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Chapter Text

His eyes were dimmed with tears, and, looking humbly up to heaven, he wept for the innocence he had lost.

James Joyce

Hector Fawley reclined in the seat of power, the office of the Chief of Magical Law Enforcement wrapping him like a shroud.

At twenty, he brimmed with reckless arrogance only youth bestowed.

Right now, though, he was frazzled. Gaze locked on one of the Aurors in his charge, daring defiance.

This one, again: the girl formerly known as MC.

After seventh year, she'd taken the name Cara Morganach and entered the force, a bright young star. Gleaming even brighter with a letter of recommendation from Professor Sharp.

Of course, the tale that'd made her a celebrity? That never-expiring credit for felling Ranrok the Industrious? It'd all but clinched it.

She should've been another cog on the payroll, another bitter child prodigy coming to terms with their unremarkable final form. But her solved case count shattered ceilings.

They whispered she'd ascend, take titles like trinkets. Probably snag his own mantle, next. 

Not that Hector cherished the title. It was a bullet point in his five year plan, (namely, become a department head). Yes, despite having been carefully timed and fetched by cunning connections, the position was merely a rung on his ladder.

Nevertheless, it gilded him the youngest Chief to play this dirty game. Chief today, Minister tomorrow.

And the new fifth-year couldn't be allowed to derail that ascent.

At one time, he'd seen a peer in her. A rival, even. Sitting here, a cruel, lubricious flower bloomed in his stomach.

Her calm face continued its silent mockery: a still pond, showing only a reflection of how inept she'd made him seem. 

Fury crawling toward fever under Hector's skin, he couldn't let the silence choke him any longer.

"Having a little difficulty… well, a lot of difficulty seeing how someone as strong-willed as you allows such a colossal fuck-up. It was your case. I picked you."

Cara sat, her face stony. For the first time since she'd been called in here, twenty minutes ago now, her boss actually seemed to be waiting for her to speak.

But he'd also just made the path forward abundantly clear: choose your words even more carefully than usual. For the Chief loved to brandish strong-willed like a curse.

A whip to crack any woman he suspected might climb higher than where he sat on his laurels.

"I didn't allow it, you know that. They disobeyed me. Your favorites."

Hector's eyes rolled. His neck twisting toward the doorway, where ghosts of higher consequence than he would soon gather.

"Save it for the other department heads. A man is dead; I can't bear to look at you."

Yet, as they settled around the dark wood of the conference table, his stare drilled into her anyway. Nostrils flaring with swallowed ire.

Before him: his wand laying sheathed beside a gold-plated pen. One idle instrument of power ready for each of those clasped hands.

Cara's mind wandered to the others. Specifically Mulciber Junior and Nott, the real culprits back in Buckinghamshire's bloody chaos.

Two louts, likely guzzling firewhisky during their lunch hour. And raising not a single toast to their dead comrade.

Edwin Noke. Barely more than a collection of briefings, the occasional shared silence.

Still, his death pressed on her. Grew heavier with every sigh from Hector, every venomous glance that pinned her to an invisible cross.

There was no clemency to beg for. Not only would the Chief see her crucified, he'd take to it like a connoisseur. Sampling every twist of nail and bone.

Her wand had kept the Muggles rooted, Confunded, waiting for Obliviators.

And after, it'd been her face flashbulbs captured making arrests, asking press to leave while Healers knelt over the deceased. Being ignored, of course.

As Nott and Mulciber Junior had abandoned the scene, returned to the Ministry in the gap, they couldn't vouch for the tragedy that'd required excessive force.

But even if they hadn't run, even if they were anything close to real brothers-in-arms, they still wouldn't incriminate themselves.

She recited her testimony for the tribunal. From the length of the morning queue for coffee to the steps of the undercover routine. Who'd played what role and why. The rationale, Hector’s rationale, for putting her in charge. 

As the clerks tied up her portion, someone spoke out of turn. A trainee from the Academy, announcing that they'd recovered Noke's heart in a field, half a kilometer from the blast site:

"In case the record needed it." 

His supervisor hushed him, but it'd already landed.

Wizengamot clerks scribbling the detail into their margins; Hector burying a sigh in his hand. The gavel banging. 

It didn't sting for too long. For the part that truly mattered, Cara as well as the trainee and the aides were pulled from the room. 

She found herself in the Atrium, the great engine of the Ministry humming around her.

Eyes on the fountain's arc, willing herself to believe the water meant she was not, in fact, ablaze.

After those fiery jaws of conflict were doused and the powers that be vanished, Hector slunk back, papers in his fists.

Calm washed over him as would a bad cologne: arresting enough to draw attention to anxiety's funk, but not to mask it. 

"Well, thanks to you, I'm about to be considered the most neutered man at the Ministry. A gelded pony, if you will."

Silence was a shield. Not even her eyelids could twitch.

"…because evidently, we're releasing some of Azkaban's best-behaved. I thought it was a joke. Spavin says it'll make Magical Law Enforcement look thoughtful. Less impulsive."

Spitting that last like an epithet, cracking pistachios. A small mountain range of shells forming across the desk. As it so often did, when Hector learned nepotism wouldn't free him from the realities of his post.

Cara's sigh was instinctive. She'd grown used to these telltale moments in limbo, of his fury ebbing away. Customarily, she used the time to think.

While releases from Azkaban were unheard of, those in power had been rattled to their core. Stony vultures across the table, weighing their options, eviscerating her in each pause.

Hector was cross-examined first. And had been unable to answer most of the questions without her help. He'd been Chief for a year, yet no one seemed shocked by how much he floundered.

Her turn came, and she'd nodded along. Taken their reprimands on the chin. Pretended she hadn't already memorized every line of her oath years ago, and that their interpretations of her having flouted it weren't redundant.

Said she was gravely sorry, that her record showed she was an Officer of laudable conduct otherwise. And that she would do anything necessary to retain her post.

When given the option to make a statement on her behalf, Hector stated that she had put it well enough already and waived his time. 

It'd still been enough, it seemed. For Minister Faris Spavin and his staff in the signature hats. Even if it wasn't enough for Hector, and obviously nowhere near enough for herself.

"I did all I could," she maintained through clenched teeth. "Talk to Nott and Mulciber. Maybe they'll admit, now that they can't be suspended, that I didn't authorize any of that."

Hector scoffed from behind a folder.

"Like I said, and the council agreed, mind you, it was your case. And you're on suspension for today, too." A verdict all its own. "Report early tomorrow. That's all I need from you."

Finality thudded: his feet propped up on the mahogany. One more unyielding edict in their world.

Cara's footsteps echoed down the corridor, the only tether as dissociation took her under.

She knew this debacle would haunt her. She'd neither forget nor forgive; the Chief would see to the first, and her conscience the second.

When the light of day washed over her, Cara stopped briefly. Something loose in her jacket, knocking her rib.

The badge, still hers. Light in her palm, yet it'd hung heavier than ever against her heart.

The day bled out. Ministry to streets to store, everything smeared together in a technicolor headache.

Muggles brushed past, cotton shoulders sometimes catching hers. Today, their ignorance was truly bliss. No arguing it.

Gamp's Grocers. Chief among her purchases was a bottle of brandy, gleaming as it met the counter in her Ministry-issued flat.

The kind with four walls of institutional beige, and furniture that remembered better days under different owners.

Water ran cold before Cara stepped out of the bath, skin prickling as she belted her dressing gown.

In the spartan living room, rusty hinges screamed as she wrenched the window open.

London's breath rushed in. Carrying the perfume of rain-slicked asphalt, takeaway curry from three floors below.

Then came her owl.

Her hand moved automatically, expecting another of Hector's demands: more pistachios to fetch, more shirts to press, more to remind her she was beneath him.

It was familiar, but it wasn't Fawley.

Magic had lined the page in neat grooves. Preparation for the mark of a blind man's wand, guiding a quill through darkness.

Breathing sharply through her nose, she read:

Cara read it over again, felt her thumb smudge the still-wet ink.

Let it stain her skin, unprovoked but potent, like guilt put away.

"Sallow. Stand."

Sebastian's breath tasted of a lack of sleep.

Another guard, another command scraping against the walls of his skull. 

Most days he couldn't summon the energy to care. Faces blurred, voices became interchangeable. All dissolving into a gray so thick it could be chewed, spat, chewed again.

Only the absence of Dementors gave him any cause to note differences between guards. 

Still, when years slipped through and not past, routine was its own captor. And against monochrome stone and fog, the novelty of strangers was indeed that.

This fellow was new. Or maybe not. The words crawled past cracked lips,

"Where am I headed?"

He liked to imagine the question sounded casual, almost bored. That it belied his small, twitching current of hope. 

Because prisoners were shuffled every so often.

Maybe there'd be better light for reading, wherever they took him next. Or even a tiny, barred-off window to gently remind him of sunlight on skin.

But he wouldn't be too optimistic.

The guard’s cigarette snaked smoke through the air, a pale, palsied thing. His wand a steady punctuation.

"Processing."

A word that curled in Sebastian’s ear, too frail to hold its own meaning.

What little sense he could muster fluttered, paper-winged and desperate, against the certainty that nothing good came from it. 

Processing was for hearings, and his next appeal was in 1905.

Despite lacking any clock or sunset, even he knew they were still in the nineteenth century.

Must've heard wrong. Must be the isolation finally threading lies through his ears.

The joke was always on the hopeful, after all.

"Am I moving units?"

Blink. The guard yawned.

"No, you're processing, out of the prison. Good behavior. Orders of the Minister. I don't know more than that, I'm just following the form."

Sebastian's eyes went wide, dull as copper pennies left too long in the rain.

He wondered, not for the first time, if the mind could rot. If isolation was a fungus that cannibalized what was real.

Whatever its shape, the darkness was finally cracking open his skull, feasting on the white matter inside.

Something like laughter clawed up, more rust than mirth, more broken machinery than voice. 

He didn't know this guard, hadn't given him reason to concoct this ruse. But in Azkaban cruelty was a native species, feeding on what little hope Dementors left behind. It needed no invitation.

And so:

"Don't fuck with me," words not so much spoken as exhumed, against the fear of a false dawn. "I've got life."

But the guard's face remained stone, the same grey as the fortress. His gaze consulted parchment in a weathered hand. Smoke wreathed that bald head in a malign halo as he read: 

"Are you indeed Sebastian M. Sallow, born 30 May of 1874?"

Blinking, he felt the grit in his eyes, the memory of a sun that cut more than it warmed.

This had gone on too long. It had to be a lucid dream; the mind staging a jailbreak while the body rotted. Soon the stone would return, the measured breathing, as it all shattered against the morning's teeth. 

That interim dread was familiar by now. Cradled each time, until the grinding arrival of apathy brought him back to accepting walls as family, darkness as lover.

Sebastian decided now, as he had so many times, to surrender to the dream. If madness was coming, let it be thorough. Let him dance with it, cheek to cheek.

"I am."

The guard shrugged, brandished his wand. No more questions would be allowed. 

"Turn around, hands behind your back. By the way… as of midnight it's the 30th, so happy birthday, man."

Words that struck bone-deep. Sebastian let the moment press against him, cold and intimate, uncertain whether it was meant to wound or to heal, or if it mattered.

Then turned, hands presented, and let himself be led away.

Birthday wishes in Azkaban. 

What a cruel joke, or beautiful truth, once upon a dream.

Officer Morganach had worked cases in both Hangletons before.

Great Hangleton with its crooked towers, stones that remembered Merlin himself. Bounded on the south by Little Hangleton, which on paper was a nonmagical village.

That distinction was key; House Gaunt claimed Great Hangleton as an official seat, but enjoyed enough standoffishness from Aurors to muddle boundaries.

And so Muggles walked dogs, pushed children on swings and picked blackberries in summer. Unaware of arcanum seeping through, of the deadly black mold between their foundations.

Thankfully, measures had been taken: beyond the tombstones, where Little Hangleton's neat edges dissolved, they saw only empty fields. 

For Cara, trees rose. Black trunks twisting against a starless sky.

An ancient wood's mouth with crooked teeth, fungi pulsing frail light in the gaps.  

Wandlight cutting through as leaves crackled beneath her boots, the ground whispering in tongues better left forgotten.

As a rule, she'd passed leads bearing the name Gaunt to her peers. Writing in conflict of interest. A safe truth no one had questioned, in an office full of men addicted to proving themselves. 

They were always humbled. Reports described the family fighting like cornered wolves when detained. Curses both magical and mundane endlessly spilling from their lips.

Only codes written in blood, in which Aurors were crushed as swiftly as Muggles and Blood traitors, were followed by the lot of them. 

Except one, waiting somewhere in this darkness.

And though Cara wasn't here as an Auror tonight, she knew the training betrayed her in every step.

Somewhere in the gloom, unfriendly eyes might recognize the rigid spine, the practiced grip. 

The thought settled cold between her shoulders before being interrupted by her target: a shack born from shadow, drowning in ivy, impossible to miss.

Just as he'd said.

It was decay made manifest, warped boards and jagged splinters spilling across the porch. Through grimy windows, a single light guttered.

Her heart knew Ominis had never embraced his family's ways. Among the first words he'd ever said to her had been a rejection of everything the Gaunts stood for. 

Still, her voice came out hard, professional, against the dark:

"Auror Office, show me your hands."

Wood creaked beneath feet as Ominis emerged from shadow. His black suit, a slice of deeper darkness, illuminated his pallor against the night.

Particularly the raised hands.

The surrender of a Gaunt who'd chosen a different path.

Milky eyes, keen as morning fog, found her own without seeing as he turned, slow and ginger.

"I should have expected this, asking you to meet here." Voice carrying the same careful respect as his movements. "But it's just me. Inside, please."

Though serpentine whispers could be heard as floorboards protested beneath her feet, Cara approached the hearth, where Ominis' dying fire painted shadows on stone. 

Its flames were weak, like everything else in this place. Except him.

And her, or so she'd thought. 

"I'm sorry for assuming you weren't alone. My day… well, my whole week has been hell."

Ominis kept his eyes closed. "I can imagine. Based on the verbiage in the Prophet, you've eaten a lot of crow."

"I don't read it anymore," she confessed, hearing her own defensive rasp and taking a breath. "What is this place?"

"Just another relic, though I don't think we'll have it safely for long."

Cara's eyes found a shed snakeskin on the rotting table.

"Why is that?"

His throat cleared.

"My parents have friends in Azkaban. On impulse, I lifted something from their post at the Manor. But I expect they'll be coming to look for the thief."

Cara's breath caught, and she sounded sterner than she'd have liked. "Why would you risk such a thing?"

Ominis shook his head, a muscle jumping in his jaw. "It's not me you should be worried about."

Even five years later, it felt strange seeing him without that flash of Slytherin green. That black suit absorbing the firelight as he reached into his pocket. Purposeful rustling. 

In that feeble light, her eyes took a moment to focus on the bold, stocky serif. The seal indicating it was never meant to be seen by private citizens.

And especially not the likes of the Gaunts. 

Though Ominis had underlined the name in the list that followed, he needn't have bothered.

It punched through her defenses, dragged her back to younger days. When innocence and sin walked hand in hand.

Cara's heart slammed against her ribs, meat on bone as she admitted to the floor:

"I just thought of him this morning, and I wasn't sure why." 

"Perhaps because he turns twenty-one tomorrow."

Nostalgia and disquiet blending as he stowed the list in a pocket and crossed his arms.

A gesture that, in general, passed unmarked. But right now felt darkly, achingly reminiscent. 

Ominis pressed his lips together.

"I won't waste valuable time by skirting around the point. I'm worried he'll come for me."

Cara had nothing to say. Her stomach rolled, chest compressing as if she was being buried. 

Sebastian's life sentence had been their doing, she and Ominis, that frozen January night. 

She'd buried the memory in that lightless corner of her mind where shame bred and multiplied. Where she never dared look if she could help it. 

Ominis shifted. A man cracking, drowning in air.

Asking softly with narrow eyes, "Do you not have the same concern?"

Cara searched his chiseled face, her own adrenaline rising. Bile too perhaps.

"I doubt he really even remembers me."

The once-prodigal son of the Gaunts might've scoffed, might've laughed.

In the end, his voice came soft, broken:

"And I doubt… that you believe that, Officer."

She gazed at him, years collapsing as past crashed into present. Its force knocking wind from both their lungs. 

"I should go."

Right, the Gaunts were coming.

Despite the forest's fever, the thought sent ice through her veins.

"We both should."

The floor whined even louder beneath her retreat, and in its echo, Cara wished she had managed a proper goodbye.

Better comforted the man who'd stood beside her that January night, chosen the law over feelings… her fifteen-year-old endorsement nailing it in.

She'd never tell him this, but one small mercy of Ominis' handicap?

He hadn't had to see Sebastian's face as he learned his fate. 

Cara told herself as she fled that it was the heat making her head swim, making her chest tight.

This oppressive, dangerous forest with its watching eyes and ancient grudges.

But that was a lie as practiced as her Auror's stance.

It wasn't the heat at all. It was the past, rushing up to meet her like a Killing Curse.

Chapter Text

I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.

Charles Bukowski

By now, Cara knew every inch of the Atrium. The way light shifted through enchanted windows. How sound changed with the hours: morning whispers, midday chaos, evening hush.

Her watch read 5:47. Predawn. Liminal.

As predicted, right now, the silence had weight.

In the Auror Office, the workday wouldn't start until 7. But this morning, her flat had been unbearable.

Walls closing in, every creak and shadow an obsession. 

She had paced. Read a book without seeing. Made coffee she didn't drink. By 5:30, the choice was clear: anywhere but there.

As always, the fountain drew her. Magical creatures in an endless, mechanical dance. Their bronze lives more honest than many that'd soon fill these halls. 

Staring until the water blurred, almost numb, Cara jumped when a hand touched her shoulder.

She knew, through some instinct not yet lost, that this ghost from the past was benevolent. 

"Poppy." Her smile felt borrowed, but true. "What're you doing here? I mean… sorry, that was rude. I didn't get much sleep."

A half-truth her old schoolmate didn't require to forgive her.

"No, it's fine. We all have those days. I'm actually with DRMC. Well, second interview round, but… hopefully!"

Of course. Poppy Sweeting, at the Department for Regulation of Magical Creatures. Perfect poetry.

But Cara's warning spilled out before she could catch it:

"Are you sure you want to work for the Ministry? I only say so because it can be a double edged sword when you're passionate about something. You, erm, have my well wishes…"

Too late to soften it. She watched Poppy's face shift; at first confusion, then the increasingly familiar sympathy that said she'd read every word in the Prophet.

Knew exactly how far Cara had fallen.

Tapping her clipboard, lips pursed, she considered the pessimistic Auror she'd walked up to and bopped on the shoulder.

Who she'd expected warmth from, probably. Maybe some girl talk.

"That's true, but we make our compromises. It's been great running into you, MC—oh, sorry. Cara. Maybe we can get lunch together sometime, if I get the position."

And so Poppy was off, waving over her shoulder.

Headed toward Administration, her step still so full of that relentless Hufflepuff hope that the guilt of taking the wind out of her sails didn't linger.

Though the exchange couldn't have eaten more than two minutes, Cara checked her watch.

Still early. Earlier by far than she knew Hector expected, even as he tightened the leash.

On the way she'd rationalized: it was practical to beat the busy hour. The crush and bustle of briefcases.

It meant getting more paperwork done. Getting to sleep earlier tonight.

Controlling something.

Yet as she'd entered, truth ground in her chest.

The AO would still, eventually, loom lousy with those eager to carve what was left of her reputation in ways even she wouldn't recognize.

So she continued wandering the Atrium, a ghost drifting through marble veins. Suspended in a purgatory of her own invention.

It doubled as a performance of fragility. She could still be asleep, warm and oblivious, if she'd only forced herself to see reason.

Because Ministry housing was a fortress of bureaucratic precision.

Enchantments reading not just wands, but their wielders' intent. Lobby paintings as surveillance tools, their subjects shifting and working together.

Lifts demanding three separate authentication protocols, for which the Ministry had spared no expense.

While Sebastian had always been a lock-picker, sliding through restrictions like a blade, these defenses were impenetrable.

Especially for someone only boasting a fifth-year education.

Ridiculous. Even speculating about it felt like a bad joke. All Cara could cling to was third-party perspective.

In that rotting shack, Ominis had trembled with a worry she understood. And was grateful he'd tipped her off to. But didn't feel she could truly share.

His connection with Sebastian ran deeper; brothers bound by something more than even blood.

She had always been a footnote, discarded the moment they disagreed.

Yes, even if the final call on his fate had been her own, 'MC' had only spent a few tenuous months in his grand scheme.

Needless to say, the risk vengeance incurred was astronomical. No sane person would abide by any calculation that'd risk a return to the Dementors' icy bosom.

And Sebastian, for all his wildness, was nothing if not calculating. He wouldn't gamble his freedom on a moment's revenge.

Would know better than to piss away the chance to remake himself.

Especially since, if she knew anything for sure, it was that Anne would be the lodestone drawing his compass. The only point that truly mattered.

Back in the world outside her head, Hector's cetalox cologne slithered through the air before he materialized.

A chemical warning that would've charmed, and had before she'd known him well. But by now Cara considered it a sense deterrent, like the neon belly of a poisonous frog. 

"Since we're both here early, perhaps we can walk up together."

His freshly shaved face anticipatory over that Ravenclaw lapel pin. Monogrammed coffee mug in hand, enamel reflecting fluorescence.

Cara readjusted her frayed messenger bag, an obligate ragamuffin against his pristine presentation. Offered a sharp, gamely smile.

"Mm."

No point refusing. These moments were a delicate dance, a minefield.

They strode along to the lift, the walk and the silence lasting longer than Cara expected. 

Hector met her eyes as he pressed the button. Cara blinked then looked pointedly at the floor. 

"Saw Poppy Sweeting talking to Admin," he mused as they rose, after taking a loud gulp of the lift's scant air. "Don't think glasses really suit her. Though I guess it beats a blurry world."

And while it was clear responding would galvanize him, she couldn't abide by the childish remark.

"She's angling for DRMC, I'd hope she can see clearly."

Indeed, in his smarmy blend of casual cruelty and institutional privilege, Hector doubled down:

"Fine, but it's still a shame seeing women looking like librarians on purpose."

As the lift swelled to its next stop, the crowd consumed them.

Ding. Misuse of Muggle Artifacts. Bodies pressed closer. Ding. Magical Games and Sports. Brooms and yet more breaths added to the suffocating mix.

Ding. Department of Mysteries.

Silence and no visible passengers, though something about the emptiness felt deliberate.

Cara's spine remained straight. Gaze fixed forward.

Ignoring Hector's loaded sideways glances, the way his breath caught with each moment they were forced to stand close.

"No funny ideas, Morganach."

Threat disguised as invitation. Invitation masquerading as threat.

Final chime. Auror Office. Freedom, such as it was.

Three steps of peace before she confronted the bureaucratic volcano erupting across her desk.

Folders piled in their assigned palette of administrative misery: Nott's clinical grey, Mulciber Jr.'s sickly green, Abbott's faded beige, Bode's stark white.

Each color a silent dick-shaking, a territorial marking.

All dumped there during her suspension.

The Chief lingered, mug pressed to his lips. Eyes glinting with barely concealed hunger, searching for any fault line.

So Cara moved with calculated nonchalance. Marched behind the desk and sat as a small, deliberate hum escaped her throat.

A melody of measured defiance, amid which she didn't look up or acknowledge the folders.

Couldn't give Hector the satisfaction.

Only when his office door thumped shut did her shoulders drop a fraction. Millimeters. Imperceptible.

In the end, she'd been right about having more time for paperwork. If only it had been just her own.

On the fateful day of his arrest in Black's office, Sebastian had three items on his person: his wand, a pocket guide to potions, and a tatty billfold with nineteen Sickles, forty Knuts.

A map of his entire universe.

The Knuts had vanished. Guards had sticky fingers to the tune of about ten percent.

But what remained was still enough for a meal, if he played it right.

That first taste would detonate in cellular memory, each bite a rebellion against years of slop.

Like his first orgasm, uncontrollable. Desperate. Consuming.

More immediately, his old Slytherin clothes clung to his frame like flags of surrender. Fifth-year robes stopping inches above his wrists and ankles, advertising his imprisonment in green and silver brevity.

So when he stepped off the platform at King's Cross, the lost and found bin became Sebastian's first act of freedom.

The witch at the counter asked no questions. A mercy.

If he'd meandered up tclaiming he was fresh from Azkaban, St Mungo's would've had a new resident before you could say tickets, please.

It was in the station's bathroom wearing a stranger's clothes that Sebastian met his reflection at last. 

First mirror with clean glass in five years. Not the warped surface of a washbasin or a rusty shard in his cell reflecting only a cheekbone here, an eye there.

Two months since his last forced head-shaving had transformed into something wilder. Not quite a proper cut, but a soft, unruly mess that fell just past his ears.

That boyishness he once hated, those fat cheeks that'd made him look perpetually twelve, had melted off. Hidden beneath were cheekbones sharp enough to cut.

A jaw that'd learned to clench in ways that left permanent lines. Aged. Transformed.

Those eyes remained the same shade of brown, but they'd forgotten how to look directly at things.

Trained to watch from angles, to see without being seen.

In the end, the face: still recognizably his. 

A surge of panic made that face contort as Sebastian wondered yet again, was this real, or an elaborate hallucination?

Fingers found the cold porcelain of the sink, gripped until knuckles went white.

Memories flickered: sneaking into the guards-only library, getting dragged out by his feet. 

Those encounters in the women's unit. Plural. Each a different flavor of desperation, of survival. Each time punished by the Dementors' cold, ravenous apathy.

Hours spent reliving moments of rebellion, stripped of dignity and hope.

Apparently good behavior had only one qualifier: never attempting escape.

Mistake or not, he was free. Needed to prove it to himself.

And while Sebastian knew he could've just turned on the tap to splash his face, he had his wand back.

Eleven inches of cedar that had slept in storage for five years, now a familiar weight he never expected to feel again.

He'd seen this moment a thousand times in dreams.

Each square on the checkerboard handle felt like a dare as he pointed it at his chin: motion both unreal and crucial.

That first spastic breath after drowning.

"Aguamenti."

Water erupted against his jaw, hard and cold as a fist. The shock of it, the liquid violence and pressure, made him gasp.

For it was not the tepid, measured drip of an Azkaban washbasin, but wild, uncontrolled water of his own.

Magic that splashed, stung and breathed. Proof.

He almost pulled a muscle in his neck whipping toward the door, expecting a guard's shout, a punishment.

And under the continued dominion of silence, a hesitant smile, first in years, flickered across Sebastian's face.

Cracked lips re-learning a privilege long denied. 

Droplets rolling down his neck, tracing paths he'd forgotten.

Cool. Alive. And hungry.

In a bespoke townhome in Hogsmeade, Garreth Weasley had finished reading aloud. He pushed the newspaper aside.

Picking up his finished bowl of cereal to drain the milk. Sodden bran flakes clung to the sides of ceramic, desperate survivors.

"So, what're we thinking, my dear? They must really be hard up for some good press."

"I think it may backfire, even if they were as careful in choosing as they claim," offered Natsai Onai in her signature serene lilt.

Her wand flicked, sending his empty bowl to the sink with a whispered clink.

"Really glad you didn't wind up taking that job at the Ministry. Dodged quite the bullet. Or rather, hex."

"Though it would have been more exciting than teaching, I made the right choice." Her smile carried an edge. Wan, not entirely nostalgic. "Though I feel terrible for MC. I simply cannot believe she's as foolhardy as the papers have implied."

Outside, Hogsmeade breathed its quiet morning breath as a sparrow landed on the windowsill, watching.

And across the table, Garreth reclined. The chair groaned under his weight, a sound that spoke of comfort, of settled lives.

Still, he wouldn't hang onto the idea that everyone would have a happy ending.

"Not to doubt your judgment, but, being an Auror can make someone pretty hard-boiled, even in a couple years. And she's always been prone to risky stuff."

Natty smiled in spite of herself. Arms crossing gently, both protective and dismissive.

"Once upon a time, I'd have said you were the pot calling the kettle black. But you are right — we've all changed."

Ginger brows working as Garreth picked up the Prophet again, his thumb dragging down page six and pointing.

"We can agree on that, and one other thing. There's definitely someone who's got it out for her, for them to have used this photo."

His wife sighed. Stood to make herself some tea. "I agree."

Cara had pulled that same photograph off her desk four times before lunchtime.

The group portrait from last month's Ministry function. Almost everyone perfectly posed in their formalwear, badges pinned to suits.

Hector at the front, impeccable. The rest lined up, equally crisp and photogenic men who smiled better than they served.

And then, herself: eyes closed, head at an awkward angle, looking utterly ridiculous. The office's court jester caught mid-blunder.

Today, she was the only one in that office.

The rest had been sent on field work by Hector. Cases to solve. Quotas to meet. But they'd left their mark. The photograph migrated back each time she turned away.

A dog pile of spite, precisely where her quill hand rested. As if publishing her shame across Wizarding Britain hadn't been enough. 

For telling the truth about Buckinghamshire, she'd earned first suspension, and now exile to desk duty.

Though the others had walked away clean, they weren't done reminding her of her place as a convenient dumping ground for paperwork and passing mockery.

She gripped her quill tighter, refused to let her hand shake.

At least Hector's door had stayed closed, a fortress of uncharacteristic silence.

Watch closing in on five o'clock as she traced the photograph. Vellum creaking in her grasp, the dying breath of the fifth copy.

Every figure frowned, daring her to tear them asunder again.

After looking into the eyes of Edwin Noke, rest his soul, she let it fall to the floor on her way out.

An hour of crying in the bathtub later, pruned fingers scrawled to Ominis:

The reply came within minutes. Jolting her awake to the sight of her owl preening itself after the quick flight, Cara blinked.

She dressed, took a shot from that bottle of brandy, and wrote back in a flash of quill before she could talk herself out of it:

Sebastian's first sandwich as a free man indeed vanished in half a blink, five years of prison hunger obliterating decent table manners.

Good thing he was sitting alone.

Nothing could've prepared him for real bread, real meat.

Just more proof it was real.

He devoured it like a starving animal, then immediately ordered whiskey. His first legal drink.

The Prophet lay before him, a map of a world he barely recognized, but apparently belonged to again.

Parchment rustling as his hands trembled in a way that owed nothing to the whiskey and everything to the peculiar vertigo of freedom.

In the rather vague article about his own release, Hector Fawley's name caught his eye.

A classmate, a Ravenclaw. And starting fifth year, a Prefect. The sort who'd looked down on everyone but had been wise enough to pretend tolerance.

Once, while Tomes and Scrolls awaited a shipment, they'd shared a Herbology book. 

Apparently not just an Auror now but the Chief, head of the whole bloody force.

Sebastian considered this meteoric rise not with malice, but with a sudden, crushing realization.

While he'd been locked away, the world had continued.

Classmates had careers. Families, probably.

Their lives had flourished while his lay pressed between the pages of time, preserved and unchanging.

The article teased more: "For full details, see page six."

A frown when he found no such supplement. This copy was incomplete. Torn and ratty.

Turned out grabbing one from a rubbish bin wasn't the score he anticipated.

Across the bar, a fat man turned fresh pages of a whole newspaper, twine still hanging off the bottom.

An invitation from the universe.

Sebastian watched. Azkaban had taught him the value of patience, the art of seeing without being seen.

His body moved through the pub like a forgotten curse, each step relearning what it meant to walk among the living.

"Might I," he mumbled, gesturing to the newspaper.

"Hmm?" grunted the ruddy cheeked butterball on the stool.

"Can I just borrow that a moment?"

The barfly blinked. "Borrow it?"

Sebastian stopped. Remembered something social. "It's my birthday," he added, the words strange creatures in his mouth.

Butterball gave a shrug. Pity or apathy, it'd do.

The full-page spread on page six was half roast, half tableau of institutional pride.

Bookended by a moving photo of the Auror Office arrayed in formal portrait: men in precise dress robes, medals glinting, Chief front and center.

This was the pristine gleam of a new generation of law enforcement.

Beneath the image, a yearbook-style roster of names. Ranks. Achievements. And there. One woman standing slightly apart.

Time stopped.

The photograph was terrible. Her eyes closed the length of the loop, even when it moved.

But he knew the way ear met jaw, knew that behind the closed lids, those eyes held ancient mischief.

Knew it like he knew his own reflection, though until today he hadn't seen either in five years.

That name, too, validating his feeling that the world had turned inside out:

Morganach.

Whiskey exploded across the floor, shards of glass bouncing over lacquered boards. Sebastian watched it shatter, tongue between his teeth.

And he ran.

The barkeep's voice followed him, years of scotch and sage advice roughening the words.

"Oi! Pay for that!" 

But Sebastian didn't pay for that. He didn't look back, couldn't.

Not with fifteen burning in his mind.

Chapter Text

---

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

---

Forks scraped against porcelain, each clink a bittersweet echo.

In another life, basking in this upscale Muggle café's soft ambient noise with an old friend would've comforted.

But in this one, it may as well have been tissue paper stretched over a brewing storm.

"Even in times of turmoil, I'm a fan of a good salmon," Cara offered, breaking a silence not explained by chewing.

Ominis pressed a napkin to his mouth over Shepherd's pie, as if parsing an intricate riddle.

"I must say, comparatively… the food in our world lacks a certain nuance."

"Mmm. Indeed."

A waitress materialized, all bright smile and water pitcher.

She praised Cara's shoes, asked if they were visiting. They smiled and nodded, practiced performers both.

Pale faces going gravid again in an instant once that kind waif disappeared behind the swinging kitchen door.

Ominis leaned closer, voice dropping.

"I think you could stand to talk to Professor Sharp. He knows better than anyone how to navigate… delicate terrain."

Cara traced her placemat. This had occurred to her yesterday, somewhere between the third and thirtieth lap around her flat.

"If I'm ever unchained from my desk long enough for the trip."

Deep inside, she knew: some barriers transcended expertise. Aesop Sharp, brilliant and discerning mentor though he was, still couldn't wholly understand her position by virtue of what hung between his legs.

Something she was continually harangued for missing.

But this wasn't something she'd voice aloud. Though Ominis too was a man, he knew shortcomings far more essential.

His eyes closed to a dark world as he cleared his throat and told her:

"You know, as the hours pass, I'm feeling confident that if… certain parties were looking to make contact, they'd have done so already."

As ever, he was transparent as glass in testing the waters. Seeking both consensus and comfort, hoping her instincts to be a kind tide.

"I had that thought too. And he's not likely to risk everything just to prove a point. If he is, well… I know how to do my job."

The words surprised Cara with their certainty. A truth she hadn't known she believed until speaking it.

Feeling validated and eager to keep the warmth going, Ominis crystallized it further:

"Indeed you do. No matter what Flamboyant Fawley says to the press, you are a profile in courage. I envy your nerve, I always have."

Her mouth twisted, not quite a smile.

"Alright, Gaunt, now I'm convinced you want something."

"Honestly? I want to leave," he chuckled, warm and knowing. "I'm getting a bit drowsy from all the food."

All Aurors in London carried Muggle money, or were at least meant to. Cara tipped the waitress an amount buying both goodwill and the blessing of forgettability.

Ominis waited at the coat check, arm extended with the particular grace of one who'd learned to transform necessity into elegance.

"I can't imagine how the blind fare without magic," he murmured. "Though I don't mean to patronize, as even my approach leaves something to be desired."

Some truths live in the spaces between words. She gave his arm a squeeze. The sound of their steps changed as they walked, music shifting keys.

"Almost there."

This alley, one of many secret seams in London's embroidery. The air felt different, charged with possibilities that didn't exist ten steps back.

Magic, invisible but present.

"Thank you for meeting me," she breathed.

"Of course. I'll let you know when I hear from Anne."

Two Apparitions echoing into nothingness.

Thursday: Hector's door had stood closed, a wall of calculated silence. But Friday arrived with teeth, his silhouette rising as a shadow at noon.

Leaning across her desk, near enough that each clench of his jaw could've been her own. Badge swinging forward and grazing her shoulder as the Prophet landed before them. 

Cara read, something dark and familiar coiling in her chest. "How disappointing," she managed.

"See my quote? That I didn't endorse that? Underline it," Hector breathed, each word honed to cut. "I know you and Gaunt were chums in school, but have some fucking sense, Morganach."

She had sense. The kind that saw too much, knew too well what lay beneath official stories.

"He's a private citizen. The article itself admits he's clean."

Shaking his head, Hector claimed the Prophet back before her voice even faded. Rolling it between palms that had forgotten stillness.

"Now I know why you've always said conflict of interest for the Hangleton cases."

Cara's chair scraped against the floor, created distance but never breaking eye contact, measuring threat.

"You know what I think? I think you had me followed, but hoped they wouldn't bring you into it."

Something shifted then, Hector straightening. His hand smoothing his collar.

The truth hung between them: either he'd confess to orchestrating the press release himself, or stare Cara down until she demurred.

Disquieted by the wait, the Chief added more to his side of the scales.

"If you were trailed—and note that 'if' is a conditional clause… someone did it of their own accord. Everyone here was out on field work that day, if you recall."

"I do recall that." Opening a folder, her fingers precise. A shield of paper and routine. "I'll be more careful."

A long, monotone hum from him. The stalemate crystallizing, taking shape.

But standing on the same ground wasn't something he could abide by.

"Speaking of your mistakes. You know that I don't believe in what Spavin calls rehabilitation. Only in recidivism. And I'll never be convinced that these releases were at all wise."

There was no room to forget.

His skin bunched like old fruit the duration of the meeting.

Those theatrical sighs leaking from his office door as passive-aggressive smoke signals ever since.

To say nothing of the way he'd been treating her, the example he'd set for the others.

"You've made that abundantly clear, yes."

Clicking his tongue. "And like clockwork, I got an Owl yesterday—it seems the residents of Feldcroft in particular are just as concerned as I am."

Her foot betrayed her, trembling against the floor.

Thank Merlin her back faced him. Cara couldn't bear the thought of her boss seeing how cleanly she'd been leveled.

"Why so?" her question came too high, too quick. Wrapped in just enough silk to pass for calm.

But for once, Hector offered words that let her lungs remember their purpose:

"Poachers and their ilk are among those the public hate the most, is why. I don't have all the details, but."

Relief flooded her veins like summer rain. Not about Sebastian.

She stared at the wooden Niffler bobblehead adorning her desk.

It stood unnaturally still, the painted coin catching light. Sweet face, almost hopeful.

Though his cadence implied the work would be hers, she wouldn't rise to it. Not yet.

Too many times he'd dangle bait, only to snatch it away.

Then Hector moved into her line of sight, one foot already pointing toward his office. Ready to deliver the clincher.

"And since you've apparently been so bored on desk duty that you had room for dinner plans, I'm thinking I'll give you the case."

Though towering stacks of colleagues' folders cluttered her desk as witnesses to the contrary, Cara swallowed the defense rising in her throat.

"I appreciate that."

She carved the words from ice, kept them level.

So did the Chief: "I thought that you might."

Despite his hasty exit from last night's hole in the wall pub, Sebastian knew he'd need to return to gathering information.

Amazing what actual sleep could do for one's resolve. And even a bench at King's Cross had been a delight compared to his cell floor.

Humidity pressed him, unusual for southern Britain. Diagon Alley's bright cream cobblestones threw back sunlight, rays both burning and feeding something in him he'd thought long dead.

The Leaky Cauldron loomed ahead, windows gleaming like cat's eyes. Those famous doors spilling patrons onto the street, a writhing mass.

At first, Sebastian bristled at the sight, skin prickling. Too many bodies. Too much movement.

But if he wanted information, this was where he'd find it.

He remembered Ominis' remark as they'd strode by, amid shopping to prepare for fourth year:

"If that's meant to be a clever name, then call me an imbecile. Who wants a cauldron with a hole in it."

Could still hear Anne's tinkling laugh in response, bright as new copper.

Sebastian pushed the thought away. Couldn't afford to see her face in every passing stranger.

He'd learned that lesson at Hogwarts. Would apply it here too.

There would be time, once he knew enough, could layer fresh experiences over the old wounds waiting in the hamlet.

The pub's cool darkness swallowed him. A mercy after the glare outside.

Bodies shifted and swayed around barrel tables, voices rising and falling in the massive din.

This was nothing like The Three Broomsticks' cozy insularity; it was a beast of a different breed altogether.

A miracle: an empty stool at the bar.

Sebastian claimed it before his luck could turn, then realized. No money meant no drink, and you couldn't occupy a seat without ordering. Not in a place like this.

Even he knew that.

And indeed, the barkeep's eyes slid over him like oil on water. Taking in his borrowed clothes, the obvious wear.

He had other customers to serve, other conversations to hold while delaying the inevitable acknowledgement of an unwanted vagrant.

"Excuse me."

A woman's voice, from his right.

He turned to find sharp dark eyes set in a clever face, dark hair neatly plaited. Something that might have been pity softening her expression.

"Yes? I mean, hello."

The words came out rough, unpracticed.

But she didn't flinch at his tone. Rather:

"May I buy you a pint? You look as if you've had a fright. Pardon the rhyme."

"I, erm—"

But her billfold was already out, Sickles catching dim light like fish scales.

The barman materialized as if summoned, his previous studied indifference vanishing. 

"Two Firewhiskeys," she instructed, then caught herself. Voice dropping, something softer creeping in. "Is that fine with you?"

"It is," Sebastian managed. He stared at her, lost.

Azkaban had claimed him before he'd had the chance to learn this particular social choreography.

Still, he wasn't wholly without brains. "Are you, er… do you work here in London?"

"I work for Flourish and Blotts. And yourself?"

"I'm between jobs," the lie slipped out. "Bit envious you work for a bookstore. I haven't been to Flourish and Blotts for a while. It's Tomes and Scrolls for me."

Their whiskeys arrived, a gentle thud. Her sip leaving a curved ghost of lipstick on the glass. Nose crinkling, head tilted like a curious bird.

He drank faster.

"Tomes and Scrolls is your place, hmm? I do like Hogsmeade, who doesn't. But it's teeming with students… which makes me feel a bit old."

Sebastian nodded, the whiskey burning holes in his empty gut.

He'd come here hunting: Aurors, professors, anyone with power. Now, his brain short-circuited at a neckline that made his teeth ache with want.

"Sorry to be rude, but how old are you? I couldn't tell you from a student, honestly."

Not flattery. Just the truth of a man who'd spent years watching women in identical grey, faces eaten away until age became meaningless.

Everyone reduced to the same meat, same bones, same hollow stare.

But here was someone full of color, soft in all the right places.

She ducked, fingers clutching her collar. "You're too kind. I'm twenty-six. Did you and I go to school together?"

Sebastian blinked. Then understanding hit him with all the grace of a Stunning Spell; those years carved into his face he hadn't lived yet.

"Perhaps. But I'm twenty-one, as of yesterday."

Eyes wide, color climbing her throat as she sought refuge in another sip. "Oh dear, I've put my foot in it. I'm Gwendolyn, by the way."

Her hand met his. Warm skin, gentle pressure, the simple contact making his throat tight.

He knew he held on a bit too long.

"Sebastian. And you're fine, I know that I haven't aged well."

Those dark eyes rolled, "Nonsense, you're cute as a button. Though I do wonder what you've been through."

The way she flushed at his gormless stare made his lips loose.

"I just got out of Azkaban."

Knowing he was killing his chances. Pretty bookstore clerks don't fuck ex-cons, don't touch men who still smell like prison soap and desperation.

Unable to keep it inside regardless.

But her eyes lit. Matches in the dark, laughter bubbling up sweet and rough at once.

"Right… let's go with that. What were you in for?"

She shifted, legs crossing, skirt whispering secrets against skin.

Sebastian felt his face twist into something new: the grin of someone playing pretend. For the first time, his past felt like a costume he could take off.

"Murder." His voice dropping to where monsters live. "Murder most foul."

The words didn't taste of shame because she didn't believe them. In her eyes, he was just another broken boy playing at being dangerous.

Elbow on the bar, she slow-blinked: predator and prey momentarily indistinguishable.

Feasting on him with a gaze that knew exactly what it was consuming.

He stared, unrepentant, at her peek of cleavage.

She replied in a murmur, carrying a flavor he couldn't possibly mistake:

"Do you want to get out of here?"

That neatly plaited dark hair might've been straight, might've curled.

All Sebastian saw was the way those dark strands scattered as the buttons came undone, black against cream, and suddenly, there were her breasts.

Huge and perfect, straight from the margins of his teenage notebooks.

"Oh god."

His grunt more animal than prayer as they hit her precisely made bed, her weight solid and real. She smelled of soap and summer, of the world outside.

"Can I…"

She whined, amused but wanting, hips already moving against his. "Don't be shy, touch me."

Yet another moment where he wasn't sure if anything was real.

Then his fingers found her nipples, twisted, yanked. Her cry split the air, a sound so perfectly filthy it could have been scripted, that desperate keen catching in her throat.

No hallucination here.

A painting of Godric Gryffindor sat empty above the bed, its occupant having cleared out as they had stumbled up the stairs.

"I want you," Sebastian breathed.

Calloused fingers mapping the warm terrain of her torso, every touch a reminder of how long it had been since he'd felt anything softer than stone.

Mouth desert-dry, pulse hammering in his throat.

"Please," she affirmed, those dark eyes fixed on where his borrowed pants strained against need. "Take what you want."

By the time their sweat cooled on woven sheets, night's darkness swallowed all.

The flame that leapt from her wand didn't illuminate so much as interrogate, throwing life across walls Sebastian hadn't thought to study. Why would he have?

Her hair spilled across his shoulder, ink bleeding into the moment.

A contented hum vibrating through skin as she settled against him.

That's when the room's emptiness became a presence of its own.

No photographs watching from gilt frames, no trinkets collecting memories, and most notably:

"You haven't got any books here."

She stretched beside him; languid grace, satisfied curves.

"Well, they're terribly dusty to keep in a home. Even a young thing like you should know that."

Her voice floated with the detachment of discussing the weather. Strange for a woman who trafficked in stories for a living.

"Still."

His gaze wandering to their discarded clothes; his lost-and-found garb, bunched up next to her expensive robes.

Like a beggar collapsed at a queen's feet.

The space between their lives yawned wider with each heartbeat.

Gwendolyn rose from the bed, dark hair a curtain of night as she reached for a checkered dressing gown.

The pattern reminded Sebastian of the chessboards inmates would scratch into cell floors with contraband nails.

"Well, if you ever do go to Flourish and Blotts, drop my name, and you'll get quite a deal on any book you want, how's that?"

He gave her a wry look, trying to hold on to the warmth that was already becoming a memory.

"Can't name-drop you properly if I don't know your surname."

"It's Avery. Gwendolyn Avery."

The name didn't just land, it detonated.

Memory ripped through him: the isolation cell, where darkness had weight and substance.

Some men wept for their mothers, their children.

But the man in the cell nearest the guards' quarters, with the red mustache rusting in the perpetual half-light?

He'd howled just one word through the endless nights.

A unique refrain among Azkaban's choir of the damned:

Gwynnie.

The universe, Sebastian remembered, didn't just have a sense of humor. It had a gift for tragedy, and he'd just delivered the punchline.

"Sebastian? What's wrong?"

He took a breath, watched her lounging there in her checkered armor of afterglow.

His mind betrayed him with echoes of her. The panting, the squealing, the wild grins. Their flesh slapping hot and slick as she'd cried out:

"Right there, right there, fuck."

And he'd replied, biting his lip, eyes wide at the life of it all, "Wrap your legs around me."

Words serving as counterfeit currency, spent in a game neither of them knew they were playing.

Not enough to drown out his conscience, revelation's blade too sharp between ribs.

As she crossed the rug, humming gently, he forced out the words:

"Is your husband… Kieran Avery?"

Movement ceased. The jaw locked, dark eyes crystallizing into obsidian.

In that frozen moment, Sebastian noticed the way her eyes were set rather close together.

Her lip quivered, all traces of the laughing woman from the Leaky Cauldron vanishing.

"How do you know… you…"

He stood, clutching a pillow against his nakedness. The tide had turned. Could feel the undertow pulling at his ankles.

"I told you, I was just released from Azkaban."

"Fuck." Those dark eyes, the same that'd sparkled with intrigue as she'd dismissed that very truth as clever banter earlier, pinched closed. "You're really a killer?"

Sebastian reached for his clothes, fumbling with buttons while the truth ate away at them both.

"I didn't want you to run away. I thought that—"

"You can sleep on the loveseat downstairs, but be gone by morning. I don't want to lay eyes on you again. Nox."

Could tell from her voice, tears had welled.

The candle died at her command, leaving Sebastian in darkness more familiar than her bed.

If he'd known her better, or at all, he might've argued.

Might've told her not to cry for herself, but for the man who howled her name through prison walls.

Instead, he descended the stairs in silence, his chest hammering arrhythmic prayers to gods he'd always thought himself too smart to believe in.

The night air, thick with insects. That particular shade of London blue staining the sky.

Guilt moved through him, finding all the places he thought calcified.

He was an adult now. Free to stalk London's streets, to wear any face that fit.

To fuck married women, slip into spaces left by unluckier men. Men who might never have murdered, but would still die counting stones in Azkaban.

His legs shook on the stoop. Sebastian stared at the hands that had touched her, that had done worse.

Behind eyes squeezed shut, a simple truth: all he wanted was to be himself. Whatever bullshit that meant now.

Even if it meant chasing ghosts that didn't want catching, at least they'd be his own.

It was time to go home.

Cara's flat held her field gear. No lockers at work, not for women anyway. Just another small indignity that barely registered anymore. 

Moreover, she needed these specific walls. Needed a moment to breathe her own air before stepping into someone else's tragedy.

Her wand drew boot laces tight while she stood in the doorway, a steel-toed necessity for Feldcroft's deceptive terrain.

No sense delaying it any further.

Apparition landed her at the hamlet's southern steps.

As ever, the place wore neglect like jewelry: mud puddles masquerading as ponds, grass growing wild amid grazing sheep.

Cara tried not to see the irony there, the parallel of neglect in herself. Onward. Quill poised.

Her first mark: an old man insisting no one Poached since Rookwood's fall, his certainty stronger than his senility's reach. Skin gnarled, eyes diluted by years of the drink.

Next came the young couple, faces draining of color at her badge, their new baby's screams a better answer than any they gave.

When she asked the child's name, an old trick to warm the room: the father's jaw clicked shut like a trap.

Another door closed.

She kept her eyes from wandering toward the Sallow house. Settled on a man far enough away, whose memory stood uncomplicated.

Bernard Ndiaye stood at his curio stand by the well, time having salted his hair beneath that hat.

"Hope all is well, Officer."

They danced through pleasantries, weather-talk, his gratitude for her work against the Loyalists.

But even frank, honest Bernard gave her nothing but polished stones where answers should be.

"Do let me know if you need use of an Owl, or any shopping needs," he offered finally, kindness wrapped around refusal.

Cara thought of Hector, of the apparent whispers of trouble following the releases.

Perhaps he'd fabricated the whole thing… it wouldn't be his first creative interpretation of truth.

Feldcroft lay far from their jurisdiction. Laughably far.

Why hadn't she questioned it?

Either way, she should try to find something to bring back. Dig deeper, salvage something from this slow-motion disaster of a career.

But the past pulled more powerfully than the future. At least it was certain.

Sebastian had had his fill of the house within hours of returning. Yet he couldn't leave.

The familiar walls felt like an anthropological exhibit, every object a specimen labeled: Evidence of Life Before.

His tears had come earlier. Precise, disciplined things that seemed to apologize for their presumption.

He had sat in his sister's favored chair, staring out the tiny window.

Through books and cabinets, his hands moved with the reverence of an archivist, replacing each item exactly, terrified of erasing proof he'd once existed here.

Everything remained unchanged, except for the dust. Nature's patient record-keeping.

The reality felt duller than the version he'd constructed in his cell, and polished to a shine on that train ride in too-small clothes.

Bernard Ndiaye's face had been a masterclass in social theater: the way British politeness wrestles with primal fear.

The forced ceremony of greeting a murderer now returned.

"Care to use an Owl?" the man had offered, as if Sebastian had a world of correspondents eager for his letters.

The cruelty of kindness.

His dissociation ran so deep that the approaching footsteps seemed like memory's footprints… until the door rattled its warning.

Disillusionment. An old impulse now necessary.

He performed a frantic inventory of the tiny house that had become, suddenly, a puzzle box: the bed? Behind Anne's old curtain?

The fireplace presented itself. A cavity just sufficient to swallow a man whole.

He folded himself into the grate, coal dust consecrating his knees, just as—

"Auror Office."

She filled the doorway, manic mythology.

Cara Morganach, tall as memory if not taller, her presence rewriting the dimensions of the tiny room.

From his crouch in the grate, Sebastian waited for the one flick of her wand that would force their reunion.

Perhaps that was why she'd come: to tell him his release had been some error, to collect him like a borrowed book overdue.

But her wand arm lowered.

Those pale eyes performed their forensic examination of his childhood's remains.

Something shifted in her face, and Sebastian felt his anger tangle with emotions he refused to catalog.

Here was how justice worked, apparently: sometimes the same hand cages and frees you.

The symmetry felt like a sentence in itself.

Her dimples appeared, not from joy, but from some internal war waged on that noble face.

Sebastian observed, lungs locked, as she traced the same photo album he'd been studying.

Transfixed, both of them, even if she didn't know it.

When her gaze swept his position, his lungs seized.

But she was merely looking. At the mantle, the china plates on the wall.

Sebastian drew a careful breath through his nose. He was free, legally and completely.

If she meant to revoke that freedom, she would have already drawn her wand.

Unless this was all some elaborate trap, another game where he didn't know the rules.

What words existed for this moment? Five years ago, two minutes into meeting in the Common Room, he'd called her a kindred spirit.

Now she moved with the precision of someone accustomed to power, unaware of the free man hiding in his own home.

For all he knew, she was here on official business, had just darkened the doorstep of a vacancy she could count on. Perhaps preparing to transform this place into another outpost of Ministry control.

The irony didn't escape him. That very first meeting had been before a hearth, him pacing with a book when she'd approached.

Now, here he crouched in another fireplace. Realizing he was ready to echo those first words:

Can I help you?

But sharp inhalation cut the air: the kind of breath that precedes command, demands shadows reveal themselves.

Sebastian tensed, waiting for her to speak his name, prove she'd known all along.

Instead, her tone was low, self-referential, wan. "What am I doing?"

Before he could rise, before he could speak, Apparition took her away.

Its resounding crack, like the sound of justice deferred.

Ominis' quill hovered, suspended between truth and consequence.

The unfinished sentence burned on the parchment. He knew that in Cara's hands, this intelligence would become imperative.

Her courage, the same that he both envied and feared, would demand action.

He'd already dragged her into troubled waters once this week. The ripples hadn't finished spreading.

Instead, he found safer territory:

Carefully chosen words, sitting on the page like sentries. Sometimes, the greatest act of friendship was the truth left untold.

The lobby held its usual evening chill. Cara's robes still smelled of the hamlet's chimneys, out of place against the Ministry's scrubbed marble.

She counted four Aurors by the lift, their faces turned away, shoulders squared beneath regulation wool.

Her mailbox was empty. No surprise; anyone worth hearing from knew to send their owls directly to her flat.

The official boxes were for memos and warnings, for the paper trails that kept the bureaucracy breathing.

"Officer. Hold on."

The reception wizard leaned beneath the counter, wood creaking under his weight.

"Is it laundry?" she asked quick and brusque. Thinking of Hector's whites that came twice a month, first-class post.

"No, just a letter. The owl that delivered it nearly crashed through the front gate. I was amazed it made it past the wards."

There was the envelope, and there was that loopy handwriting she'd know blind, drunk, or dying.

Some letters arrived too late to matter.

This one felt early, felt wrong, felt necessary as air.

Chapter Text

---

I am a cage, in search of a bird.

Franz Kafka

---

Saturdays belonged to solitude. Cara kept them that way so she could read uninterrupted.

Sometimes that meant sinking into a bath with romance novels. Or sprawling on the floor with old case files, searching for threads worth pulling.

Everything but the Prophet. Never the Prophet.

And when she felt particularly whimsical, a record player (rescued from the evidence room) filled her flat with the scratchy music of someone else's memories.

Today, the ritual changed.

Sebastian's letter commanded her tiny coffee table. Creases deepening each time she unfolded it.

Though she'd told herself this was investigative, a search for forgery… wands were essential for such authentication and hers lay forgotten on the loveseat.

The truth was simpler: she knew his hand, recognized the rhythm of his words. No magic needed.

A knock fractured her concentration.

Body moving before her mind caught up, the letter vanished, shoved between cushions. Wand suddenly alive in her palm.

Through the peephole, Hector's face.

Distorted like a classical painting left in rain. Dark aristocratic brows, mouth set in its perpetual pout.

Letting out a heavy breath as he adjusted his tie.

Seeing him here in wasn't cause for alarm in itself. The Ministry's upper ranks moved through the building as they pleased. A privilege of position.

But usually, the Chief preferred his family's sprawling estate outside Leeds, all vineyards and old money pretension.

Though anyone else would've been surprised by his impulse to slum it here on a weekend, Cara wasn't.

She sighed, opening flat as week-old champagne,

"Yes?"

Hector leaned closer, nose warped by the lens. His voice coming tinny through the call box,

"Let me in, it's drafty out here."

A lie. June had settled over London, a wet wool blanket of suffocating heat. 

Evident in that dark hair plastered to his forehead above the pristine suit, the armpits surely soaked. 

Cara drew breath through her nose, already drained.

"What do you want? I'm off-duty."

His eyebrows lifted. "I'm aware. Can I not check in on you? If you've got a gentleman caller, I'll come back."

"No, I'm alone. But I don't want to think about work right now, thanks."

He shifted his weight, leather shoes creaking.

"It's not about work."

The mirror above her door reflected Cara's face. Pink from panic. 

