Life was altogether looking up, Johann considered, as he sat in a corner table near to the great roaring fire of the Three Broomsticks. He'd successfully kept his life, moved to Britain, met half a dozen very interesting people, got the measure of several others, found gainful employment and even regained control of his finances after a complicated early morning trip to Gringotts. He couldn't help but smile to himself as he updated his journal, a well loved leather bound book not much larger than his palm, with pages that would extend infinitely, or so it seemed.

He hadn't meant to delay this reunion to such a date, but having been asked firmly by Ignan to leave first thing on the Tuesday morning, he hadn't had a chance to seek Juliette out. They knew each other from way back, in Paris, at the potioners, he'd worked in the office a month on a cheap translation contract while he was still immersing himself in culture and language. Ignan had dropped her name in conversation, and Johann had picked up on it, interested to hear a familiar name crop up.

So, instead of seeking her out in person, he had written politely, in French, to invite her out for a drink to catch up. Or, if she couldn't he'd offered to visit, or was that too forward? Sometimes he was plain rubbish at that sort of thing. He chuckled as he thought about the other wizard who worked with him in the office. He'd had an almighty crush on Juliette and was rendered speechless in her presence. Johann was not of course, and persisted politely greeting her every morning until she spoke with him. His muted colleague was amazed, Johann was bemused by him.

It was all good to make contacts in Britain, especially ones who drank in pubs with him. Hearing the door open again, his eyes flicked up, checking the entering figures.

outfit

The impressive but welcoming fire cast shadows in its wake, causing the small, many-patroned tables to loom like giants against the floor boards. Juliette dropped the hood of her cloak, her hair reflecting the shades of the flames dancing beneath the pub mantle.

Despite the crowd, and the alternating patches of dimness and brilliant glow, Juliette immediately spotted her old if sadly short-lived colleague, the language wizard (quite literally), Johann Storm. She offered a close-lipped smile from across the room, and floated toward him, draping her winter wear over the back of the empty chair across from his. Flashing her teeth in greeting, she whisked back a rebellious strand of red, which appeared to be attached to the apple of her cheek by some invisible brand of Spell-o-Tape.

The genius who had decided that blue should be the calendar color for winter had obviously not seen a ginger’s flustered complexion  after a stroll through a windy mountainside village in Scotland.

“Johann,” she greeted, maneuvering around the table to greet him with customary kisses to each cheek (and, in the process, marking the taming of hair in vain). Settling into her own seat, Juliette welcomed the comfortably stuffy warmth of the adjacent fire. Her skin began to return to its natural pallid shade, as if some very un-Juliette-ish disguise had melted away. “It’s been far too long. Are you hear to join me in teaching?” She inquired, raising a playful brow. “A Hogwarts language department, maybe?” She summoned a waiter, who promptly poured her a  glass of water. “I’m sure your uncle would be thrilled... Unless you plan to steal his job.”

“Johann,” Juliette greeted, and Johann hopped up, slipping his journal back into his coat, before exchanging customary kisses on each cheek with his old friend. Settling into her own seat, Johann paused, knowing it would be good form to now offer her a drink.
“It’s been far too long. Are you hear to join me in teaching?” She inquired, raising her eyebrow. “A Hogwarts language department, maybe?” She summoned a waiter, and Johann perched back down. “I’m sure your uncle would be thrilled... Unless you plan to steal his job.”

Johann smiled boyishly.
"It has been far too long, yes!" He agreed firmly, drawing forwards to rest his forearms gently on the table edge, narrowing the distance between them. "I'm not here to teach, nor steal Ignan's job either. Besides, technically he's my cousin - even if he acts like an uncle." He smiled, unaware his correction of Juliette could be a bit of an insult on her intelligence.
"Though I am entirely in agreement about a language department at these schools - something that is sadly lacking!" He smiled.

"How are you, more to the matter? Teaching the fine arts of potions to these uncouth teenagers, as Ignan does put it. What made you come to teach that, and at such a young age?" He asked curiously.

She was pleased to see a familiar smile, something nostalgic in a life of perpetual (if also self-induced) change. Juliette was, after all, human. Everyone needed friends; even that misanthropic librarian who had sourly offered her his salve after she’d nearly had his face blown off. Not that it had been her fault. At all. And he would never get so much out of her.

Returning to the present with a flutter of lashes, a blink like a hummingbird’s wings, she inclined her head toward his, like a school child being baited by a particularly scandalous piece of gossip. She was, of course, only being warm... not something most of Hogwarts had been privy to see from her.

