RP Log: Caradoc and Meaghan
Who: Caradoc and Meaghan Where: The townhouse in Marylebone What: Caradoc moves in & talks about that curse they're using in the trap. When: 24 October, 1979 Rating: PG for kissyface
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When her eyes had opened that morning, she had been alone in bed for the first time in a few weeks. She briefly considered rolling over and twitching the curtains shut against the milky morning sunlight, but a less-sleepy, more-responsible part of her intervened and forced her from bed. There was an odd feeling of deja-vu as she dressed, pulled her hair back, and tied on her trainers for her morning run. The flat was silent as she went out the door, and even London itself was still only rousing groggily for the day. It was almost like it was before, when she was alone--this simple routine, the empty house, Mother and child safe in Scotland and Moody not needed to guide her through her grief. As her feet pounded the sidewalk beneathe her rhythmically, she was able to lull herself into a kind of a trance, one where every trouble melted away.
She turned the corner back onto her street and ran up the front steps of the town house, feeling almost imperceptibly in her bones as the wards challenged and than allowed her. She opened the door, and was immediately assaulted by several things at once: the smell of Moody making breakfast in the kitchen before he left for the Ministry, the sound of Kirley's god damn singing broomstick that she still hadn't smacked Grady for giving him, and the realization that today was much better than any false belief that things were the same as they had been: Caradoc moved in today.
The next hour was filled with the normal energetic buzz of the morning--she bathed while Moody fed Kirley, and then saw him off to work when she was finished dressing. She ate breakfast while reading the Prophet, let Kirley's nanny in and watched her begin whatever exciting and vital project they would have to undertake for the day, and all the while her blood was singing in anticipation--Caradoc was moving in today.
There must have been something in the air because Caradoc too felt the frenetic energy pulsing through his nerves, scattering his thoughts and impeding his concentration. Was he actually ... nervous? Wartime had such a large impact on life, speeding it up to unrecognisable paces ... he could argue that this move was fated and rather intelligent, given their shared stake in the events at hand.
But he was still a man - an old man - moving in with his much younger girlfriend (and a little boy, and a Moody). He could only hope that his presence would impact them in the best of ways. He had grown used to solitude; could he learn to have a family again? Did he know how?
Owing his courage to Marion (he had made his peace with her and their little daughter in his own way), he Apparated to Meg's porch and gave the buzzer two stacatto taps. It was now or never - and he much preferred now.
She had made the suggestion logically--what was the point of shuttling back and forth between homesteads constantly, of arranging care for Kirley and burdening Moody and Phee, when they could share a home and eliminate all the inconvenience? Once she had asked, though, she realized that logic really had nothing to do with it; she wanted him in her life, permanently. This was the most tangible way to make that happen.
She had just begun to put away some of the toys that littered her sitting room when the doorbell sounded, sending her heart pounding at a hummingbird's pace. Once she opened the door, it would be real, and there would be no turning back. She knew that this signalled another end to another way she had lived her life, and she had gone through so many of those this year.
Still, without hesitation, she opened it.
And there he stood. Head bowed with a large canvas duffel bag swung over his shoulder, it was almost thirty seconds before he made it from her toes to her gaze. He offered her a silent greeting - one soft kiss for her lips, and smiled crookedly.
"Well, I'm here."
"So you are." She replied, her expression soft and hopeful. It was all she managed to say before a wiry, dark-haired blur of a boy launched himself across the room and into Caradoc's kneecaps, in a vain attempt to tackle the man who probably outweighed him by nearly two hundred pounds. "Doc! Meg said you were staying, are you staying? Where are you sleeping? Are you going to stay? Is that your stuff?"
"Augh!" he said, if for nothing more than Kirley's pride as he wrapped his arm around the boy's waist and swung him through the air a few times before setting him neatly at his sister's feet.
"I am staying, I promise I won't squish you or your dragon. Also - " here he looked to Meaghan, one eyebrow cocked as he wondered just what exactly the little boy was allowed to know.
She rolled her eyes, bending down to run her hand through his wild hair that clearly ran in their family. Children really did ask the most impertinent questions. "He's going to be staying in my room, Kirl, because I have the biggest bed and the loft's too cold in Winter."
"Yeah", he said, somewhat lamely. "That okay with you, big man?"
