“I give you the graduates of the Class of 1992!”

The magnified echo of Mr. Abbiati’s voice was drowned in the thunderous roar of the crowd, pointed caps shooting victoriously into blue sky on a stream of sparks. Jesse pumped a fist into the air, yelling, Ryan’s voice loud in the row behind him. People were moving now, and the chaos of voices and laughter only got thicker as Jesse used his height to search through the sudden jumble of people.

“Didn’t think we’d make it, did you!” Cap lost in the trample, gown rumpled, Frank shouted to be heard over the delighted chatter of two hundred former students and their families as he darted forward from the back section of students. His grin threatened to split his face; Jesse could feel the power his portrait would make, in this moment.

“Naw,” he scoffed, grinning himself. “I knew I was gonna make it. You, I wasn’t so sure about.”

“Hah!” A heavy fist beat companionably against his shoulder. Frank straightened suddenly. “Look, there’re my parents! Huh. Who’s that they’re talking to?”

Jesse scanned the crowd, searching for the wizard and witch who had been kind enough to take him into their Southern California home over the many school breaks. And felt his jaw hit his chest in surprise. Momma? The man in the suit at her side turned just so, and Jesse recognized his father. “My parents,” he managed, stunned. What are they – how did they get here?

“Well, c’mon then!” Frank grabbed Jesse’s arm, sculptor’s muscles dragging him through the giddy crowd of graduates.

“Yeah, we’re real proud,” he heard his father say to Mr. Jacobs. They are? Momma, maybe, but Dad never –

“Jesse!”

A hundred-fifty pounds of squealing girl barreled into him, and Jesse was knocked back against Frank in shock. Beaming brown eyes turned his way, and he gaped. “May Belle?”

She’d grown tall and slender, different than Brenda and Ellie in that she too had gotten their father’s height rather than their mother’s shorter, blockish figure. At eighteen, she was almost tall enough to look him in the eye, and that surprised him more than anything. Outside of pictures in the post, he hadn’t seen her since he’d left for California.

“Hey, Jesse,” and his attention was drawn to the sixteen-year-old following in her wake. Joyce Ann had stretched out too over the years he’d been at school, losing the last of her baby fat and, from her smile, a bit of the selfishness that came part’n’parcel with being the littlest in the family. But not the tendency toward jabbering.

“Brenda and Willard are here too, with Clyde and Denice,” the youngest Aarons babbled. “Ellie’s over there, talkin’ to someone.” She barely got the words out before Jesse’s oldest sister and her husband, with the two kids in tow, descended on them, squabbling like chickens.

“Whoa,” he heard Frank mutter behind him.

Ooops. “Um, Brenda, Willard, this is my friend Frank Jacobs,” Jesse warily started the introductions. He could see the tightening of Brenda’s lips at the color of Frank’s skin. Anger started a slow bubble under his own, but Jesse held his tongue. “Frank, this is my oldest sister, Brenda Hughes, and her husband Willard. That there are their young ‘uns. Clyde’s six and Denice is three.”

“Nice ta meetcha,” Willard grunted, shaking Frank’s hand abruptly. Brenda nodded, one bob of coiffed brown curls, before turning to Jesse. Denise peeked one blue eye out from where her face was buried against her momma’s shoulder, and hid away again at Frank’s smile.

“You seen Ellie, Jesse?” Brenda’s shrill voice, made harsher by motherhood, had Jesse wincing.

“Naw. Might wanna ask Joyce Ann, she saw her ‘bout a minute ago.” And the youngest Aarons sister had disappeared, Jesse noted; drifting from his attention and not with his parents, who were still uncomfortably locked in conversation with Frank’s. May Belle stayed perched at his side.

His oldest sister huffed and disappeared into the heated press of the crowd, tugging her son along by one hand. A second later, her voice skittered high above the noise of laughing people, yelling for Joyce Ann.

“You have a lot of sisters.” Frank’s eyes were a bit dazed.

May Belle laughed.

“You knew I had four of ‘em,” Jesse responded. “You seen Ryan anywheres?”

Frank snorted, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “They seem like a lot more in person. And yeah, I think he was back over that way.” Twisting, Jesse’s old roommate pointed at a cluster of people edging ever closer to the stadium’s entrance, the mass dotted every so often with a tasseled black cap.

“What you wanna bet we can find him and get back here before Brenda comes back?” Jesse winked at May Belle.

