Who: Lily and Florrie What: After-work drinks, casual gossip, chatting about off-the-books access to dragon preserves… y'know, just gals being pals When: Half past wine o'clock, Friday 12th April Where: Florrie's flat Warnings: None
Usually, having arranged to pop by Florrie's after work, Lily would just alohomora the door and trust in Florrie's wards to recognise her magic. But this evening, she had a bottle of wine in one hand, three packets of crisps wedged betwixt the knuckles of her other hand, and her wand was still stuck through the twisted-up knot of her hair. Lily didn't feel like she'd got any funny looks at the supermarket down the road, but in this part of London, possibly they saw stranger; she was otherwise sensibly dressed.
In any case, Lily knocked gently against the door with the heavy bottom of the bottle, and called out, "Just me. Sorry. Encumbered!"
Florrie opened the door with her wand from the kitchnette, where she'd already readied some delicious looking (and smelling) vegetable noshes. She herself followed on to relieve Lily of her things and put them on the tiny table that passed for a dining room. "Come on in. James and Sirius watching his majesty for the evening?" At the bag of truffle and sea salt crisps, she raised a bit of an eyebrow; living with James had rubbed off on Lily here and there in odd ways.
"Himself is being watched." Lily grinned, shrugged, nudging the door closed again behind her with her hip. "I've made my peace with the wisdom of not inquiring too closely into the details. And I was just going to bring the wine but then this lot--" She picked up one of the bags of crisps again, this one purporting to be flavoured like champagne vinaigrette and shallots. "They were just all so ridiculous, I couldn't resist."
"I was wondering whether you'd taken leave of your senses along with your pocketbook. Still, moderation in everything, even moderation, I suppose. And we do need fats to make us feel full." Which was the theoretical justification for the dip nestled next to the salsa on the vegetable tray.
Florrie handed Lily the corkscrew and let her go to work on the wine bottles while she fetched the glasses. "So have you had a chance at riding in the automobile yet? What's it like?"
"It's surprisingly different from riding around in the back seat when I was a kid," Lily said, absently getting to work with the corkscrew. "Or maybe it's just knowing that the driver isn't entirely sure of what he's doing. I always just assumed my parents had everything under control." The cork came out with a faint, hollow pop. "Maybe by the time Harry's looking at me like that, I actually will have everything under control." More likely, her parents had been making it up as they went as well. Lily sighed and poured for both of them.
"Assuming you can ever get the wheel away from TweedlePotter and TweedleBlack." Florrie took her own glass and raised it to Lily. "Cheers, and here's to putting the blokes in the back and silencing them so they haven't got so much as a peep to offer about your driving. Because you know they will even though the car will ride like a broom with no cushioning charms when they're in charge."
"Cheers," Lily echoed, through a laugh, "and you speak nothing but the truth." She tinked glasses carefully, and took a sip, reaching for Florrie's lovely array of nibbles. The important gestures made, however, Lily had to face the Thing that brought her here. (She was glad to have Florrie--her skills, her sense, her support--in this with her, but sometimes she really wished they could just be back in the Gryffindor dorms, with nothing more pressing over their heads than forthcoming exams.) And so, "There is something I need to talk about with you," Lily admitted. "Of the unofficial and extracurricular kind."
"Oh really?" But Florrie sounded more amused by the confession than worried. "Let's take the crisps and the veggies over to the sofa and sit down and you can tell me all about it. It can't be an emergency because nobody's bleeding on my flooring, and I much prefer this kind of business to that kind of business." She waved her wand at the food, which obediently floated its way toward the table.
"I can certainly see the benefits," Lily agreed, following along. "But don't rush into any sort of preference until you hear the full scope of this one." Navigating around Florrie's flat was almost unconscious, dodging around the coffee table and into Lily's favourite spot on the sofa, one leg curled up beneath her and a cushion wedged behind her back; the whole place was actually more familiar than the safehouse where the Potters were living right now. Lily helped herself to more dip, took another sip of wine, and--having found no better way to go about it--simply started with, "There's interest in getting access to dragons. And I thought it might be better to at least ask you first, rather than letting the great minds go to work on the notion."
Lily was right--as usual. While this was better than someone coming in half-dead, it wasn't exactly good. "That's high risk and there are a lot of reasons people want to get in that--you know about egg thievery and other things that people do with bits and pieces of dragons. Have they told you what they want and why? Because it's something I need to know before I start poking round to get access for me and you and--who else needs to do this?" Florrie flopped onto the sofa in her own familiar spot, careful with the wine but not worrying about anything else, as the food settled more gently into its own place on the table.
