TRICKY WISHES

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This is just a fic that I had an idea for a few days ago, which deals with what life would be like for the people currently involved in it if the Muggles never hired spies in the wizarding world, because this one plot point influenced all their lives a lot. So it’s told from Damien’s perspective, when he wakes up in some sort of dream-world where the spy thing never happened to him, Seb, or Ada. And believe me, it changes a lot in their lives o.o So, I’m going to have to post this in installments because I’m insane and this is really long. Beware, it’s emo. I commend you if you get through it. Oh, and I apologize in advance for butchering any characters D: I try to keep them true to their true characters, but I know that I don't know them like their real RP-ers. Sorry, and tell me if you want anything changed.[/size]

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

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……DAMIEN……[/size][/i][/center]

That night hadn’t been a good night for Damien. Denny had called about a bad dream, a dream about their father, and the guilt alone had near swallowed him whole, even through the fireplace he’d used to talk to his little brother. He should’ve saved Denny. He shouldn’t have let his father ever touch his little brother—he should be the only one with bad dreams. And, like most bad things, it attracted other dark manners of thinking like a magnet, and Dey found himself thinking more and more on those dark days in his life. The days when his father still had a firm hold on his wife and two sons, and that hold was meant to strangle them all. Those days when Dey had to sneak around the school with Ada, quietly betraying his own kind. Those dark days when the Agency was out to kill Vivi. And all the blood, sweat, and tears it took to get out of that mess. Even as he fell asleep with Vivi curled into his chest, memories taunted him, dark and demanding, taking a hold of his mind as he lay still and tried to get to sleep. One hour ticked by. Two. Three. Vivi’s soft breathing kept lulling him into a half-awake stage, but old nightmares waited there to attack him, filling even his unconscious mind with images of threatening letters, men in dark suits, crumpled figures—one his mother’s, one his brother’s, one Vivi’s—until he would jolt back into awareness, cursing the day that those Muggles ever got wizards and witches involved in being their little spies. He pressed his face into Vivi’s hair, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing that it had all never happened. There was too much misery, too many power games, just one more thing he was guilty of…

Eventually he drifted off, his thoughts fading into gray, his mind going blissfully quiet.

When he woke up, Vivi was gone. He picked his head up from the pillow, immediately confused. There was still a rumpled spot on the bed where she used to be, but Dey wasn’t used to waking up without her. He pushed himself up on his elbows, rubbing at his face and running a hand through his hair. He looked blearily around the room, calling, “Vivi?” He caught a flash of dark hair right outside the bedroom door, and he got to his feet and walked towards it, frowning, calling her name again. “Vivi?” But when he peered out into the hallway and saw the shape of the girl’s back, the way her long dark hair fell over her shoulders, he knew something was wrong. Every alarm in his head went off as he stared at this girl putting on her black heels and reaching for the front door. He took a few halting steps towards her. “Wait!”

The girl turned around, and Damien froze in his tracks. It wasn’t Vivi. Not even close. His voice, when he spoke, sounded unsure. “…Thea?”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Yes, Damien?” Her voice was slightly patronizing.

He furrowed his brows, mind reeling. He hadn’t seen Thea Kingston, his fellow Ravenclaw, since he’d gotten out of school two years ago. And yet here she was, looking comfortable in his apartment, like she’d been here many times. “What are you doing here?”

Thea sighed. “Is that hangover really that bad? You only had a couple drinks last night.”

“Erm. Yes.”

Thea smirked. “You’re a smart guy, Damien. Attractive, too. So ask yourself, what would I be doing in the apartment of an attractive man at seven o’ clock in the morning?” Damien stared blankly at Thea for a moment, not believing what she was insinuating.

He shook his head at her. “Thea, I’m…taken. You know that. So really, what are you doing here?”

Thea just rolled her eyes. “You’re taken? By whom? I’m the only girl who routinely comes over here, and you’ve made it obvious that you’re not looking for anything serious. Which is nice.” She grinned, reached out to pat Damien’s cheek. “No more firewhiskey twists for you. You really can’t handle it.” She pouted for a moment, then she told him that she had to get to work and that she’d see him later. The front door opened and closed, but Damien didn’t hear it. He didn’t hear anything except for the roaring in his own head. Where was Vivi? Not here, obviously, but this all had to be some kind of mistake. A trick, a game, a test…something. His head was spinning. How did Thea get into his apartment, even? There were too many questions, and not enough answers.

He walked blindly into his living room, sitting down on the couch and dropping his head into his hands, rubbing at his temples, trying to think. But the couch was too soft, and it seemed to almost swallow him up when he leaned back into it. He struggled to sit up straight again, anger flaring. He was trying to think, damn it—Vivi was missing!—and the couch was giving out. He’d picked out this very couch with Vivianne, tested it out with her, judged it to be the perfect mixture of firm and soft…He looked at the couch for the first time, and blanched. It wasn’t his couch. This was some kind of navy blue monstrosity. He looked around his living room for the first time, and his stomach rolled. It wasn’t his living room, either. There was no television, no radio, no stereo—just too many bookcases filled with too many books, most with titles written in runes. He didn’t know this place. In a daze, he got up and looked at the small scattering of picture frames around the room.

There was one of him and Thea, right outside the apartment building in winter, grinning and making faces at the camera. There was a few of him and Louis, one eating at some fancy patio café, one of them drinking at what appeared to be his own apartment. Dey couldn’t be sure, but he thought Thea was in the background of that one, laughing at something. And there were two of his family, both simple Muggle photographs—one when his mother was still alive, when everyone was standing tensely upright, their eyes shadowed in the bright daylight, their smiles stretched and fake. And the other was with his mother missing, with Denny and his father standing spaced away from the oldest Inglebee son, still tense, still scared-looking…but Denny seemed to have a bruise on his cheekbone. There was a piece of paper under that picture, and Dey picked it up and scanned it desperately for clues. There was nothing encouraging there—just more devastation. It was a letter from Denny, telling—no, begging—for Damien to come home more often. He was saying that their father was worse than ever, and he would barely let Denny out for the school year. Dey felt his heart twist and sink and knot, and he set the letter back down with trembling hands, placing the picture frame back on top of it.

