outfit | title reference

The holidays with George has been colorful to say the least. On top of explaining to her parents just how serious a boyfriend the older Gryffindor was, Waker had also had to share said boyfriend with Hogwarts’ resident shampoo fiend. And Trent was not the coziest of Christmas comrades.

Arms folded and bag hanging across her lithe figure, Waker ambled briskly (it was, indeed, possible) up the high road. A nice cup of tea from that warm, albeit stuffy and violently pink teashop ought to do the trick. But before she could come anywhere near the chiming door of Puddifoot’s, Waker found herself slowing to a halt, like a deer pausing in the forest. She tilted her head, almond-shaped brown eyes scrutinizing what was before her.

Mere meters away, the young man was a balancing act. Barrels atop his arms, he looked like something out of one of the old cartoons Waker used to watch (after homework and before bedtime, of course). Except... younger and less cartoony. Rather tall and fit, really.

Waker couldn’t help it... it was simply her nature to silently observe and assess her surroundings. Right? Right...

But before her stomach could sway her, tempt her to trade tea for a table and cider in the Three Broomsticks, she sharply turned her face away, repositioned her bag on her shoulder with the opposite, lanky arm, and doubled her speed. She wondered if George might like her to bring him back some biscuits.

It was lunchtime, and although the sun was high and bright, that familiar Christmas chill had set-in. Vasily had worked continuously since Rosemerta had given him the job; slowly but surely, pulling pints and changing barrels had become commonplace for the young Ukrainian, and it kept him out of trouble. Contact with his parents had been limited. His father had sent one owl with three or four sentences on - they were obviously still distraught at Vasily's final gang brawl in the streets of Kiev. Big deal? They shouldn't live in Eastern Europe if they didn't want any warfare in their lives.

Vasily was in the yard of the Three Broomsticks, hauling barrel after barrel into the storage shed, gritting his teeth every time one was picked up and dropped off the ten metres away. The yard itself was exposed to the street that ran adjacent to Hogsmeade High Street, yet Vasily's own labour concentrated his efforts away from the passers-by. With wand in-hand, he bear-hugged one gigantic keg of butterbeer, whilst another levitated behind him. There were still twenty something barrels to shift, but Vasily didn't mind so much. The weather was nothing compared to the bitter chill of Durmstrang Quidditch games, and Vasily's own physical exertion heated his body somewhat, causing him to shed his jumper leaving him in only a t-shirt and slacks. A little red-faced, and a little sweaty, but getting the job done nonetheless.

Dumping down the keg alongside the others in the shed, Vasily aimed his wand at the floating barrel, causing it to slide along and join its wooden cousin. For a split second, he looked up to the street to see a rather attractive young lady gazing down as she walked by. Vasily frowned at her, raising an eyebrow as he moved towards the other barrels.
"Can I help?" he called out, his Slavic-tinged voice harsh and cutting in the cold air. He never did like starers.

Waker saw someone approach in her peripheral, but she kept on walking, power-walking, in fact, as if she were late for a very important pre-midterm exam. But when the voice rang out, clear as day, she couldn’t tell her imagination that it was just some fellow passerby, or brisk walking Hogsmeade native anxious to get his errands done.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, she looked over her shoulder, hair spilling a bit as she appraised the voice’s owner, not surprised but obviously a little uneasy it indeed belonged to the eye candy with the billions of barrels.

Turning more fully, she put on an expertly blasé face and crossed one arm over chest, removing her from the shoulder strap of her bag and instead fiddling idly with her hair, which needed a bit of straightening out after the rush of winter wind had punished her speed-walking.

“Help me with what?” She asked, her voice cool, conservative, but even-tempered and innocent enough. “I was just looking beyond-- in the window there--” She explained needlessly, waving hand in the general direction of the pub. “But I’d rather have tea from a proper teahouse, you know.” She gave the briefest and tiniest of halfhearted smiles, lest she explode with humiliatingly rosy cheeks. She tried not to stare directly at him as she spoke, but made a point of not avoiding his face, either.

