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Chapter Text

There were only two dates Alex Russo — the notoriously un-punctual — remembered every year. The first was July 21st. That was the annual renewal of Harper’s time travel permit. And she mostly remembered that because Harper left her a lot of reminders. And even then, sometimes a very cross and time-misplaced Harper ended up beside her with no warning and that familiar disappointed look on her face. 

The second date was March 21. Alex couldn’t forget that date if she tried. It was seared into her body. An invisible scar that prickled just at the same time every year.

No matter where she was on March 21 — floating through the Anti-gravity zone assisting with pixie migrations, hunting down rogue gargoyles in the Nowhere Zone or even sitting in another boring Tribunal Budgetary meeting (someday they’d figure out she was the one who kept releasing the drone bees into those, right?) — she always made sure to mark the occasion. Made her excuses, cleared her day and rushed off to Wiztech even if she arrived too late for the actual day. 

This year though, she wished more than anything to be in the mortal realm. Because despite her best efforts, she was physically unable to be where she wanted to be today. Instead she was in an unfamiliar backwater tavern 3/4 of the way down the Witch’s Road fending off advances from far too many inebriated women. Not that she was complaining. She just couldn’t get distracted. Her head needed to be clear to deal with…

“Gonna drink all alone, hot stuff?”

Alex scoffed, not even turning around. “I don’t drink alone, I drink on my own.” She tilted her glass of goblin punch to her lips, waiting. 

Her companion laughed. “Well, don’t let me harsh your buzz.” They came around the table, their thick cloak swishing and sat across from her, one foot immediately resting on the seat of the sticky barstool. 

Alex hid her smile behind her glass. “Anyone follow you?” She asked, putting the cup down. 

“Alex, please…” Her companion lowered their hood, her dark eyes and blonde hair shimmering in the hazy lighting around them. “I know better than to walk into one of the most popular taverns on the Witch’s Road without a disguise.” She winked and for a second, her spell wavered in Alex’s vision, showing her the image everyone around them was seeing: that of a much older woman with red hair and sagging skin. “Besides, I was a familiar face in here once upon a time…probably about four of my exs crawling around…”

Alex wrinkled her nose at the image before her. “ That’s who people think I’m meeting? Gilfinda the Vainglorious?”

Stevie Nichols, one-time wizard and current wanted escapee from Wizkatraz smirked. “Why do you care?” Her knee drifted sideways as her mouth split in a cheshire grin. “Unless you’re planning on making this more than an informational encounter?”

Alex laughed, hiding the shake of her hands by reaching for her wand. Damn this woman. “No, all business today.” She flicked her wand, her latest acquisition appearing on the table between them. “Here’s the untraceable Listening Ear you needed.”

Stevie inclined her head, sweeping the ear-shaped device into a fold of her robe as she reached for a drink. “No time for pleasantries today, Russo?” She took a deep swallow. From Alex’s glass. “Or…extracurriculars?” She licked a drop of punch from her upper lip.

Alex’s smile wavered. “I have to go find something to send.”

“Oh…” Stevie’s face lost its teasing smirk. She placed Alex’s glass back down with uncharacteristic care. “It’s today, isn’t it?”

Alex nodded. “…Yeah.” She stared at the remaining stain of liquid in her glass. “And this is the first year I…wont be there.”

Stevie nodded, for once not making some pithy quip. “How long has it been now?”

Alex closed her eyes, the muscles in her face tensing. “Thirteen years…”

A suck of air between teeth. “Thirteen…so…”

“Yeah.”

“Quest time.”

Alex’s eyes stung. She turned away from Stevie, busying herself with her own jacket. She could feel the concern in Stevie’s gaze and she hated it. “Isn’t it traditional that…?”

“Justin’s setting it up.” She snapped. 

Stevie, of course, saw right through it. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Alex swiped at her eye, hiding the motion by brushing her hair behind her ear. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

A hand gently grasped hers, stilling her fidgeting. “Alex…” Her name was soft and uncharacteristically tender on the other woman’s lips. 

Alex sighed, turning to fully face her. Stevie had that look on her face. The one that had kept Alex awake at night over the last thirteen years. The one that brought her back to a moment of exhausted comfort that was increasingly hard to come by these days.

Her lip quivered. Maybe with everyone else she could put on her usual cool mask and brush away the hurt. But not with Stevie. Annoyingly, Stevie could always see right through her.

“I wish I could be there…” She admitted, her voice small and pathetic. Stevie squeezed her hand, listening. “Every year I’d sneak her out of school and we’d have a little Rebel Day…causing chaos at the market, riding unicorns, dragon racing…” She’d already been planning this year’s big adventure to the Caverns of A Thousand Eyes with a crate full of lemons when everything had been upended by the expulsion. 

Stevie was still watching her, graciously ignoring how damp Alex’s eyes were getting.

“But…Justin will do a great quest for her.” Alex wiped at her face again, not even attempting to hide it this time. She took a heavy breath. “Knowing him, he’ll send her to the library or the museum or someplace boring and good for her.”

