WHO: Byron Kettleburn, Lumos Boot and Terry Boot WHAT: Seventeen years' worth of fuck ups WHEN: August 2000 - December 2017 WHERE: Various locations WARNINGS: Bad parenting
AUGUST 2000
Byron didn’t know the first thing about being a father. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to meet his son. It would all be more real then. But his mother had insisted he go. She’d insisted he take responsibility for the person he’d helped create. She’d reminded him not to be like his own father.
So there he was, standing outside Lumos’ hospital room with a bouquet of flowers he hadn’t chosen, waiting for the right moment to go inside. Maybe if he stalled long enough, she’d be asleep by the time he went in. Maybe they’d send her home and he could slip away unnoticed. Maybe he shouldn’t have come.
Lumos still hadn’t managed to wrap her head around the reality of her son. But he was there, in her arms, small and perfect and terrifying and real. She’d gotten her OWL results a few weeks ago and now, today, she’d gotten a baby. Her mother had stepped out to the tearoom for a moment and her father was at work so she was intimidatingly alone. Or so she thought.
The squeak of a shoe outside dragged her attention away from the baby and she called out softly, “Is someone out there?”
Byron tried to shift away from the doorway, but a mediwitch passing by gave him the guilt-inducing glare he needed to prompt him into the room. Popping into the doorway, he tried on a smile that couldn’t have looked more forced. He held up the flowers, avoiding a glance at the bundle in her arms. “Hi, brought you these.”
“Oh, it’s you,” Lumos breathed, her shoulders relaxing. But they tensed a beat after. She hadn’t seen Byron in months, hadn’t let herself be his friend or girlfriend for much longer. She dragged her eyes away from him to the flowers and smiled weakly. “Those are really pretty. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, inching closer to her bedside to set them down on the table. As soon as they were out of his hands, he took a quick step backward, replacing the safe distance between them. “So…how are you?”
The safe distance didn’t go unnoticed and she furrowed her eyebrows at the space between them. She felt like hiding. “I’m…okay.” She glanced over at the flowers, dragging her chin awkwardly against her shoulder. “How are you?”
“Alright.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been more aware of himself, but it may have been his brain’s way of hijacking his attention to distract him from the obvious. “Got my OWLs back. Better than I expected.”
“Right, yeah, me too,” she said. “Better than I expected.” Lumos wondered if he was going to acknowledge their son since she assumed that was why he was really there, rather than making awkward small talk with her. Looking down at the bundle in her arms, she shifted the baby, giving him a dazed sort of smile as he screwed up his little face at her. She bounced him a bit and his face went peaceful again. She’d almost forgotten Byron was even there, but she hadn’t really.
Looking up, her smile faded and she looked hesitant again, almost embarrassed. “And you know.”
His cheeks having gone completely red, Byron finally resigned himself to looking down at the baby boy cradled against her chest. He swallowed. “So, this is...Terence, is it?”
“Mmhmm,” she hummed, her lips clamped tightly shut. Lumos wanted to brag a little, to ask Byron if he thought their baby was the most beautiful baby he’d ever seen, but her eyes searched his face and she could tell he didn’t want to be there. “You, um, you probably don’t want to hold him, do you?”
No, he didn’t. But he found himself shaking his head, saying, “Let’s see him, then,” and taking a step toward them.
Lumos brightened a little, but she didn’t pass the baby off right away. “Mum says I have to make everyone wash their hands before they hold him, though.”
“Oh, okay,” Byron said, immediately scanning the room for somewhere he could wash his. He caught sight of a sink and made for it, his heart beating harder in his chest as he turned the taps. He’d have been nervous holding any child — he’d never done it before, he’d never even thought about it — but there was something especially terrifying about holding his own child.
With his washing up complete, he returned to Lumos’ side. He took a deep breath. “Is there anything else I should know, before…”
“You have to support his head,” she said, very sagely despite having only been his mother for hours at that point. Carefully, she lowered the baby into his arms, trying to pretend it meant nothing when her arm brushed his.
