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Alaric had just put the pancakes on the table when the doorbell rang.
“She’s here!” Damon said, excitedly, almost skipping out of the kitchen and towards the entrance hall.
Smiling to himself at the child-like glee that illuminated Damon, like clockwork, every other Saturday, Alaric called through to the lounge to let the girls know that breakfast was ready.
Lizzie stormed into the kitchen and collapsed into a chair with a petulant crash. Josie followed closely behind her, shooting her father and apologetic look on her twin’s behalf. Finally, Hope entered and took a seat in miserable silence.
Alaric sighed. This had been getting worse all break. Hope was frustrated that she hadn’t been allowed to go home for the vacation, due to whatever violent and bloody conflict happened to be playing out on the streets of New Orleans this year. And the twins (or, more specifically, Lizzie) hadn’t taken kindly to Hope’s intrusion onto their family time — particularly since, with Caroline’s absence in Europe, they were already feeling deprived of parental attention. But Alaric had been surprised by the sheer vehemence of Lizzie’s jealousy: at the best of times, she cruelly excluded the older the girl; at the worst, under the guise of practicing her magic, she would “accidentally” set fire to Hope’s clothes, flood her bedroom, or turn her hair an unflattering shade of grey.
Not for the first time, Alaric wondered if it shouldn’t be Caroline who was here, taking care of their unorthodox family, while he went out to search for the solution to the Merge. In the few months since the twins had become teenagers their motivations had become more and more puzzling to him, and he was sure that their mother would have a better idea of how best to defuse the mounting tension in the household. But Caroline was right — she, as a vampire, could compel the information they needed from her sources (or even use more violent methods, if it proved necessary). He, a middle-aged headmaster, could do… what, exactly? Lecture them into submission?
… And speaking of mounting tension, Alaric could hear the rumble of raised voices coming from the entrance hall. Uh oh.
Inviting the teenagers to help themselves to the assortment of pastries, pancakes, and breakfast meats spread out on the table (and hoping vainly that they’d be able to stay civil until he returned), Alaric hurried to the front of the school.
As he approached, Alaric could make out the familiar tones of an argument which, though the precise subject matter always changed, he had been witness to many more times than he would have liked.
“She’s too young,” he heard Damon complain, angrily. “An 8-year old shouldn’t be caught up in all of this yet.”
“She’s hardly a normal 8-year old, Damon,” was Elena’s reply, delivered in a voice thick with irritation.
Alaric quickly took in the scene: Damon scowling, radiating righteous indignation; Elena’s arms crossed over her chest in a defensive posture; and the young girl standing between them, deep blue eyes fixed on a colourful hardback clasped in her hands, as her parents bickered above her. Just your typical second Saturday at the Salvatore School, Alaric thought, wearily.
“There she is!” Alaric interrupted, kneeling down and sweeping the dark haired child up into a bear hug. At his appearance, Elena visibly relaxed and the fire in Damon’s blazing eyes died down a little.
“What have you got there?” Alaric asked, indicating the book Stefanie held in front of her.
“Mommy’s been reading me Harry Potter!”
“Oh, has she?” he replied. Alaric, who had listened patiently to Damon’s many rants about “that toxic woman” and her "transphobic nonsense", now understood the source of the current disagreement.
“Tell you what, Steffie: how about you go and show the twins? They started reading the books at about your age, and I’m pretty sure Hope has read them too. Everyone’s just getting started on breakfast in the kitchen.”
Stefanie needed no more encouragement, and she set off towards the kitchen at a run.
“Careful on the…!” Damon called out, but Stefanie had already disappeared around a corner.
“You can’t protect her forever, Damon,” Elena said, as much in response to their earlier argument as to Damon’s concern about the slippery floors of the old boarding house.
“I’m not trying to protect her forever, I’m trying to protect her for now. You want to give her a book where a bunch of kids run off and face supernatural danger alone? In Mystic Falls, where there’s something that could hurt her around every corner?”
“It’s Harry Potter, Damon. It’s everywhere! Do you really think that a little girl, who spends every other weekend with you and your… with you and Ric at a school for witches, vampires, and werewolves isn’t going to be curious and seek them out by herself, anyway? At least this way, she’s reading rather than just watching the films!”
