It was one omen after the next -- goosebumps, chills, house elves, relics.  Dazmond felt that something was looming on the horizon, and the political tension in the backstreets of Knockturn did nothing to lift the jitters from her spine.  Aside from having dreams about a blurry ole creeper smoking cigarettes in the shadows, following her in a purple Tom Ford suit, Dazmond felt like she was being watched.  Constantly.  And in the midst of her settling, of her almost delighted giving in to home life and her nest and the drums of revelry and booze, she was doing her very best to make things somewhat normal again.  But just when she thought she'd got it, she'd get goosebumps.  Even sweating over the fire and juggling five steaming cauldrons -- goosebumps.

She was, to say the least, nervous.  Maybe it was the lack of closure, lack of knowing.  But Daz was fed up with it.  She'd been antsy too long!  It was annoying as hell and, surely, it'd go away if she could just regain some normalcy in her life.

But what was normal for a five foot tall Witch who specialized in poisons and picking Muggles' pockets?  For someone like Daz, who set herself on fire as a Halloween prank and conned her way into bank vaults, 'normal' was a word that held -- a bit of a skewed meaning.

Lucky for her nerves and need for normalcy then, that she had a few bones to pick around town.  The first and most prominent of these was The Situation brewing over at Reducto Records.  An infiltration of the precious, compact world of Wizarding London.  It was getting worse!  And if someone didn't do something about it soon, those whackos were only going to keep multiplying like evil rabbits until even Knockturn was facing some sort of morbid gentrification process.  No thank you.  Dazmond was going to do something about it! -- before the situation got any more out of hand than it already had. 

And better yet, use the opportunity to swan-dive her way back to normal, to shake off the remnants of Weird and take back the territory of her dreams, her life, her alleys.

So in the late morning on a Sunday, she set out fully fueled with coffee in her veins and a fussy, hissy step in her gait.  When she opened the shop door, she stuck her nose in the air and bee-lined to the clerk's counter in the back left with purpose, marginally put off by the horrid Christmas decorations which almost caused her to stop, gawk, and cringe.  She was also somewhat disappointed to realize that seemingly no one had been round to witness her very intimidating entrance.

"Al-lo!" she called, nosily craning her neck to peer into the open store room. 

---

* The thread title is a lyric from the Tom Waits song, "God's Away on Business".
* Also, thank you again Tor for telling me about Tom Ford! haha

It had taken a little longer than expected, but the shipment of Jacoba's contribution to the musical selection at Reducto had finally arrived.  Friday and Saturday had been spent making slight adjustments to the record bins to make room for the ever growing selection of records from muggle bands from Europe.  Today was being devoted to finding the best way to arrange the records for the browsing needs of the curious witch or wizard.  Or, the muggleborn needing a taste of their other life. 

Normally, in the muggle world, the albums would have a whole shop to spread out in and get comfortable in.  There wasn't a need to find a way to organize metal bands like Hammerfall and Blind Guardian with the Gypsy Kings.  She'd, eventually, just opted to alphabetize the whole lot of them by band and add notes to each album describing it's genre and general sound.  Hopefully, there were enough muggleborns amongst them that, through word of mouth, the average Reducto customer would learn the fine distinction between Power, Epic and Symphonic Metal. 

The process of obtaining the music had presented more complications than Jacoba had initially anticipated - the most prominent being finding enough copies of the bands' music on LP.  Sure, in the muggle world, releasing on LP was getting to be the chic thing to do.  Still, not everyone did it.  Fewer people were buying CDs let alone records these days.  And, even once they were ordered, getting them delivered hadn't been easy, either.  With Sasha's disappearance on top of it all, Jacoba's work attendance had only just returned to normal after a few (weird, but) welcome letters from her brother. 

The door clinked open and Jacoba glanced towards the prospective customer. Peering over the record bins, Jacoba spotted Tilly off towards another side.  Jacoba was well aware of the whole women-can-do-lots-of-stuff-with-one-in-the-oven but, the more the little bump showed, the heavier it looked.  As a result, the more readily Jacoba was to descend upon customers whenever possible.  Even though, she knew, Tilly was bound to join her. 

"Good afternoon." 

