Absit Omen RPG
Role-Play Boards => Diagon Alley => London => Floriblunders Florists & Gamp Flat => Topic started by: Cepheus Gamp on January 23, 2016, 12:25:48 PM
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“Did you bring beer - oh you’re wonderful.”
Cepheus held open his blue front door to reveal his sister at the top of the flight of stairs up to it. It was raining outside so he ushered Andromeda in with urgency so she didn’t get any wetter. As soon as they were inside the front door and the beer was propped on the top of the shoe rack he hugged his sibling in proper greeting, softly kissing her cheeks.
The front door was actually at the back of Ceph’s flat which was above Floribuster’s Florist. Down the left side of the florists was an alley through an archway which sloped down and was used by the shop to store boxes and other materials brought in and out of their stores at the back of the shop. The steps up to Ceph’s flat ascended up the side of the building and the bannister was snaked with a creeping plant. The doorway opened into the end of the flat which was cluttered with a shoe rack, coat hooks and bore signs of Ceph’s outdoor work what with the wellingtons and other boots.
Cepheus took his sister’s coat and followed her down the hallway which led to their right. One of the doors to the left was open and Claude, Ceph’s black and white cat trotted out, meowing in greeting, shaking his coat out from an afternoon napping on Ceph’s bed.
“You get up for your aunt Andie then, eh Claude? Lazy bugger didn’t even get up when I got home, just rolled on my suit while I was getting changed.” Ceph grumbled as the three of them made it to the kitchen which opened out to the left. Curry spice hung in the air, and there were pans out where Cepheus had begun to start dinner. Beyond, at the front of the building overlooking the Alley, the living room was neat as ever, lit by low lamps and the wireless was burbling out the evening news.
“I didn’t think I was going to make it back in time at one point today. Talk about a first week… that idiot attempting to feed his vampire neighbour a brick was not what I needed on a Friday afternoon. You’d have wanted to feed him the brick, I tell you Andie.” He exhaled grumpily, trying to let the stress of his first week as Division Head leave him, “How are you?”
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Andromeda loved to eat curry with her brother Cepheus. Sometimes they drank too much beer. Andromeda sometimes slept on his sofa. His flat was warm. Better than the rain. Andromeda leaned down to pet Claude the cat. She liked the cat a lot. She laughed when Cepheus said Claude rolled on his suit. In the kitchen Andromeda opened two beers. She rolled her eyes about the vampire.
"I know. It was stupid. I do not think I would like to live next to a vampire. But I would not threaten them. Unless they tried to bite me." She drank some beer and looked in the saucepans. "I am fine. I have to work tomorrow. So not too much for me." Andromeda lifted her bottle of beer. "What curry are you cooking?"
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”... Unless they tried to bite me.”
“Well, they can have a very dark sense of humour that is lost on the public,” Ceph mused aloud, tending to the saucepans as his sister peered round him into them.
”… I have to work tomorrow. So not too much for me.”
“Ah the responsibilities of protecting the wizarding world.” Ceph shook his head, and scooped up his beer to bring it against his sister’s bottle.
"What curry are you cooking?”
“Lamb bhuna, that alright with you?”
Ceph scooped chopped onion and a little salt and fried them as they talked. Being siblings the pair of them worked round each other at the stove without feeling uncomfortable about being stood so close.
“You seen mum and dad since Christmas?” Cepheus asked his sister. He often saw his father in passing at work and would drop in roughly every three weeks to see his mother at home in Godric’s Hollow. Occasionally he and his sister might both attend dinner, especially if it was around a birthday or anniversary. Orion was usually somewhere overseas so couldn’t join them. “I did drop in on the morning of my birthday. Apparently my hair’s too long again even though I had it cut just before the Woolfolk’s Christmas party. Not becoming of a Division Head.” Ceph rolled his eyes, “I stopped short at asking whether father’s bald because he’s a Department Head.” He grinned at his sister.
Satisfied at the onions, Ceph threw in garlic and ginger, a little hot water and popped the pan lid on, dusting his hands off.
“Were you called out to Norfolk on Wednesday[1]?”
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"Only Dad at work." Andromeda said. She was too busy. "Yes you told me when we went out later. I think it is fine. I do not like it when you have it really short." Andromeda ran her hand through her brother's hair. They both had really dark hair. "I hope you do not go bald too." Andromeda drank some beer and watched her brother cook. "Yes. It took ages to get rid of the dementors." She frowned and put her beer down. She got out some plates. "Something strange. It did not feel right. They were not attacking anything. They were just there." Andromeda's head shook. "I wish Dad would tell me about the net. He keeps so many secrets I feel I only know twenty percent of who he is. Do you get what I mean?"
