Confrontation

I was in the dark, I was falling hard, with an open heart, how did I read the stars so wrong?

Hallie, too caught up in tears, barely felt her Father scoop her up and lay her on the sofa as though she were his baby crying for attention again. Images were flashing through her mind: Toby being bitten, Maura being mutilated, Khaat's twins hiding under stone slabs, her Father's supposed corpse, Henry Yewbeam torturing her, her baby in her arms, Theodore walking away. No longer did the blonde have any control over her memories as every bad thing that had happened to her was surfacing in a pool of despair. Visiting her Father had been more than just a reunion it had served as an output for all the pain she'd felt in her life. Why now? Because Robert Cooper had been a hero in Hallie's eyes and the ministry clearly thought him a hero too if they'd felt him strong enough to send on an espionage mission. How could so many horrible things happen in the world of superheroes? Up until now Hallie had accepted her savior wasn't around, that he'd died but he hadn't at all. Her hero was alive but, how could he be a hero? How could all of those horrible things have happened if her hero was alive? The pain Hallie felt was her awaking from her fairytale. Alas she was wide awake.

Distant yells and calls could be heard through the wall somewhere else in the house but Hallie didn't listen it was as though the dementors had entered the room to remind Hallie of the despair that had polluted her life but it wasn't dementors doing that it was realisation.

And now it's clear to me, that everything you see, ain't always what it seems. Yeah I was dreaming for so long.

As much as she wanted to pin the blame on her Father for everything he wasn't entirely to blame, he was only the reason she'd finally woke up and Hallie had to accept reality. The tears, the gasping for air as she tried to fight back her sobs was acceptance. A painful acceptance and, although she'd believed to have come to terms with it the past week, seeing her Father, hearing his words, had allowed her to accept.

Eventually, what felt like a life time, the sobs began to die down into rolling tears and Hallie was able to open her eyes, those shimmering eyes of sapphire that had always made it hard to hide her feelings. They noticed the door was open and her Father had left the room and, for the first time, Hallie wasn't over thinking. The auror wasn't wondering where he'd gone, why he'd gone, how he was dealing with how she'd behaved. Hallie was simply letting whatever happened next happen, the tears still rolling.

Michael entered with a glass of brandy that he'd placed on the coffee table.

"Take a sip." she hard him say. "It'll help. Then take a moment and get your thoughts together. You didn't expect this to be easy, surely."

Gravity hurts. You made it so sweet. 'Til I woke up on, on the concrete.

Pushing herself into a sitting position Hallie reached for the glass and took a sip. The brandy didn't taste of anything but the sudden alcohol, the strength of the drink running down her throat alerted her more. The past five minutes had been a rollercoaster for Hallie. One moment she'd been on cloud nine getting to see her Father, absorbed in nostalgia; the next she'd been falling hard before being numbed by the concrete. The alcohol helped relieve the numbness Hallie felt but the tears continued to roll uncontrollably and the blonde felt no need, or wish, to fight them.

'I'm sorry.' Hallie said, taking another sip whilst her eyes flicking from the rim of the glass now in her hands to Michael's eyes. 'I never mean't for any of this to happen and I... Is, is he okay?'

Michael's strategy at the moment was simple. Redirect.  He wanted Rick to redirect all that anger at him instead of at Hallie.  Hell, he'd been redirecting Rick from the first moment he'd seen him.


Yes, Rick had indeed tried to manipulate them into firing a killing curse at him, and, yes, Michael had redirected him into lowering his wand.  That had given the team the advantage they needed to get Rick out and get him home.  Michael had been redirecting him for a week to stop him from dashing back off again to hide under some rock for another 13 years.  He wasn't sure why, as bright as Rick was, he was still falling for Michael's games.  The only thing that made sense to Michael is that Rick wanted someone to give him a reason to stay.  Any reason, no matter how flimsy.


"We'll find out in a moment," Michael said. "Wait for it.... Any second now...."


"Tremaine!" Rick shouted. 


"And thar she blows," Michael grinned, feeling successful.  "He's fine."  He patted Hallie's knee reassuringly, listening to the stomping steps overhead that soon became stomping down the stairs.


"How dare you nick a man's wand!" Rick was standing on the stairs, his bag in his hand.  "Its like nicking a man's boxers!"


"Why would I want your shorts?" Michael frowned.


"Why? I don't know.  Something around here probably eats them.  The vacuum perhaps?"


"Uh, no," Michael said.


