bd_emma (bd_emma) wrote in beyond_dark, @ 2008-01-21 07:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | * january 2006, - complete, emma dobbs |
RP: The cupboards are bare
Date: 21 January 2006
Characters: Emma Dobbs
Location: Hogsmeade apparition point, Bite ‘N’ Blether
Private/Public: Private
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Emma returns to Hogsmeade after taking care of her mum following an accident. Taking stock of her assets (monetarily, that is), she is forced to some ugly conclusions. Her half-hearted search for work was going to have to become a lot more serious. In fact, she was actually going to have to….work.
Emma sighed as she stood in line at the apparition point. She hated having to come through here. She wasn’t sure if every Auror was a lech, or if somehow those sorts just always ended up on duty checking entries and exits to the village, but going through the apparition security always made her feel vaguely dirty.
She needed to find a better spot outside of the village and just walk in, but the trip from Luxemburg had been a long and tiring one and she hadn’t trusted herself with that this time.
Her aunt hadn’t wanted her to go, but Emma’s mum was well out of danger and improving, and Emma had decided she had done her duty. Her mum was doing her best to milk her injury for all she was worth, of course, and Emma had had all of that that she could stand. She and Marie-Helene got along best from a distance. One that involved separate countries, Emma had decided.
Emma moved up in the line and presented her papers, resisting the urge to hex permanently blind the Auror who was staring at her chest. She had purposefully worn robes that fastened at her throat and that hung more loosely than she normally wore, but she so hated giving the Aurors an eyeful.
Finally approved to enter, Emma folded her paperwork and put it away, picking up her valise and starting the long walk into town. She was in much worse state financially than she’d been the last time she’d come to Hogsmeade. The trip to and from Luxemburg had made serious inroads into her small savings, and the let on the room at the Inn was going to eat up even more.
She had finally managed to contact Blaise by owl, but he was going to away for an extended period of time on some mission he was unable to tell her about. Not that he had said that, of course. He had mentioned family business in Japan, and Emma had read between the lines. He didn’t know when he would be able to return to England, at least. He’d told her to use his house instead of going back to the Inn, but she couldn’t bring herself to impose on him like that. It just felt too much like charity, to stay at his house while he was gone, especially because she was nearly out of money.
Sometimes pride and social conventions were a pain to live with, Emma decided as she walked down the road that went to the Inn. But that was how she was, and she’d have to live with it.
At the Inn, Emma was reduced to bargaining for her room, another necessity she hated. She was taking a smaller one than she’d had before, the smallest in the place, in fact. But she’d been a good tenant, quiet and little trouble. And she’d paid on time during her last stay, a regular source of income for the place. In fact, she was able to talk the girl into accepting a mere pittance for the room, and she began to wonder if perhaps Blaise had made arrangements she didn’t know about since she’d refused to use his house. It would be like him.
If she could have afforded it, she’d have looked into it, but in this case, if she didn’t know, she didn’t have to feel guilty.
She was going to have to take some things to the market and try to sell them. Then she was going to have to look for work, she thought, depressed at the thought. She’d looked for some sort of position the last time she came to Hogsmeade, of course, but she’d had enough savings then to be picky and nothing had struck her fancy. But after paying some unexpected charges on her trip to Luxemburg (Blaise had paid for most of it, but she’d been in a hurry and had used some funds to speed the process up a bit) and then paying for the entire trip back....
Her aunt had tried to get some money for her, knowing her situation well enough from what Marie-Helene had told her, but she hadn’t been able to get much and Emma hadn’t wanted to take it, anyway. Of course, her aunt had stashed it in her valise, but Emma had resolved to not use it unless she was truly desperate. Which she wasn’t. Having to look for work wasn’t truly desperate.
It just felt that way.
Emma opened the door to her room and went in, looking around with a sigh. It was tiny, to be sure. A bed, wardrobe, tiny desk, and a worn armchair by the window with barely any room for getting around. But it was clean and she didn’t have to share the bath. And it was cheap. If she bought some bread and cheese and fruit at the market, she could avoid paying for some meals. That would help.
Her lip curled, Emma set about her unpacking.