#also trigger warnings for: blood drug use and some gender dysphoria that's not really addressed

[lennoxfraser-blog]

When I Run Out of Road (You’ll Bring Me Home) | Lennox & August | 12k (rip)

Everything was awash in hues of gold and pink when Lennox stepped outside of Hogwarts castle.

He’d thrown off his robes the moment class had ended, dumping his dirty shirt and trousers in the washing basket, knowing the elves would take care of it over the weekend. Glad to be rid of them, he’d walked around the dorm in just his underwear for a bit, revelling in the feeling of his skin breathing. Though slightly cold, as it always was in the Ravenclaw Tower, Lennox threw everything out of his backpack – books, quills, parchment – and replaced it with what he’d need. Pulling on clothes only when he heard feet on the stairs, Lennox was dressed and ready to leave before dinner was even beginning to be prepared.

The grounds were crisp with twilight, the promise of rain in Scotland far from a miracle and more a warm guarantee after a long day. Lennox took in a deep breath and set off, keeping to the tree line of the grounds to avoid being seen any more than he already was. Highly visible – tall, broad shouldered - it was difficult for Lennox to sneak anywhere. But he walked with confidence, a kind of swagger as though where he was were exactly the place he wanted – and was supposed – to be. And anyone that called him on it knew what they’d get: a mouth full of biting sarcasm and the scowl of a lifetime. Lennox was grateful for the reputation he’d built sometimes; glad that people left him alone on the whole, even if sometimes he thought it worked a little too well.

Ducking through the trees, Lennox found the small gap – barely big enough for a dog, let alone a six-foot-something man – and pushed through. The gap was one of many that had opened up over the years by crafty students eager to slip away from Hogwarts for a night out. Or, in Lennox’s case, a trip home. It took him from the grounds and into Other – a path that would soon become a direct route to Hogsmeade, but that wasn’t the destination tonight.

The trees were thick and the sound of his feet on the leaf litter quiet, everything damp and cold from lack of sunlight and eternal rain. Sticks were rotten through and snapped easily underfoot, while moss grew in thick clumps from branches and rocks. If Lennox wasn’t careful, the path would become slippery – one wrong step, and he’d twist or break his ankle. But he’d been sneaking home for long enough to know this small patch of woods well enough; an overgrown path – mostly dirt and mud – had been tracked through the darkness, leading him to safety. Lennox knew that he wasn’t the only one who came through here – there were all kinds of footprints engraved in the ground – but it was quiet now; this was all his.

He considered what awaited him at home. Loren, first and foremost, was at the front of Lennox’s mind – his baby brother, barely three months old, eyes brown and hair dark. He looked like a Fraser ought to look, and that made Lennox’s heart settle in his chest; if Loren was a Fraser, he could handle anything that came his way. But beneath the thought of his brother was his mother and father – probably exhausted, over-tired, looking broken. He hated what parenthood had done to them, like it had drained them of whatever had remained until now, there seemed like there was nothing left to give. Lennox worried for Loren being left there: worried that his father might forget that there was a baby to care about, to hold when he cried, to feed periodically.

A spike of fear went through Lennox as he scratched at the old thought of going home to find Loren hurt or—worse. Of finding that they’d neglected their own son because they’d been too caught up in themselves to remember the baby that cried in the next room.

His face, he could feel, was twisted into a frown as he picked his way through the rapidly-darkening forest, and he carefully and deliberately kept his mind blank as he walked to his usual spot. The rock was the size of a hippogriff, chipped away by rain and wind and time. There was no particular reason for his stopping here; maybe it was because his Apparition lessons had always drilled into him that having a marker was key. Lennox didn’t like the idea of apparating back into the forest and thinking vaguely of the path that he’d just walked – that was one guaranteed way to get splinched. Instead, he always apparated from the rock, and when he returned, he’d apparate back. Routine was key.

Hitching his bag higher on his shoulders and casting one final look around the forest – making sure he wasn’t followed – Lennox gripped his wand and had just cemented in his mind the letterbox of the Fraser property. It was the boundary to which wizards and witches could apparate; any closer made you feel as though you were bouncing off a forcefield, and Lennox had his mother to thank for that. But the letterbox swam in his mind’s eye, and there was a tingle in his toes, when there came through the grey haze of twilight a figure.

Pale, with hair the colour of straw, Lennox squinted as he watched the person lurch unsteadily, gripping onto the trunk of a tree for all it was worth. Putting the hair and the unsteady way they walked together, Lennox had a fair idea of who it was.

He considered just apparating out and leaving August there to fend for himself. No one would believe the Hufflepuff boy that he’d seen Lennox out in the forest, but then again, August might collapse and not make it back to the castle. The truth was that Lennox didn’t care for August – never had. He had no love for a boy who kept himself high in order to avoid reality, nor did he care for a person who pushed himself into everyone’s personal space, privacy, and orbit simply because he was scared to be alone. Lennox had endured August’s presence around the Ravenclaw dorms since he’d shacked up with Solomon, and it had been a long and arduous trial for nearly two years.

A spiteful part of him entertained the idea of watching August pass out and leave him lying there. Let the wolves and foxes do with him as they liked.

But the closer that August stumbled, Lennox saw something red splashed across the boy’s face, and a begrudging concern took over. Sighing, he rounded the rock and strode toward August – who hadn’t even noticed that Lennox was there until Lennox’s hand was on his shoulder.

“Oh.” August looked up, eyes unfocused and nearly crossing over in the effort to focus on Lennox. “Tall.”

The blood was on August’s brow, a fine cut that arched from the tip of his eyebrow to the top of his cheekbone.

“Come here, for fuck’s sake,” Lennox muttered, and he hoisted August up under the armpits until he was ninety percent upright. “Can you stand?”

August’s head lolled back and rolled to the side, as though his entire spine had been liquefied.

“That’s a no,” Lennox said. “Jesus, how much did you take?”

Lennox didn’t need to exert much strength to lift August over to the rock – he weighed barely anything, just a pile of bones in a floppy skin sack – and sit him down on it. Patting the boy’s pockets, Lennox found a zip-lock sachet packet, which contained one pill. In another pocket, he found a clean syringe. In another, he found a tiny, almost-empty vial. Something sunk like a stone in Lennox’s stomach, and he didn’t need to be a genius to calculate that August had taken a lot.

“How’d you get this?” Lennox asked, kneeling in front of August and, tucking the sleeve of his jacket under his fingers, used the hem to wipe at the blood on August’s face.

The boy didn’t seem to feel pain at all – he sat there, staring at something distantly over Lennox’s shoulder.

“August.” Lennox’s sleeve was soaking, and he turned it around, continuing to mop his face. But whatever he’d taken had thinned his blood, and it flowed freely from the wound. Lennox pressed the heel of his palm against the cut, applying pressure like Rhys had taught him. “August.”

Finally, the dull, vacant eyes in August’s head slid to Lennox. It was as though they were operated by machinery, rather than a working brain and thriving soul; there was something lost within them, as though they’d flickered out somewhere along the way. It made a shiver skitter down Lennox’s spine, and he forced himself to look away – at the blood leaking around his palm.

“Can you hear me?” Lennox said, eyes darting down to August’s then back up. Using his free hand, he cupped the back of August’s neck, just as the boy started to sag.

“Warm.”

Lennox looked down again. “What?”

“Warm.” A loose smile hung off August’s lips, the blood drained from them. “The sky.”

“Right, yeah,” Lennox followed August’s eyes up, and through the canopy – as dense as it was – there was a flash of orange; the last gasp of a sunset. “Warm.”

When he looked down, August’s eyes were closed, and not in a I’m-tired-so-let’s-sleep way. It made Lennox think of death; of someone going to sleep and not waking up.

