The Three Broomsticks [Hogsmeade Weekend!]

[veneficusvenato]

The High Road is full of kids. The door is cracked open.


Which means the fireplaces are roaring higher.

But Jo likes the cold wind. Today.





Doors open, come on in.

Comments

[aubergine_girl]

It's been a quiet week at Hogwarts. Steph's getting antsy. Now that life has settled, that her kids are predictable again, that nothing seems to happen, day after day after day - she's kind of itchy.

Weekends are nice. A nice change.

So when the wind blows in a herd of kids, it also blows in their diminutive Defence teacher, pink-cheeked from the cold and wrapped in fur and with a frosting of snow that quickly melts into dampness.

And with a smile, for Jo. As bland and sweet as ever her smiles for Jo are. "Good morning, Madame Harvelle. A butterbeer?"

[veneficusvenato]

"Com'in up."

Jo turns to fill a mug.
Talking over her shoulder.

"Enjoying your weekend, so far?"

[aubergine_girl]

Stephanie nods, grinning across the bar. "It's quiet."

The Broomsticks is rowdy, noisy, loud There's no possible way it could be described as quiet. But that's not the point.

"Everything's kinda quiet, around here."

At least, for now.

[veneficusvenato]

Everything that is everything else is quiet.

Jo nodded, turning to set the mug on the bar before her.





"Supposedly people say that's a good thing."


Jo's not a fan of those people either.

[aubergine_girl]

Steph looks at her, thoughtful for a moment.

It's as plain as the nose on your face

(to a certain level of person, anyway)

that Jo isn't what she takes pains to seem.


But maybe that's only in the way one Companion recognises another.


"People are pretty dumb sometimes," she says blandly, lifting the mug to her lips to sip, froth perching on her lip.

[veneficusvenato]

The whole Order reveal fucks the cover a bit.
But it was a risk in her case deemed worth it.

Or more specifically the case sitting in front of her.






But Jo cracked a smile for the words.

"Definitely a different pace of life here."

[aubergine_girl]

There's only one person in this entire school Steph ranks as a genuine threat to her.

And who else would you have coffee with on a lazy weekend morning?

"A bit of a change for you, is it?"

[veneficusvenato]

"Would I rather be stomping the world all backpacks and wonder?"

By which she means, stompy boots, other faces, and fists?
Maybe with a little wand snapping and hell raising?
And, on lucky days, bad guy lock up, at the end?


"Sure. But you have to make sacrifices."

In the name of traitors. And dictators.


Jo savors a second of picturing punching Steph.
Which might be based on getting to hit anyone in forever.
Or it might be based on the conflicted emotions of Spoiler.

Which seems to be getting personal, even though it really shouldn't.

[aubergine_girl]

Steph's smile is, for a second, vivid, real, light in her eyes. Then it's gone, as if nothing was ever there save that bland, sweet little curve of her lips.

"We certainly do."

Getting up early, for one thing. Being bored, trudging from class to class. Oh, she likes teaching the children, she's coming to love her students, but it's certainly not the thrill she's used to.

This, though. This sparring with Jo. That's what's put a smile on her face.

Jo's dangerous. And that makes her fun.

"But some sacrifices are well worth the making, don't you think? Such a nice morning to be inside drinking butterbeer."

[veneficusvenato]

That smile is actually. Kind of pretty.
It was more real than anything else.


And she wonders. If that belongs to a girl like her.
Or to the woman who thinks she's fooling them all.



But Jo looked at the bar, faintly smirking.
The beer and the fireplaces, then Steph.

"Okay, maybe there are some perks."

[aubergine_girl]

Perks like traitors. Enemies. Intrigue. A reason, maybe, that Steph might be able to do some good around here.

Because if she's certain of anything, it's that there's so, so much more going on behind Jo's blameless copper eyes than is ever admitted to.

She sips her Butterbeer, cheerfully. "Like a warm place to sit when it's cold outside," she suggests.

[veneficusvenato]

Jo fiddled with the token at the end of her necklace.
Not thinking for the moment about traitors and danger.




"Or getting to have days off."

About admitting to the perks here.

Because even with her friends, she'd run.
Given the chance to fly. She'd run so fat.

Except for that nagging sensation in her stomach.

[aubergine_girl]

Steph looks just the slightest bit pleased.

"You're not big on staying inside, are you?"

In any way.

[veneficusvenato]

She rolled the small head between her fingers.




"I'd be worse if the place was smaller."

There's a small concession in that.

[aubergine_girl]

Stephanie smiles, just a little. Softer.

(and takes notes, of course.)

"I think I know what you mean."

The sky. She loves the sky.

[veneficusvenato]

"Yeah?" Jo tilted her head.



Thinking about Steph's ruddy cheeks.

When she'd coming soaring down out of the sky.

The times when she was suddenly found in her wandering.

[aubergine_girl]

Steph grins at her, blue eyes bright.

"World's a big place," she says cheerfully, "and Hogwarts is just a little part of it."

[veneficusvenato]

Jo laughed, oddly enough.

"And somehow we got stuck here."

[aubergine_girl]

Which is, yeah. Awfully coincidental. Given the signs Steph can read, the things she can guess about this woman.

"There's worse places."



She's been in a few of them. She guesses Jo might have been, too.

[veneficusvenato]

"Like London proper." Jo smirked.


Everyone had their reasons for being here.
Some of them just had reasons under reasons.


"And the really boring parts of middle America."