Of Monsters and Men

Melora   “BRAM!” She hollered, racing across the rumble and debris to get to her brother, his back turned to the blast as it shot forth from Cruxis’ wand. This was the moment that Lore knew was coming from the second she ignored his pleas and came to the castle grounds to fight beside him. Now was her time to die. Lore had slipped the letter beneath the threshold of the Young’s house with tears falling from her eyes, wanting to give anything in the world to find the strength to knock gently on their door, to say goodbye to them properly rather than completely disappearing from their lives forever. But the strain it would have caused her to do it, to have to pull away from Mia and Zaiah with a foreign smile, to have to hear Mason’s voice begging her not to go, it simply wasn’t worth it. The pain she would have brought upon them by leaving, or the ache in her heart that would have grown ten fold, it would have killed her. Her heart was broken enough, what would have been the point of shredding it into the saddest confetti she’d ever had known? Lore needed to go, she knew inherently what had been expected of her when the battle broke out and she needed to live up to those ideals. She was meant to protect the ones she loved, her family- both adopted and blood, but leaving them would be the hardest sacrifice she’d ever been asked to face. Secretly, as she neared the bottom of the steps before leaving the Bubble Charm apartments in Diagon Alley, she prayed to whatever deity above that Mason would come and find her. He would stop her, hold her, tell her all those little words she’d been longing to hear since their first train ride together into Hogwarts. Yet those moments never came, and with one final glance up at the world she would be leaving behind, Lore inhaled the scent of the street and let it linger in her lungs, disappareting with it inside of her to Hogsmeade; and just like that, in one simple exhale upon her arrival, Mason was gone forever. Without giving herself a moment to grieve, she began following the snow clad footprints of her peers that arrived before her. Melora quickly hurried along through to Aberforth’s final entrance into the castle, thanking him briefly as she climbed through the portal and made the long, cold trek up towards the Room of Requirement. As she neared the grounds she could hear the shrieks of battle unfolding and the swell of nerves that was hiding in the pits of her stomach suddenly tried to emerge from out of her throat. Lore, caught off guard, tried to swallow it back down as her mouth filled with acid and bile, but the damage was done. It was then she stopped to catch her breath, only taking a moment to realize every single muscle on her body was shaking with trepidation. There was only so much fear she could mask with supposed bravery, and it looked like now was her breaking point. Her very breath tasted of vomit and sick. “Move, Corbet…” she whispered to no one but herself, willing her legs to carry her forward while her heart remained behind. She took off in a sprint, running from her apprehension to turn around and go home, running from every tie that bound her back to the life she’d grown accustom to living. This battle needed her, Bram needed her, Mia and Isabella and Liam needed her. Hogwarts, the only place she felt at peace through out the passed ten years of her life, needed her, where as life soon would not. She burst through into the Room of Requirement, out of breath and blood pounding, entering a swirl of confusion and haste. Students and alumni were bustling around, followed by older witches and wizards, and various members of the order. Her amber eyes instinctively began to scan for her abnormally tall brother, but when he was no where to be seen, they instead landed on a rather bloodied up Ridley Moore, who was pushing Devlin Portier back towards the entrance where she’d just emerged. “Get out of here! GET OUT!” Ridley was sobbing, and the tears were streaking her face between the dirt and the blood that lined it. Devlin too was crying, and trying to fight back, but it seemed all his will was gone. “She’s gone to fight Dev, there is nothing you can do. It’s her bloody duty, now get home!” Another hard push as he stumbled into one of the cots behind him. “I need to fight!” He coughed back, holding his stomach so hard even Lore, watching the scene unfold in the whirl of it all, felt as if time was standing still. “You need to go be a father! You’re a father, Devlin. If Cas dies, if you die, who does Talyn have? Go to your son! You both can’t be here!” Lore couldn’t watch anymore, and quickly she turned her back and drew out her wand, following a group of students through the doorway and out into battle. Her eyes widened as she entered the halls, not recognizing her home as it used to be as it now laid in ruins beneath her feet. The battle had been waging on a few hours by the time she arrived, enough so that the walls around her were crumbling as she merely jolted by. Then there was a green blast that shot just barely above her head, and never had she felt so happy to be the tiny thing she was at that very moment. “Stupify!” she spat, flinging the curse over her shoulder as she took off towards the stairs, making her way towards the Great Hall in hopes of finding Bram, not bothering to look behind her to see if she landed a hit. It wouldn’t have mattered either way, and all it would have done was slow down her given mission. That’s when the Dark Lord’s voice cut through the castle walls, stopping nearly everyone dead in their tracks, and causing Melora to squeeze her ears shut with the palms of her hands. Every syllable he uttered cut through her spinal cord like a knife through butter, the base of her neck throbbed and her skull seemed too small to keep the swelling mass inside of it. She wanted to scream, anything to drown out the misery inside of her, but there was no sound emerging from her parted lips. All she could know at this moment was He-who-should-not-be-named’s voice, slithering inside her bones like a snake, weaving in and out of her tendons with every single word. With eyes tightly squeezed, Lore felt the wet of tears forming, only to be suddenly awoken by familiar arms and a raspy voice; bringing to light that the Dark Lord’s speech was now over. “Bram!” “I told you not to come.” Even as he reprimanded her, Lore found herself lunging into his embrace, holding onto his form for dear life. “I know you did, I know, but I couldn’t leave you. You’re my brother, the only family I have. “ Bram hugged her back one handedly, his other arm dangling slightly at his side with a rather large gash freshly exposed from his leather duster. “You’re hurt.” she whispered upon her realization, but he merely shook his head and wiggled out from her rather tight grasp. “It’s nothing. There are people here way worse off than me. Come on, we should get into the Great Hall, he’s given us an hour of reprieve, and I reckon we should take it.” Lore followed him dutifully, not speaking much, but taking in the scenes of the destruction as they lumbered by. There was death filling the air, bodies laying motionless and cold by their feet, and a feeling of hollowness began to spread all through her bloodstream. Would her eyes look this vacant when she died? But even their walk through the fields of departed souls was no preparation for what the young woman encountered when she walked into what was once the Great Hall. No longer did it resemble the comfort she was used too, the long, wooden tables, where she would sneak and sit with Tracee when he wasn’t looking, or bump arms with Mason when she was feeling particularly playful, they were pushed off to the sides while the solemn stood in their wake. Unconsciously, like Lore was back to being five and needing the protection of her older brother’s shadow, she crept her hand inside his and sheepishly started to trail behind. Dear Merlin above, what was she doing? “Bram…” it was merely a wisp, steam on the wind, a whisper through the darkness. He hardly acknowledged her. “We lost a few members of the Order already… Had more than my fair share of Death Eaters trying to claim my arse for theirs, but it wasn’t like I was expecting any different. How I got this nice scratch on my arm.” Bram stopped and turned to face her, and Lore felt about three inches from the ground as he peered into her eyes. “You should go.” Her head shook vigorously, her hair flying from side to side as she disagreed with his stance. “No. I’m suppose to be here.” “I can’t protect you, Lore.” “I don’t expect you too.” There was a blood curdling scream that filled the hall, and both brother and sister turned to see a Wesley being carried in, obviously deceased. It was the sound of a dying heart. “Bram, go help who you must, but come back to me before the battle starts again? There’s something I need to do.” He nodded solemnly, kissing her forehead before making his way out of the hall to help with the unfortunate who could not live to see another sunrise. Unconsciously, Lore’s hand reached for her heart, checking the beats to make sure that she was still alive, that this moment she was standing in was real and not some hellish nightmare she was dreaming. With her breath short and staggered, she quickly ducked her way towards an emptier part of the hall and hid herself in a corner. Her fingers were shaking as she removed the blank parchment from her pocket, fumbling for the pencil she managed to stuff in the other. She sat cross-legged, using the small floor space in front of her to write on, composing her thoughts quickly and a little out of sync. It read: Dear Mason, If you’re reading this, then you already know what has happened to me. I’m sorry my last words to you will have to come scrawled out in my sloppy handwriting, but all the same, I need you to see them, if only this one time. The battle is like nothing I’ve ever encountered. There is so much death lingering in the air that it scares me, but I know I need to be here. I need to fight for a better world for Bram’s children, and for Mia. This place was my home for so many years before I found a new one. You can understand that, right, Mace? Do you know what my new home was? My new home was you. And Isaiah and Mia. But mostly, you. It was always you. I slipped an envelope beneath your door before I left for the castle. It’s addressed to Mia and will not open until her eleventh birthday. Consider it a bit of a trust fund. By that I mean I left Mia all my gold. All of it. Every last cent. And I left my mansion in your name. You can do what you wish with the property, tear it down, sell it, move into it, make it into shrine to me (okay, the last part was just a joke, have to keep my humor up). I just ask now that it belongs to you, that you give my house elves a sock each, they deserve to be free. And Mason? Mason, I’m terrified. And I’m sorry. Please, forgive me? I’ve never told you, although I always wanted too, that I love you. I’ve loved you for a very long time and I’m willing to die here tonight holding onto that love in my heart. Now you know, and it feels like a gigantic weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I love you Mason Young, you arrogant bastard. I wish I could have told you while I was still alive. You’re such an amazing man with a giving heart, I see it every time Mia looks at you. Will you tell her about me? Let her know how much she meant to her godmother, let her never doubt it. And tell Zaiah what a beautiful soul he is, that I wouldn’t be the person I am without him. He made me brave. You made me whole. Try not to miss me, okay? I’m not worth it. -Yours, Lora.  Against her better judgement, Lore let the tear stains subside in the paper that had streaked her face and fallen from her chin, smearing some of the led across the page. “Goodbye, Mason…” she sighed, kissing the parchment after folding it in half, tucking it down her inside jacket pocket, nearest to her heart. The cliche almost made her laugh, but it was the familiar piercing cry of a close friend that brought Lore to catch her breath in the back of her throat. Bram was carrying Ridley in his arms against her greatest protest, her screams echoing throughout the Great Hall, bringing the eyes of her peers all upon her. Lore watched with quivering limbs as her brother brought the hysterical woman towards her with desperate need. “Hold her.” he demanded, and when at first Lore remained frozen in her spot, Bram repeated the command in a bellowing voice. “Hold her!” Meekly she rose to her feet, gripping Ridley around her middle with every ounce of her tiny strength. The fight that the woman put up against her was practically unfathomable, and the cries; it took all Lore had not to drop her simply to cover her own ears. Instead she tried hushing her gently, stroking her hair and repeating her name over and over in a matronly voice. “Ridley, Ridley, shhh…”  But there was no consoling her, and that’s when Lore realized why. Ash Barnes was the first body carried in by her brother, lifeless as everyone else seemed to be, whether they were breathing or not. Tenderly she watched Bram as he laid him on the floor, only for Devlin to be following up behind him with another man afloat by magic. It was then Ridley became a wild beast then in her arms, so much so that Lore’s mediocre strength could no longer restrain her and she had to make the choice to let her go. All the suffering her friend was exhibiting drained into Melora, her emotions plummeting as she watched the scene unfold. Ridley stumbled as she ran towards Dorian’s body, crawling the rest of the way as it was too hard to keep trying to stand up only to fall again. Once she reached him, though, her pale shaking hands gripped the sides of his face, cradling his head in her lap as she sobbed, and Lore had to look away. Everything in her ran thick and cold, and as she stood hugging herself with tears falling down, she couldn’t help but wonder if her own death would invoke such anguish. What a morbid thought to have. Here, people were fighting for their lives and Lore was standing wallowing in her own supposed death before it even happened. Not that she could wallow in it after but… Finding comfort in the wall before her, she fell into the cold stone and began to heave in a panic. Home. That’s all she could think about. Not even her home, that bloody empty estate she cared nothing for. It was the home of her brother, and the home of the Young’s that she yearned for. Little Liam and Isabella running into her arms as she snuck them sweet from Honeyduke’s. Liam, his laugh was always her favorite. A hardy belly rumble that reminded her of Bram when he had been younger and neither of them had a fucking care in the world. How much had changed since those days in the backyard. Their happiness turned to fears, to anger and waves of nausea. They were never a simple sibling duo, but for all the battles they went through with one another and the world around them, Bram and Melora had finally settled into their adult roles towards with each other smoothly. Only problem was how incredibly short lived it would all be. Melora couldn’t stay here. She needed to go home. Just when she needed it, arms were suddenly around her, spinning her in the spot back towards the unfolding chaos. “Get ready, we fight again soon.” Bram urged, his charcoal eyes wide. Never had she seen fear before in the lines of his face, but now he could fill landfills with his apprehension. “Deep breaths, you’ll be fine.” but Lore didn’t move. “Hey!” He snapped, gripping her by the shoulders as her eyes drifted towards Ridley, who was still stroking her deceased lover’s cheeks with softer moans. Bram’s voice brought her back from the trance. “Don’t look at her. She needs her time to grieve but she’ll be fighting to avenge him, you best believe that. Ridley is nothing if not a fighter. And you? What are you?” Lore was still focusing on everything around them rather than her brother’s persistency. “And me?” “Why are you here? What are you fighting for?” And without missing a beat, Lore simply answered him with one word. “Love.” The explosion overhead shook the walls, causing the dust and ruble to scatter all around them in a darkening fog. Coughing filled the hall, along with shrieks and people rushing to their feet. Bram’s arms protectively pulled Melora behind his back, assuming his big brother role once again. His wand was drawn at the ready. “I love you, Bram!” She cried out, having never uttered the words to him before. Fear brought out the best in people. He didn’t turn to look at her. “I love you too, Melora. Stay close and draw your wand.” She did as she was told. And with that, Lore started counting her final breaths.

Ridley Ridley’s weight crunched underneath her steal toe boot, her eyes stinging from the stale, dusty air and her current inability to cry. The second half of battle had been bloodier and deadlier than the first, with her friends getting maimed around every soddening corner. Although after her chase with Devlin Portier down into the courtyard, she was quiet happy he had remained in battle against her wishes. He was absolutely brilliant in his attack against Greyback, rescuing Cas before more damage could be done. As she watched him whisk her away, she wished them the best, knowing that this could be the change in their relationship he’d been fighting for. Finally one story of the night could end in love and not agony. Not many could claim that, especially not her. There was nothing left inside of her other than hatred. The only emotion she could recognize stemming from her heart was malevolence, and as she raised her wand tightly in her bloody grasp she felt the wood began to splinter against her blistered skin. Cruxis’ didn’t see her coming up from behind. The woman was too preoccupied aiming for Corbet, a man for which she shared a rather destructive history. Through her singed hair, Ridley saw the woman cast an unforgivable curse at the bloke, which was deflected by a small blonde blur running passed him in a protective heap. She heard the body fall before realizing who it was, only catching a momentary glance over Cruxis’ shoulder to recognize Melora sprawled out upon the floor, lifeless. Sounds became underwater gurgles, and somewhere in the background she could hear a male voice screaming in agony; as if the very heart of him had been gutted out with a hooking knife. She couldn’t look at Bram, she couldn’t waste another fucking second on anything while the woman stood free. Ridley had lost too many goddamn people this night to give the Death Eater one more breath that she didn’t deserve, most of whom had been destroyed by her merciless fingers. Her teeth gritted as she spat the curse, striking Cruxis’ in the back blindly, a malicious curl to her cut lips. “Crucio…” she whispered, and as the woman writhed and screamed with pain, Ridley casted it again, louder and with deeper conviction. “CRUCIO!” Desdemona dropped to the floor, and the Auror noticed small tears forming at the creases of her red eyes as she slammed the curse harder into her. “You cunt.” She unleashed, spitting in her face, watching the white of the woman’s eyes roll around into the back of her skull. The body jolted again, another blast being aimed at her, and without looking up Ridley realized the height of the man next to her was Bram. He’d been silently drilling the unforgivable curse with equal conviction into Desdemona, tears blinding him while he did so. Blood began to form at her nasal cavity and at the holes of her ears, slowly at first, then pouring out of her all at once. Bitch deserved it. A sudden noise erupted from the Great Hall, and although Ridley’s attention was not deterred, she felt Bram’s hesitation in the moment. “Go, I got this cowardly piece of shit.” she said to him, feeling the release of his spell against her own. She didn’t care what was going on behind them, all that mattered now was ending what had started twenty years ago between this grown ass woman and what had only been a child. She too dropped the Cruciatus Curse, observing the desperation in which Cruxis’ heaved for air. “You don’t deserve air.” Ridley stated as she kicked her face with the steel toe of her heavy boot, watching the teeth fly from her mouth. She didn’t need those either anymore. Starring down at the mangled woman, all the faces of loved ones she’d lost to her hands began to flash in her memory. Her mother, so young and beautiful, with auburn red hair and a laugh that sounded like church bells. John, her John, hot headed and precise, the first love Ridley ever experienced, reported to have died in a muggle car crash. But Ridley knew, she knew it was a lie and how her heart had been only half beating since… Then Ares. Graves. Her father figure and mentor, slowly turning cold only a few feet down the hall from them. All of them, gone. Dorian… gone. “You took everything from me!” Her voice was so dry, so parched that the words scratched against the back of her throat. How she wished she could cry, but there was nothing left inside of her to give. Only hatred. Without expecting it, she watched as Cruxis’ turned her nearly broken body to stare up at her, a glint so sinister in her eye that Ridley thought she was about to die. With blood spiting as she spoke, Des grinned and delivered her final words. “I know.” Avada Kedavra fell all too quickly from Ridley’s lips. And then it was over. *** People were celebrating in the streets of Diagon Alley. There were many witches and wizards out of their homes and shops, guzzling down their finest in champagne, singing songs and laughing as they welcomed loved ones from battle home. Ridley stuck out among them like a weed in a field of roses, a sour expression turning her face even more pale as she moved through the hordes, dreading the painful approach she was about to make once she descended upon the Bubble Charm Apartments. She wasn’t one to be overly sympathetic, apparently missing the matronly gene since her own mother had passed when Ridley was merely a young girl. But she knew her own reaction to Dorian’s death that she couldn’t imagine Mason’s being any less debilitating once he found out about Melora. The queasiness hit her again, waves tumbling in her stomach which caused her to stop mid walk and dry heave in front of Keiser’s Apothecary. If the moment hadn’t been what it was, Ridley may have almost appreciated the irony in the scene. Ah, the simplicity in old memories. She fumbled with the parchment within her fingers, upset about how much blood had been spilled on it but unable to lift the majority of it from the paper itself, even with her cleaning charm. There was a moment she’d considered rewriting it, yet she knew it needed to be delivered as is, from the heartfelt handwriting of the girl that wrote it in her greatest need. Or greatest fear. Perhaps it had been a combination of both emotions simultaneously. Whatever it was, it was written solely in that final note for Mason Young, and Ridley felt she’d no right to deface it, and that was bloody that. Before she knew it, Ridley was standing before the apartment complex next to hers, the Bubble Charm Apartments, where so many of her friends and acquaintances resided. She knew that Sophia and Rosie had been safe, she had Dru to thank for that, shielding them at Micah’s house for the duration of the war, especially the height of it. Ridley considered sending them a letter letting them know they could come out of hiding now, that her daycare could be reopened and that the light of the world could once again shine down. But she couldn’t bring herself to be happy enough to write such nonsense, because although the war was over for everyone here parading about the streets, there was a second one brewing inside of her that Ridley was sure she’d never shake. She was more orphaned now than after her father passed. She. Had. No. One. Defeated lines creased her face, which was tear streaked and dirty from battle. The scarlet locks she’d always been so proud of fell in a clumps around her shoulders, burned and knotted and Merlin knew what else. Her hands were blistered, her boots scuffed and her clothing torn and ragged. She supposed she should be thankful to be alive, but she was trying to find a meaning to life now that everything she breathed for was gone. “Ridley!” Her jade eyes shot to the top of the spiral staircase to a smiling and very vibrant Isaiah greeting her. Shit. There was no turning back now. He seemed to land next to her within a matter of seconds, his arms encircling her tightly about the neck. Her body stumbled back slightly in his hold, and her bones ached trying to maintain his weight against hers. Dryly her mouth opened to tell Isaiah to back off, but then she realized this was the only person to genuinely greet her with a happiness that she was alive. Ridley then fell into his hug, feeling warmth for the first time in days. “Isaiah.” she mouthed back, squeezing him in the brokenness of her grasp. For as beautiful as this embrace felt, she was there to bring them unfortunate, life altering news. Suddenly Ridley felt dirty for leading him on. “You’re back, and alright! We’ve been so worried, worried about everyone.” Ridley was the first to pull away, her expression probably giving away her thoughts more than she would have liked. Ares would be mad at her for not remaining stoic at this time, she was sure of it. Isaiah caught her eye and looked puzzled, “Are you alone?” Unknowingly she began to crumble the parchment from Melora in her grasp, which caused Zaiah to look down and take notice of it. His brother’s name was rumpled between her fingers. “I need to speak with you and Mason, together. Please.” Ridley took off towards the stairs, following them towards the second level where the Young’s apartment resided. She heard his troubled footsteps taking off behind her, and he was calling out questions she couldn’t bare to answer. “Stop, Stop!” he cried, landing next to her outside the closed door. “What happened? Where’s Melora? That’s her handwriting, I know it. Is she… did she…” “Are you going to open the door, or am I going to have to knock?” Watching him with quivering hands reach for his wand, Ridley started to have a flash back. Bram’s hands were quivering, too. Lifting the deadweight of his sister onto his lap, craddling her head much like Ridley had done for Dorian. Never had she seen the man cry before, but his tears where as genuine as the heartbreak welling up inside his chest. Lore had saved his life, like she’d set out to do the moment she arrived at battle. She’d kept her promise of a better world for his children, keeping their father alive was possibly the best present she could have ever given them. And she did it with out fear, without hesitation, and above all else, with love. Ridley found Melora to be especially beautiful, even more so now in her death. She stroked the small blonde hairs away from her cooling face and looked up at Bram. “I’m sorry…” and as she stood up to walk away, she noticed the note held in the young girl’s hand, traces of the first three letters of Mason’s name through the death grip. It took Ridley a few moments to pry the letter away with minimal damage, holding it up so he could see what she was taking. “I’ll bring it to him.” she spoke solemnly, tucking the parchment away in the pocket of her leather jacket. Now here she was, regretting she’d ever said those words. The door swung open and Ridley stepped aside to allow Isaiah in first, following at his heels with her eyes adverted down. The baby was crying, which she found ironic because through the halls she could still hear the sounds of celebration from the streets. It was as if Mia already knew. They had a sick sense for this sort of shit, right? Isaiah called for Mason, who appeared from the back room with a fussy little girl dangling in his arms. Without wanting to look up at him, she did, watching as he approached her completely unaware. She didn’t receive the same warm greeting from him as she had from his twin. “Mason…” Without missing a beat, Zaiah sprang forward and took Mia from his arms, bouncing her as she cried and cried, new teeth evident on her lower gums. Ridley extended the letter to him, crumbled and torn and soiled from the rough of battle. “I thought about cleaning it but I… I just wanted to get it to you. I knew that’s all she wanted… and… I’m sorry, Mason.” She waited till his fingers clutched hold of the offering before excusing herself from the apartment, not wanting to be there to see how she must have looked upon finding Dorian’s body wasted in the courtyard. His body… with his brother’s strewn across. Motionless. Cold. Ridley wished she hadn’t been the one to find him, to see him that way, to know that in her heart she still loved him irrevocably and unconditionally. He saved her life. She’d never forget that, not as long as she lived. The blast had come from overhead, only missing her by a mere inch to the left as she ducked quickly with sobering reflexes. Ares would have been proud of her somewhere that night, that was for shit sure. Ridley spun around on the heels of her boots, turning to face her assailant, only to be greeted with a green flash striking harshly into his body. That spell was not from her, and through the mess of her lion’s mane her eyes were able to peer above and beyond to the wizard that took down the enemy. There was yet a time in battle by that point that she felt her heart beating fast out of her chest, but she did now as she starred eye to eye with Dorian for the first time in what seemed like forever. Dorian. Her lovely Dorian. He was alive. It wasn’t fear that grounded her to the spot, not entirely at least, but shock. He was here, he was here and he was fighting, and more so he was fighting on her side. Ridley could remember her first attempt to shout out his name in the haze of the moment failing, but the second time proved little success in making him stay. “Dorian!“ “Watch yourself!” He hollered back, barely a smile on his face, but a distinct look of concern, and dare she believe, love, glinting in his eye. “No…” she remembered whimpering, trying to chase after him as he took off, darting through the debris and flying curses, completely out of her sight. “DORIAN!” his name scratched her already parched throat and Ridley had to force herself from crying. She could still feel the hoarseness rise up within her now on her lonely trek back to her apartment. But she knew then that those who wanted to live the night did not go chasing lost loves down corridors with tears blinding their eyes. So she took a deep breath, her heartbeat arrhythmic, and was back in the fight surrounding her, even if her entire soul was elsewhere. Had she known that would have been the last time she saw him alive, maybe she would have reacted differently. The door to her apartment looked uninviting. She tapped twice with her wand and slammed it behind her. Then Ridley disappeared into an ocean of intoxication, forgetting what the sun looked like, what warmth felt like or what love meant. It was just her, a bottle, Dorian’s ghost and a shit load of memories she’d wish would just back the fuck off. Had they not found her, she would have drank herself into an early grave quiet happily.

