She laughed and nodded her head at Brigid’s comment. “No, no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it, I knew what you were saying. Thank you. And yeah, of course you can sit down.” Erin shifted over to give the girl a bit of room to relax in.
“Cheers,” she responded, settling down with a sigh that nearly caused a lung to rupture with the breadth it had taken. If anyone ever needed someone to play the part of a miserly, old grandmother with a bad hip, well, Brigid would likely be on that bench forever, massaging her ankle and peering into her bag of goodies with some impatience. “D’you want some donut holes? I might have bought a few too many.” That was an understatement. The box was practically bloated with icing and dough.
The name rang a bell but it was common enough for Brennan to ignore it. He nodded his head at her question, understanding it was rhetorical but not caring. “I won’t be the one to encourage you to use memory charms, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist if you feel that badly.” He looked at her with a small smirk, the only sign that he was joking. It was a rarity.
He searched through a few shelves, glancing at her occasionally. She was fixated on the lamp and it seemed so simple to him, he couldn’t understand why. The expression on her face was… serene. It was almost peaceful. He envied her that. When she answered, he looked at her curiously. “A Hufflepuff? How old is your sister?” He’d known a girl in his time at Hogwarts and he wouldn’t have assumed much except there were too many connections. The red hair was certainly a tip-off.
Brigid wouldn’t have known he was joking if she hadn’t been looking for a sign. Even one as small as the smirk on his lips wasn’t enough to evade her. She smiled to herself and chalked it up as a small win. She hadn’t walked into the shop expecting to meet someone new, but it wasn’t as though she was opposed. Part of her seemed to think he wasn’t either.
How old was Esme? Brigid glanced up, thinking and counting back the years. She’d been four years ahead so –– “Twenty-six,” She answered, automatically. Her head tilted to the side. She set down the cluster of amethyst she’d been admiring and turned to face him completely. “Why? Did you know her?” Something fell to the bottom of her stomach, like a coin tripping down an empty well. Clunk. A frown made settled onto her lips. Anyone who’d known Esme from Hogwarts had always been disappointed to find Brigid wasn’t a carbon-copy of her.
Erin could always tell when someone was watching her draw. The shadow did most of the telling, and she could practically feel the person craning over her and looking at the paper. She turned and pulled the paper into their line of vision and smiled. “It’s just a dragon. See?”
“Oh, wow.” Brigid hadn’t intended to sneak up on the stranger the way she had, hadn’t intended to lurk over her shoulder staring down at the drawing –– which was rather lovely, but also not the point –– and generally just hadn’t intended to be so over-all... creepy. Really, all she’d wanted was the empty seat beside the girl. “It’s very nice, did you draw that yourself?” Her hand left a slightly red imprint as she smacked her forehead. “Right. Of course you did. Sorry, can I sit down? My ankle’s killing me.”
OCCUPATION: writer at The Amphitheatre, a muggle magazine
LANGUAGES: english, a little latin, a little spanish.
APPEARANCE.
HEIGHT: 5’4”
WEIGHT: 112lbs
BUILD: petite, hour-glass shape.
COMPLEXION: incredibly pale with pink undertones.
EYE COLOR: dark brown, like wet-coffee grounds.
HAIR COLOR & STYLE: thick and long coming to just above her waist; fiery red with orange undertones; typically held out of her face with a clip or left down.
NOTICEABLE FEATURES: her nose is pierced but she rarely wears a ring in anymore; her nails are long and typically un-painted; she’s also known for wearing chunky heels paired with socks ( example here ).
FC: madeleine petsch.
HEALTH.
PHYSICAL DISORDERS: she broke her ankle once while hiking and because it wasn’t set properly, she has a slight limp that’s only noticeable if she’s been physically exerted.
MENTAL DISORDERS: none that she is aware of ; slight obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
EATING HABITS: she tried out juicing and healthy eating for a while, as well as veganism for a good month, but it wasn’t her thing. she likes to cook for herself now that she’s living with someone that actually goes grocery shopping with her, and she enjoys making simple but delicious dishes.
EXERCISE HABIT: yoga, pilates and long walks in the afternoon –– also, is shopping considered exercise?
A healer. It was never an ambition that Brennan himself had had, but he respected the level of skill and technique that was necessary. Her joke brought a smile to his face, even as he was shaking his head at her. She seemed to maintain a good spirit even in the face of her confusion. He could appreciate that. “It’s impossible to find anything around here even if you’re good at it,” he noted, adding two more bottles to her cauldron. There was no organization in the shop that he could easily understand and he was mostly finding things at random. “Well, then it’s good we have magic to clean it up if you do.” Classic Brennan, always with a logical and reasonable solution. He nodded at her question. “And proud of it. The only one in my family, which they’ve always loved to tease me for. Hopefully your sister is nicer than that.”
“Sounds like Esme’s bedroom,” Brigid said, under her breath. She recalled the argument they’d gotten into, only a few weeks ago and shifted her attention back to the man, eager to get away from its memory. “Does magic also have a spell that will clean up all residual embarrassment? Because if so, that’d be bloody great for me.”
