Chapter Text
Adam sat in the library, working on homework as always. It wasn't that he loved to study as much as he did, but his work study gig was only good if he kept his grades up. Hogwarts, thank Merlin, had free tuition, but no students were permitted to hold jobs off the school grounds. Adam, as well as a handful of other students, performed odd jobs for the administration. Now that he was of working age, Adam no longer received financial support from his mother. He’d paid back every penny he owed her, and now, every penny he made went to textbooks, school supplies, and if he was lucky, a little savings account in Gringotts.
He only had about forty minutes to finish this reading before he had to report to the kitchens, but Adam just could not concentrate. His mind kept wandering to Ronan. Last week Adam had an embarrassingly sexy dream about Ronan, one that had distracted him for days in his guilt and pleasure. This was not that. Adam was worried about Ronan, but he didn't know what to do about it.
His conversation with Blue kept replaying in his mind. None of their friends had ever remotely liked Kavinsky: he was a skeezy drug dealer who was probably more dangerous than any of them could imagine. When he’d first started paying attention to Ronan, all of them had been wary and overly protective, but that did nothing but piss Ronan off. He was a big boy who could take care of himself, after all. Until he couldn't.
Adam hoped Blue wouldn't do anything foolish. Ronan was quickly headed down a dark hole, yes. But confrontation was never a good idea when it came to him. They had to be strategic about this. Surely Blue understood this; she'd known Ronan far longer than any of the rest of them had.
Adam gave up on his reading. He’d gotten most of it done, and if he woke up half an hour early tomorrow, he’d have time to finish and look over his notes.
He found himself wandering through the bookshelves, creeping dangerously close to the restricted section. It wouldn't be difficult to sneak in. He’d done it before, multiple times, and he was the only one in the library right now. Even Madam Pince was out — she was leading a seminar for underclassmen or something. It was still too early in the semester for the library to be really packed with students frantically working on assignments, so it was an ideal time.
Adam glanced around the library one more time and stepped into the restricted section. He would have to be quick. When he or his friends had snuck in previously, they’d focused on keywords related to Glendower, necromancy, and mythologies of the British Isles. They’d made great progress over the years, but still they did not know exactly why Gansey had been chosen — or if it had been random chance.
The night before, when Adam, Gansey, and Blue had met up with Henry to discuss the potential benefits of the Robobee, Blue had filled him in on the strange necromancy book she’d found next to Ronan’s bed. Adam had left with a million questions, and now, he hoped to find some answers.
The section on necromancy was small. The last time Adam had been in here, he could only find books about the Deathly Hallows. Clearly, necromancy was one of the darkest magics one could dabble in. The crew had determined years ago that Gansey’s particular situation had nothing to do with the Deathly Hallows because individuals reanimated via the Resurrection Stone were never themselves. Gansey, however, was himself — it was as if he’d never died.
Adam saw a slim grey book at the very end of the necromancy section one so small Adam could barely make out the text on the spine. Ley Lines and the Resurrected Individual. It was a completely theoretical look at the potential effects of ley lines written by one Roger Mallory. The familiar name was a sign to Adam. After hastily sticking it in his bag, Adam bolted from the restricted section, and in the safety of a secluded corner in the library, he began to flip through it.
Roger Mallory was a professor and researcher based in England. Gansey had taken a summer class with him a couple years before, and he was obsessed with this guy. Adam had to wonder why Gansey didn’t know about this essay already. Nevertheless, he read on, twenty minutes to spare. A passage from the subsection “The Road of Life and Death” stuck out to Adam. The heading reminded Adam of the Corpse Road that Maura Sargent had once spoken of.
Ley lines, in their most essential form, are pure passageways of energy. They run all over the world, intersecting with the sites of history’s greatest supernatural events. Ley lines are life. Ley lines are death.
And then, in “The Inherent Instability of Resurrection Magic”: The only resurrection magic that is successful is one that deals with ley lines. All others fail. The Resurrection Stone of the Deathly Hallows attempts to reanimate a corpse independently of all life around it. This will never work because it is something akin to creating a zombie. In order to perform seamless necromancy, one must begin at the very avenue of life itself. Work with ley lines is foundational magic, and it is only such a pure magic that can rewrite the rules of nature.
Goosebumps rose on Adam’s skin. This was it, it had to be. This had to be Gansey’s answer, and it had to be related to that book on Ronan’s nightstand. The pieces of the puzzle were aligning perfectly. But below that awareness was a prickling deep in Adam’s subconscious, a hum his magic was harmonizing with. It was like he’d received the answer to a question he didn't know he'd asked. It was impossible to articulate or wrap his head around, but for now it was enough to know that maybe it would help him with Ronan.
