keep me in mind - Chapter 49 - kashi_akarsaka1 (2024)

Chapter Text

1905

As always, Newt woke up exactly as he heard the sound of the curtains being drawn in his bedroom. The efficient swish could only mean one person was arriving to interfere with the peace of his morning. Lying flat on his back in bed, he kept his eyes closed, staying very, very still. It was a skill Newt had picked up and perfected. Now that he was eight, he was deciding what of his usual gestures he could get away with and which he could not when in so-called polite company.

So a lot of the skill was going right inside his head, so deep he might come out the other side, and thinking about whatever theory he was working on. Contrary to what Theseus seemed to think, it wasn’t always about creatures. He did have other interests. Like making medicines and investigating habitats, like getting better at his pictures and sketching and learning about different places around the world. There was always information he could recite to himself to stay calm.

However, he felt the tickling of Theseus’s minty breath on his cheeks, sensing his brother leaning right over the bed and waiting to see if he was awake.

Before he could stop himself, Newt’s nose twitched. It was way too close for comfort, and just as he felt a need to scratch his nose again, he scrunched his face too hard. Game over. Theseus pulled the blankets off.

“Great! You’re awake!” Theseus said, like he’d not just woken Newt up. He’d drawn back the covers but not actually moved, so Newt found them nose to nose, Theseus staring into his eyes as if that was meant to mean something. He waited for Theseus to say something else, but he just kept staring.

“What?” Newt eventually grumbled.

“Long day yesterday?” Theseus prompted, looking again at him.

“No,” Newt said. “Dad got angry and I went to the village. You said it was okay. And I sort of made a friend. I showed him my book. He looked at it but I don’t think he read it: just looked at the pictures.”

“Well,” Theseus said, finally drawing back and absently putting his hands on his hips. “That’s perfect.”

“Hmm,” Newt said.

It was hard to be entirely convinced.

Theseus was someone who needed a lot of convincing on things. Newt was also someone who seemed perpetually bad at doing that convincing—something about the way he found it hard to meet people’s eyes, his stammering and fiddling of his hands, the way rubbing at his sleeves or trousers legs bought him a sense of peace, seemed to tell people he was telling a lie. Which was silly, really. He only told lies for very good reasons. They didn’t seem to understand how close he was to panic some of the time, and how happy his creatures made him when he wasn’t.

“What do I have to do today?” Newt asked.

“I thought we could do some Quidditch stuff,” Theseus explained. “You always like fresh air, right? You’ll have fun. Get a bit stronger, too. Then you can grow big and strong and maybe it’ll help you with your organisation…or your studying, you know?”

Newt sighed, dismayed, and started to swing himself out of bed, his bare feet dangling just short of the floor. This was probably not going to go very well. Theseus seemed immensely tall from where he was, even when trying out his best encouraging smile. Once flying projectiles got involved, Newt didn’t anticipate the morning getting much better.

“Alright,” Newt relented, because he predicted it would make Theseus pleased, and indeed it did. He didn’t even receive a lecture about washing his face in the horrible cold water of the sink or wearing something smart.

Buoyed by this, Newt made himself brush his teeth all by himself, without being reminded, and neatly cleaned up afterwards. His big brother wasn’t home that often. And it was nice to see him, even if it wasn’t that nice to do things; he was always much more relaxed when there was nothing looming on the horizon other than his own exploits and the hopes of another day trying his best to help things that needed to be helped, rather than silly adult business.

Then again, he did know it was more than silly adult business. He was the youngest in the house, but as much as their father treated him like he was deaf and dumb, Newt had looked at a few newspapers. While he didn’t care much for most of what he found, he loved reading, devouring most knowledge that halfway was useful to him, and he’d noted a few full page announcements on various things. Things about the Statue of Secrecy and Ministry monitoring and enforcement.

And now they were talking about Quidditch. It wasn’t very brilliant. Resigning himself to being pelted with the large red ball Theseus called a Quaffle didn’t exactly sound like a lot of fun to Newt, but he supposed the rest of his daily schedule could wait.

“Hurry up,” Theseus demanded.

“Okay,” Newt said.

Theseus huffed. “No, seriously, hurry up, I want to get out before the rain comes in. All my weather-detection charms tell me we’ve got maybe two hours.”

“Two hours seems like enough time,” pointed out Newt.

“No, no, it needs to be for two and a half hours,” Theseus said. “You need to warm up and cool down, obviously. And then fifteen minutes for each drill, and then—“

“Will we look at the Snitch?” Newt asked. He liked the Snitch, and was very glad it wasn’t a Snidget.

“Nah. I’m a Chaser, we don’t look at that, unless it clips us on the back of the head as we’re going,” Theseus said. “Snitches and catching them are for the littlest people on the team. Suppose that could be you; you’re pretty skinny, and just eat bread and butter. No, we’re going to do some drills. You can help me! Enchanting the Quaffle to throw itself back at me takes a while because they’ve got all these anti-cheating charms, so you kind of have to think a little and circumnavigate that, takes a bit of…yeah, anyway, hurry up.”

“Okay,” Newt agreed. “Why are you in a good mood?”

“Oh! No reason,” Theseus said, and then almost tripped over himself as they went down the stairs, promptly deciding to explain further anyway. “We have regionals coming up. I’ll have to go back to Hogwarts for a bit and do the last of the training before we get to compete against a couple of adult teams. They’ll be long tournaments.”

“So it’s like you’re going on holiday,” Newt observed, deciding not to put his shoes on, because they were Theseus’s old ones and the heels were falling off. Instead, he followed Theseus through the back door, padding into the dewy grass.

“Not quite,” Theseus said. “I mean, it obviously took a lot of effort to get to where we did.”

He jogged off to the shed in which Newt kept his spare habitat supplies and, from a distance, Newt saw him pull out a leather trunk. Theseus flipped the lid open and pulled out a large ball, cradling it to his chest with one hand before spinning it on a few fingers, kicking the trunk shut and peering into the shed. Before Newt could react, he heard a strange noise—he turned back towards their house and saw movement in the window of Theseus’s room—and then Theseus's broom whooshed down to the half-open back door and politely let itself out to join them, tapping the handle against the old wood. It closed the door, as if sentient and polite, and shot right to Theseus’s waiting hand.

Newt didn’t have a broom. He didn’t like Quidditch, but he still might have liked one. It was a shame he wasn’t as good as Theseus and couldn’t earn it, as their father said.

Theseus ambled back over, now holding a lot of things, looking rather hopeful. “You throw it, yeah, and I’ll catch it? How high can you throw, or—can you actually do good throws?”

“I can do okay throws,” Newt said.

His older brother co*cked his head to one side, considering. He chewed his lip. “Hmm. We might need to practise a bit…because I pass the Quaffle pretty hard, you know.”

Newt wondered if Theseus wanted Newt to compliment him, like when a male peaco*ck showed off all its feathers, even if it was a bit inconvenient. He blinked mildly.

“That’s a good skill, I suppose,” Newt said, and gave him their gesture for good as well to add emphasis to his unconvincing tone, which was the okay gesture but twitching the fourth and fifth fingers twice, to show it was a bit better than okay.

Which wasn’t very often. So Theseus seemed pleased to see it, and Newt shuffled his feet in the grass, noticing how muddy and damp they were, waiting for Theseus to do something else.

Sometimes, playing with Theseus made Newt feel bad, and he wasn’t sure why. His brother didn’t usually tell him he wasn’t good enough—that was saved for all the proper adults, not almost-adults like Theseus. But he seemed to think about things differently, and play differently. Nowadays, though, playing was mostly watching Theseus do Quidditch, flying through the sky like a hawk, doing spins and dives. It still felt uncanny, like he was watching something he wasn’t entirely part of, just like at school watching the other children shout in the playground. He could join in, sometimes, but it always had the chance to leave him feeling funny.

But Theseus often was weird, too, so Newt at least didn’t feel too lonely in the holidays. He had a sharp tongue, but on the whole, it was marginally better than being home alone. Newt squinted into the sun and chewed on his fingers, glad he was in his pyjamas.

“I would quite like to play alone today as well,” Newt said.

Theseus rolled the Quaffle contemplatively between his hands. “How seriously, on a scale of one to ten?”

“Scales don’t make much sense,” Newt informed him. He hummed uncomfortably, a few short beats that rolled the noise at the back of his throat, testing to see if he wanted to draw it out, because he was nervous and didn’t know why. “Feelings don’t have numbers.”

“Of course, little monster,” Theseus said. He tapped his fingers against the ball, frowning. “How about you learn to catch first, I let you go and stare at worms until it rains, and then you have to come inside and practice numbers with me?”

Beyond being bemused at the worm comment, the idea flattened Newt’s enthusiasm. Catch and then numbers? He detested this potential planned itinerary. With a tight huff, Newt brought his hands together and then apart, signing out this as a question, because it didn’t really feel fair. It was like he’d been tricked and suddenly found a whole lot of conditions. When Theseus nodded, Newt made a disgruntled noise and held out his hands, receiving the Quaffle, which felt a lot bigger against his chest than it had looked when Theseus was holding it.

The Quaffle seemed to swell and contract between Newt's hands, simultaneously cumbersome yet strangely anchoring in its solidity. He shifted his grip on the battered leather, cradling the ball close to his narrow chest.

"Go on then, show me your throwing," Theseus prompted. "We'll start off easy. Just toss it underhand so I can get a sense of your form."

Underhand tosses Newt could manage, provided he kept the motions tight and controlled. Anything more vigorous risked his arms flailing like a windmill, lacking the kinetic grace his brother seemed to exude so effortlessly. Still, Theseus was watching him with that intense, appraising stare that always made the hairs prickle at Newt's nape.

Swallowing hard, Newt stepped forward and extended his arms.

For a fraction of a heartbeat, he simply stood there, drinking in the scents of freshly turned loam and damp morning dew perfuming the air. There was a hawk skimming the tree line in search of its breakfast.

"Focus, Newt" Theseus said. "Eyes on me now, c'mon.”

Despite himself, Newt couldn't quite bite back the petulant huff. Distractions were hardly his fault, yet Theseus acted as though his mind wandering merited full disciplinary action.

Grounding himself, Newt adjusted his stance and co*cked his right arm backwards, only for his wrist to soften way too early, jerking at the culmination of his throw. The Quaffle sailed forth in a wild spiral, humming sharply before soaring directly over Theseus's head to plop in the vegetable garden several yards behind him.

"Well..." Theseus deflated slightly. "That could've used a bit more technique, I'll admit."

Newt stared at his feet. He'd known Quidditch skills would be challenging, but having his failure broadcast so obviously still stung.

“Right then," Theseus sighed. "Let's try something a bit more...structured. To the field, one over, maybe? Give us some more space to stretch out."

Without waiting, the elder Scamander swung his leg over the broomstick and kicked off from the grass. Years of training lent his motions a graceful quality as Theseus soared, a tight spiral that left Newt momentarily breathless just watching. Then he was streaking across the to the field before reining in his flight path, hanging suspended fifteen feet above the ground, spreading his arms in a magnanimous gesture.

"Well, Fido?" he called down. "Aren't you coming?"

Newt gnawed the inside of his cheek, hesitating only for a split-second before reluctantly breaking into a loping jog along the field’s outer boundary. His shorter strides ate up significantly less ground than Theseus's broom consumed in the air. Perspiration stung the corners of his eyes, but Newt persevered with the dogged singlemindedness that would later see him traipse across entire continents in pursuit of obscure magical species. He reached the centre of the makeshift pitch just as Theseus spiralled lazily down to meet him.

"There we go," Theseus said. "Knew you couldn't resist an opportunity to get out the house."

Face flushed and already panting heavily, Newt simply grunted. He reached up to swipe the sweat from his brow, then paused as he caught Theseus observing him with that same inscrutable intensity.

"Tell you what," Theseus murmured after a pregnant pause. "Rather than keep flinging that Quaffle back and forth until your noodle arms give out, how about we work on your hand-eye coordination instead?"

Noodle arms? He assumed that Theseus only spoke that way out of some misguided attempt at camaraderie, but the words still needled at Newt.

"What—What did you have in mind?" he bit out before he could stop the words from emerging more terse than intended.

“I’ll throw the ball at you and you catch it. Then, at least I know us doing drills won’t just be me knocking you flat.”

“I...I don't know," Newt said.

Nobody had ever given him much opportunity to develop hand-eye coordination specific to flying projectiles before. He looked between the Quaffle and Theseus's easy grin, unable to gauge whether a jest or a genuine assessment loomed on the horizon.

Theseus's grin widened to show teeth. "Well then, no time like the present to find out."

Without any other warning, the elder Scamander whipped his right arm forward. The Quaffle flew in a compact spiral straight at Newt.

It would've smacked him in the face if not for his reflexes kicking in at the last possible nanosecond.

He twisted to one side, shoulders hunching in on themselves as he squeezed his eyes shut in a full-body flinch. The ball whipped past so close that the coarse leather almost grazed his cheek.

"Hey!" he said, his fingers flying up to his face. "A little warning might've been nice!"

"Ah, but it’s not realistic. I need to test just how likely it is that we’ll be able to practise together without serious injury," Theseus chuckled, already swooping over on his low-flying broom to retrieve the Quaffle for another attempt. "You can't hesitate on the pitch, little brother. The Bludgers sure as hell won't give you a by-your-leave."

Newt frowned, cupping his cheek in one palm while eyeing his elder brother. "Really?"

What has possessed him this morning? Newt wondered.

"Yeah! That wasn’t bad at all. Not bad. Let’s try it with your eyes closed this time. Relying on more than just sight to anticipate threats and openings."

"My eyes closed?" Newt repeated dubiously. That seemed to be taking things a fair stride past the boundaries of reasonable difficulty.

"Really, Theseus? It's already hard enough just seeing the ball coming!"

"Don't be daft, you didn't have any trouble just now," Theseus scoffed. "Besides, you'll only be hindered by your vision over-prioritising the irrelevant details. We need to engage the rest of your senses too."

Theseus moved to retrieve the Quaffle once more. All the while, he prattled on in that lecturing tone he liked to assume when feeling particularly self-assured.

"When a Bludger comes ripping across the pitch, you won't have time to keep eyeing its trajectory. Part of becoming a player is relying on audio and spatial cues: the whistle of air being disturbed, the ambient noise of the stands and your teammates. It’ll all feed into your reflexive responses through instinct rather than conscious effort, see?"

Newt closed his eyes as Theseus had instructed. Immediately, several other sounds drifted forth: the chirping of songbirds trilling from the forest; the rustling of the oak trees in the fitful morning breeze; and the distant rumble of one of their Hippogriffs calling out.

“Are you just pranking me so that you can throw the ball at me when my eyes are closed?” Newt asked.

“Of course not!” came Theseus’s reply.

Something shot through the air. He heard it.

It hit him in the face just as Newt jerked back, hands flying uselessly up, dull pain blooming through his jaw. Snapping his eyes open, Newt stared at the Quaffle as it rolled against his feet like some innocent Crup, and noticed it sounded an awful lot like Theseus was trying not to laugh.

He straightened with a flush of vindication and remembered he was meant to close his eyes, quickly shutting out his brother’s tall silhouette again. Theseus's voice rang out with undisguised approval. "Not bad at all, little brother. You're really getting a feel for it now, eh?"

“It did hit me in the face!” He tilted his head, straining to pinpoint the exact location of Theseus's voice amid the woodland sounds surrounding them. “And it hurt. And I think I heard you laughing at me. This is rubbish practice.”

Mum had said this was exactly the sort of thing older brothers did. Newt thanked his lucky stars that Theseus wasn’t like this very often.

"Yeah, but you cushioned it. Didn’t break your nose. Though your technique could still use some refinement," his brother said. "That reactionary flail looked rather ungainly. We'll need to smooth out those rough edges so you aren't off-balance after evading..."

And with that, Theseus's voice trailed off into contemplative muttering, seemingly more for his own benefit than actually addressing Newt. Newt frowned at being so brazenly ignored. Just because he'd lost visual input didn't mean he'd gone completely deaf!

Newt took a slow, measured breath as he co*cked an ear towards the rustling grass heralding his brother's movements. He imagined Theseus was an Occamy wending itself way towards him, feeling his spirits pick up a little at the altered vision.

It sounded as though Theseus was meandering in a circle. Muscles taut in anticipation, Newt tracked every cue within his mind's eye. He was ready this time: prepared beyond any shadow of doubt for Theseus's next spontaneous onslaught. The slightest change in cadence, a sharp inhalation, even the barest shift in air pressure—Newt would detect it and meet that next Quaffle delivery head on!

“Come on, throw it,” Newt said. “I’ll show you I can catch it.”

Except Theseus continued muttering and pacing, gradually drifting further afield until he'd meandered nearly out of Newt's range entirely. The contrast of near and far receded into an ambiguous blur, robbing him of any reliable tracking.

What was this? A test in patience and restraint, perhaps? The idea seemed likely, given his Theseus’s strange love for very complicated ideas.

"I don’t mind if you choose any time now," Newt eventually said. He screwed the heel of one foot into the ground, as that might summon his brother from wherever he'd wandered off to.

Only silence answered him.

Fed up, Newt finally huffed and prepared to reopen his eyes.

"Caught you cheating! Behind you!" Theseus's disembodied shout rang out from the opposite end of the field Newt had been facing.

Another whistle and another thud.

“I wasn’t cheating! I was just opening my eyes!” Newt pointed out. “Ow.”

This time, his shoulder had been the target. It hurt, but not too badly—he knew Theseus wasn’t trying to hurt him, but also knew that sixteen year old boys weren’t so bothered about who got hurt while they were doing their other things. After all, his brother hadn’t said he was going to throw it from behind, so Newt didn’t care if he didn’t manage to catch it.

He refused to drop his guard or open his eyes.

"Your spatial triangulation needs work," Theseus called out after a long pause, sounding distinctly less gleeful than moments before. "You left your back vectors completely exposed.”

“Mmh,” Newt said, humming in the back of his throat again, thinking. “Hm-hm-hm.”

“Newt...?" That same voice, less certain now, growing anxious in some intrinsic manner. "Newton, we can stop now. That’s enough drills for—“

Newt bent down and groped for the Quaffle. In one swift motion, he pivoted on the balls of his feet and simply reared back as far as his body would allow; then, with every fibre of his being shunted into accelerating that swing, he released the Quaffle in a furious overhand chucked right from the gut. There. Now he had shown he could throw things and dodge things; hopefully, it wouldn’t persuade his brother that Newt would be any good at helping him with his endless Quidditch practice and let him get on with his things, although he could respect that listening out with his eyes closed could come in handy in the future when tracking down the sneakiest of beasts.

Something went smack.

Suddenly worried, Newt opened his eyes—and saw Theseus flat on the floor, blinking and swearing. Okay. That was good. The Quaffle lay right by his starfish-spread arms as he rubbed at the back of his head, looking rueful. Heart in his throat, Newt raced over.

"Hands—hands off, you mad bastard," Theseus finally managed as Newt patted at his head in one of their rare moments of physical contact. “Bloody hell, I was just trying to figure out if that was Mum or Auntie Agnes standing at the front door.”

Ah. So Theseus hadn’t been looking. And it seemed as though the ball had hit him rather hard. Newt tilted his head owlishly, still having no idea what to do. "I'm ever so sorry. I didn't mean to cause such pain. I suppose it’s your…your skull density didn’t fully withstand that sort of concussive force."

“Skull density?" Theseus echoed. "Is that all you have to say after cracking me over the head with that Quaffle?"

“What did you expect me to do? You're the one who distracted me and started throwing projectiles,” Newt said.

"For a bit of harmless sport and exer—you know what, never mind. Merlin’s knickers. You seriously got me when I wasn’t looking,” Theseus said breathlessly. Slowly, he rolled out of his stomach-down sprawl and managed to lever himself upright into a loose seated position, one hand still massaging his head. “Well. That definitely was a decent shot.”

Yet he couldn't help but feel a swell of guilt at having lashed out in the first place. Hurting others, regardless of the severity or circ*mstance behind their provocations, simply didn't sit well with who Newton Scamander was.

So when his next words finally emerged, they came as more of a hesitant, shame-tinged mumble. "I...I didn't mean it. Not truly, at any rate." Newt sniffed. “I really didn’t…I didn’t mean to hurt you."

He scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand as Theseus blinked up at him with slightly unfocused blue-grey eyes, still winded.

"Was that not the intention? To strike back with every ounce of effort you could muster?" Theseus raised an eyebrow. He shrugged, the movement making him wince afresh. "Think nothing of it, truly. Merlin knows I deserved a bit of comeuppance after letting my mouth run away with me. And perhaps we ought to table further...athletic endeavours until I've had a chance to recuperate from your sneak attack, you little git."

Out of the corner of his eye, Newt saw the hawk again, skirting the treeline. It was still overcast and the wind was cooling.

"Actually," Newt said, thinking about what he could do to make this up to Theseus and be nice again, "perhaps we could try again later. Without any projectiles this time."

“You’re joking,” Theseus said, in that tone of his that meant he was pretty confused, even though Newt thought he’d been as straightforward as possible.

Newt played with his fingers, chewing his lower lip. “Y’know. Because you said I’d enjoy it…we can try again later, and maybe I’ll enjoy it that time?”

Theseus's eyes lit up as he finally got to his feet and rubbed at the grass stains on his behind. That had been a good way of making amends, Newt noticed. When his brother wasn’t being grumpy and ignoring Newt, he enjoyed things like second chances as much as Persephone, Newt’s favourite Hippogriff, enjoyed a nice piece of pig cheek. So, Newt would record this in his observation journal later, which he might actually have time to fill out in his room even while Theseus was in the house for once—and, when Theseus was a bit cheerier, he trusted Newt to do his numbers alone.

*

But by the time he hit 1905, Theseus was chafing and wearing down at the same time. There was only so much he could fight. There was only so much he could do. It was too much and never enough, and Theseus doubted even Flamel himself possessed sorcery sufficient to distil all these discordant agendas into some sustainable way of life. Not to mention Headmaster Black had rejected out-of-hand his written request to take leave to visit home twice a term. He’d spent hours drafting that in his head, staring dry-eyed at the dormitory ceiling before Quidditch drills. The Headmaster wasn’t interested, didn’t care—and why would he care about the mongrel exploits of the bizarre Scamander family?

At least he knew his father would take Mum to St Mungo’s when needed. And if Mum was well enough, Newt would be okay, if at times feral from lack of attention or guidance or the kind of care Theseus guiltily remembered getting a little before that age, when their family was less wounded. That was that. It was fine, even if it meant that they needed their father’s income to pay for her medicine, which consisted of assortments of potions and phials that never quite fixed the problem.

So Theseus had stopped mapping out escape routes. He’d discovered he was the kind of person who didn’t really want to escape, who found it hard to parse the world beyond its clear rules and his own ideas, so set in stone, about what should be done. There was a noble peace in it, he had decided.

This meant the anxiety was starting to soften as Theseus got older, started gaining control over some of his situations. And now that he was growing into himself and the fear was only bubbling rather than burning, his fearful concern for Newt’s feelings or even Newt's happiness, started to wane. He still loved his younger brother as much as ever, but the world was turning into things that were changing—his world was changing. It was tough. Being happy clearly wasn’t very necessary, was it? Exams, Ministry applications, the dance of teacher’s mixed praise and high expectations. If any of his friends brought up Newt, Theseus still defended him down to the bone, but there was a little nagging voice in the back of his head whispering maybe they were right.

Them being right proved Alexander right when he’d given Theseus the scar on his hand. He would have to be better than Newt, more normal than Newt, guide and protect Newt.

But how much was he honestly meant to think about Newt? Of course, when he was at home, the little bundle of trouble was entirely his responsibility, give or take the snatched hours where Mum was well.

What was he really meant to do? Worry all the time? Yes, he would probably worry all the time. But the last thing he wanted to be was an enchanted compass with the dial stuck at Newt-o’clock. And if holding the family together was his responsibility, then, truly, he considered it necessary to keep a bit of his brain for himself. At least there then could be a tiny part of the thing he called Theseus to wall somewhere deep inside and keep safe, between adapting to what everyone needed to be and trying to find just the right formula that would finally make everything in this unfair world click into place.

He detested the scrutiny on him, and the weakness that meant he had to be beaten into a man. But it was better than being lost to the woods and myriad creatures, with perhaps worry from Mum on extended absences at most. Being forgotten and generally unwanted. Being seen as an abject failure in their father’s eyes, rather than something half-finished with potential.

No. It couldn’t. Theseus couldn’t bear it.

He stayed strong around Newt to help reassure him, true, to protect that spark of innocence—but maybe, selfishly, even cruelly, he did it to help him with that control.

There was the martyr, and there was the heretic.

Newt was barely in the family photo album. It was hard to reconcile the warm feeling in his chest he had as he examined the rare pictures they did have together, and the knowledge that he had to keep himself from going the same way. Because while he didn’t think it proved anything inherently too bad about Newt, it did show that people could just stop loving you, and when the strings shifted, when the tensions got ready to pop like a bubble, he was going to pay for whatever his brother did—so why wouldn’t it be every man for himself?

Besides, Theseus had learned several lessons. Once learned, he stuck rigorously to them. If there was one thing Theseus could do, that Newt certainly couldn’t with his ambling and jumping between things and dropping and picking up, it was stick to things until they ate him from the inside out. It was nice, when they stuck like glue. He never let anything go. A lesson once learned was a rule for life. A comment made was a guide for better social adjustment. The more he wove the web, the easier it became to navigate it. So, here they were.

The first: he needed to do well, in everything, so that their parents could have one child to take out and display as a defensive barricade against the whispers.

The second: he didn’t feel bad, and if he did, he didn’t share it, and if he didn’t share it, he wrapped it in blankets until it grew empty and didn’t seem to resonate as any particular emotion any more.

The third: so long as he kept being as secretive as he could, and made sure that Newt understood exactly how things worked in the family, he was still seen as an excellent son.

An addendum to the third: No, there was nothing odd about him.

A further addendum to the addendum to the third: Perhaps he had to show off to demonstrate the fact; perhaps he caught himself almost goading Newt in small displays of superiority because while sometimes Newt stared at him with flat resentment, sometimes Newt also looked just a little impressed. That was good. So, so good, for someone to be impressed. If he stopped pretending, he stopped getting praise, and if he stopped getting praise—well, that was the end of Theseus’s purpose. Newt was young and would get over it. Or he wouldn’t. Fine. Everyone in their family needed careful handling anyway: parents very much included.

He reasoned a little guilt accompanying this unfortunate lateral process was normal. After all, hadn’t he felt guilty for most things in his life already? It was an unaffordable luxury to let that paralyse him when it was crucial to keep moving, keep holding everything together. Lots of important working components to that: not asking for anything, appearing to have it all, corralling Newt at any given opportunity. Not getting too breathless at strange things. Not holding his breath. Any good luck was very much on the out already. Doing things well went from a pleasant surprise to a necessity in case the sky fell in.

And the final lesson: not thinking about things too much was the only way to slip the impossible double binds woven across their ragged, unconventional family.

Newt was still important, of course. They were still brothers. Whenever Newt’s name got brought up in conversation, Theseus’s did too; and the same, unerringly, vice versa.

But Theseus was bouncing between worlds as a sixteen year old. Many threads wove these together. Newt, with his rare letters and constant fascination with wandering off into the outdoors, didn’t try part and parcel to make himself fit.

And if something didn’t make itself fit, Theseus reasoned with some numbness, then perhaps there was no place for considering the actual thing and all the requirements for battling with the shadow of it.

Still brothers.

Whatever trial by fire of assimilation he needed to pass outside the house seemed nearly complete. Many days, thinking too much about Newt’s prospects beyond entertaining his little brother’s talk about beasts and being the gentle guiding hand he needed felt as though he was standing in the centre of an athletics track. Like those of Ancient Greece, dotted with decaying golden apples, and seeing Newt scuff his feet at the start line, heedless of the double-edged fruit.

Sometimes, it even gave him a shudder of cool relief to reject Newt, to turn him away. Easier than always telling him off or telling him to sit still or drilling him on his schoolwork. So much easier. Easier than telling him the creatures was an interest, not his whole life, and that doing things like tapping or wiggling his hands in front of their father was unilaterally a bad idea. It made the pain of boundary-blurring easier, along with the fact he so rarely had time to play anymore, as old as he was. It was a kind of sick satisfaction, he reasoned, to be so nostalgic about the days when it had been less complicated. Before Theseus’s main responsibility was purely to keep Newt in line, and yet say no as easily as snapping a rubber band.

If he didn’t talk too much to Newt, he couldn’t mess him up any more. Newt wasn’t exactly going to learn to be normal if Theseus started letting his guard down.

Theseus knew Newt tried in his own way. But seeing schoolmates coddle their younger siblings while he wrestled down impulse after impulse for Newt built volcanic pressure inside Theseus. Other families laughed together over minor mishaps. Then again, other families still were quicker to the strap. Meanwhile, he gritted his teeth while making the rounds to grovel his apologies and create neat excuses for Newt's latest transgression.

It felt profoundly unfair at times, the way they were judged differently.

Because no matter how well-mannered Theseus remained under public scrutiny, at home it changed nothing.

Still, even though everything was normal—or was meant to be normal—he’d developed a boiling frustration inside him.

Never had he had something like this anger. Some days, all he wanted to do was break things, preferably glass, something that shattered melodiously and dangerous, something that he’d be made to clear up with bare hands. But Alexander didn’t destroy; he simply shaped malformed objects. And god forbid Theseus have one good—or bad—quality that wasn’t a perfect mirror of his father.

Instead, he settled for tearing at his hangnails, peeling back raw strips of skin to reveal the redness underneath, wondering what his blood was made of and who he was becoming.

If he didn’t talk too much to Newt, he wouldn’t have to share how imperfect the family’s eldest son and heir really was below the surface.

Useless! What were you thinking? Can’t you do anything yourself?

After their last argument, Newt had gone missing—he hadn’t been in his room or the barn or the airing cupboard—and Theseus envied him for having so many places to hide, for it taking so long to find him. Then, at last, not finding him had set his heart racing until it drummed in his ears. At last, he’d found him, there at the edge of the lawn: a bedraggled Newt clutching his case too tightly, eyes puffy and clothes rumpled beneath his travelling cloak. Relief and confusion had stalled Theseus briefly. Had Newt been running away? Just because of one argument?

He’d said things he didn’t mean.

Without thinking, Theseus had marched across the grass, annoyance spiking again. Why had Newt had to overreact this way, like everything was some dramatic production? Merlin forbid, a little shouting after what Father regularly had exploded over—and while of course he hadn’t said it, because it was a secret to be kept at all costs—did Newt know how lucky he was that Theseus took the physical consequences?

"Newt, what are you playing at?" Theseus had called sharply as he had approached. Newt had just wrapped his arms tighter around himself defensively. "You can't just sneak off with no note or anything! What if something had happened?"

When Newt still wouldn't meet his eyes, he’d suddenly paused, a brief flare of concern spearing him. When had annoying little Newt grown so resigned about his own burdensome existence?

He’d pushed it aside with all the self-importance of a sixteen year old. Someday, Newt would see how much Theseus sacrificed for his well being and understand the impenetrable walls were only for both their protection: not out of heartless resentment. It would have been nice if things were otherwise, but it just wasn’t possible. He thought in black and white, most of the time. So it didn’t seem possible. But Newt would come around. He had to.

After all, they were brothers. Theseus refused considering otherwise.

If he thought too much about it all, he started to feel as if he were dying, and that chain of thought drew him to wonder what would happen if he suddenly dropped dead. Theseus imagined it might be relaxing.

He questioned why he never thought about Newt or Alexander just disappearing, them just not existing any more, and that made him think more about dropping dead himself: in a moral sense, a kind of everything that goes around comes around, you deserve it for thinking such a thing, sense. At least the Quidditch regional championships were coming up. Next week, he’d get those blessed seven hours away from the nuthouse, if only the nuthouse didn’t seem to come with him wherever he went within the confines of his soul.

*

The rain was pouring down the kitchen windows.

Slowly, he drifted out of the haze of his thoughts, reminding himself where he was. He pressed his hand against the window, pulling it away damp with condensation, reminding himself he was alive and present. Wincing, he stood with some effort from the cushioned window seat, and went to his parents’ bedroom. Alexander had vanished early for work that morning with the familiar loud pop of the outside Floo passage to the Ministry.

He wasn’t sure what he was looking for there.

Slowly but surely, his father was slipping out of his mother’s favour, out of her orbit, two planets starting to misalign. She stiffened when he walked into the room, went silent during his rages. Leonore and Newt shared a similar anger, something cold, not hot in it. His hands were still infinitesimally tender when he helped her lace her boots when her fingers stiffened and froze up. But Theseus saw it in his eyes. Brief flashes of suppressed alarm. In quiet moments, he knew Leonore was analysing the planes of his face, how similarly they all fit together. The thing was that they weren’t fighting, not really. Alexander hadn’t raised his voice recently, and certainly not at Leonore. Something else was changing. Perhaps they were tiring of one another after more than twenty years: her of his fixity, him of her fatigue.

She didn’t know about the discipline required to hold them together, that was true, but Theseus and Alexander had made an agreement.

He himself had resolved not to overtly lie should he ever be asked, but he never was asked. It was needed—it was required. Their family had secrets enough to hide from the Ministry; surely he was allowed possession of this one so that he didn’t have to confess to everyone who still saw him as whole that he was some failing whipping boy. It would only worry Newt, make him fear Alexander even more—and that wasn’t certain to make Newt listen—so they’d come full circle. It would tear everything apart. Everything and everyone. Worst case scenario, Newt was taken away. Theseus was old enough to survive on his own, unable to scratch up the money for Mum’s medicine, and their father simply self-destructed without the one light left in his life: Leonore.

He wasn’t weak. He could be strong for the ones he loved, be the strongest. It had done him good, fixed him up. Take it.

His glamours and healing charms were exemplary. There were certain burdens a son had to bear, even if he would have helped Newt no matter what. He understood why it had to happen, had been told again and again until he believed it like the sight of the back of his hand, even if he wouldn’t do it to his own children. Such was the way of life and secrets. Truly, it was bearable. He was the child of pride, of some joy, with promise and a future—he’d be an idiot to let that go. If only Newt would behave, and if only he could keep having the strength to keep up the diversion and accept his mistakes in failing to guide the child better than either parent.

