It had been nearly six months -- six months!! -- since she had first been relegated to desk duty in London, and there was still no end in sight.  There were days when Raizel couldn't help but feel that if she had to file one more paper or fill out one more report, she was going to blow up half of Gringotts.  But the goblins had shown no sign of freeing her from her purgatory and returning her to the field, and here she was, still grounded nearly six months later with no hope of escaping the dreary, miserable English winter.

At least there were some small things that made her punishment bearable.  Some friends, for one, although she was not going to admit that out loud.  Her seemingly permanent stationing at the bank headquarters also meant she had an excuse to stay in London, which was convenient -- if she hadn't had Gringotts insisting on her presence and paying for the hotel, she would have had to either go back to Tel Aviv or come up with another believable reason why she was still present in case something went wrong with the Eleors.

Since the trip to the Ministry the week before, the goblins had been making more of an effort to get her out of the office.  Most of her assignments this week had involved travel -- running errands, delivering messages, stopping in to collect fees or drop off invoices.  It was long and exhausting work, especially when it involved apparating halfway across the frozen country to destinations that were seemingly assigned in the least convenient order possible, but at least it meant that she was out again, instead of being stuck behind a desk somewhere gnashing her teeth and trying to think of an undetectable way to poison Josephine St. Just.

Her assignment today had been convenient for other reasons.  The last item on her list had involved dropping a yellowed scroll off at a business in Hogsmeade, and then she was free, free to do what she wished into the evening.  A few days before, she'd gotten a letter from an old friend, and now finally she was free to pay a visit.

It was at the very end of the workday when Raizel arrived at the beauty salon, her cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders as if to ward off the chill outside.  A young witch -- she had the look of a receptionist or a secretary -- looked to be in the process of closing up shop as the blonde mage entered.  Raizel waved a hand at the woman as she started to stand, gesturing for her to remain seated. 

"No, no," she said breezily, making an immediate beeline past the counter into the back of the salon as if she knew exactly where she was going.  "I am here to see the owner."

It had been some time since she had crossed paths with this particular acquaintance, but Izola Bellamane never failed to disappoint.  She was so pretty, with her hair always a different color, her statuesque height, and her brightly colored dress, and Raizel could never help but feel slightly drab in comparison -- although that rarely made her falter.

"Izola!"  The Cursebreaker's face lit up at the sight of the other witch.  Beaming, she hurried over to give her a hug.  "It is good to see you!  This is a very nice place," she said enthusiastically, gesturing widely at the establishment all around them.  "Do you like it here in Hogsmeade?  Except for the weather,"  she added, wrinkling her nose with a nearly unconscious shiver.  "It is very cold."

Izola strongly suspected that her feet were about to fall off. She had been standing for hours, and as she refused to wear flats, which were completely the wrong style to go with her dress, her heels felt like they'd been set on fire. Shutting up for the day was most definitely welcome, because as soon as she'd finished rearranging the stock, she could sit down and her feet would finally be free of the strains of having to carry her around all day, provided that her feet managed to stay attached to her ankles that long.

Unfortunately, there was still one last customer, a dreary witch who wanted her hair trimmed, still sitting there. She wasn't even attractive! But Lucy, who managed appointments with superhuman efficiency, had decided that of course they would be delighted to cut madame's hair, would she care to step this way and Margaret would be with her in just a moment. Izola's glares had been ignored, and now she had to hear all about the woman's apparently failing marriage. She was sure that Margaret was going slower deliberately, but she certainly wasn't going to get overtime pay.

Izola tapped her feet impatiently, receiving a roll of Margret's eyes for her trouble. She was bored of waiting, she wanted everyone out so she could lock up and slouch in a chair. Izola managed a cheery smile when Margaret handed the woman a mirror before ushering her out, pleased that she could finally relax. The ring of the bell made her groan in despair, but when she saw who it was, she beamed, returning the hug before greeting the cursebreaker.

"Rai!" Izola exclaimed cheerfully, laughing at the comment on the weather. "It isn't that bad, for November," she pointed out, "and there's hardly been any rain recently- not that warmer weather wouldn't be appreciated." Even going further south within the UK would probably raise temperatures a little.

"Weather aside, how are you? Not too bored at work, I hope?" she asked, ushering Rai through the storeroom and up the stairs to her flat, leading her into the living room. She cast an eye around and grimaced before quickly moving a vase off an armchair, putting it over the fireplace. It wasn't untidy, but there were things everywhere. Izola didn't consider that to be untidy.

"Sorry it's so cluttered," she said, gesturing to the other chair which was clear, sitting down in blissful relief, before remembering that she was playing host, "Oh! Would you like anything to drink? And maybe something to eat?"

The proposition that this weather wasn't bad for any time of year was preposterous.  Raizel, who had been wearing coats and cloaks and burrowing under extreme piles of blankets for what felt like months, gave a loud huff of disbelief.  She was not looking forward to having to slog through the slush and snow that was undoubtedly coming as the winter gathered momentum.  If London ever got as cold and miserable as she had heard that Scotland could, she'd never leave her hotel room.

