flowers and fire

[abbotting]

fabianprewctt​:

Her hasty attempts to backtrack on George’s frequent appearances at The Leaky Cauldron drew a furrow to his brow, trying to determine whether or not she was concerned that he’d misinterpreted her or whether she was covering something up. He knew now that George was a conspicuously absent figure around The Burrow, rarely venturing near the place if at all. To know he’d been stopping by The Leaky Cauldron with any regularity bore thinking about.

In spite of himself and the odd numbness on his tongue, he smiled at the sparse details settling into the lists he’d created for each of his family members, piecing in the parts of their lives he’d missed. He added Prefect and DA ? to his mental list that amounted to Ron, the baby with the quaffle-shaped head and the youngest and most beleaguered of Molly’s sons with some satisfaction. “A prefect,” he echoed, as if the thought brought him no small amount of amusement.

Hannah from Ron’s Herbology class was proving to be an endless well of helpful anecdotes.

Except, well, her reaction to his commentary about the Firewhiskey (which had taken on a most unpleasant aftertaste in the back of his throat) went from just unexpected to panic in the space of ten seconds. He watched bemused, as she disappeared behind the counter, babbling to herself about — hang on. 

“Mrs Skower’s?” he repeated, blinking down at the goblet still clasped in his hand before gently sliding it away from him. 

Well, that was a new one to add to the list at least. He’d never been poisoned before.

She popped up again behind the bar, eyes wide and manic and glass vials clasped between her fingers and he watched, decidedly calmer now that it became clear that she was prepared for such an eventuality. It must happen all the time — he wouldn’t be surprised to hear of accidental poisonings coming out of The Black Shuck’s doors. He waited as she squinted at her potion vials and settled on one.

“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he offered mildly as he reached for the vial and uncorked it, wrinkling his nose before decisively necking it with a wrinkle of his nose. He’d learned long ago that potions were rarely worth savouring the taste. “Easy mistake to make, I’m sure.”

It took only a moment of saying the words, of setting the potion vial down before a decidedly more familiar sensation began to creep up his throat, his fingers and lips tingling with the promise of—

“This,” his throat croaked and he took a deep, wheezing breath that whistled on it’s way out uncomfortably, his fingers raising towards his throat subconsciously as the glass vial dropped between his fingers back onto the bar, “There isn’t—”, oh, there definitely was, “Mandrake .. Root?”

Smiling at Fabian in what she hopes is a reassuring manner, but is probably more akin to the smile of someone who had never really learnt to smile, Hannah goes back to her aimless polishing; finding herself filled with the urge to keep busy but wanting to keep talking at the same time. This was, after all, the biggest perk of her job: the kinds of people she was able to meet for such brief periods of time.

“A prefect,” she echoes with a casual shrug. The badge itself had been a piece of honour for Hannah herself, even with the heavy shadow it had brought onto their house. There was no denying that the ghost of Cedric Diggory had lingered for the entirety of that year and beyond. “He and Hermione. Granger, that is. I don’t know if you’ve met her, maybe you have. They’re close. I think people were surprised, that it was him, I think, but he made it work.”

It was odd, Hannah thought, to be discussing these people with such casual knowledge. She knew them, of course, it would be hard not to with the number of Dumbledore’s Army catch-ups they had had over the years, but she had always felt so out of place at these gatherings. It was difficult, after all, when it seemed everyone was moving on with their lives and she was standing still. 

Her heart practically in her throat, Hannah can hear the high pitch that her voice lifts to, unable to stop the panic that floods her body and stiffens her limbs. How could she have been so stupid? Hands shaking as she fumbles for the antidote, Hannah forces several deep breaths that are too shallow to help with any form of calm, thanking whatever higher being there was that she was a highly paranoid person who thought a well-stocked potions kit was something that needed to be carried at all times.

Hands clasped tightly enough to see the whites of her knuckles, Hannah watches anxiously as Fabian drinks the potion, her eyes mapping every inch of his face in case he were to suddenly drop dead right in front of her. For the second time in his life. “A stupid mistake to make,” she mumbles, “I’m so so sorry…” 

Her frantic apologies are soon interrupted by Fabian’s strangled remark, and Hannah’s eyes widen even more than they already had been, a movement that somewhat aches. “Yes? It’s a standard ingr-oh no,” her voice drops to a weak moan, “Oh no, what have I done.”

[abbotting]

mrcrouch​:

The reception witch clearly needed retraining, he thought, toe tapping lightly. But he supposed in the space of seven years some change to office behaviour and culture was inevitable. His fathers had never understood the change to pinstripe robes when that had been the fashion. And he didn’t mind that he had been left alone. He had begun to notice that when around other people he sometimes stumbled over his words and that was hardly becoming. 

