Seeing Double PV Anastasia Beckett

Anastasia had had something of a rough first morning back at Hogwarts. While she still knew a handful of professors and she wasn't behind on material or anything, it was still rather an adjustment. Still, it was a good adjustment. Hogwarts had changed so much and yet so little in the time Ana had been gone. It was comforting, given how much Ana had felt like she changed. One of the more time-consuming changes was that she had begun wearing makeup. That was the main reason she had taken time out of her day to visit the Girls' Lav. That and she had to pee pretty bloody bad. 

As she exited the cubicle and made her way to the sink, she saw another girl braiding her hair. She didn't make much note of anything other than the fact that the girl as likely a first-year, given how much shorter than Ana. She washed her hands and began to adjust her lip gloss when she realized something rather odd. The mirrors seemed to have changed in the time she had been gone. They now showed two images. Except one was in front of the other girl, not Ana. And now that she paid more attention, the other image had grey eyes. And was shorter. Well, how was that helpful at all? 

Wait, and the other image moved with the other girl. And the other image was the other girl?!? 

All these thoughts flew through Ana's head in the space of a second. It seemed that it took the other girl about the same amount of time because as Ana turned to actually look at the other girl, her doppelganger did the same. Ana furrowed her brow and intently examined the girl for a moment before meeting her eyes. That was when the younger girl spoke. "Anastasia Beckett," she replied, her brow still furowed but smiling lightly. "You see this as well then?"

Interacting with @Anastasia Beckett

Ivy briefly wondered if she was dreaming when her clone spoke and introduced herself as Anastasia Beckett. "Yes, I do see this." Ivy turned to look back in the mirror and laughed, still a little unnerved at the sight of someone who looked so much like her. "Well, what are the chances?"

The pureblood looked Anastasia up and down. "I suppose there are stranger things, but this was not what I was expecting when I woke up this morning." Ivy fiddled with the blue hair ribbon at the end of her braid and smiled at the older girl. "How is it that I haven't seen you around the castle?" She did not expect to know everyone in the castle, but she was sure that she would have noticed if she had a lookalike in Gryffindor.

The girl pondered how such a coincidence could have happened. "Perhaps we share a common ancestor," Ivy said thoughtfully. "Say, are you a pureblood?" Perhaps she would sound rude to the girl, but the Bellamy family tree, which updated itself every year, had no traces of Muggle blood anywhere. It was one of the things they were most proud of, and her parents never failed to remind her of this.

Ivy brushed thoughts of her family away. Now was not the time to be thinking of their crazy obsession with blood purity. "I wonder if there are some old family records that we can get our hands on." She wasn't quite sure why, but she wanted to know if there was some time when their families crossed over.

Ivy thought back to the portraits of her ancestors, hanging on the halls of Bellamy Manor, and the many times she'd run past them without ever thinking of them, then of the family records locked away in a box, located at the bottom of her parents' bed. Perhaps her younger sister, Alison, could help her with getting them.

"Wouldn't it be fun to find out how this genetic coincidence happened?" Her grey eyes flashed with excitement. It was a rare day that Ivy Bellamy got so excited about something.

Anastasia intently examined the other girl. Other than their eyes and height, they were completely identical. It was mildly unnerving. Ana had apparently had light eyes as a small child, but they had darkened as she had gotten older, and she was such the height difference would be gone in a few years. The odds of two people being that identical were close to zero. Not completely impossible, but just about. Still, Ana's mind began to spin with possibilities. Genetics along couldn't explain this. Sure, having a common ancestor would explain a bit, and likely wouldn't be that improbable if the other girl was a pureblood. Still, Ana probably shared an ancestor with most of the purebloods at Hogwarts and most of them looked nothing like her. Brow furrowed, she continued examining the other girl. 

"Oh, I was gravely ill, then traveling, then someone died," Anastaisa said breezily, as though the abnormal things that had happened over the past year were unimportant. "I've only been back for a day or so." The other girl seemed to be having very similar thoughts to Ana's which was even more unnerving. If their resemblance couldn't purely be explained by genetics, then they were likely linked somehow, which was concerning. In the few cases of doppelgangers that Ana had heard of, the pairs were generally involved in some major dark magic and more often than not, one or both died extremely painfully in connection to that. She bit her lip and zoned back into the conversation. 

The other girl seemed to be far more excited about this than Ana was, which was comforting for two reasons -  the first being that the two weren't complete copies of one another, and the second being that the girl's excitement was infectious and lightened Ana's mood some.  "Yes, I'm a Pureblood, so I assume at some point in time we have a common ancestor or two," Ana said, chuckling a little. It was honestly a little gross to her how interwoven the Pureblood family trees were, but now wasn't the time to be thinking about that mess. 

"I know my family has quite a few books tracing our lineage," Ana said thoughtfully. She recollected the pictures of family members on their living room wall. That wouldn't be helpful though since that only went back two or three generations. No, they would need their written family trees. She wasn't sure how she'd get her hands on them though. Her parents were very protective of them, and she was sure they wouldn't just own them to her. She'd figure something out. "I don't know about you, but I love a good puzzle," Anastasia said, no trace of her previous thoughts leaking through. Hopefully, they would figure out an explanation for their similarity that didn't involve either of them dying. 

Interacting with @Anastasia Beckett

Ivy's eyes widened at the contrast of Anastasia's recount of events and her nonchalant tone. She wasn't quite sure what to say and eventually settled for, "Oh, um... I'm sorry." Ivy never knew the right thing to say, instead choosing to speak her mind, but it didn't seem fitting on this occasion. Looking up at her doppelganger, Ivy inspected her carefully. The resemblance and chance-meeting was almost frightening, but at the same time, Ivy wanted to know how this had come to be.

"I do love solving mysteries," she agreed with Anastasia. "Although, don't you find this a little strange? I don't suppose you'd have met many people who are identical to you." Her expression turned serious and a cold shiver ran down her spine. Her parents had once told her a story of a girl they'd met at school. The girl had bumped into someone who was identical to her, and died soon after. But surely this wasn't the case for her and Anastasia? Ivy hoped not. It would be rather - unfortunate - if she died.

Shaking off thoughts of dark magic, she offered the older girl a smile. "I could owl my younger sister to see if she'll help me get our family tree. But meanwhile -" she looked down worriedly at her watch "-I suppose I really must get to class. I guess I'll see you around." Ivy tossed her braid over her shoulder, sent one last smile in Anastasia's way and went onto class, already composing a letter in her mind to Alison.

Ivy leaves the thread.

"I don't think I've ever met anyone who looked this identical to me," Anastasia replied. Her mind still whirled with possible explanations. Hallucinating wouldn't explain it since both girls saw it. Maybe there was something in the water, no, that wouldn't explain why it was just them. It was definitely something magical, and Ana was inclined to believe that it was something more complicated than wizard genetics being weird. Unless they were twins separated at birth, which she knew they weren't, there had to be something else going on. 

Ana smiled at the other girl's suggestion and nodded. That was certainly a start. When Ivy glanced at her watch, Ana was reminded that it was, in fact, the middle of a school day, and she had to get to class. "Oh, dear, I'd better go since my next class is halfway across the castle," she exclaimed. Putting away her lip gloss and fastening her bag, she began to leave. "I suppose I'll see you around." She turned on her heel and began to walk briskly down the hall. She would really need to hurry if she wanted to be on time for Transfiguration, which she certainly did. She was barely back at school, and she refused to miss another second of class, given how much she'd already missed. She would think about the doppelganger thing when she had time later. 

Anastasia Beckett has left this thread.

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