Location: Hogsmeade Time: 10pm, December 31st Status: Closed, for @a-glasshalfempty
The letter was unopened. Not even taken off the window sill where Maxwell had probably left it. And Edgar felt his shoulders tensing. “Fabian?” he called into the apartment.
The New Year should be celebrated with friends. I’ll be back for a few nights. Care to join Carrie and me at The Green Lion? We’d love to have you there but understand if you’re otherwise busy.
Love, Edgar
Him being otherwise busy would’ve been fine indeed. But no response? “Fabian?” he tried again. None.
He checked the time. Barely night. Perhaps he was at work? So Edgar went to find the Knight Bus, and when Fabian wasn’t there he went back home, assuming that perhaps they had just missed each other. Both of those distances were done by foot, the next by apparating. Usually he wasn’t a great apparator, his mind never quite focused enough to not make it too dangerous. Tonight it worked almost too easily.
The first pub was crowded but without Fabian. The next entirely empty. The third -- Edgar didn’t even pay attention, gaze just jumping from face to face to find the one that mattered right now. Fabian was a grown adult, with a proper life of his own, so logically there was no reason to worry. And yet. Something -- something -- kept Edgar tensing up more and more with each new place he checked. Eventually he made his way to Gideon’s apartment. Perhaps Edgar should’ve told the other twin more of the reason why he was here, but for an inexplicable reason he held back. What mattered was that Fabian was neither with Gideon, nor at home with his family.
Mattered in an urgent, uncomfortable way. By the time he remembered Fabian mentioned a pub he loved in Hogsmeade, the clock towers all over London were chiming nine. He made it to The Green Lion, for once evading the owner without even noticing it, and floo-powdered himself up to Scotland. The mood was cheerful there, Wizards from all over Great Britain had come to celebrate together, away from the eyes of Muggles and back in the company of old school friends and familiar pubs, evoking nostalgic memories for them.
Edgar was about to push himself through yet another pub door, when the tiniest tug on his fingers had him pause. He followed the direction of the tug and froze. Froze despite feeling terribly warm from the quick walking and franticness of his heartbeats. Froze because of the crumbled body by the side of the pub, falling in onto himself and almost buried between the snow below and the newly falling one from above. Froze because there was no relief taking over the fear at all.
Carefully, he crouched down before Fabian, hesitating. “Fabian?” he asked, forcing his hands out of his pockets and loosening the fists so he could reach out. One of them found Fabian’s jaw, lifting his face up to him. “Queriño?”
