January 26th, 1891 — Crouch Residence, Swallowbury, Irvingly

In countless ways, Aldous Crouch was nothing like his brother.

Under ordinary circumstances, he would never have even dreamed of taking the liberty of flooing into Reuben's house unannounced, and it was a testament to his concern that he chose to do so today. The letter that he had received that morning, evidently sent the evening prior, painted the picture of a man whose resolve had gone altogether off the rails. Knowing what he now did of his brother's 'choice' of bride, Aldous was not inclined to take the words at face value, nor to give in to his very British urge to not meddle in the affairs of others.

And so he stood in his brother's sitting room, calling out the younger Crouch's name with urgency just after lunch.

— Reuben Crouch —

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

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Ben had been too distracted with — well, everything, honestly — to realize how the letter might have come across to his brother, particularly after he'd just confessed to having been drugged into marriage a year ago. He had risen early to tend to work-related owls (only the ones which could not reasonably put off; he had no desire to work but even less desire to explain anything to Jewell in order to be given the day off), then spent a good long moment thinking about what he could do for Melody to make her believe that he still meant what he'd said the day before. He considered flowers, or something blatantly romantic like that, but thought she would read it as pandering. After everything they'd been through together, what could flowers possibly mean? He'd settled adding a short note to the breakfast tray their cook had sent up to her room, and then had been... basically just waiting, anxiously, ever since. He wanted to talk to Melody, obviously, but he thought in the longer term it might be better to give her a bit of space. He certainly didn't want her to think he was being too pushy; after putting up with him for so long, she was entitled to a day to recuperate. He was weighing the pros and cons of taking a walk to the Howlers pitch that afternoon — on the one hand, he wanted to confirm that Art had shown up to practice today, though he was sure it couldn't have gotten that bad that fast — on the other hand, he didn't want to be gone when Melody finally emerged from her room — when he heard his brother's voice in the parlor.

He panicked. He hadn't told Melody what Aldous knew, and was sure that if the two of them interacted now it would be fairly obvious. Ben went to the parlor at once, making a keep your voice down gesture with his hands. "What are you doing here?" he asked, quietly but urgently.

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By way of answer, Aldous simply held up the earlier letter, eyebrows raised in a Well?! gesture. Given Reuben's uncharacteristically low volume, Aldous surmised that Melody was in the house—and he did not wholly trust himself to speak.

— Reuben Crouch —

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

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Ben still had not pieced together what the problem was. He knew that things had been tense yesterday morning when Aldous and Roman had gone off to work and Ben had gone off to have a heart-to-heart with Melody, but that was why he'd sent the letter at all, so that Aldous knew not to worry that something had gone terribly wrong. He had gotten the letter, evidently, so what was he doing here?

"It's fine," Ben insisted, still speaking quietly. "It's fine. It's just what I told you in the letter. We're working things out."

  

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"When last I saw you," Aldous returned, tone strained and words clipped, "you were under the impression that a life lived with your wife could not possibly bring you anything other than misery. I am... curious, to say the least, as to how that might have evolved in the short time since."

She had drugged him, not with opium but with a love potion, perhaps; worse, she may well have placed him under an Imperius Curse—Merlin help them, had had Reuben's coerced wedding vows been Unbreakable in nature?!

— Reuben Crouch —

  

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

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Oh, that was it, then. Ben had to admit, grudgingly, that it made sense. He didn't have any of the context, or know about anything that had changed from yesterday morning to today. There was a large part of Ben, however, that was hesitant to say anything about the pregnancy. Art hadn't exactly reacted well to it — he'd immediately called it into doubt and then suggested divorce was still in order — and Ben had no reason to believe that Aldous would take this news at face value. As admittedly convenient as the timing may have been, however, Ben believed Melody; he believed she wouldn't lie about it, and after she'd offered to leave last night he believed that she didn't have any ulterior motives in telling him. But he knew the way it looked, and he didn't have any defense or counterargument if Aldous started in along the same lines Art had.

"Well — things changed," he said evasively. "I was being stupid before. We can get through this. Honestly."

  

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His sigh was heavy and audible, and the energy it created, palpable.

"Reuben, you were the least stupid you have been for quite some time," Aldous remarked frankly.

