Absit Omen RPG

From what Charisma was able to gather from their short meeting and things she’d heard of the returning Headmaster, he was a good wizard and a people pleaser. He complimented her son in what Charisma could clearly see to be a genuine manner and she nodded, her smile soft with the lingering sadness that came when one had experienced a loss that should never be experienced. A day didn’t pass without Charisma thinking about it but the rage and raw emotion had long since eased into the background. He wouldn’t have wanted the entire family and mourn him forever.

“Thank you.” The Welsh witch said quietly, eyes scanning to the picture.

Knox began to stand to leave, clearly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. Charisma had grown weary with such reactions, but she didn’t let it show, instead tried to believe he was leaving simply because he’d succeeded in his objective. He was doubtlessly a busy man, and her a woman in need to more pain potion before a few more drinks and probably bed.

“Well now you’ve opened yourself up to all sorts of requests, Knox.” Charisma also rose from the seat, resting her weight on her good right leg. “I feel you’ve just set me a challenge.” She winked and took his hand to give it a firm handshake. "A fo ben, bid bont"[1]

1.	Welsh for ‘If you want to be a leader, be a bridge’

Wasn’t Knox quite the charmer? Charisma’s smile back was warm and friendly; she’d been about to scold him for such comments, or at least thank the life of adventuring, but he mentioned Tait and her expression froze, warmth leaving her blue-eyed gaze.

Something always changed when people realised or found out; a new expression crossed their faces. Sometimes it was sympathy, most often it was pity masked as sympathy. Charisma hated it. So many years on and she still struggled; one never recovered from losing a child, especially under such brutal circumstances, still not knowing the truth 17 years on.

It was with a tiny shrug that Charisma’s expression softened again, her eyes remaining icy. She took the frame and placed it back on the desk, not looking over the image herself.
“Why should you? It was a long time ago.” Fingers closed around her tumbler and she lifted it for a slightly larger gulp. “People forget.”

Before Charisma could stop him, Knox took hold of a photograph that had been stood up on the desk. It was an old one. The last holiday they’d been on as a family. Tait had finished at Howarts that summer and Charisma and Ryan had taken their three children to Cambodia for a final trip together before Tait began his auror training. Despite spending Christmas and birthdays together as a family, it had been the last picture of the 5 of them to be taken. It was the only photograph that Charisma had any real interest in keeping in permanent view.

“It is.” The Welsh witch confirmed with a soft smile. “Before the grandchildren, anyway.” His now refilled tumbler was pushed back across the desk. “Cambodia ’91. When I got a good assignment like that, my husband would take the time off work and we’d take the kids, even if they were adults by then.”

“Most kids might think spending time in ancient tombs is a drag, but I got them involved in the curse breaking. Not the safest holiday, I guess.” She grinned, nostalgic.

Charisma Aldridge
Hogwarts Castle
Scotland, UK

J. Trevelyan
12-30 Garrick St
London, ENGLAND WC2N 6EZ

Jonas,

Meet me tomorrow night at 8 in the Hog's Head and I'll buy you a drink to piece your moral ideologies back together. Or help you forget such dark deeds.

Love,
Charisma

“Mmm.” Charisma murmured from the far counter, her mug in hand, lifted near the chest. It had got very old yet Jonas still kept coming back for more abuse. The poor sod was left associated with the Aldridges and this was what he got every time he saw them. Charisma knew her reaction to him was ridiculous, but anything to do with Tait or Ryan drove her crazy. No mother should ever have to lose a son and now, decades later, she was driving her own husband away and didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

“Of course, you do.” It was his job. He’d been sent to do a job because her damned bloody husband couldn’t set the wards on the house when he went to bed. “I really don’t want a big deal being made of this whole mess, Jonas. It’s not worth it.”

Pushing off from the counter, she moved towards Jonas. “I need to get back to Hogwarts before they start sticking their noses in.” A hand was placed on his hand and she squeezed. “You’re a good lad, a son.” He reminded her so much of Tait that it hurt sometimes. With a sigh, the witch pulled the ginger haired wizard into a hug. “Tell my husband he’s a blithering idiot.” A kiss on the cheek and she pulled away.

Nothing more was said to him by the witch who grasped her walking cane and left the room for the living room.

