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Essery Elizabeth Oakby ([info]oakbye) wrote in [info]wished,
@ 2010-10-23 21:20:00

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Entry tags:!2003:10, !incomplete, essery oakby, rhydian oakby

Who: Essery and Rhydian Oakby
What: Meeting to talk about the dating game.
When: Tomorrow
Where: Hogsmeade
Rating/Warning: TBA


Essery watched as the Hufflepuffs branched off and ran to buy their sweets and games and whatnot. She tried to keep an eye out for anyone heading to the Weasley shop, but there was almost no way to stop them, really, she just figured she might have to hand out a few detentions tonight. She certainly couldn't police their shopping when she had such an important meeting with her brother, anyway. She waited just inside the Three Broomsticks for him, sitting at the counter and chatting with Rosmerta as she poured out hot cider and pumpkin juice for students coming in.

She wondered, really, if her brother was going to be upset with the way they'd gone about it. Rosmerta had helped, and they'd come up with a good deal of the game together, but she had a feeling if Rhydian hated the idea, she'd be getting the brunt of it herself.


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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-24 02:34 am UTC (link)
Rhydian was in an excellent mood, even if he had some misgivings about what Essery had told him. He was staving off the Sunday funk that would descend around eleven on Sunday night, when it sunk in that he would have to work tomorrow, with a lot of sleep, a generous brunch, and a serious effort at trying to keep a sense of humor about Fergus vetting someone's male romantic partners. His spirits were almost high enough that he might offer to pay for ice cream - depending on what transpired.

"Well, hello," he said, gripping his sister's shoulder and kissing her on the cheek as he gave a bright little wave to Rosmerta. "I just about fell over one of yours on the way in." He helped himself to a stool. "Doesn't anyone teach them how to tie their shoes? It's a hazard. How have you been? Busy, by the sound of it?" There was a little reproach in his voice, but not much. The only people he'd turned up for her were ... well, they could get to that later. he'd found one who was actually well employed!

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-24 02:38 am UTC (link)
"Well they're thirteen even if they're the youngest here," Essery rolled her eyes, trying to see through the ever opening door who it was but not managing. Maybe they'd moved on. "You'd think they'd know how by now." She hugged her brother hello, and kissed his cheek, then settled back onto her stool and laughed.

"I didn't know that you'd make it, really. I hadn't realized there were pro games on today. Rosie says we can listen upstairs on the wireless while we talk, though, if you want."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-24 02:46 am UTC (link)
"You'd think. Maybe he tried to do it by magic. I'm surprised we don't find more swinging from lampposts." He grinned at Rosmerta, refraining for a few more moments from ordering a drink. "That's very kind of her. I haven't got tickets, which is a damned shame, but listening in will do. I'll try to keep my seat." He itched to be there, as usual, but he hadn't exerted his usual effort to find a seat. He was split between two projects at the moment, and never had enough attention for one. "How about we take up some ice cream - or some whiskey - and tune in, then? And you can tell me what the hell you've been doing hanging around Fergus. I wish you wouldn't. I do love him, but he's a dog."

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-24 02:50 am UTC (link)
"I was hanging around with him trying to get you a date," She rolled her eyes. "And he only tried to feel me up once." Which was a lie, and the laugh in her eyes said that if her brother was paying attention. She laughed, kissing his cheek again and then ordering butterbeer to take upstairs, and ice cream if Rosie had it. "Actually, everything I needed from him we figured out by owl."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-24 03:01 am UTC (link)
"Yes, his soft-eyed Irish charm is so hard to resist. He'd better not have." He gave her a hard look, as though he could send it through her, but relented as he stood and hung his arm over her shoulders. "My treat. It sounds like you've gone to quite a lot of trouble." And he was only a little worried. "I'm still sorting through contenders, you know - I haven't forgotten, even if I'm not conspiring with your friends." Maybe he should start conspiring with her friends. That was a thought. He took the butterbeer and headed up, checking the time. They had a while before the game he cared about.

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-24 03:05 am UTC (link)
"Well, conspiring with your friends was easier than trying to be in four places as once. You friends... mum..." She teased, taking her butterbeer and then waiting for him before starting for the stairway.

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-24 03:17 am UTC (link)
His laugh trailed off as he followed her up the stairs. He wasn't sure she was joking about dragging in their mother. "And what would mum have to say to anyone? 'Make him do his own dishes, or you'll be buried in a week.' Not very attractive." He held the door for her with his foot. "Surely the big sister is enough for starters?"

