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A Seemingly Innocent Request
Author: Briar Rose
Date: 07-04-11 19:36
"Grace, time for bed."
"Aw, Mum."
"Grace."
As she's already on rocky ground thanks to her playing around with magic with Charlotte present Grace wisely doesn't push it. She puts the book aside that she had been reading aloud (Briar had waited until Grace had reached a good stopping point). "May I have some chocolate milk before brushing my teeth, Mummy?"
"Yes. Be putting away the toys you've left out while I get it."
Briar has the chocolate milk in short order. When she hands it to Grace her daughter accepts it with, "Thank you, Mummy. I want a new brother and a new sister."
"I shall go straight away in the morning to the shoppe and pick you out a very nice one of each."
Grace levels her gaze above the rim of her glass. She swallows the milk in her mouth then says, "I'm serious, Mum. There are all these new babies and none of them are mine."
"As you are only seven "
"And a half."
"I should fervently hope none of the new babies are yours."
"Muuuum, you know what I mean."
Briar sighs. "I know."
"So may I have a baby brother and a baby sister?"
"The joking aside about getting them from a shoppe, the matter of a baby brother or a baby sister is not easily resolved by running out and fetching one for you."
"What would you need to do?"
"To have a baby requires a mummy and a daddy."
"And?"
"And there is not someone to be the daddy."
"There's my dad."
"Yes, but your father and I are not together anymore."
"What's that got to do with it? I bet if you asked Dad he'd help."
Briar has to hide a smile at that. Knowing Julian, yes, he'd be up to helping. He wouldn't interested in actually producing another child with her, she doesn't think, so much as he'd be all for going through the motions required to produce one.
By this time Grace is done with her milk so Briar holds out a hand to take back the glass as she says, "Bedtime. Good try at putting it off but this discussion is now on hold for another time. Go brush your teeth."
For a fleeting half second Grace looks as though she's going to try for another stall but from the look on Briar's face she rethinks this and ends up sighing with a small roll of her eyes before saying, "Yes, Mum."
A short time later Grace is settling in bed, holding an arm out for a goodnight hug and kiss. Her daughter all tucked in, Briar extinguishes the light and, her own book in hand, gets comfortable on the couch, glad she's got a little extra time to think of how she'll best explain to Grace the matter of getting baby brothers and sisters.
Blindsided
Author: Julian Valentine
Date: 07-06-11 15:40
In the early morning hours Briar received word that one of the people who go into the Diagon Alley branch of the bakery before dawn to get bread rising and that sort of thing has had a stroke so she went in to cover the shift. She also had her regular work through the day plus needed to find someone to fill the position. The previous night when Grace had placed her request for a baby brother and a baby sister Aegean had not been present. Because of this and Briar leaving the house so early, when Grace came to Twice Told Tales to give Dexter attention, Julian has no knowledge of what's been brewing in his daughter's mind.
Grace picks a moment when there are no customers in need of assistance, Charlotte has gone upstairs, and Dexter is busy chasing a fly. Julian is leaning over the counter reading over a list of upcoming estate auctions, trying to decide which ones might be worth checking out.
Grace settles herself on the stoll that's there and leans onto the counter as well, hands supporting chin. She then nonchalantly, as if mentioning the weather, says, "Dad, I want you to have two more babies with Mummy. A boy and a girl."
Julian thinks it's a damn good think he hadn't been in the midst of taking a drink. He'd have choked and spewed everywhere. He turns to look at Grace, hoping to see an impish grin there to indicate she's just joking. What he gets instead is Grace staring levelly at him.
"Your mum and I aren't together anymore."
"That doesn't mean you and Mum can't give me two babies."
"Have you talked about this with your mother?"
"Yes, last night. She said there has to be a mummy and a daddy. I said there's you for a daddy and then she said the same think you did. When I asked what that has to do with it she said it was bedtime and we'd talk about this later."
"Then I suggest we wait until Mummy is available and all talk about it together."
"But you will both keep putting it off and the longer you do, the longer I have to wait until getting a baby brother and a baby sister. There are all these new babies and more coming and none of them are mine."
"It's not a simple thing, Grace."
"Mum said something like that too."
"You have Caerwyn and you've always said Charlotte is your sister."
"Caerwyn is always at school and Charlotte isn't still a baby. If you and Mum won't give me a baby brother and sister, maybe I should ask Uncle Lysander or Uncle Charlie to get with Mum."
"Uncle Lysander is with Astrid and Uncle Charlie is married to Aunt Hendrika."
"Does that matter? Mummy just said there had to be both a mum and a dad."
"Yes, it matters a great deal."
"Why?"
"This is part of the conversation we need to have with your mother present."