“Fucking hell,” he whispered, and withdrew his hand from August’s face. The blood still flowed. “I’m not going to be responsible for your corpse, buddy.”

Working quickly, Lennox grabbed his wand and used a quick severing spell to tear a long strip from his shirt hem. Winding it around August’s head – tight enough to apply pressure, but not tight enough to kill what was left of August’s brain cells – Lennox knotted it and stood.

He had three options.

One, turn around and take August to the Hospital Wing, giving him over to the care of Madame Pomfrey. Questions would be asked, and Lennox wouldn’t be going home.

Two, apparate and take August to St. Mungo’s. Questions would be asked, August would get into trouble, and Lennox didn’t like to be a snitch.

Three, and even though it made disgust unfurl in his stomach to even think it, he could take August home and give him over to Rhys, a trained Healer. Rhys wouldn’t tell, August would live, and Lennox could take August back to Hogwarts quick smart.

His mind already made up, Lennox picked August up in his arms and disapparated, thinking of the letterbox at the edge of the Fraser property.

*

There was no going back when Lennox’s feet hit gravel, and he was staring up the driveway. It curved, hedged by tall trees so that he couldn’t see his house, but he knew there must be lights. Glancing down, Lennox saw that the makeshift bandage on August’s head was already soaked through and he started walking quickly, the stones beneath his boots crunching loudly. The noise heralded his arrival to the dogs, who came ripping out from behind the house, barking and making a fuss.

Lennox whistled and Whiting and Acton both heeled, recognising him. They jumped, pogoing around Lennox on long, bandy legs, tongues out and eyes bright.

“Missed you boys,” Lennox said, grinning down at them as he walked. “Go back, go on.”

They ignored him, and Lennox steered around the front door and headed for the back. He climbed the porch steps, noting the lights on around the house as he walked – kitchen, hall, bedroom. It was a full house, everyone still awake, and when Lennox toed open the back door, he was met by footsteps thudding down the staircase.

A moment later, Rhys’ face changed from pleased surprise to professional concern. “Get him on the couch,” he said, holding open the screen for Lennox as he shouldered through, hefting August up a little higher in his arms.

The house was warm and smelled like baby powder, and Lennox’s heart rose through the ceiling until it found Loren, probably asleep or with his mother. He wanted to go to him so badly, but he was anchored in his own body, holding August.

Rhys was asking a thousand questions, all stacking on top of each other.

“Slow the fuck down,” Lennox grunted, placing August on the couch. “He’s hurt. Cut doesn’t look big, but big enough that he’s losing a shit tonne of blood faster than I can stop it.”

“Why’s he bleeding so much?” Rhys said, beginning to unwind the bandage.

“You’re the Healer!” Lennox replied, throwing up his hands. “If it helps, he’s high.”

Rhys’ eyebrows rose, and once the bandage was off, he immediately pried August’s eyes open. Using the tip of his wand, Rhys shone a small lumos into his pupil.

“He’s really high,” Rhys corrected, shining his wand’s light into the eye other. “What did he take?”

“I don’t know,” Lennox said, worry forming a lump in his throat. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.” Rhys rushed to the kitchen and came back with a towel. “Hold this to his head, I’ll be back.”

The Healer dashed upstairs where he kept his supplies, and Lennox knelt beside the boy he barely knew. He’d had maybe a handful of conversations with August, and none of them while August had been sober – he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen August sober. They’d been around one another at parties, of course – the pureblood kind where everyone nursed a glass of something and wore their best dress robes. Lennox could remember the way August’s father had looked at him when being introduced; he couldn’t blame them, not really – he was a halfblood in a pureblood world. To them, he was less, and certainly had no place among them, no matter how well the Thornbrooks dressed him.

But August hadn’t minded, though if Lennox remembered correctly, August had been high enough not to mind much at all. Lennox had stood with Fitz and August and a few others, most of it stiff and purposely polite, not wanting to be overheard by their relatives. But there was an understanding at those parties that this – the people they were in that moment – wasn’t who they were going to be forever.

August had always seemed as though he got high to run from it, and Lennox pressed the towel harder against the boy’s head. He was pale, though the skin on his face was stained pinkish from the blood that Lennox had wiped. Long lashes slept on August’s cheeks, and Lennox knew, in an offbeat sort of way, that August was attractive. But he was Solo’s, and Lennox had never wanted to get involved in whatever it was the two of them had going on.

Lennox could hear Rhys above, saying something to his mother, and he left the towel against August’s head before rifling through the pockets of August’s coat once more. He pulled out the last remaining pill, the syringe, and the vial, placing them carefully on the coffee table that was overrun with books and papers of his father’s. The drug paraphernalia clashed with the domesticity of the Fraser home, and Lennox wondered again just what exactly he was doing bringing a known drug addict into the same place as his baby brother.

“Right,” Rhys said, bustling down the stairs, looking harried. “I’ve got something that should get him sober.”

Lennox frowned at the Healer. “Is this wise?”

“It’s that or bleed to death. The sooner his system is clear, his body can begin to heal itself. Whatever he’s taken—“

“This,” said Lennox, jerking his chin to the table as he placed his hand back on the towel against August’s head. “Found it in his pockets.”

Rhys’ look of concentration was absolute as he looked at the vial and pill. “Painkillers, of a questionable nature,” he mumbled, replacing them, then kneeling beside Lennox. “Maybe it’s best if he sleeps it off.”

“And his head?”

“I’ll heal it. It could reopen, but at least it’ll slow the bleeding.” Rhys’ face was as focused as Lennox had ever seen it. “Move back while I do it.”

Lennox released his grip on the towel and shuffled down, hovering on the ground near August’s thin legs. The boy was frighteningly thin, like whatever was plaguing him had first attacked his body. He had to keep reminding himself that August wasn’t his problem, and in fact, he had more than enough of his own to worry about without adding some kid that he barely knew to the mix.

Watching as Rhys peeled off the soaked towel to get a better look at the cut, Lennox started closing off the doors to his compassion for August. He’d see what the boy was like; how much attention and care he needed. Lennox wouldn’t let himself fall into that trap, so he closed himself off and stood up.

“I’m going to go see Loren,” he mumbled to Rhys, clapping him on the shoulder and leaving him to his work.

With enough practice over the years, it barely hurt to cut August out, just like that, and walk away.

The carpeted stairs muffled his footsteps as he climbed, his boots working the worn path in the middle of the staircase. The Fraser house was a family home – not fancy or expensive or particularly even beautiful, but there was a worn kind of love to its interior. Lennox knew every inch of the ceiling and floor; knew which handles stuck or those that creaked. He knew the floorboards that groaned when you put pressure on them, the hook on the wall that hadn’t been nailed in straight the first time around and now always tilted the frame it held. He knew the smells and sounds and textures of each room; the sun that warmed his mother’s bedroom or the dust that floated in his father’s study. The Fraser home was Lennox’s beating heart, and it never pulsed as strongly as when he was back there.

He could remember being young and away at the Thornbrook’s, dreaming of being back; of his mother’s arm and his father’s worn hands. He’d come to love his home more when he’d been away from it, and Hogwarts was the epitome of leaving – for so much of the year, Lennox was cloistered away in another part of the country, close but not close enough. Being able to apparate had made things easier, but Lennox could never come home as often as he liked.

There were lamps lit in the bedrooms, and Lennox made the familiar turn at the top of the stairs to duck into his mother’s room. It was warm, even now, long after the sun had set, as though she’d had a fire burning and just extinguished it before Lennox arrived. She was sitting up and nursing Loren in her arms, swaying slightly with her dark hair askew and mouth moving silently.

Alickina Fraser had once been a good mother. Lennox could remember his childhood – the one before she’d gotten sick – had been filled with days of his mother and father both sharing their knowledge and passions with their two children. Alickina by the piano; Alickina in the garden. She’d always had this smile when Flora or Lennox did something that made his heart clench; it was pride, he supposed, mixed with love – as though she were looking at her children and taking stock of how beautiful they were.

