On the corner near the Stardust Theatre
14 Oct 2011, Friday night @10:30pm

A haunted accordion rolled rhythmically through the minor chords of an American folk song, something rooted in religion moved forward in a longing sort of despairing tune. The player swayed with her song, bobbing her head. Her wide-brimmed witches hat cast her face in a stark shadow. She wasn't singing now, only humming.  At her feet, an upturned baseball cap with an assortment of both muggle and Wizarding coins sitting inside.

It was a little late for Covent Garden, but the girl called Nemo was matching the vibe. Soon the Stardust wayfarers would finish their journeys across the stage and their audience would emerge from their imaginations and onto the street. Young Nemo hoped they would pass by and, still entranced from their magical night, pay her something.

After a bit, she lifted her voice to sing a verse.

"I shall be free from every trial, and I shall rest beneath the ground. but golden fields are waiting for me, my weary eyes no more shall weep..."

Something about her voice hinted that she was accompanied by another singer, touching on a dissonant harmony, but she was alone.

It had been a decent go at Agatha Christie's The Hollow, a precursor performance to Edgar's musical that would be opening for Halloween. Velvet red curtains fell noiselessly to the stage floor, applause rose into the amphitheatre, a bowing encore soon to follow. Virgil had come with one of the troupe members who hadn't been a part of the play.

              "Joinin' us for drinks?" the actor asked while they followed the crowd out of the hall.

"I have plans tomorrow," Virgil replied and slipped his jacket back on before dropping a couple of galleon's into his friend's palm. "Toast a drink to me." They parted ways, one going backstage and the other towards the exit.

Tomorrow was when he would be seeing Cepheus. He didn't want to be hungover or half-asleep, he needed his wits about him. The young wizard stepped out into the chilly night air and glanced up at what little of the sky he could see from the narrow alley in which Stardust's warded entrance was secreted. It was good weather for a wander.

There was music in the air. Virgil followed it, hands in his pockets and a peacefulness coming over his lucid blue eyes. The  theatre crowd carried him around the corner towards Convent Garden's glittering muggle realm.

             "...and I shall rest beneath the ground. but golden fields are waiting for me, my weary eyes no more shall weep..." a young witchy looking girl was singing, accompanied by a mournful sounding accordion.

"Are those elysian fields you're caterwauling about?" Virgil asked, digging out a shiny sickle and tossing it into the baseball cap. "It's Friday night," he added with a glance at the lively city around them. "You'll get more coin if you lift spirits."

It was Virgil who always seemed to be longing for something. At his suggestion to play something happier, she slid her bottom lip under her top teeth in an unsettling grin. Her fingers flowed her song into a major key and after a few bars the song was recognizably now 'Don't Worry Be Happy'.

Her jest only lasted long enough to land the joke. "Are your spirits lifted?" she asked, finishing the phrase with a silly little run up the scale.

Then, "how was the show? Did they catch the killer? Happy ending?"

Nemo hadn't seen this one yet, and only knew it was a murder mystery. She used to watch Poirot on PBS with her mom, but didn't remember if she'd seen The Hollow.

He laughed as she struck off a few bars of the Bobby McFerrin tune, reaching into his pocket for the joint he'd rolled in the theatre lavatory during intermission. His mind reached out to a few of the passersby - muggle police were never a problem, they always mistook gillyweed for some foreign brand of tobacco, but an eager young patrol officer from level 2 might be lurking on a busy friday night.


No, he was safe. "Lifted all the way up to high heavens." Virgil mumbled at Nemo with the joint between his lips as he lit it. Some older Stardust patrons dropped knuts into the baseball cap. He inhaled and coughed lightly into his sleeve. It was the good stuff. Roark always dealt the good stuff.

            "How was the show? Did they catch the killer? Happy ending?"

"Bittersweet," the Unspeakable shrugged, briefly casting his mind back to the performance. "You can call it a happy ending. I won't spoil it for you," he smiled sleepily at her. It was one of the plays[1] he preferred in print. "But I can promise the butler didn't do it."

Virgil extended the joint to the witch. They only really knew one another from a glancing chat or two in this area, both of them appearing to be Convent Garden regulars. She looked old enough for a smoke. "Toke?" he offered. "Can't smoke it all by myself."

He could but that was probably a bad idea. If Nemo didn't take it, it would have to be saved to send him to sleep later.

1.	The Hollow

Aw, Virgil. So nice.  Nemo was two years younger than Virgil (she knew he was just out of Hogwarts) and she appreciated that he wasn't an asshole about it. Some of the others his age treated her with kid gloves; but they didn't know anything.

She chucked at his 'butler' comment, and took the gillyweed, had a turn, and handed it back.

"Thanks, buddy." Nemo hadn't had gillyweed before she came to London, just mostly crappy ditchweed which she didn't care for.

She wouldn't make any more money tonight if she didn't play anything, but there really wasn't anyway to play an accordion quietly. Unless you were a witch. She did the muggle check to her left and right before drawing the wand from inside the brim of her tall pointed hat, and giving the bellows a little tap-tap.