Alaric cringed internally at Elena’s hesitation in describing his and Damon’s relationship. He and Damon still hadn’t spoken seriously about what exactly they were to each other, and he knew that it was putting their friends in an awkward situation. Everyone knew that something was going on between them, of course. Damon had moved into the boarding house after the breakdown of his marriage three years ago and, just over a year after that, had moved back into his old bedroom — a bedroom that Alaric, as headmaster of the Salvatore School, was currently occupying.
Not that they could have hidden anything, even if they had been less open about sharing a bed, in a school filled with students and teachers with supernatural senses. But Alaric knew that Elena and Caroline (not to mention Bonnie, Matt, Jeremy, and the rest of their found family of misfits) would feel more comfortable if they had some simple terminology that they could use to talk with each other and to their daughters: “Dad’s off to Richmond with his boyfriend tomorrow” or “Show as much respect to his partner as you would to your father!” Not to mention the fact that Caroline still wasn’t sure if she should be sending Damon and Alaric separate or joint invitations to the events she arranged for the Salvatore School or the Founders Council — it must be driving her mad!
The problem, though, was that he and Damon didn’t yet have a label to share with their friends. In the beginning, they’d been worried about defining things because they weren’t sure that this stolen comfort would last. How could it, with the needs of their daughters, their shared histories with Elena, and the constant demands of a school filled with supernatural teenagers? But, now, even though Damon had tried to start the conversation on a couple of occasions, Alaric had put it off, worried that, by naming it, they might break the spell and destroy the unexpected peace they’d found with each other.
“I think Elena’s right here, Damon,” Alaric said, eliciting a venomous look from the raven-haired man. “It’s not like you can pretend the books don’t exist. If Stefanie doesn’t learn about them from the two of you, she’s just going to learn about them from someone else. And I understand how you feel about the author — I really do — but I don’t think that an 8 year old’s going to be subscribing to her Twitter feed anytime soon. If Stefanie ever hears about any of that, we can talk about it with her then.”
Elena shot a grateful look at Alaric, while Damon continued to glare in a way that suggested this conversation was far from over. Fine: they could discuss this more later. Now, though, it was time to finally eat the breakfast that Alaric had spent the first hour of his weekend preparing. Gesturing to Elena and Damon to follow him, Alaric headed towards the scent of coffee and maple syrup that was emanating from the kitchen.
This blended family breakfast had become a regular ritual every other Saturday, when Elena dropped Stefanie off at the Salvatore School. When he had first suggested it, Alaric had thought that it would make things easier, allowing them all to become more comfortable in their new roles. Instead, it more often felt like he’d signed himself up to a voluntary, fortnightly torture session. But it was a torment he knew he would keep subjecting himself to, for as long as the time spent together made Stefanie happy. Because, when Stefanie was happy, Damon’s eyes lit up with joy.
When they got back to the kitchen, Alaric was relieved to see that World War III hadn’t yet kicked off between the teenagers. Instead, Stefanie was bouncing up and down excitedly, Lizzie’s phone in her hand.
“Mommy, Daddy!” she bubbled, “I’m a Ravenclaw!”
Alaric smiled. Unscientific as an online quiz may be, he had to admit that it had probably hit the nail on the head this time. Stefanie had always possessed a fierce inquisitiveness, delighting in puzzles and demanding to be taught how to read as soon as she discovered that adults had a secret code she wasn’t yet able to crack.
Elena and Damon looked at her daughter proudly, a rare moment of unity between them.
“Just like your Uncle Stefan,” Elena said in a hushed tone, a mixture of fondness and loss flitting across her expression at the memory.
Alaric had wondered at the time if they were putting too much pressure on the girl, naming her after Stefan. That was a weighty mountain of expectation to pile up on such narrow shoulders. But, as it turned out, Stefanie had ended up being very much like her uncle: thoughtful, empathetic, and prone to moments of serious introspection that would have seemed comical on the face of an 8 year old if they hadn’t reminded everyone so poignantly of their fallen friend.