Stevie chuckled in agreement, shaking her head. “And where would you have sent her?”

“Honestly? I have no idea.” She’d thought of a hundred different Quests, a hundred dangerous, fun, irresponsible places she wanted to show her. But every single one would either expose the young wizard too much or was somewhere she wanted to show the girl. “I just want to be with her.” Alex admitted, her voice very small. 

Stevie was quiet for a long moment but her hand never let go of Alex’s. 

“I know you don’t take my advice…” She finally said. “But I feel like there is an option here you’re refusing to…”

“Don’t you have authorities to outrun?” Alex interrupted.

The spell around them broke, the moment of tenderness snapping back to their usual playful banter. 

Stevie sighed but that was the only indication of disappointment in her features. She slid her hand out of Alex’s, her smirk returning. “I guess I do. I’ll let you know what I hear about…the thing…” She rose, pulling her hood up over her face again. 

Alex nodded. “Same time next month?”

Stevie stopped beside her and leaned down. Her lips brushed Alex’s ear, her warm breath tumbling over her sensitive skin. “Next time, spare me more than a few minutes…” 

Breath escaping in a rush, Alex turned her face, eyes slipping closed but met nothing but air. “See you around, Russo.” Stevie disappeared in a puff of smoke, her smirk the last thing Alex saw. 

Alex scoffed. “Rude.” She slumped back down in her seat, trying to appear cool and unaffected and not at all like her heart was racing and hurting at the same time. A small parcel was resting next to her drink that hadn’t been there before. 

Alex frowned, poking at it with her wand until a label turned towards her. 

“A forbidden spell-a-day calendar?” Alex cut her eyes towards the empty seat across from her. “Well-played…” The hurt in her chest became a tiny glow of warmth instead. 

She examined the little gift in her hand, small but thoughtful. The perfect thing to encourage just the right amount of mischief in a young wizard. 

Her free hand drifted to a spot just below her rib cage. 

If she sent it now, it would arrive right at the end of the Quest. It was hardly a Rebel Day. But it was something. A way to mark an occasion. 

Alex smiled, fingering the edge of the gift. The enchanted chain on her right hand warmed slightly. The Quest had begun. 

Alex left the tavern, crossing outside into the Forever Fall Forest where the air smelled like pumpkin and dried leaves. It was the wrong seasonal atmosphere for March. But nevertheless, she closed her eyes and cast her thoughts out across the dimensions to a suburban street on Staten Island. A small smile tugged at her face. 

“Happy Birthday…Billie.”

Chapter Text

“Alex, come on!”

19 year old Alex Russo burrowed further into her covers and pulled a pillow over her head. “No! You can’t make me!”

The blankets and pillows were violently yanked back and she was left staring into the unforgiving face of her best friend. 

Harper scowled at her. “Alex, it’s our last vacation together before you go off on missions and I start my time travel permit!” She tugged on Alex’s arm again. “We are not ‘couch camping’ for it!”

Alex sat up but pouted at Harper through her bedhead. “But Harper! You’re going to miss couch camping the most when you’re in the past and cant do it with me!”

“Pouting isn’t going to work Alex!” Harper threw her wand at her. “We’re going on a wizard world adventure!” She hoisted an oversized backpack onto her shoulders, grinning. “I have the trip all planned out.”

Alex sighed and rolled out of bed as dramatically as possible. With a wave of her wand, she was adventure ready. Sans backpack of course. She was a wizard after all. The new Russo Family Wizard. 

The competition and her high school graduation were several months behind her and she’d been settling into the end of her teenage years with reluctance and pride. 

In just two short months, she was due to start her new position as a Field Wizard Trainee with the Home Office of Magic Enforcement. And Harper was starting her time travel permit to send her back in time to explore fashion trends during the early suffrage movement. For some reason. Alex was sure Harper had mentioned it at some point but she’d tuned out after the word bustle was said one too many times. 

As she made to drag her feet after Harper’s enthusiastic, bouncy form, a flashing light from the crystal on her wand drew her tired attention. 

“Huh, a message on my wand?” Leaving Harper to her final trip preparations, Alex opened the message. 

She scrolled through the dispatch. The HOME had received her itinerary for her upcoming trip (she had no idea how) and was requesting that she investigate some kind of strange power flucctuations in the far south of the Chaos Range. 

She rolled her eyes as she marked the message as Seen . “Ugh, if I knew they were going to ask me to work so much I wouldn’t have taken the job…”

“Alex!” Harper had added what looked like 30 pounds worth of various gear to her backpack and was waiting near their front door with the look of an impatient toddler. 

Alex rolled her eyes. “Coming!”

Making her way over to Harper, she opened a portal for them. 

Harper squealed with delight as she took her hand. “Here we go! One last time, Harper and Alex take on the Wizard World!” She tugged Alex forward into the portal. 

Alex had to smile. Yeah, she was going to miss this dork. 

She’d never admit it though.

Chapter Text

She really thought her twenties would be a decade of rest…what a ridiculous notion. 

Alex is exhausted. And to add insult to her exhaustion, the mission that had made her this tired was a complete and total farce anyway. 

