nottable;

There was an issue with the Floo network that landed Poppy in the wrong tea shop and she had to sprint to make it to the right one in time. Breathless, she slipped into a seat and hoped tucking a few stray strands behind her ear would make her appear more polished than she felt after the run. “Fucking Floo network has been shit lately,” she said by way of apologizing for her rush into the building. “So, you’re looking for models? What’s the new venture?”

“That can’t happen.” She was a sharp as she would have once been at the topic only for a moment, before rolling her eyes herself and brushing off what she had vowed to carry as a chip on her shoulder forever. “ If you redid the fake amnesia, you might find I’m not as truthful as I once was even in casual ways. I’d edit our history.”

“I could go for a margarita,” she agreed amicably after a moment of blinking surprise, confronted with the fact that though she felt she’d been up for several days, that wasn’t true and time didn’t even have the decency to switch to the middle of the night. It was early and she should commit to letting herself be cheered like she had tried to before instead of ending the day on this note.

“How was it supposed to scare them? I think it would have given me ideas. Strawberry margaritas and do we have any of that cake Splinter made left?”

‘‘Would you help me believe I was once a great ballet dancer?’‘ he turned it around to the realm of jokes entirely, feigning starry eyes and a hopeful voice. ‘‘I really think something like this could really reshape my personality for the best possible...’‘ Colin then sighed, as if daydreaming. ‘‘You can add in any fragments saying I’ve been crazy about you ever since day one and that I chased you for years. It wouldn’t make any difference.’‘

‘‘Or...’‘ The idea popped in his mind and it felt odd to think he never considered it before. His wand was waved and accio’ed a small kit from a drawer. Colin unzipped it in expectation and pulled out a small ball of plastic that he unwrapped carefully. ‘‘If you feel like smoking, I have the better option.’‘ Working carefully with his hands, he took a small bit of a dried faded green plant and put it in a tiny herb grinder. It was one of his favorite occupations and not once did he consider sharing it with Roxanne. Weed was inoffensive enough not to bring in any triggers or frowns, or so he reckoned. All the arguments were positive all of a sudden. ‘‘Nearly harmless in terms of lung cancer, calms you down after your long evening, lets off some steam and helps you sleep better. Works incredibly well with half a glass of strawberry margarita.’‘ He was preparing the paper, making an improvised filter out of a bit of his cigarette pack. At this point, no matter the answer, he was already rolling.

‘‘Torture? Dark magic? Death? Something like that. They could be pretty cruel.’‘ Smiling in a guilty manner, he shook his head no. ‘‘No more cake left, but I could be making you pancakes later, if it could ever compete.’‘

Jon claimed cheeky and creepy with a passive smirk. He would have said he’d predicted every tick of Colin’s response, called him simple to figure out, but, in reality, it was a pleasant surprise, Colin’s ease with him and, to an extent, the reverse.

“I didn’t say I had been checking on your dreams. You say I’m not the biggest feature anymore, but it is, unfortunately, telling that was the first assumption as if you’d seen me recently, something I’d rather not dig into for my own comfort.” Jon undoubtedly had gone cheekier as his old friend had said, because even those words were pitched with amusement, not the old undercurrent of defensive disgust. “I may have checked on you once or twice that way though.”

“Not a tower, no.” He didn’t so much as twitch a smile at Colin’s forced laugh. “Did she tell you much about the months she spent with me on the run? I made a few miscalculations. I would do better if given another chance. I’ve told her so.” It was gravely upsetting he hadn’t seen her tonight. 

“I was not.” Jon annunciated every word. His humor wasn’t that good and he felt wetness that said his nose was beginning to bleed as he stared Colin down. It was a long second frozen, then he pinched the bridge of his nose briefly as he shook his head as if simply in annoyance and not making sure the blood wasn’t going to run out of it and make him obvious, and came back with a smile of too many teeth that didn’t reach his eyes, ignoring the previous staredown and giving Colin some version of the comeback that was supposed to enter into male banter when both sides were too secure and knew each other too well to get offended.  ‘’I suppose it’s fair. I didn’t confirm whether I’d ever slept with yours.”  He was the one forcing a chuckle now and it sounded like he’d never even heard one before. The intensity he’d tried to shake off settled again, Jon truly unable to let the joke slide and move on despite knowing better than to show anger or look unstable tonight. He kept his tone low, about all he could do. “If I ever thought you had slept with Delphina, I would flay the skin from your body, strip by strip. I would grow plants inside your lungs while you were still alive and let them burst from your throat. Not the most intimidating death threat, I’m aware, but it would offer a sense of completion since I’ve set murder scenes by air, fire, and water, and burying you alive would be less satisfying since I would not get to watch. That would not be the end, but I do have to contain even the hypothetical right now. Just say you understand.” He wiped the blood from his upper lip and summoned a napkin. Unfortunate he had reacted that way. He was already berating himself. 

