golden slumbers. [tag; dennis]

NPC; Foxglove Sharpe

"Happy New Year!"

The cheery exclamation came from a tall redheaded girl who waved her co-workers out of the café. She stopped to hug her boss and her colleagues. She even stopped to embrace Kevin, her perpetually cack-handed pal who turned pink and awkwardly returned the hug by patting her on the back. It wasn't  midnight yet but it was still late.

The rain had stopped in time for the celebrations, the cracked pavements wet and reflecting the Christmas lights that had yet to be taken down. Foxy closed and locked the door behind them as she slid the dead bolts into place on the back door, turning around with her hands on her hips as she exhaled deeply. She'd volunteered to close up. Her family usually had a party but they were going to one of her father's friend's houses. She'd politely declined the offer. There wasn't anyone besides her that was under the age of forty and she was getting bored of feeling like she didn't belong.

Picking up a bottle of disinfectant, she began to wipe down the tables, turning the chairs upside down so she could sweep beneath them. Foxglove didn't like New Year. She never had. For her, it was always tinged with sadness. On the last stroke of midnight, she always had a brief moment of clarity. She remembered the things she didn't do, the opportunities she didn't take and the people she'd lost along the way.

If she was going to be honest, she didn't fancy celebrating too much. Her co-workers had plan. Billy, the chef, was racing home to be with his wife and three year old twin boys. Shelly, one of the waitresses, had a hot date with her boyfriend. Even clumsy Kevin was meeting up with friends. Foxy was supposed to have had plans but they'd all ground to a halt. There was a house party arranged but she'd been unceremoniously dumped a fortnight ago by her boyfriend, Sebastian. He hadn't given her a reason. He'd just decided to stick his tongue down the back of Kelly's throat and let Foxglove watch.

A faint beeping could be heard over the low noise of the radio. "Not again," she lamented as she took her mobile phone out of her pocket and frowned at the message. Sebastian. Again. This was the seventh message he'd sent that day and they were becoming more and more pathetic. Babe, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Miss u xx S. As far was trying to win her back, she'd seen peacocks put more effort in. With a roll of her big dark eyes, she pressed a button. Message deleted.

The guys had helped clean the kitchen so all she had to do was wipe down the tables and make sure everything was tidy. It wouldn't take long but she also wasn't rushing. It had been a strange six or so months. She was plagued by odd dreams of hazel eyes and a smoke scented denim jacket. Train rides and neck kisses. Running through puddles. Of roof tops and city lights and an immense sense of loss that she couldn't understand. She felt it often, a few times per week. It was like looking through someone else's window. Like a flick-book or a movie on an old projector that stopped and started in a random order.

The sensations felt very familiar, like she'd been the one to experience them herself. Her father, unsympathetic as he was, told her to stop eating cheese on toast before she went to bed. Apparently, cheese kept a person awake at night.

Foxglove had been travelling. In fact, she wasn't even supposed to be home for New Year's Eve. She was supposed to be in Spain. She'd gone on a bit of a Euro-trip. She'd been to France and Germany, Romania and Hungary. She'd dashed all over the map, up as far as the Nordic countries. How had she managed that? Despite declaring that she wasn't going to go to university, she'd applied and got in. To all of them. She'd accepted an offer to attend Camberwell College of Arts. As soon as her first student loan had come in, she'd escaped to the continent. She'd still be living it up had it not been for her parents finding out that she hadn't actually gone to university and demanding she come home right that instant and explain herself. 

Foxy remained numb and impassive as her mother screamed bloody murder. She'd tried to explain that she was going to go to lectures eventually but she wanted to see the world first. She also reminded her mother that she was doing what she wanted; she was getting an education. That seemed to placate her mother somewhat. That was why Foxy was working more hours in this quaint little café; her next stop was Asia.

She gave a yawn as she rubbed her eyes, putting away the broom and stretching. In an attempt to thaw things at home, her parents had left her money for a taxi back home after her shift ended. Foxy was going to walk. Despite not liking this time of year, she loved the smell of fireworks. Everyone seemed so happy, it was pointless to hold out. Making her way over to the coffee machine, she placed a cardboard cup on the stainless steel tray as she made herself a hot chocolate to ward off the chill. She wasn't in a rush to go home alone. It was more of a house than a home. Her parents were trying to paper over the cracks in their relationship but they were still there, lurking, insidious.

