coveted magics, 15
“You’re just a useless little brat who’ll never amount to anything,” Harry’s mother screamed, and he had less than a second to roll out of the way before a book went hurling through the air at him. He’d tried this spell ten times, and still couldn’t do it. He’d never be able to do it, he’d never be able to live up to the bar his mother set. A tendril of shadowy power rose up from the ground and coiled up in front of him, ready to strike. It lanced forward, and-
Harry woke with a gasp. His hands raked across his chest as he fought for air. Sweat was pouring from all over his body, and his sheets were a mess. He hadn’t even changed into his nightwear before falling asleep, and a perfectly good set of day clothes were now drenched and stunk of sweat, body odour and fear. Once he could actually breath again, Harry frantically patted at his chest. He let out a sigh of relief once he was sure that there was no bleeding, gaping hole there.
It was just a nightmare, Harry told himself. A recurring, painful nightmare. This time, though, it was more intense than ever. She was coming, and he had to be ready. He needed raw power, and he needed to get over this stupid fear he had of her. It had barely been two days since he’d gone to pick up Tommy, and his whole world had fallen apart. He’d seen her, his own mother, and had been powerless to do anything. Even with all the Chthonic energy that had been infused into him after the fall of Wundagore, it wouldn’t be enough. Agatha was perhaps the second most powerful witch in history, Wanda being the only one able to surpass her.
Unless… unless Harry could survive the Witches’ Road. Every witch knew of the Road, the ultimate trial that would grant a witch a wish should they survive until the end. If Harry could make it through, he’d be able to gain the power he needed to put a stop to Agatha Harkness’s destructive conquest for power. But just opening the road would be a trial of its own. He needed a coven, five witches to form a pentagram conduit for the spell to summon the Road’s entrance.
Harry knew exactly how to form this coven, and he needed help. He’d done all the research, and the sooner he could make this happen, the better. It was a race against time, a race for Harry to traverse the Road in full before Agatha realised everything she wanted was in Boston, made a plan and came to strike. Allowing himself only a minute to shower and clean up, Harry washed himself as fast as he could and dressed himself in dark, warm clothes. Then, after gathering all the spellcasting materials he needed, he opened a portal to the apartments, wasting no time and stepping out into Wanda and Daisy’s apartment. He could apologise for the intrusion later.
Quickly, Harry went to knock on Wanda’s bedroom door. He heard a groan from within, but it didn’t sound like her. Maybe his mind was just playing tricks on him. He knew he wasn’t thinking entirely clearly, and hadn’t been since that moment in Minnesotta. A few seconds later, someone who definitely wasn’t Wanda opened the door. It was a woman who stood maybe half a head shorter than him, with long black hair and a thin but muscular frame. She wasn’t wearing anything more than a tank top and underwear, so Harry averted his eyes.
“Sorry!” Harry apologised, perhaps a little too loud. “I was looking for Wanda.”
The woman chuckled. “You must be Harry. I’m Jess, Peter’s sister. Wanda let me use her room for now so I didn’t have to shell out on a hotel.”
In the back of his mind, Harry knew that he knew about Jess, but it didn’t register much in his conscious thought. “Then… where is Wanda? This is urgent.”
The door to Daisy’s room opened, and Wanda’s head popped out into the corridor. “Harry?”
“There you are, Wanda,” Harry said with relief, the part of him that would normally be amused, surprised and pleased to see her coming out of Daisy’s room too unimportant for his current train of thought. “Please, I need you to come with me. I need your help.”
Wanda, who’s face was flustered pink, ducked her head a little. “Give me a minute to get dressed.”
A minute later, Wanda emerged wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. “What is it, Harry? I’m not sure I can help you for long. Tommy, my son, he needs me. He’s not doing well with the murders.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Harry apologised, because he really needed her. Nobody else could help him with what he needed to do right now. “But it won’t take long. Maybe an hour.”
Wanda let out a sigh. “Are you okay, Harry? I know you have a complicated relationship with Aga- with your mother. You know we’re all here for you, yes?”
Harry nodded, and then shook his head. “I know. Yeah, I know that. Just… will you come with me? There’s a complicated spell I need to cast but I’m not trained in Divination magic, so I need to use your Chaos magic as a channel to make the spell work.”
“Spell?” Wanda asked. “What spell?”
Frantic, Harry already started opening a new portal to the Playground. “A spell to locate my coven. I’m going to travel the Witches’ Road.”
“The Road?” Wanda gasped. “Harry, please. I’ve been helping you improve your magical ability for long enough to know that even if you are ready, you still might not survive. There were lengthy details of the Road in the Darkhold, and I know that it is not a path to tread lightly.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Harry snapped, and then quickly brought up a hand to cover his mouth, shocked at what he’d just done. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. Just… It’s just a divination spell. Will you help?”