Stevie had leaked some false intel to a wizard spy, leading to the Council sending Special Wizard Alex Russo on a recapture mission that had been more like a casual catch-up mission. Mixed with more than a little not-so-casual action. And as per Stevie’s usual roundabout ways, Alex had then spent two days slogging alone through the Marshes of the Mudmen to simulate a trail gone cold. 

But at least she and Stevie had uncovered another of the members of the Cult of Chaos and wiped his memory. One less person who had any idea that Billie might exist. 

Now Alex was on her way to make a report to the Council, something that apparently couldn’t wait for her to have a shower and a decent meal. They’d even had her come all the way to the Ministry for this – a trip she loathes. Every time she comes back here, she just remembers all the days of interrogation after “the Stevie Affair” as everyone (ironically) had started calling it. To this day, those four days of answering the inquiry make up the most lying she’s ever done in her life. She’d be proud of herself for that if it didn’t continue to hurt so much. 

She rounded the corner and stopped dead. 

Billie was sitting on a bench outside of Minister Wigglewig’s office, her little feet kicking listlessly in the air as she stares at the ground. She looks like the saddest, smallest, loneliest four year old in existence. 

Alex doesn’t know what to do. She’s seen Billie since…the hand-off, of course. She’d dropped into the nursery as often as would seem normal, always avoiding holding the girl too long, no matter how much it hurt. She’s even watched over Billie some days, ostensibly to give the nursery staff a break. At first, Alex had been hesitant to be alone with the girl. What if she wasn’t good with kids? What if Billie started crying and Alex couldn’t comfort her?

But in the end, she was worried for the wrong reasons. If her status as “Cool Aunt Alex” with Justin’s young kids is any kind of metric, Alex is fantastic with kids for all the most irresponsible reasons. 

Billie adores her. And that’s dangerous. Because if Billie gets too attached to her, people might start asking questions. Or, some missed member of the Cult of Chaos might connect a few too many dots and jeopardize both their lives.

She’s considering sneaking away or, even worse, just walking past without saying anything. Before she can make up her mind as to what the best action would be, Minister Wigglewig comes up behind her. 

“Ah, Ms. Russo.” The minister, a toddling woman with a ridiculous head of hair that always seems tantalizingly like an airy cake about to collapse, eyes her up and down with an air of judgement. “Back from your, field work I see?” She shifts the edge of her robe away from Alex’s muddy jacket. 

Alex indicates Billie. “Isn’t that the orphaned wizard girl I found? What’s she doing here?” Alex tries to affect her usual air of casual disinterest. It rings super false to her but she doubts the minister will notice. Few people knew her well enough to discern the difference between her genuine disinterest and her false airs. All three of them are far away from her for the foreseeable future. 

“Ah, yes.” Minister Wigglewig shakes her head, her lips pursed. “They dumped her on me this morning. I told the Tribunal that this isn’t my job but no, they just want me to find her a new home, somewhere they can forget about her.”

This is news to Alex. “What happened to that lovely werewolf family that was taking care of her?” She demands. She’d found the family herself and slipped them to the top of the application pile: close to the school, with pups around Billie’s age and perfectly happy to raise a young wizard for a few years until she could go to school. 

The minister shrugs, clearly as disinterested as Alex is pretending to be. “They returned her. Apparently she turned all their silverware into actual silver and they couldn’t eat anymore.” She makes a gesture. “…because it burned them to touch all their forks.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

Rage is building somewhere in Alex’s chest, setting off a flicker of foreign power within her. “What do you mean they returned her? She’s not a book.”

Billie must be able to hear them but she doesn’t look up. She appears to be counting the flagstones on the floor. 

Alex is doing a terrible job of keeping her eyes off her. It always hurts to see her — how much she changes in the time Alex is away — but this hurts more than usual. Because this is a little girl abandoned again. Thrown away because she isn’t what someone wanted or was willing to deal with. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep her face from contorting with guilt. 

Minister Wigglewig sighs heavily. “That girl is trouble, mark my words, she’ll be passed around a lot before she’s able to enroll in Wiztech…and then, if she graduates, it’ll only be by the grace of Merlin.”

Alex doesn’t know if she has the restraint to keep from hexing this odious woman. She’s running on about four hours of bad sleep and a tangle of frustrations (thanks very much Stevie and that stupid cult) but the sight of Billie’s tiny hands fisted tightly in her puffy skirt manages to stop her from anything drastic.

This is not a job for Angry Alex who was going to hex this rude minister and maybe even that werewolf family. No, this has Cool Aunt Alex written all over it. And she doesn’t need rage for that. 

Leaving the minister behind, Alex leapfrogs across the floor and lands in a crouch in front of Billie, startling the young girl out of her sadness. “Hey Billie.” She grins. “Wanna go outside and throw water balloons off the parapet?”

The girl lights up instantly. “Yeah!” She scrambles off the bench and is racing away before Alex can so much as stand up. 

