Shall we set things straight?

The empty classroom on the fourth floor was where Elijah had chosen to take refuge, escaping the library and its stuffy inhabitants that all had the same opinion of him. Yes he was that flighty art kid that was more obsessed with women than he was Quidditch, an odd trait for a Krum. Said trait came because it was just another way to stick it to his father. But women had been stripped to the singular version of the word and Elijah found himself once again dreaming of redheads. He was always falling for them specifically. He didn’t know what it was but it was probably the fire in them, the burning passion that kept him coming back for more. Chase was proof enough of that. Now, though, he had to go back.

So, in an effort to learn something about infant fatherhood Elijah had taken some of the parenting books from the library. Strategically they’d been placed at the back near the sexual health books and other bizarre manuals with diagrams that the Slytherin didn’t even think existed but was infinitely pleased they did. He’d taken up residence in the room that he’d once again removed dust from and made liveable. Elijah was sat at one of the tables, his feet kicked up on the table and the book in his lap. A cigarette was placed between his lips, having given into the niggling nicotine monster in the back of his mind, and his eyes were gliding across the pages in the book.

It was insane. All of the things to remember were important. Every single piece of information was important. If you did this you could hurt the baby, if you didn’t do that then they baby would cry. Elijah wanted to throw himself off of the Astronomy tower. He didn’t think a book could ever be an insult to his skills but the ruddy thing was making him sound like an idiot that had never dealt with babies before. Well, he hadn’t but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew what he was doing for the most part. He just figured he’d have to downsize a little bit. There would be no toys...not for a while. Soft things were a good thing but hard corners weren’t and it was all insanely complicated. Elijah just hoped Chase would get a burst of maternal instinct and allow him to pick up stuff from her so he could incorporate his own child-related tactics.

For him it was just about keeping the smiles on their faces. The last thing he wanted was to see tears which was why he was on Fauve like an ant to a sugar cube if she looked sad or was sniffling because of a stumble. Thierry was her knight in shining armour although really the boy was a dark horse. He was hard to predict so Elijah was always challenging the boy intellectually, telling him stories and teaching him about different things whether they be magical or Muggle. Fauve was by far the easiest to keep happy. She was the light to Thierry’s darkness and it was two different mediums. Elijah was glad he was able to incorporate both into the time he had with them. He could entertain Fauve and keep her smiling while throwing bits of information at Thierry to see how he’d take it.

But now this was like throwing another ball into the juggler’s ring. Well, two balls. Elijah had Chase to contend with and that bit of him inside of her. He wasn’t entirely sure how this was supposed to work or how it was going to work but he knew one thing was for sure. He wanted to keep her.

Elijah’s eyes fell to the page again only to see a tip on how to make sure your baby’s eyes are clean. With a feral growl, Elijah slammed the book shut and threw it. He took his wand out and yelled, “Incendio”, watching with glee as the book burst into flames. “Take that.” He smirked before muttering, “Useless book.”

Why is it that no one can understand the concept of quiet space? Amelia complained mentally as she trudged down the steps from Ravenclaw tower, her arms laden with books and parchment and ink. Although the common room had been designated a quiet study space on weekday nights, apparently her peers had decided that some sort of quidditch victory – Chelsey Cannons or Chudley Cobblestones or some other such nonsense – warranted breaking that rule and throwing what was quickly amounting to a party in the common room.

Although she could have put a stop to the party with her Imperium Squad status, Amelia just didn’t have the energy for it right now. She hadn’t really had a lot of excess energy at all these past few days, and although the weight she usually carried around on her shoulders hadn’t necessarily increased, it had seemed much heavier lately. Keeping up in class, worrying about what to do about the tournament, trying to please both her brother and her parents simultaneously, and figuring out what to do with the rest of her life was taking a toll, and when presented with the challenge of stopping a party that was already going full force, she decided to just bail and leave it for James.

Perhaps not your most responsible decision, Amelia’s subconscious commented at the thought, though not in its usual “you-had-better-go-do-it” way. Even her mind had conceded that she needed a break from at least one responsibility, and it just so happened that the Imperium Squad was the lowest priority on her long list of obligations at the moment.

Reaching the base of the spiral staircase, Amelia headed in the direction of the empty classroom on the fourth floor. Though she usually only went there at night to play violin, it seemed more appealing to her now than the library, if only for the solitude it might provide. She moved quickly through the hallways to avoid having to talk to anyone on her way, and was soon on the fourth level.

As she approached the room, however, Amelia could smell burning, an odor one never wanted to experience this far away from the Potions dungeons. Unenthused to be having to deal with whatever was to come, but knowing that shirking this duty would only add to her guilt, Amelia pushed open the door to the classroom…

… and immediately wished she hadn’t.

