Glorious

-

The man leered at her, brown, almost black eyes, wild and steely as they travelled down her body. It was a look a lion gave a gazelle, as if he hadn’t quite decided if he wanted to eat her or not, a look that made her hands tremble and reminded her of Tom.

“Where am I?” Evie glared at him, clenching her fists when they refused to stop shaking. 

It appeared to be a normal, if old fashioned, room, only there were no doors nor windows. Three walls were covered by large book cases, all eight filled to the brim with books that had worn spines. The only source of light coming from a large, hanging lantern in the middle of the ceiling that casted everything in a burnt orange tint.

The man tsked, turning on his heel to prowl around her. “I do believe I asked first.” He stopped behind her, resting his hands on her tense shoulders. “And quite frankly, I find myself getting impatient.”

Evie stood there, stiff, gritting her teeth when his grip tightened. She reacts before she can think, turning around and shoving her hands out in front of her, intent on sending the man crashing into the wall.

Her magic crackles under her skin, shaking her bones and setting her blood alight, but it does not bend to her will, does not escape the confines of her body.

The man chuckles, his hands snapping out to encircle her wrists, his hold firm but not particularly painful. “Naughty, little witch. Magic doesn’t work here.” He slowly adds pressure, a fanged smirk twisting his lips. “A name, darling.”

“Evelyn Potter.” Evie winces, unwilling to put her family in danger should this vampire have someway of finding them. The man recoils as if burned, eyes flickering to the ring on her finger.

“Sirius.” The man starts, his voice barely above a whisper.

“He was my godfather.”

They stand in silence, neither looking away from the other, both unwilling to concede first. It’s a power play Evie knows well, has engaged in many times over the course of her lives, and one she has never lost.

“Kol Mikaelson.” Kol says finally, holding out a hand, searching her face intently. “Sirius’s twin.”

Evie grabs it warily, only slightly surprised when he kisses the air above it, all of his jagged edges smoothing into something more human.

“Where am I?” She asks again. “And where’s Sirius?”

“Ah, this,” Kol spreads his arms out to present the room. “Would be my mind, a part of it at least.”

He plops to the floor and runs his fingers through the plush carpet. “It’s more of a prison really. As for Sirius,” Kol pauses to give her an inquisitive look. “I assume you know of vampires, little witch?” 

Evie nods and takes a seat across from him, halfhearted in her attempts to soothe the adrenaline rush. Vampires always seemed to be the source of most situations she found herself in.

“Now the question is... what do you know of Originals?”

XX

Evie woke with a headache, still trying to process everything Kol told her. As he said it would, the ring’s magic had completely faded when she checked. Her head felt like it was about to explode, a lovely side effect from the mental connection, and all she wanted to do was sleep.

Naturally, Jeremy decided it was the best time to barge into her room, begging her to heal Vicki.

“Please, Evie, I-I think I love her.” Jeremy finally reveals, collapsing next to her on the bed.

Unlike Evie, Jeremy is not weary of connecting with people, opening his heart where she would rather shy away. It was something that was beaten into her body by body during the war, more than half of them wearing the faces of her friends. The people she cared for ended up dead, it was a fact that she accepted a long time ago.

Evie sighs, rubbing at her aching temples. “Alright,” She agrees, flinching when Jeremy rests his head on her shoulder. “I’ll heal her.” Jeremy deflates in relief, muttering a quick ‘thank you’ before retreating from her room, jarring her in the process.

Evie sits there for awhile after he’s gone, playing idly with the snakes on her necklace. Today is one of her bad days, she can tell, one where every touch brings the sensation of ants under her skin and she claws bloody lines on her arms to make sure she’s real. She wonders why exactly she was reborn in this world, wonders what a soldier’s purpose is when there is no battle to fight, no war to win. Unbidden, the image of a man with matching emerald eyes comes to mind before it slips from her grasp, nothing but a distant dream.

As she leaves she is unaware of the way the snakes’ eyes flash, of the quiet words hissed in the serpent tongue.

‘Not yet,’ They say. ‘It is not time.’

XX

By the time Evie gets to the hospital the sun is just starting to rise, a myriad of orange and red tones clashing against the dark blue sky. The Mystic Hospital is near empty, the halls silent save for the raspy coughing of an elderly patient and the beeping of machines.

She walks swiftly toward the ICU ward, hands clenched to fight against the urge to clean, an urge bestowed upon her by the Dursley’s. 

Vicki’s room is, thankfully, not far from the entrance. The room is generic in the way most hospital rooms are. It had a single bed, machines standing next to it, and a giant whiteboard with various notes and charts on the far wall.

Evie moves to stand next to the bed, a hand placed to steady herself on the side rails. Vicki looks young like this, curled up and snuggled into the blankets, it pulls at Evie’s heart strings and with a deep breath she gets to work.

Despite what Jeremy may want, she can’t heal Vicki completely, mainly because she doesn’t want to obliviate half the town. Instead, she plans to heal the tissue underneath, a more complex form of wandless magic that Hermione created during one of their longer stints as Tom’s prisoner.

She rests her hand lightly over the gauze taped to Vicki’s neck and reaches for her magic. It is reluctant to greet her, feeling sluggish and fighting against her pull. It sets her nerves alight as she forces it to bend to her will, something she’s never had to do.

When Evie finally manages to get her magic to cooperate she’s shaking and wiping sweat from her brow. It wasn’t the first time her magic felt drained but it was the first time it had actively fought against her.

As she’s leaving, deftly dodging a concerned looking Matt Donavan, she see’s someone move out the corner of her eye. 

The ripper stared at her from across the hallway, a frown pulling at his lips. Amused, she winks at him and waggles her fingers in a decidedly Damon-like fashion. 

