InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Tofu is the root of all evil"

Tristan T. Travers (alliterative) wrote in finnigans_rpg,
@ 2015-01-26 21:59:00

Entry tags:

character: cho chang, character: tristan travers

RP: Tristan and Cho
Who: Tristan Travers and Cho Chang
What: Wandering around at night with a stop off at Flourish and Blotts
Where: Flourish and Blotts, Diagon Alley
When: Monday, 26 January, 2005 at Night (before the bookstore closes)
Rating: Semi-SFW -- some minor swearing

Although he should have been sleeping -- he really should have been sleeping, but sleep didn't want to come to him. It kept dancing away whenever he got close enough to stretch out his hand and brush his fingers against it -- Tristan was not. He also maybe shouldn't have let Pandora's flat, but he had. He'd felt resless, so he'd walked from her apartment to Diagon Alley, bundled up in a winter robe, a winter cloak, a scarf, hat, and gloves, all in dark blue. Not black, though. That seemed too conspicuous, all things considered. It also seemed stupid not to have himself be followed, in case something happened. He didn't want to get in trouble, after all, so he'd told a grumbling Titus to follow him, to stay invisible unless trouble occurred, and to be his eye witness if needed. Or his backup if he ran into someone less than friendly who wanted to start something. He didn't want to take precautions after what happened to Pandora, especially since he had thought he might be fresher in people's minds as having been a released Death Eater. Not that he thought highly of himself. Not in the least. He just wasn't the sort of person to underestimate the power of fear.

He passed through the Leaky Cauldron on his way to Diagon Alley, listening to the soft thud of his wand on brick as he accessed the entrance behind the inn. The sound brought back memories of trips when he was little, when his mother was still mostly capable of taking Julian and him shopping for clothes and books and toys. He thought about that as he walked slowly down the street, looking at the establishments near him, thinking about the first cauldron he bought and the first time he'd gotten potion ingredients before his first year at Hogwarts. The thought prompted him to move closer to the window, looking at some of the cauldrons on display in Potage's Cauldron Shop. He liked the look of a few and wondered about purchasing one in the near future, though he didn't know what he'd try to brew first. Probably something simple. It'd been years since he'd had to brew a potion, and while he mixed drinks at Wingbeat, it wasn't exactly the same thing.

Tristan moved on, pulling his scarf off and re-wrapping it around his neck, briefly marveling at the puff of his own breath. He stared as it disappeared and puffed out another breath, smilingly faintly to himself. I must be exhausted if I find this fascinating, he thought and laughed, puffing out more air which just caused him to laugh more.

Stop it he scolded, glancing around. Someone's going to think you're crazy and call someone to take you to St. Mungo's to check for spell damage. He straightened up at the thought and tucked his hands into the pockets of his cloak. The hospital may have once been a place he thought could be a refuge, but he didn't want to go back there now. The air of freedom was too sweet, even if it contained the smells of a city, the smells created by Muggle contraptions. He frowned slightly, wondering why Muggles had to go ruin things like how the air smelled.

The cacophany of animals coming from Magical Menagerie drew his attention, and he paused again to look in the window. "I wonder how Pandora would react to an animal," he thought, raising a gloved hand to the glass. "Nothing big or too needy..." He shook his head, dismissing the idea. He didn't know if Pandora would care so long as he took care of the animal, but he wasn't sure if he could take care of it. He wasn't sure if he could take care of himself. After all, he couldn't even get himself to sleep properly. How could he take care of an animal? He pushed away from the store, resigned not to bother with a pet anytime soon, if at all.

As he approached Flourish and Blotts, Tristan decided to go in. He smiled a little to himself at the familiar atmosphere of the bookstore, at the warmth from the heat and the light that washed over him, letting his blue-green eyes pause briefly on several bookshelves. He remembered coming in here to get books as a child and remembered coming in to get books for Julian when he started school, then his own books. For the most part, they were good memories, and he decided to browse, pulling his knitted cap off and tucking it into his pocket as he stepped further in.

He didn't know what he wanted to look at, if he wanted to buy something or not, but he was happy to wander the store. He walked down one aisle of books, not really seeing what genre it held, his eyes not entirely focused. He tugged his gloves off and put them in his pocket with his hat. Then he reached out with both hands, fingertips grazing the spines of books on both sides of the aisle. A smile spread over his features. The last time he'd tried that, he'd been seventeen. He'd stretched his arms out until he felt a small, sharp pain in both, trying to touch both sides of the aisle at the same time. He hadn't been able to do it then, and his grandfather had chastised him when he saw him.

"Arse," he muttered under his breath at the memory of Gaylord's palm smacking against the back of his head, and he instinctively reached back there with his right hand, rubbing as if he could still feel it, his left arm dropping to his side. He hadn't really spoken with the man since he'd been released from prison, and he wondered, briefly, if he'd still attempt to chastise him or if he'd completely ignore him.

"Doesn't matter," he said under his breath and brushed his hand through his dark hair before letting it fall. It wasn't worth thinking about. He wasn't worth thinking about. None of them were, not even Orville. They'd turned on him as far as Tristan was concerned. The only ones who mattered were Julian and his mother. And Pandora, but she didn't have the Travers name. She wasn't a Travers, even if she was a family and mattered.

