Absit Omen RPG
Role-Play Boards => Muggle London => London => Roh-Ballentyne Residence => Topic started by: Iona 'Bruce' Ballentyne on June 07, 2019, 11:06:47 AM
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1 January 2012 at 8am
The Roh-Ballentyne Home, London
It was 8am on New Years Day. Across the country, muggles and wixes alike were sleeping off hangovers, set to experience the side effects of partying late into the night. In the Roh-Ballentyne household, only one member remained in her pit sleeping like the dead. Roh and Ballentyne, neither one to lie in and sleep their lives away, were up sharing a coffee and some breakfast. Unlike their teenage daughter, the pair had enjoyed a quiet night in with wine, food and the wireless. Iona had heard dear Waverly stumbling in at somewhere around 4 in the morning. Stumbling was the important word, for she had clearly crashed into the table in the hallway and knocked over another unfinished drink.
A quick glance at the clock on the wall in the kitchen, and Iona raised an eyebrow at her wife. She took another bite of toast and dropped it back on the plate. She pushed herself up from the stool at the kitchen island, grabbing her walking stick. A quick flick of her wand, and the wireless suddenly started blaring out ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by the Beatles.
Across the open plan living room and down a small hallway, they arrived at their daughter’s bedroom. Quietly they pushed open and both women glanced into the cluttered den to see their darling daughter sprawled out face down on the bed.
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The music grew louder and Waverly jerked with a snort. She moaned and grabbed for a pillow. She was still in her murder boots, thigh-length and with a long silver heel.
“Gway,” she shouted from under the pillow. She pawed for her wand on the nightstand but found a personal massager instead. She waved it at her mothers. “Silencio.”
It buzzed at them.
“Oh my god, how is she ours…” Zora sighed.
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Iona’s eyes nearly, nearly popped out of her sockets. “What did we do wrong?” she replied, leaning against the doorframe. At their feet, Taco appeared, rubbing himself between their legs as they stared in at the teenage monster. The substitute wand was just too much. Waverley was too much.
Iona’s wand was now pointed at the bed. “Reducio” she whispered, twisting her wand in an anticlockwise direction. The bed beneath the girl in ridiculous boots started to slowly shrink.
Zora blinked heavily already dreading the conversation she and Iona had planned. Iona was merciful with the escalation in wake-up methods. Zora mumbled something about them having gone soft and left the room to grab Waverley a cup of coffee. She’d need it.
Meanwhile it took thirty seconds for Waverley to end up flat on the floor, her luxurious nest of pillows and duvets more like pincushions and distowels. She rolled to sitting and pushed her bushy hair from her mascara-streaked face. She looked like a sad raccoon. Her eye focused on Iona then the clock, then back at Iona.
“Mam, why? I practically just got home. It’s a holiday.”
“Your whole life is apparently a holiday.” Iona retorted, looking down at her daughter with such judgement. Even at nineteen, she’d never been so...messy. “And my way was better than what your Omma wanted to do. Come on, up. Holiday’s over.” Quite certain that she wasn’t going to need it to resort to more coercive methods, Iona slid the wand into her trouser pocket.
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Waverly stared blankly. Not again. She struggled her boots off and went to the mirror to triage her disheveled appearance. She did not doubt that Zora would have dumped a bucket of ice water on her and that she should be grateful Iona had taken lead.
“Could’ve given me until noon,” she said as she started removing last night’s make-up from the corners of her eyes. Last night had been incredible. She and some friends had hit every magical club in London and been stars of the dance floor. (Not that she remembered half of it.)
“We could have.” Iona agreed, “but where’s the fun in that, love?” She and Zora had already been up for at least an hour. Iona always tended to have trouble sleeping, and their daughter crashing in at unsociable hours of the night definitely didn’t help.
Stepping further into the room, Iona leant down and warily picked up one of the boots. “Who did you steal these off? A stripper?”
“Sex positive much?” Waverly rolled her eyes.
Zora returned with the coffee before Waverly could explain to Iona why comments like that were problematic. Things were already going so well. She handed off the coffee to her daughter and fixed the bed.