Her still damp hair, her frown that deepened as Hector breathed in the rhythm of a baited bull. 

She decided to lean into the opportunity he'd unwittingly given.

"Then it can wait."

With deliberate pettiness the Chief breathed against the peephole, clouding her view.

"Fine, I'll drop by later. Give my regards to whomever you're fucking."

Let him believe what he needed.

Cara waited, neck craned, until his shadow disappeared into the lift before lowering her wand.

She sunk onto the couch.

Apparently, the one place she felt any solace from him and their exhausting dynamic wasn't even sacred.

The wild goose chase to Feldcroft seemed like his way of keeping her occupied, controlled. One she'd grudgingly accepted. 

But this doorstep performance was the shit sauce on top of the shit sundae.

One year with him as Chief had felt like eons. It was a small mercy he hadn't demanded they all celebrate the milestone with some miserably decadent party. 

In the shadow of slow breathing, Ominis' letter caught the late light from her windowsill.

Keep your chin up, he'd written, in an attempt to soften the blow of a necessary separation. Her last ally reduced to whispers on paper.

In fact, between Hector's watchful eye and her own complicated position, Cara realized that she might never see Ominis again.

His family didn't suffer loose ends.

She shoved couch cushions aside, wiped sweat from her brow and peeled that letter, that invitation, free again.

The Officer knew restlessness meant it was time to do some work.

And there was one door she hadn't knocked on yet. What lay behind it was another matter entirely.

Nonetheless.

Before stepping out into the evening, she let her hair down.

On the outskirts of Glasgow, a cottage in Kilmacolm sat quiet in the mist, windows warm against the perpetual drizzle. 

George Dietrich collected the morning's post from their mailbox: a peculiar iron frog among a row of normal post boxes.

He'd never understood its appeal, this whimsical guardian whose mouth sometimes mangled their letters. 

But his wife loved it, and so it stayed. 

That aside, it was rare that he found himself raising an eyebrow at any post that came to the frog's maw, via Owl or otherwise. 

Because George had never been one for office work. His days were filled with Charms correspondence courses and proofreading hopeful authors' instructional books.

Mail built up quickly, almost all of it his. 

Her name was rarer: Christmas cards from villagers, the occasional shared recipe.

And more recently, notes cooing over the new bairn sleeping inside. 

Their life, contained in simple correspondence. None of it ever addressed to her maiden name until today. 

Anne Olivia Sallow.

The wooden steps creaked under his feet as he found her on the porch swing, wrapped in morning's silence. 

These were her quiet hours, stolen moments before their son woke to the day. 

Her eyes flickered to his, then away, as if closing them might keep the world at its edges a little longer.

George cleared his throat softly, the letter held high against misting rain she seemed content to let settle on her skin.

"Was ist das, Liebling?" 

His voice carried that gentle weight she'd first fallen for in Berlin, at seventeen, Feldcroft and her old tragedies much further away. 

She'd learned his language. He'd learned her silences. Both building something new from what they'd left behind. 

But her forehead creased at the envelope in his hand, at the way he held it like it might bite.

At its London postmark. 

Reaching out, she said brusquely: "Gib es ab." Hand it over.

The world rushed back: water breaking against rocks, thoughts scattering like foam. 

Anne surfacing from the depths of Ominis' words to find George still there, patient as morning light, waiting for her voice to find its way back. 

The letter rested in her lap, gathering silver beads of dew.

English took over.

"I told you about my brother. Why they put him away."

A wordless nod.

"An old friend tells me that he's free." 

George's face held tender recognition, as well as calculation.

The wood of the bench sighed beneath his weight as he settled beside her.

Somewhere in the pearlescent morning, beyond their joined hands, a mourning dove sang its melancholy song to the mist. 

"Anne." He always said it in a way she loved, Ahnn-eh. "If you are truly worried, we can leave. I can do my work from anywhere." 

She had no answer. Not for Ominis and not for her good husband. 

Their kindness, sharp-edged. Each gentle word carving into the wall she'd built between herself and memory. The silence filled with rain. 

After a moment, Anne tucked overgrown bangs behind her ear.

More immediate things called, blessed in their mundane certainty.

"The rain is picking up. Let's go inside. Joachim will be awake soon."

Night sealed Feldcroft away from the world, thick and suffocating. The cicadas didn't sing, they scraped, a relentless thoracic drone.

Cara passed the old lookout point she'd walked past just days before. Then, she'd been deliberate in her unseeing.

Now every detail burned.

Wood smoke and late spring grass, the scent of standing water where memory pooled. Here, the past didn't fade so much as ferment.

Solomon had exiled Sebastian first. Then she and Ominis had finished the job.

A boy doesn't survive that. Something else emerges.

Her boots made no sound on the path.

The house didn't wait, it existed. Smoke from the chimney cut a sharp line against the darkness, a signal more deliberate than invitation.

Inhabited now, claimed. A declaration written against the sky.

Cara found the door slightly ajar. Scent of barbecue, smoky and almost metallic, catching in her throat.

Over the landing, into the fire.

At that same table where she'd traced dust just days ago, believing herself alone, believing the house was nothing more than a hollow… he sat.

Sallow, her first thought. Accurate in two devastating ways.

His freckles, once a playful constellation across near-swarthy skin, now blared like ink flecks on blanched paper.

It was as if watercolor now tried to depict what was once painted in oil. Leaving only essential lines, the bare suggestions of who he'd been.

The face had found its final shape. No longer becoming, but simply being. Adam's apple catching firelight, prominent against skin that'd forgotten how to hold warmth.

Though russet hair fell in familiar patterns,  she knew it'd been shorn bald countless times.

A stranger. Emergent from darkness so complete, it'd become a signature: written in hollow spaces beneath cheekbones, in careful hands resting on the table.

This familiar stranger stood. Thin, tall. Mouth a waiting line.

Looking like a cornered deer who knew to be hunted wasn't the worst that could happen.

"Sebastian."

He didn't respond at first. Just stared, brow knitting and relaxing. Blinking slowly. Processing, believing.

As if she were a hallucination, a memory made flesh.

Even though he'd seen her here already. 

"…I didn't think you'd actually come."

The words hung suspended like dust motes. Neither welcome nor threat.

Just a fact. An acknowledgment of mutual disbelief, carved into silence so thick you could almost touch it.  

"What're you cooking?"

A cop's question. Clinical. Safe. The kind that pretends it isn't really asking: What have we become?

Sebastian's eyes followed hers, a quick dart. The shadow in his profile deepening like a photograph developing in reverse.

"Beans, mostly."

He cleared his throat. Looked back at her. Wary. Curious. Though his letter had promised audacity, the man delivered silence.

And Cara. Well. Guilt kept her tethered to the doorway, an immovable root.

That earlier fear seemed quaint now, belonging to a time when emotions could be named in single syllables.

The next trite set of words escaped her.

"How are you faring?"

Sebastian looked at the floor. 

"Well, I'm frail, for one thing. Glad I've got magic to bridge the gap, but even so…"

His voice still carried its old cadence. She caught herself waiting for those cheeks to pucker the way they always had when he concentrated.

But that had been a child's gesture. Taken, along with everything else, by time. Indeed, the boy who'd spoken in exclamation points and possibilities was gone.

Her Auror's badge glinted in her peripheral vision, and she felt its weight more than saw it.

Another kind of distance measured.

This wasn't conversation, but archaeology. Excavating bones of something long buried, careful not to break what remained intact.

She leaned on his letter.

"I don't have a case to do with your house. I was just… curious about what'd become of it."

Sebastian processed this with the patience of one who had learned to wait before speaking.

Not with the anger of the boy she remembered, nor relief or joy. Just quiet understanding.

"So was I."

The beans bubbled their ignorant song. A laughably domestic sound for such a primeval moment.

Still, he watched her with the careful attention of someone expecting a mirage to dissolve.

"So—"

He cut across: "You can sit, if you'd like."

She did, slowly. Kept her spine ramrod-straight.

Though this wasn't an interrogation, her body didn't know any other dance.

Sebastian blinked, cleared his throat once more. "It seemed like you were going to say something, before I interrupted."

"I was just going to say… I don't know."

Cara's back remained rigid against the chair. 

But Sebastian leaned forward slightly, something subtle playing at the corner of his mouth.

Not quite a smile, not quite anything definable. A trick of the firelight, maybe.

"That's a first. You've always known just what to say, in my experience."

"Mhm."

Guilt was familiar territory, but this was more nuanced. Cara couldn't trust herself to feel comfortable.

Moreover, his letter had carried a dangerous assumption, a delicate hope built on a misunderstanding.

She wanted to explain. It had been bureaucratic chance. No grand design, just an institutional shuffle moving people like chess pieces. 

And tell him that she didn't deserve his audience. Not really.

"I just don't know what I could say to you that wouldn't sound terribly sad," she finally answered.

Sebastian looked grave. Resigned. He gazed at his bubbling dinner, then leaned back. The chair creaked.

"Well, then let's not talk about me." As if it were that simple. "I'm the one who needs to get caught up."

If Cara had had a cigarette, she'd have exhaled here.

"Right, okay."

A pause. Something calculated in his tone when he spoke again:

"But I know you're probably not in the mood to talk about work, based on what I've read." A beat. "How's Ominis?"

In her mind, the third member of their old trio in that torn up shack. Pale face contorted with panic, wood rot creaking around them.

"He was rather frightened you'd come after him, to be honest. As was I."

The gravity of this dawned anticlimactic. She watched him take it with that same methodical care: eyes to tabletop, then back up, as if reading a difficult paragraph twice.

"Well, that's good to know. But I meant more like… what he does for work."

"I have no idea." Flat with honesty. "For a while, I assumed he lived on family money, but over time learned the Gaunts haven't got any."

"Indeed they don't."

"It was news to me."

Something passed across Sebastian's face. Then, a wry musing:

"I can see Ominis making artisanal soap. I don't know why, but that's what I imagined."

The normalcy of it all: a thin sheet of ice over deep water. Cara felt her foothold waning.

"Sebastian—"

He raised a hand, eyes finding hers with steady attention that stretched seconds.

"Look, I can tell you feel bad. But it doesn't matter anymore. I would've turned me in too. I was guilty."

The weight in her chest felt ancient. Heads pressing dense enough to pull her through the chair, the floor, all the time spent avoiding thoughts of him.

It was this pressure that collapsed into a single point, a star eating its own light. With that supernova came fallout.

"Yes, but you look awful," the words escaping like something torn from bone.

Sebastian's mouth tightened, head tilting in that way that meant he saw more than she'd meant to show.

"Thanks for that. But I actually look a right sight better than I expected, if that helps any. Actually, while I was in London… you know what, that's a story for another time."

Then it came: that old smirk, quick as a match strike and twice as bright.

Her chair scraped against the floor. Loud, decisive.

"I can't stay."

Sebastian's brows shot up, shoulders squaring.

"Have I done something?"

A thin creak of desperation colored his voice. Like a child confronting the sudden loss of something precious and long-anticipated. A birthday balloon loose in the sky, perhaps. 

She felt compelled to tell the truth. Or at least part of it.

"No. You're fine. I just… don't think I should've come."

Sebastian stood too, arms crossing. A gesture by no means his invention, but that'd still always conjure his face. 

"So you're actually sticking with the story that you came all the way from London before, just to paw around here. Yet you're leaving so easily now?"

She blinked, pretended confusion. "What?"

"You said there was no case, but apart from Solomon, after he was dismissed… your lot avoid this hamlet like the plague."

Azkaban had stripped Sebastian of a lot. Taken his color, his stamina.

But that old tendency to seize any omission, whether real or imagined? Very much intact.

And in its shadow, Cara's guilt was a living thing. Growing fat on her silence, feeding on every second she kept the truth locked behind her teeth.

"My boss sent me. He believes another of the released prisoners is up to something. But I'm growing convinced he just wanted me out of the office. The press have been hungry."

On his face, skepticism fought something softer: that trust they used to share, trying to claw back to the surface.

Then a firefly whizzed between them, drawing Sebastian to the door.

He closed it with deliberate care.

Whether this was to keep the hamlet's ears at bay or to ensure she couldn't bolt like a spooked animal, Cara couldn't be certain.

Her Auror's instincts screamed at her not to dismiss the latter possibility.  

Not even with him. Perhaps especially not with him.

But for now, Sebastian's gaze was gentle.

"You think it's a lie. But it was your office that orchestrated the whole thing, wasn't it, so why would Fawley want to undermine himself?"

It surfaced once more: the wood polish catching in her throat as the Minister dealt in careful euphemisms. The Wizengamot regarding her like waste they'd stepped in.

And, of course, Hector's trembling fingers as he spilled the details, blaming her yet again.

All of it felt distant now under Sebastian's steady gaze. Brown eyes that had somehow kept a hint of warmth, or learned to fake it. 

"The Prophet credits our department, we did plan that, but it was the Minister's idea. Hector was… is… actually quite unhappy to be credited."

"I see."

"And I can't let you keep thinking so well of me, either. I didn't know who they'd released, until Ominis wrote me."

He let out a breath that to Cara felt like an indictment, cheeks hollowing as he turned toward the fire.

She found herself studying his profile, unable to look away from the damage she'd caused.

Sebastian positioned himself over the stew, his back to her. A strategic retreat disguised as domestic duty.

"Until Ominis warned you, you mean."

His voice, devoid of the anger she'd expected, cut deeper for its gentleness.

And with the night sounds now sealed beyond the door, Cara's whisper carried.

"I'm sorry."

His shoulders moved in something less than a shrug.

"I appreciate your honesty. A part of me knew it was… some sort of mistake. I suppose I just hoped it wasn't, that someone out there remembered me."

Each word added more weight to her stomach. 

"I did."

"Not in a good way, though. You were worried."

He spoke like someone reading their own autopsy, clinical acceptance of immutable fact.

"I—"

"So why do you think Fawley's lying? If the releases were random?"

Gauntlet thrown down with bated breath, forcing them to move on.

This time, she knew, he wouldn't apologize for interrupting.

But to explain her history with Hector would be to give it form. Some monsters are better left shapeless.

"He's… it's complicated." The words tasted pre-chewed. "As I said, he wasn't happy, and apparently someone local wrote him, worried, connecting it to Poachers. But no one in the hamlet is giving me an inch."

Sebastian pulled his wand from his pocket. Tapped it on the edge of the stew pot, thoroughly skeptical.

"And as I said, Aurors don't bother with Feldcroft. Crofters don't trust them, either. They do read the Prophet though."

Cara peeled through her preliminary interviews, remembered the glazed expressions.

Catching on one that had particularly unnerved her, that friendly face behind a myriad of potion ingredients.

"…even the shopkeeper, apparently."

Sebastian nodded. Sucking his teeth, heading for a dusty cabinet where bowls and utensils sat waiting.

"Indeed. Put simply, it's more than nostalgia that keeps Bernard Ndiaye living in this old ruin."

Cara watched him. "So you think there's actually a case?"

"I think… there are plenty of Poachers in Azkaban, more than uncle-killers by a long shot."

Something shifted in the air.

It felt insane to be having this conversation.

Cara reminded herself, jaw set, that sharing privileged information like this was a cardinal sin. It ended careers for some.

Or should have.

Then again, she'd allowed another old friend to pick her mind as they'd stewed in the same guilt.

His eyes blind but all-seeing, reading the truth beneath her careful words.

Which reminded her of a loophole.

"Ominis has a manifest of who was released. He let me see it before. I could copy it and look for more familiar names."

This puzzled Sebastian, who paused amid the inspection of a ladle to frown deeply. The expression transformed his face into something savage.

"Ominis has a—? You can't get one from your office? You of all people. I find that difficult to believe."

The memories hit her like spell-fire: redactions appearing on official documents, privileges handed out then snatched back with equal caprice.

And sometimes too late. Like in Buckinghamshire, where the silence afterward had been worse than the screaming.

All of it resting on Hector's will.

"Well, believe it," she said at last, jaded yet resolute. "You've read the Prophet. I'm not exactly a favorite lately, that story is true."

Over black beans that looked almost bloody in the light, Sebastian digested this last with wry acceptance.

Admitting silently he couldn't argue with her conviction before adding a new hurdle:

"Well, criminals will talk to one group, and that's their own kind. So, perhaps I can do some reconnaissance for you? Fill my days with something meaningful."

It was quite something, seeing the hope light up that face.

For a moment, she saw him as he used to be, eager and bright in Advanced Potions. In the Undercroft. Among fall leaves in Hogsmeade.

Stomach twisting at the notion of dashing that familiar light.

Yet still, she felt the odds stack up menacingly, and pulled an ace.

"I know you say you've accepted her distance, but I don't think Anne would like the idea of you getting into more trouble."

Sebastian tilted his head. "What's troublesome about being observant? Besides, if it got back to my sister that I was helping an Auror, I think she'd be impressed. And if I'm honest…"

Spoon clattering as he stood, taking a breath as he approached her in the doorway.

The stride slow and pointed. Each step, a punctuation mark.

Up close, he was both more familiar and more alien. Chin dusted with stubble. Azkaban had left its fingerprints on him in ways she was still counting.

Eyes alight with a justification he'd present in a low, knowing voice:

"…I think you owe me now, don't you. Since apparently, if not for sheer dumb luck, I'd still be rotting in the cell you and Ominis put me in."

Cara closed her eyes. Tasting metal. "Don't say that."

But Sebastian knew he'd played the winning hand.

She could hear it in the way his voice softened, in how he let the silence stretch just long enough to burrow under her skin.

"Too late. You don't get to worry about me now, Officer. But if I find any leads, I'll be letting you know. We know where to find each other."

She inhaled sharply, nightmare scenarios breeding in her mind like doxies in the dark. Each more complex than the last.

"Fine. But don't overstep."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

He crossed to the door with deliberate steps, opened it with a grunt that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than exertion. The set of his shoulders suggesting finality.

Beyond the threshold, rain fell in weak curtains, turning the peat-dark ground into a constellation of spreading puddles.

Strange, him ushering her out now. Minutes ago he'd worn abandonment plainly, raw-edged at the thought of being left behind.

The shift was quiet but complete.

Cara adjusted her jacket, nodding. After all, she had known she couldn't stay. Had said as much herself.

And though the timing couldn't be better, her light jacket felt insufficient against the gathering dark.

She looked back to see Sebastian standing framed in the doorway, rain spattering his shoulder, but making no move to step back inside.

Mouth crooked, brow knitted, as though working through a complicated Arithmancy problem.

Something misty washing over him that had nothing to do with the weather. A softening around his eyes that made him look achingly young.

"Cara," he said, almost as a preamble, carrying the weight of a longer sentence.

He'd pronounced it the common way, carra. Something he must have presumed from reading the press coverage.

It was reverent, respectful. It was also wrong.

"It's pronounced Care-a," she murmured.

"Right then."

A pause, pregnant with the unspoken.

"Even if I don't write immediately, you're still welcome here anytime. Despite everything, I find myself needing to say… that hasn't changed."

They lingered in the doorway, taking each other in openly now that goodbye had granted them permission.

"Thank you, Sebastian."

The moment stretched, neither willing to be the first to break it. Rain drummed against the thatched roof.

Cara swallowed as the urge to hug him rose sudden and unwanted in her chest, a betrayal of muscle memory she would rather not examine.

It scared her, this instinct to comfort someone she'd helped condemn. What kind of person did that make her?

It didn't matter. As an Auror, her handshake was practiced, curt, firm. It had to be, even here.

And somehow, Sebastian's matched it exactly: skin warm despite the rain, calluses where she remembered none.

Then his gaze slid away, already turning inward, back to his cooling stew and his solitude as their palms became their own again.

"Be safe out there, Cara."

This time, he said it right.

Like a key clicking home in a long-rusted lock.

Chapter Text

---

One alien is a curiosity, two are an invasion.

Ursula K. LeGuin

---

Monday bled into late afternoon when the Department for Regulation of Magical Creatures gathered for an unscheduled meeting.

The room held its breath, half the faces still bright with purpose, the others dreaming of home.

Poppy Sweeting's spine crackled like tiny dominos, vertebrae clicking as she adjusted her posture.

She noted the way her supervisor's smile faded at the edges. Something important was coming.

The scribe's question cut through murmured conversations: "What've we got, Prewett?"

His throat-clearing echoed in the sudden quiet.

"Well." A breath that seemed to last forever. "There's that Manticore we placed a tracker on. Lived in that specialized sanctuary outside Irondale. At least until—"

"A Manticore?"

Poppy forgot herself, wonder pushing past propriety.

Leander’s eyes crinkled with amusement—not at her interruption, but at the evident enthusiasm in her voice.

They’d been mere acquaintances at Hogwarts, but now, a flicker of professional maturity shone on him. 

Or perhaps, it was simply the relief of monotony broken by a fresh face.

"Yes. It was privately owned, couldn't be returned to its habitat. We knew about it. But I keep getting signals now— it's to the east of Fuckcroft, moving around the same kilometer or so. The owner hasn't answered my Owl."

Poppy adjusted her spectacles, quill scribbling furiously across the parchment. "You mean Feldcroft?"

A ripple of laughter spread through the room, a shared inside joke she clearly wasn't privy to.

But the mystery would have to wait. More pressing concerns pushed her on.

"Does the Auror Office know about this?"

"Absolutely not," snapped Adelaide. Face flushed with both rosacea and resolve. "They’d kill it and pin it on us. That Mulciber is a menace—I saw him steal scales off a dead mermaid with my own eyes."

"Alright, Oakes." Leander straightened, his calm presence gathering their attention. "The AO won't need to be notified unless a civilian is hurt anyway. Our job is to get there first, make sure no beings are harmed."

"Exactly," Poppy whispered, hope humming in her chest.

The assistant's quill pointed across the table like a conductor's baton. She leaned close to Leander, sharing words too soft to catch.

"I agree," he demurred, turning back to them all. "Poppy, I think you'll accompany me on this one. I need that unbiased approach you've got."

"Me? I don't have field clearance yet."

"You do now." Adelaide's voice carried both warmth and bitterness. "Saddle up."

The patch beyond the cottage exhaled secrets into the June air.

Sebastian yanked wild alliums from the earth. Cara watching as the sun beat against their necks. 

He opened their discussion with a curveball:

"Why do you think they hate you so much at work? Be honest."

The question seemed casual, but it wasn't.

Her nostrils flared like a horse scenting smoke. Confused but sure of her reply.

"Because I'm a woman."

He looked up, fingers still strangling a wild onion by its green crown. Something moved behind his eyes.

"I think that part's incidental."

Cara scoffed. "Right, it's all in my head."

Sebastian brought the onion to his face, inhaling earth from its dirt-speckled roots before tossing it onto the pile with its brothers. 

"I didn't say that. If you were a sycophant who did everything their way, they'd probably love that you're a woman."

"You mean they'd fetishize me instead. Either way, it'd still matter."

The snippiness in her voice didn't bother her. Most men understood oppression the way the blind did sunsets: through secondhand poetry, pleasant abstraction.

"Alright, fair enough."

His boot connected with a rotting pumpkin. Together, they watched it tumble down the hill, orange flesh surrendering to gravity.

A trowel passed between them, an apparent white flag. 

"Just make dips in the soil, quarter inch apart."

"Got it."

She thought he was finished, that her barbed truth had found its mark.

That he'd retreat into the safer territory of gardening, where seeds either grew or didn't. And his next remark would be something actionable. 

Then Sebastian's voice rose from the rhythm of their work, a counterpoint to metal biting earth:

"I think they hate you because you follow the oaths they ignore. Outperform them by the book, even when they cheat."

She waited, making her marks in the loam. 

"And yes—while you are a reminder that bollocks don't win them everything, I don't think you should be stuck on that. It's what they'd want."

Cara felt the sun beat down on her face as she considered these words. 

Leaning against that trowel, listening to Sebastian's shovel plunking into the earth every other second.

"I suppose you're right."

They stood studying each other in June's merciless glare, caught in the strange space where walls came down. 

Was this what he'd apparently needed to talk to her about? 

Sweat crawled across Cara's scalp, her skin crying out for the shade of a hat she hadn't thought to bring. 

At last, Sebastian's face folded in on itself, freckles darkening across the sun-stung bulb of his nose.

"…You don't have them though… do you? Bollocks."

A snort escaped before she could swallow it back. She returned to her quarter-inch measurements, tiny graves for future growth.

"No, I don't."

He chuckled, a low sound that shook dirt loose from his shovel. "Just checking. The Prophet would have a field day with that one."

From Cara came a remark she'd never learned to swallow, even when redundancy made it taste stale: "I don't read the Prophet."

"Yes, you've said." The words rolled off his tongue, gathering momentum. "So you won't mind if I tell them you're packing a big, throbbing, knee-length monster? Get them all dewy mouthed?"

An image blazed: Hector hunched over his morning Prophet, tea splashing across silk as those words registered, dressing gown a casualty of sputtering horror. 

And something wild erupted from her throat. A sound she hadn't authorized.

The trowel quivered beneath her grip as if sharing the joke, metal singing against the earth.

"I'd love that."

The shovel hit dirt with a satisfying thunk as Sebastian abandoned all pretense of work.

His smirk carving new geography into hollow cheeks.

"You laughed… I'll be honest, I didn't think your mouth moved that way. I feel accomplished."

The warmth of the moment settled around Cara's shoulders, but old habits died slower than daylight.

She rolled her eyes: 

"I've laughed in front of you before."

"No, MC has laughed in front of me. Cara Morganach is a much tougher crowd. Don't steal my thunder." 

She felt herself smile.

But beneath it, reality hummed. 

Even if it was indeed all bullshit, an illusion of Hector's creation, she was still being paid to be here.

"So, have you managed to hear anything? About the Poachers?"

At last, Sebastian produced his wand, sweeping their gardening tools into an arc. They came to rest against the side of the house.

"People have been whining that their crops are being eaten faster than any farm animal could manage, which is interesting—but I haven't seen anything suspicious beyond that, no." 

Cara's eyebrow lifted.

A promising thread, but scant. She needed dates, patterns, names to take it beyond a mere observation. 

Simultaneously, a different question surfaced. One she'd carried since his owl had arrived.

"If you've heard nothing, why did you write back so quickly?"

Sebastian pivoted toward the house, looked back as if to make sure she followed.

The back of his head told her nothing as they crossed the threshold, boots marking stone with honest dirt. 

Cooler inside, amid the particular stillness of a home that had forgotten the sound of multiple footsteps.

"Sebastian?"

He turned around. "Honestly? I wanted the company."

The words were simple, unguarded. She watched his face change as he realized what he'd admitted, how quickly he tried to recover.

Fingers drumming against his thigh.

"But if you want to do some investigating…" His voice steadied. "I am known around here. As is my crime. Having me along might throw people off, make them more likely to talk."

She thought of their school days, of research done by candlelight, of theories passed in whispers.

The wanting sat heavy in her chest. Not for then, but for now.

For something real in a mess of bureaucracy and dead ends. But she couldn't throw away everything she'd learned. 

"We're not allowed to invite civilians along on investigations."

Sebastian crossed his arms in the darkening kitchen, dirt still fresh on his sleeves, jaw set.

"Never ever?"

"Well… unless they're deputized."

He clapped once, gently. "So you could deputize me!"

The suggestion carried that particular warmth she remembered. The kind that had always led to answers, even when they broke rules to find them. 

She knew she should've lied, should've doubled down that it was never allowed.

And yet.

"It's only something we do in special circumstances."

"I won't tell anyone."

Along their walk, the expanse of a rock face showed two figures with purpose. Probably people foraging for mushrooms.

"Say, is that Poppy Sweeting?"

Sebastian's question, amused in the fragility of the recently freed learning to trust their own eyes again. She supposed that for him, every stranger's silhouette held the promise of reunion.

Cara felt her throat tighten. But before her pity could fully settle, it evaporated into something sharper, more alert.

"I don't think… oh."

Open mouth, insert foot. Because indeed, there she was. Poppy in the flesh, garbed in field gear.

The same girl who'd once maintained silly truths, such as rocks remembering every hand that's touched them, every shadow that's crossed their surface.

Now just another shadow herself.

Cara's recollection of their last encounter in the Atrium unfurled like a pressed flower, all preserved in perfect, brittle detail.

Poppy's hope for hire. Her own jaded voice.

Of course, Sebastian shared her cognitive vertigo in spades.

"What's she doing here?"

"She works for DRMC." The words came out automatic, rehearsed, as if Cara read from some script that hadn't yet caught up with the scene. "Surprised they have her in the field already."

Sebastian's shoulder brushed hers as he craned his neck.

"Who's that with her? Is that… is that Leander?"

It was. Of course it was. Because the universe never could resist stacking its coincidences like a house of Exploding Snap cards.

The pieces clicked together in Cara's head with all the grace of rusted gears.

"He's the department head," she managed.

But the words felt hollow. Incomplete, missing some crucial truth just beyond her grasp.

Though she would rather not give Hector any credit, he wasn't the only department head who stayed desk-bound.

In his case, it was theater. A way to dodge responsibility.

But others, like Leander Prewett, were genuinely too valuable to risk. The sort whose presence meant the normal fail-safes had already failed.

Meanwhile, her freshly deputized partner, aware of none of this context, tapped the fence with anticipatory fingertips.

"It's a small world after all," Sebastian murmured, the Disney-sweet words carrying an undertaste of bitter almonds. "Class reunion?"

She gave him a sidelong look. "There are a few reasons why that'd be a bad idea."

He sucked his teeth. "Fine, you're the boss."

Both of them turned forward, letting silence settle. Nature filled the void with cricket-song, a lullaby for the uneasy.

Until something else shredded through the night.

The sound was wrong, fundamentally wrong, tearing reality's fabric.

It didn't belong here in the Highlands, where the most frightening had the courtesy to growl in recognizable octaves.

Their eyes found each other in the darkness.

"Think we know what they're doing here now." In Sebastian's voice: the particular calm of desensitization to danger. "Though I don't recognize that particular Beast by the sound. Any ideas?"

The words had barely left his mouth when Poppy and Leander spun toward them, wands at the ready.

The field gear Cara had noticed earlier? Now looking less like research attire and more like armor.

"Ministry of Magic, show yourselves."

She relinquished her Disillusionment, prepared for whatever fuckery this caused. No other choice.

Despite her anxiety, despite her badge she returned:

"Auror Office."

Poppy's face flashed with recognition—twofold. "Cara, and… Sebastian Sallow?"

The moment crystallized into something absurd.

Here they all were, roles and ranks stacked. Mismatched nesting dolls crammed onto an unsteady shelf. 

Cara was technically at the top, her Auror's badge outweighing even Leander's seniority at DRMC.

Next was Poppy, a wide eyed trainee, blinking rapidly. 

Then finally Sebastian, standing beside her. His presence an essay's worth of questions no one had time to read.

Class reunion indeed. Cara's throat may as well have been treacle left out to harden. 

Then the night saved them from their collective paralysis: that eldritch roar splitting the air again.

Unnerving all. Making hierarchies and old school ties seem suddenly, blessedly irrelevant.

"If we need you, will you be nearby?" Leander's question, clipped, duty over curiosity. "Off the record, we're pursuing a Manticore that belonged to the Irondale Sanctuary. May need an Auror if we discover more than that."

Those three words, off the record, were a shot of calming draught straight to Cara's veins.

A tacit acknowledgment that paperwork and protocol weren't important now.

In the pause, Poppy looked between them. Dark eyes darting from Cara to Sebastian and back again. 

"Yes. Off the record, I'll be in Feldcroft."

After three heartbeats, she counted, Leander gave a nod.

He and his partner melting into the darkness. Their footsteps fading toward that impossible sound.

A lion's mane, a scorpion's tail. Promises of poison and pain.

Cara watched them go, her jaw aching from the things she couldn't say.

Indeed, DRMC required Aurors only when there were humans to arrest. They didn't need help chasing monsters… unless those monsters had masters whose strings needed cut.

A Manticore.

The kind of beast that lived in textbook margins and children's nightmares. Not places where people walked dogs and hung laundry.

And the shape of it felt wrong, this strange geometry of coincidence. She'd been so certain Hector had manufactured this case, sent her chasing shadows.

Was there some truth in it after all?

"So, are there actually Poachers…?" she asked the night.

The silence that followed hung thick and self aware. 

She turned to find Sebastian sitting in the grass, his chest rising and falling, a broken bellows. His wand arm lay limp across his lap.

"Sorry," he breathed, face a roadmap of pain. "I haven't left the hamlet since I've been back. I wanted to say something, but I…"

"It's better you didn't."

And she meant it.

Sebastian unwound himself from the grass, brushed dirt from his palms. "So what now?"

"I'm going to ask Bernard to send a letter to the Irondale Sanctuary… and then I guess we wait."

After that was over with, Cara folded herself onto the floor of his one room home. Akin to a bird with clipped wings.

Cross-legged, playing at meditation. And not quite pulling it off. 

Sebastian watched her from the fireplace, and couldn't stop himself.

"You know, I'm not going to bite you."

She surfaced from whatever depths had claimed her, dazed, then bristling—as if yanked from some important dream.

Rapid blinks, a stern edge:

"Huh?"

He heard the ironic bite in his voice now. "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt any strategizing. I just meant that you should try to relax."

Cara shook her head, flyaways of sandy hair that had escaped its severe bun swaying with her neck.

"I just—normally, I would've insisted that they tell me what was going on. Even if it caused an argument."

Watching her fingers sketch anxiety against her knees, he felt the weight of his earlier demands.

"Was it me? That kept you quiet?"

"No. I told myself it was, but no. And I don't think they would have told on me to Hector, either. Now that I actually think about it, maybe I could've helped more."

Sebastian shifted, the floorboards singing beneath him. Strange to watch her shoulder guilt yet again.

During their reunion, his presence had been the weight that bent the surrounding light for them both, but now?

"I wouldn't worry about any of it. And actually, for the moment, why don't you… never mind."

The suggestion died halfway to his lips, too naïve to survive contact with air. Who was he, after all, to orchestrate anyone's escape?

Her head lifted, quick as a sparrow's flight. "No, what?"

Casting about for justification, he found inspiration toward the end:

"I was going to say that maybe you could take a day off. A few, even… if it's not a real case, and they just want to keep you busy, it shouldn't bother anyone."

He watched possibility bloom across her features before duty frosted it over. Fingers finding her trouser hem, something turning to winter.

"You say that like Hector won't come knocking at my door."

His eyebrows lifted, but something cold settled in his stomach. The certainty in her voice put him on edge.

"Please, he's not that childish, is he?"

"I wish I could say he wasn't."

There it was again, that faraway look.

Sebastian crossed his arms, feeling like a man trying to bail out an ocean with a teacup, but committed to the attempt.

"You sent your letter, and Leander and Poppy are doing their job. Far as we know, there's no more to it. You do work for the Auror Office, but that doesn't mean you're their prisoner."

She processed this with a crooked, bitter grin that didn't quite linger.

"Is that choice of words meant to make me feel guilty?"

The firelight caught her eyes, and he lost a moment watching them reflect the flame—sea glass holding sunset.

Suddenly aware of his shadow, Sebastian looked away first.

He pushed a chair out of the way and sat on the tabletop, feet tapping out an echo of his own directionless days.

"No, it's just a fact. When does Fawley expect you in the mornings? Nine?"

She closed her eyes. "Seven."

"So, just write to him tonight and say you're coming down with something." The words came easy, each a small betrayal of his current uselessness. "I know you can't spend all your days staring at the floor like me, but you're clearly in a funk."

The length of her pause almost convinced him she'd agree, and he wasn't sure whether to feel hopeful or guilty about that.

"I'd like a break, but I don't really feel like sitting around my flat," Cara offered bluntly, her eyes finding him.

It hung there, compounded; two parts resignation, one part challenge.

And despite every instinct screaming at him to back off, Sebastian leaned in.

"Nor should you. And as leery as I am of leaving home, I think that…" The pause stretched. "We could both use a change of scenery."

Shit. First he'd written to her begging for company like some lost dog scratching at her door, pushed her into deputizing him, and now… trying to get her to skive off work?

Who the hell was he?

The last time he'd tried being a person again, he'd ended up with a stranger's lipstick on his collar, shame burning holes in his pockets.

But this was no stranger. She knew him. Knew what he was. What he'd been.

And maybe that was the problem.

"Cara, I—" the crease between her eyes stopped him cold, folded his courage into origami. "I understand if you'd rather not."

Her laughter was a rusty hinge. "I thought you were going to remind me that I owe you. For… what I did."

Sebastian still couldn't shake the keen sting of how wildly improper he was, suggesting any of this.

A ghost trying to plan a dinner party.

Yet, he found himself smirking.

"I didn't even think of that. But if it'll convince you, I guess I don't disagree." The truth lingered: "I really do think you could use a break, though."

"Where would we even go?"

Due south, the workday churned on for two souls who hadn't rejected the Ministry's grinding wheel.

The Manticore, now subdued under their precise coordination, safely transported back to Ministry holding—had been just the beginning.

Leander knew the real work waited at Irondale Sanctuary, where the silence now spoke louder than any beast.

The fence hung in splintered remnants, roof shingles scattered.

His trainee's voice threaded nervous electricity:

"The door's just… open."

Leander's nod came sharp as a knife. "Wand at the ready."

Poppy swallowed hard, her fingers white-knuckling her wand as they crossed the threshold.

Empty cages gaped. Some with claw marks scoring their bars, others with straw still scattered across their floors.

"Ministry of Magic, DRMC," she announced to absolutely no one. "When did you write them?"

"Four days ago now. Lumos."

And it was that same letter he found behind the counter. Unopened among a pile of other correspondence that would never reach its recipient.

A ginger eyebrow rose at the one that'd come after it. Devoid of any official seal, but sporting a familiar name. 

"Looks like the AO went over our heads, or tried to."

When Poppy managed tear her eyes from the cages, move through the destruction to take the letter from him, she frowned.

"I don't understand," Poppy admitted, scanning the cages. Something was wrong here, beyond the obvious emptiness. Beyond their purview. 

"She didn't want Fawley knowing she asked," explained her boss flatly. 

He busied himself shuffling through the rest of the post. Finding nothing of note but overdue utility notices.

After a taut pause, Leander spoke his mind, newly galvanized:

"Kind of wish I'd been less frosty earlier — now. But seeing Sallow…"

"They definitely won't want the Chief knowing he's with her," Poppy inferred, stowing the letter in her pocket. "Do you think she's gone rogue?"

He shook his head. Hay rustling beneath thick soles as he made for the back room, wondering what, if anything, they'd find there. 

"It'd be in the news. So do what you wish, but don't involve Fawley. I'm not sure what lies ahead — but their office will burn it to the ground."

"I see." 

Hogsmeade erupted around Cara and Sebastian like a firecracker in reverse. Sound and color rushing in to fill the void left by their Apparition.

June had transformed the village into something wild and vital, summer's promise crackling through cobblestones that remembered their feet.

The celebrations spilled down streets too narrow to contain such joy.

Bagpipes belted out tunes into the midnight air, drums beating time with hundreds of dancing hearts.

Everywhere, villagers with pints held high, laughter a countermelody to the music.

"Holy shit," Sebastian breathed, and Cara felt the words more than heard them. "You knew about this?"

"What?"

"I said, you kn—"

His hand found her forearm, and suddenly, they were moving.

Cara watched emotions chase each other across his face: fear and wonder trading places as he pulled her into the relative shelter of a shop.

The music followed them, muted now but still alive in the floorboards.

Her mind finally caught up with her eyes. Zonko's.

Of course it was Zonko's. Joke wands and trick sweets making her feel old.

"Did you know this was going on?" Sebastian's eyes roamed the ceiling, tracking the hanging trinkets. "I mean, I knew they held something here in June. Start of summer, a festival. But I forgot."

"So did I."

The words felt small.

She'd pulled him here on instinct, but now watched him flinch at the sensory assault.

And now, wait for her to say more despite it. 

"It just felt like a good place to come. You brought me here for the first time."

Outside, the band leader's voice boomed over the crowd, imploring a call and response.

Hundreds of voices roared back, the sound a roll of vocal thunder. 

Meanwhile, Cara's heart counted the seconds of Sebastian's silence.

Those brown eyes, lit by a smile twisted against nervous energy, crinkled as he returned:

"I remember."

The village was at once exactly as they'd left it and nothing like it at all.

Cara felt, despite herself, that this misty-eyed moment might shatter under that paradox.

"Is it too much for you?"

Sebastian's lips pursed, considering, before something in him seemed to settle.

"It won't be, if you buy me a beer."

The drinks materialized and disappeared, all emptying faster than the last. Time bent as music swelled, stars burning holes through the night.

Pint glasses clinked in ritual observation at first, each toast washing away another layer of reality.

Beat the hell out of getting drunk in her flat, staring at reports until the words blurred.

Cara floated in the limbo of anonymity, remembering how to move at the edge of the crowd.

Here, titles and shame held no power. She was nothing but motion.

Sebastian, too, lingered at the periphery. Glances coming sideways through the haze, eyebrows curved into impossible questions.

Then, in a flash, he wasn't lingering anymore. Turning from someone who feared the crowd into a part of it. Alcohol had loosened his bones more than her own. 

He moved like someone who'd read about dancing in books. Elbows and good intentions, shoulders jerking; enthusiastic approximations of rhythm.

But there was magnetism in his commitment to making a fool of himself. Each awkward motion, a middle finger to the anxiety threading through him, to the crowd pressing in.

His smile kept breaking through, and Cara was grinning back.

Sebastian mouthed, "Come on," clear as a bell even lost in the noise, head jerking in invitation. But the rest?

She tapped her ear.

"I said let your hair down!"

The shout tore through the wall of sound, accompanied by a grin that split reality in two. Sweat plastered dark hair against his skin in wild patterns.

Cara yanked the pins from her hair, but before her hands could drop, Sebastian's fingers locked around her wrists.

He pulled her straight into his chaos; his elbows-everywhere, no-rhythm revolution.

She shot him a look that collapsed into snorting laughter as they jumped and bounced like kids, feet hammering cobblestones.

Sebastian tried to spin her, nearly taking out a passing villager. She rolled her eyes but let him whirl her anyway, their hands slipping with sweat.

His expression; pure concentration, tongue caught between teeth.

A man's determination burning through boyish impulse.

Had she visited Hogsmeade even a week ago, she'd have buried its memories of Sebastian beneath stacks of reports, locked away with every other facet of a life not sanctioned by the Ministry.

But here he was. Not just free, but demanding she be, too.

Pulling her out of the careful box she'd constructed, showing her that freedom wasn't something to be filed away, but lived.

Her body remembered this. Muscles that had forgotten how to breathe, suddenly awakening.

They careened through the crowd.

Sebastian everywhere, pulling her into wilder movements.

Look at me, his gestures demanded. Remember how to be alive.

Amid a pause between songs:

"See, Officer. Taking the day off is important."

"I could still go in," she breathed. Head tilting with a spark of mischief.

"Don't you dare," Sebastian chuckled. His blink came stuttery, eyes bright with mirth and intoxication. "Do you reckon I can trouble you for a meal? Remember, you owe me."

She let go of his hands, stumbling toward the sidewalk, giddy and unsteady.

Looking back, catching his eye with a grin.

"Don't start."

Hector watched the clock's pendulum swing, counting the handful of souls still haunting these halls after hours. 

He felt he wielded the least real power of the bunch. Despite his name etched on the frosted glass door, despite how tirelessly his subordinates scrambled to please him. 

Even his overstuffed mailbox was mostly for show. The only real orders came  from other departments, passed up once non-Aurors found themselves drowning. 

And lately, even those streams had run dry.

What remained were citizens' letters, demanding attention to every shadow that crossed their garden. 

One of which he'd grafted onto the Azkaban release fiasco, to keep Morganach occupied.

His other officers sifted the rest, choosing which threads to follow.

They understood: let him keep his clean shoes and pressed robes while they did the dirty work.

All except her.

Which made her silence more maddening. No storming back to call his bluff, to force him to admit he'd barely glanced at those records.

Keeping her within reach at that desk had been a small victory. Until she'd made him look the fool with that Slytherin friend of hers.

Feldcroft. A backwater where pensioners grew fat on government gold, where nothing had stirred the pot since the Goblin Rebellion. 

He'd selected it to wear her down, keep her chasing shadows. But she'd taken to the bullshit with unsettling conviction.

Maybe that was why she'd called out sick. She was onto him.

If she'd only opened her door Saturday, set aside that practiced indifference, he might have let the charade drop.

They could have reached an understanding over wine, revisited that night she'd drunkenly insisted the female orgasm was a myth. 

He could have shown her how wrong she'd been.

But no.

Pistachios cracked between his fingers, shells collecting on his desk.  

In time the enchanted light above clicked off, sensing the late hour.

He waved it back to life, knee nudging his topmost drawer open.

Fresh quill, plum ink — a signature affectation.

Chapter Text

---

Not once or twice in our fair island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

---

Rain hammered the thatch, sharp as loose change in a tin cup. Each hit making Sebastian's hangover pulse behind his eyes.

But he welcomed the skull-crushing weight.

It was proof of living, of letting joy crack through careful walls. Of being gloriously stupid again.

He rolled over, hoping Cara had been taking the piss about dragging herself to work anyway. That right now she was buried under blankets, telling the world to fuck off for a few precious hours.

Under his own coverlet, Sebastian couldn't dismiss one niggling thought: had Hector really shown up at her door?

He'd pressed her on it, softly. But the way her voice had flattened told him it wasn't just a figure of speech.

His gut twisted at the thought.

Maybe things had changed while he was rotting in that cell. But appearing at a woman's door uninvited still felt wrong; raw, predatory.

Either there was precedent… or the Chief wanted there to be.

No reasoning sat well.

When she'd dropped him home, Bernard Ndiaye had been waiting with news, or rather, a lack thereof:

That same most persistent Owl, the one that shredded Ministry wards to deliver Sebastian's own meandering letter?

It hadn't gotten any response from the Irondale Sanctuary.

He'd wanted to tell Cara she'd done enough, but she seemed to know already. A tight smile the only tell as she Apparated back to London's stone maze.

On the nearby table, proof of last night: a shot glass nicked from the pub. His fingertips remembered its weight, how it had caught the light while Cara talked.

The onions they'd pulled lay scattered in the garden now, drinking up rain.

Sebastian had woken yesterday, galvanized to work the earth. To wake up prison-soft muscles, feel something real under his hands.

Then, once working alone felt like serving another sentence, those humble roots became an excuse to draw her.

A pretense that had spiraled into a confrontation with Leander and Poppy.

And then, somehow, into dancing through Hogsmeade's streets. Cara's face flushed and bright with laughter.

She'd humored him at first, then something had cracked open: matching his every stupid move, transformed by the simple act of not giving a damn.

He'd seen someone surface in those moments. Someone from before, someone he'd taken for granted—and who'd paid him back for it.

And then: both of them crammed into the same side of a booth. Some new pub he couldn't name. One of those places that had sprouted up in the gap, after the troll but before they'd danced like idiots through the crowd.

Sharing greasy potatoes that, even fried too long, still tasted of solid gold.

She'd spilled old memories, tumbling faster as the sky began to pale.

He'd matched each one, a shared past rising between them like something alive and breathing.

Chuckling as Cara posited wild theories about their old classmates: the fate of Puffskein Dunkein and that whole circus.

Then wondering why she had so many abstractions instead of developments to share. At that point, it'd hit him. They were both stumbling in the dark.

Her entire world: cases, Ministry corridors, empty apartment walls. Rinse, repeat. She lived in isolation, as complete as his had been. Just prettier, self-imposed, paid.

The occasional visits with Ominis were all she had, until even those were gobbled by vultures with Quick-Quotes Quills.

"I'm still sorry I turned you in," she'd mumbled through a mouthful of potatoes. Drunk enough to let old wounds bleed, the pub's noise her shield. "I really thought it was the right thing to do."

"It was," he'd said, swallowing another burning mouthful. "I want to stay mad about it, but I can't."

That flash of fury that had taken his uncle had never felt intentional, just pure acidic rage eating his brain away. Solomon had been a bastard, but death wasn't the answer.

A moment in time that haunted him; the anguished face of a twin, his own hypocritical cry ringing in his ears:

"Oh, Anne… what have you done?"

No, she wouldn't forgive him. Not without some proof he'd changed. Perhaps not even then.

As for Ominis. Well, he clung to the law like a drowning man to driftwood, his shit childhood making even the stupidest rules taste like salvation.

Sebastian sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes.

The girl formerly known as MC was still an Auror, dishonored or not.

And she couldn't spend her days playing in the dirt with him, reliving old memories, making him feel human again. He'd insisted she play his games; a clumsy child sharing toys.

Maybe it had helped her. Even just a little.

But he wasn't stupid.

If she patched things up with Hector, if she clawed her way back into the Ministry's good graces, this strange intermission would end.

This book neither of them was meant to keep, it would close. 

Perhaps it was time to ask around in earnest. So that next time he'd have more than an excuse.

Represent more than a life she'd left behind.

The buzzer did ring that day, jolting Cara from her haze.

She'd barricaded herself in bed with every Feldcroft file she could dig out of her cabinet. A guilty cigarette, her secret weapon against sleepless nights, dangling from her lips.

No one waited at the door. Just a massive parcel wrapped in gleaming cellophane. A basket, by the shape of it.

Her wand tore through the wrapping, conduit to her impatience.

Inside: sweets, fruits, and an ostentatious quill dripping with gold inlay. Monogrammed.

The card pirouetted in the air, enchanted to present itself:

"From your friends at the AO — get well soon."

Their signatures crowded the bottom, Hector's sprawling largest in plum ink.

Cara pulled hard on the cigarette, but found nothing but filter. Perfect timing.

She licked her lips and pressed the hot end against the Chief's signature. Watched it burn a tiny hole through an elaborate 'H'.

The card fell flat, magic nullified.

Her fingers scavenged the basket, emerging with a fistful of candies. The rest could rot there in the doorway.

With a sigh she trudged back to bed, already unwrapping the first sweet. Time to lay some groundwork for her next outing.

She'd get well once there was a reason to be.

Peter Mulciber, Junior, knocked on his boss's door during lunch hour.

That sacred time when the building exhaled toward greasy spoons and corner cafés. His stomach already overdue for the antipasto salad it wouldn't receive if this took too long.

From within came labored breathing. Papers rustling; being straightened, hidden, or both.

Hector's voice caught like fabric on a nail. "I, erm, who's that? Pete?"

Something jingled, something shifted. Mulciber cleared his throat.

"I can come back."

"No, no, come in." Too bright, too measured. The voice of a man reassembling his composure as the door hit the wall with desperate enthusiasm.

There sat Hector, straight-backed as a church pew, hands folded choirboy-keen. 

Hairline mapped by a thin sheen of sweat.

Mulciber swallowed the growl in his gut, along with the implication of what he'd heard.

"Afternoon, Chief. I wanted to ask if you'd spoken to my father. During your outing to Knockturn."

Hector's words floated, the meaning obscured by altitude, as he wiped his forehead:

"I did, yes. He and his business partner, Mr. Malfoy."

"So, you have an understanding with him, then. About the… necessities for their continued commerce."

A mid-sentence pause that stretched, made implications clear.

Yet Hector blinked with deliberate slowness, as if trying to decode a foreign language.

"Well, yes, but I'm afraid there wasn't time for specifics. The walls have eyes, even there. Thankfully, you and Nott are more on the pulse, so to speak."

Mulciber's jaw tightened. Wondering how to subtly bridge the gap he sensed.

"Yes, we've made sure to choose our cases carefully. I just wanted to make sure that you have been… equally discerning."

A frown creased the Chief's forehead, lips pressing into a thin line. His face on a curious toggle between confusion and ruffled feathers.

"Erm, not to impugn your authority," his subordinate added.

"Of course I'm discerning. Tell Mulciber Senior, if he wishes to speak to me, he can do so directly—at my home. You know where that is."

His statement hung in the air, a boundary drawn in ink. The tension needed breaking.

Mulciber's eyes found the status board above Hector's head. Their surnames arranged in neat columns, whereabouts categorized and contained by magic old as their institution itself.

Delineations across the top: "Field work", "in office", "sick leave".

Morganach's marker sat in the third column, moved there just this morning after they'd signed that card.

Reaching for safer ground, he asked: "Any word on how long she'll be out? Morgs?"

And sure as the sunrise, Hector's entire demeanor shifted. Shoulders loosening as if granted permission for a favorite pastime.

"No. And to be honest, I'm convinced she's faking. She'd better come back in with scars from dragon pox or Spattergroit, is all I have to say."

"One of us could pop in on her, if it pleases you."

The suggestion dangled like bait as Hector fiddled with his pen, a conductor sans orchestra. His cheeks lifting in what might have been a smile or a grimace.

The distinction hardly mattered.

"Appreciate you asking, but I think it's best we let her be this time." A pause. "Aren't you hungry, Pete?"

His stomach answered before his mouth could. The conversation collapsing under its weight.

"I am. Talk to you later."

The chair swiveled: Hector's back a full stop at the end of a sentence neither fully understood.

"Cheers, my friend."

As a general rule, Solomon Sallow had pinched every Sickle until it screamed. But he never skimped when it came to liquor.

A fact Sebastian's pounding head now appreciated as he drank from a measure of the dead man's brandy.

The hangover had worsened since his venture into the wilds between Feldcroft and Irondale.

And what he'd learned there… well, he'd gone and written to Cara again, hadn't he?

Couldn't stop himself from playing at being useful.

He should've been job hunting, scraping together whatever dregs of dignity remained.

Maybe old Thomas Brown at Tomes and Scrolls would let him stack books in some forgotten corner. Merlin knew Flourish and Blotts was a lost cause, as long as Gwen Avery drew breath.

But no. Sebastian hadn't done anything he should've.

He'd stumbled through those woods, playing the fresh-from-prison piece of shit he was, sniffing around about beast pelts.

Circling men who pretended to survey land but wore clothes too clean for the mud they stood in.

What had frozen his blood wasn't the act, but their response. Those "surveyors," their eyes suddenly sharp with recognition, hungry and avaricious.

Then one of them, in a moment of unguarded candor, had muttered about a Manticore pelt they'd been promised.

Wondering when their mule would finally deliver, and if Sebastian was him.

The coincidence had sent him scurrying, mumbling promises about returning with information.

Now he sat with his only friend: a Demiguise-shaped bottle of brandy.

The training dummies stood as silent witnesses to his descent into Solomon's finest vintage.

Irony hung heavy; here he was, becoming Gladwin Moon, the man he'd once mocked to Cara on that walk to Hogsmeade.

Another swallow burned its way down. This stuff hit like a Bludger to the teeth, twice as hard as Hogsmeade's watered-down piss.

The world already sliding sideways.

Maybe he should toast Solomon's corpse before he passed out. It was his bloody brandy, after all.

"Nightcap?"

Of course, she'd come. This second letter had promised something different; he wasn't just going to waste her time.

Sebastian turned, the night air swimming around him. There she was, moonlight catching the planes of her face, the hollow of her throat.

He'd seen her in clothes like this yesterday, but tonight, under this sky, it struck him with a different force. The button-down pulled tight across her shoulders, dark slacks hugging hips.

A fist clenching in his gut.

"You know, Cara—"

Her hand rustling through her pocket. "I got the list from Ominis."

Sebastian blinked, fingers fumbling as she passed him the parchment. "Oh, well. That's…"

Ominis' handwriting sprawled across the page, careful and spaced in that distinctive way of his.

The names blurred together, meaningless except for his own, which seemed to pulse against the paper.

He looked up at Cara, aware of each second of her time he was burning.

"There are Poachers. They wanted to know why they didn't get the spoils from the Manticore. I didn't catch any names."

That familiar crinkle appeared in her forehead as she processed this, then smoothed into relief.

"Thanks for doing that. I'll have something to tell Hector, when I go back to work."

He might have stood, if his legs hadn't felt like water. "Tomorrow?"

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug that seemed painfully sober. "I haven't decided. But he wants progress reports on the case, apparently."

"Happy to be of service, then." The Demiguise bottle sloshed promisingly when he raised it, another sip to mark the moment. "Anyone show up at your door?"

The question, a viper uncoiling in his throat. Why the hell was he asking? It wasn't his concern.

And yet… she'd been the one to plant the seed.

"No. They sent me a basket of sweets, a new quill."

"Mmmm." He let the sound drag out, thick with something he couldn't quite name. Disgust? Relief? "You know, you probably don't have to deal with me anymore, now that you know there are Poachers for sure."

Cara's face crumpled inward, as if he'd struck her.

"Why would you say that? I thought you wanted to help."

"I did. I do."

His palm dragged down his face, skin catching on stubble and guilt.

Last night's dance spun through his mind: her body yielding to his madness like she understood it, like she could taste it too.

"But you can't waste all your time here, can you? Feeling bad for me."

"Sebastian, give me the bottle." Her fingers ghosting over the Demiguise's eyebrows while her own climbed toward her hairline, a mirror of concern he didn't deserve. "You can't do this to yourself."

She was too close. Close enough that the heat from her body made his skin prickle.

"I killed my uncle," he reminded her, arm slashing through night air toward the grave where Solomon's bones lay judging him.

Her grip tightened, knuckles white against glass. "I know."

But Sebastian was falling now, tumbling down a well of his own digging.

"Those Poachers thought I was one of them."

Cara's face softened into that practiced Auror's expression, all clinical compassion. "And I'm glad you did that for me."

Sebastian drew in air that tasted of earth and brandy and her.

She was trying to gentle him with kid gloves, while her skin carried the perfume of other darknesses.

The question slipped out: "Does Hector smoke cigarettes?"

She met it without flinching. "I don't think so—why?"

"Because you smell like one," he answered, the words falling between them like stones into a well.

Her lip curled with disgust, the kind reserved for things found crawling under rocks, as she yanked the bottle free.

Leaving his hand grasping at empty air.

"You've had enough. I don't know what Hector does in his spare time. Nor do I want to."

