Five Things That Never Happened to Fabian Prewett.
or, Five Nights Fabian Prewett Didn't Die
1.
It's nothing much, but it's just enough to keep…
"What're you doing out here alone, Fay?"
He turns to look up at her, brown eyes revealing surprise and a little bit of guilt, though it's hardly the "I've been caught doing something I know I shouldn't be" expression she remembers so well from their younger days. She raises her eyebrows in a silent repetition of her question.
"I needed some space for a minute."
He holds her eyes for another moment and then turns back to the view of the setting sun, spectacular from the back-porch of their childhood home on this crisp autumn evening. She settles on the step next to him, sighing softly, and fixes him with a steady gaze.
"That party in there is as much for you as it is for Gideon," she says at last, and he looks over at her again, offering a small smile.
"I know. We have had the same birthday for…at least as long as I can remember."
"Fabian…" She reaches over to brush some hair away from his face and then gives him a Worried Look.
"Molly." He returns her look with a reproving one of his own and goes on, "Molly. I'm fine." She doesn't look convinced, so he puts a hand on her knee and presses it reassuringly. "Fine."
Her expression warms at the touch, uncommon for Fabian, so often reserved or even withdrawn and always so self-sufficient. She puts her hand over his and mutters, "I just worry. I worry about you two, always so busy, always off doing who knows what, and it's so dangerous these days, and ever since last spring you've just been so thin, and you hardly even talk to anyone except Gid…"
"You worry too much, Molly. You know that." He says it gently, teasingly, but he means it, and he also means he doesn't have anything else to say on the matter, and she knows that too.
She lets out another weary sigh and reaches into the pocket of her apron.
"I found this when I was throwing out some of the wrapping paper," she says, and presses something cold and round and hard into his palm. He blinks down at the watch, remembering, a little embarrassed but it's not the first time, and it's a good thing Gideon was given the one that belonged to their father because Gideon takes care of these things properly.
She opens her mouth to scold but he heads her off, saying, "I know, I know. I'll be more careful."
"You always say that," she returns pointedly, but seems to decide to let it go, this once, and stands, straightening her clothes and patting her hair, pausing to touch his shoulder gently before moving away.
"Well. Come inside soon. There's plenty who'd still like to talk to you, and you've not had any of my cake yet." She bustles inside, enveloped immediately by children and lights and laughter and then the door shuts again.
He follows after the sun sinks at last below the horizon, tucking the watch into the pocket of his waistcoat and turning his back on the gathering dark.
2.
How could anyone not love the terrible things you do…
He can tell right away that she's thoroughly sloshed, and also that she thinks he's Gideon. It's in the way she leans against the doorjamb, swaying ever so slightly, in the way she answers his "Hullo," her voice husky and a little breathless, in the coy little smile she offers him from one corner of her mouth.
Something, however, something he'll never quite understand, keeps him quiet.
"Wasn't sure you'd be here," she says, pushing the door the rest of the way open and sliding in, eyes that burn bright with firewhiskey and desire fixed determinedly on his face. He swallows, and says carefully, but with no real intentions, and without moving away, "Marlene…"
"Don't," she interrupts him. "I know it's been months, I know all the objections, I know. But…" She leans in, touches his arm, his chest, his lips, her hands fluttering familiarly across his body, watching him closely. "I know something else."
"What's that, Marlene?" he says softly, still not moving.
"You want this."
She touches his face again, fingers soft against his cheek, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth. "I've seen it in your eyes. I can see it now."
He says nothing, just watches her.
The quality of the silence between them is exquisite, the long, still moments filled with something so charged and so absolute it's almost tangible. He doesn't move because he doesn't want to spoil it, the perfection of it, and later he knows that thinking this was what did him in.
She kisses him suddenly, fiercely, pinning him against the wall, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. He stiffens slightly at first, thinking it's all very strange, but that little treacherous part of him that gets lonely sometimes unexpectedly wants this, so he kisses her back, and lets her propel them towards a bedroom that isn't his.
A little bit of him worries that at some point she'll realise. A little bit of him almost wants her to. There's the scar he has that Gideon doesn't, the muscles Gideon is so proud of that his leaner frame lacks, the fact that he ultimately has no idea what Gideon does here – but she just presses her cheek against his, and murmurs something incomprehensible, and moves against him. He thinks about the dark, and the liquor on her breath, and then he stops thinking.
He wakes in Gideon's bed, in the dim pre-dawn greyness. She's gone, the flat is quiet and completely still, and he's just relieved.
He thinks he'll tell Gideon, but then he doesn't.
He resolves to be honest if Gideon ever asks, but he never does.
3.
