Happy spooky month everybody I hope you enjoy this new chapter fair warning it might not be aa refined as other ones I've been really busy with in real-life situations.

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Now, Alastor never gave out his phone number, as a rule, and he told just about everyone that he met that he was never home and thus they would never catch him if they phoned, but since every respectable person seemed to have one, he, of course, owned one as well. Just in case. He had made a point only to give his number to the studio, the cleaners, and Adelaide. And now, apparently, Anthony had it.

But when the phone rang on a lazy Wednesday afternoon, Alastor was alarmed. The studio rarely ever called, and Adelaide, to Alastor's knowledge, never called. He hadn't left his suit at the cleaner's, either. He picked it up, fearing it might be the police or something equally as horrible.

"Hello?"

"Whaddup, you down for bowling tonight?" Came Anthony's voice from the other end of the line. Alastor let out a breath and massaged his temples, but couldn't help but smile. He said yes, of course. He had this feeling that if it were anyone else, Alastor would've been irritated, but everything Anthony did - even messing up - was endearing.

It seemed, to Alastor, that a sort of new life had been breathed into him.

Of course, he had enjoyed his job, enjoyed his hunts, enjoyed his slow but steady acquisition of power, but this was a different sort of enjoyment.

He had never understood why the average person was so keen on waiting for the weekend to go out and enjoy themselves and not find anything worthwhile in their day-to-day - sure, Alastor enjoyed the weekends, but it wasn't like he was dying to get to it. Now, he understood that craving for real social interaction.

The difference was that his new group of friends certainly did not limit themselves to the weekends - on the contrary, it seemed that they took pleasure in being out and wreaking havoc whenever they were meant to be asleep.

He had once wondered whether any of them had morning jobs - Alastor himself never went to the studio past midday, and soon enough he found that Edwin and Reena, at least, had loose hours. Edwin was a designer who worked for a small, eccentric boutique that did rather well, and Reena was an editor for two different gothic magazines and articles.

From what Alastor understood, as long as they handed in their work on time it didn't matter when they did their work.

And so, weekdays and weekends were often spent with them, doing whatever whacky idea they had concocted.

Sometimes they did the classics - bowling, movies, just straight-up drinking, but other times they did odder things. They went to the most run-down theatre that they could find and watched the strangest people do shows while on the devil's lettuce; they would go to antique shops, buy entire, horrible outfits for one another, and then spend the rest of the day trying to tear it up as much as they could. They were positively insane.

Sometimes, Alastor had a hard time juggling their crazy schemes with work and his regular assassination schedules, but he found out that if he canceled on them every once in a while they never minded and were quite comprehensive.

They might've been slightly unhinged, but through and through they were some of the best people Alastor had ever met, and being understanding was as easy as breathing to them.

He did find, though, that whenever he had to skip out on seeing them, he worried over Anthony - it was evident that he had a problem controlling his substance consumption, and every once in a while Alastor saved him from some situation or other - choking, stepping in front of moving vehicles, pointing a broken bottle at a man three times his size.

Truly, it was a miracle that the man was in one piece. Every time he intervened, he found himself proud of his job, and doing what Montenegro had asked of him, but that was also when he remembered that he had more or less been recruited to spend time with Anthony, and a strange, before un-felt wave of guilt swept over him, and he had to try and forget his treacherous feeling to have a good time.

It was even worse when, two weeks after he had started going out with the group, he was invited to another, even smaller dinner at the Montenegro home. He had, of course, spent most of his time with Bradley and Montenegro, Anthony missing from such a tedious affair. He had been asked, as it were, for a sort of report.

Alastor told Montenegro everything he knew, and he was questioned about his friends, his drug habits, his outings, and his work. All of this and more Alastor revealed, feeling dirty and disgusting as he did so. One thing he did not reveal was one growing suspicion that he had about the group, one he meant to keep for himself even if it turned out to be true.

Montenegro didn't have to know that. The man had slapped him on the back and told him that whatever he needed, he should just say the word and he would have. After all, they were a family. Alastor didn't ask for anything, already feeling like he was pimping himself out, somehow. Montenegro didn't know, but being around Anthony was payment enough already.

Still, even without Alastor asking for him, he had suddenly had two different bonuses and a scandalous increase in pay. Bradley had given it all to him with a wink and a clap to the back.

It was a Friday evening and Alastor had been going out with the little group a few times every week for four or five weeks now. Little by little, he had started getting to know all of them better.