It didn’t take long for a young witch to poke her head around the door. It was nice to see that someone had been sent to check on him and confirm. “Yes. I have some reports that I have compiled which I think he will greatly appreciate.” He tapped the stack of parchment on his lap confidently. 

“I would not say no to a cup of tea if the minister is going to be a while.” Barty reminded, as if she had asked him if she could fetch him anything. He was, after all, an unplanned visitor; he couldn’t expect them to have drinks prepared yet. 

There is little Hannah can do to stop herself from gaping like an idiot at the man in front of her, trying to work out exactly how she was supposed to deal with a situation like this. Small children, she could deal with. The lunch rush, she could deal with. Customers who had had a little too much to drink, she could deal with. There wasn’t much in this job that she hadn’t become pretty equipped to deal with.

This, on the other hand, was something else entirely.

Did this man even know where he was? 

“You have...reports for the minister?” she asks slowly, moving further into the room. She wasn’t sure that the minister had even set foot into the Leaky in the last few years, let alone set up shop to take meetings here. “Sir...do you...do you know where you are right now?”

So help her, if he had a concussion.

At least, Hannah thinks, a cup of tea was something she could also deal with.

[doona-baes]

#same

[abbotting]

who: hannah & cedric ( @bcrnagain​ ) when: august 15, 2002 where: the diggory house

Why wasn’t there a guidebook for this? Hannah thinks as she paces restlessly up and down the front walk of the Diggory property. Why wasn’t there some kind of step-by-step list of what exactly someone was supposed to do in a situation like this. 

Or if anything, there should at least be some kind of etiquette about how you were supposed to behave when visiting a former classmate also mentor also almost-friend whose death you thought would be the worst thing that ever happened to you until suddenly it wasn’t, but their death was still a crucial part of your emotional development and might still be the ongoing reason for who you were today. 

Not that she was panicking, Hannah decides, her hands tightening their grip around the bouquet stems she was clutching. Was she panicking? 

Taking what was supposed to be a calming breath, but was really just a noisy way to ensure she stayed conscious, Hannah steps closer to the door, her free hand lifting to knock hesitantly against the wood. 

It wasn’t that she was uninvited, she was very much invited, but that did not shake the fact she was mildly terrified of what was to come.

What was she supposed to say, now that she could look him in the face once more?

[abbotting]

cokeworthprince​:

At least she had experience then, and was unlikely to melt her cauldron and floorboards. He paused, hesitating in the act of drawing his hand back after releasing the jar. When Abbott was seventeen, so during her sixth year…That must have been 1996? He hadn’t really focussed enough o other Houses’ students that year for reasons that were now obvious. But he could hardly remember the girl that year. Had she not taken his lessons? She’d been a capable herbologist though…and he didn’t remember Sprout talking about her performance in her NEWT class- 

“Ah.” There it was. His eyes focused on her face, staring past the jar. She had been absent for much of the year after a family tragedy. Her mother. The hint of a grim smile played at the edge of his mouth. He understood now the need for the potion. And where he had been harsh before his voice was less stern now, though far from what one might call soft. It was by and large the same voice he had always used with his Slytherins in his office, when they came to him with worries or identity crises or stress from studies. I was not perhaps forgiving, but it was sympathetic. 

“You should not consume the potion excessively. Sleeping draughts can become addictive.” If she was growing her own plants for this particular potion, then she would be more than capable of using the draught on a nightly basis. But perhaps he could appeal to the root of her sleep troubles “I am sure your mother would not have wanted her daughter to develop draught dependency.” It wasn’t as gentle as Pomona might have been, but he tried to inject a modicum of understanding. Just because he’d been desensitised to deaths in the course of a war didn’t mean he hadn’t keenly felt the horror and grief for every lost life he had witnessed. 

Shifting from foot to foot, Hannah cannot help but wonder how much longer she would be made to make small talk like this. Her goals for the day had been simple: finish work, do her shopping, go home to nap and contemplate once again if she should get a pet. None of these plans included what was currently happening, a concept she was somewhat uncomfortable with. And she was even more uncomfortable with the way that Snape was looking at her right then: as if she were a puzzle he needed to figure out.

Sure, it was much better than the pure disappoint and mild disdain he had offered her as a student, but that wasn’t difficult. His quiet exhale does nothing to settle the lurching nerves in the pit of her gut, and Hannah fights the urge to drop everything and flee.

To think she had considered herself braver than normal.

“I know,” Hannah says at last, shooting him a firm look. She was daft at times, that was true, but she wasn’t stupid. And his next words do little more than stop her cold, her stomach sinking and churning with a discomforted feeling she did not want to describe. “Don’t,” she chokes out after a long, almost-gaping silence. “Don’t you dare.”

