RP Log: Caoimhe and Doc Characters: Caoimhe Sullivan and Caradoc Dearborn Setting: Brookstanton Memorial Library's Periodicals department, Friday night Summary: Caoimhe and Doc get some work done, including acquiring a little extra information on Tom Riddle Rating: G!
The silence of Brookstanton Memorial Library after hours was first broken by the soft slide of paper against cardboard, then paper on vinyl: Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade slipping out of its cover. A click, and then the old speakers in the record player projecting a soft hum of magic before being interrupted by the crackle of the needle settling into the vinyl grooves.
The title track was the first one, and it would be followed by a series of other pleasantly quiet big band jazz tunes. The collection was one meant for slow-dancing, or in this case, for sifting through newspapers for any and all references to Tom Riddle and the other Death Eater suspects. Caoimhe didn't like anything on too loud in the library, but she didn't like it dead silent, either; every tiny sound was a distraction if she didn't have the music to cover it, and while she wanted to be alert, being paranoid would just slow her down too much. The Society pages were boring enough without having to find her place again every time the old building creaked.
She was glad Doc Dearborn was going to join her in the work. It had been over two weeks since she'd been attacked while leaving work, but that didn't mean she wasn't a little cagey about being there after hours by herself. If she'd been there alone last time, she'd be dead now. Safer by far to have company. Thus when Doc walked in, she greeted him with a faint smile and a small nod - his first stack of newspapers was already out on the Periodicals carrel next to the one she was using, ready to be searched through.
Doc nodded a greeting in turn, not quite smiling, but that was more a sign of normalcy with him than cause to fret. The mellow jazz reached his ears the moment he stepped into the room, and even though there was a slight self-created ringing from a headache which had been much worse earlier in the day, it wasn't unwelcome to have some sound to mask that. All told, the quiet was as painful as the loudest of noises.
The chair made a scraping noise on the flooring as he drew the one beside Caoimhe out; no direction was needed once he observed the stack. There wasn't much to be asked about where to begin -- actually, there wasn't anything at all. Doc reached for the top-most paper, pages crisply crackling as he set it down in front of him. His overcoat was draped on the back of the chair, and in turning around, he couldn't help but notice the full interior of the library from this vantage point. He'd been inside before, but during daytime hours when there was some nature of bustling around going on.
Caoimhe had her own pile of newspapers, and steadily scanned each page with the searching spells for each of her targets. When a name popped up - Mulcibers donating a large sum to charity, Rosiers having a wedding, Averys pushing for some anti-Muggle legislation - she would stop and make a note. She used a ballpoint pen rather than the standard quill, because quills were really much too messy for her taste. Why anyone used quills when there were other options available would never cease to baffle her.
Pens also had the advantage of being quiet. She could write with hers without making a sound, not like the incessant scratching of a quill. Indeed, close to an hour passed before she felt the need to make any noise at all: the soft scooting of her chair legs against the carpeted floor as she moved it back from her carrel. Her head was starting to hurt, which meant time to dose it with more caffeine before it got really snarky with her.
From her bag came a pair of sodas. She noted that Doc had looked up at the sound of her chair moving, and offered him one with a raise of her eyebrows.
At least Doc had patience to spare. Obliviation really did require having the care of picking through memories to get at the right ones to alter, withdraw, or eliminate. There was always a general area to begin scouring the mind in when he was assigned to a case, but most of the work was simply digging around for the right signs. The paper in his hands wasn't all that much different in concept, even if Doc thought he'd rather have a skull full of thoughts than a stack full of papers.
He did look up as a noise emitted from the base of Caoimhe's chair, and his eyes fell on the offered drink. With a nod of gratitude, he reached out and accepted one. He then reached into the inner pocket of his coat and drew out a one-serving phial of Madam Nova Kane's; it was long enough since the last dose by his clock, but he hadn't bothered to take the headache potion solely because of how rotten it tasted alone. That, and he wasn't actively trying to become any more dependent on the stuff than he already was.
Caoimhe let out just a soft, tiny chuckle at the presence of the headache potion, the sort that implied yeah, she knew the feeling. These times were rather pain-inducing, weren't they? She'd lost track of how many of those things she'd downed over the past months. If it weren't for Madam Nova Kane, wine, and hot baths, she probably would have hexed her own head off just to end the misery.
She scooted her chair back in, took a long swallow of sugary goodness, and opened a new newspaper.
Doc's brows lifted fractionally higher with amusement at her laugh. If only she knew that there were four other such phials on his person because he never knew when a call would be made. Large-scale Obliviation cases were apt to take full nights and into the morning, and it never -- never hurt to be prepared. Running out of headache potion at those moment was the kiss of death.
The lid was popped off his soda -- a succinct snap of a noise followed by the fizz of carbonated beverage. After downing the shot of potion and chasing it with a swig of soda, he fixed his attention back on the work at hand. Pages flipped by accord of the searching spell, rustling, but not such that the music couldn't be heard.
Another half hour passed as they continued work, Glenn Miller's Orchestra playing on in the background. It felt appropriate to Caoimhe as she combed through articles that had been new back when these songs were.
And then, there in the midst of the Hogwarts section of the paper, was the picture.
Thomas Riddle, Head Boy, the caption said. There was another of the Head Girl for the year next to him, a pretty brunette named Clara. Caoimhe's eyes were drawn right back to Riddle, though.