Sebastian's eyes tracked her. A shark scenting blood, every muscle in his face drawn tight. "Yet he shows up at your door. Sends you fruit."

"You're sitting in a puddle," she told him, voice flat as a curse, turning away.

"Good," he rasped, teeth grinding audibly in his skull. "Maybe I'll drown."

Her back became a wall between them, shapely and stern as judgment.

"Hector and I went on three dates a year ago. He never quite got over it. I didn't tell you because it's embarrassing."

Sebastian sat in his puddle. Unaware of how it seeped through his clothes while watching her profile cut against the night.

She wasn't done; he could taste it in the air.

"And sometimes, yeah, I have a ciggie in my flat when I'm upset. Is that good enough?"

"It is. I just don't understand why you're bothering with me when you've already got everyone at work against you."

Cara had heard, but ignored him.

Strode onward into the house. Lighting the lamps with her wand. Done with his opinion for the moment.

She upended the bottle through the window, letting amber liquid rain down onto the grass below. There were ten more bottles waiting in the cupboard, but it made a point.

Sebastian looked at the ground.

Despite the conviction he'd spoken with, it didn't seem like drowning in the puddle was possible. The water barely covered his fingertips; another metaphor he didn't need.

His tottering walk back to the house ended with Cara at an angle, fractured through the prism of drink.

At the table, her quill suspended over leather-bound pages in the yellow lamplight.

So this was where they were, after the bottle-wrestling, after his tirade.

At last, her dance of procedure could start. That accusation he'd hurled, left out in the night.

"What did they look like? These Poachers you spoke to? Do you remember anything at all? Accents, distinguishing marks?"

Sebastian stood in the doorway, holding his eyes closed.

Behind his eyelids, phosphenes bloomed.  Dark, kaleidoscopic flowers. His own pulse visible in the darkness.

Memory's helm was in the hippocampus, typically the last to be touched by alcohol.

So though his mind swam with drink, he offered the Auror before him:

"Erm, some Londoners. Maybe a Geordie. All of them were… white." 

A hiccup interrupted him, threatening to become a burp or vomit. Body betraying the pretense of dignity.

Cara watched him. Now seeming unabashed by his drunkenness despite the freshly dumped bottle beside her.

"Ages?"

He did burp, finally. "Nobody stuck out as very young or old."

Her quill hopped gently, then sailed across the parchment as if drawing a line. The scratch of nib filling the room. "Several white males, ages… twenty to fifty, English."

Sebastian felt the room spinning, fell to a squat. The boards on the floor shifting before his eyes.

"I think there was a Scot or two. They asked about the Manticore," he rasped. "Seemed to be expecting news about why they hadn't… gotten it. Thought I knew something."

"And what did you say?"

Her voice floating across to him, stiff yet serene. Still professional, even with him falling apart at her feet.

Now he recalled it. How hard his heart beat, a frantic drum solo in those woods. How easily he'd ignored it. 

At least at first.

"That when I knew more I'd come back, that I had a stew on. Stupid, but they believed it. And I got their attention to begin with by… saying I wanted to buy some pelts. But we didn't get that far."

"Okay. That's good."

Cara's quill returned to its sleeve at the side of the notepad, and she sighed. Studying her notes for a moment before those eyes found him again, twin moons in the gathering dark.

"Do you need some water?"

Sebastian could only think of the water that he'd been sitting in, the still-damp seat of his trousers. Fabric cooling against his skin.

A reminder of his own absurdity.

"No. I…"

He lifted his head, saw her in her button down, saw her fatigue.

The way she stayed focused while he fell apart: that particular talent of hers. Remaining intact while others splintered.

"I'm sorry for being such a bastard. I just don't want you to make your own shit worse just to make me feel useful."

She nodded, but tapped her notebook. A gesture surely learned through years of interviews with the broken.

"But you have been. Now I know there really is something to investigate. I had a feeling before, but now… well."

Ah, so she'd answer that part but avoid acknowledging the pity she felt. Sebastian could smell it anyway, mixed with her perfume. The leather of her notebook.

Each scent a different shade of her careful distance.

He took a breath. "Can I be honest with you?"

Cara waited, her eyes lidding.

Sitting back in that chair, watching him stooped over and drunk on the floor like it was as natural as could be. Like she could see right through him.

But that was nothing new.

"Of course."

He stood, steadying himself by grabbing the bedpost nearby. She blurred, sharpened, blurred again.

All crisp angles and professional distance, except for something in her eyes he couldn't bear to name.

Staring at her through a gaze he knew looked cloudy as could be, unable to keep the truth down.

At the table, Cara's fingers traced old water rings in the wood.

She knew that look in Sebastian's eyes. The one preceding both confession and catastrophe. His knuckles bleached white against teak wood, the bedpost creaking beneath his grip. 

A man hanging onto a cliff's edge, or perhaps preparing to jump.

"I felt alive with you, yesterday. Like I could do anything. But it wasn't fair. Even back at school, I dragged you down in my bullshit and… well."

Something fierce and tender caught in Cara's throat. He'd felt it too. 

At the same time, an ache bloomed beneath her ribs. She couldn't abide by his false history. As if she hadn't chosen every step, hadn't seen clearly even then.

"That's not true. I make my own choices, and always have."

The alcohol had painted Sebastian in violent watercolors; that flush that climbed neck to temples. His ears blooming crimson as he pivoted unsteadily toward the door.

While staring at stars performing their indifference, he sighed: 

"I know you do." 

Withdrawing, building walls behind his eyes. Same as the last time he thought he was protecting someone. 

Cara couldn't let him disappear into that darkness again. 

"And I've chosen to be around you. You haven't tricked me." The words shot from her mouth, precisely pointed arrows. "If my work bullshit is any clue—I'm not easily influenced. I do pay for that. Sometimes dearly."

Her voice broke. Palm finding the bundle of cigarettes in her pocket while Sebastian stood there, a foreman of her emotional labor.

Extracting every ounce of dignity she had left to give.

He looked back through glazed eyes, face flushed with borrowed courage that came in a bottle. 

And delivered his truth, trying again to be noble:

"Yeah, but… I don't want you to have to pay for this."

Though Cara's heart accelerated, memory caught her before fear could.

Yesterday's cobblestones pressing their uneven poetry through her shoes, the sky burning orange in a love letter to summer.

The band's melody wrapping around them, bouncing off centuries-old walls. 

For a moment, the world had dissolved into nothing. Nothing but summer-warmed stone and the way his fingers had pressed just slightly harder when she'd laughed.

Truth, Cara decided, deserved truth in return. Not the polite kind, but the raw variety that lived in the marrow of moments.

"You had no problem asking me to pay for the beer. And I felt alive too, by the way. First time in a long time." 

Sebastian's eyebrows climbed, ivy up a wall. Bloodshot eyes kindling with something almost like hope.

"Oh, really? With me, of all people?" 

And though his words dripped with self-deprecation, she answered while drawing forth her wand. Its tip kissing the end of a cigarette, coaxing a spark to life:

"Yes, really."

Orange light flickered across his face, catching the doubt that still clung. Cara remembered a choice she'd made earlier, one she hadn't let herself examine. 

Now, another truth owed to this night of admissions.

"Frankly," the word catching in her throat, "Ominis sent me another letter today. Concerned about you. I got yours at the same time. But look where I am."

His mouth caught the light: brief, crooked, lost in the smoke between them.

"I see," he said, and something in those two syllables made it clear he did.

She extended a cigarette, two fingers presenting a small peace offering.

Finding herself observing the steadiness of her own hand with distant fascination as her voice emerged soft.

"Want one? Might help sober you up."

Sebastian took it, that intention wrapped in the guise of simple vice.

It hung between his lips as he leaned across the table. Near enough that she caught the ghost of brandy.

She drew her wand, watched the flame paint gold across the lost-boy angles of his face as their eyes met.

Then he leaned back in his chair, eyes closed. The end of the cigarette burning, sound crisp in the air.

And then softly murmuring, answering her question with an air of sweet irony after the fact:

"Why not."

Later, after more discussion of the past, they lay on the rug in front of the fire.

Heads pointed away from each other. Compass needles seeking different norths.

One cigarette passed between them despite the pile on the table. As if sharing made the smoke taste different.

Like children passing notes in class, each transfer a small conspiracy. 

Sebastian felt sobriety creeping in. Each hit of nicotine illuminating strange new corners of consciousness.

"Say, Cara. When's your birthday? I don't know that I ever asked you before."

She reached back, a blind handoff in their upside-down world. "It's July the fourth."

He drew in his drag, tasting her answer with the tobacco. "Ah. Freedom ring."

"What?"

The reference floated away like a half-remembered song lyric, leaving him grasping at radio static.

"Across the pond, anyway. Is that right?"

Cara crushed the cigarette on the hearth, with the precise attention of someone pretending not to smile. "Oh, right. I think so."

"So now, I'm realizing that I should probably try to find those Poachers again. Maybe tomorrow night? Now that you've written in that notebook and made it official." 

Her chin, doubled from his perspective on the floor, carried both excitement and doubt in its folds.

"Are you sure?"

The crinkle of her eyes made his reply carry as he sat up: "I am. Presuming I get immunity from whatever I have to pretend to be. If anyone ever finds out."

"I am indeed responsible for you. But if we get something solved, I don't think it'll matter." Cara spoke with the resigned authority of someone who'd signed too many liability waivers. Firelight catching the hollows beneath her eyes. "Just know you can stop at any point."

Sebastian knew she was babying him, but didn't question it.

"Noted. By the way, are you decided yet on going in to work tomorrow? Or will you tell them you're still sick?"

She tilted her head back, mouth a smeared crescent of concern.

"I think I'm going to go in. I doubt they'll still be in a gift basket mood after another day."

"By they, you mean Hector." He made sure his voice was light. Trying to sand down the edges of his earlier accusation.

"Indeed," she said simply. Eyes a slow saccade to her wristwatch. Quickening with her blink as she realized, "And it's past late now, it's early. So I should probably head home, bathe all this smoke off."

So here they were again, time pulling them apart. Tide from shore.

Sebastian nodded, his lips tight.

"Don't forget to get behind your ears."

Dead air followed the joke, stretched between them.

But there in the firelight, instead of saying something smart back, Cara leaned forward and embraced him.

Brief, friendly: the kind of hug that burns itself into memory. Her chin against his shoulder made a moment that would haunt him later.

Sebastian's eyes went wide there on the rug as she rose, the motion dreamlike and wrong.

Her wand and jacket seeming to find her body of their own accord while the world bent around her.

"No more drinking today. You need to be sharp if you're trying to help me tonight."

"Right," he breathed, the word barely there.

After her Apparition back out of his world, Sebastian slept through the sunrise.

While morning light crept across the floor, indifferent to permissions or promises, he dreamt of younger halcyon days.

Of clocks without hands.

Poppy Sweeting sat alone in the employee lounge, having taken her lunch late.

Paperwork had stolen her entire morning. No bother.  Because in fact, all the little minute details had been interesting to her. Doubling as busywork that kept her mind from wandering.

Even as she ate her mealy apple, her cubes of Gouda, she sat before parchment.

The words wouldn't come, though she knew exactly where they needed to go. To Cara Morganach.

Interdepartmental mail moved quickly through the Ministry's veins, usually same-day delivery. Once she wrote it, the letter would be beyond her reach.

Movement caught her eye: someone passing through the hall with the careful stride of a man who'd learned to make himself smaller.

He made a beeline for the assortment of snacks on the table in the corner. Tall, lanky.

Ginger hair clashing with his suit.

Though that fieldwork had left something raw between them, an exposed nerve, she knew better than to greet Leander.

He'd seen her request about visiting the Manticore in holding, but that went unanswered.

Her boss took his time at the table, selecting a banana, a bag of almonds. Each movement measured.

When he turned, his nod was brief but deliberate. Like he couldn't quite ignore her.

Or was simply too kind to.

Poppy couldn't help but feel like it was an endorsement either way.

It was he who'd said to do whatever she wanted. His only codicil: don't involve the AO Chief.

Her intuition told her that'd be easier than it seemed.

After all, some cages unlock themselves.

Chapter Text

"Let him think that I am more man than I am, and I will be so."

Ernest Hemingway

---

On Tuesday morning, Hector had been a ghost.

Presumably off drawing lines through names as well as under them. Almost comforting in his absence.

It stood to reason then, that as soon as Cara tucked into her Cobb salad, he managed to find her instantly.

Murphy's Law in action.

The meeting room had been empty, peaceful: fork halfway to her mouth when the door creaked open.

Some part of her had been waiting for this, the way prey animals count the minutes between false alarms.

"So, as I said before. I'm itching to hear about your case."

Cara pressed her fork against the hard-boiled egg, watching the white crumble to chaos. Time to scratch that annoying itch.

"Well, after my preliminary interviews and quite a bit of research, it turns out there is a Poaching operation. I'm going back tonight to see if I can gather more."

Dark brows danced. "Mm-hm. I see. Will you need backup?"

"I don't think so. I'll let you know."

Hector slid onto the table's edge, too close, trying to reclaim with proximity the ground that he'd just lost in conversation.

Dark eyes gutted her lunch, dissecting intention from appetite.

"Bit of a light meal. Though I guess that makes sense, sick as you apparently were."

Looking for weakness in the way she held her fork, the angle of her wrist.

"All better now," she replied, spearing lettuce and bacon. Chewing loudly. "A good lie in did wonders."

The Chief bothered at his pocket square for a moment. Searching her face.

"Clearly. Well, I suppose I'm glad you've had a break, but it'd be quite a win to prove that Poaching isn't dead, so…"

Cara let herself smile. "I was thinking the same thing."

Hector cleared his throat. Here was a man discovering his careful plan had backfired, forced to acknowledge competence he'd rather deny.

Blue cheese making her tongue zip pleasantly, Cara knew to assure him:

"I'll keep updating you, as you requested."

His upper lip quivered. She'd learned to read this macabre scripture, where respect and rage tangled behind his stare.

Decorum would serve as their great equalizer.

"Do. Welcome back."

The door clicked shut. Footsteps echoed, proving that for once he didn't linger to listen.

And why would he? The sound of salad didn't lend much to quieting minds.

Cara chewed, letting each bite fill her mouth with triumph.

Nothing tasted quite like watching a man digest his own poison. Especially one so dedicated to measuring doses for her.

That night, she had asked Sebastian to meet her at the Irondale Sanctuary.

The building's skeleton held, despite its wounds since the Manticore incident. But it lived on borrowed time.

As their feet found purchase in sodden rot, even light rain through the shattered roof seemed to herald its collapse.

This wasn't all that was on the docket. At dusk, Sebastian would approach the Poachers while she waited in Feldcroft.

Cara kept searching his face for anxiety, any shadow of what waited in those woods.

But he moved through the debris as if they were simply taking a walk.

"So… I wonder how exactly you got here, I suppose. Fifth year, you had aspirations of being a Healer. What happened to that?"

She weighed the question, found the scales heavy. Sebastian was in it now, walking through evidence and heading toward danger tonight.

And he'd been honest, almost to a fault. She could give this much back.

"The NEWT requirement for the Auror Office was a lot less stringent," she confessed. "By seventh year, I was getting a bit lazy."

Lazy and a bit slutty, if she were completely honest. Lost in the warm fog of certainty once her future had been secured.

Sebastian quirked a brow. Skeptical as ever. "Neither are easy, though, are they?"

Cara nodded, a crease in her brow.

"That's true. But Professor Sharp greased the wheels with the last Chief before he retired, sort of angled me toward it. After what happened to Fig, we talked a lot."

Sebastian clicked his tongue.

"What?"

"You say Sharp got you in, like you didn't deserve it, in the same breath as the reason you did. One of them, anyway."

Cara frowned.

Not at his analysis, but at a piece of post she'd found.

A thick envelope, stuffed deliberately behind the shelf. Sharing space with a snow globe whose broken base ended its fantasy of eternal winter.

Grateful Sebastian had paused, she laid the sodden missive flat, under the wandlight's blue autopsy glow.

Words crawled up:

"Gracious donation," "flowers", "per my last."

Her eyes moved to the top of the page. The signature had blurred, but the letterhead remained just legible:

from the desk of

Peter J. Mulciber, Sr.

"What's that you've got there?"

"Another strange coincidence," she answered.

Trying to parse her mind for any mention by the younger Mulciber of dealings in Irondale. Finding none.

Not their jurisdiction, after all.

"At least, it probably is."

Her notepad out. Copying the postmark date, the fragments she could make out before it crumbled in her hand.

Connections were endless in their world. Mulciber Junior, "Pete" to Hector, came from trust fund royalty. Not uniquely, either; the whole office reeked of old vault combinations and summer homes.

And places like the Irondale Sanctuary survived on private philanthropy. Legal bloodlettings, where the wealthy purchased virtue via tax breaks that suggested kindness toward animals and children.

And so she repeated: "It's probably nothing."

Sebastian had busied himself with the cages.

"Think there was more than one Jobberknoll stuffed into this one. The feathers are different colors, and… some bars are bent and nipped at, like there wasn't enough room."

"Poppy and Leander will have logged that, but your attention to detail is good." Cara's wand became a divining rod, seeking more paper trails along the shelves. "Anything not Beast-related falls to me."

He stood. Dust and moisture coating his knees.

"As a formerly caged person, I guess I'm drawn to my own." His voice carried no inflection. "Do you think the Sanctuary director fled before or after the Manticore broke out?"

"I'm not ruling out that he himself released it. If he had known they were coming, he might've wanted to give it a chance to defend itself."

Of course, Sebastian had a bone to pick. "But that doesn't explain where the rest of the Beasts went. They'd all be wandering."

But Cara knew gray areas like old friends. Nothing ever happened in single frames. Sloppiness wasn't the signature of the professionals in this particular circus.

"Maybe the Manticore was the only one the Poachers couldn't take on their own—and they planned to come back for it."

He nodded. Recognizing her wisdom.

Then offering his own prophecy into the gathering shadows:

"Speaking of the Poachers, it's getting dark."

Near the skeleton of a large Mooncalf, Sebastian sat by a fire with several of the men he sought to get to know.

Here stood their monument to commerce, dressed in death.

While they'd been here transforming life into product, he'd been counting empty cages in Irondale. He felt grateful to have missed the wet work, the butcher's ballet.

They'd greeted him with the same cautious excitement as before, invited him to come have stew. More interested in eating than vetting the newcomer.

Currently, most bent over their bowls, food dulling their edges, guard lowering with each spoonful.

And through heat ripples above the fire, Sebastian studied these architects of extinction.

He'd fibbed, said he ate already.

As bellies filled, tongues loosened. The Geordie stabbed his bratwurst, ate it off the fork. Fat pearling obscenely on the tines.

"We wrote our last contact about the Manticore, but I think the fella's figurin' it out 'imself. So we'll just keep doin' what we're doin' until he sends word."

Another brick in the wall. Sebastian mortared it carefully.

"Yeah. I thought I'd heard something in Feldcroft, but couldn't find the person I talked to before."

"Typical," agreed a dark-haired man with a wispy mustache that looked like it had been drawn with a child's quill. "Main issue dealing with these moneyed blokes, they hire people for everything, then forget who does what."

The leader spoke up. He'd been watching quietly all the while, his only noise the clink of a spoon against bowl.

"We got any of those oyster crackers left? My soup's gone soggy."

Sebastian spotted the bag. His fingers twitched, but instinct made him reach for his wand instead.

Better to keep that barrier of cautious respect. He floated the crackers across the flames.

The leader's half-smile never reached his eyes. Something lurked there, something Sebastian felt he should've recognized.

But without further ado, this mysterious man dumped those pale salty crackers into his stew, tossed the burlap aside.

And gave him his answer.

"Oi, I think I know this kid. The two of us, good behavior, eh?"

An elbow found Sebastian's ribs. The gaps in the man's teeth underlined his truth: Azkaban's shadow stretched twice across the firelight.

"Yeah, that was wild. Talk about luck."

The leader nodded, swallowed, then let out a long breath.

Sebastian felt the exhalation in his bones; his own lungs matched the rhythm. The cadence of unexpected freedom, still settling into skin and sinew.

"You believe that bullshit in the Prophet on how carefully they chose us? But I'm not gonna look a gift Graphorn in the mouth."

Though Sebastian had indeed believed the bullshit at first:

"Agreed."

The man with the thick accent crossed his arms, fabric rustling like disturbed wings. "What'd you go down 'fer, exactly, Sally?"

Sebastian knew not to correct him. Names were currency here, and he'd already been assigned his value.

"Murder. My uncle. He didn't approve of thinking outside the box."

There was a general quiet, a nodding of heads. The leader slurped the remainder of his now-palatable soup.

"Couldn't think outside the box, so you put him in his own. I respect that. Some of these boys are worried about using Unforgivables, so you're a welcome addition."

The fire cracked, reflected the Mooncalf's skull. Its empty orbits watching the men who'd skinned and gutted it.

"Corbin Laird, by the way."

Thankfully, Sebastian didn't hesitate on the handshake. Something he'd read peeling out of his mouth:

"Corbin means crow, doesn't it?"

"In my opinion, names don't really mean shit." His laugh scattered gravel. "But plenty of the dullards we deal with love small talk like that. Gift of the gab is something else we're short on."

"Wordplay," nodded Mustache, compelled to add something profound to a conversation that had already moved past him.

Knees cracked like spell-fire in the night.

"I'm getting a bit drowsy, gents."

But first, Laird turned back to the newcomer. Quirked a brow.

"Tomorrow night, we're headed down to Marunweem. Already got all our positions filled, but next week we'll need more men. I hope you'll be joining."

"If you'd have me."

"Soundin' like a lass invited to a dancing do," Mustache chuckled — but he clapped his hands once, proud of his wit. "You live in the hamlet, yeah? We'll be in touch."

Laird stood, soup bowl dangling from fingers that had known worse things than stew. Keen to have the last word. A man who collected them.

"Take care, Sally," he nodded. "Stay lucky."

Rain was Sebastian's only company as he ascended the hills, out of the forest, away from its inner workings.

Horror bloomed not only from the Poachers' actions, but from his reflection in their eyes. Their skin fit him. Their masks became his face.

Perhaps somewhere in the darkness, the Mooncalf's ghost ran. Now freely chirruping with the joy they'd stolen away.

Cara waited in the house, staring at the bed nearest the door.

Two beds for three people. The math had always bothered her.

Sebastian never spoke of where he'd slept back then. Some mysteries felt safer unexplored.

Thunder cracked the night. Lightning painting the tiny window in bursts, a series of still photographs.

At least they'd searched the Sanctuary's ruins before the deluge. Whatever evidence remained beneath that destroyed roof, if any, was currently drowning.

The noises outside implied Sebastian, however, hadn't.

"Officer, I'm home," he sang out, the false melody ringing odd. Water dripping from his hair as he pushed it back, voice bright as fool's gold. "Whew."

Cara had interrogated enough people to know performance when she saw it.

And despite those five long years, she knew Sebastian.

Saw the veneer, stretched thin over whatever darkness he'd brought back from that fire.

"How'd it go?"

"Get your notepad, go on."

They settled at the table.

His words came precise this time, each detail arranged in neat rows. No whiskey-loosened tangents, no lapses. Every word, every gesture from the campfire gaining weight in the retelling.

Along the way, that artificial brightness indeed drained. Replaced by solemnity.

"Do you think they were hinting that I should come to Marunweem?"

"I can see the logic, but I think he was just thinking out loud. Wanting to make it clear, they're willing to share."

Sebastian's eyes limpid as he declared: "Think the bit about Solomon really sold me."

Cara pulled Ominis' list from her notebook's back pocket.

There—Corbin F. Laird. DOB 3 April 1862. She tapped the name.

"Here's your man."

Sebastian nodded, his brow crumpling. "Wow, I would've guessed he was older."

Then he pushed back from the table, wood scraping stone. Moved to the hearth, extending hands to the flames.

"So, next week, I'll check in with them. Wish I knew more of what they've done already."

Cara's mind was already racing. A piece of post she'd gotten this morning flickered through her thoughts. An invitation for coffee and a possible thread to pull.

"I do think we could tip off someone about Marunweem—perhaps DRMC. Poppy wrote me yesterday."

"You mean you still don't want to tell Hector?"

Her response was a linguistic stiletto:

"No. He knows there's a case. But I'll tell him more once I have proof other departments are involved."

"Ah, okay."

Cara continued unbidden: "Because I get the feeling, still, that he's mad I found something at all. And if it's just the AO, he'll ensure it all goes cock up."

Sebastian frowned, shook his head. "Why has no one investigated him yet?"

Years of impotent rage keeping her voice flat. "Because there's no one to enforce it that doesn't answer to him. By design."

"Could you tell me again why you even bother with this job?"

The question aimed to tease, but landed wrong. She caught the flash of outrage on her behalf, wrapped in helplessness.

And moved on.

"Thanks for going undercover, yet again. With all the press coverage, I doubt I could do it myself now."

Sebastian nodded. Hair drying into wavy tendrils where it grew longest. Logic digesting easily, and an implication dawning on him in its wake:

"Makes me leery about the part where I confirmed where I live."

The reminder churned Cara's stomach anew. She'd filed that detail away earlier, buried under the need for information.

"Which does mean I might have to spend less time here. If they come knocking, it could blow the whole thing."

"Yeah, that… makes sense."

Silence unfurling, thunder performing distant percussion.

Sebastian shifted, uncomfortable. Shirt stuck to his skin where one hand rubbed absently at a shoulder, working out some invisible knot.

And Cara realized she would rather not pare down this new reality either. Didn't want to play it safe.

Her notebook's leather creaking under her grip as Sebastian crouched by the fire, wand disturbing coals. Shoes squelching against the floor.

"So then maybe we can go to your place sometime. Do our planning there. If I can even get in."

"To my flat?"

He swallowed. "If it's not allowed, I get it."

Something molecular shifted in Cara's chest. The thought felt absurd. Yet so did cutting short this fragile momentum. Solitude had always been her sanctuary.

But now?

"Actually, I can bring up anyone I want, so long as I'm present with them. Aurors are allowed houseguests. If that weren't the case, half my coworkers would've chosen different jobs."

Nott came to mind—his midnight visitors in silk stockings, their heels clicking down marble halls.

The former Chief finally cornering him, suggesting he find somewhere more discreet to conduct his business with working girls.

She was still processing the absurdity of her example when Sebastian brightened.

"Nice, I'll pack a toothbrush."

Cara blinked. "You want to go there now?"

Sebastian shrugged, gaze moving the length of the house. His eyes finally landed on her, weighted with exhausted clarity:

"Much as I love sitting in my dead uncle's house without my sister, it would be nice to see how the other half lives. Plus, we could actually plan somewhere totally secure."

Sebastian in her Ministry flat. The thought felt like dropping a match into a dry field. A collision of histories.

Her carefully ordered world, suddenly permeable. Yet, she'd just articulated the precise reasoning that made it possible.

And he'd provided the clincher that it was, in fact, preferable.

It'd been a long time since she'd had a guest. If ever.

"Just let me do the talking, if I have to."

Rain hammered Malfoy Manor, the sound almost amniotic.

Upstairs, young Abraxas slept: the newest heir dreaming in a peace that rivaled the womb.

Down in the parlor, his father wasn't quite as lucky.

"Oh, for shame."

Ignatius Malfoy's eyes traced the ceiling's serpentine patterns. Each curve a distraction from the thinly veiled complaints to which Mulciber was so irritatingly prone.

And that currently, he found himself bereft of the impulse to indulge.

"Not good," the other tutted after a moment, another bid for attention.

Malfoy sipped water, letting the Prophet's arts and leisure section fill the space between them.

His legs crossed on the ottoman, a study in calculated disinterest.

It seemed Madame Malkin had finally seen reason about those ghastly pleats. A fortuitous lesson for any couturier.

And Florian Fortescue would resume selling that strange yet peerless praline flavor, inspired by tastes encountered on his travels to America.

Just as he settled into the silence, another sigh drifted across the room, the heaviest yet.

And how wonderful, it came with an addendum:

"Oh, bother."

Malfoy's eye twitched beneath the newspaper's edge.

"My, Peter, I can't help but notice it seems you might have something to share."

Peter Mulciber, Senior, straightened in his letter-strewn recliner with practiced concern. A performance he'd apparently decided their position required.

"Indeed. I've gotten word that the DRMC managed to snatch the Manticore I'd promised to those louts in the Highlands."

A platinum brow lifted, then settled. Curtain falling on a tedious play.

"A broken clock is right twice a day, I suppose. So long as the Aurors don't meddle. You've talked to your boy, haven't you?"

"I have, and he to Fawley. Still, these sorts of developments make me… a bit antsy."

"You're antsy if the wind blows the wrong way. Yet when the house was burgled last week, you regarded it as something I should've expected—"

A buzzing sound meant he stood mid-tirade. The magazine becoming a weapon against an errant fly, its death marked in a sharp snap of paper on stone.

Mulciber's eyes lingered on the fallen insect. Flicking back up to its killer.

"I didn't say you should've expected it. I simply meant that news of your wealth is spreading."

Malfoy sighed. "Well, it shan't happen again, or there's no point in any of this. I suppose I should thank you for keeping me updated."

"I aim to pl—oh, no."

The distant wail of a disturbed infant pierced the rain-muffled exchange. Malfoy's eyes flickered with twin flames of rage and concern:

"Are you proud to have woken my son with your theatrical breathing?"

While Mulciber figured that the magazine's crack was a more likely culprit, he knew some battles weren't worth winning.

The Ministry's security measures took quite a while.

Sebastian kept his mouth shut as Cara handled it all.

Watching the precise, practiced way her hands moved through each authentication. Her deftness, more fascinating than the tasks themselves.

At this hour, they stood in the lift alone.

Sebastian found himself studying the grid of buttons on the wall, imagining the other Aurors in their spaces above and below. All of them nested in this hidden tower.

I'm not a fugitive, he reminded himself. She chose to bring me here.

Her floor stretched before them. Almost like a street in a miniature village, warm lights casting pools of amber. Doors spaced in a way that belied institutional edges.

Cara's wand met the lock, the green flash of acceptance illuminating her profile for just a moment.

"Home sweet home," she declared. Equally misty and nervous.

Despite the darkness, his eyes adjusted quickly to the comfortable clutter of her life.

On the coffee table, case files mingled with sweet wrappers. A mess that spoke of long nights and stolen moments of indulgence. Couldn't fault her much, it wasn't like she planned on company.

Plain furniture, but solid. Chosen for life rather than look.

It was her scent that truly identified the space. That concentrated mix of musky florals, something else distinctly Cara. The place breathed with it.

Glutting starlight pulled Sebastian to the window. The heavens had transformed London into their mirror, their echo.

"Nice," he said, the word falling pathetically short. "Can see a ton… from up here."

Behind him, fabric rustled. The soft thud of her bag finding its home. Nervousness in each flutter of movement, even in darkness.

Words so soft, she may as well be talking to herself:

"Do you want something to drink?"

He turned from the window, caught the way her fingers laced and unlaced. "Thought you told me to lay off the bottle."

Warmth crept into her voice, thawed by his teasing as she drifted toward the counter:

"Well, you've earned it tonight, I'd say." Her wand finally birthed light, revealing a decanter among browning bananas. Crystal chimed as she added, "Never do get to use the second glass, so."

Sebastian lifted a gingham blanket from its sprawl across her sofa. The cushions were worn in; perhaps she preferred them to her bedroom.

He settled in, folding his legs beneath him. "No need to justify it, I'm convinced already."

She settled beside him, toeing off her shoes with a sigh that spoke of long hours. Passing a glass while worrying her bottom lip.

"Do you want something to eat? There's a kitchen on the first floor, I can have something brought up."

Stirrings of hunger did live inside him, especially as brandy met empty gut.

But the curiosity about her sudden self-consciousness was stronger by a mile.

"So this is where you spend your days," he mused, taking in the record player tucked in a corner, water lilies floating in their oil-painted pond. "Right sight better than my trash hamlet."

Cara lifted her glass, studied him through amber. "Well, at least Feldcroft… has character."

A laugh escaped him at her diplomatic defense. "It does, at that. Too much, I'd say. Shall we toast?"

Her eyes dropped to the floor, then found his again. Warmth pooled there, contentment, though nerves still danced at the edges, seeking refuge in humor.

"To what? My smelly feet?"

The day's path struck him: from those Poachers' eyes sizing him up like carrion in Feldcroft's shadows, to here: Cara's flat, her trust, her bare feet against the floor.

The spectrum of what humans could be to each other.

"No. To us. The continuation of… a unique friendship. And to finding some answers."

Something caught in her throat. Her lips pursed against sentiment, fighting the urge to deflect it with humor. Toes curling into the grey carpet as dimples betrayed her.

Then she steadied, raised her glass. It met his with enough force to splash a little, shooting his eyebrows skyward.

"To us."

An hour passed, maybe more.

The remainder of her gift basket from the Auror Office lay scattered between them on the floor.

Hector's passive-aggressive gift, transformed into a bounty for two.

"Can't believe you don't like chocolate and peanut butter together," slurred Sebastian, pulling open another wrapper. "You're the one who belongs in Azkaban."

She snorted, loud and brash. A sound surely never heard in the pristine halls of the Ministry.

Her back against the sofa. Hair finally liberated, sticking damply to her neck where that severe bun had held on to rain.

"That flavor will never catch on—guh." The wrapper struck her chest mid-sentence, settling a few feet shy of its mark. "Nice shot, by the way."

Sebastian's face teetering between bold and bashful as he told her with a smirk:

"Go fuck yourself, Officer."

Heat crawled up Cara's neck, bloomed across her cheeks. Not from embarrassment, but from that peculiar delight of hearing authority mocked.

"Not in front of company," she murmured.

Sebastian's eyes shot open to see her eyes lidded. The kind of look that toppled empires.

His swallow echoed audibly, Adam's apple jerking.

"That's not what I meant… but thanks for the visual of the woman behind the curtain."

She held his gaze while her fingers danced through the basket again. More chocolate-peanut butter squares found their way to his chest, the weight of them slight but present.

"It beats talking about the case, which we've done none of."

She couldn't seem to decide whether she was pleased about that or not.

"Mmmm." Sebastian wet his lips, watching her. "There'll be plenty of time for that. For now, we should enjoy the peace while we can."

That record player held richer tunes than he'd imagined—nothing like the bagpipe rock they'd twirled to in Hogsmeade. The needle found melodies that belonged to a softer world.

And he felt Cara was a better dancer here in her own element than in the public eye.

Slower, yet more confident in the languid quiet.

As she leaned her chin onto his shoulder with ease, it occurred to him again that they were the same height.

A detail that had fascinated him since he'd met her, back when such alignment seemed like a conspiracy against him.

In the here and now, Sebastian's heart performed its own contradictory dance, both pounding and finding peace.

"Sorry," she murmured in a breath.

"Nothing to be sorry for," he breathed back.

His hand found the back of her head. Waves spilling between his fingers while individual strands teased his cheek, each touch a separate secret.

Palm knowing no hesitation, only heat.

They swayed in the lamp's dim sphere like creatures suspended in some warm sea. Every motion rippling: the soft brush of her hair against his jaw, their feet moving in matching rhythms.

His right sock sliding past her left, then reversing, an endless tide.

"I thought about you so much over the years." Cara's words soft as snow. "What you'd have been like, if I hadn't…"

"Stop it." Sebastian's voice rumbled low and taut, playground scolding wrapped in midnight. "It doesn't matter anymore. What's it going to take for you to believe that?"

Her breath sailed across his neck, raising gooseflesh in its wake. "I don't know. Sorry, again, I guess."

The fact was, it still felt unreal. Being free at all. Free, here, with her. The girl he'd lost a duel to at fifteen, when such defeat seemed life-ending.

Who he once worried might judge the spots on his chubby face, each one cataloged in the mirror with adolescent despair.

Who he'd defended to Ominis, demanding he trust her with the fierce certainty of youth.

"And again, I forgive you."

Suddenly, she pulled her head back, staring. Her mouth open: caught between too many possible words or none at all. Lashes lying low like drawn curtains before a storm.

Sebastian felt his hand shake against her shoulder blades. Stilling just as quickly.

He recognized this precipice, had dreamed its contours in his alone time. Shied away from it in the abstract.

Couldn't deny it now.

But the same could be said for an urgency down below. One he couldn't have hated more at that moment.

"Where's your toilet?"

Too abrupt. Too loud.

His voice had cracked on the last word, too. Might as well have been a record scratch, might as well have shoved her onto the carpet.

Cara blinked, laughed in a breath. That crinkling nose. The same he'd memorized across a classroom years ago.

"End of the hall."

She stumbled a bit as she let go, kicking through sweet wrappers on her way to the couch.

And Sebastian walked backwards, watching her until the doorway he sought forced him to turn away.

When Sebastian returned, blood thrumming with brandy and possibility, the record still spun its dreamy melody.

But the scene that greeted him wasn't the one his nerves had prepared for.

Cara had surrendered to sleep, sprawled across her sofa like a cat that had found its patch of sun.

Her mouth hung slightly open, soft snores keeping time with the music. An apparent lullaby. 

Sebastian's wry smile wobbled as he stumbled closer. Relief and disappointment coalescing.

Those moments in front of her mirror: hyperventilating, adjusting his collar… seemed absurd now.

The gingham blanket lay crumpled where they'd left it—after he'd danced around with it over his head, playing a ghost while she'd howled with laughter.

Now he lifted it in the quiet, watching it sail through the air as he shook it straight.

And then fall onto her, a gentle drape for a snoring Auror who'd been up with the dawn.

Sebastian wasn't far behind as he slid down to sit against the couch. The record's gentle spinning matched the room's lazy tilt.

Sleep found him with a smile still playing at his lips.

In the shop that bore his name, Caractacus Burke rarely ate crow.

But today, he left the stockroom frowning.

Forty years had taught him the difference between substance and magical affectation. Or so he'd thought.

He'd been wrong today. And being wrong was never profitable.

Yes, as he emerged into the shop proper, Burke's fingers understood the weight of the pin he'd just asked Borgin to assess.

The hooded seller remained patiently at the counter.

"Well, sir, I've got to give it to you. I had my doubts, but Mr. Borgin confirmed that this little bauble of yours is indeed a genuine possession of Slytherin's."

The hood didn't move. No satisfaction rippling through black fabric, no pride preening in shadows where a face should've been. Just statue-still patience.

"How much will you give me for it."

Burke remembered Borgin's unibrow shooting up. His eyes transforming from skeptical to avaricious in a single blink.

"Forty galleons."

The hood moved. Once. Left to right. "I think fifty."

Burke crossed his arms. "Forty-five."

He'd dealt with countless hidden faces; anonymity was almost standard. Usually, there was a nervous finger-tap, a shifted foot, a voice that wavered.

This one gave him nothing. "Forty-seven, or I walk."

"If you do, who else do you think would know its value? Nowhere in all of Knockturn Alley will you get a better price."

A gloved hand shot across the counter and plucked the brooch from Burke's grasp, swift as thought and twice as decisive.

"Well, no harm trying to find out, then."

The door creaked open, a Niffler-shaped bell chiming warning.

Burke watched the stranger's robes kiss the threshold, gut twisting. It wasn't often he found himself playing beggar instead of chooser, but:

"Forty-seven is just fine."

He tasted it again—crow. But he'd swallowed worse for less.

One thing made today's concession palatable: the chance that this stranger might return with more treasures.

Transforming momentary losses into lasting fortunes was the name of the game.

Morning light bled across Diagon Alley's cobblestones as the hooded figure claimed a stranger's stoop. Behind shuttered windows, inhabitants slept or simply chose not to see.

His wand moved like a metronome: counting coins.

Five, ten, twenty, forty, forty-seven.

Burke's honesty had never been in question, but distrust was the companion that had kept him alive this long.

Summer's malice pressed down even at this hour. Sweat gathering as he slipped the sack of gold into a dark pocket. A practiced hand patted it once, twice. Ritual of reassurance.

His sneeze cracked through the morning air like a spell gone wrong. Pollen drifted, an unseen evil June never eschewed.

It was a wonder Borgin and Burke's dust-choked lair hadn't reduced him to something less dignified, an allergic bomb unable to haggle.

When the hood fell back, blonde hair settled into place with practiced elegance. Those pearlescent eyes, blind to the world's crude offerings, saw nothing and everything.

The wand in his grip became both weapon and guide, leading him through the maze of light and shadow.

Chamomile tea would sort the allergies. He could now permit himself this indulgence.

After all, that manor on the glen, generous with weak spots… its spoils had transformed Ominis back into a man of plenty.

Chapter Text

Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color.

Marcus Aurelius

Dawn crawled across Diagon Alley like a secret unfolding. At six AM, the street belonged to its residents, their bathrobes a uniform of the early hour.

Quiet plant-tending rituals and soft chatter before tourist crowds tripled the population by lunch.

Cara found the Bowtruckle themed café charming. Paintings and figures of the tiny creatures inlaid among stylistic branches and warm light.

Tables small enough for two with artful bramble centerpieces. Quaint and inviting in equal measure.

At the one on the balcony where Poppy waited, morning mist met sunrise in a tableau that, if she didn't know better, could have been arranged by the Ministry's PR department.

New glasses, horn-rimmed aviators, transformed Poppy's face. Lenses impossibly large above flushed cheeks.

"Thanks for meeting me here," she piped up, standing to shake hands. "I hope you're well."

Cara nodded, dropping into her seat with more force than intended. Her head a carousel, turning with flashes of dancing and brandy.

Work loomed just over an hour away, and there were other fires to extinguish before then.

So she wouldn't dither with rapport. Especially not with last night's hasty letter to the woman before her still fresh in her mind.

Written before she and Sebastian fled Feldcroft for their impromptu sleepover.

"What'd you uncover in Marunweem?"

Poppy pursed her lips, the steam from her tea fogging those glasses as she leaned in.

"A rather sophisticated operation, to be honest. It seemed the loss of the Manticore didn't slow them down even a bit."

Cara's empty plate became a makeshift desk. Her notepad's pages crisp with anticipation. The smell of coffee drifted past; a luxury that'd keep her here too long if she indulged.

"And did they see you? Did you talk to them?"

The sunrise bled through Poppy's brown eyes, crinkling with distant amusement. "No, I've had my share of spying on Poachers from a distance. I know just what not to do."

The memory hit: Horntail Hall, the dragon egg's heat against their palms. Poppy's voice cutting through smoke and fear.

Back before she had to fill out a form to prove she needed help with even the smallest venture.

"Have you told Leander?"

Poppy chose this moment to busy herself. Sugar cubes dropped into the tea. One… five… seven. Spoon breaking them up with some effort.

Cara waited through one complete revolution of methodical stirring, then another.

Before murmuring wryly over the clinking of a third time around:

"Do you happen to take any tea with your sugar?"

A sigh measured the distance between them.

"I haven't told the department, no. I wanted to talk to you first." And now Poppy's eyes sparked with fresh interest. "By the way… was I imagining things, or were you with Sebastian Sallow that night? In Irondale?"

Though of course she recognized the redirection for what it was, Cara nodded. If she wanted cards on the table, she'd have to share her hand.

"I let him accompany me. He's among those released from Azkaban. As is at least one of the Poachers, we've found."

Thankfully, she didn't have to explain this strategy.

"Yes, they'd be comfortable talking to him. All of this without Chief Fawley knowing, too."

Poppy's intrigue: real and devoid of any motivation now. Despite the calculated segue that'd brought them here, she was impressed.

But Cara shrugged. Knowing she couldn't bask in the admiration, however genuine, with a point still waiting to be made.

"He knows I have a case, but I'm doing it under the table. Which is why I'm glad to have heard from you in particular."

Poppy nodded, thankfully understanding the way her voice had hardened and giving the space it deserved. 

Cara tapped her notebook with her quill.

"Because I do need other departments as witnesses, with their own cases open, before Hector learns the details."

The pause was short. Decisive.

"I understand that. But I think on our end, Leander is avoiding any situation where they interface. They hate the AO. And for another thing, what you said in the Atrium that day, about being limited… it stuck with me."

Though each statement would seem to exist in its own orbit, their parallels spoke of planets crashing together; Cara saw the trails left behind.

It seemed she wasn't the only one burning out among hostile stars.

She checked her watch. 7:12. Checked the sun bleeding over the roofs of Diagon Alley.

And finally met Poppy's eyes. "You want to help me."

"If I can. The things I saw in Marunweem—well, I can't let them go unchecked."

She recognized it, that fever-bright look. Knew its passion. As well as its roots in naïveté, the continued belief in change from within the system.

That same aspiration for incorruptibility that had seen Cara disgraced in the Prophet.

Though misery loved company, she felt a need to steer Poppy to more traditional paths. And remind her of the cautionary tale she herself personified before giving an inch.

"You don't need to be making enemies in your department. Especially as a trainee. I'm the top Auror by cases solved, and even then, it didn't matter once they decided I was a problem."

Cara heard her voice crack and stared at Poppy's cup of sugar.

Feeling that warm empathetic gaze.

But unless she knew for certain her own eyes were dry, she wouldn't meet it.

"I understand that, I do. But I also understand, as you've just told me, that that hasn't stopped you."

A pigeon landed on the eave above their table, pecking at an abandoned croissant. The morning light caught its iridescent throat.

She took a deep breath.

"You still need to tell DRMC, before it gets too out of hand. I'll trust your judgment, but for your sake, the Beasts' sake… and mine, I'm asking that you do tell them soon."

Already nodding with the air of someone granted a conditional chance, Poppy was resolute in her answer:

"I will."

The pigeon took flight. Cara closed her notepad, sheathed her quill.

"I wanted to say that I admire your bravery, you never lost it. Unlike some people we know," Poppy said over her absurdly sweet tea.

Cara studied the leather whorls on her notepad's cover, the pattern catching the sunrise.

The praise cut deeper than any criticism. She'd always preferred the latter; responding was easier.

She met her old Hufflepuff friend's eyes again, this time with a silent sheen of gratitude.

"Thank you, Poppy."

"Don't mention it."

Five sickles clinked against the table. Poppy stood, her professional smile back in place.

Those statement glasses tipping in a final acknowledgment before she swept from the balcony.

"See you around the Atrium."

Sebastian had drifted through layers of sleep, registering Cara's movements like echoes underwater. Bathroom door, kitchen cabinets.

At one point, he'd crawled onto the couch where she'd vacated it, drawn to the lingering warmth.

Before sunrise painted his eyelids gold, the door's opening and closing had filtered through. His drowsy mind had accepted Cara's departure for work, too content in the domesticity of it all.

Perhaps he'd even watched her leave through half-closed eyes, savoring the pretense of deeper sleep.

Now she materialized above him, throat clearing with purpose.

"Sebastian."

"That's me," he yawned, reality assembling itself around her stern expression, her tapping foot. "What's wrong?"

She stepped back, glancing at her watch.

"Nothing, I just need to get to work and I figure, you shouldn't be out of Feldcroft too long. If Laird and company are following up with you."

"Yeah." Though his thoughts needed more collecting, all he had to gather in the physical world were shoes. "I heard you step out earlier. Hope there's not any trouble."

"No, I was just meeting with Poppy. She saw the operation in Marunweem last night, and despite my warnings… she wants to help us."

Despite that bombshell, Cara moved with clockwork purpose, securing the door, herding him hall-ward.

Sebastian managed only: "Oh. That's… a development."

Frankly, last night's excitement had blurred the memory of her writing Poppy. Everything overshadowed by the magnetic pull toward her flat.

On his end, at least. 

Questions fluttered in his mind during the lift's descent. But the crowd of morning commuters, their coffee steam and briefcase leather mixing in the air, demanded silence.

At one point, Cara's wry smile caught him watching her, before her eyes returned to studying her shoes. Time ticking in her head.

Right. Back to Feldcroft. There'd be more dancing some other time.

More moments where he could pretend their newly formed world was the only one.

They passed through the entrance, the wards, then out to the courtyard.

Here, her steps slowed at the base of a fountain, water diamonds catching morning light. The rhythm of its spray filling the silence.

"Well, give my best to Hector," said Sebastian at last. "I'll wait for your Owl."

Cara's chuckle carried a gentle warning: "No drinking without me."

Sebastian thought for a moment, but instead of replying, flicked the top of her Auror's hat.

Then Apparated before he had to watch her walk away.

The Auror Office should have been a gauntlet of hovering colleagues: Hector barking in her ear, Nott and Abbott circling her desk with fresh paperwork.

But the silence stretched, undisturbed. And Hector's door stood ajar, darkness pooling beyond its frame.

Two status boards tracked their movements: one in the Chief's office, and one above Abbott's catastrophe of a desk in the bullpen's south corner.

Every single name read field work, except her own and Hector's. The latter showing personal day.

A vision swam through her mind: the whole department sprawled across some gilded boat. Champagne corks arcing through salty air at the Fawley Estate while she remained in stasis here.

Cara settled at her desk, rolled tension from her shoulders.

The candy dish by her ink pots yielded only stale offerings, but she chewed them anyway. Gaze sweeping the empty office like a pendulum.

Pistachio shells littered Hector's floor, pale fragments crushed into the carpet by his bespoke shoes.

She strode nearer, wand clearing them from the carpet with practiced efficiency. Then caught herself, remembering with a frown that she didn't owe him any favors.

And then realizing what had actually drawn her: his mailbox, so stuffed with correspondence it seemed to wheeze against its mounting. No lock on it either.

The squashy armchair in the corner accepted her weight as she flicked her wand. Letters cascading into her lap like autumn leaves.

There was no turning back now. But caution made her whisper: "Homenum revelio."

Nope, still just her.

Hector received a fair amount of leisure magazines, their glossy bulk responsible for much of the mailbox's distended belly.

Ministry letterheads dominated the next set of envelopes. The Wizengamot's bright seal glinting, Administration's precise corners in grayscale. Magical Games and Sports' whimsical broomstick stamps.

Then there were the citizen appeals, convinced their grievances deserved the Chief's immediate attention. Curled into each other, stuffed in and forgotten.

Her wand separated them, orchestrating neat aerial piles.

But three refused categorization. Two postmarked within days, one from a week prior. All bearing Peter Mulciber Senior's name in crisp print, sent first class.

Bingo.

Cara sent the remaining post sailing back to its box, settling exactly as she'd found it.

The Mulciber letters disappeared into her breast pocket, paper against heartbeat.

She made to rush back to her desk — but paused. Swept some pistachio shells from his desk to the floor, ground them deliberately into the carpet.

Now the office wore its original face, undisturbed as morning frost.

Back in her own territory, sucking another stale candy, Cara knew better than to breach those seals here.

If a Howler lurked among them, if they were charmed to recognize unauthorized readers… the wards would shriek their betrayal.

No, this would be done off the clock.

After her heart rate finally settled, she folded her arms across her desk, let her chin rest in their cradle.

Now that it finally felt allowed, she thought of Sebastian.

How he'd pressed his fingertips to her window glass. The gentle refusal of dinner, more concerned with the tremor in her voice than the growl in his stomach.

Brandy pulling them under swiftly, chocolate melting at the corners of their mouths as barbs dissolved into laughter.

The room had tilted and swayed as their conversation wandered through memorial gardens. Anne's peculiarities blooming beside Hector's thorny spite.

Candy wrapper philosophies scattering like fallen petals. The case that brought him there, evaporating.

A shared memory of Ominis tumbling down the stairs beside Professor Hecat's classroom unfurling between them, her laugh escaping like a startled bird.

Then his forgiveness, offered again and again, each time more impossibly gentle than the last as the record player spun its crackling spell.

Their swaying, his hand in her hair.

Brandy and loneliness moving them closer, closer still.

His eyes crinkling at her whispered apologies until she ruined it all, fixing him with a look that belonged in some other story entirely.

It had sent Sebastian running for the bathroom with such speed, he might as well have Apparated.

This morning, she'd watched him sleep, almost let him stay. Let him inhabit her quiet rooms for another day, safe from Feldcroft's suffocating walls.

But then, Poppy's revelation sharpened the world's edges. She'd found herself guiding him back to reality.

He'd blinked at her, curious about her meeting.

And mercifully willing to let her brandy soaked embarrassment fade into the realm of things they didn't discuss.

Moving onward, back to the case.

That last gesture: his fingers flicking her hat's brim, gone in a crack of displaced air. Leaving her to steep in her own ridiculousness.

Cara drifted into sleep there at her desk, the enchanted light dimming into darkness above her still form.

Then the Ministry's five o'clock chime startled her awake to the evening.

To drool on her desk, and a piece of candy tangled in her hair.

Hector Fawley adjusted the cloth napkin in his lap. Feigning comfort as he inspected the restaurant's layout, its lighting.

An old habit: ambiance would always be important to him. The way some men collected rare books or tracked the markets, he gathered moments of perfect atmosphere.

He'd inspected his date already, of course. And with similar scrutiny.

She was Nanette Wilkes, of Birmingham. A second cousin of Nott's. Neither particularly short nor tall, and finely boned, as if someone had sketched her frame with careful consideration.

Her dress and makeup spoke to a risk taken. Lips painted just a shade darker than strictly proper.

A risk Hector appreciated.

She was the sort whose features made you think about algebra.

High, thin brows as red as her hair, large and lambent eyes. A nose with an upturned tip, balanced above full lips. A narrow chin. If you changed any single variable in that face, the whole equation would collapse.

But the complete effect? Uniquely charming. Not beautiful in the classical sense, but enticing in a way that made you wonder.

He was also learning that she loved a tangent. Her hands moved through the air, punctuating each thought:

"I'd considered going to some of the mixing events my mother suggested, but all the men there were ancient. I recognize that that's the point—fortuitous matches."

"Mm-hm."

"But it all felt so terribly choreographed. Meeting someone through a friend or coworker feels much more natural."

Hector nodded. Wondering why the wait staff seemed to be dallying so much with his wine.

"I see what you mean. My parents have urged me to marry several times, and I've never liked their choices."

There had been the old money girls who were good for a wild night, but who'd snap him with their fans for having a drink. Could still feel the sting of those ivory implements, hear the rustle of expensive robes.

Then there were family friends he'd stomped grapes with as a child, small feet purple-stained and innocent.

Some had grown up homely, and just as annoyed by the matches as he was. By childhood days gone to vinegar.

And Cara. The name itself was a wound that wouldn't heal. She'd come to the vineyard and cracked jokes on his arm.

His mother's letters had gushed on about her mix of beauty and strength of character. How he'd been a fool to muck it up, as she was the perfect portrait of a Minister's wife.

Things he'd already known. Things he'd never forgotten, that haunted him still.

The waiter materialized at last, genuflecting.

"Your wine, Chief Fawley."

At last, a drink.

Though the Cabernet tasted more like Merlot, either would ease his nerves.

So Hector sucked his teeth, hoping no stains found them, and smiled gently at his date. The gesture felt genuine, which surprised him.

"I imagine overseeing the Auror Office is quite a thankless job," returned Nanette, head leaned into her hand. The pose artistic, studied perhaps, but effective. "I thought about being an Auror myself, but my grades were never good enough."

It seemed she sensed his skittishness, and had given him an easy topic.

"Well, you'd be right about that. Every mistake they make, the press immediately believe was my doing. Though I suppose that's—"

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown," she nodded. "Sorry to cut across you, I just felt like I understood."

She had indeed. But Hector knew her self-deprecation required some balancing, some attention in return. 

"You're fine, that was spot on. And as for you, well. You're better off, as I think the Auror Office ages women. Makes them hard and uncompromising."

The words were a test, a stone tossed into still water to see what ripples returned.

Thankfully, wonderfully, Nanette didn't have some cutting remark about double standards ready to deploy, or any well actually flavored platitude about equality and balanced perspectives. 

No. Her mossy green eyes took the consolation as it was, accepted with a grace that made his chest expand.

Intrigue following it.

"You see, that's the sort of up-front honesty, so many men are lacking. You're an interesting one, Chief Fawley."

The compliment landed softly, neither too eager nor too reserved. Hector's shoulders relaxed a fraction as he considered her, lost in the moment.

Here was a woman who enjoyed her place, who didn't mistake aggression for strength.

Then he noticed her wine glass suspended in the air, waiting for his to clink it.

"As are you, Ms. Wilkes."

He watched her sip that dull Cabernet as she met his eyes with a gamely smile, like they were sharing a private joke. Napkin twisting between her fingers.

Hector quirked a brow, swirling his glass.

"This bottle is a bit dense and plummy, don't you find?"

"I'm not very knowledgeable about wine, to be frank, but it is almost… chewy, in a way. Do I sound stupid?"

Hector admired her collarbone, her open mind. The way she seemed to hang on his every word.

"Not at all."

Nanette's cheeks flushed. Another diatribe coming, another story of folly she'd seen elsewhere.

"Once I went on a vineyard tour, I think it was in Southampton. The owner there swore all the grapes were tended with great care, but he made no remark when children were yanking at the vines."

"Shameful," he nodded.

"Not that anyone should yell at children, but it didn't seem he was willing to tell their parents to mind their behavior. I expect he wanted them to invest."

Her rambling should have grated on him. It was precisely the sort of meandering tale that usually had him drumming his fingers, planning his escape.

But there was something disarming about her earnestness, the way she let her thoughts wander without pretense or polish.

This was his first date in a year. After that disastrous night, pounding on Cara's door, hammering the metal call box until his hand went numb.

That surreal breakdown of his pride had begun when she'd walked out of their third date. Napkin she'd thrown down drifting like a white flag in slow motion, except he was the one surrendering.

Following her through the restaurant's doors into the rain while their appetizers grew cold.

Hector had never trailed any woman before. He could've Apparated home, cut his losses.

Instead, he'd walked the twelve blocks, each breath burning in his lungs.

As if she were worth the ruined shoes, worth the drenched robes, worth anything at all.

Fist beating wood, rasping in the empty hallway. And she'd told him through that call box, "go home."

Cara's judgment clear despite the distortion. Like she'd spoken on high from some other plane. One where she'd earned the right to dismiss him.

