Chapter Text
Saparata’s quill tapped a slow, relentless rhythm against the glass inkwell. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“I think you’ve enough ink there.” Wazzok’s voice sliced through the quiet, edged with impatience. “What’s your problem, Sunshine?”
Saparata froze mid-tap.
“Sorry—” He cleared his throat; it rasped against his own ears, dry and unused. “It’s… been a slow day.”
“It’s always a ‘slow day’ in International Law,” Wazzok muttered, dipping his quill back into the parchment.
He wasn’t wrong, not entirely. Usually, there was something—some kernel of intrigue or a curious case—that could drag Saparata from the swirl of thoughts gnawing at the edges of his mind. Today, there was nothing.
Bloody hell.
He glanced at the report sprawled before him. The ink rippled and blurred, letters bleeding into each other like watercolours left in the rain. The words mocked him, elusive and taunting, tethered to his desk but dancing just out of reach.
There’s something wrong with you.
Shut up.
The quill rested idle, the tip likely flattened from the constant percussion against the inkwell.
“I’m going to the canteen for tea,” he muttered, abandoning pretense entirely. Rising from his desk, he half-collapsed into movement. “Want anything, Wazzok?”
The other man barely glanced up. “A cuppa. Cheers.”
Saparata nodded and drifted away, the office fading behind him. The Ministry’s corridors were alive with motion—fluttering memos, swooping owls, clerks rushing past like startled ghosts—but he felt separated, observing through a pane of glass that muffled the world.
He’s dead. They’re all dead.
The thought arrived not as panic but as a calm inevitability, like the tide slowly eroding the shore. He knew it wasn’t true. They were away. They had to be…
The canteen bustled. Everyone craved tea as an excuse to escape the drudgery of desks and reports. Wizards and witches hovered in lazy, murmuring circles, their conversations weaving a chaotic waltz around those intent on sustenance.
Saparata lingered at the edge, the queue stretching like a patient, resentful serpent. Porcelain clinked. Laughter rang, too loud, too bright. Steam curled around him, thick with sugar and the faint, stubborn tang of lingering magic that no amount of scrubbing could banish from Ministry walls.
He stepped forward when the line shifted. Motion, yet not motion—he was carried rather than walking.
“Afternoon, Theria.” The voice was distant, polite, professional. Marth, he thought. His smile didn’t reach his eyes, which already slid past Saparata, scanning for someone more urgent, more interesting.
“Afternoon,” he said, automatic and hollow. The word tasted wrong on his tongue.
The kettle screamed; a charm silenced it instantly.
They’re dead.
The certainty pressed behind his eyes, weightless yet suffocating. His fingers gripped the counter, cold stone biting into his palm.
“Milk?” The house-elf’s voice snapped him back.
“What?”
“Milk for your tea, sir?”
“Oh—milk. Sugar for the English Breakfast, lemon for the Earl Grey, thanks.”
The tray arrived, teetering dangerously, and Saparata levitated it with careful precision, balancing between the turbulence of the crowd and the fragile surface of the steaming tea.
“That’ll be a Galleon,” the elf chirped, holding out her small arms.
He fumbled in his robes, retrieved the change, and handed it over.
The canteen funneled bodies in uneven streams. Clerks peeled off toward tables, others drifted toward lifts, mugs clutched like talismans. Saparata threaded carefully through them, eyes on the levitating tray. Tea, today, could not spill.
It’s been six months.
The thought lingered, patient, unhurried, while memos fluttered past overhead like giant blackbirds. One grazed the rim of the Earl Grey. The liquid quivered but held.
The lift back to the fifth floor was crowded. Evening had drawn most to family and bed; he had nowhere but the Department of International Magical Co-operation. Home offered nothing but discomfort and memories best avoided.
Better to stay. Perhaps a drink later at the Leaky Cauldron. Enough firewater to hush thought, enough alcohol to dim the ache.
No one ever dreamed of working in his department as a child. Aurors, Quidditch, Unspeakables—those were the whispers, the glamour. International magic policy? Dry, tedious, necessary. The Beast Division once flooded their floor with memos over a German Erkling that had killed a Muggle in Norwich. That had been an incident. Otherwise, nothing.
He had once appreciated the laxness, the slow pulse of it all. Now he craved chaos.
