It was close to seven o'clock when I reached the shop with Charlie. Fred and George had indeed turned the oven on, so a delicious smell filled the downstairs.
"Dinner's almost ready," I observed, setting down my tool bag next to the latest project on the big workbench. "If you like pot roast and veggies, you're welcome to stay."
"My brothers cooked it?"
"Not really. They just turned the oven on. I do the cooking here."
"That's…most ungentlemanly of them."
"Have you tasted their cooking? They do the dishes here."
"Oh." Charlie smiled. "I like that arrangement much better. We used to do the dishes for Mum when she cooked. Are they still at their shop?"
"Now? Most likely."
"Thinking up new jokes?"
"Yeah. They closed a couple hours ago."
Blast it all, those redheaded guys were cute, and as impossibly, identically dishy as Fred and George were, Charlie had a calmness neither twin could match. Maybe being around lots of younger siblings and pyrotechnic lizards did that to you. His hair was shorter, but somewhat uneven, as if it had been singed in places, and he had a better tan, even if it was crossed in places with pinkish, half-healed burns.
Something entered my mind just then. My Uncle Gard loved fishing, and often came home impossibly sunburned. My grandmother had had a special cream she made for burns, and from her recipe my stepmother had concocted an even more powerful version, a bottle of which presently resided in my icebox in case of kitchen mishaps or working accidents. I opened the 'fridge and took it out.
"Here, roll up your sleeves a second."
"What is it?"
"My stepmother makes this burn stuff…it works pretty well." I opened the bottle myself, as, having closed it myself, it might be difficult, but to my surprise Charlie had rolled up both sleeves and showed no intention of taking the bottle from me. Cripes, was I going to have to…oh, dear…
The cream had its' usual tingly feeling as I rubbed it over the pinkest burns. One especially new burn still had gauze around it, and Charlie began to unwrap it.
"That stuff really feels good…what-all does your step-mum use?"
"There's aloe, and some kinds of herbs, and this Muggle stuff called lidocaine, and some spells while she makes it. I'm not entirely sure."
"It's very effective. That burn below my elbow was really hurting, but I can hardly feel it now." He flexed the arm a little and I resisted the temptation to stare. Charlie's arms were defined with sharply cut muscles below tanned, lightly freckled skin, and the smell of the burn cream did nothing to diminish the fascination. "My brothers have told me so much about you in their letters, I feel like I know you already. Is that odd?"
Odd? No. Making my knees feel like water? Oooh, yeah.
"Well, they do talk about you and Percy and Bill a lot…and Ron and Ginny stop by sometimes."
"Let me guess, with Harry and Hermione?"
"Usually." I smiled, relaxing a little. "They are somewhat joined at the hip at times."
"Poor kids. This war's really falling hardest on them."
"It is. Especially with those beastly reporters writing all manner of nonsense every time they sneeze, Harry especially."
"Have you read the Rita Skeeter ones from a couple years ago, when she had Harry as the heartbroken lover and Hermione as the smoldering temptress?"
"Oh, the Scarlet Woman Chronicles. Of course. Fred and George had the one article framed just to offend her."
"Well, I do confess, I did help her get back at them a bit. There's a Muggle shop in London where you can have fake newspaper articles done up, and I had a Muggle tabloid of Fred and George in bed with Dolores Umbridge made."
"Oh, eww! That was you?"
"Of course! It wasn't really her nude body, you understand, I'm not that crazy. My friend Kate found a suitably portly photograph on the Internet and attached her head."
"But however did you get Fred and George into the picture?"
"There's a computer program called Photoshop the Muggles have. You can work miracles of impropriety with it. Kate did the loveliest picture of Peter Pettigrew humping Lucius Malfoy's leg the other day. She's Muggle-born and tends to take things rather personally, not to mention she's got a dirty mind. Did you ever meet her? Kate Bowen?"
Yes, I had. She had dated my brother and spent her share of time at the business end of Rita Skeeter's quill. She had also referred to me as 'little Jamie,' which I detested.
"Er…I think so. The blonde, writes articles on magizoology?"
"Yes, that's her. We were posted together with the Romanian dragons for a while. She mentioned your brother once or twice."
