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Tweak says, "Oshifer I'm not drunk!"

Jaime Davies (monologuinghero) wrote in expresslogs,
@ 2012-08-22 21:55:00

Entry tags:

jaime dorny, {james potter

To Learn a Lesson
Characters: Jaime, James
When: 8:00 AM
Location: chance car
Warnings/Rating: None anticipated
Summary: Jaime is taking lessons
Status: Closed ongoing

Sometimes she wondered if Lily would take issue with her hanging out with James, but she guessed Lily wasn't really like that. Not that she'd have a leg to stand on if she did. Mostly, Jaime was trying to ignore that whole side of things. Lily didn't bring it up, and Jaime was content to let sleeping dogs lie. It was weird, and she could get it. If she got married in her future, and her husband (whoever he was) showed up to find her with Ray ... well, it'd be awkward. It wasn't the same, she knew that -- whoever her husband would be, wouldn't be Ray's rival. Or whatever. But the point was, it was close enough, and she could get it.

Shaking off those thoughts and finishing off her breakfast of PopTarts snagged on her way through the kitchen, Jaime leaned on the door of the back car. She really wished there was a way to just make it be what they wanted it to be on the first go, but she guessed she wouldn't be too picky. Anything that looked biggish, mostly empty, and without a lot of things she could break would be fine.

Wondering if she should wait for him or just get started, Jaime listened to what she could hear between the cars before she turned to open the door. What met her eyes was something not unlike what she guessed the training rooms from Panem to look like. "Pass," she muttered as she closed the door again. Half a dozen tries later, she'd lit on a suitable room. It was vaguely dungeony or cave-like, but there was light, and it was cool, and she figured it was as good a place as any to start. She guessed if it didn't suit James, she'd let him have a go at trying to make the room work.

Propping the door open behind herself, Jaime wandered in (stifling a yawn) to wait for James to show up.

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mapmaker
2012-09-06 05:41 am UTC (link)

There was something really humorous in the idea of Jaime lurking around as a tiny old man while stalking some random, faceless bloke. James didn't laugh, but he did manage a smile at it. He had a feeling that she was a lot more fearless than most witches if she was the type to polyjuice herself to hunt criminals and actually go about doing it rather than merely talking on it in principle.

"I've not met many animagi at all," James admitted, "I have read their registry. It wasn't acquired through the proper channels, but it was up-to-date and I did get a chance to read it over to see what sorts of creatures were on file. There were some you'd not imagine, too. Did you know that someone can actually turn themselves into a turtle? You were joking before, but truly! There was one on file! I'm almost positive."

He wasn't sure what it said about him that he was relieved to think that they could wait on testing his skills at people shifting. Transfiguration was nearly as natural to him as breathing, yet it wasn't at all the same when it came to shifting a sentient being rather than an animal or an object. James had done it, but he hadn't really tried to push himself and he hadn't pushed for much of anything except defensive magic since leaving school. The war effort took most of his energies simply trying to come up with things that could help keep his friends alive.

James thought fondly of his own wand back on his nightstand, "I do hope I get mind some day. It's back on my bedside table. Patiently waiting on me to wake up to remember it's there. I keep hoping I'll have a lie down on the train and wake up to find it next to me as if I'd only forgotten I had it with me the whole time. Silly, but isn't this entire place? We're all little off around here, as I see it. It's a survival instinct."

It was something to think on. He hadn't yet checked out a lot of the offerings in the library. For all he knew, there might well be some books he could actually use to help Jaime with her transformation process.

"You know, I think I will check out the library some time. I've not looked about in there as yet. There could be something to help. You're right enough we've time to think it over. We could work at this for a bit. It'll pass the time. Want to say we'll try for something new once a week or so? Set up a regular thing to keep on track? We worked every day in school, but we were held at wandpoint there. Every day we waited was another that Moony was out there alone. Here, there's no real rush except my intense curiosity to see how you'll look as a wee white bird of peace," he teased softly.

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monologuinghero
2012-09-06 10:19 pm UTC (link)

“I wouldn’t want to be one, but … I’m not surprised. I wonder if there’s anything you can’t be. Like, can you turn yourself into a unicorn? A real one? Or a dragon? It would kind of suck if you turned yourself into a goldfish …” She turned to regard him. “Were there goldfish?” She was a little curious how they’d gotten ahold of the registry, but … maybe it was best she didn’t know.

She shook her head. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Just like I wouldn’t be surprised to find one of my actual spares from home under my pillow or something.” She shrugged. Most people did get their wands who’d shown up without. Sooner or later. “Then again, Hermione had one of my spares for months before hers deigned to show,” she reflected. “Wasn’t even a decently fair trade. That was how I got Bellatrix’s wand. The wand that bit me,” Jaime added before heaving an exaggerated sigh.