The source of the burning was near the wall opposite the door, looking like it might have at one time been a book, but was working its way toward becoming a pile of ashes. This was not what had concerned her most, though. Instead, it was the boy that sat across the room, his feet on the table and one of those god-awful cancer sticks stuck between his fingers that had made Amelia visually and mentally recoil from the scene, though she had not actually moved from her place in the doorway.

She would like to have said that she had successfully avoided him since the beginning of the school year, but she knew that Elijah had much more to do with that than she did. The older Ravenclaw girl hadn’t even had to try to avoid Elijah, because he had done it all for her. Just like last year, Elijah had suddenly and without warning lost interest in Amelia, most likely because of another certain redhead that Amelia had seen him with and heard whispers about.

She had always known Elijah to be a womanizer, and she didn’t know what she had thought that her case would be any different. Perhaps it was meeting Fauve that had made her believe that Elijah thought about her differently than he did all those other girls – and there were so many others – but she had been wrong. And what was worse, she hadn’t had the intelligence to realize how wrong she was until Elijah proved it to her. He was the one that deserved to be deserted, but instead, she had hung around long enough to be the one that was left.

Amelia stared at Elijah for a long minute, her eyes hard and the line of her lips thin. She wanted to fling every insult she could think of at him, for making her believe in something and then taking it away. She was more mad at herself for falling for this, for letting herself believe in something she couldn’t touch or feel or prove, but it was easier to blame Elijah. If it hadn’t been for him, she never would have stepped outside of her ice castle, which was now even more impenetrable because of her experience with him.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that your destructive tendencies apply to school property as well as people,” Amelia said scathingly with a jerk of her head toward the small fire, skipping any sort of civil greeting. That remark could almost have passed as civil, compared to a multitude of other barbed comments that were poised on her tongue. She was spitting fire and she knew she ought to have just walked away, but Elijah had been the one person she thought she could believe in, and that type of responsibility should not have been taken so lightly. Whatever she said to him today would pale in comparison to the cards he had dealt her when he walked out of her life after promising to change it.

And he had changed it. But not for the better.

The pages in the book curled and crackled as the flames licked the paper. Pieces fell away from the book and Elijah watched intently as the flames immersed the book in its golden glow. Burning the book that was taunting him so seemed just. But it wasn’t just the way the thing was written and phrased, it was the fact that the situation called upon the need to read it. This was wrong. What had he done? He was in the process of ruining three lives and both halves of him were dreading every second that lead up to the inevitable: the birth of this awfully unfortunate child. Financially it would be set for life and genetics wise it had nothing to be worried about but life was already betting against it. Kitty; they were betting against kitty. Elijah couldn’t say that he wasn’t throwing in a couple of galleons against her either. The first flaw was that she was his; the second was that she was a Krum. The saving grace would be that she’d probably have red hair.

She...

Elijah closed his eyes for a few moments. She. He reopened them and smiled a little to himself. She. There was something extraordinary about girls. The woman was a creature that the man feared for good reason. They were what made life worth living. Fauve, for Elijah, was what made life living. To see her smile upon waking up, to hear her recount the hours she’d spent trying to wake him up when in reality it had probably only been about ten minutes. Just to hear the stroke of her paintbrush against the canvas set up on her easel. She was perfection and it was odd to think that there would be another of her. It wouldn’t be her though, not at all. It would be him and Chase. Their baby. If the poor child had his personality then he hoped, for her sake, that she had her mother’s hair. As he’d decided before, it would probably be her saving grace. The legitimacy of the child would be debated, the parentage – everything. The only thing she would have is her innocence and even that would be tarnished in a matter of years. Elijah knew that would break his heart. He was having difficulties in trying to accept the fact that Fauve wouldn’t need him anymore one day. She was everything to him. To lose his own child, his biological daughter, would be hell. But he was sure that Fauve would hurt more. She was his and only his. No one had a claim to her. Kitty was a special little breed of Elijah and Chase with already too many relatives.

Irony was ruling this young man’s life. Being deprived of a real family throughout his childhood, he’d had desire and that was to have his own family; to be what his parents couldn’t be to him. Now, through a stroke of what could only be called bad luck, he was getting his wish and there was nothing Elijah could do to take it back. Of course there was something he could do about it but Chase had already decided that she’d keep it; with or without him. He’d chosen the former and he wasn’t regretting it necessarily, just thinking through the options that could still be available to him. He knew that the Pureblood way would just be to blank them both out, eradicate them from his life with a couple of well timed interviews and a lot of money.

