InsaneJournal

Who: Sirius Black and Fabian Prewett
What: Only one pureblood can understand the crazy in the life of another pureblood.
When: Thursday evening, 12 March 1998 (BACKDATED)
Where: Sirius' office, Hogwarts (so keep out, children: your elders are plotting the revolution)
Warnings: Language, because the lads have potty mouth.



Fabian set the basket of things he'd brought up for various members of the staff on the edge of Sirius' desk and leaned over to give the man himself a friendly clasp. "This," he told Sirius, digging into the basket to find a ribbon-wrapped box of Belgian chocolates, which he set on the desk, "is for the birthday boy. And this is for you." A bottle of port followed it. "Because you can get good whiskey up here anyroad and it's time to drink something different. And Godric and Salazar know you're going to have earned it by the time you listen to me whinging about the things currently under my skin. Which I appreciate your taking time to do, by the way. You are, I think, the only person that could possibly make sense of my current--it's not even a dilemma, really--and whatever it is, I'm too old for it." Fabian made a gesture that could have been described as throwing up his hands in frustration if there had been any energy in it

Sirius was in an excellent mood. The entire week, really, had been excellent. Remus's birthday, that night, this morning, all afternoon … it was odd to spend that much time together, Sirius thought, and he had a bounce in his step and a grin on his face as he met with Fabian after supper. "How wonderful," he said, meaning it, setting the chocolate aside and poking through for the port. "Thank you, Fabian," he said. He motioned to the two armchairs in his office, away from the desk.

"You know I don't mind. Besides Remus and Evans and some of the other professors, all I do is talk to students all day every day. Your face is a welcome distraction." Sirius was still grinning. "Now, I hope you're not planning on putting too dank a mood on anything, though I don't suppose much could ruin my week so far, so maybe I ought to be challenging you to do so."

"Oh, no," Fabian said, dropping into the armchair with that sort of arrogantly graceful sprawl that was the birthright of pureblooded boys. "You might laugh yourself to death. The only reason I'm taking any of it seriously is I'm in the middle of it. It sounds like something out of a WWN drama serial." He rolled his eyes visibly before focusing on Sirius. "I won't ask you not to tell Remus about this, of course, but I'll be relying on your discretion and his, as some of this is, I'm sure, not my secret to tell. You know as well as I do the poison that can come from that, though, if it's the wrong secret left to fester." That might be a bit darker than Fabian had meant it to sound, and he found himself frowning thoughtfully. "At least this isn't the sort of secret that involves skull-and-snake tattoos."

Now Sirius was intrigued. "Oh I'm very good with secrets," he said flippantly, though he meant it. The flippancy was just a side-effect of his good mood. "And drama. Hogwarts is filled with it, you know. Everywhere you look, some more teenage drama pops up. It's incredible."

Fabian rolled his eyes again. "I'm about to turn forty-six, Sirius. That's too old for teenaged drama." But there it was, and on some level dealing with his parents, even with his age and life experience, really did reduce some part of him to sputtering adolescent fury.

He took in a breath and let it out in a long exhale, sort of a sigh, and spat it out. "My parents summoned me up to the house Thursday last for some important family business. I always worry when they say something like that, given their age. But it wasn't their health this time. They had a story to tell me, a rather old one, that I hadn't known. Apparently--" Fabian found himself feeling the urge to circumnavigate and forced himself to talk like a man and not a solicitor "--Gideon got a girl pregnant when we were all young and stupid and my parents paid her off to go to America without telling him. The kickers are twofold: first, the girl was Caradoc Dearborn's sister and doesn't that put a different cast on how he got on with us?, and second, the lad's turned up lately and confronted Gideon. And he looked me up, too, but that's another story. So Gideon showed up to the house for the first time since before we went to Azkaban and had it out with them and told them he was shacked up with Bilius--which I was pretty sure was the case anyroad--and I don't know what all else, all at some ungodly hour of the morning."

