Dawn May Withey

“I’m glad to hear that. Though, I should warn ya.. I’m really tempted to take that as a challenge.” 

“I’m ready to show ya, but I’m afraid I’mma scare your mum with me bottomless stomach,” Mundungus joked.

“It’ll take a lot more than that to scare her.”

“M’lady, there is no limit to the amount of cake I can eat, and that’s a fact.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“It is,” Mundungus replied, with a firm nod, but laughing too. 

Her words had him look ahead, to the storefronts. “By the way, how many cakes are we going to taste? Is there a limit?”

“Depends. How much cake can you eat?”

Carolyn wondered what kind of parent would do something like that to their own child. It seemed so unnecessary cruel. “That’s an eternity. It would have driven me mad. It must have been a long summer,” she commented. “I have a question.” She curved her lips into a small smile. “How does your mother feel about Quidditch?”

“That sounds like a mystery worth investigating,” Benjy joked. “No, not really.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Unless you want me to,” he said, gently nudging Dawn with his elbow.

“Weeks?”

“That’s how long it takes to heal bones without magic.”

Whatever Benjy was about to say was lost when he paused to give some thought to Dawn’s words. “Ridiculous as it sounds, I have to admit that it does make sense,” he eventually commented. “Totally.” He nodded and laughed. “We are talking about maths, after all. Who does understand that?”

“Exactly. There’s got to a finance department somewhere.”

Mundungus stopped in his tracks and looked at Dawn with an expression of pure shock. “What?! Don’t tell me ya don’t know about the Knight Bus?! Really? Big, purple, utterly magnificent?” He shook his head, mumbling under his breath—a chant of disbelief, or a plead to Merlin—and then started walking again. “How about, after our cake-tasting and a walk.. we get the Knight Bus back to Holyhead? It’d be another adventure.”

Dawn looked at him, her brow slightly arched as he went off about the bus. “Okay,” she laughed, “Must be some pretty special bus.”

“It was,” Mundungus nodded in confirmation.

“Yes.” He smiled. “Ever taken the Knight Bus? It’s nice, comfy.. a bit price-y at times, but sometimes it’s one of the best thing to travel on.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“What if—? Receipts?” For a moment Benjy was left speechless by Dawn’s words. “That’s incredibly boring. It would be so underwhelming. But, I suppose, still possible,” he conceded, still smiling, somewhat amused at the idea. “The great mysteries of financial accounting doesn’t sound that intriguing, does it?” He shook his head, chuckling. “It’s also possible they use them for advanced research in applied Arithmancy. Or something like that. It would make sense, right?”

“Maybe, hundreds of years ago, the Ministry’s finance department got it as a nickname, because no one understood them. Or because they wanted to sound more exciting.”

Carolyn laughed before she could stop herself. “Sorry.” Amused, she gave Dawn an apologetic smile. “Your mother must have been ecstatic,” she commented. “I reckon that must have hurt. However, as far as I know, a broken bone is usually easily fixed.”

“Well, she didn’t trust magical medicine back then, so I was in a cast for weeks.”

He pressed his lips together, a million curses on his tongue. Laughter. There was nothing Lucius hated more than being laughed at. Like he was a fucking freak, like he was somebody to be mocked. He squeezed his left forearm. If only she knew. Lucius Malfoy was somebody to be feared.

So he sipped his drink - once, twice, three times - and let a smile slowly creep along his cheeks. She was, after all, a mere waitress - a servant, like a house elf. He could exploit that as he liked. The next time he showed his face at the Chateux Cheval was going to be fun. He’d run her over with the horse.

“Oh. You really don’t know.” Benjy’s slightly surprised expression quickly lit up with enthusiasm at the chance to tell Dawn about the Department of Mysteries. “So…” He took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. “It’s the secret section of the Ministry where they keep all the confidential stuff and where they study the greatest mysteries of the universe. So they say. No one really knows what’s down there. Well, who works there does, I suppose, but they are not called Unspeakables just because it’s a terrific name.” While speaking he had gradually lowered his voice, in a conspiratorially sort of way, but his tone and gestures had grown more and more excited. 

“What if it’s something really boring? Like just a place they stick all the receipts?”

“No, this was my first time. I never got the chance in the past.” It wasn’t the kind of event her parents would have taken her to. There were too many Muggles. “I believe younger me would have really enjoyed the idea of hurling herself down that hill,” she added, smiling, looking a little amused at the thought. 

“I did it once. I always wanted to, but my ma’ never let me. Then when I turned twelve she did, and I slipped and went rolling down the hill and broke my leg.”

Mundungus chuckled. “True,” he said, nodding. “I once saw someone trying to fly bringing suitcases and a whole trunk with them on a broom.” What a sight had that been.

“Yes, I have caught a train,” he replied, smiling back a laugh as he gave her an amused look. “Not with me bear hands, though. And not since Hogwarts. I actually prefer the Bus.”

“That would have been a sight.”

“Are you serious?”