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Daani Johal (princessdaani) wrote in 20somethings,
@ 2022-08-05 01:07:00

Entry tags:

c: daani johal, c: rhys ahuja, d: 2028 07, ~ complete, Ω: rp

[Backdated] Daani seeks professional help
Who: Daani, Riz, NPC DMLE worker (Liam mentioned)
What: Taking the scare seriously
When: Sometime after arriving at Tina & Liam's cottage
Where: Tina & Liam's Cottage
Warnings: Stalking, panic attack
Completion Status: Complete

It had taken some time, some surprisingly competent care from Liam and quite a few tears before Daani was calm again. She had made her own tea after the first round, and had needed it to keep her fluid intake up. Plus trying to teach Liam how to make a good cup of chai had been surprisingly soothing.

Her phone had been off since she arrived, thanks to a moment of fearful clarity, but now she wanted to do something. There was a fire in her belly. A fire that was annoyance at herself at not taking the earlier overtures seriously. A fire that was the knowledge she couldn't set this out of her mind any longer. A fire that was pure fear.

After she asked a mildly confused, but willing Liam, to borrow his phone she sent a message to Riz.

To Rhys: This is Daani, borrowing Liam Pucey's phone. Could you get back to me asap, there's been a development. My phone is off. Might be time for DMLE. I'm at Tina's place and safe.

She sat on the sofa, foot jiggling, as she wondered what she could do while she waited for a reply.

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rizahuja
2022-08-23 09:39 pm UTC (link)

The transition to International Sports had moved seamlessly out of his office and Rhys could return to his regular workload. It would be quiet again until the Quidditch Cup had their winner and as he shuffled his daily papers into a neat pile he felt his phone buzz into his pocket.

He smirked. The noise made him think of Mia. Both their jobs kept them busy throughout the weeks, but even amidst the workload, a sporadic text seemed to pull him from the grumpy edge he teetered on bouncing between offices and meetings.

"Unknown number?" He swiped up at his phone reading the message that had appeared on the screen. "Daani? Shit." It wasn't until he'd called the lift to the Atrium that he thought to text a buddy of his in the DMLE. A quiet, trustworthy type that'd come up with him in the Ministry.

He typed out the details and hit send before disappearing on the spot and finding himself in front of Tina's house. A second pop sounded from the alleyway next to the residence. “Put that thing away.” Rhys snapped, seeing that his friend had his wand raised.

His buddy nodded and the wand disappeared into the folds of his jacket. Taking one last deep breath, Rhys knocked on the door.

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princessdaani
2022-08-23 10:15 pm UTC (link)

Daani had been looking at the phone every five to ten seconds, unable to distract herself in any way. A dim part of her mind told her that distractions probably weren't on the cards yet and it was okay, but she really wanted to focus on anything else. Even if it was inevitable that she couldn't.

The knock at the door startled her and she was on her feet with her wand in her hand without any conscious thought on her part. She looked over at Liam, who shook his head. Clearly he wasn't expecting anyone. "I'll go," she murmured. If it was someone for Liam or Tina she could easily be a visiting friend answering the door.

She swallowed and set herself by the door. "Who is it?" she called, wand still out and pointing towards the door.

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rizahuja
2022-08-23 10:50 pm UTC (link)

Rhys' worried expression melted into a half smile. She was smart, good. "Daani, it's Riz. And a friend." He waited for an answer. "He can be trusted. He DMLE."

He shook his head when he saw his friend reach for his wand again. "Keep it away." Rhys mouthed. He assumed hers was out, but doubted she'd blast either of them. The Daani he knew was calmer than regardless of the situation.

He leaned against the door jamb, "You let us in when you're ready, Daani."

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princessdaani
2022-08-23 11:05 pm UTC (link)

The voice sounded right, but she was still suspicious, especially when he said he had someone with him. "Who?" she called. The answer was obvious enough, and she knew she'd mentioned DMLE, but she hadn't expected him to turn up with someone.

She didn't know how to confirm it was him, until the obvious came to her. She called out in Gujarati. It was just a simple greeting that she'd taught him. The equivalent of 'hi, how are you?'. She'd taught him a couple of form responses, and didn't really care which she heard in return as long as it was one of them.

