January, 1954
Malcolm's mother told him he was socially awkward this morning before he left for school. She followed this up with her usual send off, "You're a clever boy," and these parting remarks left him confused as he travelled back to school on the Hogwarts Express. Other students mentioned that he had someone on the inside. Why couldn't he simply hook his house up to the Floo Network and be done with this train journey nonsense?
Because his father would have a heart attack, and his sister was his sister. (Robert McGonagall panicked over every little thing.) Regardless, the moment he got off the train, he made straight for his sister's office on the first floor. Dragging his school trunk behind him, he pounded on his sister's office door. The second term of his sixth-year started out as boring as ever.
His sister was six years older than him, and consequently, Minerva acted like his second mother. He did not need nor want one of those. Whenever things got strange, she let him run to her, and although he didn't thank her, Malcolm appreciated it. She opened the door and he stepped inside.
"Did you even try speaking to her?" Minerva latched the door closed and sat behind her desk. Silence answered her, so she returned to her letter. "May I ask why?"
"Eloise is stupid." Malcolm opened his trunk, fished out his copy of Advanced Charms, and continued the essay he'd put off since the holidays.
"You told her this?" Minerva rolled her eyes and wiped her face. "Of course you did. Malcolm, you cannot say these things. How many things do we have to go through this? Filter."
"She's an idiot. An idiot is stupid," he said plainly, giving her the logical connection. Malcolm waited for Minerva to contradict him, nodding when she sealed a roll of parchment.
"There's a chair, Pudge," Giving up for the moment, she pointed out the chair opposite her desk.
Malcolm did not move. He flinched at the name, his brow furrowed. "She called me that."
"That's ridiculous. Nobody else can call you that because you're my Pudge." Minerva raised my eyebrow when Malcolm gave her a small smile; it disappeared as quickly as it got there. She got up and joined him on the floor. She didn't touch him. "Malcolm, it's a year and a half and it's over. I'll do whatever I do to get you there, but you've got to give an inch. Find a friend."
"Joshua's my friend."
"He's a Muggle, and he's been your friend since you were four," she clarified. "Other than the baker's boy."
"I don't like people, so friends would be a mistake." Malcolm closed his schoolbook and shoved it back into his bag. When Minerva brushed his hair out of his eyes. "When I leave school, I'm gone."
"Professor Dumbledore warned me of that when he went through your Career Advisement last year."
Minerva was in a strange position where she couldn't do certain things for her brothers. While she could take points away from them, she couldn't hold detention with them. She wasn't yet Head of House, though Professor Dumbledore had split the student roster straight down the middle last year. Without thinking, he'd kicked Minerva out of her office whenever he'd spotted his error. Malcolm had laughed his head off at his sister's harassed look. That had been a hilarious afternoon.
"I'm still not going to tell you," he said softly, taking the rectangular parcel she offered him. Christmas had come and gone, and he'd gotten a few gifts from her back home. Robert had only received one, an expensive one, but Malcolm liked to think this meant she liked him better. "It's a book."
Minerva crossed her arms.
"Good thing I'm literate," he said dryly, adding the unopened gift to his bag, "or you'd be lost, sweet sister. I liked the old-fashioned bifocals."
"Will you try to make a friend, Pudge? For me?"
Malcom gave her a sly smile. "We're friends. Good friends."
"Malcolm," she said crossly, her eyes flashing. "I don't count."
"All right." Malcolm gathered his things.
Minerva smiled, pleased with herself.
Malcolm swung his bag over his shoulder, and Minerva helped him out by waving her wand over his luggage; it would be in his dormitory. She hit the mark rarely when it came to birthdays, and holidays, sometimes on random Sundays, but whenever she did, Malcolm felt pleasantly surprised she paid attention. Robert was a third-year, the wild child in the family, who their father had labelled as a flight risk. Yes, even the pious Reverend McGonagall had one of those.
"You're welcome," she called after Malcolm as he headed upstairs. He ignored her.
When he got into the dormitory, Malcolm plopped onto his bed and yanked the curtains closed. Whilst he was smart, ever clever, he'd never earn the position of Prefect or Head Boy like his sister. Though some might argue he had someone on the inside, Malcolm knew his sister bent the rules as often as his father. Never. He opened the parcel, finding it was an introductory foreign language text. Each time he tapped the cover with his wand, it switched to a different tongue. When he flipped it open, it jumped to a dog-eared page, Scottish Gaelic. Here, he found a note written in his father's hand on an illustration.