“Set the bloody wards tonight, Aldridge.” Were the only words said to Ryan Aldridge currently lying on the sofa before Charisma threw some floo power into the fireplace and stepped into the flames.

Let it go at a good price?
“You said you’d found these items in your office, Knox?” Charisma’s lips twisted into a knowing smirk. It had seemed odd to believe simply chancing upon these items in the Headmaster’s office. The returning Headmaster was trying to make friends with the new staff and he’d clearly made the mistake of coming to the school’s resident niffler to help him donate his cute gifts.

Anything quirky, magical or different, the former curse breaker wanted for herself. In the muggle world, she may well have been labelled a kleptomaniac.
“Your secret is safe with me, Knox.” Bright blue eyes danced over the magnifying glass currently on her desk.

“Never met him.” The half veela potions master was a delightful enigma left to figure out. “I can’t say I’ve even needed to read one of his books.” ‘Countering love with love’[1] didn’t exactly teach the sorts of potions she’d ever required. “Go for it, what do you have to lose? My guess is he can at least write.”

Charisma reached forward, grasping the bottle. She refilled both glasses and sat back with her own.

1.	Taken from Darkfall’s biography

“Literal if they catch you with sticky fingers.” They’d never caught her. Charisma raised an eyebrow before she took another gulp of fire whiskey. Her tumbler was almost empty and the pain in her leg was fading somewhat into the distance. Or at least until she had to move again.

“More metaphorical for me, at least. No chains, just a stick.” A hand was waved at the walking cane resting against the desk between them. It was a literal crutch, a blasted thing she resented but required. No healer yet had succeeded in fixing her leg and she’d given up trying. “Teaching is definitely the better if sitting behind a desk sending curse breakers off to explore the world is the other option. No one wants to sit and watch someone else have fun.”

Knox Greyfriar seemed like one of those sorts that lived to make people happy, or at least Charisma could judge from this short chat. Time would, of course tell. So far he seemed likeable, tolerable.

Most people may have given far more explanation, but then Charisma was quite certain her own verbal reasoning would be similar in succinctness. She, too, had been asked mid-term and she’d simply ended up staying. It was initially been a temporary agreement until she’d suddenly found herself moving up to becoming the Head of Ravenclaw and then she’d been back again this month. In truth, it was a relief to be away from her husband back at home.

“I wouldn’t know why,” Charis started to respond after a gulp of fire whiskey from the tumbler, “I only intended to be here for a few months and that was last October.” Her eyebrows rose at the new headmaster. “I was just glad to escape the shackles in my office at Gringott’s.”

Back in Charisma’s office was a 3rd Year Ravenclaw child currently alphabetising all 786 books on the shelves without the use of his wand that was currently in Aldridge’s robe pocket. Despite the temptation, the Ravenclaw head hadn’t locked him in. Apparently, safety said she couldn’t. But, as she’d departed for the staff meeting, she’d managed to convince the boy that she’d know if any cheating occurred.

It was just after Onuris and Storm that Charisma entered the staffroom. She’d given them distance, presumably because of her leg holding her up. Truthfully? She’d hardly wanted to be forced into walking with Ignan Storm, the grumpy git with a face like a sad troll. No one would chose to spend time with that man.

Her stick clattering against the stone flooring, Aldridge moved across the room to the tea things, sorting herself out with a cup.
"We should take seats."
“Let’s!” The former curse breaker responded with enthusiasm. “None of us want to be here all day.”

The Headmaster wasn’t a stick up the arse prude with no sense of humour. Good. Charisma resolved that she would get along considerably better with Greyfriar than she ever had or would with Storm.

"You should take it. I'd feel a bit odd giving Ignan Storm a thing of lotion." Talk of the devil.

Charisma couldn’t control the laugh that came and neither did she attempt to. It was simply fortunate that she’d not chosen that moment to take a sip of the much needed firewhiskey.
“Yet you can give it to me?”

And now she was thinking about the young Frenchman in the grounds’ hands. Knox certainly led a conversation in a bizarre manner.

“For his rugged hands?” She lifted her tumbler to her lips and took a long sip, enjoying the burn.

“Tell me Knox, what has brought you back to Hogwarts?”

