Lorcan is born first, but Lysander has Mummy's eyes; so he doesn't mind. When Lorcan cries at night, he doesn't wake Daddy. He climbs next to him in bed. "Mummy saw you first. She loved you longer," he promises.
They never stay home. Daddy takes them all over the world. He shows them gargoyles and trolls and pixies and dragons and tells them tales of 'creatures' undiscovered. Lysander doesn't believe in them. Lorcan does, and he cries whenever Lysander says they're not real. Then Daddy gets mad, Lysander has time outs, and Lorcan gets held more than he does—so he stops telling the truth. He stops saying anything.
"Daddy worries about you," Lorcan says at night.
Lysander shrugs, "So?"
When Lysander's six, they all go to see the Potters. Daddy says Lily is named after her. He's stopped calling her "Mummy" and no one likes that. Lorcan runs around the backyard with Lily and James. Lysander and Al sit on the porch. Lysander draws; Al plays quidditch.
"Why do you call your Mum, Luna?" Al asks suddenly. Lysander shrugs.
"I don't think she's real."
"How come?"
"She died before I knew her."
"Oh. My mum and dad say she fought with them. They say she's a hero." Lysander shrugs. "I like your pictures. I have crayons if you want."
Al runs inside to get them, and Lysander rips out a page so Al can color too. Al is Lysander's friend. It's the first time he has one.
Granddad Xen makes awful tea, but Dad gives him a look when he grimaces, so he drinks the whole cup. After two hours, Dad gets up to leave, and Lysander and Lorcan move to follow him. He stops them. He kneels down before them, and hugs them both.
"You guys can't come. . . it's too dangerous . . . Dad needs a little break . . . I'll be back really soon."
Lysander knows when people are lying, and only one thing Dad says is true. Lorcan cries, and holds his legs, begging him not to go. Lysander says, "Bye," and goes back inside. Lorcan stays on the steps until dark.
When Lysander goes to get him, he's still crying and there's snot running down his nose. Lysander wipes his brother's face with the front of his robes. "Come on, Lorca. Dinner's ready. Don't make me eat by myself, yeah?" Lysander trudges heavy behind him.
The food is as bad as the tea, but it's life now and there's no point in complaining. "Daddy promised to write us everyday," Lorcan says with tears pooling in his pumpkin juice. But he's at last stopped the sobbing, so Lysander says, "Then he will, it'll be like he's always here," and tries to sound like he means it. Granddad Xen looks at them both strangely.
"You'll get to stay in your mother's old room." Lorcan's eyes light up, and Lysander goes stiff.
The room is fantastic whimsy. He recognizes Harry and Ginny on the ceiling—'friends'.
The next night he sleeps on the couch. And the night after that, and the night after that, and the night after that.
Granddad educates them until they're old enough to go to school. A lot comes from his old publications. The last issue announces their birth, and their mother's death. There are pictures of her, bright and smiling, and none of them. "You really do have her eyes, Ly," Lorcan whispers. He storms out after the lesson.
Their father's letters come every few months, with the space always growing in between. Lysander calls him "Rolf" now too. Lorcan writes back right away, and signs both their names.
The letters come with a few galleons. Granddad Xen takes them to Diagon Alley the next day, to get all the things they need. With the extra, Lysander buys books on arithmancy, charms, and the history of magic. He sits up at night and teaches himself.
Lysander fights. He beats up muggle and wizarding kids alike, any time they make Lorcan cry. Lorcan says he should take Granddad's meditation hours more seriously. Lysander scowls and tells Lorcan so should he. "I'd rather have a face covered in bruises than tears, Lorca. And if you did, too, maybe I wouldn't have as many."
He always apologizes later.
Dad shows up to see them off. It's the first time he's seen them in three years. Lysander takes the hug, but does not smile, and boards the train before the final whistle blows.
He waits in the hallway for Lorcan, and they squeeze into a compartment with Dominique, and James, and Al, and Rose. They eat chocolate frogs, play exploding snap, and laugh, harder than Lysander thinks he ever has. His legs won't stop jimmying. It's a whole new world.
The sorting is alphabetical so Lorcan goes first. Lysander shares a smile with him when the hat is placed on his head.
"Quite clever too, I see," it cackles in his mind.
"Well, Ravenclaw, then."