Her voice is colder than she thinks it had ever been and she can feel the curl of her lip beginning to tremble. It would be a lie to say that her mother was not a tender spot for Hannah, one she did not like to even bring up with those she was close to. And especially not with someone like Severus Snape. Turncoat and double-agent he might be, but Hannah refused to ignore that he had once pledged loyalty to those he had. That he had once so intimately associated with the reason she no longer had a parent, that his companions, maybe even friends had slaughtered her mother as if she were nothing. 

“Don’t you dare bring her up.”

[mrcrouch]

ConFLOOsion-Hannah&Barty

Date:10th August 2002, 0804 am

Location:The Leaky Cauldron, Upstairs.

Gathering the sheaf of parchment together with some string the old-fashioned way Barty made his way down to the atrium, casting the new Statue a withering glance and smoothing down his robes as he stood in line for the Floo. Once he had reached the front, he took a handful of floo powder, tossed it into the fireplace and clearly enunciated, “Offices of the Minister for Magic - waiting room 1.” 

He didn’t have an appointment but he had a great deal of suggestions, and as he stepped into the emerald flames he felt sure that Minister Shacklebolt would value his input. 

He stepped out and bent at once to brush soot off of one shiny shoe. When he straightened however, he was in something that was decidedly NOT a waiting room for the minister’s offices. Not unless something had gone desperately downhill in the standards. There was a table and chairs, a very ugly chest of drawers that should be replaced with a filing cabienet, and a second door that presumably lead back out into the Ministry.

Best to check with the reception witch though. Even if she had just loudly dropped her fork onto her plate of breakfast and was staring at him in shock.

“Ahum.My name is Bartemius Crouch. I am here to speak to the Minister. Kindly inform him of my arrival.” 

Well. At least she was quick to rush through the door. He settled down on the small sofa, legs crossed, and rearranged his papers.

[abbotting]

Staring intently at her empty mug, Hannah wonders, not for the first time that morning, just how many coffees was too many coffees. Sure, she was already two mugs deep, but it was the morning shift and well...sometimes she needed as much caffeine as she could to stay conscious. 

Tilting her wrist upward to check the time, she decides that she had to give herself at least another 45 minutes before she could brew another mug. It was still a few hours until check-out, meaning she couldn’t even go busy herself with tidying the rooms, so Hannah settles for mindlessly wiping the benches instead, humming quietly under her breath.

Her almost-silent revelry is soon interrupted by a thundering set of footsteps and a voice shrill enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck.

Dropping the rag to the countertop, Hannah moves to greet the frantic woman, an eyebrow raised in confusion. “Ma’am, can. I-” she starts before coming to a halt, the woman’s voice already squawking in her ears.

“There is a MAN in my ROOM!” she shouts and Hannah can feel the beginnings of a blush burning at her cheeks. She had not signed up to deal with any of that when she took this job after all. “And he is asking to see the Minister.”

The final sentence strikes Hannah dumb before she can being her protest, and she snaps her mouth shut, trying not to gape at the poor woman.

“He...what?” she stammers, blinking rapidly as she takes the woman’s room number. Taking the stairs slowly and someone reluctantly, Hannah meanders her way toward the room in question, fairly apprehensive about what she was going to find.

Her knock against the door is hesitate as she pushes it open, sticking her head inside. “Sorry sir, I’ve been asked to come check on you,” she says, determined to be outwardly calm, even if she was freaking out inwardly, “She said you wanted the...Minister?”

She was apparently correct after all: there was no such thing as too much coffee in the world for this.

[abbotting]

fabianprewctt​:

He caught the flinch from the corner of his eye and for a moment it threw him — Fabian had spent a great deal of time ruminating over what he was now and what his return meant, how unnatural his very existence was, but he hadn’t given much thought at all to how others must see them. This girl behind the bar, who was trying so very hard to seem unphased by his presence, at least was trying to hide her discomfort.

“It passed much quicker than you’d think,” he replied, smile twitching faintly upward before offering his hand in return and shaking firmly. Her hand dropped to her side and he reached for his goblet, a fond expression crossing his face at the anecdote as he lifted it to take a sip of Firewhiskey.

The immediate smokey burn upon his tongue was familiar, mixed with something he didn’t quite recognise. Odd. Maybe a different vintage than he was used to? Or a change of recipe? “He never was one to mince his words,” he replied wryly, grateful for this one little piece of consistency in his day after finding everything had changed so drastically. He’d never thought of himself as the kind of person to cling to familiarity like a liferaft.

Apparently death had a way of changing even the dead.

