Approx. 12.30pm


It was raining when he got back into London, and there could not have been a better welcome to the great city. Virgil would have been lying if he said he hadn't missed it - down to the smell of wet dog and piss.

"Oh honey~" he cried out in a passable, generically American accent as he slammed the door shut behind him. "I'm home!"

Past noon on a Saturday: neither of his flatmates could hold it against him if he'd roused them at this hour.  He was in an excellent mood, basking in the familiarity of their flat as he walked in with a light step and shed his coat.

The place had acquired a bit of polish since the trio first moved in together. A better sofa, some framed prints and sketches, all manner of cushions. Separating the kitchen space from the living room was a bookshelf of assorted trinkets and knickknacks. He walked around it, whistling one of the Christmas tunes he heard at Nemo's place.

His luggage would be here later. Dante was in the trunk - the extension charm gave her plenty of wandering room in there but he was sure she was getting her white fur all over his dark sweaters by now.

Virgil found their gillyweed box in a cupboard, an ornate rosewood thing his mother had given them when kelp was legalised, and rolled himself a joint.

Ariadne was revising her stats and names for the Montrose Magpies vs Wigtown Wanderers game that evening in Scotland. It was brooms up at seven that night, so she had afforded a bit of a lie in after last night. It had been three and a bit hours in Gloucestershire the previous evening for Tornadoes vs Arrows. She’d not got in until past midnight. Commentating didn’t always end the moment the game finished, there was after-match analysis to try and muscle in on.

Ariadne was doing her best to be everywhere and ensure her voice and name were familiar to audiences. If nothing else, she was sure her younger half-sister, Aoide was tuning in to check if she was on the wireless, from the Hufflepuff common room. That reminded her, she really should write to Aoide and wish her well for the term. Mad to think she was about to face her final exams in a few months.

“Oh honey~” there was a voice at the door, and Ariadne absent-mindedly thought it must be one of Nick’s friends. She was in her room, with the door closed. “I’m home!” There was a tinge of recognition somewhere in the back of Ariadne’s mind and she stopped reading, looking towards her bedroom door. Was that… no. Hang on a minute…

She slipped out from the paperwork all over her blankets and carefully opened the door to peer through the gap. Someone was whistling. Ariadne frowned and threw the door open properly, stepping out into the living space and clapping her eyes on the arrival.

“Virgil!” She exclaimed, her suspicious look washing from her face to be replaced by a delighted grin. It didn’t matter that she was in a pair of pyjama shorts and an old Gryffindor quidditch shirt, barefoot and without makeup. “What the fu…” the full word didn’t make it out of her lips, she was approaching her absent flatmate with opened arms. She breathed him in. He smelled of unknown places, new cologne and floo powder.

“I nearly didn’t recognise your voice,” she admitted, “you gone native?”

Nicholas after a lazy morning had finally resolved to get out and run some errands, grab a bite to eat, and see what he could get up to. He was putting on his shoes when he heard the door slam and a voice that Nicholas couldn't immediately place shout that it was home.  Did Ari have any loud American friends? He certainly did, but they wouldn't have just barged in.  The only person who would come barging into the flat like he lived there—Nicholas unceremoniously shoved his foot into his shoe and swung open his bedroom door.

Their flat mate had finally returned.  Ariadne was already hugging him, Nicholas jumped over the sofa to join them, throwing his arms around them both. "You're back."  He stepped back and looked around, "Where's the fur ball?  I've missed her."

He tucked the unlit joint behind his ear, embracing Ariadne with impulsive gusto. Virgil grinned quite without meaning to - oh he missed this! He missed home, missed its fixtures and its people and its unmistakable scent.

"What, and lose my insufferable affectation?" V laughed at Ari's quip, warm. "Never."

And then Nick was there, one heavy arm over him, and he'd never felt so pleased to see the other wizard. It was only a few months since he last saw them. Virgil had come by in the summer to report to Yavin, among other things, though he hadn't been at the flat as much as he would have liked.

"Dante? In the trunk," he glanced at the kitchen clock. "Within the hour."

Slipping out from under the joined hug, V leaned back against the kitchen counter to light the joint. A flame leapt to life on the tip of his finger. "So what have I missed? Anything scandalous? Shall we do something tonight? Unless you lot have plans I suppose."

Maybe it was the  numerous coffees or the jet leg or the sheer happiness of being home - his thoughts were electric and alive and leaping from one thing to the next.