Wigglewig grabs the back of her jacket as she stands, keeping her in place. “Is that wise, Ms. Russo? She got kicked out of her last home for debauchery. Headmaster Goodspeed wants her to attend remedial etiquette classes before he sends her to another family.”

Alex scoffs, biting her tongue to keep from saying where Alistair Goodspeed can shove his etiquette classes . “She’s a kid . And she’s all alone and sad. Lessons can wait.” A wicked smirk stretches across her face. “What she needs right now is the unparalleled joy of landing a water balloon right on a professor’s unsuspecting hair!”

The minister’s face pales. Her fragile hair wobbles dangerously. “That was YOU?!”

Cackling, Alex breaks free and races after Billie, summoning a basket to hold all their ammo.

For the rest of the afternoon, she hoists the young wizard onto her shoulders and magics each of her dropped water balloons so they splatter perfectly on unsuspecting passersby. She doesn’t need to help much – the four year old actually has pretty great aim. 

Her heart leaps every time Billie laughs. She savors the little fingers that grab at her hair every time Billie feels off-balance. For a few glorious hours, she pretends that this is every day. 

They manage to land four water balloons on Headmaster Goodspeed’s head before Alex has to teleport them off the parapet to avoid detection. She hugs the girl tightly, both of them shaking with laughter as Billie balances on Alex’s hip, holding her tightly around the neck.

Unwilling to put Billie down (or Billie perhaps unwilling to let go), Alex walks them in long stretches through the Ministry, regaling her with mostly-true tales about her days as a Field Wizard Trainee, tickling Billie every time the girl laughs at something she says.

A long time later, Alex ends up carrying the still-attached-to-her exhausted girl to her temporary bed in the Ministry infirmary and carefully peeling the kid off of her. She tucks the covers carefully around Billie's fast asleep form. 

She stares at Billie for a long quiet moment, just watching her little chest rise and fall. 

Maybe she can do this. Maybe she can have some kind of actual relationship with Billie. Maybe Billie can adore her and it wont jeopardize anything. She just has to be careful not to get too close. 

Alex is very late to give her report. But she doesn’t feel tired at all. 

Chapter Text

It was only three days into their trip that Alex remembered the message from HOME. And that was mostly because their very fun exploration of the Cavern of a Thousand Eyes was interrupted by a flux of power so sudden and dramatic that it made their hair stand on end and all the many eyes around them start to water. 

Happily, they were right alongside the Chaos Range so Alex was able to easily convince Harper that it wouldn’t distract from their itinerary for too long.

“Just a quick look.” She insisted, hooking her arm through Harper’s for the teleport. “Come on, aren’t you always telling me to take more initiative?”

Harper rolled her eyes. “I know you’re just manipulating me but I do love it when you take my advice…”

Grinning, Alex teleported them up the Chaos Range. 

They both stumbled as they landed, about a thousand feet away from where they had been aiming. The Chaos Range was a cluster of jagged peaks littered with innumerable caves, crevasses and allegedly full of monsters of legend. It also constantly hummed with a disruptive resonance of magic. Traversing the range was forbidden to all but the most powerful of wizards, seeing as most who tried to navigate it ended up dead in about three different ways. 

Alex covered her nose, the smell of magic almost overpowering in the air around them. Even Harper was picking up on it. “What is that?” She asked, covering her mouth. 

“Some kind of really powerful magic…” Alex gestured Harper forward. They crept along the ridge, quietly picking their way towards voices on the other side. 

They peered over the edge, keeping low. 

“Brothers and sisters!” A man in a black hooded cloak was declaring before an assembly of about forty similarly robed figures. “Today is finally the day! The nexus day on the turn of the celestial axis, where the elemental powers are all in balance and the spells of containment are at their weakest!” 

The assembly hooted and hollered, sounded like drunk football fans. 

“Oh great,” Harper deadpanned, “a magic cult.”

The leader raised a hand for silence. “Now, my fellow Chaosians! Let us release our god and herald his rebirth!”

Alex didn’t know what was going on but none of it sounded good. It was also clear that these Chaosians or whatever they were, were ripe for a good Alex Russo taunting. 

She turned to Harper, smirking. “Hey Harper, you know what would be funny…”

Harper knew that look. “Oh Alex, come on…” But she gave in quickly. There was no resisting Alex Russo once she got an idea in her head. 

When they marched into the meeting below, it was just as the leader held aloft a large bowl with a glowing green potion in it. 

“Now, bring forward the vessel!”

The assembly began to chant, paying no attention as Alex and Harper slipped into the back of the column, very out of place in their everday clothes. 

After a long beat of chanting, the leader lowered the bowl, looking around. “Where is the vessel?” He stage-whispered to the person on his left. 

They glanced around. “I-I thought Mark was bringing them!”

The other person on the platform, Mark apparently, reeled back, looking shocked. “What? No! It was totally your job Harold!”

The crowd momentarily erupted in chaos, as everyone pointed fingers and shouted at each other. Alex silently pointed at Harper before giggling when Harper smacked her hand down. 

The leader slowly got everyone quiet. “Did no one bring a vessel?” When only ashamed silence met his question, the leader groaned loudly. “Come on guys, we talked about this! You have to delegate! How are we going to carry out the resurrection without a vessel?”

