InsaneJournal

"Drink?" John Prewett offered, holding up one of the empty glasses set out on the sideboard.

"I'm surprised you'd offer, considering the state I was in when last we spoke."

"If you can forgive us our trespasses, we can certainly return the favour." John smiled, and at Gideon's reluctant assent, he poured out a finger of scotch each. Prewett men, father and son, settled down in the study’s two overstuffed chairs with the grave deliberation of generals about to deliberate on wartime tactics and strategy.

For several long moments, neither man could speak. Gideon found himself unable to raise the glass to his lips nor his gaze in front of his father, so he contented himself with cupping it within his palms, circling the rim with his thumb, and watching the shadows from the burning fire in the hearth dance across the rug.

The invitation up to his parents’ house on the evening before his birthday (as if they knew he’d have plans on the day of) had probably been issued with expectations he’d refuse, and for most of the day, he had been leaning just that way. But in the end, he’d acquiesced. Just after dinner, just for a little while. Because he couldn’t not.

And so it had just been the three of them, which was the smallest official family celebration Gideon had ever attended, and the first time he could remember ever having the spotlight alone, which had been unnerving. It was quiet, still imbued with hesitations and awkwardness, and none of them were particularly given to unnecessary conversation, but they had tried anyway (“You shaved your beard.” “Yes.” “Thank Godric. You look much younger now without that small mammal attached to your face.”). But there had been a small cardamom honey cake clearly sized for three, exploding with fifty candles, which had induced his mother to decry, “Forty-six, for Merlin’s sake, Winny!” and that had broken the tension, thank all the gods. Afterwards, even his mother had relaxed enough to agree to play them several pieces, and Gideon had forgotten how beautiful she still was as she fluidly moved her whole body over the keys. By the time his father asked to speak with him alone in his study, he found himself glad he had made the decision to come.

It was John who spoke first.

"Your presence here tonight means a great deal to your mother and I. I know we are not a very demonstrative family. We prefer to either cut our losses or sweep matters entirely under the rug, but as always, you have demonstrated how you are the bigger and better man."

His father’s words did not sit comfortably upon Gideon’s shoulders. For so long, he had hardly felt like much of a man at all, and certainly the whirlwind of those tumultuous events at which he found himself the centre did little to make him feel like anything more than a problem needing to be fixed by others. "I confess it was a surprise to receive Mum’s invitation. Knowing you had not turned your back on me, I knew I could not turn my back on you. You're still my family, and in spite of everything, how much I’ve been hurt in ways large and small and how ashamed I’ve felt, I could not ever stop loving you. I could not ever stop trying." Even when it continued to hurt, even when he knew it would.

His father stood up and retrieved a small trunk from his desk -- Gideon’s old school trunk, in fact -- carrying it across the room to hand to its original owner. Putting aside his untouched drink with a thread of confusion, Gideon opened the lid to the shrunken container and saw several equally shrunken items inside, books mostly, whose titles were too small to read at that size, and what appeared to be a familiar painting. The painting. At full size, it usually could be found hanging at the end of the corridor on the first floor, seemingly forgotten and rarely gazed upon for its lonely placement. Gideon looked up at his father questioningly.

“Your birthday gifts,” John explained, a fond smile gracing his features. “Probably better than another tea set. When we had trouble finding you, it was inevitably because you were curled up with a book in front of that bloody thing.”

“It was my favourite painting.” Truly, for it did not depict some distinguished ancestor or another, but an almost ephemeral forest scene of mournful trees with whorls of mist caressing their weeping branches. Sometimes from the corner of his eye, Gideon thought he had caught other things moving within the scene, though when he gazed at it head on, there had been nothing. The world depicted in that painting had seemed so real to Gideon when he had been a boy, he thought if he concentrated hard enough, he could enter it himself.

"Now it can hang in your own home. The books, too, are the oldest in our collection. Some old secret family magic that’s all but been forgotten about. History. Culture. Personal journals from back in the days when they were actually personal. Technically all these things belong to the estate, but your mother and I figure they’ll be returned eventually.”

