What would any of you do?

It had been a particularly uneventful day for Officer Miller of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. Earlier that week, he’d been tasked with keeping an eye on those who were going to be shortly detained within the cells the Ministry kept within the building and he’d been enjoying the post since. His wife had sent him off that morning with a hearty lunch and a canister of hot coffee. He’d kissed his children goodbye and pressed off for work, content with the idea that his day would consist of reading PlayWizard and eating far too many biscuits that the pretty intern from Human Resources always brought up to him with flushed cheeks and a little smile on his lips. That was how Officer Miller had imagined his day but, as ever, it didn’t play out quite as he’d imagined it would. No, instead it was entirely turned on its head by a brunette in scarlet shoes.

Officer Miller had been, ultimately, tasked with keeping half an eye on their most high profile detainee: the son of Harry Potter himself. No formal charges had been made but the Deputy Minister had been explicit that to teach the other man a lesson he’d stay there and learn some humility lest he wanted to enjoy Azkaban and wear the brand the rest of those pesky Dark Wizards enjoyed. Of course, Officer Miller didn’t expect it to go that far but neither did he expect, upon looking up from his magazine, to come face to face with a rather tired, harassed-looking member of the Wizengamot who was, soul-crushingly, also the Headmaster of Hogwarts and, most distressing of all, a murderess who should’ve been dead. Truly, they made an interesting pair, one that saw Officer Miller pale to the hue of the deceased.

“C-c-can I help you at all?” He stuttered out, hastily shoving the magazine beneath a pile of release forms waiting gathering dust on the desk.

Theodore glanced over at his counterpart who looked to be lazily inspecting her nails. His practised eye noted the way her fingers shook and her furtive gaze; aware, indeed, she was that the Ministry of Magic was the worst place in the world for her to be. Pardoned or not by the hand of a rather sympathetic Deputy Minister, there were still those who would have enjoyed a cheap shot at a Pureblood witch who, by all accounts, was as haughty and impassive as her gesture and gait suggested. He knew better, though: one of the privileged few who did. After a moment, Theodore turned his head back so he could properly view the man before him, smiling a toothy, sardonic quirk of the lips before leaning forward, his eyes straying to the pile of papers beneath which the magazine was stowed.

“I’m sure your wife would love to know what you look at in your spare time,” he appraised, adding, “I am sure you’d love to know what she looks at in her spare time, too -- or who, rather. It’s quite the affair.”

As if it was at all possible, Miller seemed to blanch further on both counts and as he attempted to form a response, Theodore reached for the pouches of galleons he had stowed beneath his cloak - one large one and one significantly smaller one that was, despite its size, still teeming with galleons.

“One is for the bail of one Albus Severus Potter who I know is in your possession. My partner here put on her big girl knickers this morning and did intend to torture you into submission. I, however, opted for a little bit of a bribe. The smaller one is for you to pay off your gambling debts and those madams who you owe money too. Prostitutes are a bugger, aren’t they?” Theodore tsked dramatically as if he understood the draw and attraction of rent girls.

“So, you can have this,” he paused to fling the pouch at Miller before continuing: “and you can put this one,” he brought his hand down on top of the bigger pouch “in the Ministry’s coffers and we can forget all about Master Potter being a little pain in the backside and not marrying our Deputy Minister’s soppy seconds - how does that sound?”

Miller barely got a chance to speak before Athena interjected in action, leaning across the desk to grab up the keys strewn out on the surface. He managed to spit out words then and threw back the coins. He drew his wand with a flourish and Athena Rookwood looked up calmly, steadily to meet the failing gaze of the man before her.

“You’ve been paid,” she remarked, “walk away. Take an aimless stroll to buy a donut and a coffee. Do something with yourself: your role is over and done with.”

“No!” He spat. “I refuse to stand by while you break the law.”

“Oh please,” Theodore snorted, leaning idly on his cane which, as ever, made him look for all the world like the esteemed member of the peerage he liked to think of himself as, “the law’s broken and done with already. We pardoned her when she should’ve rotted in Azkaban. We’re pardoning Potter because...” a miniature pause elapsed between that word and the next as he glanced at Athena, wondering for the first time why they were doing it. “She asked. I am a Rookwood and a member of the Wizengamot. I am the law here so put your wand down, dear, or you’ll be in a bed next to the Longbottoms at St. Mungo’s.”

Miller gulped. “No,” he swore, shaking his head.

The scenario changed then as he fastened his wand fast in Athena’s direction. Removing her own from its holster she flicked it at him, muttering a spell that was juvenile at best from Theodore’s naive perspective. However, compulsively he found himself ready of his own accord and as Miller’s shrieks dissolved into the whinnies of a pig, Theodore cast a butcher’s charm which, before their eyes, saw the pig-Miller chopped up into neat little steaks, rashers of bacon, trotters and goodness only knows what else and it was all lined up neatly on his desk as though the man hadn’t been there at all. Juvenile, their spells were not.

Without conscience, she turned on her heel then and exited the foyer, blazing purposefully through the double doors and disappearing down towards the celled basement of sorts. Theodore glanced over at the bits of Miller-pig again and frowned before transfiguring a few non-entities into brown paper and string and, after wrapping up the morsels, he sent them off with a spell to the Ministry’s owlery with a note attached that encouraged it to be owled to himself at Hogwarts. He certainly wasn’t going to leave disposal up to chance but he wasn’t going to eat Miller, either. He’d let the Thestrals do that for him.

Before departing, Theodore pocketed both sacks of coins once more.

Athena hurried as quickly as her heeled feet could carry her through the Ministry dungeon that housed people who weren’t nearly as evil or as markedly criminal as herself yet by contrast she walked free. She had glanced at the roster and followed through to the particular block and, sure enough, she happened across Albus’ cell with reassuring swiftness. Her hands stumbled with the keys but soon enough she managed to wrench the door open and with her wand she brightened the light in the cell.

“Albus!”

