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Idle Chatter
Author: Maggie Hawthorne
Date: 07-11-12 16:57
Sliding a hand through her hair as she stepped out of the DADA classroom, she'd edit her notes later and sighed it would be several hours before she could really and truly relax for the day. Though she'd enjoyed the day spent with Lawrence and the rest of the Becks that had come to the Easter Egg Hunt, and she'd loved that Alex had loved the stuffed bunny she'd gotten him as a gift.
She was also looking forward to Easter hols next week, even though she had finals to take in most of her classes this week. She'd made plans to go to Sydney for a week, with Lawrence's permission and he'd helped her get the tickets for the trip and she would be spending it with some friends and getting caught up on various things going on there.
"Hey, wait up Mags!" Sophia said with a laugh as she hooked an arm through her roommate's.
"Sorry, was thinking about plans for the hols. Gonna be spending it in Sydney. Want me to bring you something back?"
"Is a hot guy out of the question?" Sophia said with a laugh and she and Maggie headed toward Charms.
She laughed and shook her head. "That is so out of the question besides, I am already dealing with Lawrence trying to not be super protective when I talk about William and I dating as much as one can date here on grounds, bringing a guy home for my roommate and friend is probably not a wise idea."
They talked a bit more and she ultimately agreed to bring Sophia back a couple of trinkets from her trip to Sydney, and the conversation took half a dozen turns as the pair ate lunch and stopped only when Maggie went to spend some time with William before meeting Sophia again for Charms at one.
The Plot Thickens
Author: Desdemona Diamond
Date: 07-11-12 18:34
By the time I had returned to my apartment last night, it was very late. I found an owl waiting for me when I got there. Too tired to read the letter, I took it, and left it for tomorrow. I had just gone to my room and dropped on the bed.
Now that it was tomorrow, I had to make time for the letter. Easier said then done. I had forgotten my alarm, which wasn't too bad. Outside of almost forgetting the letter at home. I was just a few minutes late but not late enough that no one noticed. At least I hoped not.
The letter, it turned out, came from someone named Karma. Karma? Did I know someone named Karma? I thought Karma was a bitch… No, wait, wrong Karma. Oh! Karma Davyd! Now I remembered. I'd only met her a small handful of times, and we never really socialized.
However, I did remember she was a friend of Bronwyn's. And she was asking for ideas of what to do for Bronwyn's birthday. I couldn't come up with any ideas myself though. At least none that didn't involve some sort of revenge surprise. However, I didn't want to do that to her.
So, I wrote back to Karma. I told her that I couldn't think of anything at the moment, but I would help her with whatever she planned. If needed I could get Bronwyn to go wherever. I would let her know if I could think of something. I also suggested that the two of us get together and have lunch or something, get to know each other, and maybe we could come up with something.
Now that I had finished the letter, the rest of the day can begin.
Venus Of Destruction (With Lisi)
Author: Travis
Date: 07-11-12 19:23
Lisianthus McFusty enters Botanicals & Beyond slightly early for a planned lunch with her sister. Not immediately sighting Travis, Lisi roams the shoppe looking at some of the new merchandise. She covers the entire ground floor then moves up to the first floor. After a complete circuit there Lisi returns to the ground floor, thinking Travis is in her office, the cellar, or the small room next to her office where employees may go on breaks.
Theo, the assistant manager, had been with a customer when Lisi came in but is now free, sitting with a paper open on the counter. "Hi, Theo. How are you today?"
"I am grand as usual. How are you?"
"Excellent, thank you. Is Travis around or has she stepped out? I'm early for our lunch."
"She's back in greenhouse number two. Had a bit of a to do and she's working on putting things to rights."
"Thanks!"
Lisi heads to the back of the shoppe where a side door leads to the some of Travis's greenhouses. On her way, she passes Parminder Vardhana who'd also been busy with a customer earlier but is now straightening and dusting. Lisi gives her a cheerful wave before pushing out the door. There is an enclosed walk, which Lisi follows to the second greenhouse.
Once through the door, the steamy warmth envelops her. While not cold out there is the chill of early April in Scotland so the heat is nice though Lisi knows it can quickly become stifling. She's hardly taken three steps when she notices a mess of dirt and shattered pots along one of the tables. Further on, the destruction spills over to the aisle and to another table.
Due to a number of tall, full, big leafed plants, Lisi can't see Travis so calls out, "Yoo hoo! Anyone here?"
"Back left corner!" Travis voice returns.
The path to where Travis is strewn with more plants with shattered pots and dirt everywhere. Reaching her sister she asks, "What happened in here? Someone having fun at vandalism?"
