I know I left you guys off on a bit of a cliffhanger for the last chapter, so I really do promise that I'll try to get this one up quickly.
For some reason, I think Mrs. Weasley and Gabriel would clash over his kids - since she's obviously a much stricter parent than he would ever be. I imagine if Fred and George had done anything like the sand sofa incident, there would have been a lot of yelling.
I am also in the process of creating official art for the story. Yes, I said official art. AKA, you get to find out what everyone is supposed to look like. Family only, though - Gabriel and everyone else. I even managed to squeeze Sigyn in. I know we haven't seen a lot of her, but she'll start showing up more often later! In any case, I'll let you know when I finish the art, and you'll be able to check my profile for a link to it once I finish and put it up online.
There is also a finished piece already, of Gabriel, Michael, and Hermione, which I'll link to on my profile as well.
[Personal aside: review if you were emotionally unprepared for season 10]
Anyway. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter
There was no chance for the Weasleys and company to ask the questions they were obviously dying to in the hallway, what with three [technically] preteen pagan boys running around and shucking off their winter gear. This didn't prevent any of them from trying, though, resulting in several near collisions and Gabriel having to quickly make himself busy helping Fenris get his boots off or stuffing coats into the nearest closet to keep them off the floor where they were inevitably dropped, no matter how many times he reminded the boys.
Things only calmed down when the group all settled in the kitchen, Gabriel moving around the counters in the familiar routine of making hot chocolate - even though he could have snapped some up in an instant, it was a routine they were all familiar with, and even Gabriel had to admit that when he took the time to make it, it did taste a little better.
He was also keeping half his attention on the people sitting at the table behind him, since even though he did [sort of] trust the Weasleys it was really the first time the boys had properly met anyone outside their own family since they'd gotten back.
"So, er," It was Michael who finally broke the silence. "You had kids?" Ne couldn't stop nemself from sounding more than just faintly incredulous.
"No need to sound so surprised." Gabriel said while digging in the cabinet for mugs. He may not have been eager to share the news of his kids' existence, but there was no point stonewalling the Weasleys now that they did know.
"Really?" Hermione didn't sound any less surprised. "I mean - they do look sort of like you-"
"You mean they look similar to Harry Potter," Gabriel corrected her. "Believe me, I looked nothing like this when they were born."
Mrs. Weasley looked like she didn't know what to make of it, but she spoke up regardless. "Three boys," she said, scooting the basket over on the table so that it was more off to the side. "That must be difficult, especially with you at Hogwarts for most of the year." A very obvious fish for information.
"Not really," Gabriel shrugged, taking a drink from his own mug. "I mean, it sucks that I'm not here most of the time, but they're not fending for themselves or anything."
"So who takes care of them, one of your brothers?"
Gabriel tried not to laugh. He really did.
"What's so funny?" Michael looked almost offended that Gabriel had reacted so badly to nir question. "All I asked was-"
"I know-" Gabriel managed to get the words out through his laughter, doubling over and holding up a finger. "Give me a sec-" The idea of someone like Balthazar or even Castiel taking care of three half-pagans on their own was just too funny to keep bottled up.
"Nice to know you've got so much faith in me, brother," Came an irritated voice from the door which made everyone swing around on their seats.
Balthazar was leaning against the doorframe, and judging by Mrs. Weasley's scandalized expression none of them had expected someone who was wearing a shirt with a neckline down nearly to their belly button.
"Oh come on," Gabriel replied, ignoring the various [and most either incredulous or red-faced] reactions to Balthazar. "We both know you'd be shit at raising kids."
"Only because I've got more important things to do." Balthazar straightened, one hand remaining on the doorframe. "Speaking of more important things, where did you put it all?"
"I have no idea what you mean," Gabriel said innocently, slurping out of his mug again. Balthazar's eyes narrowed.
"Yes, you do."
"Your stash was gone ages ago, if that's what you mean."