Deserved, indeed. Deserved, should he fail to protect his family.

Secretly, ashamedly, also—didn’t it prove something, something about that difference between him and Newt? Something that Theseus now remembered every time he saw the whitened scar stretching over his knuckles?

Deep breath. Don’t think about it. Better not to reflect; better to just do.

*

Theseus hovered in the doorway of his parents' bedroom, watching his mother brush out her long auburn hair in her chipped vanity, the scraggly curls frizzing out into something that looked like a lion’s mane. A sudden, painful nostalgia. He used to sit behind her on the bed as a child, using a special oil from his mother’s mother that made it easy to gently work through the tangles himself, inhaling the faint scent of cedar that always seemed to cling to her. Back when things had been simpler.

"Theseus? Did you need something?"

He blinked, realising she had caught his reflection in her vanity mirror. Heat crept up the back of his neck. Sixteen was surely too old for such sentimental lingering.

"Sorry, I...no, nothing," he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Only wondering if you needed any help. With your hair or, er...anything."

Her eyes cut to him, something kindling there. Theseus faltered under the obscure scrutiny, his breath seizing.

You've done nothing wrong, nothing wrong, nothing wrong—

Leonore studied him a long moment before her face softened. "Come here, then," she said, patting the quilted bench.

Theseus crossed the room and dragged the loop-back wooden chair away from the window. This was his father’s chair in this bedroom, oddly ascetic, too small for either of their lanky frames. But it put him on the same level as her. He sat just behind Leonore, slightly to the side, briefly evaluating his own hair in the mirror, pushing back the curls threatening to escape the pomade. Perhaps he needed a haircut, but he hated haircuts, and that was hardly something he could say.

“Here,” his mum said.

He took the silver handled brush. As she tilted her head forward, she exposed her long neck and the tiny starburst scar near her nape. Without thinking, he reached to trace it, like he’d done when he was small.

"Oh, is that the little mark? Do you remember how I got it?" Leonore asked, her green eyes crinkling when he shook his head, watching every twitch of her face in the mirror. "You gave it to me, darling. When you’d just learned to walk and ran right into me. Nearly knocked me flat, running around like you always did!"

He stared at the pale scar. "I'm sorry.”

Leonore reached behind her as she looked at her dresser and the assortment of medicines on offer, absently trying to pet his hand, managing to squeeze his knee. "It’s just a little bump. I've endured far worse injuries from my work, believe me, and even now—Hippogriffs do get peckish, as you well know. Though it’s much better to get bitten by one of them than a patient! The difference is all the saliva, you see, and the level of contamination it introduces, not that we know much of the science behind it…”

He bit his lip, keeping silent: and lifted the brush, working it through her hair. They sat awhile in the quiet. But something gnawed at Theseus, until he finally spoke again. He needed to check things, as always. Rules were excellent, but the rules themselves had to be infallible. They had to be stress-checked and morally defensible.

"Mum, have I...have I changed much? From how I was before?" The words emerged timid. He wasn't certain what answer frightened him more.

Leonore tilted her head, studying his reflection with a little furrow between her fine brows. "You're nearly a man now, so I suppose much about you has changed outwardly. Though you remain quite clever and dutiful." She smiled. "Why? Have you been worrying that my little boy has vanished completely?"

Yes. Even though he desperately needed to be more man than boy now at sixteen, to have the resilience Alexander demanded. Theseus swallowed.

"No, only...wondering."

If he had absorbed too much of his father now.

But the words stuck bitter in his throat. Because they still loved one another, his parents, and he wasn’t allowed to complain. In no uncertain terms, Alexander had explained that consequences would fall far and they’d fall widely. A man who hit wanted to hit, no matter how his father shook afterwards. It was like being in a room strung with invisible gossamer, paralysed. Pull the wrong string, and it could—it would—be Newt next.

That’d break Mum’s heart. Newt hurt, and her unable to stop it.

Leonore was quiet for another moment. Then she shifted around to face him directly, gently lifting his chin. Theseus forced himself not to look away.

"You and your father have always resembled each other a great deal," she finally murmured. "In appearance, in manner. I expect it is only becoming more pronounced."

Theseus's chest tightened, even as he mentally catalogued their similarities once more. The sharp Scamander nose and jaw. Their shared habits like raking frustrated hands through dark brown hair—the same physical tells broadcasting anger.

"Is that wrong?"

He hadn't meant to ask, but Leonore's careful tone unnerved him. Surely some commonality was only natural. So why did she seem troubled by the fact?

"Not wrong, no." Leonore smoothed his rumpled collar. "Only I forget sometimes you are not one and the same."

Theseus blinked rapidly against the sting in his eyes. Not one and the same. But oh, how he tried to mould himself into some worthy copy. And how often Alexander's scowls suggested he failed completely.

Leonore touched his cheek. "You're very stoic nowadays, like your father. And so busy trying to live up to impossible standards… I simply miss my son's more tender-hearted nature at times."

The lump in his throat swelled; he winced and pulled away. Of course she missed who he had been, before shame and fear had eroded that gentle boy nearly away. But he could become that considerate young man again; he just needed to keep distancing himself from past weaknesses.

Theseus attempted a teasing grin instead. "Well, I can hardly go around crying over every injured bird like when I was eight, Mum. I'd never live it down at school."

Leonore's sudden flinch caught him off guard. Had he said something wrong? But she merely ran a self-conscious hand over her freckled collarbones. "No, I suppose not. One does outgrow such things."

Unease prickled his skin as Leonore took the hairbrush from his motionless hands. Something unspoken strained the space between them now. Theseus fumbled for a neutral topic to dispel the tension. Was it resentment? Boredom?

f*ck.

“It’s not,” he tried, “it’s not quite that.”

“It’s alright. I understand.”

Bitterness underscored her tone now. Theseus shifted in dismayed confusion, and looked for something to say. “Father left earlier than usual this morning. Apparently, there’s some new round of negotiations regarding a treatise on the borders, something about margins and the acceptable level of surveillance over the Muggle government to bring our tariff rates in line.”

But Leonore didn’t respond. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind.

"I...I don't mind the prospect of working at the Ministry someday," he offered. "The opportunity appeals greatly, in truth."

“Is Newt up?” his Mum asked. It wasn’t relevant to the topic of the conversation, but that was okay.

“Yes, I’ve got him up and ready. He’s wearing decent clothes and I’ve set him some homework. Numeracy, mostly, and spellings. The school gave me a few of the Muggle books…I think they’re easier than my old ones. Although I suppose we shouldn’t give him the impression we think he’s only able to do, you know, less than he actually can. The Muggles are as smart as the first years, though, it’s just that they have to start getting jobs.”

Leonore seemed distracted, disinterested in his hardwon insights in the Muggle world. Sometimes, when he was younger and freer, he’d bought the papers off the newsagent in return for delivering a round, devouring the pages front to back, fascinated. But not as fascinated as Newt with his creatures. And Muggle Studies was considered an unconventional subject now that the Statute was meant to remove any need for understanding now that they had segregation. He entirely doubted it.

Perhaps he could tell her about the NEWTs he was planning on taking. Alexander already knew, of course. Alexander knew most things about Theseus’s life, beyond those secrets that could earn him something broken. Six NEWTs, ridiculously overachieving, in everything an Auror would need: Defence against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology, and Muggle Studies.

Not taking Arithmancy had caused some trouble. Trouble of the kind that, unsurprisingly, had expanded into substantial threats, threats couched in cold logic about the family’s success and his duties and even his—his marriage prospects, which he should ensure to be entirely respectful, to compensate for so poorly setting himself up to follow in his father’s footsteps.

He’d never been taught to talk about problems when they arose to other people. It didn’t occur to him to do so. And changing the subject felt sacrilegious when he was already dancing on thin ice.

His mother cleared her throat, putting down the hairbrush. "Has Newt confided any particular difficulties to you of late?"

Theseus's breath escaped in an ugly laugh. "Newt rarely confides anything personal voluntarily."

Immediately he winced, loathing himself. What was he doing, speaking of Newt with such callousness? But the words seemed to shred free of their own volition, his tone razor sharp. His little brother who still looked at him with such artless trust, even when Theseus dealt criticism more often than comfort these days.

He opened his mouth, but Leonore was already frowning, her gaze dropping. She had always been kind, yet knew she was too easy to read, and so she relied on gentle redirection and physical distraction, he’d noticed. Theseus bit his tongue until he tasted copper, cursing himself. Way to reassure Mum you're not some selfish brute.

"I only meant Newt tends to be rather self-contained," he amended. "Any difficulties he faces rarely come from his own lips."

Leonore didn't reply right away, her gaze fixed on her linked hands. Theseus half wished Father would burst in, just to dispel the tension, but at last, she spoke without looking up.

"No matter. I expect at his age, boys prefer confiding in friends to mothers." Each word held an odd weight. "But he has seemed...distressed of late. Beyond the usual."

Theseus resisted the urge to rake a hand through his hair in frustration. Of course she had noticed Newt's recent behaviour. He should have expected her mother's intuition to pick up on the darkened circles beneath Newt's eyes, the way he picked obsessively at his clothes when anxious. Signs even a watchful big brother was failing to curb.

"He likely just needs a little more patience and time." Even as the placation left his lips, Theseus hated himself for the reflexive excuses. For the desperation to smooth over any imperfections in the family fabric. "You know how sensitive he is. I'm sure Newt will settle soon enough."

"Will he?" Leonore's voice remained neutral, but a muscle feathered in her jaw. Theseus's palms prickled. "Tell me truthfully—do you believe your brother is happy? Truly happy?"

The question landed like a blow. Theseus opened and closed his mouth soundlessly, wrong-footed. Was Newt happy? Images flickered through his mind on loop. Newt smiling as he tended to a wounded creature. Newt animatedly recounting some new discovery about Bowtruckles, his hands fluttering like leaves. Quiet moments where they would share just a hint of an exasperated smile when Father was pontificating about trade laws over dinner.

But harder to ignore were the other memories. Newt cringing under scrutiny when dragged to social gatherings. Newt hunched over papers from school etched with red ink, struggling not to cry. Newt flinching reflexively if anyone raised a hand too near his face.

The way his little brother would stare into space for hours, as if wishing to disappear.

Theseus's throat tightened. No. He couldn't afford doubts. Not with so much hinging on his ability as elder brother to steer Newt toward some sort of normalcy. Toward contentment.

"Of course he's happy," Theseus insisted with brittle conviction. "Newt knows how much we love him. He's just...a bit odd by nature."

Immediately Theseus regretted the last phrase, remembering the sting of similar words hurled in the form of insults. As if sensing his thoughts, Leonore's face spasmed.

"Yes. Odd." Her voice dropped until barely audible. "My odd little boy."

Leonore stood from the little padded bench, her movements jerky as she began sorting through the items on her vanity with no apparent purpose. Lipsticks, perfume bottles, and hair ribbons clinked under her restless hands. Theseus’s insides were twisting themselves in knots. Why wouldn't she just reprimand him and be done with it?

At last, Leonore sighed. “Theseus, I...” She trailed off, swallowing, and fiddled with her sun-bleached auburn hair, the coarse ends.

Theseus stood too, nearly knocking over his—his father’s—chair. He righted it with clumsy hands, his pulse thrumming at his temples.

“Mum? Has something...is everything quite alright?”

Stupid question. Idiotic question. His lungs were compressing. Of course everything was not alright. When had it ever been?

She was wearing a green dress today, peppered with little flowers and three tiers of ruffles at the bottom. Wizarding women rarely wore corsets, and her waist was not particularly narrow. Her fingers touched the ruffle at her neck, white lace, playing with the pendant there. The colour was beautiful, like scorched grass, but it drained her face, and he was suddenly aware that she looked older than her years, face lined with old pain. Theseus wasn’t certain if it was his imagination or tricks of the light making it seem her complexion had yellowed slightly. Was she having another flare up? Had he not noticed her health worsening again?

“Please sit down,” Leonore said, attempting a smile. “You’re making me anxious, looming there.”

Theseus sank back onto his father’s chair, shaking one knee up and down restlessly. “Okay.”

“I confess matters with your father have been...strained...of late,” Leonore finally admitted.

“Oh?” He strove to keep any revealing inflection from his voice. “Has something happened?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Leonore flapped a hand as if dispersing smoke. “Only the usual tensions. His temper is shorter nowadays, it seems. The negotiations over this business treaty have been rather fraught, apparently.”

Theseus nodded. “Yes. The tariffs. And surveillance regulations.” As he’d said, but he wasn’t sure whether she was truly listening to him.

“Quite. Well, you know how he obsesses over these things.” Leonore's hand slipped on a bottle of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion, rattling the remaining bottles. "And, if anything, I have been harsh with him. Your father merely chafes at, well...I question the points in our lives in which we find ourselves. He cannot work like this forever. It’s not how it should be."

Theseus's breath stalled in his chest. There it was. Confirmation of what he had suspected, deep down. That no matter how hard he tried, how thoroughly he altered himself, it wasn't enough. He was never enough.

"I see." The words emerged scraped raw. Theseus swallowed and tried again. "Then I take full responsibility for any recent disappointment regarding Newt. Especially seeing as we’re following the progression of the laws on volatile children, I would—you should not have to—“

"No." Leonore cut him off with uncharacteristic sharpness. Eventually she sighed, crossing her arms tight across her stomach. "I wish I could deny Alexander applies undue pressure on you both."

Theseus froze. Did she know? The thought thrilled through him in a panic, instincts clamouring contradictory impulses. Protect Father—no, spare her further pain. Reassure her that he barely felt the blows—no, confess it all like a damned coward, make her choose sides—

Theseus dug his fingers into his forearms, breathing shallowly until the moment of madness passed. Alexander possessed sound reason beneath the temper.

So, unfolding himself as subtly as he could, Theseus simply gave a faint shrug. "Father only drives me because he cares. I need to live up to the family legacy someday. I mean, well...I don't mind. Really."

He didn’t mind, but it also didn’t make much sense.

Why did his father beat him at most infarctions and rebellions, yet elevate him in public at any opportunity? Why was he trusted to handle so many of the family’s affairs but seen as a constant risk, even when he’d proved he was a good son? And then why was Newt verbally deingrated every second of the day, viewed with hooded looks and low callous remarks, forced into circuitous studying and schooling and menial tasks when he was ever actually in the house—but his father never did more than the occasional light slipper?

Perhaps because he was the most defiant. So was Newt, really, but Newt was always away or quiet and Theseus was always there and saying things. They both said things they shouldn’t, but he supposed the advantage of being eight years older was that he truly did believe he saw everything.

Perhaps it was because he was loved the most.

Perhaps it was because he was meant to join the Ministry, and Newt was destined to fall into obscurity, handling beasts at some sideshow or carrying out ‘research’ in a dusty, forgotten archive. Perhaps he was the pasted pinned down version of a child that could be wheeled out to the Ministry to prove the record suggesting Newt could be a threat to the Statue—that, over the years, had evolved into a need to watch the volatile children, concrete laws for it—as a distraction. Perhaps because he never really gave up. Only teetered close to it, many days.

“And this round of trade negotiations will conclude soon,” he said. “Then things can return to normal.”

“Normal.” Leonore said, fiddling again with her skirts. When she was agitated, she usually did that with her brackets, making clicking or ringing noises. But she must have been out with the Hippogriffs today, because her arms were bare, freckled, like Newt’s. “I wonder if I even recall what our normal is anymore.”

Theseus felt entirely wrong-footed. “Mum, have I done something—”

There was something there he couldn’t quite see from his lack of vantage point—something that was working and not at the same time in how they preserved things. But it was as Alexander said. There was a fine balance. It had to be rearranged, the punishments done by proxy. Made sense not to take a switch to Newt, not when he was fragile like that. Not when that’d ruin everything for Mum.

“No!” Leonore raked both hands through her hair, sending the waves crackling with accidental magic. A faint tracery of sparks spat onto the floor as she pressed her trembling fingertips to her brow. “Forgive me. I didn't mean to shout. Only these headaches…”

She trailed off, her knuckles bleaching bone-white where she gripped the carved bedpost.

“Mum? Should I fetch your medicine?”

But Leonore shook her head wearily, the sparks extinguished. “No. I took a higher dose this morning. We’ll have to taper it next month at this rate.” She attempted a brittle smile. “I shall weather a bit of pain for now. We’re rationing a little at the moment, as Agnes isn’t well, although it does upset your father.”

Theseus swallowed. “If you need more for the pain, I can contact St Mungo’s,” he heard himself offer. “Or perhaps ask the apothecary in Diagon—”

“Theseus.” Leonore silenced him with that same strained smile. There was something terribly sad lurking at its corners. “You needn’t worry yourself. This is my burden to carry.”

No. No, he could help, he could fix this somehow—

But Leonore had already moved to the window, effectively closing the matter. Theseus hovered behind her. Outside, the trees loomed, and he fought to steady his pitching centre of gravity by staring at the overcast sky. This conversation was veering wildly off script, his usual cues failing him.

“Well, I shall certainly keep Newt more occupied when next I am home,” he offered in a bright tone, even though he must have already spent at least five hours a day attending to Newt—or searching for him in the woods. “Take a bit of the burden off your shoulders. I can take him out to the village perhaps. For sweets.”

Or to see the local boys who mocked his differences. Theseus shoved the thought aside viciously.

Leonore glanced at him then; Theseus’s chest constricted at the sight, even as she granted him a fond look. Her hand rose, hesitated, then fell. Theseus mourned the loss of a caress he had already taught himself not to crave anymore.

“I do wish matters were less strained for you both.” Leonore turned away, hiding her expression. Her voice emerged muffled. Defeated. “I wish I could shield you completely from the outside. Protect you as a mother ought. You take such responsibility onto yourself.”

He blinked hard. This wasn’t—this wasn’t how things were meant to be—

Surely she didn't mean—no. No, Alexander exercised discipline to protect them, even if his methods seemed severe. Father wished only to shelter them from harsh societal scorn, given their family’s peculiarities.

He had to salvage this somehow, steer it back to safer waters. Theseus cast about wildly before seizing on the first solid thought amidst the roiling chaos.

“I am hardly a boy anymore,” he said with brittle brightness. Sixteen hardly counted as a child, not with NEWTs looming. He attempted an easy grin. “And at the end of the day, well. One must have a bit of backbone in the workplace.”

Leonore said nothing. Theseus barreled onward.

“Besides, I consider myself lucky. Why, just imagine someone of Newt’s temperament attempting office politics.” He forced a laugh, wincing at the shrill edge. “Utter disaster.”

Shut up, shut up, you cretin—

Theseus dug his nails into his palms, struggling not to squirm as the silence swelled between them once more. His clumsy words. A mouth that ran away from him at the worst times and clamped shut at the best. At last Leonore shifted, angling slightly toward him. Theseus fought not to shy from her scrutiny. Her expression remained frustratingly obscured.

Had he misstepped somehow? Surely they could find some amusem*nt at Newt’s quirks and break this unbearable tension? But Leonore simply studied him. Somehow, impossibly, this felt worse than facing his father’s anger. Alexander shouted, exploded, then moved on. He was unable to endure the scrutiny for another moment.

“I had best see to my assignments,” he blurted out. “Lots of studying ahead. Very busy.”

Merlin's beard, he sounded inane. Theseus swallowed hard, shame squirming in his belly.

"Of course. Let us speak of cheerier things next time, darling. I apologise for ruining your morning with one of my moods. Out of sorts today. Unwell. I...I believe I'll lie down for a while."

She was already retreating to the bed; maybe she had only feigned wanting his company earlier. So Theseus nodded. "Okay, Mum," he managed. "I hope you feel better soon."

Leonore attempted a tremulous smile, peering up at him from the bed, straining her eyes, her neck, to lift her body off, the familiar rash reddening on her cheeks, then wrapped herself in the quilt, burrowing in so deeply they could no long meet one another’s eyes. Theseus slowly began picking up any flyaway strands of her hair from the floor, this small ritual task steadying his fraying composure.

Perhaps she might respect the man he became, if she’d never love him as effortlessly again.

*

Later, he told her Alexander had invited him to the Ministry, an internship, a show of sorts—please, let this be enough, he thought—and she sighed.

After his Mum had spent years supporting him going into the institution, nodding vaguely each time it came up at dinner, this recent change of heart bemused him.

“Oh, Theseus,” she said. A pause. "Why don't you run along and fetch your brother? He's been out wandering the grounds for ages now. Merlin only knows what trouble he's gotten into out there alone."

Night had slowly enfolded the grounds in muted navy and purple as Theseus trudged across the back garden toward the woods. Dusk seemed to leech the landscape of dimension and detail, reducing the boundary lines and woods to flat silhouettes and smudges. They were all lucky he didn’t believe in some of the wizarding world’s more malevolent lurking entities that took the lightless woods and the unsuspecting as their homes.

He squinted into the shadows, seeking a glimpse of Newt skulking among the trees. His brother could wander for hours unheeded when fixated on some creature or plant specimen, heedless of the fading light or meal times. Theseus hunched deeper into his coat against the creeping chill, breath fogging before him. How long had Newt been out here unattended? He should have sought Newt out hours ago, kept him close instead of brooding alone in his bedroom. Some protector you are, he berated himself, ignoring your sole charge all day over trivial worries.

Where was that dratted boy? Merlin help them if Newt had gotten himself badly hurt out here alone. Father would be furious enough to bring the roof down upon him. He’d certainly get the switch if Newt had injured himself, or, worse, stumbled into some Muggles and caused a scene.

The shadows cast by the bushes seemed to leach all ambient sound as he breached the boundary line, jumping over the fence, feeling their family’s protective wards suck at him and then release him with a jelly-like shiver. Theseus fumbled for his wand. "Lumos.”

His wand tip flared to life with pale light. Tree trunks leapt into stark relief around him. He swept the bobbing light to and fro like a beacon through the wood and scrub.

"Newt!" he called again, hating the ragged edge of fear in his own voice. Only the night wind answered.

Something cracked behind him. Theseus wheeled about, heart lurching. His wand tip illuminated a small hunched shape crouched on the trunk of a fallen tree, frozen mid motion as if caught in the middle of doing something he couldn’t. Familiar flyaway tawny hair peeked from the turned up collar of Newt's overlarge coat as he stared at Theseus like a deer in a trap, wide eyed and almost shocked.

Theseus sagged against a nearby trunk, weak with relief, then took another steadying breath before picking his way closer. All that shouting and Newt had just chosen to ignore him, which he supposed was typical—his curiosity for creatures seemed the only reliable quality about Theseus's changeable little brother.

"Newt!" he called again, softer now they were within ordinary conversational distance. Theseus offered what he hoped resembled an encouraging half-smile as Newt slowly uncurled from his defensive posture.

"You nearly frightened me to death lurking back there," Newt accused, though any intimidating quality to his words was rather undermined by the leaves in his hair. "Thought you, um, were...well...someone else."

“Who else would I have been?”

“Uncle Albert?” Newt said. “Mum said that the house is warded against him, but not the gardens.”

Theseus blinked. “I don’t even look like Uncle Albert.” Which was half a lie, given the old photos he’d seen, but he hardly wanted to admit it to Newt, of all people.

“Or Alexander, then,” Newt said.

“You mean our father; I’d use the respectful address if I were you,” Theseus said. “Unless you’re gunning for a clip around the ear.”

Newt sighed like an old man. “Yes.”

Another bout of his little brother’s imagination running rampant. Too many beasts prowling behind those wide eyes, he thought wryly.

"Come along, then," he prompted. "Mum's fretting over your wanderings and I'd rather not add to her burdens tonight. Particularly before Father returns."

Newt jerked upright at the gentle rebuke, hastily shoving his precious journal into an interior coat pocket. He swivelled to hop off the fallen tree, landing lightly. Without waiting, Theseus turned and strode back towards the house, knowing Newt would trail after him.

"Sorry," Newt mumbled, trotting to catch up. "I didn't mean to worry anyone. I just lost track of time, is all."

"As is typical for you," Theseus couldn't resist pointing out. He snuck a sidelong glance, taking in Newt's familiar hunched stride, hands buried in his pockets.

Newt must have sensed his scrutiny, for he glanced up, meeting Theseus's critical gaze. "What? I didn't do anything improper this time, I swear!"

Theseus pursed his lips. "That remains to be witnessed. But we've more pressing concerns to attend to than your latest creature dalliances."

A sullen silence answered him. Moonlight peeked through the breaks in the trees, casting shadows across Newt's mud-splattered, scrunched features.

"Father has seen fit to secure an introduction for me at the Ministry," Theseus finally said. He watched Newt's expression carefully. "A formality before proper employment, of course."

Newt groaned at the reminder. "Must you always turn things into a lecture?"

Theseus tossed him a chiding look over his shoulder. "When it comes to you, most certainly. You worry me a lot, you know, especially when you just up and leave like some flying fancy. I can’t spend all day chasing you. I’ve got six NEWTs to do.”

And there was the silence again. He restrained a sigh as he opened the gate for Newt and ushered him through. For some reason, Newt hung close on his calves, following him even into his bedroom, tracking mud over the meticulously swept floor. His little brother eyed Theseus as he opened his wardrobe, determined not to let his plans for the evening get delayed or interrupted, because if he got the steps wrong, tomorrow could go even worse than it had the potential to already.

You won’t say a word, Alexander had told him, rather unceremoniously. A word too many about Newton and he’ll be in an institution before you know it; they’re just waiting to snap him up.

He hardly dared imagine the consequences, beyond whatever punishment would await. A house without Newt would feel unbearably empty. While it did make him wonder what their father was thinking, sending Newt to the local, taking him to gatherings, he could only conclude that Alexander’s simmering dislike for his youngest meant he sometimes dipped a toe into society’s opinions and almost fell for them himself. That or he hoped for something he simultaneously condemned as being unable to happen. With that in mind, Theseus did feel like he was the only one who was both on Newt’s side and understood the stakes.

And so, if he spoke, he’d have failed.

Four years of this would have been for nothing.

It was a shame he was starting to find it so hard to transcribe this affection, this protectiveness, into something warm and soft that could actually protect Newt from the hardness of opinion, rather than simply fan the flames of resentment between them. And with that in mind, Theseus yanked out one of his few shirts, perfectly pressed and ironed, hanging it on the waiting rail by his desk.

“You should take your shoes off,” Theseus said to Newt. “It’s only polite.”

He pulled out his trousers and waistcoat and tie and sock garters. His hands were starting to sweat as he selected a pair of black socks from his organised collection, arranging it all by the hanger, around the hanger, a little ritual shrine to the future waiting for him, mouth bitter. Newt drifted closer, looking at the clothes.

“These are all so smart,” his little brother observed.

“Well, they have to be, don’t they?” Theseus said.

Newt hummed, thinking, and reached a hand out to touch Theseus’s fine travelling cloak, which always hung on the hook next to the rail, under his Quidditch posters. With silver clasps and austere but fine edging, it was the most expensive thing he’d ever owned, with buttery-soft fabric and an enchanted strap to secure his wand on the inner sleeve, when not wearing a holster.

Newt stroked his fingertips across the edge and then looked down at his own clothes: a waistcoat with a missing middle button, khaki hand-me-down trousers with a small hole in one knee. Never had Newt really craved material possessions, Theseus had always told himself. And Mum borrowed his little brother’s battered books from her friends when necessary. There was little extra budget for indulgences given the combined costs of the Hippogriffs and her medicinal regimen.

That wasn’t the full story, of course. The truth was that what little Newt had, Theseus had something better. And most of what Newt had, had once been Theseus. Yes, he didn’t take care of most of his possessions, but he had a few treasures he hoarded like a dragon on a stack of gold. Just because Theseus had nothing he truly valued other than his wand and his journal, perhaps, it didn’t change the truth: Theseus was preferred, favoured, perhaps not entirely spoiled given their somewhat precarious situation, but comparatively far more special.

The longing shimmering in Newt’s eyes put Theseus on the back foot.

“So you’ll go tomorrow morning?” Newt asked, shuffling and scuffing his feet together in that way that he did, twisting into his outer arches and wreaking havoc on his knees, knocking more mud everywhere. Theseus, long-suffering, vanished it with a wandless charm.

“What do you think?” Theseus said.

“Yes?” Newt tried.

“Yes, obviously,” Theseus said. “I’ve been very lucky to have been given this opportunity after proving myself. It takes some hard work, the kind which I’m not so confident that you’re ready to do yourself. It takes a bit of mettle and thorough application. Talking to people and so on. Being polite and being interested in what they have to say, shaking hands, keeping on track in the conversation. Looking presentable.”

Newt twisted his feet again and played with his sleeves, shrinking slightly. “Mmh.”

“Maybe one day, if you work hard and are lucky enough, you can get a good job, too,” Theseus said. “You could at least start to get yourself on a successful path by preparing your manners for Hogwarts.”

“I like studying lots of things,” Newt ventured.

Theseus shook his head. “Really?”

“You just don’t listen when I’m talking, and you assume it’s all about creatures, but it can’t just be about creatures if you want to identify and look for and take care of them properly, um, there are actually, um, lots of overlapping pieces of knowledge and things…” Newt began, and then trailed off, seeming to lose confidence.

“Well, I’ve got to go to the Ministry for a full day, maybe even longer—you know what Father’s agenda is like—and represent the family,” Theseus said waspishly, “so forgive me if I don’t really care at the moment.”

“Mmh,” Newt said.

He looked at Newt, who was still fascinated by the stupid cloak. "You'll catch flies gawking like that, Newt."

Newt blinked rapidly, seeming to shake himself from whatever dumbstruck reverie had seized him. "It's just...that's quite the cloak, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," Theseus agreed.

Part of him almost hoped for an argument—it had been so very long since they'd indulged in a proper row to clear the air. An outlet for the lingering frustrations which seemed to expand between them with each passing season. Now, if Newt was just that little older, if his eyes constantly looked just a little less wounded, Theseus imagined he could have said something truly scathing. But he was still conscious enough to realise his own hypocrisy, and he drew back. Better to swallow those words before they came back to bite him should every scrap of praise he’d earned come crashing down on their father’s whims. He was normal—until proven otherwise.

But he was still his little brother, happy or unhappy, odd or extremely odd, and Theseus was still going to have to lie through his teeth about everything on the implausible one-off that someone cared to look. He stuffed both hands in his pockets and turned to face Newt, tapping his fingers hard because the bruises were on the other side.

“Could you get out?” Theseus said. Turns out, on accidentally tuning into the wires lining his body, he was angrier than he thought, buzzing inside, and his hands turned to claws hidden in his pockets. “Some of us have important things to do tomorrow.”

Newt scrunched up his face again, scratching at his sleeves, and then pulled out his field notebook. He pulled a pencil from the inner pocket of his waistcoat and jotted down something, and then gave a solemn nod.

“Good night, Theseus,” he said, perfectly formally, as if he truly had absorbed some of Theseus’s sanctimonious monologuing: so guileless, an abrupt reminder that he was only eight years old, and Theseus immediately felt shame start churning in the pit of his stomach.

Merlin, why did he get like this at home? It was like being sucked down every time. If only he didn’t have to look after Newt, then he could stay at home for the holidays—Alexander would never lay a hand on Leonore. But there was a constant threat on the heads of the two of them, realised in Theseus's case and unrealised in Newt’s, and in the end, wizarding children only received full legal rights when they turned seventeen. He’d checked, of course, multiple times over.

*

Now, Theseus stood before the imposing door to Alexander's office in the International Magical Trade division, his palm sweaty against the polished wood. Not quite ready to knock. Hating offices and studies after so many years.

He swallowed hard, hoping to conceal his nervousness. It felt like an ill-fitting role for a teenager who often felt more at home on the Quidditch pitch than in the bureaucratic maze, but he was sixteen and unable to escape such things, the stark grasp of his expected role reaching forwards for him like a hand through time. The well-pressed clothes, the meticulous organisation of his own briefcase—one of a pair that had been bought for both him and Newt last Christmas—and his father's stern lectures—these were the trappings of a future that felt like a costume Theseus was forced to wear.

“Come in.”

Theseus took a deep breath and pushed open the heavy door to his father's office. The room was adorned with dark wood furniture and shelves filled with heavy tomes on trade regulations. He looked around with as neutral an expression as he could manage, trying his hardest not to tuck his hands into his pockets.

Alexander, engrossed in a stack of parchment, glanced up as Theseus entered.

"Your assignment today," Alexander began without preamble, "is to review these import permits for magical textiles. It's crucial that they adhere to the new tariff regulations. This is a matter of utmost importance."

“Yes, sir,” Theseus said, taking them and carrying them over to the table in the corner that had once held an armillary sphere designed to track the world’s time zones through a series of concentric circles. Now, there was a clear round mark of discolouration where it had once sat. He looked at it. Another sign his father was making him fit into his life, this life, with some cost: as he had been already reminded.

Trying not to glance back—was this a normal task or was it a test in disguise, a hidden bar to clear?—he spread the documents out on his table. They were filled with numbers, tables, and trade codes.

f*ck’s sake, he thought, but didn’t vocalise it. I can’t read these. The numbers are too close together. It was a far cry from the arithmancy and numerology he excelled at in school, where he could take his time to analyse and solve problems. This was a deluge of information that needed to be processed quickly via repetitive, accurate, fast sums.

“I have a meeting for the next three hours. You’ll come to the one after that, because it’s a level three, understand? Have those complete by then. They need to be turned in by the end of day and I’ll have other tasks for you to pick up on.”

He nodded mutely, folding his legs under the table and preemptively wincing at how much jamming his long limbs into this small corner of the office was going to hurt in three hours.

The door closed. Theseus sucked his teeth and shook his head, slumping back in the chair to stare at the ceiling.

“No,” he groaned, dragging the word out.

After a minute of languishing, he forced himself to get it together, as militant as always. With a sigh, he picked up his quill and began to pour over the numbers. The formatting was unlike anything he had encountered before. Rows of figures blurred together, and his mind struggled to keep up. Each import permit needed to be evaluated, and the calculations needed to be precise. Yet each time he checked them, they were wrong, with small, small errors putting them just about out, mixing up numbers between lines or getting them back to front.

