[asclepius] before you were born, I was already sinning[rosaline]

Felix tapped his foot anxiously on the hardwood floor as he stood closely behind a big, burly wizard in line at Ingle-Lowe's in Diagon Alley. He was waiting to get his to-go food, and though the small restaurant was heated with large, homey looking fireplaces, he still clutches his heavy emerald cloak to him out of general respect for the nasty weather gusting away right outside of the small shop. He had never been the most patient man ever, but it was more than impatience this time-he felt as if he were actually famished. Though he'd had a small breakfast nearly five hours, Felix Abrams felt as if he had been deprived of food for whole days. At that exact moment, as if to attest to the fact, his stomach gave an impatient gurgle. It was times like these that Felix started getting rather twitchy, glancing around for something he could just lift from the store to quench this hunger without having to wait so extraordinarily long, however, he was on an errand. He had ordered this meal for two, Rosaline and himself.

The pair had been spending increasingly more time together recently, and Felix certainly wasn't complaining about it. He had worked for Rose's family for years now, and he was incredibly well-acquainted with all of them, however Rose intrigued him a bit. Rosaline was very young, and she was a very new potioneer in Knockturn Alley. Felix wanted nothing more than to see the young woman succeed, and he knew there was some money to me made if he stuck with her. Rose was always willing to indulge Felix's crazy business ideas, most of which never even make it into any sort of developmental stage, but nonetheless he had always liked her for that. That, and he's always sort of thought that her attitude mixed with some unidentifiable air of mystery, and of course her actual looks, made her very attractive to him. He was a man, of course that was a motive(whether foremost or underlying) of surrounding himself with women. Though, that wasn't necessarily what contributed primarily to their recent closeness. It was a project, and Felix was very excited to be a part of it.

Finally, the burly man left with bags in his hands, rattling the frame of the door on the way out, and Felix stepped to the counter, "Pickup for Abrams" he said hopefully. And luckily, without hesitation, the hostess handed two paper bags to him. He quickly checked them for any mistakes, and stepped outside the shop where he then disapparated to Knockturn Alley. Any other day, he would have just walked, but the brisk chill of the winter wind whipped menacingly past him and he wanted to find warmth as soon as he could. With a loud crack he found himself right outside of the door into Asclepius. It was far and away one of the nicer looking shops on the dingy strip of road, but Felix had grown used to the elegance that he usually observed when working with the Banes. Felix pulled on the brass door handle with his free hand, and he strode into the shop. While it was a wave of heat, once he grew accustomed to the temperature, it was a littl chillier than he would have liked.

Felix strode, with confidence-it was very clear that he knew the shop well-around the back of the counter and into a lounge-esque area that was had be designated to the employees only. He set the bags down on an expensive-looking coffee table, and shed his cloak, revealing under it a simple, white button up shirt, a green tie, and khaki pants. He rubbed his hands together quickly to heat them up, as they were still red and numb from their excursion outside. As he did this, he looked around the room, finding it empty. "Rose?" he called out, he knew he'd left her here, though she never made it a point to let him know where she was or was going. He called for her again, "Rosaline?" as he did so, he took a seat on a comfortable loveseat, and opened his bag of food, emptying out a plastic bowl of soup charmed not to spill during his commute, as well as a hot ham and swiss sandwich. He tore into it ravenously and let out a sigh of absolute relief. His stomach rejoiced in the way of cheerfully acidic noises. After he had fulfilled one of his more basic needs, he looked around the room again, and saw Rosaline enter, "Where the hell'd you get off to?" he asked curiously, "I only just got back, the line was.." Felix shook his head and refrained from finishing the sentence which would probably have ended with many expletives.

Rosaline had been spending quite a bit of time in the greenhouse portion of the store, that day, collecting ingredients to be bottled. She loved the whole look and feel of the greenhouse, besides the actual obligation for her to be in there. She had always had a bit of a green thumb. Unfortunately, it was a trait that people often compared her to her mother for. Aside from their physical appearance, it would seem that the two had quite a bit of other similarities that Persephone Bane's friends most often pointed out. They both had an appreciation for the arts, though Rosaline's appreciation was more for music and Persephone's was more for the theatre. They were both gifted in potion-making, with Rosaline choosing to become a potioneer and Persephone obtaining a position at Hogwarts as the Potions Professor. They were also both talented in Transfiguration, though Rosaline chose to believe that she had surpassed her mother when she had become an animagus. Most often, however, people, usually jokingly, compared them to one another when it came to attracting the opposite sex.