And if there was one thing Fabian would never tire of, it was the little pieces of his nephews and nieces lives dropped so casually into conversation. He took another sip of his Firewhiskey, nose wrinkling at the odd aftertaste again (it certainly wasn’t a pleasant change, whatever they’d done) and leaned forward against the bar, blinking a few times against the odd tingling sensation in his tongue and continued, unphased, “George spends a lot of time here?”

Unsubtle, perhaps, but of all of the Weasleys save Charlie, who he’d allow the pass of being out of the country, George had been conspicuously missing from the Burrow. He didn’t have the right to worry, per se, but the thought that his presence might be keeping George from coming home wasn’t a pleasant one.

He hadn’t meant this to sound like an interrogation. Ignoring the odd feeling itching at the back of his throat, he cleared it, before adding, “Did you — sorry, did you know Ron very well? Is this weird? I’m sorry if it’s weird I just — Merlin, what did they do to the Firewhiskey. Is that what it always tasted like?” 

Hannah nods her head briefly at his statement, unsure of how to respond. There was the obvious of “what was being dead like”, but not only did Hannah find such a question to be ridiculously rude to ask a man she had just met, but she also didn’t want to know. It wasn’t that she was scared of death (although she was in fact terrified) so much as being scared of what knowing too much might mean. 

“Well, welcome back to the land of time moving slowly,” she quips instead, wincing a little at just how bad of a retort it was as she stretches on her toes to return the Firewhiskey back to its shelf.

“Always says there’s no need to be vague or soft in a place like this,” Hannah says with a small laugh at the thought of the familiar toothy face. He wasn’t her uncle uncle, was instead an older relative of her fathers with a possible few ‘greats’ attached to the title, but Tom had insisted on the moniker since she had been small, and Hannah wasn’t about to break the habit just yet.

It felt nice to know that she still had considerable family left.

Shrugging her shoulders, Hannah tilts her head slightly, trying to work out if Fabian was indeed just probing out of general curiosity or if she had accidentally insinuated something deeper with what she had said. She didn’t think she had, but she had also never been that great with words. “Not a lot, a lot, in like...a negative way or anything. Just pops in and out. We talk business usually - most of our customers are the same and all.” That and they had both lost someone important and there was something about misery very much loving company.

“Sort of. Different houses and all. But had Herbology together and we were prefects at the same time, and in the DA...that was like this… defence group we joined,” Hannah grabs her cloth from the end of the bench, figuring she might as well keep cleaning while she talked, before looking up in concern. “It should be the same as always-” Moving back to where Fabian sits, she casts a glance at the goblet before her stomach sinks to her feet, 

“Shoot, fuck, shit,” she exclaims, hand-clapping over her mouth at her own foul language. Somehow, in her determination to not be bothered by the Returned, even though she was in fact bothered, she had managed to do the unthinkable: not pay attention to where she was pouring. And in this case, that meant using a half-cleaned, definitely still covered in cleaning potion goblet as a normal drinking goblet.

And someone had drank from it. 

“Oh Merlin no,” she moans helplessly, fumbling for where her bag is shoved under the counter, “there was Mrs Skower's in that. I didn’t...I wasn’t paying attention.” Fingers clasping around several small vials, she lifts them to the light, her hands shaking with panic as she shoves one across at him. “This should...this should help.”

[abbotting]

susanibones​:

It was only when Susan let out a chuckle and with it some of the stress that’d been building up in her for weeks that she realised how tense she was. It wasn’t just Amelia’s return, it was everything that’d led up to that point, and Susan had let herself get too caught up in it. She couldn’t just step back now, of course, but she figured the realisation itself had to count for something. The first step was acceptance, wasn’t it? Or maybe that was the last one – it didn’t matter, either way.

“You still said it, except now I feel all guilty,” she commented dryly, but she was only messing around. Her smile grew more teasing as she added, “I’m not saying no, though. I can live with the guilt. Unless I actually put you out of business in which case I’d feel a little bit bad. And I resent the implication I’d snitch on you, by the way, I’m great with secrets.”

Only partly true, really, but that didn’t make for as good a joke and so Susan didn’t mention it. Hannah was the person she told all those other secrets, anyway; she hardly needed to be informed about how sometimes Susan shared with her news from the Ministry that she wasn’t exactly supposed to. And besides, that wasn’t gossip. In fact, after that summer when half the wixen world had seemed to be talking about her family, Susan had developed a bit of a distaste for gossip – at least when it came to gossiping about people’s lives.