His mother had told him that once he held Terence, everything would be different. He’d feel the connection. His instincts would kick in. He’d be a natural. There were two types of people: people who loved babies and people who didn’t know they loved babies yet. But she was wrong.
To the baby’s credit, he didn’t immediately start crying the way Byron had imagined he would. Still, all of it became too real when he looked down into his son’s tiny face. He wanted to run, to put as much distance between himself and that hospital room as humanly possible. But he stayed where he was, his heart hammering in his chest as he suppressed his panic.
After a long moment, he mumbled, “He looks like you.” But it wasn’t with the awe and reverence of a new parent. It was just an observation. “In the eyes, I think.”
Lumos really wanted Byron to be awestruck holding their baby. And she wanted him to be as in love with Terence as she was. But she could see from his face that he was neither. It made her feel horribly alone. “He has your mouth, though. And your chin. He looks like you, too.” The last was said a little insistently.
Byron scanned the baby’s face again, looking for features he recognized as his own. He didn’t know how to feel. “I don’t really see it,” he admitted, glancing up at her. “Maybe when he’s older.”
“Maybe,” she echoed anxiously.
And then to fill the awkward silence, “Mum says she’ll send me pictures of him every day while we’re at school so I don’t — so we don’t miss anything. I can share them with you, if you want. And Hogsmeade weekends. She said she’d bring him to those when he’s bigger. You can see him then, too, if you want. I wasn’t going to go back, but my dad says I have to. He, um, yeah. He’s kind of mad at me.” She tucked one of her curls behind her ear. “But it’ll be fine. I guess. I’m sorry. I’m talking a lot.”
The thought of spending his Hogsmeade weekends with an infant instead of blowing off steam with is friends sounded miserable, but Byron bit back the thought and looked at him again. But no matter how many times he looked, all he felt was dread, like he’d been trapped. He’d be a father for the rest of his life, whether he liked it or not.
He was nervous to even move with Terence in his arms. Clearing his throat, he glanced back at Lumos. “Yeah, mum thinks schools’ important. Wouldn’t let me drop out either. At least it’s only two more years.”
“You were going to drop out of school?” Lumos asked. “Because of…?” She gestured at the baby.
“What? Oh — no,” Byron said, only just stifling a laugh. “I just didn’t think school was for me.”
“Oh. Right.” What remained of her crush on Byron seemed to die in her chest.
Lumos kept waiting for him to have that moment where it all clicked for him, like she’d had holding Terence for the first time. But he still just looked like a deer caught in someone’s headlights. Hesitantly, she asked, “Do you love him?”
The question caught Byron off guard and despite opening his mouth to answer, he didn’t know what to say. “I —” He glanced down at Terence again. They’d only just met. “I don’t know.”
Something protective flared in her chest, in place of that dead crush, and her fingers scrabbled anxiously against the blanket covering her lap. “Can I —” she started, but she swallowed and corrected course because no matter what his face looked like, Byron was his father, too. “Do you want to give him back to me?”
“Um, sure,” he said, inching closer and trying to hold the baby steady when he passed him off to her. When he straightened up again, he felt like a weight had been lifted. He let out a deep breath, like he’d even been afraid to breathe normally with the baby against his chest. “Thanks for, um, letting me hold him.”
Lumos nodded, staring down at Terence. She felt a little like she could breathe again, too. “He’s your son,” she said simply, glancing at Byron quickly before looking away.
“Yeah,” Bryon said, breathing out a laugh. He was a father. It was real — he’d held his son — and somehow absurd at the same time. “I guess he is.”
“You guess?” Her eyes were suddenly sharp and trained on Byron.
“Well, I mean,” he began, sounding hesitant. “Of course he is.”
Twisting her mouth, she nodded again, her eyes softening when she looked down at Terence. “I know it’s a lot,” she admitted quietly, shifting her gaze to the flowers Byron had brought. “I’m freaked out, too.”