"Decrecsendio"  Now she took up her original tune, still clear and carrying, but quiet enough to talk over.

"I think it's a happy song. Not being afraid of death."

As she made it clear that the show must go on, he leaned against the brick wall to stand alongside Nemo while they chatted. Virgil took a toke and slowly tapped his foot to the tune her enchanted accordion was emancipating to the passing crowds of central London.

             "I think it's a happy song. Not being afraid of death."

"Everyone's afraid of death," he flicked a bit of ash on to the ground and thought about the Death Chamber on level nine. "Or maybe it's the dying part they're afraid of, not the golden fields."

Being in the chamber wasn't exactly comfortable but he didn't feel afraid of what lay beyond the veil - simply curious, perhaps unwisely drawn to the strange whispers at first. He drew another puff and started to feel the haze in his mind, both lifting and falling into his thoughts.

"What about you, personally?" Virgil finally asked after what he perceived as a drifting pause; his eyes looked past the people around them and he stared into space. The wall behind him was nice and cool. "Afraid, or is the singing part of teaching yourself not be afraid?"

It was just one of those nights, when conversation came easy. He had no filter and it didn't seem odd to chat to Nemo about these things.

"I'm not afraid of anything," Nemo said quietly defiant and arched an eyebrow at Virgil.  In that moment, she believed it, too.  The chords came around to the chorus again, and she coo'd the words with the casual ease of one who was, as declared, unafraid.

"I'm going home to see my mother," she sang. "Going home, no more to roam. I'm just going over Jordan. I am just going over home."

She nodded her wide brim in thanks for a few more pence from passersby. Virgil was a good to have haunting her act - he lent an aire of red curtain semi-anguished semi-interest. A pied piper for anyone else who secretly yearned for his ease and quiet angst. Wasn't beyond imagination those coins were as much to appreciate Nemo as to impress Virgil.

"Death is too big," she said more thoughtfully, playing again quietly below their conversation. "It's like whale or a  ... planet..."

"Jupiter. Is. So. Big. Fear doesn't even work on it." She took her fingers off the keys and reached for the gillyweed.

            "I'm not afraid of anything."

He laughed, once, a sound of incredulity. There was no such thing as being fearless. Virgil was sure that something would manifest if a Boggart slithered out of the drains right now - though he wasn't certain nowadays what his own would be. Sometimes he was tempted to find out.

            "Jupiter. Is. So. Big. Fear doesn't even work on it."

"It is terribly big," he agreed as he handed over the joint and thought about the Space Chamber on level nine. "But it's mostly gas. Jupiter is probably afraid it will dissipate into space." Virgil pictured the planet dissolving into the blackness. "And then nobody will remember it."

Was death really that big? Virgil considered the notion. He watched a couple walk by, having just left Stardust, and they dropped some coins with a smile at him. He smiled back, forgetting his sullen pout for a moment.

"Nothing is too big for death though, is it?" Virgil commented, melting Jupiter still on the edge of his thoughts. "I don't think it's big, though. I think it's just very, very patient."

Which was fine because he saw no reason to rush to it, when it was so used to waiting eons for planets and solar systems to decay. He reached for his gillyweed again. "You're good, by the way. Do you ever write your own?"

Nemo took a puff and held it in for a second, the fuzzy sort of friendliness of the magical plant working it's craft in her bones. She reveled in the moment, the sweet night air of London (sweet for it's ambiance if not its actual atmosphere) and the freedom to play and be unhindered. This would have never happened back in the before. She said a quiet curse on all those who'd held her back.

"Holy crap, Virgil. That's dark," she said with a laugh. The idea of death, stalking and patient, just waiting for the right time to slice you down with her scythe. She was amused. Virgil did something creepy and secret at the Ministry is all she knew. Sounded alright for a boring government job, at least.

          "You're good, by the way. Do you ever write your own?"

She handed the joint back, as much to be finished with her turn as to free up her hands. "Why thank you, gov'nah."

To answer his question, she changed key on her instrument into an almost sarcastic major key, dissonant chords dropped in here and there.

"He'll offer you a comfort that is ... herbal...
Get past his thorns 'n' he's quite ... cordial...
I'd say his appeal's ... universal...
London's spooky son, our love, our Virgil..."

The lyrics were clearly improvised - a bit choppy and the rhymes not quite complete. But it was a tune she'd been working on, so at least that sounded fairly good. There were a shortage of new chord progressions it the world so it was fun to chase something unheard of. The stranger the better.

            "Holy crap, Virgil. That's dark."

Virgil laughed as well, smoke escaping him so that his head appeared to float in the thick of it. "Dark? Is it?" he asked rhetorically and thought of Emily Dickinson for a brief moment - because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me. No. That didn't seem very dark to him at all. There was no haste. Only a kind of friend to meet at the end.

But Nemo was already playing one of her own tunes and so he shook off his thoughts, leaving the joint between his lips to give light applause.