"And so keen to protect. But it's not quite the same, is it—the curiously ambitious mind. Quite desperate to escape them in fact. Thirsty to be new things."
It calls out, "Slytherin," bold and deafening. Lysander walks with stone face to his cheering house.
He knows this is his home. It does not take long to figure out. But third year, sitting in the common room with Calvin Smith and Torren Flint, he realizes the dark cool dungeon is comforting, and the black leather everything feels soft against his back. Scorpius hops over the back of the couch to plop down beside him, moleskin in hand. "I've got all the writing done for the next chapter!" he exclaims. Calvin and Torren roll their eyes as Lysander pulls out his sketchpad. He and Scorpius magically transfer the words to match his drawings. Lysander's learned the charms to make them move, and together he and Scorpius add the background images of the scenes. "We gotta show Al tomorrow, he'll flip!"
"Hey, Sandy!" Calvin calls. Lysander narrows his eyes.
"What, asshole?" "Creevey's making googly eyes this way again. Think she knows what a wankering nerd you are? Cause personally, I don't see it."
"Haha, fuck you," he retorts.
In fourth year, Lorcan writes their father begging and pleading to spend summer traveling with him. Lysander passes. He divvies up his holiday between the Potters and the Malfoys. Astoria calls him "love" and Ginny calls him "pet". Family, he learns, feels nice.
O.W.L year is hell for various reasons. For one, unlike Al and Scorp, Lysander gives a damn if he fails them. He's fighting again, because he'll always protect Lorcan—no matter how far apart they grow. Sarah Raeschum has also proceeded to tell all the Hufflepuff fifth-year girls, that he's a typical Slytherin teenage boy, only after one thing, and will dump them as soon as he gets it. He reminds her they were never actually dating, and he thought he'd made that clear—which he learns, consequently, is the worse thing to say to a woman. But since Mallory, Carla, and Genevieve are still more than willing to get a little sweaty in broom cupboards, he cuts his losses.
"Shame though," Calvin says, "a very fine set of legs on Sarah." Lysander shrugs.
"Not like she knew what to do with them anyhow." Scorp snorts and Al shakes his head. Calvin convulses with laughter.
Scorpius is never the same after January. Lysander doesn't try to 'be there'; he knows better. He sneaks him bottles of firewhiskey instead, and makes excuses when Scorp misses lessons. In April, when Scorp's about to let his future slip away, Lysander and Al take him out to the Black Lake in the middle of the night. They all drink too much. Al says Scorp will never be alone. Lysander speaks for the first time in a while. "They don't make us who we are. They do awful things sometimes. I killed my mother, on the way out. And I've erased her to make it bearable. I haven't seen Rolf since I was eleven. And he sent me a howler when I said I was dropping Care of Magical Creatures. He called our work rubbish, told me I was stuck in the 'real world'. 'You're mother's eyes and you can't see a thing'. Scorp, your father smiled at you writing about a muggle doctor. He had his demons. Sometimes they're inescapable, I guess. At least you know he loved you."
He knows it doesn't really help, but it makes Scorpius stop crying.
When he and Scorpius set up shop and do it for real, they're an instant hit. It's a simple story really. A muggle doctor, all facts and figures, that approaches the world like a geometry proof, discovering the supernatural when his wife disappears into a void one night. It's witty and clever and dark and brilliant, according to the Prophet, and even Rita Skeeter can't find a fault. She calls his drawings, 'daring'. "It's amazing to see our world drawn through the imagined eyes of a muggle. And an insight into the artist himself, who renders the world he grew up in, but never truly understood."
Al laughs. "Dad might hate her, but obviously the woman's not completely daft."
There are swanky parties, and live readings, and too many women with very nice legs. Lysander invests all his money. Bank statements, portfolios. He reminds the kids that seek autographs, "you have to know what happens in the real world before you can create your own".
Lysander keeps the letter Lorcan sent folded in his wallet. "Congrats, Ly. You're finally speaking!"
He visits Granddad regularly. He knows now, the man needs company. He stays in his mother's room. At night, he paints on the ceiling. He adds blues eyes, and fireworks, and equations for 'getting through life'. He adds his and his brother's names.
When he's done for the night, he stares up at who she was. "I know you're real now," he whispers.
He knows she hears his words.
