Post Aftershock

After sundown

April 14th

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	Pericles would remember the moment he had lost hope for a full recovery: when the nurse concluded her examination, stating there was no more to be done for it. This truth became all the clearer when on arrival at St. Mungo's, he was led to the fourth-floor ward for permanent spell damage. The specialist's work was brief. His eye had been removed entirely in the injury, dissolved into the dirt outside the Quidditch pitch. Stray sparks in the stabbing had fried the optic nerve. It could not be recovered, reattached, or regrown. He sat in numbness as the healer spoke of restoring volume to prevent a flat lid, describing an implant bound to the socket muscles, sutured to provide natural movement to an artificial eye. Artificial. Nothing more than a cosmetic placebo. Pericles struggled to concentrate on the technicalities. His thoughts were with his mother: gone on some Seer pilgrimage for who knew how long, maybe a year, maybe two, virtually unreachable. She wouldn't know the news until she came home. Only fifteen, the young warlock felt fear and hope in equal measure knowing at least his father was on the way. He was wanting for comfort, but then, he had been lying to dear old dad for ages now. It had been a small lie at first, only with passing years, it grew until it was some looming shadowy thing which Pericles dragged around behind him. The lie was born at the end of his first year, after overhearing his parents discuss the January article of the Daily Prophet:

However, Hogwarts is in the paper for much more than the outrageous behavior of a pair of now dead part giants. It would seem that the part-giants were beaten to death by the students in a rather grotesque manner. One of the part giant was apparently stabbed in the eye, the three-inch heel being of sufficient length to pierce the brain, it is presumed that the part giant died of a hemorrhagic brain injury. Parents are questioning Hogwarts....

Headmaster Lazarus Plott from Ilvermorny was present during this most recent incident. "It is my great displeasure to say that the students being taught at Hogwarts, at the very least some of them, are incredibly reckless and dangerous. In all of my years of academia I have never seen anything like it. The students are incredibly aggressive, and while most of the media attention revolves around the death of a pair of part giants whom have not been identified as students, I saw no less than two other violent incidents take place in the ballroom before that fatal incident."

What if that had been our son, was the worry. What if our son had been hurt, had been murdered, had something irreplaceably taken from him. They spoke of other schools, particularly Beauxbatons. The then twelve-year-old had drawn in on himself where he eavesdropped from a balcony. Hogwarts was the one other place where he had experienced meaningful connections. He had lived a life of isolation: homeschooled apart from other children, parents ostracized from polite society once his father became a vampire, his mother- already deemed the daughter of a mad Azkaban potioneer- equally shunned for choosing to remain married to one. The Dralts were considered uncanny at best, dangerous at worse. But not at Hogwarts. Hardly anyone there seemed to know or care where he'd come from, and he came to realize what he was missing. All of his life, he had been blissfully unaware that the world wasn't just some place that would use or harm him, but where he would learn to love, and be loved in return. The boy wasn't willing to give that up. His parents had asked about the article. Pericles lied, saying he'd never seen anything awful, that soft trustworthy voice regurgitating his father's grumbles about fabricated media. Disinformation. Calumny. He returned to school for a second year, and at the end of it, he repeated the lie again. Hogwarts was safe. He had never seen anything there beyond the pale. The next year was described the same, and the year after that, but there was no hiding his misfortune this time. There was no omitting the damage done when it was so clear as an empty eye socket.

Isaac Dralt arrived under the watchful accompaniment of two security operatives. He walked with a thick rag held over his mouth, staving off the tempting aroma of injured patients. Vampires were disallowed from seeking treatment here, and it had taken no small amount of fight for the right to visit. As he entered, the guards tried to file in after, but Isaac rounded on them, pulling the cover away to expose a fanged grimace. The tension in his tone made it clear he'd been narrowly tolerating the entourage. "Oh, for pity's sake. Can you not spare me a moment alone with my own son?" Pericles sat straighter in the hospital bed, angling towards the door. His father had a sugar-and-ice personality, cold and closed off to those he didn't know, sweet and tactile to those he loved. The heir put up with the clawed hands soon framing his face, withering under Isaac's expression of worry while his head was turned one way, then the other. When his father spoke, the bitter baritone used on the guards was replaced by a heartbroken hum. "Who's done this?" He was reaching for the bandage when Peri's hand intercepted his, clasping it as he insisted tightly, "It doesn't matter, da. It was an accident." Denied a good look at the damage, Isaac reluctantly withdrew, though his head shook as he muttered "Funny sort of accident, jabbing an eye out with a wand. A name is all I ask for." The heir knew what he really wanted was a surname. Jack Warren wasn't a criminal, he was sick, as much- more of- a victim to Hogwarts' machinations than he was. Heavy with exhaustion and emotion, at a borderline plead, Pericles mumbled "I was being just as careless as the one holding it. He's in worse shape than I am."
Institutionalized, last he'd heard. Despite da's penchant for revenge, an eye for an eye wouldn't be apt.

