InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "...no dark side of the moon..."

Shaela Drishti Fawcett (memory_thief) wrote in the_8th_floor,
@ 2011-03-24 07:56:00

Entry tags:

penelope clearwater, shaela fawcett

Who: Shaela and OPEN
Where: Leaky Cauldron
What: Crowded pub + lunch = collision
When: Thursday around 3-3:30pm

The Leaky wasn't her favorite place to eat, but she hadn't eaten breakfast and they were less expensive for the amount of food than most of the cafes around. As such, when she hadn't eaten in, oh Rowena had it really been nearly 24 hours since she'd last eaten? She'd eaten breakfast yesterday, and a late lunch. Dinner...she hadn't been hungry, and then she'd woken up late.

Rushing into the Leaky, she pushed on the door. When it didn't open, she pushed harder, frowning and forcing it open. As it finally gave, she stumbled into the pub, eyes thankful that London weather wasn't generally sunny as she tried to look around the darkness.

Unfortunately, hunger and darkness made for a very disjointed walk only made worse by the fact she had worked two shifts since she'd eaten last. She'd only taken two steps inside when she ran headlong into someone else.

"Oh! Sorry, pardon me," she offered before even bothering to look at who it was she'd run into.

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coppertongue
2011-03-26 10:01 am UTC (link)

With the new restrictions in place, work on the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee alternated between short periods of frantic activity and long stretches of dull nothingness. Penelope had been in the middle of one of those long stretches on Thursday morning when she decided she needed to escape the tedium and invented a reason to make a trip to a bookshop in muggle London. It wasn't much of a stretch to convince anyone to let her go. The bookshop was, after all, right next to the Leaky Cauldron which meant that magical slip-ups were more likely to occur there than almost anywhere else in London.

As she had expected, the day moved much faster when she was surrounded by books. Five hours passed in the blink of an eye and before she knew it, Penelope was leaving the shop, weighted down with nearly a hundred pounds worth of books. One hundred pounds. One hundred fourteen euros. Twenty Galleons. Money she probably couldn't afford to spend, in all honesty, but she'd never had to think of money that way before and she wasn't comfortable starting now just because a dangerous amount of it was out of reach until the Quidditch playoffs resumed.

Penelope reasoned that, as long as she was out anyway, she might as well have a late lunch - and a pint, since the work day was almost over. She rarely ate in the Leaky Cauldron but it was right there and would provide her with a quick and easy way to get home to drop off her new books and then back to work so she sat down and placed her order. Her lunch came quickly, considering the size of the crowd, but the server had forgotten her drink so Penelope went up to the bar herself to retrieve it. When she passed by the door on her way to return to her seat somebody entering the pub collided with Penelope jostling both her and her drink, which spilled on her silk Chanel blouse. One hundred seventy-five pounds. Thirty-five Galleons. Penelope's stomach turned unpleasantly.

As she drew her wand to dry herself off, she heard an apology coming from several inches down. "No, no. I'm sorry," Penelope said, hoping she hadn't just poured beer all over some poor child's head. "I didn't get any on you, did I?"

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memory_thief
2011-03-29 02:17 am UTC (link)

Shaela looked up and recognized Penny. No. Just no. While she wasn't o completely unfriendly terms with the woman, she was somewhat convinced that it was mostly because they didn't know each other. However, they did work with each other, and Percy was still friendly with the witch, so, that meant Shaela needed to be as well.

"No, you didn't. Thank you. Sorry you spilled your drink."

She glanced around, "It's crowded in here today. More than usual."

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coppertongue
2011-03-30 10:10 pm UTC (link)

Penelope knew she should have been more surprised to see that Percy's girlfriend was the person she'd bumped into but she wasn't. Being Jewish, she was very familiar with the concept of an unkind God. Penelope did trust in Percy's judgment and knew, therefore, that there must be something worthwhile about Shaela but she felt no desire to figure out what it was. She still counted Percy among her friends but Penelope didn't think that fact meant she needed to be friends with his girlfriend as well. Percy's romantic life stopped being any of her business a long time ago and she preferred it that way. That didn't give her any excuse for rudeness, though, so she plastered on her cheeriest fake smile.

"It is awfully crowded, isn't it?" Penelope sounded a little surprised, even though it was the large crowd that had forced her to walk in front of the door in the first place. She wasn't aware that it was particularly unusual, however. She'd been inside the Leaky Cauldron before but she didn't make a habit of eating there, or in any other wizarding establishment. She knew logically that, with the use of magic, everything here was probably more sanitary than in any muggle restaurant but a lifetime of ideas about what was and was not safe to eat meant that her gut reaction usually overrode her reason. Clean, cold, shiny metal kitchens would always make her more comfortable than the shabby, grubby surroundings in the Leaky Cauldron.

"Well, I've got a table," Penelope said, nodding towards the corner. The bright white plastic of her shopping bags stood out in stark contrast to the dark surroundings and made it obvious which table she was talking about. "You're welcome to join me." The invitation was probably a formality, but it was a necessary one. With no sign of the crowd shrinking, she doubted that Shaela would be able to find a table of her own.

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