don't forget about me | grey

[grey xavier slater]

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A bad string of luck with the health of his sister’s friend group. No surprise really considering the country had just gotten out of the lockdown caused by Hag’s Fever. Even if that wasn’t what had taken her friends out of commission, he had seen a number of his own coworkers drop like flies for several weeks at a time. There was nothing fun about being laid up in Mungo’s with an illness that you couldn’t kick. Reporters were used to being annoyances, constantly hunting down stories and nagging their subjects to no end. He’d heard that the fever was like getting a dose of their own medicine. What an apt way to describe it. Addy added that it had just been her, McLaggen, and Penelope (thus confirming for him that this girl was a Bainbridge). He had seen Cara a few weeks ago manning the cash register at Fortescue’s still. For as much as the girl had talked herself up and acted over the years, he viewed her being stuck working at the ice cream parlor as karma coming back to bite her. They had never gotten along well after an incident in fourth year Care of Magical Creatures, which was absolutely neither of their faults, yet he seemed to be blamed for it by her. Blast-Ended Skrewts were no joke…

He matched Addy’s pace with his own butterbeer, and listened to her muse about potentially applying to the Auror department. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. He still couldn’t understand why their parents wanted all of them in law enforcement when there were dozens of safer, and quite frankly better, options within the Ministry. Trainees weren’t even paid well, and then it took a number of years to get off of the night beat before any sort of interesting things could happen career-wise. Claire had gotten lucky in that regard, and that was exactly why he blamed her for the way their parents reacted and expected him, and apparently Addy too, to follow in her footsteps. “They’ll take anyone,” he stated before polishing off his own pint of butterbeer. “They took me. It’s only tough the first few months while they try to weed out the ones that can’t cut it, and then it’s basically like school again with classes and lessons.” He had made it just past the cut-off mark too before deciding he’d had enough with being his parents’ puppet. There was absolutely nothing wrong with career choice, and at least at the Prophet he was happy. “So what’s the job you actually want? Promise I won’t tell.” Not like anyone else in the family would listen to him anyways. He wasn’t about to go out and sabotage Addy’s future too.

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[addilyn elara slater]

scared of my own ceiling

scared i'll die of uncertainty

September 20, 2025
grey xavier slater

Despite her incredible ability to focus on her goals and what she had to do, it was still disorienting when the usual static things in her environment changed. Brigh had gone to be with her family, and while Addy knew it was the right thing to do, it didn’t stop her from feeling the void left behind. She had other friends, but there was a balance to their presence. A hurricane force and a steady and almost immovable one was an interesting combination. She had Raphael, but that was complicated now. Penelope was a reliable person in Addy’s life, but if Penelope Bainbridge ever raised her voice at Addy as Brigh often did, then there was something to be worried about. Plus, Eggy was dealing with her own family issues, she’d shared how her sister had just up and left, and she rarely saw her. Addy found it a horrible thought. Even despite their schedules, Claire still made time to see her as well as Grey.

”But you met all the requirements.” Addy argued. It was a competitive program to enter, just like any program that required that many NEWTs. In Addy’s mind, that wasn’t just ‘taking anyone’. She wondered just how it was like school again and what about fieldwork and everything she’d heard. Maybe Addy hadn’t asked Claire enough questions about her job and what she exactly did daily. Grey spoke about the program unenthusiastically, which did not surprise her. Even in the back of her mind, she had to fight to find the enthusiasm for making that career an option. But he asked what she actually wanted to do. Addy paused. She’d felt hesitant to tell Claire and the same with Grey—if she was being honest. Maybe he’d talk her out of it while Claire had encouraged her. ”Well I’d like to work on something more practical. There’s new departments in the Ministry now.” She had kept up on articles that had spoken about them after their initial inception. And then, she pulled out her phone and placed it gently on the table. ”Like learn how these work exactly.”