What I'm trying to say…
There aren't many of them there tonight, most opting to head for their respective homes after the meeting, given the late hour and the grim mood that lingers amongst the Phoenix after an uninterrupted series of losses, beginning with Armin Hartwell over a month prior, up to the devastating murder of Alyssa Vance just last week. The pub is crowded with other customers nonetheless, smoky and loud, and Fabian has to elbow his way up to the bar to order.
After being served he leans against the counter to sip his drink rather than fight his way to a seat, and surveys the room, wondering where his brother has gone. Gideon had insisted on coming tonight, even after Marlene slipped out early with Sturgis and Hestia, saying he had something to discuss with Sirius Black, so Fabian shrugged and went along, thinking it would at least be interesting, but the atmosphere just isn't right for his mood this evening, and he finds himself wishing he were someplace quieter.
He spies his brother at last near the fireplace in the back, leaning a little over Black and talking quickly. Black has his back to Fabian, but Lupin is sitting nearby and looks either uncomfortable or slightly ill, and Fabian is trying to decide which it is when a voice behind him asks mildly, "Prefer to watch, then?"
Fabian turns to find Caradoc leaning casually on the bar behind him, and tilts his head back a bit to regard him, as Caradoc stands nearly a head over his own six feet and is watching him with piercing blue eyes.
"Sometimes," he replies, feeling slightly unsure of himself next to this older man, who has an unusual grace about his actions and words that instils his lean frame with a poise Fabian has always been a little jealous of. He finds himself wondering how the Dearborns acquired the reputation they have for eccentricity, as he can't recall ever having seen Caradoc without a calm, composed look on that long, quiet, Celtic face.
Caradoc's smile doesn't quite reach his eyes, getting lost somewhere in the shadows cast by high cheekbones and unrestful nights. "You're very different to your brother," he tells Fabian, who shifts slightly but doesn't look away.
"Sometimes," he repeats, then almost laughs. Gideon would certainly have had a better response ready. He just sounds like he's being cagey. "Sometimes we're very much the same."
"True," Caradoc acquiesces. "Particularly, I think, when you're together."
"We're often together."
Caradoc nods, and is quiet for a moment, watching Fabian, who thinks it might not be polite to stare back, but doesn't really care. When Caradoc finally speaks again, he says, somewhat inexplicably, "Also, I suppose, as they say: the apple – apples – never fall far from the tree."
Fabian takes in the implications of this, surprised, curious. "You knew my father?"
"I saw him – met him – several times. I was very young, but he was the kind of man who left a strong impression."
There is another pause as Fabian thinks about the man who was gone before he was born, and the man in front of him who remembers. "Perhaps some time you'll tell me about that," he says at last.
Caradoc nods again. "Not this night, though."
"Not tonight," Fabian agrees, and takes the last swallow of his drink.
"I think," Caradoc says slowly, watching Fabian closely, "that I'll be leaving soon."
There is a question in Caradoc's eyes for Fabian, and it's something he's really never considered before, but then he thinks of still, empty nights, and of Caradoc's careful movements and steady gaze, and of Armin Hartwell's lifeless body beneath a flickering Dark Mark, and of how quickly things can be gone, and then of all the things he believes are worth fighting for - and finally he nods slowly.
"Alright."
4.
All I want is one more chance to be young and wild and free…
"I'm pretty sure you said 'out by eight, at the latest'."
"So I miscalculated slightly."
"Slightly? It must be half three in the morning, Gideon!"
"I never said I was sure."
"You said it as if you were sure."
"It was an educated guess based on the best information I had at the time."
Fabian scowls into the misty gloom. "And what's your 'educated guess' based on the information you have now?"
"Er. I think there's a good chance we'll be out of here in time for breakfast. Based, of course, on the observation that these buggers seem to prefer the cloak of night for the doing of their dirty deeds."
"Of course." Fabian sees Gideon shoot him a sideways glance, but he keeps his eyes resolutely fixed ahead of him on the narrow, darkened street they're supposed to be watching. "We both know you only said "out by eight" to convince me to come along with you. Dumbledore only asked for one of us tonight, but you hate doing stake-outs by yourself."
"I get so bored," Gideon mumbles, deflating, but falling just short of apologetic. "There's all this waiting around, and then there's hardly ever any action."
"And what if I had plans tonight?" Fabian presses, trying to sound severe but failing when a yawn punctuates the end of his sentence.
"Did you?"
"That's not the point."
Fabian doesn't see it, but he can sense the wry smile tugging at the corners of his brother's mouth. "Say, Fay, have you –"
"There, look." Fabian cuts him off abruptly, suddenly acutely aware of the slightest of movements down where the street dead-ends into a large, abandoned warehouse. He feels Gideon tense beside him as he scans the street for any other signs of activity. "Gideon, was that door open before?" he whispers.
