Chapter Text
The interior of it all was breathtaking in its scale. A cathedral of light and stone that seemed to stretch toward the heavens with reverent purpose.
Soaring columns of pale marble rose from the polished floor to meet the vaulted ceiling in a series of sweeping arches, each ribbed in delicate detail, like the bones of some divine architecture. The symmetry was absolute, each line drawing the eye toward the gilded altar that anchored the far end of the nave in a blaze of sacred gold.
The air was hushed, filled with the faint scent of incense and polished wood, broken only by the soft creak of pews and the distant echo of whispered prayers.
Light streamed in through towering stained-glass windows, dappling the stone in cool blues and rich crimsons, casting sacred patterns across the floor like divine script. The chandeliers, suspended from the heavens above, burned with warm, steady light, their crystal pendants flickering like captured stars.
Garlands of soft white florals and pink roses curled around the columns, threaded with ribbon and gentle greenery — festive, perhaps for a wedding or a feast day — adding a tender softness to the solemn grandeur. The pews, long and dark and carefully aligned, framed a central aisle of smooth marble, its surface so polished it mirrored the vaulted ceiling above.
At the heart of it all stood the altar, canopied in filigreed gold, crowned with a towering reredos that seemed to shimmer with every breath of candlelight. Behind it, a grand window of deep cobalt and violet told scenes in glass that words could not hold.
The space was vast, yet every inch felt intimate — each corner heavy with centuries of faith, tradition, and quiet awe. It was a place made not merely to be seen, but to be felt, to be stilled by.
Evan remembers idly the first time his father told him to write a letter to God. He told God that he promises he is doing his best but isn’t sure what that even means. Evan was eight then.
Now he was in his twenties and he couldn’t stop thinking that if God could have healed He would have done it already. That make if Evan needed to be healed God made him wrong from the beginning. But why would God do such mistakes?
His older sister, Roxanne, never prayed to God. She only did so to Mother Mary. To Mary Magdalene. Joan. Catherine of Siena. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Walburga.
“Only sinners bow their heads to a woman,” his grandfather used to say.
Was Roxanne a sinner then?
“Of all the places,” Evan heard a murmur in the empty church as he tried to stand from his knees. A female voice.
“Of all the places and all the heavens,” the voice repeated and he couldn’t and wouldn’t turn. He knew the voice anyway.
“Asking God for more forgiveness, then?”
Evan could hear her steps come closer and closer to him.
“How’s the Big Man treating you these days?”
“I don’t pray to God anymore,” Evan said.
The pause that followed was so intense he could swear he heard the flickering of the candles.
“Oh?”
Evan swallowed and finally turned.
“Hello, Roxanne,” he said.
“Who do you pray to?”
“Shouldn’t you be locked up in a prison?” Evan met his sister’s gaze.
“Ouch,” she wrinkled her nose.
“Shouldn’t you?” He insisted on the question.
“Who do you pray to?” She did the same taking a step closer to him.
“Peter?” Roxanne took a step each new question. “Luke?”
“Mary.”
“Only sinners pray to women,” Roxanne added.
“Maybe I am a sinner,” Evan shrugged, not looking at her anymore. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, i have somewhere to be.”
He walked past his sister, down the lane of the church, over the white and golden rug, trying to focus only at he large door ahead of him.
“It’s Wednesday,” Roxanne murmured. “Going to see your boy?”
Evan stopped but refused to look at her again.
“Pandora needs to stop telling people my business actually.”
He will kill his baby sister the moment he lays his hands on her, in fact.
“Can I come?”
“No.”
But Evan was still not moving.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember the face of Roxanne the last time he saw her when they were young.
She stood like a figure painted in stillness, her expression solemn, almost sacred, as if caught in a moment far removed from the present. Her skin was luminous, a warm depth to it that seemed to glow softly against the pale blush of the hazy background. A single tear traced a glistening path down her cheek, mirrored on the other side — perfectly symmetrical, as if scripted by grief itself.
