Chapter One
"Why are we here?" Cassie asked. Looking up at the building proved to be difficult as her eyes were still used to the dark of the night and this place was covered with neon signs.
"Because you promised that you would come out with us once a month," Nicole said, sweeping her long black hair over her shoulder as she eyed up a man standing near the door to the bar.
"Yes, but why are we at a muggle place?" Cassie asked, lowering her voice to a whisper as they approached the door.
"Its more fun," Lisa, the other girl with their group called over her shoulder.
"The music is better," Nicole said, nodding her agreement.
"Come on," Lisa said, grabbing Cassie's wrist and pulling her into the bar.
The music, that had already been loud outside the building, was deafening inside. Cassie was glad Lisa was holding on to her, otherwise she would have been lost for sure.
Cassie didn't mind bars most of the time, but she preferred them when they were less crowded and a little less loud. She hadn't realized that her promise to her friends that she would go out with them at least once a month would be turned on her this way. She had thought she was promising to go out for coffee or a meal as a group, not out to a bar that was almost a club.
"Okay, usual play?" Nicole asked as they approached the bar. Cassie rolled her eyes but nodded anyway.
The three of them had been friends since Cassie was thirteen. They had all attended the same school, until Cassie dropped out when she was sixteen, she had been home schooled after that. Now, at almost nineteen, the three girls had been going out to bars together for as long as they could pull it off. The muggles were easy to confuse, and the wizarding bars weren't very strict on ages.
When they went out, which happened rarely for Cassie since she had other things to do most of the time, they would play a game to decide which of them would buy drinks for the others that night. Cassie usually sat it out since she didn't want to drink much anyway, but tonight she had no obligations, at least, not until noon the next day, so she could allow herself to get a little drunk.
They're way of deciding who pays had been created when all three of them realized that, compared to some other people, they were attractive. There were no real rules to the game, the three of them just had to see who could get the most phone numbers in half an hour. Whoever got the most didn't pay for drinks the whole night.
"Lets go," Lisa said, grinning as she spotted a table full of young men nearby.
"Meet over there in half an hour," Cassie said, pointing to the emptiest corner of the bar. The others nodded and separated. Cassie looked around, spotting a man alone at the bar, and went over to stand next to him. As she got closer, she realized that his clothing was a bit odd. Not outdated really… just a little badly matched. His jeans were a light blue, and the jumper he was wearing was a pale lavender color. Though maybe the colors just looked off because of the dim lighting.
"Hey," she said, making him look up from the drink he had been stirring idly. "I've never been here before, whats good to drink?"
"I have no idea," the man said, his mouth turning up at the corners in an almost smile. "I always have whiskey."
"I'll take a whiskey," Cassie said to the bartender, who had been waiting for her order. "I'm Cassie."
"George," the man said, grinning now. "That's an odd accent, where are you from?"
"Australia," Cassie said, smiling as she leaned towards him a little. "I just moved to London about a month ago so I don't really know anyone here."
"I'm from Ottery St. Catchpole, on the south coast, so I don't really know anyone either," he said, shrugging a little. "I moved here a couple years ago, but I don't really get out much."
"I see," Cassie said, taking a sip of her newly delivered whisky as she pulled out some muggle money to pay for it. "You don't really look old enough to have moved out a couple of years ago."
"Well you don't look old enough to have moved from Australia to London alone either," she said, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
"I didn't move alone. Two of my friends came too," she said, looking out to an empty space that had sort of become a dance floor. "There's one of them, the blonde dancing with that guy with the big hair."
"That guy with the big hair is who dragged me out tonight," George said, chuckling. "His name is Lee. I've been waiting for him to get distracted enough that I can leave without being rude."
"Not really one for bars?" She asked, smiling knowingly. "Me neither. They are too loud for my liking."
"I prefer pubs with no dancing," he said in agreement.
"Me too," she said, nodding as she sipped the whiskey. It was good, though a little dull in flavor compared to fire whiskey. "So what do you do?"
"I seem to go out to bars a lot," he replied, and she giggled. "I own a store."
"Wow, that's really neat," she said, genuinely impressed. "I've been looking for a job since I moved here but I can't seem to find anything I really want to do."
"Well what do you want to do?" He asked. She hesitated for a second. The thing she really enjoyed was charms. She was really good at finding new charms to accomplish what she wanted, but she wasn't sure how to say that in a way that a muggle would understand.
"I guess I don't really know yet," she settled for, giving a small shrug. "I'll know when I find it though."
"Well I wish you the best of luck with that," he said, lifting his glass up in a fake toast. She grinned and copied him, finishing off her whiskey.
