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[attr="class","ctopline"]I'm born to run down rocky cliffs

[attr="class","cscriptquidd"]give me grace, bury my sins

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[attr="class","clyrics"]Shattered glass and black holes[break]
Can't hold me back from where I need to go

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[attr="class","cbody"]She had never thought that she would be dating again. On the market, and all that. Going on dates with Art was one thing. That didn’t count. Titania had never thought that she would be dating again. That was just something that had not been in the cards for her. She had found her person when she had found Art, or so she had thought. She had never thought there would be anything in the world that would be enough for her to walk away from him. She had not thought that there would be anything that they couldn’t work through. Titania would have placed money that they could have gotten through anything that was thrown their way—would have been sure that they were going to spend the next hundred years together and die someday of old age. After their kids had grown up and had kids of their own.
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That was what she had thought was going to happen. She wouldn’t have seen it going any other way. She couldn’t. It just wasn’t possible. Until it was, anyway.
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Now the reality of the matter was that they were separated. They had been separated for nine months and she could not see that ending anytime soon. Not after everything that had happened. Not after everything that Art and Wendy had done. The man that she had married… she wasn’t sure that he was there anymore. She didn’t want to think that she could have married someone that would do something like this. As much anger as he had toward his family and how they treated Wendy, Titania never could have thought it would end in such an extreme way. Not ever.
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But it had. Their combined minds made for a dangerous partnership. They had been able to create something that shouldn’t have been possible. They had been able to create an epidemic that had impacted more of the United Kingdom than she would have even thought possible. Sometimes she wondered if he hadn’t meant for it to get this out of hand. If he hadn’t meant for it to be able to sweep so easily through the magical population, to impact thousands of people. She knew that this was really about his family more than anybody else. But if it had just been about them, he wouldn’t have tried to spread it the way that he had. She didn’t think that he cared who he hurt.
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She didn’t even think that he cared that he hurt her. That he had taken the career that she’d had her entire life. That he had stripped their daughter of her magic in the process, and for what? Had his family learned the lesson that he had wanted them to? Had that made it all worth it for him?
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Titania wasn’t sure that she would ever really know that for sure. But she did know that there was no getting past this. She didn’t think that there ever would be. The only reason that she hadn’t turned him into the Ministry was because of their children. She didn’t want to put them through that if she didn’t have to. Would she interfere if he did get caught? No. Would she cover for him to protect him? Absolutely not. Would she testify if she needed to, to everything that she did know and everything that he had told her? Yes. Even if she loved him, she would not hinder justice being served. He deserved it after what he had done. She was just not going to be the person that made that happen. She couldn’t. Not if she wanted her daughters and sons to be able to look her in the eye. She couldn’t do that to their father—she just couldn’t.
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But there was no reason to think that Art or Wendy were going to get caught. At this point, how could they? Everything that they had done to spread the epidemic had been done far in the past, and if there was something that linked them to it, surely they would have found it by now. No, unfortunately, it seemed to her that they were in the clear.
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She was just doing her best to move forward with her life now, and that included dating. Titania had not thought she would do that so quickly, but Marcus had asked her out and she had said yes. They were not anything serious. She had said yes to a couple of other men that had asked her out too. Everything had been casual—just her trying to get back out there. Tonight, she had been out with Marcus. There had been an orchestra performance that gave her a reason to dress up.
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With the kids recently home from Hogwarts, it was no surprise that they all had respective plans of their own. The twins were out with their friends, she thought that Vet was out either with her own friends or her sister, and that had only left Zemfi. The five year old obviously had needed a babysitter, and because her parents weren’t free to watch her, that meant coming home for the night instead of ending up back at Marcus’s. That was fine. She had an early morning the next day, and thought that it was probably for the best that she end up in her own bed tonight.
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Pulling open the door to the darkened foyer, Titania headed in the direction of the kitchen. That was usually where the sitter waited up once Zemfi went to bed. She was a university student, so there was always some kind of assignment she could be working on. As she expected, the light down the hall revealed that someone was occupying the kitchen. But as she walked into the room, she found that it was not the person that she expected. “What are you doing here?”
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[attr="class","cnotes"]981 ● Artunakara Buchanan ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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The International Confederation of Wizards had come to the United Kingdom. The new presence made him nervous. It was deeply unsettling to the man. Artunakara Buchanan did not get nervous. He was confident. He was sure of himself. He had a handle on things. The wizard had turned attention down many a fool's path offering his 'expertise' at St. Mungo's. He did not want someone else discovering the workings of his virus. 