This had to be a dream. Why was Denny still with their father? Damien had gotten him out years ago, sent him to live with their grandparents, made sure he was safe. What was this?

Near a frenzy now, Damien rushed around the rest of the apartment, checking every picture he could, finding every letter he’d received in the past three months. Not only were there no pictures of Vivi anywhere, there were no mentions of her name in his letters, no evidence that they’d been living together...in fact, there was more evidence of Thea than of Vivi. Something was very, very wrong. Damien’s stomach was twisting, his head was spinning, and his world was warping. Where was Vivianne? He needed to find her, and he needed to find her now.

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……VIVIANNE……

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He’d checked everywhere he could think of for Vivi—all her favorite places to eat, to sit, to talk and watch the sky…but she was in none of them, and his panic was growing. As a last resort, he’d gone into the registrar’s office, saying he was looking for a Vivianne Flint. The little man behind the counter had cast a wary glance at Damien’s rumpled shirt and messy hair, and had informed him that there was no Vivianne Flint registered in wizarding England. Dey barely resisted the urge to yell, and he took a deep breath and let it out. “Check again. I’m looking for Flint. Vivianne Flint. She’d be twenty years old, and I need to find her. Please.”

The man seemed to soften a bit, and he readjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and summoned a particular file cabinet to look through again. He returned to the desk with a furrowed brow. “I’m sorry, sir, but there really is no Vivianne Flint in the English wizarding community. Perhaps you were looking for Megara Flint?”

Damien shook his head, drawing in a sharp breath. “No, not Megara. Her sister—her younger sister. I-I need to find her.”

The little man frowned, musing to himself and tapping at his small pointed chin. “Her sister, you say…” His eyes flashed up to Damien’s face, and he raised his eyebrows. “By chance would you mean Vivianne Bettersworth? If I recall correctly, she used to be a Flint girl. That is, before she got married to that politician. It was all over the news…” Damien tuned the man out, and his voice became white noise. No. No, it couldn’t be. Vivi was…married? To some politician?

He steadied his shaking hands by gripping the counter, and he swallowed hard as he leaned forward and looked the little man in the eyes. “I need to know where she lives.” There must’ve been something in his face, some great desperation, something that was near breaking, because the little man asked no questions and raised no protests—he just blinked a few times, then summoned another file cabinet and began fishing through it. This process seemed to take eons, but Dey eventually held a scrap of parchment with Vivi’s address scribbled on it, and he was able to stumble out of the registrar’s office, his mind going numb, his heart crumbling into a million tiny fragments. There was only one thought that was running through his mind—he had to see her. This was all a big mistake, and if he could just see her then everything would be okay. Everything would go back to normal.

He Apparated to the nearest location to the address he’d been given, still in a daze, but his vision sharpened as he looked around. He was in an old, fancy neighborhood, almost gothic in its architecture, near gloomy and oppressing in its mood. He sucked in a deep breath, beginning to walk towards the street where she would be. Luckily, his feet didn’t seem to need much encouragement from his mind—they moved towards her on their own, like some compass needle that would forever point North—because his mind was in a whirl. This neighborhood, with all the manicured rose beds and climbing ivy over dark brick and shuttered windows, was ominous. This wasn’t a place where Vivi would live—this was a place where her parents would live. What had happened to Vivianne? His feet moved faster down the streets, ignoring the wary glances that a few women in designer dresses cast his way.

And then he came to a stop in front of a two-story house made of gray brick, with white shutters and an array of pink roses out front that did nothing to lighten the aura of the place—it remained dark, old-fashioned, and somewhat sad despite the splashes of color. Vivi didn’t belong in this place. His dark eyes scanned the front of the house, taking in the skinny front porch with the single window, the tiny green garden, the slight shadows of movement right inside the window—he could see two figures through the opaque white lace of the curtains. His heart sped up—maybe one of them was Vivianne. He took an involuntary step forward. She could dispel all the insanity that he’d endured today. She’d tell him that he was being silly—that she’d never marry someone that wasn’t him, that she’d never let Alethea Kingston into the apartment so early in the morning, that this was all a bad dream and he needed to wake up.

But he froze in place again as the front door swung open and a tiny dark-haired girl emerged. His heart stuttered to a stop, but started up again as the petite woman raised her pale face and Damien saw that it was Meg, not Vivi. Of course. Vivianne would never wear the low-cut amber top that Megara had on, nor the stiletto heels and the tailored black slacks. Damien stayed where he was, hoping to be overlooked, but Meg raised her gaze and Dey found himself looking straight into her wickedly tilted grey eyes. He held his ground even though he internally flinched away from her, expecting some sort of tongue lashing for daring to visit her little sister. Instead, Meg just arched a black brow and slid her gaze over him.

“They take deliveries in the back,” she said, and then she brushed by him as if she’d never seen him before, never told him that her sister could do better than a boy like him, never stirred up all his deepest insecurities. He could hear her heels clicking on the sidewalk as she got further and further away, not bothering to muse over this latest impossible turn of events. He couldn’t stop to think over every little thing, especially not since he could see the second shadow behind the curtain moving around the house’s interior delicately. Vivianne. It had to be her. And he thought he might burst from relief when the small figure opened the front window, sending those white curtains billowing out and revealing a pair of small, slender hands. He knew it was her. He just knew it.