Once she got the response she was looking for she nodded to herself. "I have my wand out," she said, knowing that the DMLE could be twitchy. She did point it down slightly as a concession, but everyone involved knew that a decent spellcaster wouldn't be stopped by the angle of their wand by more than fractions of a second. Then she unlocked the door and peeked out, opening it further when she was reassured by what she saw.

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rizahuja
2022-08-24 03:14 pm UTC (link)

Riz slipped past into the living area and watched. The two tensed as if preparing to duel. "I guess I should actually introduce you two before one of you sends all of us to St. Mungo's." Rhys leaned against the corner of the couch.

"Daani, this is Hamza. He worked his way up through the DMLE the same time I started with the ICW. He's quiet and trustworthy, and I've briefed him on everything we know so far." He glance at Daani. It wasn't like her to keep someone at wand point this long. "Can we sit? You're both welcome to keep your wands point at each other." Perhaps a little too cheeky, but someone Rhys was the mediator here. "You texted me for a reason, Daani? And I'm a bit curious as to why you are lying up at Tina's, myself.

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princessdaani
2022-08-24 03:57 pm UTC (link)

Closing and locking the door behind the two men who entered was a far more conscious thought than usual. For the moment she was still calm and somewhat analytical, but recognised that that was unlikely to last.

She nodded to Hamza when Riz introduced him. For as calm as she was there was still an under layer of sheer terror that was biting at her heels. She gestured at the seats and sat away from both of them. She gave Riz a tight smile and her handed squeezed tightly on her wand before setting it down by her side. It made her shudder, having found an inordinate amount of comfort from just holding it.

Taking a deep breath with her eyes closed she nodded to herself and nodded. "Someone has been in my house," she said with as little emotion as possible. "Which I found out because I received a new gift...inside the house," she said, her voice wavering at the end as the realisation washed over her again. She could feel her face scrunch up in pain, her eyes feeling damp again. Looking around she spotted her phone where she'd abandoned it on a table. "I have a photo," she said, gesturing.

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rizahuja
2022-08-24 09:18 pm UTC (link)

He tried to temper his his questioning. She was the victim but there were questions he needed her to answer. He took her phone in his hands and stared at the screen.

"Did you find the camera?" Rhys' voice turned grave. he couldn't be sure it even was a camera. The portrait was up front and so close that it could have been anywhere in her apartment. A spell on her bathroom mirror? Whoever was doing this, they were escalating. He thought back to the bangles. No one else in her offices would have recognized them for what they were.

"Did the same person that gave you the bangles give you this?" He saw Hamza shoot him a look. "Yeah those bangles." Rhys confirmed, returning to the picture.

"Is this still in your house?"

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princessdaani
2022-08-24 10:17 pm UTC (link)

She could almost see Rhys switching away from being her friend into being a professional. Or at least leaning into that side of his personality. She didn't think she was able to do that at the moment. It was taking a lot of her mental abilities to keep on track.

She shook her head. "I started looking, but I was too much. I can give you some ideas from the angle," she offered. She had tried looking around before she left, but she was far more focussed on getting out.

Daani's face crumpled even more, she was struggling to explain what she knew now, even though it was written clearly across her thoughts. "I don't know for sure, but the writing on the tag matched the other gifts," she said. "I was so stupid. So stupid," she said, hand coming up to clutch at the shoulder of her blouse as she curled in on herself more.

"I didn't even touch it," she said, sniffling as tears started to fall again. "He got into my house! It was on the chair when I came home. Who even knows where I live?" This last was a wail as another wave of fear and realisation washed over her. She curled down, burying her face in the hand which was wrapped over her chest, even as she bent forwards to try and contain her unusual outburst of emotions. It was like the miscarriage all over again, and she wasn't able to keep a professional or calm face for more than a few minutes at a time if she was thinking about it.

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rizahuja
2022-08-25 07:55 pm UTC (link)

Rhys wrung his hands, looking at Daani crumbling in on herself it was obvious he was shite at separating personal and professional. "Does Liam have chai?" He asked, looking in the direction of the kitchen. "I can make everyone a cup, if he does." It was a turn, but hopefully something familiar.

