10pm, September 25, 2011
The Leaky Cauldron

A small knot of people had gathered around a small platinum-haired witch with violet eyeglasses. Firelight cast transformative shadows across her smiling face as her voice rose and fell with dramatic gravity. Her wand was nimble in her fingers. The spells she traced in the air summoned breezes, bumps-in-the-night, and odors of petrichor and pine needles.

"And that night, Death Himself disguised himself as a wizard and came to the eldest brother where he slept wine-drunk, in an inn just like this one. Crumpled at some corner table."

A flick of her wand, and the sound of a wine bottle knocking over drew attention from some dark nook.

"Without mercy or remorse, Death slit his throat. Death took back the wand. And that is when Death took the first brother."

Wine-drunk, indeed. Tamzin paused to reach down for her own glass.  "Mmhmm, mmhmm, that's right, that's right!" she cooed to the mellow wrinkle of applause. Her little performance had begun as a demonstration for a friend but had drawn the attention of a few adjacent tables.

So by the time the first brother was dead, she on her feet in the firelight. "Who knows the next bit? Come on?"

Tamzin extended her wand. She routinely used a spell that revealed the auras of everyone and everything about.  "Who? You? Yes you! I know you know it."

She wiggled her finger towards a wizard with an orderly and tight presence. 

With only one week left before classes started at Cambridge, Sasha taking advantage of every last moment of London freedom.  This included an evening spent surrounded by the rugged charm of the Leaky Cauldron.  He had ordered a second beer and settled himself comfortably on a stool before turning to listen to the witch's story-telling. 

Dramatic storytelling was fun to observe, but had never been his personal forté; to do it properly required a certain level of pizzazz and dramatic flare that wasn't natural to the former Ravenclaw. 

Lectures or academic presentations were much more his speed. 

So, when the witch turned her attention towards him and prompted him to pick up the story, Sasha couldn't resist glancing over his shoulder.  But, there was no one behind him.  No artistic-looking fellow that she might have been indicting instead. 

Slowly, Sasha shook his head. 

"I'm afraid I don't," Sasha admitted.  "I wasn't raised on those stories."  Technically, as a Storm by birth, Sasha wasn't actually muggleborn but he'd been raised that way.  "I was raised on Die Brüder Grimm.  The Valliant Little Tailor.  Or the Wolf and the Seven Kids."  Most of the tails, Sasha knew, were not well suited to this crowd.  They had a tendency to depict those with magic in a specific light. 

Chairs creaked as a few of her companions turned in their seats to look at the wizard who had turned down her invitation.

"Aw, poo," she lamented, deftly mimicking his accent. "«You are off the hook, Mr. Tailor,»"  she said to him in passable German.

She took another drink of wine and spoke in a dramatic aside to the others.

"His wand isn't one of ours, so we must forgive him. Mmm! Someone here - get us another."

She waved the empty glass in the air until someone took it. A Gregorovitch wand. They had a distinct magical vibe, if you were as fluent in twig as Tamzin was.

Obvious surprise flickered across Sasha's expression as the witch transitioned to German, impressed by her knowledge of the language. 

"I could always improvise, if an alternative ending isn't unwelcome," he returned, likewise in German.  He wondered if their tales had the same dark, sinister bent that his had growing up.  If the story thus far was anything to go off of, that was a distinct possibility. 

Beer in hand, Sasha rose from his stool and crossed towards the witch and the small cluster around her.  "I had an Ollivander wand, once," he offered.  Avodire and unicorn hair.  He'd had it fewer than two weeks before a classmate had broken it, forcing him to accept using his current wand.  Despite its dark past and guilt-inducing origins. 

"There are two left, yes?  The stone and the cloak?"

"Yeah, and there's a sort of pattern to all of these stories, isn't there?" Jonas put in cheerfully.  "Bet we can tussle out the next part."

With an ale in one hand, and the other arm draped easily around his wife's shoulders, it had turned into a comfortable sort of evening.  The Leaky Cauldron wasn't the most exotic sort of place for a Sunday evening date, but there was something comfortable about being here with Anna, too.  There was a time when he would never have imagined bringing his wife here; when even the thought of hinting to his family about the magical world, or hinting to the magical world that he had a family, had made his stomach turn.  Now, it was a simple enough place to sneak out for a bite and a drink while Grace looked after Artie, and take in some good company besides.

Anna aimed a friendly elbow at his ribs.  "What, are you detectiving story-time too, now?" she asked lightly.

The Auror flashed a crooked grin.  "I'm not detectiving.  Let's see," he said cheerfully, returning his attention to Tamzin, their storyteller, once more.  He took a long swallow from his glass, and then set it down on the bar top.  "The second brother wished for the power to raise the dead again, didn't he?  So that must've got the better of him -- brought about a zombie apocalypse, or something like that."

Why hadn't anyone taken her glass? She was charming!

Oh, the youth had had an Ollivander wand before the Gregorovitch, had he? Rude! But he was being amenable to the game, so she encouraged him.

"Yes, yes, that's right. "

And then a familiar voice. Tamzin turned. "Jonas, when did you sneak in?"

Her wand hummed in her light grip, and she perceived the earthy spice of the Way Jonas Trevelyan Was. At his contributions, Tamzin began to grumble good-naturedly.

