OPEN THREAD!


The localised weather charms were a blessing, Monty decided as the garden in Sandy was basked in bright sunshine. It was mid afternoon and there was a sizzle of meat on the barbecue, and his lawn was strewn with friends and family, their jaws either engaged in eating or nattering.

As was the summer holiday tradition, the Pepper clan were holding a gathering and invitations had been wide and many. Bottles of wine, soft drinks, strange salads, pets, picnic blankets, deck chairs and people were all accepted in through the side gate to the back garden, or apparated just in the back corner of the garden. The trees and the orientation of the garden allowing for them all to stay out of sight of the Muggles - well, apart from his wife Catherine of course and a the odd relative from her side who were in the loop on the fact the guests all had wands.

"Here we go," he announced to his fellows[1] gathered around the barbecue with its coals warmed by magic, as he lined up another set of sausages. The kids were now gangly teenagers and they packed away so much food, they'd already wolfed down some food and were hovering around for some more.

"You'll have to have some of the salads though, especially ones people bought though," he warned his nephews, Ambrose and Tim who had appeared and were sniffing the air tentatively. "Go and make sure everyone's got a drink, they'll be done in a bit."

The boys slithered away into the crowd begrudgingly, looping in friends and cousins, his daughters to help.

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Feel free to have Ambrose pop up to ask your character if they need a drink, or to have been hanging about minding the grill. You are actively encouraged to consider the Peppers (one or many of them) to be a friend of your character, as they're very accommodating people and this has happened for several years as their children grew up.

1.

Anyone!!

Ariadne was weaving her way back through the throng of people filling the Peppers' back garden. She'd even managed to acquire a new yellow summer dress for the occasion, and had made use of some charms on her hair that morning to curl it into tighter ringlets. Thankfully the weather was always good on the day - a few years back there'd been a thunderstorm raging all around but for half a mile around the house and garden there'd been balmy sunshine... Much as the Muggles in the area thought it was strange, they didn't complain.

The Peppers and their garden gathering was one of the annual summer wizarding get togethers that she didn't mind attending when she could. Often she was off with her dad on the boat, but his work for the travel guides had got a bit tricky shortly before the end of term - something about visas, not able to leave the country, the boat being impounded. It had all sounded very worrying before grandfather had stepped in with some help from Ms Murray who headed up the DIMC, but it did mean that she'd had to spend a bit of time in Godric's Hollow with her grandparents in the meantime. As she was about to enter her seventh year, she did have a bit more freedom as to coming and going with permission though.

Today her grandparents were both attending with her, even though her grandfather had made a comment at breakfast about being the Head of the Department of Mysteries, and a happy summer social event not really fitting with the image. However, as her grandmother had reminded him, they had attended in the past and the Peppers were friends as well as Francis and Theta being his employees. Ari was particularly keen to try and seek out Theta during the afternoon to catch up.

Recognising a familiar face[1] as she tried to remember where she'd left her drink out in the garden after nipping inside for a moment, she raised her hand in greeting and smiled.
"Heya, you're looking good! What's been happening?"

1.

ANYONE!!

An hour ago, before coming here, Elixa had rocked up to the front door of a strange looking house in Godric's Hollow where Johann had been staying in a kind of mercy mission. It was Saturday afternoon, and she'd have perhaps preferred to be doing her own thing, but instead she'd had to put on something semi normal and 'summery', tame her mane of hair and knock on a front door hundreds of miles from London.

She had been ushered in the front door, through a sparsely decorated house, through a fairly homely and country looking kitchen and out a back door without much introduction, but acquiring three companions on the way, and had seen a mere glimpse of a white haired wizard who was apparently the Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts and who was not going to a garden party that had students at.

"Portkey." Johann had explained gruffly, extending a tea towel for the Tower of London to the four of them, and then they'd shot from the back garden in Godric's Hollow to another, far sunnier one, in Bedfordshire, closer to London than she'd been a moment before, certainly.