“That would benefit any of us over 60!” The former curse breaker said with a half laugh. She knew little about Knox Greyfriar; she’d not bothered to research him. He didn’t look far off sixty. Charisma considered, with mild disgust, her birthday the following month would make her 64. Mix sixties. Old. “We’re rare.”

“What sort of a host am I? Goodness!” With no real answer for the new Headmaster, Charisma pulled her wand from her robe pocket and pointed it at a cupboard. Her wrist twisted the wand to the side and a lock was heard in the cabinet as it clicked out of place. Wooden doors swung open and out danced two tumblers and a bottle of Ogdens firewhiskey.

“Sit, sit.” Her spare hand was waved at the chair normally taken by Ravenclaw students in trouble of seeking advice. Normally in trouble. Aldridge tended to feel more like a rule enforcer than a supporter and facilitator. “I’ve little choice, but you’re tall and making the place look untidy.” The office was already untidy. It was cluttered. Nothing about Charisma or the office she inhabited screamed professional. It was untidy, unorganised, her.

The awkwardness of any conversation about a failed relationship or marriage was a good enough reason, in Charisma’s eyes, to never talk of it. Unfortunately, such an unavoidable state of affairs had led her into the situation where she might very nearly pour her heart out to her dead son’s best friend. The same best friend who she’d handed the journal over to, who she’d welcomed into her family and had a hand in bringing up.

The offer to talk only left the witch feeling more uncomfortable and she hid her expression behind the cup of tea brought to her lips. Talking wasn’t going to make Ryan forgive her for lying to him for decades. It wouldn’t provide her with a time turner and save their son. She’d heard of couples failing to survive the loss of a child; she’d thought her and Ryan to be stronger.

“You and Anna hadn’t lost a son.” Madame Aldridge stated calmly. It sometimes scared her how she’d gained an ability to talk of Tait with a detachment that only time provided. It scared her how his memory slowly slipped away despite her unhealthy reliving of it in the family’s pensieve on occasion. “What I did… the secret I kept was unforgivable. Talking won’t change Ryan’s mind and it won’t bring Tait back.”

A moment’s silence allowed Charisma to realise the harshness of her words.
“You’re trying to help, I know.” And she was pushing back. “And all I do is blame you for being a damned auror.”

“One might suggest Storm if he weren’t married.” The witch responded before her better judgement stopped her. He was certainly the one whose mild stupor might benefit the rest of them. It was no secret that Charisma much preferred other staff members at Hogwarts.

Charisma’s smile didn’t falter as she now leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms as she pondered. “I would pay money to see Honeysuckle[1] sample the delights of Nightshade.” Blue eyes snapped up to Knox’s. “Two Galleons, I would pay two galleons for that.” The 2 galleons he’d lost to her the night before at the feast.

OOC - I think she's definitely eyeing it up for herself...

1.	Lillian Honeysuckle is the NPC Muggle Studies Professor who works part time.

For over a year now, Charisma had kept the secret of her marriage failing. Over 40 years of being in what people saw as a ‘perfect’ marriage made it extremely embarrassing to admit to anyone that they no longer talked and that her husband had withdrawn away from her when his trust in her was shattered. But even their kids didn’t know. It was easy enough to explain her absence during term time and she’d spent the majority of the summer in Greece with Taryn. Keeping such a secret was tough but admitting it to Taryn and Trystan meant admitting it was over.

Jonas may not have been someone Charisma would have preferred to tell, but it certainly felt like a weight off her shoulders. She only hoped he didn’t feel the need to share the burden.

“Why would you be sorry?” With a frown, Charis leant herself against the counter, now grasping her mug. “I’m fine. I made my decision when I kept that damned journal to myself.” Ryan wasn’t ever going to forgive her and she could hardly blame him. “Always tell Anna the truth, Jonas. Secrets are so destructive.”

“Completely wasted on Ravindar, indeed.” The former curse breaker repeated herself as she drew the magnifying glass close and examined it. Completely wasted on anyone but her. She placed it down on the desk beside her, hopefully for real examination at a later time should her new boss deem it.

Now the cigars caused a genuine grin to twist Charisma’s lips as she thought about it.
“You want an honest answer about the most highly strung adult in this castle, Knox?” She leant forward against the desk, elbows resting on the wood. “Are you seeking gossip about my esteemed colleagues, Headmaster? That will take a lot more than a pretty magnifying glass.”