i've swallowed half an hourglass; Who: Sam Proudfoot and Greg Savage What: Sam and Greg deal with an epic leak Where: Their flat! When: 28th July 1978, morning. Rating: PG/PG-13 for language. Status: Complete log
Greg stared dubiously at the cupboard under the sink, twirling his wand in between his fingers. He’d heard the tell tale drip of a leak late last night but decided to put it off--a little leak could wait until he slept. While he’d been sleeping, though, the leak seemed to have got bigger and bigger--it was certainly not little anymore considering the fact that there was now a pool of water on the kitchen floor, which was getting steadily bigger.
Greg sighed and started rolling up his pyjama bottoms before he realised that he’d have to lie on the floor anyway to see the source of the leak. He wasn’t just going to go about casting charms on plumbing, when the wrong one could make the leak a lot worse than it already was. His pyjamas would no doubt be ruined. He felt distantly sad about that--his pyjamas were amazing, no matter what some people said about the garish yellow and green colours--but getting changed would be far too much hassle. Sighing, he approached the source of the leak with no small amount of trepidation. He opened the cupboard, stepping in the pool of water as he did so, and crouched down, staring at the pipes. One of them was gushing so much water, so quickly it looked like a waterfall.
Scrunching his nose, Greg lay on the floor and stuck his head into the cupboard. He stared up at the leak for a second and then took his wand out, tapping it gently against the pipe and murmuring one of the standard household charms his mother had shared with him.
The pipes let out an all mighty groan and above him the copper of one of them split. Water came cascading down, drenching Greg completely. Spluttering and swearing, his hair sticking to his head it was that damp, Greg crawled away from the leak, through the pool of water which was beginning to look like a pond. An extremely small pond, admittedly, and an indoors one at that but still.
“Sam,” he yelled. “Sam, I think I’m drowning.”
Sam was gradually woken up by the sound of his name. At first, he thought he was still dreaming and barely moved a muscle- then he realized someone was definitely saying, “Sam, I think I’m drowning” and that someone was Greg. Sam drowsily rubbed his forehead and looked at his alarm clock. He should really be getting up soon anyway, although he wasn’t sure if what Greg was yelling about was really so urgent. In any case, there was no possible way he was actually drowning.
He didn’t even grab his wand as he got out of bed, which was a mistake. Immediately upon entering the kitchen, he was walking into a substantial puddle of water that was growing larger still, as water was still pouring out of the pipes.
“Holy shit,” Sam said and took a step backward away from the puddle and then noticed Greg was drenched in water. “Hang on, let me got get my-” Sam began, but as he made a sharp turn towards the bedroom, Sam slipped on the wet floor and landed flat on his arse in grimy pipe water.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Sam mumbled and scrambled to his feet. “Don’t even think about laughing,” he warned Greg and then carefully walked off to get his wand. Sam reemerged from the bedroom and pointed his wand at the floor and began to murmur a spell to seep the water up, but that didn’t really do much good unless the leak stopped. “Did you try any of those kitchen type pipe spells?” Sam asked. Household spells were not his forte.
Greg was completely soaked by the time Sam walked into the kitchen. He’d hoisted himself up and was sitting on the kitchen counter, staring down at the pool of water and wondering how on earth they’d managed to land a flat with bad plumbing. He was pretty sure that was something he should have checked when he’d first moved into the flat. That’d teach him.
He nodded morosely after Sam’s exclamation but it quickly turned into stifled laughter when Sam fell. He tried not to laugh, he really did because Greg knew the second he lifted himself back onto the ground he’d probably fall but he couldn’t help it. He was still sniggering to himself when Sam came back into the room, but he’d clamped a hand over his mouth to disguise the sound. The laughter stopped when Sam had the sense to use a spell to dispell some of the water.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Greg muttered. “And, aye, I did. I, um.” Greg paused and colour crept up his neck as he said, so quickly the words bled into one another, “I used a spell to fix one of the pipes and that may have been what made another pipe split in half. May have been. I can’t promise it was. It may have been fairies.” Greg tried to look dignified, although he suspected it failed
Gently, he lowered himself down off the counter, his feet sliding through water and grime from the pipes. He summoned a basin to him and shuffled forward, placing it near the leaking pipes. Within a minute or so the basin had been filled and was overflowing. “You know, I never learnt to swim. What if we can’t stop it and then we have to swim? I really will drown, then!”
