RP: Fortune Favours the In-the-Know Date & Time: 9 December 2002 | Midday Post Type: RP Status: Closed: Complete Character(s): Graham Perks (NPC), Sally-Anne Perks Location: Won Lee Summary: A lunch with Graham turns into something altogether unexpected.
Visits from her brother were as rare as they were usually universally unwelcome. One could imagine Sal’s decided surprise, then, when Graham showed up at the shop around lunch time and invited her to the local Chinese restaurant for her break. Entirely thrown by the turn of events, she could do nothing more than follow along, especially in light of the fact that Shanks had almost gleefully pushed her out the door- this despite the fact that she was the one closing that night and had only been at her shift for about an hour. This should have been clue number 3,547,928,601 that there was something definitely strange going on between her boss and at least one of her brothers.
They managed to find a table off to one side of the dining area, and, still bewildered, Sal surveyed the menu. It was more for something to do, something to fill the space mounting like a wall between them; she knew exactly what she was going to get, always did. Graham finally broke the awkward moment by asking her about work. She, of course, answered that work was fine, a bit better than it had been about a month ago, but that was to be expected. She, in turn, asked after his family. Rebecca was well, just worried about the state of things. She was still doing a fair bit of freelance writing and editing work, but Nicholas took up most of her time. He was making some real progress with the pre-spell work assignments they both set him. Sal had to wonder how much of that was parental pride and how much was the honest truth, but she didn’t put voice to those thoughts. Daniela and Bennett were doing fine at Hogwarts; Bennett’s latest owl hinted at the possibility of a girlfriend. Sal grinned broadly at that. She’d need to write him, see if he’d give her any of the real dirt. Daniela too- she would occasionally forget quite how much she missed her nieces and nephews sometimes.
When the waiter came over to get their orders, Sal got the Crab Rangoon and sweet and sour pork with noodles. The waiter merely gave her an amused, almost exasperated look and told her: "I will get you to try something new one of these days." To which she replied: "Why mess with perfection?" This would undoubtedly earn her an extra Fortune Cookie. She barely paid any attention to what Graham was getting. Honestly, her mind was already on the sweet and sour pork that would be arriving shortly. She was completely caught off-guard, then, when he suddenly said, "It was a real shame what happened to your neighbour."
Momentarily confused into stupidity, Sal looked blankly across the table at her brother and came back with a very pithy, "What?" It struck her a moment later, though, exactly which ‘neighbour’ he was talking about. Her stomach sank. "Oh, d’you mean Neville? Yeah, really bloody awful."
What came next was nothing short of a barrage of questions:
“Were you home when it happened?”
“No.”
“Do you know if anyone was around when it happened?”
“Not from what I heard.”
“Oh, and what did you hear?”
“Just that someone found him in the stairwell, and that there was screaming and then one of the downstairs neighbours- a Healer, I think, Malo-something- came up and took him to St Mungo’s.”
“And who did you hear that from?”
“I dunno, neighbours, I guess. There were a few of them talking about it in the lobby when I got home that night. Landlord’s wife was there- she seemed to know the most about it.”
“You went through the lobby? Seems odd. Why didn’t you just apparate straight into your flat?”
“Felt like a bit of a walk, I guess. Needed to work the kinks out of arms and back from sitting hunched over a customer’s back most of the day.”
“So you walked through the lobby and heard about Lo- Neville’s accident.”
“Well, yeah.”
“And no one there said they had seen anyone else around the stairwell?”
“Not that I can recall.”
“And who were the people your neighbours said found him? Found Neville?”
“Ah, um- Neville’s girlfriend, Cho Chang and Angelina Johnson, if I remember correctly. And that Healer bloke, but I guess he came a bit later. Chang and Johnson live on our... on my floor, so I guess that makes sense.”
“And neither one of them heard Neville fall? Seems odd.”
“Not really. They’ve probably charmed their walls with silencing spells- keep most sounds out... or in. I mean, I am on their floor.”
“You said Neville’s girlfriend was there? Is that Amanda Brocklehurst, then? Do you know her?”
“Brocklehurst? Mandy? Merlin, really? Yeah, I-I know her, a bit. We met shopping once, a while ago. I helped her buy... Oh. Yeah, that sort of makes sense now. Oh, God... Poor Mandy.”
“Do you know if they were having any sort of problems? Neville and Mandy?”
“No! I didn’t even know they were dating. I mean, Neville was my neighbour, but it’s not like we really knew one another really well. I keep such odd hours anyway, I hardly see anybody in the building.”
“So you didn’t know that Neville had recently been diagnosed with the disease? That he’d recently been in St Mungo’s?”
Sal gave a subconscious tug at the Ministry bracelet that clung to her forearm under her jumper sleeve. No, she hadn’t known. She shook her head dumbly, a distant look coming over her face. Neville had been sick, and Sal hadn’t known. Her mind began to spin into a hundred different directions. What if she had been a better neighbour? What if she had made more of an effort? The story went that he’d been found in the stairwell, that he’d taken a tumble, and that no one really knew how long he’d been there. If she had been home then, she could have heard something, could have helped him. And Neville wouldn’t have died. And Mandy wouldn’t have lost her boyfriend. Their food arrived, but Sal found that she wasn’t very hungry anymore.
Graham nodded slowly, as though absorbing everything they had discussed, and then said, with an odd air of finality, “A tragic accident, then. Pity.”
Feeling a bit like a marionette or a trained pet, she went through the motions of enjoying her lunch, and the topic of discourse wound its way back to family and work. Sal was able to bring her spirits back up, if only a fraction, by detailing a particularly memorable set of tattoos she had placed on a small party of very drunk business men just a few weeks back. Graham, for his part, didn’t seem nearly as dismissive as he usually did when she told such stories, almost as though atoning for bringing up the tragic situation of Neville’s unfortunate death. He even paid for her lunch, which she could never quite remember him doing. True to her earlier assumption, she was given an extra fortune cookie. Somehow it didn’t seem nearly as much of a victory as it had before. They parted outside the restaurant, and she walked back toward Knockturn Alley in a weighty mood.
No matter which way she looked at it, Sal just couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that she had just been interrogated.