#sgrpstarter

The evening was crisp, cool, and quite a long the normally busy cobbled street. Most had already made there way back home. Not may wizards dared to be out too late these days, not that it was that late anyways. No, Remus supposed that the peace of the evening had more to do with the face that it was a week night more than anything else. Normally he would have been back home as well but keeping a job had proven itself difficult these days. Between full moons and his work with The Order, things just hadn’t panned out as of late. And with no need to rush home, Remus enjoyed the peace of the street the only way he knew how. 

With a coffee in one hand and book in the other. 

He sat outside a small bakery where he’d just eaten the most amazing chocolate croissant he’d ever had. How many hours had passed since he sat down? Remus wasn’t sure. His book occupied most of his mind until movement out of the corner of his eye slowly pulled him from his literature. Glancing up, Remus watched as the out door chairs began to stack themselves up. Ah, closing time. Gathering his things, Remus took the last sip of his coffee and disposed of it before standing. His own chair shuttered to life and then sputtered into the street. It clattered about and smashed into some poor passer by before Remus produced his wand. 

“Petrificus Totalus.” He commanded and the chair yielded. “Well, that charm has clearly gone wrong somehow.” Remus grumbled to himself as he approached the person who had been hit by the rouge chair. “Are you alright?”

“What?” He asked coldly, his dead brown eyes glaring at the old wizard. The wizard stood up, pushing his chair back allowing it to fall to the floor with a hard thunk. The older wizard pushed his hand into his pocket pulling out some silver and bronze sickles and knuts, slamming them hard on the table. “Beer taste like piss,” he grunted as he made his way out. “That’s because it is!” Barty shouted out after him as a gushed of wind washed in causing the fire to flicker loudly. Barty heaved a long sigh before pulling his wand out from his back pocket of his jeans. He waved it towards the fallen chair as a line of silver lifted the chair and set it up right back at the bar.

Barty was used to slow nights like this, hell, he even preferred it. For him, it was never about making enough money or even having it. The cost for a room at the Inn and for unlimited firewhiskey was enough for Barty to want to stay forever. He had been lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The manager at the Inn had grown keen of Barty’s company. He didn’t ask a lot of questions, was always on time, and kept to himself when he was in his room. But that wasn’t the only reason why he liked Barty. Barty in fact had saved his life once. Not that it was Barty’s intention to do so, like he said, right place at the right time. He liked looking for a fight. The manager of the Inn had gotten into a spat with one of the regulars, the client was so furious (or perhaps just really drunk), attempted to curse the owner. Barty, quick on the draw and sharp thinking was quick to counter curse the spell, but while doing so, alerting the authorities in the process. No sooner, his father was there on the scene. Barty was arrested by his father and was forced to serve a month (38 days to exact ) in Azkaban due to causing bodily harm on another person that could have resulted in death. (If only, Barty thought) Once he returned to work, the owner decided to promote him to the head night bartender where Barty could work alone. Most nights the bar was dead, exactly the way he liked it. 

The bartender looked around the bar, an elderly wizard sat at the end with his hood up. His goblet had something smoking out from the top as he drank from it. Barty looked around the bar again, a witch and another fairly older wizard sat in the table in the back talking to themselves in whispers. He tossed his bar towel over his left shoulder pulling out a pocket book on how to break counter curses. The man leaned over, tucking a fist under his chin, now if only no one else would come into the bar it would be the perfect night. If only...

The bar door sung open, the air whipping at the rough edges of his book. Barty didn’t bother to look up from his book, he stayed still before finishing up the page he had been currently reading. He glance up with a bored expression.

“What do you want?”

severus was spending today’s shift  ––  like most of his shifts at dogweed and deathcap –– with his face buried in a book, a bad habit that undoubtedly would have cast him into hot water with his employers if they knew. then again, they probably would have minded his terrible sense of customer service more. when the tiny silver bell above the door chimed, signaling the arrival of a potential customer, it took all of two and a half minutes for severus, still engrossed in the pages of his book, to both acknowledge and reprimand them:  “make a purchase or go dawdle around madam puddifoot’s. loitering upsets the plants.”   for all he knew, it could have been true  ––  though, admittedly, his own expertise was more geared toward the use of plants and fungi in potions, rather than their care and keeping. but he was banking on the other person to be a wide-eyed hogwarts third year, and what did they know? 

Sirius groaned quietly to himself, eyes closed with his forehead pressed against the surface beneath him. He was leaning behind the front counter, bored expression spread across his face as he was just trying to get through a shift that he truly did not even need. But, where else would he spend his time, and what else would he get to complain about? He simply had to do something with his free time, and who would Sirius be if not someone that complains after every breath he took. It had been dull and dreary, though the familiar chime of the front door caught his attention, lifting his face from the counter. His eyebrows raised, head tilting to the side and moving to rest on his now propped up palm, leaning forward, “Well, well, well. Fancy seeing you here.”

Her things sat in her bag ready for her to roll out of the office as soon as Minchum tipped his hat at her and bid her a good evening. A silly old man she could not help but to almost feel pity for, thinking that he was doing right by the miscreants that had weaselled their way into the fringes of the ruling class, he was hardly the sort of mentor he likened himself to be. Nonetheless she was eager to show an aptitude for the kind of alleged pressure a job like his was. Alecto knew that playing nice was part of the game, even if it felt torturous. 

She could practically already feel her after work martini sliding down her throat as she gathered her things to leave the office and she counted the clicking of her heels against the cold wood floors as an indicator of when she might be able to perch a cigarette between her fingers and return to her natural state. As she exited into the torpid evening air, Alecto’s smile faded and she looked left and right to see if there was any sort of ally for her to waste the rest of her night with. She craved fun, the kind of fun that lingered in your hair the next day, she needed that. 

“Hey,” she called out at the back of a familiar head of hair, “Have you got a light?”

The dark mark burned under the sleeve of her dress and her chest felt tight. Sybill had found a quiet corner of the room to observe from, so focused on trying to make sure her hands didn’t shake as she brought her wine glass to her lips that it took her a while to notice when someone found her hiding spot.

“You’ve caught me.” She said with an attempt at a wry smile, “I was actually ready to leave this party some time ago, and peoples’ insufferable jokes about the snowfall haven’t helped. You can stay if you can promise to be more entertaining than that.”