Bryon exhaled a breath of relief that trailed into a laugh. “At least it’s not just me,” he said, glad not to be alone in this, even if things between him and Lumos had been confusing for months. He rarely knew where he stood. “It’ll probably get easier, right?”
“Probably,” she said, giving him a weak smile. “I hope so.” She shifted in bed, holding Terence a little closer as she sat up a little straighter. “Thank you for coming, though. And thank you for the flowers.”
“It’s the least I could do,” he said with a shrug, grateful his mum had made him do it, even if it had felt stupid. “I know things are weird but — Terence, yeah?”
“Yeah!” she agreed, her smile coming easier now. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so horribly alone anymore. “If you want to see him again — you know, before school — just ring me or something?”
“Yeah, alright.” He gave his son and his son’s mother a grin hat didn’t quite qualify as fond, but attempted it. “I don’t really know what to do with babies but —” He wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. He shrugged. “I’ll figure it out, won’t I?”
“I read a few books,” Lumos offered. “You can borrow them if you want?”
“Uh, sure,” he said, deciding not to mention the books he already had on his list, waiting to be read. “I’ll probably pick up a thing or two.”
Before Lumos could agree with him, Terence started to fuss, one of his tiny fists escaping from his swaddle as he squirmed in her arms and started to cry in earnest. Panic settled across her face and she craned to see around Byron and out into the hallway. “My mum was supposed to be back soon,” she said.
Byron glanced at the doorway behind him. “Don’t you know what to do?” He glanced down at the fussing baby against her chest. He swallowed. The sound was making him anxious. “My mum made it seem like everyone magically knows how to act around babies.”
The panic on Lumos’ face wavered as she fixed Byron with a briefly dirty look, but Terence quickly stole her attention back. “Do you know what to do, then?” she asked, even as she gingerly lifted the squirming baby’s bottom to her nose and give him a very cautious sniff. Under her breath, she muttered, “It isn’t his nappy…”
“Maybe he’s hungry,” Byron suggested, looking more uncomfortable than panicked.
“But —” She cast the hallway another panicked glance and then gave Byron one, too.
“What is it?” Byron glanced over his shoulder at the doorway. “Should I get someone?”
“Please. I don’t know what else to do.” She kept bouncing him gently, shushing him, but her hands felt so clumsy and she worried he would cry and squirm right out of them. “I don’t even have a bottle.”
“Okay,” he said, his eyes sweeping over the baby one more time before he disappeared out the door in search of a someone who could help. Within a few minutes, he’d found and sent someone in Lumos and Terence’s direction. But he hung back, hovering in the waiting room like he couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. He could still hear the baby’s cries from the other room and began pacing in front of a row of empty chairs.
It was only when Terence’s crying stopped that he dared return to the room.
JUNE 2014
Terence was mostly going by Terry when the Hogwarts Express pulled into the station, third year thankfully done and under his belt. He’d had about enough of dementors, mass murderers, and secret werewolf professors. His money definitely hadn’t been on Professor Lupin when it came to secret magical beings. If anything, it would’ve been on Professor Snape. Now that was a vampire closet case if there ever was one. Had anyone actually seen his reflection in a mirror? Michael and Anthony probably hadn’t.
Taking the steps off the train backwards, he said, “Corner. Goldstein,” giving each boy a fist bump before turning around to find…
His father?
Terry’s brows were furrowed in surprise as he walked up to Byron, dragging his trunk behind him. “Dad.” A beat. “Where’s mum?”
“She had to work,” Byron explained, giving his son’s friends a brief wave over his shoulder. He gave Terry a tight smile. “It’s just you and me this time, kiddo.”
“Weird,” Terry said slowly. “I mean, cool! But weird.” He said ‘weird’ slowly again.
“Yeah,” Byron agreed, lifting a hand to scratch at the back of his neck. “So…” He cleared his throat. “How was the train?”
“Burbage says shamelessly stolen from Muggles,” Terry pointed out, glancing back at the train over his shoulder. And then, because he wasn’t sure if Byron remembered, he added, “I’m taking Muggle Studies this year.”