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-24 03:19 am UTC (link)
"Well, I was working, wasn't I? Who else has the baby pictures to show..." No, she wasn't teasing about that at all, unfortunately, but anyone who'd had the mettle to withstand meeting their mum AND Fergus was definitely a keeper. "Come on, you..." She headed into the flat that Rosie kept upstairs, holding the door open for him to come through after.

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-24 03:34 am UTC (link)
"Baby pictures." He caught up with her, confronted her, and took the butterbeer. "You didn't actually let anyone see any baby pictures. Or speak to my mother." He was trying to look rather fierce, but he was afraid the slowly rising panic would undermine the effect. Good lord, and what if they were people he knew? A terrifying prospect reared its head: "Fergus didn't get his hands on those, did he?"

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-24 03:40 am UTC (link)
"Of course not!" Essery took back her butterbeer, and tried not to show which question she was answering until she had it back in hand. "He and mum were at different stations. No crossing paths."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-24 03:53 am UTC (link)
"Stations?" In the process of opening the bottle he slopped a little onto the floor. What the hell had she been up to? "How many people, exactly, did you - all right." He pointed to the sofa, forgetting for the moment that he wanted to switch on the wireless. "You had better start from the beginning. And you know damn well that your baby pictures are about to be in the public domain, don't you?"

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-25 11:53 pm UTC (link)
Essery smiled as a carton of ice cream, two bowls, and spoons appeared on the table in the upstairs flat. She'd have to thank Rosmerta when they went back down. "You'll have to find my baby pictures first, you know, mum's oddly not as desperate to find me someone steady. Maybe she thinks I'm a bit better able to take care of myself, hrm?" She grinned and brought the carton and things to the coffee table, then sat down beside him as she opened it.

"Stations. Basically - and you can't get mad, because it was fun and a great way to weed out the ones who weren't really invested - the blokes had a sort of scavenger hunt. At each new station they got sent off to the next one, so they went in a different order and didn't end up crossing paths."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-27 01:24 am UTC (link)
"Maybe I'll just enlighten her, then. When she finds out you're as hard up as I am, I doubt she'll hold out on me." Whether he would actually show any pictures ... Anyone who was interested in seeing baby pictures of his sister and in dating her was not going on the good list. "And I'm just ever so glad you had fun," he said, scooping himself out a large portion of ice cream with a reproachful look. He was too amused and a bit too flattered to be mad, but one couldn't encourage people to go showing baby pictures. "Fergus didn't hit anyone, did he? You're mad, you really are." A wicked mad genius, but he couldn't say that with his mouth full of ice cream. As long as Fergus hadn't hit anyone decent, Rhydian wouldn't be complaining.

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-27 01:29 am UTC (link)
"Think he had people hit him, actually," Essery shrugged, then laughed and took out a few photographs of the men who'd been playing the game. "A few got through almost all the stations, this one..." she took out the picture of Astrophel Fleetwood. "Was the only one who completed everything. Doesn't drink, but he's apparently got a lot to do with Quidditch. I think Fergus was impressed, except he grumbled something about him being a Holyhead supporter."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-27 01:48 am UTC (link)
"Holyhead," Rhydian muttered - but there were more offensive allegiances one could hold, and he was capable of forgiving a lot for a pretty face, which this was. Whether someone who didn't drink wold be able to tolerate him for more than two hours was not something he had ever considered. "Well, if he's hit Fergus in the face, we'll at least have something in common right away. I can't believe you've done this, by the way." He really couldn't let her off the hook like this just because he'd been presented with results, but ... "Don't do it again," he said, entirely too stern not to be kidding.

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-27 01:51 am UTC (link)
"Why would I need to do it again? Look at the contenders." Essery grinned, took a few bites of ice cream, and went through the few pictures of the blokes who'd made it to the last stages and then not through all the pubs at the end. "Maybe Fleetwood's not drinking gave him an advantage. Fergus told me all your favorite pubs, and the bartenders were maybe a little too helpful." The pictures were of men in varying degrees of drunk. Then she started on the those that hadn't finished the whole game at all.

"This one's mum's favourite. I guess he's a professional quidditch player?" She handed him a clipping of Lennox Campbell, since he hadn't gotten all the way to the paparazzi stage of the game. "He went to mum's first in order, after Quality Quidditch, then to Fergus, and I guess Fergus scared him off? Mum said he was sort of quiet."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-27 02:47 am UTC (link)
"So now they all know where to find me if they decide I deserve a slap up the head? Lovely." He halted in the middle of setting the picture down, and gave it another, closer inspection. "Fleetwood?" 'A lot to do with Quidditch' indeed, if in an indirect way. That was rather more impressive than he had been expecting. But he laid him aside and moved on to Campbell, whom he certainly recognized.