His sister smirked, smoothing her dress against the heat. She held up a wrist, showing him Momma’s old watch sitting there. “I’ll time ya. It’s not like we don’t know where you’re living, anyways. I’ll keep ‘um occupied a bit.”

“Sweet,” Frank grinned, grabbing him by the sleeve of his robe. “C’mon!” As they were slipping into the crowd, the sculptor snapped his fingers. “By the way. You never said what you’re doing after graduation, Jess.”

Jesse let a grin curl the side of his mouth. He’d known ages ago, but Frank’s pestering had prompted him to snap his jaw shut on the information, tighter than a cat with a mouthful of feathers. “Real subtle, there.”

Dark eyes rolled impatiently as Frank shoved through the boisterous mass of people. “No more stalling, or I’ll make you tell me. I don’t think you’ll be running anywhere in this mess.”

Tripping over someone’s discarded black gown, Jesse winced. Good point. Where the hell did Ryan get off to so fast? “I’ve got an apprenticeship.” He couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice, and didn’t really try.

“Really?” Genuine gladness filled his roommate’s voice as he turned sideways to slide between a rather abundant woman and someone’s tiny grandfather. “Who with?”

“Louis Rooiakker.”

“Are you kidding?” Frank swung around to face him, fingers gripping Jesse’s shoulders hard through his gown. “He’s the premier wizarding portrait artist in the United States, Jesse!”

“I know.”

“You tight-lipped bastard,” his roommate breathed, eyes smiling. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything!” Frank whirled, plunging back into the mesh of people with a vengeance. “C’mon,” he yelled back. “Now we really gotta find Ryan!”

Jesse laughed, bright and joyous, and darted after him.

Hmmm.

He was a little buzzed, just enough to turn the edges of the night soft and fuzzy. The graduation celebration had wound down over an hour ago, Frank and Ryan’s families headed out to hotels for the night before his friends started home for the summer.

“They’re brighter at home,” May Belle murmured.

Shingles itched under his scalp as Jesse rolled his head her way. The two of them had left the rest of the family sleeping in the small apartment Jesse had spent the last three years living in, climbing up to the roof just to be; quiet and together and apart, in a way they hadn’t for four years. She was the only one of his sisters who understood him, and the only one he came close to understanding. Most’a the time. Brighter? “What?”

Brown eyes met his, laughing. “You’re tipsy, ain’t you.”

“Not more’n a little,” he protested. He lifted his arms up, folding his hands behind his head.

She giggled, dodging an out-flung elbow. “The stars,” his sister continued after a moment. May Belle shifted against the harsh, sandpapery stuff that got slapped down over thin board for roofing, and folded her hands over her stomach. “They’re brighter at home. ‘Bout the only thing that is.”

“Light pollution.” But there was something odd in her voice – and when he figured it out the shock nearly rolled him right off the roof. As it was he jerked up, braced on his forearms, and had to work to keep his jaw from completely unhinging. “You miss it there? You ain’t been gone a week!”

May Belle kept her eyes on the sky, steadfastly refusing to meet his gaze. “Don’t you?”

“No,” Jesse said decisively, settling back down with a thump that probably woke someone up beneath them. “Not a jot.”

Dad had wanted nothing more than for his son to grow up, inherit the farm. That hadn’t been Jesse’s dream, ever.

“I do.” May Belle said it so quietly he almost missed it. And then she spoke quick and loud to cover. “Ellie and Brenda can’t get enough of Ca-li-for-ni-a.” She pronounced each section of the word with a deliberately acerbic twang.

“Can’t get enough of the city,” Jesse corrected, sobering with the discussion and cool night air. On and on about it, caught up in the ‘glamour’ of it. Lord, it’s San Diego! Glamour?! “Joyce Ann too.” And that had surprised him a bit. Joyce Ann hadn’t seemed much like their older sisters at first, but teenage stuff had a way of twisting the head all around. “Betcha Brenda convinces Willy to move.”

“Mmm.” May Belle sighed a little, sitting up to look over at him, refusing to take the bait. “I don’t know as the city suits you, though, Jess.”

“It suits me,” he grumbled back, with four years of teasing and insults about his backwoods upbringing behind the automatic rebuttal. For sure and it didn’t suit her. Jesse never could see a king when he looked in the mirror anymore, though he could feel it crop up every now and again in odd ways.

But May Belle still looked like a queen, somehow, even with her knees pulled up to her chin and long hair twisting with the wind. And somehow it didn’t fit with steel and concrete and glass.