The face he makes is worth whatever broodiness she has to put up with in the future.

XX 

Hours later, Evie sits comfortably beside Damon in the boarding house, both holding a glass of bourbon. Damon throws his back in one go, taking one look at Evie’s face and seeing the, ‘Something weird happened and I’m about to tell you about it’, expression.

“Okay, lay it on me, matchstick. You’re interrupting my me time.” He gives her a pouty look just for her benefit and then smirks a moment later, clearly unable to hold it in place.

Evie lays back on the couch with a roll of her eyes. “Your ‘me time’ consists of planning ways to fuck with Stefan and making diabolical plans. I think you’ll live.” She finishes dryly.

Damon’s mouth twitches almost imperceptibly but he doesn’t speak, just waves a hand for her to continue. She isn’t wrong after all.

“So you know the ring we found a few days ago? Well it actually connected my mind to-“

____

“Now the question is... what do you know about the Originals?”

Evie hums with a frown. “They’re supposedly a myth, the fabled first vampires of the old world.”

“Darling, I’m hurt!” Kol exclaims, a hand on his chest. “I’m much too handsome to be a myth.” 

“Your attractiveness, or lack there of, is debatable at best.” Evie says with a grin, reminded of both Sirius and Damon. The originals being real isn’t that much of a shock to be honest, not a lot of things are after living in the magical world.

“Come now, little witch, tell the truth. I’m irresistible.” He purrs, unabashed in his flirting. Sirius’s goddaughter or not, Evelyn is attractive, and Kol had never been one to ignore a pretty woman.

Evie scoffs. “Yes Kol, it’s so hard not to jump you right now, how ever will I manage?” She asks sarcastically. “Now can we get back to the point, not that I don’t enjoy enabling your narcissism.”

Kol agrees but not before sending her a wink. “Yes, as I was saying, my siblings and I were the first vampires, turned sometime around a millennia ago I believe.” He stands up and walks toward one of the bookshelves, pulling out a book with a blank green cover. 

“It was a few hundred years after that when we ran into The Five, hunters created for the sole purpose of ridding the world of vampires. They had a way of subduing us with daggers coated in ash from the one tree that could kill us.” Kol flipped through the book’s pages quickly, running his finger down the page as he read.

“After killing the lot, my brother Niklaus kept the daggers, sentencing us to centuries in a coffin anytime we dared defy him.” He finally stops on a page near the end, passing the book to Evie.

On the page was a roughly sketched picture of a woman, the neat, loopy writing underneath naming her Anya.

“Sirius had never given up hope of finding you, and after the first time Niklaus daggered him, he created a way for you to find him should he be indisposed. He managed to leave the ritual with Anya and her coven to safeguard before Niklaus daggered him.” Kol appeared melancholy, looking at her but not really seeing her.

Evie hesitantly rested a hand on his shoulder, not saying a word until he came back to himself. 

He cleared his throat, a fake cheery smile in place, giving her hand a small pat in thanks. “You should be able to find the coven in New York, darling. They went by the name of Gelding at the time.”

He stares at her. There’s a glint of something she can’t name in his eye, but his expression is overall resigned. “You’re fading, little witch.” And when Evie looks down at her hands she knows it’s true, her skin seeming to lose a bit more opacity every second. 

She opens her mouth to ask if she can come back but Kol shakes his head, already seeing her train of thought. He grabs her hand and taps the ring. “One way trip I’m afraid.” It is only now that Evie notices an identical ring on his finger, the only difference being the carving, an S.M. instead.

“Keep it safe, yes?” Kol asks. “He’ll be wanting it back when you find him.” And he does believe she’ll find him, a quiet confidence that she carries that forces him to.

Evie presses a kiss to his cheek before she fades completely, seeing only his answering smirk before she is dragged back to the land of the living.

___

“-and then I woke up.” Evie finishes recounting her dream. Damon taps his fingers along the side of his glass, considering.

Finally he groans, throwing his head back against the couch. “You’re grounded. I’m locking you in the cellar so you can’t attract anymore trouble.”

Well she isn’t expecting those words to come out his lips. She raises an eyebrow and pokes his side sharply, moving toward the kitchen. “I can’t bake if I’m grounded in the cellar. Where will you get your cookies then?” Evie teases.

Damon doesn’t respond and the next second she hears the door creaking open and Elena’s voice calling out for Stefan.

Evie gets to the back to the living room just in time for Damon to introduce himself.

“You must be Elena. I’m Damon, Stefan’s brother.” 

“Day! Where’d you g- oh, hey Lena.” Evie greets, as if she hadn’t heard her sister shouting from the kitchen.

Elena looks between the two, blinking rapidly. “Wait, this is Day?”

Damon smiles tightly at her, eyes narrowed, silently asking what she’s playing at. Evie gives a delicate shrug, patting his shoulder. To be honest she just had fun messing with him. “I’ll see you later for the comet, yes?”

Damon looks irritated before giving her a smug grin. “Of course Rory, wouldn’t miss it. And thank you again for inviting me to the founders party, it’s been awhile since we’ve gone dancing.” 

Elena is still looking at the both of them in shock, so Evie ends their banter with a quick goodbye before leaving. 

She can’t help but laugh after she closes the door. It’s just like Damon to get even with her for surprising him while making her suffer at the same time. He knows she hates dancing, just like she knows he hates when she interferes with his diabolical plans. 

XX

Later that night;

A man with inky hair and emerald eyes appears silently in Evie’s bedroom, sitting next to her as she sleeps. His eyes trace over every angle of her face, commits every freckle to memory. 

Gently, he brushes a strand of hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger. 

“My precious daughter.”