I bite my thumb, sir. (lottiewood) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-10-04 13:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, character: charlotte wood, location: harrowyck alley, retired character: arran wood |
WHO: Charlotte & Arran Wood
WHEN: Dinner time, 4 October 2002
WHERE: Lottie & Celia's flat, Harrowyck Alley
WHAT: Dinner, Cuddles, and Scheming
RATING: Low/Medium--TBD
STATUS: Completed in Docs
"Does red wine count as a bad drink," Lottie called from the kitchen. "I read somewhere that it's full of antioxidants that are good for your heart." She wasn't trying to get Arran to cheat on his Quidditch diet. She'd made lasagna with zucchini 'noodles', light ricotta, and she even kept a light hand with the cheese. She loved cheese, but she loved her brother better, and she knew how hard he worked. She wasn't going to do anything to derail that.
She pulled the lasagna out of the oven and set it on the marble by her range to cool. Grabbing the loaf of Italian, she shuffled toward the entry to the kitchen and leaned against the wall. "What's your stance on garlic bread? If I make some, can you eat it, or is this loaf mine?" Lottie was starting to think she should get their diet lists either from them or their team nutritionists. She was winging it with dinner, but she thought salad and mostly vegetarian lasagna was safe. Bread was probably okay.
"I'm trying. I'm sorry if I get anything wrong. I also have dark chocolate dipped fruit for dessert, because I read that dark chocolate's good for your heart, and fruit is good for you. Right?" She smiled at Arran, and shrugged with her shoulders and her brows.
--
Arran, who followed his nutritionist’s diet a little less rigidly than she would like, smiled at Lottie’s questions. It was sweet that she wanted to make sure everything was right for him, even though Arran would’ve eaten (moderate amounts of) just about anything rather than insist she make more. “Yes to all the things,” he told her. He could have a glass of wine, and some of the garlic bread - though not as much as he’d probably want to have once he’d started. “Just don’t serve me a huge man-sized portion. Give me as much as you’d give yourself and it’ll be fine.” If he got hungry later he could always top up with quidditch-approved snacks.
“You’re amazing,” he assured her, only not getting up to hug her because he’d already done so when he arrived. “No apologies allowed, ever. Not for delicious food.” And, really, there was very little Arran could imagine he would ever need his sister to apologise for. “How are you?” he asked. They’d covered small talk already, so this was a more serious question. Arran was only too aware how both his own and Oliver’s recent crises might overshadow anything less traumatic going on in the lives of their sisters - and he wanted to make sure that if they were, he knew about it. “Work going well?”
--
Lottie looked between her brother and the loaf in her hand then back again. "This is bread," she explained with pretend forced patience and a very serious look on her face. "Bread that will be covered in butter and garlic and a few other Italian seasonings because I like to get fancy, and I don't think you know what you're asking for when you say," she dropped her voice an octave, "'I'll have what you're having'." She beamed at her brother before turning back to the kitchen to prep the bread and pop it in the oven to toast it to perfection.
Picking up the wine bottle and corkscrew, she carried it out to him and handed the items off so she could set the table. Of his two questions, she stuck with the one about work, just for now. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell her brother--or her family in general--that she'd finally worked out that she loved Draco, or that he'd given her a key. She just didn't want to accidentally rub her happiness in their faces. "Work is fine. Everything is really a positive experience after the last wedding. This Halloween one is starting to be a lot of fun. I only wish it wasn't a Muggle wedding so I could convince a few ghosts to join the party."
Her timer for the bread sounded, but she didn't move. It didn't feel like it was ready yet and needed another minute. But the table was set and ready for when the bread was done. She leaned against the table and tilted her head at Arran. "How are you doing?"
--
Arran was fairly sure that he did know what he was saying when he asked for a Lottie-sized portion, and he’d been thinking more about the pasta than the bread in any case, but decided it didn’t matter enough to be worth correcting her. “It sounds delicious,” he told her instead. “It smells delicious. I really don’t know how I managed to surround myself with intelligent women who want to cook for me, but I think I must have done something very brave and noble in a past life.” His smile widened noticeably. “Maybe I was a Gryffindor!”