On the topic of people’s lives, however, she didn’t want this conversation to just be her unloading all her issues on Hannah. Hells, she still wasn’t sure how to bring the topic up without sounding too insensitive, so yes, maybe she was stalling; she didn’t think anyone was in a position to judge her. “What’s all that about?” She glanced at the textbook and the corners of her lips twitched a bit at the few words she managed to make out. “Thinking of a change in careers? Because I’ll pay for my drink if this place is struggling this much, damn, Han.”

Straightening up and pushing a few of her scattered belongings off the counter (Tom didn’t seem to care, so long as she was paying attention when there were customers), Hannah takes a few steadying breaths to try and settle the panicked thrum of her heartbeat. Whether it was due to stress, or simply because she had the general temperament of a skittish racehorse, Hannah wasn’t sure, but she appreciated the familiar sight of one of her oldest friends regardless.

“I’m just saying, I only offer free drinks to my most favourite of friends,” she teases back, “Can you imagine if that actually put us out of business? I’d go down as the one to dismantle the second-most iconic building in this whole strip. And I know you wouldn’t snitch, but I also know Ernie and that judgmental look of his: he’d have us both confessing out of sheer guilt within minutes.” 

Although, Hannah thinks, if she kept trying to poison their patrons, maybe she would actually be the one to completely ruin the Leaky’s reputation. Sure, some dodgy things had gone on in its walls in the past, but she wasn’t ready to actually become part of its scandalous history - she’d had enough drama in her life already.

Glancing down at the book beside her, Hannah shrugs a shoulder loosely, closing it up and showing Susan the faded cover. “Not really, I like being here. It’s...easy, I s’pose. I was just…” Hannah pauses, unsure of what exactly to say. She had no plans to hide anything from Susan, but it was hard to admit to her own failings, especially when it seemed they were numerous, “I was kind of interested, in learning more that is. In case there’s, I don’t know, bar fights or something?” Or more accidental poisonings at her hands, “I don’t want to be fully incompetent and we all got...I guess, good at this stuff, considering.”

Considering the year they had all and the number of injuries that had needed patching up, day after day. 

“Is it stupid that I kind of liked being able to heal people?”

[galacticpasta]

man the bravest shit you can do in this world is love indefinitely

[galacticpasta]

there's so much heartbreak and loss out there that sometimes caring about anything feels like a weakness. but despite all the risks that come with being vulnerable there are people out there who just love and love and love without thinking twice and on god that's whats keeping the earth on its axis

[abbotting]

asbxnes​:

She didn’t have children of her own. She had never felt the need, once her nieces and nephews came along she lost complete interest. Why did she need to have children when her brother’s children needed her? The deaths of Edgar and his family and then her sister in law weighed heavy on her soul, even now but having Susan made that weight feel less. 

Hannah wasn’t her niece biologically, she supposed there could be a distant relation somewhere through the lines of the Bones and Abbotts but blood was irrelevant to Amelia. Amelia loved her and always would.

“I am” She chuckled lightly, rubbing her hand up and down Hannah’s back. To her, it had only been around two weeks since their last hug. She didn’t want to think about how long it had been for Hannah. Amelia fell silent for a minute before forcing herself to pull away for their hug, she wanted to look at her. “I’m not very good at these reunions I’m afraid.” she said with a soft smile. “I’m not really sure what to say. I’m so sorry, feels like a good place to start though.”

There is something about the familiarity of Amelia’s hug that causes Hannah’s eyes to burn with tears and she blinks them back viciously, determined not to dissolve just yet. Amelia Bones might not have been family officially, but she had always been as good as, from the moment Susan had dragged Hannah home to meet everyone. Her own father had no siblings, and while Hannah adored her mother’s sister, it was an entirely different thing to have someone to look up to who understood magic, who knew what their world was like.

Pulling back, Hannah can’t help but grin at the woman in front of her. She hadn’t seen Amelia in the flesh since she was fifteen and now it takes all she has not to openly stare at her, as if barely believing she was actually there in front of her. “You don’t have to apologise,” she says finally, shrugging her shoulders, “It’s not your fault you…” A pause. “But look at you! Have you grown taller?” 

Hannah forces out the bad joke with a shaky laugh, an attempt to stop herself from doing what she really wanted to do: burst into sobs.

[abbotting]

fabianprewctt​:

It seemed that a familiar face wasn’t to be found here, nor in the entirety of the Alley today, but a friendly one might just do in a pinch. Fabian approached the bar to settle in upon a barstool, trying to imagine a time when Tom had ever not appeared to live behind that bar and resisted the wistful edge his thoughts had veered into that afternoon.

Living in the past wasn’t doing him any favours.

Uncle Tom. There were memories there, buried somewhere, of Tom brandishing a baby photo around at his regulars with a proud smile and chatting their ears off about what was an appropriate gift for a newborn. Gideon’s suggestion of a bottle of Ogden’s had not been well received. 

