336Notes: I decided to start including my acknowledgments at the end of the chapter, instead of up here, so you will find them at the bottom of the page from now on.
The piece I have posted below is another 'slice of life' for a character- this time from canon - who really hasn't had much screen time so far despite the nature of his role in the sequel. Please note - his background is totally AU, with only loose inspiration from cannon, if you squint.
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Saturday 15 August 1998 - Thomas Residence - Forest Gate, Borough of Newham, Greater London
Dean Thomas stalked around his bedroom, opening drawers and rifling through various piles of parchment and paper with increasing frustration. "Where is that damn book?" he grumbled to himself. He could have sworn he had left it on his bedside table the previous night, but it seemed to have done a runner...again.
This was the fourth time he had lost track of it in the last week, and he was convinced the thing was getting craftier. He couldn't decide if it was actively mocking him, or if it just enjoyed living up to its name: Now You See It, Now You Don't: Charms for Concealing and Disguising. Either way, he knew two things for certain: the author, Hadrian Hoydini, was an arse, and he needed to put a bloody tracking charm on it... provided he managed to find it again.
"Dean!" his mother called up to him, "I need you to pick up some breadfruit." He noted not for the first time that her voice carried none of the musical lilt of his grandparents, only the strident tones and sometimes mangled vowels of East London that he occasionally recognized in his own speech.
Well, any excuse to stop dwelling on the implications of repeatedly being outsmarted by a magical textbook. "Coming!" Dean hollered back.
His mother had been born in London in 1952 on a Council Estate in Dagenham a few years after his grandparents had fled to the capital following a series of violent labor riots in the Caribbean colony they had once called home. Later, as a newlywed nursing trainee, she and his father had settled in Forest Gate because they had eventually wanted children, and situated at the southern tip of Epping Forest, it had offered considerably more open space than your average London district. His mother sometimes spoke of how difficult it had been for them to scrape together the money while his father had still been apprenticing and before she had completed her certifications, but they had been determined. And, he knew from experience that once his mum's sights were set on a goal, there was little that would deter her from success, no matter the obstacles. The evidence of that perseverance was all around him, and he would like to think that, even after everything, she didn't regret their choices and sacrifices.
Dean was certainly grateful. He and his two older siblings had grown up cheering for West Ham and watching Senrab FC play on the Wanstead Flats on Sundays. It was hardly the stuff of fairytales, considering the disappearance of their father and the fact that his sister's bedroom had been their second sitting room for more than half her life, never mind the crime rates and ubiquity of pawnshops and chicken takeaway, but their two bedroom terraced house had always been filled with family and laughter, and he wouldn't trade it for all the gold in Gringotts.
Dean's mouth practically watered as he came down the stairs. He knew breadfruit meant salt fish and dumplings. He was admittedly a bit curious, since she typically only cooked the dish on special occasions, but since it was his absolute favorite, he wasn't going to question it too closely.
He lingered in the kitchen doorway, watching his mother expertly knead the stiff flour and coconut dough. This small room, with its outdated appliances, and barely enough room to navigate around the table crammed under the window, had always been the beating heart of their household.
After a minute, she turned to speak to him, "I need... maybe 3 or 4 medium-sized fruits, if you could? I can't believe I forgot to buy them when I was out yesterday."
"No sweat, Mum. I'll be back in a few," he promised.
"Cheers," she called after him, "Be careful."
"Always."
Dean stood on the pavement in front of his house for a moment, relishing the feel of the warm summer evening. He realized that a breath of... perhaps not exactly fresh, but at least outdoor, air was just what the healer had ordered. Finally deciding he had faffed about enough, he headed East toward Cranmer Road. He was pretty sure there was an Asian market by the Railway Arches that should have what he needed, and if they didn't, then the Caribbean restaurant on Woodgrange would likely sell him a few pieces of the lumpy green fruit if he explained that the fate of a special dinner was on the line.
After crossing the blissfully empty roundabout, Dean strode purposely down the road, avoiding eye contact and ignoring both a girl who clearly fancied herself as Scary Spice and a man in a maroon track suit yelling at someone upstairs at number 39 as only someone raised in a big city can. He slowed down behind two young women walking a dog. They were chatting animatedly about something that had happened at a party they'd both attended the night before. While debating with himself about whether it would be more polite to go around them or just cross to the other side to get ahead, he absently registered that they seemed to be about his age. One of them wore dark cargo pants and a red scarf blouse that revealed a sleek form and a great deal of ebony skin. The other one, a red head, gave off a more casual vibe, with her sweatpants and pink crop top. Seeing the two walking shoulder to shoulder, a study in contrasts, he couldn't help but think of his ill-fated tryst with Ginny Weasley.
Unbidden, an image of her hair splayed on the pillow, surrounding her like a fiery halo and brushing against his skin like molten silk popped into his head. It was so sudden and vivid, he nearly walked into a parked car as he made to step off the curb.
