Late afternoon. Department of Mysteries, foyer.


It was the end of his shift and, after a quick shower, Virgil had slowly made his way to the lifts. He didn't know what was in store for this evening - the last three days[1] had left him feeling somewhat sore this morning but not so sore that he wasn't contemplating going straight from the Ministry to one of his usual haunts to see what London was offering on a slow weekday night.

The wizard stopped at the lift doors and clicked the button, eyes going to the dial to irritably note how much farther up the closest lift was. Ugh. Dull. He checked his wrist watch, remembered he left it in his locker, and sighed. This was why they needed a clock in the foyer.

Footsteps behind him. Virgil glanced over his shoulder and his look of impatience dissolved into a soft, curious smile instead. Theta Pepper. Oh, he liked Theta. And if the looks they'd been exchanging all last week meant anything, perhaps she liked him a little too.

"Headed home?" he asked genially once she was within earshot, hands in the pockets of his jacket. "You're looking remarkably well on a Monday."

There was something extremely elusive about Theta's mouth. She had wonderful blonde hair, as golden as his, yes... and eyes that flirted on the border between delicate and indelicate. But it was her mouth that Virgil liked best. It made him think of Mrs Darling from Peter Pan; a woman whose mouth was described as sweet and mocking, and as holding a hidden kiss you could never quite get.

He didn't have to go all the way to Soho tonight.

1.	3rd to 5th Feb - City Sang Such Mad Crescendo

Dressedin a fern green shirt with a warm but practical cream jumper, thick black tights, boots and short dark skirt, Theta approached the lifts.

Level Nine was quiet. It had a knack of being quiet just when you didn’t realise you needed it most, and bustling with life in quite the same way. She slipped a short dark khaki wool coat with wide lapels over her shoulders, flicking her hair over the collar. Of late, she had lightened it away from the darker, redder tones she’d grown up with. Leaving the workshop, she’d combed it out, glad to be heading out for the day, and not staring at things through magnifying glasses with it tied back out of the way.

Though talking of staring…

Virgil Carstairs occupied the space before the lift, alone. They’d been eyeballing each other with less than subtle intensity for the past week, maybe longer. Their paths had crossed in this very space, in the lift, the atrium. Fate has been waiting for one of us to say something… only Theta wasn’t sure she subscribed to fate. More chance, probability and timelines in her line of work.

“Headed home?” He asked, glancing back at her. Virgil was dressed far more casually, poloneck, hat, muggle jacket. He’s a good eye for fashion. She’d noticed. Not difficult to stand out on Nine, though. Unspeakables were the sorts to wear something that would help them blend in. Well, their esteemed leader the entire exception. “You’re looking remarkably well on a Monday.”

“Why thank you,” Theta replied, her voice always gentle, well spoken, but direct enough. She smiled politely at the compliment. “You’re looking rather stylish as ever.” She drew alongside him, her boots sounding on the floor as she did. Virgil was not one of the towering giants amongst her colleagues, so as she turned her head to regard him, she wasn’t peering up all that much. He had pale blue eyes, paler than hers. She’d noticed that recently.

“I was, but, well,” she drew an elegant silver plate pocket watch from her coat, to needlessly check the time, “the day is still young.” Where’s the lift? The lift was still languishing somewhere beyond their floor, so she turned on the spot, hands in coat pockets.

“Was that what you were doing?” She asked, tilting her head, her long hair falling forward over her shoulder. “Going home?” She clarified. “Only I’m pretty sure it’s happy hour at Death & Co.” Go on, come for a drink.

Later. Death & Co. on Diagon Alley


Something harmless and chill was playing on the Wireless, over the heads of patrons throwing back drinks or shooting billiards.

"... we didn't think he'd actually belch onstage -" Virgil, pink in the cheeks from a little too much red wine, was ensconced in a booth next to Theta Pepper during what appeared to be an otherwise quiet happy hour, "- and we're all like, six or seven year olds, breaking into giggles[1] while Edgar's trying not to break character!"

She was entirely enchanting when she laughed. He could kick himself, thinking of when they were drinking in this very bar just last September and Virgil had retreated to Ceph's flat with the older wizards - he could just as easily have followed Theta and Pinn and Fournier instead. How would that night have turned out if he did? Would he have noticed Theta sooner, flirted with her more often, exchanged playful looks?

Played with her hair the way he was right now? A shy and diffident finger aimlessly twirling strands of gold around itself while they chatted, a few empty cocktail glasses before them. Theta had switched to sipping Cider and a part of him contemplated tasting it in her mouth later.

"It's always like that," he sighed, winding down from the story. "Wouldn't be fun if something ridiculous didn't happen at least once every run. Like expecting all our experiments to go per-fect-ly on Mysteries..." Virgil snorted and smiled knowingly at the witch.

Beneath the booth table, he'd allowed his legs to entangle with hers somewhat, in the lazy and casual way of a cats whose tail had its own mind.

1.	A silly belching story from Virgil's first Youth Troupe performance, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.

Virgil told the most delightful stories. Theta giggled quite a bit on a few drinks. Is it me, or is it warm in here? Perhaps she should wrestle her sweater off, but part of her wondered how long they’d be sat drinking. He's pretty.

