9 December 2011
9am on a Friday morning
The Blackwood Cafe

It was Friday, and even though Figaro's erratic schedule at the Daily Prophet rendered Friday practically useless as a marker for a break from toil, it still held a sort of sacred frivolity. Today, he was coming off the night shift which amounted to baby sitting the press as it chugged away at the morning edition and keeping the night crew well caffeinated. Figaro had grown used to the shifting shiftwork and was positively chipper as he walked into his local cafe, the Blackwood.

He'd become a regular over the summer and fall since he moved to a flat nearby. He liked the muggle neighborhood and liked the quietly magical portion of the Blackwood's clientelle, including the strange old Mr. Leslie and the interesting Léonie Wakahisa. Well, she was a squib but what did that matter? She was inside and unlike too many of his friends didn't seem to object to his career. (If being a gofer at the newspaper could be considered a career.)

Fig was looking more and more mature since Hogwarts. He was, to his satisfaction, losing his youthful baby fat and his beard filling in. His hair was darkening a touch too and he was at risk of looking more and more like his dead. Today, as ever, he'd neglected to dress for the weather but for a knit hat. Short sleeves (his family's apothecary logo upon it) and grey trousers.

The cafe was busy at this hour, but Figaro didn't seem to care as he slid up to the pick-up side of the counter. He leaned forward looking for Léonie, the morning edition of the Daily Prophet tucked folded under his arm.

  "...hea....fun....ca....oni?"

Léonie tugged a black shirt on in the backroom of the cafe and distractedly adjusted her jeans before reaching for one of Blackwood's brown aprons. She had her earphones in and was listening to the last Florence + The Machine album, subtly mouthing the lyrics to herself.

           "LÉONIE!"

One of the other baristas was trying to talk to her. The squib finished tying her apron and looked up, going to unplug herself. "What's good?" she asked the muggle, a tall and skinny black boy with sixteen ear piercings - all of which she envied. He was undoing his own apron, having come off his early morning shift roasting their coffee beans. "I said, I heard you're planning a funeral for your cat?"

"Oh, yeah." Léonie brushed back her dark hair and turned to leave the backroom. "Ten o'clock, my studio. You can bring kombucha if you want," she added - which meant bring some - before heading out to start her shift.

The sight of Figaro's slightly bearded face slid into view as she approached her darling coffee machine, running a hand over its sleek and glossy surface. She liked Fig. He always brought her a copy of the Prophet and he had funny things to say about the Other world. He was totally a wizard but not in a way that made her feel like she was missing out.

"Morning. The usual?" she asked, and stopped herself from reaching for a cup so that she could hold out her hand for the paper instead. "I'll take that now."

Léonie glanced away to check on the rest of the customers, but they seemed distracted by caffeine deprivation. The cashier yelled out a series of orders - two filters to stay, a latte and an americano to go. One flat white with oat milk, one cortado with regular milk. Never change, London.

"Morning, Leo," he replied and handed over the folded newspaper, but not before checking to see who, if anyone was watching. Nobody was; it was too busy.

As to his usual, he waved it off.

"No thanks, I'm just getting off work," he explained. "Should probably try and get a few hours of sleep in. People sleep, right? Have you heard of that? Apparently, you just lie there. I guess some find it relaxing. Thought I'd try it..."

He scratched at his jawline, indifferent to the morning rush around him. Oh, he'd budge over a few inches when someone needed to get to the counter, but mostly he loitered until someone with sufficient social or political capitol shoo'ed him off.

Talking of sleep made him yawn.

"How's your cat?"

She gave the Prophet headlines a quick glance before folding the paper and tucking it into the oversized pockets of her apron. Léonie used to only read the news a couple of times a month and get wizarding gossip from her mum, but then she'd heard about all those squibs buried in that Knightsbridge building. Better safe than sorry - and better informed than ignorant.

"I heard people don't even know why we sleep," she talked in her usual monotone as she filled two ceramic cups to the brim and slid it over the counter at a couple who were breakfasting together, "like, we burn more energy when we're sleeping but our brains need to turn off for some mysterious reason?"

Leo glanced towards the huddled group waiting for their takeaways. "Grig! Miram!" she poured foamy milk and oat milk into the paper cups brandishing misspelled names before handing them over, ignoring the polite thanks they mumbled in response.

             "How's your cat?"

