The Teapot of the Orient

Part 7

The rain hit the window like several butterflies trying to get in instead of out. The flames in the fireplace crackled.

"Oh yes!" Blondie swung one leg over the other in the maroon armchair and swirled a glass of wine. "A distant relative of mine died and left me all of this, on the standard condition of course. So I thought, since I want to be a writer, spending a weekend in a cursed town could be a good way to catch two flies with one stone. There are rumours of vampires, and I'd really like to see one" He took a sip, grimacing at the dryness.

"You're writing a book?" James asked surprised, because he thought only smart people could write well. He and Sirius were sharing the sofa in the thriftily furnished drawing room. Peter had pulled up a chair and Remus was looking through a bookshelf by the window.

"I'm planning a factual trilogy with some romance" Blondie replied. "And I don't want it to be just an ordinary book; I want to really get to know one, you know? So I thought I'd sleep in a coffin just to see what it feels like. I didn't mean to scare you"
Since the mansion had a very impressive wine cellar, they let that one slide. For now.

"Are you from here?" Sirius asked, uncorking a Moet Et Chandon he had found in a pretty cabinet.

"No, I'm from No Place Special"

"Do you know Grizelda Hobgoblin?"

Blondie looked hesitant. "That's my distant relative, who died and left me all this"

"Then you must know where her grave is?" said James, sipping from the bottle Sirius had just passed him.

"You'd think so, but…" Blondie gave an apologetic shrug. "I wasn't at the funeral"

"She must have died recently then" said Remus, putting a book back and taking out another. Blondie strummed his glass with his pink finger nails. "Yes, well, maybe. But I still can't tell where her grave is. Because of the hard weather, it really wears out the engravings or something. So that's why I can't tell either. Nobody can. Why this interest in my dead relative, by the way?"

They couldn't very well tell him they wanted to rob her grave. Picking out a new book to look through, a key nearly fell out of it.

"Is that… So that's where I put my key!" Blondie practically flew out of the arm chair and took the key from Remus. "Upstairs is a room full of books, I can show you to it"

And that's what Blondie did without awaiting a reply, and as they crossed the room he chatted happily about vampire dentistry, wondering if they developed plaque from all the blood and asking if the world wouldn't be a safer place if they all had their fangs removed until the door closed behind them both and the three remaining in the drawing room could hear no more of the, in all honesty, kind of interesting discussion.

Sirius, who had been sitting in the sofa upside down, shifted into the standard sitting position.

"Grizelda Hobgoblin is not his distant relative" he said, digging in his pockets from the will he had pick-pocketed from Blondie earlier and glanced over it. "Geoff Stevens is his distant relative. Why the lying?"

"Why do you think, Sherlock? He wants the lamp too, obviously" James put the bottle on the coffee table.

"How could he know of the lamp? How many genies are there around?"

"What does it matter how he knows? Try to focus on the main problem"

"What's that?"

"He's trying to bribe our designated finder with books"

When James left the sofa for some restless pacing, Sirius was finally allowed to stretch himself over it.

"I don't see the problem" he said, reaching for the wine. "It's why I can sit here and enjoy this Moet and wait for the exposition"
"My mum always says to not take things for granted"
"My mum always says: I wish I had never had you" Buuurrrpp.

You could tell Sirius' had had too much to drink when he started treading on sharing-territory.

"You want to… talk about it?" James asked.

"No" Hiccup. "That's not what I meant to say. What's the other thing she says a lot? 'People don't change'"

James picked up the cards from the table and started shuffling them. "You called her a blood sucking drama queen earlier, is this really a person whose morals you value?"

"Don't accuse me of taking things for granted" Sirius pointed reprimanding. "Maybe you're the one that should give people more credit"
"That may be, but still. Books"
"Blondie is a dim witted poof. I wouldn't worry about anything he might attempt"

Then they started a new round of poker.

You could see through the key hole already how shelves lined the walls. Blondie stuck the key in the lock and it clicked opened. He mentioned that no variation of Alohomora had worked as he pressed down the handle to open the door.

It was a small room but the books were tightly backed in the shelves; there was no area of air between any of them. A writing desk stood in the center, and a chair neatly tucked in.

"Well, here it is" said Blondie, reaching out with his arms. "Every book Grizelda Hobgoblin left behind is here. You may look without supervision"

"Thank you" said Remus bitterly, starting with the shelf to the right of the door.