Vasily continued to frown, but a smirk appeared on his face as she fidgeted under his stone-cold glare. She was beautiful, and the young Ukrainian eyed her like a predator that was insulted by its prey. There was something endearingly false about the way she stood there, pretending not to be silently appreciating his form in the pub yard. Even now, when confronted, the girl couldn't even look him in the face.

"You were staring," he replied coldly, crossing his arms as he looked up at her on the pavement above. The yard itself was a few feet below street-level, allowing Vasily to glance up and watch all the citizens of Hogsmeade trot on their merry way. "Didn't your parents teach you any manners?" he sneered, something purposefully derogatory and condescending in his tone. Vasily could tell immediately that she was prim; the way she stood there half-smiling and trying her best not to get involved with the foreign ruffian hauling barrels in the yard below. Too late.

"Staring's rude," he explained, shaking his head in another act of disapproving patronisation. Vasily wanted to get the girl worked up - it'd been a while since he insulted a young muse, and he usually found that through conflict, Vasily could get the girl. Hook, line and sinker.

"Course you want proper tea from a proper teahouse," he murmured mockingly loud enough for her to hear, not even bothering to look at her. Picking up a barrel with ease and holding it to his broad, muscular chest, Vasily began carrying it across the yard to the holding shed. "You Hogwarts girls are all the same."

“I was not staring,” Waker retorted coolly, her crossed arm untwining itself just a bit, so that her fingers could grace her neck. This subtle fidgeting, something to do with her hands, was very different from George’s desire to always occupy his digits. It was borne of a need to build walls that weren’t visible to the human eye. “You must think quite highly of yourself to assume everyone who passes by for a drink is spying on you...”

Appraising him up close, she could feel her stomach tying itself in little knots. Before he’d spoken to her, she’d wondered vaguely whether he was very, very young for his age, or whether he’d had a complete post-Hogwarts transformation. However busy Waker was, adding to her academic repertoire, a face like that did not go unnoticed. Hogwarts was grand, but it was not that massive.

But it was clear now: he was not British.

“We Hogwarts girls,” she continued, defending herself as if she’d been scandalized by some eleven-year-old villain... like the one who had tossed collectible knickers at her in George’s dormitory. “Don’t appreciate being lumped together as one entity. How do you even know I’m still in Hogwarts?” She challenged, straightening her shoulders. He was taller than her, perhaps a year or two older, but not terribly old by any means, as she’d already noted. “Maybe I work in London and popped in to visit a friend... and I’ve never seen you around here, so I don’t think you have room to talk about the state of the girls at the castle.”

Tilting her head, quirking a brow, she silently dared him to challenge her. “By the way, some of them are vapid cows, but I’m not one of them.” Her eyes finally left his lowering to her hands, which had found their way to one another, entangled in front of her skirt, a schoolgirl giveaway. “I-- I didn’t mean it like that,” she added, more flustered than when she’d been tossing retorts in his direction. It was hard to stay cool in this stranger’s presence; was he some sort of Dark Lord Jr. in training? That must be it. Disguising himself like... this... no wonder she was nearly blushing! “I just like tea. Is that a crime?” It came out a murmur, and her eyes raised slowly, demurely, waiting to hear what insult he might sling her way next. She knew she should have studied Eastern languages in primary school!

"You call that spying?" he asked, raising an eyebrow with a vague shake of the head. Vasily loved tormenting girls he lusted over, finding that his aggressive streak usually tempted his prey beyond reproach. "I'd call it a blatant staring. I've heard that even you English consider it to be rude." His tone was insultingly demeaning, and Vasily gave a grin of disgust. Throwing down another barrel, the slosh of alcohol inside rang through the cold yard of the Three Broomsticks, his cheeks slightly reddened by the exertion of physical activity.

