Night had fallen upon the residential district like a curtain falling at the end of a drama performance. One by one, the neat houses that were on the peaceful streets began to glow with warm lighting.
The lights didn't have the dazzling brilliance of the commercial district's neon advertisements, those electric shouts for attention that turned night into false day. Instead, these were the softer glows of family life that had their own warmth.
The Depp family's two-story house fit seamlessly into this residential landscape. The layout, as Bryan noted upon his initial tour, had a resemblance to the Dursley residence in Little Whinging, which he had once visited.
The similarity was not coincidental.
The Depp couple had spent the majority of their lives as Londoners before circumstances had driven their relocation to New York. They had brought with them not just possessions and memories, but also their innate preferences for how a proper home should be arranged.
In the dining room that adjoined the kitchen, a scene that might have appeared to any outside observer as a typical family gathering was unfolding.
Of the four participants in this dinner, three seemed to share unspoken understanding, while only Amelia remained in a state of confused bewilderment.
She watched her parents and Bryan engage in energetic conversation with a growing sense of alienation and felt like she was an outsider.
Amelia glanced at Bryan's left hand resting on the table beside her. A watch had appeared on his wrist—a gift her parents had prepared for Bryan without her knowledge.
Although Amelia's daily life now leaned entirely toward the wizarding world, this didn't mean her common sense about the Muggle world had disappeared. The watch her parents had given Bryan would be worth about a year's salary from the MACUSA if converted to Galleons.
This really exceeded the bounds of normal social etiquette. Amelia had been shocked when she saw her parents bring out the gift, and what surprised her even more was that while she had expected Bryan to politely decline such an expensive gift. Instead, he had only paused for a few seconds before smiling and thanking her parents. At their enthusiastic urging, he had immediately attached the watch to his wrist.
The entire exchange had been wrong somehow.
Everything about this evening felt unreasonable, as if she had stumbled into a play where everyone else had received scripts while she alone had been left to improvise without understanding the plot.
Taking a small sip of pumpkin juice, Amelia bit her lower lip in uneasiness. Her eyes moved from her father's energetic expression to her mother's warm smile, searching for clues about what might really be happening beneath the surface of this 'family' dinner.
If she was being completely honest with herself, Amelia's initial thoughts about her parents' behavior had been around their matchmaking intentions between herself and Bryan.
It wasn't uncommon for parents of her generation to become anxious about their children's relationship, particularly when those children like her devoted themselves completely to challenging careers that left little time for personal relationships.
The idea that her parents might be trying to create some kind of romantic connection between herself and Bryan Watson struck her as utterly absurd for multiple reasons.
Bryan was famous throughout the international magical community; he was a legendary wizard whose feats had been documented in countless newspaper articles and whose influence extended to the highest levels in Modern Magical History.
Meanwhile, she was... well, she was Amelia Depp, a probationary Auror without even official intern status, someone whose career accomplishments could be summarized in a single brief paragraph and whose name would mean nothing to anyone outside her circle of colleagues and family.
The disparity was so clear that even having the notion of romantic interest seemed like indulging in the kind of fantasy that teenage girls might whisper about in dormitory rooms after lights-out.
Beyond the practical impossibilities, Amelia's feelings toward Bryan consisted completely of professional respect and appropriate admiration for someone whose abilities far exceeded her own.
Moreover, the matchmaking theory reversed everything she knew about her father's protective instincts regarding her interactions with boys.
Throughout her entire life, her father had been very strict of any boy who showed interest in his daughter. His vigilance had been so tight that Amelia had never managed to develop a proper romantic relationship with anyone as casual dates were interrogated with the intensity of criminal investigations, and any boy who survived the first meeting rarely returned for a second.
There was no logical reason why parents who had spent decades guarding their daughter's romantic life so carefully would suddenly become anxious to pair her off with someone, anyone simply because they had met Bryan Watson during a hospital visit.
These had been Amelia's working theories before the dinner began.