She stood there, wordless, listening to his efforts. Then with that deified confidence she'd added:

"Grow up, Hector," before the static disappeared. 

All that effort, all that destroyed dignity, for someone who'd never once shown him the same consideration.

But maybe there had been something to that last.

"Nanette, I hope I'm not being presumptuous. But if you'd like to see a vineyard that's run correctly, I would be happy to host you. Anytime you'd like."

Her thin brows jumped, but she smiled. A wide, mischievous grin.

"Let's get the check, then."

Bernard Ndiaye had called out for Sebastian when he'd returned to the hamlet that morning.

Unabashed bewilderment creasing his face at post addressed to "Sebastian Sally".

So the Poaching gang had indeed come calling. Just as quickly as Cara predicted they might.

And in fact, this missive came in the crooked hand of the grizzled boss himself.

Marunweem was a success. If you're still up for Friday, we'd be happy to have you. Masked is best.

—CL

The parchment burned in Sebastian's pocket as Bernard informed him the sheep were getting restless. Bothering at the rotting onions in the backyard.

So he set to work tending the animals. Letter forgotten and remembered with each movement.

One of the sheep had gone lame. But it'd be an easy fix, albeit without magic.

Its impacted hoof was swollen, hot in his hands. Sebastian's fingers found the pressure point, knife sliding home.

The sheep's bleat of relief echoing across the yard as black fluid drained onto his boots. The stench made his eyes water, but he held her hoof steady until it ran clear.

The onions that'd had gone to slime in the yard vanished with a flick of his wand.

Next he filled the empty feed troughs; sweaty hair stuck to his forehead as he levitated bales, counted grains.

Every movement felt mechanical, muscle memory carrying him through chores while his mind wandered to Cara's office.

She was probably getting caught up on the work he'd taken her away from yet again. Making sure her pig of a boss wasn't sniffing too closely at her plans.

It was a real pig that snuffled at his heels as he finished with the bales, wet nose leaving marks on his trousers.

He patted its head absently.

Too soon to write her?

He'd promised to wait for her Owl, and it had only been hours.

The bath water ran brown with dirt and sheep's blood. He watched it swirl down the drain, trying not to think about last night.

But as he stood later in the kitchen, wooden spoon moving through stew at his wand's rhythm, it all came back to him.

The way he'd shouldered his way into her world again, kept her up late before work once more. Plied her with jokes and intrusions into her history the last five years. 

The case had indeed gone forgotten. Because it wasn't just the case that kept them close now.

It was comfort, transformed into something beyond pity, into indulging an old friend.

And getting to feel like she wasn't an Auror to boot.

He was that respite for her.

But there was something else.

Yes, beyond pity-turned-comfort, beyond the usefulness with the Poachers he just happened to provide, there was one another reason why she'd kept taking it so far…

She was lonely. Her flat held that particular silence of a space where no one visited. Certainly no men.

The way she'd stared at him on her sofa told him everything he needed to know. Balking like she'd found a fox in her kitchen, something wild where it shouldn't be.

Yes, Cara was as lonely as they came. Just like him.

Lonely and, more importantly, drunk. Off brandy and memories, off chocolate-stained confessions and that damned record player's warble. Off someone being close without it being a power play.

She was human, and talk of his release had cracked in her voice. That omnipresent guilt.

Amplified by brandy until it felt like something else entirely.

It meant nothing. Nothing at all.

Still. Her naked body was probably long and lovely. Not gangly or spare. For someone so tall, she wasn't at all lacking in hips or ass. 

The way she'd countered his 'go fuck yourself' remark flooded back like a fever. Lighting his nerves with forgotten context the drink had kept quiet until now. 

Sebastian swallowed. Weight falling onto one hip as he stirred his stew. Remembering her expression then.

And that one she wore as they danced.

His mind betrayed him with double-exposed images: Cara in the Undercroft, cheeks not yet carved by time, hair in its severe plait. 

Ominis' accusation in the dormitory: "I'm convinced you're rather sweet on her."

And his own voice, distant as dreams: finding a cure for Anne was more important than any silly girl.

Flash forward through years like turning pages: that diner in Hogsmeade, her eyes rolling at his story about Gwen Avery. 

Looking at him like he was still fifteen, forever trapped in amber as that boy who'd chosen his sister over everything else.

Sebastian took the pot off the fire.

It wasn't done. But he was so hard, his legs felt weak. Blood thrumming to where his cock demanded it.

What if he hadn't gone to the bathroom last night?

His belt clanged against the floor. Pants dropping to his ankles as he found the bed. Cock jutting out dark against his thigh, waiting for his hand.

Picturing her eyes squeezed closed as he thumbed his throbbing tip. 

Cara.

He'd actually want to look at her while she stretched sweet and pink around him. Dripping and desperate and hungry.

Need to watch himself disappear inside her, gaze darting between her swallowing pussy and her face, watching pleasure crack through her careful control. 

She'd be so tight, so juicy. 

Sebastian whimpered. Working his cock, letting precum roll and coat him.

He could almost feel her, see her jerking belly, the pale hair, the glistening slit. 

Oh, she'd be vocal. Quiet and stony as she was all the time, she'd be vulnerable with him.

Soft, hesitant yips and breathless gasps, at first, like she couldn't quite believe what was happening. 

Sebastian wouldn't want to kiss her, wouldn't want to muffle her even a bit, just listen to every new sound she made.

And he'd groan in response, singing along, his voice breaking. Keeping that razor-sharp eye contact.

He'd get her used to him, be patient and gentle before pulling her into him. Making her fuck herself on him while he pushed harder.

She'd get louder, moan deeper, gasp and pant. 

Her breasts would move. Up and down, in circles, as he stirred her up. He'd watch them, memorize their weight.

Drawing sweet, animal whines from deep in her chest. 

The case would disintegrate. All those careful note takings, all the pretense. Nothing would matter except pure, brutal need. 

Sebastian moaned. His hand working faster, pressure building. 

She'd arch and press back against him, taking more, deeper, each movement a battle.

He'd bring her hips down, the head of his cock kissing her deep, hitting her right there, there…

Wet slaps and squelches growing louder, those breathless keens becoming throaty cries.

He'd say she was a good girl, holding her gaze, watching her completely lose herself. Give him they'd both pretended not to think about for years. Let herself go for once in her fucking life. 

Her pussy would drip endlessly, seeping into the dark hair above where he drove into her, painting his belly, drooling all over him. 

There in that apartment while the record player hummed.

Here alone in Feldcroft, his thighs shook, his ass tensing. Jaw burning—

"N-no, wait…"

But he'd come. Across his hand, the blanket, streaks trailing up his stomach.

Sebastian's cheeks burned, his breath ragged… but not with relief. 

No, it was shame that coiled inside him, a serpent growing with each broken exhale. Hadn't meant to go this far. 

Hitting the wall would have been better. Knuckles split. Blood redirected.

Something real and punishing instead of this quiet, sticky aftermath of her face. Her sounds.

The way she might have looked if any of it were real. 

He should've remembered what they were actually doing here. An ex-con. An Auror. The case, a thin, fragile membrane. Careful, dangerous work.

That she was brilliant. Complicated. Someone who believed in his potential.

Not some object for his desperate, pathetic imagination.

Cleaning himself mechanically, eyes squeezed shut as if he could scrub away the memory.

Tissues. Wipe. Dispose. Pants yanked back into place, everything contained.

The stew pot still bubbled on the table, its residual heat leaving a ghost print against the wood. Mundane and normal, time passing. As if nothing had happened.

Sebastian stood, staring at the beans and beef hash. Teeth grinding like his molars could somehow erase the betrayal.

"That didn't happen," he muttered to the empty kitchen. Tongue flicking across sweaty lips. "Fuck."

Air rushed into his lungs. And justification. 

It had been proof he was human. Just a man with urges. She would never know. Could never know. 

He'd defiled her only in thought. So it would be alright.

Just a moment of weakness. Everyone had them.

This changed nothing, unless he let it.

It was out of Sebastian's system.

Or so he told himself.

Chapter Text

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

Eli Wiesel

Tuesday carried Hector in a few minutes late.

A rare event; odd enough to catch the morning mid-breath.

"Good morning, all," he called, voice fizzing. Sparkling, almost, like champagne uncorked in their midst. "I've got pastries in the lounge, if anyone's interested."

Cara, brittle from habit, heard only the echo of sarcasm. Though the pitch was off, too bright at the edges.

She wasn't the only one confused. People exchanged glances, half-smiles. The parlance of a group gently thrown. 

Hector, usually so predictable, had turned a new face to them.

Even his favorites didn't know how to play it: Mulciber Junior glanced at Cara and shrugged. 

Eyebrows saying what his mouth didn't: Are you seeing this?

But there was no reversal, no punchline waiting to snap. Hector just grinned, loose and easy.

A grin that belonged to someone with a secret.

Or perhaps a prescription.

It was Nott who finally piped up, voice easy.

"Day old pastries?" he wore the question like a loose jacket. Comfortable and a little amused.

Hector's teeth flashed. "Fresh. From Florian Fortescue's." 

For once, the Chief's mood matched the riot of his paisley tie. His colors had always looked borrowed but today they made sense, the whole self buoyed up and bobbing in sync.

Then an addendum, a flourish:

"Oh, I almost forgot. Anyone goes out for lunch today, it's on the Chief."

Against the odds that would normally have kept her silent, Cara qualified:

"On you yourself, or on the office?" 

He turned, delighted, as if she'd tossed a treat instead of a barb.

"On me, Officer Morganach. Go wild." 

She felt the word land. Officer.

Not the first-name-as-weapon address that'd become the norm as her role as pariah calcified. 

The absence of that edge startled her more than any pastry.

With that, the Chief raised his briefcase in a toast of benediction and disappeared into his office. 

Mulciber Junior stayed standing, staring after him.

"Say, what's got him so full of pep?"

It took a moment for Cara to realize the question was meant for her. There was no edge to it, just honest bafflement.

For the first time in weeks, the air here felt almost breathable.

Almost made her wonder if everyone was Imperiused.

"Me? No, I don't know what's going on with him." 

Mulciber craned his neck, more shamelessly peering through the narrow gap of Hector's door. It swung shut, and he seemed to lose a little height.

Then shrugged again, looking toward the lounge.

"Been wanting to talk to him about something, but… I kind of feel like a cruller would really hit the spot. Morgs, you want anything?"

She shook her head, and he slid away, following a scent trail of sugar and butter toward laughter, wax paper and gossip. 

Cara watched: not with longing, but with the cool curiosity reserved for things that break the pattern.

Even with the door closed, she heard the faint thrum of Hector's humming, a bright line threading through the background.

Her report waited. The one she was supposed to hand-deliver, every day, by decree.

But maybe today, she'd just slide it under the door, let this strange new weather hold.

For now, she watched things settle. Squad mates returning to their papers or headed out for field work.

The status board whirring, ticking the changes. 

In the quiet that followed, the smell of pastries. Crumbs from smacking lips and napkins drifted across the bullpen, sweet and insistent. 

When the temptation finally won, Cara made her way to the lounge. Only a single cherry turnover remained, split down the middle, filling shining like a wound.

She ate it standing by the counter, flakes and sugar dusting her sleeve, letting sweetness color her mouth.

But it was the word Officer that echoed, strange and clean, long after the last trace of cherry.

Groceries were an idea, not a task.

Sebastian, too young to remember how his parents sorted food before the accident, and transplanted to Feldcroft after, had never really learned the ritual. 

Food arrived by season and labor with green stained hands, not by receipt. 

But then, Cara's flat didn't even have a window box.

This shop where she'd asked him to meet her was another mystery. He'd passed the corner before, never clocking the green awning or the hand-painted letters curling with a practiced whimsy. 

Today, the sign caught the sun and winked at him as he ducked inside.

The place smelled of citrus and old wood polish. And it was a riot of color.

Shelves jammed with packages: some loud, cartoonish, others wrapped in paper and twine. Necessities elbowing up against bright tins of sweets and oddities he couldn't name. 

A wizard behind the counter coaxed a blade to life with his wand; cucumber rounds sailed through the air, tumbling into a neat pile beside brown paper sacks.

Produce dominated that whole corner. 

One witch, hair tied up in a red scarf, leaned over a crate of lemons and limes.
Pressing each to her nose, then passing it beneath the chin of a baby in a faded pram. It gurgled at the parade of shapes and colors.

Sebastian drifted through the aisles, half-lost, half-fascinated.

Bread, actual loaves, tucked up next to vials of dragon pox ointment. 

Some strategy must have guided the order, but it escaped him.

Bits and bobs stacked alongside everyday things, everything apparently in its place. Even if that place made no sense.

Maybe that was the point.

The name was clever, though. When people found themselves with empty cupboards, wishing conjuring food were possible, their minds would come here.

Wallets too. 

Next, he paused at a chalkboard crowded with names in pink chalk. There, a heap of alliums: round, pale, a blush of purple under their skins.

They reminded him of shrivelfigs. But the board declared them Vidalia onions.

He rolled one between his fingers, thinking of Anne.

Wondering if they had these wherever she'd landed. 

"Looking to dress up your next pot of stew?"

The words hung in the air, masquerading as a shopkeeper's banter. 

Cara, a basket looped over one arm. Eyes fixed on him with a steadiness that always made him feel half-examined.

Sunlight from the street throwing a pale bar across her collar. 

His mind snagged, abruptly, on the last stew he'd made. Thick with root vegetables and regret.

And the way he'd ruined her in reverie. Fingers curled tight in bedsheets, shame slick and persistent.

Guilt nipped at him, sharp as an undercooked root.

Was that why it'd taken her so long to write back? 

As if she had sensed his trespass through miles of stone and parchment, instead of simply being busy living her own life.

Absurd. 

He set the onion down, gentle, as if it might shatter.

"What would you suggest?"

Cara shrugged, a small snort escaping.

"I don't know, I mostly eat pasta." She rattled her basket for proof, noodles and tins clattering. "Though I think tonight I may actually cook something more involved."

Sebastian caught the badge half-hidden under her coat, the familiar fatigue in her shoulders.

The ordinariness of it all landed.

She was indeed here to shop, in part. Had come right from work. 

"Special occasion?"

"No, I'm just in a good mood." She smiled, small and sharp, the kind that threatened to bloom if he looked too long. "Hey, maybe you could join me for dinner. I can make up for only feeding you candy the other night."

The other night. Right.

He let his eyes snag on a box of saltines, the faded blue of the packaging. The mascot's painted eyes following him with manic cheer.

"I wouldn't want to impose."

Cara drifted a few steps away, boots whispering against warped boards, then glanced back, thrown by his retreat. 

"Well, food or not, we can't exactly make our plans in the dry goods section." 

Of course. She'd never meant for them to strategize here, boxed in by the clatter of carts and the metallic clang of the till. 

Real plans needed shadow, distance from the eyes and ears that haunted every aisle.

Still, Sebastian remembered how easy it'd been for them to get distracted from the case last time. Eating candy, reminiscing, dancing…

"Perhaps we should invite Poppy, if there's time," he offered, boot nudging aside a tumble of fallen ginger roots.

He caught up to Cara elbow-deep at the meat counter, wand tapping. Each cut flipping obediently to show its marbled belly.

"It's already six. We should get the plan straight, then loop her in." She hesitated, her voice thinning for a moment. "And… I'm sorry for how pissed I got last time. Let's stay sober tonight."

The confession was quick, but it landed with weight; apology, resolve, a new perimeter drawn.

Sebastian felt something loosen inside him. 

"Good idea." He watched her fingers settle on a brisket, the fat glistening under butcher's glass. "You know, beef chest is one of my favorites."

She looked up, a grin cutting through the haze, sharp as the shop's overheads. Moving the selection to her basket.

"How fortuitous."

A chime filling the entire block; Diagon Alley's bells heralding the oncoming sunset.

That first time she'd brought Sebastian up to her flat, Cara had been grateful for his silence in the lift. It'd given her time to sit with her nerves.

This time, though, she lamented it. Wondered, perhaps neurotically, what she'd done wrong.

Sebastian stood beside her, arms folded. He leaned against the wall, feet set apart, gaze on the floor.

Body braced as if a gust were coming.

She caught his profile in the dull reflection of the doors. The grocery bags crinkled, a leek poking out between them, green and absurd.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." The words edged out on a breath, his shoulders easing when he felt her looking. "Just thinking."

"Mmm."

Cara watched the numbers creep up the lift panel. Each red blink tugged her back to days ago, the last time he'd been here, slouched on her couch, looking half-lost.

Before she'd decided he shouldn't stay alone, pretending it was for his sake after making a drunken fool of herself.

It was her own impatience echoing in multiple directions; she'd avoided asking Poppy any genuine investigative questions, too.

She'd been meant to do it right. Even being pressed for time. But hadn't.

All of it sat with her. Tongue pressing to the back of her teeth, wondering whether she should've indeed thought to write Poppy beforehand, or even short notice as Sebastian suggested.

Doors parted. Cool air against her ankles.

"Just so you know, you being here isn't an imposition," she declared, voice steadier than her heart. "I'm just awful at time management I suppose."

Sebastian's laugh followed, bounced off the hallway tile. A note of disbelief, warm and tinny.

"What're you talking about? I only said that earlier because I wanted to be polite."

The spark of her wand met the rune at the door. Green light blooming on her face, confusion clear in the wash.

Inside, she let the truth slip, low as they crossed the threshold:

"Nothing, I suppose. I thought you were maybe judging me for not having invited Poppy beforehand."

He looked puzzled, a little amused, as the door shut behind him. Freckles clear in the shadow.

"Like you said, there'll be time to talk to her."

Cara ducked into the kitchen, unloading groceries with abrupt, practiced motions. Bananas on the counter, crackers shelved, hands moving too fast.

She felt him watching, silent, as she filled the flat with soft, necessary noise.

Her place boasted a wood-burning oven, its stone belly seldom used. The brisket she'd selected earlier would brown inside it soon.

Once tenderized, refined, seasoned…

She always thought cooking was a good idea until faced with the tedium of preparation.

Pasta was her staple for a reason.

Sebastian moved through the living room, toeing off his shoes at the heels. "Gonna get pretty stuffy in here, with how small your windows are."

Cara crouched, yanking open the oven's bottom drawer. "I'm realizing that now." Palm pushing pans aside. "Not too late to order something from downstairs."

Through the gap where the counter met the kitchen wall, Sebastian's face appeared. Chin propped on his wrist, elbow planted.

He watched, lips quirking.

"You decided to put in more effort, there's no going back now." He pointed his wand at the oven, where logs already waited, never used. "Confringo."

Fire snapped to life, a sudden blaze. Both their faces lit orange, shadows flickering across tile and cheekbone.

Cara smiled, then shifted: wand pointing down, slicing through the butcher paper.

She placed the brisket on the board, found the mallet in the drawer. Cold metal, handle worn smooth.

At her wand's flick it trembled, rose, began pounding the meat in a slow, tireless rhythm. Each strike thudding into the wood.

Her gaze caught Sebastian's through the cadence of the blows, a drum between them.

"So what else do we know about Corbin Laird?" she asked, voice steady, eyes on him. "Do the others seem amenable to you?"

Sebastian didn't blink. "He was in Azkaban, of course. And the others were quite impressed that I was too. He said many of them shy away from using Unforgivables, so I'd be a welcome addition."

Cara leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, watching the oven blaze.

"None of the others have ever been arrested?"

"I don't think so." He paused, then: "Makes you wonder how he found them."

The words landed sharp and weighty. For a heartbeat, the mallet's pounding seemed to echo the question as Cara's mind caught, turned.

"Over on the coat rack. My jacket. In the breast pocket are some letters I found in Hector's office."

Firelight caught Sebastian's hair as he turned, drawing out the red.

"That's right, you did say you'd found something. Let me see here…" his voice drifted, paper rustling.

It was then, a sudden spray: blood flicked onto Cara's shirt, a red constellation blooming on cotton. She stilled the mallet.

"What am I looking at?" came his voice after a moment.

She watched blood bead at her collar, realizing she'd never told him this part.

"Remember in the Irondale Sanctuary, when I found that strange letter? That was from Mulciber too. His son works with me, he's close to Hector."

Sebastian came back, the post folded open in his hands.

"I see. These just say that he wants to make sure he and Hector have an understanding. The third one is a little bit less patient."

Cara didn't look up, just reached for a knife to trim a stubborn edge of fat.

"And you had said that they were working on behalf of someone?"

His lips drew tight. But those eyes held a glimmer; recognition, or the start of a theory.

Tapping the edge of the letter against his palm:

"They complained whoever it was is moneyed, didn't really have time for them. Do you think they're working with Hector? If he and the son are chums."

Cara's knife paused, tip pressed against the board.

The idea didn't fit cleanly; she shook her head, set the blade aside. Reached for the spice rack, lining them up. Garlic salt, paprika, mesquite.

Each followed her wand, shaking red and gold to bloom over uncooked pink flesh.

"I don't know. Hector has been strange lately. But he really wants to be Minister, so I doubt he would get involved in anything like that."

Sebastian watched, head tilted, as if the answer might be written in the way her wrist snapped.

"Strange how?"

She rolled her thumb through the leftover spice. Hector's punch drink grin, the little swing in his step, flashing in her mind's eye.

"Well, for instance… this morning, he called me by my actual title instead of my first name, brought in pastries, offered to pay for everyone's lunch. Like he'd been Bewitched, or something."

Sebastian leaned in, hip against the counter, close enough that her robes caught at his side.

His smile, the sly kind.

"I've got a theory that's sure to entertain you. Maybe he finally got laid, got a life outside obsessing over a coworker."

Cara snorted. "One would hope. He hasn't bothered me about the case for a few days, either."

With that, the brisket was ready for its sizzling date with the oven, levitating into the woodsmoke with a gentle thud. The door a bit heavy, the latch loud.

She turned, found Sebastian looking at her. His expression unreadable. Eyes unfocused, the letters pinched between his fingers.

Then he straightened, voice clearing the air.

"So, when we meet with Poppy, we should share these other developments, see if she can offer us any extra insight into Poaching in general."

"I agree, and—"

The remainder of the sentence vanished, the floor tilting out from under Cara as her foot skidded through a slick patch: blood, bright as pomegranate, pooling beneath the counter.

Cold shock shot up her calf. She tried to brace, but her knee buckled, and the ceiling reeled away.

In the same instant, fabric wrenched at her waist: her robes had caught. For a split, disoriented moment, she didn't know what held her.

It was Sebastian's belt loop. She heard the catch of breath, the muted curse, then felt the sudden shift of weight as he went down hard, a tangle, crashing into her side.

The silence that followed was so thick it hurt her ears.

"I wondered if I should clean that up, but you seemed to have it so well handled," he murmured. "Isn't this a cliché. A man and a woman falling on the floor together."

This close, his skin filled her nose: salt, the faint ghost of soap. His freckles sharpened, each one a speck of dirt on sunburned ground.

Every line of his face magnified, alien.

Hyper-aware of the weight of his thigh, their chests rising and falling in a frantic, unsynchronized rhythm.

Though her lips felt foreign, Cara let herself smile:

"Is there a part in your cliché where the woman needs a cigarette?"

"I think that's usually in the adult version, and quite a little while later," Sebastian whispered conspiratorially. Gaze sweeping down her body before his mouth crumpled into a grin. "And I also think red might be your color."

Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. "It washes you out, though," she managed as she shifted, searching blind for an anchor.

Fingers found the cold metal of the cabinet handle and squeezed until her knuckles popped.

On her feet, Cara saw blood seeping through every seam. Congealing quickly. The smell was thick, iron and ruin; the sight absurd, comic, horrifying. One brisket couldn't hold this much.

Made her want to laugh and retch at once.

"So much for cooking without incident."

Sebastian's face flickered. He pressed his palm through the blood, smearing red crescents on the floor as he hauled himself upright. Pink stains blossoming up his ankles.

"Well, if you don't want to drink, that's fine, but I could use one now."

Even though no Inferi crawled through its depths anymore, the Feldcroft Catacomb still stank of the dead.

Not the soft, old rot of a tomb left to itself, but something sharper. Fetid, sweet, a smell that crawled into your clothes and hung there for days.

The kind that kept people honest, or at least kept them away.

It was this that Ominis took comfort in, and used to his advantage.

The Ministry had long since written Feldcroft off.

As had any local who didn't want to wear putrescent perfume for a week. They believed the tomb was picked clean by grave robbers decades ago.

In that, they were right. The hamlet's dead had nothing left to lose.

Inside lie spoils from the living. Even the smallest trinkets, worth more than any crofter over the hill made in a year of honest work.

Lifted from those who'd never earned even a painted plate. Who'd inherited fortunes on the backs of others, stolen more than they could ever spend but called it birthright.

None of them suspecting a Gaunt clever enough to be the plunderer.

His latest job: Ignatius Malfoy. New money, thick as clotted cream, blissfully unaware of the risks flaunting it brought.

While he and that rat Mulciber lounged on the lawn, guzzling wine and feeding each other pâté, he had helped himself to the vault.

Maybe Mr. Malfoy knew now that avarice has its consequences, that proud thieves had rivals in the dark.

Ominis liked to think he taught lessons. Just not the sort that ended in applause.

He'd never teach in any real classroom, after all. The Ministry laughed at his name. The Prophet called him curse-born, the Aurors called him worse.

Even lepers had more doors open.

He'd made his own way. Hated the Slytherin in him, but couldn't deny it.

Once, he and Sebastian had intended to open a bookshop together. Stationery, sweets, Anne's laughter in the next room. Her twin, shelving tomes with a grin that meant trouble.

She had believed in it most of all.

Of course, none of it came to be.

Instead, the catacomb's bone bridges were the path he walked. The room where Solomon Sallow died became a counting house.

Ominis sat in the dark, slicing salami, coins in neat piles. Once in a while, a rat would nose in.

He let them have their bite.

Everyone had to eat. He was no better.

He'd asked Cara to stick to ink and parchment, not to disappear altogether. Either way, apart from asking for that list, she'd been a ghost.

It was tempting to believe her distance was self-preservation, just keeping her head above water. Maybe she was already building a case on him. 

Anne was safe in domestic bliss. They would never sell rock candy and books together, as they'd waxed about once upon a dream.

In private moments, Ominis wondered if Sebastian, fresh from prison, prospects as bleak as his own… might want in on his little empire.

He'd told their friend the Auror that he feared him, and that was true.

But Sebastian represented force he lacked, a thief's glib right hand. All teeth and bravado, the kind of man who made things happen, good or bad.

Maybe prison had carved caution into him. Maybe not.

The fact remained that no one was more likely to turn him in than the best friend he'd sent to the gallows.

Before he'd learned the value of silver, Ominis had already played Judas for free.

And if he was dealt the justice he deserved, Cara would be the one to slam the door shut.

As good Officer Morganach lived alone and never entertained, there was no proper place for more than one to dine.

So they sat cross-legged on the rug, over the coffee table with its constellation of ancient scratches and spilled wax.

The couch forgotten behind them like a stage set for a different play.

Mid-chew, Sebastian paused, fork rising like a pointer in a lecture.

"I've got to say, this is a revelation. Solomon never seasoned the ones he'd make."

It felt necessary, this confession to the room.

Cara swallowed, smiled. "Thanks. And we even got to wear the meal. Pretty immersive."

Indeed, blood still dried on her shirtfront, her suspenders, her slacks. Buffered by her taking the brunt of it, Sebastian had mostly been spared.

Save for his socks, ringed like tree growth.

He glanced at her plate. Nothing left but a faint shimmer of grease.

"You've finished quickly," he said, somewhere between impressed and unsettled.

She shrugged, a careless roll of the shoulder, blood crackling at the seam.

"Well, I rushed a little. I need a bath, I stink."

Then stood, the movement abrupt, crossing the room in three strides.

Her passing shape caught the record player covered by a sheet. A ghost that wouldn't sing tonight.

"Eau de hemoglobin," he jibed, hoping the joke would carry.

Her laugh came back, short and bright, echoing in the tile and pipes. Sebastian let his eyes drop to the brandy glass beside his plate, the light catching on it.

"So is this my cue to head home?" he called, trying for lightness, but the words felt like they'd been sitting out too long.

She shook her head, "No, enjoy your brandy. I'll be back in a tick."

And disappeared into the hall, as if further discussion was out of the question.

Sebastian found himself smiling at nothing. The brandy went down easy on a full belly, burning a line he could trace with his finger.

He stared at his plate a moment longer, then rose; glass in one hand, plate in the other.

The kitchen was still warm with woodsmoke, the air thick. Sliding his plate beside hers on the dish rack: two testimonies, side by side, their edges touching in the hush.

Then her footsteps down the hall, a door swinging shut. Water, sudden and total, thundering into porcelain. Filling the flat with its rush.

He took a long swallow of brandy and forced his mind to the case.

It seemed they'd uncovered yet another connection, if only a tertiary one. What did an Auror's father have to do with these Poachers? Hector, always lurking at the edge, too careful, too clean.

It would hinge on how much Laird and his lackeys would divulge Friday, if anything. How Poppy would fit in.

And then the sound of water, a splash, the rhythm of skin being scrubbed.

Mind snagging, sliding sideways. The shape of her body folding into the tub, steam rising, her skin gleaming and streaked, water pinking as it climbed toward places he'd never seen.

Picturing himself leaning against the doorjamb, asking if she needed help with the hard-to-reach places. In his mind she laughed, guttural, raw.

He cleared his throat, tried to shake it off, forcing himself back to the living room, to the glass in his hand, the pipes rattling overhead.

She hadn't wanted to drink tonight. He knew why.

Last time, the bottle had peeled them both back, shame living close to the surface.

But Cara didn't feel half as much shame as he did. Alone in his bed, mind full of what he shouldn't want.

On the coffee table, sat the trio of Mulciber Senior's letters: creased, handled, a corner sticking to a patch of syrupy residue.

Rereading the latest, eyes flicking over the lines, mouth shaping the words even as his teeth worried a bit of brisket from his molar:

I would hope that after my last, Chief Fawley, you'd have realized that I don't wish to continue sending you post that goes unanswered. I'm beginning to wonder if you've perhaps underestimated my concerns.

He mouthed underestimated once, twice, as if trying to rub a stain off it.

The gurgle and suck of the draining tub broke the spell, heralded Cara's return. Sebastian looked up from the letter.

She'd indeed been quick and still was, bare feet whispering across the boards, wrapped in dark green silk pajamas. Her hair slicked back from her forehead.

"All clean." And in her fingertips, a bundle of cigarettes, as she'd foreshadowed earlier.

He tried to steady his voice, not trusting it. "Did you get behind your ears?"

The parchment rattled in his hand as Cara dropped onto the rug in front of the table, knees folding, and shot him a look over the flare of her wand.

"I did." Mouth tugging crooked as the smoke caught in her throat. The first exhale curled toward him, transparent and alive. "Anything else notable in the letters? I'll go over them myself too, but…"

He breathed in smoke, the faint trace of her shampoo. Her hair dripped, a small dark pool forming at the base of her neck.

"No, I was just… no," he managed, voice thin.

Cara watched him for a beat, then blinked, eyes widening.

"Mm. I just remembered: you said in your letter that he wants you masked on Friday. I'll take care of that, with everything I can get to in London."

He nodded, neck tight, grateful for her matter-of-factness, the way she plucked problems from thin air and broke their backs.

"Appreciate that. I thought I'd have to make something out of stuff around the farm."

Her gaze drifted, calculating, already assembling a plan. "No, we'll make sure you fit in. You and Poppy both. I'm going to write her in a bit."

She drew in another lungful of smoke, sleeve falling a bit. Baring the tender pale of her wrist, veins threading blue and delicate beneath the skin. Silk pooling at her elbow.

Sebastian's gaze followed upward, tracing the clean line of her arm. Fabric blousing then tightening over her shoulder. The neckline dipping at her clavicle, clinging and releasing with each breath.

His eyes slid almost without interruption to the unmistakable outline beneath: a natural curve of bare breasts beneath thin green silk.

Soft and high, even without a brassiere.

His ravenous mind cataloged: a single droplet escaping her hair, sliding down her neck; the ash buildup at the cigarette's end; the soft crease where her thigh pressed the floor.

Through a dry mouth, he asked:

"I, erm… have we covered it all then?"

Cara arched a brow, head tilting. The look she gave him was all sharp intelligence and faint bewilderment.

"I believe so. Why? What's wrong?"

Heat crept up his neck. He gripped his empty glass as if it might anchor him.

"Nothing, it's just, if I drink much more, I likely won't be able to Apparate."

Her gaze flicked to the glass, registering its emptiness, then slid away. She nodded, but her shoulders softened.

A sigh flattening the space between them.

"You know, I meant it when I said you weren't imposing. I was rude last time, when I woke you up, but…"

Some weight dissolved inside him at the sight of her struggling with vulnerability.

His gaze softened, the edges of the room blurring. Lamplight softened on her skin.

He remembered that morning, her voice edged with apology she couldn't say outright.

The way she'd bundled him out, as if putting him back in his world might rewind the intimacy of the night before.

She was always like this: careful, but not unkind.

Part of him wanted to brush it all away, make it easier, stay here and ease her conscience.

But if Sebastian had learned one thing in Azkaban, and in life, it was to quit while he was ahead.

"I know," he said, his voice low now. "It's not that."

Glass clinking down, watching his fingers tremble faintly against the wood.

"…I just have to feed the chickens, or they'll start bothering at other people's crops. I'll get an earful."

The lie floated between them, weightless and necessary.

Cara smiled, slow and knowing, and leaned over to stub her cigarette in his empty glass. The faint hiss and curl of smoke between them.

"Right. I'll walk you down."

They rode the lift in silence. Machinery grumbling overhead, floor numbers ticking by, both of them watching their reflections in the dark glass.

Outside, the fountain's water caught the sodium light, throwing restless patterns on the pavement and the walls.

Cara looked at him, hair drying dark in the night air, and for once, she broke the silence. Speaking first and last.

"I'll see you Friday."

He nodded, the sound of water and city and her bare footsteps holding for a moment.

Before the world shifted and the night moved on.

Chapter Text

But love, the great narcotic, was the hothouse in which all the selves burst into their fullest bloom.

Anaïs Nin

Sebastian reread the note, biting into a bruised yellow apple as juice ran down his bare chest.

Chickens circling him like debt collectors, persistent and unimpressed.

Though the heat made the words swim, no hidden message lie in their depths. Pausing to address the flock:

"I fed you lot already." But their beady eyes held no mercy. Just relentless, clucking commentary. "Bunch of chatty cathies."

He'd started the morning determined to see to the animals the old-fashioned way: arms, grit and not a flick of magic.

But then the neighbor’s cow crashed the party, muscling past the fence and helping itself to the sheep’s food.

Twenty minutes of cursing and wrestling later, Sebastian had managed to chase it off.

By then his homespun resolve had melted.

Certain a heat stroke was imminent, he stripped off his shirt, let it wilt in the grass.

Surrendering the rest of the chores to his wand: hay, water, the endless indignities of farm life.

His shoulders ached, but at least they wouldn't burn. One benefit of being thoroughly freckled: the sun seemed to figure he was marked up enough, left him alone.

Preparing for tomorrow had seemed a grand idea, in theory.

But since he'd last seen Cara, the greatest accomplishment had been finishing a dog-eared detective mystery from Solomon’s collection.

Yesterday in the bath, a twist was revealed on the last page: the protagonist had been dead all along.

Sebastian had rolled his eyes. Tossed the book onto the wet wood and let bathwater chill around his knees.

The sun was sinking. Slashing orange and red through a haze, heat wiggling the air. Sky overripe above bloody grass.

For a second, he felt hollowed out, exposed. 

Tomorrow, he’d try not to lose his shirt again, literally or otherwise.

Not among men a good deal less predictable than anything on four legs. Not with Poppy's safety in his hands as well. 

He wiped tacky apple juice from his stomach, sweat and grime. A sweet and sour patina that'd smeared Cara's letter. 

It found his pocket quietly. 

Hope was a bad habit. One that Azkaban should have killed forever, but that she had breathed life back into. Reviving deflated lungs. 

All he could do was try to make her judgment worth it. 

Friday night came unforgivingly humid, and curiously still. 

Cara sat at the table in the Sallow house, her notepad open. The two masks: skeletal, avian, disturbingly elegant. Waiting on the table.

Her two co-conspirators stood before her, all three of them settling into the hush that comes before a plan gets tested against the world.

Sebastian's smile was faint, distracted. Attention caught by the masks, like a crow spying a glint in the grass.

He picked one up, turned it over in his hands. "Where'd you get these?" Held it to his face for a breath. "Quite a bit lighter than it looks."

Cara tilted her head. "Well, my coworkers quite like pillaging the evidence rooms, so I figured why not help myself."

She let the line hang, dry and casual. A joke that could almost be believed here in the dim light. Sebastian's gaze narrowed, but Poppy's gasp broke the moment.

"No, you can get them at any curiosities shop in Knockturn Alley. I thought about getting a third, but obviously, I can't join you."

Truth, folded into the end of the joke. For a brief moment, she indeed wondered what it would be like.

But the thought passed as Poppy lifted the second mask, fingers trembling just enough to betray the cost of bravery.

Telling Sebastian: "I figure I can pose as your sister. Though I didn't think far ahead enough to come up with an alias."

Voice rehearsed but eyes pleading for a cue, flicking back to Cara. Expectant, as if the plan needed to be ratified by someone steadier.

And Cara felt the unease that came whenever improvisation made up for preparation. It struck her again how much of this was being built in real time.

"Daisy," Sebastian supplied, filling the gap. He said it like tossing out a rope, "Another flower. Easy to remember."

Trying to infuse a bit of banter into the moment, Cara mused wryly, "She doesn't have to be a flower, but that works."

"But I am… a plant," Poppy offered in her own soft attempt at humor.

Cara smiled meekly. Her only template for this kind of conversation: she, Sebastian and Ominis. Always the voice of caution in the dark, trying to talk them out of trouble they'd already decided on.

This new triumvirate included Poppy. Brave in the way only someone with something to prove can be.

She would walk into a gaggle of strangers, carrying the burden of all that was expected and must be concealed. All at once, all brand new.

Wondering what it would cost her to cross that threshold, Cara remained silent, somewhat palsied in her ability to take the stage again.

But it was Sebastian who asked:

"Poppy, you're sure you want to do this?"

The small brunette strode forward and plucked up the same mask she'd run her fingers across before.

"I am. I've hated Poachers my whole life, and I intend to be a part of taking them down."

She put her glasses on the table, pulled the mask on. One second, a friend from school, grown up but recognizable. The next, a cipher.

All the nervous energy replaced by negative space and lacquer.

A trick of the light, perhaps, but she could've sworn the air dropped five degrees.

But where Poppy's transformation was a startling disappearance, Sebastian's was a seamless becoming.

The mask curved to his face, the skeletal smile folding easy into the line of his jaw. Russet bangs falling just over the edge of that harsh geometry.

Cara's breath caught. If anyone could carry this off, it was him.

Her fingers tightened around her quill, as if it could tether her to the moment.

Sebastian looked at her then, through those slits carved in bone. Just long enough to register. Steady, searching, as if making sure she was still with him before turning back to Poppy.

"That confidence is precisely what makes me think we should come up with some sort of code in case it gets to be too much for you."

"I'll just say we need to get back to Mother," was Poppy's muffled yet oddly confident rejoinder.

"Your mother, the Auror," Cara replied, dry and almost amused.

Bowing from her seat, though the gesture felt odd in the new air.

"That makes me uncomfortable, to say the least," Sebastian remarked, his laugh a low scrape, arms crossing. His eyes didn't linger this time. "What's the time?"

"Time to go," Poppy answered, and in her voice was a note unexpected. Breathless, yes, but also diamond-hard.

Cara stood. Only realizing she had done so when her chair screeched behind her. The masks alone had changed everything; they'd made her a bystander to her own anxieties.

And their impending exit? It made her role here in wait, her training itself, sharper, unavoidable.

"You're leaving together, you'll come back together."

The words ringing both more maternal and more Auror than she intended.

Sebastian paused at the threshold, his voice quieter but no less certain:

"And you'll stay here. If you came after us, Officer, I'd have to duel you—and it'd have to be real."

She had never intended to follow. But the depth of Sebastian's dark foresight struck her with sobering clarity all the same.

The inescapable calculus of loyalty and survival.

In that final glance, the room shifted. A tremor beneath the surface, settling without a sound.

"I'll be here."

Despite her mask, despite her companion savvy in the minds of criminals like him, Poppy felt her nerves stand on end as they approached.

Bonfires threw shapes across the ground. Men laughed, bottles passed from hand to hand. Cages were everywhere: beasts pacing, some huddled, others wild-eyed in the flickering light. 

Like any Poacher camp. But there was a boldness here, a raw pride in how open and convivial it all was. 

Loving and protecting creatures had been Poppy's calling from the beginning.

Something she'd known since Gran placed that tiny Kneazle kitten in her lap, eyes sealed, trusting and purring, impossibly soft against her five-year-old hands. 

At that young age, the reality became clear. Became a duty to see hurt and hope in any living thing.

She felt the contrast now: the memory's warmth, the present's cold edge. Jarring but somehow helpful. 

Because Poppy was not that little girl. Not tonight. Not the hopeful trainee from the Department of Regulation of Magical Creatures, either.

Just another mask, another malcontent… whatever that would mean, whatever she'd have to do to make it through.

Even this early, she feared she'd ever get to be herself again. And that perhaps after the reveal, Leander would brand her a liability before she got the chance.

Just as Cara warned. 

Sebastian's voice cut through the clamor: "Look sharp, Daisy." 

The words jolted her back—this was no place for drifting. She straightened, tried to draw confidence from him, match the easy swagger in his step.

"Oi, it's Sally!" 

That voice: a marriage of the River Tyne and whiskey, rough and rolling, nothing gentle in it. A man strode toward them. Arms flung wide. 

Over his eyes and nose, a mask evocative of a fox's skull; an inky mustache bristling beneath. 

Sebastian stepped up, hand out, laughter ready.

"Evening, Mister… sorry, I've been calling you Mustache in my mind."

"Chisholm's my name," the man replied, accent thick as river silt. "And who's this? Don't think Laird's got rules about wives, seeing as none of us have managed one."

The apparent Sally barely missed a beat. "No, this is my sister, Daisy."

"She mute?" asked Chisholm, a glare clear in the mask's hollows. 

Ah, yes, of course: let a man speak for his wife and the world nods along. But in the absence of that ownership, suspicion blooms. 

"No, it's lovely to meet you," Poppy demurred, slipping her hand into his, finding it didn't feel like hers at all. Maybe that meant she was on track. "Sebastian's told me about your operation. I'm impressed." 

The words landing with practiced steadiness. Borrowed, but serviceable. And something in Chisholm eased, just a hair. Enough for her stomach to stop its somersaults as he appraised her.

"You're a petite one, but that might do us well. Small spaces and that."

Poppy felt the foreignness of it settle in her bones. Even at the DRMC, her days were spent mostly among women.

Here, every glance felt like a test she hadn't signed up for. 

Briefly, she lamented not asking Cara for more advice on this nebulous existence.

"Happy to help in any way I can."

Though to what end was unclear, they began following him. Feet crunching through grit and old firewood.

Along the way, Sebastian leaned in a bit, his words soft but just loud enough to carry.

"See, sis? I told you you'd be useful."

A reassurance for her; a performance for anyone listening.

Chisholm strode along, nearly passing a large cage, before something seemed to click. He turned, gestured, pride in his voice.

"Check this lot out. We're doing well on rarity. Manticore be damned."

Inside, a knotted mass of imps spat and clawed, crowded the bars. Poppy blinked, startled.

These creatures were most often muddy brown, like riverbanks after rain. Here, violet hides shimmered in the firelight, stranger than anything she'd seen. 

Rare indeed. "Impressive," she offered. 

"Indeed, but they're rather hungry, I'd wager," Sebastian mused; however, fittingly, his tone held warning instead of concern. "Step back, don't want them getting a finger."

"One of them near got my ankle," the mustachioed Geordie added. A vengeful curl of his lips at the imp hanging highest. "Won't be so arrogant for long."

"They mostly eat twigs, if you want to make them a little less of a pain," Poppy heard herself say, the advice tumbling out before she could stop it.

Chisholm gave her a look. Sharp, curious, weighing.

For a second, the world shrank to that single stare. And under its pressure, the right lie sparked, its ugliness self-evident as the most useful thing she could possibly claim: 

"I worked for Victor Rookwood as a girl." 

If Sebastian was surprised by this improvisation, no one would've known it.

"She did indeed. That's why I brought her. Daisy knows all the ways to keep pain down and money up."

Now Chisholm's whole manner shifted. His stare held a reverence, but underneath, something else steeped as he gave a slow nod, almost bowing his head.

"One of the Poachers under Rookwood gave me my first trapping lesson," he revealed. Soft, nearly wistful. "But do you know, Daisy, once we grind down these fuckers' teeth, the paste makes a fantastic epoxy? Or so Laird tells me." 

There was a hunger in the way he said it, a need to showcase what knowledge he had, to measure up. As if offering it made them kin and rivals at once.

She barely had time to answer before a new shadow broke the firelight. 

This mask was carved in the sharp, predatory lines of a falcon. Beak hooked, gaze severe.

Cara's voice echoed in her mind: In his thirties, but looks older. 

Indeed, even with the bird's face obscuring his own, there was no mistaking that. Scalp showed through in patches beneath the mask's crown, skin pale and stretched tight.

Teeth missing where the lick of flames caught the gaps. 

Carrying himself with the self-assurance of someone who'd clawed his way through more than one kind of cage, Corbin Laird was a fair bit shorter than Chisholm and Sebastian.

Yet still, the camp seemed to tip around him.

"Thought I heard my name." 

Chisholm, eager, almost jittery, tapped his foot against the gravel. "Sally brought his sister along. She used to work for Vic Rookwood. Think we've hit the jackpot with these two."

Laird glanced at Sebastian, then let his gaze settle on Poppy. A slow, weighing look that seemed to strip the mask from her face.

"Normally, I'd frown on uninvited guests… but we Azkaban men know a threat when we see one, and family is family. Welcome aboard, Miss Daisy."

Poppy's lips twitched, a pulse drumming at her temple. Showtime.

"Thank you."

Sebastian crossed his arms, shifting his weight with practiced carelessness.

"So, got anything any more interesting than some imps? I feel like our boss, what's-his-name, would want to hear that."

A toast rang out nearby, glasses clinking, laughter spiking through the night. The kind of sound that could turn, any second, into something sharper.

"Macnair, I think," Chisholm mumbled after a moment, his focus drifting back to the imps.

Laird yawned, waving off the suggestion with a flick of his hand.

"No, it isn't a Macnair, they're yokels these days. It's the one with a name like an instrument."

Poppy felt the ground tilt beneath her, the conversation a test neither of them could afford to fail.

Even Sebastian's casual irritation was a shield, a warning to keep sharp:

"Whoever it is, they… and I, will want to see something impressive."

Their leader didn't dither. He clapped his hands together, once, sharp and echoing—then, without breaking the rhythm, let them slide into a slow, deliberate rub.

Fire catching the yellowed edges of his teeth.

"Then follow me back to the cave."

Hours slipped past, the scent of smoke curling in their hair and clothes, clinging stubbornly as they fled the heat of the fire.

Smoke and something else: regret, thick and bitter at the back of the throat.

"I… I can't believe you did that," Poppy panted, her voice splintering as they ran.

"I had to."

"Don't you have to mean those Curses?"

The memory of it pressed behind Sebastian's eyes: a scene as brutal as Laird could have wished for.

To belong, he'd had to show what he was capable of. Had to match horror with horror.

Crucio, cast on a chained Horntail, its rage and pain filling that cave in Marunweem's southern cliffs.

The Poachers had failed to break it; their leader had wanted to show them how. Sebastian had served as a necessary proxy. 

"You do. But when it's for survival, you'd be surprised how easy it is to mean it. You know what I was in Azkaban for."

At this, Poppy slowed down, her hands on her knees, breathing rapidly.

Looking up at last from his feet and the terrain as they ran, Sebastian realized they were just outside the hamlet of Marunweem proper; rain fell softly.

"I suppose you're right," conceded his Hufflepuff co-conspirator. Conflict surely on her face, for now still hidden by that mask. "And it surely brought us some favor."

He wanted to tell her he hadn't wanted to do it, but that felt as obvious as breathing.

The images pressed in anyway: Laird's delight, the Horntail's suffering, memories of Solomon and Anne, of goblins and Imperio, of Cara's voice when she'd taken Crucio for him.

Each flashed behind his eyelids, hot and quick as sparks.

Sebastian blinked into the rain, clouds bruised and low.

Somewhere nearby, someone was cooking. Sausages, maybe, or bread. Oblivious to the darkness just a few miles south.

He breathed in ozone, getting his bearings. Knowing it hadn't been for naught.

Because the lead he and Cara were chasing had come into focus.

Corbin Laird's words: "a name like an instrument," had seemed like nothing at first.

Then, somewhere between the campfire and the cave, it'd hit him.

Sudden as a cut, Ominis' voice in warm light. Back in the Music Room at Hogwarts, the vowels crisp, posh, impossibly clear:

"Note the spacing on the strings. This is a hammered dulcimer."

The memory flashed sharp, almost sweet, against everything else. Satisfaction flared in his chest, a brief warmth in the cold.

He spat rainwater, voice rough.

"We should Apparate back to Feldcroft now, to save time. I bet our pretend mother is quite concerned."

Poppy was still silent, but nodded gently. "Hopefully, she's not had anyone come calling. I got the sense she was worried about that."

Sebastian offered his arm, felt her fingers cold and slick as they gripped his sleeve.

"All the more reason to step to it."

They landed in Feldcroft. Here the rain came sideways, drops like bullets. The well overflowed, mud sucking at their boots.

Poppy's hand reached for her mask, but Sebastian's voice cut through the downpour, low and urgent:

"Leave it on until we're inside."

She hesitated, then obeyed, following him through the torrent.

He could feel the water soaking his collar, finding every seam. Hoping Cara would be waiting, lantern in hand.

Instead, he found her curled sideways on Solomon's old bed, the room dim. Arms tight around her face.

Thanks to the growing wind, the door slammed behind them, making her flinch upright, eyes wide and searching.

Poppy, mask dangling from her hand now, rushed forward. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

Cara sat up, blinking. "I… how long w… you're back." Her thoughts collided, scrambled by worry and relief. "Forget about me, are you two okay?"

Poppy nodded, but her eyes wouldn't settle, hands twisting the mask.

"We're not injured, but… well…" she began, the rest withering in her mouth.

This wasn't the moment for feelings. The facts needed air first.

"They're working for Mulciber," Sebastian said, voice flat, dropping onto the edge of the bed. He knew he was soaking through the covers, but: "You were right."

Poppy drifted to the fireplace, tossed her mask on the table, eyes drawn to the flames as if she could burn the last hours away.

Cara lingered on her for a moment, then turned to Sebastian, something steely returning to her face.

"Well, you know the drill," she declared, voice steadier now in its cadence of duty. "At the table now, both of you."

Hector's second date with Nanette had turned into a third, then a fourth.

Now, the fifth meant they were having a conversation of high import among an army of his suits and stays.

"Pleats are terribly listless without starch," she remarked. Wand bringing the racks to the center of the room. "Who's been doing your washing?"

His hand in the small of her back fell, and he rounded the collection she inspected. Telling her truthfully:

"One of my Aurors, actually."

An Auror who'd been slacking these past two weeks. Preoccupied with her apparent case in which, according to her recent update, she insisted on needing no backup, despite going undercover.

Here, away from that noise: Nanette's red curls dancing as she shook her head, tongue clicking teeth.

That ancient sound of feminine disapproval.

"Well, no wonder, a woman's hand knows best."

In the light of her cheeky smile, one Hector found himself matching… the urge to say it had been a woman tending his clothes flickered and died.

"Indeed," he said, voice bouncing off walls that suddenly felt too close. "I've often considered hiring someone. My mother was doing it until I was made Chief, but she refuses now. Busy enough with my father's things."

"Your mother is a lovely woman. You resemble her quite a bit."

The words echoed in the high-ceilinged room.

His new paramour had met Mr. and Mrs. Fawley just a bit ago, at their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party.

The cheese and port aftermath of which they were now blissfully insulated from in Hector's private wing of the mansion.

This had originally been an in-law suite. Fortunately, his grandparents had passed, though their furniture still dominated: mahogany armoire, brass reading lamps, heavy velvet drapes.

Still. The long staircase connecting his refuge to the main house might as well have been a drawbridge; no one crossed without his permission.

His parents had devoured Nanette whole, the way they did everything beautiful and promising.

He'd had to pry her from their grasp, steal her away to his sanctuary in half a chime of the parlor clock.

After the sex, short and jubilant, had left their party clothes scattered across the floor, they both stood in stocking feet in his walk-in closet.

Breath finally having caught enough for conversation of style and substance.

"When's your next formal do, at the Ministry?" she asked. Pale shoulder blades meeting above the rack. "We'll want to make sure you look above reproach, right?"

"I have no doubt you'll make that a reality." Truth, served with a side of pleasure. "And actually, two weeks from now, there's a banquet. A gala we have every year."

"Ooh."

Her surprise mirrored his own. For in the flood of ignored correspondence and fresh romance in Hector's mind, the annual event at July's doorstep had sunk underwater.

"No time to waste, then."

An image took its gilded shape in his mind: her on his arm, the perfect balance of old-world breeding and disarming authenticity.

That smile carried generations of finishing school grace, but not just. Her laugh would ring fresh among the titters of career climbers' wives. Even the stuffiest pure-blood matrons charmed by her stories.

Furthermore, every Minister for Magic in the last century had been married or at least engaged.

So perhaps he could finally join the inner circles.

Those intimate groupings of department heads and spouses. Where real policy happened, between champagne sips and canapés. 

No more sidelong glances that saw his solitude as a sign of immaturity, of instability.

And he'd have someone to rescue him from tedium… with a perfectly timed touch to his elbow and a twinkling grin.

To remember who feuded with whom, other odious bullshit. Leaving him free to schmooze and treat his Chief's title like the stepping stone it was.

Cara would be there, of course, her perfectly composed features carved from ice.

Forced to swallow the sight of him with Nanette: so clearly in his element, so obviously ascending.

Even she would have to reassess her carefully curated disdain. Not that her opinion mattered, of course.

"Hector? What's wrong?"

Hectaa, her accent always rendered his name. Soft and deferential and uniquely her.

"Nothing. Let's go back to bed."

Poppy left with quiet dignity, shoulders squared, mask swinging from her fist.

She paused in the open doorway, rain slanting across her face, and pressed a promise into her hand.

Though she wouldn't tell Leander quite yet, after tonight, she couldn't put it off much longer.

Then, that tiny Hufflepuff had pulled Cara into a hug so fierce it knocked the air from her chest.

Ribs aching beneath Poppy's grip, she had stumbled, startled by the strength in those arms. By the sudden, desperate comfort.

"I don't know how you do this," she'd murmured, her smile gentle, eyelids heavy with fatigue.

Hair clinging to Cara's cheek, wet and cold as the storm licked their feet. Apparating into the dark, the echo of it snapped away by thunder and rain.

Now Cara felt the lingering imprint of the embrace. The press of bone, hope, and exhaustion still tangible as she sat at the table.

Elbows digging into the wood, hands spread as if bracing herself against the world. Muscles still taut, jaw sore from clenching.

Her heart hammered, distant pride and an old, bruised ache mingling under her sternum.

They'd done it, the two of them, while she, the Auror, had dozed through half the storm.

A realization that left her feeling both capable and strange.

Lightning flickered, the room stretching and shrinking with every flash.

Sebastian stood in the doorway, his back to her, shoulders hunched as he stared out into the night.

Hair hanging damp, grime streaked across his coat.

He let the silence sprawl, then exhaled, long and hollow, as if he could empty himself of everything he'd seen and done.

"If you offered to Obliviate me, I'd let you." His crossed arms fell as he turned, profile against the shadow of the downpour. "Back in the day, I never once felt like I was in over my head. Hard to tell if I'm smarter now or leagues more stupid."

Cara met his gaze, voice quieter than she meant.

"I think you're smarter." She shifted in her seat. "You said they told you that they want to move underground next. Maybe we should scout some possible locations for them."

Sebastian's head tilted, a slow, heavy gesture. Eyes crinkling as he chewed on the words.

"We, you say? Feeling restless?"

She inhaled, ribs tight.

"I doneed to get a bit more involved to have a solid case." Letting her hand settle on the closed notebook, gaze tracing the edge of the table before meeting his. "We've got time to figure it out."

He stayed planted in the doorframe, a fixed point. That voice, when it came, was quieter, almost wry.

"We do, at that. Perhaps you could play as my wife, if they insist on continuing with the masks."

Cara felt a flutter. Quick, uncertain.

"Whatever happened to your insistence I don't join? Now you've got a whole plot lined up?"

A dry laugh slipped from him, bitter and tired.

"It's been your insistence, not mine. I just defer to it." His eyes flickered to hers, that old spark of mischief breaking through. "Got any of those cigarettes, madam?"

Cara pushed herself up, slow, deliberate.

"Madam," she echoed dryly. Lips quirking as she made her way to the doorway, fishing in her pocket. "Making me feel old."

Their fingers brushed as Sebastian took the cigarette, rolling it between fingers like a talisman.

Tired eyes searching her face.

Then, with a flick of his wand, a soft flame blossomed. Glow catching the hollows of his cheeks, softening hard lines as he drew in a languorous breath.

Smoke curled and his voice shifted.

"Your birthday's coming up, and you'll indeed be old like me. All the more reason for us to play married."

She noticed the way his eyes loosened their grip, the joke hanging between them like a rope thrown across a chasm.

But rather than pull it taut or let it snap, she simply allowed the moment to find its equilibrium.