Maybe you should’ve become an Unspeakable. Could’ve saved them, eh?
Shut up.
Saparata set the tray on Wazzok’s desk. “Here’s your drink,” he muttered. Louder: “Staying long?”
“Nah,” Wazzok said, drinking like it was Butterbeer. “Just finishing this bloody report. Meagon’ll have my arse if it’s not in by tonight.”
“Is she still at that conference with the other seats?” Saparata leaned against the desk, sipping his tea. “Thought it ran till Monday.”
“Yeah,” Wazzok exhaled into the steam. “Somehow she still manages to send me owls.”
Saparata scoffed. Department head of the International Magical Co-operation Division: Meagon Caelestia—kind by Ministry standards, flexible, easygoing. If Wazzok was late, it must be serious.
“That report on…?”
“Some dark wizarding cult—Sultanate. UAE. Happened years ago. No idea why they want a report now.”
The Sultanate.
Do you miss your family?
Saparata swallowed. “I wonder.”
Today, truly, was not his day.
He had thought he was heading for the Leaky Cauldron. Somehow, the night had vomited him into a club buried deep within Diagon Alley instead. The music throbbed, a relentless pulse that threatened to drown the chatter entirely. The lights were worse—acidic yellow cutting across the crowd like a physical presence.
“Hey, handsome!” a girl shouted, voice slicing through the funky pop that ricocheted off the walls. “You’ve been alone for hours. Want to join me on the dance floor?”
Saparata turned. A young witch, barely twenty-five by the look of her, had leaned against the bar, attempting a seductive tilt that fell embarrassingly short.
“I’m taken.” His words were flat, eyes glued to the sickly yellow lights overhead. Why were they piss-yellow? “Sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m taken!” The music pressed against his skull, drowning out even his own voice.
“I don’t see your bird,” she slurred, sliding onto the nearest stool. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Her breath ghosted against his ear. He shivered.
Gross.
Saparata shifted, stool scraping softly against the floor—a whisper of sound swallowed immediately by the bass.
“I’m not a cheater,” he said more firmly this time, refusing to meet her gaze. To look would make it real, make it something he would have to navigate.
She shrugged, more offended than hurt, already scanning the room for the next mark. In seconds, she dissolved into the crowd, swallowed by flashing lights and bodies pressed too close together.
He tipped his head back and drained the rest of his vodka soda. The burn scoured his throat.
Good.
The sting was welcome.
“Another?” the bartender raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Saparata replied instantly. Then, after a beat, “Make it a double.”
The glass materialised before him, slick with condensation. He didn’t toast anyone. There was no one to toast. He drank.
The club throbbed, a beast of colour, sound, and heat. Magic crackled in the air, glamour charms forcing everything brighter, louder, more. Laughter came too easily here. Hands lingered too long. This place existed to erase memory, to coax forgetting.
Unfortunately, he could not forget him.
The vodka slid cold through his throat, numbing his oesophagus far more effectively than his mind, which remained irritatingly lucid. He had come to drink himself senseless, yet thirty minutes in, nothing had shifted.
“Stupid tolerance,” Saparata muttered, swallowing another. If his count was right, he had ten more drinks before even a trace of tipsiness arrived. Merlin help his wallet.
The bartender slid the next glass across without a word. Saparata watched it arrive, pale and unassuming, as though it knew it would fail him too.
He drank.
Nothing.
The bass thudded through his bones, unrelenting, defiant. Someone brushed past him—perfume, heat, careless laughter. He barely noticed. His gaze was trapped inside himself, on the stubborn clarity of his grief.
Six months. Still sharp. Still exact.
He drummed his fingers against the bar, then stopped. Old habit. Another sound would only anchor him to being here, alive, still suffering.
The fourth drink made his limbs feel marginally heavier, as though gravity had remembered him. But his mind remained cruelly intact. He could still picture the curve of his smile, the tilt of his head, as if listening to a voice that no one else could hear.
“Unfair,” he muttered, pressing his forehead briefly against the cool bar top. Magic that could bend space, alter memory, even raise the dead—apparently useless when it came to numbing grief.
A laugh erupted too close. He straightened, spine snapping into place. No. He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t drunk at all.
“You all right there, mate?” The bartender’s voice cut through the music.
