, she would run the risk of having to see one of them, or perhaps, see all of them carrying on with their lives without her, like she was already gone.
sicaria annoyed herself with her own melodrama. it felt pathetic and unearned, but this waiting game compounded with near isolation was driving her mad. she had been surviving on small interactions with the healer and dumbledore, but by the third day, sicaria had managed to needle miranda into a more meaningful talk.
"you haven't been doing your school work," miranda said to her that day, and sicaria only shrugged. her tone was laced with a mean-spirited sarcasm that sicaria could tell was meant to goad her. "not interested in graduating?"
"not particularly, no. it was never a priority of mine," sicaria responded, in turn goading miranda with the apathetic attitude that she so hated.
miranda sighed, tapping her wand against her tray table, which sent little sparks of blue light across the room. "are you going to kill yourself at the end of the year?"
sicaria answered the question with the same bluntness with which it was asked. "i'm not planning on it, but who knows how i'll feel at the end of the month?"
"that is not funny."
"no, i'm not going to kill myself," she said, bored of a joke that once would have entertained her.
"then what are you going to do with no diploma, no internships, and no NEWTS?"
"i do have a diploma," sicaria mumbled. reckless. volatile. unthinking. "just not from here."
"what?"
"i graduated from ilvermorny two years ago."
a beat of disbelieving silence passed.
"are you telling the truth?" miranda stepped around her desk to give sicaria a better look, apparently believing that looking directly at her would make her better able to discern truth from lies.
"yes."
there was more hesitation on miranda's part. "then why are you here?"
"when life gives you lemons..." sicaria trailed off. "you know the saying."
"so what? going to do another year at beauxbatons next, then?"
sicaria chuckled. "i wish i had gone there instead of here. maybe things would've turned out differently."
"what things?" miranda turned around, apparently deciding that sicaria was lying. she could hear the glass bottles and beakers moving around her small metal tray, and she seemed to be using a host of spells as an extension of her arms, stirring four beakers at the same time. "don't tell me i've been letting you mope around here over that boy you were seeing."
"why are you letting me stay here?"
"you're not getting intoxicated in here. and i thought that you needed some sort of mental break, but you seem to be just as delightful to be around as usual."
"don't kick me out, please."
"give me a straight answer, then." miranda turned to face sicaria with a waiting expression on her face. "what's your name?"
"sicaria."
"how old are you?"
"nineteen."
"why are you here, at hogwarts?"
sicaria was not intending to lie when she opened her mouth, but it came as second nature when she spoke. "i'm in witness protection."
sicaria could tell miranda was skeptical, but the lie seemed to make certain behaviors of hers make more sense.
that's why, sicaria knew she was thinking. that's why she's crazy. she's post-traumatic. something awful has happened to her, and she doesn't know how to cope. that's why...
sicaria never felt guilty about lying, but for some reason unbeknownst to her, this one made her think for hours into the night, so much that she became restless. stockholm syndrome was how she characterized it in the moment, knowing that she was certainly not miranda's hostage, nor could that psychological phenomenon be induced in such a short period of time. yet, she deduced that for some reason, her entrapment in this state of worry had forced her to create feelings she had never felt, if not only for some diversity in her heart and head.
perhaps the restlessness compounded with sleep deprivation was causing her to hallucinate, because at one point, sicaria swore she saw the faintest movement in the corner of the ward, on the opposite side from her bed.
"hormenum revelio," she cast instantly, but nothing out of the ordinary appeared from the shadows.
after seeing nothing, adrenaline apparently still in her, she could not sleep, not that sicaria was trying particularly hard. casting a quick tempus charm, she noted that it was in the early hours of the next morning, only about 3:15. with nothing else to do, she stood from her bed, attempting to make as little noise as possible, and disillusioned herself, preparing to sneak out of the ward. she needed new air and new scenery and to break a rule. she tried to tell herself that she only wanted to stretch, but only a few days in the ward alone seemed to have given her cabin fever.