Crossing his legs and getting comfortable, Malcolm turned the page and started reading.
February, 1959
Five years later, the strange one met a girl. Yes, this actually happened, and he waited the appropriate amount of time to call her after she scribbled her telephone number on a hospital brochure about proper hygiene. Three days later, as luck would have it, he went off to Berlin on assignment. When he returned home a few weeks later, he caught the flu on purpose, sandwiching himself between snotty, annoying kids in the congregation. He dedicated himself to the cause, attending both morning and evening service.
"I'm ill," he announced, showing up at the hospital on Morning morning. The receptionist started taking his down his details, and he spotted the redhead matron, so he gave the receptionist a little advice on her lipstick choice. "Red's not your color because it means you look old. You are, I'll grant you, but your cats need a break from your mollycoddling."
The receptionist glared at him, turning her ample backside towards him.
"Mr. McGonagall." The matron signed off on a patient chart. Malcolm drummed his fingers on the countertop, relieved she remembered his name. He couldn't remember hers. Malcolm slipped a little, not as upright as he thought when he wandered into the community hospital an hour ago. She rushed over and steadied him. "Are you all right?"
"You're pretty." He recited her phone number as she led him over to a chair in the waiting room. When he opened his mouth, the matron unwrapped a thermometer and placed it under his tongue. He sat there, tapping his foot as she did this or that.
"It's Anne. Anne Kearney. We met in Glasgow," she reminded him, feeding him the answer. The thermometer beeped, and she read the results, not believing them, shaking the thermometer. She stepped away, telling him to stay right there, and came back with another kit and a cold compress. Anne took his temperature again, frowning when she got the same reading and wiped his face with compress. She sat down beside him. "How are you not delirious right now?"
"Anne from Glasgow." He tried to commit this to memory. "I should have gotten back with you. You're a pretty girl."
"You've said that. Take these." Anne handed him a pill cup and a plastic cup of water. She blushed when he asked her out for coffee. "You're contagious. So, thank you, but no, thank you? Maybe a rain check. You're Robert?"
"Ha! No, no, Anne, don't wish such evils upon me. He's the younger one. I'm Malcolm." He offered a sweaty hand, wiped it on his shirt, and offered it again. He got to his feet, leaning heavily on her arm. "I should go home."
"Oh, no, you should really stay," Anne advised, rushing off to grab an instrument on wheels with a plastic bag hanging from it. Anne took his arm, finding a vein. As she stabbed him with a needle without giving the slightest warning, she said, "People are dropping like flies out there. You're really dehydrated, so I'm giving you some intravenous fluids. Stay put."
"All right." Malcolm sat back and closed his eyes. If he was going to be here, anyway, he might as well get some shut eye. "Are you off shift?"
"Yes." She got lost in her patient charts. "What's it like being the reverend's son? He seems really strict. I can't imagine crossing that man because he scares me in church."
"He is." Malcolm always went with the truth. Whilst everyone tiptoed around each other, especially the reverend and his wife, he told it like it was and kept a straight face. His father, instead of portraying a man of fire and brimstone, did indeed have a softer side he reserved for a handful of people. The parishioners never saw it. Malcolm drifted off for some time, and it relaxed him to see the pretty matron was still hanging around. He felt a little better. "Water has its benefits. This hydration business really hits the spot, you know. Stab me anytime."
Anne laughed, unhooking him and placing a bandage over the tiny puncture wound. "You're free to go. Get some rest and take it easy. Take pain medication, and remember water is your friend. Would you like me to walk you home?"
The reverend's family always got special treatment. Whether this was because the townspeople got in a good word with God, or this was done out of habit, Malcolm didn't know. He needed to make up ground with the missed phone call, though, do he took the advantage. She switched out her scrubs for casual clothing and offered him an arm. Malcolm no longer lived with his mother and father in the manse. Robert, the youngest, still did as he figured things out. At eighteen, Robert had a one-year-old daughter he rarely interacted with.
"Just up there." Malcolm pointed to the left. Even after the short walk, he felt like a winded old man, so he was glad to have company. He tried to open the door, but his hands shook uncontrollably. He dropped them. This wasn't the way to impress the girl. If he acted strange around people in general, women were a mystery to him.
"Here." Anne flashed the keys in front of him one by one until he nodded. She opened the door and dumped him on the couch. After that, she draped him with a blanket and searched the kitchen for bare necessities. She came back with tea and a plate of toasties and scrambled eggs. "Cheese sandwiches aren't the best, but it's food. You haven't any condensed soup?"