“I was curious,” he offered after a long moment of blinking away that burbling baby from the photograph and reconciling it with the face in front of him. “It’s been about .. twenty one years, give or take, since I last saw Diagon Alley.” Twenty one years distilled down into the blink of an eye. His lips quirked faintly upwards at the corners, as if the oddity of that sentiment, “I thought I’d see if I recognised any of it still but,” he waved a hand absently as if to encapsulate his surroundings, “Time changes everything, I guess.”

And that was odd and wistful and frustratingly nostalgic enough that he took a long sip of the firewhiskey to compensate for it, (when had he gotten so maudlin?) shaking his head as he added, “One of my nephews has a shop in the Alley — Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, have you been?”

Busying herself with pouring the man a drink, Hannah watches him carefully from the corner of her eye, still unable to place his face, but deciding that it wasn’t worth trying to work it out. She saw dozens if not hundreds of different people every day, it was likely he just had one of those faces.

His next words cement her understanding even further: “twenty one years, give or take, since I last saw Diagon Alley”. He was one of them.

The Returned.

Spine stiffening for the briefest of seconds at the realisation, Hannah attempts to shake herself out of it with an even wider grin. It wasn’t his fault that the Returned was a sore topic for her and as far as she knew, it wasn’t as if a lot of them had any choice in Returning.

That was the only reasoning she had for why her family dining table still had an empty chair.

Sliding the full goblet onto the bartop, Hannah turns back to face the man, resting her chin on her palm, elbow digging into the smooth counter. “That’s a long time,” she says rather stupidly, before straightening up and offering him one hand, “Sorry, I didn’t even introduce myself. Hannah,” she says brightly, “I keep telling Tom we need name-tags or something, and all he ever says is ‘It’s just you and me, Han, and they should know us both by now’, which, frankly, is a little rude to the other poor sods who work here, but that’s how it is.” 

Nodding her head, Hannah pauses on the word ‘nephew’, slowly slotting all the pieces together. He was a Prewett then. She didn’t know a lot about those killed in the first war, other than the obvious, but she had heard enough talk over the years about the various pureblooded families to know which ones had had loses. “I’ve popped in a few times. I see George in here pretty often too - the perils of us both practically living in our workplaces,” she says brightly, “We were at Hogwarts at the same time...I was in Ron’s year though.” And eventually Ginny’s too, at that.

[abbotting]

cokeworthprince​:

She was awkward, upset perhaps. His eyes followed the way she shifted. Though he was wandless, at least he could still incite wariness, which was a neighbour of respect. Then again he was in her way. Perhaps she simply wanted to get past -and away from- him

“The Book of Potions. I am familiar. Hardly an inventive title for such an inventive Potioneer.” Budge’s sleep potion was simple, but only in as much as it was achievable for a home brewer who could not attend to a cauldron for days on end. It was also one of the most common potions for home-brewers to have accidents with. “You’ve attempted this brew before?” He asked, shifting a few bottles around on the display to keep it neat and doing his best to keep too much of the stern edge from his voice. It didn’t work. 

“Valerian should be-” The shop hadn’t changed too much, and while she likely didn’t want him following her about or leading her through a shop she likely already knew, he coudn’t help himself. It was a habit built on 15 years of experience as he swept towards the display of various herbs and roots. “Here. The roots are a little dry, but provided you soak them properly I can foresee no difficulty.”  IT was almost like being helpful. If only he hadn’t looked down his large nose at her as he said it.

Was there a guide to interactions like this? Hannah thinks to herself. To how one was supposed to behave when faced with one of the worst teachers they had ever had (although Hannah didn’t think it was fair to shove him in the same category as Umbridge and the Carrow twins, none of whom really deserved to be labelled ‘teacher’)

“At least it’s easy to recognise,” Hannah says, although her reasoning behind this particular brew had less to do with the methodology and everything to do with what ingredients they could pilfer with ease during that wretched year. With an almost wince, she recognises the harsh edge to Snape’s voice as the one that often sent her to tears as a student, and Hannah cannot help but thank her stars that she had at least managed to develop a little bit of a backbone in the years since. She wasn’t sure she could survive the humiliation of crying in public otherwise.

“Every few months since I was seventeen,” she says at last, figuring Snape could do the math if he so wished. Not unlike a kicked dog, Hannah finds herself following behind Snape toward the bottles and jars on the wall. It wasn’t that she wanted to, just that it was a remarkable small store and what else was she to do? “Thank you,” she says, voice soft as she takes the jar from his grip, lifting it to the dim lighting to best see the roots in question. Her potions skills mightn’t have been too flashy, but plants she could do. “It’s just to tide me over until my own matures.”