sicaria also cast a heating charm. she had grown sick of the cold.
looking down both ends of the hallway, in the dim light she could see no movement on the floor. only the walls were awake at this hour— paintings reliving those same few moments of existence that they had been granted at their creation. they seemed never to get bored of their purgatory, for sicaria could not recall a time that any of them complained. she supposed, though, that they had never lived anything else, and thus had nothing to compare it to.
she crept down the hall, wandering aimlessly throughout the castle, managing not to bump into any ghosts or other stragglers or insomniacs. her bare feet were cold against the stone floors, but the warmth of her charm reached the entire rest of her body without fail.
despite being particularly warm, she still wrapped her arms around herself as she wandered, enjoying the feeling of the weak pressure that her body was able to muster. sicaria believed that miranda was prolonging her healing for some reason that she could not understand, but she never brought it up, as she could not discern whether this was a true assessment or another of her paranoid delusions.
unwittingly, she got rid of her already dim lumos charm, preferring the almost nonexistent moonlight to illuminate her path. the moon was only a crescent on this night, which meant that all of the objects in the hallway had to share only a sliver of light to be seen. it interested sicaria, which paintings and suits of armor and photographs caught the light, and which others were left in the dark. how certain crystals in chandeliers glittered, but others sat still, unable to bask in the same limelight.
as she began to tire, she allowed herself to sway from side to side, eventually leaning against the wall as she continued her path onward. down another corridor, down a flight of stairs, turning left, up another hallway, past more doors.
it was only when she passed the familiar iron gates that she started to recognize what area of the castle she was in.
the dungeons. as cold and uninviting as ever. and yet—
it was an interesting part of the spell (or perhaps of her subconscious mind) that if she was not specifically following a path to somewhere, she would be unknowingly guided to wherever he was.
she looked between the dorms in the slytherin common room— one way to adrien and adonis's, another to abraxas and thomas's and another to toms.
decisions. one's that she did not want to make. all it took was the image of tom shutting the door in her face (which she knew he certainly wouldn't do, but the fear was enough) to make her extinguish any ideas of going to him.
she decided nearly instantly, turning so quickly that she felt nearly dizzy. however, she gasped, nearly screaming and casting until she saw the familiar face of abraxas malfoy appear from beneath a disillusionment charm.
"calm yourself, edwards," he said in his traditional faux-nonchalant voice, as though this was an entirely normal situation. the first words he had said to her in nearly a week were a half-serious command, one he was obviously reluctant to say, given that she immediately got the impression that she was not supposed to have seen him.
"christ, abraxas. what are you doing?" sicaria asked, holding a hand to her chest to slow her heartbeat.
"ensuring you don't run off into the night. or get taken," he added as an afterthought since the former was far more likely than the latter, based on his prior knowledge of her. apparently he had given up on trying to salvage whatever bits of the illusion (that they suddenly did not care about her) were left. they had clearly been affecting her deeply, based only on his assessment of her appearance, and she always knew when he was lying anyway. "are you going to him or are you going back to the hospital ward?"
she cleared her throat as the gradual feeling of embarrassment at her obvious desperation settled upon her. of course they had not just abandoned her. they would never do that. of course one of them was watching her, stalking her, suffocating her. she would later remind herself to reframe her memory of the previous days with the new knowledge that they had been there the whole time. how could she have been so blind? "to the hospital."
abraxas hesitated in whatever he was originally going to say. "he's probably still awake, if that's what you're worried about."
"i wasn't."
"he'd be happy to see you." he won't have the strength to push you away. he'd do it now.