"How are you my dear, it's been so long," Camille Storm had spoken almost at once, extending her hands to lean down and peck Elixa on both cheeks. It had been a year or so since Elixa had turned up on their doorstep looking for Johann only to find he wasn't there around Christmas. Wolfgang was entirely uninterested in saying hello until his wife elbowed him. Johann was furiously folding the tea towel into his jacket pocket.

"Let's go and find you a drink and introduce you to a few people, hmm?" Elixa suggested cheerily, assuming the role of babysitter. "Johann why don't you find one of the Peppers?" She linked arms with Camille and whisked Johann's parents away as if they were two patients at St Mungo's.

They encountered a young Tim Pepper, Ambrose's younger brother, who pushed his glasses up his nose and peered at the three of them, his expression registering that he didn't recognise any of them, and he'd just heard all of them speak English with a funny accent. The second year, soon to be third year was keenly curious.

"Do you want a drink?" He asked, still suspicious but polite nonetheless.
"That would be brilliant, er," hang on - her mind thought, we know this name - "Tim?"

The look of surprise on the young wizard's face confirmed she'd picked the right name. Thank Merlin for Johann's expansive memory and descriptions of other people. Younger son is Tim, he's probably wearing glasses, same sandy brown hair, slightly curly, looks like he might enjoy books and hard sums.

"They're over here." Tim thumbed in the direction of the foot of a tree where there was a long table set out, and led them through the groups of people, only to be called away by someone else a moment later.

"He's one of the family, he's at Hogwarts." Elixa explained, deciding not to elaborate that Tim's mother was a long term patient at work.

It had taken a bit of making up to do, to come over. But in the end it had been Catherine Pepper, Monty's Muggle wife who had given the best case to Edwin. Some months ago, her husband had visited Edwin and attempted to 'fix' his car. Edwin, born in a Muggle hospital to a Muggle mother had the fortune of 'existing' in both the wizard and the Muggle world. He was eligible to vote in Muggle elections, he could apply for a passport at a push, and he had successfully acquired a driving license and a car.

That car, until Monty had crawled beneath it with a wand in hand, had merely driven along the tarmac roads of Cambridgeshire and belong when he fancied it, and the only magic that had touched it was to keep it clean. But half an hour with Pepper and he was flying it over the houses of Guilden Morden and had caused a media stink, and plenty of questions. Edwin had never been quite so angry at his old friend until that day, and they had not spoken for some time since.

Monty's exploits with the flying car had continued with unrelenting intent to convince the Ministry that it was a good idea - mostly by being witnessed hovering in the air by Muggles - and had got into further scrapes with the aurors. But the other month he had ended up using a flying car for a customer to get away from a swarm of dementors, and the technique had piqued Edwin's interest. With Catherine's plight for Edwin to help her curb her husband's flying car campaign, and Edwin's interest in how it might be used to draw dementors away, he had decided that he could be friendly with Pepper again, if only to keep more of an eye on him.

"Fancy seeing you here," Edwin greeted from further along the drinks table. He looked far more relaxed, though his cheeks were ruddy which suggested that he'd already drunk some wine and had been here a while longer than his relative. "If I'd known I'd have offered to come together - oh, sorry, are you with -?" Edwin hastily set aside his glass of wine and stepped forward to shake hands with the two figures with Elixa, both of whom were tall, thin sorts, with quite angular faces.

Gabrielle had been there at the house since eight that morning, helping out when possible, avoiding problematic issues, laughing and snickering at certain story exchanges, and actually finding common place with the Peppers like never before. True, there was a faint, stiff feeling in the atmosphere she was still in the wrong - however, the scenario Monty, Francis and herself had endured seemed to warrant a newfound respect for Gabrielle.

Currently, the blond witch could be found sipping a riesling, munching quietly on her plate underneath one of the shady trees, her blue with white lace summer dress and hair rippling gently in the breeze. Her eyes surveyed the incomers (a small grimace in seeing Wolfgang, but it disappeared in seeing Camille and Johann) and smirked to see Edwin flushed 'round the cheeks. They left those views to start looking for Francis - she hadn't really seen nor heard much from the man since about noon. Pursing her lips together, she finally rose, grabbing the plate and wine glass, opting to engage in conversation like a normal person ought to. Well, attempted to as she approached Monty opposed to the Storms, Elixa, and Edwin.