Despite her composure she allowed herself the exclamation of joy mixed with complete and utter fear, for a moment. Joy that she’d found him and that it was she who would ensure his freedom rather than a soulless Ministry official and fear that perhaps they’d been as kind to him as they had been to her; fear that he wasn’t alright. Catching view of him did not reassure her, either. In her mind, Albus Potter was capable of no ills and if he strayed to it for some reason she had taken it upon herself to prevent him from delving into a pool he’d not rise up out of again. She would one day pay for her mistakes. He did not need to suffer the same fate.

Plip. Plip. Plip.

It was barely morning. The pale grey light that trickled in through the barriers of window-panes and cotton curtains, was hardly sufficient to illuminate the room; and Albus saw greys and blacks and dancing shadows as he stood at the door of his sister's room at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning. The room still looked half-empty, inspite of her having moved in a week ago. Her rucksack was still full and half-zipped, tossed messily over the chair in the corner. Like its owner felt that she didn't quite belong here.

His mind was urging him to leave. But Albus still lingered for two more seconds, silently watching. He had watched her last when she had been eight, head nestled into James' lap, disturbed by a nightmare. Strange, that the last time to do so had drawn so near, and was now flitting out of his fingertips. Strange, that it meant something, and always would.

"Al?" The voice was sleepy, and half-stifled in a yawn. They had always been light sleepers; Albus had forgotten. So many similarities, and he only saw it now.

"Sleep." He said. "I'm going out for some time."

Lily's nose first poked out of her covers, then the rest of her bedraggled head. From this angle, she almost didn't look like the gangly teen she was. Though still sleepy, her voice held reserve like it always had, like she wasn't quite sure like she should be asking. "Will you be late?"

His throat tightened, abdomen reflexively drawing in, clenching. His voice was normal. "Might."

Lily watched him, for a second, then as if convincing herself that her wariness was unfounded, turned on her side, facing the wall. Albus stood there for a beat, then turned and ducked beneath the doorway, the door falling shut behind him with a click.

She'd be going back to Hogwarts in a few days anyway. She was a big girl. She could take care of herself.

Even though Albus knew that this was the most reckless, and by Gryffindork logic the most brave thing he had ever done, it still felt an awful lot like running away from his family. Again.

The cell was damp, naturally. Sometimes it was easy to forget that the entire Ministry was located underground. But its constricted size restrained air flow, and so induced stuffiness. The smoke wafting out of the neighbouring cell did not help matters. The walls were too dark and dirty to actually make out the original colour, but there was a trail of fungus working up its way across the cracked stone up to the ceiling, hinting sickly green. Albus occupied himself with watching its progress, the various branches of green scum and thread-like mycelium as they clung slickly to the wet stone. He wondered what nourishment they could derive, what they fed on in this barren place. He also gave it one more hour before his shoes started displaying the same.

And then of course, inexplicably, there was the roof leak.

Plip. Plip. Plip.

The walk had been one of the strangest ones in his life.

He walked, leather shoes hitting the cold, marble floor, aware. Aware of the glances that dogged him from every corner, the suspicious glares thrown in his direction, the unapologetic curiosity. Aware of the heavy, twined chains of metallic red light encircling his wrists held before him, the Hitwizard who grimly walked beside him, tapping his wand impatiently on his palm. Aware of the old, bulbous-nosed Mr Elric who Albus had always rather liked, gutting his elbow into Albus' side swiftly as he passed, muttering 'traitor'. Then aware of reaching the destination; being pushed roughly in front, patted down and his wand- rowan, eleven and half inches, dragon heartstring- being ripped from his fingers. He stood straight, chills sneaking past his sleeves, watching them mediate on which cubicle to toss him into, watching his wand clasped in the ruddy, brutal grip of a man who whose wide teeth bared in a smile, begged to be broken.

They asked for his name. He said, "Albus Severus." A pause. "Potter" he added. The quill stilled in its hated scratch-scratch, the witch stopping to look. For a brief, weak second, Albus felt a drop of hot, white shame trickle through his veins.

Then his eyes caught sight of the piece of paper, now tattered and torn at the edges, but still valiantly sticking to the door of the Department Of Law And Enforcement, to the right of the room in which he was being questioned. The wizard holding his hand caught his gaze, and scowled. Albus felt a smirk lift his lips.

He hadn't been beaten, or damaged in any way. No matter how disgraceful, his name still counted subconsciously on the minds of witches and wizards. There had just been that one, isolated punch; but the smirk had been well worth it. His jaw still felt sore, and tender in parts, and the spot where the signet ring had impacted his face hurt like a thousand Stinging Hexes.

Albus almost wished someone would come. Taunt, question, torture; anything. It would be better than this absolute, ringing silence. Where there was nothing to do but look at the ceiling and look at the walls and look at the bars, and absently wonder if he'd see James or Lily or even Jack again, if in all the resentments against his name and wishes for something better, he really had ended up a disgrace to it in the end.

But of course, there wasn't complete silence. There was the leak, magnified manifold by the eerie quiet, periodically ticking away the seconds that he spent here, wasted.

Plip. Plip. Plip.

He didn't hear footsteps. If he had, then they would surely have sounded.like a thousand people marching down the corridor in the quiet, rather than an errant cousin who was sneaking him food and water.

Fred didn't look like the part, like he might have had in Hogwarts. His black Unspeakable robes swished around blacker dragonhide boots, collar sharp and uncreased. Albus didn't even realise it was eatables, until a tanned hand waved through the air abruptly and a steel plate of a dry sandwich, and a glass of water tumbled out of a pocket of wizardspace. His hand, sweaty and probably soiled, fastened around the cool glass and drained it down, water trickling slowly down the sore throat. He didn't trust himself to keep down the sandwich; it had been eighty three hours.

Fred had always been tall for his age. Now, standing in a closed cell, from the seated angle, his six-foot frame seemed to loom over the cell, swathed in robes that made someone he had tussled with in childhood look forbidding. He stood grimly as Albus persuaded a last drop to run across his cracked lips; then both the plate and glass were gone.