There was a short bark of a laugh, one that suggested Fabian found this both hilarious and not even slightly funny. "And of course they wanted me to fix it."

Well, that all settled on on Sirius and took a while. For some reason, the first thing that actually registered for him was the fact that Gideon and Bilius had shacked up together. An odd twinge of jealousy reared up and Sirius laughed it away. Out loud, in one bark of laughter that fit the rest of it, too. "That's a hell of a thing to find out," Sirius said, rubbing at his jaw. "For you and for Gideon I'd wager." He shook his head. "Your parents want you to fix what part of it exactly?" he asked a moment later. He tried to sort through all of it, getting lost somewhere in there with the mention of Dearborn and America and such.

"Whatever's going on between them and Gideon, I think. Which I wouldn't do, and I'm not convinced I could if I wanted to." Fabian gave a restless shrug that wouldn't quite admit to the description of helplessness. "But--and here's your moment of teenaged drama--I told them to bugger off and went home. And threw all my Mum's piano sonatas, including the ones she dedicated to me, into my fireplace, which was quite the thing to explain to the DMLE at five o'clock Saturday morning without reference to why I'd burned the scores."

"That's shite timing, that is," Sirius said. "But I bet it was fun to try to explain. What did you say?" He, of course, knew all about family drama and families and parents and frankly he was glad his were dead.

The fact that Sirius had such an intimate knowledge of family drama was why exactly why Fabian had picked him for this confidence. "Told them I'd quarreled with the composer. Which was true. They found enough burnt scraps to confirm it was sheet music and didn't pursue it any further. It did mean I spent most of the twenty-four hours they could keep me in holding, though." Fabian made a face at that.

"As for the rest, I'm not talking to my parents right now and it's going to take me a while to want to again. If I do. Getting rid of your grandchild because it's not a pureblood is unconscionable. It's exactly the kind of thing I got into the Order to fight. I knew my parents believed purebloods were better, but--" Fabian trailed off. "This is different. We had to struggle to get back into charity after I came back from Azkaban. I thought we'd come to equilibrium. If they still believe they did the right thing, they're not people I want to know."

"Scrimgeour kept me, too, nearly as long. Least it was on a weekend and I didn't have to go making excuses to my students. Minerva didn't take too kindly to the interruption though, let me tell you."

Sirius grew serious for a moment and nodded solemnly. "There's not much worse than those kind of rifts," he said. "No matter what age it happens at." He shifted, crossing a leg over his knee. "What are you going to do about your nephew?"

Fabian made another face, this one more reflective than angry or irritated about the foibles of humanity; his mouth curled into a little twist of unhappiness. "He showed up at the office to take a look at me. I warded him a few days ago, after I'd got loose from the DMLE, offered him friendship and kinship if he wants it. He seems angry--which I understand, I'd be angry too--apparently he punched Gideon in the nose. I don't think he quite knows what he wants from me, but I can wait, and I will. Age hasn't brought me much, but I have learned a little patience.

"His biggest task is going to be dealing with Gideon, which isn't mine to interfere in, though if he wants my support, he's welcome to it." Another shrug, perhaps indifferent, or perhaps uncertain of how much help Fabian could offer. "But I realised something about me and Gideon in the middle of all this."

And now Fabian was smiling, faintly, bitterly, as he met Sirius' gaze. "I can't remember the last time other than Christmas, when I helped him pack up to go to Molly's, that he's asked me to the farm. Since the first handbills that went up against your brother, I can't remember but one private conversation we've had in person or by journals that didn't have at the very least an edge to it. I can't remember the last time he warded me instead of the other way round. I went to visit Bilius at Gideon's and it was clear Bilius had moved in, but he wouldn't say it to me, and I think that was fear of Gideon, or his wrath. And he's never yet said he likes blokes to me; I heard that from my parents, despite the fact he and Bilius were flirting and practically snogging at Arthur's birthday last month. And I heard about my nephew from my parents as well, and from the young man himself, not from Gideon.