Damon placed an affectionate kiss on his daughter’s head, then helped her to load up her plate with food.
“What are you, dad?” Stefanie asked, mouth full of pancake, “Are all the Salvatores Ravenclaws, like all of the Weasleys are Gryffindors?
Damon grinned widely at her excitement, eyes sparkling. His concerns about the contents of the books seemed to have been eroded in the face of his daughter’s enthusiasm. “I haven’t taken the sorting hat quiz, poppet. I’m afraid I’m not a huge Harry Potter fan.”
Elena was unable to hide her laughter at Damon’s words. “He doesn’t need the Sorting Hat to know he’s not a Ravenclaw, honey! It’s pretty obvious what house your father would be in.”
Their brief moment of consensus had been broken. Damon — as he tended to do with any comment Elena made about him — took offence and snorted, “Oh, obvious, is it?”
Alaric could see the emotion flare in Elena’s eyes and wondered what she might have said if Stefanie hadn’t been present. “You sometimes do bad things for no reason”; “You don’t care if you hurt people to get what you want”; “You’re still punishing me for a single mistake I made three years ago.” Instead, she went with the bland, “Well, you do wear a lot of green. And even you admit that you can be a bit selfish at times.”
Lizzie, with the hair trigger temper of a teenager, was outraged at even this mild criticism. “There’s nothing wrong with being a Slytherin!” she hissed, through gritted teeth.
It seemed that it was obvious what house Lizzie would be in, too. Alaric wondered if this was something he should have known already — maybe he did need to find more time for father-daughter bonding.
Elena, realising she’d caused unintentional collateral damage, tried her best to placate the blonde teenager, “Of course not, Lizzie! That’s not what I meant at all!”
Damon, never one to let go of a subject which had the potential to cause his ex-wife discomfort, chimed in, provocatively, “Given that one of your best friends is a Slytherin, Elena, I would hope not!”
Elena looked surprised at this statement. “Who? Bonnie?! She’s a Gryffindor through and through!”
Damon affected boredom as he responded, “Well, d’uh. She’s just like Ric here. All self-sacrificing valour; no strategy. Case in point: the downstairs bathroom. It’s still out of action because someone, in a misguided fit of chivalry, decided to pull apart the sink without a plan for how to put it back together again.”
Alaric was about to argue that, actually, the part he needed was just on back-order and he would be able to fix it in a few weeks time; but the fact that he hadn’t purchased the part before dismantling the sink may just be proving Damon’s point.
Damon continued, “But who do you know who’s resourceful, ambitious, manipulative — easily able to convince, say, an Original vampire to give her the funding she needs for a crazy idea like a supernatural school?”
Alaric raised an eyebrow, “For someone who isn’t a fan of the books, you sure know a lot about the Hogwarts houses…”
“As you’ve said yourself, Ric: they’ve been hard to avoid,” Damon replied dryly.
Elena didn’t look like she was convinced by Damon’s assertion of Caroline’s house affiliation, but she was eager to soothe Lizzie and so took the escape that had been offered to her, “See, honey? Your mom is one of the best people we know, and she’s got some Slytherin traits! There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, as long as your goal is to help people rather than to hurt them.”
Lizzie’s face was still thunderous, so Elena turned instead to the red-haired girl beside her who had, up to this point, been eating her breakfast in silence, “What about you, Hope? Do you like the books? Have you ever done the Sorting Hat quiz?”
Hope replied, politely, “They’re ok, I guess. It was nice to read about another kid growing up in a situation a bit like mine, even though the magic is all weird and wrong.” She took another bite of her croissant. When it became clear that more was expected of her, she continued, “And I got Gryffindor when I did the quiz.”
This was, apparently, the wrong answer.
“Fantastic.” Lizzie’s voice dripped with acid. “Just one more thing that you and dad have in common.”
Alright, that had crossed a line. Alaric knew that Lizzie felt neglected, but that was no need to be rude. He was going to have to bring out Angry Dad Voice. He hated using Angry Dad Voice. “Lizzie,” Alaric warned, “I will not have that kind of behaviour around this table. Hope is our guest for the break and you will treat her hospitably or you will eat your breakfast in your room.”