"Hey, is there any way I could get your phone number?" She asked, spotting her two friends drawing closer to her. There was no way she would win with only one number, but she wanted to look like she had tried anyway.
"I'd love to give you one, but I don't have a telephone," he said, shaking his head a little.
"Really?" She asked, raising a brow. "No phone?"
"Never really needed one," he said, shrugging. "I'm almost never home anyway. And I'm more of a letter writer." Something in the back of her mind lit up at that.
"Let me guess," she said, her voice growing a little more flirty. "You use carrier pigeons to deliver them?"
"Of course not," he said, his voice joking. "We use owls."
"I knew it," she said, lowering her voice and leaning in. "You're a wizard aren't you?"
"What?" He asked, his voice shocked. She frowned, leaning back a little. Maybe her intuition had been wrong. She raised her left hand a little, intending to place a forgetfulness charm, but he leaned in a little. "You're a witch?" He asked, his voice soft even though they weren't likely to be overheard with the loud music pounding. She nodded, lowering her hand.
To anyone glancing at her, it would appear that she was dressed simply, jeans and a long sleeved shirt, but in fact, her left hand was also covered with a thin, tan colored glove that matched her skin tone exactly, thanks to the excellent craftsmanship of the Australian wand maker, Harrison King. She wasn't sure when the idea had been first thought of, but the alternatives to wands had been publicly released about a month before Cassie's sixteenth birthday. She had begged her mother for one, even though they were a little pricey.
Her glove was laced with the thinnest shavings of willow wood, and housed fairy wings over each finger tip and her palm. Using the gloves instead of a wand had led to the need to relearn basic spells with new movements, but as she had begun her homeschooling just after her sixteenth birthday, Cassie'd had plenty of time to play around with her new equipment and she had been able to figure out how to adapt wand movements to use with the glove.
Many people had protested the use of the gloves until they had realized that traditional wands would still be available for those who wanted them. The school Cassie had attended, Pasnonia Academy of Magic, had changed their school supply list to state that a student must have a traditional wand to learn classwork, but if they desired they could bring one of the new glove wands and could learn it in after school lessons.
Cassie personally loved the glove wands. She had adapted to its use easily, and was still finding new ways to perform common spells with it.
"What's school like in Australia? I'd imagine its pretty similar to here," George asked, drawing her focus back to their conversation. Both of them were leaning in now, not wanting to be overheard by the muggles.
"I wouldn't know as I've never been to school here," Cassie said, chuckling. "I was home-schooled for my last three years of school back home. Well, year and a half really but it took me a while to finish."
"Yeah, we left partway through our seventh year, my brother and I," George said, and Cassie frowned, seeing his face fall for a moment, but the look of pain was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
"What's the shop you opened?" She asked, hoping for a better description now that they could talk about magic.
"It's a joke shop," he said, grinning. "It's in Diagon Alley, called Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. You should come by sometime."
"I'd love to," Cassie said, grinning. She had only been to the alley one time since moving to London. Lisa and Nicole had wanted to live in Muggle London, and since Cassie couldn't afford to not live with them, she had agreed as well. She had been trying to find a job in the surrounding Muggle area, but it was difficult as she had no work experience in any of those places.
"So what is it you want to do then?" He asked again, correctly assuming her earlier explanation had been for a muggle.
"Well, I'm really good at charms, and not half bad at potion making," she said, grinning. "I'm not really sure what to do with those talents though."
"Have you tried inventing?" George asked, sipping his drink. "Almost everyone I know who is good at charms works with inventing."
"I've played at it a bit," Cassie said, stretching out her right hand so her sleeve pulled up to expose a woven bracelet with a round bit of metal fixed to it. The metal was decorated with small designs of stars. "I have this bracelet that I've charmed to let me know when my- um, when someone is in danger or hurt. It gives me their location so I can apparate near them. It doesn't work if they are inside wards or anything, but it will let me apparate to the last unwarded area they were in. It took me over three months to get the spells just right."
"That is amazing magic," he said, grabbing her wrist to peer at the bracelet. She shivered as his long fingers brushed her skin. "It almost sounds like blood magic."
"It's not," she assured him. She wasn't sure if blood magic was illegal here, but it certainly was where she was from. "It's a little bit like the trace, but I altered that. I wore gloves when I made this and charmed it to bond to the first person to touch it, like a snitch." She traced over the pattern of tiny stars that formed a constellation and smiled softly. "After that I started thinking that it would be a lot more useful if I could somehow get it to take me to wherever that person was, since if they are hurt then they might need help. So I altered a Taboo spell to only activate if the person wearing a linked bracelet was injured or in danger."