"How do you even know I’m still in Hogwarts?" the girl asked in an attempt to challenge the Ukrainian thug. He let out a laugh, tilting his head back slightly; even his chortle was annoyingly patronising.
"Where do I start, miss?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders, boyishly leaning against a barrel. "There's no way a girl like you would stick around in a dump like this for no reason; why would anyone? That combined with the prissiness and the general disregard for common courtesy gave you away. That answer your question?" For a fleeting second, Vasily's eyes glared into hers, casting a wave of intensity across the yard. She was wretchedly beautiful, and he wanted his wicked way with the stranger.

He examined her bashful fidgeting, her fingers locking with the opposite hand - she was nervous. Vasily couldn't help but grin a little.
"It's not a crime," he replied, shrugging with a copious dose of nonchalance. "But it's embarrassingly haughty. I bet you couldn't even handle two good hours of drinking - Hogwarts pupils are merely the waspish, sensible cousins of Durmstrang."

“No! I don’t! That’s the point!” Waker could hear her own frustration mounting, the cool and collected Miss Head Girl 2009-2010 dissolving into the icy air, turning to snowflakes, and raining down on her own head. Clinically bad at lying, she knew her sometimes-olive-in-the-summer cheeks were turning rosy over their wintry pale. “You think I’m spying, or something. You must have some ego...” She found herself laughing at the sheer exasperation of it all. A heady, oxygen-depraved laugh, like a fish out of water.

Who was the rude one now?

Hands moving like a pendulum-- hips to defensive arm-crossing and back to hips again-- she took a deep breath and gathered herself. Graceful. Stay graceful. He was only a boy. (Maybe a little older. And very attractive. And with an interesting accent whose hidden mind she’d like to decipher over butterbeer, but that was not the plan.)

“How are the girls where you’re from, sir?” She inquired bitingly. “Docile little cupcakes who keep their eyes down and their hair fluffy? I bet they get far in life.”

Oh, no.

She hadn’t meant it like that.

Really.

He was just infuriating!

Waker opened her mouth, closed it again, shook her head neurotically, and opened it again. “I didn’t meant that! I was just-- you-- you can’t just assume you know me when you don’t.”

Only, he sort of did. He seemed to have gathered her Five Year Plan in his palm and had given it a good squeeze. Out of Hogsmeade? Check. (Though it was endearing, hardly a dump.) Prissy? Well, uptight, maybe. Or erring on the side of propriety. Of self-respect. But not passive demureness, not sickly sweet eyes to feet, not if she only had a brain. Waker was smart, and she wasn’t going to hide it. Even if she did sometimes shy away from certain... situations. (Read: George’s plans for anything.) So what if her eyes were accustomed to scientific observation?

“I’m courteous,” she argued. “Where it counts. And people are courteous back. You know, you started this, not me.” She eyed him up and down, as if sizing him up. “God, why I am still even standing here talking to you?” Her hands flailed, one grasping at the roots of her perfectly combed hair.

A challenge.

Waker dropped her hands and knitted her brows, round pumpkin cheeks rising in two distinct, babyish bunches as her eyes crinkled. She looked like a child and a woman all at once. Not her eighteen years of age, at any rate.

“I could so. But as you say, we’re too prissy to get pissed when we have homework to catch up on. I can see your sensible Durmstrang education has done wonders for your career, though.” She gestured behind him, living up to the title he’d cast upon her.

Vasily grinned at her exasperation, looking up at her once more, his eyes and face tinged with a reserved victory. "I never said you were spying," he quietly replied, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly to make her brewing frustration hit boiling point. "You were blatantly staring. If you want to deny that, then fine, go ahead." Vasily gave her a cunning smirk, heaving another barrel into place. He wasn't particularly muscular, but there was something cruel about his body, something hardened. You didn't have to be built like a heavyweight boxer to be menacing - it was a trait you were normally born with.

"How are the girls where you’re from, sir?" she asked scathingly, still stood a few feet above the yard on the pavement. Leaning against the rough red bricks of the barrel store, he rested a hand under his chin, pretending to be deep in thought.
"A lot different to your good self," he replied finally, his voice all different kinds of sarcastic. "It's only you Hogwarts girls that are all the same - every other breed of female I've encountered have a little variety to them." He paused again, narrowing his eyes. "You girls lack... originality." His last word was deep, both in tone and wound, and Vasily couldn't help but smile at his own remark. He knew that his statement wasn't true - this girl was incredibly beautiful. He just wanted to see a little fight from her.

