Valkyrie

June 1979, Part 2

Juliette Wilkes has been missing for exactly one year.

Emma keeps a calendar on her desk, marking off the previous day at midnight. She writes her mum, asks her to keep checking in with the Wilkes, to ask Illona week by week if there has been any word from Juliette. She reads every day’s newspaper, scanning for names, scanning for a clue. She manages to get a hold of Aurora Sinistra, begged her for Juliette’s whereabouts, but came up empty. Everywhere she turns, a dead end.

Juliette, where are you?

Emma knows where Juliette is. And she knows why she wouldn’t contact anyone again.

You see, Emma Vanity knows Juliette Wilkes as well as she knows herself. Inside and out, flesh to marrow, Emma has long since stopped inhabiting just her own body; somewhere along the line, she and Juliette found themselves crammed together within one skeleton, two beating hearts pressed together. If Juliette breathes, Emma breathes.

And she knows that Juliette Wilkes has long been the exception in every way. She has never really been normal, conventional, her mere existence is a defiance. The Wilkes are cowards, that is true. If Illona and Istvan ever took a solid stance on anything, Emma would be shocked. Otto didn’t have a committal bone in his body. But Juliette… Juliette was bold. Somehow, it was never overpowering, but her influence was always there. How else could she have become the nucleus of a friend group composed of the heirs of some of the most powerful pureblooded families, and yet somehow always be overlooked for blame? Juliette was clever, and she knew how to manipulate people.

Neil Avery Jr., the creepy motherfucker, miraculously seemed to have a soft spot for Juliette Wilkes. So did most people. She was a wisp of light, almost angelic, and with a flash of her crooked smile and a batting of her eyelashes, you would fall right into her trap.

Emma has. Many times. Not because she doesn’t know, but because she doesn’t care. This is Juliette Wilkes, with the splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose, who giggled so sweetly when someone complimented her, who loved constellations so much she would spend hours up at the Astronomy Tower just watching, who knew exactly when to pull Emma away into their own little world. She can still see that little kid, gap toothed and grinning, the four-year-old waving at Emma proudly, and Emma waving back.

Juliette Athena Wilkes, who chose her own first two names. She wanted Athena for her wisdom and battle strength, and Juliette for the girl she was, pretty and delicate. They were ten, tucked under the bed at Emma’s house, hiding from Audrey and Nora, and the little boy that Emma had met years ago was really a girl all along, and it felt as though something had clicked in Emma’s chest: yes, I know you now. It was that night that their bodies melded together, and it was no longer Emma and Juliette, but EmmaAndJuliette. One word, one being.

The first time Emma cried at Hogwarts, her first night, sitting by the fire in the common room while Bellatrix Black braided her hair, was because she missed Juliette.

Emma knows that Juliette killed that boy back at Durmstrang. Of course she knows, she is Juliette. It is not hard to believe, somehow, that sweet and charming Juliette Wilkes killed someone. Emma still loves her, despite it, or maybe because of it. There is nothing that can stop her from loving Juliette Wilkes.

~*~

Malfoy Manor. Purebloods like to mingle, throw balls and meetings to show how wealthy and important they are. The Malfoys certainly liked to flaunt their privilege. Dad used to say it was important to make connections, and so each of the Vanity sisters got into their pretty little dresses and went to mingle.

Where the Vanitys went, so went the Wilkes, at least every summer. It helped that they frequented the same circles, and that Dad and Illona worked together at the Ministry before she went back home to Hungary. What tethered them really together was Emma and Juliette, and so where Emma went, Juliette went.

Galas are boring, especially for ten and eleven-year-olds. Juliette had grabbed Emma’s hand, hair rumpled and messy despite Istvan’s best efforts and had smiled that crooked smile. The two flew off together like birds into flight, holding onto each other and not letting go.

They explored every inch of that house, even Abraxas Malfoy’s personal study (which Juliette, having already gotten her wand back home, managed to unlock with a wink). They hid in wardrobes when Lucy Malfoy (the nickname still stuck) walked past in a huff when his wand was stolen. They played tag and hide-and-go seek, and they just sat and watched the world go by. It didn’t matter what there was to do, because it was the two of them.

Emma reveled in these moments, because it meant Juliette was home. But home, for Juliette, was Hungary, would soon be Durmstrang. There would be no impromptu visits from Juliette and her parents for a ball, not once both Juliette and Otto were in school. Durmstrang was remote, and hard to get letters to and from. This was her last moment with Juliette before everything changed.