“Not under the table, but sometimes at a few you occupied.” After he’d gotten to complete his outburst, he was jovial again, though still more muted than before.

‘‘I assumed. After it keeps happening, it becomes evident.’‘ Perhaps Colin’s mind was just working very well in the dreaming department, but it certainly also helped that Scorpius used his trick on him back when the Maytes had him caged. Now, the water elemental felt experienced enough to tell when his mind is being intruded. ‘‘It’s nicer in person,’‘ he found a pleasant way of saying it, not exactly fond of people in his head and the ease that took them to get there.

He didn’t want to be Delphina’s guardian angel or intrude in Jonathan’s marriage with her. He hadn’t even spoken lately with the red head, to know what she had in mind. Yet, almost instinctively, it was on the tip of his tongue to advise Jon to better drop it and pick it up from an entirely new angle. Delphina never discussed the possibility of a divorce, rather than the trust she had that Jonathan would come back, apologize for everything and miraculously return to his seventeen year old image. Colin was no realist, but this seemed off market entirely, not that he had the patience or the interest to explain it actively to Del. Maybe now that Jonathan hoped to return, he might reconsider, though. It was difficult to meddle into their business but, more or less, he felt like it was some sort of his duty to weigh in. ‘’She told me just a bit,’’ he confessed, with the same distracted and airy attitude he usually carried himself with. ‘’But I don’t know what makes you hold onto it so tightly. The whole eating death thing might not be Del’s type of diet. It would be silly to ask anything like that from her.’’

Colin missed Jon’s reaction for what it was, though he was silly enough to think that nothing really changed between them, while Jonathan changed in the past years. Like the zoo-keeper reckoning wrong the loyalties of the panther he’d witnessed grow up, Colin shook his head, filled with empty certainty on that. ‘’I highly doubt it, cupcake, not that I would have a wife anymore,’’ he sighed sweetly, tone gentle even though condescending. Mercy was an old bruise, but not one he couldn’t control past nose bleeds. Besides, violence was hardly Colin’s style. 

The next was beyond Colin’s understanding. He had the ease to ignore threats generally, but this was explicit and serious enough, to the background noise of blood dripping out of Jonathan’s mouth and noise subtly. It was impossible not to freeze at the sight. Very attentive, very relieved to be lucid in that moment and still composed, Colin replayed some of the ideas that his old friends put into words in his mind, to figure out what to say. He still had the arrogance to say he was able to tame Jon’s temper, even now that it was revealed - even to him, now, very personally - the extents of it. ‘’I’ve read poetry about flowers in lungs, but it’s usually unnecessarily sentimental. I’d have thought better things about you,’’ he commented, voice as lowered and rushed, though his tongue was stalling for his mind to decide on an appropriate behavior.

Instead of anything else, his fingers reached for his pockets, searching desperately for Colin’s real best friends. He offered the packet to Jonathan, first, open and only half empty. ‘‘Do you want a cigarette?’’ He was briefly reminded of another conversation they had back in Hogwarts. ‘‘It really does help with the frustration or whatever it is you’re feeling.’‘ Easy-going and apparently less than bothered, he indulged the blood wiping closing his eyes and allowing a simper on, elegant and forgiving. 

It was moments like those that defined one’s character, he thought. He reminded himself of how he spoke to Darius back when everything was a playground and he didn’t realize what was to potentially fear. Back when he’d threatened Roxanne and back when Roxanne seemed, and possibly was, defenseless. ‘’Don’t ever threaten me, Jonathan. I’m not merely relying on the sentimentalism and saying you’d miss me if I ever took these empty threats to heart, but I’m one of the few people who still speak kindly of you. You should value that more. People have been saying awful things lately.’’ 

He was calm, calculated, putting everything in order. ‘’If I make a joke, I don’t expect a duel on whose cock is bigger. If I make a joke, it’s natural we laugh. Or I laugh while you pout, because you’re always a little rigid and I’m always a little over the top and that’s always been the comedic relief in our dynamic.’’ He felt like he was suddenly preaching manners, and that pissed him off too, but there were a few moments in life when you had to say something, even if the whole concept of speaking in this manner to a serial killer seemed out of this world. Well, Jon as a serial killer threatening to kill him was close to out of this world as well. This was called for, and still friendly, in a way. ‘’If you don’t like my tasteless joke, you say, Colin, your humor is off and you couldn’t even sleep with your wife let alone another’s. I understand you’re bothered by my tasteless joke, maybe I apologize, maybe we laugh it off, maybe I don’t go home thinking you’re a psychopath all the way down.’’ Colin nodded at himself, pleased with the eloquence and with how he stood up for himself without trying to compare dicks or elemental power capacities. He thought it was best if this was never to be discussed with Roxanne, for her reactions would heavily exceed his and, besides, there was no reason to, when he drew the line in his own manner, slowly maturing even against his will.