“I think you made it suit you,” she decided. One finger scraped at the rough shingling as his sister peered out at him from underneath a curtain of brown strands. He didn’t meet her eyes. “Broke it all to pieces, and fit the edges around you smooth instead of jagged so’s it would let you through.”

“Now you’re the one soundin’ tipsy,” Jesse snorted. But he knew for a fact she hadn’t touched a drop, just some sparkling cider. It got him all twitchy, for some reason.

A hard poke in his ribs sent him squirming away. “Quit it.”

The silence that followed wasn’t something she’d learned until she became Queen of Terabithia, Jesse remembered. Until she’d stopped being a screechy little girl, and became a lady far different than the ladies Brenda and Ellie tried to copy. So he kept from opening his yap because whatever she was about to say was why they were out here in the first place.

“I ‘member Leslie,” May Belle burst out suddenly. Jesse started, opening his mouth, but she barged on. “I know you think I don’t, but I do, Jesse. We wasn’t soulmates or nothin’, like you two was, but she was my friend too.”

Anger flushed through him, searing and immediate. The growl started low in his throat. “May Belle -”

Her hair whipped back, one finger coming up. Brown eyes glinted in the glow of the streetlamps. “I remember,” she said, grinding every syllable out soft and fierce.

Jesse stared. Is she – is she crying?

Because even this, now, wasn’t the heart of the matter. Not entirely.

May Belle hitched a sob, and Jesse did the only thing he could do, ever since she was little, by gathering her up in a hug. “Hush now,” he murmured, low. “Hush-a-bye, May Belle.”

“She loved runnin’, and outsmartin’ all those bullies. And she was magic, too, wasn’t she? She was, I know it, and don’t you tell me no different, Jesse Oliver!”

Yeah, she was. Jesse patted his sister’s back, letting her fists crumple his best shirt and tears soak it through. “What’s this all about, May Belle?”

There was a sniff against his shoulder. Ribs expanded under his palm in a shuddery sigh. “She was magic, and it was okay. Everyone looked at her like she was maybe weird, but not bad weird, y’know? And you, bein’ the only boy, it was fine too. Half the time Daddy looked fit to bust with pride, every time someone got to askin’ about his son, off on scholarship.”

There was no surprise this time; he knew what she was going to say, and he’d always sort of known it. May Belle’s got the magic. But even as he tried to turn her chin up, she buried her face against his crumpled shirt, breath hot in the cool night.

“But me.” His little sister wrenched away, bitter as turpentine. “Momma don’t ever know what to do with me, and Daddy looks at me sideways, like he’s wonderin’ what went wrong. Brenda an’ Ellie ain’t no help when they visit, with their natterin’ on about how it ain’t proper for a girl to get ‘notions’.”

At that Jesse couldn’t contain his snort. ‘Notions’ is all those two ever was. “Magic ain’t a notion. An’ what about Joyce Ann? I notice she ain’t starrin’ in this little drama o’ yours.”

May Belle’s voice was stuffy, still wet with tears. “Joyce Ann’s the worst. ‘Cause she wanted to have the magic too, but she don’t. She started actin’ all like Brenda and Ellie, with a heapin’ dose of spite in it.”

The night slid between them, chill and stifling. Jesse searched his brain for something to say, but his mind was a blank canvas. Damn.

May Belle sniffled.

He dug into his pocket, searching past a nub of charcoal and some loose change. I know I put it here somewheres – soft paper met his seeking fingers. He reached out a hand, settling it carefully on May Belle’s shoulder. “My Lady?” Jesse proffered the tissue.

Her smile was unexpected, the dip of her head no more than a grateful queen would bestow upon her equal. “My thanks.”

Just like that, the moment carefully folded itself away.

“I paint,” Jesse tried, scrabbling to keep the lingering feeling of Terabithia even as it slowly pulled inside each of them. “What do you do?”

The tissue was compressed into a tiny ball, and hidden inside May Belle’s fist. Brown eyes met his, their sparkle distant. But the Queen was still there. “Sometimes . . . I see things. In the morning mist on the fields, and the sunlight beaming through the leaves. Or in the icicles hanging from the barn roof, and the black of the river under your bridge. Once, in the flight of birds against the sky, and the way autumn leaves wrote themselves on the ground.”

Divination. The breath he pulled in clogged in his throat. “Lord, May Belle.”

Those far-seeing eyes blinked, and suddenly she was his little sister again. Red painted her cheeks with embarrassment. “I dunno what it all means when it happens, an’ I can’t make it happen. It just does.”

