In the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, fifteen year old Darcy Dursley should logically have been in school. Instead, he stood illogically in a crowded train station, waiting by someone he wasn't convinced he wanted to be near.

"Hmph. I can't believe your father," his mother huffed, her chest visibly puffing out as might a small bird's.

"I imagine otherwise," Darcy said dully back.

His mother paused, inhaling with such exasperation and wistfulness that it seemed possible she was draining Darcy's emotions to double her own. Her hand rocked across her cheek. "Oh, I wish you weren't right."

Were King's Cross Station not currently filled with the wizarding oddities of London, Darcy could infer they'd blend into the crowd. Instead, the general impression that they perhaps belonged where they were now waiting in itself set them apart.

As per the usual, Darcy's mother had a book perched in her purse. Her eyes, which seemed a good two sizes too large for the rest of her, scanned the bustling crowd. Her neck stretched further over her collar as she surveyed the floor, emphasizing both her towering stature and meticulously proper posture. As for Darcy himself, he was as physically intimidating as a slightly overgrown porcelain hobbit. Between his sleeked-back espresso brown hair, fingerless gloves, black nail polish and rounded, boyish features, he projected the image of a sheltered angst ball who despised the world for few justifiable causes outside of unfortunate hormones.

"Oh, god, he's going to be late. What is he doing to that boy? Ironing his shoes?" his mother complained, her tone somehow managing a hint of chiming chipperness even when annoyed.

Struggling against his own exasperation, Darcy turned his back to his mother and told her what he should have some time ago. "I'm going to pee."

"Be quick, ok? You don't want to miss your brother!" Colleen ordered at his back. Though Darcy was sure she'd call it advice, Darcy had the advantage of perspective that came with not being the person doing the speaking. That was an order.

Darcy being himself, he couldn't resist doing two things in quick succession. The first was to not acknowledge his mother with so much as twitching in her direction. The second was to answer like what he had to say was completely normal. "No. I do. It's best not to pee on him."

He imagined Colleen held her hands cupped around her lips to scold him. "Darcy! Watch your words. You're—"

"A potty mouth?"

"Darcy! You-! Urgh." His mother sputtered briefly, holding words about his sass back in favor of what were hardly words at all. She turned away, searching for Atticus once more.

It was nothing new for Darcy to be ignored in favor of his brother. Ever since he'd started Hogwarts, Atticus was barely around. In the rare instance he was, his parents fought over his attention to the neglect of everything else, especially Darcy. In the past, that used to be an annoyance. While still bothersome, Darcy had learned to play it to his advantage.

In this particular instance, the advantage allowed him to sneak off into a stall of the men's restroom, pull out his mobile phone and check his messages. Six missed calls flashed across the lock screen, all of them from the same set of digits. No name was attached, just an area code and too many voice mails to bother hearing.

Darcy raised the phone, redialed and squatted over the toilet, mimicking vulnerability in case someone came in to check on him.

It was a well-kept secret among his class mates that if there was something of sufficient challenge and moral questionability one needed taken care of, Darcy was a good call. It had started in fourth year, when one of Darcy's acquaintances bet him he couldn't get their obnoxious former valedictorian-to-be suspended. One fabricated Adderall-dealing drug ring later, Darcy was essentially the fixer of St. Gerard's Secondary School.

The person behind the number answered on the third ring. "The hell're you, Dursley?"

"Train."

"Get back here! 'Fore I send someone to shove you in front of it!"

Darcy clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "No way to talk to friends, Alan.."

"I don't pay my fregging friends, shitwad,"Alan snapped again.

"Double rate for berating me," he dismissed.

It was a shame he wasn't there to witness it, Darcy supposed. Even without being there in person, he could practically visualize smoke rising from his classmate's ears. "Fifty euros and a gift card. Look—"

"Listen, you mean."

For once, the classmate managed to ignore it in favor of their point. "Get me my test fixed. Today. Dr. Newmann, chemistry. I need at least an 85. Or God help you, I'll beat your face in with a rake and shove it up your ass."

"Too much Netflix, I take it," he snarked. They didn't appreciate the humor, so he moved on. "I'll get it. Later."

"Today."