The time dragged on, and beads of sweat formed on Theseus's forehead as he furiously scribbled numbers and notes. He bounced his leg, hoping the attempt at the motion he was so used to would help focus his wayward mind. But the clock on the wall ticked relentlessly, and while he was making headway, it wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t good enough, would never be good enough.

It wasn’t long before his father was back.

"Have you completed the task?"

Theseus hesitated, clutching the quill. "I...I'm still working on it," he admitted.

Alexander's brow furrowed. "You've been at this for hours. This paperwork is not overly complex—it should have been finished by now."

Theseus felt a sinking feeling in his chest. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by a decisive hand. “Enough. We’ll discuss this later. You’re coming with me to a meeting now, so look sharp and deliver.”

He stood and followed his father down the burgundy tiled corridors, weaving and winding, overlooked by the wooden windowed alcoves of other offices. The carpet soon gave way to a flight of stairs as Alexander led him into the warren of meeting rooms of his department. He swung open the heavy door to the first, marked with a gold plaque. The room was dimly lit, the flickering light of elegant sconces casting long shadows across the polished wooden table that dominated the centre.

Alexander gave him a warning look and a tight smile. Theseus didn’t smile back so much as bare his teeth. But his father sat before introducing him, and there was silence as he parted his lips, wondering if he was meant to say his name: or anything else at all.

Other Ministry officials occupied the high-backed chairs that surrounded the table. Papers and parchments were spread out before them; their expressions varied from eager anticipation to weary resignation. Theseus wondered how he was meant to appear interested when even the people being paid to be there couldn’t.

“Sit,” Alexander said, and then cleared his throat. “Apologies for my tardiness. Let us begin.”

No one wanted to know his name. Fair enough. Perhaps the mere act of sitting side by side with his father, the resemblance, was an announcement in himself. Used to being confident and assertive on the Quidditch pitch or at school, he found himself feeling distinctly out of his element. He resolved to be a silent observer and listen intently to the discussions taking place in the hopes it lessened the suffocating atmosphere and the knowledge that, at any moment, he could say something wrong.

Mr. Hargrove, who was one of the few who’d kept his paper nameplate on the table, cleared his throat. He leaned forward, his hands resting on the polished surface of the table, and fixed his gaze on Alexander.

"Alexander," the other man began, his tone smooth but with a hidden edge, "we've been discussing the proposed changes, given your slight delay, and I must say, I have some concerns. These alterations could affect the textile market substantially, particularly for small businesses, and you’ll slow international trade at the same time as some of the most lucrative Muggle ports keep growing. Have you truly fully considered the implications of putting ourselves further behind?"

“Naturally,” Alexander said. It was clear he saw little need to answer to the portly man. “There’s Ministry-sponsored infrastructure to invest in. Some asset shrinkage is acceptable, and it won’t put many out of business, Hargrove. Don’t think I haven’t considered every option—you know I weigh my decisions carefully.”

"Well, that’s all well and good, but I don't see why we should even consider these alterations," Mr. Hargrove said. "The current policies have been in place for years, and they've served us well. There's no need for unnecessary disruptions.”

“Indeed, efficiency is of the essence.” Alexander looked around the room. “However, I would like to hear from our colleagues on their thoughts regarding the timeline."

There were office politics at play here. Theseus was good at reading people and it was out in the open, plain and simple. Alexander was the Head of Department. Even Theseus’s presence was an insult, a remainder of his father’s coveted position, and while Theseus himself was nothing special, it was clear Alexander was untouchable, from the way he handled the agenda to the stony silence with which he regarded the narrow walnut table with disinterest, glancing at the self-pouring teapot in the centre and the drifting, waiting cups of tea.

The discussion continued. Theseus imagined himself anywhere else, doing something that mattered. Helping people, maybe, instead of bleeding them dry. Saving people, as if that would make up for the fact that, every day, he found he couldn’t save Newt.

In the depths of these thoughts, he accidentally made eye contact with Mr Hargrove, who instantly leaned over and whispered loudly: "Forgive me for saying this, but your son appears quite disinterested in our proceedings. Perhaps he should be excused."

Alexander glanced at Theseus. "Theseus," he said, his voice carrying a hint of irritation, "do you have anything to add to this discussion?"

Theseus blinked, caught off guard.

Gathering his thoughts, he finally offered, "Well, perhaps you could consider a phased approach to implementing these changes, allowing people—I meant, businesses—more time to adapt."

His words hung in the air for a moment before Mr. Hargrove let out a condescending chuckle. "Oh, children, always idealists. But that’s just not financially viable. You see, the profit from fines on those late to convert boosts the overall margin by half a percent. We can't just rely on goodwill in this line of work."

A ripple of uncomfortable laughter swept through the room. The dismissal was palpable, but then, Mr. Hargrove decided to take it a step further.

"But speaking of idealism, Alexander," Mr. Hargrove said with a sly grin, "your other son, Newt, is quite the...eccentric character, isn't he? I hear he's rather deformed in the mind. Quite the contrast to studious Theseus here, I suppose. Perhaps the blood strikes where it feels it should, hmm? But do forgive my unprofessionalism; it’s simply a light concern when children are preparing for their inductions into our department, and determining the mettle required, of course.”

Alexander had always had razor-sharp features. Suddenly, they looked ready to cut, his blue-grey eyes flickering with the familiar barely suppressed rage. The rest of his expression stayed oddly motionless, making it hard for the rest of the room to tell, Theseus assumed, but he felt the mortification as keenly as if it were his own. Bringing up Newt's quirks in a professional setting suggested Hargrove wanted to highlight the embarrassments of their family, to suggest perhaps Alexander was poorly suited to his role—and Theseus had enough.

“That doesn’t exactly seem relevant to textile taxes,” Theseus said. “Calling a child mentally deformed.”

Hargrove examined him with something that now looked like thinly veiled distaste. “Do you have no sense of the basic code in a meeting like this? Competency is of course relevant to a proposed reform given its expedited status—and the fact it was presented to several delegations for review before full confirmation on our end. Or rather, many of us in the room should have received the informal consultation we were due.”

“No need to shore up your own interests first,” Alexander said coolly. “You appreciate efficiency is key now that we’re negotiating with the Kingdoms of Norway and Sweden.”

“So—” Theseus began, outrage carrying him, and then he quickly shut his mouth. So you’re just pitching shots because you want more power?

Alexander twitched his fingers under the desk and a mild stinging hex hit Theseus’s knee. He couldn’t quite understand it. They’d been so rude to Newt just now, and to Alexander himself. Surely being accused of having cursed blood merited some response. But no, it seemed like his father would just ignore it entirely, even though Hargrove’s pompous smirk suggested some satisfaction, some measure of success in aiming the remark.

The walls were panelled in dark wood, stretching up to a low and flat ceiling. There were old portraits on the walls, judging him, and the tobacco-stink of the place didn’t help any. He had to avoid picking a fight at this litany of perceived injustices. The last place Theseus wanted to be in the future was somewhere like here, where it was so clearly invisibly outlawed. And even though this whole charade—because it was a charade, he’d realised, in that office, so not right for him—had been designed for their father’s benefit, Theseus suddenly felt a burst of solidarity with Newt.

Enough of this stifling environment, of being compared to his eccentric brother, of having his family subtly mocked, of hearing them debate useless policy, of seeing his father act like some automaton in a suit, of trying to fit into a role that felt increasingly ill-suited to him. Theseus couldn't bear the atmosphere in the room any longer. He pushed his chair back, the sound scraping against the polished floor, and stood abruptly.

"I apologise," Theseus said. "I need to step out for a moment."

“Step out?” Alexander asked, hand twitching, covering the gesture with a sip of tea as he seized a mug for want of busying his fingers.

Theseus ignored it, ignored how exposed he suddenly felt, and glanced at Mr. Hargrove, mouth settling into a tight line. "Or, rather, I suppose I’m excused,” he added.

And with that, he left the meeting room, reasoning that he was going to be punished later with another attempt to make him into a good, resilient man, and so he might as well fully earn the pain of his transgression.

The Ministry wasn’t impressing him so far. All those rules Theseus had made for himself might have trapped him, but he knew exactly what he wanted to do now. First, he’d have to cool his head—too much of Alexander’s rage, combined with too much insight of his own, leaping at every perceived or realised injustice. But second, and crucially, he was going to—

—and his heart sank as he forced the logical sequence of his thoughts to a stop.

He wanted to become an Auror, but that Department was probably the last place he should go. There would be no one better at uncovering secrets or deciding the best course of action or even, but rarely, because there were no formal protections in British wizarding society, critically examining the situation Newt was in—

—so, no, he better just wander, trace some circles, because his mind was demanding circles now, churning like the sea.

*

Now unsupervised, Theseus stood in the bustling atrium of the Ministry of Magic, his eyes scanning the crowd of witches and wizards moving with purpose. Interesting. He wondered how it would feel to really be here. They all traced similar paths, a crowd, funnelled by the shape of the room, skirting the fountain. He sighed and ducked his head, shoving his hands in his pockets, and cut through the crowd, dodging and weaving, nearly tripping on the tile lip that led to the fountain. Coins shimmered up at him through the water.

A contained body of water wasn’t exactly a decent escape route, so he kept moving, although he was confident he could have outrun the vast majority of the men in that room based on age alone. He felt a strange glimmer of mixed pride and uncertainty; there had been a challenge to his father and Theseus had failed to defend him. Instead, he’d only made matters worse.

Maybe he could get the lift. Flooing out seemed sensible, but his feet were carrying him forwards before he could stop himself. It was the holidays, after all, and in the holidays, his world became so, so narrow; perhaps exploring a little, talking to some people, seeing if he had some options as well as secrets, would stop it all feeling so crushing. Anything to grab that feeling of being at Hogwarts, he supposed, even with numerous detentions and a blood ink quill.

I must hold my temper for the dignity of wizardkind, the line had been.

He seriously questioned what the dignity of wizardkind was meant to look like. Currently, he found himself very unimpressed.

As he lingered hopefully by the lifts, waiting for a solution of some kind to come to him that wasn’t outright rule-breaking, a tall wizard in a long tweed coat and hat approached. The man co*cked his head to one side, watching the lift, at which point Theseus realised this stranger was waiting for him to order the lift. Holding his breath, he pressed the button to take him to a random level: one he likely wasn’t cleared for.

Great. He could sense from the quietly penetrating eyes of the man that he was being assessed. The last thing he wanted was to be dragged back into the depths of the trade floor.

He bit the inside of his cheek, realising his escape plan had more than one hole in it, beginning with the fact that the Ministry had decent security and could easily catch a teenager somewhere he wasn’t meant to be.

At long last, the stranger broke the silence as the lift started to whir. "You seem a bit young to be here on official business," he remarked.

Well, at least now he’d been directly addressed, it was okay for Theseus to evaluate this stranger. Theseus looked at him out of the corner of his eye. His face was sharp, softened by a scruff of stubble, but he looked haggard, a little worn out. The waft of cigarettes was unmistakable, but Theseus was getting used to it; anything was better than the coffin-like interior of the meeting room where even now his father was haggling with his colleagues over tariffs. Theseus had smoked a handful of cigarettes in his time, smuggled contraband which he enjoyed out of the Hufflepuff dorm window, but when it really came down to it, he wanted to keep his lungs fresh for being able to fly fast, to run fast, and to fight back.

"I'm Theseus Scamander," he replied, extending his hand in greeting, and then realised he would have to lie. And I just walked out of a meeting of important people for the pleasure of my father definitely drawing blood later. "I'm here to deliver a message for my father. He's with the Office of International Magical Commerce and Trade. But I’m—um—not going in that direction just yet. The message isn’t due for a while.”

The man shook his hand firmly. "Auror Bones. Graham Bones," he said. "A pleasure to meet you, Theseus. You're starting early in the ministry, I see."

Graham had muddy brown eyes, and his collar was slightly askew, the corner folded up and rumpled with a stained edge.

"Yes, well, it's what's expected, isn't it?" Theseus said, unable to stop himself injecting heavy irony into the words.

“Dunno. If you’re the Minister’s son, I suppose. Pretty rough job, nowadays, making stupid, uninformed decisions,” Graham chuckled, in a kind of sardonic but careless way Theseus got to hear very regularly, and he found himself warily liking the man. "Don't let it weigh you down too much.”

He’d been told to be careful. He would be careful—but now was also his chance to judge the level of care required. For all he knew, the Auror department wasn’t the one that handled the regulations that near-governed their lives, given how hushed up it was. And Theseus backed himself under any level of duress. One day, he was going to leave their home, and one day, he was going to work at the Ministry, but he swore he would do it his way.

And doing it right meant knowing everything—it always did. Ignorance was the fool’s game, he believed, and all you had to do was know as much as you could, no matter the personal cost. Aurors didn’t beat people, as such, although they did use curses. Hitwizards did that work, and Aurors were the ones weaving together clues and delivering justice. Or so Theseus believed, having experienced enough violence that he wanted to find a nobler version of protecting the innocent beyond the overt heavy hand.

Besides, everyone tolerated the beatings of children. Hogwarts and the Ministry had sanctioned caning and blood quills. It was hardly much worse than that, and certainly should not stop him pursuing his own ambitions. Before he could even think, he spoke.

“Can I come with you? To the Auror department?” he asked Graham.

Graham eyed him, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Because you’re some rich arsehole keen on seeing dead bodies? Actually, no, not with those shoes. Some white collar too far from the action, or what, lad?”

“I want to be an Auror.”

It wasn't every day that a young man from a fairly prestigious wizarding family expressed an interest in becoming an Auror. Theseus could see Graham was thinking something along those lines, even if the Scamanders were ranked firmly in the middle in terms of the glamour of their name. The seasoned Auror took a moment to consider the request, his brow furrowed.

"You want to be an Auror?" Graham repeated, as if testing the idea. “Interesting.”

Theseus nodded firmly. "It's not about seeing dead bodies or any of that, I promise. I want to make a difference, to protect people from dark magic, to uphold justice."

Graham studied him for a moment. "It's not easy. It requires dedication, hard work, and the willingness to put your life on the line. What else? Erm, a commitment to justice, strong stomach, ability to interact with all kinds of people: both diplomatically and less than diplomatically. Sorry, I usually only supervise recruits, not sign them up. But you understand that, at least?"

He nodded.

“All right," Graham said, finally relenting. "I'll take you to our wing, but I'll warn you, you won't find heroics every day. It's about hard work, investigation, and sometimes, the most tedious paperwork you can imagine. Also, kids are banned. So we’ll have to lie. As you can imagine, we’re categorically not meant to lie, no matter what the Head of the DMLE likes to pressure you into doing on the quarterly reports."

“I won’t cause any trouble,” Theseus said.

Graham looked him up and down, then whistled. “No, you look like you’re going to cause some trouble. But it’s handy to get a range of people in; different insights, right? Come on. I know what to do with you.” He clicked his fingers as the lift doors opened and indicated for Theseus to follow. “Merlin, don’t flinch like that—you’re not going to get cursed on the spot. If you want to be an Auror, you’re going to have to learn to control your twitches and reactions, wherever you got them from, okay? Or if they’re genetic, you could invest in a wand stabilisation device: massive rigs, those, would put you out of covert fieldwork.”

There were other genetic problems at play, but he wouldn’t let them interrupt this rare chance at quasi-freedom. He nodded again, heart starting to race. There was something straightforward about the other man that was reassuring: something no-nonsense, a quality Theseus had always admired. Even so, he couldn’t let his guard down entirely, not yet, even as he got in the lift with Graham and tried not to keep looking at him or, worse, keep staring.

The charge of atmospheric magic shot through him like static the moment Graham opened the heavily-warded doors.

The Auror office was an immense, open-plan room, with large, cluttered desks laid out in regular intervals, roughly bunched together while allowing enough room for foot traffic in their aisles. And there was a lot of foot traffic. The Aurors were a much more different group than the Department of Trade—and generally more grizzled, too, all wearing smart, dark clothes. Most of the women wore trousers; those who didn’t wore silk or woollen skirts down to their calves. There were far more men than women, but it wasn’t all men, which Leonore would describe as a good thing. While he’d been quite categorically ignored by his father’s colleagues when not with his father, here, people turned to face him with lightning-fast reflexes.

This didn’t seem to perturb Graham, who kept leading him on past more desks, each partitioned off with wooden walls covered in maps, diagrams, and lists of names. Some had quills suspended in mid-air, scrawling notes on floating parchment. Theseus noticed an array of objects, from dusty dark detectors to small, heavy cauldrons filled with a shimmering silvery substance. Some he’d seen in his books, but there were just as many that he hadn’t.

“Bones, what’s that you’ve got there?” someone called.

Graham shrugged at them. “Caught a stray. Inside the Ministry, so he’s gone through basic vetting. I’ll do the necessary if he sees something he shouldn’t.”

“Of course it’s Bones,” someone else grumbled.

He held up both his hands. “What about vetted do you not understand? C’mon, ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure there’s more exciting matters for you to turn your attention to.”

There was a general hum of acquisition and a few people stopped staring.

“What’s your job role?” Theseus asked.

“Erm, Auror,” Graham said, as if it was a very stupid question. “I was a Senior Auror for a bit but I’ve had to cut down my hours since the birth of my daughter.”

“What other roles are there?” he asked as they dodged a large standing cork board peppered with pieces of laden parchment, photos, and red string.

“Junior Auror, Auror, Senior Auror, Head Auror…” Grahan recited, rather redundantly. “Administrative assistant…and then I suppose we’re under the umbrella of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, poor sods who get even more paperwork, so those lot too. You could get yourself a tidy administrative role if you graduate with good NEWTs. We train them all in understanding the law, recognising dark artefacts, basic self-defence and the like. You any good at Defence against the Dark Arts?”

He felt a glimmer of pride. “Yes.”

Graham hummed. Theseus kept following him, eyes planted firmly on the back of his tweed coat. “Look, you’re not allowed to shadow anything. S’all confidential. So I’m going to hurry you along in here—don’t take it personally.”

“No problem,” Theseus said.

“Good lad,” came the reply as he was ushered past the last desks of the office and into another large atrium with a domed ceiling, where a handful of doors sprung off. This was decorated in the usual dark tile of the British Ministry, but with wooden flooring. Theseus wondered if it lacked carpet because it had to be regularly wiped clean. “So, my partner, Clarissa, she’s probably the only other one we can grab for a few minutes…she’ll be somewhere in here cooling off her wand.”

Theseus put his hands in his pockets, too busy drinking in his surroundings to immediately reply. Graham sighed and planted both hands on Theseus’s shoulders, lightly shunting him forwards towards the middle door. That woke Theseus up—he jumped forwards, whirling around to look behind him, heart rate skyrocketing.

“Go forwards, is all I meant,” Graham said.

Theseus nodded. “Sorry.”

“Nah, good reflexes,” came the reply, making Theseus feel a little better about embarrassing himself in front of an actual Auror.

They both went through the door titled Training Area, passing past a multitude of mysterious doors before finally appearing out on a balcony. The thick carved bannisters overlooked a circular arena with a white padded floor, dirty and stained in places, with rows of benches surrounding it like an amphitheatre. The room was lit with low light, but it seemed highly plausible that it was the Clarissa who Graham had mentioned in the ring’s centre, sending flurries of ice-blue light towards a training dummy. Her hair was black and bobbed short, feathering behind her; she had hawkish features, a blunt but straight nose, and tight brown lips.

“Look at her go,” Graham said, with a tone of quiet admiration. “And that’s with scarred lungs.”

“From what?” Theseus asked.

“She worked in a tin mine when she was younger,” Graham said. “In British Malaya. It’s why we don’t go one to one with the Muggle administration, not that the top brass here pay any attention.”

This stirred something deep in the back of his mind, but it needed more processing,and so Theseus frowned. “I don’t think you should say that to just anyone. It seems like important, private information.”

“I like the way you think, lad. But we’re friends, trust me; she’s amazing, otherwise I wouldn’t trust her on this,” and then Graham cupped his hands around his mouth, calling out, “Oi! Clarissa! Look what I found!l

Clarissa paused and looked up, putting her hands on her hips. “What? A child? A man? A rather tall child?”

Graham blinked, as if he’d not considered that. “How old are you?”

Theseus squared his shoulders. “Sixteen.”

“A tall almost-man,” Graham shouted.

Clarissa didn’t seem to have any specific reaction to this information. Instead: “Graham, you’re going to wear my f*cking throat out hanging off that balcony like an incredibly ugly Rapunzel, and it’s already been a long day.”

Rolling his eyes, Graham pulled Theseus down one of the sets of stairs on either side of the balcony. The floor of the arena was slightly springy underfoot.

“This boy is called Theseus Scamander. He's interested in becoming an Auror," Graham explained.

Clarissa extended her hand with an attempt at a tight smile. "What a name. Well, nice to meet you, Theseus. I'm Clarissa Grey. Senior Auror. Ignore Graham's attempts at humour; he's usually not this witty."

“Theseus,” he said, introducing himself once more, shaking her hand.

“What do you want me to do to him?” Clarissa asked bluntly.

Graham glanced at Theseus, considering his response carefully. "Well, I thought he might benefit from seeing a bit of the real action. Maybe a demonstration or some insights into what we do here, without revealing any sensitive information, of course."

Clarissa nodded in agreement. "Sounds reasonable. You got your wand?”

He pulled it out of his sleeve and showed her.

“Good wand control and discipline. Well done. I see you’ve made a proper holster,” Clarissa said. “Staying your wand is perhaps four times as important as firing it.”

Theseus nodded.

“Hey. That’s a pretty long wand for a—“ Graham began, but he was silenced with a charm from Clarissa.

“He is sixteen,” she hissed. “And he’s clearly nervous, I don’t think—“

Graham cleared the Silencing Charm and swallowed indignantly. “Sixteen is an excellent age to enjoy innuendos, however uptight you might be. When I was sixteen—“

“You were probably as foolish as you are now. When I tell you he’s nervous. No one carries around a stick up their arse for no reason, so don’t bully a child you’ve randomly kidnapped into our department or the Head is going to hear about you.”

“Empty threat. He’s a prick. But, yeah, you just told me not to imply naughty words around the kid—and you said arse!” Graham protested.

Clarissa flicked her hair back over her shoulders, narrowing her almond-shaped eyes. She sniffed and looked at Graham.

“Look. You’re going to shut up and step away,” and then she pointed to Theseus, “and you, you’re going to step into the centre of the ring with me and raise your wand. Let’s spar. The regulations only say no grievous intentional injury or killing in here, so it’s perfectly legal, as you seem to strike me as someone who worries about that sort of thing.”

“Wait—are you sure we should start with duelling?” Theseus asked, licking his suddenly dry lips.

“Blow off some steam; I mean, you seem smart enough, you’ll pass the exams, I reckon,” Graham said with a shrug. “And we can’t show you tracking techniques or case progress or anything in case you run your mouth about it. Demonstrations often inspire the young more than our other lectures, not exactly like we want baby vigilantes misidentifying civilians as the next global-level threat or whoever. So, strangely, it’s okay to fight people, even kids, in here, because it doesn’t breach confidentiality.”

Clarissa eyed him. “You know how I feel about that. It’s symptomatic.”

“Of course. Sorry, Theseus, we’re really not perfect, but I can hardly hit a starry-eyed new recruit with the hard truth you need a decade of experience to figure out,” Graham dipped his head. “But, yeah. Clarissa is great at these things. Your parents should have called you Cassandra, actually, that would have been perfect. Practically clairvoyant.”

“Thanks for that aside,” she said with mild scorn. “Let’s get on with it.”

It was obvious from the beginning to Theseus that he was sorely outmatched. Despite the appearances he tried very hard to project at school as a model student and star Quidditch player, he found himself reasoning that just being taken seriously by Clarissa was enough.

"As an Auror, you’ll need to think fast and duel well. So—Theseus, a question for you. Keep your wand up." She levelled her wand at him, not threateningly but to ensure she had his full attention. "You're on a stakeout, surveilling a suspected dark wizard. He exits his flat accompanied by a young child—presumably a family member or hostage. What's the protocol?"

Theseus blinked.

"Erm...maintain the surveillance but call for backup?” he hedged. “Try to determine if the child is willingly accompanying the person, and what their relationship is before pursuing any direct confrontation that could endanger the civilian?"

Clarissa gave a curt nod. "Nicely reasoned. And what if the situation escalates? Say the suspect is holding the child against their will, perhaps using them as a human shield. Do you pursue, even with a potential hostage in the line of fire?"

As she spoke, she sent out a barrage of spectral orbs in intricate patterns, briefly swarming him, forcing Theseus to divide his focus. Each came with the anticipation of dull pain: temporary paralysis, like a jellyfish, designed to take out one limb at a time. He deflected one with a Banishing Charm to clear his vision while considering her question.

"I...in that case, the priority would be on extracting the hostage as quickly as possible before they're harmed. Potentially using an area-wide Stunning Spell to incapacitate both the suspect and the child temporarily if other measures fail."

Clarissa wasted no time in sending another red bolt straight at Theseus. He managed to duck just in time, narrowly avoiding his imminent unconsciousness, and responded with another nonverbal Disarming Charm. Clarissa deflected it as easily as wiping her nose.

“Diplomatic, trying to disarm right at the start. Very good. Best to get the drop on them and remove any escalation whatsoever,” Graham said. “Usually works best when you actually disarm them.”

Clarissa muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like wanker.

Undeterred, Theseus followed up with a Knockback Jinx. Clarissa, who reacted with lightning speed, conjured a shield that absorbed the impact, sending a ripple of force outward. Theseus stumbled back a step but maintained his footing; the difference in their magical control was evident.

He shifted from one foot to another, waiting. When she seized the opportunity, noticing his guard was down, Theseus managed to sidestep the paralysis spell as planned, but almost tripped, catching himself with a cushioning charm instead that forced him back to his feet. The old bruises on his legs screamed in protest at the sudden wrenching motion. So much for a planned feint.

Taking a shaky breath, he pointed his wand at Clarissa, whose face was starting to blur as she darted around him, making it hard to keep his aim trained and accurate. The plan had been to feign, dodge, and counterattack. But he’d missed the opportunity. He focused harder. He couldn’t fail again next time, or they might kick him out, or something worse. He expected it, at any rate.

"Let’s continue,” Clarissa said. “Say you can’t use the wide-effect stunning spell because you’ve identified there are elderly or young people in the area at high risk should they be hit. You’ve expended all your non-lethal means. All negotiation done by the book has failed. He has you dead to rights with his own Killing Curse charged. Your partner lies injured nearby; they’ll die if you don't act immediately to subdue your opponent. Imagine a triangle of impending consequences. Any way you move, you’ll get hurt—but the question is how badly, how much you can absorb, and how much you should compromise in the name of justice.”

Like a circling hawk, she shot more spells of all kinds at him, some he recognised and some that he didn’t. None very painful. All guaranteed to sting. He found himself almost impressed at his own reflexes as he did nothing but dodge and attempt to think of a counterattack.

“If there’s a possibility of fatally striking the other person, there also has to be a way to incapacitate them,” Theseus said. He got hit in the thigh; Clarissa eased off for a moment, but when he shook his head, she pressed the offensive once more.

“The Killing Curse requires both hatred and concentration, which might be hard to gather, are intensely personal,” Theseus continued. “There’s a child and there’s civilians. You haven’t said what specific threat the other person, this man, is presenting, and the child is at risk in any instance. So, no. No compromises, or as few as—as few as possible. I don’t think death counts as a compromise. Surely I would be trained to handle it—to, um, absorb whatever was coming.”

“Alright. There’s no shielding against the Killing Curse, but you’re right. I never said you’d been ordered or authorised for that level of force, nor that it would be an appropriate calculus for lives saved. Understand that it’s immoral in a sense, respect that, learn from it. This is what people will tell you the ‘real world’ is.”

Theseus nodded. He had thought of no justification, either.

Clarissa continued. “So, you try, but you lose someone on your team. Your hand is forced—so, even though you chose the other option, let’s say you stop the criminal in a brutal fashion. Except, afterward, it's discovered they were being controlled by some external influence. The Imperius Curse, for instance. The 'evil' they committed wasn't entirely by choice." She watched Theseus's expression harden, his jaw clenching even as he maintained his defensive stance. "Would that change your stance? Make you regret your actions or seek some form of atonement?"

“Of course,” Theseus said. “Both. Of course.”

She tried to stun him again when he paused, thinking of how to articulate it. Bloody hell. He was truly being given no quarter. All he could do was defend.

“Protego,” he muttered, again and again, the shields starting to go wide and watery. Having to say the words aloud was enough of a sign he was starting to tire, even if Theseus had been using nonverbal charms for years in a household where he wasn’t really allowed to be overheard.

What would his professor think? Dumbledore rarely offered him effusive praise, so Theseus tried not to dwell on what he might be thinking if he saw this. After all, it had only been in recent years that external opinions had become so important to survival. Until then, he’d been content under his own steam, judging himself by his own standards and whatever he accepted as making sense. It surprised him that Clarissa had even cared to hear his explanations of the correct thing to do, the better thing to do.

If she knew the truth, about how he saw his father treat his brother on the rare occasions those two did speak, she’d probably judge him as a hypocrite. He detested secrets and hated them all the more when they became part of long-term goals designed for nothing less than obscuring the truth. And losing his integrity? That hurt more than any blow. He was sixteen with fully-formed ideas of the world, decisive opinions on right and wrong, which still seemed to land on the side of “too soft” for his father, even after everything.

He could accept being underwhelming if it meant proving his capability to do something genuinely good.

Briefly, he thought of the experimental duelling matrices he’d come up with, presented to the professor: personalised techniques he'd developed through rigorous self-study. Dumbledore had appreciated that sort of diligent, insightful application, all academic, more than anything else. It did make Theseus wonder what exactly Professor Dumbledore intended to do with all his publications, some of which Theseus assumed would have either peacemaking or potentially dangerous applications.

But any advanced tactics would have to wait. Now was not the time. He was top of his class, and today's bout was a rare chance to showcase his talents before actual Aurors. Sixteen or not, he still craved that scant praise.

Clarissa decided to up the stakes—a Blasting Curse hurtled his way. He struggled to conjure a barrier in time, but the impact sent him tumbling backward, and he hit the ground, the golden-red curse smashing a hole into the padding of the mat. The mat healed over. Sadly, Theseus could do no such thing.

Theseus glanced at the charred circle and forced himself back to his feet, wishing his lungs would obey. There was sweat dripping down the back of the neck, his breath whistling in and out, getting caught in his throat. Clarissa’s spells were stronger, had more raw force in spades. Countering each one was like raising a shield against a battering ram.

“Ouch,” Graham commented.

Frowning in an attempt to clear his vision, Theseus cast a tripping jinx, but she sidestepped gracefully; as she got into position again, he seized the opportunity to send out another nonverbal disarming charm. Clarissa glanced down at her wand as it twitched in her hand, still held firmly in her grip. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she raised her wand as if to show Theseus he’d failed again to neutralise his opponent.

He watched, waited.

And then felt his own wand fly from his hand.

The air dragged itself from his lungs as his chest suddenly felt as though it had caved: struggling for breath, he looked down and saw glimmering silver ropes of magical energy criss-crossing his body, jacket and all. As soon as they wrapped around his knees and ankles, he fell face first to the floor. Thump. His nose ached from the impact, but didn’t feel broken. Despite himself, he was too impressed for his pride to be truly bruised. She had been amazing at duelling: so fast and accurate.

“You’ve just been neutralised,” Clarissa said with pride, dissipating the ropes as Theseus immediately went to pick up his wand from the matted floor. She looked every bit the bird of prey now, features sharp and vaguely dangerous, although overall she was determinedly practising good sportsmanship.

This was it. This was where he wanted to be, desperately so.

“How—how was it?” Theseus asked.

Clarissa fixed her hair, letting it spike at the back from sweat. “Well, obviously, I held back. Not to mention Graham and I have been through the wringer today, let me tell you.”

“She can’t tell you because it’s confidential and she knows that,” Graham interrupted. “But, yes, I usually look more dashing than this. A long few days, it’s been.”

“No, you don’t,” Clarissa said bluntly, crossing her arms and twirling her wand, blocky and almost rectangular, in the fingers of one hand. “So, who’s your teacher? Obviously, you need to be exceptional in all your subjects to pass the Auror exams, and all magic is taught in a way where you have both your and your teacher’s distinctive flare—but your Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. Tell me their name. After all, it’s rare a student just wanders into this line of work…so…”

“Albus Dumbledore,” Theseus said, watching for a reaction.

She considered that. "You've got determination, and you react quickly in the heat of the moment. That's a promising start. Your Shield Charms are solid, and you have a knack for nonverbal spells, although you certainly think too much about them to pull the more advanced wandless versions off at the moment.”

It was almost praise. No, it was praise. "Thank you. I'll try and focus on that in the future,” he said, the words coming out more formal than he’d intended.

"Indeed, and that's essential for growth. Now, about your training with Dumbledore. That's interesting."

"You know him?"

Clarissa's gaze turned distant for a moment. "I know of him. Obviously I don't know him personally. Don’t think many do other than the Minister himself, right? He’s an ivory tower man, we know that, here at the department. Very theoretical. But…he is renowned for that theory. Never see him in practice, but I think everyone knows that: habitual fence-sitting and all, I’d expect it. His teachings can be quite unorthodox, but effective. He's produced some exceptional students. You’re definitely not bad: not bad at all. A bit of elbow grease, good marks—I feel like you’ve got good grades from the look of you—and you’d stand a reasonable chance at the assessments.”

"He's a great mentor,” Theseus said, even if they’d only exchanged maybe a hundred full lines of conversation over the years.

"Brilliant,” Graham said, purely for the sake of inserting himself into the conversation.

"We've not had many of his students join the Auror ranks. But I suppose we’ve not had kids walk in and want to join either. Graham’s a little too soft-hearted in that regard. Taking time off to be a dad’s done it to him, trust me. Then again, the more freedom you give children, the better off they are, in my opinion.”

Theseus ran his tongue over his teeth, unsure of whether he should apologise or agree. Graham patted down his trenchcoat, checking the pockets, but didn’t pull out the packet of cigarettes he wistfully thumbed. “Indeed. That’s me. Bloody bleeding heart. Well, lad, I think it’s time we sent you back. Probably better just to double-check it’s in one piece.”