"Everything's wonderful. Thank you again for having me over," she murmured low, smiling genuinely. "Is your brother all right? Haven't seen him. Didn't jump ship on us, did he?"

Apparently the Pepper affair was a memorable and well-known ado, but neither of the Strangely sisters[1]had ever received an invitation.  Branwen had to credit her encounter with Monty Pepper at the Hogwarts career fair with eliciting a summons.  She'd been charmed by the odd wizard and not a little bit excited about his dangerous celebrity and controversial antic.  Miss the Pepper affair? Never!

Gone were her gardening garb and instead bright red and burgundy floral robes.  She found her way under the arbor and wound her way through the garden and yard filled with people. 

"Ambrose!"

The kind young Gryffindor had a brightly colored fruit drink held out.  "You're a bean sprout! Look at you, young Mr. Pepper.  Growing taller by the day.  Perhaps there's a curse upon you.  Wouldn't that be exciting," she fussed bluntly over the teenager.

"Now.  You'll need to make the introductions, young man. I'm sorely lost among these folk."

1.	Our Branwen here, and her sister the werewolf scholar Maya Irene-Strangely

Knox was at the coals alongside Monty Pepper, the two of them intent on the arcana of grilling meats and large garden vegetables.  For the summer weather, Knox was down to shirt and waist coat, with cuff rolled up.   His small round hat was set back on his head, his silvering hairline easy to see.

"You know, I've been a vegetarian all of my life and never missed this smell a single day in all those years.  But since being blighted by lycanthropy, there's something suddenly very appealing about a charred sausage.  I'm at once repulsed and tantalized."

He did seem to be, leaned over as he was, letting his head be washed with the shimmering aroma.  "I'm very near to ignoring that delectable zucchini and ruining my guts." 

Some motion caught the old Wizengamot Elder's eye.  "Merlin's beard, is that Edwin Glass? Never knew him to be the garden party sort.  I've always wondered what came first, the Catastrophe or Level Three..."

Wolfgang was tired. It had been a long week of negotiating with whoever would listen, and some who wouldn't, to try and secure some sort of employment and income for him and his wife Camille. However the fact they were imposing on Ignan in his house was none so clear but when they were approaching the weekend, and so he had begrudgingly accepted Johann's desperate attempt to get them out by inviting them to this social gathering in someone's back garden.

At least the weather was pleasant, and warm for Britain. He glanced about as they had appeared, taking in the strange ways the British dressed, tall trees obscuring neighbouring properties and a family home at the other end of the garden with a conservatory tapped onto the back with good lighting. The lawn was filled with people and tables, and there was a step up to a patio at the back door which was full of pots of what were presumably kitchen herbs. The back door hung open with a regular stream of people in and out of it.

The air was filled with the smell of meat cooking, pipe smoke, summer flowers in early bloom, and the sound of voices and laughter of children who occasionally raced between groups of the adults followed by the odd pet. All in all it was perfectly pleasant for any usual guest - but to Wolfgang it was not only the sort of thing he had lost, but he was a grumpy arse who was habitually impolite.

Camille and Elixa were already making conversation with a young boy who led them to where there was something to drink, which in turn led to a conversation with a ruddy-faced man who Wolfgang recognised as working for the Ministry.

"Wolfgang Storm," he introduced himself, "I was with the Durmstrang contingent for the Tournament, Mr Glass, though we last spoke probably a year ago." He shook hands with the stouter man.
"My wife Camille."

He had seen Edwin more recently, but he didn't want to particularly remind the man, because on that visit he'd had the great fortune to purloin the wand of Hannah Bombay. Miss Bombay had been involved in a house collapse and her wand had been recovered by the Department. Wolfgang had managed to swipe it for use with polyjuice potion for a little bank fraud back in January[1].