~
Ronan awoke to strange sounds and smells and a general feeling of uneasiness. He was sure he had gone to bed with Matthew curled up in his arms, but now he was alone. Ronan reluctantly got up to investigate his surroundings. He was groggy with a pounding headache in the back of his skull. Ronan had been far too drunk enough times to know he was hungover from something. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ronan gazed around, searching for something that could help him identify where he was or why he was there.
First of all, he wasn’t at Hogwarts. That was clear from the plain decor. Hogwarts took a maximalist approach to decorating: all of the portraits on the walls and candlelit corridors projected a cozy feeling. Here, a bed lay in the corner, a dresser next to it. There was no other furniture, and the closet was empty.
Ronan pulled the blackout curtains aside, but homogenous suburbs was all that was visible through the window. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he didn’t find it. He closed his eyes, settled his breathing, and tried to project his hearing out as far as he could.
“If I had known you would have been so useless, I would have gotten rid of you months ago!” It was a hushed whispering, but the voice sounded distinctly like Professor Greenmantle. Ronan was immediately suspicious. Greenmantle had been eyeing Ronan up and down since he stepped foot on Hogwarts’ campus.
Greenmantle continued, “I will deal with you later, Joseph.” Ronan almost choked. “Why don’t you check on our friend in the basement? I have heard rustling in Mr. Lynch’s room, so I believe he has woken from the sedation. Piper will be thrilled!”
Ronan’s head was still reeling from whatever Greenmantle had drugged him with. He just couldn’t remove a singular image from his mind: K, tracing his finger down Ronan’s arm two days prior. Ronan still felt the touch, feather light and antithetical to everything Kavinsky was. Ronan had never been in love with Kavinsky, but things were much more complicated than that.
He had to get out of there. He needed to get out of there.
The door opened, and Greenmantle stepped in, looking as polished as ever. When he saw Ronan, he smiled, a warm, almost pitiful thing. “I'd like to welcome you to my home, Mr. Lynch. Of course, ignore the furnishings. This house is a new acquisition and with our work schedules Piper and I have not yet had the time to decorate.”
Ronan remained silent, wondering if this was all a joke. Of all the thoughts passing through his mind, most prominent was the fact that he'd never been in any of his professors’ houses.
“I'm terribly sorry to hear about your father’s passing.” Ronan sneered at him. “Niall was truly gifted. But, as I hear, so are you.”
Ronan stayed silent. Niall had taught him long ago to be cautious about the way he spoke about his abilities. When Ronan was eleven and he revealed his dreams to Adam, it had felt reckless. Then again, it’d also felt certain, but that was all Adam.
“Of course, your friend Joseph has many gifts as well. But Mr. Kavinsky is not… restrained. As I’m sure you know, he is lavish. It is better to have him on my side, but I always knew he was not what I was looking for. The trouble with magical artefacts that are living, especially ones that are human, is that they have too much of their own free will. Joseph did lead me to you, however, so I suppose he earned his keep.”
“It’s too bad I’ll never dream for you, isn’t it?”
Greenmantle waved his hand like he was airing out smoke from a campfire. (Ronan wanted to toss him into a campfire.) “Save your idle threats for later. I should be a proper host and show you around. There’s someone downstairs I have a feeling you will be eager to meet.”
“Who? Merlin?”
“Ah, very funny. You see, I think you’ll be a good friend for Dean. The hit man profession just seems to suck the humor out of a person, don’t you think?”
At this, Ronan’s blood ran cold. He took the bait. “What did you do?” he whispered, thinking up several ways he could kill Greenmantle with his bare hands.
“It's not about what we did, it's about what you can do.”
“What is it that you want? Eternal riches? An army of clones to keep you from getting lonely at night?”
Greenmantle shook his head. “I have enough money. No, I'm more interested in the bigger picture. And as for the latter, well, that’s what I have Piper for.”
Ronan grimaced at the thought of Greenmantle and his wife, together in bed.
“Now, you're more special than Joseph, and you're more special than your poor late father. Your value not only lies in your abilities, but also in your connections. Your friends.”
“What have you done to them?”
“Oh, nothing. But they're a peculiar set, aren't they? Blue Sargent’s mother is a psychic, Richard Gansey was resurrected, and Adam Lynch has an emerging relationship with energy lines. And then you. All useful.” Ronan frowned. He’d known Adam was special, more than just an average wizard. He’d known that since the first day they met. But he didn't even think Adam knew what was going on with his magic.