Marina would encourage it. She’d push for a respectable marriage, no doubt to Mira, and ‘turn things around’ for him. She’d just help him ruin his life. But ruining his life wasn’t necessarily on the top of his list of issues. He was angry, sure, but it wasn’t just his life. It was Chase’s and Kitty’s. These girls were being ruined by the minute. But he was trying. He was trying to fix this. The house and the whole ‘settling’ idea seemed to be the only thing that worked currently; the only thing that seemed right in his mind. That was families did wasn’t it? They settled and put roots down didn’t they? The man went to work, the woman did if she chose, and he brought the money home. They raised the children and sent them off to school didn’t they? Family things; they did family things.

Somehow, Elijah didn’t think that was actually going to work. Did he need to list the problems?

There had been enough people in his life telling him that he couldn’t do this and he couldn’t do that. His parents had told him, quite frankly, that he’d get nowhere by drawing pretty pictures for the rest of his life. They’d encouraged Quidditch. Elijah had reasoned that he hated the sport and would have rather played Wizard’s Chess for money – which wouldn’t have happened even if he was down to his last Knut. He’d been told by Khaat that it wasn’t advisable for him to drop out of Hogwarts. He’d known this himself but he was panicking and was trying to come up with a quick fix at the time. Chase was troublesome without even having to try. He didn’t mind but there was a little niggle in the back of his mind that made him wonder whether Vito would turn up and finish what he’d started. Fauve and Thierry were too used to being moved around; they wouldn’t handle being settled. And Thierry, well, he resented the fact that he had to play happy families anyway so all was lost. Only Fauve seemed to be the one content in the situation but if he knew her as well as he did then she probably was concealing what she truly felt just to placate him.

A piece of ash fell onto Elijah’s thigh and he looked down to see the ash burn its way through his trouser leg. He brushed it onto the floor before it began to singe his skin and he held the cigarette up to his face. It was coming to its end but there was still enough there for him to get a quick fix. The packet was in his bag somewhere. He’d decided to go against what he’d mentally promised Chase he’d do and skip out for an hour. He’d gone through Hogsmeade to the nearest Muggle town and bought himself a couple of packets of cigarettes. The cashier had doubted his age at first but flirting fixed everything as well as a promise of a visit at a later date when he ran out. Elijah could foresee that being soon especially if he climbed back up to the point where he was smoking a couple of packets a day. But he hadn’t done that in a long while. He’d cut down considerably then gone to none. But that had driven the nicotine monster crazy so it hadn’t lasted long; the cigarette between his fingers being proof of that.

Sighing, Elijah shook his head. His eyes drifted back to the book and he put the cigarette between his lips. He took in the sweet nicotine and relished the relief he felt. This was definitely what he needed. Elijah hummed to himself and took the cigarette away again as another page in the book curled. He dropped his head onto the back of the chair and let his eyes slide close, enjoying the bizarre bit of warmth that was coming off of the book. It was probably the fact that it was magically induced fire, producing the heat quicker than fire made the ‘traditional’ non-magical way.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that your destructive tendencies apply to school property as well as people,”

That voice. Amelia. Merlin. Elijah had decided that if he could avoid her for as long as possible then he could avoid the inevitable conversation that would no doubt take place here. He didn’t want to have to explain because he had yet to explain this to himself. He was just going along for the freaking ride! He didn’t want this. He’d wasted his tokens on one ride and hadn’t left enough for the other. He’d forgotten about Amelia. She didn’t deserve the way he’d treated her. He’d not set out to do so. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her but he’d not thought. This was his fault. He’d been selfish; blind. Now he was paying for it with something that he couldn’t control. It was his just desserts.

Elijah cracked an eye open and sighed. He sat up and took his legs off of the table. He kicked the chair out that was opposite him and gestured to it, instructing her to sit. Elijah took his wand from his pocket and transfigured one of the pieces of paper into an ash tray. He stubbed the cigarette out and put his wand down beside the ash tray. Elijah eyed the burning book and watched a diagram curl in on itself. The sides of his lips twitched a little and his eyes went back to Amelia.

“The school will survive with one less book,” Elijah said flippantly. He pursed his lips and ran a hand through his hair. “But you’re not wrong.” He struggled. “H-how much have you heard?”

Elijah was slow to open his eyes at the sound of her words, and Amelia wasn’t sure she could blame him for that, even if she wanted to. If someone had been so scathing with their introduction to her, she likely would have kept her eyes closed, but Elijah at least had given her the pleasure of seeing him open his eyes. Those eyes. Those were the eyes that had pulled her in, the ones that had always read sincerity and concern, that she had always thought of as windows to how Elijah was feeling.

