lila bard (lysandras) wrote in epiloguesic, @ 2015-05-07 09:27:00 |
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This time of the day when the sun was growing tired Borgin & Burkes lacked for customers. Ella had worked in the shoppe ever since she was old enough to fetch objects without touching the cursed parts, and its natural rhythms were familiar to her. There was always one or two significant customers early in the morning; they always looked hungry, as if they had stayed up most of the evening thinking of what they would purchase as soon as the sign in the window shimmered from 'Closed' to 'Open'. Women and children too young for Hogwarts usually appeared after lunchtime, and they never purchased much but browsed, their eyes ticking over each bottled offering. Sometimes it was society women who came; Ella always hated that. She wasn't ashamed of working, but there was something so unnatural about standing servile behind a counter to a witch her social equal that she loathed. The best customers came in the evenings. That was when deals went down, when bargains were made, when the night's shadows covered the most unsavory of dealings. Ella had perfected her innocent face long before, and now she gave the impression of utter unknowing naivity - of course someone would buy a cursed locket for a conversation piece. Naturally a poison ring would be the talk of tea rather than something anyone would put into use. Strange how a book banned by the Ministry for its dark magical instructions should suddenly be available on the shelf; now where had it come from? Well, it's frightening, better you take it off my hands... But it wasn't night just yet, and so the store was quiet. She'd done inventory already, and had let Edward leave early. The girls were with their grandmother, of course; while Ella might have climbed over restricted texts before she was more than knee-high, she did not want the same for her daughters. She made scrawling notes in the margins of her accounting book, quill scratching deep into the parchment. The recent broadcasts - and interruptions to the broadcasts - had shaken her, had given the rage she concealed a waking poke. The world still was not right. |