"You've got my wand!"


"I do," Michael agreed.  "You can have it back when you don't want to use it to go offgrid."


"You can't keep me here," Rick glared at him.


"Actually, that seems to be working pretty well at the moment," Michael was a cool and calm as Rick was angry.  He flicked his finger at the sideboard and levitated a firewhiskey bottle and a glass and sent them towards Rick. Rick snatched the bottle out of the air and motioned the glass to go away.  The glass returned to the sideboard.


"Now," Michael said, watching Rick set down the bag so that he could take the cork out of the firewhiskey bottle, "come sit and take a breath." Rick took a short drink out of the bottle, much less than Michael believed a man in Rick's position was probably entitled to.  "Then you two can try it again."


"I thought you were steam cleaning the dogs," Rick said quietly, trying to regain himself.

"You didn't seriously think I'd do your job for you, did you? My first loyalties are to Robert, and he wanted me not to let you two make this a bloodletting. You get to clean the dogs later."


"Figures," Rick said, resigned, sitting down again. He was silent a moment, staring at the floor.  Then he looked up at Hallie. "We can erase all of this, you know.  You can go forward and not know this ever happened.  If that's what you want, that's what we'll do.  You won't have to know anything different from what you've always known."

Hallie watched as her Father reentered shouting for his wand, a guilty lump rising in her throat as she watched her Father. He, much like Hallie, was broken. It was evident that he, also much like Hallie, wasn't thinking entirely straight and she was silently thankful that Michael had hidden her Fathers wand.

She wanted to say something, apologise to her Father for the pain she'd projected onto him and blaming him for all her troubles. A part of her did believe he was partly to fault for the pain she'd experienced but she was lying to herself if she said she believed he had caused all her pain. There was a lot more to the heartbreak Hallie had felt that didn't include her Father: Theodore and her child. Her Father hadn't gotten to meet them and for that she blamed herself. It was her fault. She ruined her marriage, she was the reason her child had died because of her own recklessness and the need to be someone's hero because her own was gone. It was Hallie who had chosen to play that part and she couldn't place the blame solely on her Father for that.

The courage was gradually finding its way to the surface, fighting through the lump in Hallie's throat. Michael was absorbing Rick's rage and it meant Hallie was less at risk to twinge a nerve of her Fathers, not that her words would cause such a thing but clearly the man had been through a lot, was slightly unstable and a safe reaction wasn't necessarily guaranteed. However, just as Hallie was about to speak her Father addressed her directly.

Erase her memory. That's what he was insinuating. Now Hallie was truly angry at the man across from her. He'd let her fairytale down, brought her to reality already but this was the cherry on top. Hadn't this man just said he was going to tell Amelia? Now all of a sudden he wanted to remove his meeting with Hallie from her mind. He wouldn't be doing that for Hallie, he'd be doing it to hide - or at least that's how Hallie interpreted it.

'No.' Hallie protested stubbornly. 'You're not modifying my memory because it suits you. You're not modifying my memory to help you sleep better at night so you can continue to hide. If I had wanted to forget all about you I would never have come to see you here today but I-'

She caught herself. What would have followed was too painful to say.

I guess you were wishing that I hadn't. I guess you don't want to know me or repair anything.

Rick said nothing. He sat back in his chair, sighing and shutting his eyes, balancing the firewhiskey bottle on his knee. Lord, what a screwed up bundle of contradictions he'd just been fed. Everything that should have happened in her life that didn't was his fault. Everything that did happen and shouldn't have was his fault.  Wrecking her world by being here was bad, but erasing it again was bad too. 


He knew he had a mountain of venom of his own, but she wasn't entitled to it.  This same little fainting violet was full of spit and spite when she wanted to, and Rick wasn't sure it was a healthy balance.  If she wanted to be a violet, then she needed to lose the spit.  If she wanted to be an auror, then she needed to get a bit more backbone. One or the other.


He let a good two minutes go by without saying a word.  He needed the tension in the room to go down a notch. He needed to just breathe and not lash out at her. 


He understood she was likely to have some abandonment or separation issues because of his being gone.  She was entitled to that, not that he was happy to have created that, unintentional as it had been. If they were to at least be civil, though, this needed to slow down a wee bit.


"Do you honestly think obliviating you would help me sleep peacefully?" he asked her quietly. "Or are you still needing to lash out? Look, I don't expect you to understand any of this. Nor do I expect you to understand what it is to be alone for 13 years.  It isn't a prison one walks away from overnight."  He pointed to the leather duffel bag. 