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Cepheus didn’t flinch when his sister touched his hair. As siblings their idea of personal space was rather fluid and he didn’t consider her a threat. This had been a downfall when they were children, she could pinch like nobody else on earth! He agreed with her that he didn’t want to go bald like their father. His hair had no signs of receding and neither had his older brother, who wore his longer. All three had inherited dark hair, well, when he sister wasn’t changing hers with her ability. Ceph hardly knew the real colour of his mother’s hair.
"I wish Dad would tell me about the net. He keeps so many secrets I feel I only know twenty percent of who he is. Do you get what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Ceph replied, pouring in warm water and putting the lid back on the pan. “He’s an unspeakable, he’s not meant to tell us anything, all our lives it’s been the same, sis.” He shrugged, “but yes, I do catch myself wondering. Then I think perhaps I don’t want to know. Perhaps I prefer that our mother stopped working on nine through our childhoods and kept us safe.” Claude brushed against Ceph’s calf, interrupting his thoughts.
“But at least with Dad leading Level Nine I think everything’s alright down there, right?” He exchanged a look with Andromeda. There really was no way of knowing. “I’ve not seen this net with my own eyes - what’s it like?”
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"Big. Silver. Like a patronus." Andromeda said. She knew their dad was not able to tell them any information. It was extra hard because he was their dad. Growing up there were lots of secrets. It was nice to have mum at home to teach them. Andromeda felt she did not know her dad so well. People said he could be blunt like her. She did not feel as clever. Cepheus was clever. Andromeda did not have time to read books. Cepheus wrote things for books. She was proud of her brother. "What do you do with a patronus once it is in the net?" Andromeda asked. "If it was a fish you gut it and eat it. Nothing eats dementors."
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Ceph had to admire his sister’s ability to describe things succinctly. She was details, precision, speed.
"What do you do with a patronus once it is in the net? If it was a fish you gut it and eat it. Nothing eats dementors.”
“Perhaps something does.” Cepheus suggested with a faint hum of thought. “But they’re non-beings, they don’t have any particular predators than us, but whether you can destroy a dementor completely, I’m not very sure. It’s the sort of question you could probably ask dad and get a decent answer for if he were allowed to tell you.” Cepheus frowned. He would love to know what his father thought on the subject without the confidential requirements, he was sure their father knew a lot Cepheus would find incredibly interesting.
“But a fish, you take it out the water and it suffocates. What if you isolated a dementor from people, do you reckon it might … die?” This was a quite morbid topic, but he was curious. His sister had seen many more dementors than he had.
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"Would he tell us?" Andromeda said. "I think he likes knowing stuff other people do not." She drank her beer. Her brother suggested suffocating a dementor. What if that was what the net was for? Why were they not catching them every time? "Maybe. I hope." She said. "They need to do it to more of them. Or maybe they are trying to poison them?" Andromeda's hair curled as she thought about it. "Give them bad happy thoughts?" Andie bent down to stroke Claude.
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"Or maybe they are trying to poison them? Give them bad happy thoughts?”
“Bad happy thoughts…” Cepheus echoed thoughtfully, his fingertips resting just below his bottom lip. He tried to imagine how one might poison a happy thought, and then realised it was possibly quite obvious.
“Just musing aloud, sis, but happy thoughts were poisoned for people all the time, for example, happy thoughts of a past lover might be shadowed by the fact they are now parted, or a fond memory of a grandparent tinged with sadness over their death from old age.” Cepheus elaborated on his thoughts aloud as his sister petted Claude. “But that wouldn’t be enough to poison a dementor, and wouldn't the sadness added to the memory dilute the happiness?” He hummed to himself. “You almost need a memory like a gobstopper - outside nice happy sugary coating and then inside something sharp.”
Realising the time, Ceph reached for his wand. “Do you mind if I just put the wireless news on?” He asked, almost rhetorically, and flicked his wand at his set in the living room which burbled into life, valves glowing. Content to listen for five minutes, Cepheus prodded the curry to be sure the water was evaporating and prepared his spices to add. He turned down the wireless before adding the spices and turning up the heat.