“Anyway, I bet you're hungry. There’s foie gras downstairs. I have a staff meeting I can’t get out of, so we shall discuss the first stages of experimentation when I return. And don't attempt escape. Even in your wildest dreams you wouldn't have the advanced magical knowledge to do so. Just remember you are my guest, my partner in this groundbreaking magical research. You are being afforded all the pleasures and freedom I would allow any of my other colleagues, but that is strictly dependent on your cooperation.” Greenmantle looked pleased with his innuendo, though he had to know out of sheer common sense that Ronan had heard dream jokes his whole life and was frankly tired of them.
Ronan raced out of the room. He didn't know how long he would have. He didn't have much of an appetite, but he couldn't brainstorm a plan before paying a visit to Greenmantle’s other houseguest.
At the kitchen table sat a man, a man that looked quite familiar, somehow, even though Ronan had never seen him before. He walked up and demanded, “Did you kill my father?”
The man looked quite startled and nearly choked on his foie gras. He didn't respond, and that was enough confirmation. Ronan growled, leapt up.
“Why? What do you get out of all of this? You're no less of a coward than he is.”
The man looked down at his plate, dejected. “This job was never an easy one. I've been trying to get out, make an honest living, but I just keep getting roped in.”
“Why should I feel sympathy for you?”
The man sobered. “You shouldn't. But Colin and Piper’s plans are sinister. I've done awful things, but they're the monsters.”
“Do tell — what is so much worse than murder in cold blood?” Ronan’s eyes glistened as he spoke, but he repressed the tears. So much for the menacing approach.
The man, the very grey man, was taken aback, startled that Ronan did not know. “They’re trying to bring back Voldemort,” he said, as if Ronan was was a child and this was obvious information.
“They — what?”
“What did you think Colin wanted to use your dreams for? He thought, at first, maybe it was you who brought your friend back to life, but the timelines didn't match up. Besides, once I did some digging, it was clear that Noah Czerny, one of the Hogwarts ghosts, was indirectly responsible. Ley lines and all that. Minor setback, but Colin is still convinced that you can dream up He Who Shall Not Be Named. Just might take some practice and fine tuning.”
All this new information had Ronan’s head reeling. Voldemort, Noah — it was too much. He shook his head, tried to understand.
“And you're just, what? His partner in crime? His complicit servant?”
“I do some of the dirty work, yes. I don't agree with their mission, and I've been trying to change professions, but Colin has leverage. Do you think I would be telling you this if I wanted them to succeed?”
All Ronan could think about was his father rotting in a grave thanks to the asshole sitting before him, so he left the question unanswered and returned to the bedroom he awoke in. There would be time to explore, but right now he needed to tap into whatever psychic frequencies he could find. Ronan closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep, willed himself to dream.
He was alone in Cabeswater, alone with the trees, alone with his mind. He longed to be forgiven by his friends. He longed for Adam — Adam whom he loved in every sense of the word. Adam who laughed at Ronan’s macabre humor when no one else did. Adam who understood him better than anyone thanks to some unknown, unspoken connection. He was cold in this forest but he could feel Adam and just hoped he wasn’t making it up. Adam was warm in his soul. For years Ronan had been ashamed and regretful about his feelings for Adam, but maybe it might do him some good right now. Maybe it was destiny that he had fallen for the most magical boy he had ever met. Maybe that was part of it.
Ronan prayed. Despite the murderer downstairs and the doomsday ideology of his capturer, if Adam heard him, Ronan knew he would be okay.
~
“Morning,” Blue said to the group with a yawn, yogurt cup and spoon in hand.
Gansey, Adam, and Henry each acknowledged her presence while nursing the caffeinated beverage of their choice. The empty classroom was warm with the scents of coffee and chai despite the winter chill. Gansey was just as sleepy as the rest of them, but his curiosity and excitement overpowered his urge to take a little nap there on Blue’s shoulder. “You must have made great progress to call us here at eight on a Saturday morning, Adam.”
Adam nodded in response, flipping through pages in the book he’d borrowed from the Restricted Section and marking them to keep the page.
“I shouldn’t have stayed at that Ravenclaw common room party so late last night,” Henry complained. “When I woke up, I was tempted to take another shot so at least I wouldn’t be hungover.”
“Oh, here.” Blue produced a vial of shimmering green liquid from her robes pocket. “I managed to sneak a little of this off a couple partygoers as they were preparing a batch before the party. Should do the trick.” She handed the potion to Henry, who downed it in one gulp and immediately looked refreshed. It was a simple wellness aid, but amongst rowdy teenage wizards it was known as a fairly decent hangover cure. Blue was not a partier, but she was fiercely protective of her friends’ wellbeing, which was convenient for Henry at the moment.