With a margin of error of a second, Colin returned to the polished, out of the box, fresh, distracted, charming smile as if it’s been a mask to tie all along. Truth be told, the mask was the rest, but the smiling, if anything. He didn’t understand what that meant, but it could have meant many things. Colin was momentarily too stressed out to get into details. Still grinning, he nodded, again graceful and indulgent. ‘’Hopefully it was a table worth of your time,’’ the polite closing remark was delivered with a matching head nod as Colin was getting ready to subtract himself.

“You deserve the most enthusiastic welcome I can give.” Jon’s warmth was genuine, and perhaps a stark contrast to the persona his old friend might remember the best. “But you also deserve me not complicating your life by looking like I’m being too effusive so I’m afraid you will have to make do with subdued.” There was a self-mocking edge to his voice as if he had made a joke about how exuberant he typically was otherwise instead of just implying. “If you’re poorer in words than me, nothing has changed,” he fell into what felt like old tread lines. 

“It’s good to see you alive too, though I never was given reason to think I’d see you otherwise. It hasn’t even been half as long as you may think since we talked. I’ve always kept an eye on you.”

“Thank you for looking out for Del, as long as she let you. “It was as good of a note as any to start on, or perhaps not as it immediately set a less happy tone. “My only real regret is letting her go. I didn’t expect her to stay away this long. Have you seen her often since the book club stopped meeting?”

‘‘You’ve gone cheekier. Love it. Not that I think your new profession is all that great for yourself. I won’t meddle into that.’‘ Colin was honest on all grounds, both hesitant and excited and, on top of everything, trying not to judge.

‘‘You’re doing a terrible job at not being creepy, Jon,’‘ he sighed out like a nostalgic. ‘‘You should stop checking up on people in their dreams. You might not be my biggest dream anymore, I’m afraid. And it’s awkward.’‘

The mention of Delphina was met with warmth in his eyes, though he didn’t condone or even understand all that was (still?) going on between them. ‘’I mean, what could you have done? Kept her a prisoner in a tower?’’ He laughed briefly, to state that as the most ridiculous thing in an almost forced, induced manner. Not that he would ever suspect that joke to be serious when it came to Jon. 

He knew it was a terrible idea. Mathematically, Jonathan Marks was an unstable murderer with incredible powers. Still, he reminded Colin of his Hogwarts period, which was his craziest and most shameless one. What came next was almost asked for. He knew that Jon’s ego was going to survive this and even play the game with a great comeback. He at least hoped for it. ‘’If you’re asking me indirectly, Jonathan, if I’m still sleeping with your - um, wife, right? - I can’t answer that. It’s personal.‘’ His smile spoke a silent, not apologetic but hopeful sorry. ‘’Wait, you know about the book club? Merlin, Jon, have you been hiding under the table all along?’’

She couldn’t have not gone, even though her bones ached at the idea, and peace, though ideal, wasn’t an option in her mind. Her dreaded curiosity hadn’t died with her unwavering bravery. The opportunity to take such an eclectic audience in had won. Though she felt more cautious than usual. She knew more about these folks than they knew about her.

“Did everyone and their dog show up? Were we expected to memorize a dance for a flash mob before we arrived? Does everyone really have my sick sense of curiosity? And am I over or under dressed? I really can’t tell now.”

‘‘You’ve been good,” she soothed where it wasn’t asked for. Better than I have, she thought but didn’t continue to wallow in the largely  self-indulgent guilt he kept telling her not to feel, though she did let out a quiet and resigned revelation as another reason for guilt other than actions of themselves and keeping secrets. “I ask more than you. It’s not fair.” 

‘‘Most opinions.’’ There was no shame in that. “But yours does on the whole. I may not rest but I have a chance with you.” 

‘‘Who is the Addams family?” She asked, gently confused. “Do we know them?” The glare she gave the new cigarette was more a pout, and the shake of her head too slow and grave to be serious. “You are tempting fate now.” Under her concentration the cigarette began to burn more quickly. “Fine. We’ll switch powers when it comes to vices. You handle all the smoke and I’ll handle more of the liquids.”

‘‘It’s definitely not. You should totally give me a pass to redo fake amnesia one day so we’d be even,’‘ he stopped his growing smirk, caused by her realization, with an eye roll at how dumb his old bad idea was.

‘‘Rest? I hope not. The night’s still young. I was going to make margaritas.’‘ Sure, he stopped after a glass and a half, already feeling it go into his head, but it was the new best thing, pretending to drink alcoholic cocktails for the aesthetic of it. Roxanne was usually more receptive to the whole deal.

‘‘Some old tale I loved as a child. Eccentric pureblooded family in the middle of some muggle park terrorizing everyone there with full disclosure in terms of magic. A little story to scare children away from ever using magic around muggles.’‘ Colin simpered back at her. ‘‘I did say margaritas.’‘