Just before midnight

It had been mid-afternoon when Miranda Storm’s badge had summoned her to St Mungo’s at a suspiciously optimum time. She’d been currently struggling to resist the urge to rip into her new step son. She’d been very possibly causing a rather substantial issue between herself and her newly recovered husband. She’d been glad to escape through the fireplace, shortly followed by the house elf with the shoes she’d forgotten.

It was now late night and Miranda certainly hadn’t needed to stay quite as late as she had. But she’d decided to avoid Ignan for a while longer, aware that he would need time to calm down. Besides, the mixture of potions he was still taking might encourage his mind to conveniently forget the earlier encounter. Or at least he would be asleep when she returned home.

So, when the living room fire burst to life and the witch stepped out, a relief came over her to see not wizard sat waiting for her. She silently slipped her footwear off, leaving it by the fireplace and she headed into the kitchen. After collecting a fresh glass of water, the witch headed up the stairs to the bedroom. The living room lights automatically dimmed, the flamed slowly vanishing to leave darkness downstairs.

The bedroom door was open as usual and Mira’s eye swept over the room lit only by moonlight. The familiar lump on the right side of the bed signalled her sleeping husband and the new furry resident was curled up at his feet in a ball. Miranda, as quietly as she ever was, stepped up to the bed and placed her glass on the table. She spent a few minutes in the small bathroom, washing her face and teeth before returning to the dim bedroom.

Miranda was an odd witch, Ignan had considered, lying in the dark of their bedroom. She picked fights in her professional life, telling off her floor heads, snapping at her trainees, firing a few since she took charge. She sniped at people in public given half a chance. She’d more than once come to Hogwarts before they lived in Hogsmeade, to wind him up or suggest student abductions were convenient excuses for not attending a viewing of the house they now lived in. She did not hold back in telling him off - especially when it came to healing matters.

Then conversely, when put on the spot or on the back foot, she vanished. She would not pick a fight unless she knew she could win it. She’d left the room when she’d first learned of Sasha, she’d removed herself - whether conveniently or otherwise - earlier that day when he’d arrived. Now she hadn’t come home, hours after any rational healing emergency would ordinarily be over. The wireless had not alluded to any crises along the lines of exploding buildings, mass poisonings, dementor attacks.

She was avoiding matters.

Ignan accepted he was not beyond doing the same. They had never truly sat down to discuss how Sasha fitted into their life as a married couple. They had mutually accepted, or so he thought, without speaking, that Sasha was of age, and financially very accommodated for by the late family who raised him. Like Maya, he would not ordinarily cause them much issue unlike a child of younger age.

He had retired when he felt weary, earlier than he might ordinarily, but since climbing beneath the sheets, Ignan had lain resolutely awake. He’d closed his eyes, but his mind was very much awake. Between mulling over his wife’s reaction to Sasha, her dissection of the younger wizard’s interest in comparing the Muggle and Magical worlds, his thoughts had also turned to the fact he was due to return to teaching on the Monday, and his right shoulder was still not back to normal. Casting was painful, and it all remained rather stiff. Past that, he also had runes drawn into him which would need redrawn again and again to keep him alive for the foreseeable future.

Decades before Ignan and Death had been closer fellows. His wand had sent other men Death’s way. He had laughed at the times had escaped Death’s handshake. Fled the black cloaktails and scythe. But as he grew older, and Death took so many in fights and battles, and disputes and age, he sobered to respect the final full stop on life’s sentence. He was responsible. He was altogether too friendly with Death and he had no legal contract to supply.

Sasha had seen Death far too many times for someone his age. As much as he blithely brushed it aside, he had lost those who had raised him, a classmate, his sister, and nearly his biological father. Miranda had not at all stepped up, to his understanding, and Ignan could understand why given her state when he had finally come round. The young wizard’s reaction to discussing Death earlier in Miranda’s wake had only made Ignan feel more acutely responsible. Even if he did not do anything for, or towards Sasha, he was still tied to him, irreversibly. Responsible.

When Miranda finally made it into their bedroom, Ignan played dead. It was late, and he had to give the woman he loved the benefit of the doubt that she had genuinely been tied up with some emergency for hours. Though his gut instinct was that she had wanted to be anywhere but home for a few hours.