"Everything I own or have owned since I saw you last is in that bag. Literally. And what I wanted the most was to come home.  What I was most afraid of was that there was nothing to come back for. The best path seemed to be letting you and your mother go forward as it was. Or at least thats what I thought until last week. I honestly had no intention of coming back.  My mission wasn't finished.  And I hadn't thought ahead realistically at what I would do if that day ever came.


"My cover was blown. The same cover I've had, the same mission I've been on for 13 years, all blown to hell overnight.  I was on the run to stay alive.  I sent a message through an information to the Minister, thinking it was going to be my last. I thought it was a final transmission of data, so that the Ministry wouldn't look for me after I was gone. I hadn't intended that Lupin would meddle.   


"A few hours later, I was trying to get to a train station where I'd hoped to make my way out of town.  It didn't happen because they tried to head me off.  I had to try to make it on foot.  I played cat and mouse for awhile until I ended up in a dead end alley.  I honestly figured it was all over.  And then he shows up..." he gestured to Michael, "with his pals, and, well, you know the rest. I end up back in England, and we're all confused as hell.


"When I got into this business, I was young and inexperienced and vulnerable. I believed and trusted in what my superiors told me. They were older and wiser and were supposed to have all the right answers.  I believed what they said that it was the only way for England to protect itself, and it was certainly the only way that I could protect you and your mother. And to keep you alive, all I had to do was give up everything. 


"I don't know that it necessarily makes me feel any better for Lupin to be telling me now that he's not sure it was the only plan there was. It was the least risky for the Ministry to 'only risk one man', never mind that the one man they sent also had a family. And I'm not sure how wise he is to be risking that family again, but he seems to be relatively sure about you and your mother."

Hallie listened, her eyes looking up into her Father's as she took in every word that he said. It appeared, like herself, his feelings were just going around and round as though the pair were stuck on a merry go round. There seemed to be no getting off and this feeling of going around in circles only strengthened when Robert repeated his espionage tale that Hallie had already heard.

A part of Hallie was wanting to lash out again, shoot down his story with her own biography but she knew it would end the same way: She'd cry. He'd try to leave. They'd decide to listen. The whole thing would start again. It appeared that the pair were as stubborn as each other, neither one of them wanting to see that they both had good points in their arguments but were, likewise, in the wrong.

Hallie had come to terms with the fact she shouldn't be blaming her Father for everything but she continued to pin him down. When you've been the victim, under the firing line so many times it's hard not to bare your teeth and pounce. Yet as Hallie continued to roar her Father remained persistent as though he wanted the blonde to agree and forgive him for the reasons behind why he left.

'Okay.' Hallie replied passively. There wasn't much more left for her to say. A part of her wanted to drum into her Father's shield, call him out for being foolish and not having a mind of his own, not having a sense of chivalry and standing up to the minister and refusing to go on the mission. If she did this it would only prove futile. He'd just admitted his mistake and Hallie showing her angry probably wouldn't help. It'd help sure, but the situation as a whole? Not so much.

'I just don't understand how you seemed to be okay with that? That you didn't question what they were asking you to do? I don't understand how you willingly faked your own death?'

'And I know you said it's because you believed it was the right reason and it was all patriotic' Hallie continued, shutting her Father down before he could reiterate what he'd just said. 'But why didn't you just stop and think that it wasn't the right choice?'

Why don't you tell me what you want to hear, Sweetheart, and I'll fill in the blanks accordingly? he wanted to ask.  No answer was right for her.  No explanation was sufficient. He wasn't sure anything he could say would satisfy.  How could it?


"Is that what you think? That it was easy? That I  blissfully trotted off to parts unknown, waiving a Union Jack, whistling God Save the Queen, while I left you all behind? You don't think I once had a question?  Ask your mother.  The last couple of few months before I 'died,' I was gone late every single work night.  I'm sure she was frustrated with all the 'overtime' she thought I was working. I was home with you every moment I could be, but in those evenings, what do you think I was doing?  I was desperately searching out another way, anything.  Any other idea. I was still looking for another way out, a way to turn it all around, when I left England. 


"You know the problem with hindsight? Anyone who says its 20/20 is a liar.  When we make a judgement call, all we have is what we know and what we feel and what we have the resources for at the time.  When we look back on it in hindsight, all that has changed. Our knowledge is increased and therefore skewed.  Our feelings certainly now are tainted, and our resources have been irrevocably changed.  So, no.  There's nothing accurate about hindsight.