Seasons Change and So Do We.

Ridley

Ridley stood at the entrance way of Bram’s split level home, watching him struggle for his wand as to not disturb the sleeping Liam in his arms, all while an equally tuckered out Isabella rested inside hers. She could tell he wasn’t used to being out of his normal street wear, because twice he reached for the inside pocket of his dress robes only to remember he wasn’t wearing his leather duster, and twice he sighed dramatically about it. The second time this happened, even she let a tiny chuckle peek it’s head out from between her lips, whispering to him that his wand was in his right bottom pocket and thus watching his face as it changed from annoyance to realization in one fail swoop. To think that this was Bram Corbet, the same bloke from Hogwarts that blasted Sophia for being a mudblood, that threatened to dangle and gut Ridley from a tree if she dared take away points from Slytherin for his sneaking about. He was such a dick! If Trelawney had predicted this future in her damn class, Ridley would have called her a bloody lunatic and dropped out of divination faster than light bouncing back from the moon. No, it turns out that instead the professor told Ridley that she was going to live on an apple orchard in Vancouver, which at the time seemed a fuck load more plausible then what was happening now. But she supposed Bram was a true testament to the notion that people could change. Enough tragedy could turn even the most sour of hearts into fleshy, blood pumping organs of differential kindness.

“Here we go.” he murmured, pulling out his wand while adjusting a now flopped over Liam in his arms. “Can’t wait to get this bundle of deadweight into his bed before my sodding arm breaks off.”

The door swung open to an otherwise darkened house, where the only traces of light were illuminating from the bottom level floor where Sia resided. The entry to that part of Bram’s home was sealed off from them now though, but it provided enough light from beneath the threshold that when Ridley stepped into the foyer, she didn’t end up walking into the first step and nearly smothering Isabella on her way down to greet the floor. There was no hope of grabbing her own wand though to light the lanterns around them, as it was safely tucked away in her small purse charmed with an undetectable extension. A smile appeared she she shook her head, knowing that Ares would have had her arse for not keeping her wand at the ready at any and all given moment. That was the proper functionality of a well prepared auror, or so he would croak. If that was the slogan, both her and Bram failed royal tonight. Any remaining loyal followers of the Dark Lord’s rebellion were free to overtake them at this point.

“Bram, the lanterns. I don’t know my bloody way around your house without some sort of lighting.”

“Right.” Clicking the front door closed, Ridley could almost see the outline of his form flick his wand, a spell very faintly spoken upon his lips. The stairwell and hallway lit up like the Hindu festival of Dewali. “Lights.” Bram smirked, nodding his head towards Ridley in invitation for her to take the lead. “You know where you’re going, Red? Last door on the right–”

“–And straight on till morning, got you.”

She began the trek up the steps, only ceasing the moment to turn and look at him and his bewildered expression. For the second time in only a few short minutes, Ridley found herself laughing at Bram’s expense. “Sorry, I forgot that you’re an elite pureblood.”

Coming up beside her, Bram corrected her statement without a hint of a smile. “No, no. Now I’m simply an elitist.”

Ridley stood stunned, her mouth agape as he did a sly wink at her before continuing on towards the children’s bedroom. Her brain had to do a catch up with her tongue in order to accurately speak back with any sort of coherency. “Did my Bram just crack a joke?!” She finally chortled, following up closely behind him as Isabella stirred in her arms.

“It’s been known to happen.” Finally he smiled.

It was weird to think, even to herself, that Bram was strangely attractive when he smiled. He had done so little of it in all the years she’d known him that at first, when they had started working together and possibly even a little before, she was rather taken back by it. A smile shouldn’t look foreign on anyone, and yet on him it looked down right certifiable. Until now. Now it creased the outlines of his face nicely. It lit up his dark eyes and made him seem so much more, dare she even think it? Human.

“And, I’m sorry, did you say my Bram? I didn’t know I was your property.”

Ridley blushed beneath her freckles, embarrassed although she wasn’t quite sure why. With his hip, the opposite one from where his son straddled him, the man nudged open their bedroom door, casting another quick spell to softly illuminate the lanterns around their walls. She’d never been inside of the children’s room, but from what she could tell it wasn’t only lanterns casting the glow. All around the ceiling were twinkling night stars, moving and twisting much like the Great Hall when they’d been at Hogwarts. “You enchanted their ceiling.” she spoke in awe, transfixed by the sight as she stepped further into the room, Isabella stirring harder now against her.

“Again with the surprise.” Bram retorted as he lay Liam down on top of his blue bed sheets, beginning to ready him for the night. “Yes, I enchanted it, here, look.” His gaze pointed upwards along with his index finger, showing Ridley just how in depth he’d made it. “There’s Andromeda, the chained maiden. Perseus is here, and Isabella’s favorite, the Big Dipper. Or as she says, the Large Ladle.”

“The large ladle? Classic.”

“She has a mind of her own, that one. Like her Aunt.”

Ridley felt his eyes observing her has she clumsily laid his child on the bed. Isabella didn’t wake, which was more than Ridley had expected, and damn if she wasn’t grateful for such a small favor. It was bad enough she’d lost some of her maternal instincts after her miscarriage, she didn’t want to face the day when she’d lost completely all of it. She stared. Then looked over towards Bram, who had managed to get Liam completely out of his suit and into pajamas, tucked neatly under his blankets. He was laying a sweet kiss upon his forehead before he gazed towards her, an eyebrow raised under his shaggy hair.

“Problems there, Red?”

Bastard and his blood leer. “How’d you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Stop smiling at me and tell me how you managed to undress, redress, tuck in and kiss your son while I just managed to not to drop your daughter off the bed, with limited success mind you. If she moves to the left, she’s meeting hardwood flooring.”

Still, even all these years and tragedies, Bram managed to approach her in the most graceful way possible. His arms reached for his daughter, working off her shiny new Mary Jane’s before anything else. “You forget, I’ve been a single father for four years. I’ve had no choice but to learn how not to drop my children. Through trial and error, mind you. Don’t think I popped out this fantastic dad, in fact, I am still very much a work in progress. Her nightgown is under her pillow, may I have it?”

She watched him diligently, Isabella barely moving in his hands as he tucked her in, pulling the purple sheets up towards her chin. This time Ridley heard him whisper an I love you before kissing her goodnight. “You are a brilliant father, Bram.”

His smile this time was forlorn, distant from her as he stepped back out into the hall, Ridley clicking closely at his heels. She caught him lingering in front of some old photographs that aligned his walls, his wedding, the twins’ first sonogram, their birth. With her greatest will, she managed not to ask any stupid questions, like if he missed his wife, or say how beautiful she was in her wedding gown. Honestly Ridley wasn’t sure exactly what she was suppose to do in a situation such as this, with a man such as Bram. Teeth bit down on her lip in mental deliberation, but luckily for her, he initiated the conversation after a few dreadful moments of silence.

“This life, it seems so long ago.” Bram wasn’t speaking directly to her, instead his attention seemed focused on Petra as she grinned brightly back at him from underneath her veil. It took Ridley a moment to realize he’d been staring at her reflection in the glass the entire time. “I used to think my wife was the most beautiful woman in the world, until now.”

Ridley nudged him in the shoulder with a jeer. “Until you saw your sister tonight? Look at you, saying that. That’s really sweet.”

“No,” he was laughing, sheepishly, before turning to face her full on and Ridley took note that he was looking a little bizarre. Still, she found herself again entranced by the lines on his face, so sweet in his happiness. Bram looked most at peace when he smiled. “Until you.”

Her eyes popped open to the size of saucers, disbelief overcasting her senses, her thoughts running a mile a minute in an effort to compute what had just been spoken. Son of a bloody whore on a Tuesday afternoon in May, Melora was fucking right. She was right and now Ridley was frozen, just gaping at him, waiting for the flies to swam into her stupid mouth. Except it wasn’t a fly that landed on her lips, but his own, pressed against her sweeter than she ever could have imagined. And suddenly her frozen arms came to life, reaching around his neck and pulling him close, accepting whatever the hell was happening with the conscious mind of someone who had been fucking sober for nearly four years.

Funny, Ridley always thought sobriety would lead her to acute decisions.

Fuck it, sometimes it was nice just to feel good; and here, Ridley felt bloody fantastic in his arms. The same arms that led her towards his bed, that removed her dress in one fluid motion, that embraced her both intimately and lovingly until the sun rose up between the curtains, causing her eyes awake with its unforgivable brightness. And…

Oh bloody shit on a railing.

What had she done?

Bram

Bram twirled a finger around the loose strands of scarlet hair that lay strewn across his chest. She was still sleeping as the sun began it’s rise from between his drawn curtains, slowly illuminating her ivory skin and soft freckles that adorned her cheeks and nose. Gently he pulled himself closer, wrapping his arms and legs about her frame and breathing in the decadent aroma of her person. Bram wasn’t going to kid himself into believing that this entire situation wasn’t a tad fucked, sleeping with Ridley had been on his bucket list for a few months now, but actually completing the act left a peculiar taste in his mouth. It was a good taste, yet still strange, like biting into a fruit that gave a certain aftertaste in its wake. One didn’t simply stop eating the fruit, they learned to enjoy all aspects of it, right down to the final bite. All it meant was Ridley was going to take some getting used too. She wasn’t his wife, to state the obvious, but she was someone else he so desired in a very odd way. He hadn’t known when it happened, or why, but Bram supposed working with someone so closely, watching them through the ups and downs of life, brought a unique beauty to his attention. Somewhere along the way, he fell in love.

She stirred.

He released his enamored grip from around her to a looser hold, still leaving his face nearest to the nape of her neck. Her breathing changed, alerting him to the fact that she was awakening. The groan that she sighed though, alerted him to the fact that she was awakening and regretting her last night’s decision.

“Oh shit.“

Yes. Ridley was indeed regretting it.

“Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.“

She pushed herself out of his arms, leaving him suddenly cold and very embarrassed. Flustered, he watched as she spun around on her bare heels, her hair loose around her shoulders yet still holding on to the gentle curl she’d styled into it from the night before. “Oh please, sleeping with me does not warrant five oh-shits. Maybe one, but even that is subjective.” Bram didn’t know someone could glare so pointedly while wrapped up in his bed sheet.

“No. No, no. You took advantage of me.” Ridley accused him with her finger, coming within inches of his face before standing upright and running her fingers through the wild locks. “Where are my shoes? Where is my gown?”

“Probably with your inhibitions? Hey!” Yes his remark was a little snide, still he wasn’t expecting the smack against his upper arm. “You know I could hit you back, saying I took advantage of you. I did nothing of the sorts.” It was adorable how her nose scrunched up in anger, but also short lived as Ridley continued her futile search for the items she’d decorated his floor with hours before. “And your dress isn’t behind the nightstand. Will you just…? Just stop. Stop looking and come back to bed.”

Ridley stood up out of breath, her messy red hair framing her delicate face as she sneered: “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wouldn’t like it.”

“Aren’t you a little Don Juan.”

“First off, I wouldn’t call me little, in any area. And secondly, who is Don Juan?”

It sweet the way she frustratedly struggled for words, her mouth falling agape and her tongue slipping between her teeth in an urge to tell him off in some repeated fashion, but she couldn’t do it. He was strangely winning.

“Seriously, you people don’t even know Don fucking Juan? I swear, pure bloods do live in the dark ages.”

Smirking, he wrapped his lower half in his comforter and scooted towards the side of the bed where she stood, sitting in front of her and enveloping her legs within his own. “It’s just a little passed five, come back to bed. We have minimal time before Isabella comes knocking on that door telling me she wants pancakes and eggs with ketchup for breakfast.” Bram nudged her slightly with his calves, causing Ridley’s hands to steady her balance against his shoulders. Their eyes met, his full of admiration while her’s still bore hesitation. It was there, in that infinite space between them, that time stood still. “What are you afraid of?”

She didn’t answer, yet instead turning an off shade of red.

“You weren’t a one night stand.”

Lightly her fingers brushed some of his shaggy hair from before his eyes, settling into his advances more fluidly than before. Bram wondered if she liked hearing that. If the realization that he meant more than to just cheaply fuck her and then release her to the wolves.

Ridley hovered above him, and slowly, ever so much, lowered herself so she sat on his lap. “If I wasn’t a one night stand, then what was I?”

And a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, humanizing him once again in her eyes. “You were mine.”

“…You’re one hell of a cheesy fucking bastard.”

***

Knock. Three seconds later. Knockknockknockknockknock.

Bram’s sleepy eyes struggled up to see the clock, noting the hour was close to seven in the morning. Isabella was kind enough to let him sleep in almost an extra forty-five minutes today, a record for her by any means. Gingerly he swept his thumb against Ridley’s cheek, chasing away her dreams and instantly feeling her lips widen along the bare of his chest. Her eyelashes fluttered, giving a teeny tickle along his skin which made him giggle as if he was five. Ridley relished in his laugh, Bram could tell, because her eyes lit up as she peered towards him beneath the strains of messy hair. “You laugh like a seven year old school girl.”

There wasn’t even a moment he could spare to answer her.

Instead, the knocking stopped and a small gasp replaced the sound. “Daddy! Daddy are you alright? Your knob is locked and I can’t get in and I’m, I’m wet.”

Isabella and her timid morning voice were meek against the hard oak door, but the desperation of her pleas could be felt in Bombay.

“Did she wet the bed?” Ridley asked.

“Aye.” he kissed her forehead, “Welcome to my life.” Reluctantly then, Bram rolled out from under her, grabbing his sweats from some random spot on the floor and hoisting them up around his midsection. “You’ll find your gown is down here at the foot of the bed. But if you’d rather not traipse around in your maid of honor getup, there are extra sweats and tee shirts in the bottom drawer of my dresser. Shoes, though, you’re on your own.”

Exasperated, Ridley sat up and watched him, his comforter tucked neatly up near the nape of her neck. “Heels and sweats. Can you think of anything sexier?”

“You in heels and me pulling you out of the sweats?”

She smiled. He loved it. It lit up her face brighter than the sun. “Go clean your little girl.”

“Yes. Be in the kitchen in ten. Breakfast.”

And just like that, he was gone, slipping seamlessly from the role of lover to the role of father the second he opened the bedroom door and left to greet his daughter.