Juliette had seen her crying quietly and bumped their shoulders together. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll be back next summer.”

“It won’t be the same.” Emma whispered through tears. “It’ll all be different.”

Juliette chuckled that soft twinkling sound and moved an arm around her shoulders. “Then let’s make it a good different.”

Her lips pressed to Emma’s; a sweet, chaste kiss, but Emma knew then. She knew she liked girls, but this was different; this was a knowledge, deep in her chest, that there would never be anybody for her like Juliette Wilkes. That was when she felt their heartbeats sync for the first time. EmmaAndJuliette.

~*~

Does Dumbledore know how well she knows Malfoy Manor? If he does, he doesn’t let on. She’s at Hogwarts, for some reason, sitting before him while he adjusts his stupid half-moon spectacles and stares at her.

Emma hates this plan. It is, objectively, a terrible plan. What, take the word of an “anonymous informant” that another “anonymous informant” is being held hostage in Malfoy Manor, and that the wards will be lowered for only an hour to go in and rescue this important person? Either Dumbledore is gullible, stupid, or too smart for his own good. Any of those options is horrifying.

Juliette will be at Malfoy Manor. She will worm her way into the ranks of the Death Eaters, next to Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Black and Neil Avery Jr. she will be there because she knows how to integrate herself among the most powerful, and who could refuse her? Juliette is smart and she is merciless. The only one she showed mercy once was Emma, and that’s only because Juliette wasn’t ready to die with her yet.

Dumbledore promises her the mission should be safe and easy, that she will be home in the early hours of the morning if all goes to plan. Emma just stares at him. She isn’t afraid to die, Merlin no, she wants to die, but the fear is all-consuming. The only thing able to yank Emma out of her misery is Juliette, and Juliette is the root cause of Emma’s misery. Cyclical, ouroboros, where Juliette ends, Emma begins, and so forth.

Did the universe hear her thoughts, present her with the possibility of dying before her love? That is not how Emma wants to go. She wants to die with a surprise, unexpected. Jump off a rooftop, get hit by a car, die on her feet in battle.

Nora died a solitary, unexpected death, and it wrecked them all. She died the way Emma wants to die, and so she can never quite look Nora in the eyes in photographs. It is jealousy for the dead, the feeling of “I want what you have”. Nora, maybe her foil among the sisters, the one with the same spark in her eye and fire in her veins, but all Emma can muster towards her is resentment for stealing the suicide idea.

Still, Emma refuses to die with Juliette Wilkes. She fights it constantly, the urge to let herself get kidnapped and tortured, just for the slightest possibility of seeing that beautiful smile again. It is Emma’s final wish, the reason she hasn’t killed herself yet. Yes, she loves Hestia and Emmy, and her sisters and parents, but it is only Juliette who can tell the stutter of her heartbeat, her truest desire. If not with Juliette, Emma cannot let herself die.

And that is why she must survive. Emma learned a long time ago that to live is to be in constant resistance against every part of her, her body, her mind. She must fight the instincts, the all-consuming want, because those are hers. It is awful and often inconceivable, but somewhere in the deepest parts of her soul, Emma has decided she wants to live for herself now.

It was the raid that did it, flying across the woods, Alice panting behind her, that made Emma realize it. For a moment, it wasn’t about Juliette, none of it, no reminders or nagging thoughts. It was just pure survival, and she could feel her insides again. For the first time in over a decade, Emma was her own self again. The fear, the worry for the other two, that was hers. She is doing better now, despite all the odds, and there is a measure of success there.

But Dumbledore is sitting in front of her, hands folded on the desk, something troubled lurking behind his serene eyes, and he is saying she is the only one who can do this job. Maybe he’s right, maybe she is. But she hates him for resetting her progress, for sending her straight back into the darkest spiral when she has only just begun to smile earnestly again.

What can she say? Refuse? Emma Vanity has never known how to decline an offer for greatness. She accepts, but her heart sits uneasy in her chest.

~*~

Gideon Haleton was born on April 9th, 1979. Audrey had enclosed a photo in her latest letter; a plump, pink little boy. Emma watches the photo shift as he moves a little in his sleep. Audrey’s hand is resting on the little blanket swaddling him, and she traces the outline of her fingers. It is the most she has seen of her sister in… how long? Three years? It was the wedding, probably, just after Emma had graduated and right before she left for Sweden. Now, Audrey is as far from her as could be possible, somehow. All of Emma’s sisters are far from her these days.