Jacoba offered the woman a friendly grin, glancing over her shoulder towards Tilly before looking back.  "Looking for a Holiday present for someone?  Is there something I can help you find?"

outfit

Donning the baggiest (and most faded, lovingly tattered) pair of jeans she could dig up from her closet, Tilly had come to work in a flurry of cold wind and warm tea. Her hair sat in a simple, loose knot at the base of her neck, and she was completely unbothered to put on any makeup for a day of inventory and friendly chatter with her newest (and very promising) young employee.

Smiling down at the records she’d been flipping through, a few muggle additions Jacoba had recommended, and which had begun to sell swimmingly with the impending holiday, she did not, at first, look up to see who had entered the shop. She instead hummed along with the music pouring from the invisible speakers, and continued to inspect the bin in front of her, pausing every once in a while to Spell-o-Tape another psychedelic, wintry streamer in true haphazard, rock n’ roll fashion wherever she fancied.

There were already music note and miniature guitar ornaments lacing a tree in the front window, and plenty of wrapped boxes for employees and charity alike. They were blessed to have customers who believed music to be a universal gift. Upstairs, in instrument repair, they had fashioned a little sledge with stationary muggle-type elves (who looked alarmingly like garden gnomes) to hold baskets and tins of drumsticks, packs of strings, and guitar picks.

“Rocking around... the Christmas tree... ba da da da...” Tilly alternated between murmuring the words and simply putting random notes to them. She pulled her hair from its bun and turned to smile at whomever Jacoba had just greeted. The younger woman’s voice had pulled her from her reverie. “Da da dahhh--”

However friendly she might have been, even Tilly had her limits. She stopped singing to herself, ending on a sour note, and the corners of her mouth twitched. Her smile was still in place, but slightly less enthusiastic. She seemed to blink in disorientation before touching her belly protectively, out of recent habit. She plucked at the hairband around her wrist and floated forward to stand beside Jacoba, trying to maintain her cool and her smile.

The woman was teeny-tiny, but an unmistakable ball of fire, one of the hellbent and ambitious business witches who strung themselves around Knockturn like nightmarish marionettes... pretty, but unsettling nevertheless. Tilly didn’t have the same drive. Her methods were different, if also not quite classic. In any case, she recognized the woman immediately, but did not often see her around the shop. She was more shocked than anything else. Was Knockturn coming out of its shell, attempting a truce? A change of pace? An induction into the 21st century? One could hope.

“Miss... Wiedman, right? The Quidditch player’s... sister?” She asked, trying to sound as friendly as possible. If the Squib had not been a Squib, they would have been in Hogwarts together. And everyone who had grown up in the British Wizarding world knew of the famous Beater who was closely related to this woman. It wouldn’t do to mark the woman a menace without giving her a chance first. She was, after all, the sort of free spirit Tilly usually found herself drawn to. Shame about the whole... Tawse & Co. for company thing. “I think Jacoba can recommend some brilliant stuff for you. Or do you need to hire someone? A DJ or producer, maybe? I can get you some addresses...”

Dazmond's gaze snapped suddenly toward the young brunette, whose head had just emerged from behind a stack of vinyl.  Her eyes narrowed instantly on target.  That was her.  The Muggle.   

As the nonmagical humanoid approached, no doubt expecting a compliant customer with smiles awaiting a helping hand, Dazmond stood to her full height, embodying each of the five feet of fire with her hands on her hips for width in a solid stance that said Don't come any closer.  All the way until Matilda Quinn had come to interfere, she had done nothing but look this Schlagenweit woman over with cold suspicion, her pointed lack of response cutting the air between them.  Even with Matilda there, Dazmond didn't lift her angered gaze from the non-Witch. 

"Miss Quinn," she said, her voice curt.  She was in no mood to be pleasant.  "As eager as I'm sure you are to flounce about, tellin' us what great influence Muggle music can be -- I'd rather not."  Dazmond finally stopped staring at the Muggle and, with an unpleasant expression, let her eyes roll off the woman as though totally dismissing her presence.  She turned her attention toward the Squib she was addressing, noticing as her eyes drifted downward for a moment and then back up, that there was already a little bump in her belly. 

Having a Muggle in the shop wasn't even the full of it you see.  She, a Squib, was not only allowed to manage a shop in Diagon, but was also carrying the seed of one of the most Muggle-loving twats in the Wizarding World.  He was Harry Potter's friend from the outspoken Three Owl Substandard and Potterwatch.  It was all a putrid, gangrenous mess.  Dazmond couldn't help but look a little disgusted as she continued on without trepidation.

