So when day turns to night
And you close your eyes and hope to dream
Remember this:
I hope you die in a fire
I hope you die in a raging inferno of pain

31st January, 1895 — Algernon Rowle’s Residence, Wellingtonshire

In the past year, Philip had avoided these visits as much as he could – he had never agreed to this, so why not let any details of his life or apparent concern for his father be filtered instead through his siblings on their visits? He had not felt any pleasure being in the same room as Algernon Rowle since he had been looking on him in the hospital bed; and this man was far from that dying thing. A cockroach through and through.

But so far Philip had refrained from blowing up all their lives in the way he wanted to – instead he was playing along. And it was better to think of this as some perverse little game, a grand charade to play – a neater parody of Philip Rowle stepping into his shoes.

He had started going so far as to take calming draughts before he came, once his father began asking him when he would be visiting (there was little option implied). He had come after work, swigging the draught on the way. It dulled Philip’s anger just enough to be able to sit in a chair and face him, smoothed his emotions and expressions. Beneath that, he still knew the simmering hatred, but – as if it was underwater or out of reach. Not so different from the Imperius Curse.

“You look well, Father,” Philip said, ever surprised to find that the last word was not tangibly corrosive on his tongue. “How are you getting on?”

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Algernon Rowle/Henry Berkwood

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Algernon had taken to spending his evenings in his study, which, admittedly, wasn't that different from how he'd spent his time before the stroke. He was stubbornly getting back to normalcy, and would probably continue with as close an approximation to his old life as he could get until it inevitably killed him. Retirement was for the weak. Never mind that Algernon was, literally, retired.

He looked from the account ledger he was perusing to give Philip a brief glance before looking back down again. "Well enough," he said. "You've been keeping busy I assume?" Keeping tabs on his children was a delicate balance. Algernon wasn't worried of course--he'd gone to great lengths to not need to worry. But Algernon hadn't particularly liked his children as people before, it wasn't like the Imperius Curse had improved things. It had just made enduring easier.

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Philip smiled. A perfunctory smile, not his own, neither in pleasure or in anger: just a bland, close-mouthed, meaningless reflex. Well enough. Well enough was always much too well.

“Oh, tremendously,” he answered. There were things Philip might have deigned to talk about, if he had had even an ounce of trust or affection for his hideous progenitor. His wife was pregnant with another child – but he had no intention of breaking that news: the gossip mill or his siblings would have to do that for him, before Algernon Rowle thought he had any claim upon his grandchildren.

And he would have rather discussed his quidditch team than anything else, purely from knowing that it would rile the man – but there was also some crude fun in pretending to be the son his father had so desperately shaped him to be. Just for a moment. “You know the thing about Research,” Philip remarked, leaning back more idly in his chair as his father turned more attention to his account books. “It never ends.”

His father had not been in the Research Committee at the Ministry – but he had chosen it for Philip and puppeteered him through his committee years, so he really ought to have more thoughts on the topic than Philip did, and be keen to hear all about it.

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"Hmm. Yes," Algernon said. "I suppose it doesn't." He'd always been less fussed with the specifics of the Research Committee than he'd been with the prestige of being part of one of the Ministry's major committees. "And how is the quidditch?"

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His father’s sneering tone at that single word made Philip’s stomach lurch unpleasantly – and if that was subdued by the calming draught, without it his insides would have been roiling.

“Keeps me busy, too,” Philip said, almost dismissive, as if he wasn’t going to give his father any more than that – but then, wanting to coax the old man away from his account-books: “But – violent. Brutal, really – barbaric. Watching it almost makes one wonder,” Philip said, deceptively light, conversational, “what could possess someone to ever want to play it.”

He said, as if he had forgotten – could forget – what had led them here.

No, what Philip wondered was how much his father even remembered the events that had led to his submitting his children to the curse, or whether he had never given it a second thought, and long since forgotten his own barbaric ways.

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"Yes, those are all words I would certainly use to describe the sport," Algernon mused. "Along with a complete waste of your time." It was painfully clear to Algernon that he'd spent too much time out of commission if this was the state of things.

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Here it was again. The calming draught couldn’t even stifle it entirely. Philip wanted to kill him. He wanted to spring up from his chair and put his hands around Rowle Senior’s neck, press his thumbs deep into the man’s windpipe and choke him, throttle him entirely without magic; to wring some last pathetic words out of him and watch him slump back, lifeless, in his chair.

Philip was aware of this, but the tension couldn’t make it into his limbs fast enough to act on it, and the surge of hatred turned only to bile in his throat. “Ah, but you see, it’s not a waste at all, provided I can make it pay.” Financially – as a business decision, a good investment, as if that was why Philip had bought the team. (He kept his eyes fixedly on his father, engrossed in envisioning ways to make him pay.)

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Algernon leveled a look at his son, decidedly skeptical. He wasn't an expert in sports, obviously, and had never had any interest in quidditch in general, even in his youth. If he'd ever attended a match, the experience had evidently been so lack-luster an experience that he couldn't recall it now.

"I want to see these supposed financial advantages," he said. It, of course, wasn't a request.

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Philip knitted his brows at that, aware (and almost pleased, for once in his life) that his father was looking at him.

“I already showed you the accounts the last time I visited, Father,” he said, affecting a perplexed tone – with just a sprinkling of filial concern. A lie, of course – but why not worry old Algernon Rowle about his mental capacities post-stroke, hm? What was a little gaslighting to a decades-long manipulator? “Don’t you remember?”

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Algernon narrowed his eyes at his son. "I'm sure I would remember such a thing," he said, his voice more confident than he truly felt. But he wouldn't admit to such a thing out loud, even if he'd been talking to himself in an empty room. "I want to see them anyway."

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If he hadn’t taken the calming draught, Philip was sure his hands would have been shaking. Of course the old man trusted no one but himself – he had never trusted any of his children to be their own people.

Well. Let him, little by little, begin not to trust his own mind. His siblings would thank him: after all, they couldn’t let Algernon Rowle recover too well. “Of course, Father,” Philip said slowly, turning in his chair to reach for something. Not the Falmouth accounts, but his wand from his pocket. It didn’t matter if Rowle Sr saw; Philip was sure he had the faster reflexes here. “Here,” he said agreeably, and with a glow of light, cast a memory-modifying spell. You saw the accounts, and you approve, he suggested. And now you’ve forgotten what we were just talking about.

Philip set his wand down on his lap and waited, watching his father intently.

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Algernon blinked, an odd feeling coming over him and then disappearing almost as quickly as it came. He shook his head, setting that aside--if he was distracted by every oddity he felt these days, he'd never get anything done. "Good, good," he said. "If you have nothing else for me, then, you're dismissed."

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He had never been perfectly himself in his Obliviator days, had never gotten to witness the alteration of someone’s mind in the moment so vividly, that trickle of power and unease from his neck to his fingers. An itch, almost. Maybe Algernon had had it too, with the Imperius curse. An appetite to cast it again.

But Philip could be controlled from time to time (or had the Calming Draught to thank); he could be patient, and accept the brisk dismissal with good grace. “Always a pleasure, Father,” he said, almost smarmy, as he stood up, unfurling himself from the chair. “We’re all at your service.”

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