the deepest sighs, the frankest shadows

Benjy was almost able to relax somewhat, releasing some of the tension he’d been holding in his shoulders at the way Fabian held on just as tightly. Fabian was a welcome anchor into a life that felt so unfamiliar and foreign to him, a life where he no longer owned his own flat and had a fulfilling job but instead was entirely dependent on the ministry and its charity. How long would it be until their charity ran out and he was cast out into the streets of London with not a single belonging to his name?

“I don’t blame you. I don’t really want to look either…it feels like no time at all passed, and my heart still aches for those we lost. God I mourned you,” Benjy slapped Fabian’s shoulder lightly. The memory of finding out Fabian and Gideon were gone still hit him like a punch to the stomach, all air sucked from his chest as he tried to comprehend the loss. “Molly and Arthur…are they okay? Were you placed with them? I suppose their kids must be….well, adults now,” Benjy blinked at that realisation.

“We shouldn’t have to,” he agreed with a nod, “but now we do. At least we can find a way to cope together, find a way to live somehow in this strange new world.”

Benjy watched Fabian’s expression closely, not missing the fact that Fabian didn’t answer his question - and really, that was all the answer that he’d ever need. The world could be such a cruel place, but bringing one brother back without the other was wicked. His sorrow quickly turned into confusion at the way Fabian started shifting, and he nodded. “We could go to the Leaky? It was quiet when I came through.”

I mourned you. A phrase he’d never thought to hear, never thought to anticipate, that continued to shatter and crack at the few defences he had left. That was the weight that lay upon his shoulders like a funeral shroud. Mourning. The presence and the absence of it, the dust that lay thick upon old photo frames. This was what they were now, mourned for and forgotten.

“Is it wrong that I don’t want to know?” He offered after a moment, throat tight and eyes gleaming for half a moment before he found some composure. He’d always wanted to know everything, once upon a time, had a thirst for knowledge that nothing could sate, but he’d stumbled upon a trunk of old school texts in the attic and hadn’t even been able to open the cover of A History of Magic for fear of what he’d find within it. “I’m living with Molly and Arthur,” he confirmed, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs and feeling the waver in his smile, “They’re - they’re fine. Mostly. Their kids are all grown up now.”

Save for Freddie, of course, but death seeped into even the happiest places. “Freddie died, during the second war. It’s a bit,” and how easy it was to talk to Benjy again, “Everything’s different, I guess. The world moved on.”

He sighed, resisting the urge to rub at the bridge of his nose and turned on his heel to turn back in the right direction, nodding his head to agree, “The Leaky sounds wonderful. Where are you staying?”

Hermione eyed the bottle warily, far too accustomed to the Weasleys to take anything offered without some level of suspicion. He had poured for himself from the same bottle though, so Hermione sighed and allowed her icy demeanor to thaw a bit. “Another drink would be lovely,” she admitted, holding out her cup to allow him to fill it for her.

“Even if I did want to,” she finally responded, after a sip of her newly filled drink, “I wouldn’t be able to do so. They have all of the ACR under non-disclosure spells. I could talk to you about boring day to day details that you already know from being in holding, but nothing that would be worth bothering to repeat.”

She considered him for a moment, noting the familial resemblances, and finding it strange that someone who had grown up with Molly was now physically only a few years older than herself. Hardly the most bizarre part of this whole experience though, so she mentally shook it off. 

“That being said, I would be remiss not to warn you against pushing the boundaries too far. I know it’s practically a family way of life by this point, but do I need to point out the proclamations that were put in place? It’s not just my life that it makes more difficult.”

It was already hard enough to make certain that the Returned weren’t treated like criminals, even though the majority of them were anything but. Most were war heroes, but the Ministry had a bad track record with anything that could be considered Other, and she hadn’t once trusted them to consider the Returned as people rather than a liability. It was one of the many reasons why she had made certain she was placed on the council. 

Huh. Interesting.

Absently he refilled her glass from the bottle in a well-studied balancing act before settling the wine carefully back onto the table he’d nicked it from like Molly might not clock it, taking a sip from his own glass as he mulled over the connotations of that particular reply. “Curious that the Ministry would go to such lengths to keep things under wraps,” he offered after a moment, eyeing his glass and wrinkling his nose at it. Elderflower wine was an acquired taste that Fabian had yet to acquire. Still. “Do they not trust their own staff’s discretion these days?”

Or did they have something more to hide?

And really, he’d come up against barriers to stories in the past when it came to Official Information Acts and those mysteriously exempt from them (what on earth was it that they got up to down in the Department of Mysteries that warranted such a jarring lack of oversight anyway? Aside from incarceration of the newly undead, of course.) but those exemptions rarely extended beyond the doors to Level Nine. This reeked of a cover up.

He smiled, a little wider, around the brim of his glass and took another sip. “I’ve never pushed a boundary in my life,” he replied easily, as if the trail of ministry proclamations and broken noses (and ceramic) in his wake didn’t highly suggest otherwise, “But you don’t make an omelette without breaking a few mugs, do you?”

18:34pm. The (un)resting spot of the Prewetts.

    We do what we have to do had a vaguely ominous ring to it, especially when put into the context of trying to open a coffin. Doris didn’t put much value on preserving a bunch of wood that didn’t house her own body, and frankly wouldn’t even put much value on one that did; but she knew that others had their own hold ups on the desecration of the dead, or whatever you might call the act of destroying a coffin. Would Fabian falter if they couldn’t simply lift open the lid? Surely it would have been latched together somehow, and if it wasn’t, the weight of the earth atop it would have pushed it all tightly together, sealing it away from the surrounding dirt.

    Try as she might, Doris simply couldn’t picture Fabian bashing in the lid of his own coffin.