Up until that morning, she was still going to go to the house party, hence her outfit. Her copper coloured hair was up and twisted into a braided crown and secured with gold pins, her fringe swept over her left eye. She shrugged on her coat and zipped it up, looping her chunky scarf around her neck as she blinked. In the darkness, she smiled softly. She loved this place. It felt like home. The only light that cast  her pretty face into high relief came from the cheery fairy lights and tinsel across the windows. She made a mental note to take everything down before the sixth of January. It was good luck or tradition or something. She'd do it tomorrow.

Her long slim fingers flipped the sign from "open" to "closed" as she picked up her hot chocolate and her unwieldy sketch book and stepped outside into the frigid air.  In her breaks, Foxy had taken to sketching in hopes of bumping up her portfolio. It contained a lot of the people who came in here. She had a never ending supply of unwitting models. Recently, she'd also taken to drawing sea life. There were squid and waves and starfish, like some sort of tattoo. Ironically. Foxglove was allergic to seafood. The street was quiet outside but the sound of exploding fireworks punctuated the silence. "Shoot," Foxglove said under her breath as she rummaged around in her bag for the keys to the café, her button nose just visible over her scarf,  almost losing her hot drink in the process.




@Dennis Creevey

He really shouldn't be here.

Technically, it was illegal, and while Dennis felt (probably irrationally) that his knowledge of the magical world elevated him to a place where he didn't have to worry so much about muggle police, magical law enforcement really did scare him. The fact that they had entire departments dedicated to wiping or editing people's memories chilled him to his core. The types of power and the way that that power was structured in the magical world was unsettling, and fucked up. The unfamiliarity of it made it scarier too. Last time he'd broken the law he'd been an adult by wizarding standards, but he'd had the cushion of only just being seventeen. He had the safety net of McGonagall and the letter she'd written in his favour. It had been his first offence. Dennis didn't know what would happen to him if he was found again. The teenager knew he really shouldn't be here.

But here he was.

The ground was hard and a little icy, as if the sky above London had attempted snow but only managed to coat the ground in a dirty layer of mushy sleet. Despite the slipperiness and the perpetual cold, the little Christmas trees in shop displays and gaudy colourful lights gave a cheery atmosphere. For Dennis, the feeling was a bit dysphoric, as if the decorations and the "Christmas cheer" wasn't entirely sincere. He thought about this as he took step after step in a direction he knew he shouldn't be. His sneakers were a little damp; water had seeped in through some holes in his soles. He'd had the same ones for years and couldn't bring himself to part with them - not to mention the fact that he was totally broke. Dennis wasn't dressed properly for this. His warm set of Hogwarts robes for winter weren't really okay to wear in muggle London. His body was tense and aching from the cold. He pressed his fingernails more deeply into his palm, balled fists firmly in his jacket pockets. He slowed his pace as he rounded a corner, the air suddenly knocked out of him.

Because there she was.

Dennis caught sight of the flash of red hair before anything else, and though he was still quite a distance away from her he felt his heart rate speed up a little. It was undeniably her. He could tell, even from here. Dennis hadn't expected her to be here. Oh, he'd hoped she'd be here, but he hadn't had the arrogance to expect it. He'd come by a couple of times spread out over the past few months and she'd been absent; a part of him was sure she simply didn't work there anymore. It had been so long since he'd seen her - almost a year, he realised with a shock. It had been February when the dome had gone down, and that had been when he'd run into her at this restaurant. A lot had changed for him in the past year, he thought, but thinking about her still made him feel all kinds of emotions. Seeing her now made him feel like he'd stepped into a dream.

When Dean's family had been a bit overwhelming for him and he'd returned to Dean's flat, he'd thought about the fact that Foxglove had once worked nearby - he always thought about her when he was at Dean's; it was automatic now. His feet had brought him here. He wished he could pretend that it was accidental, but he hadn't stopped himself. It's Christmas, he thought weakly. As if that was some sort of excuse. The teenager watched as his former... friend? Former nothing, he corrected, struggled with her keys. He thumbed the camera in his pocket absentmindedly, imagining the shot he'd take. Internally he chastised himself for being creepy, but by now the chastising was mostly habitual and didn't make him feel too guilty. Dennis wondered if she had a boyfriend now. He wondered if she had any new tattoos.

