Quick Note: I want to take a moment to thank everyone for their support on this story be it in kudos, comments, reviews, bookmarks and other things. One for Sorrow is officially my weirdest and most viewed story across Ao3 and FFN and every interaction with you all gives me a lot of joy.

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February 8, 1997

Drunk Florida Man Kidnaps Skunk Ape

Of course he did, the boy's an idiot.

My gaze drifted down to read the article Elihu had sent me. Apparently the Vice President's teenaged son, Javier Martinez, had gotten involved as an accomplice in a drunken beachfront vacation altercation in Florida involving a Skunk Ape, a No-Maj lawn tool, lots of beer and squeaky rubber chicken. I slipped the paper into my bag to send to Quincy with the letter I was writing him. We both knew Javier either from school or political party rallies and were in agreement about him being an idiot. Him ending up in the paper was not surprising and the real surprise was that he managed to end up in an article out of Florida. I read it twice to take in the insanity before sliding it into my purse to pass on to other people as I looked around the shop.

The secondhand bookshop Alex wanted to meet me at was small, the books were organized on the ceiling high shelves by genre and the surname of the author. The books were all in different sizes and degree of wear and tear. I noted a large section of board games in the corner, Hats and Wands, Dragon Dice, Erumphent Eulogy and Gobstones, of course.

The shop was quiet and empty except for the old man who ran the shop who was wrapping books in brown paper for a program he was running called The Mysterious Book, where according to the ad in the front of his shop, he would send surprise books to his customers in exchange for a galleon a month. I thought that was a really great idea to help with the lack of business and the empty alley.

"Back there." The old man pointed me towards a small door in the back where there were more aisles of books and a label over the door that warned of privacy spells in effect. He had an American accent, it was faint, but he had a slight twang that sounded like a Kentucky Senator I met a few years ago.

I was a little bit early for my meeting with Alex, but it did not appear to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. I walked into the room and stepped behind a shelf that hid the entrance from view, the noise from the shop owner wrapping his mystery books disappeared as soon as I crossed the threshold. This was a room dedicated to historical books, from world history to article collections by acclaimed journalists. One of these books was by Alice Novak, an American spy during the Second Wizarding War who kept very detailed records of the atrocities committed by Grindelwald supporters.

A hard tap on my shoulder caught my attention.

I bit back a shriek in time to realize it was Alex.

Alex's ability to roar and rage at the drop of a hat really hid how quiet he could be the rest of the time. There was a contemplative silence to him, he watched the world with his stone gray eyes and took it in with a world-weary expression of discontent one would be more likely to find on an old man.

"Hey Aud."

"Hey." I hugged him before the moment slipped from my grasp, the comfortable smell of Sparkers cigarettes consuming my senses for a moment. "I'm sorry too."

Alex stiffened before he put his arms around me, he never relaxed but he was making an effort and I would not say a word about it.

"So," I released my brother and looked around the room, taking in the books and the presence of my grumpy brother in his black and gray robes that matched his hair. "What did you want to talk about?"

Alex flicked his wand at the door to engage another silencing spell on the door, the silence in the room becoming more consuming. Alex's voice was low as he began to talk as extra security. "A couple of things. I've been wondering if anyone in your office knows about…"

"Dad? No. President Graves is a third cousin and my father works in wand regulations."

"Good. There's no chance of the truth coming out?"

"None, the Minister knows, but my file is sealed which irritates the Senior Undersecretary, but she's such a slovenly lapdog she doesn't complain in my hearing about it. She's trying to get me out of the office, but she has nothing she can really use from my work history and she doesn't have anything to complain about from my tenure with her, so it's not really working."

"And the family?"

"If you mean you and the children, I've mentioned Annie, but that's a common name, I've never mentioned the baby and I've never mentioned you by name unless it was to people who know you."

"Thank you. It's safer if we can't be tied back to Jack."

I nodded.

We were quiet for a moment, Alex's eyes moving over the spines of the books for a moment. I noted the backpack resting at his feet and was sure I could see the blue sleeve of a robe poking out of it.

"Are you leaving?"

"I need to report back to my handlers. I expect I'll be gone for some time."

"You were out of touch with your friends for over a year last time." I tried not to sound waspish but was not entirely successful.

Alex paused for a moment and inhaled slowly, "It's for the greater good, Aud. I'm able and willing to do this thing that other people cannot. I don't have a fussy girlfriend who needs me all the time, I don't have any children who will be wondering where I am at bedtime and I have no affiliation with the Ministry that I have to cover."

"None of this needs to fall on your shoulders." Something clicked into place. Greyback. The wolfpack. Thalia. "Has a promise been made for the rights of werewolves? Is that why you're still involved?"

