June 24, 2009
The Greyfriar House in Kent
Wednesday, 10pm


Knox Greyfriar was outside in the yard surrounding his small stone house.  The summer green grass extended out a couple dozen feet before it ran up against the tall trees and thickets that surrounded the hidden lot.  There were some flowers in boxes that did their own thing, and a small herb garden in a window box.  In the night, the old wizard was standing there with his wand lit picking through it for some nightshade.  He liked it in his tea.

He heard the crack of an Apparition and he knew it wouldn't be long before someone appeared at the gate.  In the night he looked over his shoulder and called, "Devlin, that you?"

His teenage son lived with him.  Might seem like an obvious thing to say, but Knox Greyfriar had only found out about him less than a year ago.  Knox had known him since he was a first year, a student of his, but only recently had certain documents come to light that had slammed the two rivals together and more or less forced them under one roof.  It was not always smooth.  Honestly, it rarely was.  Trial though, had begun to bond them, and there was something there now that wasn't only wrought of obligation and resentment.  Some of what was there was good.

Devlin worked odd hours as a bartender now that he'd been booted from Hogwarts.  That, a girlfriend, and meetings with his keepers at Level Two kept him busy and away from his also busy father.  But their schedules did cross from time to time...

"Bit late to be cracking in..."

"Devlin, that you?"

Still a bit woozy from apparation sickness, Devlin didn't answer right off. Instead he just stumbled into the warm glow of the light radiating from Knox's wand, bleary eyed and sallow cheeked. The last couple of months had been exhausting to say the least. Between having an honest gig as bartender and a less than honest gig as a criminal slash ministry spy, Dev was busy almost every hour of the day. The only bright spot in his otherwise dreary life, aside from time spent sleeping, was the rekindled relationship between him and Maeve, which had been blooming over the last couple of months since their unfortunate 'run-in' in May. But even that was intermittent, considering she was busy trying to prepare for a career and he was busy trying to keep from landing himself in jail. Or worse, the grave. It was a thin line with Kingstreet.

"Bit late to be cracking in..."

"Yeah yeah... Bit late to be poisoning yourself, isn't it?" He retorted, referring to the potent herb that his father liked to put in his tea, as though it was a replacement for sugar rather then a poison. Despite his snarkiness, there was no malice in his tone as there would have been half a year ago. Though neither of them were excited about their living situation, Dev had been doing some real maturing over the last several months and was coming around. As hard as it was to admit that the bearish do-gooder was his father, Dev was not only starting to admit it but was kinda... enjoying it. It was rather nice to come home at the wee hours of the morning to a parent waiting, and worrying, about you, rather then the other way around. And as much as he had previously hated the idea of his former foe being related to him, he realized now how much he was like his old man. He had even formed a bit of a begrudging respect, as it were. Not that he would ever admit this openly.

Rubbing his eyes and then running a hand through his hair wearily, Dev gave Knox a half-hearted smile "Any chance you have some dinner left? I'm starving..."

Knox had learned to not take comments like that from Devlin as an invitation for a duel, and so when Devlin made a snip about Knox's innocent little nightshade habit, he just smiled and turned back to the herb box.  He snapped off another stalk that was ready and slipped it into the carved wooden box in his palm.

In the wand light, Devlin looked run-down. Again.   "Aye.  Sweet potato stew and parsnips."  Knox was a vegetarian.  Difficult tack for a werewolf, but he stuck to it.  Made him feel a little less beastly to take his sustenance in tubers, leafs, and other earthy things...

The older wizard, with the same coal black hair and turn of the jaw as his son, led the way into the little house.  It was summer.  All the windows were open, but a small fire was still stoked in the hearth.  A simple iron chandelier of stubby candles lit the rest of the small main floor.  It was difficult to keep a house this size clean and Knox always had papers and books and quills everywhere.  Many rugs covered the stone floor, overlapping each other. 

There could be found two little pots warming on a ledge in the hearth which would have the dinner Devlin was looking for.  He could help himself.

Once inside, Knox shucked his slippers and padded his way to a table where he had some tea already brewed and half drunk.  He spoke to Devlin over his shoulder.

"You look splinched.  Maybe you should think about that other job I mentioned.  Anything's got to be better than Calavaras. Greenhouse work's nothing to be ashamed of, you know.  Did it myself when I was training as a Healer," he said as he tended to his teapot and the loose, crisp leaves swirling around inside. 