"Thanks Freddie." Two distant words drifted out, even as that imposing figure turned to leave.

If the witch's shellshocked reaction on hearing his name had caused Albus to just feel a prickle of shame, then Fred's blazing stare in response, and the curt, caustically sweet, "Anything for family, Albus." caused him to burn in it.

The mind numbing lack of work to do, and the silence, was starting to prey on his brain. There was no other sane reason why Albus would be mumbling Muggle song lyrics. He had refused to sing along with his guitar even when his mother had pleaded him to, years back. Albus Potter didn't sing, it was as simple as that.

Even now he didn't know whether the lines seeping into his ears was words, in the voice of Albus Potter, or simply the walls whispering back to him to keep him company. The words were half breath, half silence, with no distinguishable tune, just intakes of air and rounded consonant sounds. "Shiver...and shake the warm air...cold..........I'm alone...mhm....and....ev-ery mistake...I dig this hole....through my skin....and bone.."

"...harder...starting over....then never....to have....changed." A radio had whistled this out to him sixteen years ago. He had good memory. That wasn't disgraceful. "Black...birds....following me. I'm digging out ....my grave. They...closing..." Closed eyes, black images. "..swallowing me. The pain..it..comes in waves."

I'm getting back.....what...I gave.


Then eyes opened and there was Athena Rookwood, fumbling over the lock of his cell, soundlessly. Suddenly, the silence made so much sense. There had been a Muffling Ward placed around his cell.

Her lips shaped out a word, slowed down, suspended in time. Albus could not hear it. Could only see excitement, fear, happiness.....dart across that normally composed face. But he understood. She was calling his name. His name. In that moment, he didn't feel like an insult to it.

Then she stepped inside the cell, and the Muffling Ward deactivated automatically. Albus watched her face, the rising and falling chest, the eyes that had never quite seemed so bright as now. Unstoppable.

"Are you......out of your mind?"

There was not a smidgen of self-preservation left in her Slytherin veins, it seemed. Replaced instead, was the desire to do what she felt was right and what she needed to do to ensure that the people she… cared for were safe. Regardless of the cost, she knew she’d always go to the ends of the earth for her friends. For Mira, for … well, Albus. That was it, really. They were all she had. Albus and Mira. That was it. They were all she’d ever have. Ever. So they were important. Both of them.

Once the door broke its stoic hold over the man it contained within the dingy, four walls, Athena half-ran, half-tumbled into the room and ignored the sting of her nerves as she dropped herself to the floor, abandoning sense and the keys as she grasped at the face of the man before her. She grinned, despite the darkness, and smoothed her thumbs over Albus’s cheeks before reaching once more for her wand.

With a flick, light beams were launched into the air above them and Athena was able to then better ascertain her surroundings. She tucked her wand behind her ear the way she used to when she was in Hogwarts and ignored the stunned feeling that rattled within her, that wondered who the woman was now that was in charge of the bag of bones and skin that was Athena Rookwood. Certainly not the Goyle woman of old? Where had the cattily cowed, disillusioned Rookwood broodmare gotten to?

“Albus, Albus, Albus,” she repeated, reaching for his face again, a soft smile on her lips. “I am totally out of my mind, trust me.”

Perhaps there was more truth in that statement than she knew. Of course, insanity was a trait that seemed to capture all Purebloods to a certain degree and the closest she’d ever come to it had been Azkaban and then her time with Elijah Krum who, while acting the perfect host, singularly managed to drive her batty by just breathing. He was still a friend, of course, but his treatment of her best friend had lost him her concern.

What she was doing was insanity. It ran the risk of frittering away her pardon, of seeing her back in the hole they’d dumped her in. That was a small burden though, she supposed, if it meant that the poor Potter she’d come to affiliate herself with was allowed to walk in the watery London sunshine once more.

She’d been there – done that, you could say – and it wasn’t a small stretch to see her there again, children be damned. It was better she went, a veteran to those hallowed halls, than a complete outsider who should’ve known better – who should’ve wanted better for himself.  

“Come on, we’re getting out of here. I’ve cleared it with the officials in a manner of speaking. We need to leave before they change their minds.”

It was fine to pay a bail and move along. What had exacerbated the situation had been her heaviness of hand and Theodore’s willingness to comply with her will. They needed to leave before someone decided they missed Miller’s stellar company and wanted a coffee and a donut with him. By the time that happened, Athena wanted to be well clear of the Ministry. Ireland wouldn’t nearly be far enough. Perhaps the South Pole.

He had been expecting an answer to his question. Some sort of composed, crisp reply, all carte blanche. A spiky barb, if Athena was in the mood. Not for the dignified Pureblood heiress to drop to her knees. Not the cool, smooth fingers cradling his jaw.

Then the touch was gone, bright, glorifying light sparked into existence, the wooden tip of a wand nestled into curls of dark hair peeked out from behind the perfectly shaped shell of a ear. And then back, a comfortable caress, human skin on skin. And all throughout, even as he winced as the fingers skimmed across a particularly tender portion; Albus remained watching, blank and a little dumbfounded throughout, regardless if he avoided looking like an idiot normally. Some things necessitated such a response. Things like Athena Rookwood walking into your cell and taking your name again and again like it was worth repeating a thousand times over.

And meanwhile, aforementioned woman had been talking and clearly saying things quite of importance. Albus broke out of his daze, shaking his head slightly and only managing to catch the rapid words- "-cleared it with the officials, in a manner of speaking. We need to leave now, before they change their minds."

Wait, what? Leave? As in leave the cell? As in freedom? Albus blinked rapidly, vision winking in and out of view- and yet the scene still remained the same. Athena. Inside the cell. Asking him to come out. She had freed him. He was free to go. They needed to leave. Leave now.

Stray, scattered words flittered indiscriminately about in his mind- words like Athena and free and leave, and yet the single sentence that kept echoing, over and over in his head was.........when had he managed to make this friend?