"God, why I am still even standing here talking to you?" The girl seemed frustrated at her own perseverance with such a thug, and Vasily knew he was winning. Now and again, Vasily seemed to charm the more bourgeoisie of girls with his crass and uncouth ways, his violent history and his general problem with authority. If it meant that he had a gorgeous girl to spend a few nights with, then Vasily was more than happy to oblige to their fantasies of a rough street brawler from Kiev.

Her remark about his current occupation had to be taken admirably - the girl had nerve, and Vasily liked it. It had been a long time (maybe too long) since anybody had spoken to him like that. The Ukrainian tilted his head, examining her silently as he rummaged about in his back pocket. Taking a cigarette from a half empty pack, he placed it between two cold, full lips and used his wand to light it.
"Prove me wrong then. Have a drink with me." It was as if he was almost challenging her to take his company, as if there was a potential danger involved. Exhaling a long stream of grey smoke, he grinned at her, his eyes burning into hers.

Turning her head to the side, arms folded, she decided to remain silent. It was the best tactic, now that she was cornered. She could admit to staring, and thoroughly embarrass herself, or keep arguing that she hadn’t been, and appear nothing less than pathetic. Either way, she was going to lose. And while Waker wasn’t one for forfeit, she was clever enough to know that arguing in public where her peers might see her was not a good move. Not for the Head Girl. Not for the girl intent on being one of the youngest Hogwarts graduates to sail into the Ministry.

But she couldn’t help the huffy, breathy, sardonic little semi-snort of an inhale. It was only the Hogwarts girls who suffered this identity crisis? Oh, really? This young man was a handful. And egotist, too.

“Let me tell you something about originality,” she said, dropping her hands, inclining her brows, lifting her chin. She was still not as tall as him, despite her lanky form, and her face, while scathing, was not exactly mean. Cold would have been the word. Unbreakable. But there was a babyishness that never quite left Waker’s cheeks-- she was simply pumpkin-headed, her fat having gone straight to her face, making her look young even when she looked Very, Very Adult-like. “Originality is not failing your exit exams and ending up balancing barrels of mead at a pub in a village in the middle of the Scottish mountains. You have no room to talk. Tell me again, in six month’s time, your thoughts on originality, and we’ll see who’s right.”

She couldn’t help it. This infuriating figure had brought out a thoroughly snobbish side to her person. Like George, he seemed to have a cunning, tricky, almost stupidly-ballsy side, and a flair for... getting under her skin. But unlike George, he was not warm or adorably goofy. His brand of attraction was more of a dangerous one.

But then he left her without words. Again. A drink?

She hadn’t seen that coming.

Even as she straightened her shoulders and softened her face into its usual sleepy nonchalance, her cheeks tinged with pink. She was being invited for some sort of competition-slash-date.

“I have a boyfriend,” she said immediately. “If-- I can come have tea with you, but I’m paying for myself, and you’re on the clock, aren’t you?” She gestured to the pub behind him. “This is only so you know I’m plenty original...” Yes, yes. This was for the Hogwarts girls. Uh-huh.

She wrinkled her nose. “And that’s very bad for you,” she added, plucking the cigarette straight from his fingers. She looked for a moment as if she might give it a try herself-- the way she stared at it, suspicion and curiosity flooding her gaze. But then she dropped it and twisted the sole of her shoe over it. “Let’s go inside, then. I’m freezing-- I mean, I’m Waker.” Holding back a cringe, she offered the same hand she’d used to steal his cancer stick (her parents were, after all, physicians), and her grandmother had taught her to be polite.

