Absit Omen RPG

His wife plucked the sad little teacup from his fingers, leaving Leo with nothing else to do but to take his head in his hands. "They landed the wrong bloody Pratt in St. Mungo's, the foul-mouthed tyke," he muttered, pressing his fingers tightly against his temples.

Azkaban had given him practice at holding on to his anger, but out here, it left him feeling exhausted in a way that he never had inside. Perhaps it was how the whole world had shifted around him while he'd stood fastened to a pinpoint: Eddie Pratt had still been wearing his trainee blacks when Leo had received his unjust sentence. Now, the uncouth Northerner was the Head Auror, and frivolous Sol Carstairs had somehow managed to turn his constant dalliances into a Department Head title. Dan Pratt, Robards, Cox, and the Snarks were all dead; Yaxley, Musgrave, and most of the other surviving purebloods had been arrested and deposed just like he had. The cowardly Trevelyan, who had run away when the war had taken a turn, had apparently crawled out of whatever hole he was hiding in; he had been allowed to take up the badge again. And although Zora Roh was the only one he'd outright recognized, it now seemed like half the bloody office was made up of witches.

There was a clink as Genny set the teacup back on the table for him. Leo sighed, his anger tempered a bit by the offered commiseration in her words.

"At least you'll be happy to know that Pratt's a fan of yours," he told her, the sourness in his voice nearly masking any attempt at humor. He reached for the bottle again to pour himself another cup of gin, though a bit more slowly this time. "He quoted his favorite passage from your book at me. I wouldn't be surprised if he owns an autographed copy."

“They’ll likely learn better on their own anyhow, won’t they?” a voice put in smoothly. “They’ll probably take it as a kindness. It can’t be easy for them, keeping up with magical children while their nature forces them to miss half the lessons.”

He had come to look forward to the full moons, when good company gathered under the soft lights at Calaveras. It was the closest that things came to feeling like the old days. After the long outfall from the second war had seen so many arrested, even the most dogmatic purebloods were a bit wary of letting an accused Death Eater linger in their midsts. Instead, old prejudices were kept behind closed doors where the new wokeness of the Ministry couldn’t penetrate, and those, like himself, who might put them at risk of increased scrutiny were kept at wand’s length.

But at least once a month, Leo could count on the full moon festivities to feel like old times again. Of course, the lyrics had changed — it was werewolves threatening magical society now, instead of Muggleborns — but the chords that they struck were still familiar, and it was easy enough to adapt to a new melody. If looking poorly on werewolves was what it took to find a sense of acceptance in pureblood society, well…he was content with humming quietly along.

Joseph Leslie was one of the monthly stalwarts, good-natured and a bit calming with an appreciation for good wine. Whenever the drink got to someone’s head and they fell back into unpleasant ways of speaking, Leslie was always there to mediate. He had an admirable way of both disagreeing and reframing at the same time, gently chiding the speaker for being too extreme while offering a milder, less offensive way of presenting their uncouth idea.

“A bit like Squibs, isn’t it, Leslie?” Leo asked, offering a sideways smile to the other wizard over his glass of wine. “No one would ever try to force them to attend Hogwarts, but we all know it’s affection that keeps them at home, not enmity.”

Faultless or not, his plan wasn't doing anything to quell his temper. Green eyes stayed glued on his task as Leo uncorked the bottle of gin and then carefully tipped it into the tea cup. Keeping one hand on the gin bottle, he tossed back the first cup of gin, coughing slightly as it burned on the way down.

Without hesitation, he poured himself another.

This one went down a little more slowly. He'd left the bottle of gin on the table between them; neither an invitation or a peace offering. That was about how things between them still were. They'd adopted a semblance of normality over the past few months, mostly for Dante's sake. (And perhaps a little bit for Bruce the cat.) Their playacting of life together even felt a little reminiscent of the old days from time to time. But he and Genny never really talked about the things that mattered: what she'd done to him. What Azkaban had been like. What he wanted next.

It was an armistice more than it was a real truce. Perhaps she could tell anyway, but the one time she'd asked him directly, he hadn't responded.