“There’s a girl here. Juliet St. Laurent. If there’s a book on this train about that, she’ll find it. That’s her … um. Mutation. She finds things, And she really doesn’t mind being asked. We even escorted her out into zombies to find weapons. So finding a book on a train will be a cakewalk.” And if there wasn’t one, no harm, no foul.

Jaime nodded. “I can probably manage an hour a week,” she agreed with a slight grin. Why not? It wasn’t like she had any self-appointed duties like some of the others. She just … hung out with Ray or wandered the train or read. So why not do something that might end up being useful? She did, however, stick her tongue out at his teasing. “Blah blah, Potter. If I’m a bird, I’m so perching on your antlers,” she playfully threatened him.

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mapmaker
2012-09-10 09:17 pm UTC (link)

The idea of Jaime as a tiny bird perching on his antlers was enough to have James laughing as he shook his head at her. She was incorrigible. He had a feeling that fellow of hers had his work cut out with him simply keeping up and that was a thought wasn't it? James had never been with a girl long enough to have to worry about seeing to her needs as much as his own or ensuring she wasn't mad enough to agree to let rogue wizards turn her into whatever animals they could manage on the fly with a borrowed wand. That was a definite plus to think on as a single bloke: he'd only himself to worry over, didn't he?

"You'd find yourself with a very unsteady ground to be clinging to if you perched on my head. I can't hardly keep still when I change. The world seems too much larger. Everything seems to be waiting on me and I do hate waiting. All I want to do is run. You'd wind up having to hang on tight with your little feet if you were to catch a ride with me," he teased back, knowing good and well he'd likely let her get away with it without a fuss anyway.

James had grown used to the idea that there were others on the train who were different from wizardkind, but a mutation that let someone find things? What sort of mutation was that? Who even had mutations? The idea seemed bizarre to him as the only "mutations" he'd ever read over had been in Muggle novels that Sirius had brought in to annoy his family. The Blacks had such a blatant hatred of anything Muggle-made that it had become Sirius's favorite thing in the world to immerse himself in Muggle culture to the point at which he had spread it about all of Gryffindor Tower. James had read more Muggle novels and listened to more Muggle music than he had wizarding since he was in first year.

Cocking his head at Jaime, he asked her, "Are you sure that Juliet won't mind helping me comb the library over for a book ? It's not as if I'm asking her to brave zombies like you lot did. Which was likely quite cruel of you. I'll have you know I went out into that mess and it was all I could do not to worry for my own safety much less imagine going out into it without the benefit of a wand to defend myself with. I'm trying not to overly bother the folk about here even though I am about to lose my mind with boredom some days and it's all I can do not to simply transfigure legs onto every piece of furniture about to see which of them are the quickest in a foot race."

That idea had actually taken James a solid day to shake off because it had been funny enough to set him grinning idiotically at nothing. In spite of all the circumstances he'd encountered on the train to date, James really wasn't too bothered by the entire experience of being aboard. It was safer than the war. Lily was safe. Sirius was safe. Harry---Harry existed. That was enough there. He could say that he was fine with being aboard under the circumstances.

"At any rate, I'm thinking we'll set ourselves up to see one another on Wednesdays perhaps? It's midweek. Gives you time to recover from me either direction, yeah?"

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monologuinghero
2012-09-10 11:23 pm UTC (link)

"I could do it," Jaime replied, her lips pursing before she grinned. "Geeze, now I almost want to turn into a bird just to prove I could do it." Except ... not quite that badly. Not enough to want to commit to a bird-shape, anyway. Not that there was anything wrong with being a bird ... but she was already ridiculously small and she'd rather be something ... larger as an animal.

Which of course meant she was going to land up as a bunny or chipmunk or something. Pulling a slight face at her thoughts, Jaime rolled her shoulders. There probably wasn't any point in worrying about it, anyway. At the rate she was going, it was years down the line.

"Hah," Jaime replied when he commented about Juliet. "I'm sure she'd prefer tracking down a book on the train to tracking down weapons in a land full of demonic zombies when she's almost the only one in the group that can't pop off on her own." Ray couldn't, of course, but there was absolutely no question who would have a hand on him to escape when danger popped up. "It really was. We're very abusive when it comes to using people for the good of the population on the train." Though she grinned like she was teasing, there was a kernel of truth. Oh, they wouldn't have made her if she really didn't want to go, or if Alex had had extreme protests.

"She took off in Nebraska to go ... rescue a kidnap victim. Just with John, so pretty much on her own, but all we were contending with there were ... um. Corpses. Or a virus. Depending on how you looked at it."

Jaime grinned at his comment. "Sirius and I -- the first one -- set things on the train to singing. Then we're pretty sure the train took over because things we hadn't charmed were singing songs we didn't know." Jaime shrugged, but ... it had been mostly fun. Not quite as fun when people were getting irritated with it and looking for people to blame, but ... still mostly fun.

