InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Love that for you"

Pandora Montgomery (pandacharms) wrote in finnigans_rpg,
@ 2015-04-15 23:30:00

Entry tags:

character: dominic chambers, character: pandora montgomery

RP: A confrontation
Who: Dora and OPEN

What: A confrontation

Where: Inside and Out and Monument Alley

When: Wednesday April 15

Rating: NSFW for language

Dora’s last nerve was done. The last straw of temper met. She trembled with anger, and magic sparked off the ends of her hair. “Just pay and leave, ma’am,” she said in one last ditch effort of salvage this quickly deteriorating situation. Considering the level of rage she was experiencing and how badly she simply wanted to blast someone into little bitty pieces, Pandora Montgomery really was doing rather well. No one had been punched yet, nor had she cursed anyone.

Of course, the fact that the Aurors would be all over her like white on rice – an expression she’d picked up from a Muggle in her building – was a good enough detterent.

“I will not pay for this… this!” the witch drawled, fingers twitching in disgust at the prosthetic wrist and hand it had taken Pandora a couple of weeks to modify, painstakingly, with all the spells and comforts this woman had wanted for her son, who was an Auror.

Dora’s lips compressed together so tightly they were nearly invisible. The woman had been thrilled to receive it – until she’d seen and recognized Pandora from the news during the war, and she’d realized that Dora was the Charms mistress who had just been spelling her son’s prosthetic.

“I did everything to it you asked. It was hours and hours of work. You will pay for it,” she said, voice cold, flat, and empty – utterly unlike the normal Dora, who was relatively warm and definitely more animated than this.

“I will not touch something made by Death Eater filth!” the woman hissed, pushing it across the counter. Dora barely caught it before it hit the floor. “You probably cursed it! You’re trying to kill my boy!”

“I am not! Just fucking pay already!”

“No! Keep it, you murdering bitch!” the woman yelled shrilly, and she stalked to the door.

Dora vaulted easily over the counter and followed her into the Alley. “You owe me the fucking money!” she shouted, very loudly for such a small person. “Pay now before I involve the authorities!” She still trembled with rage, and she was quite a sight; she looked dangerous, even in the sunlight. Perhaps it was the way she stood, or the way magic still roiled around her, tightly controlled. Or maybe it was simply the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice.

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knowhow
2015-04-27 09:06 am UTC (link)

Surely there must be spells for closing over such wounds completely - but Dominic didn't know what they might be, so he had to be content with a cleaning spell and then a mild sticking charm to keep the gauze in place. "Does it hurt?" He didn't really know what he could do about it if it did - except offer to take her to St Mungo's, or maybe just Alicia, if she were in her office at the Foundation. "Nice to meet you," he added, giving a wry smile. "Though it would have been nicer in better circumstances. Still, can't be helped." The name was wringing a vague bell for him - probably he'd seen her posting or commenting on the journals. He wasn't as good as Seamus was at putting names to faces, but 'Pandora' was sufficiently unusual that even he could remember it.

"You were provoked, and if all you did was freeze her without hurting her I certainly wouldn't blame you." He allowed her to take her hand back from his now that he'd done more or less all he felt confident doing. "Then again, I'm not an Auror." He glanced around the interior of her shop. He'd definitely been in before, but he was pretty sure someone else had been behind the counter then.

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pandacharms
2015-04-29 03:13 am UTC (link)

She blinked at his question and shook her head after a second. "Not right now. It will later." She shrugged slightly, careful not to move her hands. It would be quick work. She only wanted them covered so she didn't leave blood laying about. Bad things could be done with blood.

"The pleasure is mine," she said, half automatic. She was still coming back into herself, but childhood training always held true when it came to manners. "Especially since you managed to help me out at your own expense of time." And the verbal abuse he'd been on the end of as well. She was used to that sort of thing, but not everyone was.

