A/N: Just thought I would post this warning ahead for a language warning because it's a Nollie chapter lol, and, well, things escalate without spoiling this chapter, so I'll leave you to it! Enjoy!


114

Tonks bristled at the sight of former Death Eater Jack Brennan in her home, wishing she would have remained steadfast and firm in her resolve to not allow Ollie's father into her home, however, every bit a bastard the man might be, she knew that he would not hurt her, though if the man so much as looked at Ollie or Teddy or Norah or even Remus in a way that pissed her off, she was going to do whatever it took to save her family.

"Jack," she answered flatly with no emotion at all in her voice.

"It's good to see you again, my dear. You're looking much better rested than you were two nights ago, darling. Motherhood is a look that suits you well, darling, you wear it quite well, dear," Jack answered hauntingly.

His voice was cracking and wavering a bit for reasons that Tonks could not quite understand, causing the young witch to turn and regard Jack with furrowed, raised eyebrows and a rather quizzical expression.

Tonks watched as Jack Brennan's hardened expression shifted and grew almost wistful, and this startled the young wife and mother to the point where her fists grew clammy and her nails dug into her palms as they shook.

Badly.

Jack noticed the shift in her behavior and shot Tonks a knowing look.

"Where is he?" He eyed his son's best friend cautiously, glancing around the room left and right, as though searching for Ollie, already knowing he wouldn't find him anywhere in the house, though the man dared not let onto Nymphadora that he had, in fact, been spying on his son and the She-Wolf in their own backyard. When Tonks did not immediately answer, Jack tried again. "Where is Oliver?" Though he spoke as if he already knew.

Tonks silently seethed, grinding her teeth together in anticipation.

She wouldn't be surprised to learn later somehow that the man had his ways of spying on his son and Ollie's new girlfriend.

"Outside," Tonks answered in a clipped and hardened tone, feeling her gray eyes narrow and start to smolder with a burning, fathomless rage. "And you spare me the homilies of pretending to care about my well-being, Jack. I can smell a fraud a mile away. Think about what you like about your son, Mr. Brennan, but he will not leave here. In fact," she added, almost as an afterthought, painfully twisting her fingers together, fidgeting nervously with her plain gold wedding band, "My husband and I have asked Ollie and Norah to house-sit for us. Remus is teaching at Hogwarts at the start of term, though I already said that," Tonks elaborated upon seeing Jack shoot her a confused stare as the aging man regarded her in silence.

If the Death Eater was at all pleased with his son's best friend's news, he gave no indication of showing it.

Tonks let out a tired sigh and pinched at the front of her temples, knowing full well Ollie was the only thing on Jack Brennan's mind at the moment.

"He won't leave, Jack, and you would be an utter fool if you were to attempt to try, I can promise you that you will regret it. You may speak to him outside in our backyard, or you can take a walk, but the two of you will not talk inside my home in front of our newborn son. My husband will be supervising the pair of you if you stay in the yard or on the porch, and if you should put one toe out of line and dare lay a hand against your son or Norah in anger, then I'll kill you myself, Jack, my code as an Auror be Merlin-damned," she said again, quite confidently, though she wondered if Norah had been able to persuade Ollie into coming with them tomorrow and celebrating his birthday alongside with his family—his true family—instead of staying put here.

If Jack heard her threat, he ignored it.

"Then I'll take him," growled Mr. Brennan as the man began restlessly pacing back and forth, almost stomping so hard Tonks was sure the man's heels of his boots would at some point create indentations in their hardwood floor. "The boy thinks he's mistaken if he stays with that bitch."

Tonks blinked owlishly at Ollie's father.

Had his dad truly lost his mind?!

"Are you perhaps short of a marble, Jack?" Tonks shouted, stomping her foot in a moment of frustration, biting down on her bottom lip as she sincerely hoped that Remus had taken Teddy out onto their back porch.

She did not want her emotionally compromised state as she attempted to deal with Ollie's father to upset their baby. Or Remus.

"They're staying here, Mr. Brennan. Norah and Ollie have already agreed to house-sit for us while my husband and I return to Hogwarts. They cannot leave here, Jack!"

Sensing Jack's father was not at all convinced, Tonks heaved a heavy sigh and pinched at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, turning away from Jack for what felt like an eternity to compose herself.

When she did manage to find her voice again, it was shaking. Though not from fear. From rage and disbelief, and it took Tonks a moment to realize this.

"I've seen them together over the last few weeks, Mr. Brennan. Your son has been caring for Miss Jameson while she recovers from injuries she sustained while fighting to protect Hogwarts during your master's attempted siege. She loves him, and your son loves that woman. If you try to separate him now, you would do more harm than good, If there's even a single ounce of goodness left in that miserable old body of yours that truly loves your son, Jack, then let him go," Tonks confirmed, telling his father in the small hope, however feeble, that at least knowing his son had managed to move on without him in his life would calm him down.

