7:40pm


Cepheus[1] paused in the shadow at the foot of the stairs. The front door above was thrown into colour by the lamp. Behind it, steps led up to the first floor flat which his niece Ariadne shared with Virgil and Nick, two friends from Hogwarts.

It was Friday evening, and frost covered the edges of the Alley where the sun hadn’t found the cobbles. Cepheus tugged at his collar, the cold nipping at his ears. In one arm, he nursed a bunch of flowers. The paper creased in the crook of his elbow, as he went to light one final cigarette on an empty stomach.

He hoped Virgil liked flowers. He’d sent roses on Tuesday morning, which felt like a whole lifetime ago. Yuka had helped him pick out something ‘joyous’, recognising her neighbour’s nervous excitement. Cepheus often indulged in flowers from Floriblunders for friends, but he didn’t usually blush at her questions.

Ceph held his hand away from the pale pink roses, star-like astrantia and deep pink tulips. There were others in the bundle, but Cepheus had already forgotten the names of them. He hoped it wasn’t too much. Ceph’s approaching to dating meant he desperately wanted to do it ‘properly’. Maybe it was too much. No, he was owed some good luck from the universe this week.

He thought he was lurking at an unobserved angle until he caught sight of movement in a window and the lamp above the door caught a drift of smoke that wasn’t his. His heart climbed his throat and he hurriedly extinguished what was left between his fingertips, before stepping out into the Alley and raising a hand in greeting. Only then, the thought crossed his mind that it could be Nick in the window, rather than Virgil.

“Hello!” Cepheus went with, pale face beaming up from the cobbles in the gloom. “I’ve got these for you - but don’t think you’ll want to take them with us, come to think of it.”

He gestured to the wrapped flowers, still cradled like a child in his arms in this Shakespeare balcony moment and a thought crossed his mind.

“Open your window wide!” With a wave of his wand, up, up the blooms gently sailed, into the cold February air, towards the grasp of their worthy recipient. While below, Cepheus could hardly contain his smile.

1.	Dressed by Nuri <3

He sipped on coffee while getting dressed earlier, going through various outfits before settling on a combination that met at the corner of comfort and daring. The lace shirt was inspired; he had bought it ages ago thinking of the one he 'borrowed' from Cepheus[1] last year, so it felt right for this evening.

The half-finished coffee was now an ashtray as he sat on the edge of his bed on the side of the window. Virgil tapped his cigarette into the mug on the sill, leaning out of the window as he took another drag and watched the alley below.

It was a chilly and the tip of his nose was pink. He felt nervous. Who wouldn't, going on a first date with an older man they admired for so long? The nervousness was mostly one of elation. He wanted to enjoy tonight - especially after the week Cepheus experienced. Yavin had told him all about it. The incident of Lyra and Mortimer Gamp. They had kidnapped him and his friends. Now he was dating their son. His relief at Lyra's capture was a loss to Ceph. This was all... complex.

What he felt for Cepheus wasn't complex, though. It didn't have to be.

On that thought, a figure beneath the window caught his eye and he leaned forward with a hitch in his breath. Virgil dropped his cigarette into the coffee - his thoughts cleared like a flock of starlings taking flight, and he was already grinning as he shoved his window fully open.

"I thought you were going to ask me to let down my hair!" the blonde wizard exclaimed in a laughing voice, holding out his arms to receive the floating bouquet. "They're beautiful!"

They were. Even better than the roses, which were drying on his bedside table. He drew the arrangement towards himself, breathing in their fragrance with the cold air. His gaze focused past them at the man downstairs. "I'll be down in a minute!" he called out.

Quick as a cat, Virgil laid the flowers out on his pillows and grabbed his coat. He left the flat with a cheerful later! to Ari and Nick, although he hadn't paused to check if they were even in the living room. Down the steps and out the door, flushed in the face. His enthusiasm urged him to greet Cepheus with a kiss.

His shyness interceded and, instead, a diffident Virgil approached his date with a touch of breathlessness and reached for his hand instead.

"Thank you for the flowers," he spoke softly but excitedly. "I adore them. Where are we going? Nice jumper, by the way."

1.	9th Oct 2011 - Caught Out Cold

Cepheus laughed with him, thoughts of golden tresses flowing out of the window. The grin broadened as Virgil expressed delight at the flowers. They sailed safely to the younger wizard’s grasp, and with assurances, the window pulled closed. Cepheus remained expectant on the cobbles outside, rocking from heel to toe, while Virgil dashed down.