“You took Muggle Studies this year,” Byron corrected him. He reached for the boy’s trunk and started off down the platform. He assumed Terry would follow. “And Burbage is right. We’ve stolen plenty from Muggles. It wasn’t wizards who invented phones or wireless or newspapers.”
Terry rolled his eyes, but followed Byron, lengthening his stride to fall into step with him. He liked it better when Burbage talked about all the ways they’d screwed over Muggles. “You work at a newspaper.”
“Aw, you remembered,” Byron said, slanting a sarcastic grin at his son. “And you rode a train home from magic school. Guess we’re both guilty now.”
“I’m a minor,” Terry said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“They’ll give you a lighter sentence when they throw us in the clink,” Byron said before heaving Terry’s trunk onto a trolley. “They’ll probably let you out when you sprout your first beard hair.”
“Michael swears he thinks he can grow a beard,” Terry said, surveying the trolley with his trunk on it for a moment. After a moment of consideration, he climbed on board, his trunk groaning under his weight, and looked up at his father. “I don’t think he can.”
“There’s no way that little git’s got so much as a single pube,” Byron said with a snort, though truth be told, he barely remembered being their age. And it’d only be two years before Terry would be the same age he’d been when his son had been born. He tried not to shudder at the thought and pushed the trolley forward instead. “Enjoy it while you can, cause you’ve got a lifetime of five o’clock shadows by noon to look forward to.”
Terry spared a laugh at Michael’s expense before rubbing his chin thoughtfully with one hand and hanging onto his trunk with the other. He was mostly thinking about how he wouldn’t mind a five o’clock shadow. Maybe he’d even grow the whole beard.
“Hey, have you heard about Lupin?” Terry asked once he’d gotten tired of thinking about his hypothetical beard. And then, significantly, “Has mum?”
“If you want to know the real reason your mum’s not here, that’s it,” Byron said, feigning a grave look. “She’s been in a dead faint for a week since she heard. She whisper-mumbled something about your being grounded for the rest of your life for not owling.”
“Ugh, there was no way I was owling her about that,” Terry protested, throwing his hands up, teetering in his perch on his trunk. “She would’ve had a meltdown with or without my owl. ‘Dear mum, I’m a werewolf now!’” Here, he paused to howl, loudly, causing several people to glance their way. “‘Love, your son, Terence.’”
“Your werewolf son, Terence,” Byron said, ignoring the other parents and chuckling under his breath. “You’d’ve heard a lot more howling, and I don’t mean the wolfy kind.”
Terry sucked his teeth at the thought. His mother was probably going to howl as it was. “Can you kidnap me? I don’t know if I can face her.”
“How do you think I feel?” Byron raised his eyebrows, giving his son a teasingly pointed look. “She read about it in the paper and I’ll give you one guess who wrote the piece.”
“Yeah?” Terry looked mildly impressed for a beat, but then he grinned. “And you didn’t even warn her first? I bet I’m not the only one getting grounded for the rest of my life.”
“I’m already serving five consecutive life sentences, actually.” He grinned, leaning over the trolley’s handlebar. “I’m maybe even forgetting a few, but it’s superfluous. I’m grounded right now.”
“Guess we’re both guilty,” Terry echoed from before with a laugh. He fell silent for a moment, picking at a seam on his uniform trousers. “I thought Lupin was cool, though. His class was really interesting. Sometimes he brought in whatever we were learning about. And the exam was an obstacle course!” With a wistful smile, he added, “It was wicked.” But his expression went pensive and he glanced up at Byron to see what he thought.
“At least they didn’t have a fraud teaching you this year,” Byron said. He wasn’t sure about having a werewolf teaching at the school, but it was over now. And no one had gotten hurt after a year in the castle with Lupin. “Sounds like you learned how to do something besides sign Gilderoy Lockhart’s name for him. Shame about the werewolf bit, though.”
“Yeah, guess so,” Terry said, with an unhappy twist to his mouth.
