[Platform 9 3/4, Kings Cross] What's my next line? I lost the script. [Sare]

This was a total shit storm.

There was no denying the relief that Alvin felt at being released from the prison that Hogwarts had become. It had been suffocating, depressing... and it had cemented one thing in his mind. He never wanted to end up in Azkaban. At least at Hogwarts he'd been able to continue playing Quidditch. But the knowledge that they were trapped, cut off from the rest of the world, had been almost too much for him to handle. Hogwarts had always felt like freedom in the past - space away from his brothers, space to be his own person. Now that was all sullied. He wasn't sure he even wanted to go back once this month was up.

Vin had been uncharacteristically quiet on the train journey home. Eventually he'd got sick of the chatter from his classmates, who were excited to be heading home and having an impromptu month-long holiday to make up for missing Christmas. Without a word, he'd just got up, left the carriage and found some space by himself, burying his face in a months-old quidditch magazine and hoping people got the hint.

Home.

Home simply didn't exist for Vin. Last summer he'd officially been staying at Darren's as he had been underage at the time... but in reality he'd spent a lot of it couch-surfing and sleeping rough. Anything to avoid spending time with his brother. He'd barely seen him, apart from when they'd... well... yeah. When they'd done that. Sometimes when his paranoia crept up, he half-expected ministry officials to be waiting for him at Kings Cross. He was sure that the guilt oozed out of every pore and a neon sign above his head marked him out. He was a murderer. Not technically, as it had been Darren that had delivered that final curse and given their father his death sentence... but Vin was just as much to blame. It played on his mind when he least expected it, a constant war in his head trying to convince him he'd done the right thing... that they'd gotten away with it... that he should just forget and move on.

Home.

The summer before, he'd been with Sarah. Again, not officially, but they'd spent most nights together. He'd gotten used to waking up and her being there, blonde hair a mess, layers of mascara and eyeshadow smudged on her face. She was at her most beautiful then. Right now, he didn't even know if she was still alive. Maybe she'd got his owl once the dome had dropped? There hadn't exactly been time for a reply, they'd been shuffled onto the Hogwarts Express nice and quick, as if the professors feared the dome might reappear if they hung around. The thought that he might never see her again - that that awkward kiss back in the Hare was actually his last goodbye - hung heavy on his heart. He'd always thought they'd work things out. But that was just stupid naivety. He had to grow up and move on with his life. He wasn't an ignorant kid any more.

Home.

The train pulled into the station and Vin joined the crowds pouring out onto the platform, being pulled along with the surge in somewhat of a blur. All around him parents were pulling their children into crushing hugs. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, siblings reunited. Vin supposed that Kelly was going back with Ryan. He'd avoided them the whole journey back. He may appreciate knowing that his brothers were alive, but he sure as hell wasn't expecting this enforced separation to suddenly turn them into the Brady Bunch. They'd never be a family. Well, not Vin anyway. Kelly seemed happy enough with them. Vin had never really fitted.

Home.

As the crowds thinned and the platform began to empty, Vin bought himself a coffee and sunk down onto a wooden bench, watching as the train porters began to clear the Express. Vaguely he wondered what the train did for the rest of the year, in between the holidays, when it wasn't needed. Did it just sit in some shed, waiting to be wanted again? Stroking his free hand through his hair, he let out a frustrated sigh. There were a couple of places he could squat for a few days, but did he really want to spend the full month living out of his duffle bag counting down the days to go back to a school he didn't even want to be at anymore?

Chucking his empty coffee cup into the nearest bin, he sat back against the wooden slats of the bench, staring as the last of the families started to drift away back to their homes. Maybe it was time to get a job? Time to start badgering the Qudditch teams for a chance, a shot, a tiny opportunity to prove himself. He'd start out cleaning the locker rooms if he had to. Anything to get a foot in the door. He could work as a bouncer or a barman or a shop assistant in the meantime. Earn enough to rent a room somewhere. Scrape together something to cover meals. He was nothing if not independent and determined. He may have never been the most cunning of snakes, but that Slytherin ambition ran deep to his core. He had to make it work.

He had to make his own home.


@Sarah Hirst

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  When describing the four houses of Hogwarts, most people would have described Gryffindor as the brave house. The bold house. Hell, as far as house PR went, Gryffindor had that shit on lock. Every foetus that donned the sorting hat secretly hoped to be in the house of the heroes. Who'd think to describe them as stupid, save someone salty about being sorted into one of the shit ones? But even Sarah had to admit to herself that she didn't feel particularly brave or bold these days. Just stupid, because if she had been unsure about how she'd left things with Vin over the summer then she was damn certain that she'd made the wrong choice the second news broke that something was seriously wrong at Hogwarts. The blonde liked to think that she had a decent amount of common sense, but when months ago hysteria whipped through the magical world as its youth was sealed away to an unbeknownst fate, she'd disregarded everything she heard about that mad bloody dome and tried to get in.