"he knows where i am." abraxas would surely tell tom that he had seen her, though, and knowing that tom knew how close she had come to practically begging for comfort was embarrassment enough. despite being in love with tom, she could still not stomach the idea of 'losing' to him, in any way.
he rolled his eyes, thinking only that the two of them were far too similar for their collective good. perhaps she was still not quite desperate enough, he thought, to fall into the trap that tom had laid for her, but every passing day felt like the sands of time were running out. he was starting to feel the sunk cost, and if after all of this avoiding and corroding her did not work, and she still died anyway, it would have all been for nothing, and he would never have gotten to say a proper goodbye. he had to force himself to trust tom's judgement of her, but it was hard when abraxas knew her to be the most resilient (stubborn) person he'd ever met. "suit yourself. come along, edwards."
they walked in mostly silence, except for moments when she would not lift her leg high enough to take a full step, or swayed slightly too hard to one side.
abraxas walked just behind her, forcing himself not to catch her— if he touched her, he'd surely lose his temper. "are you alright?"
"i'm fine."
"mhm," he said, and she could feel his eyes on her in a way that felt very un-abraxas. there was an obscene amount of care, but very little warmth, and an absolute vacancy of adoration.
the walk back to the ward felt infinitely longer than the walk out of it. perhaps time passed slower during leisure than it did when she was under stress. for some reason, abraxas being a step behind her, near enough to hear his breathing, but not see him, nagged at the back of her mind.
"are you here every night?" she asked him, hand on the hospital ward door.
"no. just had a feeling." sicaria did not know whether or not to believe him.
"you could've said something before."
"i wanted you to make whatever choice you were going to make on your own."
"yes well, now you've seen me prance around like a fool because i thought no one was watching."
"i didn't mind. it makes you seem more human."
she did not know what to make of that comment, but before she could interrogate him further, he had already disillusioned himself. now that she knew he was there, she could feel and stare at the exact spot she knew him to be standing, but not bring herself to speak. she took that as a dismissal of sorts— that he knew he had broken whatever terms tom had set for them and that he needed to take a measured step back from her.
"goodnight, abraxas," she said into the void as she stepped through the door.
she thought that he was going to pretend he wasn't there until she heard the faintest "'night, sicaria," just as the door closed.
•••
sicaria was awakened the following morning by the talons of a post-owl clanging as they landed on the metal frame of the hospital bed. she stirred slightly as it hooted, opening her eyes to see that dawn had only barely broken, and that the minimal light seeping through the windows had the dark-orange tint of early morning.
it was still so dark, in fact, that sicaria had to use a lumos charm to be able to read the one-word letter that the owl had carried to her.
hogwarts, it said.
sicaria could feel the pressure in her veins increase with every beat of her heart.
dumbledore was there within seconds.
"how did they know?" sicaria asked him the moment the doors closed.
"the intruder's, likely. how many were there?"
"not many," sicaria said. "they were surprised when they first entered. it wasn't like an attack. they only started fighting long after."
"did you kill them all?"
"don't think so." some of the bodies had disappeared by the time she got back, which meant that either abraxas, adonis, or thomas was sending stunners, and the assassins had come to and disapparated before sicaria had gotten back. they didn't know they were supposed to kill.
"then he has your face, miss edwards. he could show your picture to every wizard in nurmengard. one of them was sure to recognize you, and you did not always use identification concealment charms. he knew one of your whereabouts. he may not know the rest."
"it is entirely possible that he does. he must have thought i was far from new york if he was only attempting a break-in. if he believed that i was going to return there after a day at macusa, he would have someone tailing me. or perhaps would have been waiting for me in my home for when i arrive."
"he has probably known hogwarts for some time now, then."
"then why wait?"
"the pact."
"i don't understand."
"he needs to know whether the pact is on you or me. if it was still on you, and he kidnapped you from hogwarts, he'd never be able to kill you. but, if he can ensure that you have given yourself up, then there is significantly less risk."
he handed her a small piece of parchment, carefully cut from what was obviously a much larger message, in a handwriting that she had come to both anticipate and dread.
i'll be more lenient if you encourage her to surrender now. hogwarts does not need to fall to protect a foreigner.
"he's coming. why is he hesitating?"