Hope began to say “It’s ok, Prof. Saltz-“
But Lizzie’s fuse had been particularly short this morning, and she had already exploded. “Well, sor-ry!” she shouted, “We can’t all be Hufflepuffs like Josie and Aunt Elena!”
Lizzie threw her cutlery onto the table with a clatter and stormed out of the kitchen. Josie excused herself, following her sister with an apologetic shrug.
Alaric sighed. He’d have to find out what that outburst had been about later. For now, though, he was at least going to finish his coffee before wading back into the maelstrom of teenage angst that awaited him.
Stefanie, always curious, was more interested by Lizzie’s Hogwarts reference than by the performance that had followed, “Why is Lizzie sad she’s not a Hufflepuff?” she asked, “What are they like?”
Elena answered her daughter, “I think Lizzie meant that, in the books, Hufflepuffs seem to find it easy to follow the rules and get on with people. And Lizzie sometimes struggles with that. But, really, anyone from any of the houses can be kind and helpful if they try hard enough. If you listen to the Sorting Hat, what’s really special about Hufflepuffs is that they value loyalty above everything else.”
While Alaric appreciated the moral lesson that Elena had been trying to impart to Stefanie, he groaned inwardly at her choice of wording. Elena’s implicit identification of herself as a loyal Hufflepuff was obviously going to trigger a response from Damon.
Sure enough, Alaric felt Damon tense dangerously beside him. He reached down and planted a soothing hand on the dark-haired man’s knee, trying to remind him of where they were and who might get hurt if he allowed himself to lose control.
For his daughter’s sake, Damon managed to calm himself, though he couldn’t resist a sarcastic, “And you’re, obviously, a Hufflepuff.”
Elena, sensibly, bit her tongue, not wanting to reopen old wounds.
That had been the final nail in the coffin of their marriage: the question of loyalty.
To Elena, loyalty meant holding on, clinging with the very tips of your finger nails to the remnants of something broken, trying to keep it together until there was nothing left. When, after months of bitter arguments and angry tears, she had found a night of escape in the arms of one of her fellow medical students, Elena had returned to Damon, raw with guilt and self-loathing, but expecting them to try to fix things together.
For Damon, loyalty was a pledge of fidelity that, once broken, became worthless. Just as his feelings for Katherine had turned on a dime after he’d discovered her betrayal, so, too, his love for Katherine’s doppelgänger turned immediately to seething contempt when he learned of her indiscretion. And, while, in time, the blaze of his anger had died down, a festering resentment still lingered.
Alaric, as Elena’s surrogate father and Damon’s best friend, had been stuck in the middle of it. As he watched their marriage break down, he was helpless to stop it. It wasn’t due to anything that could be fixed or mitigated; instead, it was the fundamental incompatibility of a couple who, having been swept away in the whirlwind of an epic romance, discovered that they had nothing in common when real life set in. And while, of course, he could empathise with Damon’s heartbreak, he also had sympathy for Elena — he was no stranger to the stupid choices you could make when confronted with the bitter disappointment of a happily ever after that didn’t make you happy at all. In the end, all he’d been able to offer to Elena was a shoulder to cry on, and to Damon a teaching position at the Salvatore School that let him return to the boarding house and remain close to his daughter in Mystic Falls.
They ate in tense silence for a few moments, as Damon struggled to swallow whatever barbed words were trying to escape his mouth and Elena bristled at Damon’s hostility.
Thankfully, the quiet was broken by another of Stefanie’s characteristic questions. This time she wanted to know why Hope didn’t have a wand like Harry. Stefanie wasn’t really old enough yet to follow a discussion of magical theory, so Hope’s answer quickly descended into her levitating strawberries around the breakfast table as Stefanie tried to grab them out of the air, giggling joyfully whenever she did so.
The sound of their daughter’s laughter was enough to draw Damon and Elena into an uneasy truce for the rest of the meal.
* * *
Later that night, once Stefanie had fallen asleep in the next room, Damon and Alaric lay in bed together. Damon’s head rested in its habitual position on Alaric’s chest, while Alaric’s strong arms wrapped around him.
