Chapter Text
Hope Mikaelson was rarely a morning person, preferring to stay up and appreciate the night rather than wake up and realize another day was beginning. But today she got up and headed to the gym where she knew she could work out her anger before the day started. Each blow she sent at the heavy weight sandbag reverberated through her whole body, grounding her in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. Despite the exertion and the sweat dripping into her eyes she couldn’t keep the thoughts swirling through her head at bay.
She’d failed in so many ways lately. From letting that mystical knife fall into the hands of the enemy, thus bringing the possible apocalypse ever closer. To failing Raphael when he needed her, to now failing Landon who was in danger, most likely, despite her best efforts to keep him safe by sending him away.
The next punch Hope hurled at the bag blew a hole into it, sending sand spilling onto the floor. Hope wiped the sweat from her face and looked at the clock on the far wall, twenty minutes before breakfast ended and school began. She cast a spell to fix the punching bag and walked back to her room, she wasn’t hungry but she’d definitely need a shower before the day officially started.
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Josie woke as usual to the sounds of her sister getting ready for the day. Flashes of color flying across her vision as Lizzie tossed her many outfit possibilities onto her bed.
“Wake up Josie, I need your help choosing an outfit for today. I need something that is alluring yet cute, a hard combination to pull off but if anyone can do it it’s me.”
Josie groaned at Lizzie’s much too positive tone for this early in the morning, but rose from bed none the less. She was envious of all the energy Lizzie had lately from being able to sleep well. From the gargoyle, to the arachnid creature, to her own zombie birth mother burying her alive she hadn’t been able to sleep without nightmares for a week now, and she was sure it would only continue. Lizzie at least offered comfort, waking her from particularly horrible nightmares to making her hot cocoa before bed so she could fall asleep easier.
“Come on sleepyhead, we only have thirty minutes to grab food before breakfast ends and you are still in your pajamas.”
“Thirty minutes! Why’d you let me sleep so late?” Josie bolted up from her bed and grabbed the outfit she’d laid out for herself the night before. She ignored Lizzie’s mumbled response as she ran out the door to head to the showers.
In her haste Josie failed to notice the door to the dorm changing rooms being opened and ran into whoever was exiting. Luckily said person had much quicker reflexes than she did and caught her before she hit the floor. She felt the hand that was latched around her upper arm recede as she righted herself.
Josie looked up from righting the clothes bundled in her arms to see Hope Mikaelson.
“I am so sorry, Hope, I should’ve been looking where I was going.”
“No problem, it’s not like it hurt me in any way, tribrid and all.” Hope reassured. But Josie could hear the rueful expression Hope tried to hide in her smile. “Anyway, if you’re hoping to shower before the school day you might want to hurry there’s only about fifteen minutes before school starts.”
Hope moved around Josie’s still jostled form and headed down the hallway.
“Wait, Hope!” Josie called once she had regained her thoughts, turning to see that Hope had halted and turned to acknowledge her. “I just wanted to thank you for the necklace, it was very thoughtful, and probably saved my life the other day.” Josie ended the statement with a hollow chuckle the thought of how close to death she had been coming to the forefront of her mind.
“Don’t mention it” Hope replied with a smile and then turned and left, leaving Josie alone in the hallway.
Josie smiled in turn before heading into the showers.
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The thing that Hope Mikaelson hated the most about being a tribrid, other than the fact that every purist fanatic wanted her dead just for what she was, was that as a tribrid at a school for supernatural beings she had to take three times more classes than everyone else. Mostly witching classes since that was what everyone knew she was, but she also had to meet with some of the teachers from the other supernatural fields to learn about werewolf and vampire dynamics. Not that she didn’t know all of those things already being the daughter of an original vampire and the first werewolf pack.
She waited in her dorm for MG to bring in her usual vampire reading materials as per usual since the teachers didn’t like to be bothered. But as she looked at the clock on her nightstand she noticed that he was unusually late. A frown grew as she got up and headed out the door to find him.
Hope walked down the halls, her boots sounding in a way that the other students knew indicated that they should steer clear of her. Some odd looks we sent her way but she ignored them heading to Alaric’s office. He could be mad at her all he wanted but she knew MG was never late, too much of a teacher’s pet in her opinion, which meant something was wrong.
She didn’t bother knocking on the double doors knowing he’d probably refuse to see her if she asked right now. And if something was up with MG following the Necromancer’s escape it was likely her fault, meaning she had to fix it. Hope wouldn’t let another failure to pile up on her plate.
Upon entering though she was surprised to find Josie there, it looked like they had been arguing over something. Considering Alaric’s scowl and Josie’s looming posture over his desk. But both stopped and turned to the door at the intrusion.