But really, they had been just another facet of an elaborate lie. Even as Elijah took his feet down from the table and returned himself into a vertically upright position, Amelia felt the urge to kick the legs out from under his chair and watch him fall as hard as she had. And oh had she fallen. She had fallen for his looks, his charm, his easy confidence, and every single line he had ever said to her. All of it she had taken, not without hesitance at first, but once she started falling for Elijah, it had been nearly impossible to stop. Even when he treated her poorly, disappeared for months, was the subject of hundreds of rumors about his romantic dalliances, Amelia hadn’t been able to see him clearly for what he was.

But now for the first time, she was seeing him clearly, her vision not clouded by that nonsense of hope and feeling and lo- no. She had never felt that for him. As foolish as she had been, she was not willing to admit that that emotion had been one she had held for Elijah. She would never confess to that, even under threat of pain or otherwise.

With his feet back on the floor where they belonged, Elijah kicked out the chair opposite him and gestured for her to sit, but Amelia had no intention of letting him run the show. She had done what he said for so long because he had promised it would make her different and better, and what had that gotten her? He had told her to be more open, more willing to see people in a positive light, and what did she have to show for her efforts? Nothing, that’s what.

Instead of taking the chair, Amelia crossed her arms defensively over her chest and strode the few steps it took to get her body behind the chair. She wasn’t going to sit, because she wasn’t planning to stay. No matter how tempting it was to stand here and verbally abuse Elijah for all he had done to her, it wouldn’t do any good. She had already wasted enough time on him; this encounter was going to be brief, and this time, she would do everything she could to make sure she followed through on that promise to herself.

At Elijah’s first comment, Amelia’s temper flared only higher, shaking her head in disgust at Elijah’s glib tone. Eiljah knew her affinity for books, and she knew just as well his distaste for them. They had never had that much in common in the first place. How, how, how had she ever believed things could work out between herself and Elijah?

But it wasn’t even worth a comment, his passing remark about the book. The damage had already been done, and even if she put the fire out now, the book would be unreadable and useless. The irony of the metaphor between the book and herself was almost enough to make Amelia laugh darkly at the morbid comparison, but she kept her thoughts to herself and her lips pressed tightly together, at least until Elijah spoke up again, this time taking on a different tone.

Of course I’m not wrong, Amelia thought to herself, getting mentally defensive to avoid letting herself feel sympathetic toward the dark-haired boy sitting in front of her. She knew that his tone had changed to one much less confident and self-assured than she knew to be his norm, but she was refusing to let him play her the way he had before. It was always an act with Elijah, and this time, Amelia was not going to be the naïve audience member that applauded his every move.

“How much have I heard?” Amelia echoed, her voice sharp and almost unbelieving, not at all understanding the context from which Elijah was speaking, and how could she?

“All I do is hear things about you, Eliiiiiiiij-aaah,” she continued, sing-songing his voice in the way she had heard so many of the girls around school do. ‘Elijah is so handsome’, ‘Elijah is so wonderful’, ‘Elijah is so talented’. It made her nauseous to think that she had been thinking those exact same things no more than six months ago.

“You’re so wonderful that you’ve got the whole school on a string. Everyone talks about you and your many accomplishments, your glowing smile, and your many charms,” Amelia said with scathing sarcasm, her heart hammering in her chest as she spoke, telling her to stop, but her mind completely overriding that useless organ, “And in addition to all that, apparently you’ve got yourself a new girl, a redhead even, a fact that shouldn’t and doesn’t surprise me,” Amelia added, moving her hands to grip the back of the chair she was standing in front of.

“But what really gets me,” Amelia continued, unable to stop herself, “Is how much like me you really are. You were always telling me not to be so detached, to connect with people, that people and feelings matter. You were always saying that being cold, removed from the world, without connections made me weaker, not stronger. But you’re just the same way, aren’t you? You put on this big show of being capable of loving someone, of wanting to make them happy, but you don’t really care at all. You mustn’t, to be able to walk into and out of the lives of the people around you – into and out of my life – without a backward glance.”

“So all that crap about being there for me, about wanting to see me happy” Amelia said, her anger bubbling over full force now, so strong that she was shaking the chair in front of her to punctuate her words, “Is this what you had in mind?”

(( I am so sorry this took so long! I've been swamped with school events and such. But here it is! ))

Somehow Elijah had already known that kicking a chair out and expecting Amelia to sit would be a fruitless act. As soon as the chair legs screeched across the floor it dawned on him that he had been right in thinking that Amelia did not plan on sitting. She did not want to grace him with even that small mercy. She had chosen to make her point and would no doubt leave him to mull things over. She wanted to hit him where it hurt and leave; providing the right amount of dramatics that would send him down into a pool of guilt. Many women had tried that on him in the past and rarely had it worked. But she wouldn’t have to try too hard. Elijah was already there, floating in the water and watching his fingers shrivel up.