However, when she turned back around to regard Ollie's father, the expression of a calm serenity, despite the anger at having this Death Eater, former or otherwise, inside of her and Remus's home, and Ollie's dad, besides, and her statement only succeeded in incensing his anger further.

The pit in Jack Brennan's stomach as visions of his son locked in an embrace with that wretched little blonde She-Wolf clawed its way up into his heart as bitter bile.

His intentions of dragging his son home kicking and screaming if he had to raced ahead of any logical thought processes that Brennan typically prided himself on.

"If he is so dead set on rutting with that—that woman," he snarled, "he may bring her if he wishes, if what you tell of their….relationship," Jack spat through gritted teeth, "is real, then I suppose I have no choice but to accept this."

Tonks resisted the urge to seize on a lock of her hair and tug it in frustration as her face sagged with the enormity of what Ollie's father was proposing.

"Oh, yes, Jack, that's exactly what Ollie wants for his new girlfriend," she began sarcastically, not even bothering with the niceties anymore. "I'm sure separating her from Ollie would go over just swimmingly. Tell me something, Mr. Brennan, how do you think your son would react to learn that you've only allowed Norah to accompany you and Ollie home on the premises that you tolerate her presence in your manor, as long as Ollie submits to you? Hmm? Are you even listening to yourself? Do you not hear how ridiculous you sound?" she challenged hotly, feeling the worst of her temper swell.

She rolled her eyes and weaved her fingers in between her knuckles, cringing as Tonks swore that she heard footsteps coming from the back door of their porch and through the kitchen.

That's Ollie….

Tonks let out a haggard sigh as Ollie rounded the corner and froze. He was alone, as expected. Tonks visibly cringed and slowly swiveled her head in her best mate's direction.

Tonks coughed once to clear her throat, thinking she could not remember a time when she had been in such an awkward and compromising and a rather precarious position.

"Wh—where's Norah, Ollie? And Remus and Teddy?" Tonks questioned, hoping her voice was light, though she could tell he heard how strained it was.

"Outside," Ollie answered through gritted teeth. His brain stuttered as it took in more light from Remus and Tonks's living room than expected, every part of him went on pause while his thoughts struggled to catch up, as a horribly fatigued ringing filled his eardrums, and a series of memories rolled through his mind.

Mother screaming… Father yelling… glass breaking…

"Hello, Father," he growled, no semblance of warmth in his tone as he set eyes on a man he'd hoped never to see again, causing Tonks to flinch at the coldness in his voice, though he glanced sideways at Tonks and addressed his best friend. "T, why don't you tell the others they can come inside. Father and I are going outside to take a walk, I won't have this conversation on your property, T. It's…private."

Tonks parted her lips as if to protest, though a withering look from Ollie told her otherwise, not to fight his word on this issue.

She let out a haggard sigh, and relented, turning her back on the father and son as she pointed them towards the front door.

"Fine, but don't take too long, Ol," she whispered hoarsely as she maneuvered her way through the kitchen, where Remus stood anxiously, clutching baby Teddy in his arms, waiting with Norah.

Tonks tried her hardest to shoot her best friend a silent, pleading look.

The fact remained that Jack Brennan could easily take away Ollie from her after all these years of thinking her friend to be dead, made her incredibly uneasy, but she knew she needed to leave them.

This was their issue to hash out, not hers, though it did not stop Tonks from squeezing her eyes shut the moment she was out on the back porch with her husband, son, and friend, and saying a silent prayer meant for Ollie and Ollie's ears alone.

Please be careful…


Ollie froze, clenching and unclenching his fists as the man he had once called Father, and he had ceased to call him by that name ever since Tonks had forced him to stay at her house after he had been dealt a particularly brutal beating that resulted in two cracked ribs and a broken arm, not to mention one hell of a nasty concussion.

"Oliver." His father spoke in his typical droll baritone, Jack Brennan's voice completely devoid of fear or any other emotion, rendering Ollie frozen to his spot and unable to move, though he gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to block out the sound of the repressed memory of the night his mum left.

The screams, the sound of breaking glass, his mum crying…

His entire body shook with the effort to restrain himself, and Ollie supposed he should have been grateful Newt Scamander and Professor Dumbledore rid his body and soul of the Obscurus, though if there was ever a time when he wished for the wretched creation to return to him, it was now, so that he could take his father someplace far away from his friends, and let the demonic entity take control.

Ollie focused on wondering whether he had been in a situation even more awkward and infuriating than this, and matters were made ten times worse when the sound of Norah's voice rent the air.

"Ollie?" Norah whispered hesitantly, the sound of her voice cracking, and he visibly cringed, wishing the wolf would have done as he had told her and stayed put outside with Remus and Tonks.

Damn. He clenched his teeth, grinding them together in frustration. She—she shouldn't be here. She needs to leave. Now.

Ollie startled and felt his eyes slid instinctively towards Norah as he slowly turned around to regard her standing in the living room, her stance uncertain.

Norah bit down hard on her bottom lip and was angrily looking towards Jack Brennan, painfully wringing her hands together.