“You gotta get some teachin’,” Jesse met her gaze, fear a frantic bubble expanding in his guts. True Seers were very rare, and if she was strong enough to be Seeing without training, there was a very slim chance it could spiral out of her control, send her careening into madness. Not gonna risk it. “You hear me? I’ll talk to Daddy, first thing in the mornin’. You can’t be goin’ with no training, May Belle.”

Long hair dipped in a nod. “I know.” She didn’t need to say, I saw it, because Jesse was suddenly sure that she had. And even if she hadn’t, May Belle had enough mule-stubborn to get whatever she wanted. “I’m goin’ to school,” she murmured, real quiet-like. Determination coated her in shades of moonlight. “For magic.”

“Aarons!”

Put it down quick, don’t slip, don’t run. Jesse settled the slice of wood with its myriad drabs of color against the table, steering clear of the easel and its half-worked canvas. “Yessir?”

“You done with that palette yet?”

Master Rooiakker was a gruff man who never actually spoke; he growled and snapped and snarled like an ornery coonhound, even to his customers. Unremarkable in height and stature, he reminded Jesse a little of his father, with gruff emotion and little use for words unless he was teaching or ordering Jesse about. Then, he could be surprisingly eloquent.

“Yessir.”

“Hmph.” Nimble fingers lifted the palette, turning it as Rooiakker eyed the pigments and consistencies of the paints Jesse had made not two days before. A corner of his mouth twitched in something approaching approval. “Good, Aarons, good.”

Jesse grinned. “Thank you, sir.”

“The store needs tending, Aarons, get on it.”

Three months and you’d think he’d use my name. But Master Rooiakker had let thick eyebrows scratch his hairline when Jesse’d re-introduced himself, and called him by his surname ever since.

Passing through a small anteroom where framing materials were stored, Jesse emerged into the store and settled himself behind the counter. For a world-renowned artist skilled in portraiture, the store itself was not at first glance what Jesse’d imagined rich people to approve of. It was very bare and both walls and carpet were kept a pristine white. What little decoration was there was not ornate. Though he’d been caught off-guard by the realization that all the light fixtures were gilded with eighteen-carat gold.

“It keeps the focus on the portraits and the frames,” Master Rooiakker explained. Jesse’s eyes were drawn in turn to each display of skill; wizarding men and women moving across painted canvasses. “The entire room is the background for what’s inside, and it needs not draw attention. Mattings are there to subtly emphasize the details, or bring out muted colors in the painting, or even provide a transitional space between painting, frame and wall.” One hand swept wide, indicating the entirety of the room. “Light is extremely important; the amount and shade, the angle it comes from. Changing any of these can change even a finished portrait.”

Three months, and Jesse’s brain had never been so full.

His fingers had never been so idle; he wasn’t allowed to touch a brush other to clean it, for the first six months. Including his wand, unless for spellwork.

“Basics first,” Rooiakker grumbled on his third night in the artist’s home. “Let’s see what background you’ve been given in the art of different cultures.”

Whatever his previous knowledge was on almost any subject, it turned out to be “passable”, and Rooiakker would just heap another book into his arms with instructions to have it memorized in two weeks.

Jesse loved it.

“Listen closely, because this is a very delicate spell.” Rooiakker locked eyes with Jesse. “You ever been fishing?”

Jesse blinked. “Yessir. Been awhile, though -”

“That’s not important,” his Master raised a hand, as if wiping clean an invisible slate. “What’s important is that you understand the idea. You’re casting out a line. But you’re not looking to catch anything, per se. You want to just touch the spirit, pull an impression from it, and then let it go. It’s more than enough to animate the portrait, and if you take anything more, you risk irreparable damage.”

A lump hit Jesse’s throat, and it took a few tries before he could gulp it down. “Damage?”

“I imagine you’ve heard of Dorian Gray?” Blue eyes scrutinized him.

It was times like these that Jesse felt his Muggle background most keenly. He shifted against the thick wooden bench, uncomfortable. “Ah, nosir.”

The bushy eyebrows made a run for Rooiakker’s hairline, but the man only pursed his lips. “Well, then.” And instead of handing him a book, his Master folded his hands on the table between them and leant forward. “Dorian Gray was an American wizard born in the mid eighteen-hundreds, with an avid interest in art. From the rich class, with an inheritance – which meant he could spend all his time on portraiture without starving. A life of leisure, I believe is the phrase.”

Jesse couldn’t imagine what that might be like.