Seeing him like this, loosened and teasing, almost reckless with his gentleness again?

It felt like a small truce with the night.

"My birthday… and that stupid gala at the Ministry," she added after a few moments in comfortable silence.

Sebastian's hip shifted, his voice slipping into something almost singsong, rising like a lifeline:

"Ooh, will there be petit fours? Lamb and mint jelly? Buttered rolls?" That stiff silhouette, loose for the first time all night. "Maybe I'll crash the party. Get them talking about the releases again, a martyr for the cause."

Their laughter surfaced, belonging more to ribs and lungs than mouths. A shared moment that understood the cost of release.

Sebastian offered the cigarette. Cara took it with a gratitude she didn't voice.

Watching as the shapes of the hamlet slowly reasserted themselves in the thinning rain.

Fatigue pressed against her, leaden and unearned.

She had done so little tonight, and yet the cost was written deep in her marrow.

Her attention turned to Sebastian. His gaze drifting out toward the fields that had both raised and trapped him.

He was the one who'd gone out into the dark, shouldering guilt that shouldn't have been his to bear. In the name of belonging among the damned.

Once more, she found herself doubting the reality of progress, unable to reconcile the broken road that led them here.

Azkaban still clung, an aftertaste she could never quite swallow.

And yet still, he stood here.

Unwinding the shadows on her behalf.

Ash flicked into the sodden earth. He spoke, low, as if fearing the swamp might overhear, carry it away into the night.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Cara breathed. Catching herself in the act of self-protection, arms crossed tight, and letting them fall.

Sebastian's lips twisted, wrestling with something. 

The words arrived halting, uneven.

"I realize this is going to sound pathetic, or maybe even seedy, but. I don't want you to go back to London tonight. I, erm… I would rather not be alone. After all that."

Cara blinked, noting the flicker in his gaze. The tremor of irises betraying how much he feared he'd misstepped. How quickly hope could curdle into humiliation.

But she understood, utterly and without confusion.

And told him so with a crooked grin, a glint of mischief softening the worry at the corners of her mouth:

"What are pretend wives for?"

The two mattresses lay shoulder to shoulder on the bare floor, skeletal bed frames abandoned, stripped of all ceremony.

The jagged chorus of what-ifs, the howl of solitary regret, was muted now. Smothered beneath the tatty quilt they shared.

Relief, fragile and immense, settled over him; she'd stayed. She'd let the unspoken be enough.

It was almost an afterthought, a grateful one, that she'd ignored the implications that might weigh on him another day.

And had. The sight of her padding through her flat in those green pajamas had nearly undone him.

But tonight, he was grateful only for presence, for her warmth at his back. The rhythm of her breath in the dark.

Poppy's terror, wide-eyed and wordless beneath that mask, flashed behind his eyelids, and with it the echo of Anne's face that night in the catacomb.

Different girls, same fear, same helpless sense of having failed to protect what mattered.

Beside Cara, the monster he wore like a second skin faded, if only for a few hours.

Lying next to her wasn't absolution, but it was respite. A brief amnesty from the self he once stumbled into, paid for in prison, and now performed anew in the name of good.

He didn't remember saying good night, didn't remember her gentle hands dousing the fire or the way she tucked the quilt up to his chin.

Only that when the nightmare came, awakening his body stiff with terror, eyes stinging with silent tears… her palm found his back, anchoring him.

Freeing him to drift away once more.

Sebastian understood, in the hush before dawn:

Though he was tumbling headlong into falling in love with her, the reckoning for it, whatever form it took… lie in the eye of a different storm than this one.

If ever, if at all. 

Chapter Text

The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Hotel Petraeus looked like a watercolor left to dry in sunlight. Pastels everywhere.

Even the air seemed sugared, as if it had been laundered.

The place felt sincere in its extravagance, content to be lovely for its own sake. Gloss and hush at the edge of Wizarding London.

The city's racket couldn't reach this far. 

Tonight, the Ministry's Summer Gala had claimed these rooms for the first time.

And despite herself, Cara was a fan of the new venue. 

She'd arrived early by design. Soon the room would fill with faces and small, necessary talk. For now, she had the hush almost to herself.

With so few scattered at the edges, it was easy for a waiter to spot her. Offer a glass of wine before she'd even had time to look uncertain.

Cara accepted, anchored herself near the chafing dishes. Back pressed to a pastel wall, pink as the inside of a shell.

Her navy gown threw back light, glass and silk winking at one another.

"Officer," nodded a woman she recognized from Administration, tipping her glass in passing.

Soon she wasn't the only Auror. Nott and Mulciber Junior swept in through the gilded doors, badges polished to a hard shine.

They glanced her way, then turned their attention to the room's center. Waiting, no doubt, for their opportunity to orbit Hector. 

"Excuse me, would you mind handing me a plate? My left side is a bit neurologically challenged, these days."

She blinked.

Faris Spavin, the Minister for Magic himself, stood at her elbow. Smiling with the easy polish of a man who'd shook hands with history.

The kind of smile meant for portraits and public moments… though up close, it revealed a flicker of fatigue.

Her hands moved, suddenly unsure, picking out a pastel blue plate from between the coq au vin and assorted profiteroles.

Why wouldn't he use his wand? The question buzzed in her chest, but she knew better.

"Here you are."

He didn't take the plate right away. Instead, studying her, the polite veneer draining from his face. Eyes, faded blue but sharp as frost, fixing staunchly on her own. 

"Say, you're the one they're gunning to push out," he recalled, almost idly, the words curling between them. Then leaned in, white brows drawn tight. "May I be frank with you?"

"Of course, Minister."

His reply was quiet enough for only her. Plate trembling slightly in his hands. 

"Don't let them. Push you out, I mean. Fawley's better suited for my job than I'd ever tell him, but he doesn't belong in charge of you lot. You keep doing what you're doing."

"I—erm…"

That jaw, jowled and stubborn, jerked in a brief, curt nod. 

Then, with a practiced shift, the Minister turned away. Public mask sliding back into place as he waved at a knot of newcomers by the doors, plate swinging loosely at his side. 

Cara watched him for a moment, the change so deft it left her unbalanced. Only then did she tip her head back, stare up at the filigreed ceiling.

Old Spout-Hole himself had just told her not to fold. Had named Hector unfit.

A pulse of disbelief, then pride, settling somewhere deep.

At the door, Leander Prewett appeared, tuxedo crisp, Adelaide Oakes in pale yellow on his arm. 

Poppy trailed behind, glasses and dress both plum-dark, scanning for familiar faces. Finding her own with a gentle smile. 

She felt the room shift, the night opening ahead a little less daunting now. 

"Evening, my friend." That voice, small but certain.

"Hello, Poppy." 

She, too, took a glass from that waiter who moved through the crowd like a heron in the shallows. Then glanced at the ceiling, the walls dressed in blush and blue. 

"This is such a lovely room. Are they always so lovely, these galas?"

Cara drained her glass, the taste of grapes and old oak lingering. The room thickened as more bodies pressed in. She lifted her voice to meet it:

"It's the loveliest so far, in my opinion. Are you here alone?"

She caught the scrape on Poppy's arm, a red seam half-hidden by the fall of plum sleeve. Marunweem's memory, still clinging to her friend's skin.

But tonight, Poppy's nerves had found more ordinary worries, small and human:

"Me? Yes, I felt if I had a date I'd just be worried about how well my dress fits, what I eat… Why? Should I have brought one?"

Cara's laugh came from somewhere low. "No, I was just wondering if I'd have to let you go, busy myself talking to someone else."

Memory tugged at her. Last year's gala, the taste of sweat and cologne mixing under the lights.

Hector had shadowed her all night, slick with the shine of his new post as Chief. 

Trailing from buffet to balcony. Words circling her ear like gnats: would she welcome him proper, would she bring him out on field work, some night? 

Always some night, the promise stretched thin and sticky.

And back in the present, as if conjured by recollection, Hector appeared.

Cutting through the crowd with that old fox-smile, but this year he wasn't alone.

A date held his arm; a redhead in sage silk, skin bright against the green. Her face, all sunlight and spring water, open in a way that made Hector's practiced smirk look even more brittle.

Cara's mouth twisted. Sebastian's theory about her boss's sudden good humor echoing.

He'd called it, down to the color.

The woman leaned in to speak, and he bent his head, listening. Murmured something back, face uncommonly gentle.

Not just a date. But a girlfriend.

Obvious as his badge, as the hum of magic underfoot.

"I feel like I should know who that girl is, but I don't," admitted Poppy.

"Nor do I."

The sound of a champagne glass clinking caught their attention. Soon, schmoozing time would pause, and the banquet would begin.

When the last of the Aurors finished their ritual rounds of sucking up to the Chief, the table finally settled. Each Ministry department, cloistered together as always.

Here, a knot of dark suits and polished shoes, badges gleaming on every lapel. No blue uniforms, just tailored fabric and the quiet show of rank.

Cara's seat faced Hector and his companion, the table between them like a drawn boundary.

And the Chief caught her eye, just for a heartbeat.

A flicker of something eager, before he turned just a little too quickly to the woman beside him.

The words coming out brighter than his expression: "Officer Cara Morganach, this is Nanette Wilkes, of Birmingham."

She reached across the scatter of glass and silver. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

Nanette's smile was sunlight, wide and open. Teeth showing just a little, honest as a child's. No tension in her jaw, no shadow behind her eyes.

From the edge of her vision, Cara caught the way Hector watched the exchange. Invested. Thick brow twitching, masseter working as if he held a coin beneath his tongue.

She smiled, sharp and clean, refusing to meet his gaze. Then as their handshake ended, Nanette blurted:

"How tall are you, exactly, Officer?"

The question familiar, worn smooth by repetition, didn't shake her. "Just over six feet."

"She's a bit taller than you, even," remarked Hector's new flame before hearing herself in the open air. Eyes widening, face flushing, rushing to course-correct. "Sorry to be rude. I always wished I were a bit taller, myself."

Cara let her smile widen, allowed the moment to breathe. "You be good to this one, Hector. She's lovely."

His face held steady, all surface. But as he turned that half-smile on Nanette, something shifted behind those eyes. "I think so, too."

From a few seats down, Nott cut in. "Can't wait until you two are married. My aunt will owe me twenty Galleons."

"Oh, don't be so brash, Stephan," chuckled Nanette. "Mum was only joking." She shot him a look: exasperated, easy, the shorthand of kin.

Catching the thread, Cara surmised that the Wilkes side must've been this woman's saving grace. It was difficult to picture any Nott giving away smiles so freely.

The meal arrived, silver domes lifting to let out fragrant clouds.

Spavin's voice rose from the pulpit, the Sonorus charm stretching each syllable thin and long. It made the glassware hum, the aged voice settling over the room.

Still, no one waited to eat. The man was called Spout-Hole for a reason: he could talk. And talk.

Plates scraped, silver clinked, the room's hunger louder than the Minister's words.

A few tables down, Leander tried dutifully to hush the DRMC, but laughter spilled unconfined. Poppy alone watched the Minister. As if she could read the future in the furrows of his brow.

A tap on her shoulder pulled Cara out of herself.

It'd come from the doorman kneeling beside her, voice hushed, breath tinged with rain and the city outside.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Officer, but I've intercepted a gentleman outside. Says he came to accompany you, but simply had the wrong time. However, I can't let him in until all speakers have finished."

Her heart responded with a leap, a little wild.

But difficult to read alongside the attention of the table slanting toward her.

Death and all his friends.

"Let me, erm." Napkin across her lips, clearing the tang of garlic butter sauce. "Let me step out and speak to him."

Nott called after her, laughter rough. "The secret life of Morgs. Don't get anyone killed out there."

Hector's response came quick, clipped. The reflex of a man who'd guard his image at all costs, including reigning in even the closest sycophants:

"Quiet. None of that tonight."

Whatever else was said faded as Cara stood, following the doorman through the dining hall's pastel wash, the fairy-lit lobby.

The doorman stopped, head bowed. Wand to his palm, activating the hinges. Nodding toward the humid hush beyond.

There she was.

Drifting down the staircase, silk sluicing ankles, blue as midnight ink spilled and left to bloom. The fabric mapping every pause as if gravity itself were enamored.

Quickening and letting go of her gown once she caught sight of him: haloed by the streetlamp's pallid spill, tuxedo etched black on black, sharp as a secret.

"Sebastian… what are you doing."

Currently? Still processing. In that navy gown, she shimmered between the mundane and the mythic.

Not his favorite, the hair up. Those sandy waves, a crown of constraint above the clean blade of her collarbone.

But he'd never seen so much skin, eschewed of starched collars and Ministry-issue restraint. Shoulders and wrists bared, pale as moonlit granite.

Yet it was her eyes that hit him hardest: made sharper by shadowed makeup, alive with questions. Sebastian shoved his hands in his pockets, heart thudding against bone.

No, that wasn't a confident enough pose. He crossed his arms instead, cocked a hip. Casual London gentlemen.

"Well, aren't you looking lovely and leggy."

She almost rolled her eyes. Almost. But it seemed the sight of him, his too-neat bow tie, held her suspended.

"How did you manage that outfit?"

He glanced down at himself, at the tails and sharp hems. Grinning crooked and quick; the smile of a man who'd stolen time and luck.

"You like it? I sold Solomon's Sneakoscope. It was half broken, but they didn't care. Picked up a book on Paracelsus, too. Did you know he was a cross-dresser? Makes you wonder."

She folded her arms, at once anchoring herself and hauling him back from the edge of nervous patter.

The night pressed in, the city's hush broken only by Sebastian's breath. He could still smell earth on his skin, ghosts of fields and hay that clung no matter how hard he tried to be a man of London.

Confidence came with the jacket… or so he'd hoped.

"So?" he asked.

Her voice was low, steady; a quiet command. "Well, you look… really nice. But when you said you'd crash the party—well, I thought you were kidding. I can't actually bring you inside."

And he mirrored her posture, arms folded, cuff links chiming. Tiny, brittle music. That boundary had sparked something.

Words he'd practiced in bathwater and the hush of shop mirrors surfaced, ready:

"Good, because I didn't come for that. Tomorrow's your birthday, so I figured, after all the stuffiness was over and done with, I'd treat you to some proper fun."

Her mouth tightened. Gazing back to the hotel with a hunted animal's wariness, half-expecting eyes on her back.

But over her shoulder, she found only the doorman, marble-still. More gargoyle than man.

And Sebastian shifted on polished shoes, masking the nervous pulse beneath.

When she turned back to him, her mouth parted, waiting, breath held, he knew to make it definite.

"Listen, you can go back in there if it suits you. I understand you probably have people to answer to. I'll wait for you."

Cara couldn't help it: the smile bloomed, wild and ungovernable, as if some old part of her had been waiting for exactly this.

Her thoughts spun, dizzy moths in lamplight. Apart from an annual card from Ominis, no one had ever marked her birthday.

And certainly not with such reckless, gallant care.

"Okay, I'm in," she murmured. "But I need to make my exit in a less awkward way, inside."

Sebastian stood up straighter. "Of course."

It wasn't obligation, but optics. Poppy likely expected her company amid the throng, but she'd manage.

It was the memory of the doorman's announcement, still pressing hot against her skin. The whole squad listening; everyone knew of the man waiting outside.

A man who, in that tuxedo, looked so startlingly handsome she had to check herself. All sharp lines and dark promise, starlight catching his jaw, the crinkle of that boyish mouth.

For a moment all of it receded: the case, Azkaban, the yawn of the last five years. Replaced by the promise of a night that belonged only to them.

Not Feldcroft, not her flat.

Just the city, and Sebastian waiting somewhere in its sprawl.

"Find somewhere a street or two away, I'll be along in a little over an hour," she estimated, wishing her dress went with a watch. "Interested to know what your proper fun entails."

That was all it took. Light poured back into his face, freckles lit childishly wild. "Well, I won't spoil it. I, erm… I'll see you in a while, then?"

"You will. Cheers."

They parted, the dream thickening around her as she stepped back inside. Back to that pastel patina, where the air tasted of violin resin and cologne.

The speeches had finally stuttered to a halt, and her dessert waited: chocolate mousse, whipped cream slumped by now, giving up its shape.

She let her spoon hover, hands suddenly unsure.

Across the table, Hector scraped the last from his glass.

"Who was your gentleman friend?"

Cara shrugged, working silverware from its napkin cocoon. "Just an old friend I didn't quite give a yes or no to." The lie practiced, bloodless. "We got our wires crossed."

In the silence that followed, it was the newcomer who decided to infuse light:

"Ah, I hate those moments. When I was in finishing school, a young man kept trying to send me a love note. But he meant to sent it to Annette, not Nanette. It was terribly awkward when I went to meet him. He threw the flowers on the ground."

"Tsk," said Hector, his eyes still on Cara.

"Annette never forgave me, either."

Cara managed a smile, the anecdote drifting by like a feather. "Not a romantic friend in my case, but indeed, miscommunications are awful."

Hector's spoon finally stilled, fingers drumming the linen. "Old chum from Hogwarts, or?"

A tribunal, then. She met his eyes, let her tone flatten.

"Or what? Where else would he have gone?"

Something fragile shifted. Nanette's brow arched, her gaze moving from her date to his subordinate, quicksilver.

As she caught the thread and snipped it, easy but firm:

"Let's settle down, it's her business." A deft nudge to Hector's shoulder; threading well-mannered softness, perhaps self-preservation. "Do unto others, right?"

"Mm." Hector turned, eyes scanning a crowd now stirring, laughter rising. "I suppose you're right."

To Nanette, Cara mouthed a quick thank-you. Getting a quick nod in return as she followed the Chief away into the throng.

Over continued mutterings of Nott, Mulciber Junior, and Bode, something about cursed broomsticks: Cara contemplated this oddball moment.

She had never expected another woman to step in, telling Hector to mind his own.

But in this odd new turn, reality was both stranger and kinder than fiction. The night folding itself into new shapes, blurring at the seams.

A far cry from last year's gala. In every possible way.

Poppy found Leander by the edge of the room, martini glass limned by the glare of crystal and candlelight.

In front of him, the self-playing violins worked overtime. He turned a toothpick between fingers, giving an olive a slow, deliberate inspection.

She knew small talk would be the safer road, but the chance felt too costly to squander.

"I've uncovered a very sophisticated Poaching operation."

Olive nearly lost to the wrong pipe, Leander coughed, blinked, sputtered. Freckled face ruddy.

"Excuse me?"

Poppy straightened her glasses. "I've been having a hard time getting replies from you, so I figured I'd tell you here."

For a beat, his gaze was unreadable before he tipped back the last of his cosmopolitan and caught her by the shoulder.

Finding privacy in an alcove behind pastel vases. Swirl of geraniums fencing them in from the crowd.

Reassured, he cleared his throat, voice low.

"Say again, Sweeting? How long has this been going on?"

Poppy's heart hammered, but her answer was steady. "Not long. But they've got a Horntail. A nesting Horntail. And scores of other Beasts. They were expecting that Manticore. I went undercover."

The words skewed lines in Leander's face; anger flared, then faded as he pressed fingertips against his brow.

"Under whose authority? You're still a trainee, for Merlin's sake."

"Cara Morganach. She's working alone, under the AO's nose. Remember that letter at the Sanctuary? You told me to do whatever I—"

"Poppy." Eyes closing, lips thinning. "If she can file a case above water, I'll get our department involved. Don't make me have to clean up your mess if it doesn't fall on Fawley. Now… no more of this talk."

That was the line, drawn with bureaucratic finality. She nodded, letting the moment dissolve, leaving Leander to the space at his side.

Maybe Adelaide would return to him once the bar lost its appeal.

And though she saw Cara leaving, she knew better than to chase her, make a scene. A letter would suffice.

For now, this plucky trainee had done what she could.

Sebastian waited in an expensive bookshop, having made a beeline for a place he knew he could pass the time.

This patch of Wizarding London catered to people who never glanced at price tags. Ministry brass, private sector titans. The sort that owned entire wings of libraries back home.

A salesman in a suit that gleamed like beetle shell watched him through the stacks, arms loaded with shrink-wrapped promise.

Catching his gaze, heading him off with a half-smile. "Just looking."

He meant it.

The lush, full-color spines, coffee table books in glass cases… they demanded a purse he couldn't risk opening. That battered Paracelsus paperback he'd picked up earlier would be the only indulgence tonight.

All the gold left was for Cara.

She'd argue, no doubt, but he'd be stubborn. Her face beneath the streetlamp was burned in, afterimages flickering whenever he blinked. Worth every coin and more.

In the quiet of his mind, an old lecture from Ominis flitted past:

And don't ever order for a woman on a date, it's patronizing. And it's bad form.

But it wasn't a date. Could never be a date.

Still, the way his heart kicked when the bell above the door chimed—when she appeared, gown trailing—might have argued otherwise.

"All good? Your exit, I mean."

Her flat shoes lent a mild echo before she hit the rug beneath the bookshelves. "Yeah, things were winding down anyway. Spavin left even earlier this year."

He grinned, nerves leaking into the banter. "What is he now, a hundred?"

"Close, but I'd like to think his mind is still sharp." She looked about, then stepped in nearer, eyes folding with laughter, disbelief trembling at the edge. "Because he remembered me from the meeting after the raid. Told me to not let the others push me out. Least of all Hector."

Sebastian felt the words land, saw her wear them like a new coat: a little stiff, not quite broken in.

The encouragement from on high had left a sweet residue behind.

He teased, but softer than usual. "The Minister said that? If I didn't know better, I'd think you were pulling my leg."

"He did, I almost thought I imagined it, but. And you were right about Hector—he brought a girlfriend. One much too nice for him, in my opinion."

Before Sebastian could volley back a quip, the clerk shushed from across the stacks. Tugging at his tie and setting volumes to rights with a flick of his wand.

"Sounds like you've got good things going," Sebastian whispered, tapping his foot. Rug fibers swallowing the sound, but not the energy. "Shall we go somewhere else, though? Your choice, of course. Birthday girl, and all."

Cara tapped her chin, a dimple surfacing as if conjured.

"There's a street carnival going on, I saw it on my way. We're a bit overdressed, but — I won't be needing this dress again."

Indeed, their attire would be alien among the smells of sugar and fried dough, the tin crack of game booths.

But Sebastian felt the grin build, helpless.

Of course she'd want to flip the script, chase some small wild joy on the city's skin.

"You're the boss."

Hector and Nanette had made the rounds, shaking hands in pastel rooms, sharing polite laughter that sometimes bore fruit.

Now, with the crowd thinning to a residue of diehards and hangers-on, Hector felt the fatigue settle in.

The relief of having done enough, of knowing he was seen and counted.

They'd stayed late enough to avoid the whiff of obvious agenda.

Some people couldn't manage even that.

At the coat check, he draped her pale white slip over her shoulders, careful not to catch her hair.

"I know you told me to mind my business, but she absolutely left to meet a man, Morganach," he murmured before he could reel it back.

They tipped a nod to the doorman, Nanette's smile cordial but distant as they stepped into the hush of the street.

"I did get that impression, but it's not like Aurors aren't allowed to marry. Otherwise, where would you be?"

He felt the warmth in her words, the same gentle misdirection she'd offered earlier.

And yet: "True, but she could at least be honest about it. Beginning to wonder if she's actually been following up on her case, or just having some sort of tryst."

Nanette's serenity cracked, just a little. She paused, plucked a stray eyelash from his cheek, her face a study in the first hints of impatience.

"Why would you think that?"

He started to answer, then faltered, her hand anchoring his as they walked on.

Thinking perhaps that was the end of it until Nanette took a deep breath and declared:

"I don't think women should work at all, as we've discussed. But I also don't think, if she does her job, you should have any feelings. If you understand my meaning."

It was the hardest tone he'd ever heard from her, steel beneath the gentility, and for a second, it rattled him. Tension palpable as he replayed his interrogation of Cara earlier.

Saw it through her eyes.

He chewed the inside of his lip, stride lengthening. "Let's Apparate up here, it looks like it might rain."

Nanette resisted the rush, feet planted, moss-green eyes sharpening as she faced him.

"Hector. Do you understand my meaning?"

It landed as a mercy. An end point, not a debate. He knew there was nothing to gain in pushing further, not with her hand in his, not tonight.

"I do."

The aforementioned street carnival's lights pulsed in the humid air, painting the night in ribbons of gold and violet.

First, they took their seats before a caricaturist's easel.

A wizard working with the speed of someone used to conjuring laughter from strangers; glancing between them and the parchment to catch their faces before they could compose themselves.

The finished product looked like it belonged on a pub dartboard.

Cara's cheeks were the bulk of it, rendered as ripe supermoons, her mouth a tiny dash.

Sebastian's forehead: a continent with giant brows, jawline squared to excess.

Their necks, spindly as saplings. Tuxedo and gown scribbled along the bottom beneath a banner reading "London's Loveliest."

Her laughter came in bursts, embarrassment chasing joy.

"I look like a ventriloquist's dummy," she wheezed, holding the parchment at arm's length, tears of mirth bright in her eyes.

"Well, at least you don't look like as if you've just discovered fire," Sebastian shot back, drifting backward between stalls striped in every circus color. "I'd like my next mask to look just like that. The Original Man. Laird will love it."

Her snort cut through the chatter and hurdy-gurdy music as she handed over the cartoon. "I don't have pockets."

He tucked the portrait away. "Believe me, I noticed."

Cara lifted her brow. Hiking her dress to dodge a scatter of spilled popcorn, the hem catching light. "Did you?"

"Yes." But he couldn't meet her eyes. Safer to let the moment slide, keep the night light.

Beside them, a wizard wound pink clouds around his wand, the air sweet with spun sugar and ozone.

He jerked his chin, nudging her attention toward the treat.

"Cotton candy?"

She drummed her fingers on her hip, attention caught by a flash of movement in the next row.

"I'm stuffed from the gala," absentminded and already moving. "Up for some competition?"

It was a game: Flipendo at a target, bell at the top, the banner advertising Gambol and Japes' handiwork.

Plush creatures watched from their shelves, stitched smiles agleam. Nifflers, Kneazles, even a proper tiger with button eyes.

It was a Sickle a go. Sebastian pressed coins into the vendor's gloved palm.

"Birthday girl first."

Cara nodded, straightened at the line, hips shifting in a pantomime of batting practice. Her wand slipped from her cleavage.

Of course. Where else.

The timer ticked, gears whirring. Her arm flicked. Spell striking hard, but not quite enough: the bell bobbed, but stayed silent.

She shot him a look, lips pursed in a dramatic pout, then shrugged. "I tried."

He couldn't resist: "Our finest in law enforcement, are you?"

The attendant reset the timer. "Next up."

Sebastian cracked his knuckles as she passed, playing at bravado. But his focus snagged on the nearness of her: her perfume, the press of fabric, the hush between breaths.

Still, the bell's ring and the sudden jolt of a carnival tune meant it hardly mattered.

"A perfect Flipendo," the attendant announced, staring as if the magic itself had been cheated. "Choose your prize."

He waved her forward, nudged her shoulder. "It's yours."

Her lips pursed, nose wrinkled in mock deliberation. "The bear."

The attendant's wand floating it into her arms, blue wool catching light, green paws brushing her wrist.

Cara hugged it close, eyes falling, as though it carried some secret heft.

"Thank you."

Sebastian felt something in his chest loosen, ribs unfastening one by one.

"A Cara Bear. Good choice."

She looked over at him, then jumped slightly. Beyond the swell of the carnival, a large plaza clock lit up, chiming at the top of the hour.

"Happy birthday, Officer," he called, letting his voice ride the bell's echo.

"I was actually born after eleven at night. My birthday is almost on the fifth," she answered, her laugh roughened by the night air.

He drifted closer, their hips grazing. "Fine, steal the joy out of it. I should've gotten the Niffler inste—"

Her lips hit his, stealing the rest of the sentence.

They were wildflower-soft, but the grip of her hand at his nape was anything but. Tugging him into the hinge of her need. Taste of salt and the residue of laughter that hadn't settled yet.

His eyes opened into the storm of hers, then closed as she pressed in.

Everything else: the clanging clock, the neon, the clatter of games, flattened to nothing. Replaced by the staccato of breath, the pulse beating at her wrist.

When Sebastian let himself answer in earnest, mouth moving with hers, bow tie loosening beneath her grip… it was all heat and breath and the animal thump of his heart.

Cara pulled away on a gasp, the clock still tolling overhead.

Through glazed eyes, he saw it all flare alive, but wrong: her face streaked with regret, makeup blurred, the bear crushed against her ribs the only thing holding her upright.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, stumbling back, catching her dress on the edge of the world.

Then the birthday girl ran.

Sebastian's nerves fired, his legs slow to answer. But he lurched after her, bow tie streaming forgotten to the ground.

"Cara, wait—"

She was a flash of navy blue, weaving into the crowd, slipping through gaps. A burning reminder that he wasn't chasing just anyone. It was an Auror whose heels he was stealing after, chest hammering.

Dress trailing, shoes kicked off by a lemonade stand, bare feet flashing in the puddled light. The world blurring behind her, all neon and confetti and distant music as Sebastian picked up the pace.

A vendor barked at him, face red with the righteousness of strangers.

"Oi! You let the lady be—"

Sebastian barely saw him, barely saw the crowd. He found a deserted stall, drew his wand, focused on the emptiness beyond.

"Bombarda."

The wood split, clearing his way without harm.

He darted through, eyes pinned to the vanishing line of Cara's shadow.

Chasing into the night before it could swallow her.

The heat of midnight in July rendered the air viscous in a way that slowed thought and movement.

Yet, the chilly stone stoop beneath Cara's ass siphoned warmth. A theft she welcomed, letting it leach fever from her skin. 

The memory of touch and release still stung along her clavicle, an afterbite of hives.

Mascara and powder streaked her knuckles, smeared across the carnival bear pressed to her knees. 

A poor toy, glassy-eyed and limp, mirrored her own shell-shock.

Sebastian's footfalls cut through the night's drone. 

Shoes edging in at the periphery just beyond her knees: wing tips city-scuffed, incongruously elegant where gutters shimmered with oil.

His breath came with that gust of arrival, cautious absolution. 

"What the hell are you doing? Why'd you run?"

It took effort not to fold in on herself; her jaw still pulsing with the ghost of that kiss. World still spinning, vertiginous from the flight that had spirited her here. 

All that came was an echo. "I'm sorry."

"Yes, so you said. Look at me."

He stood before her, chest moving in slow, deliberate surges. White shirt unbuttoned, bow tie gone, as though he'd been extracted from a ballroom painting and dropped, dazed, onto the curb. 

She could feel it strengthen, that detonation of her own making.

The carnival's sugar rush, souring in the fallout. Its chemical aftertaste now between them. 

For a moment Sebastian's eyes softened at the sight: her fright mask, makeup melting, holding tight to what little comfort she could claim.

"Hey," he managed, mouth working as if the scene required translation. "Is this somebody's house we're standing in front of?"

Her shrug, barely more than a twitch. An answer, maybe, or a plea for the question to disappear.

"I don't know."

Sebastian nodded, but it was calculation, not comfort. Gaze skimming the block, catching on the distant bruise of sodium light. 

When he spoke again, the edge had returned.

"Why'd you run. Explain it to me." 

Words emerged with the viscosity of old oil, as if language were something she'd misplaced back between the funhouse mirrors:

"Because it… wasn't a moment someone like me gets to have."

Immediately, she realized her mistake. 

Sebastian's nostrils flaring, his scalp scraped by frustrated fingers as he spun in place.

The memory of the leash, still drawn taut enough to sting. 

"Someone like you? Two months ago, I was sleeping in rags on a stone floor. You can do whatever you want, Cara, and always have."

His words pressed into her chest, a pulse she failed to ignore. Wondering, briefly, if shame had a scent. If it clung like smoke to her hair, her hands, her badge.

"I meant that I chose a job where I can't do whatever I want. I should've been professional with you. The whole time. But I haven't been."

Her hair loose in Hogsmeade; the shivering music of a record player echoing over their emptied glasses; her hand on his shaking back amid grief, tearful and unvoiced. 

She watched the echo of these sly, persistent memories. The same silent film projected behind his eyes.

"Be that as it may… in my mind, I see you chuckling over Fawley's new girlfriend. And was it not a relief after your three botched dates with him? Your boss? It's clearly not a convent you lot are running there."

On any other night, laughter would have broken through at this turn of phrase. Careless, absolving.

But it was his mouth she'd kissed, still tasted now, and the air was too thick to breathe.

"You're right, I just…"

He stilled as if scenting the air, waiting.

Elsewhere, in some tidier narrative, that kiss might have been the overture to something storied and permanent. 

Here, it was a splinter she'd inflicted on them both. 

"I should've never let you into this. You'd be better off not risking things for me."

In the pause, the city thrummed, train calls threading through arteries of street and underground. 

Sebastian's frown was less an expression than a showcase of the ways he'd learned to brace for impact.

"You did let me into it, though. And therefore, we're getting closer to the truth. And to you getting your reputation back. Regardless of what just happened." 

Her thoughts gathered, only to disintegrate again under the weight of his voice:

"This is you being guilty again. And thinking, for some reason, that I'm some sort of ward you're responsible for." 

The smile, almost tragic in its self-awareness, shaping him into a man who had identified himself as the punchline.

Eyes burning, Cara glanced at her feet. At soles and toes tattooed with London's map. "I don't think that."

Sebastian's eyes burned with the reckless clarity of a July wildfire. Refusing to let her hide behind smoke. Unable to bear its flames climbing her skin, Cara looked away.

Then he drew his wand, rapping the edge of the step in a sharp, deliberate rhythm. Razing the fog, intent on rooting out whatever it obscured.

Demanding her eyes stay with him along the way. 

"Bullshit. You absolutely think that. But I'm a grown man, and everything I do with this case—with you—is because I want to. And for what it's worth… what I said about you owing me, I didn't mean it."

Conviction radiated off him in waves. Not burning her but sanding down her defenses. Leaving the skin red, exposed.

"You feel bad for me, too. Don't pretend you don't."

He shook his head as if to say the wound didn't need salt.

"Does that have to mean the rest of it is wrong? Yes, it occurred to me that you've got no life, no hobbies, no friends."

The words, delivered without malice, found her nerve endings anyway. Too flayed to bristle, Cara could only reply, "Thanks."

But he lifted a hand, not quite apology, not quite defense.

"—and I don't have shit else, either. The point is that we're helping each other. Beyond that, I happen to care for you. A lot." 

A swallow echoed from the bottom step, loud in the hush; the fire's fierce scorch, now barely a glow above the wick.

Then he capped it off with the wryness of someone who'd learned to laugh at splinters. 

"And as has just been proven… I can't help it."

"I care for you too," her words barely sound, more remembered than uttered.

Sebastian's eyes slid shut, the rise and fall of his chest evening out. As though the act of saying it, and of hearing it back, recalibrated something elemental.

"I know you do. And whatever else that means, we don't have to worry about who deserves what. I've got free will, and so do you."

Most of that felt like a kind door, closing somewhere behind her.

It was only that last part that Cara felt snagging against the grain.

"I just don't think I do the wisest things with mine."

His look landed on her, carrying the weight of the boy he'd been and the man he'd become.

Both still visible if you knew where to look.

"I disagree."

No flourish, no performance. Just the solid fact of belief, dropped into her lap like a stone she'd have to carry.

This was Sebastian's core. Stubbornness as faith, a refusal to surrender even the smallest ground.

He meant it. Had been meaning it longer than she'd let herself acknowledge. The memory of the Undercroft hovered. Her hand on the lever, torchlight sketching his features. 

It was over, it was gone. Past. 

Now, as he sat beside her, that fundamental forgiveness was at last so evident it stung like antiseptic. 

Memory, that unreliable narrator, made room: mercy simply given, even if it felt unearned.

While the future remained a restless animal, pacing just out of sight… tonight, in this half-lit stairwell, it still stood before them. 

Cara looked up, saw a small bunch of fabric in his hand. The tuxedo's pocket square, survivor of their chase, offered like a treaty.

"We don't have to talk about it anymore. Erm, I know it's still your birthday, but I have a favor to ask you."

Pressing away the dark rivers under her eyes, Cara was thankful for the absence of a mirror, for the kindness in the way he gave her privacy: looking up, ankle jittering, at the city's heat shimmering off stone. 

"Okay, what is it?"

"Our, erm, friends in Marunweem tell me that they've still not found a suitable underground space. I thought about the Catacomb, but… I think I'd have a really hard time there. Even just checking it out."

She caught the handoff, the shift. The transition felt natural, practiced, despite being anything but. 

Their best magic: grace.

"Well, I'll take a look in there for you, then."

Not thinking, Cara met his eyes, the ruined pocket square bunched in her fist.

Sebastian's gaze softened, a tired mirth. Lids drooping in slow deliberation before shaking his head, almost ceremonial.

"You keep that. Probably worth more than the bear."

"I like the bear." She held it aloft, as if the weight of memory might animate it. For a moment, her smile didn't feel quite so lopsided.

Sebastian's was its parallel.

"I'm glad." He nudged her shoulder, his rhythm leaking into hers, a gentle insistence, we're still here.

Then cleared his throat.

"Okay, so you'll scope out the Catacomb, and I'll press Laird harder. I think he really trusts me now. Can't say the same for Poppy."

There was something real and wounded there, but Cara decided to meet it with a sidestep, a bit of borrowed irony.

"Poppy didn't even trust herself to speak to the right people at the gala."

"She's a good kid," Sebastian said, and there it was again: that note of unguarded belief.

They sat, letting silence pool between them, breath mingling with the city's exhale.

Cara clutched her bear, wishing for a cigarette, for a neat resolution to this never-ending night. 

As neat as possible, anyway, until the next crossing of their paths.

Sebastian broke the hush.

"So, I know it's been a long night, but I've got some gold left. I think we should have some coffee, then I'll walk you back to your building. What do you say?"

She nodded, a sniffle stitched to initiative. "You're on."

He clapped his hands against his knees, then rose, extending a hand to help her.

They fell into step together, shadows stretching behind.

In time, Cara confessed to the night: "I really wish I hadn't left my shoes."

Sebastian's voice was soft in the hush as the skyline swallowed them:

"You live and you learn."

Dear Cara (and Cara Bear), 

I wanted to thank you again for spending your birthday with me. I thought the coffee was a bit bitter — but after midnight beggars can't be choosers. Even beggars in tuxedos. 

Forgive me for this joke, but I think if nothing else, we're well suited now to play married when you go undercover with us.

I'll let you know what I hear.

Welcome to being twenty-one and old.

Sebastian

---

Chapter Text

Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Behind his frosted office door, Hector found himself faced with an indignity sharp and undeniable: that the perks of the Chief's office did not include a clerk to organize and file for him.

Yes, here he sat, reduced to a lowly paper pusher. Tearing through endless piles of odious, near-identical parchment.

That damned list of released prisoners: his white whale.

He'd rifled through his usual hiding spots, all empty.

The only memory that clung was the word stamped atop the document:

MANIFEST.

A term he usually associated with summer pleasure vessels, packing lists brimming with sun and sea.

Not the metal clatter of prison gates on an island of misfit toys.

Cold sweat crept across his brow as he leaned back, exhaustion pressing into his spine. This shouldn't be difficult. It couldn't be.

Then his eyes snapped open, pulled from the edge of surrender. Even if his wand was more ornament than tool in this office, it'd still serve him.

"Accio… erm, order of the Minister, May, Azkaban."

From the corner of the room, beneath a wilting potted plant and leaning precariously against a filing cabinet, the glossy card-stock tore free.

Curving slightly as it landed in his trembling hand.

The manifest read like a roll call for the inevitable: families cursed by their own weak wiring.

Names he could have muttered in his sleep.

Sometimes, better stock got swept in; suckers with weak spines, ripe for the current.

But one name snagged at him, sharp as a nail in a boot heel.

It pulled him out of his chair and into a corridor from another life, moonlight sucked through stained-glass.

House colors diluted to silhouettes.

Sebastian Sallow.

A face of freckles, stubborn as lichen. The boy had been plucky, a regular in detention.

There'd been a sister too. Who after fourth year had disappeared. Retreated to whatever moss-choked village had produced them.

Sick, in some tedious, chronic way.

Some faculty members had tried to help. He remembered eavesdropping: Hecat and Garlick shuffling assignments into brown envelopes, sent out into the void.

The void had obliged by swallowing them whole.

And by sixth year, neither Sallow answered roll call. The rumor: the sickly twin needed her brother more than school did.

Hector hadn't cared enough to sort truth from noise. They were Slytherins, after all. He'd had his own ambitions, circles to climb.

Back when voices cracked and inseams changed by the month, faces like Ominis Gaunt's only registered due to the storied name. A shadow in green-and-silver, never speaking to anyone.

Except for, indeed, that Sallow. Trailing after him with a loyalty that looked like penance.

And thereafter, Cara. Back then, just MC.

Her entry into the story, though sudden, somehow fit neatly as time went by:

Seventh year. A silver mask flashing beneath the Yule Ball's floating candles, her hand in Ominis Gaunt's as if it'd always belonged there.

The Hero of Hogwarts with the blind recluse. He'd never understood what knotted them together.

Of course, Hector could also see himself.

A safe distance away on the Flying Class lawn, practicing the art of being seen with the right crowd.

He hadn't noticed the three of them, not really.

Just shapes in the drizzle: Ominis, Sallow, and her. Arguing, or maybe just filling the air with noise.

The memory had sunk, sediment at the bottom of his mind, now dredged up by a name in black ink.

Outside, a typewriter clacked in the bullpen. Steady, insistent, a metronome for nerves.

Hector caught his reflection in the dull one-way glass of the office door, set in stone, mouth drawn tight.

And snapped back to the present.

"Mulciber!"

Pete materialized at the edge of the door, blinking, hat off-kilter, as if roused from a nap nobody noticed he was taking.

"Hey, Chief. Something wrong?"

He let the manifest sail to the floor. It landed face-up on the carpet, edge catching on a scuffed patch near the desk.

Hector reached for distraction: flicking his wand.

A bag of pistachios shot from the drawer, overshooting and nearly upending his nameplate before landing with a soft thunk, shells rattling inside.

It seemed nothing ever landed quite where he wanted it.

His subordinate, struck by the stress, spoke in a voice that'd lost its easy edge. Titles forsaken:

"Hector? Are you good?"

"Need you to get into the Records room and find me whatever you've got on Sebastian Sallow."

A dutiful nod came, along with an addendum that cheapened it.

"Will do, but erm, now that we're talking, my father and I spoke recently, and I wanted to ask about—"

Enough from the peanut gallery.

Hector ground his heel into the carpet.

"No. Now."

They came through the trees as a unit, bodies moving as if drawn by the same pulse. Each step sunk into thick loam and breathless, green-black dark.

Cara's deer skull mask rode spectral above her shoulders, antlers like bleached fingers. Her palm found Sebastian's and fit there, sure as bone to socket.

And he clung, anchored. Because while he knew the strange insulation that came from blending in, the sensation sharpened tonight. 

With her, the performance became something almost holy.

In an equally divine turn: the group's curiosity about her, evaporating almost at once.

After hearing she was Sebastian's wife, no one pressed. 

Not even for her name. 

The questions and sideways glances that had greeted Poppy: a custom in this case smothered by silent, animal math.

The logic was crude but comforting in its simplicity. 

Cara was his, so she was theirs. No more, no less.

The fire cracked; grease ran in rivulets down blackened plates, pooling in the dimples and scars.

Laird, unfiltered, let his stories leak out with the smoke. Dragons tracked by moonlight, bribes in the slipstream, the price of an Imp's hide in northern markets. 

Despite being one of the lucky ones freed from Azkaban, you'd never have known it from the way he laughed.

Reckless abandon. Like his freedom was a birthright, not a debt.

Only when the meal was gone did his gaze settle again on Cara.

Not with suspicion, but with a kind of winsome ache. Mask framing his eyes in a wet shine.

"See, my own mother was tall like you. Pity I didn't inherit that, but we can't pick and choose, can we."

Sebastian noted Cara's soft nod. The others waited, judgment held in abeyance.

And though her response was level, it seemed she gave up a sliver of herself within. "I never knew my parents. Can't imagine what they'd think of me now."

Maybe she meant it. Maybe she didn't. Sebastian nodded all the same, leaned closer, closing up their silhouette for the benefit of the group.

"I suppose I should be grateful they can't," she added unbidden, fork scraping her plate.

He felt the air shift, a ripple of risk: these men wouldn't like their trade disparaged, not even by a half-joke.

But the pause worked in their favor. Turning into a pivot as Laird chewed on it, then said:

"Aye, but my mother always told me to get a job I was proud of. And that, I've done. So, where's this catacomb you speak of? Is it the one near the hamlet?"

Cara answered before he could, voice dipped in deference, careful not to take too much space.

"Yes, some of my family were buried there, so I'll be the one to look… won't I?"

Sebastian reached over, careful, practiced. Freed a strand of her pale hair from the antler tangle. His fingers lingered.

Maybe too long. Maybe just right.

"I think so, dear." The words came out strange, heavy under the mask. He tried for her eyes, but bone and shadow blurred the palette. "If that's alright with you, Laird."

But their leader's attention had already wandered, eyes fixed on the next log over.

"Makes sense to me. Oi, Stretch, wake up."

The tallest man jerked, plate of beef slick in the firelight, ready to slide off his lap. Like the others, the plate was pitted and battered, as if it had survived a dozen camps before this one.

"Sorry, I was just thinking."

Mustache, his real name lost somewhere back in the last cave, cleared his throat.

"No more time for thinking. We've got a mission. Our prospective base."

Sebastian felt the weight of it all: the roles, the sweat prickling at his nape. 

And the memory of that kiss still burning, unshed, somewhere behind the bone.

And so the trek began: leaving behind the fire's hush for the mouth of a Catacomb that lived in his nightmares, a seam in the earth that always woke him sweating. 

Now, he'd have to walk toward it like it was any other tomb. Like possibility didn't hang in the heat, or depend on what his pretend wife uncovered inside.

Laird walked at the point, wand light warping his shadow into something mythic. The others straggled behind, boots stirring dry seed heads.

Every step kicked up more pollen. The world swollen with summer, the heat of a gamble.

No Disillusionment. No Apparition. Just masks catching moonlight, too bold to flinch.

Not carelessness, but Laird's own kind of satisfaction: moving unhidden, daring the world to push back.

The way they all walked, as if risk was just another beast to hunt, almost stirred Sebastian's admiration. 

He kept hold of Cara's hand, refusing to let the world convince him it was only for show. 

Her palm was dry, unwavering, their fingers laced tight. Each step counting down to when he'd have to let go so she could descend alone.

Sebastian wanted a moment. Just a word with her, a breath, something whispered into the space between those hands. 

Even if it had to be devoid of real meaning. 

But Laird, never one to leave the reins slack, drifted up to match their pace. Hands buried in pockets, a constant reminder of the game and its rules.

"Been in this line of work before, Mrs. Sally? Or are you learning a trade on behalf of your man?" 

"Actually, I—"

"Oh, she's been at it longer than I have," Sebastian broke in, voice too bright, nerves catching in his throat. 

But Cara didn't miss a beat. Her head dipped, antlers tilting, every inch the demure wife.

"I learned to use a Nab-Sack in my teens," she replied, voice light but even. "Truly a monumental invention, at least to me."

Laird's stride lengthened, voice warming.

"Actually, couldn't agree more. Too many Poachers are purists, say you've got to grab a Beast by hand, but I say that's asking to make a scene."

Cara nodded. Those antlers catching light through the canopy of trees as the clearing opened.

"Particularly with the mouthy ones. You must work smarter, not harder."

For a moment, the group's rhythm warped as its leader slowed, attention focusing on them in a way that felt almost intimate. 

Sebastian recognized it for what it was: something like admiration, a strange favor. 

It felt implicit, sure as anything. If life had been different, if they'd met under another sky, Laird might have wanted him as a friend.

That awareness lingered, uneasy, never quite comfortable. Even as a rough hand landed on his back, a thump of sweat and approval.

"You've done well, Sally." 

Sebastian's lip twitched.

But it wasn't discomfort. Her hand in his felt like the only thing that made sense. A chuckle came out real, a surprise.

With gravitas that was anything but borrowed, he murmured:

"Trust me, I know."

Cara squeezed his hand, once, tight. He caught the message, or decided he did. Well done. Maybe more. 

But he wouldn't let himself read any deeper. Not here. Not now.

Laird's next question came with a lazy lilt, but there was a bite in it. "So where's Daisy tonight? …Chisholm quite fancied her."

Ah, that was his name. Mustache, whose shape hovered at the group's edge. Sebastian didn't look back.

He remembered their leader's earlier mist, soft under firelight, and the answer came easy: 

"She's off tending to our Mum, who's quite ill." 

Pause. The field listened.

And in time, Laird's mask dipped, a pantomime of respect. If he'd worn a hat, he'd have doffed it here, pressed it to his chest. 

"Aye. As it should be. Give my best to the dear lady. Both of them."

The Catacomb came into focus, its stone face sagging into the hillside, as faded and indifferent as ever.

The others milled at the edge, boots scuffing in the dust, as if they might be sent down after all.

Like they hadn't counted on the plan holding.

Chisholm shouldered forward and stroked his mustache, voice splitting the hush.

"This is it, right? Looks ancient as could be. You sure about this?"

Laird's face hardened. He swept his wand, light flashing over bone masks, every hollow and edge thrown into relief.

"No, but that's why we've got Mrs. Sally here. It's her lot's resting place. We'll keep watch top side. All of you, look sharp."

Authority restored, he turned to Sebastian, to their still-clasped hands. Husband and wife, the fiction holding for one last moment.

"Madam… your chariot awaits."

There it was, laid bare. Men like Laird prized women in theory, but felt no qualms about their descent into darkness when the work was dirty. 

Reverence was easy in the abstract.

And she had volunteered. Given them all a reason to watch, to feel righteous about staying above.

Sebastian nodded, jaw tight. Feeling the loss echo up his arm as he let go of her hand and summoned impatience.

A costume he resented, but wore well: 

"Go on, then, pet. Get to it. We'll be waiting for you."

And again, Cara made it easy. Stance perfect, humility measured as she bowed her head and stepped forward, antlers catching the last thread of light:

"Yes, dear. Of course." 

The Feldcroft Catacomb sulked, a subterranean gullet where the last of the torches had withered to stubs.

Cara flicked them alive, wordless, and watched the flames bleed up the walls. The Spiders had packed up. Inferi too.

The air tried to crawl up her nose, sour and dense. She'd braced herself for it: this specific stench that never washed out of her memory.

Eyes stinging behind the black slits of her mask, she kept moving.

It was the mask she could feel the weight of, not just on her face but all through her posture.

If any of her supposed colleagues waited in the shadows, if somehow they'd followed her in on a whim, they'd see only a Poacher.

And deal with her accordingly, even if their presence here made even less sense than her own.

Yet as she moved, only the rats acknowledged her with their wet, aimless scurrying.

Rats.

They meant there was meat somewhere, or what passed for it. Not game; she could picture the absurdity of a stag blundering through, antlers scraping stone, the rock face giving nothing but resistance.

No, someone was squatting inside, likely someone who'd benefit from Ministry help to get housing.

Even if it took a fight to get them out, even if she'd have to spirit them away from Laird and company without an explanation.

Leave Sebastian to clean up her mess, hammer in that she was to be trusted, despite the hiccup.

"Auror Office," she called, voice pitched to carry, if only to bones.

For a moment, she braced for another scenario of the absurd: that despite distance and depth, a Poacher might overhear.

Her cover, splintering with a single echo.

"This is a restricted area."

It wasn't. It had never been. Feldcroft itself had always been a blank spot on the Ministry's ledger.

But Cara knew the script, and it demanded conviction, not honesty.

Truth bent for justice: that was the Auror's way.

That bone bridge waited: her handiwork, still spanning the gulf. A lattice of femur and clavicle that remembered her feet, their crunch a brittle mnemonic of what'd gone down here.

Nearing the end, the corridor contracted ahead. The room where Solomon had died, pressing its shape from thoughts into reality.

But there was movement, too. Not vermin. Heavier.

"If someone's back there, show me your hands, drop your wand."

Acquiescence echoed. The clatter of wood on stone as the shape of its owner unfolded in the torchlight.

Cara's breath snagged.

The last time she'd seen Ominis Gaunt come forward with his hands raised, it'd been a mere formality at May's end.

Now, a damning trove of gold glimmered at his feet. Spitting orange light in restless arcs across his face, gilding every hollow.

"Two hands, unremarkable as they come."

Deadpan, voice empty of any plea.

She steadied herself, cataloguing the rats in retreat, the way the place seemed to draw in around them. As if the walls themselves braced.

"What's going on here, Ominis?"

He gave a laugh, low, the sort that didn't warm anything. Shadows under his eyes belonging to more than the dark.

"Kind of you to imply it could be anything apart from the obvious. It feels a bit like special treatment."

Nudging his wand with his foot, content to wait her out.

"I give everyone a chance to explain," she declared. The mask itched above her lip, sweat mixing with rot. "Quite a haul here. I take it none of this is Gaunt property."

His sigh was measured, the nod even more so.

"Not originally, but it is now. That is, until you have me taken away and distribute it back to the masses."

Her lips pressed white. Chest pulsing, not quite steady. "If you explain, I could possibly argue some clemency for you."

"Gaunts don't get clemency. And I doubt, with the stigma of your recent dishonor, that you'd be the one to break that mold. By the way, it sounds like your face is obscured. Is that accurate?"

Of course, he'd notice. If a hummingbird changed course, Ominis would clock it.

Still, Cara took the opportunity. She knew that honesty in one direction inspired its return from the other.

"Yes. It's a mask, I'm undercover."

He let his hands fall, threading them behind his back.

If not for the wand at his feet and pilfered riches all around, he could have been a professor. Interrupted between lectures, waiting for a question he knew by heart.

"And that's where you've been lately, I take it. Undercover. You haven't written to me, apart from asking for the manifest. But I gather it's helped, if you're wearing someone else's face."

"It has, yes. Thank you. How long have you been stealing, if we're asking questions?"

His eyes closed, lashes pale on skin that looked thinner than she remembered.

"Quite a long time now, actually. A year, maybe two. But since you've never once asked how I make ends meet… I suspect that, on some level, you knew."

Cara remembered the latest first; their dinner in the Muggle café. Ominis' endless refills on drinks.

Then the rest of it: that expensive stationery all his letters came on. Those gold-inlaid birthday cards with sweets attached, written with a fountain pen.

And, of course, the bespoke suits. Tailored to the nines. Out of place on that rotting porch at the Gaunt shack, in the streets of London, in the Catacomb right now.

She stared at the golden pocket chain glinting from his side.

"I suppose I did."

But Ominis didn't seem to relish this unveiling of her willful ignorance. Rather, it seemed like a footnote he was intent to blow past.

"It's my turn. If you're undercover now, I expect you came into my humble abode for a reason. What will you and your new friends use it for? Mass-extermination of Muggles? A place to hide a new set of skeletons?"

The old trick of the intelligent detainee: turn the question, make the interrogator answer. A transfer of onus that Cara was well-trained to diffuse.

But the possibility that Ominis might divulge some detail that might, in the thicket of admissions that lessened sentences, be his saving grace… told her to indulge it.

Keeping her wand trained on him, she sat on an upturned barrel. Close enough for him to know she wasn't bluffing.

"For a Poaching operation. They need an underground base, and I'm here to find out if this would be suitable."

Ominis fiddled with a button on his vest.

The nerves were there, and he didn't hide them.

"And are these men waiting outside now? If so, I think I know who's among them. I never will forget it… the smell of that little house."

Cara shut her eyes, a reflex more than a choice, but snapped them open again. She couldn't risk losing sight of him, not here.

"Yes, Sebastian is there. We're working together."

A low hum, the sound vibrating between amusement and disbelief.

"So, if you escort me from this Catacomb, he and the group you're fooling together will have to see the kerfuffle. Will you pretend I'm a stranger?"

She cleared her throat, the rasp rough in sealed air.

"I'd Apparate to avoid that."

"One curious bit about Apparition, that I'm sure you know: if one person is unwilling, the likelihood of Splinching increases tenfold. Even if they're Imperiused."

Indeed, Cara knew that, and more:

"Ominis, you can't stay in here. You know that, on some level, someone was going to find you here eventually."

A rat blurred past in the webby corner, as if to underline the point he was about to make.

"Were they? I doubt that, say, the Malfoys and Mulcibers of the world would deign even to send someone out here. Not even the Gaunts would bother."

Her hand went to her pocket, grasping only at an absence: her notepad, left behind at the Sallow house.

Poachers didn't need to jot down details, after all.

"Did you say Mulciber?"

Ominis' blind gaze scraped the dark, the whites of his eyes catching torchlit motes like a mineral seam.

"If you want something of his, I think I have a coat of arms somewhere. Though I had to disconnect it from its mount, the ruby inlays remain."

Cara stood from the barrel.

"No, I—what do you know about him? Business dealings, allies, connections? Did you say he's in with a Malfoy? Which Malfoy?"

The air cinched tight: an impasse.

"I might be persuaded to share that with you, if you were to leave me be here today. Give me time to find a new base of my own."

Damn.

A part of her wanted to arrest him for the audacity alone, for the way he'd spun his exile into leverage.

Another part, the part that remembered café dinners and the rare comfort of old friendship, recognized the value in that compromise.

She could walk out without shackling a friend. Taking as collateral the makings of an ally, hidden in this reeking ziggurat of bones and stolen gold.

Someone who'd answer her call.

"Ominis, I—"

He took in a sharp breath, the sound catching at the edge of what might have been panic.

"How long did you tell Sebastian and company it would take, determining how suitable of a hideout this is? I may lack perspective, but I doubt these are patient men."

At last, her wand arm dropped, fatigue and decision flooding her joints.

"What shall I tell them?"

Ominis knelt, reclaimed his wand from the dust. Relief and calculation flickering in tandem across the planes of his face.

