Anastasia was beside herself. She'd already lost one child she's had to grieve for and now it was like she was losing another.
She wouldn't stand for it. Either Dante was going to come home, or she was going after him. Daemyn can think what he likes, but her child or no, she doesn't let anyone keep her family from her. Even her own family. She had a mind to stick him with a needle if she'd get her hands on him, but he's good with his wand, better than her at any rate, and he isn't stupid. The moment she would show up on his doorstep he'd know. Why Dante seemed to think he can hide from his mother she wasn't sure, but as it was she was getting understandably reckless and Hades was getting an earful of it, it was high time he did something about it. She loved each of her children in turn, but she also knew the family she had married into and what each of her children was capable of. She'd already lost Varvara, she refused to let anyone take Dante away from her as well. "This is your influence Hades, my children keeping my children from me. I won't have it. Do something about it." Either someone needed to bring her son to her or she would set the wizarding world on fire until she found him. "If I must walk through the gates of that school when the semester starts again and retrieve him myself, I will do it."
Hades Styx paced the living room of their house that surely looked more like a haunted house from the outside. Not that it was much better on the side with the pair of lovers with one of the most feared members of his family. Hades might have started getting up there in age, but his lifestyle never slowed down. The only thing that had was the fact that he no longer had children. Most were adults and having their own by now. He had his suspicions on why one of the younger sons remained with his beloved prodigy. Daemyn, who was good at just about anything he did, still unmarried and not producing more heirs. That alone bothered him, but he could see what Anastasia was talking about. He stopped pacing when she actually turned this on him. "My influence? Lest you forget, they are half yours and mine."
But now, the issue still remained. Dante was not coming home when he wanted. And worst of all, Cassius seemed to be enabling him. He folded his arms across his chest and smirked at the idea of Anastasia going through the school to find her boy. He could understand her pain. They both lost Varvara, and now she felt like she might be losing Dante, even if he were alive and well. "Rather than focus on what he is doing, we need to think on why. Why hasn't Dante returned home? What is the boy hiding from us?"
"Oh, as if I could forget that,"Anastasia bit back. She wasn't angry with Hades, not really, but her concern and fear had manifested into anger at the entire situation. The holidays were here, school was over and her child was not under her roof. It was one thing for her older children to have their own lives, it was expected, but not Cassius, not Samael (even when he starts school he will be home with her until he bloody graduates) and certainly not Dante. She had favoured him for many years when he was born, and for him to not be here now, it hurt her deeply. Especially after they'd lost Varvara. It wasn't fair. She paced in front of him, her frustration etched onto every line on her face. There were many reasons a young boy might want to hide from his mother, but for the boy to hide from both of them, and for the other members of her family to hide him from her? What did it mean?
She turned to look at Hades then, "what about your father? He must know something, have him read the boy," she said, though she gritted her teeth at the words. No one could have Kalif do anything he didn't want to, and if he hadn't come to them by now with some news or other on something happening with their son, that must have meant he was making a conscious choice not to tell them anything and her relationship with the wider members of Hades family was tenuous at the best of times. Mostly she felt she was tolerated, if she started making demands, that tolerance level was only going to drop. But even still, this is her son, surely the rest of the Styx bunch would understand that she just needed to know that he was okay since no one seemed fit to explain this to her.
"Hades, what possible reason could the boy have to hide from me? From us? We're his family and he refuses to see us."
Hades smirked as she countered his remark. He knew that her anger did not source with him, but he was a good target to take it out on because he could handle things like that easily. He tapped his arm once he had them crossed over his chest. She was a mother worried, and he could not blame her at all. He was amused by the fact, and, at first, thought that Dante just loved visiting Daemyn. However, now that Cassius was involved, it piqued his interest. Anastasia mentioned his father, which made him nod. "No doubt about it. Father knows everything there is to know about his family, especially his direct descendants. But you know as well as I do that no one can tell him what to do." Hades shrugged his shoulders, and figured that if there was something really wrong, even his father would not keep the truth from Hades.
So, that meant that the issue was more or less common sense. The question remained, and caused those wheels to start turning in his head. Why. And then it hit him. He let out a small snicker and went over to the chair and sat down. "There's one reason: fear. What if the reason is because he is scared of us?" Hades held his hand up as if to say that he was not done. "Think about it for a moment. This all started after we buried Varvara. What if that werewolf got ahold of him too? My family isn't exactly welcoming toward those infected with lycanthropy." Hades himself didn't care about werewolves, though after Varvara... And the fact that the family always looked to Hades to get rid of others, even within the family.