"Nope. I like these." He showed her one of the triangle slices. "What am I? Five?"
"A grown man can't be bothered to drink fluids with a bout of the flu? Triangle slices seem like the least of your worries." Anne took his empty plate back into the kitchenette.
Malcolm lived in a studio flat because he didn't need a lot of space. When he finished his lemon and honey tea, which really wasn't a tea, Anne helped him lie down and covered him with the blanket. She pressed her lips to his forehead.
She reminded him of his mother. She was definitely a motherly matron, which is probably how she made it through the certification. How exactly was he supposed to tell this woman he'd made himself physically sick in order to get a shot at seeing her again? She wore no ring. It didn't mean she wasn't with anyone.
"So, you're C of E?" Taking a shot in the dark, Malcolm fell back on an old standby for a minister's son. He hadn't expected to be right, and her uneasy look told him everything. There were differences between Catholicism, Anglican, and Presbyterian churches, he knew, and his father probably told him. When they talked about religion nowadays, Malcolm's eyes glazed over and he tuned out on purpose, which really pissed his father off. "Church of England. I think I'm agnostic myself. That's when you don't know? I don't know."
Anne, scandalized, gaped at him. "But your father's the reverend!"
Malcolm made the sign of the cross, his expression blank. "Whatever."
Anne perched herself on his secondhand coffee table. "Does he know?"
"God, no. Well, he probably suspects," said Malcolm, fairly. The last baptism he attended, he'd told the boy, a twelve-year-old, he'd better know how to swim. Of course, this had earned him quite a telling off from the Reverend McGonagall after service; his father didn't stop shouting for a good half hour. Malcolm hadn't feared his father in ages, so he really waited patiently until the end. "He's told me to enjoy hell. Probably told my brother, too."
"And your sister?"
"Her? She's his darling. I don't think she's ever purposely done anything wrong in his presence." Malcolm mentally put this on his bucket list. He needed her to step over the line, just once, before he died. What could he get away with without Minerva threatening him? Whereas he no longer feared his father, his sweet sister, was another story altogether. "You've met her?"
Anne nodded. "She drops things off at the hospital whenever she's home. Last July, I had a little boy with cancer, and she gave him a masquerade mask to wear. She stayed until he got out of surgery." U
Malcolm hadn't heard this. It sounded like something Minerva would do, especially if the child were alone. He wondered if it was this easy to talk with women, or had Anne simply taken pity on him? He doubted it. Without thinking, he took the plunge, placing his hands behind his head. "Go out with me."
Anne went red. "I can't."
"Why not? I'm not your patient. You didn't start a chart on me," he pointed out, raising an eyebrow when she got up and leaned into him, interested. She confirmed that much for him with a simple gesture. Riding on his confidence, he swallowed the rest of his tea and said, "Kiss me."
Anne shook her head.
"You saved my life, Miss Kearney. Aren't you curious?" Before she turned her head, he sat up and kissed her softly. He let her go, giving over to a coughing fit and beating phlegm out of his chest. She might want to call in ill because he made a stupid move. If they were sharing stories, Malcolm thought, lying back on his couch, they might as well share their germs. His first kiss was something he wished he could forget.
March, 1964
A year later, they were married in his father's church. The kissing got better, which obviously led to other pursuits, and Malcolm found himself a father in no time. Jayne came as a first anniversary present, and Catherine came along soon after.
In the middle of March, he got lost in a countryside in Romania, and the fact that he didn't know the language made it that much worse. It wasn't raining, although the grey skies looked threatening. Thinking he ought to find cover in the middle of nowhere, Malcolm noticed a haunched old man in the middle of a field. Fashioning a walking stick from a branch with some quick wandwork, Malcolm handed it to the man before he collapsed onto the earth.
"Take this." The man, Malcolm noticed, had injured his leg. Shifting his weight a little, Malcolm draped the man's arm over his shoulder and half-carried him out of the field. A single ewe followed them. He might as well have been speaking to a mute man for all the good this did him. "You speak English?"
The poor farmer shook his head.
"But you understand English?"
Malcolm threw the question out with little hope. The farmer grinned at him toothily. Malcolm nodded, introducing himself as he placed a hand on his chest, and wondered whether this would get him anywhere, for he needed to wrap things up and head back to Scotland. Whilst his schedule remained a flexible one, he still stayed three days behind on his timetable because he couldn't find the man he was supposed to interview.
