*Damn. He never should have given her a name, it humanized her, and now he's got to invent things - he's always been good off the cuff but it doesn't mean he likes it just now. The stakes are too high. So he just dives in, spinning out the kind of silly schoolgirl fancy she'd probably believe, too aware that it couldn't be less like the reality of his relationship with Sirius, from the framework up.*
She seems to think so. It was all a bit of a whirlwind - I was just at the market, you know, the open-air one by my old flat, and she tripped over a loose paving stone and dropped her shopping. Oranges everywhere, eggs broken, it was a right mess, and I happened to be passing and helped her, and - well.
*He puts on a small smile, trying to draw on real memories to make it look convincing - the nights spent up up in the Astronomy Tower with Padfoot, out of bed long after hours just to have a bit of time alone together. Or the smiles across the Gryffindor table at breakfast, layers of hidden meanings in them that everyone else was oblivious to, or the night of his eighteenth birthday, in the library - they were purely, truly happy memories, and good fuel for faking newly-in-love. Back at Hogwarts, the end of seventh year when they'd just finally figured things out and the war hadn't consumed their lives yet, when it was all stolen kisses and muffled laughter and tangled sheets on narrow beds. Remus wouldn't trade what they have now for anything - they're so solid, now, so steady and it's safe and it's home - but there's no denying that things were simpler, before. Happiness without the edge of fear. He tries to draw on that.*
*She sees it ever so vividly: oranges rolling everywhere on the cobblestones and poor hapless Hazel-the-Muggle (a pretty if slightly dumpy brunette, in Amrita's mind) fretting all over the place. And Remus, of course, to the rescue. The story is enough, but the little smile he's wearing clinches it, and Amrita lights up like a Christmas tree, right on cue.*
That's just wonderful. Ever the white-knight, I could just die.
I don't know about you but I'm a bit peckish, I was sort of counting on a pastry or two from Maurice's. Let me get us a little something, we've got fruit and scones and things--won't be a second--
*The smile vanishes the instant Amrita's gone, and he's off. He's only got a moment, he knows, so he makes it count - the place is too spotless to afford many hints as to where he might look for anything incriminating, so all he can do is start with the obvious. Tea cup still in hand in case she comes back early, he quickly crosses for the nearest thing with drawers - an old and expensive-looking credenza sitting tastefully off to one side. There are curios spaced attractively on top of it, but Remus spares them barely a glance. As quietly as possible he pulls open the first drawer, careful not to actually touch anything.*
*The credenza gives a little mutinous creak at his touch, seems to twitch a bit, but that's all. The drawer would certainly have bitten, or worse, if anything incriminating was in the drawer--but it contains only a pair of smooth and intricately-carved wands.*
So do you have a flat together?
*Amrita didn't do much more than help out with kitchen prep at the Leaky--the cook was an ancient and horrid woman she was obliged to call Miss Fletcher who was in the habit of complaining loudly about 'it' touching things when Tom wasn't around. But she remembers some, and makes short work and neat slices of a few nectarines and tangellas. But that won't do on its own, so she keeps on rummaging and calls over to Remus.*
*So Sirius wasn't the only one to think to get secondary wands. It's hardly surprising - honestly, what Crouch thinks he's going to accomplish by these absurd regulations....
Shutting the drawer gently, he moves onto the next, setting his teacup down to open two at once this time. As long as he can hear movement in the kitchen, he reasons, he's fine.*
A bit out, yes, in Croydon.
*Sufficiently pedestrian and boring and lower-middle-class. He hopes.*
*The first drawer opens smoothly, revealing a dozen or so more wands, each carved and inlaid with infinitesmal chips of mirror. But it appears the credenza's had enough, because the next refuses to open at all. The wood gives another long creak, and it sounds more like a growl than anything else.*
Lovely. Did you have a housewarming? Goodness, I've really missed so much. Do you have all sorts of Muggle things in the kitchen?
*She's babbling, but a charming little fruit plate has taken shape, and the scones are busy toasting themselves, and where is the chocolate--*
*More sentient furniture? Why can't they just have a nice boring non-living side-table? If it won't open willingly, that's fine; he pushes the first drawer shut and slips his wand out a pocket stitched inside his waistcoat. First is a silencing spell, then a more forceful attempt at gaining entry.*
No, it's quite alright - and we do, there's a toaster and a blender and a coffee maker and everything. She can't very well do without them, I mean, so -
*The drawer opens, almost too-obediently--and then it snaps abruptly (and silently) shut, with sharp brass teeth that seem to have come out of nowhere.
For her part, Amrita is still rummaging, muttering to herself in a low undertone.*
*His eyebrows shoot up; it has teeth? Well, fine, there are more than one ways to skin a cat, and he hasn't got time to muck about with this. Crouching, he levels his wand at the drawer and tries simply vanishing the front panel of the wood itself.*
*Barely stifling a surprised noise, Remus falls back on his hands and then quickly gets up, Vanishing the tacks and replacing the missing panel. He glances toward the kitchen, then back at the drawer, narrowing his eyes. Next he tries forcibly removing the entire top of the cadenza - he carefully levitates all the curios into the air above it, then tries a few charms to try and detach the top surface from the rest of it altogether.*
It's a pitcher that has a blade in the bottom of it - you can liquify fruit and the like in it. Handy, really, if you haven't got a wand.
