A/N: This chapter starts off after the last chapter ends. The basis of this chapter was written from the end of what was chapter 5 (the last 200 words), which I have greatly expanded upon.

Chapter 9: Decisions of Responsibility

When Vernon had spent himself against Haydon's hip, he removed the weights from Haydon's body and then went back to his drink's cabinet. Hayden stayed where he was, remaining unmoving on his front until he was given instructions. Vernon seemed to have worked out whatever was in his system and would likely be stumbling to his bed soon.

"Clean everything up," Vernon grunted after downing a glass of scotch.

Hayden remained where he was until Vernon stumbled passed him and he could hear the lumbering steps begin stomping up the stairs.

Once he was alone in the room, Haydon spat the cloth out and rolled onto his side – coughing and gagging at the feel of the residue fabric which had fallen off the cloth and remained in his mouth. When he stopped coughing, he slowly got to his knees while automatically drawing a hand to his stomach to press onto the deep cut there. From the way he'd been pressed into the floor, he wasn't bleeding as heavily, but he was still losing some blood from this wound unlike the rest of the cuts he'd taken where he'd already stopped bleeding.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to clean the room while also dripping blood, Haydon slowly got to his feet. He swayed for a moment, closing his eyes as he went light headed as the lose of blood and change of height affected him. Once the light headedness had passed, Haydon picked up his clothes and headed up the stairs and into the bathroom.

He left his clothes on the toilet seat before going back to the nursery. He briefly checked on Marigold who was still sleeping in her crib, before picking up the first aid stuff head kept ready in a small bag inside of his mother's bag. The first aid bag only had things that he'd stolen from Petunia or bandages he'd made from old sheets, needles and thread and other such things. The only magical first aid supplies he included was a blood-replenisher as an emergency use in the event that he needed to replenish his blood before treating his injuries.

Back in the bathroom, Haydon moved his clothes to the top of the toilet before sitting on the lid. From the first aid bag, he pulled the needle and thread and the alcohol and some cloth.

Pouring the alcohol into the cloth, Haydon gritted his teeth before beginning to clean his stomach. Once the cloth was so saturated with his blood that it wouldn't do any good, Haydon placed it into the bath tube before grabbing the needle and thread. He sterilised the needle with the alcohol and then began the process of knitting his skin back together. As it was on his stomach, he was able to make the lines neater than some of his other scars which were jagged from the way his skin had been pulled and torn.

By the time he'd finished the final stitch, Haydon had sweat covering his brow and his jaw hurt from having gritted his teeth for too long to stop himself from calling out with each stitch. This was the fifth time he was having to stich himself back up, and he was uncomfortable with the fact that it was getting easier. If he kept having to do this, sowing himself back up, then Haydon feared that he would become desensitised to the pull and relatively minor pain of the stitching in comparison to the other pain he was faced with.

No longer needing them, Haydon put the alcohol, needle and thread away into the first aid kit.

He closed his eyes and listened. It took a second for his ears to adjust, but then the sounds of his uncles loud snoring came through the walls and he knew that it was safe to shower. When he'd been drinking, Vernon wasn't easy to wake so the sound of the shower would be safe as long as he was in and out before Petunia and Dudley got back and he was running out of time. He was expecting them to be back at any moment.

Turing the water to lukewarm, Haydon stepped under the spray. He hadn't even reached for the soap before he was doubling over vomiting as what had happened in the office caught up with him. The bile burned in his throat as the water gentle hit his back and washed everything down the drain.

When the bile turned to drive heaving, Haydon steadied himself against the wall and started taken some deep breaths. After a few repeats, the heaving stopped and he was able to straighten himself up. if he had tears pouring down his cheeks, then the evidence was washed away by the shower water and Marigold wasn't there for him to be strong for.

Needing to feel clean, to get Vernon and the blood off him, Haydon reached for the soup and covered himself from head to toe. He consciously used careful circles as he applied the soap, not wanting to open any of his wounds even as he cleaned away dried blood. Three times, he covered his body and hair in soap and washed it away until his skin had started taking on a pink ting. It was as his skin turned pink and began looking irritated that Haydon forced himself to stop, putting the soap back before he could wash himself for a fourth time.

Before he turned off the shower, Haydon made sure to wash the cloth that he'd used to clean his stomach – ringing it out and hanging it over the edge of the bath tub. Washing the blood out before it could dry meant that it didn't stain and so he could use it again once it had dried off.

Drying himself with careful pats of the towel, Haydon got dressed before cleaning the bathroom so his use wouldn't be noted. He returned everything to the nursery before going back to the office to clean up all his blood and put the 'tools' away.

