2nd July, 1894 — The Iron Fang Inn, Knockturn Alley

It was late. So late even Knockturn Alley was worryingly quiet, and if it had been an ordinary night and he had had the room for it, Jimmy probably would have felt the creeping unease about being here. He’d gone soft, all these years in Hogwarts. Fear ate at him more easily, maybe.

But he didn’t know if he did feel fear, or anything else tonight – just an odd kind of numb. He battered on the inn’s back door again, and – not much wanting to be accosted by anyone if he was too loud, Jimmy eventually gave up on waiting for an invitation and jimmied a kitchen window open, clambering through. (He’d grown another inch or two, he realised in this: his arms and legs were getting more in his way.) He barrelled down the narrow hall and hammered on Hestia’s door instead. “Hestia, are you in there?” he said, in his usual bold tone, “it’s Jimmy” – but once the door moved and he caught sight of her, all his bravado faded. Instead, his face crumpled.

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Hestia/Philomena Sprout

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   Charley Goode

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Her arms were sore, her legs hurt, her feet were killing her and she was just about ready to collapse. Thankfully, she’d already flopped onto her bed and prayed that Beck didn’t intrude tonight, otherwise she’d have to muster up the energy to kick his ass once more (and endure his endless showmanship). She was just about to drift off into a blissful sleep when the knock sounded. That bastard.

“For the love of god, Beck!” She yelled, face down into her pillow.

Clambering up, she brushed her hair out of her face and opened the door. “I swear to go - oh! Jimmy, what -” She stopped mid-sentence at the look on his face. “What’s wrong?” She demanded, looking around before ushering him in. “What happened?”

  

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Welcome to The Iron Fang Inn.

If she was yelling a different name, or cursing at him as she opened the door, he was deaf to it – all he had in his head was the images of the evening’s events, playing over and over and making him a little dizzy for it. Gran calling his name, and collapsing half out of her bed, and her sudden confused mumbling of things he didn’t understand, and her face white and pained and then her lying there, and not responding.

Jimmy took an unsteady step into Hestia’s room, wanting to close the door behind him but feeling like that was – too much to ask his body to manage for him. It was the shock, he thought. His face felt as white and bloodless as hers had gone. “It’s my Great-Gran,” he got out, suddenly unable to meet Hestia’s eyes. He looked at her rumpled bed, the indent in the pillow, remembering the scene at home. His voice sounded flat, and strangely hollow. “She’s dead. I –” He stopped there, as if bewildered. I don’t know what this means, he wanted to say. His brow furrowed. I don’t know what I do.

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   Noble Greengrass

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Merlin’s Beard Jimmy was likely taller than her now, she realized as she stepped aside. The boy had always been so full of energy that to see him quite the opposite opened a pit in Hestia’s stomach. Whatever he had come to her for, it was bad. Taking a deep breath, she took his elbow and nudged him further into the room before closing the door. At the same time she was trying to calculate in her head if the situation was dire enough for her to pour him at least a small gulp of something strong.

When he finally revealed the news, she heard herself swear. Definitely something strong. “Jimmy…I’m so sorry.” She went to her vanity and pulled out the chair before moving back over to him and placing her hands on his shoulders to direct him to sit down. “I - shit.” She bit her bottom lip, conjuring up a chair next to him. She’d expected to at least have to patch him up, but he seemed relatively unscathed. Still, she asked: “Are you hurt? What happened?”

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   James Fletcher, Noble Greengrass

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Welcome to The Iron Fang Inn.

He wished he was hurt – because that would make more sense to him. He had never cried about a cut or a scrape or a bruise. It bled, and it hurt, and it healed: he knew the cycle. He didn’t know the cycle here.

(His mother had died when he was even younger, so it wasn’t entirely grief he meant – but Great-Gran was the last actual relative he’d had in his life. And she had been a surprisingly steady presence for someone who had seemed close to senile seven years ago already.)

He registered Hestia flitting about and gently forcing him to sit – his knees bent obediently, otherwise close to buckling anyway – and he managed to shake his head. “I dunno,” he tried, his face screwed up at remembering it, and a slight flinch in his shoulders as he pictured it again. “She tried to get out of bed – she looked weird, like she was in pain – and she shook a little, and – I don’t know. I’m not a healer.” A heart attack. A stroke. People died of old age, didn’t they? But wasn’t that supposed to be peaceful, in their sleep? Great-gran had been awake, and agitated, and then confused; and then all signs of her had slid away with the life going out of her. He made a retching noise somewhere deep in his throat, and clutched at his stomach, feeling as pathetic as he sounded. “Hestia, I don’t want to go home.”

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As he explained what happened, Hestia sat down in her own chair beside him. The pit in her stomach seemed to sink as she saw him lay out what had happened. His voice sounded hollow, but his eyes told her he was seeing what had happened all over again. Mercifully - it didn’t seem like it, but Hestia had seen more gruesome deaths that she was glad Jimmy hadn’t had to witness - it seemed like his grandmother went rather quickly. Still...“Oh, Jimmy…” She sighed, her hand coming to rest on his back. He was pale as a ghost, and even felt clammy to the touch. Her hand drew little circles on his back while words seemed to glue themselves to the roof of her mouth.

