There was a strange feeling in the air as he crossed the atrium. Monday morning was always busy, the start of the week, new beginnings, a renewed start after the weekend. Magical maintenance rued the dirty footsteps across gleaming floors, an administrator from the Department of Magical Transport double-checked his combover after emerging from a fireplace, the Daily Prophet stand pushing papers all too loud, dropping the t, hat poised forty-five degrees. Everything looked the same, and yet he did not feel the same.

His lift fellows were quiet, he ignored their glances left and right, stood quite still in the middle of the golden cage, anticipating the sway this way and that as it navigated the route to the fifth floor.

Here, nods, no great greetings from those in the corridor, hurrying to Monday morning meetings, or to deal with international crises. Nobody quite knew what to say, so hurried past, pretending they were mute, unable to stop. But up ahead were familiar faces.

"Merlin, the state of you." Pinn's embrace squeezed the breath out of him. "So sorry. We couldn't believe it when we heard." He prised her arms from him gently, uttered thanks gave her a smile that didn't reach his eyes to reassure her. They had managed superbly in his absence, he was sure, and they would continue. He had prepared them well.

His trip across the office took him past more colleagues who now avoided his gaze. His steps became heavier, and his neutral expression became harder to carry as he approached her door. His hand trembled as he knocked, and he fumbled the knob.

The noise of the office was blotted out as he closed it behind him with a click, and he forced a shaky breath into his lungs before turning back and approaching her desk, not meeting her eyes.

He withdrew an envelope[1] from his inside jacket pocket, and extended it towards her, willing his hand not to tremble.

1.

4th October, 2010 Ms Gabrielle Murray Department of International Magical Co-Operation Dear Gabrielle, With regret, I write to notify you I have decided to resign from my position as linguist to the British Ministry of Magic. Although I am required to work seven weeks' notice I would appreciate it if I could shorten this notice and reduce my hours back to part time, as due to ill health and recent events I am unable to work my full notice period. I apologise for the short notice and any inconvenience this may cause, though anticipate this offer may come as some relief to the Minister. Thank you for the opportunities, support and experience you have given me during my time here. I could never have asked for better colleagues, and for a better opportunity to serve Britain since my arrival. I wish you and the rest of the Department the very best for the future. Please let me know if you can accommodate this shorter notice period and if there’s anything I can do to help make the transition easier. Yours Sincerely, Johann Felix Storm

She hadn't enjoyed coming in this morning anymore than Johann had. The weekend had been relatively less stressful, less burdensome than if she had stayed alone in the manor. There had still been moments she felt utterly hopeless, the vision of rats, blood plaguing her dreams, leaving Gabrielle to feel absolutely defenseless. She never mentioned it up to Francis, concerned and frightened to say why she had looked particularly pale yesterday morning when waking, but knew deep down he knew. Dressed in slate hues, her face was drawn into thin lines, her heart in a silent fit of mourning rage. Entering the department, Gabrielle went immediately to work, avoiding much talk, disregarding a genuinely worried inquiry from Hamilton, slamming the door behind her as she entered her office.

A few hours passed, her eyes perhaps a bit reddened as she spoke away to the self-scribbling quill, knowing fully well that writing with her own hand wouldn't work due to being so bothered. It was until her door opened again that Gabrielle paid any attention to her surroundings. Johann's entrance left her heart thunking out of worry, concern. Any chances of anger was nowhere to be seen, heard, but her hand did tremble like his own with the letter exchange. Taking it, Gabrielle pried it open, reading it twice before swallowing.

The letter, parchment and envelope, were rejoined as one as she slid it into the upper right drawer, eyes soon focused on her cousin. "No. My answer is no." Gabrielle's body heaved. "I can't, I won't -- I refuse you to leave because of this. Damn all what everyone may say, may think, but you can't leave me here no more than I can leave you to your mind. If I let you go so easily, I--" Tears began falling, Gabrielle began suddenly to start crying once more, incapable of continuing what she felt about this letter.

"No, my answer is no."

Johann closed his eyes, lips parting where his teeth gritted behind them.

"I can't, I won't - I refuse you to leave because of this."

"Plea…" Johann's quietly uttered word didn't make it out fully.

"Damn all what everyone may say, may think, but you can't leave me here no more than I can leave you to your mind. If I let you go so easily, I -."

"Please Gabrielle." He spoke very quietly, and opened his eyes, meeting hers at last, where he saw they were red-rimmed. He knew that expression, it had stared him in the face enough of late from the mirror with his own features.