1.	Jan 13 - Never Retreat. Never Explain. Get it Done & Let Them Howl!

Francis had got completely sidetracked in conversation after conversation, and a couple of glasses of wine. His brother was doing a fine job with the food and he had been back and forth helping Catherine, his sister in law and Monty's Muggle wife. Without magic, Catherine was more proficient at all manner of entertainment tricks than Francis was able to use his wand for and he was left amazed.

He'd ended up in a conversation with his Department boss, Mortimer Gamp and his wife Lyra. He'd been a bit surprised that the Gamps would attend, as often the Head of the Department of Mysteries job was expected to be shadowy and secretive by the public, but they'd often attended in the past - Lyra always seemingly enjoying it more than her husband! Some years their sons had attended with their families, but this year it was just Ariadne their granddaughter from their eldest son who was a couple of years ahead of Ambrose in Gryffindor. Mortimer was still somewhat intrigued by the use of a flying car against the dementors[1] the previous month, and had quizzed Francis on a few more details while under the guise of being sociable.

Francis had long got used to friends in his department asking strange questions in the middle of off-duty conversation. Their minds were the sharpest of the wizarding world and were never truly off-duty. He did not take any offence, but did keep it short as he had been attempting to get back to Gabrielle for ages now.

"You'll have to ask my brother of the finer points of the machinery, though I understand he keeps some of it a trade secret." Francis explained, taking a step away from the Gamps. "I'm sorry, I must get on - I've just seen my son's got his wand with him."

Pepper didn't have to explain which son, but Gamp released him immediately with a raise of both eyebrows and a nod. Ambrose's explosive accidents were known to many adults outside of Hogwarts. Gamp had suggested once that the boy had greater power than his wand or skill could control and he would grow into things when he was a man. He'd also offered to test Ambrose once, but Francis had never felt entirely easy over the offer as although Gamp had researched the development of magical potential in children, he'd also investigated the reduction of in adults during the war - or so people said.

Ambrose didn't have his wand of course. It was already stowed in his father's jacket, so it was a little fib. His son was actually engaged in conversation with one of the Strangeley sisters, who taught him Herbology.

Eventually he found Gabrielle over towards the barbecue, and gave a little sigh of contentment with a smile on arrival beside her.
"I'm sorry I just saw what the time was." He slipped an arm behind her back and placed a kiss gently on her cheek before ruffling his hair and looking around.
"You got enough to feed everyone, brother?"

As he looked back, he greeted Knox stepping around to shake the wizengamot member and former headmaster's hand.
"Knox, good to see you! How are things, it's been a while."

1.	May 22nd - Dementors Can't Drive

"You'll have to have some of the salads though, especially ones people bought though," Uncle Monty warned them over the sizzling sausages, "Go and make sure everyone's got a drink, they'll be done in a bit." The Pepper children slipped away, collecting glasses, and a moment later, Ambrose came face to face with his Herbology professor.

"Ambrose!" Thankfully in Professor Strangely's lessons he hadn't as yet caused a huge mess, so he was on good standing with the professor as far as he knew. "You're a bean sprout! Look at you, young Mr. Pepper.  Growing taller by the day.  Perhaps there's a curse upon you.  Wouldn't that be exciting."

"I've considered more than once before, but for different reasons, Professor…" Ambrose replied a little more quietly than the witch before him in the bright red robes, and realised it had been a rhetorical remark that hadn't anticipated a reply.

"Now.  You'll need to make the introductions, young man. I'm sorely lost among these folk."

Introductions! Ambrose had been about to ask his professor if she wanted a drink, but introductions was far more interesting.

"Oh! Oh right, uhm," He turned on the spot, and stepped back to stand beside his Professor to see who she could see and tried to spot some faces.

"Well over there - that's the Gamps, my Dad's boss in Mysteries, he asks me weird questions about my magic if he talks to me at all but Mrs Gamp's alright." He extended his hand to point, "Then there's my cousin Theta and her boyfriend Chris, and erm, their friends," he pointed out a group of young adults who had left Hogwarts a year or two ago.