"Yes…they dated a few years ago, I think." That seemed to surprise Charlie.
"Did they? I wouldn't have expected that."
"Really?"
"Oh, no. I mean, your brother…don't get me wrong, he's a nice fellow and a great Seeker-" I remembered that Charlie and Ian had been contemporaries on the pitch at school, "-but he's… a guy. Kate was dating a girl called Samantha last I heard."
Oh. So he didn't fancy her. I tried not to look relieved.
"Not to speak ill of my big brother, but he very well could have that effect on women, especially if he's refusing to wash his lucky socks again."
"Bill went through a lucky sock phase. I was always one for the lucky ribbon tied on my broom above the bristles. Did you ever play Quidditch?"
"Not really. My brother taught me to fly when I was ten, but I never made the team at school."
"Oh, it's a lot of work. I remember you being at practices, though, fixing our Golden Snitches since you were a first-year. Do you still do any work with them?" I gave him my best mischievous smile. After all, Fred and George did call him the most trustworthy of their clan.
"Can you keep a secret?" I asked. Charlie obligingly mimed zipping his mouth shut and tossing the key. I opened a cupboard full of tools and spare parts, then opened the secret back panel. Within was my secret project, the product of almost eight months' work and countless hours of research. "It's a new design I've been working on." Charlie gasped and then smiled admiringly at the little prototype, which wasn't golden yet, but still resembled a Snitch in form. "Go on, you can touch it."
As his fingers drew near the little Snitch, it zipped into action, hovering just above his outstretched hand. It was rather smaller than an ordinary Snitch, and its' wings were more streamlined. He pulled his outstretched hand closer to his body, and the Snitch followed.
"It's so small," Charlie whispered. "You made this?"
"Just built it, really. I changed the designs my great-grandmother did for Snitches in a few places, added aluminum and titanium instead of brass and copper, and shrank her old design to one-quarter scale."
"It's two-thirds the size of a Standard Snitch, easily," Charlie marveled. "And it flies so smoothly. How is it powered?"
"Clockwork," I smiled, more than a little pleased with myself. "Not ordinary clockwork, though. You never have to wind it or change a battery, ever. Can you guess?"
"It isn't quartz …could you even do solar power?"
"Right in one." I held my hand near the little Snitch and it obligingly hovered over my palm. I pointed to a tiny dark patch on the top. "Solar, plus a self-recharging photo-lithium battery, so even though it's been in the cupboard, it flies okay."
"Jessie, it's amazing. Have you ever tested it?"
"With a real Seeker, on a broom? Not yet. It still needs some work. …Say, would you like to-"
"That'd be incredible."
"After all, you do know my backers for this feat of engineering."
"Fred an' George?"
"They hold the Gringotts keys, yeah, but it's your littlest brother who ordered it." I pulled a pair of bent, broken and tarnished old Snitch-wings out of the cupboard. "Ron brought home a busted-up old Snitch he bought from Madam Hooch for ten Sickles and asked if I could patch it up in time for Harry's birthday. I could've fixed the thing, but it would've cost more than a new one in parts and it'd still be out of date, so I decided to go wild. When the twins found out I was doing it, they insisted on paying for the metal and stuff I've used."
"Even the new parts? Snitch parts are… they're really expensive, though."
"Oh, I made all the parts for this. It's a lot like a watch in some ways."
"You can make parts like that, though? For watches or anything?"
"Of course."
"I thought watches all had standard parts now."
"Oh, some do, yeah, but not the really old or unusual ones. Yours doesn't."
"Could you make standard parts?"
"I could make any sort of parts to spec, which is to specific measurements, or to fit, which means I file and mess with a part until it fits an existing system of parts. Like, if somebody's grandmother's clock blew a spring, I'd just make a new one, rather than bothering with trying to find a standard part that would fit."
"But that's how you make a watch, you just make the parts and put it together –from scratch?"
"Sometimes, yeah." I was beginning to feel like I was being interviewed. Charlie was grinning broadly, though, and in spite of the timer on the oven, I felt peckish, so I uncrunched the top of a bag of Muggle potato crisps the twins and I had been nibbling at. "Want some?"
