[[huuurp, just a little drabble since apparently I get inspired sometimes when looking at FC photos x_x ]]
Matthew Callaghan was so tired. Tied of running, tired of fighting and more than anything tired of being away from Cashmere. Nether of them had wanted to separate from the other, determined to see out the war together but fate as it seemed had other ideas. She was safe at least, that's what really mattered but Matt missed her more each and every day. Someday, he told himself, they'd have their shop. They'd talked about it endlessly and they'd even started saving to put a deposit on one of the rare empty shops in Diagon Alley, working out their plans for how they could both sell the wands Matt made and have a cafe that Cashmere would run, ever fond of baking as she was. The shop seemed a million miles away right then, and the past just as distant but he clung to it along with the battered picture he kept in his pocket that showed him and his friends some years ago when they where all still just students at Hogwarts. Looking at the crumpled paper, watching as the figures within it shifted around Matt scrunched his nose up at two figures in particular, Adra and Ender. Seth had been dating Noah at that point, and as odd as Matt had always found him and sometimes Donoven he'd never imagined the two of them would engineer what had become a living hell for anyone who opposed them and the Ministry.
Groaning to himself he let his forehead rest on his hands. He wanted a shower, or a long soak in a bath would be even better. Just something hot and wet that would pull the stress from his muscles and wash away a weeks worth of grime and sweat. He smelled like a damn hobo. It was definitely the first thing he was going to do when he made it to Serenity's, well, after kissing Cashie, assuming his current homeless look didn't put her off entirely. Straightening up he grabbed his bag, pulling it closer to open it up he tugged out the carefully wrapped bundle it held. Fingers working quickly he untied the simple string that held the bundle together, rolling out the fabric to reveal the pockets inside, each of which held a carefully crafted wand. Each and every one of them had been made with a certain person in mind. It was part of what made Matt's wands different, instead of matching them to owners afterwards everything that went into crafting them was done knowing exactly who they would belong too. The wand he'd made for Serenity for example, to replace the one she'd had taken from her when the anti-halfbreed laws had been introduced was cypress much like her original wand but this time instead of a phoenix feather for a core it was a single hair from a siren, from her mother, the wood was inlaid with delicate swirls of coral. As with any wand it would ultimately be up to the wand if it wanted to belong to her, wands chose their masters after all but only once had he had one of his wands reject it's intended owner and that had been the one he'd tried to make for himself. Letting his hand drift above the wands, eyes closed, his fingers trembled a little, Matthew could feel how eager they all where to be matched. Since he'd made his first wand from a branch he and Noah had taken with much difficulty from the Whomping Willow he'd been able to feel it, like they where whispering to him, telling him where they belonged, it was part of how he knew what materials to choose for the person he was crafting a wand for.
The wizard opened his eyes abruptly, wrenched out of his musings, looking to his left as he listened intently to something he wasn't quite sure he'd heard. Quickly, half fumbling he wound the bundle of wands back up, shoving it into his bag just in time for the wall to explode in a shower of bricks, dust and glass, something hard hitting him on the side of the head. Head spinning, sure he was going to throw up from the force of the blow he barely managed to scramble to his feet, pulling his own wand from his pocket to wordlessly send a blast of magic of his own towards his unseen attacker. The spell was barely formed and easily deflected apparently because he took the next spell square in the chest, the air crushed out of his lung as it held him pinned against the wall. Ears ringing, head throbbing and lungs burning he couldn't quite get out the string of obscenities that came to mind when a face from the very photograph he'd just been looking at -only older now as they all where- emerged from the dust, pressing the tip of a wand under his chin and spoke in that infuriatingly clipped, precise way he'd had since he was a young teenager. "You're a very hard man to find Matthew and one with as colorful a vocabulary as ever I see. If you're quite finished the Minister would like to have a word with you."
