Chapter Twenty-Two: Some Handcuffs

"Um –what gave you that idea?" Jessie squeaked, looking a bit like a mouse before suddenly looking just as indignant as I was. "Wait a minute! When did you get here? I didn't know the team was in London!"

"Er…Perhaps I should've given my baby sister a hug before interrogating her?" I apologized sheepishly.

"Perhaps you should've!" Grown-up or not, it was nice to discover I can still pick my sister up with my bear hugs. "And you're in time for dinner! Thank goodness I pick out oversized birds every time we have roast chicken-"

"Roast chicken?" I must've visibly drooled.

"Oh, nice! Your eyes still do that bulging thing! Your tongue seems to have gotten a bit longer, though. Should I mention there's jacket potatoes, too? I think the Cheddar broccoli would be too much to mention, carpet's new, after all…"

"Are you aware that the team has a private nutritionist who hasn't let me eat anything worth eating in six months?"

"Weirdly enough, I was, in fact, aware of that. Fred and George left a Quidditch magazine out a week ago that had an interview with the git. I was going to send a parcel of cookies, but I was forcibly stopped, lest it alter your weight ratio before the match against Bulgaria, on which the twins had a number of Galleons."

"Were they pleased we won?"

"Very. Said it was a damn dirty game, though."

"Yes. Some hag of a reporter mentioned my sister had been seen out with their Seeker. I got a bit…Ticky."

"…I am genuinely sorry. That wasn't a fake rumor –though it was only the one blind date, I haven't seen him since."

"Oh, I know all about it now. After the game, Krum and I had drinks and wound up becoming great friends."

"That's good!" I did not, you will notice, tell Jessie precisely how much we drank.

"He was a little disappointed that you never owled him back."

"…Well, he's a very nice guy, but don't you think…well…much as I'd like to date a guy who shared so many wonderful qualities with my big brother, there's a fine line between 'could be friends' and 'Bulgarian spider-clone.' It was weird, y'know?"

She looked so much like Mum I had to look away for a second. Luckily, there were watches and clocks all over in which I could feign interest. Jessie never knew our mother and probably doesn't realize how much she can bother Dad and I without ever meaning to –there's just such a resemblance in her voice and gestures. It's easier for me; I know Jessie's a right brat if you rub her wrong and she doesn't look so close I can't cope with it. Dad, however…

Anyway.

"So Charlie's an upgrade, then?"

"Yeah! He's got a lot of your interests, but not so many it freaks me out, plus he's got red hair and that cute smile and he's probably the only person 'sides me who isn't freaked out by the Redferns and he can write these letters…"

There was a sigh in her voice I'd heard in my own fangirls. Good lord. I grinned at the cuteness of it and she suddenly went white, realizing she'd just admitted to dating him. "Oh, I'm boned." That made me jump.

"Not really, I hope?"

"Not really your business!" Now she was a little Ticky herself. "What if I did bone him? A lot? And in kinky ways, with shibari ropes and handcuffs and stuff that's this-close to Dark magic, all before dinnertime? And in my workroom with all the leather tools! I'm a grown woman, Ian, I can bone who I want to bone!"

I staggered back into a chair. It wasn't that I believed her. That didn't seem possible. But on the other hand, where in hell had Jessie heard of shibari ropes? It was like discovering your great-grandmother's taste in porn –okay, having actually done that, rather more shocking. That, and she'd never said 'bone' in that sense before.

"…You're my little sister! It freaks me out!"

"So don't think about it! You don't think it freaks me out when Quidditch Weekly runs an item on the STDs groupies get and sometimes spread through whole teams and immediately panic that you'll come home with genital spattergroit? I just re-did the chairs!"

"Um…first of all, I do not bone groupies. Secondly, I don't think there's such a thing as genital spattergroit or our Chaser would have had it by now. And thirdly, I never thought you'd date someone from my graduating class! It's just a bit startling!"

"Oh, I'm not old enough to date people your age, now? Are you so ancient? We're not even a full seven years apart!"

"Jess, I never said I wasn't happy you're dating him!"

"Damn straight! You never- huh?"

"Charlie's an incredibly decent guy! We were as close to friends as two opposing Seekers could be in school. I'd rather see you with him than Viktor Krum, who could probably drink the team under the table, not just me. And if it had to be a Gryffindor, better a Seeker, and if it had to be a Weasley, better him than that git Percy. It's actually kind of nice!"