"Then there's some Hughes, some more Hughes, even more Hughes - they're all my family too and erm, I dunno who they are talking to Mr Glass, and this - er - oh!"

"Ambrose Pepper!" The tall, dark curly haired wizard before them had come round for dinner last summer and spent a long evening with Ambrose, Tim and their dad at their house in Biggleswade.

"You, you work for Gabrielle!" Ambrose exclaimed, his features screwed up as he tried to remember. The gangly one chuckled, "He speaks lots of languages."

"Well, you remembered the important bits. Johann, it's Johann Storm."
"Damn - I'd have remembered if you'd given me another minute. Professor Strangely this is Johann Storm. He works for the Ministry with my Dad too. Mr Storm this is Professor Strangely my Herbology teacher at Hogwarts."

"The Professor Branwen Strangely, leading British Herbologist?" Johann asked with delight, greeting the witch with as much enthusiasm as Ambrose, extending his hand to either shake, depending on Strangely's custom he might have to peck her on the cheek. His bright blue eyes were examining her every move keenly to try and predict.

He'd liked Ambrose when they'd met, and it was good to see him a little older and a little more out of his shell. In balance, Johann was feeling a lot better in himself in that time too. Young people were full of the wildest most unrestricted imaginations.

"I've translated one of your papers on magical fungi," He explained to Branwen, holding quite intense eye contact as he spoke, though keeping Ambrose engaged as part of the group by the way he stood. "Years back now, but I do recall. Fascinating, but you're teaching now? Filling the heads of the likes of Ambrose with your knowledge. Wonderful." He clapped the boy on the shoulder.
"Hope you pay attention, got to know Herbology to know what to feed those creatures you're into." As he glanced between them he spotted his parents were talking to Edwin Glass with Elixa and relaxed a little more.

The children skittered off and Monty poked at the food and reached for his beer, looking back to Knox to continue their conversation.

"You know, I've been a vegetarian all of my life and never missed this smell a single day in all those years.  But since being blighted by lycanthropy, there's something suddenly very appealing about a charred sausage.  I'm at once repulsed and tantalized."

The two of them peered at the grid and Monty grinned beneath his bushy beard.
"You're missing out my friend."

"I'm very near to ignoring that delectable zucchini and ruining my guts." Monty's childish humour meant his fingers were to his wand in a moment to levitate one of the cooked sausages up to hover just beneath Knox's nose, but he thought better of it - Knox wasn't one of the children - and besides, they'd stuff it in their mouths quicker than he could blink. 

"Merlin's beard, is that Edwin Glass? Never knew him to be the garden party sort.  I've always wondered what came first, the Catastrophe or Level Three…"

"Hah!" Monty exclaimed with a deep laugh. "I have teased Edwin that his Department cause as many as they deal with. It is he - he's an old friend though since I flew his car the other month I've been in the bad books. But, seems he can't resist a garden party - probably because I lied about how many pretty ladies we'd invited, and because he's convinced I'll convert a bus and take us all for a ride later." He flicked his wand and deftly the meat turned and flipped with a renewed sizzle. "He might be right." He winked and then put a finger to his lips as he clocked Gabrielle approaching.

"Everything's wonderful. Thank you again for having me over, is your brother all right? Haven't seen him. Didn't jump ship on us, did he?"

"Francis will probably be having his ears bent. For a man who deals with time, he can often forget it on days like this." He grinned.
"Greyfriar was just saying, Gabs, that he might be tempted to eat a sausage - do you believe it - they must be good." He wafted the smell of the grill towards the other wizard again slyly and waggled his eyebrows. He couldn't help himself! His once-older-but-not-physically-now brother appeared and saved Knox from the temptation.

"I'm sorry I just saw what the time was." He apologised to Gabrielle and kissed her on the cheek. Lately Francis hadn't given a second thought to the old public displays of affection before other people, despite some of their friends and family still feeling it was wrong to divorce Claire when she was still in St Mungo's. Monty busied himself for a moment with the food.
"You got enough to feed everyone, brother?"