Sam pointed a finger at Greg, “I saw that,” he said, referring to the sniggering. Sam bent down to get a look at the pipes as Greg explained the situation. He looked up and smirked a bit “Fairies, right, I’m sure,” he said and then peered back below. “To be honest, I don’t know if I can do much better...I haven’t had much use for these kinds of spells,” he said with a frown as he tentatively pointed his wand toward the pipes. He didn’t want to inflict any more damage either, but they couldn’t very well do nothing and leave it like this. They could try to find someone who was good at these sorts of spells, but who knows how long that might take?
“You don’t know how to swim?” Sam asked, forgetting about the pipes momentarily. “You might want to practice going like this for a while,” he grinned and then mimicked the free stroke with his arms. “And don’t forget to kick your feet,” Sam added, and then remembered that now was probably not the best time to be focusing on...well, anything that didn’t involve stopping the water gushing out of their pipes.
“Right, well, I guess I’ll give it a go...” Sam said and recited the same spell Greg had tried. Thankfully, Sam’s spell did not break another pipe or increase the water flow, but it did turn the water a sickly brown color and did nothing to stop the water from coming out.
“Uh, what now?”
"We should have someone on retainer or something for when things like this happen," Greg said, bending down near Sam and looking in at the pipes. They still looked pretty awful to him. Rusty, as well, which he supposed wasn't making the situation any better. "My mum always said something like this would happen and I'd be useless. I hate it when Mum's right." Greg made a face.
Greg stared at Sam for a moment and then smiled. "Aye, right, I'll just practice swimming right now," he said, cheerfully, and imitated Sam. He tried to kick his feet out as well, but ended up kicking forward too enthusiastically and stubbing his toe against the basin he'd set on the ground. "Mother of Merlin," he swore, jumping up and down. The water lapped at his ankles and he skidded slightly, arms whirling like a windmill around him. He grabbed a hold of the sink, just about managing not to fall.
Before Greg could stop him, Sam had used the exact same spell he'd tried before. He let out a squeak, half terrified of what was going to happen, and had already half hoisted himself up onto the counter again when the water turned brown. He wrinkled his nose. "Your spells are always better than mine. Fuck you, my friend. Fuck you." He smiled as he spoke, though, and then crouched down again to inspect the pipes. Greg made a few noises in his throat but, really, he didn't have a clue what he was doing.
"We could...heal pipes? Can you do that? No, I reckon not--don't answer that question." Greg gave Sam a stern look before leaning forward and prodding the pipes slightly with his wand. His wand gave off sparks and he recited another charm he'd read once. The pipes gurgled and whined but nothing seemed to have changed, bar a slight decrease in water flow.
"Maybe we should call someone," Greg said reluctantly. He didn't want to--he could totally figure out this kind of stuff. Definitely. He was just having an off day was all--but Greg figured it wasn't long before water damage became unreasonable.
“”My mum tried to practice this sort of stuff with me, but...even I thought it was boring,” Sam said. There were very few things Sam thought were truly boring. Housekeeping spells were completely irredeemable
He laughed as he watched Greg fumble around the kitchen. “That’s called karma, my friend,” Sam told him.
Sam grinned and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, mine didn’t do us much good either,” he pointed out. “Now the water’s just brown, which isn’t exactly attractive,” he said.
“Well, I know there’s a different way that muggles fix pipes,” Sam said and furrowed his brow as he tried to remember if his grandparents had ever fixed their pipes the muggle way...but it didn’t take him long to realize that his mum would always fix things like that when they broke, witch magic. Sam ran a hand through his hair as he watched the pipes. “We should probably call someone,” Sam said. “But who?” he asked. “And no parents, we have to maintain some of our dignity.”
Greg whistled. "See, if you thought that household spells were boring I had no hope. Mum kind of talked and I just nodded. I had to ask Jo to help the other week when I accidentally put a hole in the wall." Realising what he said, he glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye and smiled, sheepishly. "It's fixed, though! Good as new!" He laughed nervously.
Worrying his bottom lip, Greg tilted his head slightly and stared up at the ceiling for a minute. Sam was right--in a situation like this the last thing he wanted to do was Floo either of his parents. His mum would tut and then fuss before fixing it and then proceeding to launch into a lecture about the importance of household charms. Greg strongly suspected his dad would just laugh and laugh. It would be humiliating. But without his parents in the mix, Greg knew very few people who were good with household charms.
"Wait!" he said, turning toward Sam. "We have a landlord, right? He's bound to know this kind of stuff! That's what they're there for, right? We wouldn't sacrifice any dignity then. I'm pretty sure he already thinks I'm an eejit."