Merlin, she was crying.

His mouth fell open in surprise, unable to form any words of comfort. This was awful.

"Cousin!" He exclaimed, more out of fright at her reaction as he stood horrified the other side of her desk. The day his father had died, Gabrielle had been the calm voice amongst them with Mira, had taken his mother out of the courtroom while he'd raged at colleagues, distraught, not sure whether to laugh or to cry.

And then he'd left them and snarled from afar.

It took five strides to round the desk of his superior, to fall on one knee beside her desk chair on the rich carpet and wrap his great long arms around her shoulders.

"I'm not le-" he stopped himself. He couldn't ever convince someone he wasn't leaving after vanishing twice in three months without warning. It was what he did, leave people.

"I don't ask lightly." He tried instead. He was trying to do it the right way, after all. He could have not come back at all.

Could he not likewise see what a burden this was for her? That having to stand up and be a saviour for the family she had here from abroad? To be the matriarch of sorts admist trial and tribulation? She had vouched for him so much that Gabrielle questioned how it was still possible she still had this job. First Azize, now Johann? Merlin, it made the department feel all the more lonely. It wasn't just Johann deciding to leave slowly but surely. It was the thoughts also of losing touch, care of another family member.  His embracing did little to persuade all would be well, causing Gabrielle to hug him closer, tighter than before.

"You asking to go, leave is not relatively simple," she finally stated after calming herself down. "Though, I suppose I understand why you would want to go. Merln, you make this extremely difficult on us both." Gabrielle swallowed the lump in her throat, sighing a moment later. "I d-don't mind to reduce your workload, but I won't terminate you from the position you've worked your arse off for. Just please reconsider, won't you?" Gabrielle pleaded  with doing her best to not sound whiny. Even so, she hoped her facial expressions told Johann it wasn't just him wanting to go away on a permanent basis. That there was much more to it.

That his cousin was feeling the loss of Wolfgang on a level she often felt during the Christmas season when came to remembering that Mina wasn't going to be there for the celebrations. Sniffling, Gabrielle sighed once more, fighting back the tears.

Gabrielle's hands clutched him closer and his eyes widened a bit at her grip. He could feel her frame sobbing beneath his arms and felt awful.

Eventually she began to explain.
".. Merlin, you make this extremely difficult on us both." His heart felt all the heavier at these words. He had never ever wanted to make things difficult for Gabrielle.
"I don't mean to…" He replied very softly, wincing.

He prised her away just enough so he could lean back enough to read her expression, his arms still entangled with hers as he knelt on the carpet beside her desk chair, his head a little lower than hers.

"I d-don't mind to reduce your workload, but I won't terminate you from the position you've worked your arse off for. Just please reconsider, won't you?"

Johann's mouth twitched uncomfortably and he averted his gaze from hers to think. It had been almost twenty-two months since he'd begun working for the Department, though he felt he could hardly count September what with all that had gone on and the compulsory leave while he sat through his father's trial. She was right, he had worked hard to prove his worth in the early days, taken on in a part time basis, keen to be busy and useful.

"I'm 'unreliable', Gabrielle, I can't have you worrying yourself whether I'm up to the job. If I wasn't …" he exhaled and blinked slowly, looking back to her, trying not to let the irritation of the description on his ministry file show in his voice.

"If I wasn't family I doubt you'd have given me so many chances. You've put your reputation on the line for me." He gently squeezed her arms. "But a reduction in hours would go a long way at the moment, if you'll see it? I don't want to leave you in the lurch, but equally I don't want to let you down again."

Johann was right, so very right about this entire situation. If they weren’t family and if she didn’t have half the heart she did, Gabrielle would have sacked him long ago. However, Johann was also right about her reputation – and given the affairs inside the courtroom, the blood and death shed in that now abysmal passage hadn’t helped much – it was on the line more than usual. She could easily lie to herself and to Johann that glances from other departments about her loyalties and stances were perhaps a bit grimmer, searching for truths that were likely true. The shoulder squeeze didn’t seem to help much.

“Not because of you really, but being let down is something I’ve been used to for a good long time. It isn’t you; it’s me being extremely hard on myself about everything lately. What your mother and you went through last month reminded me just how important morality truly is. It’s unfortunate what has happened, but I have no doubt you and Camille will make it through. As for the matter of being unreliable, I’d unfortunately have to agree with you. You’ve been distant, not to mention fleeing from your duties after what happened with your father. I don’t know how I necessarily would have handled it, but an owl to Wiltshire would have been very nice indeed,” Gabrielle reprimanded firmly, a mouthful it seemed to spill from her lips.

