Chapter Text
1
SIMON
My feet were echoing loud against the walls of the small alley I was using as a shortcut. My bag, filled with almost nothing, was bouncing uncomfortably on my back, but I tried to ignore it. I was just hoping, praying even, that I would be on time for the bus.
Normally, I would leave as soon as I could from the care home the Mage had put me in, but this year… there were some troubles. I got delayed by some - I’m really thinking of a nice word, but whatever - assholes who had ruined my whole summer. Not that it’s nice otherwise, but I would’ve hidden as much as possible like every other year. But this year, I had made the mistake I had promised myself to never make again since I was seven years old.
I had cried.
And it hadn’t even been in my power to prevent it, as I was sleeping. But it’s an unspoken surviving rule in a care home, especially for boys only, that you don’t cry if you don’t want to spend the next weeks or months in fear of getting overpowered and beaten up. They never let you live it down. It’s all about being prey or predator, and once you have your role or reputation, it’s over.
The adults who are supposed to care for you don’t care at all. Literally and figuratively. Sometimes I wonder if they even know how kids and young teens think or work. Other times it’s clear to me they rather bury their heads in the sands than intervene.
I turned the corner and almost tripped over a sad-looking homeless man with an even sadder looking dog. The man weakly opened his hand, as if asking for money, but I was just as broke as he was. Other days, I would stop and search for something to share. A mint aero bar, some muesli stuff I had snatched away, but today I had nothing and I was running late. So late I really got scared I would miss the bus. I quickly rebalanced myself and whispered-said to him: ‘I’m sorry, I have nothing,’ before running away without looking back. I know I had no other choice, but I still felt my stomach clenching together. I’ve been in his position too, without the dog though, when I had run away from a care home when I was much younger. I had my reasons, but it was stupid anyway. I learned that even if you felt miserable under the shared roof, you still had a roof, which was a luxury you could use in most of the months in rainy England.
It had been a long time since I had run so much, let alone practice sport at all, so my body and lungs were protesting in every possible way, but I couldn’t listen. I had to run. Because my heart sped up even more when I noticed a bus at the end of the street. I knew that the stop would be somewhere there, but I was still so far away.
I ran faster. My hand was in the air, waving frantically to get the driver's attention so he would see me and wait for me, but I feared he would think I was just a crazy street kid who didn’t even have money for the drive. Which was true, for most of the time, except for the once-in-a-year envelope in my backpack that the Mage had sent me a couple of weeks ago. The letter, tickets and directions that had nearly made me cry again. Of course, I didn’t. My summer had been bad enough because of that stupid, stupid dream.
The closer I got, the more I saw what was happening at the doors of the bus. There was an older lady with a walker trying to step in the rickety wiggling vehicle, making everybody wait and leaving me breathless with relief and exhaustion. I slipped to a stop and panted embarrassing loud to gather my breath. I felt the old lady looking curiously at me and I held up a hand in an excusing gesture before bringing out between my gasps: ‘Can I help you, ma’am?’
She smiled at me. ‘Oh, dear boy, you look like you’re going to faint yourself.’
‘It’s okay. A little out of practice, but glad I made it,’ I said, stretching my back and feeling it pop like I was an old man myself. The lady chuckled. ‘If it’s not too much, gladly then.’
I gently held her up under her left arm to balance her, while I tried to lift the walker with my other arm inside. That was harder than I thought since it’s pretty heavy with those big wheels and I was holding it from the side and not in the middle, but it worked. She then leaned on it to step up and was inside in no time.
‘Thank you, young man. You’re very kind. Glad to see there are still people like you,’ she preached with a glint in her eyes I liked. The driver was looking bored at the delay but smiled friendly anyway at both of us when we handed over our tickets.
‘You’re welcome. Can you reach a seating place?’ I asked to be certain. We both looked into the bus and saw only a man in the back with his headphones on and eyes closed.
‘Yes, no problem. Just here in the front is okay,’ she answered while making her way to one of the grey seats. I nodded. ‘Okay. Well. Uhm. See you later, I guess,’ I said awkwardly. Not that we would ever meet again probably, but what do you say otherwise? She just smiled back and wished me a nice day, which I returned.