"He said," he began at last, finally breaking through the silence, "that we'd all be waiting for his last breath before 'Death Eater scum wear the Auror badge again.'"

The last part of this sentence was embellished with a poor impression of a thick Yorkshire accent, as one might encounter when speaking to the Head of the Auror Corps.

The person who pissed on his bonfire, so to speak, was not in the room at the moment, but his wife had done her fair share of adding vodka to the fire. Leo ignored his wife as he moved on to search for a glass. The first cupboard he opened held several perfectly satisfactory options, but he moved on to a second and third simply because loudly banging them shut did something to take the edge off his anger.

"And that's the most important thing to you, is it?" he shot over his shoulder at Genny. "Pretending to everyone out there that I'm not here?"

There were times when he wanted to rend the book of his wife's life to pieces all over again. It was always about appearances with Genny. She'd let him back in, slowly and begrudgingly, but she still wasn't sure if she wanted to. Salazar forbid he walk through her office, rather than Flooing to and fro like a helpless Squib. When he'd brought up looking into finding a different place to live, or even just having Dante stay with him at his parents' house instead, she'd squashed it.  No, Genny wanted to keep her elegant little flat, and perhaps even her kept husband too, but she didn't want anyone in the outside world to know about it.

The fourth cupboard didn't have anything resembling a cup in it. Glowering, Leo backed up to the third to claim one of a selection of flowery tea cups, which would do for now that he had had his fill of slamming cupboards. Snatching up the bottle of good gin that his wife preferred for her martinis, he stalked over to the kitchen table and dropped heavily to sit.

Late morning on Friday, August 3
Editor's Flat
Witch Weekly office

It had become close to a routine, weaving his way through the busy Witch Weekly office to make his way to its editor’s flat. The first few times that Leo had made this walk, he’d felt the eyes on him: all of Genny’s employees, unsure if his presence here was welcome or a dangerous intrusion.

Over the past half-year, as his visits had become more and more regular, the sense that everyone was watching him had begun to drop away. And now that Dante was home for the summer holidays and his father’s presence was more or less a given, barely anyone paid him any mind. Of course, Genny still worried — she still hadn’t really told Misslethorpe, who owned the building and the flat — but to everyone else’s, the presence of her formerly incarcerated husband had become routine.

It was nearly as if they were getting a second chance on their marriage. How long it would last, though, was anyone’s guess.

Today, though, Leo Gamp was attracting a bit more attention as he made his way through the magazine’s headquarters. Part of it was his robes — the dress robes that he only wore when he was off for an official meeting with his lawyer and someone important, to settle out the wrongful prosecution claims with the Ministry or for another session on his reinstatement. The other part of it, though, was the way that sheer, angry frustration seemed to ripple off of him like a dark, angry storm cloud. His jaw was clenched tight, his shoulders tense, and his furious green eyes fixed solely on his destination like a dragon on its horde.

Genny had finally deigned to give him a key a couple of months before, when Dante had moved home and she had resignedly accepted that Leo’s presence was a near constant. As Leo unlocked the door and stepped inside, it slammed shut loudly enough behind him to rattle the windows of the tiny flat, though whether this was on purpose or simply a careless oversight was any of the occupants’ guess.

Ever since he’d gotten out from Azkaban, he hadn’t been much of a drinking man, but a day like this certainly called for alcohol. Leo headed directly for the kitchen, with every angry footfall making it clear that wherever he had just come back from, it had Not Gone Well.

...an event later...
...only an hour...

Something quirked at Leo's brow, as if a fly had landed alongside his eyebrow and had to be quickly urged alight again. Always in a hurry, his Genny. He doubted if she even consciously knew if she were scared of him, or afraid of what she might do if she allowed herself more than an hour in his company. For as long as he'd known her, she'd always been the brave one: quick to jump headfirst in to the dalliance with the handsome Slytherin boy, to defy her parents and drop out of Hogwarts, to move into that squalid little flat with him in Knockturn Alley. It had once seemed as if nothing could ever phase her.

And yet, here she was, eager to make excuses and set artificial limits even when he'd only asked her to lunch.