Balthazar stared at him in outrage. "Again? Are you ever going to stop getting rid of it?"
"Are you ever going to stop keeping liquor hidden away?" Gabriel shot back. "Really, Balthazar, how many times do I have to remind you?"
"Technically everyone in this house is legal - except your friends, I suppose." Balthazar eyed the Weasleys distastefully. "How long are they staying?"
Gabriel shrugged. "They just sort of showed up, honestly. And where did you spring from?"
"I was in the living room."
"Huh. I must have missed you yesterday."
"You're imagining that I spend weeks at a time not moving?"
"You're saying that you don't?"
The Weasleys had been watching the conversation with a mix of interest and bemusement. A sharp tug at his sleeve derailed Gabriel's conversation, and he looked down to see Fenris holding out an empty mug. "|It's gone.|"
"|Yeah, that happens when you don't have an unlimited supply.|"
"|I want more.|"
"|If you have more now, then there will be less later.|"
Jormungand frowned at that. "|No there won't, you'll just make more.|"
"|That doesn't mean you can have as much as you want.|"
"|I'm out, too,|" Slepnir helpfully supplied, nudging over his own empty cup.
"|Everyone gets more?|" Fenris looked up hopefully.
Gabriel surveyed the three expectant faces. "|Tell you what,|" he decided, "|Rock-paper-scissors. Winner gets what's left of mine.|"
Jormungand immediately turned to face Slepnir. "|Ready?|"
"|Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!|"
"|Noooo,|"
"Ha!" Slepnir smacked his fist lightly on top of Jormungand's 'scissors'. Gabriel glanced over at a snort from the doorway and saw that Balthazar had left.
"|My turn!|" Fenris wiggled onto Jormungand's lap to reach Slepnir. "|Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!|"
They both spread their hands wide.
Fenris looked at the matching 'paper's, then back at Gabriel. "|What now?|"
"|It's a tie, so you all get some.|" Gabriel had already distributed his remaining no-longer-quite-as-hot chocolate between the other three mugs while they were busy, and Fenris nearly fell off the chair getting to his.
"|Whoa, careful!|" Gabriel hoisted Fenris onto his lap, dragging his cup over. "|I have never seen someone get that excited over hot chocolate.|"
"|It's not really that hot anymore.|" Slepnir downed his share anyway, glancing over at the Weasleys in curiosity as he put it down. "|And you never told us who they were.|"
"|I didn't? They're friends from my school.|" Gabriel glanced at Mrs. Weasley. "|Well, most of them.|"
"I'm feeling a bit left out of this conversation," Michael commented.
"I could cast a translation spell if you like," Gabriel offered.
"No, thanks. If you did it I'd probably end up with pink hair."
"What's wrong with pink? I think it looks fine on you."
Michael's hands leaped to his hair. "You didn't-" He stopped when Fred and George startled giggling. Even Hermione was failing to conceal a small grin.
"Nice one," Fred laughed.
"You barely had to do anything," George snorted.
"I try." Gabriel didn't even try not to sound smug.
"I hate you all," Michael mumbled.
"Don't be like that, Michael," Gabriel was still grinning as he flicked the dark-haired boy lightly. "Lighten up!"
"|That's...a phrase, right?|" Slepnir tried tentatively.
"|A figure of speech. Good try.|" Gabriel ruffled Slepnir's hair, ignoring the noise of complaint it brought. "|You're getting good, though. Did you understand them?|"
"|No, he-|"
"|They. I'll explain later. Michael is complicated.|"
"|They talk too fast.|"
"What's he saying?" Hermione had leaned forward in interest.
"He says you talk too fast for him to understand." Gabriel answered. "Like I said, we're still working on English."
"|I wanna play a game.|" Jormungand announced, sliding off his chair and ducking around the still-open door into the living room. Fenris started wiggling on Gabriel's lap in a clear attempt to get down.