She had been beautiful and interesting, but desperately hung up on someone else; someone who, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, was oblivious to her advances. He was confident that she would have eaten Potter alive. In fact, he could hardly imagine two people less suited, though he would be the first to admit that he didn't know Harry as well as he probably should considering they had shared a dorm for seven years. He blamed Ron… and Seamus. Still, the heart wants what it wants, and in the end, fleeting passion aside, she hadn't wanted him. His lips twitched upward into a slightly brittle smile, surprised to discover that acknowledging it didn't hurt the way it used to.
Picking up his pace, he finished crossing to the opposite pavement. Catching one final glimpse of the girls, he considered another ginger of his acquaintance, one he had been thinking about with embarrassing frequency over the last month. He was starting to think he might have a type...gorgeous red heads who could kick his arse. It was a weakness, to be sure, but what a way to go!
Still, the two witches were hardly carbon copies of one another. Susan Bones was steady and grounded in a way that Ginny likely never would be, which was to say nothing of their physical differences, though both were certainly stunning in their own way. Dean was fairly sure that he wasn't even registering on Susan's radar at this point, but maybe it was time to invest himself in changing that. They would have plenty of opportunities over the next few years to see each other at their best and worst, and he didn't plan to squander a single one.
Spotting the grocer's distinctive green sign as he rounded the corner, he walked past a row of dodgy old railway arches, relics of an abandoned over-ground route that scarred the landscape. A few, like the one housing the small market, had been lined and repurposed, their freshly pained shutters adding a bit of color to the otherwise dreary lane. Most of the refurbished units served as small storage areas, but there were retail outlets intermixed with a few of the kind of car repair garages that his mum always referred to as metal bashers. It was a definite change from the last time he'd been down this way.
A kid he had attended primary with used to talk about opening up a restaurant or pub in one of the arches someday. It had seemed like a daft idea when they were ten, but looking around him, Dean admitted that he might have underestimated Dan's entrepreneurial vision.
Christ, he hadn't thought about Dan since starting Hogwarts. He actually hadn't spared much thought to any of his mates from Godwin Junior School in years, which made him feel bad. Maybe his mum or sister would know what some of them were up to these days. He wasn't sure what he would do with the information, as he had no intention of looking anyone up, but he supposed there was something comforting about just knowing. It made that part of his life seem more real somehow.
The bell on the door of the shop jangled when he entered the market. He reflexively shot a smile at the clerk behind the counter, but the man was too busy watching a portable telly. He could hardly blame him as most of the league's first round matches were today. West Ham had been up by one against Sheffield Wednesday when he'd left the house.
The place was small, so it wasn't too surprising that it was a bit crowded on a Saturday. And, naturally, the produce section was at the back of the store. Dean's first attempt to reach his objective (and it really did feel like some auror training exercise) failed when he was forced to reverse course at the canned goods aisle. In addition to the two women chatting away in the middle of it, there was an older gentleman hunched over the beans searching for the cans with the best use by dates. The tins stacked haphazardly around him were testimony to his diligence in the matter. Down the next aisle, he had to step over a child pretending to wage some kind of battle with the various tubs and jars of spices, but at least the route was passable.
He worried for a moment that they didn't have what he needed, but then he spied a small pile of dark green fruit at the end of the display next to a bin of limes. These breadfruit were almost black and looked like they had been dusted with a coat of flour. He grimaced. His mum was going to hate that they had so obviously been frozen in transit. It was pretty much unavoidable in England, of course, but for them to look like this, the process had clearly not been undertaken with any care. Well, beggars couldn't be choosers, and hadn't she always taught him that it was what inside that mattered. He squeezed several selections, wanting to make sure he didn't get anything that was too ripe. Even though she would be cooking them as soon as he returned home, he knew she preferred to use fruit with a firmer, white flesh when she prepared it with salt fish.
On a whim, after paying for the sad little specimen, he opted to continue down the lane rather than returning the way he had come. It was only a little further for him to make the loop via Avenue Road, and it had been ages since he had explored the old neighborhood.
Many things remained the same, of course, but that made the differences all the more startling. He knew there were talks about a new infrastructure project, a cross-rail, that would raise property values as the commute to central London became faster and more convenient. As far as he knew, nothing had been firmly decided, but the mere prospect already seemed to be attracting new people and businesses to the district.
One thing that apparently hadn't changed was the local bike surgery's propensity for attracting trouble. It had been ground zero during his youth, and his mum had forbidden them from going anywhere near it when they were younger, even if that meant walking blocks out of their way.