“Everyone knows the Defence professors never last longer than a year anyway.” Byron smirked and lowered his voice dramatically. “It’s cursed, you know.”
“Merlin,” Terry said under his breath. But he looked at Byron seriously again, to see what he thought. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Typically, no.” Byron shrugged. “But in this case, the evidence is rather overwhelming.”
“Huh,” was all Terry said at first. He didn’t want to admit he was wrong. And he didn’t want to admit that he was so easily convinced just because his father had said it. Instead, he reached for the handlebar and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Bet you could go faster than this.”
Byron stood up straighter, glancing around them to choose a clear path. “You’d better hold on tight,” he said before picking up speed. When he broke out into a run, sending people scurrying to get out of the trolley’s way, he decided he was glad Lumos hadn’t joined them on the platform.
JULY 2016
“Why’s he always got these mental flavours?” Byron asked no one in particular as he stood in the queue at Fortescue’s. He shot a glance at his fifteen-year-old son and shook his head. “Bet the turtle’s got actual turtle in it.”
Terry was kind of wondering why the hell they were there, but he leaned around the person in front of them to peer at the turtle anyway. “I dare you to ask.”
Without hesitation, Byron lifted a hand to get the attention of the worker scooping ice cream. “Mate, what’s the twist on the turtle?” He pointed to the vat of it behind the glass. “Is it sea turtle? Or tortoise? Because that’s false advertising.”
Terry snorted, earning him a dirty look from the person in front of him.
The worker, whose nametag called him ‘PAUL’ and claimed his favorite flavor of ice cream was mint chocolate chip, stared at Byron and Terry for a moment. “Uh, it’s chocolate.”
Byron glanced at Terry again and shrugged. “It’s chocolate.”
“I think I’m morally opposed to eating sea turtles anyway,” Terry said, while Paul blinked at them for a moment longer and returned to his ice cream scooping. “Probably all turtles.” He peered at the ice cream again. “And anything with basil in.”
“Basil,” Byron echoed and wrinkled his nose. “It’s like they’re trying to make ice cream healthy or something.”
“Might as well just order a salad,” Terry said, shaking his head sadly.
As they stepped to the front of the queue, Byron pointed to Terry. “One salad in a bowl for this one, and I’ll try a bit of that non-turtle turtle there.”
Playing along, Terry stared expectantly at Paul while Paul stared confusedly back. But Terry couldn’t decide if the smell of smoke was coming from one of the ice creams or Paul’s brain so he relented. “I’ll have the honeycomb, actually."
He waited until they were seated with both of their ice creams before finally caving and asked, “So, dad, what’s with?” Terry gestured at their surroundings with his spoon.
“What do you mean?” He asked with a mouthful of chocolate and followed his son’s gesture around the room. “Don’t you like ice cream?”
“Well, yeah,” Terry said, scooping up a spoonful of his ice cream and eyeing the ceiling suspiciously. “But I don’t think I’ve been here since I was…I dunno. Eight?” Which was an exaggeration because he let his mum drag him there more often that he’d care to admit, but there was definitely something off about getting ice cream at Fortescue’s with his dad.
“You’re not eight?” Byron’s eyes went wide across the table as he put another spoonful in his mouth. “Is it twelve, then? Thirteen?”
“Wanker,” Terry said without any heat.
Byron snorted and pointed at Terry with his spoon. “Don’t make me put you in time out.”
“Ohhh nooo,” Terry said, waving his hands and spoon defensively, “anything but that!”
Grinning around another bite, Byron dropped his spoon into his cup and leaned back in his chair. “It’s nearly your birthday,” he said, as if Terry didn’t already know. “Fourteen’s a big year.”
“Oooh, mate, your fact checking needs work,” Terry said around his own spoon, pulling a face as he dunked it back in his ice cream.
Byron folded his arms across his chest. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve outgrown ice cream?”
“No, just Fortescue’s.” Terry shrugged and took another bite of his ice cream.