"That it's structurally unsound, that it seems promising, but isn't. I'm sure that in your day you've concocted many a lie. And I'm even surer that Sebastian will validate it."

Cara stared at him, feeling the nod before she realized she'd given it.

This wasn't the moment to assert herself, to parade the power of authority that'd felt imaginary of late.

Instead, she counted her concessions, marked them with the weight of standing before someone she'd always trusted for counsel.

Even now, on the wrong side of the law, she confessed her innermost thoughts to Ominis Gaunt:

"Lately, I've felt like less of an Auror than ever. I don't feel good about this."

He blinked slowly. "I told you. I will find somewhere else. You have my word, if it's still worth anything."

It was. It was just that despite how quickly her hourglass emptied, Cara felt a need to tie things up somehow.

As always, Ominis knew the meter of her breath. The way it betrayed a stance caught between worlds.

So in a voice that said, more later, he provided her with next steps:

"I get the feeling that if you Apparate outside, it'll lend more credibility to this place being unstable."

And before doubt could muscle in, before she could tally this empire of stolen fortune amassed in the dark… Cara took her old friend's advice.

Most people begged the sun to gild their skin and gloss the sea.

But Ignatius Malfoy found no pleasure in the rawness of ultraviolet attention. No patience for crowds or the forced cheer of summer.

It was best like this: overcast, a world stripped down to salt, brine, and the soft percussion of waves on shingle.

No gaudy brightness, no children, no charlatans tanned swarthy by working-class drudge.

On afternoons like this, Blackpool Sands felt like it belonged to people with old blood and older secrets.

Near the tideline, a blanket folded just so, a bottle of claret keeping company with two glasses and a bowl of fruit.

He'd drifted into a half-sleep, one hand curled under his chin. Until the chill and the faintest shift beside him, a flipped page, called him back.

A magazine's cover, cheap gloss dulled by the mist, flashing in Mulciber's hands.

Malfoy reached, half-famished, for the cut-glass bowl between them. He slid his sunglasses down, platinum hair falling forward as he confirmed the treachery:

"A bit rude of you to leave only grapefruit. You know it's my least favorite."

Mulciber's lips curled, the barest ghost of a smile.

"Don't like it either, mind. Maybe I'll chuck it in the sea."

The line was tossed off, but Malfoy caught a flicker of real irritation, quickly shuttered.

So he set about the wine instead. The bottle's neck was still dewed, cork surrendering with a sound too sharp for the gentle day.

He poured, slow, the glass catching what little light there was. "Anything interesting in that rag?"

The other's voice, in the dry cadence of a man who'd spent his life reading between lines:

"Actually, there's an article interviewing one of the Minister's aides… 'While he'll not be retiring, appointing a successor to stand in for press appearances is on the table.' Apparently."

With a sigh, Malfoy brushed sand from his chest, the fabric of his bathing costume gritty.

The suit had been advertised as impervious to all particulate.

A lie on par with most political promises.

"We both know that whoever is picked will do the entire job. Spout-Hole is simply too proud to give up the title."

Mulciber's eyes were startling even now, electric blue threaded with crow's feet.

They lingered on the waves, as if searching for a current only he could trace.

"I know who he's favoring. They say Lorcan McLaird is the next official pick, but Spavin owes a rather large debt to—"

"The Fawleys, yes, that's not news."

Beside him, air whistling past teeth.

"Well, take the wind out of my sails, why don't you." His tone shifted again, the pinch of a grievance rehearsed in silence: "I'm a bit cross with that family. Their son, the Chief, most especially."

Malfoy's mind wandered, the way it always did when business came up.

He was not the architect, but the financier, the one who kept the wheels greased. The machinery of Mulciber's enterprises was a low hum in the background of their shared life.

Still, he sorted through the tangle of schemes until the right one surfaced.

"Ah yes, your little Poaching enterprise. I thought you had Junior pressing him?"

Mulciber's leg jostled the sand, restless, and he took a swig without ceremony.

"I do, but Fawley's still ignoring my letters." Passing the wine back, fingers brushing Malfoy's wrist, cool from the sea air.

The bottle felt heavier now. "Hmm."

"You know, I brought that boy along on several family vacations when he and Junior were in school. When his own were preoccupied bottling their blasted rosé. It's quite… jarring that he'd disregard me so."

Malfoy felt a hard little stone of anger lodge in his chest.

So that was the shape of it: the old order, receding like a tide. A crop of snot-nosed young men, a whole generation, forgetting who had set the table for them.

It was the kind of wound that had no defense, as the world simply moved on.

The lines in the face beside him struck deep.

For all the years of mockery and maneuvering, affection ran beneath the surface here: essential, like the undertow that shaped the shore.

Not business, not brotherhood. But something he'd never explain to a world that wasn't owed it.

He slid his sunglasses off, folding them between restless fingers.

"Peter, is this hurting your feelings?"

On the tail end of another giant wine swallow, the other nodded.

"I have to say, it is. I expected the returns from those oafish Beast wranglers to be meager, mind. I am aware that Fawley has quite the high seat. But it wouldn't kill him to deign to answer, you know?"

Malfoy watched a line of gulls stagger across the tideline, their leader honking, the others trailing with the dumb loyalty of parade-goers.

For years, Mulciber had catalogued avian movements with an autist's zeal. He could name every species by silhouette or call.

Today, he didn't even glance up.

He sat hunched over grapefruit, looking suddenly older, as if the salt in his beard had crept into his bones.

The heir of House Malfoy straightened, inertia falling away.

The world might not care for old debts, but he did. And when the man beside him went silent, it was time to move.

"Have you still got a point of contact with the Poachers themselves?"

When Cara Apparated back into the open air, her mask served her well once more.

Hiding both the slick of sweat on her skin and the brief, startled look as the world snapped into view, sparser than expected:

For the bulk of the Poachers had vanished like mist at dawn.

Only Sebastian, Corbin Laird, and Chisholm remained. Statues carved from wandlight, still and watchful.

"Something go wrong?" she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

Laird was quick to stand up taller.

"No, I merely told the rest I wouldn't need them anymore tonight. So, what's your verdict on this catacomb?"

Though Cara knew to force a disappointed edge into her tone… recalling Ominis' conflicted expression, not all of it was feigned:

"The size is promising, but most of it isn't sound enough to occupy."

"Damn," cursed Sebastian, stepping up beside her with a quiet weight behind the word. His disappointment more convincing than hers. "Thanks for looking, though, love."

Laird absorbed the news with a slow, grave nod, like a man relieved despite himself. Though maybe that was just a trick of the light.

"We'll keep scouting places. And the Horntail—next time. Chisholm and I have some business."

Cara caught the stiffness in both of the Poachers' stances. Was it aimed at her? At each other?

Or was it just the night tightening around them?

She swallowed the uncertainty, lifting her chin. "I'm sorry it took so long."

But Laird's grin, all missing teeth and rough warmth, broke through her self-doubt.

"No, you were thorough. I appreciate that."

Chisholm cleared his throat, toeing at the grass with a restless rhythm. As if reminding them all, he hadn't faded into the night's shadows just yet.

Sebastian's hand found hers again, warm and steady. Cara knew without looking that he'd be the one to break the silence next. Blessed was that choice.

Because even if the others hungered for more, which they plainly did not, her chest was a cage of tightening chords.

Her pretend husband eased into his role effortlessly, the very image of a shrewd yet easygoing businessman.

"So, I'll wait for your Owl," he nodded to Laird, voice spritely, their hands swinging gently in quiet rhythm.

Without waiting for an answer, he Apparated. Colors of wood and wild spiraling in a living cloak around them.

The moon, fat and luminous above the Sallow house, bathed the hamlet in argent light.

Amid its wash, Cara let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

"Well," Sebastian murmured, eyes catching hers through the mask, "time for your notepad, Mrs. Sally."

The nod was invitation enough, and she stepped inside first. Leaving the Catacomb's ghosts behind, if only for a moment.

Sebastian lay crookedly on Solomon's old bed, the ancient ticking compressing beneath him, sheets still faintly perfumed with orris root.

His boots, kicked off with little ceremony, were angled as if they'd tried to escape the room.

A bit ironic given how settled in he himself had become.

Two hours or so into their after-action silence, the fire in the grate had collapsed into a scatter of embers. Their muted glow pawing at the undersides of Cara's forearms as she leaned over her papers.

Now and then, she'd break the quiet to double-check a detail: something Laird had said, a time marked in the margins.

Otherwise, they sank into silence, each decompressing in their own way.

More so her, as Sebastian had spent the night chasing a single wish: to find their way back to normal.

Or at least the thinnest echo of what passed for it now.

Catching her just as her quill slowed:

"So, I'm pretty sure Laird wishes he was married to you."

Cara drew a slow drag from her cigarette, eyes heavy-lidded.

"Any one of those men would sooner sit on an ice pick than take my hand."

"I would, in a second."

The words landed… and did not dissolve.

She looked at the fire, then back, as if weighing the shape of him in this new quiet.

"Sit on an ice pick?"

There was a glint there, something testing.

He let out a breath, half a laugh, fingers brushing the quilt as if it could ground him.

"Cara, please."

A tip of her glass as those eyes wandered over at last. "Thanks for that."

He kept his hands folded over his stomach, feeling every twitch and knot of muscle.

"Don't thank me, I mean it. And if we really were married, I'd never talk to you that way—how I did earlier."

The apology was matter-of-fact, but he couldn't help the meaty thwack of his heart, as if he'd invited danger.

She slumped back, eyes ringed dark, body slack with real depletion. For a moment, it seemed she'd let it pass.

But then, a smile. Genuine, lopsided, the sort that always pierced whatever defenses he thought he had.

"I know. You'd be even meaner, wouldn't you?"

Sebastian said nothing, letting the silence fill with the pulse at his throat. The memory of her hand in his sat heavy and sweet, the aftershock of that nearness refusing to fade.

He watched her knuckles pressed white against the glass. Gazing at him as if she'd just remembered something necessary before rising with deliberate slowness.

Glass cradled between fingers that trembled just enough to betray the day's weight.

As she settled at the foot of the bed, the mattress sighed.

Her knee curved forward, brushing his ankle. Sebastian flexed his foot in response, muscles loosening like a slow exhale.

Then she held his gaze, really held it.

Something in the arch of her brow, the tremble at her lip, arrested him mid-breath. Caught like a moth in amber.

"What sort of things would you say? If we were."

Somewhere deep, beneath the weight of the night, he knew.

Beyond the endless schemata of next steps, the Catacomb's secrets… this was the kind of talk he could chase.

Follow without fear all the way into the dark.

It was a summons to lift the dusk from her eyes. Even if it only spun them deeper into their shared limbo, he'd answer anyway, all in.

Leaning back into the mattress, elbow bent like a hinge, jaw cradled in his palm. Willing the drum of his heart's spasming ventricles into a gentler beat.

"You mean in general? Well, for one, I'd be constantly reminding you of the obvious. That you're beautiful, and have a quick mind." His lips pressed into a line, ankle nudging her hip. "You know?"

Cara's mouth curled. Eyes misty; somehow still skeptical, but open.

"That would be nice. There are things I… well."

She shook her head, laughter like a small spill at her feet.

Sebastian sat up, the gap between them narrowing, voice dropping over her shoulder.

The ache in his chest was a chord tuned sharp and clear.

"No, go on. You can tell me."

"I was thinking a bit ago, that… I was looking forward to our kiss goodnight. Before I remembered, we weren't… really married."

He hoped his smile didn't betray him: too sheepish, too facile.

Her words echoing in his mind. A stubborn refrain, begging to be silenced yet refusing to fade.

"Whatever happened to being professional with me?"

Cara's eyes flicked like a flame. First to his own, then to his mouth, and back again with a sly, tired spark.

"Sebastian, shut up."

And shut up he did.

His hand rose without hesitation, fingers curling around her chin with a tenderness that startled even him.

There was no shock this time. No sudden jolt, no hesitation. Just a shared, hazy exhale as their mouths found each other for that good night kiss.

Soft and deliberate, lingering, pressing. Retreating only to meet again.

It was strange: the taste of cigarette smoke should have been acrid, but tangled with her breath, with the ghost of her smile pressed beneath his lips, it turned saccharine, like forbidden candy.

He wanted to bury himself in that flavor, raw and sticky.

They rose in tandem, still bound by the press of lips, her body folding into his.

Sebastian's hands traced a slow path down the curve of her neck. Threading through the tangle at the nape, sliding over the sharp planes of shoulder blades.

A soft, breathy mmr slipped from her lips as his tongue edged in.

Not a protest, but a summons.

Her hands found his back, bold fingers weaving into the straps of his suspenders. Tugging gently, pulling him further into the slow surrender of skin and breath.

Tongues danced and slid, wet and insistent, a secret language spoken only in the dark.

It was a moment of pure, unspoken heaven.

In some ancient, wordless corner of his mind, he wondered if they'd ever truly be married.

As if it mattered now.

Either way, Sebastian knew this—he would never want to taste any lips but hers again.

This time when Cara broke away, it was with a gasp that wasn't startled, but sighed. Like surfacing from beneath a long, dark river.

A fierce blush flamed across her nose, cheeks, and ears, a vivid bloom of heat.

Sebastian's face burned in kind, a slow, merciless sear.

His voice thick: "Are you sure you don't want to stay?"

Despite the audacious ask, she laughed against his lips, a hot and precious gust.

"My dear husband, I must be getting back to work."

Watching her rise from the bed, from a distance close enough to hold but far enough to let go, was a shift that throbbed, sharp and necessary.

After all. For the unmarried, goodnight kisses were contracts unsigned, promises paused.

Even as she gathered her notebook, sliding her feet into shoes with practiced ease, Sebastian felt the ghost of her fingers tug at his suspenders. A tether, a claim, a memory pressed into muscle.

He exhaled, voice low and steady: "Duty calls."

Cara smiled then: soft, knowing, the kind of that held worlds in its curve. "Indeed."

With that, she was gone.

After the door closed behind her, he blew a kiss to the shadow lingering in the doorway.

One for the road, whatever shape it might take.

Chapter Text

Joyous love seemed to me, the while he held my heart within his hands,
And in his arms, my lady lay asleep, wrapped in a veil.

He woke her then, and trembling and obedient, she ate that burning heart out of his hand;
Weeping, I saw him then depart from me.

Dante Aligheri, first sonnet, "La Vita Nuova

---

Most days, Hector would've let the rain lull him, a rhythmic sedative against Ministry static.

But this afternoon the storm seemed intent on heckling him from beyond the pane.

Every drop a private joke at his expense.

At lunch, he'd sent Morganach a memo.

2:00. Meeting Room A.

Chosen for its size and the way the light stripped color from everything: a room for interrogation drills that trained people to sweat.

He sat, back straight. Thumb pressed hard into the tab of the file Pete had brought, priority one.

She arrived with that notebook, her talisman. Always the same battered thing, corners foxed, spine softened by years being thumbed.

Setting it down, neat, like she actually meant to take notes. As if he were about to drone out points for the record, minutes to catch in her brisk, perfect hand.

Wondering if she'd write shit as he slid Sebastian Sallow's dossier across the desk.

Two sets of mugshots, each a diptych. Face forward. Turn. Ritual humiliation for the archives.

First, the arrest at fifteen. Face pale and defiant, eyes too knowing, chin set for a fight he'd already lost.

Then, the release. No expression, skin pulled taut over sharper bones. Height up, weight down in the slow arithmetic of deprivation. 

Wand, cedar, eleven inches, dragon heartstring, reasonably supple.

Nothing of note in his pockets, no guardian to collect it anyway.

Murder, first degree, by use of Killing Curse. 

The eyewitnesses, whose accounts had rendered a trial unnecessary, had been minors too. These youths with now- redacted names had guaranteed the next line:

Life sentence. 

Until that stupid fucking order by that old gasbag Spavin and his bleeding heart persona required they add:

Commuted 05/1896 [see attachment]. 

The signature on the commutation page was oily, a flourish more for press than parchment.

A decision, stamped and countersigned, that'd dropped him conveniently into Cara's radius. 

Hector waited for her to touch the photographs, search for meaning in Sallow's eyes. But she didn't.

Perhaps because she'd already mapped every contour of his face? Maybe the body too.

So after letting the silence stretch, the Chief spoke the line he'd practiced for her alone.

"So, you're working with criminals now."

She didn't so much as twitch. "Released and expunged private citizens, yes."

He nearly scoffed. Cara had rehearsed too, no question.

While Hector knew the day-to-day processes only in fragments, snippets filched from the others… if the basics were his only cudgel, he'd raise it.

"Is he deputized?"

Cara nodded, crossing her legs. Composure bordering on insolence. "Yes. I'll include a copy of the form in my next report."

If she hadn't sorted that, he could have made a spectacle of it, put her on record.

But she was always just ahead, just out of reach.

Fine.

Hector thumbed the lever on his chair, letting it ratchet him higher.

"You're responsible for everything he does."

Her voice was cool, irreverent. "That's what deputizing entails, yes. We learn that in the Academy."

A barb. He tried to let it slide, but it caught.

Having arrived by way of endorsement and handshakes, Hector had been spared the Academy's boot camp and gray mornings.

With the strings he'd pulled, the mud, sweat, and memorization hadn't been necessary.

The others didn't know. He couldn't recall if he'd shared it with her.

And if he had, she'd better not repeat it.

"I'm aware. But I want you to be mindful of how you conduct yourself. If he's your deputy, fraternization is off the table."

Though he waited for the crack, the recoil, she only narrowed her eyes. The look a blade smoothed on strop.

"Why would you say that, Hector?"

He opened her folder. Reports thick as a novella, spreading like cards.

Having read the lot last night, a decanter's shadow on his thigh, vineyard lines blurring outside the window… no need to consult them, not really.

The gesture was for her.

"Well, just what I've realized is possible with all your field work. Occasionally you've got hours clocked at night. Overnight, even. I know emotions can run high."

She met him head on, the ghost of a smile gone before it could form.

"What high emotions in the field have you ever experienced? Just for my own edification."

His wand pulling the file's closure shut with a clean snap. "Please. You know what I mean."

She did.

The air in the glass room was tight. Harsh light picking out the pallor of her hair as she leaned back, eyes skimming the ceiling.

Lips pursing before she murmured:

"Hector, what is it with you. I told you to go home, I let it all lie. What was so wrong about that?"

Despite the gnawing, lubricious flower of shame casting roots in his chest and stomach, Hector let out a bark of a laugh.

"You've met Nanette. I don't maintain any interest in street rat orphans who made up their own names. Don't know why you'd even say that. And none of this first name basis. Call me Chief."

Just for the absolute barest second, he saw it; a flicker, a crack, before her face sealed over.

He'd found the nerve, pressed until it sang.

It'd been rapid fire, but all-inclusive. Everything he'd prepared in the event she ever pinned him, and more.

Satisfaction flashed.

Good-hearted Nanette would hate the cruelty. She'd turn away, mouth pressed tight. But would be pleased by the drawn boundary itself.

That he'd reminded Cara of the yawning chasm between her place and where he stood.

She got to her feet, chair scraping, collected her notebook.

When she spoke, the delay was a seam he could trace with his tongue. He'd marked her, even if only for a heartbeat.

Before she got that feminist facade back in place. 

"Just checking. We're meant to communicate our concerns to you, all of us."

Departmental boilerplate, lacquered with the gloss of official memoranda. Returned like a signed receipt.

He steepled his fingers together, sat back. "Indeed you are, Officer."

"Is that all then, Chief?"

Again with that sharp tongue.

"That's all. Keep your reports coming, and omit nothing."

Silently he watched her shape shift through the glass toward the bullpen, stride rigid, all efficiency and bone.

The kind of walk that dared you to follow, knowing you wouldn't.

Toying with his quill, twisting until the barbs unraveled, feather splaying apart beneath his thumb.

Normally, her disregard, that pointed exit without so much as a nod, would've needled him.

But today, he could replay that flicker of pain.

Let it fill him, slow and thick, satisfaction settling deep.

Over the edge of the parchment, Cara heard Sebastian's words reverberate, saw a peripheral blur of his pacing.

"I mean, can you even believe that?"

Rereading the words, she felt something she'd considered before, confirmed right now.

These Poachers were far less organized than they seemed.

There was no grand plan to uncover; what they'd seen was all that existed.

Laird, fresh from Azkaban and wild with deferred appetites, had never meant to build anything to last. Just to tear through the world and leave it smoking behind him.

Getting inside their ranks had been less an act of subterfuge than of gravity. The whole thing sucked them in, easy as falling.

And now the ground was shifting faster than they could brace for.

Sebastian's pacing had a nervous, animal energy to it, each pass by the window leaving behind a faint heat in the air.

His voice, sudden and direct, cut through her reverie.

"I didn't say anything to Poppy. She must've decided to join them on her own."

"That has to be it," she answered, not looking up. Her voice felt like a stone dropped into a well. No splash, just swallowed by distance. "I haven't talked to her since the gala."

He stopped, finally, folding down in front of the battered coffee table.

A dirty mug of old coffee sat in front of him. Chipped, cold, the ghost of Cara's morning still pressed into the porcelain.

Staring at it, head bowed:

"Me, and Mustache? That's where the authority stops now? I feel like this is both promising and alarming."

Cara let her eyes lose focus, trailing the condensation trickling down the glass.

Part of her wanted Sebastian quit being a barometer for the tension. Still himself and let the room fill with quiet.

But there was something to envy in that. How he let his nerves run, never allowing discomfort to calcify into paralysis.

While she herself felt a drag around her ankles. A slow, sucking pull.

"I'm going to have to submit all my notes now, open the case formally."

"You're shaking," Sebastian murmured. He took the letter back and she watched his face. Unspooling, then winding tight again, cataloguing every flicker of her. "Why now?"

But Cara pivoted away from his scrutiny, fingers seeking the button at her collar, fumbling her Auror's hat loose.

Her hair snagged, but she tugged it free, awakened by the static. Relinquishing it to the crooked hat tree by the door and remaining rooted there.

In her gut sitting would be akin to sinning, somehow.

"You're not the only one with news. Hector confronted me about working with you. He can't do anything about it, since you're deputized by me, but he's… distinctly not a fan."

Sebastian's lips thinned, jaw flexing. His hands balled in his lap, but he shrugged it off.

"I didn't think he would be. But Leander and the others are going to get involved, remember? Especially if Poppy's there on her own. You need to breathe."

Indeed. She hadn't noticed the shallow, rapid drag of her breath until he broke the circuit.

Hands raised like he could catch her pulse between his palms.

Her heart was a trapped bird. And his concern was a net both wanted and feared.

"It just… he was keen to remind me of everything I've felt shitty about."

Again, Cara saw Hector's fingers splayed, fanning out Sebastian's mugshots like he was displaying the winning hand in some unsavory game.

The memory didn't shame her.

Rather, it made her jaw ache with the deferred urge to spit, thick and glistening, in the Chief's face.

See it cling to the stubble on his cheek, drip slow and ugly down his collar. Watch the shock bloom in his eyes at the stink of her contempt.

But here in the present, Sebastian was staring at her.

"You can't let him get to you. We're still ahead of what anyone thought. Including you. And outside Poppy, no one knows—"

Once more she cut away from the warmth, the way he was trying to will her worries smaller.

Time to peel back a layer she'd been pressing down for days. "Ominis does."

The words knocked the color from Sebastian's face. He looked as if he'd been hit by a train.

"Ominis? How?"

"I had to tell him. He was in the catacomb that night."

He crossed his arms, thumb digging into the sleeve as he looked up. As if the rafters would drop some scrap of reason.

"Damn. I knew something had happened in there, but… did he threaten you?"

"No." Her voice, almost shy. "He's a thief, a big one. Life sentence level. But he has information on Mulciber."

Sebastian sucked his teeth. Arms dropping as he paced, exhaling hard enough to fog the window.

"So you're upset because Hector is being a bitter bitch, which isn't new, and because apparently Ominis of all people might be able to help us."

Cara wished for the ease that'd let her roll her eyes, turn the moment sideways and laugh with him.

"Sebastian, come on."

He halted, mouth tipping wry, the apology half-formed but stubborn in his posture:

"I'm just saying, I understand it's a lot, but looking at the big picture, we're at a net positive. For the moment."

A bit of tense banter later, they sat on their knees at the coffee table. Two glasses and a bottle now fixtures in the half-lit room.

Sebastian's head rested in his hand. The heel of his palm digging into his brow, as if that could press the confusion out.

"So, Ominis is some sort of vigilante? How'd you not pick up on that before?"

A sigh grinding out of her. Fatigue, resignation, the weight of too many thoughts circling the same track.

Not the first time she'd asked herself this, Sebastian could tell. Maybe not even the tenth.

"I should've. With the tailored clothes, and all the traveling. He said himself that I must've known. But we usually talked about me, which… I suppose makes more sense now." 

He shook his head. Gave a wave, to dismiss her guilt before it could harden.

"I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it, too. Always been a paragon of morals, that one."

But as the words echoed, memory drifted alongside them.

The abrupt pivots in conversation anytime futures or ambitions came up. Ominis' half-smiles, his sidelong glances.

How easy it was, in hindsight, to mistake anxiety for shyness.

Yes, the only dream his best friend had ever dared hang his hat on was one he'd shared with Sebastian and Anne.

A bookshop in Hogsmeade. Far from Solomon, far from any Gaunt drama.

Just three musketeers in golden window-light, running their hands across spines and dust jackets.

His voice came back, light and unbothered. Over treacle tart in the Great Hall. Fork wagging between thumb and forefinger.

"Perhaps I could operate the till, give the occasional recommendation to the indecisive."

And for a moment, they'd all believed it could be that simple, Anne's laughter ringing out like it could ward off anything.

Sebastian could almost smell the marzipan, see the candlelight flickering on Ominis' pale hands.

He blinked, the ache sharper than he expected, then reached for the bottlle. Glugging a slow, viscous braid into the glass. 

Beyond which he met Cara's gaze, heart thudding. Knowing he was about to step off a ledge, but unable to stop himself:

"What exactly happened in Buckinghamshire? If we're uncovering secrets, you should tell me that story."

But Cara didn't flinch.

She tipped the bottle, watched wine coil into her own glass. Then shut her eyes, as if she had to buffer the memory before it surfaced.

"We were investigating these brothers, working together. They'd decided to 'infiltrate a family of Muggles,' by pretending to be vagrants. We didn't know if they planned to rob them, kill them… anyway."

Her fingers stayed curled around the bowl of her glass, thumb rubbing at the rim.

"The Muggle Minister told Spavin, who then warned Hector, that we were to use caution. Apparently these people's land was on top of a group of landmines, from some old war. To do with their royals."

Sebastian let the silence stretch, the way you do when someone needs to build their own bridge to the hard part.

He watched her mouth. Between sentences, she bit the corner of her lip, like the tale tasted bitter, and she needed to keep it off her tongue.

"I got the case after Mulciber Junior didn't want to be the lead. He stayed on the squad, he and Nott. Then Hector added Edwin Noke. I think he figured, he'd keep those two in line better than I could."

This part was clinical, almost nostalgic. A signal of an impasse where tension would truly pick up as Cara took in a long but quiet breath, looking at the blackness beyond the window.

"The day came where we were to confront our marks, dressed as Muggle constables. Meant to have our wands away, until we got them to another location, in our world."

"But?"

"But, Nott and Mulciber decided Spavin worried for nothing, since Muggles aren't smart enough to detonate things properly. It was a joke at first, that they could prove that and scare the brothers out at the same time.

"I told them if they did that I'd report it. Which I realize now just egged them on. So… Mulciber counted down, and Nott cast Bombarda at their chicken coop."

He could feel the story coiling up inside his gut.

"And then the mines went off?"

"Like dominoes. East, away from the house. But Noke was still securing the perimeter. I looked away at first. Three blasts in, his intestines fell out. He looked at me… I used the Killing Curse."

Now she drained her glass, not caring to look at his reaction. It was the first time she'd let the story out, loosed it into the air not sanctioned by the Ministry.

Sebastian could feel her knee bouncing under the table. The aftershock of reliving it, moving through her in waves.

Then she capped it off with a wry look, her eyes empty.

"The other two ran, of course, Apparated. The rest is in the Prophet."

He took a long swallow. The burn in his throat was almost welcome, something to mark this moment as real, shared.

So that was the carnage that had made her a black sheep among the Ministry's wolves.

The deadly force had been her own, as a mercy to a man already dying a gruesome death.

Though he hadn't expected so much blood, the rot at the center of it all wasn't news.

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged, voice thin. "No, it's… nothing I can do now."

The table between them: just oak and chipped varnish, but it felt like an altar, both of them free to lay out offerings.

The visceral nature of her story hanging in the air made Sebastian realize he had one of his own.

He swallowed.

"Once, some Ministry officials came to tour the prison. So the guards set to cleaning it, and packed us all in a big holding cell down below. More like a pit, really. Two men got in a disagreement; I don't remember what about.

"There were stone benches cast into the floor. In the end, a few of them ganged up, forced him to bite one. And… a stomp was all it took. No wands needed."

Sebastian remembered the brains: pink-gray, shredded and strung across the bench, looking almost like insulation or melted sweets.

Until you saw the teeth embedded in the folds and realized what was left wasn't a person anymore.

Cara's eyes were closed, lips twisted back with revulsion and understanding.

"I see."

The timing came to him now, with a jolt. "I'd been in there maybe a month."

That must've been it. The day he'd decided there were two kinds of men in that place: those who made friends, and those who got ground into the stone.

He'd chosen neither. Needling only the guards. Even that, he knew now, had been asinine.

A lingering truth became even heavier: Sebastian was alive only because luck had a soft spot for fools and survivors.

Still hadn't figured out which he was.

Then Cara's hand slapped the table, startling him. Their knees knocked beneath it, making his glass wobble, splash red onto his knuckles. She barely noticed.

"I've just realized something."

"What's that?"

"If I'd… if I'd lied to protect the others, or… covered it up somehow, like Hector wanted. The releases might never have happened."

He watched the understanding settle over her, the slow tectonic shift of guilt sloughing off, pride blooming in its place.

Though her eyes stayed fixed on her lap, oblivious to his gaze, he drank her in: every angle of her jaw, the tremor in her hands as they curled around the stem of her glass.

The way she seemed to be stitching herself back together over the battered table.

"I think it's time for another toast," Sebastian said, voice rough, heart thumping.

Wanting to honor the moment, give it weight. Even if he fumbled it.

"To you, for finally forgiving yourself for doing the right things. And to me, for… well, I don't know."

"For being you," Cara shot back. No waver, no hesitation. Just nailing him to the spot with a look that stripped the armor off his bones.

Her eyes were wide open now, and there was something fierce and damningly lovely about the way she looked at him.

Like she was seeing all the way through.

The words made his chest cinch tight, his lips break open into a crooked, busted grin. "Sure."

He lifted his glass, the motion a little wild. Grin spreading as a memory sparked behind his eyes, perfect and inevitable:

"To kindred spirits."

Their glasses met midair, the oldest kind of spell.

For a half-second, everything ugly and unfinished inside him went quiet. The world was reduced to Cara's eyes, the heat in his chest, the taste of wine on his tongue.

Sweet, sharp, and entirely earned.

It happened in a push.

Sebastian landed on her couch, eyes wide. Caught mid-breath, freckles blurred, the bridge of his nose creased.

"Wh…?"

She shook her head, heat crawling up her collar, burning at her throat.

Certainty was a foreign thing, but all she could feel was the pulse of it: the warmth, the way his gaze moved over her, restless and wanting and entirely clear.

No more masks tonight, skeletal or otherwise.

Her legs quaked as she climbed onto his lap, watching his lips twitch.

Sebastian's eyes glimmered in the little light the moon was letting in.

His voice was low, yet solid. "Is this really happening?"

Cara took a deep breath. "Don't you want—"

"Listen." His eyes shuttered briefly, breath hitching; a stutter born not of doubt, but the weight of a truth uncovered: "I don't think I've ever wanted anything more."

Her fingers fumbled with buttons, slow against the weight of the moment.

Along the way, she caught every shadow and ring in his irises: the winding crypts that seemed to pull her in, the way light fractured in those dark pools.

The buttons might've tugged at her patience, but the fire in his gaze kept her rooted, unshaken.

Fortunately, her brassiere had only one clasp, in the front.

Those irises flicked down. His pupils ballooned, swallowing the dim light.

A groan, broken. "Cara…"

"Please…"

With that, Sebastian leaned and caught one in his mouth.

It felt surreal, slow motion.

Saliva slicked the skin between them, dripping slow and warm, the wet sounds of lips and suction echoing in the quiet.

Even as he gave a sharp nip, tugged it with his teeth… that tongue, glistening under the half-light, moved with bizarre innocence.

"I… need…"

"Me too," Sebastian breathed against the muffle of her breast.

The pace picked up. His lips swelled, thickening with the wet rhythm as he drew each breast deeper, past the nipple alone.

Both of their lashes fanning as his head swiveled from one aching bud to the other.

Biting harder, back and forth, unable to choose before laving both at once. Flesh crushed together and trembling beneath his hot palms.

She could barely breathe. Gasps swallowed by the relentless tug and taste of his mouth.

All the while, a motion down below grew quicker: his hips. A promise she couldn't deny.

Feeling herself clench with each pass of clothed girth, its press hot and heavy and him.

Cara groaned as she bore down, matching the desperate rhythm of his jerking hips. Feeling his groans get deeper, longer, between prickling kisses on her tits.

It was going to happen. She'd be the brave one to pull herself off, put her feet on the floor.

Watching his eyes fly open, nipple sliding from between those gasping lips as her hands shuddered down to her zipper, working her slacks off.

"Sebastian."

"Cara." His brow creasing and jumping as he hurried at his own confines, eyes never leaving hers over that clinking belt.

In a rustle of fabric, his cock dropped out, heavy and leaking. He groaned, glancing down.

Teeth scraping his lip as she let her underwear drop to the floor.

"Now," she murmured.

That single, breathless plea tore through the silence, setting something wild loose in Sebastian's chest.

A low, guttural sound followed it as his hands gripped her hips.

In one smooth motion, shifting them, settling between her parted thighs like a man who knew exactly where he belonged.

His eyes drank her in: the slick shine of her skin, the soft swell of her breasts rising and falling with each breath.

The curve of her hip, pressing into the worn cushions. Her gorgeous slit, wet and waiting. Smooth folds catching the faint light, just enough to invite him deeper.

There was a quiet poetry in the way he took her in, as if each detail was a secret to be savored, a stanza in a dark, unfolding poem.

He needed to kiss her, one hand coming up to caress her cheek. The other slid down, closing around his cock.

Over and over he brushed the head along her swollen heat, painting himself with the taste of her, marking the connection with every slick pull.

When he finally pressed forward, the wet, clutching heat wrapped around him so tight it stole his breath.

His head fell back, eyes fluttering closed as he rasped, "Fuck, Cara."

"It's okay," she murmured in a pant.

Sebastian began to move, hips rolling forward in a rhythm that asked and answered all at once.

His gaze never wavered, locked on her face.

Seeing eyes wide, burning fierce and bright with hunger.

A damp sigh slipped from her lips, swelling into a mounting cry as the heat between them thickened.

Her body arching, pulling him deeper inside.

"It's more than okay," he grunted, burying his face in the hollow of her neck, tasting the sharp salt and warm skin beneath his breath.

Cara's moan was low and full, a shudder rolling through her as she pressed her head back against the armrest. Cheek heavy against the tangled mess of his hair.

Sebastian groaned with her, a slow sound that rattled his chest. Every nerve sang as he drove harder, hips snapping faster.

The motion easy and sure because she was so, so wet. Soaked and utterly his.

His hand slid down her thigh, fingers tightening until his knuckles blanched, hauling her leg higher on his hip to open her wider.

Exposing every fold, every pink twitch beneath his touch.

"Yes, just like that," she cried out, the muscles in her legs trembling with each pounding stroke.

"Yeah?" he breathed.

Cara's eyes traced the seam where their bodies met. Shiny in the fevered light, flushed like ripe fruit beneath the wet, aching slap.

Then her gaze snapped up, wild and burning, locking onto his.

"More," she panted, voice thick with need. "I… need…"

Sebastian didn't need words. He knew. The same hunger burned in him.

"More indeed." A soft growl of agreement. "Take all of me." His hips moved in a hungry circle, grinding deep and slow. "I'm… you're…"

If he hadn't known before, he knew now—how fiercely he loved her, how completely.

Cara's voice climbed, panting twisting into whining, eyes locked on his as her hips jerked back against him. Needy and searching, slick skin sliding with hunger.

"You feel so good… I… hmm… ahhh…"

Fuck. Her moans crashed through him like thunder. It was her, all her. Every gasp, every shudder pulling him apart and holding him tight.

The ache to possess her, to be claimed by her, twisted sharp and sweet. A torment that wouldn't end here.

"I'm falling for you," he gasped, lips pressed hard against the curve of her neck, breath ragged. "So… hard…"

Cara's leg shook against him, a live wire pulsing with need. "Me too, I'm… I want to…"

Her voice cracking, eyes shuttering tight then bursting open again, over and over.

A groan rumbled from deep inside her, deep at first, a heavy coil winding tight.

It rose until it broke free, spilling over her lips as a high note thick with telltale, trembling promise.

"Do it," he urged, each word driving a sharp thrust deeper inside her. "I've got you. Give it to me."

One hand tangled in her hair, pulling her close; the other slid down, pressing firm into the small of her back, urging her nearer, deeper. His cock traced slow, searing kisses along her slick walls.

The couch creaked, a wood groaning witness to their collision.

"Please," he breathed.

Hot exhales stuttered against his mouth, quiet and ragged as she rode it out, relief and release pulling her under.

Then, suddenly, her eyes snapped open: wet, glazed, wild. Locking onto his with a feral clarity that made the world tilt.

In that flash, everything went white.

He vanished into her, lost and found all at once.

They lay tangled in heavy breaths, the space around them thick and pulsing, time folding in on itself.

Though his hips twitched with lingering sparks, Sebastian's lips traced fevered kisses along the planes of her face, the curve of her neck, the slope of her shoulders.

Wherever his reach found her.

"I… are you…" he murmured, voice cracked and raw between deep breathe. "I need to know you're okay."

Her smile came slow, fragile, breaking through sweat-darkened skin, forehead creased.

"I'm hungry."

London: swollen, lurching, greedy for strangers.

Hector watched the city on a Saturday morning, how its streets frothed with travelers, both magical and not.

The air growing congested with thick, provincial breath even before sunrise.

There was nothing refined in the way the city opened its mouth to visitors, gulping down accents, shoes, cheap perfume.

He found himself accosted by a pair of tourists: pink-fingered, puffed with countryside cheer. Demanding recommendations as if he were a living brochure.

Had given them a list, not out of courtesy, but to be rid of them.

There was one homebody left in his world: Peter Mulciber, Junior.

A man who stayed cocooned in his flat except when hunger or thirst drove him out. Or the need to chase women through the city's dusk and drag them back to his place, where he could marinate in wine and the dust of old books.

Or so Hector guessed.

These days, no one really knew how Pete spent his time, only that he'd grown allergic to daylight. Getting him to the last vineyard party had been like pulling teeth.

And lately, his communication amounted to nothing but sideways vagueness about his father's business. Hector, for his part, had stopped reaching out for anything but work.

But Pete had at least passed along what he needed from Records, even if perfunctorily.

That entitled him to an olive branch, however wilted. Even if it was more inertia than affection.

Besides, Nanette was gone, off sailing with her old finishing school friends; women who could out-talk a parliament.

Officer Mulciber lived on the fourth floor. Hector had debated writing first, but he wanted his friend to be surprised to see him, grateful for the impulse.

He pressed his wand against the call box. "Pete, it's me. Care for some tea? I know we haven't talked a lot lately."

The box only offered static. The light on the panel wasn't solidly lit; it blinked, proof the system worked, not that anyone was home. But being ignored felt more probable.

Hector pressed on, voice softening, a tone he despised in himself.

"Are you cross with me? I've been busy, so I'm sorry if I've been standoffish."

Silence. Only the vague mewl of a cat, awakened by the voice on the wall.

Perhaps Pete had ventured out into the world.

No matter. Hector would corner him on Monday at the office. By tonight, Nanette would be back, the world righted.

Stepping into the lift, the air soured by bleach and last night's leftovers. Pressing the button for the ground floor, straightening his tie, catching his own reflection in the steel.

Older, pinched, not quite himself.

He stopped the lift early.

There was no sense in letting the trip dissolve into nothing, Hector told himself, though the thought surfaced less as purpose than reflex, a way of refusing the void left by Pete.

And he could think of another shut in who was overdue.

Morganach. Always at home, always alone, always with something to prove.

He thought of her sharpness yesterday. How she'd used their three dates as both shield and weapon.

The memory smarted, but it also gave him a rationale: perhaps, if he knocked now, she'd be willing to put down her sword.

Maybe he would, too, for a breath.

Knocking in a cadence intended to be both friendly and abrupt. "Officer Morganach."

The call box indicator flashed solid green, faster than it ever had before, as if his arrival tripped some hidden wire in the flat's circuitry.

He waited, pulse ticking upward in the hush, before a man's voice greeted him through the speaker.

"Chief Fawley, I presume?"

Hector straightened, shoulders aligning as he recalled, with a prickling irritation, the one-way gaze of the peephole.

"This is the Chief, yes. Who am I speaking to?"

A laugh threaded through the reply. Easy, charismatic, but carrying something coiled and watchful beneath:

"Just a friend. What do you need with Cara at six in the morning on a Saturday? I'll be honest—she's told me you've shown up here before. So, is the Auror Office on fire, or…?"

It was the sort of mischievous, knowing voice that made Hector's ass itch. The shape of this man began to coalesce in his mind: a convict's easy swagger, the kind of grin that waits for you to blink.

"I don't have to give a civilian a reason for calling on one of my Officers."

Even as he said it, Hector's mind flickered back to the clutter on his desk: the freckled mugshots, the mouth made of trouble.

The man behind the door replied, almost amiably, "Well, I suppose that's fair enough—"

Then came a scuffle, soft but unmistakable, the kind of gentle struggle that belonged to intimacy rather than threat; the two of them wrestling in front of the call box.

In the pause, Hector remembered who he was supposed to be, felt the ceremonial weight of his title settle across his shoulders.

He could lean on the pretense of concern. A burglar, an unsavory visitor. Regain a measure of ground lost to their intimacy.

This man was nothing and no one. A convict with a two-bit grin.

Pressing his wand to the lens, "Enough. Is the Officer inside, or must I break down the door to confirm her safety?"

More scuffle behind the door. Fabric brushing, a muffled exchange, the suggestion of bodies leaning together.

Then Cara's voice, clear but tightly measured:

"Hello, Chief. I'm fine. I turned in my report, with all the original details restored, before I left yesterday. Is that why you're here? I made sure it was on your desk."

Had she?

He found he couldn't recall.

After his meeting with Cara on Friday, everything else had become pale and peripheral. The world had shrunk down to the edge of a fleeting victory, the brief pleasure of seeing her unsettled.

The Chief had left early. Indulged himself with an extra helping of crisps at a corner shop alone, savoring salt and vinegar and the echo of triumph. A king in exile.

Before trailing after Nanette through the anonymous maze of a furniture store.

He could have pressed her further. Could have named Sallow, made the unspoken explicit. The opportunity was there, sharp and tempting.

But silence radiated from the box; thick, anticipatory silence, the kind that waited for a misstep.

"I'll take a look at it. Be early Monday."

She came back spritely and stiff. "Okay. Have a good weekend, Chief."

He ground his teeth, stepped out of the callbox's gaze, shifting off to the side, but the green indicator stayed lit.

There was a murmur from the man, low and private, followed by Cara's laughter, snorting and unguarded, before it died.

Whatever.

Down in the courtyard, he looked up at the sweep of windows on her floor.

Nothing to see, but he could feel it: somewhere behind those panes he was already being carved apart in absentia, authority unraveling in their private theater of splayed laughter.

There'd be time enough, he told himself, to put them both where they belonged.

Separately.

Chapter Text

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

Sylvia Plath

To be able to get into the Auror Office at 4:30 am, Cara had to clear many dozens of points of wand verification.

Each appeared painted in midair with the blackest ink: a wand held in an anonymous fist tight with implication, flanked by blinking question marks. 

Noir sigils, floating in the stale office gloom.

In daylight there were only two such checkpoints: the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at large, and the Auror Office itself. Any interlopers between them easily spotted.

But after nightfall they multiplied. Like heads on a hydra, each new sibling waiting vigilantly to either sing a dirge or disappear. Present the wrong wand, the Chief's and Minister's would wail in unison.

Holding up her arm for each, annoyed but prepared, Cara passively catalogued where they seemed to occur more often. Her lips pursed.

Somewhere near the fifteenth scan, her mind wandered to what they all blearily acknowledged: wands could be stolen, could pass through generations, could be obliterated, could betray. The system was only as good as it was paranoid. 

She imagined solutions, but none seemed likely to loosen the Wizengamot's purse strings. As long as the presumption of safety could be bought at yesterday's price, inertia would reign. 

At night the bullpen looked almost gentle: wide gaps between desks, arched windows casting blue lattices across the floor, as if moonbeams could make the place holy.

Hector's door, locked beneath its frosting, showed the office's final blinking symbol as she knelt.

Cara sighed. Sliding the wire-bound case file from her leather bag and feeling her shoulder rejoice. 

Under the door it went. No, not slid; flung, the way one throws a stone hoping for a ripple, knowing a splash is just as likely. 

By the time Hector arrived and found it, he'd admit, at least to himself, that she'd fulfilled her end.

This was not surrender. It was a drawing of lines.

Even setting aside his visits to her flat, he'd made it clear. There were things he reserved only for her, indignities never visited on the others.

Forgiveness had never been possible. But it was indeed time they both did their jobs. 

In her mind, Cara saw Sebastian's frame filling her doorway, unmoved, broad-shouldered. 

When he'd forced a part of Hector to melt into protocol and near servility. Made him remember his power was borrowed, and at times subject to the presence of someone he might have to respect.

Or perhaps it was simply that a man, any man, was owed deference she could never command. 

Either way, under that third gaze, he'd transformed into the institution's ideal: neutral, undistinguished, safe. As though the cruelty had always been a misunderstanding.

As if give my regards to whomever you're fucking didn't linger, bitter and ridiculous.

As if when they'd bantered once upon a pity date, Hector hadn't said, head in his hand, the only women who don't orgasm are the ones that try to act like men.

So while none of this was a surprise, seeing it unfold and contrast in situ had validated her, in some bittersweet way.

The Chief had not been made an opportunist by the system. The system was just illuminating him from behind. Throwing his quivering shadow on the wall as it grew long and dark.

It had only taken him a year to lose control. After all, he lived draped in borrowed authority. A night watchman, trembling before the wrong ghosts. 

But she wouldn't let herself stand among them anymore if she could help it.

Not when there were people her own size to pick on.

Hector lingered at the bullpen's edge, his posture stiff. With so few out in the field, the doorway framed him oddly. Less a leader, more a visitor in a foreign land.

Today the place had a pulse: rolling necks, knuckles pressed into temples, the stretch of shoulders.

Warm air perfumed with bodies and burnt coffee, shimmering in a low current of fatigue.

His eyes drifted across the desks, each clustered in pairs: one shoulder pressed against the wall, the other free in the open. They all faced his office, but each were their own small, isolated worlds.

All the shared walls had been claimed, plastered with a haphazard collage of photographs, yellowed clippings, and curling edges held down by peeling tape.

Gauche, of course, but he supposed, necessary.

Only Mulciber Junior and Morganach's desk cluster stood apart, their walls untouched by the clutter that claimed the rest.

Nott's jaw jutted as he crunched on toast. His beard had grown unruly, wiry as moss on stone; had he even had one at the gala?

The next clump had switched seats again. Abbott perched on a desk's edge, one knee bouncing; Bode bent over a glowing diagram, wand tracing spectral lines, lips moving in silence.

Hector's gaze slid back to Mulciber.

Paperwork had him locked in, sleeve rolled, ink staining his hand. A muscle in his cheek ticking with each new line scribbled.

And after three hours with his nose buried in Morganach's new-and-improved case file, her empty chair felt both like a relief and a wound.

"Pete."

His eyes lifted, mouth twisting into a wry line.

"Chief Fawley."

Back to scribbling.

The coffee at his elbow had formed a skin; left hand hovering near the mug, fingers splayed but never quite touching. Perhaps a gentle boundary. Hector filled the space with a cough, thumb skating over a nearby file's edge.

"Didn't you have something you wanted to discuss with me?"

Without looking up, he dipped his quill again.

"Not currently, no. What I brought up before is no longer your concern." Silence hung heavy before he added, "Right now, I'm about to go into the field for my Ipswich case. I'll make sure you're copied on it."

Hector frowned. Since when did anyone but Morganach respond in a way so dutifully cold?

Realization carving lines into his face: this was a dismissal. Very well. Though the distance between them yawned, he'd be the one to reach across that chasm and sleep better at night for it.

"I appreciate that. By the way, I stopped by your flat over the weekend, but you weren't in. I must've just missed you."

Mulciber waved his wand. The parchment leapt into a crisp stack, the bottom sheet snapping hard against the desk.

"Maybe so. I'm sorry about that."

Not a flicker of apology in his eyes, just the glaze of a man done talking.

A pale flash crested the nearest divider. Morganach.

She rounded the corner, shoulders taut, gaze nailed to the floor.

Hector pivoted on his heel. Loafers creaking as he cut across her path, screaming echoes on polished wood.

Behind the crisp click of the office door shutting, the pulse of the bullpen dimmed at last. Alone, he caught a scuff on his shoe. Wand hand reflexively straightening the crease with a hiss.

Fingers lingering a moment in the air before dropping to his desk, both palms hard against the grain. Breath steadying in long, low pulls.

When his gaze lifted to the report, it was dull, half-lidded, heavy.

Sebastian was knackered from all the tilling. Magic or not, the ache had settled into his bones.

"Get a look at this long hair on the counter," Cara remarked as she approached, catching him mid-boot at the doorway.

Yet, he was immediately drawn, synapses firing, into the exchange. 

Moving in, plucking the hair from her hand, already ready to lay claim with a crooked grin.

…if he hadn't noticed her eyes flicking to his hand as he tucked a chunk of sweaty sideburn behind his ear. Or her twinkle of certainty that followed. 

He felt a smile gather at the corner of his lips, something playful and prickly rising inside him.

"Could be either of ours. Your hair is far longer, obviously." 

"My hair is blonde," Cara declared, abrupt as a blade as her hand found her nape. Fingers worrying a lock tangled by July, presenting it aloft as proof, almost absently.

Sebastian's inner child stirred, eyes narrowing as if the ceiling might offer some Solomonic wisdom.

"Is it? I'd say it's between blonde and brown."

Cara smiled tautly and left through the front door he'd just left open.

For what, he couldn't guess; she had no business out there, no chores to chase. She barely cleaned her own flat. 

"Blonde hair is a spectrum," her soft mutter in the distance.

"What's that?" he asked at a mock-innocent volume, meant to travel across the threshold and beyond. 

The bleat of a sheep swept in from outside, the kind of timing only the countryside affords. Managing to underscore both Cara's victory and her distraction.

He understood: she'd taken the last word without lingering for applause.

Satisfied, or something close to it, Sebastian let himself sink into the chair. A long breath filling, stretching his chest as he picked up a spoon over stew, but only took a few bites.

With fatigue now allowed to settle back in, appetite was a casualty to anticipation. The reason was elemental: Ominis.

The thought of seeing him again scraped more than anything the Poachers could conjure.

He knew that whatever he felt about his best friend's fate, it was outdone atom for atom by the guilt the other felt for turning him in. In fact, the symmetry was almost obscene: the same hand once pointed in accusation, reaching into darkness of a different kind.

A matter of chance.

For Sebastian, it'd felt, correctly, like his odds of imprisonment had gone from fifty to one hundred percent as Ominis walked up those stairs beside Cara in Black's office.

Even as he kept an Auror close and did her favors, Ominis' chance of capture had stayed at zero.

The cloak and dagger he was pulling off, without the benefit of sight for that matter, was the result of a grown man's self-control, of his precise and inarguable intent.

A matter of time.

If there was any humor left here, it was the kind that curdled in the gut. Sour, private, better left untasted. 

But in his mind, a grim comfort: neither of them could mount a moral high ground that'd long since eroded underfoot, leaving only the memory of what it had felt like to stand apart.

Time and chance, equaled out. And in his chest lingered the possibility that more might be waiting if he dared reach for it. 

A stubborn and reckless instinct that, when it came to Cara, had served him better than he'd ever dreamed.

But in the end, Sebastian understood. For now, Ominis was coming to help her as well as himself.

The two men were once again moving in a neutral parallel, if not quite in step. Choreography mastered in corridors, never unlearned.

Still, he felt restless.

"Sheep nipped me," Cara announced, reappearing in the doorway. Vexed but animated. As if the bite had charged rather than deterred her. "But they've got a ton of feed. Think they thought I wanted some."

She lingered there, overall tense but for her face. More relaxed than he'd seen it in a while.

Tired in that proportionately shadowed, unique way: a woman wearing exhaustion as a fact of life she wouldn't try to hide. An Auror to the end, a good one. 

Sebastian, caught in the unlit corridor of her gaze, felt the world hold its breath. The stew cooling, spoon suspended midair.

He'd once been afraid: to witness her nakedness would shatter him, would make every look afterward a slow striptease he’d never recover from.

Then that night in her flat, in the narrow corridor of light across her body, he'd forgotten fear.

Now it was her face that undid him. What he wanted was the nakedness of her gaze, the kind of exposure that left a person seen without anyone looking away.

He’d first tasted it that night, and since then had become a student of its appearances in fleeting moments, like the glint of a coin at the bottom of a dark pool.

The memory of the creaking couch: not a wound but a living thing between them. A secret animal that sometimes rose up, pressing its muzzle into the present.

Clearing his throat:

"Perhaps our woolly friend just thought you looked tasty, had you considered that?" 

She passed him, smirk in place, plate in hand. A blade disguised as a woman.

"Sebastian, please." At the sink, clearing her plate and vanishing the remains.

Sitting up straighter, he pressed: "Now there's a set of words that I like. But did you, or did you not …consider your tastiness?"

Her shoulder blades jerked, betraying a current she tried to mask.

"Are we still talking of sheep?"

"I'm speaking as their representative, yes. Cheers." 

Cara didn't reply, just shook her arms, water scattering in an arc.

A gesture that felt, in its ordinariness, like the only answer he needed.

She made to turn back toward him.

But Sebastian dropped his spoon and rose.

"Stay there." 

Cara had clocked the empty bowl of stew on the table.

Now as she stood bent over the sink, ambushed and undone, she realized in realtime that there was only one sort of hunger Sebastian could tolerate.

Since their night together, she'd resolved herself to the idea of his appetite for her ending there.

Right now she was proven wrong, chin against the fauce, as he gobbled her like he'd been starved.

Sweat slick on his forehead, sliding in hot rivulets that pooled against the swell of her backside. One hand gripped the soft flesh of her ass.

The other: fingers pinching her mound, squeezing tight around the swollen folds his tongue lapped and wiggled against.

"I didn't get to do this… before, so…"

"Ahh, fuck," she gasped, body trembling as he dragged his tongue slow and filthy over her slit, teasing the burning ache with every pass.

A hot chuckle against her. "You want it too, my tongue inside your cunt?"

The phrasing made her forehead crinkle. Almost made her turn around. But—

"Sebastian, please… ooh."

Because he'd indeed slipped that tongue inside her. Flicking deep and hard, fucking her with greedy, wet strokes.

Cara's arms went limp against the counter, her ankles jerking with the rhythm, caught in the raw, filthy worship of his mouth. "Nnnngh."

He moaned low and hungry as he feasted:

"Mmm, emm, ummm." Teeth brushed over swollen lips, rough and teasing. "You're so wet, I love it."

His tongue slipped out, only to latch back on with hungry lips, sucking and pulling madly at her slit.

The hand at her mound pressed harder, fingers kneading and pulling her flesh apart, leaving nothing untouched, nothing unloved.

Her inner monologue disappeared.

An absence only known in the numbness of sleep or heavy drink, brought alive instead by this frantic, sweaty worship over the sink.

"Mmmhm," Cara whimpered, gut tightening. The kitchen faded, the blurring clang of pots and pans swallowed. As if that tongue hit them too. 

"Agreed," came Sebastian's muffled purr.

"I'm going to fall," she breathed in that voice unheard until moments like this. "Unless…"

Just like that, his hands relinquished their grip. His breath hitched, growing heavier. 

That sharp, sudden sound of trousers dropping to the floor echoing in the thick, humid air.

"Don't worry, I'm on my way." 

Then he was there. His cockhead, thick and swollen, pressing hard against the place she needed most.

Stretching her with a slow, deliberate pressure that stole her breath. His cheek resting against her shoulder as their eyes met.

"Hello, beautiful," he whispered, breath warm against her neck as her panting quickened, breath hitching and soft.

"Hi," Cara gasped back, tongue flicking lightly over her lips. 

"Cover your mouth or the whole hamlet will hear." Lips brushing her ear with a warning low and urgent as he pushed that hot, thick girth fully inside. "Oh, Cara. Cara, I couldn't wait anymore."

"It's… I… it's absolutely fine…"

Her hand shot up, slamming hard over her mouth just as a long, ragged whine tore from her. Choked, desperate, trembling beneath her palm. 

That first night had been a storm of skin and heat: the way his eyes burned into her, his arms holding her like a promise. 

The way his cock stretched and filled her now was different. Heavy, demanding, alive.

Every pulse, every drag of his hips sent a sweet burn deep inside her, a fire that coiled tight and stretched her wide at once.

She squeaked as he jerked his hips hard, pounding deeper and faster. 