Adam was eager to change the subject. “I suppose you all know why I’ve gathered you here today,” he began. “I know we’ve all been thinking of hosting an intervention for Ronan, but there is one problem: he’s not at Hogwarts.”
Gansey frowned. “I swear I saw him in potions class the other day. I wanted to say something to him but he was partnered up with Kavinsky and I figured I’d get him after class. He disappeared before I could.”
Everyone took turns discussing when the last time they’d seen Ronan, and while he wasn’t seen around the school much in general, no one had spotted him since Thursday. “I woke up early that day and saw him curled up with Matthew on one of the couches in the common room,” Gansey said. No one could offer up a more recent time they’d passed him in the corridor or spotted him out the window talking with Matthew.
Adam produced a large folded parchment. “The Marauders’ Map! I’d been wondering where that had gotten to!” Henry exclaimed.
The Marauder’s Map changed hands often at Hogwarts, switching from careful partygoers to questing students looking to sneak around with ease. It was stuff of legend at Hogwarts, but the gang had always found ways to retrieve it when needed.
“I looked last night, and when I woke this morning, but he’s nowhere on this map.”
“And neither is Joseph Kavinsky,” Blue noted.
Adam nodded.
“Do you think they ran away together? Or that Kavinsky took him somewhere?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. A few months ago he never would’ve been the type to get involved with Kavinsky….” Adam still believed in Ronan despite his better judgement, and he knew that Gansey and Blue did too. He so desperately wanted to say Ronan would still make the right decisions, but recent events proved otherwise. “Anyway, I think it has something to do with this.” Adam read them lines from the book about resurrection and ley line energy.
“His father,” Gansey said, and realization dawned on them.
“Surely Ronan has to be smart enough not to… to try….” Blue couldn’t say it.
“I don’t know, Blue. Grief changes people. The Ronan we were best friends with doesn’t exist anymore, just like Ronan as he was in third year doesn’t exist anymore.”
Henry didn’t really know what to contribute to the conversation since he was never that close with Lynch, but now he spoke up. “I think I know how to find him.”
The rest of them stared at him, questioning, and he opened his palm. He had been toying with it under the table. “I finished the prototype of RoboBee. Maybe we can head up to the Gryffindor dorms to find a magical frequency for it to latch on?”
“Actually…” Adam started. “I may have a better solution.” He cleared his throat, trying to conceptualize the abstract experience he’d had. “It was yesterday, around five in the afternoon. I was in the Slytherin common room working on a Divination assignment, and all of a sudden I just felt this warmth spreading from my heart to my head. And I felt Ronan’s presence, like he was sitting next to me. I’m sure I didn’t make it up — it felt too real. I think he was trying to tell me something.”
Adam didn’t mention that the night before he’d dreamt of kissing Ronan again. As the rest of the group digested the full meaning of what Adam said, he reflected on that. In the dream, Ronan and Adam were in the Slytherin common room, on the same couch Adam had been on when the feeling overcame him. They were awfully close, but he could tell they both wanted to be closer. In this dream world, they must’ve been dating, because when Adam kissed Ronan, it lacked the gentleness of a first kiss. It was passion and adoration and lust, everything Adam theorized Ronan would bring to a kiss. It was everything Adam wanted and everything he never thought he would ever get. But that was neither here nor there.
Adam took the RoboBee from Henry. He didn’t know how this thing worked, but he figured intuition was the way to go. Adam cupped the device in his hands and closed his eyes. He concentrated on Ronan. The message in the common room, the grief he’d held since December, the special connection they had. It was never explicitly stated in Adam’s research, but he knew that Hogwarts was positioned on a ley line. He could feel it, and he could feel the ley lines leading him to Ronan.
Adam opened his eyes, and everyone was staring at him. RoboBee was hot to the touch, so he set it down on the table. Trying not to feel awkward and different, Adam gestured to the RoboBee. “I think it knows where to go.”
Gansey looked at Adam in awe. “Adam, you never cease to amaze me.”
RoboBee began to glow with blue light. Blue reached out to touch it, but Henry stopped her. “I think it’s turned into a portkey.”
Blue grinned and squeezed Gansey’s hand from under the table. “Come on. Let's go get our friend back.”
~
Ronan dreamed. And dreamed. It wasn’t unusual for him, but he didn’t know what else to do. He’d snuck into the building’s main work room after he sent his message to Adam, but he didn’t have the time to find anything substantial without proving his betrayal to Greenmantle. He had no plan, so he dreamed.