Before he could come up with something to say, before he could think of how best to approach her, he found that he was already on the porch, rapping his knuckles against the door. He caught his breath as the door swung open, and all the air rushed out of him as he found himself staring into the eyes of the girl who was his whole world. For one moment he felt as if everything would be alright, but then he caught the fact that Vivianne’s dark eyes were startled, even slightly suspicious. And then Damien became aware of a lot of things that were wrong with the picture in front of him. Like the fact that Vivi’s eyes were shadowed, her cheeks were near hollow, and she was far, far too thin.

He whispered her name. “Vivianne…”

She shifted uncomfortably, half-hiding herself behind the door. “Do I know you?”

The words struck Dey like lightning, and it was all he could do to stand upright. “You…don’t…know…me?”

Vivi shifted again, her eyes flashing away from him briefly. “No, should I?”

He took a wobbling step backwards, his world swimming before his eyes, near losing his mental balance as well as his physical balance. Vivianne reached a single hand out towards him as if to catch him, but he’d already steadied himself. His eyes widened, and Damien was sure that he’d never breathe again.

“Are you sick?” Vivi wanted to know, brows furrowed, looking confused.

But he wasn’t sick, just devastated—there was a ring on Vivianne’s left hand. A large, sparkling diamond, set in white gold. Obviously expensive, obviously something this alleged pureblooded politician got for her. Damien couldn’t control the look of horror that passed over his face any more than he could control the words that slipped out.

“Vivi. Can’t you remember me? Please say that you do. Please say that you would never marry someone else. That this is all a mistake.” He pleaded with her with his eyes, and the little woman looked confused, but began to back away, inching the door shut between them.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know you,” she whispered.

“Vivianne.” He grabbed the door, leaning forward, pleading with his eyes for her to end his agony, for her to wake him up from this nightmare. “Please.”

Vivi took in a shaky breath, staring up at him for a moment, seeming unsure for a moment, but then there was the whistle of a kettle in the background, and she whipped her head around. When she turned back, something had come over her face, some set of her jaw, some pulling downwards of her lips…his heart sank even before she opened her mouth to speak. “I’m sorry, but my husband will be home for lunch any minute now, and I want to have it all ready for him. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Damien’s hand dropped from the door, his face fell, and he stared hopelessly at Vivianne as she fumbled to shut the door, listened as he heard her quick steps retreating deep into the house, and resisted the urge to sink to his knees on the porch. If her husband was coming home, he didn’t want to see him. Even the word hurt to think about. Vivianne’s husband. Who wasn’t him. And who obviously wasn’t treating her right, wasn’t making her eat or making her happy. God, Vivi didn’t even remember him. She didn’t even recognize him. She was his whole world, but she didn’t even know who he was.

Damien wasn’t aware of walking, but somehow he found himself in a park—a park that he and Vivi used to visit. Had they ever really visited this place, though? Was that life the dream, or was this current life the dream? Or maybe he was just losing his mind. Because as real as all those moments with Vivi had felt, his broken, shattered heart felt just as real. He was suffocating, and he didn’t know how long he sat on a park bench trying to breathe, but by the time he managed to get a real breath of air, it was dark outside. And he’d come to the conclusion that this was some kind of twisted world—this was a test of some kind. It had to be. What could have possibly gone wrong in this life that kept him away from Vivianne? So far away, in fact, that she didn’t even know his name?

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……SEBASTIAN……

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By the time the moon had risen high in the sky, Damien knew he wasn’t thinking straight. And it was understandable, really—who could think around a broken heart? He wasn’t getting anywhere on the speculation as to what would’ve kept he and Vivianne apart, and he had to blame it on his shattered heart, which was making it quite difficult to form complete thoughts. Eventually, through those hours sitting on the bench, Damien had managed to numb the pain a little. He’d swallowed the sharpest agony, leaving a thudding dull ache behind. He was numb, he knew, but at this point it seemed better to be numb and half-alive than not alive at all, withering away on a park bench.

He needed a drink.

He got to his feet, not wobbling at all, but the world seemed far away, as if he was looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Nothing felt real as he Apparated to the small wizarding pub near his apartment building and walked inside, stepping to the side to let past a bloke in a leather jacket and a few girls he was with. Dey turned blindly towards the bar, but then something clicked in the back of his mind. He faced the door again, just in time to see the back of Seb’s head disappearing down the sidewalk. The door swung shut behind him, but Damien was already reaching for it, striding out onto the skinny sidewalk, looking both ways for Seb.

He wasn’t hard to spot, being one of the only people on the sidewalk, and definitely the only person in sight that had his arms slung around the shoulders of two girls as he walked. Damien felt indignant anger spark inside his numb shell, and he sped up his pace so that he could catch up to the boy. As he drew closer, he saw that although one of the girls was blonde, neither of them was Ada. He snagged Seb by the back of his black jacket, pulling him to a stop and turning him around with a little more force than necessary. Seb actually spun around at the force Dey applied, which made the big Ravenclaw suspicious that the bloke had been drinking. And, judging by the smell of firewhiskey rolling off of him, he’d been drinking quite a lot.

“Seb, what do you think you’re doing?” Dey growled, in no mood to put up with strange behavior when his world had just been shattered.

Seb pulled away from Damien, shaking off his hand and readjusting his jacket with a scowl. “Leaving, that’s what I’m doing. With these two lovely ladies.” He winked at the two girls behind him, and they let out tittering laughs, tossing their hair and batting their overly made-up eyes.

“Sebastian. I know you’re not about to do this to Ada.” His tone was meant to be a warning, but Seb just frowned at him.

“Who the fuck is Ada, mate?”

Damien could just blink at him, frowning and shaking his head. “Don’t joke like that—I’ve been through enough today without you acting odd too.” Seb’s expression didn’t change, so Damien kept elaborating. “Ada. Your girlfriend.”

