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

[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."