Words spoken to a redhead in this very cell, not too long ago, dawned to mind. His own words. "If the price of choosing is solitude, I'll take it. " But here he was, having made his choice, and yet not alone. Because Athena was with him, looking deliriously joyful and almost impatient enough to just seize him by the arm and drag him out of the Ministry. Two proper meetings after Hogwarts, that was all they had had. Both exchanged words with care, and caution, and all other barriers that gender and blood and side provided. Except the last one, where she had offered him hot chocolate.

He had managed to make a friend, stubborn and bent and masked and a mess as he was- all in the midst of colour puzzles and the sweet smiles of children and the fish-and-chips and the bridges and the chocolate. And she was here to get him out.

It was a painful journey to standing up. His knees wavered, calf muscles strained and drawn taut; there was a second where balance eluded him and his body pitched over to the side, just managing to reach out a hand to the wall and stabling himself and holding on to balance with the tips of his fingers. He straightened, taking several seconds too many, knots and aches making themselves known throughout his back- but standing. There was a faint hoarseness to his voice, but the measured, controlled undernote- upbeat and determined to burst out and crest and make itself known all the same- could scarcely be hidden. "What are we waiting for, then?"

Everything ached, nothing beyond tolerance, but a closed, pervading throb that worked through every inch of his limbs, determined to wring them out beyond repair. Albus felt detached from it all. The trance had broken, and a stronger one had set in- one in which even dingy cell walls seemed brighter, where bars seemed to be welcoming him out instead of closing him in, where the threat of the Ministry and retaliation and consequences seemed a distant worry, a cloud far on the horizon, ready to be tackled once the time came. No pain could drown out the growing lightness in his chest, the inhaled breaths that seemed to be expanding and cleansing out heaviness from his pores with fresh air. There were troubles waiting outside these four walls, yes. Troubles that would test and might even defeat them. But there were also possibilities. And defeat was only one of them.

(OOC: Merry Christmas, babe!)

There. All perfect and alive with all of his fingers and, she inferred, his toes, too. The mind was intact, the horror no doubt sticking a little bit around the edges, but the wit must still have been sharp and the cunning as stinging as ever. He was alive. Hungry, no doubt, and in need of warmth and some sporadic affection before the fuss became too much --- but he was alive. From head to toe. The absence was not scarring the edges of the page. The next could turn unimpeded by bereavement. All could spin and flow as well as it had done until then, or, rather, as disjointedly and somewhat, sort of well.

“For the wind to change, my darling,” Athena bit out with a smile before reaching for Albus’ hands, giving him a helping hand onto his feet. The Ministry wasn’t into, it seemed, the accessories that were ball and chain shackles but they did maintain their wards beyond the simple key and lock. However, that did not stop Athena from breaking rank and stealing back into the hallway. With a flick of her wand and a charm or two, so too could Albus at his leisure.

The hallways had brightened somewhat and the clang of the door closing behind them as enough, certainly, to remind Athena that there was very little time for them to get away. Theodore had deigned to hang around in the atrium or reception or quaint sitting room that preceded the dungeons and lock up cells filled with werewolves and petty criminals, broken up with a smattering of dissidents and the occasional oddball that had blown up a village or two. That was the company they kept.

It was utter madness. A definite and final betrayal. Spitting blood, the patriarch had warned her working in a little bookshop would be the end of her: that freedom, even if it was only financial liberty, bred in Rookwood women a kind of rebellion that he would not tolerate. Augustus had been brusque and flyaway with his gestures, uncaring of the results of her excursions – flippantly even deeming them ‘good for her.’ Kendall had not been present to comment.

As it was, Raghnall Rookwood turned to be correct. All it had ever done was breed rebellion in her and helping a Potter certainly fell under that heading. Associating with one also came under that bracket and organisation of ‘really-bad-things-she-shouldn’t-do’ but bailing one out certainly took the biscuit. Took the complete and utter piss actually. They knew about it as they always knew about such things – good news travelled on the wind – and they’d await her return, knowing exactly whose vault the money had quitted in order to release Mr. Potter.

If Athena lived through the confrontation she’d never hear the end of it, she knew, but as they reached the end of the hallway, nearly having found the atrium once more, she found that she didn’t care. It was the right thing to do. It was the only thing she had ever done that was right and, sort of, brave. She owed Albus something. Anything. Anything to make it all better for him. She hated her own sadness and hated his equally. It did not need to be compounded upon by their Deputy Ministry getting frisky with his power.

Said Deputy Minister, however, was the man who they found in the atrium when they emerged into the antechamber to the dungeons. He had found himself a Rookwood to bicker with and Theodore, who was leaning lazily, heavily, on his cane, returned the ire with equal fervour. When Elijah caught sight of Athena his mood changed from irate to livid but as ever, Theodore exercised his control which was as far reaching as it was irking and grabbed the Minister by the scruff of the neck.

“Let’s remember how you stay in your position, Deputy Minister. It’s because you keep your friends in good nick and keep the likes of us Rookwood pleased with the job you do so I’d think twice, if I were you, about saying what you’re about to say. Let Thea and Mr. Potter go on their merry way and enjoy Christmas as they see fit. How does that sound?”

Despite his reluctance, Elijah backed down and fled, cursing them all under his breath. Athena stepped forward, lingering still like an anxiety-prone fairy around Albus, staying near him in case he needed the steadiness or something, anything, to help him.

“Here,” Theodore threw a pile of clothes in her direction and Athena caught them, barely. “If you intend on taking the scenic route then I don’t think he’ll blend. There is a utility cupboard over there you can make use of to change in, Mr. Potter. Now, I’m going home to my wife. Your Potter is your problem now, Athena. You wanted him, Father Christmas – that’s me – provided. Now, sort it out, clean him up and get some grub in him. Worry after familial relationships and Mr. Minister later. Afternoon, all.”

With a vaguely bemused expression on her face, Athena watched Theodore sidle away. She shook her head, an incredulous laugh breaking past her lips and she turned back to Albus, laying a hesitant, careful hand on his shoulder.