“Well,” Byron said, letting the word hang for a moment as he leaned forward and propped his elbows up on the edge of the table. “Noted. No Fortescue’s. Maybe you’ll come back around when you’re about to turn sixty, not sixteen.”
“Actually.” Terry glanced up from his ice cream, feeling suddenly a little guilty and a little desperate to hang onto this moment he’d managed to grab with Byron. “I mean, it’s fine. I like ice cream. Who doesn’t like ice cream?” He shrugged and took a too big bite, flinching a little when it gave him brain freeze.
“Pace yourself there, mate.” A look of amusement settled over Byron’s face. He hadn’t the slightest idea how his son felt or that he particularly cared whether he was there or not, at Fortescue’s or anywhere else. “Next year, we’ll go to a pub instead.”
“You’ll want me to pace myself there, too, won’t you?” Terry squinted at Byron through one eye, rubbing absently between his eyebrows.
“It’d be irresponsible of me not to tell you to pace yourself,” he pointed out. “But if you don’t spend the day after your birthday marinating in the stench of your own vomit, it probably wasn’t a proper birthday.”
“Something tells me mum wouldn’t have that,” Terry said, laughing. “Not unless I’m marinating at yours.”
“Don’t hold it against her,” Byron said, laughing lightly along with him. “We were both pretty much your age when you were born. She probably didn’t get to marinate much.”
Terry gave one more humorless laugh before looking down at his ice cream, prodding it with his spoon. “Yeah. I know.”
Byron watched him for a moment before he spoke again. “So, what about you? Got any girls pregnant yet?”
With a strangled half-shout, Terry’s head snapped back up. “What? No!” He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his head, giving Byron a martyred look across the table. “Merlin. Yet.”
Byron snorted. “Well, if you’re into blokes, you don’t have to worry about that part.”
“Merlin, mate, I’m already in cardiac arrest here,” Terry said. He didn’t really know what he was into yet, but he wasn’t thinking it out in the middle of Fortescue’s. “Trust me. I know to wrap it before I tap it. No glove, no love. Sex is cleaner with a packaged weiner.”
Byron couldn’t contain a laugh, but he kept it short. And when he leaned in closer, his tone was grave. “Seriously, just say the word and I’ll send you a sack of the things. You can act embarrassed when they land in your lap at breakfast and your friends will think you’re the man. Because I’m telling you, mate, your mum and I would not make good grandparents.”
Terry was at a loss for words. Terry was never at a loss for words, but he was currently at a loss for words in the middle of Fortescue’s. He scrubbed one of his hands over his eyes and tried to decide what to say before the spontaneous human combustion set in. He’d already had a very different version of this conversation with his mother. Why were his parents trying to ruin sex for him?
“I can’t believe I’m going to die in Fortescue’s. I would’ve got the extra honeycomb. Or a flake.”
“Or a blowie,” Bryon said, keeping a straight face as he shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re going to die a virgin.”
“I’m not —” Terry started to protest, but there was no use. He very much was. “I can’t believe those are the last words I’m ever going to hear.”
“Neither can I.” It was becoming more difficult for Byron not to laugh. “But I’ll be sure to mention it in the eulogy. And in the obit. And to have it engraved it on your headstone, of course.” As if quoting a headline, he lifted his hand to punctuate each word. “Here lies Terence Boot, condomless virgin perished before his time.”
“It’s not funny,” Terry said, furrowing his eyebrows. “If you two think I don’t know how much I ruined your lives just being born, you must think I’m really stupid.” His ice cream cup skidded across the table as he pushed it away from him.
The mirth in Byron’s eyes vanished and it was his turn to find himself at a loss for words. The look on his son’s face had him dropping his gaze, staring at the edge of the table in front of him. He swallowed.
“That’s not the point, Terry.”
“What’s the point, then?”
“The point is...” Byron began, lifting his eyes to look at Terry again. “Your future’s wide open. And choices you make now and the ones you make going forward can stick with you for the rest of your life, for better or for worse. So, think about things before you do them.”