"Oh god," Sebastian groaned, hands roaming her stomach, digging into soft flesh, thumbs tracing circles as he drove harder, firmer. "You're so sweet. I can hardly bear it." 

That voices thick with hunger and something softer beneath it: a raw, ragged passion. 

Her cunt was learning Sebastian eagerly now, muscles pulsing tight and warm, molding to every inch. 

She pressed her palm harder against her mouth, muffling the flood of moans spilling out.

His hands left her stomach, squeezed her hips. The distance between them stretching just enough for the wet, slick suck and pull of skin to make noise. 

Vanishing with each thrust, dragging tight in a rocking plunge. A greedy, hungry rhythm echoing through the tiny house. 

The teasing prickle of the fine hairs at the base of him, tickling the sensitive curve of her ass with every surge forward. 

A low, desperate whine slipping from Sebastian's lips. 

"I want to hear you," he gasped. "No more… hand." 

Her arm dropped away, leaving her moans free at last.

"Ahhhngh," into the open air, trembling as her deepest depths gave. Opened for him to press just right. "Sebastian, don't stop."

"I couldn't if I wanted to… and I don't," he breathed over her shoulder, thick and low, "especially not when you say my name like… that…"

"Pathetic, isn't it," she grunted, a sharp edge cutting through the heat.

"Please, I'm… I'm trying not to scream myself."

"You don't have to say that."

And as if the solution had been mutually discovered, they both craned their heads to kiss as they shook together over the counter. 

Both of them groaning, grinning, giving up control. 

Ominis had always moved like someone who'd grown up practicing his eulogy in the mirror.

Back straight, head held as if balancing a crown he never asked for.

His hair was longer. Ends slicked down just so at the suit collar. Tailored pinstripes proving the reality of the growth spurt he'd once predicted would make him taller than Sebastian.

The bearing of an aristocrat, the silent authority of a paterfamilias, the unmistakable presence of an old friend.

"Good evening." Measured as he stepped inside. "I can see there are as many chickens milling about as ever."

Sebastian, barely aware of his own body, took a moment to make way as the door closed.

"Hoping none of them pecked you this time?"

Ominis crossed to join Cara with a subdued chuckle. A figure who could've presided over any table, but belonged to this one.

"No, mercifully, though that's an amusing palate cleanser. I'd forgotten it even happened."

Sebastian hadn't. Anne's laughter ricocheting off stone as Ominis, arms akimbo and affronted, stood near the well.

Begging the twins to save him from marauding hens, wand forgotten as his ankles were pecked just hard enough to panic.

And at this same table, Solomon had sat, blaming Sebastian for the birds' hunger. Anne lingering in shadow while Ominis pretended he heard nothing.

After Cara cleared her throat, her voice struck an unexpectedly harsh chord:

"So, I hope I won't have to remind you of the stakes we're dealing with here."

Sebastian, his hand still on the door, saw Ominis' brows arch. The first crack in a gentleman's mask.

"No, you needn't remind me. Has something else happened?"

Her eyes slid briefly to Sebastian, then back to her notebook, quill poised.

"The outgoing Poacher leader picked Sebastian to replace him. He and one other man."

Ominis' throat moved, firelight bouncing off those faint irises. Nervous or skeptical, Sebastian couldn't tell.

"Well, it sounds as if you've managed to succeed in your endeavor, if that's the case. Well done—both of you."

Cara frowned at the addendum.

"I still need that information on how you know Mulciber, and if he's involved. You're not in the catacomb anymore, are you?"

The pause stretched, Cara waiting, Sebastian shifting his weight beside the threshold, his role suddenly uncertain.

And Ominis tilting his head.

"I'm not, for the most part. Some larger artifacts remain. As for Mulciber, well. Do you mind if I smoke in here?"

Sebastian heard himself break the silence, the question slipping out before he could dress it in irony. "You smoke cigarettes? You."

Both their sandy heads turned, as if it were he who'd upended the room.

With unhurried precision, Ominis reached into his tailored jacket and drew out a lacquered chinoiserie box. Its surface glinting, out of place and yet entirely at home in his hands.

"Given the rest, I feel as if that shouldn't qualify as a surprise. And, Cara…" From the other pocket, a Quick-Quotes-Quill, proffered with a little flourish. "This'll help, I think."

And once again forced to tally her blind spots with this particular witness, Cara's expression unfurled both appreciative and deflated.

"What else have you got in there? The Holy Grail?"

Sebastian took that as his cue, crossing the room and letting the scrape of the chair announce it.

The third point, completing a triangle that felt like myth reborn.

"I'm impressed, Ominis," he offered, gently pushing back against how strange it felt to address him. "You look good, by the way."

A crooked smile flickered at the edge of Ominis' mouth. "Do I, Sebastian? I wouldn't know."

Midair, his wand danced to life, became a torch to tend an interesting cigarette: slightly jagged, fatter and longer than those the Officer smoked.

This was plant matter that took up fire slower than tobacco, and burned less evenly. Smoke tumbling out in a heavy cloud, piquant and dingy-sweet.

Softened by a cough both practiced and involuntary, Ominis explained on exhale: "Another pilfered joy."

Sebastian sat back.

He'd read about this vice in books. Most commonly in powerful men holding long pipes: the pashas and sultans of the Old World and their Anglo appropriators alike.

Always dealing in rarefied air, syrupy with secrets and debts.

But neither fact nor fiction had prepared him for this page: for the tender nostalgia that came with such an oddball moment.

Three friends, woven together again beneath a strange cloud.

"Write him up for this too, Officer."

Cara gave him a private smile, stretched her shoulders.

"I'm afraid that's a Muggle offense," her earlier hardness waning, like a knife being sheathed. "But whatever helps you relax."

Silence thickened, but not with awkwardness. The three of them paused, as if waiting for a fourth ghost to speak.

Breathing the same air in this house, where his uncle's grave lay just beyond the window. Sebastian looked at Cara, caught her eyes, and gave a gentle smile. Something small and real.

There were hours, and this was one, when the world felt so delicately constructed he feared something might tear the fabric and reveal Azkaban's stone beneath.

Smoke curled upward, blue-grey and heavy, as the quill began to move.

"So, the Gaunts know all the pureblood families. Though they may not consort now, they did when I was a child. We fell from grace abruptly, you see. When I first met Sebastian, we were amid selling everything my mother would part with."

"I remember that," Sebastian noted. "You needed me to lend you socks. That was our… second conversation."

Ominis' smile, a brief flicker behind the smoke.

"At this time, the Malfoys were new to our sphere. Septimus Malfoy's son, Ignatius, was close with Black, via my father. And though the Mulcibers had fallen out of favor, Peter began coming along with Malfoy to gatherings."

"That's Peter Mulciber, Senior?"

"Yes. He also brought his son, of the same name. In fact, he and I, and my brother, Marvolo…"

Here Ominis' lip twisted, the kind of involuntary tic that betrays a memory with teeth. He took another drag; the cough that followed was sharp, real.

"—we played in the spinneys outside the mansion. Though Marvolo liked to eavesdrop, he never came back with anything of interest. That was shortly before they pulled him from Hogwarts."

Sebastian's mind slipped sideways, chasing after the faint image of Marvolo Gaunt. More a trivia piece than a person.

When they started, he'd been a sixth year, stocky, dark, hardly a silhouette compared to Ominis' pale precision. Gone before Christmas; and thereafter, just another shadow of a family eschewed.

"But my own eavesdropping efforts were profligate. My father began to invite Malfoy over less as Mother wondered, where were the wives? Mulciber's was ill, but no Mrs. Malfoy ever darkened our doorstep, or even sent her regrets."

With unconscious grace, he pulled again from that blue china case, offering across the table.

Cara shook her head, Sebastian following suit.

"Anyway. This brings us to the present—first, though, I grow weary of ashing on your floor."

Sebastian rose to pluck an empty bottle from his bedside table. The carnival caricature of himself and Cara grinning down from the wall as he passed.

"Here you are."

"Thank you. So, after the press harangued Cara for our dinner, I realized that the Prophet still had no idea what I'd been up to, and thus I could comfortably scale upward. Which brought me to Malfoy Manor."

Cara's brow crinkling, as if she half-remembered something. "Is that in Liverpool as well?"

"No, much further south than either Hangleton. But even more poorly guarded." He paused, as if the sentence demanded a toll. "So much so that in their upper east wing, there was… a skeleton in the closet."

Sebastian blinked. "Could you be more specific?"

Ominis' exhale was slow; smoke moved across the tabletop to curl around the lamp's halo.

"That wasn't a figure of speech, it was a corpse. More specifically, a woman's. Not terribly far from where their youngest heir was asleep."

Cara's voice stayed level. "Any other evidence?"

"No, though I expect they'd have done away with it as they did the other wife. Outside, Malfoy and Mulciber enjoyed a leisurely afternoon playing croquet and eating duck liver."

"Ghouls," murmured Sebastian, sitting back in his chair.

He looked at Cara, and found her gaze already on him. The quill scratching in midair without her help bought time to recover, to calibrate the necessary mask.

It struck him that both officer and witness were circling disclosure, orbiting the truth with the precision of seasoned duelists; even if this had begun as Cara's strategy, she'd since become captive to the silence.

Sebastian understood his place: she was the Auror, while he lingered in the wings, grateful for proximity. Still, the fact remained: Ominis needed prodding, always had.

And Cara, this time, had opted out. Self-preservation or mercy, he couldn't say.

"So, what does this have to do with the Poaching? You're still as obtuse as I remember."

"And you're still as impatient." Ominis coughed. "I found reimbursements to dealers in beast byproducts. You'd be amazed by how much time I had to poke around."

"I'll admit, I am," Cara, almost reverent in feather-edged flattery. Playing at camaraderie, the blurred lines between cops and robbers. "If you were able to get into paperwork that sensitive?"

Ominis's smile was all angles, droll and edged, as though he wanted, for a moment, to accept the praise at face value, to let himself be the clever infiltrator she implied.

But he sighed, a thief with humility.

"It was laughably easy, they left it in plain sight. I get the feeling that overall, even your Manticore left a smaller trail than those two, given that… well."

His pause stretched, at first a flourish, then a flounder. Lengthening until it was impossible to tell if it was for effect or simply the drift of an inebriated mind.

Sebastian felt Cara's eyes waiting for his again, but her glance was a cipher.

"Given that you were interested in their names of your own accord," Ominis finished, returning with a start from wherever he'd wandered. "In the Catacomb."

Cara sighed quietly, mostly with her nose. Dispirited, thrown off guard, as if this remark brought her somewhere she didn't want to go.

"Yes, that's why we're here."

"I couldn't let that leverage pass me by, at the time," added Ominis softly, markedly apologetic but now all in. "When I noticed your interest."

Her eyelids flicked up again. Back to business, no time to grovel.

"The Irondale Sanctuary was this Poaching syndicate's first big score. I found correspondence between their director and with Mulciber, Sr., just before DRMC got involved. And Sebastian was able to get them to both tie themselves to the Sanctuary escapes and identify Mulciber as their main backer."

"Malfoy is the one whose purse it ultimately comes from, but yes. It's their brainchild, that operation. Your operation, now."

Cara stood, glancing out the narrow, darkening window. "It might be possible to get them to cooperate, if they can be pressed on the alleged murders."

Ominis' brows arching high as he gave a long blink. At first, a pantomime, then more. An internal argument, staged behind closed lids.

"Yes, you should certainly extort these men. As you seemed prepared to do to me, a bit ago."

Sebastian caught the instant Cara's posture shifted: her spine pulling taut, shoulders squaring. As if a line drawn in the dust had been kicked away in her face.

And Ominis' features had calcified into something ancient; an iconoclast, not wrathful but immutable. A statue built in honor of old wounds.

He exhaled, steadying himself as an urge to defend rose in his throat.

"She is an Auror. I'm not sure what you expected."

"Sebastian, stop," Cara's voice low and unwavering, more plea than reprimand. Though he couldn't see her face, he knew what she asked. That he not fracture the thread of trust looping through the room, even if it meant she would bear its incidentals.

Ominis lit yet another burning effigy between his fingers, brow smoothing as if he'd resolved some private debate. The flame glinted in his eyes, reflective but unreadable.

"I simply mean, you needn't have opened by reminding me of the stakes because I planned to provide the information freely. But I understand the impulse to strong-arm me… and respect it."

Cara turned back to them, her brow set as she rejoined the table.

Silence thickened as she waited for Ominis to continue walking back the hostility. Refusing to move forward, until the ledger was balanced.

Though Sebastian wanted to hold her hand, his own stayed still in his lap.

Gentle came the remainder:

"And I remember what you said in the catacomb, about feeling less like an Auror. Make no mistake: I'm truly grateful you didn't use me as an opportunity to remedy that. I'm exhausted and might have overindulged a bit… I'm sorry."

Sebastian glanced at the three burned stubs of paper lined up in front of Ominis. Ten minutes' worth of nerves couldn't possibly require so much. 

Cara had sat, let him light up. She had wanted him comfortable; it served both Auror and witness if he was.

And they both understood that for Ominis, comfort was never just ease. It was the right to prod, to needle, to be the friend who could scold and make you grateful for it.

All with the faint smudge of ash on his sleeve.

Both as the blameless youth and the adult apostate, Ominis' contradictions harmonized with a kind of perverse fidelity.

Yes, a hypocrite. One whose loyalty was so deep, so dangerously absolute, it threatened to drown those lesser inconsistencies.

But Cara already knew that. 

"Thank you," her tone a permission slip for reconciliation. "I didn't mean to be so brusque with you—"

"You did. And that's fine." Ominis' interruption, a refusal to let her carry the weight of apology alone.

Sebastian asked, in an invitation to leave the emotional hinterland behind, "So, where's your new base of operations?" 

Ominis closed the lacquered case and answered, not without a certain battered pride:

"The Gaunt Mansion, in fact. My parents met their untimely end somewhat recently. I have no idea where my brother is, but he left a long time ago now."

So that was the coda for his monstrous parents, the curtain down on two giant childhood scabs. A menagerie shuttered without applause.

"I'd say I'm sorry for your loss, but…"

A loud, pointed tutting cut him off as Ominis stood, hand to suit front, brushing away ash stippling his lapel. 

"If you wanted to book it as a venue for your wedding, I'll warn you now. My estate is not at all picturesque." 

Sebastian stared, caught between the urge to grin and the instinct to bristle. While Ominis' barbs had always found purchase, this one landed somewhere softer. 

Last time he'd made that implication, they'd been fifteen in the Undercroft. The contrast felt like a bittersweet homage, a surreal coincidence. 

But as then, he'd stick to the facts: 

"We're not… there's no wedding I know of." 

Ominis blinked, mouth twisting with a grin that was more pumpkin than knife. 

"I was joking; Cara mentioned in her letter that you two are playing husband and wife, as part of your ruse-among-ruffians."

Sebastian swallowed, suddenly grateful for the earlier scuffle. In its shadow Ominis, wary of the fault lines exposed, wouldn't press further, no matter how much he might want to. 

Cara's smile flickered dry and quick, as she pointed her wand to still the still-scribbling quill. But paused, cheeks hollowing, nostrils flaring:

"Ah, that'll be your next venture, then, event planning? Once you're out of that Catacomb completely?"

Ominis inclined his head as he pushed his chair back to the table, keen and careful withdrawal.

Silent until he picked up his wand. Then, with a practiced projection meant for much larger rooms, he said firmly:

"Once I'm out of that Catacomb completely, yes."

Cara exhaled, almost a laugh.

"Thank you, Ominis."

"You're welcome."

That was the end of it, questioning over. A continued truce, sealed in silence and the smell of ozone. The Quick-Quotes-Quill shuddered to a stop, feather twitching like a nerve finally spent.

Sebastian found Cara's gaze, exhausted and misty, awaiting him above the hand covering most of her face as she sat down. 

Nothing moved for a long moment. 

Then Ominis cleared his throat and spread his arms wide, at once ridiculous and dignified. It was a shrug in formalwear, a quiet offering to whatever future might be waiting, or not.

Ringmaster to the damned-adjacent; a curtain call for those unsure if the show had ended or had claimed them as scenery.

That smile brittle, bright and uniquely his as he announced:

"Ladies and gentlemen, the inevitable."

Chapter Text

The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.

Seneca

---

Peter Mulciber, Senior was briefly convinced that the knock he heard was a trick of an enormous house. Sometimes sound folded in on itself, given enough rooms. Frankly, he could be forgiven the mistake: no one simply came to Malfoy Manor.

That was rather the point.

And while Malfoy himself complained of missing London, he cherished the comforts of distance. The way estate living made everything feel padded and slow. Convincing the other man to put roots down here was one of Peter's crowning achievements in life.

Better than fatherhood, no contest.

Even now, the parlor pooled with the last gold of afternoon, heat lingering in the floor. The manor reluctant to let it go.

For the length of the chiffon robe, no one would've known he was barefoot answering the door.

There stood a towheaded woman. A tall thing, good length of bone. Pretty cheeks, not a bad build either. For those inclined, she was a head-turner.

Mulciber's part was mostly admiring the way she held herself. Her coat spoke of spending just enough to look like one hadn't overspent.

Her greeting was simple, disarmingly flat:

"Hello. I'm here to speak with Ignatius Malfoy?"

While the stance declared authority, her mouth flitted between smirk and apology in a way suggesting cocktail hour. Someone waiting for permission to drop her pretense.

Here, but only just. Mulciber let the wood rest against his hip.

Something familiar; perhaps she belonged to one of the trading families. Or 'worked for herself.'

Women did that now in their circles, stupid as it was.

She was measuring him, too. Perhaps deciding what sort of man opened the door swathed in empire-waisted chiffon, barefoot and unbothered.

He met her gaze and let her try.

"I'm afraid he's gone out. I'm sure he'd take an Owl, Mrs.? Miss…? I can pass along—"

"—do you know how long he'll be gone? I wanted to speak with him as soon as possible."

She couldn't even wait her turn to speak. The first little sour note. His reply cooled, charm thinning:

"No idea. I'd be more hospitable, but Mr. Malfoy dislikes strangers near his son. What's this regarding?"

She held up an Auror's badge. As the metal caught light, he saw it at last: the way her eyes mismatched the rest. Glittering with fury that took her up, blistered her like a flame.

Anger made even the comeliest of women so deeply ugly.

Moreover, the gall of this generation. In the past, Aurors left parchment notices for non-urgent matters.

He should've slammed the door before she'd had a chance to brandish the blasted brass. Or speak at all. Instead, her presence continued seeping into the foyer like a draft.

"There've been a string of burglaries the last few months. I wanted to make sure someone followed up on that lead, even if it's not timely."

Mulciber felt a flush of relief, almost laughter. But then came a second, colder current: suspicion.

"We never reported any burglary, here."

After all, the world was divided: those who kept their own counsel, and those who let strangers in.

The young officer with the good cheeks was prepared.

"There've been two others in the area."

"Oh, no," Mulciber tutted.

Craning her head, looking up at every valance and vine along stone. Then back to him.

"I can understand why you wouldn't report it—it's within your right not to, and people talk."

Now he recognized her. Not just a functionary, but the pariah from the Prophet.

The one the AO had invited the mob to flay in the town square.

Though he couldn't lace his shoes without a wand, Junior knew not to breathe a word. And Fawley, arrogant and self-regarding, would sooner set himself on fire than light her way.

Further, the burglary was old news. Story almost as callused as hers by now.

Must be spinning her own thread, gambling on whispers to save her reputation. Desperation stitched in the lining of that sensible coat.

Still. This wasn't providence or divine intervention. As even strays needed scraps to smell, someone had left breadcrumbs.

Mulciber took a moment for the possibility that the call was coming from inside the house. Its owner enjoyed passive yet lucrative schemes.

Such as, for instance, polishing and dangling the story of the burglary to wring favor from the nouveau riche. They so loved to be benefactors; it laundered their money, made their ascendancy seem natural.

Yes, perhaps he'd played the tragedy too well, in one too many drawing rooms. Details fermenting until the scent was strong enough for the fallen to follow.

After all these years, both men knew the lay of the land. Who'd avert their gaze from shady dealings only to trumpet virtue when the wind shifted; who'd sell at a loss just to see someone ruined.

But certainty was a young man's game. And even Mr. Malfoy's mistakes accumulated in increments.

Hesitations at the stairs, names just unreachable, key facts recalled too late.

The margin for error was shrinking. Mulciber felt it now, holding onto the door he'd just answered without thinking.

All the same, there were still truths on his side: Aurors couldn't detain you or barge in without a charge. And this one? She wouldn't risk another scandal.

It was that he held to, adjusting his robe in a small, stupid gesture of control. Stepping back.

"I'll let Mr. Malfoy know you came by," the door already closing. "Officer Morganach."

She turned. No plea or attempt to soften the ending. Just a blade withdrawn.

"Mr. Mulciber."

In London, twilight brushed the Ministry flats in a syrupy wash.

Sebastian blinked awake, disoriented by the darkness; the sky had been bright blue just a heartbeat ago.

It'd been a hot afternoon. One he'd spent with Cara's collection of poetry books, both reading and fanning himself with them. At some point, his own mind's narrative must've taken over.

Now the dust of dreamland clung, the residue of school days not quite as they'd happened. In this fevered episode, Dream-Ominis had been allied with the Nifflers from Professor Howin's stable.

His plot with the chubby little thieves? 'To bankrupt the Music Room, frog choir and all.'

Treasures to be stripped and catalogued by paws and whiskers.

Awakening to the taste of chalk, laughter echoing. Now new shards of sound: glass, domestic percussion. Ah yes, this was when those who had things to do during the day returned to the chrysalis for the rest they'd actually earned.

Sebastian yawned.

Peering through the cutout into the kitchen: Cara's bun unraveling in defeated clumps as she orchestrated mugs, hands moving with distracted grace.

The ordinary intimacy of her struck: back turned, hands busy, presence filling the flat with a safety that hurt if you thought about it.

"I just thought of something. If Ominis has the Gaunt Mansion, why's it taking him so long to leave the Catacomb?"

He could hear the smirk in her answer as the cupboard door thudded shut.

"Right? That's why I mentioned it again, on the record, at your house." Pitched in the register of secrets, as if they risked conjuring Ominis' couture-clad ghost.

Sebastian rubbed sleep from his eyes, admitting:

"I only just put that together. It makes sense, you holding him to it."

"Well, now that he's got twelve thousand square feet and the birthright to occupy it, yes."

The way she over-explained both charmed Sebastian and gave him pause. Watching her profile as she fussed with mugs. Seeing weight in her frown, in her taut cheeks.

"If it helps, nobody would know that night that you haven't felt like an Auror. You had him properly shaken, more than once."

"I know, but I didn't want to be that way. Ominis knows that. That's why I didn't appreciate how flippant he still got, all of a sudden."

Sebastian was beset by a mental image he tried not to let get more detailed. Still, he blurted to Cara:

"In Azkaban, our wands are confiscated."

Her face changed; first a flare of indignation, then something hollowed out, a look that threatened to cave in on itself.

"I'm aware of that."

Still, he felt sure she didn't understand why he'd said it.

Cara was brilliant. Capable of threading disparate details until they made noose or net. Of narrating people's wounds with a fluency that was startling, perhaps even perverse, in its compulsion.

Nothing she couldn't imagine; very little she wouldn't understand.

But she'd never been stripped to the skin, shorn of hair and left with only her pulse for company.

Nor seen how quickly Wizarding civility collapsed once the crutch of a wand was gone.

When that lifetime of effortless control dissolved, it left only what remained from the days before the wand had chosen you.

And so Azkaban was a children's playpen with adult consequences. No rules but those enforceable by the body; justice in the reach of an arm, a knee pressing against yielding bone, the hot rank of breath.

Fate had already written Ominis a life sentence via name and handicap. Marks thus far carried with dignity, or at least patience.

No, it wouldn't be blindness that undid him. It would be his tongue's edge. His most basic nature: to never allow himself to be diminished.

Step on the wrong foot, literally or otherwise, and someone might deem those useless eyeballs fair compensation. Blind man's offense, blind man's punishment.

Cruelty with the logic of children, made monstrous by the absence of anyone to say enough.

Dementors hung back, indifferent shepherds at the edge of the melee. Fanning themselves with invisible playbills, the misery a matinée worth savoring.

Guards only came later, dragging the dead and surrendering them to the subarctic sea. If any kin remained to curse the Ministry's black wax seal, a letter might find them.

None of this needed saying. It hung there, in the way Sebastian's gaze lingered; in Cara's jaw clenching and releasing.

"I just mean that Ominis has never been good at blending in."

Cara puffed a breath, but not unkindly. Yet, her eyes pulled wide open, her tone stern:

"I know that, Sebastian. When he showed me his hands in the Catacomb, I thought, he won't last a week. In fact, with how many elites he's robbed, they might just approve the Kiss."

Sebastian felt the shape of his argument collapse. A slow unravel, the way shame works its way inside the body and takes a seat.

She'd spent five years in the company of arrests, of corridors lined with the ghosts of futures. Understanding the architecture of inevitability, even if she'd never walked every hallway herself. These macabre stories weren't novel. Nor was the guilt that'd follow if she was forced to go by the book.

It couldn't fall to her again, splitting the trio. Ominis ushered toward the stocks while Fawley and the rest offered applause from down the hall?

She would not recover.

Nor, of course, would Sebastian.

The miracle of his own release lingered, continually made more apparent. Every time he woke to the fragile geometry of her face half-awake, eyelids crusted with the salt of dreams, they acknowledged it together.

Now, he tried to reach her the same way: the softening gaze, the loosening jaw. If he could look at her just right, she would understand.

Once her eyes stayed with his, a fragile détente, he told her:

"I didn't mean you didn't know. I just keep seeing it in my mind... them destroying him."

Cara's closed eyelids seemed almost transparent. Her ankle trembled, neck bent forward over her lap.

"After fifth year, I was alone a lot. Ominis and I grew apart, but whenever one of us was struggling, we'd talk in the Undercroft. We checked on each other. And went to the Yule Ball together."

Sebastian stayed where he was, hovering by the coffee table's edge, lips pressed into a line.

While he would not, could not, take back his dread about Ominis in Azkaban, there was nothing left to say. The way her throat bobbed made it plain: explanation was an insult, elaboration a wound.

"And while I did feel like an Auror again, sitting there—I hope it was clear to Ominis how little I wanted to." She raised her voice at the end, let it drift through the gap in the wall, making sure it would carry.

Sebastian went back to that night, to their spat. To Ominis' misty gaze, mouth open and rimmed with ash. Waiting for Cara's forgiveness as he remembered all the love for him in the world was at that table.

He stood up taller, knowing he could answer with certainty:

"It was. We still managed to have some laughs, too. He's still your friend."

Cara looked as if she were warmed by the thought, but still couldn't quite square it. "It was nice seeing you two together again. Do you want some coffee?"

Sebastian rounded the counter, pointing to the window's fading blue. "It's… no."

That wand flicked; coffee poured itself, steam tumbling in the air, blurring her face in the glass.

Then an abrupt change of current to the business of the day, to where she'd gone while he'd slept away the daylight, to the details he'd nearly forgotten would be coming:

"Mulciber Senior was wearing a robe I honestly might've asked him the maker of, had things gone better. I half wish Ominis had gone into their closet."

Levity; their old bridge. Sebastian let banter roll his tongue, watching her through heavy lids.

"He did, remember? There was a body. Maybe on the next heist, he'll have time to nick you a negligée."

Cara's mouth curled.

"Anyway, I didn't find out anything, when it comes to our case."

He smiled at the half-confession, knowing the choreography. "But?"

"I didn't intend to. I mentioned the robbery, and Mulciber broke out in hives. They didn't report it, they couldn't. "

Sebastian arched a brow as Cara finally let gravity have its way, stretching along the couch. Arms folded as if to keep thoughts from leaking out ahead of her reasoning.

"Now they've jumped out of their skin a bit, my idea is that they'll either ramp up previously ignored, safer bets, like the Poaching operation… or diversify and disappear."

"Which do you think it'll be?"

She blinked, eyes wide to the ceiling. A stargazer wondering if constellations had changed. "I don't know for sure. He was spooked, but…"

But it wasn't a revelation. Fear and guilt weren't mutually exclusive. Even innocence recoiled when the law knocked.

He found himself struck by the contrast between her work and his: a slow, silent bleeding versus a kind of blunt trauma.

"More than we can say for Mustac—Chisholm."

Apparently, this was the end of Cara's relaxation. She stood from her splay and sat cross-legged on the couch.

"Poppy tells me he's eager for the two of you to speak to the Poachers together."

"Not sure what to make of that."

Tomorrow they'd unite for that makeshift state of the union, he and Mustache. Their alliance, less a contract than a provisional ceasefire.

He'd say only what needed saying:

The risk associated with a growing stock and no sales opportunities meant they couldn't continue abiding by a lack of instruction from their backer.

And now that the complacent Laird no longer held the reins, perhaps that could change.

Cara thought that'd be enough, that his mustachioed new partner would more than support it. And Sebastian agreed.

Still, inertia held him.

He thought of Poppy, her rapport with the rabble. Quietly grateful, but perplexed she was still there. Because last Cara had told him, DRMC had come down on the Chief, biblical and bureaucratic.

Pressure that should have upended the board. Or at least rearranged the players.

"Is Leander not going to get involved now that the case is his too?"

Cara sighed. Rare was it that she seemed absolutely confounded, but rarities weren't that these days.

"You'd think. Hector's out of office this week, but still in the building—post routes to the Minister's Office. That to say, same goes for Leander."

Sebastian, for his part, understood the Ministry as something less than a government but more than a body. An organism febrile and spasmodic, always unpredictable at its core. Still, his brow crumpled. "That's weird, isn't it."

She nodded. "Their departments can function without them, but it's unprecedented. I doubt it'll last. Nothing gold can stay."

He let silence answer her, settling on the floor, knees drawn up between the coffee table and the couch.

A self-imposed penance, or perhaps a child's refuge. Hands drumming his knees, searching her face for where she hid.

Finding her between solemnity and that old, weathered grief, he fixed her with a look of his own, pointed and gentle.

"I'll stay."

Usually, when he let loose these weighty promises, she'd dodge him with a blink, a roll of her eyes. A resigned sigh that said she'd heard it all before.

But tonight, Cara only smiled, warm and impish. Her arms opened, not so much beckoning as insisting.

And Sebastian went to her, ankles creaking, drawn by an imperative older than words. The smell of her hair: rain, salt, something green and bruised, taking him away.

"Until when?" she murmured against his shoulder.

He might have drooled, or mumbled, or simply dissolved—"Until you want me gone," the words surfacing from someplace beyond intention.

Cara's breath came in a sharp crackle. "I'll never want that."

"Guess I'll be here forever, then." He brought his head up, touching the tip of his nose to hers, a gesture ridiculously holy. "Bothering you."

She tilted his chin up with a hand as he leaned forward, meeting in the middle.

Outside, a midsummer storm began its slow assault on the windows, rain casting frantic shadows across the floor.

In their shade, Sebastian knew exactly what to do. How to put her to bed: how to leave her both wanting and fearing for nothing.

A knock on a Saturday evening. Not the soft, sheepish knock of the help. A visitor.

Hector exhaled, slow and resigned, eyeing the door as if it should apologize. This week had been hard enough without more kerfuffle following him home.

And here, too, was a breach in an understanding on the estate the Chief had maintained for a while: his wing was sanctuary, inviolate.

Whoever made it this far had been enabled by someone with more faith than sense. He listened to a second echo of knuckles, knowing only his mother could be blamed.

"Yes?"

The door's hinges confessed two dark suits into existence. Neither required introduction.

The first shook loose childhood memories from deep in his brain: Peter Mulciber, the original, time's handiwork visible in the salt-and-pepper wave of his hair. Beside him, pale and platinum-blond: none other than Mr. Malfoy. Recalled with the suddenness of a slow afternoon in Knockturn Alley.

"Erm, hello gents. Would you care for some wine? I've got any and every flavor you could think of, but you already know that."

Briefly, Mulciber's face softened, revealed a quicksilver of longing. Perhaps an echo of old holidays, of sons once inseparable. More likely a heavy drinker too long denied.

Either way, the urge dissolved once Malfoy's sharp, decisive elbow pressed him back into character.

"No, Chief Fawley. I think we'd better keep sharp. This isn't a social visit."

Hector became acutely aware of the sudden ridiculousness of his pajamas. Luxury now a liability, a costume for the wrong performance.

He tried to recover, steer the encounter.

"I see. If it's to do with official matters, we can meet at the Ministry. I can give you my—"

Malfoy's throat cleared, both interruption and dominion. He shook his head. 

"You told my son we should call on you here," Mulciber piped up. "And the Owls we've sent went unanswered."

Hector's mind raced through its rolodex of sins, even those of omission. Finding too many candidates and really wishing for the comfort of a mutual glass-in-hand.

"Owls? I'm terribly sorry. Must be the squad messing with my post. What can I do for you?"

The look they exchanged was a full conversation, a baton between practiced hands.

Malfoy's voice, when it emerged, slid rather than struck. "What you can do is sit down, and drop the friendly pretense."

Though sweat prickled his brow, Hector managed to arch one in return. Defiance or confusion, he wasn't sure.

Men like this almost always sent intermediaries.

Unless they wanted to close off every avenue for leaks.

Throat working like a broken pump as he tried again.

"Perhaps we can discuss some of the more profitable rumors I've heard lately. My security clearance means I—"

It was a wand, alder, that cut him off. Tip pointed at Hector's heart, where silk thinned with his frantic pulse. Malfoy held it left-handed, nostrils flaring in rhythm with his wrist.

"What a pathetic segue. I'll save us both some time and ask you only once more, Chief, to sit… down."

Hector moved wine bottles from a wrought iron chair, clearing a seat. Mind spinning and tearing through tactics. If not money or influence, what could he offer men who trafficked in certainty?

That memory of Knockturn Alley flickered up again. Mulciber's vague warmth, their shared amusement at finding a Fawley in the shadows. The only person to mention it since?

Ankles trembling, he tried:

"Is this to do with Pete? I've been giving him leave any time he asks."

Something shifted as Mulciber closed the door behind him, wand out now, albeit down at his side.

"No. It's nothing to do with my son. Though he did indicate when he visited this weekend: you seem unclear on some things we thought we made quite apparent."

Hector's hands knotted in his lap, fingers in silent conference as he racked his brain. One tiny question answered: where Pete had been while he'd made an idiot of himself at the call box.

But beyond that, memory became quicksand. And the more the Chief thrashed, the deeper he sank into the dull fear that he'd missed something crucial.

"In Knockturn Alley? Yes… I said I would keep my eye out for weak spots in other departments."

"And wouldn't obstruct our operations. Relatively early in one of which, we received word that DRMC managed to steal quarry promised to our footmen." 

"Sorry to hear that, but I'm not in charge of—"

Apparently this was the boiling point; Malfoy stomped his foot and snarled, "Peter." 

And Mulciber Senior, who'd signed holiday cards: from Big Pete; you're always welcome x, raised his wand and uttered, "Oscausi."

White light lanced Hector's throat, the world telescoping to the blank, smooth place where his mouth had been.

No lips, only unmarked skin. Tongue throbbing desperately at a wall of flesh.

Panic rising amid unbroken eye contact with a man who'd once watched over his sleep as a child. Now sheathing his wand with the same casual procedure as checking the time.

He stepped back, but Malfoy advanced.

His spine bending beside the table, a vulture's curve to better survey the realm of broken men.

"As I was saying, we wrote DRMC off. They'll always come running toward wet work. My issue is Mr. Mulciber being called on at home by a member of the Auror Office. Of which you are in charge."

His wand traced ranks of wine bottles, each chiming softly in a countdown of sorts.

"Now, this seems to be what I hope was a coincidence, but it doesn't sit right. Your Department darkening my doorstep while our letters sit unopened. We know you're facing an enquiry with the Minister, but even before… tsk."

Hector's foot bounced, explanations rushing to his mind: Morganach's secrecy. Pete's vague remarks that, even now, rang as riddles. The burden of his everyday work, even.

Such as it was.

Of course, none of these escaped. His grunt rattled through bone.

It didn't matter how they knew about the enquiry or what he didn't know about their business. This was real.

"Blink if you've sold us downriver," Mulciber intoned, gentle as a lullaby. "Once for yes, twice for no."

Hector's eyelids spasmed, threatening to turn signal into noise. But he forced two distinct closures.

Malfoy drifted closer still. "Was that one blink?"

Some angel above granting a random act of benevolence, as Mulciber shook his head softly.

"It was two. You know, I hadn't seen your mother for a while, Fawley, but she remembered me. And welcomed me quite warmly today. Charming woman. Blink once if you want us to leave without spilling her blood."

Behind closed lids: the garden, dragon-hide gloves, a mother's gentle tyranny over roses and guests alike.

Calling the elves by the wrong names, pouring tea for anyone who wandered near. As if hospitality conjured safety. A fallacy that'd just shattered once again, in this corner of the mansion where she was never to set foot.

One hard, deliberate blink. After, his eyes remained wide, unblinking whites. Same as the flag now held before these men.

The counter-curse's preamble: a long-suffering sigh of patience spent. Pale eyes narrowed, reptilian, before rolling in contempt.

"Loqui."

Hector gasped, oxygen flooding him: "I'll fix this. I will."

But Malfoy was already drifting toward the other at the door, platinum head glinting.

"Adept as you are at getting nothing done, you're suited to the office of Minister. But should you ever actually campaign… the lip service could use work."

Cold sweat slicked those silk pajamas. Worth more than many men's salaries, but clinging to Hector in a clammy film that felt punitive, ceremonial.

Mulciber's arms folded, the pause having apparently made him philosophical. "Boys too close to their mothers never know how to act in another man's presence, do they? Maybe that's where I failed with Junior."

Quick, almost offhand, was Malfoy's staunch agreement. "We know better now. Abraxas will too."

In the lightness of their voices, the threat seemed to have mutated into a post-mortem hush. As if they'd decided not to dissect their specimen last minute.

He felt not spared but archived, pinned beneath the glass of their indifference. Catalogued, labeled, and shelved for future reference.

"So…"

The word faded as Malfoy's voice floated back:

"We'll take your word this time. But there won't be a next. Just your bollocks over my fireplace."

The door slammed, final as a vault.

Starting off without pretense felt the smartest.

"Our supervisor, Mr. Mulciber… he's not very responsive," Sebastian told the crowd. Voice riding the damp, blooming off stone and coming back altered. Too loud. "I say that no longer works for us."

He felt the heat, every face seeming to lean in amid a general murmur of agreement. Cave air sweating around them. Thick with something old, mammalian, mean.

While Sebastian hadn't planned any real remarks and was bereft of a way to continue, Chisholm had been waiting to command this group longer, and it showed:

"We have to quit being isolationist. They're keeping us paid, but not making any profit—they set us up for more, but don't care to buy more. I say we quit being loyal to them alone. There's too much stock not to branch out."

Though the meeting had barely begun, there it was. Like a thrown stone. A group so recently statues, twitching into motion.

Voices colliding, ricocheting off rock, hunger and resentment given shape.

"They never said they were entitled to everything we make."

"And if they did, fuck 'em."

"…no way we're the only ones."

"I've got someone. A buyer."

That last voice, sharp and cold and near. Cara.

He caught Chisholm's shift beside him, the suspicion coiling and uncoiling in a glance.

Then he was being summoned, pointed at, not so much a partner as a prop. They followed, leaving the crowd's heat for even heavier air.

Just shy of the main chamber of cages, a tunnel. Poppy lingered nearby, blending into stone. Sebastian clocked her as insurance.

Chisholm's mustache twitched, the question rolling out low. "Come again?"

Cara's mask scraped the ceiling, antlers catching stone as she nodded, turning first to Sebastian. "I don't even think I've told you about it, dear, but."

A wife's secret, a partner's omission. He read the risk, the brilliance. She was already three steps ahead. And though admitting to defiance would hardly help her, she knew her audience would forgive it.

Because while Laird would've sniffed for subtext, pounced on implications, Chisholm's impatience demanded he take everything at the surface.

"I'm listening, Mrs. Sally."

She cast her net wide at first, words sprawling, only to gather them as if convincing herself by degrees:

"Well, more of a trader. He believes gold is too risky, instead dealing in rare artifacts. No hangers-on or Ministry middlemen, either."

Not a net at all, Sebastian thought; a web, spun with care. Chisholm admiring symmetry and structure, oblivious to the spider's patience in the center.

He added his own silk: "Oh, definitely not. If I know who you mean."

Ominis. A curious but valid fixative. Potent enough to glue their situation together, at least for now. It was almost, he had to admit, elegant.

Because by this point, suspicion of their group felt clear.

Which was why Chisholm would trust what came out of a wife's mouth, fortune recast as offhand luck, more than any overt maneuvering.

He cleared his throat.

"Can you get him here in three days? That'd be enough time to get them fed and cleaned off enough. Right, Daisy?"

"If we hustle," Poppy replied with a crisp nod. That rapport built in their absence gleaming opportune. "First, we move the ones with rarer coat colors to the forefront."

The flush on Chisholm's cheeks at her enthusiasm, amplified by that bristling mustache.

A memory of Laird's face flickered; that toothless smile as he'd revealed his subordinate's fondness for ‘Daisy'. A flower by any other name, still smelling sweet.

Sebastian wondered, in a dark corner of his mind, if he'd be expected in time to hand her over as proof of loyalty. Struck his thoughts could wander to such stupid places.

Then again, the pressure had lightened immensely as they ducked back out of the cavern, Chisholm humming tunelessly to himself.

He let his eyes find Cara again. Seeing wisdom in the horns of her mask. She'd managed to placate, to intrigue, to win a little more time and credibility.

While he was for blending in, she stood out. But made it work. These men weren't fans of women, but were thankfully simple creatures in other ways. They liked adrenaline and surprises. Fancied themselves innovators.

And Ominis, with no choice but to cooperate, would play his part.

"I have more good news," Cara added as they reached the forest of cages, "all that effort isn't necessary, as the buyer is blind."

The enclosures glowed, torchlight halos bending around metal. Shadows over beasts shifting in uneasy sleep. Chisholm's laugh boomed as he drifted among cages, counting his fortune.

"Even better."

An albino Kneazle looked up to investigate that barking laughter, yawning. Small pink mouth in the dark. The sound too human.

Poppy's voice practical, brisk: "I had forgotten he couldn't see. But in case he brings associates, we'll want this place in order."

Cara's finger found Sebastian's palm, brief friction in the dark. Solidarity, or a signal to keep up? He squeezed back.

"Our man is a very keen negotiator. I can see why you didn't think of him at first."

Because he felt Ominis should still seem like a worthy challenge, not a mark. Risk, thus tasting even more of opportunity.

Poppy bounced lightly. Mask's grinning rictus at odds with the softness of her step.

"We can pull it off."

Cara reached for her, hand resting on her shoulder. A gesture so natural it blurred the line between honesty and performance. "You're an inspiration, Daisy. Truly."

Chisholm's presence was a cold spot in the gloom. The hollows of his mask flashed; a nod, a slow blink, a bystander's approval.

Poppy cleared her throat, arms crossing with a firmness that belied her size.

"So long as I have the floor. I know it's an odd time to say so, but it's sad to me, you two here on your anniversary."

The words hung, bright and out of place. Knowing a pause would do more harm, Sebastian let a nervous laugh out.

"I'd forgotten."

Playing it wry, the part of a husband who'd long ago fallen out of love with sentiment.

Cara's reply: the wife who'd stopped waiting. Crouching by the Kneazle's cage, the smallest bow of her head. "I knew not to plan anything, since we would be here tonight."

He watched her in blue-shadowed light, trying to read the posture, those hands.

A small, restless sound; Poppy's boot-heel scraping stone. "As your Maid of Honor, it just feels disappointing."

Chisholm's expression flickered before he dropped anchor in logistics, like a man gripping the edge of a table. "Your buyer, what's his name? Just in case I recognize it."

Again, in the steady voice of someone who belonged, Poppy mediated: "He's a Gaunt. I've met him with Sebastian, and I think you'd find him agreeable."

Stepping closer to him. Space shrinking, the deal closing, the lines between profit and peril a blurring wash of ink.

Sebastian searched Cara's masked face. It gave nothing. Indeed, he was the man of the house, stumbling onto his cue but nailing it:

"I'll arrange it in the morning, first thing."

Chisholm looked up at the dripping cave ceiling, chest rising slowly under that fox's skull.

"Well, Sally, I've got fewer reservations now. Thought Laird was just sweet on you, but. He indeed knew a good one." Suddenly, a pivot as he stroked that mustache. "Don't they say… it's the one day a year that belongs to the wife, the anniversary?"

"They do," Poppy affirmed neatly. "And we've got to get the lads moving around here. The Beasts are in their own filth. They lose value that way even if you can't see them."

And then Oz Chisholm clapped, abrupt, decisive. Almost cheerful.

"Agreed. You two should get on, for now. Enjoy your evening."

Just like that, the scene was over. Relief snapping through the air, their bluff cashed and spent.

Chapter Text

"A woman being never at a loss… the devil always sticks by them."

Lord George Gordon Byron

---

Monday found the tiny kitchen in the Auror Office with only one inhabitant at lunchtime. Spiraling creamer into her mug, wand steady.

Cara fixated on the bloom of color, the gradient washing closer to comfort. One thing was missing.

A ceiling-high cabinet opening to reveal a slew of bottles and brews belonging to the others. Her oddball cascara syrup had, of course, been pushed into the back. But as a result, sloshed blissfully full as it found her hand.

That warm aroma of cherry shells bloomed through her coffee, adding more to the kitchen than someone's old toast. Cara inhaled, jaw slack, hand on the cupboard door.

If not for the sudden, unmistakable flash of winkle-picker shoes beneath the cupboard, she might've jumped at Hector's voice low, uncomfortably close.

"Why'd you go to Malfoy Manor."

She breathed in deep, let the air fill her chest, and closed the cabinet with a hollow wooden clap. Forcing a face-off with the Chief.

He stood clutching that stupid monogrammed mug like an accusation, lips fat and angry like a child denied his favorite toy.

"There've been burglaries in the area. I was following a lead."

Beside them squatted a low table, burdened with coffee and tea things, chiefly a sugar bowl.

When, for reasons unknown, Hector reached for it, the lid spun loose. The snifter clattered out, sugar crystals and pebbles scattering in frantic arcs across the countertop.

Cara blinked at her shoes, mostly spared, and at Hector. Though his wand quickly saw the mess vanished, he fussed with his pleats, red blooming up his neck.

Purple suit, crimson flush; man or bruised plum, who knew.

He sniffed. "What lead? It doesn't matter. I came to get my mug and tell you to close the damn Poaching case. You've got more than enough for arrests. If you need manpower, we have it."

Heart pounding, her eyes drifted to a tiny window behind him, afternoon light fractured and indifferent.

Not worth it; the building's wards would just bounce him like a coin down a laundry chute.

"I'm going to close it. Very soon. We're tricking them into attempting wholesale first. They're revealing more incriminating details every day."

His eyes narrowed then opened low, contemplative. "Ah yes, we're tricking them. Was that Sallow's idea?"

She matched his stare, took a sip.

"Mine, actually. It'll take some of their offenses into double felonies. And it's not entrapment because—"

Unable to wait his turn to deliver what he usually referred to as legal hullabaloo, Hector cut across:

"Because of the clause protecting undercover escalation, yes, I know."

And how alien it was, hearing any policy come out of his mouth. The now-empty snifter of sugar remained in his hands, as if putting it down would be a concession.

Cara watched it a moment longer before lifting her eyes to his pursed lips. Wondering if the memory of Sebastian answering her door still smoldered behind those dark eyes.

"That same clause details the immunity of those deputized by Aurors," she added gently. "So even if it were Sebastian's idea, it's protected."

"If it's proven the deputizing officer wasn't in the correct state of mind, that protection is null and void. But generally, you're right."

Another line straight from the boilerplate. Apparently, between buying paintings with Nanette and eating baba ganoush with his parents, the Chief had made time to peek at the very statutes he enforced.

"That's true. But it can't be voided retroactively."

Though Hector stared blankly, his reply slipped beneath her skin like a cold needle:

"…unless there's an override by the Department Head, affirming the deputizing officer was, indeed, out of their mind."

Cara lowered her coffee mid-sip. She'd convinced herself, against her better judgment, that these pieces of policy trivia had just been a blip.

But it seemed from the way he stood up taller, waited for her challenge, that the simplest, most annihilating answer was the correct one: it'd been a preamble for a plot.

Disgust contorted her face as she pulled the blade from her back and pressed it, point-first, back into his hands.

"Look, if Malfoy and Mulciber are pressuring you, tell Spavin. You're with him every day. Don't put it on me."

The Chief lit up, eagerly seizing the hypothetical as ammunition.

"And if Sallow's pressured you, I'd have you tell me. Choosing a convict as a deputy… the Wizengamot would be quick to reconsider commuting that release."

Heat bloomed in her neck. Not shame, but slow-burning fury. "He hasn't."

"Really? You're sticking to that?"

"I am."

But he was ready, opening the cabinet and pretending to browse.

"Well, I can see him manipulating you into believing that. An ex-con, knew it'd be easy to win you over. So if you do remember, in a moment of clarity, being pressured, that'd be understandable. Perhaps even admissible. Know what I mean?"

Of course. Like a script from some cheap drama she'd mock.

The melodrama-hungry populists of the Wizengamot, though, would swallow it whole.

As always, she wouldn't hide anger for anyone's sake but her own. One last attempt to reach him. Words spaced, steady, tremulously clear.

"I understand you didn't like the releases. But Sebastian hasn't done anything. You need to tell Spavin about the threats against you."

Though Hector swallowed heavily, it didn't show on his face.

"Forget about me. I'm giving you a chance to save yourself, Morganach. For it all to go away. We all make mistakes. Don't take too long to think about it."

Already halfway to the lift, Leander, the Minister, whoever. That mug's monogrammed smirk floating after him.

Cara stayed a moment longer. Just until lingering felt like daring fate to strike. Then she gathered her things, quick and silent.

The status board saw two In-Office designations shifting. Hector's to Administrative Leave, as before.

Hers? Personal day.

It was time to tend to older, kinder ghosts. At least while the night still allowed them to breathe.

Recently, Phineas Nigellus Black had discovered (by way of Scrope discovering) that the reach of Sonorous could be threaded through the whole castle. If you knew which corridors to violate with Extension Charms.

And so Hogwarts, already sentient in its own way, twitched with the Headmaster's passing whims to command a captive audience. Which in August was made up mostly by the faculty.

At first, Black feigned discernment, declared his broadcasts reminders for colleagues. A pose he couldn't hold, of course. That first evening, a rant had rolled.

Now, a week into this regime, they were party to whatever notions chased through his mind. What little patience the night allowed to regrow, evaporating with each new day's marquee of stray thoughts.

The current interjection, petty and crackling over the golden glory of the Great Hall's sunset:

"Also, come September, I'd be partial to fewer Prefects near the Trophy Room. As someone blessed with remarkably sharp ears, I find myself hearing entirely too many scuffles. The proximity to the Headmaster's Office should necessitate a bit more grace in our efforts to ensure compliance."

Since Black's monologues unfurled almost exclusively from the comfort of his bed, Aesop Sharp felt at liberty to respond, low and wry, to his plate at the Head Table.

"No idea who'll be enforcing that."

Black wasn't the only one with sharp ears.

Mirabel Garlick's green robes bent light, notes of compost and old sunshine lingering as she leaned closer. Voice unfurling with easy certainty:

"It shan't be me! That's all I know. I also won't be telling the Headmaster that the roots of his new hobby… don't quite reach the Greenhouses." Her nose crinkling.

"Lucky you," murmured the Potions Master. "I'll be sleeping in my office, as it's a bit muffled there."

He gathered his plate, knife and fork, moving with the rhythm of habit. Ignoring Mirabel's good-hearted titter, 'on that tiny settee? With your leg?'

She didn't know that the pain faded by the fifth brandy, or that Black's monologues lost steam by midnight, once his last cherry tart vanished.

Every so often there were exceptions: his private mutters, muffled self-serenades as he dressed for bed. If only he could carry a tune.

Though Sharp was confounded by Sonorous, of all spells, persisting unbidden, the accidental honesty was funnier than he'd admit.

Not that the rest of the night promised laughter. The Prefect waiting at Central Hall's edge wasn't amusing in any universe.

A pleasant-faced Ravenclaw, honey hair tied with a ribbon. Blanching at his approach but standing tall, even if to a height barely clearing his shoulder.

He recognized her. Last year's OWL Prep Potions section. Always the first hand up, even if it knocked a flask over, cheeks red as apples even now.

This was the student staying for the summer, ostensibly to assist Professor Weasley in preparations for Egypt. The one the Deputy Headmistress, never a woman for easy praise, deemed a mind beyond her years.

Sharp breathed, softening; she wouldn't seek him without cause.

"Evening, Cardew."

"Evening, Sir. An Auror has come to see you. She's waiting beside your classroom."

Instinct, and her pinched mouth, told him to ask:

"Anything else?"

Her brow folded in.

What followed had the rhythm of someone confessing the peculiarity of their station, voicing a personal trial as much as reciting a report:

"I found the Fat Lady and Sir Cadogan, after some heavy drinking, harassing that portrait of hags playing poker. And convinced them to go mind their own backdrops… I know they're just portraits, but it was quite a struggle, and very noisy. I know they wouldn't really harm—"

He held up a hand. Not to silence, but to acknowledge.

"Well done, points to Ravenclaw. To be applied in September."

"Have an excellent evening, Professor!"

Fifteen or so steps away, he heard a distinct, contained 'yes!' loosed when she thought herself unobserved, maybe even a hop echoing against flagged stone.

Sharp smiled, small and secret. One of the minor peccadillos in watching students grow: they never did understand a safe distance, not until heartbreak taught them.

Keeping that faint smile as he approached Cara Morganach, half shadowed, standing at parade rest beside a siege of cauldrons.

Another who'd once earned Matilda Weasley's elusive praise.

Off-duty but still in telltale field gear; clearly her spare time wasn't quite that.

"Sir."

He leaned to his good side, studying her. The years had started their slow inscription, a hundred cases written in the skin beneath her eyes.

That old respect there, however, was undiminished. If anything, it felt compulsory, like she found comfort in it.

Had the officer indeed become as jaded as he, Sharp wouldn't know by sight alone. One seldom did.

"Officer Morganach. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting an evening visit."

She nodded, quick as a snapped salute. "I can come back at a more suitable time."

Truthfully, he doubted she would. Old wounds rarely volunteered for reopening, and he himself had become too much his own injury. Story worn thin in all the ways that didn't exactly foster hope.

Yet, some smaller, more stubborn part of him sensed she'd read his letter for what it was. A hand extended, not a summons. That she'd remember his intentions as her mentor: the recognition of a similar soul, imperfect, but good.

Her posture amid the cauldrons declared outright that she had.

Affirmed, Sharp shook his head, pointed to his office door.

"No need. We both know an Auror's time is precious. Though I don't have Fwooper feathers in stock currently, if that remains a motive for you."

A chuckle as they ducked beneath cauldrons. His former charge mimed speaking into her bag: "Let the record show, the Professor has no feathers to disclose."

It was with a professor's subdued but unmistakable warmth that he told her, "Well done."

Beneath towering windows, Sebastian sat cross-legged on the rotting frame of an old grand piano in the Gaunt Mansion, blinking away dust motes.

Echoes bounced off cracked walls: the Poacher footmen hauling cages. Creatures restless, curious, and wary.

For Ominis had agreed to play buyer in the wholesale scheme on one condition: no creeping into dark caves. They'd bring their best specimens straight to him.

Chisholm, who'd worked alongside Poppy to ready every Beast save for the dragons, had agreed quickly. If even just to trim stock.

That left Sebastian to sit, supervising the strange parade. Though it was the first time he'd seen these masked men in daylight, the risk would make it brief.

His thoughts drifted to Cara. Did she sit at her desk in the AO, too busy to spare a second thought?

Or did she catch herself in quiet moments, stupid smile flickering from their morning nuzzle?

Ominis hovered over a Mooncalf pen, cufflinks catching light, hand settling thoughtfully on his chin.

"And you've been feeding them properly? This male is straddling the line between pleasant and portly," he remarked to Chisholm. "Though perhaps I'm being overly critical, I imagine the overcrowding makes it difficult to wear them out."

Chisholm lingered a few steps away, watching the foal totter off. Voice rough with cheery nihilism:

"What do people care if they're a bit fat? I'm genuinely curious."

Ominis crossed his arms. "Well, as they're used to being overfed, they'll cost my customers more to feed, and be a nightmare while they adjust."

A fervent nod from Poppy, most trusted shadow. "And it keeps them set on food. You want them breeding-motivated."

Then, as if flung by some centrifugal force, Chisholm blurted, "I knew Marvolo Gaunt before I was in Azkaban. But that was under another name."

For the first time in weeks, Sebastian was thankful to be nothing but a witness. He could feel his foot twitching, desperate to strike something.

Grateful the piano had no keys to play, just scattered fragments on the floor.

Flatly, the younger Gaunt brother returned: "We've fallen out of touch. If I see him, I'll say something."

"…we rounded up Muggles together before I went down. Nothing major, just festival 'accidents' and that."

In the eyes of his mask: a manic sheen, a sudden fever.

He found no one looking back; Poppy had busied herself with the Quick-Quotes-Quill and that roll of battered parchment. Back to cataloguing Beasts, affixing invoices to cages.

A pair of chubby Mooncalves wandered the parlor, an oblivious rebuke to human dread.

Sudden cracking in the gloom: Ominis' knuckles.

"Yes, my brother has thus far avoided Azkaban, limited toolbox though he possesses. Something we have in common."

That mustache twitched. "And I envy you both."

By now Sebastian meandered closer, trying to look as if this intrigued rather than implored him.

