26 - Silence


The captain was calm again, in control, and Harry was very pleased to see it. Even though he didn't really know the man – not beyond a name and a job or beyond other, powerful or prince.

But to see a proud man brought to his knees was not something the wizard particularly enjoyed, especially when said man had made no move against him (as far as he knew) despite the fact that Harry might just be encroaching on his territory somehow.

He still wasn't entirely sure how it worked, the Wesen world and its unwritten rules - though he had come across quite a few of the written ones by now, having spent time in Rosalee's spice shop and Nick's trailer. But he didn't think going around and cutting heads off was the right answer here. Or at any time, actually.

"Captain Renard," Harry greeted with a welcoming smile on his face, "you look better."

The tall man blinked at the unmerited warm greeting but inclined his head in acknowledgment and seated himself in the same chair as before – one where he couldn't be seen from the windows.

The wizard wondered what this visit was about, because if there was one thing he was sure of with this particular guest, it was that he was a proud and powerful man. And such men had a tendency to guard their own weaknesses fiercely. So he rather suspected that whatever the police captain would want to talk about, it was anything but their previous meeting.

Which worked for Harry, because he didn't want to discuss it either - he had too many secrets for that. But he had the feeling that the Prince had as many secrets as he had, if not more. And considering that Harry was a wizard-saviour from a different world with a title as dubious as 'The Master of Death'... that was saying something.

Still, the man wore his veil of secrecy well.

Better than Harry, he could admit in the privacy of his mind. He could keep a secret if he had to, and keep it well, but there were secrets, confidences kept, and there were secrets – those that were related to fake smiles at real friends and lies that kept adding up to one big one.

Harry never felt right about lying to people he cared for. Usually that left him with silence instead.

A silence that sometimes gnawed at him, and made him think what if…?

He was a Gryffindor, but his courage – unbending as it was - was not enough to erase years of being called a 'freak' by the only family he had.

Silence could be a heavy weight, but sometimes it was easier to bear than the alternative.

The police captain seemed to know silence as intimately as Harry did, and for a moment he wondered not what this man was, but who he was as a person and why his secrets were kept.

But the thought passed, and their silence remained.


Word Count: 500