"So we can spend years looking back at this in hindsight, and its never going to feel like what happened was right or fair.  It wasn't.  The people that got me into this are long dead. I'd love to expose them, haul them to the docks, and make them accountable, but in the end, it doesn't change anything for the Cooper family, does it?


"Did I think it was the right choice? No. Not for our family.  I didn't want to think it was the right choice for England, but the Minister and his cronies kept telling me it not just the right choice but the only choice. And, they repeated to me over and over that if the mission did not happen, England would fall, and it would be completely my fault.  At one point there was talk of tossing me in Azkaban for treason because I wasn't leaping onboard with all of this.  I'm sure now that bit was just a lot of hot air.  A strong arming tactic geared to frighten me into compliance. I made the only choice I believed I had." he said quietly, trying to hide his deep bitterness at being used and taken advantage of by the mentors he had trusted. "'Hell of a choice for a young man still in his 20's.  

"The bottom line is that my leaving is never ever going to feel like it was the right choice for our family.  No matter what explanation I can give. Its not going to feel like it was a right choice for us because, for us, it wasn't."

Lupin had mentioned to Rick that he wanted to right the wrongs of past Ministry administrations.  Right now, though, Rick was questioning whether opening this all up again wasn't going to do more harm than good. Maybe Lupin was just like the others from his past.  Maybe he was going to use him and his family one more time. Maybe Lupin had only wanted to tie up this old package rather nicely and tag Rick's name on it.

It was occurring to Rick, the more he listened to Hallie, that all Lupin had to do to accomplish just that was to bring Rick back and let him live openly.  Then the Ministry was the hero, and Rick would go down in history as a vigilante outlaw in the likes of Wyatt Earp and all those others who took justice into their own hands.  Maybe Lupin wasn't the honest man he was supposed to be. Maybe Rick was being just set up again.  Rick just knew this wasn't the happy little family he had once had, and he wasn't feeling like he would get it back at this rate.

He ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated.

"Would you have understood me more if I had chosen Azkaban instead?" he asked her, looking at her. "Or would you have still hated me because you believed your father was a criminal? Hallie, I think just about every kid grows up thinking one of their parents is superhuman. That's actually normal childhood thinking. I am sorry you didn't have me long enough to live with me enough to go through the normal childhood frustrations with their parents so you could have learned for yourself I'm just a man. I'm not an angel, I'm not a demon. I'm just a man.

"I honestly never thought I'd have a chance to even see what you looked like, or hear what your voice sounded like.  So this much, as tough as its been, has been more than I ever thought I'd have.  I've missed you. And, lord, have I missed your mother...." His voice fell quiet. There had never, not even one time, been a thought of anyone else but Amelia, not a night he'd gone to bed without wishing she'd been beside him.  When the grief had tried to consume him, it had always started with how much he missed Amelia and got deeper with thoughts of their children that he'd had to leave behind.

Alas Hallie had finally received that answer that she had been searching for. It wasn't that she had wanted an in depth description of where he'd been, Lupin had glossed over the important bits, and a part of Hallie didn't want any more information. The whole reason for her being hear was to see her Father, to stand with him one last time, hear his voice and gaze into his eyes. Sure he may not be the man Hallie had dreamed him to be but Rick's answer finally allowed her to understand why.

It wasn't that her entire life had been a lie it had simply been built on a child's belief system and the only fault of that was whoever's idea it was to send Robert Cooper to Merlin knows where. Hallie had grown up with her Father. When you think of someone the last memory you have of them is the one that lives on, you assume that time doesn't change people and Hallie had realised that time hadn't changed their relationship in the way that it should have done. Her Father was right, she'd only gotten to see one dimension of him,, just as he had missed her grow up.

There was no use arguing anymore, no use spitting her pain that he hadn't been there for her to lean on when times had gotten hard and to be frank Hallie didn't want to argue anymore. She couldn't change the past and all that mattered to her now was that he was here and she could tell him the stories that he'd missed. That part scared the blonde a little, would he like her?

'I've missed you too.' Hallie said, a smile rising quickly before faltering and forming a trembling frown.

She stood up.

'I'm sorry. It's just I've, I've missed you so so much.'

The little girl who'd been hiding in the closet as her Father had faked her death, the little girl who'd laughed at her Father's metamorph jokes had taken control, wrapped her arms around the man's chest and placed her head under his chin onto his beating heart. The tears continuing to roll.