“Cousin, uncle...” She shrugged. “It’s all the same after a while.” Only they both knew it wasn’t. Juliette had been trained to memorize the Vaillancourt family tree nearly as soon as she could talk. It was a source of pride, to know how deeply rooted one’s family was in the magical world, how far across Europe they’d spread, and most probably Johann could relate, at least where his father’s side of the family-- and Ignan’s-- was concerned.

Not that they’d discussed it much in their brief time working together. Other things, languages that sounded like magic and magic uttered in a handful of languages, had seemed more pertinent at the time. Johann, like Juliette, seemed to have been something of a workaholic. And she’d liked him, the many-tongued traveler who had made the company in Paris a smidgen more interesting for a few fleeting months.

“Perhaps now we’ll finally have time to talk about these things... so I don’t make anymore mistakes,” she teased, something of a challenge to her tone, her blue eyes narrowing like a cats as she leaned back. Her lips melted from a purse of mock sourness into a cheeky grin.

Speaking of cousins...

“Miss Snark is a traditionalist in the best sense, but I think she would love for the children to be more... worldly wizards,” she mused aloud. A language department, indeed. But at the end of the day, the Ministry decided the curriculum, and they were hardly in a position to finance such an endeavor, whether or not it was sorely needed. The muggle recession had hit the wizarding world, too. “Maybe if they revive the tournament, we’ll be able to convince them...”

She had to laugh at his next words, the inquiry of the ever-elusive, horribly hormonal, teenaged human in its natural habitat, school (or more simply abbreviated, hell).

“I wanted a change of pace, and something to add to my resume. Teaching looks good on paper, you know,” she began vaguely. But really, she was curious. She had never quite decided whether she loved or loathed children, and it was probably neither. She’d been a precocious child, an independent one, and had never experienced anything like the Hogwarts Houses. It was all new, and dare she admit it, exciting. “But the deciding factor? My mother nearly had a nightmare when I told her I wanted to take another job and remain unmarried-- worse, to become a teacher! That’s for esteemed grandparents and poor geniuses, she said. And men.”

Nevermind that her own cousin was Headmistress, an accomplished aristocratic woman, and a mother. The politics were another game: administering was admirable because it always lead to and from cushy legislating positions. Teaching was a silly, cat-lady type indulgence for such a young and fertile girl. She hadn't the credentials! She could get in trouble. She could end up married to a muggleborn Muggle Studies professor or mothering the children of a penniless herbologist. Madame D’aubigne-Vallaincourt had been born to be a mother, and that was exactly what she was. Juliette had been born to be Juliette, and she’d be damned to give it up so soon. And so the war raged.

“Cousin, uncle...” She shrugged. “It’s all the same after a while.” They shared a smile and a pause as the considered how wizarding families could be so proud about heritage.

“Perhaps now we’ll finally have time to talk about these things... so I don’t make anymore mistakes,” she teased, something of a challenge to her tone, and grinning.
"Oh, I hope so!" Johann replied, mirroring it. "No employer breathing down our necks to ensure we keep to schedule or earn our keep without idle chatter."

“I wanted a change of pace, and something to add to my resume. Teaching looks good on paper, you know, but the deciding factor? My mother nearly had a nightmare when I told her I wanted to take another job and remain unmarried-- worse, to become a teacher! That’s for esteemed grandparents and poor geniuses, she said. And men.”

"Ha!" Johann replied, amused, thinking of how his own family were, with a former headmaster and half a dozen teachers in the generations and extended family. "Quite an exact observation, in retrospect." He chuckled. "Marriage isn't for everyone mind you." He added kindly, having never been interested in it himself. No doubt members of the family thought he was gay... his own parents skimmed round the subject cautiously.
"No office clerks chasing you to England then?" He asked curiously, wondering what had become of the wizard who had worked with him, who harbored  huge crush on Juliette. "Shame. You did realise he was besotted with you, didn't you?" He asked.

"Yes, isn't this the life-- we work for no one. Except our respective bosses," she clarified. "Of course."

She had suspected time to time suspected, and more or less confirmed through owl and offbeat chances to talk, that Johann was much like she: his faithfulness was to his work, and everything else mounted into a fabulous reluctance to settle down in any manner of the word. He was not the least bit intimidating, not to Juliette, and could not be described as "wild" by even the most polished of pens, but he had a escape artist quality about him, even if it was rooted in intellect and dedication to his craft.

She liked that about Johann.