He was still working on scrubbing the floor and chair clean of blood when he heard Petunia and Dudley come home. They headed straight up to bed, it seemed that even Dudley was too tired to complain or demand anything since all Haydon heard from his cousin was his heavy stomping up the staircase.

Haydon was exhausted when he finally finished and returned to the nursery. He'd been planning on simple collapsing on his mattress to get some sleep before being woken up in the morning to be given an impossible list of chores on top of his duty to care and teach the one-year-old under his care.

Instead, when he entered the nursery, it was to find Marigold sat up and holding onto the bars of her crib. Her eyes were wide and curious. When she saw Haydon come into the room, she smiled brightly.

"Dadda," the babbled word froze Haydon for half a second.

Marigold had been getting better with her baby babble but he hadn't thought that she was close to saying her first word yet, and he definitely hadn't expected her to call him 'dadda' as her first word. He hadn't been encouraging her to call him dad because he had no way of explaining that to the common person, but she must have picked it up at pre-school. She was smart enough to make the connection.

"Hay baby, what are you doing awake?" Haydon asked as he lifted her from the stomach.

He rested Marigold on his hip for a moment as he walked over to his bed and took a seat – he wouldn't be able to keep holding Marigold until she went back to sleep. Leaning back against his pillows, Haydon rested Marigold against his chest.

"Dadda," Marigold repeated happily waving her arms round. "Da."

Haydon chuckled softly.

"As happy as I am to hear you," Haydon kissed Marigold's nose, getting a delighted giggle, "you need more than three hours of sleep. Especially since you didn't nap today, little one."

"Dadda… sta." Marigold waved one of her arms around.

Haydon smiled indulgently. In the last few weeks Marigold had started saying 'sta' which he'd figured out meant story. She was asking for him to read her a story.

He'd returned all the children's stories that he'd borrowed from the library and he'd been forced to move all the children's books that Petunia had brought into Dudley's second bedroom.

Over the summer, Petunia wanted him to turn the second bedroom into a library room – with bookshelves covering all the walls and glass doors protecting the protecting. It was going to be a big project for him to complete, and he wasn't happy about including Marigold's books. He would have to hide any books he brought her in the future, although he typically got her books from the library as he could return them once she'd gotten bored of them.

"Alright, a story. Let's see… There was a great city called Babylon were all the people of the world lived. After many decades of prosperity, a new king rose to the throne of Babylon.

'Build me a tower' he ordered. 'A tall tower so that I my survey all the land before me like the gods above.'

The people did as the king ordered and began building the tallest tower that had ever been built by man. It was a so tall, some say, that it seemed to reach the heavens themselves.

But the gods looked down upon the city of man and they were displeased. They believed that the humans had grown to arrogant in their years, to full of their own intelligence and power. So, to teach them a lesson the gods decided to grant every human a curse.

A curse, which after several years humanity would grow to see as a gift as they learnt their lesson.

You see, the gods made it so that all the humans were talking different tongues. They could not understand each other's words anymore."

Haydon stopped his story there as Marigold had fallen into sleep. He wasn't a Christian, but the story of Babylon also appeared in the Pegan stories that his father had included as part of his wizarding heritage. His mother had been raised a Christian, and even in the last few months of her diary entries there was indicators of her faith still holding true, while his father seemed to be a Pagan or at least the wizarding equivalent.

Returning Marigold to her crib Haydon went to his diaries and started going through them and marking mages with some yellow paper from his school bag. Telling the story had woken him enough that he felt that he could tackle this task now as he didn't know if he would have the time before he next had the opportunity to go to the library. He knew that the Dursleys were going to be keeping him busy for the next week, but he was hoping to start going back to work the week after that.

He'd be able to scan and copy several pages to send to the policy then. What Vernon had done to him that night… Haydon had to take the chance that he and Marigold would be removed from the house and be kept together. And if they weren't removed from the house, then at least he tried. He wouldn't be able to live with the guilt weighing on his mind if didn't try and report the Dursleys and get him and Marigold out before he was old enough to take the both of them into the wizarding world.

Old Count: 194 (end of chapter 5)

New Count: 1,943

A/N: the original next chapter was Chapter 6. In the re-write, I will be taking the first 1,200words and expanding then into two or even three chapters to go over a little more of Haydon and Marigold's relation and how they grew up since a few of the details between them have changed (like Haydon's report to the police). I'm not sure how long those are going to take me to write.

A/N 2: Please be aware that I've not actually edited these chapters, so there are going to English errors and even missed things like dates in the chapters. Like, I automatically wrote 1994 even though I've set this story a decade back. It should now read 80s in all the times that the decade appears, but if it doesn't, please let me know!