"Dead." Léonie caught the cashier's next two orders and turned around to pick up a plastic container of chocolate syrup. "He was getting on," she poured the syrup, pausing for a second to blink. Her studio was so quiet without that furry bastard yowling every few minutes.

It felt like she was missing something physical and she couldn't explain it. She didn't think it was a muggle-y sensation. The squib tossed her head back to flick some hair out of her face, finishing off the mocha order. "Going to have a funeral tonight. Do you want to come?"

The invite slipped out automatically. Léonie did that a lot. She also felt like bonding with a pet was a squib thing to do.... and Fig might get that part of her better than her muggle friends.

Figaro's eyebrows shot up at the news Léonie's boorish feline foe was dead. "Aw... Puteh was awesome."

But a funeral? Figaro hadn't ever met-up with Léonie outside of the cafe, but he had bumped into a few of her muggle friends. They all looked exactly like one would imagine of art school students, even if they all weren't. It was an entirely different set of the admittedly cloistered Hogwarts students - finishing school and living on his own had been one eye-opener after another. Just meeting new people, spending time alone (and enjoying it?), and mixing more in the muggle world: he was soaking it in. Blundering up frequently, but it was overall net positive.

"Uh, yeah," he said furrowing his brow in a performance of solemnity. "I could use some closure. What time?"

He might have continued but a titter of laughter grew in the shop accompanied by tapping at the window. Figaro looked up and saw what was amusing everyone so much: a large raven was walking back and forth along the window sill, rapping on the glass. It had something shiny in its beak.

"Oh for ... " He buried his face in his hands. "I mean, love her to death..."

            "I could use some closure. What time?"

Léonie smirked, gently shaking a tiny metal jug of foamy milk and pouring int an eco-cup. "Nine. You can bring drinks, I have food covered. It's vegan," she added as a warning before sliding the mocha over the counter, where it was immediately snatched up by a muggle in a plaid suit.

There was a scene going one at the window. Normally she could ignore the coffee shop crowd but Figaro seemed as involved as anybody in what was happening. Leo rose to her tiptoes, getting a good look at the corvid knocking at the glass.

"Is she a friend of yours?" she looked at Figaro with a frown, trying to remember how many wixes she knew who chose to use non-traditional birds. "And how do you even know it's a she? Can you sex ravens?" A couple of customers looked over at that last question but Léonie just continued to make drinks, pushing her long hair back over her shoulder.

One Americano to-go, a macchiato for here.

"I can sex anything," Figaro replied.

He shifted position at the counter to take another look at the funny bird, strolling back and forth only to flap away if a passerby got to close then come back over. Figaro had no doubt she'd get bored, move along, and show up at his balcony later. No doubt she had important raven business to attend to.

Turning back to Léonie, whose cat funeral sounded On Brand, he explained. "I started sharing my food with her and then she started bringing me stuff. Coins, keys, bottle caps, small children."

Bird or no bird, party favors, stolen toe rings, or pizza crust blackmail, Figaro seemed content with the scenario and he was still enjoying the strange interaction as it played out over the previous weeks.

            "I can sex anything."

Léonie laughed, the kind of laugh that started in your throat and never reached your mouth. She handed over two very full cups of cappuccino to a couple of sit-in customers and then smiled musingly at Figaro. "Corvids do that. They're very smart, you could probably train her to carry messages for you or something."

In muggle talk, that was probably more incredible a feat than as she meant it. Léo could definitely imagine wixes using ravens and crows instead of owls, though. They probably couldn't carry as much stuff but if you wanted to send the magical equivalent of a text message, small birds were probably faster. Especially if it was just across town.

"Don't forget to wear black tonight," she added as she poured a mug of regular drip coffee for herself, "and you can help me find a new cat if you're free one of these days. Unless," Léonie raised her eyebrows mockingly, "tonight doesn't give you enough closure. Then you're forgiven for not wanting to meet Puteh's successor."

"Hm..." Figaro hadn't yet considered exploring the limits of Trouble's motivation. Figaro delivered messages for just knuts an hour, and quite happily at that. Surely, the raven could be similarly coaxed. Which of his London-local friends, the sorry lot of them, would he be sic'ing crows at? And if he sent Trouble to, say, Blake, would Trouble end up at Bevans'?

"I'll have a word with her next time we speak," he resolved.