He wrapped his arms over his chest, eyeing Graham with sudden wariness. The sweet and simple taste of camaraderie he’d felt was starting to dissolve on his tongue like the aftermath of a pill. “How are you going to do that?”

“Diagnostic spell,” Graham said.

“No, I’d rather not,” Theseus said.

“Well, I’d rather you did.”

“It’s fine; I’m fine,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t even get hurt. Just knocked over.”

There was a pause as Graham seemed to contemplate this, rubbing his chin and scratching at the stubble. After a while, he sighed. “Look, you might enjoy your privacy, but we do this for all the trainees, and I’ll be damned if you walk out of here and keel over from a concussion because Clarissa decided you needed a taste of the mat. We’ve only just met—would be rather inconsiderate of me.”

Clarissa, meanwhile, was squinting at Theseus, her gaze boring a hole in the side of his head. He swallowed, mouth suddenly feeling very dry. He’d avoided something like this for years. His father had made sure of it, and Theseus hadn’t exactly sought out opportunities for medical examination at school. Here, in the domed training arena of the Auror department, was not where he’d expected to be caught. Could the spell tell if his heart was racing? Could Aurors sense lies? Clarissa looked as if she was ready to wrestle him to the floor and conduct her tests with surgical precision.

“I told you, I’m fine.” His voice held an unintended bite, but neither of the Aurors seemed to take it personally.

“Oh, Merlin’s tit*, these teenagers. Clarissa—what do you think—maybe we could leave it this time?” Graham began, but she ignored his question.

“Yeah? No, I’m doing it,” she said, raising her wand.

A cool silver light swept up and down his body. He shifted from one foot to another, waiting, waiting, and then the moment Clarissa’s wand was almost parallel with the floor, roughly in line with his hips, he crossed his fingers behind his back, matching the shroud of magic with a subtle weave of his own.

The spell continued, fully impeded, to his feet. They were Aurors—what the f*ck was he meant to do? Surely they would know. Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe he’d accidentally wandered into the most direct pipeline to losing Newt all because he’d been too useless to just calculate some numbers.

The glow faded. Clarissa glanced at Graham, who was fiddling again with his coat, her eyebrows raised. But the other Auror seemed too distracted, slightly haphazard as he’d been from the moment Theseus had meant him. Just as the tight, sick tension in Theseus’s belly began to ease—it had been a few days, it was probably fine—Graham looked up again and waved his hand.

“Do it again,” Graham mumbled, instantly returning to the investigation of his pockets, as if he caught Theseus’s frantic, wordless look of no and felt obligated to ignore it. The room suddenly felt several degrees colder. He shivered, giving in and crossing his arms again to feel the reassuring clutch of his own fingers. Panic was setting in but he refused to let it show, even though he felt like one of the bugs pinned on Newt’s examination slides.

f*ck, he thought. It struck him that this might either be an interview or a screening or an exposé.

But Clarissa was clearly going to get to the bottom of this, whether Theseus liked it or not.

He tried to re-weave the countercharm in his head, anticipating what was coming, but he couldn't perform the same deflection again. The options were dwindling. The first attempt had been a desperate move; he was fortunate they hadn't questioned it right off the bat.

This time, with the burning heat of a bulb, the spell scanned his body from head to toe. Theseus watched it progress, his eyes flickering to Graham and then back to Clarissa. The seconds stretched out, each one feeling like an eternity.

And this time, the light actually took root across his body. His heart was a jackhammer in his chest ready to break ribs if it could just get out. Holding his breath, he stared across the room, eyes on the curved wooden benches overlooking this new arena. The lights were low, with only a few circular pale white globes affixed to the panelling casting their light across the cavernous room, and the glow he was emanating made him feel more like a child than anything else, somehow.

Resigned now, he looked down. Okay. It could have been better, but it also could have been worse.

Graham looked mildly stricken. “Merlin, Theseus, you should have let us know you were fresh from a thrashing before I handed you over to Clarissa for a second round. I’d have been happy to do a mock interview or something.”

He weighed his words carefully. “It was from a few days ago,” he said, “so I was happy to duel anyway. I enjoyed it.”

Graham sucked his teeth, crossing his arms in a rustle of heavy tweed. For a few moments, he seemed to almost disappear beneath the shield of his upturned, skewed coat collar. Theseus couldn’t see his mouth, couldn’t make out his lips, which was a problem. It made it harder for him to tell where this situation that had haunted his nightmares would go next. Things were meant to come easily, naturally to him, yet they rarely did.

“Must have really pissed someone off,” the Auror observed with a half-smile, his voice soft. “What the hell did you do?”

He licked his lips and mentally praised himself for not giving into his first answer, which would have been defensive and incriminating: nothing much at all. Instead, he gave a jerky shrug of one shoulder.

“Deserved it,” Theseus proposed.

Clarissa’s footsteps were silent on the padded mat as she stalked her way behind him. In his peripheral vision, turning his head just enough, he saw her crouch, frowning again. “I’m obliged to ask the origin of these marks in particular.”

The backs of his legs had been switched and caned almost down to the ankle. “Why are you obliged?”

To her credit, she answered. “We need to rule out ritual bloodletting. Without bringing in cursebreakers, I’m happy to rely on verbal testimony. You seem honest, Theseus.”

“It’s just bruising,” Theseus said, confused now.

“No, there are two types of lacerations here. One from something typical; one that would raise some questions, I think. Lip-shaped, raised flesh around the edges, according to this spell, and heat application without closing the wound. It’s essential that we rule out any potential…blood magic at home.”

A laugh bubbled up in the back of his throat before he could swallow it. His father was nowhere near creative enough for that. Most times, almost every time, in fact, Theseus only expected more of the same. Conventional, if disproportionate, force; lickable wounds. The model disciplinarian with an iron fist uncertain enough to push every punishment all the way to erase that doubt.

“I assure you, we’re the last people to be doing any dark magic.” He cast his mind back to the week before. It was a suitably obvious failure, one that didn’t reveal any quirks of their family. “Those are older. I snuck out when our father was on a short business trip and neglected my duties. Any marks there would just be from the ruler, but it, um—the—he was angry, I suppose, and his magic heated it up. The edges are quite sharp, so it ended up being a good thing.”

“Hmm. Okay,” Clarissa said. “That seems excessive.”

He shrugged again, unsure what she wanted him to say. “We are quite difficult.”

“We?” she asked.

“I am, I mean,” Theseus hastily amended.

He was exhausted and rattled from the meeting with his father’s colleagues, not to mention the sleeplessness of last night, which had turned out to be all too prescient. Diagnostic charms mildly aggravated anything they flagged for the duration of the spell, and neither of the Aurors were doing him the favour of just closing the enchantment down. It felt similar to a steel probe.

“I play Quidditch,” he added. Better to clear up any misconceptions while he could. “It gets pretty rough.”

Graham pointed at Theseus’s bottom two ribs on the right. “Bludger injury?”

“Yeah. I play Chaser.”

“Nice, nice,” Graham said, voice level and relaxed as it had always been. Theseus’s shoulders loosened just a hint before the man went back in for the kill. “Seems like you chose not to go to the hospital wing and used an extremely advanced healing spell instead?”

“I assume he doesn’t have a licence,” Clarissa said, getting to her feet, massaging some of the tension from her wand arm. “That’s fairly minor. Barely a warning. I wouldn’t say it counts as misconduct.”

“Well, I know the risks,” Theseus said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Graham nodded. “Fair enough. But St Mungo’s next time, yeah? And it’ll count as a misdemeanour if you use bone magic again on yourself or anyone else unless you pursue an official Healer’s qualification. You got away with it this time, but bones aren’t easy things.”

“Yup. Potential risks of dissolution,” agreed Clarissa. “Hospital stay of four to six weeks minimum at our current levels of expertise. So don’t do it again—if you can. If it’s just on yourself, I’ll waive it if it crosses my desk. It doesn’t look like it’s been the easiest to get that medical attention.”

Well, he supposed the spell did suggest that. He uncrossed his arms and let them hang limply at his sides. The diagnostic must have tracked to at least a year back; the older the injury was, the fainter it shone. Luckily, none of the impressive patchwork was raising questions. It shouldn’t have surprised or hurt him that they barely regarded them. But the barest hint of concern in Graham’s hazel eyes at least made Theseus feel less humiliated. It didn’t stop the low, gnawing sense of terror, though. What came next after this? Could he trust them—any of them—to keep his family safe—to keep Newt safe?

“So, what’s the risk?” Graham asked. “Is this a volatile situation or not? He’s only a year off ageing out of the surveillance programme. I doubt we have to call it in.”

Clarissa walked up to her colleague; an unspoken dialogue seemed to flicker between them, too fast and intuitive for Theseus to read. At last: “You know how I feel about that term: about that whole programme. Believe me, we don’t want to replicate the ways they can control their population. I’ve seen good men and women and children live and die under so-called acts and laws that ‘cleansed’ the population.”

She spoke as if from experience. Graham traced his fingers over his eyebrows, looking vaguely owlish as he accepted this with a soft hum.

“You know I trust you,” Graham demurred. “I’m the disaster here. You’re the Cassandra.”

“Good. We’ll need to take this to somewhere quieter.” She whirled around, back to Theseus, and indicated his ankle. “One final question. I noted the diagnostic was blocked by some lingering effect without you having any clear foot or ankle injury. Please confirm and deny if a magic-suppressing device has been used by anyone other than a registered member of the DMLE.”

This was difficult. He should have known that they’d be concerned about technology of that kind. It seemed to be one of the few things the Ministry did prohibit outright when it came to letting households run themselves, teaching children their respect in any manner deemed necessary. Banning or suppressing magic itself, a fundamental component of anyone’s nature—that was a crime.

“It was an old artefact of my father’s. He found it among his things, in an old trunk of his from decades back, and we just wanted to test it to confirm what it was,” Theseus said.

True. Alexander had indeed dug it out of a small suitcase, an odd thing, stamped with a strange official logo he didn’t recognise. It had been a clip on cuff. Theseus had bony ankles, but it had bitten at the skin, being far too tight, dusty and designed for someone smaller. For two weeks, he’d seen it lying about the study, presumably as Alexander considered its merits, no doubt in conjunction with Newt and the magical outbursts he sometimes had.

But it had been too dangerous, too illegal to use for a simple businessman—thank Merlin—and had only made one appearance since, when Theseus had been particularly hysterical. Alexander had explained that if Theseus didn’t learn this way, he’d learn another way: and taken the hold of the study’s doors with his favoured switch still in hand. Message received.

“You tell him to hand it in,” Graham said, stroking his chin. His expression had shifted again. He looked unhappy. “It’ll need to be claimed and destroyed by our people.”

“Yes, sir,” Theseus said, even though he was starting to find it was impossible to sway his father’s opinion in almost every matter.

He considered trying to run, but given that he’d just been defeated by Clarissa, he didn’t think he’d get very far. They were going to think that he was pathetic; they were going to go to his father; they were going to take Newt. The shame was burning through him from the inside out until it felt as though there were holes forming in his skin, collapsing onwards, getting eaten by it.

Just like his father said. This was the one thing that would destroy the family. This was the one thing. Theseus was the one thing. Their lives in his hands.

He’d been taking a punishment for their combined failures, not accidentally setting a match to the powder keg his body now had become.

“What are you going to do?” Theseus asked.

“We report it, surely,” Clarissa said to Graham.

The other Auror shook his head. “Just bruises? Happens all the time to children. The Muggles think it’s necessary to drain the sin out of them, like airing Plimpies. And, look, they’ll say a tall, wiry teenager like this, he’s practically a man. If there’s no immediate danger… the other minor issues would necessitate filing a report, I’d argue, monitoring this home, since it’s hardly safe, but what capacity do we actually have, Clarissa?”

Maybe they wouldn't take drastic action. Maybe they would believe that he could handle it. He couldn't bear the thought of losing Newt or their mother, and he certainly couldn't bear the idea of his father knowing that he'd spoken out. It would never be forgiven.

“An almost-man,” Clarissa said, like she had earlier, her lips tightening. She looked at her wand, at the bright silver light, and removed the diagnostic spell with a slow, sad flick of her wrist. “Sixteen, you said. The Ministry’ll see it that way. Certainly old enough to defend himself or leave. Merlin, maybe you’re right with the Muggle thing. Their children that age are on their way to having their own families, even if that’s not how we can do it with the Statue keeping the kids so risky until they’re out of school.”

He tried to tell himself that this was the better path. Maintaining appearances. Projecting strength and control. Showing any vulnerability would result in disaster. And now, hearing Graham's words—happens all the time, no immediate danger—felt like those truths were being confirmed.

“It depends on what he says. But, listen, Theseus—listen—nothing bad is going to happen. Nothing drastic. We just need to know,” Graham said. He turned to Theseus. “We’ll talk about this, okay? It’ll start with us making a file for you, okay, so no matter the outcome, or evidence, if you decide—“

“No,” Theseus said. He shook his head, backing away as Graham reached out for his arm. “No, you can’t.”

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay.” Graham raised both his hands, approaching Theseus as if it was him being held hostage, not Theseus, who felt his chest start to close in on itself with tight panic. “Lad—we’re here to help, not hurt you. Why don’t you want us to?”

“You’ll take my little brother away,” he said, trying to sound reasonable, mature: act like a man and they’ll give you what you want, one of Alexander’s maxims, calm, controlled. “And you won’t put him with Mum, because she’s too sick. And you won’t put Newt with my father—and my aunt wouldn’t take him. Father already tried. I’m not saying anything happened. I’m just saying if it had, that would be my concern.”

“We have protocols in place. Listen, we’ll consider the best interests of your brother. Newt, did you call him? And if we need to, we'll provide support for your father in an intervention, ensuring he's fit to care for Newt. In most cases, ninety-nine percent, we try and keep the family together, it’s what’s best, because the Statue and our lower population levels mean the system, the orphanages—“

Clarissa shot Graham a warning look. Theseus already knew what the rest of the sentence contained: like he hadn’t been reading the Muggle newspapers by the village bakery all those years, like he hadn’t deduced. Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Workhouses. Debate over something called the People’s Act proposed by a Welshman called David Lloyd George. The Muggle world was still thinking about it all, making progress on it.

But there were very few places to house wizarding children outside of the Muggle system. Some of his schoolmates, those who’d shown limited signs of magic before ageing into Hogwarts, had been deliberately left in those places because of the lack of resources. The surveillance needed to maintain the Statute beyond punitive measures was only just ramping up—and that was how volatile children had been created as a category.

So, if they didn’t have anywhere to put Newt because there wasn’t the political will, and they also were doubling down on a retreat from the Muggle world, making using their orphanages even more untenable—what were the other options—and why did no one talk about them—and what did it mean if St Mungo’s had already evaluated Newt as they had?

“You don't understand,” Theseus repeated, the mantras of years swimming around his head, beginning to crowd out all other thoughts. “I just told you. They'll take Newt away, and Mum—she's not well, and—he said no one would take Newt, anyway, so he’ll be all alone wherever you put him. He’s too young. Who gives you the—”

Swallow it! he screamed at himself. Who gives you the right? Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.

He took another step back, matching Graham to keep the distance between them, the padded floor making it harder to keep his balance as he tried to stop himself from shaking with adrenaline.

Graham stumbled over his words. "I...I know it might not seem like it, but we have protocols in place to handle situations like this where it’s borderline, where we understand that the family has the right to…to deliver their discipline, but there are signs… Look. Theseus, look at me. We understand that families can be complicated, and sometimes...sometimes it's not as simple as it seems."

Complicated struck a nerve with Theseus. Theseus was complicated. Newt was complicated. Leonore’s condition was complicated. Teaching them not to be was simple. A closed door was simple. Not as simple as it seemed? Years of pain and fear could be distilled down into that simple euphemism: complicated.

His hand tightened around his wand.

"No, no, wait," Graham tried to backtrack. "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that...well, families have their ups and downs, you know? It's normal to have disagreements, and we're not here to judge."

His mind raced, his father's words echoing in his ears. Protect the family at all costs.

Graham's tired eyes met Theseus's as he spoke. "But I can't help but wonder what's worth protecting, if it means keeping all this secret."

This had been an interrogation all along. He was an idiot. Theseus clenched his jaw as Graham's words sank in, striking a raw nerve. Newt and their mother—he had to shield them from the consequences of his actions.

Obliviate, he thought, digging into the well of his depleted magic.

It was weak, but it had intent. The room blurred around him; he felt a strange sensation of detachment, as if he were watching himself from a distance.

Graham swore, ducking back as he just about managed to deflect the spell with a surprised flick of his own wand. Careening on its new trajectory, it missed him by inches, sinking into one of the wall lights with a feeble pop, blowing the glass into shards. Desperation had lent it an extra edge.

But the world snapped back into focus quickly as hot magic grabbed at his wrists, twisting his hands so his wand fell from his grip. His knees met the floor, hard, painfully, as he gritted his teeth, the magnitude of what he’d tried to do hitting him now that he was kneeling, penitent. Clarissa kept her wand trained on him, her eyes wide.

“Merlin,” Clarissa muttered. “He actually tried to erase your memories.”

“Easy,” Graham soothed. The spell’s grip on Theseus’s wrists tightened again, reddening his knuckles from the lack of blood flow, making the faint line of scarring across them jump out in livid white. “Easy. He’s scared.”

Clarissa drove his bound hands to the floor; he collapsed forwards with a thump for the second time, staying silent, only breathing, breathing, realising the magnitude of what he’d done.

“S—sorry,” he mumbled, ducking his head, pressing his chin into his chest. He couldn’t stutter like that, talk like that. He cleared his throat, inhaling the musty scent of the mat. “Sorry. I won’t do anything. I won’t.”

The two Auror exchanged a series of inaudible back and forth words, Clarissa’s voice a low, concerned hiss and Graham’s a loping murmur. They seemed to hit a roadblock and began arguing loud enough for Theseus to hear—he wondered if all Aurors really did debate this much, or if he’d just got very lucky with a pair who did think twice.

“Realistically—“ Graham began.

“There was intent to harm an Auror,” Clarissa said.

“It was a weak charm. I could have deflected it in my sleep. I did deflect it. Watch me go. And, look, I would have lost minutes at most—“

“Covering up an investigation!”

“His own investigation?” Graham considered it. “Damn, I thought that was a bulletproof response, but actually we get all sorts interfering with their own stuff, don’t we? Even in the Ministry.”

“No, obstructing your investigation,” she shot back.

“My investigation?” Graham shrugged. “How’d you know it’s not yours?”

Clarissa frowned. “Because you were the one that directed the repeat diagnostic, Graham; that’s bloody obvious.”

“Say it was your investigation and I was just standing there being a wanker, and the kid fired off the nonverbal magical equivalent of a strong curse word at me. Thus, he was not impeding an investigation, freeing us from the bounds of Clause Thirty-Six of Case Integrity Protection, leaving it to me to decide whether I feel assaulted or not.”

There was a dull silence.

“Let me guess,” Clarissa said, ending the sentence with something that sounded like it wanted to be an exasperated groan but was neatly corralled. “You feel as spry and well as the day you were born.”

“Nah, I’ve never felt good like that, but in principle, yeah.”

“If he wipes your memories in their entirety this time, it’s your own fault,” Clarissa said.

There was a faint whoosh and his wrists suddenly felt unburdened. Slowly, muscles still weak, Theseus got to his feet, a little shocked at what he’d done. His eyes darted between the two Aurors: Graham, looking fashionably dishevelled and impressively neutral, and Clarissa, glaring at him down the prow of her nose, visibly concerned.

Graham’s mouth crooked into a wry grin as he stowed his wand in the pocket of his coat and held up both palms, wiggling his fingers. “All good. Obviously, unconventional magic is useful, as you seem to have taken to heart from dear Clarissa’s excellent teachings a little too well, but now, let’s rest assured neither of us are going to do anything drastic given the very small amount of evidence we have.”

“Hmph,” Clarissa said, in a conciliatory tone.

“You certainly have a flair for the dramatic. Most trainees just ask for a break. But I wouldn’t break a sweat about it. I've seen better attempts at memory modification in a Transfiguration class gone wrong."

The weight of what he’d just tried to do and its potential consequences—and he was endlessly, endlessly worried about consequences—bore down on Theseus, but he managed a weak smile in response to Graham's attempt at levity.

Clarissa, although still visibly perturbed, let out a small huff at Graham's comment. “Never a quiet day.”

“Well, I did tell him he looked like trouble.”

“How’d you figure that?” she asked.

Graham pointed two fingers into his own eyes. “All in the state, dear Clarissa.”

She looked supremely unconvinced. Theseus watched her twirl her wand continuously, spinning the blocky wood around and around, shifting her weight from one hip to another. At last, she stretched out her neck with one hand and then the next, flexing her lean arms. “Fine. The unauthorised Memory Charm is going to cause us problems, so I suppose I’ll have to go and hold off the cavalry while you decide what to do.” She sighed. “But they’ll be coming. Like I said—I’ll keep them off for as long as possible. Talk to him. Give him some options.”

Graham turned his attention back to Theseus, offering an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, lad. This isn't easy for you, I know. Let's move to a quieter space, and we can chat about all this properly, okay? Especially given this…brother of yours.”

*

Glancing constantly from side to side as they navigated the training buildings, down a series of abrupt corridors, Graham eventually led him into a small, dusty office, the entrance of which was marked by a frosted glass door and the word Administration neatly marked on a plaque by its side. Inside, a few framed prints of various documents hung—on closer inspection, they were pages from textbooks on dark artefacts, the print small and the illustrations grainy—and the walls were painted a deep, cool green up until the halfway point of mahogany trim. The older man pulled over a spare wooden chair and set it in front of the desk, then sat behind it, pushing the heavy typewriter there aside so he could rest his elbows on the table.

“So,” Graham said.

Theseus sat in silence and waited, resisting the urge to pull more at his already raw hangnails in case they started that endless bleeding of a finger wound. Graham waited, chin propped up on his hands, and tilted his head to one side. A raise of his eyebrows was an indication that Theseus was meant to speak to break the stalemate.

“It’s all fine,” the teenager finally said.

“But it seems as though there’s a decent chance it might not be, yeah?” Graham said.

Theseus mentally cursed all the small infarctions and his own recklessness for turning a relatively apathetic discussion of routine discipline into such a dangerous mess. “No, not really.”

Graham sighed. The room was dimly lit, with the gentle hum of magical wards providing a sense of privacy.

"Alright," Graham began, his tone more subdued and empathetic than before. "Let me explain how we're going to handle this situation. I understand you're hesitant, and I want you to know that your concerns are valid. We won’t separate your family unnecessarily, especially if your brother and your mother are technically safe, just based on what Clarissa and I have seen today. However, just because we aren’t legally obliged to, doesn’t mean that the level of systematic force we’re seeing is necessarily acceptable…for you.”

Theseus shifted uneasily on the seat. He crossed his arms, leaning forwards. “Like Clarissa said, there’s no dark magic involved, and certainly no Unforgivable Curses. He’d never do that. We’re not breaking the law; obviously, given he works here.”

Graham also leaned in. “This entire conversation is taking place in a theoretical context. You haven't officially provided a statement. So, technically, you're not giving evidence in the legal sense—and it’s okay to say what you really want to say.”

Sometimes, Newt didn’t like to talk. They used their evolving sign language, peppered more now than ever with shut up and be careful, little twitches of the hands to communicate without words. Sometimes, Newt would write notes on a piece of paper and carefully hand them over. Those moments were the hardest, when Newt slid notes under Theseus’s door; there was something so nostalgic and yet painful about getting a physical copy of it all, like a preternatural grief.

Can we play? I’m too busy. I hope your studying is going well. It was. Father said something mean again. That’s just the way he is, don’t listen to him.

Difficult ages to be, sixteen and eight.

Theseus wished he could do that now with Graham. Not talk. He uncrossed his arms and tapped his fingers against his thigh relentlessly, again and again, feigning interest in the prints on the wall.

What he really wanted to say was nothing.

“See,” Graham continued. “We know you can handle yourself. One year and you’re not even a child any more. But forgive me for saying so—the level of tolerance you’ve developed to your circ*mstances seems a little at odds with trying to erase my memory. It screams of complications, right? Forgive my use of the word again. I’m thinking: your brother. How old is he?”

“Eight.”

There was silence stretching out between them. Graham tentatively cracked his knuckles, looking at Theseus as if he was worried he might flinch, then scrubbed a hand over his face. “Is he alright?”

“Yes,” Theseus said sharply. “He’s not like me. I mean—it’s not the same situation. In some ways.”

“Theseus,” Graham began, tightening the steeple of his fingers. Theseus decided to take a sudden and intense interest in the typewriter instead. “I’ve been playing this Auror game for a while. Remember, I’ve got a daughter, too. True, the protocol for Aurors is to treat families as their own domain, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help. Clarissa and I have just enough leeway to give it a try, yeah? And like she said—sometimes you just have to absorb the consequences. We’re trained for it. You and Newt, on the other hand? Newt is eight. He’s getting to grips with his own magic, maybe; he could easily be quite vulnerable.”

It was hard to disagree. Newt was particularly small for his age, fussy over what he ate, constantly expending the meagre energy he did have on disappearing off into the outdoors. Alexander dealt discipline with the same ruthless efficiency he used to score lines when balancing his endless account books. It could snap his brother, Theseus almost believed, and so he stared more fixedly at the gleaming black body of the typewriter, lips pursing.

“You don’t know anything about him,” Theseus said.

“But you would erase my memories rather than have us talk too much about him,” Graham said, not unkindly.

“He’s a little…different,” Theseus admitted.

He had to, otherwise his own actions might come across as unreasonable too. Landing in detention for attacking a Ministry official without cause…but Graham seemed to understand at least something without necessarily handing them over to what Alexander had been running from ever since St Mungo’s.

“I’m not going to tell—but just so that we can start assessing this—in what way, would you say?”

“What happens if I don’t tell you?” Theseus said immediately.

“Nothing,” Graham said, which Theseus was sure was a lie. Alexander was high up enough in the Ministry that his reputation was essential. Then again, Graham had taken a chance on Theseus from the beginning of their encounter: from the moment they’d accidentally met by the lift. “But we don’t have all the time in the world. Clarissa will run interference—which will work for a bit, but if you want us on your side, you’ll have to give us enough to work with to defend you. We don’t separate families without cause. Or I won’t be part of that.”

A lead weight seemed to materialise in Theseus's gut. He knew exactly where this line of questioning was headed.

"He's just shy," he deflected. "Newt's always been that way, even as a toddler.”

Graham sucked his teeth in the manner of someone who’d had a realisation and couldn’t share it. “Okay.”

They both sat there. His natural equilibrium was more quiet and introverted than others expected, given the amount he compensated in public; Graham would not win a competition of prolonged silence, given he hadn’t been classed as entirely safe.

Merlin. He hated his sh*tty life.

“We’ve not got much time,” Graham warned. “Or I would have offered you tea. From my perspective, he’s just a kid who doesn’t deserve to be beaten like his big brother, but that doesn’t mean someone who needs to be taken away from his Mum.”

“Well, you’ve got nothing to suggest we’re in danger or that Newt might be in need of any particular help.” Theseus took a deep breath and balled his hands together. “And if you don’t think it’s a good situation, based on your limited evidence, then you’d know I can only protect Newt if we’re together. As he doesn’t hurt Newt, you’d want to wait until you have proof he did, preferably while Newt is young, to justify intervening—meaning you’d have to let it happen first, act afterwards. Until then, the family can stay together. That’s the policy. The family is the first and last resort, because there just isn’t anywhere else. Just Muggle orphanages. Am I right?”

He was staring at Graham’s eyes, intense, too intense, but he ignored the voice at the back of his head needling at him to be normal and kept searching for any hint of understanding, any sign that he could grasp the situation.

“We’d have nowhere else to go if you raised the alarm. Like I already said. My aunt refused to take Newt when he was two. Mum needs our father so we can pay for her medicine—and she loves him, too, you know. And Newt—he can’t go somewhere with strangers.” Theseus took a deep breath. “He can’t be taken into a random home. Anything could happen to him.”

He’s my brother! he wanted to scream, almost wanting Graham to cut through all these layers of deflection with a knife. Why don’t you look shocked? He’s my baby brother!

Graham ran a hand through his hair. His expression was sharper. Did Theseus sense a hint of judgement? Pity?

“You’re right about a lot of things, lad, but think about this. Will letting yourself burn warm your brother as much as you hope? Look—is that pyre—is it as close to love as you think?”

As soon as Graham said it, words that Theseus had never truly considered before, he knew he’d carry those two questions with him for a lifetime. Instead of responding, Theseus swallowed. “It’s not like that. I’m just—looking out for them.”

The room, with its dim lighting and the serious, yet somehow concerned expression on Graham's face, now seemed like a confessional booth where he had to lay bare his deepest fears and doubts. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair, the wooden frame feeling suddenly too rigid, too unforgiving. The vulnerability of the situation was suffocating.

“Please. I know I’m not the most elegant at this—but look.” Graham leaned forward, his voice gentle and insistent. "I know it might seem like an impossible choice."

He didn’t want to hear metaphors, words that did nothing to help. Maybe it was like fire—maybe it was like a dozen other things. Didn’t mean anything. It still leaked into everything like a creeping rot. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t be here, in this small room.

But Theseus couldn't help but see the holes in the reasoning that the Ministry would be best equipped to help. His father was well-respected, made a lot of money for them. A public disgrace—well, it might not make it to the level of disgrace, but a blip—was the last thing his department would want. Besides, he was skilled at presenting himself the way he had to be seen. Wasn’t that one of the first lessons Theseus had learnt from his father?

“It’s not impossible.” Theseus's voice held an edge of frustration. "Like you said, it’s not even enough for the Ministry to make a case. So it’s not enough for me to ruin our lives.”

Graham fiddled with the side of the typewriter, opening the desk drawers, closing them, mercifully withdrawing neither quill nor paper. "Ultimately, the decision is yours to make, Theseus. We could get in touch with your father, support him to make changes in his behaviour. It would be the smallest scale intervention.”

It would be so obvious. He’d be the traitor.

Could he risk it? Pray that his father would change and not just get worse? No. Not quite. He couldn’t quite believe it, not with nights, being twelve, thirteen, fourteen, wishing for that miracle, like the aggressive, desperate discipline Alexander’s stress had contorted into could just be bent out of him rather than a deeper, buried vein mined open, a certain evil in the blood. Theseus himself couldn’t change. They were two sides of the same coin, Theseus and Alexander, as proud relatives and family friends often told him.

Flip that coin. The status quo or its unravelling.

“There’s always a way for bad things to happen, and they always do,” Theseus said. “So I’m not giving you anything. You don’t need to make this file; trust me when I say it’d be better for you to just forget about all this entirely.”

"You've given this a lot of thought, haven't you?" Graham finally responded. The Auror shuffled through the empty parchment on the desk as if it held answers, accidentally bumping his elbow against the typewriter and swearing under his breath. He sighed. “In this hypothetical context, I’d already assumed you had, yet hoped you hadn’t.”

Was Theseus being called a fool for being realistic? Was that the hidden, loaded statement there? Being called an idiot by some adult for trying to take charge of a f*cking ruined situation? Sure, maybe Graham knew best in other situations, but not this one.

A muscle in his jaw twitched as he stared at the floor, knowing Graham was referring to Theseus’s attempt to obliviate him. It was humiliating, in retrospect. He hadn’t practised having his secret exposed and so reacted like a child, rather than the adult he felt he was. And like an adult, he simply couldn't rely on hope or promises.

"Listen," Theseus said, trying to offer an olive branch, painfully aware of the dangers of deception or coming across too deluded. "I've been looking out for years. Mum helps too. She's always been protective of Newt. We've managed so far."

He thought of how his father praised him, staked his hopes on him. He remembered the boat and the lake and his fear of black sails, of Aegeus jumping to his death, of Theseus slaying the Minotaur, abandoning people one by one. Theseus, the hero. Theseus, arrogant, alone.

He paused. “My father...he's not a bad man. But I’ll never let him hurt Newt. I promise you that. The moment that changes, I’ll come here myself and do whatever you want me to do.”

He has spent years watching his mother endure hardship and Newt navigate a world that should have been kinder to them. The idea of entrusting the Ministry with their well-being felt like a gamble he wasn't willing to take.

He needed to be certain. He didn’t need help—he needed control.

"I just need to keep my family together," Theseus pleaded, some of the fire going out of him as quickly as it had flared. "Help me protect Newt without ripping him away from everything he's ever known. Graham, he's only little..."

His voice cracked; Graham watched him, silent and sombre, as Theseus turned to look at the door and back, unable to meet the other man’s eyes. The Auror let out a long, shivering sigh, scrubbing his hand through his hair until it stuck up on its ends. “I know how terrifying all this must seem,” Graham acknowledged, then seemed to get stuck on his words again.

"I can't lose him," Theseus whispered, more to himself than Graham.

With another sigh, Graham opened his mouth, perhaps to offer some platitude or reassurance, when a sharp rap sounded at the door.

Bang. Bang.

A pause.

Bang. Bang.

Someone knocked again on the door, on the glass, making it rattle. Graham gritted his teeth. “sh*t. Hesketh was never one to let sleeping dogs lie."

He reached out and suddenly grabbed Theseus’s hand. Theseus dropped his eyes to their intertwined grip, wondering what on earth that was meant to mean; but the Auror only applied light pressure and let go to get to his feet, trying to move in front of the desk, between Theseus and the door. But he was too slow.

It flew open. A tall but stout man with a thick dark moustache stood in the doorway; once more, he kicked the door aside as it swung back on him with an aggressive rattle, with an expression of clearly feigned interest. Unlike Graham and Clarissa, who had both been wearing tweed coats that almost looked like civilian attire, this man had a severe black double breasted coat with more buttons than Theseus could count—eighteen, he compulsively tallied, with rapid precision—and a fat, gleaming gold badge. Those status symbols could only mean something bad, Theseus interpreted: both for himself and his family.

