Genevieve’s flat was the top floor of the building in Diagon Alley which housed Witch Weekly’s Headquarters. It was an old rickety building, spanning three floors. The flat was small but perfectly suited to the witch who, for the majority of the year now, lived alone. Her son’s bedroom stood empty with the door closed. Genevieve’s room was silent, calm. In the bed, a couple were sleeping soundly, the alcohol from the night before still lingering in their veins and aiding slumber.

                  Thud!

Bruce, the 20-year-old, shorthaired and decidedly fat cat jumped and hissed in shock as something landed in his water bowl, sending water splashing out in all directions, some grazing his fur but most spilling over the wooden floorboards.


Genevieve, the 40-year-old editor and journalist nearly shot up in bed as the second landed on her leg, fast and hard.


The next fell from the ceiling, the hefty hardback book slamming into her shoulder.


Barely a moment later, a fourth shot past her and slammed into the head of the man happily sleeping and previously undisturbed.



...thud...

The books began to appear from the air above them, raining down like a storm. Bruce gave a howl of discontent, darting under the bed while his owner lifted her arms above her head, knees pulling up to shield herself from the onslaught of books showering down upon the couple. Her wand was no doubt in the lounge, cast away the night before in the passionate prelude to sleep.

It was a violent jolt into the land of the living, an unexpected assault that yanked him out of his early morning slumber and dumped him unmercifully into the day.  Such an abrupt awakening wasn't unusual at Gen's house.  On the rare occasions when he'd spent the night, her monstrous feline had a habit of appointing himself as Kurby's personal alarm clock, welcoming him to the waking world with a flurry of yowls and claws. 

At one point, that had been the key reason (along with the uncomfortable circumstance of the kid) for the werewolf hunter steadfastly refusing to stay over.  But with his recent presence in the Garcia household, he and Bruce had apparently reached some sort of truce, and he had been spared such a savage stirring on his most recent visits.  That relative peace made this assault all the more unexpected.

"WHAT THE --!?"  The string of swears that followed were abruptly punctuated as more projectiles started to dump on his head.  Kurby tried to ward them off with an arm, even as he tried to grope unsuccessfully for his wand, which was not in its usual place on his bedside table. 

Fumbling and swearing profusely, he snatched at his pillow, holding it over his head in order to try to buy a moment of peace and figure out what the hell was happening as he tried to both twist free of the sheets and scramble to his feet -- a surefire recipe for disaster, as Kurby quickly learned as he got tangled in the bedsheets and ended up half-falling out of the bed.

Well what a wake-up! Bruce was hissing loudly from under the bed, Gen was sat up with arms over her head and Kurby very nearly headbutted the floor in his attempt at…well Gen wasn’t actually sure what he was trying to do. She wasn’t usually a morning person but he seemed to be coping far worse, unless it was his plan to take refuge with Bruce while she handled the projectile books.

“Acc-“ Another book thudded down, smacking off her arm and Gen cried out. It wasn’t that it hurt but it would definitely leave a bruise on her wrist. She grimaced and tried again. “Accio wand!” Her voice was hoarse with sleep and no water but within moments, her own wand came flying through the open bedroom door, a lacy purple bra hanging from its tip.

With the underwear cast off and thrown to the floor, Gen gripped the wand tightly, yelling “Finite incantatem!”

For a moment, the falling books stopped and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, all of a sudden, a hundred or so books dropped from above them, and buried them on the bed.

The convocation of hard-backed books poured down on them like an avalanche, a belletristic deluge intended to prove once and for all that the pen -- or at least the page -- was mightier than the sword.  If it hadn't been for the pillow sheltering his head, Kurby would have surely been knocked senseless by it.  As it was, the final downpour still left him sitting there for a moment, visibly stunned.

Moving slowly, he picked up one of the volumes that had just barely missed burying its corner in the top of his head and stared at it dumbly for a moment.  A younger version of Genevieve stared back at him, sitting in her same bed with her arms crossed, a menacing figure in a Death Eater mask lurking alongside her.