In the process of using her wand to put some of the pots back together and then carefully repotted the plants from them, Travis stops long enough to gesture at a massive Venus flytrap. "We have no idea how it happened but Venus there got a megadose of Magical Gro nutrients. Shot up from its nice little size to that. I came in to grab a plant for a customer and found Venus chasing after a fly. You'd think that out growing its pot would hinder it but looks like the roots are doing a pretty good job of supporting it."
"Is it... dangerous?"
"Not to us, no. It's shown no interest in humans, only bugs, or I would have shrunk it down already."
"I would have thought you'd have done that right off anyway since there's a risk of it going after another fly or something."
"I have shrunk it some but it's going to take a few more hits to get it down to a normal size and these babies are in dire need of getting back in their posts before they go into shock. We've been busy enough today that as much as this needs to get done as quickly as possible, I thought it best for Theo and Parminder to stay visible in the shoppe."
"I'll be happy to help. Is there any special technique to getting these plants potted again?"
"No, just reassemble the pots and use this fresh mulch," Travis says indicating a large bucket on the ground before her.
With Lisi helping they have the one task one in just over a half hour. They turn their attention to Venus, working together to get the flytrap to its regular size and into a new pot. That finally accomplished, Travis wipes her hands on a towel and declares, "I don't know about you, but I'm ready for lunch. The rest of this can wait a bit."
As they make their exit, Lisi gives on look back, unable to help thinking that little Venus flytrap looks somewhat forlorn.
Blue For Pink
Author: Sage Porter
Date: 07-12-12 13:27
Coming up from his room on his way to see what sort of snacks might be found in the kitchen Ezra notices Sage on the couch. "Thought you'd left."
"I just went to that Muggle market down the way. I am leaving again once Savannah gets in."
"Get anything good?"
"Some of those biscuits you like."
"You mean the cookies I like," American Ezra grins. Addressing the second thing Sage had said he asks, "You two going somewhere together?"
"I told Birdie that now the baby is home I'd come by, Savannah has a gift and wants to go. You want to come? We can grab supper after if you two want."
"Yeah, though I don't have a gift."
"You do actually. Mum sent something and said to put your name on if it needed. It's over there."
Ezra gets up to inspect a somewhat flat rectangular package wrapped in paper with cute fluffy bunnies. He roots around in the drawer of a writing desk for quill and ink so he can add his name under that of his father's and stepmother's. That done he goes to the kitchen long enough to locate those cookies Sage had mention then returns to sit in a love seat, steadily munching the chocolate cream filled cookies. "What you want to bet it's some sort of cute outfit. Or a blanket."
Standing to stretch over and get a few of biscuits from the package beside Ezra Sage snickers slightly. "A bet I would not take because there are not all that many different gifts to give infant, especially when the gift is from a man's ex-wife to his current wife and newborn."
The sound of the front door opening is accompanied by Savannah calling out, "I'm home. Your lives may once again have meaning."
By the time she's said this Savannah has walked into where Ezra and Sage are. She's got a shopping bag with her which she sets near the end table holding the gift from Jennifer and Abram Gilbreath and, now, from Ezra. "I have never had such a hard time making an exchange with a receipt. Some people should not be allowed to hold jobs that require thinking."
"Why was it hard?" Ezra asks.
"The idiot woman spent a good fifteen minutes examining the outfit I'd gotten for any signs of stains, holes, or anything else that would give her a reason to say I had done something to it, like had a baby wear it and ruin it. When she couldn't find anything wrong with the outfit, she tried telling me she could only exchange it for half the price I paid even though it still had the tags and I had the receipt. It just went on and on. I kept asking to see the manager and she kept telling me the manager wasn't available. I guess she took so long that the manager came back from break or wherever else the woman had gone. Once the manager got involved, things were settled in five minutes, and that's including me picking out a new outfit for the exchange and it being wrapped."
Sage wonders, "Why did you need to do an exchange?"
"Because after months of being told you were getting a brother, I had a very cute, very boyish outfit in different shades of blue. I needed either an appropriate girl outfit or a neutral any baby one."
"Makes sense," Sage admits. "Ezra's coming with us and we were thinking to get supper after."
Sage adds the gift from his mum to Savannah's shopping bag then picks the bag up, turning to ask the other two, "Floo or apparate?"
"Apparate," they both reply.
Half a minute later they leave for the Porter household to visit the little girl born on Friday, Sage's newest sister Senna.
Gift Shopping
Author: Desdemona Diamond
Date: 07-12-12 22:44
I had finally figured out what I was going to give Toby for his birthday tomorrow. I am going to give him closet space! I had completed my work for the day, and had been growing more anxious about finding Toby's gift. Well, I wasn't getting his gift, but I was getting something to create his gift.
I had given most of the wardrobe that I had planned to use to Bronwyn. When I returned to my normal colorful self, I didn't need the new clothes, and I knew Bronwyn would like them. The problem was that she already had a rather large wardrobe. Now, she had so many clothes that Toby was being crowded out of the closet.