“I started telling my mum about Ancient Egyptian plumbing techniques and scared her off,” Sam smirked. “I think she thought I was just rambling, but...I was actually doing it on purpose to make her go away,” he said. Sam raised his eyebrows “Where did you blow a hole in the wall?” he asked.
Sam didn’t think his mum would give them too hard of a time if he called her over. It was just a matter of principle. He couldn’t go asking her for help now that he was on his own, and they were in Auror training. He didn’t want her to know they couldn’t handle a simple pipe leak...though, there really wasn’t anything simple about this leak.
“Oh yeah, of course!” Sam said. “Wow, were we really in Ravenclaw?” he asked. “We should tell him, he has to know these spells!”
Greg widened his eyes slightly and made an approving noise. “God, I wish I’d have thought of that,” he said, slightly wistfully. Sure, he hadn’t really listened to the lecture but it had been really long and the kitchen chairs were hard on the ass after about five minutes. “Granted, I don’t know anything about Egyptian plumbing so.” Greg trailed off, shrugging. “And the wall thing--it was my bedroom, don’t worry. I was practising one of those new hexes they taught us toward the end of the year. It really is good as new, though, trust me.”
“I don’t know about you but, privately, I always thought I should’ve been a Hufflepuff. Too much pressure on you if you’re a Ravenclaw. Everyone always seems to think I should be smart or something.” Greg grinned and stood slowly, his knees cracking. He tucked his wand into his pyjama bottoms, the elastic holding it in place before he started to pick his way across the kitchen, kicking the water as he did. It splashed up and soaked him even further and maybe it was childish but Greg couldn’t help laughing and flicking some water toward Sam before bolting for the door of the flat and tearing down the stairs to visit the landlord.
When he reached the door, he banged on it a few times with his fist and waited for the man to answer. “We have a water emergency!” he announced through the door, “for which we would really, really appreciate your expertise.”
“Ah, but does your mum know about Egyptian plumbing?” Sam asked. “It’s best to always know what you’re talking about, but there’s nothing wrong with getting a little creative to scare someone off,” he said.
“No, I think I definitely belonged in Ravenclaw,” Sam laughed. “But there is a definite distinction between common sense and intellect. They do not come hand in hand,” Sam said. “For instance, if I had common sense, I probably would stop talking and be more mindful of the galleons of water emerging from our pipes right now.”
Sam let out a howl of surprise when Greg splashed him and then smirked. He let Greg get ahead of him, and then grabbed a cereal bowl from their rather substantial pile of unwashed dished. Sam bent down to the pipes and let the brown water fill the bowl up, and then sneaked up behind Greg. Quietly, Sam reached over Greg’s head, and let the water pour down on him.
“You’re already soaking wet,” Sam pointed out and flashed him a mischievous grin.
Just then, Sam and Greg’s plump landlord opened the door. “What kind of-” he began to say and then caught sight of Sam and Greg. “Merlin’s beard!” he said and fumbled in his robe pocket for his wand. “What flat are you again?” he asked urgently.
“I have never had an ounce of common sense in my life,” Greg said proudly. “Mum used to say so all the damn time. Although, to her, not having common sense is stuff like not knowing spells to wash your clothes which, frankly, is ridiculous. I’m obviously going to have maids and all to do that for me when I’m older. Anyway, I think I’m sorely lacking in common sense, though, because you just mentioned stopping talking because of all the water leaking everywhere and I’m still going!” Greg laughed self-deprecatingly.
When Greg felt the shock of cold water hitting his head, sliding down his back he let out a shriek, which was extremely high pitched and perhaps a little girlish. He flailed and half-spun toward Sam, unsure what he was going to do but determined to get him back somehow. It was, of course, then a given that the landlord would open his door then.
Offering the landlord a slight grin, Greg wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. The water was freezing and it had plastered Greg’s fringe to his face—he had to keep reaching up and pushing it away from his eyes. “Um, 3B?” Greg said. “The pipes had a leak in them and we tried to fix them but it didn’t work. There’s water gushing everywhere and I’m pretty sure you could go for a swim in the kitchen.”
The landlord stared at Greg for a second, an expression flickering across his face which Greg couldn’t quite identify but he figured translated as ‘this boy is an eejit’. That tended to be what most people thought. “Right,” he said and started practically sprinting up the stairs. “Has the plumbing been acting up recently? The building is old, you should keep an eye out for the plumbing and things like that, you know.” The landlord glanced back over his shoulder and glared mildly at them.
They got to the flat door and Greg slunk behind Sam, elbowing him slightly in the back to try and make him go forward. If their kitchen had legitimately turned into a swimming pool he would be damned if he was the first one to walk into it.