Her last comment was a little bit of a knife twist. Leo's green eyes shifted past her again to study the chalkboard, which was full of menu items that likely wouldn't have been considered edible the last time he'd been out to lunch with his wife thirteen years ago. No, it had been a long time since he'd had to worry about deadlines. He'd had exactly the opposite in Azkaban: long stretches of endless, torturous monotony that had left him with nothing to do but wait.

"Why don't you order for me?" His shamrock-haired wife, dressed in green and glitter, eager to get on to her libertine night out. Leo gave her a mild smile, as if they were sharing in some private joke together. "Even without deadlines to worry about, I'm afraid I haven't had time to catch up on the latest trends in savory muffins."

The quaint little coffee shop was decorated in green, and his wife was dressed to match it as she entered through the front door. Leo spotted her almost immediately, following her with his own green eyes as she confidently made her way across the room to his table.

Genny had always been eye-catching, and she'd clearly spent the past thirteen years learning how to captivate attention. Leo raised his eyebrows at her as she came to sit, taking in the sparkly heels, the streaks of green in her hair. She had certainly gone out of her way to dress up for a simple day in the office, even one as licentious as the Witch Weekly.

"Kale?" he repeated for politeness' sake, peering past her at the chalkboard menu over the counter. This wasn't the sort of place he would have chosen to dine on his own: it was a little too charmingly Muggle, as many places in Diagon Alley had become in the years since he'd been out in the world. But he was willing to tolerate it regardless. Meeting Genny out in the world meant that everyone knew they were spending time together.

Genny had yet to sit down, so he took a moment to take in her appearance up close, letting his gaze move slowly over her. The green hair was something that would have seemed dangerously daring back in their Hogwarts days, and yet here she was, now in her forties.

"You look nice," he told her, his green eyes unreadable as he gave her a faint smile. "Looking forward to your afternoon at the office?"

Bruce was mrowling loudly, seizing the opportunity to knead his claws into the wizard's shoulder, twisting to butt his head up against his hand.  Leo obliged him, juggling the large cat's weight so that he could scratch him vigorously between the ears.

"Likewise," he said, swallowing past the knot in his throat as he smiled at the cat.  "It's been a long time, old fellow."

It had been too long of a time.  But it was somehow reassuring to know that, while Dante was growing up here in this small home without a father and with a mother who would rather spin lies than stand by the truth, at least he had had Bruce to keep him company.  Sitting back, Leo let the pushy cat settle in his lap, obligingly continuing to run his finger through Bruce's fur as the feline curled up into a large, sprawling ball.

Bruce had missed him.  Dante had too, even if he hadn't known of his son's existence until a few short months before.  Had Genny?  Leo glanced at his wife, reaching for the wine glass that he had abandoned when the cat had appeared.

"I suppose that makes it two things that you've managed to take care of while I was away," he said after a beat, his tone nebulous.  "Dante and Bruce."

Dante's impertinence, charming when directed at his parents, was downright hilarity-inducing when his target was another adult.  Leo cleared his throat, swallowing back any laughter, and gave the shopkeeper a look that was half-apologetic, half-chastisement.  He couldn't blame his well-organized son for being offended.

"And although the wand in question is broken, I'm afraid the pieces have been lost to the winds of time," he put in, offering the witch with the colored spectacles a dry half-smile. 

Something tugged at his memory, vaguely -- the remembrance of a bookish witch with a famous last name who had been a couple of years ahead of him in Genny's house, who had kept company with Muggle-borns and had had no interest in the machinations of the school's pure-blooded elite.  Was Garrick Ollivander dead?  He had been poorly at the end of the war, and Leo had had no reason to hear news of him in the many years since.

"We were hoping to purchase a replacement," he said, meeting the witch's colorful spectacles cleanly.  "You'll be able to help us, I imagine?"

"Gen has put together quite the evening."

"She certainly has," Leo said with a good-natured chuckle, green eyes fixed intently on the wizard who had been keeping company with his wife. 