It took him a minute to find his words again.

"What the bleedin' hell is this supposed to be?"  Kurby's gaze shot over to find Genevieve as he slowly rose back to his feet.  He held the book up accusingly, as if she had failed to notice any of the several hundred copies that had poured onto her bed mere moments before.  "You forget to tell your publisher where to deliver your latest edition?"

The landslide of hard backed books finally ceased, and Gen was able to lower her arms from above her head where her hands had been trying in vain to protect herself from the onslaught. It wouldn’t surprise Gen if she had bruises later in the day. Once more, she opened her eyes and stared at her own more youthful face on a back cover. She could feel her stomach sinking as she realised that it didn’t take a genius to figure out where these had come from.

And there was Kurby now standing and brandishing a copy, waving it around as if she hadn’t noticed they’d just had books rain from the ceiling.
“A book.” Gen’s curt response came as he waved the book at her. She started throwing books off the bed and to the floor, her legs having been buried beneath the pile. “One of over a hundred, by the looks of it.”

“My publisher didn’t…” Rudely interrupting the editor, one final book dropped down to land on the pile in the middle of the bed. There was a note affixed by brown string wrapped around the book. Neat handwriting covered the front of the folded parchment reading ‘Genny’. The handwriting, Gen immediately recognised and she blanched.

The urge was strange but overwhelming. Gen needed to put distance between her and the letter. She practically fell out of the bed and stumbled away, using the wall to regain her balance.
“Burn it.”

If the werewolf hunter had rolled his eyes any harder, they would have spiraled out of their sockets.  Genevieve was telling him how many books there were, as if he hadn't just suffered all of them choosing to start their morning by raining upon his head.  What he'd wanted to know, and what Gen still hadn't provided, was an explanation of why they'd been given such a rough wake-up call, when all he'd been doing was goddamned sleeping.

But that's how it always was with Genevieve, wasn't it?  Kurby set his jaw, his fingers digging into the book's hard cover so tightly that they could have left indentations.  There was always drama.  It was as if she couldn't help herself.  And this, this was just more of the same.

All of a sudden, the erstwhile socialite was stumbling out of bed, as if she couldn't get away from the situation that she'd created quickly enough.  Kurby rolled his eyes again as he tossed the extra book he'd been holding back down on the comforter.  Burn it.  Well, if she said so...

"Incendio," he growled, flicking his wand towards the bed.  Wherever they were lying, all of the books suddenly burst into red-orange flames.  The tiny conflagrations burned brightly across the room, shooting up towards the ceiling in a sudden burst of heat.

Kurby stared levelly at Genevieve, his eyebrows raised, as if daring her to question his choice of action.

Unfortunately, the moment was ruined when a second set of one hundred books suddenly rained down from the ceiling, tumbling on top of them.  Following behind was a second fluttering piece of folded parchment paper, carefully inscribed with the name Genny.

M - Language warning in the DP article.

The enormous pile of books burst into flames at the command from Kurby’s wand, and the heat was overpowering. For a moment, Gen felt a trifling amount calmer, a satisfaction at seeing the pile with the letter atop burning. She’d recognized the handwriting and only one person called her Genny, but he was locked up in an Azkaban cell for life. She didn’t notice the look Kurby was giving her, she was too focused on watching his present.

But the next hundred or so books dropped down, causing the witch to cover her head once more. Atop of this pile, another envelope landed. Any mild relief that had been felt a moment before vanished, and Gen, with a sinking in the pit of her stomach, snatched up her dressing gown and pulled it on.

The outside of the note read simply,

Genny

Her shaky hand took the envelope and she ripped it open. To the floor at her feet, a clipping from Daily Prophet article fluttered, causing the witch to glance down. It was the article about her interview with Niobe. Only it was covered with Leo’s angry red scrawl. Most noticeably, the words ‘You lying bitch!’ stood out, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. Reaching down to pick up the article warily, Gen glanced briefly over it, all colour having now drained from her face.
She chose to read the letter first.