“Oh, obviously,” Sam said. “That’s what I’m waiting for too,” he said. “It’s only practical really, why bother learning a skill that will go unused?”
Sam clearly didn’t have much more common sense than Greg, because he evidently was taking this whole flood situtation very seriously. He had faith that the landlord would clean it up and no harm done. Why worry?
When Greg shrieked Sam let out a whoop of laughter. “You sound like my sister,” he teased. When Greg spun around, Sam took a step backwards and his face muscles twitched as he attempted to keep a straight face, yet the corner of his lips gave him away as they turned upwards. When the landlord opened the door, Sam looked extremely satisfied and relaxed a bit- no retaliation. Not yet, anyway.
“Um, the plumbing’s been alright...until now, of course,” Sam said and then exchanged a look with Greg once the landlord turned around again.
Sam stumbled a few steps forward when Greg elbowed him, and then led Greg into the kitchen. There was no reason to worry about drowning in the kitchen, but the water was pretty deep by now- it was nearly up to Sam’s ankles. Sam knelt down and peered at the pipes over the landlord’s shoulder.
“You can fix it, right?”
“I’m going to take sounding like your sister as a compliment,” Greg said, lowering his voice to try and make it sound threatening, “because she is a much nicer person than you. And don’t look so smug, Proudfoot. I’m going to get you back for that.” He lifted a hand and tugged at his pyjamas. The top came away from his body easily; when he let it go it snapped back with a squelching sound which was honestly one of the most disgusting noises he’d ever heard.
Walking into the kitchen was a bit of a let down. Greg had a tendency to build things up in his mind, make them grand and fantastical and he’d somehow managed to convince himself that the kitchen could actually have turned into a swimming pool. Relatively speaking, though, there wasn’t that much dirty brown water in the room. It was disheartening and Greg started sadly down at it. “Do you think anything could drown in this amount of water?” Greg asked.
The landlord had crouched down by the pipes and used Lumos to give himself better light to see with. He was looking at the pipes with a thoughtful, considering expression and his eyes had slightly glazed over. Greg supposed he was running over all the plumbing charms he knew.
“I can fix it,” he eventually announced. The landlord sounded quite pleased with himself and when he turned to face Sam and Greg he had a slightly smug expression on his face. “You two should try and dry all this water up. This shouldn’t take long.” He disappeared under the sink and every now and again there was a flash of different coloured light as he worked on the plumbing.
A couple of minutes later and the landlord emerged. He clapped his hands together and said, “They’re good as new. They were pretty bollocksed, though--one of the pipes had completely split.”
Greg resisted the urge to start whistling to convey his innocence but he did shift about awkwardly, which pretty much gave him away.
“Oh, I’ll be ready,” Sam said. “Constant vigilance, I’ve learned a lot from Moody,” he said and then made the ‘I’ll be watching you’ gesture with his right hand. Sam snickered at the sound Greg’s shirt made. It was absolutely drenched.
Sam surveyed the amount of water on the ground. “Uh, probably not,” he said. “Unless you were trying to drown yourself and held your face in, or maybe if you were an infant and fell over in it,” he said. “But definitely not if you’re a non-suicidal twenty year old man” Sam concluded.
When the landlord said he could fix it, Sam let out a sigh of relief. It’s all fun and games until their flat starts to smell like a wet dog...which might still happen, but hopefully not. Sam nodded and then pointed his wand down at the water on the floor and began to mutter the same spell from earlier that he used to make the water shoot up into his wand and out of sight.
“Great,” Sam said with a grin and then looked suspiciously over at Greg when the landlord mentioned that one of the pipes completely split in half. “Thank you very much.”
Greg pulled a face. “It’s a good thing we don’t have infants around here,” he said, “or small dogs. Or people who are suicidal. Although, I used to love sticking my face into the water in the bath and blowing bubbles.” Greg blinked, realising what he said, and glared mildly at Sam. “Repeat that and die. Also, I was four so it was completely acceptable.”
Greg bounced on the balls of his feet excitedly. “Thank you,” he said to the landlord and just about managed to not leap forward and hug him or something like that. He knew from experience people didn’t always like being leaped on. “Would you like some cake? As a thank you? Have some cake!” Greg had been opening cupboards as he talked and pulled out a chocolate cake he’d bought the other day. He’d been looking forward to it, but really the landlord deserved it.
The landlord protested at first but Greg simply refused to listen and eventually he accepted the cake and left, with a couple of warnings about taking care of the pipes and coming to get him immediately in the future.
