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Tweak says, "You’re a freak."

Dominic Chambers (knowhow) wrote in finnigans_rpg,
@ 2015-01-19 14:51:00

Entry tags:

character: dominic chambers, character: genie de la lune, character: melinda bobbin

King of the Road
Who: Dominic, Genie, Melinda
What: Driving, pub lunch
Where: London, then Surrey
When: Monday 11.30 onwards
Rating: [SFW]

Dominic woke early on Monday, relieved that Seamus was back and once again responsible for the safe running of Finnigan's. Nothing had gone wrong, but the awareness that something might had distracted Dominic's usual focus on his work. It didn't help that his current project was complicated but not particularly interesting or challenging. An old pureblood house was being refurbished into a bed-and-breakfast, but the owner had some very specific ideas about who was allowed into which areas. He and his family were, of course, allowed everywhere. Customers only in a restricted area. Staff somewhere between the two - allowed in the bedrooms, but not if a client were inside, etc. It would have been a hundred times easier if the owner hadn't staunchly refused Dominic's suggestion that he just instal muggle locks. He'd even offered to enchant the keys so that they couldn't be summoned, transfigured or duplicated but no.

So it was that with the pub lifted off his shoulders and the end of his project at last in sight, Dominic was feeling particularly chipper. He lit a cigarette as he waited outside Melinda's shop for his two guests to arrive. He was already planning his route in his head, including the best country pub to stop in on a winter's afternoon.

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knowhow
2015-01-29 01:36 pm UTC (link)

Once both girls were strapped in, Dominic focused on getting the car out of the depressingly grey car park and onto the roads. He listened to Genie and Melinda talk, interested in both their experiences of muggle life. "I grew up in the Muggle world," he offered, when there seemed an appropriate moment. "I live in a magical part of town now - I couldn't do what I do in a muggle neighbourhood without making everyone's electric appliances go mad - but I like having the best of both worlds."

He smiled over his shoulder at Genie. "I used to dream about having a bike... until I rode my first broomstick." The wizarding world had no real equivalent to a car - something that could take multiple passengers, that could play you music and kept you protected from the weather - but for Dominic's money a broom far outstripped any bike, no matter how powerful. "Some days I still can't get over the fact that we can actually fly. My seven-year-old self would think I was a superhero."

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_melinda_
2015-01-29 03:46 pm UTC (link)

Alex? Devon? Brighid? Kids? Melinda was well aware that you couldn’t know about people’s backgrounds simply by looking at them, but when she had first seen Genie, she had thought her a regular witch, slightly younger than herself, single and pretty upbeat. Now, however, names were turning up left and right and Melinda didn’t know how to attach them to her, though what surprised her the most was the throw-away comment about the kids. “You live with your siblings?” she asked, not knowing anything about how that would be either, but it seemed the least offensive and unassuming way of asking how the names, bikes and cars connected to the girl in the backseat.

Dominic’s admission about his reactions to broomsticks were pretty much what she had heard from any Muggleborns that she had met at school, and as always, that exuberance about them had her chuckling and shake her head slowly. “I grew up in Diagon Alley, and aside from the weekends we’ve spent in the cottage in Puddlemere and the years at school, I’ve always lived in London, and mostly the Wizarding World, but broomsticks?” Again she shook her head. Opening her mouth, she was about to share how Oliver would comment on how tightly she had clung to him the few times they had gone flying, but thought better of it; she didn’t want to talk about him. Not to today. Not when she was doing something new with people she only knew peripherally but whom she already had a good feeling about. “There are Muggle superheroes on brooms?” she asked instead, because to her, that didn’t sound all the different from Quidditch stars.

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wolfinboots
2015-01-30 01:46 pm UTC (link)

"Don't get me wrong, I love brooms a lot. But I got stuck in the muggle world during the war and I've made do mostly there ever since. Besides, the boys like their toys." She smirked, knowing it extended to all sorts of toys. "And the car is because there's enough of us and the kids besides."

She flashed an apologetic smile at Melinda. "I'm sorry. I get carried away. I have a large, shall we say, makeshift family. We sort of fell in together and after the war." She shrugged slightly and grinned. "The group of us live in two side by side places. It works." It wasn't a complete explanation, as pack went deeper than so many things, but it worked in general.

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knowhow
2015-01-30 05:26 pm UTC (link)

Dominic tried not to react too obviously to Genie's mention of getting stuck in the muggle world during the war. It was similar to his own story - but he liked to leave the past in the past, and he had come back as soon as he could. He'd been wondering about Genie's unusual-sounding living arrangement, but let Melinda ask the question. He'd assumed that Genie lived with housemates, rather than siblings, but was happy to know for sure. "Whereabouts?" he asked, eyes on the road but still wanting to participate in the conversation. "I'd be pretty impressed if you managed to find two side by side places in London that were both available at the same time and didn't cost an arm and a leg!"

Trying to imagine a superhero on a broom, Dominic laughed. "No, there aren't superheroes on broomsticks as far as I know - but they can fly and my mates and I used to spend a lot of time jumping off things hoping or pretending we could too. It's hard to say which..."

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_melinda_
2015-02-03 08:23 pm UTC (link)

“It sounds like a nice arrangement, though,” Melinda said with a nod, because it did. Unlike Genie, she hadn’t stuck in the Muggle world during the war, though she had felt like it was where it was better for her to be. And it had worked out for the best, what with culinary school and the techniques she had learned there as opposed to the magic way she would have learned by doing it strictly in the Wizarding World.

Melinda grinned at Dominic. “You were pretending to be… uhm…” she snapped her fingers, trying to recall the name. “Super Man?” she tried. “A Muggle friend of mine showed me a film with a man in blue pants and red underwear. He had a cape and enough grease in his hair to fry a batch of donuts in. Apparently it was a lack in my upbringing to never have seen this man fly.”

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wolfinboots
2015-02-05 01:27 pm UTC (link)

"In Angel," she said. "We lucked into it, really, but the boys are clever at finding things like that. It's not the big old farmhouse from before, but we make do." She missed that farmhouse. And the open land around it. "Things are tight, a lot of times, but we mostly make it all work." She flashed Melinda a smile. "It is, at least to me. Some might feel crowded but we don't."

She snorted softly. "Superman. Batman. Owen, he's eleven, he likes Spiderman best, I think. Has a ton of comics."

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knowhow
2015-02-06 05:20 pm UTC (link)

Dominic laughed. "Both, either, any of them. Sometimes we made up our own superheroes to be and our own villains to fight or princess to rescue. I think they got a bit muddled up with fairy tales and knights." Dominic, in particular among his friends, had had no problem borrowing from various different books, TV shows and films. Sometimes his friends had objected - but other times they'd gone along with it. "I haven't thought about that in a long time," he admitted.

They were finally drawing into the countryside now, the suburbs vanishing to be replaced by fields and country lanes with the occasional village or small town. It wasn't as beautiful as it would have been in summer, but it was still nice to get away from London for a bit. "Welcome to Surrey," he observed. "The most beautiful county. At least, that's what the locals will tell you."

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