“Fine,” Saparata replied too quickly. A practiced lie. He lifted his glass with vague emphasis. “Just… building momentum.”
The man snorted and moved along.
Saparata stared into the bottom of the glass. Ice melted, warped, vanished. How many more before the memories blurred? Before the world softened enough to stop hurting?
Six more, he decided.
He signalled for another.
“Bloody hell, you’re ridiculous,” a voice scoffed near his ear.
He groaned. Eyes swollen, head hammering with a relentless ache. For all he knew, this voice could belong to someone in the middle of kidnapping him.
“Who… who are you?” he mumbled.
“Are you seriously that far gone?” The voice was dry, annoyed. “Pili. Your best friend since forever. Ringing any bells?”
“Pili?” Saparata echoed, confusion tangled with relief. “Wait… didn’t I see you Wednesday for lunch? Why are you here? Don’t you hate clubs?”
“We’re not at a club,” Pili deadpanned, unamused. “We’re in the one place you’ve been avoiding—your flat. Don’t you remember?”
Saparata furrowed his brow. “Pili—how do you even—” hiccup “—know that?”
“Subconscious Legilimens,” He replied with a sigh. “Try to keep up. Are you all right? Did all those drinks turn you into an amnesiac?”
“I wish,” he muttered.
Pili shuffled across the room; the whisper of his socks against the hardwood sounded almost gentle against the thrum of his headache. Saparata remained sprawled across the bed, every muscle rebelling against movement.
“Take this,” Pili said, pressing something cold against his chest. The tang of peppermint hit him immediately. Pepperup potion, he assumed. “Then maybe we can get some food in you.”
“I want cake,” he murmured, fiddling with the cork until it popped free. “Chocolate cake.”
“You’re insufferable,” Pili laughed, light and teasing. “Fine. Let’s hit that Muggle bakery next to the Leaky Cauldron. Haven’t been in ages.”
The Pepperup surged through him, fog lifting, clearing the haze around his thoughts.
“Ugh.”
Welcome back.
“How are you feeling?” Pili perched on the edge of the bed, presence anchoring him. A tether against the storm of his mind.
“Can’t you read my mind?” he groaned, pressing his wrists into his eyes. The pressure was soothing, grounding, like digging roots into earth to resist being swept away.
“We’ve been over this,” Pili rolled his eyes, swatting Saparata’s hands away. His palm rested lightly on his forehead, warmth seeping through. “Not when you’re sober since sixth year.”
“Hm,” he muttered, dismissive. “I’m fine. Let me shower before breakfast.”
“Don’t take too long,” Pili warned, voice softening slightly. “I stayed up all night making sure you didn’t die. I need coffee right now.”
“Whatever you say,” he replied, closing the bathroom door behind him.
The mirror offered nothing but reminders. Not himself—no, he didn’t see himself. He saw the person he had once loved. Somehow, the albinism hadn’t scared him off. Somehow, the choppy, grown-out buzz cut, the abnormal moles, the flaws—they hadn’t mattered. And yet… he had still loved Saparata.
And what had that love gotten him?
He didn’t know.
Hot water stung his pink skin, steam curling like grasping limbs, tugging at his focus. He watched it with morbid curiosity—neither resisting nor submitting to the endless stream of thoughts beckoning him back.
You used to always get sunburnt back in—
Saparata slammed the thought shut, a mental door snapping into place. Stepping out of the shower, he ignored the mirror, shrugging on a simple white robe. Teeth brushed. Hair roughly combed. He avoided looking back—not at the violet towel folded neatly beside his, not at the second toothbrush that had sat unused for six months.
The scent of damp fabric lingered, mingling with faint traces of old magic and the lingering tingle of Pepperup.
“Are you almost done? I’m starving!” Pili called from the living room, impatience threading his tone.
“Five more minutes!” he shouted. “Can’t be naked at brunch, can I?”
“I’m taking my chances if you don’t hurry! You don’t even have a skincare routine—there’s no excuse!”
Saparata didn’t respond, letting her words fade into the room.
Pili had left him to his own devices after lunch, muttering something about an Auror meeting with the Unspeakables—highly confidential, naturally. That left Saparata stranded in the flat for the rest of the weekend.
It didn’t feel like home anymore.
