20th March, 1895 — Angie’s Flat

It had taken him several months to even be certain that Angie Swan’s open invitation had been more than mere politeness (not that she seemed like the kind of person to do things out of dutiful politeness, but –), and even by this point, he had still owled her before presuming to stop by at her place. And he – felt better about Cash now than he had last year, or he knew a little more, so his visit might be driven less by helplessness, and more just by the idea that it was nice to have a secret hideout. He had the stadium, but even there – even at home – he was never entirely unobserved.

Angie was here, so maybe unobserved wasn’t the word. But he didn’t need to worry that Angie would judge him, or even necessarily to expect to talk to him, so it was an easy enough place to just exist. Today, they had been talking, though – and in a lull of silence, Theo found the courage to change the subject to something – someone – he had been wanting to ask about for some time. “Can I ask you something?” he asked, newly tentative. “You don’t have to – answer me, if you’d rather not.”

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Angie Swan

  

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Ang was more or less used to Cash being the only one who popped in and out unannounced, but that arrangement was so old by now that it was habit more than anything else. She'd been at her desk, ready to pull her hair out, trying to figure out the next move in her living situation when Theo's letter had arrived. It was a welcome distraction and she was glad he was taking her up on the offer. There wasn't much she could do for either Theo or Cash these days, except provide a quiet place to land when things got to be too much, but even that was going to change soon.

After giving up on reading through the estate bullshit, Ang had moved to make tea and get out something to eat. She never expected anyone to need anything but she liked to have it available if desired. All part of making the flat a welcoming place, she supposed. There was bourbon too, if something stronger was necessary. Curled up in her favorite armchair, Ang had mostly just listened in their conversation so far. This friendship was still new, an alliance built on shaky ground, but she thought it was worth it.

"Only one way to find out," she chuckled. Theo already knew enough about her, more than most, but Ang didn't have that many friends when it all boiled down, so she supposed it made sense. Maybe it was the underlying reason for stopping by, she wasn't affronted by it. Most of the time when somebody showed up there was something very real propelling them here.

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There was only one way to find out, but Theo still braced himself a little, unsure if he was crossing a line by it, and worried about how he would take it back or ease the awkwardness if it did. Drink more of her alcohol, maybe, or change the subject. He took a moment to filter through back-up topics – her old cursebreaking adventures, or her Ministry work now, or what she had been doing before he’d come today – but stopped picking at a loose thread on the arm of his chair and exhaled.

“Tell me about – Eli?” Theo hesitated before the name; it felt almost too familiar for him to be saying it. Cash had asked if he remembered him, and he didn’t really, not personally; he still didn’t know much about him, beyond the fact and horrendous circumstance of his death. “What was he like, I mean.” He shot a quick glance her way, trying to read her expression. Angie shared his last name, and had been friends with them all that time, so there was no doubt she had been close to Eli Swan too.

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Of all the things Angie might have been expecting, it certainly hadn't been that. The way Theo said it made her assume that this had first come from Cash. That slight hesitation, the curiosity, she was now wondering what he already knew. However, if Cash had opened this particular door, she didn't have a problem following through.

It had been so long since she talked about him; it wasn't something she and Cash ever really discussed. While Angie was realizing things were fading for her, Eli's expressions, his mannerisms, the sound of his voice, she knew those sorts of things were probably still fresher for Cash and so she never wanted to bring it up. But Theo had asked, so she could try. "He was my best friend, well one of." Obviously Cash had been in the mix too. "I don't know if you remember or not, but I wasn't the nicest of people back in school." Ang had changed a lot over the years, largely thanks to their friendship. "More like a brother, I guess," Angie didn't think she needed to delve into her own affections for Eli. That layer was too personal for her. "Hence the name switch." It had been easier to claim siblings in their adult life so they could live together without raising too many eyebrows.

"Anyway, I was not the easiest to get along with, but he never seemed to mind. He didn't grow up with much, not like Cash and I did, but he was smart and hardworking and a really good friend. Loyal, almost to a fault." He inspired loyalty in people too, otherwise they wouldn't have gone traipsing halfway around the world to find him when he'd disappeared. "He was my inspiration to become a curse breaker." She'd had to work her ass off to catch up to him, but she'd gotten there. She tried to keep her tone even, but even she could hear the emotion at the back of it. Maybe she would be the one who needed a stronger drink by the time this was over.

"I take it Cash told you about him?" It was a bit of a relief; keeping someone else's secret for so long was hard.

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   Theodore Gallivan

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Her thoughts were hard to read on her face, but although Angie seemed surprised she didn’t flinch at the question – it took a beat for her to start talking, but when she did it felt like honesty. And it felt like she was determined to answer him fully, to try and revive Eli Swan’s whole person through her memories. A few words could never be enough to explain someone’s best friend; someone close enough to be family.

