WHO: Owen & Jeremy Dearborn WHAT: Conversations about what happens now WHEN: Today! WHERE: Owen's WARNINGS: Pro-con lists
It was easier to worry about Owen than it was to deal with himself. But that didn’t mean that Owen didn’t warrant being worried about, especially after the death of his boss which Jeremy knew had to be making everything worse. He didn’t know how to fix that any more than he knew how to fix what had happened with their mother, but as the oldest living member of their family Jeremy thought it was probably on him to try.
“Hey Owen!” he called as he made his way to Owen’s kitchen with a bag full of food that he absolutely hadn’t cooked. But that didn’t matter. It was still going to be a step up from what he suspected his brother was eating. “Are you here?”
Jeremy supposed it didn’t matter if he was there either. He’d stock up the kitchen all the same.
Owen had only just gotten home himself and was nearly conked out on the couch watching a rerun of Bob's Burgers when his brother popped in; he'd spent his shift looking at comparison photographs of different fire-based spells when held up against the damages to Umbridge's place. Super exciting stuff, despite that everything looked exactly the same, no matter the spell. He almost appreciated the distraction of the case, even though he didn't care about or plan on solving it.
Kevin was still at the babysitter's place for another few hours, so he nearly jumped out of his skin hearing someone else in the house. Hearing that it was just Jeremy put him at ease, but he still shoved his wand into the back waistband of his sweatpants before making his way into the kitchen. Kitchens had ended badly for them lately.
"I'm here," Owen said, pushing his hair back out of his eyes as he tried to figure out what Jeremy was up to. "You went grocery shopping?"
“Baz has been cooking. And you should probably be eating better than whatever you’ve been eating. Just a guess, but I’m sure I’m right.” Jeremy spared him a look before continuing to place food in the freezer and fridge. Once he was done, he tossed the bag on the counter and looked at Owen more directly.
“Where’s Kev? How’s Kev?” He paused a moment before adding, “How are you?”
"He's still over at Amanda Northrop's place. He and Maggie watched the first two Toy Stories and so they need to watch the third one," Owen explained, which made perfect sense to him. He'd always been a completionist. "I was going to take a nap but then I got sucked into the back half of an SVU episode, and you know how that goes."
"And I've been eating fine," Owen lied, swiping the orange packet of ramen he'd planned on having for dinner into a drawer with tin foil and sandwich bags and a few cooking utensils that he had no idea how to use. "How are you?"
“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” Jeremy said, because he had and because he wanted to dodge the question, just a little. “And I can let you nap. Or watch seven episodes of SVU without realising it, if that’s what you want.”
He walked over, a hand going to Owen’s shoulder and steering him back towards the living room. Jeremy didn’t really want to be in a kitchen any more than he had to be anyway.
"I don't need a nap," Owen grumbled, then chuckled a little to himself. "Oh. That's where he gets it." He and Kevin had just had that same fight the day before.
He flopped down on the sofa, but turned the volume on the television down a little so that he and Jeremy wouldn't have to yell to talk. "I got to do some fire analysis today at Umbridge's place. The whole thing's a wreck and yet it still manages to be freakishly pink."
“Of course it does,” Jeremy said as he sat himself down on the sofa, watching Owen carefully. “But please say that by wreck you mean absolutely destroyed in the best way possible because that’s a level of karma I would really appreciate at the moment. Do you have pictures? Can you share them?”
“I absolutely cannot share them, Jeremy. That is an invasion of privacy and a sick thing to ask,” Owen grinned, sitting up and fanning the photos out onto the coffee table in front of them. “This one here is my favourite,” he added, pointing out one where the light caught the contrast of charred pink on a sofa just so. “The cats weren’t there when this happened so I think the whole thing is beautiful.”
Jeremy took a moment to study the photographs before picking up one of them. “That one’s nice but I’m thinking this one is practically a work of art. Duplicate it, blow it up, and frame it. Makes a perfect gift and everything!”
He paused, looking at the photo thoughtfully for a moment. “It could be part of a series. Just have to burn down a few more purist houses.”
"That would be an awesome exhibit someday. The Last Remains of Purism or something," Owen laughed, almost able to see the name written out in lights in front of him. "The pièce de résistance can be the Lestrange's place. No more horses, no more death eaters, just smoke and rubble and all the envoys of Sauron inside getting carted off to be snogged by a dementor."
Jeremy took a moment to imagine it — the idea of the Lestranges on their way to a rendezvous with a dementor was somewhat satisfying. He couldn’t decide if it was satisfying enough, though. Not when he could still see everything every time he closed his eyes.
“It’d be a showstopper,” he agreed, letting the photo in his hands join the rest on the table. “You could get rich off it.”