This baby boy is unfamiliar to her. She can’t see the curve of Audrey’s eyes in his yet, her dimple in his right cheek. He is a blank slate, and Emma just wants to see her sisters’ faces reflected in him.

She sets the letter down and glances at the clock. Writing Audrey back has always felt like yanking teeth. Emma’s never really known how to speak to any of her sisters. It freaks her out that they have her face, and yet they are so different from her. It feels as though Emma has lived almost all of her life in a glass box, and she can watch her sisters live and interact with one another like members of a family, but she can never join in. The wall separates her, and she cannot break it. She feels them, somewhere in her chest, she feels their emotions and their anger and their fire and their hatred and she internalizes it, takes it from them like an invisible hand and lets it explode in the box so that they can be well. They will never thank her for it, because they could never know. They probably think her distant, unlike them, but Emma is all of them combined, she just can never quite show them. The glass box is Emma Genya Vanity, and inside is Emma, small and exhausted, and she is one of six but eternally on her own.

It is hard to remember the sadness of watching your sisters go on without you when Juliette Wilkes is tugging on your shoulder and whispering in your ear, pulling you away to another world, turning your back so you don’t see your sisters anymore and fortifying the glass walls without you knowing.

There will be time to write Audrey a letter. Maybe, when she survives this mission (because she will, she has to), she’ll write Claire and Kit also. It has been a long time since she’s spoken to either of them too. A good sister would write about how the school year went. Or, maybe she’ll go back home, back to Brocburrow, to their family home. Mum will kiss her cheeks and cry tears of joy, Dad will clap her on the back and tell her how well she seems to be doing, she’ll sit at the kitchen table and listen to Kit and Claire talk, she’ll visit Audrey’s house in the town and go meet baby Gideon. She will finally make an effort, because she is a Vanity, and the Vanitys do not ignore their kin for years on end.

~*~

Alice is here. Why is Alice here? There is no time to wonder, Emma is glad for the accompaniment. She wonders if Dumbledore knows, but it doesn’t really matter. Emma doesn’t know Alice very well, they were a few years apart at Hogwarts, but she remembers Alice’s comforting grip as they ran from the Death Eaters. Alice with her means this mission will go well, that is what Emma needs to believe.

While Alice uses the washroom, Hestia and Emmy come to say goodbye, leaving them the flat so she and Alice can plan. Hestia doesn’t cry, but she holds on tight to Emma’s neck and whispers “I love you” into the crook of her shoulder. Emma strokes her hair and lets her go. Emmy holds Emma’s face in her hands for a moment before pulling her into the hug. “Be safe,” is what she murmurs close to Emma’s ear. They look back before they leave, two sets of worried eyes, and shut the door behind them softly.

It’s not like Emma had a lot of friends growing up. The only friend she needed was kilometres away, in a different country, still holding Emma’s beating heart. Was it strange then that it was only after Juliette came to Hogwarts that Emma made her first real friends? Hestia Jones, the new third-year Hufflepuff Seeker, smiling at Emma after a game and offering her hand, and Emmeline Vance, the third-year Ravenclaw chaser asking to train with Emma early in the mornings. Juliette hated it, their desire to get close to Emma, and so Emma got close with them. Even then, she felt the warring emotions: follow Juliette everywhere or break with Juliette on everything.

Did it start with spite, then? Emma would never tell them that, because it’s become so much more. In a way, they are more her sisters than her actual sisters are. Emma was never able to breech the gap with her sisters, not as a little girl, to whom the entire world was Juliette Wilkes, but now she could, because she understands Juliette Wilkes better.

She knows how awful it can be to let one person ruin your life.

~*~

Otto and Juliette don’t look the same. Emma finds this confusing, coming from a big family where they somehow all share the same facial features in similar positions. Otto is hard, burly, a square jaw and deep-set eyes. Juliette is slight, thin and curved, her eyes wide and framed with long curled lashes. They have the same colouring, peach skin, golden hair, blue eyes, but stood side by side they look hardly more than cousins.

Juliette said once that the boy she killed at Durmstrang looked like Otto. Well, she didn’t say it like that. They were laying together in Emma’s dorm, alone, staring up at the ceiling after Juliette had managed to get them some weed from the Hufflepuffs. She called him “the boy from Durmstrang” and Emma knew what she meant. As far as the public was aware, Ferenc Balogh had died due to a fall where his head collided with the corner of a dresser. Mundane, easily explained. But Juliette knew how to cover her tracks, she was smarter than anyone ever gave her credit for.