Elijah chose to keep his eyes low. The dark orbs were trained on the words printed onto the pages in the open book that was lying in front of him. With Amelia standing over him he felt like a small child being scolded for stealing a cookie from the cooling rack before dinner. But he was no child and he stole nothing sweet or delicious. He’d hurt someone and he knew it. But it wasn’t just anyone. It was Amelia and she wasn’t just anyone.

Experimentally, Elijah decided to raise his eyes to look at her but he immediately wished he hadn’t done so. The sarcasm dripping from her lips was alien and wrong. It shouldn’t have been there. As he lowered his gaze a look of shame and guilt crossed his features. Elijah leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, dropping his face into his palms. He rubbed his hands over his face and inhaled slowly through his nose as he attempted to formulate a way to calm her.

After stringing a few sentences together in his mind, Elijah took his hands away from his face. His gaze rose once more and he opened his mouth to say something, only to close it when Amelia began to talk once more.

When her lips came together, Elijah’s eyes dropped to the chair which was trembling under her grip.

The glue he was going to pour into the cracks was now rendered useless and he was lost for words. He didn’t know how to make this better. He couldn’t weave anything together remotely convincing. His mind was muddled and he couldn’t think of anything that could possibly placate her. Everything in his box of tricks was a lie. Every word he would use to soothe the irate lady would be an act – a performance. That wouldn’t work with Amelia though. He didn’t want her to hate him as she must have done but she had every right to.

Amelia’s deduction of his character had made terrific sense. He was like a ghost that walked in and out of people’s lives. He wove a thin veil of happiness and allowed them to experience it for a while before ripping it out from underneath them and tugging it out of the door as he left. He never looked back, ever. But this time he found the door shutting on him. He was being forced out of the door by unknown entities and it was closing on him. People walked in and out of each other’s lives but he didn’t want to leave Mia’s just yet.

Now he had a decision to make. He had a second chance. He could either find the key that had been taken away from him or slip a note under the door to say goodbye.

Slowly, Elijah got to his feet. The chair scraped back as he stood but the sound didn’t register in his mind. He walked out from behind the table, his shoes snapping against the floorboards, and descended upon the smouldering book in the corner.

Elijah took his wand from his pocket and sent a jet of water at the book. He lowered himself down out of his crouch and onto his knees, the bones in his ankles clicking. He lifted the sodden book onto his lap and used a few repairing spells. The book was charred and now had water damage but it was slowly returning to a state where he could properly read it. His Nanny’s lesson on Household spells had not been in vain after all it seemed.

The book still looked worse for wear but it was better than the burnt mess it had been. He’d salvaged it at the right time. Elijah got to his feet once more, using the wall as a bit of an aid, and walked slowly back over to the table, checking the book for impurities as he did so.

As Elijah neared the table he threw the book carelessly onto the top. The water-damaged, still slightly charred, book fell open. The Thrills of Parenthood was what the title read.

“I want people to be happy, Amelia.” Elijah said coolly. “But happiness doesn’t last forever. We’re not capable of it. You, me, humans... we’re not capable of being constantly happy. You had the right idea: keep people at arm’s length and you won’t get hurt.”

Then he found himself spouting off his frustrations where he stood at the same level as she and feeling more confident but only slightly. “My many “accomplishments” and my many “talents” – it’s all a load of crap that teenagers choose to believe because somehow they’ve got it into their heads that I can do this, that, something else and still be their superhero. I’m a chain-smoking drunk that spends too much time around women, can play a few chords on a guitar and can paint pretty pictures. Where’s the accomplishment in that, huh?! I’m not proud of myself, I never have been, and I doubt I ever will be!”

Elijah pressed his lips together and brought his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Feelings do matter. It’s what’s make us unique; the fact that we have the capacity to love something or someone. I didn’t walk out of your life. Not voluntarily anyway. I didn’t want to. I don’t want to I-” He sighed shakily and dropped his hand to his side. “I want to be selfish and tread everything else down so I can keep you but I can’t.”

It was unclear exactly what Amelia knew. She knew of Chase, yes, but was that just it? She didn’t know about the baby...no, no one did. That was the beauty of silence. No one knew yet he had a feeling someone did, someone who was not meant to know.

“First and foremost, before anyone in the world, my loyalty is my children.” Elijah said quietly but loud enough for Amelia to hear. “That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it’s forever going to be. Chase and I have made a mistake, one we can’t repeal for our own selfish ends. This is not about Chase...it’s about that baby that’ll have no hope in hell if it doesn’t have me there too. Every child needs a father. I’m not going to leave this one just because I can.”