"I wouldn't even want to get rich off it. I'd just be in it for the art. And the knowing that the Lestranges were gone," Owen replied with a happy sigh as he sank back into the sofa cushions. The moment passed, and the dream faded away as reality took hold again. "It's a nice thought, I guess."
“Them being gone is a nice thought,” Jeremy repeated with a frown, a hand coming up to run through his hair. When he spoke again, it was quieter and less certain, because he was less certain. “I don’t really know what we’re meant to do now.”
"I don't either." The Lestranges had been responsible for killing both of their parents, and now Owen's Auroring Mentor was gone because of one of them. He had no idea where he was supposed to go from there. Both he and Jeremy had almost died themselves trying to fight back against them. "They always manage to get the jump on everyone. Everything we do is reactionary. I think it has to be our plan. Though I don't know what that plan is."
“Do you know what you want it to be?” Jeremy asked tentatively, almost not sure he wanted to address the topic. But it was already out there, he supposed.
Yes. "No. Yes," he answered honestly after a moment, figuring there was no point in lying about it. "I don't… it freaks me out, wanting to be that person, because then where's the line? But then it's like… there are lines, and then there are the Lestranges."
“The Lestranges are so far past any line,” Jeremy said, mostly because it was something to say while he chewed on the rest of it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had similar thoughts, at first. Sometimes he still did. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to let himself be that sort of person. He couldn’t seem to decide on most things anymore.
“I guess someone’s got to be that person though.”
"Yeah." And maybe that was why they'd gotten away with everything for so long. Nobody wanted to take that extra step into becoming That Person. He kept going back to when they'd broken into their mother's house, right after they'd killed their mother, when they were cruciating Jeremy, and Owen had tried that spell himself. It hadn't worked, but what if it had? And was it worse that he'd tried it in the first place? "Do you think that dad would've done it if he'd gotten the chance?"
“I don’t know. There was so much of dad that we didn’t get to know. Every time I try to think that way I don’t even know where to start, and it’s because they took him away from us before we could know him as a person instead of just the dad parts that he wanted us to see.” Jeremy sighed, a hand coming up to scrub at his forehead. He suddenly felt so tired.
“I think we’re on our own for this one, O. We have to decide if we can stand to be those people.”
"Welp," Owen replied, using both hands to push himself up off the couch, then turned toward the kitchen with his wand. A moment later, two beers came flying out of the kitchen, and he caught one in each hand before passing the second off to Jeremy. "I'm going to need a drink first before I can be that person."
Taking the beer, Jeremy let out a huff of laughter, the sort that was barely laughter at all. “Well I guess we can start there,” he said. “Maybe we can follow up with a pro-con list.”
"Pro-con lists are great. Though we should probably burn it afterwards. Just in case. Evidence and all." Owen cracked open his own drink as he settled back down, taking a long drink from the can as he tried to think of things to add to the list. "Pro: Mur--" he stumbled over the word, then rethought his phrasing. "Killing the Lestranges would mean that they wouldn't be able to hurt or kill anyone else."
“Con: rephrasing your pro doesn’t make it any less murder,” Jeremy said as he took a drink from his own beer. “And con: the odds of this resulting in our own deaths is pretty high which leads directly into the next con — you’ve a five year old who would really like his father around.”
He paused before adding, “But damn if that pro isn’t a good one.”
"It is a good one. But those are some really weighty cons," Owen sighed. "Though, pro, Rabastan fucking threatened Kevin and that pro is jumping to the top of the list. But con, cutting one head off the snake would probably make the others even worse. And con, all the pearl clutching. 'Murder is murder! These vigilantes are just as bad as the people they claim they're fighting against! Think of the children!!'!" Owen added in a mocking voice that sounded alarmingly like a Parkinson.
“They’re going to do that anyway though. The Prophet already turned self defense into ‘look at those deranged Dearborn boys.’ The spin’s not great but I’m less worried about that. So that con can live down at the bottom.” Jeremy sighed.
“But I guess what are the alternatives?”
"So we capture them instead, which I know is… well, was, the Auror way of doing it. They can give us more information if they're taken alive, and our hands are less dirty," explained Owen the Former Auror and current Hitwizard. "But where do we keep them? If they can get out of Azkaban, they can pretty much get out of anywhere. And we don't have Azkaban anymore anyway."
Taking a long sip of beer, Jeremy tried to find an answer. Or even a good response. But the only thing he could think of to say was, “This fucking sucks.”
"This does suck," Owen agreed, slumping back as he drummed his fingers on the sides of the can. "It seems like we're just treading water until the sharks end up catching up to us."
“And the sharks have sharper teeth. Or something like that. I think maybe I don’t know enough about sharks to make this metaphor work. But you know what I mean.” Probably. Jeremy thought the gist of it was evident enough.
Standing up, Jeremy looked around before grabbing a scrap of paper and a crayon Kevin had left lying around. “Okay, let’s give this some thought for real.”