It’d been years since Lennox had seen that smile.

She didn’t glance up when Lennox walked in, but instead let her eyes remain focused solely on Loren, who was wearing a powder blue onesie. He looked bigger, and that hurt Lennox, too – hurt that he was missing so much of his brother’s life, hurt that he couldn’t be here to not notice the changes. But he looked well and round, tiny little fists twitching against his stomach and brown eyes open, staring up at his mother.

Envy and pride and an irrational sense of possessiveness consumed Lennox as he stood there, and when he felt like it might crack his chest clean open, he walked in, making himself known.

Alickina looked up. “Will you put him to bed, Hen?” she said easily, smiling. “I think he’s just about there.”

Hen. Lennox didn’t need to know more than that to guess it was a bad day, her mind slipping out of her control so much that she thought Lennox was his father. But he knew better than to correct her and possibly upset her – he’d done that before and caused her to spiral, to question things. She didn’t seem to be hallucinating, which was good, so Lennox smiled.

“Sure,” he said, voice rough like his father’s as he walked forward. She eased Loren into his waiting arms, eyes glued to her child’s face as Lennox straightened. Loren was warm in his arms, sleep-soft and eyes fluttering shut – but he caught sight of Lennox’s face and opened them again.

Alickina’s hand lingered on Lennox’s arm, the kind of touch a wife would give to her husband, and Lennox cleared his throat.

“I’ll go put him down and be back,” he said, and Alickina nodded, letting Lennox leave.

He felt like he could breathe when he was out of the bedroom, Loren safe in his arms and kicking against Lennox’s rib cage with oddly powerful legs for a baby. When he looked down, Loren was squirming in Lennox’s arms, looking up at him excitedly, a bubble of spit blooming from his lips.

“Missed you too, buddy,” Lennox said, using his remaining clean sleeve to wipe at the spit. “You been a good boy?”

There would be a day when Loren could reply, but for now his cheeks were pink and he struggled with his own body, and it was enough. Lennox leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Loren’s forehead, walking him down the hall to the nursery.

It looked the same, albeit more messy. Clean diapers spilled from the pack, while toys had been scattered across the floor, haphazard and begging for someone to twist their ankle on them. Lennox navigated by feel, kicking toys aside to clear a path through the dark before he laid Loren down in his crib. Leaving him to kick softly and soothe himself down to sleep, Lennox moved to the night light plugged into the wall and switched it on, blinking against the ocean-blue light that filled the room. The glow in the dark stars on the ceiling flickered.

From there, he was bent double, picking up all the toys and throwing them into the hamper. He folded the blankets, he reorganised the change table. He felt how empty the powder and oils were, making a mental note of which to buy more of, and which to tell Flora they’d need soon. Lennox tried not to think about how his parents were letting the care of Loren slip, just like he’d feared they would – and he tried not to think about what would happen if he or Flora stopped coming. Their weekends were now spent at home, cleaning and giving Rhys a hand where needed, but it was a lot – too much to ask of a teenager, and yet even Flora was stepping up to the plate.

Lennox checked on Loren, standing over the crib and looking down.

“Math gille,” (Good boy) Lennox said, seeing Loren’s eyes slipping closed. He was fighting it, constantly opening them up properly to stare back at Lennox, but they were too heavy. “Sleep, Loren.”

And he did, eyes staying shut. Lennox pulled the blanket up, tucking it around his brother and making sure his arm was beneath the cover before he done one last sweep of the room, locking the window. When he left, he pulled the door slightly closed, leaving it ajar to hear Loren’s cries, should they come.

But Loren’s room was just one corner of the house, and everywhere Lennox looked, the rest was falling apart. The same old, familiar tug of guilt worried at his heart as he walked away from Loren’s room, past Flora’s, and to his own. It was dark and cool inside, and he flicked on a lamp and toed his shoes off. The feeling of knowing he should be here, permanently, weighed on his shoulders, as heavy as the world on Atlas’. It was selfish to stay away, to play at education and the idea of having a future that was rewarding and fulfilling when Lennox knew – knew, deep in his bones where his soul was threaded – that he would always end up right back here.

He’d probably die here, right in this house, too.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the lopsided and overflowing bookcase, Lennox decided that he needed to stop thinking about the future. Whether he ended up working for the Minister or not was out of his control for the moment; and in the end, it hardly mattered – his family would always come first, no matter where he was or what he was doing. That wouldn’t change. But the path to get there was an immediate reality that Lennox was grappling with, a bitter pill that he refused to swallow, no matter how constantly it was shoved down his throat. He couldn’t bear being at school and wasting his time – no matter how much studying Theo crammed into him – when he could be doing something practical. It irritated him, made something restless and manic stir beneath his skin. Being idle was the enemy when you were in charge of everything, and the list of things to do was endless.

So what kept him there? Lennox’s mind flittered to his friends - the people he liked, and the people he told himself he didn’t. But he knew that if he had to, he could let go of them. It’d been easy with Solo, with Smith – he could do it again. Sever everything he had and just start clean – he could do it, for his family. Then why did he stay, if not for the people? And Lennox also knew that it was the promise he’d made his mother on one of her more sober days, clear-eyed and unfogged mind, that he and Flora would both graduate. He’d taken it seriously, keeping Flora in by tooth and claw, it felt like, but still enrolled nonetheless. If Lennox could give his mother nothing else, he’d give her that.

But the void between the promise and the reality of fulfilling that promise was eating him alive, and Lennox felt paralysed somewhere between decisions.

He flopped backward onto his bed, arms splayed out on either side of him. He hadn’t seen his father and he’d barely spoken a dozen words to Rhys, but he was tired – glad to be home, if only for a few days - but tired.

Lennox didn’t mean to fall asleep, but he woke to the sound of piercing cries. For a moment, he forgot where he was, and wondered what was happening in the Ravenclaw Tower. Was someone hurt? Was it some kind of alarm? His heart was hammering with adrenaline, and he was up and on his feet before he’d even properly opened his eyes – but when he did, seeing the dark shadows of his bookcase, his desk, he remembered where he was.

Loren.

Walking on autopilot, Lennox headed to the nursery, finding his father already there. The sight brought him up short: there was a wrongness to what he saw, standing in the doorway of Loren’s room.

His father, bending down over the crib. His father, lifting a squealing Loren up. His father, cradling the baby.

He was irrationally angry, the kind that made his head throb and his hands curl into fists – the dangerous, violent kind that he knew could make him blackout for a few seconds. It’d happened before; a useful party trick, if ever there was one. Lennox stared at his father with Loren, and the pang of jealous, bitter envy overwhelmed him so much so that it took sheer force of will to not walk forward and snatch Loren out of his father’s arms. The possessive thing in his chest that saw Loren as his own child was suffocating him, inside out, and Lennox turned away, head battling with itself – logic versus belief.

Unseeing, Lennox walked down the stairs, moving through the dark house, socked feet quiet on the carpet. The dogs were asleep on their beds, and Whiting’s head perked up as Lennox passed, dull eyes following him.

The iron fist that was clenched around his chest didn’t ease as Lennox opened the fridge and grabbed the carton of juice, or as he drank straight from the top. The light from within burned his eyes, and Lennox glanced away, still drinking steadily when he saw someone standing there, pale—

Lennox choked, the shock of seeing a person standing there, still. They were almost ghost-like in the dark, their skin the colour of the moon, and they were naked except for their underwear.

Gasping for air, Lennox blinked and realised it was August standing stock still in the middle of the living room. He replaced the carton back in the fridge and let the door close, cancelling the light and throwing August’s figure back into darkness.

Lennox had forgotten that August was even in the house.