He was smiling broadly, and if he looked smug it was no more so than any other Head Boy she'd seen. Marcus Yaxley had looked much the same when he'd taken the honor for her year. He was handsome, too - his looks reminded her a bit of Sirius Black's lazy charm, if more clean-cut, in that 1940's way of things. There was nothing to hint that he would someday be the most feared individual in all of wizarding England, nothing in his friendly look that would indicate the almost reptilian appearance they had all witnessed at the Halloween Masquerade.
For a moment, Caoimhe just bit her lip and stared at it. The photo was unsettling in its innocence, so despite the fact that it didn't tell them anything they didn't know already, Caoimhe used her wand to copy it and paste it into her notes. She could do those without words, but the pasting still made a quiet noise a little like sleighbells, interrupting the silence. And knowing that the sound would attract Doc's attention, she was already picking up the copy and handing it toward him to see.
She pointed at the caption, and that was all the explanation necessary.
The face didn't register at all with Doc as he looked at the facsimile, but the simple fact that she'd handed over the picture and distinctly pointed out the Head Boy explained everything. Doc's eyes narrowed only vaguely as he scrutinised the picture. The caption beneath was only verification that this was somehow the same man that had been up in front of scores of civilians at Hallowe'en, murdering the Minister and Auror John Dawlish. The disconnect between that man and the boy looking out of the picture was vast. Doc had to wonder how far along Riddle's plans have been even then, in his seventh year at Hogwarts, hardly out of his teens yet.
He nodded an understanding and placed the copy between the desks, moving his half-empty soda out of the way to make the room. To have it remain out would at least make a point of reference should the face crop up again. If Tom Riddle was so ambitious, he may well have mentions littered through the old news editions, but pictures weren't so easy to cast searching charms for.
Eyes back on his own paper, Doc scoured the open page for where he'd left off. The charm stopped distinctly there, but his luck so far for the night was turning up small this's and that's of no seeming importance. Though, with a quick scan, he noticed a line: "Thomas Riddle Sr., survived by one son, Thomas Riddle Jr..." Finally, something worthwhile. Looking up revealed a location of Little Hangleton for the article, which was promptly noted given how the name Morfin Gaunt also appeared within the bracket of text. Doc slid the paper towards Caoimhe, tapping it.
Caoimhe read it over quickly, and then read it over again. Okay, now that was good. That was a new set of names, and a location, and...this was something that might actually give them another direction to go in! Caoimhe didn't smile, but oh did her eyes light up. It wasn't happiness so much as just a flash of triumph at actually getting somewhere, but under the circumstances it felt just as good as actual happiness did. Hufflepuff patience and persistence had won out on this one, it seemed.
Quickly, she wrote down the names and addresses in her own notes as well. It gave her another name to add to her searches in the papers, too: Morfin Gaunt. Thus preoccupied, she immediately dug down back into the work, looking for anything at all that could give them more to go on.
It seemed they'd had their victory for the night, though. Another hour passed, taking midnight along with it. When Caoimhe next looked up, she saw by the wall clock that it was near twelve-thirty. She grimaced; it was later than she had meant to be here, as she'd have to be back here bright and early the next morning. Still...at least they'd had at least a couple of good finds. She looked to her left, seeing if Doc had wound up as immersed as she had.
Doc looked up, purely because the feeling of being watched was seizing his focus and it never hurt to check the suspicion. She didn't appear to have anything to show him, and so he did the only reasonable thing: check the time. The last he did, it was somewhere around a quarter past eleven and a quarter of a soda can remaining, and now it was looking to be narrowing the gap to midnight and that can was empty.
A nod was given, Doc recalling that midnight was Caoimhe's upper limit. He gathered up the stack of papers through which he'd been able to peruse and set them with the ones she'd finished searching through. It was a decent-sized dent taken out of the full stack for the somewhat brief session. In the background, Moonlight Serenade was nearing the end of its third play of the night.
Caoimhe stacked her papers first, and then carried all of them back to their appropriate places in the periodicals storage. Going through them all in order, it was easy to have them back in their proper spots without any of the second floor staff noticing that they'd been bothered. She made careful note of where they'd stopped and what they had yet to look through, and then quietly snapped her notebook shut. She could update charts when she got home, not that there was a terrible lot to add.
The notebook slid into her shoulder bag with barely a whisper, followed by the faint jingle of her keys as she checked to make sure they were still in the side pocket. Deepening the silence was the very last thing she did, lifting the needle from the record with a wave of her wand. Mr. Miller and his Orchestra went back in their sleeve and then joined the notebook in her bag.
Which meant everything was packed up and ready to go. Caoimhe looked over to Doc with a questioning expression, checking to see if he had everything set on his side.
His coat taken from the chair's back, Doc easily hopped it up his back once both arms were through. The stack through which he was digging followed suit after Caoimhe's, and he left her to organise it as need be once back in its place. Having nothing more to gather up than an empty can to put in the rubbish bin, he gave her a shrug by way of indicating that there appeared to be nothing more to see after. A singular jab of the thumb over his shoulder and at the Floo questioned if it was, indeed, time to part ways.
And indeed it was, so Caoimhe gave him a nod not unlike the one acknowledging his initial presence in the library. She gave a slight, brief smile, too, because really...it had been a good night. Things were accomplished, and that was what was important. Everybody could use a little bit of good news this week, and more information was good news.
A little salute of a wave goodbye, and Caoimhe stepped into the floo to leave. She called out her address as she tossed the powder, and then she was gone.
Doc trailed after, taking a handful of powder and a last look upon the now dark and predominantly silhouetted interior of the room. Then, he, too, was gone from Brookstanton Memorial Library in a sudden roar of fire. After that, all was truly and finally silent.