outfit minus the coat

Emmylou waved her wand, sending a tea towel zooming over a smooth and shiny countertop: symptoms of a well-loved kitchen had been mostly treated, the a spread of fresh dough and powdery residue cleaned up, shelves dusted, clean dishes put away. One last load was scrubbing itself in the sink, ready for drying when Emmylou and the towel were finished with their task. She stepped back, hands on her hips, and gave the place an approving once-over.

The towel wiggled over a spot of milk and then squeaked into a corner behind a toasting oven to give the hard-to-reach area a good scrub. Emmylou left it to its own devices, having mastered the charm work at her previous barista job, and moved through the swinging door into the main part of the store. (Whoever said she was wasting talent making coffee instead of following her sisters into the Ministry could bite her. She was a wunderkind with these spells.)

Her hand was grabbed the door for unnecessary support and she stretched out with agile jolliness to look over her newest coworker. They had gotten on wonderfully over the past few weeks; Emmylou had really lucked out in the co-worker department. Plus it was fun to make Jack look nervous.

“Take a break from sweeping?” She asked, watching him with the broom. It was funny, he seemed to always do it by hand, but Lou supposed it was just habit. Sometimes she did, too. It was calming. (She didn’t think so when she was cleaning her own flat, but here, it was.) “I need some help with the trash bins.” She grinned and let go of the door, gesturing over her shoulder.

“I mean if,” she continued, raising her brows, and looking past him to the window, where the last of their customers still lingered just outside, their almost-empty coffee cups a thinly veiled excuse. The pair of witches, seemingly fresh out of school, but definitely from another school, had been conversing under the Puddifoot’s sign, looking in, watching the wizard go about his manual labor. Manually. It seemed Emmylou wasn’t the only one who found it comforting. “You don’t mind crushing a few customers. I don’t want to cause Dora to go out of business because someone left unsatisfied.” Her grin became very like a certain cousin’s, and was well supplied with cheekiness.

For a hopeless romantic, Jack was woefully oblivious to things like flirting. When the aforementioned pair of witches came in, eying him and constantly spilling and/or dropping things, only to giggle when Jack bent down to clean them, Jack could only assume they were there to make fun of him. One of those 'Haha, see the dumb werewolf clean like a muggle because he's too stupid to use a wand, let's all point and laugh' sort of thing. Since losing his job at the Three Broomsticks for attacking a patron, Jack had been working hard to let things like this roll off his back and keep himself in check. One method was to do something productive that could take his entire attention, such as sweeping, which he had been doing for far too long when they finally paid their bill and left, grinning at each other the entire time. The floor was nigh on gleaming at this point, but he continued on, trying very hard not to notice that the girls were now loitering by the window, sneaking looks inside. Really now, they had an entire world of magic to entertain themselves with, what made Jack so damn amusing?

Thankfully, he didn't have much time to stew over this question before the kitchen door swung open and a familiar, and welcome, figure popped out of it.  Jack hadn't had a good history when it came to coworkers or bosses. Most of his previous ones were quiet, grim faced laborers who didn't like to talk, housewives who eyed him suspiciously in case he got too close to the good silver, or men like his last boss, who only hired him because they thought he was too dumb to notice when he was being cheated. Puddifoots, however, was an entirely new experience. It wasn't just having a decent, steady pay and a clean, safe workplace. Dora was an excellent boss who didn't make him feel small or stupid, always encouraged him to better himself and was just generally a sweet, motherly person. She may be only a couple years older, but Jack felt like Dora was the mum he had never had the luxury of having. It was both an awkward and yet very welcome sensation. In fact, he felt like that with pretty much all of the ladies who worked there, except for Lou. Lou was an entirely different story.

Since his first day, he had worked nearly all his shifts with the effervescent Emmylou. It had been a few weeks now and Jack still looked forward to every shift where he worked alongside her.  He didn't know what it was that made him drawn to her. She was just so.... light. It wasn't just the graceful way she moved, or her effortless smile or how she always smelt like a mix of honey, delicate flowers and some sort of citrus (NOT that he made a habit of sniffing her or anything. His nose was just... very very good), but the way she treated him. There was no derision or judgement in her tone, even when she was teasing and she always seemed to be happy to see him. It made coming to work feel like... coming home. So when she popped out there and gave him a smile, he felt his irritation melt away.

“I need some help with the trash bins.”

"Yeh... Sure..." Jack said, shaking himself from his thoughts. As happy as her smile made him, he was at work and she was his coworker. Getting all distracted wasn't very professional of him. "Jus' lemme clean up me mess 'ere n'ah'll get right on it, yeah?" He grunted as he bent over to sweep up the dust. Behind him, the girls burst into giggles and Jack felt his ears catch fire.

“I mean if you don’t mind crushing a few customers. I don’t want to cause Dora to go out of business because someone left unsatisfied.”