[priorireverte]

It’s HUMP DAY!

Half way through the week and time for a little fun, guys. 🐫 Reblogging the meme means you are both accepting asks from it and sending out asks to others.

Send 💭 and I’ll share the first five words that come to my character’s mind when they think of yours. 

[asbxnes]

When: August 11th Where: Leaky Cauldron.  Who: @abbotting​

Being outside the Ministry was a nice change for Amelia. A week in a makeshift bunker away from loved ones was tough enough. The knowledge that she had died six years ago and had returned somehow only made the room feel smaller. She promised Susan she’d be safe, despite her confusion about the situation and lack of magic she still knew how to protect herself. Still knew how to read people.

Amelia couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face as she entered the Leaky Cauldron. Despite the whole world completely changing around her the Cauldron felt familiar and warm. Her eyes drifted around the room looking for the reason she came. Aunty Amelia had been the greatest title she ever received, being granted that title twice was her greatest honour. She had seen one niece and couldn’t wait any longer to see the other. 

“Hannah?” she questioned with a small smile as she approached the now fully grown woman, giving her a moment to register who she was before wrapping her arms around her in a warm hug. She missed a lot and she intended to spend every chance she could get making up for it. “Hi, sweetie.”

[abbotting]

It’s with barely audible huff that Hannah leans over a few stools to begin scrubbing at the mildly sticky surface of one of the tables, only grimacing a little as it requires slightly more force than needed. She had left her wand in her bag in the backroom, deciding that it wasn't needed, and frankly her wandless-magic skills were somewhat lacking, that was to say, completely non-existent. 

And so the Muggle way it was.

So engrossed in her task, Hannah barely hears the sound of footsteps before her name is called and she spins around with a start. Amelia Bones is familiar in a way that Hannah cannot put into words, and the sight of her causes her heart to both swell and plummet. This was a woman who was practically family, Hannah’s friendship with Susan having cemented that long ago. A woman whose death had caused the first cracks in Hannah to form, the same cracks that then shattered open months later when her mother died.

And here she was. And while the wounds of Hannah’s own mother still burned, the sight of Amelia seemed to soothe them, at least for a moment.

“Merlin!” she exclaims, her voice a high-pitched cry as she curls her arms around her, “You’re here! You’re you!”

[inkmagician]

i. you are a locked attic in the haunted house of my heart. i thought i’d thrown out anything living but sometimes i still hear your ghost rattling our old picture frames.   ii. i dream up a thousand universes in which you are here. when i wake, i write down what you said to me and call it poetry. but no matter how many pretty metaphors i bleed, i can never get your voice quite right.   iii. fact: there is nothing worse than aloneness. what i mean to say is you were my island and now i’m trying to swim. what i mean to say is our song is still the only one i hear on the radio, even when i change the station.   iv. i once looked up the meaning of heartache, trying to put it into words i could understand. the dictionary definition was only your name.

DEAR YOU | love letters unsent #6 | check out my chapbook UNMYTHOLOGIZE! (via bcllahadids)

[susanibones-deactivated20220210]

The Leaky Cauldron | Susan Bones & Hannah Abbott 9th of August, 2002 Closed starter for @abbotting

It was one thing to know her aunt had returned, but it was a whole other thing to know Susan would finally be allowed to see her tomorrow. And it was… unsettling. She was happy, though, of course she was; that was something she’d gotten into the recent habit of adding onto the end of each sentence. Yes, she was lost and confused – but she was happy! Yes, this was an unprecedented situation – but she was happy! 

And it was just so damn exhausting.

She was under no illusions that Hannah would somehow fix it all, but at the same time, the things that weighed down on Susan’s shoulders usually felt lighter around Hannah. And for all she’d tried to keep to herself the days following the news of her aunt’s return, that seemed impossible now; she tried to imagine going to the Ministry tomorrow, seeing Amelia alive, talking to her, bringing her home… and she couldn’t.

So she’d gone to Hannah. Susan was no stranger to the Leaky Cauldron either at this point and among all the weirdness going on, it felt blissfully normal to make her way to the counter and throw Hannah a half-smile. “Do I get a free drink? I feel like I deserve one.”

[abbotting]

Leaning her crossed arms heavily against the countertop, Hannah frowns down at the textbook she had spread out in front of her. After yesterday’s incident and the number of hours of sleep she didn’t get because she was too busy worrying about it, she had decided it was in her best interest to perhaps study up on a few different healing spells and potions, just in case.

And okay, just maybe it was just turning into a giant distraction for herself so that she didn’t have to think too hard about what was to happen in the next few days. 