Her eyes, framed by a subtle wash of violet shadow, held a steady, mournful gaze — unflinching and unembellished, their quiet intensity refusing to be dismissed. Her lips, delicately glossed in a muted rose gold, were closed in gentle resignation.
She wore a high-collared white garment of finely pleated fabric, its sharp structure softened by the ruffled neckline. It evoked something ceremonial — perhaps ecclesiastical, perhaps royal — but stripped of grandeur, it felt purely symbolic.
But then his memory started imagining things.
Like on the top her head might have sat a crown of thorns, pale and brittle against the smooth darkness of her hair, which was parted neatly and drawn back without adornment. The contrast between the cruel geometry of the crown and the tenderness in her face gave the image a quiet gravity, as though she were the embodiment of grace in the face of suffering.
Was he always going to see his sister like a fallen angel?
“Is he as I imagined he’d be?” Roxanne’s voice broke Evan’s thoughts.
“Excuse me?”
“The Crouch kid,” she said softly, almost small — akin to a child. “I saw him play once with Moony when he was little. I was afraid my fate and his were never to met in this life time. Maybe in heaven if I were to reach it. And I wondered and wondered, many of years that came over me… well, and then you and him ended up on the same team. So now I am curious if I was right about the boy.”
Roxanne always liked talking like that. Like she was reciting some sort of scripture only she knew about. No one ever understood what she was sayin.
Evan did.
“He is,” he responded. “Plays like you.”
A beat passed once more and Evan felt like he was suffocating.
“Mother Mary promised him to me for you, you know,” she started again with her nonsense. “I never saw someone play like him.”
“Why? You needed a mirror to see yourself — or what?”
Evan could swear he could hear his sister breath, think and blink.
“But the sand was so white,” Roxanne whispered. “The sand was so very white and the waves couldn’t handle all that.”
“Stop trying to play Cassandra,” Evan told his sister before starting to walk again.
“They lied to us,” Roxanne started following him. “Everyone lied to us. No one wants a rose if it hurts you in the end.”
Evan kept walking.
“Animal kingdom is nothing if not for the worst of the monsters and beasts out there,” Roxanne rose her voice. “Without wolves to eat the dead animals the rest of the forest would get infected. I was right about Remus Lupin and I was right about all of you. So then you must believe that I was right to fake my death as well.”
He heard a loud noise behind him. Evan is not sure why he turned.
Have you ever seen an angel beg?
Roxanne was on both of her knees, head bowed and hands tied together in the air.
“You have to believe me,” she was sobbing in big gasps. “I beg of you.”
Evan felt a heavy weight over his chest.
“I was right, you see,” she pleaded again, bowing her heard further down. “I was always so right. I had to die. Roxanne Rosier had to die. I beg you to see it as I do.”
He chocked on his own words — not able to voice any of them.
“They would have gotten you and Sirius, don’t you understand?” She gasped for air.
The rain started just then. A storm out of nowhere. Hitting the windows with too much force.
“Why?” Evan asked.
“Because they raped and destroyed out father!” Roxanne finally raised her head, shouting.
A single candle fall on the floor.
“Because they wrecked our family to no end!”
“Because Dad and Aunt Walburga were the first fallen ones in a long line of unwanted children. And I was not going to let that happen to you,” her voice broke. “Because Remus Lupin was the most extraordinaire football I have or will ever meet and he would have ended up dead if it weren’t for me.”
“The humans are killing the animals and no one is seeing that,” she started crying more. “Because no one wants the monsters alive and it was either me or all of you.”
“I am not crazy,” Roxanne pleaded with Evan.
Evan looked up, at the ceiling.
“Why did you kill Marcus Meadowes?”
Come on now, let’s see how faithful you are to your sainted women.
Roxanne hiccuped. “It was the right thing to do.”
Except you didn’t kill him. Except I heard Pandora and Dorcas. Except I know Dorcas did it and you are covering for her.
But martyrs were humans too once.
“Les Junior can’t drive me today,” Evan said. “So we have to take the bus to Bee.”
Roxanne’s face lit up.
“They haven’t taken my licence yet,” she hiccuped again. “I have a motorcycle.”
“Okay.”