Grace frowns at this answer then gets a thoughtful look on her face before musing aloud, "Mum sometimes goes on dates. Maybe one of them, like Matthew McQuillen. Or, Dad, what about one of your dates."
"One of my dates and Matthew McQuillen?"
"No, silly. You and one of them, though I really wish it would be you and Mum so that the babies would be all mine. Someone else might want to share them."
"Sorry to interrrupt," an older gentleman who's been in the shoppe a few times says coming up to the counter, "but last time I was here I saw a book by Gardner Graves. I decided on something else that day, thinking I'd get that one later. Now I can't find it."
Julian smiles, "We did some rearranging of sections recently and that section was one of them." He starts around the counter to take the man to the section with the Gardner Graves books, pauses long enough to tell Grace, "We won't discuss this further until Mummy, you, and me might sit down together."
She frowns again, lips going into a pout but doesn't argue. Reprieved for the moment from talk of mums, dads, and getting babies, Julian takes his time assisting the older gentleman. Luckily for him, just after he's run the man up, three of the dancers from Petals who are some of the bookshoppes best repeat customers come in, all wanting Julian's help in making their selections. By the time he's done with the spate of customers, Grace is sitting on the stairs with Charlotte, playing a game. Relieved, he goes back to reading the auctions list.
Taking Work Home
Author: Ron Weasley
Date: 07-06-11 18:49
Ron reaches for his coffee cup, tilts the cup up, pulls it back, peers into it, then sighing says to the person sitting on the other side of his desk, "Going to get more coffee. You want anything?"
Janette Duckworth holds up her own empty cup. "Coffee would be good. Do you think there are any of those pastries left?"
"Doubtful, but I'll look. Or, better yet, let's go to my house. We can get some dinner."
"Your wife won't mind?"
"I doubt it. Hermione was on a later shift today so she may not even be home yet."
Janette, who's the American representative on the international task force Ron's been on for some time now, starts packing up the files with Ron helping. Soon they are on a lift to the Artrium to floo to Hogsmeade. Once at home, Ron goes into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee and to pull a binder from a spot at the end of a row of cookbooks. He also stoops to fill Crookshanks food bowl then takes the binder into the dining room where Janette's already unpacking files.
He opens the binder to a Crown & Cauldron menu then hands it to Janette. "It's a place here in town. Really good food and they do take away and delivery."
Janette's quick about it, picking one of the Crown & Cauldron's salads along with a bowl of soup. Ron already knows what he's going to order so doesn't bother looking over the menu. He puts in their order and also gets something for Hermione. If she's already eaten when she gets home, one of them can have it another time.
After checking the status of the coffee pot and putting the binder back in its place Ron rejoins Janette, looking for the file he'd been going over when they decided to quit the Ministry for the evening. The file contains photos of the newest victim, a woman in India. A man there who is the equivalent of a British Hit Wizard has been following through law enforcement channels what news there has been about the killings the task force is investigating. When this woman's body was found he just happened to be one of the first on the scene. He immediately noticed the similarities and notified his superior. The superior then notified someone above him and so on while having the crime scene thoroughly documented and investigated. The Indian government has not asked to add anyone to the task force nor has it asked the task force to come there. It has, however, in a magnanimous gesture of good will, sent a copy of the file to the task force.
As the next task force meeting is in Britain again, the file was sent to Ron. Janette happened to be visiting a friend in London but before returning to America had dropped by the Ministry to add another murder to the task force files. There's been two more on American soil and as long as she was coming to London before the task force meeting anyway, she thought she'd go on and get the copies of the files for Ron and Dinias delivered.
Dinias wasn't in but Ron was there, in the process of making copies of the Indian file so that every task force member would have one to take home after the upcoming meeting. He'd not had a chance to actually look at the file and then Janette shows up with two more. He wanted to start looking them over immediately and Janette, with the Indian file to see, had ended up joining Ron in his cubicle to start going through photos and crime scene information.
The coffee should be about ready so Ron starts to put the photo aside that he's been studying only to stop and stare at it again. He keeps coming back to it, but he can't figure out why. Setting it down, he goes to get them both coffee, his mind on the photo the whole time. Back again he sits staring at the photo trying to puzzle out what's bugging him about it.
It's one of the photos taken of the area around the body. There's a mark along the ground that shows where the woman had been dragged by the killer, though they don't know if the killer did the dragging manually or used magic to propel her along. Ron's studying the photo so intently he doesn't blink, which in turn makes his eyes water. He's getting frustrated and can't even figure out why.
A knock at the door signals the food has arrived so Ron drops the photo to the table, getting up to answer. A few minutes later, Ron's passed Janette her dinner, has his on the table and what he got for Hermione on the kitchen counter. Hungry as he is though Ron picks up the photo again instead of his fork.
