Sunday - 2018 April 8th

Friday evening had meant sparcely exchanged pleasantries with his ex-wife. Ex. Former. No longer Mrs. Kingsley Shacklebolt. He'd picked up Audrey for his every-other-weekend weekend time, and it had been nice. As nice as an arrangement like that could be. He wasn't abandoning the girl, though. He'd had promised to be her father.

Then again, he had, also, promised to be Oralee's husband.

To him, being her husband meant he swore to protect her...to put her first. That was what this distance between them was about. This divorce was to protect her. Being his wife had put a target on her. It had gotten her cursed and nearly killed. She'd never be able to feel with her hand again.

He had failed her.

But this was the answer. No matter the pain it brought. This was the answer: him alone in a barely furnished flat on a Sunday night. The Death Eaters didn't care that he had fought for them. They only saw him as the leader of the Order--and painted the Order as the enemy. They weren't. The Order didn't support what Durant was doing with the work camp.

Kingsley didn't support was Durant was doing. He had not been that sort of Minister. But no one wanted to remember that. No one wanted to acknowledge why he had been kicked out of office--He and Potter both had been driven out of the Ministry for supporting Justice. He had and still did believe in fair treatment for all. Kingsley had supported rehabilitation over incarceration. He opposed the punishment of families for the crimes of individuals.

But he and his family were being punished now for the crimes of the man sitting behind his old desk. It was not justice. It was far from it. But if it kept Oralee alive, then he had to accept it. For him, nothing mattered more than keeping her breathing. His children did not need to grow up without a mother. It broke his heart from them to have to endure a split home. But better this than visits to a grave site.

He missed her though.

Merlin, did he miss her.

It didn't get easier. The ache inside didn't fade. The bourbon he swirled in glass and poured down his throat couldn't reach the depths of the pain inside him. He was cruising right past tipsy--headed for a hangover. The darkness of the room pressed down on him and his fumbled with his wand.

The memories were flowing through him. He didn't need photographs or a pensieve. He didn't need one of those old muggle slide reels to click through. The images played every time he closed his eyes. He was back with her. She was saving his life. He was taking that first kiss. She was walking down the aisle to him.

Then there was Bryan in her arms, tears in his eyes, and a more profound love and joy in his heart than he had ever known in his life. Kingsley latched onto that memory. He drowned himself in it. The wizard lifted his wand and let the incantation fall off his tongue: "Expecto Patronum." His voice was a whisper, but in the absolute silence of his cavernous flat, it seemed to echo off the walls.

Dark eyes opened to see the silver light illuminating the room. It wasn't a lynx that set before him. Not anymore. Not for some time now. The red fox bounded about, scampering over the coffee table to the seat beside him. His Patronus had changed. The lynx was gone--his matched hers now. She didn't carry his name, but she eternally had his heart.