"He didn't even ask if I was all right after I was dragged in by the Aurors, nor tell me he was all right. All I heard was from Bilius." Fabian was looking at his hands; he looked back up at Sirius again. "I think this is where I stop trying. I can't handle Gideon and everything else too: not the school wards and my business and Molly's brood, and Gideon's son, too, if he wants me, and the Order. I have to let something go, and it's Gideon. If he wants to talk to me, he knows where I am."

Sirius, who knew something about rifts between brothers, though he and Regulus were never as close as Fabian and Gideon probably once were, nodded slowly. He pursed his lips as he listened, rubbed his jaw, and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "I'll always place blame on Azkaban," he said quietly, agitatedly. "Because in the absence of knowing what life would be like without our time there, we have to go with what we know. And we know this: it changed all of us." He huffed a bit and looked away for a long moment, fighting his own demons, thinking back to the cold, damp, lonely space. Oddly, memories of Wormtail sneaking into his cell and talking at him crept in. He scowled more deeply.

"Look, Fabian, I think you've got the right of it. Best thing you can do is go about your business the way you want to handle things, focus on the Order and your work, and when he's ready to find you, he will. We all handled things differently and maybe we all wished he'd emerge sooner than now but the fact that he's with Bilius is at least a sign in the right direction. No sense wasting time trying to force something not able to be forced."

Fabian had sat up during this long recital, in the stiff-backed manner of purebloods, and his shoulders drooped a little as Sirius pronounced his verdict. This, he realised, was what he had come for: a bit of understanding that he was in no wise likely to get from his closer blood kin. "Thanks," he said after a moment. "I needed to hear that. All I've ever wanted for Gideon is for him to be happy, whether that was on the farm or in the world. I've told him that; I've defended him against--well, everyone, even Moody when he was trying to force Gideon into rejoining--but I can't keep doing that." The corners of Fabian's mouth turned up in a relieved little smile.

"And then to finish the week off in a truly serial drama fashion, my ex-girlfriend married my cousin and is standing for Minister." And there Fabian did laugh, breaking the rest of his own tension. Because it really was funny.

An eyebrow arched. "You know," Sirius said, a smile twitching a little bit at the corner of his mouth. "I did find it awfully convenient that Jo Savage got married. I didn't even realize she was seeing Abbott. And then …" He waved a hand a little bit. "There she was on the Minister's ballot." Sirius had a lot of opinions about most of the names listed on the candidates' release, though he hadn't really begun sharing any of them yet.

"I didn't realise she was seeing Tristan either, and I'd had him to dinner recently. I think she was the Auror on the case when his wife was murdered. And I know Healers Without Borders has a strong French presence. But yes, it was all very sudden." Fabian straightened again, his personal problems not exactly forgot but at least relieved for the moment. "What do you think about the ballot?"

Sirius's mind worked overtime working that one out but he wasn't about to cast judgments on Jo or Abbott, at least not yet. "I think that I'm not voting for a Frenchwoman," he said before anything else. He held up a hand. "No offense, or anything."

"None taken. I'd vote for--" Fabian thought better of your brother and substituted "--the Granger girl who's still in school first myself. And I have a long list of reasons for not voting for Jo that neither start nor end with how much in each other's pockets she and Rufus Scrimgeour are. Go on."

"You don't want to vote for Granger," Sirius said quickly. "Nothing against Granger herself, but she hasn't even sat for her NEWTs yet. I know that's not actually one of the requirements, and I also have no doubt she'll get more than enough when she does sit for them, but now isn't the time to be electing a child." Even though he had a feeling that Fabian was just using her as an example as to how much he wouldn't be voting for Jo, but still.

"So Granger's a no as well," Sirius continued on. "And I certainly would never give Lockhart the pleasure of my vote either."

