InsaneJournal

Who: The Brothers Prewett
What: Burning it down and building it up.
When: Late Saturday night, 10 January 1998 following Fabian's and Bilius' trip to the Swallowed Octave
Where: Gideon's farm that still has no name
Warnings: Language



Probably he should have journalled Gideon, Fabian thought as he laid a light touch on his brother's wards to let Gideon know that he was here. He wasn't sure he'd wanted to see his brother so much as to be somewhere with fewer memories of the old days that he simply didn't want to remember right now. He could have parted the wards with his wand if he'd so desired, but Fabian wasn't so far gone as to disrespect the privacy his brother kept from the world. Instead he waited, giving himself the limit of a quarter-glass in the cold wind in case Gideon was asleep or just plain not inclined to deal with Fabian's folly. Which would, Fabian thought, serve him right.

The porch light came on, and Gideon braced himself in the doorway, peering out into the darkness upon the summons. He could just barely make out Fabian’s form -- would have felt more comforted if Fabian had simply let himself in if the slump to his shoulders were anything by which to judge his current state of mind.

He didn’t say anything as he approached the edges of the property, merely gave his brother a keen look and lifted the wards with a flick of his wand. “What luck. I’ve just broke open a bottle of Bilius’s scotch.”

"If you feed me any of that, you'll have me until the morning. I'm not over the eight," Fabian told Gideon, "but one more will probably put me there." The truth was that he'd had little enough business risking himself by Apparating after all the drinking he'd done. One of the advantages of drinking at the Swallowed Octave was that Fabian could walk home afterwards.

"I have some things I need to burn." Fabian tapped the bag he was carrying over his shoulder, which had a lot more in it than what he'd thrown in while turning over his flat to be sure nothing he needed to be rid of was left. "Nothing to do with--nothing to do with anything you shouldn't know about." Fabian couldn't say anything about approval or the lack thereof; he suspected Gideon wouldn't approve. Fabian wasn't sure he approved and he'd been the one who'd done it. "It's all personal. Just papers and parchments."

Gideon eyed the bag, but made no comment -- personal implied well enough. “I’ve a very good fire going.” He turned and headed back to the small cottage, trusting Fabian to follow. His boots crunched over the frozen ground, the biting cold chilling his skin even through the hastily thrown on jumper. In sharp contrast, the house was warm, near burning hot, with only the blazing hearth to illuminate the small sitting room. The chair by which he had previously occupied with glass of amber liquid and a book was now conquered by sleek balls of napping felines, so he merely sat on the sofa and left the spot closest to the fire open.

The domestic scene he'd interrupted brought Fabian to his senses, sharper than the chill wind that had only served to further desensitise what the alcohol in his system hadn't sufficiently numbed. He stood in the doorway as Gideon settled onto the sofa, mouth slightly open as several different things tried to fight their way from his mind to his tongue. "I shouldn't have come. I shouldn't have bothered you. I'm sorry, Gideon."

“For Merlin’s sake, Fabian, close the door and sit down. You’re letting out all the heat.” Because certainly now there would be no way he could allow his brother to go off alone. It was a look Fabian did not often wear -- and all the more concerning for it.

The tone of fraternal command wasn't something Gideon invoked often; Fabian responded to it by habit, shutting the door and doffing his jacket. The bag he tossed down by the end of the sofa nearest the fire before settling on the edge himself, perched precariously as if he expected to have to spring into action, regardless of the fact that there was no danger here. "I'm sorry," he said once more, looking at Gideon, though he didn't specify for what.

Gideon merely gazed back -- apologies, merited or not, had no place here. And certainly not for this. “For bringing the smell of the pub back with you then? It will air out.” He nodded to the bag. “Would this be a solitary ritual?”

The question spurred Fabian to move. Hooking the bag with his foot, he dragged it close enough that he could open it and pull out some of the contents: a folder full of papers, newspaper clippings, notes, some in Fabian's own handwriting. "How many of my secrets do you want to know?"

