"Is your mother well, Theodore?"
Like Lockhart before him, Nott Sr. had spotted his son coming across the field with a hoe in hand the very moment he appeared at the field's edge.
The tearful reunion the watching young witches and wizards had all been expecting—father and son colliding into an embrace, weeping into each other's shoulders after so long apart—never actually happened.
The two Notts simply stood there together in the open field instead, looking each other over carefully.
They had been apart barely two months, and yet standing here now, everything already felt subtly different between them.
Theodore studied the winded, sun-darkened small old man standing in front of him and found he could hardly connect this figure, stooped over his hoe, with the dignified, imposing head of House Nott he remembered.
His father's opening question caught him off guard. He'd expected to be asked about the Dark Lord's current movements—whether there'd been any promising gains after the humiliating defeat at Diagon Alley, whether he'd heard anything about some plan taking shape to spring his father free from this prison sentence.
But none of that came up at all. His father only asked about his mother's health.
"She's well, Father—"
His father's frailty made Theodore's nose sting. He hesitated over the rest, then said, his voice coming out rougher than he'd intended, but under his father's still-sharp, assessing gaze he found himself lowering his head.
"It's just—the family business has run into some trouble lately. Mother's been worrying over it rather a lot—"
Nott Sr. gave a short, dry laugh at that and went back to swinging his hoe.
Theodore hadn't noticed it until just now, seeing it up close: his father, of all the men in the world, had grown surprisingly, almost competently skilful at this crude, lowly farm work.
"I can guess what sort of trouble. The Plaza Accord business, isn't it?"
"How could you possibly know about that, Father?"
Theodore asked, genuinely startled by the guess.
That whole matter had happened after his father's arrest and imprisonment.
"Oh, they let us have newspapers here, Theodore—"
There was a strange satisfaction on his father's weary face at the question, an expression Theodore couldn't quite read or place.
"The guards restock the library's papers once a week. They don't let us see every single issue that comes out—but whenever the Ministry, or Watson specifically, pulls off something significant, they're only too happy to let us prisoners have a look at the coverage—"
Theodore pressed his lips together at that, remembering now that they had indeed passed a small library on their way in through the corridors.
Come to think of it, the Ministry really did seem to treat its prisoners rather generously, all things considered.
Azkaban certainly offered no such "amenities," Theodore thought grimly, comparing the two in his mind—that place was purgatory itself, by every account he'd ever heard, thoroughly enough to drive any sane person mad given long enough there.
But—however good the amenities on offer here, this was still a prison, wasn't it? However pleasant the fields looked in the sunshine.
"What should I do, then, Father?"
A long silence passed between them before Theodore, too, began swinging his own hoe clumsily. What came down against the earth looked less like proper tilling than simply packing the soil harder with each strike.
"Tell your mother not to worry so much about the business, Theodore—"
Whether it was on account of Bryan Watson's presence still lingering somewhere nearby, Nott Sr. still didn't touch on the Dark Lord directly. He went on instead about his wife.
"Tell her—whatever needs to be thrown out, she should simply throw it out."
'Thrown out?'
Theodore blinked hard at that, then said, rather more agitated than he'd meant to sound, "That's wealth House Nott has spent centuries accumulating, Father!"
"You still don't understand, do you, Theodore?"
Nott Sr. glanced sidelong at his son and shook his head slowly, faintly disappointed.
"You've surely been reading the Daily Prophet. Think about the Plaza Accord. Think about the whole Ministry's restructuring. Think about the International Confederation of Wizards and their new joint task force. And then think about what the Ministry and Watson together are doing with Diagon Alley right now, out there among all that rubble—"
Theodore knew every single thing his father had just listed off. What he genuinely didn't understand was why his father was bringing any of it up now of all moments. Shouldn't he be more concerned with finding some way out of here first?
"The times have changed, Theodore—"
Nott Sr. said, letting the hoe rest a moment.
"If the pure-blood families want to survive what's coming, they'll have to change along with the old ways. Go and tell your mother that. And if she doesn't rightly know how to begin, tell her to watch the Malfoys closely instead, and learn from them.
The Malfoys have always been the most cunning of the lot of us, when it comes down to it—they always seem to know how to remake themselves to fit whatever the moment actually demands."
'The times have changed... the Malfoys?'
They were still serving the Dark Lord, weren't they?
Theodore hesitated over the strange thought, but since it was his father's instruction, he would carry it out regardless of his confusion. "I'll pass your words along to Mother, Father—"
Nott Sr. nodded at that, satisfied with the answer, but seeing the gathering gloom still sitting on his son's face, the tension in his eyes, his own mood dimmed a little in response too.