Vasily smiled viciously at her response - she was perfect. Well-mannered, well-bred, well-groomed: everything that could be and shouldn't be undone.
"You don't even know the half of it," he replied quietly, narrowing his eyes. He knew that he'd got her in - she wouldn't have hung around so much otherwise, or even conversed with the brute. Something about his statement was previously tempting, and it rang true; there was so much she didn't know. About the near expulsion, about the gang, about the power struggle with Valentina, and the prisons, and the brawls. He could offer her another avenue of exploration; clean-cut Hogwarts boy he was not. Vasily was Durmstrang through and through.

Upon the invitation of a drink, Vasily was quietly amused at her surprise - he'd caught the prep off guard, and he could see the shock in her face. Insults, then an offer of truce. Even he had to applaud this bold move.
"A boyfriend?" he asked nonchalantly, seemingly without interest in this new splinter of information. Since when had that been a problem? It was a challenge, not an obstacle. "And you're telling me this because?"

He continued, taking another drag of his cigarette and jumping up slightly to perch on a large keg of Firewhiskey.
"I'm due a break. I get everything free working here, but feel free to part with your money," he elaborated quietly, squinting his eyes slightly, appearing mildly uninterested. It was as if Vasily were the cat and she was tired, unwound yarn of wool. He was, however, the source of surprise when she stole his cigarette - a Muggle habit he'd adopted in Moscow - and extinguished it with an angry foot. Maybe there was more fight in her than Vasily initially imagined. "I don't do this tea business. Have a real drink with me." Vasily wasn't inviting her, it was more like a command, lacing his words with that strict Eastern European imperative. Nothing was an offer, everything was an instruction.

He smirked at her offer of a handshake (she was incredibly bashful, and incredibly adolescent) and his rough palm met hers, uttering only his name in introduction. Vasily gazed into her face for a moment, and smiled once more. Opening the back door of the Three Broomsticks and holding it open for her, he couldn't stop grinning, every inch of his lips painted with a malicious attraction. "Come," he insisted, his voice brutally quiet. "A real drink."



 

"You don't even know the half of it."

For some reason, she didn't argue this time. Her slightly parted, albeit still somehow pursed mouth shut itself, as if on autopilot, and Waker let out an inaudible nasally breath. Her resigned indignation, her passively scandalized face with its keen and suspicious cocoa eye and contrastingly full cherub cheeks... it all dissolved to be replaced with genuine embarrassment, a sort of humiliation that couldn't be masked even in her moment of self-righteous ballsy-ness.

"Because-- because," she faltered, but attempted painstakingly to regain her graces. She lifted her chin, pawed her hair from its perfect arrangement around her face. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea. This is purely to prove to you that we're not a bunch of air-headed snobs. It's not..." A date. An invitation to get to know her in more ways than one. Act one of a seduction scene. "Anything else."

They were... an odd attempt at amiable allies. That was that.

His hands were rough, worker's hands, strong and warm not unlike George's. George was a hands-on sort of guy, too. Waker felt a sudden pang, a stab of guilt, as if she'd just broken a half dozen rules and the Hogwarts Police would be round shortly to expel her. Vasily. It was different.

"Alright, alright," she said under her breath, following along after him, rolling her eyes at his domineering dismissal of her preference for tea and politeness. He was pushy, wasn't he? "I'm coming." She crossed her arms, floated quickly behind him, and paused only briefly in the threshold of a door she'd never entered... the back door, the VIP entrance to everyone's favorite pub.

The warmth enveloped her, and Waker swiftly removed her coat, feeling the many layers suddenly taking hold of her throat, making her head woozy. The gingered air and strong lingering headiness of barrels upon barrels of mead did nothing to soothe this sudden head rush. She took a cautious seat, a bar stool, and waited for the newcomer to join her... or whatever it was he had planned to do. Serve her, and then join her? Let her order for the both of them? Fork over the tab? "So... what are we drinking?" She asked, trying not to sound overly nervous. She was a legal witch. She'd sipped champagne on New Years, and had even had half a shot of whiskey with George and Trent over the Christmas holiday. She'd sipped mead, too, a few briefly thieved sips from George's on one of their many trips to the village. But he wasn't here now, and she had the distinct feeling that mead wasn't on this boy's mind.