"|Use your words, Fenris.|" Gabriel got up too, Fenris eagerly following his older brother out of the room while Gabriel looked at Slepnir. "|You coming?|"
"|Yeah.|" Slepnir deposited his cup in the sink before leaving as well. Gabriel glanced at the Weasleys.
"I'm gonna warn you now, game night can get pretty intense so you might want to sit some of these out."
Gabriel couldn't say he hadn't warned them.
By the time they left the entire group looked a bit frazzled. Considering that there had been several incidents of magical interference, the card games had been rife with cheating, and at one point someone [aka Slepnir] had 'accidentally' caught the board on fire when he'd guessed wrong in Clue, Gabriel also didn't blame them for that.
Of course, game night had also led to demands that the Weasleys be invited back over for Christmas.
"|Why?|"
"|I like them.|" Fenris was draped over Gabriel, fiddling with a mess of tinkertoys he'd cobbled together.
"|So we should invite them over?|"
"|You said they were your friends.|" Slepnir didn't even look up as he commented, totally absorbed in his own creation. "|Wait, no - Jor, it's gonna fall over if you put that on top!|"
"|You said I could help.|"
"|But you're doing it wrong!|"
"|Okay, I think it's time for bed.|" Gabriel picked up Fenris as he stood, taking the Tinkertoy creation with little complaint, and the fact that Fenris simply burrowed into his shoulder was enough of an indication that it was bedtime for him, at least.
"|I'm not tired,|" Jormungand automatically replied.
"|Okay then.|" Gabriel yawned and stretched theatrically, grinning as both boys on the floor stifled yawns of their own. "|But you look pretty tired to me.|"
"|That's cheating,|" Slepnir protested, the last word fading out as he tried to catch another yawn.
"|Uh-huh. Bed.|"
"|I want a magic lesson.|"
Gabriel tilted his head back to properly look at Slepnir. He was lying on the sofa with his legs propped up against the back, a runes book held in one hand over his face. "|Magic lessons, huh? What for?|"
Slepnir's arms were stubbornly crossed. "|You keep saying we're not supposed to do magic on our own but you never teach us anything and most of the time you're not here to watch us.|"
"|Actually, I meant if there was anything specific you wanted to learn?|" If Slepnir was so determined to learn magic, who was Gabriel to stop him? Especially since refusing would make him a bit of a hypocrite, considering the reason he was gone so often was because he attended a magic school.
Slepnir's expression changed in an instant, arms dropping to his sides. "|Really? You will?|"
"|Why not?|" It's not like anyone else was in the house to remind him what a bad idea it was. Now that Gabriel thought about it, Vali and Narvi being gone might have been one of the reasons the three boys had been so fidgety lately, since they were used to their brothers being around most of the time.
Slepnir whooped and ran out of the room. "|He said yes!|"
Gabriel grinned, swinging his legs to the side and sitting up as three expectant boys tumbled into the room, all bearing broad grins. "|Looks like you guys planned this one out.|"
"|I wanna do illusions.|"
"|Hold on, Fenris, I don't think we got that far.|" Gabriel moved to the floor, letting his legs spread out in front of him, and Jormungand moved to mirror his position. "|Let's see, where did we leave off?|"
Fenris looked at Jormungand, who looked at Slepnir, who shrugged and looked at Gabriel. "|I don't know.|"
"|Well, we'll start of easy, since you guys haven't used it in a while.|" Gabriel raised a fist and let the fingers spread theatrically slowly, sparks spilling out between them and vanishing before they hit the carpet. "|Find your magic first, remember. You've got to get a good hold of it before you try anything too hard - especially since you guys are a little out of practice.|"
"|How?|" Fenris's eyes were fixed on Gabriel, an intense green stare.