“Hope,” Alaric let out a long weary sigh, “do I want to know why you’re barging into my office?”
“Where’s MG? He always drops my homework off to me, and he didn’t show up today, which means something is wrong.”
“Maybe I sent him on another errand today?” Alaric retorted, noticing how Josie was following their volley of conversation with wide eyes.
“But you didn’t, did you?” Hope crossed her arms defensively, “you’ve been sending me on your errands lately.”
Hope knew she’d got him there when he just expelled breath of frustration instead of verbally responding.
“Where is MG, Dad? Is he alright?”
“He’s fine, Josie, Kaleb was just getting him into trouble is all.”
“Why is Kaleb still in classes then?” Hope asked, tired of Alaric’s coddling. “Something happened obviously, and considering Kaleb’s been complaining about the vamps’ diets lately I bet it has something to do with that.”
“Yes, Hope, Kaleb convinced MG to feed on human blood, and MG has a bit of a…control issue. But it’s being handled. I’ll have someone else bring you your homework in the meantime.”
Hope furrowed her brow at that, she didn’t really think MG would be a potential ripper, but then again no one ever really believed how bad Stephen Salvatore was as a ripper until they saw it for themselves, or read about it in her case.
“Where are you keeping him?” Josie asked in the silence. “He won’t have to stay in there long will he?”
“Only a few days and he should be dried out enough to control his thirst.” Alaric responded and Hope could tell by the way he was rubbing at his temples like a headache was coming on that he wouldn’t be saying anything more on the subject.
Josie nodded solemnly in acceptance, but Hope couldn’t accept that, no one deserved to be alone while desecrating. She turned on her heel and headed out of Alaric’s office. When she was halfway down the hall she heard the telltale sounds of Josie’s footsteps, their rhythm indicating that Josie was running after her.
“Hope, wait up!”
Hope slowed her steps but didn’t stop for Josie, she was on a mission after all.
“Where are you going?” Josie panted as she came up next to Hope and fell in with her stride. “Dad said MG would be fine in a few days and you seem like you’re on a mission to start trouble.”
“Alaric was just giving you a sugar coated version of the truth, Josie. Desecration is extremely painful, Aunt Rebekah once described it to me like having all of your veins set on fire as you dried out and being unable to do anything about it.” Hope didn’t wait up when Josie abruptly stopped in her stupor to her words. “And for someone like MG to be locked alone in a cell just to feel guilty about what he did, it wouldn’t be right to leave him alone like that. So the least I can do is go to the full moon cages and give him something to pass the time.”
Hope turned the corner towards the boys’ dormitories and ignored all the stunned looks that the male student body had, them not being accustomed to girls anywhere near this area. She could tell Josie had caught up to her again when she felt the light brush of her shoulder as she fell into step with her again. Hope stopped in the middle of the hallway and caught Josie before she could keep walking past.
“Wait a second.” Hope took a deep inhale, nose scrunching at the immediate smell of cheap cologne and body odor, she fought her way past those scents searching for one in particular.
“What are you doing?” Josie asked as she shrunk away from all the boys looking at her and Hope seemingly randomly hanging out in their living space.
“I’m trying to find MG’s room, considering the amount of comic books I hear he keeps hidden away in his room I’m sure it’ll be easy to sniff out.”
“Oh, I know where that is,” Josie started walking again and Hope followed, “MG used to let me hang in his room if I ever needed time to myself.”
“Why are we going to his room anyway, I thought you said he’d be in the cells?”
“I was going to pick up a few comics for him so he could have something to do while in there. They always seem to bring him comfort if the way he talks about them is any indication.”
Josie stopped at the second farthest door on the right and knocked before entering at the lack of response. She stepped aside in order to let Hope in before closing the door behind them.
“That’s actually really thoughtful, Hope.”
Hope hummed in agreement as she walked toward the bed with the huge comic hero poster over it and flipped the covers up to look under the bed, but to no such luck.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where MG hides his comics would you?” Hope asked as she made eye contact with Josie who was still standing by the door.
“There’s a few floor boards loose under the bed that come up.”
“Clever, if not kind of geeky in its own way.” Hope chuckled as she easily moved the bed out of the way and checked the floor boards.
She came up with a hand full of them seeing the top most featuring a zombie horde on the cover. She smirked in fondness before pushing the bed back into place and leaving the room. Josie quickly came to match Hope’s stride as they made their out toward the old Salvatore cellars which were furnished into the werewolf holding cells when the school was established.