He sat back as he listened to Lottie talk about her work. As obsessed as he was (always had been, always would be) with quidditch, he found Lottie’s job fascinating as well. She’d taken something Arran would have liked to be better at for his friends and family, and made it into a career, which was admirable. “I don’t suppose you could tell them you’ve just got a really fancy special effects package?” he suggested, mostly joking. “You could charge half of what that would really be worth and still make a profit.” It was a shame that a couple who loved Halloween enough to decide to get married with that theme couldn’t have real ghosts. “Or you could wait until they’re all pretty drunk and then they’ll think they imagined it. Do ghosts show up on muggle cameras? I bet they don’t, so they’d have no proof!”
How Arran was going was a slightly complicated question. He wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about how he’d visited Roger just yet. For him, Roger’s betrayal was a year old, and he wanted to be able to bury it and move on (even though he couldn’t just yet) but for his siblings it was still brand new. “I think better,” he said. Things with Roger were still weird and awkward, and Arran still felt angry, hurt and sad - sometimes all at once - but not keeping it secret any more made a big difference. “Have you got any ideas for Celia’s birthday?” he asked. “Because I really… haven’t. Unless we do another movie night, but that’s not very original on my part.”
--
Lottie beamed, and it was as Arran commented on the smell that she knew everything was done. "Just because the hat didn't sort you as a Gryffindor, it doesn't mean you don't have the qualities that the house represents or values or however it works." She walked into the kitchen, raising her voice as she took the bread out. It was a perfect golden brown. "We all have the qualities of all houses in us. Some of them are just stronger than others." She sliced the bread and arranged it in a basket. Taking her wand out of the hidden pocket in her skirt, she flicked her wrist and floated everything to the table.
"You would have been an excellent Gryffindor. Celia could have done well in Slytherin. I was almost a Hufflepuff." She shrugged. "I think the only one of us White-Woods that is a Gryffindor through and through is Oliver." She watched as the food settled itself neatly on the table. "And even he has qualities from other houses. Because he, like all of us, are complex and complicated humans." She moved closer to her brother and pinched his cheek. "And you're surrounded by intelligent women who like to feed you because you are just so adorable."
Lottie began serving the food, filling their bowls with salad and giving Arran a square of lasagna about the size of the flat spatula that she used. It was as much as she could and would eat, though she would likely have a bedtime snack. "Ghosts do show up on Muggle film, actually. Sometimes they're just light spots, and sometimes they're actual forms. Also, I think that breaks the Statute of Secrecy if I do, so I don't want to risk it." She shrugged as if to say her hands were tied.
Tilting her head, she studied Arran's face. "You think? You're not sure if you're better?" She hadn't talked to Roger about what he'd done to Arran, and she didn't want to bring it up with him now, in case ignoring it was what was making her brother feel better. She chewed on a carrot slice thoughtfully, considering. "She's turning twenty-one, and she really wants people to start seeing her as an adult. I think we should do something fancy, but not uncomfortably fancy. And not stiffly boring." She stood quickly and retrieved a magazine page. She handed it to him. "Black and white with touches of red, maybe?"
--
Arran gave Lottie his best doubtful expression when she said he’d have made a very good Gryffindor. “I don’t think I would.” Ravenclaw he could see, obviously. He’d been offered a place there, and had managed to think his way into their common room enough times over the years to be fairly certain he’d have fitted in just fine. “Probably a better Gryffindor than Hufflepuff, though.” Arran worked hard, but not the obsessive way other quidditch professionals (namely, Oliver) did. “I don’t think I’d work hard at a job I didn’t love. I’d just be looking for distractions.” He certainly hadn’t worked hard at subjects he hadn’t enjoyed in school. He smiled when Lottie said she had almost been in Hufflepuff. “Well, you are very fair,” he commented.