Isabella stood a mere four foot nothing, which Bram attributed to her either being a runt, or taking after her mother. Her hair was pin straight and dark, with bangs she insisted on keeping despite the fact that her father could not manage to keep the pieces down without a charm being used repeatedly through out the day. Her skin though was all Petra’s. Olive colored and flawless, except for the small bouts of chapped cheeks she got in the winter. Currently, she was rubbing her toes together beneath her nightgown, tiny hands folded behind her back as she rocked from side to side, willing herself to speak up.

Bram knelt down so they were eye level. There was nothing more intimating than talking to a man triple your size. “You wet the bed again, Bella-boo?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” she said with great protest and a raspy voice. “I tried to go to the loo, I did! But I was a-scared of the dark, and you forgot to leave a lantern on in the hallway.”

His head hung in shame. Score one for the poptart, she was right.

“And I wanted to open your door, but I couldn’t because it was locked! So I went back to bed and I tried to hold it, I did. But I couldn’t and,” a dramatic sigh that could rattle gods became her, “I peed.”

Moments like this made Bram wonder how he ended up with such a well versed offspring. It had to be the same genes that infiltrated his sister. “Yes, you did. Come, I’ll wipe you down and then we’ll clean up the sullied bedsheets.”

Just like that the two of them were off to the loo for a quick clean up and while they were at it, Liam decided to join in with his own soft spoken jibber jabber, mostly about the wedding from the night before. “And then Melora, she gave me an extra piece of cake, and Isabella and I shared, right Isabella?”

“That’s right! But Liam only let me have the cakey part, and he ate all the icing. Everyone knows the icing is the best part.”

“I gave you the rose.”

“But no one eats the rose. That’s for decoration.”

Liam, unlike his twin, had much lighter hair, closer to a milk chocolate brown and with a touch of a wave. Their eyes though were the same. Round orbs of charcoal, which Bram always resented. He wanted them to have Petra’s green eyes as to resemble her somewhat. His twins looked more like him and less like her with every passing day. He was starting to forget the beauty of his wife with every inch they grew.

So he let them banter playfully, scooting them both off to make their beds (Isabella’s fresh with new sheets) while he popped his head in once more to check in on his overnight guest.

“Nice getup.”

Ridley sat on the hope chest near the foot of his bed, strapping on her heels beneath a pair of grey sweats and an old, worn white tee shirt. “Shuddap. No one asked you.”

“Get a move on, we’re starting breakfast.” He paused a moment, halfway between the threshold to his room and to the hallway, and turned with a genuinely happy smile. “I’m happy you’re here.” And with that, Bram clicked the door shut and scurried his twins along towards the kitchen.

Ridley

Ridley sat herself at the furthest end of the small kitchen table, watching with diligence at how Bram incorporated his twins into the morning routine with minimal effort. Isabella stirred the batter, her tiny arms working themselves endlessly to make sure that all the batter bubbles disintegrated; while Liam carefully sliced the oranges and began to juice them on the counter beside her, occasionally and quite accidentally squirting the smallest bit of juice in their faces which would erupt them into the hardy belly laughs of children. Then Bram, as sweetly as he pretended not to be, would peer over his shoulder at them with a hint of a curl to his lips before turning his attention back to the omelets. It was in these small moments of intimacy that Ridley felt privileged to be apart of. Seeing Bram in the way he wished the world would never view him, as a loving man with feelings that ran as deeply as an ocean, was beautifying. And as she continued to watch them, she smiled warmly, curious to the strange feeling fluttering around in her stomach. They were quickly cast aside.

“Ridley.” Isabella was suddenly next to her, pulling on the fabric of her father’s tee shirt with her rather tight grip. Lass had muscles. “Did you want one pancake or two? Because I think-I think I mixed only enough batter for all of us to have one, unless we make them teeny, teeny tiny,” her hands worked themselves together to form a small circle, barely bigger than a galleon, to present towards Ridley, “and then we may be able to have, like, two. Beca-because, see, I forgot to count you went I started making them! Not because I don’t like you, I do. You brought me home, and tucked me into bed, and kept Daddy company-”

Ridley could hear Bram abruptly cough as he half flipped an omelet rather pathetically. It ended up mostly out of the frying pan. It took all she had to stifle a laugh at his expense. Isabella continued with a flawless canter that impressed the woman wholeheartedly. “-But usually it’s just me, and Liam and Daddy and Sia. You make five. I only counted four. I won’t forget you next time, I promise.”

“It’s alright Isabella, I’ll just steal a piece of your Daddy’s pancake. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind sharing.”

“Oh no! Daddy is such a good sharer! He always shares with me, and-and with Liam. And with Sia too. Sometimes we eat all his food before he even gets to take a bite!”

Liam was quickly standing beside her, garnering for Ridley’s equal attention although she wasn’t completely sure how she was suppose split it. “Uh huh,” he would trickle, with this sheepish smile, “we eats all his pancakes all the time. And last night, we ate all his pasta.”

“They did.” He called over his shoulder.

Then Isabella chimed in with another antidote, and then it was back to Liam. Hell, at once point, they were both going at it at the same time, which left the woman in a bug-eyed lurch. Ridley had a limit of how much and how efficiently she could interact with small people before she was completely lost on them, struggling for words and hoping some grand knight in shinning armor would come and rescue her. Instead, she got Bram, who she was learning could be a rather dashing version of a fucked up Prince Charming.

“Can you two please leave her alone and man your stations? I’m hungry.” Bram smirked at them, turning them both by the tops of their heads and facing them back towards the counter from which they came. Then, as an offside towards her, he leaned in and whispered slyly, “Don’t worry, I’ll share more than just my pancakes with you, after all, I’m such a good sharer.” and as he pulled away, he managed to sneak a small kiss upon her pink lips, to which Ridley blushed like an idiotic school girl.

She couldn’t let him grab a hold of her like that. There were reasons why she remained single after Dorian, primarily because she was a plague; a curse; towards men. The last person she wanted to hurt was him, because hurting Bram meant hurting his children, and they’d already lost their mother.

The rest of the breakfast preparing passed in silence, except for the laughter between siblings, and the small giggles that they made immerse from their father. Ridley helped them along by setting the table, making paper cranes out of the napkins that moved magically across the tops of the plates. Liam was particularly fascinated by this. “How’d you do that?”

“Magic.”

“Ohhh…”

How such a simple yet obvious answer seemed to please him, which Ridley could only attribute to childhood innocence.

Isabella sat closest to her while her brother took up sanctuary nearest to the crook of his father’s arm as the front door clicked to an open. “Sia.” Bram stated matter-of-fact, making sure that he filled up his children’s plates, and then Sia’s plate, before even glancing at his own.

But it was Ridley that caught the rather disheveled look of Anastasia Fiera as she strode up the stairs and into the kitchen. Her dress was a mess, still the same one from the wedding the night before, wrinkled and sullied from events that did not involve Mason and Melora’s reception. Even her hair was matted, as if she’d slept on one side awkwardly and hadn’t bothered to fix it. Ridley tried to exchange a look with Bram, but the bloke had been preoccupied with something Liam was saying involving the soddening paper cranes she’d craftily made. Instead she continued her silent observation of the young woman, who called to them in a native Russian that alerted Ridley to a plethora of possibilities from the night before until now. No one seemed to pick up their head, except Isabella, who simply patted the seat on the opposite side of her, alluding for Sia to sit there. “We made pancakes! And Ridley had a sleep over with Daddy. Is that a new doll?”

The air stirred around them, and it gave the Auror a shiver down her spine. It was a chilly air, a cold breeze that wasn’t from Sia merely coming up from her apartment downstairs. It felt as if she’d been outside for hours. And that smell that wafted off of her skin and filled her senses, that was not atypical Sia. It was a mixture of man; peppermint and smoke. Finally Bram peeked up his head, which Ridley had assumed had been from the foreign smell coming off her, yet it was at the realization of her newly acquired item. “That is a new doll. Where’d you get her? She’s stunning.”

“Can I hold her?”

“Isabella!“

Ridley watched the shame fill up in the young girls cheeks, her body curling into a ball on the chair as she’d been reprimanded by her father. “I just wanted to see it!” she spat, angry fists wrapping themselves around her knees. Ridley merely wrapped an arm about her back, rubbing it in circles as she brought her attention again to the second red head at the table. “Sia, love, were you home last night? You look so cold from just going out for a walk this morning. Would you like me to make you some tea? Maybe you can tell us about that beautiful doll you have. I know Isabella would like to hear about her, right, Bella?”

The little girl, against her will not to want to talk to anyone, nodded her head in agreement.

In a Lonely Place

She awoke on the couch, where her sparking ring which sat upon her finger greeted her with a brilliant good morning as the sun basked in through the parted curtains across their skin. Piper had asked Lucas to remain there for the night, rather than returning to their bedroom after the proposal. There was something menacing about trying to go back to sleep in their sheets after the nightmares she’d been reliving while there, but the living room, and mostly the couch where Lucas and her got engaged, brought a new light and hope to her dismal outlook. So they wrapped one another up in their arms, where she then cautiously fell asleep pressed against his side, her nerves dissipating with every gentle stroke of his fingers against her hair. Luke was scared for her, Piper knew that, it was why he’d been bending to practically her every whim, but what he failed to see was just how loving he was and how she appreciated it all so much. They were going to get married. They were going to get married and have a family and that’s all Piper could have ever asked for. He was her everything.

If it was feasible, she could have shouted it loud enough to tell the whole world.

Instead, she shimmed out of his arms, trying her best not to wake him, but smiling still when his blue eyes opened to meet her own. It was then Piper decided that it was his eyes that were her favorite part about him. His eyes, yes, and his arms, and also the small lines along his cheeks when he laughed.

“Hey, ” he spoke softy, his morning voice raspy and deep. Piper could add that to the list of favorites. “You alright?”

Nodding, she resisted getting up any further and instead curled up to face him by laying her body across his torso and legs. Casually she swept some hair from his brow, cooing sweetly in response. “I’m better. How’d you sleep?”

Luke grinned. “Awful.”

“Me too.”

They exchanged looks before they both broke out into hardy laughter, her head landing gently onto his chest as their giggled died down in the morning air.

“I love you, Luke.” her ring rested against his heart, shimmering before her eyes. “We’re going to get married.”

“Really? Says who?”

Playfully she hit him against his arm, which brought Luke into a roar of laughter mixed with mild pain.

“I’m going to go show Mum today.”

Piper had been waiting to share this moment with her mum since she was sixteen and crying in her bed, wondering out loud why that bloody, stupid, good for nothing Lucas St. James didn’t fancy her the way she fancied him. Her mother’s arms were wrapped tightly around her then, making the somehow dismal world to the broken hearted teen seem a touch better. Little did her mum know that her daughter longed for those arms again for so many painfully different reasons. Lucas could give her love and comfort, but there was something beautifully unique about her mother’s touch that made Piper crave her so desperately at this time. “And I’m going to tell mum what happened yesterday with the… with…” she struggled to say the words, and decided they didn’t need to be spoken again. “… and about the baby.”

“So you’re off to give your mum a triple heart attack. How sweet of you.”

“Shut up!” She tisked, rising off him slowly, “I reckon Mum’s going to be happy for the baby. I am.” A protective hand lay itself across her flat stomach, which Piper noted had started to feel a little swollen. “And you?”

Luke’s face changed, and she couldn’t read his thoughts like she usually could, which frightened her. Him not wanting the baby had always been her biggest fear since finding out. Though she knew it took him some time to get used to change, especially when it was so drastic and even more so when it was all happening to him. The smile that had been ever present on her face dropped at the corners, while her fingers began to tighten around her mid section.

Her eyes scanned him as he started to sit up, pulling her closer to him by wrapping his hands around her hips. Then Luke offered the most gentle of movements by kissing her softly above the navel, a curl to his lips as he whispered in that damn bedroom voice. “I am.”

Piper rolled her eyes with relief and hugged him. “Good answer. Anyway, I’m going to go ready for Mum’s. Do you mind taking me there? I’m not ready to venture out on my own yet.”

He nodded simply as Piper made her way to the shower to cry alone.

She was petrified.

Suddenly, as that water turned on to drown her in its stream and heat, Piper felt overwhelmed and tremendously violent with ache. Her naked body was more bruised than she had realized, and as she stood there, vulnerable, she felt the rush of fear from the morning before. A surge of nausea took over her senses, and there was no control as she began her upheaval right in the shower where she was bathing.

It felt an eternity that she was wretching, and although she could hear Luke through the door practically knocking it down with worry, she couldn’t bring herself to answer him right away. She felt lonely, and dirty… the bruises and cuts along her fair skin proved it. And only after her stomach was empty of whatever bile it decided to rid of could she bring her trembling lips to call out that she was okay, that the morning sickness had struck again. If only she could have told him the truth, but to speak it would have made the wounds so much deeper.

Instead she turned the water to scorching, letting is sear at her skin as she attempted to wash up.Dirty. She was so filthy and there was never a chance in Merlin’s great hell she’d be clean ever again.

One boiling hot shower later, Piper dressed herself and applied her make up, trying her hardest to mask the black eye she’d been given so that her mum wouldn’t completely freak out from the second she saw her. It wasn’t working to plan, but enough foundation and her dad’s fantastic invention of herbal bruising creme and suddenly she felt almost like herself again. Almost, if that notion was humanly possible anymore.

Arm and arm with her fiance (it was fancy saying that), they stepped out into the backyard where Lucas did the side-by-side apparation to her parents pretty apartment in Cobblestone way. She remembered the stories they would tell her when she was little, how they lived once in a seedy muggle development before Dad and Mum managed to save enough for their humble home where she grew up. Piper loved her dad’s herbal garden outside, and how her mum’s sewing room always seemed to smell of flowers. Returning home always gave her pleasurable butterflies, but now all she wanted to do was run and hide in the nearest hole.

She turned and flashed Luke a radiant smile. “You should go. I’ll come to your parents house after I talk with Mum, alright? Dad is out at the apothecary so the chances of a murderous rampage occurring this morning are slimmer. I love you.” A peck on his lips gave Lucas the okay to go, and Piper watched as he waited on the corner to make sure she got into the house. Tapping twice, she opened the door, peering for Charlie before shutting it with a click behind her.

“Mum? Mum? Are you in? I thought you’d be back from Paris by now, and I have some news to tell you… “ Like I’m engaged… and pregnant… and… broken. She wondered what her mum would jump at first; the ring on her finger, or the black and blues, cuts and abrasions that decorated her arms and face. Maybe she’d take note of the swollen stomach before anything else. She walked further into the apartment, hearing sounds from the kitchen. There was her mum.

“Hi, Mum.” Piper gave a half wave before breaking free, lunging into her mother’s arms, where her body started to shake from the sobs that started. “I’m sorry, Mummy, I am… I swear I am… hold me, please? Just hold me and tell me you love me. Say it wasn’t my fault…puh-please.”

 

Thistle and Weeds

Micah

 

A coo came from the back room where the baby slept, inviting Micah from off the couch where he laid, having sent Ethan up only moments before to ready himself for bed. Sophia hadn’t made a stir from her room yet (at least not that he was aware of), and the downstairs had the lingering scent of magical concoctions that the young man could only imagine, but he was able to ignore the foul odor for the greater good it had produced. The spinning silhouette of a woman he once loved now graced the mantle above the fireplace, a void that had been absent for the better part of a week. A week they hadn’t been on speaking terms, playing hand over the baby like two passing ships in the night and Micah had come to the conclusion that Sophia hated him with every ounce of her being. It was his fault she was stuck here living with them, assuming the role of Mother to not only her own child, but to his and the one they created together, and it was more obvious now than ever that she had never wanted any of it. The anger she festered, the bouts of crying and depression, maybe they were more than just postpartum depression; maybe it was her coming to terms with the fact that this was it. The rest of her life was here, with him, and the thought of that reality was unbearable to handle. She hadn’t ever loved him, at this point he wasn’t convinced she ever even liked him. Micah would forever be her mistake, and now he was coming to terms with that very notion.

This of course brought him questioning his own feelings towards her, that perhaps he hadn’t loved her as deeply as he might have once thought in the past, that maybe everything he had ever fed himself about them was a lie. His dreams had always been pinned on one day her waking up and realizing that he was her answer, not her problem, but after the last fight that ensued between them there was clearly never a hope of that being a possibility. The tone Sophia had used stung him bitterly, her accusations of him clinging to a life that was no more hit him like a blow to the stomach, but the defining words of the entire situation landed on this: he was being a terrible father, and his son was paying the price. There was no fight left in him after that hit, and he knew his skin paled to the color of paper before he was able to move his body from its rooted spot. Defeated he tried his hardest to cross the room sharply, swiping up the picture that seemed to be the core of all the problems that had been encircling them. His wife had been dead for over five years, and Sophia had decided that this was ample enough time to get the hell over it, or his son was going to need more help than simply his issues stemming from autism.

Micah wasn’t entirely sure what had happened between Ethan and Sophia for her to warrant such strong opinions on his parenting, but he was sure it had drifted back over his meltdown that occurred in the upstairs bathroom. In trouble with Rosie wasn’t the difficult part, but being embarrassed and yelled at by a woman he viewed as a mother figure had set his small child on a spiraling downward slope, fits of wailing and nails that scarred flesh ensued as Micah had tried his best to calm him down. Afterwards he knew she had gone in to speak with Ethan, and subsequently that very night her heated words of hatred for Micah had been deployed. What had his son said that set her attack on the offensive? It must have had something to do with his birth Mother, and at the same time it had to do with his father too; but whatever it had been, it only helped to show that Sophia was afraid whatever poison Micah had been emitting would spread through out the entire fabric of their haphazard family. Point taken and picture in tow, he retreated into the safe house of his bedroom and began his own form of erosion and decay.

The trunk at the foot of his bed hadn’t been opened in nearly five years, but with a forceful might Micah found himself unhinging the latch and flipping the top so fiercely that the echo of it smacking the baseboard radiated throughout the house. He hadn’t cared who had heard it, if he made the baby cry or awoke one of his children, it didn’t matter, that’s how deeply the ache ran inside of him; and with eyes that stung from the tears he would not allow to fall he tossed the picture of Willow inside, her laughter on the wedding day to be buried with every other memory he tried to erase between them. That’s when he saw the curtains hung from his bay window, maroon with lace edges, delicate and soft much like she had once been. She had chosen them, they shouted of her touch. Blindly in his rage he tore them down, yanking so hard the tops had ripped in two, falling lamely in the folds of his arms. The moonlight filled his bed sheets as he stood for the moment with broken curtains and a racing heart, feeling more insane as the seconds dripped forward. Limply he tossed the tattered material into the trunk, along with several other items that once belonged to his late wife in his haste. Her perfume that hadn’t moved from her spot before the vanity was dropped in without a thought, landing against the bottom with a hard thump before quieting itself down. A pair of berkinstocks, a dove encrusted pin, and a poetry book all met their fate the same way, thrown inside with out a care from a man with a broken heart. The trunk slammed shut and then there was nothing more than silence for the rest of the night.

Thus their week had begun in taciturnity.

He could barely look at her without wanting to escape in some way, so family dinners were kept to a minimum with conversation, occasionally with either Ethan or Rose innocently jumping in with a childlike antidote that helped lighten the mood. But if the children hadn’t felt it before, it was impossible to ignore now. Their parents were on edge with one another, and where it was once a five foot radius kept between them, Micah had made sure that unless it had something to do with the baby, he was an entire room away from Sophia. It hurt him more than he let on. Ethan on the other hand, being attune to the strange maturities of his parents, had felt the mood shifts as they were happening. He knew his father had stopped smiling, at least whenever Sophia was around him, and that there was a sudden coldness in the air that hung around their house. Micah had always been a calming force for his son, but now even E. was feeling the stress, which was setting him off of his routine; and when he went for the one constant that had always been there, he realized it was gone. The picture of his Mother hidden on the mantel was no more, and the plague that filled his father’s heart filled up his own too.

