Location: Hog’s Head Inn, Hogsmeade
Time: 1st of March, evening
Status: Closed, for @arabellafiggaf
Hogwarts was surrounded by wards which not only kept away people who weren’t supposed to be there but also the passing of time. The darkness of the world couldn’t seem to enter it -- not in reality, but also not in the idea of safety that it stood for. All memories of one’s time there were bright and colourful, as though untouchable by time, as though nothing -- neither time nor evil -- could harm the children that lived there, many years ago.
When Fabian had told Edgar he was going to move there, following a job offer from Dumbledore, Edgar had felt a sort of relief wash over him. Fabian would be safe there. The war would be distant and he would be safe. It was only when Fabian offered that Edgar could just come visit him -- the wards not repellent to friends of Dumbledore, after all -- Edgar had felt tense again.
For years he had kept his family out of the war, even Amelia he had lied to, for the first time in his life. And then she had found out, and she had been the exception, the only other Bones to know, and he had been able to pretend that it was all fine. But now two problems were arising. Firstly, their Head Quarter’s Secret Keeper was dead and Edgar was offering up the House of Bones, his family’s private estate. They weren’t around at the moment, no, but no one could stop them from changing this whenever they wanted. Secondly: Amelia had seen the Potter Estate. She’d been at the Rosier Engagement Party, she had seen what the battles which Edgar always feared to tell her about looked like, and then she had been brought to the Potter Estate and seen every single Order member, running around in a frenzy, saving lives, fighting, being just that: members of the Order of the Phoenix.
She’d not said it, but in her eyes Edgar had read that something had changed then. Something in the way his beloved twin sister saw the Order had changed, and he hated it. Perhaps because for the first time, she wasn’t so eager to stay away from it. For the first time, she was willing to participate. He’d done it, after all; he’d brought the war to the people he wanted to see live in peace the most.
And now he was supposed to meet Fabian at Hogwarts. Supposed. He couldn’t. He didn’t dare. Every time they found each other at Strongarm Cottage -- by accident or on purpose -- it was a moment of bliss and relief, but the idea of seeing him at Hogwarts? It was an idea made of tension. He’d tried a couple of times, but each time he’d made his way back instead, too anxious to ruin whatever peace Fabian had found behind the thick castle walls.
Thus, arriving at Hogsmeade, he made sure to keep his eyes on the path ahead, and not look up at the castle on the other side of the lake, just keep his eyes on the hut in front of him, the door, the counter, the stool, the smile on Arabella’s lips. “A moth coffee and some company, please?”
