Lunch & Gossip

[prof_stargazer]

Date: Wednesday August 8, 2001
Time: 11:30 am
Location: Primrose Café,  Muggle London
Rating: PG
Characters Involved: Stella Sinistra, June Connors

Stella was very much looking forward to lunch with June, although she knew that a lot of things had changed since they'd last seen each other at the end of the school year.  Mandy's death, of course, was the

Comments

[sightlesswolf]

Part of June resented taking even this little time off from the search. Having to work was one thing, but taking a leisurely lunch with a friend felt an awful lot like slacking. And yet she knew that a leisurely lunch with a friend was probably just exactly what she needed right now. She'd scarcely done a thing beyond working and going from contact to hideout to contact - and she knew that Glamis was going out even when she wasn't, which just made her feel like she needed to try harder to make up for it. At this point, finding Fenrir Greyback was practically all she could think about. When she could fall asleep, the old nightmares came back, of teeth and claws and agony in the dark - and they'd been joined by new ones, dreams where Mandy was the one being torn apart, or Perry, or Zak, or her family. It wasn't healthy. Not healthy at all.

So. Lunch with Stella, in Muggle London. In a pretty little café with greenery and flowers everywhere. Then she'd go help Severus out as promised. One afternoon not thinking about Greyback

[prof_stargazer]

Stella had been opening her mouth to answer the waitress when all of a sudden she heard June's voice just behind her. She turned quickly to smile at her friend before the waitress led them off to their table.

The café was lovely, and Stella was glad that she'd let June make the decision as to where to meet! She gladly returned June's smile, happy they'd been able to find a time to do this.

"It's just lovely," Stella said, glancing around. "A very nice choice." Getting the chance, now, to look at her friend made Stella a bit worried- June, though she was smiling, looked a little worn out.

"How are you, June?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Stella could tell that her tone was a bit to serious and concerned- so she tried to joke, a little. "And if you say 'fine', I will hex you." Stella smiled. "Between Remus and Caleb, I am thoroughly sick of that word!"

[sightlesswolf]

The truth was that the place was a little... well, girlier than June's tastes normally ran. Back in the day, it had usually been her cousin suggesting eating here. But it was nice, and more importantly, the atmosphere was about as far away as possible from where she had been mired lately. A breath of fresh, flower-scented air.

"I'm glad you like it. The last time I came was with my cousin, and that was... oh, ages ago. I can't even remember. I should be glad it's still here!" She saw Stella's gaze sharpen on her face, and smiled a bit wider, trying to radiate normalcy.

Evidently she didn't quite succeed. She was opening her mouth to reassure the other woman when Stella headed her off, half joking... but only, from the sound of it, half. June quickly closed her mouth on the word and backpedaled, looking for another way to answer that was equally innocuous

[prof_stargazer]

Stella easily accepted 'a weird summer' as reason for June's tired appearance, though she was still a little worried about her. She made a mental note to keep an eye on June during the first few weeks of school- that was stressful enough by itself, without the added suffering all of the Spinner's End residents had been going through.

But before she could say anything to June about getting a little more rest, June had already jumped onto the next topic- one that Stella hadn't meant to mention quite so early in the conversation! She couldn't help the rather ridiculous grin that crept across her face at June's question, though, and knew that any advice would have to be postponed for the moment.

Stella nodded in response, the idiotic grin still plastered on her face, her eyes sparkling. "He's amazing-" she began, realizing that this was the first real friend she'd shared the news with, not including Remus. And as she had gone to Remus more out of worry and concern, this was decidedly more fun.

[sightlesswolf]

June was still June, and couldn't stop a delighted grin of her own lighting up her face at the news, the shadows clearing away. She slapped the menu down on the table, planting her hands palm-down on top of it, all her attention on the very important subject at hand.

"You do! Stella! What's he like? I mean, besides amazing - where'd you meet him? When? Details!" she demanded with a laugh, feeling suddenly better than she had in ages. She may not have seen the light of the dating world in way too long, but she'd always loved to hear about her friends' successes - and judging by the sparkle in Stella's eyes, this one definitely qualified as a success so far! Granted their friendship was fairly new, but she'd never seen the Astronomy professor glow like that.

[prof_stargazer]

Stella was always the type of person who was very friendly, but her close friends were few and far between. Since the war, though, she had been trying to change this- to keep the few close friends that she did have, like Remus, but also to try and open up a bit. She and June had talked quite a lot over the past year, and at the moment Stella was very excited to have a girlfriend to 'gossip' with- especially since June seemed so eager to hear details!

"I met him right at the end of school- during exam week. We were sitting next to each other at the Leaky and started talking- and the next thing I knew I had asked him out!" Stella laughed, still a little surprised at herself for actually working up the nerve to ask Caleb on that first date

[sightlesswolf]

He's a- The lightbulb went on.