    Preferring not to request elaboration on what he anticipated doing what they had to do meant, she instead remained silent and continued shoveling. Even for Doris, some mysteries were better left unsolved.

    She did wonder - and had been wondering this quite a bit more as their grave digging event had grown closer - about what the outcome here might insinuate about her own remains. Taking a trip out to rediscover the small cabin she’d stumbled upon in the woods all those years ago was a bubbling question, curiosity contained only enough to hide it just below the surface. She knew that they had to accomplish their investigation today before she should even consider a visit to her supposed resting place (but then, her “supposed resting place” brought on a whole other slew of questions; was she buried or had her body been tossed into the weeds? Or maybe she’d been incinerated? And this was only the beginning). Whatever the results of the excursion today were, they would determine whether or not she’d want to pursue what came of her body after death.

    Charity had not mentioned unionizing. It had been some time since she’d seen Charity, truthfully - not since they left holding. A few owls here and there, but those mostly involved witchy gossip. “Not yet, no. Why? Have you and Cherry been conspiring?” She bit back a hint of jealousy; conspiring was her specialty. “Unionizing… how?”

12:14pm. The bus stop.

     “Arthur’s shed?” Doris questioned. Why would a wizard keep a shovel when they could just as easily use magic to dig stuff up? “Why’s he keeping muggle tools in his shed?” Before capping the flask, Doris took another sip, longer than the first, and then pocketed it. The smell of rubber and diesel and black top overwhelmed the fading aroma of meat spices; the telltale groan of a bus sounded near, though this one seemed much quieter than the Knight Bus if her memory served her correctly. 

     Hopping to her feet, Doris accepted her offered ticket and followed Fabian up to the bus. After ascending the stairs towards the driver, she loomed uncomfortably close behind her companion, peering over his shoulder to assess what she would have to do in turn with her ticket (which she’d already crumpled like a garbage piece of parchment). The driver stared down at Fabian, took his ticket, and gestured for him to move down the aisle. Doris stepped up and dropped her balled up ticket into the driver’s outstretched hand and confidently brushed past without waiting for approval to move on. 

     Only a few of the riders looked up in acknowledgement of the newcomers; the others kept their faces down and remained engrossed in their preoccupations. Just one of the riders who’d seen Fabian and Doris, however, took note of the shovels under Fabian’s arm, warily eyeing them. Much to her dismay, Doris sat in the seats right behind her. 

     Patting the seat beside her, she grinned up to him. “Sort of fun, isn’t it? Never been on a muggle bus before!” Doris swiveled in her seat to look behind her and, after a moment of taking everything in, read one of the large, pasted advertisements aloud, “’Have you or a loved one encountered ah– ahsbest– ahsbestus in the workplace? You might be entitled to compensation.’ What’s ahsbestus?”

18:39pm. St. Luke’s Churchyard, Tutshill. 

If Doris’s tone was a bit miffed around all the huffing and puffing, Fabian took very little notice, thumping the heel of his boot down onto the blade of the shovel to drive it hard into the dirt and levering another shovelful out of the grave. He cleared his throat as he replied, “You know,” as if Doris should immediately pick up on his wavelength, “An undead alliance, of sorts, for those of us not entirely content being kept in the dark under all these restrictions. And, of course, so we have numbers when the time comes.”

He didn’t seem to feel the need to elaborate on precisely why they would need numbers or what the time was, content to leave that hanging ominously in the air as he eyed the grave beneath him with grim determination and dug his shovel down deep into the earth again. 

Not for the first time since setting out on their adventure, Fabian was beginning to wish they’d brought snacks.

12:19pm. Just outside Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon.

“Hoarder,” Fabian replied grimly, “Never met a flea market or yard sale he didn’t like, our Arthur.”

And while thoughts of his brother-in-law immediately brought him back to the shed and the friend he’d unceremoniously locked inside of it to necessitate this particular escape plan, the bus driver waited for nobody’s reminiscing and shooed him off to find a seat. His shovels clunked loudly against the seats when he wasn’t paying attention but Fabian didn’t appear to notice the dubious looks cast their way as they clambered up the aisle to settle in. 

Doris at least seemed chipper enough about it all. Fabian could count the number of times on one hand that he’d taken the Knight Bus, so there was a novelty to the posters pasted to the sloped ceilings, peeling at the edges, and the stickers gleefully applied to windows. With a jerk and a hiss, the bus pulled out again, with considerably less whiplash than the Knight Bus supplied as it crept on through the streets of Ottery St. Catchpole.

His head craned curiously around at their fellow passengers, who seemed largely otherwise engaged as he rearranged the shovels to lean carefully against the back of the seat before him and replied, after some consideration, “He doesn’t sound very pleasant. Arthur’s got a brother that’s an accountant,” his nose wrinkled faintly, “Maybe it’s similar to that.”

His head turned away, focusing on the scenery passing by outside with vague interest. 

20.17pm. St. Luke’s Churchyard, Tutshill.

The deeper the earth they tilled, the damper and softer it became, solidly compact but less strewn with unexpected stones and roots. It was not quite as comforting as Fabian hoped it would be. His muscles had long moved past aching to numbness as he sat on the edge of the fairly substantial hole in the ground, staring down into it, and caught his breath.

“This is going to take all night,” he huffed after popping his spine with a loud consecutive string of cracks and staring moodily into the mess of dark earth like it had personally offended him. They’d already lost the light, shadows creeping deep and still across the churchyard and stretching out the long lines of tombstones and stone angels.

It was a miracle that they hadn’t been stumbled upon yet by some well-meaning villager, but at least the cover of darkness provided some anonymity in their lonely corner with it’s line of pristine graves and explosion of dirt.