“You won’t let this go otherwise, will you?” Wanda asked again, and quietly slid the door to Daisy’s bedroom closed. It was probably too late to have avoided waking anyone, though. “Alright, let’s go.”
Harry nodded, a stress-borne tear welling up in his left eye. He stepped through the portal, and let it close once Wanda had followed in behind him. He then set down his pouch and began unloading items from his pouch – candles, a canister of tar, and a singular chunk of gold. He formed a ladder-like path with the candles before using the tar to paint a diagonal, criss-crossing path between the candles. The gold was set down in the very centre of the path, and Harry pointed to one end. “You sit there, I’ll sit on the other side.”
Wanda followed his instructions, looking a little uneasy all the while. “I too am unfamiliar with Divination spellcraft. What is it that you need me to do?”
Harry sat down in his position across from the Scarlet Witch. “Place your hands in front of the candles closest to you, and when I tell you to, begin channeling your Chaos energy into them. This pathway will bring the energy to me and convert it into a usable form. Because of how magically versatile Chaos magic is, I can convert it into the exact fuel I need to cast a Divination spell, and when the spell is complete I’ll have a list of names of my coven members. I assume you’ll be on it.”
Suddenly, Wanda shook her head sharply. “You’d best hope not. I will not enter the Road with you. It’s far too dangerous, and I cannot leave my children without my protection. Definitely not now.”
“I understand,” Harry relented reluctantly. If she had been willing, his confidence in his ability to survive the road would have gone up tenfold. But it did make sense – it could take him weeks to travel the road, and that was a long time to leave Billy and Tommy without a powerful enough witch to protect them. “Are you ready?”
Wanda nodded. Harry gestured for her to begin, and then started his own incantation. He had memorised three incantations for this spell. One to harness Chaos energy, one to mould it into that which was needed for Divination, and a third to divine the members of his coven. The entire process took half an hour, and Harry could feel his chest tightening from exhaustion by the end of it.
A single, withering piece of paper manifested where the chunk of gold had been a mere moment ago. Harry launched up, and rushed over to collect it. Carefully, he lifted the paper up and read out the names on the list. “Harry Osborn-Harkness. That’s me. Darcy Lewis. I don’t know who that is but I’ll find them one way or another. America Chavez. She’s at the Sanctum Sanctorum, I’ve met her before. Axl Heimdallschild. I don’t know the name, but I do know the name Heimdall so they must be Asgardian. And… fuck, you’re not gonna like this.”
Wanda glared at him. Harry knew that he’d dragged her here with fairly any warning and that she’d never wanted to be a part of this anyway, and that only made the last name on here worse. “Who is it?”
Harry took in a breath, his hand shaking with the paper in it. Carefully, he focused on stilling his muscles so he didn’t destroy this critically important fragile piece of paper. “Billy Parker.”
“No,” Wanda snapped immediately. “You will not bring Billy to the Road.”
“Wanda, I-” Harry tried, but she cut him off.
“You will find another witch to fill his position,” Wanda commanded, her voice full of authority and power. “I will help you locate one, if I must. But Billy is not going, and you are not to even tell him that his name is on this list. I know my Billy, and he will insist on joining you, but I won’t have you risking his life for this.”
Harry crumpled in on himself a little, guilt welling up in his chest. “I… I understand. I’ll do my very best to find someone else, but… if I can’t find anyone, it has to be him. Wanda, you and I both know just how dangerous Agatha is. While I’m sure you could defeat her again, there’s no guarantee that she won’t just steal your powers. And if she succeeds at that? The entire world will be in danger. But she can’t steal mine. I’m immune to that ability of hers by way of a blood ritual I performed when I was thirteen. If I can survive the road, I can beat her, and then we’ll all be safe.”
And then Wanda’s eyes were glowing crimson, power emanating from her whole body. Instinctively, Harry mustered up a shield of his own power around him, but Wanda made no move to strike. After a few seconds, the power receded back inside of her. “See to it that you find someone else.”
Harry sighed, and let his shield melt away. “I’ll do everything I can.”
In truth, he knew of one particular witch who he might be able to convince to join the coven to open the Road, but she was… dangerous, to put it lightly. There was every chance that if he didn’t play his cards right, confronting her at all would end in his death. It was a last resort sort of thing, but perhaps he could convince Wanda to come as backup? Well, Harry would cross that bridge when he got there.