In the darkness, Alaric whispered softly, “Elena’s right, you know. It is obvious what house you’d be in.”
Damon, snuggled closer. “Urgh, I hate how adult and reasonable you are when it comes to my ex,” he said, in a tone that suggested he didn’t really hate it at all. “Ok: lay it on me. What tragic character flaws meant Damon Salvatore was always destined for darkness?”
Alaric chuckled gently, “Well, yes, you can be ruthless, particularly when you’re protecting someone you love, and we both know that’s taken you to some dark places in the past. But you’re also brave — sometimes stupidly so, especially now that you’re no longer a vampire and have a young daughter. You’re even smart, in those rare moments when you stop running on instinct long enough to think things through.”
Although Alaric couldn’t see him in the darkness, he could imagine Damon’s familiar scowl at his gentle jibes.
“But if we’re talking about your fundamental character trait, the thing that drives most of your actions…
“Well, let’s see. You loved Katherine for a century and a half and never gave up on her, however hopeless it seemed.” Alaric gently ran the backs of his fingernails along Damon’s forearm.
“You spent most of your life protecting Stefan, even when he didn’t want you to, even when he hated you for it.” Alaric traced a soft trail up the smooth skin of Damon’s bicep.
“You couldn’t leave Enzo in that fire without turning off your humanity, and, even with your emotions off, you still spent fifty years avenging him.” Alaric’s fingers glided up Damon’s neck to rest underneath his chin.
“When the rest of us had given up hope, you refused to accept that Bonnie was stuck in the prison world and kept searching for ways to free her.” Alaric angled Damon’s face up towards his own, and lowered his own head until their mouths were almost touching.
“You’ve put yourself in danger a hundred times over to protect this town and this school, although you never get credit for it.” Alaric captured Damon’s waiting lips in a deep kiss.
“And you stayed here with me, even though I haven’t able to make you any promises. Even though it’s taken me so long to be ready.” Alaric’s voice caught slightly in his throat as he hugged his lover closer to his chest.
The fact that it had been Damon — Damon, the self-centred asshole whose own life was crashing down around him — who had been the one to notice never failed to surprise Alaric.
It was Damon who had smelled the hint of bourbon on the headmaster’s breath the first thing in the morning, who had spotted the gleam of hidden bottles behind books and trinkets, who had noticed how things were beginning to slip in the running of the school. So Damon, who would have liked nothing more than to drown his sorrows in the company of his best friend, had, instead, suggested that they start training together. Every morning, they ran and lifted weights and grappled with each other until their muscles ached. For the first few months, Damon — whose body was physically younger and bore no signs of the century and a half of abuse it had been put through as a vampire — had kicked Alaric’s ass. But every morning it had gotten easier: easier to put off that first drink until after breakfast, then after lunch, and then, finally, after dinner. Eventually, as his former musculature had returned and he lost the traces of what his daughters affectionately referred to as “dad bod”, Alaric’s height and weight advantage had come into play and he’d started winning. And, just as Damon had approved of the changes in Alaric’s lifestyle, the way that his eyes lingered on Alaric’s biceps or his arms held Alaric for a few moments longer than strictly necessary when they wrestled, suggested that he also approved of the changes in his friend’s body.
But Alaric had needed a friend, and so Damon had been that friend, waiting, patiently, until Alaric was ready for something more. And, a year later, when Alaric had finally plucked up the courage to accept Damon’s unspoken invitation, Damon had welcomed Alaric — awkward and out of practice though he was — and acted like he was the lucky one.
The memories prompted Alaric to place a tender kiss on Damon’s head, as he cradled him in his arms. “Like I said: it’s obvious what house you’d be in.”
“Bleurgh: Gryffindor sentimentality,” Damon grumbled into Alaric’s chest, feigning disgust. But he snuggled closer into the larger man as he did so. “Don’t tell anyone. It would ruin my reputation.”
Alaric didn’t tell anyone.
But the next Christmas, when he bought Stefanie a Ravenclaw scarf, he also picked up a small, private present that he left on Damon’s pillow: yellow and black striped boxer shorts embroidered with a cuddly-looking badger.