Early Afternoon, 15 February, 1890 — Crouch Home, Bartonburg

No part of Ben was looking forward to this conversation. He could practical picture the entire thing already: the way Aldous would respond, the look that would show up on his face, the possibility of anger, the overwhelming certainty of disappointment lingering like a cloud over the whole proceeding. If there was any alternative, Ben would have explored it — any chance of not having to deal with Aldous right now, when what he wanted to do instead was to go to a pub and drink himself stupid. But that wasn't reasonable. There were problems that were pressing and that wouldn't solve themselves, and Merlin knew Ben was in no position to solve them himself. He needed help, and Aldous had been — whatever Ben sometimes thought of him — at the very least a consistent brother in that respect.

He'd gone back to the club and changed first, and shaved — which wouldn't mean much, in the grand scheme of things, but at the very least he might not give off the impression that he was a lackwit disgrace on the family name immediately. He was lucky, he supposed, that it was Saturday, and that Aldous was at home. He didn't want to be having this conversation at all, but he certainly didn't want to do it at the Ministry of Magic, within earshot of a bunch of Aldous' subordinates he didn't know.

"Er, hi," Ben said awkwardly on finding his oldest brother in the house. "I, ah, need to talk with you, if that's okay."

Aldous Crouch

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It seemed as though half of magical Britain had attended the Witch Weekly ball the day before—but balls were for dancing, and dancing was for those who were not lame. As such, Aldous had spent the evening home as he did most that his occupation did not demand of him: quietly, and at home. Thus, he was quite well-rested and catching up on correspondence when his youngest brother appeared in his home.

This in itself was suspect.

It wasn't that the Crouch brothers did not get on, just that they were so...utterly dissimilar from one another. Where Aldous and Roman had Ministry work to keep them occupied, promoting a distillery was the closest thing Reuben had ever had to a proper job. While Aldous, Roman, and even November had spent their years upholding the dignity of the Crouch name, Reuben had had to be shipped to Canada when he had threatened to destroy it. For all that, the brothers did love one another (well, at least, Aldous cared deeply for Reuben; he would not presume to state the opposite was true), even if Ben's I need to talk to you did send a chill through Aldous' body.

(Old habits and all.)

"Nothing dire, I hope," Aldous joked-but-didn't-joke as he set down his quill on the writing desk, gesturing to a nearby armchair.

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

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"Well," Ben began, feeling heat rise to his cheeks as he tried to determine how to even start. "Actually..."

At least Aldous was already sitting down, because if Ben had had to preface this whole thing with maybe you should take a seat, he knew whatever benefit of the doubt Aldous was willing to give him (which was probably already quite minuscule) would have evaporated in a heartbeat.

Putting it off wouldn't help matters any, but still Ben was reluctant to just jump right into the news. Maybe he was just looking for ways to stave off his brother's disappointment as long as possible. A part of him was still protesting silently that this wasn't fair. Of all the things that Ben had done in his life to cause Aldous some variation of a headache, this was undoubtedly the worse — and Ben hadn't even done this one! At least, not of his own free will. Aldous couldn't possibly be told that, however — not if there was even a slim, distant hope of things working out passably in the end — and so Ben knew he was just going to have to present this as another one of his very ill-advised life choices, and take whatever scorn Aldous heaped on him as a result.

His resignation towards the fact, however, didn't mean he was particularly eager to get on with it.

"Let me just preface this by saying I know this was a terrible decision," he said as he took the seat Aldous had indicated. "And I definitely never planned for this to happen, but — it did. So I don't need you to tell me what a terrible idea it was, because I know. I know it's not — anyway," Ben said, feeling flustered and not sure whether anything he was saying was actually getting through to his brother or if it just sounded alarmist. "I'm here for help, not a lecture, because I know this is bad."

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Aldous sat in silence for a moment—was it a particularly long moment, or was that merely in his head?—before rising and moving to the sideboard to pour himself a glass of brandy. He suspected he was going to need it and, for good measure, took a sip immediately, as if to inoculate himself against whatever his brother had come to confess.

He was standing, one hand clutched upon his glass and the other around the cap of his cane, as
the wizard sighed, "What have you done this time?"

Aldous was almost entirely certain that Reuben had not killed someone, but that was only one "terrible decision" crossed off an infinite list of poor life choices.

