Application: Liz, Shaun of the Dead

[dont_exacerbate]

It was a good thing Liz had been warned about Hogwarts--specifically, about how damned weird it could be. Unlike many applicants, she didn’t just show up in the Sorting Room; instead, she and Shaun had taken the Floo system through Diagon Alley, a trip that made the Tube look like a paragon of efficiency by comparison. At least the Tube didn’t get

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[c_macaulay]

"I think it's quite possible to bartend in the dark if you know where the liquor cabinet and all the glasses are by heart, and if you keep the drinks really simple," said Camilla quite seriously. "It's good to meet you finally. I can't believe you got dragged here. Don't eat anything anyone leaves out."

[dont_exacerbate]

This must be Camilla, whom Liz had heard about from both Shaun and Susan--Camilla who had just been married, if she recalled correctly. "Curiosity got the better of me," she laughed. "Shaun wrote home so often about all the strange things that went on here, and Susan was so insistent, that I finally just gave in." She smiled. "It's good to meet you, too--Shaun told me you were married recently, so I think congratulations are in order."

Both Shaun and Susan had already warned her--emphatically--to stay away from food left out for common consumption, and yet a third iteration of that instruction made her leery of the idea of eating anything.

[c_macaulay]

Well, now, that was a little odd. Susan was insistent Liz should come to Hogwarts? After everything Hogwarts had done to Susan? And here Camilla had thought Liz and Susan were friends!

"Yes, it's like the old Chinese curse around here. 'May you live in interesting times'." Camilla smiled. "But Shaun must be glad you're here. And thank you, yes, we've only just gotten back from our honeymoon -- I don't think Henry will be by the Sorting Room, so you'll have to meet him later."

Unaccountably, she looked away when she said it, but she smiled too.

"I'm not used to talking about it yet," she explained; then, abruptly, changed the subject. "I guess they'll have told you this is a boarding school inside a castle. That means it's drafty and the linens and whatnot are absolutely inadequate. Did you come prepared? We can lend you some things if you like."

[dont_exacerbate]

Liz knew quite well what Hogwarts had done to Susan, and really it had only piqued her curiosity further. "I know that one quite well," she said. "Shaun's said there's very few zombies here, which is the only 'interesting' I'd rather not see."

She smiled. "Yeah, he's glad, and I'm glad to be here, honestly--I've missed him terribly, and he's no great hand at writing letters. It took me a while to get everything set in order--deal with the bills and all that--but I really did want to come to the school."

Linens...it wasn't something she'd thought of, but it did remind her of something else. "I've got a wedding present for you, somewhere in my luggage--once I've found out just where all my things went, I'll give it to you." Susan had told Shaun about Xipe Totec, and Shaun in turn had told Liz, who figured Henry and Camilla could probably use a present that wasn't hideous. "Also, I'm sorry for what Shaun did at your wedding," she added. "Sometimes, the man hasn't got the sense he was born with." Her tone was clearly affectionate, and

[c_macaulay]

"Oh, but there are zombies! I've met them myself," Camilla confided. "They're quite nice, I think."

She meant the Starks.

"Except for the one with the dog head," she reflected as an afterthought, "but I don't know him personally. My friend told me about him." Poor Francis had spent all that time on a desert island with all those crazy people, including the dog-headed zombie boy.

"It's very kind of you, but honestly you didn't need to bring us anything. We don't know where we're going to put everything people did give us -- we're just living in my little dorm room in Gryffindor -- Oh, don't apologize for Shaun! He was very clever."

[dont_exacerbate]

Shaun had said something about zombies that didn't want to eat people, but much like him, Liz still found the word a little...twitchy. So long as they weren't about to take a bite out of anyone, though, she could deal with it. She hadn't heard about a zombie with a dog head, though.

"Wait, do you mean a person with a dog head?" How on earth could that work? In theory, once the head was cut off, the zombie died. Again.

"Oh, it's nothing like Xipe Totec," she said. "Shaun said Susan told him you like nice wine, so I brought a bottle with me. Shaun hasn't got any appreciation for wine at all, and it's nice to know that someone here does." She paused. "You weren't annoyed with him, for turning Susan's hair purple? She wrote to tell me he had, and both of us gave out at him for it. Apparently it was...very purple." Shaun had tried to defend himself, but against the combined wrath of Susan and Liz--even at opposite ends of England--had been too much for him, and he'd fled to an empty classroom, pursued by Liz's Howler.

[c_macaulay]

"Why would I be annoyed? I thought her hair was lovely," said Camilla. She wasn't lying, not really. Admittedly purple hair was not the look Camilla would have chosen for herself, but neither was white hair with a black streak. "Wine is lovely, yes, and more importantly it's consumable. We won't have it sitting around forever like ... well. I didn't know she'd told anyone about that statue. I'd rather it not be common knowledge. It's a little embarrassing."

And it really was!

[dont_exacerbate]

"I think she only told Shaun, who warned me not to get anything that awful," she said, smiling. "I'm not sure it's possible to top something like that, really." Nevertheless, it was probably good that Shaun had entrusted her to buy the present, rather than trying to pick something out himself. "I don't think even Shaun could have come up with something that awful, if I'd left him to his own devices, and that's saying something. I love him dearly, but the man has no taste whatsoever."