“Go back to sleep, August,” Lennox said, staring at the place where he could see the pale lengths of August’s legs that seemed to glow with the broken light coming through the windows.

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“Why are you naked?”

August shuffled, the sound of hands rubbing at bare arms. “I got hot. Sweaty. I don’t know. I feel sticky.”

“Think it might have something to do with the shit you injected into yourself?” Lennox snapped, anger redirecting from his father on the floor above to August, standing in front of him. “You were absolutely wasted.”

August said nothing, and Lennox stared at the place where he knew August was standing, waiting for him to make a move. He didn’t.

Sighing heavily, Lennox walked to August and grabbed him by the arm. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” mumbled August as Lennox steered him, none-too-gently, through the living room and into the hall.

“Shower.”

“Oh.” August’s arm in Lennox’s hand was thin, bird-like. “Why?”

Lennox rolled his eyes in the dark. It was like taking care of a second baby, and Lennox felt frustrated that August’s care had fallen to him. He wanted none of the Hufflepuff’s life – didn’t even want him in the house, really – but felt as though he couldn’t say no. God knows what would happen to August if Lennox left him unattended for five minutes.

The bathroom on the ground floor was smaller and less used that the one upstairs – it became mostly a waystation for when Lennox was out in the yard and came in, dirty and tracking mud behind him. He’d wash up in here, arms up to his elbows under the tap and casting dirt all over the tile. Lennox had also spilled more than his fair share of blood here, too.

“Because,” Lennox said, flicking on the light and blinding himself for a moment. “You need to put clothes on, and you’re not putting clothes on if you’re—“

His words trailed off when he finally turned to look at August under the white light.

“Jesus,” and he immediately tugged August forward, shoving him onto the closed lid of the toilet. “You’re bleeding again.”

The blood wasn’t coming from the cut on his forehead this time – that Rhys had managed to heal, mostly – but instead from his nose, like he’d been punched. Lennox had had his fair share of nosebleeds, and ripped off a wad of toilet paper, shoving it under August’s nose.

“Why are you bleeding?” Lennox asked, bringing August’s own hand up to his face to hold the toilet paper there, while he reached for a cloth. “Did you hit your face or something?”

August’s eyes were glazed and far off, and Lennox snapped his fingers in front August’s face. The reaction was slow, as though August were wading through cement to get back to the present.

Lennox sighed, wetting the cloth, wringing it out, and kneeling in front of August.

The boy’s eyes dragged down, centimetre by centimetre, until they were looking at Lennox. It was unsettling the way a person could be there and also not; Lennox had seen it too much with his own mother, and he hated the shock of familiarity when he looked at August. Working quickly, Lennox pulled the toilet paper from August’s nose and started wiping with the warm cloth, trying to find some source of the blood – but it trickled from within.

“Does it hurt?” Lennox asked, looking from where he was cleaning the blood away to August’s eyes. There was no response. “Are. You. In. Pain?”

August’s smile was loose, dropping off his lips. “It always hurts,” August said, voice light. “Just sometimes less than others.”

“What does?” Lennox pressed.

“My head.” The head in question sagged to one side, as though he were falling asleep, before he caught himself. “It’s always my head.”

Lennox didn’t know what to make of that. “Maybe if you didn’t get high all the time, you might be healthier,” he said, even though he knew it was like talking to a brick wall; nothing he said to August in this state would register.

“Maybe,” was all August said, and Lennox used his free hand to prop August’s head up as he wiped the rest of the blood that was beginning to dry tacky around August’s lips.

Slowly, as Lennox kept dabbing at the flow of blood, it stopped, and he could breathe a little easier, glad that he didn’t have to wake up Rhys again.

“You’re a mess,” Lennox informed August as he stood up and soaked the towel again, watching the pink water spiral around on the white porcelain. He felt callous and cruel in that moment toward August – wanted to shake him, make him wake up, see that he was wasting his life away. It was infuriating that this was a choice that August was actively making – that he wanted to be this way, when we could be sober and normal and happy.

“I’m sorry.”

Lennox turned back to see August staring up at Lennox, eye hollows ringed with dark skin. “What’re you sorry for then?” Lennox said.

August blinked. “Everything. For being… a mess, like you said. For being here. For taking Solo from you.”

Lennox rolled his eyes and wrung out the towel. “Solo isn’t mine.”

“He was,” August said simply. “Now he’s mine.”

A laugh stumbled, surprised, from Lennox’s lips. “Don’t let him hear you say that, mate,” he said, kneeling back down on the tile, knees protesting. He wiped at August’s face. “Solo doesn’t belong to no one.”

August swayed under Lennox’s touch, eyes staring at him.

“I want him to be mine,” August amended, voice soft now.

“I thought he was,” Lennox said conversationally, standing up once August’s face was clean and tossing the bloodied cloth into the sink. “Thought you two were dating or whatever.”

Confusion crumpled August’s features. “He won’t. He loves me but he doesn’t love me as much. I know he doesn’t but I still love him and it hurts, too. Love hurts.”

“You got that right.” Lennox lifted August up by the bicep, making sure August’s legs got under him, supporting his weight. “I would say you deserved it, falling for Solo of all people.”

Clammy hands gripped Lennox’s arm, and he turned back to see August holding onto him. Lennox allowed it, afraid of what making August stand on his own would cause – he looked a breath or two away from being a corpse.

“I love him,” August said fervently.

“Sure you do. Come on,” and Lennox led August the few steps to the shower in the corner. “Go shower. I’ll get you some clothes to put on.”

Though even as he said it, Lennox knew that August couldn’t even shower on his own – his legs looked as though they were shaking from the effort of standing up, while the grip on Lennox’s arm was tight and scared.

“Jesus,” Lennox sighed, rubbing his eyes for a moment. He wasn’t being paid enough – or at all – for this bullshit. “No wonder Solo doesn’t love you back, mate,” Lennox grunted, reaching into the shower cubicle and turning on the hot water, the pipes groaning to life. “You’re high maintenance.”

“He doesn’t because he loves someone else.”

Lennox didn’t say anything to that, though his heart did skip a beat – a pulse of fear at the thought that August knew.

“People can change their minds,” Lennox said, adjusting the taps until the water ran at a reasonable temperature and didn’t burn his hand. He turned back to August. “Don’t give up on him, yeah?”

August said nothing, and Lennox didn’t press the issue – he was glad to be done with it, and steered August inside the shower, not bothering to remove his underwear. He definitely wasn’t being paid enough for that. The water hit August’s skin, wetting Lennox in the process, and he ended up soaked himself: August refused to let go of Lennox’s arm, and if Lennox was honest, he was afraid of what might happen if he did. The process was slow going, and Lennox had to wash August while the boy just stood there, managing to rotate when Lennox asked him to. It was a strange reversal of what his grandmother had done to him, in a way – where she had dug her nails into his skin and pushed him under blisteringly hot water, scrubbing his body under it was raw, Lennox felt as though he were washing crepe paper that might disintegrate beneath his hands at any moment. He washed August with careful strokes, across his back and chest, down his arms. August’s skin was smooth and free of imperfections – skin the colour of honey. He was beautiful, that much Lennox had decided. But he was too thin: skin and bone were all August’s body was made of, limbs light and free of fat or muscle or any substance at all.

Lennox could count the ribs in August’s chest, and that – that shouldn’t be right. The boy had worn himself down so much that he was barely there, a sliver of a person standing under the water and hanging onto Lennox with what remained of his strength, and it made Lennox sad.

After washing August’s blonde hair and rinsing it clean, one hand over August’s eyes to make sure the shampoo didn’t run into them, Lennox turned off the taps and helped August out. Water dripped from his long fingers, and as soon as the cool air hit him, August began shivering.

Lennox wrapped one towel around August’s torso and draped another over his shoulders.