Seb wrapped his arms around the shoulders of the two girls again, grinning at the two of them. “Mate, the closest thing I’ve got to a girlfriend is Louisa and Terry, here.” He leered at them for a moment, letting them giggle, then he turned his head back towards Damien, eyebrow raised. “You do know that you’re supposed to get drunk at the bar, not before you get there, right?”

“But Ada—“

“I don’t know any ‘Ada’. I think you should go back to the bar.” Seb cut him off with an impressive glower as he tried to speak again, and loosened his hold on the scantily clad girls so that he could lean forward and look Damien in the eye with a somewhat scary expression in his golden-brown eyes. “Look, Inglebee, just because we sometimes drink together doesn’t give you any excuse to come over and scream crazy shit at me, especially when I’m trying to impress my friends.” He cocked his head back towards the two girls, one of whom was playing with her hair, the other whom was checking her nails. “I’m all for talking over firewhiskey, but stay out of my life, right?”

Seb didn’t wait for an answer, just murmured something to the girls and sauntered off down the sidewalk, his dark hair and dark jacket disappearing quickly into the shadows, leaving Damien even more stunned in his wake. Not only was Vivianne unable to remember his name, but Seb had no idea who Ada was? And he and Seb were…drinking buddies? It really didn’t seem that they had any sort of real friendship, especially considering how Seb had handled that situation a few minutes ago. Damien frowned after the man who used to be his friend, then turned and headed back to the bar, finding an open stool and dropping onto it, putting his head into his hands until he could feel the bartender in front of him, staring a hole into the back of his head.

He raised his face slightly. “I’ll take a firewhiskey. Or something stronger, if you have it.”

The bartender shook his head sadly, but began to prepare a drink. “Bad day?”

Dey rubbed his temples. “You have no idea.” He murmured his thanks as the bartender slid him a tiny glass filled with reddish amber liquid, and tried not to wince as he took a sip.

The bartender leaned on the counter, obviously feeling chatty. “Where’s Thea?”

Dey flashed a glance up at the man, wondering if this was meant to deepen the wounds of abnormality that he’d received today, but he just seemed to be making conversation. He paused a moment, taking another sip, liking the way it was making his head swim a little. “Well, I don’t quite know.” He didn’t need to mention that he wasn’t really concerned about it.

The man shook his head amiably, smiling. “Sounds about right.” He stayed quiet for a moment as Damien forced down more alcohol, then spoke up with, “Although, if you’re looking for women, I’m sorry to say that the pub is rather lacking tonight. Most of ‘em left earlier, and Sebastian just left with the last two decent ones.”

Damien bit down a groan that had nothing to do with what the man was saying—he’d finished the last of the drink, and it was more powerful than he’d given it credit for. His head was pounding in time with his heartbeat, and he couldn’t think of anything that he cared about less than whether or not there were eligible girls in this bar. The only girl he wanted was married, and that very fact twisted painfully in a way that no alcohol could compare to. “Ugh…Seb,” he muttered, thinking about how something was wrong with him, too.

The bartender just laughed. “That boy has some bad habits. You two have fun drinking occasionally, though. When he’s not a moody wanker, that is.” Damien focused on keeping the room steady while the man went on, having a one-sided conversation. He would pick up bits and pieces in between the spinning. “…he picked up this girl once, and…never the same one twice, have you noticed? I’ve never…one time he tried it with Thea, and…never slows down, that boy…”

Eventually all the gossip became some kind of dull roar in the back of his mind, and he groaned again at how much his head hurt—he hadn’t expected this. He vaguely heard the bartender say something about an empty stomach, and the next thing he knew some grizzled, bearded bloke was helping him up the stairs to his apartment. A few moments later, he was laying in his own bed—how had he gotten here?—but then the familiarity of his own pillow dragged him down, and he thankfully thought of nothing at all.

When he woke up again, sunlight was streaming through his window. He almost sighed in relief as he found himself in his own bed, but then he realized that the spot next to him on the bed was empty again, and all the events of the day before came crashing on him like a tidal wave of pain. Vivianne. She was married, and she didn’t know who he was, and she wasn’t next to him as he woke up. And Seb, drunk and ornery and not remembering Ada. And Thea, who had been in his apartment…

As if on cue, the olive-skinned girl poked her head into his room. “Well, you’re finally up. I told you last time that you did this that those drinks Phil makes will kill you.”

Damien didn’t pay much attention to what she was saying, because those memories were physical pain. Actually, it was probably the hangover that was so painful. It hardly mattered the source, because the pain was still viciously present. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed it all away, intending to stay in that position until one or both of the pains dulled. However, when the smell of fresh scones wafted his way, he had to open his eyes and look at Thea, who was holding a tray and leaning in the doorway. She smirked. “I thought that would get your attention, dear.”

Dey just grunted, not quite sure how to act around this girl whom he was apparently supposed to be close to.

She set the tray down next to him on the bed. “Eat this happy little meal your doting darling has put in front of you, so that she can stop pretending to be a housewife and get back to work.” Thea sat on the edge of the bed and watched him eat the scones and drink the orange juice and seemed satisfied, because she smiled lazily and said, “You owe me a favor, Damien, and I look forward to seeing how you get out of debt,” before kissing his forehead and leaving the apartment.

Her presence had disgruntled him and made him more than a little uncomfortable, but he found that her advice had actually worked. She must have put some sort of hangover remedy in the juice, because his headache was fading away. His heartache was just as painful as ever, but Damien didn’t know how to fix that; he had to settle for numbing the stabbing pain to a throbbing ache again.

It took a few more minutes for him to get out of bed, but eventually he managed to swing himself upright and shuffle numbly to the bathroom, where he discarded last night’s clothes and had a long, hot shower, wishing he could wash away this crazy, messed-up world, too. But when he stepped into his living room in clean clothes and damp hair, everything was just the same—wrong, that is.

