[borgin and burkes]

[ohitsme]

Another day at Borgin and Burkes, and Caroline is bored out of her mind. She hasn't seen Sully in several days, and business has been pretty slow. She's dusted everything she can dust. Ugh. She pokes through another book that's caught her eye, but it's turning out to be a disappointment.

"At this rate, I might go back to freelancing," she grumbles to herself. "At least I wasn't bored back then." Well, she wasn't. But no, she's not actually that bored.

Comments

[ohitsme]

"I hear Aristotle is traditionally a good name for an octopus," Caroline says agreeably. It's close enough to the truth, and if they're not talking about the same thing she can play it off as a weird wives' tale she heard somewhere. She hears a lot of those.

When he set the money down, he didn't set off the selection of charms she casts every time she has counter duty. So it's genuine currency, and almost certainly not cursed. A quick glance at the neat stack tells her it's the correct number of coins. Good.

And then the little octopus is distracting her once again as he knocks his owner's hat and glasses askew. Caroline can't help giggling, but she does have the good grace to look sheepish about it.

"If it makes you feel any better, at least you've probably never had him wake you up in the middle of the night making Dementor death rattle noises in your ear." She shakes her head ruefully. "Roäc likes to test my patience."

[confundus]

"That is why I picked it, yes." Not that most wizarding folk would know about muggle television shows, alas. Eddie's fairly certain they're missing out.

He sighs and goes about prying Aristotle from his hat, which he mostly succeeds at. The little octopus takes Eddie's glasses with him, however. "That sounds pleasant. A raven, I'm guessing?" He looks Aristotle right in his octopus eyes and frowns before straightening his hat. "This little troublemaker likes to smack me in the face with his tentacles. He disapproves of naps, apparently."

Aristotle waves the glasses along with the quill for a moment, then seems to consider the object more thoroughly in his typical octopus-esque way - by manhandling them with his tentacles. After a little bit he manages to fold the glasses properly and begins waving them cheerfully at Eddie again.

"Yes, thank you." Eddie puts the glasses in his pocket instead of returning them to his face. Aristotle goes in the opposite shoulder, hopefully with less diversions this time.

[ohitsme]

"You don't look much like a Pugsley, though," Caroline can't help but say. Oh well. If she's just offended him, at least he's already paid for his book.

"Oh yes, one of several to many, depending on when you ask. Can't get rid of them, really." That might be too much information. Oops. Caroline giggles at the glasses theft. "A couple of the regular flock used to steal my glasses, 'til I outsmarted them and fixed my vision." Well, mostly. She still benefits from reading glasses now and then, but she doesn't need them for every day.

[confundus]

"Fortunately." Eddie flashes a brief grin. She understood the reference! That's a rare thing, especially in this part of town. "I suppose I could have named him Thing but it just didn't fit."

Aristotle isn't just content to stay on Eddie's shoulder now, no. He clumsily climbs down into Edddie's pocket... right next to the glasses. It'd look less strange if he didn't now have a black feather quill and several long tentacles hanging out of said pocket, but he supposes that's par for the course for him. "Brilliant birds, complete and total pains in the ass. More than I had thought, apparently." He arches a brow but not at anything in particular she'd said. "Raven feather quills?"

[ohitsme]

"No, Aristotle was definitely the better choice." She grins back.

"That's an accurate summary, yeah." Caroline snorts. "And yeah, I'm just about swimming in them. I think that one might actually be from Roäc, now that I think about it. Most of my quills are from his feathers or Adrestia's, and that's way too small a quill for one of hers." That's not exactly a small quill Aristotle's waving around, either.

[confundus]

"I'm glad someone agrees." It's true, really. No one ever gets his pop culture references and he finds it somewhat distressing. A redhead with lots of Ravens, though? Something's somewhat familiar about this, something he can't quite place.

"Adrestia must be rather... impressive," He comments, looking down at the quill Aristotle is toying with. It's about then things slide into place. "This might be a little odd, but did you happen to be in Ravenclaw?"

[ohitsme]

Caroline smiles. "She is, yeah." But then... uh oh. Here we go. "Uh, yeah. I was. Why do you ask?" As if she doesn't know.

If he knows enough to ask that, he must have been at Hogwarts at the same time. He might even look a little familiar, now that she thinks about it.

[confundus]

"Well, the ravens. And you do look somewhat familiar." Eddie taps his chin with a finger thoughtfully. He knows he knows her name. He just... can't quite place it, at the moment. "L something. ...Leekfield? No, that's not it."

[ohitsme]

"Lichfield," Caroline supplies helpfully, staring over the man's shoulder at nothing in particular. She's not really in an eye contact mood suddenly.

The one bright spot at the moment is that she knows this guy didn't make her school days a living hell. She remembered those people by name and face. That he seems vaguely familiar but not recognizable means he probably left her alone.