The vaccine was done. Probably. A vaccine had been created that Art was confident would work. It could protect Vet as she aged--and the twins--and little Wendy, too, of course. They would all keep their magic. He would make sure of it. The cure still eluded him. Months of work had been put into the experiments. He had potential remedies, but he needed test subjects. Without the Imperius Curse to bend the will of subjects, it was much more difficult to abduct and monitor infected. He needed guinea pigs. He needed them so he could make progress.

If he did not hurry things along, who knew what would happen? Emmaline had moved all her research to the Lestrange Foundation. He could not get in there. He had tried. He ha petitioned both Andromeda and Emmaline for research roles there. Both women denied him. Their refusals unnerved him, too. Why would they distrust him? He hoped it could only be because of his wife's infuriating choice to whore around with that Nyland trash. Women tended to assume that the husband had to be at fault in a separation. 

Who his wife let between her legs was immaterial. What mattered was the cure. He could not allow someone else to be the one to figure it out. This was HIS. His and Wendy's. They had created the squib flu. It was their vengeance let loose against the wizarding world. No one else could undo that. He wanted that power in his hands. He deserved it. It was his to figure out. It was to be his achievement. No one else's it. No one. 

He needed to get into the Lestrange Foundation. He needed Titania to convince Emmaline they were reconciled. So, he had come to see his wife. Maybe he really wanted to actually reconcile. He missed her. The kids were home for the summer. He wanted them to be a family again. An unfamiliar face had let him into the house. His wife was out, acting like a bloody slag he was sure. He sent the babysitter home. He could watch his daughter. She deserved time with her father. 

The hours ticked by. Art made his little girl dinner and then eventually put Wendy to bed. A bit later, Perseus and Zephyrus came home from wherever they had been. They both confirmed they would see him over the weekend before retreating up to their rooms. Still more time went by and then the witch of the house decided to show her face. Art was nursing a gin and tonic, reading an academic journal when his wife spat out her crude greeting. 

Lifting his eyes from the page to her face, unfamiliar pain struck him. How long had it been since he had seen her? She was indescribably beautiful. Jealousy at the thought that she had been out with another man ignited a spark of fury in him. It made him lash out at her, even as he wanted to stand up and take her in his arms, to kiss her breathless as he had so many times before in this kitchen, to drive away every memory of that prat she was seeing now. "I was taking care of Wendy. I am still her father. You should have called me if you wanted to go hike your skirt up for some prat instead of hiring a sitter. There is no reason to bring strangers into this house or our child's life." He was well aware that Titania had stopped calling their youngest by her first name. He refused to do that. There was no reason for it. 

"White is an interesting color choice for the tawdry ways you have been spending your evening," he insulted. Art was dancing around calling her a slag. His resentment over her dating was evident. He hated it. It made him want to kill Marcus. Titania was his wife. She was his. She had sworn to always be. She just couldn't handle how great he had proven to be. She wanted a lesser man. It was disgusting.  

758 ● outfit

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[attr="class","ctopline"]I'M BORN TO RUN DOWN ROCKY CLIFFS

[attr="class","cscriptquidd"]give me grace, bury my sins

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[attr="class","clyrics"]SHATTERED GLASS AND BLACK HOLES[break]
CAN'T HOLD ME BACK FROM WHERE I NEED TO GO