The door came open and there he was. Virgil induced a weightless feeling in Cepheus, the week’s trouble falling from him in an instant. He stepped forward to greet Virgil as he came down the steps, neither of them sure how to greet the other - as if they had never met before that day. Virgil reached out a hand, and Cepheus smiled and drew his chin in, silently acknowledging the decision.

“Thank you,” Cepheus glanced down at his outfit, “lovely to see you,” his cheeks rose, creasing the corners of his eyes. “I thought we might escape our world, go somewhere nobody knows us,” Cepheus answered, “do you like tapas?”[1] He twisted as he asked, mostly hope that he hadn’t assumed incorrectly. Ariadne’s occasional accounts of life with Virgil had allowed him to gamble that Carstairs didn’t shy at international cuisine.

“In which case,” he smiled, “hold tight.”



Cepheus and Virgil slipped into the evening flow of London pedestrians. The Muggles were none the wiser that both had appeared out of thin air moments before. An unusually observant muggle might just believe they had stepped out of the shadows between two properties on the street, setting out on their evening. Muggle London was a constant backdrop of rushing traffic, a different hectic to Diagon life. The narrower pavements made of large grey paving slabs were narrow. The pair drew closer, walking tightly between the tarmac road and black, pointy railings outside the four-storey townhouses.

The buildings on the street were a mix of old and new, the townhouses facing a taller, newer building of glass and materials Cepheus assumed to be concrete, plastic or other new materials Muggles had dreamt up. Up ahead their destination was lit up in welcome. An awning stretched over the pavement, a few tables clustered outside, the patrons in thick coats appearing to be perched rather than eating.

Cepheus held open the door, gesturing for Virgil to go inside, into the warm. Tables were clustered in the narrow space which stretched backwards. The air was a delight to the nose, and over a backdrop of appropriate, but contemporary music, was a bed of conversation, chinks of glassware and cutlery, and suggestion of a busy kitchen at the rear.

“I came by earlier,” he spoke in a friendly manner to the first face who greeted them, “Gamp, table for two.” The Muggles eating around them didn’t glance twice at the two wizards, and Cepheus couldn’t help but smile at tables that resolutely ignored their passage through the restaurant.

“I hope it’s up to your standards,” he admitted to Virgil, once they were seated and furnished with menus and advice. “I have heard things about your cooking, and I admit I was a little intimidated.” He paused, suddenly noticing Virgil’s shirt, pointing. “That’s not… no that’s not mine… but it definitely looks better on you, darling.”

1.	pre-agreed to base it on here

Navigating soho on a busy night was not foreign to him - but often he navigated it alone, on his way to The Closet, and there was something to be said about being engulfed by its crowds when you were in someone else's company. It felt less like he was trying to steer through people... more like he was a part of the entirety, of all these busy and beautiful muggles amongst whom his clothes were not unusual at all.

So many of them, thought Virgil as they approached the restaurant, more of them than of us.

It gave him butterflies to realise Cepheus had been here earlier to see about a table. He felt courted. Nobody had ever courted him before - not like this, properly, earnestly. Virgil slipped off his coat and draped it over the back of his chair as they sat down; he left on his blazer, unbuttoned.

            “That’s not… no that’s not mine… but it definitely looks better on you, darling.”

For a second he almost forgot about the shirt - now he blushed, glancing down at the ruched lace. It was strange. He could be so direct about work and sex and gossip. Ceph made him shy; that one word, darling, made him shy. Virgil pushed past the feeling, aware of their knees gently knocking beneath the table.

"Thank you. That's unfair, though..." he quipped with a smile. "I haven't actually seen you in yours so there's no way for me to tell."

The blonde fiddled with the lapel of his blazer, exhibiting the front of the shirt a bit better. "I've been wanting an excuse to show off my piercing[1] for ages," he added, the white gold ring on his nipple barely glinting through the black lace, "but the weather hasn't exactly been amenable."



A waiter came by for banter and to take orders. They chatted a bit about the drinks menu, received compliments on their clothes, the general mood of London city on a Valentine's weekend. Virgil settled on the Cava sangria to drink for now - and they picked out five choices of tapas, three regular and two picoteo, to share.

"It's funny," Virgil remarked once the waiter had deposited their drinks, "as much as I love cooking I can never eat all that much. I hope my appetite won't put me to shame tonight," he picked up his glass for a sip. "Do you eat out a lot in muggle London?"