It was nice having distractions for a little while, but Billy knew it was time for him to actually confront what was going on amongst his strange, magical family. He’d gotten to know Jess, spent some more time with Teddy and taken the initiative to look over the documents Peter needed to fill out to complete his registration at his new school – which, if all things went as planned, he could start attending after the Christmas break.
But Tommy wasn’t doing okay at all. How could he be? His parents, who were apparently actually nice people, were dead. All of a sudden, out of nowhere. A couple years back, Billy had wished that his parents would die and orphan him, but seeing the fallout of it made him certain that it was a foolhardy wish. It would have scarred him way too much.
Perhaps Billy was feeling guilty, too. A guilt that he’d been pushing down, but was now large enough that he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Guilty that he hadn’t spent more time with Tommy, getting to know him – even though it had barely been two days. Pretty much the only thing he knew about Tommy was that when he was in one of his better moods, he made cheeky, crass jokes. But Billy didn’t really know how to get to know Tommy right now. He didn’t really even know how to talk to him.
Except… there was one idea, one way that he could bridge that gap, which he was perhaps feeling ready for. He could take Wanda up on her offer to show him her memories from Westview. In truth, he’d been putting it off. Billy knew – he knew that seeing those memories would give him a much fuller picture of everything surrounding the magical phenomenon that resulted in his existence, and all of what it meant for him and his life. He knew it would give him perspective. He just… things were as comfortable as he thought they could be, slowly getting to know Wanda, growing to like and feel comfortable around her. By now, he thought of her as a part of his family, though not quite like a parent.
And this would put all of that to risk, because Billy was afraid of what he might find out.
Had Tommy never come into the equation, Billy might have gone years before he was ready for those memories – or perhaps never asked Wanda about them, leaving it as a relic of the past, of a life that both was and wasn’t his. But now, Billy wanted to know Tommy, to find a way to connect and figure out what was supposed to be between them. With all the overwhelm of the murders, Billy just didn’t feel like it was right to wait.
So, he walked himself up to the front door of the next apartment over, and knocked before letting himself in. Seeing the door to Wanda’s room open, Billy nervously approached… to find Jess there. She was sitting on the side of the bed with a laptop in her lap, and appeared deep in focus.
“Um… why are you in here?” Billy asked, hoping he didn’t come across as rude.
“Oh, Billy. Hi,” Jess said, turning to face him. “Are you looking for Wanda?”
He nodded. Not sure what else to say, Billy simply waited for Jess to say more.
“She went somewhere with Harry a little while ago,” Jess continued. “No idea when they’ll be back, but I’m sure Peter won’t mind if I bring you over there if it’s urgent.”
Billy shuddered at the thought of doing this at the Playground, rather than in this very building where he could retreat to the comfort of his bedroom to process immediately after whatever it was he was signing up to witness. He shook his head. “No, I can wait. But… uh, how come you’re in her room?”
Jess smirked. “She’s letting me use her room while I’m staying in Boston. Seems like she’s shacking up with Daisy for now, and I get the impression I may have… pushed things along between them.”
“Oh,” Billy blushed. He was aware that there was something going on between Daisy and Wanda, but hadn’t been quite sure exactly where that was up to. A part of him was pleased to have even more evidence of Wanda’s queerness – something which he felt brought them together a little. Still, it was a little embarrassing. In that embarrassment, Billy looked down and ended up properly noticing that Jess was fully dressed up. So far he’d seen her just wearing a tank top and jeans, but now she also had a jacket and boots on. On those boots were beads arranged in the formation of an aromantic flag and a trans flag. “Wait, you’re queer too?”
Jess chuckled a little. “Sure am. You know, it was Peter who influenced me to be a little more open about it. Once word got out back in New York, I ended up getting a lot more queer clients, which is pretty nice. Beats the usual bullshitty spying on soon-to-be-divorced spouses for dirt.”
“Huh,” said Billy, digesting all of that in his mind. “Heading out somewhere?”
“Yup,” Jess confirmed, and closed her laptop before tossing it onto the bed beside her. “I managed to dig up a lead on a rather exploitable member of the Department of Damage Control who might be able to help me with this literal witch hunt. On that note, I’d better get going so I don’t miss my window. Sure you don’t want me to bring you to that training place on the way?”
Billy considered it once more, but decided that he’d just wait. “No thanks. Good luck!”
“Thanks, kiddo,” Jess said, and got up to leave.
Billy followed her out of the apartment, and then went back to his own to grab the Nintendo Switch that was docked by the TV, which he then brought back to Daisy and Wanda’s apartment to entertain him while he waited. Plus, he knew that if Tommy emerged from his own new bedroom – which was the third room in that apartment – he could offer to play together and maybe bond a little.