“Looks like shoes, jeans, a t-shirt, a jumper and some clean underwear as well as…” she frowned a little as she pealed back the jeans from the bottom to find her cousin-in-law’s travelling cloak. It was new as you like – she could only remember him wearing it once – but the snake clasp was distinctive and expensive. He must have trusted her judgement to part with something like that and that alone made Athena feel lighter.

“A nice warm cloak,” she smiled, adding, “this will make you feel warmer. Go and change, I’ll stay here.”

It was something that, bless his heart, Eli had said to her constantly after plucking her from Azkaban. Through her silences and the night terrors and everything in between he said to remind her that he would stay. Throughout the sickness at the richness of food, of food at all, he stayed. It was something she’d needed, a reminder of presence. It helped. It helped immensely. Of course, that didn't help the abandonment issues. Nope, not even.

(( OOC: Too late to wish you one in return So sorry, but time was being an arse, as usual. Happy New Year ))


"For the wind to change, my darling."

And that, was the beginning of a new chapter in Albus Potter's life.

Sure, it could have begun better. With wiser, deeper words that evoke wondrous tears in all who hear them; and in a more hopeful, dramatic place, like in front of a crowd or in midst of the spells of glorious battle. Not in a prison cell, with little but a woman, an ex-convict's wand and words to light the way. Not too much to speak of, in literary terms. But life is hardly as illustrious as the pages of a storybook, where characters conveniently come to turning points and epiphanies whenever the tale is particularly climatic. No, most often- the real moments of truth come sudden and unforeseen and fleeting, not paused, dramatically drawn-out and suspended in time. All Albus remembers of his own is dark, the dark of the cell walls surrounding them; and light, light illuminating the dark eyes and gentle smile of one Athena Rookwood, telling him that things were going to be a bit different from here on.

And that moment flitted away, alight upon the winds of change, and the next found them walking swiftly down the hallways of the Ministry, shoes hitting the cold floors with a hurried urgency. Time was a giddy thing, moonish and cheangeable; how it lingered on his shoulders, heavily ticking itself out with water dripping from the roof in the cell. And how it rushed past them, whirlwind like, the moment they stepped out of it. Every shadowed corner that approached seemed to threaten them, every corner hastily turned seemed to hide half a dozen Hitwizards wands ablaze, waiting to sever their limbs from their joints. Every step taken too short, the heart thudding through their skin so hard that it surely, surely could be heard half a mile away. The journey from the cells to outside the dungeons, took too long and simultaneously too short a time, because shoes skidding against the concrete, halting in the doorway, air forcing itself out of his lungs like hammer and anvil working furiously in his chest- Albus still could not recall a second of it.

(Except one, where Athena had been pushing the bars open and her back was turned and he had stooped swiftly and plucked the two heavy books lying in the shadowed corner and stuffed them down his robes. He still didn't know why he did it so swiftly. In secret. But they didn't have time for unanswered questions now).

Yes now, especially now, when the man who ordered his imprisonment and a Rookwood were standing in the room, flinging half-heard words at each other. Arguing, to be more precise. About him. And the Rookwood was on his side. Well, if that wasn't surreal enough.

If only Fred were here right now.

Albus didn't bother offering his own contributions, the Headmaster was handling himself rather admirably, if he said so himself. Besides, he possessed sympathy; and Krum was losing, rather badly at that. Just before he backed off, casting him baleful looks and mumbling quite likely extreme levels of profanity under his breath, Albus ducked his head, eyes fixed straight on Krum's and enunciated, "Thank you, Minister."

Always infuriatingly polite, that Potter.

Meanwhile, Theodore Rookwood was flicking words at Athena like brisk little paper planes, swift and darting and to-the-point (that man really hadn't changed since Hogwarts, had he?). Albus turned and only caught remnants of sentences, the most prominent among them being- "Your Potter is your problem now." and "Worry after familial relationships and Mr. Minister later."
Prominent, because both of them ended feeling like winding blows to the gut.

He was supposed to be the thoughtful one, wasn't he? The only one of his labels that wasn't half-bad. How easy had it been to forget, in the flurry of air that wasn't stale and possibilities that extended to more than walls that were always closing in. Forget that the long-fingered hand curling on his shoulder, anxious and stabilising, belonged to a young girl; whose last name had been taken away by the chains of matrimony. Forget that she was married. A mother. Guardian of four children. An ex-Azkaban resident, with brands on her arm and neck alike. And here she was, standing beside him like he was the one who needed security.

"Thank you," Something said again, using his voice. Damped, repressed, scratchy around the edges. His fingers curled around the thin, crinkled wool clasped in her palms, the garments brushing against both their wrists. Then there was cool air and separation, and Albus was standing in the entrance to the Ministry dungeons, hands hanging heavily to the sides, clutching on to clothes with sweat-soaked fingers, dried throat searching for words. Merlin....he was supposed to be an author dammit......Athena......what the hell have you done.....

"I'll be back soon." His traitorous tongue managed.

Then there was only movement, his surroundings sliding one into the other, as fluid and malleable as liquid; and there it was, the doorknob to the cupboard. Seized it open, slammed it shut and stood straight in the dark, chest moving in and out erratically, head leant back against coarse wood. His hands fumbled as they pushed themselves hurriedly through shirt sleeves, pushing and straining against fabric; the cold, metallic jean zipper took two tries to get right, fingers struggled with knotted laces till he gave them up for lost. Just as he was smoothening down the shirt lapels, his nail caught across the snake clasp. His index swirled around it, unconsciously, once.

Then he pushed the door out with a creak, breathed and stepped out. In control, once again. It wasn't something that could be afforded to be lost. Not now, when Athena needed every scrap of assistance she could get.

Wizarding debts were powerful things. If he ever had, he owed her one now.

So he stepped back into the antechamber where she was waiting, lips tilting up slightly, shoulders straight and drawn back. "All warm and toasty." His voice proclaimed, while his mind smiled.

Time to go.

