When Ivy and her friends shuffled into the already fairly full Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom they were greeted by Remus Lupin, who was standing by the side of a large wardrobe which was set by the stairs to his office on the far side of the room. All the desks and chairs had been haphazardly shoved against the walls, leaving the floor empty.
Ivy dashed up to Lupin the second she entered the room, grinning so brightly at him that he couldn't help but beam back at her. She skidded to a stop in front of him and clapped her hands together excitedly. "I am so happy you're teaching here Rem-, sorry, Professor Lupin. You are honestly the first worthwhile Defense teacher anyone in here has ever had."
Remus laughed gently. "It's lovely to see you Ivy, and thank you very much, let's hope I live up to the expectations." Ivy had very little doubt about that, they'd only had half a semester of tutoring sessions the prior year and she'd already learned more than she had from Quirrel and Lockhart put together.
The wardrobe was rattling hard and banging sounds were admitting from within as though something was fighting viciously to get out. Ivy raised her eyebrows at it then pivoted back towards her teacher. "Please tell me those aren't Cornish pixies."
He laughed loudly and shook his head. "No, I can assure you you're safe from pixies in this room. But you'll earn no clues from me."
With a chuckle and another bright smile Ivy turned to rejoin her friends. Before she had made it particularly far she caught sight of Ron, Harry and Neville all standing together off to the side of the room. They all looked rather grim, but Longbottom looked positively ashen. Ivy caught Harry's eye and gestured to the boy, shaking her head in a silent question of what was wrong. Harry simply mouthed "Snape" back at her, and that was explanation enough.
If Snape hated anyone more than Harry, it was Neville, and his treatment of the timid Gryffindor had been enough to solidify Ivy's deep dislike of her greasy haired head of house. She could not fathom any reasonable excuse for an adult being so maliciously cruel to any child who was supposed to rely on them for knowledge and support.
She was pulled from her unpleasant musings by Lupins voice at the front of the room. "Good morning class. Would anybody venture a guess what's in this wardrobe here?"
From over near where Harry stood a boys voice piped up. "That's a boggart, that is." Lupin clapped his hands together approvingly. "Very good Mr. Thomas! Now, who can tell me what a Boggart looks like?"
Hermiones voice rang clear through the room, "Nobody knows." Ivy swivelled her head. She hadn't seen her friend come in, but she supposed she must have simply missed her in the bustle. "Boggarts are shape-shifters. They take the shape of whatever a person fears the most. That's what makes them so-"
She trailed off but Remus smiled kindly and finished her thought. "So terrifying, yes. Luckily a very simple spell exists to repel a Boggart. Let's practice it now." He led the class through how to pronounce and cast Riddikulus.
Ivy went through the motions with everyone else. She watched and appreciated as Lupin pulled Neville up to the front and guided him through successfully turning Snape into Snape in his grandmothers clothes. But it all felt like dim background noise as her head swirled round and round. Whatever a person fears the most was what Hermione had said.
Ivy felt it was a fair assessment to say that she wasn't afraid of many things. Spiders, heights, enclosed spaces and the other common fears had never rattled her much. But that made this whole exercise so much more terrifying. If this thing showed what was truly your biggest fear then that meant that not only she would have to face it, but soon all her peers would know too.
As the class formed a queue down the room to face the beast she found herself walking backwards as fast as she could till her back bumped into the wall, startling her out of her transfixed reverie. She looked about her and saw that she was far from alone in her reaction. Theo, Pansy and Draco were pressed along the wall with her, each of their faces betraying the same complicated swirl of emotions that she had just been feeling.
As she caught sight of Theo's face her heart dropped like a stone. There was no trepidation written into his features, only a cold, white dread. The realisation smacked into her suddenly. She already knew his worst fear. She watched the students at the front of the room step up to clowns, spiders, snakes and more and she felt her brothers pain like a knife to the heart.
How could he stand in front of this room of his peers, who feared such comparatively menial things, and have the boggart transform into his father in front of them all. How could he possibly find a way to make that reality humorous when he still woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, not because of things he feared could happen, but because of the things he'd already lived through.
Ivy grabbed his hand tightly before she realised she was reaching for it and he looked at her with panic deep in his eyes. She nodded to him that she understood and gently tugged him with her to the far back of the line, bringing Draco and Pansy with her as she went. From the shades of light green colouring their features she had a feeling that they were both realising that their boggarts would also be far too rooted in reality to manage.