"We all get a little lonely, don't we," she said with lordly insolence.  "Must be hard to feel so banal and vapid, round so many blessed and special people, yeah.  But if it's some company you want, there does happen to be an whole city out there for you to scurry off to!  I think you'll find -- there's an whole world, Miss Quinn, that would so readily take you in.  Why've you got to go and spoil my Alley," she said, holding a hand to her chest emphatically.  "Don't make the slightest bit of sense to me."

She pointed at Jacoba with a long, outstretched arm carefully aimed -- as though at any moment a ball of fire might be projected straight into the woman's chest from the tip of Dazmond's rigid finger. 

"As an honest citizen of Wizarding London, I demand to know What.This.Is!"

The shift in Tilly's demeanor registered a fraction of a moment before she reached the petite woman.  Every store had their regular yet unpleasant client; was this one of Reducto's?  Jacoba's eyes darted to the squib, trying to discern any useful information in the woman's features or comments but there was only the subtle traces of uneasy distrust that had been evident in her words.  No insight into the reason or justification for the rather un-Tilly-like behavior. 

Following the woman's lead, she turned back to their visitor and took a deep breath, trying to shake off the uncertainty her boss' behavior was generating.  "Sure, I've got a few reco-"

Jacoba froze as the dark-haired woman, Wiedman, apparently, took an unmistakably hostile stance.  She would have liked to look, once more, in Tilly's direction but a voice in the back of her head was warning against looking away from this woman. Defensively, even a little defiantly, the muggle's vertebrae inched straighter and taller.  The German had almost a good foot on this Wiedman though she didn't delude herself into thinking that would mean much. 

"Really?"  The incredulous retort escaped the muggle before she could catch herself.  But, how bloody ridiculous could the woman sound?  She pivoted just enough to wave a hand at the store at large in what she thought should be an easily interpreted gesture.  Just in case, she provided a perhaps foolish elaboration.  "What great influence...Solch Quatsch.  There's not a single wizarding record in here that wasn't influenced by muggles.  It's ... I mean, who do you think invented the vinyl chloride every one of your wizarding records is stamped on?"   The instruments, the sounds - regardless of what  this woman might believe, music was one of the most universal mediums out there.

As the woman continued, it was quickly becoming clear there was no hope of instilling sense into one that had none to begin with.  "Ganz Unsinn!" Jacoba muttered as the threatening finger was thrust in her direction.  But, she wasn't looking to make trouble.  Besides, she had too much work to do to waste her time on this foolishness.  Trying to sound as polite as possible (and failing miserably), Jacoba shook her head.  "Well, to hear of your concerns.  I shall take them into due consideration.  Excuse me, I have work to do."  Bitch.  Scowling, Jacoba turned back towards the record bins she'd come from.

Tilly sighed, almost resigning to the fact that some old dogs-- even if they weren’t particularly old-- really couldn’t learn new tricks. She liked to see the best in people, but she knew there were some who were rooted so deeply to the family tree that an ilness-- hatred-- became a way of life. And that was that.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that our music was depriving you of oxygen. I’ll be sure to get someone to look at the charms on our sound system the next time we’re having maintenance done.”

She felt herself tense, invisibly, when the woman’s eyes lingered on the protective hands on her obvious belly. How much the Knockturn crew who ran with Dazmond Wieman actually knew about Tilly’s personal life was debatable, but since the article had been published announcing Dennis’ father-to-be status, there was bound to be chatter sooner rather than later.

And not everyone would be happy. A pro-muggle musician and a squib with an “agenda” to hire muggles? Bad news, apparently. Tilly wondered if they ever put so much effort into going after the real criminals-- thieves, indebted potion addicts on the run, fellow thoroughbreds with ruthless and immoral business practices which served to screw-over supposedly loyal employees.  Magic or not, many people were treated far worse than Tilly could possibly treat the Knockturnites by simply existing. Surely being a decent employer-- whether she chose to hire wizards or muggles-- was more important and brought more steady business to the community than shafting a bunch of Purebloods making minimum wage. What sort of loyalty was that?