Darcy swayed inside the toilet stall. He pressed his cheek against the stall wall, using it and his face to hold the phone upright. "Yes, kingpin, today. When I'm physically capable of taking it."

"You couldn't physically take a paper doll."

"Well, you couldn't take a test."

"Do it, bitch," they snapped all the way up to the hum of their dial tone.

Darcy finished up his business. He snapped his last button up in place, plucked his phone off the wall and headed out to wash his hands, all the while mumbling to himself. "Of course, Jesse Pinkman..."

As was to be expected, the station was still bustling. People weaved and swerved their carts through the crowd, paying little mind to anything but their destination. They were so preoccupied that Darcy doubted anyone would spot him as he nudged his way down a nearby escalator, strolling past people who lacked the sense of time to walk down moving stairs. They also wouldn't look as he rushed up to the Starbucks counter and rejoined the waiting crowd.

"Taylor!" one of the smocked-baristas shouted. "Taylor!" At the second call, a head popped through the crowd, outstretched a hand and claimed their drink.

Darcy let his hands settle in his pockets and let out a puff of air, rustling his hair aside. He rocked back to the heels of his feet to appear impatient and distracted—putting on the airs of precisely the sort of person no one would want to bother.

"Jessica!" the barista shouted. Another person nudged up to fetch her drink.

Briefly, Darcy considered grabbing his legitimate phone, where he could browse the internet in peace. He started to reach his hand further in to snatch it, but stopped to observe the barista again.

"Alice! Alice!" they called. No one moved, so they set the drink down and began the cycle anew, calling this time for "Ricky!"

As Darcy was turning to check the line, the glimmer of a red badge approached through his peripheral vision. It was tiny and, to most, non-descript—a simple golden P emblazoned into the shape of a maroon shield, affixed to the lapel of a stranger's pea coat. The coat's wearer had shoulder-length, straight red hair and the sort of polished posture that would've impressed his mother. The sight of this stranger curled his left lip with the tiny satisfaction of knowing something no one else would. That was a Hogwarts prefect badge.

Had he any sense of consideration, Darcy would have left the stand completely. Instead, he watched where the girl chose to settle, directly in front of the care not to bump anyone leaving with a drink, Darcy outstretched his left hand and moved it ahead of him, feeling his way into an open spot. He continued through the small cluster all the way over to a few diagonal steps away from the red haired girl's back. His eyes slanted knowingly towards her shoulder, back to the pin once more.

"Mass production, so quaint. You'll miss it in Scotland," he remarked.

The girl's head turned on a swivel, snapping over to his direction in unison with an uppity "excuse me?" worthy of her stance. "Do I know you?"

"If you're asking, I'd think it obvious," Darcy dismissed.

Her eyebrows furrowed, wrinkling her forehead so drastically that not even her fringe could block the sight. "Fine. Am I supposed to know you? As in, have we met?"

Darcy shrugged. "I've met people like you. Except they were subtle."

"Henry?" the barista called over them.

Another man started to move through the crowd. Darcy took a step forward and turned, creating more space at the counter. He had also blatantly crowded this girl, but leaning in seemed to help with the effect. It also gave him the space to reach straight for her lapel.

Darcy pinched the pin between his fingers, pulling the collar of her jacket up. "Literal badge of honor. Flashy. The barnyard school's so proud."

Just as his fingers were wrapping around the pin, the girl grabbed his hand with both of hers and pushed it away. "It's my father's."

Darcy gestured to twist his hand out of her grasp. "Flashy and deceptive, then." Her grip stayed secure, restraining him. He jostled his hand again to no real progress. "Not to mention distrusting. This is such a great package," he taunted as innocuously as one could taunt anything.

Her sigh managed the feat of being even more exasperated than his mother's. "What, exactly, is your problem?"

"Parental neglect and recurring obsessive urges to commit mass murder."

If it did nothing else, it had still given the girl beside him pause. She stared at him at a loss for words.

"Will!" the barista interjected. Darcy turned towards the crowd, checking for signs of movement.

The lack of eye contact gave the girl a bit of time to adjust. Her head tilted to her right side, causing her hair to sway along with it. "Has anyone ever told you to see a therapist?" she asked, at the point of sounding more genuinely concerned than insulted.