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

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Merlin, how he wished there was some way to phrase what he had to say next in the passive voice. The last thing he wanted to do was frame this as something he'd actively elected — but that was what Aldous was going to hear, regardless. Changing the wording would just make it sound like he was trying (and failing) to soften the blow, or dodge responsibility for what had happened. Not to mention that there was no way to do it that even sounded like a real sentence. I happened to have been eloped with wasn't a thing people said. I've found myself married was perhaps a little closer, but still. All Aldous was going to hear was I am, as I have proven myself in the past to be, a fucking nitwit.

His brother was standing now, but at least he had alcohol in hand. Maybe that would help. Hopefully he wouldn't fall over from shock, or anything melodramatic like that.

"Last night, I, ah... eloped," he said. That wasn't even the worst bit of it, though, so he had to remained braced for impact as he continued, "...with Melody Finch."

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A small amount of the brandy sloshed from his cup as Aldous' arm jerked in reaction.

A number of responses to this decidedly unwelcome declaration (Merlin help them, murder would have been easier to sort out) burst immediately to mind and all the muscles in his face strained with the effort of not firing them at his brother in quick succession. Of all the reckless, fucking idiotic things that Reuben could have done, had done in the past, this took the bloody cake and then shat all over it.

"I do hope," he answered at last, is tone soft, measured, and plainly greatly restrained, "that this is not the same Melody Finch whose father so badly yearned for your head that you had to go to Canada to keep it on your shoulders," a breath, before adding with great enunciation that betrayed all the anger and disappointment he had worked so hard to rein in, "empty thing though it is."

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

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The silence was expected, and Aldous hadn't fallen over in shock or anything. As far as Ben could see, he hadn't even scowled — one of the skills, perhaps, he had picked up as a diplomat; taking unexpected and frankly terribly news gracefully. Ben almost thought that he might be able to navigate this conversation without getting into exactly how disappointed his brother was, until Aldous uttered the last phrase, which made Ben wither somewhat.

He couldn't even blame that on the potion, really, because Ben had known for years that he wasn't supposed to be talking with Melody Finch — and, it logically followed, he was certainly not supposed to be procuring illegal potions for her, secreting her out of her bedroom window for secret midnight conversations on rooftops, or making out with her in closets at parties. All of which he had done, and which had led to this unfortunate predicament.

"Yeah," Ben said, feeling small but wishing he could be smaller — maybe just shrink into the chair and disappear entirely. "That's the one."

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He moved to lean on the armchair nearest Ben's own, unwilling to relinquish the moral and literal high grounds but also wishing very much he had never stood up to begin with.

"And what am I to do with this information, Reuben?" he asked, exasperated. "It is one thing to elope—ill-conceived but not necessarily a disaster. But to elope with Miss Finch, a young woman whose station is above your own, whose father quite plainly detests you, and who, if I am not very much mistaken, had her engagement to one of my own colleagues announced not even a fortnight ago?!" As he spoke, Aldous became aware of how frenzied his words were becoming.

He took a sip of his brandy to buy him a moment to collect his thoughts—and to hopefully quiet the drumming of his heartbeat in his ears.

"I will not ask what you were thinking, for it is quite plain that you were not. The question then becomes what in Merlin's name do you intend be done about it?"

  

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

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Not thinking, indeed. If only Aldous knew the half of it. If only anyone could know the full truth of what had happened last night, and could offer some sympathy or advice — but that was impossible. Ben had to accept that whatever role he had played in leading to this elopement had ruined Melody's life enough, and the last thing he could do was isolate her further. Particularly when he didn't even know whether what he remember of last night was the full story, or correct.

"There's not much I can do, is there?" he asked, miserably. Annulment wasn't an option, and he couldn't even consider divorcing her. The only thing left was to be a husband — Merlin help him.

"But I — I mean, I want to do the best I can. Or at least try to. But I can't — I don't even have a place for her to live."

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What would be best would be for Reuben to requisition a time-turner, go back twenty-four hours, and lock his former self in a broom closet so as to avoid the whole mess, but Aldous was quite aware that this was unlikely to happen.

Besides, his brother would probably make a ruinous mess of the past, too.

"The best you can do," Aldous answered bluntly, "is to untie the knots you've gotten yourself tangled up in—now, before this cannot be undone." Not only for Ben, but for Miss Finch, this was the best course. She would surely lose her family over this, not merely her reputation. And family, in Aldous' book, was paramount—why else would he even be having this conversation?

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

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For once, it seemed Aldous and Ben were thinking along entirely the same lines, for all the good it would do either of them. Ben didn't think he'd be earning himself any credit here for having thought of this first, given the situation. But if he could have gotten it annulled, even by lying to a judge, he would have. If there was any way to get her back into the good graces of her family that was even possible given his level of magical ability, he would have — even if it wasn't entirely legal. He was hardly an obliviator, though, and he couldn't just go murking around with the memories of an entire family — not to mention that he didn't even know where to find her fiance, who was apparently also in on the news.