"|Think, first. Your power isn't really gathered into a core, like the Weasleys have.|" Gabriel gestured widely, from his head to the floor. "|It's everywhere. It's a part of you, a part of your body and your mind, and learning to use it the right way is like learning to walk - you gotta take it slow, and you're going to fall down a couple times, and you need to make sure not to do anything before you're ready.|"
Gabriel glanced between the three of them. "|Understand?|"
"|Yeah.|"
"Mm hm."
"|Good.|" Most likely he'd already given them this speech before, so Gabriel decided to trust that they were telling the truth.
"|Okay. Now I want you to look. Just think and look for it. It's sort of like meditating - you know what that is, right?|" A couple of mildly confused nods. "|Just, relax. Don't think about anything. Just sit there quietly. You think you can manage that?|" Less confused nods from all three of them. "|Okay. Because you've got to find your magic before you can use it properly. Because, when you're learning to walk, you can see your legs, right? You know they're there, and you can see them, you've just got to figure out what to do with them. Magic is like that, except the first part is a bit trickier.|"
Slepnir was frowning hard, hands clamped over his knees. Gabriel pulled his hands away gently, making Slepnir look up. "|Not like that. You need to relax. Try it, alright?|"
Slepnir nodded, closing his eyes again. He took a deep breath, and Gabriel noticed Jormungand sneaking looks at Slepnir and copying him.
"|Jor. Try it yourself. If you keep opening your eyes you're not going to be able to do it.|"
"|I don't know what to do.|"
"|Relax.|" Gabriel said reassuringly. "|That's the first step. Try concentrating on your breathing.|" He inhaled gesturing towards himself to draw Jormungand's attention to him. "|In. And out.|"
Jormungand copied Gabriel's breaths, eyes sliding shut. Gabriel led him through the motions until he could sense that Jormungand had gotten the whole meditation bit, and then sat back to wait.
He didn't have to wait long.
Slepnir's eyes snapped open, accompanied by a sharp burst of magic which wrenched his brothers back to full awareness.
"|Hey!|"
"|It's okay.|" Gabriel put a hand on Slepnir's shoulder. "|That was good, but I want you to try and not flail around with it, alright? Get your fine control back and all that. Think you can do that?|"
"|Yeah.|" Slepnir was grinning widely, and Jormungand looked a little jealous that his older brother had gotten there first.
"|Great. Why don't you go sit over there so you don't mess up your brothers again on accident?|"
"|Okay.|"
It took several more tries before anyone other than Slepnir managed to get a handle on their magic [or seidr, to use the Norse term] and for all three of them to start excitedly spilling sparks everywhere, in various colors, and Gabriel eventually sent them all out into the yard to practice while he watched from the steps so nothing would accidentally be burned down.
It was probably a good thing the house was warded, because all the magic being performed that night would have definitely freaked out the neighbors.
Gabriel dodged a rocket-like burst of sparks, orange and red sputtering out as it hit the railing on the back porch and left a black mark. Gabriel repaired it almost absentmindedly, calling out to his boys. "|I hope no one's getting maimed over there!|"
"|We're okay!|" Slepnir had taken to the spell like a house on fire - which was why Gabriel was here, or else that metaphor might become reality. His oldest had always had a way with fire spells, and it seemed like this simpler one was no exception.
A fountain of yellow sparks shot into the sky in an imitation of fireworks and Jormungand gleefully added a rocket of blue, the two colors mingling and creating the illusion of green. Gabriel grinned at the sight, raising his hand and bringing the makeshift firework closer to the ground so it didn't escape the wards. "|Fenris, are you just going to let them do something that cool on their own?|"
Fenris whooped and leaped across the lawn, trailing a dark emerald green in his wake. The back yard was a riot of color noise, magic flashing between the three boys and occasionally Gabriel himself, when he joined in to send them in the right direction or stop them from doing anything to crazy.
Considering neither of the three boys had used magic in at least seven hundred years, they had a surprising amount of energy, but not even nonhumans could use magic indefinitely. Gabriel put a halt to the display before they got too wrung out, but even so there was little protest as he chivvied them back inside.