For starters, the core group was composed mostly of Anthony, Reena, and Edwin - from what Alastor could tell and the little snippets of truth he had gathered from what Anthony let slip, Molly was something of a prodigal child. Piano player, amazing grades, fluent in three different languages - she was in high demand by her parents, tutors, and the people that Anthony called her 'future-having friends'.

In case it wasn't obvious, there was some bitterness to Anthony's tone whenever he was reminded not only that his sister was so admired, but that she was often stolen from him, only to see him every other odd weekend.

And so, when Molly wasn't with them, they had taken Alastor a few times to certain clubs or bars, even wilder than the first one had been, some people even looking like they were having sex right on the dance floor.

At first, Alastor had thought that their choice of places to frequent was just due to having a sort of cheap or run-down taste, and he believed that the more obscure little bars also had their charm, but there was something else… everywhere they went, whether it was a club or a house party or any other space, the people were always eccentrically dressed, and Alastor had had his suspicious for what that reason could be for some time, but it wasn't until that Friday that he confirmed his suspicions.

According to Anthony, Alastor needed not to miss out on this particular house party. A friend of theirs who usually lived in New York came down to visit, and some other people were hosting a party for him.

Anthony assured him that whenever this happened the night was sure to be great fun and incredibly wild. Alastor, knowing that a Sunday stroll with Anthony could be wild, was not going to miss out on this party. Who knew what kind of shenanigans the man might get into without him?

Besides, there was a part of him (and he didn't know how big it was) that just wanted to go to the party for the fun of it, expectant for whatever it was that would happen that evening, to see what Anthony could concoct to make everything feel like it was on fire.

The night started as most did - Anthony picked them all up in his pink-lined car, actually already drunk from the afternoon so it was a rockier ride than usual. When they got to the party, it was already havoc in there. It was like Alastor had been taken to another house party, but somehow stickier.

People were dressed as strangely and particularly as they always were wherever Anthony took him, and they were dancing in the strangest ways. They had a live band, but it wasn't like any other live band that Alastor had ever witnessed - it was wild, experimental, the musicians leaping up or bending over as if they'd been shot, improvising and going berserk.

Alastor, at some point, strayed from the others just to stare at the band. God knew what they were doing without him - probably getting drunk and high with whatever they could find at that mess of a party. Alastor might have been standing there, watching the sweating musicians and wild, dancing people for about an hour before he suddenly felt Anthony's presence beside him.

"You like music, don't you?" He asked, his tone more serious than usual. Everything with Anthony was a joke, seemingly, and he had very rare moments in which he spoke about anything real or serious. It was in those moments that Alastor liked him best, that he felt he could pick up on what his personality was really like beyond all his defenses and sarcasm.

Since that first night, when Alastor had felt that weird situation make Anthony retract, he had never even approached him too close again, had never shared anything too deep about himself, and it was a real pity, one that Alastor didn't know how to remedy. Every once in a while, Alastor would get a feeling like Anthony was going to say something important to him, something substantial, but at the last possible minute he backed away, and the words were left hanging in the air, unsaid.

"I do," Alastor admitted with a smile, staring before him with child-like wonder.

"What else do you like?" Killing people. You.

"Well, anything to do with music. I love the theatre, musical theatre, operas, all those things," he admitted, and he was about to blush a bit when he remembered that everyone in the group had their own, even weirder tastes. Still, he felt strangely vulnerable admitting it, and realized that in all his time with the group, he had rarely ever revealed personal things about himself and that no one knew much about him - he strayed away from speaking of parents, childhood, anything of the sort, and enjoyed it far more when other people spoke of those things.

Still, in all those weeks, he hadn't heard much of the other's personal lives, who they dated, if they dated, their parents, their siblings. They were spoken of in passing, and such real, tangible subjects were mostly brushed over.

"That's sweet," Anthony said, offering him a smile. "I brought you a martini." Alastor thanked him and, together, they watched the band play silently. It was a wonderful moment, and Alastor recognized how special it was since Anthony was the kind of person who was all too keen on filling up the silence without saying anything. After a bit, Alastor had to use the restroom, and he excused himself.

He searched the house for a bathroom, but everywhere he looked there was either a bedroom or a small laundry room or something else of the sort.

The only bathroom was occupied. He went to the upstairs area, where it was quieter and there were very few people milling about and started trying for the bathroom. It was then that he opened the door to a bedroom, and inside found Reena kissing another person passionately as she removed her layers of corsets and shirts. She was kissing another woman.

Reena and the woman stopped abruptly, looking horrified, and the moment Alastor met their eyes, he whispered a quick apology and shut the door behind him to search for the bathroom again.