She stiffened, her shoulders rising slightly in defense as Jack's listless gaze met that of her own before looking away, furrowing her eyebrows in the process as she glared at him.

When she spoke, her German accent was quiet and fuming.

"You are the Vater?" she questioned with raised brows. "You are his father, yes?" she clarified in English upon noticing Jack's confusion.

Realization dawned slowly on Norah's face as she looked towards Jack for confirmation, who merely offered a nod, though did not speak.

Her heart pounded in her eardrums as she chose to focus her sole attention on Ollie, who was shaking badly.

"You know who I am," Jack Brennan drawled, his sharp dark brown eyes flitting from his son silent fuming expression to Norah's.

Norah, who had been about to take a faltering half-step forward towards Ollie, which was in actuality more of a weakened limp due to her still-healing leg bound in its cast, abruptly halted, turning to look at Ollie's father in a sardonic manner, a dark look flitting across her pale and peaky features, which oddly enough, reminded Jack of his own son whenever he had lied to him and his mother.

"Of course, I know you, Herr Brennan. He sent you, yes? He did, didn't he, Herr Brennan?" replied the young werewolf curtly, her German accent bright yet sharp as her icy blue gaze turned on Ollie's father. "To keep tabs on Ollie and me, no doubt, but why did Crouch send you?" she demanded, folding her arms across her chest.

"Crouch sent me?" Jack repeated, feigning surprise, though internally, the Death Eater was most utterly intrigued by the young blonde She-Wolf's tenacity and brightness.

She'll do just fine…

Norah repressed the urge to roll her eyes. "I know exactly who you are, Herr Jack Brennan," the young blonde wolf replied as she folded her arms across her chest, leaning into Ollie's chest for support so she didn't fall, standing as tall as she could, which was rather humorous, considering she was barely 5'3, even in boots. "I've heard that pink wearing old bitch mention your name once or twice over the years, and Ollie spoke your name in his sleep," she murmured, pointedly looking away from her boyfriend as a light pink blush speckled along both of their cheeks in embarrassment.

The young blonde witch took in a deep breath and continued.

"You have made a pointless decision to come here today, Herr Brennan. Your son does not wish to see you. Does not want your words. He wants exactly nothing from you from now on, except to see you out of his life for good. Is that understood?" Norah barked.

Norah felt immediately like she was in some kind of trance, her heart racing so quickly she was afraid it might actually explode in her chest.

Her breaths became short, spurting gasps, shallow, her ears filled with a dull, aching throb as the blood rushed to her head.

"Fuck," she swore, whisper-hissing the swear word through gritted teeth, squeezing her eyes shut as waves of nausea coursed through her veins, and she shot out an arm to steady herself, and wasn't at all surprised when she felt Ollie's warm hands come up to grip onto both of her shoulders, before wrapping around her waist.

Vielen Dank, she thought silently, knowing Ollie heard her as she silently conveyed her thanks.

Norah blinked owlishly once, twice, three times, as the sudden, unexpected wave of nausea passed.

She considered her injuries a weakness and would never admit this to anyone, not Lupin, Tonks, not even Ollie, but even just standing on her own two feet like this for the length of time that she had was exhausting, and she wanted nothing more to put an abrupt end to this conversation between the three of them and send Ollie's father about his business and out of her new boyfriend's life forever.

Tonks and Remus had practically begged her to stay put the moment Tonks had slid open the glass door that led out onto their back porch, though the moment Norah had heard Ollie's upset and angered tone as he conversed with Jack had been too much to bear.

She couldn't stand not knowing…so, here she was, currently the only barrier standing between Ollie and his father, and exhausted. Norah felt herself stiffen as Jack moved towards her.

Norah flinched, not knowing what would be hers if she allowed Ollie's father to escort him away from this place.

Next to nothing, she only had Ollie left these days to call her own. She let out a sigh.

"I love him too, my dear," Jack went on, pointedly ignoring his son's flushed look of outrage and reddening face. "Perhaps not rivaling the intensity of the bond the two of you seem to share, but I do love my son, just the same. We do not have the best, ah, father and son appearance, but ambition throughout these years is what kept the two of us close, my dear," Jack added, his voice a low growl.

Norah didn't even have to shift at the waist and crane her neck upward to know that Ollie was on the verge of mass hysteria right now as she heard him draw in a sharp breath that sounded like it hurt.

Norah felt Ollie stiffen as his father, without waiting for permission, promptly lowered his gaze and took her bandaged, bruised hand that was more purple and black than pale in his own.

She felt her face twist and contort, and Norah looked away from him and Norah let out a pained hiss as he gripped her injured hand in his, though thankfully, Ollie wrenched her arm out of his grip, looking beyond himself with rage, his already pale face drained, rendering his appearance looking gaunt and emaciated.