"Oh, that's where I heard that name before!" June exclaimed, bringing her fist into her other palm with a smack. "Caleb Moore, right? Remus mentioned him! I mean, he didn't tell us much, only that he was getting himself on the Registry and getting settled in - he definitely didn't tell us you were dating him!" She was talking too fast to worry about pronoun clarity. It wasn't until she paused for breath that she recognized the slightly apprehensive look on Stella's face. And realized that most people's initial reaction to that news would probably have been somewhat different.

Well, June was the last one to be judging someone on dating a werewolf, for obvious reasons. Stella was friends with a few of them, so she already knew something about the condition, and she certainly had enough sense to look out for her own safety as necessary. June would, of course, have had a healthy wariness of a strange unregistered werewolf that turned up out of the blue, but Remus had already spoken with Caleb and

[prof_stargazer]

Stella should have known that June's reaction was not going to be anything like the way Remus or Severus had responded when they heard about Caleb. Still, the fact that she was getting a positive response took a minute to sink in. But by the time June's hand had closed over Stella's, the look of apprehension had faded into a grateful smile

[sightlesswolf]

"Well, I have to admit I'd be more worried if Remus hadn't already met him," June replied frankly. "There are still a lot of us out there that sided with Greyback, and a lot more that are just looking out for themselves. Not that I can really blame them." Her one-shoulder shrug had a cynical slant to it. "It's hard to do anything else right now but try to look after yourself. But a total stranger could've been dangerous

[prof_stargazer]

"I know I probably rushed into things a bit," Stella admitted. "But by the time he told me, I already thought he was rather wonderful, so any cautions I would have taken kind of went out the window." Really, looking back, Stella knew she had been quite stupid about the whole situation- an unknown werewolf, just arriving out of the blue? But she had felt Caleb's kindness from the moment she'd met him, and fortunately she'd been proven right- Caleb was 'on the side of the angels' as June put it, and Stella was glad that she was turning out to have at least one friend who was accepting and happy for them

[sightlesswolf]

"You just never know," June agreed with a rueful sigh. "If it helps, I mean if they do react badly - try to remember it's probably just because they're scared for you. They might have to get to know Caleb as a person before they'll believe he's not dangerous. With any luck at all they'll be willing to give him a chance, for your sake." She shrugged and smiled wryly. "I'm sure you've already been over and over how best to present the whole situation to them. They'll come around, I'm sure. Now when do I get to meet him

[prof_stargazer]

June had always been a very friendly person, in Stella's experience, which is why even though her question had been so blunt, she was still hoping that June would respond. It seemed she had judged right, and gave June a thankful smile.

"It's only because of Caleb- he basically walked away from magic after he was bitten, including any possibility of getting the Wolfsbane potion," Stella began, figuring that she owed June an explanation, at least. "So for six years he chained himself up every Full, and in the process of fighting against the chains has ended up with a lot of scarring on his arms." Not that a lot even began to cover it- Caleb's arms were basically a mass of slowly healing scars.

"I've gotten used to it, now, but I have to admit it was a shock when he first showed me- and the first thing I thought of was you, and the first time I saw you without your glasses." It had been quite a shock, coming back from the Christmas holidays to see June without glasses and with eyes

[sightlesswolf]

June nodded soberly as Stella described Caleb's experience. She had spent a fair number of full moons without the potion herself, in various circumstances; she could well imagine how badly he might have hurt himself if he'd had himself chained.

"It was all Severus's work. Severus's and Ginny Weasley's." The waitress chose that moment to return, and she paused the explanation until the woman had taken their orders, left their drinks, and departed again. She used the time to try and formulate her thoughts a little better. "I don't understand much about the technical portions of it; as far as I can tell, they worked a miracle. Severus came up with a potion - an ointment - somehow it does what no other healing potion has been able to do, it works on lycanthropic scarring." Somewhat self-consciously, she reached up to touch the still-marked skin around her eyes. "It didn't work overnight; I used it every day for months, and sometimes it felt like it wasn't working at all. But eventually it softened the scar tissue enough that Ginny

[prof_stargazer]

Stella listened intently as June spoke, taking in the younger girls words as she thought of Caleb. As complicated as it sounded like the whole thing had been, the fact was that it had worked, and that there was a possibility that something could be done about Caleb's scarring

[sightlesswolf]

"Hard not to be self-conscious: scars are ugly." Evidently it was June's turn to be blunt. "They make people uncomfortable; they draw everyone's attention; they make people stare and ask awkward questions. Every time you meet a new person, you know right off that's all they're going to care about. And even if you're not one of us, most scars don't come from a situation you want to talk about over and over. Obviously you want to cover them up however you can." She shook her head, running the back of one hand lightly over the faint webwork that still surrounded her eyes, and sighed

[prof_stargazer]

Stella frowned as she heard June talk about her scars, getting that awful feeling she felt whenever she was reminded that so many people she cared for had to deal with the horrible effects of the curse. Remus didn't talk a lot about his scars, though, so it was somewhat reassuring to hear that Caleb was not alone in hating his scars