must be cold there in my shadow [hefin]

june 2002

Tuesday. Only three and a half more days until the weekend. Merlin. Winston leaned back in his office chair -- a new ergonomic one with plenty of lumbar support, his crowning achievement of the quarter thus far -- and propped his feet up on his desk. It wasn't that he was particularly busy today (frankly, he never was), just that he was particularly bored. He had already run out of blank parchment, having used all his extras in his morning quidditch practice -- he had a mini set of hoops set up over the rubbish bin -- and had started in on a stack of memos, only stopping when he realized it was his stack of 'unreads'.

He read the memo closest to him, a memo from the Minister that referred to an earlier (probably unread) memo. He grimaced and shrugged, crumbling this one up, too, and launching it at the hoops, just barely missing. Winston sighed, eyes darting around his office for some other diversion. The usuals -- a book of madlibs, a deck of cards to practice muggle magic tricks, The Prophet crossword puzzle -- didn't interest him. Thankfully, he didn't have to wallow too long: another memo swooped in and instead of adding it to the growing pile of things to look at later, he looked at it immediately. Apparently he had a visitor waiting for him in the atrium. It was probably his mother, who often stopped by to make sure he was being productive. He almost always wasn't.

Mrs. Foss didn't like to be kept waiting, so Winston stood up, smoothed out his robes, and hurried out of his office. He moved through the department with a safe but deliberate speed, telling everyone to 'keep up the good work' as he passed by. The lift up to the atrium was the longest part of his passage, but he made it there eventually, searching the small crowd for his mother's familiar features.

But it wasn't his mother that his gaze fell on. His nephew -- well, first cousin once removed -- was standing there looking effortlessly cool, leaning over the check-in desk and chatting up the Welcome Witch. Had he forgotten about a planned visit? Maybe he really should start using that desk calendar his mother had gifted him for Christmas. Or the pocket organizer she had gifted him for his birthday. He looked round immediately for his cousin Huw, Hefin's father, and his face fell only the slightest bit when he was nowhere to be found. He felt a bit self-conscious at the prospect of alone time with Hef without any proper planning; Win hadn't had the opportunity to get a haircut or make sure his beard was shaped in the right way or not eat one-too-many meat pies (whose main ingredient was onions) for lunch. He ran a hand through his hair as a last ditch effort to pull himself together.

"Mr. Howell, I presume," he started, letting half a second pass before completely regretting the words that had left his mouth and shaking his head to start over. "Hefin," he held out his hand but pulled him into a brief hug, complete with a hard pat on the back. "You know your dad doesn't work here anymore, right?" He chuckled at his joke before Hefin did. "Just kidding, they told me you're visiting me. Tea? Coffee? Water? Wine? What's up?"

@Hefin Howell

The instances in which Huw asked for favours from his son were few. In the end, his father knew that Heather was being an awful busybody, invading each and every aspect of Hefin’s life; the last thing his son needed was for his own father to do the same. If anything, Huw had always been there to ease Hefin’s ways, and had constantly supported his son in every decision he made. So, when Huw did ask Hefin for a favour, it was impossible for the quidditch player to refuse. He didn’t even want to refuse.

Consequently, due to the fact that Hefin had to go to London for two days as Heather arranged him yet another fastidious blind date, Huw asked Hefin that before he’d return to Melbourne, to drop by the British Ministry of Magic. The beater needn’t even be asked twice; of course that he would pay a visit to one of his most favourite people ever, his uncle Win. It wasn’t even an errand. Hefin would have done so regardless of whether or not Huw asked him, as always.

Nonetheless, now it wasn’t just a pleasantry, for Hefin was instructed to invite his uncle Win over to Melbourne, as his dad wanted to take his best friend (and cousin) out on his newly purchased yacht, to spend a weekend sailing. Hefin honestly wondered how that combination would end up well, and genuinely hoped it even wouldn’t, because it would certainly distract his mother from her favourite subject of focus: himself.

So, there he was, at the British Ministry’s welcome desk, chatting up (read: effortlessly charming without even wanting) the Welcome Witch. While he was waiting for his uncle, the very important and busy Department Head to arrive, Hefin pleased the Welcome Witch and took a picture with her, along with signing several autographs for her and her friends. Later on, just so she won’t ask questions about him, Hefin simply wondered how a beautiful witch like her works at a boring desk job when she could’ve been a model.