He hadn't made it two steps before Reena came out of the bedroom she'd been in, accommodating her shirt. She went over to Alastor, who turned around to face her, trying not to blush.

"Alastor-" she started.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone was in there," he quickly apologized. But he found that there was something more than just embarrassment in Reena's eyes. It was fear.

"No, it's fine, I just…" she was eyeing him, confused. "You won't tell anyone about this?" She asked in a panic. Alastor frowned.

"You mean the others don't know you have a… girlfriend?" He questioned, finding it hard to believe that she could keep such a thing from her friends.

"No, I mean, they do, I just meant… anyone else."

"Why would I tell anyone else, Reena?" He had to measure his words carefully since it looked like she was about to cry.

"I… I know what you probably think of me now…" she said, her lower lip trembling. Alastor stopped her.

"Reena," he said firmly. Though he was repulsed by touch, he bit down on his aversion and took both her hands in his, trying to steady her. "I think nothing less of you," he assured her. "Your secret is safe with me. You have nothing to worry about," he told her with decision, wishing with all his heart that she would believe him. She looked incredibly relieved, and before he could do anything about it, she threw him into a hug. He patted her on the back awkwardly, trying to fight the urge to step back.

"Thank you," she said, her voice muffled in his clothes. She parted a bit and looked at him. "The others… we know you're a good person, but sometimes people… they're… well, they're not usually as accepting as you are." She looked like she was about to get choked up again, but she bit it down. "You're a good friend," she said, smiling weakly. Alastor smiled back at her.

"You should probably go back to…"

"Lina. Her name is Lina," she said, tucking a string of stray hair behind her eyes, blushing. It looked like she was happy to be able to say her name and to talk about her without feeling shame or worry.

"Let her know everything is alright. Maybe lock the door just in case," he said with a wink. Reena gave him a burst of laughter and then headed back to her girlfriend.

"Oh, and Reena?" She turned around. "Do you know where the restroom is?"

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And just like that, his suspicions had been confirmed. Now, even when he had lived in the future and been Harry he had not had much knowledge about homosexuality, and the scatterings that he heard usually came from unsavory comments Mr Dursley made, or slurs Dudley called him, so he wasn't very well-versed in those kinds of subjects.

He still knew the kind of characteristics that someone might have that could lead them to be judged and ostracised by other people and if, even in his previous time, people had been blatantly homophobic, he couldn't imagine what it was like in the time that he was in.

He was fairly certain that it was illegal to be gay in this time - and here came the reason behind the back-alley bars, the secretive and strangely-dressed people, the way it seemed that everyone always avoided speaking of their love life around Alastor. It all made sense, and now there was only one question in his mind - what about Anthony?

He had heard in passing that Edwin had had a few girlfriends, so he was sure that if a person was inclined towards the same sex, they had to be careful about who they mentioned it to, and find others that were comprehensive or in their same boat.

Was Anthony comprehensive or was he… Alastor didn't dwell on it, as it felt that a sudden blanket had been draped over his head. He was in a weird sort of overdrive, and when he went back to the party, he found he had a new perspective on everything.

He went looking for Anthony or Edwin, but he found that amid the crowds he could see no one. He spotted a few people that his new friends had introduced him to and asked them whether they had seen Anthony. They told him that they had seen him going into some room in the back, but they weren't very specific about it.

"Yeah, and he's there with the bolder crowd," a girl he didn't know snickered after the reply.

"What do you mean by bolder crowd?" Alastor asked, alarmed. The group just chuckled a bit and coughed as they passed around a joint. It took everything in Alastor not to bash their faces in and then drink their blood in front of the others.

Without waiting for a reply, and correctly assuming he would not be getting one, he dashed to the back of the house, where he started trying door after door. This late at night, and in a party as wild as this one, most of the rooms were occupied by people vomiting, sleeping, or on the verge of having sex.

They screamed at him as he pulled open door after door, frantically searching for Anthony, the feeling in his gut telling him that he was in trouble. He was about to lose his mind when, at the last door, he opened up to the scent of cheap cigarette smoke and a tight group of people sitting in a circle.

The people inside were… strange, but not eccentric and dashing in the way that Alastor was used to seeing. They looked like they had been eroded by strong winds, their sallow cheekbones caving into their cadaverous faces, eyes so deep in their sockets that even the bluest eye would seem black in their shadows.

It seemed like they were all in different states of decomposition, but decomposing nonetheless. The freshet corpse was on a stool some ways off from the vacant-eyed zombies. Anthony had his teeth stuck into a piece of leather, the belt looped around his forearm. His veins were a deep blue in the grim light of the obscure, horrible room, and another person held a needle to them. The man sticking the needle in looked up suddenly as a liquid went into Anthony, and he pressed it to the very bottom.