Alex's silence confirmed everything.

"Thalia loves you. She doesn't think that hollow promises from a madman are a way to make that kind of progress. Go home to her and stay for once in your life!"

Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out something small that he was keeping hidden in his hand for the moment before I caught a glimpse of the corner of a small velvet box.

Alex popped it open with a flick of his thumb.

"Mom gave it to me before she died. Do you think Thalia will like it?"

He was changing the subject, but I figured this was the second thing he wanted to speak with me about.

It was a beautiful piece of jewelry, a silver band with intricate leaf and branch designs engraved upon it with a shining emerald in the center with two small diamonds on either side.

"It's beautiful. She'll love it."

"She doesn't like to wear jewelry, the furry little problem and her potion making, but maybe she can put it on a chain or something?"

"You'll need a silver one to match the ring, something pretty, but sturdy and you could probably enchant it yourself."

Alex nodded, his expression softening with the thoughts of Thalia. It removed the lines of stress from his face and made him almost look like a younger man. His graying hair was always going to be a deterrent in that regard.

"This seems sudden," I chose my words carefully not wanting him to draw a conclusion and run off. "Thalia said she had not seen you for a long time before we met in the Undercroft."

"We're not…" Alex paused, "we're not a traditional couple. We don't want children. I don't even like children, don't give me that look Aud, it goes beyond the sibling age gap. Thalia and I can go months without seeing each other and we just come back together like we were never apart when we do. She likes her alone time to work and I like that she's not clingy so I can keep chasing big stories without worrying about her. There's a lot to be said for being able to function independently of your partner."

"That doesn't feel like a marriage. It sounds like roommates with tax benefits."

"That's essentially what marriage is."

"Don't be cynical."

"The tax breaks are a bit of it. If something happens to me, she gets my worldly possessions instead of the family. I left Jack and Vanessa the minimum to avoid it being contested in court. I intend to outlive Jack but I don't want any openings for Vanessa to swoop in."

He made it sound so grim, but the current state of things made me consider the option myself. Where would I leave my possessions? Who should get what? It was an interesting question that I should give some thought too.

"Plus, anything that goes back to Jack eventually ends up in Vanessa's pocket to go to younger siblings I don't know. Thalia would not have real standing in court to contest my arrangements without marriage behind it. A werewolf contesting a will in court against the family of a MACUSA President is a tabloid's dream and I don't want there to be any doubts or loopholes to extort."

Werewolves had no standing in court. They're sentient in the law's eyes, but so tainted by their affliction that I doubted the Ministry would hear anything from Thalia once they realized what she was. Thalia was too close to Greyback's wolf pack and she would probably be arrested or threatened for walking into the Ministry. If it sounded cold to me, then perhaps the reality had been haunting Alex for a long time.

"I love Thalia, I want to make sure she's taken care of." He looked at me and while his words sounded performative, the softness in Alex's eyes said everything that his words alone could not express. Thalia had his heart and soul.

"If anything happens to me, you're getting Erebus."

"The bird that hates me?"

"Yeah, he hates you less than Thalia's dogs. Monty had a bald patch from all the hair Erebus pulled out of him."

Great.

"Just figured I would let you know."

I moved my fingers over some of the book spines on the shelf, every talk with my brother felt like a business arrangement. It was not what I pictured or remembered of sibling chats, though it was not as if Alex and I had been close before he left home.

"There's one more thing." Alex tapped his wand on his thigh to summon something out of the backpack laying at his feet.

I leaned over slightly to try and see what he pulled out.

It was a book, a very familiar looking one, a copy of the Graves family grimoire. It was tattered and worn with binding runes on the spine and gold leaf decorations on the cover surrounding a skull with the Graves family motto emblazoned beneath it.

Memento mori.

Remember you must die.

It was to remind us that death was inevitable, that all were equal in the eyes of the reaper from the frailest infant to the oldest human, the poorest of people and the richest of men. Death would come for everyone clad in the shroud of shadows and light. The only choice we had in life that truly mattered was how we met the reaper.

Atticus Graves had put this book together over the years, collecting information on the various kinds of magic he encountered as an Auror, the dark magic, the counter-spells, records from other family members about things they had seen on the job and their own notations on the matter. There were also reportedly sections on healing spells from my great-aunt Armista, who worked in the law enforcement's emergency medical team. It was something that the family had been piecing together for generations and passing on to their descendents, well, the ones who had talent and the ones who wanted to be Aurors. Annette would get a copy, she was both, Aldridge may someday as well, Jack did like the father-son bonding involved in the family history of warfare.

I was never in the running to receive my own copy of this historic tome. I did look for it in Alex's room after he left home, but I guess he had managed to take it with him after all.