“That all said – can I depend on you to work at half pace? A-as I said before, you’re one of the best the department has ever had and I’d really hate to lose someone so integral, valuable to us all.” Sighing, Gabrielle no doubt looked worn out herself from stressing over everything, including worrying about what to do for Johann and Camille both. “Can I get us a pot of coffee? Tea, if you’ll take it?”

"… I have no doubt you and Camille will make it through…" Johann nodded, in no doubt either. He and his mother had plenty of people looking out for them, from family to friends and new colleagues for her.

"… As for the matter of being unreliable, I’d unfortunately have to agree with you." Johann swallowed, feeling it was probably about time that she told him the truth, so he lowered his chin and averted his eyes to her desktop.

"… You’ve been distant, not to mention fleeing from your duties after what happened with your father. I don’t know how I necessarily would have handled it, but an owl to Wiltshire would have been very nice indeed,”

He nodded several times, blinking, regretting his cowardly behaviour.
"I know, and I am truly sorry." He told her quietly.

“That all said – can I depend on you to work at half pace? A-as I said before, you’re one of the best the department has ever had and I’d really hate to lose someone so integral, valuable to us all.”

His blue eyes turned to her, realising how much he had damaged the trust between them both of late. It would take a long while to heal it.
"I will do my best, and you have my promise I will let you know if I cannot." He assured her, reaching and squeezing her forearm closest to him.

“Can I get us a pot of coffee? Tea, if you’ll take it?"
"Either would be lovely. Thank you." He replied, and released her, getting back to his feet and moving away. He felt leaden all of a sudden. His limbs heavy, and he took the seat opposite her desk again.

"Kelly[1] is more than capable of covering, and Pinn[2] has exceeded expectations with her work. I'll make sure they are both well supported and briefed on anything I take charge on usually." He assured Gabrielle, sounding hollow as he rubbed his eyes with his left fingertips, trying to dispel the tears that had been threatening to join Gabrielle's.

"They won't be as good, but neither will I if I carry on like usual." He lowered his hand, watching the assembly of hot drinks. "That's what's so damned frustrating. Much as I want to drown myself in work I-." He exhaled, irritated. "Sorry. And I'm sorry that our loss has brought up old memories for you too." He winced, "Please pretend very hard I spoke that far more eloquently."

1.	Amelie Kelly
2.	Roberta Pinn, a Junior

"I'll make sure Kelly and Pinn find a way to hold a part of your wait. Might even have to dip into grabbing Hamilton to help -- don't worry, I won't give him cases I know you're far more intellectual at than him," she replied, nodding as the tea cups and saucers went to their respective owners. Rubbing her own eyes and found she was extremely irritated about having outburst like she had, Gabrielle avoided the initial eye contact, opting for clasping the tea cup instead. Raising it to her lips, she blew gently on the hot liquid before drinking from it very slowly, savoring the floral notes of the peony. "Please pretend very hard I spoke that far more eloquently."

Her eyes met Johann's once again.

"You did, no worries." A heavy sigh. "Bad memories never really leave you, do they? Especially when your eyes see things it ought not?" Gabrielle responded, sounding a bit darkly than she ever really did in a normal conversation. "I never really expected to have something as horrible as his death remind me of...." My mother, her brain finished, her mouth dry from being able to vocalise such a thought.

"Don't you dare let Hamilton near my duties, or even joke of it." Johann retorted, a genuinely dangerous look suddenly crossing his face as he gripped his teacup. "If it's that bad Gusty would exceed him tenfold. At least he's got a brain, even if he's lacking decent ears." Johann elaborated on his former senior colleague who had carried an ear trumpet and had retired back in June.

On realising he'd already overstepped the mark, he sat back again, muttering.
"Sorry, sorry." The tea preoccupied his tongue for a moment and the relatives both shared the space in silence.

"No they don't. Not even with them removed to a pensieve, I read." Johann remarked, returning to Gabrielle's comment of bad memories, shaking his head. "Obliviation, perhaps, but curse the thought. You could lose so much more." He lifted his left hand to rub at his temple, wanting nothing of the sort to happen.

"I see it over and over. I can't get my head around how it could have happened. I fully expected he'd be in Azkaban now." He lowered his hand and transferred the saucer to it again, looking awkward. His gaze was focused somewhere to Gabrielle's right. "Thank you for looking after my mother that day. You and Miranda both kept her together. I owe you both."