It was a cuddle puddle in seconds, all three of them with Virgil squished. It was a wholesome moment that defied their adult reality. For a moment the trio were their teenage selves at Hogwarts. Virgil wriggled free, and lit himself the joint he’d rolled, asking if he’d missed anything and if they wanted to do anything that evening.

“Nick’s been twice married and divorced,” Ariadne joked quickly, “second time to each other, awkward.” She thumbed back and forth between her and Nick. “And we sold everything you left behind to fund our alcoholism. Hope you don’t mind.”

She grinned mischievously. In high spirits for seeing Virgil home.

“I’d love to go out tonight, but I’ll have to catch you after the game. This voice is commentating Magpies vs Wanderers tonight in bonny Scotland. Though I don’t suppose you’ve heard me with being across the pond. It’s all quadpot and whatnot.” She tutted sarcastically. Those backwards Americans. “What about you Nick?”

Nicholas took a step back when Virgil freed himself from his and Ari's embrace. He laughed and rolled his eyes as Ari explained he'd been married and divorced twice.  That'd have been quick even for Nicholas. "Actually I spent my share on the divorce, shit is expensive," he added jokingly.

"Really, you missed nothing.  And everything." Nicholas's life had settled into a comfortable place.  There was plenty to catch Virgil up on but it all fit nicely into the pattern of his life now.  And he'd always had a high threshold for what counted as a scandal.

"No plans.  I was going to go out.  But I hadn't planned more than that."

"Hm" he blinked slowly, smiling at the imagined lives of his flatmates. "Good, nobody's allowed to have any real drama unless I'm around."

The gillyweed hit him sooner and with more of a lift than he expected, so Virgil offered it to Nick. "Been off the stuff for months," he explained in passing. "That's strong."

It wasn't a trio without Ariadne but they would have to make do while she was busy being the voice of quidditch. Merlin, he hadn't heard a decent game in an eon. He pulled himself up onto the kitchen counter with a huff.

"We'll make a lad's night out of it, then? Pub, even, we could listen to the game..." V suggested, quickly adding to the witch: "Until you're done enthralling the masses, of course."

He was not one for pubs, typically, but he was back on the shores of home and that felt like a pub-worthy occasion. "Oh!" Virgil turned and tilted his neck slightly, to show off a glittering silver star tatooed behind his right ear. "What do you think? Nemo and I got matching marks."

“Actually I spent my share on the divorce…”
“Ahh yeah, right you did.” Ariadne echoed.

“We’ll make a lad’s night out of it, then?” Virgil suggested to Nick, passing the gillyweed on. He knew better than to offer it to Ariadne. She still hadn’t changed her mind since trying it under the supervision of her aunt and uncle in her grandparent’s back garden one Christmas. It just didn’t agree with her.

“… Until you’re done enthralling the masses, of course.”

“Of course.” Ariadne agreed, arms folded. With luck someone would catch the snitch relatively early and she’d be back to London before her housemates were too far gone.

Conversation shifted straight on, Virgil showing off a new tattoo behind his right ear. Ariadne peered forward, a slight pout on her lips as she examined.

“Nemo and I got matching marks.”

“Are you like one of those friendship necklaces then?” Ariadne asked, put your ears together like two puzzle pieces. She motioned with her hands, swiftly unfolding her arms to do so. “It represent something, or just because?” She asked, an eyebrow raised. Virgil’s relationship with Nemo was unusual in that Virgil seemed to sleep with anyone he passed the time of day with - apart from Ariadne at the very least, she was not at all inclined. She averted her thoughts quickly back to the design and the mental image of Virgil with his ear clapped to the American’s.

Friendship necklaces? He pulled a face, laughing as he tried to picture what Ari meant - but he didn't need to try of course. Virgil plucked an image off the top off his flatmate's head instead. Like syphoning water, he invited a clutch of other thoughts as well.

"Star tattoos, as in Stardust of course..." V drawled as he leaned back, head resting against a kitchen cupboard. "That's where Neems[1] and I met. Sort of."

He and Nemo simply were, so he didn't know what to make of Ariadne finding their connection unusual. How to explain something he never questioned himself, really? The world was better with Natalie Morrow in it.

"Jealous?" Virgil grinned, unserious, and then clapped his hands together abruptly. "We should get marked. You know, before the inevitable happens one day and the Three Musketeers break up."