"And why would I have such an idea?" he asked, raising an eyebrow suggestively. He had intentions for the girl, that was obvious, but he wanted to make her question that little fact. Why was she being so presumptuous? Of course, his whole plot had played right into his hands, but the real secret was to not be too obvious. To always keep them guessing. Hogsmeade was looking up - and if this girl was anything to go by then Hogwarts was obviously a fine source of young women. English women: they weren't as hardened or boisterous as the girls from the Ukraine - they were sweeter, more attracted to the ruggedness of Eastern European exiles like Vasily.

He closely followed her into the pub, his eyes lingering on the smooth skin of her neck, immediately inhaling that warm smell of Butterbeer mixed with her perfume. He pointed to a table, signalling her to sit down as he moved over to the bar. One of the regular barkeeps was there, and Vasily surprisingly got on with most members of staff at the Three Broomsticks.
"Two Romanian Dragon Bloods, please," he said, a mischievous smirk on his face. The bartender immediately looked towards Waker and grinned, obliging Vasily with a simple nod. His drink of choice wasn't actually the blood of a dragon: just an old name of his favourite vodka. It wasn't the harshest Slavic spirit on offer, but it sure packed a punch.

Taking the rather large tumblers of the crystal clear liquid over to their table, he sat opposite her, leaning forward. Sliding the glass over to her, he sighed, and instinctively took a generous sip.
"Tell me about yourself." His voice was deep, ever-commanding and tinged with that sound of heady lust; he wanted Waker, that was fact, but such proximity only heightened this desire. "And don't tell me anything more about your boyfriend." Vasily grinned at his own last comment, his eyes never leaving hers.

"And why would I have such an idea?"

Waker declined to answer, crossing her arms and titling her head to the side impudently as she followed with vague, false intrepidity. She'd let him answer his own question. It was better than stumbling over her words, or even providing a catty answer he could use as bait. This boy, though a stranger, had a certain streak of ballsiness that Waker knew. He was like George, unlikely to back down once he'd got his game unraveling.

She'd been in this pub as many times as she could count (and she was a very good counter, Waker Nolan), but she'd never happened to hear anyone order a Romanian Dragon's Blood. Perhaps it was her own taste in company, or just maybe she was too stuck in her personal bubble, even during those fleeting moments when she longed to break out of it, when she watched and listened with careful eyes and ears from the tippy-top edge of an old library book.

Swallowing her shock-- though perhaps not quickly enough for this brassy character to overlook her nervousness-- she accepted one of the gargantuan vessels of clear, heady liquid, and peered down into it as if it were a wishing well or a pensieve. Her hands cupped it, fingers curling warmly around the cool exterior, but she did not lift it to her mouth. One finger plucked up from its burrow of hardworking digits to plunge timidly below the surface. Chilly and light as air-- yet also toasty in that trademark way of whiskey-- the liquid rippled.

She brought her finger to her barely parted lips, met it with a pink, suspicious tongue, and immediately soured, mouth to eyes, cheeks, and shoulders. The full-body cringe was like a burr. The vodka was that strong... at least for Waker.

Her new friend, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease with his drink of choice.

Determined to overturn his crude ideas of Hogwarts girls, she decided to take one for the team. Before she could turn back, splash the vodka overboard, and run out the door, she lifted the tumbler to her lips and took a long, lightning-fast swig. She parted ways with the cup in a dizzying tilt. "Well, this is new..." She murmured, her eyes finally adjusting and landing on the boy's.

"I'll tell you about me if I can get the truth out of you," she challenged, more gingerly chancing a second sip. It came a little easier this time, the strong saturation of eastern firewater a little cooler on her tongue, a little gentler on her throat. It was even sort of good, underneath the heaviness. And its sheer strength masked any blush in her cheeks at his blunt disregard of George's existence. "How much alcohol is in this?" She lifted the cup again, one-handed, and shrugged it in his direction, as if to suggest his words and taste in liquor were mightier than his person. "I'm on to you."