His right hand withdrew from the depths of the jeans pocket where it had buried itself, rose up and to the side, palms open and upwards. Eyelids fell closed for a second, while that ancient force, ah magic, started gathering in his veins: rushing up through his arms and sparked off at the tips of his fingers. And yes, there it was: that familiar whistling sound as something long and wooden flung itself through ward and door and air alike, to reunite itself with its owner. Rowan, eleven and a half inches, dragon heartstring.

His fingers tightened over the cool, familiar wood. One eye opened, its eyebrows quirking up. "Neat trick, no?"

Two Glamours and Notice-Me-Not Charms later, they were rushing- through hall and stone and door and people- out of the garrison and into the sunlight. Strange that it should shine so bright on a winter morn.

His head turned towards her slightly, lips barely moving, words rising to the lips now as easy as water. "Come with me?"

Blood was a strange thing. It seemed to matter to them. There was a time where the very fact that what hurried through her veins, breathing life into every pore, was supposedly pure actually truly mattered. For them they were meant to marry for blood. Not for love. For blood and for breeding. She’d done her part in that tired tradition and found that it savoured disappointment just as she’d quietly always imagined. Blood made her a Rookwood because hers matched his. Their children’s blood was frothing with strength, with purity, with wonder that no muddy bloody traitor could behold to their name, most assuredly. But was that all there was in life? The satisfaction of blood?

What blood had taken her here, to the Ministry corridor where the draught blew in northern winds and cooled her skin to gooseflesh? It was most assuredly not Rookwood blood. That blood had been ebbing away out with the night’s tide for months. Slowly she’d begun to chip away at its foundation until it finally fell out from beneath her. Stepping foot on the marble floors and tearing through the miniature streets and cities within the parliamentary building had made it finally slither between her fingers and disappear to in the froth and foam. It was all Goyle again. Or, perhaps, not even so much as that. Perhaps even that had slid away, leaving her bloodless. Nameless.

In the end it was less about blood and more about the ability to survive. Natural selection still won out in the end and the weaving bodies between the crowds of the Ministry went unnoticed and unhindered in their path. Through the darkness into the glow of lamplights into the brightness of the world which suddenly left her stupefied and dizzy but as the rush of air entered her lungs they were free. The fact that it had worked, that they’d escaped largely unscathed but for shaken nerves and a verbal assault from the only Rookwood ever to take her side, truly, left the young woman filled with an unusual gaiety that saw her spin before reaching to face the man she’d sprung.

She had been wrong about her acts in the Ministry seeing the end of her bonds, her constriction, and her blood. The crossroads she was caught in would dictate her future, this she knew. If she denied him and trudged back to her home, to her children and to the dust that had replaced her husband she would not be able to call back upon him with easy conscience. If she said yes she’d go with her own small salary, her own miniature freedom already having been obtained exploding into something much bigger. There would be no Rookwood anymore.

“If you want me.”

Thus she realised she would follow him anywhere, everywhere, for he was her key. She had her small victories but there was a tunnel she’d been tumbling through, staggering around in the dark, and now the light was coming. She could see it. She could almost taste it. She could almost feel it on her skin.

If you want me.

That day, was a day to remember. When she spun through the air, pivoting light and gaily on her feet, and lifted her face to his, not quite smiling. It wasn’t required. Sunlight glanced and filtered through her dark, tumbling curls like slivers of gold slipping through russet brown. The premature lines of experience around her mouth, around her eyes, seemed to bleach out in the light, leaving a smooth and young face that looked forward to new paths. Earlier, he had only glimpsed hope in her eyes. Now, it was mingled freely with trust, and belief. Like only a cloak and a pair of shoes and his hand was enough to start off on a journey to newer, brighter horizons.

He closed his eyes for a second. Another face appeared before his eyelids, pale and green-eyed and red-haired, a face he thought he had loved. The last time she had visited, and promised to stay away for his sake, and then looked back for one last time. Her voice, her words.

“We care for the people who want us. The people who want us despite all the shit we drag up and all the trouble we cause. That's who we care for.”

He opened his eyes, and Jack was gone, and there was Athena again: warm-eyed and watching.

He breathed, and all shadows, all pained memories, all wraiths hanging down on him like chains and manacles seemed to escape in the exhaled air; and fleet away, somewhere. Oh, they’d be back soon, he had no doubt about that. But for now, he was free and ready to start walking again. The destination was undecided, but when you had a companion; the journey was all that mattered.

So he bent slightly, and scooped up her hand in his, fingers wrapped around a slender wrist. Rose till their eyes were at the same level, noses barely an inch away from one another. At this distance, Albus could see his own eyes reflected in her irises, green and clear and promising. In midst of the constantly talking and moving crowd, his whisper could barely be heard, yet it was enough for the ears of the one who needed to hear it.

“Well, c’mon then.” Breaths were falling in tandem. He could feel a light, fluttering pulse under his fingertips. “Life’s calling.”

And then they vanished.


~


The seconds between the Disapparation at the metaphorical porch of the Ministry, and the reappearance inside his drawing-room, stretched far too much in his opinion. But then again, he always had hated Apparating. Nasty means of transport if there ever was one. The moment his feet touched down on the plain, cream tiles, he stumbled; like all Potter males were prone to, and tugged on the nearest support there was to right himself. Which of course, was Athena’s hand. So either he pulled her in, or himself jerked into her, he wasn’t quite sure: but the net result was their sides pressed against one another, her elbow in his gut, his chin on her shoulder, his breath rustling the locks running by the side of her cheek. The sudden surge of warmth was startling.

“Sorry.” He exhaled, and stepped back, releasing her hand. The ghost sensation of a pulse thrumming wildly against his thumb persisted, as prickles across the skin.

Somewhere, his left hand made a half-aborted gesture towards the couch, while he turned and strode towards the kitchenette. His voice very conveniently, drawing on years of experience of putting masks, didn’t miss a beat in calling out over his shoulder. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll just prepare something warm for us in a second.”