Ironically, the rain stopped once they left Manchester.
And the trip was far too long.
The estate stood in serene imagery at the end of a gently curving gravel drive, its white columns rising with the quiet authority of old Victorian grace. Surrounded by manicured hedges and a riot of late-spring blooms, the building had once been a private residence — but now, it served as a discreet and elegant rehabilitation centre tucked deep in the countryside.
It was almost eery considering this was a rehabilitation house
The front gates — wrought iron, tastefully modest — remained open during daylight hours, welcoming those who came not as guests, but as patients in search of calm, of clarity.
A sense of stillness clung to the air, carried on the scent of roses, clipped boxwood, and freshly turned soil. It was the sort of place where time slowed to a softer rhythm — where days were marked by walks through the garden, not appointments or alarms. Evan didn’t knew what to do with that.
The structure itself, though grand, had been carefully softened. The crisp white façade and symmetrical windows conveyed order and safety, while hanging ferns on the upper balcony and ivy trailing along the portico added an organic tenderness. Rocking chairs sat on the wide front porch, always turned slightly outward, as though waiting for someone to sit and listen to the wind in the trees.
Inside, the rooms had been redesigned with comfort and dignity in mind — light-filled lounges, quiet therapy spaces, and personal suites that felt more like guest rooms than wards. From every window, the view was green and unbroken, the sort of uninterrupted horizon that reminded one there was still time, and space, to begin again.
There, healing was not rushed. It came in gentle conversations beneath the shade of the elms, in morning yoga on the lawn, in the ritual of tea on the porch as dusk settled in. There was no signage beyond the gate, no plaques or titles — just the house, the garden, and the promise of restoration, quietly unfolding at the pace of nature itself.
Funny, Evan thought, it might have been the best and yet worst place for Barty.
Right as they entered the reception room, he met eyes with Alice. But the moment she looked behind him she froze, the nice vase in her hands slipping and breaking on the floor in tiny little pieces.
“Holy Mother of—”
Alice was petrified.
“Frank!” She shouted after her husband. “Frank you have to see this!”
Still not moving.
“Frank!”— again —“The wind came with a legend.”
“Fortescue,” Evan could swear he heard his sister smirk. “Or is Longbottom now?”
Alice just swallowed. “On all the bloody Saints!” She let out a chuckle. “Fuck me sideways and call me mad. I think I am either seeing a ghost or seeing double. What the fuck is this, ey?”
Evan abstained from laughing.
“Me mum will go wild if she saw you ‘ere,” so shocked her accent was slipping. “Shit, mate!”
A door slammed and a new figure appeared. “What you need woman?”
Frank was only looking at his wife.
“Call me that one more time, I’ll show you what I need, you prick!” She turned to him with a fury.
“Hi there, Stripes,” Roxanne giggled.
And finally — finally! — Frank moved his whole body.
“Fucking—” he froze as well. “That’s bloody mad, fam! The fuck you doing here, Rosy?”
He started laughing, unlike his wife.
Stripes and Quinnie. Roxanne named them too. Like she named most of them.
Frank was a good player back in school. Never good enough to have made it pro though. Flunked it around Uni. He was just good but not the best. Stripes, because he couldn’t be a full tiger no matter how much he wanted.
Alice on the other hand was a fucking monster. She lost her mind a bit after an accident. Hence why she never played again. Also why her parents opened this place. Quinnie because any jungle needs its queen.
But in the jungle even a queen is not enough. And no other girl was ever named a King other than Marlene McKinnon.
Roxanne saw it all back then — when they were just kids. Evan often wondered how did she do it.
“How’s Barty?” Evan asked Alice, who was still looking at his sister.
“Bit a nurse, threw a fit and lit his own bed on fire,” Alice nodded like that was the most normal thing in the world. “Very nice morning we had with him.”
“He wants his pills, and I’m not giving them any to him until he starts acting the part,” Frank added.
Evan frowned at that, but said nothing.
“He’s in his room, alone,” Alice said to a last. “Tried to start a fight with another bloke so now he’s not allowed in the garden with the rest of the lot until tomorrow. Bratty child.”
