[ttd] through the maze

"No, I said I thought it was this way, don't get all pissy with me. You agreed too," Leonidas sniped back at his brother, his impatience weaning thin as they took another turn and still had no clue where they were. They had taken a portkey to their family villa in Madrid, intent on capitalizing on the nice weather in Spain. And while Leonidas had intended to avoid his brother for most of the weekend just like he would have done at Hogwarts, but Andy had asked him to go grab a latte. Leonidas didn't tend to choose to spend much time with his brother anymore (Andy seemed so different now, like a different person), but Leo was smart: he wasn't going to turn down a latte. And an Spanish one at that.

Except they had gotten lost, beyond lost, and their petty bickering over what the correct way back to their villa wasn't helping in the least bit. Leonidas pushed his hair off his forehead, his long fingers raking through it and then double checking what it looked like with a quick glance in a shop window as they were passing. His gray chino shorts and leather loafers made a pretty picture, but his burgundy and white striped shirt was starting to stick to his skin. He hated sweating this much.

"Can't you just do a direction charm?" Leonidas grumbled. What else were they going to do? Wander the streets until something looked familiar? He had not wanted to spend his whole Saturday walking the streets for hours on end.

@Andronicus Lovecraft

“Yeah, you think a lot of things, don’t you,” Andronicus huffed, judging his brother for being judgmental; the Slytherin was calling the kettle black. Some voice in the back of his head was already telling him to lay off, though. Please give it a rest, let it go, etc. He hadn’t meant to cause another fight with his brother, but it happened anyway. It always did.

Andronicus could remember a time when it felt like he and Leonidas were always on the same page about things. They were closer when they were younger, thick as thieves, their aunties used to say, but now everything was different. They could barely be in the same room without bickering sometimes, and the rest of the time, they all out avoided each other. It hurt, but Andronicus wasn’t about to change himself to go back to the way things were. He would never go back to being the type of person Leonidas looked up to. He couldn’t; Andy had fought too long and too hard to be this better version of himself. And as unfortunate as it was, his relationship with his only brother had become a casualty of that war.

The older wizard had been trying to find some common ground when he invited Leonidas to a latte. They only had a short while left before Andronicus graduated, and they barely saw each other. Even as close as Andy was with Eleanora, they had spoken less and less since she had left Hogwarts, and he was even less close with his brother. Even though it seemed fruitless at times because they were so different now, Andronicus still wanted to believe that they could be friends again. Someday, someway.

As the sun beat down on them, Andronicus was careful not to touch his face or hair, the voice of his Apothecary-running mother in the back of his mind. You’ll give yourself ache, you’ll mess up your hair, as if those things were the most essential in the world. “Well, yeah, but not here?” There was more accusation than question in Andy’s tone as he nodded dramatically toward the gaggle of muggles across the street. It wasn’t like he could pull out his wand right in front of them or something, and he knew that Leonidas knew that, but it didn’t matter.

"More than you, apparently," Leonidas sniped back, bringing up the age-old boast that he was in Ravenclaw, the obviously more intelligent house while Andy was not. The difference in Sorting wasn't the only thing that was different between them these days. And the time when they had gotten along so well seemed like a thing of the past. Leonidas wasn't keen to get those days back, at least not with the insincerity Andy was touting around now because of his girlfriend.

He rolled his eyes for his brother's sake. "It's fine," he said dismissively as he glanced around at the oblivious muggles. "It's not like they'll even notice," he added as he slipped his own thin, swishy wand from his pocket, keeping it close to his side, covert even though he wasn't hiding it. Muggles were the most ignorant creatures. What would they think even if they did notice it? A handsome boy holding a stick? Leonidas was sure they'd seen weirder. That was, if they even noticed his wand. He had seen quite a few people take a double glance at him as they walked by, for reasons that obviously didn't have to do with his hand, and it made him feel pleased. Until he realized that they might be looking at his brother. With a glance at the Slytherin, Leonidas decided no, he was more handsome. He always had been.

He stepped in front of his brother, walking back a few steps, his loafers slapping against the pavement as he dared the other Lovecraft with a look. "Honestly, it would be better than walking around for the next two hours, this is dumb," he added, his mind already running through the locator charm and the wand movement. It could be quick, easy, daring. It wasn't as bad as some other 'illegal' magic Leonidas had done in front of muggles before so really what did Andy have to complain about.

