The Three Broomsticks; Late Night

[veneficusvenato]

Jo is Bored. Adulthood is sometimes Boring. 



Fail, Adulthood, Fail. And the empty bar. 
Where she "has to stay" for the time being.






To counteract this, Jo is sitting on one end of the bar reading her mail.  Indian style. Wearing a cowboy hat only those who went to school with her would remember from their fourth year. 

Comments

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

The doors burst open. Sunlight pours in. A lone figure stands, arms outstretched. Dramatic percussive music with a stinging violin plays from nowhere at all, announcing the arrival of something great.

"Don't worry!" Sokka assures her, beaming happily. "I'm back!"

[veneficusvenato]

Jo looked up from her scroll, her shoulder shaking as she suppressed laughter, as she tilted her head mockingly drawing her eyebrows together. "Wait. Who are you again?"

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

There is a wand between his fingers, flicking to silence the music even as he patiently sighs at her.

And crosses the space to steal the hat off her head, plopping it onto his own with a satisfied smile. "I can't believe you still have this thing. When are you going to buy me one?"

[veneficusvenato]

"Why would I buy you something you could transform a bowl into without blinking, dear?" Jo said snarkily, reaching up to at least flatten down the wisps of blonde he pulls free with the hat.

After that she reached out to tilt the hat so it sits right on his head. God. It's really been far too long. Really.

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

It really has. Even as he wrinkles his nose at her in not-entirely-playing-at disgust. "I appreciate your faith in my transfiguring abilities. But not the implication that you'd like to watch me try and turn a bowl into a hat."

He pauses, patiently waiting for hat adjustment, and seems more satisfied for her attentions. "Besides, it's always nicer to have a thing that was only ever one thing. What if the bowl always wanted to be a bowl? It was meant to hold flour and eggs and not my hair.

"Also," arms are held out, grinning again, "hi."

[veneficusvenato]

Jo laughed. "Ever my lazy freak."

And grabbed the lapels of his cloak to pull him to the counter and hug him, without having to get off it. He even got a kiss on his cheek, even though there wasn't much focus on it aside from making it own a dramatically loud "SMACK" sound.

"Was your life truly so dead and dull without me?"

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

That just pulls more laughter out of him, loud enough to fill the room. And even if she won't throw herself at him, he's happy to wrap her up in a true hug, laughing more with his kiss. Dramatic and brassy and over the top, he has the best friends.

Her question just leads to further grinning, adjusting his/her hat. "It really was. I had to come back a whole half-day early or risk infecting all the new firsties with my grumpiness. Of course, if you really wanted to improve my travels, you'd have something fascinating waiting for me in all those papers. So I don't have to amuse myself with term papers in my very first week back."

[veneficusvenato]

"How did you ever manage before now? Did they have to force feed you happiness potions?"

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

"They?" Sokka demands, lifting an eyebrow and smirking. "There's a reason I work in the dungeons, Josephine, and that reason is not fire whiskey hidden in the spare cauldrons.

"...that's what I have you for."

[trickswithsticks]

"There goes my quiet marking time," Leah complains. "Isn't there 'blowing stuff up' club on tonight?"

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

"Not until seven," Sokka informs her, crossing the room with delight to ruffle her hair. "And it's very nice to be back, yes, thank you for asking. My trip? Delightful! You're too kind."

[trickswithsticks]

Without turning around, Leah moves her hands around her back to give Sokka a weird backwards hug thing.

"Did you bring me a present, Sokka? Cause we can do the pleasantries when I figure out how pleasant I feel like being."

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

He leans into it obligingly, lips twisting into a pout that would be more intense if he weren't getting a hug. A half-arsed hug, to be sure, but a hug.

"Is that what our friendship has become, really? An exchange of gifts for affection? Way to cheapen the moment."

[trickswithsticks]

"Yeah, well I would have you in a headlock now, but they make us behave now we're s'posed to be role models setting a shining example to the children."

Leah flicks her wand and another essay moves from one pile to the next, while her enchanted quill moves down the next subject, picking out spelling errors in red.

"Wait until closing, mate. Then I'll welcome you home properly."

It'll involve ice down his robes, you'll see.

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

Anyone else would take that as something dirty. Sokka knows well enough to simply eye her with some suspicion, pat her shoulder, and carefully extricate himself.

"Fine then. No Guatemalan Deluminator for you or muggle marble chess set."

[trickswithsticks]

Now, Leah turns around, her right eye focusing on his face before her left one, the eyebrows above them arched excitedly.

"Guatemalan Deluminator?"

[scientiaeaquam.livejournal.com]

Sokka grins, arms held out. He's still in muggle clothing, the sort he wears when he can get away with fluffy scarves and multiple layers in various just-barely-matching colors.

"Proper hug first or no goodies."

[trickswithsticks]

Adulthood is boring. Try marking a whole pile of third year projects on Grindelwald.

They are what has just appeared on the bar in front of her.

Then the door opens and a witch sweeps in, the brim of her hat pulled down just enough to shade the wildly rotating magic eyes in their sockets from local gaupers.

On entering the bar, however, the hat is removes and thrown expertly onto the hat stand as the former wearer comes to join the marking at the bar.

[veneficusvenato]

"Hey, Lee," Jo waved with the scroll in her hand. Boring mail. Boring mail. Oh. Hey. That last one has handwriting she might need to wait for closing to read. "How're the kids?"

[trickswithsticks]

"I haven't killed any!" Brightly. Which roughly translated means the kids are awesome. "And after all that whining that I was setting homework too early in term, every single one arrived on time. Which is a good thing.

"Except I then have t'read the bloody things. Time Turners are unethical, right?"

She sits at the bar, and removes her outer robe, rubbing at her left eye. "Gonna help myself to a firewhisky. That alright?"

[veneficusvenato]

Jo nodded, flipping through scrolls.

"Time turners are...less unethical now that we're not thirteen?"

[trickswithsticks]

Leah snorts in laughter as she levitates the bottle down from the shelf and pours herself a drink without leaving her seat.

"Probably not. But I'm s'posed to be more ethical, y'know? Something about being a good rolemodel."

[veneficusvenato]

Jo smirks, looked up from the letter.

"The first and best reasons I never became a teacher."

[trickswithsticks]

Leah chuckles, settling back now with a Correct-a-quill working on the first essay. Her left eye keeps pointing in that direction, but her right looks at Jo.

"It's brilliant, though. This year's going to be much easier than the last - it's only the first years I have to make a suitably scary impression on."

[veneficusvenato]

"Can you sit on your desk?" Jo gestured with her mail at the bar she was sitting on. "How many classes of first years do you have this time?"