Chapter Twenty-One: A Note
"I'm…sorry it's so late," the dark-haired man apologized, "but I was just wondering if you…maybe… have a luggage section…?"
Sam still couldn't answer, but given that the guy's voice suddenly trailed off as he looked at her, both customer and proprietor had apparently found what they were looking for.
They were about to be nauseating, so I spoke up:
"We do have a selection of luggage! I'm sure Sam here would be happy to show you-"
"Sam?" The guy's smile quirked up a little at the corner and he almost seemed to blush before evidently remembering that oh, right, the world does not stop upon the sudden encounter of a pretty girl. "I believe you know my sister, then. I'm…uh, well, I'm trying to find a trunk or a suitcase, to get for her…she's going to need one soon…"
"What kind are you looking for?" Sam finally recovered her vocal abilities and gestured toward the stairs which led to what passed for our luggage section.
"Something strong, but fairly light, and with loads of compartments…oh, and it should probably have a lock…" He bowed slightly as he motioned for her to lead the way and Sam blushed almost as red as he was.
Too late, they were nauseating. I glanced at Kendra and Mum, only to realize that the ability not to crack up laughing at cute might-be-couples was something I got from my father's side.
"Any…particular size the compartments should be?"
"It's for clockmaking tools, plus some clothes and stuff…oh, I'm Ian Tickes, by the way –the fifth, that is, Number Four is my Uncle Gard." He held out a big hand –and I do mean huge, wrapped in a Quidditch glove. Sam shook it.
"Sam Redfern –erm, well, Samantha Redfern, that is…we –er, all have nicknames."
And that's how we met Jessie's big brother, or as Kendra and I privately dubbed him, the Fifth Himself.
"Jamesina's mentioned you fondly, yes," Ian's smile broadened and looked rather a lot like his sister's would if she suddenly were a guy. "You were in Ravenclaw with her, right?"
"Yes, I was!" Sam looked entirely too pleased that he knew her House.
"I kind of recognized you…at that Quidditch match of mine you four went to over Christmas break in your second year, you were the one in the blue school tie."
"I'd almost forgotten that. Second-year…"
"You do look rather different now, but the –er, smile's the same." For one shining moment they gazed adorably at each other on the stairs –and then Sam's bitchy intellectual side kicked in. The eyebrow arched, the hand pulled out of the dishy guy's…
"Er…I'm an identical triplet, Ian. Idn't it a bit unlikely-"
"That, and your watch has a Ravenclaw crest on it. I saw when I shook your hand." Ian stopped smiling cutely and grinned, bending close to our sister's ear. "It's how Jims tells you three apart, too," he whispered.
I will say one thing for my smart and snarky sister. She appreciates cleverness, even when it's at her own expense.
"You're kidding me. That's how she…oh, I know what kind of a suitcase she needs!"
"Something prank-enchanted?"
"No, ordinary craftsman-case, lots of compartments, pretty standard." Sam smirked wickedly and steepled her fingers. "What we fill certain compartments with, on the other hand…"
"I was only planning to include a couple of sex toys that defy reason and human anatomy for the purpose of making my sister blush. What have you got in mind?" Ian's grin was easily as mischievous as our sister's.
"Oh, you've simply got to see our Adult Section!"
They scampered upstairs. Mum finally lost her battle with suppressed laughter and Ken pounded the counter as they guffawed. With the dignity of a professor, I cracked open some butterbeer and one of the wine coolers Mum prefers.
"How long before they realize they're poring over smutty things together like sorority sisters on spring break?" Mum asked.
"Not long," Ken replied smugly.
"Knowing Sam, he'll have been gone for an hour before that sinks in. Then she'll have a panic attack about the cute guy thinking she must be some kind of professional to be so calm about smutty toys."
"You sound sure."
"It happens twice a month."
The next page has different handwriting -presumably pages may be out of order.
I had just had a butterbeer and a nice chat with Mel Redfern when an owl flew in and landed on Mrs. Miniver's perch. It was a remarkably ancient one and he looked positively exhausted –almost too weak to extend the talon with the letter in it. It was also a little wet, some light rain having started a bit ago.
Min clicked her beak in what sounded like exasperation before starting to preen his feathers.I gave him one of the gourmet owl treats she likes, but she didn't so much as cock a disapproving eye, as she does when I offer them to post owls. "Those are my treats," she normally seems to say –or perhaps "Aren't those awfully expensive to give out to everyone?" She seems to be aware of what things cost –probably from living in an owl shop so long, and she clicked her beak in surprise at me when I bought the most expensive brand they had at Eeylops.
I make a pretty good living. It is therefore my prerogative to get the best for my friends and pets. More fun than spending it on stuff for myself, really. I have everything I want.