In the work room, there had been a number of magical artefacts. If what the man who Greenmantle called Dean said was true, it made sense that Greenmantle was collecting anything he could get his hands on that might be of some use. Ronan recalled what Greenmantle had told him the day before: Blue Sargent’s mother is a psychic, Richard Gansey was resurrected, and Adam Lynch has an emerging relationship with energy lines. And then you. All useful. Ronan and his friends — if he could still call them that — were not people to Greenmantle. They were objects. And if all that mattered was Ronan’s dreams, well, he would dream.
Ronan didn’t exactly know what he was doing. He had a few ideas: cages, weapons, even a sort of homing beacon for the Ministry of Magic to come and arrest Greenmantle. He was torn. Half of him wanted to rip out Greenmantle’s entrails and feed them to some dreamt-up bird of prey. Half of him wanted old school justice, with Greenmantle behind bars. Ronan was trying to convince himself that killing Greenmantle wouldn’t make them equal in the eyes of God. Greenmantle and his associate had stolen almost everything that was important to Ronan: his father, his perfect family life, his friends, his happiness. Ronan wanted so desperately to make him suffer in just the same way. But he just couldn’t kill. He knew it in his soul that even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to do it. He didn’t know if that made him weak or strong but he tried to think of other plans nonetheless.
Ronan dreamt up many things. There was a raven the size of an ostrich. It looked menacing but sat in the corner quietly; it wouldn’t attack its creator. There were weapons of all types, just in case. Ronan’s favorite was the crossbow that shot arrows at a rate faster than the human eye could see. A torch of fire that only extinguished at Ronan’s command, and a sconce to store it. Unbreakable rope. Lastly, he dreamt up a portal to Cabeswater. This intrigued him the most, because he didn’t know that was possible. At one point, Ronan stuck his arm through it and fell asleep, just to verify in his dream that the portal actually led to Cabeswater and not, like, the Great Hall at school.
Ronan didn’t have much time to marvel over his own creations because soon after he dreamt the portal, his friends were standing in the room. Ronan might’ve still been in shock from the whole situation, and this did not help. He blinked really hard, but when he opened his eyes, Adam, Blue, Gansey, and Henry fucking Cheng were still standing before him. They were taking in their surroundings as well.
Ronan pointed at Henry and asked, “Why is he here?” at the same time Gansey asked, “Why is there a giant raven in here?”
Blue promptly burst out laughing, but Ronan shushed her. He set a silencing charm on the room, then gestured for her to continue. Before she explained herself, she sat on the bed and enveloped Ronan in a giant hug. “We’ve all missed you so much,” she said. “Especially Adam,” she added, this time in his ear.
Ronan blushed and he tried in vain to focus his attention on the story the rest of them were spinning before him. In the weeks before his father died, Ronan had been so sure that Adam reciprocated his feelings, even though Adam and Blue’s breakup had been recent. It had taken him a while to process this, and even after that, he was hesitant to make any moves for fear he would just be Adam’s rebound. Then everything changed, and Ronan didn’t know what to make of Blue’s comment. Even if Adam once did have feelings for Ronan, surely that couldn’t be the case anymore. It’s not like Ronan had treated him well lately anyway.
“So, long story short…” Blue was saying, “Henry’s a genius with magical electronics, and his robotic bee tapped into whatever weird magical shit is going on with Adam, and it turned into a portkey!”
“I seem to have some new connection with ley lines of magical energy. I don’t know how, but I can feel them all around me, like a sixth sense. I’ve read about them, but I don’t understand how they work logistically. After today, I think I’ve got some experimenting to do. From what I understand, there’s some sort of connection between the ley lines and your Cabeswater.”
Ronan nodded. It confirmed what Greenmantle mentioned about Adam and lined up with years of feelings about Adam, both magical and romantic.
“Besides the bird in the corner, there’s one thing I don’t understand,” Gansey started. “All the literature on ley lines points to a strong link between the lines and resurrection. I can’t help but worry you’re trying to bring your father back.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Ronan closed his eyes. They didn’t know the whole story, so he tried not to get angry at Gansey. “Please don’t bring him up, okay? That’s not what is going on.” Every fiber of Ronan hurt at the possibility. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and told the whole story. Greenmantle, the man named Dean downstairs, Voldemort — everything.
“That’s him!” Gansey look at Blue. “The man from the shop in Diagon Alley. The Grey Man.”
“How do you know him?”
Gansey and Blue told Ronan the story of finding the book on necromancy at his bedside. Ronan could feel his cheeks warming, and he avoided looking at Adam. No, he and Kavinsky had never fooled around, but Ronan was guilty of feeling horny and reckless around him. Adam didn’t need to know that, though what Ronan felt for Kavinsky was so completely different from what he felt for Adam. “K came over that day. I was sleeping, but I guess he decided to stay and read. I’ve never seen that book you’re talking about; it wasn’t there when I woke up.” Ronan looked them each in the eye. “But if you think I was trying to bring my father back to life, you don’t know me at all.”