Jack Brennan was successful at least, in provoking a horrified and enraged reaction from his son, while he'd stunned the blonde She-Wolf into a dumb silence, and the Death Eater could have sworn he heard the bitch whimper as she clutched onto her injured hand gingerly with her one good hand, biting her lip and fighting tears.

"Did he do this to you?" Mr. Brennan demanded through gritted teeth, feeling his dark brown eyes narrow as his head whiplashed sharply upwards to regard his son standing behind the werewolf.

A pause in the bitch's response was nothing Jack could have hoped for, as Norah Jameson did not answer Jack, merely flinching away. He silently seethed, grinding his teeth in anger.

No matter. Jack knew he had all the time in the world to question the werewolf and wheedle the answers out of her, in time.

He was known for his resilience and patience. "My bastard son does not appreciate you, wolf," Jack started softly. "He does not see what he has if he hurts you. Harms you," he snarled viciously.

Norah said nothing, favoring silence as the only apt response, but that was fine enough for him. Jack could see she was considering his words, at the very least, though his blood boiled as she witnessed the young blonde witch and She-Wolf reach up with her uninjured hand and grasp onto Ollie's hand, which had rested on her shoulder.

Jack lowered his voice and leaned in, almost pressing against the length of her body as he had to stoop slightly to whisper it into the shell of her ear.

"A man's touch doesn't have to hurt, wolf." Ollie's father lowered his voice even softer, knowing that somehow, his bastard son had hurt this woman, a bitch and a werewolf though she was, seeing Norah up close and personal like this, there was no denying she was a pretty petite little dog, that much Jack could see.

The scars on her hand proved that his son had hurt her.

"It can be kind. I can be kind to you. Give you a well enough life that I know you deserve, little dove," he whispered into her ear. "My bastard son knows nothing of the ways of pleasuring a woman, but I do. I can make you feel good. I can be a good man to you. I could offer you protection. Provide a good life for you, and on behalf of my bastard whelp of a son who has failed to do that for you, I see."

Jack knew that a pause was nothing he could have hoped for, and he sensed the revolt his son's little bitch held for him as the Jameson She-Wolf turned away, clutching onto Ollie's arm tightly.

"What are you doing, Jack?" snarled Ollie, his rasp seething as he moved to stand in front of Norah. "With MY girlfriend? Dad?"

His son spat the last word as though it were poison that had settled and lingered upon his tongue. "You will not touch Norah. Leave. Get. Out. Get away from her. Now," he growled in a rough, hoarse, coarse voice, and before Norah could protest, he grabbed his father by his forearm and violently dragged him towards the front door. "If you truly won't leave me alone until you insist on talking to me, then fine, I'll hear you out, but we should talk alone…away from here, and Norah, you're staying here in the house."

Norah had been about to open her mouth and violently protest that no, she was coming with him when she heard her new boyfriend let out another low guttural growl from the back of his throat, and the way his normally light and mischievous sky-blue eyes darkened, almost cerulean in color, counseled her against disobeying this request.

"Do not follow us," Ollie snarled in a low warning tone devoid of warmth and emotion, upset, lowering his voice.

He wrenched open the door and shoved his father forward so hard the older man almost tripped on the mezzanine of their porch, though Ollie did not apologize for his rough handling of his father as he turned and shot Norah a look.

Seeing his new girlfriend staring at her so critically, Ollie felt for perhaps the first time in a very long time, a desire to be approved of.

"Stay. Here." His words escaped his chest and throat as a growl.

His darkening blue eyes remained fixated on Norah as he stood out on the porch with his father, with Norah lingering in the open doorway, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Ollie knew his words were faint, however, the weight of his stare was anything but, and it was clear that after this confrontation, things between him and Norah may not be the same again, and there was still the matter of fact that the two of them needed to address her leaving them the night she had attacked Umbridge when she transformed.

The wound of her leaving still added another layer of salt onto the already tender wound that was his heart, but he could not deal with his feelings regarding that now.

There was time for that later.

Norah's protesting voice broke Ollie out of his dark thoughts. He shook his head to clear his mind of his obtrusive thoughts and glanced down his nose at Norah.

"This is just my problem as much as it is yours, Ollie!" Norah exclaimed violently, stomping her uninjured foot, and placing her hands on her hips. "Let me come."

She bit down on her bottom lip. I see the way he looks at me, Ollie. At you. Your father is dangerous. You need help. Let me go.

"No," Ollie growled, hardening the edges of his voice, and glowering at his new girlfriend.

Though sensing the sheen of worry in Norah's bright blue eyes, glistening with unshed moisture he knew to be tears, he sighed in agitation and frustration, feeling something shift within himself give way and his expression softened.

He let out a sigh and reached up a stray hand to tuck a stray wisp of her blonde pixie cut back into its place where it belonged. "Not this time, Norah. I have to deal with this, my way. Go inside," Ollie hissed, his tone bordering on finality. "Right now."

Any other time, Norah would have violently argued and started spouting a list of her favorite curse words at the Legilimens, though after her recent exchange with her new boyfriend's father and the bitter words he had spoken to her and to say nothing of the way his eyes crawled all over her backside told her what a leech he was, something told the young blonde werewolf this was bigger than her.