Slepnir crashed on the sofa and Jormungand and Fenris seemed all too willing to follow suit, so Gabriel flew them all up to his bed and let his sons wriggle under the covers, tangling up with each other in the way that they always seemed to end up sleeping, like they were afraid the others might vanish in the night if they weren't touching each other.
It was a sad, but perfectly reasonable, fear, considering they'd only reunited last year.
All three of them were also determinedly wrapped around Gabriel in some way - Fenris was sprawled over Gabriel's chest in what had become his customary sleeping spot, and Gabriel never had the heart to move him [not that he'd wanted to, most of the time]. It might have been because of the same fear, or maybe they just liked company when they slept, but either way Gabriel wasn't about to insist that they stop.
There was, however, one downside.
Gabriel was abruptly woken up when someone kicked him in the ribs. Jormungand was clutching him in his sleep, brow creased and eyes squeezed shut. Gabriel immediately [and carefully] tried to tuck him closer, but the simple movement caused Jormungand to gasp and sit bolt upright.
"|Jor, shhh-|" Gabriel's hasty whisper didn't seem to help, and Jormungand swallowed thickly and then buried his face in Gabriel's shirt.
"|Hey, hey, it's alright.|" Gabriel reached carefully over Fenris to hug Jormungand. "|It's just a dream, Jor, you're fine.|"
Jormungand was taking deep, gasping breaths, making little sobbing noises, and Gabriel put a hand on his back, rubbing it up and down. "|Breathe, Jor, you're fine, I'm right here.|"
It was a miracle Slepnir and Fenris hadn't woken up, even though the latter had rolled away from the commotion in his sleep and nestled up against his oldest brother instead.
Jormungand was clinging to Gabriel, his hands fisted in the latter's shirt where a spreading wet patch could be seen. "|Jor, sweetheart, it's alright, it was just a dream.|"
Almost imperceptibly, Jormungand shook his head.
Gabriel's stomach dropped.
It was a memory?
He hugged Jormungand closer and ran a hand through his curls, making shushing noises despite the momentary panic he'd gotten. "|You're alright, Jor, everything's okay now.|"
"|Móðir isn't.|" Jormungand hiccuped and Gabriel was not at all prepared for this conversation because now his insides seemed to have frozen.
Jormungand wrapped his arms around Gabriel harder when Gabriel didn't answer. "Faðir?"
Gabriel let out a long breath, but didn't say anything right away. Jormungand looked up with a tearstained face, sniffling and wiping an arm across his cheeks. "I thought-" Jormungand's voice broke and he took a deep breath, and his hands felt like they were about to rip Gabriel's shirt in two. "|She...Móðir...she's not going to come back, is she?|" Jormungand's voice was shaky, but he kept going. "|She's-|" He started sniffling uncontrollably again, breath coming in hiccups, unable to say it.
Gabriel leaned forward so that his forehead was resting on Jormungand's. His eyes were closed when he spoke, because he didn't think he wanted to see the expression on his son's face. "|I'm sorry.|" His voice came out as a ragged whisper.
There was an answering sniffle, and Jormungand returned to squeezing Gabriel's chest nearly hard enough to bruise. Someone echoed the sniffle and Gabriel realized it was coming from the side of the bed Slepnir and Fenris were on. Glancing over revealed that a wet-eyed Slepnir was curled protectively around Fenris, who was sniffling into his sleep shirt. They had obviously overheard the conversation.
"|Oh, sweetheart.|" Gabriel pulled both of them towards him, turning the four of them into a huddle in the middle of the bed. "|Shh, shh.|" The worst part was that he couldn't say anything that would reassure them, because what could he possibly say that would help? For them, it had been barely a year ago.
"|I'm sorry,|" Gabriel said again, wishing that somehow taking the blame could fix this whole disaster, but time was not so easily changed, especially not with just two words from a lonely angel.
I am so fucking sorry.
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