Maybe Sophia had seen it happen, the fragmented heart of a little boy who had nothing to do with this parents impending fight searching for a picture that was not there. Maybe it ran deeper, leading into the fact that Micah had begun looking at her with blank, emotionless eyes. He would possibly never know, what he did know was that one day when he came home from school the picture of his birth Mum in her white wedding dress, laughing as she held her bouquet of lilies and sunflowers had reappeared back in its old spot, enchanted. The edges were no longer frayed and she moved with a stunning gracefulness he had always imagined she had, like the photographs that came in the Daily Prophet. Ethan knew that this would make his father smile again, it always did when he looked at his Mum, so when Micah came home from work it was no surprise Ethan was trying to get his attention from across the room. But arriving home had done nothing to lift his spirits, and instead of running towards his child he requested just a few minutes to change and then he would listen to anything the boy had to say. Ethan begrudgingly accepted this, watching his dad lumber up the stairs before he decided to pull the chair over towards the mantel to watch the picture spin.

Micah had meticulous knack for detail, and he knew the second that he opened the door to his bedroom that something was amiss. It wasn’t his bed, not the curtainless windows or anything with his armoire, but the trunk he had forcefully stuffed a week before. The fabric of the curtains was no longer peeking out the side like he had left it, which meant someone had not only been in his space, but in the most sacred place he held in the entire house. Quickly he flung open the latch and looked inside, noticing immediately what had gone missing, and in a stupor he was practically flying down the stairs to find Ethan; wondering if his son had anything to do with the missing photograph. “Ethan, Ethan!” He hollered, finding his boy on his tiptoes starring above the fireplace, which only furthered to anger him. How many times had he told that boy not to do that? Just has he was about to yell further, Ethan’s blue eyes turned to meet his own with a cherub smile.

“Look what Mum did!” Ethan proclaimed, holding his arms out for Micah to grab a hold of him and press him close to his chest. Robotically he reached forth and grasped E. under the arms, lifting him while his own sight was greeted with a silently laughing Willow, immortalized in an eight by ten photograph. “She even fixed the edges Dad, and look, Mum is laughing like you said she was.”

“She is…” He hushed, lightly picking up the paper as if it was made of glass, turning and walking towards the couch to sit and further examine the creation. His son curled up against his stomach, playing softly with the fabric of his work shirt, starring along with him at the laughing woman. “Daddy… what did Mummy’s laugh sound like?”

For the first time in seven days his father smiled, squeezing his boy joyfully. “Well, what is your favorite sound in the world?”

Pondering for a moment his brow furrowed before answering. “When the wind blows the chimes in the backyard, I like that sound, it always makes me smile even when I don’t want too.”

“Then that’s what her laughter sounded like. And you know, every time the wind blows against those chimes, I bet it’s her saying hello, and that she loves you very much.”

“You think so? Then she must say it an awful lot!” He giggled, before softening his voice and speaking again, careful not to cause his dad any unwanted anger. “Do you think… I took her breath away? That she died because of me?”

Had this been what he asked Sophia? The very heart inside Micah sank as he put the picture down on the table beside them, turning his boy so he faced him in his lap, eye to eye. “You listen to me Ethan, you did no such thing. Your mother loved you more than your heart could ever understand, but sometimes people just die, and that’s okay. They live on in here,” gently he pushed on his son’s chest, over his heart, “they live on in everyone we love, and everything we touch.”

Ethan mimicked his fathers touch, poking his own finger into Micah’s chest with a quizzical look. “So Mum lives inside of you there too?”

“Aye. She always will.”

“What if you run out of room and need more love for other people?”

“The heart has an endless bloom of love, you can never run out.”

Ethan thought about this for a moment, “Even for Sophia?”

“Especially for Sophia.” He said it, and suddenly he realized how hardily he meant it.

He and Ethan remained on the couch a while longer, father answering his son’s questions on anything before the clock chimed nine and he sent him off to wash up for bed. That’s when he heard Mackenzie coo, and lifted himself up to walk into her nursery with a lightened heart. “Hey Kenzie… why are we up?” He whispered to her before giving her a quick change and settling back into the rocking chair with her fidgeting somewhat in his arms.

His daughter was mildly restless, and while normally this would have frustrated him, Micah instead relished in the small moment he got to share with her when everyone else was seemingly asleep. Rocking softly in the chair he began to speak, knowing she couldn’t understand a word of him, but noticing that the sound of his voice seemed to ease her in his grasp. “Kenzie… have I ever told you how much I love your Mother?” Leaning down he kissed the baby soft skin of her forehead and continued, “Sometimes she has the need to be right, well, all the time she does, but every once in a while she is, you know? She likes to keep up this front, and sometimes I’m pretty sure she likes to think she hates me. I know ideally I’m not the man she wanted to be with… if she had to do it all over again she would have never chosen me… blimey I wouldn’t have even been in the running… but I try to be the one she wants and I know it honestly doesn’t work most of the time… but every once in a while… every once in a while she forgets how she’s suppose to feel about me, and a twinkle hits her eyes and for that brief second I think… I think maybe, just maybe she felt a twinge of love for me in that one moment, you know? That one day she’ll love me in return.” The baby’s eyes began to grow heavy as Micah ran a finger lightly across her cheek. “We made you… perfect little you. You were always out of love, always, and I’ll never let you think differently, you hear? I love you baby girl. I love you, and your brother and your sister… and most of all I love your Mum… I’ll never let her think differently either, ever again…” Landing one more kiss upon her perfect nose, he lulled the sleeping baby back into her crib, watching her for a moment more before turning to leave the room to say goodnight to the rest of his children.

A Beautiful Lie

*Piper*

She paced back and forth around their garden, roaming through the black-eyed susans and white daisies with her hand resting methodically against her stomach to coddle the life inside. Piper knew Lucas was watching her through the curtains from their kitchen window, most likely counting every step she took though the midday sun. He was scared, she knew that, but he was also oh-so brave. Braver than he ever gave himself credit for, for in the heart of every single St. James beat the roar of a lion. Lucas just had to uncover and discover his roar, and then, he would be an unbeatable force to forever be reckoned with.Piper stopped her footsteps abruptly, now acknowledging her fiance’s presence through the white paned window as he peered down with tired eyes at her. A small wave greeted him, along with a glistening smile and a quaint nod of her head. She used her fingers to wave Lucas on, inviting him out to the garden to walk beside her. She had always felt that the two of them hadn’t spent enough time outside in their backyard; now was the moment to finally remedy that, to breathe life into the world around them.

Tenderly she watched his silhouette leaved the shadows of the curtains, and for however brief of a moment she had until he arrived, Piper turned her back away from the house so that she could quickly collect her thoughts. She didn’t want to start off their new life together any worse than it had already begun, and ever since the pregnancy and then the attack, both of them were already on edge and ready to jump at any moment. Hell, she barely slept before moving in with Luke, but once her life went all to hell in a hand-basket, every time she shut her eyes she awoke screaming and clawing Lucas from off of her despite his only wanting to calm her down. And how cruel she was towards his efforts, shunning him and crying into her pillow, the need to be touched forgotten as his fingers felt like maggots across her skin. It was so hard to recognized the blurred lines now of help and hate, to the point where Piper sometimes fought sleep or stole dreamless draughts from her father without him knowing. Yet then the thought of those potions harming their baby… she was at such a loss for what to do, who to talk too…

But Lucas had been so patient with her, much more than Piper could have ever imagined, even if she’d been somewhat distant since the incident. It was as if the thought of losing her had awoken the beast inside of him, and the primal need to love and protect had taken precedence above all else in his life. Piper had changed, and now so had her Luke. It was a frightening realization.

Now though, with a loving embrace she felt his arms wrap around her now in the warmth of the shinning sun, his face burring itself in the nape of her neck beneath her autumn red hair. Leaning back into his touch, Piper let out a tender coo and a tiny laugh as she felt his lips touch upon her collarbone, laying the sweetest of kisses.

“I want you happy.” she spoke, rather matter-of-fact, her head rolling back and around so she could catch his trademark blue eyes within her own.

“I want you happier.” he whispered into her ear, letting his arms go from around her waist so he could circle her, now facing his bride-to-be full on. Piper cupped his face into her hands, pulling his line of vision directly into her honey blue eyes.

They had their first wedding disagreement that morning, which Piper was convinced had simply snowballed into a massive heap it had because she was still quite upset over what had been allowed to transpire between Lucas and Finn via his lovely Auntie Ella’s secret consent. Yes that bastard and his accomplice deserved evert goddamn blow that Lucas landed on them in the silence of that hidden room in the ministry; and there was something quite flattering about being avenged in such a brutally romantic way that caught her off guard; but the sheer irresponsibility of his actions is what upset Piper the most. Screw the fact that they were now engaged, that wasn’t the bloody issue. Lucas was going to be a father. A father. No longer could he revel in these irrational acts without thinking first of the family he would leave behind. Having him locked away in Azkaban would not be beneficial to her nor the growing life they had created that was currently taking up space inside her abdomen.

Although now Piper was regretting how it all ended up coming out. She should have been more attune to his feelings before this had sprawled down into whatever it had suddenly become; which was a goddamn mountain from a sodding molehill.

It had started over breakfast, shortly after she’d paid yet another visit to the loo with a fancy bout of morning sickness. Merlin above Piper could not wait for this first trimester to be over with, just so she could start feeling like herself again rather than some balloon that couldn’t hold down a cup of water for longer than fifteen minutes. She actually found it quite amazing she hadn’t puked up their baby by this point with the amount of bile that was pouring out of her at any given moment.

She sat next to him, wiping her face against a cloth napkin and continuing on the morning as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “We should have an outdoor wedding, like your parents and my parents. I always adored going back and looking at their pictures, the fresh flowers, the warm sun. Maybe we can plan for the autumn time, I would like to not be showing too much in my dress, if you know what I mean.” her hand had unconsciously made its way to her stomach as she continued, “And I know Sammy was talking about trying to get specially ordained so that he could be the one to marry us, which I think would be so wonderfully fantastic. He’d be such a perfect minister, he’d be able to tell personal stories and really know us through and through enough to deliver a beautiful ceremony. Then we could exchange our vows. I can’t wait to write yours. Honestly, I think I’ve been composing it for years, but now I actually get to say it for everyone to hear and…”

It was at this point that Piper stopped to notice the growing fear in Lucas’ eyes, large and trembling with her words. And in hindsight, she should have seen it coming from a mile away, but in the heat of that moment it caught her in a rather dumbstruck fashion, and her words flew on their own accord without much thought from that second forward. “What is the problem, Luke?”

“You want us to write our own vows?” She could hear his voice horse and dry, struggling to say the words without accidentally offending her. Unfortunately for Lucas, he failed tremendously. “Paper, I love you, you know that I do, but I’m not entirely comfortable… speaking all of that in front of our family and friends and whoever else may bloody be there.”

Her arms crossed, her legs crossed, and if Piper could cross any other limb on her body, you better believe it was crossed in spirit. Venom flew from her mouth, poison in her words as she spat them at him with bloodshot eyes. “Maybe you can show them all by beating the shit out of someone, hmm? Is that more your style, Lucas?”

Piper watched as his face dropped, the shock of her retort reading loud and clear as he first stumbled for a words in a reaction. “Are you seriously saying that to me right now?”

There was no turning back then, and although she would have liked to have blamed the surge of emotions and sudden anger on her hormones, even now standing in the garden, Piper wasn’t entirely sure that was sole reason. “Yes I am. You had no bloody problem cutting up your knuckles to prove your love for me in a sodding brawl, but saying a few gentle words in front of loved ones terrifies the unemotional shit out of you? How is that fair to me, Luke? Should I just get you a fucking pinata to beat the shit out of while we’re on the altar, would that more your style? Merlin to hell.”

At this point she’d kicked out her chair from beneath her, rising to her feet in an apparent act of frustration. Luke had also arose from the table, red in the face and angry, and rightfully so. He hadn’t deserved the attack he’d been given, and only now as she cupped his face in her hands could she acknowledge how wrong she’d been. “What the hell, Piper?! That isn’t fair. And you know what, I don’t give a shit what you think, I would still have beaten the sodding fuck out of him regardless of your reaction. And you know what else? Do you? I don’t even want a fucking huge wedding, with Sammy bloody marrying us and hordes of people we barely speak to watching. Let’s just elope. We can go down to the ministry and be married tomorrow–”

“ELOPE? Are you bloody serious!” and as she spun to catch his face, she realized he was about as serious as a heart attack. “Oh my God, Lucas! After everything our parents have done for us, our families, you want to blow them off and run away to bloody elope. Unbelievable! I can’t even… I can’t even look at you right now, you infuriate me so much!”

“The feeling is mutual.” Luke didn’t stop with that, no, he didn’t know how to leave well enough alone sometimes. “But, fine, you want a wedding with all the trims and fixings, whatever, but don’t expect me to change who I am to read some eff’n vows because you think it’ll be so cute and wonderful. Even just the thought of doing something so intimately private like that in front of people scares the shit out of me. If you wanted Romeo, you said yes to the wrong bloke.”

That’s when Piper blew out of the kitchen, lunging at the backdoor and arriving in their yard to collect her racing thoughts. And that’s where she remained until now, her forehead leaning against his as she faintly smiled and relished in his scent.

“Breathe me in…“

“…I’m yours to keep.” She breathed in a heavy breath, imitating their words and holding onto Lucas within her lungs. A slow exhale brought out calmer words, her fingers losing themselves in the blonde of his hair as she stepped closer towards his body. “I’m sorry Luke, you didn’t deserve that attack.”

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her hips, swaying them slowly on the spot in a tender dance. “No… but I shouldn’t have said what I said either. If it means that much to you, I can try, I mean, I will try. I will do it, for you. It’s your day and I just want it to be everything you’ve dreamed of and whatnot-”

“It’s not just my day though,” she cut him off, swaying with his movements, “it’s your day too. We both deserve to be happy and comfortable. So I think… I think I came up with a solution.” Lucas raised an eye brow at her, and Piper couldn’t help but give another foolhardy laugh at him. “What if we did it your way and my way? Let’s elope Lucas, let’s elope and then, since there won’t be anyone present to show the best of yourself to, we can say our own personal vows.”

This stopped his movements dead in their tracks, and Piper knew it was because out of everyone in this world Lucas could read her thoughts better than even her own mother. “That’s not all… and then what, Paper?” he asked with a crooked, unsure smile, which reflected in her eyes with a brilliant sparkle.

“Then… we lie.”

 

 

*Lucas*

Her hands were in his, and the world was spinning around them at speeds that Lucas’ was completely unfamiliar (not to mention uncomfortable) with. Around their wrists were the magical ribbons of silver and gold, cast to forever bind them together as one mind, spirit and body. Lucas was trembling, which was so out of character for his normally blank slate of emotions that it brought up waves of nausea along with it. He’d been that way ever since that morning, having woken up shaking from the start, wondering if anyone who’d ever bothered to get married had felt as nervous as he was at that very moment. Yet it had nothing to do with Piper, because if there was one thing Luke knew above all it was that he loved her more than anyone could have possibly loved anyone else. It was admitting said love that pained him; and it didn’t matter if it was in front of two strangers they’d never see again or every single member of their family and friends, because to him it was all the same. He wasn’t the bloke that gave away his feelings for free, especially not in a family who practically bathed in what he deemed unnecessary emotions so consistently. Luke was sure if he could physically see his mother right now, she was bawling into her his father’s handkerchief, a wreck with happy tears that would be adding more fear atop of his already jittering bones. So instead he pushed out the thoughts and clung onto Piper for dear life, holding her so tight that she started to laugh with a sweet kindness, amused by his beautiful struggle. Out of everyone he’d ever met, Lucas knew she’d be the only one to understand him, which is exactly what gave him the courage to give her the only thing she asked him to do.

“I’m sorry,” he started, nervously laughing at himself, releasing his death grip to just a slightly tighthold. A quick clear of his throat, and Luke maned up and got himself back on track. “Paper… Paper you look beautiful.”

Lucas had spent three mornings before this one trying to compose vows that weren’t a sodding piece of shit and all he ended up with were rubbish bins full of crumbled parchment and a heart that was racing inside his now bruising chest. He thought eloping would be easier than a full blown wedding, but it was just as stressful, and even more so now because it all had to remain a secret. Trying to hide an eff’n secret in his family was like trying to bury the Holy Grail in a sandless sandbox, so he took to avoiding them as much as he possibly could, which never went quite as planned. They were like goddamn rabbits, those St. James minions, and Luke was beginning to swear that they hid in cracks and closets just to surprise him at a moments notice. But like it was said, it was never the wedding itself that irked him, it was always the expressions that came trailing along with the territory; and every now and then he came to the realization that if he was going to be made to speak regardless, maybe he just had to bite the bullet for her and do what he silently promised when he proposed: to simply be there for her, how ever she bloody wanted him to be. Which, of course, brought them both to the here and now, with Lucas parched for water as his throat seemed to dry up with every breath.

“You don’t have to do it Love, I see it, I see it all in your eyes, it’s all I–” Piper began to whisper to him with a smile, unknowingly shaking his hands in hers in her own personal agreement.

“Shut-up.” he cooed back, stepping closer and readjusting his feet into the ground, as if that would somehow plant the courage he needed to speak. Then slowly, and in the smallest voice Lucas possessed, he began, “I’ve been called many things in my life. Obnoxious. A sod. An arse. I’ve been told I’m brilliant, that I’m charismatic, that I could charm the knickers off an eskimo in the middle of the Arctic. But one thing I’ve never been considered is very emotional. I’ve always tried to hide my feelings the best I could, like a protective shell, so no one could use them to hurt me. It is what has made the the selfish bloke that I am, for better or for worse.”

His eyes adverted down to his shoes, scuffling the floor beneath them like he’d been prone to do when afraid. It was then Lucas stopped for a moment, a stifled sniffle coughing up in the back of his throat as they lingered in peaceful silence. This here was the reason he liked to stay inside his thoughts, vocalization helped to make him human, and being human for Luke was an extreme vunerablity. Superhero’s were never feared in their weakened forms. “Even now I’ve managed to make this entire speech about me, because I’ve always been selfish. But you, Pie, for you I’m going to change. Not only because you want me too, but because you need too, I need me too… starting with, um, with this.”

Yet no words could spill out of him further than a few sputters from between his lips. Sweat beaded along his brow line, and he felt his eyes heat and water with unshed tears. Lucas’ biggest fears were coming to light, and he was a slave to them, unable to stop the surging emotions as they intoxicated his muscles and weakened his bones. That’s when he felt her step closer, breaking his grip that intertwined within her fingers and lifting her hands onto his face, tucking her forehead to his and whispering softly. “It’s no one but us right now, just you and me on this alter, okay? Breath me in…“

Mechanically he abided her, inhaling deep within his lungs and holding onto her scent inside of him, adoring her silently through clenched eyes. And then suddenly Lucas awoke, touching her hands beside his face with his own, bringing them down to their hearts with childlike awe. The words then fell out of him, making little sense at first, but growing with each passing realization that overcame.

“I love you. I just, I just never knew how to say it till you said it first. I tried to show you, I did, but it always came out so brutally wrong. As children, I would pull your hair hard, or magically adhere hats to your head when you were being exceptionally mean.” a small laugh among the few stray tears, “But as we grew up, and we kissed that first time in the common room, I knew it and it terrified me. To love someone, especially your best friend, it’s the most amazing feeling, and the scariest because… if you didn’t love me back, I would have lost you twice.”