A nice day. Oh yes, it was a nice day. The nicest day of the year, I dare say. The day I finally leave whatever care I was in for two bloody months to travel back to my only home in the world.
I was tired as hell for not sleeping enough these last weeks, as I had spent all my energy on those fucked up guys, although mostly it was one guy with his followers. There were always shitty teenagers. Younger or older, that didn’t matter. It was your force and influence that mattered, but mostly I only met them at the homes. Which was not very unlogic, since we were all broken and problematic in some way. Watford had bullies too, but the rules there were stricter, so it was different and somewhat safer anyway.
Of course, I had the misfortune to room with one. But even Baz was more sophisticated in his ways to torture my life than the raw fighting or violence I had endured during all the summers and years in homes.
Baz. He would be a predator in those homes. One to be afraid off for real. And it was more than just his vampire looks and vampire features and powers - even if he never really used them - but the way he looked down on you and sneered as if his life depended on it. I had only seen his dad two times, but I could guess from who he had learned it. I had always been curious at how that git spends his summers in his probably gigantic house with that dark Old Family of his.
Maybe he used all his free time for plotting. Maybe he had books from his ancestors filled with pranks and ways to become the predator in his environment. I mean, he couldn’t have invented everything he had ever done by himself, could he? He wasn’t that genius? He must have had his sources in one of those old leather books he sometimes carried with him.
I didn’t want to close my eyes, for I was too afraid to miss the stop where I needed to catch my train, but I did try to rest my head against the window. Not that that was comfortable, since it shook and trilled so hard that the headache that was already forming only grew. I tried to lean back instead and felt the sleeves of my hoody brush against my arms. It tickled. I had half a mind to just take it off, but then my arms would be bare, and I preferred that even less. So I just rubbed at my wrist and the skin above to stop the itching feeling that had plagued me for weeks now.
My thoughts were wandering off to everything I never let myself think of to prevent getting ‘homesick’. Penny. Agatha. Scones and roasted beef. Magic, sword fighting, even the Wavering Woods and the Catacombs, since it was all part of the amazing Watford that made me feel at ease and part of the Wizarding World. And then, last but not least, my room.
I mean, our room. It was Baz’s too, unfortunately. But still, even if I had to share it with someone else, it was still more my room than whatever room I had ever slept or lived in. The room where a perfectly fitting uniform and pyjama would be laid out. The first kind of clothes I ever owned that didn’t slosh around my body, automatically bombarded to my let’s-wear-them-everyday-clothes, to the great dismay of Penny. And Baz’s. But I didn’t care about his opinion.
My hand had now slipped under my sleeve and was mindlessly pulling on a scab until it came off and started to bleed. It didn’t matter. In a few hours, I would be back and I was planning on taking a shower before eating an awesome dinner with enough food to fill me twice. I always do, and I always regretted it at night, because my body wasn’t used to that much food anymore and I got sick. But I couldn’t seem to care and did it again every year.
My hand wandered towards the second scab. I tried to just rub it, but in the end, I pulled it open too and then I had two bleeding wounds. I sighed because I didn’t have tissues with me, so I just pulled my sleeve back over my hand and tried to forget about it.
Baz would take out one of his posh handkerchiefs, probably with a gentleman’s bow as well, because he is that dramatic. Although it would’ve been useful, I could survive without.
I breathed in, breathed out, not thinking. Come on, Simon. You’re almost home.
BAZ
I’m am trying to prevent myself from being a mean brother for Mordelia right now, but she makes it hard for my reflexes. She is jumping around my room, singing and dancing to a new pop song about some stupid hetero crush on repeat and pleading me to stay another day. I had decided to return to Watford earlier this year because my father drove me mad with his insinuations about dating girls and planning the War. The Old Families have tried to find out inside information about Snow and the Mage, but they didn’t seem to realise that I didn’t know more than any of them. Even after interviewing me six times. Six bloody times. Crowley, what a way to spend your summer.
Three days ago, I couldn’t handle it anymore. I asked my father if I could return a day earlier. He had raised his eyebrow, not pleased with this request, so I immediately gave the most convincing reason to ease his mood.