"Victor." The man mirrored the same chest gesture.
"All right." Malcolm briefly considered telling the man it was nice meet him, but this wouldn't be altogether true, and there was little point in playing nice. As they walked through the rocky terrain, Malcolm let go of the man and scooped him up like a small child without waiting for permission. It cut his time in half, which was a good thing, because it started raining as he rushed down the dirt roads. "I didn't do this for my wife on my own wedding day, so consider yourself a special man, Victor."
Victor sad something Malcolm didn't understand.
"You live?" asked Victor, switching to English. The ewe followed them home.
Malcolm thought he understood what he meant, though he could have missed the mark here. "I live in Scotland, in the Highlands."
Victor pointed to the houses on the left shoulder in the narrow street. "Fifth one. I have five children."
"I have two. Both daughters. They're small. Another one expected any day now." Malcolm knocked on the door; there was a dirt floor and plain furniture inside. Especially for five children, a wife, and a farmer, this was a tight fit. He nodded at the girl who answered the door, guessing she was one of Victor's daughters, and placed the man on the couch; this reminded him a little of Anne. He'd learned long ago never to ask this next question, though it was ingrained in him as the reverend's son. "Anything else I can do for you?"
"My sheep."
"Your sheep? I'll go back and get them. You don't have a dog, do you?" It would be far too easy, he thought, as the farmer shook his head. The farmer spoke in a tongue Malcolm didn't understand as he addressed his daughter. The girl returned with trinket and placed it in Malcolm's hand; it was sewing needle connected to a long red thread. "What's this?"
"For your child," said the shepherd. The daughter, who spoke better English, advised Malcolm to hang it over the bedroom door.
"Thank you?" Uncertain, not understanding the custom, Malcolm pocketed it and headed back outside.
In parting, Victor gave his full name as an afterthought. Malcolm froze, for it dawned on him that this was the man he was supposed to interview, a dragon trainer parading around as a beggar.
He headed back the way he came, hoping he followed the right path. Minutes later, he entered the field and approached a burning carcass. Covering his mouth, he glimpsed the skies when a roaring filled his ears. It sounded like an airplane in take-off. A massive black dragon blocked out the sun. It flipped its meal, incinerated it, and did it again, before two other carcasses joined the other one. Malcom, shaking in his bones, held his breath until the dragon disappeared.
The next day, he returned home empty handed and exhausted. He swung by his parents' house and grabbed the girls, not sure what he said to his mother, but it passed as small talk. She said things he didn't catch. Before they crossed the street, he offered a hand to both Jayne and carried Catherine, telling Jayne to walk fast. She rattled on about stuff, too. When he reached the hospital, he sidestepped the queue of patients and visitors. A volunteer sat at the front desk today.
"Afternoon. Anne Kearney McGonagall, please." He sighed, a little annoyed when the volunteer checked a handwritten patient roster. "Look, she might be listed as Anne K. She's worked here for ages? She's at the matron station."
When she got a break in the queue, the volunteer placed a phone call, nodding as she had a hurried conversation, and placed the phone back in the cradle. "She just got out of surgery. Congratulations."
"On?" Malcolm said slowly, confused. Anne worked as a scrub matron in surgery, a place she loved, and he played the sentence back through his mind as he turned to head towards the lift. Words were important in the medical community because everything dwindled down to phrasing. Malcolm paled. "Hang on. You said "out of surgery", miss. Not in surgery. Where's my wife?"
The grumbling queue began to get on his nerves.
"You didn't know?"
"Yeah, you just gave away patient information, miss, you don't do that." Malcolm waited, shifting Catherine. The volunteer directed him to the right floor, and he passed his children off to a matron he didn't know. When he entered the operating room dressed in some strange outfit, his wife called to him from the table and he rushed over to her.
"There you are," said the doctor kindly, acting like he did this procedure in his sleep. A sheet had been drapes over Anne, and the doctor worked quickly, shifting his hands and showing them a newborn. "Annie, you have a boy."
Anne relaxed, taking Malcolm's hand and he stopped at the head of the table. "Where the hell have you been? You smell like you've crawled out of a sewer."
"Traveling again?" The doctor handed the baby off to the nurse. When Malcom stood, asking him what he was doing, he said, "You stay. You doing want to see your wife like this, sir. I'm Doctor Irving, and your wife is my best matron is surgery. Knows her stuff."