The fingers of his right hand wrapped gently around the handle of the teacup once more.
"October 13th, by the way. Back at the family plot in Hanover." His disordered thinking skipped from one thing to the next internally, forgetting to elaborate verbally that he was referring to the chosen date for his father's funeral.

"That makes two of us."

She sighed gently. "Don't worry about payback, Johann. You're family and I know you're bound to make up for in many days and weeks  to come. As for Camille, I know you all would do the same for me." A pause. "Have, in a manner of speaking. Ignan was here when Mother passed. I barely just recall him there -- I was four, confused, bewildered, devastated that my stepfather could be so cruel as to poison my mother to avoid my father from ever having a semi-normal life with us. Would I have become a Durmstrang graduate like himself, never meeting Francis or any of the friends I do now? Who knows. However. Ignan was there and even as I often look at him now with a curious brain, I still see a twenty five year old man, bending over to ease my tears when I had to say goodbye because everyone was so grief stricken."

Tears that had fought their ways back were there in the corner of her eyes, Gabrielle sniffling to wipe them away quickly to avoid another moment of hysteric grief. However, it felt nice to talk about Mina to someone who never had begun to meet the witch that was her mother. "I'll be there -- in Hanover, I promise. Might....might give me an opportunity to drop off flowers on another site nearby. I don't know if flowers have even made it there, considering all. That said, you and your mother will have me there. No worries. As for your work, I'll stick your pair -- they'll do fine."

Over tea, the conversation shifted from business to family with no visible divide. There had always been a blurring of the lines. Johann listened in silence, focusing on Gabrielle's words over the noise in his head which had flared with the anxiety of the exchange.

He tried to imagine Gabrielle at four, and how far back that was to imagine cousin Ignan, who he could rarely picture as anything other than white haired and senior. The exchange had clearly left a lasting impression on Gabrielle for her to bring it up now. Highlighting that not all the family were incapable of demonstrating compassion in times of grief.

"Thank you." Johann responded, feeling a little calmer for the tea and the promise. "And cousin Ignan will be there. We must all stop meeting at funerals though." He sighed, it was two within the space of a year at the plot. He'd laid awake the other night wondering about his own in a moment of darkness.

"One day I would be very interested to hear of your side of the family." He shifted in his chair, "The others spoke very little of the English relatives. I did not realise until we buried Great Uncle Merik that Ignan's mother was not there. Time goes on I see you as closer family than any Gundersen, Storm, more like mother and I." His lips curled to a faint smile.

Gabrielle lowered her head in humility, humbleness at Johann's kind words.

"Th-thank you; that means a great deal to hear you say such things."

Even now in darker times, Gabrielle thought to herself, wishing well to keep from offending Johann as well as harming the conversation that the two were having with one another. "As for telling you stories of the family, nothing would please more than to do so. After all, there are so many to choose from and even though I lament losing Mother, I would dare say there are the faintest memories of her singing to me, playing even. Photographs don't even begin to justify those moments together. I just wish Father hadn't run away, burying himself in work to avoid the grief. However, Mother must have been beside herself when Aunt Amelia died. No matter though as we all made it eventually, one way another."

Her eyes moved to Johann's, lips curling into a warm smile for him. "And I agree -- family meetings aren't to be made at a funeral. It's most unbecoming." A little dark humor there, she mused, but knew the pair of them needed a brief moment to not be concerned about death.

"… burying himself in work to avoid the grief…" Johann's eyes dropped briefly to his cousin's desk and he swallowed before meeting her gaze again. It was one way to forget in the short term, to keep busy, he could empathise on a simple level with her father.

"… family meetings aren't to be made at a funeral. It's most unbecoming."

"And we'll run out of family members before too long." Johann agreed, leaning forward to set down his teacup on the edge of Gabrielle's desk. He wet his lips as he did, conscious he had drunk his tea a little more quickly than he might ordinarily. His mouth was dry with nerves.

"November 19th then. Unless I see to reconsider." He spoke softly and swiftly, returning them to the reason he had approached her desk that morning upon returning. "And if you can see it, a reduction to twenty-four hours in a week will be a great help." He gave her a rather formal nod.

"Thank you for the tea, Gabrielle. I don't doubt we'll speak again, but I have a team to rally and a mountain to catch up on." He got to his feet, rounded her visitors chair, hands clasped behind his back and paused, glancing back to her, worried.

"I really do mean it, cousin. I owe you a great debt." The words were not spoken lightly for either of them.



End