"I don't think so. I think – wait, someone's coming out."
A figure, cloaked and hooded in black, exits the warehouse from the open doorway and comes at a swift pace down the street towards them, drawing nearer and nearer to the empty shop where Gideon and Fabian have hidden themselves, until it draws level with the lamppost just outside, and – halts. It stands perfectly still next to the little pool of light cast by the street light, and waits, and Fabian and Gideon wait with it.
Before long, another figure draws out of the shadows on the opposite end of the street, similarly clad in a long, dark cloak with a hood pulled far enough forward to conceal the face in the shadows. They're not Death Eater uniforms, not quite, but it's more than enough to mask their identities. The second figure, smaller, and moving in a way that makes Fabian think it might be a woman, approaches the first, who offers a greeting they can almost hear through the cracked glass of the shop windows.
"That's Dolohov," Gideon breathes, eyes narrowed.
"Are you sure?"
" 'Course I'm sure. After last spring, I'd know that raspy whine anywhere. They're going."
The two figures have turned, and together they move to enter the building directly across the street.
"That's it," Gideon says, with an air of they're not getting away with it this time, and makes to lift the wards so he and Fabian can leave their hiding place, but Fabian stops him with a hand on his arm.
"Wait."
"Wait? Fabian –"
"Gideon, wait! Something doesn't feel right." It doesn't either, his skin is prickling and it all seems too rehearsed, the ease with which they witnessed the activity, almost like it had been staged for their benefit…
He sees them then, one a patch of oddly misshapen and shimmering starlight on the roof, maybe another in the strange fluttering of a curtain in an open window on the second floor on this still, windless night. Who knew how many more. He draws his wand.
"There are more of them than we realise, Gideon. I'm calling for back-up."
5.
I won't pretend that I can see the end, but it's far away…
This is not how Fabian imagined he would be spending his twenty-seventh birthday.
It's not the rain that's put him off, he reflects, pulling his collar a little higher on his neck and shivering slightly. Rain he's used to. It's not the company, though James Potter and Sirius Black are quite a lot for any one person to handle, and he's feeling a little worn already from the constant nervousness that he'll have to jump on one of them to keep them from doing something foolish. It's not even the location, though a so-far fruitless quest for an artefact of undisclosed significance on a blustery Midland heath hardly figures as the way anyone wants to celebrate their arrival into the world.
It's the fact, he realises suddenly, that Gideon is not with him.
Now that he thinks about it, he realises that this is the first time, in all their twenty-seven years, that they've been apart on their birthday, and he feels a curious nostalgia for something he can't quite put a name to. Younger days, perhaps, when they would have actually planned things for birthdays rather than remembering the event only a day or two before its arrival, when they had the time and energy to plan more than the next few hours, or at the very least not had assignments that kept them apart when the day itself finally came around.
It's also strange, and new, the number of missions he's been on recently without Gideon. Dumbledore had, in the past, used them more often together than not, knowing the value of the set of them, the way they worked off each other, the way they weren't the same with anyone else. Of late, however, he's as likely to have someone else at his side as he is to have Gideon, and the operations themselves grow vaguer and vaguer in description, and the enemy seems to know more and more about them, while their details come through increasingly imprecise and confused.
September of 1981 has not, he decides, been the most auspicious of months, and all these things, combined with the growing feeling among his crowd that it's all coming to a head, is more than enough to put anyone on edge. It takes the form of a question they're all thinking, though nobody would ever say – how much longer can we keep this up?
Dumbledore never quite says enough, he muses, stopping to squint again at the map and valiantly ignoring the handful of mud about to be transferred by Potter's wand into Black's hair as they keep themselves amused waiting for him to figure out where to go next, or rather, how to get back to wherever they took a wrong turn. He never quite says enough to keep you from getting a little lost along the way, yet somehow, you always (and he expects you to) find your way in the end.
It must be something about the journey and not the destination that Fabian is neither old nor wise enough yet to appreciate. He allows Potter to finish cleaning mud off his glasses, wondering all the while who decided this man was old enough to have a child, before breaking the news about how far off track they actually are.
This is not how Fabian imagined he would be spending his twenty-seventh birthday.
But at least, at least, it's another year.
-
Author's Note:
These are in no particular order, and may or may not have any particular significance to Fabian's life. This character is a brand new plaything for me, so I'd really appreciate any and all feedback! I do hope you enjoyed.
And hopefully I'll have some more stories coming soon – I've ideas here and there, and a few things started, a few things halfway done…but am just so busy. You know how it goes, though maybe with some encouragement…
As always, thanks for taking the time to read.