“Couldn’t give me a hand and chop the tomatoes could you?” He asked his sister, using his wand to direct a knife to chop the chillies. He had learned the hard way on an occasion past ending up with chilli on his hands and subsequently in his eye.
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Andromeda stroked Claude while they listened to the news. She liked just hanging out with her brother. They did not need to talk.
"Ok." She said when he asked her to chop tomatoes. "I am working with a trainee." She told her brother. "Grace Eddy. She's smart. I like her. She was a Gryffindor too." Andie liked people more when they were Gryffindors. Her brother was Ravenclaw but he was her brother. She would love him whatever. "Have you got any trainees?"
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"Have you got any trainees?”
“Not as many as we could do with.” Ceph admitted, “Goblin Liaison still draws the unlucky Gringotts candidates, but as ever we need a few more. Encourage those too long in the tooth to put down their quills and retire at long last.” He glanced to his sister with a wry grin, “I suppose you don’t have that problem so much. The job sees your older ones out to senior or training positions.”
He felt fortunate to have come into the position of Division Head in his thirties. Even their father was impressed, a suggestion that he might be able to make Department Head by fifty. Cepheus couldn’t help but feel his fellow Division Head would make it there first, unless politics got to him. Charismatic, brave, favourably written up in the media, he seemed a more obvious choice than the middle child who lived alone with a cat and negotiated with goblins, heralding no column inches.
“Eddy… that surname doesn’t ring a bell as a wizarding family, or am I forgetting someone?” Cepheus asked, stirring in the chillies and the tomatoes his sister dropped in with them. “Glad you’ve got someone to mind your back though, especially with the extra dementor work you’re doing.” He reached for the chicken to prepare it, the kitchen filling with the garlic and onion smell.
“You think I should try growing a beard again?”
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"She is muggleborn." Andromeda said. "I think. I do not ask people. It is rude." She looked at her brother. She did not mean he was rude for thinking about it. She meant it was rude to ask someone. It did not matter. If Grace Eddy was good at her job then it was ok. Andromeda nodded. She was glad to have someone too. Her brother asked if he should grow a beard. Andromeda dried her hands and held his chin. She stared at him and imagined. "Is this because people think you look young?" She asked. "You disappear in a beard. But if it makes you happy." She shrugged and opened another beer. "Do you get more dates with a beard?"
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"Is this because people think you look young?” Andie asked, direct as ever. Ceph drew breath to answer, lips apart, reconsidering his words. Andie took no prisoners, "You disappear in a beard. But if it makes you happy.” Her brother laughed gently, watching his sister shrug and open another beer. She was ever the more masculine stereotype than he, offering no particular stylistic opinion other than agreeing he should do it if he wanted to, a deflection without truly planting an opinion. Probably not out of fear, out of not wanting to truly offend him.
“Thanks.” Cepheus replied, blinking away her comments. He slid the chicken into the pan and flicked his wand at the heat beneath it to intensify it. There was a sizzle as the meat began to brown under his manipulation.
"Do you get more dates with a beard?” Cepheus looked round at his sister in surprise and read her cheek.
“You know I don’t get dates full stop.” He reminded her, pushing the chicken around the pan. “I’ve stopped trying to think how long it’s been, beard or no beard doesn’t seem to make a difference. Maybe it is because people think I look young. Young to be a Division Head.” He sighed and frowned a bit. “Or maybe I’m blaming the baby-face for the expected lack of respect from the Division that comes with just taking over.” He shrugged. “Could you do the rice?”
Less than ten minutes later, the pair of them were seated at Ceph’s modest kitchen table, indulging in a lack of conversation due to the fact they were busy eating curry.
“Do you think I’d get more dates without the beard then?” He asked his sister, genuinely curious.
When they went out together, her superior powers of observation could spot a guy interested in Cepheus at half a mile (or so it seemed), not that there were a huge number who were. Living in Diagon Alley meant he couldn’t exactly go out into the Muggle world without relying on there being no ‘going home’ or interest in seeing his place. He hadn’t ever really been terribly open about it in the wizarding world, not because he’d actively hidden it, but he lacked the confidence not to let it define him. There were more than enough pretty faces (and extraordinarily good arses) on Level 4 to be distracted by, so at work he tried very much not to even think on it.
