Edinburgh Spectre Clan Estate, 1100 hours.


"You're glowing, don't you know it?" Prudence Spectre, one of their father's many grey haired sisters, commented as she accepted a glass of Whiskey from Nathaira. They were in the manor kitchen - which led outside to the main terrace - and the laughter of playing children softened the loaded remark.

Knox dismissed her aunt with a wave, "It's barely been a month since I've told you!" she exclaimed with a twinkle in her eye. "Glowing, indeed."

The older witch disappeared out into the garden, leaving her alone to deal with the state of the kitchen. They had set up the marquee outside and that was where most of the clan had gathered now to eat cake or watch the wee ones at their games. It was Alistair's birthday. Four years. Knox leaned against the doorframe to watch the joviality in the distance.

She saw mither and father in their wicker chairs, surrounded by older relations. Her many cousins danced to fiddle or pipe music that seemed to emanate from nowhere, across the green. Heads of dark auburn or shimmering blonde shook with amusement - enjoying the good autumn's sunshine. Nathaira smiled lovingly.

"I've missed the cake, haven't I?" A tired voice spoke from behind her and she turned around in mild surprise. Balfour sat at the hefty kitchen table, looking haggard in a navy cable sweater that was much too big for him. She wore one just like it over her tartan dress. Aunt Prudence wasn't creative about her gift-giving it seemed.

The youngest Spectre son smiled as he rose, and they met in a fleeting hug. "I would be late as well, if I had spent the night interrogating carls on the Wireless." Knox kissed his cheek before gesturing he sit down again. "Tea?" she was already at it - wand whisking away for the copper kettle to boil as a caddy skittered down from the cupboards. Assam, conceivably.

It was an old kitchen with old wooden furnishings and old smells and older stoves. She saw how her brother fondly watched as she set out the mugs, though he appeared confused by the third. "Rule of three. You'll see." Nathaira informed pragmatically and found three mismatched teaspoons in the drawer.

"I'm sure. How is Carr? Shouldn't you be resting?" Balfour glanced around the kitchen in search of her elusive fiancé but she only shook her head, motioning the kettle to pour. "Down with something," she sighed. "He's exiled himself from me until it's gone." They weren't taking any risks with the baby.

Knox slid one mug across the table and lowered herself on to a chair, gathering her skirts. Somewhere outside, a child shrieked loudly and set off a sequence of excitable screams. She blew on her tea. "Did you get any sleep at all?"

"Alright, you grotty little blighters! Off with the lot of ye, and let the Devil catch the hindmost! I need to wee," the flushed looking redhead's laughing voice carried from the porch to the pair inside as Nona peeled clingy children from her limbs and lovingly swatted at their behinds, "Go bug your uncles"! Glancing down at the white of her blazer she sighed a little, remembering why she almost never just came from work to gatherings. She had just been running so far behind and she'd wanted to be sure Knox wasn't doing too much. She was a care taker by nature and had probably already driven the other woman half mad with her owls and fussing and she was only in her first trimester.

"Salazra help me, but they're best damn bloody birth control," she was still laughing as she passed through the doorway, scratching at the sticky finger prints on her jacket, "Mums already on me about how good I am with the lot of 'em," she paused behind Knox, dropping a kiss on her cheek, "sure it will only get worse once the newest ghost-child comes around. Already smitten and it's the size of a knut," she squeezed Knox's shoulder for a moment, affectionate obvious in everything from her posture to her tone. She was so happy about her favorite cousin starting a family and having found someone as lovely as Carr.

Then there was Balfour, he looked absolutely wretched but some how you're lookin shite mate didn't seem to be an appropriate opener. So instead she moved around the table and placed a sisterly (or cousinly, whatever) kiss atop his head, "You not sleeping Love? Work weighing heavy"? She knew his patterns were erratic, she and Mrs. L had talked about it at length before. She had thought things were getting better, but then who knew what he'd been pulled in on now. It seemed the whole of the Ministry was scrambling since the Storm trial. Merlin knew her plate had been overflowing (which tangentially reminded her she needed to owl Camille and see how she was holding up).