“You’re never going to lose me, Luke.” Her voice was serene and gentle, and for a moment the air he breathed in tasted a touch sweeter. He was off the hook for now, and the shake in his hands became less even as she held him close. “I’ve been by your side our entire lives, for better or for worse, like you said. You’ve been many firsts for me. First boy to make me cry. First boy to make me laugh. First boy to ask me if the carpet matched the curtains,” a soft giggle bounced off her glowing face, “and of course, the first boy to see if I was telling the truth about it. You’ve been my first for so many things, Lucas, and now… now I’m ready for you to be my first and my last for life. I love you. Till the end of ages.”

Piper leaned in and pressed her forehead to his, her smile reflecting his own as they swayed slightly on the spot. It seemed an eternity had passed in their moment before she spoke up again, much to Lucas’ delight, to scold their officiant for letting them linger a touch too long. “I swear to Merlin above Sammy, if you don’t announce us now, I’m going to do it myself.”

“Hey, I’m the officiant, if I want to make the scene last a little longer to simply make Luke squirm, I’m allowed. Besides, from the looks of the family, they’re taking a touch of pride in the fact that he’s being human.”

Lucas growled, “Sammy.”

“Alright, alright. Lucas, Piper,” Sam lifted his wand and swished it through the air, fading the gold and silver ribbons into their skin in an airy dust, “The symbolism of the ribbons has now bonded you both together in love for an eternity, and may that love remain between you both until that very moment in time. And when that time is over, may it carry through for an eternity more. Are you ready, Luke?” he smiled and leaned forward, the words dripping off his lips, “You may now kiss your bride.”

There was no hesitation as he swept Piper up into his embrace.

Fire Water Burn

Piper rolled over early in the morning, so early that the sun had yet to rise completely and that morning dew was still settling heavily on the grass as she blinked, and starred at Lucas with a longing smile. He looked innocent while he slept, curled up in a ball with the sheets tucked nearly up to his chin, his hair a mess around his face. Lightly she stroked some of the blonde strands away, laying on her pillow with a dreamy look in her eyes as she starred lovingly at him in his slumber. It had been three months since Luke asked her to move away with him, around the same time Willow had once again caught Piper and her brother doing the nasty at their parents home. At least now in their own small apartment, she and Luke were free to argue and love without worrying one of the St. James’ children would overhear or accidentally walk in. It made her realize that he was in this for the long run, after years of his openly confessed fear of commitment. Piper finally won.

Stroking his cheek lightly with the back of her fingers, a rush of nausea poured over her and Piper quickly grabbed her stomach and booked it towards the loo. There in the darkness of the room she wretched her body, the contents of last night’s dinner falling out of her into the toilet in a massive heap. This would mark the third week in a row of morning sickness, the fourth week she’d known about her pregnancy, and the twenty eighth day she’d kept the news from Lucas. It also happened to be July fourth, the day of his birth, his twenty fifth birthday and the first one of many they would hopefully spend together if the bastard didn’t get cold feet. Which was Piper’s fear, the entire reason she kept their child a secret, after all, she’d just gotten Luke to realize he wanted to be with her openly, a child hadn’t even come up in serious conversation. Actually, the only time the topic ever arose was when they were making fun of one, like when Mitzy Oliver had her baby and it looked as ugly as the day was long. What if the child she was harboring was hideous? Piper finished up her upheaval and fell on the floor beside the tub, scared once again of telling Lucas what she’d been hiding for way too long.

Lucas had been too busy with working under Ella at the ministry to notice the small changes going on with Piper at home. Never had she’d seen him so stressed, although if they were going to make a eventual bid on Ells becoming the head of the Magical Law Enforcement department, they needed to make her presence known from the beginning. It was amazing how bloody smart the two of them were, it seemed almost unfair to have Lucas and Ella fighting on the same side, no one else stood a chance against their powerful knowledge and cunning minds. Then again, he still managed to dig his nails underneath his ‘Auntie’s skin, because if there was one personality trait her Lucas would never rid of would be his ability to be a royal pain in the arse whenever he could. Last Piper heard, he managed to sneak a horde of toads into Ella’s desk drawer, only to be discovered during an important meeting between her and their division leader. Luke’s laughter combined with Ella’s screamed managed to reach Piper all the way in Little Whinging, where she had been spending the day with Jon at Micah and Sophia’s house. The woman vowed to get the “little bastard” back, and Luke had been anticipating it for the past few weeks. He actually confessed to Piper the night before that he was pretty sure her revenge was coming on his birthday, and she then had to convince him not to put a protective spell, or cast a bubble around him for the day.

Flushing the toilet from her position on the floor, Piper lumbered up onto her feet and washed her hands and face in the sink, letting the cool water awaken her skin and give a rush of pleasure towards her senses. She promised her sleeping beau a homemade chocolate on chocolate cake, decorated with sugar coated marshmallows and those small, candy coated chocolates he adored from Honeyduke’s. Since she was awake, Piper figured there was no better time than now to start baking, although a look of annoyance struck her features when she opened the refrigerator. “At least he remembered the pickles…” she mumbled to herself, noting Lucas had brought home a six pack, a jar of her favorite bread and butter dills, and enough icing to cover their bed, but no eggs. Her list specifically had eggs on it yet there were none starring back at her from their empty home on the top shelf of the door. Glancing at her already started batter, Piper sighed before kicking into gear. Quietly she changed from her pajama’s into street clothes while Luke slept only a few feet away, creeping over to his side of the bed and placing a soft kiss on his temple, “Happy birthday love… you forgot the eggs, I’ll be back soon.”

“Mmmmm…. okay.” he managed to coo back; eyes still so heavy in sleep that they never opened to say goodbye.

***

There was a market down the road from them, maybe about fifteen minutes if she walked briskly. But along with morning sickness and strange midnight cravings, Piper had become sluggish on top of her already exhaustion. So this journey would take a more leisurely stride, which gave her a few minutes to herself and the fresh morning air. It was warming up already at the early hour, although the streets were still mostly empty, people still sleeping in while Piper ventured out for the eggs Luke had forgotten in his limited thought process. If the bloke couldn’t remember such simple requests, how in the hell was he going to be able to take care of a child? How many times was he going to leave their baby somewhere or accidentally hurt it before he realized it was a sodden living-breathing dependent of theirs? One time, one bloody time they didn’t use protection and now her thoughts went baby, baby, Lucas, baby. Sometimes she wished it never happened, that she could have convinced him at the time that the pull out method didn’t work. Obviously Piper was walking proof of it’s failure right now. She gripped her stomach, nervous their creation could understand her thoughts. “I’m sorry baby, I didn’t mean those things, forgive me? I’m just scared is a—”

Suddenly there was a hand over her mouth, and Piper was being dragged back into the alleyway behind her, away from the lights of the avenue and the eyes of any people that may have seen her. She went to go fight with her hands, claw at the skin that held her but no sooner had she thought it, her wrists were restrained behind her back with a force Piper could not content with. Still she writhed, eyes wide with fear as she could hear another man approaching from behind. The were speaking in low tones, nothing she could make out over her stifled cries, except at the end when the second man told the first to shut her up. A blow to the back of the head had Piper sway on the spot, only still standing because she was being held up against her will. Tears started to well up and fall loosely down her cheeks as fear swam through her blood so tremendously she thought it would kill her. They would kill her. The front of her body was slammed into the brick wall before her and she was momentarily free, her body landing on the floor in a mess of bones and limbs and pain. The first man tore at her shirt and was struggling with her pants.

She kicked and fumbled for her wand, so dazed and blinded with blood that her fingers couldn’t get a true grip on the hilt. The second man kicked her hard in the stomach, and Piper cried more for her unborn child than the surmounting terror inside. “Please!”

“Silence her!” 

“PLEASE STOP!” she fought again, writhing and turning as much as her bruised flesh would allow. “I’m…” another strong kick to the abdomen, “pregnant!“

The world stopped. Piper wailed alone on the dirty cobblestone floor, curled up in the fetal position with her arms holding her belly in anguish. Their baby, only two and a half months old inside of her, abused so horribly… Here she was worried about Lucas accidentally leaving her somewhere in absentmindedness and now she may not have a life at all. She. Piper knew at that very moment she was having a daughter, a beautiful baby girl with autumn red hair like her mum, and bright blue eyes like her dad. She couldn’t lose this life, she couldn’t, she couldn’t. Whatever made her look up to face her assailants was one of the most regrettable moves she’d ever made. “Finn?“

“Shit, we gotta go.” Finn shouted, grabbing the first man, the one that beat her initially, around the arm and dissapparated on the spot.

Piper couldn’t move, every fiber that held her body together was working on overdrive to protect the life inside and every single breath she held kept her from losing control of her innards for a second time. Stumbling she reached for her wand, finding it had been tossed out of her grasp, causing her to have to move painfully from the rooted spot against the wall and through a puddle to grab a hold of it. Muscles were on fire, nerves were screaming in agony and blood trickled down the side of her temple, staining both her hair and face in its rage. She needed medical attention. She needed Ethan. “Mun…” she eked out, holding her wanded saviour once more, breathless, “Mungo’s…..” and Piper was gone in a whirl.

Everything from this moment on happened in a blur. The mediwitches moved her, that much Piper knew, and she was laying in a stark white room completely with stark white sheets, a contrast from the crimson red that soiled her, screaming from her curled up position that she wanted no one but Ethan. “Go away! Go away! Bring me Ethan! I want Ethan S-st. James, goddamnit! No, NO GET OFF OF ME!“

Realizing that nothing was going to get healed with this child in panic, one of the mediwitches did as she was screamed at and ventured off to find Healer St. James.

Ethan had just come off of breakfast when the rather stout woman came knocking on his office door, telling him that a young girl had apparated in, obviously beaten, but was refusing treatment from everyone but him. Dropping the remainder of his coffee, Ethan flew out of his office towards the emergency floor with thoughts flooding his mind of Willow, his daughter, hurt. And as fast as his legs carried him, it hardly seemed fast enough, and his knees were turning to rubber by the time he reached the archway of the private emergency room. A small gasp escaped his lips as sweeping relief hit him upon realizing it was Piper Dish and not his Willow laying in the bed, although plaguing guilt riddled him at the relief he felt. She looked wounded badly, head trauma mostly, a blacked eye, small cuts around her facial features, a gash along the side of the head where a bottle may have made contact. He quickly strode over to her, replacing his small relief with concern, she was as much a daughter to him as the rest of his children. “Piper, what happened?”

She reached for his hand as he got closer, wanting to hold onto someone she trusted while she wept. “They beat me.”

“Who beat you?”

Eyes widened as she lied, “I don’t know. I don’t know who they were, but they wanted to hurt me, they wanted to r-r-ra…”

Ethan shushed her, he hadn’t needed to hear the words she was trying to speak to know what she’d been saying. “Where is Luke?”

“He’s home, sleeping, he-he-” she was heaving again, her chest cramping through the sobs as her fingers tightened around his hand, “he doesn’t know. No one knows.”

“I’ll get you fixed up, then we can call Luke and your parents and—”

Piper was shaking her head, a need to profusely vomit overtaking her senses, “No Ethan. No one knows that I’m… I’m pregnant, and they-they, they kicked me. In my stomach, over and over and…” she pulled him close to her, crying in his sleeve as her fingers dug into his skin, her fear becoming his own. “My baby, my poor poor baby” she wept into the fabric of his robe, one arm still clutching her middle as if that would protect the unborn from further harm. She felt him slump over her tender body in a momentary loss for words.

“Okay. Piper. I have to go get one of the obgyn healers, and together we’ll check the baby and heal you up.”

“Please don’t leave me…“

“I’m not leaving you, but listen to me, I need to get someone who is qualified to check on your baby. You want that, right?”

She nodded through the tears and slowly let his hand fall from her grasp.

Ethan was only gone a few minutes, but it felt of an eternity while she laid alone in that bed. Her mind thought of Lucas, probably still sound asleep in their bed even though the sun would be beating into their room, filling his eyelids with the morning glow he could so pleasantly sleep through. He would be expecting a birthday cake to be baking when he got up, the sweet smell filling his senses as he bopped through the house in his boxers, still dreary eyed from only ten hours of precious sleep. Luke would have no concept of where she was or the hell she’d gone through to end up there, not of the burden she carried or the life she was fighting to keep growing inside of her. Once again he was clueless, just like he always was when it came to Piper Dish. Her weeping lessened as she lay motionless, Ethan coming back in the room with an older gentleman by his side.

Together they waved wands over her, feed her potions and rubbed ointment over her open cuts. Some instances burned, others cooled and a few stung like a thousand needles in the flesh. Yet the most painful treatment was one that didn’t hurt at all, the one where she was made to let go of her abdomen and allow her body to lay straight and ridged while the healing obgyn ran his wand over her. Ethan held onto her hand the entire time, smoothing her hair and repeating over and over that everything would be alright. And how Piper wanted to believe him.

“Alright Ms. Dish, let me go and run these findings, I’ll be back to you with results in a few minutes.” Said the healer, whose name was Rosette, as he placed a warm whitish liquid, which was streamed from her belly button, into a glass vile. Watching him leave the room in silence, she turned her attention back towards Ethan with fear quivering in her eyes. “I want Luk–”

“I already sent for him.”

It was true, Ethan had sent for Lucas at the same time he’d went to find Rosette, and if his son was any bit street smart and he was book smart, his ass would be at that hospital in record time. Which is why he kept looking towards the door for the blur of his son’s blonde hair whisking by, so far though the minutes passed by and there was no sign of Lucas. “Let me go send for him again, maybe the first owl didn’t reach.” With that he let go of her hand and weakly smiled down. Piper couldn’t move to stop him, even though she hated the thought of being alone. All she could do was replay the scene as an out of body experience, watching her fragile body get bludgeoned, knowing now it was Finn who aimed to hurt her, and had she not realized it… Merlin the damage they could have done. Her baby could be dead… she could have been…

The door creaked open and her swollen eyes flickered towards the noise, lighting up when they landed on a disheveled Lucas rushing towards her. He looked as horrid as she felt, his hair sticking up, gray pajama bottoms with a white wrinkled tee shirt. Worst of all he looked worried, which brought the feelings of fear she harbored back as a lump in her throat. Piper sat up a touch too quickly, wrapping her arms around her love as she fell forward into his embrace from the dizziness. There she wet his neck with more tears, her breath heavy from happiness that he was finally beside her. He’d looked so scared, in some strange way it made Piper realize how much he loved her, even if he’d been slow to realize it. Suddenly she wasn’t afraid to share the news with him, so she pulled back, holding onto his forearms for stability.

“What’d they do to you?” he questioned, unshed tears filling his eyes as he looked over the swells and dried blood.

“Lucas… I have to tell you something…”

“Do you know who did it? I swear I’ll kill them, just tell me who Piper and I’ll gut them from head to toe.”

Piper knew how insanely chauvinistic the St. James men tended to be, from Ella’s dad, to Ethan and apparently now Lucas. Still she kept mum knowing it was Finn who had been part of the duo to attack her. There were many more important things to address now, like the fact that the healer was not back yet with her results, which worried the ever loving shit out of her, or even more so, that Luke still was in the dark that he was currently a dad.

She shook her head and moved her hands towards his face, cupping his cheeks. Then Piper opened her mouth to speak, twice actually, before any words sauntered out in coherency. “I didn’t want to tell you this way. I wanted it to be over your cake, when I gave you your birthday gift, I wanted it to be your birthday gift, I wanted you to be happy and … Luke… remember that one time a few months ago, when we had sex? You know… the unprotected kind…? ” Lucas barely motioned in her hands, and Piper was regretting everything she was saying all at once. Maybe she was wrong, he was going to leave her. Still she trudged forward, lowering her hands towards her stomach with a weak smile. “I’m close to three months with our baby.”

Blue eyes widened so largely it was a surprise they didn’t fall out of his head, so quickly she continued on, as to prevent the silence from deafening them. “Actually… when they beat me, they… they… ” her cries overcame her once more at the memory, gripping her sides as she struggled for air. It seemed never to fill her lungs enough. “They may have hurt t-the baby. I can’t live with that Luke, I can’t. Please, please you have to say something, I’m so scared!” There she sobbed, together with him, but completely alone, until he pulled her close towards his body, her heaves becoming his own.

“It’ll be okay, it will.” They were empty words, fearful words, for Lucas couldn’t comprehend it all at once. Piper was bloodied and hurt, and there was nothing he could do to help her, but then to learn she was pregnant and that the child could be… he felt mind fucked on so many different levels he couldn’t even get his thoughts straight. He went to say more, but his father came up behind them, clearing his throat as he held a small clip board in his hands. Lucas turned to face him, Piper still clinging onto his side, scared if she let go she could float away from this world.

“I told him.” she muttered, sniffing back her sobs to try and gain any sort of composure.

Ethan nodded at Piper, looking then to his son with a sorrowful expression, upset for him, upset for them both really. This was never the way to find out you were going to be a father. “I have the results from Rosette, I wanted to deliver them to you, I thought it would be better coming from family.”

~*~*~

Lucas

All Lucas kept thinking was that it was his fault. If he’d remembered the eggs, if he hadn’t been so preoccupied with the Ministry and Ella and the fear of Ella getting him back because of what he did to her at the Ministry… and of course… that other thing… Piper would have been at home in her owl pajama’s baking him a sodding chocolate on chocolate cake for his birthday, like she was supposed to be. Instead she was here, bloodied and beaten, shaking against his flesh as fragile as a leaf. Why? Because of him. There would never be a place in his heart where he could ever forgive himself.

To think that this time four weeks ago he was sitting across from Charlie, his normally smooth, uncaring demeanor more on edge than he’d ever felt in his life. Luke wanted to throw up with nerves, and it must have been painfully obvious across his face because Piper’s dad knew why he was there before he could even fathom a single word passed his lips. Which of course made the entire scenario both easier and rougher at once, because Charlie made him say it, forced Lucas to utter the sincerities, show a raw emotion and a treble of feelings the young man would have much rather kept hidden- like he’d trained himself to do all these years. Love didn’t come as easy to him as it did his father, or his grandfather. Hell, this whole love realization was still a bloody new world to Luke, filled with flesh eating goblins and woman’s ability to twist the simplest of words around to mean something completely different and evil. But Luke knew what he felt inside for Piper, his Paper, and that was the only driving force that kept him from scurrying off the back porch with a vomit trail lingering behind him in an inexcusable wake. So he spoke the words cautiously towards Charlie, yet with definitive tones, his affection for Piper wringing through so pointedly that even a deaf fool would have heard it. Now was the time, and the eldest of the St. James boys was as ready as he’d ever be. A wedding. His Mum would be beside herself with sickenly cheery joy.

At first he’d started out his words with a meekness, clearing his throat as his leg twitched uncontrollably beneath him. He was lucky he managed to not flip himself backwards in the chair as he sat across from Charlie, but twice he banged his knee under the glass table, causing the ice teas that were lined across the top to shake with a rattle. His dad’s best friend could only laugh. Laugh and stare; apparently waiting for the question as the blonde stumbled and struggled around the obvious. There was only so much they could discuss about the weather and Liam’s playoff games.

“I know what you want Luke,” Charlie started, a smile so twisted curling up on his lips that Lucas felt about as big as a pixie. “I’m not going to bite off your head about it. But I will make you ask, just because the colour on your cheeks is amusing me.”

Lucas in turn stirred anxiously in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs as his fingers nervously picked at the hem of his blue checkered button down. What a bastard, he thought, pausing only briefly to garner enough confidence to spit out the words before they ate him whole. “I came to ask for your permission, if you’ll give it to me. I would really like to make our living arrangements permissible, mine and Paper’s because, I know you weren’t too happy she came to live with me when I offered.” That didn’t sound good at all, Lucas was fumbling over thoughts, completely unlike him. Damn if this scenario didn’t pull itself together differently in his head. “What I mean is, I really want to marry her, not solely for the living arrangements but because she… as horribly cheesy as this is about to pass off – makes me want to be a better person, you know?”

