Date: 30 December 2004 (yes, backdated one day)
Character: Cedric Diggory, Jeff Whitecalf
Location: Toronto
Status: Private
Summary: Cedric goes back to old haunts.
Compeltion: Complete
Cedric's first night "home," he slept. It had been a tedious trip. He'd apparated from Stoatshead to Dover, then across the English Channel to Paris, where the French Ministry had an Atlantic Portkey. The distance was simply too great for anyone to apparate, and even traveling by portkey tended to give vertigo to all but those with the most experience (or the strongest stomachs). Travelers were advised not to eat for some hours before making the trip.
Even though Cedric was tolerably skilled at travel by portkey, he hadn't done it often enough to become acclimated, and on at least one occasion making the crossing before, he'd lost his lunch. This time, the nausea wasn't so bad, but he had to sit down for several minutes immediately after in the lounge beside the portkey station, placed there for just that purpose.
The biggest frustration of the trip was simply that after all that apparating to reach Paris, the portkey didn't take him directly to Toronto or even Ottawa, as the old British Ministry's key might have. It took him to Montreal, and he still had to apparate from Montreal to Toronto. Apparating after such a long portkey crossing left him so tired that he was wobbling on his feet by the time he appeared into his parents' back garden with its high white fence. There was a bit of snow on the ground and all the trees were bare but the cedar. He'd left after work on Thursday, but it was still mid-afternoon by the time he reached Toronto, five hours behind.
His parents must have been waiting at the dining room table where they could see, because the rear door opened immediately and his father came out to squeeze the stuffing out of him, so to speak. He was ushered in along with all the luggage he'd brought -- mostly damaged paintings miniaturized, plus a bag of foodstuffs they'd requested that couldn't be found easily in Toronto -- which was saying something.
Now his father sat him down, fed him biscuits and tea, and quizzed him about the state of things in England while his mother took the miniaturized boxes of canvases and headed upstairs to her studio. When Cedric rose to follow, his father gripped her arm. "Don't," he said softly. "Give her time." Cedric blew out softly, but nodded.
It was two hours before she came back down, and then it was because Berry, their house-elf, had dinner. When she did, she appeared shell-shocked. It was, Cedric supposed, not so different an expression from the one his face must have worn after he'd seen the ruins of the old gallery for the first time. He wished he knew what to say, but didn't. In their family, sorrows just weren't discussed. So they talked about his plans to rebuild the house, and about who had survived the war, and about the problem of strays, and even about Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank's owls. But they didn't talk about the museum. Not yet.
That evening, Cedric went to bed early and still had a lie in the next morning. He was rolled out of bed -- literally -- by Jeff. His father had let in his old friend, who'd cheerfully yanked the blankets off of him. "Fucking hell!" was his response.
"Get up, you lazy bastard. It's three in the afternoon."
"What? Are you barmy? It's" -- he peered at his bedside clock from where he was sitting on the floor -- "only ten-ish in the morning."
"Aaaay, it's three in England, ain't it?"
"Fuck you."
"Get up and dressed. There are people who want to see you."
So Cedric did as ordered, and they left before noon and headed to Elissa's flat, where several of Cedric's old mates from the Eastern Magical Institute were waiting. They spent some hours drinking beer and shooting the bull in Elissa's living room, then went to
Atticus Books, an old academic bookstore near the university which was crammed from floor to ceiling in nearly every available spot with dusty and sometimes rare academic texts. They trooped down to the basement where Muggle patrons forced them to spend time browsing among the cheaper (but just as overstuffed) paperbacks until the Muggles left, then Jeff dragged Cedric away from books towards a back area. Tapping in the right spots let them access the rest of the store, and enter Queen's Cross Street.
Much like the old Diagon Alley in London, Queen's Cross was the central Wizarding shopping area in Eastern Canada, but larger and more ethnically diverse, like Toronto itself. A series of Chinese shops vied with Middle Eastern, and there was a Greek bakery and food store that offered coffee, baklava, feta and olives, like a magical miniature of the Danforth; it also offered Evil Eyes, witch mirrors, curse tablets on demand, and moving icons of the Theotokos and the saints. A number of dark-skinned Brazilians spoke water-fluid Portuguese and plugged the door to a shop with rare Rainforest frogs jaguars tarantulas, and other odd magical pets. There was a distinct absence of French items -- for that, one had to apparate to Montreal -- but otherwise, Toronto's magical district opened on a world of goods ... literally. On the south side were four shops in a row offering Cree, Ojibway, Mohawk-Seneca, and Anishnaabeg goods. Jeff's elder cousin Seth owned and operated the Ojibway store: "Whitecalf" was written above the door. Seth, Jeff and Cedric spent time in tatty old chairs in the back, talking and separating dried herbs into jars. The air was close with cigarette smoke, drifting and looping around lamps. Cedric coughed discreetly. He loved the smell of tobacco ... until it was burning. He'd have preferred sage and cedar. Before he left, Seth gave him several bags of teas and infusions and about five pounds of lyed corn for corn soup. He also handed over a specially wrapped fetish. "I hope this will do him some good."
"I do too," Cedric replied. "Thank you."
Seth shrugged with his shoulder. "My father thought it a challenge. He'd like to meet him one day."
"The invitation to come to England stands, you know."
"England's a long way off. Jeff is the one with itchy feet in our family."
As the sun was setting, the small group reassembled to pass back through Atticus Books, then took the train south to Queen Street and the
Silver Snail digging through comics and admiring the front
window display (an amazing re-enactment of the Battle of Helm's Deep with miniatures) and ending in the
Yellow Griffin on Bloor Street until midnight, when Cedric simply collapsed from exhaustion and beer, and was asleep with his head on the table. Jeff had half lugged him out of the pub and put him in his car, then drove him home.
He and his mother would talk about museums in the morning. And they did.
Not all was lost, it seemed.