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Tweak says, "Harry sniffs knickers"

argus is a free bitch, baby (silkensailed) wrote in wished,
@ 2010-01-26 22:03:00

Entry tags:

!1998: 01, !incomplete, argus pyrites, luna lovegood

Who: Argus Pyrites & Luna Lovegood
What: Bringing the Captive some food. And having unwanted conversation.
Where: Shalott, in the cellar-room-thing
When: Tuesday, 26 January, after closing
Rating/Warnings: TBA

Sometimes Argus had to wonder if keeping this girl alive was even necessary. He suspected it wasn't, really - they could still get what they wanted out of her father under the pretense that she was still alive. At least he thought so. Still, he wasn't particularly keen on killing, or getting his hands dirtier than was needed. Unless he got a direct order to do away with Lovegood's daughter, Argus wasn't about to make any rash decisions.

She was annoying, sure, and a burden he'd rather be doing without. But bringing her some food once a day was hardly a huge imposition - though he always hoped he'd find her sleeping when he came down, as he sometimes had. When she wasn't, she gave him odd looks and asked bizarre questions. It made him very uncomfortable, for some reason he couldn't place - after all, she was only a young girl.

He didn't consider tonight any different from the others. The staff had closed up and gone home and he, as occasionally happened, had remained behind to go over some figures and paperwork before extinguishing the lights in his office and heading to the kitchen. Although he knew that the girl ought to be grateful that he was bringing her food at all, Argus' personality almost demanded that he still put in a good effort at preparing her food. It wasn't the quality of anything on the menu, but there was nevertheless a certain degree of consideration, even artistry, to the meal he'd prepared.

As he stalked down the stairs and reached the door of the room the captive was kept in, Argus steeled himself for the possibility that she would be especially chatty tonight. After undoing the wards he'd placed on the door, he replaced his wand up his sleeve, easily accessible. Just in case. He opened the door and entered, letting his eyes adjust to the dim lights.

"Hm."

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lalalune
2010-01-27 03:28 am UTC (link)

Luna rather looked forward to her captor coming down the stairs. After all, she didn't have any other human interaction at the moment, and she was always disappointed when she missed him. Oh, she had some other interaction keeping the mice at bay from her food; she never liked to eat it all at once, and they were invariably interested in it. One was almost friendly to her now, and she'd taken to chatting with it. He'd learned when mealtimes were, too, and had come out to see if she dropped anything.

"Really, I'm not giving you any cheese," she told the mouse companionably, sitting with her hands clasped in her lap. "You're getting quite pudgy, and I only get one meal a day. There may not even be any cheese." The mouse squeaked something, and Luna peered at it. "Oh, very well. We shall see."

The noise on the steps told her that the man was coming, and her mouse quickly disappeared, though it was only behind some of the boxes. She turned her head to face the steps, watching as he came down. "Hello! Is it time for tonight's visit already?"

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silkensailed
2010-01-27 03:55 am UTC (link)

Ah, so it was going to be one of those nights. Argus merely sighed, the only indicator of his irritation. He came a bit closer to where Luna was seated. There was that unsettling calm about her that she always seemed to have after the initial shock of being kidnapped had worn off. Just another reason he wished he could have had any other random prisoner down here.

He ignored the fact that she called his arrival a "visit". The first time he'd corrected her - this was his restaurant, his cellar, for Merlin's sake she was his prisoner! If anyone was a visitor, it was her, and that was certainly up for debate. Instead, Argus addressed the fact that he'd heard her speaking before he'd entered.

"Who were you talking to?" he demanded sharply.

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lalalune
2010-01-27 04:45 am UTC (link)

"Barnabus," Luna answered promptly. That was her name for the mouse, after all. She got to her feet, brushing off her clothing before she stepped closer to him.

Her tone was conversational as she looked at the tray. "Did you have a busy day today? I could hear quite a lot of footsteps abovestairs. Isn't it odd how silencing spells don't work very well on floor treads? Try as you might, they always seem to creak."

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silkensailed
2010-01-27 04:54 am UTC (link)

"Barnabus?" Argus echoed, unable to conceal the fact that her answer had puzzled him. Was she one of those people who had imaginary friends? Wasn't she a bit old for that? Instead of supposing that to be the case, he simply added, "Who's that?"

