#nox.event012

the cupids ( luna and xenophilius lovegood plus a single bowtruckle ) have been hard at work since submissions closed matching up all the people who sent back a form with their one true love. if your character took part, then they’ll receive the time & location for their date on a bright pink slip of parchment just in time for february 14th. it doesn’t really give much time to get ready, but the as the lovegood’s will remind you, in a byline : IT’S WHAT’S ON THE INSIDE, THAT COUNTS. and now, without further ado : 

blaise zabini & tempest clearwater will be meeting at the white wyvern, knockturn alley. 

cassia trelawney & dennis creevey will be meeting at the three broomsticks, hogsmeade. 

eleanor diggory & dudley dursley will be meeting at fortescue’s ice cream shop, diagon alley.

gabrielle delacour & nicolette maxwell will be meeting at fortescue’s ice cream shop, diagon alley. 

ginny weasley & lee jordan will be meeting at the three broomsticks, hogsmeade. 

hannah abbott & oliver wood will be meeting at the leaky cauldron, diagon alley. 

harper selwyn & rolf scamander will be meeting at the hogs head, hogsmeade. 

harry potter & cerise angles will be meeting at madam puddifoots, hogsmeade. 

helen buchanan & verity burke will be meeting at the hogs head, hogsmeade. 

lavinia rowle & lavender brown will be meeting at the hogs head, hogsmeade. 

maisie lestrange & giselle nott will be meeting at madam puddifoots, hogsmeade. 

marietta edgecombe & thalia umbridge will be meeting at fortescue’s ice cream shop, diagon alley. 

michael corner & ivy rosier will be meeting at the three broomsticks, hogsmeade. 

nikolai karkaroff & mary mckinnon will be meeting at the hogs head, hogsmeade. 

nymphadora tonks & mikaela karkaroff will be meeting at the three broomsticks, hogsmeade. 

penelope clearwater & percy weasley will be meeting at the three broomsticks, hogsmeade. 

ron weasley & alicia spinnet will be meeting at the poison apple nightclub, knockturn alley. 

theodore nott & oliver sanders will be meeting at fortescue’s ice cream shop, diagon alley. 

theora selwyn & merry lestrange will be meeting at the three broomsticks, hogsmeade. 

IN CHARACTER : remember that there’s a week long itching hex for anyone who doesn’t show up for their date, even if that someone didn’t fill out their own form. no name is given, and there are no hints - characters are showing up blind to exactly who they’re spending the evening with, and that’s a part of the fun ( or... absolute opposite of fun ) for anyone involved. xenophilius lovegood would also like to remind everyone who partook that while the quibbler has organized the tables booked for each of these dates, the bill will need to be paid in full by those attending. 

Lavender was...early. But only by forty minutes. She had arrived to Hogsmeade hours ago, but busied herself by visiting all her old favorite shops. She was nervous. But also excited. Her stomach was all aflutter with butterflies and the faint sensation of nausea. She loved love. She loathed her own luck in it. But perhaps today would be the start of something extraordinary. She waited, periodically glancing at the folded pink slip of paper in her hand. Each time someone walked through the door she glanced up and offered a greeting, wondering if they were the one she was destined to meet. After a dozen confused stares, finally someone entered who appeared to be looking for someone - looking for her. “Hi! Is this table alright? I can ask for another one if you prefer a different spot.” 

it often felt as if the only time that he & mikaela shared a common thought was when they were trying to interfere in each others lives. nikolai had never, over the course of his life, seriously read the quibbler - but the form he’d filled out had been left behind on a bartop a few weeks ago, and he’d thought it’d be funny. he hadn’t realized that he was setting himself up ( karmically, if you believed in that shit ) for her to think much the same, and as strong as the instinct was to just ignore the little pink post it & the time and location scrawled across it, he really didn’t fancy his chances with the itching hex that may - or may not - have been involved. 

it could’ve been worse. he’d BEEN through worse, with everything that came with arranging a marriage & then some : the hogs head was the only wixen bar that niko could class as ‘frequented’, and even if his partner for the evening was a raging nightmare ( unlikely that as it was that they’d be the one described as so- ), at least there wasn’t a requirement to spend more time than necessary present. he made a little effort - black turtleneck, black jeans, black jacket, too many rings - but was resigned to the tedium of it all by the time he apparated to hogsmeade. unused to the mode of travel, he predictably misjudged the stop. he popped into being five minutes from the main village, and trudged his way to the bar from there. 

Yet here she was anyway, on a date. A blind date, of all things.

“I suppose I am supposed to ask what you do for a living?” Helen doesn’t mean for that to come out as snarky as it did, but she is not in a rush to take it back. “Perhaps a favorite color? I’m guessing black - no, green?”

there had been a kind of disconnect in merry’s brain as she had filled out the quibbler form, giggling with her coworkers over some of the more absurd questions. sure, she had known by putting quill to paper & signing her name along the dotted line that she was agreeing to all of the terms and conditions that may apply... but the fact that it would then lead to a real blind date which she was expected to show up for and make effort with - that had somehow escaped her. when all the information came and reality crashed into her, the natural thought of simply not going had gotten unceremoniously shot down by remembering the itching hex she would get as punishment, and so, despite having no idea of what she was doing, merry readied herself & apparated to hogsmeade a whole hour early, nerves only bound to make the time go faster. 

she’d never dated. it was rather pathetic, really, but she’d never had much of a chance. beauxbatons was filled with perfectly eligible individuals who she had, on occasion, spent time with - but all of her free time following graduation had been taken up by a war she didn’t understand, and almost immediately afterwards, she’d been married. she & pyotr had an unconventional courting ( it couldn’t be called that, really ), and a far from traditional life together. it was only now that she had been widowed that merry was coming out of a decade long slump, and a blind date probably wasn’t the best way to ease herself into all of this. still : any time the thought to run came to mind as she sat sipping a warm butterbeer and awaiting her partner, the itching hex came back to mind, and she waved it away again. her nerves were neither calmed nor worse by the time that the other - all dark hair and bright eyes - picked her way over to their allocated table, and a flash of chivalry had merry rushing to her feet. 

it really was a SCORE to get the poison apple nightclub for her quibbler valentine – alicia had been planning on spending the night there before the magazine had fallen into her lap, and it was one of those places that if things went sour, she could duck out of sight incredibly quickly. it’d been done before, it could be done again. dressed to the nines ( or, the club nines - which meant something different entirely, with a dual-focus on looking good AND being comfortable ), she considered waiting outside for her date, but only for a moment. there was every chance they were already inside, after all, because she was a couple of minutes fashionably late.

a beeline is made for the bar, first, because a cocktail was absolutely needed before she faced the pink slip tucked in her cleavage. she made eye contact with ron over her first sip, eyes widening and laughter threatening to tip the drink all over the already-sticky floor. “MATE!” drink saved, alicia slid up to him, pulling him into a hug with no regard as to whether he wanted one. “are you...? no way!”