People were starting to gather, and Dean observed two Metropolitan Police officers taking statements while another pair escorted a middle-aged man with his hands cuffed in front of him to a nearby panda car. The man was unkept and didn't appear to have washed or brushed his hair in weeks. The shop had long been rumored to be some kind of front for various illegal activities, including drug trafficking, but he hadn't put much stock in such talk until now.
Avoiding the bulk of the nosey crowd surrounding the police perimeter, Dean resumed his trek home, somewhat lost in thought. It was easy to see himself working a similar scene in Knockturn Alley in the future, the constables' reflective yellow vests and truncheons morphing into red robes and wands in his mind. His older brother Richard had worked hard to ensure Dean's view of the corps wasn't overly romanticized, so he knew that it was mostly petty thieves and muggle baiting, that discrimination was still rampant in their society, and that the balance of his duties as an auror made it more likely that he would die from an infected papercut than a dark curse. Yet, his imagination still managed to run wild for a few moments.
Dean had known for years that he wanted to be an auror, well before he had attended Hogwarts or been sorted into Gryffindor. It was a calling, and he couldn't put it aside, no matter how much his mother and sister encouraged his artistic pursuits, or how often Professor McGonagall suggested that his skills and temperament would be well suited to a career in healing. It wasn't that he was an adrenalin junky. Sure, Dean was brave, and he enjoyed a little adventure. He reckoned one couldn't be housemates with the Man-Who-Conquered and not develop some appreciation for the unpredictable, but he wasn't in it for the thrill. He also believed deeply in fighting for what was right and defending people who couldn't fight for themselves. He had been willing to bleed- even die if it had come to that- to push back the evil and defend Hogsmeade and the school in June, and he would do it again in a heartbeat. But, it wasn't any of those things that compelled him to seek a place at the Academy either. No, what drove him more than anything was his family. He needed to know what had happened to his father, not only for himself, but to give closure to his mother and siblings as well.
As he let himself through the front gate and crossed the yard, Dean idly wondered if Richard's motivations for joining the aurors had been similar and then considered how much worse it must be for him. After all, Dean had been a baby; he didn't remember their father at all. But Richard, who carried the man's name and saw his face in the mirror every day, had been 8 years old when he had disappeared. They had never talked about it, which given the nature of their relationship and the intimacy and significance of the topic was extremely telling.
As a result, Dean knew depressingly little about the events surrounding his father's death. Richard Edmund Thomas III had been working as a junior partner at a law firm in late 1981. On the morning of November 22nd, less than a month after the Potters were murdered and baby Harry was believed to have defeated You-Know-Who, the father of three had departed for work like usual, never to return. No body was ever found, but just before Dean left for Hogwarts, Richard had paid the Goblins to perform some blood rite that confirmed their father was deceased, crushing the tiny sliver of hope that they had all been clinging to for nearly a decade once and for all. Dean didn't even know the name of the law firm where his father had been employed, only that it had closed its doors for good in the Spring of 1982.
The timing of the death made it hard to argue that it hadn't been related to the end of the war in some way. Even his mother seemed to think that one of the Dark Lord's followers had killed her husband to stay out of Azkaban. But what had his father known that made him a target if that were the case? As ever, Dean had far more questions than answers, but with his acceptance to the academy, he knew he was one step closer to finally uncovering the truth.
OoO
Dean was greeted by the cloying scents of garlic and ginger as he stepped inside, oddly comforted by the smells of his childhood. He smiled when he heard the sound of his brother's voice coming from the next room, pleased that Richard had been able to make it that evening.
"Sorry it took so long. The market was busy," He explained as he entered the kitchen and placed the bag of breadfruit into his mother's outstretched hands. She scowled as she placed the fruit on the counter. "I know," he acknowledged her displeasure, "but it was all they had."
"It's alright," she relented, "at least you found something."
He was amused to see his brother at the cutting board making a complete mess of the peppers he was supposed to be dicing.
Dean was the only one of his siblings who had ever shown a true interest in cooking. His mother had delighted in bringing him into her inner sanctum and teaching him the finer points of balancing and layering flavors. His knack for quick and precise ingredient preparation, honed under the watchful eyes of his mother and grandmother, had served him well at Hogwarts. For, despite being a Gryffindor, he had managed to score well in Potions, easily earning an O on both his O.W.L. and N.E.W.T.
Honestly, he had been more than a little surprised that, herbology skills aside, it had been Neville, who had single-handedly destroyed more cauldrons than the rest of their class combined at Hogwarts, who had been tapped to be the team's Potions expert. Still, stealth and infiltration sounded interesting, so he supposed he would just have to see.
Deciding to needle his brother for old times' sake, he commented innocently, "I can see why you only managed an Exceeds Expectations on your Potions N.E.W.T." Richard had been a Ravenclaw, and the score was a sore point for him, as it had been the only subject in which he hadn't managed an Outstanding. "Now, shove over. You're mutilating those."
"What?!" Richard feigned indignation. "That's like making Kirk get out of the captain's chair."