"Sure." He scooped a few into his hand, but didn't take those intensely green eyes off of me. "I just had this idea…could you make a set of watches?"
"A set? You mean, like matching ones?" I closed my hands over the solar Snitch and set it back on its' cushioned tower in the cupboard. "I make matching his-and-hers sets all the time."
"But could you do, say, thirty watches, all synchronized and with the same –what do you call the little motors?"
"Movement?"
"Yeah, same movement on the insides, different –what do you call the outside?"
"The case." I smiled a little at his not knowing clock terms.
"All different cases, and magic-proof."
"So there would be thirty watches, all entirely synchronized, with the same movement, but different cases, and magic-proofed?" Charlie nodded. "Of course I could. Planning a family reunion soon?"
"Er…not exactly." The dishiest of the Weasley brothers grinned at me, checked the door of the shop, then picked up a pad of scratch paper and wrote: 'Are we alone?'
I took the pen and wrote back: 'I think so. But it's your brothers who live across the road.'
'Well, Miss Tickes, I'd like to place an order.' Charlie slid the pad back to me with a smile. I smirked and responded:
'No problem, Mr. Weasley. What did you have in mind?'
'An order for the order.'
I looked at the message and shrugged.
'???'
Charlie pulled back the pad and underlined the first letter of the second 'order.' I understood. Trying my best not to blush or giggle or do anything too goddamn girly, I wrote a few sentences:
'Okay. First, though, wouldn't that be more than thirty? Second, would you like wrist or pocket watches? Third, shall I make them to suit each member? That would be a challenge and fun.'
Charlie wrote back: 'Sure.'
"So, these watches for your family reunion," I began speaking, watching Charlie's face carefully. He took the hint and gave me a big grin. "What did you have in mind for each relative?"
"Well, Miss Tickes,"
"Jessie," I corrected, then blushed furiously. "Erm- -that is, you can call me Jessie –I mean, my name's Jamesina, but that's –well, that's just awful, and…"
"Call me Charlie," he responded in a voice that made me reach for my work chair and sit down with a thump.
"Er…sit down, we can discuss this," I mumbled incoherently. Charlie complied.
"I was thinking, Jessie, that first you'd want to make a watch for my very old uncle."
"Uncle …Al?" I asked mischievously. Charlie gave me the grin again.
"That's the one. I was thinking a special watch for him."
"One that sets all the other watches?"
"That would be very nice. Could you maybe make a fake face for his, though, that covers the real one, and opens with a button, in case someone else finds it?"
"A dummy face?"
"If that's the term."
"Charlie, I'm going to show you something." I always did grow bolder when we were talking about clocks. Holding out my wrist, I indicated the second watch up. "See that watch?"
"Yes."
"It's ticking?"
"Yep."
"Watch this." I hit a button and the face flipped up, revealing yet another face, which was also ticking away, but at another time. "I made this watch with my grandfather when I was six. The first face shows the time it is where I am, and the other face is set to the exact time, second for second, as the watch my big brother wears, wherever he is. Every so often I'll check it, and the time will have changed, because my brother changed his watch to go across time zones. I can make your uncle Al's watch two-faced, and the top face'll work, and whenever he changes his watch, every other watch in the set will change."
"That," Charlie observed in that hotter-than-fire-make-dragons-wet-themselves voice of his, "would be wonderful, Jessie."
"Jess-ieee!"
"Mum owled us-"
"About that dumbass-"
"Rich boy and we're-"
"Ordering in dessert!"
"So, what do you want?"
"We're buying!"
None of the words I was considering were very ladylike, though I'm certain any one would have sent the chicken into a frenetic ecstasy of dance. Bloody Fred and George, arriving right when I was discussing watches with the most certifiable chunk of what Ginny calls 'dishy manflesh' since Josef Wronski. Drat.
"Hey, guys! Dinner's almost ready …and we've got guests! –er, a guest…"
"Charlie!"
"Big brother!"
"Back from Romania already?"
"Yeah, guys, I'm home."
"Are you eating with us?"