“Hey.” Alex raised her hand, waving slightly. 

The whole assembly turned, as if just realizing they were there. The leader visibly jumped as his eyes landed on Alex and Harper in their colorful outfits. The bowl slipped from his hands and clattered to the stones, with somehow none of the liquid spilling out. He pointed. “What? Are you? Doing?!”

Alex glanced around as all eyes suddenly found her and Harper. “Oh sorry, we didn’t get a warning about the dress code.” She waved her wand and turned her and Harper’s outfits black. “Better?”

Everyone stared through their hoods, still apparently too dumbfounded to say anything. 

Alex spun her wand in her fingers. “Not to question your authority, but what exactly are we resurrecting here?”

“The Great Chaos Curse.” Said Harold. Or Mark. Whoever the other was slapped a hand over his mouth. 

The other followers all quickly dropped to one knee, their hands in the air. “Great Chaos ends all!” They cheered. 

Harper glanced around, her eyebrow raised. “A Great Curse?” She nudged Alex. “Is this some kind of wizard god?”

“Nope. Some of the most powerful concepts used to exist in corporeal forms…long story.” Alex turned back to the leader, still staring them down intently. “No offense guys, but isn’t curse-worshiping a little…ancient?”

The kneeling Chaosians began to laugh, the sound a strange warbling monotone. 

The leader shook his head. “Oh you misunderstand. We are not worshiping the curse.” He indicated the bowl with a grand gesture. “We’re resurecting it in human form. To bring about the apocalypse.”

“Oh right, because that’s easier to guess…” Harper muttered. Alex grinned. 

“Great sarcasm!”

“Thank you. I learn from the best!”

“Silence!” The leader demanded, holding up a hand. Alex didn’t like the way he was intently looking at just Harper now. “Chaos cannot be restrained. It cannot be expelled. It is the natural order of the universe!”

Alex picked at her teeth. “Uh huh. This all looks super illegal and dangerous, you know.”

The leader pointed at them. “And now, in our hour of need, you have supplied us the vessel we needed to complete the ritual.”

Alex paused, her brow furrowing. “Wait, I have?”

The leader drew a wand from under his robe. “We need a mortal female. And you have brought us one….” In one smooth motion, he hooked a spell around Harper’s ankles and yanked her into the air. 

“ALLLLEEEEXXXX!” 

“Behold loyal followers!” The leader lifted Harper high above the assembly, dangling her by her ankles. “Chaos has provided us a mortal vessel just in our hour of need!”

The kneeling cultists raised their hands again. “Chaos provides!”

Alex was no longer finding any of this funny. Her voice was cold and hard as she leveled her wand at the leader. “Put down my Harper this second or you are going to wish you’d never met me.”

The leader eyed her up and down. “You are very confident for such a young wizard…” He dargged Harper to him, using his spell to tie her off to a nearby rock. With Harper secured, he reached for the bowl again. 

Alex was out of patience. She blasted the bowl into pieces, spattering the green liquid all across the platform. “I said…” She leveled her wand again, her voice deadly calm. “Let. Her. Go.”

The leader smirked at her. “Too late! Chaos! Emerge!”

Too late, Alex realized that the potion or acid or whatever it was was eating through some kind of magical seal on the rocks. The mountain range rumbled with an earthquake. 

“Well, I don’t like where this is going…” Harper muttered, squirming against her magical bonds. 

The stone the cult leaders were standing on split in a large crack down the middle. As they leapt for safety, a large chasm opened next to the rock Harper was tied to, belching out a thick gas. 

Alex recognized the smell instantly: magic in intense concentrations. Far larger than she’d ever encountered. The strength of it made her eyes water. 

The cloud of black gas was building, starting to resemble a large storm-like being with glowing purple eyes. Whatever ritual the cult had been trying to accomplish, it had apparently succeeded. 

“Great Chaos Curse!” The leader shouted, his arms raised and his head bowed. “You are free! We offer you a mortal vessel for your resurrection!”

The smoke monster let out a loud coughing sound. A lightning bolt randomly shot from its body an obliterated a cult member in the front row. 

“Yeah, I’m not impressed by your little smoke monster.” Alex called out. She ignited her wand. “I’m gonna knock this thing back into the mountain in two seconds flat.”

The leader let out a maniacal laugh. “And why would I fear you ? I have the Chaos Curse on my side. Only someone more chaotic than Chaos itself could ever hope to defeat the embodiment of chaos!”

Alex twirled her wand. “Then you haven’t met Alex Russo!!” She stopped, smiling. “Me, that’s me. I’m Alex Russo.”

The assistant, Mark (or maybe Harold) glanced between her and Harper. “Wait…Alex RUSSO?”

Harper, still strung to the rock, nodded. “Yup, yeah.” She pointed from under her bonds. “That’s Russo Family Wizard Alex Russo.”

Alex posed, her wand cocked towards the curse. “And Imma ‘bout to make Chaos hate that you woke them up.” She threw out a binding spell, managing to wrangle most of the smoke monster in a golden rope. It tugged back on her with surprising strength. 