‘We are not getting anywhere with the War against the Mage if we don’t find out anything. We can’t start soon enough, and maybe he is less careful at the beginning of the year. I know that Snow always returns early, and I dare to say he meets with the Mage. Maybe I can find out something when they are not prepared.’
His eyebrow dropped again and I read approval in his eyes. I was too relieved with how easy it was to roll my eyes at his only interest. At the same time, I tried not to cringe at myself with the reason why I wanted to return earlier, leaving my family and house behind.
‘Please, Basil,’ Mordelia whined while I was folding some dress shirts into the most perfect squares you can imagine, ‘you are the whole year at school! You promised to bake a Furby cake with me!’
‘Maybe you need to see a doctor, Mordy, because for some reason my mind reminds me we baked a Furby cake three days ago. And last week. And before that also two or three times.’ Mordelia was obsessed with Furbys this summer, but I didn’t worry too much. Last summer, she had a voodoo phase and we had survived even worse hypes. The cakes were good, I had to admit that, but that was not because she had done much about it. It was all mine and Vera’s work, and after four cakes, it had been enough. And definitely because Mordelia kept going on that ‘we hadn’t made cake yet’.
‘But you never even ate it!’ she cried out and I didn’t answer her. I just went to the bathroom to pack my stuff. The sooner I was done, the sooner I could go hunt and go to bed. I hoped I would be able to sleep because I wanted to appear fabulous at school. Once you had a reputation, you had standards to live up to.
‘When do you come back?’ Mordelia pouted.
‘For your birthday. End November You know that, you asked me yourself.’ I haven’t returned to Hampshire for birthdays for three years. I wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate with my father next to me who pointedly ignored my coming-out. But now that Mordelia was older and there were things expected from me, I decided I could handle one more awkward dinner.
‘But that is so long,’ she whines, drawing out the o. I start to lose my patience and turn to her, but I don’t have a chance to pick at her, because she says: ‘I miss you, Basil.’
I froze. She stood there in her way too long T-shirt of Linkin Park I once gave her to irritate my father, and she clenched her right hand in her sleeve, something she had always done since she was a little kid and about to cry. All my frustration disappeared, and I opened my arms. She ran to me and hugged me so hard I almost gasped, but I didn’t, because you know, power strength. I lifted her up, placed her on my hip and she instinctively acted like a koala by consuming my body with her legs and arms. I huffed out a laugh and I rubbed at her back.
‘I’m sorry, little puff. But we can still call and chat. I will even write a letter if you want to.’ Daphne had given her her old phone to keep in touch with me since she used to cry sometimes last year because she missed me. My heart broke when she told me, and I wrote her a letter as a surprise. She was so happy I never stopped, and apparently she kept them all. Seems that she liked receiving letters more than receiving texts.
Snow used to think I was plotting. Of course. He glared at me while writing and I heard him complaining about my obvious evil plans to Bunce. He had tried for weeks to find out what I was doing, until one day, he didn’t. I guess he found one of them because I swear I had hidden the letter I was writing the night before somewhere else and Snow is dumb enough to not put things back where he found them. The next week, he had left me alone, until there was something else to accuse me from.
‘Will you write on that blue glitter paper I gave you?’ Mordelia asked me, voice muffled from her hiding space in my hair. I grinned, imagining how Snow would react when he would see blue glitter brief paper on my desk. He would probably think I was collaborating with fairies, plotting his downfall.
‘I don’t know about that, Mordy. We’ll see.’ Even though I would like to see Snow's reaction, I wasn’t very thrilled about using that paper. It was ridiculous. But Mordelia looked at me with pleading eyes and I sighed: ‘Maybe only on special occasions.’ Knowing she wasn’t getting more, she nodded seriously as though we just made an important business deal. It was adorable.
After that, she went to her mom and I went to the forest behind the house. Enjoying the silence and a rabbit or two, I imagined how tomorrow would go. My head betrayed me by wandering off to the dark side again. I saw the blue eyes that had plagued my entire summer behind my eyelids and I let it be. I was tired of trying to switch my thoughts to something more boring than his boring plain normal blue eyes.
I couldn’t wait to see them in real life.