"London's spooky son!" Virgil repeated with delight and affected a modest little curtsy for her makeshift serenade. "I liked that, subject aside -" he shook a lock of blonde hair out his eyes, vaguely self-deprecating in tone, "- but you need a bigger audience. Don't you want to play at Stardust?"

There were other theatres in London, magical or otherwise, but Edgar's establishment was one of few who cleared their Saturday afternoons for amateur performers to take the stage. After an entry process, of course.

Virgil passed the gillyweed, considering Nemo with a keener eye now. "It's a sickle to audition," he told her and shrugged, "but they waive it sometimes."

Nemo grinned wide from under the shadow of her hat, quite pleased with herself. She continued playing softly, something minor and limping. Her fingers found the buttons easily, and she swayed a little enjoying the moment.

"I've thought about it," she said with a shrug. She did want to. Stardust was cool, it paid, and someone who worked there made wicked posters. It wasn't the sickle that bothered her, it was the audition. The thought of humbling herself before some judge stung a bit. But if she wanted to move up in the world, she'd have to impress a few of the right people, she supposed.

"Who's the guy? Is it your dad? Maybe I just had my audition," she said sweetly.  Virgil's father was Edgar Carstairs, the owner of the theatre. He was probably as strange as Virgil, but Nemo had never met him.

             "Who's the guy? Is it your dad? Maybe I just had my audition."

Virgil rolled his eyes, lips still pulled into a dry smile. Was it really so obvious that he was Edgar's son? It hadn't been when he was younger and patrons wondered at the little golden haired boy running around the theatre like he owned it. Nowadays, anyone could see the resemblance. The gaunt shadows under his eyes, his thin mouth pressed into a thoughtful line or giggly smile.

A certain way of looking through others. Now, of course, he looked at Nemo to properly assess her.

"Edgar judges, yes, but he's not alone." Virgil glanced over his shoulder and around the corner - into the alley that took you to Stardust Theatre. "Just tell them you were sent by Dante Alighieri," he turned back to her, smirking at the reference. "They'll waive the sickle and keep an eye on you."

The world of entertainment was all about knowing the right people... and he was one of those people, or at least he was for now. Virgil leaned back against the cool wall, sighing lightly.

"You're going to love it," he told her and his voice felt like it was reaching out from the mist of gillyweed inside his chest. "If you get to perform on the regular. It's the best place in the world."

Well, that was lucky. Nemo shrugged and looked away, picking up the tempo for a knot of punks with spiky jackets and bright hair across the street. They glanced over, but didn't cross.  She didn't know who Dante was; inside joke probably.

Virgil was waxing sentimental.  "Best place in the world," she echoed.

She believed he believed that, but it sounded too good to be true. It certainly was a magical place, in the poetic sense. Dark and bright at the same time, hidden away, a house of make-believe. Anyone could be anybody, she supposed. She'd done a play in high school, just a bit part. It'd been fun playing cards backstage and sneaking clove cigarettes on the fire escape.

"What's so good about it?" she asked.  If she was to be included in the fold, maybe there was something she was missing.

As she awaited an answer, she dug in her pocket for the small black flip phone and pressed the button to light up the little screen. It was close to eleven. Her attention to playing was waning and the foot traffic was just going to get quieter. Fewer and fewer out this time of night were the sort to pay heed to a busker. She let the accordion straps slide off her shoulders and set about putting it back in the case.  She collected her tin; mostly coins, some muggle, some magic. Not terrible.

            "What's so good about it?"

He glanced at the witch, noting her little muggle device - mobile phones. Virgil didn't have one himself but he'd gone ahead and installed a landline in their flat, similar to the one in Abby's flat. It had taken some saving up but he was pleased with the decision. His more muggle savvy friends could call whenever and the phone could make calls in to late night Wireless shows.

"It's bigger on the inside," Virgil replied with a smile, "like most of us."

Stardust. The matter from which they were all made, from which dreams were made.  A final puff and then the joint was quickly stubbed out against the alley wall. "And everyone who works there understands what it means to want to perform or make art. They really understand."

He slipped his hands into his pocket and smiled sleepily at Nemo, because she also understood. The people onstage and backstage and behind the pen... it wasn't just a hobby for them. It was a calling. Not an easy one, either. When you wrote or acted, you had to do it even when you didn't feel like it.

"Is that you for tonight?"

"It's bigger on the inside. Like most of us."

"You're such a raconteur, Virgil," she said both teasing and impressed. "I'm going to steal that." Maybe she'd find a way to stick it into the melody she'd been working on.

"Is that you for tonight?"

She shut the case and drew her wand. In the dark she wasn't worried about muggles seeing.

"Just playing. But not tired, yet. Reducio." The bulky box jumped a little, spun in the air, and shrunk to the size of a shoebox.

"Stay up until, like, two." She shrugged. No big deal. She stowed her things in her bag, hefted it over her shoulder, and reached again for the gillyweed.  Nemo took a few steps past Virgil towards the entrance to Stardust.

Turning, "do you have a key or something?" She'd been inside a few times to hear a band, and once, a play, but had never been backstage or anything.