“You’re back late,” he spoke wearily, laid on his left side, facing away from Miranda. “Something keep you?”

Of course, he was awake. He was waiting to speak to her, to admonish her for her attitude towards his illegitimate and secret son. Mira paused, about to unbutton her decidedly muggle trousers. Her lips parted as she considered how to respond to the man who didn’t turn to face her.

She could have told him that she’d battled through paperwork just to avoid a conversation with him. She could have admitted to having stayed late until she was quite certain he’d have fallen asleep after his potions. She could have simply lied and told him that the emergency she’d been called in for had needed a lot of clean up that only she’d been able to really do. But Miranda was about as good at lying as her husband was at making friends.

“Paperwork.” She muttered, not much feeling like going into any further detail.  Next to his feet, Miranda watched the furry lodger stretch and stand, evidently disturbed by the voices. He began to pad over the bed to her but she ignored him for a moment, stalling in her undressing. Perhaps it wouldn’t be wise to stay at home tonight if she was only going to be greeted by a grumpy bastard that had remained awake just to reprimand her.

“You’re awake late. Did you take your potions?”

“Can’t sleep.” Ignan admitted, opening his eyes, not that Miranda could see easily from the direction he was facing. “And yes. Gerda will vouch as witness.” He rubbed at his eyes with his right hand, feeling the cat’s warmth leave the back of his calves. He’d let it curl up against him in the hope it might make him sleepy to have another presence in the room. It had taken advantage of his lethargy and slow pace since he’d been discharged from St Mungo’s by sitting on or against him at every opportunity.

More awake again, Ignan rolled over carefully, almost onto his back, so he could squint in the dark at his wife’s figure. She was stood at the foot of the bed, and he could see the bushy end of the cat’s tail raised in greeting to her. “You left rather abruptly this afternoon,” he remarked, evenly, and somewhat sleepily. He’d had time to brew on this, and he’d had time to reconsider more than once. Sasha’s choice of topic with healing was always going to end badly, Ignan never won those, and he had the best odds. 

“And you’re suddenly overcome with the irresistible need to state the obvious.” The witch responded quickly, irritated. She was tired and had believed that her irritation from the boy’s visit had been quelled with several hours at work. Focusing on what she did best was normally the perfect way to distract herself. But as soon as Ignan began to question her? She grew once more frustrated. Not only had this boy shown up at their home unexpected and uninvited, now her husband was questioning her reaction to it.

“Would you rather I had hung around for goodbye kisses? Perhaps an emotional farewell instead of going to do my job?” Her tone was cold but it was evident that she was pushing the emotion back and she knew that Ignan could nearly always tell. But he was tired and affected by potions. It was dark in the room so he had less information to go on.

Deciding she wasn’t going to let this drive her back to St Mungo’s, Miranda began to unbutton her decidedly muggle trousers, sitting on the edge of the bed to slip them off.

“… irresistible need to state the obvious.” Miranda was irritated, her tone was sharp and she was altogether more awake than Ignan had felt for hours now.
“Yes, I suppose I am.” Ignan uttered almost inaudibly and sighed, still reclined on the bed, glancing between her outline and the ceiling.

“Did I say anything to suggest that was the case?” He asked, too tired to rise to the bait of Mira’s overly-dramatic response, but the frown on his face reflected in his voice. “Besides,” he muffled a yawn, “I’ve never seen you do goodbye kisses or emotional farewells. To do such would have been all the more unsettling.” He reached across to his right shoulder and gripped it before lying on his back properly. If he was awake much longer he’d need to take an extra dose to numb the ache.

“What would you have done,” he posed sleepily, staring up at the ceiling, “had I died?”

It was one of those topics of question you got on to in the small hours of the morning where the edges of reality became most fuzzy.

He was in pain from the shoulder. He should have gone to sleep rather than insisting on staying up to moan at her about his secret son. Miranda bit back any sympathy for her husband as she threw her trousers in the direction of the laundry bag in the corner of the room. In the darkness, she wasn’t certain if they found their target. Gerda would sort it with a look of disapproval in the morning.

“…had I died?” Ignan tried, seemingly pretending to be sleepy. If he truly was, he’d not have asked her such a question. The witch grit her teeth, but kept her back to him as she considered her words. She shouldn’t have had to consider such a thing. She’d nearly had to plan his funeral after less than three full months of marriage.

