Creature-Curious

She was practically vibrating out of her seat at having finally caught Odette at work, questions racing in the back of her mind. All she wanted to do was pull out her notebook and start working, but that wasn’t exactly appropriate for such a public space. 

“I really do only want to help. And I’m curious. It’s hard to find any willing to talk to me. Running away was a really dramatic response to a simple question, by the way.”

Juliette’s brows shot upward, not necessarily believing the other woman at first. That was, at least, until the addendum that it wasn’t typically how fun was perceived was spoken. In other words, the girl wasn’t there to drink, which only made it more confusing to Juliette, considering they were at a bar. “Observing?” she asked, unsure of what the other could possibly be hoping to find. “Comme c'est intéressant…” she mumbled under her breath with a small smirk. When asked if she knew the man, Juliette laughed, shaking her head. “Not enough for him to touch me like that.”

“I’ve seen him around, perhaps. Don’t know much more than that.” Taking a long sip of her drink, her eyes glanced back over to the man who was now trying the same trick on another unfortunate girl. Her attention was then caught by the woman beside her, a chuckle escaping her lips the questions, assuming she was joking. When neither said anything, Juliette’s eyes widened a bit. “Merde… you were seriously asking? Erm… well, my best guess as to why he did it, is that he thought he could get away with it. Some boys just think that. I shoved him away because he didn’t respect my boundaries. You don’t just let anyone come up and start touching you, do you?” Then again, maybe she did. Juliette, furrowing her brows, turned her body and leaned closer, trying to understand the girl. “You really don’t know much about this stuff?”

“Yes. Observing.” Bailey took the information that the woman spoke french and filed it in the back of her mind, along with everything else she said. “So you’ve seen him around a bit, but you don’t think you’re close enough for him to have acted that way, except clearly he disagreed with you?” Here was an example of what Bailey expected happened all the time, which only pointed to why society’s way of doing things was clearly insane if it had such a high failure rate. 

Bailey didn’t react when the woman laughed, all too used to such responses, but the woman didn’t leave either so Bailey would take all the chances she got for answers. At the question, Bailey frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be serious? I asked you; clearly I want an answer.”

Bailey listened to the explanation, and it undermined everything she’d previously thought she figured out. She snapped her book closed and let out a sound of frustration. 

“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m here. Asking questions. Observing. Everyone I’ve talked to keeps nattering on about feelings and signals and how you just ‘take a chance’ except then things like that happen, so clearly these ‘signals’ are hard to read and it seems like most chances are doomed to failure. So I’m no closer to figuring out how people manage all of this at all.”

She took an angry sip of her whiskey. 

Rowan wasn’t sure how to take that. He supposed Bailey probably meant that his face was pretty much symmetrical, or that he was good looking in the way that people seemed to find all tall generic white men regardless of his actual features, but it was still strange to hear from her. “Thank you,” he settled on, trying to make it not sound like a question. “You’re right about the attitude though, my boss won’t let me speak to anyone outside of the department. He says it threatens our funding.”

He tapped his ear in response, the side he couldn’t hear much out of since that storage rack had met a rather firey end back in January. “Together we make one whole person, just about.”

He had the feeling that he should probably help Bailey with the table, but by the time his brain was processing the fact that he should move everything was already on the floor and it wasn’t like it could fall any further from there. “I don’t want to go outside,” he said bitterly, but he didn’t get the feeling that was going to matter much. “It’s giving me a headache, and what I want to do is go home and pet Goblin before you can use me for any more science.”

“Oh, I’ve been told that before too,” Bailey said lightly. “At my dragon internship last year. I feel like just talking shouldn’t be this difficult, except life experience points to otherwise. I sometimes wonder if the whole world is in on one vast conspiracy to make some people just feel crazy.”

It took her a moment to understand what he meant when he tapped his ear, and when she did, she laughed, a little too loudly. Her head felt like it was going to float up and away like a balloon. Rowan was very funny. 

“Why not? What’s wrong?” Everything was a little wonky, but Bailey still noted the oddityof his tone, glancing up at him even as her pen flew across the page where she’d wound up cross-legged on the floor. “Can you describe the headache? You agreed to this science. You can go just answer a few more questions? Please?”

Levi grinned as he watched the steadiness and confidence of Bailey’s movements. It never ceased to amazing him how enthusiastically she approached everything, and even when she didn’t quite have the skill to back it up, she had an approximation and a will to learn. That didn’t seem necessary here, though, as she made short work of the task.

Soon the whole tent was up, and Levi dusted his hands off on his pants as he listened to her talk. “It didn’t used to be honestly, but you’re right. That paranoia mixed with just a couple of irresponsible pet owners, and now there’s a small colony established in a place where there shouldn’t be any. My goal today is to get a closer look and figure out an estimate for numbers. Problem is hopefully a strong term, but if they’re breeding fast, who knows what we’ll find?”