"So you've never wanted to be a papa and a husband?" She asked, deciding not to beat around the bush. They were in a bar, sharing drinks, being friends, enjoying their time off from... whatever each happened to be doing. With Johann, it was not a simple affirmation or shake of the head, and with Juliette, well, instructing was not her only source of income. She had private clients, and their needs were still being met even as she sat behind a desk in a thousand-year-old academic institution.

As for her own romantic life...

"Nothing like that... only silly boys who haven't learned to tuck their shirts into their trousers or keep their ties from falling loose." She did not, of course, mention a certain blond coworker. That was... a many-layered topic, and one for another night. Juliette swayed away from that arena of discussion, lest Landis end up turning her into a fool.

"This man, it's a shame he didn't have half your brains," she sighed. What sort of woman-- or person-- Johann favored was the utmost of mysteries. Juliette wondered whether even she could prod it out of him. "He might not still be an office clerk. But I'd be lying if I remembered him completely. The face... the face is still there. But the name? My memory is embarrassing me at the moment." She grinned; her memory was perfectly fine. But she did not always remember people who didn't stand out. People were not like potions ingredients; they did not all serve a function. "But no woman wants to remember a man who spilled punch all over her favorite cloak during her last shift before leaving Paris. Some farewell. Wish you'd been there to see it."

"This man, it's a shame he didn't have half your brains, he might not still be an office clerk. But I'd be lying if I remembered him completely. The face... the face is still there. But the name? My memory is embarrassing me at the moment." Juliette grinned. "But no woman wants to remember a man who spilled punch all over her favorite cloak during her last shift before leaving Paris. Some farewell. Wish you'd been there to see it."

Her eyes glinted in the firelight, which crackled behind them. Johann's watched her intently, unblinking as she spoke, and hardly leaving her face as he shared a grin with her instinctively.

"I wish I had." He assured her quietly. "Poor man had it worse than one could imagine, and clearly nothing improved after I left. I used to tease him something chronic by retaining full motor skills and the ability to maintain fluent conversation with you. Ooh, I hope you don't therefore get the impression I spoke to you only due to my own wish to prove a point and provide a besotted man anguish on a daily basis...?" His eyes dropped and his brow furrowed, eyebrows drawing together in concern.

"I've not heard from him again, though he wasn't the sort to write, probably for the best he crawled back under the stone he came from. The world wouldn't function without people like Ambrose to fill those humdrum roles." Johann's mouth curled up into a sarcastic smirk. "For that was his name, you remember now?"

They shared a moment of remembering. Johann felt like giggling like a small boy over the whole issue, which was now in the past far enough to seem frankly ridiculous.

"No, not a husband, not that sort of material I've been told. I'd like to grow old eventually, with my mind intact, anything more is just luck. I believe it was 'inattentive', 'untidy' and 'distant' that was used to describe me last," He recalled the only woman in the last decade to go as far as deciding to move in with him, rather more her interest in him, than vice versa, he just enjoyed someone to manage domestic matters and theorise to (even when she was asleep), "I believe the correct terms for setting up such a partnership are 'loving', 'caring' and 'supportive'." Johann raised an eyebrow. "Plenty of time for that when life gets boring, hmm?"

His eyes slid from their focus on Juliette across the room to the bar where a group had just come in and were greeting friends. Definitely a hairpiece, he thought to himself, eyes flitting about their appearance and body language, making judgments on age, likely employment and how each of the group knew each other. All in theory of course. His attention had completely wandered from Juliette, as could often happen.

Then as suddenly as he was distracted, he blinked and looked straight back at her, as if nothing had happened, carrying on the conversation.
"So if there's no clerk, and nobody to introduce me to here, your string of admirers must be stuck back at the castle?" He guessed.

"Please, Johann, I can read men well enough... you wouldn't possibly have used me without my knowing it," she offered in confident, friendly retort. "Besides, he couldn't have been worth it to you. You aren't the sort. You're too... drawn into your work." She meant it in the best possible way. But Johann, taking some sadistic pleasure in taunting a man over a childish crush? It seemed hardly feasible. Or maybe she didn't know him well enough.

"You're starting to sound like that muggle Darwin." Or Voldemort, perchance? No, no. "But, yes... it's sad, how some don't have a chance from the start. It's as if they're made purely to be stepping-stones for the rest of us." His mother must have been proud.

Laughing with a flash of teeth, she imagined the man across from her dressed in robes for the alter. A bride with a veil, and a wizard reciting eternal poems to unite the two in some magicless bit of magic. Law. "Untidy? Please. That can't be the reason you won't marry. Find yourself a tame sort of girl to worship you and iron the contents of the suitcases you live out of," she teased. "Or would she drive you mad?" She already knew the answer to that. Maybe.