The way he’d broken it to her hadn’t been ideal, nor had it been practical, but more information had probably seeped out by that point. Rob and Jen weren’t exactly tactful. It wouldn’t have taken much to listen in.

Elijah flexed his fingers. “I know you’re angry, you have every right to be, and you probably want to hex me into oblivion – you have every right to do that too – but you have to understand that I didn’t plan this! I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that I’d shag that Hufflepuff to see what would come of it! I was on auto-pilot. I painted her. I lusted after her so I bedded her and now this is what I’ve got in return. As much as I hate this situation I can live with it because it’s my say, my do. No one else can chip in and offer their unnecessary opinion. I don’t care about what my parents are going to say, nor do I care about how loudly those girls are going to sob when they find out what their ‘hero’ has done. I want this baby to have a half-way decent shot at life. This isn’t about Chase or anyone else right now. I care about you; I’m not denying that because I care about you a great deal, but there is too much going on right now. The only thing that seems right to me at the moment is standing by my child. I can throw away lovers but not children; not children that need me." He paused, "I can throw lovers away but I... I haven't thrown you away."

((I am so, so, s0 sorry this took me so long to write. I have just been very busy and I knew this post was going to take me a long time to write, so it had to wait. Sorry again!))

When Amelia finished speaking, Elijah was holding his head in his hands, not even looking at her. After the verbal abuse she had given him, it wasn’t exactly surprising that he should hide the handsome face that had won him so many of the things he held dear. After all, what would Elijah Krum be without his dashing good looks? Amelia was torn between telling him to look at her and just walking out, glad not to have to see his pitiful expression as she did. She wasn’t sure Elijah could even own up to what he had done to her, or even if he was aware of it. After leaving so many people it probably took on a sense of normalcy to desert the people whose lives you had promised to change.

After a few minutes of silence in which Amelia stood gripping the chair and Elijah held his head in his hands, Elijah broken the stagnancy and lifted his head from his hands. He was still not looking at her as he pushed his chair away from the table and stood up, crossing the room to where the burning book lay in the corner, still smoking and glowing with embers, though the flames had died down now. When he reached the tome, he produced his wand and a jet of water to put out the fire that had been burning. It seemed Elijah had decided to tackle the easier fire in the room – i.e. not the hot-tempered redhead that had been bordering on all out shouting at him for the last few minutes. After a few minutes of attention on the book, it seemed to be more or less in one piece, but definitely worse for the wear.

Sort of like someone else we know, Amelia thought scathingly, not in self-pity, but rather in self-actualization. It was still astounding to her just how long she had managed to believe in something that she had been avoiding for the better part of her 17 years of life.

With the book no longer smoldering, Elijah returned to his full height and walked back over to the table, his eyes on the book in his hands instead of on the tense form of Amelia, who still hadn’t moved from her place on the opposite side of the desk. When he was within arm’s reach of the desk, Elijah casually tossed the book onto the table, and although Amelia wanted to seem disinterested, her eyes still fell to the book on the table, if only to find out which collection of knowledge would no longer be a pristine part of the Hogwarts library collection.

The Thrills of Parenthood, Amelia read, her mind not entirely processing the title initially except to wonder why in the world Elijah would be reading that book. In fact, Amelia had never actually seen Elijah read a book, probably because he was too busy wooing women.

Before Amelia could come to the conclusion – which perhaps should have been more obvious, but she was still in an irrational state brought on by her irate feelings that clouded what would otherwise have been a simple logical deduction – Elijah started speaking. His tone was detached, even chilled compared to the heat that had been rolling off Amelia only a few minutes earlier. Amelia immediately scoffed at his first words, but he continued on in spite of her skepticism, clarifying his initial statement with words that were more similar to something she might say than anything she would have ever attributed to Elijah. She didn’t know where he was going with this, but she didn’t have time to ask either. Elijah continued on without waiting for a response, his words becoming more impassioned as he did.

Elijah’s description of himself seemed perfectly apt to Amelia, who couldn’t have agreed more that Elijah’s ‘accomplishments’ weren’t anything all that impressive. She would have said something quite the opposite a few weeks earlier, but she had learned – or rather realized, because she wanted to believe she had known it all along – that what Elijah was saying was the truth.

The fact that he was admitting it, though, was not at all what Amelia had anticipated as a reaction to what she had said to him. She had expected him to get defensive, to tell her to buzz off and leave him alone. She had expected him to curse at her, to take a swing at her, or at the very least to blow her off, but that was not at all the response she was eliciting.