Thankfully enough, Winston soon arrived. As soon as he heard his uncle’s voice, Hefin winked in the witch’s direction, and running a hand through his hair, turned around on his heel, greeting Win with a smile. “Mr. Foss.” He replied somewhat amused to the other wizard’s appellative. The former Hufflepuff then let out a laugh as his uncle pulled him into a hug, and made sure he replicated it with equal enthusiasm. “Oh, uncle Win.” Hefin remarked on a teasing tone, nodding in disapproval as Winston chuckled at his own joke. It had been a good one, he had to admit it. All of Winston’s jokes were actually very funny, Hefin having loved them since he was a child.

He then walked besides his uncle, as the other led the way towards his office – or so Hefin assumed, as his uncle took him there the last time he visited. “Water’s fine.” The Victorian commented, as he took off his dark brown leather jacket, revealing his matching turtleneck, before pulling out a small pamphlet from his jacket’s pocket. He then winked in his uncle’s direction, as he passed him the small booklet. “Father said I show you this. It’s a photobook of his new yacht.” Hefin joked even if he kept his cool demeanour, wanting to tease his uncle a little before revealing that he was obviously invited for the inauguration.

“But how is work? Hope you’re not too busy.” He inquired, just to double check if his uncle even had time for him.

Winston tried, really tried to remain serious, but it was no use. He made it about a second into his interaction with his nephew before laughing at the returned greeting. He put on a higher voice and brought his hand up, bending at the wrist as he said, “Please, Mr. Foss is my father.” The jokes borrowed from muggle things always had a way of making Hefin laugh, and Winston saw no need to ruin the idea that he was coming up with them himself. He returned the hug gleefully, patting the other man on the back before taking a step back, either hand on Hefin’s upper arms. “Nephew Hefin.” He nodded quickly before breaking out into another grin. Merlin, it was good to see him.

“We have water,” he noted, starting to lead the way to the newly renovated Department of Mysteries meeting rooms. They were new, installed at Winston’s suggestions, and certainly not because he kept bringing visitors down to his office and trying to show them around and disturbing his employee’s projects and ruining their research. No, definitely not because of that. The meeting rooms had taken over one of the smaller courtrooms -- in the end the value of one courtroom was less than the damage Winston had incurred in his own department -- and he was excited to show them off. He called one ‘The Innovation Room’ because -- well, he’d show Hefin soon enough.

He took the pamphlet and looked down with a slight frown. “Oh,” he said softly. “No photos of Huw and the boat, I guess?” That was disappointing. Of course, he wasn’t fully disappointed to have Hefin there with him, but Hefin without Huw was just slightly less fun than Hefin with Huw. But he took a better look at the pamphlet, flipping through a couple of the pages. It certainly was a nice yacht; there wasn’t much call for such things in London, but considering Winston’s bouts of seasickness, that was probably for the best. Still, he’d give anything to spend some time with Huw there. Sigh

“Oh, I’m never too busy to entertain a Howell, you know that.” Winston grinned, though to be truthful, he was never too busy to entertain anyone. But thankfully he didn’t often have to explain his work, always citing that everything was top secret, extra classified. It was simpler to admitting that he mostly didn’t know what kind of work his department was doing. Besides, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to understand it even if they did take the time to explain things to him. They always used such big words.

They exited the elevator at the lowest level, and Winston took a left turn rather than heading straight towards his department. “New security protocols,” Win said simply, leading the way to the Innovation Room. It was a thing of beauty. Bean bag chairs, dart boards, various toys to ‘inspire creativity’: Rubik’s cubes, LEGO, some magical equivalents that Winston didn’t have the same appreciation for, and the like. “Water,” Winston said as he pointed his wand toward the carafe off to the side to pour them out two glasses.

He grabbed the glasses and handed one to Hefin before settling himself on his bean bag chair, a dark green corduroy one, and getting comfortable. He flicked his wand at a container of straws nearby, selecting a particularly bendy crazy straw and placing it in his glass before taking a long sip through it. “And how is your work? How long will you be gracing this hemisphere with your presence?”