Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

[stebbinsthescot]

Date: 3 August 2001
Time: Lunchtime
Location: Diagon Alley, an umbrella-ed table outside a cafe
Characters Involved: Stephen Stebbins and whoever wants to run into him Lisa Turpin
Rating: G starting out

Comments

[notaturnip_girl]

Lisa was having a bad day. She couldn’t think of anything else to describe it because that’s just what it was: a bad day

[stebbinsthescot]

A split-second after the mumbled, half-hearted apology, Stephen registered the sounds of fluttering papers followed by a large splash. "Oh my God!" he exclaimed, and was on his feet in an instant, offering a hand to help the young woman to her feet. "I'm so sorry, I was nae payin' any attention. Are you alright?" As always happened when he got rattled or excitable, his Scottish accent stood out even more and his words became something of a blur, not to mention the cigarette was still clenched between his lips. Hopefully she'd get the gist of his apology, if not the individual words.

[notaturnip_girl]

As soon as Lisa had fallen a voice; she figured it belonged to whoever owned that elbow, hurried to help her up. “Umm...I'm just fine, just a bit wet that's all.” she replied shakily accepting the young man’s extended hand. She hoped that her response was something related to what he had asked. Lisa wasn’t accustomed to strong Scottish accents and he seemed to have quite a strong one - the cigarette didn’t help much either.

When she stood up, Lisa was dismayed to see her papers had been scattered around the outside of the café and some of them had landed in the puddle too. “Bugger...” she muttered under her breath hurrying to pick the fallen papers up while trying to ignore the fact that the front part of her shirt was soaked. Now what was that drying spell again?

[stebbinsthescot]

She looked familiar. As Stephen took his wand from his back pocket and began summoning up what papers she wasn't gathering, he tried to place where he'd seen her before. Most likely at school somewhere...

Lisa! Lisa Turpin, that was it. He almost felt bad for not remembering her name, but she was terribly out of context here: Stephen wasn't quite sure he'd ever seen her outside of a Hogwarts Quidditch uniform.

"I really am sorry," he said, the pace of his voice slower now that he'd calmed down a bit- the cigarette as well was held in his left hand now. He regarded the papers floating in the air in front of him and tilted his head, thinking. If there was anything a bartender knew better than how to pour drinks, it was clean up messes, but a specific spell for drying paper was beyond him.

[stebbinsthescot]

'Christ, but this girl's odd,' Stephen found himself thinking. She seemed so withdrawn, always saying something other than she thought. Which, to Stephen, was a mostly foreign concept.

"I dinnae want t' stop it necessarily," he said, making an exception, "I heard a rumour, I was curious. I mean it's a big event, innit?" He picked up the pack of fags that lay on the tabletop and began fiddling with it, flipping it over easily in his hand. He gave a small smile. "Must be pretty excitin' plannin' a thing like that."

[notaturnip_girl]

“You can only imagine.” Lisa said returning the smile that had appeared on the Scot’s face. She paused as a cup of coffee came flying out of from the café and slid in front of her without spilling any of its contents. To her dismay, the coffee was hot. Leaving it as it was she continued on. “But of course with any sort of large event it comes with its amount of headaches.”

Lisa had to restrain herself from cringing. She hated how she could never express herself fully. But she supposed looking back on how she’s been brought up it wasn’t a surprise that she had ended up this way.

[stebbinsthescot]

"Hence all the paperwork," Stephen nodded as he indicated the recently-soaked stacks. Now having realized he needed to feel out her conversational boundaries, he was about to back up to a more preliminary question, and as if to match this shift he leaned back in his chair, appearing more relaxed: "So d'you still play Quidditch or is it all office work?"

[notaturnip_girl]

Lisa nodded and gave a tiny bit of laughter. “There is a lot of paper work. But somehow you find that you can manage.” Glancing back at her coffee, Lisa could still see the wisps of steam coming off the top. How long did it take coffee to cool down anyway? God knew that’s what she needed right now…

When Stephen spoke again, Lisa had noticed that he adopted a more casual tone of voice as well as posture. What was he trying for anyway? But the question made her want to widen her eyes. Instead, she restrained herself from doing so and answered the question trying to ignore her slight hesitation. “I’d like to think so. I mean - well. The hours at the Ministry isn’t the most best suited for Qudditch playing you know?”

[notaturnip_girl]

Lisa wasn’t sure how to react to something like that. Riding a broom like a snowboard? Was that even safe? “Yes but, I mean snowboards have grips that you strap you feet into. Brooms don’t have that - and you can’t totally rely on sticking charms sometimes.” She blurted as she fiddled with her coffee cup.

[stebbinsthescot]

"Why not?" Stephen asked automatically, tilting his head to one side. As long as a spell was performed properly it would be infallible, wouldn't it? "Well, I mean, that's why I'm lookin' for somethin' that's temporary, but just as strong as a permanent charm while it's active. I suppose you could attach a pair of shoes or whatever to a broom with a Permanent Stickin' Charm and have done with it, but then your broom is ruined."

He shrugged, frowned modestly, picked up one corner of the book and let it fall back down to the table. "Anyway, would nae put it into practice without tryin' it out myself, and I have nae even done that yet. I just got the idea the other day."

[notaturnip_girl]

She wasn’t sure where such an outburst came from, but after thinking about for a moment Lisa realized that it came from her ‘motherly concern’ for Rinoa. That kind of thing just seemed like the kind of thing Rinoa would do without thinking about.

“Sorry for the outburst…” Lisa mumbled into the cup not really registering what Stephen has said. Quickly she snapped out of her thoughts and tried not to be horrified about the fact that she was acting older than she actually was.

“Well of course if you can’t find a temporary sticking spell, what are you going to do?”

[stebbinsthescot]

"Dunno," he admitted, screwing up his face a moment in thought. The he grinned: "I mean, I'm nae stickin' a pair of trainers t' my Firebolt, I'm tellin' ya that straight off."

It was a good question, though. "I s'pose... Somethin' would have t' be invented, aye? Either a new spell or... A new broom or some kind." He wasn't sure which would be more difficult. "Somethin' that would be made for that sort of thing. That sort of defeats the purpose of usin' it for Quidditch practice, though..." Thoughts and possibilities were going through his head too fast to be registered at the moment. He let them pass, storing them away to be thought through more thoroughly at a later date- and as he did, another thought entirely poked its way through. It was possible he was boring her. He cracked another apologetic smile. "Sorry. I tend t' think out loud a lot."