He spent the afternoon scouring his apartment again, doing a fuller search. Before, he had only been searching for signs of Vivianne, who was—his heart wrenched—not his anymore. But now he was looking for signs of Seb (there were none—he seemed to be a vague sort of drinking buddy) and of Ada. But just like he had half-expected, there were no signs of the girl who was practically his sister. It was like she’d never existed. When his apartment had been thoroughly searched and all he was left with was frustration, Damien could only see one option left—he had to find Ada. Maybe she would have the key to unraveling this mess.

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……ADELAIDE……

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Seeing no other way, Damien went back to the registrar’s office. The same little man was working at the counter, but Damien felt more in control this time as he approached him. Cleaner, more organized, and maybe number and far more broken-hearted, but on the outside he was cool and collected. He approached the counter and requested that a different girl be looked up this time, ignoring the little man’s odd looks.

“A Miss Adelaide Williams—she’d be about 19 years old.”

The registrar shuffled through a few filing cabinets, confirming the name and age twice before inching back over to Damien and readjusting his tiny glasses. “Well, sir, I do believe that you have bad luck when it comes to looking for people. There’s no Adelaide Williams registered anywhere in the English wizarding community.” He gave Damien a knowing look, and leaned forward to whisper, “Are you sure she’s not married and filed under a different last name, sir?”

Dey stiffened at first, but then he tried to imagine Ada in any world being married by nineteen and couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept, especially if she and Seb weren’t involved. He gave a stiff smile to the little man. “Quite certain, actually. Thank you for your time.” He nodded his appreciation and walked out of the building, feeling that his efforts were completely fruitless lately. But as the exit doors swung open beneath his hands and a rush of muggy London air hit him like a wall, Damien remembered for the first time that it was summer. It hadn’t mattered to him before, because his heartbreak had been too painful for him to even notice the heat and humidity, but now it occurred to him that Ada might not be in England at all if it were summer—she usually visited her sisters in New York at some point, didn’t she?

A spark of hope ignited in Damien, and he quickened his pace towards the nearest Portkey station, ready to catch the next one overseas to America. However, as the chubby witch who ran the station entered his view, his walk had slowed down until he was standing at a complete stop on the cobbled walkway. He didn’t know where Ada’s sisters lived. And this was kind of an important thing to know—it wasn’t like these girls were going to be the only “Williams” listed in New York; it wasn’t exactly a rare name, and he couldn’t go to a wizarding registrar because her family was Muggle. For one moment Dey felt his stomach dropping—he just needed to see a familiar face, someone that recognized him and would talk to him like normal—but the world was obviously conspiring against him. They’d taken away the love of his life and married her to some other man, they’d turned his mate into a wanker, and now they were not even allowing him to see his little sister.

He was torn between going to his apartment and curling up on the too-soft couch and rubbing his temples until this went away, and grabbing some Muggle phonebook and visiting every “Williams” he had to in order to find someone who remained unchanged in this crazy place. But in the end he did neither, because his Ravenclaw intelligence kicked in a little late. He’d never been to Ada’s sisters’ house, no—but he had been to their old family restaurant when Ada had forced him there for a lunch date once. It had been good, and if he focused he could just remember the street address…he had it. Dey felt his lips slightly pulling upwards at this small victory, but the burst of happiness and satisfaction was short-lived. Soon he found himself in New York after a short Portkey trip, and the bustle of the city took a while to get used to. London was crowded—it wasn’t as if Dey couldn’t handle the number of people. It was just that here, everyone seemed to be in a hurry—pushing, shoving, talking loudly on cell phones…it was too easy to get caught up in the crowd. And Dey would’ve Apparated, but this was Muggle New York and there were too many people around to risk just disappearing and reappearing somewhere.

He’d left London at about three in the afternoon, so that meant that it was only eight in the morning in New York—he was just in time to catch the morning crowd and be pushed along for a few blocks, turned around and almost lost in the crowd of determined business people. He’d managed to escape the biggest part of the crowd by hanging out in a small coffee shop for roughly an hour, but then he left the coffee shop and spent another hour figuring out that he couldn’t find the corner that the Portkey had dropped him off at. He eventually just ducked into a shop to avoid the rising muggy heat, and found he was in a used bookstore—something that effectively distracted him for a while, until its elderly owner was able to give him directions to the Williams’ former restaurant; it was run by Mr. Williams’ partner now, or something like that, while Mr. Williams himself ran the one in London.

It was no surprise that when he finally finished his trek to the restaurant (he hadn’t brought enough Muggle money for a taxi, and he wasn’t about to risk the subway system here) it was mid-afternoon and he was quite hungry. He seated himself at the bar and ordered a dish of pasta, trying to stay inconspicuous, but his accent unfortunately caught the attention of the waitress bringing him his food and became a little too interested.

“You’re from England? No way! What brings you all the way over here?”

Dey tried to smile at the young girl and her enthusiastic questions, but he could only manage so much. “I’m visiting a friend, actually. Her parents used to work here, I think.”

The girl giggled. “Your accent’s so totally great. But you said you’re looking for a girl who works here?” Her face fell a little.

“No,” Damien corrected, cursing the noise from the rest of the restaurant, and mentally cursed again as some sort of hope lighted in the girl’s eyes. “I mean, I’m looking for Ada Williams. I don’t think she works here…”

“Oh,” the girl said, her expression torn. “Well no, she doesn’t work here. She works down the block because she didn’t want to work under her parents. Not that I blame her—working with your family is totally the worst.”

She looked like she was going to say more, but Dey started speaking first. “I was thinking about dropping by and saying hello to her. Do you know where her family would be?”

The girl looked half-wary, but after staring at Damien for a moment she seemed to have made up her mind that he was relatively harmless because she sighed and said, “Well, her dad’s working in the kitchen today. Her mom just got off work, she’s probably in the apartment right now. It’s just out the front door and half a block to the left. The building has a green door, and just buzz up to get them to let you in.”