Bailey scowled at his words, glancing into the distance as if she could see those responsible in view. “Irresponsible pet owners are the worst,” she complained, preaching to the choir but still unable to let the moment pass without airing her thoughts, since this was something she was invested in. “They make stupid choices and then other people have to clean up after them, and find space for all their animals. There’s jail time for this, or a fine or something, right? People stink.”

Her train of thought took an abrupt left-turn, though, and her expression shifted to one of shrewd curiosity as she glanced over at him. “What will happen to the clabberts? However many there are? Just- you know, I’m just curious.” She was curious if she could get away with stuffing one under her shirt and making off with it to the Shafiq grounds, but that wasn’t something Levi needed to know right now. 

When would men learn that one of the worst ways to flirt with a woman had to be to waltz up to them, unannounced and unexpected, and grab them by the waist to start dancing? That was by far one of Juliette’s biggest relationship pet peeves, as she believed that people should only be touched if they consent to it. Never mind the fact that the person hadn’t even introduced themselves yet. It would have been completely acceptable in her eyes for the other to come up and ask for a dance, to which they could become acquainted during or after. 

Slinking away from that awkward encounter, Juliette made her way over to the bar, catching the attention of the attendant behind the counter, and ordering a cocktail. “They never learn, do they, boys?” she thought aloud, chuckling as she noticed the person sitting beside her. “Pardon me, but you don’t particularly look like you’re here for a good time,” Juliette commented, raising a brow with a bit of a smirk. Cocking her head to the side, she bit down gently on her nail as the bar tender slid her drink to her. “Tell me…” Taking a sip, she placed the drink down and rested her chin in her hands, arms neatly propped up on the counter. “What is that for?” Gesturing to the notebook, Juliette’s eyes glanced down toward it, then back up at the young womans. 

Bailey noticed the woman; or, she noticed the man come up with seemingly no prompting, and then get thoroughly rebuffed. It was an example of the kind of interaction she’d seen frequently during her observational excursions, and that she still didn’t understand. Everyone in these kinds of environments seemed to be acting on mostly nonverbal “signals”, except this man had either misread or imagined then because the woman he bothered wanted nothing to do with him. Except she’d also seen interactions like this where the bothered party in question simply melted into the seemingly random touch. It was so confusing. What made the incidents different? What made people so confident, only to turn out to be so wrong? Had everyone who told her there was logic to it, “feeling”, simply been taking the piss?

“I’m having a good time,” she said, although the answer was a bit delayed because she’d honestly been too distracted watching the woman to register that she was being spoken to. “Just not for typical reasons. I’m observing. Hey- that man who touched you, do you know him? Can you tell me why he did that? Why you shoved him off? I’m trying to understand ‘signals’.” She waved her pen a bit in the air above her notebook, leaning forward. 

So she pulled on some of the nicer clothes Aliyah had helped her pick out, one of her strapless tops and a velvet jacket, although she wore her regular work boots, and got a single whiskey, and sat in a far corner of the bar and watched. Occasionally she’d take a drink. Sometimes she’d scribble notes in her black moleskin. Most of the time she just watched. 

James was fully willing to keep up the act -even if it was truly terrible- until Bailey confessed that she was aware that Remus and Peter had the trait. “Wha- ho- when did you find out?” Really, how did the others become so rubbish at hiding it? He gave Remus a pass considering he was legally required to tell people, but Peter and Sirius? They had no such legal obligation.

“Fine then… you’ve caught me. But I can’t answer that, I’m afraid. Secret.” James held a finger to his lips and mimed a shush gesture. “Sorry bout that… I can likely replace them for you. My treat? That is, if we dont speak about this to anyone.” While he didnt think she would rat him out, James wasnt supposed to have been caught.

His eyes nearly popped out of his head at her next statement. “You- you’re what? How did you become one so fast?” It had taken the boys a few years to become animagi; how was it possible for her to become one over night?

The surprised look on Potter’s face was honestly worth the whole incident. “I saw Pettigrew transform in my sixth year,” she said simply. “And shoddy Ministry paperwork basically put Lupin’s creature registration on my desk. Wasn’t hard to put everything together after that. I’m the one giving Lupin his wolfsbane, too, so I’m extra on your side.”

She normally wouldn’t have divulged that, but she was pretty sure that Lupin and Potter and Black were all about as close as three people could be, and it could hardly hurt right now. When Potter tried to tell her it was “secret” she just crossed her arms and frowned harder, although her lips twitched up into a grin at his reaction to her own animagus status.

“A few months ago. I had help, but I’m also a genius potioneer and I’ve had plenty of resources and free time. It’s not surprising I managed it faster than a bunch of teenagers still stuck at school, honestly.”