"Did you get any sleep at all?"

He hadn't a chance to reply in the negative, the kitchen being unexpectedly graced as it was with the presence of their cousin. Well. Unexpected from his point of view - the third mug of tea steamed in anticipation of its owner. Balfour smiled warmly as Nona swept in, work clothes besmirched by birthday jollifications. The fourth floor was lacking two Spectres this morrow, and perhaps a touch calmer for it.

Knox indicated one of the chairs at their great table, drawing Nona's attention to the tea. "Sit, you've been on your feet all morning-" she advised. "- don't let the weans wear you thin so early."

On cue, three Spectre bairns came sprinting into the kitchen all of a sudden... one after the other, chasing, yelling. Balfour sat straight and plucked the last of the three up into the air without thinking, legs kicking into the air wildly. It was wee Marcas - not even four yet but lively all the same. "LEMME DOWN LEMME DOWN!" the blonde child screamed, even as his uncle sat him down on his knee as if though nothing had been said.

"Work weighs as always it does." Balfour replied and tried not to look so sleepy as he felt.  "Paperwork." He didn't look up as Nathaira got up to fetch a plate of oatmeal biscuits for Marcas, who had taken one of Balfour's hands and was trying to wipe off an ink stain.

His sister returned to the table, throwing Nona an amused look.

"Nonsense. I suspect it's the lad he has been seeing, keeping him up late."
            "Knox..." he warned wearily.
"Not that he's said who it is. Might you enlighten me, cousin? Take a biscuit, Marcus. Just one."

Marcus smartly obliged without complaint. The children knew better than to cross her, and Balfour snatched a biscuit just as she withdrew the plate. "You were sorted into the wrong house," he retorted - feeling sorrier for himself than all nighters normally merited - before biting into the cookie. He knew Knox was trying to deflect from talking about the Haunting Hour but this wasn't a preferable subject.

Through crumbly oatmeal, the wizard mumbled. "Don't tell her, Nona."

There was something most comforting about the sight of the third mug, just there waiting for her. Despite the age gap, Nona had always felt a particular closeness to these two particular cousins. She loved all of her family, without question, but there was a bond with Knox and Balfour she didn't share with anyone else. In part it was because she had often felt displaced in her branch of the family. She wasn't the oldest, she wasn't a twin, and she wasn't the baby. While she loved her siblings without question and all of her heart, she wanted to be important, special in a way she didn't feel she was most of the time. Classic middle child as it all ways, being with Knox and Balfour gave her that feeling.

Draping her blazer over the chair back she sat, wrapping her fingers around the steaming mug of tea, bright eyes amused as Balfour plucked Marcus up, the way anyone else might pick a flower. Her gaze shifted to Knox as her lips twitched with an amused smile, "Aye, aye, but you are the last witch in all Scotland who ought to be lecturing me about doing too much, Love".

Nona worried, though she didn't know exactly why. It was a feeling, in her bones, that Knox needed to take extra care with herself. Not typically a worrier, the fact she felt so protective of her cousin and the little light growing inside her had made the twenty-four year old a little fussier than usual. She knew it would drive the other witch crazy so she tried to curb the urge to treat her with kid gloves (it was very hard).

Then, all at once, she was in the middle, lips clamped shut. She knew a secret! She didn't even know she knew a secret! Of course, it wasn't as thought Balfour had confided in her. No, it had been the divine Mrs. L who had enlightened her (as was common place). She went to lunch with the woman more often than she did Balfour anymore. Things were bound to come up (they both might have been the teeny tiniest bit of gossips). Smirking into her tea her eyes flicked from Knox to Balfour, "that entirely depends upon what's in it for me if I don't," glancing at Marcus she snickered, "besides tiny pinchers have big ears and bigger mouths," as she reached over to brush some crumbs from the boys mouth, "and some things are too juicy to talk about in front of them".

If she was disappointed that their cousin didn't name the devil at once, Knox didn't show it.

"Besides tiny pinchers have big ears and bigger mouths, and some things are too juicy to talk about in front of them." Marcas pulled a face at the adults, hindered by his mouthful of biscuit, but made no move to leave. The temptation of grown-up topics was too great and the boy stared hungrily at her brother's unperturbed face.