“Come on,” he said, leading August, still dripping, from the bathroom and up the stairs. The two of them left a trail of wet footprints as they walked.

The house was still, and the stairs creaked beneath their feet as they climbed, August stumbling in the dark at the unfamiliar location. But Lennox held onto him, firm, and steered him into his room where the lamp still glowed.

“Sit down before you fall over,” Lennox mumbled, leaving August to find a place on the bed.

“You have a lot of books,” August said, eyes turned toward the towering shelves and the stacks that littered the floor where space had been taken. “You read them all?”

“Most,” Lennox replied with a shrug, heading to his closet. “We don’t have a lot of money, so the books I do have, I’ve read a lot.”

“It does seem quite wasteful to spend money on books when you can buy so many other nice things.”

Lennox looked over his shoulder. “Like what? Enlighten me as to how the rich throw away their money.”

“I like buying clothes,” August said, smiling. “You can wear them and they feel nice.”

Scoffing, Lennox pushed through the clothes in his cupboard, pulling out the smallest ones he could find, knowing that even those might be too big for August.

“Sounds like that’s the real waste to me,” Lennox stated. “People don’t need that many clothes, you know. But with books, you can travel to all sorts of places. They’re portable worlds and holidays and friends.”

He pulled out a pair of pyjama bottoms from several years ago, a t-shirt, and a long-sleeved flannel before tossing them at August, who received a face full.

“Put those on before you catch hypothermia,” said Lennox. “Apologies in advance for the lack of silk.”

August looked down at the clothes in his arms, distaste evidence in the crease of his brows. His eyes rose to Lennox.

“Can you help me?” His white-knuckled hands clutched the clothes, shaking. “Please?”

It was the first time Lennox had heard him use anything resembling manners, and sighed loudly, rolling his eyes. “You’re like a baby,” Lennox complained, pulling the towel from around August’s shoulders. “How do you manage by yourself at Hogwarts?”

He scrubbed at August’s thin, drying blonde hair, mussing it up and trying to get the water out like he did his own. But August’s hair was longer, and Lennox abandoned it to the elements and began drying the other boy’s back.

“I don’t know,” August replied airily, leaning forward to give Lennox access. “I don’t.”

“Ever considered quitting the drugs so hard so that maybe you can, you know, be a fucking functioning human being?”

There was silence from August at that, and when Lennox moved around to dry the boy’s front, he saw that his face was long and sad, eyes wet.

“Crìosd,” Lennox murmured, looking away and finishing August’s upper body. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

August sniffed and avoided his eye.

“But it’s true,” he continued, pulling the shirt from August’s hands and pushing it over his head, then feeding his arms through the holes. “Do you want to be like this all your life? ‘Cause I’ll tell you now, it ain’t much of one.”

Once August was dried and dressed, looking like a skeleton in Lennox’s much too big clothes, Lennox finally sat down, rubbing his tired eyes. August was still sniffling suspiciously from Lennox’s left, and neither of them had spoken in some minutes.

“Come on,” Lennox said, standing up. “Go back to sleep, aye? It’ll be better in the morning, and I’ll take you back to Hogwarts.”

August wiped his nose with the sleeve of Lennox’s flannel shirt. “Can I sleep here?”

There was a groan of annoyance building in Lennox’s throat, but he managed to stay it – he felt bad for making August cry.

“Be quick about it then, come on,” he said, pulling back the covers and tossing the damp towels onto the floor. “I’m bloody knackered.”

He tried not to think about how strange this was – how he wasn’t used to the way August moved or settled beside him, but the smell was familiar; his own shampoo, soap, clothes. And when Lennox closed his eyes, he didn’t think about who was sleeping next to him, only that he was home for the first time in a long time, and he was glad to be there.

*

The dream of dragons and the water of the lake and Lennox’s hand reaching out—reaching out for someone—

Abruptly ended when he felt someone kick him in the leg. His eyes opened in the grey light of dawn, bleary and annoyed, and before they could register anything, he was hit in the chest by a flailing hand, and he opened his eyes properly.

“Th’ fuck ye fuckin’ doing ye—”

The twitching, writhing mass next to him did not resemble a person, at least none that Lennox had ever seen. The light from the window wasn’t enough to properly see who – what – it was, and from the way it moved, Lennox didn’t want to know. His palms were slick with sweat, a stomach-clenching kind of fear at the wrongness—

A strangled sob came from them, and Lennox turned on the lamp to see August. But there was something wrong, something almost possessing him as he lay there, body twisted and tense, straining against some invisible kind of force that Lennox couldn’t see.

And for a moment, he wondered if August were dying – if this wasn’t what was supposed to happen – before he was off the bed, and moving August into the middle of the mattress so he couldn’t hit himself on anything as his body spasmed and locked up tight.

“Fuck—” Lennox’s hands were hovering over August before he remembered Rhys, and he ran, the door to his bedroom hitting the wall behind him, feet sliding over the carpet—

Rhys was in his mother’s room, ladling a potion into a vial.

“Now—NOW!” Lennox yelled, unable to say more, frantic, and Rhys looked from Alickina lying half-asleep in bed to Lennox, wondering where the emergency was.

It was too slow – everything was happening too goddam slow – and Lennox could only run back to his room, Rhys on his heels.

August was bleeding now. Blood covered his face, spluttering up from his throat, the veins in his neck protruding with the effort of whatever was strangling him from the inside out. He looked brittle as porcelain that was falling to floor, and Lennox could only watch as August’s fingers became crooked, gnarled tree roots clutching at the bedspread and his back arched, unnatural, curved away from the mattress.

Rhys did not stare. His reaction was immediate, rushing forward, weaving between August’s twitching arm to examine August’s face. Whatever he saw beneath the blood, he reeled back, stunned, before leaning back in.

“What do we do?” Lennox said, heart hammering in his chest, nausea churning up his insides.

“We…” Rhys shook his head. “We don’t do anything.”

“What?” said Lennox, incredulous. “He’ll die, Rhys! We have to—we have to do something. He can’t- he can’t die.”

“He’s having some kind of seizure,” explained Rhys, putting a hand on August’s forehead, taking his temperature. “We can only wait til it passes. Moving him now would only cause more damage.”

Lennox found the action of inaction hard to accept, and he paced, stealing glances at the way August’s body contorted and wrought itself into knots. But the sound the boy made – a sob, a strangled kind of plea through clenched teeth – made it worse, and Lennox could only twist his fingers into his hair, tugging on it, looking for relief as he counted the seconds.

August’s seizure calmed in pieces. His back levelled out until he was lying, and slowly his legs lowered, and then his hands released the material that he’d managed to tear, the cloth now in threads, peeling away from the spread. Rhys was there, easing August back down, and yet Lennox still paced, all traces of his previous weariness gone. The whole thing had only taken ten minutes, if that, but it felt like August had been spasming for hours.

The minute August was back to himself was obvious by the choked sob of pain that escaped his mouth, and Lennox closed his eyes to the sound.

“It’s alright,” Rhys murmured. “It’s alright, you’re fine. You’re okay, you’re back.”

“It hurts,” August pleaded, a wail filled with so much agony and heartache that Lennox could feel his eyes prick behind the lids. “It hurts so much, please—please—it’s burning, it’s burning, the tree is burning, please—”

“Nothing’s burning, you’re here. Do you know where you are?”

“Merlin, please, I just want it to stop, make it stop—”

Lennox couldn’t listen to more. Walking from his room and into his mother’s, he ignored her curious looks and grabbed the vial of potion that Rhys had been pouring. It was almost full, more than enough for a boy as thin as August.

He brought it back, finding Rhys with August’s head in his lap, trying to calm him down. There was splattered blood across August’s pale skin, borrowed clothes, and bedspread, but Lennox ignored it. He stopped in front of August, kneeling by the bed, and forcing the boy to look at him.