"Tasty." Devlin replied flatly, his nose crinkling slightly at the mention of parsnips. He wasn't a fan by any means. Growing up he had always been a meat and potatoes kind of guy, or at least a spam and french fries one, and he had always poked fun at those kids who were vegetarians[1]. Now he had no choice but to become one himself. Irony was a bitch that way. But, alas, he couldn't complain. At least he had food and, as much as he hated to admit it, not bad tasting food either. He only half grudgingly filled a bowl with the soup.

Leaving the bowl on the rough hewn table, Dev pulled off his shirt and pants and hung them on a peg near the door, leaving him dressed in just an undershirt and boxers. It wasn't really 'dinner' wear but it was humid out, he only had really one nice shirt and pants for work, and without a washer and dryer, he avoided having to do laundry at all costs. It was just the two of them anyways. Lighting a cigarette, Devlin took a long, luxurious drag before sighing and glancing over at his father. "Calaveras isn't all bad... In fact, I would say it is damn easy next to... uh... other jobs I could be doing." Dev shrugged a little, not wanting to elaborate on what he mean by 'other jobs'. They were the ones he did for Kingstreet in hopes to simultaneously gain her trust and build a case against her. They were the ones that exhausted him.

Being bad had been fun, back in Hogwarts, and Dev had been good at it. An illegal betting ring here... some prohibited potions there... stealing test answers, all easy! Easy and, dare he say it, fun. But real crime? He was begining to realize that he wasn't much of a criminal either. He didn't want to kill people or rob old ladies. Nor did he like the fact that screwing up meant that he would either go to jail or be tortured again. His throat still hurt when he thought about that night. At this thought, he instinctively touched his neck, lightly tracing where the ropes had choked him to an inch of his life. Cringing, he quickly pulled away and focused on his quickly cooling soup. "Besides... what good would it do me? I don't have much of a future ahead of me like you did..." He took another drag of his cigarette before sighing and adding "But thanks for the thought. I do appreciate it." As hard as it was to say, he did appreciate Knox's concern. He just wished he deserved it.

1.	Mind you, at that age, any kid who happened to like veggies were 'vegetarians' and were treated as though they were an alien being...

With his tea ready, Knox settled back into the chair he'd left earlier to go out into the garden.  Devlin moved around the small house with familiarity, getting his dinner, shedding outer layers.  Knox had lived in this house alone for fifteen years and there were only a few visitors who seemed as familiar with it as he was.  But Devlin navigated like it was his own.  And in all practicality, it was.  Knox wasn't possessive of the space, just... pensive.  He'd lost his closet-sized office for Devlin's cubby of a bedroom, but it was a small price to pay every time he remembered how his son had nearly lost his life and that room had become hospital.

Devlin was smoking.  Knox didn't like that.  But that argument never got anywhere, not with his own pipe and Bluesmoke Tobacco within easy reach.

It was better for Knox that he know little of what Level Two had him doing.  Better for Devlin as well.  But it didn't stop him from worrying that it was all going to go wrong, or trying to make small adjustments.  At least Devlin seemed to like Calaveras more than Knox did.  That place was... gaudy.  Macabre.  And the most self-satisfied and vulgar people preferred.

Knox rustled the latest Daily Prophet into his hands and slid on his glasses. 

"Oh now, don't say that.  You'll come back from this.  Even if you think you've blown it, you can come around, smart young wizard like you."

Behind his paper and glasses, Knox's own giant foul-up of his youth was at the front of his mind.  How, during his Healer training, he'd let himself be swept up with violent purist criminals. 

Devlin snorted so hard at Knox's comment that he felt a parsnip piece try to lodge itself in his nasal passage. Alternating between coughing and sniffing as hard as he could, he managed to dislodge it and swallow painfully, gagging out "Merlin... yer sounding like... <cough>... my headmaster again." Catching his breath, he relaxed and added "I thought you would have learned after almost seven years that inspirational crap doesn't work on me..." Dev smirked a little, his tone just light enough to let Knox know that he wasn't entirely serious.

Sure, he didn't exactly feel like a 'smart young wizard' right now, but hearing it from someone who functioned like a bitter foe for most of his latter school years... well, it kinda did feel good. The best his former 'father' had done is to slur out commands laced with curse words from his beer stained couch before he blacked out again. It felt both weird and comfortable, just sitting across from his old man and talking like civilized humans. Comfortable enough for Dev to fall silent and return to his stew while Knox read the paper, seemingly very interested in whatever it was saying. For a few minutes, all you could hear is slurping and an occasional rustle of a page being turned.

