WHO: Lumos Boot & Terry Boot WHAT: Lumos catches up with her son. WHEN: Tonight WHERE: Byron's flat
“I thought I’d find you here,” Lumos said as she sat next to Terry on Byron’s sofa. She tried to keep her tone light and casual, but it was hard being in Byron’s flat again and it hurt that Terry was there instead home. Some of that crept into her words whether she wanted it to or not.
Guilt seemed to flash across Terry’s face and he pocketed his mobile, kicking his shoes up onto the coffee table and promptly dropping them back to the floor when his mum swatted at his knee. She tilted forward, a little, trying to catch her son’s eye, but he only spared her a glance before looking away.
“Want to tell me what’s up?” she asked.
Terry cast her another glance and then, said to his knees, “What about?”
“Well, you’ve hardly been home the past few days.” Lumos turned to look at him properly, one leg crooked on the sofa in front of her. “I know you said you’ve been helping at Hogwarts, but…” Her eyes roamed the room before falling on him again. “Have you been staying here?”
“Yeah, I, uh.”
She waited, quietly, for him to finish, but he didn’t so she reached out and smoothed her hand over his hair. “You what?”
He leaned his head away from her, scrubbing his cheek against his shoulder, so she drew her hand back to her lap. “I don’t know,” he said abruptly, bristling with impatience suddenly. “It’s weird being back there when he, you know.”
“When he what?” She didn’t really understand why it wasn’t weirder being there, in his flat. It had been more Byron’s home than their house ever had.
“Well, it’s like —” He heaved a sigh and shifted on the sofa, drawing himself up and flopping back down into the sofa cushions like it was hard for him to get comfortable. “It all happened so fast. I came home and you two were —” He shrugged, flapping a hand against his thigh. “Dating or whatever. And then, he moved in? And yeah, I know why, but it was still weird. And then, he was —” Abruptly, he stopped and his mouth became a hard line.
And then, Lumos knew, Byron was gone.
But she waited.
“I don’t know, mum. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not.”
“It is. He’d probably think it was.”
“Why don’t you try me?” She kept her hands in her lap. But they were itching to reach for him again.
He heaved another sigh. “He spent his last night in our house. His last breakfast was at our table. He was there —” He stopped again and then in a rush, “He was there for once — in our house and then, he was dead. And when I’m home, I just think about standing by the kitchen, finding out he was dead.”
“That’s not stupid, Terry.” When he didn’t say anything, she reached for his chin, turning his face so he’d look at her. “Hey, that’s not stupid. You think I don’t understand?”
A look passed over his features like somehow that made it worse, that his mother understood. He jerked his chin out of her grasp, but he kept looking at her.
“He was your dad. So what if he would’ve thought it was stupid? His dad was a…” She trailed off and looked down at her lap.
“Wanker?” When she looked up at him, he shrugged and reached for his mobile. “He’s been hexting me, you know. Quentin. He said I could come with him to Australia this summer if I wanted.” He paused. “I was thinking about doing it.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Everything here kind of sucks. So.” He shrugged again. “He’s a wanker, but it could be cool to ‘see the world’.” He waggled his fingers sarcastically at seeing the world and gave her a wry smile. “I could write about it, even.”
“I’d miss you,” Lumos said with a frown. “But…” She squared her shoulders. “If that’s what you’d like to do, you should do it.”
“I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it.”
“Well.” She glanced up at the ceiling of Byron’s flat before looking at Terry again. “Let me know?”
“Merlin, mum, ‘course I’ll let you know.”
Lumos laughed, like she hadn’t been worried he wouldn’t tell her. “So, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Terry gave his mother a wary look, but nodded. “What’s that?”
“Betty warded me the other day.” His eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but he nodded again so she continued. “She and Gwen wanted to make the Beacon a proper newspaper. They wanted our blessing.”
“Wait. Romilda’s sister, Gwen?”
Now Lumos furrowed her eyebrows. “Yes?”
He snorted out a laugh, but a glance at his mother’s face sobered him and he sat up a little straighter. “What’d you say?”
“I want to know what you think first.”
“Sounds all right to me,” he said with a shrug.
“Betty said she’d be available if you wanted to talk to her about it.”
Terry nodded slowly, his features thoughtful.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. And then, “Actually, I kind of thought this would be about the bun in your oven.”
Lumos promptly choked on nothing. “What?” she asked again, a hand pressed to the middle of her chest, as if that would somehow bring her esophagus under control. “How?”
“The thingy was right there in the bin, mum! What was I supposed to do? Not look?”
“Oh my god.” She buried her face in her hands because she couldn’t look her son in the eye anymore.
“I can’t say I’ve ever wanted a little brother or sister, but I can work with this, I guess.”
“Oh my god!”
Openly laughing now, he added, “And after I told him no glove, no love!”