From years of working as an Arithmancer at the Ministry, Luke learned the importance of maintaining eye contact. But sure as hell if right now he didn’t want to shovel his eyes into the ground to look anywhere but at Charlie Dish, who remained quiet yet seemingly judgmental of him. Eternity passed before her father decided to grace him with approval.

“When you were both younger, we would joke how one day you’d end up married, but there was a while I didn’t think it was actually going to happen.” Lucas smirked shamefully at the remark, but Charlie continued after a quick sip of ice tea. “Now though, I realize those times where I doubted it, were merely moments in which you two had to find one another again. And you both did. I’m proud to give you my blessings Lucas.”

“Oh Merlin, thank you, thank you so much Charlie. This is bloody fantastic, really.” Overcome with relief and unsure laughter, he sipped at his ice tea, parched from the stressful anticipation.

Charlie waved a hand back towards his future son-in-law, “Do you have a ring?”

“Aye.”

“When do you plan on asking her?”

“My birthday actually. You know how self centered I am…” an embarrassed grin stretched sheepishly around his mouth, along with a small giggle that couldn’t help but wiggle itself out in his delight. “No… really it’s because I know she’d be looking for it on her birthday and I would love to catch her off guard for once. The girl has been one upping me since we were in utero.” Lucas paused a moment, his smile fading and replaced with an air of seriousness usually only reserved for Ella, “Listen, Charlie… I know I’m not exactly ideal. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve or express my feelings like an open book. As Ella likes to point out, I’m really nothing more than a brilliantly huge douche but… when I tell you I love Piper, I mean it with, well, with my everything. I’ll never mistreat her, and I swear as long as she’s around I’ll follow her, you’ll never have to worry. I’ll keep her safe, I promise.”

And now that promise became a lie. What kind of man was he at all if he couldn’t even keep Piper safe fifteen minutes from their home?

He had been sleeping blissfully when the St. Mungo’s owl was tapping on his window, completely unaware that in the mere moments of his morning stirs that life as he’d known it was about to come towards a screeching halt. Plans for the day, birthday wise, proposal wise, would now be forever overshadowed by the fact that he couldn’t remember a sodding grocery list. That, in some off colour way, Lucas had been the one to cause Piper this suffering. Suffering that was written quickly in a hand scrawled letter sent by his father, urging his son to get to the hospital as soon as he was able. It took that poor owl over fifteen painful beak knocks on the glass to finally awaken a blurry eyed Luke from his slumber and it took Luke two full times looking over those words to realize what had happened.

All he did was throw pants over his boxers before swiping up his wand, heading to Mungo’s without so much as a fuck to what he looked like.

Now here he was, Piper holding on to him for dear life, his father approaching them so cautiously it was like if he would have stepped too close they would shatter. Lucas hadn’t even had the time to realize what Piper had said, that he was going to be a dad, before Ethan was presenting them with news that could change the entire course of their barely formed family. The clipboard rose up from his dad’s grasp, the parchment unscrolling itself midair at eye level while Ethan removed the tiny vial that the attending obgyn healer whisked away during his exam on Piper, from his breast pocket. It swirled a silvery whitish glow from behind the glass before Ethan’s wand tapped it twice, the contents spilling out in a whirl before their very eyes. A foggy circle transformed for Piper and Lucas, translucent but not so much that an outlined figure could not be made out in the mass. The image did not move except for a few tiny beats of its heart, and Lucas heard Piper gasp with a tearful laughter from behind him at the realization of what they were looking at. Speechless for only the second time in his life, he stepped towards the tiny figure, wide eyed and mouth agape, fingers reaching to fondly touch the magical smoke- which he was surprised did not dissipate upon contact. The baby seemed to turn and look at him.

Stunned, Luke turned towards Ethan, with his father answering the words that could not crawl out of his son’s mouth fast enough. “This is your baby.”

Piper slid off the bed, aware now of the pain that seared down her right leg as she limped weakly to stand beside Lucas, her fingers intertwining within his own, his awe becoming hers. Together they stood and looked at their creation, his hand tensing and relaxing every couple of moments in hers, as fear and love overwhelmed his senses. Piper’s free hand held onto her stomach, stroking the fabric of her shirt methodically, knowing what she was seeing and what she was feeling were now one and the same. Their baby girl was more alive than ever. “How is she, Ethan?”

Ethan cleared his throat, which Luke automatically recognized as the tale-tell sign that he was about to say something he didn’t want too. It was that healer tone, the same tone his grandfather used, the tone that bore bad news before it was ever spoken. Unconsciously his body tensed and Luke moved closer to Piper, keeping her near him just incase…

“From what we can tell, the baby seems fine. The placenta is still attached, no visible damage looks to be done.”

Blissfully Piper sank into his body, happiness pouring out of the tears that fell once again. His arms wrapped around her, but his eyes never left his father’s, knowing that under the given circumstances nothing was this simple.

“But…” ah yes, there was the rest… “the fetus is so undeveloped still, we may not see any lasting damage for months, possibly not even until birth, if there is any damage at all. Which, all prayers answered, there won’t be. Judging from this, I’d like to say we’re in the clear for now. We’d like to keep you over night, but if you’re more comfortable going home for now, I’ll be on call the entire time.”

How long had they already been in Mungo’s? Seemed to stretch an eternity in all honestly. Piper shook her head, “I want to go home with Luke. I want my own bed, I want… I want to be home, please.” He squeezed her shoulders tightly into him, approving her request with a kiss to the temple.

“Aye love, we’ll go home.”

And after some formal paper work, and a visit from two very distraught parents, Lucas took Piper’s hand in his and led her back towards their own personal sanctuary. Home.

***

She was weeping, her back pressed into his stomach as they spooned on their bed, the hours ticking slowly off of his birthday and into the next morning. How Lucas needed this day to be over, just a few hours sleep was all he craved, away from this topsy turvy world that had engulfed them whole. Piper was stirring beside him, her weeps falling into light whimpers, and occasionally she would drift off with heavy eyes, but it was short lived. Each time her breathing changed Lucas feared the worst, for a flashback would hit her from the attack and she’d once again be ridged in his arms, fighting him off, hollering about the baby, before she realized she was safe. That Lucas had her, and he was never going to let her go again.

“It was my fault…” he whispered, his face buried in her tuffs of hair as to hide the fact that his voice was cracking and his eyes were glassed over with fat tears. She was quiet, letting him lose control even if it wasn’t much, before shifting around in his arms so that her face was near to his own, rubbing her nose to his in the smallest of eskimo kisses.

“You sent two men out to attack me?” it was a lame joke, not even Piper could really smile at it, but she tried if only for the sake of Luke.

He groaned and tried to roll onto his back, but her hands cupped his face and kept him grounded. “You know what I mean Piper,” he said, exasperated, “I forgot the sodding eggs.”

“Oh. Well, if we’re going by that logic, then really it’s my fault, since I neglected to pick up the eggs last week when I was in the store. And we only needed eggs because we used them all baking Dad a birthday cake, which, if he’d never been born, none of this would have happened, eh? So I suppose it’s his fault in actuality. Yes, I can play the butterfly effect as well as you.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Am I? Listen to yourself Luke, you’re putting the blame of this solely on you, and unless you sent Finn and his mate to intentionally harm me, I see no connection.” Piper hadn’t realized she’d said his name, not until she saw Lucas’ eyes widen larger than she’d ever seen them.

He jerked out of her grasp, enraged at a level he never thought feasible. His face was a crimson red, his breath able to spit fire if given the opportunity. “Finn did this to you? Finn?! That fuck! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

She froze initially, wondering how he got the name from what she had sad, only to realize it was herthat let it slip. Goddamn it. The moronic chauvinistic St. James’ theme was about to emerge. “Why?!Look at you, you’re ready to go on a sodding rampage! Think I want you locked up in Azkaban? No Lucas, I don’t, I need you here.”

His eyes changed from the warm blue she loved to an icy cold barren waste land she’d never experienced. A shiver ran the course of her spine, and Piper could only prepare for the worst. Except the words he spoke next nearly stopped her heart on the spot. Lucas fired back, “You’re good at keeping secrets from me, aren’t you.”

“That wasn’t fair.” Piper eked, angry tears filling her eyes in heated rage.

Lucas watched as her fists formed harshly down by her sides, pained breathing methodically over taking her senses. Instantly, he was sorry he said it, but he couldn’t stop the next words from flying out of his mouth on their own accord. “It wasn’t? You should have told me your were pregnant! I had a right to know.”

“I was scared you’d leave me!” Frustration poured out, landing her back on the bed in sobs, her broken face in her bandaged hands. “I was so scared because we’d never talked about it, and we did it was never positive. God, we aren’t even married Luke! There is nothing keeping you here with me and if, ifyou didn’t want this baby… I didn’t want to hear it… I didn’t want to really know if you were going to leave… I was wrong, I know.”

For a long time Lucas didn’t say anything, the stun of her words piercing his heart so terribly he was surprised he was still standing. Piper was facing away from him weeping; more anguish of a day that seemed to never end spilling through her cries. And when he did speak, his voice wavered, meek and small, as if he were the most worthless human-being to ever grace the earth. “You keep no faith in me at all.”

Piper was ashamed to say that Lucas was right. A lifetime of knowing him, years of being his best friend, his intimacy, his lover and now officially his girlfriend still left her emotionally stunted against him. One day he was going to leave her, and she was so sure saying she was pregnant would be his relief, his out. She kept absolutely no faith in his love for her, to Piper, Lucas was fickle, he never knew what he wanted. Sure he was with her for today, but what would tomorrow bring? Next month? Next year? What was she doing here at all…

“I’m not my father, I’m not my grandfather or your dad or anyone else in my sodding family line. Emotions run very deep in me, like I said to you father weeks ago, I’m not a heart on my sleeve bloke, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Merlin Paper, the simple thought that I could have lost you today nearly killed me, how in the bloody hell can I get you to see that? I’m not that eff’n seventeen year old inconsiderate bastard anymore, but I can’t get any of you to see that now. I. Love. You.”

All of that, and all she managed to ask was, “Why’d you see my father?”

“I just get done telling you that I have problems, problems you know about, spilling out the vital contents of my heart, and all you pull out of the entire monologue is the part where I went to see your father?”

She simply nodded.

Lucas mustered up his energy and strode across their bedroom, briskly taking up her hand in his, and without turning to look at her managed to pull Piper through their hallway and into the living room. Silently he flicked his wand, illuminating the lamps that hung above them so that a warm light filled up the empty space that encompassed their damaged silhouettes. “You want to know why? Fine.” Still bitter were his words, hurt and pained. Piper felt she deserved it, even if Lucas knew she hadn’t. She was right after all, he hadn’t given her much to go on by way of keeping the faith in him. He wanted to change that, not exactly at this very moment considering the circumstances but he couldn’t see any other choice.

Biding her to remain standing by the couch, Luke went over to the cookie jar and pulled out a long black jewelry box, wrapped with a small red bow and her name in glittering pink across a plain white tag. Slowly he walked with it to her, holding either end within his fingers, a momentary smile overtaking his features before he spoke once more. “I went to go see him to talk about this. Go on, take it.” Jutting it towards her chest, Luke waited for Piper to take it from him, clutching it safely inside her own grasp. “Before you open it, you need to know that today… today when I saw you there, injured, bloodied, sobbing… I never wished to change places with anyone so badly before. You’re scared of losing me? I’m terrified of losing you. Of you waking up one day and realizing what a sod I am, how undeserving I am of anything you give me. Your love, your kindness, your laughter… I don’t deserve it, not one drop. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a selfish bastard, and I want it, all of it, for as long as you’ll let me have it.” With a nod of his chin, Lucas silently gave her the okay to open the long box, disguising the ring as if it were a necklace or bracelet. “Alright then, now or never.”

As she opened it her emotions were all written across her face, ranging from shock to bewilderment, back to shock and then instant happiness that seemed as uncontrollable as it was slightly disconcerting to him. “It’s a ring.”

“Is it? It was suppose to be a necklace.”

“Shut up, you know it’s a ring and… I said all those things… Merlin I’m such a shit for thinking you’d leave me…”

Lucas stood there, bouncing on the balls of his feet nervously, her reaction a pleasant one, but still lacking an answer he’d been awaiting to hear. “You’re not a shit. But… you know… an answer would be nice. You haven’t given me an answer.”

A bright smile with glistening eyes starred back at him, her limbs shaking now with an entirely different reason. “You didn’t ask a question.”

“You’re kidding me, right? I just gave you a ring, the symbol of my love, a small circle of my trust- the question is implied.”

“Ask it, or you’ll never get my answer.”

Grunting, Luke took the box from her hands and the ring from inside the plush cushioning it had been residing in for the past four weeks into his grasp. Without looking, he tossed the black container onto the couch and dropped to one knee, presenting the diamond and all it’s sparkling novelty towards Piper with a serious face. He was internally freaking out, his muscles and joints rebelling, his stomach trying to purge itself out of any hole that would allow it too. She was just like her father, wasn’t she? “Paper Dish, the only girl I ever loved, barer of my most treasured possession – my frog hat, and I suppose, on a lesser note, my heart… Will you m-mar-marry me?”

“….Yes“

The Bird and the Worm

The birds outside were singing, and Micah was suppressing the urge to ignite a bloody, feathery holocaust among them. Everything right now was agitating him, from the moment his son bit his forearm outside of Gibbons Park Schoolyard to the second the doorbell rang, revealing his estranged Mother on the other side. Her arrival was as much of a shock to him as Ethan’s sudden meltdown only hours before, leaving the man speechless twice in one exceedingly long day. But that visit was luckily short, just his Mother announcing her melodious presence before retiring up the road to the nearest hotel to sleep off the jet lag. Though it was way too quick of a reprieve, for now, less than twenty four hours later she was standing back in his kitchen starring at him as if he was the same weak child he’d always been, continually worthless in her loveless eyes. Micah still had no real idea as to why the hell she was even there, she hadn’t bothered to attend Willow’s funeral, she hadn’t even bothered to even attend his wedding. There had been literally no binding force between them for close to thirteen years, other than his son, who his parents sent a present to every birthday and Christmas; as if that simple gesture would have Micah falling back into the arms of their falsely good graces. But the very fact that her presence was in his kitchen, demeaning him wordlessly, irked him. Even in his own house, a full continent away from them and the ternary they held over his head, he had no control over how she managed to make him feel. Micah was suddenly three again, getting a whooping for stealing the cookie out of the jar.

Ethan was content in the living room sprawled out along the floor tending to his homework when the words started, and his father managed to keep his voice to a hush for the beginning part of their conversation at least, (but that didn’t last longer than a few minutes, unfortunately). After all, his son didn’t need to fall privy to the witch of a woman his visiting Grandmother was until he was much older with better comprehension skills, for no child’s innocence should be lost at six years old. Unlike Micah himself, who was still trying to unravel all the fear that his parents balled up inside of him from infancy forward, including this very surreal moment. It was funny because his mother, Cait, wasn’t physically intimidating looking at all, although her stares could bore holes in stone if given the chance. She was a boxed blond who was short and stout, with the body frame of a squat shampoo bottle and an oddly small head upon her shoulders. Sometimes Micah looked at her and wondered how Claire and himself came from her loins, after all, they were mildly attractive where as she resembled something of a warted toad with less of the charm. Anyone looking solely at her appearance alone would question why the man was standing in his kitchen was practically trembling at her mere presence, but no question would have been brought his way once they heard how she spat at him with malicious intent. Even Ethan, who was pretending not to listen, was growing more and more concerned over the anger that was suddenly festering in the room behind him.

The first set of words that had been exchanged set the underlying tone for the rest of the argument that was boiling inside them both, and it was of course his mother that set the ball in motion. Her voice was icy and distant, like it had always been when she was directing a conversation his way, as if she were talking to the scum that laid beneath her shoe. “Your house, it’s what I figured it would be. You keep it up well considering who you inherently are. It’s too big though, you have no need for all this wasteful space. Unless you’re planning on someone else moving in.” Still standing in her fall coat and scarf, she slowly unbuttoning herself despite her son’s obvious dismay.

“Don’t bother, you’re not staying.” Micah snapped back, his arms crossing around his chest as his teeth dug down into the sides of his cheeks. Shaking off her comments took more than he normally could handle, but he was already stressed to the tipping point from the day prior with Ethan. There hadn’t even been time to approach the entire situation with him and his son from the evening before, which meant it had never been fully resolved between them, and there was no doubt in Micah’s mind that his Mother was messing up the routine father and son had spent so many years building just by barging in completely unannounced. Plus tonight was their movie night with Sophia and Rosie, and the last thing the man wanted was Sophia seeing this damn woman still lingering around his property as if she was actually wanted. “Why are you here?”

Cait immediately let her fingers fall from the black plastic buttons of her peacoat, puffing out her chest like she was so keen on doing. It was the most animalistic approach she had, the bigger she appeared, more it seemed to make her child cower at her person. “Well,” an eyebrow raised as she spoke snidely, clearing her throat as if the air was suffocating her (if only that could have been true), “I suppose there is no point beating around the bush. Your father is sick.” When her son managed to stare at her blankly, she dug down deep to continue on without a response from him in the most matronly way she could possibly muster. “Since you asked so kindly, he has been diagnosed with lung cancer. He’s been undergoing treatments for the past couple of months, but so far there has been little to no improvement.”

Micah was kind enough not to laugh, although his reaction was still far from what his mother had been expecting. He could tell by the expression on her face as he merely shrugged off her statement like he had been shrugged off for so many years. “I’m sorry, but at what point here am I suppose to give a damn?” He wasn’t aware of how many different shades of purple his estranged mother could turn, but apparently four seemed to be the limit. This time he couldn’t help but let out a sarcastic stifle, his lips curling up in the corners of his mouth maliciously as she took on the appearance of a ripened plum. She was none too pleased, which brought him unabashed joy. But her next words spoken were through gritted teeth with not an inch of humility, and practically winded Micah to the ground.

“I’ve come to bring you back with me.”

His jaw fell agape, and his mind ran blank before an answer could be formed in his brain and released from his lips. What was she on? His father had cancer and his mother must have been getting soused to deal with the pain. “What? Surely you’ve gone bat shit crazy.”

If he hadn’t been so shocked at her request, Micah would have been able to appreciate the absolute horror that over took her expression as her voice practically hitched out the next set of words. “How dare you speak to me that way!“

“What way, the way you’ve spoken to me for my entire soddening life?!”

“You were always an ungrateful bastard, after everything we provided you, you never gave a damn—” Cait was starting to resemble a riled up rooster, her chest had puffed out to unimaginable proportions; yet Micah, for the first time in his adult life, didn’t initially back down.

“Provided me? Provided me?! The only thing that man ever provided me with was a body full of scars and the impending urge to get the bloody fuck away from you both. Yes you, don’t stand there and look so shocked. You and your belittling comments, do you know the emotional bloody damage you caused me, or were you too busy kissing Claire’s ass to give a shit? You come here and honestly expect me to care anything about that man, that I would pack up my things and leave with you? So I henceforth I reiterate my above statement, you-are-bat-shit-crazy to think I would go anywhere on this Earth that was even remotely near to either one of you.”

She tisked her tongue loudly, like she had a wad of peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth, but her words were sharp and as harsh as she had always been known for. “I knew this would be a wasted trip. You’d just let your father suffer. How typical of you. You were always worthless, always concerned with yourself and no one else, running off with that hussy without so much of a word to either of us. It’s no wonder your sister was always favored. I shouldn’t have listened to your father, I should aborted you when I had the chance.”