“He was taught the spells for portraiture by a somewhat mediocre artist named Basil Hallward. Either Gray never quite mastered them, or he learned the spells well enough to re-write them; no one really knows for sure.” Rooiakker’s voice was a bass growl. “But somehow, instead of taking just the image of a soul when he painted portraits, he managed to get hooks into the soul of his subject, too. And when he had the soul in his grasp, he carved a piece off, and ate it.”

“What?!” Jesse could taste bile, knuckles pressing white around the edge of the table. Oh, Lord.

Rooiakker barely paused, remaining very contained as he told the story. “The first portrait Gray ever made was that of a young lady named Sibyl Vane, who consented to give him a few drops of blood to mix in with his paints. Later, he claimed that the spells had somehow gone awry during the drying, but when Miss Vane got a good look at the portrait, she refused to pay him – because he had painted her not as she was, but as she would appear in sixty years. Naturally, she was rather upset.”

“Naturally,” Jesse agreed, but he didn’t know the spells well enough to have an idea where the story was going. I just don’t like the sound of that. He loosened his grip on the table’s edge, flexing his fingers against the surface.

“After the incident got out, he gained several reputable clients with an unfortunate interest in Divination. He styled himself as the man who could paint someone’s future.” Rooiakker shrugged flannelled shoulders, taking a sip of butterbeer. The bottle clinked as he set it back down; the only sound in the room. “The elite, magical and Muggle, wanted to know what they would look like in their old age, and Gray had many to choose from. They let him peck at their souls like a vulture, ripping chunks off as he pleased. The fools never bothered to ask for a look at Gray’s own portrait.”

“He made a self-portrait?” Jesse couldn’t help but be a little fascinated and horrified, at the same time. That’s . . . creepy.

Rooiakker nodded, square face set in grim lines. “He did. The first wizards who tried to kill him thought that he was collecting bits of people’s souls, and somehow siphoning them off to his own portrait. He’d mixed his own blood with the paint of it, as he did for all the portraits, creating a link between the subject and the portrait. But his own only showed him as he was, instead of aged as his other subjects. So it was thought that he was using the portrait-spells to divert bits of soul to his own portrait, and then by keeping his portrait young he too stayed young.”

A frown worked its way over Jesse’s forehead; he could feel it. “But that don’t make sense,” he blurted, before he could stop and think about it. “If a portrait is made of someone, it’s only a – a stamp of that moment. The link goes from subject to portrait, not the other way round. Even puttin’ blood in would only make the link stronger, not reverse it. You’d need a completely different spell to -”

“Exactly,” his Master snapped, snatching up his bottle with ill-concealed fury. “You see, the day after her portrait was complete, Miss Vance became ‘incurably ill’, in the words of her mediwitch. She died of what was classified at the time as a ‘wasting disease’. Her corpse appeared terribly aged. Gray kept the manner of her death quiet for some years, styling it as a suicide. But eventually people started to notice that he was barely aging, even for wizarding kind; and that the subjects of his portraits seemed to all be catching the same ‘wasting disease’.”

They gave him blood, and permission, Jesse realized. Lord, that would let him do whatever he wanted! His stomach roiled unpleasantly, the supper he’d consumed not an hour before hinting at making a reappearance.

“When he was finally caught, fifty years later, they thought he was painting them into death, and that it only took a few days for the flesh to catch up to the picture he made. Because the spell he was casting was a net – only one that took years yet to be lived from the subjects, rather than giving them their years all at once, as it was reckoned at the time.”

“He wasn’t? ‘Painting them into death’?” Taking a deep breath against his unsettled gut, Jesse propped his elbows on the table; a habit that would have gotten him a swat on the head from Momma.

“The portraits were accurate pictures of what was happening to their souls as he painted. Even the ‘wasting disease’ was only a symptom of what he was really doing.” His Master leant back against his own chair, the perpetual furrow between his brows somewhat deeper than the norm. “Soul-magic is very dangerous; usually only those willing to delve into the Darkest of magics meddle with soul-spells. Before Gray, most people underestimated the power of portraiture. And since he was imprisoned, many have forgotten. As artists we are only safe because our spells just take a brief, impermanent cast of the soul. We don’t touch or toy with them.”

Stomach finally calming, Jesse risked a sip of butterbeer. He rolled the glass between his palms a moment. “Sir, you said something about Gray’s self-portrait, before. That Gray’s customers should have asked to see it. Why?”