"Can I ask" Blondie neared him in a gossipy fashion. "Why Madam Pince circles you like a hawk nowadays?"

Professor McGonagall had really found the perfect punishment. The unwanted attention that being circled by Pince had brought him had been more than grating on that pesky shame.

"I did something stupid and now I'm punished, that's all" Remus replied shortly.

"You did something stupid?" Blondie tossed his head back, laughing. "Pull the other one!"

Since this really wasn't the first time he had done something moderately thoughtless, Remus couldn't understand why people still found it so hard to believe. But being circled by Pince in the library did draw more attention to his fallibility than previous punishments had.

"I'm capable of doing stupid things, as it happens"

Blondie supported himself against the shelf. "Who isn't, 'though? But be honest" Blondie lowered his voice to a whisper. "It was really Sirius' fault, wasn't it?"

Eye roll. "No it wasn't"

"Oh" Blondie eyed him sympathetically. "You really are loyal to a fault. Oh, don't look so offended, nobody's perfect"

"You don't even know what happened"
"If you say so" Blondie strummed the side of the shelf restlessly. Remus had barely looked through one book before the sudden cross-examination had made him lost all interest and put Controlling bio-dark arts back where Grizelda Hobgoblin seemed to think it belonged, although he couldn't understand why she had placed it among her Harlequin novels. It seemed to have stopped raining at last, by the lack of sound of it.

"I think I will take a walk or something" he said, still maintaining that polite façade in spite of the offense he had taken, whether or not Blondie had intended it. But Blondie seemed to be genuinely unaware of it.

"Oh, I could use a walk too!" he said eagerly.

The problem with faking politeness was that people couldn't tell when you wanted to get away from them. Remus cleared his throat.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I prefer to take walks by myself"

"Oh" Blondie looked a little hurt. "I've offended you"

"No-"

"I didn't mean to back talk anybody"

Now Remus just felt bad for having taken offense in the first place.

"This looks really interesting. I could just really use some air, that's all"

But when he tried to leave, Blondie blocked the door.

"You want to find the grave. I want to find the grave. Let's help each other out"

People blocking door was always a cause for paranoia.

"Pass"

"I can show you another room that is a lot more interesting than this one"

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Why?" Blondie twirled the key around his finger. "Because I looked all the bloody day for this! And how in the world did you find Leprechaun gold?"

It was uncanny how fast rumours travelled at Hogwarts. Not strange, but uncanny.

"I didn't" Remus confessed. "It's not supposed to be found, so I just… You just have to know how to solidify a mirage, and then swap it with the original"

Blondie pocketed the key again. "See, you don't just coincidentally stumble upon things, you're clever too!"

The relentless flattery was just too much, and it felt so awkward. "It's not clever, it's just nerdy"

"Is that what they call you? People who are insecure will put others down"

It was clear that Blondie had some hidden agenda, Remus just wish he'd spit it out already. Blondie continued:

"Look" he said, suggesting he was close to spitting it out at last. "Has it ever occurred to you that you don't have to be, to be quite blunt, their pushover?"

Remus had to agree that Blondie was indeed a dim witted poof, and without dignifying that with a response he waited for Blondie to go on.

"I mean" he went on "library supervision and banned from the book club and I'm supposed to believe that quiet teachers' pet you were in a disruptive mood?"

"No"

"Why would you risk getting expelled when all you do is study like there is no tomorrow as if you're afraid of getting expelled any moment?"

"That's really none of your business" And also, he felt like adding but didn't, get a life! So what if he was a pushover? Why was that a reason to block the door? Perhaps if he wasn't a pushover, he would have kicked his head in by now.

"Look, I know you're cursed" said Blondie at last.

Hearing that always felt like being washed over with led in a shrinking, darkening room without air. Remus searched his bag calmly for his inhaler.

"Could you move out of the way, please?"

Blondie didn't just move out of the way, he opened the door for him too.

"So you see? You don't have to be their pushover"

"So I'm supposed to be your pushover?"

"If you have to be someone's pushover, you might as well be the pushover of someone that doesn't make you risk your reputation on a regular basis"

Remus would have liked to give him a piece of his mind, if it hadn't been for that pesky anxiety. It was difficult to talk when you couldn't breathe and that walk outside wasn't just a convenient excuse to leave now, it was necessity.