“Only the ones you are willing to impart,” Gideon answered quite honestly, for he knew well the value of secrets. Still, he would be lying if he said his curiosity wasn’t piqued by the glimpse of such personal detritus. “Why now?”

"Because someone pointed out that I had made a categorical error. It's funny how little things like that can fuck you up. I was happy earlier today." Fabian flipped open the folder and picked out what appeared to be a clipping from the Prophet. There was a note attached, difficult to read given that it was upside down from the direction Gideon was sitting, but the stroke of the quill was familiar. Not Fabian's hand, which was distinctive, but a short note from their father. Fabian looked at it for a moment, shook his head, and cast it into the flames.

Gideon watched the paper blacket and curl up in the flames, turning to ash in an instant, Jo Savage’s beautifully poised and smiling face the last thing to be seen. That his brother had held on to such a small trinket -- the Prophet was hardly ever worth the paper it was printed on, especially these days -- spoke well enough to the small article’s main subject. That Fabian was now letting it go said even more, for his brother did not let go of things lightly.

“It’s not a bad idea, now that I see it in action.” His smile was small and did not come close to reaching his eyes, but he stood up and walked over to his desk. The top right drawer was locked, but a summoned key and a puff of dust later unearthed his own set of papers to burn. “Ah, this.” Gideon held up his official certificate of Auror training completion. He had had it framed once.

Fabian paused in between throwing clippings into the fire--and there were far more of them than there reasonably should have been--to see what Gideon had to contribute to the burning. He recognised what Gideon was holding at once, and the little blood that was in his face drained completely away. "You--" he started, and didn't finish that thought.

It took Fabian a moment to decide on the right words, which turned out to be, "You should do what seems right to you." But he looked green around the gills.

“There is more worth to this as ashes for planting new trees in my orchard,” Gideon said decisively, though he took the time to read the official words once more, eye the decorative border, run his finger over the embossed seal. And then he threw it into the fire and watched the words burn away. “That part of my life is well over. I don’t know why I hung onto it.”

Fabian's mouth was working as if there were words trying to come out and they couldn't shape themselves properly. There had been a time when Fabian couldn't have imagined wanting anything more than the thing Gideon had just symbolically consigned to the flames. They had both long since turned their backs on everything it meant, and in turn the Aurors had consigned them to Azkaban and--it made sense, but it was still another piece ripped out of him when Fabian wasn't sure he had any left to lose.

Jo had been an Auror, too, after all.

He plucked another clipping from the stack and tossed it in behind Gideon's certificate, watching it blacken around the edges.

At least you had mementos, Gideon almost said. But then, maybe that wasn’t always such a good thing. Even now, what emerged underneath a sheet of scribbled notes was the muggle photograph, the one that had been folded over so many times, the widened creases had blotted out the very face it once depicted. It had been the only image he had ever had save for his own memories, and even those grew faint in the dulling horrors of Azkaban and his own willful mission to forget. Had he been alone, he might have even pressed his lips to it one last time, but as it was, he merely tossed it into the flames with little fanfare, where it landed facedown upon a burning log and quickly sealed itself to it.

Where Gideon's memories came in single sheets, Fabian's apparently came by the score. He was tossing the pages and photographs into the fire in twos and threes as if he couldn't get them out of his hands to the flames quickly enough now that he'd started. Gideon's cats had rolled over and sat up, displaying an interest in the sudden flurry of human activity. Fabian disregarded them completely. On another day, he might have amused himself with them, or let them play with something from his bag. Now there was a demon riding him, and until its urgent needs were dealt with, nothing else merited Fabian's attention, save only the fuel he and Gideon were adding to the fire.