Norah heaved a tired sigh and swatted Ollie's hand away the minute the man promptly set a hand on her shoulder as Jack took a step forward towards Norah, a look of curiosity ablaze on his face.

She knew at that moment, that whatever unspoken argument rested between the abusive father and broken but surviving son, it was a far greater issue than she could ever possibly begin to imagine.

"Ollie, I don't think I need to tell you your father is an unstable man and dangerous," Norah warned as she stepped back inside the house, though the wolf made no move to close the door.

Don't do anything stupid, she communicated silently, causing Ollie to look up, his blue eyes filled with astonishment as his lips parted.

Please…be careful. Norah thought her words, clumsy and blunt though they were as the light April breeze tousled her hair.

She watched, biting her bottom lip in nervous anticipation as Ollie's cerulean, glacier-cold eyes clouded over and he turned away before looking up slowly to give the young blonde werewolf a brief but affectionate and warm smile before offering his girlfriend a nod.

"I won't be long, Nor, I promise," Ollie murmured before turning away, shoving his father forward with one good hard push.

Though before she could open her mouth to speak, a low guttural growl reached her eardrums, and a flash of brown darted out of the corner of her eye, and before the werewolf had time to fathom what was happening, Ollie held his father's throat at wandpoint, though his hand was trembling so badly, he could barely hold it upright as he forced the man down the back porch steps and into the street , making towards the woods, wanting to put as much distance between the three of them outside and Lupin and Tonks as possible.

He would not have them in harm's way any longer. Ollie knew he would do whatever it took to protect his friends, his new family, just as they had protected him.

Ollie let out a low warning growl as he noticed his father in front of him swear and trip over a gnarled tree root, though Ollie sincerely hoped the man had actually tripped over his own bloody foot.

A vent of adrenaline surged Ollie to drag his father towards the woods behind Tonks and Remus's house.

Out of the corner of his peripherals, he could see the couple and Norah out on their back porch, his tiny nephew, future little heartbreaker that he was, nestled comfortably in his mother's arms and Tonks and Lupin sat on the back porch swing, and Norah's face was the last thing Ollie chose to focus on, the way her brows rose up in worrying alarm.

The adorable way that Norah had a bad habit of biting on her bottom lip whenever she was worried or thinking about something.

Ollie did not know just how far deep into the woods behind Remus and Tonks's cottage he led his father, but the moment he heard his aging father start to gasp for breath, he stopped, though not before grabbing a fistful of his father's black woolen robes and, summoning just a little bit of the strength he worked so hard to repress over the years, the result of pent-up frustration of years of captivity under Barty Crouch Jr.'s hand, his faked death, slammed his father against a large boulder, unflinching as he heard a muscle in Jack Brennan's back crack.

He didn't bloody care anymore at all.

Ollie felt the edges of his lips curl upwards into a twisted sneer that elicited no response as he pulled his bastard father close and thrust his face merely inches away from Jack's, the tips of their noses practically brushing against one another.

Not even that was enough to invoke a cringe from Father, and that, he almost snorted.

If Jack Brennan ever feared something, it would be almost droll if Ollie himself was part of that list. Ollie snarled and wound his shaking fingers around the column of his father's throat, forcing his voice to come forward throttled with repressed fury and sadness.

"Why did you come?" He could fear hot tears stinging and blurring at the edges of his vision. "You should have stayed away."

Jack Brennan contorted his face and stuck his bottom lip out in a mock pout, feigning concern. But Ollie was not at all fooled.

"All these years apart and this is how you greet your father, boy?"

His voice was far deeper than Ollie had ever known it, though Ollie had no time to ponder on this.

"Your mother and I taught you better manners than that, Oliver. Really. Though I don't see why you had to force the little blonde bitch of yours to stay put like the good dog that she is," he spat, spitting on the ground at his boots.

"Don't talk about her like that! You know what her name is! Her name is Norah, Dad. Not…that," Ollie snarled quietly as he stood still against the wind, which had started to pick up slightly.

Jack fell silent as he turned and regarded his son, who had sort of a hen-pecked look. His lips curled upwards in a twisted sneer. Ollie's shoulders hunched together like he was trying to disappear inside of himself.

Even his blue eyes burning bright with anger seemed to be attempting to retreat inside of Ollie's head. His comment was so out of character from what Jack knew of his son.

He just…stared. His brain formulated no other thoughts other than to register that perhaps for the second time in his life, Jack found himself shocked and at a loss for words as to what to say.

The anger from Ollie's eyes showed the scared little boy within, the boy who taught to fight and starved of the love he craved.

Jack could see the pain beneath it and his son's soul drowning in this persona Oliver had been forced to carve to fit into a world of indifference that, if he was being honest with himself, didn't give a damn about a ruined man like Oliver James Brennan.

But he couldn't help someone like this. The Death Eater stiffened when his last surviving son finally spoke to him, angered.