“See you still hold a tight ship, Quinnie,” Roxanne murmured. “Too bad you never got to be King,” she added cynically.
Evan is not sure what was said after that. He was too focused on getting to Barty’s room as Frank took them there. But he is pretty sure his sister and Longbottom talked some more.
“Now that one,” Roxanne whispered to Frank before entering the room, as she pointed to the door. “That one, unlike the two of you and you wife — he might be King one day.”
And then they were in.
Barty was turned with his back to them the moment Evan and Roxanne entered his room. He was just putting one of his too-short-for-his-body hoodies.
“Oi, I was believing you stood me up,” Bee let out a laugh. “You are late. After locking me in here with the mad man of the year and his crazy arse wife that made me fucking finger paint yesterday. I reckon this is what’s going to get me mad to a last.”
“Bee,” Evan tried to get his attention.
“Nah, ‘cause I did them good today,” Bee continues, his back still turned. “Tried to lit my bed on fire — that’ll show them to not give me a second energy drink at breakfast. Fuckers. You should have honestly seen the shock on Longbottom’s face when he—”
Barty finally turned.
“Hello?” He seemed confused.
“Roxanne Rosier,” Roxanne was quick to introduce herself. “I am—”
“I know who you are,” Bee said deadpan.
A beat.
“Why are you here, though?”
A second beat.
“Did someone die?” Barty turned to Evan. “Something happened?”
This was… new?
Evan never had someone turn to him when Roxanne was in the same room.
“Roxy here wanted to meet you,” Evan said with a forced smile.
Bee tilted his head to his right as if trying to ask Evan a question. He didn’t.
“Yeah, okay,” he nodded. “Just get me my fags or something.”
“We good?” Evan asked him and Bee was still not turning to look at Roxanne.
“Super,” Barty gave a small smile. “I just need to smoke or I will rip all my hair out—” he moved closer “—because that bloody wanker won’t fucking give me my fucking pills,” he shouted thorough the door.
Evan started laughing for the first time that day. He realised his sister was watching them both with a curious look on her pristine face.
“I’m telling you that one hasn’t fucked a bird in fucking forever,” barty continued shouting and taunting Frank and Evan couldn’t stop his laughter all of the sudden.
Roxanne was quieter and quieter. It was so not like her to do that.
Evan lingered by one of the windows, arms loose at his sides, simply watching.
Barty was stretched across the bed, half propped against the pillows, curls spilling in a wild mess around his face. His glasses — new ones that Alice forced him on wearing now — caught the light with a faint violet sheen, and every now and then his mouth curved as he spoke to Roxanne. His hand shifted idly against his chin, rings glinting, tattoos flexing when he gestured — all of it effortless, all of it so entirely him.
Roxanne on the other hand, leaned in from her chair, laughing at something he’d just said, and Evan felt the sound settle warm in his chest.
He couldn’t quite look away. There was something about Bee like this — animated, comfortable, alive in his own skin — that stilled Evan in place.
For a moment he thought he ought to say something, step in, but he didn’t. He just let himself take it in: the lilt of Bee’s voice, the easy roll of his shoulders, the way he looked when he was at ease with someone else.
It wasn’t envy. It was awe. The quiet realisation that this was the boy he loved, and that even when Bee wasn’t looking at him, Evan could hardly breathe for the sight of him.
Hah! It was almost strange in a way. This was not an image he ever considered to see in front of his eyes.
As Bee started playing with the cross necklace between his finger tips and bringing it to his bottom lip like he sometimes did when he was concentrating on something, Evan couldn’t stop thinking how odd everything was.
And well, how beautiful the man was.
Beautiful wasn’t a word Evan used often. Not for people, at least. But Bee… Christ, Bee was beautiful.
It wasn’t the kind of beauty anyone could pin down, not clean or polished like the sort you saw on magazine covers. Or maybe it was. Evan wasn’t sure anymore.
His was a wild sort — the mess of blond curls that never seemed to sit right, the sharp cut of his jaw offset by the soft curve of his mouth, the tattoos climbing his arms like half-told stories. Even the way he lay there, sprawled on the bed like the world belonged to him, carried something untouchable.