It took five whole minutes for Albus to locate the container with the roast ground coffee. The fine grains drizzled past his fingers into the pan. Unawares, his voice went on talking, words reflecting off the almost eerily clean surfaces, clearly audible. “My official residence is recorded with the Ministry as 12, Grimmauld Place, London.” It technically belonged to the Potters, but none of them had seen sight of it ever since the Order had gotten hold of it, naturally. “I took this flat immediately after graduation. Muggle neighbourhood. Unplottable.” The cold water sizzled as it hit the hot pan, the grains beginning to stir and swirl as convection currents began in the colourless liquid. “Only my family and....a friend, knows of it. It’ll be safe here, for awhile.”

“Five rooms in all.” The colour had started seeping in now, rich and brown and transparent. “I live in the one on the upper landing, first door to the right. I use the one next to it as a study.” And sometimes as a practice room, but she didn’t need to know that right now. The mug clinked softly as he set it down on the counter. “There’s an empty room down the corridor. I haven’t patched that up yet, so its a bit out of wear.” Switched the gas off. The milk filtered into the black, steaming liquid to turn it a pale, caramel, almost frothy brown. “There’s another room attached to the living room, on ground level. Lily....um, my sister, stayed in it a while back. She’s in Hogwarts now. So its....livable.”
A dash of cream, a sprinkle of the Hungarian black chocolate he had sourced from that small, wooden-panelled store at the corner of the street. Done.

The echoes of his words, and the smell of freshly-made coffee was still pervading through the kitchenette off the room where Athena was seated, when Albus came to his senses, the counter digging into his hands, knees slightly bent, blinking slowly at the light seeping in from the window. What.....was he doing, exactly? His words not ten seconds ago, sounded like the advertising trip of a real estate agent trying to sell a house. Informing the client of pros and cons, trying to make it sound as inviting as possible. So that they would agree.....to stay here.

The heat of the coffee mug he cradled in his palms wafted out in spirals of steam, even as he stepped silently back in the room. The clink of setting the mug down on the wooden table was abnormally loud in the silence. He cleared his throat soundlessly. Twice. Then he turned around, and down, to look at that face and the doubts evaporated like mist on a sunny day.

“Are you happy, Athena?”

Happy in that manor she must call herself Lady of. Those cold, winding corridors that Ceci and Aurelia’s feet must often patter through, those rooms with high, arching ceilings and impersonal furniture that she must call her own. Happy with the Rookwood name she had bartered her freedom for. She had told him the opposite, on the bridge of souls, where she was seeking one reason not to fling everything aside and herself down the abyss. But he was asking her again, one more time, just to be sure. Because this time, they wouldn’t flee from the bridge in the dark of night. This time, they would wait for sunrise.

(OOC: I have no idea what to make of this post, to be honest. It's a "Amy has been reading Jane Eyre again so she thinks she's Charlotte Bronte but wants to put her own spin on it so it's Bronte-ish but Amy-ish, too" post. I hope you like it. Tell me what you think!)

Within her condition which was as bright and shined crisp and new as any other, the true establishment of fate and determinism reared itself. The trickle of circumstances had brought her to the mirror’s edge, her cheek against the cool glass. On one side stood the furnished mind of a woman born for one purpose; on the other, the furnishings of a world brought to bear by that elegantly attired matter hidden behind a smooth forehead and a creasing smile. For her squinting eyes and faint touch against the chilled water’s surface, she found herself quite unable to ascertain her shorn section, where between the bookends she was most appropriately sheathed; for, she had gone on dignified: not happy.

To the travel tingling at her skin, the excitement she felt in the heat of her very soul she paid her regards, for she doubted that even in rebellion true sovereignty could not be found for her hands to guide the reigns. Yet in even seeking a new master, a new companion of similar girth, gait and graduated persona, she had found herself the faintest glint of a free path upon which her feet could tread. Through the shallows she could glint deceptively the fleeting spark of a coin. Diving her hand into the icy, false depths her fingers had curled around it, clawing it from its sandy cage. Into the air they both dived, grasping for breath their lungs could no longer contain. For liberty she desired, liberty she grasped, liberty she attained.

The drawing room was neither colder nor more inviting than any other she had stood in prior to this. Her feet stood a half shoulder width from each other. Her eyes drew furtive circles through the air. Her arms lay lame and listless by her sides. Beyond her, somewhere, coarse winds roamed the moors and pattered into the earth the richness of its rainfall. Within her, somewhere, those same winds howled and roamed, throwing this way and the other waters so similar that their taste almost savoured to dissatisfaction and anti-climax.

The seat into which she deposited her weakening, weary frame was not unclean yet somehow dusty and stiff as though no body had been thrown liberally across it. No indentations had been made at either end where legs would perhaps hang and lollop. The pillows bore a deceptive softness that, had they been well laid against would have withered and flattened to pancake slithers. Yet, its impersonal personality brought some comfort. It was as though there had been no deportation from her situation as inmate within those hallowed Rookwood halls. She still carried their creed.

In the wake of her friend’s return she became privy to the differences for it was not out of absence, rather preference, that the seat had not been indulged in. In the room on the upper landing, first door on the right, or perhaps in the study next door, she could imagine an Albus caricature burrowing away, appealing to the inquisitions that his mind pressed him with. In his absence, particulates of dust and perhaps even, the queer play of the mind or passing, jovial spectre of the deceased enjoyed the upholstery. Now she, decidedly conscious of life as far as flesh was concerned, was pressed into its hold, into his hold, until her resolve crumbled.

It was not deep, pungent regret that she could feel swirling within her. Most acutely it was suddenly fear that whether or not she wished to, her points of action could not be stolen back and hidden in her heart, buried in her mind. As true as the numbers etched irrevocably into her were, so too were her actions in the transpired hours. With her decision to act had perished what last snuffing flame portrayed itself as her marriage. With that died her family upon both sides of the evolutionary coin. She was neither Goyle nor Rookwood now of her own volition. Athena Marianne, perhaps only.