If he listened closely, Fabian imagined he could still hear Hannah’s panicked breathing from the hospital bed he was perched nonchalantly atop, eyeing his comically ballooning hands with the same detached curiosity that had always accompanied each new affliction he acquired along the way. It wasn’t, unlike some Healers would contend, that Fabian was accident-prone or even that he went looking for trouble. Trouble simply had a way of finding its way to him.

As it was, he’d slowly regained the ability to breathe and speak, to an extent, since that first emergency draught had been forced down his throat and the usual restless energy that accompanied his hospital stays was beginning to surface. Really, an allergic reaction was no reason to keep him here, mysteriously back from the grave or not, and there’d been something about the look on Andromeda’s face when she’d set eyes on him that told him she’d had some mischief up her sleeve.

Monitoring. He wasn’t about to stick around for that or Molly to show up, uncooperative limbs or no.

A wheelchair was parked outside his neighbours closed curtains and it didn’t take much of an effort to coax his lethargic, numb limbs to shuffle between the bed over to it, dropping heavily into it and beaming at having secured a getaway vehicle so quickly. His hands were largely a write-off, but proved capable of gripping the wheels to get them spinning and as he clunked into the doorframe, reversed, and pushed successfully through that time accomplishment drew a ominous smile to his swollen face.

Tracks of mud, of damp grave dirt and leaf litter, trailed the length of the kitchen floorboards — a conspicuous trail that took harsh lines to the seats upon which he and Doris were now perched, squashed in amidst the old kitchen table. Fabian recognised everything about this place, like a perfectly preserved snapshot in time, but he had never in his life felt unwelcome in this home.

From the room next door his father (so old now, but still sprightly for it) had been arguing through the fireplace for the past half-hour, a tirade that had ranged from, ‘causing havoc across the countryside’ and ‘I warned you, Molly, it isn’t natural’. Fabian’s tongue sat like lead in his mouth, his eyes drifting occasionally to Doris who sat, equally exhausted in her chair despite the late hour. He didn’t know what to say. Not in the harrowing aftermath of what they had accomplished, not with the argument filtering in from the next room.

Now, at least, he knew why all mentions of his father had been kept silent.

*

The list of people that they’d lost between both wars was far too long. There had been far too much mourning. Andromeda couldn’t recall exactly how she felt when she’d learned about the twins deaths. Devastated, more than likely. However, when she heard Fabian’s laugh again for the first time in decades, Andromeda had to blink back the sudden tears that filled her eyes. Merlin, she’d missed her friend and his shenanigans. “Perhaps I wasn’t obvious enough,” she reasoned teasingly. Truthfully, it wasn’t something that she’d ever considered, but he didn’t need to know that. 

Teddy absolutely did not need anyone’s help to be a troublemaker, but she wouldn’t give Fabian the satisfaction of knowing he was right. He’d most definitely taken after his mother in that aspect. It had been bad enough with their daughter that Ted and Andromeda had immediately decided that one child was plenty. With the amount of letters they’d received from Hogwarts, they’d made the correct decision. Andromeda was sure that she’d had grey hairs by the time her daughter turned fifteen. “Excuse me. I think you’re misjudging matters,” Andromeda muttered, her eyes narrowing. 

There were other people Andromeda knew that she needed to speak to. She knew that she had to pretend as if she were sociable. That she wouldn’t have rather stayed at home. It was comforting, however, speaking to an old friend. 

“It’s a promise,” Andromeda murmured as she leaned into the hug, lingering for a brief second and then pulling away with a smile. “Please don’t worry about it. We’re here to see my cousin, make an appearance, and go back home,” she admitted warily, hoping that her discomfort wasn’t obvious. “Go on. I’ll see you later.” 

nottaciturn​:

location: department of mysteries, death chamber

status: @unspeakablecharm @fabianprewctt

date: 03.07.02

Sitting primly on a cold stone bench, it could appear to some that Theodore Nott had fallen asleep at work. He was still, eyes closed and breathing steadily, but he was not sleeping. His shoulders were drawn too tight to be comfortable, back straight from years of being instructed to never slouch. He was simply doing his best to tune out the incessant chatter of his fellow junior Unspeakable, and partner, Katie Bell. He wasn’t sure he was aware it was possible for someone to speak at such a great length without interruption before he began his training and he had shared a common room with Daphne, Pansy and Draco in their youth. 

The only upside of this shift, their fourth on which had to be a violation of their contracts, was that Katie’s chatter droned out the whispering pleas from the veil. He had never asked her if she heard it as well, knowing from their superiors that some people did indeed hear the sounds of the other side making its way through the thin piece of fabric. After two weeks and four days without a single day off, the voice were getting harder to ignore. He knew the pull of magic when in its presence. The older arts lost to restricted sections of libraries and seized by Aurors because everything unknown must be evil and dark. His own home growing up had been filled with similar objects that called out to be held or put on. An enchanting murmur that begged you to get closer, told you to come appreciate the craftsmanship or inspect the intricate design before you found yourself in its grasp. (At least he knew Katie understood that much.) Theo didn’t move. He kept his distance from the veil at all times. 

Finding himself with a new appreciation for her, (and truly he did not have such a distain for Katie normally but his now longstanding exhaustion and worry was causing his patience to lessen by the minute) he opened his eyes and sighed. She never took the hint when he didn’t want to speak. At least she didn’t try to force him to join in her monologues. Pulling the sleeves of his robes up, Theo frowned at the time he found on his watch face. Still far too early. It had been his uncle’s, left to him after the man died in the war and he had hesitated to begin wearing it after he came of age but necessity required the ability to keep track of time. “Tea?” He inquired, cutting off whatever it was she was saying. “Yes. Two lemon wedges and three scoops of sugar.” He had tried her concoction once after a lot of prodding and he didn’t know how she drank that mixture regularly. 