"Oh, you must be Errol!" I suddenly remembered the twins' mentioning the age and condition of the owl their parents used. 'No wonder Min's being so hospitable,' I thought. "News from the Burrow, then?"
"Darling Jess,
Would you perhaps be amenable to yet another redhaired head at dinner this evening? Mum's been at the wedding preparations again and something tells me Ginny would best be separated from Bill's –er, 'French pastry' before homicide ensues. I did not know it was possible to annoy another person into a state of temporary insanity without meaning to, or without even realizing you're about as enjoyable as a blonde case of dragon pox, but 'Phlegm's' sure pretty skillful at it.
Is it wrong to feel smug, knowing my family already likes the girl I'm seeing? Of course, I may have exceeded the safe quota of smugness felt, given that said girlfriend is also beautiful, smart and skillful, to say nothing of being a native speaker of English AND Fudgian?
Have I mentioned how glad I am that you aren't French? Or blonde? What do other guys see in a part-Veela who can't use a screwdriver without breaking a nail? I would so much rather love and be loved by a girl who not only looks pretty under a gazebo, but could probably build it herself in under four hours. A girl who cares more about what something does than how it looks with her hair, a girl whose response to garden gnomes is 'throwing contest!' and a smile, not 'sacre bleu!' and fainting…a girl who considers a Bludger-bat just as good an accessory as a parasol…I am damned lucky to have found you, Jamesina Tickes.
Oh, and I'm planning to bring home an ice-cream cake from Fortescue's; what flavours do you like best?
Affectionately,
-Your Charlie"
"…Wow."
Mrs. Miniver is an eminently practical owl. She came over and fanned me with her wings so I didn't faint, despite sinking into the chair and letting out a lovesick sigh that probably would've half-filled a tyre.
I basked in the glow of Charlie's letter only a few moments –okay, I read it five times in a row, savoring every line, before heading to my accounts desk to pen a reply.
Did I just…I really did. 'Pen a reply'? 'Savoring every line'? I sound like a fourteen-year-old who overdosed on Victorian novels and has to be forcibly detoxed with Muggle slasher movies before a musical breaks out. There could be power ballads if I don't make my tone a little less fluffy-bunnies and cupid-hearts!
Shut up. It's how I felt, anyway, soppy or not. So there.
I started to write, but after three pieces of parchment bit the dust and I still lacked a proper opening, I decided to get up and give Errol another owl treat, and one for Min as well.
"Hey…you guys must handle some love letters, your line of work –I mean, being owls and all."
Min clicked her beak as if to say "Not enough, dearie." Errol gave a weak chirp and molted a few feathers: "Seven teenagers."
"How would you go about starting it?"
Suddenly, Mrs. Miniver left her perch and flew to the accounts desk. She perched on my ledger and pulled at one of the many tiny drawers with her foot.
"What are you…Min, you're a genius!"
I once bought a Thinknotes Quill to finish an essay for Professor McGonagall after a repair job went wonky. The mainspring of the cheap knockoff watch I was meant to be fixing for detention had popped out, sliced my hand right open –and that moron Lockhart tried to clean the blood off at about the same time he tried to mend the cut, covering my hand in tawdry rhinestones for half a day. Even Madam Pomfrey was briefly stumped by that misadventure, and on her suggestion I invested a few Galleons in a quill capable of writing down what I thought.
She neglected, however, to suggest a model equipped with an Anti-Digression Charm, or at least one without a Veritaserum liquid core.
Suffice it to say, the quill in question had helped me finish a seven-foot jewel of an essay that featured intricate detail on almost everything but what it was supposed to be about. I began all right, describing what one had to be careful of in mineral-to-animal transfigurations, then somewhere in the step-by-step for the O.W.L. standard teapot-to-tortoise task, I got a bit sidetracked and wound up telling the story of Ian's pet turtle, a creature that lived well, but suffered much. And then I got back to it, but veered into china patterns, and then there was a bit about a plate I broke as a little kid, and…
I am very lucky in that Professor McGonagall gets a large number of boring essays and has a wonderful sense of humor. (I defy statistical science in that we have a near-identical taste in china patterns.) Needless to say, the quill had gotten very little use, apart from a lend or two to Granddad when he wrote in to the Daily Prophet, as it does have an obscenity-blocking charm one can activate.
But I set it up, nonetheless, dipping it in the ink and setting it on the page. What did I want to say…
It wrote quickly...a very interesting and well-done letter that I could perhaps show Charlie after we'd both had a lot to drink. It got across all the ideas I'd had in mind, plus a few extra I wasn't sure I wanted to admit to, especially not if he happened to read it in public.