“Here. Now. No.”  

To her name had been thirty rooms. An innumerable number of guest rooms. A single conservatory. Two kitchens. An equally innumerable number of bathrooms. The bedrooms. Their bedroom. All were hers and hers to dictate and control and oversee. What little wisdom she had gained from her mother-in-law had been placed in turn into the hands of her dearest housekeepers who opened up every room and scoured them thrice each week regardless of their use throughout those interim days or, more often than not, lack thereof. For her masters she kept open those rooms. Within the decanters she kept ample supplies of absinthe, firewhisky and wine. For nought.

Her most favourite room had been the nursery. Expansive and decorated after the birth of her sons to her own taste, inside she placed her boys and her girls. There in the night she could be sure of them all: safe and without a sound to their lips. In there she had her own small spot where she would snatch a cursory number of hours so that the world would be less daunting and miserable for her to face. For, even her little world had gleams of sunshine. Regardless of her qualms, her desire to be selfish and live for herself or a lover she did indeed live for those she held dearest to her: for her children who above all would claim her loyalty and her love. Without whom she now stood, ensnared.

“My children, Albus Potter. My darling boys. My sweet girls. What of them, now?”

A registrar noted down with derisive judgement the folly of her doing so. As though no harm had come to them thus far, all she had done was tossed the poacher’s nest over their heads and caught their sooty curls tight in those bonds. Without her they lacked all shield and saviour. Without their mother they were as bear and vulnerable as she herself was only under her abandonment she had grown leather over her flesh. Upon them she did not wish the same punishment.

“My happiness is not worth the substitution of theirs. In these five, liveable apartments is there room enough to conceal my guilt, my regret? Their life’s call will irrevocably be more important than my own. This happiness must be fleeting. Reality has to resume. To protect them.”

“My children, Albus Potter. My darling boys. My sweet girls. What of them, now?”

The pull was inexorable. The corners of his lips were drawing up: slowly, surely; their destination not a smile, but an expression of the- what was it? Contentment? Fulfilment? - that coursed through his veins, warming his chest and limbs as sure as the soaking rays of sunlight. It was inexplicable. Here he was, offering a roof to Athena Rookwood, (clearly a lie, he was asking her to offer her companionship), with the intention of her accepting it. Here she was, telling him the reason why she couldn't. Then why would the reason cause.........this, in him? Happiness, almost- like his heart had figured out the reason before his mind could even begin to comprehend it. Like it had been clear as the morning sky, just as obvious, ever since he had called a Rookwood girl by his own fashioned nickname, conjured flowers for her sister, setting her brother upon his lap. His mind couldn't pinpoint the source of it. Didn't really care to. Sometimes, analysing and dissecting every emotion ruined the whole point. Sometimes things were just meant to be felt.

And there it was, a spark of wry amusement at the thought. They were a funny pair, weren't they? He and Athena. Slytherins by name. She, who called herself selfish and affirmed that her children were not enough of a reason to cherish life- now tossing away all that she ever hoped to lay claim to, independence and freedom, for those very girls and boys. He, who declined and derided and rejected all that the Potter name sought to impose on him: an assumption of generosity and martyrdom and nobility, the unsocial introvert- now inviting not one, but five people into his home.

And at that second his mind comprehended it, eyes blinking once, abruptly. Taking in the revelation. The fact that he wasn't even considering it. No, the decision had already been made, without consulting his higher mental faculties. Not taking even a split-second to regard pros and cons and goods and bads and rights and wrongs, his lips parted to speak- while the real Albus Potter sat down somewhere in a room at the back of his head, crossed his legs, tilted his head backwards and regarded the proceedings with a mild, self-deprecating air: wondering who on earth was inhabiting his body.

"Regret has no room here." It has been my bedfellow for long enough. "Five rooms for six people are a tight enough fit."

His eyes closed, at that sentence. The real Albus Potter inwardly shook his head, again unable to decide whether dry amusement or paralysing shock should be the emotion of choice.

Then, he discarded both and opted for another, more urgently demanding one in their stead- worry. Athena Rookwood was a mother, first and foremost, there was never anything denying that. She was also a Rookwood, a Pureblood, lady of the manor and a former Goyle. It was easy to become conscious of, all of a sudden, the almost stark blandness of the room, the lack of anything a woman accustomed to luxury must enjoy, the complete unsuitability of this set of.......hotel rooms; to even remotely hold four children within their walls.

So his feet chose to walk around the couch, quietly, and he seated himself next to the woman in concern, fingers of the left hand tapping absentmindedly against the armrest. His voice was even. "There's a bunk bed in the empty room on the first landing. It probably needs a paint job but.....Ceci and Aurelia can kip there once its done. I can easily expand Lily's room with magic, there's already a single bed.......I could put a partition and a small twin bed there so you could check on the boys whenever you like."

It would be difficult. Of course it would. Hell, Albus had never even met the children more then once, and their mother only twice more discounting Hogwarts. The Potters had been well-off yes, but his parents always had simplistic tastes, and they were more akin to bouncing on their beds and making mince pies in the kitchen during Sundays and tearing off for a game of Quidditch in their backyard during their childhood; rather than the high teas and lace doilies and discourses on politics and manors and revelries that the Rookwoods must be accustomed to. They belonged to different worlds, which hardly ever eclipsed.

But he had spent half of his life's years in the Burrow, and Merlin would acknowledge what a masterpiece of architecture that crooked, sprawling building was. The years of discussing the wisdom of balancing one room over another with Arthur Weasley had ensured that Albus could probably quadruple the size of his apartment without his Muggle neighbours ever noticing. And his presents were always the most looked-forward-to at Potter-Weasley Christmases, maybe because he was one of the few members of that family who actually noticed, and cared to act on observations. Surely he could handle four children without them hating him too much. Too much being the operative word.

"Its just temporary anyway." And yes, he'd said that last part out loud. To comfort Athena.

Now, she just needed to respond.

The real Albus Potter almost felt tempted to throw up his hands in bemusement.