As Elijah continued, he seemed to be changing his tone from one of agreement with Amelia, to the same old story he had been telling her for the last year. This was more what Amelia had been expecting, which helped her to keep her guard up. It didn’t seem to be helping Elijah, though, and for the first time in his grand speech, Elijah seemed to be coming to a loss for words. He stumbled as he tried to explain that he didn’t want to lose her, that he wanted to keep her.

Everyone stumbles when they are trying to come up with a good lie, Amelia’s subconscious chimed in derisively, so quick to believe the worst of the one person she had ever been able to see differently. Oh how things had changed.

Elijah overcame his stumbles before Amelia could express this thought aloud, though, and his topic had changed yet again. His voice was quieter now, and he had, for reasons unbeknownst to Amelia, had brought up his children. Amelia had already met Fauve – a gesture she had thought meant Elijah was growing close to her, but obviously not – but the Ravenclaw girl was completely oblivious to how the girl fit into this conversation at all. And then he was talking about Chase, and a mistake, and…

Oh God.

And there it was. The conclusion Amelia had missed earlier. Although she had almost immediately forgotten about the parenting book when Elijah had started speaking, these new phrases had brought it back to the surface of her mind and the pieces had clicked together even before Elijah mentioned the word baby. He didn’t need to say it. Amelia had already – although belatedly – realized just what had turned Elijah into the invisible man in her life.

Amelia’s legs seemed to lose their tone at this realization, and the redhead surrendered to the chair she had been gripping, though she sat rigidly on the end of it instead of letting it support her from all angles. Elijah was going to have a baby. Chase’s baby. He was going to be a father, and not just to some adopted child this time. This one would be his own flesh and blood, evidence of an act he could not take back. Some part of Amelia’s mind was aware that Elijah was still talking, but Amelia’s mind was too busy coming to terms everything. And there were so many things to dissect. How Elijah had left her for Chase, that he was going to have her child, that she hadn’t realized that sooner. That she would never have him back.

You don’t want him back, Amelia’s mind reminded her, though with less resounding confidence than she had been feeling about the same statement earlier. When she had started this conversation, she had been ready to throw Elijah aside because it was her choice. Now, she had to accept that it wasn’t. The choice had already been made, and she had had nothing to do with it.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Amelia said quietly, staring unfocusedly at a patch of the floor where the grout had been scratched away by centuries’ worth of students walking across it, “Considering your promiscuity, there was a statistically significant probability that this would happen.”

She was reverting to logic, to math, to absolute terms. It was a defense mechanism, one she was employing because she didn’t know what else to say. What was she supposed to say? That she was happy for him? She wasn’t. That it wasn’t his fault? It was. That he would make a good father? At this point, Amelia didn’t think he would. Teenage boys did not make good fathers. There were too many factors fighting against the probability of that happening.

“Why did you even tell me this?” Amelia asked, looking back at Elijah for the first time since she had put together the pieces of the picture that Elijah had been subtly hinting at, and then had finally been blatant enough with that Amelia’s usually perceptive mind was able to come to the right conclusion. Looking at him was difficult now, because the anger that had made it possible earlier was no longer the most prominent emotion Amelia was feeling. She didn’t know what to call this new one, or even if this counted as an emotion. Mostly she just felt empty, drained, at a loss. As far as Amelia knew, there were just no words for this.

[Gah! I have been deliberating on how to post this. This is what I have. It's not great by any means but it's something I suppose.]

There was something curious about slip-ups and they all seemed to be happening to him. He didn’t exactly stop them, either, but it would have been nice to have some relief from them. Elijah was constantly finding himself in positions he would have rather not been in but Chase’s pregnancy was the icing on the cake. Now all he needed was the cherry and a few sprinkles and he’d be set, his life in a nutshell. Maybe he’d add some almonds too while he was at it. He’d just throw everything in his cupboards onto this figurative cake and create a big mushy, gooey mess. That would be his life. Yum.

Selfishness ran thick on both sides of the family so Elijah was not beyond trying to keep one hand on Amelia and a hand on Chase at the same time. It was around him 24/7; he lived and learned how to do it, how to keep people hooked. Harry did it expertly although he used Elijah as his subject. He played with the Slytherin like Muggles did yo-yos. His uncle Stefan had a string of love affairs (oh yes, manwhoring was a genetic trait) and he kept all of them nailed down as well as his wife. It was definitely an interesting thing to hear his mother discuss with his uncle over the Christmas period. She was usually livid with him and a few hexes were exchanged.