Soon enough the spoon scraped along the bottom of the bowl and Dev was surprised to find that he had eaten the entire thing. It wasn't nearly as bad as he had thought it would be. Hell, it was actually pretty damn good. With a sigh of relief, he leaned back in his chair and puffed languidly on the remains of his smoldering cigarette. After blowing a few rings and watching them float up to the low ceiling and fade away, Dev decided it was too quiet for his comfort. "So... anything interesting in the news?"

Old Greyfriar peered over his paper at the young wizard sitting in his underthings, snorting, coughing and carrying on.  A smile tugged at his mouth.  Devlin toggled so rapidly between a man-matured-by-tragedy and just-a-teenager that it was sometimes humorous to watch play out.  For all the pain and heart-aching filial love Devlin caused him, it was nice to just have these lighter moments.  Almost made this feel normal.

And, latching onto that feeling, Knox Greyfriar continued to skim the paper in the comfortable silence.  Talk about Annwyl's response to the new Minister candidate... reporting on a robbery...more gossip about that Muggle Office wedding business...

Devlin's voice interrupted the domestic repose.  "Hmm?"

He lowered his paper and looked across the small room to the 'kitchen' part of it.  Devlin was at the table still, his dinner cleared away, his cigarette nearly finished. 

"Oh."  He looked at his paper and shook his head.  "No," he answered flatly. 

He chose that moment to breach a topic he probably never imagined he would.  But every day was a new day, was it not.

"I meant what I said.  About your...your..." he waved his hand casually, looking for the word, "redemption.  I mean it because, I know it's possible.  I never became a Healer, did you know?  Not many even know that was what I meant to do after Hogwarts.  I lived in London, that was in the 1970s. "

Devlin was clever.  Aware.  He would probably catch on to what that meant.  Not all teenagers were as savvy on History, but blimey - Knox had been his History professor so he better well know about the 1970s in Wizarding Britain.  Voldemort's advent to power.  And all that it meant for anyone in that time. 

The glance over the top of the paper and the brief guttural grunts were more of what Dev had come to expect from a father figure, though Knox was more sober then he was used to. Assuming that the conversation was over with, Dev tossed the butt of his cigarette into the fire and started to ladle more soup into his bowl. But then Knox spoke up again, out of the blue, and both Devlin and the very air in the room seemed to still in apprehension.

Okay, so he lived in London in the 70's, what did that have to do with his redemption? Was this just another history lesson? Dev would have thought that after so many years of trying to shove history down his throat,  Knox would have realized that he simply didn't care about the past. Dev lived for the present, or so he claimed. He started to write off what Knox was saying as the typical fatherly drivel spewed out by men who wanted desperately to connect with their wayward children, but there was something hiding in the shadows of his fathers voice that made him pause and listen more intently.

London, 1970's... every wizarding child knew what happened there and then. It could only be a reference to Voldemort's reign of terror. Contrary to popular belief, Dev had been actually interested in that particular bit of history considering he was certain he was a muggleborn at the time. It was a terrible and frightening time, but what did it have to do with anything? Was there something that Knox, the upstanding wizangamot elder, former headmaster and vegetarian werewolf, was hiding from him? Dev kept a steady gaze on his father as he returned to his seat, considering what he was trying to hint at.

After taking a few long, deliberate, bites of the stew, Devlin leaned back in his chair and spoke "... So? What's your point? I mean, a lot of people didn't achieve their dreams during that time and you don't strike me as someone who would want to be a healer either..." Than he leaned forward and laced his fingers together, hazel eyes intent on Knox's expression, studying him. "Unless there was something you did that you feel you need redemption for." He waited patiently, his expression clearly stating that he was all ears.

The two wizards - one young, one old - spoke to each other from other sides of the small room.  Knox, fully dressed and sat back in an upholstered chair.  Devlin, his son, in his boxers at the table on a simple wooden chair.  And he was listening.  He was all ears.  Look at him, face up, expression open.  It wasn't a look they often exchanged.

His apparent willingness to listen threw Knox for a moment, and he hesitated.  Would this secret do better in the back of his mind, or out in the open for his son to find some value in.  Why was he telling him this? To connect? To encourage? For his vanity?