Rolling his eyes, he let her pinch his cheek. “I wonder if it’s to do with the magic,” he mused. He wasn’t honestly sure if ghosts were inherently magical beings or not. “Muggle cameras wouldn’t work properly at Hogwarts, because there’s so much magic around. I wonder if that’s what distorts the image.” It was just a theory, of course. “Where would you haunt, if you were a ghost? Oliver would probably haunt a quidditch station - but I’ve never heard of a haunted stadium. I wonder why. You’d think those early games where people would die in the middle of matches sometimes would leave a lot of ‘unfinished business’.” It was, possibly, a slightly morbid topic of conversation, but Arran didn’t really think of it that way. “We don’t want you to get in trouble with the Ministry, though. Obviously.”
After making appreciative noises over his mouthful of lasagne, Arran tilted his head to imitate hers, then shrugged. “I feel different. Sometimes it’s hard to work out if that’s better. But I asked how you were because we’ve talked enough about me.” He looked over the cake she showed him. “That’s definitely fancy,” he agreed. “What would we do? Or is needing an activity kind of defeating the point of having a grown-up party?” Arran’s parties usually had something to do, but he would readily admit he wasn’t the most mature person in the world.
--
Lottie smiled fondly at her brother. "Every day you get on a broom, a fall from which could kill you if you landed wrong. You do it because you love the game, but taking to the air despite the risk is brave." She shrugged. "So I think you have Gryffindor in you." She laughed at her brother's comment about fairness. "I am very biased," she told him smugly. "I don't know how fair I am."
She didn't know how ghosts worked. According to the conversations she had with them in the past, they came back by choice. Sometimes they had unfinished business. Other times, they simply weren't ready to be permanently gone. "There was a boy who started my sixth year. He was a Muggleborn, and he brought his camera to school. It seemed to work fine, but now I have an urge to test this. Just to see the difference." She wondered if she could find a ghost willing to do a photoshoot.
Charlotte sighed into her wine glass. She hadn't actually answered how she was. She'd told him about work. If he was insisting, though, she felt bad for not being honest. "I'm really good. Draco gave me a key to his flat and my boyfriend and I are in love. It doesn't get much better than that." She shrugged again, unsure what else to say and worried that if she kept going she would gush annoyingly.
"That's where I'm getting caught up. I'm not sure. I want to give her a party she'll like. That she and everyone will have fun with. But there's the whole not wanting to be seen as a child thing." Lottie shrugged, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "We could do fondu and compete to create the best signature Celia cocktail. Or…" She trailed off as a thought occurred to her. "What if we begin the evening at a fancy restaurant? You, me, Oli, and Cee. We'll dress to the nines. Then we have her friends meet us at an open floor factory or barn or some indoor space with a lot of room, wearing their fanciest clothes. There will be water balloons filled with paint. Two to four teams, so that many colours. A dessert table and a bar with the signature Celia cocktails and all out paint war."
--
“I’ll let you get away with calling me brave,” Arran decided, generously, “but only because you’re my sister.” Arran thought Lottie was probably exaggerating the danger - which was more of a calculated risk that he took because the reward was worth it - but given her history with broomsticks, he could hardly blame her. “But I like being the green sheep, so no defecting to Hufflepuff allowed.”
Trying to think back on his own fifth year, Arran frowned in an effort of remembrance. “I think I know who you mean,” he said slowly. “Spent a lot of time around the quidditch pitch?” He shrugged. He hadn’t known the younger student well enough to know he’d been muggleborn. He’d thought it was a magical camera, though now he could see he really had no reason to have done so. “I definitely support you in all ghost photography experiments. We could go to the Shrieking Shack.” Presumably, walking around Hogwarts with a camera as people in their twenties would be a bit weird.
“A key?” he asked. “Wow.” It sounded impressive - more so, somehow, than just changing the wards to let Lottie in. “I’m warming up to him,” he added honestly. He wasn’t going to lie to Lottie and say it had been easy at first, but after their film night and their game of Paraes, Arran thought it was going better. He hoped Draco had got over the fear that Arran was looking to embarrass him, if nothing else. “Not that my opinion is all that important if you two are in love.” He was pleased for Lottie, just as he’d been pleased for Oliver when he and Charlie got together. Probably best not to think about that, all things considered.