“Merlin's saggy—" Graham started, fumbling to regain his composure. "Sir, you're—you're early. I wasn't expecting—that is to say, we weren't done debrief—"

"You can spare me the excuses, Bones,” said the newcomer.

“Sir,” Theseus said hastily, also getting to his feet, because this man seemed to have no qualms pointing a wand at him. “Forgive me, I don’t believe we’ve met. Sir.”

“Head Auror Gawain Hesketh,” came the curt reply as he peered down his nose at Theseus.

Graham craned his neck behind the other man, but no one else emerged through the door. However Clarissa had tried to slow down this inevitable reckoning, the plan was either still in the works or had failed entirely. Theseus’s heart sank even more, if that was even possible. This was all his fault. He shouldn’t have been so selfish, letting an Auror bring him into this hotbed of both hope—in its loosest, weakest, most generic sense—and punishment.

"Well?" the man prompted when Graham remained silent. His gravelly voice dripped with disdain. Theseus felt rooted in place, the hairs prickling at his nape. The older Auror was looking at Theseus down his nose, even though at sixteen, Theseus had passed six feet tall the last time he’d tried to check against Leonore’s hand-painted Hippogriff Growth Chart in the barn. "Aren't you going to introduce us?"

"Theseus, this is Gawain Hesketh, current Head Auror of the British Auror Office. Gawain, this is Theseus Scamander," Graham replied through gritted teeth. "Son of Alexander Scamander in the Trade Office. I was just—"

Theseus abruptly processed that Graham had joined the dots: that he did know exactly who the father circling their conversation was.

"A schoolboy, then," Gawain sniffed. There was a brief silence, then it was broken by Gawain's derisive scoff. His lip curled back over tobacco-stained teeth as he regarded Theseus like something unpleasant found stuck to his boot. “And a Scamander. Well, colour me unsurprised we've yet another generation of dullards intending to squander their futures behind a desk pushing parchment. Don’t see why I should be impressed that this one wants to get up to his elbows in the detritus of our world's unwashed.”

That sounded exactly like the differences in opinion that had driven Theseus and the policeman’s daughter back in the village apart. They’d had an immense fight over the hangings of the Stratton at HMS Wandsworth and the whole business around fingerprint evidence, a technique the Muggles had just discovered and which seemed far less precise than magical trace tracking, which had already existed for centuries, not that he could tell her.

But then again, he’d known for a while that he had to stop visiting the village, because people looked at the way his hair was long enough to curl around his ears, and the ink on his fingers, and now were beginning to question exactly where he came from and who he belonged to. And given that he had been truncheoned by her father for what had been perceived as a near-newspaper theft as a nine year old, he had resolutely given up on—what had her name been?—on Lillian Pelling.

So, he was no stranger to judgement, or the kind of man who wore his badge like this. He only hoped Hesketh hadn’t been Head Auror for too long, or wouldn’t be for much longer.

"So, someone notified me that a Memory Charm had been fired. Is this the little reprobate in question?" Hesketh beckoned a finger. "Come here, boy. Let's have a look at you. Senior Auror Grey informed me it was an accidental discharge given a sensitive investigation into some—what was it?—family dynamics. Excessive, she called it, of course. You know how women can get about these things."

This man was more than certainly going to another obstacle, and to boot, most likely a pompous pain in the arse, Theseus judged. Reluctantly, he stepped towards Hesketh, his back rigid with suppressed tension.

"No need for alarm." Hesketh circled Theseus, eyes roving over the diagnostic spell's lingering traceries. "Just a routine examination to, ah, separate fact from fiction regarding this...predicament."

One thick-fingered hand clamped down on Theseus's shoulder with surprising strength, clenching until the teen's knotted muscles protested. With his other hand, Hesketh gripped Theseus's chin, wrenching his head back as if inspecting livestock, and magically split the fabric of his clothes enough to reveal a slice of shoulder.

"Yes, yes, I see the contusions plain enough." He released Theseus with a contemptuous snort, re-sealing the rent he’d made. "But hardly excessive discipline. Not like the Muggles and their savagery."

Theseus frowned, not liking what this man was saying; all the old prejudices raging through his words were a terrible portent for how it might go should Newt come up.

Graham shifted behind the desk. "That may be, sir, but when compounded over the years on a growing adolescent—"

"Oh, tosh!" Hesketh cut him off with a disdainful wave. "Any pureblood patriarch would say he's had a firm hand, nothing more. But I'll thank you to avoid smearing the Ministry's reputation further by engaging in further misconduct, Mister Scamander. We have enough roustabouts roaming Knockturn Alley without the offspring of respectable families joining their ranks."

This wasn't a schoolyard tussle; antagonising the Head Auror could spell disaster. He could not get into a fight over Newt here. Graham gave an awkward cough, waving a hand as if that could dispel the sudden tension.

"Well,” Gawain continued. "I mean no insult to the boy's parentage. Admirable stock in its way, though his branch seems...somewhat gnarled of late. It seems prudent to discuss this elsewhere. Far beyond your pay grade, Auror Bones, given your recent childcare commitments, although I’d have expected a veteran of your experience to recognise delinquent behaviour when it stares you in the face."

Graham ran a hand over his jaw, those light mud-coloured eyes cutting briefly to Theseus in an unspoken appeal for patience. Whatever internal conflict Gawain thought he was negotiating, the other Auror seemed intent on waging a battle of wits as much as authority for the moment.

"Theseus has simply run afoul of some complicated family matters,” Graham said in a measured tone. "Nothing that falls under our jurisdiction, I assure you. No dark magic or illegal devices were involved. We should see him out.”

"Of course, of course." Gawain hummed. “Well. Let me do just that. After all, it’s not the shortest walk from my office to here, is it? Might as well make it worth my while.”

*

Once more, they were weaving their way through the corridors, attracting a little too much attention for his liking. This route involved a set of stairs and a lift, taking them deeper in the Department for Magical Law Enforcement. A brief foray with his own magic revealed that this area was heavily warded. He assumed perhaps it was useful to see this much of the building, given his natural aspirations to work at the Ministry and put his perfect grades and organised tendencies to their appropriate use—but it was definitely disquieting to be personally escorted to somewhere by the Head Auror. Telling him what was about to happen would have been a common courtesy. He narrowed his eyes, but accepted the man’s steering hand clamped over his bony elbow.

In this corridor, the rooms had no doors. Instead, each grey-tiled hollow had black iron bars on hinges for doors, revealing identical slab-like tables at their centres and bright perpetual lighting that failed to illuminate their damp corners. Gawain unlocked the nearest with an oversized set of keys, three locks clicking, and ushering Theseus inside. The door sealed behind them. The three locks engaged. Theseus’s pulse, which hadn’t dipped to a comfortable level in about sixteen hours, kept up its uneasy hummingbird pace.

Still, he kept his face impassive. At the very least, this set of encounters had brought him a step closer to becoming an Auror. And Aurors didn’t let their guard down. They protected people with much more finesse and efficacy than Theseus had managed so far in his clumsy sixteen years of life.

It seemed there had been pre-preparation put into this. A thin manilla file lay on the immovable table.

"Bones hasn't made too much of a mess after all, has he?" the Head Auror sneered, his beady eyes glittering with undisguised malice as they raked over Theseus. "Excellent. We’ll just have a friendly chat between concerned wizards."

Graham wasn’t following them. Theseus stayed silent.

Gawain regarded him with exaggerated patience, as if humouring a particularly dull-witted child. "So be it. We may as well dive into the heart of the matter."

With an exaggerated flourish, he swished his wand in an upward arc. The plain metal chair bolted to the interrogation room's floor screeched, the bolts popping out, and then shot backward several paces, nearly clipping Theseus as it whizzed past his shins. It landed with a clatter, spinning to an ungraceful stop several feet behind him. Another flick of Gawain’s wand and the bolts rattled across the concrete, screwing themselves back in. Why exactly they needed the extra space between captive and interrogator, Theseus wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like he was mad, yet Gawain eyed him as though he was about to rake his nails over his face. Theseus covertly scraped them over his sore palms. Not quite testing them. Short and blunt for Quidditch, but, yes, enough force and he did regularly find himself drawing blood.

“Why don't you have a seat, Theseus Scamander?"

It was mildly affronting to hear his name spoken like a blasphemous curse. He considered himself to have enough achievements that he deserved some respect on that difficult mantle of heritage. But that currency of being good, being perfect, which allowed him to feel like something more at school, and even occasionally at home, praised over dinner, was as much as worthless here.

Theseus wasn’t very good at middle grounds. If he couldn’t summon the useful shell of perfection, he rattled right past any sense of diplomatic centre straight to defiance. After all, wavering in the actionless middle only had consequences. Squaring his shoulders, Theseus considered standing his ground anyway. But playing along for now might lend more room to manoeuvre later.

Decision made, he pivoted on his heel, planting himself in the uncomfortable metal seat. His back protested at the chair’s unforgiving contours; Gawain eyed him, as if gauging Theseus's measure anew from this diminished vantage point now that they weren’t at the same height. Lips twitching into a thin smile, he gave a sharp nod of satisfaction, almost as if congratulating a dog for performing a clever trick.

"Well done. You're learning," he muttered. With a few indolent strides, he circled around behind Theseus's chair, disappearing from view. "Care to make an educated guess as to what crisis commands my attention today, Theseus Scamander?"

Theseus consciously willed his muscles not to tense as Gawain's suddenly disembodied voice reverberated against the tiled walls surrounding them. He kept his gaze fixed ahead, his nostrils flaring with each controlled breath.

"Given your unseemly interest in my family's private affairs, I expect you aim to search for scandal." He tightened his jaw, wondering why things always had to end up like this. Clearly, he wasn’t doing a good enough job as the eldest son. "However, I promise you'll find no such diversion to occupy your obviously immense resources, sir."

A throaty chuckle sounded from behind him. "Such formalities. Your father clearly overcompensates in instilling a sense of obedience in you. Well thought through, I suppose. Perhaps he knows we’re forbidden to use Veritaserum on the underage.”

A thrill of loathing lanced through him.

"Precious few families remain untouched by rumour and whispers in this enlightened age. But I digress. Your own sordid affairs hold little significance beyond the inevitable chastisem*nt they demand,” said Gawain, circling back around, adjusting a button on his impressive coat. Then, he looked up. "No. It's your defective little brother who commands the Auror office's scrutiny."

Oh. Oh, no.

It was exactly as Alexander had always warned.

"I don't know what you're implying," Theseus said. "But Newt is the furthest thing from a defective—"

"Oh, come now," Gawain's scornful tone cracked like a whip. "There's no need to varnish the facts in a misguided bid for discretion. The records archived by St. Mungo's—even if they were officially unsigned by your own parents' private failure!—catalogue Newton Scamander as a highly irregular case from the cradle."

Theseus flinched at the insinuation, his bravado cracking. "Surely those are personal documents—and shouldn’t have been kept if they weren’t signed over."

"Well. We conduct occasional checks and reopen files we fear might threaten the Statue," Gawain said brusquely. "After all, the healers deemed the risks so dire, your father saw fit to redact details of his family's bloodline status alongside any semblance of your brother's precise condition. For someone so obsessed with maintaining respectability, such an oversight seems...remarkably sloppy."

Mouth dry as tinder, Theseus had to swallow several times before finding his voice again. "If you've laid eyes on those sealed confidential records, you've clearly violated Ministry protocols regarding a private family's confidential—"

"I am the Ministry's protocols!" Gawain roared, spit flying from his mouth as he strode right up to the chair, nearly stepping on Theseus’s feet. He brought with him the waft of tobacco, incongruously fresh-smelling cologne, and an underlying dirty metallic smell strong enough that Theseus wondered if it came from the oversized signet ring with a crest he didn’t recognise positively gleaming on the man’s fourth finger. "Every code and charter comprising the Auror Department’s delicate infrastructure answers to my oversight! Do you think me so great a fool as to blindly follow the suggestions of glorified scribes and scholars, boy? I decide what frailties and imperfections require our diligent attention! What deviations threaten to undermine the orderly society we've bled to uphold!"

Theseus hunched his shoulders. “There are boundaries. Lines that must never be crossed," he bit out. "Investigating innocent people without justifiable cause—"

"Oh, there was ample cause, make no mistake."

“But the documents aren’t official.”

"Really? Don’t you think secrecy is evidence in itself?" Gawain asked.

“No,” Theseus said. “Not really, sir. Because you could judge anything to be secrecy, and then everything becomes a cause in itself, in theory.”

He needed to bow and scrape more, desperately so. But any hint of agreement could be tactically drawing an arrow right to the truth of the matter.

"Your father stopped well short of signing off on the full battery of evaluations recommended by the healers, did he not? Please, let us not insult one another's intelligence with denial.” Gawain raised one eyebrow, the perfect picture of patent disbelief. His face was reddening. It had been, progressively through the conversation. “We both comprehend his motives, surely: protecting his precious legacy from invasive scrutiny, on the off-chance his heir proved...unsuitable for continuing the Scamander line."

Silence slammed between them. No matter how Theseus tried to deflect, Gawain had struck the heart of the matter with utmost precision—Alexander's machinations were an open book to the Ministry's suspicion.

The older man cleared his throat, his body language bleeding with self-satisfaction. "So you see, the only insights I have to rely upon are those piecemeal observations recorded by an overworked, underprepared hospital staff. Which is why I so desperately need your insights to guide me, young Scamander."

Theseus glanced at the folder on the table. "If such a record exists detailing some early examination of my brother, I assure you I knew nothing of it. My father keeps his own counsel in these matters."

"Professed ignorance rarely constitutes adequate mitigation under lawful inquiry," Gawain countered with obvious relish. He fetched the folder, then slid it millimetre by millimetre across Theseus’s lap until its edge butted against his white-knuckle clasped hands. "Which is why I'll expect your full cooperation in verifying certain claims made within these transcripts."

A fraught silence stretched between them, taut as wire. Theseus didn't dare so much as twitch as Gawain's pop-eyed stare bored into him.

"Tell me, Theseus Scamander, would you judge yourself a...conscientious observer of your younger brother's habits and personal development? Particularly as it relates to any idiosyncratic ideations or unconventional behaviours which may manifest over time."

So that was his game. Gawain meant to extract an impromptu testimony from Theseus himself, a contemporary account to justify reopening the old and unsigned documentation: fresh confirmation to buttress whatever warrants might exist for ongoing evaluation by the Ministry.

Theseus's chest constricted, heart rabbiting against his ribs.

"I know that the reports say Newt is different," Theseus started, choosing each word with care. "But not…we don’t think…"

Gawain made a noncommittal sound. "Different how, precisely?"

Just as Graham had asked. He wished he could take the tiny isolated island that his bizarre family had sequestered itself in and just set it drifting free. A dozen different deflections flitted through Theseus's mind, each more transparent and futile than the last. In the end, he settled on a half truth.

"Newt has always demonstrated an uncommon empathy and affinity for the natural world," he said, keeping his tone carefully measured. "As I’ve said. It is harmless.”

“Interesting.”

Bile scorched the back of his throat. Had that really granted them greater plausibility and legal leverage to sequester Newt outright?

“A rapport with animals is hardly pathological," Theseus said, frowning. "Our mother raises prize Hippogriffs, for Merlin's sake.”

Gawain looked singularly unimpressed. "Yes, a reputable enough business on its surface.”

Gawain straightened from where he’d been leaning to peer at Theseus, smoothing his hands over the lapels of his coat. A look of clinical exasperation settled over his dour features.

"Mister Scamander, you do your family a grave disservice by clinging to such willful obstinacy." His earlier condescension had soured to open umbrage. "Obscurials represent one of the most severe existential threats our society has battled. You understand that protecting your family's interests hinges entirely on your cooperation here today, don't you? These personal assessments from loved ones are precisely why the Ministry requires rigorous, objective evaluations regarding potential threats to the Statute of Secrecy."

The Head Auror paced in another semi-circle as Theseus fought not to grip the metal arms of the interrogation chair. He came to a halt directly behind Theseus, so close Gawain's breath prickled the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. Instinctively, Theseus stiffened, taut and ready. Not that he could fight back. Not here, not ever.

"Take yourself, for instance," Gawain murmured, too close for comfort. "A fine, upstanding young man by all accounts. Yet you'd still shield your brother through blatant obfuscation, all to prevent him receiving the appropriate...care his condition clearly requires."

A spike of ice shot through Theseus's veins at the insinuation. Custody. Evaluation. Treatment. And at the centre, his small, frightened little brother, stripped of warmth and freedom and anything that made him Newt.

"Newt needs no such care," he said.

The tenor of Theseus's thoughts must have shown in his face, because Gawain made a strange noise, tsk-tsk, and shook his head as if gearing to change tack from this draconian outlook.

"Mind, I'm not advocating such dire eventualities as incarceration outright," he said, correcting himself.

Custody, evaluation, treatment. The words were still spinning around Theseus’s head; he could practically smell the wood varnish of Alexander’s well-kept study. Custody, evaluation, treatment. Newt, gone, taken. Theseus should have never left that meeting, never walked to the lifts. He should have gone straight home and shown he was a failure in a much simpler way than this.

"Not at first, at any rate,” Gawain continued. “An appropriate battery of updated evaluations could still determine no immediate threat exists. In which case, discreet professional resources could be allocated toward...curbing any unorthodox manifestations before they provoke undue scrutiny. Spare your family the embarrassment and heartache of watching young Newton spiral into a menace, only to be remanded into permanent confinement later in life when he's deemed irredeemable.”

Embarrassment and heartache? Felt too many times to count over the years. Too many anguished nights. Too many punishments for the most minor infarctions. In the real world, he saw, you couldn’t make mistakes; you had to be strong for the ones you loved, and that meant not letting them make mistakes, either. And if the justifications turned flimsy sometimes, then it was just the natural consequence of a typically disciplinarian household in which one of the errant children simply didn’t take as well to the rod. So it was Theseus’s job to endure that and prevent the spoiling.

Then again, Newt had tried to run away.

Would it truly be so much worse to see Newt shepherded under the wing of trained professionals devoted to acclimating him? To help harness these "idiosyncrasies" in an environment free of their father’s wrath and their mother's ineffectual softness that only enabled the cycle?

Perhaps, in a place like that, Newt could finally be normal.

The file was still sitting in his lap. Torn now, Theseus lowered his eyes to it, his stomach churning. The small scale interventions Graham had proposed for his father might not be necessary if they simply made the largest leap of all. Before these files had been created in their desperate attempt to prove Newt could speak—and in hindsight, Theseus thought despairingly, why? why had it mattered?—Alexander had never raised a hand to him. He’d been twelve when it started, far older than most of the village boys. It was all unfortunate circ*mstance, external pressure, and he wondered if taking the axe of this ruthless betrayal—because, really, they all loved Newt—might cut through the warped layers surrounding a man who’d once read him stories and bought him his first broom.

A man who hadn’t used a cane until he could barely get onto that same broom, could barely fly.

The assumption that they would go back to being a happy family hinged on Theseus having the self-belief he wasn’t the flawed one. Good Theseus, dutiful Theseus, smart Theseus, obedient Theseus. If he was as excellent as he was told, at every turn other than in that study, then they could all be normal again. Newt, normal; them, normal. Instead of this living bloody f*cking nightmare. Yes. He thought it was almost plausible, what with him having turned out right and Newt having turned out wrong, and if things were black and white, if you could make rules and draw lines and abide, then the solution was very clear.

"Very well,” Gawain said. “If you insist on being obdurate..."

With a wave, he spun open the file on Theseus’s lap, revealing the few sheets of paper inside. "Perhaps reviewing the particulars will help jog your perspective. Give you a better appreciation for just how imperative cooperation really is here."

Slowly, as if in a trance, Theseus reached for the first page with trembling fingers. At the very least, he owed it to Newt to understand the full scope of the threat, didn't he? Then, and only then, could he properly assess the best path to keep his little brother safe.

He scanned the text with a sinking sense of dismay.

These must have been the same confidential assessments his father had sworn would never be an issue, Theseus realised, heart plummeting. This was no bluff. It had been exactly these papers sent by owl years ago that had sparked the awful chain of logic that ruled their lives, endlessly: don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell. He sat there, staring at the paper. Never in his life had he felt so torn. But the other man wouldn’t let him just think.

Gawain sighed, as if greatly put upon. And suddenly, he was talking, again. No—no. Theseus just needed time, a few minutes, a few minutes to think and get his head together, order his thoughts as he always did in neat rows, rather than this pure storm, this pure static.

“How often?”

“How often, sir?” Theseus said, attempting to keep his voice level.

He could have strangled Gawain. Head Auror or not. He could have screamed at him to shut up, shut the f*ck up. Each of his heavy breaths was far too loud, scraping against the end of his consciousness, and as his grip tightened on the papers, he felt the tendons flexing, his fingers desperate to play out that tapping rhythm. It had earned him an accidental blade across the knuckles, yes—but if he tapped each finger and the last finger twice, it would just—no, but there was no such thing as luck, not any more. After, anyone else would have said these disparate offers of salvation, from Graham and Clarissa and now this squat demon, were lucky, a chance not many in his situation would get.

Hardly so.

Abandoning the folder now—he needed to focus on the threat, the man—he jammed his shaking hands between his thighs and sought not to bounce his legs.“How often does Alexander discipline you?” Gawain repeated.

Theseus clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. If only someone would come in and help him. But the door was firmly locked. He supposed he was lucky nothing truly bad had happened yet. Newt, gone.

Did he want that?

Perhaps a tiny part of him did. But beyond that wildness Theseus seemed unable to burn from his soul, he agonised and deliberated over most decisions, always wanting to pick the logical, the rational, the right answer, and yet that required time and freedom he was currently being ill-afforded.

He knew better than to answer such a loaded question truthfully.

Gawain's expression remained impassive, but there was a calculating glint in his eye. "It's a simple query."

He considered lying outright, but something in Gawain's demeanour made him pause.

"I don't see how that's relevant to Newton's...condition," Theseus hedged.

"Indulge me," Gawain pressed. "I find context often illuminates the path forward in complex familial matters such as this."

Gawain was up to something, angling for leverage of some kind. But selective candour might be the wisest tactic here. If he downplayed the severity of it while hinting at a more general underlying strife, something that pointed to conventional rather than unconventional issues, perhaps Gawain would be convinced to handle the situation more delicately. After all, losing his main source on Newt's "deviations" by pushing too hard about a painful situation could force Gawain into having to talk to Alexander directly: a position straddling all the internal Ministry politics Alexander ranted about so often. Perhaps the Head of Trade, pitted against the Head Auror, could make a decent go of it.

Decision made, Theseus wet his dry lips.

"I assure you, I bear no ill will," he said. "It happens regularly, but means nothing more."

He let his gaze drop, hoping the impression of cowed reticence would sell the partial deception. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gawain nod slowly.

"I suspected as much," the Head Auror murmured.

He sat down on the edge of the table with a rustle, resting his hands flat on its surface. Collegiate in his approach, but Theseus had already heard his opinions on Muggles, and he was reminded painfully of the proper purebloods he seemed obliged to cross at every turn as a Prefect at school.

"You strike me as an inordinately responsible young man, Theseus,” Gawain said. “Mature beyond your years in certain respects, I'd wager. You must realise that the disciplinary measures you've required contribute valuable context to this entire situation. And, really, your father won’t get in trouble. The Ministry doesn't condemn judicious parental correction out of hand. We understand the occasional need to instil values and propriety through...firmer reinforcement."

Don’t trust him, he thought immediately. He was changing his tune, making it seem as though Theseus should change his mind. Well, that was one thing he very, very rarely did, and he certainly wouldn’t fall for an insinuating, duplicitous charm offensive. His stomach was cramping from the mixture of nerves and instinctive nausea.

"However," Gawain continued, "reports of excessive corporal punishment raise justifiable concerns over a household's...stability. Especially in cases where other elements may be present. In this situation, well…handling such personal strife with stoic acceptance, rather than rebelling outright, does you credit."

Despite himself, Theseus felt his chest constrict at the wisp of faint praise woven through Gawain's words. How long had it been since anyone outside had acknowledged—let alone validated—the burden he willingly shouldered?

"All to shield your loved ones from outside scrutiny," Gawain said, his tone practically oozing empathy now, and Theseus wondered if the pity was meant to come across as mocking, "from the harsh judgments of a society too insular and paranoid to grasp context. Black and white edicts compelling good families into difficult circ*mstances, aren’t they? Why, perhaps no one has truly made a mistake here."

Theseus's breath hitched. The Head Auror's words resonated with those justifications he and his father had long traded in mutual reassurance behind closed doors. The floor tilted beneath his feet, a sudden burst of vertigo slapping him upside the head.

“I don’t know,” he finally whispered.

"You were correct earlier, Theseus," Gawain murmured. "Those archives don't begin to capture the full truth of your circ*mstances, do they? They don’t show that your father is a man driven to desperation by shame...all to shield your poor, troubled brother from a world intent on failing him. I’d wager he beats you to keep you quiet. Injury after transgression after injury. In silence.”

It wasn’t quite that, not at all, but Theseus remained silent.

Gawain reached down, his calloused fingers brushing against Theseus's wrist in what was surely meant as a comforting gesture. Theseus flinched violently at the unasked-for contact.

Again and again. The despair as his magic briefly flared with each lash, automatically knitting wounds only to have them torn apart moments later. The copper tang of blood flooding his mouth, the dizzying vertigo as black splotches danced at the periphery of his vision.

And Gawain was offering to sever that excruciatingly familiar chain, not out of moral outrage, but naked pragmatism. Why maintain the charade any longer?

Shame blazed through Theseus in a scalding rush, scorching his cheeks, and he took a shuddering breath, fighting to still the tremors. He raised his eyes to meet Gawain's scrutiny, feeling like a condemned penitent facing the noose. His fingers twitched atop the file.

"Do you sense any futility in those thankless sacrifices?" Gawain pressed. "Any growing frustration that all your nobility may yet culminate in the exact outcome you fear?”

“Sir,” Theseus said, which was as much as begging the senior man to stop.

But Gawain let the silence linger for several beats before easing into his own chair at long last, the table and then some feet more spanning the distance between them that felt like nowhere near enough.

"Why don’t we go with the more enlightened way forward?"

His tone stayed conversational, almost gentle, a physician delicately prodding an open wound. Theseus felt his breath quickening, heartbeat accelerating as Gawain's implication began to coalesce into something tangible. The Head Auror offered a thin smile, inclining his head as if entreating Theseus's indulgence.

"The Department of Mysteries oversees a cadre of clinical specialists well-versed in reviewing cases exactly like Newton's," he continued. "Their mission? Gather thorough documentation supporting official classifications and interventions tailored specifically for each...irregular...individual's circ*mstances."

He paused to let the words sink in. "With professional evaluations proving your brother not an immediate threat to the Statute's integrity, more...progressive...containment protocols could be pursued. Ones aimed at counselling, not confining. Moulding, not crushing."

Theseus licked his lips.

"Tailored regimens to help him acclimate to society in healthy, sustainable ways,” Gaiwain said, examining the signet ring on his left hand, and then smiled, showing those tobacco-teeth again. “And rest for you, Theseus. True rest."

Merlin's sake, how many nights had he lain awake praying for exactly this sort of reprieve? Fantasies of being spirited away? But those were desperate pipe dreams for a situation that surely wasn’t that bad, not yet. Hope was for fools suffering comfortable delusions. It almost felt faintly embarrassing to think of.

Then again, it had never been vocalised aloud to him, not like it had been today.

Now?

He could tell them everything, as easily as vomiting. At that thought, some traitorous ember of hope tried to smoulder into full blown flame once more. A moment's indulgence melting the diamond-hard shell of disillusionment he'd so lovingly cultivated. If he truly did have the future in front of him he’d been promised, something bright, something brighter than the now, perhaps he even owed it to himself. It was what he could use to save himself, yes, taking the opportunity. Even if it was all so complicated, he could simply shred it in one quick act of defiance.

Maybe he was tired of staying silent and fulfilling his duty. Maybe, at some point, he’d wanted to be a normal sixteen year old, all those wasted years dragging out through his fingers, like pulling hard on the fraying stitching of a seam and finding a mess of thread.

It probably wouldn’t even hurt after a while; he was good at putting things away like that, surely. Even if he didn’t know what to say, or didn’t say it right the first time, or didn’t say enough, Gawain could push him until he spilled every secret he’d been forced into keeping. And then, when he went home, perhaps he’d receive one last beating when Alexander saw Newt’s empty bedroom, his messy moss-and-dirt smelling bed entirely abandoned, his specimen jars rotting without their replenished preserves.

After that, at last, at f*cking last, maybe all his sins would purely be his own.

But—

But—

Surely nothing in life was ever so simple, so neatly resolved. Not in his family's cloistered, nightmare existence, at any rate. There was always a caveat, a hidden cost awaiting whoever was naive enough to place faith in easy answers.

And he loved Newt. He loved his little brother, more than anything in the world.

He would not force him to pay the ultimate price in the Ministry's bastardised vision of deliverance. The Ministry and their institutions might be calmer in their justifications, but deep down, they were just as condemning: intent on moulding the strange and troubled to their conceptions of normalcy.

Normal was a promise—a promise of future force. Damn it, how hadn’t he learnt that by now? Because what would he be, when that happened? Freed, just as Gawain promised. But severed. Maybe even alone. Because who would forgive him if he did choose to give up this suffering? None of them.

Perhaps sensing the momentum slipping through his grip, Gawain's expression hardened, lips thinning into a severe line.

"Do you take me for a fool?” he said.

“Forgive me for needing to think, sir,” Theseus said.

Gawain’s nostrils flared. "Your posturing changes nothing. This investigation proceeds with or without your consent. Results will supersede even your willful intransigence."

Theseus inhaled a steadying breath, infusing his tone with a calm he scarcely felt.

"I've yet to hear any substantive accusations against my brother." He met Gawain's glare. "Whatever lingering doubts you harbour about Newton hold no weight without corroboration."

"And if I simply bring you to testify? Then we'll see where the cards fall,” Gaiwan said, almost idly, but Theseus could see he revelled in the threat. He hated the man, at that moment. He would have gladly taken anyone else as Head Auror if only to stop someone like this wearing the mantle.

But all his internal monologue couldn’t stop the terror slicing through Theseus.

"Did you imagine I sought your endorsem*nt out of mere courtesy?" His tone dripped with derision. "That explaining this process to you was anything more than rudimentary forewarning of your limited options?”

Theseus felt the blood draining from his face. Every grim scenario he'd envisioned since Gawain first uttered the word 'Obscurial' seemed poised to unfold whether he surrendered or not.

“Even the Ministry has boundaries when involving minors and their families in legal matters," he countered, proud of how steady his voice remained despite his hammering pulse.

“Of course, of course,” and Gawain seemed to feign backing off for a few moments, thumbing his moustache.

The Head Auror looked at the stack of papers with a sigh, turning over a few that looked full of dense, typewritten text, none of which seemed familiar. “You’re quite correct; rules are made for a reason, aren’t they? And, after all, you’re a good son, aren’t you? A clever, willful young man on the cusp of true adulthood. Practically begging for your independence. Hardly unstable or volatile at all…yourself.”

“I’m not unstable,” Theseus said.

“No, naturally. So, it could make things quite beneficial for your own peace of mind should we act appropriately here. No funny business, full permission. It’s simply this: should we trust in the law to do what is right, and the morals of good men to contain this situation within the bounds of propriety, this will no longer be your reality.”

Unspoken in those words: this will no longer be your reality with your little brother.

"Cooperate fully,” Gawain observed, a ghost of a smile playing across his lips, “and it can all end.”

Yes, a distant part of him agreed numbly. He had precious few alternatives against such overwhelming authority and influence as the Ministry commanded. But he was not wavering.

The odious prick—assuming he knew anything.

Gawain regarded him in flinty silence for a handful of heartbeats before straightening to his full height, taking the damning medical file from Theseus.

"Your defiance remains on the record, Mister Scamander," the Head Auror said. "In the face of abject obstruction over matters of grave import to wizardkind, we have no choice but to take this up through alternative channels."

“Then so be it. Depose me and question my father: the one in charge of my family’s affairs," Theseus said, bracing himself as something deep in his chest twisted worse than any knife. "Request an audience with him if you believe you can persuade him into accepting those records. But I concede nothing other than my refusal to continue this line of questioning.”

In the tense silence, there was another knock at the door, and this time, Theseus felt dimly relieved rather than utterly terrified. It unlatched by itself, the brief ozone flare of magic suggesting the sealing wards had been dissolved. It swung open with a neat click.

*

"Head Auror. You’re needed in the bullpen.” Clarissa Grey stepped into the doorway, dark hickory wand in a hand, her kohl-rimmed eyes as piercing as ever. “This is our case. We will contain the boy and take an official testimony involving the appropriate members of staff.”

"Senior Auror Grey," Gawain growled, "this situation is well in hand—"

"I’m glad. But we need to take over—there’s an emergency elsewhere. This minor incident is below you, I’m sure. We’ve reports of an anti-Muggle attack on a steel factory, and apparently, there’s either a vampire or a werewolf involved.”

Gawain opened his mouth, purpling with outrage, but Clarissa talked over him in a tone of weary impatience. “Sir. Please. We need your command to authorise next steps. There’s no time to waste.”

Graham stuck his head across the doorway and shuffled into view. He cleared his throat, shooting Theseus an apologetic look. "Clarissa is right, sir. We can take over.”

"I would reconsider stealing a case from your senior after co*cking it up so spectacularly before it’s even made it to file," Gawain said venomously.

"I completely understand, sir," Graham said. "But Theseus here seems a good lad; no need to traumatise him further over some interdepartmental squabble, is there? I’ll do a neat little wrap up, get it all out of your…hair.”

Gawain was balding, but what remained was tufty and clearly overcompensating. He glowered between the two of them, but at last, he seemed to deflate slightly, waving them off with ill-concealed irritation.

"Very well, very well." He levelled a gimlet stare at Theseus. "We'll reconvene on this matter at a later junction, young man. For now, you're excused to suffer the consequences with these subordinates. And I expect full transcriptions. A confession, even.”

Clarissa nodded. “Very good, sir. It’s in Manchester.”

“What?”

“The factory.”

