“Pick a card, any card.” Kurt cuts his deck, shuffles it, and then fans the cards out for the perusal of the red-haired woman in front of him. Excited green eyes look over the cards - a brand new deck, opened at the start of the show, but none like any playing cards she’s ever seen before. Strange and intricate designs weave hypnotically on their backs, as if the pictures are changing before her eyes. She looks at Kurt. He gives her an encouraging smile and a wink. She giggles, biting it behind her lip and shifting her eyes away before her freckled face turns red to match her hair. Kurt smiles wider.

He’s got her.

She’s in for a few bucks at the end of his show at least.

“Um …” Her fingers brush over the cards, her eyes moving between them and the magician’s handsome face until she feels compelled to stop. She taps the card right beneath her middle finger and pulls her hand away.

“Wonderful!” Kurt beams. The rest of the cards dissolve into his hands as he separates the chosen one from the bunch and holds it up before the audience’s eyes so that they can see it and he can’t. Not that it matters. Kurt knows she’s chosen the five of diamonds. Besides, her fingerprint on the back of the card is all he needs to make this trick work. “Now remember the card. This is your card …” Kurt steps forward until his forehead almost touches hers. “It’ll be looking for you later,” he says in a low, husky voice, purposefully making it sound suggestive, and she giggles again.

Kurt puts the card back in the deck and begins his fanciful shuffling. This is the part where most magicians palm the card and slip it up their sleeves, but not Kurt. He keeps his sleeves pulled halfway up his forearms so the crowd can see there’s nothing up them. Sleight of hand has always been Kurt’s specialty, even at school. Studying Potions and Transfiguration and Divination (not his favorite subject, but Kurt kind of has a knack) under the watchful eyes of skilled wizards, experts in their fields, anyone with a wand can perform magic. But using no magical ability and still being able to fool people - people standing so close to him that they can probably see their reflection in his eyes - that’s real magic.

Kurt thinks so, anyway.

And he prefers it. He can’t remember anyone ever being killed by a card trick.

Kurt fans the cards out several times, then shuffles them several more. A few people ooo and ahh at his nimbleness. Others jeer (there are always one or two hecklers in any group – it’s more fun that way when he finally amazes the crowd). New people join – one man in particular whose sudden presence makes the hairs at the nape of Kurt’s neck stand of end. Kurt fumbles the cards when the man appears, not that anyone else but this man can tell.

And he laughs when Kurt does.

Kurt grits his teeth, determined to ignore him. He tosses the deck into the air and snatches a single card as the others fall, which, in itself, is quite a trick, and earns him a smattering of applause. Kurt twirls the snatched card between his fingers, then makes a show of revealing it to his audience. It changes a second before Kurt catches on, and not in enough time to stop the words, “Is this your card?” from leaving his mouth. Nervous laughter and a couple of I told you so’s travel around the crowd.

“No,” the red-haired woman says, but she’s not disappointed. Her eyes are bright, certain that this can’t be the end of the trick.

Because she has faith – a childlike wonder in the power of magic that Kurt himself has begun to shun.

He’s a little disgusted by it, but he can’t let her down. He can’t extinguish that wonder.

Besides, he’d lose money if he did.

“Well, then,” he says, acting quickly. He snaps the fingers of his free hand, setting the card aflame, and when the smoke blows away, there’s her card, pinched between his fingertips – the five of diamonds.

The laughter turns to cheers. The woman claps, bouncing on her feet, much like a child.

But Kurt can feel shrewd eyes on him, and he knows he has to move the show along. He kisses the card and hands it over to the woman, who swoons when she takes it. Staring at it with her jaw dropped, she carefully slips it into her pocket as if it were, by extension, a magical object.

“Okay, folks” - Kurt pulls a hat out of nowhere and hands it around - “that’s it for me, I’m afraid.” The audience groans their disappointment as the sound of change being tossed into his hat becomes louder. “But I’ll be here tomorrow to entice and delight, so remember to come back, and bring your friends. Your rich friends.”

Not likely.

Kurt hears the words in his head drowning out the laughter of the crowd, accompanied by the sound of a heavy coin dropping into his hat and upsetting the rest. Onlookers start to disperse. The red-haired woman with the playing card tucked in her pocket, one hand protectively covering it, peeks over her shoulder and gives him a shy wave. When Kurt gives her another gratuitous wink, she nearly skips down the street. Kurt can’t help it. The flirtier he acts, the more they come back.