"he'll want to lure you away. he knows that you cannot apparate out of hogwarts, and no one knows that my floo can leave the school. it's easier to hope you'll just... come out, rather than him having to find a way in. i'm certain he has people in hogsmeade, and on the edge of the grounds, but so does macusa and the ministry, and he needs to avoid a fight."
sicaria exhaled, but her lungs felt hollow. it was a new shock every time the opportunity to kill herself arose, regardless of the fact that she had already made a great show of accepting it.
"i think it wise to limit your interactions with the students any further," dumbledore said, hastily elaborating at sicarias harsh look. "i am not asking you to give up your friends, but i do believe it best not to involve anyone who is unaware of what they have gotten themselves into."
"won't be a problem."
"i have to ask, sicaria," dumbledore stated, clinically. "what exactly you intend to do when he arrives?"
"i will not fight." the tension in her chest unwound and fell into her stomach.
"are you quite certain?"
"very."
"can you think of nothing to fight for?"
"i know what you are implying, but no." sicaria almost yelled. "you think i can beat grindelwald in a duel?"
"no."
"well then why should i bother wasting more of my stolen time?"
"i find, for many who have resigned as you have, that when the moment comes— the time to surrender, i mean— it is much harder to lay down your wand than you imagine it will be. he will let you keep it, when he has you. he'll make you duel him. he'll torture you, and you'll try to fight back. he'll make a game of it, and he'll make you play."
"did you take your blood-pact off me while i was unconscious?"
"i did."
"why now?"
"i thought that perhaps a miracle of the sort would make you reconsider death. i was wrong. and now, you no longer need it. if i had said no, would you have requested again that i remove it?"
"yes."
"my point stands."
there was a break in the conversation, one which dumbledore recognized as a moment sicaria needed to gather the courage (or perhaps, put aside her pride) to ask for something. he did not rush her, as she looked off to the side and fiddled with the tattoo on her finger. she would speak when she was ready, and it would certainly be about whatever fear was lingering in the back of her mind rather than whatever immediate conversation they had previously been having.
"please don't let him kill himself over me."
his response took nowhere near the amount of time sicaria took to speak. "i will tell you the same thing i told seraphina. he has the choice whether or not to listen to me, but i cannot and will not force him to do anything."
dumbledore wondered how sicaria was still so blind to tom's abilities when it came to evading death. perhaps she did not want to believe it, because to do so, she would have to give herself hope of survival, and her body could accommodate no further stress.
she said nothing more, and he did not explain his rationale further, taking her silence as the unkind dismissal it was meant to be.
sicaria considered the new parameters of her situation for hours after dumbledore left, and tried to think back. had grindelwald ever exacted revenge on the families of his opponents? yes. what would he do to her?
dumbledore, and grindelwald himself, in fact, seemed to imply that he intended to make an example of her. to what extent, she thought, did she need to protect those tangential to her, while preparing to sacrifice herself.
what would i do, she thought, if i were him? if i were trying to scapegoat someone?
she'd attack their family, and tom and the boys were the closest she had to it.
but, she then considered further, what 'fun' per se would come from torturing those close to sicaria if she volunteered all information he wanted from her? it would be harm for the sake of it, which had never been a pattern in grindelwalds past actions. he always did things with purpose, so perhaps taking abraxas and achille as examples as well would prove useful, but for the others, not so much.
what to do, what to do?
she could kill herself now, and let grindelwald find her body, but she had never been able to go through with it before. why would she now, especially when macusa's dynasty oath prevented her from it?
she thought about making dumbledore obliviate her. that way, if grindelwald tried looking for any of her very few loved ones, he would be unable to find them, but memory charms could be broken, and the moment grindelwald saw she was trying to conceal something, he would dig for it.
sicaria sat perfectly statuesque for several minutes as she tried to work through the very real problem that her memories presented. they perfectly implicated all those who were closest to her, and if sicaria had made any errors in her assessment of grindelwalds pattern of behaviors, she would pay dearly for it. she had managed to convince herself that his threat was more bluff than anything else, and perhaps it was sound logic, or perhaps it was because she could think of no other options that she felt certain in her findings.