"Wot? Y'mean that lot in th'window?" He said as he straightened up, his ears still a bit flushed. "Ah think they've 'ad enough entertainment f'one night, yeah?" Jack glanced over at the tittering girls and when their eyes met, he gave him a curt nod of his head as if saying 'I can't tell you to get the hell out but I hope you get the point'. Little did he know that this made them think he was 'playing it cool' and both girls immediately turned away and starting whispering furiously to each other. Frowning, Jack shook his head and turned back to Emmylou. "D'ya think ya could be th'one t'ask them to leave? Ah'd rather deal with the rubbish t'be 'onest."

Emmylou’s brows rose, appearing to ask are you sure about that? The girls had had plenty of entertainment, but the tone of Jack’s voice told her it wasn’t the sort he thought it was. Even if he was blushing.

She had learned, over the past few weeks, how he oblivious he was to girls' interest, but it was still a little surprising, in an endearing way, and definitely hilarious.

“I don’t know, they look like they could hang around 'til dawn. They ordered enough coffee.” But who was Emmylou to complain? It was more money in the register. She was sure a certain coworker’s presence had padded out of the evening’s profit.

"D'ya think ya could be th'one t'ask them to leave? Ah'd rather deal with the rubbish t'be 'onest.”

The Gryffindor alum grinned and looked back to the window briefly before catching Jack’s eye. He really didn’t know.

“Sure, if you don’t want to break their hearts, I will. But technically they’re only loitering on a public street. We could turn off the lights and ruin their view…” Emmylou looked back to the window, studying the pair for a moment before raising her hand and wiggling her fingers jovially. But her face was full of sympathy, and she mouthed a good night before pointing her wand at the lights overhead. They dimmed appropriately, enough to so that the girls wouldn’t have nearly as detailed a view of Jack’s laboring arms. (Not that it would necessarily stop someone.)

“It looks perfect out here. Come on,” she said again, beckoning him, trying to peer pressure him away from the task of sweeping. Because she was such a good coworker. “We’ll do the rubbish together.” She smiled brightly in the dark.

As they stepped through to the kitchen, she turned and flicked her wand at the front room’s lights again; the dimmed bulbs went out completely, casting the cafe in shadows so that now the cobbled street outside was perfectly visible.

The door swung shut behind her and Lou looked to Jack again, smiling more serenely. “For such a cute place, we sure produce a lot of rubbish.” She stepped toward the bags of trash that had been piled up, ready for the huge bins out back, and grabbed one of the smaller wands. With her wand, she was able to levitate a heavier one. That still left plenty of a haul for her fit friend. They headed toward the back door, Lou leading the way.

The night was chilly, much cooler than it had been during the day, but Lou thought it felt great after being cooped up inside for so long. She tilted her head back a bit, her lids heavy with relief, and breathed in deeply. Even if there was trash from the place next door mingled with the fresh air, there was still a freedom about it. “Cleaning always makes things hotter, doesn’t it?” Her head came back down and her eyes opened properly again, and Emmylou looked over her shoulder to Jack as she tossed the smaller bag over the side of the bin.

She waved her wand fluidly, levitating the second on top of it; it dropped with a soft thump into the bin, just on the other side of her shoulder.

“So…” She leaned into the side of the giant, rectangular bin and looked him over again, up and down this time. Her eyes were searching, a little prodding, but still friendly. “Why don’t use your wand for some of that?” She raised her own again, and one of the larger bags he had been carrying floated up into the air and toward her.

Lou’s eyes were still on Jack; the spell was one she had done a thousand times, and she had a great sense of direction. But there was always a payoff for distraction. As she waited for him to elaborate, she missed the slow, but sure, near-silent splitting of the plastic overhead.

“It looks perfect out here. Come on, We’ll do the rubbish together.”

In the darkness, Jack's lips twitched into a nervous frown. Nighttime was both a gift and a curse. He had always felt at peace at night and the brighter and fuller the moon became, the freer and more energetic he felt. Or rather, the wolf felt. That was part of the problem though. The better the wolf felt, the less human Jack became. He had learned the hard way how his peace brought pain to others and since it had only been a week since the last transformation, Jack was naturally a bit trepidatious.

But a glance at the mirror like floor and her smile shining in the darkness, Jack found himself unable to turn her down. "Right. Sure. Jus' show us what yah need done, yeah?" He said with a curt nod of his head. At least he could spend a bit more quality time with Lou, whose bright smile made him feel at peace in a way the moon no longer could.

As usual, he remained quiet for most of the trip to the bins. In general, Jack was a man of few words and prefered to let his partner do the talking. So as Lou commented on the amount of rubbish and the heat, Jack just smiled and gave a brief throaty chuckle as way of agreement. Which he regretted immediately since chuckling required breathing and as they neared the bins, breathing became increasingly more difficult.