Leonidas twirled his wand between his fingers, a smirk on his lips, the incantation a breath away before he was bumped rudely from the back. His eyes went cool, a supercilious smile pasted on his face as he turned, slipping his wand into his pocket but not out of reach and then stalled. A guy with a dark tan, stylish haircut with close-cropped sides, and wearing a pair of shorts that only came to mid-thigh made him pause. The Spaniard apologized in his accented, melodic voice and Leo waved him off with a friendly smile and the basic Spanish he knew.

After a moment, he was grinning, in a bit of a better mood for some reason as they started walking back down the street. He saw Andy's look. "What?"

“What if they do, Leonidas?” Andronicus asked, but his voice had more accusation in it than it should have. Andy was well aware of his little brother’s views about muggles and the statute of secrecy, but the older wizard disagreed. He no longer judged people because they were unfortunate enough not to be born with magic. He didn’t look down on them or treat the muggle-born students at school as inferior, and he thought the secrets were a good idea. It was a conversation he’d never fully had with Leonidas, but Andronicus wasn’t sure today was the day to open that particular doorway to hell.

Leonidas pulled out his wand anyway, and Andronicus gave him a look, “Don’t,” he said quickly but knew Leonidas wouldn’t listen to him either way. Sometimes he wondered how they had grown up to be so different, but other times he realized this was the only way it ever could have been. Andronicus had been just about to launch into a well-planned monologue about why Leonidas should put his wand away when a man ran into his brother, and Andy turned to look at him. He barely noticed the other wizard. Just because Andy had matured out of some of his judgmental tendencies didn’t mean he had outgrown them all. The Spanish man apologized, and Andy shrugged before moving on. Two minutes from now, he probably would have forgotten the encounter entirely, if not for the look on Leonidas’s face as they walked.

“What, what?” He asked as the smile grew on his face. Andronicus turned down the next street, which he was pretty sure they had been down before and looked for a secluded place to do a couple locating charms. If Leonidas was hellbent on using magic in a muggle town, they could at least try to hide it a little. Andronicus wanted to ace his exams, graduate Hogwarts, and start making broomsticks and he couldn’t do any of that if they were caught and expelled for a silly map spell.

"They won't, stop worrying, they're all so oblivious," he said with an elegant snort. "And besides even if someone does see, haven't you wanted to try out the oblivator charm before?" Leonidas added on with a curious perk of his brows.

But he saw that look on his brother's face and it was maybe because of that warning expression that he wanted to do it anyway. He could feel the incantation on the tip of his tongue, his lips moving to mouth the first syllable, all while glancing at two muggle women strolling behind Andy, stupidly delighted expressions on their faces as they pointed to a gelato shop across the street. Such simple-minded creatures.

It was over before it had begun. And he hated the grin he saw on Andy's face. "Nothing," he said as he turned away from it and into a narrow street that looked suspiciously familiar. "Can't you just apparate now that we're away from the big bad muggles?" he asked, stepping away from a pile of rubbish that smelled terrible, careful not to get any on his loafers. He was in luck because his brother finally agreed and Leonidas touched his arm and felt him being swept away in the next second.

/end

 Andronicus knew better than to try and tell Leonidas he couldn't do something. The more he was told not to; the more likely, the younger Lovecraft was to try and do it anyway. Just to show that he could prove that he had been right all along, Andy probably would have found it to be a far more annoying personality trait if he didn't share it. No one could tell Andy he was wrong when he was Leonidas's age, and yes, being two years older, and on the cusp of adulthood, Andronicus felt like he had enough hindsight to see things more clearly — of course, he didn't. The way Leonidas seemed to perk up at the end of erasing some poor soul's memory worried Andy, and it was tough to keep that look from his face until they encountered a muggle and the older wizard became distracted.

"Yeah, okay, chill," Using slang words he wouldn't dare utter in the Lovecraft household, Andronicus rolled his eyes at his brother's impatient and pulled his wand from his pockets. Andronicus might not have been wearing loafers, but he was careful not to step in any of the day's old puddles in the alleyway and muddy up his crisp white trainers. Reaching out for Leonidas, Andronicus prepared to apparate the two of them back to the villa. He might have had more love for muggles than his brother, but Andy wouldn't trade being a wizard for anything. At the end of the day, they didn't need to know where they were or how they had got here because as long as they had magic, they could always find their way home.

Even if they never found their way back to each other.

"They aren't all terrible, you know," Andronicus offered in the split second before the darkness enveloped them, and they were transported through reality. Folds of matter moved around them like flags on the wind, blurring everything outside, and in a moment, Andronicus felt his feet crunch on the sun-baked grass of the Lovecraft vacation home. He let go of his brother and walked away quietly.

/end