Nathaira glanced out the arched windows and then smiled sweetly at the pair. "You haven't said hello to mither or father, Balfour?" she changed the subject - an artificially innocent air. He narrowed his eyes sceptically but she only sipped her tea. "Bad luck, you know."

"I suppose you'll be wanting me to just wander off, then?" Balfour showed a bit of teeth.
            "We could fetch them inside and see what they have to say about--"
"Oh, very clever."

Heaving himself to his feet, the Scotsman lifted their little cousin - tucking him under his arm, the tyke protesting. "Nooo! Juicy!" Marcas exclaimed and Knox laughed at this comical wailing. Balfour turned briefly to the witches and with an air of mock formality.

"Ladies." He gave Nona a friendly look, touched with only the faintest aspect of a warning, and carried the three year old out with him on to the terrace. The music had changed. A quick, jaunty fiddle played across the garden and drifted into the kitchen as Nathaira fondly watched her youngest sibling disappear into the shadow of the marquee.

She turned her attention to the other woman - blue eyes gleaming with amusement. "I believe that gives us some time, if father recollects this morning's incident with the pixies..." Knox ran a finger along the rim of her mug, thoughtfully tapping it as she spoke. "Enough time for a name?" she raised an eyebrow. "Or I could mention to Abigail how marvellous you are with the wee ones. If it suits you."

Balfour had always been rather spectacular with the little ones. It was this fact that had first made her utterly smitten with her cousin as a wean herself. She could remember clearly sitting in front of the fire on her father's lap, watching as the charmingly gangly boy recited poetry to the delight of clan members gathered for Burns' day festivities.

It was this fondness then that put her in direct conflict with the wickedly amusing Knox and her request for information. On one hand Balfour had offered no bribe or affection for her silence, on the other she did not respond well to threats. She was tempted to tell Knox she'd just counter act that helpful tidbit by dropping one of the bairns sturdy enough to bounce, in front of her grandbaby-happy mother.

"Really Knox," she finally hissed at the other woman, "you fight dirty. Completely unbecoming," she sipped her tea and tried not to grin as she drew out the moment as long as humanly possible, "someday I'll learn to out maneuver you, but for now age and treachery will beat out youth and beauty," she flicked her hair over one shoulder before sticking her tongue out at the other woman.

She waited to be sure Balfour was well and truly out of sight before she set her teacup down, "All I can say is that he has the cheekbones of a Greek God, and his father was a beastly old man who deserved everything he got," her features darkened for a moment, lips drawn together. She was not known to be a particularly vindictive or cruel person, but what Wolfgang Storm had done defied all Wizarding decency. As far as she was concerned he had no soul, and thus no salvation could ever be found for him, which was far more rigid and cruel than was typical for the tenderhearted Spectre.

While she couldn't make heads nor tails of cheekbones of a Greek God, there was nothing ambiguous about Nona's following remark. A copy of the Prophet still lay on the kitchen counte,  speculating on the murderous scandal of the Storm trial - that in addition to the Wireless only last evening.

Nathaira felt the smug, teasing smile on her face disappear in an instant. No. He did not. She set her mug down with a heavy thud and reached for her cousin's hand with perfect seriousness.

"The Storm lad?" she wanted to be sure but followed up the question with an exclamation of gaelic phrases that would have made grandfather Spectre blush to his auburn roots. No wonder he wouldn't tell! Knox had half a mind to find and hex her brother that instant. How bloody dare he! The boy had lost his father!

She released Nona's hand, realising that she'd actually gripped it tightly, and bit back another series of swears. The playful music outdoors was completely at odds with her mood. The tea seemed little comfort.

"Your cousin is an accomplished fool." Nathaira ran a hand through her hair, a mannerism sometimes mirrored in Balfour's  frustrated gestures. "Honestly," she hissed. "You would think he hadn't any feeling at all. Merlin knows what goes through that head."