Arran continued eating while Charlotte pitched him her ideas, nodding in appropriate places. “And this,” he said when she’d finished, “is why you’re the party planner and not me. That sounds like a perfect combination of grown up and fun.” He mused over the details for a moment before adding, “Do you think we could find disappearing ink? Or paint? Something that would vanish at midnight, or after a couple of hours. I know magical charms will get the paint off anyway, but not everyone’s great at household magic and it’d be nice if we could save them the stress.”
--
Lottie laughed at Arran's permission. "I promise. I'm completely stuck in my house. There's no changing it now if I wanted to." She had done well in her house, and she wouldn't trade any moment of her education for anything. "I think someone lives there, actually. I walked by about a month ago just to see if the location would be good for anything, and it is definitely someone's residence. It looks nice in its renovations." It would have been great to see the inside, though. She had always wanted to sneak into the shack based on the stories, but it was a missed opportunity that she wouldn't get back.
"It's a symbolic key. It doesn't unlock the door so much as it lets me apparate directly into the wards." She pulled it from the inside of her dress. Lottie had taken to wearing it on a red ribbon. "He professed love awhile back, but it took getting this key to know I felt it, too. He trusts me, and that speaks to me louder than a lot of things." She stopped herself there, not wanting to get into the rest of her revelations about herself around that. "I'm glad you are. It's important to me that my family likes the person I'm with. He's different when it's just us. He was raised to be so proper when around people. He's goofy with me, though." Lottie reached over and pat her brother's hand. "Your opinion is important, and I trust that you'll be honest with me if any alarm bells ever go off." She would never be one of those women who chose her man over her family. It was never the way it would work.
Grinning, she brandished her fork at her brother. "Funny you should say that." She finished her wine, smiling around the glass smugly. "A few months ago, I figured out a charm that you can pretreat walls with so kids can draw on them with anything and it will clean right off with a rag or it will reset at a certain time. We could set that charm on the doorway, so everyone has to walk through it. So when they're covered in paint, it'll either wash right off or disappear by midnight."
--
Arran waved away (aided by a slice of the delicious garlic bread) the problem of someone living in the shack now. “Somewhere else then,” he said. “There’s loads of haunted places in the world. We could make a weekend of it.” It was the kind of pointless excursion Arran most enjoyed, doing something just for fun or just to find out what would happen if they tried. It had gotten him into a lot of trouble at school, but he’d never regretted it. Looking back, he barely remembered the numerous detentions.
“Aaah,” Arran breathed when Lottie explained the key was more symbolic than practical. “The grand romantic gesture. I was never very good at those.” He took a bite of the bread, mentally reminding himself that the lack of grand gestures hadn’t been the reason Cariad had left. He didn’t know what the reason was, whether he’d neglected her because of his job or they hadn’t been compatible because he’d been more practical than romantic, but he did know that no matter what the reason, it didn’t excuse her actions. “There were never alarm bells,” he said, switching his attention back to the less painful topic of Draco and Lottie. “There’s a difference between me not getting on with someone and thinking they’re not a good person.” The former he would never expect to be a reason Lottie had even a second thought about a relationship. Still, it was good to know Draco could relax more around Charlotte. “Hopefully he’ll get there with us eventually,” he said. “Are you going to introduce him to mum?”
The spell Lottie mentioned sounded perfect, and Arran grinned. “Birthday more or less sorted, then?” he said. He was sure there were loads of details to sort out, and he’d be happy to help with those as they came up, but having a general picture of the evening was definitely a step in the right direction. “Speaking of mum, she and dad can come to the fancy dinner bit of the evening, at least, so that’s good. Are you going to put me in charge of invitations?”
--
Lottie liked the sound of that. It had been a long time since she'd had a random adventure, especially one with her brother. "Any weekend after Halloween, I'm free to do just that if you are. I have a digital camera. One of my clients gave them as favours for his daughter's wedding. We can test that and regular film cameras and see which captures the ghosts the best." She was very much getting into this idea. "I can do a bit of research during my free time and send you a list of places to choose from." The UK and Scotland were full of haunted locations. They could stay close to home or travel abroad. Lottie snorted. "What if we visited the locations in Gilderoy Lockhart's book Gadding With Ghouls to see if they're actually haunted?"