It was said lightly, but the significance of them was not lost on him: acceptance for the fact that one day, when the ownership of these things, this house, fell to him, he’d be the one to return them. Gideon swallowed and gently closed the trunk, cradling its precious contents in his hands. “Thank you, Father. I...these were thoughtful.”

“Gideon, I know, growing up in this house, you may have felt overshadowed by louder and flashier personalities. That fault lies with your mother and I, I’m afraid. We allowed ourselves to be distracted, to not look more deeply than that. We know now, you had been speaking this whole time, only we had been so consumed with ourselves we hadn’t really listened to what you were trying to tell us. Perhaps if we had been more attentive to your needs, to who you were and are as a person, you would not have felt like you had to keep a piece of yourself hidden for so long.”

He thought of Bilius. He thought of Colin. He thought of sly, quick glimpses chanced, of thoughts shuddered away almost as soon as they could occur. He thought of books, how he’d rather let himself be consumed by those worlds than his own. He kept these things to himself, didn’t remember why or when it started -- possibly, because no one had thought to ask, and then later, because he didn’t want to add to the utter chaos and noise. His quiet was taken for tacit acceptance to be shaped and moulded into the correct figure: the acknowledged heir, the first son by virtue of minutes, a good student, responsible, reliable. A strong and sturdy mantle on which to rest the expectations of an old, old name. He had let those things carve themselves around him even as his private internal world had bloomed into something wholly different.

“Not very Gryffindor of me, was it?” Gideon surmised

His father gave a soft laugh, but it tapered off into something more contemplative, until he finally spoke again. “This Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw rivalry is a bunch of bollocks, you know. The truth, Gideon, is you are and always have been a measure of each, just as you've inherited all the best qualities of your mother and I. You have her shrewd mind, but also her big heart. You've my strong moral compass and restraint over impulse. Thankfully, you've neither of our dismissive judgmental tendencies or there would never have been any peace in this house. And then there are those qualities which are entirely your own. You may be hesitant to give of yourself, but when you do, you do so fully and wholeheartedly. You are generous and wise beyond your years, and you have always understood the value of forgiveness for both the giver and recipient.”

After several seconds of stunned silence, Gideon said, “You...I’ve never heard you say so many words at a time.” Not about these things. Not to him. Not about him.

“Your mother and I aren’t getting any younger,” John said, swallowing the rest of his drink in one go before folding his hands in his lap. “And the older we get, the more we find ourselves looking back on our lives with a number of regrets. But you know, it is an old Prewett trait: we don’t wallow when there’s still a chance to right those wrongs. It’s why we’d like to have all of you over for upcoming holidays. And by all, we mean we’d like to get to know those parts of your life we are not so acquainted with. We would like to get to know those you love and those who you’ve claimed as your own."

“I’d...I’d have to talk it over with....”

“That’s fine,” John replied gently. “There will be an invitation owled out soon to everyone. School will be let out, so we’re hoping to see the youngest too. Frankly, your mother and I are tired of always losing out to those damn Weasleys.”

The words were lightheartedly disgruntled. It caused Gideon to smile briefly in return. “I would need to talk to Bilius and Madoc. Madoc especially isn’t particularly keen on Prewetts right now, as you can imagine. But I, I appreciate the effort. I do. I know we are not….very distinguished names to have on the guest list anymore.”

“Perhaps not,” John acknowledged, because his father always spoke truthfully if not often, tonight excepted. “But we love you, Gideon, and we haven’t always been as accepting nor as graceful as we should have been. We almost lost you once to Azkaban. The thought of losing you now simply because of our stubbornness is nigh on unbearable.”

The night had ended far less acrimonious than the last time. He had been embraced by both his father and mother before he left, the first physical demonstration of affection he’d received from them in over a decade -- or perhaps it had been him now allowing them in close -- but it had been both strange and strangely wonderful. It didn’t mean things were now fully resolved, not even by half, but the commitment, at least, was there to move forward and do better.

Gideon tried to imagine the Weasleys seated at the long, formal dining table in the Prewett household with its perfect place settings and mise en scene, his parents a portrait in respectable, moneyed (but not too much to seem above it all) pedigree playing host and hostess to what they would imagine to be a lovely, perfect dinner with their lovely, perfect family.

Gods help them all, but they would be lucky if the place were still standing by the end of the night.