"You know what those are? In Scotland?" he emphasized the word to indicate he really meant 'In the Wizarding World', "They must be awful." Darcy's smirk almost cracked into a smile at the mental image of a wizard in a pointed hat and wand studying Freud.

As far as Darcy could tell, no one else was moving when the barista called for "Will?" again.

Darcy reached those extra few centimeters over the counter to grab the stray cup, turned to the girl and raised it to her in what would have been a cheer if she'd received her drink yet. "But yes. They have. Often."

"You really should listen."

Darcy turned his back to the girl. He took a sip from the stranger's drink, struggled not to sputter at the shocking sweetness, swallowed, and gave as casual a taunt back as he could. "If you conjure my prescription, maybe."

He hadn't made it more than five steps from the counter when the barista called out "Rose!"

The name itself hadn't bothered him at all, but the "thank you," in the magic red-head's voice had given him reason to glimpse back. He watched her reflection marching alng behind him, her stride widening with determination to catch right back up to Darcy's side.

Darcy lowered his head into his mystery drink, trying to ignore the world in artificial sweeteners. She wouldn't have anything of it.

"In seriousness, Will. Provided you know what serious means, if you meant a word of that, find help," she suggested, managing a pitch of authoritative concern that made Darcy's left eyebrow twitch on reflex.

He waited until Rose was a few steps ahead of him before calling at her back. "Yeah, well, hakuna matata, princess Nala" He could only hope that witches still watched Disney movies, or that would've been total gibberish to Rose. (It was).

The stroll back to the platform was a long one. Had Darcy picked a different restroom and coffee shop, he could've been back in a matter of minutes. Instead, he'd positioned himself so that he'd needed to walk adjacent to platform 8 for most of its lengths before finally spotting platforms 9 through 11.

It didn't take a particularly keen eye to spot his family and the over-packed trolley between them. The bug-eyed woman he had to call mum and the looming bolder on two legs that was his dad were each standing to the opposite side of his cherubly chubby little brother, forcefully oblivious to the other's existence in favor of their darling little boy. Recently, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley had started the process of their divorce. They were currently the type of separated where the alternative option was a double homicide.

"And make sure you play nice with your little friends. There's a calendar I tucked in Robinson Crusoe. You can use it to write down their birthdays, and let me know when they are. Then, I can send you presents for them," Colleen cooed into Atticus' right ear. She wrapped both of her hands firmly around his shoulders, on the verge of restraining him with a snake-like yet cheerful grip.

Dudley knelt at the opposite side, clearly making no efforts at touching nor smothering whatsoever. Instead, he'd settled on the knowing half-nod of distant parenting, and his version of advice. "Some moron gives you trouble, find a stick and smack 'em. Shows authority."

Colleen's eyes snapped open. They flashed over to Dudley first, shooting him a look ordinarily meant for disapproving witnesses to patients in an asylum. "No, no, no no no… Don't listen to daddy, dear, that's not how smart people solve problems." She switched right back to sugary cheer and gave Atticus another squeeze.

"Smart people get beat up. Hit them once. If it's a good hit, they leave you alone," Dudley repeated, ignoring Colleen right back.

Again, Colleen lifted her eyes in scolding. "Dudley! How can you say that? We're setting an example for the rest of his entire life, both of us barely see him, and heaven knows what he's learning up at that school. The least you can do is—"

He interrupted her attempt at an argument with his own. "It works."

As Darcy continued to approach the group, he wondered if it was his imagination, or if Atticus was truly turning a shade of white typically reserved for paper. Somehow, Colleen found it in her abilities to squeeze Atticus tighter, pulling him nudges away from Dudley in the process. "How can you say that to him? Even if that were true, which, that's only in prison that's true, he can't hear that! He can't hurt someone! He's a little boy." One of her arms coiled further up Atticus' head, pulling her violet nails through his sandy blonde curls with overbearing affection. "My little boy. And he's yours too, last I checked, or did you change your mind on that?"

"He's twelve."

Colleen flung her hands off Atticus so she could start gesturing them at Dudley in various, almost-yet-not-quite-threatening ways. "Twelve is little! Look at his head! It's tiny, yet still disproportionate to the rest of him. Which means small. Dis-pro-por-tion-ate means it's small. Have you ever read a book I didn't give you?"