"It is freezing," she said emphatically as she started to follow Izola, but then allowed the point.  "But London is not so bad.  Still cold," she added, just in case there was any doubt.  "Work is all right."  She rolled her shoulders back in an easy shrug as she began to climb the stairs behind the witch.  "It would be nice if there were more to do, but it has been okay, living in the city."

It was only a short way up to the hairdresser's flat.  Raizel glanced around curiously as she entered.  Living spaces always said a good deal about the people who occupied them, and Izola's looked very lived in.  The mess mirrored the natural state of her hotel room back in London -- one that she didn't care very much about organizing or cleaning up, especially considering how rarely she allowed anyone to come over.  Izola clearly had more important things to do than to keep everything clean.

She gave the other woman a warm smile.  "The clutter is no problem," she reassured her, avoiding it as she entered the flat.  "And yes, a drink, if you don't mind."  She stepped over to the indicated chair and eyed it, surveying it from where she stood.  "I'm done working for the day, so whatever kind you think you'd like."

She flashed Izola another smile and then turned to shrug off her Gringotts cloak.  Every time she took the heavy black garment off now, it felt like she was relieving herself of a great burden.  Raizel folded the cloak unceremoniously, turning it so that the yellow crest of the bank wasn't showing, and dumped it unceremoniously over the back of the chair. 

"And how have you been?  Are you very busy with customers?" she asked curiously.  "Hogsmeade seems like it must be very quiet compared to London, but at least it is not hard for mages to travel."

Izola stood up, only wincing the smallest bit as her weight transferred back to her feet. "That's a relief," she laughed, "I don't think I would be able to clear it away." It was strange to realise how messy it must look to someone who wasn't used to it, although since there was little- if anything- that she could do to clear things away, it was there to stay. Still, it wouldn't hurt to do a little clearing at the weekend.

Izola beamed cheerfully, and nodded, "White wine's okay then? I wouldn't want you to have to apparate whilst drunk," before walking through to the walkway lined with cupboards that passed for a kitchen and picking up a bottle from the wine rack and two of the few matching glasses. A quick rummage through a drawer retrieved the cork, and she walked back into the livingroom, stepping past an urn filled with peacock feathers and balancing the glasses on a coffee table.

Izola shrugged, "Business is bustling- having a school a stone's throw away definitely helps." Without Hogwarts, while Hogsmeade wouldn't be a ghost town, it would certainly be less prosperous and business would be considerably worse. It was one of the few wholly magical towns in Europe, so it would always have relatively decent traffic, but the students and teachers of Hogwarts were still a large section of Hogsmeade's clientele.

She carefully uncorked the wine, adding, "I have red if you'd prefer- or non alcoholic, of course," although it was probably dusty. Izola drank mostly water, coffee shots, and wine. She carefully poured two glasses, passing one over to Rai before cradling her own and settling back down in her chair, finally getting her weight off her feet.

"London's still a lot more fun," Izola said wistfully, "Far better nightlife." Hogsmeade had never so much as heard the term nightlife, and if it had, it wouldn't want one, much to its detriment. Izola was forever thankful that she could apparate there, it made living in Hogsmeade infinitely more desirable. "I'm rather jealous of you, having all of London a stone's throw away," she murmured, taking a sip of her glass. It was a rather silly metaphor, as unless one could throw a stone ten miles, minimum, all of London was not a stone's throw away.

Raizel laughed, willingly accepting the glass of wine.  "London is not so bad," she allowed with a bright smile.  "I like the dancing.  And the shopping is good, too."  She extended her leg, pointing her toes to show off her new orange shoes.  Between the small fortune they had cost and all of the good favor she had had to cash in to be allowed a shopping detour, they had been quite pricey, but in the end, she felt quite certain that they had been worth it.

She shrugged, still smiling as she raised her glass and took a sip.  The white wine that Izola had poured was not anywhere near as sweet as she was used to, and the fruity tartness was a pleasant change.  Wine was another point in England's favor, though she would never admit how much the country's tally had grown.  Shopping, the company, the alcohol -- if it wasn't for the horrible, frigid weather, she could almost envision tolerating this place for a longer period of time.

"London is not Tel Aviv," she admitted, wrapping her fingers loosely around her glass as she lowered it, "but it is all right.  I have a few friends from school who live in the city, too, and that has been nice.  But it would be nice to have someone who knew the city better."  She flashed a quick, glittering smile at Izola, her eyes dancing.  "You will have to come down sometime to play tour guide.  Or show me around up here in Hogsmeade, yeh?  Maybe we could help improve its nightlife."

Izola looked at the shoes with envy, nodding her approval, "very stylish, and that colour is fabulous." Orange was such a difficult colour to wear, but Rai pulled it off well. It probably helped that the shoes were gorgeous, Izola would- well, not kill, but she'd do a lot for shoes as nice as those.