"Uh, yeah. I was just getting to know your friend Jessie here…"
All of a sudden, Fred and George got the look –the one that appeared whenever a guy looked at me in any way other than as a clocksmith, in the sense that working female craftsmen are as sexless as a stick of gum. Their eyes blazed and then narrowed, and their jaws grew stiff.
"Jessie is not our friend."
"Jessie is our third twin."
"An unusually dissimilar and hereto undiagnosed triplet?" Charlie asked.
"Yes," the twins chorused.
"So despite the fact that Jessie has brown hair, brown eyes, is a girl, looks nothing like you, and is three and a half months younger –she is your triplet?"
"Jess, we didn't know you were three months younger!" As George spoke, Fred elbowed him.
"She is. And as our older brother, we are ordering you to not mess with her, because it would be incest."
"Because she is your triplet?"
"Yes."
"We have decided this."
"Guys, you're mad. We were talking about watches."
"You're mad, Charlie!"
"You subverter!"
"Despoiler of innocent girlhood!"
"Talking about watches to Jessie is practically foreplay!"
"And if she's your triplet," Charlie observed, "and you know that talking about watches turns her on, does that make it twincest?"
I should remark that during this exchange, I went out, got dinner ready, and tried my damnedest to pretend not to listen.
"Dinner!" I called.
"Food!"
"Sustenance!"
"Edibles!"
"Dear, sweet Jessie," Fred observed, taking the stack of plates from my hands and kissing my cheek. "That broccoli looks wonderful."
"Adorable false triplet," George agreed, kissing my other cheek. "You remembered carrots."
"Friendly, nimble clocksmith," Charlie finished, kissing my forehead. "I didn't know pot roast could be cooked with onions."
"Oh, sure, you use this Muggle stuff, it's a kind of soup mix. My stepmother's recipe."
"Shall I carve?" Charlie asked.
"I'll make drinks."
"And I'll get the silverware."
"There's still potatoes in the oven. I'll get them." As I cut the baked spuds crosswise and added a little salt, I got the impression that this was a fine way to eat dinner; the eldest boy present carving the delicious roast, the younger two making drinks and setting the table, and the only girl doing up the spuds. It might have been a dad, mom and sons, a pair of newlyweds and the brothers-in-law, or even just three brothers and their friend-who-just-happened-to-be-a-girl, as the case was, but anyone else could have taken us for a family. "Charlie, how do you eat baked potatoes?"
"With a fork, mostly."
"Butter or sour cream, she means."
"Oh, both if you have them." I set a potato with butter in front of Fred and one with sour cream in front of George. Charlie was astonished. "How did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Oh, Jessie can tell us apart."
"Didn't we mention that in owls?"
"I wouldn't have believed it. Even Mum has trouble keeping you two straight. How do you do it, Jessie?"
"It's quite simple, when you know what to look for. Now, who'd like veggies?"
After dinner, while Fred and George washed and dried, Charlie and I worked out sketches for the watches on the kitchen table. Of course, by then my sketchbook ran to three volumes –all Tickes keep a sketchbook of neat ideas, because you never know when something will come in useful –and Charlie was quite impressed. There were a few watch designs I had done while bored in class that just suited certain professors, and Charlie was all for using them. The plaid wristband idea with the gold-plated lions chasing each other around the face was perfect for Professor McGonagall, and the little stainless-steel, adjustable band that could be reversed and had flowers was just the thing for dear Professor Sprout. Hagrid hadn't been a professor for long before I left, but I had enjoyed his company and covertly taken his measurement, just in case. His watch was already planned by the time our dessert arrived from Florian Fortescue's. I decided that stainless steel with a black industrial enamel finish was best for Professor Snape, metal band-style with a black face and chrome hands, and Charlie suggested tiny green crystals for the numbers. It was a darkly elegant design and I got the impression even the dour Professor would fancy it. For Professor Lupin, whose class I had loved for the short time he was there, I earmarked an old platinum case I had been restoring, as well as a chain. It would be an elegant pocket watch when I finished, in stark contrast to the shabby clothes he wore. I had already put an entirely new movement into his old wristwatch, but the old case had a stag engraved on it, and something told me he'd fancy it. I showed the old case to Charlie, though, and he frowned above a gentle smile.