Theo was so quiet Katie nearly forgot he was there. In fact, she would have had it not been for the long, drawn-out rant she was going off on. It was usually safe to say she would not be passionately bestowing a redundant Ted-Talk had it not been for his company, and one quick glance over her shoulder confirmed just that. Her partner sat ( quite uncomfortably judging by the looks of it ) on the slab of rock they tried passing off as a bench a large stretch away from her. She was opposite him, her back posed toward him and gaze set on the wispy black curtain—just mere strides away compared to his impressive distance.

Katie sat cross legged. She could feel the cold concrete through the fabric of her black and gold embroidered cloak. She was hunched over, doodling on the uniformed boots the Ministry presented to the pair earlier in the year along with a new set of matching uniforms. Much like the robes the Returned were expected to wear upon their arrival back to the world, the boots were exceptionally uncomfortable. They cramped her toes, pinching and poking. Certainly cutting off the circulation, she mused to herself. But alas, coloring the blooming pastel bouts of wildflowers cascading down vines and between laces made the idea of them at least a little more bearable.

Katie eyed her fellow Unspeakable’s boots from across the way as he stood up, jotting down a quick mental note to recreate her display on his own pair when the time permitted. “ Tea would be lovely! ” She chirped far too enthusiastically for someone who sat with heavy feet anchored beneath her body for an obscene amount of time. “ But I want three actual scoops this time. Don’t make me get into my sugar reserve. So help me Merlin. ” She said with a threatening glare as he retreated out the Death Chamber.

Theo’s footsteps echoed throughout the chamber until every trace of him was gone completely. Katie was left to her own devices and the solitude crept on her like fatal nightfall in the winter. The voices humming their dark lullabies from the other-side were more distinctive now. She averted her eyes from the curtain and continued coloring fiercely on her boots. The voices persisted, but she didn’t appear to mind them from this hunched over position on the floor—seemingly in her own picturesque world. The curtain itself was more intoxicating to her than anything. It had its own alluring energy that resonated very much with her own. Many saw it as an object, but to her it was alive; a deeply enhanced personification of everything one had to lose in this lifetime.

Katie stopped the wild coloring to briefly admire her masterpiece. She was quite pleased with the artwork so far and decided to switch boots while humming a face-paced Real McCoy melody beneath her breath ( occasionally stopping to toss in some of the lyrics now that Theo was gone ). The Unspeakable didn’t know if it was the inexplicable chill in the air or gut-wrenching sensation alerting her to look-up from the floor, but she was relieved she did so because that is when she witnessed another Returned miraculously step through the veil. She sprang from the floor and moved toward them with quick, but gentle strides. They hadn’t yet collapsed to the floor, which was unusual. Was it possible she imagined such a thing? She quickly batted away the uncertainty from her eyes as she rounded the arch’s large columns, coming face to face with the newly Returned.

“ Are you — hi, who — “ Katie stammered a bit hopelessly as she took in his presentation. Like all the others before him, he too was naked, but not unconscious. Not yet at least. The Unspeakable had not yet found herself in a predicament of this sorts before. She always anticipated having a few extra minutes to prepare for the face-to-face that came after. Now that she was caught completely off guard, she recognized the importance of preparation ( and the role Theo played in diligently maintaining such for them ). She stopped mid-movement, her wand draped at her side. “ Are you okay? ” Her hesitant voice cracked in the wix’s direction as her feet continued edging forward.

@nottaciturn​

In a moment, there was life.

He stood on the brink, toes curling into the cold stone floor and breath, miraculous and troubling and confusing, seeping into his lungs. A fog lived inside of him, thick and comforting, crowding in close with the promise of rest if he would just close his eyes, just let it close over him and welcome him back. His lungs ached with the cold, with the gasp that followed the first, greedy for more and the stillness, the quietness, that murmured fondly in his ear.

Sleep. 

But there was something else there too — a rumbling of voices like thunder from a distance, a call that reached out over them that sounded like —

FABIAN—

— He knew that name and that voice. The fog protested, shushing and smothering in, but his head turned, unseeing towards that voice, towards the soft ripple of something in the air that lay just behind him if only he could take those steps backward just one or—

There was another voice now, louder and insistent. Hi, who— 

He didn’t know that one, didn’t much care to either, because the louder she was the less he could hear of the other one, the less he seemed to understand. His mouth moved silently, as if to answer, tongue tripping and numb, barely a rasp of a noise crawling out of his throat before, “No.”

He blinked. Once, then twice, the blurred ripples of grey and black and smeared peachy shapes in between reconciling to something, someone. Dread reared, like an ugly beast through the fog, understanding that this something stood between him and what lay behind him, behind the voice that seemed to fade and fade and—

He’d been in danger, hadn’t he? 

He and — and — 

Gideon. 

“Where—” it rasped out of him, punched out of his lungs as his senses suddenly, violently clawed their way out of the soothing attempts to subdue him and instincts attuned to survival took over. Between fight or flight, he’d always picked fight. The figure approaching was barely more than a smear in his vision, but his fist reeled back and slammed forward anyway as the echoes in his head began to scream.

When: 15th of August Where: The Burrow With: @fabianprewctt​

George used to like late nights. He used to bask in staying up in the wee hours of the morning in the Gryffindor Common Room, chatting about everything and nothing with his friends until there was everything and nothing left to be said. Now, nights were dangerous. His mind was the worst of all the targets that appeared in this world. If he stayed up with in them too long, no good could possibly ever come from them, they would gnaw at him until there was nothing left.

He didn’t sleep much anymore, the dark circles under his eyes that were proving harder to mask as each day progressed a good indication of too much time spent at work. Days at the shop were longer this time of year, and as much as George wracked his brain for ideas for new products, he was coming up short. As much as it hurt, he needed inspiration.