"…Oh."

"…I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put you on the defensive like that. I know you get that a lot from Dad."

"Ian, I haven't seen Dad since the break-in with the Death Eaters. And even then, I'm pretty sure Uncle Gard dragged him."

"Then you haven't heard…Jessie, Dad's moving the showplace."

"What?"

"He's closing his share of the Hogsmeade shop and moving Sarah and the twins to America. Uncle Gard doesn't own enough to stop him and Granddad's…he isn't well, Jess. I think he means to let Dad do it."

"He can't!"

"Actually, Jess, he can. He owns enough of it, if Granddad caves, he can move the entire business overseas to anticipate the war."

"This is about You-Know-Who? That moldy bag of snake bones let a pack of sixth-years smash my window? What the hell kind of coward would run from that?"

"…A coward who lost his wife last time You-Know-Who hit up Diagon?"

"Mum wouldn't have run like this!"

In that instant, all angry and glaring, Jessie looked a bit more like our Great-Granny. We lost her, too, the last time You-Know-Who attacked Diagon. Jessie was a baby then, how strange that she took after Mum and Great-Gran so much? She dragged out the big shop ledger, a massive thing that dated from the seventeen-hundreds. I was a little shocked that she could lift it, let alone slam it down on the worktable with such…was that authority in my little sister's eye?

I'd clearly been away for far too long with the Quidditch team.

"I own the Diagon Alley shop outright," she asserted, pointing to an entry in the ledger with decided pride. "Since that purchase, I own almost forty-five percent of James W. Tickes and Sons. I could take over with another sixty thousand or so, but I've only got…let's see…" She flipped open a smaller ledger, covered in purple leather with 'JWT IV' marked on it in glitter. I snorted a bit at the sight.

"That's your personal?"

"Kendra Redfern made the cover for me in fifth year when I passed journeyman. It'd break her heart if I didn't use it –'sides, I like purple."

A clocksmith's personal ledger is a serious document; not only is it a financial register, it records the details of every watch and clock made and repaired over the course of a guild craftsman's life. Usually it is started the day a novice becomes an apprentice –sometimes it is started when a skilled amateur joins the guild. Jessie's, therefore, contained every detail of her business life since shortly after her sixth birthday. (If it weren't for Compacting Charms, she probably couldn't carry it in a pocket.)

Mine, sorry to say, hadn't had a new entry since I was sixteen or so. I'm not nearly the clockmaker my sister is. My personal was mainly full of small things like replaced crystals and case re-plates…I think I'd only built about ten pieces total, at least five of which Jessie had helped me with.

I should perhaps explain that my sister and I have always been very close. Our father is not the best man in the world, and our grandfather tried his best, but in many ways, we were left to parent ourselves with some help from our Uncle Gard, who is young enough, we consider him more of an older sibling. I was never very good at clockmaking. Not at all. I'd pretty much scraped by with mediocre appraisals of my movements, decent ones in crystals and faceplates and occasionally pretty good ones in my band design.

"There. I have that much in my personal account."

I goggled at the sum for a moment. I'm a professional athlete and my accounts weren't as healthy as Jamesina's –nor did I know any other professional athletes whose were.

"Damn."

"Don't act so shocked. I simply don't spend any more money than I did when I made AJ scale." She had been an Apprenticed Journeyman for her last years of Hogwarts, working in the family shops on break, and she'd only been a Journeyman Manager since Granddad's heart attack. She was now a Journeyman Owner –and they make a lot more. Any form of apprentice has a lower wage, since part of their work's profit goes into shop accounts to subsidize the on-the-job training they receive. Journeymen take a lower cut, but there is a cut until a clockmaker sits their masterpiece. "Actually, considering I didn't have to pay for anything but materials when the roof was replaced, I tend to spend rather less for shop overhead."

"How'd you pull that off?"

"Fred and George helped me –taught me how to nail slate and everything. There's a lot of fun stuff they know how to do. I even replaced the broken back stair by myself last week."

"I noticed I didn't fall through it."

"Actually, I was just going to ask –why did you come in through the back door?"

"I stopped into Redferns' first."

"Really? Find anything special?"

