[Prologue]
●▬▬▬▬▬๑۩۩๑▬▬▬▬▬●
The night was settling in at the Three Broomsticks as Cedric brought himself to his room and flopped onto his bed with a tired yawn. It had been an incredibly long day from the time that the Inn opened up to patrons and he had been working the majority of it with Rosmerta non-stop. However, all his hard work, not with money of course, but with the reward of receiving a letter from Milo after over a week had gone by without any word from the boy. Obviously, Cedric didn't expect to receive a letter from Milo every day, but it certainly did make him feel better when he heard from his boyfriend.
It had been over a month since Milo left with Newt Scamander to begin his journey of learning under the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the famous magizoologist. It was one of Milo's aspirations in life to just meet the man, but when he finally did, Newt decided to up the ante and offer the boy an internship of sorts. Mainly, it involved Milo travelling to Brazil with Newt, his son Rhett, and his grandson, Rolf. They were exploring the Brazillian Rainforest that surrounded the wizarding school of Castelobruxo and they were having quite the adventure as Milo described in his letters.
Milo's first night involved camping out beneath the stars with the men and Rolf, as they were in close proximity to the school. He had described it as a beautiful castle, a beautiful temple-like establishment that appeared to be made of solid gold. To muggles, it looked like nothing more than abandoned ruins, overgrown with vines and deteriorating from the wear of weather, but it was nothing like that to those that possessed magic. As they slept outside of their tents, Milo confessed in his letters that he was fairly certain that he wasn't going to get an ounce of sleep while they remained in the rainforest, mainly because the creatures seemed so active during the night.
Especially the Caipora that surrounded the school.
In his letter, Milo described the creatures as "adorable, yet incredibly mischievous" as they continued to steal supplies from their camping grounds and hiding them all over the rainforest. It took Milo ages to recover several pairs of pants that the Caipora tossed into the trees. However, perhaps their adorable aspect came from their furry appearance as he claimed they looked like tall, furry, piglets. Then again, this was coming from a boy that found most things adorable like ugly little garden gnomes and dragons.
It seemed that while they were causing more trouble for the group than Peeves ever did while Milo attended Hogwarts, he already adored them and was attempting to pick up on their language. Cedric couldn't help but laugh that Milo had an easier time picking up the native tongue of the creatures easier than he did picking up basic Portuguese as he struggled to speak with the Magizoologist that were native to the lands. However, they did seem to hold some pity on the boy as they attempted to speak in English as much as possible.
Although as Milo told him in his last letter, that they had apparently given him a couple of nicknames whenever he started up with his ramblings.
Curious as to what new adventure Milo had been on, Cedric adjusted the pillow under his head and began opening up the letter to read.
Cedric chuckled to himself with a shake of his head, yes, viciousness definitely upped the greatness factor when it came to Milo. Just reading the letter, he could picture Milo sitting at the edge of his bed rambling on and on about it all with the weird hand movements he made along with the cute little faces as he grew more and more excited. Cedric definitely missed that the most, everything seemed so quiet without Milo and Paden around. Although Cedric had to wonder how Paden was fairing in the recent days. Milo had said that Paden was not a fan of Brazil at all as it seemed a lot of the bugs were about the same size as him making the bowtruckle have to work harder to get his meal.
That was certainly a relief to read to Cedric because while he enjoyed his time with Rosmerta and Gwen, he just wanted Milo home.
The last part certainly made Cedric's night as a permanent smile etched itself on the boy's face as he set the letter aside on his nightstand and folded his hands over his chest. The letter was enough to help him sleep peacefully through the night and he was glad that Milo was enjoying himself. Before the summer holidays, the boy had almost declined the invitation to spend the summer with Newt, in hopes of helping Harry, but his brother had told him that he had to take advantage of the opportunity. He was glad that Harry had encouraged Milo to go, even if it meant that the boy had to return to the Dursleys for the time being.
However, Milo could only hope that Sirius and Elspeth were going to get themselves settled and then do whatever they could to get Harry in their custody. There was no amount of protection worth risking Harry's mental state, Milo had made that clear several times. Whatever Dumbledore had said was stalling that much to Milo's annoyance and he didn't have any grounds to argue it. Unfortunately, Harry was spending the summer with the Dursleys until someone could get him out of there.
Cedric was sure when the boy came home that he was definitely going to be on the warpath to get Harry out of there if he wasn't already.