"Not for eggs," Lily hastened to reassure Florrie. "Nor anything else like that." She remembered a little of all those things that could be done from the time Florrie had taken her to visit the Preserve back at school. And she'd experienced firsthand some uses for dragon odds and ends in advanced potioneering. "They want--" She trailed off, and gave a little unconscious sigh, because it never sounded any more sensible, neither in her head nor said out loud. "They want to harvest dragonfire."
Now Florrie was just confused. "How would you even do that? And what do they want to do with it? Dragonfire can be dangerous enough when it's just coming out of dragons. Carrying it somewhere and using it would be--dangerous." She dug a carrot stick into the dip to emphasise the point, but didn't elaborate further. They wouldn't be asking if it weren't important.
"This is where things get ticklish," Lily commented, with a wry glance to Florrie that conveyed exactly how unnecessary she knew that remark was. "Apparently the Department of Mysteries has a device for the harvesting, though they have also apparently been refused official permission to try it out. So we're off the edge of the map in several ways." She turned her wineglass in her hands, and took a breath before continuing, "Ordinarily I wouldn't be even slightly in favour of this sort of nonsense, but there are some very Dark artifacts out there, impervious to ordinary damage. And it's very important we find them--and destroy them--before any of You-Know-Who's remaining lot can get hold of them."
Which reassured Florrie on some counts and not all on others. She had to pause to think about that answer, what it meant, and, more practically, who would be coming, how many-- "We might want to tell Merc about it. Depending on how many need to go and the size of the device. If it's just you and me, that's one thing. But if we need all four of James' lot, then they'll want more people with us, and Merc is a good line of defence against family interference." Florrie adored her cousins, all of them, but this was not the sort of business they needed to be involved with. Not unless the Order couldn't do it otherwise.
"I really don't want all of his lot involved," Lily said, half to herself. Of course she didn't want the father of her child anywhere near a dragon; but she also didn't see much likelihood of getting one involved without all of them, and Sirius actually seemed keen, though it was often hard to peel apart what Sirius actually felt from what Sirius insisted he felt.
That was all somewhat beside the point. "Merc would be a great addition," Lily agreed, with a degree of gratitude. Even if the Prewetts were also involved, some days they just felt like the same lunacy, with more experience at getting away with it. "To be honest, the more professionals we could get involved, the happier I'd be, but we don't want to get anyone in any sort of trouble if we can avoid it." Lily pulled a face, and added, "I'm half tempted to encourage you to say it can't be done, but I have a horrible feeling then I'd wake up to find a bunch of them popped over to Bulgaria and getting up to who knows what."
"No, better to have them under supervision than not. I'll ask Merc what he thinks about the Prewetts and we'll see what we can do. If I can only allow two of them in and the two Prewetts with Merc, we might manage to find something responsible for the rest of them to do. Do you think that would--" No, Florrie, told herself, just ask "--will James be satisfied with that? Or will he just fob it off on Remus and Peter so he and Sirius can go flying fancy brooms and playing with dragons?" She pressed her lips together, pretty sure she knew the answer and not liking it.
Lily sighed, and downed half her wine, possibly without even meaning to. "If flying's involved, it probably should be James and Sirius. They've the most experience." James would never forgive her--she'd never forgive herself--if she kept him out of it somehow and then something avoidable went wrong. "They are better than they were," Lily told Florrie, not entirely sure which of them she was convincing. They were, though; of course, they'd been absolutely heedless.
"Merc will be the determining factor for all of them. He's best equipped to assess who can fly this and who can't." On that point Florrie could feel certain. "He and I won't let anyone fly who can't keep up. Merc will probably want to fly the lead himself. He's preparing for the Euro Cup but it's a ways off yet so there's time to do this. And I think we can convince him. You and I together--because he knows you're serious and won't think this is a lark the way he might if the lads asked it of him. Now stop worrying yourself into a tizzy and enjoy your wine. You've asked, and I've said we'll see, and it's out of your hands. Just enjoy yourself for once, Lily." Florrie held out the fancy bag of truffle-flavoured crisps at her.
Lily stuck out her tongue and said, "Fine." But she was grinning as she helped herself to the crisps and settled back on the sofa. "Only if you serve up the goss. I heard one of the Welcome Witches in a tizzy over some fit new addition to Ambulatory. I want to hear all about it."
Florrie grinned and leaned in. "Oh, Lily, let me tell you ..."