“Okay, fine. Got it.” Terry stared down at the table and tried to force himself to think about not being upset.
“Look.” Byron sighed. “I’m just trying to save you from ever having to fuck up a conversation like this with your kid. I know I make it look easy and all, but it takes real talent to be as bad at this as I am.”
Terry’s mouth twitched and he glanced up at Byron briefly before looking away again. “I got it. There won’t be a kid, I swear. And I don’t need my father to buy me condoms.”
“Why not?” Byron raised his eyebrows. “Did your mum already offer?”
Terry groaned and buried his face in his hands.
The corner of Byron’s mouth twitched upward and he reached across the table to ruffle his son’s hair. “Lighten up, mate.”
“I’m plenty light now that my spirit’s left my body,” came Terry’s muffled reply. He didn’t even think he had it in him to swat away his father’s hand.
“Bit dramatic.” Byron drew his hand back to his side of the table. “Have you ever thought about a career in acting?”
Terry emerged from his hands finally and fixed Byron with a briefly skeptical look before smoothing his hands over the tabletop before him. “I’d make a brilliant actor.”
“Course you would. You’d make a brilliant anything you want,” Byron said, giving him a look because that was also the point. “You can thank your mum for that. You’d think her life was a Shakespearean tragedy.”
There was a rush of something like ‘so you admit I ruined your lives’ to being pleased Byron thought he’d be a brilliant anything to…Terry honestly didn’t know at that point. It was exhausting, sometimes, being his parents’ kid and he thought, very briefly, that they would be kind of rubbish grandparents. Mostly, he settled on being pleased and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Please,” Terry said, “her life’s one of the comedies.”
“Only from the outside,” Byron said with a leaden laugh. “An absurdist drama.”
Now Terry settled on feeling like he’d ruined his parents’ lives again. His shoulders slumped and he stared down at the table. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“It’s just a joke,” Byron said with another shrug. “It’s not that serious.”
“Kinda seems like it is, though,” Terry replied.
“Your mum’s melodramatics?” Byron furrowed his brows. “Really?”
“Nothing. Nevermind. Mum hasn’t got melodramatics. Are you almost done? Gran has a public flogging scheduled for me in an hour or so and I really want to get all the familial embarrassment out of the way before my birthday,” Terry said, all very quickly.
Byron stared at him for a moment before he scrubbed both his hands over his face. He took a deep breath on the other side of his palms before he dropped them.
“Alright, let’s go,” he said, and rose abruptly from his chair. He took both their bowls, his own still half-full, and dumped them in the nearest bin. “Wouldn’t want to keep your audience waiting.”
DECEMBER 2017
Even though Terry was seventeen — an adult by the wizarding world’s standards — Lumos wanted to make sure their Christmas traditions were kept for as long as Terry seemed to want them. It was important for him to have all the things she didn’t have. A childhood, namely. Especially after the year Terry was having at school. Especially after the year she and Byron were having away from school.
They’d had lunch with Byron’s mother and stepfather already and they’d spend all of Christmas Day with Lumos’ father. But the eve of Christmas Eve always belonged to Byron himself.
“All right,” she said, once the dinner table was cleared. “Dessert or presents?”
Byron glanced across the table at Terry and lifted his eyebrows in askance. “What’ll it be, kiddo?”
Terry shrugged and picked at the bandage on his hand. “Whatever you want,” he said, without looking up. But then he made the mistake of looking up and catching the concern that filtered across his mother’s face. Before it turned into anything, he sat up a little straighter. “Presents are fine.”
“Presents it is, then!” Lumos tried to sound cheerful about it, but her eyes kept falling on Terry’s hand.
Byron managed a smile but he couldn’t keep himself oblivious to the tension between the three of them. It wasn’t the usual tension — two parents who barely got along, trying to keep things pleasant for the benefit of their teenage son — but something, somehow, even heavier. He had a feeling.