Hannah wasn’t a stranger to the Returned: she read the Prophet enough and heard the talk in the pub. She’d even met with a few of them here and there, some of whom she’d even known before. But that wasn’t the same as knowing them knowing them, as having once called them family. 

And as happy as she was for Susan, for Amelia, there was a dark part of her that was envious. 

As if the universe knew exactly what she was not thinking about, Hannah lifts her head at the sound of a familiar voice, an unconscious smile building as she stands up straight.

“Normally I’d say that it’s things like that, that’ll put us out of business, but since it’s you, I can make an exception,” she says lightly, before shooting Susan another look, “Don’t tell Ern I said that, I’d never see the end of him.” 

[abbotting]

fabianprewctt​:

Fabian couldn’t help but wonder if he looked half so lost as he currently felt.

Slipping away from his chaperone of the day had been a far too easy task to take any real pride in. It had only been a matter of slipping out the shop door while Bill was busy discussing in panicked, hushed tones over the counter with George about exactly what he was supposed to do with a Returned Uncle who happened to now be younger than you, when tasked with keeping him out of trouble for the afternoon. 

And while his initial curiosity over the changes that had befallen Diagon Alley during his very long hibernation had kept him enthusiastic about the endeavour, the enthusiasm had swiftly begun to lag when he realised, in his wanderings, just how few points of reference remained. There were landmarks that seemed familiar, the glowing white pillars of Gringotts in the distance and the brick wall that led to The Leaky Cauldron, the predictable howling of cats whenever he strayed too close to the Magical Menagerie, but in all of them he could see the changes. Singe marks and cracks in the towering white marble, a fresh sign swinging from the facade of the Menagerie — and now, even the familiar and troublingly questionable carpet of the Leaky Cauldron beneath his boots felt as if someone might have finally considered it a hygiene issue and cleaned it once or twice in the past two decades. Nothing was quite as it should be.

The sound of the greeting startled him more than it likely should have, the visible jolt of his shoulders as he spun around to spot the face behind the counter (young, fresh-faced, barely older than Ginny if that) and he blinked bewilderedly at her for a moment, as if the world might shift and Tom might suddenly appear in her place behind the bar. Neither of those things happened, however, and so he summoned a smile and forcibly moved his feet towards the bar. 

“I must have been daydreaming,” he offered, as if he hadn’t spent the last half hour lost in a fog of memories, searching for faces that were long gone as he wandered the streets. He was lucky, he supposed, that he’d died so long ago. People rarely seemed to recognise him on the street in the way he imagined some of the Returned might have to deal with. If one could really call that luck. “I was curious, actually, if Tom is still around? I haven’t been around in a while, I’d like to see him.”

Or anyone, really, who felt familiar.

Settling carefully onto a barstool he considered the handful of change in his pocket and whether a pint was really a necessity worth spending it on. It didn’t take much consideration before he was asking, “Actually, can I get a pint?” He’d have much preferred the top-shelf but Firewhiskey was a drink for the gainfully employed and who knew if that would ever be allowed to happen again. 

With the amount of time she was currently spending behind the bar or in the kitchens of the Leaky, Hannah was starting to get a proper feel for the kind of clientele that they were drawing in: the mix of family groups coming in for a meal, and the travellers staying the night, the lonesome who just wanted a drink and a smiling face, and her personal favourite as of late; the scores of fresh-faced students preparing for a new school year. 

She had never really imagined herself too much of a people-person, had just naturally been as friendly as she could when she hadn’t been following Ernie’s pompous attitude, but she was starting to take a real joy in being the one to greet almost every single visitor to Diagon Alley as they entered through the pub. In fact, it had barely taken any cajoling at all for her to convince Tom that they need to start brightening the place up: starting with the array of planters she had dragged into the back courtyard.

(Admittedly, she might have managed to pull a few nepotism strings with that one).

Pulling herself from her thoughts and her polishing, Hannah studies the face of the newcomer, trying to work out if she had ever met him before. He looked familiar, but not in an easy-to-recognise sort of way, at least not that Hannah had time to work out before he approached. Leaning one elbow casually on the bar, she waits patiently for him to speak, a slow smile curling at the corners of her mouth.

“No worries, I spend half my time here doing the same thing,” she says cheerily. “He’s not around at the moment though,  I’m afraid. He’s still around around, so to speak, but he’s taken the afternoon off, left me in charge. He’ll be back for the late shift.” 

Nodding her head, Hannah reaches for a clean goblet, busying herself with preparing the Firewhiskey. “Are you here for any other business? Aside from visiting Uncle Tom that is?” she asks, somewhat curious as she always was. She was fairly good at reading whether or not someone didn’t want to talk, and she wasn’t getting that from the newcomer just yet. 

“Here you go.”