#mightopen

“You leave the new wait staff alone for two seconds and - mayhem!”

“... Yeah, I don’t think that was butter beer. But that will do.”

     The Leaky Cauldron was close to Alice’s new place of work and unfortunately, she frequented it after longer shifts more often than not. She used to meet colleagues after work there when she was in the Ministry, when she was an Auror. It still stung, still stung fresh everyday she realized how mentally bored she was. This was why she she’d drink more so with Frank and other people she loves & cared about, Emmeline, Alastor, Dorcas, anyone besides at the bar BY HERSELF -- they never let her drown her thoughts in alcohol alone. She surveyed the room, increasingly tired of this routine, thinking about leaving to go home when she decided to treat herself to a butterbeer after her second rum and cream soda. It was always a comfort. “Butterbeer, please! Make sure there’s extra foam on top, I don’t care if it’s spilling from out from the sides. I don’t mind the mess and I know you’re probably very busy,” she’d gained a new appreciation for service industry workers when she became one, and patiently waited for her drink.

It’s not the end of the world, Dorcas. That’s what mum would’ve told her. Would’ve. Truth be told, she probably wouldn’t have listened to it then, either, because everything was the end of the world for Dorcas Meadowes. There was no small problem or small victory. It was one extreme or the other. And lately, it was all catastrophe. At least she had a job - two jobs. That was more than most code fours could say around here, even the purebloods - no, sorry, bloodtraitors. Suppose it probably would have been better for her to lay low when not tending the tea shop or dusting Ollivander’s endless shelves, but she’d never been good at that when she wasn’t on the job. The old job, that is.

Aimless walks down neutral streets for the sake of someone else’s chores were about the only pure alone time Alecto felt she was afforded these days. The new ministry claimed stability now that things were set to the right kind of rights, but she had a feeling her family was still too worried about their expertly manufactured product to let her go places, do things, make choices. All Alecto could do was offer to run errands for uncles or cousins and take several hours too long, oopsie, silly her. She had a day to kill; she’d pick up the ingredients from the apothecary and the order of notebooks from the paperie right at the end. She was lost in possibilities in the reprieve when she felt her shoulder jar into something -- someone? “Excuse me,” she said on instinct, though a bored, annoyed inflection cut the politeness of the phrase. She brushed a hand down the undisturbed arm of her robes. “Didn’t see you there.” 

“I’m telling you, I see the wildest shit at St. Mungo’s. Just this morning, a man came in covered with mushrooms. And they changed color, too, so they were sometimes blue or green or purple. And so I ask him ‘how much of you do they really cover?’ and he looks at me all embarrassed and says ‘everywhere’. Ha.”

“Okay, let me stop you there,” Nic interjected, crossing arms over his chest and looking down at the other person.  “I’m really not interested in hearing about your weekend plans...”

“I don’t care about the details, this is wrong and I want to know what you will do to correct it.”