Going out alone would be a waste. Of money. Of time. Of effort. And Saparata refused to be useless, even if usefulness meant scrubbing a flat that bore the marks of someone who wasn’t him anymore.
Didn’t the twins always call you useless?
Shut the fuck up.
He started in the kitchen. Smallest room, least painful.
The sink overflowed with dishes he didn’t remember dirtying—mugs ringed with dried tea, a plate crusted with something charred and abandoned. He rolled up his sleeves and turned the tap, letting the rush of water drown the space. Water was good. It silenced things, even if only briefly.
He scrubbed until his fingers ached.
Plate. Rinse. Rack. Mug. Rinse. Rack. Keep the pattern tight, keep the mind quiet. Let it slip—
You used to make breakfast together.
A mug slipped, clattering against the sink. Miraculously, it didn’t break.
“Fuck,” he breathed, gripping the counter until the surge passed.
He finished the dishes and wiped the counters twice, though they were already clean. Stopping meant thinking.
In the sitting room, he moved to the windows. Magic for this—he couldn’t bear to see his reflection for long. A flick of his wand sent the curtains twitching aside, the glass clearing itself with a soft hiss as years of city grime peeled away in grey ribbons. The panes gleamed, too clean. The room stared back at him with uncomfortable clarity. He scowled, drawing the curtains shut again.
Next, he fetched a bucket, filled it by hand, added too much soap. Sharp, lemony scent. Grounding. Real. Kneeling, he scrubbed the bathroom floor with a sponge, shoulders burning, cold water seeping through his trousers.
Magic would have been faster. It would have left him with time.
It would have left him—
He used to laugh at you when you cleaned by hand. That Pureblood prat—
He moved on before the thought finished.
Books floated back onto shelves in neat rows, but he dusted each spine by hand, lingering on the worn ones, the margins still bent where someone else had once marked pages. He didn’t open them. Opening them would be a mistake.
In the sitting room, he vacuumed—an absurd, roaring Muggle contraption Pili had once mocked him for owning. The noise filled the flat, swallowing quieter thoughts. He went over the rug again and again, fibres flattening into uniform obedience.
By the time he reached the bedroom doorway, his arms ached and his thoughts had dulled, blunted by exertion. He lingered, fingers curled uselessly at his sides.
Don’t.
He went in anyway.
Sheets stripped with magic first, folding themselves into the laundry basket. Then he stopped. Redid it. By hand, slow and careful, as if rushing would erase memory from the fabric.
Next, the wardrobe. The door stuck, as it always did. A mental note to fix it later.
Then he saw the clothes.
Mistake.
He slammed the wardrobe shut. That wasn’t his side. Stupid. He knows.
Saparata turned away, leaving the garments for another day. Today was already too much. Maybe it would be for a while.
He focused on the dirtier clothes instead, hauling the hamper out. Magic would have been easier, but the Muggle building had watchful neighbours. Floating laundry would have caused questions.
The community laundromat wasn’t much to look at, but its 1970s vintage charm lent a peculiar sort of nostalgic comfort, even amid stubborn stains and worn linoleum.
Clothes tumbled inside the machine, the rhythmic thump oddly soothing. Each thud drowned the quieter voices in his head. He sorted smaller items by hand—socks, underwear, a stray glove—lining them on the folding table like tiny, obedient soldiers.
Even here, his mind wandered.
He didn’t know what a laundry machine was.
He shook the thought off, painfully aware of how fragile his composure had become. Shirt into the machine, buttons pressed with mechanical precision. The warm hum of the dryer promised brief reprieve.
Around him, people moved with casual purpose, folding clothes, feeding coins into machines. None of them seemed burdened by memory, by absence. He envied that ease.
He sat on a folding chair, hands clasped between his knees, watching the tumbling laundry. He counted rotations, repetitions, letting monotony anchor him. Each spin a heartbeat tethering him to the present.
When the first load finished, he folded each item with painstaking care. Shirts aligned perfectly, trousers smoothed, socks paired. Momentary order, a fragile shield against the chaos in his head.
“It’s just laundry,” he reminded himself. “It’s nothing.”
And yet, even in these small, controlled movements, the echoes of loss clung, persistent as the scent of detergent.
He loaded the second machine. And began again.