“Well, you were right to call me,” came the snippy reply, and then Gawain hurried off down the corridor, turning to the right, back towards the main Auror office. Mentally, Theseus thanked the werewolf-slash-vampire for adding an extra layer of complexity to this steel factory crisis, which must have been genuine to convince the actual Head Auror to leave without finishing what he’d started.

Graham grimaced. “You alright? What was that all about?”

Slowly, Theseus dragged his forearm across his sweaty brow, fighting to still his ragged breathing. He couldn't quite meet the other man's eyes.

"Fine," he managed, the word scraping in his throat. "I'm... fine."

He wasn't, not remotely, but what else could he say? That he'd seriously contemplated dismantling every futile effort to conceal Newt's... condition... to a blustering megalomaniac like Gawain? That in a fleeting, breathless moment of desperation, he'd been prepared to sell out his only kin to satisfy the Ministry's appetite for total control?

He wondered if there was a limit for how totally someone could hate themselves before their magic simply turned them to dust. Settling for digging his nails into his palms and the resulting bright flare of pain was the best he could do in response.

“About the Memory Charm or about your family?” Graham asked.

Theseus hissed a desperate breath through his teeth, mentally staving off the panic attack, pushing it back for later, for his locked bedroom. “About my brother.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and slapped out the rhythm he’d been craving against his thighs.

Graham ambled closer, shrugging his tweed coat further down his shoulders as though trying to strike a more casual, nonthreatening air. "Hesketh's had a chip on his shoulder ever since he got married. Hates his own heritage. I mean, some of us are Muggleborn and manage to be fine with it. So, any other minor crimes you’re planning on committing that we need to transcribe, or shall we just try and tidy this situation up?”

Clarissa stepped into the interrogation room and looked at the chair, conducting some invisible magical assessment on it with a frown.

Something in Graham’s gentle tone, the understated humour, smoothed over the rawness in Theseus enough for him to speak. "I've nothing further, sir."

And I like tidy things, he wanted to add, but it was too dangerous a thought after what had just happened. His ability to be funny in return was heavily kneecapped by present circ*mstances.

"That's what I like to hear," Graham said with a small grin, a non-answer that didn't merit any clarification.

"Come on,” Clarissa interjected. “Best we clear out."

"This way," Graham muttered, jerking his head toward a side passage branching off to the left. "Fire exit around that bend, but the wards are...problematic."

"Define 'problematic,'" Clarissa retorted, even as she shepherded Theseus ahead of her with a firm hand against his back.

Graham paused, giving her a flat look over his shoulder. "As in, any idiot trying to override them will get mulched into bloody confetti. But lucky for our young friend here—" he rapped his knuckles against Theseus's sternum, provoking a wince "—I happen to be rather more than a mere idiot when it comes to dismantling security charms."

"You’ll need to do more than break a fire exit to prove you’re not entirely stupid," Clarissa deadpanned. Even so, her wand hand remained loose at her side as she fell into step behind Graham.

“I was her mentor, awkwardly, despite the lofty four year age difference,” Graham told Theseus. “But we work together. I promise.”

As they crept deeper into the deserted bowels of the Ministry, Theseus couldn't resist breaking the tense silence. "If you're going to arrest me, don't bother with all the subterfuge," he said, proud of how his voice remained steady despite his hammering pulse. "I'll come quietly."

"Arrest you?" Clarissa echoed with a sardonic snort. "If I wanted you in a cell, I'd have dragged you there by the hair. Tell me, are you always this eager to surrender?"

Theseus opened his mouth, but Graham shushed them both with an impatient wave. "If you two could keep those clever quips holstered for now? Throwing off wards takes a fair bit of focus."

They obliged with mutual ill grace as Graham twirled his wand through a complex series of silent gestures. The faint shimmer of magic hazed the air, winding in intricate knots before Graham snapped both hands outward in a sharp, definitive thrust. The entire passage seemed to exhale as the wards began collapsing like a house of cards; Clarissa smothered a cough against her sleeve as the discharged energies billowed past in a pungent wave.

"Merlin's saggy left—" Graham wheezed, blinking streaming eyes as he waved the cloud away with his free hand. "Ever get the feeling the last idiot to set up these countermeasures accidentally overdosed on Paranoia Solution?"

"Yes, well, you know how our types tend to overcompensate," Clarissa muttered, already leading the way down the freshly de-warded passage. "If it can't be solved with three metric tons of brute force, they're utterly at a loss."

Graham shook his head in wry resignation, beckoning Theseus to follow closely behind Clarissa. He found himself envying Clarissa's fluid economy of movement, the effortless lethality in each line of her compact figure.

It occurred to him in a sobering rush that if they weren’t arresting him, they could just as easily be escorting him back into Gawain's waiting hands. "Why take such an interest in me?" he challenged, torn between scepticism and cautious hope. "If you're so bloody concerned for my welfare, what's this all about?"

“Erm,” Graham began. “Gosh, you’ve taken your own Paranoia Solution, it seems.”

"Let me put this as plainly, as my delicate partner seems too incapable for it. The Ministry is not perfect. It’s not even very good,” Clarissa said. “The Auror Department included, I'm ashamed to admit. Hesketh may be our superior, but he answers to yet more contemptible relics of wizarding superiority further up the food chain. Even your father plays a central role in fuelling all this willful ignorance, whether he's conscious of it or not."

“Yeah,” Graham agreed. “But it’s going to rule your life in many ways. And I think what Clarissa is trying to say, because, um, I guess you’ve not seen so much of the politics of it—“

“Do you think what just happened in there wasn’t political?” Clarissa hissed.

“Right! Right, sorry. I know this all started because you wanted to join the Aurors, right? And I have to say that I’m damn sorry it turned into this: the opposite of an endorsem*nt, really. But I meant what I said. Justice. That’s what we’re working for, at the end of the day. There are good apples and bad apples, because in the end, this system is going to control your life, and it’s up to you whether you want to try and steer the reins.”

“But you don’t have to,” Clarissa added.

Something hot and prickly squirmed in Theseus's chest, some instinctive defensiveness he couldn't immediately place. His tongue felt thick in his mouth as he groped in vain for a rejoinder, pulse thudding in his ears. Clarissa, seeming to sense his inner conflict, laid a steadying hand on his forearm. Her fingers were cool and surprisingly gentle against the sweat-slick burn of his skin.

“Let’s find somewhere quieter,” she said.

Bewildered but almost relieved, Theseus fell into step behind her. She led him through a labyrinthine series of musty hallways, her boots clicking out a staccato rhythm on the wooden flooring. It looked as though they were in the storage section of the Ministry, passing archives. At length, they emerged into a dimly lit corridor lined with heavy wooden doors.

"In here," Clarissa instructed curtly, grasping the iron handle and hauling the door open with more effort than her wiry frame suggested.

Theseus ducked through, blinking owlishly at the spartan furnishings within. Clarissa aimed her wand over her shoulder, reciting a charm under her breath. The door groaned shut in its frame, sealing them into the secluded chamber with a series of ominous clicks and clanks.

Only then did she round on him, pinning him under her laser-focused stare.

"Talk," she commanded.

Theseus swallowed hard, the torrent of conflicting emotions he'd been battling suddenly threatening to strangle him now that the crisis seemed abated. He opened his mouth, then closed it, words failing him entirely.

Clarissa watched him flounder for a few moments before her expression softened.

"Silence is one way to describe it, I suppose. Lucky for us we found you before you talked yourself into an actual infraction. Trust me when I say the Head Auror's temper would've been the least of your worries."

Heat prickled the back of Theseus's neck. "You don't understand—"

“So it was your brother?” Graham asked.

Every instinct still screamed caution—strategic compartmentalisation was as innate as breathing by now. But Graham was canny, and likely held the way for Theseus to get out without a permanent record from his own stupid fear.

“Yes. Gawain broached the topic," he said at last, low and terse. "Specifically, the Ministry's rumoured...appraisal of his potential threat status."

Clarissa arched one eyebrow as Graham shifted.

Theseus shot him a flat glare. "Don't even start."

"Hey, steady on," Graham cautioned with a cursory glance between them.

“You’re useless, Bones,” Clarissa said. “Letting the Head Auror take an underage wizard for interrogation without a representative while you just what, exactly? Picked your nose?”

Graham sighed, throwing Theseus a rueful glance.

"No rest for the wicked, I suppose. Christ alive, I don't envy your situation. And certainly not the choices life seems to keep flinging in your path."

Theseus raked his hands through his sweat-damp hair, the other two Aurors fading out for a moment as his thoughts pulled him in. Merlin's beard, but they were only children.

“Hey. I didn’t forget what you asked me, back there,” said Graham, trying to pat Theseus’s shoulder and missing when the younger man twisted gracefully out of his way. “You have my word; I'll do everything in my power to ensure your family remains intact, even if certain...ethically fraught situations need addressing. Though Merlin knows, the Ministry's always been sh*te about defining what precisely constitutes a 'compromising variable' within a magical household."

Theseus stared at the other man, something simultaneously shattering and igniting in his chest like sun-scorched shrapnel.

"I don't understand," he said, because he didn't, not at all. "Are you saying…? What’s fraught?”

"You may need to start considering alternative living arrangements,” Clarissa said, taking over the conversation as Graham blinked at her.

He frowned. “Such as?"

"Well, for starters, come your seventeenth birthday you'll legally be recognised as an adult, correct?" Clarissa shrugged, as if the path at least seemed clear from where he stood. "From there, you could potentially petition for custodial emancipation and secure your own lodgings.”

“Grey,” Graham said hurriedly. “Grey, you know we don’t have the resources. It’ll be hard enough keeping them off the radar without the uproar—“

“I don’t care!” she snapped. “He should know.”

"So Newt and I would be on our own?" The question tumbled from Theseus's lips, chased by a keen edge of dismay and disbelief. "With no family support? No resources? That’s stupid. That’s so stupid—why—you can’t even suggest that, we’d—I can’t give up everything for him. For us. We can’t do that.”

He didn't know why the prospect curdled in his gut. Hadn't he already envisioned making a clean break from the madness plaguing their household?

Graham seemed to read the rising panic in his stricken expression. With a grimace, the older man shook his head.

"Steady on. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, dealing in absolutes when the reality is anything but rigid." He dragged a palm over his eyes, appearing momentarily as weary as Theseus felt. "I'll admit, it's never an ideal scenario when we're compelled to intervene in familial affairs. We try not to impose unless there's an overt threat to the Statute. Like I said earlier, a small scale change—Clarissa—“

He wanted to talk, to say something, but instead, Theseus made a small, choked sound in the back of his throat, the kind of noise a small bird might produce in distress: so desperate to recapture the veneer of calm indifference that had fuelled his deceptions for years that he went the other way

"And you believe there is such a threat?" he asked. "From us?"

“What do you think?” Clarissa asked.

I think there is. The words sprang unbidden to his mind. I think I’m the threat.

He was so much like Alexander, in so many ways, and if everyone saw it, it must be true. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a fresh start after all. Perhaps he’d give up everything—and why was every way out contingent on burning the fragile life they did have to the ground?—just to turn into the same man. Just to repeat it all. Newt should be safer with Theseus, he knew that logically: knew that he would never hit or beat or burn Newt.

But still, still, in the back of his mind, he fundamentally doubted himself.

“I don’t think we could make it by ourselves,” he said at last.

"If you think there’s a threat, the law doesn't mandate how we respond to such disclosures. Only that we manage any risks through 'appropriate containment.'" His face crinkled into a rakish grin utterly at odds with the topic, and it didn’t meet his eyes. Clarissa kept checking the door. "Won't promise sunshine and sweets all around, mind—we're Aurors, not Hogsmeade toffee merchants. But we can open a thin file on you and assign ourselves. There’s no dedicated positions to supervise children, teenagers, and so on, but Clarissa is trying to do this kind of umbrella system, which she wants to make into a task force. Hey—if you join up, you should get in touch with her again.”

“Assuming we’ve both made it that long,” Clarissa added. But despite herself, Clarissa's dour expression cracked ever-so-slightly as one corner of her mouth crooked upward.

Theseus exhaled, not even attempting to follow the partners' verbal parrying. His skull throbbed from the mental whiplash, careening from a sense of impending doom to frantically scrabbling for purchase.

“So given you’ll need to ‘manage’ this,” Theseus finally said. “There's a file…it’s not complete, but it’s that file the Head Auror based everything off. If you two somehow take over the case, and I know it’s not a case yet, but somehow…I don’t know. Not get rid of it, because I’m sure that’s not allowed. But he wasn’t meant to have it, either.”

“The problem was that it wasn’t signed by your father?” Clarissa asked. “So it’s an unverified St Mungo’s record that hasn’t yet entered the system?”

Theseus nodded. She pursed her lips.

“Fine. That should have been destroyed or returned to your family when he owled it back with no signature and rejected the order of care. I’ll secure it and return it to your father.”

And Alexander would, without a doubt, burn it.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Thank you, that would be—that would be—“

The only way I can think of for us to save Newt, for now.

The Aurors weren’t talking any more. Why couldn’t they give him a better solution? They’d just moved on from the conversation about moving out. Packing up and fleeing would be possibly the most dangerous thing he’d ever done, yet they were just looking at him, offering no more tangible options, no solid advice: probably because none of it existed. If he were an Auror, he wouldn’t be doing that.

“No problem, lad,” Graham said.

“—but I did tell you—” he said, and then cut himself off before he said we can’t leave, because he’d always had a skill at sabotaging his own gratitude, and most things that were good for him, really. He stepped back, half a step, scared to fully retreat. Remembering that there was never meant to be anyone else who could help. That wasn’t how it worked. “So that’s—yeah. I’ll go. And I’ll see you later. When I sit the exams and the trials to join.”

“Wait,” Clarissa said.

Graham took hold of the woman’s arm as she stepped forwards; Theseus wondered if she was intending to squeeze Theseus’s hand just as Graham had done before letting Hesketh sweep him away. “Grey.”

“No, we should all walk away from this having a good sense of what’s going to happen,” she said. “So you’re not going to leave, or, presumably, you won’t take guardianship. That’s fine—on our end, without that file nor a testimony for you, the Ministry has no reason to interfere. But I want to check—you’re not making that decision under threat? Sometimes, these cases escalate.”

Slowly, he shook his head. “No. No, it’s just that I’ve thought about it.”

Those words seemed to strike Graham like a knife to the gut, not for the first time, but the Auror stayed quiet, pulling the cigarette packet from his coat pocket again, turning it over and over like a talisman.

"Because if I leave," Theseus said, each word feeling like shards of glass scoring his throat, "what happens to my mother?"

Clarissa's brow furrowed, clearly not having anticipated this particular concern. But Graham merely sighed, shaking his head.

"Ah, so that's the rub then, is it?" His tone was soft. “Assuming your father won't be too accommodating about you scooping up mum and legging it far, far from his sphere of influence?"

Theseus shook his head numbly. He loved his mother, fiercely and devotedly. But even he could spot the grim reality underlying her increasingly fragile condition. If he vanished in her moment of need, she'd never recover.

"She..." He had to pause and collect himself, chest constricting around the confession. "She isn't well. Her illness is severe enough that we can barely manage paying for her medicines on father's Ministry salary alone. Without his income—or at the very least, her primary support system in place—she wouldn't stand a chance."

Clarissa's lips thinned into a flat line of displeasure. The Aurors exchanged another of their weighted looks, a silent conversation passing between them.

"Only so many paths left open at this point if you want to keep your mum stable while looking out for your brother,” Graham said finally. “Unless the unthinkable happens and Dad dearest sympathetically lets you both go down the home stretch."

"The odds of that aren't worth considering," Theseus muttered. “It’d probably kill him.”

He should be saying yes immediately, damn the consequences. But he was a coward. And what he knew felt safer—easier to control—and again, he didn’t need help, he needed that control. There was something acrid in his throat. Had he really become so accustomed to martyring himself that the very notion of fleeing his misery seemed tantamount to betrayal?

“You're the expert when it comes to your own family's dynamics, I reckon,” Graham said. “If you believe carving out a clean escape isn't feasible given the fallout—well. I'm certainly not about to contradict your judgement on the matter, lad."

He was almost lightheaded from the force of his own vehemence. These were the unpalatable choices that Alexander had long trained him to face without flinching, to absorb like a dutiful son without ever unravelling entirely.

"Please don't misunderstand," he continued, struggling to maintain the composure underpinning his tone. "I want nothing more than to see Newt safe and provided for. But we have to be practical about this, regardless of ideals. With things as they stand, he's honestly better off in the long run sticking close to home rather than gamble everything on empty promises, isn't he? And I can’t even protect Newt as I should inside the bloody house. Really, I’m—I’m very selfish. I have—too many problems to care for him in any way that’s better than what he can get from Mum and—keeping Dad off him as much as possible.”

Even as he gave voice to the words, something rotten and uncertain squirmed through the knot in his chest.

“Clarissa,” Graham said. “The father’s in the Ministry. High-up. We’d be looking at having to set up fresh identities, possibly, or at least other contingencies, without inspiring Hesketh to reopen the case against the little one. This is…better, in some ways.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, her face tightening.

“f*ck,” she breathed, and then straightened, spreading her hands, whether in a show of resignation or a simple quest for clarity, Theseus couldn't tell. "Become an Auror like you'd planned, yes, but on your own merited terms rather than under your father's directives and expectations. One of the few remaining Ministry careers where you could make your own way and potentially enact real change down the line once achieving the appropriate rank and clearances."

“But I attacked Graham.”

“Oh, yeah. That bleeding Memory Charm you tried slinging my way? Not half as disturbing as the look in your eyes when you cast it." Graham sighed. “We can definitely pull strings if you want to try going through the process to begin training. I don’t think it’s a mistake that should be held against you.”

"So you'd permit me to join the Aurors?" he asked. "To...to learn to navigate the system, as it were? If I committed to full transparency and engaged in no more unsanctioned magic?"

He could find other ways of healing himself, or ask Newt if he was still making that balm. That had healed the scars beautifully. Theseus was highly accomplished in Herbology, but there must have been some secret ingredient Newt had found in the woods.

Graham simply shrugged. "Couldn't see the harm in it, if you can keep your wits about you through training. Merlin knows our cadets drop like flies half the time these days. Could use a few more candidates with a modicum of bloody commitment and principle. Ambition isn't inherently sinful, my lad. In a way, I’m glad something still speaks to you beyond letting the system grind you up like so much offal for the knackers.”

Someone sworn to uphold justice and order in their society. The appeal was immediate and visceral, bypassing conscious thought to take root in some primal longing at his core.

Theseus nodded, his chest rising and falling as he tried to regain his composure. "I'll keep practising. I won't let this hold me back."

“We'll do our best to keep an eye out for any signs of trouble, and if these…hypothetical…things ever get too dire, you know where to find us.” Graham gave Theseus a gentle pat on the shoulder. "We'll be watching out for Newt and your mum should they ever report in. Hey, is Newt really his name? Him named after a lizard and you after some Greek mythology hero?”

“He’s named after the Muggle scientist, Newton,” Theseus said immediately. “But I’m sure he’d be equally happy with genuinely being called Newt. He loves—animals, creatures. But we only gave him the nickname because it was an obvious one. There’s too much sibilance in Theseus to do much with it.”

Really trying to change the subject, aren’t you? he thought to himself.

He readied himself to make a hasty exit, even though the last thing he wanted to do was return to Alexander and his wrath. But Graham held out his hand and Theseus had to go to shake it, but missed the Auror’s grip. Awkwardly, he tried again, and then, driven by something absolutely mad, wanting to show that he was ultimately grateful, he gave Graham a tentative, barely-hug.

“Erm,” Graham began. “Ah.”

The older Auror hesitated for a moment before reciprocating, patting Theseus gently on the back. Theseus held onto Graham for a moment longer than he had intended, the mixed sensations of relief that someone had finally seen and fear that he’d made the wrong choice washing over him. He wondered if he was ever going to see the Auror again. After his performance today, it seemed unlikely that his father would take him back to the Ministry. At least, not before teaching him how to behave first, and he shivered, even as his fingers gripped the thick brown tweed of Graham’s overcoat at the thought of what was awaiting him when he went home.

“Two more years,” Graham said, withdrawing and regarding him like one might a puppy picked up by the scruff of his neck. “Clarissa will help get you out without too many questions, back to the atrium. So—good luck.”

“Thank you,” Theseus said, meaning it. “For showing me all this—what it could mean to be an Auror.”

1905

Because Alexander finished so late, Theseus had to hang around in the atrium for several hours. He’d passed the fountain earlier on his way to the lifts, and ignored it.

Not now.

Staring into the fountain there, Theseus idiotically tossed a Knut in and made a wish. Please forgive me, he wished, to no one in particular. He was out of regular currency, but he’d collected a few Muggle coins from the village of the years out of interest, and handed them over to the fountain, too. They were all the same, really; various tenders could be accepted when paying for the easing of the guilt, he liked to think.

Boiling with silent rage from the meeting debacle, his father didn’t say a word to him on the entire walk from their apparition point, nor up the short distance between the house and the exit point in the garden. It was a windy night. They walked in the darkness. While Theseus didn’t want to talk to Alexander, he had the strong sense that his father was simply speechless. He was a quiet man at the best of times, but when furious, it was like he lost the function to speak entirely, citing a need for self-control: which usually transmuted into a belief in punishment that was both righteous and meaningful.

But everyone was at home, conspicuously around the house and liable to walk in at any time, and so his disciplining would wait. Alexander essentially said as much by retreating to his study with nothing so much as a promise. Theseus watched him go, his father jerkily tugging off his suit jacket and tie, and thought that if it didn’t incriminate him so, Leonore surely had the right to know about the near miss today. He had no idea how much his parents talked about it, the situation being kneecapped by being at school and the implicit promise he’d made not to share the physical side of the mess with Mum. Mental note, Theseus decided—keep an eye on that.

Trying to restrain the fresh panic, Theseus hurried through the hallway, up the stairs, to his room. Newt and Leonore were hopefully out with the Hippogriffs. He didn’t dare look in Newt’s room to double check—because Theseus wasn’t sure if he could face him right now—or possibly ever again. Closing the door with featherlight fingers, he magically locked it once, twice over. Pressing his body weight against it helped him pretend it was secure; realising he was shaking from exhaustion, he leaned his head back against it and slowly slid down the panelling. It swung slightly, but the lock just about held despite the chips in the frame. It was private enough. But not entirely. The thought alone made his stomach roll.

“Oh—“ he started, an almost pleading noise, and quickly jammed his fist in his mouth, breathing hard. He curled inwards, blinking through his hanging hair. Attacks like this hadn’t haunted him for at least a few months, but then again, he’d never had a day like this either.

Merlin, but he was just so tired. Tired of bracing for the next blow, the next blistering admonishment. Tired of forever holding himself to impossible standards, of contorting himself into someone—something—he scarcely recognised anymore. Most of all, he was exhausted from the effort of convincing himself that this was all somehow acceptable. Telling himself he wasn’t exhausted didn’t bring back the energy he’d once had.

They’d been so close: either to freedom or destruction, and he had no idea which.

Keep calm, he schooled himself. Keep calm, keep calm.

To try and manage this when he felt like little more than a tiny sailing vessel being tossed on a stormy sea, he wrapped his hands under himself, digging his long fingers into the backs of his thighs. It sent a wave of pain through his body. Gritting his teeth, he remembered examining his battered reflection right after that beating: remembered the mix of anger, shame, and self-loathing churning within him.

That was what the Aurors had seen. They’d probably seen hundreds of cases like his own. How odd, that it could feel like he was the only one in the world with its weight on his shoulders, when suffering like this was so universal. He was so bloody exhausted from bottling up the dread and shame until he felt ready to burst at the seams.

For the first time in their lives, someone had wanted to help Newt—truly help him—and someone else had wanted to condemn him—utterly condemn him. Their unusual family was used to being met with whispered indifference at most, at the social gatherings Alexander dragged them to on occasion. At only eight years old, his little brother was like the eye at the centre of a whirlwind stretching out far beyond just the two of them. The file might be destroyed. But Theseus had just painstakingly cut off any other external source of help they might have been able to take. And now, he felt the world rapidly contract around him at lightspeed.

What if it wasn't enough? A traitorous voice inside him goaded. What if the Aurors could have spared you both from his hand? You'll never know now, will you?

Breathe in. Out. In and f*cking out.

Gravity had caught up to them in earnest.

He blinked up at the ceiling, blurring the familiar cracks and water stains into an indistinct map of the cosmos. Theseus scrubbed the heel of his palm across his damp cheek. When Graham and Clarissa had spoken of independent living, they had failed to consider the bitter punchline. They could never walk free so long as Leonore remained in her marriage: not without consigning her to a living death.

Half-heartedly, he returned to the idea of an escape that he didn’t fully believe in. There was nowhere for them to go. Their grandparents on the Scamander side had long since cut ties, disapproving of Alexander's marriage to a woman of "lesser blood." Theseus's aunt Agnes and her companion, whose name was still unknown to the family, were always travelling, rarely in one place long enough to offer any real stability. And even if they did take the brothers in, Theseus knew they couldn't afford to support two growing boys, not with their meagre earnings.

No, if Theseus absconded with his brother, they would be well and truly alone.

He would have to drop out of Hogwarts—or graduate and abandon further education—and resign himself to some menial clerkship just to keep them afloat. The wage might be okay. It might not be. If he couldn’t get a clerkship, he’d join a wizarding factory—if he couldn’t get hired at one of those for lack of experience, he’d try a Muggle one. But all while singlehandedly bearing responsibility for Newt's considerable challenges. The thought alone made his stomach turn. Given what he already did when at home, it wasn’t a leap to think that he could bring up a relatively self-sufficient child; but that was when he was at home, with the easy assumption that they had somewhere to stay and enough to eat when dinner wasn’t banned. How could he possibly keep them both alive, alone, at seventeen?

A huff escaped him, the ghost of a self-mocking laugh. Merlin's beard, he despised himself in these moments, mired in the desperate instinct for self-preservation that kept him shackled. Where was the brave, principled man he was meant to be becoming? The one whose moral conviction would be able to outweigh any amount of bone-deep terror?

No, from here on, the path would be to simply keep his head down, bide his time, and endure. Straightforward, if utterly joyless.

Still, a tiny, treacherous part of him couldn't help but imagine it: a life free, free from reprisal, free from the military-like attempts to hammer his little brother’s square peg into society's round hole.

He could picture it so clearly, with the stupid overactive imagination that had never quite left on that day sailing the lake all those years ago. Maybe it had only cemented the hold it had on him. They could live in London, perhaps. It was a smoggy, overbusy city, but teeming with life and places to hide. Perhaps the corner of a room-share tenement for him and Newt: but that could change if he worked hard enough, made it far enough. They’d have to carve out a space of their own, but it could still have plenty of hidey-holes for Newt's various creatures and projects.

It would be better to avoid breaking the Statue, but if they needed to hide from the Ministry, too, surely they’d go to the Muggle world. He’d always loved the idea of living there. They could have evenings, together not separate for once, not holed up in their respective rooms with all these divides between them. He could somehow qualify as an Auror, succeeding in his academics despite the odds—he could do that, he could, achieving was one thing well within his grasp—and pour over case files while Newt sketched and scribbled in his journal.

Reality sliced him to ribbons once more.

Get a grip.

Theseus pushed off from the door and began pacing the cramped space. Five strides to the window, spin on his heel, five strides back. The floorboards creaked with each pivot. He dragged shaky hands through his sweat-dampened hair, tugging at the roots as if the pain could ground him. Now that he'd started, however, he found he couldn't stop.

All this fuss over being a good son, doing the right thing, the voice in his head said, and yet you buckled at the first real test of backbone.

He faltered on the faded rug. No—he hadn't buckled. He'd made the only tenable choice: for Newt's sake, for their mother's sake. There was no other way.

The books on his desk seemed to be taunting him: all the knowledge they contained and he still had no idea how to solve anything. With a suppressed noise of rage, he went to the teetering stack, grabbed the nearest, and threw it at the wall, using a cushioning charm at the last minute so that it wouldn’t thud. It collapsed onto the floor, pages askew, spilling paper notes across the wood. The sight of them made him close his eyes hard and remind himself that puffy eyes tomorrow would only hint something terrible had happened today. Telling Alexander about Gawain was going to—it was going to be hard, and so he hated, suddenly, the little to-do lists spilling out from his well-thumbed copy of Advanced Defensive Charms.

Why were they just all so odd?

Why could he not just keep his head on straight, with all the comparative respect and duty he’d been given? Why did he have to have feelings he shouldn’t, thoughts he shouldn’t, and the same bloody lingering miasma of not quite right that he was meant to be the exact antithesis of? Why was Alexander so inflexible, so driven, so black-and-white? Why did he see the smallest infarctions as worthy of discipline and hand it out like a doctor gave laudanum, as if terrified if something would run away from him if he didn’t crush it to the ground first? Why was Leonore obsessed with the Hippogriffs, truly obsessed, neglecting both most social arrangements and her own health just for the stupid things? Why did it have to be her who’d turned sick and forgetful, not their father?

Theseus had hoped making this observation to himself would have solidified his resolve to leave. But it only heightened the sense there was no other place in the world for him and Newt.

He would be scrambling to make rent from week to week, too overworked and underpaid to provide Newt any semblance of a healthy environment. Stuck in a dead-end clerkship as boring as his father’s career, no matter how he’d wanted to escape that fate. There’d be no way he could do the training for the Auror Academy required until Newt was eleven.

Obviously, he’d complete school—wouldn’t he? But then even after Hogwarts, when Newt came home in the holidays, he couldn’t be at training—could he? Telling Newt not to come home in the holidays after tearing him away from the only house he’d ever known just so that Theseus could pursue his own selfish aspirations felt so inherently wrong. His little brother would become a de facto latchkey child, left alone to his own devices for hours on end with no support system to speak of.

Theseus drew a shuddering breath, and slowly, methodically, he tried to rebuild his mental shields. His wants—hopes—had to be suppressed. For now. But doing it this way meant it wouldn’t have to be forever.

All the emotion was driving him fever-hot. Only he understood the stakes; only he could be relied upon to do any of it.

A strange noise shredded the quiet, the abrasive sound shockingly loud in the bedroom's hush. It took Theseus a disorienting moment to recognise the wet, wheezing exhale as his own. He swallowed hard, chest constricting with familiar panic.

Not this again.

Without conscious thought, his hands scrabbled at the collar of his undershirt, desperate fingers seeking purchase. The fabric bunched and twisted as he yanked at the cotton, frantic to loosen its hold. Sweat beaded on his temples as his pulse kicked up another sickening notch, thundering in his ears.

Breathe, he mentally chided himself, he had to breathe before he tore off the buttons of his only good work shirt, but there was pain burning through his ribs with each strained inhale, every muscle in his abdomen contracting in panicked twinges. Calm, rational breaths. When he finally wrestled it under control—maybe an hour later, he didn’t know, time had warped—there was even less evening light through the window than there had been before, the white-lit stars overshadowed by some bank of cloud, and he suddenly realised that his head was spinning with exhaustion.

It was the evening, after all, so maybe he was allowed a few precious hours. He wanted nothing more than for sleep to take him, seeing as there was no way out other than through: thanks to him.

Putting on his pyjamas sounded like hell, so with shaky, ruthless precision, he just stripped out of the rest of his day clothes and folded them in a neat stack on his desk chair. Clad only in his underclothes, he slipped beneath the bedcovers with a terse "Nox." But even as darkness engulfed the room, Theseus could find no refuge in sleep's sweet oblivion. It almost felt as though someone was going to burst through the door and—

He twisted onto his side, one arm hugging his pillow close to his chest as silent tears leaked from the corners of his eyes to soak the fabric. It had become disturbingly second nature, the way he compartmentalised. File it away, box it up, keep functioning. Always keep bloody functioning. But then, a frightening and rather obvious notion slithered through the cracks in his defences. What if there simply wasn't enough space left inside him to contain this? The interrogation, that damnable file's revelation, the choice he'd been forced to make—

Breathe in. Breathe out. The pillow was soft; he turned his face, savouring the clean linen scent. Such a small comfort, but he clung to it like a lifeline, letting it ground him. In through the nose, out through the mouth, hitting a steady cadence.

Not risking everything for the chance of a better life had locked them into this cage. The Aurors might watch their file, but all chances of defiance or further help would be limited beyond belief once the medical records were handed back to Alexander.

Fine, he tried to tell himself.

But a small, traitorous voice whispered in the back of his mind. You're condemning them all to this life, and for what? Your own selfish need for stability?

This life wasn’t that bad, just a little dysfunctional. Things could be far worse. And the truth was, Theseus was afraid. No amount of rationalisation could erase the sickening certainty that he was still failing his brother in the most fundamental way. And it was his fault. His secret, now.

He had been so bloody proud when the Aurors had explained his career prospects, secure in his convictions to truly make a difference. So convinced he was carving a respectable path forward despite his father's objections and increasing impatience with Newt's idiosyncrasies.

Those smug assumptions had rapidly crumbled under the Head Auror's intense interrogation. In retrospect, Theseus should have anticipated all potential angles of scrutiny regarding his family's personal affairs. Instead, he'd been caught flat-footed and damn near handed the Ministry all the leverage they'd needed to whisk Newt away. All to cling to the fleeting reassurances of Aurors Bones and Grey that Newt might still have a chance at an ordinary life outside confinement. That Theseus himself might still stand a hope of enforcing positive change from within the Ministry once he earned his stripes as an adult.

He’d change the rules, somehow, while doing what was right, truly right. And he’d be so honest when he was free of all this, no more lies—he’d be honest and useful to people. Fighting off dark wizards, solving difficult cases and crimes, webbing the string threads between the moving pieces of the magical world as it caught people in its grinding jaws.

Now, he understood why his father often had a look on his face like something had caught up to him, in the quiet moments, the sudden blinking expression of being punched in the gut. It had crept up on them all, this need to bring it into the house, to suffocate it with enough fog it drowned out the fact they were all odd.

It took effort to roll over and wrap both arms around the pillow, pressing his dry-skinned knuckles into the cool of the cotton, pressing his face down hard enough for his lungs to burn. For a second, he breathed in, and thought of someone telling him that it was going to be over, that the next holiday wouldn’t be like this.