Ron looks at the top right corner of the photo then sighing starts to put it down, his eyes going to his dinner. But then he's got the photo right up to his face and he's asking Janette, "Do you have the other photos that show the area up and to the right of the victim?"
"The India murder?"
"Yeah."
"Ummmm, yes, right here."
Ron accepts the photos, looking for the ones that would better show the upper right in the photo he'd been studying. Finding one that shows exactly what he's after Ron inspects it for a couple of minutes then a grin breaks across his face. He only knows Janette was watching him when she then asks, "Find something?"
"I bloody well did."
Ron slides the photo across to her, standing as he does so that he can tap a section of it. "What does that look like to you?"
Janette cocks her head to one side and then the other. "It's almost like a scrawl but it's faint."
"Very faint but it's there."
Janette has her face right up to the photo, trying to make out the scrawl. "That's a name."
"Yeah, that's what I think too."
"Do you think our lady here was able to do that? And why is it there and not next to her body?"
"See this line here? That's part of the path along which she was dragged. What if ?
"the killer stopped for a moment and she was still alive?"
"Alive but either weak or incapacitated or trying not to have her movement noticed "
"which would explain why the name is so faint," Janette concludes.
"It's a good think it's written in what looks like English. If she is who wrote it then we can be thankful she didn't write it in something like Hindi. I might have otherwise just taken the letters for swirls in the dirt."
Ron locates a magnifying glass in a desk drawer in another room so that Janette and he can make out as many of the letters as possible until they can get the image blown up. They also search the other photos that include that same small spot for better angles and lighting of the faint letters, their dinners momentarily forgotten.
Bad Luck
Author: Johanna Steele
Date: 07-07-11 08:54
“I’m not going to leave bed today.” Drizella Radcliff announced ,holding herself to the blankets.
“What’s the matter? Are you sick? Felicia and I can take you to the Hospital Wing.” Johanna asked as she combed her hair, almost ready for breakfast.
“I am fine.”
“So what’s the problem Drizella?”
“It’s Friday 13. Something bad will happen. I can feel it.”
Johanna stopped combing her hair and stood there looking incredulous at Drizella. She couldn’t believe the girl was refusing to leave the dorms just because today it was Friday 13. Drizella would have a detention once the teachers found out she missed her classes without a logic justification. She would get into troubles, most likely.
“I will stay here safely and then tomorrow I can go out and talk with Professor Snape about this situation. He will understand.”
Johanna would bet all her money that the head of the Slytherin house was not going to understand a thing at all and he would probably punish Drizella harshly. Losing her patient Johanna took her wand out of her pocket and pointed it to the bed. She muttered a spell and the covers were pulled back, revealing a Drizella in her nightgowns.
“Enough of nonsense start getting ready now or you’re going to be late for classes. “ Johanna ordered.
“No! I’m not going, I’ll have bad luck.”
“Your bad luck will start if you don’t hurry.” She said pointing the want to Drizella’s face. “I know a spell that can make grow pimples. I’m not joking.”
Without other option Drizella started to get dressed, cursing Johanna and saying if she died today it would be her fault.
“What’s going on?” Felicia asked when she returned from the bathroom.
“Someone had the perfect excuse to be lazy and skip classes. “
Johanna explained all the details to her best friend as they left the dungeons into the Great Hall for breakfast. Not before threatening Drizella saying if she didn’t show up for History of Magic that she would go talk to Professor Snape herself during the break.
“You are too kind. I would have let her sleep the whole day and don’t care at all. It’s her problem not yours.” Gus said as he served himself with some cinnamon rolls at the breakfast table giving his opinion about the morning event. “The only bad luck for me would be being injured during today’s practices and even if that happened I’m pretty sure Madam Pomfrey would be able to fix me in time for the next match. “
Soon there was a large discussion at the table about what type of bad luck the students might have today. Johanna ignored them all, thinking this was all nonsense. A grumpy Drizella sat a little bit far away from them all sending mortal glances to her. But it didn’t bother Johanna. One day Drizella would thank her.
Johanna finished her breakfast and she spotted Roger Gesner not far away, standing there waiting for her. She excused herself from the table and joined him. She wasn’t sure yet of what they were doing. They were friends but at the same time they weren’t. It was all very odd and Johanna still hasn’t forgotten that day of the play where he held her hand.
“Good morning.” He greeted. “Do you know what day is it?”
“Not you too.” Johanna replied, starting to walk away from the Great Hall. It was almost time for History of Magic and although most of the students hated Binns and wouldn’t want to be in the front rows, Johanna liked to arrive early to make sure she would get a good spot in the classroom.
“It’s Friday.” Roger said following her. “It means we have the first class of the day together! I'm a lucky guy.” He was smiling. And she smiled back at him.