Juliette was afraid of Otto, even though she would always be more powerful, more cunning than he. Otto Wilkes was the one thing in this world that Juliette feared, almost impossibly. Emma wondered how Juliette could ever be afraid of somebody, but she never really knew him. Juliette did.

Maybe then it wasn’t a surprise when Otto turned up dead.

His body was discarded in a lake, found a month after Juliette had disappeared, but long since dead. Otto was supposed to be in Bulgaria, and nobody had realized he’d never made it.

Otto was the same age as Julia. He never really interacted with them, though. He was ten, and thought learning English was stupid, and he looked down his nose at what he considered children, though he was one too. Despite it all, Emma can remember him padding down the stairs, his affinity for black coffee, the way his nose wrinkled when he smiled – rare but true. He was alive, once.

Once upon a time, Emma could have discarded any possibility in her mind that Juliette Wilkes – her Juliette – was a killer. That time was long gone.

~*~

Her hair is longer, Emma thinks, standing in the hallway facing down Juliette Wilkes. It’s true, her golden curls reach her lower back now. She looks… healthy? The image in her head suggested a gauntness, a hollowness, but she seems well.

Emma hates it, hates her, hates that her deepest wish came true, hates herself for wishing it. Juliette in person is beautiful and angelic and terrifying and demonic.

“…except, she’s not a little girl anymore.” Of course she isn’t. Emma is older and taller, and her skin has stretched over the bones she’s always had, but something in her composition has shifted. Resentment sits heavy against her lungs, stifling. Little girls should not constantly smell smoke and wonder if this is what dying feels like.

Juliette knows what she is doing: something infantile and wailing is drawn out of her, from her core, a pink thing with tufts of thick dark hair and hands balled into fists, screaming for comfort and warmth. Juliette knows how to tap into that part of Emma that she herself cannot reach, knows Emma’s body better than she does.

Emma doesn’t want Alice to leave her. Stay, please, show her that I am not alone, that I can live without her, that I am not wholly dependent on her presence to keep myself alive.

…except, there are things to be done. Lives to be saved, and Emma cannot be selfish. How could she, when every waking thought is consumed with death? It is unfair to save somebody who does not even wish to be saved.

Go, Alice, go. This is not the raid, this is personal. One of us will not survive this encounter, and I cannot have it be you instead of me. she and I know how to fight to the death; we’ve been doing it all our lives.

“They think you’re dead, buried under a hill or some shit. You couldn’t even take an hour out of your time to tell them you’re alive?” You don’t seem to understand, Juliette. Your parents lost their son, and now they have lost their daughter too. Forget them if you want, Juliette. I lost you, exactly one year ago. You never promised that you wouldn’t hurt me, we both know you couldn’t stop causing pain if you tried, but you promised we would stick together. One body, remember?

Juliette cocks her head. Emma can barely hear Alice’s footsteps, but she knows Alice is gone now. Perhaps, if she closes her eyes, this can be a moment from their youth, twin flames in the place where it all began. Just them, EmmaAndJuliette, the way it should be.

“You’re really quite predictable, you know.”

Emma opens her eyes. Can this be a dream instead? She wishes for the hazy air, the colour saturation, the unreality of it all. Where Juliette is not a thing that bites, but instead a carefully reconstructed memory of somebody that no longer exists, may never have existed at all.

“I knew you would show up here. I was waiting for you.” Juliette twirls her wand with her slim, delicate fingers. Emma watches her, eyes moving slowly, detaching from the vision in front of her.

“Your mother is still looking for you.”

“Ah, my mother.” The intricacies of Juliette’s voice, her accent, all so familiar to Emma, as though they have never been apart. “You know how much I detest her.”

Emma shrugs, and it is too casual a gesture to convey the storm of emotions washing through her body. “She still loves you. You’re her daughter.”

“I am nobody’s daughter.” Juliette takes a step forward, and it is easy, fluid. Emma trails her eyes back up to her face. “Neither are you. How are Danny and Su-Wei, anyway?”

Emma swallows the lump in their throat. “Fine.”

“Liar.”

Emma glares at the floor.

“Your mother is ill right now, isn’t she? I hear dragon pox is going around, I hope it’s not that. Quite a cough, though, did she tell you that in her letters?”

