InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Say it."

michael corner is reluctantly growing up (mlcorner) wrote in pandorarpg,
@ 2012-01-30 17:30:00

Entry tags:

!status: complete, ^date: november 14 2003, character: agatha bole, character: fenrir greyback, character: lavender brown, character: michael corner

Characters: Lavender Brown, the Brown family, Michael Corner; later Agatha Bole & Fenrir Greyback
Setting: Lavender's home, Eastbourne, 14 November 2003, 12:14pm
Rating: PG-13 for language and imagery
Summary: Checking on Lavender after the news, being surprised by Greyback.

Michael had had a pretty shitty morning overall. With Greyback breaking out which he knew would set Lavender on edge (and was obviously not good for any of them - not just Lavender), he wanted to do his best to make sure she was at least not losing her mind about all of this. She probably didn't feel safe at all and even if her flat was back in order, was she going to move back into it? He had no idea, but he had a feeling it probably was a no.

But besides that, he had the potions mucking people's minds up. Apparently instead of helping it was making the nightmares even worse for them which was both mind boggling and ridiculous at the same time. But most of all, it meant that Michael had fucked up royally and ruined things for his friends. He should have anticipated something like this happening, having the knowledge of potions that he did, but he was so keen on helping these people that he overlooked some of the most important things he should have done.

So he wasn't in the best of moods when he apparated to Eastbourne, but he had to try his best to comfort Lavender right now. He walked out of the wood behind their house and to the front door, knocking firmly on the front door and doing his best to put a smile on his face for Lavender and her family that he might be talking to on the way. Her needs were a bit more than his at the moment and he wanted to make sure he kept her from taking anymore of the potion while he was there anyhow.

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lavishly
2012-01-31 02:10 am UTC (link)

Sylvia considered herself a patient woman. She regularly dealt with egos of stage actors, costume designers, dressers, stage crew, technicians, and raising three girls who didn't always get along - especially how their age differences had left Lavender out. And Lavender was troubled, so much that she didn't always know what to do. However, the brief encounter with Lavender had with Libby when she came over to drop off Matthew and Jessica hadn't helped anything. Those two never got along.

Still, even that had blown over by late morning when Matthew and Jessica drew Lavender back out of her room to color with them. Sylvia had thought it was going well as she started working on lunch. Despite whatever issues Lavender had, she was always good with her niece and nephew or really any of the younger children she came in contact with. It was exactly the sort of thing that made a mother's heart hurt.

It had been going well until noise erupted in the other room and Lavender quite loudly announced. "I think I need to go walk the dogs," with that tremor in her voice that made it clear she was just barely keeping it together. Lavender's outburst was some sort of signal for the other two to start fighting to the point where Jessica started crying after Matthew threw a crayon at her. Then in the middle of damage control, with the grandchildren first, there was a knock at the door.

Sighing, Sylvia scooped up Jessica and went to go answer the door. Before opening the door, she peeked out to see who was there. While they had never properly met, she had seen photographs of Michael Corner and he was certainly a welcome sight. "Michael," she said, "Please come in, I'm afraid you've caught us in a bit of excitement."

In the back of the house came Lavender's voice not so calmly saying, 'I just can't do this right now,' which apparently was enough to cause Matthew to burst into hysterics. There would be no rest today, not that she was overly hopeful.

"And this is Jessica, my granddaughter," she said, shifting the girl in her arms so that she might be handed off to Michael. "I really don't normally greet my guests this way, but would mind taking her for a moment so I can go see great tragedy has now been unleashed upon my home?" Despite it being a tough situations, she hadn't lost her humor because it helped to deal with the tension.

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mlcorner
2012-01-31 02:35 am UTC (link)

Michael was not exactly expecting to be handed a child but he didn't particularly mind all that much. Children reminded him of Amanda Claire and he always loved them, regardless of the fact that if she hadn't have died, she wouldn't be a child anymore. He could only remember her as she was when she passed away now, so she was forever a child in his heart. "Sure, that's fine," Michael replied and took the girl named Jessica from Lavender's mom.

Michael adjusted the girl on his hip. "Hello Jessica, I'm Michael. I'm a friend of Lavender's. I went to school with her," he said, smiling at the small girl. He had always had an eye for girls more than boys, but that was probably because of his sister. Knowing his brother, James would probably have kids long before Michael ever did, so at least he'd have a niece or nephew to play with soon enough. Michael extended his hand to her so she could shake it. "What is your favourite thing to do?" he asked, wandering around the entrance of the house a bit.

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lavishly
2012-01-31 05:06 am UTC (link)

Jessica stared at him for a long moment, seemingly not phased by being handed off to a stranger. She was being held, he was smiling and smelled nice, plus grammy had handed her over and grammy always knew best. "Color," she said quietly. "But Wavender got upset at some of our pictures." Most of which were still on the family room table not far away.

Elsewhere in the house, Sylvia was caught between an upset six year old who honestly thought he was trying to help and a twenty-three year old who was scared and obviously freaked out about something, but was still acting like a toddler. "Lavender, lovely, you need to calm down. I can't help you if I don't know what's happening." Far too many times had Sylvia been in this very position and her youngest daughter was still just as stubborn. "And if I can't help you then, could you at least not be rude because your friend Michael is here to see you."

