Monday, February 22, 2010
9:16pm
The Radford House, London

Knox Greyfriar had never been here before, never called on Ms Blake.  He did know that she lived well in a large house with several other of her Auror-Trainee peers, students he'd known at Hogwarts.  It was bleak and rainy today, the entire universe apparently reflecting his own bleak and rainy state. 

Knox had family.  They were smattered around Kent, and would have been happy to have him.  He had friends as well.  His old mates from the old days, and he was sure they'd have had him too.  But he felt as if the only one who might be of some comfort to him, who might know what he was feeling, was young Fauna Blake. 

He let himself into the garden - the space feeling much bigger than the outer walls let on.  And that thought lead him to another.  About a place where the walls didn't magically give way to more grass, more sky.  About a place where they closed in and never let go.

The old wizard was drawn and heavy-footed as he rang the bell.  He didn't know what to do with himself, but he had to do something.

Fauna had been upstairs drawing when the bell rang, a tinny owl imitation of hoo-hoo-hoo's there!

Who would be visiting at this hour?

Waiting a moment for any movement in the quiet house, at the silence she eased off her bed and plodded down the stairs in her cupcake slippers, her pajama bottoms swooshing and the sleeves of her hoodie running down past her knuckles - just as she liked it. She wasn't scheduled to work tonight, and had taken advantage of it by poking around the house and pestering Dion. Finally, she'd retreated to her room, drawing in her sketchbook and trying to fight off the gloom settling on her shoulders. She blamed the rain, though she knew better.

Turning on the porch light, Fauna peeked through the peephole to find the dark bulk of Knox Greyfriar huddled in the damp. She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. Had she missed his owl? Or was he here to see one of her housemates?

"Mr. Greyfriar?" She opened the door, a smile flickering on her face as she gestured him inside.

She shut the cold night behind them, pausing in the foyer.

"Is something wrong?"

Concern trickled through the hush in her voice, and a prickle of dread turned her stomach.

Fauna herself opened the door after a long few moments, and from the looks of it, he'd roused her from relaxed weekday night repose.  There were cupcakes on her feet.  Her presence was immediately comforting, but it drew everything up inside of him and it was all he could do to utter a few words.

"They, um."

He had to swallow hard as he passed the threshold.  He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair in a thoughtful, fidgeting habit he'd had all his life. 

"Have you not heard? Devlin's been convicted."

It was horrible to say.  He'd not wanted to have to be the one to inform Fauna about it.  He believed she still must care for her old boyfriend, her school days companion.  Why, the two of them, she and Knox, had worked diligently in their own ways to set the lad right.  And they both cared for him.  Had she not read it in the paper? Were they no longer in touch?  Perhaps he assumed too much about them. 

"Did you not...?"  He'd thunk himself into a circle and looked up from the floor at Fauna, searching for some clue.  Should he have come here? Now she was in the position to comfort a cumbersome old man.

Fauna nodded as he questioned, blinking at how lost he looked in the bright, warm foyer, his despair wrapped around him like a dementor's ragged cloak. If she got too close, if she answered him, she'd have to face the truth. The truth already stood here, running his hand through his hair, a gesture so like Devlin's when he was nervous.

"No, I knew." Her eyes locked onto his, her expression similar to the look her mum got whenever she stumbled on Fauna's grandfather's cigars, hidden behind a family photo. Or Malcolm's grocery lists crumpled in the corner of a cabinet, forgotten with the milk.

She couldn't turn him away, her friend and mentor. They'd survived so much.

Reaching over, Fauna touched his arm gently. "Come in. I'll make tea."

She headed down the stairs and through the swinging doors into the kitchen, its rustic cabinets and low-hanging pans meant for house elves, not company, but she liked it here, even as a draft crept through her sweater and the faucet dripped. She puttered around, setting the teapot to heat on the stove, and sat at the wooden table across from Knox.

"Were you..." She paused, her shoulders hunching. "Did you get to talk to him before...?" Before they'd taken Devlin away.

Knox didn't know how to express how grateful he felt, and the pressure he felt not to impose upon the mousy young witch was intense.  But something about how he led her into her home, the bearing in her shoulders, her offer to get them both some much-needed tea - she'd grown up since he'd last seen her.  She was not a mouse anymore.  She was an Auror-to-be and she could very well handle tea.  Knox felt a tinge of guilt for his instinct to protect her from their grief.

But follow her he did, down into a cozy old kitchen.  It was a familiar sort of kitchen, one you didn't see much these days anymore.  Kitchens built for old wizarding homes wealthy enough to have elves.  He sat himself down at a well-used table, trying to settle.  But his whole body ached with stress and worry.

Her question bumped him back to a few days ago in court.  His sentencing.  He ran a hand over his face.   He pushed his memories back further.