Three things happened in the week after a transformation, at least in Jack's case. He always felt exhausted and weak, his appetite increased exponentially thanks to all of the calories burned by the wolfs rage and his senses were heightened more than usual. The third was the worst one in his opinion. The week leading up to the full moon, as the wolf gained more and more influence, the smell of things like rubbish became more appealing. The wolf loved rubbish, like any good dog, and there were at least a couple of times that Jack awoke after a full moon in a pile of dogs in the middle of a junk yard. The problem was, after the full moon, when the wolf sank back into dormancy, those senses remained heightened. Human Jack didn't enjoy the smell of rotten food and soggy paper covered with god knows what, and, like Lou pointed out, there was a lot rubbish made by the small shop. Rubbish that smelt strongly of old bananas and damp, used coffee grounds, and a smell that Jack had noticed was becoming increasingly more potent as they walked.

“So…Why don’t use your wand for some of that?”

Jack was so bothered by the source of the steadily increasing reek that he didn't bother to rationalize his parents neglect, as per usual. "Eh... Never very good at it and me dad was convinced ah was a squib, so they din't bother to teach me." He said, sniffing in a way that, to an observer, indicated discomfort with the topic when in fact he was trying to locate the source of the smell. "'e always said it weren't worth the trouble." When it became clear it wasn't the bins that were the issue, Jacks attention turned to the bags. A look of horror crossed his face as he realized what was about to happen.

"OI, WATCH IT!" Jack shouted, bolting forward and pinning her against the bins. A split second later, the bag she had been levitating above their heads split completely open, showering the pair with a slurry of soggy coffee grounds laced with mushy fruit innards. They stood there in this awkward embrace for a moment, just long enough for her perfume to override the stench, before Jack realized that he had probably pushed her a bit harder than intended and was now crushing the poor girl against a filthy rubbish bin. As nice as it might be for him, she probably didn't feel the same.

"Y'alright?" He managed to ask, grateful for the dim light of the alley hiding how red his face had become. Pulling away from her, Jack was relieved to see that only a few errand bits had gotten in her hair. The rest coated his back and left him feeling as though he had just lain in a mud puddle. A gritty, foul smelling mud puddle. "Oh bloody 'ell..." He grimaced as the smell overtook her perfume with the intensities of a thousand garbage dumps. "Smells like a bloody barge, innit?" Taking a few steps away, Jack frantically brushed his hands through what he considered his hair, dislodging clumps of grounds, before peeling off his shirt and shaking it out on the ground in disgust. Well, this had certainly gotten embarrassing.

The smell bothered Lou, too, but she was used to it. She also didn’t have Jack’s sense of smell. Luckily for the witch, there were a few things more offensive than old coffee grounds (whose acidic, burnt after-smell was still quite unpleasant.)

She gave him a curious look that softened into something a little sorry, almost. She hadn’t anticipated an answer anything like that. That someone had thought a wizard not worth the effort of teaching him magic was a little jarring to Emmylou. By the look on his face, it seemed like his dad might be a touchy subject in general. “That’s—” She began, the start of a hopefully supportive friend statement.

But his face shut her up.

Emmylou felt a chill as he shouted, wondering what he could see that she couldn’t (the obvious conclusion, garbage, didn’t cross her mind with his sense of urgency.) Her mouth opened and her wand hand flinched just before he pinned her to the bin. It all happened so quickly that there was no time to react, ask what, to turn around and face their new enemy.

It sure faced her. Coffee, that thing she loved, that paid her rent, and leftover bits of breakfast. Brown apple and not-slippery-but-weirdly-cold banana peel littered her head, along with grounds strewn about like snowflakes. There was a muffin wrapper hanging from her hair where an oversized earring might have been, if Lou were a fan of those. Her forehead had been skimmed with a little bit of raw dough. At least she’d managed to close her mouth in time.

If Emmylou’s head been splattered, Jack had faced the brunt of it, protecting most of her front from the rubbish explosion.

“I’m… Yeah, I’m fine. All good,” she said, not sounding over-sarcastic. Or if she did, it was with a genuine cheerfulness that took over the second half of her assurance, replacing the shocked hesitancy of her first word. She looked him over, torn about smiling, but then offering up a small one. “Are you?” Honestly, he looked like something she and George would have tried to create as children running around the grocery store. Different bits of food everywhere, like someone’s strange art.

Lou had been so shocked that she’d missed it (where was her luck?!) that she didn’t even think about the smell. Until he pointed it out. And it was all she could think about. It hit her like a bludger, and the barista’s face quickly became less cheery. “It’s… definitely not Honeydukes.”