But this was Christmas. Or Christmas Eve, as it were. And it didn’t feel like the right time. So, Byron forced himself to ignore and fetched Terry’s gift instead. He sat back down and slid it across the table to him. “Merry Christmas!”
The tight smile Terry gave Byron probably didn’t help matters much. He tore through the wrappings and what he found inside snapped him out of his brooding, the corners of his mouth twitching enough that he had to pass his hand over his mouth. “Thanks, dad,” he said, showing Lumos the shaving kit Byron had got him for Christmas.
“That’s so nice!” Lumos said from behind her cup of tea. “Terry…shaves.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw a few wisps of a mustache there,” Byron said, glancing between the two of them and motioning to his upper lip. His eyes settled on Terry. “You’ll be able to braid it soon. I’m telling you: this year’s the year.”
“Well, now I don’t have to braid it,” Terry said, lifting the shaving kit a little. He passed the tips of his fingers over his own upper lip and found it as smooth as it had been before the shaving kit entered his life.
“You won’t be laughing when you wake up with a full beard in February,” he said, pointing to the kit and sitting back in his chair. “Trust me.”
“I don’t know,” Terry said, stroking his chin. “That sounds hilarious to me.”
“Terry,” Lumos interrupted gently, “why don’t you get him your present?”
“Oh, yeah. Be right back.” Though he very much wanted to be cool about it, Terry was excited about his present and he sprang out of his seat to run up to his bedroom to fetch his present for Byron.
A silent moment passed. Lumos set down her tea and turned to Byron, her features slightly pained. “A shaving kit?”
“What?” Byron furrowed his brow at her and pointed at the kit again. “It’s deluxe!”
Lumos pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t understand how that makes it better.”
“It’s practical!”
“Oh my god.”
Byron let out a short sound of exasperation before he turned defensive. “What’d you get him, then?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Lumos said quietly, casting her eyes towards the ceiling. “But he’s a teenager, Byron. He doesn’t need practical. He needs —” Terry’s footsteps on the stairs cut her off and she quickly scooped up her tea to act as if she hadn’t said anything, casting Byron the same sort of disappointed look she’d give Terry.
Terry burst back into the room. “Sorry, it wasn’t where I thought it was.” Suppressing a grin, he passed Byron’s gift off to him.
Byron managed not to shoot a glare at Lumos before Terry reappeared and even schooled his expression into a grin.
“What do we have here?” he asked, already tearing into the wrapping paper. He pulled it aside to reveal a field notebook, not unlike the one he’d left sitting on his desk at work. His grin grew wider as he picked his gaze up to look at Terry. Tapping the notebook against the palm of his hand, he concluded, “It’s brilliant.”
“Yeah? It’s got your name embossed there on the corner, too,” Terry said, reaching to point it out to Byron. He was openly grinning now. “And there’s a charm on so it won’t run out of paper when you need it.”
Byron traced the pad of his thumb over his name on the notebook’s cover and tried to ignore the stab of guilt in his chest. He avoided Lumos’ gaze as he stood and tugged his son in for a one-armed hug. “Thanks, Terry.”
Lumos was silent, though, feeling a stab of something else entirely as she watched Terry hug Byron back. She couldn’t believe she was going to have to send him back to school in two weeks after everything she’d heard and that horrible bandage on his hand. She hadn’t realized how unhappy he’d been since he’d gotten home until she’d seen the opposite.
When Terry stepped back, he cleared his throat and gruffly said, “No problem, mate.” He scratched the back of his neck and took his seat again. “I ruined three of Michael’s notebooks trying to get the charm right. But as far as I’m concerned, that was his own fault for leaving them out like that.”
“In Ravenclaw, no less,” Byron said with a laugh as he laid the notebook flat on the table in front of him. “You can tell him thanks from me.”
“Will do,” Terry said, echoing Byron’s laugh, grinning down at the table in front of him.
“Are the two of you ready for dessert?” Lumos asked after a beat.
“Think so,” Byron said, his grin barely wavering when he turned his gaze on her. But it was back on Terry an instant. “What do you say?”