"He's been staying with me," he said.  She knew his place, the small stone house with the thatch roof in Kent.  Cramped with with them both, and little Lucy on the holiday.  "He was allowed to stay during."

"They gave us some time, you know, before."  The normally verbose old bear was speaking in stilted phrases, as if each one was hard for him to hear. 

The little lamp on the table glowed, bringing some warmth to Fauna's wan skin. She watched Knox run his hand over his face as if smoothing out the weariness, but his voice sounded low and rumbling, and she knew what it felt like for words to stumble and catch in the throat.

Fauna rested her arms on the table, hands curled toward Knox, tucking her fingers into the sleeves of her hoodie and glancing down at the table.

Six months. Six months in Azkaban. Devlin had helped put Kingstreet behind bars, he'd helped the Aurors even while his little sister had been kidnapped, and in turn, the Elders had deemed his part in the Remembering Day murders unwitting. A word that Fauna would never ascribe to the Ravenclaw she knew.

The part of Fauna that was becoming an Auror reasoned that it could have been worse, could have been a year or more and maybe should have been. But the part that used to love him, or thought she had, couldn't shrug off the chill and despair his sentence brought. Devlin in a bare cell. Devlin surrounded by hardened criminals and apathetic guards. Devlin listening to the waves against rock at night, if the sea and the rain penetrated the thick walls at all, or if only scurrying critters met his ears, free while he remained trapped.

And how vast the sea must be, how lonely, when it was your own child.

"Was Devlin staying with you... was it alright?" She ventured cautiously, biting back hope. She hadn't spoken to Devlin since she'd hexed him and Maeve in the middle of Hogsmeade last May. So Fauna had little understanding of Devlin's growth and Knox's relationship with him, merely aware that Knox cared like Knox had always cared, despite the yelling and the anger and the accusations he faced. In her mind, she still saw father and son at the top of the stairs, that moment last winter ringing fresh and dark, clearer to her for lack of any good moments to compare it to.

Knox glanced up and again found himself torn.  She was little Miss Blake.  It was still her face, and she was hiding her hands inside overlong sleeves.  But her stature had changed and she was also soon-to-be Auror Blake.  She'd broken ties with Devlin before all of this had happened, and that was probably one of the best choices she'd ever made.  Because he'd had to fall very far.  He did wonder though, what she thought of him.  Did she judge?

Her opinion of him, he found, mattered a great deal. 

Her question - had things been good when they'd been under the same roof - brought out a choke of laughter.  "That's the worst part," he said.

"It was..."  His voice cracked and a tear rolled down his face and hit the table.  "It was good.  We were getting on.  He'd cook, you know.  He was good at that.  I mean, he worked a lot.  We didn't see a great deal of each other, but we were... were getting on, you know?  Like getting to know each other."

Father and son were finally starting to feel that way.  Devlin had been calling him 'dad', they'd stopped shouting at each other constantly.  Devlin and Knox lived their lives parallel but magically intersecting in that tiny little house around the big warm hearth. 

"I think he was going to propose.  To Maeve." 

Knox hadn't liked Maeve Whitman.  There was always part of him that resented her on Fauna's behalf, although it should never have been his business.  But it was Devlin's choice to make.  Knox suspected Devlin wanted to be out on his own and make a home for his little sister, to make that home with a witch he loved. 

The tears fell and his breath shook his shouders, but Knox was not a wizard ashamed of crying.  He'd done and seen enough things in his life to be accustomed to it.  The lines on his face were deeper now, contorted with pain.

"He's a good lad," he said, hoping Fauna believed him.

A smile began spreading across Fauna's face, fleeting and flickering and torn with emotion. They'd been getting along. Knox and Devlin sharing meals in the tiny kitchen, handling steak knives without incident, was a much better image than the one of Knox as lonely, staunch defender, receiving no gratitude in return.

If she felt a touch of jealousy, she ignored it. She had no right. Fauna had given up on Devlin, and maybe that had pushed him to seek guidance from his father. The one who should stand by him no matter what.

"I think he was going to propose.  To Maeve."

At this, Fauna put her palms flat on the table and inched back in her seat. Propose? To Maeve? Maeve Whitman? In what universe!

For a few seconds, she was all teenager again, all sulky pouting behind her dark sheet of hair. Ridiculous! Maeve would have said no, Fauna reasoned for a vicious moment. And the Slytherin girl she knew would never visit him in Azkaban, never let her heels get caught in the rough stonework or her purse brush up against the damp walls.