The book was heavy in my hands, something that weighed heavily of history and familial duty. The pages burned when I touched them as if permission had to be granted to read the contents. Judging by the increasing aggression of whatever spells were placed on this book, it would be safe to assume that I did not yet have permission to read the grimoire.

Alex waved farewell at the shopkeeper before he led me out to the empty streets of Diagon Alley where there was a slight break in the fog and overcast London sky to reveal an honest attempt at sunlight for a few feeble seconds.

"Why are you giving me this?"

Alex shrugged, "I've read it cover to cover and have nothing else to learn from it. I would prefer it to end up in trusted hands and not in a secondhand shop. There's a lot of… Questionable material in it. Grandpa Atticus had a very long career and that's not even covering the other Graves relatives and the rest of the world does not need to know all of our family secrets."

"You used this to get in with those people, didn't you?"

It was a dumb question.

"I used what I learned from it to make my story credible, I did not hand them the actual book." Alex rolled his eyes. "That would be stupid."

"What did you tell them?" I slipped the grimoire into my bag with a wince, relieved that the heat of the book's spells was no longer in my hands.

"The truth." He lit a cigarette he pulled from his pocket, lighting the end with a brush of his fingers. "I don't like muggles, I don't know why we're so scared of them when we have power at our fingertips."

"You know why, they can't handle the idea of magic. There's more of them then there are of us and it would be chaos. Wix would never survive a conflict like that."

"Grandma Ophelia never saw her family again after graduating from Ilvermorney." Alex blew a couple of shimmering blue smoke rings. "She said MACUSA came and threatened her family into silence, promising to take her away if they spoke a word about magic to anyone. Their memories were wiped eventually, her father started talking with a Scourer, but MACUSA used to do that to all the Seeds families. They still do it today sometimes, I mean, look at Cassandra, MACUSA wiped her family's memories before she even left for school."

I thought about Cassandra's cool demeanor and realized that I really knew nothing about her early life aside from her family being related too and potentially involved with Scourers. What I saw of Cassandra were things that I liked, she was steady, pleasant and stylish too. I did not see Cassandra often enough to build the kind of relationship where I felt comfortable engaging her in political discussions.

"We suffer for our need to hide from the non magical, maybe we need to assert ourselves and prove we're not to be messed with."

I glanced away from Alex, his radical views leaving me feeling ill. I was not in the mood to fight with him today. The fight he was trying to pick with me would not work. If he was leaving, I would not have this be the lingering memory of what was a nice meeting between us.

There was a familiar head of red hair looking at my brother and I and my stomach dropped and twisted in excitement. I waved slowly and Percy walked over quickly with a broad smile, his cloak billowing out behind him from his rapid pace. He stopped next to me with a murmured hello and looked over at Alex.

"Who's this?" Alex's tone was cold and suspicious as he looked Percy over.

The two men were the same height, Percy was perhaps an inch taller but the overt ferocity inherent in Alex made my brother's overall presence larger and more looming. Percy seemed blithely unaware of my brother's analyzing stare and his tense aura of potential malignance.

I was not sure if this encounter was a dream or a nightmare and my voice dried up in my throat.

Percy stuck his hand out to Alex with the well practiced smile of a man who worked closely with people of power and authority for a living. Alex's brow furrowed at the familiarity of the situation from growing up the son of a senator, he continued to size up Percy, taking in the younger man's earnest smile before glancing over at me with a quizzical expression, his cigarette pressed between his lips.

Percy solved the problem of my caught throat by introducing himself. "Percy Weasley, I have the pleasure of working with Audrey in the Minister's Support Staff Office."

"I see." Alex looked between the two of us with a stoney stare before he submitted to the handshaking instinct instilled in us by a political upbringing. "Graves."

Percy waited with an expectation of a first name but Alex turned his attention back to me with no additions, instead blowing a sparkling blue smoke ring into the air.

Rude.

"As I was saying-"

"It takes no effort for you to be nice to my friends." I kept my voice low, an air of menace slipping into my words. Alex could speak to me how he pleased, I really don't care, but he was not going to speak to Percy like that. Percy had been keeping me sane enough to only entertain the idea of strangling Umbridge and not plan the crime.

"Theo," The lie fell from Alex's tongue with a practiced ease that I recognized in myself. "Theo Graves."

I understood the lies, intellectually I knew it was to help my story if needed, but lying about his first name felt like he was trying to erase his identity, an attempt to slide back into the persona he wore with horrible, hateful people.

Alex could keep his secrets, I was sure he had a long list of them.

Percy remained the pinnacle of politeness with his professional smile and only a momentary frustrated tightness to his expression at the overt snub. "It's nice to meet you."