Though Laird had recognized him as another releasee at the outset, he'd never shared that Chisholm, too, was acquainted with Dementors. With the wails of the wandless and woebegone.

Perhaps he hadn't known. Not everyone took it as a point of pride.

Case in point, Chisholm's eyes kept finding Poppy's back. He regretted letting that lore slip in front of her.

Ominis regained the floor, proving he'd studied well:

"Marvolo did know Victor Rookwood, Daisy. Did you encounter him in your work together?"

Poppy turned, wand pressed to the bars. Answer nearly lost beneath a snoring gaggle of imps. "I heard his name."

Sebastian wished Cara were here to see this. It was a small mercy, no one questioning her absence; then again, a wife was understood to have things to tend to.

He, on the other hand, could not disappear.

"So, Daisy and Chisholm will arrange transport for the rest," just a shade too loud, rounding the table and aligning himself beside Ominis. "How long do you need?"

"Mmmm." A clock winding down, not up; the question caught him off guard. "Before taking the lot, I'll need an inventory to determine how your prices correspond to my wares."

And whether his conditions were performance or pathology, Sebastian's mask scraped his brow as he nodded along.

"Not a problem. We'll have one in… two, three days?"

"I can do that," Chisholm licked his lips, "can't we, Daisy? Maybe even faster."

But before she could reply, Ominis cleared his throat again. So sharp, so deliberate, it suggested swallowing cutlery rather than protest.

"I'd be remiss not to offer collateral." A phrase weighted with baroque grandeur, bordering on parody. Yet in his mouth, it became doctrine. "As a show of faith, and good form."

He reached into that tightly cut suit's pocket and withdrew a locket, shape ambiguous, oval dragging toward octagonal, weighty enough to bend his wrist.

Emerald snake filigree curling into both initial and brand.

Though all were speechless, Sebastian was the one to ask, eyes wide, "Is that Slytherin's?"

And not understanding the theater for what it was, Ominis doubled down:

"I'm surprised you don't believe me, with the amount of his secrets we've learned together. To say nothing of the very home we're standing in. But it'll open with Parseltongue, if you need proof."

The words conjuring ghosts of two boys arguing in the dark, the Scriptorium's door opening on a hiss and a prayer.

How easy it'd be to say things hadn't changed.

"I do believe you."

"Gaunts are Slytherins."

Though embarrassment colored Chisholm's words, their target—himself or Sebastian—was unclear.

At his motion, the rest began filing out the front door. Apparitions echoed in the distance.

"Daisy, you hang onto it."

Momentarily startled, Poppy accepted the locket. Slipping it into her reinforced field jacket without ceremony.

Her firebrand of initiative applied, instead, to imaginary next steps: "These grounds are enormous, have you any interest in a Horntail?"

But Ominis shook his head, sparks from his wand fanning across half-cratered marble. A refusal gentle, almost tired, as Chisholm checked his watch anyway.

"I'll take your word, for now. Show your men that locket, if they've got doubts."

That was it, the proverbial quill crossing through a completed task. When Chisholm Apparated, Poppy followed.

Sebastian sat, blinking, on the piano. Ominis didn't move either.

Just reached into his pocket, finding that china case and lighting up where he stood. "Glad that's over," he exhaled. "A job well-done, I think."

"I really can't thank you enough."

The other didn't answer at first. After the second drag he shifted, slow and deliberate, to settle beside Sebastian. Battered piano bench creaking beneath the addition.

"Don't thank me yet. I've still got things in the damned Catacomb."

At that moment, pressure drained from the parlor like air from a punctured lung. Both of them laughing at last. The bar for glee low and bittersweet.

Breath settling, Sebastian's gaze traced a grand staircase looming all around, almost sentient for its massiveness. The splintered banister seemed a dethroned monarch all its own.

"Never thought I'd see this place," he admitted. "Feels mythic."

Ominis leaned in. Nodding gently, ashing directly onto the floor.

"That seems to be the theme lately. Stranger than fiction. Speaking of… do you remember the bookstore?"

The Gaunt Mansion's haunted corridors, the beasts pacing in cages, the joint smoldering between Ominis' fingers: all these things, absurdly stitching reality to itself.

But that old dream burned with a clarity that outshone the room's dust and decay.

And, at last, it'd been spoken aloud: he wasn't the only one who remembered, who lived in the parchment and sunshine of childhood ideas.

The two of them spirited away, if only for a moment, from the bleak surreality of now.

"Of course I do. I still wonder what we'd have named the place."

"I've used it as a sort of mind palace over the years, myself. More often, recently. Which is my clumsy segue…"

He watched the son of this ruined mansion reach into his breast pocket and produce a letter, folded neat. Laying it carefully on the bench beneath their feet.

That whole time, Ominis had held the joint in his mouth, burning like a brand. Now the cost was due; he sank to the floor, coughing.

Sebastian missed the worst of the fit, eyes on the scrawl of his name at the letter's lip.

The hand that wrote it? A ghost of nursery rhymes and scraped knees. Yet another myth brought to life.

"Ominis."

"One — cough — moment."

But Sebastian leapt from the piano, pulling the still-coughing man into an embrace.

Feeling the pat on his back, the soft chuckling beneath ragged breath.

Sharp's office felt carved out of shadow: whorls of old wood under Cara's palms, the tang of boiled lacewings in the air.

Light was nuanced, high shelves winning out against the Potions Master's one small lamp.

They didn't hover in the shallow end. That letter in his precise hand had done much of the work already.

She sat in the worn wingback across from him, memories crowding her temples. Most presently, the way Sharp always waited an extra beat before answering. Weighing things in enigmatic silence.

"Yes, I remember Sebastian Sallow well. Not the best in my class, mind, but a quick mind otherwise. Shame to lose him to Azkaban."

Likely, he knew her part in the story. Though re-stating it might make her seem naïve, or worse, self-absorbed, the truth needed air.

"I'm the person who put him there. Ominis Gaunt and I, but mostly me. Though I'm sure you knew, from the AO."

His eyes closed for just a moment. As if the whole saga, for all its tragedy, struck him as disappointing, but not remarkable.

"It was actually good Professor Weasley who told me, but yes. I knew. Mirabel refused to believe it."

"I see."

Cara felt her molars grind, and after a moment something passed across Sharp's face.

Pity, with a side of seasoned distance.

"I imagine being the one to have damned someone so totally, while still a child yourself, has affected you greatly."

Outside Sebastian, whose interest lay, understandably, in diminishing it, this was the closest anyone had ever come to naming the bruise she'd carried all these years.

Cara's throat burned. Suddenly, she wanted, needed, to ask:

"Did you know about it when you put me up for the AO?"

"I did. It showed a willingness to make difficult choices against personal feelings. That, combined with what you managed with Ranrok, had me convinced there was no better recruit. And I was correct."

The air pressed in, thick and close. Not closure, but an irony she'd never known, a paradox: a child condemned, a child chosen.

"Sir, with all due respect, I've only been the perfect piñata in that office. Despite the case count. Sometimes because of it. And, again. All due respect, but I don't think you fully understand what I'm dealing with now."

A hand ran across Sharp's stubbly cheeks, his brow crumpling. "I didn't claim to, not fully. But you're clearly in a place where trusting your own kind feels impossible."

Cara stared down at the grain of his desk, her reflection warped by the lacquer. Child and adult, accuser and Auror, all blurring together.

"Can I speak freely, Sir?"

The door closed with a thud. Safety, of a sort. When she looked up, he nodded, giving her the room.

"My office is full of people who don't think rules apply to them. All from money. The Chief's involved with two real suspects of mine; they've got pressure on him. He's threatening to have me declared out of my mind, thrown off the case. And he implied I should frame Sebastian. Which amazed me."

A small clock at the office's right lung, where she had stolen that feather, chimed the top of the hour before the Professor replied.

"I am not as amazed. While it's egregious, I'd be lying if I said I haven't seen a similar situation at least once."

"Hector's in some sort of workshop with the Minister now, he and the DRMC head. Yet he's threatening me."

At last, the Professor seemed to have been given a bit of pause. Brow furrowing as the sun at last fell below the horizon behind him and the castle's evening torches came on.

He cleared his throat, plucking up his wand.

At its wave, a desk drawer offered a bottle of brandy. Two crowned-bottom glasses coming to rest neatly beside it.

The Potions Master poured his own and drank with hearty gulps. None of which seemed to burn or sting him, just brought zeal as the glass emptied and refilled in under a minute.

"I'll wait," murmured Cara. "Sorry."

But her skittishness caused no offense, as Sharp had calmed incredibly; alcoholic's agreeability. Still, his speech returned colored with its knowing monotony:

"I believe Fawley misunderstands his own threat. It's quite difficult to have someone deemed incapable. Especially with the accuser already under disciplinary supervision themselves. Your new Chief has outlasted expectation; some bets saw him ousted in six months. His kind is poisonous, but not deadly."

Her ankle trembled, eyes finding his Auror badge. Glinting only in the way a daily polish guaranteed.

"So, I should just continue as I am. Focusing on the leads, making sure the new reports don't include it all."

"How many rules must be broken to make sure others are ultimately enforced," he affirmed, so softly she nearly missed it.

Then, more pointed: "Were I you, however, I wouldn't tell Sallow about the threat. By now, you'll know the importance of deciding when things didn't happen."

Suddenly, the brown bottle seemed less a luxury than a necessity.

Cara watched it, the darkness inside, thinking for a moment it moved of its own will when it lifted into the air. Enchanted, perhaps, to reply to a wanting hedonist.

But it was Sharp who'd read the room and poured.

The brandy was fierce, dizzying, burning through her chest and up to her eyes. She thought of how the drawer had creaked with wear, the sound of a ritual.

"Sir," her voice flat but somehow even, "he's put himself in a lot of danger for this case. Not telling him would be negligent."

"Just remember, dichotomies are powerful. By sheer dumb luck, the law granted him a second chance. And I believe, Officer, learning the same body of law has threatened him unjustly, even in jest… may just reawaken the captive within."

As a rule, Sharp shied away from anything resembling poetry in conversation.

It wasn't distaste, nor a lack of capacity; Cara suspected he simply distrusted the way metaphor required surrender to feeling over fact, however briefly.

She was the same. Which made the words heavy, realer than anything else he could have said.

"I'll keep that in mind, Sir. I still believe the best strategies involve keeping everyone as informed as possible."

His gaze was steady, fight gone out of him, but teacher still present.

"A worthwhile approach, and one surviving corruption often requires. I simply ask you to remember the impossibility of saving everyone you believe deserves it. It is a reality that I don't believe can be argued against."

The images came unbidden: Sharp's limp, Noke's heart in the grass at the blast site, Sebastian's dead-eyed mugshots, Ominis' wand under her foot in the Catacomb.

Fading to the taste of brandy, an ache in her teeth. She let herself lean back, old leather giving way, breath leaking out.

Sharp met her eyes.

"I apologize for the damning language. Though skepticism lends well as a Potions Master and disciplinarian, I'm not above overextending the impulse."

"No, you're being realistic, which I appreciate. I didn't expect Sebastian to ever be freed, or want to help me. Hector's zeroed in on him because he doesn't think the releases were a good idea, and…"

And because he was jealous of him, in his small peppercorn of a heart. But Sharp wouldn't be able to speak to that, relate to it.

A product of an older generation as he was, he may not even believe it.

Cara avoided the thought.

"They weren't a good idea, broadly. Not in execution. Though Fawley is a fool, on that account even a broken clock is—"

"…right twice a day."

"Apart from abstract wisdom, I have no advice that won't already have occurred to you. An Auror faces a difficult path. One I think you've walked with aplomb, nevertheless. The Fawleys of the world come and go. Sallows, I can't say."

She blinked, feeling a tremor pass through her.

But he wasn't finished, not quite. Just needed the silence, as she did.

"Being able to step into the emotional viewpoint of others, even those that scare or sicken, is a troubling gift. Its value is reflected in your case count, your awareness of corruption. But the cost of always attending the environment is losing sight of the self."

It wasn't a new thought. She'd lived with it, measured herself by it.

"That's interesting."

"No it isn't. It's a platitude. What I was originally going to say was that Professor Fig would be proud of you—as am I."

When she arrived in Feldcroft, Sebastian lingered in the bathtub. Water cooling around him, a book hovering overhead.

"Evening, beautiful." His wand hand, slack and dreaming at the rim, flickered; the book, obedient, descended.

Cara felt herself blink as she toed off her boots. A smile creeping up despite her nerves. "Evening, freckles. How was the Great Gaunting?"

His grin belonged less to the moment than to the boy he had been before everything grew complicated.

"Look on the table," words curling cryptic, his ankles crossing over the tub's rim.

She knew from the first line.

They'd both known an update on Anne would come sometime, but she'd avoided mentioning it. It had become an unspoken agreement: an entirely unspoken agreement.

"That's something," she breathed, amid a bittersweet smile. "How're you feeling?"

Sebastian scratched his nose, shifting in the water. That smile from before, lingering beneath the sweat beading his top lip.

Clearly, he appreciated being asked.

"I'm feeling… impatient, but happy. I've made a point not to think about Anne. I almost wish she'd have waited until she was ready to see me, but."

Knowingly, Cara completed the thought: "Because now you'll linger again?"

Sebastian nodded, folding into the water and surfacing while dragging both hands back, water streaming from his hair. Wiping his nose with the back of his wrist to reveal a crooked smile.

"Indeed. But I doubt that he has more freckles than me, her son. Something to look forward to."

That smile radiated. Unguarded, luminous in a way that made Cara feel the heat of it on her skin: stubborn, irreverent hope that his twin might step through the years and find him after all.

Yet even as that warmth flickered, she felt herself slip sideways. Memory of Hector snagging like a hook in the gut.

His fingers oily against the snifter, voice slick in the cadence of someone who'd rehearsed their villainy alone in front of the looking glass.

Given his way, he'd keep the Sallow twins strangers and salt the earth behind them. Even if it was only posturing, the irony made her queasy, a physical thing.Its contrast with Sebastian's fragile joy, suddenly unbearable.

Cara rose, the movement unsteady, as if the room itself had shifted.

The hearth beckoned, and she let herself topple down to the rug; first body, then bones.

And Sebastian watched her, mystified.

While she'd processed the news about Anne with the same silent, gobsmacked joy he had, in her case, it seemed almost like an incidental joy.

Something that'd be touching her heart more were there room for it.

And now she lay prone on the floor, as if in a trance, or concession to some deity in the thatched ceiling. Her eyes open but unblinking.

Brushing the water, splashing for attention. "Hello? Cara?"

Her head turned, slow as a planet; firelight caught her eyes, made them almost translucent, jaw slack. Clearly in need of an embrace. Making him wish he wasn't in the tub.

"I went to see Sharp today. After walking out of work. Hector threatened to have me declared incapable to close the case. And implied I should frame you, say your deputization was a mistake, to save myself. He says the Wizengamot will believe it."

Sebastian's chest immediately stilled. Nerves threading him back through iron cuffs, body slack against stinking stone.

The humming, anesthetized gray of solitude.

His ribs expanded, panic rising: not again, not this way. The drain plug became a focal point.

So this was where they were. Cara'd circled too near the sun and drawn the expected retaliation.

Hector, his own bed crowded with enemies, wanted to prove he wasn't the only one. Choosing him as a no-brainer sacrificial lamb; one who fed jealousy's green monster, to boot.

And yet, the Chief himself was a known liability. A cracked pillar in the Minister's crumbling temple.

Cara, he knew, had already followed this logic to its conclusion.

Sebastian yanked the plug and stood, water tracing lines down his legs. Telling her, nonetheless, "I think he just wants you to panic."

Her gaze had returned to the ceiling, voice muffled by distance and rug. "Sharp said the same thing."

Sebastian was back on dry land, but without pajamas. His gaze flicked to the pile of linens abandoned on the china cabinet. Forgotten he'd brought those in from the line.

Wrapping linen tight, he settled at the table like some broken Roman god whose humble wrap couldn't conceal his tense muscles.

Or just an ex-con in a sheet that was barely doing the job.

Cara was still staring blankly at the ceiling.

As of this week, her blue Auror uniform was gone, replaced by leather and linen, all black as midnight. Both advertising her authority and dressing her to defend it on a dime.

Last night, half-asleep, she'd explained the switch to field gear as protocol for "an active risk of escalation".

Translation: ready for anything but comfort.

While Ministry's blunders left little else to boast about, the AO field outfit was objectively stylish and sharp. Built for taller, stronger bodies; men, of course, were the blueprint. But Cara wore it with a fierce elegance.

While she sometimes joked that her height made her masculine, he didn't see it. And still didn't now.

Matte black Ministry epaulettes on her shoulders were enchanted so that in any light, they were almost as bright as the leather of the trousers.

What a pair they were. Of pants, and of people.

He felt himself stand, finagling the sheet to avoid tripping as he knelt beside her on the rug.

Saying nothing, just meeting her eyes.

Finding that she let him stay there. Embraced him in the way only irises could, by expanding. Moving gently in response, tiny saccades for two.

This moment, this interaction so intuitive and intricate in its tininess, seemed to make bigger things scale back into visibility.

The gleam of her jackboots, the stupid sheet around his waist, the looming threats outside—all became incidental.

Sebastian figured, if Cara didn't know the hand he was ready to play, it was on him.

So he showed his hand, and told her:

"But none of it matters. Because after what's happened between us, Azkaban couldn't drag me away."

"Sebas—"

"Quiet." Cute as it was sometimes, she couldn't be allowed to devalue the remark. Not now. "I mean it. I'd go on the run."

He saw himself then. A shadow slipping through dark alleys, a rootless Renaissance man who made friends in low places and keenly avoided every Auror.

Every Auror except the one before him. Leather-clad hips wide and waiting.

She sat up, face both baleful and sweetly intrigued when his eyes came back up to it. "Yeah? But then you'd never see me again."

That pout, on her serious face, was a goddamn weapon.

"Oh, I'd see you. I'd make sure I found you."

He saw her in the dark of her flat, pretending she wasn't the woman being fucked senseless by a filthy fugitive.

And the same wheels turned in her eyes, a returned ache.

One she attempted to divert by plucking up a corner of the sheet and murmuring back, "Dressed in your toga?"

"It doesn't matter," he told her, rough. Hand finding her hip and winding it so she was forced to face him. "If you think I'm going anywhere, you're daft."

Her eyes followed his fingers as they found the zipper.

The pants clung tight, but he didn't need much space.

Better yet, she'd soaked what little there was. Two fingers slipped in with a wet, eager squelch.

An invitation that made his lids shoot open, a dark grin spreading across his face.

"Don't make fun of me," whispered Cara tartly under a groan, hips twitching as she gazed down. "I see your toga has tented."

The damn sheet. She wasn't letting it go.

Sebastian's eyes gleamed as he yanked it off, flinging it behind him. Its fate didn't register.

He was on her, fingers curling deep, breath hot against her neck.

"Now that I've tasted this pussy, no cage will hold me."

Faster now. Sebastian's palm slapped leather with every jerk of his wrist, beckoning her walls, slick and desperate.

Cara whimpered, fluttering and throaty. One leather-clad leg creaking as she threw it aside to buck his fingers.

"Promise?"

Drool glistened at his mouth; he licked it away. "I promise. I'd find y—"

But muffled by her kiss, he groaned instead, one hand sliding from her slick heat to meet the other at the back of her head.

He was inside her before they could even catch a breath. Tasting her long, shuddering whine that rolled up from deep within, twisting tight in his gut.

That throaty panting, the ragged mm, mm, mhmm. And so fast.

Loving getting used to his cock again, head thrown back. Trying to disappear into the ache, but also to hold on to it, to feel every brutal inch.

He wasn't going to last long. That much was clear.

"This is how you'd greet me?" Her voice teetering on a moan that threatened to fracture. "Like this?"

His eyes narrowed, dark and sharp.

"No other way, is there. Not now that I've—"

Cara cut in with a long, low whine, hands sliding, fingers digging into his hips.

Panting, she made to follow up: "Not… now that you've… what?"

But there wasn't time for that thread anymore.

Not with her milking slit so hungry, so musky and plump, wrapping around his girth with a fierce, perfect hunger.

If she hadn't asked that he not make fun, he'd have teased her for how wet she was. But she wasn't the only one unraveling.

The juices between them were soothing the ache of a cock so hard, it'd throbbed raw against the open air.

It had not only been too long since he'd been inside her, but it needed to happen more.

Much more.

He slammed his hips harder, sighing deep with the force, rocking into the sluice of flesh and leather between their ragged gasps and groans.

Tasting her neck, holding her hand when she reached for his.

When that hand then slid beneath her belly, pressing firm to match the rhythm, Cara breathed, "Would… you do this to me… then?"

"I'd do everything." Dropping to a rasp, "And I'd cum inside you, every time."

"Mmfh…"

Hearing her moan, feeling her tighten, he cooed low, "Oh, I know… you'd love that, wouldn't you?"

Cara's answer was delayed as she took a hissing, delighted breath between her teeth.

Then spoke the words that made everything still.

"I… I love… you."

"I love you too," he sighed breathlessly, "I… always have. I'm… gonna cum."

But restraint crept in, an echo louder than the pulse in his ears: no, not inside her, not now, not after what they'd just said.

A searing at the root of him, equal parts pleasure and punishment, as he withdrew. Eyes flickering between the map of her face and the zipper as he worked himself, eyes wild.

She loved him.

Shit.

"Notonmyfieldgeargetyourtoga," she breathed abruptly above those misty eyes.

The command made him want to collapse into her, press his mouth where her laugh began. But indeed he stumbled, caught the sheet's trailing edge.

Spilling himself onto the cloth, half-kneeling, braced against the edge of the table.

"You know, we do have magic," Cara murmured, as if this truth, too, had been waiting for its hour.

"Some of us went without it for a while."

She snorted. "Really? Who?"

He crawled back to her arms, to the fire, to everything.

Later, he'd tell her what'd unfolded amid the crumbling architecture of the Gaunt Mansion, and everything else that seemed, for now, almost irrelevant.

For now, there was silence. One that felt less like a lull than a canvas, a shared breath, a new way of seeing. They lay there, occasionally cracking faces or holding the other tighter in a calm that left them both lightheaded.

Peace.

It was Cara who finally broke the spell, yawning, shifting to rise.

Sebastian, still propped on the rug, head in hand, reached for her. "Just one more thing. A revision from earlier."

She turned, lit from within, contentment shining through fatigue. "What's that?"

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "Not now that I've loved you."

Chapter Text

I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident, I hit it in the stomach.

Upton Sinclair

Sebastian stood in the bathroom of Cara's flat, the cold porcelain grounding him as he washed his face.

She favored limoncello soap. It crumbled unevenly. Sharp and tart, like tiny suns burning out on skin. Citrus biting his sinuses briefly on inhale.

The man who looked back at him was a little worn. But still there.

In the bedroom just beyond, Cara slept. The first of her four personal days. One she'd sworn the whole of would be spent sleeping.

The dusty hands of her bedside clock, crooked on the wall, confirmed it: 2:23 pm, and she was still gone. Lost somewhere beyond the reach of time.

He leaned against the doorjamb, bamboo blinds casting fractured hexagons of light across his face. As well as the bed, that island all Cara's own, where she lay out cold.

Small, stubborn proofs of life present in the twitch of her foot; the faint wet spot on the pillow. No longer caring to be held as she had these last few nights.

Which in itself had been novel. Meaningful.

Sebastian knew she wanted him here, loved him even. But to be needed by her, well, that was a language she hadn't spoken until lately. Wordless but certain. Close and warm.

She'd stiffen even when he shifted in bed, hang onto him tighter.

There was one other development of note:

Even before the threat, Sebastian had thrown Hector's name around among the Poachers like a loaded gun. Said the man deserved a shakedown more than once.

But only when Cara wasn't there. She'd called it unbecoming of an officer, and once, when he'd dared it in front of her, she'd cut him down sharp.

Yesterday, though. Their last visit. He'd gambled again; Chisholm had opened fire, listing off grudges the others had shared, enemies they could all rip off. And so, Sebastian thought the dice might roll better.

And the Officer backed him up. Half an act, sure. A dutiful wife playing the part.

But beneath the mask, her eyes burned with a heady, reckless release. A catharsis held tight for too long, like a wound about to burst open.

She'd shown no other sign that the matter still gnawed at her. Hadn't even acknowledged it.

He hoped she wasn't holding back for his sake. That she wasn't scared the full weight of her rage might push him away. Make him reckless. Act in a way unworthy of a deputy.

The coverlet was cool under his fingers. Periwinkle, soft and puffy. It made no sound as he pulled it over her bare ankles. She didn't stir.

Her upper body curling fetal, legs stretching diagonally.

That brow was easier to read without its usual scrunch. Characteristic crease smoothed only by sleep... or pleasure.

A lopsided smile tugged at Sebastian's lips, but he shifted his weight. No point wandering there.

Then a noise outside snapped him upright. A distant hum from a crowd, faint but sharp enough to cut through the quiet.

It was a restless sound, that spoke to something deeper. Something he was only now naming, as the walls were closing in.

They were safe here, no doubt about that. Safer than Feldcroft by miles. No one could breach this fortress without fooling or disabling an arsenal of security measures.

Except Hector, of course.

But the look on Cara's face, that aching, broken look had stuck with him. A dark assurance that the Chief had outdone himself, wouldn't even need to come rub salt in the wound.

No matter how sensitive she sometimes was, Cara was not an innocent to be sheltered. She was an Auror and didn't need him. Not for protection, at least.

The truth was, outside September trips before Hogwarts, Sebastian had only once been alone in London since his release. Everyone felt like an enemy. World frozen in hostile stillness amid May's stifling heat.

The boozy idiocy with the woman from the bookshop, the sun blinding him, the desperate need for a bath. All of it was a blur.

Cara needed it, the rest she was getting now. He wouldn't argue that.

The only person he'd seen more exhausted was Anne, wracked and aged by the curse gnawing at her from the inside.

His twin lived in Edinburgh now, according to Ominis (and the postmark on her letter). Visiting was out of the question, he knew that. It was something for after all this, something to look forward to.

But Anne… well, she had at least traveled. Despite everything she carried, she'd been out there, crossing cities and borders.

Meanwhile, irrespective of the reason: Sebastian had rotated between this flat, the Feldcroft house, and whatever ruin the Poachers called home that week.

Cara never told him he couldn't go out on his own.

Further, and yet again. He wasn't a fugitive, never had been.

They were both free, regardless of what Hector Fawley thought about it.

He could fuck right off.

For a while he walked, finding his first impulsive stop at Gamp's Grocers. This time walking through the store's oddities with a strange nostalgia for a time not so long ago. Laughing with Cara as she looked at brisket.

And Gambol and Japes drew him, as well. Last time he'd been down here, everything had felt too impossible to enjoy. All of it still part of some foolish, feverish dream.

It wasn't Hogsmeade, but he understood how so many wizards found comfort here. A place where the center of everything still kept its edges wild. Where you could get lost in the crowd and still catch a new wonder every day.

Like the strange military presence gathering near the Leaky Cauldron. He let the crowd, sparse but talkative, fill him in on the details:

Their strange grey outfits meant they were recruits, current enrollees at the Auror Academy. A motley crew, only about a third of whom would actually become Aurors.

For now, they'd shadow the AO to get experience with crowd control. Therefore, some event would soon be happening in this plaza.

Or not.

No, they were waiting to be told.

Regardless of the answer, the ranks had gotten a bit less symmetrical. Several of the men in gray were talking, low but casual. At least one yawning.

Another tore a salami sandwich in half, split it with his fellow beside him. Both of them noshing freely, looking bored.

Still, a key few among the new brass seemed vigilant. Annoyed by their peers but serene as deities, discipline honed beyond noise. The Cara-types, setting the example.

Sebastian's jaw tightened. He wanted to know who held the leash, who sparked the flame they were all waiting for.

There, in black field gear: an actual Auror at the edge of the gathering. Tall, solid as a stone pillar, badge pinned sharp against his chest.

A standard Ministry ledger, resting heavy at his side. Cara's favored light notebook made ever more sense.

This man had been chosen for his intimidating frame, meant to command space without a word. Yet even he seemed to be on standby. On a bench, legs crossed, large eyes lidded like heavy curtains.

Ledger cockeyed on the cold stone beside him, in favor of the Prophet folded loosely in one hand.

Sebastian, in the act of constructing his layman's portrait, nearly lost himself. Caught by the vertigo of remembering, suddenly, this canvas was public. That the subject might look back: the Auror's eyes found his, one brow rising.

He turned, an actor improvising his own irrelevance. Sidewalk absorbing his retreat as hairs rose along his neck.

Flashes of reading Dante with Anne.

I make my own home, be my gallows.

In the end, though, as far as the Auror's attention was concerned, he would never find out. He'd stepped on someone's foot. Someone slightly taller than he, and hooded, who turned to look at him.

"Sorry."

That dark hollow of anonymous affront regarded him for a moment too long.

Sebastian stared back as his hand found his wand, warm in the dark jacket. Cleared his throat. Planted his feet shoulder-width apart.

Was this how it all ended, he wondered. Right here, in front of a thousand people?

But as soon as the world began to bend, the stranger's quiet, anticlimactic lament put it right:

"You should be sorry. These are Italian leather."

"Ominis?"

All in one acerbic exhale, his best friend returned, "Please, say it louder. I don't think they heard you in Wales. Find us cover… if you want to talk."

Sebastian inhaled, the city constricting around him. The world, for all its bluster, insisted on being small. Even here.

A train shelter stood nearby. A relic from an old seventeenth century Express stop, built before Diagon Alley swallowed the streets whole.

Blackened wood soaked through by rain, stretched like drum-skin under drizzle. Unsound, yes, but tucked behind the backs of the recruits.

"Over here."

Under that cramped wooden half-roof, Sebastian regarded Ominis again. Tried for a smile. "Are you always garbed like this in London?"

And Ominis leaned on the wrought-iron railing, tapping his foot. "Almost exclusively."

On the wall behind him, a flyer for Flourish and Blotts. Books with grins too wide, colors too bright, dancing in cartoonish repetition.

A flick of rain on Sebastian's shoulder brought him back. He asked, voice harder than he intended, "Were you following me? If you wanted to talk, you should've written."

The empty hollow of a hood decisively swiveled.

Ominis was unoffended by the presumption, and in fact,

"No, I just came from Knockturn Alley. Truth be told, when you stepped on my heel, I almost thought I'd been followed. That someone back there turned on me."

Back in the square, the Auror indistinctly said something to the recruits; Sebastian watched over Ominis' shoulder. They didn't move. But seemed closer than before, somehow.

Had he misjudged the distance, or had the crowd become a single, watchful organism?

Trying to focus on what he could control, he leaned into Ominis. "What're you doing here this time? Are the others not selling the… the?"

Of course, the career thief was both quicker on the uptake and far more convincing:

"The cologne and fine soaps? Yes. But I'm doing my own quality assurance. Ours aren't experienced with sundries, and the tide grows higher. Even Augustus Hill wants to enter the fragrance market, you know."

This doublespeak understood, Sebastian's gaze returned to the gathering in the square. Even if it was redundant to Ominis, he felt the obvious needed to be named:

"Cara is meeting me later, but we're in mixed company right now."

A soft snort, the hood turning away. "Mm, you don't say. I'd like some coffee, myself."

Envy, sharp and sudden, at Ominis' poise; Sebastian tried to mimic it, tried to believe in his own composure.

"Okay then, take my arm."

Even as logic begged him to flee, he led Ominis around the square twice. A pointless orbit, each circuit a new failure to shed the feeling of being watched.

Get enough information to outweigh it, somehow.

Ominis, silent, complicit, let him have his ritual. Because in the end that was all it was. Nothing happened. The recruits played cards now, and they'd come back to the train shelter.

The dancing books now mocked Sebastian for his caution.

Beside him, the grace of an old friend deciding the mistake was on him: "I meant, broadly, we shouldn't linger outside. If you're finished here, it would be a good time for that coffee."

He nodded, grateful. "Coffee it is."

Fortunately, this stretch of Diagon Alley was littered with cafés. Like an upended box of mismatched sweets. Some promising, but most stale; the kind you half-remember tasting once, long ago.

Sebastian chose the one that looked least likely to be haunted by expectations: nameless, windowless. Set apart by nothing but a bronze statue of hands cradling a pint. As if to say: here, anonymity is the house specialty.

Inside, the air was sodden. Salt and rot and something tangibly old. Ominis finally shed his hood.

"A bit dank in here." Though his nose wrinkled, the sly tilt of his mouth was nothing but charmed. "It's giving notes of maritime and mildew. But a pleasing white musk, too."

Sebastian dropped into his seat at the nearest galley table. Fired off, "Well, you can take the boys out of the Dungeons, but…"

He let the line hang, waiting for the Ominis to complete the punchline.

But he just blinked, the shape of the joke unfamiliar. Letting it drift away with a shrug, a sigh of pure nostalgia. "I do miss my spot at the back of the Common Room. By the windows."

Sebastian nodded, glancing at the host's stand. A buoy adorned the front of it, but the surface was untouched, bell dusty, as if it'd been abandoned mid-shift.

Overall, the place was shipwreck chic. Splintered beams overhead, an unmanned bar carved to look like a rotting hull. Enchanted nesting dolls peered down from the shelves, Faberge eggs glinting beside them; ornate, improper.

Like treasures from a wreck no one remembered.

"Wonder what the gimmick is with this place."

Ominis only shrugged, settling in, booth creaking like a doomed hull. "I'm sure it'll be revealed. But we didn't come here for the menagerie, did we."

The two of them sat beneath a brazier whose white flames painted Ominis in the light of some aquatic thing; skin lambent, features refracted, dredged from a different world. But not at all intimidating. Just waiting for his next line.

Before Sebastian could speak, the table rumbled. Scalloped cloth billowing like a great, invisible lung had respired below.

Just as quickly, the tremor faded. In its wake two cups of coffee materialized, steaming gently, attended by filigreed spoons. A sort of moan, guttural and gormless, like a Neanderthal attempting opera.

"See? Ghouls," said Ominis, voice light. He dipped his spoon, steam curling. "Though I suspect someone else must be doing the actual kitchen work. Ghosts, perhaps."

This small mystery solved, Sebastian studied the pale shimmer in Ominis' eyes.

Save for that brief moment at the Gaunt Mansion, this was the first opportunity he'd had to speak with his best friend alone. It felt like it may be the last, somehow. He'd have to make it count.

"Are you facing any pressure from the Poachers? When it's just you and them?"

"No. But they're poor hagglers," he answered esoterically before clarifying, "For example, Chisholm was angry Borgin and Burke did their job and low-balled him. Fortunately, that's not my problem, and they know it."

Ominis spoke with the casual fatalism of a man who'd memorized the art of disaster. The air about him a few degrees colder, as if a private winter were stitched beneath his skin.

Feeling a thought unearth with the gentle violence of a shovel in loam, Sebastian let it surface: "I didn't even realize he was in Azkaban. He wasn't on the list."

Suddenly sly as a cat in a window, Ominis asked, "You thought Ozymandias was his real given name?"

Sebastian's grin carved up his cheek, a vine reclaiming stone. "Point taken, Ominis."

A dry chuckle. "No, besides hating their new market, your little syndicate are chuffed." The pause that followed wasn't idle, but a gathering of silence. A tonal shift. "Should I be expecting them to pressure me?"

Fear, on Ominis, no longer thrashed or begged for quarter. It found its way into the furrows near his eyes and mouth, wore itself like a well-kept suit. Contained, conditioned.

His eyes, blind but preternaturally clear, now seemed to distill the world into something primeval, sharper than sight.

Beneath the lacquer of fine manners was a raptor. Unblinking, in wait for the living heart, the pulse of something nervous in the grass. Sebastian, unsettled, let his mind slip.

First to that last time he, Cara, and Ominis had met, all three in the same room once again. Then the present. The flat and the memory of her folded into the afternoon, golden hush pooling over the bed.

He wondered if she'd woken yet. If she was lonely.

That was the root of it: she would never say so. Not to him, not to anyone. A curiosity that made loving her feel like a secret needing kept even from himself.

"No, I suppose I just have similar ideas on my mind," he confessed, quieted by the ache of distance.

His own cup empty, Ominis took a sip of Sebastian's, caring not for pretense. Swallow echoing. "Elaborate."

"Hector threatened Cara. He asked her to turn me in to save herself. Or that he'll push her out, get her labeled mad by the Ministry."

Ominis blinked, a slow-motion shutter. Only a tightening at the corner of his eye betrayed the impact.

"You know why he resents her, don't you?"

It made sense that he'd ask. Five years as Cara's confidante, her secret-keeper. Building an archive of her aches and mistakes, while Sebastian memorized patterns in stone.

Beyond that. With his own sins coiling in the dark, Ominis had made her the axis of every conversation and subtext-laden silence.

Meaning, he likely held a fuller map of Hector's bitterness than Sebastian could bear to view.

"I do," said Sebastian, jaw tight. "Doesn't stop me worrying. Not for a second."

"I wasn't saying you shouldn't worry. Just that it's expected, knowing Fawley. And I suspect, if he knew he could act on it, he wouldn't bother warning her."

Again, Ominis kept himself comfortable with the glib logic of someone who'd comfortably walked the underground. An advantage Sebastian was both intimidated by and envious of.

Because Sebastian was under no illusions about the moving pieces here. He'd won over the Poachers, sure. But personality only went so far.

They'd needed their old friend the thief here to push their alibi into true validity. A real high roller. One mercifully motivated twofold, by saving his own skin and helping Cara.

Yet not even that had managed to ease her mind.

"Sharp said the same thing, about Hector," Sebastian replied finally, in concession. Words leaking out on a sigh as his head dropped into his hand.

"Oh, she finally visited him? I'm glad." Not relief, nor approval. An olive branch, the sort of given by one measuring hope in increments.

Sebastian wasn't wholly satisfied by it, though. "Me too. But it didn't seem to ease her mind all that much." He paused, eager not to ruin the rapport. "Is Augustus Hill really trying to start on perfumes now, by the way?"

Short and caustic, Ominis chuckled, "How should I know? I don't do business in Hogsmeade."

"Why not?"

Then there came a piercing screech, startled and wholly unguarded. It was Ominis, letting fear fly from his throat in something dangerously close to song.

A poltergeist, sharply dressed to the point of parody, had materialized with the brisk confidence of a maître d' and tapped him smartly on the shoulder.

Even the fire in the hearth seemed to shrink away from the blaring silence, embarrassed.

"I'm Pickering, the owner of this establishment," he announced, buoyant, almost musical. "Sorry to frighten you!"

Sebastian, sideswiped by the memory of Peeves and his carnival of chaos, hesitated. "Nice to meet you."

Pickering, undeterred by the pause, cut a jagged little jig atop the table. Feet never quite landing, caught between joy and clockwork compulsion.

It was a wonder he didn't kick the coffee into their faces, the way the cups jerked in tune. Landing with a flourish in front of Ominis and revealing:

"You were right, earlier. Ghosts do work in our kitchens! Ghouls don't quite have the capacity for commerce, but are still valued team members. Interested in seeing a pudding menu? This week, we have Black Forest cake."

But Ominis was still gathering breath, seeming to sift every inhale through a deck of old trauma. Each draw, a card turned over.

So Pickering shrugged. Turning to Sebastian, typing mime-like on an unseen register. Gesture so precise, it nearly threatened to conjure the object in real time.

"Anyway… sixteen Sickles, and I'll be off!"

Alone again. Presumably allowed to finish their coffee before another tap medley.

Feeling like they'd teetered on the smalltalk seesaw long enough, Sebastian pursed his lips. "It just feels like something needs to be done. Clearly the law's not trustworthy."

Pale fingers clinked a spoon against the bottom of Ominis' empty cup, deliberate. As if the sound were a clarion call.

Then, stillness.

"Nonetheless, we're still operating on behalf of that law, through Cara. Who I trust very much."

The words had a subtle weight, not quite a rebuke but close. A tether, soft as silk and tightening by degrees.

He wasn't dismissing Sebastian's concern, but threading it into a warning. One so elegantly delivered that resistance was almost profane.

To disagree would be not just to doubt him, but to trespass against reason, against Cara herself. To question her was to risk the ground beneath them, to tumble through the thin ice.

He always did this: drew invisible lines in the air, so deft that to cross one felt like heresy.

And all with his hands folded, posture perfect. As if composure could erase the memory of his shriek, or the coffee blooming dark on his lapel. The ice wasn't just broken. They'd crashed through it, shards sparkling on the table.

So, Sebastian, unsure if the restraint was strategic or sincere, leaned onto the table. Elbow planted like a flag.

"So do I. She's the only law we can trust," he said firmly.

"But you still think something needs to be done that hasn't occurred to her." Ominis' voice was gentle, those blue hollows under his eyes the only sign of strain. "Why is that? What stakes am I missing?"

Not accusation, not defense. Just an open door: explain yourself if you can.

"I know she's got you involved, and Poppy too, but. Hector and Leander have been called in with the Minister over mishandling it. So why are we still here?"

The Gaunt heir blinked. Slow, deliberate, with an indignant little flutter. A private refrain, someone in the room is angrier than the moment can hold.

Sebastian recognized it from boyhood and, for a beat, lost himself there. In the comfort and threat of old patterns. Until Ominis rose from the table, arms folding across his chest.

A gesture that looked defensive, but read more like a pause in the music.

"For my part, I think here is a rather good place to be. Our cover is holding. DRMC are recovering the Beasts." His mouth a sparse line. "In the end, I'll have Azkaban awaiting me if this doesn't work out. My point being, it's not a question of we. Why are you still here?"

"I love her, Ominis. I've always loved her."

No rhetoric, no shield. Just the fact. The explanation that the moment required, condensed therein.

And Ominis didn't flinch. Only a faint catch in his breath, as if that simple admission closed a circuit they'd both moved around for years.

He extended a hand.

"Then let's go find her. And enjoy the eye of the storm while we still can."

A Minister and two department heads walk into a meeting room… and stay all day.

An anticlimactic joke that'd stretched out, become life itself.

Behind them, the blackboard was a battlefield sketched in chalk. The afternoon's exercise: a cross-department 'sample investigation' protocol they were supposed to master.

Blue for AO, pink for DRMC. Xs and Os drawn and redrawn with more hope than real cases allowed.

The exercise was expected to wrap by lunchtime, but had devoured the entire afternoon. One would expect that finishing it just shy of five PM, then, should've brought the day to its natural end. But it hadn't.

For twenty minutes now, Spavin had been leading them on a slow, drifting tour of magical communities across North and East Africa.

They'd started at Gibraltar, the old-world knuckle jutting south toward sand and sun. The Sahara's massive expanse leading them southeast, past the Fertile Crescent's pyramids and olive groves.

Spavin's eyes misty as they lingered especially long near the Rift, beneath the River Jordan's swaying palms.

For Hector, patience was a thin rind that'd split a while ago. Somewhere outside Marrakesh.

Since then, every new landmark Spavin had conjured tasted like grit. Like a dare, to see how much dust could they swallow before someone broke.

No lesson was coming. No tidy conclusion. As they floated further down the Blue Nile, unhurried, almost gentle, it became clear he was simply blathering.

Somewhere near the thirty-minute mark, the question wormed beneath Hector's skin: How much farther down the Horn, into the night, would he drag them?

Leander, all obsequious angles, betrayed no fatigue from the hour. Too well-trained, too eager.

"You convinced him, didn't you? The Egyptian Minister in Hobyo?" he pressed, a dog's tail thumping.

Spavin smiled over tea. Pretending not to notice the aide who'd brought it, tripping on her way out.

"Eventually, yes. I made concessions… but all ones that'd help later on. It was the most exhausting meeting I've ever had, my whole life long."

Hector's lip twitched with the withheld urge to deem this the most exhausting meeting of his life. If anyone cared.

And to remind the room that they should've been released a while ago. If only to tend their Departments before setting off for the evening.

But Spavin sat, ancient mouth curling in a reminiscent smile, as if the two weren't present.

Before meeting their eyes and adding, with intentional gravity, "So, after all of that, I came down with a bit of traveler's fever. That is, I pushed all engagements back a week and took a trip to Nairobi."

"I've always heard that the Beasts in that region are fearsome," Leander offered.

It figured that was all he could contribute. Trust this long-faced drone to daydream about blood and teeth. Not the living heat of a city, nor the pulse of its people.

Hector eyed Leander's tatty shoes, worn at the toes. Mother Prewett's lessons, stitched into every nervous tuck of that tie.

"Oh, absolutely. Nonmagical and magical alike! Admittedly, that night, all I saw was a pub in a rather seedy corner of the city—that's where you'll find the hidden gems."

Leander nodded, head cradled in his palm; Hector's eyes fixed on a knothole in the table, as if the grain could anchor against the Nile's current.

Of course, Spavin still seemed to be gearing up. After a moment, the old man landed on a story that warmed, withheld laughter shaking his frame:

"In that bar in Kenya, who did I look up to see through the net, dressed in all khaki, but the AO Chief? Your predecessor, Hector, Chief Gambol. He'd gone someplace he didn't know a soul, either!"

Amid his roaring laughter, a simpering murmur: "Such a small world."

Dutiful jester though Leander was, Hector found this interruption mistimed, a cymbal crash in a dirge. Spavin cleared his throat; a diplomat's passive agreement.

"… But that night, over some cinnamon spirit, I regret not asking the name, we worked out all new interoffice protocol. Handshake agreement, mind — but a wonderful note on which to end my tour."

Absorbing, with a polite smile, Leander stepped forward again. Reminded of his place and again ready to inhabit it.

"That's aspirational. I didn't think the Minister interacted much with policy—on departmental levels. Apart from what we're doing, of course."

"Usually not, indeed. But…" Spavin gestured to the tabletop's scattered papers, to the two of them. "Sadly, in the case of our particular snag, there was no wildly improbable meet-cute to do half the work…"

Well, at least he'd admitted the irony of it. The solution he'd fallen into by pure chance before.

And clearly whatever comms reform he and Gambol had drunkenly built that night, and the others since, had failed. Otherwise, they wouldn't all be sitting here.

At last, Hector separated his dry lips to add:

"Speaking of work, I don't mean to be rude, but if ours is complete, my fiancée is waiting."

Behind those glasses that magnified his ancient eyes, Spavin's lids fell a bit as he checked his pocket watch.

"My, we have run a bit over. Even after omitting my account of Uagadou…"

Leander nodded, the consummate understudy.

"Congratulations on your engagement." Clipped but sincere enough; wand at work returning notes to his briefcase, tie swinging as he stood.

An unreadable flicker, maybe curiosity, in the Minister's watching face made Hector decide on grace.

"I'm not engaged yet, but I anticipate a yes."

"Good luck," the reply already halfway out the door.

But before Hector could follow, enjoy the fruits of his own interjection and return at last to Nanette, Spavin tapped the desk with his wand.

"I would like a word with you, Chief. In my office."

The feeling of an axe, cold and patient, hovering just above his nape. He followed, resigned, a man halfway to execution.

Spavin's furnace of an office was crowded with oddities: random wood carvings, impasto paintings, miniatures safe in glass domes.

Some placements looked purposeful. A ship in a bottle on the mantle, a pewter dragon glaring down from a ledge.

Favored pieces of a mind willing neither to forget nor categorize. Reminiscent of the Room of Requirement in its clutter.

As well its ability to, surely, become whatever the Minister needed. At the flick of a wand he'd have a vault, a courtroom, a mausoleum.

Spavin led the way through the varnish-thick air to a clearing of sorts. Grand old desk, wide hearth. A single wingback chair, cracked with age, dead center in the fire's glow.

The literal hot seat. Hector knew it.

He sat, shoes tapping against the floor's shine. "I never knew you were a collector, Minister."

Spavin regarded him, eyes crinkling with bemusement—a look that seemed to ask why would you?—before brushing the small talk aside.

"So, your performance the last few months… I've been mulling over that quite a bit, of late. And not just in these meetings."

Hector crossed his legs. The old man gave nothing, just that thousand-yard stare.

But after hours of listening to his endless tales, waiting felt like a wise move.

Fitting, because he wouldn't be able to speak if he tried.

"I sense you find him tiresome, but had Mr. Prewett not intervened before the Wizengamot got word of certain things, I rather think…"

A ridiculously long, pumping pause as he cleaned his glasses.

"…that the alternative was a hearing, with you defending yourself against… most likely, obstruction of justice."

Ah. So it really was the shakedown he'd expected. Why even bother with the leadership workshops this week? Why even pretend there was a way forward, if he was just to be fired?

"I'm new to the post, I'm still learning," was all he could offer, throat dry. "Well, new enough."

Spavin's nod might've reassured, had it not been the sort you give a child who's brought you a dandelion. Polite, indulgent, already forgotten.

"That's always a part of it. But I think there are certain types of leadership for certain natures. When these mismatch strongly enough, for long enough, there's just no reconciling it."

What followed was a pause; the moment after a glass slips from your hand, but before it shatters.

Hector braced. If he was being dismissed, then this was the slow, anesthetized unraveling; the pleasantry grafted over his fatal wound.

The sound in his chest, not quite a sob. Just something lonely and private, a clench before a fall.

"What can I do? I thought these meetings would—"

Spavin, all eagle-eyed shrewdness now, waved his hands: the meandering storyteller, swapped for the statesman.

"No need to despair, young man. I'm still in my preamble. But, spare the waterworks, I'll digress: Often, what seems a bad leader is simply a good leader misplaced. Underutilized where he is."

One blink. Two. Just like with Malfoy.

This captor, though, expected him to solve a riddle, to perhaps earn his own salvation; the ground felt slicker here, the chasm less visible but just as deep.

He crossed his legs, arms folded.

"Is that just an observation, or do you think I'm underutilized? In the AO."

Spavin's fingers drummed a rare empty spot among the desk's museum of obsession: a gnarled pipe, a chipped bone mortar, a child's broken wand.

Each coming with its own long-winded anecdote, surely waiting to be weaponized.

"I think you inhabit a position that demands, bar none, a lack of personal agendas. When you, my friend, are teeming with them."

The words landed with a particular weight, and Hector felt them in his chest, stethoscope to ribcage.

He watched Spavin's eyes: not kind, but not cruel either. Just old, and tired, and still sharp enough to cut.

Hector glanced at the overflowing shelf of photographs and letters above their heads, measuring his place among them. If he'd ever have one.

Wondering if he should've been less flippant earlier amid the man's most treasured story: an Erumpent calf urinating down his leg in Timbuktu.

Squaring his shoulders, keen not to betray what he couldn't afford to lose:

"And which sort of roles do you think such a candidate would be suited for?"

Spavin laced his fingers; knuckles swollen, nails trimmed to the quick. Something not entirely kind in his eyes.

"I'm still going to give my speech," he said. "You've found, I'm sure, many points in life where you've felt a need to… change the narrative on something, or someone. Coming naturally. Am I correct?"

Memories collided, too many to land on one. Pulling at a hangnail, Hector saw Morganach in the kitchen.

Grains from that wretched snifter still stuck under his nails. Even Scourgify hadn't touched them.

Perhaps she'd cursed the sugar bowl.

"You are. I've had many impulses like that."

Apparently satisfied, Spavin flicked his wand. A model train lifted, wheels spinning, whistle's wheeze lost in the stifling air.

It circled above, casting jittery shadows. A reminder that systems could run forever and still go nowhere.

"I also think when it comes to routine matters, you more comfortably delegate than execute."

The anxiety in his gut twisted, but the fear wasn't clean. It was smudged with something almost like anticipation.

If this wasn't the prelude to dismissal, then what? An autopsy? Then so be it. At least he could watch them weigh his organs.

Leaning in, elbows pressing against his knees.

"You're right about that. I can't stand the rote work. I need to lead."

"And leading colleagues at a social event feels even better, I gather?"

Instinct and tone told him this was no accusation, just a nudge, a wink in phrasing. But despite Spavin's loose, almost indulgent smile, Hector's lips pressed together.

"I enjoy socializing, but know the work itself comes first."

Spavin stood, knees popping audibly as he pushed away. Moving in front of him, hands gripping wood against the desk's edge.

That model train, still hovering in idle orbit above them.

"An expert non-answer. While I'm glad you know when to posture, you needn't do so right now."

For the first time, those cobwebs in Spavin's voice felt wiser than meandering tales of travel and fortunate accidents. A pivot that made Hector realize he'd been a better audience than Leander all along.

"I ask because some leaders spend most of their time socializing. Even they have enemies, but friendship is mostly a performance. Except when the press is watching."

Thinking back to the aides he'd noticed on the way up. Identical uniforms and rigid postures, all thin and overworked. The one who'd brought tea, stumbling over Spavin's foot, hat askew, head bowed.

He had simply pretended not to see her.

Now it was clear what was coming: an aide's slot. A promotion only in name, turning a "misplaced leader" into a shadow.

Useful, indispensable even, but utterly invisible.

Remaining Chief was plainly off the table. Apparently, he was lucky to even be here, saved only by Prewett's brown-nosing. Otherwise? A non-starter.

And while his father had done Spavin more than one favor, he was hardly unique in that.

Whatever was being offered now was a consolation prize.

"I know twenty-one is young for an AO Chief," he offered stiffly. "My squad are young, too, and seem to expect wisdom I simply don't have."

Spavin gave a slow, rocking nod. Above that heavy beard, lines in his ancient face seemed to stretch, giddy with private mirth.

"Mr. Fawley, youth is a treasure. I haven't considered myself young since Tomes and Scrolls opened. That was 1768. And while I talk too much… famously so, it's always in direct proportion to how much I listen."

This speech's heart was meant to pin you to your seat, to keep you from running, even in your mind.

"I've been reelected six times.Old Spout-Hole's a fool, they'd say; he was too old the first time. And yet, they'd turn around and put me back in this seat."

Yes, yes, obviously. Enough lore clung to Spavin now to make a case that he replace Merlin as the face on the Galleon.

But this was no history lesson. It was a carefully placed veil, a prelude, as he wet his lips and continued,

"Over time, though, I've grown weary of crowds. Summits, endless dances for diplomacy. My presumption is that you, with your agendas and desire to represent your institution, would thrive in that space."

The fourth Hector Fawley born since Faris Spavin first took office folded his hands beneath his chin, fingers steepled as if in prayer.

It had to be a joke. Maybe Nott was behind it, or Abbott. Those two were always scheming. How they'd convinced the Minister to play along was a mystery, but absurdity was the only plausible explanation.

Or perhaps this was just a batty old man's idea of a final lesson, a practicum in the art of slow surrender. Had he done the same to Leander? It felt unlikely.

Either way, the supercentenarian's bated breath forced Hector's absurd hand forward.

"You're offering me… your position."

Spavin stroked his beard, eyes dropping as if searching deep within the tangled fibers. Then he cleared his throat with a dry rasp.

"With some rather heavy conditions," he said slowly, "which I'll explain in due course. Enough that I'll understand if you decline."

Nanette flickered through Hector's mind then. Waiting for him all week, warm in her quiet encouragement whenever he grumbled about these sessions.

She'd laugh, surely, at this ridiculousness.

Though he hadn't meant to say it aloud, the question slipped free. "Is this another management exercise?"

But Spavin had moved on.

Was already on his feet, quill and parchment finding their way into his hand like old friends. Those spectacles growing a stack of new lenses to magnify the moment as he scribbled.

"One could say… it is the ultimate one." The remark seemed almost offhand, amused. He was busy, man in motion. Almost supernatural was the effect, all that energy belying his age.

Meanwhile, Hector sat. Sweat cooling on his back, knees still pressed tight.

However, the weight in his belly had shifted, turned fierce. Not hope. Not fear.

Sharp, insistent hubris.

Ultimately, it wasn't an axe waiting for him.

It was a scepter.

After a night without sleep, Cara rode the lift to the Auror Office, mind moving through the morning as if underwater. Those four personal days had come and gone entirely too quickly.

One hand worked circles into her temple, the other wrapped around a cup of "Blitzkrieg Brew," an acidic, high-octane coffee the shop witch sold to the desperate and damned.

Every last drop would be necessary to scale the mountain of paperwork awaiting her.

Last night she'd fallen asleep early, at first. Too early. Sunlight still leaking in at the corners, Sebastian in the kitchen humming Bonny George Campbell, voice soft and off-key.

Waking to full dark, his breathing slow beside her, her mind thrumming with things it refused to release.

Now she stood at the checkpoint, body slack, eyes barely open as she presented her wand. Expecting the click, the familiar green flare.

Instead, the eye-sigil blinked awake, iris flooding red. The door's voice, cool and distant, echoed through the bones of her skull: "Access denied."

Cara rubbed at the ache in her neck. The sigils were crude magic, basic as a locked box, but reliable. Never a false negative, not once in five years.

She tried again, barely looking, pulse thumping in her wrists.

Red again, this time pulsing, the panel's voice sharper: "Access denied. No clearance."

Her eyelids squeezed shut, blood rushing up and out, leaving her legs watery, her brow burning.

Somewhere behind her, another Auror, Abbott, maybe, presented his wand. The sigil clicked, and the door swung open for him, unbothered.

There was still a sliver of hope: a technicality, some glitch, something small and fixable. Perhaps it was just her, just today.

Blinking away the sting, she retreated to the lift. Let it ferry her down to the Atrium where Administration lived.

To a civilian, Gideon Travers could easily be mistaken for a mid-level bureaucrat, just another cog among stacks of parchment and clattering typewriters.

But this man was the head of Administration, the nerve center. Perhaps manning the desk for old time's sake. Nothing of substance moved through the Ministry without passing under his gaze, bearing his stamp.

He was the stopgap, the terminus, the end of the line.

She gave him her story, clipped and bare, stress coiling in her shoulders.

His expression never shifted, not as she began, not as she finished; attention cool and undisturbed, a surface that gave nothing back.

Wry, faintly knowing, damning: "You'll have to speak to your Department Head."

Looking at her in that careful way, as if she were a corpse left out on the pavement.

Something to pity, but not to touch.