She glanced at Shaun, who had retreated (she thought) out of earshot, and smiled fondly. "Well, as long as it didn't bother you," she said. "I know it bothered Susan quite a bit, but that was mainly because it was at your wedding and she thought it was tasteless." It went unspoken that if Susan thought something was tasteless, it was really tasteless.

[c_macaulay]

"I don't think we'd have cared if everyone's hair had been purple," Camilla demurred. "Really, it was nice of anyone to be there, considering what terribly short notice we gave them. I'm sorry you weren't here yet," though actually Camilla thought it might have been more convenient for Operation Litmus to have Liz safely out of the way, if she'd been so opposed to it once she heard about it. "It took me a while even to notice Susan's hair," which was also true. "We were a little preoccupied, I'm sure you can imagine."

[dont_exacerbate]

Liz had been to enough weddings--had been in enough wedding parties--to imagine quite well how preoccupied they must have been. "I'm glad it went well," she said. "When Shaun told me Susan was maid of honor, I...worried, honestly. I like Susan immensely, but she's not exactly well-versed in modern Earth culture." Taking her to buy paintball guns had been an exercise in absolute weirdness, to say nothing of their nightly trips to the pub. "Both of them said it was very lovely--well, Susan said it was lovely; Shaun's words were 'bloody damn good'. He was especially impressed with the cake." He would be, too; in Liz's experience, almost all men were at the mercy of their tastebuds.

[c_macaulay]

"Yes, well, she did splendidly, really. I couldn't have picked anyone better for the job." Because you couldn't have picked anyone else for the job, Camilla. "I don't know what we would have done without her. My brother would have been entirely at loose ends, I'm sure." Even if Camilla hadn't been in on the purple-hair thing, the triumph of keeping Charles out of trouble would have covered a multitude of sins on Susan's part.

"There's just one thing I've always wondered. She went to stay with you a while, didn't she? And she was a mess, the poor thing. Why did she come back here?"

[dont_exacerbate]

No, though neither one of them knew it, Charles wasn't likely to remain at loose ends for very long.

Liz hesitated. She knew Susan was a very, very private person, and didn't know how much she ought to share. The fact that Camilla knew Susan had been a mess didn't necessarily imply that Susan would willingly share such information; anyone with use of their eyes could have told that she had been a complete mess.

"She had to, really," she said at last. "Her grandfather apparently turned into a piece of popcorn, and she turned into Death. I'll tell you, the first morning I woke up and found her as she was came as more of a shock even than Z-Day." She paused again. "Though between you, me, and Shaun, I'm not sure that's the only reason. She didn't really fit in well outside--well, obviously she wouldn't--and I don't think she could stay away. She turned into...whatever she was...and then she turned back, and Shaun has no idea why, and I can't make a guess, either. And something happened to all kinds of people on Halloween, that neither

[c_macaulay]

Camilla knew how Susan had 'turned back', and what had happened on Halloween, at least part of it. She just wasn't saying.

"Nothing happened to us on Halloween," Camilla said truthfully. "But something did happen, I'm told. That's part of why I'm surprised to see you here, honestly. This isn't exactly the safest place to be. I like it all right -- we plan on staying for some time, for the foreseeable future at least. But I do worry about it, for all kinds of reasons. Those funny little episodes of mass hysteria that tend to sweep the school. It's not good for a relationship." This was a major concern of Camilla's, nowadays. She twisted the wedding band on her finger (plain and severe in the sort of way that only very expensive things are, platinum and cold diamond).

"I don't know how much you know about how she got to be such a mess in the first place, but I would have expected Susan to go home, after everything. I'd think she would have fit in better there than here."

[dont_exacerbate]

Liz laughed, half humorlessly. "I've heard stories," she said. "But Shaun wants to stay here, and I've heard enough that I wanted to see it, too. Besides," she added, "if Shaun and I can withstand a massive zombie invasion, I think our relationship could handle just about anything."

She sobered. "Shaun told me what he knew, and Susan inadvertently told me much more than she likely wanted to. I never once heard her say anything about going back to the world she came from, though--from what I could gather, this place is home to her, somehow. From what little she said, I think she's as much of an oddity there as she is here, if not moreso."

[c_macaulay]

Camilla had to laugh a little. "You'll have to meet our nice zombies. Sort of nice, anyway. They don't eat people. As far as I know they don't really eat anything at all. At least you know what you're getting into, anyway -- coming to Hogwarts, I mean. Most people don't expect all this. When things happen, it can be bad

[dont_exacerbate]

"I've heard about a few of the random chocolate incidents," Liz said, with a dry smile. "And several of the holiday disasters. It doesn't seem to do any lasting harm, though, that either Shaun or Susan has told me about." That didn't mean it never happened, but at least it wasn't a regular, well-documented occurrence.

She found herself wondering what sort of university Camilla would have attended, and wondering just what this Henry was like. "What brought you here, if you don't mind my asking? Shaun came because he wanted to help Ed, and I came because of Shaun, and Susan doesn't remember why or how she wound up here." She somehow didn't think Camilla's arrival had been random chance, like that of a few people Shaun had told her about.