And she left him a twenty.

A teenage boy in black skinny jeans, black combat boots, and a black leather jacket, hands Kurt back his hat.

“That’s a wicked tatt you’ve got,” he remarks, peering uncomfortably close to Kurt’s inner arm. “I could have sworn that I saw it move.”

“Yeah, well, whatever you’re smoking, I want some,” Kurt quips without missing a beat, tugging down his sleeve until the cuff of his sweater covers the back of his hand. Sometimes, when he gets caught up in the moment, he forgets about his mark and pushes his sleeves up too far. He really needs to stop doing that. It’s going to attract unwanted and dangerous attention one of these days.

“I’d share if I had any.” The boy laughs, waving goodbye and walking off with a group of equally black-clothed friends. Kurt waves back and waits till they’re out of earshot, until it seems like everyone in the crowd has gone, before he speaks to the one man who stayed behind.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Kurt hisses, gathering the money out of his hat and shoving it into his pocket. “Why are you always messing with my shit?”

“I’m helping you out,” Blaine says, standing close but still sticking to the shadows - shadows he’s made longer to suit his purposes.

“I don’t need your help.” Kurt separates Blaine’s sickle from his take and tosses it back at him. He shrinks the hat down and shoves it in his pocket – the same pocket he’s enchanted to hold his wand (hazel, 11 ¾ inches, Hippogriff feather core, characterized as ‘unimpressionable’, which Kurt has always been rather proud of), most his clothes, some books, a few emergency potions, and other random items.

“Kurt, you’re one of the most gifted wizards I know" - Blaine watches Kurt pick up his cards, waving a hand over them and calling them to him - "but you’re entertaining Muggles with cheap card tricks on street corners for chump change. And you ran off to America, no less. I mean, you couldn’t get any more bottom-of-the-barrel if you tried.”

“Fuck you, Blaine,” Kurt grumbles. He stuffs the cards in his pocket, where a new five of diamonds appears and the deck re-seals itself, and heads off down the street to find another corner to play. “What’s it to you?”

Blaine circles in front of him, stopping him in the mouth of an alleyway where stretching the shadows to cover them and casting a spell to dampen their voices won’t seem suspicious. “You know why I’m here.”

Kurt stops. He contemplates turning and taking off the other way, but he can’t run forever. And he doesn’t want to keep running from Blaine. Blaine’s not one of them. He’s not a mindless zealot. “I’m not going back.”

“They’ve sent out conscription notices,” Blaine says in a hushed voice. “You’re lucky I found you before they did.”

Kurt looks at Blaine with a sad but wicked grin. “They haven’t found me yet.”

“But they will,” Blaine says grimly, “with this.” Blaine grabs Kurt’s arm, pressing his thumb onto the mark Kurt is hiding. Kurt grabs his arm back, tearing it from Blaine’s grip no matter how much he regrets it.

It felt good to have Blaine touch him again.

“I never asked for it!” Kurt moves past Blaine and continues on down the street. “It was forced on me!”

“I know,” Blaine says, sympathetic to Kurt’s suffering, not reminding Kurt that the mark was forced on him as well. It might have been an effective argument, but it would have been selfish. Blaine is not in Kurt’s position. Blaine is a pure-blood. Getting the Dark Mark was expected of him. For Kurt, it was a brand, a sign of ownership, the way a rich rancher would mark his cattle. “But they will find you. And they haven’t been too kind to traitors …” Blaine pauses with the heavy thud of his heart. “Especially Muggle-borns.”

Kurt stops walking again. He doesn’t have to imagine what that means. He heard rumors before he ran away. They left images that have haunted him - of Muggle family members tortured, killed before a traitor’s eyes, or worse.

Left alive without bones or skin is a far worse fate than death.

Kurt thought that by faking his death the way he did, and then putting distance between him and his dad, the Death Eaters would have no need to hunt his father down. But Kurt is wrong. He knows he’s wrong. Obviously, by Blaine showing up, it proves his intricately created protective and masking spells have started to wear off. He was too selfish to erase his father’s memory of him forever. Kurt is naïve. He hopes they will live to see an end to this, and then he and his father can be reunited again.