Fabian made a face at the mention of Lockhart, who was equally likely to receive his own vote. "Granger might be a viable candidate a term or three down the road, but certainly not this time. I like Merrick; he's a good man. He doesn't have the skills and he'll be owned by his advisers. Nott, obviously out, because she'll have suckled in the worst of purism with her mother's milk. And--" Fabian stopped for a minute to ponder a point that had just occurred to him "--given her circumstances, she's not a bad candidate for Lady Noir."

He didn't know much about Merrick but if he was surrounded by the right people, Sirius thought … the fact was -- and he wasn't going to bring this up with Fabian -- Sirius knew he who he would be voting for, so examining the pros and cons of everyone else wasn't going to tip him in any one direction. He looked over at Fabian sharply at the mention of Lady Noir. "It's possible, but Lady Noir doesn't seem the political type. She seems the hands dirty and smoke and mirrors type. But hopefully we'll know soon enough. James thinks us getting in touch with her, setting up a meeting, he thinks he'll be able to unmask her. If it's Nott, we'll know."

"After we hang on to her for an hour," Fabian reminded Sirius. "But yes, if it is her, we'll find out, and throw the election into chaos. Which should be right fun." His grin was wry and suggested a definition of 'fun' that might not agree with just about anyone else's. "Rowle is from your crowd and I reckon you can tell me why he's out, if he was friends with young Mulciber and that crew that you and James and Remus didn't get on with because they were all Death Eaters or wanted to be. So really, just striking out all the unlikely ones, it's down to Diggory and McMurdo, and I know which of the two of them I prefer barring Rita Skeeter digging up something ugly on them.

"I don't think the Order's going to come to consensus behind any single candidate. Frank and Alice are probably going to line up behind Jo, which I don't agree with them on but understand, and some of them will be behind her because of her stance on Muggleborns, which I see as an upside on the off chance she wins. But I think a free and frank discussion on that topic will only cause rifts inside the Order, between those who went to Azkaban and those who didn't, and among backers of various candidates. So I'd like to avoid it. Particularly since my feeling about the candidate I'm likely to vote for isn't strong enough for me to campaign for him." Fabian made another face, because it was true: he didn't like any of the candidates that well. And, given his radical leanings, he was unlikely to truly believe in any candidate who conceivably win.

"I don't really have anything on Rowle. His father's the purist as far as I know. I wouldn't put it past Rowle the elder to have been a Death Eater. But Rowle the younger? I don't know. Sure he was a Slytherin with Mulciber and Avery and my brother and such but I never heard anything concrete associating him with the Death Eaters. Not saying he tops my list or anything, but I don't know enough to condemn him." Though if Sirius really wanted to, he could probably dig something up, even just a well-timed question to his brother. But he had a feeling Rowle wasn't really in the running regardless.

He wasn't so sure about the rest of the Order though. There was a good blanket of candidates there that could be on the side of the Order, if sides were being taken.

Fabian absorbed Sirius' words, nodding slowly. If Sirius and James and Remus didn't hold anything against him. Rowle might not be as terrible as Fabian's worst-case scenario made Rowle out to be. "I still think Rowle's unlikely, because who's going to back him over your brother? I don't see what he offers that we don't already have, and like him or not, your brother's got seven years in the job, which is more than Rowle's got. He really pulled one over on us: your brother, that is." Which Fabian said with admiration rather than annoyance. "We should have been ready for this, and we weren't, and from the looks of it, the Death Eaters got caught with their robes over their head too. I'm not even sure I knew when his term was up. But we were in Azkaban. What's their excuse?"

"They're a lot of idiots who can't think for themselves if they haven't got Voldemort doing it for them?" Sirius suggested with a wry smile.

And this, this was why Fabian had come to like Sirius so well: they didn't always see eye to eye, and in some ways they saw each other through a glass, darkly, but there was that sometimes painful but more often utterly joyful recognition of a kindred spirit that Fabian so rarely felt these days.

He met Sirius' grin with his own. "You know, my birthday's at the end of this month and I've got one of my early gifts to myself in there." He glanced down at the basket he'd brought with him. "See if you can find a couple of glasses, and we'll drink to that."