"Fuck," came Anthony's muffled gasp as it hit the bottom, his eyes opening up as wide as they were physically able.

"Shiiit," came the man's voice when he looked down at the needle, and he had the far-off voice of someone who wasn't there, somehow.

"Anthony, what are you doing?" Alastor asked, his voice cracking. But everyone ignored him.

"Did you put the whole thing in?" Asked a curious voice in the shadows, and everyone turned to look at Anthony, whose eyes were unfocusing horribly.

The man with the needle just managed to eject it before Anthony collapsed to the ground. Alastor sped forward towards him, stepping on some toes and fingers to the others' complaint, but he couldn't care less. Anthony had started twitching slightly, his eyes closed.

Alastor held up his limp head and tried to rouse him.

"What did you give him?!" He demanded of the skeletons, but they all just looked at one another as if they weren't sure what universe they were in, anymore.

"What did you give him?!" He repeated, his voice now sounding more like a snarl until someone finally gave him an answer.

"Heroin," they squeaked out, and, seeing Alastor's furious gaze, they pointed at the man who had injected him. "But he gave him too much - man, you knew it was his first time."

"I'm sorry, I got… distracted," the man replied, but he didn't seem all that alarmed, and instead like he was about to doze off. Without waiting for any more of the idiocy of the people that he had come to hate in such a reduced period, Alastor picked up Anthony's twitching body (partly using magic to make up for his lack of upper body strength) and left the room.

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The ambulance was going to take too long. They estimated around ten minutes before they were even able to dispatch someone, it being a Friday evening, and Alastor couldn't wait that long. He hauled Anthony out, took his car, and drove to the hospital per instructions from the people who were less drunk around him.

He stuck Anthony's unconscious body in the back seat, his eyes worryingly white, and sped off without a word to anyone else. The feeling of Anthony's unconsciousness weighed heavier on him than he liked to admit. He had been dreaming of him, dreaming of touching his hand, touching his shoulder, hugging him. He hadn't thought their bodily contact would be like this, hauling his body into a car.

He had half his concentration on using his magic to stop Anthony from biting off his tongue, and the other half on driving to the hospital as far as he could. It couldn't have been over five minutes, but they were five minutes spent in absolute hell, looking behind him to see whether there was any progress to Anthony's condition, but most of all, worrying, worrying, worrying. In his brain, it was chaos, and it was all he could do to steel himself and do what had to be done and not be a complete imbecile in this situation.

He didn't know what he felt, didn't know what to do with himself even though he was already doing something. The drive was excruciating, handing Anthony over to medical professionals was excruciating, and being told to wait and see what would happen was the worst part of it all. He thought over and over whether he might've tried some healing spell on him, but the fact of the matter was that he was way in over his head with this. He should've picked up some textbooks on the body's reaction to drugs.

They had wheeled Anthony off in a chair and told Alastor to wait and that they would have an update soon enough. They questioned Alastor on what his friend had taken, how much of it, and when, and Alastor gave all the details that he could. They thanked him for the information and told him to wait in the sitting room.

But he couldn't just sit there and do nothing. He paced the room, called the Montenegros and told them about the situation, and then walked around until something happened.

Ten minutes passed and there was no news, the nurses carefully explaining that they would update him as soon as they could but that they didn't know yet - but Sal and Madeline Montenegro arrived, clearly risen from sleep, and they went right to Alastor and questioned him.

"What happened, kid?" Montenegro asked, looking slightly frantic for the first time since Alastor had met him. But somehow not frantic enough. Alastor was in a worse state than he was.

"I'm sorry," he said automatically, trying to keep it together. And really, who was he to be fretting over their child? "I took my eyes off of him one second, and he was gone and he went to this room and I…"

"Slow down, slow down," Montenegro made Alastor sit, surprisingly comforting and asked him to narrate what had happened. Alastor told them everything he knew, and when it was over, Madeline immediately went over to the nurses only to be told the same thing they had been repeating to Alastor.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Montenegro, I failed you. I failed Anthony." And it wasn't until Montenegro put his hand on his leg to steady him that he realized he had been shaking.

"I don't blame you, Alastor," he said with severity. "I know how Anthony can be." Alastor was opening his mouth to say something else when a nurse went up to them.

"He's stable," she said. "He took a large dose. From what he," she nodded to Alastor, "told us, it had probably been his first.