The leader rounded on her. Alex couldn’t see his face but something about his whole posture made her think he’d suddenly gone pale. “Oh flarf. Oh no, uh…” He turned to the assembled group, all of whom were looking suddenly rather skittish. “That’s all for this month’s meeting, Chaosians! Bye!”

He vanished in a puff of smoke.

Keeping one hand on her wand, Alex flicked a little Sticky Suspect spell at the rapidly vanishing wizards. At least now she’d know most of them without their masks. She had punishments to hand down.

With the rapidly fleeing cultists, it was just her and Harper left on the mountain. With a Great Curse. Who was getting increasingly angry tugging on his leash.

Alex sized it up, frowning. That whole “most powerful wizard in the world” rumor was just that. She assumed. It wasn’t her fault if she was just better at magic than everyone else.

That being said, if she remembered her lessons correctly, she couldn’t let this thing escape the mountains. Which either meant it had to go back to sleep. Or she had to destroy it.

“Okay now what?” Harper demanded, tugging on her bonds, which showed no sign of releasing. 

Alex struggled as the curse yanked on its bond. “Working on it!” She didn’t recall if Justin or her dad had ever mentioned how one defeated a Great Curse. 

“Work a little faster please!” Harper called as the curse leaned towards her. 

Breaking off her binding spell, Alex reached for a new one: 

“ This Great Chaos Curse has now been defeated, 

take a new form now, as you are heeded! ”

A powerful bolt of blue magic struck the curse right in its center. The curse screamed in defiance but Alex’s spell was working. It was shrinking fast, compressing into a smaller and smaller ball of darkness and energy.

Alex grinned. “Ha! Who knew Great Curses were so —”

A strand broke from the ball and arched towards her. Alex had no time to move before it struck her in the stomach, hard, knocking her backwards and breaking her spell.

“Oww.” She struggled up onto her elbows, her stomach hurting like she’d been hit by a tree. “You know for a Great Curse, you sure are a great pain in my —”

“Alex!” Harper screamed, still in the curse’s clutch. It was rapidly swelling back up to its previous size, long tendrils of dark energy whipping out from it.

Alex snarled. “Fine! I can take you!” She leapt back to her feet. “You wanna do this? Come on!”

The curse laughed at her. It sounded like a distant growl of thunder. Its many tendrils waved and danced in the air as it glided towards Harper’s trapped form. Several tentacles shot out, grabbing for Harper’s arms and legs. Harper squirmed but she was stuck fast.

Alex was starting to panic. It hadn’t obeyed her last spell. And it was only getting more powerful the longer it was alive. It was looking for something to consume. And she couldn’t let that be Harper. 

She had no other choice. 

“Hey!” Stowing her wand, Alex opened up her inner well of power. And breathed in. “You hungry, big guy? How about this?”

At first it seemed like nothing was happening. Then the Curse suddenly froze, it’s millions of tendrils quivering like a dog with a scent. It released Harper and turned all its attention on Alex. It was a terrifying image to behold; a faceless expanse that felt like staring into the abyss of space itself while falling towards an unfathomably deep ocean. 

Alex stared it down, unafraid. It had tried to hurt Harper. Now it had to die. As painfully as possible. 

It would learn to fear her . 

“Come on, coward.” She taunted. She wafted the scent of her magic towards it. “I’m not afraid of you.”

The Great Curse balked, as if offended. In the blink of an eye, it surged forward and pounced bodily on her. 

She heard Harper scream just before a roaring sound filled her head.

It was like drowning in electricity. The curse was overflowing with power, the very definition of a storm of magic. And Alex was nothing more than a leaf tossed within. 

What was left of her flinched, tears pricking at her eyes. This was stupid. It was so stupid of her to think she could overcome this…this being of pure magic and entropy. 

She was…

Nothing…

No, she wasn’t nothing. 

Her own well of power, larger than most other magical creatures but miniscule compared to this, was sparking. Fighting back. Snapping at the darkness as it tried to smother her. 

Alex focused on that. This thing wanted to dominate her? Let it try. 

Slowly, as if reluctant, she fed the power into her own, tangling them. The curse took the bait, eagerly diving into her power. Alex wrapped her power around it, tying it down. Then she began drawing the darkness into her own light. It didn’t realize it was the thing being consumed until it was too late. The curse was the one panicking now, throwing out ropes of power to try to wrench itself away from her. 

“Oh no you don’t…” Alex redoubled her efforts, stamping out the tendrils that tried to escape her. She smirked. “You’re mine now.”

The curse screamed and struggled but it was fighting a losing battle. Alex Russo had the upper hand. She forced it smaller and smaller, condensing the power until it was a hard, hot ball in the center of her own power.

The curse let out a long string of sounds. Alex almost swore it was trying to speak her spell from before. 

With a final tug, she freed the very core of its power from its form and smothered it with her own power. The rest of the curse body exploded into a million wailing pieces. They rained down on the stunned Harper like ash. 