Calling it “work” was a convenient excuse, George told himself, as he popped into the kitchen of the Weasley home with a crack. The clock gave a soft ding! to indicate that George was “Home,” a word used only in the vaguest sense. The Burrow hadn’t felt like home to him in almost five years, maybe more if he let himself think about it too much, and he worried that it might never feel like “Home” again. The Weasleys, as resilient as they were, had seen too much, all of them in their own ways, to pretend things could ever go back to normal. Still, George grabbed himself a cup from the cabinet for the pot of tea was always brewing on the stove before glancing up the stairs, bearing the burden of what he knew awaited him at the top. A rustle made him spin around, instinctively reaching for the wand in his front pocket before realizing that the figure standing before him was just his uncle. Again.

“Fuck–” he yelped, retreating his hand from his pocket. Seemed they both kept being in the same place at the same time. He managed a distressed, “Sorry” before taking a sip of tea, a slew of questions running through his mind, but most notably was why Fabian was still awake at this hour. “I assumed everyone was asleep by now–” because they usually were and–Was that a bark?– “I just need to grab some things from upstairs.”

A frosty silence had take up residence within the Burrow over the course of the day. The persistent ache of his muscles and the sheer exhaustion of the previous day having done little to dull the sheer force of Molly’s simmering rage as it filled the empty spaces of the house and Fabian thought he might have felt guilty if he could feel anything much at all today.

The mysteries of the night, of why gravedirt beneath his fingernails and bone-weary exhaustion were his souvenirs, had kept him awake just fine without Molly’s rage to add to it.

Arguing had been a common occurrence in the Prewett household, once upon a time, but it had usually been bluster for bluster’s sake. It had been a while since he’d an argument with his sister that had had any real teeth to it.

He’d waited until the sounds from the floors below had stilled and softened out before emerging from his attic hiding place, freezing in his careful trek to the kitchen only when it became apparent that he wasn’t the only one sneaking around tonight. He stared, blinking, at the incongruous sight of his nephew making a cup of tea amidst the sheer weight of the everything that had happened over the last few days and blearily, tiredly, laughed.

“I don’t sleep,” he replied, as if that were a rule rather than a choice, and trudged further into the kitchen to rummage listlessly through the cupboards searching for something. He’d forgotten why he’d come downstairs in the first place, beyond a desperate need for — “Coffee.”

His eyes fixed, enviously, for just a moment on George’s mug of tea before he moved on to another cupboard, scrounging for one of equal value. That one had the Cannons on it and this one a winking portrait of Gilderoy Lockhart whose charm seemed to be wearing off, if the way it’s eye was twitching was any indication, and there — there. That one, had a snarling dragon on it, with a tacky emblazoned logo that read, “Quit dragon me down.”

He eyed the teapot grimly, as if resigned to its subpar existence, before shuffling over to pour himself a cup. “I’d avoid your mum,” he offered as he carefully filled the mug towards the brim. “She’s in a bit of a mood.”

She wasn’t the only one. 

Each flash of light from a reporter’s camera was a shock to the moment they were sharing, a moment where she could just forget for a second that Fabian had been dead for the past two decades and relish in the fact that he was here. Was there no line the press wouldn’t cross? Didn’t they think to give the families a moment to properly reconnect without their tears, sorrow, and happiness potentially being blasted across the news the following day? 

Molly had half a mind to turn around and give the photographers a piece of her mind, but Fabian’s tears and wobbly voice stayed her hand. She had priorities to sort through, and right now? Right now, her brother was far more important than her anger at the press. At least she didn’t see Rita Skeeter lurking anywhere. 

“We’ve always been cozy,” she protested, grinning when Fabian laughed and letting him poke fun at her. The mention of their father made her hesitate, though, even though the anecdote was harmless – beyond pleasantries and some holidays, Molly couldn’t remember the last time she’d really spoken to their father. “Their planes fly much higher than our house goes, I assure you,” she said anyway, trying to wipe her hesitance away with a wry smile. “And we’ve added three floors since you saw it last. Five total.”

She let silence overlap them as her brother wiped at his tears, ignoring the elbow to her ribs and leaning close to him. Her eyes followed his gaze, and Molly’s expression softened as they landed on Arthur and her children – how kind of them to give the siblings a moment. Her heart swelled with the love she felt for her husband, her children, her family, and she snorted as Fabian teased her some more. “I’d say they get it from their father, but I believe the boys are even taller than poor Arthur. Those growth spurts were certainly a surprise, let me tell you.”

Where’s da? Molly chewed the inside of her cheek, biting hard enough to taste blood. “Um.” How the hell did she tell him that their father was all but denying his Returned son’s existence? That he’d all but given up after the twins’ deaths, making him a shadow of the man she once knew? She’d have to work on getting them together, whether he wanted to or not. “He’s not with the Wizengamot anymore, actually, but – it’s a bit hard to explain. I can when we get home, if you want? Somewhere more private than the Ministry.”

The Burrow had always been such a rickety thing, held up by sticking charms and Arthur’s enthusiasm alone, Fabian could hardly imagine another three floors attached. Perhaps his brother-in-laws architectural pursuits had grown more sophisticated over time.

If the disbelief was evident on his face he promptly swallowed it to glance back over his shoulder at her proud display of family, however limited the numbers were. Perhaps they’d put a limit on how many gingers could attend the celebration. His smile softened, warming at the affection in her voice as she sighed over growth spurts and her poor Arthur, out grown by his own sons.

There was a fondness to it that seemed to abruptly disappear, stuttering into discomfort at the mention of their father. His head turned back to her, stomach churning uncomfortably as his heart sunk and some tired instinct in the back of his head told him that he’d stumbled onto something he didn’t want the answer to. 