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[grey xavier slater]

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He supposed that he had met all the requirements to enter Auror training. Grey had never thought of them as inherently difficult marks to get, though he had been more absorbed with the school newspaper than he was taking his NEWT level potions or DADA classes. Regardless, he hit the beats that his parents had always wanted to hear of despite their continued indifference in whether or not he ‘made it’ like Claire had. “Requirements don’t really mean anything if you can’t cut it to begin with,” he shrugged. “Maybe if they hadn’t pushed as much as they did, I would’ve seen it through.” Or at the very least, finished out the training. There was nothing wrong with completing that and then leaving before the probationary period started up. All of the negativity towards his interests over the years had burned him out on that though. Continued learning for something his heart wasn’t into had led to this. With writing and the Prophet, he could keep doing what he wanted. It sort of fit his nature better too. Being a magic cop was extremely distasteful the more he thought about it, even if they were doing decent work these days.

Addy wanting to work in a more stimulating position within the Ministry should have been a no-brainer. When she pulled her phone out and explained that she wanted to do stuff surrounding that, he nodded his head that he understood. The introduction of certain tech into their world was already changing how the newspaper did things, and he could see how it was only going to explode as more workarounds were figured out. Their parents might not get it right away, but they would eventually. More than wanting to be a journalist, at least. “Good time to want to do that,” he reasoned. “Everyone is going to be relying these phones and computers pretty soon here. It’s already making my work faster.” He had already typed his stories up on his own laptop to begin with at home, but having access to charts and spreadsheets was going to make keeping track of statistics so much easier now. Pulling up Quaffle blocks from a Keeper that played two centuries ago with a few clicks of a mouse instead of digging through archives saved so much time and energy. He was definitely excited about what the future would bring.

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[addilyn elara slater]

scared of my own ceiling

scared i'll die of uncertainty

September 20, 2025
grey xavier slater

Addy pondered Grey’s words. She supposed that made sense, though she hadn’t really thought about it in that perspective. Did that mean that Addy could get the job she wanted but then not perform as expected? She was good at studying and showing that she knew the material, but theory and practical application were different. That’s why dueling club existed, she supposed. ”You’re right, I suppose.” She muttered. Now she wondered how many people got into training for something as prestigious as an Auror or Cursebreaking and dropped out? It was something she would mention to Brigh, not that she doubted her best friend would push through with her training.

Family pressure was another variable. It was hard to enjoy anything with their mother hovering. Addy could agree with that point. That feeling of eggshells and feeling like you’ve done something wrong persisted into everyday life. But with Grey’s encouraging comment, she grinned a little. In a way, Grey’s approval mattered more on this type of decision than Claire’s. He’d found and forged his own path despite what their parents might have wanted or said. If he had tried to talk her out of it—well, that would have left her conflicted. But still, even Claire had been encouraging as well. ”I’ve always been interested…” She thought about the little toolbox her sister had bought her for her birthday one year. ”I still remember Mum throwing a fit because I’d found some of Claire’s old things and starting taking apart a record player. Unfortunately, I’d also kicked up a lot of dust.” She grimaced slightly at the memory, still feeling a bit guilty about the mess. But she knew—that was what made her happy. Addy finished off her butterbeer, placing the empty mug on the table. It was always sad when it was all gone, but there would be more Hogsmeade visits for that.

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[grey xavier slater]

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Being told that he was right certainly didn’t happen a lot within the Slater family. Much more with Addy than his parents or older sister, but it was still a bit of a shock hearing it out loud. Someone could know everything they wanted about a career or topic and spew facts all day about it, but all that mattered at the end was whether or not they could do the job. Checking off the boxes for exams and trials meant absolutely nothing. He disliked being cynical like that, yet found it hard not to be when it was the truth. His parents hated hearing reasonable things like that from him, and he knew that it was because it destroyed every bit of their argument about how he was a failure and the black sheep of the family. That alone was preposterous because all he was doing was following a career that he wanted to be in. The Daily Prophet had a ton of growth to it, and a decade or two in the Quidditch division and he could easily be making more than either of his parents. He knew what it took to be an Editor-in-Chief already too, albeit on a much smaller scale.