My dearest wife,

You seem to have forgotten all of the wrongs that you've done me.  Now that it seems like you and everyone else might have been wrong, you come crawling back.  Always hedging your bets for your audience, aren't you, Genny?

Here's a reminder:  You lied about me.  You lied about our relationship.  You lied about OUR SON.

Once I get out, you'll remember what it means to be loyal. 

You're MY wife.

Remember that.

Your loving husband, until the end of time,
Leo

Her eyes were blurry with tears by the time she’d finished reading it. She didn’t dare look up to Kurby, instead lifting up the article covered in angry annotations. There was an odd similarity, one might consider, to the notes Gen would leave on a draft that definitely didn’t pass muster at Witch Weekly. Her job was to do exactly as her husband had chosen to on an article written about himself.

Once she’d read it over, Gen finally glanced up through tear streaked eyes. Her gaze was on Kurby but her mind wasn’t. Suddenly, the letters dropped to the floor and Gen was at the bed, opening a copy of her book to find the same scrawl covering its pages, the word ‘LIAR’ in capital letters over and over again to accompany any thoughts he’d clearly had on her choice of words and story. The first book was tossed to the floor and she opened another to see the same thing.

“@&%*!”
A third.

“@&%*!”
A fourth book.

“@&%*! @&%*! “@&%*!”
All the same. All annotated angrily by a man who’d clearly lost his mind.

Of course the stupid goddamned books had tumbled from the ceiling again.  Kurby had half-considered incinerating them a second time if only to make himself feel better, when Gen had pulled on her dressing gown and then reached out with a shaking hand to pick up the envelope.

He stood there silently, his arms crossed, clenching and unclenching his teeth as he eyed the books laying unceremoniously on the floor. Clearly, their arrival was the result of some sort of enchantment.  Gen's flat should have been warded against that.  But trust the editor to actually goddamned think ahead about anything involving common sense protections --

Gen looked up at him finally, a scared, lost look on her face and her eyes shining with tears.  Kurby went still, his brow furrowing.  Frowning, he watched as Genevieve bent to pick up a book, then threw it away.  And then another.  And another.

He didn't need to ask who had sent the books and driven her into a rage; seeing them here and knowing the situation, he could guess.   Apparently her former husband had decided that he wasn't satisfied with merely tormenting her when she came to Azkaban; he'd taken steps to bring the mind games into her home.

Cautiously, Kurby gave her a sidelong look, and then bent down to pick up a copy of The Death Eater in My Bed for himself. He thumbed through it silently, scanning over the pages, taking in the red ink.  Sentences had been circled, and the bright red LIAR had been scribbled on practically every page.

Lowering the book, he swallowed, unsure of what to say.

"This is stupid."  The words came out sounding hard and short, much like the punch that he wanted to aim at Leo Gamp's Voldemort-loving face.  Kurby looked over at Genevieve, the line of his jaw tight.  "You want me to say somethin' to Carstairs?" he asked curtly.

While Kurby thumbed through a selected copy of The Death Eater in My Bed, Gen rose back to her feet, throwing the final copy she’d checked back on the pile tumbling from the bed. She surveyed her violated bedroom, arms crossed stiffly over her chest. Leo was sending her an all too clear message. Did the moron not realise that such deeds didn’t brand him an innocent man, but a psychotic tormentor hell bent on coming for his wife? Her loving husband wasn’t looking to re-establish his relationship with his wife, he wanted to make her fully aware that he was raging. He seemed to have forgotten that that particular message had been clearly sent years ago through all of the letters ranting and raving about her betrayal.

“No.” Gen’s response was sharp, quick. She didn’t want Solomon Carstairs having anything to do with this. Messy waves bounced as she shook her head to accompany her answer. But Kurby wasn’t to blame here, and he didn’t need her snapping at him. Gen’s expression softened and she waved at the books, shrugging her shoulders. “He doesn’t need another excuse to tell me that I have no friends on Level 2.” Did she trust Carstairs? Was Leo right?