The mood of the room shifted so suddenly Nona was sure she suffered whiplash. Watching Knox's features darken, her heart beat sped up in the worst way, growing worse as Knox gripped her fingers tightly. A Spectre with a temper was a hard thing to pin down, you could never be really sure where the energy would take the evening.

Knox was obviously upset, but Nona was at a loss as to why. Johann was a perfectly lovely person, and Balfour had seemed much... happier wasn't the right word, but there was an air about him that was different now. She could only see it as a good thing. It couldn't possibly be that he was a wizard and not a witch, Knox had never cared about anything like that before, and while no one gossiped about it, it wasn't a family secret that Balfour swung the way the wind blew him.

Reaching out she wrapped slender fingers around her cousin's pale wrist, her voice a low hiss, "Nathaira, you need to stop". Nona's eyes were deeply concerned as she stood and tried to guide the other woman back to the chair, "For Salazar's sake, think about the baby. Stress wrecks the body, you know this".

Balfour had to hand it to his sister - sending him out to mither and father was a good way of getting him out of the kitchen, although neither parent seemed impressed to note the late arrival. It was the flurry of aunts and uncles that was most distracting. Everyone asked after the dragons before they asked after him.

His only salvation was mentioning that he'd not taken breakfast. "Not eaten!" his mother squawked as Marcas was deposited on to her lap, "How can you not eat breakfast??" If she wasn't so comfortably ensconced in the wicker chair, he was certain she'd try to force feed him the birthday cake.

The wizard excused himself easily enough, leaving with the promise of a dance to at least three of his wee cousins on the green.

---


"For Salazar's sake, think about the baby." Was all he heard on ducking into the kitchen, this time coming through the inner passage after entering the manor by its main door. "Stress wrecks the body, you know this." Nona seemed to have a gentle hold of Knox.

What was this about the baby? Balfour was on the verge of asking what in Valhalla was going on when he recognised the look his sister gave him. Shit.

The witch was on her feet in an instant, shaking off the other woman's hand in favour of her wand. "Balfour Spectre!" Nathaira - and she was Nathaira in this state of bristling locks and heated cheeks - reprimanded. He ducked as a saucer flew off one of the kitchen shelves and smashed into the wall behind him. "You were raised better than this!"

Another saucer went sailing past. Balfour flinched. That was the good china as well. He glanced at Nona uncertainly.

"Christ, what did you d--"

But Knox was at him again, switching up the saucer for the mug of tea he'd not finished earlier, and he had the good sense to step out of the way entirely as it slammed against the doorframe. "Don't you dare scold her for telling me something you didn't have the balls t'say!" she was right in his face now but he tried hard not to back away, bewildered.

"Don't you think you're overreacting?" Balfour managed to get a word in although he regretted it immediately. He watched his sister go still all of a sudden; they were nearly the same height and with her mess of curls she seemed larger than life in his eyes. "Knox, are you alr--?"

That was all he got out before she slapped him in the face, quick and castigating. It was the emotional surprise that caught him out and Balfour touched his left cheek gingerly as he gaped at Nathaira. That stung. Her lips were pressed thinly together, calm by force.  "We've never lost a parent. Try to imagine that," she looked him in the eye searchingly. "Honestly, Balfour."

Before he could even think of how to respond, Knox walked right past him out into the corridor. He closed his eyes briefly, self-admonishing, and then opened them to the only other occupant in the kitchen. Aye. An audience even when he didn't want one.

"That wasn't your fault." Balfour said distractedly, buying time to think. "In case you were wondering."

The guilt Nona felt intensified three fold as Knox hurled the cup toward Balfour's head "NATHAIRA"!

Nona clutched her chest like a little old Nanny, torn between running after Knox, fixing Balfour a drink (that slap looked wicked, but more emotional damage than physical, probably.), and simply bursting into tears. How in the world had simple conversation turned into an all out knock down in the family kitchen?

Rubbing the bridge of her nose she turned on her heel and moved to the counter were a bottle of Firewhiskey waited. She would fix them both a drink, because if he was going to yell at her she wanted to dull her senses. if he had told her it was very serious, he had to have known.