“Hmph.” Rooiakker raised the butterbeer to his lips, draining the last of the bottle. “The portrait was like all his others – it showed Gray’s soul. He tampered with Dark magic to keep his youth.” His Master’s expression of honest loathing was startlingly vitriolic. “But even if it wasn’t outlined in his flesh, that kind of magic leaves a mark somewhere. And the soul of someone so deeply entrenched in Dark magic is . . . not pretty to see. I think I have a copy of it, somewhere.” His Master pushed his chair back, standing.

Please please please don’t let him say it’s “art, in its own way”. Jesse had heard that phrase a lot over the last half-year, but didn’t think he could bear it now.

Rooiakker walked to the bookshelf that encompassed half his kitchen walls, reaching high to pull a thin tome from the shelf. He handed it to Jesse, who took it gingerly; the cover was browned with age and the sheets of delicate paper were only held together by a binding/preservation spell.

The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Rooiakker leant over his shoulder to poke at the title. “This was written by a Muggle, Oscar Wilde. He heard the story secondhand in a Muggle pub, of course, so most of the wizarding elements were omitted. Wilde was an Englishman as well, and he wrote what he knew, so the tale was transplanted across the Atlantic. It got also turned into a story about moral turpitude and he laid far too much blame on Basil Hallward, who was barely involved, but you should read it nonetheless. Most of the ethical decline he documents was true, as were the murders.”

Murders? Jesse swallowed, listening to the footsteps as his Master moved across the room. He was a Dark wizard. America’s been lucky. We haven’t had a rash of them, like in Europe, but still. There were more than enough wizarding criminals to ensure that America had a justice system to deal with them. “Sir?”

Rooiakker paused on the verge of leaving the room. “Yes, Aarons?”

Jesse weighed the question for a moment, not sure if he wanted to ask it. He’d learned that Rooiakker always answered questions fully, no matter what. Doesn’t matter. I . . . I need to know. “What happened to Dorian Gray, sir?”

The older man went still, leaning against the doorjamb. “He was caught in the late 1930’s, and locked away in Mojave Wizarding Prison. His portrait was hung on the wall of his cell, with a mirror opposite. Five years ago, he started aging rapidly, gaining fifty years in a matter of days. In a fit of rage, he shattered the mirror and used a piece of it to shred the painting, before stabbing himself in the heart. He was found dead in his cell the next morning.”

Brrring!

Wand in hand, Jesse eyed the wet canvas. “Tinxi.”

The paint glistened, just a bit, and nothing else happened. The sigh breathed out of Jesse’s lungs in a whoosh. Yes! The fourth canvas, and he finally had the charm perfect. Just a touch of power, no more. His first attempt had been a little to enthusiastic; instead of moistening the paint enough to ensure slow drying, he’d watered it down so much that the entire canvas had blurred to a soaked, colored blob.

Acrylic. Ugh. He preferred oils, despite the ridiculous amount of time they needed to dry. It was no wonder he hadn’t come across this charm before.

Brrring!

The bell in the main reception of the store was still ringing; whoever was waiting was getting impatient. Jesse straightened his shirt, taking long steps to open the door that closed off the studio from the gallery. “Can I help you?”

“Jesse!”

He’d no sooner emerged into the gallery floor than he was ambushed from two sides and buried in backslapping hugs. “Happy birthday, dude!”

“Yeah! Happy Birthday!”

A laugh bubbled up from deep within as he recognized the voices. Jesse fought free of his friends, grinning. “Frank! Ryan!”

“Who else?” Ryan was wearing a cocky smirk, and -

“Is that a suit?” Jesse stared at the jacket, collared shirt and tie, beneath what were quite obviously business robes. Lord, he’s even got the shoes to go with it.

Ryan’s face turned the color of a tomato, and green eyes wouldn’t meet his gaze. “So what if it is?”

“C’mon, we’re going out,” Frank interrupted. He too was dressed smarter than Jesse was used to seeing, though the sculptor had foregone the business robes.

Not like I can talk. He was balancing catering to customers on the gallery floor with continuing several ongoing projects in the back, and as such was dressed accordingly.

Wait – going? “Where?” No way Rooiakker will let me have the afternoon off. And no telling how long his friends had in town, especially at the same time. Damn. Jesse sighed.“I can’t. Gotta finish up here.” It was only just one o’clock; he wouldn’t be off until after dark. “How long you guys gonna be here?” Maybe they’ll have time tonight. He hadn’t seen his friends in ages, but birthday or not, Jesse had work to do.