“It’s the play of an angry man, nothing more.” Gen wanted to believe it. Perhaps she said it in an attempt to convince herself more than Kurby. It was, however, impossible to see how the words in the letter held such power, such threat. She was his wife, she’d remember what it meant to be loyal. If he was innocent, they were merely angry words for a disloyal wife. If not? If he’d really done those dreadful things? They were a threat dealt so dramatically and clearly.

“It’s stupid but he has too much time on his hands, doesn’t he?” The witch attempted a smile, although it looked dreadfully strained. She bent to pick up the letter and newspaper clipping once more. Her grasp on the paper only served to highlight Gen’s shaking hands, a fact which she tried to conceal by folding the parchment and placing it on a sideboard. “Do you want a coffee? Or you can go.” A sad smile crossed her lips and she tilted her head, watching him. “I’m sorry.”

No?  His eyebrows rising, he gave Genevieve an incredulous look.  This wasn't the  act of a goddamned angry man.  Apparently, the editor had forgotten that her former husband was also a former mass murderer who had been sentenced to Azkaban for life for his crimes.  More than a decade later, most of the Death Eater trials blended together in his memory, but Kurby remembered the gist of many of them. Voldemort's followers had not been forgiving or merciful to their victims.

And yet here Gen was, blithely dismissing his offer to say something because she didn't want to get sniped at by the Department Head of Level Two.  Kurby pressed his mouth shut as he watched her pick up the letter again, and then set it on the sideboard.  Carstairs could be an ass, but whatever her bone with him was, having a mass murderer send an obvious threat to your bedroom wasn't the sort of thing you just ignored.  It reminded him all too much of Margo Amherst, who had kept insisting over and over again that she was going to report Dugan MacDuff to the Aurors 'in a few days.' 

He knew how that had ended.

"Accio note," he commanded, pointing his wand at the direction of the bed.  The folded piece of paper zipped toward him, dodging around the witch.  Kurby snatched it out of the air.

"Don't be an idiot," he told her in a low voice.  "You're just goin' to ignore this and get on about your day?  Gen, you have to tell somebody.  Go talk to one of the Aurors, if you don't want to deal with Carstairs."

Before she could stop it, the note whizzed past Gen into Kurby’s grasp. She gritted her teeth, irritated. A lot had to be piled on Gen for her to appear irritated. Normally, she was extremely laid back, not seeming particularly stressed. Recently, she’d been on such edge that it took so much less than before. Kurby telling her what to do did not go down well.

“Yes, I am just going to get on with my day.” She stated, frowning across at him. This was her problem, not his. “I don’t want aurors crawling all over this place. It’s a message, not a threat.” Or so she hoped. “He wouldn’t hurt me, Kurby.” Gen didn’t sound too certain. “He is my ‘loving husband’ according to the note.” She shrugged, gaze leaving his to stare across at the books.

“Please don’t get involved, he’s my problem to deal with. And you’ve not signed up to get tangled in my #&%^. Don’t act like you suddenly want to now.” It wasn’t meant to be mean, Gen simply wasn’t looking for someone to support her.

Disbelievingly, Kurby looked around at the hundreds of fallen books with angry red scrawl that were somehow Not A Threat.

This was idiotic.  If the editor wanted to stop her murderous husband from getting out of Azkaban, the easiest thing she could do was to report this harassment to the Aurors.  The fact that she actively didn't want to do that, that she was making excuses for Leo Gamp's threatening behavior, half-made him wonder what she really wanted to happen. 

And now she was acting like it was his decision to get involved in her mess, like he'd forced his way in after some arrangement where they'd both laid out the rules and very carefully created boundaries in their companionship.  Kurby gritted his teeth, fingers tightening around the note that she'd reacted to so strongly, but was also Not A Threat.  He knew how this ended, too: it always ended the same way with Gen.  The second she needed something else from him, she'd be back in front of him in tears, and to hell if he wanted to try and head off the inevitable disaster first.