So, I was going to give Toby a whole closet, by giving them a wardrobe that magically expanded to hold any item of clothing placed in it. In other words, no matter how much Bronwyn placed into it, it can hold it. Allowing her to place everything in it, and take everything out of their closet.
Luckily, it didn't take me long to buy the wardrobe, I still had to get to sleep for work tomorrow, and then go to give Toby his new gift.
Typical Tuesday
Author: Maggie Hawthorne
Date: 07-13-12 16:37
"Earth to Mags."
A hand waved in front of my eyes and I blinked as it stopped keeping me from seeing the paragraph that I was in the middle of reading for Charms.
Looking up I offered William a light smile and leaned into him after he bent down and pressed a kiss to my cheek. "Going to come to lunch with me?"
I blinked and looked over my notes and sighed, knowing that I still had F&A and probably wouldn't make it into the Great Hall until five thirty or a little bit later after I'd showered and changed after that last class...which is the main reason that I started gathering stuff up. "Sure. I need to eat anyway, because it will probably be five thirty by the time I make it to dinner after F&A."
He nodded and helped me get my things together and then offered to carry my bag for me, thankful that I'd not chosen the super girly one that I'd considered this morning. "I am just glad that I decided to come check on you while you were working between classes, since I know we have to be out at the greenhouses by two and it is now almost one."
"Thanks, am just kinda stressed about NEWTs at the end of the term and I've already sent off a handful of applications including to St. Emrys and I'm waiting on owl responses from those as well. It doesn't help that I still don't know where I'm going to be living after I leave Hogwarts," I said as we headed to the Great Hall from the library.
We had lunch and discussed summer hol plans and I'd gotten quite a bit including riding lessons for the Abraxan horses and backstage passes to a concert, and William had gotten passes to the Quidditch Con coming up this summer as well as backstage access passes to Emry's Fest.
We headed to the Greenhouses and slipped into the one designated for our class meeting today and settled next to each other, William waved to Nathaniel when he came in. I waved to Sophia and Adelaide as they came in.
(Alanna) Interrupted Lunch
Author: Beck
Date: 07-13-12 17:06
Alanna sat at the cramped corner table that served as her desk and unpacked what she had brought with her for lunch. She had been working full days at the Ministry of Magic ever since the end of term to take advantage of all the extra time she had now that she didn't have to go to class or study. A big plus for putting in more hours as a legal intern was the bigger paycheck. The downside was she had to see Reed Wycombe that much more frequently.
He sauntered up to her corner and said, "I need you to get me some lunch."
Alanna looked up at him, the dislike she felt for him all too evident on her face. "I'm on my own lunch break right now."
Reed glanced at her desk. Besides the stacks of notebooks and files that seemed to invade it from every angle, there was an empty, soft, blue lunch tote, a plastic container with a sandwich, a banana, a container of strawberry yogurt, a spoon, and a bottle of flavored water.
Alanna turned away from him to reach for a yellowed paperback book tucked behind all of the other things on her desk.
"You haven't even started yet," Reed noted, "so I don't see why you can't get me my lunch."
Alanna pulled the top off the container that held her sandwich, picked up the sandwich, and took a bite. She waited until she had swallowed before she asked, "You were saying?"
"Fine, but when you're done eating you'll get me my food, are we clear?"
"Fine, we I'm done with my lunch hour, I'll run your errand for you."
Reed sniffed and then glanced at the open bag at Alanna's feet. Before Alanna could stop him, he knelt, plucked a square, gift-wrapped object from the bag, and turned it over in his hands.
"What's this?" he asked. Then he found the tag and asked, "Who's Toby? Your boyfriend?"
Alanna snatched the present back and said, "My brother."
"Looks like a boring book."
Alanna ignored Reed and stuffed the present back into her bag. It was a book, but she hoped Toby wouldn't find it boring. The present she'd gotten him for his birthday was the new biography on Josef Wronski.
Toby had decided that he didn't want to have a birthday dinner tonight, since it was the middle of the week and everybody had to work today and tomorrow. He planned on being out of the country Friday night for a Saturday morning match. Since some matches tended to last more than just a couple of hours, Toby decided that perhaps the best course of action would be to have Sunday brunch with the family.
Alanna planned on dropping her gift by the house tonight rather than wait to give it to him at the gathering on Sunday. Maybe he would actually start reading it and let her know his opinion when they saw each other next.
Aware that Reed still hovered over her, Alanna shot him a questioning look. He sniffed again and then walked away, leaving her in peace for the moment.