A hand latched onto his arm, dragging him inexorably towards the door. “Wait, Frank, no, I’m serious, I gotta -”

“Nope, none of that!” Ryan joined in, circling behind him to plant his hands on Jesse’s shoulder blades and push.

“Jesse, relax,” Frank laughed. “I fire-called Mr. Rooiakker last week. He said it was okay.”

Yeah, right. Jesse opened his mouth, about to protest, and was cut off by the quiet bell ringing as the door to the gallery opened. Oh, shit! He definitely wasn’t the image of cool professionalism he was supposed to be for the customers –

Rooiakker raised a brow at him from the threshold, mouth pressed tight.

Jesse gulped. “Sir?”

The lined face softened. “On with you, now, Aarons.”

He was still gaping as his friends pulled him onto the sidewalk.

“So, where do you go around here to celebrate?” Frank was eyeing the establishments lining the street with a definite air of distaste. “It’s too . . . stiff, around here. Fancy.”

Shock still had a firm grip on his former roommate. “But – what – how did you -”

“Get your Master to let you off the leash?” Ryan winked, straightening his robes from where they’d bunched with the effort of yanking Jesse from the gallery. “It wasn’t that hard, Jess. Rooiakker’s not as much of a hard-ass as you seem to think.”

Words left, leaving Jesse stranded and his mouth working soundlessly.

“From your letters, I thought he was gonna bite my head off for suggesting you get a break,” Frank answered, still scanning the street. “Nice guy, though. We were just gonna take you out to eat tonight. He told us to take the afternoon, too.”

Jesse needed to sit.

“But I don’t think this is the street we want,” Frank said authoritatively. “Let’s go.”

“You’ve never been to St. Louis before,” Ryan interjected, indignant. “How do you know where to go?”

Jesse’s old roommate snorted. “I don’t. But I really doubt that a Ruth Cris Steakhouse is going to allow the kind of carousing we need.”

“‘Carousing’?” Skepticism coated the air around Ryan. “Are you serious?”

“Shut up. This way,” Frank demanded, choosing a direction seemingly at random and taking off.

Which was how, an hour later, they ended up in The Dragon’s Claw, the mildest of establishments in the area of the city morbidly known as the Witchery Way. Settled in with pints of butterbeer, conversation lingered on their respective Apprenticeships.

“- and then I’ll be done,” Ryan sighed. “But now I’m thinking I might go into Management. There’s tons of networking and arrangements that need to be made in the art world, especially with the mixing of Muggle and Magical art forms. Most museums don’t currently display both; instead they’re fixated on having only purely one “type” or the other. But I think there are some artists that would display really well together if only they were combined properly.” He took a long swig of his ale, smacking his lips in satisfaction.

“I got three more years,” Frank sighed. Then he grinned beneath the foam coating his upper lip. “But let me tell you, Master Phaedon is brilliant. The getting up at four AM I could do without, but -”

Jesse’s attention was caught by the snoozing portrait just across from their table as its subject woke and stretched. Frank’s voice melted to a murmur in the background of his awareness as he examined the frame, looking at the spells that let the subject of the portrait move from one image to another. As there was only one other portrait in the place, the network was basic and limited.

“- letter from your sister -”

He later estimated that his sip of butterbeer cleared the opposite end of their generous table by about a foot; Jesse was too busy trying to breathe past the burning in his nostrils to pay attention at the time. Tears streamed from his eyes. “What?” he choked, trying not to cough on inhaled liquid.

A broad hand smacked him firmly on the back, several times.

“You okay, man?” Ryan’s face was worried, even as he threw napkins across the golden spill.

“That’s not helping,” he gasped past the pounding on his ribs. As soon as he had some control over his breathing, Jesse rounded on his former roommate. “Letter? From my sister?” It would only be one of them, after all, and no points for guessing who.

“Um, yes?” Brown eyes skated warily past him; Frank had a distinctly hunted expression.

“Why did you get a letter from May Belle?”

Frank winced, but met his gaze. “I’ve been writing her,” he admitted. “She’s been writing back!” he rushed in before Jesse could explode.

Get the facts, Jesse told himself. Ryan was also giving him the Dude, chill glare. He took a deep breath. “Since when?”

“Since graduation.”

Jesse growled, one short second away from lunging across the table. I’mma kill him.

“Look,” Frank held up two hands placatingly. “I met her at graduation, right, and then a week or so after I got a letter from her, you know, saying congrats for graduating and a whole buncha chick stuff about thanks for being good friends with you, and -”

Hells with that. I’mma kill her!