Alex raised an eyebrow, he paused for a moment as I glared at him just out of Percy's view, doing my best to find the rage that Lucinda wanted me to find inside myself so I could put enough discomfort in Alex to make him polite for ten minutes.

"Likewise."

Hm. My attempt to instill some fear in my brother might have worked. No. Nevermind. He was back to looking at me and trying to block Percy out so he would say his goodbyes and move on. Why is my family so messy?

"What brings you out today, Percy?" I asked, my voice pleasant as I tried to cover my brother's rudeness with the general social pleasantries.

Alex seemed to have given up for the moment and was looking up and down the alley as he continued to exhale more elaborate smoke shapes for his own entertainment.

"I'm running some errands, Gringotts, and the library."

"You said you work for the Minister?" Alex decided to respond at last, changing the subject before taking another drag of his cigarette. "What exactly is the Minister's plan to handle the crisis? Just keep locking people up without trials until he gets to Voldemort or what?"

At the mention of Voldemort's name, Percy made a strangled sort of noise.

Oh, by the Twelve…

"Don't say that!"

"Say what? The name?"

"Yes!"

"You have an answer for me about the Ministry's efficiency in finding this menace then?"

Percy looked as done with Alex as I believed Alex to be with him, but Percy was more polite than my brother and just as driven. Walking away would mean surrender and that was not something I believed to be in Percy's stubborn nature.

"Mr. Graves, your daughter would know as much about that as I would."

Alex's face was both offended and horrified.

The memory of Percy's confusing my cousin Quincy for my boyfriend came to the forefront of my mind. Sweet Merlin in the cradle.

Percy just offended Alex's vanity and his daddy issues in one sentence. Two birds, one stone indeed!

"I'm her brother, you stupid tit!"

Percy's mouth opened and closed soundlessly as his face turned red in embarrassment, the color moving to his neck and the tips of his ears. With Percy's history I was expecting something worse than a logical leap involving the Graves graying problem.

"You have other friends right?" Alex looked at me with a serious expression.

I stayed perfectly still with only the barest nod of my head.

"Please, endeavor to spend more time with them." He shot a meaningful glare at Percy, who was beginning to sputter apologies that Alex had no time for as he turned and walked down the deserted alley.

It took a moment for me to begin to try and salvage that mess.

"I'm sorry about my brother."

"Don't apologize for him," Percy's tone was clipped and direct, almost snappish.

"The men in my family go gray early. My brother isn't quite thirty yet. He's a little sensitive about it."

That sounds terrible.

Percy seemed to understand this faux pas in a man-to-man way I could not, a man's insecurity with his hair was not something I would ever be able to grasp.

"Why did you think he was my father?"

"He looks older than thirty, Audrey! I thought he had come to try and convince you to go back to the States or something. It seemed a logical idea at the time!"

I found myself giggling, the noise turning into a genuine laughter as the stress of meeting Alex seemed to melt away. Percy seemed to relax as my demeanor shifted.

"If you could walk me home, I would appreciate it."

"Gladly."

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I wish I had an easier time being affectionate with people. It's not an issue specific to Percy, but I'm not sure how to do this right and not make it weird. I'm not sure I can verbalize the thought without sounding stupid or childish.

I glanced down the hallway before looking up at Percy who was looking at me with a curious expression as I stood in the doorway of my apartment, lingering and thinking over something I had been mulling over for a couple of weeks now.

"I'll see you later then."

"Wait."

He stopped before he could turn to leave. "Yes?"

"Ah…" I bit my lower lip between my teeth as I tried to grasp my nerve again. "May I kiss you goodbye?"

He looked surprised, his eyes were wide and his glasses had slid slightly down his nose. He nodded slowly, bending forward slightly as I took a step forward to close the distance between us.

There was a finality to this. It would be harder to forget and continue on as coworkers if this did not work out and we ended it. The line between what was an affectionate friendship and something much more grew thinner with the more time we spent together and the shrinking physical distance between us.

I shifted my weight to stand on the tips of my toes.

There was no alcohol or high moods to use as an excuse to scrub this away.

What do I do with my hands?

I settled for bringing them to rest on his shoulders, it seemed the safer option and kept him still as I closed my eyes like all those heroines I had read about in my life and leaned forward to press my lips against his. I missed his lips and found the corner of his mouth instead. I could feel the tension in his shoulders lessen as he relaxed slightly under my hands and quiet chuckle near my ear before his hand moved to caress my cheek and guide my mouth to his.

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Author's Note: Well, the will talk was dark. Sorry about the delay, editorial issues and my being ill last week were contributing factors (all better, no worries!). The next chapter is half done though and it's one I've been looking forward to for several months. It's a stand alone, but I want to get the tone right.