A hand splayed across Fabian’s back, warm and heavy between his shoulder blades, to bring him back to himself. Here, closer to Fabian now, Gideon could look down and see the last few remaining sheaths of parchment. Letters in a elegant, flowing script. They have said many good-byes to many people, places, and dreams in their lives. All things ended, but Fabian had always taken them harder than most. “I’ll get you some water.”

Fabian picked out a photograph from the rapidly dwindling pile, one that showed a much younger couple, a happier couple, even if their faces were shadowed by the war around them. He waved it at Gideon. "It's okay for me not to want this, isn't it? I can stop wanting it. I don't have to keep wanting this and I don't have to keep wanting her. Do I?"

The kitchen was not so far that he could not see or hear Fabian, and even as he came back, glass of water in hand, the details of the photograph growing sharper (smiles captured on paper, the likes of which he had never seen since). He set the glass down on a nearby table, studied the photograph, and then his brother’s face. “We don’t always have a choice in the matter.” But oh, how he wished differently. “Maybe acceptance is the only avenue left to us.” Bitter though it often was: accept that people change and love changes with it.

"I know what the fuck is wrong with us." Fabian could put himself on the same side of that line as Gideon even though he wore a mask to the world that said otherwise. He offered Gideon a wry smile as he tossed the photograph into the fire, the motion of their laughter stopping abruptly as the flame touched the paper and it burned. "I don't know what the fuck is wrong with everybody else.

"It would never have worked, I don't think, and that's the bitter part. And I don't just mean because I lied to her, and not just about the Order. I let her corrupt me when, let's face it, I was plenty corrupt already." He started to say something about the National Razor, a lecture he'd disliked enough when he was fighting the good fight before Azkaban, but no: Gideon was her friend, perhaps still, and there was no point in stirring up arguments to do with the world as it was and had become when Gideon wanted no part of it.

What Fabian said instead was, "People aren't good and bad, you know. It's actions that are good and bad, and I always forget that. Be careful of her, Gideon. She's not done with the world any more than I am. If you won't come with me, I won't force you--but don't let her hook you in without knowing what you're getting into."

Gideon almost wanted to laugh. It was not Jo who had the power to bring about his downfall, nor did he ever think she would ever want to. Like Fabian, Jo held to her own singular path -- and it was not always wide enough to accommodate others by design. From here, they ran more parallel than either would like to admit. “Perhaps you don’t give either of us enough credit.” Which was maybe also understandable given his current state. He reached out and reclaimed the glass. “Drink, or you’ll be sorry tomorrow.”

"No." It wasn't the water, though, because Fabian took it and drained it, either from habitual obedience or from the knowledge that the advice was good. Handing the dead soldier back, he elaborated: "She's less careful of people than I am, which isn't much, always." Moreso with Gideon than anyone else, and moreso now, because Fabian had learnt the hard way the damage that a harsh word or three could cause. "I'm beginning to suspect--well, just leave it at I don't think she's here for any reason either one of us would consider good. If you became an obstacle--" Fabian stopped there, because the only way he could think of to finish that sentence would destroy whatever good rapport he and Gideon had developed of late.

"I know you can take care of yourself. I know the man who finished that--" Fabian pointed at the ashy remnants of Gideon's Auror training certificate in the fire before turning the finger back on Gideon "--is still in there, even if he's buried. But anyone can be got. I don't want it to be you."

Gideon accepted the glass and set it aside for washing later. Now, though, there were assurances to be made and matters to be addressed and notions to disabuse. “I am an over-forty-year-old ex-convict.” With few prospects beyond breaking even on the farm each season and the careful shuddering away of thoughts of a wasted life. “Trust me to know my own mind and make my own decisions.” Be they for Jo, for Fabian, or for himself. It was something he had to allow for Fabian as well, when he thought about it -- it was perhaps what stayed his hand from simply locking Fabian up in the cellar to prevent him from going down this whole road once more, careful or not (he may be more careful with others, but only at expense to himself).