"I'm sorry, Daani. I didn't want this to turn into an interrogation." He waited for some sense of affirmation, something other than her shaking. A small nod, he thought at least and moved into the kitchen using a summoning spell to find what he needed.

"Just how you like it." He sets a cup in front of her before offering Hamza and returning to his own seat. Riz needed to find a more tactful way around the topic. He thought back to the bangles. It stuck out to him as the first point of escalation, something much too personal.

"Who did you talk to the day you received the bangles? Before finding them on your desk?"

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princessdaani
2022-08-25 10:37 pm UTC (link)

Daani almost got up to make the tea herself, but she appreciated the effort. She nodded. "I showed him how to do it properly before," she said in a small voice.

She gave him a watery smile when he brought her tea and almost immediately grabbed it for comfort.

Inhaling the spiced steam she sighed as the soothing aspects of the tea, the habit and comfort worked their own particular brand of magic on her little by little. "Honestly a lot of people. It was my birthday, it wasn't the only gift I got that day. Just the one that was suspicious. Eugenelle got me a tea infuser, Jacob got me a silly mug, couple of people got me cake or chocolates. Boss man let me wear the bright sari. Dante stopped by with flowers and chocolates. Apparently I'd never told him about my complete inability with plants and flowers," she glanced at some of the many plants around the room, knowing she was essentially banned from touching them. She sighed and shrugged, knowing she was probably being unhelpful. "The," she paused and swallowed, "bangles came after lunch though, everything else was before pretty much. I think Ana candles just before I left, but she's often on later hours because of time zones."

As much as she didn't want to stare at the two men she also couldn't look away. She wasn't sure if their faces would give anything away. Anything that might help her work out who this might be, who she needed to avoid. She didn't know if Hamza knew all the ICW staff, but Rhys should be familiar with all of them to some degree. Mostly it was the translation department where she'd made work friends, but some of the admin staff were in there too.

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	rizahuja 2022-08-26 04:46 pm UTC (link)
	"Flowers and chocolates?" Rhys rolled his mug between his hands. From a female coworker he could see those gifts being innocuous, but not for a man. He tried to think if he could pictures this Dante character. Nothing particular stood out. "Who's Dante?" He took a sip of chai. It could be nothing, but Riz couldn't shake the hunch. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

princessdaani
2022-08-27 12:58 am UTC (link)

"Mmm," she hummed in agreement. "Bit over the top, but it was nice of him" she said. She frowned at the question, assuming he'd remember another ICW staff member, but it was easy enough to explain. "He's one of the assistants for one of the British ICW delegates. I forget if he's junior assistant or just the newer one. I did his rundown of 'here's the stuff about the translation department the official documents don't tell you' intro and we struck up a bit of a friendship." She shrugged, assuming Rhys would remember his own version of the intro which covered everything from simple ways not to annoy your translator and form shortcuts to gentle guidance about who might be tetchy and ideas to placate them if necessary. Anyone using the department regularly ended up getting a version of it at some point.

While she was waiting for another question from one of them Daani took a cautious sip of her chai. She was enough of a tea addict that she could drink it far hotter than was reasonable, but she didn't want to hurt herself more right now. There was something twanging at the back of her mind, but it wasn't very clear yet, or she didn't want to look at it. She didn't know which.

"Could someone have got my address from the staff files?" she asked. It was a thought that had occurred to her since she arrived at Tina and Liam's cottage. She didn't know how to get at that kind of detail, but suspected she could work it out if she thought it through.

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rizahuja
2022-08-28 10:15 pm UTC (link)

"I could've passed him on any given day, I've been a bit preoccupied lately." He admitted. "It doesn't strike you as odd that this Dante brought you flowers and chocolates?" Rhys squirmed, some people were thoughtful but it didn't sit well with him.

"I think the files depend on how well your boss keeps them." Hamza interjected. "DMLE personnel files are kept under strict security in our offices. I assume the ICW follows the same procedures?"

Rhys nodded, "Our bosses only bring them out when we do something wrong and I can't remember the last time I did anything wrong enough to warrant that."