if he attempted to use legilimency on her, she would try to play down any involvement the boys had with her after january. they would be useless to target if grindelwald believed that they had no knowledge of her true affairs. then, she could force forward memories of her interrogations and missions from the beginning of the year, and lead grindelwald to believe that only that was the summation of her time spent at hogwarts.
she needed dumbledore to remove key conversations from her mind, and with such small pieces missing, she would hope that should anyone go looking, they would miss such minute details. specifically, any mention of the word "spy," "agent," or, "macusa" had to leave any conversation that she held onto in her mind.
as the sun was setting, she left the ward in search of dumbledore in hopes of asking him what words he should replace them with, however she could find him nowhere in the castle, and all of the candles were unlit in his office.
sicaria sighed in frustration. no one else would be able to do such a complex memory spell, and she did not want to run the risk of trying to imperio someone and control them while also trying to maneuver sensitive parts of her own mind.
she would just have to wait until he returned, despite the fact that all this planning was contingent on the assumption that grindelwald would explore her mind, even after she volunteered any piece of information he asked of her.
she did not know enough of him to be able to predict his acts, but dumbledore might have, and when she needed him, he was gone.
albus, i need a favor, as soon as possible. please let me know the moment you return, she sent in a fragile patronus, and she watched it leave the castle.
feeling a sense of impending impatience, she turned back, not avoiding the watchful eyes of each student she passed in the hall. they stared at her, but she hardly noticed them, for there were things of greater importance holding her attention, things that the silver-spoon fed hogwarts students would never be able to understand.
they could judge her sickly appearance and erratic behavior all they liked, but they would never know her sacrifice and illegitimate nobility.
it was long after she had returned to the ward and miranda had made her final rounds that sicaria finally heard word from dumbledore, which arrived just after eleven that night. darkness had overtaken the castle, and though the only light in the ward was dumbledore's arriving patronus, sicaria had never been farther from sleep.
i shall return within the half-hour, miss edwards. i will send word when i arrive to meet near my office.
only a half hour more. she would then be able to pad her paranoia with an uncertain solution, one which dumbledore could outright refuse to do, but it would be her only consolation.
she stood pacing impatiently waiting for ten minutes after dumbledore's message reached her. the only sensation in the ward was sound; sicaria's breaths and the sound of her footprints, but upon hearing a sudden new sound, she looked up from her feet to see a figure quietly close the creaking door behind them. the tip of their wand was lit with a very dim lumos and they froze when they saw she was awake, as if they were expecting an empty ward.
she looked in the direction of where the face would be, but she could not make out the eyes.
sicaria held her breath.
she could hear his breathing, but it was not grindelwald, as the first thought of her mind asked. this was the stature of a boy, not a man. it was not abraxas either as it had been some nights before, for she could not feel him as she could when he truly was present. nor was it dumbledore, who would not have snuck into the ward unannounced.
"who's there?" she whispered into the dark, feeling around her empty pocket for her wand.
she silently summoned it from her bedside table to her hand, which is when the attacker struck, casting some sort of jinx that sicaria did not recognize. it was purple, and in the light of the spell she could make out the face of julian murdoch. she threw a thin protego on herself, rolling around and ducking beside the opposite side of the bed, which absorbed most of the force of the spell.
the metal in the bed gave a large creak from the impact and sicaria braced as she attempted to focus her mind on the situation at hand. shreds of charred linen and spare smoking feathers fell slowly from above her.
"come out, bloodtraitor!" murdoch screamed, apparently unable to see himself.
murdoch, murdoch... she thought, searching her mind for what relevance he had to her at all. she then remembered, albeit faintly, an offhand comment that potter had made many nights ago. at slughorns party, she recalled, potter mentioning the murdoch's involvement with grindelwald. the memory brought back one buried even deeper and farther in her mind, back in the beginning of the school year when she had been conducting her interrogations, the name murdoch coming up every so often.
though, sicaria realized, his motive would matter significantly more after she got out of immediate danger, as murdoch had begun lighting the spare beds on fire in an attempt to improve his visibility.