“Have a seat, time for a chat,” Zora said.
“About my future?” Waverly retorted with a touch of annoyance and a sip of her coffee.
“Well spotted. Let’s go. Sit.”
Waverly obeyed and curled up in the window seat. “Fine, let’s get this over with.”
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Iona gingerly came around the bed and dropped herself down onto it. She grabbed one of the once more regular sized cushions and held it in her lap, hugging it tight. She hated these conversations. Actively avoided them. It was a painful experience for all three women.
“You have until the end of this month to get a job. A real job.” The sex positive comment was still irritating her. She glanced at the boot once more dropped on the floor. “We’re done funding stripper boots and vodka.”
“I applied at Alohomocha. And Reducto. Two weeks ago,” Waverly replied indignantly. “Never heard back.”
Zora jumped on it immediately. “You have to follow up. Find out who does the hiring and ask to speak with them. They want someone enthusiastic about the position.”
Now wasn’t the time for Zora to narrow down what she and Iona meant when they said real job. Everyone started somewhere, but if Wav wanted to do something with her life, aiming at entry-level retail wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
“But I’m not enthusiastic. Do you want me to lie?”
Zora bit back a more volatile reaction. “Clearly not. For Merlin’s sake, Waverly. You need to figure this shit out. We’re not going to carry you until you’re thirty. Don’t you want something?”
Waverly narrowed her eyes accusingly. “You’re actually going to kick me out.”
Iona let out a long sigh, rolling her eyes. “We’re not kicking you out, Waverly. Not if you start paying your way. New Year. New chance.”
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Zora looked at Iona. This was not landing well, but Waverly needed a proper wake-up call. No more ‘nudges’ in passing, no more suggestions for places that were hiring, or offers to connect her with someone from the Ministry for an internship. (Quite an ask considering Waverley’s NEWTS). They’d done all that. Wav was not getting the hint.
“Fine, I’ll just move in with Gabby,” Waverly shrugged. She’d threatened that before.
“And how are you going to pay for that? You think you’re going to find some posh Diagon flat? Come on, Waverly, you’re not stupid,” Zora sighed.
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“No, Zo, she thinks we’re going to feel sorry for her when she can’t afford it and stick our hands in our pockets again.” They always gave in. Iona may have appeared on the surface to be the soft one, but for all her hardass exterior, Zora was like putty. “What is so wrong with finding an actual job, Wav? I was straight out of school into the ministry and it did me no bloody harm.”
Waverly let her head fall back against the woodwork and shut her eyes. She had a headache. It seemed like everyone she knew had done exactly what Iona described, straight from school into some idiotic Ministry drone job or Aurors or Healers. Even Petyon had ended up as professional Quidditch player. And she’d just been left behind. But what was she supposed to do? Nothing felt right, she had no idea what she wanted to do other than have a bit of fun before she died. She didn’t want to get stuck.
“No harm?” she scoffed turning on Iona.
“Waverly!” Zora was shocked.
Waverly snapped back. “Oh, please! You want me to be exactly like you two, so perfect and valiant and selfless. Your jobs are your life. You can’t force that on me!”
Iona’s teeth were grit tightly together, her fingers digging into the cushion in her lap. No harm. Wrong bloody words. She’d meant...well she knew what she’d meant. Not that.
“You don’t want a job you love?” There it was, her temper appearing. Iona rarely had a temper. “Then you are a bloody idiot.”
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Waverly scowled and shook her head. It was impossible to talk to them. “Of course I do, I just have no idea what. Everything sounds utterly grinding and my NEWTs are shit.”
Zora forced herself to be patient. “That’s why you try an internship. You think a career is just going to drop in your lap. You know how many jobs I had before I started Auror training? Twelve. You don’t have to know right away, but you do have to try. You have to be brave. Show some ambition!”
They’d had this conversation before. There was nothing new left to say. It just made Waverly feel shitty. “Sorry I’m not amazing.”