Dey thanked her for her help, then finished up his pasta and left the girl a generous tip; he wasn’t planning on sticking around long enough to need much more Muggle money, anyways. He followed her directions, and it didn’t even take five minutes to reach an apartment building with a green door, just as she’d said. There was a small buzzer and buttons next to it, listed with occupant names. One of them said ‘Williams’ but somehow Dey didn’t feel comforted—he didn’t know what to say. Who was he supposed to say he was? Would Ada have mentioned him before? Did she even know him? His finger was hovering over the call button when the green door swung open from the inside. Damien would’ve just stepped aside, but the occupant leaving the building (a young boy of about nine) seemed oddly familiar, with a worn red baseball cap that he would’ve sworn he’d seen before, and messy brown hair sticking out of the bottom of the hat…

Damien stood in his way for a moment, trying to place this little boy, but apparently he took too long because the kid looked up at him with an expectant expression. And recognition hit. The eyes were a shade of darker blue, the hair was brown instead of blonde…but something about the shape of his eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses and the set of his mouth immediately reminded him of Ada. This was her little brother, a boy he’d only seen in pictures—Drew.

The kid squinted up at Damien. “’Scuse me.”

Damien didn’t move. “Are you Drew?”

He scrunched his freckled nose and looked up at the taller man warily. “Y—who’s asking?”

Dey grinned in relief, holding out his hand. “I’m Damien Inglebee. I’m a friend of Ada’s, and I was just looking for her. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The boy shook Dey’s hand in a businesslike fashion, contradicted by his friendly grin. “Yeah, I’m Drew. Andrew Williams. I didn’t know that Ada knew a foreign exchange student. She’s kind of busy lately, though. She talks about me?”

Damien chuckled—this boy was somewhat hard to keep up with. “All the time, actually. Is she around?”

Drew shook his head. “She’s probably working or hanging out with her friends or something.” He moved away from the door and took a few steps down the sidewalk one way, before turning back to Dey and saying, “Hey, I was just going to get some stuff from the store for my mom, and get some extra ingredients for my chemistry set because I’m running low on baking soda. Do you want to come?”

There wasn’t a lot Damien could do but agree in amusement, and in the end he was glad, because Drew kept up a constant stream of entertaining dialogue that Dey could easily focus on—it took his mind off of other things that he would rather not think about. And before he knew it, he was helping Drew carry the groceries home and setting them on the kitchen table of a house he’d never seen before. Was this the Williams’ summer home in New York? He hadn’t thought that they’d be able to afford to bring everyone overseas for the summer, but then again, this world wasn’t exactly what he thought it was. Drew was on the verge of actually showing Dey one of his favorite physics experiments that somehow involved dropping a tennis ball and a bowling ball out of the window and into the courtyard below when Damien finally stopped him—he’d been so caught up by Drew’s excitement and one-sided dialogue that he’d momentarily forgotten why he was here.

“Drew, I’ll come back and watch the experiment some other time, allright? I’m sorry, I just really need to find your sister right now. Do you know when she’ll be home?”

Drew blinked at him. “Well, obviously she doesn’t live here. She lives with Mel and Suze—she moved out after she turned eighteen.”

Damien took a moment to process that—Ada must be living with her more free-spirited sisters over the summer, to afford herself more independence and freedom. It made sense, in a way, but he could still feel his brow furrowing because something just…wasn’t right about all of this. He tried to ignore the feeling and hope for the best, but it was hard. “I see. Well, would you happen to have their address? It’s really quite important that I see Ada.”

Drew raised his eyebrows suspiciously, but after staring for a moment he seemed to deem Damien to be somewhat truthful, because he shrugged and wrote something down on the back of one of the grocery receipts. “They live here. But they probably won’t be home, you know. They all stay out until late.”

Damien was too relieved to care. Almost a full day of searching, and he was finally at the end of the trail of clues. He was getting tired, but maybe all of this would be over soon. He thanked Drew, helped him put up all the groceries, and then set off for the address he’d been given before Mr. or Mrs. Williams could come home from work and demand more of an explanation as to his presence than Drew had required.

Unfortunately, when he finally found the apartment building, no one was answering when he buzzed their room. It was already dark outside, though, so he couldn’t have to wait too long. The lobby of the building had a few chairs placed along the walls, and Damien sunk into one of them, prepared to wait until one of the Williams sisters walked past him. He’d only seen the elder two—Melanie and Susanna—once or twice, but they were each distinctive in their own way. He wouldn’t miss them if they entered the lobby, which they would have to do to get to their apartment. He settled in for a wait, and was considering getting up and buying something from the vending machine…

He opened his eyes and found the building and the street outside to be oddly quiet. Merlin, what time was it? He checked the watch on his wrist, the watch that Vivi had gotten him when—he had to cut off that thought. It was too painful to dwell on, simply something that he couldn’t think about if he wanted to function today. But the face of this watch that he was forcing to be anonymous was telling him that it was two thirty in the morning. He stared blankly at his watch. It couldn’t be right. He didn’t remember drifting off, didn’t even remember being tired…but then again, he didn’t allow himself to feel anything.

And now he’d missed his chances of seeing Ada tonight. Because unless Susanna—or did she go by Suze?—was closing the bar she worked at, even she would be home by now. And he wasn’t about to buzz their apartment in the dead of night. Merlin. He ran his hands through his dark hair, messing it up and then hopelessly trying to fix it with his fingers although he’d been sleeping against a wall for too long to hope that he looked presentable. He’d have to check into a hotel now, and try again later in the morning. He’d pushed off from the wall when a group of five people sauntered through the front doors of the lobby, talking in too-loud whispers and trying not to be rowdy although they were obviously drunk. They looked young, maybe around Damien’s own age. He was just trying to avoid them and move around them towards the front door, but a flash of pale blonde hair caught his attention in the middle of the group. He stopped moving, trying to see around the broad-shouldered bloke blocking his view.

