long live the golden days

Once in his apartment, he moved a stack of history timelines on the kitchen by his bay window, then moving to a shiny countertop and reaching up to get the tea out of the glass paned cabinets. Anthony’s advances, profits, and royalties let him save enough money to take out a loan and get an apartment in one of the nicer places in Muggle London without a problem. Thinking the mortgage, however, made him sigh. Math was never his forte. He carefully measured out tea into cups with his back facing towards her, pointing at the table for her to sit. “I would be dead if I couldn’t remember your favorite tea. Anyway, what did I miss? What’s going on in your world?”

a mandy and anthony moodboard

       “Is it bad that your creepy, elderly Catholic priestly words made me feel a little better?”                Lisa took a deep breath then, forcing herself to speak when she exhaled.                                      To give him answers. To talk. 

“After the war, I know we all had … some sort of issue, you know? Battle scars, I suppose they say. But, there had been other things before then. I’d always eat a lot and then try to exercise to make up for it, you know I’m always running around, Rowena, I hike in dresses,” she hated how she sounded then but tried to push away the thought. It was enough that she was doing something she had only DREAMED of doing for years, truthfully it was something she had to practice for years as well. “I’m always doing something – but a n y w a y s, after then, I just had no energy. I was, er, depressed, technically and everything just spiraled out of control. Everything was just so out of control, Anthony. I started making myself … purge? I’m not sure if you know what that is but, I felt really ashamed. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I pushed Terry away. I pushed Padma away, I tried pushing everyone away. I was horrible to all of you.” 

“I didn’t spend the winter holidays at home, I was at Hogsmeade, drinking, Just doing things I never thought I’d be doing.” In fact everything that had happened had been a blur of casual encounters, drugs, and not so delicately chipping off parts of herself for no apparent reason. “I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I didn’t want to hurt you. When I got word I was accepted into the Unspeakable training, I had only realized it’d been FOUR months. Rowena, I’n just mumbling, but, then we were all off in our different lives and I had this thing gnawing at me that I was trying to ignore.” Throughout those years, she’d just tried to live in tandem with her disorder – she’d accepted it as part of her, and in exchange for letting the monster sink a little deeper into her, she got some control. “Then, I almost got suspended from training. They told me I needed to get help. Treatment. Something.”

“I’m sorry. Those all just sound like excuses, but I’m sorry for doing what I did.” It weighed on her bones, the feeling of SORRY, it weighed her down with guilt. “I’m trying to show you how sorry I am, by talking to you about it. I pushed you away too in all of this, and you don’t have to forgive me, but just know that I’m sorry.”

He listened steadily as Lisa’s voice wavered uncertainly, quickly switching from rambling to slower, well phrased sentences. Lisa was only like this when she was frazzled, or nervous. She had no reason to be scared of him, but now he double checked himself. He hadn’t done anything wrong, had he? His mind clouded.

“Lisa. Lisa.” He echoed, noticing that he had said her name softer the second time. “I don’t know. What to say.” He admitted. Anthony hadn’t suffered to the extent Lisa did. Out of all of them, he was blessed, fate letting him off the hook at a time he needed a free pass the most. The fact that he had not suffered made him guilty. He could act like he had been through the same things as them, as her, for Merlin’s sake, but he hadn’t. His pain was nothing compared to hers. He had written it all away before it had the chance to greatly impact him. He had a brief month of depression and three months of mild PTSD, but now he only woke up in the middle of the night from nightmares, drenched in a nervous sweat. Occasionally, his left hand twitched, but not enough that it bothered him. As long as he kept it moving, it was fine, and according to the doctors, would eventually go away. It couldn’t compare.

At the mention of her running, his shoulders visibly drooped. There was a freedom to her once, but now it was gone, as if somebody had taken back the chains tied around her arms, pulling her to them. But every chain had a lock. Money, alcohol, drugs, they were all Lisa’s probable captors.

Every lock had a key. Anthony would have worn himself thin to the opposite ends of the earth to get a hint at where it could be.

“I know what purging is. I know that eating disorders are real.” He quietly felt himself sink into his body. This confession was surprising, but was it really? Lisa wouldn’t have left him for now reason. He meant something to her, whatever she thought it was. So you’re an unspeakable in training now. Look at how much of your life I’ve missed.” And I missed being in it. “They’re right, you know. There’s nothing wrong with admitting for help.” In most cases, Anthony would have disagreed, but this was different this wasn’t something she needed to face alone.

