November 23, 2008
A Sunday
3:33pm

Nine hundred and ninety-three galleons, sixty sickles, and twenty-three knuts. 

That was the mantra.

Where were they from?  Who knew.  Wherever she'd been.  Whatever she'd been doing for... whoever it was that had hired her.  She honestly didn't know, didn't remember, and, with the days and weeks passing and the weather changing again, she honestly Did Not Care.

They had a heap less of the mystery gold since last month of course, what with the expenses of springing Nate out of jail and all the projects Daz had on.  But the rest they were looking to spend in the pub or on town, and they were out to do it so very frivolously today, rejoicing in their short-lived bundle of affluence and being completely oblivious to the idea of, say, savings accounts.  They'd had just enough champagne for breakfast that a giddy shopping spree was worth the weight of the loot they now bore.

The day was damp and grey with dapples of indigo, no slices of sunshine to be found in the forecast.  The English air smelled heavily of rain and moss, and our pair was coming out of a shop with a jingle and an absurd amount of bags sticking out at every angle.  They awkwardly maneuvered their path through the narrow doorway together.

"We oughtta shrink -- some of this," Dazmond managed to say breathlessly as she hauled her share of loot beyond the store front of Slug & Jiggers'.  Out of the way of shoppers, residents and lurkers, she dumped the bags down and attempted to magic one of them with her new McDonough wand.

It grew the size of a desk and sprouted elephant ears.

Slug and Jiggers' had sweets up that the front with booze in them and Nate was chewing away and coughing when the gooey booze filling burned his throat like a sweet, hard bourbon whiskey.  His coughing turned to raspy open laughter when she tried to fix their happy, gluttonous burden.

"S'what you get buying it from some hobo," he said as a joke.  He'd been picking fun at her new wand since she got it -  since she found out who from.

Their new, state of the art, magical wood and silver slicing mandolin now looked like a desk-sized torture device with absurd ears, flapping in the cold, wet wind.  He emptied the rest of his handful of Whiskey Bits into his mouth and drew his own wand.  He let his own bags slip down off his arms and onto the sidewalk. 

"Itch for charity," he called indignantly through a mouth full of gummy candy to a lookie-loo walking past them.  "Buzz off."

"Revershus," he incanted.  His own quality wand did a fair job of putting the thing down to size again, but it still had tiny little mouse ears.  "That's just gross.  Think we could return it this state? Maybe just get a new one - was only 25 g."

In the past 25 g had been a month's grocery bill.

They'd considered using some of the money to get a better place to live.  Number 76 at the Shodding Arms still looked like there'd been a fight.  The burns from spell fire would never come out of that wall paper, and the door, though handily repaired, didn't quite shut right anymore and it was work sliding all the locks home at night.  But after they'd thought about it, no where else would be quite like home.  This 'home' thing was new for Daz and she was quite attached to Nate's and he understood perfectly.  The top floor corner closet they lived in had a certain privacy to it (and a certain smell) that kept away salespeople.

"Let's get a piano.  I think there's a shop for that out in Diagon.  I can play a bit."  When Nate had been young his skill playing the piano and violin had been an example of how much he hated hard work, practice and being ordered around.  But now he kind of felt like it - and since they had the money?

"It's bloody broke!" laughed Dazmond, shaking her wand out in front of her as if trying to unclog it.  She did laugh along with Nate though, not particularly worried about her "manhood" being all defunct and corrupted by some gypsies' curse.  Couldn't worry about that now.  In fact, even thinking on Deaglan and watching their new mandolin go all wonky sort of made Daz's insides tickle.

As completely irrational as it was, having a wand that was almost as defiant as the pair of them seemed somehow fitting.  Even if it was pretty much useless for anything other than satiating their whimsical amusement!  At the moment it seemed hardly pressing that the troublesome twig was her sole source of protection outside potions or flailing limbs.  It was hardly a stitch, right, seeing as how Nate and she were -- as everyone knew -- clearly invincible.

Dazmond was dressed in her most colorfully obnoxious, looking like she was covered in candy.  She made a childish face at the rude looker walking by as Nate told him off through his mouthful of whiskey bits.  She put away her magic stick and picked up the bags she'd dropped, shifting them here and there with the mouse-eared mandolin tucked under arm. 

"Alright," she said.  "But they better shrink it for us.  It's in Diagon?"  Daz wrinkled her nose and had a look around at some shops, trying to think if she'd seen a piano.  "Well lead the way, mate.  Then we'd better drop off at the flat.  We still need to get some cubby 'oles or someat."