Fauna focused on Knox again as his breath rattled and his cheeks shone. She'd seen his tears before, hadn't known how to handle them then. Now that she could meet his eyes, her own were dry. Fauna wanted to believe Devlin was good at heart. In some instances, he was, like most everyone else. He loved his little sister, cared about his father, cooked well, dreamed of family and home and marriage. But unlike everyone else, he had killed. Or helped kill. Did it matter which? When Roh and Pratt had asked her all those months ago - was he capable? Fauna had scoffed no. Not someone she'd loved. Not someone she'd run across the Hogwarts grounds with, someone she'd kissed in the courtyard as snow fell on their noses, someone whose heart thudded when she rested her head on his chest, his breath ruffling her hair.

It wasn't until the article when she'd seen those words printed that she'd accepted the truth. He had hated Kyle. Such love and hate, such good and bad - yes, he was capable.

Fauna's hand grasped Knox's fingers and squeezed gently before she stood, turning toward the tea. She took her time with it, shuffling aside the neat stack of bills and letters on the counter, searching for teacups that had no chips or dents.

When she set it all on the table and sat again, she finally murmured with some difficulty, "I'm glad he's good to you. He'll need you more than ever now."

Knox felt conflicted when he saw Fauna get ruffled.  She cared for them both, obviously, and that made the old man not feel so alone.  But at the same time, it was unfair that she be caught up in this.  Unfair because she'd only ever been kind to either of them.  Devlin had dug his own grave, but no matter how hard he'd tried to set things right, the people who cared for him were caught up in it and dragged under.

She got up to get tea the tea, and Knox sat back in the chair.  He wiped his face with a clean handkercheif from his pocket.  He took off his hat and laid it on the table.  He thought of where Devlin might be right now.  Was he still in a holding cell at the Ministry of Magic? Was he en route to the cold North Sea? Was he on some bench being examined by a Healer in Azkaban's intake? Was he sitting in a cell now, his new home for ...

Fauna was back with hot tea and warm words. 

He didn't feel so powerful as she made him sound.  He didn't know what he could do for the young wizard now.  "I'm so worried that this will ruin him.  How is he supposed to grow there.  How is he supposed to learn the world from inside a cell.  He's punished more than enough when Kingstreet tried to kill him."

A bitterness in his tone now.  A resentment.  He voted nearly every day in applying the law witches and wizards who'd broken it.  Many of them had earned a stay in Azkaban by their crimes, crimes heinous enough that perpetrators had to be removed from the daily folk.  It was never an easy choice, but he questioned all of it now that the young wizard he was supposed to have cared for had been judged and found wanting. 

Fauna's fingers hovered around the cup of hot tea, letting the steam warm her hands as Knox wondered how Devlin would ever grow and learn from the inside of a cell. An educator's words. A Headmaster's words. And a father's. She didn't know. Devlin had gone down this road while he was still in Hogwarts, the supposedly safe place where he was supposed to grow as a person, and-

"What?" Her eyes snapped to Knox's. Her hand jerked, and she nearly knocked over her tea.

"When?" Trainees weren't privy to all details - and that one, that one had definitely escaped her notice. She'd found Knox's comment in the article about 'paying for transgressions' curious, and now she remembered those words with new understanding and a sinking sense of dread.[1]

"She... what did she do to him?"

1.	OOC Note: I'm thinking of the Melanthe torture incident. Let me know if it's something else!

Knox raised his big dark eyebrows at Fauna's start.  Did she not know? Merlin...  He wiped his face with his hand and let his gaze rest without focus on the worn flagstones on the floor.  He sighed.  He should tell her.  He owed her that, but he'd take no pleasure in it.

"It was, heh, it was year ago this month."  Merlin's beard it was.  Only a year had passed? It seemed like ages.  A life-time ago.

"Do you remember when I showed up in the Hufflepuff fireplace?[1] That was the night he went missing.  He was under house arrest after what he did at St. Mungo's.[2], but he went out.  And someone found him.  I don't know if they ever found out was, but she was sent by Kingstreet to punish Devlin for getting caught."

Knox let himself take a breath and a sip of the piping hot tea.  Even just speaking the words make his chest tighten.  The memory of a teenage boy battered and burned in that tiny upstairs bedroom. 

"When I found him, he was covered in cuts. His neck and wrists had been bound and burned.  Nearly dead.  It was clear: she meant for him to be tortured. Not murdered."

He shut his eyes in a long blink and his left hand quietly closed into a massive fist.  Again he sighed, tried to breathe away the anger.  She was gone for good now, never to be let out again.  But it didn't seem like there was any possible justice that would give Knox peace for what Kingstreet had done.  What she'd done to Devlin.  And now... now he was in there with her.    The anger wrenched again.  Even though he knew they'd be kept far from each other, he still hated the idea that in some horrible way, they were the same. 

"And you know what, Fauna... as soon as he well, he handed himself in.  Put himself on the line.  He told them everything he knew, and he let them use him as bait."

He nodded slowly.  Devlin had done the right thing in the end. 