By the time Wanda returned, Tommy still hadn’t emerged from his room. Billy didn’t fault him for it at all – not only was Billy a little reclusive at first too when he got here, he hadn’t been through the horrifying experience Tommy had. Lying on the couch and mostly focused on playing Tears of the Kingdom, Billy still didn’t miss the very noticeable portal that sprung into existence barely a metre away. Wanda stepped out of it unaccompanied by Harry, and looking rather unhappy.
Billy opened his mouth to speak and announce himself, but no words came out. He was so used to having to watch out for his parents’ moods and modify his behaviour accordingly that it was almost instinct to make himself small seeing Wanda like that. Instead, he watched as she marched over to Daisy’s room, went in, and groaned. Billy would’ve loved to say that he made an effort to not eavesdrop, but he did listen in a little.
He couldn’t make out much, but definitely heard Daisy speaking to her in comforting tones for a few minutes, before they both emerged from the bedroom, Daisy gently tugging Wanda out by the hand – which succeeded in bringing a smile to Billy’s face and calming him down a little. It didn’t take long for the both of them to notice him.
“Billy, I didn’t see you there! Is everything okay?” Wanda asked, sounding a little more frantic than usual.
Billy nodded. “I, uh. I wanted to ask you about something. Or, well, to take you up on that offer you made a while back. About the memories?”
Wanda blinked slowly, as if trying to remember. “Oh. So you want to know more about Westview?”
“I’m going to leave the both of you to it, and make some tea for us all. That okay?” Daisy asked, and upon Wanda’s nod, she went over to the kitchen and filled up the kettle.
Billy sat up in such a way that he could lean against the side of the sofa, and set the Switch down on the coffee table nearby. “Yeah… I- well, I guess I thought it’d help me to understand Tommy some more and help him through this. But… are you okay? You seem pretty upset.”
Wanda let out a sigh, and approached to sit on the sofa beside Billy. “I may need some time to calm down before I can perform the magic that would allow you to experience my memories. Harry and I had something to discuss which… well, it was a difficult conversation. He is preparing to embark on a very dangerous journey to amass sufficient power to defeat Agatha.”
“Why?” Billy asked earnestly, more than a little confused by that. “Aren’t you strong enough to beat her on your own?”
“I might be,” Wanda offered, not sounding especially confident. “Agatha… she is a very powerful and skilled witch, and against somebody like her, raw power isn’t all that matters. Harry’s quest is… well, it is not unwarranted. He and I just had a disagreement over a certain aspect of it, though I believe it has been resolved.”
“Oh, alright then,” said Billy. He contemplated leaning against Wanda, thinking it might help her to calm down even more, but that required a level of vulnerability with her that he wasn’t quite ready for yet. “So… you and Daisy?”
It was actually funny how quickly Wanda’s face went red. As she stumbled for words, it was Daisy who responded to that first. “Yeah, you probably should talk to Billy about that. I dated a guy with a kid once a couple years back and it was really important for them to have a conversation about me.”
Daisy’s advice apparently gave Wanda enough time to settle down from her sudden flustered reaction, and she let out a sigh. “Yes, we are… well, we’ve been growing close, and have decided to try dating. Is that… well, is it okay with you?”
“Of course!” Billy assured her with very little hesitation. He knew he couldn’t convey directly with words how much it meant for him to see the woman who was technically his original mother in a relationship with another woman, especially after how the Kaplans had treated his own queerness. Still, he knew he would regret not at least giving it a go. “I, um… for a while, I told the Kaplans that I was bi because I knew they wouldn’t accept me being gay. And when I told them that I was gay- that was the night I got kicked out. So I guess seeing you with another woman is… it makes you feel safer, to me.”
“Oh, Billy,” went Wanda, tears already welling up in her eyes. “Can I hug you? Would that be okay?”
Billy thought about it, and then nodded. A quick hug was okay, and that was what happened. “It’s really nice, being surrounded by queer people all the time now.”
“Would you like to know a little more about my own queer identity?” Wanda offered, a smile on her face. She wiped away the single tear that was rolling down her face with the back of her left hand. Billy nodded, and so Wanda continued. “I suppose something I have known about myself for quite a long time is that gender identity has never particularly mattered to me when it comes to the attraction I experience to others, but that was not the first thing I had realised about myself in my youth.”
“Oh yeah?” Billy questioned, sitting up even straighter than before.
“Indeed,” Wanda nodded. “I… well, Pietro and I were not identical twins, but we did look a great deal more similar in the first decade of our life than after. Wanda was a name I chose for myself with the help of my parents, not the one I was born with.”