Slowly, as though in a trance, Emma looks up, gaze scrutinizing.

“Danny’s got a new position in the Ministry, good for him. I think he and Lucy are working together now. By the way, Lucy has not softened to you one bit. I told him everything was your fault as kids and so we’re cool, but I wouldn’t cross paths with him.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do than stalk my parents?”

Juliette laughs, and Emma thinks of bells, high and clear, like a fairy. Once upon a time, Emma thought she needed to protect Juliette Wilkes. They would hate her, the little girl who was once a boy, thin and weak. That would be her purpose, to protect Juliette. Except, she wasn’t needed. She became little more than a plaything. Juliette was more dangerous than anyone could have imagined.

“No, my darling, I do not. Tell me, why didn’t you come home for sweet Nora’s funeral? I was hoping to see you there.”

Every fibre in her body begins to catch fire, screaming. Emma knows this place, knows every exit, knows how to run. She stays stationary, hands wobbling at her side, and she speaks. “You went to Nora’s funeral?”

“Of course I did. I was hoping it would bring you back. I was as kind as I could be, you know. You won’t believe me, but I slit her wrists very quickly for her. It was a favour, you see?”

~*~

When Emma learns to crawl, she does not crawl towards Mum, or Dad, or Julia or Audrey. She is seven months old, and she has spent all those months reaching for something, someone, always just outside her grasp.

She crawls towards Nora, three years old and the only familiar thing Emma knows. And Nora laughs and claps her hands and Emma is hers.

They were all born from the same womb, but Emma and Nora are twins, taken from the same blood. Nora came into the world kicking and screaming, and so did Emma. Nora was born with fire in her veins and a twist of anger to her lips, and she overcame it, was making something of herself. Emma was her mirror, a little kid who recognized something in Nora that could never be put into words. They all look alike, but when Emma looks in the mirror, she sees what she could have been; she sees Nora.

When Nora died, Emma didn’t come home. She couldn’t, because knowing Nora’s body was in the casket meant Emma had to join her there. They were pairs, the six of them: Julia and Audrey, Kate and Claire, Emma and Nora. Emma had never lived a life without her other half; even from a distance, there was a tether. Juliette was the one who severed it, when Emma found an equal who was not her competition, who was not a version of her but with glasses and a kinder smile and an easier way of navigating the world. she didn’t need Nora anymore.

But that’s not true, is it? there is a scar on Emma’s forearm left by Nora when they were kids. The way her left eyebrow tilts up is Nora’s. when she smiles, she becomes someone else, somebody intricately familiar and yet forever beyond her grasp.

Emma always needed Nora. If her body was Juliette’s, everything else was Nora’s. Inexplicable, irrefutable. Emma has never been herself, has always been multiple people, has never been able to exist as a singular being.

She does not know what Nora’s favourite colour was, or what shape her patronus took. Was it a tiger, like Emma’s? How much did they share? Emma can see Nora’s face in the mirror, and project herself onto it, but it will never come close to knowing. Emma does not know Nora, but she knows the blood, the fire, the feeling of a sister.

~*~

Emma is moving, throwing herself at Juliette, and there is nothing of the grace and ease she works so hard for, trying to soften her body as though to tamp down the fire in her veins. She becomes a creature, something fast and dangerous and unpredictable, something only a Vanity can become, charged by the rage and the ambition and the blood. She tears and kicks and screams, but the mass of flesh and bone beneath her keeps dodging, keeps moving, and she wants blood under her fingernails, needs it.

“Imperio,” whispered like a secret, a protection.

The world quiets to a hum.

Emma Vanity has forgotten what silence sounds like. It is sweet, like honey, and the air is thick. It is so lovely to drown in. there is colour in the world again, and it is beautiful to see.

Something brushes against her cheek, soft and loving. Emma leans into the touch, a flower yearning for the sunlight.

“Hello, beautiful girl.” Juliette says, close to her ear, and Emma could die right now. Juliette, her Juliette, is here and Emma loves her more than anything in this world.

“I have waited so long for this. Do you remember when I used to imperio you back at Hogwarts?”

Emma shakes her head, the movement slow and languid. Everything is floaty, her body light as air. How could she ever have been angry? Without it taking up so much of her attention, the world seems so much easier to live in.

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Gentle hands, easing her down onto the floor, cradled in Juliette’s arms. Stronger than she looks, delicate as a petal, the keeper of Emma’s heart. Nowhere is safer than here, and Emma can’t really remember why she is here, but she knows she spent a long time searching for something, and this feels right. “Can I tell you about it?”