Malcolm had heard the name before. This was the obstetrics surgeon who wore strange socks and had bad breath. "Doctor Socks."
"Yep. Okay, we're good here, and I get to meet my replacement matron. I probably got an idiot." Doctor Socks shrugged when Anne gave him no promises, shaking his head sadly. He whined like a small child, making his assisting matron laugh. "Why must you leave me?"
"Giving life here, George," said Anne, taking the child from the young matron.
"Next time Annie," he said, getting heavily to his feet, "Don't wait thirty-five hours and force me to talk you off that ledge. I don't like playing that game, you know. Enjoy that baby."
The doctor left with the young matron, who Malcolm guessed might be a candidate for Anne's temporary replacement, and they were left alone. As they got transferred onto the ward, Malcolm doubted there would be another time, but they'd said this after Catherine, too. Who knew? He kept his mouth shut whilst in the hospital because this place made his skin crawl, although Anne practically called this place her home away from home.
He handed her the charm, or whatever it was, explaining it came from the dragon trainer who he had meant to interview but never got around to it.
"Thirty-five hours? Anne. Who does that?" Pulling the curtains closed around her bed, Malcolm pulled up a chair beside her and collapsed into it. He wouldn't go through this for all the money in the world, though he liked the reward. He smiled ruefully. "Guess we know the secret now, eh? If you want a son, have a one-night stand with you wife after a funeral, make love all night, and leave on assignment next day."
"Really? Lovely." Anne failed to pull a straight face and passed him the baby, laughing her head off. "Stop. It hurts."
"Sorry." Malcolm meant it, for he'd forgotten she'd just gotten out of surgery. "Does that hurt when they cut you open?"
"If you felt it, yeah." Anne stared at him, her brown eyes as large as saucers. "I forget you didn't grow up around here with your father ... do they not do this in your world?"
"I guess. I don't know." Malcolm hadn't really thought about children until his first born arrived. And he loved Jayne, he did, and Catherine, too, for they were his girls, yet they initially scared the hell out of him. He chuckled softly, actually recalling asking about the return policy on Jayne; she'd been non-refundable. "What're we calling this one?"
Anne shrugged her shoulders, staring at the ceiling.
"Not a daughter. First mistake," Malcolm told the sleeping bundle in his arms. "It's apparently not enough you've got to go though this hell for a day and a half ..."
Anne, turning to face him, her face expressionless, flipped him off.
"Mummy's rude. The one time I did that to Grandpa in front of the congregation, your Grams threatened to permanently jinx my fingers together."
The sides of Malcolm's mouth twitched when Anne laughed and complained at the same time. In serious situations, his best mate's funeral last year, for instance, they'd gotten thrown out of the cemetery by Malcolm's father because he couldn't stop laughing his head off. Giggling, he turned back to Anne, for he'd left right after that service. His childhood friend had died in a car accident after he got hit by a drunk driver. "Joshua. Joshua is dead. Dead."
"Seriously? You're laughing? Really?"
"I know." Malcolm shook, struggling to gather himself. The sudden tears startled him.
"This is why you're not allowed out in public," she said, reaching out to pat him on the knee. Anne spoke softer, realizing something. "You said his name out loud."
"Hmmm. Yeah." Feeling normal again, Malcolm wiped his eyes hastily with his hand and kissed the baby's head. "Shepherd. We're calling him Shepherd Joshua."
"Okay."Anne laid there. "You're okay?"
"Yeah. I think so." He'd traveled halfway down the continent to heal and taken any and every assignment asked of him to forget his best mate. He felt all right for the moment, even though it hit him afresh out of nowhere at random moments. Joshua had died at this very hospital. As he thought about Joshua, he understood he owed her an apology. At the time, he'd told her it was money, for he was a foreign correspondent, a writer in high demand for both Transfiguration Today and the Daily Prophet. "I left you and the girls. I ... I couldn't do it. I'm sorry."
"I know." She wiped her eyes, and he thought she laid there counting the ceiling tiles. Sounding like she'd been holding this in for a while, letting the wound fester, she said, "You can't do that. I handled the girls, and Agnes, and your parents, and I understand why. You can't leave me alone again because I worried about you constantly. Your mother thought you left me."
"Did she?" Malcolm finally understood why he'd received Howler out of nowhere last summer. He wasn't very good with feelings or emotions, and frankly, he liked his usual solitary confinement. Anne understood this from day one, and she'd also understood she wasn't going to change him in the long run. "I didn't mean to hurt you ... I love you."