Though he heard her second question, the part that stuck out to Argus was her offhanded comment about how the silencing spells didn't work on floor treads. He'd spent hours properly warding this room so that it could be used as a makeshift prison, including spells that would keep sound out. Admittedly, he'd focused more on keeping any sounds from within getting out to the restaurant above their heads - he didn't really care very much if Luna could hear the goings on upstairs. Although, perhaps even that could give too much away in regards to her location. If she found out some way to communicate to the outside...he shook his head.

"Very odd."

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lalalune
2010-01-27 05:23 am UTC (link)

"He's a mouse," Luna answered as she took the tray from him, moving to set it down on her little makeshift table. She'd looked through the few things left in the basement, of course, and had found nothing to work with. A few boxes that, if broken up, could possibly be used as self-defense, but that wasn't going to get her very far with someone who had magic. "He doesn't like it when you come down, so he hides... He'll come back out while I'm eating to beg for crumbs."

She picked up the old tray, moving over to hand it back to him, so he could take it upstairs. "How do you keep people from asking why the cellar's locked?" she asked curiously. "Have you never used it for storage? It seems a waste of space not to."

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silkensailed
2010-01-27 05:36 am UTC (link)

"Oh, I see."

That explanation was likely enough, especially as Argus was fully aware that a slew of unwanted vermin tended to make their homes down here. No matter how many measures he took to get rid of them, a new generation always arose all too quickly. Luna's feeding them surely only encouraged their stay, but he didn't feel up to taking care of the problem right now. Killing some mice was the least of his concerns - as long as they stayed down here and didn't make their way into the upper levels.

"He'd do well to continue hiding, unless he wants to wind up in the rubbish bins." Argus stepped back and observed the girl as she set herself up with a makeshift dining area. It was interested to watch her try to make this completely desperate situation somehow civilized. He could appreciate that, if distantly. Surprisingly, he found that he somehow felt up for entertaining her questions, at least for a little while. She was harmless enough. "It's rarely been used...I don't keep a lot of clutter. There's enough space elsewhere."

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lalalune
2010-01-29 03:19 am UTC (link)

"That's a shame," Luna commented, looking over the space around here. "It's just going to waste right now... You could probably free up more space upstairs for other things if you started keeping things down here." It wasn't that Luna had missed the obvious fact that she was down here right now. It was that she knew she wasn't going to be here forever.

She tilted her head to one side, looking at him. "Would you do me a favor?" she asked, perfectly seriously.

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silkensailed
2010-01-29 05:39 am UTC (link)

Argus stayed rooted to the spot. He peered at her strangely, trying to process how she could possibly be so very odd. By all accounts he shouldn't have been surprised. After all, her father was clearly a lunatic.

Was she seriously offering him advice on how to run his own business, how to make best use of his rooms? It was utterly impertinent. But she said it all with such a lack of any criticism, or awareness that it wouldn't be socially acceptable - she was just stating facts. Like she had no mental filter for her words.

Sighing heavily, Argus shook his head very slightly and replied, "What do you mean?"

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lalalune
2010-02-02 08:40 pm UTC (link)

That wasn't strictly true. While Luna was occasionally quite blunt, she was never really entirely tactless. Sensitive subjects were more her particular specialty, and while she quite often said what other people wouldn't even think of saying, it was usually to bring up or drive home a point that was otherwise being missed. In this situation, though, he was quite correct. She was simply stating facts; why wouldn't observations about a room be socially acceptable?

As to her request, that was possibly a little more tender of a subject, but there wasn't anyone else she could ask. "Might I have a little more water?" she asked, tilting her head slightly to one side. She had the basics for hygiene, and Argus took care of the disposal issue magically, since her own wand had been taken, but... "It is rather difficult to wash with only a pitcher-full, though I've been doing the best I can."

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silkensailed
2010-02-03 05:04 am UTC (link)

Luna's request was not what Argus had been expecting at all. He'd felt certain she was going to ask him if his cellar was home to some strange creature he'd never heard of, or if he could brings meals for her rodent. Matters of personal hygiene, however, were very much within Argus' ken. He narrowed his eyes at her for a few moments.

It was a fair enough favor to ask, though. Not as though she wanted him to let her upstairs for a few minutes every day. That was positively out of the question.

"I think that would be possible," Argus conceded, his eyes roaming over her to take in the fact that she did indeed seem rather less than clean. Not that it was his problem. This wasn't a hotel. "I take it you'd like this sooner rather than later?"

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