"I know," he said with a heavy sigh. "I agree, but it's not — it's been, ah, consummated," he said a bit hesitantly. The last thing he wanted to do was to get into any details of his sex life with Aldous, but that particular fact was, as he understood it, relevant to the laws surrounding the current situation. "And even if we lied about that, her family isn't willing to pretend it didn't happen. She's already been to talk with them and they've called the wedding off."

  

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Frankly, Aldous would have been surprised if the marriage hadn't been consummated. While it was hardly the honourable reaction, Aldous would have pointed out that such things could be worked around, but then, then Reuben finally struck the killing blow.

She had already spoken to her parents.

Well, that was that then. Miss Finch was ruined, Reuben was ruined, Aldous was...not ruined, for he was not a young debutante whose future was tied to those of his siblings, but certainly not in awesome shape. True to form, Reuben had come to him only when matters had already gone too far, when things could no longer be repaired.

"You are a bloody fool," was all the wizard could muster, shaking his head in disbelief. "Both of you."

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

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What was he supposed to say to that? It wasn't as though he had a rebuttal. Even given that he hadn't decided of his own free will to elope, none of his decisions over the course of the past few months were ones Aldous would approve of. He was a fool. And Melody... Ben wasn't sure. He'd always thought of her as the smart one, between the two of them, but there was nothing smart about how she'd handled things the night before. There was also a certain nativity to her decisions, because Melody, coming from the background she did, just didn't know. She didn't know what being married to him would really mean, compared to the life she'd had before.

Well, fool or not, she was stuck with him now. And what a pair they made.

"I know," he said, shoulders slumping in defeat. "I know. I... I need help, Aldous."

  

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Needing only help made Ben's predicament seem far less disastrous than it was. Had Aldous known his brother had eloped against his will, he would have had the pair divorced posthaste without any care for Miss Finch—he could not yet stomach thinking of the young witch as Mrs. Crouch—or her well-being. But he was the honourable sort, and other than evidentially being as thick as his brother, had done nothing that would allow him to treat her in such a fashion.

The couple needed a place to live. Merlin knew that Ben could not bring his wife to Excalibur (and his membership there was ticking closer towards its conclusion each day). But a house required a household, and a household required money, and money required a job that wasn't just drinking spirits with wealthy sponsors. Unfortunately, Reuben had married the one woman that ensured Aldous could not give him a job.

He remained quiet as he pondered. He also could not harbour the couple for the same reason, and was not certain Gaius would welcome the...impromptu couple in the Malfoy home.

"You've done it this time, Reuben," Aldous sighed. Though still angry, he felt rather...defeated, too. "This may...this may be beyond my power to remedy."

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

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Wait — what?

Ben had made a lot of poor choices in his life, and faced more than his fair share of negative consequences, but this had never happened before. If he didn't have the resources to fix it himself, he came to Aldous — that was what he did. And after expressing Severe Disappointment, Aldous found a way to fix things — that was what he did. Even if 'fixing things' involved Ben having to roam Canada for six months waiting for the heat from his latest fuck-up to die down. Coming in to the house this afternoon, Ben had been prepared for some consequences — some, probably, as undesireable as a return trip to Canada. He hadn't been prepared for no.

This couldn't possibly be beyond Aldous' power to remedy. There was a solution here, they just hadn't found it yet. Nothing was beyond Aldous' power to remedy, he thought — but realized as it occurred to him how childish that sounded. A belief that someone was infallible, just because they'd never failed before. It was akin to naively believing that your parents were invincible and that death couldn't visit your family — until a building unexpectedly fell on them and they were gone forever and you realized you'd been stupid and wrong.

Ben had been dreading this conversation ever since he'd realized the Finches wouldn't accept an annulment, but now, for the first time since he'd woken up this morning, he felt real panic.

"What do you think I should do?" he asked, ready to take literally any suggestion his older brother might have to offer.

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"I don't know!" Aldous shot back. This mistake...it had too many moving parts to be easily mended, even by Aldous. Though he had long ago accepted his role as custodian of the Crouch family, the wizard found himself now wishing very much someone else had that responsibility. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on.

"Perhaps...perhaps it is best if you go abroad again, just for a few weeks," the wizard settled on at last. "To avoid any...confrontation. You might even see if your employer has any need of you on the continent until spring."

And perhaps, with his brother not standing before him imploring him for help, Aldous might approach the problem with a clear head.

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

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