Two tumblers of ice and the bottle levitated before her to the table, "I can't cover your ass if you don't tell me why I need to be covering. So now you get to sit here and tell me why one of the most self contained woman I know just lost her every loving mind. What did you do to Johann"?

Not even noon yet, and they were breaking out the Firewhiskey. He was in the right house for it.

Balfour didn't wait for an invitation as he moved to meet the drinks, pouring himself a quick dram of the liquor and tossing it back so quickly that he had to hold the table for balance when the tumbler emptied. Drinking on an empty stomach was inadvisable even for Scotsmen - hardly the breakfast his mother was expecting him to consume. The thought kept him from having a second nip and he pulled out a chair instead, dropping into it heavily.

What did he do to Johann? Merlin, what didn't he do to Johann. Balfour bit back that bawdy remark. Nobody in their right mind needed two Spectre witches throwing things at them in the same hour.

"I didn't want you to..." he trailed off, hands around the empty glass as he grimaced. Nona didn't know about his Haunting Hour hobbies and he had no intention of getting her - or anyone else in the clan - involved. "I was an arse, alright?"

Surely she would believe that. His gender certainly had a knack for it and he wasn't an exception to the rule irregardless of what the Witch Weekly might erroneously report.

The plate of oatmeal cookies were still on the table and he helped himself to one, though all it did was make him think of that parting shot from Knox. She knew him. She knew his heart was in the right place most of the time and that every so often it would forget itself for intellectual ambition.

"You didn't need to see that, Nona. Knox would have found out about Johann eventually." Balfour smiled wearily at his relative, touched by her concern. "I said something to him that I shouldn't have, considering his... circumstances. It was crass." He bit his inner cheek sulkily - trying to make it obvious that he didn't want to go into specifics. "But I'll set it right. Somehow. I'm afraid she won't have none of me for while, however."

If past experience was anything to go by, he could expect a Howler waiting for him at work one of these days.

Nona didn't sit, she couldn't. He looked wretched, he probably hadn't eaten. He took such rotten care with himself sometimes. She worried, but of course when she voiced concern he tended to pat her on the head (less so literally these days, but still dissmissive all the same), and tell her not to. She knew she was young but it didn't mean she was stupid, not that he or Knox ever treated her exactly like they thought she was, maybe just more like she was too young to understand - which was a crock of shit.

"You're an abysmal liar, and I can't believe you kiss your mother with that mouth," again she turned on her heel and moved toward the counter, fussing over various dishes while she compiled a plate for him. This is what she did, well what all the Spectre women did really. Showing concern through care-taking was easier than talking about it sometimes. It was their love language, she wondered sometimes if other people even realized it.

Returning to the table with plate and utensils in hand, she slapped his fingers as he reached for another biscuit, "Real food, no one in this house fancies cleaning up sick this time of day, or any other actually," brown eyes moving to the door Knox had exited. She knew he was right and she wouldn't be back to deal with him, but a part of her hoped he was wrong. She hated when they fought. It happened a couple times a year but never failed to make her feel discombobulated.

Discord was not something she handled well in her personal life, perhaps because it was such a part of her professional world. Still she couldn't just let it lie the way he left it. Long fingers wrapped around the whiskey bottle but she didn't pour herself a drink, "I know it's not as simple as all that, Cousin. You're not cruel, and she wouldn't be that angry with you for being inadvertently careless. You don't have to tell me what you actually did, but please don't insult my intelligence".

Nona saw through him almost as quickly as Mrs Lanningham might have. "You're an abysmal liar, and I can't believe you kiss your mother with that mouth."

Balfour watched his cousin busying herself at one of the kitchen counters, a quiet smirk pulling at his lips. Lying wasn't the worst thing he'd done with his mouth of late, though he thought he did it with much better flair than she realised. He swallowed the remark and focused his gaze past the witch, looking through the high windows at the marquee outside. Jovial smiles, dancing, the odd shriek of laughter.

His attention wandered and it almost came as a surprise when Nona plunked the plate of leftovers on the table. Balfour picked up a fork without thinking, glancing at the oatmeal biscuits dolefully.