The last of the pile had been consigned to the fire. Fabian tossed in the folder that had held it for good measure and turned his attention to something more important. He reached out to pull Gideon down on the sofa beside him, holding Gideon's gaze as he spoke. "I trust your mind and your decision-making capacity, and I'm well aware of your age. What I'm concerned about here is what you don't know. You can't make good decisions on facts not in evidence." It was a solicitor's maxim Fabian had quoted at Gideon many times when they were young. "And I'm not just talking about Jo. You know this--" and he swept his hand to indicate the bag and by implication the contents he'd just burned "--came from somewhere, that I have some reason. If you want to know, you'll ask. But there are implications for you, and now I've said that, and you can decide accordingly.

"It's the pattern of the data that bothers me. I'm going to be watching this Macnair case like a hawk. He did something, sure. He's a rat bastard. We knew it before, we confirmed it in Azkaban, and no reason he'd stop when he got out. But if they try to pin it all on him, and I think they will, then it won't stop. Macnair was in holding already when some bastard murdered those two women and left them on the steps of Gringotts. It's not over, and as long as it's not, they're going to be looking for easy targets. And who, Auror Prewett, is the most likely suspect for a vigilante crime?" Fabian was less angry now than desperate, a little of the fear underneath showing through, more to his brother's practised eyes. Who?"

“The squeakier wheel, no doubt,” Gideon returned with, perhaps, a hint of steely bite. He hadn’t meant to start this again, though. Godric knew they could shout at each other until they were each blue in the face and it would change neither’s opinion. Gideon glanced away and stood up, grabbed the glass to wash for something to do. “If they come for me, they would find nothing, you know. They haven’t yet.”

"And never will, except what they bring with them," Fabian agreed as he pushed himself off the sofa to follow Gideon into the farmhouse kitchen. "But we put a thumb on the scale more than once in our day, when you were still in the Auror Office. I wouldn't expect them to do any different now." He put a hand on Gideon's shoulder, light, not enough to interfere with the washing up: a conscious act, relearned in a world where a touch of comfort didn't call to a hungry Dementor, anxious to devour whatever joy came of it. "Do what you will, with my full support. But do it in knowledge of the risks."

Gideon stilled, hands hanging in warm, soapy water. He glanced up and out through the window over the sink, where only a small light was on to cast a thin illumination over the grounds. The animals were all tucked into their pens and beds. A fattened racoon skirted the edges of the light, scrounging for scraps. He hated the reminders, even in passing, of all he had done, how many times he skirted that line and then willingly tripped over it, time and time again. He hadn’t been an evil man, but he hadn’t been good either.

It was that heavy awareness from which he shied away now: he did not want to be that man again. Did not want Fabian to be it either, but was helpless to do much more than watch -- and it was getting harder and harder to do. “I am not the one here who is risking everything.”

Fabian shrugged, a nervous jerky motion, the feel of it conveyed through his hand on Gideon's shoulder. "I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. You and I are genuine fucking heroes of the proletariat, Gid, and for what? You killed a child-murderer and I destroyed a piece of a man's soul." That humourless laugh was back. "There's no justice in the world but what we make. I won't stop fighting for it just because I can't ever achieve my goal."

Another grim snort of laughter punctuated the next thought. "I used to be so afraid of the Unforgivables because I watched what they did to people who had been my friends. People who became monsters. I still think they're dangerous and forbidden for a reason, and I still think the order that put them in your hands was wrong. But then it turned out that you and Dorcas came back and put your hands in the earth to make things grow, to build instead of destroy, and all those people who were above using Unforgivables are still the same shits they always were. So I won't say I was wrong, exactly, but maybe I was. And I'm sorry.

"Maybe I'm wrong about this, too. But there are things to be done, things other than fighting Death Eaters in the streets. I can do some of them and they--we--can do some of them. I gave up on being a good man the first time I killed someone. But I can do better. So I will."