“You can tell me anything.” Emma breathes, looking up into Juliette’s big blue eyes.

Sweet smile, brushing the hair from her face. “I had studied the spell for months. It was summer, I think before your fourth year, before I left Durmstrang. You were very troubled. Your older sister had run away, do you remember? She didn’t love you enough to stay. I loved you, though. And I wanted to make you feel better.”

“Thank you.”

“You looked so peaceful when I cast it, so vulnerable. You were utterly at my whims; except I didn’t do it right. It wore off too quickly without me trying, and then you were back to being surly. You were happier under my control, though, I knew that. You are a miserable person, Emma Vanity, and I had to save you from yourself.”

Emma nods along. It’s true, she is miserable and awful, and Juliette is the only one who can save her.

“I couldn’t tell you though, because you wouldn’t let me. you were always so independent, Emma. I was the only one who could make you better. Your sisters never understood. Which one was it, Audrey? Boy, she was a nag. I thought about getting rid of her, because she was the one who kept a close eye on you, but she would never be alone with me. smart girl. You never told her, did you?”

“Never, never.” Emma is half-singing, delirious with the experience of living, of Juliette’s voice all around her. How could she ever want to die without hearing this heavenly sound again, without knowing what Juliette’s touch feels like after all this time?

“When you were sixteen though… oh, I figured it out. Do you remember that night we spent together? You were utterly mine, and you had no control, no way to mess it up. That’s what you do, darling, you mess everything up. I like you under my control better. You’re less tormented, more pliable. I wish I could keep you like that forever, but we have time for that now, don’t we?”

“Yes, all the time.”

“See, you’re much more amenable like this. Why do you have to be so awful all the time? It’s much easier to like you when you’re not you.” Fingers tracing the line of her nose, the curve of her eyebrows. “You know, I think I’m the only one who can love you, because I know how to make you stop. But that’s why you’re here, I think. You realized you couldn’t live without me, right?”

The thought, quiet and insistent, in the back of her head: that’s not why you are here. You’re afraid of her, remember?

Emma dismisses the thought. “Yes, I need you.”

Juliette exhales, the smile spreading across her face. “I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses. I was disappointed you didn’t come home for Nora’s funeral. I was very gentle with her, just for you. I imperioed her too, made it quick and easy. I didn’t like her, but gratuitous violence wasn’t necessary. It was to bring you home, do you understand? When you didn’t, I was very disappointed in you. You’re supposed to come when you’re called.”

Remember, Emma. You have a body, and you can get free. You are not her, do you understand?

“It was strange, how they all seemed to make space for you between them. None of them liked you very much. I wonder how upset they’ll be when they realize you aren’t coming home. All they did was keep me from you, and I could gladly kill them all to have you with me. But I don’t need to do that now, because you came, like a stupid dog on a leash. Never can let go, can you Emma?”

Emma, Emma, can you hear me? can you break through?

“So many of your scars are from me. Your body would not exist without me. Where’s the one on your back, across your shoulder blades? Did you like the pain? You’re a masochist, dear, I’m sure you did. I considered abducting you and torturing you fully conscious, but that’s no fun. I like it when you look at me like this. Oh, the things I will do to you. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Nobody’s expecting you anymore, you’re mine, for as long as I want you.”

Alice. A floating image; Alice Fortescue, running with her through a forest. The feeling of a hand in hers, a comfort. The haze begins to subside.

“You’re pathetic, do you realize that, Emma? You are nothing without me, worthless and unwanted. I was the one who wanted you, I saved you from yourself. You owe your life to me, and I will use that debt for as long as I want. You will do whatever I tell you to, because you are mine.”

Emma, get up. Emma, fight back. Emma, remember how you decided you wanted to live?

“Nobody calls me the right name here. They call me Wilhelmina. You’re the only one who knows me… or at least you think you do. Do you want to see what I’ve learned here? There are many tricks I’ve picked up, and that I’ll use on you. I killed Ferenc, and Nora, and Otto, and people you don’t even know about yet, but you’re the one I really wanted to kill. They were just substitutes for the real thing.”

Claw your way up through the honey-soaked air, where everything tastes like the past. Let her go, she is not yours anymore, do you understand? She is going to kill you.