An echoing crack of thunder split across the mountain range. On a distant peak, a landslide rumbled down the mountain with a ripple of power. The magic holding Harper shattered like glass. 

Alex fell to her knees, panting and clutching her stomach. For a long moment she just crouched there on all fours. Just breathing. 

“Aha!” Alex staggered back to her feet, ignoring the lingering pain in her abdomen. “Great Chaos Curse, defeated!” She tried to flip her wand but fumbled the catch. “Dang it.”

Her insides roiled and she was almost sick on the rocks. The chaos power, while significantly weaker, was still trying to tangle with her own magic. Alex forced it down, struggling to stand back upright. It wasn’t gone? Then what had all that been about? Hadn’t she killed it?

“Alex!” Harper raced towards her, noticably favoring one leg. 

“Harper!” Alex grabbed her in a hug, mostly out of relief but partially out of exhaustion. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Are you okay?” Harper pulled back to look her over. “You were like glowing and sparking and I think you absorbed the curse?” She eyed a spot just under Alex’s ribs, where a dull light still glowed. “Huh, I guess you’re the only one in existence more chaotic than the literal Chaos Curse…”

Alex laughed but her insides rebelled again and she doubled over. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Harper asked, helping her up.

Alex gave her a thumbs up and an attempt at a confident smile. “I’m good. Never better.”

Her magic hiccuped – a strange sensation she’d never experienced before — and several large gray bubbles appeared around them. 

“Alex?”

“I’m okay…just…” She poked one with her wand. It burst violently, spilling a dark liquid that looked corrosive onto the stones at her feet. “Maybe let’s just leave those there…”

Her magic writhed and she stumbled again as a stabbing pain ripped through her stomach. “Ow.” Her outfit color changed from black to purple to red. 

Harper caught her before she could fall. “I think I’ve had enough wizard vacation.” She hefted most of Alex’s weight onto her shoulders. “Your vote for a couch vacation is sounding really good right now…”

Alex pumped a weak fist in the air. “Wahoo. Let’s go.” She forced herself to summon them a portal home. Then a second one when the first took them to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. 

Whatever she’d just done, it had wiped her out completely. She needed to sleep for a long time. 

Chapter Text

Alex knew she wasn’t supposed to be here. Technically only staff were allowed in the Wiztech dorms. But when had she ever cared about rules?

Besides, the bracelet Stevie had given her at their last meetup had started acting up and Alex needed to check that the incantation on it was working properly. 

Surely that was a good enough reason to break in. 

She stepped through the mirror to a mostly-empty set of beds. Across the room, a little girl was hunched over at her desk, her forehead on her arms, her hair wild and frizzy all around her. A sound like a small animal stuck under a log was coming from the whole mess. 

It took Alex a few tries to get her voice to work. “Hey kiddo. Up to your usual trouble?”

The head shot up. “Alex!” Billie sprang up and raced to her, throwing herself at Alex with all the force a nine-year-old could muster. Her head slammed into Alex’s solar plexus with the force of a cannonball. 

“Ooof, okay there,” she hugged her back just as fiercely, allowing herself just this once to lose her face in the girl’s messy hair and inhale her scent. A chaotic mixture of shea and orange. “did you take up football and forget to tell me?”

“What’s football?” The girl asked, her face still lost in Alex’s stomach. 

“Mortal thing, never mind.” Blinking hard, she held Billie back from her a bit and gave her a once-over. “I think you could be good at sports. You know, if they mattered.”

Billie giggled at her words, looking up at Alex like she’d hung the stars in the sky. 

Alex ruffled her hair and noted that the bracelet on her wrist wasn’t as hot to the touch as it had been before.  But the girl’s eyes were red-rimmed and a trail of snot was dripping from her nose. She conjured a tissue and handed it to her before walking past her. 

“So how are things?” Her eyes fell to the bed, unmade and messy, with a tiny stuffed elephant that had seen better days carefully nested on the pillow.

The sound of a nose being violently blown stopped her from reaching out to straighten it. “Great.” Billie claimed. She tailed after Alex, her eyes on the floor. 

Alex examined several conspicuous burn markings on the bedposts and ceiling. “Oh they’re great?” She turned on her. “I heard you got banned from potions class.”

Billie shredded the tissue. “Banned is such a strong word…”

“Billie…” Alex turned to her, kneeling to look the girl in the eye. The girl squirmed and Alex had to sigh. “What happened?”

“It wasn’t my fault! I was super tired and I accidentally knocked over some lion’s mane into the singing potion! I didn’t mean to make everyone start meowing!”

Alex smirked, thinking of just how hilarious it must have been to see Professor Flurkenhousen meowing like a kitten as he tried to yell at Billie. “Yeah, that must have been funny…”

Seeing Billie brighten, she caught herself. “I mean, no…no!” She stood and shook her finger at her, something she had seen her own mother do far too often. “Billie, maybe you didn’t mean it but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t your fault.”

“But Alex…!”

“No buts! I’ll try to talk to Professor Flurkenhousen and explain but Billie,” she sighed, her hand resting on the girl’s shoulder, “these things cant keep happening.”