Hello Hello Hello

“It sounds charming. Especially the flying bit. Are you registering?” Mirek was kind of hoping she wasn’t, because Bailey seemed like a bit of a wild card, but precisely because she was one, he had no idea what she might do. “Also, is it the same bird as your patronus? Or did you get to choose?”

“It’s an anxiety potion, for everyday use. Muggles have something similar figured out, so I’m pretty annoyed I can’t get it to work.” Mirek said. He had to give it to them, brains were a weird thing, but magic was supposed to give him an advantage and that just wasn’t happening. “The subject just… hovered slightly above the ground for a few hours, it had something to do with the spell, but since I changed it the dosage is tricky and pretty inconsistent.”

“Oh, I got a book on applied spell theory for potions at, it’s fairly beat up but you could take copies if you want.” Mirek considered himself a nice person, but he wasn’t nice enough to actually lend his books. That was the dumbest way to lose them. He thought for a second about what he could offer that Bailey might not have tried before. “Have you tried alternating temperatures? That sometimes works if you’re not planning on selling it.”

“I did as soon as I turned human again the first time,” Bailey said, not especially careful about her words at all. “I weighed the pros and cons, and getting caught unregistered seemed like more of a hassle than it was worth. It isn’t as if the Ministry knowing about me will affect me anyways. Oh- I don’t know how to cast a patronus. They’re usually the same though, aren’t they? I suppose either I’ll find out one day or I won’t, but Defense Against the Dark Arts was one of my worst subjects so I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Oh yes, my mother takes the muggle kind sometimes,” Bailey said, leaning forward a bit with continued interest. “I don’t remember what they’re called, but they’re little pills. Mm, yeah, hovering... hardly sounds like the desired effect. One of my anesthetic attempts turned out to actually cause delirium, so I know how frustrating it can be, especially if spellwork is involved.”

She nodded gratefully when he mentioned the book, even though she really preferred not to rely on spellwork for her potions, since it often complicated things as much as it helped. “That’s what I’m doing now, actually; experimenting solely with different temperatures on the brew. How important is the spell to your anti-anxiety potion? Spells are useful for individual tailoring and stuff, but if you want to just get the base of the potion to work maybe you should stick to practical ingredients? If you ever need a test subject or some more eyes on your method I’d love to help. Your work sounds interesting, and very uninhibited.”

Plant Pals Reunite

Edith gave a shrug and decided that she was going to take it as a compliment rather than an insult. Even so, Bailey insults weren’t all that… well, insulting. “People change over time I guess, it’s not such a bad thing,” she smiled and gave a nod. “I haven’t changed all that much though, I promise.” She was still very much the same girl she had been at Hogwarts, just far more grown up and involved in the world. 

“Bailey!” Edith gasped slightly, unable to refrain from laughing. “Keep your voice down a bit if you’re going to talk about illegal herbology.” Blinking slowly in surprise, Edith froze. Had she seriously never told Bailey about Valerija? There must have been some mistake… she was fairly certain that everyone knew that the two of them were dating. Well, mostly everyone, at least. “My girlfriend?”

Was it quite possible that Edith hadn’t told Bailey that she was dating someone? It wouldn’t be the first time she had kept a secret like this, but this one was entirely unintentional. “I could have sworn…” How had she not mentioned it?

“I haven’t changed,” Bailey said, knee-jerk and a little confused because Edith’s explanation honestly wasn’t intuitive at all for her. But maybe it was to other people? And this was just one of the things that Bailey didn’t have in common with the masses? “You still seem like you, so I guess it isn’t bad.”

When Edith gasped, Bailey just rolled her eyes. “Relax, there’s no-one near us,” she extended an arm to prove that they were indeed in their own little bubble, and none of the other sparse people there were close or looked even remotely interested in them. “Plus if I do get caught, I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of it.” She wouldn’t say Zahi’s name, because she wasn’t that clueless, but he’d gotten her out of that scrape with the bitterroot and she was pretty sure he’d also vouch for her if for some reason the contents of her lab were discovered. She didn’t think she was being wishful when she told herself that she too useful and smart for Zahi to just let her get arrested. 

And then Bailey was thrown entirely away from the subject, because she’d- had she heard Edith right? Girlfriend? Like- a romantic partner, not just a friend who was a girl? If they’d been back at school, Bailey wouldn’t have cared even a whit about Edith dating anyone unless it began to impact their friendship. Now was a different story, however, and her mind leapt as it pulled up the disorganized little file on interpersonal relations she’d been slowly trying to puzzle through. 

“When did you get a girlfriend?” she demanded, brows furrowed slightly. “You’re living together already? Tell me everything.”

Bailey’s chaotic brilliance never ceased to amaze and confuse him. “You accidentally made a delirium potion?” Zahi pressed his lips together, partially to keep from smiling. That seemed par for the course that she would find a potential secondary use for a potion gone wrong. “I recommend a full set of tests on the effects before you go seeking them out.” Now he just had to hope his cauldrons would get swept up in such craziness.