1.	6th Nov 2011 - Dangerous to Go Alone

“Now and then,” Cepheus answered, “I prefer to go with company, if I’m honest.” He gave a shyer smile about that admission. For a man with plenty of friends, family and colleagues, he still lived alone and was less likely to tear around town on a Friday or Saturday night than he had in his twenties. Twenties, gosh Virgil hadn’t even -.

“What about you? You’re going to tell me there’s a place up the road that’s a darn sight nicer, aren’t you?” He said it with a good dose of humour, even though there were still butterflies inhabiting his empty stomach. It had been a long time since he’d taken someone out on a proper date.

Some of the picoteo arrived and they were soon spearing olives while the burble of Muggle conversation continued around them. One of the olives he tried to impale shot across the plate much to their mutual amusement.

“It’s alive!” Cepheus exclaimed between them, leaning towards Virgil a little in his chase. A moment later, successful, he addressed the olive, “Aha, I have you now, say your last.” The butterflies were coming out in dodgy humour, like the sort he’d try on Andromeda if they were out together. However serious she was, as her big brother he knew what would tease out a smile.

“Funny, wants you to eat it…” Cepheus uttered quietly, turning the cocktail stick, complete with pierced olive, towards Virgil with a raised eyebrow. “It must have heard about your modest appetite and thinks you’ll take mercy.”

            "What about...place up the road... aren’t you?”

He laughed in self-deprecation, shaking his head as he tucked a lock of gold behind his ear. "No, there are more restaurants in London than even a layabout has time to sample," the younger wizard turned his glass around idly, fingertips wet with its cool condensation. "But I like to check things out. See how the other half lives."

Or the other three quarters, anyway. Speaking of which - the first of their tapas arrived, joining the delicious aromas already crowding around them from other tables.

Virgil nearly choked on his drink when Ceph started addressing the olive. He put the sangria down with a giggle and eyed his date across the table. Wielding a cocktail stick....ridiculous. Cepheus Gamp was a ridiculous man. Why did that make him want to smile even more? He felt the heat in his chest spread up his neck and into his cheeks.

"Take mercy?" Virgil repeated in mock innocence, before leaning in to trap the olive between his red lips. With a wrinkle of his nose, he pulled it off the stick just as the waiter returned with the rest of their tapas. "I take no prisoners," the blonde quipped before smiling at the waiter in thanks.



The pair got through the food in much the same way - sharing what they respectively knew and liked about muggle culture. His fascination with muggle fiction, adventures on the underground in pre-apparating days. Virgil found it easy to relax and talk, no longer aware of knocking knees; simply allowing his legs to stretch out, one of them bracketed between Ceph's.

"I want to say something melodramatic like... a spy," he was speculating on what he would have been if they were born muggles instead. "Only I'd be awful at it. So. Thespian. Or a film star." Virgil bit his lip, propping his head up by the chin as he rested an elbow on the table.

He picked at the Galician almond tart they were sharing. By now the sangria had come and gone, and the two wizards were skilfully coaxed into ordering sweet moscatel to compliment dessert. "Not a muggle scientist. I've been to one of their lectures, so dull."

"What would you have been, you think?" Virgil tried to imagine, looking at Cepheus more attentively. He wished he had kissed him at the start of the date now.

“I could imagine you as a film star,” Cepheus agreed, imagining Virgil’s head surrounded by a film title, five star review and suitably dramatic backdrop. He was pretty enough to be on the cover of a magazine. A unique face, something different to dark haired, stubble faced hard men on action film posters around London. “Something intellectual, or rather with deeper meaning. High brow films.” He grinned, the thought of Virgil and his long, golden Rapunzel hair crossing his mind’s eye again. No magic hair potions if you were a muggle. Just… wigs?

“I can’t imagine I would be comfortable with something so grand and recognisable as you.” Cepheus admitted and looked up, thinking back on his life choices and how he’d been as a teenager, considering careers. “It seems terrible to consider, but maybe I’d be one of those office suits you see swarming the city. Gosh, the horror, accountant or something like. Not realising what difference I could make elsewhere.”

He pressed a hand to his cheek at the dismay of his fictional muggle alternative reality self. How utterly dull. Much like the version of himself in his twenties who had been so set on a career in magical finance because it was a lifetime career and wasn’t the ministry. Those were respectable things Gamps aimed for, according to the older generations!