Sipping silently, she followed Johann's gaze, and then broke off, catching interesting scenes of her own before turning back to him. He was still in the stars, or in his mind, letting it churn at whatever invaluable pace at which it moved. She was ready to humor him when he landed back on earth.

"My admirers are underage and terribly hormonal, I'm afraid. But if you're curious about the castle, just say so. I'll give you a tour." And get them both promptly lost in the process. Hogwarts was massive in ways that one couldn't begin to explain. It was neither like Beauxbatons palace nor the fortress that was Durmstrang. Their alma maters, great and mysterious in their own ways, were somehow shadows of the ancient sprawl of stone. Plus, neither of them having attended, they were a bit prone to missing those things that became second nature to the children habituating the place.

"My admirers are underage and terribly hormonal, I'm afraid. But if you're curious about the castle, just say so. I'll give you a tour."

Johann cracked a smile in response. Hormones were responsible for many things, apparently, though he couldn't ever remember them getting in his way noticeably as a teenager or these days.

"As long as they don't cause you any trouble. I'm sure Ignan would be happy to knock some sense into them - not that they'd be strange to admire you in the first place - but students, teachers, not really your thing - I assume at least." He stopped. "Ah, that wasn't good was it? Sorry." Johann shook his head and lowered his gaze, colour ever so slightly appearing on his cheekbones.

"I would love to have a tour, if that's not going to be an inconvenience." He smiled politely, and saw the empty glasses.

"Another drink?"

She didn't bat a lash, didn't offer any bit of gossip as the word teachers danced ever so casually into the conversation, alongside such words as "students" and phrases like "not really your thing." She wanted to laugh, to bring up such unfortunate (fortunate?) events as potions explosions and easily-ruffled blond men, but she did not. All in good time.

"Johann, don't be so embarrassed. It's only sexual attraction we're discussing." Juliette tapped the side of her cheek, lips pursing. He was blushing. Obviously he felt he'd crossed some line in his casual-friend questions. Juliette was more than pleased, for those were always the least boring sorts of friends. "Even unicorns are prey to the damned thing."

"But no," she added. "No more drinks. Not yet. Let's go up to the school. I'll give you that tour right now. We can start with Ignan's office." There was none too subtle a wicked edge to the offer. "Or the library." Also hilarious. "I'm sure we can procure a bottle or two up there. They don't childproof everything."

"Johann, don't be so embarrassed. It's only sexual attraction we're discussing. Even unicorns are prey to the damned thing." Juliette humoured him. Johann was rather more flustered about implying she might enjoy more than professional relations with minors, rather than the sexual attraction bit, which he always viewed with some detachment.

"But no, no more drinks. Not yet. Let's go up to the school. I'll give you that tour right now. We can start with Ignan's office. Or the library. I'm sure we can procure a bottle or two up there. They don't childproof everything."

Johann raised his eyes, forehead creasing. If he wasn't so bad at picking up on potential seductive comments, he might have interpreted that as two dark places for a couple to go - not that Ignan's office was in any way romantic with all the weird things in it.
"Why ever would you want to go in his office? I wouldn't touch the wine in there - haven't you heard what he does to it?" Johann asked, referring to the bottles Ignan forced the seventh years to test for poison by tasting. "Damn waste of elven wine too." He shook his head.

"Well, in which case, Ms Vaillancourt, I will accompany you back to the castle." Johann said with finality, and stood up, drawing his chair back, and sliding his grey coat back on over his shoulders, his scarf around his neck after making efforts to help Juliette with her cloak. The notes of her fragrance filled the air again as she moved, and Johann sniffed approvingly - expecting nothing less from a former perfumer.

Politely offering his arm to Juliette to take, he anticipated the cold outside would now be even more bitter given the absence of the fire right beside them, so it would be good to walk a little closer to another.

Juliette laughed, shaking waves of red at him. “I didn’t mean steal Ignan’s wine-- I meant we’ll find it in the castle, and--" She grinned, easing out of the laugh with a gentler voice. He really was the most socially adorable of men she'd befriended. A touch awkward, a touch on edge for all his brightness. "But you should have a look at his office, at the very least. It’s got to be a year’s worth of Hogwarts education in one two minute trip,” ventured the Beauxbatons alumnus, in one bantering jibe. (In all honesty, of course, she admired the founders of the ancient intellectual sprawl, and most of its current staff, or she mightn’t have accepted the job in the first place.)

“But do tell me more about his reserve,” she purred, taking the offered arm and heading for the castle, the wintry winds stirring about them with invisible gusto.