"Most twelve-year-olds are jerks! I was!"

"Jesus Christ, Dudley! Shut your mouth and listen—!"

While his parents continued to argue between platforms nine and ten, and some of Atticus' classmates walked around him, Atticus stood still, completely dumbfounded. His slightly-disproportionate eyes swelled more than usual, glistening at the precipice of crying. He blinked as many times as he could in quick succession, trying and struggling to hold potential tears at bay. He braced to speak up, but only managed a hiccup.

Darcy, on the other hand, could barely notice his parents arguing at this point. He'd heard them so much by now, they were the equivalent of the world's angriest nature sounds cd. He walked around the circle of family, grabbed Atticus' cart and yanked it back.

"Oi, Finch. Forget to pack the castle?" Darcy called over the stack of stuff.

Atticus gazed up at his older brother with what he meant to be forceful bravery, but, in the end, seemed more like another hiccup with the faintest resemblance to his name.

Darcy stepped to the left of the item pile. Atticus grabbed him by the leg and hugged on tight enough that, had Atticus been the slightest bit bigger, it could have just as easily been an attempt to strangle him.

At first, Darcy flinched. He forced himself into a state of near calm and plopped his hand on Atticus' head, tangling his hair about. "Seriously, be good. If you think me or dad would do it, don't. If mum would do it, probably not that, either."

"But what about breathing?" Atticus meant to joke back. It was still a joke, technically, but it lost some of its effectiveness when Darcy heard the crackling of near-tears.

Darcy bent over at the waist, lowering himself so that he could talk as close to eye level as possible. "We don't think about breathing. Unless we're underwater. And if you are, then breathing is drowning, and you also shouldn't do that, so, breathe mainly when you don't have to think about it. Okay?"

"Not really?" Atticus guessed, unsure of what he even could say. His head started drifting towards the floor.

Darcy tilted slightly to his left, angling himself so that he looked like he was on bended knee without doing so. "That's normal. This sucks. It'll keep sucking. But we're alive. We're here. And we want you to learn how to not explode the world, and have fun with cousin Lily. Okay?"

Atticus squinted, clearly not understanding what his brother wanted to hear. He guessed in the direction of honesty, giving a doubtful "nope?" in reply.

Darcy bobbed his head. "Perfect." He glimpsed over at the nearest clock. They had a good fifteen minutes before Atticus was due on the train—but more importantly, the clock was angled far enough away from the Dursley parents that they'd have to put forth an effort to see it.

Darcy pushed back on Atticus' cart, positioning it so he'd not be too far off in line to load on the platform. "Mum? Dad?" Darcy tried to call for their attention while standing up to his feet. Neither bothered to look. Darcy cleared his throat and tried a little more specifically. "It's five to eleven. Atticus is leaving."

The moment 'Atticus' got mentioned, Colleen seemed to spring to attention. "Darcy! Yes," Colleen stopped wagging her finger in Dudley's face in favor of crouching back down to Atticus and entrapping him in another hug. Atticus raised his hands the slight bit he could so he could mime a hug back through her grip. "Oh, Atty! Make sure you write. Mummy'll miss you. I love you so, so much, no one can love you more!"

Comfortable in the assumption his mum would ignore him for now, Darcy started to take a step back. He had been just about to take another sip of his stolen coffee when he spotted Rose's re-appropriated prefect badge from the corner of his eye. She glanced back at him with hostile suspicion, her eyes stating something she didn't have the time to convey in words before passing through the platform. She'd heard Colleen call his name.

Oh, well. Some witch Atticus went to school with possibly suspected Darcy stole another man's coffee. Darcy had done worse things. Hell, he planned to do worse things this afternoon.

With the self-assurance given, Darcy turned his back on the platform and his family. He reached into his pocket for his phone and walked away with disinterest. "Taking the train."

It was a mild surprise to Darcy that he'd heard a response back at all. His father had found it in him to give a quick order. "Text once you're there."

Darcy raised his right hand and gave a wave behind him. "Got it." He'd made sure to leave before his parents knew he was lying.