“So you wouldn’t consider studying at one of those universities, then?” He asked Virgil, refocusing keenly on his date’s expression. “You said you’d been to a lecture? I quite enjoyed a foray into research, but not like their equivalent of potions, with people. I don’t know what one of those would be, or if I’d have even realised that at the age they go to universities.” Well they couldn’t all be film stars. “Or maybe I’d have kept up with my music and studied that,” he reconsidered. Alcohol had loosened his tongue and it was away with his thoughts.

“Sorry, I asked you a question, do go on.”

It was warm in the restaurant, between its many occupying bodies and the fashionably narrow layout. Or at least this is towards what he hoped Cepheus would attribute the flush creeping up his neck and into his cheeks. High brow films was a deep compliment for someone who'd mostly played Shakespeare and book adaptations onstage.

He didn't think acting was particularly grand but the word felt right, sitting here in Soho and in one of the most wonderful cities in the world. Virgil sipped wine and listened delightedly to the older man go down a multitude of muggle possibilities.

            “Sorry, I asked you a question, do go on.”

"The lecture was for work," he gestured with his wine glass as if to shrug of the question, and then put it down to lean forward. "Who knows, though? Nobody says we have to be one thing for the rest of our lives... perhaps I'd have gone to university and then acted. Or acted, and then university."

But that interested him less than his date's musings. "I bet you could have been part of an excellent orchestra." Virgil reached across to lightly trace the back of Ceph's hand on the table - those long elegant lines and gentle, gentle veins.

"I would have been studying at a conservatory, being a theatre owner's son," his voice took on a tipsy and dreamy quality, not looking up from the table. "And I would come in every afternoon to watch your orchestra rehearse. To watch you rehearse, until I had the courage to come up to you and ask some nonsensical question about your technique."

Virgil glanced up, realising he had been idly caressing Ceph's hand the entire time. His gaze lowered shyly for a second but he didn't withdraw the touch.

"You would have taken me out, then, for a lovely tapas dinner," he bit his lip, pausing to admire the wizard across. "But I would have spent half of that dinner wishing we had kissed at the start."

He allowed himself to get lost in this moment. Two wizards alone in a busy restaurant on a Friday night in the middle of a city, hands resting in the middle of a small round table, between empty crockery, legs entwined intimately beneath. Lost in Virgil’s story of an alternate reality, where a different magic drew them together. The sort that tingled along the back of his hand in the wake of Virgil’s fingertips. It made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle pleasurably.

“… But I would have spent half of that dinner wishing we had kissed at the start.”

A smile grew proper on Ceph’s lips at the admission. This was still all very new, even for his extra years.

“A regret we share,” he uttered quietly, “that I can surely make up for,” and he turned his hand beneath Virgil’s and lifted it to his lips to kiss the back of it tenderly thrice. “Especially once there’s no longer a table between us.” He squeezed gently and fortuitously caught the eye of one of the waiting staff to ask for the bill.

The air felt chillier for stepping out from the bustling restaurant to the street. But it was the way Virgil looped his arms around Ceph’s neck the moment they were clear of the busy clatter of plates and tables which warmed him most. Expectant lips made all the sweeter for the delay, and tinged with the taste of sangria.

Ceph slid his arms around Virgil’s waist without second thought, drawing them closer. This. This was what he wanted. He’d danced about it, and could have very nearly missed it entirely. His smile brought them out of their first, delighted, kiss, and he gently rested their foreheads together, before going in for another, and another.

It was gone half a minute before the two of them became somewhat self-aware beneath the electric light spilling from the restaurant onto the pavement.

“Did you enjoy that?” He asked softly, as they were still wrapped around each other, “I mean, the food, I think I know how you feel about just now,” he grinned and shook his head, looking up into the night air, joyful. “Night’s still young, we could go … dancing, or more drinks…” he suggested, “or take a long, slow walk back to Diagon and kiss under ever other streetlamp…” it was meant with humour, “…dance another night.” Truth was he’d rather just spend some time, just them, up close, teasing it out, talking about everything and anything, learning new things about the other and enjoying those fumbling, spontaneous moments of a new relationship.

Anyone who had seen him strut across a stage or trade barbed words would assume a certain brand of boldness in Virgil. Yet, feeling Cepheus' still-unfamiliar fingers under his coat - through the thin material of his blazer and lace blouse - incited shyness. He was glad of their kisses and how close they held each other in the street; his eyes wouldn't know where to look, otherwise. And his cheeks, he knew, were pink with heat.