“Miss Wiedman, we can’t afford to be so picky with people. There’s hardly a wizard in this city who doesn’t have some muggle blood in him. Our numbers are small-- yes, our numbers. I’m a Pureblood, too, if you'll remember, and look what happened." They might have been in school together, the Quinn girl and the Wiedman girl. "If my family can produce a child without magic, hers can help keep it alive.” She pointed to Jacoba. “We need to get past this... archaic nonsense." Tilly found herself laughing at the absurdity. She'd thrown up her hands in exasperation. "Why not start with music?” She tilted her head slightly, eying the woman. It was harmless enough a concept-- everyone liked (or at least appreciated and depended upon) some sort of sound, or none of them would have been born with ears. “Do you really want to be responsible for your own extinction? Because you aren’t hurting me by running your mouth and trying to keep your club exclusive. It brings more business to this part of the Alley.”

“This,” she added, now sounding a touch acidic as she repeated Dazmond's choice of objectifying noun. “Is my friend. Jacoba.” She looked up at the taller girl, and offered a small smile. “We treat our customers with respect, and we’d appreciate the same human courtesy. I don’t like telling people to leave, but I will if I have to.”

But if Jacoba was past putting up with disgruntled customers, Tilly wasn’t going to chastise her like she might have had to do on some other occasion, with another employee, once upon a time ago. This was different. This was a personal attack, and for no better reason than the fact that the girl couldn’t wave a stick and make a record float. She was proud of the younger woman, in fact. Not many people had such a brazen tongue in the face of bloodism.

“Well, I suppose we can’t help you, then. I’m sorry. Perhaps you’d like to see yourself out?” She gestured to the door. “There next nearest fully-stocked Wizarding record shop is in Dublin, I’m afraid. Shouldn’t be hard for someone who can Apparate, though.” She raised both brows, smiling with tight, shrugging lips, and turned her back on a ‘customer’ for the first time in a long time.

Dazmond couldn't believe her eyes or her ears.  In fact, once her rigidly pointing arm found its way back to her hip, Dazmond could do nothing but gawk in defiant disbelief at the pair of naive nifflers, acting like, Kumbaya!  The music shall unite!  It was infuriating logic but, more than that, it stupified her.  Brow in a knot, mouth agape and arms akimbo, Dazmond tried to wrap her mind around their easy dismissal of her, and failed.  It took both Jacoba Schlagenweit and Matilda Quinn turning their backs on her, expecting her to just go away, for Daz to finally snap out of her petrified stupor.

"Now wait just one minute," she said angrily, dropping her arms and advancing on Miss Quinn.  "You may have a minuscule inner circle that's in your frame of mind but don't delude yourself for one instant that I don't have the greater part of Wizarding society on my side!"  She stepped in front of the Squib and looked up at her with a confrontational, affronted gaze, pointing a finger at the woman's chest. 

"I am a Witch Miss Quinn!  A full-blooded, fully operational Witch and this is the one little stretch of haven left for us in London.  You might do to use a little respect, lest you find how far our community will go in support of a woman like me.  I do not like the state of things in this record shop, Miss Quinn.  This is not a Muggle holiday spot and we are not open arms with flowers for this unprecedented intrusion.  Squib, yes, purebred defection and you should be proud of your people and your heritage.  You are not a Muggle Miss Quinn but if you fail to see the harm in your actions I very much doubt you'll last long in Diagon."

Dazmond looked pointedly at the woman's stomach, even gestured toward it.

"You might find you have your own to worry over, Miss.  Don't bite off more 'an you can chew now, yeah?"

When Tilly had offered Jacoba the job a few weeks ago, accepting it had seemed such a simple matter.  She needed a job and, with the economy in the shape it was in in the muggle world, no one was looking to hire a foreign university drop out.  The types of lowly, entry level positions she was eligible for had jobless professors with PhDs applying to them.  She'd beaten the sidewalk for weeks and hadn't even gotten an interview.  Tilly was hiring and had offered Jacoba the position.  Jacoba would have been a fool to turn it down. 

She hadn't been looking to cause trouble or take a stand.  But, as she got settled in her job, she quickly came to appreciate the opportunity to become more familiar with this world her brother now belonged to.  She'd been alienated so long from the rest of her family; finding a way to fit into that part of Sasha's life that didn't include her parents had just seemed natural.  The longer she stayed, though, the more at home she was feeling.  It wasn't Sasha now.  It was also Adon and Isaac and Tilly. 

Of course, she still wasn't that keen on causing trouble but, now, turning and walking away wasn't as easy as it once might have been.  And, she had no intentions of letting anyone intimidate her away. 

