WHO: Richenza Selwyn WHAT: Dastardly deeds. WHEN: November 16, late morning WHERE: A coffee shop
The bell above the door rang cheerfully as Richenza pushed the door open to step inside.
“Welcome!” a smiling girl from behind the counter called out, her eyes locking with Richenza’s briefly before she returned her attention to the customer before her. ‘Angela!’ her nametag exclaimed, a matching smiling face perched right behind the exclamation mark.
Richenza was about to wipe the smile from Angela!’s face.
Roger Davies was, she was sure, a darling boy. She remembered him from Hogwarts even. Who could forget the beautiful Fleur Delacour’s escort to the Yule Ball? She would never ever admit it, especially now, but she’d been briefly tempted to fill Roger’s shoes that year. It didn’t matter that she and the partial veela didn’t get along all that well. Sometimes not liking the person one wanted was more fun than liking them.
But that was beside the point.
What Richenza didn’t remember about Roger Davies was what big balls he had. Signing that silly pointless show of support for the Muggleborns when it had so obviously been too late was strike one against him. Strike two was not learning his lesson after the dead Keeper and the inferi interruption. And then she’d bided her time, learned a thing or two about him.
This coffee shop, for instance. It was his favorite.
The shop was nearly empty, save Richenza and the customer in front of her. She had done her homework, sussed out the shop’s lulls and which barista Roger saw the most. Angela regularly liked his posts on Wiztagram and had hooted once about how fit she thought he was. She’d watched Roger interact with her once, even, hidden behind a Daily Prophet at the corner table. It had been terribly sweet.
Once the other customer was gone, Richenza stepped up to the counter and gave Angela a smile. “If I order the pumpkin spice, will you think I’m horrifically basic?”
Angela laughed. “Of course not!”
“Small, then. On ice.”
“Coming right up!”
As the bell above the door rang cheerfully on Richenza’s exit, she heard Angela call out, “Raul! I’m taking a smoke break!”
Richenza smiled around her straw, the cat about to eat her canary.
The alley behind the coffee shop smelled, predictably, of coffee and stale cigarettes and Richenza’s heels echoed off the brick. Clearly startled, Angela choked on an inhale and coughed as she regarded Richenza warily, who merely took a calm sip of her latte. Raspily, she asked, “Did you, uh, need something?”
“You know,” Richenza replied with a pleasant smile, raising her wand from where she’d hidden it in the folds of her skirt and pointing it at the barista, “I do need something.”