"I know someone who'd like it more, Jessie. Where did you get this watch?"
"Oh, someone ordered it from Grandfather years ago and never picked it up. Evan somebody."
"Possibly …Evans?" I checked the old manila envelope and nodded.
"Lily Evans, yes. However did you –oh!" Charlie nodded sadly.
"Harry's mum."
"She ordered it to be ready in July…oh, no…that's why she never picked it up. It's got a horrible movement, rusted when I found it. Shall I spruce it up for Harry's birthday?"
"How do you mean, 'spruce up'?"
"New movement, clean it, add –Charlie, it's got his dad's initials in, and 'from L. and H.' It was for his dad. I'll set to work right now."
"Jessie, you don't have to-"
"Yes, I do. I've met Harry." Stupid girly me. I was trying not to cry by then. "He and Hagrid looked in the shop window when he was just a first-year and I was working my summer job. I waved and he smiled and waved back. He's a nice guy and he's had a really bad time of it, so I'm going to fix this watch."
"Is that why you made the special Snitch?"
"That's more for Ron, 'cause he's a nice guy, too, and he really wanted to have a nice birthday present for his best friend. That, and I like fixing watches and messing with Snitches and making little, tiny parts. It's fun for me and helpful for others."
"Job satisfaction." Charlie took my hand and looked at it. "And even though you have to wear your nails short and your fingertips are all callused, you'd still keep on?"
"I'd wear them short anyway –used to bite 'em. But yeah."
"Then it's just like these burns on my arms. I like working with dragons and writing about them. It's fun for me, and other people can benefit from it." He has a great smile, and his hands just fit mine, which I discovered as he closed them gently over my palm. "I think we understand each other, Miss Jessie."
"What's going on?"
"Why have you got her hand?"
"Guys, cool it. We're discussing watches and watches go on wrists." I managed to blush only a little at that, but looking up over my glasses, I caught Charlie blushing too, and smiling just as conspiratorially. Oh, I liked him!
"Do you think a plaid watchband would suit Professor McGonagall?" he inquired of his brothers, neatly defusing the accusation bomb. Fred and George eagerly pounced the subject of watch designs and we were spared the Weasley Inquisition.
And that was how I met Charlie Weasley, and how I became an under-member of the Order of the Phoenix, supplier of watches and clocks to the side of good. It's a heck of a job, and I do have a lot of fun doing it. One of the best parts came the very next day, when Mrs. Longbottom came to have her mantel clock repaired.
"It won't take but a minute, ma'am. Looks to be the mainspring."
If you're noticing that I spend an enormous amount of time telling people that 'it's the mainspring,' you're dead on. Eight out of ten times a clock has a problem, it's the mainspring. After all, it's the primary moving part; it's very thin to begin with, and when a thin piece of metal moves a lot, it wears out. "I heard that your grandson took a prize for Herbology. Mimbulus mimbletonia's an impressive plant."
"What prize was that?" Mrs. Longbottom inquired. I got up and handed her the 'Greenpage Monthly,' a gardening magazine I had forgotten to forward to my grandfather and then gotten to like myself. Neville had taken first prize in the under-21 Herbology contest the magazine held every spring. Mrs. Longbottom seemed very surprised and pleased.
"He didn't even write to tell me."
"Actually, ma'am, this is today's edition. I would bet you he doesn't know himself. I'd also bet that Professor Sprout helped him enter and he didn't tell you in case he didn't get anything. But a Mimbulus being good enough for the Greenpages …that must be one serious plant he's got. I had bad luck with marigolds."
That was true. My marigolds at age four never so much as bloomed. I didn't mention that I had later come in second in the Greenpage contest when I was twelve for a bonsai Whomping Willow that still whacked people's ankles at home under the side window.
"I'll send him an owl this very minute! Have you an envelope?"
"Of course, Mrs. Longbottom." I handed her a little white one. "If you'd like to go over to Hogwarts, you know, be there when the people go to tell him, I can deliver your clock tonight."