"Yeah, okay, sure." the boy said, clearly having lost interest in the subject once he had received a semi-adequate answer that didn't involve sharing his room. "Smooth." Meg slid in with a smirk as she straightened, looking behind him to see if he had more belongings than just the duffle bag. "Do you have a broom?" Kirley asked, apropos of nothing.
"At my Mam's house," was the quick reply. He was going to have to snatch it out of Ireland, for sure, it seemed. Which wasn't bad. He needed to get back in the air, using his muscles. "I used to play Quidditch when I was in school ages ago. But I'm definitely not as good as your sister."
Kirley made a face. "Meg's okay, but she plays Keeper, and everyone knows Keeper is the most boring position, I want to place Beater because then you get to hit people which is much more fun. You played Quidditch what House were you in?" He said, in a breathless, nigh-incomprehensible blur of brogue.
Smirking over his head at Meg, he turned his attention back to Kirley and took a step back to cross his arms, acting as though he was appraising him.
"A Beater, eh? I think you could do it ... you have to eat vegetables, though! Especially if you'd play for Gryffindor, like me."
"Meg was in Gryffindor and my mom was too so I want to be in Gryffindor but Meg says I might no go to Hogwarts." He said, turning accusatory eyes at his sister.
"Kirley, I think Phee's getting lonely. Why don't you go see what she's doing while Caradoc and I sort through his things and then when we're ready you can come and lend us a hand putting everything away, huh?"
When the boy ran off to harass his nanny, she turned to him with a cocked eyebrow. "Vegetables?"
As soon as the boy was out of sight, he let out a sigh and shrugged, entirely indefensible. "Isn't that the sort of rot adults say to children? 'Eat your vegetables so you grow up big and strong!'"
"Yeah, boring adults maybe." She said, though her mouth quirked into a teasing smile to soften the blow. Perhaps the hardest part of this adjustment for her was making sure she didn't say anything implying fatherhood to him--she didn't want to dredge up painful memories or to cast him in a role he didn't ask for. If he wanted to be the man in Kirley's life, she would be immeasurably happy, but she wanted him to seek it.
"Then how about we get my boring adult arse in off the porch?" he said, readjusting the bag's strap to ease the tension in his shoulders.
She pulled a face. "Oh no, I didn't mention? That was all rot to Kirley, you're not getting a bed."
"So I'm sleeping in the root cellar?"
"What is it with you and adding imaginary levels to my house?"
A shrug - his eyes sparkled. "Are you sure there aren't any torture chambers? Or are you going to push me into an oven and try to eat me?"
"Of course there's a torture chamber, what kind of a place do you think this is? But it's on the main floor." She smirked, then stepped back so he could come into the house proper.
Grazing her shoulder with his as he squeezed in and eased his bag onto the floor, he turned and put his hands on his hips. "Home sweet home. How 'bout the grand tour? I had to promise Mam you weren't moving me out to Scotland."
An involuntary shiver went through her as his body touched hers, still finding their bodies in close proximity new and definately exciting. Shaking it off, she followed him and took his hand, picking up his bag with the other. "Well, this is the living room, which you've been in. You know Phee." She gestured to Kirley's nanny, who smiled at him before returning to her tidying of the toys that scattered the floor. She tugged his hand, leading him down the hallway. "Kitchen, you've seen, Kirley's room, he's shown you, Moody's room, don't think he wants anyone touring. And..." she stopped in front of her doorway, situated at the end of the hallway after the bathroom. "Well, I guess this is us."
With one brow arched, he swiftly bent low and gathered her in his arms. Nudging the door open with his hip, he brought them both inside and grinned. "Through the threshold."
She let his bag drop as he swooped her up, laughing despite the shock of being whisked up--she wasn't used to men being powerful enough to manhandle her. "Oh god, don't tell me you're proposing, that would be too much for one week." She said as her lips met his neck for the barest of kisses.
"Not this week," he teased, sliding over to drop the both of them on the bed in the centre of the room. A laugh escaped him - with everything left to do, with everything in danger, he couldn't help but feel as though this moment here was sweet and good and right. And he loved her for it - he loved her, utterly.