She had prepared herself for an evening of awkward conversations where her parents would unsubtly highlight her positive qualities while creating situations that might foster romantic connection. She had braced herself for embarrassment, for the need to later apologize to Bryan for her parents' overenthusiastic behavior.
But the reality of the evening had been even more bewildering than her worst-case predictions.
Her parents hadn't mentioned her at all. They conversed with Bryan as if she were merely a piece of furniture present in the room. Her presence seemed utterly inconsequential to their agenda, whatever that agenda might actually be.
"...That sport you call Quidditch has truly subverted many of my preconceptions about the wizards—"
The bottle of Firewhisky that Bryan had brought as a gift had been consumed with amazing speed. So, Mr. Depp opened an aged whiskey from his personal collection that he reserved for special occasions.
He poured for himself and Bryan, then turned to pour an unusually large portion for his wife, who typically refrained from alcohol except during the most noteworthy celebrations After the three of them raised their glasses and drank together, Mr. Depp said with a smile:
"I had always imagined that wizards would be an exceptionally cautious and careful group—after all, your entire society is arranged around the principle of concealment from ordinary people like myself.
Yet somehow, this same supposedly cautious culture has developed and embraced a sport that involves flying at dangerous speeds on broomsticks, hitting each other with various balls, and competing for goals while remaining hundreds of feet above the ground. The difference is quite remarkable when you think about it."
"This is probably the only magical subject Amelia isn't good at—"
Mrs. Depp's face had developed a rosy flush from the unaccustomed alcohol, and she laughed as she spoke.
"I remember in her third year, she couldn't stay on a broomstick properly, while one of her roommates had already joined the school Quidditch team. So, during summer vacation, she asked us to buy her a flying broomstick. We drove her out to the countryside for practice. Do you remember that incident, dear?"
"Oh, absolutely, how could I possibly forget such a memorable incident?"
Mr. Depp's response came immediately with a gleeful tone like someone who had been waiting for exactly this opportunity to share an amusing story. He completely ignored the increasingly tense face of his daughter and the warning glare she was throwing toward him from across the table.
"She managed to get herself tangled in the branches of an enormous redwood tree, thirty or forty feet off the ground if my memory is correct. The broomstick, naturally, took the opportunity to escape, flying off into the deep mountains where we never did manage to recover it."
His laughter was rich and unself-conscious.
"The tree was far too tall and the branches too high for me to climb up and rescue her, even if I'd the necessary physical ability which I most certainly did not. And of course, she couldn't use magic to get herself from the situation. We were at something of a stalemate."
He took another long drink before delivering the conclusion.
"Fortunately, we encountered a group of young mountain hikers who were passing through the area. They were quite confused about why a teenage girl was stuck in a tree, but they had the equipment and expertise to bring her down safely. Cost me fifty dollars in 'rescue fees,' if you can believe it!
So, tell me, Bryan, do you enjoy this dangerous sport?"
"It's okay—"
Bryan smiled and said.
"But I'm not very good at it either. My natural reflexes are reasonably quick. However, I've never quite managed to apply that to broomstick flight. Of course, straight-line flying isn't much of a problem."
Mr. Depp laughed heartily as if he'd heard an amusing joke. "Ha-ha, then I suppose it's a hereditary issue!"
Amelia tightened her grip on her fork, fighting the urge to tell her father to shut up. Bryan beside her seemed to sense something and turned to look at her gently,
"What's wrong, Amelia? You seem to have not eaten much. Is the food not to your liking?"
"I—"
"Oh, don't concern yourself with her mood, Bryan—"
Mr. Depp waved his hand dismissively, cutting off whatever his daughter might have been about to say casually.
"Let's continue our conversation!"
Amelia bit her lip hard, looking somewhat aggrieved toward her mother, but her mother didn't even glance at her, instead joined the new topic with great interest.
This cheerful atmosphere also relieved Bryan. After all, if the Depp couple had shown any intention of "acknowledging kinship" during the dinner, it would have put him in a difficult position. He had even prepared beforehand—if such signs appeared, he might have to use magic to intervene.