Greg stared at the door after he left. “I didn’t split the pipe entirely,” he said. “It was an accident. I was just awake and not concentrating. That was all.”
“I always knew it was a good decision not to have infants or dogs or suicide cases,” Sam nodded in mock solemnity. Sam laughed, “Alright, that is an acceptable activity for a four year old,” he agreed.
Sam watched in amusement as Greg handed him a cake- a cake which Sam hadn’t even known they had in their flat. It seemed a bit unnecessary, but then again, it was better than tipping their landlord with money they couldn’t afford to give away. He got enough of their hard earned galleons when they paid the rent.
“You sure? Because the landlord did say it was split in half,” Sam pointed out. “Of course, you just weren’t prepared.”
Greg stared at the door with a despondent expression on his face. “I really wanted that cake,” he said, wistfully. “I dreamed about it last night. Or I hope I did, because otherwise I was chewing the pillow in my sleep for no good reason.” Greg heaved a sigh and then brightened. “But! He didn’t say anything about taking money away from our deposit, so that’s a good thing, right? That was totally deserving of cake.”
Greg huffed slightly and turned to face the kitchen again. It was dry and you couldn’t tell that just a few minutes ago water had been leaking from the pipes like mad. “Exactly. I mean, it’s not like I ever get anything wrong,” Greg said, grinning. “Merlin forbid it. Anyway, maybe it did kind of split in half. We’ll never know now, he did a really good job in repairing it.”
He crouched down, just to inspect the pipes, but he couldn’t pick out a fault--they looked better than they had yesterday, though, Greg was sure of that. “This experience has taught me, though, that I probably should learn some charms beyond, you know, ones they taught us in school or training. Hey, we could research them!” Greg bounced slightly, excited. He hadn’t always liked researching in school because usually that was on an assigned topic--he always loved picking his own topics. That was always what made research fun.
“Now, if only we could get him to agree to let us pay him in baked goods, then we’d really be in business,” Sam grinned.
Sam shook is head in exaggerated agreement. “No, never,” he concurred. “I’ve known you for almost ten years and I’ve never seen you get a single spell wrong,” Sam asserted, while in actuality, Sam bore witness and even participated in quite a large number of mishaps involving Greg.
“Yeah,” Sam said thoughtfully. Maybe it was time to finally bite the bullet and learn a few housekeeping spells. Sam’s face lit up at the word research. Sure, it wasn’t the most interesting topic, but maybe the two of them could make it fun. “That’s a good idea! We could find a few good books, practice a bit, and before you know will be fixing pipes left and right.’
“Why, Sam, is that sarcasm I detect?” Greg said. He took a deep breath, concentrating for a second on keeping his expression serious and solemn. “Because, you know, I don’t appreciate all that carry on. I am perfect.” The serious expression cracked before the word ‘perfect’ even left his mouth and Greg laughed, snorting slightly. “Aye, and pigs are gonna fly, right?”
Greg couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of him and Sam fixing pipes left and right--admittedly, due to the fact that the image in his head had them sat in a room which was filled with nothing but pipes they had to fix. “Aye, we could start our own business! I mean, there are bound to be people who are crap at household charms--heck, I’m crap at them--so learning is bound to be lucrative.” Greg nodded. “And we could call it something really cool--Proudfoot and Savage doesn’t really work. Sounds a bit too fierce for a business centred around the house.”
“That’s the tricky thing about sarcasm isn’t it?” Sam smirked. “You never can tell,” he said and then laughed once Greg did. “Yeah, I reckon only when pigs fly,” he said. “But who am I to talk?” Sam asked. “I couldn’t even fix a measly pipe.”
Sam laughed, “Right, and now we have a back up just in case auror training doesn’t quite work out,” he said. “No, Proudfoot and Savage...that sounds more like the name of an apothecary or somewhere you’d buy dragon care supplies,” he said.
“I can smoke a pipe,” Greg supplied. “That’s pretty much all I do with them. And I’ve not even really smoked one, it just always looked really easy when my da did it so I figure I could probably pull that off.”
Greg leaned against the counter, near the oven and folded his arms over his chest. He nodded, nibbling slightly on his bottom lip. “Well, it’s always good to have a back up plan, you know,” Greg said, solemnly. “Everyone always says so. Granted, they probably don’t mean a whole business just some savings but that’s neither here nor there. Also, I am really tempted to go into dragon care supplies--it would be an excellent name for that kind of shop, you’re right.” Greg paused, then sighed, “Unlikely, though. I mean, besides the Auror thing. I hated Care of Magical Creatures--I can barely remember anything about dragon care. I don’t think that’s meant to be."