Fatherly Feelings

Eight

He kept his promise and wrote to Coel as often as possible.

But his life became hectic. NEWT scores arrived, and he got his position at the Ministry. Now that he was an adult and lived in the world away from school, he became aware of the lurking threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, a thing that worried his parents a great deal.

Then there was Molly who took up a lot of his time. She wanted to marry soon, and once he could no longer pleasure himself with Coel’s body, he quickly saw the merit of it. But his parents cautioned, and hers were strictly against an early marriage. In the end, Molly got tired with them, and persuaded Arthur to elope with her.

‘Once we’re married,’ she argued, ‘they can’t say anything against it anymore!’

Arthur agreed, and they Apparated to Ireland to be married by an official of the Irish Representative of the Ministry of Magic. They had their wedding night in a snug little pub just out of Dublin. Arthur had to admit to himself that, as sweet as Coel’s body had been, penetrating a woman was more pleasurable.

But he remained faithful in his writings to his little one, and Coel kept answering.

Two years later, Coel got himself a girlfriend, and suddenly he was too busy to write often. Arthur was a little hurt but told himself not to be stupid. The boy was young, and he was a married man, after all. A married man about to become a real father soon as Molly was pregnant with their first child.

Arthur couldn’t wait for his son to be born.

And so the letters between Arthur and Coel became more and more rare, but they never ceased entirely. Both man and boy kept writing for birthdays and holidays, and sometimes even in between. But their letters were those of distant friends now, and when Molly once happened to find one and read it, there was nothing in it to tell her what had happened in the past between her husband and his youthful admirer.