“So you’re…” Billy started, and then trailed off.
“A transgender woman, yes,” Wanda confirmed the thought beginning to formulate in Billy’s mind.
Billy paused, considered what she had just revealed, paused some more, and then blinked. “I don’t get it.”
Wanda tilted her head a little in confusion. “That I am transgender? Is… I didn’t think you’d have an issue with that.”
“No, no, I don’t! It’s really really cool, actually!” Billy quickly assured her. “It’s just… how did I- how did Tommy and I happen, then?”
And then Wanda started laughing. A full-belly kind of laughter, which he didn’t think he’d ever seen from her. In all honesty, Billy didn’t know that Wanda could laugh like that. He almost started to feel a little ashamed, but he got enough of a sense that he hadn’t said anything wrong. Besides, it was a genuinely reasonable question as far as Billy could tell. He knew that Wanda was with Vision in Westview, but as far as Billy was aware, Vision wasn’t human in any sense he would think was reproductively capable. Which… when he thought about it, meant that the matter of his original birth was still just as confusing regardless of Wanda’s transness.
“Oh, I’m sorry for laughing,” Wanda apologised, and began to settle down. “To answer your question as best I can, your birth was a matter of magic. The kind of magic I am capable of is called Chaos magic, which can bend the laws of reality to a somewhat greater extent than other types of magic. When I was in Westview, I created you and Tommy from that magic, and I have since understood that I used souls taken from the possession of the demon Chthon. When I ended the Hex, your souls were returned, but the time in Westview changed them enough that Chthon could not reclaim them, hence your reincarnation.”
“Huh, that’s kind of… wild,” Billy managed, and then a thought popped into his mind that made him grin. “I guess that would’ve been a very affirming experience for you then, right?”
“It was,” Wanda answered with a smile. A moment later, Daisy came over and brought four mugs of tea on an oven tray, and set them down on the coffee table. Wanda picked one up, took a sip, and then set it back down. “Now, Billy, would you like to see those memories?”
“I think so, yeah,” was Billy’s answer. He still wasn’t entirely sure he wanted this, but he knew he needed to go ahead with it. “So… how do we do this?”
“It is rather simple. I will place my hands on the sides of your head, and essentially inject the memories directly into your mind,” Wanda answered. “I would like to invite Tommy to join as well, to see if he would like to be a part of this too.”
“Okay,” Billy said. And then, “will it hurt?”
“Not at all,” Wanda assured him. She then got up, walked down the hall, and returned half a minute later with Tommy behind her. He looked… well, burdened – at least that was the best description Billy had for what he could see. Tommy looked tired, but less so than yesterday. He looked hollow and absent, but also to a lesser degree than the last time Billy had laid eyes on him.
“Hi,” Tommy said as his and Billy’s eyes met, and he regarded Billy with a weary sort of curiosity. The two of them barely knew each other, but at the same time there was that feeling that they knew each other all too well.
“Hi,” Billy responded. He still wasn’t sure what else to say to his brother – and there was that guilt again. But hopefully the memories would fix that.
“Alright, could both of you please stand up and stand side by side in front of me?” Wanda requested, standing behind the sofa in the open space. “That way I will be able to show both of you at the same time.”
Both boys followed the instruction, and stood in front of Wanda. Billy tried not to feel too nervous as Wanda positioned her hand beside his temple. She wasn’t even touching him, but he could feel the power emanating from her hand as the spell began. And then, suddenly, Billy was in Westview – except he was seeing everything through Wanda’s eyes.
At first, Billy saw an empty plot of land, in what he assumed was Westview. It felt like he was looking over it, filled with grief. Then a powerful surge of magic exploded outwards, and body of Vision formed right in front of him, from nothing. He watched as, in moments that felt like months, Wanda’s whole fabricated small town life progressed with the themes of a series of sitcoms. And then, eventually, Billy saw himself, and Tommy – as babies. It didn’t take long for them to grow into young children, perhaps four or five years old, and then progress to ten year olds. It was almost uncanny, seeing himself in a life he’d never lived, looking exactly the way he had in this life at the same age.
Through Wanda’s eyes and her memories, Billy saw himself, and Tommy. He saw how they interacted with each other, with such a close bond and yet one where they didn’t quite connect. It felt like Tommy didn’t quite like Billy, perhaps saw him as a nuisance. He saw Wanda paying more attention to Tommy, and it hurt. It even seemed like this version of him was blissfully unaware of the favouritism and the rift between him and his twin. He saw it all, and he understood.
Billy wanted to give them both the benefit of the doubt, and to believe that things could be better in this life. Even so, it hurt.