Brigid stopped caressing the feathers long enough to take in his expression. But, she couldn’t quite figure out how he felt, if the teasing had been a bother, or something he’d grown to love. She snapped out of her revere after a moment, realizing she hadn’t responded. “Esme’s wonderful.” It was said as a fact, one that was threaded through with a hint of affection. “And she was also a Hufflepuff. Comparable to Helga herself, some would say.” She sighed, lingering over a display of gemstones used for Alchemy.
“I wouldn’t say no to more alcohol. Especially if you agree to drink with me. It’s never fun to be the sad guy at the bar drinking alone.” She was pretty and Colin was intoxicated enough to feel perfectly comfortable in making a move. “You don’t have to worry about me losing my stomach. I know where my limit is.”
“You don’t look like a sad guy to me, but hey, if I’m saving you from the clutches of social pariah-ism, then I’m not going to turn that offer down.” She waved over the bartender, ordering a round of beers. “Well that makes me feel right at ease. There’s nothing worse than having to take care of a sloppy drunk all night. The getting sick and having to clean it up and put the person to bed... Ugh. Horrible. –––– Not that I would know, since I usually am the drunk that people end up taking care of.” She pauses and adds, a second too late, “Not tonight, though.”
“And… did that work?” Lily asked, her curiosity peaked. She herself was decent at household spells, but she’d never tried to flip pancakes with her wand before.
“It didn’t... Not work. It got the job done. But, I did have to spend a good ten minutes wiping away the batter that had stuck to the wand. I wouldn’t recommend it.” It was a lucky thing her wand didn’t carry grudges. “So, are you going to take care of all this or let it keep snowing? I, for one, like the winter wonderland aesthetic..”
He was somewhat surprised that she thought he did work for the tired little shop but he decided not to take offense to it. He supposed if he dug down deep enough, it was actually a compliment. At least he looked like he could own a business, which was technically true. “Not this store,” he responded with a kind smile, though he did step closer to look at the list she held a little bit better. Even for him, some of the ingredients seemed rather outlandish.
She started to ramble and he took the note from her, already looking from the paper to the shelves in front of them. He glanced her way when she mentioned his former house, shaking his head. “The thing about being a kind Hufflepuff is that you spend ninety percent of your time feeling bitter at being used.” He’d had to learn early in his career that the only person he could be kind to was himself. Ironically, a majority of the businesses he worked with were run by former Slytherins or Ravenclaws. He picked up a vial from one of the shelves, offering it to her before returning to his search. “Is your sister running an apothecary?” It could be good for business to get involved with one.
Brigid paused to catch her breath, following him as he seemed to know the way around much better than she ever would. Shops in Diagon Alley weren’t really her up her alley (pun absolutely intended), and she was more than content to be an observer as he moved around, handing her this and that. Ask her to show him around one of her favourite stores in muggle London, though and it’d be an entirely different ordeal.
She took the vial from him and let it clink into her thin cauldron with a tinkle and a clink. “No, she’s a healer. Sometimes makes her own potions. The house always smells like eye of Newt… And that’s just when we’re cooking.” Brigid grinned, but her mind kept circling back to what he’d just said. Despite her complaining earlier, she didn’t really feel used by Esme. She didn’t want anyone, not even a helpful stranger, to think otherwise. “She’s great, really. I’m just not the best at finding things… and cramped spaces tend to work against me. It’s a miracle I haven’t broken anything yet.” She reached out to finger a cluster of feathers hanging above her head and glanced over at him. “You were a Hufflepuff?”
“That might be the one,” Lily said with a shrug, looking around at the snow that was still falling around them, “I honestly don’t know. Do you think a simple Finite Incantatem would work to stop it?”
“No better way to find out. Though... That’s also what I said before I tried to use my wand to flip a set of pancakes I was making.” It was safe to say Brigid’s wand had a love/hate relationship with her.
He detested the wait. It was the worst part about this particular potions shop. They were rarely busy but somehow managed to waste more than an hour of his time every week, taking him away from his own business in the process. The kicker was that they had the best product in Diagon Alley, which meant he either had to shut up and take it or settle for dealing with lesser ingredients.
The choice was, unfortunately, obvious. He stood in one of the aisles, idly looking around as he waited for the manager to return with the coin that was owed to him. Hearing the soft, hesitant voice, he turned on the spot. He’d been told before that he was an intimidating man, which is why people so rarely approached him. That seemed to not matter to the redhead in front of him. “I can try but I won’t make any promises.” He took in the lengthy list in her hand and the confusion scrunching her brow.
The truth was most people intimidated her. A fact which seemed to floor said most people, as by all accounts, Brigid tried to hold herself up with confidence. You’d never guess, just looking at her, the intricate web of insecurities tangled up inside. It was only when she opened her mouth that it all seemed to pour out. “You don’t work here?” The furrow between her brow deepened, like she was in the middle of some philosophical debate regarding the meaning of life, or say… Whether wearing mismatched socks was a fashion statement or just poor outfit planning. “That’s odd. You look like you own the entire store.”
He did. His confidence was the quiet kind she envied. He seemed to wear purpose like a coat that never went out of style. He wasn’t the kind of person your attention wandered to, per se, but it didn’t skip over him either. She stood taller, attempting to mimic his stance. “But you can help me, right? I’m absolutely just… I don’t understand half the words on that list. I tell you this is the last time I do something like this for my sister. Hufflepuff goodness be damned; I should have been sorted a… Well, something else.