In part, because his heart raced, though also because he was conscious of how much he had wanted this.

            “Did you enjoy that?”

"Um," the blonde huffed a laugh and nodded once at the grin. He could still feel his face warm where it had pressed against Ceph. Clean shaven, they did not look so far apart in age as when the older man sported stubble. Not that anyone in Soho cared; they were far from the strangest pair, even wrapped up in each other outside a restaurant.

The anonymity of large cities settled on his thoughts like a comforting blanket while Cepheus suggested where the rest of the night might lead. A thought occurred to him, and he looked his date in the face searchingly.

"There's a place I want to show you. I've only been once before. It's..." Virgil loosened himself from their embrace and slipped his hand into Ceph's, squeezing it. "Well, you'll see."



They walked, Virgil leading the way to Great Russell Street - not very far from where they had dined. The British Museum was, of course, closed at this hour. Which suited them just fine. He possessed no designs to apparate them into the grand building. No, not into it.

Nemo had inspired him[1] last month when she showed off her little getaway at the top of Tower Bridge. He hunted around for his own rooftop hideaway beyond muggle eyes, and was there a rooftop in London as unusual or precarious as the Museum's?

The air crackled as the two wizards materialised right in the middle of one of the glass panels forming the sprawling roof. Virgil breathed in sharply, holding a finger to his lips and then pointing down into the dark museum, where a sliver of light indicated a security guard making rounds below with an electric torch.

"Tread softly," he murmured with a quiet smile to himself, his other hand releasing Cepheus, "because you tread[2] on my dreams."

All around them the glass panels slanted in various directions to form the pillow-like structure in which the great dome was nestled. "I like it here." Virgil looked back up once the guard below had disappeared into a different wing of the museum.

"It feels almost forbidden," he ran a hand through his hair, which had been slicked back and was quickly losing the battle against the chilly breeze. "I suppose it's the same thrill we used to get when we were told about the Forbidden Forest at school. You can't help but wonder, can you?"

1.	20th Jan - A Thinking Place
2.	W.B. Yeats - Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

“If it was called the tame thicket it would lose its allure,” Cepheus agreed, raising his voice over the wind. He tugged his deep red scarf a little tighter. The breeze nipped at his ears and stood his dark mane on end as it whistled across the exposed glass roof. He looked one way and then the other, watching the city’s distant coloured lights flicker in the cold like the candles he knew they were anything but.

“Ravenclaws calculated seven methods to climb the tower roof, but only the Gryffindors in the other would climb out without wand and a plan from the other,” he recalled a time they’d watched  such an attempt through spyglasses and short telescopes. “I don’t suppose the Slytherins necessarily dared to swim through the plumbing to access their own subterranean common room?” He posed, shaking his head.

Virgil had chosen a very modern muggle roof of a historic building, and Cepheus couldn’t help but wonder if their next outing might also feature the dizzy heights of another London landmark, given there was ample to choose from.

“Dinner and trespass,” Cepheus agreed, “unconventional but suiting of you, Virgil,” he smiled, though much of it was lost behind his scarf, it reached his eyes and rosy cheeks. “But I think I could outdo you,” he called above the wind, “if you trust me?” He extended his hands.

He delighted to hear the antics of Ravenclaws and Gryffindor, to clock that some things really didn't change at Hogwarts. It was an odd setting to chat - Virgil liked it up here but its relative height to other buildings in London did make it seem closer to the hubbub below.

"Our baths and showers had wonderfully nautical views," he explained as he walked up a slope of glass and then turned around to let himself slide back down to where Cepheus stood. "No merpeople peeking either!" Virgil added with a grin to himself. "Must have been warded. Just some nosy fish."

And then he was standing before the other wizard again, cold wind stinging his pink cheeks. Trust? Did he trust Cepheus? Why not?

Of all the reckless and inadvisable things he had done, dating an older man seemed low-risk. His instincts said yes. They must have, because he reached out to take the proffered hands without thinking.

***

A dizzying sensation bloomed in his stomach, sensing the new heights to which they were taken. Virgil instantly grabbed a railing - looking around with a flick of his head. It was still cold and windy up here but they were sheltered from most of it, on the balcony encircling a structure upon the dome of the Cathedral.