“This is going to make the pain go away,” Lennox said, voice loud and clear. “You want it to stop, don’t you?”

August reached out like a dying man, and Lennox gave it to him, watching as August downed it quickly; one swallow was all it took before the vial was empty. Rhys was quiet, smoothing back August’s hair from his sweaty forehead, hands steady.

Lennox watched, guilt and fear turning in his stomach as August’s eyes fluttered shut, and then his body was utterly, finally still.

He slumped back himself, shoulders falling, eyes closing. Exhaustion was all he felt, and it hadn’t even been him on the bed, writhing like he was a man possessed.

“You neglected to mention that your friend here was a seer,” Rhys said quietly, voice almost a whisper, as though to speak louder would wake August, but they both knew he’d be out for at least six hours on the potion.

“A seer?” Lennox laughed, scrubbing his face. “All he sees is the next hit, Rhys. He isn’t anything except a junkie in withdrawal.”

When Lennox opened his eyes, Rhys was shaking his head, still smoothing August’s hair gently.

“You didn’t see his eyes,” Rhys murmured, voice distant. Lennox waited, and eventually Rhys looked up. “They were completely white.”

Lennox wasn’t laughing now. “Couldn’t they have just rolled up into his head during the… seizure?”

“I’ve seen seizures, Nox – this wasn’t because of any substance abuse, alright? This was something else.”

The information was like a stone forcing its way down Lennox’s throat, uncomfortable to swallow and bear. He didn’t want to care about August; didn’t want to learn more about his family or his life and feel responsible. The things he’d seen over the last night had already made him care for the boy, and this—this was too much. If August was a seer, how had he not known? Was it something that others knew, or was it a secret? Lennox could already answer his own questions, because if it were him that was the seer, he knew he’d keep it quiet. A pureblood family with a seer in it was not a well thought of family, and the Callow’s still had their upstanding name well intact.

“When he stopped,” Lennox said quietly, mind still turning, “when the seizure stopped, he said—what did he say again? Something was burning?”

“The tree.” Rhys looked down at August. “He said a tree was burning.”

“A vision, then? That’s what a vision looks like? Fuck.”

For some reason, all Lennox could think was to tell Solo about it. What he’d seen, what August went through. Ask if Solo even knew – he had to, right? He had to know. How would August – August – have hidden it for so long if the visions were like a demon was clawing its way out of his body? Lennox had never pegged the boy as being particularly brilliant or cunning, and the amount of planning and deception to hide being a seer from the people he was closest to… it didn’t add up.

But he was too tired to think on it more. It wasn’t his problem, he reminded himself; August had gotten through sixteen years of it, he could keep going without Lennox’s help.

“I’m gonna sleep while he’s still out,” Lennox grumbled, crawling back onto his side of the bed, the sheets now cold as he settled. “I’m absolutely—”

A baby’s wail ripped through the top floor of the house, and for one second, Lennox could feel forfeit rising up. He wanted to quit everything – just give up entirely and sleep, but the baby’s cry tugged at his instincts, and he sighed, sitting back up.

“You help mum, I’ll get Loren up and changed and fed.”

Lennox’s body was heavy as he stood up beside Rhys, who fussed about August, tucking him under the blankets,

“Poor boy,” he mumbled, lifting August’s arms under. “Can’t imagine what it’s like.”

Loren’s cries echoed down the hall, and Lennox couldn’t do this – couldn’t juggle August’s problems with that of his family.

“Yeah, well, he’s not exactly poor. His family could probably buy their way out of it. There’s a cure for everything, if you have enough money,” he snapped, grabbing a hoodie on his way out the door and tugging it over his head, leaving Rhys to make his own way.

The crying grew louder until Lennox eased open the nursery door, and found Loren kicking and thrashing angrily at the blanket that covered him. He looked so small in the murky light of dawn, and Lennox pushed his sleeves up to his elbows.

“Dè tha ceàrr?” (What’s the matter?) Lennox whispered, picking Loren up, a hand behind his head, pressing the fussing baby to his chest. “Mo bhalach, it’s alright.” (My boy).

Loren was warm to the touch, and when Lennox put a hand to his diaper, he felt it heavy. He held Loren for a little longer, gently and slowly moving them around a lap of the nursery, mostly to wake himself up as Loren cried, before placing the baby on the change table. This part had become routine to Lennox since Loren had been born, remembering everything that his father had told him about nappies and cleaning a baby. He barely flinched, changing Loren methodically until the mess was gone – thank god – and Loren had stopped crying.

“You hungry?” Lennox murmured to the baby, rubbing Loren’s back in circles. “Want breakfast?”

As he carried Loren downstairs, he heard rising voices from his mother’s room – her calling for Flora, wanting to see her baby, as though Flora hadn’t grown up to be a woman already, but laid where Loren had. The hallucinations that kept Alickina bed ridden and sated under potions had flared again today, it seemed.

Lennox kissed the top of Loren’s head and kept walking.

*

The sun was setting when Lennox walked through the door, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm.

The yard had been in complete disarray, and though he hadn’t managed to do even a quarter of what needed to be done, he had cut the grass and patched the fence in a few places. His muscles ached in unfamiliar places, the kind that he only put to use when at home and doing physical labour, but it was a good ache – one that gave him purpose and pride. If he didn’t have a future with the Ministry, Lennox had always thought he could fall back on doing something with his hands – construction, maybe. They always needed a strong set of hands.

The house was not the quiet, peaceful place he’d imagined it would be when out in the yard, and he toed off his muddy boots before walking in. He registered music, then laughter, and his frown deepened, an uncertain feeling settling in his stomach.

Lennox washed his hands quick, brown water sliding down the drain and revealing his tan skin beneath, before he dried them on his shirt. He followed the sounds, each step bringing him closer, until he stood outside his mother’s bedroom.

Music filtered from the old record player, a muggle album that Lennox didn’t quite know waltzing out from the crack where the door stood ajar. It made something nostalgic shiver across his sun-heated skin – a memory that he couldn’t quite remember, but also just a feeling. Of being young and light and looking up at his parents, dancing, the music playing as they seemed to glide across the floor. And Lennox could remember that feeling of completeness; of being entirely whole, something he’d never been able to capture again.

The door opened and the music filled in the gaps, wrapping around the image before him.

His mother was out of bed, her hair dark and curling in thick tendrils, hands clasped as she watched a girl twirling in a dress before the mirror, hem dancing around her ankles.

And Lennox watched for a moment – watched his mother looking happy, the sound of her unfamiliar laughter coming again, watched her eyes bright, fever-like. And then his eyes moved to the girl, and he realised it wasn’t a girl, but August, and he looked—beautiful. Peaceful, maybe. Like that moment was the best he could ever remember. Like Lennox’s mother were his own, and they were sharing something that others did; and Lennox felt jealous and possessive and like he were an outsider, looking in through smudged glass at a family that wasn’t his own. But there was a kind of selflessness, too, because Lennox didn’t want to break up the moment between them.

“Nox.”

The voice pulled his eyes away from August to his mother, who was smiling gently at him, her hand outstretched. He walked inside, dream-like, and took it. His hand was so much bigger than hers now, her hand warm and thin, pressing with vitality against his own.

“Isn’t she pretty?” she said, looking back to August.

Lennox looked too. “August is…” A boy.

The words died, curling to ash in his mouth at the nervous look on August’s face, so apprehensive, watching Lennox through the reflection in the mirror. Their eyes met, and Lennox could remember a time when he was young, when he’d worn a stolen bra, just to see, just to know—

“Yeah,” Lennox said, voice gruff, and he cleared it, looking back to his mother. “She’s beautiful.”