A bit hard to explain. As if the man they grew up with and retirement would ever belong in the same sentence. Dread crept up his throat at the insistence on somewhere more private, his eyes shifting away from the dream like appearance of her grown family and his sister’s changed face and feeling suddenly like the air was too thick to breathe. What had ever possessed them to insist on this being public. 

“Right,” he replied, stilted and unsteady, smile wavering at the corners as his eyes darted frantically for an exit strategy, for a moment away from Molly’s warm, kind eyes and the nervous spectators gathered just a few feet away looking deeply uncomfortable. “Later that sounds — right. You know, I wanted — I just wanted to say goodbye to some people so I’ll be back. In just a minute.”

He squeezed at her arm, like the panicked feeling beginning to expand in his chest was something that could be tamed by just a moment of peace, and smacked a kiss against her cheek before taking a half-step backwards, eyes catching sight of Charity in the crowd and feeling instant relief. 

Oh good, she wins. A rather grim contest to win, but it was something, at least. A mute cheers to the man as he gave her the crown of weirdness. Her hand dropped with a flinch as he started talking about him. “I would say thank you, but it’s not like I really had any hand in making him in to a good kid, so…” That was usually what the compliment went towards, right. ‘They’re a good kid, you did a good job raising them’. How much could you really raise a fifteen-month-old? How much of that short time had shaped the man Harry was now? “I should probably be thanking Molly, if anything.”

From what little she’d gathered, Petunia hadn’t … done the best job. There was another can of worms she was avoiding. Her sister. Had anyone told her? Thought to tell her? Should she reach out? Was she allowed to? Her stomach twisted, and she took a gulp of wine to try and settle it.

“But they all are good kids.” In some sense of the word. Kids, not good. Kids in the same way she’d been a kid, she supposed. Too old too fast, world weary, weighted down by the ravages of a war she shouldn’t have had to fight on her own behalf, should have been protected from. But war didn’t care about things like age or childhood. Or that someone had already fought it once to try and secure those things. Fat lot that had done for them, hadn’t it? Maybe it would hurt less if in dying and leaving Harry, she would have actually saved him from having to go through everything she’d fought to protect him from.

             At least he was alive now. That wasn’t as comforting as she thought it ought to be.

Her head rolled to the side as she frowned at him. “You’re really shit with that,” she told him flatly, putting a demanding hand out for the lighter. “No one shown you how to do it?” was the slightly softer guess. Pureblood family. Would any of them even know how to use a lighter, all mechanics and Muggle invention wrapped up in a package even smaller than a wand? Doubtful. Or if they did, would they think to share the knowledge as anything more than a curiosity, ‘the Muggle way, isn’t it quaint?’

She shouldn’t think like that too much, else old bitterness might resurface. At least, resurface faster than was necessary.

If Fabian knew what to make of Lily’s tone, strained as it was as her son was brought into the equation, then he certainly didn’t know what to say to it. How to address it. His forehead furrowed, but what did he know of the trials of parenthood and the afterlife. What did he know of Harry or just what Molly had done for him over the years. He only knew his sister and just how much she cared about everyone that entered her life. 

“You probably should be,” he agreed quietly, taking a long sip of wine to dispel the taste of bitterness that he’d detected on the edges of that sentence. He’d come out here for peace, not to pick at the rawest of his nerves.

Silence weighed on the night, on the chirping of crickets and chortling of gnomes creeping through the bushes, on all the words that remained unsaid about how good kids had faced intolerable hardships because they hadn’t done their damned job. His fingers busied themselves with the mundane work of flicking with moderate success at the lighter in his hands, like perhaps between the stars and the infrequent sparks, he might find a solution to his discomfort with this new world he’d been spat back out into.

And perhaps the blunt assessment that followed prodded a little harder at a sore spot than he might have liked. He should laugh, probably. That had been his solution to everything, once upon a time. But nothing about the helplessness that had been building inside of him with every failed mundane task that Molly so cheerfully swept in to help him with aided with a thoughtless flick of her wand seemed overly funny tonight. He offered the lighter over wordlessly, taking another long gulp from his wine bottle and let his tongue get the better of him. “They’ve tried,” he offered humorlessly, examining a hand before him and marvelling at how such a wonder of recreated tissue could prove so utterly useless when it had seemed so easy for Charity and Ginny both. “Apparently the muggle way of life doesn’t much agree with me.”

Or you don’t want it to, something murmured in the back of his head.

Stubbornly, he ignored it. He didn’t need any grand insights from the peanut gallery tonight.

If he had to put a type of dog to the Weasleys, Ted would have said lassie. He didn’t know much about dogs. Creatures, sure. Took a class on that a million years ago but dogs weren’t really covered by Kettleburn’s curriculum. The tiny thing in front him looked more at home in a Diagon Alley window than the vast fields full of who-knows-what that surrounded the Burrow. Didn’t he get lost in the house under a pile of knitting? 

With the hand not bringing the stashed cigarette to his lips, Ted reached out to pet the rather friendly pup. “What are you doing all the way back here? Looking to bum one?” For the first time in days, it felt like his smile was finally reaching his eyes. Maybe the Ministry could learn a thing or two about animal therapy from the muggles if it worked like this. If the dog’s ears hadn’t perked up at the clattering and clanging coming from the shed next to them, Ted still would have noticed it. The sudden noise had him landing on his arse with a quiet groan and glaring at the shed as if it was the structure’s fault he was sitting on branches and twigs now. Well, it was it’s fault. Just what he needed bruises on both his front and back after the day’s earlier crashing into Mols’ sitting room.

Was that cursing? Ted had thought with the amount of collectables Arthur had stuffed away things fell in there all the time. There were towers tall enough in there to rival the charity shops. He shot a conspiratorial look to the dog, who seemed curious enough despite the disturbance, and sighed. “You’re right. Let’s go check it out.” 