Whatever took place, Cedric was there to support Milo in anyway that the boy needed, after all, he had done everything to make sure that Cedric was settled before he left. Because Cedric's own parents had cut off ties with him because he took interest in boys, more specifically, he took interest in Milo, they didn't want anything to do with him until "he came to his senses." But if they were waiting, they were going to be waiting a long time because Cedric didn't plan on "coming to his senses" anytime soon."
Financially, Cedric didn't have anything to his name once they left him hanging, but Milo was there and the support of those that looked after him, also took Cedric under their wing to make sure he was alright. In a way, Cedric had lost his parents but gained an entirely new family, one that involved having a goddess taking him under her protection.
Since Milo's departure, he didn't see Artemis around but there were little signs that she was looking after him. At least, that's what Cedric felt like and with the pact formed between all the gods and goddesses with their families, it seemed all the members were gathering more than often, or two of them were.
While working, Professor McGonagall and Professor Sprout appeared often times around lunch or dinner if they were working late. To Cedric, it looked like they were spending more time around each other, but he wasn't sure if he just never noticed it before because he wasn't really around them or maybe they were spending time together because Milo wasn't around. Whatever the reason was, it didn't really matter to Cedric, he enjoyed his conversations with the two, especially with Professor Sprout trying to help Cedric figure out what he wanted to do after Hogwarts.
It was odd having someone ask him what he wanted to do when normally it was his father telling him what he was going to when he left Hogwarts. It normally involved a job at the Ministry or hopefully making it onto a professional Quidditch team. What a nice change it was having people have interest in what he wanted.
A knock on the door came, causing Cedric to lift his head up and glance over in the direction of the doorway. "Come in," he called only to have Rosmerta poke her head in a second later.
"Sorry, I hope you weren't sleeping just yet, I was just coming in to say goodnight," the woman told him, "and to see if you received your letter from Milo?"
"I did, thank you."
Rosmerta leaned against the framing of the door. "What's the boy up to now? Chased down by some dangerous beastie?"
"Not yet," Cedric chuckled, "although I'm not sure how I feel about them having their camp set up next to a Peruvian Vipertooth's nest,...well, he seemed very happy about it."
"That boy, I swear," Rosmerta shook her head. "Well, I'll let you get some sleep and tomorrow, remember, you have the day off. So if I see you around, you better be relaxing or something along those lines."
"But tomorrow is the start of the weekend," Cedric reminded her, "that's the busiest time for the Inn, I don't think it's a good idea to take the day off then."
"I'm not asking you, Cedric, I'm telling you," she said. "I mean it, don't let me catch you working tomorrow or I'll hurt you."
"Yes, ma'am."
She wished him a good night before she left the room, closing the door behind her. Cedric didn't have enough strength to pick himself up and change into comfortable clothing, so he merely kicked off his shoes before turning to the lantern at his bedside and turned it off. Within a few minutes, he was sound asleep and within his first dream, Milo was already home.
●▬▬▬▬▬๑۩۩๑▬▬▬▬▬●
Despite the fact that it was incredibly late, Minerva couldn't find herself falling asleep most nights, even if she did have to get early most morning. The household itself was too quiet for her liking without Milo and Paden around. Of course, Pomona had been there plenty of times along with Filius, but it wasn't the same. Normally, Milo was in the living room or in his own bedroom, up to something. She could normally hear the boy rambling on to himself if no one was present to listen or she could hear Paden's soft chirps responding. She missed her son a great deal and while she was absolutely thrilled for him to receive such a great opportunity, she wanted him home.
However, Minerva thought to herself that if she couldn't handle the summers without him, how was she going to react when Milo was old enough to move out on his own? Her only source of comfort during Milo's absence was the letters he wrote home to her, telling her all about his adventures. Of course, he didn't leave out the stories of danger and peril which just made the woman worry more but Newt Scamander had reassured her himself that he would take good care of the boy.
If only Milo knew how much she missed him after every letter he sent to her.
It seemed like a good deal to her. She knew Cedric would be excited and she couldn't deny that she would love to attend, hopefully, they would be able to get Harry to tag along with them. She had thought about checking up multiple times on the other Potter boy to make sure he was alright for Milo's sake and her own reassurance, but things kept coming up that prevented her from doing so.
The letter left Minerva with a smile as she settled down in her chair in the living room to read the remaining part of his adventure. It didn't take her long to fall asleep with the promise that her son would be home soon after she finished. While she couldn't be there to watch over him, Minerva was more than certain that Lily was watching over her son as well to make sure that Milo didn't get into too much trouble.
(This beautiful piece was done by the wonderful cendriia)