WHO: Francine Goldstein & Rolf Scamander. WHAT: Francine puts their feud on hold to help him prepare against Graham. Things don't go well. WHEN: 1 January 2018, morning. WHERE: Rolf's flat, Knockturn Alley.
Thanks to some handy charms, the box Francine was carrying was light in her arms. It was a good thing too, because she had stashed all of her traps and obstacles in the box and when they were all together, they were very heavy. She felt a little hesitation as she packed them up, but if there was any good cause she could donate them towards, it was to protect Rolf from Graham. Thus, with little complaint (except for the time she stubbed her toe on the miniature train set (thankfully avoiding the mechanism that would've launched a net at her)), she trudged over to Rolf's and slammed her fist against the door.
"It's just me," she yelled, "Open your door please!"
A very pale Rolf opened the door, squinting at Francine with bleary eyes. He was wearing light blue pajamas patterned with hippogriffs, pressing a cool compress to his forehead, and wondering why Francine was here when it was so early. A moment later, he realized it wasn’t so early at all — he was just hungover.
“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice rough. He stepped aside so Francine could enter the flat, then closed the door by leaning against it. “Has something happened?”
"Yes," Francine answered dramatically, sweeping inside and slamming her box onto a table. "Something very terrible has happened and it was necessary to put a hiatus in our feud to fix it. We may resume feuding after this!" She began to unpack the items from inside the box, letting them stack up on each other.
Rolf winced as he rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. His head was pounding and Francine was the human manifestation of an exclamation point. “What’s happened? Did someone send you another boggart?” Then, as if he had only just noticed the growing pile of stuff on his kitchen table, he looked at Francine in alarm. “What is all this?”
"This is the something terrible that's happened!"
She declared, finally reaching the end of the box and upending it entirely to make sure all of the smaller items didn't stay inside. "Well, not really, but it's the solution to the something terrible! I can't believe we've left it so late. Thank Merlin he didn't try anything in the meantime." That we know of, she added inwardly, thinking it best not to worry Rolf with that just yet. Francine finally turned to Rolf, taking in his, quite frankly, terrible appearance. "Quite frankly," she started, once she finished her onceover. "You look terrible."
“I went out drinking with Robinet,” he groaned, clearly regretting his decision to have more than two drinks. Rolf raked a hand through his hair before his attention snapped back to the pile on the table. “I still don’t understand what all this is and — wait, who do you think is going to try something?”
She rolled her eyes at the explanation. Of course. "That was your first mistake. You should never have agreed. But anyways." Francine clapped her hands together and gestured to the table of trinkets. "Your friend — excuse me, ex friend, I hope," (said with a not-altogether insignificant glare), "Graham the DEATH EATER will probably try to attack you! So we have to prevent that immediately."
Rolf stared at Francine, his bemusement plainly written on his face. “What are you talking about? Why would Graham attack me?”
Francine stared back. "He's a Death Eater, Rolf," she said derisively. "Why wouldn't he attack you?"
“He has no reason to attack me,” was Rolf’s flat reply, fighting back an eye roll as he eyed Francine’s “solution” pile. He laughed as he plucked an innocuous looking brown bear from the table, delicately holding it up by one of its legs. “This is supposed to help me against a Death Eater?”
"I'd watch how you hold that," she warned. Picking it up by the leg was fine, but it was iffy the closer one got to its head. "There's a knife in there. And of course there's a reason. You're not a Death Eater. That's reason enough for people like him!"
“There’s a — okay.” The bear found its way back atop the pile, which Rolf was now mistrustfully squinting at. “I don’t think I need to worry about Graham,” he said, straightening up to his full height as he puffed out his chest. “I can take care of myself.”
The look Francine sent Rolf was patronizing and skeptical. It was nice that he thought he could. "I'm sure you can," she said very sweetly. "But you didn't even think he was a Death Eater."
For one brief moment, Rolf looked stung by his cousin’s words. But the moment quickly passed, and his expression settled into one of skepticism. “How is any of this supposed to help me? Robin put new wards up and I have a lot of, you know, roommates.”
As if on cue, a tiny half Kneazle kitten padded into the room, quietly mewling for attention.
“Roommates that are more intimidating than that one.”
“You can never be too safe, Rolf,” Francine admonished, before picking up the kitten and letting it sit on her shoulder. “Did you know I spent two hours trying to find the bath mat that acts as a catapult for you? Two hours!”
Rolf muttered a barely audible oy vey before forcing himself to flash Francine an appreciative smile. “I’m very grateful, Francine.” He reached over to scratch behind the kitten’s ears. “So what did you bring me?”
“You better be grateful,” she said, allowing herself to smile at him. She had declared the hiatus in their feuding, so a smile was okay. Returning the kneazle back to Rolf, Francine turned to the table and started pointing out her gifts. There were a number of stuffed animals with various knives hidden inside them, the lamp that shot bleach if broken, the alarm clock that doubled as a smoke bomb, and the air freshener that wasn’t an air freshener. Beyond those, she was rather proud of the umbrella that hid a harpoon and she couldn’t forget about the remote that released a cage from the ceiling. She would have to install the cage but that wouldn’t take more than an hour.