— Reuben Crouch —

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

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Ben put his hands in the back pockets of his trousers and looked at the ground. He wasn't sure how to respond to that, frankly, so he didn't. He didn't think there was anything he could say to Aldous that would make him actually understand. He knew that anything he tried to say on the subject might backfire and make him look foolish. He couldn't tell Aldous she was pregnant without being called a fool for believing her. He certainly couldn't tell his brother that he was in love with Melody, not with even the slightest chance of him believing the sentiment was at all genuine.

"You're not going to tell anyone, are you?" he asked after a long pause. "What I told you about when we eloped?"

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"I most certainly am," Aldous answered swiftly, "if that is what it takes to get you away from that woman."

Perhaps not entirely publicly, but at the very least, he would inform Roman so that their brother might be briefed before they came to wrest Reuben from the house.

"Based on your description of Mrs. Crouch's character," how he hated, now, to call her by their mother's name, "I have not a whit of confidence that you are not now similarly under her influence." If Ben had let Aldous come with him for the...confrontation, they might not now be in this position.

— Reuben Crouch —

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

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Ben winced, both at his brother's words and his tone. He couldn't let Aldous tell anyone, of course. It would ruin any chance he had of fixing things with Melody, and that was assuming she wasn't arrested straight off. Ben hadn't told Aldous the specifics, but surely nothing that could be used to marry someone without their consent was legal.

"I'm not," he insisted. Without really thinking about it, he held out an open hand, palm down, to demonstrate that it wasn't shaking — as though a love potion might give the same physical effects of being drunk. "Stone cold sober, Aldous, I swear. No influences of anything. Honest. I just — I — I thought better of it," Ben concluded, cheeks flushed. He did not really believe Aldous would buy this; Ben was not known for thinking better of anything.

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"Would you not say precisely the same thing if under the Imperius Curse?" Aldous pointed out, not even touching the notion that Reuben might have thought better of something. True, if he were to reconsider anything, given his track record, it would be a sensible decision, but still.

The whole situation stank to high heaven.

— Reuben Crouch —

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

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This was spiraling out of control, and Ben had no idea how to get it back.

"It wasn't an Imperius curse," he said, flustered. He wasn't sure if this was going to help at all, but it might... if Aldous knew exactly what had happened a year ago he might understand that it wasn't as though Melody could pull out the same thing at the drop of a hat. "Or a curse at all. It was a potion, and she doesn't have one now," he continued, though he knew Aldous would have no particular reason to believe this. "She wouldn't even know where to find one. I bought it for her," he admitted, with a huff.

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His brother bought Melody a love potion which she then proceeded to use on him.

Aldous, for a long moment, merely stared at his brother in disbelief. That was simply too ludicrous to believe even of Reuben, too foolish a story for even the naive (November came to mind) to buy into without ample reservation.

"Do you even hear yourself?!" he demanded at last, all but yelling for the first time since his arrival.

— Reuben Crouch —

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

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Ben opened his mouth to respond, but stopped. Nothing he said was going to convince Aldous, he realized, because his brother didn't trust Melody. Ben had been alone with her since they'd last talked, so he didn't trust Ben either, by extension. He could have come out with the whole story, from the night with the fireflies up through last night, and Aldous still wouldn't have any reason to believe him. And he did realize how it sounded, now that Aldous had so pointedly drawn his attention to it.

"What do you want?" he finally asked, with resignation in his tone.

  

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"Come home with me."

The words surprised even Aldous though, in retrospect, why else had he come? He was not certain precisely how long it would take to ensure whatever Reuben's wife had done was undone, but he was certain that there was very little his brother could say beneath this roof that he would believe.

"Leave a note for her if you must," Aldous added in an effort to head off any objections, "but you must see why I can't trust everything to simply work out—I value you too much to take that particular gamble."

— Reuben Crouch —

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

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Yeah, he supposed he should have expected that. Ben shifted his weight uncomfortably and reached up to rub the back of his neck with one hand. He didn't want to leave, obviously; he'd been spending all morning waiting to talk to Melody again, and there was still a lot of unresolved... everything to work through before he would feel confident that they could move forward together.

"I can't just leave her here," Ben protested, but even as he said it he knew Aldous was hardly going to care. He'd made his feelings on the matter abundantly clear, and nothing Ben said was going to change his mind.

Reluctantly, he asked, "For how long?"

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