15 September 2012
10:30pm, Saturday
Club Signature, Hogsmeade

She just wanted him to be there next to her. The heavy murmur of the fancy bar at Signature had the affect of blurring over itself and making it easy to feel as though one was under water, all conversation muffled. Heavy scents lingered in the air around him. By now, Figaro Sellaphix no longer felt like he was going to be found out as not belonging in spaces like these. Just being in Wilhemena Gunn's luxurious aura was enough for him to be included among all of these wealthy people (or people pretending to be wealthy). He looked respectable, he wore the clothes well (thanks to the intervention of Virgil Carstairs). He would touch her at the small of her back. She would touch him on his cheek, on his arm, elsewhere. And, if didn't say anything, all the better for the illusion.

Wilhemena was in conversation now with a round-looking wizard with round glasses. Figaro gathered he was a writer of some kind, and furiously gay. Wilhemena loved that type and she was laughing brightly. This type loved her as well, happy at captivating her and complimenting her dress and her accessories and her little boyfriend. Oh, Wil, he's too old for you, the writer teased. Figaro sipped his drink knowing they were going have a fabulous lay after when they returned to Wilhemena's place.

These last months had gone by so quickly and Figaro felt like it was a new life. It seemed like all he did now, just biding his time in between dates with Wil, doing what she asked and being adored for it. And when he disappointed her, all the better because her corrections made him crazy. He'd told Virgil the other night that he was in love with her, and he looked it.[1] She'd noticed him staring a few times in a way that made her pause, like he'd caught her at something, so she'd criticize his pocket square or the way his semi-Mancusian accent came forward or that she could smell gillyweed on him.

But now, Figaro was stealing glances at someone else. The performance of his total obsession with Wilhemena wavered when he broke character to crane his neck at a short dark-haired witch he thought he recognized in the crowded room.

"Oh, rubbish, I'm dry," Wilhemena said, sensing she was losing his attention. Her martini glass was indeed all toothpick. The writer remarked that he soundly doubted she'd ever been that, ah ha ha ha!

"Do hurry back, lovely," Wilhemena instructed Figaro and kissed him at the corner of his mouth. She loved when he hurried back.

1.	14 Sept 2012 - I was once such a fool

Sophie found herself at Signature because, really, what else was a girl to do? She had dreamed of performing in a place like this as a little girl, dreamed of sneaking in with Figaro when Spellpunk no longer suited them but there was a hollowness to her attendance now - in part because she missed that boy but moreover because she missed the freedom of that time in her life. She had been in such a hurry to grow up (as little witchlings are oft want to do) that she had completely missed out on the joys of being a fifteen-year-old with no responsibilities, with no one to please but herself (alright, and her parents).

She was stuck in the hole of missing what was that she nearly missed out on the pair of eyes that followed her toward the stage. She was dressed up in her mother's favorite cocktail dress, an obscenely expensive little number that reminded her of the great Dolly St. James and made Sophie feel a bit like she was playing at being a grownup. Still, she made her way center stage and perched on a barstool enchanting the crowd with a sweet rendition of At Last by the amazing muggle Etta James.

It was an old song that had a lot of meaning for the petite witch - just enough bittersweet to tint her performance as she held the ancient-looking microphone in one hand and crooned into the night. When it was all said and done there was a flurry of applause, of whistles from the crowd who were very pleased to see the next generation of Flickwick carrying on the family legacy.

She made her way off stage and toward the bar to varied tones of congratulations and offers to buy her drinks. She smiled sweetly but turned them all down - pointing out that Finnley never made pretty performers buy their own drinks. When she finally reached the bar she caught the faintest whiff of gillyweed and felt that hollow pang in her chest before dark eyes found a familiar face toward her left. It was as if he materialized out of nowhere (or she was just that lost in her own thoughts), she almost wasn't sure he was real and wanted to reach out and pinch him just to be sure... so she did.

"Fig! It's really you, sort of?" He had been on her mind so much lately but this version of him was more than a little unexpected - all dressed up and looking like a self-assured adult. He was so far removed from the grubby-faced kid she'd known basically her whole life. Without really thinking she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a tight squeeze, teetering on her heels ever so slightly with the exuberant effort of it all.

Figaro had lost track of who he'd thought he'd seen only for her to find him. "Sophie!"

"Bloody hell, posh, look at you," he said with enthusiasm. She was still short, round-faced Sophie, but the dress, the make-up, the hair - she looked like a magazine. He'd never seen her so dressed up and he realized the likewise was true as well. He didn't even have trainers on - no, actual shoes.