"Sorry." Rhys extended, realizing they'd been talking around her. He needed to be careful how he proceeded. Whoever this Dante was, he seemed to blend into the background of her world. The gifts on her birthday were the only thing that made him stand out.

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princessdaani
2022-08-28 10:50 pm UTC (link)

Something of Daani's personality from less stressful times chimed in and she looked Rhys up and down and then looked down at herself. "Not to be big-headed about this, but men have been buying me chocolates and flowers as gifts since Hogwarts, I didn't think much of it. I'm not exactly open to dating at the moment," she said, giving Rhys a pointed look as she raised her eyebrows. He knew all about those circumstances.

As they exchanged information she sipped her tea. Apparently breaking into the files was a little less easy than she'd thought. Her mind drifted on.

Silently she reviewed who she had told where she lived, or anything close to it. Her family knew, as did Tina, and presumably Liam because of that. None of them were suspects in her eyes. She had told Juliet, but she had no ICW access. A couple of the swimming group knew the general area she lived in and had picked her up for slightly more distant swims, although they generally got no closer than the main road. And they were all muggles.

All muggles. Except when Dante had sort of invited himself along to join them. She suddenly had a flash of showing him the map on her phone to let him know where to apparate to. She looked over at Rhys with her tea halfway back to her mouth. She caught his eye, the dawning of the knowledge starting to spread over her face.

"It's him," she whispered into the suddenly quiet room as her hand began to shake. Rather hurriedly the cup found the table and her head began to shake too in denial.

At the realisation a catalogue of little moments which didn't quite fit his friendly demeanour were starting to come back to her. Moments she had dismissed or written off as her own imagination. Her breath was coming faster as her eyes darted around the room, the feeling of being watched was coming back.

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rizahuja
2022-08-29 12:46 am UTC (link)

"Yes, I'm aware." Rhys tried to mask the annoyance in his tone. He wouldn't have pointed it out if the detail wasn't important. He also didn't want Hamza asking any irrelevant questions that would easily derail the topic at hand.

Rhys waited. Daani may be beautiful, but she was also intelligent. He took a sip of his own Chai as he watched her slowly picture it together and then something cracked. The calm demeanor that she had been barely holding onto for most of the night had crumbled. He made out the word him as her cup clattered to the table. He knew it and so did she. His mouth gaped and closed, the words I'm sorry didn't seem to find.

He whispered to Hamza, trading ideas on how to proceed. "Daani." Rhys spoke, trying to ground his friend. "We'll need access to your house. Hamza will need to get to the portrait that he painted." Rhys didn't mention the name worried it would send her back into the tailspin. "I think at this point it's best to file a report and get you somewhere safe. Safer than Tina and Liam's."

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princessdaani
2022-08-29 08:56 pm UTC (link)

Vaguely Daani recognised she was having some kind of panic attack. She'd had similar episodes of fear and being emotionally overwhelmed following events with Manny, but those never made her paranoid like this. She rocked as her breath sped up. She needed to be safe.

She looked at Rhys wildly when he said her name, but keeping her eyes on him and Hamza to reassure her that there were people here who would defend her. It took a few minutes, and in a way she appreciated that they weren't approaching her, she wasn't sure she could take that right now. Little by little her breathing evened out, even if her left leg refused to stop jiggling up and down.

"I don't want to go back there," she said vehemently. "I can let you in, but if I'm moving I'm going to need someone else to pack everything up."

"Safer is good," she said, the spindle of hope sneaking its way into her squirming guts. "I'm heading for the World Cup in two days so I need do do all my reports as soon as possible," she said, the thought suddenly occurring to her again as a sense of calm returned. Everything was near enough ready for her trip, which was probably why she'd made far more food than she needed that morning.

The sudden addition of a whole bunch of stressful things on her schedule started to assert itself and the levels of coping that she had drawn on in the last couple of years started to fall into place. Her face returned to something approaching her work face. She sucked in a deep and calming breath, straightening her spine and fiddling with the folds of her sari to set it to rights, then slowly released her breath. She could still feel and acknowledge the fear and stress, but she was feeling better for her moment of serious panic. "Okay, let's get to work," she said.

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