Henry really didn’t know Ronan that well, so he wouldn’t have been shocked either way. But for the rest of them, the comment stung.
“Ronan… From the research Adam has done, resurrection via ley line is different from any other magic, like the Deathly Hallows or horcruxes. Adam, what was the phrasing?”
“In order to perform seamless necromancy, one must begin at the very avenue of life itself. Work with ley lines is foundational magic, and it is only such a pure magic that can rewrite the rules of nature,” Adam recited. He had read over those lines so frequently in the past forty-eight hours that it seemed they were permanently branded into his mind.
“I don’t care how fucking effective it is. I’m not an idiot. Gansey, weren’t you always the one warning us that the theoretical is never the same as the applied? What do you think the fallout would be, if something went wrong? And who do you think I would be to play God like that?”
Adam wondered how it was possible that the guy who spent so much time around Kavinsky could be a better person than the rest of them. But that was just Ronan.
“Okay, we can all say our apologies later, guys. Right now we should probably discuss what to do about the guy downstairs who literally wants to resurrect Voldemort!”
“Everybody grab a weapon and storm his workroom?”
“We’re not killing him,” Ronan said, voice firm and decided.
“No, you won’t be,” Greenmantle said, stepping into the room. “Mr. Lynch, if you're going to try and sneak around me to collude with your little friends, at least try something more interesting than a simple silencing charm.”
No one really knew what to do, so Blue shouted, “You're not going to get away with this!”
“Oh, you kids are so dramatic. Yes, Piper’s plan is a bit shocking, I suppose. Really, I don't understand what all the fuss is about. Voldemort is a failed villain. But it's what Piper wants. My contribution was to practice necromancy so it would be utterly perfect when it matters. I figured, hey, if I can resurrect a middle-aged greywaren, I can resurrect a decrepit sorcerer way past his prime.”
The garage door to the house opened, rumbling under their feet. “That must be Piper. She was out early for a hair appointment, so she's likely home now for a mimosa and breakfast.”
They all listened in tense silence as Piper’s heels clicked on the hardwood floors. She arrived in perfect posture, her shiny hair blowing in the artificial wind of the ceiling fan. She looked like Evil Barbie with Colin as her Annoying Ken.
“Colin! You didn’t tell me we would be having this much company over!” Piper clapped her hands in delight, obviously distracted from the fact that she was showing all of these impressionable teenagers a beautiful home that was barely furnished.
“So… what exactly do you get from reviving Voldemort? Come on, you can do better.” Ronan didn’t have much of his wits to him, so he was grateful to Adam for picking up the slack. That, and turned on.
“It’s great fun. I love a good challenge! But I have work to do, so I must go.” Piper sauntered out of the room, and just as when she returned home, they couldn’t help but listen to her in awed and terrified silence. What none of them were expecting was a scream and the sound of a champagne glass shattering on the floor. Everyone rushed to the kitchen to witness the commotion, and there they saw the Grey Man with his wand outstretched and Piper Greenmantle with a nasty laceration on her foot.
“If you were planning to Crucio me you could at least done it when I wasn’t wearing my new Louboutins! You’ve ruined them, and I was supposed to have hot yoga this evening!” Piper looked back at at her husband. “Colin, can I fire him already?”
Greenmantle made a sweeping gesture as to say “be my guest.” Despite the deep colors her foot was turning, Piper whipped out her wand, performed a ballerina pivot, and stuck the wand up against the Grey Man’s throat.
“Killing you would be more satisfying, though.”
Then: “Wait!” This came from Gansey, who, despite his own urge for Niall’s death to be avenged was becoming increasingly disgusted with the level of violence this quest was involving them in. Piper didn’t want to wait — her foot really throbbed — but she felt compelled to nonetheless.
Greenmantle walked up to Gansey and examined him. “You must truly be gifted to have performed the Imperio curse wandless, just now.”
“I — I didn’t,” Gansey stammered, lacking his usual grace in his confusion.
“No?” Greenmantle raised his eyebrows. They were, by the way, immaculately shaped. “My, my. It seems I was very lucky to get my hands on your abilities, then.”
“You’re not getting your hands on anyone’s abilities here!” Driven by a fit of rage, Blue aimed fast and punched Greenmantle in his stomach. Ideally, she would have gone for his nose, but she was a little too short for that punch.