"what is this?" sicaria yelled, deflecting the spells with relative ease as he could finally see her, despite having been caught off guard.
"he sent word only moments ago. he told us everything except where to find you."
"what?" was all sicaria could muster as she continued her defense of his spells.
"you're the spy. i searched the whole castle, and this was all that was left," he hissed through clenched teeth, attempting and unable to focus. "when i give you to him— you've no idea what pride i shall bring."
sicaria, feeling severely unthreatened (by him specifically, but being incredibly overwhelmed by the situation at large), laughed, which only served to further set julian off. "you aren't going to catch me. i mean christ, you might be the least qualified duelist in hogwarts to attempt to capture me."
but if murdoch was telling the truth, and grindelwald had told, far better duelists than he would be there for her in minutes.
then, julian's eyes shifted for a moment, but a gasp from behind her distracted sicaria before she could take advantage of it. she did not need to turn to know that the ruckus had caused miranda to wake up, but before she could think of how best to get rid of her quickly, julian was already casting.
"avada kedavra!" murdoch cast at miranda, but he could not mean it. it hit miranda somewhere near her stomach, knocking her to the ground where she began to splutter and choke on blood, but remained very much alive.
sicaria quickly turned back to murdoch, who seemed both stunned by what he had done, and determined to try again in hopes of getting the spell to work, but before he could speak again, sicaria hit him squarely in the heart with a knockback jinx, which flung his wand from his hand.
she advanced upon him quickly, before he could raise himself from the ground and pressed her knee to his chest, pinning him to the floor. he began to writhe, but as sicaria began casting, his efforts shifted from trying to move her to trying to shield himself.
"let this serve as a lesson and a reminder," sicaria yelled, severing murdochs index and middle finger of his wand hand. "leave the things you don't understand—" she had to raise her voice and use her other hand to cover his mouth so he could hear her over his screaming as she took his ring and pinky finger. "—to the people who do know what they are doing."
sicaria snapped his wand in two, throwing them on the ground beside him as he wailed rolled in the growing puddle of his blood.
sicaria ran past him, bursting through the ward doors into the corridor breathing shallowly from the sudden onset of stimulation. she began to run in a random direction down the hallway before slowing and raising her wand to send an urgent summons to dumbledore.
however, she hesitated.
it was somewhat of a crossroads, fitting, as she was standing in the center of the intersection of two hallways, one leading toward dumbledore's office, and the other in the direction of the main entrance to the school.
she could leave now and give herself up in hogwarts, or she could wait for dumbledore to tell her no, and convince her once again.
there was something inside her telling her that it was over; that it had been over for some time now, and her debt of borrowed time had finally caught her by the ankles.
if murdoch knew who she was now, it would be minutes until the entire castle knew, regardless of the time of day. and then what? every student with a connection to grindelwald would then be after her, and she could not fight them all.
it's over.
sicaria inhaled, accepting her decision. the situation was imperfect in every way— there were still glaring vulnerabilities that her surrender would expose, but there was no time to fix them now. she would have to rely solely on her mind, her manipulation, and her occlumency, the truest test of the culmination of her intellect, insecurities, experience, and formidability. a test to determine if all she had ever loved would live or die.
a test to determine whether her own selfish, fleeting happiness had been worth what she was about to lose.
a test to determine whether she had deserved her life from the moment she was born.
the hallway called to her, urging her to move in the direction of the main entrance.
sicaria was interrupted before her fifth step.
a bright, red flash of a stunning spell narrowly missed her, and she turned instinctively, a stunning spell on her lips, only to see—
tom.
always lurking in places he shouldn't have been.
he stood there, staring, with starving desperation, at a sicaria who was just seconds from death— who he had just watched, in real time, decide to choose death over trusting him. she had been only seconds away from becoming a ghostly reminder of his greatest mistake— never having given her a reason to trust him.
she did not lower her wand, because tom never missed unless he meant to.
it was a warning spell, as was his next sentence.
"where are you going?"