There was a long pause and a few more slamming wardrobe doors and drawers for good measure before she pulled open her bedroom door with more force than necessary. However, that even started to get the two dogs riled up, which was just what they needed to add to the mix. "What do you mean Michael is here?" Her tone was hushed and frantic, not unlike how she presented herself. Although she was fully dressed now and ready to go out because this whole house, her whole life just felt suffocating.

Lavender crossed her arms over her chest, only just barely in defiance, mostly she was shielding herself. With a long sigh she started down the hall to see if Michael actually was in her house - not that she knew how she felt about that, especially with the way her mother was throwing around the word friend.

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mlcorner
2012-01-31 06:09 am UTC (link)

Michael nodded and grinned. "I like to colour too. What's your favourite thing to colour?" he asked her before she added the bit about Lavender. He wondered what the pictures might have been that would have made her upset but he didn't want to get into that with the girl so he didn't ask her about it.

He could hear Lavender a few times from the other room but he wasn't going to go in there uninvited so he wandered around in the front room with Jessica on his hip for a bit, looking around at pictures. "Jessica, do you know how to play pat-a-cake?" Michael asked her suddenly and sat her down on the floor and kneeled next to her. He wanted to try and distract her from whatever was going on and also himself because really, he could use it. He held up both his hands for her to hit and smiled, thinking of his sister again. It had been fourteen years now and he could still picture her face easily enough when he closed his eyes.

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lavishly
2012-01-31 02:28 pm UTC (link)

Getting closer to the front of the house she heard someone, probably Michael, playing pat-a-cake with Jessica. That was good, they were fine, and suddenly her plans changed. Rather than heading into the living room, Lavender stopped at the mud room, off the kitchen, to go ahead with her original plan. She wanted to get out of here. Of course her mother wasn't fat behind.

"Lavender, what are you doing?" Bailey and Baby Girl were sitting in the kitchen watching the whole ordeal unfold in front of them.

"What does it look like I'm doing, mother?" She said rummaging through the stuff in the mud room looking for the second lead. And if a few smaller items went flying toward her mother, well, it was purely accidental. Finally she found what she needed and started to clip the dogs to the leads, one after the other.

"It looks like you're seven years old again and trying to run away from home, but at least then you were smart enough to back a bag."

Lavender turned around pulling sharply on the leads, causing Bailey to start yipping. "Are you joking? You must be --" she paused seeing Matthew again and her whole stomach just feeling sick. Why had she saw that stupid picture? It took a bad day and just made it so much worse. She opened the back door and the dogs quickly shuffled outside ready for the escape as well. "I am going out," she said loudly so that Michael might hear in the other room, "With my dogs, and if Michael is here - well, he can make up his own mind about what he wants to do." Her words were quite spectacularly timed with the mud room door slamming shut behind her.

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mlcorner
2012-01-31 06:45 pm UTC (link)

Michael slowly patted his hands against the small girl's and then against his thighs and back again, reciting the accompanying song he had learned a long time ago. He wondered off-handedly if Lavender enjoyed this game with her niece and nephew because she actually baked, but then he heard some commotion and Lavender's voice from the other room and looked up, still moving his hands in time with Jessica's.

When he heard the door slam he sighed. "I'm sorry Lavender got upset, Jessica, but you know she's not upset with you, yeah? She's had a scary morning," Michael said and he picked her back up again, going in search of Lavender's mother now, following the sound of where Lavender's voice had been. When he found Sylvia there was also Matthew around. He lowered Jessica down from his hip so he could kneel down in front of the boy he had yet to meet until now and held out his hand. "Hi there, I'm Michael, I'm Lavender's friend. Sorry I haven't been able to talk to you yet. Lavender's not having a good day so if she wasn't very nice, don't think she's cross with you, okay? If anything it's usually my fault that she's angry so you can just blame me." Michael grinned crookedly and then stood up.

He looked at Sylvia again. "Er, Mrs. Brown do you mind if I-" and he motioned toward the side of the house rather generally, not really wanting to go into things in front of the kids.

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lavishly
2012-01-31 09:03 pm UTC (link)

Jessica's brow furrowed at the commotion in the kitchen, not really liking all of the yelling an not entirely sure what to make of it. "Matthew had a scary morning too," she said quietly as Michael picked her up to see what was going on. When she got there and saw that grammy's arms were open, she went right over to her and calmly waited to be picked up, so she could better see everything.

In the kitchen, Matthew was trying to put on his big boy face, especially now that there was company. Really, he just looked tired, pulling quite the face at Michael's explanation. "I just wanted to talk to her because she was upset over my picture. And I didn't even really mean to draw it. I was drawing and I drew that. And I know mum doesn't think Lavender is smart, but I think she knows something, but she won't talk to me." He might have been a King in name, but how he was acting or rather talking, there was no doubt this boy was a Brown by blood.

"Alright," said Sylvia suddenly. "Why don't you two go get washed up for lunch and I'm sure Michael here will go talk to Lavender and make sure everything is okay." Normally, it was something she would do after giving Lavender a few minutes to have her little tantrum, but today she had other children to look after. So, it was good that Michael was here to fill that role.