Immediately after, Henry followed up by shouting “stupefy!” to Greenmantle. He toppled to the floor. While Piper was distracted from the show in front of her, Adam shouted, “expelliarmus!” Ronan sent him a grin and caught Piper’s wand in his hand and pointed both hers and his at her. The Grey Man ran away, and the gang was too caught up in the action to hear the door slam behind him.
“You know, if you kill me now, I won’t be able to bring him back. But you won’t do that,” Piper taunted. “You naive kids and your moral high ground.”
“You are correct,” Gansey responded, having regained his composure. “But we don’t have to kill you to stop you.”
Piper cackled. “What are you going to do, put a body-binding curse on me?”
That’s exactly what Ronan did. Blue raced upstairs to grab the unbreakable rope Ronan had dreamt up and together they tied up Colin and Piper Greenmantle to their expensive European dining room chairs. For good measure, they stupefied Piper because even though she posed no threat in her binds, she was still a little obnoxious.
“So… now what are we gonna do with them?” Henry asked.
Ronan gave Henry a dirty look, and Henry rolled his eyes. Then Ronan explained the purpose of all his dream objects lying on the bedroom floor.
“And lastly,” Henry finished for Ronan, “a sparkly dildo.”
Adam, clearly annoyed, elbowed Henry in the ribs, and Ronan looked like he was in love.
Gansey glanced between Ronan and Adam. Ronan’s affection for Adam had been present for a couple years, but now, something was changed. Ronan, despite his trauma, seemed more… open. Gansey shook his head to free the thoughts. It was something to think about, later.
“I believe,” he enunciated, “the portal to Cabeswater is a fine idea.”
“It’s also really cool! I had no idea you could even dream something like that,” Blue added.
“Are you comfortable with having them,” Adam jutted his chin to gesture at their captives, “in your dream world?”
Ronan shrugged. Cabeswater was a huge forest, after all. “I could make a barrier of some sort so they can’t escape and, like, use Cabeswater’s magic to wreck havoc.”
“What about a ring of that eternal fire?” Henry suggested.
Ronan's annoyed look was a default in his interactions with Cheng, but he had to admit that it was a pretty good idea.
The five of them discussed the semantics, and made their way to the backyard. Holding the flaming torch, Adam looked eternal. The yard was quite charming, with perfectly manicured grass and a marble bird bath glittering in the late morning sun. Gansey could imagine his parents hosting brunch out there, or maybe a summertime barbecue.
Blue, Gansey, Henry, and Adam claimed one robin’s egg blue bench, trying and failing to comfortably fit. The flame Adam kept was dangerously close to Henry’s hair, which he would not stop complaining about. Adam considered lighting his hair up just for the fun of it, but figured it wasn't the time for such shenanigans. Perhaps Ronan’s sudden entrance back into his life was making him a little reckless.
Meanwhile, Ronan lied on the grass before them and closed his eyes. Now that he was aware of the possibilities, he didn't need the portal up in the bedroom. He slowed his breathing, willing himself to a calm sleep despite his rambunctious friends. Once in Cabeswater, he envisioned a portal just the same as the one before. He stretched his mind, and it grew and grew until it was large enough to fit the average suburban house. It could have swallowed Ronan up, if he weren't already in Cabeswater. In a flash, Ronan added a reverse-gravity suction because, hey, why not? It would make the job easier.
The rest of them watched with fascination, though all that was visible on the surface was a sleeping boy. He awoke with a jolt, and instantly a portal a hundred times the size of the original appeared in the sky, like someone had pushed a planet a little too close into Earth. The house began to shift upwards, separating from the foundation. A window broke off, and the ostrich-sized raven flew out, squawking loudly. Ronan felt ashamed for forgetting about it — he had a duty to all of his animate dream beings. The bird flew to his side, though, so he figured all was forgiven.
Very, very carefully, Blue levitated the torch in the air. It rose slowly but surely, and everyone else held their wands up to spot her. Soon enough, the torch lit up the outer rim of the portal, washing the neighborhood in yellow heat. By that time, the house was rising high, and all at once it vanished into the white February sky, leaving just an empty lot and a blue bench.
Someone sighed in relief, or maybe all of them. They all looked at each other blankly. There would be time to debrief, time to repair broken friendships. For now, they were mostly concerned with getting home. Henry fished the RoboBee from his cloak pocket, and Adam wordlessly connected them back to Hogwarts. Having missed this special trick the first time around, Ronan was entranced. Adam seemed comfortable in this new power already. Ronan made a mental note to ask him about it.
When they arrived it was only lunchtime, and they all went their separate ways to unpack the events in the mind. Blue made her way up to the astronomy tower; Henry took an aromatic bath in the Prefect’s bathroom; Gansey headed out to the lake, cold but bundled; Adam to the Shrieking Shack, because it always helped him think; and Ronan flew around the empty Quidditch field, letting the cold freeze his outsides and warm his insides. They would join once again, in due time.