Cormag liked to joke that he was spoiled by the women of their family. In spite of Knox's outburst, it wasn't the most outlandish accusation.

"I'm not going to tell you what I did," he poked at the baked beans pointedly. "Because it's nobody's business - not even Nathaira's." And she only got away with hurling the fine china because she was his older sister: the only other Spectre he had told about the Haunting Hour.

Another dram of Whiskey looked awfully tempting now, with sustenance to accompany it. He refilled the tumbler but didn't drink yet. Nona had said that he wasn't cruel. Was she right? Would Knox agree? Balfour played his motives close to the heart and he didn't know what to say to that offhand statement. In his view, though he rarely expressed it, all people were cruel or capable of great cruelty.

The wizard drank. "Can we simply agree that I deserved what I got?" As he made the observation, Balfour knew it was true. "We'll need to charm the saucers back together before mither notices, or she'll have my head for upsetting Knox..." he tried to veer away from the subject of Johann again.

Every time it came up it was all he could do not to picture the poor wizard alone on the coast, subjected to foul-mouthed Jarvies.

"I just said," she trailed off and huffed a little. It did make her worry though. Obviously it was about Johann. Whatever her cousin had or hadn't done, whatever loyalty she felt for Balfour, she and Johann had been friends (at least what Nona considered friends) for a good long while before any of that even started. He had always struck her as a guarded but...strangely sad person.

It was the eyes, the hollows of his cheeks. He worked so hard and could be so grim. It wasn't always the case, but she worried how he was really holding up in the wake of his father's death. She wanted so much to make it better for him, to ease whatever confusion, anger, or pain he felt. It was the same with Camille. When she thought of the other woman her heart sank a little.

"I love you dearly, like a brother. I always have. As such I always want to believe the best about you, if you've hurt that poor man..." there was no threat of bodily harm as she used her wand to begin gathering up the pieces of broken china. She had nothing to hold over Balfour, nothing to make him step back into line.

The only thing any of them ever had was threatening to withhold affection or time - and that really only worked for Knox, because she was who mattered to Balfour. Besides she didn't want to threaten him anyway, she wanted him to think about whatever it was he'd done and not do it again. Or at least talk to her about it. His own moral compass was notoriously gray. Sometimes he needed a little guidance.

Balfour managed a few spoonfuls of beans and hash, aware that his stomach was hungry but his appetite had all but disappeared. He was starting to feel the hours of sleep missed last night - the sense of transparency that Ira imparted, reading through his act at the bumbling mess he'd gotten himself into.

All the world seemed to care about Johann Storm and the wizard was nowhere to be found. Even sitting here was an effort, knowing what he did about his whereabouts.

Nona wasn't giving in to diversion. "I love you dearly, like a brother. I always have. As such I always want to believe the best about you, if you've hurt that poor man..." the tone of her voice was a familiar one, he'd heard as much from aunts and even the bossier little nieces.

He would normally let it go because she was family, and family meant well even when they were being overbearing. But Balfour was still sore from his sister's reproach.

"If I hurt that poor man... what?" he dropped his fork and raised his brow at the witch, defensive. It annoyed him that anyone else would call Johann poor. "Will you tell on me? Recruit Mrs Lanningham?" The idea of his secretary's wrath was legitimately terrifying but he'd borne the worst of tempers with Knox. "Johann isn't a child. You know Nona, not everyone goes to pieces when they're hurt and even if they did it still wouldn't be anyone's business unless he made it theirs."

Which was the only reason he wasn't looking for his partner right now. People were more like magical creatures than they understood - when an ache needs to be soothed, they'll go to what best can heal it. For Johann that was solitude. Or Jarvies.

Balfour bit down on his inner cheek, angry with himself for letting Nona get a rise out of him - she didn't know better. She cared deeply for them, that was all.

"I don't want to talk about this. It isn't something that's gonnae be solved by a cup of tea and a sensible attitude, alright?" he didn't like to talk down to his cousins - it made him feel horrible, always - but something about Knox expecting a child made every other Spectre witch more stubborn than was usual. "Just leave it."