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[attr="class","cbody"]Leaving Art—or more accurately, kicking him out of the house, was the only thing that she could do. It wasn’t something that she had done right away. When she had been sick, she hadn’t had the energy to take on that fight. She had barely had the energy to get out of bed, and she’d still had Zemfi to take care of. Laying around all day had just not been an option. Being that sick and taking care of their very active five-year old was enough to leave her exhausted the rest of the time. As much as she could barely stand to be in the same room as Art, she had not had it in her to kick him out while sick. She hadn’t wanted to admit it, but a part of her knew that she had needed him around back then. For the nights when she had been chasing Zemfi around all day and she needed a break.
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But then she had gotten better. The symptoms had faded away, and it had given her the energy to fully feel everything that he had done. Her temper had always raged hot. It ran in the family, and it was a cliché for redheads for a reason. She had still been angry while she was sick, but she had been too tired to fight. Her fever and nausea had been the worst of her symptoms. It had seemed to her like her fever was never going to break. It had just seemed like it was going to keep racing higher. Maybe she would be one of the few that had died from the epidemic’s symptoms. She had known those had been few and far in between. And while she had been sick, she remembered thinking just how ironic that would be. Art unleashed an epidemic without a care of the people that it hurt and lost his wife in the process. He would at least feel bad about that, wouldn’t he?
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There was just no way to know anymore. And there was no reason to care either. She could not bring herself to think about him more than she had to. She could definitely not think about the past, the years that their relationship had been… well, probably as perfect as a relationship could be. Everyone had always said that. They had friends that had called them out on how nauseating it was to be around them sometimes. There were thousands of memories in this house, and it was hard not to think about them sometimes. Of course, it was. He had been the love of her life. As much as she just didn’t want to think about it, as much as she just wanted it to go away, that didn’t just disappear.
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It just didn’t change the fact that the man that she married was not what she saw when she looked at him anymore. She saw something else entirely. Someone else entirely. And it hurt, but it was the reality of the situation. He had made a choice, and he had to live with it. She had made a choice too. She had decided that she could not be with him, and that had meant kicking him out. That meant moving on. Titania wouldn’t have thought that she would be on the dating scene so soon. Nine months might be long in other terms and other situations, but after being married to the same man for almost twenty years.
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Twenty years this summer. She was very aware of that. Very aware of the fact that what would be their twenty-year anniversary was quickly approaching. That would prove to be a difficult day, she knew that. But she was still going to keep going. Maybe she would go out with Marcus that night. Give herself something else to focus on. Or, better yet, she could plan something with the kids. They knew when their anniversary was. They could probably use the distraction as well. She had time to figure that out, thankfully. While she was sure that the day would be upon them before she knew it, there was still time.
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And she had Quidditch to distract herself with until then. She might not be able to fly anymore, but she could still coach. That was still something. It was some relief to have the league season back on, just to give her something else to think about. It had been a hard couple of months—harder than the previous. She had been doing better, dating and not thinking about her husband. But the ICW put her on edge. It made her wary.
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But not as wary as the sight of her husband in her kitchen made her. It was clear that he had made himself at home. That he had been here for quite some time. And Hannah was nowhere in sight, which meant that he’d been her long enough to send her home. Dear Merlin. Well, now she had to be fired. She couldn’t have someone watch Zemfi that would just go home when a strange man waltzed into the house and told her to. That was just unacceptable.
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She stilled in the doorway at the sight of him. Merlin, seeing him was hard. There was a reason why she had kicked him out. She couldn’t just turn off loving him. It was impossible. But time and not seeing him would make it easier. Or so she figured. Her eyes narrowed at his words. Why was he so incredibly skilled at making her want to throw the nearest object at him within his first breath? “Who I bring into this house to watch Zemfi is not your concern anymore. Hannah is a perfectly capable sitter.” Apart from the whole leaving the house when some stranger told her to bit. That was an irredeemable choice, to say the least.
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Titania let the remark about who she was hiking her skirt up for slide off of her back. He wanted it to bother her. She just wanted him out of this house. Immediately. So, when he spoke again, she rolled her eyes and moved further into the room, heading to the stove. She needed tea. Or alcohol. But she was going to go with tea for the time-being. “Yes, well… if you consider getting shagged six ways to Sunday in a private box of the orchestra tawdry… then I guess it is.” There. If that didn’t piss him off enough for him to leave, then she didn’t know what would.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]1,092 ● @ get out ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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