He set his paper aside and took off his glasses, as he did saying, "No, you're on the right track.   I wanted to be a Healer very much, and my N.E.W.T.s were good enough to apprentice me to a community Healer just outside the city.  I stayed with my cousins who were a year or two older.  I was too...," he furrowed his brow as he tried to think of an apt characterization of his younger self,"...artless and impressionable to question the kind of people they were.  They were young, beautiful, happy, and passionate.  I was sucked in."

He paused, a little worried to proceed.  "They supported Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters and while it made my stomach turn, I never did anything about it.  I could have left the city, but instead I did the favors they asked of me."

Knox tried to keep the tone of his tale light and distant, but his low baritone belied a grimness.  A tone of regret.

For the first part of Knox's story, Devlin remained unmoving, his hands clasped and eyes intent. It wasn't until his words sunk in and made sense that Devlin moved from his spot. Sitting back, he let out the air he had been holding in, his eyes wide with surprise. He hadn't expected that... He had assumed that Knox had accidentally hurt someone while healing them and was feeling guilt over their pain... but that? To stand back as hundreds of innocents died when you could have saved them... well it was reprehensible.

It filled him with disgust... and relief. Knowing his father had screwed up as much as he-- no... more so than he had, well, it made him feel a lot better about a lot of things, one of which was their relationship. When he was young, he had seen the man as an infallible tower that he could only look up at, daunted. As his own personality changed, his perception did as well. Knox went from role model to jailer, and Dev saw himself locked in that very tower. But now, he was beginning to feel the tower crumble into the real Knox Greyfriar... a homey old stone shack filled with warmth, hot food and piles of history. Much like the small room they sat in now.

His father suddenly looked so old and worn, as if the very telling of his secrets left him drained of life. Ashamed that he had pushed him to recant such mentally traumatizing story, Devlin leaned back and ran his hands through his hair, uncertain of what to say. "Wow..." He finally managed, "that's just... wow... I don't know what to say..." He fell into a thoughtful silence that last for only a few minutes before he spoke again, still curious despite his better judgement "So... Uh... How did you, I mean... You obviously weren't caught... How did you survive it? More importantly, how did you redeem yourself after that?"

Knox watched for Devlin's reaction carefully.  Would he be shocked? Disgusted? Impressed? Sympathetic?  Knox Greyfriar, in his fifties now, had his own feelings about who he'd been as a young man, only a little older than Devlin was now.  He felt so separated from that life, as if the events were not his own.  Devlin, though, like a Ravenclaw, only had curiosity after apparently being aghast.

"I never hurt anyone.  I never showed my face.  Lysander and Zolla - they started bringing people around our flat in the middle of the night, injured.  Spellburns, mangled transfigurations.  Splinchings.  Even simple broken bones and... and concussions."

Truth of fact, he'd tended to so many that he couldn't remember all of them.  And even as he recalled them, his mind inkled towards how he'd done his shoddy Healer-apprentice best.  How those nights in their flat improved his skills more than any with Old Healer Pivari. 

"I did what I could for them, ignoring who I knew they were and how they found their wounds. At first it was... a favor.  'Oh, so sorry Knox, but you've got to help us'.  And then, as time went on, the implication was that assistance was...required."

"There was no redemption, Devlin.  The infant Harry Potter shattered the Death Eaters, dissolved the threat.  And I was left alone with my culpability.  I left London, left Healing and tried to become a better man.  A man who'd never be so cowardly again."

Knox had lived in private fear and apprehension as the years passed on.  As he waited every day for Aurors to show and be held accountable.  But it seemed only his cousins knew him.  There had been no one to punish him, to cleanse his conscious. 

Devlin sighed when Knox said exactly what he was expecting. There really was no such thing as redemption. When you dug yourself into a hole, all you could do was climb out, but the whole still remained as a glaring reminder of what you had done. Some people considered it a mark of achievement, but others considered it a blight on their souls. Devlin was part of the latter group. "Thats what I thought you'd say..." He muttered miserably, resting his chin on his hand in defeat. What was he hoping to hear anyways? That he could just do one good act and all of his mistakes would be forgotten? Even he wasn't that naive.

They sat there a few minutes longer, in a deep thoughtful silence, before Devlin broke it with a chuckle "You know what's funny... We are so much alike." He realized as he said it that he actually didn't mind admitting this. His eyes staring off into the distance and his voice gravelly with emotion, Devlin recalled his descent into his current hole "... After my mother died, I didn't really care about anything anymore. I just wanted to make money to help my family... and well, to make myself feel better. I decided that the only things worth anything in life were... things. Not people, because if a thing broke you could fix it or just buy a new one... but it wasn't the same with people. So I started to hang out with the wrong people and learned that my skills were marketable..."