It was a lot to take in, years of history condensed, and Theo was trying his best to digest everything – all these puzzle pieces of a person – as she went, but he didn’t want her to stop either. It hurt to hear, though – hurt to hear how much she and Cash both had lost when they had lost him.

He had shot her a wry, sympathetic smile at not the nicest of people: he hadn’t interacted with her much, and had only known Cash through quidditch, so he couldn’t judge her one way or the other – but he remembered seeing her enough to think she had been a rather private person, kept herself to herself, maybe hadn’t had many friends.

But then the ones she had had had made all the difference, obviously. It wasn’t unlike what Cash had said, that Eli had broken everything down for him, changed him as a person, his outlook on things – they both felt they had been changed for the better by him. A good friend to have, Theo thought. He didn’t know if it was something in Angie’s voice or just the topic, but the air in here was thick with, the memories, the emotion.

“Mm,” Theo said, finding it difficult to break his quietness without breaking that spell. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, he did. I mean, a little. I know – how he died.” He didn’t have the words to talk about that, though, so he added, “So he became – a cursebreaker too?”

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   Angie Swan

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It felt like a lot and not enough at the same time. She'd only had Eli in earnest for five short years and they'd been filled with a lot of growth, a little too much heartbreak, but by the end, she'd thought things had finally evened out. She swallowed hard at the mention of how Eli died and then moved to pour herself a glass of bourbon.

"Yeah, he started before I did, got a summer apprenticeship between sixth and seventh year." She answered almost absentmindedly, still a little struck by the fact that Cash had shared so much. It was good, she thought, that he was opening up to other people. Theo obviously meant a lot to him and Cash needed more people that actually cared about him in his life. This conversation was heavier than she'd been expecting, but she didn't mind, she was coming to see Theo as a friend, too. "So we started on different footing, but we evened out pretty quickly. It was only a couple short years before," she paused, took a deep breath and continued, "He died, and some of it was not great, but most of it was really good." There was a lot of unnecessary extra information in there Theo didn't need. Nobody needed to know she'd accidentally slept with Brutus Kettleburn. Ever. Fucking amortentia. Or about the potions debacles and that heartbreaking fiasco.

After pouring a deep measure, Angie took a steadying sip and leaned back into her seat. "I took off on an assignment after and I was gone for a while." And she still felt guilty about it. "I should have stayed for Cash, but I was neck-deep in grief too." Cash had to deal with the more immediate aftermath with his family, obviously had more of a right to fall apart than she did, but she had lost someone important too and had struggled with how to handle mourning that appropriately. But she'd only been a month shy of her twenty-first birthday, hardly a real grownup. Losing one of the two people she'd ever really loved was devastating and their wildly different social status and secret friendship didn't lend itself to a lot of time alone together in the wake of everything.

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He still didn’t know if he should be asking, if finding out more about the man Cash had loved was overstepping or somehow unethical – and he didn’t know what he was hoping to discover, if this was an exercise in knowing Cash better or torturing himself – but he felt as though Angie could speak more freely about him than Cash might. From a different angle, a different light – but with no less loss in it.

Losing a friend – at the age they had, in the way they had – was no less soul-destroying. “You both lost him,” he agreed, echoing her sentiment in case she needed the validation of it. Obviously she had suffered too – just because she might seem more together in herself, or more able to hide it, didn’t mean she hadn’t been subjected to the ugly process of grieving too. “You did what you had to. And I’m sure you did everything you could.”

When he had met her in London she had been obviously concerned for Cash’s state; it felt like a long-ingrained pattern that had perhaps originated here. And Theo understood, he thought – if he had been able to escape the constraints of his life when his father had left them, he probably would have too.

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Angie could only shrug a little. She had never told anybody that before, not even Cash. She had never felt like she had the same right to grieve that he did, that somehow her loss wasn't as great or as hard, even if it was. Maybe it was all part of the process of losing someone, but she could tell Theo meant it, so she wasn't going to elaborate.

She took a sip of her bourbon to give herself a minute to swallow back the onslaught of emotions. "We live such wildly different lives, Cash and I do," she sighed. "That it's hard to cross the bridge sometimes." Angie knew she'd done the right thing with her life, getting out of her parents' home and making a living on her own, but it just further separated the divide between them at the time and she hated that. "But I'll be around now," taking the position at the ministry provided a good, solid income that she could rely on and would need now that she was responsible for Connor. Not to mention she could glean glimpses of Cash there, every once in a while.

"Just not here," she realized she ought to give Theo a heads up too, about the move. "I have been been given custody of my younger brother recently," it was such a mess, but she was working through it. "And we'll be relocating to Pennyworth at the end of the school year." Closer to Cash, which helped, even if she wasn't exactly sure how.