"No, people need to eat more though." Monty replied and stepped back to holler to the garden that there were some more things to be eaten, resulting in several hungry guests making their way towards them while Francis asked Knox how he'd been.

Chloe had slowly edged her way into the party landscape on the beautiful summer day. Her outfit was a conservative beige color that perfectly described how she had been feeling; bored.  The dress was a beautiful dress that she hadn't worn since her mother bought it for her months ago, which was fine. She was just beginning to feel homesick, so it was nice to have something to slip into and feel a little more normal in. She wasn't going to falter, however. She had to stay strong, and stick to her guns. She could not admit defeat and return home so her mother could make her into the normal daughter she always wanted. Chloe just wouldn't have it.

She had spent days in Diagon, trying to figure out her life, and was striving for some social interaction, and this was absolutely perfect, full of people she knew and felt comfortable with, and one of her very best friends, a Miss Ariadne. After she developed her new found crush on Shade O'Connor, she desperately needed gossip and someone to talk to, and Ari had proven as a great friend before.

Chloe walked further into the garden, in her hands a plate of macaroons, that she had bought that morning from a little bakery. Some of her mothers advice still rang true in her head; never go to a party empty handed. Just thinking of the lady made a pang of guilt appear in her chest, but she wasn't going to let it bother her. Her mother had ruined her. She had taught her that being different was bad, and normal was good. She couldn't focus on the positives, especially not with her trying to keep herself away. Chloe slid through the party seeking out Ariadne. She just had to distract herself.

Good lad, Ambrose! Branwen was pleased as ever when young Mr. Pepper obliged and began pointing out the specimens of the party like they were in a human arboretum.  He gave all: name, genus, and property. 

"Ah yes," she commented as he went through the list.  "Your relatives, you say?" "Yes, good." 

Many of the names were familiar to her but few of the faces.  She'd been ready to thank the lad when a tall wizard with unruly dark hair ambled over, a wizard whom she knew the name (Storm) but not the face in her recollection.  (He had little resemblance from the Storm she knew.  Perhaps the relation was distance or the naming convention a coincidence.)  But he was kind enough to illuminate and offer kind praise.

"Flattery, Mr. Storm.  I could never turn it down."  It was nice to be recognized.  Becoming a teacher was rarely a pathway to esteem, sadly.  Many students had no sense of legacy past their most recent meal.  On the other hand, many of her colleagues you'd think they were all former Ministers of Magic for all the pomp they afforded themselves.

"Ambrose is one of the better ones," she said, acknowledging she was indeed at Hogwarts doing her best with the student.  "Not as dense as the others, thank Merlin! I hold out hope for him yet."

Blunt, as usual, but all warmth meant.

"You're with the Ministry then, Mr. Storm.  Enjoying the slow churn of bureaucracy?  What sorts of trouble are you up to lately?"

Knox's booming laugh was as easy as always and even quicker around Monty Pepper.  Knox allowed himself to enjoy more laughs at the expense of poor, stoic Edwin Glass.  Levity was an easy way to forget the perils of their occupation and so Monty's jokes and grilled fare had arrived in perfect timing.

"About time!" Knox greeted Francis Pepper, not at all adverse to even obvious puns.  He clasped hands in greeting, happy to see him.  Knox had always liked Francis Pepper, and indeed all the Peppers he'd met.

"Oh, I keep busy," he said, "same old thing.  Planning an underground cultural revolution and learning new soup recipes.  Devlin's moved out and I'm cooking for myself again."

His son Devlin had lived with him a short while and in addition to getting to hate each other less and less, Knox had become quite fond of the young wizard's cooking.  He heard from him very little now, but he'd been told that was common when birds left the nest.  Knox should, according to the advice, expect and owl when Devlin was about 29 or 30 and not likely before. 

"Is your Theta here?" he asked, keen to inquire after a former student.  "A fine student."