He hadn't hesitated for an instant. He'd wrapped her tightly into his chest, hugging her as if he could make up for all the hugs he'd missed.  For a moment all he could manage was to hold her. The words just wouldn't come.

"I've missed you too," he finally said softly.  "I'd really like to make some new memories with you. There isn't anything I want more. So you know, there wasn't a moment that I didn't wish I was home instead. I replayed every memory I had, and I wanted them all back.  Even that night your mother tried that new nasty meatloaf recipe. You remember that? She made wonderful meatloaf--all except that one," he smiled.  "God, how I even wanted that meatloaf back.  Don't tell her that, though. Wanting that meatloaf? Now that's the sign of a truly desperate man."


The truth was that he'd always thought Amelia was a wonderful cook, but that recipe had some fatal flaws.  No one deserved to be subjected to that.  Rick had wanted Amelia to trust her own judgements, not anyone else's--particularly when it came to the subject of meatloaf.

It began to dawn on him. Aside from the fact that he hadn't had a friendly face for 13 years, he realized that half the reason he felt he needed to hide was no longer there.  He was halfway to being a free man again.


Amelia was, perhaps, going to be another difficult chapter. However, Amelia didn't have childhood expectations of him.  And if there was one thing he felt they both knew, it was that they had loved each other. That had been solid.  He didn't think she'd think that she'd been jilted for another woman.  Nah.  That had never ever been in Rick's make up.  She knew that, he was sure. Nor would she leap to think he'd risked it all for some grand sum of money.  He'd wanted them to live well, sure, but that drive wasn't so strong that it stood in between his loyalty to his family.  Money didn't mean that much. The most reasonable thing, if he were to reappear, was for it to be exactly what it had been--something dark, something work related. Or sheer stupidity on his part, yeah, she'd definitely have believed that too.


He had wondered if she had ever sensed that he had been doing darker work than he could talk to her about after the kids went to bed. There were too many nights that he had had to just outright tell her that he couldn't talk about it.  Or nights he quickly changed the subject back to her.  Or all the minor bruises and scrapes and such that he'd come home with, mostly from his own bunglings in his rookie days. If she worried, she didn't show it.  She did seem to get tired of some of it, though.  She was perceptive, intelligent, and she knew him oh so very well.  Perhaps, just perhaps, it wouldn't distort all her perceptions of reality like it had Hallie's.

"I have so much I want to know," he said to Hallie, his thirst for knowing feeling unquenchable. "I don't even know where to start.  Tell me about yourself. Tell me what you like, what you don't like.  I don't know your favorite anything anymore. Tell me everything."

Hallie giggled. Her Mother's meatloaf was infamous. The blonde remember too the first time Amelia had made it and insisted that everybody have a full slice each. Little did Amelia know that Hallie, upon pretending to enjoy the meatloaf so much, had buried it in the backgarden with Toby when she'd got upstairs to clean the bathroom. In fact, Hallie wasn't sure if even her Father knew that. The auror wanted to make a joke, suggest that there could still be a tiny crumb lost in the soil but a part of her was still too overwhelmed from the hug.

Removing herself from her Father she simply smiled and looked at him in the eyes, taking in every detail of her face as she had done upon their encounter in the garden. Once thing she noticed now that they were in normal light was that his face seemed slightly slimmer, perhaps from the stress of the mission... The mission. Whatever her Father had done Hallie didn't want to know, she'd finally found peace with his disappearance and not knowing too much seemed like the perfect medicine.

Lost in observation Hallie was immediately brought back to Michael Tremain's sitting room at her Dad's questions. He wanted to know everything about her. Her likes. Her dislikes. Her personality. Maybe more of the minute memories that were simple treasures. Everything.

'I...' She paused after being thrown off guard from suddenly being placed under the spotlight. If there was one thing Hallie was confident about it was about who she was. She knew herself better than anybody else knew her. Hallie was very present in her life and had a clear image of who she was, why she was who she was and who she wanted to be but all of a sudden her mind had gone blank.

'I'm really good at Transfiguration?' Hallie replied a little uncertain with whether this was the sort of thing he wanted to know. 'I'd love to be an animagus and I've been meaning to train to become one for some time but some things have, umm, gotten in the way.' She added cautiously not wanting to burst the bubble the pair were in. It had been around the time Hallie had been abducted by Henry Yewbeam and held in the attic of Borgin and Burkes that she'd debated it, however, after the torture and losing a limb and then going through the pain of regrowing the limb the auror had lost motivation and time to do so.