The words hit him like a boulder to the chest. There was so much hate in her statement that he wasn’t quick enough to formulate a reply. Her brutal attack on him, on his late wife, but the aborted comment threw him in a tizzy. That was had been the first he’d ever heard her say it out loud, surely he had always assumed she thought it, but to vocalize it so matter of factly made his blood boil and his eyes sting with tears. Unknown to him, the high hats in the kitchen started to dimly flutter, which had caught Ethan’s attention in the living room along with his Grandmother’s in the kitchen. Scared, his son left his homework and crept over into the war zone, timid but determined to somehow help his father, plus the boy had heard something he had never heard before. It intrigued his autistic mind.

“Dad…. you had a sister?” Ethan’s voice was like a knife through the heart, somehow appearing at his father’s side although neither adult had seen nor heard him approach. Sweetly he tugged on Micah’s arm, almost in a protective stance between his grandmother and his dad, knowing on some childlike level that he needed to create a barrier between them. The lights in the house were still flickering as his father was growing more and more enraged, which E. knew wasn’t his own magic, and that frightened him. But not as much as the look Micah shot him when he realized he had been listening to the entire conversation, which gave Ethan terrible knots in the pit of his stomach; yet subconsciously he felt the need to press forward, to try anything to make the lights stop flickering angerly.  ”…I didn’t know you had a sister…” When there was not even so much as a movement his way, he slipped out one last question, glancing at his Grandmother and then quickly back to his Dad, before the floodgates burst open. “Dad?… What’s aborted mean…?”

“Go to your room.” God, Micah new he sounded as cold and distant as his mother when he said it, but there was absolutely no way to control it.

“You don’t even mention your sister to the boy? So typical, so unbelieveabl–” Cait started in again, but that’s when the first light from the ceiling turned dark and burst loudly, sending a sprinkle of shards down to the floor beside them. Micah quickly cut her off with a rage that he was unknown for.

“Shut the hell up! Ethan, go to your room now.”

“But Dad—” Pleading wasn’t going to work.

“Now!” Three more of the lights exploded behind them as his son flew through the kitchen and towards his bedroom, landing slightly upon Micah’s shoulders although Cait was unfortunately spared. It was just then when Ethan was storming up the stairs in a hysteria that the front door clicked open to reveal a smiling Sophia and Rose, right on time for their Friday night movie date. Brilliant.

“Did your son do that?” For the first time in conversation, Cait’s voice was surprisingly soft and quizzical, which threw Micah for a gut wrenching loop, snapping at her like a crab.

“Do what? The lights? They’ve been faulty for a while now, I don’t know what the hell you’re imply that a six year old—”

A queer look overtook her features, a mixture of shock and dismay filling her eyes. “He’s magic.”

He stopped and suddenly the remainder of the lights remained steady. “What did you say?”

“He’s bloody magic, isn’t he? You bastard, you didn’t tell us. Your father, who thought he ended the line should have known, you could have at least given us that damn courtesy.” She hollered, slamming her fists down upon the breakfast bar beside her, her coloring suddenly reaching a fifth color of purple Micah had never gotten to see. It was almost mesmerizing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He lied, shrugging her off and trying to catch a wary glance at Sophia. Rose had apparently disappeared up the stairs after Ethan, which was just as well, she hadn’t needed to hear any of this either.

“You worthless squib! Both of you, squibs! Why do you think your father abused you both so badly? You were the end of his line, his punishment for marrying me.” For the first time in practically his entire life, he watched his mother well up with unshed tears, and Micah hated to admit it brought him an unhealthy amount of joy. Honestly though, he didn’t know what the hell she was talking about when she began calling them both squibs, saying he was beaten for his entire life because his father felt they had ended his ‘line’. He didn’t know what being a ‘squib’ meant, only that it was apparently a bad thing and had to somehow do with magic. Cait knew about magic, this alone should have blown Micah’s mind. But he couldn’t concentrate on that, not after she was insinuating that his father had ever laid a hand on Claire like he had himself. That was just the damn icing on the audacity cake. Perfect Claire, the golden child had her life paved in jewels, how dare the two of them ever be compared.

“He never touched Claire, you’re off your bloody rocker, you are. Get the hell out.”

“Not with out you. You’re coming with me.” It was a final demand, and Micah all put through a punch through her smug, pushed in face.

“Like hell I am. You come to my house, embarrass me in front of my kid, degrade me, demand me, ignore my wounds and think for one fucking second I care if either one of you die? Go to hell. Get. Out.”

He hadn’t bothered to watch her leave, but he acknowledged the hardening sigh she tossed at him before she shuffled away like an over grown penguin. There was nothing left inside of him now, had Sophia heard her? Holy heavens he wished he hadn’t given her a key, he wished that she never saw the way he had been spoken too, how he had been diminished to a small child in his own home. What would she think of him now, standing in a mess with swollen eyes and a broken spirit? Women didn’t love weak men, they didn’t fall for blokes who had abusive mother’s and scars lining their flesh from iron fisted father’s. Who was he now in her eyes? The very thought of all of it, piling in heaps over his shoulders and settling in the pit of his abdomen had Micah turning and escaping out the back of the kitchen and onto the patio deck in the cool dusk air. Luckily enough for his shaken state he hadn’t heard the comment his mother so graciously passed to Sophia as she pushed her out of the way to leave, “You’re too pretty for someone as worthless as him”, because at this point Micah would have been inclined to agree.

Frustrated and broken he found himself pacing the patio, wandering onto the grass behind the house where he could not initially have been seen unless someone was deliberately looking for him; which he could only assume would be Sophia in a matter of moments. What would he say to her, how could he even face her? Suddenly his fingers began to pull at the roots of his hair, white knuckled as he held back the teardrops that so badly wanted to fall down the sides of his stubbly face. His back was to her when she finally approached, and Micah didn’t bother to turn, he hadn’t needed for her to see him cry.

“Do you believe her?” He started, his voice strained and cracking, the depression settling in pathetically, “The audacity, the lunacy! In front of my son, I can’t – I just can’t believe she said those things. Actually, I can believe she said them, that’s the insane part. I mean, she’s a bloody loon, that one. It felt like I was fifteen all over again, and she had complete control over me.” Weakly he turned, stray drops falling helplessly from the corners of his bloodshot eyes. This had been the first time he’d openly cried in front of Sophia, never had he felt so morbidly alone. “Aborted? I should have been aborted she said, didn’t you know? Ethan heard that, and you know he isn’t going to let that go, and now I’ll have to explain to him exactly what in the bloody fuck his goddamn Grandmother was saying when she shouted that I should have been ‘aborted’.” Micah’s voice sank, his whole body and spirit crashed to the ground in a heap, defeated. “And it’s true, isn’t it? I should have been aborted Sophia, right? God almighty, I can’t… I can’t handle this. I can’t handle what she does to me, how she mercilessly reminds me how worthless I am. Worst of all she’s right you know. I mean, Ethan bit me yesterday, he bit me, and I couldn’t stop him. What kind of father is that, who can’t stop their own child from misbehaving? I’ll tell you, a pathetic one. I have no control over anything, I am everything she says I am… aren’t I? Worthless as bloody hell.

“You heard her… didn’t you? She called me a squib… I don’t even know what the fuck that means, but apparently it was enough to have me whipped until a bloody inch of my life. We ended my father’s line. What in the hell was that woman rambling on about?” Sniffing and wiping the fallen tears along his jaw, Micah leaned against the siding of his house, hidden from everyone but the one person he hadn’t ever wanted to judge him.

“It’s not Sophia,” Jilted, he glanced up through glassed over eyes to see Mira peering down at him, which made his stomach turn inside of his body in a disgusting way. One thing to cry in front of Sophia, another to cry in front of the Nanny. “I hope you don’t mind that it’s me. I had just come back for my purse, and I happened to return right at the end of your little… fiasco. I like what you did with the lights.” Slowly she walked and sat beside him, clearing a spot near the wilted tulips that surrounded them. “Not so much what you’ve done with the flowers though. I much prefer them living.” Smiling softly her hand patted his knee, pulling her own legs up towards her chest with a deepening sigh. Mira hadn’t bothered looking over at him after her statements, knowing exactly how his face would be contorted in a quizzical expression. Instead she continued, kicking off her sandals and allowing her painted toes to fondle the grass. “You don’t honestly believe her, do you? Seems to be a horrid woman if you ask me, not sure how you turned out so seemingly normal. Your father seems no better, shame he lives. But you, you didn’t deserve the life you were given, especially if it was all because they thought you were a squib. You’re not a squib Micah.”

Softly he fumbled for the words to question her, babbling much like a babe before she took it upon herself to just continue without hesitation. “A squib is someone who is born into magic, but carries no magic themselves. In essence, a muggle born into a wizarding family, which your parents assumed were you and your sister. But what they failed to realize was that abuse, both mental and physical, can stifle anyone’s magic, like your own. You knew you broke the lights, didn’t you? You felt the rage in your blood and the release when they shattered.”

“Aye…”

“I think you’ve known for a while, even if you weren’t sure what exactly it was you were suppose to be knowing. I know I’ve known, since that night in St. Mungo’s, but you didn’t want your tea leaves read, so I kept it to myself.” The hand that rested on his thigh squeezed him slightly, reassuring him with a small gesture. “I didn’t think it would be me telling you honestly. Actually I saw this moment play out several times, but I was never in the equation. Make me wonder if I left my purse here on purpose, to save you before you destroyed the entire garden.”

It was a tremendous amount to swallow, Micah wasn’t sure if he was grounded or floating or if he even if he ever woke up that morning. A lucid dream, that’s how everything was feeling, as if at any second Ethan would be jumping on his sheets requesting chicken fingers for breakfast. His mouth was dry and achy, he pained him to speak through the rasp of his sore throat, but somehow he managed after a few tries. “I don’t understand what you’re saying… I’m not a m-muggle? I’m not a squib…?”

“No Micah. You’re magic.”

 

–

“Magic?”

Both Micah and Mira turned from their secluded spots rooted on the ground to see a soppy faced Ethan standing barefoot in the grass beside them. He was holding a small piece of parchment, slightly crinkled in his grasp as he rubbed his wet nose with the back of his sleeve. He had been sobbing, ashamed of what he had done the day prior and tremendously embarrassed over how his father had yelled at him in front of his grandmother less than an hour ago, it was more than his five year old heart could handle. But this, overhearing those words created the most awe-inspiring look upon his swollen face that his father had ever seen. “You mean… Dad’s magic like me?”

“Aye.” Mira smiled, a smile that Ethan had always liked because it was genuine and soft, despite all the wrinkles that lined the sides of her mouth. She told him the wrinkles formed because she spent a life time in laughter, which made him want to have those deep lines on his face when he got to be her age, after all he sure did like to laugh a lot, even if it wasn’t so apparent now. “But your father’s magic will never be as strong as yours unfortunately, too many years of repression will do that.” The last part of the line was delivered towards Micah with a weird sorrowful hue to it, and E. saw his dad’s face drop with sadness before nodding to the nanny, as this was an acceptable statement to be made. But magic was magic! Why couldn’t his dad be as powerful, or even more so, than Ethan himself?

Without moving from the grassy knoll beside them, the young boy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, starring down at his sneakers as he did so. He knew the next question he was about to ask was going to throw them for a loop, but he needed to know exactly what she meant. “What is repression?” Blue eyes lifted off his feet and glanced at Micah, wanting to run into his arms and tell him passionately how pitifully sorry he was for everything that had happened. He was sorry for biting him outside of the school and for making him so angry that he needed to break the lights in the kitchen when Grandma was over. The urge to convince the man that he still loved him was overwhelming his mind, and the need to hear that Micah loved him back was making his already wet eyes water all over again, but he was too scared to move, so he continued his questioning with a shaky voice to mask the tears. “Why can’t Daddy be as strong as me?”

“Repression, in the simplest terms, is when you think you can’t do something for so long that it becomes true. Your father thought for his entire life, since he was a little boy like you, that he couldn’t do magic, and eventually he believed it. But you know Ethan as well as anyone of us that magic will not be forgotten about, and eventually it shows itself whether we want to believe it or not. Sometimes it breaks lights, or wilts flowers… and other times it can be brilliantly beautiful… right?” She smiled again, which made Ethan feel a little less worrisome. “Now boys, I would love to sit and talk more about this with you, but I fear this is already a lot for your father to digest, besides I know you have some company in the house and I merely came back for my purse. I’ll be back on Monday.” Ethan watched her face turn towards Micah, and heard her voice to drop into a whisper as she tucked her lips close to his ear, but he couldn’t make out a word she said. “Now I believe your son drew you an apology picture, you should probably snap out of this and make up with him.” She kissed him quickly on his cheek and rose from the spot, walking towards E with her arms open for a hug. “You take care of him, you hear? I expect to see every one of these flowers in bloom when I return.”

Ethan hadn’t known what she meant by it, but he hugged her half heartedly as she disapparated only seconds later. Then it was just him and his father left alone in the dusky nightfall, both their faces puffy and red from the amount of crying each one of them had done. “I d-drew you a picture…” Ethan stumbled, his small body rocking back and forth, wanting to run to him yet wanting to stay in his secluded spot where he felt alone and peculiarly safe. “I bit you yesterday because I didn’t want to go into the school. Taylor has been making fun of me, he pushed me down in the yard the day before and gets his friends to call me names because I’m… I’m different. But I didn’t know how to tell you so… I bit you. I’m so sorry D-Daddy. I am, I-I–” His little fists began to rub the spots in his eyes excessively before he heard Micah call his name and motion with his arms to come and accompany him upon his lap, which he couldn’t settle into quick enough before his weepy face was pressed hardily into the side of his daddy’s neck.

“Hey bud, hey come on, no more crying, you hear?” The deep rasp of his voice vibrated Ethan’s body in their extreme closeness, and the young lad found himself using his father’s flannel shirt to wipe the sting from his eyes and the running lubricant from his nose. “I didn’t know that was going on in school Ethan, you have to tell me these things before you get overwhelmed and we end up with what happened yesterday. I’m not your enemy son, I’ll never be your enemy–”

“Like your parents are to you?” He felt Micah’s breath hitch up in the back of his throat, and E feared he had once again spoken out of turn.

“Aye. Like my parents are to me.”

The tulips were still limp around them in the setting sun, and Ethan feared he was failing Mira’s simple request. Sitting up onto of his dad lap he faced him, putting one hand on the side of his stubbly face and wiping away a tear like Micah had done for him so many times before. “Don’t believe what Grandma said Daddy… I don’t.”

He felt the skin underneath his hand pull as Micah set a bashful smile across his lips, grasping his fingers inside of his own big hand and tucking them in close to his mouth for a kiss. “You drew me a picture.”

Ethan suddenly beamed, holding up the parchment so it was before both of them, eager to spill out the contents of the colorful crayons. “See here, this is you, and this is me, and we’re holding hands! And and and over here is Sophia and Rosie, and they’re holding hands too, and I’m holding hands with Rosie and you’re smiling because Sophia is there and we’re all happy. We’re going to Regents park to play on the swings, and there is the sandbox and up here is Peanut Butter. He’s flying. And I drew hearts above us all, because Rosie said hearts mean love, and we draw hearts to one another all the time, and you needed to know how much I love you so I drew you lots of hearts. Big ones, small ones, but they all mean the same thing. That I love you.” He looked back up to see his daddy crying again, but this time he saw the happiness in his eyes and it didn’t scare him as much as before. “Don’t cry Daddy.” Ethan spoke with the lovingness of a innocent child, kissing his dad proudly on the cheek before hoping up off of his lap. “I’m going to put this up on the fridge, okay?” Micah nodded, and as his son started to walk away he cleared his throat to speak.

“Ethan, we will talk more about what is happening at school tomorrow, alright?”

“Alright Dad.” He took two more steps before turning around and looking at him brightly through the darkening sky. “Daddy, you’re magic. Isn’t that amazing? I’m going to tell Rosie, you should tell Sophia, she’s inside too you know.”

Micah shifted in his spot, raising his legs into his chest in a protect stance, not wanting to move quite yet from the shock of it all. “Why don’t you tell them to go ahead and start the movie with out me Bud, I’ll be inside in a little while.”

“Alright, I will. I love you Dad!” He thought for the moment he saw the tulips twitch beside him in a sign of life, but they remained flattened against the floor a second later. Getting those flowers to come back to life was going to be harder than he thought, he wished Mira had told him what he needed to do. Shaking it off because he really wanted to go tell Rosie the exciting news, Ethan took back off into the house leaving his father out in the lumbering starry night to contemplate whatever it was that adults thought about when they were alone, making sure to first stick his drawing under a magnet against the refrigerator. Passing Sophia in the kitchen, he made his way towards his best friend with a fantastic gleam about him. “MY DADDY IS MAGIC!”

Stuck in a Hurricane

My Writings

What I do when I need to escape reality.

A fic I wrote for http://beyondstonewalls.com , following the characters Lucas St. James and Piper Dish. It’s a HP RPG, so it has some use of magic, but not much:

Her hands fumbled around the loose string of the hat Lucas had given her on her sixteenth birthday with nervous anticipation. It was a horrid lime green color, complete with hand stitched eyes and a pink woven tongue, both which landed right on the forehead of the wearer. His most prized possession at the time, for as he was keen to point out repeatedly, he didn’t just let anyone have his hats. That was the night Piper thought maybe she wasn’t just an anyone. Maybe Lucas St. James saw her as more of a someone; a someone he would have liked to have been with more than just sexually and it was that thought that brought a smile to her face, not the expected sex that was shared between them afterwards. Yes it was Piper Dish that had broken the first of their many spoken rules about the given situation they had placed themselves in: Thou Shall Not Fall In Love. But she had, and even though through out the years she managed to hide her feelings well, times had changed. Seeing him with Emma had soured her heart. Watching them flirt, and laugh and knowing they shared a bed – the same bed she was so accustomed to sleeping in – had left Piper with no other clear choice. If she didn’t tell Lucas now, there would be no other chance. He would marry Emma and Piper would be left watching as her soul broke in two.

Maybe he would still marry Emma after her confession.
Perhaps this was all for naught.

Piper stood before him, silenced, fingers still lacing between the strings of the frog hat as her eyes struggled to meet his own. He wasn’t going to like hearing what she had to say, and as she lifted her line of vision into Lucas’ blue eyes, her voice seemed to sink to the bottom of her toes. Unconsciously she wiggled them in her flip flops as her body weight shifted side to side in a skittish teeter. This was so opposite Piper, the normally sharp tongued, sassy girl was at a terrifying loss for words, alarming Lucas to the point where his face actually bore a look of genuine concern. The words were at the tip of her tongue, dripping out in obnoxious stutters before a true string of consciousness could be streamlined. It was strange the room they stood in, Lucas’ childhood bedroom, seemed so confining and small, when only a few months ago it was the perfect place to sneak off too. It encompassed the two twenty some odd year olds beautifully back then, hiding their bodies in the darkness, keeping them close between the sheets. He may have loved her then. Perhaps Lucas had loved her forever but never took the time to figure it out. Or of course, maybe he knew he never loved her and Piper was about to make the most embarrassing mistake of her life, to her best friend.

Her throat cleared.

“I came to give you back your hat. It’s yours after all,” she offered the gift with trembling outstretched arms, her teeth biting down on her bottom lip as she continued on. “I know how it was your favorite and, well, it belongs with you.”

Lucas pushed her hand bearing the returned gift lightly, reading her face with a serious undertone of his own, “What are you doing, it was a gift, don’t give it back.”

“But I…” Suddenly the will to speak faded and tears welled up in the creases of her eyes. Piper didn’t want to cry, she was tougher than this, “I can’t keep it Luke.” A second time it was offered towards his chest, but again he pushed it aside, stepping closer to his friend with a wide eye fear of the unknown. Against every fiber of her being, Piper stepped back from him as he advanced, her hand holding the frog hat dropping to the side of her body as her eyes became fixated on the tips of his shoes. Converse. Blue. So typical of him, even now well past the prime of his teenage years.