*One of the scones has started smoking, and she waves at it, fretfully. Ordinarily this would never give her trouble but she's under pressure and where is the damn chocolate--*
Er, one second!
*She's utterly unaware of the titanic man vs. furniture struggle happening not ten feet away. A few more tacks spit almost half-heartedly from the drawer, and there is a shudder that goes the whole length of the thing, but the top of the credenza finally parts and lifts.
In the now-roofless drawer they're visible: a sleek porcelain mask and, beneath it, a dragonskin folio.*
Working more quickly now, Remus steps forward again and peers into the drawer. The mask is at once unmistakable and unsurprising - so at least one of them is a Death Eater; no shock there. It's the folio he wants. Keeping everything else still suspended mid-air, he levitates that, too, and flips it open without actually touching it.*
*It's not a smoking gun. It's not even close. It's an almost completely predictable series of paints and prints of women in various states of undress: women who are fauns and mermaids and sphinxes and not women at all, women lounging on snarling bearskin rugs or pursued by serpents and chained to rocks, women bloody-mouthed and white-eyed, women bound in their own long, long hair. And in the very back of the folio is an acid-green Ministry file, tucked there with a bhang-laced laugh only the day before yesterday by its subject. Who is, at this very moment, giving a laugh of her own as she uncovers the chocolate in the back of the cupboard.*
She seems to think so. It was all a bit of a whirlwind - I was just at the market, you know, the open-air one by my old flat, and she tripped over a loose paving stone and dropped her shopping. Oranges everywhere, eggs broken, it was a right mess, and I happened to be passing and helped her, and - well.
*He puts on a small smile, trying to draw on real memories to make it look convincing - the nights spent up up in the Astronomy Tower with Padfoot, out of bed long after hours just to have a bit of time alone together. Or the smiles across the Gryffindor table at breakfast, layers of hidden meanings in them that everyone else was oblivious to, or the night of his eighteenth birthday, in the library - they were purely, truly happy memories, and good fuel for faking newly-in-love. Back at Hogwarts, the end of seventh year when they'd just finally figured things out and the war hadn't consumed their lives yet, when it was all stolen kisses and muffled laughter and tangled sheets on narrow beds. Remus wouldn't trade what they have now for anything - they're so solid, now, so steady and it's safe and it's home - but there's no denying that things were simpler, before. Happiness without the edge of fear. He tries to draw on that.*
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That's just wonderful. Ever the white-knight, I could just die.
I don't know about you but I'm a bit peckish, I was sort of counting on a pastry or two from Maurice's. Let me get us a little something, we've got fruit and scones and things--won't be a second--
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So do you have a flat together?
*Amrita didn't do much more than help out with kitchen prep at the Leaky--the cook was an ancient and horrid woman she was obliged to call Miss Fletcher who was in the habit of complaining loudly about 'it' touching things when Tom wasn't around. But she remembers some, and makes short work and neat slices of a few nectarines and tangellas. But that won't do on its own, so she keeps on rummaging and calls over to Remus.*
In London, or--?
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Shutting the drawer gently, he moves onto the next, setting his teacup down to open two at once this time. As long as he can hear movement in the kitchen, he reasons, he's fine.*
A bit out, yes, in Croydon.
*Sufficiently pedestrian and boring and lower-middle-class. He hopes.*
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Lovely. Did you have a housewarming? Goodness, I've really missed so much. Do you have all sorts of Muggle things in the kitchen?
*She's babbling, but a charming little fruit plate has taken shape, and the scones are busy toasting themselves, and where is the chocolate--*
I won't be a second, sorry!
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No, it's quite alright - and we do, there's a toaster and a blender and a coffee maker and everything. She can't very well do without them, I mean, so -
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For her part, Amrita is still rummaging, muttering to herself in a low undertone.*
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A half-second later, Amrita's puzzled voice filters over from the next room.*
--What on earth is a blender?
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It's a pitcher that has a blade in the bottom of it - you can liquify fruit and the like in it. Handy, really, if you haven't got a wand.
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*One of the scones has started smoking, and she waves at it, fretfully. Ordinarily this would never give her trouble but she's under pressure and where is the damn chocolate--*
Er, one second!
*She's utterly unaware of the titanic man vs. furniture struggle happening not ten feet away. A few more tacks spit almost half-heartedly from the drawer, and there is a shudder that goes the whole length of the thing, but the top of the credenza finally parts and lifts.
In the now-roofless drawer they're visible: a sleek porcelain mask and, beneath it, a dragonskin folio.*
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*Please, please take your time-
Working more quickly now, Remus steps forward again and peers into the drawer. The mask is at once unmistakable and unsurprising - so at least one of them is a Death Eater; no shock there. It's the folio he wants. Keeping everything else still suspended mid-air, he levitates that, too, and flips it open without actually touching it.*
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Found it, aha, all right, plates, hold on--
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