'I always hated divinations though.' Hallie quickly continued. 'If there's one thing I've learnt in life it's you never know what is going to happen and it probably didn't help that the professor I used to have cried at almost everything.'

Surely but slowly Hallie was gradually entering a verbal frenzy, the constant talking helping to calm her nerves regardless of whether her Father could keep up with what she was saying:

'Of course I've always loved exploring and going on adventures - that didn't stop when I went to Hogwarts. Maura, my best friend, and I would always go sneaking off into Hogsmede. Although one time it turned out two manic death eaters were in the shrieking shack and things turned, well, let's say it turned our plan to go camping upside down but we both came out alive. In fact most of the time I've gone on an adventure they've always landed me in St Mungo's but I'm still here and I kind of like the rush, I'm an adrenaline junkie like that something Theodore was always trying to reign in.'

She stopped. Theodore. Would her Father ever get to meet the man she fell in love with and, still to this day, considers the love of her life? The blonde herself hasn't spoken to him since he stormed out of St Mungo's that afternoon they lost the child Hallie was carrying. It suddenly dawned on Hallie, being with her Father, how much she missed Theodore. Here was a man she hadn't spoken to or seen in thirteen years and there was another man she loved she could possibly never see again.


'I don't know if this is the sort of thing you want to here?' Hallie asked, questioning whether the answers she'd given her Dad answered his question. Maybe he wanted to know what activities she enjoyed, what her favourite foods and smells were much like the marriage law film she once had to fill out.

She was good at Transfigurations.  It made him smile.  


"Yeah?" he was delighted.  He didn't figure she'd get the connection, but he did.  And she wanted to be an animagus.  It all sort of came in the family.  "If you can do transfigurations, you can learn to be an animagus," he said.  "Metamorph stuff is very similar.  Once you understand the process, its a matter of practice and focus and intent--like any other spell. You're smart.  You could certainly do it."


He laughed when she said she wasn't good at Divinations. He hadn't been either. "Seers are odd people," he shrugged. "I just don't get them." He had never learned to understand them, nor did he find he particularly wanted to.  Well, that wasn't exactly true.  It was more accurate that he hadn't had a reason to have to understand them.


"I think I excelled at Defense Against the Dark Arts.  That, and Detention," he cast her a bit of a mischevious grin.  "Some of my professors weren't as amused by my metamorph stuff as you used to be."  That was true, but it was also more true that he often took the responsibility for things his friends had done. Then, after a point, the teachers just got accustomed to tagging him with it. "I can still hear Minerva McGonnegall now. 'Cooper, you're such a boy!'"  Rick had understood. There was something in his boyish nature that amused her, and he had wondered if it was the reason she had, from time to time, cut him some slack.


He wasn't surprised at all that she loved adventure. All Gryffindors did.  It seemed to fuel their souls.  It certainly fed his.  However, ending up at St. Mungos was not how that was supposed to go.  She mentioned Theodore. Oh yeah. Her ex. He'd read that in the dossier. A Rookwood. Well, whoever had matched them during that stupid law hadn't been very good at matching, had they?  Coopers and Rookwoods, by personality, were a lot like oil and water.  

"He might very well have loved you, my dear," he said. "Sounds like he was practical.  Protective. But the chance of stopping a Cooper from adventure and risk?  Yeah, that just isn't going to happen. Its a lovely thought, but completely impossible.  How has your mother not had a heart attack from all those shenanigans? Or has she turned out to be cut from some very tough stuff?" 


He'd always thought Amelia had that potential, but when a Ravenclaw lived in the shadow of a Gryffindor, sometimes the Ravenclaw intellect and practicality struggled with the Gryffindor's need to meet every challenge head on. Nevertheless, being a single parent to a child who had precocious DNA would have likely given Amelia no choice but to muster up.


He hadn't had the chance to have any adventures with his daughter. And now he wanted that chance.  He didn't think he wanted to see her as an Unspeakable, but he could see himself thriving on some sort of adventure with her.  It wasn't something he could have even dared himself to dream of before.  But, for the first time in a long time, there was a new thought. A whisper of a new dream.

"Yeah," he answered her question, feeling more alive than he had in the last thirteen years.  "This is exactly what I want to know.  There's so much I don't know, and I want to know it all. I don't want to miss any more."