Nodding, she picked up the serving spoon for the lasagna and raised her brows, questioning if her brother wanted more while she verbally responded to what he said. "A grand romantic gesture that, for briefest second, I thought was the grand gesture. Idgit put the key in a small box, and I about swallowed my tongue." Lottie laughed at herself, shaking her head. "It was the show of trust that meant more to me than the gesture. For me, it's the little things that count."
She chewed a bite of bread thoughtfully, absorbing what Arran said. She understood what he meant about that particular line. "I respect your opinion, and I appreciate your honesty. He'll get used to everyone. He just needs to remember that we're not going to judge him for relaxing." Leaning closer, she put her hand over Arran's. "Did I ever thank you for making an effort with him? It really meant a lot that you made sure he felt included." At his question about their mother, she leaned back and smoothed out a non-existent bump in her placemat. "I should, but he's in no hurry for me to meet his mother. Something about her not-so-subtly hinting about grandchildren." Lottie wanted them, but it wasn't a conversation she was ready to have with her boyfriend's mother.
"More or less sorted," she agreed. "Maybe not tell Mum and Da about the paint portion of the evening. It is the season, after all." Her smile as she said this was broad and teasing. Lottie didn't really foresee a way for her siblings to be hurt, but she also made a mental note to charm the floor of whatever building they rented for the event so no one would get hurt if they slipped on the paint. "If you want to do the invitations, I can find the locations and organize the food, drink, and balloons."
--
Thoroughly pleased, Arran laughed at the suggestion of visiting the Gadding with Ghouls locations. “Perfect,” he agreed. “I’m sure I can get hold of a magical camera as well, for comparison.” He’d either already got one somewhere or else it had been in the boxes of stuff he’d sent to Cariad after their break up. Either way, if he didn’t have one it seemed like a useful thing to own so he could pick one up. “We should go to at least once place that’s definitely haunted, though,” he mused. Gilderoy’s books were entertaining, but Arran wouldn’t rely on them to be at all accurate.
Putting down the bread he’d been gesturing with, Arran nodded. If he was going to eat more than he should, he ought to at least make the effort not to fill up on bread (even if it was delicious). The lasagne was made of vegetables, Willa couldn’t complain too strenuously about that. Arran had never got quite as far as deciding how he was going to propose to Cariad - Roger had seen to that - so it was easy enough to push away the vague association and focus on Lottie. “I don’t think trust is a little thing,” he said, smiling. “Are you going to return the favour, or is it a bit weird because Celia lives there too?”
He turned his hand to squeeze Lottie’s. “I’m sure you did, but I don’t object to being thanked a second time.” He grinned. It had been an effort, in a way Arran didn’t find it to be social with people who were more like him, but it had been worth it. And, more importantly, it had worked. Arran definitely felt that the movie night had gone better than the drinks with Oliver, and hopefully future interactions would go better still. “He’s not a sore loser, at any rate.” Which, when you liked challenges as much as Arran did, was an important quality in anyone he was going to spend time with.
“That seems like you’ll be doing a lot more than I will,” Arran objected. It would probably be easier for Charlotte to do most things since she already had connections from her job, but Arran still didn’t want to leave her doing everything. “I can organise balloons,” he announced. “Give me the name of your best balloon guy.” He narrowed his eyes at her, smirking slightly. “Do you really have a balloon guy?”
--
"We should visit Edinburgh castle. I think it's supposed to be as haunted as Hogwarts. That way, if Gilderoy lets us down so completely, we still have something to study." When Lottie worked with Gilderoy, she'd found him pleasant enough if a little bit of a peacock. He talked a big game, but he didn't really seem to know what he was talking about most of the time. His books were the same.
Charlotte nodded in agreement. "You're right. It's not. I don't trust a lot of people. The family, of course. You all are givens. Draco now, and my friends on certain levels. I do expect people to mean well most of the time." She trailed off as she lost her train of thought. Waving her hand in front of her face, she laughed. "Ignore me. My brain is going, and I'm not sure where it's headed. But trust is very important and big." She sipped her wine and shrugged. "I need to talk to Celia about that. He doesn't expect it, but I would like to give him one. I just don't want Celia to feel weird about it."