Crossing his arms, the weight of his story resting heavily on his shoulders, Devlin rested his chin on the crook of his elbow and continued "... I started by selling homework... then test answers... on to poker games and betting rings and illegal products... and... Well you know the rest. But the funny thing was that it was never enough. I never felt happy or satisfied. And then I met Fauna and I felt... whole, I guess..." Running a hand through his hair, he added with a bitter note "But then I went and screwed that up royally. And now I'm here. With nothing."

When Knox finished his tale and Devlin sighed, Knox had thought the moment was over and any of the message he'd hoped to pass along to the lad would do its work quietly behind a stoic face.  He never expected Devlin to engage.  But he did.  Knox, who was prone to butting in and interrupting, just sat in his chair and watched with delighted silence as his bastard son laughed and strung together sentence after sentence, each one insightful, self-searching and devoid of youth's revulsion of parental control. 

Knox listened on and couldn't help but crack a smile as Devlin admitted to things that he'd done at Hogwarts - Knox had heard of about... half of them.  And he and other faculty had suspected some of the rest, but not nearly so much.  It was a bit of a humble-maker, as much as Knox had liked to think he so well curated Hogwarts. 

But Devlin's own tale ended on a sad note.  Knox loved that Fauna Blake, but he'd always been conflicted about her spending time with Devlin.  Certainly, she was a good influence on him, but the transverse was not true. 

"You have supper," Knox said flatly, not sure how to reply.  "And a wand.  And clothes, despite what your current state would suggest.  She's training to be an Auror, you know." 

"I know, I know... Both… of those…" Devlin sighed. Knox was right, he forced himself to reluctantly accept, he had more than he was admitting to... more than he deserved for that matter. Yeah, perhaps living in a tiny stone shack, eating vegetarian stew and working under the constant reminder that one wrong step could get you killed were not what he envisioned for his life, but at least he had them.

As for love… He supposed he had that too, in a way. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy ‘hanging out’ with Maeve. She was beautiful, smart and a superb kisser… but so far they had only really acted like friends with benefits. There was no real romance or promise of a future, which he supposed was weird for a seventeen year old boy to want, but yet there he was longing for the stability. He had always considered Fauna more the girl you married and Maeve the girl you cheated on your wife with, but perhaps that sort of thinking was best left behind with his bad boy ways. Maybe it was time to talk about something more serious…

Realizing that he had fallen into a contemplative silence at this point, completely disregarding his fathers comment about Fauna, Devlin forced himself to focus on the current conversation and keep the imaginary one with Maeve for later. “Yeah, I heard she was going to be an auror. Honestly it kinda surprised me at first… but then again, she always did want to protect others.”

He gave a half-hearted shrug, not exactly ecstatic to talk about his ex with his father. He knew Knox never approved of their relationship and while that was annoying enough, it was even moreso knowing that his disapproval was based on his love for Fauna, not Dev. “Good for her though. I am sure she will do well.” He added quickly, hoping to end this particular topic as soon as possible.

Devlin had fallen silent again and Knox had learned by now that his offspring was a thinker like himself, always pondering in deep long pauses.  Knox lifted his paper up with a crinkling noise and lowered his eyes to read again, intending to leave Devlin in his thoughts.  He wasn't sure how to leave the conversation.  Perhaps like the odor of a particularly potent potion it would just need time to dissipate.  Perhaps he could open a window to help matters.

Knox himself was still feeling uncomfortable and a sinking feeling of dread.  He was trying to ignore it, but he couldn't be sure, he knew, for sometime what Devlin would do with what he'd told him.  At first it had felt good to tell someone about his past.  The only person he'd ever before told was his ex-wife Meredith Ballentyne who also knew the St. Jameses at that time. 

Something in Knox was satisfied at how Devlin treated his broaching the topic of Fauna Blake.  He seemed appropriately reverent somehow, but distant.  And shared his wish and belief she'd do very well in a challenging and prestigious line of work.  He almost felt content to leave it there.  And not grill Devlin on who he was spending time with now.

Almost.  The temptation was too great. 

"So who is it again that you're seeing?"  Knox wondered if Devlin had even ever told him he had a new girlfriend.  From all Knox could remember at the moment, Devlin just seemed like he was out with someone, and there was no great discussion had about the particulars.