Mornings could eat a bag of musty knobs for all Scarlett cared. She was not a morning person. Never had been. Never would be. What she’d most looked forward to throughout her Hogwarts career was its end, and the promise that adulthood meant she’d get to keep to her own schedule; which would start no earlier than noon if she could help it.
Considering her career path, keeping to a night owl’s sleeping habits had been mostly effortless. Or had been until recently. Now Scarlett was lucky to get any sleep at all. Her mind wouldn’t shut off and worry beat down exhaustion like it’d been caught in a dark alley on the wrong side of town with coins clinking in its heavy pockets. The not knowing was killing her.
With bags that sat as heavy under her eyes as her eyelids themselves, a disheveled Scarlett stood groggily in line as the aromas of caffeine and freshly baked pastries beckoned her better than a dodgy hood working a street corner. Since The Event –which was what Scarlett was referring to Caradoc’s disappearance as these days, so that she wouldn’t have to say or think those words in a sentence– caffeine was all that sustained her. Her appetite had left her with the realization that he was truly missing. Dread took the form of nausea that made it impossible to keep down anything solid.
She could recognize that her previous thoughts that he was just being a colossal arse and hiding underground to avoid repercussions of interfering with her work for what they were now. Moronic, foolish, scatterbrained denial. But Carrie was a constant where life had so few. Could she really be blamed for hoping everyone else’s muttering and worrying was for nothing?
“Here you go, Miss.” A cup was held out for her and Scarlett snapped out of her thoughts with a curt shake of her head and a few hard blinks.
A nod was all she spared the barista by way of thanks before taking the reinforced paper cup and turning to leave.
Not paying any particular attention to where her heavy feet were taking her, Scarlett knew on impact that the collision was probably her fault. Even if it wasn’t, she didn’t have the energy to be upset about it. Her cup flew, unsipped, from her grasp and onto the ground in a splatter of steaming liquid. All she could do for several beats was simply stare at the mess. A listless sigh deflated her chest and she nodded slowly.
More to herself than the victim of her rear-ending, she muttered, “This is the sort of day I’m gonna have, isn’t it?” Another sigh and her head fell some more, her chin on her chest as she fake-sobbed her frustration.
Recognizing the witch by the sound of her voice, Scarlett lifted her face again to see that it was Lily Evans who’d jostled her breakfast from her fingers. Tone still flat in spite of actually liking the fellow Gryffindor, she greeted the red haired witch. “Didn’t expect bumping into you, Evans. Sorry about the,” she made a vague hand gesture at the pool of hot liquid before them. At her offer to buy her another cup Scarlett shrugged. teasing a deadpan, “It’s the least you could do, I think.”
She nodded in gesture for the younger witch to follow her to the back of the line. At least it wasn’t a long one. Shoving her fists into the pockets of the denim jacket on top of the hooded cotton underneath, she gave her friend a sidelong glance and mused, “Rough morning for you too?”
With a morning as tumultuous as this one, following suit from all those prior, Lily had little patience for the complicated. A pastry and cuppa were as simple as it got, nothing fluffy or unchanging about her order, to such an alarming degree that she hadn’t even ordered that morning. With a silent exchange, Lily had slid the exact amount across the counter, the sickles and knuts already splayed in her palm as three customers were still lined up ahead of her. Where she was usually a fountain of understanding and equanimity, today the well ran dry. It would only follow that Scarlett so abruptly enter the scene that day, as convoluted a connection as they come.
“Yes, yes, the very least. Perhaps turn the tides around on the day for both of us.” Lily sighed in unison as she took a place in line besides Scarlett, pushing the softest of smiles onto her face, sensing she too had not happily greeted this early morning. “Perhaps just a whole pot then.” Something for the two of them to share, a bid at growing whatever the friendship was between them, hesitantly to say the least.
By every term, they were friends, and had been for some time. Whether it was their long history as housemates in school together, the mutual friend they shared in Marlene, or the surprisingly large number of nights out they had partaken in together, it was astonishing how little they seemed to agree on. While Lily could appreciate how straightforward Scarlett could be, the line often drew there. She would have liked to chalk up all her ill opinions on Scarlett’s actions to hearsay, a mere over grinding of the gossip mill, but the fellow Lion did little to deny them.
In no way did Lily uphold every law of the land. Her involvement in the Order had quickly assured anybody of that should they know of it, her objective to fight against wrong-doing in the world far greater than any need to follow a set of rules - yet this did not forsake her strongly guided moral compass, in fact this was what guided her in most things. Lily’s sense of what she figured right and wrong was strong, and the woman across from her so often fell on the wrong side of it.
Peering down the line, which had unfortunately doubled in size, Lily teetered back and forth on her running shoes, heel to toe, a nervous habit. “Yes, actually, but more due to a rough night. I’m all ears if you have a solution for getting a good night’s rest.” Finding Caradoc would be the solution, that was plain and simple.