"I thought you were in America. What are you doing here? This cost three galleons." He indicated his drink. Not that he'd paid for it.

The conversation he'd had with Virgil last night was suddenly very much with him, when Virgil had revealed that he and Sophie had had sex back in their seventh year during one of Fig and Sophie's off-agains, the one that followed their last on-again. He'd convinced himself that he hadn't been jealous.[1] After not hearing from her for months, it was as if they'd summoned her. She was a Seer, after all. He suddenly wondered if she could possibly know they'd talked about her.

1.	14 Sept 2012 - I was once such a fool (M - mentions of sex)

Sophie laughed letting dark eyes roam his face and the rest of him, having to bite her lip to try and contain her excitement at seeing her old flame. Gordic's Garters she'd been crazy about him almost as crazy as he made her in general. Pulling back to inspect him fully she wrinkled her nose and gave a one-shouldered shrug, "What, this old thing?"

"I came home! Obviously," her tone grew brighter by the second as she stood there trying not to gape at him. He looked good - which was disconcerting if only because she had missed him so much lately. The bartender slid a firewhiskey across the smooth countertop toward her and she smiled at him sweetly before turning her attention back to Fig, "Okay so what's the gag then? I go away for a year and come back to you looking like a changing," she was teasing if him of course because that's what they did. She was so far out of the loop that she had no idea he'd taken up with an older woman. Her Seer status really wouldn't have prepped her for such a revelation.

"Oh, right! Fuck." Figaro said, remembering Wilhemena. "I'm here with my girlfriend."

He ducked his head so he could point her out to Sophie at her eyeline. Across the room was a petite witch in black fur and silver. She was a witch in her 30s with a white-blonde bob, pale skin set off with a dark red lip. She was smoking from a long cigarette holder and still laughing and chatting with that writer who must be telling some wild story that had his hands flapping.

"Wilhemena," he told her, his tone warm and proud. Wil and everything she'd done for him, it made him feel like he'd finally grown up, that he'd arrived. That someone so sophisticated would want him had given him a new confidence and wisdom. "Wil. She's amazing."

She was the spokeswitch for the Werewolf Wing, highly visible in the press.

He knew that among adults, even with Sophie, he shouldn't be cagey about it. Adults were happy for each other. He and Sophie hadn't been together in years and when they'd reconnected at Virgil and Nick's New Years' Eve party, they hadn't hooked up. Sophie had her new life, Figaro had his. It was the way things ought to be. Right?

Sophie blinked once then again at the mention of a girlfriend but did her best to hide her surprise. It was silly, really, the pang she felt in her chest. She and Fig hadn't been a thing in a long time, and they were proper friends now despite all the ups and downs of their relationship. So why on earth should it bother her that he had a girlfriend? It didn't make sense, but maybe it was because it was one more indication that the people around her were growing away from her that had her feeling some type of way about everything.

Following his line of sight she had to double-take again, this time because his girlfriend was, well, not old enough to be his mother but definitely too old for Figaro. She felt a strange protective urge take over her - which was absolutely ridiculous because she had no claim to Fig and hadn't in years! She was being absolutely ridiculous and tried not to let it show on her face as she forced a smile, "She used to work with my mum," it was an offhand remark - because she didn't really know what else to say about the whole affair.

Busying herself with her drink she took a long pull from the cut crystal glass before turning back toward Fig, smile shifting to a more genuine lilt as she shook her head, "I can't believe it's really you. You look so...different." It wasn't bad but she just...well she'd been missing the old Fig. This didn't feel like him, it smacked of artifice but she'd never say that out loud to anyone. It would sound too much like jealousy.

Fig didn't catch Sophie's hesitation, although he probably should have.

"Try not to be intimidated," he joked and pulled at his cuffs as he'd seen fancy gentlemen do. In truth, he was proud of his new look and the attention it elicited.

"It's half Virgil," he admitted then. Their fashion-fluent friend had been helping Figaro dress properly, though Fig was getting better at it on his own with the guidance. There was no need to elaborate; and Fig had now remembered his purpose.

"Hang on. Let me get these drinks and I'll introduce you."

He ordered and in a few minutes he had them both in hand. "It's been since April. Apparently, I'm a snack. C'mon."

As Figaro had shared with Virgil (and no one else for Wilhemena enjoyed the mystery of it) he was perhaps more flattered than was healthy that he was desired in what felt like such a mature way. That an experienced witch found him sexy, that she reveled in his admiration, that she liked to show him off. That was never the reaction he'd had in school.