“Paper—”

“—do you love her?” A hard sniffle choked her, and she found the back of her free hand wiping away fallen tears that streaked the sides of her face. “That was a stupid question, don’t answer. I mean, of course you love her. You wouldn’t be with someone if you didn’t love them.” That line caught her. They had been unofficially together for years before Emma and never once did he utter in true seriousness one sentiment of love. Sometimes she wondered if he was even capable of having a real emotional connection to anything asides from his soddening hat collection.

“Please, take back the damn hat,” she insisted, grasping the sides of the knitted frog with both hands before shoving it over his blonde hair, pulling the ear flaps down so it fit snugly over his rather clueless head. This motion brought them closer together again, and as her hands lingered over the sides of his face a touch too long, she felt Lucas reach up and put his own hands over hers, pulling them down so they rested beneath his on top of his chest. He went to speak again, “Paper—”

Again she cut him off.

“—Ten years we’ve been sneaking around and never once did I ever really kiss you. Since kissing showed affection and we were on strict no affection rules but… just once,” leaning closer Piper relished in the small moment her lips pressed tightly against his, allowing the scene to ride over her fully in crashing waves, pushing harder into the forbidden embrace for all it was worth. And Lucas didn’t knock her off, he didn’t withdraw from the moment or lead her to believe that for one second he was regretting anything that was happening. Actually she felt his arms wrap securely around her body, giving into the kiss she was leading without any upheaval. He was softer then Piper had imagined, his tongue was velvety and his lips knew exactly what they were doing; so it pained her greatly to pull away when she did.

Forcing a smile, she felt another tear streak down the side of her face and she causally wiped it away with the back of her hand. “You know, you’re so stupid St. James,” a scoff played off in the air as Piper lifted her eyes towards the small pieces of hair that stuck out from under his hat, tucking them in as her thumb casually stroked the side of his cheek. “For as bloody brilliant as you are, you are the dumbest guy I’ve ever met. I don’t know why,” her voice stumbled for a second time, cracking under the weight of tears that filled her, “…I don’t know why I love you as much as I do. But I do. I love you, Lucas.”

Piper tried to smile, but it hurt. And as she watched him stare at her as if he had just been bludgeoned at the back of the head, she knew that spoken rule number four had just been demolished: If Thou Does Fall In Love, Thou Shall Never Speak Of It.

“Do you,” love me? was next to fall from her lips, but there was no way she could form the words. He was with that pixie girl, the same girl which read Tolstoy and Faulkner for fun, spoke french and german fluently because she wanted a hobby, who challenged him intellectually at a rate that even as a former Ravenclaw, Piper could not. But Emma was slow in the wit department, she couldn’t keep up with the sass that Luke and Piper could dish out in under five minutes. She couldn’t make him laugh so hard that his one cheek dimple formed underneath his right eye like Piper could. Surely that had to count for something, didn’t it? Instead of following up with the question she’d originally planned, she continued forth on a different path, “Do you know all those times at school, when you would run off with other girls and I would supposedly run off with other blokes?” Merlin it was so hard to keep her cheeks dry. “I didn’t run off with other blokes.

I said I slept with Finnigan, but I didn’t. I said I hooked up with Sheldon, but I lied. I played the part well, didn’t I? It never did look like I was just waiting for you to come back to me. How bloody pathetic is that?” A mixture of laughter combined with sorrow filled the room, and Piper found it hard to hold his gaze for the rest of the one sided conversation. “I waited for you my entire life and you didn’t even notice, did you? And it doesn’t even matter now because I … I didn’t get you anyway.” How she wished he would say something, anything, even if it was painful to hear. But he didn’t. Instead he just looked so utterly confused that if the moment had been something different Piper would have found his expression quite hysterical. Yet some how confessing her heart didn’t seem so funny. “I have to go.”

Without another word she turned her back on him, lunging for his door before racing down his stairs with blurred vision. Piper Dish did not cry, and yet here she was bawling her eyes out as she reached the backdoor of the St. James residence, passing Ethan as she stumbled onto the back porch in haste.

“Hey Piper,” He started in, completely obvious to her weakened state of being, “Tell your Dad I’ll be over around six tomorrow to watch the game, we were aiming for earlier but there are a couple of things—” but the crack caught his unaware attention, and suddenly Piper was gone.

He wasn’t the only one that noticed her sudden disapparation, because no sooner had she dissipated had his son appeared, slightly winded, on the porch behind where she had been, shouting her name in urgency.  Even through the settling dusk Ethan could tell Lucas was strangely pained, a distinct air of confusion embodying his posture.

“Dad…” Luke turned to his father with a bewildered stare, reaching up to pull at the roots of his hair only to remember Piper had shoved her hat back upon his head. Slowly he removed the once birthday gift, fondling it much as she had been when she had greeted him in his room only an hour before. He had given her this present for her sixteen birthday, one of his most prized possessions, and if that wasn’t saying ‘I love you’ in Lucas language, he wasn’t sure what was. After all, he wasn’t breaking any of their rules, and at sixteen such things as love and affection were the furthest things from his mind. Now though, he was caught in a mix of emotions which all seemed to swarm in and take over every ounce of his being. Lucas had found Emma, his pixie girl who made him feel as though there was someone on this earth that was an intellectual challenge for him but then again, Paper was just as smart, and she was funny, the funniest damn bird he’d ever met. He knew her, inside and out, between the sheets, what made her tick. Piper was his comfort zone, where as Emma was his inciting new adventure. This entire situation had the magical timing of a death at a wedding. “Dad. How do you know when you’re in love?”

Ethan stirred from his spot near the window, putting down the measuring tape as he looked towards his eldest child with a half smile. “I thought you’d figured this out by now.”

“I’m being serious. I mean, I thought I knew but now,” his eyes drifted off to the spot where Piper had disapparated and he sighed, “I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Your advice is sending me to my room? Really?”

“No, my advice is sending you to sleep. You see it’s quite simple, Luke, she’ll be the girl you last think of before you fall asleep, the girl you dream of while you’re there, and the first girl you envision when you wake up. That’s when you know you’re in love. I still get that way with your mother.”

“That’s adorable and yet some how very, very disturbing but,” Luke forced a smile, starring down at the neon green frog hat with a rosy expression, “thanks. I’ll try.”

And wouldn’t you know, his old man was right.

Lucas laid in his bed, the frog hat he loved so greatly dangling off one of four poster knobs, and slowly started drifting from one realm of consciousness to the next. Emma appeared a lot, always serious as she would continue to impress him with her knowledge, and memories of her speaking french like a native when they went to the Louvre a couple months back faded in and out of view. Often she left him struggling for words, more from shock of just how brilliant she was then anything else.

He recalled the first time he had ever seen her. She had been sitting on a park bench outside one of the muggle universities, where she had been reading Finnegan’s Wake, oblivious to any of the outside world as it bustled around her. Lucas had never seen anyone indulge in that novel asides from himself, which is mainly the reason he stopped in his tracks to stare at her from across the way. She was a petite girl, able to fold herself up in her seat with her arms wrapped around her legs as she casually flipped through pages, a pleasant expression upon her face. Now this wasn’t the normal type of woman Luke went for, but there was something pulling him towards her presence that he would not deny.

Landing on the bench beside her was the easy part, striking up the conversation was rather intimidating considering how out of practice he had been in the last few months. Yet somehow he managed to not to scare her off, instead, she herself had become rather intrigued that Lucas had too read Finnnegan’s Wake for pleasure and not some mundane school assignment. And after some small talk with flirtatious eye batting, the two of them ended up going for coffee down at the local coffee house, where several more hours were spent in an intellectual battle that Lucas had never partaken in before, but lapped up as if he were a deprived dog. Sure some of his humor seemed to fly over her head, but she was brilliant, on par with himself which was a rarity to find. He may have found it once but… well, never mind.

Emma.

Her vision fluttered in and out of his subconscious mind. Her voice, the crop of her pixie haircut, the touch of her hand in his, her laugh… which wasn’t her laugh at all. Fluttering moments before falling into a deep sleep Emma’s entire presence seemed to morphine before him, turning into a taller, long haired girl with puppy dog eyes and a penchant for making Lucas laugh so hard it was eerily quite possible to squirt milk out his nose. It was now Piper’s hand in his, her laugh filling his thoughts as she mercilessly poked him in the stomach. Her dream-like voice was wafflier than normal as she teased him, laughing so much that her eyes glistened with a sparkle he’d always noticed but pretended not too. ”Finnegan’s Wake… I’ve read Finnegan’s Wake and you didn’t so much as bat an eye at me,” cooed the dream version of his Piper, still smiling as she pulled him forward towards the ale house on Miller Street, which wasn’t an ale house at all on the inside but the Ravenclaw common room, just as it had been years before. Lucas turned to view his surroundings, watching the swirl of colors melt and fade to reveal his four poster bed, and Piper sitting on his sheets with his frog hat intertwining in her grasp.

“For my sixteenth birthday you’re giving me your frog hat?”

He responded in return, strangely reliving the moment from over eight years before, “That’s my favorite hat! You should know better than anyone I just don’t give away my precious hats to people that don’t deserve them.” Suddenly in his dream his heart boomed with overcoming joy, realizing that this had been the closest he’d come to loving anybody in his entire life.

“You sure have a rather… peculiar collection of hats Lucas.” He spun away from Piper on his bed as the room changed to his home, which wasn’t really his home at all since it seemed darker than normal. Emma was peering around his room, picking up various hats and shooting him a quizzical glare with each new discovery. “What do you have them for, to hide just how intelligent you actually are?”

“Maybe…. I just really like hats.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to really like something else,” and dream-Emma leaned forward and kissed him full on the mouth, and Lucas suddenly sunk deeper into subconsciousness.

The two girls seemed relentless in their upheaval for his attention, even in his dreams (which also had random bouts of flesh eating spider monkeys and purple dancing bananas, which broke up the heaviness of the life changing event he was about to partake in). Emma and Piper. Piper and Emma. It wasn’t clear who was winning until he jerked awake and shouted her name. See, it was a flesh eating spider monkey that settled his mind, as both ladies were being attacked in his dream-turned-disturbing-nightmare. His choice was obvious on who to save, hell there wasn’t even a question in his unconscious mind and the second his eyes opened to the sound of his own voice calling for her, Lucas knew who he was in love with. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t afraid to admit feeling something for someone else.

***
At ten in the morning he was floating down towards their usual meeting spot. The sun seemed warmer and the people seemed friendlier, even the pigeons seemed less kickable then normal. Everything was beautiful, which on a normal day would have sickened his stomach to regard himself as some sort of fairytale princess but here he was. Smiling, skipping, ready to move forth seriously for the very first time. Then he spotted Emma, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper before catching his eye and tossing him a wave. Here it was, the time was now.

“Lucas!” she shouted, rising up from her chair and greeting him with a hug around his neck. Slowly he pulled her hands down and grasped them in his own, stepping back a ways from her has he fought the urge to smile too widely.

“I’m in love…”

Six hours before ten in the morning Lucas had woken up in a sweat, screaming out a name that both shocked and delighted him in the darkness of night. She was the last girl he thought of, the girl in his dream that made her presence known, and the first person he wanted in the chill air of the moon. It was so simple, and upon realizing the discovery Lucas wondered how he ever even questioned the notion. For someone who prided himself on being so bloody intelligent, he really did have his moments of pure blindness.  But now that he knew, he wanted to shout it at everybody; friends, family, friends of family, random old men on the street, stray cats and squirrels all the same. He was in love, and there was no keeping him trapped in this bedroom tonight to dwell on it.

Quickly he thrust off the covers, throwing on jeans over his boxers and slipping on a fresh t-shirt, packing a couple of items in his pockets before slowly making his way from the upstairs bedroom to the front door (which he had done at off hours of the morning many, many times). Twisting the knob, the first scent of the mid-night air filled his lungs with a light, sweet crisp feel. Deeply he breathed in, shutting the door behind him as he made his way down the path of his home and started his walk across the neighborhood, which was several blocks away from where he stood. Seeing him at this dark hour of the morning would be confusing, but not unheard of, after all Lucas had ventured off to see Piper at all different times of day just to keep her on her toes. He smiled at the thought.

It took perhaps a half an hour to make it to her window on the ground floor, landing him at around four-thirty am tapping annoyingly upon her pane of glass. “Lumos,” he whispered, holding his wand up to try and peer inside the sheer curtains, noticing her shadow crawling out from her bed and hazily making her way towards the sounds he was making. Lucas tapped five times in succession, their special code, and Piper knew instantaneously it was him. The window jutted open to her wearing a brown tank top and owl pajama bottoms, a half asleep and rather annoyed look strewn on her face. “Nox,” he faded the light from his wand, starring at her for a moment as if he were seeing her for the first time, before realizing he was suppose to be speaking. “Take back the damn frog hat before I magically adhere it to your head.”

Pulling the hat from his back pocket, Lucas shoved it in her hand with a glance of annoyance when she wouldn’t initially take it. “Don’t try me Paper, I’m quite good with sticking charms, you should know.”

Piper stepped back, allowing him room to hoist himself up through her window and into her bedroom, bewildered by whatever was going on. “What are you doing here Lucas, it’s close to five in the morning and—”

She couldn’t help but laugh as his pants got stuck on the frame, causing him to fall haphazardly onto the floor by her feet with a loud slam. “You’re going to wake up the damn house,” Piper pleaded, suddenly hearing her father’s footsteps as he scurried down the hall. “Get up, get up!” Quickly she shoved Lucas into the most cliche spot between her dresser and closet, a spot where he’d hidden many a time when they had been sneaking about. Grabbing up her wand, she clicked the lock on her door from across the room, just as Charlie was reaching the threshold.

“Piper, you alright?”

Her eyes caught Lucas and she half smiled as she answered, “Yeah Dad, just a really stupid raven crashed into my window… it’s alright, gone now.”

Lucas glared back with an eyebrow raised, smiling as he heard Charlie step away, muttering something about how birds always seemed to crash into her window at weird hours of the night. Piper flicked her wand again, casting them in a silencing charm so she could go over towards her friend and give him hell.

“What is going on,” she asked sharply, approaching his spot on the floor by crouching down herself, “Why are you—”

It was his turn to interrupt her, much like she had done to him during her own confession. “I came to give you back your hat, he was lonely without you, you know,” he stopped and took in a deep breath, glancing up at her with a brightening smile, “And I came to tell you that I—”

“That you what?” Piper bit, watching his expression change in the flooding moonlight.

“Do you ever shut up? Just, just shut up for one minute and let me have my moment to confess to you that I love you, okay? Now…”

Her face contorted into a smile that not many people could produce, and Lucas continued on as if he said nothing. “I love you Paper. I love you,” tears streamed down her face as he spoke further, “You make me laugh like no one else in this world. You understand my horrid sense of humour, you’re sarcastic as fuck, you’re smarter than any other bird out there even though you don’t show it. You never judged me, just accepted me for who I was; a prankster, hat collector, all around douche bag. I think. I think I always loved you, but commitment scared the bloody hell out of me so I convinced myself I didn’t. But now, with you, that whole ‘eternal bond’ shit seems not so intimidating.”

Leaning up from his seat upon the floor, he reached over and tenderly brushed the tears from the sides of her face with either of his thumbs. “What, no response to that? I tell you I love you and you cry?”

“You told me to shut up,” Piper laughed, leaning into his hands as she cried joyfully, completely unsure of what to do with herself. She had won him and now she felt a twinge of awkwardness lingering between them, which she found to be rather ridiculous. So she was extremely thankful when he made the next move to break the fearful silence. Lucas had started to chuckled himself, pulling her towards his lips for a kiss that was an explosion of raw emotion from either party. It was a sensation neither of them could claim to have ever experienced, and through the heavy petting they eventually landed in the sheets of her bed stripped of clothing and any sort of apprehension. It was the most exquisite embrace Lucas and Piper had ever given to one another, their love making filled with kisses she had never felt before but wanted to feel forever. And as the sun rose a little after seven in the morning, she found herself tucked up into his arms for the first time after sex, pressed against his sweaty torso as her fingers traced the lines of his chest.

“I have to tell Emma today,” he sighed, rubbing his fingertips up and down the silky skin of her arms.

“Aye, you do.” It was so nice not having to run to put on her clothing.

“Thank Merlin she’s not a bloody witch, or she may hex me to all hell. I’d be walking off with one arm missing or she’d castrate my dick off or something.”

Piper smirked, leaning down to lay her lips on his again. She really liked the feel of his skin on hers, his tongue, his scent. She could easily get used to him in this way. “I’ll go with you. I mean, not with you, but I can hide out behind the bookstore until it’s over.  If you want.”

He nodded, reforming the kiss she broke to speak, noting that this being in love crap was actually one hell of a exhilarating feeling. Things led quickly down a sexual path for a second time between them, and after that batch of love making ended close to nine o’clock Lucas and Piper had to pull themselves apart to head into town and break another girl’s heart.
***Their usual meeting spot on Sunday mornings. Emma was sipping coffee awaiting his arrival, gripping a hold of him as he starred at her with the goofy grin of a dumbass.

“I’m in love…”

It took Emma a moment to realize that the fingers she had interlaced within his own had suddenly been set free, falling to her sides as her delight quickly turned sour. “But…” she questioned, watching his face turn a shade of red as he struggled for the next words to emerge.

“But…” Lucas tried to keep eye contact, but the converses on his feet seemed so much more enjoyable to watch then the expression that was slowly emerging over Emma’s saddened features, “it’s not with you.”

She stepped back and gasped, struggling for words, angered for feeling so hurt. “What do you mean? You’ve been with me for months, was there someone else? Were you… cheating on me?” She felt like a fool, played and every piece of her was slowly dying off. Emma could have said she loved Lucas, but now she was beginning to hate him with every ounce of her being.

“No! No I mean, no, I wasn’t cheating on you, not really anyway.”

“Not really?! What in the hell does that mean?” The beginnings of her hate turned into down right despise.

He realized how bad that must have sounded, but he couldn’t help the way everything suddenly fell out of him without a filter, “I mean it just kind of happened! I guess I was always in love with her, but I hadn’t noticed until no—”

The slap that hit him across the face could have been heard in Scotland. Everything he wanted to say to Emma about her being such a fantastically wonderful woman, brilliant and intriguing, flew out the window. Now he was just left with her demanding to never see him again and a hard stinging across his cheek. Not exactly how he envisioned their breakup to end.

Still holding the side of his face where she stuck him, he made his way back up the street to behind the bookstore where Piper was holding up James Joyce’s dirty little love notes to Nora Barnacle, rather pleased with her find. She laughed at his expression, pulling on the loose string of the frog hat she had placed back on her head that morning, where it belonged.

“She bloody hit me!”

“You sound shocked! You must admit you deserved it, Love.”

“Well you started it. You and your stupid confession, left me with a hand mark and a wounded soul.”

Piper approached him and pulled down his hand, kissing the redness upon his cheek with a giggle. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

“You better.”

“I will, because I learned some french this morning in the bookstore, want to hear? Listen,” she cleared her throat, “Voulez vous couchez avec moi ce soir?”

Lucas laughed, turning around on Piper so that she could climb up on him piggyback style. He wrapped his arms under her legs as she hopped up, leaning her head upon his shoulder as he started to walk. “Not bad there Paper, you have the accent pretty down, maybe we can learn more dirty french words together. And yes, I would love to sleep with you tonight. Every night actually,” With a hop to his step he began walking out of the square and towards his home. “Hey, tonight at dinner, do you want to hold hands awkwardly in front of our families until someone figures out we’re actually out in the open and legit in love? Bet Willow will be the first to blurt it out.”

Piper whispered in his ear with a smile, “I think they all already knew.”