1300 hours, Carstairs Residence in Maida Vale


It had just begun to pour when Edgar Carstairs made it into their narrow little house in the quaint muggle part of town. Angela and Cecil were out on errands. He shook droplets off his mackintosh and tugged his feet out of well-worn wellies. There was music coming from upstairs - his working area, which was the entire floor above. His mismatched eyes lifted to the ceiling and he stood still in the foyer for a moment while a violin carried gentle undertones of a Handel aria. Better suited to the flute, he thought, but Virgil always preferred string.

Edgar climbed up the winding stairwell until he reached the sprawling space where he had written many a musical in decades past. Birchwood floorboards and wide, spindly desks plastered by music sheets. A grand piano in turquoise...other instruments strewn about... towering shelves where they could fit. Great windows let in the gloomy blue light of overcast London.

His eldest son stood at one of these; chin tucked in to shyly cradle the violin, playing from a parchment that floated before him. Virgil, blissfully unaware reminded him of Picasso's blue period, like he belonged with flowers.

The music dwindled into silence before the vehemence of the aria could be reached, and the younger man  looked over his shoulder with a sleepy expression. "Sorry," he spoke without lowering the instrument, ".... did you need to work here?"

"No, no." Edgar moved to a side table by the piano to pour himself a drink, "Keep playing. I think the rainclouds are listening." He filled a tumbler with a bit of brandy and then sat on the bench, his back to ivory keys so that he was facing the Slytherin.

Virgil shrugged, lifted his bow and smiled to himself, "Maestro." There was the curious impression, when his son played, that he was missing some of the music - that Virgil had an ear to something nobody else could hear and was adjusting tempo to it, embellishing with oddly placed crescendos or discordant, purposeful mistakes.

Flawed but genuine. He waited until the performance had risen wildly and tottered into an awkward but endearing finale against stead London rain. Virgil set aside the bow with ceremony and then joined his father at the piano. The violin was swung into pizzicato position and its strings plucked at randomly, a grouchy ukulele.

"All packed, then?" Edgar sipped on brandy and glanced at the fiddle. "Take that with you."
            "I was going to steal it anyway," Virgil replied lightly, strumming.

He smirked, which turned to a laugh that Edgar echoed. Oh dear. It was going to be peculiar, not having Virgil about in the summer, regardless of whether they would be seeing one another at Stardust. Even stranger than when Adelaide left - she was wonderful but she hadn't been interested in the arts. Virgil loved the arts.

Took to it like breathing. He loved music, singing, writing, painting, dancing. Pretending. Of course they called it acting around others. Alone, they defaulted to calling it as what it truly was: pretending to be other people. Edgar watched his son pluck away a jaunty and oddly melancholy tune. A sad little pirate jig.

            "Thank you."
"Hm?" the older man took himself away from his thoughts. "What's that?"

Virgil looked up without ceasing ministrations on the violin. "Thank you, for all of this." And now he did stop playing, to reach out and clasp Edgar's free hand. "I know I don't say it often, or ever. But I'm... grateful. I love you and I'm grateful for everything you've done. For me." He released his father's hand, averting his gaze.

Edgar stared, surprised, though he knew his eyes betrayed a more flagrant sentiment than shock. It was obvious that Virgil didn't want to speak at length about his feelings of gratitude: he might fare better on paper, or expressed in music. Just... not in-person on a quiet afternoon the eve before this milestone departure. So Edgar turned around to face the piano proper.

He put down his drink and rested his hands on the keys, clearing his throat.

"One for the road?"