But it was now ridiculous for Elijah to expect Amelia to wait or standby or whatever he wanted her to do. He wasn’t sure as of yet. It was evident though that he couldn’t make her do anything. He couldn’t deny her any right whether that be to move on or to be with someone else. Elijah did have a small, slim bit of understanding, though. She’d not want to be around him. He’d have skipped out and gone back to the common room in her position. She was awfully lucky in some respects. She could walk away, run if she wanted, but he couldn’t. She wasn’t even connected really, only through him but that meant very little.

“Actually I was more likely to get some sort of disease,” Elijah deadpanned, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

That was a feat that had impressed his ‘counsellor’. Dr. Lestrange had deemed it amazing that he hadn’t contracted some sort of sexually transmitted disease by now. Elijah wasn’t as shocked. Contraceptive spells weren’t that hard to cast, neither were they easy to forget. His lapse in judgement was what he was blaming Chase’s pregnancy on; that, and the fact that his wand was halfway across the room by that point. He was promiscuous though and it was a wonder why he hadn’t gotten a number of young women pregnant or had a number of diseases. He was allowed that one small mercy to make up for everything else it seemed.

Elijah couldn’t resist making light of something that could have potentially been true, “But there could be a few of my spawn knocking around. You never know,” he chuckled, “luck of the draw I suppose.”

Elijah lifted leaned back in the chair and pressed his lips together. A sigh escaped them and he ran a hand through his hair. Why did he tell her? Was it to protect her from the rumours? To save face in front of her? To make sense of it in his own mind? Elijah didn’t know how to answer her so he settled with,

“I don’t know.”

Amelia didn’t even try to control her impulse to shoot Elijah a dirty look when he made light of her comment about how it was statistically favorable that he would eventually have to encounter some of the repercussions of his womanizing. The look in her eyes said exactly what she was thinking without her ever having to open her mouth: ”Really?”

Elijah really was the biggest hypocrite she had ever encountered, which was really saying something seeing as this school was ripe with them. People always pretended to be something they weren’t. Everyone had different motivations: trying to fit in, trying to seem better than everyone else, trying to cover up something they wanted to hide. If that meant condemning others for something they themselves were guilty of, it didn’t seem to matter. Yes, Amelia was a difficult person, but at least she was honest about it. She was as quick to describe herself as cold as any of her peers would be, and she didn’t fight it when they called her Ice Queen. It was more a statement of fact than a judgment by now, something Amelia had grown into rather than out of.

In Elijah’s case, it was his defense mechanisms that made him hypocritical. He had spent so much of his time telling Amelia to take down her walls and stop throwing up obstacles in his way of getting close to her, but Elijah did the same thing. This nonchalance, this making a joke in such a serious situation, it was his way of making it seem like he didn’t care. But Amelia knew better, even if Elijah wasn’t admitting it. This was a situation he couldn’t worm his way out of, and from what he had said, he wasn’t even trying to. He knew his obligation to Chase now that she was carrying his child, but he wasn’t happy about it.

And who could be? The last thing Elijah wanted was an obligation, Amelia knew that much. It was probably the reason he had grown bored of her in the first place. Amelia was a piece of work when it came to getting close to her, and with so many opportunities for a quick fix, why would Elijah waste his time dedicating himself to the nearly insurmountable task that was getting through to Amelia? It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand his disappearance; after all, she had expected it from the very beginning, but then lulled herself into believing he wouldn’t, that he was different.

No, what was really getting to her was that he couldn’t own what he had done, to the point of not having any explanation. Even when she asked him the question of why he would bother to tell her any of this, a simple question, he didn’t have any answers for her. Amelia threw her hands up in frustration at Elijah’s answer, crossing her arms across her chest and leaning hard against the wooden back of the chair. Her legs were crossed too, now, meaning her whole body was knotted up and seethingly tense. Although the shock of finding out that Elijah was going to be a father – genetically this time – had originally thrown Amelia off her anger, it was quick to bubble back to the surface when Elijah couldn’t give her the answer to even that simple question.


“You don’t know,” Amelia echoed condescendingly, knowing her words had the potential to hurt but saying them anyway. A few months ago she would have intentionally weighted her words around Elijah to make sure they had the least painful impact, taking the care with him that she never took with anyone else to smooth the edges of her blunt words.

More than just one thing has changed…

“Do you ever actually think before you do things?” Amelia asked acerbically, “Or do you just run headlong into anything that strikes your fancy and think about motivations and repercussions later? Or not at all? Because it seems to me that eventually, you’re going to have to start doing more thinking than doing, because if you don’t, this won’t be the last time you’re stuck between a rock and a stupid place.”

Ouch. Amelia’s subconscious cringed, even it stung by the harshness of her words. Usually her subconscious was the one coming up with her witty barbs, but this time even it was questioning the harshness with which Amelia was addressing the dark-haired boy sitting in the chair across from hers.