“In regards to your son?” She questioned as calmly as possible, any mention of her husband dying unnerving her. All she wanted to do at that moment was to slip into bed and sleep. Ignan knew she struggled as it was to maintain a decent sleep pattern. Now he was disrupting it with his deep questions about death and her attitude towards his son.

“He’d have been invited to the funeral,” she finally answered, “just like any other family member.” Then she stood and pulled her blouse off over her head, keeping her back to her husband.

Once the blouse, too, was thrown at the basket, Miranda finally turned to look at her husband in the moonlight.
“Why would you ask that? He has no stake on our house, he certainly isn’t in my will and you won’t even publicly acknowledge him as your offspring.”

“I know,” Ignan replied distantly, settling his hands across his stomach, fingers laced. His wedding ring reflected a little in the light. “What is mine shall go to you for as long as we are married.” That was how it worked in law. Now who was stating the obvious!

He knew Miranda had turned around to regard him, but his pale gaze continued to study the way the light stretched across their bedroom ceiling from the window. “It’s been a long afternoon without you.”

He blinked slowly, brow furrowed, easily enough recognised as the expression where Ignan’s subconscious was preoccupied with something else. Ordinarily the older wizard would suggest other younger family members were over-thinkers, but never himself. His keen sense of mortality and his enforced physical slow-down had only allowed his mind to keep him occupied as he licked his wounds. It was part of the reason he had been quietly thankful Miranda was home more than usual.

“You don’t like him, do you.” It was more of a rhetorical statement than a query.

“It’s been a long afternoon without you.” Ignan surprised Miranda with his somewhat emotional statement. Perhaps the potions were sending him loopy. She hoped the potions were sending him loopy. Miranda had married a usually cold and detached wizard who didn’t display emotions and kept her emotions in check. She wasn’t sure how she would cope if that changed because of his brush with death.

So, she stared at him, brows narrowing in a mixture of confusion and irritation. Was he angry with her or was he sad that she’d abandoned him all afternoon and evening? Was he suddenly going to become the husband that waited up for his workaholic wife to come home?

Miranda did not want that.

“You don’t like him, do you.”

She blinked, staring at her husband. Her wand, currently on the edge of the bed was grasped and Miranda muttered a quick charm. The candles on her bedside table sprang to life, emitting a dim flickering glow around the room.

“He has your eyes.” The statement was matter of fact, cool. Stood at the foot of the bed, Miranda folded her arms, covering the dragon tattoo snaking around her side and stomach. “He showed up uninvited with a fucking bonsai tree and a rake. These ridiculous ideas and plans he was sprouting off with about a future he was ruining for himself and you just supported him like some blithering idiot that wanted desperately for someone to like him. That’s not my husband.”

“I don’t know what the rake is for either.” Ignan replied, and made an attempt to sit up a little in the low light from the candles, tugging the pillows beneath his head into a more upright position so he could observe her better. He couldn’t do anything about Sasha having his eyes, and in honesty he’d never considered that Sasha looked anything like him, deciding - perhaps selfishly in an attempt to disown him - that the boy had inherited physical traits from his mother, and then mannerisms from his Muggle family.

“I don’t understand what you want from me, or him, Mira,” the wizard began, maintaining eye contact this time, sounding more awake, “on the one hand I’m the world’s worst parent for keeping him at arm’s length, the next I’m desperate for not putting his unconventional ideas down.” He narrowed his gaze against the flare of the candles, “it hadn’t crossed your mind that I’ve known about his career considerations for a while, and he already knows where I stand? That the fact I happen to be a blood relative has very little impact on his decisions as a wizard of age.”

He frowned, “I suppose your sage advice to Maya paid off in a similar way?”

A few sparks sprang from the tip of the wand in her hand, a building fury at the pointed comment. Dark eyes bore into his and her lips twitched, the corners fighting a deep frown. She’d wanted to come home and sleep, not be insulted by her own husband.

“You’re hurt that I don’t like your son so you bring my daughter into this?” An angry laugh came as she shook her head. Strands of hair from her loose bun were falling down over her shoulders, a mess. She didn’t care, her eyes didn’t leave Ignan’s. “I’ve been there for my daughter despite what stupid mistakes she’s made. I’ve not disowned her or pretended she doesn’t exist or lied about her. I accept her and I accept my granddaughter.”