"Strike me down, what has become of this world when no one knows the good stories anymore? Zombies! Merlin's knickers, Trevelyan, honestly. Who doesn't know Beedle the Bard? The second brother returned home..." she began, prompting them.

"...where he lived alone! He lived alone because... - oh sod it. Wine!"

 

Turning towards the pair that joined them, Sasha offered a good-natured smile before grinning sheepishly at Ollivander. 

"Aren't good stories the heart of cultural identity, though?" he countered.  "It seems like having the same stories would be as drab as having the same cuisine."  Sure, hearing the classics was entertaining but he'd loved listening to all the local stories during his summer of travels. 

Or, perhaps, making your own.  Sasha had to approve of that idea. 

He returned his attention to Jonas, offering a warm smile and offering his name in polite greeting to the woman who was with the older wizard.  But, there was no time for pleasantries.  The Auror had brought zombie apocalypse into the wizarding fairy tale.  And, not inferi apocalypse.  Zombie, specifically.

Was it possible?  "Then we're all going to be hoping we're saved by Glenn and Daryl."  After sitting five A-Levels and 12 NEWTs, Sasha had spent a sold week binging the shows he'd missed over the year, including the first season of The Walking Dead.  Was there possibly another wizard who watched it, as well?

"...where he lived alone! He lived alone because... - oh sod it. Wine!"

"He'd forgotten he'd put on the cloak so he, alone, knew he was still alive.  The rest of the world thought he'd perished years ago and he roamed the world, alone, hoping someone would finally see him." 

Jonas laughed, withdrawing his arm from around Anna as he carefully levered himself to his feet. 

"No, mate, the third brother had the cloak," he said, giving Sasha a wink.  "Second one had the stone to summon the dead, yeah?  Hence the Don't open - dead inside.  Give it here, Tamzin," he said, reaching for her wine glass.  "Next round's on me.  Least I can do for our storyteller." 

His leg was stiff after sitting, so he moved slowly as he made his way to the bar, taking care to stretch it out.  It only took a moment to get the bartender's attention.  Jonas passed the wine glass over for a refill, and then, after briefly considering his own libation status, ordered a second ale as well.

"Not really the most convenient wish, summoning the dead," he could hear Anna put in to the group behind him, as he waited for the two drinks.  "It seems like there's always a catch with that sort of thing.  And isn't that supposed to be one of the things that magic can't do, anyhow?"

"Oh my god."

Tamzin summoned a chair for her bum as The Tidy Youth started in on her about culture and unspiced food and can't we all just get along. So, thank Merlin for the Cornish!

"Merciful Jonas," she said in gratitude for the refill. When was the last time they'd met? Had to be at least a year. She found her wand to make herself aware of who might be around and noted that Anna was with them as well. Nice woman.

"No, no, that's the third brother," she said, "listen to Jonas."

Oh, but now she wasn't sure if she was being rude.  She turned towards the young man.

"Do you know him? This is Jonas Trevelyan. He's sturdier than he seems. You know me, of course. Tamzin Ollivander, yes -"

"Yes, those Ollivanders!"

"Shut up, Poz! Ha! But he's right."

Oh.  Could anything have made the day better then an acknowledged The Walking Dead reference?  If there was, Sasha wasn't quite sure what it would be.  He'd even started to raise his hand to elicit a high five out of the auror but thought better of it and passed off the partial gesture by running his fingers through his hair to smooth out non-existent fly-aways. 

"Not in the way one might think," Sasha offered as a vague answer to Mrs. Trevelyan's question.  His unauthorized independent research and attempt at necromancy had given him a little more experience with the topic than, in hindsight, he wished.  "An approximation is possible but, no, it's not like ... Gandalf ... or Flatliners or anything." 

Somehow, apparently, the whole fact that the third brother had had the cloak should have been obvious and there existed no version of storytelling-reality where the second brother might have visited the third to take, borrow or steal the cloak. 

"Alright,"  Sasha agreed, turning to listen to Jonas who knew the distribution of gifts but, despite the wandmaker's optimism, didn't seem any better equipped to explain why the second brother lived alone, either.  "If it's anything like the fables I grew up with, it's because he killed his wife and ... anyone else that came by."  Ahh - the innocence of German childrens' stories. 

"Yes, I'm acquainted with Mr. Trevelyan.  And, you as well."  Sasha confirmed.  "I believe I got my third wand from you."  Unfortunately, he'd had that wand for less then a month before Callum Knight had destroyed it.  He'd had such bad luck with wands that year. 

"So, why was the brother living alone?"

"Well, let's see," Jonas said cheerfully as he rejoined the group.  "Here, Tamzin," he added, passing the glass of wine to the wand maker.  "Your refill."

Limping only a little, he rejoined his wife at the nearby table, a fresh glass of lager in hand.

"This is the one who asked for the Resurrection Stone, innit?"  He lowered himself slowly to sit, close enough to Anna that their free arms were touching.  Back to using logic and fictional conventions to navigate his way through the story.  "So if the point is dramatic irony, reckon everyone about him's got to be dead.  Probably not his family," he said, giving a wave of his free hand, "since we know he's still got two brothers about, but maybe a loved one, yeah?"