“Dude, she sent me one of those, too,” Ryan interrupted. Jesse stared. Ryan shrugged, with the confidence of a man safe from persecution. “It was just a ‘Congratulations, Good Luck!’ sorta thing.”

Frank deflated abruptly. “Really?” Jesse had never seen his former roommate that forlorn before. Not even after Nicole dumped him sophomore year. Oh Lord, this is bad.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Really.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Jesse prompted, as menacingly as he knew how. He leant over the table a little, just enough to get in Frank’s space without getting in his face.

“Well.” A broad, calloused hand scraped over Frank’s buzzed hair. “I replied, and we’ve been pretty much writing back and forth since.”

It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it might be. It was worse. “Frank. Are you dating my sister?” Jesse demanded, feeling anger bubbling thick and heavy. Why’m I the last one to find out about this? At least Ryan looked as clueless as he felt.

Frank winced. “Sorta?”

Jesse saw every shade of red from alizarin to vermilion. “Sorta?!”

“I sorta . . . maybe . . . took her to dinner? Once, or – or twice?” Dark skin had blanched, and Frank swallowed nervously when he finished speaking.

He went to see her at school. Rage coalesced into something slightly more reasonable, but no less deadly, with the knowledge that this wasn’t just some fling. Not if he’d traveled all that way, Apparition or not. “Frank. You’re like a brother to me,” Jesse said seriously. His fingers curled into fists against the tabletop. “So I’mma give it to ya straight. May Belle’s my little sister. You hurt her, I’mma kill you.”

“Oh-kay,” Ryan laughed nervously. Green eyes darted back and forth between them. “I think he gets it, Jesse.”

“I got it,” Frank met his eyes, just as grave. “I promise I won’t.”

“Don’t promise me. Promise her.” And Jesse’d thought nothing could bring out the King in him anymore, unless it was the Queen rising in May Belle. Guess I was wrong about that. “You’ll treat her properly.” Or else.

Frank nodded, slowly.

“So,” Ryan broke in nervously. He motioned a waitress for another round, clearing his throat. “How much longer d’you have with Master Rooiakker, Jesse?”

He let the subject be changed, sitting back in his chair. The napkins had soaked up the spilled butterbeer, and become a soggy mess of paper. Calmer now that he’d done something, Jesse used the bottom edge of his glass to push the wet pulp to the empty edge of the table. “A year, roundabouts.”

“Only one more year?” Ryan was the one gaping, now. Their waitress slid into the silence, depositing three bottles and disappearing with alacrity.

“In the States,” Jesse amended as soon as she was out of earshot. “Rooiakker wants me to travel internationally a bit, study some European originals. Which means the British Isles, ‘cause the French ain’t goin’ so well.” Not well at all. Even the thought made him wince.

“No Louvre or Orsay for you, then,” Ryan snickered.

Jesse flicked condensation at him, grinning. Well, maybe not right away. “Shut up.”

“So, where’re you headed then? The British Museum?” Frank asked. It could have been awkward between them, after the last few minutes of conversation. But his former roommate managed to strike just the right note of casual interest, and the last remnants of tension evaporated.

“Nah,” Jesse shook his head, fingers wrapped around his fresh bottle of butterbeer. “A school, actually. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

“That sounds like fun,” Ryan said dubiously. His nose wrinkled.

Frank frowned a little. “Sounds . . . stuffy.”

“Probably will be,” Jesse admitted. He flicked one finger against cool glass, rubbing the condensation into his skin. “Rooiakker knows artists who have connections there, so they’ve got a place for me. It’s some kinda boarding school for kids, I think fifth grade through high school or somethin’. But it’s the largest repository of Magical portraits in all of western Europe. There’s over a thousand, supposed to be hidden all through the castle. One of the largest intra-portrait networks for subject movement in the world.”

“You think you might be busy, then?” Frank grinned, bottle extended to clink against his.

Jesse smiled back. I think it sounds like an adventure. But what he said was, “Eh, maybe a little.”

And they laughed.

Fin

A/N2: Apologies to Oscar Wilde for mutating The Picture of Dorian Gray for my own purposes (and for basically calling him a rumor-spreading Muggle). What names and roundabout events I have taken from his book are, obviously, not mine; however, I have twisted things about quite a lot, so read the summary on Wiki, or better yet the actual book, if you wanna know how things really went. The opinions portrayed by characters in this fanfic do not necessarily reflect those of the author; translation: I have no idea if Oscar Wilde spread rumors, or if he was a Muggle.