"I almost didn't, you know," Gideon said suddenly. "Come back. I almost didn't." He looked up over his shoulder back at his brother, then shook out his hands and dried them with a kitchen towel. "I was...a very angry man. It wasn't about justice, it was..." Revenge. "I was angry at anyone who would stand in my way. I would still be that man if...Azkaban hollowed me out, but at least it took that away as well." If he hadn't been caught and arrested, Gideon knew he would have been killed in some manner of fighting. He had wanted to. “You say the Auror is still buried in here. Trust me when I say: you do not want to meet that man again.”

"I remember who you were when before you were angry," Fabian answered, reaching for Gideon's hand again. "That's the brother I want back."

“I don’t know if I can ever be that man anymore.” His voice cracked on the last word, unbidden. Gideon cleared his throat, embarrassed for the emotion he had let slip, and reflexively tightened his fingers around Fabian’s. “Too much has happened. You still chase dreams of the past, Fabian, it’s… you are only ever bound to be disappointed.”

Fabian shook his head. "What I want and what I expect to get are entirely different things." A rueful smile crossed his face, and he gave Gideon's hand a squeeze in return. "I'm not disappointed. I'm worried, sometimes, angry occasionally, frustrated often. Less often than with Molly, though." He shook his head, thinking of his last conversation with their sister on matters of import. "Don't try to be the youth you were. I'm certainly not. I've got bruises and aches that tell me so from the last round of dueling practice. But if you were unmoored from who you were before, Gideon, you don't have to be like that. You've had your shelter. You've grown and changed. Be someone else. If that's a man with a farm, so be it. As long as you choose it from desire for it, and not from fear, I will be nothing but happy for you. And certainly not disappointed."

Gideon scrutinised Fabian's face as if to verify its sincerity, found no trace of falsehood, and sighed, rubbing a hand over his own to smooth away the weariness from it. Who he was now was still a question he did not want to answer. "It's quite late. I think you should stay here and sleep the rest of it off. Where did you even go?"

"The Octave. It was burlesque, and not even that good. You'd've hated it." Fabian mad a bit of a face thinking about the whole thing. "I think Bilius meant to cheer me up because Godric knows it's not his kind of evening out. And this isn't his fault either." On that point Fabian was firm. "Everything he said to me needed to be said. I just got home and the place was too quiet and I couldn't. So I came here instead," he confessed.

“I am glad I have not become completely irrelevant.” He rested his hands upon Fabian’s shoulders a moment then went to prepare the sofa -- pillow, blankets. “I hope you bought the drinks, at least. That man does put up with a lot, but perhaps it is because you are his favourite.” Here, he smiled, a light tease, anything to shift the mood to less weighty affairs -- he had only barely wet his tongue on his own glass before Fabian had arrived.

"Come out with us next time and give me some competition. But not to burlesque night. Something we all can enjoy." Fabian moved to help with the sofa; he might be a pain in the arse as a self-invited guest, but he didn't have to be a lazybones to boot. "I expect I still sound like a dying fwooper after I've had this many, so I apologise in advance for the snoring."

“I apologise for how many cats you shall have sleeping on you when you wake up. You are, after all, unclaimed territory.” One last fluff to a pillow and the makeshift bed was complete. “Goodnight, brother mine. Things do look different in the morning.”

Fabian sat down on the sofa and toed off his boots, careful of where they landed, well away from the blanket. "Let's hope not, because I don't want to be sorry I burned that lot. And I'm not right now. Just fucking relieved it's over." He looked up at his brother, apparent age melting away as it sometimes did with him, leaving the raw youth he'd once been. "Gideon? Thanks. For putting up with me, because Merlin knows I don't make it easy on you."

“You don’t,” he agreed. “Fortunately, I have had a life of practise.” Gideon turned and gave the cats a final look -- behave, though they had never obeyed a single command of his before, and, with a hand waved to his brother in a final bid for goodnight, retreated to his own bedroom for much needed rest.