She placed herself at the front of the group, more willing to have to face her own dreaded unknown than watch her friends face their horrifying realities, but in the end it never came to that point. Harry had reached the front of the line, and he stepped forward eagerly.
The boggart rose and began to swirl into another shape, and Ivy thought she caught a glimpse of a tattered piece of grey cloth before Remus suddenly jumped in front of him, forcing the creature to shift once more.
A sudden, luminous ball of white hung in the room for a moment before their professor pointed his wand and bellowed Riddikulus, transforming whatever had been before into a balloon that whizzed above the classes heads, around the room and finally into the open door of the wardrobe, which Lupin slammed closed after it.
Curious as his fear was, Ivy felt no interest in prying. She had realised in only the last little while an incredibly grave, incredibly important lesson: that the worst fears may puzzle other people, not because they are not terrifying, but because they are born from the private horrors of one's life. That, was not something she had any wish to press any one on ever.
——🐍——
The rest of the day passed about as enjoyably as a funeral for the Slytherin crew. Each of them seemed to understand the gravity of what Draco, Theo and Pansy had been through in class, and all of them tried to do what they could to lift their spirits.
Blaise's arm was all but glued to Theo for the rest of the day, while Selina barely dropped Pansy's hand for more than a minute. Ivy had walked around in a daze for a little while, nauseous at the thought of what would have looked back at her had she reached the front of the line, but she too managed to crawl out of her own head eventually.
They had been eating a very somber, quiet lunch together when she'd happened to look across the table at Draco, who sat unseeingly staring at a bowl of soup that lay untouched in front of him. He really had changed so much over the summer, and in so many ways he looked more grown up than he had before, but in that moment Ivy saw the boy who had sat crouched on the astronomy tower last year with a letter clutched tight in his freezing hand.
And suddenly it struck her that maybe Theo wasn't the only one of their group who would've seen their father. When they'd finally gathered their things to leave the Great Hall she'd stopped him at the head of the table, pulling him in for a long hug.
For a minute his arms hung loosely at his side, as unlifelike as the rest of his movements had been since that morning. But then something shifted and Ivy found herself almost lifted off the ground as he wrapped his arms crushingly around her, contorting his body so that his head could rest on her shoulder. He wasn't crying, but his whole body was shaking ever so slightly, full to the brim with too much emotion to contain.
For the rest of the day she stayed with him, not speaking, but just sitting with him. Sometimes she would hold his hand, sometimes her would rest his head on hers, but mostly they just sat together in silence, drawing strength and encouragement from each others steady silence.
——🐍——
Ivy lay awake that night with her mind in a tumult. Without the immediacy of another person needing her support, she had resumed her frantic obsessing with what her boggart could be. As her mind made her body restless, she sat up suddenly, eyes wild with an objectively terrible plan forming in her mind.
She looked over to where Pansy lay across the room, then crept out of bed, slid on her slippers, grabbed her wand and snuck over to her friend, who just as she has suspected, was lying with her eyes wide open, staring into space. "Pansy, Pansy can you hear me?" Her whisper was soft but her friends dark eyes flicked up to meet her own and she gave a small nod. "I know how stupid this is, but I'm going to see the boggart. I wanted to offer for you to join me if you wanted."
Pansy chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment, then softly shook her head. "Thank you love, but I think I already know what I'd see and I don't really reckon I can face that right now. Be careful, alright?" Ivy nodded understandingly then slipped out the door as silently as she could.
When she reached the common room there were still a few students scattered about, playing card games and chess, or cramming for some quiz or homework assignment. At one of the desks sat Blaise, who was writing a letter to his mum. Ivy walked over to him and he smiled up at her, folded his letter, then turned to face her. "What are you doing up? Kitchen run?"
Ivy shook her head. "No, no it's much sillier than that. I'm going to find out what my boggart is, I can't sleep without knowing." Much to her surprise, Blaise just smiled understandingly. "I'm not shocked, I saw your face in there earlier, not to mention the whole rest of the day. You looked bloody haunted."
Ivy chuckled slightly. "Fancy coming with me? I don't particularly want to go alone, but Pansy declined."
Blaises face turned serious even as he smiled ruefully at her, "I'm sorry love, but I've already seen my boggart, and it's not something I'm eager to ever face again. We had one hiding out in a guest room cupboard a couple of years ago." He took a deep breath and looked down at his hands. "You can imagine my surprise when I opened the door and Theo stepped out covered in bruises. My sister ran in when she heard me screaming and explained what it was after she took care of it."