St.Paul's! He appeared stunned for an instant, as he stared out across the dark night and its myriad of urban lights. So bright they drowned out the sight of the stars.

"Merlin, I love this city." Virgil murmured, turning his back to the railing and leaning against it to face Cepheus. "You have me beat," he touched the edge of Ceph's scarf and tugged it.

Then, encouraged by the memory of sangria in a crowded restaurant, he kissed his date. After their earlier kisses this was a shy one. But it was soft and slow, and he followed it with another kiss at the nape of Ceph's neck: where he smelled of cedar cologne and sweat.

"Did you used to do this at Hogwarts? Find quiet little corners, away from the rest of the world?" he tried to imagine a student Cepheus in Ravenclaw robes. "I used to nap in empty classrooms. Or watch the house elves cook."

Up here, high above everyone, and very much alone there was no-one to stare if they kissed. It wasn’t shame, just shyness in public for Cepheus. He wasn’t as outgoing and direct as Virgil, and he’d grown to care a little more about what others thought of him, what with the constant background of impostor syndrome. He hoped it wasn’t coming across as cold or indifferent to Virgil - he just hadn’t yet found his stride.

“The first few years,” Cepheus agreed, pleased Virgil approved of his roof choice, “who can resist exploring?”

Had he watched house elves cook? Taken a nap in an empty classroom? He narrowed his eyes and lifted his chin as if studying the sky. “I think I fell asleep in Binns’ lectures, but that was a right of passage.” He shook his head and glanced back down to Virgil. “We found these rooms tucked up with the arithmancy classroom, think they were a professor’s which the elves just never locked. Homely, proper quiet.”

The February wind nipped at their faces, bringing Ceph back from the rich memory of coals, faded but comfortable furniture, tapestries on the walls and a painting of a stag above the fireplace. A small, select gathering of friends propping bread in the grate and buttering toast. It was like rediscovering a favourite childhood book. He could almost taste the crisp toast and hot butter. They’d have to do that together one late night, sat on the rug in his flat.

“Did you want to be away from the world?” He asked Virgil, drawing him close again, kissing one cheek and then the other affectionately. “You don’t strike me as the cottage on the moors type?” Virgil would be lonely, Cepheus believed, his date was extroverted, social, nosy. “London never truly sleeps.”

Their proximity was a heady thing to the young wizard who had, rather shamelessly, dreamt of it for months. It was better than dreams. Cepheus bringing him closer in, warm lips grazing his flushed cheeks. The golden memories of butter and toast and cosiness bleeding through.

Virgil gently closed himself against gleaning more thoughts but he treasured that image, a pleasant thing blooming in his chest.

Did he deserve this? To have something soft and gentle to look forward to?

He slipped his cold hands inside Ceph's jacket and returned the kisses with one against the older man's cheek. "Mm I like being a part of the busy world" his answer came in a distracted murmur as he brushed their noses - nudging, asking for a kiss without actually asking. "Only sometimes it's too much... too bright, loud, frustrating. People are stupid."

People shouting their thoughts inside their heads. People rushing to do things or, often worse, rushing to do nothing. London buzzed alive behind him. He thought of Sasha's convoluted muggle-magic life, Moira's exhausting passivity, Fauna's relentless justice, Waverly's rebellion.

Then he forced himself not to think of them. Virgil focused to meet Cepheus' gaze, eyes unguarded and just a little raw. "It's easier to hide in a city than in a cottage on the moors," his red mouth twitched in a smile. "Behind a flower shop, perhaps. Or second star to the right, straight on 'til morning."

“People are stupid.” There, in amongst the blushes and the romance was the glimpse of true Virgil. The one Ariadne mentioned, but Cepheus rarely saw. That drop of Slytherin arrogance which presumably fuelled precocious confidence.

“It’s easier to hide in a city…” Virgil reasoned, and Cepheus nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly. One could be alone among strangers at any hour. Anonymous in a crowd.

He had grown up in the countryside, of sorts, at Godric’s Hollow. It was easy to feel out of the loop, and out of touch with the rest of the wizarding world in the west country. In London it was louder, brighter, and richer. There was no hiding. While exhausting, the city rushed you along, whether you liked it or not.

But not here. Not now. Everything had ceased to matter than the utter present.

“Above,” he corrected Virgil lightly, “and is that where you’d rather be?” He asked, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, squeezing his arms with a possessive quality he’d rarely dared to allow, “above a flower shop, beside a star, straight on ’til morning?”