His fists trembled at his sides, violently shaking with the effort to restrain himself.

"What do you want?" Ollie snapped venomously.

"What do I want?" repeated Jack, the words rolling slowly off his tongue, feigning innocence as though the father had misheard his bastard son. "Well. For starters, boy. An apology would be nice. Your stepmother is dying. She wanted to see you."

"No." Ollie's voice was seething to the point of incomprehension. "I'm not…going to apologize anymore. I didn't make any mistakes, Jack. I have nothing to apologize for!" he yelled. "And Renata was never my mother, Jack!" He barked hoarsely. "I won't go."

When Ollie finally turned to face his father, Jack was surprised, though he hid it well, to see Ollie's wide-open blue eyes reflected everything and saw nothing.

Behind them was something more intense than normal thought and his clenched two-day stubble along his jawline wasn't a good sign, though Jack had expected this.

Jack had been hoping for, perhaps not outright forgiveness, but the beginnings of a tentative reconciliation, to put aside past differences and work together as father and son. Strictly business.

Now, he simply hoped to get out of this encounter without giving his bastard son yet another reason to hate him all the more.

As Jack slowly swiveled his head and regarded his son, the thick, uncomfortable silence between the father and son intensified.

The silence of the woods behind Remus and Tonks's cottage made Ollie's blood run as cold as the spring air that wafted through the forest clearing.

Not even a whispering or rustling of the leaves rent the air. It was as if Mother Nature herself conspired to keep him in the dark, in the shadows where he belonged, not daring to whisper the reassurance he craved as Ollie fought his memories.

The silence was a poison to the father and son, for in that void of sounds, the shallowness of their conversation was laid bare, now utterly vapid.

As Ollie scanned Jack's face for a reaction as the silence between them continued to hang in the air like the suspended moment before a falling glass shatters on the ground.

He expected his father to scream, to protest, to hex him, even, but Jack Brennan did none of those things. "You are angry, Oliver."

Jack spat his words matter-of-factly and shook his head, as though he had expected better of his only surviving son, his bastard.

"Why wouldn't I be? Father," he spat the word with no semblance of warmth. "I became unacceptable when I rejected the path of your previous fellow Death Eaters," Ollie growled, his tone flat as he slowly fingered his wand, turning his back on his father. "You disowned me. You beat me within an inch of my life. What more reason do I have to talk with you? Why did you come?"

Jack's fingers stilled as his wand hand gripped tightly onto his own wand and he almost growled with the effort to restrain himself.

"You're mistaken, Oliver, if you think that I am here to quarrel with you," the Death Eater lazily drawled as he turned languidly to face his bastard son, his darkened brown eyes looking almost bored.

Ollie ground his teeth together in annoyance and clenched his shaking hands into fists, lowering them to prevent himself from striking out against his father in anger, though he wasn't, in all honesty, sure how much longer he could control his temper for.

His mind struggled to understand where his father could have been the whole time that his family had believed him to be dead.

Sanguinely, Ollie lifted his head and regarded Jack Brennan with a confused scowl.

"Why?" he asked, his face holding not the renewed passion that Jack Brennan had hoped to find, but a horrible impassive indifference. "Why have you sought me out?"

"To bring you home," and the Death Eater was not at all surprised when the younger man immediately took offense to his judgmental tone.

He straightened his posture, glowering at his father with an incredulous look on his pale face and in his eyes.

"No. I am at home. This," Ollie growled, wildly gesticulating to the forest clearing around him and pointing back in the direction that the two of them had come from, "is my home. This is where I live. My friends have graciously opened their home to my girlfriend and I. We've already agreed to house sit for them when they go back to Hogwarts. I'm not going back."

His anger flared as he paused to draw in a breath. Ollie drew in a shaking breath and raised his wand in his trembling hand and pointed it squarely at his father's chest.

"I don't care what your reasonings are. If you move, I'll slit your throat," Ollie snarled, the edges of his thin lips curling upward.

"You've gotten in the way, boy," Jack Brennan growled.

"Got in the way of what?" Ollie snarled, not about to tolerate his father's roundabout answers or his tracks, despite the fact that his heart was racing in his chest, pounding against its cage and threatening to break free, for once, it was not in anger, but fear.

Jack managed a small, sardonic laugh as he lifted his gaze and met his son's eyes.

"I speak of the bitch, of course. Your Norah. You truly think the werewolf would waste her precious time and energy on a broken, battered man like you, when someone like me could provide for the werewolf in the ways that you clearly lack, boy," he growled.

Ollie's father's words were nonchalant as if they meant nothing, however, the listlessness in his eyes told a different story.

"She would be a fine addition to our ranks, those few left loyal to the Dark Lord's cause, given what she is, and what she knows, considering Crouch told me she's lived in the Forest all her life, yes?"

Ollie silently seethed, trying in vain to conceal his emotions, he even struggled in the effort to avoid clenching his teeth in anger and failed at that too, and after a moment spent in heavy silence, his father's cold smile widened even further.