"Whatever," Dean replied with an eye roll as he selected a knife from the block and began to chop, "I've always preferred Picard."
"Blasphemy!"
Dean shook his head at his brother's antics, "I'm glad you made it tonight, Tasha is supposed to be coming, too."
Skillfully redirecting the conversation, the older wizard plucked something nearly invisible off the counter. It seemed to materialize before their eyes as he turned it over in his hand, "I remember this book," he commented fondly.
Dean couldn't believe it, "How did that get down here?! I've been looking for it all day!"
"If you're nice to me, I'll teach you a trick later."
As Richard's offer contained more than a hint of a taunt, Dean did the only thing that a self-respecting little brother could do and stuck his tongue out in response.
Chuckling, the auror teased, "Or you can spend the next few months running late for class as you frantically search for it… up to you, really."
Dean pulled out his wand and cast a grade 3 tracking charm, but his look of triumph quickly turned into a frown as the textbook somehow evaded the spell. He cast another one, but it too failed to stick, dissipating on contact.
"It's been warded against those types of spells," Richard explained, slipping comfortably into professor mode. "Even if you managed to put enough power into the spell to temporarily override the protections, it would only last for a few hours. You need to carve a rune into the spine. I'll show you after dinner."
"Bloody book," muttered Dean as he scraped the colorful pepper cubes into the skillet in which their mum would be cooking the breadfruit and watched them sizzle in the heated butter and oil.
"Go ahead and set the table," their mother ordered. "Everything should be ready in a few minutes."
Richard laid out the plates, cups, and knives, while Dean placed the napkins and remaining cutlery, instinctively divvying up the task just as they had when they were children.
"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you… do you know Tonks…er Nymphadora Tonks, that is? She's an auror."
"I do. She's part of Dylan Savage's squad. She actually…never mind. Why do you ask?"
"I was just curious. I wasn't sure how much aurors in different squads interacted with each other."
"Well, the auror corps isn't that big, so everyone ends up working together at some point. Her metamorph abilities put in her in pretty high demand for certain kinds of assignments, as you can imagine. How do you know her?"
"Through Harry Potter, she's kind of a.. cousin of his, I guess."
Something clicked in Richard head...that explained quite a lot.
Interrupting the moment, Tasha rushed through the door in a whirlwind like always, "Sorry I'm late!"
"You're not late. We're just finishing up."
"Hey squirt!" she greeted Dean, who towered over her by at least 15 centimeters, with a hug, clearly missing the irony of the old nickname. It had been months since he'd seen her, so he accepted it with good grace.
Moving on to their elder brother, she embraced him as well, "Richie!"
Minutes later they were all seated around the table. It was nice to be together like this, a meal with just the four of them. It was rare these days.
"So, mum, what's the occasion?" Tasha asked. Good old Tasha, she had always been the best of them at saying what everyone else was thinking.
"Well, Dean graduated and was accepted into the Academy, you and Vivek have finally set a date, and Richard has been put in charge of a big case. We have a lot to celebrate."
"Oh, and here I thought that ickle Richie might finally have met a special someone," Tasha teased.
At Richard's disgruntled look, they all laughed.
Dean was still young, and his sister was settled in medical school and engaged to a doctor, but his mother despaired for her eldest son in the romance department. Richard had resisted all matchmaking attempts and, at 26, remained very focused on his career to their mother's growing exasperation. Naturally, she wanted her children to do well for themselves, but she also wanted them to find happiness and companionship.
Dean tried to imagine the kind of person who would catch his brother's eye. Richard didn't seem like to the type to be too concerned with physical appearances, but any future partner would definitely need to be intelligent. He or she would also no doubt be driven, but not so ambitious as to be uncaring or unable to relax and enjoy a good joke. It was an interesting dilemma. Feeling cheeky, he offered, "Richard, you know I would be happy to set you up with someone, just say the word."
"You're the last person I would ask for relationship advice. Your dating life has been a series of train wrecks," Richard deadpanned.
"Ouch! That hurts right here," Dean replied, dramatically clutching his chest with a laugh.
It felt good to be with family.
Up Next: Scrying for Dummies and Remus and Ted's Excellent Adventure (for real this time!)
Acknowledgements:
This chapter is dedicated to new readers, those who have followed and favorited this story, as well as to mwinter1, wolf970, Hank1967, astudent99, cirque, Deanna Halliwell, iceey, Anon19740, Grog, Ermac18, slinky gustavo, Fireandy, indie0209, The Dark Lord Potter, Bernardus, stevem1, Invictus Veritas, yoto, Princess - T, firebird-fenix, GodOfDonuts, ICQ, RosiePosie, FireAndy, Avis, and guests for their comments and PMs on chapter 26. Reviews are very much appreciated, so, go ahead, click the button :)