~
Adam found Ronan in the owlery, tending to the one giant black bird amongst a myriad of brown speckled owls. In his hands, he clutched the day’s issue of The Daily Prophet, and he was nervous, a little. It had been a week since the incident with the Greenmantles, and they were all readjusting to their age-old friendship. Henry now hung out with them more, which seemed inevitable, after. Ronan and Adam returned to their banter quickly enough, but they hadn't spent time alone, hadn't talked. They both recognized that feeling of having everything and nothing to say. It was too much; there was so much ground to cover, and they didn't know where to start.
Ronan gave Adam a small smile in greeting but said nothing.
“Have you named it?” Adam sat on the dusty floor and Ronan followed suit. They watched the birds and each other.
Ronan nodded, a silly grin warping his face. “Chainsaw.”
Adam shook his head and smiled. He was surprised that Pureblood Ronan even knew what chainsaws were, but Adam figured that was part of the charm, because many of their classmates would not.
“And they’re letting you keep it?”
Ronan shrugged. “I think McGonagall is being lenient with me, considering.”
They lapsed into a minute of comfortable silence, both marveling in genuine awe the path that their lives had taken in the past several months. Adam remembered the newspaper in his hand, and he thrust it towards Ronan.
The front page headline read “Hogwarts professor and wife mysteriously disappear.” Colin and Piper Greenmantle smiled up at them from the newsprint, and Ronan tore the page in half. “I’ll save you the trouble of reading it,” Adam provided. “The Ministry is looking into it, but it's still in early stages. Mostly everyone is gossiping about how the Defense professor job is cursed again.”
Ronan nodded, too much on his mind to really absorb what Adam was telling him. He didn't know what to say, so he said what was on his mind. “Kavinsky is transferring to Durmstrang.”
“How do you know?” What Adam really meant was: “have you talked to him?”
“Heard it through the grapevine.”
Adam nodded. “I'm sorry you didn't feel like you could come to us. We weren't trying to push you away; we just didn't know how to be there for you.”
“No, it was never about that.” He cursed in frustration. He had never been good with words, so he was struggling to properly explain. “Everything exploded and I didn't know how to deal. When I was with K, I didn't have to think about the pain and I didn't have to think about you.”
He said it without thinking, and he prayed Adam would understand that he didn't mean it, but that would be a lie.
Adam clenched his fist and took a deep breath. “You know, love’s supposed to be good. I was never taught how to love but I know that it's not supposed to be a burden.”
Ronan never said anything about love, and he wondered how long Adam had known, but if he was honest with himself he knew Adam had known since the beginning, almost. Known certainly well before he dated Sargent.
“It's… not. It was just too much to handle. I didn't have the emotional capacity for anything but my grief.” His love for Adam transformed into another form of grief, for a while, but he didn't say that. He didn't need to.
Adam didn't say anything, so Ronan continued, “I saw Sargent and Gansey holding hands earlier.”
Adam sighed and rubbed at his face a little. “I’ve been watching them for a while now, and I was so bitter, at first. But we’ve both moved on, so what is there to be upset about anymore? I think Gansey will be much better for her than I was.”
“And you?”
Adam knew it was a test. He scooted closer to Ronan, so close their sides were touching, and slid their hands together.
“Me? I missed you.” He was done with the drama and ready to be straightforward. The massive blush creeping into Ronan's cheeks was just a bonus. Ronan looked at him, questioning. This was new, and exciting, and scary.
Adam responded by quirking his lips just so, a little smile, a reintroduction. Ronan brought Adan’s hand, still tightly woven with his own, and placed a kiss on Adam’s knuckle. They stayed like that, holding hands, wrapped up in their thoughts.
After a while, Adam spoke up. “Ronan,” he began, and Ronan would have been content never hearing any other word again. “Do you remember when we were eleven, and I half hoped that I was a wizard just so I could keep you and Gansey and this magical world?” Ronan nodded, and Adam continued. “When I got my letter, it just felt so right. Because of my father I tried to suppress it, but I could just feel the magic. You knew, all those years ago, before I did. About me being a wizard, but also about the ley lines.” Adam shook his head, marveling about Ronan’s intuition. “I never did thank you for believing in me so strongly, back before we really knew each other.”
In response, Ronan separated their hands so he could cup Adam's face. He placed a single kiss on Adam’s lips, deep but feather light. What else could he say? Adam knew it all.
Things between the friends were still a little broken, and Ronan would be grieving for a long time to come. But this was a start.