I tried again, this time activating the obscenity-blocking charm. When putting your true thoughts on paper, sometimes an invisible censor can save one a lot of embarrassment…or wondering where one heard of such possibilities.
Why, yes. That was an innuendo. Shocking, isn't it?
Oh. I'm using the same quill to write this story, by the way. As if you couldn't tell!
"Dear Charlie,
I'd be delighted to have Ginny over! It's roast-chicken night and as usual, I chose a bird that probably could have played for England. Better too big and tasty leftovers than too small and rumbly stomachs by bedtime, Granddad used to say.
I would imagine someone like Fleur could probably be irritating to someone like Ginny. As irritating as you might find my family, though, I'd doubt. It is a lucky thing your family is so nice, and an even luckier one that the ones I know seem to get along with me okay.
But then, I'm convinced your lot could probably manage to get along with anyone. Remember your mother and Granddad talking about when we were small? I wished the floor would've swallowed me when they got to my imaginary friends, but the notion of your being a little kid with a pretend friendly dragon called Box…well, that kind of made up for it. Not that there will be any ribbing from the former keeper of an invisible unicorn.
Cinnamon ice cream with carrot cake is the special this week, but you know me, I'll eat anything."
I stopped and pulled the quill away from the parchment. On the blotter of the desk, it wrote what I had almost said in the letter…something I didn't dare say in a note, no matter how much my rebellious mind and complicit quill wanted to.
"See you at seven, then! Hope Ginny likes baked potatoes with roast chicken!"
How to end it? 'Affectionately yours,' seemed appropriate -wait. Charlie didn't pluralize 'yours' in his letter. He had written 'your,' which was to say, 'mine,' from my point of view…
Oh, my.
I shut my eyes and bit my lip. I also drew my wand from where I'd been keeping it (tucked into my ponytail, incidentally,) and pointed it at the page.
'Now listen, quill,' I thought, 'No fair writing that. Just a nice closing and then my name, or I'll erase it with my wand and then probably put you back in the drawer for at least six months. Okay? Count of three!'
I let go of the quill and it skated across the page before hopping happily –no, smugly back into the inkwell.
'Dammit. What did that stupid plume…oh.'
"I remain, your affectionate
-Jessie"
That would do.
I seemed, at that moment, to recall stories of arranged or semi-arranged marriages, prior to which the intendeds courted exclusively by correspondence. The results, according to the Ravenclaw girls' room library of romance novels, were invariably true love matches that lasted until death did the characters part –usually of tuberculosis or some other heartrendingly pathetic thing. I also seemed to recall the correspondence-courtship idea having been common in real life.
I wonder how in the nine hells they managed it.
I had just sent the letter off with Min, who was under instructions to give it to Charlie and no other Weasley (how the twins would howl if they found it!) when yet another owl flew in and joined Errol on the porch. I like a busy day, but the business of answering –yes, I'll say it, my first love-letter –had taken a lot out of me.
And yes, I did tuck Charlie's letter into the inside pocket of my waistcoat near the heart. If people weren't meant to be hopelessly romantic sometimes, then why's Madame Malkin put pockets there?
The new letter wasn't nearly so exciting as Charlie's had been –but it did come close, and to be fair, I'd been anticipating it since an age wherein boys were 'icky' and love-letters something to mock older siblings about.
It was, to be precise, my Guild summons; the 'oh, we hear you're doing well enough to try out for Master, come to Switzerland and sit the hardest exam of your career so far,' letter all journeyman clockmakers dreamed about. I was, of course, still a journeyman at that point, despite owning my own shop and placing first in a British watchmaking tournament –which I had, naturally, forgotten I'd entered in the kerfuffle of the shop being attacked and elections and, y'know, stuff.
I was a little surprised to see it, actually. Normally journeymen are summoned at roughly age twenty-five, though the family average is closer to twenty-two. I had gotten my journeyman's license at fifteen, a little early, and my passing novice levels into apprenticeship wasn't any kind of British record for early age. Of course, that might've been partly because of my grandfather's sitting his at the age of four, but six was only a year lower than the family average.
There aren't many women in the International Guild of Timepiece Artificiers, Wizarding, but I was by no means remarkable for that. I wasn't even the first Jamesina Tickes to sit the masterpiece.
It wasn't even that I wasn't prepared, though I could certainly do with more practice before the trip. I would also want some new traveling clothes, considering I had a full two inches of sock showing under some of the trousers I'd gotten since leaving school, and a good smart tool-case was definitely on the shopping list…oh, hang it, I was terrified.
And it was, naturally, at that very moment that my big brother thumped in from the rain outside.
"Are you dating Charlie Weasley?"
Oh, soot.