"Of course he isn't. I wouldn't be with someone who couldn't lose gracefully or take a joke." She wasn't looking for someone who was as competitive as her family. She liked games to be fun with scores not really mattering. It was a good thing she never really took to flying. "It's not a competition, Arran," she laughed. "It's a birthday party. And yes, I do have a balloon guy, but he won't be needed for this. I'll buy the bulk packages of water balloons, and we can fill them ourselves."
--
“Aye,” Arran agreed, “that sounds perfect. Some time after Halloween.” It was always a little difficult to find time he wasn’t either playing in a match, recovering from one or preparing for another, but Arran made the effort for his family, and anything else he deemed worth it. He finished off the last of what was on his plate and sighed happily. “That was great, Lottle.”
Arran listened as Lottie talked about trust, getting lost in thought himself. A year ago, he would certainly have said that he thought most people meant well. Now… well, it was hard to see how Cariad could possibly have meant well, even if Roger (strangely) had. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about, so he pushed it aside with a smile. “Me too,” he joked. “I’m sure there’s a way to set up the wards that he can get into all the rooms except Celia’s,” he suggested. “Or even if you didn’t, it’s not like he’d try to get into Celia’s room so I doubt she’d mind.” There were a lot of options, and Arran trusted Charlotte to find something that worked for everyone.
“I wasn’t trying to be competitive,” Arran teased. “I was trying to be helpful. Make sure you’re not doing all the work.” That, he was absolutely serious about. “I can help fill balloons with paint. I think I’d be excellent at that.” He grinned. “You know I’m only competitive about stupid shit.” It was, mostly, true. Arran took losing far better than Oliver did, and rarely engaged in pre-game trash talk over quidditch.
--
Lottie smiled, pleased her brother had liked the meal. She really had tried to make sure she made something that was suitable for his diet. At the sign that he was finished, she stood and cleared the table. "Dessert now or later?" It wasn't much of a dessert, really, not according to her sweet tooth since dark chocolate and fresh fruit were mostly good for a person.
"Likely, but I don't think Draco would try to go in there without explicit permission. He's not the type. Still, I want to talk to her about it. It's her space too, after all." She gave her brother a measuring look. Lottie was beginning to get a little uncomfortable talking about herself. It was so much easier for her to focus on other people, and she kept seeing thoughts pass Arran's face that he wasn't voicing. Not knowing what he was thinking about, though, she couldn't ask direct questions. "Are you sure you're okay, lamb?"
Lottie laughed at her brother. She couldn't help it, but it wasn't mean. "Stupid shit like who can fill the balloons with paint the best?" She was teasing him, of course. Her smile told him that. "I would love help with that. It gets very tedious after a point, and we'll want at least two hundred."
--
Arran hummed, expression serious as if Lottie had asked the most important question in the world. “Dessert now,” he eventually decided, following her into the kitchen so he could help with washing up while she grabbed the fruit and chocolate. With magic, it didn’t exactly take a great deal of effort on his part, but he hoped it was a nice gesture.
“Of course,” Arran agreed. He didn’t think Celia would have a problem, and he didn’t think Draco would ever try to invade Celia’s space, but of course they should both be consulted. “I won’t mention it,” he promised. He didn’t think it too likely he’d bump into Draco to mention it to, but anything was possible. Either way, both Celia and Draco should hear it from Lottie before they heard it from him. Smiling at the affectionate nickname, Arran nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay.” His life was… more confusing than he’d like, but none of it was bad - not as bad as it had been for this last year. “Just the World Cup being over gives me more time to think about things, I guess.” It was probably healthy to, finally, be dealing with everyhting.
Finishing the washing up, Arran laughed. “Yes,” he agreed. “Exactly. I’ll be the best balloon-filler ever, you’ll see.” Already he was thinking about what kinds of competitions they could come up with. Who could fill balloons fastest, who could fill them with least spilling. He knew Lottie wasn’t as competitive as he was, but hopefully she’d find it made the tedious task go a little faster.