Then the blonde girl separated from the rest of the group, and Damien could see that it was Ada. He almost smiled, but then he realized what Ada was wearing and the smile slid off of his face. She had on a black dress that was far too short, belted at the waist, and a pair of high-heeled boots. Not to mention the fact that she was wearing too much makeup, and she appeared to have some sort of glitter unintentionally smudged on her collarbone. And she had the skinny look going on—the look that Damien hadn’t seen on Ada since her Hogwarts days. It brought a frown to his face.

“Well, guys,” Ada said, loud but not slurring, “I think I’m calling it a night. Tons of fun. Tons.”

“We’ll be back on Friday, sweetheart,” one of the girls trilled, and her friend giggled with her.

Then the broad-shouldered bloke stepped forward and gave Ada a sloppy kiss that made Damien gag even from across the lobby. Not even trying to be quiet about it, he said, “Aren’t you going to invite me upstairs?”

Ada squinted. “I’m tired.”

He tightened his hold on her, mumbling something and kissing her again, but Ada extracted herself from his grasp with a giggle that seemed forced. “Later, okay? I’m just really tired.”

Ada escaped the group of people with one last wave, and slid her key into the door that allowed her into the rest of the building. The kids milled around even after she’d disappeared through the doorway. The other bloke in the group seemed to be sympathizing with the broad-shouldered one.

“Man, when was the last time you actually got to go upstairs?”

“A week ago,” Shoulders grumbled. “God, she goes through excuses like beers.” The two girls giggled again. Shoulders grinned and slung his arms around their shoulders. “So. Ada’s gone for the night, and I might as well be a free man. Which one of you wants to make me happy, huh?”

Thankfully, they all walked out of the building then, because Damien was dangerously close to strangling that boy. He took a moment to compose himself, to not let any emotion through because then they might all come through. He couldn’t dwell on what that wanker was saying about Ada—what he was insinuating. He couldn’t think, couldn’t feel—this was his existence in this horrid world. He allowed himself a short cool-down period before walking over to the door that Ada had vacated and tapping it with his wand. It opened easily, and Damien went up one flight of stairs and stood in front of room 204, the room the Williams had been listed under.

Before he could lose his nerve, he knocked on the door quietly, expecting Ada to be the only one awake and therefore the only one to be able to answer. But it apparently wasn’t the case, as shown by the fact that the door swung open a moment later, revealing a tall blonde woman wearing a silk pajama set. She regarded Damien warily. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“I’m Damien Inglebee, a friend of Ada’s. I…ahm…saw her come in, and I needed to talk to her.” Godric, he hadn’t planned on conversing with her sisters. He didn’t sound very convincing, did he? Oh hell, he knew he wasn’t.

Luckily, a voice sounded from within the apartment before Mel could slam the door in his face. “Okay, well, I got Ada into the shower. She’s not wasted, at least, so—“ Suze stepped up next to Mel, identical to the other woman except for a few facial piercings, bright red hair, and a whole different demeanor. Suze never finished her sentence, just blatantly looked Damien up and down. “Please be her new boyfriend.”

Damien just looked at her in shock, and Mel turned to her with an appalled expression. Suze raised an eyebrow. “What? That Philip is a total dickwad. At least this guy looks sweet.”

“Suze, he’s standing at our apartment door at three in the morning.” She gave her redheaded sister a hard look.

Suze shrugged. “She’s brought home worse, later than this.” Damien blinked in confusion, but Mel just gave a resigned sigh and nodded, as if it were true. Ada brought home unsavory characters late at night? But before he could dwell on this, Mel was leading him to a messy bedroom and pushing him inside the doorway.

“This is her room. She’ll be out of the shower soon, and you too can ‘talk’ or whatever.” Mel frowned at him. “Look, you seem like a pretty decent guy. But it’s hard to trust appearances, so I’m warning you to just…be careful with her, okay? And I’m not going to nag and mother and set rules.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “All I’m asking is that you keep it down. I’ve got work tomorrow morning.” And she was gone in a whiff of blonde hair before her meaning could sink into Dey and make him want to throw up. Great Mother of Merlin, they thought he was here to sleep with Ada?!? What the bloody hell was going on with this girl, if her sisters were used to her showing up at three in the morning, drunk and with strange men in tow?

He sank onto the unmade bed, dropping his head into his hands. He just wanted this nightmare to be over. He just wanted to see Ada, to see if she understood why everything was topsy-turvy for him. Why the whole world was out of alignment. Pretty soon, he heard footsteps in the hallway and he sat up straight. Ada padded into view, looking much more like herself with all the makeup washed off and wearing a T-shirt and cotton shorts. She stopped in the doorway and stood swaying, looking at Dey with a frown.

He stood up and grabbed her shoulders, looking deep into her blue eyes and trying to spark the recognition that he so needed to see. “Ada, I’m so glad I found you.” She just looked at him blankly, so he shook her a little. “Ada, please remember me. This whole world is wrong—you need to remember me.”

She struggled out of his arms. “You know me?” She stared at him. “Do I know you?”

Damien could feel his face fall, and he crumpled to sit on the edge of her bed again to put his head in his hands. Merlin, everything was messed up. Everything was gone, taken from him. He was wondering how to extract himself from this situation in the best way, without seeming like a complete psycho (although he probably missed this goal already) and without freaking Ada out (although she seemed oddly fearless right now, facing a strange man in her room without even a flinch).

But then he felt the mattress dent with another weight, and he felt a small hand on his shoulder. He picked his head up, disbelieving, to see Ada’s slightly bloodshot eyes looking back at him. Right—she was drunk. That would explain her strange handling of this situation.