Anastasia refused to believe it. Not her son, not her boy. He was only a child, a child who had lost his sister in a terrible, terrible incident. If Anastasia'd had her way she'd have had all of them, the whole dirty lot of them eradicated. There was just no one one of her babies was a filthy werewolf. No way in hell. She looked at Hades sharply, her eyes betraying the fear held within. But what if he was right? What if that was what had pushed him to hide from them? From her? She could not lie, she had never made her feelings hidden, everyone who had ever met her knew her feelings, her beliefs towards those creatures. As far as she had always been concerned, they deserved everything that they had coming to them, they didn't deserve wands, they didn't deserve the magic they stole. And yet, her pure baby boy, her darling Dante, could possibly have been tainted by such an abomination, and become an abomination himself.
Was Kalif hiding him from her because he believed she would try to do the child harm? No, she didn't believe that was it. The penalties she would face for that ever even being suggested would have already, likely, resulted in her death. Which meant it had to be something else...
Was Dante scared of what she would say to him? That she wouldn't love him anymore? Did he believe he would lose her affection? Would he? Did she hate those kind so much that she could never even put her hatred aside for the sake of her boy? Honestly, it scared Ana that she could not answer the question. "Hades... I... I don't want to believe that could be true. Not Dante, not our Dante," but what other explanation could there be? Ana all but collapsed against the wall, held up almost entirely by her hand on the counter beside her. Dante, a werewolf? It couldn't be true. And yet...
She needed to see him. She needed to see him right now. "Hades, I must see him, I must see him right now. I have to know if this is true, I have to know if my boy is... is a..." she could not even say the words.
Hades was honestly intrigued as the news slowly crept through Anastasia's brain. It seemed like the gears were turning, and for Hades, it made sense. Dante was clinging to those that he felt most comfortable with, that were not as cold-blooded killers like he and his wife. Anastasia wiped out half of her family after all. Even scared Drakon enough to leave. It was glorious. Hades shrugged his shoulders when Anastasia finally spoke about Dante. "I don't know if it is true or not, as it is just an assumption. He might just be really attached to Daemyn. Or he could be hiding a girlfriend that we would never approve of."
There was no telling with Dante. Hades was aware of how troublesome that he could be. He had seen some of the letters from Cassius and some other cousins of theirs. Hades could see Anastasia seem like she was really being affected by this, physically. He got up and immediately went to her side to put his hand on her waist, in case she needed to use him to stand up. "We cannot just bombard the school. If he does not come back this break, he will have to shop sometime for school supplies. Samael will need supplies as well." Hades offered some direction for their next move.
Ana felt Hades' hand grip her waist and she leaned into his strength. She didn't like appearing weak in front of the man, but her husband understood, in some small way, the anguish she might have felt. She wasn't an innocent woman, she never claimed to be. Had she the inclination she might murder her whole family completely, but she would never touch her children, not a single one of them. She firmly believed that, despite everything. She would just as sooner murder Hades than one of her children, and since he would probably kill her first, she knew it would never happen, which only meant she would never hurt her children. She wanted to believe that so badly, but now, with this potential truth sat in her lap, she wasn't so sure anymore. The family were hardly shy about where they believed werewolves and their ilk belonged, but that was not what she was most sore about. What hurt her the most was that her idiot son, Daemyn believed that he could simply keep his mother in the dark about something that affects the entire family. She didn't care that maybe he went to Styx, he was not her concern, her concern was merely that her baby, (not quite because Sam still existed, but he was a good boy who obeyed his mother) was not only attempting to lie to her, which is completely inexcusable, but to keep himself away from her at the mere idea she might harm him. Well, if she were not going to harm him before, she might think twice of it now. Ana turned to face Hades as she continued to speak, and as he did so she began to formulate a plan in her mind. He would not return, that much was obvious, he would have owled her if he planned on returning, which she realised he had been failing to do this entire time. She got so many letters it did sometimes take her some time to realise which child was sending what and when. No, he needed supplies, he would need to shop for those. She would find him then, and she would bring him to heel, just as ever son should be brought to heel. He was her son, and not just her son, he was a Katsaros and a Styx - to her, that meant something. It meant you bloody well listen to your mother, that's what it meant. "To the harbour, then," she said, nodding to Hades in agreement.
Hades knew that Anastasia would never harm a hair on their boy's head. If he were a werewolf, that would just have to be taken care of and ensured that it would remain under control. The family would not allow a rogue werewolf to go around infected who knew what and when. Dante was still a Styx, though it did leave him wondering why his father never told him about Dante's condition. He surely knew the entire time. Was it revenge for crippling Jaken, erasing his memories, and eventually, though indirectly, causing his death? Poor bloke got the two confused, and Jaken had to fall because of it. Though, it could have all been avoided had Jaken never became an auror in his eyes. That was why his children, and most of the family, were banned from becoming Aurors to begin with. "And we will bring him back home, no matter the cost." Hades, honestly, did not want to believe that Dante had hidden the fact that he was infected with lycanthropy from his parents, so there was a small chance that maybe he just wanted to stay with Daemyn that much. That did not make as much sense as the werewolf part. Perhaps the boy felt guilty over surviving when Varvara did not. "I will have a word with Daemyn once Dante is in your care."
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