She rolled to her side and curled against him, pressing her face into his chest to inhale his scent. She was overwhelmed anew with the depth of her feelings for him, she was certain then that this was the best and most right decision she had ever made in her life. She probably would marry him if he asked her, despite every reasonable argument against it. There was simply no logic that could be applied to the way she felt. Lifting her face, she kissed the cleft of his chin and raised her eyes to his. "Hello."
"Fancy seeing you here," he breathed, pressing his lips to her forehead and gathering her close - even closer - to him. "Thank you for asking me to live with you."
"Thank you for saying yes." She shivered again at the feeling of his breath on her skin. She had always been sexual, but she was beginning to fear that when it came to him, she was down-right insatiable.
With her here, so close to him, he knew that he needed to tell her about the 31st, about the curse they would be staging - and about the steps he would take to make sure it didn't work.
"Meg, we need to talk about the Masquerade ..."
"Really?" She asked, her face showing a fair amount of disbelief. Not that she thought they would get into too compromising a position in the middle of the day with her brother and nanny down the hall, but she thought she might at least get some knee-melting kisses in. Rolling onto her back, she feigned dejection. "Go on."
He palmed her stomach, raising upon his elbow to catch her gaze, displaying the gravity of his thoughts toward what they were about to go through. "I want to talk you through that curse - and the counter-curse."
She turned her head to look him fully in the face, serious now that he was so serious. One hand came to rest ontop of his, tips of her fingers stroking the back of his hand lightly. "Alright."
"It's complicated, of course - and it involves the spilling of the caster's blood, as well as quite a few other components, to work properly. The tips of his fingers slid from beneath hers and lightly grazed her temple - "If someone who is Portkeyed in recognises it immediately - you'll feel it here, first. Almost - and this is a stupid comparison but bear with me - like you'd eaten too much ice cream, too quickly."
Pausing to gather his own thoughts - he hated to think of this - he continued. "It will honestly be just like frost-bite, but quick and much more vicious. I need you to know this because if you feel it, I want you to initiate the counter curse. And I will finish it."
Her brow knit in concentration as she listened to his description of the curse, not even registering acknowledgement when he touched her face. This type of magic, this side of her power and the power of everyone she knew, always made her feel intensely uneasy--it seemed like a wicked perversion of a beautiful gift. "Okay."
The palm of his hand fell against her cheek. "I am asking this of you because I think you can handle it - I trust you, and I don't want you in any undue danger." There was irony, there was. "It's simple, really. We're going to put a small, sharp piece of granite in your hands when we bind you up. All it needs is a drop - just a drop - of your blood. And then I'll finish it - if it comes to that."
She did smirk at that, appreciating the irony. It was a risk she was willing to take, however, for acheiving some sort of victory. "What do you have to do?"
"I have to make one of them - Pure of blood and all that lot - eat it."
"I'm sorry. What?"
" ... I have to shove the stone down their throat."
She raised a hand and pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut as she did. Well. "That...well, that is something."
"There's a bit of Pictish to go with it, but it doesn't bear saying," he said, turning upon the bed so that he could bury his face in the hollow of her neck and wrap himself around her, as if by doing so, he could shield her from the harsh reality he just brought into her house.
He was certainly skilled at blocking out the world when she needed him to. Her fingers twisted into his hair as she closed her eyes, giving denial through ignoring that particular reality a try. "My love." Her words were murmered into his ear, her tone possessive.
"Yours," he breathed back into her neck, smiling as he did so. "Even in your house and everything, all yours."
"Ours." She corrected him, her expression tender as she lifted his face to look at her. "Our house, our life, our...family." She finished after a hesitation, though there was an underlying question in her words.
"I would like that," came out soft, brimming with all the meaning he could muster. If they were going to do this - if they were going to risk him - they might as well go all in.
Her mouth swooped down to meet his, though her kiss was probably lacking in an element of sexiness from her bright, unstoppable smile. "I love you, I love you, I love you." She said between kisses.
"I love you too," he managed, between her kisses and the ineffable joy of hearing her speak those words. He would pray, he decided, to anything that would listen. He would pray that this happiness could last. His heart couldn't stand breaking again.
Her lips met his ear and she bit down playfully, arms wrapping around his neck. She would hold onto him as tightly as she could, and somehow, they would make this work, they would find their little plot of happiness. "Sweetheart."