[confundus]

"I was close." Eddie lets out a little nervous laugh, scratching the back of his neck absentmindedly. "I was a couple years ahead of you. I don't think we ever really spoke."

He vaguely remembers her being something of a target. For the most part, he'd been too busy trying to salvage his academic reputation to notice the younger kids in his House. It's likely he'd said something snarky to her at some point, but that was how he interacted. Still is, really.

[ohitsme]

"You were." Caroline squints at him and tries to remember a name, but she can't quite. "I... can't actually remember your name, sorry." She suddenly thinks he might have been some sort of outcast too, but she can't really think of why.

He looks nervous now. Well, of course he does. She was generally considered a menace both in and out of her House, after that one incident. Not that she'd had friends before. Oh well. They've finished their business transaction, he can leave without being rude.

[confundus]

Eddie's immediately relieved she doesn't remember him. As much as he'd like to be memorable, he'd rather the things that haunted him at Hogwarts stay there never to be spoken of again. And it's easier when he doesn't have to constantly correct people on his last name.

"Oh, it's no problem," A brief pause it with a little more nervous laughter, though admittedly less nervous in nature than before. "It's Edward Nygma."

It occurs to him that he can't place her firstname and he's not entirely sure he wants to try. Aristotle, meanwhile, has plucked his glasses out of his pocket and is unfolding and refolding them, entirely unhelpfully.

[ohitsme]

The name sounds a little familiar, which is about right for a Housemate she never really interacted with. Caroline realizes that he probably doesn't actually know her first name, given that he only guessed (not too badly) at her surname. "Um, I'm Caroline."

She's really not sure why he's hanging around if he's remembered enough about her to be nervous. She shifts her weight to her other leg, then back again. Then she sighs. "Look, I'm not gonna call down avian wrath or curse your intestines out of you or whatever else you remember people claiming I did for fun. It's fine." She cracks her neck and glares up at him halfheartedly.

[confundus]

Eddie responds to the halfhearted glare by just staring at her for a moment, blinking before snorting as realization hits him. Had she had something of a bad reputation? It seems so. He doesn't quite recall much about it, however.

"Caroline, I doubt I cared about your apparently tarnished reputation then, and I certainly don't care now." He shakes his head with certainty. His indignation that he would has cut right through the awkward nervousness, at least.

[ohitsme]

Caroline shrugs, a little embarrassed. "I think the only reason nobody accused me of being a Death Eater in training is that I wouldn't have had anything to be training for." Apparently tarnished reputation indeed. She scratches the back of her head awkwardly. "But thanks." She's not actually going to add that that makes about... two people, because that's frankly unnecessary. And he can probably guess that anyway.

Whatever she might have said next flies out of her mind entirely as she sees the sky outside dim dramatically. "Oh come on, not again." She turns back to Nygma. "Look, you're either going to want to get out of here in a hurry or plan to stay put for a while. Looks like it's time for another Dementor sweep, and they love to linger around here."

[confundus]

"For being a house that prioritizes intelligence, most of our housemates were rather tragically dim." That applies to most of the school, now that he thinks about it. Professors included.

He catches sight of the suddenly darkening sky as she does. It's not a welcome sight. "Bloody hell. I think I'll just wait this out, if you don't mind."

[azkabanned]

The door to the shop more or less just suddenly swings open, but thankfully what comes barging in isn't a dementor. It's just Sully, scruffy and disheveled as ever, though perhaps a little ashen-faced. He shuts the door behind him and looks as if he wishes he could lock it. It takes a moment before he turns to acknowledge the shop's current occupants.

"Hey, Caroline." He nods a hello to his coworker. He has to take a moment to look over the other guy, however. He's not really any more unusual than any of their other regulars. He's just... Sully's sure he's seen him before. "Please tell me you're not a fucking Weasley."

[ohitsme]

Caroline snorts. "That's certainly true. I think idiocy might be a Hogwarts tradition. If I'd known, I think I would have tried to get into Durmstrang instead." She gestures vaguely around the shop. "Make yourself at home."

Then Sully comes barreling in. "Hey Sully." She nods back. She's quietly glad he came in. She doesn't really like the thought of him getting caught out there with the Dementors. And... oh, for fuck's sake, Sully. Tact, please look it up in a dictionary. "No, he's a Nygma. Sheesh Sully. Not every redhead is a damned Weasley, we've been over this." Actually, now that she's said that, she's pretty sure Nygma is in fact a minor Wizarding family... Yeah. Yeah it is.

Her grousing at him is a little less good natured than it would normally be, because she's not super excited about the Dementors in her near future. She can handle them easily enough, but she'd still really rather not. And this time she's got people with her to look after.

[confundus]

Eddie's brows go up about as far as they possibly, his lips curling down into something of a frown. "No. Most definitely not." Caroline's helping with the correction, though 'Sully' is not a name he's unfamiliar with. It takes the briefest of moments for him to remember why.