  Why? Sure, she could give some canned answer about how dark magic was at work, and that being in the Order gave her a pipeline to whatever juices got people with saviour-complexes going in the morning. She was a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors were all about showing up, kicking ass and saving the day. Right? Maybe some people had swallowed that as Sare's genuine reason for trying as hard as she did in those first few months. Those closer - though there were few that could profess to falling under that category - knew better. Sare had a damn selfish reason for trying to get into that dome. She'd walked out on him like an idiot, but there was just no getting Alvin Hadditch off of her mind. The thought of not knowing what was going on in there, of anything happening to him-

  (The great hall, illuminated by a gruesome rainbow of curses flying through it. Red. Purple. Green. Green. Green. Green passing through Kayla's chest, mouth twisted in shock. Green bouncing off the walls as her sister hit the floor.)

  The dreams replaying Kayla's death still haunted her, but were nothing new. It was when her mind played tricks on her, when it was Vin hitting the floor instead that she would jerk awake at night with a strangled yell. Those were the nightmares that drew Reagan, a silent and reassuring presence as Sarah gasped in the dark and pretended only her chest was burning and not her eyes. She refused to talk about him, as if it were his name that now bore a magical taboo. Talking about him was bad. Talking about him hurt because the realisation that she'd been so irrevocably stupid drove her out of her mind. Anything could be happening in that dome. Anything. And the last thing she had done was run from him like a coward. It killed her.

  Her restlessness had become too much in the end. She'd taken off on a possible lead in respect of some death eaters sighted in eastern Europe, the crusade to find her sister's killer filling her with enough purpose to stop from losing her damn mind with what was going on in Britain. Sure, she checked din at home from time to time - to keep Reagan from going ballistic with worry more than anything - but poured herself into chasing up every possible scrap of information she had. Living from motel to motel, obsessively compiling scraps of information that would ultimately lead her to nowhere - it was something productive, at least. The nightmares continued.

    Just when Sarah was teetering on the edge of accepting that her travels had been inconclusive once again, a final nail in the coffin arrived to bring her home. A letter, crumpled and dated from early December. She'd been about to shove it in her bag to read some point in the future when she'd recognised the familiar writing. Spiky, angry green letters - her stomach felt like it was in her mouth when she spread the crumpled parchment over the table in a cheap cafe in Ukraine. First was relief - so strong it knocked her for six. He was alright. Of course he was. The day a Hadditch couldn't take care of themselves was the day the sky fell in. What registered next had been a twisting in her gut as she registered the blatant confusion laced through the letter, inflicted by her stupid, indecisive actions.

  It took Sare next to no time to come home. Reagan was overjoyed to see her, and told her with a knowing look that the boundary had finally fallen and Hogwarts students would be coming home in February for a month. Still, she had seemed cagey and the brunette had reluctantly admitted after much pushing from Sarah that since December - since the letter - Hogwarts had gone to hell in a handbasket. Dark magic, darker creatures - the castle had been like an elaborate Newt Scamander fantasy from the sounds of it. Doubt crept into Sare's mind - she hadn't received anything dated after December. Was he ok? Would anybody outside of the Hadditches have even been informed if he wasn't?

  That fear was what had brought Sarah to King's Cross. That was what had her standing there inconspicuously but with a sufficient view to watch students stream off of the Hogwarts Express. She waited, anxious eyes running over the crowd again and again, seeking green robes and the build she could pick out of any crowd. It was chaos, though - families reunited with loved ones, children sobbing in the arms of consoling parents. It was impossible to pick anyone out, and Sarah was halfway to convincing herself that he wasn't there and something really had happened when she saw him and inhaled sharply.

  He was sat at a bench, no consoling family in sight. Of course. There didn't appear to be any immediately visible injury that she could see, but she didn't have a good vantage point considering most of what she could see was the back of his head. Mutely, acutely scared in a way that she'd never, ever admit to being Sare approached him until she was just a few steps away, stood facing his back. Words failed her. Would he even want to see her? What the hell was she even supposed to say? Surprise, I give a shit after all! If he turned her away he'd be justified. Her mouth opened, then closed. She berated herself for being such an idiot, yet again. Finally, the tension got to be too much.

  "Vin?" She asked, voice cracking under the pressure.

Time was ticking on and he was still sitting there. Still trying to motivate himself to get up and start the rest of his life. Still trying to tell himself that it didn't matter that his family was so messed up, that he could cope alone. That he'd made the right decision not taking up Elias' offer of a place to stay. He'd thought about it, for a second or two. But he'd just imagined their happy, functional family, with him the awkward unwanted house guest who overstays their welcome. Of course people would be polite and say they didn't mind - that's what normal non-Hadditch families did. But they didn't actually want some random overgrown kid eating their food and taking up their space. Especially not some brawny thug who clearly had no brains and no manners. Alvin wasn't exactly house-guest material. A druggie squat? Now there he would blend in for a few nights. There he could sleep for free while he assessed how much he needed to actually rent somewhere and he figured out what he could legally do to get such money.

