Closed And that's how you live a life

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon had been busier in the last couple of years than he’d ever been in his life. Or, at least, that was what it felt like. The years had gone by so fast that he’d barely had time to react and then all of a sudden, Finley was four. He remembered vividly what it had been like when his son had been born - the strangeness of the whole situation. To be honest, Zennon had thought things were going to be a lot different - he’d had an entirely different view of what his life would be, down to what his career would have been.

He wasn’t upset with how it had ended up. He wouldn’t have changed a thing. Not Finley, not Sam and not anything else in his life.

He might have been single, but for the moment that was how he preferred it. He didn’t have room in his life for that kind of complication. He had Sam, Finley and he had Leda and Mervyn. He saw Jacob on occasion, around. He worked in the hospital after all so he was no stranger to the Aurors he would see. He saw quite a few of his old school mates - most of his entire class had come out to be Aurors. He was happy for them of course, but sometimes he worried a little. He never wanted to be in a position where he had to save someones life like that. The pressure to be correct, the pressure to ensure that he did nothing wrong.

Sure, he was a healer, but what did that really mean?

With Finley at his side, Zennon made his way to Leda’s. They hadn’t seen each other in some time as they’d both been busy. But Zennon had some time off, and he was deciding to use it as wisely as he could. Catching up with friends was a really good idea. He knew he should probably be doing it more often then he did - but it was one of those things you didn’t always have time to think about until after the fact and then eight months later you realise you haven’t spoken to someone in a ridiculous amount of time.

The dumbest part? The didn’t live that far away from each other.

“Okay, be good today, I know you’ve been asking to see Leda and Mervyn, so don’t make me have to clear it out early, right?” for his part, Finley just took in a deep breath and nodded, his little face almost bursting as they got closer to their destination.

He knocked on the door. “Hey, Leds! Got time for a drink and a chat?” he called out to her. “Auntie Leda, let us in!” his son supplied helpfully.

Out of Character:

feel free to gm to kiddo

 

[Leda Layton]

The more time that went by, the more Leda was beginning to realise that Olive had coped quite well when it came to raising her little sister. Now that she was witnessing Mervyn doing the same thing, Leda just hoped that being in Eluneds life would just be another source of support if it was needed. Of course Leda hadn’t needed anyone but Olive when she was growing up, but it wasn’t a bad thing that there were more people around now and then.

Bring at Hogwarts for instance had actually given her friends. Mervyn was more of a family figure to Leda before they’d even started school, but after spending seven years in a castle it was hard to not make new acquaintances. Sometimes she wondered how Zennon and Sapphire were getting on, but it was only the former that she was still in touch with on occasion. They were both much too busy to spend a lot of time together these days but that didn’t mean that Leda didn’t write to him now and then, although usually it was about the things she planned to write for the paper.

Leda was in the middle of preparing a space in the house for Wendall during the holidays when she heard the front door. Stepping through the tiny house; tinier still when it was no longer just Leda and Mervyn that lived there, she moved a toy out of the way of the front door that Ned had discarded and yanked opened the door on the stiff frame. “Z!” Leda grinned, happy to see the man in person for change. Her eyes darted down to see a mini version of her best friend, and while she had no desire to have any off spring of her own, Leda could appreciate how cute Finley was getting every time she saw him. “If you can squeeze in, be my guest,” Leda offered, swinging back the door and wiping the air with her arm to beckon them in. There weren’t many people Leda trusted, but Z for a long time had been one of them.​

 

[Zennon Baros]

“You’re looking good, Leds, keeping busy I see?” Zennon said as he carefully moved through the door, careful not to step on Finley as the moved about and then eventually decided that picking him up was the best option. He smiled at Leda as he followed her. “Sorry for just dropping in like this, it’s been a while and I had some time off, so I thought it might be nice to come and see you since it’s been a while. And Finley’s been nagging me for months to come and drop by, so I thought why not come now?” he knew she didn’t mind or she’d have told him to leave in no uncertain terms. It was one of the things he loved about Leda, you always knew where you stood with her, it was so easy to see how she felt about you and Zennon was honoured he was one of a small few of whom she cared enough about to consider a friend.

Since leaving school he hadn’t been great at keeping in contact with people he’d used to know, but he saw a couple of them with enough frequency to consider them to be friends. Or, at the least he could consider them acquaintances and there was nothing wrong with acquaintances really. “Auntie Leda, I wanna write stories like you!” Finley suddenly announced and Zennon laughed. “I read him the stuff you send me and he loves it. He always picks up the papers now and looks for your name. He’s not terribly great at reading yet, but he knows your name when he sees it, don’t you kiddo?” Zennon wasn’t worried about his reading level, he was only a child after all, so it didn’t really mean much of anything. They’d deal with it when they got to the point if it ever became a serious thing.​

 

[Leda Layton]

"Do we have a choice?" Leda mused, knowing Zennon would know what she meant when it came to being busy and having young children in the house. Leda led her best friend and Finley into the kitchen, as it was the best place for them to actually sit down if they wanted to have a decent conversation. "A good a time as any, you know that," the redhead agreed, resorting to muggle means to pour a couple of drinks for the trio. Leda would never have turned away Zennon, in the same way that she'd never be able to refuse Mervyn, even if the guy got on her very last nerve multiple times a day.

Leda glanced down at Finley when he said he wanted to write stories, and her face lit up at his excitement. Eluned didn't really share the same hobbies as Leda did, nor did Wendall seem particularly keen in telling stories at least in the same fashion as Leda had at Hogwarts. Writing was most certainly something that Leda found not many people did. "Well you know, if you want to write lots of stories that also means you have to read lots of stories," she said, bending down a little to give him one of Ned's plastic cups full of orange juice. Leda looked up as Zennon mentioned he would read the things Leda wrote, although whether he had a clue what he was reading was another thing entirely. "I'll have to dig out some of my old articles I wrote at school, or maybe you could even borrow some of Ned's books?" She asked, partly to Zennon, always keen to help out if she could when it came to this topic. "How have you been finding things?" Leda asked, lingering in her gaze a little longer than what would have been considered natural, hoping that the former Slytherin knew what she was actually referring to in front of his son.​

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon shook his head and laughed, "No, you're right, I suppose we don't," if someone had told him when he was a child that he would be fatherless, and a father himself this soon, he would not have believed them. So much had happened for him all in one moment that it was almost like someone had been trying to test him. His resolve and though things in his life were a lot better than they had been those years, it wasn't like he was fully recovered. It was hard to recover from something like that, and he and his family had to come to terms with it on their own. Zennon had thrown himself into his little family, into his work and Rowan had done what she always did, she'd run; the saving grace of this of course, was that this time she had someone to run with and Zennon was endlessly grateful to Elio for that. He just hoped the pair of them were okay, because they were frustratingly light on the whole communication thing.

"Finley really enjoys reading when he can," he added, as he sat down at the table and pulled his son up onto his lap. It had just been the two of them for a while, since Sam did a lot of travel into the muggle world from being a teacher, so Zennon spent a lot of his time with Finley on his own. He didn't mind though because he respected that Sam wanted to have her own life and she and Zennon were still friends so co-parenting Finley was easy - though he had not forgiven her yet for insisting on calling their child Fin, it just didn't suit him, as far as Zennon was concerned. Still, when Finley was old enough he would be able to choose his own nickname, Zennon just hoped it wouldn't be Fin. "It's been a bit of a mission, honestly, because things get really hectic in life as you know, but we're getting through it, aren't we, Finley?"​