Shoving those thoughts from his mind, he started down the aisle of books again, pausing here and there to decipher a spine or read a summary.

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charmingcho
2015-01-27 07:43 am UTC (link)

Cho had stopped into the book store after a long night at the office to maybe find a new magic romance novel to pass the cold nights with - she was a sucker for them. She was surprised to hear an old familiar voice from the next aisle over, a voice she hadn't heard since... Well, Cho did her best not to think about such things, so despite her hand shaking slightly as she pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear (a gesture she liked much more when it was Fin doing it), she stood up straight and walked around the shelf of books.

Yes, she'd been right. "Tristan," she said, he voice a little smaller than she would have liked, but steady, which spoke volumes in her opinion. The man who stood before her had once been a good friend - they grew up in Ravenclaw together, she could remember gossiping with Mel and Marietta about him and his older brother Julian. When the girls were first years, Cho thought the Travers were just the cutest boys ever. But then, their family - and Tristan, her Ravenclaw Prefect and their year's Headboy - had gone down a very different path. Cho never thought she would see him again, and still wasn't entirely sure she'd wanted to, but here he was either way.

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alliterative
2015-01-27 03:39 pm UTC (link)

Tristan's eyes moved from the spine of the book on his left to the woman who spoke in front of him, his head following a second behind. He took a moment to take in her face, his expression mild but open, curious. In his mind, he quickly overlaid the image over those he'd come across in the past, matching one up from his school days with relative ease. After all, they'd been in the same house, in the same year. They'd shared classes and a common room. They'd been prefects together. If he couldn't remember her, he'd have worried that this terrible sleeping business was having some kind of actual affect on his brain.

His mouth turned up in a smile, the smile reaching his eyes. "Hello, Cho," he said pleasantly, though in the back of his mind, as he thought of something pleasant, he warned himself to be careful, to remain steady. He'd had limited to no contact with most of the people he used to know before the war, and while he supposed it was with good reason, it still made him hesitant. He didn't know what to expect from those he did run into without first arranging to meet up with them. It was one reason why he hadn't reached out. Another had to do with the reaction of someone he'd thought of as a friend who proved otherwise. Still, he wasn't going to come off as wary, especially since he hadn't been doing anything wrong. Except maybe talking to himself just a little bit, but he saw that more as speaking his thoughts out loud since he hadn't really been having a conversation with himself.

"How're you?" he asked with honest interest as he brushed a few strands of hair away from his face. After all, they'd been friends. Why wouldn't he be interested in how she was? True, he had no delusions they'd be friends again, but he was nothing if not capable of being courtesy and even friendly.

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charmingcho
2015-02-02 11:57 pm UTC (link)

Cho swallowed and nodded, "I'm well. And how are you?" She wasn't sure what someone was supposed to say. Was she supposed to ask if he felt remorse, if Azkaban had been awful, how he had convinced them to let him out? She hadn't seem him in the final battle at Hogwarts, but she learned later he'd been there. And of course there was fifth year - their Housemates had seen her cry in the Commonroom with Mel and Marietta, had seen her anguish over Cedric's loss. Had that bothered him? Had he already been one of Them then?

All of this flashed through her mind in an instant, and she smiled. "You still..." She wanted to say he still reminded her of him, of the boy she'd known, but it seemed an odd thing to say. "You look well," she settled for.

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alliterative
2015-02-03 11:59 am UTC (link)

"I'm alright, thank you," he said with a slow, lazy shrug of his shoulders. He wasn't going to tell her he'd been sleeping horribly or he'd been having trouble eating. He didn't know if she'd care about those and other minutiae of his life, and he wasn't about to try to find out by whinging about them now. He suspected that, honestly, most people didn't care about such details, that it was just something drilled into their heads to ask how someone was doing regardless of how they really felt about that person or how someone might be doing. And it made sense, in a way. It was considered polite to ask, and everything else was merely a knee-jerk reaction of reply.

Tristan didn't bother pointing out that he thought her comment on how he looked was lie. He didn't believe he looked well, so, to him, he didn't think others would see it. He didn't look terrible, but whenever he looked in the mirror, he could point out every flaw from being too damn skinny to a sunken look in his face to brittle hair. Admittedly, he did look better than he had when he'd first gotten out of prison. He wasn't quite so pale, and parts of him were filling out (his cheeks and eyes just looked like he was a fan of that vampiric look instead of malnourished and his hair was regaining its luster. Really, today had actually been a good hair day for him when he'd left Pandora's flat that morning. And his robes did cover up the bulk of his thinness, so that was a plus, too), but he supposed, like the politeness of asking how someone was, it was just how some people were programmed, to find the worst in themselves whenever they looked in the mirror. And he was no different, it seemed.

"Thank you," he said again, appreciative of her words despite his own beliefs in relation to how he looked. He may have been of the opinion that it was a lie based on his own perceptions of himself, but that didn't mean he wasn't also appreciative of those same words. Compliments -- or whatever her words were meant to be -- were nice, though he didn't let it go to his head. He shifted his weight, twisting a ring on his left middle finger, and said, "I've heard about your business. Congratulations." He smiled again, sincere, even if he didn't know what else to say. But it seemed appropriate to mention it, especially since it was relatively neutral. And if it had the added affect of shifting attention from himself, that was a bonus.

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