Dazmond was looking forward to the busy-ness it'd stir up, all their new possessions and co-mingling.  They'd be needing a new system for organizing their things now that Daz was staying put.  Aside from all the books, musical instruments, clothes and fancy gadgets like the new telescope that they were toting around, there'd be all manner of bottles, jars, cauldrons and plants soon, too -- even more than the usual was.  Without some new drawers and shelves, they were about to be living in a big old heap of clutter. 

What she'd been doing lately could be construed as nesting.  Daz was spending a lot of time in the flat, always making things nicer in some way as she brewed and danced around, humming little songs and hanging herbs to dry on hooks in the ceiling.  A passive observer might think her a happy young housewife, but the poisons bit and other frequent criminal activities gave it another sort of tilt, didn't it.

And there were no theoretical buns in the theoretical oven, thank you very much.

"Let's have a do tonight," lighted Dazmond.  "Play jams and get bladdered, yeah?  I'm dyin' to try out the ole tambourine." 

"Pop us one of 'em, will you?"  She paused before going forward, opening her mouth for a whiskey bit. 

They tromped up and out of the narrow alleyways of Knockturn, the air getting brighter and cleaner at each step and under each archway.   Nate blinked as they poked out into Diagon where things were much friendlier.  But the very law-abiding nature of the place had become a little worrisome.  He had worries about his Daz getting taken off by some red-robes - gods, she'd hate that.  There'd be no consoling her.  And they're plants would probably die since he never remembered to water them.  The tightness, the darkness of Knockturn and it's closeness to home seemed safer somehow.  Like they fit there somehow.  Don't get us wrong now - Knockturn is a well dangerous place.  Cinaed Tawse lived there.  Hags ate babies behind rain barrels.  You had to shove away a vampire or some wingy nut who thought he was a vampire every third night you went out for a drink.  But after single-handedly blowing a hole in the Runespoor case, felt like all Nate deserved.

He'd cringey smilked at Daz when she asked for a whiskey bit.  "All out," he said by way of apology.  "We'll pick some up on the way back.  A whole cauldron full."  And they could.  Cause they had money.

"Up here," Nate said after a sec.  The music shop was down under a bookstore.  You had to go around the side of the building and down some damp, slick steps.  Above the door was a carrilon of bells, instead of just the one.  It played a jingly riff in a minor key as they pushed the door open.  The store was called Atta and Son.

It was tight inside.  The low ceiling was hung with brass contraptions and wooden lutes and things.  There were giant vuvuzelas and a saxophone so big and tangled it probably needed a new name entirely.  He pushed on through.  Old Madam Atta looked up at them from under her bushy eyebrows and sagging lids to smile at them. 

"Who'd we invite to this party.  You're new friend from the Auror Corps? We could make some mini quiches."

Plinkplinkplink!

He diddled a high key on a whale bone baby piano.



*I imagine that Harry Potter theme song. 

Dazmond dropped her shoulders and play-sulked a moment, whining briefly like a little kid.  Then she lifted up with promises of a cauldron-full and trudged along the alley shift with Nate.  It was like a change of worlds, from cozy dark and cramped to open bright and busy bustling.  The distinct mildewy stench of Knockturn gave way to the cleaner, fresher scent of fresh-fallen snow.  They rarely saw snow in the more forsaken alley.  Something about the number of dirty Wizards or the tight focus of all that dark magic seemed to make the stuff melt on contact.  Like something as pure as snow couldn't rest on the cobbles long -- it was just destined to turn into muddy old slush soon as it hit the dank bowels of Knockturn. 

Our pair ducked down into the music shop and into the belly of the earth.  Like a switch, Daz's attention span went instantly down-level to that of a kitten, high on catnip, looking here and there flittingly and in wonder.  There was an aquaggaswack and a beer bottle organ, an harp-kora and a self-playing musical saw.  How had she missed this?  She flicked a price tag over and realized suddenly with widened eyes.  Woof.  But they had money; what was she worrying about. 

She struck the strings on a balalaika.  Bring-Zing-Zing Twaang!  And smiled.

"Better make em fatal quiches," she said.  "Don't fancy that eejit having a looksie round our flat again."  She looked up suddenly and over her shoulder as she'd started walking backward into a pot lid hanging from a heavy string.  She looked over at the shop owner who was still smiling on them serenely behind a pudgy face like a happy pug puppy.  It kinda wigged Daz out.  How could people be so... nice looking. 

She turned her attention back to the harp-kora and plucked at it a little. 

"I dunno -- we could kidnap Finnley.  He's been all locked up in that fancy pants place of his I think.  Needsa spend some time around us impolite folk."