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"Maybe." Andromeda said. She opened another beer for her brother. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Her face changed. A bushy beard grew. It was like the one her brothers could grow. "It is the big guys who have the beards. The ones who think they are lumberjacks. I bet they have only chopped wood with magic." She stared at her brother like this was normal. She felt her face and laughed. "Wow that feels weird. Itchy." She concentrated hard again. The beard went away and her face changed. She looked like Cepheus when he was a teenager. "They like smaller guys. But they like them clean. Like boys." She scrunched up her nose. It was like guys who liked really young girls. She understood it was all about making babies. But that was strange. She picked up a knife and looked at her reflection. "I should go out looking like you. Then we can test."
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Even though she’d been his sister 28 years, Cepheus still felt a bit of a thrill in watching her use her metamorphmagus ability. Their mother never really indulged in it to make anything more than minor cosmetic changes. Andie used it for her job, to be anonymous. However, growing a big bushy beard just made him start to laugh. When she felt her face she was laughing too. It was so good to laugh, she had always been his favourite sibling, what with Orion off being every inch the terrible role model against their folks.
“They do, yes,” Cepheus remarked, scratching his own chin at the thought of how it could feel when he grew his beard. “The big guys, they call them bears. What are you -?” He had stopped eating altogether in surprise at how accurately Andie could change her face to his as a teenager. It was uncanny, like seeing his own reflection across the table. “Bloody hell!” That was really spooky.
“They like smaller guys. But they like them clean. Like boys.” Cepheus blinked and shook his head gently, staggered at the accuracy still as Andromeda studied her reflection in the knife. “I should go out looking like you. Then we can test.”
“Yes - I mean no, gods, that’s a scary thought.” Cepheus blinked hard, “Andie, your own face, please sis, that’s really quite weird for me. Brilliant, but unsettling.” He stabbed his curry with his fork and gave her a moment.
“I don’t think it’s the beard,” he muttered, “I think it’s the rest of me - and no not the whole small, clean, young thing - if anything I’d rather not go down that route. Much as you can get laid, you can get used.” Cepheus rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway. How’s balancing dementors and red robes with your love life? As the last of us who can give mum and dad grandchildren legitimately, I’m surprised they haven’t timetabled suitors for you like the Woolfolks do.”
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Andie made her face her own again. Cepheus was keen to turn the conversation topic back to her love life.
"Mum tries to." Andie told her brother. She made a sullen face. "I just ignore her. I say I am too busy with my job. No man wants to marry an auror who is never home. They do not like the thought of their wife being more powerful either. I do not have the time. I would like someone at home eventually. But I like lots of different people at home too. When I want someone. I put on a different face and find someone. I do not think anyone can love this face yet. Not now." Andie shrugged. "It will happen for us both. We do not need to keep looking. You have got Claude to think about."
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For how abrupt his sister could be, and for perhaps her lack of poetry in describing how life was, Cepheus had a respect. Andie did not beat about the bush, she spoke her mind and had confidence to. Neither of them were lucky in love lately, and that was yet another reason why dinners together and evenings sprawled on the sofa chewing the fat were needed for them both. In the absence of lovers, friends and siblings provided the chance to be close to another and relax in company.
“I do,” Cepheus admitted, looking down at the black and white cat waiting hopefully for scraps from the table. “And I’m not exactly looking either. Work has rather than a priority for us both. Pity one can’t have both, hmm.” He pushed curry and rice around his plate with his fork. “Mum and Dad were what, well, dad was thirty nine before he married. I’ve still got six years to beat him, and he’s a Department Head.” Good old wizarding lifespans.
“You’re too good for anyone, in my opinion,” he told his sister, “Ri would agree. Nobody’s good enough for our sister, but we’ll trust your judgement when you ask him.” Cepheus glanced up and smirked at his sister, “because we’re certain you’ll do the asking if you find him, or her.”
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"Well obviously." Andromeda laughed. "I have standards." She was happy her brothers looked out for her even if they were not as hard as she was. "Let's enter into one of those valentines events next month. Have some fun. If it does not work, I am going out at your twin brother." She drank the last of her beer. "And do not ever measure yourself to dad. You are so much better."
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"Thanks Andie," Ceph replied, humbled, "I guess I need to be reminded, since he's been our scale of success from our mother." His lips were twisting into a fond smile. He set his fork down, content with the amount he had eaten. Valentine's day seemed ages away, it had only just been Christmas. What was the harm?
"Alright, deal." He agreed with his sister, "If we're both still single, we'll find one to sign up to and see what happens. But as for you being me - I think I need a lot more beer." He lifted his to his sisters to toast.
End