Hours before in London, the bells of Big Ben had brought the evening in, but as yet the relative chaos still reigned supreme in the mind and life of Dazmond Wiedman.  Wrapped up in projects and distractions, the potions mistress, who barely ever paid mind to clocks, was throwing clothes around and running a bit late.  The skies outside had long since darkened and inside, the Shodding Arms was warm and fragrant.  She put a lid on a pot of felicity and tugged her boots on tight and proper.  After, she fussed with gloves and hats.  All the while singing an old song rather absently:

In the merry times of gay
An old hag in mires lay --
Creeeeping, craaawling, causing tots to faall in
To the bog of billywog
On their way to caroling.
Eat them up she would oh yea
She'd eat them up she would
She'd eat them with a side of moss
'Specially those that was
Good.

She nustled into her black velvet robes and put over them her long black wool with the broad hood.  Daz did up the buttons, then scribbled Nate a love note and spent a good five minutes undoing and doing up the multitude of locks on the recently mended red door.  She went swiftly up the one flight of stairs to the roof, still humming the old ditty that was stuck in her head, and apparated from there to Hogsmeade.

It was a windy and cold night, but incredibly clear.  The stars reflected the bit of frosted dew clinging to the grass and fallen leaves where Dazmond reappeared, refastening her hood.  She walked at a comfortable pace toward the Hog's Head.  It was late enough that there weren't many others out on the streets of the small village.  A few cottages still glowed warmly with orange light and chimney smoke, but many of the more upstanding citizens were already tucked into bed. 

Dazmond pulled open the door to the pub and made her way into the back, picking up a butterbeer along the way.  Her order came on instinct, following the hundreds upon hundreds of butterbeers she'd had with Landis while sitting in this same dingy little pub across the years.  Of course when they were kids it was a mainstay.

Landis was in a good mood. He’d been in one all day, as he worked in the library and smiled and helped apathetic students find their research material although Merlin knew they needed a good hexing far better. But then, he’d had something to look forward to, and he was still smiling as he walked the cold deserted cobblestones of Hogsmeade.

It was quiet on the streets, with that queer late-night hush of a sleeping town. He made his way towards the Hogshead, careful not to let his footsteps ring out.

Some very insensible part of Landis hated winter coats and cloaks, hated their bulkiness that disturbed the otherwise sleek lines of his body. It was sheer vanity, but he’d always been very vain, so although the wind howled he merely wore a cloak a shade heavier than usual, and made up for the difference with a warming charm. Right now, his fingers were freezing, but Landis liked it for the same reason he liked the silence. It made everything seem brittle, so fragile, so perfectly preserved; Landis had always considered himself a creature of the cold. It seemed appropriate. And when he walked into the Hogshead, he relished the dull tingling as his hands came back to life.

There was no sign of Dazmond at the front, nowhere in the open, but he wasn’t surprised by that. He ordered something considerably more alcoholic than butterbeer at the bar – firewhiskey, as it turned out. After all, just because Landis liked the cold didn’t mean that a little fire wasn’t welcome.

Dazmond had scanned the room on her way to the dark corner booth where she normally sat, assuming it was open.  The subtle scanning, though, was just her way of feeling out the pub; it had nothing to do with looking for Landis Morgan. 

Curiously, she could always more or less tell when Landis was round.  Whether it was due to some queer, ethereal link they shared or because she'd grown so accustomed to his use of polyjuice potion, she didn't quite know.  But without even looking she somehow knew she'd managed to arrive within the gap of time they'd mentioned.  Her internal clock was fairing well it seemed.  But then, Dazmond was only too used to running here and there, feeling out the hour by the sky's light and the wrapping up of meticulously calculated operations. 

She had settled herself in the booth and it wasn't two minutes before Landis strolled in at the front.  Dazmond was facing the door of course -- she almost always faced the door -- so the second she sensed and then spotted her long blonde-haired companion, she watched him with lighted eyes and a small serene smile.

Dazmond pulled her hood down and shrugged off her cloak as he ordered his drink, resting her forearms on the knobby table top, but when he started to move naturally toward the back of the pub she crawled out of her nook to meet him in a deep hug.  There could be no mistaking it for a business call.  They looked every bit the pair that'd been best friends for more than a dozen years.  Landis was the most dear person in Dazmond's life other than Nathan, and the warmth of her embrace was evidence of that.

"Hiya deary," she said with a bouncy inflection, pulling back with sprightly grin.  She brushed something invisible off his sleek cloak and half turned to lead them back to the table she'd chosen, her gaze still on him.  "Doing alright, then?"

Dazmond came out to greet him, and Landis wrapped her in the best one-armed hug he could manage (the other, naturally, being held out to avoid spilling his drink). When they separated slightly, he smoothed her hair carefully and tenderly back into place, flicking an errant strand of red over her shoulder, and smiled at her. He was amused to find that she was grooming him in return; old habits, perhaps, or eternal affection. Her hair hadn't really needed the stroking, and his cloak was spotless.