“We’re on the wrong side of history, Blaine,” Kurt says. “You know that. They expect us to fight. They expect us to kill and not just strangers – our teachers, our classmates, our friends …”

“I know, but look” - Blaine takes Kurt by the arms and fights for his elusive, downcast gaze - “it doesn’t have to be that way. We get to decide.”

Kurt swallows down his shame only to have it replaced by fear. He knows what Blaine is referring to, but as much as Kurt doesn’t want to kill in the name of hate, he doesn’t think he has the strength to stand up against it.

“We won’t be alone,” Blaine continues. “There are others like us. Other Slytherins turning their back on the Dark Lord, on our families …”

“No,” Kurt answers firmly, his voice trembling. “I can’t.”

“We don’t have to be Death Eaters,” Blaine stresses. “We have the power to change things. We have to do what’s right, even if it’s not what’s easy.”

Kurt shakes his head, but even as he refuses, Kurt knows he’ll go with him.

“I don’t want to die,” Kurt pleads.

Blaine moves to take Kurt in his arms but Kurt steps away. Kurt pushing him away hurts, but Blaine understands.

“Kurt, nothing says that …”

“I’ve seen it,” Kurt insists. “I die … and you die, too.”

That seems to halt Blaine’s argument, but only for a second. “Well, if we both die, then we’ll die together.”

“Don’t be an ass!” Kurt exclaims giving Blaine a rough shove. “This isn’t a joke! You’re an actor! You’ve studied the Greek and Roman dramas! Even if the quote/unquote bad guys are good at heart and do what’s right in the end, they still die! And that’s what’s going to happen to you and me! If you and I join this thing, we are going to die!”

“Look, you and I both know what professor says about visions.” Blaine closes the gap between them and moves Kurt toward the brick wall beside them, putting them in the shadows again. “They’re just one path, one road you can take. Sometimes, it’s the only road you get to see. But there are actually many roads, and now that you’ve seen this one, you can choose not to follow it.”

“I am,” Kurt says, but his voice sounds weak. He feels weak, pulled in too many directions, none of them good, every single one leading to a tragic and unhappy end. Kurt is still shaking his head when defeat settles in. He knows Blaine is right. He knows the Death Eaters will find him. He knows they’ll torture him and kill his father … if he’s lucky. He knows he’ll be forced to fight, and when he does, he might not have a choice who he kills.

But if he chooses the side of right, then good might win – even if he personally doesn’t.

Do what’s right, not what’s easy.

What if doing what’s right takes away everything he has?

“What do you expect me to do?” Kurt asks.

“I expect you to take my hand,” Blaine says, holding it out to him. “I want you to follow me home.” He leans forward until he’s nose to nose with Kurt, close enough to see how his eyes fill with tears, and how he’s using all his strength to hold them back. “I want you to help me change the future.”

Kurt sucks in a quick breath.

“And what if we … what if we can’t?” Kurt asks with a dread in his voice uncharacteristic of the brilliantly dark wizard Blaine knew and fell in love with. “What if we go back and get killed and it doesn’t change anything?” An image from his vision flashes through his skull of watching Blaine skewered at the end of a jagged tree branch by a grotesque troll, eyes bulging, blood pouring from his mouth, before Kurt himself falls victim to the Killing Curse, the words filthy Mudblood and traitor stinging his ears.

“Have faith.” Blaine shrugs, but he doesn’t look at all unsure of his decision to go – with or without Kurt. “Try to picture the future differently. See with better eyes than you have. And remember that no matter what happens, I’ll always be by your side.” Blaine kisses Kurt, softly, gently, and Kurt whimpers.

At least Blaine’s right about that. According to Kurt’s vision, they’re standing right beside one another when they die.

“What do you say, Kurt? Are you ready to take on the Dark Lord and his army with me?”

Kurt looks from Blaine’s glittering golden eyes down to his outstretched hand, the Dark Mark seared onto his arm slithering, trying to answer a distant call.

Kurt doesn’t have faith in much – not in the power of good to defeat evil, not in his own abilities, not in anyone or anything to change the future.

But he does have faith in Blaine.

“This is suicide,” Kurt says, his hand creeping up from his side to take Blaine’s.

Blaine chuckles.

“That’s kind of what makes it fun.”

Kurt scoffs but Blaine grabs his hand, and with a clap like thunder, the two disappear as mist into the night.