"Let's capture some photographs to commemorate this wonderful evening!"
The delightful meal and its accompanying conversations continued until well past nine o'clock. The evening only began to wind down when Mr. Depp had finally exhausted his stock of suitable drinks.
Before Bryan could say his farewells, Mr. Depp trotted to the living room to fetch a camera he had prepared, while Mrs. Depp pulled the confused Amelia into the living room as well.
But they encountered a problem, there was no one else to take their picture.
"If you don't mind, Amelia, I believe you could help us with this—"
After a moment's hesitation, the already tipsy Mr. Depp handed the camera to Amelia, who had been silent all evening.
"Oh, that's not necessary—"
Seeing the overwhelming grievance in Amelia's eyes, Bryan quickly said.
"This isn't really a problem at all. A small application of magic can easily solve our dilemma."
With a subtle gesture and a quietly murmured spell, he caused the camera to levitate at the appropriate height and angle. The camera could now capture images of all four participants simultaneously, eliminating the need for anyone to be excluded from the photographs.
So, the four of them took dozens of photos in every suitable spot in the house before the enthusiastic Depp couple were finally satisfied.
A full moon in the night sky casted its radiance, and high above, wisps of ethereal cold smoke appeared blood-red under the moonlight, creating an ominous appearance.
Mrs. Depp, glancing through the living room's back window as she organized the various items that had been displaced during their photography session, suddenly exclaimed as if just noticing.
"Oh, my goodness, look how late it's gotten already!"
Without waiting for Bryan to suggest leaving, she hurried into their ground-floor bedroom, then emerged moments later with a set of clean, new pajamas bearing creases from packaging in her arms. Under Bryan's speechless gaze, she pressed them into his arms and smiled lovingly.
"I've already prepared the upstairs guest room, dear. There's a complete set of toiletries waiting for you, fresh towels, everything you might need for a comfortable night's rest. You should get some sleep—I'll have a proper English breakfast ready for you tomorrow morning!"
Before Bryan could respond to this assumption that he would be staying overnight, Mrs. Depp had already turned to support her swaying husband. Together they disappeared into their bedroom, and the door closed behind them with a soft click.
Bryan and Amelia were left standing awkwardly at the base of the stairs, facing each other in the dim lighting of the living room while holding pajamas he hadn't asked for and hadn't expected to receive
The darkness before dawn shrouded the earth, suppressing human activity to its most sluggish degree. Even within the never-resting MACUSA building, only occasional wizards with listless expressions of those working double shifts rode the elevators up and down.
Dim yellow light fell on the chaotic shelves. At the messy desk, a wizard with light golden hair lay sprawled, snoring loudly and sleeping very soundly.
Suddenly, a gust of wind carrying unpleasant cold swept in, disturbing Santiago's sweet dreams.
He unconsciously twisted his neck in a futile attempt to find a more comfortable position, the movement showed just how much damage his continued incorrect sleeping posture had already inflicted on his spine.
Unbearable soreness shot through his muscles as ligaments and tendons protested their mishandling, the physical discomfort was finally providing enough spur to pull him toward consciousness.
He made indistinct, unhappy sounds while his brow furrowed deeply in response to both pain and the growing awareness that something wasn't quite right.
A dark shadow emerged from the shadows cast by the desk onto the floor, blocking the candlelight that had been shining on Santiago's face.
The sudden darkness accelerated Santiago's awakening. He blinked his eyelids with difficulty, the hand that had been cushioning his cheek against the desk gradually applied force to support his body as he sat up.
Around two minutes passed before Santiago finally managed to achieve something approaching an upright sitting position, his body was leaning heavily against the soft chair back for support while his mind continued its sluggish progress toward full awareness.
"Who are you?!"
The moment his vision cleared, Santiago jerked up in alarm, but a silver gleam flashing in the dim space cut short his question, ensuring he would never have the chance to ask the question again.
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