"Well. Mum has always had excellent taste." Two pretty faces, lucky him. "Fergus would have done, everything seems to. Not exactly a public figure. How did you get him to -" Actually, he didn't know if he wanted to hear the how. But it was very intriguing. He sat back, lifting his bowl into his hands, and stuck his nose up in the air. "You're forgiven," he said, with mock haughtiness. "I suppose."

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-27 02:50 am UTC (link)
"You weren't mad." Essery said with another eye roll, then she took the pictures he seemed to catch on back and sat them on the table next to one another. "They're both rather fit, aren't they? Campbell is closer in age, I guess, but I've a taste for older men lately..."

Or just one in particular. Essery blushed a bit, hiding it behind a drink of her butterbeer. "So, you should write them. Oh, and George Weasley and some bloke called Nikolas Urquhart also were interested, but I don't think they made it to the game."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-27 03:06 am UTC (link)
"They are - you've got an eye. I won't deny you that. I will write them." He drew his attention away from his prospects, as she'd called them, and gave it to her, his good mood quite preserved despite the obstacles it had had to navigate. He had not been mad. "Have you? And you were going to hold out on me, I suppose, and let me flail around in the dark looking for someone suitable?" After everything she'd just told him about, he wasn't inclined to let her off the hook. "Anyone in particular, or are you going to be coy?"

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-27 03:11 am UTC (link)
Essery fixed a serious look on her brother and then pursed her lips. She wasn't in the business of keeping secrets from him, really, but he was going to look all shocked and she also didn't think he was going to like the idea.

"There might be someone I've found myself thinking about too much the last few weeks," she admitted after a minute, sighing and giving him a small smile. "You won't be able to guess it in a thousand years, actually."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-27 03:50 am UTC (link)
Rhydian had expected, at worst, a laugh and a wall of silence, but she looked serious, and he was left wondering whether by 'older' she meant 'eighty-three.' "A few weeks, eh?" He tried to sound light-hearted about it. "And you weren't going to say anything? I'll spare you the tedium of telling me I'm wrong, then. Who is he, the lucky bastard?" He took a bracing bite of ice cream. The obvious candidates for a woman trapped at Hogwarts, when it came to older men, was fellow professors. He tried to think of the likely candidates, but ... who the hell was there anymore? Who was old?

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-27 03:54 am UTC (link)
Essery sunk back against the arm of the sofa and took another few bites of ice cream, then shrugged and leaned to sit her bowl back down on the coffee table. She could mince around it, tease and get him to really guess, but then that would build it up, and she didn't want him to literally explode from the shock when she told him.

"Well, it's um... Severus. Actually. Headmaster Snape..." She bit at her lip anxiously, waiting for his reaction.

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-27 04:07 am UTC (link)
Rhydian clicked his spoon against the inside of his bowl, looking at her with his smile still plastered a little stiffly on his face. If it hadn't been for the look on her face, he'd have absolutely assumed it was a joke, and he still felt like maybe he ought to laugh and hope she was having him on. he was silent, instead, for quite a while. She'd actually shocked him, which was not easy to do.

"Snape," he said at last, heavy with all the skepticism he could muster. Severus? Really? "The Headmaster." Her boss, and maybe the best route would have been to point that out, but there was something else so much more obvious that it would have been downright dishonest to pass over it: "Essery, he's an absolute git." He had thought everyone had been agreed on that point.

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-27 04:14 am UTC (link)
Essery actually looked offended. "He isn't," She said defensively, but it softened a second later as she shrugged and sank back into the sofa again. "I mean, we all thought he was when we were students. Being a git was his job, then. And he isn't exactly warm and personable, I don't expect to see him hugging a crying student at any point in the future but..."

She sighed, looking at her brother evenly, and the soft look she got said very clearly she was serious about what she was saying, "But he's interesting. And intelligent. Witty. Ridiculously sarcastic. It's true he's a bit stiff, but in a way that's more defensive and awkward than it should be for a man his age, which makes it ... endearing." And god, she'd obviously spent quite a bit too much time thinking about this.