“What shall we do? You probably want to feel it. maybe once you’re so incapacitated, I’ll release the spell, so you can understand what I’ve done. I’ll do it over and over again, and I’ll make you hurt so badly that you’ll wish you died. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Her gaze shifts to her hand, her fingernails, the smear of blood under her nail. Juliette’s blood. Juliette’s blood, because she tried to kill Juliette. Because Juliette killed Nora.

Juliette killed Nora.

Juliette. Killed. Nora.

Slowly, Emma looks up at Juliette, smiling down at her with sharp and bared teeth.

“Welcome back, love.” Juliette says, and attacks.

~*~

“Hold still.”

Emma draws in a sharp, shuddering breath as the knife breaks the skin, sliding between her left shoulder blade and her spine. The pain is white-hot, the blade jagged and cutting, and tears spring immediately to her eyes. It hurts so terribly that every single defense falls away, leaving Emma at her most vulnerable state, something she hates and hides as much as possible.

“Oh, you’re so beautiful like this.” The knife slides through her back, and she is gagging on the pain, the bile rising like poison in her mouth. Juliette’s hand is firm and steady on her shoulder, but it is no comfort. Her body is on fire, everything is burning, and Juliette is laughing softly, saying “you’re doing so well,” and Emma cannot remember how they got here. Did she say yes? Everything before this is strange and blurred, and Juliette is the only real thing here.

Something wet against her back. Emma starts to cry, staring into the mirror, watching Juliette lick the blood away and grin at her, and her mouth is red and sticky with Emma’s blood, and all she can see is the little girl hiding under the bed, smiling and gentle and hers.

This monster is also hers, and it is awful.

~*~

Weeping, in the bathroom, Emma stares at her reflection in the mirror. Nora is staring back at her, face messy and nearly unrecognizable. Slowly, she turns, lifting the shirt up, over her head, wincing at the pain.

Emma’s body is a web of scars, they stretch across her arms and legs, her torso and neck. Now, her back, jagged and gaping, blood and pus and Emma’s life oozing away. Just one more mark from Juliette, one more move towards taking over her entire body, stripping away any flesh that is Emma’s and replacing it with a raised scar that Juliette can point to and say “look, you’re mine.”

Emma can’t escape her, not as long as she lives in this body, not as long as she has a heart that beats in sync with Juliette. It is here, looking at the damage Juliette has wreaked on her, that Emma thinks about killing herself for the first time.

She is seventeen, and already her life is at the beginning of the end.

~*~

It is brutal and uncontrolled and desperate.

Emma, tearing at whatever flesh or clothes or hair that she can, sobbing from the effort of fighting her best friend, her one true love, her other half. Every move rips her heart further in two, and it is unbearable. Everything smells like smoke.

Juliette fights dirty, sucker-punching Emma’s jaw, knocking her to the floor, grappling and ripping at Emma’s inner arm, sharp nails poised to take blood and chunks of skin with her. Emma catches a smile in the blur: Juliette likes the fight.

Emma lands a punch in the eye socket, Juliette bites the upper bit of her ear off, they know each other so well they know where the others’ vulnerability is, where to strike. Juliette starts laughing, chewing on the cartilage and attacking with fervour.

“You killed Nora,” Emma keeps repeating, over and over like a mantra, a chant, with every swing of her fist and scratch of her claws, reminding her. Two years she resented Nora, hated her, like hating herself. Juliette, the only thing that was hers, the only thing Emma knew or understood, her entire life spinning around her axis. And Emma never really did have family, siblings or parents, she was alone, and she deserved to be alone because she had the misfortune of loving a terrible girl. No, don’t blame misfortune. She wanted to love a terrible girl, overlooked it all, she chose not to go back to her sisters. This is her fault. That’s where the hatred comes from: because she hates herself for loving Juliette, for hating Juliette, for knowing Juliette, for being Juliette. Don’t you understand? There is no Emma without Juliette, they are inextricably linked.

The only problem is, Juliette can live without Emma. Emma cannot.

Her face is fucked and her body is fucked, and Juliette is tearing into those scars that she left, dragging up old pain, because to love Juliette Wilkes is to hurt, and to hurt badly, and Emma sees a wand discarded on the floor and she tries to crawl for it, shooting pains down her leg from her ankle bent wrongly, and she is reaching and she is holding every single sister in her mind right now, their faces blurring into one, her own face, and she is reaching—

A crack, and Emma screams with pain, jerking her shattered hand into her chest, cradling it and sobbing, curled into a fetal position like an infant, a month away from twenty-one and she is reduced to a baby, begging for love behind it all.