“Hey, dude. Look, I’ve had a pretty good amount to drink. I’m sorry that I don’t remember you. But it’s how it goes sometimes.” She squinted at him. “Did I meet you at a party? Because I totally wouldn’t remember that.”

He whirled on her, eyes wide, mouth turned into a disbelieving frown. “No, I did not meet you at some drunken party. What’s wrong with you, that you go around drinking and partying and bringing home strange men at three in the morning? Merlin, your sisters acted like it was no big deal!”

Ada took her hand off his shoulder. “Woah, Hissy Boy, just calm down. It’s none—“ she hiccupped and shook her head like she was trying to clear it, “—of your business what I do, allright? And if you don’t party, then where do I know you from?”

Damien stood up abruptly, shifting the mattress’s weight distribution so suddenly that Ada wobbled around drunkenly for a moment before he caught her by the shoulders again. He wanted to set this world right. He wanted to have Ada look at him like she normally did, like she knew him—the real him. He wanted Seb to be an actual friend and not some sort of bar-hopping buddy. He wanted Vivianne to smile at him again, and he wanted to hold her in his arms. All of these things made his hands tighten on Ada’s shoulders. “Ada, I met you when you moved to Britain. Don’t you remember?”

She seemed stunned into complacency, because she barely struggled against his hold. “No. I don’t—“

“We were forced to spy together—the Muggle Agency hired us and blackmailed us, and—“

Ada’s eyes were widening, and she tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “I don’t even—“

“You have to remember me, because I know you. I’ll prove it.” His eyes hardened. If he could just make Ada remember, then maybe the rest of the world would follow. “You have a heart condition. Arrhythmia. You don’t like to tell people about it.”

“How did you—“

“You had a boyfriend when you were fourteen—Jeremy—and he pressured you mercilessly until he broke up with you because you wouldn’t do what he wanted.”

Ada’s eyes were still wide, and her words were coming faster. “Whatisgoing—“

“And when you were fifteen, right before you moved to Britain you tried to play Quidditch and you were hit with a Bludger. You fell off your broom and had to go to the hospital—“

“STOP.” Ada wrenched herself away from him, breathing hard, face set in an expression of stunned shock and something else. Wariness? Merlin, he probably deserved it. Had he been shaking her? He looked down at his own hands in disbelief. Ada took a short breath. “Look, I don’t know how you know about my heart or about Jeremy. But you’re crazy.”

Damien just stared at her. “I’m…crazy.”

“You’ve got your facts messed up. I’ve never even played Quidditch. I’ve never seen a Bludger or fallen off a broom. And I’ve never…uhm…spied on anyone. And I’ve never been to Britain. So you’re cute, but out of your fucking mind.”

“You’ve…never been to Britain. But—you live there!”

“Why the hell would I move to jolly old England?” Ada ran fingers through her wet hair. “I like New York. The big apple.” She chuckled to herself about something.

“I thought your father opened a restaurant over there.” Damien was still reeling. How could things have changed this much?

“In London?” Ada squinted for a moment. “Ohyeah, that is in Britain.” She giggled. “Well, we’ve never actually been there. His partner moved out to open it. He didn’t have a family, and we’re all settled down in our little nests over here.” She flopped backwards onto the bed, obviously not discomforted with Damien around anymore. She seemed to have forgotten her uneasiness.

“But weren’t you being followed, Ada?”

She pushed herself up on her elbows and regarded him strangely. “No.”

And that’s when it hit him. His stomach churned, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

The Muggles had never been interested in spying on the wizarding world. It had never happened.

If there was no Muggle interference, Ada wouldn’t have been stalked in America. Her family wouldn’t have felt pressured to move to London, so they never left home. Damien had never met Vivianne outside of her Slytherin shell, so they’d passed each other in hallways a thousand times without really seeing each other. If he’d never met Vivianne, he might’ve dated Thea, hence her showing up in his apartment. He never would’ve been motivated to leave his father’s house with Denny. He and Seb never got close, and Seb and Ada had never even heard of each other, let alone met the other.

Everything made sense.

And yet it didn’t.

How had it all gotten this way? How had the world twisted to show him this alternate reality to the one he knew?

In some part of his mind, he could hear Ada calling to him, asking if he was okay, if he was going to be sick. He muttered a garbled ‘no’, although he didn’t know which question he was answering. He felt himself losing his balance, sinking down into the bed with his face pressed into the blankets, one hand on his face, the other over his stomach. How had this happened?

And then Ada’s worried voice was gone, and the quilt under his face turned cool and smooth. He opened his eyes. And blinked. He was in his apartment again. In his bed. Alone. He ran a hand through his hair. Of all things holy, what screwed up universe was he in now? But then a small figure appeared in the doorway, and his heart leapt into his throat.

“…Vivianne?”

“Good morning, Damien.” She gave a small smile and brushed her hair away from her face. “I tried waking you up earlier, but you seemed so tired that I just let you sleep.”

He was too stunned to say anything.

“I made some coffee,” she ventured, looking at him worriedly. “And Denny owled again. I know you were upset about it all last night, wishing it had never happened, but he seems better now.” Again, that tentative smile.

Before he could even think, Damien was out of the bed and crushing Vivi to his chest, pressing his face into her hair and inhaling the familiar scent. He had wished for something the last time he’d been with Vivi—he’d wished that the Muggles had never spied on the wizarding world. And he’d seen his wish come true.

He lifted his head and looked up, into the living room with the perfect couch and the TV an the radio, and pictures that he remembered, with people he cared about. He let out a little laugh, thinking how glad he was that wishes were never really granted.

Vivianne looked up at him with dark eyes. “Are you all right, Damien?”

He smiled down at her. “Yes, love, I’m fine. Just a nightmare.”

………………THE END…………………

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