"Don't hold a grudge, Theodore—"
He drew a slow breath, glanced briefly toward Bryan Watson, who was talking with Jasna some distance off across the field, and almost said the next part without warning.
"Don't... hold a grudge about what, Father?"
Theodore asked, genuinely blank, not following his father's sudden turn of thought.
"Don't hold a grudge against your own professor. I mean Bryan Watson."
Nott Sr. said, watching his son steadily.
Facing that gaze—one that seemed, uncomfortably, to see straight through him—Theodore's eyes flickered. He opened his mouth to answer, then found that he had nothing to say in response.
Did he resent Professor Watson?
There was no question about the answer. And not just him alone, either—since this past summer, plenty of people from families like his own had come to see their once-admired Professor Watson in a rather different light.
Everyone could tell well enough, by now, that Professor Watson wanted a revolution—but one heading in precisely the opposite direction from the Dark Lord's vision of things.
Coming from pure-blood families as they did, they naturally leaned toward the Dark Lord's vision.
"What a remarkable wizard—"
His father's sudden, half-murmured musing broke through Theodore's train of thought. He looked up to find his father's eyes fixed on Professor Watson across the field.
"One day, sooner or later, what he achieves will surpass even Dumbled—oh, perhaps I should put it differently—"
Nott Sr. gazed at Bryan with something like awe.
"What he's already achieved has surpassed Dumbledore.
Everyone worships Dumbledore but what has the man actually accomplished in his whole life, when you strip away the reputation? I'll say that—aside from defeating Grindelwald, all those years back, Dumbledore has precious little else to show for himself, in the end.
But look at your Professor Watson, Theodore. Everything the man touches seems to change the wizarding world.
I daresay the Dark Lord will fall to him eventually, mark my words. And I believe it won't take long, either—when that day finally comes, Dumbledore won't even be worth mentioning in the same breath as Watson!"
"You really believe—"
Theodore couldn't recall a single conversation with his father, in his whole life, that had shaken him quite as much as this one was doing. He stared, entirely speechless, at his father's utterly composed expression.
"You—you really believe the Dark Lord will actually lose, then? That Professor Watson can win against him?"
"Of course I do—"
Nott Sr. smiled suddenly at that, and something sly and knowing flickered through the expression before vanishing again just as fast, leaving Theodore chilled by the sight of it.
"Otherwise, why do you think I ended up here, at Avalon Prison?"
Under the gentle sunlight, Theodore suddenly felt a wave of cold pass through him.
What did his father mean by that—ended up in Avalon Prison? Wasn't he simply imprisoned here, same as any of the others, following his arrest after the fighting?
Unless—
A creeping unease, the feeling of having stumbled onto some great dangerous secret without meaning to, made Theodore shiver faintly.
"Loyal, devoted Death Eaters—hmph!"
The fleeting, ghostly smile vanished from Nott Sr.'s face as quickly as it had first appeared. He lowered his head so his son wouldn't see the open contempt now showing plainly on his face.
"Even shut up in here, cut off from everything, I know exactly what these so-called loyal Death Eaters are actually up to behind everyone's backs. Playing both sides!
Who do you think Diagon Alley's businesses truly belong to? How do you honestly think the Ministry and Watson managed to get the whole rebuilding effort started so quickly—what concessions do you suppose were quietly made behind closed doors, out of sight, to make that happen?"
Theodore's shivering only grew worse at that, spreading through him. The whole world felt suddenly, terribly unfamiliar around him.
"But I know this much for certain: just like Dumbledore and Grindelwald before them, Watson and the Dark Lord are headed for a brutal, final confrontation sooner or later—hmph, and I want no part of it, mind you!"
Nott Sr., who had been muttering away with such shrewd intensity through all of this, suddenly fell silent.
His nose twitched once; his gaze drifted vaguely, bleary, across the wider field before setting all sharp and sudden on Gilderoy Lockhart, who was devouring the pie and boiled eggs Harry had handed him a little way off.
He made a small, choked sound of sudden realization.
"Is that—Harry Potter, over there?"
The cunning, knowing look that had just been sitting on Nott Sr.'s face a moment before went slack with astonishment as he stared hard in that direction.
"You're planning—"
Theodore hadn't caught up to his father's racing thoughts yet.
"You're planning to make some kind of move on Harry Potter here, Father? That might not be wise—my wand was confiscated the moment we arrived on the island. And Professor Watson is standing right—"
"You think I've lost my mind?"
Nott Sr. straightened up sharply at that and waved his son off with impatience.
"I'm only asking—oh, tell me, how do you and Harry Potter usually get along, back there at school?"
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