"I couldn't believe it, when I first paid your old master a visit in Azkaban a few weeks ago, boy," Ollie's father murmured as he took a few steps towards his son as Ollie retreated, looking more and more unsure of himself as his resolve faltered and hardened exterior cracked. "I did not believe Bartemius at first. I couldn't imagine you, the miserable little bastard that you are, a man whose blood is tainted with the people you've killed, you've always remained so detached, and yet, here you stand, wanting to scream it at the top of your lungs so the whole bloody Merlin-damned world can hear you."

Ollie kept his gaze fixated on his father, steady, and impassive, even as his father continued.

"It's pathetic, is what it is," his father snapped, stepping even closer to his son, their eyes now level with one another. "To think of you, my son, of all people, to have fallen in love with a wretched little werewolf, that little bitch."

He had slowly begun to feel as though the ground beneath their boots was causing him to sink into the earthen floor, his body going rigid and unable to move, much less his mind able to form a cohesive thought, though at that moment, Ollie felt his fear leave him and he was left with nothing more to lose.

He would not lose Norah, not to anyone, and especially not to his father, and he felt something within him shift and snap as his head whiplashed up.

A chill ran through Jack Brennan's spine as he heard his son's hollering yell that reverberated in the forest's clearing like a clap of thunder. It made him shudder as a freezing cold wind would wake someone.

His blood ran cold and a bead of sweat dripped down his face. The Death Eater felt his right hand curl around the hilt of a dagger he had hidden up the sleeve of his robe, hating that it had come to this, though the boy was leaving him with no other choice.

Ollie broke at last, snapping, restlessly pacing the forest clearing and raking his hands painfully on his face and in his thick tuft of black hair, sweat and tears painting his cheeks as his last surviving son ranted.

"I did EVERYTHING you've ever asked of me. Everything! I did not kill my brother! Norah is MY girlfriend you—you son of a bitch! MINE! Even after disowning and abandoning me, you'd try to steal her? WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?"

Ollie looked livid.

His son seized on tufts of his hair and tugging on them so hard that it looked as though the roots of his jet black strands screamed in protest, going on a repeat of all the why's before kicking the boulder he was standing behind, and Jack let out a haggard sigh.

The Death Eater's face revealed no remorse as he smiled, albeit almost sadly, or as close as he could manage when it came to feeling a semblance of anything for his only living son, bastard though he was.

"Oliver, what to do with you," he sighed tiredly. "I am told that the apple does not fall far from the tree. I cannot prove it, and you may or may not have killed my true son, my Dominic. He was never a disappointment to me like you have been, but I do know one thing. You're no son of mine."

Oliver, almost in slow motion, slowly lifted his head, and Jack was not at all surprised to see unshed moisture, wretched tears, glistening in his son's pale blue orbs.

He truly was a broken bastard, his only surviving son. Taped and held together at the seams, but still alive.

"You wish now that our places had been exchanged," he whispered hoarsely, blinking back a fresh wave of salty, briny tears, and swallowing hard. "That I had died, and Dominic had lived."

Jack pursed his lips into a thin line.

"Yes," he growled, lowering his voice to almost a hushed whisper and actively avoided his son's gaze, careful to keep the dagger hidden in his sleeve.

"Yes, I wish that," Jack hissed languidly, shaking back the sleeve of his robe.

Clutched in his hand in an ironclad grip rested the dagger. "Perhaps then, my son, the time has finally come for you to find peace."

Off to his right, something silver glistened out of Ollie's peripheral vision, and given their close physical proximity distance, he barely had the time to dodge the blade as it hurled towards him, though by whatever grace Merlin had chosen to bestow on a broken bastard like him, he managed to wrap his hands around his father's wrists, staving the dagger from reaching its intended target.

Him.

Ollie felt his hand begin to shake violently, as the knife quivered in his hold, his lips trembling as he looked into the cold brown eyes of the man he had once called Father, the man's eyes no longer filled with eased confidence and a cold indifference.

He cursed himself for his own blindness. Why had he not seen the truth that much sooner? Ollie did not know who he was angrier with in this moment: Father or himself.

Not Father, he thought, seething through gritted teeth. Just Jack.

The pressure in Ollie's head finally exploded along with a blood-curdling scream that caused the own hairs on the back of his neck to stand up as he grunted and growled with the effort, tearing the dagger away from him and plunged it into Jack Brennan's chest.

He dove at Jack, tackling him to the ground, and plunged his father's knife, the very same dagger, Ollie noticed, that had caused the hundreds of scars that littered his torso and arms, all of them made when he was a little boy, no older than five or six.

He dug the dagger deep into Jack's chest with such a raging passion that Ollie swore he felt his pupils shrink.

A series of memories flitting through his mind as though it were a Pensieve rolled in his mind and with it, it equaled a hard rip through flesh.