"I know," she repeated with an air of finality, dropping the subject.
"You asked me once if Joshua knew what I was." Malcolm moved over to her bed and sat on one of his legs. What did the International Statute of Secrecy matter now? A dead man kept his secrets. "He did."
The next few days passed quicker than he expected, although this happened every time they took a new one home. By the seventh day, Malcolm practically lived off coffee and got zero work done, although you couldn't tell by the state of his makeshift office in the sitting room. The girls needed to share the large bedroom; he came up with solution to problem number one really quickly, although the eldest child hated him for it.
Minerva stayed with them over Easter weekend, so she got what used to be Catherine's bedroom. He woke her up first thing in the morning by mistake, backing into the room carrying a couple sterilized bottles.
"Oh, sorry. I need this." He found a couple pink blankets and shoved the cardboard box back in the cupboard. He failed to make a quick escape. He'd kept the washing machine going since the early hours. When Anne starting screaming, he snatched a few things and made a mad dash back to his bedroom, and Minerva followed close at his heels.
"Shepherd. Shepherd!" Anne literally leaned over the bassinet screaming at their son. She clapped her hands over him. "Shepherd!"
"What the hell are you doing?" Malcolm tossed the blankets on the bed and picked up his son, pacing the room with him and talking to him in a soothing tone.
"He can't hear you," said Anne, frantically, pulling on her dressing gown. She'd said this before, but Malcolm had dismissed it because she was always fretting over the new baby. When she took him from Malcolm, she placed him on the bed. They'd argued about this last night before Minerva arrived. She steered Malcolm over, getting him in the right spot. "Do you trust me?" "Yes," he said automatically. "Look, Anne …" "You're doing it again," she said agitated. She laughed mirthlessly when Minerva said she didn't know what she was talking about.
"You're nervous," said Minerva.
"I am not a new mother. I know what I see, and this isn't normal." Anne tied her hair back with an elastic band. "Leave the baby alone, Malcolm."
"You're scaring him, so he's registering that," said Malcolm, ignoring her and picking Shepherd up again.
"Look at him. Look at him when you're talking to him," she insisted, grabbing clothes and getting dressed in the bathroom. Minutes later, she came out and registered nothing on Malcolm's face.
"He's eight days old, Anne," said Malcolm wearily.
"You're an idiot. He would recognize the sound of my voice, Malcolm." She walked alongside him, checking her hospital badge in her handbag. "The car backfired in the middle of the street on Thursday. When Jayne found the Christmas cracker and pulled it right next to Shepherd? He's not a doll, Malcolm, that would've scared the hell out of him."
"She's right, Pudge," added Minerva. "Jayne was running around with Catherine last night, which normally wouldn't be a problem, but he just laid there. You don't believe me?"
"This is stupid," Malcolm grumbled furiously. Of course, he didn't believe her, and the very idea she'd entertain Anne's imagination angered him. "My son is perfectly fine, thank you very much. That nonsense with a newborn recognizing your voice, Anne, it's some they tell you …"
"They tell you? I am one of them! That is fact!" She changed the baby and headed downstairs with him. As she busied herself with the pram, she said, "I understand you have your ways, Malcolm, but you are both, and you will always be both. You can't dismiss one above the other because you think magic is better. It's not."
"Actually, it is," he disagreed, following her outside with his sister. He gave her the flip side of the coin. "You're dismissing something you don't understand."
"I am telling you something is wrong with my baby," she said, fishing her pager out and sending a message. The hospital wasn't far away; it was a short walk. She pled with him, something she never did with him, and Malcolm saw tears in her eyes. "Please."
"Okay." He gave in.
Thinking the worst they could say was she was mental, and Malcolm actually wanted to hear a doctor say this to her face, he went back inside and grabbed the baby bag. He turned to Minerva, pulling a plan out of nowhere because his Saturday was shot. "The girls are sleeping. I'd hate to do this to you. Could you…?"
"Of course," she said, glancing at Anne. "Everything's fine."
Anne ignored her. They started down the street and got to the hospital. Doctor Socks met them at the entrance dressed in casual clothes. With anyone else, this kid would've probably been referred to a specialist or emergency care, but Anne had connections and worked to earn respect in the medical community. Doctor Socks took the baby without invitation, already flipped through the patient chart. Going off Anne's patient history because there wasn't much to go off of, Doctor Socks naturally fell into medical jargon.
