"So it was never going to happen?" Ignan's eyebrows raised and he paused mid stride to regard his younger relative.
The spring weather had brought sunnier days, a sudden bloom of colour and the hope of summer to the West Country. It was still the Easter holiday from Hogwarts, but the two of them were away from the house in Godric's Hollow, and up in the winding lanes and pathways behind it, exploring. Johann had not long got home from a day's work at the Ministry, but the evenings were lighter, and Ignan had coerced him into joining him for a walk while Gerda, the house elf, organised some dinner for them both.
"No." Johann shook his head, brushing his black curls from out of his eyes against the wind. "I made a bit of a hash of it all, if I'm honest. Lucky Hannah's a good friend."
[1] Ignan's stride continued beside him, his curiosity had been politely held for some months, from what Johann could tell, all the way back from the day they'd gone to see Darian Morgan for some new robes. It proved how little the two actually spoke when they did, though Johann was almost certain that Ignan didn't
want to know most of the time.
"Yes, quite. Women don't like to have important things like marriage quite so easily dropped.""So I've come to realise." Johann admitted and unbuttoned his coat with one hand, ascending the path they were on was making him too warm.
"A lucky escape." He grinned and took the lead on the narrower path which branched off to the right at a gentler rate.
"So you and Hannah are just friends?" Ignan asked from behind, looking down the hill and into the field beyond the dry stone wall they were now walking along the boundary of. Johann turned his head back to catch his question, and raised his voice to reply so the older wizard could hear.
"Quite, yes. She hates the thought of me giving her a hug, and as she rightly informed me, marriage is living together, touching, and everything else that goes with it. None of which she wants to do with me. Or anyone I'm aware of, actually."
"What a strange young woman." Johann stopped and turned round, bringing Ignan to an abrupt halt on the path.
"Oh no, not strange, just entirely logical and very intelligent indeed. I love her."
"Er..?" The Hogwarts professor twisted his head and looked to correct Johann.
"For who she is, Ignan." The slimmer wizard retorted, as if the thought of it meaning anything else was silly. Shoving his hands back into his coat pockets, he swung back on his heel and continued.
"That'll please your Father then.""Tremendously."
"Is that relief?"Johann raised his head, irritated, and inhaled the pollen-saturated air, clenching his hands in his pockets once and then releasing them.
"For now yes."
The path had widened again and Ignan drew alongside him, the two regarding each other cautiously.
"Well, that's something. I wasn't quite sure who was to blame when we were in Hanover and you were crying on the doorstep."[2] They shared a glance, Johann not best pleased at his relative for bringing that humiliating moment up.
"That was nothing in the grand scheme of things."
Ignan fell silent on Johann's right, looking down at the path before them and clasping his hands behind his back in his long grey cloak. This conversation really had been a long time coming, Johann reflected.
"I've no haste to patch things up again." Johann explained more quietly, his speech so quick in his anxiety, words almost fell over each other, "He'll never approve of me, so its not worth the effort."
"You're his only son. You mean a tremendous amount to him.""Not if I don't live up to his standards Ignan, you were there when we were in London."
[3]"Ah, yes." Ignan replied faintly, looking a little uncomfortable, having once got Johann purposefully drunk one even together to make it easier to use legilimency. He had been seeking entirely different information, and had stumbled across some surprising revelations about Johann's interests in others.
[4] Johann was however, none the wiser for this, luckily for Ignan.
"So if it isn't Hannah, who is it?" Ignan asked. He had offered his cousin space in his newly acquired house in Godric's Hollow to keep it maintained with the elf, and because his relative appeared to need some sort of stability in the past few months. Between potions, a surprise engagement, family disputes, and the worrying memories of dealing with criminals, it had seemed mutually beneficial to do so. With feeling he'd outlived his stay with Colin in the tiny flat in London, it had been a cheap way to move on.
Johann swallowed, the words were caught in his throat. People didn't usually ask him outright, they made the assumption he didn't have anyone, or made jokes about Hannah instead. Ignan could be trusted, and he had told Johann it didn't matter to him at all.
"In time." Johann mustered a nervous smile, still anxious, but the irritation leaving him. "I just wanted to know I had your support if there's fallout in the family?"
His older relative reached out and laid a firm hand on Johann's shoulder, conveying the meaning without words. The linguist's shoulders dropped, the tension departing slowly.
"Thank you."
As the pressure released, he rolled his shoulders and felt as if a weight had been lifted. His eyes half closed and the worry lines across his brow fell away as he smiled.
"He's wonderful." He breathed, a little giddy to finally be able to tell someone. His face had transformed with the wide smile, his cheeks blushing.
"I just have to try so hard not to fumble and make silly mistakes. This isn't anything I've done before, you know?" He glanced to Ignan, and gestured with his hands, thumbs catching on his coat pockets as they made their way out again.
"And it is never the same each time it happens." Ignan explained, his features were faintly mirroring the joy, his gaze only briefly breaking to check the path ahead, but otherwise studying his walking companion.
"Here's hoping this is the only round." Johann uttered, becoming a little nervous at that thought.
They let the conversation lapse a moment, Ignan at a loss of where to go with it, and Johann just glad to have said something. Their eyes fell back to the path, so the distant sight of a rabbit lopping along the path ahead of them before disappearing down a grassy bank.
"Light haired chap?" Ignan asked suddenly, breaking the silence. Johann's head snapped round in surprise a the question.
"Sorry?"
Ignan pointed to the shoulder of Johann's coat, where beneath the curl of his collar, a long white hair protruded. Johann slid his fingers over the material to retrieve it with further blushes. That was his insistence to embrace Arcturus as he went to leave last they saw each other in private, donning his coat and then leaning over to steal one more kiss and a gentle hug.
"He's not older than you, is he?" Ignan asked, having white hair himself, he couldn't quite picture Johann being so happy with someone old enough to have turned white.
"No, a little younger, four years."
"Hmm." Ignan replied, surprised but not discounting the explanation. Johann interpreted it as suspicion, now that he knew something, the old wizard sounded like he was concerned Johann was out of his depth again.
"In time, Ignan. I just - well, I trust your advice, and it's good to know you're on our side, should we need it." He nodded to his elder, genuinely thankful.
"Sounds like you won't. At the expense of losing your parents." Ignan shrugged. Having had a difficult relationship with his own father until the last decade of his life when Ignan had accepted he was so set in his ways there was nothing that could be done to an old man to make him repent.
"A small price to pay."
"Merlin. Better be worth it this-"Johann smiled and shook his head, denying Ignan's tactic.
"He doesn't need to know."
"He'll ask.""He'll understand."
"If he loves you, he'll have to." Ignan replied with a frown, not for the first time in their conversation, reflecting on how Johann's expression of this relationship sounded much like a teenager, hinging everything on a first relationship. High stakes for a low return.
But either way, he really had lost the bet this time.
[5]
[13 Apr] I Prefer Badgers These Days [Snapshot]