The other kids in Hogwarts that ganged up on him in his first year and dunked his head in a toilet in one of the bathrooms, his mother leaving him and Dominic alone with just their father for company, sunsets spent on the mezzanine of their balcony, his friendship with Charlie and Tonks.

And Norah. A beautiful werewolf with a tough-as-nails exterior that she had adapted to hide her pain from the rest of the world. Cobalt blue eyes.

The most beautiful thing to happen to him.

Norah saving him and Tonks from those wild centaurs with just the Sword of Gryffindor, not even needing her wand to defend herself, Norah in her long silver dress the night of Remus and Dora's wedding, Norah terribly sick in his arms, crying over the loss of her husband and son, Norah glaring at him before erupting into an explicit stream of cuss words that Remus Lupin would have shouted at her for saying in the company of his now three-day-old baby son.

Norah taking the simple white lily he had offered her, smiling at him underneath the willow and elm trees. Her lips pressed against his with fervor, how her skin was ticklish at the nape of her neck.

Ollie felt his strength began to drain away as he made one last push of his father's blade into Jack's lungs, Ollie's blood-slimed fingers remained still and unmoved, despite the spasmodic twitch now and again.

His father's lifeless form crumpled to the ground and Ollie felt himself collapse back against the overly large boulder behind him, using the rock as a support brace as he hung his head in shame, bathed in his father's blood, that precious life force, and wept.

His shoulders started to heave in the sweet release of his life's worth of anguish and pain, his throat screaming for relief, just a single drop of water, and hot rapid tears marred his blurred vision.

Up ahead, he swore he heard the sound of a twig snapping and leaves crunching underfoot reach his throbbing, ringing eardrums, and between Ollie's convulsive catching of his breaths unrecognized between his hysterical fits of laughter and sobbing as he tugged on tufts of his hair to relieve himself of the pain of what he'd just done, he looked.

Tonks and Lupin stood by, their faces drained of color, and their normally kind expressions now spoiled by what Ollie could only describe as a look of an intense, incredulous, psychological disturbance at what their friend had just done to his father.

His wide blue eyes peered between his raven-black bangs drenched in sweat and blood, his father's blood, as he shakily took a faltering step forward towards his friends, though not before pausing to kick aside his father's corpse with his boot, shooting Jack Brennan one last look of disgust.

Jack Brennan lay face-up on the forest floor, his dead brown eyeless lifeless, staring numbly at the trees' canopy above his head, a massive cavity adorning his chest, staining his shirt crimson, the dagger still stuck in his chest, and there, Ollie knew it would stay.

Ollie felt his entire body instinctively stiffen as he took a half-step towards Remus and Tonks, watching as Lupin clenched his jaws, his gaze flitting from Ollie's disheveled, bloodied state and back to his father's corpse which still lay unmoved on the ground.

"Are you hurt? Did Jack hurt you? Do you need a Healer, Ollie?" was the first thing Remus asked of Ollie as Dora's husband gave him a quick once-over, though it had become almost impossible to discern what blood belonged to Ollie, and which was his father's.

He mutely shook his head, grinding his teeth and nervously focusing his attention on his best friend.

"T?" he questioned, his voice cracking and breaking under the strain of attempting to speak. "Say something," he stammered.

His voice cracked and broke as tears streamed down his cheeks.

If Tonks was disturbed by the aftermath of what had transpired between her best friend and his father, Tonks hid it well.

"C'mon, Ol," she murmured, draping one of his arms around her waist and supporting him as his equilibrium was still off. "Let's get you home," she said, no hint of accusatory judgment in her tone.

"Home," he repeated hoarsely, feeling fresh tears well up in his eyes again, though this time, thankfully, they were tears of happiness. "Home sounds good to me, T. Let's go home, then…"

Ollie allowed Lupin and Tonks to lead him out of the woods behind their cottage and back to the backyard, where Norah sat on the bottom steps, playing with baby Teddy, entranced by the baby's natural Metamorphmagus abilities to change his hair, and Ollie didn't bother to stop the smile that formed on his face as he took a closer look and saw that the baby boy had changed its hair to resemble hers, a soft golden yellow that rivaled the color of the sun.

Ollie did not dare let himself look back once over his shoulder, for that segment of his life had just died along with Jack Brennan.

This, he thought as he looked around at Lupin and Tonks and Norah holding onto baby Teddy, this was his home now.

And he wouldn't change it for anything in the world.


A/N: I was initially not going to have Ollie kill his father, thinking I didn't want my poor cinnamon roll to have even more blood on his hands, but considering what a creep* Jack Brennan is, I thought, even if Ollie DID let him go, the man would never stop hunting him down in the effort to humiliate him & eventually kill him, and Jack did just sort of try to kill his own son, so there's that.

The next chapter (freaking finally!) has Remadora and Nollie back at Hogwarts so that Remus can start to prepare for a new term in September and Tonks can get used to being back at the school, and hopefully this time, her talent for trouble won't get her into trouble!

Oh, and Vielen Dank= thank you!