1.	February 16, 2009,There's a head in the fireplace
2.	December 2, 2008 A Simple Task for Mr. Spade

Fauna sat, stiller than the old house with its creaks and groans. She nodded at first, then just listened, resting her hands in her lap to hide the tremble that had started in her fingers.

Devlin had been through hell last year, and she hadn't known, hadn't been there for him. Just days after they'd broken up, too - that couldn't be coincidence. They'd taken him when he was vulnerable.

Sorrow stifled the breath in her throat, though she tried to push it down. She'd had to end it. For her own sake, to become the person she was today. Knowing. It changed things. It couldn't change things between them, but it lessened her judgment of him. He'd been working with the Aurors for so long. He'd been afraid for his life. And he'd suffered through all that before they'd kidnapped his sister.

"I didn't realize. I thought- I'm sorry," she swallowed.

Kingstreet ought to rot in there, if only she were human. But even parchment dried and yellowed with time, crumbled and curled at the corners, hungered for ink, to make her mark on the world. Everything she'd done - it wouldn't be enough for her. She'd want more.

Devlin - Devlin deserved more. He was only human. Would he still be after six months?

Fauna put her head in her hands, squeezed her eyes shut, though no tears came.

"Oh, my stars..."  Knox nearly broke to see Fauna close up tight, to hear her (of all people!) apologize!  Despite how weak he'd felt when he'd arrived, he was in familiar territory to comfort a young witch, especially one so deserving.  He slipped from his chair and came around her side of the table.

The thing was, Kingstreet hadn't only manipulated and harmed their Devlin, she'd murdered an Auror, a Wizengamot Elder.  And Kyle.  She was a ruiner of lives and it was all finally over.  Save Devlin's part in the morality play.  He was the last loose end.  And then it would be done. 

Knox crouched and laid his arm over her shoulders.

"No no no, Fauna, you've got nothing to be sorry for.  Devlin made his choices." 

Blimey, the tears nearly came for Knox again, just saying that.  He felt so... affronted on behalf of the little bastard, that he'd forgotten twice over what Devlin had always insisted upon.  He'd made his own choices.  And now he was atoning.   He swallowed and kept his composure.

"Devlin was - he is very adept at keeping secrets.  Runs in his family, I think.  If you didn't know, he probably meant it that way.  Same for me.  Hardly said a word."

Knox stood away from Fauna to give her some space, and he crossed his arms over his chest.  He ran a hand over his beard and looked up at the pots and pans hanging from hooks.  A dishrag draped over the edge of the sink.  His mind ran through with thoughts, but for now, it seemed, the terrors were calmed.

Fauna took a few deep breaths, elbows on the table, head bent, and steepled fingers in her hair as Knox moved to comfort her. Everything felt gray and murky again, worry gnawed at her stomach, and here Knox was, in the middle of it all, impossible to separate from Devlin and Devlin’s choices.

Sudden frustration and resentment bubbled up. Fauna looked up at him, letting it show. The pain. The confusion. The love for them both. Yes, Devlin was adept at secrets, at all forms of lying, and it was the lies as much as the crime that she hadn’t been able to handle.

When Fauna thought back on that shy, blushing teenager who had trusted in Devlin’s affection, she wanted to pretend she wasn’t that girl anymore. But under the table, the soles of her cupcake slippers curled below her feet. And the sleeves stretching over her fingers were faded yellow and black.

"I know," she shook her head. "I know he did. I just," she glanced at him again, voice barely above a whisper. "Wish it weren't so hard."

Here, with her old professor, she could express that.

"Nothing seems fair."

She was right.  It was terribly unfair.  Knox and Fauna and others, they were all casualties of Devlin's choices and secrets.  No one was going to suffer as much as he would for them, save perhaps little Lucy.  But suffer they all would.  And a great deal of it was going on tonight in this little kitchen as all the dark stuff could finally come out.

"No.  It isn't."

As a teacher, Knox had always had a speech about fairness.  A speech for his History students who didn't like their grade on an essay.  For his Hufflepuff's who saw some other student getting an advantage they didn't need.  For the sorry souls who'd been sent to his office after a grief with a teacher.  But that speech had been no use when Tamis Raynor twice demanded he provide information to aide in the capture of one of his students.  And it did little good here with Fauna. 

'Life isn't fair' was just too obvious.  Callously obvious.

"I'll be writing him," he said.  "And helping with his parole when the time comes."

Solutions.  Tasks to busy himself, to make him feel like a father.  "He'd probably be glad to hear from you, but ..."

The last thing he wanted was to make her feel guilty if writing Devlin was something she'd never do.  "But, you don't need to.  He'll get plenty from Lucy and I, I'm sure."

A clock made a sound somewhere in the house, and Knox checked his pocketwatch.