1.	14th Oct 2011 - Wayfaring

"We'll make a lad's night out of it, then? Pub, even, we could listen to the game..."

Nicholas nodded in agreement with Virgil's plan.  He'd been unsure what he wanted to do anyway and the hasty plans were as good as anything he would have decided on. Seeing Virgil's tattoo, he couldn't help but think that a tattoo like that would be a nightmare to explain to muggles.  Or to keep hidden.  He'd been tempted to get magical tattoo's over the years, but he was out among the muggles for both work and play and a tattoo flame streaking across your body from a tattoo dragon would complicate every situation.

He supposed maybe a glittering star wouldn't be as bad though.

"Yes!"  He jumped in when Virgil suggested the three of them get tattoos.  The triangle on Nicholas's chest need a buddy and it would be nice to permanently commemorate the nearly 7 years they'd lived together. A few more months and they'd surpass the time they spent with their housemates at Hogwarts.  Though that technically meant he and Ari were nearly at 14 years.  "I'm not getting the Three Musketeers though."

“… the Three Musketeers break up.”
“Yes!” Nick exclaimed, showing enthusiasm that caught Ariadne off guard. “I’m not getting the Three Musketeers though.”

“No,” Ariadne agreed, “and Virgil, suggesting the band break up?” she shook her head in mock disbelief. “I can’t see you two getting married off soon.” She sucked her teeth. “Got to be something that ties us together,” she narrowed her eyes in thought, looking around the flat. The place itself tied them together in a contract, but that wouldn’t be anything to draw on your skin.

“And none of those morbid countdown ones, neither.” She waggled a finger at Virgil’s chest. His rather special tattoo had not remained entirely secret with living with two observant flatmates.

Married off! The odds were unlikely, Virgil thought with a grin. On the other hand - his parents had married younger than he was now.

"No morbid clocks," he raised one hand and placed another on his heart. "It should be something much more darling. And maybe not too obviously placed.. do we want to all get it in the same place?"

V looked down at himself thoughtfully. "Shoulder?" he poked his right shoulder and then, following through: "Inner elbow? Collarbone? Ribs? Ouch."

Ribs would be painful, he felt, though he didn't shy away from pain as much as he used to.

"What about our flat number? 107b?" Virgil jumped to tattoo ideas just as quickly. "Cryptic, without context."

Nicholas shook his head at the idea of morbid countdown clocks.  That would be a definite no.  He stared worryingly at Virgil as he mostly named places that Nicholas knew or suspected would be painful.  "Or, better idea somewhere not especially painful.  Somewhere with some meat, arm, calf, thigh."

He didn't immediate hate their flat number.  It wasn't a bad idea.  And it was definitely the thing that had most tied them together.  "107b works.  But maybe roman numerals or something."  Just plain numbers seemed a bit too well plain.  Which, considering his own very plain triangle, was saying something.  "Something to give it a bit of character.  Still cryptic though."

“What about our flat number 107b? Cryptic, without context.”
“107b works,” Nick agreed with Virgil’s suggestion. “But maybe roman numerals or something… to give it a bit of character.”

“CVII…b.” Ariadne worked out quickly for them. “Or Brahmi?[1]” She reached for a quill and scrap of parchment to write on to sketch out. “100 would be,” she drew what looked like a lowercase m with an extra long final tail, followed by a curve like a bass clef for the seven. “That’s even more obscure! Unless you plan on one-hundred and seven dots or something.” She’d seen some geometric type tattoos on the arm of a quidditch player recently and been fascinated.

“We are probably best leaving it to the experts to come up with something,” Ariadne suggested, “if you know any good artists.”

1.	Brahmi Numerals

He felt a bit buzzed - both on the gillyweed and the prospect of another tattoo, which was looking to be a sure thing if they were quibbling about designs already.

"I don't know how I feel about Brahmi," V bit his bottom lip, as if chewing over the idea. "But yes. We can just ask Eisenberg down at the Inkwell. He did my nipple piercing[1] ages ago."

Before he could launch into a highly dramatised retelling of the experience, in those days when he shied away from pain, there was a rapping at the door.

Virgil slipped off the kitchen counter with a cheerful exclamation. "Dante!" he remembered his trunk was due any moment. "Finally."

The cat would no doubt be ready to leap out of the enchanted space and reunite with the other two. Then they would finally be a complete flat again. two wizards, a witch and one odd-eyed feline.

1.	Nov 6 2011 - It's Dangerous to Go Alone