By the time Francine finished identifying everything, Rolf’s eyebrows were practically to his hairline. Silence settled between them as he struggled to absorb all this new information, a feat that seemed impossible between his headache and the sheer number of traps Francine had brought. He cradled the kitten to his chest, and she purred softly as he tried to think of the right thing to say.
Finally: “Wow! I don’t really know what to say, Francine.”
Her response was another smile, more self-satisfied this time. “A thank you would do the trick. I removed them all from my place so if I die, at least you’ll be safe.” There was nothing like a little guilt to prove a point. What the point was, unfortunately, she had lost in the meantime, but it didn’t matter.
“Thank you, I really appreciate all this. But,” Rolf added with a frown, “I don’t know if I feel comfortable accepting this if you’re going to be defenseless. You should at least keep the cage!”
“But the cage is the best part! Imagine him breaking in and stepping on the remote!” She slammed her hand against the little bit of space left on the table, where it sent a loud, sharp sound into the air. “The cage falls down and traps him and then I’ll have gotten the alert so I enter and arrest him!”
Rolf blinked. “I’m supposed to leave the remote in the middle of the floor?” There was a slight pause before he quickly tacked on, “And what happens after you arrest him?”
“Only in this specific scenario. I think it’d be funnier if he literally walked right into the trap himself.” Francine spared a moment to chuckle over the image. It was TOO good, honestly. She faltered at his next question. “Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Francine,” was all Rolf could bring himself to say at first, shaking his head as he knelt down and let the kitten drop down to the floor. Straightening up, he focused his attention on the traps on his table. He reached out to grab a stuffed niffler, then reconsidered, using his wand to slowly levitate some of the items back into the box.
“I think you should keep half,” he told her, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief as the bleach lamp vanished into the box. “I want you to be safe too.”
"I am safe," Francine said earnestly, as she watched the items return to the box. "I'm very busy making new traps and I'm very intimidating." She wanted to add that she didn't have any friends that were DEATH EATERS, but felt that Rolf had got the message by now, HOPEFULLY.
“If you keep some of these, you won’t have to make as many traps,” Rolf explained, gesturing toward the box. “That’s more time you can dedicate to The Seeing Eye.”
She took another look at the box of traps and frowned. Francine was fond of all of them and it had taken her a long time to make them in the first place. But then again, she'd brought them all over for a reason. "Making traps refreshes my mind while I think of blog content! Don't worry!"
“I don’t need all of them,” Rolf insisted, heaving the box up and holding it out for Francine. “I would sleep better knowing you were guarded from Graham and the rest of them.”
"I would sleep better knowing you were guarded from them," Francine said, a stubborn edge in her voice and in the way she pushed the box back towards Rolf. She was older and it was her job to make sure that he was safe, NOT the other way around.
“Francine, come on,” Rolf replied, shoving the box back toward his cousin. “I don’t need a bleach lamp!”
"That bleach lamp could save your life," she said, offended at his insult. It was one of her best innovations.
“The bleach lamp isn’t going to save me from Graham Montague!”
Her reply, like her shove back at the box was instantaneous. "Of course it is! What if you were alone with him and he was going to kill you and all you had was the bleach lamp? You can break it on his head!"
“In what world would this actually happen?” Rolf retorted, his exasperation obvious as he pushed the box at Francine with an air of finality. This time, however, something in the box shifted and smashed, and the sound of glass breaking stopped Rolf from continuing. “What—” was all he managed to say before streams of bleach shot out of the box.
Panicked, he dropped the box and ran for cover.
Her command to "duck!" barely left her mouth before the bleach made its move, landing on the ceiling as she waddled away as fast as she could. After a minute or so of staring at the ceiling, Francine stood up and brushed her clothes off. "See how effective that is?"
Rolf remained in a crouch by the kitchen counter, but he shot his cousin a very unimpressed look. “I want all of this out of my flat, Francine.”
Francine's face underwent a cycle of reactions: first, offense, second, anger, third, offense again, fourth, determined anger. Crouching down to throw some of the items that had fallen out, she directed most of her speech to the box, although it was obviously meant for Rolf. "I just wanted you to stay alive but I should've known better!" With the last of items packed into the box (a thermos that was most likely just a normal thermos, now that she thought about it), she stood back to her full height and turned her nose up at Rolf. "See if I ever help you again."
Rolf wasn’t very good at being angry. As he looked at Francine, he could feel the initial burst of anger waning, already outmatched by the wave of guilt he felt. “I didn’t mean — I mean, maybe I can keep the alarm clock smoke bomb?” he suggested as he straightened up, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.
"If you don't want it, I won't force you to keep it," she said stiffly, hugging the box closer. Francine kept her head high as she made to leave. She had thought that Rolf would welcome it entirely and allow her to set everything up, but if he was going to be like that, then she wouldn't bother staying. She stomped past him and with one hand on the door knob, she looked back and said, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice, "Have a great day, Rolf."