The owner of Witch Weekly.  So not likely to be a romantic rival, although he knew better than to put anything past Genny. Instead, this was the wizard who made it possible for his wife to spend her time writing rubbish and cavorting with the masses.  It wasn't a problem to be dealt with now, but it was good to put a face to at least one of his nuisances. 

He shook Misselthorpe's hand, grip firm but not aggressive, and nodded to the polka dot garment as he moved to stand, uninvited, on the other side of Genny. 

"Well, I do hope you manage to find a happy ending for it," he remarked good-naturedly, settling to lean one elbow on the bar behind him.  "There's nothing worse than a sock ending its days as a mismatched collection of one, don't you think?"

He’d deliberately arrived late, at a point where the event would be far enough underway that he was less likely to attract  attention.  Still, Leo could feel a few sets of eyes land on him as he wove his way carefully around the edge of the crowd. 

Dante couldn’t be his escort for shopping in Diagon this time, but his son had sent him plenty of tips on current wizarding fashion.  As he found his way along the walls of the dark pub, it felt as if he was a world away from the gray stone walls and endless monotony of Azkaban.  Freedom meant finding himself again; and indeed, he’d started to fill out from the skeleton that he’d been immediately following his release.  In trimly-cut robes with a dash of color that his son had assured him was at the leading edge of current fashion trends (at least according to Genny’s magazine), he was nearly himself again.

He spotted Genny back by the bar, her arm linked through that of a tall, broad-shouldered wizard.  Eyes narrowing, Leo studied them for a long moment, his mouth pressed into a firm line.  The wizard hardly looked like Genny’s type, but then, it had been a long time that he had been away.

Leo started towards them, still keeping to the edges of the room, as Genny turned back toward the bar to order a drink.  As he approached, bits of their conversation drifted towards them.

”Praise me postliminary, eh?” Genny teased, as the man fumbled to free an envelope from his pocket.

"How coincidental!  At least if she finds me she will have a pair.”

“It usually goes the other way round, doesn’t it?” Leo cut in, stepping up next to them. His tone was mild, but he looked the wizard up and down, as if sizing him up. “She leaves the shoe behind, and you go running off after her.” 

He smiled faintly.  Not Genny’s type at all.  “Somehow, finding the mate for a lost sock strikes me as much less romantic.”

Memories had been all he’d had when he’d been in Azkaban; memories and cold gray stones, with nothing to look forward to and no way to mark the passage of time.  Days had stretched into monotonous days until even the brightest of his memories had faded, leaving him with nothing but anger and betrayal and bitterness, until even those last lingering emotions had started to dull.

Sitting here again with Genny, in this warm flat that she’d lived in for so many years with their son while he’d been wasting away in a distant prison, made something start to simmer inside him again.  This was the life he could have had, if he hadn’t been turned on by Theodora Kingstreet.  A home with his wife and son, a future driven by ambition and aspirations, instead of scrapping for whatever justice a bulldog like Enid Jingleberry could wrestle back for him.  It could have been his, if anyone besides his parents had stood beside him.

His wife’s question cut to the thick of it.  Leo glanced at her, his green eyes unreadable.  What did he want?

Before he could answer, there was a loud meow, and something threw itself into his legs.  Leo started for only an instant before he realized what was responsible.

“Bruce!”  Grinning from ear to ear, he scooped up the enormous gray cat.  Bruce only protested with a brief yowl before he dissolved into purring again, sounding like a the motor of a Muggle automobile as the former Auror cradled him against his chest.

Something caught in his throat.  This was what home had been, once.  Closing his eyes, he let his head rest against the purring cat.

“It’s good to see you too, old fellow,” he said, sounding slightly muffled.  Lifting his head, he examined the feline, still smiling slightly.  Much older, and much, much larger; not the lean young cat that he remembered.  But still Bruce. 

“Your mum’s been giving you a bit too much to eat though, hasn’t she?” he asked, his smile lopsided.

