Adelaide Riley Quinn (ohriley) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2008-05-02 00:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1979-05] may, adelaide quinn |
Who: Riley and Open (or not. It could be a standalone narrative if no one's around.)
Where: The pile of rubble that used to be Diagon Alley
When: May 2, 1979 - 3:00 am in the morning
Summary: Something cheesy, like the seeds of self-doubt are sown or something. More accurately: too much stress from work + an unresponsive Joanie + a generally unresponsive brain + a Diagon Alley attack = Riley being a little more than shocked.
Rating: PG
Three am: She was tired.
Isn’t that a bit odd to even fathom? Riley Quinn, tired? The girl was pretty much infamous for wicked all nighters. The Ministry folk seemed inclined to imagine she was something like fairy or a nymph—they had hardly ever seen her rest, let alone sleep. She was that strange fairylike workaholic that lived in the basements with whatever odd experiments went on down there. Perhaps her famous faint pallor was attributable to the lack of sunlight there. Or perhaps the notions of her being a mysterious figure in the Ministry was simply a figment of an overactive and hopeful imagination.
No.
She shook her head. Why was she getting off the point? Why was she doing so much to avoid the flimsy piece of parchment—such a pathetic piece, really, so useless and bland and boring and filled with words and too easily imprintable in her mind. Too easily remembered. Snap. A picture taken by the camera lenses of her eyes, and there! That which was Riley’s greatest point of smugness, her greatest piece of vanity became her downfall.
Why was she so shocked? Why was she so unnerved by this? And why was she so tired? Wasn’t this uncharacteristic of her? Hadn’t she had such an easy-going personality that could take this all in in a simple stride?
No—the war was hitting too close to home, too close for comfort. She donned a cloak, and planting a small kiss on the corner of Joanie’s tank (by the by, another point of frustration, as ever since Rookwood demanded a “cleaning” of her tank Joanie had taken a dip for the worse, taking Riley’s own capacity for tolerance down with it) left the premises of the Ministry (She would often imagine her own sound effects with this, with many awestricken onlookers gazing at this amazing girl.).
Three fifteen am: Standing in the middle of the Atrium. Why was it called the Atrium anyways? In Muggle Literature, the Atrium was a type of heart chamber, for Merlin’s sake!
There was no one there—obviously, it was three in the goddamn-fucking night—or was it morning? Perhaps the receptionist was still around—no doubt, nodding off—and Riley found herself in near complete isolation, a quiet, resounding isolation that seemed to scream.
Three twenty am: Standing in front of the elevators, half considering returning to Level Nine.
Three twenty-one am: Pacing in front of the elevators.
Three twenty-five am: Pacing in the entire Atrium.
Three thirty am: Dancing in the Atrium—(it could make a decent ball room one day, yes, she should hold a ball here for the Minis--)
Three thirty-one am--
She gritted her teeth and stormed to one of the fireplaces, taking an overly large and unnecessary amount of floo powder into her right hand while the clench on that stupid, oh-so-pathetic piece of parchment with an article written by an even stupider woman with such a pansylike name (Come on, Pinkstone?) and Merlin she wanted to throw the damn paper in the fire and watch all the information burn with it.
The fire was blazing with a ravenous green and she realized that she had no idea where exactly her destination was. St. Mungo’s? No—actually seeing the victims and casualties might bear too much stress for her mind. Home? No—perhaps, Ally was home already—perhaps they could…talk?—no, she wanted to be alone—as if she weren’t alone enough already.
The next words she thought were the words she spoke: “Diagon Alley,” she said while tossing the parchment into the fire in hopes of watching it burn and die. She too stepped in the fire, hopefully not burning nor dying.
It was a work of wry irony when she stepped out of the fireplace into a pile of rubble, with that copy of the Prophet she tried to burn flying out with her—what a fool she could be sometimes! Of course it wouldn’t burn, it would merely arrive at the same fucking destination.
Perhaps stress and general frustration in work were the two main causes for her earlier distress, but this—this widespread destruction hit her, and it hit her hard. So did the foolish buffoon of a Ministry Official who came by and demanded for authentication to be here or something foolish of the sort. Merlin, she was an Unspeakable! Didn’t she deserve more respect than this?
Of course the man was dissuaded by both her badge and her snarling glare, but all three soon disappeared from view when she stumbled through three forty am Diagon Alley—or rather, a pile of rubble? Those crack smokers had seriously hit it hard. She groaned—why were so many wizards so inclined to take psychoactive drugs? Where did the days of peace go? Clearly such destruction and devastation could only stem from stupid narcotics that ruined people’s minds.
To the right she saw the demolished Post Office. Hadn’t once upon a time—no, not too long ago she had run around there playing and being utterly fascinated with the owls? Hadn’t a young Adelaide Quinn once dragged her parents in there by the robe sleeve and demanded for an owl of her own? Her eyes fell upon the Rolling Pin. Wasn’t there a baker there, a kind elderly woman that once snuck her a free roll?
Oh Merlin, Rile, you sound like those pansy records on the stupid Monday afternoon dramas on the tube, with your crack-tarded hadn’t and has-beens and what-ifs and holy crap why the fuck are you standing in the middle of a demolition zone at three in the morning?