"They have a few vintage Quaffles in stock that I suspect Ludo Bagman pawned-"

"Correctly."

"Thought so. Well, they're historical artifacts and should rightly be in the clubhouse museum, so I convinced Miss Samantha Redfern to sell them to me off the record and donate them in her shop's name for the advertising."

"You paid her to donate them for their own credit? Um…"

"I paid her almost what a private collector could, and my stock goes up when the club museum is doing well. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, if anything." Jessie shook her head with a giggly smile and I sighed. "One of them was the 1938 World Cup Quaffle, had the hex mark on it and everything. It's a priceless piece of sport history."

"You know, you could've paid private-collector rate and put them on permanent loan to the museum. You'd collect almost twice as much as your stock alone with the insurance and share-of-take factored in."

"Yes, but how would that help Redferns' shop?"

"I'm not saying you shouldn't have done it your way. The Redferns are some of my best friends and it's wonderful of you to handle matters the way you did." For some reason, that made my cheeks feel a little warm. It's one thing to be pleased with yourself, having your little sister proud of you is another thing. "But considering you'd only met my old schoolmates once, what brought on the sudden interest in doing them a good turn? Or should I say-" her eyebrow arched slightly and I realized my slip-up, "doing Sam a good turn?"

"…I asked her out. I'll be nice about Charlie forever if you tell me where I should take her this Saturday."

"Oh, you are so boned…"

"What do you mean?"

"You think you're overprotective? Sam's an identical triplet, Ian, and her sisters –lovely women that they are, do not take kindly to brain-damaged Quidditch jocks." I started to protest but Jessie continued: "Which, of course, you are not, so the difficulty will mainly lie, I suspect, in convincing them of that fact."

"I'd like to convince Samantha of that fact. As for her sisters-"

"Oh, I wouldn't be worried about Sam. Her taste runs to athletic males anyway, and given that she's the cagiest of the lot, she probably tested you four times in conversation before you even got the chance to ask her out. And given that she appears to have accepted…"

"She did!"

"Well, then you've clearly passed her preliminary round of tests. What are you worried about?" Jessie grinned at me and I realized I was actually blushing.

"I like her! She's not like any other girl I've met in years. It's fascinating, the way she talks, so stern and knowing one moment and then so mischievous –it's like if Professor McGonagall developed a sense of fun! Well, one that didn't involve Quidditch. I'm just …interested, I guess. What made you interested in Charlie?"

"…I think it was his smile." Jessie sighed. "And the burns on his arms, and the way he's taller than me, but not super-tall, and the way he looks after everyone…I think that must tend to happen to second siblings. Look at where I fall in the business, and at Uncle Gard compared to Dad. You and Bill Weasley tend to lead things and set the examples and get the attention –and take the worst of the punishments; we seconds still have older-kid responsibility, but a little protection from you firstborns. We're taught to be strong and we have good examples, but we aren't all spoiled, like the littlest ones tend to be. I guess Charlie and I are similar that way."

"You've been reading about birth-order theory, then?"

"For the silliest reason."

"What is it? –By the way, Samantha wouldn't happen to be the…"

"That'd be why I've been reading it." Jessie picked up a new-looking book and tilted it so I could see the name 'Redfern' inked along the pages' edge. "The trips don't actually know which one of them is the oldest, or middle, or youngest. They got this book, though, thinking they might figure it out somehow, but the detailed description only extends to twins. Triplets get two sentences, maybe, and there's nothing about whether Metamorphmagic affects things –it, you know, being a Muggle book and all."

"Can't they check their birth certificates? I mean, shouldn't there be a time-stamp or something?"

"They're all listed as born at five-twenty-seven p.m.," Jessie explained, looking a bit perturbed. "Either their mom holds the land-speed record for delivering babies, or someone at the Ministry got sloppy. If they listed it down to seconds, it'd be perfectly clear, but the time-stamp takes the reading of the nearest available timepiece. So if there wasn't a second hand, well, I guess there's no data on seconds, then."

"What if it were a stopped timepiece?"

"I've considered that. The difficulty is that their Mum went into labor in the back room of their Dad's bookstore. I traced the stamp to their father's pocketwatch –and, having cleaned it myself; it appears to be in fine order."

"Tickes watch?"