He didn’t have the heart to stay, and instead kissed his mother on the temple and left, easing the door shut behind him. It was like Lennox had stepped into a different world, one where August and his mother got along, one where his father was nursing Loren in the nursery, and Lennox wondered where his place was. Where was he needed? And if no one needed him, did he belong?

Rhys met him outside his room.

“Hope you don’t mind, August stumbled in there after waking up and Ali didn’t seem to mind,” Rhys said, following Lennox into the bedroom. “They get along like a cauldron on fire.”

Lennox grunted, throwing himself on his bed, arm covering his eyes. He was so tired, running on barely any sleep from the night before. “And the dress?”

He heard Rhys moving before the bed dipped.

“Didn’t see any dress,” Rhys said.

“Well they’re in there having a fuckin’ tea party, so.” Lennox sighed, flopping his arm onto the bed and turning to look at Rhys.

“What’s the harm?” he said, grinning at Lennox, reaching out to push at his knee teasingly. “Just ‘cause you’re grumpy and no fun, doesn’t mean they have to be.”

Lennox narrowed his eyes at the Healer. “I’m not grumpy. And I’m fun.”

Rhys raised a silent eyebrow.

“I am! I’m a fuckin’ riot, shut up.” Lennox watched Rhys laugh, and despite himself, a smile passed on his own lips. “Just seems weird. I hardly know the kid, and he’s in there with me mum.”

“Cut him some slack,” Rhys admonished. “He said he’s a Hufflepuff, so I’m putting my faith in him and my old house. Let him have his fun, Merlin knows he needs it.”

It still irritated a part of Lennox to be sharing his mother, but he couldn’t find the strength to get up and do anything about it. He was so tired, the weight of everything at home pressing down on him the longer he stayed. It’d been two days, and already the to do list was piling up, so much so that the idea of going back to school seemed absurd.

“Have a nap, Nox,” Rhys said, his hand warm on Lennox’s knee, squeezing. “I’ll wake you up for dinner.”

Lennox hummed, eyes already closing, and though he wanted to argue – argue that he’d cook, or that he was fine – it was overwhelming too much, and he nodded. Something warm covered his legs and the world fell away, Lennox slipping under to finally rest.

But Rhys didn’t wake him for dinner, and the next time Lennox’s eyes opened, he was almost sweating from how hot he was, trying to push at the covers, half asleep and eyes closed.

The blankets were a solid, heavy mass, and Lennox’s eyes cracked open to see that it was a person, curled around his body as though he were a pillow.

“Faigh air falbh,” (get away) Lennox murmured, shoving at August, who was surprisingly strong when he wanted to be.

“Comfy,” the boy murmured, burrowing his head into Lennox’s shoulder.

Lennox shoved him once more – a sharp jab that did nothing to dislodge him – before giving up, sighing loudly.

“What time is it?” Lennox whispered, peering through the darkness of his room, unable to quite identify the hour.

“Late. Early.” August gave a movement that might’ve been a shrug. “You missed dinner.”

He could feel it, too – the turn of his empty stomach, but he ignored it.

“Making yourself comfortable in my home, then?” Lennox said, aiming for annoyed, but the sleepiness clung to his words, weighting them in a different direction.

“Your family’s nice,” August said. “Your mum’s nice. Your father’s funny. I like Loren.”

He’d been doing the rounds, then.

“Aye, my family’s brilliant,” Lennox grumbled. “But they’re my family, Callow. Not yours.”

August was silent for a moment. “I know that.”

“Do ye?” and Lennox’s voice a little, accent thicker, even to his own ears, “because right now yer makin’ yerself quite at home.”

The fingers that were curled around Lennox’s bicep held tight. “Don’t be mad, I just borrowed them,” said August. “They’re yours.”

His heart was racing, and Lennox forced himself to relax again, working to release the tense muscle of his jaw.

“Why are you so angry all the time?”

And Lennox had had it, shoving August off and breaking his grip. “I’m not bloody angry, alright? Fuck’s sake - and if I was, is it any wonder?”

Lennox ran a hand through his hair.

“I came home to get away from Hogwarts and everyone in it,” he continued after a beat. “I wanted this weekend – and them – to myself. Do you understand that?” He stared at August through the dark. “And instead, I’ve had to deal with you and clean up all your messes.”

In the darkness, Lennox could see the way August’s features folded, packing in on themselves, hurt. Maybe he should’ve taken Rhys’ words to heart and treated August more kindly, but that wasn’t in Lennox’s nature. He couldn’t share the one thing in his life that he guarded the most.

He wouldn’t.

August’s ghostly figure moved over the bed and slid to the floor, and Lennox noticed he had changed into a different set of Lennox’s clothes, ill-fitting and hanging off him like sheets. It made him look thinner, more haggard; child-like in a way that urged Lennox to care about him.

“Sorry,” August mumbled. “I didn’t—I didn’t ask to be here, y’know. You just did it, and maybe—maybe I shouldn’t have been out there—”

“Then why were you in the first place?”

August rubbed at his head, the place where Rhys had healed the wound. “I—I just, there were things I needed, and—”

“Like what?” pressed Lennox. “What did you need out there in the forest?”

August turned away, but Lennox walked around to face him again.

“Why were you out there, August?” he demanded.

“I was just—”

“Why?”

“I was—”

“Why?”

August pushed at Lennox, the shove no harder than what a breeze might present, and Lennox didn’t falter.

“I was in Hogsmeade, okay?” August tried to bring his hands to his face, but the sleeves got in the way, and he wiped at his eyes with the flannel. “I was in Hogsmeade getting… you know.”

“Drugs.”

The other boy looked away, wiping at his chin. “Yeah.”

“Correct me if my assumptions are wrong, but I’m pretty sure you have enough money to pay someone to do that shit for you, rather than dirtying your own hands,” Lennox said, only too well-versed in the ways the pureblood mind worked. “So that brings us back to square one. Why were you out there?”

A noise of frustration loosed itself from August, and he tried to get around Lennox, but he grabbed the boy, hauling him back.

“Fuckin’ talk,” Lennox ordered, holding him fast. “I already know one of your secrets, what’s another?”

August’s eyes darted to Lennox’s, and he saw fear – and surprise. Had he assumed Lennox wouldn’t realise? Or that perhaps Lennox wouldn’t mention it?

“I know all about your powers, August,” Lennox said, voice low, as though they were in danger of being overheard.

He quivered, a tremble of fear racing through him, and he seemed to lose the fight out of his body, slumping half on Lennox, hands wrapping in his shirt.

“Please, Lennox—please. You can’t tell anyone, please. If my father—if my father finds out what I am…” August gave a choked sob, and Lennox looked down at him, at the sheer desperation. “Please, you can’t. I’ll—I’ll do whatever. Whatever you want, whatever you need, I’ll do it.”

All Lennox wanted from him was to have August gone, but he didn’t say that.

“Tell me why you were in Hogsmeade,” Lennox said, voice calm.

A noise of caught frustration escaped August, and he tugged one last time on Lennox.

“I told you, I needed to get stuff for my head.” August was crying. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“Why were you doing it yourself, August?” Lennox said, “Because I don’t believe for a second that’s how you normally do things.”

August shook his head, denying the question, but Lennox wouldn’t let him go. Struggling for a moment, August stopped, limp in Lennox’s hand.

“Because I don’t have any money,” he sobbed at last, face a watery mess, eyes downcast. “I don’t—I don’t have anything left, and my head hurts, okay? It hurts, and if I don’t get anything—”

“I saw.” Lennox adjusted his grip. “So how were you buying drugs if you don’t have money?”

The boy fought against Lennox’s grip now, trying to get out, or at least turn his head.

“I earned it, okay?” he said, shoving at Lennox, trying to loosen his grip. “I—I earned it.”