Vasily paused for a moment, taking another liberal gulp. His eyes never left hers. Not once. She was disturbingly beautiful; of course, Vasily had countless girls in his track record book, but few faces stuck in his mind like hers. He smirked at her comment, looking towards the bar for a fleeting moment. He wanted more to drink, to cut his shift early and spend his evening drowning in an alcoholically-hazed lust, corrupting this girl with his presence. Vasily Volkov was a wicked young man; at that table in the Three Broomsticks, if one looked close enough, you could almost see that rare breed of original sin dancing around in his pupils.

"Why do you care about the alcohol?" he asked, that hateful sneer returning to his face. "Up until ten minutes ago, you were only concerned with tea?" Who was she trying to kid? He couldn't help but laugh when he saw her wince at his poison of choice, a deep bellow that erupted from the back of his throat.
"Amateur," he simply muttered, his cruel lips twisting into a smirk. Whether it was a move to undermine her, or simply a bid of impression, Vasily knocked back his drink, his throat moving up and down slowly as the dangerous liquid entered his stomach in three, hardened gulps.

"I want to know about you," he repeated. Vasily's voice was tinged with a Slavic edge, marginally more noticeable now he was in the comfort of his workplace. "Where you're from, what you want to do, how you cope in a shithole like this." Hogsmeade, although filled with certain small delights (like the lovely Waker here) was still no Kiev. There was a distinct lack of excitement: too sleepy and too, well, dull. Hopefully for Vasily however, the rather enchanting siren opposite him would be a welcome break from the monotony of Scotland.

"You're onto me though?" he asked, raising his eyebrows: an invitation for her to hazard a guess. "Then tell me your predictions. Why do you think I'm here? And whereabouts am I from? What is my calling here in Hogsmeade?" He spat the name of his 'temporary' home as if it were a liquorice sweet dipped in cyanide. He wanted to know everything about his prey. Everything.

Alcohol. Tea. Interrogations on both their parts. Waker had gotten herself into a situation highly unplanned and highly... unpredictable. The futile but catty answers came, nonetheless. Back and forth, like a ship rocking on a sour-stomached sea. He called her an amateur. She pegged him a dipsomaniacal ruckus and murmured hotly under her breath.

And so it went.

The time, strangely, seemed to stand still even as the pendulum ticked away the seconds, the minutes, and finally the hours. Waker told him what there was to know about her, being modest, but straightforward enough, and leave out certain bits that didn't seem relevant to the conversation. He had, after all, seemed none to keen on hearing about her high school Hogwarts sweetheart, but Waker had triumphantly slipped George's name in once or twice. (Coupling it with words like "Quidditch captain" and "Gryffindors, you know, the brave ones...")

As she sipped the strong and heady brew, it wasn't just time that seemed to dissolve into liquid. Waker felt herself... floating in her chair, so to speak. Wispy, giggly, tipsy. Whether it was magic, or just good, old-fashioned alcohol, she couldn't say, but the effect was subtle... and yet not.

By the end of her second glass, she was what any law-abiding, House-Point-conscious Ravenclaw would call "plastered."

 "You asked me my predilections-- predictions," she laughed, correcting the dictionary that swam through her head. An ocean of color-coded note cards fluttering from their carefully organized drawers, forming a slow-motion tornado, a rain parade of loose-leaf vocabulary that had been once-upon-a-time been accumulated with annoying academic drive and a straight back. "What my predictions about you were... are... they're... you're up to no good here in Hogsmeade," she announced, brown eyes widening, jaw falling a bit as she stared at him in what was supposed to be harsh, searing evaluation, but which, in her current state, ended up being kind of clumsy and endearing. "That's my final verdict."

Her straight face caved and she laughed again, masking it with the back of her palm, which slowly made its way up her face like a soothing washcloth, and flattened against her forehead. "What time is it? It's already dark! I can't miss curfew." She began to stand up, but promptly sat down again, some invisible force of wooziness persuading her back into her seat. "Mmm... that's not good."