Isaac felt a leaden weight in his chest as he assessed his son. He had always found these omissions difficult to stomach, yet he permitted the farce for all this time, coaxed by his wife to parent with trust. "Let's take you home."

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	Isaac spoke as though going home was an overdue respite, voice warm with the implication that to do so was a mercy. His gentle words were backed with the gravity of finality. Peri shook his head, hoping to hide the panic he felt, managing only to protest "I feel fine, honest. I'm glad you came to see me, and I'm grateful for the specialist, but I don't think going home will help." "You need to rest." "For how long?" Isaac shrugged, a non-answer, meaning he wasn't willing to discuss the whole of it. This was it. If he didn't dissuade his father, he wouldn't be going back to Hogwarts. "I don't want to miss any school. We have O.W.L.s next month." "Your tests can wait. Your recovery cannot. You're strong, my lamb, but even you cannot manage this on your own." Pericles bristled under the pet name. He was being coddled, treated as some sickly offspring in an effort to control him, and he couldn't stand it. "Don't talk to me like a child. You don't know what I can manage." Pericles had always taken after his mother, but in that moment, Isaac saw himself in the boy clear as a mirror. Callous scorn flashed in his eye, a coldness he'd never been on the receiving edge of. The masks of sangfroid splintered between them as father and son rose to the challenge. "I would if you only told me things." "No, you would've just pulled me while I was still too little to stand up for myself. I can't leave Hogwarts. I'm not missing the O.W.L.s, and I won't be separated from my friends." One thing Pericles had learned from his ally in Spain was that his father wasn't always transparent with his intentions. He had practically used his heir as bait for a business deal, and because they hadn't confronted it, there had been no ground for closure. He hadn't forgiven him for it, nor was he about to be blindsided by da's machinations again. Lured by the rising volume of their voices, the guards shadowed the doorway, only to retreat when the duo inside simultaneously yelled at them to sod off before going back to bickering with one another. Isaac's terrible presence rolled off of him in waves as he argued low, flat, and stern: "I attended the same school, Pericles. Any concentration of young magic-wielders, who are still developing a capacity for control, is always a liability. Yet Hogwarts has become unmanageable compared to the others. Your Headmaster clearly sustained great suffering in his absence, and I pity him for it, but I fear his encounter rendered him unfit to ensure your protection. Even-" the undead pointed a claw at Peri's empty eye socket "-from your fellow students." The son grimaced as he realized that just because he didn't tell his father what was going on at school, didn't mean dad was in the dark. Pericles had pretended away the dangers he witnessed, speaking only of spells he learned, duels he fought, rehearsed positivity to prevent his parents from worrying. Yet an article ages ago had mentioned Plott taking over in Lear's absence. It was the same article which had inspired Isaac to consider switching schools in the first place. Their Headmaster had returned in haunted condition, deeply traumatized by whatever torment he'd undergone. Pericles remembered the moment his starstruck regard had been put to the test, when he witnessed Lear's Bombarda Maxima backfire at a ball while trying to destroy a Hag Doll. Man, he really needed to stop going to balls after this. Even then, he didn't think it fair for his father to blame the battered old man, denying tensely "What happened to me had nothing to do with Headmaster Lear." "It had everything to do with Hogwarts. Come home, love. Time away will help you see things clearly." Pericles felt the resolve sink in his stomach. He realized he was going to be another of those faces which disappeared over the years. There was a reason the Seventh-Year class was so much smaller than the firsties: few made it to graduation before their parents came to their senses and sent them somewhere else, or something arguably worse. Jack was just the latest in a long string of lost peers. Peri wouldn't be back either. Would the others make it? @Dealla Prince he didn't doubt to succeed, but what was this ball going to do to her if she lost two peers in one night? She already focused too hard on her studies. @Aly Salinger could probably pull her out of it, though the girl had already suffered so much loss. Maybe she and @Evelynn Decipio could bond over his absence? At least they'd have each other. Funny, he realized, that as much as he believed he'd brought them out of isolation, they'd really reeled him out of his own self-imposed solitude. In the same sense, while he tried to mentor @Mahlioz Evethisawe and @Rebecca Lark, he learned from them in unexpected ways. Were their guardians the type to let them stay at such a dangerous school? He immediately regretted not knowing more about their home lives, dreading the thought of not having a chance to ask about them. This would mean goodbye. People weren't exactly keen on letting their child have a slumber party in the same house as a vampire, and as a result, Pericles' upbringing had been painfully lonely up until he started school. He was realizing all too late that he had taken those bonds for granted. Bitter and sullen, he made a last ditch plea: "I've made friends. Good friends. Don't take that from me." Those trauma bonds had been built brick by brick, yet Isaac's will was a sledgehammer. "I promised your mother I'd look after you. Since the stress you're under prevents you from doing so, it's my obligation to choose what's best. Responsibility is a bitter drink, my boy, but we must imbibe." ┗ ┛