Ivy didn't know what to say so she leaned down and wrapped Blaise in a hug. When she pulled back he smiled gently at her again, "it's been a while since I've seen him in that bad of shape, either boggart or human, and I'd honestly prefer to never see it again. But I can ask Theo or Draco if they're up for joining you?"
Ivy agreed and gave him one last hug before he stood and walked up to his room. A few minutes later Draco descended the boys dormitory stairs and joined her. "Theo says sorry but that he doesn't think he can come, but I'm with you." He exhaled wearily, "I need to know what it is, even if I regret it."
Together they slipped out the door and made their way cautiously through the halls, treading as lightly as they could and peering around every corner. They both sucked in a breath when they heard Peeves' cackle in a classroom on the second floor, but a few large crashes told them that he was too preoccupied causing a mess to hear their muffled footsteps.
When they finally reached Lupins classroom they slipped through the door and shut it softly behind them, breathing a deep sigh of relief that they'd made it unnoticed and that the wardrobe still stood, rattling and banging, on the far side of the room.
Ivy squeezed Draco's hand tightly and pulled her shoulders back. "I'll go first, I suppose." Now that she was back in the room she was heavily doubting whether this was a good idea, but it was far too late to back out as she stepped forward and Draco walked over to open the door. He looked back at her with his hand on the handle, waiting till she gave him a short nod before he swung the door open.
At first there was only black visible inside the closet and Ivy gripped her wand tightly as her stomach churned. Then she saw herself step out.
Ivy's heart thudded horribly as she took in the girl in front of her. It really was her in every way, but as she tried to clear her mind she began to notice the little differences that made this creature turn her blood to ice.
Her eyes were fully filled with black, and her fingers had shifted into talons. Her smile was stretched wickedly thin and the robes that she wore were pitch black. As her gaze traveled across the creature, she suddenly caught sight of her forearm, where the dark mark lay tattooed in obsidian ink.
Her head felt light and her vision clouded. The other her stepped forward and reached her clawed arm out as if to invite Ivy to join her. Before she knew it, Ivy had tears of paralysing fear rolling down her face as she shook her head and stepped backwards, mumbling the word "no" over and over under her breath.
Then all of the sudden Draco was standing in front of her, his arm stretched out protectively, and the boggart began to swirl and shift. The black, wavy hair changed to a long, sleek blonde ponytail as the figure stretched and rose. Lucius Malfoy was standing in front of them, smiling devilishly, his face, clothes and arms splattered heavily with blood.
Ivy heard Dracos voice ring out across the room, "Riddikulus!" And the creature shot back into the wall of the wardrobe with such force that the whole thing creaked backwards and the door flew shut behind it. As quickly as it came, the boggart was gone, and once again the closet stood closed, the same muffled thumping and shaking emitting from within.
Draco turned around quickly and gathered Ivy up in his arms. They were both trembling violently, but they stood there for a while as Ivy cried and Draco rubbed her back, rocking her soothingly. Finally she dried her face on the sleeves of her pyjama top and looked up to see sympathetic pale blue yes looking back down at her.
She laughed shortly. "I'm sorry, here I am, an absolute wreck, when you just saw your father as your boggart."
He shook his head and smiled sadly, smoothing the back of her hair absentmindedly. "Not my father alone, but what he's capable of. Which is nothing I didn't already know. Yours was a shock, and you're allowed to be upset."
Ivy nodded and allowed him to pull her back into another hug for a minute, before they wordlessly rejoined hands and left the room. Their luck from the trip up had worn out, however, as they almost walked directly into Professor Lupin himself.
Ivy gasped and looked into her favourite teachers eyes in horror, who was looking back down at her, absolutely bewildered. He glanced back and forth between the two Slytherins, into the room where the wardrobe stood, then back at their red rimmed eyes, and comprehension dawned over his features.
"You should both be getting to bed now, but I would like to see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning." He began to walk past them, then paused, sending Ivy a pointed look. "Straight to bed that is."
She nodded, not meeting his eyes, and didn't spare another moment before she began to hurry down the hall, her hand still knotted in Draco's as they wound their way through the castle and back to the Slytherin dorms. When she finally climbed into bed she found that at last she could sleep, but the witch from the wardrobe slipped into every dream, making the night one full of unease and restlessness.