He imagined that there were consequences for that wish. His little brother seized by strangers and thrust into somewhere reeking of chemicals rather than forests. Newt's distress escalating without warning under their callous handling, crying himself sick and banging his head as he had in the past; Newt, relegated somewhere while they sorted out the legal morass, never told whether or not Theseus had abandoned him completely.

Perversely, the tension in his body slowly started to unknot, eyes itching, salt stinging his lip where he’d bitten it. He pressed his face deeper into the pillow. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

For the family's greater welfare. He’d known with instant, crushing clarity exactly how events must play out. There was nothing else to be done. His breath evened out as his roiling thoughts quieted into mute acceptance once more.

It would be better this way.

*

Eventually growing restless, Theseus spent the witching hours staring into his textbooks and convincing himself he wasn’t scared—why would he be scared?—he’d chosen this—and he was sixteen, strong. And then, when Leonore took Newt off to do the food shopping late the next morning, Theseus was duly summoned to the study.

Before they’d left, as Leonore had been checking on the Hippogriff’s water troughs, Newt had tried to show him his latest little project in progress. It was a fat leather journal, complete with ink and watercolour illustrations, that he claimed was the field guide on humans to act as a counterpoint to the one he was making on creatures: namely, the humans in his vicinity. Starting with trying to figure out their family. It was hardly a passion project. More like a matter of survival. Theseus had considered the necessity of that working notebook filled with Newt’s delicate looping handwriting and spiralling arrows, trying to draw connections out of what couldn’t be connected.

When Newt had refused to show Theseus the pages written on him—his own older brother!—Theseus had felt something hard and cold coalesce under his sternum, a beating, furious, hard rage, and he could have torn it all to pieces in that moment.

Instead, he snapped the journal shut hard, catching Newt’s finger, and shoved it away. Scribbling doesn’t make stuff like this make sense, he’d bitten out. You’re stupid if you think it works that way.

Well. Who was the stupid one now?

"You disappointed me, immensely," Alexander said. He sighed and closed the door, locking it with his wand, placing it carefully on his desk in the designed tray. "We both know you have a mind that could be put to greater things, and yet you floundered in the trade section like a fish out of water. And then you left a meeting—with your superiors. I would have thought it common sense to a boy of your age. You may enjoy doing as you please, all those things that school and your books teach you, but you are not some free spirit.”

“I was excused. They as much as walked me out of there themselves by telling me I was out of place,” Theseus said, then bit his tongue. Behave. Be obedient. Be the son he needs. He knew better than to argue with his father, but the frustration had still welled up inside him like a tempest, proving he was the same idiot he’d always been. "I can do better, Father. I just need more time to learn."

The chair scraped against the wood. His father slowly lowered himself into it, stiff arms and back, eyes on the table. Staring at the ledger waiting on his desk, Alexander shook his head. "Time is a luxury we do not have. The world does not wait. And yes, out of place. You’ll always be out of place, it seems. Tell me, is that going to be a problem? Are you going to keep up this determination to always put yourself on the wrong side of every person you deem insufficiently perfect for the morals you’ve built out of your storybooks?”

You’re not good enough. Every time this happened, it sparked a panic in him that was impossible to escape, and somehow each and every time, he found himself clawing his way back to a semblance of approval, of validation, rebellion turning to desperation.

He could lay it out like a winning card. Look at how much I sacrificed for you today. I gave away another of my second chances for you. And then, perhaps, he’d be proud enough to spare him.

But, better to wait.

The best way to believe was to think it fear—dodging the beating, being spared the pain. Clinging to the underbelly of that belief, soft and slimy, was a treacherous whisper—it was really about love. Earning the love, being what was needed, and clinging to what remained.

“I know you have high expectations,” Theseus said. “And I want to meet them, I do—“

“But you didn’t,” said Alexander, as if it were fact.

“They were being disrespectful to all of us: you, me, Newt. We couldn’t let them just slander us to our faces! He acted like you’re doing something wrong just by having Newt as your s—“

Alexander looked as though he was trying to divine answers from the ledger. He was stone-still. After a breath, he reached for a quill and dipped it in ink, pressing and smoothing the ledger, making a quick mark. Theseus wondered whether he was judging how to deal with this situation, scratching out his workings.

Two scratches into the paper. He craned his neck; it looked like a note to self. Still staring at the page, Alexander continued.

“Theseus. Blood is blood.” He exhaled again, removed his glasses, rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “But my colleagues are rarely mistaken in their appraisals from an external perspective. Trade hardly focuses inwards—from that lens, we don’t make mistakes in our department. Newton indeed presents as defective. Hence, I am called into question by it. Come now, son, you cannot doubt an exterior assessment of our lineage when that damned hospital did it so well.”

Theseus tried to ignore this spiral of conversation, because it never ended well. “I did everything you asked until then.”

“You tried.”

“I’m working as hard as I can. I just think that I’d be better suited working in the Ministry elsewhere. Perhaps in another department—like the Auror department.”

Alexander shook his head. “Aurors die. We don’t want you to meet a bloody end. Think about how your mother would react.”

It was vaguely gratifying that his father wanted him to stay alive. If he was more dramatic, Theseus would have said maybe it’d all kill him either way, that maybe he didn’t have long left; but he wasn’t like that. He was trying so hard to be steady, reliable. Remembering the days when he didn’t have to try to be so felt like tonguing a toothache before the anger. So much for being sixteen. He wanted to be a statue instead, of smooth, grey stone.

“She’s probably seen corpses before, sir,” Theseus said, “when she worked in the hospital.”

“Of course. But not yours.”

Anger won out. It was a terrifyingly inescapable pattern, like no pain or consequence could stop the only fight he could muster: producing a few spat words, taking a beating, and then returning to the weeks of compliance. He often thought that Newt seemed to have a total inability to learn. In these moments, that felt nothing but hypocritical.

"Well," Theseus finally said, "the trade department is nothing but a collection of pompous bureaucrats who wouldn't know real magic if it hit them in the face."

Alexander's eyebrows shot up, his eyes narrowing in a dangerous glint. Theseus was meant to keep his grievances to himself.

"What did you say, boy?" Alexander's tone was icy.

Theseus winced. "I said," he repeated, "the trade department is a dead-end. A place where ambition goes to feed, and talented witches and wizards are squandered on paperwork and bureaucracy."

"Show respect for the choices I've made for this family." Alexander’s tone was firm. It wasn’t a good sign. His father believed striking out of anger was weak, that striking in a measured, applied manner, was what constituted true discipline—when the drink wasn’t making him sloppy, on those rare occasions, a few times a month.

"I won't waste my life pushing papers when there's real work to be done, meaningful contributions to be made. I want to be an Auror.”

“Real work? I’m just trying to make you into a decent person,” Alexander said, matching Theseus’s tone. “Meaningful—yes, meaningful work, of course, maybe the Aurors aren’t the worst—comes about when you become a man. In the end, all we need is for you to succeed. For you to at least have your head out of the clouds, set a good example. Not chase dark criminals until you catch a stray Killing Curse. I won’t have my son dying in some alley and leave his mother and brother without a provider.”

“No, sir,” Theseus said. “I suppose I wouldn’t want any injury to come to me.”

At this, Alexander’s eyes narrowed. “Well. You attract it, don’t you? This sudden, renewed interest—you wouldn’t have happened to talk to any Aurors, would you? In the Ministry? Of course, any young man without an official identity card wouldn’t be able to gain admittance to a secured area like that without permission. And the Ministry is rigorous. That would be far-fetched at best.”

Theseus latched onto the veiled excuse, knowing that neither of them wanted to brush with the volcanic, throttled emotions that would emerge with this argument. Perhaps it was some form of mercy. Alexander knew there was a lot Theseus stood to lose should he redirect his attention—should he decide managing errant Newt required more than this occasional lazy whipping by proxy. It was hardly sane, being constantly punished for any mistake, his own or otherwise, but it was apparently a duty.

Two more years and duty could go f*ck itself.

Not quite.

“No. No, I wouldn’t.”

Alexander sighed and raised a hand, shaking his head. Theseus closed his eyes, screwed them shut for a bare moment, and then forced them open again to find his father was examining his bookshelves, his stack of thick ledgers, crawling with calculations. Stupid numbers. Not being able to read them properly under pressure had caused half of this. Thank Merlin he’d settled with Muggle Studies over Arithmancy. He’d have been stuffed trying to get a clear run of perfect marks, otherwise, and that was unacceptable.

His father’s shoulders bowed as he ran his thumb over the edge of his ruler, waiting on the desk. A proportionate force met a proportionate force.

“Look around you. You see my work; you see the way I spend my days. I’ve spent tedious hours on far more obscure sums than…something like you, I suppose, this situation of you and your brother. And I find waiting is rather easy, in fact.” He touched the ruler again with a mixture of reverence and disgust, a starburst crease exploding into existence between his dark brows, mouth slanting. “You know what I, despite my better judgement, feel is necessary to bear in mind.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Theseus ran his tongue over his teeth, anticipating the blow. His fingers twitched before he mastered himself. “I’m sure I’m your pride and joy, regardless.”

“Yes,” Alexander said. “Yes, you are. So, come to the desk.”

Each silently appraised the other's weaknesses, while steeling themselves to exploit any cracks that showed. Alexander’s eyebrows were peppered ever so slightly with grey, lowered and severe. Sweat prickled the back of Theseus’s neck as he blinked slowly, noting that Alexander observed every minute twitch of his face, from the dip of his eyelashes to the bob of his throat. His father always tried not to exert more than needed, balancing the books.

It went somewhat like this. If he were not so defiant and marked, so almost-different compared to totally different, then he would not have to suffer: even if the image he took on, a mirror of Alexander, was entirely wrong. What would becoming an Auror get him, make him? Perhaps his reasons were far more selfish than he’d liked to believe. Principled, yes, but the fact was that there were surely few qualified Aurors. They didn’t flinch from danger or pain; change or uncertainty; their loved ones or an opaque endless future.

Theseus shook his head a little to himself, old enough now that he could at least muster that small defiance, inoculated enough to it all to show it wasn’t life or death—not here, anyway—and approached the desk. He could see the metal ruler at the bottom of his peripheral vision, the small worn notch in the edge of the desk where the sharp end had knocked and carved into the wood many times.

“Tell me more about the Aurors,” Alexander said.

“They suspected a potential threat and wanted my testimony to justify more aggressive intervention,” Theseus finally said, bowing his head. He kept his ears pricked for any footsteps. None came. Leonore’s illness stopped her running in many social circles, and so she always lingered at the grocer’s, talking happily about the near and distant lands each fruit and vegetable was from.

"I see." Alexander's tone remained infuriatingly even, giving no clue as to his inner thoughts. With another inscrutable look, he waved a hand in an unmistakable prompt for Theseus to continue.

Heart pounding, Theseus bit his lip again. "The Head Auror, Gawain Hesketh, made no secret of his intention to separate Newt from us if they receive a full disclosure on him. He believes our situation is more unstable than you've allowed St. Mungo's to put on record."

“And did you give him what he wanted?"

The question hung heavy between them. Theseus forced himself to meet his father's eyes.

"No, sir," he said. "I refused to confirm or deny anything further implicating Newt."

Only then did a look of something almost like grudging respect flickering across his features. "You held your tongue."

It wasn't a question, but a simple statement of fact that managed to convey worlds of implicit approval all the same.

“Good,” Alexander said, at last. His hand moved away from the ruler, which was a relief, a bit of proof that it wasn’t just his explosive anger that drove him. “Good. It’s not over, but we will have to work with that. You passed that basic trial, at least.”

It sounded like pride. Some of the tightness in his chest eased. Theseus crossed his fingers behind his back, and hoped the next time wouldn’t come too soon. But this was the first time he’d been spared after such an egregious breach, staying silent or not, and he almost shivered with hopeful anticipation. Maybe this would be it: the turning point where he would be just what they needed, just as good as they needed, and trusted not to break from the iron cast, no discipline required.

But while none of the usual implements were dragged from their careful nooks and crannies, he smelled a shift coming. It was wordless. It hardly made sense what drove the assumption.

“Don’t back away,” Alexander warned. “Come closer, please, Theseus. I’m not going to hit you.”

Theseus swallowed hard, fingernails digging into his palms, and stepped closer. Alexander leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled; so he kept his gaze fixed on a knot in the wood panelling just beyond his father's shoulder. “I did as you’ve always asked.”

"Yes, you did." A muscle twitched in Alexander's jaw. "This time. Did they clock the correction? Or did your glamours fool their vaunted professional eyes?"

A bead of sweat trickled between Theseus's shoulder blades. His father knew; of course he did. Alexander always found out, no matter how skilled Theseus became at masking the evidence of his so-called corrections. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides as Alexander straightened, glowering at him.

"Well?” His voice had sharpened. Theseus pondered briefly on the fact that he was already unhappy enough for it to suffice as a punishment. “Did you parade yourself before their scrutiny in all your misery? Like a battered sideshow freak to shame our family name?"

Theseus's face heated. "They made no mention of...of anything out of the ordinary."

Alexander's jaw tightened fractionally, but he inclined his head in a subtle nod of acknowledgment. "I suppose we could expect such discretion from the Ministry's enforcers, unlike certain individuals who believe flaunting indiscretions before those unqualified to evaluate the situation is somehow acceptable."

“But Newt—"

"Will be better off without the strain of your pathological defiance infecting him further," Alexander snarled. "By Merlin, we've indulged your willfulness for far too long. No more. I don't think you realise the stakes we are dealing with here—I shelter you both, as viciously as I can. But you must become utterly inviolable if we're to have any hope of preserving this family. And I know it’s less than perfect. Yet it’s all any of us have."

He loved them all. In another world, once closer to the one he’d briefly seen in his bedroom, it might have felt less painful.

“I understand, sir,” Theseus said.

Just like that night Theseus had intercepted one of St Mungo’s many owls, Alexander shivered, a twitchy, full-body thing at odds with his usual considered stillness. He dipped his head once, twice, Adam’s apple bobbing.

It was relatively warm in the study; he wasn’t wearing a knitted vest, but a waistcoat. Theseus waited to see whether he’d take it off. His father was a slim, tall man, much like Theseus himself, and wore tailored, severe clothes, the kind where a snap of an arm for the whistle of a weapon would simply damage the seams. But Alexander only pressed a finger to his pulse, as if confirming the pale distress, and then blinked his eyes open.

A good person would have asked if everything was okay; that wasn’t Theseus, no, not when he was simply staring and wondering, a two-pronged and hellish wonder. If he’d just told, just blown everything to pieces—but he was a Hufflepuff, through and through, and not that brave. Besides, it wasn’t like the transmutation of outright boldness to persistent resilience slowed him down on the broom.

"I experienced the alternative myself as a child,” Alexander muttered, “and cannot bear inflicting such a solitary hell upon my own son."

The wistfully escapist veer of Theseus’s thoughts towards Quidditch came to a halt like a midair double Bludger collision. What?

He was stupid, in that moment, and repeated the thought aloud. “What?”

“You know how your mother and I met.”

“Yes,” Theseus said.

Incongruously—if one knew the Scamander parents in any deep capacity, which few did—it had been at a dinner party hosted by some mutual friend, a gathering of several families. In the middle of the meal in a warm room, Leonore had suddenly taken sick, running off—literally—out of the house, dropping a shoe on the way and her jacket. Her parents had waved this off as her being a funny girl; besides, her mother was Cuban, and didn’t they all know what was happening in Cuba at the moment with the Spanish Muggles? An easy thing, that, to distress a woman.

For all the unflattering perceptions demonstrated in the recounted reactions of the other guests, Theseus hadn’t detected any genuine malice or reproach aimed toward his mother in Alexander's recollections. If anything, his father reported being utterly nonplussed by the reactions to the gaffe. Instead, he’d just followed her outside to check she was okay; and both had talked to another person for the first time that evening, which was as close to a spark of instant connection as they’d ever been able to get.

Looking back, the signs were all too clear, people had said. The signs of what exactly were unclear. Perhaps the combined lack of stock his parents had on the marriage market. Perhaps the various wickednesses and sicknesses in the combined Highfair and Scamander bloodlines. It felt a little paradoxical that two strange people had come together to have odd children, and then Alexander had immediately railed against them for the crime of being—what, exactly?

Born? Sometimes, it sure as hell felt like it.

"Exactly. And after the dinner party, we both assumed we wouldn’t see one another again.” Alexander sighed; Theseus wasn’t surprised it hadn’t occurred to either of them to write a letter. “But we kept crossing paths on our ways out of work. Often outside St. Mungo's, believe it or not, but while the pattern was obvious, I reasoned it was a coincidence. I was just leaving work. And there she was, headed to the Hippogriff stables after her own shift had ended. Dressed up for it, as she did, when it was its own affair."

A wistful quirk played at the corner of Alexander's mouth, startling in its unguarded fondness. "We crossed paths in the street; that time, I accidentally brushed her...and for some blasted reason, she called out after me instead of simply going on her way."

Theseus tried and failed to envision his imposing father as a gangly, lovelorn young man, much less the mysterious circ*mstances that could engender any fondness toward St. Mungo's itself. The prospect seemed utterly incongruous; their parents had met at eighteen and married by twenty, early enough that Theseus could potentially mull whether the time since had led them to forget what true independence was like.

"We went to the park, talked for hours about her work with the Hippogriffs, my family's business ventures," Alexander continued, his focus turned inward. "She made me feel..seen in a way I hadn't experienced before. Special, even."

He refocused on Theseus, mouth flattening to a hard line once more. "But when she told me she worked at St. Mungo's? Processing potions orders in the apothecary, saving to take her Healer’s exams in less than a month? I nearly soiled myself from panic at that moment."

A flicker of empathy, quickly overshadowed by confusion. Theseus frowned. "Why would—?"

"Because I knew precisely why St. Mungo's would have an invested interest in my family's affairs," Alexander said flatly.

An icy trickle of dread snaked down Theseus's spine, the fine hairs at his nape prickling. Suddenly Alexander's rigid code, his desperate need for control, felt grounded in something much darker than philosophical obsession. Theseus opened his mouth again, only to find himself wordless in the face of his father's shuttered expression.

“Your mother would never. You know that, don’t you? And she never betrayed me since, in all the years she worked there, in all the years after she took her Healer’s exams, right until your brother was born. But understand this. They viewed their actions as guidance. It took nearly a decade for me to manifest so much as a single spark of magic after they'd finished.” Any spark of affect had wiped itself from his father’s face. “And when I finally did, they only saw proof of how thoroughly I'd repressed any semblance of individuality they judged undesirable!"

Theseus processed that.

"That's the world you would thrust our family back toward! A world where merely being born 'abnormal' justifies flaying open a child's soul to sterilise them from the inside out!" He grabbed Theseus by the collar, dragging him up until their faces were bare inches apart. "Does stripping Newt's essence away until nothing remains appeal to you, my son? Because I will not allow it—never again!"

He trailed off, giving his head a sharp shake as if to dislodge the words. When he spoke again, his voice was little more than a hoarse rasp. "And do you want that for her, Theseus? To inflict that kind of devastation on the woman who gave you life? And what of your brother—would you wish that pain and isolation on Newton as well?"

Theseus managed a minute shake of his head, his eyes wide. "No...no of course not. I didn't think…"

"Precisely. You didn't think, as is so often the case with you." He let go and raked a hand through his greying hair, his chest rising and falling with each ragged breath, pinning Theseus under a reproachful glower. "I consider you the sensible one between my two sons, but one would have to be utterly cracked to take such an imbecilic risk with our family's future. With Newton's very existence.”

"I’m sorry," Theseus whispered.

Alexander regarded him for a moment before giving a nod. He glanced at the impressive array of clocks in their gilded display cabinet by the door, the one break in the claustrophobic leather bound books other than the increasingly sad-and-dead looking window plant. "You will submit to this judgement for your utter disregard of caution, or I will be forced to revisit corporal disciplinary measures: both for you and your brother. Quietly and without complaint, as befits the future head of this family."

Consequences. The word made Theseus's stomach twist. But he knew there was no use pleading or bargaining; his father's mind was made up. And it was the same threat as always, because as much as his little brother could annoy or bemuse him, as often as Newt wandered off and forced Theseus to spend hours hunting for him, he would take any punishment if it meant sparing him. It proved that Theseus didn’t need that help, not at all. Control simply meant taking it all onto himself, and that was a far better weight to cradle to the chest, far better than something aching and might have been.

Alexander stood and searched his desk.

The desk drawers squealed on their oiled hinges. Despite himself, Theseus’s heart lifted. No cane or lash could fit in the average compartment of a relatively regular desk. He supposed something like a knife might, but the only encounters he’d had with knives and his father had been in fits of pique, rather than fully deliberate. Instead, Alexander pulled out a box of small, dusty vials, blowing on it, clicking open the shell-shaped latch.

"This is a specialised Legilimency aid," he explained. "Developed by an...old acquaintance to enhance the mental arts. A few drops can forge a connection more profound than conventional probing, particularly where a lack of talent already exists."

He had studied legilimency, like any decent student in the run up to their NEWTs—the magical ability to invade another's mindscape—but every text warned that it was an intrusive, even traumatic experience for the subject.

"You will ingest this draught," Alexander stated, leaving no room for negotiation. "And then you will lower your mental defences, opening your thoughts fully to my scrutiny. Then, I can judge the situation appropriately. Do not test me further tonight, or you will receive thirty strokes at least, understand?”

He hated that the old story of his parents was still lingering in his mind: the kinds of people they might have been, have still been, if only things were different.

Without being asked, Theseus took one, uncorked it with his teeth, and swallowed it. Starched shirt creaking, Alexander rested both hands on the back of his chair with an uneasy hum as Theseus felt his knees gently buckle and slowly slid almost to the floor. There was a faint rustle of paper, and he could smell the reassuring dustiness of worn paper; his hair was tugged, head lifted, and then the soft wad of an open ledger was between the bone of his cheekbone and the desk.

He drifted, stepping outside of himself. Theseus never stepped outside himself, had never truly felt his head and body split as they did now, in an eerie displacement that made him hyper-aware of the separation between his tumbling consciousness and the physical vessel that customarily housed it. The world dimmed to a discordant jumble of indistinct images and refracted sounds. Neither asleep nor truly lucid, he simply waited and watched as his thoughts were picked over.

The memories weren’t quite right, panicked and blurred at the edges. Time was all wrong, slowing up and speeding down.

Alexander lingered on Gawain’s touching the back of Theseus’s neck; Theseus stared at his father through half-slitted eyes, still primed for a reaction even moments from what felt like unconsciousness. But Alexander only shook his head to himself, murmuring a few words with what sounded like displeasure. Theseus couldn’t help but agree, again; it had been too close, too much, too long, stuck in a room alone with that man and so very little prospect of rescue.

But a little of the tension was leaving Alexander; his fingers were stilling, no longer convulsively drawing at his buttons the way they only did when he was several glasses of deep red wine in and sitting at the dinner table with guests. Theseus had kept his tongue; he really had, as best as he could. Surely that was worthy of just a few words of praise?

His mind kept drifting.

And in that liminal, gauzy space, he caught fragmented glimpses of not-quite-memories that made his stomach drop through the floor. No. Not The Secret. But the more he panicked, the more it jumped out; his head was always quick to force the unwanted right to the front of his thoughts at any opportunity and shoot it out like a flare on loop. Occlumency had helped, had been helping since he was young, but—holding it up in front of his own father proved fruitless.

Smeared, hazy flashes too quick and disjointed to parse at first. They were both memories from before yesterday, and memories that weren’t memories at all. They spun to the surface out of the panic that came from having his mind searched: one of the few things he considered safely his, a place where he spent far too much time. And he, in many ways, always wanted to please his father.

His subconscious had heard exactly that stupid prayer, as stupid as the idea that any of them could just walk away, and spat out one thing no one else was ever meant to know.

They were thoughts he wasn’t allowed to have: wasn’t meant to have.

But—no, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t meant to be hurt again.

But it made sense. Given what had been implied. The hairs along his forearms lifted as if electrified; Alexander’s breathing hitched as the other man seemed to finally reach a point of understanding at these feelings that predominantly lingered on the fairer sex, but lurched into the invert category, back to the same.

Around him, the study lurched as Alexander battered against the flimsy mental barriers still separating them. Theseus instinctively recoiled, erecting hasty bulwarks to deflect the onslaught, but it was too late. His father's consciousness slammed into his psyche like a blunt axehead.

...deviant... The word hung between them, unvoiced. Alexander's revulsion washed over Theseus in dizzying waves, matching the roiling nausea in the young man's gut.

Then, like a tidal surge cresting, the torrent of rage saturating the Legilimency connection achieved critical mass, and Alexander unconsciously vented his fury in the only way his magic knew how.

White-hot tendrils of pure force lanced through Theseus's skull, scything into his tender head with searing agony. The invisible shockwave slammed him deeper against the desk, driving the wind from his lungs in a strangled wheeze, burning worse than any cigarette.

His eyes watered, but he made no noise.

It was over quickly.

Alexander’s pupils constricted as he yanked out of Theseus’s mind, his wand's light snuffing itself as the connection broke.

The gutter of emotion swamping Theseus turned the study lamp off, too—plink, it pinged out in a burst of accidental magic, plunging them into brief darkness—before it was reignited with a single low hissed charm from his father.

That withdrawal had been fast enough for him to know that Alexander had understood. The book was yanked out from under him; he braced himself against the table edge and pushed himself upright, muscle by muscle, joints popping and tendons screaming. Watching his father, assessing, as aftershocks rippled through his nerves in tingles of pins-and-needles discomfort.

But without another word, Alexander re-seated himself and resumed his perusal of the ledger's columns, as if the last few minutes had been little more than a conversational detour. Theseus took the unspoken dismissal for what it was, retreating on wobbly legs to the safe midpoint of the study, out of arm’s reach, waiting for further instructions.

"You are my son, my blood, and that means you are also under my protection, such as it is,” Alexander said, his words measured and precise. “And that protection comes at a cost: your obedience, your deference to my instruction without question. As for making your opinions on my department clear... Consider it in a new light given the sordid nature of this family’s history I’ve been obliged to share with you; you don’t need to have much magic left working in you to do even the hardest calculations, do you?"

Theseus’s head was spinning; he gathered his mental shields again close, resolving to be stronger next time.

“There are worse sins than ambiguity to atone for, boy,” Alexander said, after a final pause. He fiddled with his glasses, eyes hollow and tired, already staring at the ledger again. The ticking of the numerous clocks dotting the study had never seemed so loud. “I suspect the root of this unseemly deviancy merely means you'll take to better values with redoubled vigour, once those diseased inclinations pass. Once more, it seems it is my error. I should have spotted the signs long before now.”

The door's latch seemed to grind against the strike plate with excessive, mocking volume as Theseus yanked it closed behind him. Simultaneously, the silencing wards muffling the study from the rest of the house slammed back into place with jarring force. The hum made Theseus flinch as if struck anew, stumbling backwards until his shoulders impacted the wall opposite the door with a thud.

He brushed himself off, making his way to the kitchen. There was nothing to tidy up or bandage this time. He should get things ready for when Mum and Newt came back: peel some potatoes, something to be helpful.

But, God, he was such a failure: couldn't he control anything?

*

A foul mood consumed Theseus over the next few days.

It was doing him no favours with anyone in the house, but his thoughts were on loop and only breakable by something vicious being summoned. To keep that viciousness entirely toothless, he had to throttle it, keep it bubbling. That was the cost of not letting anything out. Obsessively studying theorems and wizarding history brought limited joy when he thought of the Head Auror and questioned himself all over again, wanting desperately to excise any doubts so he could get back to the rules. As much as the Aurors had tried to reassure him it was the end, he doubted it would be, even with the record destroyed.

Alexander didn’t say anything about it. Despite showing substantial cause for correction, Theseus was spared the ruler, the cane, and anything else in between. It was going to be the start of a better time, Theseus convinced himself, every morning when he woke up without notable aches.

Without the ever present threat there to drag him down, he could enjoy some of the other praise slung his way, for once, rather than choking it down and letting it curdle.

Even so, Theseus didn’t make it as far as basking.

He’d fully made the rounds, hadn’t he? Spilled so many secrets. Had Hekseth look at the old bruises and scars and tut his brainless dismissal. Still, self-consciously, Theseus found himself doubling down on healing spells, charmed bandages, expensive poultices—the whole lot—rubbing hard and wishing that the marks on the backs of his legs would just disappear entirely. No one would ever see them, he tried to reason, but common sense and relatively vague expectations of marriage told him that was unlikely to be the case. He was a teenager, after all; thoughts of love and being loved did occasionally cross his mind.

Commenting on his surliness, Leonore made him clean out the Hippogriffs, which did nothing to improve matters. To her credit, she baked him an orange and almond cake after that, sensing it was something deeper and never asking, as usual. He’d devoured the entire thing at his desk, fingers sticky, the bitter, slightly burnt almonds mingling with the dense sweetness of fresh oranges. Almonds made his tongue tingle, but he wasn’t surprised that his parents didn’t know that.

Most of his inferiority was secured so firmly inside that he wasn’t quite sure if it was accessible, but what did it matter? It was about what you were meant to be, not who you were. And poor Newt simply avoided him as much as possible, which displayed grace Theseus was almost jealous of.

It passed, barely. He knew it’d come back around—but he reassured himself that it would be better, easier next time, omitting the fact it could also be worse, even when everyone expected him to pull himself out of it.

Once those few days were over, he had to reckon again with the fact that he’d chipped away yet again at the bedrock of his relationships: family relationships, meant to be for life, blood, thicker than water. He smiled and washed up and offered to take Newt to the village, but none of it undid the sharp and wounded half-week following the Ministry. Turning the facts over in his head at night, he reminded himself not to belabour it, not to pick up another set of circular days.

By the weekend, he’d set to cleaning. That was how he found himself dragging the broom and dustpan down the upstairs hallway, steeling himself for the arduous task of cleaning Newt's bedroom. His little brother's quarters were always in a perpetual state of disarray, littered with scraps of parchment, quills, bits of twine, and other oddities Newt had collected on his wanderings. He would just give it a quick once-over to prevent any waiting infestations. Any deeper rearrangement both made Newt distinctly unimpressed and would take so much time Theseus doubted he’d be able to scratch out some more Transfiguration practice essays that evening.

As he pushed open the door, Theseus was immediately assaulted by the rich, earthy smells of loamy soil and something else: a faint muskiness that may have been Newt's latest rescued creature hidden away in some box with holes poked in the top. It was a difficult game; the miniature habitats always looked innocuous on the outside and unfurled into miniature ecosystems the moment you removed the lid. He wrinkled his nose but ventured inside, determined to complete his chores quickly and without fuss. Hopefully whatever it was wouldn’t leap out and bite him.

The floor was, predictably, a minefield of obstacles. Books lying open and face-down; a spilled ink pot that had dried into an unsightly black stain; and what appeared to be shed snakeskin coiled beneath Newt's bed. Cauldrons and jars filled with strange viscous substances and desiccated flora lined the sill.

Theseus sniffed, wrinkling his nose at the musty, vaguely reptilian odour permeating the air. For Newt, this qualified as relatively sanitary conditions, he supposed. Still, he would have to be thorough if he wanted this to count as the cleaning he’d been assigned to do. Tugging his waistcoat straight, he aimed his wand at the floor and murmured, "Scourgify." Dirt and crumpled papers swirled into the air like disturbed dust motes before vanishing.

What remained, however, were the clothes scattered across the floor—rumpled shirts and stained trousers. He scowled, stooping to collect the garments. Rather than waste effort sorting them, he simply opened Newt's wardrobe and shoved them inside in one bundled heap. As the doors fell shut, though, something made him pause, his exhausted focus sharpening.

The wardrobe hung half-empty. Granted, Newt had a tendency toward minimalism, but even for him, these spartan contents seemed a bit lacking. Only a smattering of items remained, mere shreds of colour amidst a drab canvas. Theseus paused. The assortment of faded, threadbare garments still displayed his own initials stitched on the fraying labels. There were things he distinctly recognised: brown trousers, a navy jumper he’d been particularly fond of, lying on the closet floor. The clothes that were grass-stained and torn and gifted the privilege of a hanger, in comparison, were all…eccentric. They’d come from Theseus, once, so there was nothing too mad about them, but each had a burst of colour among the general muted tones British society favoured.

With a frown, he turned away from the open wardrobe, jaw set, and glared out of the cracked bedroom window. The guilt he'd felt over hiding the truth about his interrogation from Newt solidified into a bitter, throbbing resentment.

No matter how much their father loathed Newt's idiosyncrasies, he was still his son. An eight-year-old, slowly becoming a remarkable, if complicated, little person. Even Theseus, always the favoured, praised heir, retained a few basic dignities. He bit the inside of his cheek. Before he’d left for Hogwarts, he would have noticed something like this. Pulling away into his own world, the world where he was popular and top of everything—aside from Transfiguration, thanks to Minerva—was coming at its own selfish costs.

"It's not so bad," Theseus muttered to himself, shoving aside the writhing collection of emotions burning through his chest. "They're only clothes. Newt doesn't care about that sort of thing."

While wealthy enough to provide all the necessities, their parents had never indulged in luxuries like new attire whenever they wanted it. It made sense when Newt was liable to shred through any garment cavorting with beasts in the forest or tramping through swampy rivers.

But how often had his little brother hidden away shells or stones or other natural treasures in the sagging pockets of these hand-me-downs, for lack of anywhere safer? Newt used to happily trail him through the nearby fields and forests, his sleeves dangling past his wrists and trouser cuffs dragging in the mud. Perhaps he should have seen it all along, but it had only been when Newt had stared at his travelling cloak with such interest for one of Theseus’s things that he’d started to suspect there was something he’d been too distracted to see, subconsciously ignored.

For all his self-righteous bravado about doing the right thing, he'd fallen pitifully short on the home front.

*

Much, much later that day, Theseus eased the front door open a hair. He held his breath as the rusty hinges groaned in protest.

Seconds crawled by in tense silence before Theseus deemed it safe to proceed. Slipping through the narrow gap, he pulled the door shut with excruciating care until the latch clicked home once more. A murmured incantation sheathed his shoes with a muffling charm as he crept down the front path.