“But what do you know about that when it’s easier to lie, Ignan? When it’s easier to blame me for not welcoming your dark secret into my home with open arms? I can’t even tell people that I now have a step son because only your close family even know about him. You ask me if I like him when you won’t even fucking admit that he exists!”

Miranda could feel that she was losing her temper. Weeks of stress, a lack of sleep and worry felt like they were heading to crescendo into her tirade at her husband who just sat back in the bed.

Ignan didn’t reply, but his gaze left Miranda to stare down the bed, his face straightening. Her response was angry, but at least he was getting a response rather than a retreat. It had been a mistake to compare their two children, but Ignan was frustrated. He was both internally counting to ten and also closing off his mind. Strong emotions risked a loss of mental control, and the last thing he needed was to add a non-verbal conversation into this with a legilimens.

“I don’t blame you.” He spoke eventually. It was uncomfortable to say - not because it was in reply to her anger, but because really he was saying I don’t blame you for hating him - I don’t blame you for hating the fact he exists - for having to find out in the way you did. “And,” he added in a quieter voice, “you can tell people you have a step son, if you want to.” He inhaled and looked to her, holding his breath.

Miranda had been ready to rant at him in response to any reply to made. She’d always been quick to fly off the handle, to explode with her short temper. Taking a deep breath and thinking things through had never been on the witch’s list of priorities when it was something personal and emotions were involved. Yet unlike with Jonathon Elliot who’s shouted back just as loud, Ignan was far calmer, giving her very little to bounce off. He was good for her even if she wasn’t about to admit it right now.

A reasonable and level headed response hadn’t been anticipated and the witch found herself fizzling out as quickly are she’d become fired up.

“Good. You have no right to blame me.”

But no, he didn’t deserve for her to just let him off. He’d picked this fight when she’d come home.

“What is this? One unexpected chat over tea and you suddenly want to be a father? Or was it you nearly dying that synched it? You’re suddenly happy to accept it when you wouldn’t even talk to me about him before?” From the chest of drawers, she grabbed a t-shirt and pulled it on but still stood at the foot of the bed. “You don’t just choose when you want to finally act like a parent, Ignan. He’s not something to cast aside until a time that it suits you.”

It appeared Miranda’s temper was not going to fizzle out very soon. The more she ranted, the more tense he felt himself become and his shoulder ached.

“Merlin, I am damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” Ignan replied more tersely, his patience slipping. His left hand found his right shoulder, fingers digging into the joint to try and alleviate the discomfort. “I never planned to be a father, but I am. And not a good one, granted.” He frowned and sat forwards away from the pillows, trying to move his arm, though resigned this was more from the tension of the argument. “And I’m sorry I never told you in our early days. I’m sorry it took me time to feel comfortable to talk about it, or trust you. I’m sorry it doesn’t suit you.”

He shoved back the blankets, and pulled his feet from beneath them, turning away from her as he sat on the edge of the bed, readying to get up. He’d have to go and take more of the bloody potion. At this rate he might also knock back some of the sleeping potion Miranda kept beside the hot chocolate.

“Then do som-” Miranda didn’t get a chance to carry on because Ignan’s next sentence stopped her in her tracks.

“And I’m sorry I never told you in our early days. I’m sorry…” he continued before sitting on the edge of the bed, obviously in pain.

Miranda’s lips pressed together tightly, shocked by his long overdue apology but equally irritated by the final remark. Of course, it didn’t suit her, having to keep some secret because her husband was ashamed of his past was horrifically inconvenient.

But the apology!
Ignan didn’t apologise. He certainly didn’t apologise for things he’d previously tell her he would never apologise for!

“Sit still.” Was all Miranda said in response before leaving the room. She didn’t rush down the stairs or to the kitchen where his potions were stored. It was a couple of minutes before she did return with a couple of vials. She made her way around the bed, placed the vials on the table and went to sit beside him.

No words were said when she placed a hand on his thigh and frowned down.

“I was on the back foot from the minute he showed up with his miniature tree and sand. You’ve made the topic of him off limits from the first time he was mentioned and I was expected to welcome him into our home today as if nothing is wrong. If you won’t trust me enough to share things with me, don’t be surprised when no, it really doesn’t suit me.”