She snorted softly, taking her hand back. She could do the other. She was ambidextrous with wands but some things like wrapping gauze weren't the easiest. "If you did it, I'm sure you'd get away with it fine," she told him matter-of-factly. "But like she said, I'm that 'Death Eater bitch' and they'd try to have me back in Azkaban if I so much as point my wand in the wrong direction."

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knowhow
2015-04-29 01:26 pm UTC (link)

Dominic watched as Pandora dealt with her other hand. "Hopefully it won't be too bad," he said, thinking about the pain. "Annoying if it gets in the way of working, though." Or at least, that would be his primary concern - not being able to flex and stretch his hand the way he wanted without disturbing the wounds.

"It's not as if I was busy," he said, then frowned at his own words. "Though I like to think I'd have stopped even if I was." He had no particular love for Death Eaters - but somewhere down the line he'd drawn a distinction between those of his own generation and those who'd infiltrated the Ministry and Hogwarts and indirectly ended up getting him locked in a Ministry holding cell. "If she objects to the prejudice of the Death Eaters then she shouldn't be prejudiced." That was no way to fix things - it would only skew them in another direction and end up with the children of other families locked up even though they hadn't done anything.

He sighed at her matter-of-fact words. "You're probably right, I'm not going to try and tell you you're not - but I wish you weren't." He could have said more - about trusting that the Ministry made the right decision about who to release from Azkaban and when, but decided he was probably talking too much, and to someone whose situation he didn't really know. He could easily end up saying the wrong thing completely by accident. "Either way, in my personal opinion she's the bitch and you seem perfectly nice, if justifiably annoyed."

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pandacharms
2015-04-30 06:02 am UTC (link)

"I'll drop by the apothecary on the way home this evening. I'm used to worse, to be honest. I duel frequently still." And Rich had certainly roughed her up worse than this before, and she him. "I just loathe to bleed on things." Too many nasty things one could do with blood, if one were willing. She knew some of the spells; she never used them.

"Well, I wouldn't have blamed you for not wanting to get into the middle of it." And she wouldn't have. Most people would walk by with their heads ducked when people were yelling at each other in the street, even today. She shrugged at his next words. "Most people are, and I can't really blame them, but I'm not the enemy. The war messed me up as much as it did anyone." Moreso in a lot of ways; the spell damage and the emotional and physical backlashes would never go away, at least not completely.

She nodded. "Thank you. Your opinion is most appreciated." She padded back around the counter, heels of her boots clicking very softly, and picked up the prosthetic. It looked almost exactly like a real limb, which was part of a charm and part of its actual make up. She brought it over to show him. "I am not a great person nor a horrible one. Everyone did what they had to do to survive." She held it out to him. Running a finger over where it would fit onto the man's stump, she touched the individual places and the fingers moved in turn. She smiled, the first genuine smile since earlier in the day.

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knowhow
2015-05-01 03:43 pm UTC (link)

Her words made Dominic suddenly wonder if he'd seen her at duelling club and not remembered her name. He did usually stay and watch, but with four matches frequently occurring at once he couldn't see everyone. "There's a small part of me that'd like to see you take on your customer in a duel," he admitted. "But obviously not if it would get you into trouble." It was amazing, really, that the woman had risked shouting at Pandora in the street when she not only believed she was an active Death Eater but could see that Pandora was obviously much younger and more vigorous. "She must have been a Gryffindor," Dominic decided. No other house was so foolhardy.

"You might not have blamed me, but I would have done. I guess there's a bit of a Gryffindor streak in me too, and I shouldn't throw stones." Dominic shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. He didn't like to talk about the war - what good did it do to talk about a past that couldn't be changed, after all? He'd prefer to talk about the effects it was still having, and what to do about them.

To escape from the conversation, he took advantage of the opportunity to watch her work the prosthetic. "That's some impressive magic," he said. "Suddenly I understand why someone might want to get out of paying - it can't be cheap." He took the prosthetic as she offered it to him, careful to touch only what he needed to and not experiment with the fingers as he was honestly dying to. "If I'd known you did work like this I'd have spent a lot more time lurking in your shop."