"Dazmond," he acknowledged, and obediently allowed himself to be led. As he looked back at her he felt that peculiar sense of warmth towards her that he was always surprised to discover he possessed; Dazmond was the only person he ever found himself humoring, and without minding one bit.

"I'm well," he said. "Haven't murdered any of the brats up at the castle yet - " an almost rueful tone to his voice at that - "And you?"

Dazmond climbed back into her perch at the back booth and patted the seat next to her, then pulled her legs up and sat sideways with her back to the dingy window like a little agile monkey.  Since Dazmond even at twenty-five still had the stature of a tweenager, she was still always climbing things and sitting in strange positions; she had never lost her sense of play.  Still beaming at him, Daz retrieved her butterbeer and partook of a warming sip.

"There, there, your time will come," she joked.  Having had a recent experience with teaching at Hogwarts, she could share in the sentiment.  And, soon, she'd be toting around various children for the holidays, sharing her mother's burden of playing nanny for high society mums.  Oh, the fun.  Dazmond didn't mind it much, she supposed.  They were getting older now and the girls were all, mostly, mellow.  If not a little... insane.

"I've been doing well," she said with a nod and a thoughtful sideways glance.  "I um, had some money from the Summer so -- we've been shopping, setting up house.  I have some new clients, that sort of thing.  Oh, and mum says hello.  She wants you to visit her over Christmas."  Daz laughed a little bit, readjusting her position.  "You look good -- what have you been up to?" 

Drinking again, her eyes held his person, brightened and warm with inward acknowledgement.  She still maintained she was getting along like a little song, even in the face of what felt like impending danger, but it was an easy thing to do here -- with his birthday on mind, and revolution brewing in the backdrop of her life, Daz had plans to serve as a distraction.  And distract herself she would, dragging Landis along for the ride that ultimately was designed to make her feel in control of her life again.

Landis smiled, amused both by her teasing and by her lack of knowledge. He wouldn’t be leaving Hogwarts until his job was done, and that wasn’t something that could be predicted or measured. Recruitment, forewarning, an agent planted for the future... this seemed likely to be very long-term. To be honest, Landis hadn’t done much for the WBA since he’d started at Hogwarts. He’d been too busy. Sometimes he wondered if Cinead had planned it that way.

“You’re moving in together?” There was no judgment in Landis’ tone, only polite interest. He’d long since resigned himself to Dazmond’s choice, as much as he’d rather see her with a nice pureblood. Preferably one whom he had plenty of blackmail material  and background information on…. This seemed like something he should have known, but, they didn’t get to see each other as often as Landis would have liked. This year had been particularly kind when it came to visits from Dazmond– something about Hogwarts, he supposed, since both of them had cause to be there. It’d brought them together again, which was an unbearably sappy thought for which he felt considerable disdain, however interesting and true it might be.

Of course, they’d been close enough when they were younger that a little time in between visits didn’t matter much now. Close enough for Landis to have left a good impression on Dazmond’s mother. Landis did not care much for mothers in general, but Mrs. Weidman was still more bearable than his own. He gave an easy half-shrug. “I’ll drop by.” Briefly. He flashed Dazmond a smile that was mostly charm and a little rueful hope. “Come with me, won’t you?”

"You look good -- what have you been up to?" 

“That’s pleasant of you to say,” Landis replied, smiling a little. “But much the same as ever. I’ve not your patience with children.” He tilted his head at her. “And how is your Christmas brood?” He was familiar with a few of them, Beatrix and Liviana, and he was pretty certain Dazmond had another cousin in Slytherin now, a first year, but it seemed like every time he looked the Weidman family had taken in more stray children, many of them distant relations that even Landis, with his dedication to the pureblood lines, couldn’t follow.

"Yeah, lotta people there soon.  Like a little hotel toward holidays." 

She said that with the slightest traipse of annoyance, but it was also amusing to her -- which was more or less evident in her voice as well; she was even marginally excited by it, although, she'd never outright say so.  There was something about many Pure-bloods all in the same room that lent itself well to a multi-tasker with an addiction to detail like Dazmond.  You could almost see her frame blur, she moved so fast.  Driving people around like tokens on a board game.

"I imagine they're getting on well -- testing, drooling over boys I guess.  Yup.  Should be a house full of hormonal teenage girls and Old Blood friends soon.  You go and I'll play escort," she offered sympathetically.  "Wouldn't subject you to suffer it solo.  I know best how to dash in and out leaving nothing but florid happy people in your wake.  We pop in for a sec, you and me, escape unseen, and then I tote you around to meet my friends down the cozy streets of Knockturn, where there's beer and all the good things in the world," said Dazmond in a long-winded sentence, all at once sneaking in the question and making to seem very blasé. 

Except that she didn't make it into a question.  She just hid the budding of a mischievous grin behind her bottle of butterbeer as her eyes shifted with perceived innocence.  Her expression was the littlest bit hopeful.  She left out the big part.  The "without polyjuice" part.  That, perhaps, could have been intuited.  Asking directly, however, might've simply scared him off the question altogether.  And that, simply, could not be done. 

There were people to meet!  And revolutions to start!   

"Please," she tagged on after savoring her sip, amused apparently.