Evan’s gaze caught on the little details: the glint of his glasses, the chain at his throat, the quick flicker of a smile that came and went like he hadn’t even realised he’d given it. It was maddening, the ease of it.
He thought about how unfair it was, sometimes, that someone could look like that without trying. How every inch of Bee seemed to hum with life, like he was made to burn brighter than anyone else.
“Evan?” Barty caugh his attention, making Evan step out of his mind — if, just for a little while.
“Your sister asked what we think of Rabastan being moved in the back,” he explained.
Evan blinked slowly. “Ahm… yeah, so I suggested that actually.”
A beat.
But then the other two went back to their discussion.
He allowed himself to watch his sister this time.
Roxanne was curled up in the chair like she’d lived there all her life, grinning at something Barty had just said. Her jumper was too big, sleeves slipping down her wrists, jeans folded easy over her knees. The kind of look most people would have called thrown-together — but on her it sat like it was intentional, like it was hers alone.
Her laugh was quick, bright, and something hit him the way it always did; like something untouchable. Maybe the problem was that Evan wasn’t sure what exactly.
He thought about how often he’d underestimated her, how often everyone did. But here she was, sharp as glass, warm as the sun, drinking her little tea with one hand while keeping Barty wrapped around her little finger with the other.
Evan leaned back, lips twitching into the ghost of a smile.
“Right, but Les Junior’s got no pace,” Roxanne was saying, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe they were even entertaining the idea. “Stick him in the back and he’ll drag the whole line down with him I reckon. He’s no Rodolphus.”
Barty laughed at that, sharp and full, like he always did when someone dared to disagree with him. “He’s not fast, no, but he’s fucking massive and the best to read other’s bodies. Stick him behind, let him take care of other’s bodies and movements, and you’ll see the difference.”
“He reads the game like he’s translating bloody Shakespeare,” Roxanne shot back, leaning further forward, her eyes sparking. “Five minutes after the fact and when it’s already too late.”
Evan found himself smiling again, watching them volley back and forth. His sister and his boyfriend — two of the most stubborn people he knew — arguing football tactics like it was a matter of state.
This was sort of… nice?
“Look,” Evan cut in finally, pushing off the window frame, “I said put him in the back because the alternative is letting him pretend he’s a striker — again. But he has the Lestrange force. Rabastan used to play in the back before joining Salazar Academy, just like Roddy. And I reckon it was a shite move to get him as a forward in the first place. He’s not made to shot but to protect.”
That earned him a sharp bark of laughter from Barty and an approving grin from Roxanne.
“Fair enough,” she said, still smirking. “But if we concede because he can’t keep up, I’ll be quoting you word for word.”
“Yeah, well,” Evan shrugged, settling himself on the arm of her chair, “I’ll take the blame. But I’ll still be right.”
“Baby Black started moving faster,” Roxanne mussed. “Him being on the same team as his older brother might just saved his force and pace, I reckon. The Basilisk is growing a new head in front of our very own eyes, lads.”
“He still can’t jump,” Evan remarked.
“Who lied to you that he needs to?” Roxanne finally moved her gaze from Bee to Evan. “Spoiler: not every member of the Black family needs to be a flyer. Regulus’ doing exactly what Sirius can’t — keeps the ground at his feet. You need both on a good team. Can’t have one without the other and all that.”
“It’s animal kingdom,” Roxanne added, shrugging. “I’ve been telling you that since you were little.”
Animal kingdom.
Animal kingdom.
Animal kingdom.
But what’s a kingdom without a King?
“Rox,” Evan used the old nickname on his sister the first time that day.
“Yes?”
“Why did you name Marlene the Lion King?”
A pause settled between them.
“There’s no kingdom without a King,” she responded like that was the most obvious thing in the world.
“But Marlene is a woman,” he frowned. “She has her own league.”
“And until last year no visibly trans male player ever played on one of the ‘big’ fields. Not before Regulus Black,” Roxanne arched an eyebrow. “Many things can change, you know?”