He watched her carefully, trying to catalog the internal parts of her process as she considered her proposal, but it seemed Zahi had sparked motivation into fruition. This could be very good. She was right that variation made things more complex with another potion that may or may not be involved in consider, but Zahi hadn’t seen Bailey back down from a challenge yet. Today didn’t seem to be the day for it.

“I don’t actually live here,” he reminded her. “You might want to check with Aliya and Faiza if they mind, but no, I don’t inherently have a problem as long as you watch the when.” While Bailey had twenty-nine days of out thirty to choose from, he could almost see her forgetting to consider whether it was that last one or not. 

He turned back to her notes, squinting and turning his head to read a piece that had been shoved sideways into the margins. “Hang on, what’s this?” he asked and tapped a list of potential ingredients to consider. “Some of these you’d dismissed could be good for the variation involved if that’s something we are in fact pursuing.” Zahi knew he was inviting himself somewhat, but Bailey had already done the start of that by asking him over. “Let me know if you need any leaves or such from the store. I can get some of this much cheaper than an apothecary, after all.”

Bailey was shit at reading people, but Zahi wasn’t frowning while he said it, so she’d take the overall expression as a win. Her grin was still a bit sheepish as she glanced over at the roiling potion, though. “Yeah, the minute I added moon poppy it started pouring out this purple smoke that messed with me pretty good. Felt like when people talk about certain muggle drugs? But my memory is obviously... not super reliable, so I’m not actually sure of the real effects on the subject or what they look like. Don’t worry, I’m being very careful with it!” She was also planning to ask if she could test it on a friend of hers, but Zahi didn’t need to know that. It wasn’t as if this potion was really of much consequence anything; at its most useful, it was basically a party drug whose worse side-effect so far seemed to be a dry mouth and pounding headache once it wore off. Bailey kept tinkering with it from pure curiosity. 

At the reminder that he didn’t live there, Bailey made a face. “Oh, right. Yeah of course I’ll ask them. Don’t worry; I’m not going to invite one over on the full moon.” Not that the idea wasn’t intensely tempting, but there was no way she’d find a werewolf willing to let her observe their transformation, and she would have hardly volunteered the Shafiq estate for such an exercise. “He’s basically the most harmless person I’ve ever met, anyways.”

Rowan was well aware he wasn’t going to be winning a scar contest against Bailey, especially when comparing burns and small shrapnel cuts to full-on dragon bites. He looked over her scars regardless, hoping he looked properly impressed.

“I don’t think anyone thinks I’m pretty,” he laughed. It wasn’t as if he ever really tried for that kind of thing, tending more to look exhausted and dress in whatever he wouldn’t get yelled at for wearing in the labs. “Hearing gives me enough trouble though, I’m not looking to mess up my eyes.”

He watched as she took the knife to her arm, alarmed but not enough to try to stop her. He was starting to cast a healing spell when she beat him to it. “I feel– not drunk, I dunno about high. I’ve never messed with drugs. More like, I dunno. Blurry? It’s weird.”

Rather than laugh too, Bailey cocked her head a little to the side, a birdlike gesture that made even more sense now given her animagus form. She narrowed her eyes a little as she clinically scanned Rowan’s face, biting her bottom lip slightly before declaring, “I do.” There wasn’t any particular weight behind it, nothing greater than a confident comment about a weather forecast. “Maybe people just don’t like your attitude, and that cancels it out? They’re odd.”

When he mentioned eyes she smiled a little and tapped just beneath her clouded blind one. “Yeah, I don’t recommend it, honestly. I’d definitely rather be deaf than blind.”

Bailey frowned a little at his observation. “I’ve also never been high? Been drunk before, but this is a little different yeah. Blurry?” Bailey glanced around, feeling like her head was simultaneously too fast and too slow with the movement. There was a strange, muffled feeling settling over her whole body. “Oh. I think I get that. Do you want to go outside? I think I kind of want to go outside. Wait! I’m supposed to be writing this down.” She lunged halfway across a table for her notebook, scattering some ingredients and tools before opening to the right page and scrawling a few observations in the notebook in even more crooked handwriting than usual.

Fingers brushed across her calf and Bailey glanced down from where she’d been sitting on one of her prep tables, notebook and pen in hand. Rowan had touched a small, raised slashmark across the back of her calf and was looking at it was a searching furrow in his brow. 

Baliey shivered slightly, and glanced over to find Zahi’s fingers ghosting over the perfectly-defined bitemarks on her left arm, two pale crescents among many on her dark skin. She couldn’t help a frown of confusion at the random touch. 

“Bailey, step away from the krayt dragon-”

“She won’t hurt me, master; I can feel it in the force!”