"That would be wonderful of you, dear. Jamesina, isn't it?" I nodded, mentally wondering if I could legally change the disaster of a name my fool grandfather stuck me with. "I knew your mother. She and Frank were friends at school, and when he asked Alice to the Yule Ball in sixth year, she helped him pick out flowers. He was the one who asked her to come along to Hogsmeade with Alice and little Jimmy Tickes that time –dear, isn't that your father?"
"It is."
"How is he? I heard he remarried a few years ago."
"Oh, yes, he and my stepmother are very well, and my twin half-brothers, Robby and Davy, are each speaking in full sentences."
"Oh, that's simply wonderful! They'll be two soon, correct?"
"In three months."
"That is a lovely age. I remember when Neville was just starting to speak. He couldn't pronounce the 'l' in yellow. Dear, do you suppose he'd like a watch of his own? I have his father's for his eighteenth birthday, but it's rather a dressy one for everyday, and several boys from his class have got new watches."
Yes, they did. I made them.
"I know his friend Ron will be getting a new watch soon," I whispered, with a wink, pointing to a half-finished steel pocket watch, very plain, but elegant and manly. "From his brothers. I set the dial on a pivot with a floater, see, and it has a double face so he can use it to time Quidditch games as well as for ordinary watch purposes. It's not finished, obviously, but I think he'll like it."
"Isn't that awfully expensive, though?" Mrs. Longbottom looked concerned, then patted my shoulder. "I mean, not to speak ill of anyone, but the Weasleys have been in a bad way financially."
"So have the Tickes, at times, and the Weasleys have always been good neighbors. Fred and George Weasley eat meals here, you know; I cook and they do the washing-up for the three of us."
"But still, that's a very expensive watch."
"Not as much as you'd think, actually. The main cost of the average watch," I explained, opening the case and showing her the spring and gears, "is here, in the movement, in the case, on the face, and in the strap or chain. A showy watch will spend more on the outer parts and often have a horrible, foreign-made movement that'll wear out inside of a year. A really good watch has a leather strap or a good metal chain with forged links, a solid case, the face will be authentic, the hands will be strong enough, and the movement will be the best of all. A good watch that doesn't cost a lot simply comes from a clocksmith who makes her own straps, buys metal at wholesale, does her own gearwork, has no payroll to meet, and gets her roof fixed by two neighbors instead of paying forty Galleons to have it done." I winked at her. "See what I mean?"
"How very clever of you!" the old lady exclaimed. "My brother Algy used to tutor the apothecary's little boy in Arithmancy and took a discount on potions ingredients instead of pay. I didn't think young people knew how to turn favor for favor anymore."
"Well, it's not that uncommon. I got Neville to help my stepmother out with the lawn and the Pumbleroses –the twins are a bit of a handful, you know- and fixed up this charming old alarm clock he had from somewhere."
"That was Algy's! It hadn't worked for years, Neville found it in the attic and had it fixed. I had wondered where he got the money!"
"No money necessary. Mum wrote that the Pumbleroses were twice their old size after Neville looked at them."
"What an amazing thing. I do believe a new watch would be just the thing for his birthday in June…but could you have anything ready by this afternoon? The Greenpages prize is quite an achievement, and…I don't know, I'd sort of like to mark the occasion with a little something he'd like."
"Well, I've nearly finished your mantel clock, ma'am, and there's quite a few finished pieces around the shop. He might also like something from Blossom and Roote's. I think they might have a sale on, they usually do in spring."
"This!" Mrs. Longbottom had seized on a little desk-type clock with a steel case and a hand wind at the back. "It's positively charming! But has it an alarm? Neville tends to be forgetful…"
"Oh, that's a Remindall clock. My great-grandmother invented them. It has twenty-five alarms, all with little tabs that pop up here," I made it demonstrate, a little red tab with blank lines appearing from a slot just behind the face, "and right there, you can write down what it is it's reminding you of."
"But it's perfect for Neville! How much?" I lifted the clock gently and checked the tag underneath.
"Ten Galleons."
"But that's giving it away! How can you charge so…?"
"It's made from recycled parts. Sometimes we get clocks in where the owner wants a whole new movement, even though only the mainspring's bad. It's quite easy to reuse parts if they aren't worn, and that way one's certain they work, and spared a little cost."