"You're the one who bleedin' well dragged me into this!" he shot back at her, frustrated.  "You showed up at my door, Gen.  Who the hell are you goin' to go runnin' to when he gets out and tries to bully you in person?  The Aurors, then?  Or am I goin' to have to goddamned deal with it?"

Today was Gen’s 40th birthday. She’d had plans on a steady wake up, perhaps a bit of slow fun before getting out of bed, a nice awakening mug of coffee and a blow out night out pretending that she was only 35 and looking damn fine for that age. Leo’s unwelcome gift had destroyed all of those plans, and instead she was stood across the room from Kurby who was acting like he cared far more than he ever should have done. Perhaps it was only due to the disruption that Leo’s gift had also caused to his morning.

“For @*#&’s sake, Kurby, I’m not asking for a knight in shining armour.” Gen wasn’t shouting, but she was clearly getting herself worked up. She completely understood Kurby’s point. This wasn’t a kindly message from an estranged past lover. It was a threat dealt by an angry criminal husband. But she’d spent so long fending for herself that she wasn’t willing to back down and accept help now. She’d had a knight in shining armour and he’d turned into a monster.

“I showed up at your door because I like you, Kurby.” After a pause, Gen shrugged. “You’ve never read my book and you don’t ask questions. You’re just you. This?” Gen waved a hand at the books, “This is my baggage and my way of dealing with it. He goes away if I ignore him. He’s looking for a reaction.”

For as long as he'd known her, Genevieve had always had a way of twisting things so that he was in the wrong.  He was unfairly upset about some idiotic article in the Witch Weekly, or he was holding a grudge for too long, or he was taking something that she'd said too seriously.  Now, apparently, it was his fault that he was getting too involved in this disaster, like he'd somehow held a goddamned silver knife to her throat and forced her to show up at his door in tears the night she'd discovered that her ex-husband might be getting released.

Sometimes, it was hard to ignore the fact that Gen spent a hell of a lot of time telling him what he should be thinking and how he should be acting, and no goddamned time at all actually listening to him when he did feel like he had something to say.

He could see where this whole disaster was going -- it was practically on the scale of the Hogwarts Express, barreling straight toward him.  Gen was a bleeding idiot if she thought she could ignore her way out of dealing with her murderous ex-husband.  But hell if he was going to sit around and be complicit in pretending like this wasn't a problem.

Wordlessly, he flicked his wand to summon his clothes.  They'd ended up somewhere on the floor under some of the fallen books; it took a moment for them to jerk free and swoop over to them. Kurby gathered them up in his arms, still holding on to the folded note.

"I've got to head in to the Ministry," he informed her shortly, not looking at her.  It was Saturday, but he didn't care how blatantly obvious his excuse was.  The November full moon was less than a week away, and that meant that there was always plenty to do.  This wasn't the first time he'd found himself almost looking forward to it, to the simplicity of the hunt.  "I'll see you later."

Leo Gamp was still locked up in Azkaban and he was already wreaking havoc on her personal life. Without him, she’d built up a life and she’d become famous. She’d made money and finally found some peace. But now everything was once more up in the air, a giant Gamp shaped tornado with her at the epicentre. While Kurby may only have been a friend with benefits, having him prepare to just walk out cut Gen. It hurt to realise just how alone she really was with this mess having collapsed from the sky in her bedroom.

“Don’t feel obliged.” It wasn’t like they were in a relationship, was it? He warmed her bed and made her feel safe. There could be others like him, Kurby’s sullen demeanour and brooding eyes were simply flavour of the month, weren’t they? Now he’d seen the madness that she was a part of, he’d be done and she’d move onto her next bed mate. Or so had been the case previously.

Having quite forgotten about the note in his hand, far more focused now on what she was going to do with all of these damned books, Gen turned away from Kurby and frowned at the enormous pile shrouding where they’d been sleeping only ten minutes before.
“Flowers.” She muttered. “Bring flowers if I see you later. What happened to flowers?”