He was about to haul himself to his feet when he heard a voice. A voice that was oddly familiar saying something that sounded like his name. With a frown he turned his head, half expecting there to be nothing there and it just be his imagination playing cruel tricks on him... But if it was, then his eyes were playing tricks on him too, because the sight that greeted his tired eyes looked remarkably like a...

Sarah.

And even though he knew, rationally, that he should be feeling anger, or regret, or fear or some kind of choking sense of self-hatred that things had ended up how they did, he didn't feel any of that. He felt like... like he was...

Home.

He didn't say anything. For a moment he just drunk in her appearance like a man thirsting in the desert. The casual flannel and tshirt, the messy tied-back hair, the freckles that were oddly barely-covered by makeup, freckles he normally only saw when she was in bed, or showering. Everything about her felt familiar, intimate, homely and safe. After everything that had gone on at Hogwarts, Merlin, how he needed that safety.

A slow smile curled at his lip, and he rested his arm on the back of the bench, dipping his head to rest his chin against the back of his hand in a move that was oddly childlike. "Hey," he heard himself say, his voice softer than normal, happier than it had sounded in a long while, more relieved than he'd been when the dome came down. "How's it going? You made the world pay yet?"

  The childish urge to bolt as he turned had to be suppressed. Sare couldn't fuck this one up. If he was going to be angry with her, then let him be. She'd earned that, and she'd take it just to see him again in one piece. Merlin, she'd been an idiot, hadn't she? Telling herself that he was safer apart from her as long as she knew he was tucked away safely at Hogwarts. It had taken a real scare to pull her head out of her arse. Scare after scare, night after night waking up after imagining the worst. But what if she'd gone and made that realisation too late? If he'd gone and put the pieces of his life back together and made a picture that didn't need to feature her?

  Need being the key word. Because when that inexplicable smile spread across his face she found herself inhaling suddenly, not having realised that she'd stopped breathing in the tension. She needed him to be ok. She needed the comfort of being in a world that he was in. She... needed him. Greedily, she took in the sight of him before taking in his words. He looked well, as ever. Shit, she'd missed him and here he was in one piece and not treating her like the piece of shit he had every right to. Despite the time, he was familiar and comfortable and she didn't know how or why she'd thought walking out on him had been a good idea.

  His voice was a relief. Warm, rough - with that Essex twang that she always butchered when she tried to mimic him. The way he'd laughed at her attempts rang in her ears even though it was so long ago. Did he still laugh like that? Was he happy? He seemed content, resting his chin on his seat and asking how she was. Sare had mentally prepared for anger, or contempt. Maybe even being ignored by him. His letter was in her pocket, reread a dozen times with the parchment almost butter-soft from how many times she'd folded and unfolded it. But did that mean that he was ready to speak to her how he was now? The letter hadn't been written in anger, sure - but he still had the chance to be now. Why wasn't he taking it?

  She forced herself to take a step towards him, trying to hide how unsure she felt. The blonde felt vulnerable under his stare, wondering if he realised exactly how much power he held over her right now and whether he'd use it.

  "Don't think I'll ever manage that." Sare replied, trying to match the seemingly easy smile he'd given her. "Reckon you'll have had a worse time of it than me, though. Must've been a madhouse there this year."

  She couldn't decide whether to sit opposite him or stay standing. The witch wasn't sure of anything at that moment, with the exception of him. Sare was positive about him. If he'd give her the chance to show that - not that she deserved it - she'd make a personal promise not to mess shit up as colossally as she had last time.

For the moment he was quite happy to avoid talking about that moment they'd had in the Hare. Avoid discussing what the fuck had happened and what was going to happen. Sarah answered his question, just her voice music to his ears, and it was like nothing had happened. Like they were just catching up after a few weeks apart rather than months agonising over whether they were over, whether he'd ever see her again.

He waved a hand dismissively at her words, trying to play it off as cool. "You know me, darlin'," he replied, the playful term of endearment slipping off his lips as naturally as it used to. "S'long as I got my bat and wand, I'm untouchable. S'been good practice actually. Sent a few inferi heads flyin' - you shoulda seen it." He was making himself sound braver and stronger than the reality of course. It hadn't been that easy. Even though Alvin had spent his life defending himself, sometimes quite literally fighting for his life, nothing had really prepared him for what Hogwarts had become. There had been a few close calls, a few moments when he'd really thought that he'd come to the end. Game over. No do-overs. But he was a survivor. Darren and Ryan had given him that at least. Turns out that Darren had been teaching him a valuable lesson all this time after all.

He wanted to be real with her. She was the only person he'd consider being truthful with. Confessing how afraid he'd been. He wanted to tell her about Jack too, even though Darren had made him swear not to tell a soul. He carried the secret around with him like it was burning a hole through his chest. But he stopped himself from blurting out the entire contents of his head. Just because she was here didn't mean squat. Maybe she just wanted to say goodbye. To tell him things were done, like he'd asked her to in his letter. Oh Merlin, the letter... he started to squirm just thinking about what he'd written. He'd told her that he missed her, for fucks sake. How pathetic must he sound?

"You sittin'? Or you wanna go get a drink or somethin'?"