"Taboo spells are dark magic," George said, leaning back a little as he finally dropped her wrist.
"Dark magic is only dark if its used to hurt others," Cassie countered. "Besides, I altered the spell." She yanked her sleeve down over the bracelet to shield it from view.
"Don't get me wrong, that's brilliant magic," he said, grinning again. "Just be careful who you tell that to."
"Is it illegal?" She asked, frowning. She would have to remember to get a list of all the laws here to look over.
"No," he said, shrugging. "But we had a war a few years ago, and some problems with Taboo spells. Since then everyone has been extra cautious."
She nodded. They had known about the war in England a couple years ago because the Australian Ministry of Magic had banned all travel to or from Britain in an attempt to prevent the war coming to them. It had worked, or maybe it was just that the people in the war were too focused on each other to want to spread it to other continents.
"Cassie," a female voice cut into their conversation as a heavy arm was draped across Cassie's shoulders. Lisa had clearly not waited to see who won their little game and instead had purchased her own drinks. Quite a few of them if her breath was anything to judge from.
"Lisa," Cassie replied, rolling her eyes.
"Game's off," she said, teetering a little in her place. "I'm going home with that stud over there." Her arm waved so much that Cassie wouldn't have been able to tell who she was pointing to if the man hadn't been walking toward them. It was the same guy from before, George's friend that she had already forgotten he name of. Lisa leaned in to whisper, though her voice was loud enough that anyone within five feet could have heard. "He's a wizard," she said secretively. "I want to test his wand work." She waggled her eyebrows and Cassie rolled her eyes again while George covered a snort with his hand.
"That's nice Lisa," Cassie said. "Have fun. Use protection. Don't get murdered." That was her standard farewell to her friends when they did stupid things.
"I'll be safe," she said, then leaned in farther. "Gimme one of your tags though. I'll be home before dinner."
"Fine, fine," Cassie said, reaching into her jeans pocket to pull out a silver charm on a thin chain. She draped it over Lisa's head, then pushed the girl off her, into the arms of the black man she had been dancing with all night who had been saying something to George. The two took off through the crowd, heading to the door.
"So what's a tag," George said after a moment of slightly awkward silence. Cassie grinned and pulled another necklace from her pocket to hand to him. He looked it over for a moment, then tilted his head in confusion. It looked like a normal necklace, something simple that a girl might wear with casual clothing.
"It's charmed so that I can always find it," she explained, smiling. "We have a system worked out, Lisa, Nicole and I." She waved a hand towards the other end of the bar where her other friend was chatting with a group of girls. "If we split up or go home with someone the others don't know, we take a tag. Then, if we aren't home by the time we said we would be, we can find each other."
"That's… also brilliant," he said, looking over the necklace again. "You really are good at charms. Do you have more of these little things? You could open a shop and sell them."
"Oh, I'm not really a shop owning type of person. I prefer to work behind the scenes," Cassie said, shrugging as she idly played with her long since empty glass.
"Well, we'll have to see about that," he said, grinning. She looked up at him, confused. "I just so happen to know a shop owner who might be willing to sell these things in his shop."
"I thought you ran a joke shop," she said, confused.
"I do," he said. "But right now there's a pretty big market for protective enchantments and things like these," he held up the necklace. "And I never pass up a good business opportunity when I see one."
"You're serious?" She asked, her eyes wide.
"Completely," he said, contradicting his wide grin. "Can you meet me tomorrow morning at my shop in Diagon Alley? Say, around nine?"
"Sure," Cassie said, her mind a little blank. She had certainly not expected this.
"Bring anything you have like this," he said, handing the necklace back to her. And any plans you have that you haven't made yet, and I'll see what we can try selling, if you want."
"Definitely," she said, smiling now. She had never thought about selling the things she had made. Most of them she had only even tried to make because it was useful to her at the time. She did have notebooks full of ideas though. Hundreds of things she had thought of over the last three years of homeschooling that she hadn't tried to make because she was already so busy with the school work her mother assigned her, not to mention the reason she had dropped out in the first place. She frowned for a moment, wondering if she should tell George about that part of her life if they were going to be working together, but then she shook that thought away. It wasn't really any of his business at the moment.
"Great," he said, getting to his feet. "I'd better get going if I'm meeting a potential business partner in the morning," he said, chuckling. "It was nice to meet you though. What did you say your name was?"
"Cassie," she repeated, shaking his offered hand. "Cassie Black."