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	Pericles would never have been described as "petulant". He was a model student and heir, or at least, whatever mischief he got up to was kept tidily under wraps. Yet the Dralt patriarch had dismissed him so dispassionately, discredited his desires so totally, that- in a moment of moral weakness brought on by grief- the son's composure splintered. He spoke with weaponized frigidity, quiet, yet cold. "Responsibility...? That's how you're framing it?" The teenager was suddenly sick of sitting in hospital beds like a frail, broken thing. He sat up abruptly, swung his legs over the side, and steadied himself against the nightstand while waving the other arm out incredulously. "Obliterate all I've accomplished over the past five years, and- what, exactly? Carry on course at Beauxbatons? I'm not moving to Spain so you can barter me off with Odette. She doesn't even like boys." Isaac gawked. He couldn't pin what threw him off more: the multifaceted implications about the Vaillancourt girl, or the fact that Pericles- who at length had a tic where confrontation caused him to stare at the ground- had snarled at him. In place of any real response was an agog "I- what? What did you say?" Seeing him put on a back foot, Pericles seized the momentum, biting ruthlessly "If mom was here, she would tell you you're wrong." What would have really happened is the seer would have taken them each by an ear, but the undead was in no state to admit it. He bristled when his wife was used against him, even if it was by his own son, lapse in patience manifesting through a dark look and grim scowl. His upper lip curled back from a fang when he spoke. "Only she isn't here. Your mother would understand my decision; in time, so will you. As your parents we have an inalienable duty to do right by you." But Pericles didn't falter from his combative path, pushed past the brink by a lifetime of wearing a passive mask he could no longer bear. Voice strained with exasperation, he spat "And you honestly believe that's to pull me from school, slinging some line about how it's 'for my own good'? Hogwarts is the greatest thing that's happened to me. When I started there, I didn't know anything about, anything. I learned how to fight. I made friends. You kept me alone in a- in a haunted mansion all my life!" Isaac tried to halt him with the point of a clawed finger, tensely objecting "That wasn't by choice." But Pericles was relentless, stating flatly "It was. You were the one that chose to let them turn you." "My partner's life was at stake." "What of our lives? What about mom and I? You couldn't be near us for a year. You couldn't have guests. Even when the Ministry deemed you 'safe' to be around, they didn't want to be there. Nobody wanted to leave their children alone with a vampire's son." Isaac's sternness bled away, expression twisting as the old wound was brutally jabbed, face softening as much as his cutting features allowed. The boy was six when his father was irreversibly altered: old enough to remember what life was like before, yet too young to truly digest the development. He had tried to swallow down the changes in compliant silence, though their sharp edges left scars Isaac was finally seeing in the light. The realization was blindsiding; Pericles had hidden his turmoil, much as he had masked his misadventures since the start of school. He had thought his son content with their isolation, but evidently, he'd had a taste of something he was willing to fight tooth and nail for. Even if his opponent was dear old dad. In this battle of willpower, the heir knew no punches could be pulled if he was to win out, so he struck the killing blow with a stinging rejection. His voice was hoarse and harsh as he snapped, "I'm not going to waste away in that crypt with you." It is a terrible feeling, to have realized one's words were wrong only after they cannot be retracted. Isaac took them like a stake to the heart. His eyes, glowing faintly in the dim light, seemed to dim as they averted towards the sidelines. Broad shoulders slumped while that silver tongue lay locked behind clenched teeth. The heir stared in mounting mortification, trying to find the words for an apology if it meant an end to the agonizing silence. His father broke it with a whisper to the tune of a confession. "I lost my magic, Pericles. I could not bear to lose you, too." As much as Isaac seemed to be seeing his son clearly, the same could be said for Pericles. All his father's coddling, the not-so-subtle nudges for him to take over the family business as opposed to being an Auror, the choice to pull him from Hogwarts, the covert political plays: these hadn't been to treat him like a little boy, so much as they made a carefully woven plan to protect him. What he had mistaken for underestimation had been, in truth, desperation. His heart sunk with the weight of it. Bracing against the bed for balance, Peri closed the gap between them to take one of his dad's corpse-cold hands in his. "You don't have to shelter me anymore. I've kept things from you- things that I've seen, and learned, and done. But you've kept things from me, too. I know you used me as bait in that trade deal. I know there are things you won't tell me about vampirism, or why you were turned. I know about my other grandparents...." The sudden darkness which overcame Isaac's countenance caused Pericles to pivot, practically stumbling over his words as he went on "....and I know people who care about me as ardently as I care about them. We watch out for one another." He gestured to the bouquet of lavender, pink peonies, and moly atop his nightstand, brought along from the hospital wing as a piece of tangible comfort to cling to. "I know you're frightened by what happened to me. I am, too, only I'm not going to run away over it. I've gone through too much for it to be for nothing. Especially this." He touched the bottom of the bandage shielding an empty eye socket, then squeezed as he said "You've made your choices. Please, da... let me make mine." The Dralt patriarch had often claimed Pericles took more after his mother, but as the boy glowered up at him with one avid eye, Isaac saw a sliver of himself reflected back at him. He reached to brush the back of his claws down a freckled cheek, marveling at a murmur: "Every September I send you away, and every June you return to me changed." No matter how fierce his grasp, his son was slipping through his fingers. That was the curse and blessing both of parenthood: seeing them leave the nest. Knowing it was foolish to make the process more painful than it innately was, Isaac's hand fell away. "A compromise. Meet with me when I send for you, a few times each school year, in Hogsmeade. The Broomsticks may not sell me a room, but the Hog's Head will. Just to talk." ┗ ┛

