WHO: Alex Smith and Billie Trimble
WHAT: Catching up since Hogwarts
WHERE: Some dive bar
WHEN: Tonight
STATUS: Finishing in comments

( Aren’t you a Quidditch player these days? )

WHO: Graciela and Alex Smith (NPC)
WHAT: :( Sad times, revelations, decisions
WHERE: Their bedroom
WHEN: Tonight

( Instead I'm just an adulterous bastard. )

It was an all too familiar feeling, this dark depression of hopelessness. Graciela wished she could say that she had never felt anything like this, but that would be a lie. When Alex disappeared in Portugal over two years ago, when the aurors changed their mission to search and recovery, Graciela had felt like she was going to die. Being completely helpless to find Alex, and now being of no use to find her son, she did not know if she could make it past another day. Today, today was supposed to be a beautiful day, marking a beautiful event in her and Alex's life, but all their second anniversary managed to remind her of was that she had not held her son in over a week.

A week, a week. Zacharias and the other children had been missing for over a week, and there were still no clues, not one shred of evidence to help their return. Graciela prayed for what felt like a decade but even she, as devout that she was, knew that her small mutterings could only do so much. The silence of their lives made each day pass slower, and slower, and she almost wished she and Alex could find some angry words to shout at each other, just to fill in the void. But she could not muster up any emotion. Every day that passed sucked away any semblance of an emotion, and by now all Graciela could do was sit on the window seat and stare out into the backyard. Nothing needed tending to, anymore, not while her baby was not with her.

She stretched out a foot and accidentally knocked over the soft-cover copy of her latest book. Graciela's eyes drifted toward the book, and she looked away at the sound of a door opening. Her meeting with Calliope Publishing had been perfect, but that had been before the children were taken. Her new book was about a world where the dark wizards win, how could think to publish something like that, when her family was already being attacked? She couldn't, there was no way.

Her head dropped to her shoulder as she spotted her husband, and Graciela couldn't fake a smile at Alex. "I can make dinner," she said, but hoped that he would decline.

Who: The Browns + Smiths + friends!
What: Harper and Lavender come home, time for steaks! Annnnnnnd some other stuff.
Where: Brown's house!
When: Monday afternoon/evening.

Harper loved being home. He loved his wife and especially his daughter. It was kind of sad she slept so much, but Psyke and Harper had hardly set her down since they'd been home. Harper was kind of tired and napping with the baby on his chest when he heard people rustling about and hushed talking. Opening an eye he inspected the people coming in and gave a quirk of a smile as Lavender started squirming a little.

He sat up and held her carefully, getting out of the recliner gingerly. Grinning broadly he passed her over to Malcolm and clapped him on the shoulder with a wink to Psyke. "Fairy godfather, eh? You should change her princess diapers good sir. Wash your hands first and after, Imma go cook me some steak."

It felt so very good to be a married man.

Santiago grinned from his seat at the head table, trying to suppress his confusion at Seymour's banjo ballad. He had no idea why he thought it would be a good idea to tell his friend he'd have a moment of spotlight at the reception, but...at least it had its memories.

He wanted to feel bad that it wasn't a traditional wizarding wedding ceremony, but who was he kidding? Santiago was raised in the Catholic church, he'd never pictured his own to be anything different and---even though it had ruined a lot of their initial plans, he couldn't be happier with the day.

Mostly because of the beautiful bride he was currently gripping hands with.

He leaned over to Jolene and smiled widely, sure that he managed to show off all of his teeth. It was remarkable; Santiago never thought he'd love someone as much as he did Jolene, and she managed to sweep him off his feet in--if he wanted to be honest, that first day in St. Mungo's. When she was looking ill and sickly and still managed to make his heart jump and flip and tie his stomach into knots? Well. Deus, it was perfect.

"It was not that bad, yes?" he said, amused with the light and awkward applause Seymour had received.

The rubber of the gloves she had to wear to touch her son---it was the most painful thing Graciela had ever felt. He looked so small, and it was so completely mind-blowing that just earlier this week they'd been cooing about how big he was getting. Such a big boy! He could almost roll over, he was just about getting there, and then one night he had just...he had just started crying, and crying. At first Graciela had treated it like a normal night, trying to feed him, coddle him, sing to him---after nearly two hours, it was obvious that it was something more. His fever hadn't been that bad, but---deus, if she had just taken his temperature earlier, maybe the healers could have stopped it, or---or maybe the milk wasn't at the right temperature, or it could have been...it could have been...

Her chin slipped from her hand and the sudden movement jolted her awake. Graciela was sure neither she or Alex had slept since coming to the hospital, and her eyes wearily looked around the small room they'd warded off for Zacharias--they didn't want to put him with the other patients with the same symptoms, but they couldn't have him in the nursery. She was sure Santiago had lent a big hand in giving them privacy, but it was still daunting to have all the large room for such a tiny person.

She pouted lightly when she finally caught Alex's eye, the gloved hand inside the...what was the word, she supposed it was an incubator of sorts...her fingers gently brushed along Zac's arm, and the lack of actually feeling his skin made her chest ache.

"When are they supposed to be back? The healers?" She couldn't remember if it had been five minutes or five hours since they'd last poked and prodded her son, it seemed like they'd been there a millennium.