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pandacharms
2015-05-01 09:32 pm UTC (link)

She laughed softly. "She'd have been out cold in no time," she said with amusement. "Unless she surprised me somehow." She had to laugh again when he pegged the woman as a Gryffindor. "I wouldn't be surprised. My brother was a Gryffindor and it's just something like that that he would do, foolish though it would be to tread into an unknown situation.

Dora let the subject drop gracefully. She'd been raised by a Slytherin to be a somewhat politic creature, even if she'd never used it in more than her regular life. "It's appreciated, either way," she said simply and let the subject change naturally.

"It's actually what the shop's been known for since the Grindlewald war. My grandmother was a drab hand, and my aunt took it up as well. That was her specialty. But I think the magic's been passed down a bit through my father's side since, well, ages." Since her father's side went all the way back to the Picts and likely farther, she really didn't know. "We're the number one provider of prosthetic devices in the UK, at the very least. And we customize everything according to your desires. It's one reason the shop is called Inside and Out -- the Out is for the prosthetics and costume embellishments and even the disguise charms we used to sell when it was legal. The Inside is for our tents and trunks and extradimensional spaces."

It was obvious she was (rightfully) proud of it, even if the shop wasn't hers. "I've learned a lot about the prosthetics since coming here."

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knowhow
2015-05-02 05:44 pm UTC (link)

Laughing with her, Dominic nodded. "Exactly why I'd want to watch," he said. "Sometimes I don't know how I ended up in Ravenclaw," he admitted. "Not that I'd want to be in Gryffindor either." He knew he was smart - but he didn't revere books the way most Ravenclaws did and had honestly found it hard to make friends within his own house sometimes. They'd all wanted to study when Dominic had preferred to go out and explore the frankly astonishing castle and its grounds. "I like to at least know what the risks are before I take them." He liked his fast car and his fast broom, as well as some other adrenaline-based pursuits - but he liked knowing that accidents were really relatively rare, and that St Mungo's could work literal magic on broken bones.

"I knew you did prosthetics," he clarified. "I guess I just didn't put enough thought into what magical prosthetics would be like." He'd been at school while Mad-Eye Moody (who'd turned out to be someone else entirely) was there, of course, and had thought his magical eye was brilliant. On the other hand, his wooden leg had been a sore disappointment. He nodded to the rest of her words. "I work a little in extradimensional spaces myself sometimes." It was one of the things that continued to amazed him - though it was sufficiently difficult to do on the large scale he worked in that it was still rare. He smiled at her obvious pride in the work. "It's always nice to meet someone else who loves complicated magic as much as I do."

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pandacharms
2015-05-03 12:28 pm UTC (link)

"Look before you leap," she quoted with a nod. She'd never understood just leaping completely into things. The only time she'd done it had ended her with a mark on her arm and a lifetime of broken pain, though it had been an impulse to save her family. "I've never understood it, but magic takes care of fools and children, I suppose." She shrugged.

"This," she paused and looked it over with a small smile, "I have to say this is the best I've ever done. Glamours generally burn out when around a lot of other magic, so I really had to work to find a way around that. Most of the time it isn't worth it. He was happy enough with a wooden hand that moved like that, but his mother and his girlfriend were... not." She grimaced faintly. "But working with him on this actually gave me a lot of ideas, and hopefully this one will work. Here, let me show you." She took the arm back and pressed a spot, and it popped open and she pried a runic charm out of it. Immediately the glamour went away. "Replaceable and hidden away from the magic governing the movement," she said. "For someone like Moody or in active duty, it might not be feasible, burning through them, but he won't be doing that for a while yet, at least." She popped it back in and handed the restored glamour back to him. She lit up a bit as she talked, enthusiastic as always about different parts of her work.