“It was probably more about the dust than it was about the record player,” Grey offered his sister. Merlin, the owl their mum had sent him after he’d fully moved out of the family home about the state of his old room read like a completely unhinged megalomaniac. Then again, she sort of was, and always had been. “Can you imagine what it would have been like if they just encouraged us to follow our passions? The amount of stress they must have from being like this all the time is going to kill them.” He hated thinking about either of his parents dying, but they were sort of shitty to him, and had been for years now. It wasn’t exactly Claire’s fault that it had started, though her success definitely precipitated their sentiments on his current choice of career.

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[addilyn elara slater]

scared of my own ceiling

scared i'll die of uncertainty

September 20, 2025
grey xavier slater

Addy’s drive and the path created by it were slowly starting to clear. And it was nowhere near the Auror path that her parents spoke so often about. It had given her anxiety as she dutifully read the pamphlets and information her mother passed along, that gleam of pride in her eye Addy rarely saw. Her older siblings were so different and yet so alike in many ways. Grey preferred to make his own way while Claire had been the more obedient child. But the confidence in their steps was the same—both convinced they were right. Standing next to them was when Addy could feel anything less than certain.

”It was definitely the dust. Took her a while to notice what I was doing.” And then, just as her mother’s blood pressure had settled, it spiked back up again. The Slater matriarch was in a longstanding battle with dust, dirt, and disorder. Like her own personal Great Wizarding War at home. Addy was a very tidy person since that had been her upbringing, but she hardly compared. But Grey brought up an interesting point, Addy sat back in her seat slightly and not noticing how she slumped a bit. ”I think the Healers would have something to say about Mum’s blood pressure.” Addy commented. What would Claire have done rather than Law Enforcement, she wondered. In their last conversation, Claire admitted what she liked to do, and it was a very different path than where she’d ended up.

Chairs were shifting around them, and Addy noticed students and their empty Butterbeer mugs. It was probably getting late. ”I have to head back up to the Castle.” She had a handful of tasks to complete before the new week started. But, she was glad for this conversation—it had been enlightening to see a similar perspective from both her siblings regarding the future and helped take some of the doubt from Addy’s shoulders. ”Thanks, Grey.”

[ end addy ]

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[grey xavier slater]

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The problem with dust collecting in a magical home was that it wasn’t actually a problem at all. There were literally entire spellbooks written on household charms, and removing dust and other normal cleanings were about as basic as it got. Had he purposely not fully cleaned out his old room when he’d officially moved out? Yes. Had he wrongly assumed that it was getting the normal cleaning the rest of the house very frequently got? Absolutely. If anything, him leaving helped reveal the areas that needed to be targeted. But in his mother’s eyes it was just another reason to complain. Over a simple wand wave and incantation. She spent more energy and oxygen bitching about some things than it would take to just cast the spell and save everyone the headache. The same could be said about cooking. It wasn’t like the Slater family’s oven was a basic muggle model. There were charms to allow it to function with magic and other sorcery. Getting upset over things that could easily be fixed in seconds was literally insane. And why he moved out immediately after graduating.

“She probably gives them an earful if they do,” he exhaled. Or took a tonic to control blood flow beforehand. As if healers were totally oblivious to people doing that to evade an actual diagnosis. The fact that growing up could have been worse, based on the things he had learned about his peers at Hogwarts over the years, made him often times feel thankful. Then he remembered that the last few years had been pretty horrid. Getting over the recent events was something that was bound to take years, and it would have to be their effort, not his. “Yeah, of course. If I don’t see you before the end of term, good luck.” Watching his sister leave, he pondered getting something a little stronger before going as well. Combining alcohol and apparition spins never led to a good outcome though. Waiting for the students in the Three Broomsticks to clear out and the regulars to start replacing them, Grey decided that was a better time than any and finally left. It felt nice to have the liberties to be part of the adult crowd and not the students anymore, and he enjoyed relishing in it every now and then.

[THE END]

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