Zora opened her mouth and closed it. “Impossible. You don’t have to-”
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“Just try something,” Iona implored. She would be the first to admit that she didn’t get it. At school she’d excelled at anything to do with magical creatures. She knew what she’d wanted to do even before she’d started her NEWTs, and she’d spent a career doing it. Zora had been different, it had taken her time to realise. But Wav wasn’t even looking at anything real. Iona tried to pretend that it didn’t bother her, but it frustrated her to no end. “You are never going to know what you can do if you don’t get out there, love. Lying in a drunken coma isn’t going to get you anywhere, is it?”
Zora raised her hands. “I’m not doing this again. She knows what she needs to do, and she just has to buck up and do it. Not everything in life is going to be fun.”
She stood up and pointed at her daughter. “You have thirty days. Show us some real progress and we’ll give you more time, but this shit isn’t going to work anymore.”
Waverly used an angry glare to hold back tears. “This is unreasonable.”
Iona didn’t move from the bed, but she shook her head. “No. What’s unreasonable is that you graduated in June. We are almost six months on. Half a year and you are still barging in at Merlin knows what hour living the life of fucking riley on our galleons.” She pushed herself up from the bed, grabbing her cane. “No more. Holiday’s over.”
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“I honestly feel so loved right now.” Waverly checked out and looked out the window. It was still dark out, for Merlin’s sake. She didn’t know what she was going to do.
Zora threw up her hands and left the room. Waverly had to know that kind of manipulation immature and not going to work.
Iona wanted to reply. Several months ago, she may have risen to the bait. But now it was been so long and it had become more than ‘oh, let’s just give her the space to figure it out’. Iona cast one more look at her daughter and shook her head before following Zora out of the room, Taco mewling as he followed her.
Back in the living room, Iona frowned at Zora. “Did we do this?”
Zora was out of words. “I have no idea.” She hadn’t wanted to be like her parents, always pushing her and always disappointed. So it had always been all be yourself, follow your heart, work hard and love hard, and plenty of hugs and reassurances. But the marks coming back from Hogwarts had started coming in lower and lower. “Maybe.”
Maybe Zora should have been home with her more.
Maybe it had been Iona’s accident.
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The ‘no harm’ comment had been ridiculous, she knew it. What had happened three years ago hadn’t just affected her. It had affected Zora. More than anyone, it seemed, it had affected Waverly. A lot of the attention and focus had gone off her, hadn’t it? Iona had momentarily lost herself. She’d be mad to think that wouldn’t damage her daughter.
“No harm,” Iona muttered with a shake of her head. “No fucking harm. What a fucking idiot.”
She quickly moved past Zora to grab her now cool cup of coffee and pour it down the sink. Waverly had said it herself. She didn’t want to be like them. Work being their lives. Work ruining their lives.
“It was okay to fail her OWLs wasn’t it? Her Mam almost died.” Iona continued, her back to Zora. They’d made allowances, made excuses for Waverly.
Again, all Zora had was a shrug. Kids didn’t come with manuals. All parents messed up their kids.
“I don’t get it. She made Animagus when she was seventeen. That’s bloody impressive. She’s smart and skilled and capable … I don’t get it,” Zora said, lost.
“She’s lazy. That’s not impressive.” Iona retorted. She could feel her anger and frustration deep in her belly. Nowadays, it was a feeling proving difficult to push back down. “We let her coast, what’s there not to get, Zora?”
Zora stood back and crossed her arms. Lazy, now? Zora had thought it, but didn’t want to say it. Waverly hadn’t always been this way.
Before she could respond a door slammed down the hall and Waverly stormed through. She was dressed in a long coat and combat boots and had a green bag over her shoulder. She didn’t say a word; just slammed her way out the front door and she was gone.
“What are the chances she’s headed to an interview?” Zora said with flat, hopeless sarcasm.
Iona, having turned away from the sink to see Waverly depart, looked back at her wife. There was a moment of silence before she let out a cynical chuckle. She was gripping her cane tightly and she shook her head.
“At least she’s not put those dreadful boots back on if she is…” Iona replied with a shudder.
Fin