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-10-27 04:30 am UTC (link)
He listened with growing incredulity, holding his tongue (more than he could have, anyway) only because she was so obviously not prepared to take any lecturing. He could hardly believe it at all. It sounded like she was describing a completely different person. "Do you think so? I mean, really? Snape?" As though she might simply have mixed up the name. He was reluctant to imply that she didn't know what she was doing, but this was a little beyond the pale. "You do work for him, you realize," he said, a bit weakly. It wasn't the argument he wanted to be making, but maybe he wouldn't have to tell her she'd gone off the deep end.

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[info]oakbye
2010-10-31 11:52 pm UTC (link)
Essery stared at her brother for a second like she was going to smack him, not hard - but enough to be felt, then she sighed and sank down against her arm of the sofa, nodding. "Of course I know that I work for him. And that he's completely inappropriate. And that he was my professor when I was at Hogwarts - gods do you remember how horrible I was at Potions? Nothing's going to happen about it, Rhyd. It's just a .... a crush." Crush. How ridiculous did that sound?

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-11-01 12:04 am UTC (link)
He had clearly stuck his foot in something more seriously than he'd intended to. He straightened in his chair, mostly out of surprise - she was surprising him a lot today, and that look was just the latest shock to the system - but relaxed halfway when she seemed to deflate a little.

"Well, that's all perfectly natural, of course," he said, in a hurry to be in her good graces again. "It happens in the workplace, at least to people who spend more than six hours a day there, I understand. It's not so bad." He smiled, taking up his ice cream again cautiously. "I do remember. I think we decided that your talent ran in the family."

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[info]oakbye
2010-11-01 12:06 am UTC (link)
Essery snorted a small laugh, nodding. "We were both atrocious. Thankfully he doesn't really remember us that way, at least I hope he doesn't." She sighed again, sitting up and making a gesture toward her bowl that meant her brother should fill it with ice cream again and hand it to her.

"Right. It happens." It was just a crush - and sitting with her brother, she could almost believe that.

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-11-01 12:25 am UTC (link)
"You were hired, weren't you? You don't need a NEWT in Potions to do that job. How's work going otherwise, then?" He cast a refilling charm on her ice cream bowl, pleased to see that it worked as well with desserts as it did with wine. It would be better to move on from this subject. He hadn't meant to make her feel badly, and he couldn't think of much to say that would make it better. He did stupid things all the time as a result of crushes, and it almost never came to anything, and so his material for advice was rather thin. He handed her the bowl. "Getting along with everyone, not spending all your time watching over detentions?"

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[info]oakbye
2010-11-01 12:28 am UTC (link)
Essery nodded. Of course she was getting along with everyone. "I've been settling into a routine of chess games with - " She stopped and avoided the subject by saying, "Oh! And I've got a kitten!" And taking a few fast bites of ice cream.

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-11-01 12:33 am UTC (link)
"Have you? Do they have them wandering the halls, there? I never understood why they let the kids keep them, really. What's it look like?" It sounded much more fun than chess, which Rhydian knew how to play in that he knew which ways the pieces were allowed to move. He could just imagine Professor Binns playing all the professors in century-long matches. It made him sleepy.

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[info]oakbye
2010-11-01 12:34 am UTC (link)
"All white and fluffy. Tends to leave white hair on everything..." Like Severus' robes, she thought quietly with a bit of a smile sneaking out around another bite of ice cream. "I think he's adorable."

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-11-01 12:39 am UTC (link)
"Oh, my favorite kind." He grinned, pleased to see her smiling again. It made it much easier to enjoy his ice cream, for one thing. "Good. You should have gotten a hellion, though, to guard your office. Maybe you can train him up."

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[info]oakbye
2010-11-08 12:53 am UTC (link)
"Well, he's definitely not well behaved yet..." Essery thought of a certain scarf and chuckled, then leaned over to sit down her empty (again) bowl. "So, which of these do you think you'll write first?"

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[info]rhydianluke
2010-11-08 01:34 am UTC (link)
"He's still got plenty of charm, then. Good. I don't know - I think I'll try Quidditch, here." Campbell was easy on the eyes, and younger, and ... Quidditch. "But I don't see why I shuldn't have a go at both at once. More efficient, and all that." Rhydian paused, and glance up with a faintly sheepish smile. "That's not so bad, is it?"

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[info]oakbye
2010-11-08 01:35 am UTC (link)
Essery giggled, shaking her head and leaning back in the seat, her feet landing in her brother's lap. "Not at all, I wouldn't have expected anything less."

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