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	Pericles had faced a disproportionately large fear head-on: the belief that his father would pull him from Hogwarts for the sake of his safety. He knew there was reason in it, yet in the end, compromise won out. He would trade transparency for continued attendance. The Dralt patriarch hadn't put an end to the risk imposed by the infamous school, but at least a pathway for communication- honest communication- had reopened between he and his heir. As effective as the callouts along the way had been however, Pericles understood that his hadn't been the gentlest rationale. Isaac was faced with the harsh realization that his son was practically growing up without him. Perhaps he had been since the Turn. The Ravenclaw had seen many sides of his father, but scarcely recognized the wounded one with which he took his leave. He hadn't imagined a wrath-prone vampire could look like a kicked dog. Appetite smothered, he was glumly dissecting the snack left by his bedside, using a spoon to cut a block of green gelatin which smelled like cleaning solution with a hint of citrus. He looked up sharply when a medinurse stuck her head through the door to announce that he had a visitor. Your grandmother is here. Would you like me to send her in? For someone who had spent the better part of last year isolating himself, Peri now found he was sorely deficient in the comforts of company. What was more, Mamo Tama was just the person he needed to talk to after the back-and-forth with her son. She was masterful at mediating and recentering them both. An eager yes please preluded setting aside the inedible gelatin. He sat up straighter in the hospital bed, ensured his patch was fully in place, and made a hasty effort to smooth his hair. It wasn't until he heard the clack of approaching heels that he considered it might be the wrong grandma. The hope lighting up his freckled face extinguished as Alarice Saltgrave strode into the room. It was promptly replaced by a mortified gawk as he realized he was cornered, disabled, and alone with the deranged witch who had tried to Bombarda him out of the sky last they met. Reflexively, he snatched the wand from the nightstand and thrust it out in a warning gesture. She smirked and splayed empty hands, wordlessly invoking peace, doubly presuming he wouldn't cast on someone unarmed. Pericles was tempted to with the way Alarice sized him up like some exhibition in a gallery. "'Owen Greville', wasn't it? Not as colorful a name as Pericles Dralt, you must admit. It must have been a terrible injury that landed you here. Alongside that lovely eye of yours, you also seem to have lost some of your height, and your cheekbones." She was referring to the fact that he was no longer under the guise of a Trenchcoat of Sneak. While usually a connoisseur of wry comedy, Pericles couldn't be in less of a laughing mood. His voice and wand wavered as he spat through a tight jaw, "How did you find me?" "How many white eagle animagi would you wager reside on the British Isles?" Oh. Right. Shit. "Why are you here?" "My servant suffered an unfortunate accident," she drawled dispassionately, shrugging her shoulders in dismissal of his fate. If it wasn't an outright lie, Pericles had a strong suspicion she'd landed her own house-elf in the hospital as an excuse. With a short shake of his head and a tightening grip on his wand, he muttered "That isn't what I meant. Why are you in my room? How did you know I was here? Have you been watching me?" How else