"You will have to come down sometime to play tour guide. Or show me around up here in Hogsmeade, yeh? Maybe we could help improve its nightlife."

Izola laughed at that, "I can't imagine Hogsmeade having a night life," she admitted, "After all, it's so… little village, in appearance at the very least. Having Signature is plentiful excitement, and if you think about it, there are about as many bars as houses." Houses were thin on the ground in Hogsmeade, because the majority of the buildings were shops, with flats on the first floor, like Izola's own. Not that there weren't houses, but they tended to be in buildings passed down rather than bought.

Izola shrugged, "I haven't lived in London for years, so I can't promise much," Izola sighed a little, it was sad how short-lived some of the nicest bars were, or rather how quickly they took a turn for the worse. Visiting her parents in the holidays generally involved at least one trip to a bar that no longer existed. "But I can show you the most fabulous toilets in the world," she promised, "they're completely coated in diamantes. Muggle décor at its best."

Fun as the wizarding world's bars were, they couldn't match muggles for the sheer variety and number. Izola didn't see the issue with going to either- alcohol was alcohol, music was music, bars were just as good regardless of who the clientele were. Well, not really, but the point was that magical ability had minimal impact on the quality of martinis served. The only disadvantage with muggle bars was the possibility of breaking the international statute of secrecy, but that was what the obliviators were for.

"You mean British decor." Raizel laughed, grinning back at the other woman.  "Not all Muggles would be so decorative," she chided, flashing a good-natured smile.  "But yes, as long as there is plenty of alcohol before we go to look at them.  I don't know if I could appreciate them properly otherwise."

With anyone else, a life like this -- abiding above a shop, making one's living by working the same job from day to day, bantering about Muggle bathrooms in London as part of an exciting night out -- would have seemed soul-crushingly boring, but Izola had a way of making even the mundane seem glamorous.  She certainly looked as though the settled, legal life was suiting her, despite the lack of a proper Hogsmeade social scene.

This whole idea of living in one place, of holding down a regular job -- it was not a lifestyle that Raizel would ever have imagined she'd consider.  She hated the feeling of being anchored; even her flat in Tel Aviv was only maintained so that she had somewhere to go between assignments.  The idea of staying in one country for so long seemed horribly, dreadfully mundane.  This stretch of being stationed solely at Gringotts had been nearly unbearable.  But when she imagined life after Gringotts, which she was certain was coming soon, she hardly wanted to go back to the rootless existence skirting dangerously close to the legal edge that had been her world before.

She was not even entirely certain how to voice with the ideas that she was starting to mull over.  Adon was not the sort of friend that you got into a deep discussion with unless you wanted to be told exactly what to do.  But Izola -- she lived here in Hogsmeade, and she was still glamorous and interesting despite having given up her once-rootless past.  At the very least, the stylist could provide a proper perspective.

Raizel stretched out her legs before her, ankles crossed, the fingers of her good left hand wrapped lazily around her wine glass.   "But you like it?  Living here?  In one place?" She regarded the other witch with an interest that was too vivid to be merely polite.  "It isn't too quiet in Hogsmeade?  There are people about, or you --"  She pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth for a moment, searching for the right words.  "You find things to do without getting bored?"

"They're in a bar, so alcohol will be no problem," Izola reassured Rai, smiling in a faintly conspiratory manner. Going out with Rai was sure to be enjoyable, Rai made her feel so much younger than the horrible 3 at the beginning of her age did. Not that Izola felt old, that would be ridiculous, but she was getting close to it. Or rather, closer than she'd like, which was somewhere around 25. Rai's energy made her feel revitalised, or at least removed the threat of being a sensible pillar of society.

"In any case, it would be a shame not to appreciate the most glittery toilets in the world properly," she grinned, hand reaching absently for her glass, balancing her elbow on the arm of her chair while subtly pushing a sheet of paper underneath her chair with her foot.

A carefully plucked eyebrow almost lifted at Rai's sudden change in tone, but Izola made do with a tilt of her head, taking a sip to give her time to consider the question. It had never been something that she'd thought about, and Rai's seriousness prevented her from laughing it off, as she usually would. To be sure, the people in Hogsmeade were a mixed bunch- most were nice enough, but some were also deathly dull- but there wasn't always a lot to do in Hogsmeade, unlike when she'd lived in Beijing, or London.

Then again, Izola was perfectly capable of apparating to London, or travelling there through more mundane means if necessary, so it was hardly a major concern, and in terms of the day-to-day, Hogsmeade levels of activity were perfectly acceptable. After all, if she'd ever thought she was unhappy, she could always have sold the shop- okay, she couldn't, but she could always go on holiday. For a very long time.

"It's alright," Izola said with a shrug, "I mean, it's rather limited in terms of nightlife, but that means I don't get woken up at 3am by drunks." Re-playing that sentence mentally made it sound worse, so she moved on quickly, "I can always go to London if I decide I want to do something more exotic, after all." She smiled teasingly, "Why? Thinking about moving out here?" she joked.