"Naturally. The Gardner Tickes Skeleton, 1965 model year, in the twenty-four carat gold finish with company-stock engraving and the optional picture-frame in the case."

"No second hand." The Gardner Tickes Skeleton, being an elegant example of a watch that aimed more for form than function, had only offered a second hand on models since 1975. A skeleton watch, incidentally, is one with crystals set into the face and back, so the movement is plainly visible. Some watchmakers consider them unnecessary and faddish –we think they're a point of pride. Not every timepiece has the courtesy to show off its' best features.

"Nope."

"You remember everyone's make and model, then?" I poked Jessie in the ribs. "Or just friends? You get more Ollivanderish every year."

"I do not remember everyone's make and model," she protested. "Just…most people's. It's not that strange."

"I bet you've got the repair record of every watch you've ever fixed off by heart."

"I bet you're a silly –wait a bloody second!"

"I'm a silly what?"

"The repair record!" Jessie scampered across the workroom to the shelves of repair records. "If the trips' father's watch was stopped, it would have been fixed here or at Hogsmeade, he's that loyal. The trips were born same year as me, but three weeks after…here!" She took down a volume and began to flip pages. "It would be under 'Redfern, August…'"

"So the watch may actually have been stopped?"

"…According to this, it was. Apparently, he sat down on it sometime that week and popped the spring right out of alignment. The repair was done three days after the trips' birthday…well! I'm a bit closer to helping them sort that out!"

"Do they ask you for help a lot?"

"If you're asking 'am I close to them,' the answer is 'yes, quite.' What's more, I don't think they've any idea that we aren't the sort of brother and sister who fight a lot."

"…By this you mean…"

"Well, Sam will want the same sort of advice you asked me for just now, Ken and Mel will commiserate about how dashed strange it is to have siblings dating, at the same time speculating gleefully on how idyllic it'd be if things went especially well. In short, I'm fairly certain they think I'm the sort of rotten little sister who'd sell you out to her hen friends…when in fact, I may take some malicious glee in double-agent matchmaking."

"That sounds dreadful! I am tempted to owl Bill Weasley and catch up." As I said, sometimes Jessie can be a right brat.

"Dreadful nothing! It's only what siblings do when their friends are asked out." Her smirk became a soft smile. "Sam's favorite food is Italian and her sisters don't care for it nearly half as much, so it's a rare treat. She also loves Muggle movies –don't let the way she criticizes them and picks them apart fool you. Her favorites are the ones from the Thirties and Forties, of course."

"Naturally. I remember her getting you into them."

"There's an old Muggle theatre that shows them still, mainly for old people and hopeless romantics –it's the one the Muggle Studies field trips go to, do you know where it is?"

"I can find it."

"And, despite a complete violation of the Girl Code in divulging this, I must inform you that Sam's favorite dessert in all the world is a milk chocolate Magnum."

"Seriously?"

"Well, she is half-Muggle-born, after all…"

"No, it's that I like them, too."

"Well! A point of compatibility! Very nice!" She was really being horribly smug. "I tell you what, if things go well and you want to 'take her back to your place,' as it were…"

"While you're in Switzerland?"

"Yes, while I'm in Switzerland…" Jessie leaned in conspiratorially. "You can have the apprentice bedroom. It keeps paparazzi off your tail, and the back door'll be easy for her to sneak out of, come morning."

"…You've gotten broad-minded."

"When was I ever not?"

"I notice you're not offering the master suite."

"…I'd have to tidy it up, first, wouldn't I? At least the apprentice bedroom's clean. Bed's a double-wide, shouldn't be cramped since my redecorations –'sides, wouldn't want you to stumble onto handcuffs or shibari rope."

I sputtered briefly, then grinned.

"I expect Samantha will bring her own."

Jessie turned as red as I had been a second earlier. We stared at each other for a second, then cracked up laughing like schoolchildren. It was good to be back at home.

"You will be eating some of this enormously oversized roast chicken?" Jessie gestured toward the oven, from which a lovely smell was indeed emanating. I peered in the little window and just about gasped.

"That IS a big one. I didn't know they came that size."

"Found it down the market. I always buy biggish ones."

"You're sure it isn't a turkey?"

"Tag said chicken. Is there much difference?"

"Er…some, but not too much. It'll go smashing with jacket potatoes."