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After a rather long space of silence Josie couldn’t take it anymore. Her whole day had been an emotional whirlwind. And between the anger she was feeling towards her dad for not allowing Emma to start teaching offensive spells in class because “I don’t want anyone to get any ideas about attacking anyone, Josie, plus defensive spells used properly are like offensive spells anyway” and Hope’s just all around personality confusing her, Josie couldn’t add awkward silence to the list.
“So…how are you so sure that MG’s in the werewolf dungeons anyway? They could have held him in any of the numerous rooms that aren’t in use here.”
“He’s in the holding cells one, because they’re far away from the main building, two the full moon was just last week so none of the wolves are going to be around there, and three since they’re fortified to keep turned wolves in them there’s no way a vampire can break out of them. Pretty easy logic, he’s a danger to students right now so humane treatment isn’t at the top of Alaric’s list.”
Josie hummed in agreement, though she didn’t like the situation, putting anyone in a cage just didn’t sit right with her. She decided not to voice her thoughts considering her present company. Hope proved to be an enigma to her, cold and calculating one minute, but she would have such sweet and thoughtful moments. Without a set pattern Josie never knew how to act around her, it was partially the reason her and Lizzie always kept a distance from Hope. That and Hope never seemed to let her walls down to let anyone close to her in the first place.
Before she could contemplate any further she and Hope were heading down the stairs into the cellar.
“MG, you in here?” Hope called into the dimly lit area.
“Hope?” A groaned response came from the end of the long line of cages and Hope and Josie followed it until they saw MG huddled in the back corner of his cell. He held his head between his knees, rocking slightly as he seemed to try and give himself some comfort.
“MG, are you okay?” Josie asked as she grasped the cell bars.
MG met her eyes for only a second before she found herself knocked back on the floor and MG clutching his head as he crumbled to the ground. Josie looked up to see Hope holding her hand out like a claw muttering a spell and her other hand held protectively in from of her. At least she knew how she ended up on the ground.
“Get it together, MG!” Hope said as she relaxed her hand, and MG’s body relaxed as well as he panted for breath.
“I’m so sorry, Josie” MG pleaded and scooted back to his corner.
Josie hated seeing her best friend like this, and in all honestly it was so easy to forget that he was a vampire on a daily basis, but she could see it now. And her mind flashed back to seeing him hovering of Penelope, about to drink from her. Josie knew now that Penelope had enticed him to do it, but she also realized that if he had drank from her them she probably would’ve been powerless to stop him.
“Here,” Hope stated as she put his stack of comics through the bars and neatly on the floor, “I know drying out is going to suck, but hopefully this will help you keep your mind off of it.”
MG smiled tightly at the gesture and reached out to grab the comic on top before returning to his corner.
“If you don’t mind me asking though, MG, what made you do it? You stick to the rules like a lifeline, I don’t get why you would drink even with Kaleb’s prodding.” Hope tilted her head in the way that Josie had seen her do whenever she was truly intrigued by something. It was a little gesture but it helped calm her from the current situation.
“Because I’m weak,” MG raised his head and fixed Hope with an intense gaze, “when you were in the Necromancer’s head I couldn’t do anything to pull you out, and I’m ten times weaker than Kaleb since he drinks blood. I don’t want to be helpless like that again.”
Josie rose from the ground and dusted her skirt off.
“I don’t want to be weak either, Hope.” Josie added and watched both pair of eyes fix on her.
“Our school is changing, and becoming much more dangerous. We’ve had multiple attacks here in the span of a few weeks, and Dad still won’t allow us to learn offensive spells. But we’ll need them if we want to protect this school, and the only one who I think knows what we need to learn is you.”
Hope’s eyes widened a bit at that and she smiled, well Josie figured it was more of a smirk, a smirk that felt familiar somehow like she’d seen it before but couldn’t place where.
“Alright, I’ll help you, both of you.” Hope turned back to MG, “come find me when you get out and we can all get started. But it stays between us three.”
Josie’s brow furrowed, more people needed to know how to defend themselves than just them three, last week Lizzie got sliced open by a gargoyle.
“Hope, but—”
“No buts, Josie, until I see how you two handle what I teach you I’m not teaching anyone else. And especially not Lizzie, she’d hex me the next time she got angry and threw a fit.”
Josie shut her mouth at that, she didn’t think her sister would do that, but she also couldn’t say for certain that she wouldn’t do that.
“So, are we all in agreement?” Hope asked crossing her arms over her chest.
Josie and MG both nodded.
“Good, now c’mon Josie, there’s something me and you have to do first.”
Josie’s brow furrowed in confusion but nodded and followed Hope out the cellars as she called a quick goodbye back to MG. She had no idea what Hope would need her for but she felt a spark of excitement run through her at the thought of learning more magic. And she had a feeling Hope knew more about magic than a majority of the witches anywhere.