“You’re sorry? Why do you need to tell me that?” He said, a little confused, and even less bitter. “You need to take care of yourself. I’m happy you were gone, if that’s the reason. I just-” He looked at her, shutting his eyes shut for a brief moment. No. Now was not a good time for a mood swing. Since Lisa’s departure, they had come back. His mood swings, well, he didn’t really know what they were, never put him in a bad mood, no, it was different. It was specific to one person, too. He had tried everything to stop it, but nothing worked. “Shit.” He looked down at the ground, tapping his foot. “I-” Do not look at her. Don’t do it or you’ll regret it. You’ll screw it up. His mind screamed, looming over his manic figure. It was too early for this. The swelling of want in his gut made his breathing quicken. His pulse completely changed in mere seconds. He couldn’t explain what was going on. He wanted what he couldn’t have. This wasn’t normal. People didn’t feel like this about others. It was unnatural, the flush of feelings startled him. He waited it out, thinking about anything but the person sitting next to him. That would only stroke the flames crackling inside.The entire change only lasted thirty seconds, and it could have easily been mistaken for a stutter or pause. “My bad. That was weird. I don’t think it’ll happen again.” Or, at least not in her presence. 

“I’m glad you’re recovering. I missed having you around, Lisa. You’re like... a routine. I kind of find it hard to work when you’re not around. It’s unnatural.” He admitted. He wanted to find a cure. To help her feel better. He could smell Honeydukes’ famous chocolate as if he was in the store. But what did feel natural, however, is when he put a hand on her shoulder, meeting her gaze eye to eye. “I was worried about you, that’s all.” Even to him, his voice sounded weaker, not as confident and at ease anymore.

Michael quickly oriented to the small corner near a bay window where the other boy sat, tucked off to the side in the little shop. He’d been inside the building a few times before but his penchant for coffee usually led Michael to frequent Roasted’s rustic interior instead of the more ornately decorated tea shop. “Oi, Ant. Good to see you mate,” Michael said with a smile, patting his friend on the back as he passed him and slid into his chair. He found the old style of wooden seat a little stiff for his liking, but managed to worm his way into the spot well enough to allow his long legs to leak out one side of the table. “Say - do you order at the front or do they come round? I wasn’t thinking when I came in, but I think a pot of Earl Grey would hit the spot. Are you having anything? Or have you already been here a while?”

“Don’t worry, you’re quite alright. The Earl Grey is nice here.” He said. “I’m going to put the order in once I figure out if I want Darjeeling or mint, if that’s okay.” He pondered it over in the back of his mind as the front focused on the conversation at hand. “How’s your training?” He had heard from word of mouth what Michael was up to these days- he seemed to be quite the popular man among their friends. “I’m assume it’s very strenuous. Difficult. And you’re handling it well?” 

“One day you’re going to blow us all away, and I’ll be the only one who knew it was going to happen.” Mora said suddenly, looking up at Anthony as from her position on his couch. The words had come out of nowhere but she truly believed them. Mora had a problem with saying whatever came into her head.

Percy took Anthony’s offer and sat down, giving a pleasant smile. Although it was pulling up a lot of baggage—as was most social interactions for Percy recently, as much as he’d prefer to pretend otherwise—this was one of the better conversations he had in a while, and he’d like to continue it. He mulled Anthony’s question over for a minute, and opened his mouth to speak, the words coming out a bit slowly as he tried to determine how best to phrase this.

“I…don’t have anything else I’m good at, really. I imagine I could get an entry level job at a different company, and perhaps I’d make it one or two promotions up, but I don’t…I’m not smart.”

That was a blunt way of putting it, but in the bottom of his heart, Percy believed it to be true. “I don’t have a special talent like my siblings have. I convinced myself to fall in love with the prospect of the Ministry because I had nothing else going for me, really. As a child, I was the son that ‘behaved’, but that was really about it. This job is all I know.”

A thought tugged at the back of his mind, and before he could stop it, he blurted it out in full. “Besides, all I really want is to be approved of. That’s what most people want, isn’t it? Having all of the most important men and women in the wizarding nation respect me would be…validating.

“I know that I still dream of being minister one day, although I’ve settled for even the idea of having a stablet department to work in. On days I actually feel somewhat good about myself, I come up with plans for laws and legislation that I could at least propose to Kingsley, but I almost always end up trashing it. I would say I’ve lost passion, but it’s not just limited to my job. The idea of keeping up my life like this just feels…exhausting.”

Anthony himself was a reckless child, not like Percy was. He could easily imagine Percy as the willing child to any of his parent’s requests. Anthony was nothing like that as a kid, but his parents still loved him all the same.