This kind of reaction is normal for situations like this. He suffered a minor seizure, but he's a healthy young man, and since this was his first time, he'll make a good recovery," she told them, much to their relief. "We've put him in a room for observation as a precaution, I don't know what his medical plan is…"

"Get him a private room. The best one. Money isn't an issue," Montenegro told her. The woman nodded and said that she would indicate what room he was in in a few minutes once he was transferred, and that they would be able to see him. With that, she was off.

Alastor and the Montenegros seated themselves and they shared a silence caught between relief and worry, all of them mulling over the events. It seemed like ages until they were finally able to go to Anthony's room.

A single light was on inside, casting strange shadows on Anthony's usually graceful face. It looked like he was fast asleep, a hint of his ever-present smile on his face. Alastor went to a shadowed corner as the Montenegros edged closer to their son.

Madeline swept a lock of matted hair from his face reverently and then gave a deep sigh of relief. She looked at her husband only to find his face made of steel. He looked the strangest mixture of angry, disappointed, and worried.

She pursed her lips, bent down to kiss her son's cooling, sweated forehead, and held his hand carefully, trying not to get tangled up in the two IVs in Anthony's veins. It gave Alastor flashes back to that dark room they had been in not half an hour before, and he all of a sudden felt ashamed of how he had treated those people who were ill.

"I'm going to call Molly. Let her know everything's alright," Mrs Montenegro said suddenly, seeming like she couldn't endure the palpable tension that had accumulated in the room. She kept sneaking worried glances over at Sal as well as Anthony.

Alastor watched her go and saw as Montenegro took her place beside Anthony's head, his arms held together behind his back. He looked stately and terrible, and Alastor wondered with some dread at whatever the man was thinking. He was afraid of breaking the terse silence that had settled over them in the empty room, but Montenegro did that for him.

"You'd warned me," he said with some regret.

"I hardly knew it was so serious, Mr. Montenegro, you couldn't have known," Alastor told him, fearing how the situation might escalate.

"I did, though. You apologized to me - if you hadn't been there, those filthy drug addicts would have let him die or convulse to their liking. We might not have even found out."

"I could've prevented it," Alastor said in a small voice.

"You did what I asked you to do - keep an eye on him. Anthony is… untameable, I fear at times," he said bitterly. "And I've been far too lenient. I won't have him turning into those… what did you call them? Corpses? No. He'll be going away. Before he becomes even more lost," he spat. It didn't sound like worry or love. It sounded like control and resentment.

"Are you sure that's necessary, sir?" Montenegro turned to Alastor sharply, and in that moment he sensed his mistake.

"I've said I didn't put any blame on you, Cormier, but that's my son on that bed - I won't have anyone tell me how to raise him!" He suddenly barked. "Not anymore. I'm sick of it. The bailing him out, the hospitals, the late nights, the thugs coming to beat him up - even taking Molly out and corrupting her!" Alastor kept his silence after that, eyes trained on Anthony's sleeping face.

He thought he saw his eye twitch. Montenegro looked like he had just about had enough, and he left the room brusquely without explanation, like looking at Anthony was just too much to bear. Alastor couldn't help but feel it was more out of disappointment than worry.

He stayed in the shadows, looking at Anthony, feeling sorry for him. He couldn't bring himself to move towards him for quite some time, but then he had the keenest sensation that Montenegro wouldn't be back for some time, that they would rather not be by Anthony's side. And that felt wrong - leaving him alone.

Someone had to be here, someone had to be beside him, he thought. All at once he felt terrible for Anthony - what kind of reaction was that to have towards a son? To be angry for harming himself? Couldn't he see what kind of pain Anthony was in? Was he so blind to think that people did rash, hurtful things just for the sake of it?

A powerful impulse came over Alastor, and he went to Anthony's side and did what he had wanted to do since the moment he had met him. He held his hand. It was frail and limp, nothing like what he had imagined it would be if he could ever hold it.

Still, he was grateful. Anthony was alive. He had to hope that Montenegro was all talk and that he wouldn't send him away. Send him away from him.

He wished he could speak to Anthony, could ask him everything he wanted to know about what was going on inside his head - and to have a real answer, not some sarcastic comment to avoid talking about his feelings.

"What's going on with you?" He whispered, pursing his lips together. It was like speaking to a ghost, but it was somehow still a bit relieving.

He let out a shaky breath and wouldn't stop staring at him until a nurse came and told him the Montenegros had left, and that, as he was not immediate family, he would have to leave, too.

Exhausted and beaten down, Alastor gave Anthony's hand one final squeeze and left the hospital.