Though dusk had firmly settled, the waxing moon afforded just enough illumination to navigate by, so he picked up the pace, jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.

He skirted the perimeter, vaulting the fence to avoid the paranoia of the fence gate and its ritual necessity, nearly tripping, and eventually disapparated with a quiet pop once he'd bypassed their anti-apparition wards. The familiar compressive lurch of realigned spacetime engulfed him, only to dissipate as he rematerialised in a secluded byway somewhere near Diagon Alley.

The shopping district sprawled out from around that bustling high street, weaving into non-wizarding London with a mixture of remarkable ease and painful incongruity. Most of the tailors were probably far beyond his budget. Seeing as Alexander’s parents hadn’t compensated in any way for Albert taking his share of the future inheritance, there was no wonder they hadn’t offered Christmas gifts.

And Aunt Agnes had given Theseus a silver necklace the Christmas before last, which about aligned with the eccentricity of the Highfairs. Apparently, it had been for his girlfriend; sadly, Theseus’s present popularity at school didn’t stretch far enough to actually find a partner. What was he meant to do? He could do great Quidditch tricks, awesome goals, show off his thin muscles, and then what? Swoop into the stands and say, “here, my aunt gave me this necklace for Christmas because her roommate is an expert at crafting silver filigree and thought that it would be an excellent gift for her nephew? And now I’m passing it onto you? Because I act all easy and confident and make a lot of friends but am pure dogsh*t at actually ending up with any real connections?”

He’d sold it, anyway, to a fourth-year Ravenclaw to give to her mum, and used the Sickles—the discount had probably been a little too extensive—to buy extra books. Which had been a good idea, because Alexander was even more against the Aurors than he had been before. And he’d bought a jar of the good broom varnish, the kind that didn’t leave marks on your fingers and robes, which important when your kit was a very-washed-out yellow—which had been a bit stupid, actually, because now he’d probably only be able to buy Newt two pairs of socks at most alongside the coat. Maybe he could bargain for some underwear. It highly concerned Theseus that he was looking at a supplementary wardrobe at his level. But he reasoned there was only so far he could go once he ran out of money; Newt might have to pay the piper, to an extent.

A wizened cabbie eyed him from his station in the narrow street, already shuffling forward to proffer his services. But Theseus waved him off, ducking around a corner and well out of sight before consulting the battered pocket watch he’d got for Christmas when he was twelve.

Just after half-ten. Diagon Alley's shopkeepers would already be drawing their evening trade to a close by now. The more reputable outfitters would be long shuttered by the time he arrived. But the so-called 'slop shops' better suited his needs on this clandestine outing.

Navigating a series of winding side alleys, Theseus eventually emerged onto the familiar thoroughfare several blocks down from the Leaky Cauldron, straying from the friendlier chatter of a boozy late night in Diagon Alley. He paused in the shadows, quickly reorienting himself amid the bustle and noise leaking from various watering holes and shopfronts.

Peddlers hawked their dubiously legal wares outside one dingy tavern, while a booth further up offered "samples" to any passers-by brazen enough to partake. Weaving between the teeming crowds, Theseus spied an illegal potions stall, its proprietor giving Theseus a wary glance the moment he entered the periphery. So much for any hopes of discretion; he made a hurried detour through several more back streets, knowing that his tendency to accidentally stare had brought consequences down on him more than once. When he was an Auror, he reasoned, it would be a little safer to get caught up in other people’s business.

The perpetual din served its purpose, however. After another quarter hour spent navigating the dubious back alleys, Theseus spotted the modest awning for Burkeshaw's Slop Shop, waiting like a beacon. The window's smoky panes blurred the interior from outside view, but the wavering glow from within suggested he'd timed his arrival perfectly.

Stooping through the humble shopfront's threshold, Theseus found himself enveloped by the warm, textile-scented air. An overhead gaslight illuminated a modest open floor filled with long tables and three older witches meticulously mending and stitching the day's yield of secondhand garments. A man with a nose that had been broken too many times stood hunched over the counter, protected by a few panes of enchanted glass; he was simultaneously flicking between a book on metallurgic alchemy—for clothing fastenings, Theseus thought—and an abacus. He glanced up at Theseus's entrance, squinting slightly. Exhaustion seemed to drip from his hunched shoulders, ropey forearms, and weathered countenance.

"Good evening," he rumbled around his pipe. "Curfew'll be round the half-hour, I'm afraid, so best be quick."

Appraising the situation carefully, Theseus gave him a nod before moving further into the cluttered shop floor. Row upon row of clothing racks loomed, each suspended from rusted mechanical pulleys that would theoretically allow the displays to raise or descend as needed. All manner of garments hung there, waiting: both prefashioned and simply cut dresses, trousers, and shirts, and then more eclectic mixes of secondhand items, like men's overcoats, shapeless house robes, and lacey evening gowns, faded by time.

With a sigh, Theseus began combing methodically through the nearest set of robes and jackets, soon establishing the predictable pattern. All were too large. And none were quite right—there would be no shortcuts on this errand.

"Find anything to your liking, young master?"

Theseus turned to find the shopkeeper looming over his shoulder, pipe still in his mouth. The confusion must have shown on his face, as the man half-grinned around his acrid mouthful.

“I’m shopping for a child,” Theseus explained.

"A child, eh? Going to be one of those if you're already scratching about back alleys instead of Madam Malkin's. Too late for the missus to be out too, suppose." He half-smiled, crinkling the corners of his yellowish eyes, in an expression that was vaguely sympathetic.

Nonplussed, Theseus stiffened rather than rise to the needling. "My...proclivities are none of your concern. I've money for quality goods, regardless of their origins. Simply direct me to any appropriate outerwear for young people you might have and I'll be on my way before the curfew."

The proprietor shook his head, unfazed. "Don't have much on the standard floor befitting your tastes, son."

Beckoning, he led Theseus deeper into the recesses to a wooden set of drawers that filled an entire wall, with endless doors, canvas-topped cubbies, and slatted doors. Plucking his pipe from between his teeth, the older wizard rapped it with the stem.

"There's still a touch of treasure 'mongst it all if you've a keen eye." He tugged open one cubby drawer to reveal a jumbled patchwork of dyed wools, boiled silks, and musty calicos that were anyone's guess beyond 'some colour, once'. "Inherited donations and spoils tend to gather in these bins for sorting into the repurposed lines."

Theseus frowned, intrigued despite himself. "You mean to say this refuse is tailored into entirely new garments?"

His host chuckled, plucking out a scrap of lilac damask in demonstration. "What's old is meant to slough away. Best we can do is seek the threads of beauty underlying before transforming that which was tattered or soiled into something, well...less so. I expect you came for something already made but more refined from within the reclamation bins, yes? If so, be about your business and pluck out some tasteful leavings afore I'm forced to conclude you're another time waster."

Suitably chastised, Theseus swallowed his flash of indignation and nodded. Coughing against the hanging smoke, he launched into the menswear section with the same sort of precision he deployed during training exercises at Hogwarts. He rummaged through the drawers and made sure not to make a mess, eyeing fabrics and tailoring with a critical—if inexperienced—eye.

Colours and patterns, textures and fastenings. They all blurred together after a few dizzying minutes. It was somewhat confusing. Most of their own clothes had been sewn by Leonore, the fabric being the main concern, and handing it over to Mum the second. He wasn’t quite sure what to look for in purchasing a garment. Yes, this was a slop clothing shop, or a place where the clothes came already made, but it wasn’t much easier for the teenager to parse than endless bolts of fabric and ribbons.

Here, a passable dressing gown. There, a tolerable cable-knit Aran jumper with a hole in the chest. Just as he was resigning himself to bringing a couple pairs of consolationary socks home, his fingers snagged on a swath of heavier wool towards the bottom of the drawer.

Grasping the garment's collar, he gradually pulled it free from the bin to reveal a calf-length, forest green overcoat clearly tailored for cooler weather. It was smaller, probably made for a woman, but the cut was straight. He saw no problem with that: not that at his current height he’d needed to choose unisex options before.

"Well, now, you’re lovely," Theseus murmured, shifting the coat to better drape it over his knee.

Someone had lavished quality fabric and no small amount of care into the garment's construction, yet it languished here. There were pockets: at least six generously sized pouches sewn around the hem and lining. And the interior of crimson, purple, and green tartan lining only had a few small tears. It was a little outrageous, but Theseus had nothing against Scotland, and Newt would probably even enjoy the colours. A steadying breath escaped him at last; he hadn’t realised how tight-chested the prospect of coming home knowing everything was still entirely unfixable had started to make him.

But this could very well work.

"Found something at last, have we?"

Theseus jumped, fumbling the coat guiltily even as the shopkeep ambled up beside him. He almost expected it to be taken away, but the proprietor only reached out to grasp a fold of wool, rubbing the fabric's nap between his calloused fingers before glancing up.

"That's a find, right enough." He traced his index finger over a circular blotch in the hem. "Bit of treacle wine to purge from the skirting there, I'd wager, but nothing a few sharp cleaning charms won't sort right as rain."

Theseus bristled slightly at the implication he couldn't pull off some rudimentary fabric scouring charms. But the outrage failed to take root, thanks to the pragmatism of the discovery; he very much enjoyed a sensible discovery. And this article—salt-stained and somewhat faded as it was—could very well serve as his solution.

"I'll take it. Please. And some serviceable sets of socks? Undergarments as well, if you've anything befitting a child in your stock. Not second-hand. Please."

The proprietor arched a bushy eyebrow. But whatever conjecture flickered to life in that instant, he mercifully kept to himself.

"Chest over yonder against the wall holds what you're needing. That’s all fresh from the big factory shops, yeah? No one’s died in it. Will feel like cardboard but just a wash and a couple spells make it nice and soft, baby-soft.”

Theseus crossed to the dented oak chest and unlatched the warped lid. Stacked within were tidy piles of long-johns and undershirts sized from infant's dresses down to adult men's portions. Satisfactory condition, he evaluated.

Gathering his finds close, he cradled the overcoat's reassuring weight to his chest as he approached the counter once more. The shopkeeper had laid his pipe aside and was busily inscribing figures into his ledger, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration. Only when Theseus cleared his throat did he glance up, eyebrows raised in silent question.

"A fair price for this lot, if you would?" Theseus asked, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

His eyes raked over the overcoat before flicking to the underwear and back again. Finally, the man grunted, his fingers stilling atop the counter.

"Three sickles, five knuts for what you're carrying. Even going rate for pre-chopped jobbers."

Theseus barely suppressed a surprised intake of breath. That figure sounded more than fair; in fact, it was almost generous. So, Theseus hurriedly tugged the money from his money pouch and slid the stack across the counter with two fingers. The shopkeep scooped it up with aplomb, flicking through to verify the sum before flashing that tiny wink of a smile once more.

"Pleasure doing business, young sir. Be sure to wrap that coat right if you're heading straight home after. Material like that will retain moisture something fierce should the night take a drizzly turn."

He took the paper that was handed to him for wrapping, but was already turning back toward the entryway with his bundle clutched close. He had something else in mind that suddenly felt very necessary: to make it better. All the studying wasn’t for nothing, surely.

*

The prices were cheap, and he could just about afford a few hours of residence. Somehow, presenting the coat as a finished product felt crucial, and he had no guarantees of privacy at home. He tapped his fingers against his thigh and settled into the decision. Ducking his head to conceal his face, Theseus slipped through the tavern's narrow entryway, ears pricked, finding himself surrounded by the low rumble of idle late-night conversation and the occasional burst of drunken laughter that made his chest conscious.

Feeling more than a little out of place—not appearing to be experiencing huge amounts of fun, for one, and clearly looking simultaneously prim and suspicious enough to be mistaken for a wealthy scoundrel and a new father, for another—he approached the bar.

"Can I get a room for just a few hours?" he asked the black-haired woman there, who shrugged and set down her glass. She scratched at her nose and waited for him to continue. "I need somewhere out of the way to...work. It’s just me. I’m happy to pay the standard rate."

"Sure. Fifth floor, three doors to the left," she said, and a set of keys clinked across the bartop. "Mind you knock off any fiddly rituals by half-four. Much as I enjoy seeing chits come of age over an open textbook every now and again, we can't have you summoning anything too uncontainable while the respectable folk sleep."

The desired privacy had been secured, at least, however indirectly communicated. Theseus snatched up the keys left in a puddle of condensation and shoved off from the bar.

"Thank you," he tossed over his shoulder.

Theseus managed to locate the indicated chamber with little difficulty. The plain, pilled oak door looked identical to half a dozen others dotting the hallway, but a few terse incantations dissolved the properline wards and swung the portal open on its rusted hinges.

"Home for the evening, at least," Theseus muttered under his breath as he set about stripping off his outer layers.

A dank smell suffused the cramped quarters. The mildew accents were layered over decades of lapsed housekeeping, layered over decades of improper washings, layered over—well, better not to dwell on the less savoury origins of those particular notes.

Heat still radiated from a stubby central candle charmed to provide lighting with each room's occupation. The expected rumpled bedding, chipped washbasin, and upright chair against the wall completed the scene. He supposed starving artists and recent widowers might find some fleeting solace of depressed circ*mspection amidst such accommodations.

A loud squeak split the air. He paused in the middle of rearranging and straightening the irritatingly crooked bedding, even though he had no intention of letting more than his fingertips touch the bed itself.

At last, the unmistakable rhythms filtering through the wall from the room to his right registered. Coarse grunts, breathy gasps, and the muted thump of bodies colliding—it seemed his new neighbours were determined to be heard.

A dull flush crept up his neck.

"Bloody hell," Theseus muttered. Of course this had to happen. The universe found novel ways to taunt him at every turn.

Going to brace one hand against the wall, he half-contemplated banging his fist against it as hard as he could just to get them to shut up. But the momentary impulse fizzled as quickly as it arose. Doing so would inevitably draw further unwanted attention to his presence; and interrupting the passions of anonymous hedonists seldom ended well for the prudish voice of reason.

Another series of noises.

The pounding of his heart drowning out every other sound for one precarious moment, Theseus froze, fingers splayed against the plaster, willing his mind elsewhere. The sounds were amplified in there, bouncing off the bare plaster with shocking intimacy, and for some reason he was rooted in place, two parts loathing warring with one part perverse, all-consuming curiosity.

But then a stray moan punched through the wall and Theseus jerked back from the wall with a muttered curse. Scrubbing a hand over his face, with a noise of inarticulate disgust, he snatched up the coat and stalked toward the centre of the cramped space. He smashed into the rickety wooden chair, catching it with his hip—so, cursing under his breath, he kicked it aside with enough force to rattle its decrepit legs against the floor, leaving a clear workspace in its wake.

“f*ck off,” he told it, suddenly feeling exhausted.

A Muffling Charm would likely be registered by the other two. Better to pretend he just didn’t exist: which sounded very appealing in that moment.

The man's voice slithered through the wall, equal parts wicked amusem*nt and honeyed challenge. “Please what, my sweet?"

Theseus was indescribably grateful that he hadn’t heard the specifics of the request nor whatever had followed it, even if the inn’s fellow occupants had a complete inability to keep it down. If only he hadn’t run out of money. Anywhere that you could rent a room for only hours had this exact pitfall, not that Theseus had clocked much when seeing the sign beyond the half-Sickle room cost.

He would simply have to tune out the distraction. It wasn't as if he were naive to the fundamental mechanics involved—he was a teenage boy with a naturally inquisitive streak, after all. But there was something about the proximity, the brazen openness, that made the situation feel decidedly more confrontational.

Add to that the lingering sting of Alexander's condemnation from earlier that week, and it felt like life was taunting him in the cruellest possible fashion. Alexander had latched onto The Secret through sheer happenstance when rifling through Theseus’s mind with revulsion, potent and visceral, like a bucketful of frigid ice water. He'd known for some time that the urges and curiosities for both genders which kept simmering beneath his skin didn't align with societal expectations, especially the rigid standards upheld in his household. But having it laid so utterly bare by his own father, branded as something "diseased" from which he must atone—

He was an ouroboros in human form—a snake continuously ingesting its own tail.

"Merlin's sake," Theseus growled under his breath.

There was a flurry of violent rustling, a muffled yelp, and then a frankly obscene squelching groan as their efforts apparently redoubled. But, just like that, the seedy euphony dwindled down, punctuated only by the dulled squeak of the mattress springs resettling themselves. Silence re-established itself once more.

Rolling his eyes, Theseus half-heartedly waved his wand without resolve, imagining that he could cast a gold-star silencing charm to reduce the chances of hearing the second round, and offer the metaphorical equivalent of mock applause.

Vaguely resentful that they were making him feel like some voyeuristic no-good when he simply was there to cast some spells on a piece of fabric, he pinched the bridge of his nose and focused again.

This room, these tawdry distractions—they were meaningless. He’d come here for only one reason, and that wasn’t to inadvertently be subjected to the place’s less pleasant offerings.

First, he refined a sterile containment matrix for the delicate procedure. With a series of brisk wand gestures, Theseus funnelled his energy into the space at his feet, establishing a stable perimeter of potential without requiring constant adjustments, keeping his heartbeat as controlled as possible despite the allure of simply holding his breath.

At last, he lowered his wand and gingerly examined his handiwork. The once-vibrant fabric had dulled slightly to a deeper forest shade, but now shimmered with a faint gossamer overlay. First stage done. It would take the charms, and they’d stick, now.

Bracing himself, Theseus rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to bare his forearms, stabbing the clenched fist of his wand hand forward to syphon his focus.

"Impervius," he murmured through gritted teeth. Stubborn will thrust the incantation past the boundaries of its standard application, the waterproofing charm dispersing as an oily rippling sheen sinking deep into the coat's fibres. A steady layering reinforced the garment's structure, preventing any undue brittleness as the weatherproofing bonds were added atop each other, overlapping again and again.

Sweat beaded Theseus's brow as he paused, taking stock. "Salvio Hexia. Fianto Duri." Protection against burning or breakage or a multitude of minor curses, propelling the magic in rushing currents through his wand tip and into the wool.

When at last he sank back, he felt as wrung out as a dishrag. Lactic acid was burning through his upper arms, but at the sight of the temporarily luminescent overcoat glowing with its mantle of interwoven enchantments, he knew it had been worth the effort. He couldn't help the tired, lopsided smile creasing his lips as he did a final set of cleaning charms for good measure, until the entire room began to smell like fresh rosemary, pouring as many of the good intentions he had to give into the magic.

Theseus wasn’t very good at saying things, so he decided to write a note, scrounging around in the pockets of his own coat for a pen and paper.

Hope you like it. Try not to muck it up for once. —Theseus

*

The light at the front porch burned through the shrouds of Devon fog as Theseus made his way up the path to the house, shooting the lake a vaguely wary look. There was someone there. Not in the lake, obviously, but by the front door. Odd, at this time of night; but then again, this was his family. A single silhouette resolved itself, hunched on the porch, like a garden fae. He recognised Newt's mussed hair and too-big sweater even through the gloom.

Some of his anxiety ebbed away, though rational concern remained. "Newt?" he called out. When his brother failed to respond, Theseus increased his pace to a light jog. "Newton? What are you doing out here? It’s so late—you should seriously be in bed.”

He mounted the steps just as Newt unfolded himself from his ball, blinking up at him with those big eyes. "Theseus," he breathed. "You were gone. For hours."

Something vulnerable and aching twisted in Theseus's chest at the tremor in Newt's voice. "I'm sorry," he murmured, crouching before his little brother. "I'm back now."

Newt swallowed audibly, throat working before replying in a bare whisper. "Please don't leave again."

“Did something happen?” Theseus asked.

Newt shrugged his shoulders. “He was angry. I don’t know why, today. I don’t know what I did wrong—but I guess he saw me, and that, that counts. He said I wasn’t allowed to leave my room. I really,” and he scrunched up his face, burying it in his knees. “I—I really needed the toilet, but he’d hear the pipes, and so I went outside—but now that I’ve left, I don’t want to go back in. At all.”

“Oh,” Theseus said slowly. “Oh, that’s okay, Newt. We’ll go back in now—I won’t tell.”

Of course Newt worried after being left alone. Their father frequently sequestered him like that for hours on end, or ordered him into the garden with no explanation. He’d hoped Alexander would send him outside; Newt never came back looking particularly disgruntled at those banishments, but being locked inside must have been its own special kind of hell. But the woods were dark, and dangerous, and—

Before Theseus could let his thoughts begin to agree with this ridiculous disciplining, punishment without cause, he cut off the chain of reasoning entirely. Newt was shaking slightly; it was a cool night.

“You did what you had to do,” Theseus reasoned. He understood the shame of being pushed to certain lengths, even if he’d rarely directly experienced it. “I bet Hapgrons and Snifflers and—“

“Graphorns,” Newt enunciated, a far cry from his usual mumble. “Graphorns and Nifflers. And they do what, um, exactly? I’m not sure you’re going to get it right.”

“Go for a wee outside,” Theseus said. He scratched the back of his neck. “Or, y’know, other things.”

Newt wasn’t phased. He rarely was. “They do.”

“Yeah. That was an easier guess than most of your other mad wildlife trivia,” Theseus said, still holding the package behind his back.

The original plan had been to leave it outside Newt’s bedroom. Alexander was being okay since the Ministry, certainly not in the kind of foul mood where he’d throw away a relatively normal present between them both, and then Newt could have just read the note and they’d be sorted. Truly, he hadn’t counted on having to deliver it in person. Was it meant to feel this hard?

And, Circe, Theseus wished he’d been home. Newt had probably come to quietly knock on the door of his room and ask him if he thought it was okay to use the bathroom anyway. Theseus would have said yes—when their father laid down rules, Newt grew skittish and anxious, either following them obsessively or accidentally disregarding them entirely, sparking days of stony silence and the occasional comment about useless boys, useless children. He understood. He understood all too well.

“He’s going to the bank tomorrow, too, and he says I need to come,” Newt mumbled. “I need to learn to talk more normally, and, um, not be so fast, and speak louder and look at people. He told me I can only wiggle my fingers in my room. Where people can’t see. Or they’ll think I’m doing bad spells.”

“Ah, the bank will be fun,” Theseus said. “An outing.”

Newt tugged at his hair and shook his head. “Mmmh,” he said. “I think he didn’t like me today.”

“Why?”

The younger boy let out a hissing noise as he contemplated this. “I didn’t talk today. It was too hard—in the morning, when you were studying, Mum and I went to a shop to look at new chains for ringing the outdoor enclosure—there were lots of Muggles there, it wasn’t a wizard one, because she says that it’s not good for the Hippogriffs to nibble magical metal, but, um, they all stared at us and said mean things to Mum.”

“You didn’t tell me that!”

Theseus wasn’t sure whether to admire or despair at his mother’s somewhat relaxed attitude towards life. Her lupus seemed to make her both constantly on the edge of fatigue and resolute towards the idea of further suffering. When she pushed herself too hard, as she often did, scared perhaps to accept her limits, she was bedbound all day other than her customary morning and evening checks on the Hippogriffs. Thanks to her own father’s exploits, she was also unintimidated by entering the Muggle world. Flirtation and intimidation alike bounced off her, either because she was good at ignoring it, or simply didn’t clock it whatsoever.

“They said she was pretty, in not nice words. It gave me a funny turn when I got home, I suppose, but I ran out of words for the rest of the day afterwards. Father wasn’t happy about any of it…or about me.” Newt frowned. “I wasn’t big or strong enough to help. So I had to go in my room, because no one wants to see someone who isn't like those t—things. But the Hippogriffs will like the new outdoor place, because it might have better grass.”

He supposed there were few places where a woman could buy industrial and mechanical parts in the Muggle world without raising eyebrows. Theseus sighed internally, but soldiered on. “You know she didn’t take you with her because you needed to protect her. She just wanted to spend time with you. When you’re ten, though, a bit bigger, you’ll have to stand up for Mum, yeah?”

There was a pause.

“I thought you’d left because of what Father said,” Newt said.

“Oh.” Theseus opened and closed his mouth, heart sinking. "No, that’s not—you know I'll always come back for you, right, Newt?"

He didn’t know if he meant it. Didn’t know if he wanted to mean it. But someone had to say it, no matter how terrified he was of breaking his promises.

“Okay,” Newt accepted, almost inaudibly.

They stayed like that for long moments, just looking at one another. It was the closest they usually came to outright fraternal affection; Newt radiated tension built up over too many long, lonely hours. Theseus frowned, feeling sick again, for some reason. "I've something for you. A gift."

“For me?” Newt said, uncurling himself. “I tried to place an order from one of Mum’s magazines, for powdered wormwood, but I didn’t think they’d accept it, even though I put in all my Knuts. That’s amazing—I can’t believe it came—it’s going to be really useful for the Bowtruckles.”

"Ah. Well, this, um, unfortunately, isn’t that. But it is for you," Theseus said, taking the package out from behind his back, wincing at his shoddy re-wrapping after the enchantments, and pressed it into Newt's trembling hands. "To keep you warm. And dry. And cosy. Since your other ones are a bit past their prime—a nice heavy wool one would keep you warm while you're traipsing around the woods getting into mischief."

For several tense heartbeats, Newt gaped down at the proffered package with an expression approaching outright befuddlement. Theseus felt his pulse quicken, palms abruptly clammy. What if Newt found the coat's fabric was abrasive or objectionable? Or perhaps the colour would somehow prove offensive? The tartan lining was definitely garish, but if it was buttoned up, it shouldn’t prove an issue.

Damn it, he also should have bundled the underwear and socks together with the coat. Now they were a vaguely irritating—or underwhelming, for an eight year old with a head full of dreams and intense thirst for adventure—secondary package. As Newt stared down at the wrapped coat, Theseus covertly stuffed the smaller gift up his own coat, tucking it into one of his magically expanded inside pockets. Handing them over to Leonore instead might earn him some metaphorical points: even a hug. Seeing as they were new and she spent most of her allowance on groceries and masses of Hippogriff feed, she’d welcome socks for Newt. She often lost the pairs in the washing process and turned the single socks into talon warmers for the Hippogriffs; and the stupid things enjoyed eating them off their own feet, and then roaring in annoyance when the frost came.

"Can I...?" Newt looked up, worrying his lip. "Open it now?"

"Of course," Theseus said, giving him a faint smile. "Go ahead."

With small, deft fingers, Newt tore away the simple wrapping. His movements were jerky, but he parted the paper very, very slowly, folding it down at each point he had torn so that the contents emerged in a neat, abstract, geometric panel. The paper fluttered past his knobbly knees. And the exposed coat now rested on his lap.

Theseus’s first thought was that, judging from the leg-to-length ratio, he’d guessed the fit right. Of course he had. He knew exactly how tall his little brother was—even though he had no idea what he was thinking at that very moment.

Oh, Merlin, Theseus suddenly realised, looking at it. It had seemed so much—better—before he’d come home. Now, it struck him how little it made up for what he’d done to the both of them by not confessing at the Ministry for at least the chance for some intervention. It’s only a coat. It’s not going to make up for anything.

“You didn’t have to buy me something,” Newt said.

“I know,” Theseus said. “But you…need something better. I noticed you only ever seem to favour the more colourful things in your wardrobe, even if they're worse for wear. And you know how much time you spend gallivanting about on your blasted expeditions.”

He scratched the back of his neck and considered suggesting Newt wash first, if he wanted to try it on.

"It's green," Newt said abruptly, shattering his brother's train of thought. His eyes flitted up to Theseus’s before darting away, falling back onto his hands, hovering an inch of the surface of the garment. His little brother swallowed, and didn’t look up again, lips parting slightly as he let out a shaky exhale.

"Yes," he said. "I thought the colour might appeal to your...sensibilities."

Newt moved so quickly that Theseus almost retreated, but the younger boy only swivelled, turning away from Theseus with the coat in his hands. There was a faint noise, a slight hum—from Newt, in the back of his throat. He was reminded of an eagle owl swooping down to catch a mouse in its claws, silent and deliberate, and contemplating its find afterwards.

Quietly, Theseus popped his knuckles, unsure what to say or do as Newt stayed so still, the porch light flickering off the burnished gingery strands in his messy hair.

A beat passed, the air taking on an expectant lilt. Finally, Newt's fingers danced over the thick wool, testing its texture. Theseus resisted the urge to hold his breath entirely as Newt walked his legs back around, still absorbed in his examination. The younger boy blinked slowly, once, twice. His eyebrows knitted faintly, mouth twitching at the corners, turning down in an expression that made him look both older and younger at the same time: an aged soul in a body that still had baby-fat cheeks.

"It's so soft..." his little brother finally murmured.

“That’s good, right?” Theseus asked, shifting on the porch step, lower back protesting.

Rather than replying to Theseus, Newt tugged the coat upward, pressing his cheek hard against the lining. His eyes drifted shut, his lashes fanning over his freckled cheeks. He shivered again. It was still cold. Theseus glanced out over the lake and then back at the door, but he heard and saw nothing coming for them other than the faint rustling of leaves in the garden that wrapped around the side of the house

Newt stood up, quickly exchanged his weight from one foot to the other, and then rocked on his heels twice, hard. He pressed the coat into his chest but didn’t try it on; and then, as quickly as it had arrived, the energy drained from Newt. He came to a halt and sat back down in a pile of thin limbs. Theseus made a mental note to ask Mum to find some more easily prepared snacks, because it was one thing for all his own Quidditch training to put him on the lean side, and another for a growing boy to—well, to not be growing much at all.

“But...but why?" Newt said at last. One hand snuck down to cradle his stomach, fingers now working at the fraying material of his jumper.

There was confusion in his brother’s eyes.

In that moment, his chest felt so heavy he thought something would tear from the sudden crush of desperate affection and guilt, chasing one another around the space between his ribs: of which there was only so much.

The notion sparked a grim, fatalistic acceptance. He had no frame of reference for how to undo this: and certainly no words either. Who was he fooling, really? He couldn’t even sweet talk his own father into not beating the sh*t out of him behind closed doors. He couldn’t sway the Aurors to somehow intervene while preserving their family’s myriad secrets. He talked too much, every word insufferable to listen to, painfully dull, or choked on his own words the moment a hint of emotion hit him. Even at school, he had to smile at people, clap them on the back, jostle their shoulders in greeting, before he could warm up his trademark easy hello.

The seconds ticked past and Theseus realised he still hadn’t answered; Newt opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of whatever he'd been about to say.

At last, Newt sucked in a sharp inhalation through his nose, the stuttering sound painfully loud against the backdrop of the deserted night, gripping the coat tighter.

Theseus tensed, bracing for...what? He could never predict which path Newt's moods would veer onto at any given moment.

Then, Newt pitched forward in an ungainly shuffle, closing the distance between them in three lurching steps. Theseus's breath stalled in his chest as bony arms encircled his middle, the coat pillowing between them as Newt simply...held on. It wasn’t quite a hug. It was something else he couldn’t place.

All Theseus could muster was a pathetic, full-body shudder. Suddenly, he couldn’t even bring his hands up to return the embrace. Just one small kindness, and Newt veered between clinging to Theseus in desperation or fleeing entirely.

"Thank you," Newt mumbled, words muffled against Theseus's shirtfront. "I thought...I didn't think you'd..."

And then Newt was pulling back just far enough to peer up at Theseus through his fringe.

"Newt, I—" The words cracked, fracturing whatever flimsy composure he was clinging to. His heart hammered a staccato rhythm against his ribs as if desperate to tear free, bloody and exposed for the world to witness its grievous flaws laid bare. "I'm sorry, but I can't—"

Those weren’t the words he’d been fumbling, but his throat locked up before he could continue. For the better, really. Because there really was no way to distil what had happened earlier that week into words that made any sense.

He had no pithy justifications or true assurances that everything would be okay. Simply the stark, humbling realisation that he was drowning. If Newt relied on him, it was bad. If Newt didn’t, that was worse. There was too much in his hands: more than just a bundle of moss-smelling little brother.

“Sorry about what?” Newt asked, pulling his arms away, retreating to stand, chewing on his fingers. The noise made Theseus’s ears tingle, a sort of click or crunch as Newt’s teeth scraped nail.

“Sorry,” Theseus began, searching for something else to finish the sentence, and as usual, landed on a cautionary fear. “The colour is nice, but it’s rather bold to wear to the village. Maybe keep wearing the old one if you go there, yeah? Not that you should really be there, you know; it’s a risk, getting too close to the Muggles before you can properly control your magic. You don’t want to attract too much attention.”

The brightness in Newt’s eyes dulled. His little brother slowly nodded. “Okay. Goodnight, Thes. Thank you.” Head lowered and hair falling into his eyes, Newt turned delicately on his heel and slipped back inside.

Now alone again, Theseus stayed on the step. His arms were still heavy from the efforts of the charm-weaving; he squeezed his eyes to make the stars shine and sparkle, make them waver and glow, so little watery extended coronas sprouted around each gleaming constellation. With a wandless charm, he clicked his fingers and vanished the paper. The note he’d written turned to dust, too—thank small mercies that Newt hadn’t seen it. If only he could write something good, for once. Something better. Something more like: I love you.

He reasoned it was impossible, clearly. He’d have to keep on going the way he was. With another sigh, Theseus closed his eyes and tipped his head back until he felt the solidity of the brick step against the back of his neck, just where Gawain had pressed his fingers.

*

The next morning, as Theseus picked his way through a modest breakfast with a newspaper to hand, movement in his periphery caught his eye. Newt drifted into the kitchen, feet bare on the flagstones as always. But as he brushed past the kitchen table to fetch the kettle, Theseus noted the familiar deep forest green.

Theseus froze, a sudden lump in his throat. Newt paid him no mind as he set about brewing his customary strong, milky, sugared tea, fiddling with his hair as the stove flames leapt to life. Affecting nonchalance, Theseus lifted the paper and peered over it as Newt went to the larder, cataloguing the fit. Not too tight across the shoulders—which was good—but his estimate for Newt's growth spurt must have been a bit ambitious, judging by the extra inch or two coming down to the tops of his ankles.

In later years, Newt would wear it a few times a week, in discordant schedules that Theseus couldn’t make rhyme or reason of. His little brother wore it for those few years until he grew out of it. Magical tailors were very efficient. You never had to let go of something if you didn’t want to. But Newt chose not to get it resized to fit.