Slowly Ted rose to his feet and brushed himself off, managing to get most of the debris off of his pants before he followed his small new friend around the corner to go investigate. Would Arthur and Molly mind if he borrowed the dog for a few hours? Pet sitting? Surely they’d need a pet sitter, right? For a date night? You can’t have a date night while worrying about what your pet was getting up to.

In the midst of his musings, the door to the shed opened slowly. Really slowly. Terribly suspiciously slowly. With one last drag the cigarette was stowed behind his back once again and, not thinking any action through, Ted choked on the smoke at the sight of Fabian. He had known it wasn’t Molly in there, for Merlin’s sakes, but catching Fabian at the scene of the crime was a surprise. And it was a crime, wasn’t it? Ted’s thoughts had gone to the twins George first then Ginny and then down the line of Weasley children in order of trouble to well behaved (Charlie only coming in last due to being out of the country). 

Stumbling back and, really losing any amount of leverage he had at discovering an obviously guilty party, Ted tried his best to look accusatory in Fabian’s direction in the midst of his coughing fit. It was the look of false innocence that had tipped him off. He knew that look. He’d seen it time and time again on more than just his best friend’s face. Guilty as ever. “Whatever you’re doing with whatever you’re hiding is a bad idea and you know it.”

Of all the fucking people.

It seemed that the universe had a hell of a penchant for throwing rogue bludgers his way lately, but to put Ted in his path two days in a row (and was it still considered a suckerpunch the second time around? Surely he was supposed to have learnt something from yesterday’s encounter.) seemed cruel beyond measure. Not now. Not fucking now.

His breath caught at the back of his throat, guilty smile frozen in place as he hovered behind the door to the shed like it might shield him from Ted’s powers of perception and endless moral backbone. Except even a smile could be seen through now, all his powers of persuasion lost in the breath it took for Ted to inform him of his guilt before he’d even started his excuses.

Excuses had always been Gideon’s department.

“I’m not doing anything,” he lied, sniffing dismissively and turning in the doorway to better hide the shovels behind his back before levering the door further open and accusing, “You’re hiding from Molly.”

Because if in doubt, he could always depend on Ted’s innately Hufflepuffian need to never ever get himself into trouble without someone else to lead him into it. Molly had always made an excellent authority figure. “You know she’ll smell it from a mile off. Nose like a bloodhound our Molls.”

The comment was accompanied by a fond smile, as if nothing made him prouder, before he swung the door to the shed open in earnest, poised ever so carefully in its shadow. Betsy, dependable as ever, loped inside to sniff at his boots and Fabian tipped his head in invitation, as if Arthur’s treasure trove of bewildering obsessions was an inviting prospect. “You know, I think I saw your name on a few of these tools. Arthur’s always had sticky fingers.”

Entirely oblivious to the irony of the accusation, he hummed, rocking on his heels and nudged at Betsy with his knee in lieu of a free hand as she whined for attention. “Are you coming in or not? I’ve been looking for,” he hesitated for only a moment before offering, “Gnome bait. Molly’s been on at me about filling in the Gnome holes.”

Really, Benjy should’ve known better. He’d been on edge for the last two weeks since coming back to life, and he had to stop tackling people he knew with hugs - especially when those people were unprepared. Benjy had left the world in a dark state of war, and returned when everything seemed fine. It was difficult to get out of the soldier’s mentality - sleeping with one eye open, suspicious of anything that moved funny. The world moved with ease now, nobody seeming to worry about darkness that might be lingering around any corner. But those who had left the world in that state…it would take time to adjust to not only having been dead, but to this cautious peace.

If he kept tackling people with hugs, it was only a matter of time before he got punched in the face on instinct. 

A breath that Benjy didn’t know he’d been holding at the familiarity of Fabian’s voice. Everything was new and strange….but this was safe, this felt normal even if it were just for a moment. “God, its just…so good to see you,” Benjy looked over his friend once more. He’d truly grieved for Fabian and Gideon….really, it was after their violent deaths that Benjy had started to get more reckless in his attempts to take down Voldemort. Perhaps it was him seeking justice and seeing reckless desperate action as the only way forward, or perhaps it was the knowledge that if wizards such as they could be taken down then they were all doomed and he wanted to take as many of those bastards with him as possible.

It seemed he’d achieved neither.

“I’m not surprised that you didn’t….well. It wasn’t pretty…the ministry records show that they never found my body. Just….just enough to identify me. I didn’t go long after you two based on their records…” Benjy swallowed a lump of emotion as his tears stung again. The knowledge of the fact they’d only ever found parts of him hurt - his family had never been able to have a proper funeral, they’d known of the pain he’d experienced as he died but never what had happened to him or his body. 

Benjy’s chest grew tight at the sight of Fabian alone. Perhaps Gideon was just back at home - surely the world wouldn’t be so cruel as to bring back one brother without the other? “Just yesterday. I came for an ice cream, but….even that’s not here any more. Is Gideon…is Gid here?”

It was a shock to the system, seeing Benjy’s face just as he remembered him. He’d been so adrift, lately, lost in a sea of faces that were changed or unfamiliar, that felt like they belonged to another person’s life, that Benjy knocked the breath right out of him, he choked on something like laughter as he squeezed a little harder and hoped that Benjy would forgive him for the sentimentality. It was a strange new world out there, these days.

“I admit,” he breathed out as he pulled back, the gory bits and pieces of Benjy’s end laid out for him to digest, “I don’t think I’ve had the heart to go looking,” his eyes surveyed the damage, Benjy’s gleaming eyes and the strained smile, “Who do I even ask? I can’t make Molls and Arthur go through all of that again. I feel like I’m reopening old wounds every time I mention anyone’s name.”