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Theo could see that, and understand that, different lives – he felt his own, and his family, was already far enough removed from what the Lestranges were. And Angie’s life was – clearly more unconventional than most.

And he realised that for all they had become friendly, and for all he had learned about her past, Theo had been remiss about filling in the blanks in her present, because her last couple of sentences were full of surprises.

“Oh,” he said, the surprise audible. He was sorry about her flat, because although he hadn’t been here much, it did feel very much like a safe place, a little London hideaway. Pennyworth was much closer to home – but maybe feeling more rooted in Hogsmeade would be good for Angie as much as it might be nice for Cash? “Well, Hogsmeade’s not bad,” Theo admitted, trying to be encouraging here; and more ruefully, he added, “But I – didn’t know you had a brother. He’s at Hogwarts, then?” And she was her brother’s guardian? Christ. “I hope he’s not as much of a handful as mine is,” he joked.

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"It was unexpected and... not exactly what I wanted, but our parents sort of just up and left, so I don't have much of a choice." She shrugged. It was such a strange thing to say that Ang didn't believe it sometimes; who abandoned their twelve-year-old out of the blue and decided the estranged, childless sister was the right fit to care for him?

Ang took another sip of her bourbon, figuring there was no reason to leave out any of the details. "My parents are vampires, I was adopted as an infant. Connor is my mother's natural child, the result of an affair with a wizard." Who, she didn't know, nor did she want to, but it had been the start of the quiet fracture with the life she'd been raised in and what had left her disowned and living with Eli. "I distanced myself from them after that and we've been estranged ever since. But of course vampires are selfish and unpredictable and during Connor's first term at Hogwarts they just up and left and now I'm his legal guardian." She had to wonder if it sounded as outlandish out loud as she thought it did. "I think Hogsmeade will be easier for us." Giving up the flat was the worst part, but it was just a place and there wasn't much she could do about it.

"You're still welcome any time you like during the school year, summer is just going to be a little different." It was going to have to do.

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“Oh,” Theo murmured, as Angie explained more – and it was absolutely not one’s average upbringing, but he was suddenly bursting with things he wanted to say. He didn’t know a thing about vampires, or about natural children, but he knew very well about – parents leaving, and about parents who had Problems, and younger siblings (half-siblings, in his case, and they at least still had Veronica, so things weren’t so hopeless) he was responsible for.

“It’s going to sound weird to say, but – I get it. I’ve – been there, kind of,” he said with a shrug, aware that he couldn’t comfortably explain it, because the thing about his father, the werewolf, his leaving – he couldn’t in good conscience tell Angie all that if he hadn’t ever even brought it up with Cash. Theo gave her a rueful smile, a don’t ask, but all of a sudden he felt like he knew her so much better, because understanding this – unlike Cash’s family, his past, his situation – was easy: he had more in common with Angie than he’d guessed. “Sounds shit for you, anyway.” None of it her choice, and it on her shoulders to make all the sacrifices. She would be in Hogsmeade, though. “Thanks. But I feel like you might be the one who’s in need of an escape this time.”

Maybe he’d try and figure out if his half-siblings knew her brother, and she could shunt him out to play with them during the summer when she needed a moment’s peace?

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Angie was not the kind to pry into anyone's personal business (except for Cash), but she genuinely felt like he could empathize. Nothing about Theo Gallivan led her to believe he said things he didn't mean. It was comforting, in a roundabout way that she couldn't quite explain. She also tended to trust Cash's judgement of people, which helped here.

"It's going to be different, but he'll be at school most of the year, so not wildly an inconvenience and I would rather have him than for him to be on his own or with someone else." Ang had long ago resolved her feelings on Connor; his existence was not his fault, obviously and though she couldn't forgive her mother for what she did, she wouldn't hold it against Connor. Rebekah had made the decision and there was no changing what happened. Whatever relationship they did or didn't have, they were stuck together, bonded by their strange upbringing and shared trauma. She loved him, in a unique fashion, had always sent birthday and Christmas presents, but knew it wasn't enough, not really. In his eyes she'd walked out and he had no idea why, she assumed, but she wasn't ready to burst his bubble on her being the bad guy of the story either. Ang could handle it until he was older and could understand where she was coming from.

She chuckled at the need for an escape herself. "I'm going in with very low expectations. It's going to take a while to adjust." She had already somewhat uprooted him at Christmas and they'd survived, but it hadn't been easy. "I wasn't meant to be a parent though," Ang knew that much about her. It wouldn't even really be parenting, but she would be responsible for helping grow up right and that was mildly terrifying. "I think navigating raising an adolescent whose had twelve years without me, is going to be the hardest part."

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