Juliette is standing over her, and she is awful, and her eye is weeping blood and everything about her is torn and shredded and damaged, and yet she is still beautiful, because Emma will always think she is beautiful.

“Oh, darling, imagine how much you’ll hurt now.”

“Imperio.”

~*~

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

Focus on their names, okay?

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

Do you remember them?

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

They are your sisters. They will always be your sisters.

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

Don’t let go of them now, keep hold of their faces. Can you see them?

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

They love you; they can’t help it; they love you so much. They are yours, and you are theirs.

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

Emma, can you see them coming to save you?

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

Emma, look, they’re here to take you home.

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

Emma, will you go with them?

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

Emma, do you know who you are?

Julia Charlotte, Audrey Victoria, Nora Dorothy, Emma Genya, Claire Anastasia, Katherine Eleanor.

Emma?

~*~

Alice waits at the hill, and she is beginning to panic. The girl is slumped against her side, and Alice is watching, looking for a figure darting out, but there is nothing, and her heart is contracting in her chest, squeezing until she cannot breathe, and what can she do? What can she do as she watches it; the shimmering dome encompass the house again suddenly and disappear in a second? What can she do when the wards are back in place, and Alice cannot go back in, and Emma cannot come out?

The girl groans but Alice cannot tear her eyes away from the manor, begging and pleading against all odds that Emma took a different way out, that she’s around the corner of the house, that she will appear in just a second, and she will be okay, smiling that cocky smile and going home with Alice, back to Hestia and Emmeline where she belongs, and they will forget this day ever happened.

She doesn’t know how long she stands here for, or how long she can. The girl begins to cry incomprehensible tears and tries to yank herself away from Alice, seemingly coming back to life and hating the touch, and Alice is forced to turn her head away, wrestle with the girl, and ultimately, she loops her arm around the girl’s torso to keep a hold on her and with a final look at the manor she apparates back to the cabin, collapsing to the earth with exhaustion and total desperation, and it is as though the entire world is on her shoulders, and Dumbledore starts moving towards her and she can’t read his face, but she doesn’t care what he thinks now, because her mind is on Emma. Emma, Emma, Emma.

~*~

Pandora waits around the corner until the girl is done.

She has spent a long time watching, lying in wait, watching behaviours, seeing signs. The girl comes and goes about the house like a princess, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Pandora has been underestimated too, but she is no killer. There is no excuse, not even for a trespasser.

She hesitates, waiting for the flouncing steps to vanish down the hall – probably off to brag, to bring her friends to witness her latest trophy, to make them watch as she continues her destruction– and slips in.

The hallway is a mess, and Pandora keeps her eyes averted from the chunks of flesh and insides piled on the floor. What is in front of her is the other one, the body, and she is utterly destroyed. What is recognizable is gone, torn away by nails or teeth or spells, and Pandora can feel herself crying as she uses a sleeve to slowly wipe some of the blood away from the body’s face, trying to salvage something worth remembering, something human left in the corpse.

Pandora forsees a lot of deaths, and for her own sake, she cannot remember all the names. Still, as she bundles the body up in her arms, staining her clothes and face and hands with blood and gore and piss and saliva, she is as gentle as she can be. I don’t know your name, she tells the body through her touch, but you were once a person, and I love you for that.

Pandora has become skilled at being unseen, especially here, especially in the house where she is not particularly welcome. She knows how to slip out, through the wards, and over to the hill, where she has always been going, and she can see herself seconds from now placing the body on the green grass, adjusting her so she is sitting with her back against the tree, trying to smooth away some of the ragged areas and brushing the hair from her face ever so lightly, so that she looks less scary.

“It isn’t your fault.” Pandora murmurs down at the body, imagining the soul inside is still listening. “It is a uniquely mortal flaw to want to be loved.”

Leaning down, pressing a soft kiss to the girl’s mangled forehead, and then reaching for her wand to cast a patronus spell, watching as the raven swirls around her head, awaiting its message.

“Tell Dumbledore that she is at the hill overlooking the castle.” Pandora says and waves her wand to send the bird flying. Her eyes drift back to the body, the girl, and she can feel it in her chest, the shift of responsibilities, the burden she carries.

Subject to the whims of time, Pandora turns away and back towards the house, awaiting her next task.

~*~

They find Emma Vanity’s body the next morning.