Lennox frowned. August would never work a day in his life if he didn’t want to; the Callow’s would have enough money to keep the name alive for generations to come. What job would someone like August even be qualified for? He feared to ask, watching August refuse to look at him, crying quietly. It was shame in August that was strangling him quietly like a weed up a tree; shame was pushing him deeper and deeper than he’d already been.

Shame was something that Lennox’s pride had protected him from so often, except that time he’d been on his knees for Solo in a bathroom, bargaining for his future. He’d been so low, then; knew he would’ve done anything. August too, it seemed, had something worth fighting for: his sanity.

“Alright,” Lennox said, easing his fingers one by one until August was no longer confined. “Alright, you don’t have to say.”

Because somehow Lennox already knew. He walked August back a step or two until the backs of his knees hit the mattress and he sat. Lennox stood over him, wondering what he was going to do, now that he found himself burdened with August’s secrets. His plight was not a hopeful one, not with the shadow of his power – gift? - looming over him, and Lennox wished he could just stay out of it, but his conscience—his conscience fought.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Lennox said evenly, at last. “I don’t want anything from you.”

August wiped at his face, looking warily up at Lennox. “Solo says that nothing is free.”

Rolling his eyes, Lennox sat down beside him. “First of all, this isn’t free because it doesn’t cost me anything. And secondly, when are you gonna stop listenin’ to him? He’s got some wisdom, I’ll grant him that, but he doesn’t know everything. Learn to ask others for advice, yeah?”

“Like who?” August mumbled. “No one likes me.”

“Maybe ‘cause no one knows you,” Lennox shrugged. “Besides, no one likes me either. There are worse things, as well as more important things, than winning a popularity contest.”

Saying nothing, August sniffled, eyes downcast.

“C’mon,” said Lennox’s guilty conscience, a traitor to his brain, who wanted to kick August out and be done. “Let’s sleep, yeah? Guessing we’ve got a few hours til morning and when we need to head back.”

August crawled back into his spot and Lennox laid down, counting to five before August curled back into him, as though he were incapable of resisting.

“I stole some of your mum’s potions,” August whispered, wrapping his octopus arms around Lennox. “Sorry.”

Rolling his eyes in the dark, Lennox pulled the blankets up over them. “You’re paying me back when you do get money again, Callow.”

He’d remember that, too.

*

Saying goodbye was always hard, and Lennox had a method where he refused to turn back once he’d started walking – but August had never heard of such a thing.

They said their farewell’s to the house, Alickina nursing Loren in her bedroom, Hendry writing emails in his study, Rhys waving to them from the doorstep. And there was a hook in Lennox’s stomach, tugging him back to the house – to his baby brother, whose small fingers had curled around one of Lennox’s own, eyes dark and peering up at him. Lennox could only envision a time when he didn’t have to leave, at least not for so long; a time, a few months from now, where home would be home again, and he wasn’t constantly sling-shotted back to Hogwarts.

August, too, looked as though he were losing something as they walked away, his body turned to keep waving to Rhys.

“Come on, come on,” Lennox muttered, tugging the boy along, hitching his bag higher on his back. “Don’t get used to this.”

He didn’t want August to come back here. He didn’t want to share his home and his family with a stranger, no matter how pitiful their cause, and he wasn’t sure that would ever change. If he got married, then it would; his partner would be family, and they’d make this house their own, too. But August would never marry Lennox, and he would never be family – he was a highborn pureblood heir that would, in due course, graduation and run back to his family’s English estate where money flowed and servants bowed.

Their worlds were different, and even if Lennox’s grandparents were constantly pulling him into the orbit of August’s, he knew his feet would always firmly be planted here, at the Fraser house. Home was where his family was, and family did not include broken strays.

Lennox pulled them to the barrier of the Fraser property, boots kicking up rocks and dirt, and as he stood at the road, staring off across the paddocks of the country, wildflowers and grass swaying in the breeze, he felt the urge to turn back. It was like déjà vu or some kind of instinct, a voice that told him to look back, to take in his home – while he still could. The niggling premonition that Hux had given him resurfaced, and Lennox frowned, turning back.

August was already looking, blonde hair lifting at the ends with the breeze that rolled in from the coast, across towns and fields and homes, and Lennox followed his line of sight.

The familiar curve of the drive, the overgrown vines and hedges, the beaten-up car sitting under the tree that shed too many leaves and petals, but never seemed to go bare. The house was the same untaintable shade of white, shutters open and letting the morning light stream in. Somewhere out back, one of the dogs barked, while the breeze lifted the clothes on the line that Lennox had hung out, making them dance and sway. It felt like a photograph, like something Lennox could keep and tuck away for later, and even though he knew he would do whatever he could to make this stay, the worry was always there, a stone in the bottom of his stomach.

He reached out for August’s arm and apparated them away without a word of warning, his home disappearing before his eyes and replaced with the dense forest where he’d originated from. Lennox dropped August’s arm and started walking, hearing the boy crash through the dead leaves after him.

“Wait,” August said, exerting himself to catch up to Lennox’s long strides. He was out of breath after only a dozen paces. “Wait.”

Lennox rolled his eyes and looked down at the boy, eyebrows rising expectantly. He wanted to be rid of August and hopefully put the entire weekend behind him; wash his hands clean and hand the baton to Solo.

“You—you won’t tell anyone, will you?” August said, once he’d gotten his breath back. “About… you know.”

“Which part?” deadpanned Lennox. “The fact that you receive visions, that you’re poor, that you’re whoring yourself out in Hogsmeade, or that you like to wear dresses and be called a girl? I’m having trouble keeping track, so is that all of it?”

August had taken another of Alickina’s potions that morning, so his eyes were glassy, but Lennox could see some muted fear bloom there.

“I’m not going to tell.” But Lennox wouldn’t promise; he knew that something had to be done, even if he wasn’t the person to do it. “Let’s just go.”

They emerged out of the woods and into the grounds, perfectly timed for the crowds that were coming back from Hogsmeade for lunch. Lennox and August joined the end, blending in, as though they’d just come back from a morning in the wizarding village, bellies full of sweets.

As Lennox climbed the stairs, already weary of being back, he noticed that August was still following him.

“How high are you? Your house is that way,” Lennox said, waving his hand back down the stairs. “Go on.”

August’s hand was white-knuckled on the railing, swaying a little. “But I don’t want to be alone.”

A groan was building within Lennox. “Yeah, well, I do, so go away.”

Lennox started walking and made it to the top of the stairs before he realised that August was still following him.

“I said—”

“I’m coming to see Solo,” August said, out of breath. “You can’t stop me.”

Lennox looked him up and down, shutting the doors of concern and guilt that opened in his mind, trying to forget everything that had passed that weekend.

“No, but I don’t have to wait for you, either,” he said, raising his eyebrows once before walking away, leaving August to stagger his way to the Ravenclaw Tower, if he didn’t give up first.

Lennox walked quickly, entering the tower without any problems and dropping his bag beside his trunk, planning to unpack later. It was empty, and for the first time in days, there was silence; just the wind through the tower and low murmur of students below. And even though Lennox missed home and his family and everything that came with it, he couldn’t deny that the easing of responsibility – the infinitesimal lightening of the load on his shoulders – truly allowed him to relax, sinking onto his bed and breathing deeply without worrying.

And just as Lennox’s body eased, part by part, muscles finally releasing their tension, August came through the dorm room door, eyes wide and looking for Solo.

With a sigh, the worry came back, and Lennox knew that whether he liked it or not, August was now one of his problems. It wasn’t something he was going to be outrun, because his conscience was starting to catch up, and Lennox was just—tired. Maybe, he thought, it was time to stop running and face the things that had been dogging him for a while. First August, then Solo, Flora, Darcy, Smith—the list would never end, but Lennox had to start somewhere.

Here and now was as good of a place as any.