Malcolm didn't pretend to understand any of it, although he knew there were newborn tests. The hearing tests were roped into this. They ran a battery of tests after the baby was born. The doctor did an examination, frowning slightly, and not letting the baby go to sleep, and Malcolm complained about this.
"He's hungry," corrected Anne, pacing the room. She slipped into jargon, too, because the language kept her on the outside. When her replacement from the other day showed up, she had a target. "You missed something."
"I'm sorry, ma'am?" said the matron, taken aback.
"There's a reason we run through the entire set of tests before we hand the baby off to the parents," she hissed, ignoring the fussy baby. "When you are in a hurry, you miss things."
"Annie." Doctor Socks struck a metal instrument and addressed the other matron. "How certain are you that you completed the tests?"
"I finished them," she said, immediately jumping on the defensive. "She's paranoid." "How certain are you?" Anne fired at her, crossing her arms. "You answer him! Seventy-five percent? Eighty? I need a number!"
She shrugged, choosing Malcolm because he nothing to do with the hospital. "Seventy? It was busy."
"You incompetent little bitch." Anne started towards her, but Malcolm held her back. The matron stepped back, frightened. Anne pointed at the examination table when the matron, freshly out of school, reminded her not to take it personally. "It's not personal? That is my son! GET OUT!"
The matron, leaving the patient chart behind, fled into the corridor and disappeared.
"That's my job. I can get rid of my staff all by myself, thank you very much. " Doctor Socks ran his tests twice and changed Shepherd's nappy before he scooped him up and sat on the examination table. Judging by his somber expression, Malcolm would've thought somebody died. "We need to talk."
"Oh, my God." Malcolm interpreted the silence in the breaks of his speech to mean this wasn't good. Anne, refusing to hear a word of this, took the baby and started feeding it. "He can't hear?"
"No auditory response to stimuli," said the doctor, speaking to his trusted matron. "He's Deaf, Annie."
"But … but surely you can fix that?" Malcolm leaned against the wall, processing all of this. How had he not caught this? He wasn't new to parenting, and while raising Jayne had been a learning process, he'd picked things up along the way, and he'd learned more with Catherine. The girls got bumps and bruises along the way, but his family was healthy. "No, Shepherd is fine."
There were tests, or hearing aids, or … or something.
"Anne says you're a great physician? Prove it." Malcolm strode over to the door, furious at the lot of them. He'd take Shepherd to St. Mungo's if he'd had to, and he didn't care how long he had to wait to get answers. "Fix him."
"There are no types of deaf, Malcolm," said Anne, moving the cover over her shoulder and sitting down when Doctor Socks offered her a chair and a blanket. She could feed their baby in a private place, like the public bathroom, yet she stayed here. "There's deaf and Deaf. Shepherd cannot hear."
"You've told me that." He lost patience with her, too.
Malcolm understood he was the careless father who misread the signs and took everything for granted. A couple days after they arrived home, she'd said something felt off about Shepherd. He'd joked that it was simply because he wasn't a she. They wrapped him in pink blankets and accepted clothes from the church nursery because money was tight at the moment. Instead of landing the interview of his career whilst in Romania, he'd gone home. There was no advance to cover him, and his wife was on leave.
"I want a second opinion," he said, addressing the doctor, "and I don't want a referral from you."
There were cures for things like the common cold. Some Muggle remedies actually worked, and he knew this for a fact because his father and mother had raised them on these things. Wizards didn't suffer from the measles, or the chicken pox, or strep throat because there were things that fixed this. Sure, he wasn't educated in what was what, but he wasn't going to give up so easily.
"The church gives to the hospital," he said evenly. Malcolm knew the doctor honored patient/physician confidentially, yet he feared this getting out at the church. He refused, especially during Easter, to make this about his family. "You are not to tell the reverend about this."
Doctor Socks gave his word and he offered his hand. Malcolm stared at it, thinking he never wanted to see this man again. As they headed home, he questioned his wife. Anne shed no tears and they stopped outside a restaurant, a new establishment, the Cask and Kilt, for a bite to eat. Starving, he picked the largest selection on the menu and split it with his wife. He needed a plan, and he wasn't going to make any strides over the Easter holiday, so he did what he could in the moment, and he ate his feelings.
