Ruby Flickwick
Hufflepuff Common
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Scotland

Tilly Quinn
Reducto Records
Diagon Alley
London, England

Dear Tilly,
I've sat staring at this parchment for a good hour now. I keep trying to find a way to be conversational, pleasant, to thread together words in the way Mum used to... to hide the fact I'm really writing to beg for a job. She was so good at dressing up requests as something other than what they were. It is apparently not a skill she passed on along to me. The short version of a long story that has me a bit wounded and questioning certain friendships is I thought I had a roommate and flat lined up. Apparently I have the flat but not the roommate. I could have staved off a bit with some more warning; I had enough saved if I could split the cost but now that it's become obvious who is willing to stand behind my and my disillusionment with and apathy toward the Ministry (lots of scribbled over marks and lines to mask whatever was written)

I just need the job, I need the money. I hate to ask because it feels like such an abuse of a dearly loved and long standing friendship.

I ... I  can't go home Tills. I can't move back into that place. I can't handle another day of Da looking at me like I've spit on my own mother's memory because I refuse to work for the beast that killed her.

Easter was bloody unbearable.

I. Will. Crack. Up.

I hate putting you on the spot and I'll never ask you for anything else as long as I live. I'll even babysit for free whenever you need me too... Just let me on at the shop for a little while until I figure out this mess.

Please?

Tilly Quinn
Reducto Records
Diagon Alley
London, England

Ruby Flickwick
Hufflepuff Common
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Scotland

Dear Ruby,

I'm so sorry to hear you're having a rough time with your plans. I know what it's like to move out on your own for the first time, and I also know what you've been through this year. There will always be a place for you with us. Reducto (and I) would be thrilled to have you in our little family. I know you know your way around a studio and the shop. If you need a couch to crash on while you're working out the details of your flat, you're more than welcome to stay with us. Dennis won't mind (he's used to people crashing on every bit of furniture the two of us own), and I would love to have you around! Colin would also enjoy your company. He's catching up now, getting big! (Well, as big as a baby his age can get. He's still very tiny, and loves to grab hair and flirt with the ladies.) I remember when Soph was near as small. (Alright, maybe she was four or five, but I could still hold her in one arm!) I know your dad does, too. He's been in the shop a few. It's been hard on him, too, Ruby, but don't give up there. He loves you more than anything.

Breathe, love. Your next holiday will be happier, and the summer will be warm.

Love,
Tilly

Ruby Flickwick
Hufflepuff Girl's Dorm
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Scotland

Tilly Quinn
Reducto Records
Diagon Alley
London, England

Sweet Tilly,
I don't know how to thank you. I really don't; I'm not sure there are words for the depth of my gratitude in the Oxford English Dictionary. There might be; I haven't read the whole thing through. Sophie is, admittedly, the mix-master and all around studio monkey (even Da begs her opinion on bands before he signs with them). However, growing up as my father's daughter I've picked up my fair share of the trade. It's funny to think something I hated doing every single summer is some how now becoming useful. You suppose History of Magic is like that too? Someday I'll wake up and need to know why Giants went to war?

I keep waiting for things to get better; for the pain in my chest to dull just a little. Sophie and Emily are handling it so much better than I am. Maybe it's that feeling of no one being able to understand the position she left me in; maybe it's the way I saved all my rebellion up for the end...I don't know Tills. I feel sometimes like I'm caught in an underwater typhoon and I have no way to tell top from bottom. I could just as easily be swimming to the darkness as the light. It doesn't matter where I go or what I do, who I'm with... I feel alone. It is the single most terrifying feeling I have ever had; to be surrounded by people I used to know, I used to love... and feel like there is an invisible wall between all of us.

I just... need time to not have to try so hard to hold everything together. All my life I've been chasing after people; trying to keep them safe from themselves...I don't know who I am outside of that - and in trying to find out, in trying to step back and examine what it is I really might want for my life I feel like I've lost one of my closest friends. There are people you expect to stand by you through thick and thin... and then one day you realize they won't. Some how it makes everything feel like a lie, it makes the years and years of secrets and promises feel like they're worthless.

And when it's all said and done... I feel like you're the only person I know who is telling me it's alright to just breathe; to just find some kind of stasis before I tackle all of the big ugly "what-ifs" in my world now.

Love you and the Poppet (it's still weird to say I love Creevers).
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