Once upon a time, Genny Gamp née Garcia had burned with her own bright fire.  She'd never shrunk back from challenging anyone, had never been afraid to stand up for herself.  That had been half the cause of their fun in the earliest days of their relationship, back when they'd started as star-crossed Hogwarts students from opposite families and different houses, and then later when she'd abandoned her last year at school to follow him into the adventure of the real world.  Later, it had caused most of their turmoil, when Genny's defiance had turned him to anger, and they'd fallen into a regular cycle of sparring and passionately making up and then sparring again.

But when he gazed at her now, Genny was anything but confident.  She dropped her gaze, looked away, fiddled with her wine glass before finally setting it down. 

The situation clearly still made her uncomfortable.  And more than that, Leo was starting to suspect, she knew that she'd been wrong.  She'd betrayed him, turning on him when he had needed her most at his trial.  And then later, she'd betrayed him again, spinning lies about him like a spider spun webs, trying to entrap her readers in untruths in her perfidious book.

"Failing hardly begins to capture it," Leo said conversationally, and then gave her a smile.  "But I am grateful that you've taken care of Dante."  His smile deepened slightly, nearly reaching his green eyes as he met her gaze.  "He deserves better than he would have gotten if he hadn't had you to depend on.  I'm glad that you've given him a home, especially one that's so far improved over our damp little flat in Knockturn Alley."

He had no doubt that his once-wife's taste in wine had progressed if his few glimpses into her world now were any indication.  Where once their meager budget had set the limits that she'd had to skillfully weave her way between, it was clear that Genny was far better off now than they had ever been back then, when she'd been a Hogwarts dropout and the best he'd been able to afford on a trainee Auror's salary had been a damp, run-down flat in the grimy part of Knockturn.

Genny poured a glass and passed it to him, and then seemed to hover around the edges, as if she were unsure where to settle.  Leo raised his wine to sip at it cautiously, the tannins bitter in his mouth.

Finally, Genny chose a place on the opposite side of the sofa from him, well out of his reach, and turned the conversation back to his son.  The sentiment made the former Auror's expression soften slightly; lowering his glass, he glanced down the sofa at her.

"I might say the same, but I don't think I would have ever dared to imagine a son at all."  He gave a smile, slight but genuine.  Back in Azkaban, he'd imagined all sorts of things -- if the war had turned out differently, if he had somehow been able to stand and counter Kingstreet, if he could have gotten out, if he did somehow get released -- but a son had never been part of his darkened world until that faithful day when Enid Jingleberry had paid him a visit.  Dante was better than he ever could have hoped.  Smart, determined, eager, loving, forgiving -- in some ways, it felt as if they'd wasted no time in establishing the relationship that they'd ought to have had from the start.

But Genny had kept it from them.  And now -- looking at her now, here in the home that she'd made for their son -- he could at least see why.  Dante was too good, and so his wife had kept their son locked away from his father, wrapped him in secrets and shadows to keep him safe.

"I suppose I should thank his mother for the chance to get to know him at all," he remarked, his tone more pleasant than it might have been.  Arching an eyebrow at her, he raised his wine glass again.  "I know she was far less enthused than Dante was about the opportunity to have him meet me."

It had been years and years since he'd found himself amidst the dusty, narrow confines of Ollivanders.  Stepping through the door now made him almost feel like he was eleven years old again, dwarfed by the towering shelves packed with boxes upon boxes of carefully crafted products.  Back then, he'd eagerly led the way, charging ahead of his parents in his hunger to claim his own wand.  It had been a steadfast friend, constant in his hand through his years at Hogwarts and his later time in service as an Auror at the Ministry.

There had been other visits too, later on in his life and none of them as personal.  When he'd been on Level Two, Ollivanders was occasionally pressed into service to help the Ministry identify the wands of known culprits.  And later on still, during the war, the wand shop's proprietor had been the target of darker preoccupations.

The individual who greeted them now, though, was not the craftsman that he remembered.  She came tumbling through the air as a fluffy white cat, and it was only an instant after she landed that she deigned to resume her human shape.

"I think we're here to make a purchase," Leo said, giving her a slight, polite smile.  There was a strange anxiety starting to rise in his chest, as if he'd been led into the middle of the wrong story and abandoned there to flounder.  "Garrick Ollivander isn't about somewhere, is he?"