She'd moved away a little but stopped when Tilly started to defend her staff decision.  She looked over at Tilly, an eyebrow raised when the woman pointed in her direction.  Her family could help keep magic alive?  What an interesting, strange concept.  Imagine her.  Married to a wizard with a child who could who could make things levitate or disappear.  What a strange, strange concept. 

Jacoba returned the squib's small smile and nodded, appreciatively, at the woman's words of support.  But, this Wiedman woman wasn't talking to Jacoba.  By all appearances, she might have even forgotten Jacoba was even there.  Or simply didn't care - which was the more likely option.  Regardless, Jacoba couldn't completely ignore the foolish, narrow-minded rantings of the crazy woman.  The state of things ... not a muggle holiday spot ... this woman was paranoid.  Jacoba was stocking shelves and selling a few records.  That hardly qualified as a muggle invasion.  "I'm not doing anyone any harm," she added, looking at the sour woman.  "I'm earning a paycheck, that's all.  If it bothers you that much, you're welcome to shop elsewhere."

The threatening gesture towards Tilly's belly was unmistakable.  Jacoba felt her stomach lurch and she took a step forward.  "What the hell?  Don't you dare!  She hasn't done anything to you so, if you aren't happy with the arrangement you can just go elsewhere.  Leave us alone."

Why the woman had appeared in the middle of the Christmasy music shop in the first place was beyond the store’s manager, but Tilly, usually a patient woman, was rapidly losing all common courtesies. If she’d had a wand of her own, it would probably be aiming itself at Dazmond-- hands free.

“I don’t care whose on your side,” Tilly assured her, eyes torn between narrowing and rolling. “I might not have gone to Hogwarts, but I graduated from school yard cliques nearly a decade ago. It’s a good thing, isn’t it, that you don’t have to come into this record shop if you don’t fancy a trip here? Mind you, I don’t like how you run your own little business, either... getting people mixed up in the head with chemicals they don’t need... but it’s none of my bloody business, is it?

Though nearly to the point of fuming, Tilly nodded in chorus with Jacoba, whose logic was both grounded and blessed. But when Wiedman decided to turn the tide, to aim the conversation at Tilly’s personal life-- because Merlin knew dictating the way the squib ran a (legal and non-discriminatory) business was this Knockturn scum’s priority-- the Quinn woman felt her throat drop to her stomach and the skin on the back of her neck prickle like a pin cushion.

It was Jacoba who got to her first, Tilly was draining of color, all the while she could feel it swirling in her, aching to get out, aching to explode in the face of this terrible, terrible human. She wanted to tell Dazmond exactly how dirty she’d play, if anyone dared again to speak of her child, but she couldn’t find the words.

Only when she softly grabbed Jacoba’s arm for support, standing a half-step behind her, did her voice did restore itself. “Please, kindly show yourself out,” she said, her jaw stone, and her free hand still firmly cradling her tummy. “Or I’m afraid I’ll have to owl for security.”

They were having none of it.  It was as good as talking to a brick wall.  No, wait, it was better, she reminded herself, suddenly very aware of the relative positions of their bodies in space which signaled a strong emotional response -- they were all for a moment paused in their stations, Dazmond pressed in on Matilda, Matilda stunned and cradling her belly, Jacoba flanking them to force Dazmond out . . . . 

It became clear to her in that moment, suddenly, as if watching from above, that she had just threatened this woman's unborn child.  She had the ability to follow through on that threat.  And the ensuing pause was dramatic.  For as she noticed the effect of her slip of tongue (was it a slip of tongue?  was she capable of that?), she realized a power shift that favored her.  And it should have favored her, for as far as Dazmond was concerned, these alleyways and all their shops were for her kind a right and for their kind a privilege.  A privilege which could rightfully be taken away when abused. 

The cocky Witch had every faith that the majority would favor her pursuit over theirs, and blind to the rage and rudeness of her actions, she felt truly that she had been wronged.  Their average customer was either Witch or Wizard like herself, not Squib and not Muggle, and the customer was always right.

"You haven't seen the last of me, Miss Quinn," said Dazmond, only backing off from her stance a few moments after the words had been sufficiently pressed into the air.  "I'll go, and I'll take your business with me."  She stood tall and backed up, then went swiftly out without a second glance toward the Schlagenweit woman. 

And the door jangled so very rudely behind her.