“I really didn’t mean it this time.” The girl muttered, scrubbing at her eye. “I’m trying to be better.”

Alex softened. It wasn't entirely Billie's fault that these things kept happening. But that was difficult to explain to a nine-year-old. She rubbed the girl’s shoulder with her thumb. “And I’d heard you’ve been sleepcasting too.”

Billie froze, going stiff under Alex’s hand. 

Alex folded her arms. “Where’s your headgear?”

“Oh it’s…around.”

Alex jerked a thumb behind her. “Is it ‘around’ in the sense that you tossed it out the window?”

A small downcast nod was the only confirmation she got. 

Alex rubbed her temples, wondering just how her own mother had handled her in situations like this. Then again, she’d never been so powerful she’d accidentally turned her teacher into a statue without meaning to. Or teleported the whole class to an active volcano. Or made the entire school levitate four inches off the ground. All her own mess-ups had been deliberate applications of magic. She really needed to figure out some way of dampening the girl's powers. But that was proving annoyingly complex. 

“Billie, you need to wear it.” Alex reminded the girl, indicating the burns around her sleeping area. “Sleepcasting can be very dangerous.”

Billie stubbornly shook her head. “But it messes up my hair! And it looks weird. The other kids make fun of me for it!”

Alex’s heart swelled and she could feel her magic surge inside of her. She wanted to act; to pay retribution, to lash out at those who dared to hurt her…to hurt someone like Billie for something she couldn’t help. 

Instead, she gathered herself and pulled out her wand. “Okay.” With a flick, she conjured the top-of-the-line, far less bulky and awkward sleepcasting headgear she’d picked up the night before. “Sorry it’s not invisible, but at least it’s not bigger than your whole head?”

Billie eyed it skeptically. 

“Billie,” Alex caught her eyes with her own, staring until the girl looked at her. “Promise me you’ll wear it?”

Billie pouted at her, something she'd undoubtedly picked up from Alex herself. “But what about my hair?”

Alex noted the lack of promise but decided to cut her losses. “I can do your hair for you. So it’s less messed up by the headgear.”

Billie brightened like the sun had just come out. “You will? Okay!” She spun around, standing on her tiptoes with her hands out. 

Chuckling, Alex placed the headgear on the desk and pulled Billie’s chair over. 

The girl was watching her, confused. “Aren’t you going to use magic?”

“Why, you got a hot date to get to?” Alex patted the chair. “Sit.”

When Billie was seated in front of her, Alex made her phone levitate next to her so she could watch a tutorial. Slowly, as gently as possible, she tackled Billie’s mane of wild hair. She did end up magicking up several necessary products and combs but every tug, snarl and brush was done by her own hands, with a soothing word if something hurt too much.

They ended up doing Billie’s whole head in tiny little micro-braids as they talked. Alex did have to cheat a bit to get some of them to look even but the excited squirms and bright smile on Billie’s face were worth the two hours of manual labor. 

“Can you stay longer?” Billie asked as Alex tied off the last braid in a bundle.

The sun was sinking behind the school walls. Alex was very late for about three meetings and she still needed to track down Professor Flurkenhousen and convince him to un-ban Billie. But she didn’t even hesitate. 

“Sure can.” She waved her wand and changed Billie into her pajamas. “Let’s get you tucked into bed.” 

Billie scrambled up onto the sheets, grabbing her elephant and wriggling under the covers. 

Alex held out the headgear, peering intently until Billie sheepishly took it and strapped it on. To Alex’s delight, the girl had no immediate complaints to voice. 

She turned the chair around and sat. “Want me to tell you a bedtime story?”

Billie rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not five.”

Something punched right through Alex. “Right…it’s just…” She tried to laugh it off but a vice was tightening around her chest. “The last time I tucked you in…I…well, you’re all grown up now…no need…no need for that.” She coughed, playing with the seam of her pants as she tried to get herself under control. Her eyes were stinging.

She’s stayed away too long. Again. 

Billie was watching her, blinking slowly. “M-maybe…just one?” She held out the elephant. "For Mr. Trunken?"

Alex smiled, the vice loosening just slightly. “Okay.”

The story about the Stinky Dragon became the story of the time Justin had tried to adopt a dragon disguised as a dog and pretty soon the sunlight was gone and Alex was still sitting next to Billie’s bed in the dark.

“Alex?” The girl’s voice was heavy and garbled with exhaustion and the remnants of laughter. 

Alex leaned in. “Yeah?”

Billie snuggled further into bed, clutching her stuffed elephant. “I like it when you’re here.” Her eyes slipped closed and she fell into a deep sleep. Probably the first she’d had in a long time. 

Alex felt her lip quiver. “Yeah…I know.” She reached out, brushing a stray braid out from under the frame of the headgear. She let her fingertips linger on Billie’s forehead for a moment too long. Just feeling her warmth. 

Alex hung her head, taking a long, ragged breath. “I know.”

She also knew she couldn’t be here when Billie woke up. 

No matter how much she wanted to be.