She took a few steps away from the bins, patting her fingers through her hair and letting bits of fruit and coffee fall away. The back of her hand came up to brush at the cold, gooey something on her head (which turned out to be the dough she hadn’t seen before it caught her). She studied it on the back of her palm for a moment before trying to brush it away. When she looked back up at Jack, he was shirtless.

“Is it a goner?” She asked, gesturing to the shirt as she peeled her eyes away from his torso. Wasn’t he cold? “Do you want some help?” She added, holding up her wand in offer and gesturing to him. She’d have to wait until she found a mirror to dig through her hair— or else jump in the shower ASAP. Washing her hair out here in the cold didn’t seem like the wisest idea, even to a ballsy Gryffindor alum. “Thanks,” she added, smiling properly now. “You saved me a lot of money in shampoo and laundry soap. Or the soap, at least.”

She noticed the scars, but didn’t say anything for a minute. It wasn’t that they made him look bad, not at all. She just wasn’t sure, after what he’d said about his father, if he wanted to talk about it. But she looked him over long enough that it was obvious. Deciding not to shy away from it, especially since he’d just saved her, she asked: “Is that from when you were attacked?” It was obvious what she meant by attacked.

“Is it a goner? Do you want some help?”

Jack looked up from the travesty in his hands and paused to consider her offer. His shirt was filthy and smelt of rot something fierce, so the correct answer would probably be yes to both. However, the tiny bit of pride he possessed poked its head out of the dark corners from which it hid and reminded him what a failure he would be if he needed someone else needed to do simple wandwork for him. So instead, he shook his head and said "Nah. Ain't owt t'worry about. Ah'll give it a wash when ah get 'ome." He figured he could toss the shirt in a bag and just give himself a good rinse in the kitchen before heading home. It was a bit nippy, but the cold never bothered him much.

Draping the damp rag of his shirt over his shoulder, Jack made quick work of grabbing the remaining bags and tossing them into the bin. If anything, this entire debacle was just to show that sometimes magic didn't make things easier, which was about the only solace Jack could take at this point. Then she thanked him for saving her some shampoo and while it probably didn't mean much to her, to him it meant everything. Gratitude was something he received so little and desired so much, so even a tiny bit of it brought a flush to his cheeks. "Cheers... It's what mates do, innit?" He muttered bashfully before motioning towards the cafe "Let's 'ead back, yeah? It's gettin' a bit nippy"

The trip back was quiet and thankfully quick, as neither felt like strolling in the night air anymore. Once inside, Jack submerged his head in the large kitchen sink. It didn't remove much of the smell but he certainly felt better afterwards. As he briskly ran the towel through what he called hair, he heard her ask “Is that from when you were attacked?”

Jack didn't need to ask her what she meant by 'that'. Everyone saw the somehow still vibrant red scars running down the back of his head but they were nothing compared to what was hidden in the confines of his shirt. Four long, deep and jagged lines raked down his back, each tinted a lurid red that would never go away. The spacing got so broad between them towards the middle of his back that one had to wonder if the monster was just gigantic or if each scar was placed individually with sadistic precision. Jack didn't remember much of the night happened, but considering the amount of agony he was in, the latter didn't seem far fetched.

Touching the scar on the back of his head, as though to remind him they were there, Jack kept his eyes adverted and gave her an almost imperceptible nod. "Yeah." he added a bit stiffly, memories of that night dancing mockingly in the back of his mind "Looks like 'e 'ad fun with us, yeah?"

Emmylou gave another smile at his insistence that he would take care of it and followed Jack back toward the shop after he’d taken care of the rest of the bags. “Yeah, of course. Still, it was pretty awesome. I’ve got your back the next time a mountain of rubbish threatens your head,” she said, with another grin.

She didn’t feel too terribly guilty about letting him do the work of tossing what remained of the bags— she’d already apparently made a mess of things. Next time she might actually have to watch where she was going. Or hit up George for a few lessons in dangerous balancing acts.

The rush of warmth in the kitchen was welcome, despite the lingering stickiness on her face. If being warm and smelly was unpleasant, being cold and a little wet was much worse.

She poked her head in front of the mirror and began to pick things out of her hair, piling him in one hand as the other dug through strands. She turned to look at Jack more properly as he rubbed down his own hair. She watched him, for a moment, as he touched his scar, thinking it best to let him take his time.

“Hey,” she said, opening her mouth to argue. “It doesn’t look that bad, really. The joke’s on him that he has to live a sad life on the run. It’s sick that anyone would get fun out of that,” she continued darkly. “But it... says a lot about you, that you can joke about it.” There was a difference between Jack’s dark humor and his attacker actually doing it for the thrill. It was night and day, and evident in Emmylou’s voice. She smiled warmly as she took a few steps closer, into the light, dropping the things from her hair in the bin nearest the door. “Not many people would get through that without their lives becoming a huge mess. Those just prove you survived, right?”