"I remember you, Walter." His expression relaxes into a smile that's altogether more smug than it probably should be. "Especially the rather spectacular way you dropped out."

He's fairly certain the Gryffindors don't even want to admit he was in their house. They're somewhat prone to wanting to forget their problem children.

[azkabanned]

"Oh a Nygma, pardon me." There's a few good reasons why Borgin doesn't have Sully man the shop. This is one of them. He stalks over to store the satchel he's carrying behind the counter, at least for the moment.

The snobby tone Mr. Nygma adopts gets a narrow-eyed glare. And then... "Eddie Nashton." Sully chuckles. It's a nice distraction from the impending Dementors. "You're one to fuckin' talk, I remember you nearly getting kicked out. Your rep ever recover from that?"

[ohitsme]

"Oh for fuck's sake, can you two children behave for five minutes?" Hopefully Caroline can shut them both up before this gets out of control. She kind of needs to focus. She knows how the Dementors do sweeps, and it's a real good bet that one will try to come swooping in.

And sure enough, here comes one creeping up the street, bringing chill and gloom with it. It hovers about, and when a second joins it they start drifting towards the door. Caroline takes a moment to close her eyes and focus. She has to let them in long enough for them to "search" anyway. She tunes out their muttering and pulls out her wand. Okay. They're hovering in the door and preparing to come closer. Not surprising. Sully's been to Azkaban, so he's probably a familiar and beloved snack source, and Caroline's past makes her a very tempting target as well. Not that Dementors are picky, but the more bad memories a person has, the more fun it is for them. Ugh.

The added cold and awful feelings roll in like a cloud front. But Caroline is ready. Before they can both get in the door, she opens her eyes and casts. "Expecto Patronum!"

And then a large, white shark erupts from her wand and charges across the shop, jaws open and wisps of white smoke rolling off it like water. The Dementors back out of the shop before it can attempt to actually tear them in half with its teeth. It swims in a protective circle in front of the door once as the Dementors continue on their way. It then glides back towards Caroline, giving both men a wide berth. She pats it on the head once and then lets it dissipate.

[confundus]

"It's Nygma," Eddie replies in a voice best described as scathing. Caroline's interjection snaps his attention away long enough, that by the time he re-formulates his response he can already see a Dementor swooping up the street.

He has his wand out and raised as soon as the Dementor makes it to the door. He feels that chill straight to his bones. He knows he's not the only one, either; Aristotle is rapidly feeling like a squishy little icecube in his pocket. That'll have to be dealt with rather soon. He hesitates instead of casting his patronus.

Caroline has no such hesitation, however. He watches as the creatures are chased off by a rather impressively big white shark. He'd thank her, but the first thing he does is go to cover the Aristotle-filled shirt pocket with his hands. He's already too cold, though apparently still lively enough to grasp at his owner's fingers with his tentacles. He'd dropped his quill sometime during the encounter, though.

[azkabanned]

Sully barely registers that Edward says anything. He's too busy staring out the shop windows, at the dark silhouettes beyond them. At any other time, when presented with a threat, drawing his wand would be instinctive; a practiced action, not even requiring though. But right now...

He moves backwards in slow, carefully measured steps. First one approaching, then a second. The sidle up into the doorway and it's like a punch in the stomach, again. He feels the blood drain from his face,and the sort of full-body chill that always ends in shivering. He backs up until his shoulder hits a shelf. He hardly notices. All he can really focus on are the Dementors and their quiet murmurs.

He may hardly notice Caroline cast her spell, but he definitely notices when a big ass shark patronus swims through the air like it's going to have a Dementor meal.

He only shifts his gaze away when the things are gone. And then, it's only to regard Caroline with a slightly-amused arched brow. "A goddamn shark?"

[ohitsme]

Now that the crisis has been averted, Caroline feels the cold sweep over her in a delayed reaction. Between the Dementors and the effort of casting a Patronus, she feels a little ill. A Patronus is a hefty spell, and it's not quite lunchtime, so she's done it on an empty stomach. Great. If only she had some chocolate, but oh well.

She tucks her wand back into its holder and turns to look at the two men. Nygma seems all right, but the little octopus looks unhappy. "Would a warming charm help him any?" She's not sure if it would interfere with whatever else he's cast on Aristotle or even be much good for an octopus, but. Sully looks rough, though. Rough enough that she'll go along with his comment instead of being annoyed. "And yet people continue to fuck with me," she says in a long suffering voice, spreading her hands in a gesture of disbelief.

[confundus]

Eddie casts a brief glance back at Sullivan. He doesn't look good, but given his recent, public parole from Azkaban, well... that's likely to be expected.

His attention goes back to his chilly little octopus, scooping him out of his pocket after retrieving the quill from the ground. "Actually... Would you mind terribly if I borrowed that jar again? He liked it quite a bit." He could conjure a container, but if the jar makes Aristotle happy, he'd rather that.