Algernon sighed, feeling suddenly terribly tired. He was at a loss, really, for how this could happen. He thought he'd done all that he could to instill a sense of duty in his children. Truly, he didn't know what he could have done differently, which brought him, inevitably, to the only logical conclusion. It wasn't Algernon's fault as a parent that they were here--it was a defect in his children. Or at least in Philip, but it wouldn't do any of them any good if Algernon let his guard down and assumed this was an isolated case.
(Miranda, of course, had been a special case, but who knew what could have been?)
His hand was already on his wand, but still Algernon said, "Is that all?" He refused to think of it as anything so dramatic as asking a condemned man for his last words--even though that was a bit of what this was.
(Miranda, of course, had been a special case, but who knew what could have been?)
His hand was already on his wand, but still Algernon said, "Is that all?" He refused to think of it as anything so dramatic as asking a condemned man for his last words--even though that was a bit of what this was.