would she know where to find him? Alarice scoffed off the accusation. "As if I'd keep connections in that dingy academy of yours. Who could I possibly enlist for such a task? Children?" His dubious silence and mistrustful glower coaxed out a low correction. "Not you. Your father." Somehow, that was exponentially worse. A sick feeling squirmed in his stomach, causing the wand to lower to the blanket in forfeit. Alarice's scarlet lips formed a knife-thin smile. She strode across the room to take a cross-legged seat in the visitor's chair, ignoring- or reveling in- the way this caused Pericles to recoil in disdain. "Word spreads quickly when a last living heir finds himself hospitalized. Oh- don't look at me that way. I'm not here to delay the healing process." "Then what? What do you want?" Her head lilted at an innocent angle. "We're family. I wanted to visit. Isn't that why you came to my home?" Clearly the then fifteen-year-old had severely miscalculated the whole "poke around the criminal side of the family" endeavor. As he stared at her in mute resignation, Pericles came to to the realization that he was in the "find out" stage of fucking around. "I'm grateful for the breadcrumbs you left me. To think I believed 'Greville' had been planted by the Ministry! Your theories, outlandish, childish speculations though they were, resonated quite close to some of my dear Rowan's beliefs. I thought you were too good to be true." When Pericles interjected, he did so at a snarky grumble. "What about that 'any man who deceives me is my enemy' line?" Alarice waved a manicured hand past her shoulder, metaphorically brushing it behind her. "Water under the bridge. That was before I knew we were kin." Perhaps Pericles thought he could lure her into leaving by granting nothing more than a sullen leer. Like an old stone, she weathered it, subjecting him to another appraisal in return. "You look much more recognizable now. If it weren't for the age you were wearing last we met, I might have seen it more clearly. Your hair, your eyes... well, eye. Your grandfather still keeps Cenny's portraits hung in Helmont Hall, you know." "My mother despises that nickname. I'd be glad for the point of all this." "Oh. A young businessman, just like your father. The point, Pericles, is that we needn't be so estranged. My husband and your mother both made their fair share of mistakes. Now look at our lines: Helmont Hall is a ghost of its former self, and everyone knows the vampiric commodore is holding on to his company by a thread." Her lower lip protruded pityingly. "Two broken legacies is a terrible weight to shoulder for one bird. You came to me for help with your father. Isn't that right?" A guilty glance towards the floor was all the answer Alarice needed. "I can help you, boy. Now that I know who you really are, I can better trust you. With time, you might allow me to regain some of your trust, too." Pericles knew better than to commit to anything aside from the silent treatment. It seemed to have worked well enough. As seconds ticked by, the poisoneer's expression soured, annoyance thinly veiling indignation over being ignored. She made a final jab, complete with prodding a long nail in his direction. "What did you do with that unicorn blood?" "Drank it," Pericles lied. Alarice flashed a wide smile. Whether she thought he was honest or not, her answer would have rang the same. "You take more after your Saltgrave side than you realize. Come and see me again, 'Owen'. My fireplace is always open to you." ┗ ┛

Fin.