Stuck In A Meeting
Author: Charlie Weasley
Date: 07-14-12 11:57
The third meeting of dragon keepers from around the world is no closer to solving the mystery of the young, seemingly healthy dragons found dead in various dragon preserves. Adding to the mystery is that each dragon has been found on a preserve where it does not belong. Charlie swirls the dregs of coffee in a mug given to him by Schuyler and Artie and which have their handprints in bright primary colors along with their names. Added later is a much smaller, hot pink handprint with Ava's name.
Quietly sliding his chair back, Charlie gets up refill the mug. He'd have summoned the coffee pot to him but every time someone else at the conference table has done that, Charlie has found it somewhat distracting and it's been hard enough staying focused when the same long winded speakers from the first two meetings have been going on at length without adding a single new clue, new evidence, new ideas and theories, or even helpful suggestions. At least this meeting being at the McFusty Hebridean Black Preserve means he'd not had to get up hours earlier than usual or even leave last night.
Alphonse Comeaux of the Romanian Longhorn Dragon Preserve finally concludes forty-five minutes of having the floor, wrapping up with, "If anyone wants to hear my expanded thoughts, I would be happy to share them with you."
As Alphonse is looking straight at him, Charlie cannot do the physical eye roll that he feels so compelled to make to the point it's almost painful to restrain. He meets Alphonse's gaze, raising his coffee mug to his lips. Alphonse moves on to making eye contact with someone else, probably trying to mentally compel the person to eagerly say, "Why yes, Alphonse, tell us more."
With no encouragement to continue talking and no one asking to talk with him after the meeting, Alphonse reluctantly returns to his chair. Kellen McFusty stands and looks down the table. "Charlie, do you have anything to add?"
Half rising Charlie shakes his head. "Nothing new the last meeting."
Kellen's next looks to someone sitting across from Charlie and one chair down. "Meixiu?"
Zeng Meixiu from one of the Chinese Fireball preserves nods her thanks, picks up a folder from the table in front of her and moves to the head of the table. In her halting, careful English Meixiu presents a few thoughts, this time actually having something new to add to her remarks from the first and second meetings. Maixius is also thankfully succinct, taking less than ten minutes.
If those who've not yet had an opportunity to speak today would either give a pass as Charlie did or keep it brief as Meixiu did, they could wrap this in under an hour. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen because Oleg Gogol from the Ukrianian Ironbelly preserve is up next and Charlie is convinced that even without an audience, Oleg would happily talk for hours while having very little to actually say.
Feeling the need for more caffeine in his system, Charlie rapidly finishes what remains of the refill he'd so recently gotten then quietly gets up to get more.
Business As Usual
Author: Oreileah McCoi
Date: 07-14-12 15:44
"For the dozenth time Madame Newson, I do not have the ability to pressure anyone into signing anything. If it is a legal contract they have to be willing to enter it." Christian said for the possibly thirtieth time since the woman had come into the office.
"But, he is supposed to sign the agreement. He told me he would, now that it has been drawn up he is refusing to sign and won't tell me why." The older woman said with a cry of frustration as she pushed herself upward and moved from the desk.
"I will do my best to meet with Mister Lewison and see what I can do to ensure that this ends peacefully and see what we can get done. I will be sending the contract up to Miss Raynor to get translated into a language that Mister Lewison can understand since I know English is not his native language. This might be a language barrier issue and I want to try it and resolve it," Christian said seeing her out of the office and seeing her out of the building.
After a few minutes he grabbed the document and headed up to Orei's office upstairs, knocking lightly on her door he let himself in and sighed. "I swear if this contract doesn't get taken care of I am going to end up locking them in a room until their differences are solved language barrier or not."
Orei laughed and shook her head. "She was back again today wasn't she? That explains why you are here with the contract in your hand. I need to translate it into Norwegian don't I? Covering any all idioms and the like to ensure that there is no discrepancies when you speak with them both next week."
"Yeah. You want to do it, or give it to Natalia to translate since I know you are going to be heading home soon," he said with a light smile.
"Leave it here, I will add it to her documents for tomorrow. I've got the rest of the documents to be sorted in that pile there," she motioned to the pile of pending translations, and for him him to drop it on top of the stack.
There was a sound from behind him and he stepped to the side. "Mrs. Raynor, I'm done with the translation for the Newbury and Hawthorne dispute, do you want to look it over? Also, the will for Catarina Hawthorne will take another day or two, because I'm having some issues with translating some of the legalese in the will."
Orei nodded and laughed, "Not a problem Catherine. I will let the Hawthornes know when I talk to them tomorrow. Yeah, leave the dispute translation on my desk. I'm going to grab something take away to eat and then come back and finish a few other translations before heading home."
She nodded and dropped the document on my desk before offering a light nod to Christian before heading back to her desk.
"So, want some company on your way to grab food? I don't think I actually ate breakfast this morning and I'm suddenly starving," he said laughing lightly before I grabbed my purse and we left to grab something to eat.