benjy fenwick is romania. (marshwick) wrote in crossfire, @ 2012-05-24 17:13:00 |
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Peggy Smith was a woman of routines. She would always put her slippers on before putting her feet out of the bed. She would always drink a cup of tea – semi-skimmed milk, two sugars, brewed for precisely five minutes – at 7am each morning, before her two slices of toast with orange rindless marmalade. And she would always shoo the men out of her life before they outstayed their welcome. Previously married to the once charming, one dapper George Fenwick, and then to the eually as charming and equally as dapper Miles Whittley, followed by a string of boyfriends, teases, toyboys and squeezes, Peggy had never allowed the men in her life to get too comfortable. She had done her duty and given an heir to each of her husbands (she didn’t like to discuss her daughter from her second marriage, who hadn’t popped out with a set of family jewels as expected and had forced poor Peggy to bear the brunt of pregnancy again), but once the sons had been weaned and the fathers looked as though they could cope, she scarpered to find her independance. And she had found it in the quaint little village of Tinworth, with its neat hedges and winding side streets. It was at precisely 7am, with the sun already risen and shining proudly, that the old witch woke up and stretched long in her bed. She cast a cursory glance to the other side of the bed, where the fifty-odd year old security guard snored away, oblivious to her movements. It was about time she got rid of him, he was getting far too comfortable in her house, bringing his slippers round, hanging his coat on the same peg each time, and leaving his toothbrush in the bathroom. And it was her house, she righteously reminded herself. She had raised three children and the toll it had taken on her hips, not to mention the social horror of raising a Squib, justified the generous income support her ex-husbands paid her. Shuffling into her slippers, Peggy padded downstairs and waved her wand at the hob to start a flame flickering. Sloshing water into the kettle, she plonked it down on the stove with a hefty thud whilst reaching up into the cupboard with her other hand to retrieve her morning tea mug. It was after the tea bag had been brewing in the pot for three minutes when Peggy’s ears - ever tuned to the sound of gossip and scandal - pricked up. There was a commotion going on outside - she could hear raised voices, and the thud of something. Torn between missing a scandal, and letting her tea stew, she dithered for a minute before pulling her quilted dressing gown tighter around her, pocketing her wand and steppping outside. Expecting Mrs Beckett to be engaging in another early morning dispute over the garden fence with Mrs Freddericks, Peggy was surprised to see a crowd of hooligans jogging down her street. Tinworth was a quiet village, it certainly didn’t play host to youths in balaclavas. This would not do. This would not do at all. Adjusting the rollers wound tight into her bleach blonde hair and rolling her dressing down sleeves up, she marched forwards, ready to tell the oiks to clear off. They were waving things around - she couldn’t quite see what they were, little dark things in their hands that they gestured with. Some of them were resting baseball bats on their shoulders, whilst one leaped into Mrs Beckett’s front garden and-- Godric be sorted into Slytherin, did that youth just-- Did he just smash that window? “OI!” she yelled at the top of her voice, raising her wand arm threateningly. The gaggle of wannabe gangsters turned to look at the source of the noise, some of them changing their course to jog over towards her. Peggy stood her ground; this was her street in her village. The forefront youth lifted his arm and pointed whatever he had in his hand at her. By gum, it was a gun! Just like the one George had kept in a tin under the bed, except maybe slightly bigge-- Sleep-addled, caffiene-deprived brain kicking into gear, Peggy ducked just as the youth fired the gun, the bullet swooping over her head to embed firmly into her front door, splintering the painted wood. Mrs Beckett’s window was one thing (at least she wouldn’t have anywhere to curtain-twitch behind) but her own front door? “Heathen!” she shrieked, getting up and waving her wand around. “Vandal! Godless wretch! Stupefy!” As red light hit the armed man, so distracted by the demented screams of an old woman, he was flung backwards from the force and crumpled into an unconscious heap. The gun fell from his hand to hit the ground with such impact it fired itself, the bullet embedding itself into the calf of a masked man wielding a baseball bat. Ignoring the agonised screams of the wounded individual, Peggy flicked her wand at him. ‘Accio baseball bat!” Feeling the bat tug out of his hand, the man tightened his grip on it but a hefty push of magic from the witch snatched it clean out of his paws. It flew towards her but, instead of catching it, she slashed her wand through the air to rebound it backwards. Not expecting his own bat to come hurtling back towards him, it struck him clean in the face, knocking him to the floor. Wheeling around to face the next ski-mask clad man, she noticed that a large portion of the original group that had come over towards her were now making their way back to the street, determined to smash as many windows and throw as many flaming bottles into living rooms as possible rather than waste time with an old harpy. Let them run; she would deal with them soon enough. But she had to take care of the remaining two men, who were bearing down with planks of wood. “This won’t take long,” she warned them, a mad gleam in her eye. “I want my cup of tea.” Slashing her wand through the air with a triumphant shriek, she transfigured the blundering fool’s head into a teapot (although one ear remained, sticking out like a misshapen handle – she had never quite mastered the art of perfect transfiguration). Spinning around to face her final opponent, the dressing gown-clad witch, with velcro rollers in her hair and fluffy slippers on her feet, looked like she had stumbled straight out of the nursing home. The look on her face said otherwise. This was not a defenseless, hapless old lady who pottered about the garden. This was a territorial harpy. Levitating the heavy ceramic plant pot at the end of her garden, she waited calmly as the man approached her, wafting the plank of wood around like he was trying to swat a fly. With a dramatic fling of her arm, she sent the plant pot rushing toward his head and neatly sidestepped out of the way. Crash. The masked man toppled over, soil, roots and broken pottery covering his head and shoulders. Giving him a hefty kick in the ribs for good measure, Peggy closed her splintered door and cast a cursory locking charm over it. For once, her cup of tea would have to wait. She had heathens to stop! And by Salazar were they going to pay for disturbing her carefully planned morning routine. |