"A little? Tell me that clock wouldn't go for forty otherwise!" I looked at my shoes. "And you tell people why! Miss Tickes, you are as impossibly honest as your grandfather Myron!"
"Thank you, ma'am…he'd be very pleased to hear that…"
I'm certain that reply was addressed directly to my shoelaces.
"Old Myron Tickes would tell the truth even if it was You-Know-Who asking his opinion on politics. It does my heart proud to see his little ones are out of the same cloth. Neville will adore this clock, but I won't pay you less than twenty Galleons for it."
"But, ma'am…"
"Now, don't you go cheating yourself, Miss Tickes. Your grandfather's undercharged Algy and I for years, I'm sure of it."
"Well, ma'am…" An idea occurred to me. "I'll tell you what, Mrs. Longbottom." I picked up an engraved face I'd been working on and showed it to her. "Neville's in Gryffindor, right? I can put this face with the lion in, and it'll be fifteen Galleons even."
"Twenty."
"For twenty, I'll give you a service policy on it. Free repairs forever."
"Done. I know Tickes clocks, dear, they don't need service policies. I have clocks at home that your grandfather and great-grandfather built that have yet to need so much as cleaning. It's only the ones like the mantel clock that came from somewhere else I have trouble with."
"Well, your mantel clock isn't a bad piece, actually. If you were in the antique clock market, it could be valuable historically, if nothing else."
"How's that?" I showed her the movement, which was partly disassembled on the worktable.
"Here, here, and here," I explained, pointing, "there are errors in the installation. Not severe errors, really, just very subtle mistakes. The plan of this clock is an almost exact copy of a Muggle variety which was popular in the day, except for the jointure, the fly gear and the winding pin. This clock was done by a wizard, definitely, but one who was trying to improve on the Muggle design instead of getting into wizard clocksmithy."
"I knew the thing was old, but…" I tried to restrain a smirk as the elderly lady stared, puzzled, at her mantel clock's metal guts.
"How old, would you say?"
"It's been in the family for decades. At least the turn of the century is my guess." I grinned.
"This clock dates from 1813, Mrs. Longbottom. Any guess as to where?" She looked uneasy and intrigued, even curious, at the same time.
"I would have to guess Britain."
"Close, and a very good guess. It is designed to look English, after all, but in point of fact, this clock was manufactured for the most part in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the fledgling United States of America, in a shop known as Lyon et Fils." I kept working as I spoke, finishing and closing the clock with all possible care. After all, I had a riveted audience. "The 'Fils' is a bit ironic, considering the only witch on the premises was the youngest daughter, who eventually took it over and improved the product to the degree that the shop was a key target of Union forces during the Civil War –their clocks were that valuable. This is one of the first magically enhanced clocks from the place, likely done by Daphne Gautier Lyon herself shortly after her marriage to Gustave Lyon. As a clock, its' value is about seventy Galleons. In the antique market, I would expect an auction value of between two and three thousand."
The bomb fell. My audience released her breath, then gathered it in again rapidly, then gasped again.
"What was that figure?"
Gods, I love doing that!
"Between two and three thousand Galleons, Mrs. Longbottom," I repeated chipperly, as if this were a perfectly common and average occurrence in day-to-day business. I also began to carefully pack the mantel clock up in bubble wrap and a cardboard box with the company name. (Whoever says Muggles are stupid never used bubble wrap.) "Here you are. Give Neville my best."
"Erm…yes…thousand…right…" She clutched the plastic bag I put the box in as if it contained bottled youth. "Goodbye, dear…thousand…"
She was still mumbling incoherently to herself as she left. As soon as the old bat was out of earshot I smiled, sighed loudly, and did a little 'goooaaaaalllll!' sort of dance in front of the fireplace. I tried to calm down a moment later, but couldn't, then turned on my mother's old phonograph to help make the incredibly self-satisfied feeling dissipate faster. My stupid little end zone dance continued for the first quarter of the song, whereupon it simply became too much for my unseen and unforeseen audience.
"Jessie?"
And that is how Charlie Weasley, after Floo powder-ing in at the back, caught me dancing around like a nit to 'Waterloo' by ABBA.