That was not something that Rosaline was particularly proud of, though it would be stretching the truth to insinuate that she did not enjoy the benefits of her charm, beauty, and the mysterious air about her that drew men like moths to a flame. After all, she did get Devon Incarnadine to do a majority of the jobs around the shop that she, herself, did not want to do. Unfortunately, however, she could not trick all of the male coworkers in the shop as easily as she could trick him. Callum was immune to it, though she did suspect that that was due to the fact that the two of them shared more of a sibling bond than anything else. He was, after all, the half-brother of her half-sister.

Speaking of the men in her life, the brunette heard one calling out to her now. Felix. A small smile formed on her lips as she walked from the greenhouse portion of the shop into the main shop to set her basket down behind the counter, then quickly washing her hands in the bathroom before walking to greet him in the lounge. "Pardon me?" She gave a brief, quiet laugh as she looked at him with her hands on her hips. "I was not aware that I was required to inform you as to my whereabouts. However, if you must know, I was collecting our ingredients from the greenhouse."

Oh. He had bought her lunch. How precious was that? With a bit of a smirk, Rosaline took a seat beside him as she opened the bag that she assumed held her food. "Thank you, by the way. I do appreciate the gesture."

Felix had his sandwich half-eaten by the time Rosaline entered, her sassiness ever present. That was another reason Felix liked her, despite her respectable upbringing, she was certainly a firecracker-not some token daughter. She did her own thing, and had her own attitude and Felix respected that. He made a half smile at her jabs between chews, before finally starting to pace himself. "You know, Rose, we're partners in this-I'd like to be kept abreast of all information" he winked. "And you're very welcome, I can't have the prettiest portioner on the street being plagued by hunger during her grueling work, can I?" He asked. He always would flirt with her this way, and he was sure that it looked to her as if he was eating out of the palm of her hand, but it was different for Felix. He was like this with most every woman in his life. He enjoyed flirting a lot, and thought that business was not an important enough matter to get in the way of that.

"So where are we in this process anyway? Now that we've got the whole idea outlined-are we just going to start mixing stuff together?" He knew this would aggravate her. 'Mixing stuff together' Felix knew she would almost take that to heart, being a portioner and all, though she must understand that Felix had very limited knowledge of potion making. Of course, he was alright in Hogwarts, but it had been quite a few years since then, and he only managed the basic, necessary potions at home. Nothing new and innovative and complex like what they were trying here.

"And Rose, how're we supposed to know the effects of this stuff?" He asked, wondering if he has accidentally signed himself up to be a guinea pig as well as a peddler. He wanted to have a part in the actual construction of the whole process, maybe she'd let him dump in some horned slugs, or stir something around. Felix trusted her with everything that she did, and he hoped she would trust him the same-at least to just drop something in the cauldron.

"Oh, well I do hope that you will forgive me for my failure to update you. I will be sure to let you know, next time, when I've gone to the loo or the greenhouse or anywhere at all. Would that be satisfactory?" Rosaline smiled and rolled her eyes a little at his next remark. She was sure that he spoke this way to all women, and never took any of it to heart. She was no fool, and especially when it came to the opposite sex. There was no doubt in her mind that he may have found her attractive, as most men who encountered her had seemed to. Indeed, she found him to be aesthetically appealing as well. However, mixing business with pleasure was never a good idea.

Upon opening her bag, Rosaline took a bite from her sandwich as she listened to his next inquiry. Upon chewing and swallowing, she responded. "One does not simply 'mix stuff together' when it comes to potion-making, my friend." He was trying to push her buttons. She could tell. "I have all of the ingredients that we had discussed, though Callum did have to acquire the powdered dragon horn for me. Romanian Longhorn. It is a highly prized material in the potion industry, and thus was a little difficult to get a hold of." Callum Wickham was one of the other potioneers in the shop, and the half brother of her half sister. He was exceedingly helpful to the girl, and she had always looked up to him and his father, Blair, alike.

"Well, I had actually been doing some thinking on that." Indeed, there were a few options. "A, we could pay someone to test it for us. B, we could sneak it to someone, which would require a complete lack of morals. Or, C, we could test it ourselves. Since it is supposed to be a sort of drug, I would not advise the second and third options. However, we will need to have it tested somehow or another."

Taking another few bites, she awaited his response. The sandwich was actually quite delicious, really, and it seemed to hit the spot. Now, there was the matter of how much of the process he would actually want to partake in. "Were you wanting to assist me in the making of the potion, or were you content to just sit back and let me do all of the work?" There was some teasing in her words, but the question was legitimate in itself.