When it came to death, Hestia wasn’t a stranger; but it was never a thing that she had let affect her in this way. It had never caused her nightmares, or her stomach to turn, and yet to see Jimmy like this, she wished she could spare him the experience and she felt a sinking feeling. A heaviness seemed to have settled over them in the small room. And when he told her he didn’t want to go home….shit. What the fuck was she supposed to do in this situation? She’d hardly expected to become a guardian to anyone except herself, and yet Jimmy had come to her after this tragedy. That meant something. That told her something had shifted. Because who else did Jimmy have to go to if he had come to her of all people?

Shit fuck shit fuckity fuck.

“You don’t have to go home, Jimmy,” She heard herself saying. And rather firmly. “You’re staying here.” There was no other option. She wouldn’t cast him out onto the streets, not like this. And technically this inn was never full to the brim. Nico was already living here, so what was one more person?

Shit.

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   Elias Grimstone

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Welcome to The Iron Fang Inn.

When he was more himself again, in the morning, or in a few days or a few weeks from now, Jimmy would be embarrassed at being so broken: he had never wanted to seem soft, soft and helpless and weak.

He wasn’t a baby; he was only a year and a while from turning seventeen. Maybe Hogwarts had done it to him, made him soft – living in comfort, cooped up in a castle where the worst thing that could possibly happen to him was being given lines to write or a dunce cap to wear. Compare that with the way his life had been before, back in Italy with Alessandro looming in every corner, or even running errands in Hestia’s world, where he had seen bad enough things and Hestia had almost certainly seen worse. Maybe life with Great-Gran had done this to him, too. Hogsmeade was too small and familiar to fear; and Great-Gran was always there, and always the same, and her kitchen always smelled of the same three soups on rotation.

Had always smelled. Wouldn’t anymore. Jimmy scrubbed his face with the palm of his hand, trying to fight the urge to feel sorry for himself, to feel alone. Because he wasn’t – Hestia was here – Hestia would let him stay. Or, rather, Hestia was making him stay. To his ear, it was less an invitation and more an instruction. (If he had gotten used to following anyone’s instructions, it was Hestia’s.)

She was sitting beside him now, and rubbing his back. Jimmy collapsed slightly into her, leaning his head on her shoulder, suddenly desperately tired but uncertain he would ever be able to go to sleep like this. “Thanks,” he mumbled into her sleeve. “It’s just for tonight, I swear.” Then he would force himself to go home and pull himself together. He just – didn’t want to be alone.

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   Hestia

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She could see the mark of this night being imprinted upon his person like a brand; could see it seeping into him. It was as if the smoke of the shock was curling up around him and evaporating as she watched. Fuck. Heart wrenching in her chest, Hestia could only press him closer as he leaned into her. Even now it was more apparent how much he’d grown, if not for the fact that he’d experienced something no one should ever have to experience in their lifetime. Shifting her position, Hestia turned to wrap both her arms around him. Surely it felt as if the weight of the world had just put itself on Jimmy’s shoulders. “Jimmy, you stay as long as you need.” She said firmly once more, emphasizing her meaning as she gave him a little squeeze. “There’s no need to decide anything right now or this week. Just..just rest as much as you can.”

It was the beginning of July, which meant he wouldn’t go back to Hogwarts for another few months. Running the numbers in her head, Hestia knew they’d be able to squeeze by with Jimmy there. She’d need to get ahold of Barbie and ask him about putting some wards on the room Jimmy would be staying in; that owl, she’d send in the morning. But she doubted Jimmy would want to do anything but sleep right now. Not after what he’d seen. “Have you eaten anything?” Can you eat anything?

  

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Welcome to The Iron Fang Inn.

He would have killed for her hugs, when he had been eleven or twelve, though it would have killed him to admit it. Now he was getting one for free. He felt delirious, maybe. Everything suddenly felt upside down and oddly funny. Hestia was hugging him.

She had always – protected him. It was good to know, maybe, that she wanted to do that still, that he had not simply abandoned her by going to Hogwarts and staying for so many years. There was nothing, really, to properly bind them – no family ties, and no use he could be to her as a youthful thief or lookout. But here she was, somehow looking after him. He could feel his chin digging into her bony shoulder.

Hestia’s next question came as if out of nowhere, but it was only the moment she had Jimmy remembered food was a thing that existed again. “I,” he started, voice scratchy, and confused by his body feeling anything that was not a numb gaping grief. Hunger. He was, apparently, hungry. He mustered a weak smile as he dragged his head back off her shoulder. “No. Not for a while. Do you have anything good?”

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   Hestia

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And as if on cue when he answered, Hestia thought she heard his stomach give a grumble. Either that or it was her own, which was honestly just as likely. As he drew away from her embrace, she gave him a soft smile. It wasn’t a surprise he hadn’t had anything to eat. Likely in the aftermath of his granny’s - great granny’s - death, he thought of little else but the shock of what the world had just dealt him. “Right then,” She sighed with a light laugh. “Come with me, I think we might have some leftovers somewhere.” At the very least some broth that she could heat up. “Don’t expect it to live up to all that fancy cooking I hear you have up in the castle though.” She amended, getting up to the door and opening it.

  

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Welcome to The Iron Fang Inn.