Léonie was staying strong, but Figaro guessed she must be a bit gutted for Puteh. He'd been a very good cat. A smart match for Léo and her own brand of, he'd been about to think witchiness, but it wasn't quite that. Fig drummed his fingers on the counter and smiled at her.

"No, definitely. I can help with the nominations process at least. My emotional range should be able to manage."

Then, he remembered something. "Have you heard of this thing S.Q.U.E.A.L.? Squib Union for Equality and Liberation. There's a bit about them on page twelve."

For all the jokes about Figaro being able to read, he had plenty of time to read now and was very quietly becoming deftly fluent in the contents of the Prophet on a daily basis. He'd started noticing the little adverts in the classifieds about meetings and things.

"You go in for things like that?"

The initial rush of customers was slowing down to a manageable pace, and one of Léo's colleagues joined her at the machine, taking over the espresso shots and steamer with little more than a friendly bump of his hip to hers. She nodded thanks at him before turning back to Fig and leaning forward against the counter.

"Yes, I've heard of it," she wrapped her long and skinny fingers around her mug - there was paint stuck under her nails, still. "At least my mum has. She sends me clippings from their meetings and she's been wanting me to attend forever."

Léonie's mouth contorted itself into a displeasurable moue. Her mum always made it sound like attending an AA meeting. A chance for her to bond with people who would understand squib problems and support each other in moments of squib-y weakness. It sounded very droll.

"I'll read page twelve," she conceded, because it was still news about people like her. "I guess I get so stuck into life around here I forget that not everyone like me wants to just... you know." Léo smiled at Figaro a little sadly as she sipped her coffee. "Escape it all."

Or go full-muggle, as she was used to saying.

Escape it all? A note of concern colored Figaro's expression. He'd heard her mention it in terms of 'full-muggle'. He wondered what that would mean. He didn't know what it was like to be Léo and he couldn't imagine life separate from, well, everything he knew. He scratched at the corner of the raw-edge wooden counter top. Her evaluation of the group seemed fair. He'd been in S.A.W.S, the Hogwarts student werewolf rights group. It had been a little odd that there were almost no werewolves in it - even Ollie Foley had stepped away from it. He had to correct himself though, squibs weren't cursed. They just were.

He put his cheery grin back on. "We'd miss you," he said. She was, indeed, his most interesting friend.

Figaro might have dropped the topic, but that wasn't a behavior he was really capable of. "What would that look like, though? Stop going to Reducto, or what?"

            "What would that look like, though? Stop going to Reducto, or what?"

"Um." Léonie paused to think, drinking her coffee - it tasted so good after smelling all the espresso shots  this morning - and trying to keep her words diplomatic. Because Figaro didn't really get it. Maybe he'd never get it, the temptation to pretend the wizarding world didn't exist. In her darker moments, when she was still doing her bachelors, she had wanted to be Obliviated.

A clean cut from everything that portrayed her as an outsider of the magical world. But she wasn't sure if she could ever do it, not with her family on the other side and even some friends. They were good people, they tried to be good.

"It's like, I'd stop going to the alley altogether?" The space between her eyebrows wrinkled hesitantly. "Like playing pretend, but I pretend that the alley and everything it represents doesn't exist anymore. Like this is my life, nothing else," she gestured at the coffee shop with her mug.

The muggles, stepping in and stepping out, busy with normal stuff. People who didn't know with their heart and soul that dragons or unicorns existed. That everything in the fairy tales were real but not real for them, because they didn't have that something special. That magic.

Léo sighed lightly. "Anyway. Tonight. Cat funeral. Don't forget."

Figaro let his gaze wander away from Léonie to the cafe, which was still humming healthy with the morning energy. Léo wanted to forget and it made Figaro think of a white cold sadness just freezing up his insides. He hated thinking that his whole world was something that caused that kind of feeling in someone who seemed so ... okay. The only other squib he knew was Abby Reid who just overflowed with an impossible optimism - it would be a mistake to imagine her experience was universal. Or even common.

He frowned, suddenly tired. It had been a long night, and despite his coffee order, his intention was to get some rest.

Unsure what to say to Léo, he looked back and offered a sympathetic half-smile. She saved him from trying for anything more sophisticated by reminding him of the funeral. Figaro straightened up and rapped his knuckle on the counter.

"I'll be there. Cat needs a proper send-off."

He nodded and lifted his cup. "Laters. Okay?"