“Life’s not meant to be pre-planned perfection,” Theta agreed. “Sometimes you’ve got to see where it takes you, be… spontaneous.” She extended one hand upwards, fingers splayed like a firework sent into the sky. She was giggling again. Why was she giggling?

“Have you ever done anything for the hell of it?” She asked, “I don’t think half the unspeakables have ever done anything for the hell of it in their lives. I think they graduated Hogwarts as sensible adults, wearing suits, carrying briefcases and writing research papers. That their sense of humour was removed on entry.” She put on a serious expression, mocking the stereotypical sorts she meant.

Theta wouldn’t normally speak of colleagues like this, but lately… “Some days,” she continued, propping her chin on her hand and looking at Virgil intently, “some days I feel the whole floor is under water and it’s suffocating.” She pouted. “But not you, Virgil. You understand.” She reached out and traced her fingers along the inside of his wrist, her fingertips damp from the cold cider glass. Virgil was a full colour centre-page in a black and white printed volume. Their eyes met.

             “Have you ever done anything for the hell of it?”

His sulky mouth twitched into a smile, all at once delighted and sheepish. Yes. He had done all kinds of unwise things for the hell of it - picked at people's innermost thoughts and feelings, peered into heads, made awful exclamations to incite even worse responses. But he was trying to stop doing those sort of things... trying to push that energy elsewhere, into wild nights at busy clubs or cosy booths in quiet pubs where a pretty blonde witch was tracing shapes on the inside of his wrist.

Oh, that was nice. It sent a shiver of goosebumps right through the young wizard. “...I feel the whole floor is under water and it’s suffocating...not you, Virgil. You understand.” Did he? Did it matter? It felt so good to simply be told, to be in on that secret of life (of living).

"Let's get out of here," he turned his hand around, catching her fingers in his and intertwining them, "and get our heads above water, then."

---

Streets of Muggle London


They were making their way through one of the nicer parts of London, where drunkards were few and the smell of piss less prevalent. The buildings here, as they drew closer to the Radford Estate, were far from skyscrapers. Virgil hadn't let go of Theta's hand - he held it loosely but securely, even as he danced ahead to hop on some steps in front of a flat building.

"... it's called a Death in the Afternoon and it's delicious," he was chatting excitedly about different drinks and cocktails he'd tried in the last two weeks of clubbing. "Invented in Paris! The French know how to live, Theta! They know how to stop thinking and just... enjoy!"

Virgil tugged at her hand, pulling her on to the step just below him, so that he could stand just a touch taller than her. She was exceedingly tempting under the light of street lamps. Theta Pepper and that unreachable kiss in her taunting mouth...

He leaned in to steal it, a simple press of his lips against hers, and a tipsy giggle escaped him. It was impossible! Impossible to catch that kiss, so he kissed her again, and then again, deeper at last to taste the cider in her mouth while he reached up with his free hand to push the golden hair away from their faces.

“Sounds glorious!” Theta proclaimed, imagining Paris to be some oasis of beauty and extravagance. They danced down the pavement to the music of their lubricated conversation. Theta felt free, her very movements relaxed and a little out of focus. Led along the street by a golden guide in the form of Virgil Carstairs.

Hadn’t they known each other forever? She felt she had known him for more than an evening. The ease at which they’d slipped from Ministry to bar to hands and arms entwined seemed ultimately natural. Theta had missed this with another. It was a long time since she and fellow unspeakable Christopher Dant had parted company. He experimental charms, she time turners. They’d been perfectly sweet, but it had been a relationship with training wheels on. Since then she’d dabbled in the thought, the possibility. There’d been Shade, her father’s apprentice, but at that very moment, Theta wasn’t thinking about the possibilities past but the possibilities present.

Here on the step in a pool of light thrown by lamp, Virgil Carstairs tugged her close, face to face, upon the steps, and answered the question that had been playing their lips for a good while. Just a little kiss, and then again. Theta had suspected she had a thirst of a woman traversing a desert of single life, and stepped in, unable to help herself. Her hands reached for Virgil’s jacket, where the zip parted to reveal the grey turtleneck beneath, and her nimble fingertips slipped by, tracing behind Virgil’s ear.

The cool February breeze reminded Theta they were on the doorstep, mere paces from a far warmer, much more comfortable place to quench a thirst. 

“I better take you in,” Theta asserted, coming up for air. “Be prepared to dodge Penny and her dog.” Stealing a brief kiss she laced her left hand fingers with his and unlocked the latch with her wand. Inching the door open, she assessed the hallway and glanced back to Virgil, pressing a finger to her lips in instruction. Deciding the coast was clear, she darted in, tugging him with her. She released his hand to slipped her boots off, but with barely a moment to let Virgil do the same, hooked her fingers in the back and grasped his hand again.

Like teenagers avoiding their parents past curfew they stole up the stairs as lightly as they could, all muffled giggles on Theta’s part. Sneaking Virgil in meant she had him all to herself, which had been the plan all along. Thoughts he must have heard, even if she were unaware.

The bedroom door latched.