She laughed quietly at his suggestion. "I see my fake calendar system has caught on," Jaime teased. But that was why they'd done it to begin with, wasn't it? So people could have days. Sure, there was no year, and people's birthdays could be off by real!months, but ... it was some solid point of reference. Maybe the next time they landed somewhere safe, she'd get a bunch more calendars to charm to stick in the baggage car. "But sure. Fake Wednesdays work for me."

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mapmaker
2012-09-11 12:15 am UTC (link)

"Oy! I like our fake days. Train time is quite nice. For all I know, today is actually a Monday and I'm only thinking it's a Wednesday so it's changed my entire perception about to where I quite enjoy the day as I wouldn't normally. Have always hated Mondays, myself, nothing good ever happens on a Monday. At least not in my experience."

Some people might not have been as amused by the idea of having no definite timeline for anything. James thought it was all a bit of a lark really since he had no reason to worry over what he was missing at home or how long it'd take him to get there. As far as he knew, the time that he spent on the train was negligible. Everyone who had spoken with him on the topic had told him that the ones who'd left and returned had no memories of being missing or of being on the train in some cases. It seemed as if the train were its own world with its own rules: an unplottable fixed in a stranger's pensieve where time was happening for those inside the bowl yet not changing or happening outside it wherever the pensieve happened to actually exist.

It didn't worry him in the least that they might be meeting up on a Monday when they were calling it a Wednesday; the idea of getting to walk about in the future filled him with nothing more than excitement. James was trying to make the most of the strange circumstances he'd landed himself in. There was no reason to think on what wouldn't happen for him here or what might not ever happen for him as he'd been here. He knew there were things -death and love, for example- that made their own rules outside the control of man no matter how much a man might want to be able to convince them to go along with his own desires.

James scrubbed a hand over his head, tousling his hair out of habit more than anything else, as he offered her a smile to go along with his agreement, "I seem to have no problem believing you'd have gotten Sirius to go along with something of that sort. He's the type to have done it to drive everyone mad as much as for his own amusement. He's worse than I am when it comes to being easily distracted. I swear to you, Jaime, the longer I talk to you, the more out of my element I feel. I've always been a bit of an off thinker. I suppose it's the only real skill I've got to offer. I keep thinking eventually I'll be of use around here. So. As it stands. I suppose that for now, it's animagus lessons with you of a Fake Wednesday and hopefully I'm going to be able to convince the doubtlessly lovely Juliet to lend me a hand finding some texts to help in that process along the way. Between you and I, I'm personally hoping you turn into something dead useful like a homing pigeon. You could simply sense our way along or something. I don't recall anyone turning into anything wildly out of the ordinary such as a unicorn or a dragon, but I don't recall any goldfish either. I imagine whatever you wind up as will be some use to you, but think on how nice it would be to have built in sonar as it were. "

He couldn't quite keep back a quiet snicker at the thought of that. It had honestly surprised James himself that he hadn't turned into something with wings on his own. He'd always loved to fly and he was very good at it. Flight had come naturally to him, but, evidently, that hadn't mattered much in the end because he'd landed up as a large animal whose four hooves were always planted quite firmly on the ground. That hadn't stopped James from trying to race fast enough to feel like he was flying, of course, yet it was never the same as actual flight. He already envied Jaime the possibility of wings though he knew that it was a toss-up as to whether she'd wind up with them or not.

"Thanks, Jaime. For the distraction. And I suppose for the purpose, eh? It's nice to feel I'm somewhat useful even if it's only to you."

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monologuinghero
2012-09-11 12:40 am UTC (link)

"It's a Monday for someone in some reality," Jaime assured him solemnly before she grinned and shook her head. "Tuesdays are it for me. Mondays ... I never had a problem with Mondays. But Tuesdays?" She arched her brows and exhaled softly. "Well, I guess my week was just on a lag and I got all the leftover Monday gunk on Tuesday." She paused reflectively. "Or maybe it was my tendency to sleep through Monday that got me in so much hot water on Tuesday ..."

She arched her brows at his comment. "What makes you think it was my idea?" In all honesty, she couldn't really remember which of them had started it. The odds were good it had been something born mutually between them out of a combination of boredom and a desire to stir things up on the train. "It was so small back then," she reflected. "When we did that, there were maybe thirty people all together. We've got like, four times that now."

A soft snort escaped her as he mentioned her turning into something useful. But ... it wasn't like she disagreed. Well, she disagreed about the pigeon part, but ... other animals could be useful. And it might not be horrible to be a bat ... But if she ever got that far, she guessed she'd just be pleased she'd managed the transformation at all. At least now she had something to work toward.

"Sure thing," she replied. "And thanks for the teaching," she added, sucking in her cheeks to curb the worst of her grin.

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