She grinned when he said he worked some in that too. "Do you! Working in extradimensional is so... hm, I don't know how to word it. I am getting to hate those epically sized tents, though. Potions bases and spell work and all." She waved a hand to encompass all the work. It exhausted her sometimes, but all intense Charms work did to anyone. "What do you work on?"

She nodded. "I love the complicated work. The puzzles. Creating new spells and charms." It was something she was good at, too, with all her focus being aimed at whatever problem was before her. It made all her other problems recede for a while.

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knowhow
2015-05-06 01:18 pm UTC (link)

Dominic's face grew thoughtful as he processed her words, which sounded like a proverb in their own right. "Do you think that's true?" he asked. Everyone had heard of someone who'd discovered their magic by some dramatic means like bouncing after a fall or flying out of the way of an oncoming car - which did suggest that children had some sort of instinct about their own capabilities, even before they'd been formally explained. Dominic's mind was spinning out to all the possible repercussions of that. Had there been a time in history, before the advance of muggle medicine, that more muggle children had died in childbirth while the children of witches and wizards survived more easily? Witches and wizards could heal broken bones and fight infection with a single word - hadn't that caused resentments? Was that the origin of the old woman who lived in a shoe with all her so many children?

When he snapped back to reality, Pandora was giving him a look that managed to mingle confusion and politeness. "Sorry," he muttered, lifting a hand to scratch behind his ear. "Bad habit. I get distracted by the weirdest things." He focused his attention back on Pandora and her work with a sheepish smile, watching as she slid the charm from its compartment. "Now that's clever," he said, never stingy with a compliment. "I've never done much with runes. Looks like I've been missing out." He was almost tempted to ask if she could teach him, at least the basics, but he didn't really know her well enough.

"Exhausting?" Dominic teased, suggesting a word to finish her sentence about work with extra dimensions. "Not physically, but keeping the 'real' parameters and then the new parameters in mind so you know what space you're really working with... I don't tend to do it alone. Everyone wants a tardis bedroom, but usually it's actually much easier to extend the physical space. Except in London." He nodded to her passion, shoving his hands into his pockets for a moment. "I do a little bit of everything. Small work, mostly just for myself, and then architectural stuff for a living."

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pandacharms
2015-05-10 04:31 am UTC (link)

She paused and thought for a moment. "Well, it is rather true, isn't it? Magic always seems to protect children -- so innate within us from a very young age, keeping us rather hale and certainly safer than those without magic when it comes to accidents." After all, most children tended to bounce when it came to magic and such. "The same can be said of fools as well, I think." It was a saying she'd grown up hearing. She grinned just a trifle crookedly when he came out of whatever mental rabbit hole he'd gone down, though; believe it or not, she was familiar with taht sort of thing.

"Do not worry," she assured him. "I have done the same." She looked very pleased at the compliment, especially since he did seem to know his way around a spell. She loved talking shop with people, except most people either weren't on her level of skill or had no desire to talk with her. "I took an extra focus on Runic Warding last year, swallowed up six months of my life but it was very much worth it," she told him. "Now I don't have to outsource a lot of the warding work, but it also adds an aspect to this. I did it because I was studying some old Norse charms, but their charms work and their rune work are all tangled up in each other. I don't regret doing it in the least." And she'd gotten an acclaimed article out of it, at least, her alter-ego had.

"Yes. The focus is all consuming, working on multiple levels of thought." She waved her gauzed hands in the air slightly. She then shrugged. "I almost always end up working alone. Elroy, the usual shop boy, he isn't advanced enough. And my aunt has pretty much given up the work, except to assist with a few things here and there. She handles the business end of things."

She listened closely and nodded. "Still, rather interesting. I'm sure the variety keeps you on your toes." Though she wondered, a little, if focussing more strongly would give him more pleasure. She knew it did her. "So long as you get to practice, right?"

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