"That reminds me to put them in." She gaily opened the fridge and began counting out foil-wrapped potatoes. "Two for you, two for Charlie, two for Ginny, they're little ones, two for me, four for the twins…that is a dashed lot of spuds…"

"Do you regularly cook for six people, then?"

"Sometimes more, why?"

"Jess! You run your own shop, you're going to sit Master's, you're the Chairwoman of the Chamber, you live here all alone and you're planning to try and buy Granddad out! You're not supposed to be cooking for six people!"

"Great-Granny did."

"Yes, but don't you think modern life and being one of the wealthiest shops in Diagon should have some conveniences?" She blinked, as if startled to be considered rich. "Hire a housekeeper! Maybe consider buying one of the house-elves the purebloody gits keep fencing for tax debt. At least order in sometimes!"

"Oh, I do order in. Sometimes twice a month."

"You're incorrigible, you know that?"

"Yes." She nodded apologetically. "Nothing for it, though. Can I presume you'll be in London a little while?"

"Three months at least, Jess. It's the off season and camp isn't for weeks and weeks."

"Really? It's over, then?"

"…I knew you only paid attention to the bit I was in, but honestly!"

"I'm kidding, you great pillock!" She ruffled my hair some –had to stand on tiptoe to do it, but such is height. "Speaking of, then, can I assume you'll be staying in my lavishly appointed apprentice room, rather than renting some ungodly hellhole of a bachelor flat? I can promise home cooking and a minimal number of annoyingly noisy fans."

"Don't be insulted when I say it looks like you could use the help."

"Insulted?"

For the first time since I'd been home, Jessie sank into a kitchen chair. She looked a sight, leather apron pocked with burns, collar undone and hair askew. I also realized she didn't appear to have slept in days. "I think the proper term is 'relieved.'"

"Well, if you're taking on all this, plus the loan to buy Granddad out…"

"I won't need too big a loan. If I invest a third of my capital into property, I can offer another third and finance the rest with equity advances. Dodge the tax something great."

"Who on earth would be so daft as to buy property right as a war's starting?"

"I would, Ian. Everyone's selling out –especially the absentee landlords of certain new but abnormally well-heeled shops. Right now it's only worth their while to stay if they raise the rent higher than it's ever been in town, and a lot of tenants can expect to take heavy hits in the upcoming scuffle. My capital's not doing me any good at present, and if I convert it to property, I can borrow against it at a lower tax rate and what I won't be making in investment and growth funds, I'll be making half of in rent."

"You're still losing half your potential gains."

"You said yourself not two minutes ago that I've got one of the wealthiest shops in Diagon. If I buy out Granddad and our moronic sire decides to split with his share for America, I will own the family business almost outright…with my beloved Ian Gardner partners, of course."

She was right. With Granddad's shares, the business would consist of herself as master and Uncle Gard and I as journeyman partners. It didn't sound so bad, especially considering Quidditch was only likely to last me another ten seasons, tops. Jessie's a much easier manager than Granddad, she's sharper with books, and she doesn't grate on me the way our stepmum does. Jess will bake two dozen cookies and then inform us they're cooling on the stove. Our stepmum isn't happy until she's brought one to everybody, usually with a hug. Not to dismiss her snuggly attitude, but it's a bit cloying –all right, it drives me mad.

"I'd like that situation fine."

"Well, given that the shop's pretty likely to survive the war, as is most of the property I had an eye to acquire…we'll do okay. What we lose out on in interest, we'll pick up in trust and respect –and, if all else, a lot of people will owe us favors. Something tells me that in time of war, favors and loyalties can be more valuable than piddly money."

"…Now you're reminding me of Great-Granny."

"Good. I try."

"You'll buy the property before you leave?"

"I have an appointment for tomorrow, I can see to it then. I was thinking I'd take the evening train."

"I don't like the notion of you going to Switzerland all alone." She stopped and looked at me as if I were mad. "I mean, self-sufficient businesswoman, defender of the shop, elected official and mistress of the Beater-bat…you're still only twenty and I do worry about you going alone on international weekend trips."

"Ian Gardner Tickes the fifth, I swear-"

"Why don't you invite Charlie?"

She jammed like a blown regulator-gear. I took the opportunity to grin as I added, smoothly: "I'll just go up and pack your handcuffs."

Sometimes I do like to mess with her.