April, 1971
Malcolm hated his position as the middle sibling. On the one hand, things were quite nice because he got along with both sides and enjoyed certain freedoms. Whenever he wanted to vent about Robert. or wanted to avoid his excuse for a brother altogether, Minerva let him vent and get his anger off his chest. His favorite times, when they really hit their stride, they sounded abused their brother together and went home a little drunk. However, when Robert needed help out of a tight spot, say, jail, this, too, needed up on Malcolm's to-do list.
Shortly after returning home from Romania, Malcolm grabbed his son and went to post bail. Of course, this wasn't the sort of thing he counted as father/son time, but Shepard stuck to him like glue. He liked going and anywhere and everywhere with his dad, and in the back of his mind, Malcolm wondered how often this would last.
Jayne would be starting school soon, and she thought Malcolm was strange. Of course, she hadn't gone as far to deem him as "socially awkward" or "out of the box", (but his mother still went there), she had started distancing herself from him. Malcolm wasn't normal. Even if he wanted to try, and he had no intention of doing this, he'd never happily blend with the crowd. He loved all three of his children equally and shared different experiences with them.
He went window shopping with Jayne; he shared the kitchen with Catherine and made it their happy place. Sometimes, Malcolm dragged Shepherd along on his travels, but the boy was his escape artist. Once he'd gotten over the shock, Malcolm had learned Sign Language with his wife, and the girls slowly picked it up. He suspected Shepherd read lips because he picked up a lot of funny bits.
"Don't tell your mother." Purely out of habit, Malcolm spoke and signed at the same time, even when it was the two of them and this proved redundant. Shepherd, an overtly friendly kid, waved at the officer as they approached the precinct.
"What're you in for?" the officer asked Shepherd, grinning.
Malcolm interpreted for Shepherd, something that came as second-nature these days. He laughed Banditry. That's not a thing, Shep, on second thought. Don't."
The officer did the usual double take between them. Malcolm picked up on this, though it rolled off his shoulders, and he paid his brother's expenses. When Robert came out, he nodded at Shepherd and took the rucksack from Malcolm. He'd pulled on casual clothes.
"The Deaf kid?" Robert threw the rucksack over his shoulder. "On the bright side, he can't talk back to you."
Malcolm decided not to sign this conversation. "Asshole."
"I thought it was funny," Robert mumbled.
Shepherd frowned at Robert, studying him.
Robert waved his hand in front of Shepherd's face. "It's rude to stare."
"That's rude. Don't you ever do that again." Malcolm slapped his brother's hand away. "And he's reading your lips, asshole. What did you do this time?"
"Shoplifting." Robert shrugged.
"Shoplifting," said Malcolm, signing to Shepherd, giving him the suggestion. "Not as a suggestion. It's simply for the next time you're asked that question by an officer."
Shepherd laughed, a broken sound.
"Want to come with me to Saint Petersburg, Shepherd? For your seventh birthday" Malcolm left Robert outside the precinct, for his courtesy extended only so far some evening. Shepherd said yes, an enthusiastic yes. Malcolm took this as Robert's sign.
"Don't do that," said Malcolm, masking his scold with laughter and taking this as Robert's sign.
Signs, like names, were assigned by a Deaf person, not spelled out letter by letter. This would be exhausting, for one thing, and people need their names spelled for them. He was so far from playing the strict father, it wasn't even funny. Shepherd's sign, given to him by an interpreter when Malcolm was learning back in the day, wasn't the sign for a "shepherd", but a "s", followed by the sign for "light". The interpreter had met Shepherd as a baby before assigning him a sign. Shepherd had been baptized by his grandfather, like his cousins and his sisters, but Malcolm had considered that day with the interpreter, his baptism.
"Come on, Shepherd." They walked home and he greeted Anne at the door. "I found a travel buddy."
Anne handed over a letter before speaking to Shepherd. "Russia? Hello, darling. There's dinner on the table. Go inside." She smiled when Malcolm shook the envelope, showing her it was open. "What's yours is mine, and what's mine is still mine. Sorry, Malcolm, I couldn't help myself. It's from your sister; it's a belated birthday gift for Shepherd."
Judging by the smeared makeup on her face, she'd cried over this thing. "It's a birthday card."
"Read it." Anne grinned when he tipped a pair of bifocals into his open hand. She started closing the door as Malcolm fished a lighter and a cigarette out of his pocket. "Yeah, you try not to cry whilst giving yourself lung cancer. Better yet, don't cry whilst reading that to your son."
Malcolm sat on the front steps, and started to read, taking a long drag from his cigarette.