“I’m sorry, Benj,” he finally offered, because someone should say it, and perhaps he at least had this to give, “It’s not — we shouldn’t have to live with that. With the memories.” 

Nobody should discover that their end had meant nothing to the world they’d fought so hard for.

“I’m sure they’d be wonderful. They’d rival the weird sisters for sure….I’m sure they’d be a big hit, it just may take several years to get them to that point,” Luna chuckled. Ghouls were notoriously difficult - although they could be good fun. “Dad got the ministry to remove the ghoul that lived in our attic as it interfered with his writing….I’ve never quite forgiven him for that.”

Luna tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing her sparklingly blue earrings. “I always have a little bit of blue on me to show my house pride, even now. Am I to take it you’re an alumni of our wonderful house too? It’s a wonder I hadn’t seen you around….” Luna pondered that for a moment, eyes focusing on Fabian instead of the stream she was wading into as she wondered precisely how old this man was. He couldn’t be that much older than her - but there was just something about him. “I’ve been to one. I’d have gone to more, but I’ve been out of the country for quite a while….I’m hoping to get a season ticket now though so I can go to every game. She’s brilliant, really…she was brilliant at school and she’s even better now.”

She liked Fabian. He had the right sort of spirit - not many people would have agreed to accompany her, never mind wade straight in and start picking up frogs. “If it does start to rain I can transfigure you a coat or something,” Luna offered, wanting him to know she wouldn’t just abandon him to the dark clouds overhead. “He does!” Luna declared excitedly at the spark of recognition. “He used to run it with my mother, but now he’s the sole editor. I write for it sometimes, it’s stronger than it’s ever been.”

The journalist in Luna was telling her that she should try and weave some questions into this little outing, maybe try and gain a greater understanding of what sort of lives the returned led. Even if it wasn’t for the Quibbler, then just for herself. The small bundle of hope that Pandora might come back seemed to have grown even further just by virtue of Fabian being here. He was a casualty of the first war…he’d died long before her mother had, ten years in fact. It seemed that the length of death no longer seemed to matter - and that was dangerous, truly dangerous, for the hope that was bubbling within her.

But that felt like something of a betrayal to the little adventure that they were on. Fabian had agreed to frog catching, not an interview. And so frog catching it would remain. “And I’m very pleased to meet you, Fabian - soon to be my co-discoverer of the wonderful moon frog.” Luna moved a little further down the stream so that they were covering a good amount of ground between them, soft mud gathering around her feet as she turned over the second frog that she’d caught. Far, far too dark to be a moon frog.

“Oh certainly not! My poor ears couldn’t take Celestina Warbeck…Molly’s still rather fond of Celestina. It’s perhaps the one thing that could keep me away from the Burrow,” Luna confessed, reaching her net down into the bed of the stream once more. “Think of it like this - a normal frog has quite a low, deep ribbit. But the moon frog is much higher, maybe even a little squeaky. It’s like they’re ribbiting out a tune…like this,” Luna turned to Fabian, demonstrating what she assumed was the ribbit of a moon frog with all the seriousness in the world.

Plucking out another frog from her net, Luna turned the frog over. “Oh!” She exclaimed, wading back towards Fabian. “Look…his belly has white spots,” she turned him a little so that the small bit of sunlight that was breaking through the clouds could hit it. “Do you think that’s a shimmer?”

And while Fabian had certain misgivings about his ghoulish roommate and his seeming discontent with Fabian’s chosen living quarters, he couldn’t imagine asking to have it removed. There was, as Luna said, a certain character that ghouls brought to a home. Usually aggravation, he supposed, but sometimes noise was precisely what you wanted when the silence was growing far too loud.

“Oh,” he smiled broadly, “Once a Ravenclaw always a Ravenclaw. I imagine the door knocker still has fond memories of me all these years later,” the exasperation it had greeted his answers to its riddles with had only escalated over his Hogwarts career. Fabian had, admittedly, enjoyed arguing with it perhaps more than he should have. He smiled fondly to himself, determined to focus on something less troubling than the day of the month and finding a happy distraction in Luna’s cheerful admission of how brilliant a flyer his niece was.

She was good company, at that. Happily filling the empty spaces of conversation with information about The Quibbler and promises to not leave him out in the cold if it were to rain. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he quite liked the rain anyway when she was determinedly being so kind.

And perhaps today they’d make a grand discovery or perhaps he’d keep pulling up — well, frogs instead of frog princes — but there was something about the cold water numbing his feet and the mud squishing between his toes that was deeply satisfying in the midst of an existential crisis. 

“She’s always been rather fond of Celestina,” he replied with comically raised eyebrows to emphasise his feelings on the matter, “Drove me and Gid half mad, some days. Gid once—”

His tongue stuck fast to the roof of his mouth suddenly, clamming up as his thoughts drifted rapidly from the past to the present and he focused his attention sharply on the net in his hand, gently skimming it through the reeds at the edges of the stream. Perhaps she wouldn’t notice if he simply changed the subject.

Luckily, Luna seemed to have an uncanny ability to know precisely when to do something utterly absurd, because she turned to him, chattering happily about the musical stylings of Moon Frogs and abruptly ribbited at him. He stared, blinking rapidly as if he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened, before a smile broke wide across his face.

“Of course,” he replied, as if anyone would expect anything other than the odd display he’d just witnessed, and turned his attention to the frog caught in her net as she waded towards him to point out the spots on its belly.

He squinted down at the patches, debating whether that was a shimmer or just the reflection of water off its wet belly. “Maybe a glimmer,” he offered after a moment of staring hard at the slow wriggling of the poor frog under their heavy scrutiny, “Shall we give it a poke and see if it sings?”