Roxanne dropped Evan off at Mary’s — just as he’d asked. The car ride ended without much more than a muttered goodbye, no argument, no warmth either. The silence clung to him even after the taillights disappeared down the street. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it, whether it was distance settling between them or simply the kind of quiet siblings sometimes fell into without meaning to.
So he did what he always did — lowered his head and watched his own steps. The pavement shifted into smooth marble as he crossed the threshold of Mary Macdonald’s building, the air inside cooler, scented faintly of polish and someone’s expensive cologne lingering from earlier in the evening.
The concierge gave him a nod, one Evan barely returned, and he moved towards the lift. The doors slid open with a soft chime, and he stepped inside, pressing the button for the top floor with a little more force than necessary.
As the lift began its steady climb, Evan leaned back against the mirrored wall. His reflection looked pale under the harsh overhead light, eyes darker than he remembered, hair curling too tight around his nape. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and tried not to think about Roxanne’s silence, or about what might be waiting behind Mary’s penthouse door.
The numbers above the door ticked upwards in their unhurried sequence. He followed them with his eyes, willing the ride to pass faster, though a small part of him clung to the suspended quiet of the moment — the last stretch before he’d have to speak again, to explain himself, to step into someone else’s world.
“Why don’t women and men play on the same team?” Evan asked the moment Mary opened the door for him.
She blinked slowly then started frowning.
“I— What?”
“That’s why I wanted us to meet,” Evan said, walking past her. “Hi, hello, Potter. Thank you for joining us today, like I asked.”
James looked spent after last night’s training session with Narcissa. He was sprawled on Mary’s pink and white sofa in the living room, his bad leg up the coffee table and playing with the cords of his hoodie — taking one side out, getting one side in; taking one side out, getting one side in.
“Hey!”
“Why don’t women and men play on the same team? Ever?” Evan asked again, now positioning the question to the both of them.
Potter stopped whatever he was doing mid cord-play.
“Come on you lot,” Evan was getting angry. “I wanted to talk about you two about this for a reason!”
“Women don’t have the same force men do,” Mary said quietly as she sad on the old armchair next to the telly. “So if they wanted to play a different league was made for them.”
“Isn’t this the whole transmisogynistic talk about sports, anyway?” Mary asked.
“Sure, sure,” Evan pressed his lips together and started pacing around the room. “But then let me raise you this: Regulus Black.”
“Regulus is on testosterone, you can’t compare the situations,” Mary was quick to add. “That’s very different.”
Potter was just watching them, from Evan to Mary and Mary to Evan.
His attention was getting shite again. Evan made a mental note to tell Regulus that and see if his bloody boyfriend was taking his ADHD meds. Evan couldn’t do nothing with a midfielder if he couldn’t focus just because the bloke forgot to take his meds and that bloody boyfriend of his couldn’t properly take care of him.
See? Evan would never let this happen to Bee if that were to be their case.
Anyway, off track.
“Marlene McKinnon,” was all Evan said in a solemn voice and with a short nod of his chin.
“I don’t—” Mary bit her lip, like she was frustrated wit herself for not getting the conversation.
“Explain yourself,” Potter watched him carefully.
“If all women are so deity and fragile why does Marlene keeps harming the girls on the pitch even unintentionally? Every red card she gets? Why?”
Nothing.
“Wouldn’t be much fucking better for everyone if Marlene would play along side people that have the same force as her?” Evan asked. “Either them be men, women, anything, really!”
“But Rosier, that’s—” James stopped himself.
“It’s not doable,” Mary said in his place.
“Then better make it be doable, Macdonald,” Evan widened his eyes. “Make it that Marlene McKinnon can play for the Order. Do it.”
A pause.
“You two lot want changes? Great!” He started speaking chaotically. “Then start with her. You start with the fucking Lion King and I swear on Mother Mary and all the Saints after her I will make you legends. Get the fucking mother of all monsters on my field.”
“Mother Mary?” James asked.
“I’m done with God,” Evan looked him straight in the eyes. “I’ve switched sides.”