Work Text:
Tiberius straightened his evening wear, setting the creased photo aside. They’d been so young, once. Before Longbottom, before Grindelwald and glory, before the Lestranges, before the firewhiskey business had kept him too busy to see what might have been.
Her chestnut curls and bright eyes filled his thoughts. She’d changed over the years, her youth and innocence retreating before grief and hard won perseverance.
He’d been young then, too, all fire and certitude, cocksure in his moral absolutes. He’d chased wartime glory, only to realize too late—he had missed the important things in life.
He straightened.
It was time.
He collected his walking stick. The Ministry’s Season Opening Gala would wait no longer.
Self-important twits.
Standing idle, blind to the glittering fools, he drank in her fire.
Burning bright as ever.
She had aged like a fine whiskey. Her eyes held experience and knowledge, but the turn of her head, the spark of her magic still ensnared him.
Always would.
The young would never know why she wore the vulture over her head, always under a circling death.
But he understood those who scavenged their joy.
He kissed the air over her hand.
“Augusta, come stand near the Tiber.”