Parents warned their children of the permanence of tattoos, but Dennis was inclined to disagree. It was so very human, he thought, to equate one's lifetime to eternity. This idea that people's lives and bodies carried on forever was so normalised and it permeated everything, to the point where people cared about tattoos and - even more temporary - piercings. In no time at all everyone's bodies would be rotting in the ground, tattoos or not. Not that Dennis could really blame them though. That sort of human almost-arrogance stirred things in him that he didn't have words for. He missed it and envied it and being reminded that some could live life without even thinking about its inevitable end made his heart ache. Clem was like that, he thought. He had a habit of searching for damage; he couldn't help but look for suffering in people. Pains, insecurities, twisted pasts.  Death, loss, mourning, hurt. Everyone was suffering in one way or another. Clementine had her own problems - ones that he was privy to and, he assumed, ones that he wasn't - but thinking about death a lot wasn't one of them.

Not exactly permanent, but with far more potential for longevity than tattoos, were photographs. The magical world still lingered behind the muggle one in a lot of ways. Compared to most of the muggle population, Dennis could barely use a computer, but compared to the magical world he might as well have been... well, a wizard. He didn't yet properly understand the vastness of the internet, but the idea that photos could be kept there for as long as humans were around to maintain it was a little dizzying. Photos could already outlive people, especially ones preserved with spelled frames created with magic. Between wizarding and muggle methods, Dennis was quite sure some of his photos would live longer than he did. It gave him a strange sense of purpose, even though he knew that his compulsive photo-taking basically only held meaning for him.

The photos that he kept weren't just photos to him. So many of them were windows; emotional maps, leading him by the wrist back to places that had existed once, and didn't anymore. There was a photo he had of him and his brother that had been taken five years ago that he kept in his wallet all the time. There were a few photos in his wallet, actually. There was a lot of space in there for pictures considering he didn't need to carry around things like muggle bank cards. Hogwarts didn't even have student cards, for heaven's sake. The picture of him and Colin showed two young boys in a happy moment, jostling each other to get to the front of the picture. His lips had been blue, and he remembered the sweets he'd eaten to turn his skin that particular shade of navy.

When Dennis had picked up his brother's dusty camera for the first time after the boy's death, he'd gotten the film developed with much trepidation. He'd angsted over the fact that these were Colin's last pictures; that they were the last imprint of his brother on the earth at all. When the pictures had turned out to all be complete rubbish - just a few of them, and of things like trees and one accidental blurry shot of the ground - Dennis had been devastated. Now when he looked back at those photos he remembered exactly how he'd felt. Every single one of them meant something monumental to him now. He kept photos of his family and friends, even strangers that had reminded him of something or looked particularly beautiful when they laughed. He had photographs of Hogwarts, a place that he loved and hated in equal measure - he'd captured every damn brick. Anything that meant anything to Dennis Creevey had been neatly photographed and stored.

He had photos of her.

Dennis snapped out of whatever spell he was under abruptly as she dropped her keys to the ground with a soft clink. His muddy green eyes widened a little, unsure about whether or not he should say anything. If he should maybe leave. He swallowed, then closed the distance between them in a few short strides. "Hey, let me..." he said, ducking down and grabbing her keys from the wet ground in a swift motion. He bumped her by accident. "Sorry," he said breathlessly, his words exiting his lips amidst little steamy puffs in the cold air. "Do you need some help?" His heart fluttered in a way that made him feel a little guilty as they locked eyes. Suddenly he was holding his breath. Dennis opted for a collected half-smile, one cheek dimpling as he did so.

NPC; Foxglove Sharpe

It wasn't even midnight yet but the inky black sky was alight. Splashes of colour, of golds and reds, showered down like glittering confetti. The little café was in a nice neighbourhood of the city but it was miles and miles away from any royal boroughs. Foxy didn't seem bothered by the occasional drunk who staggered by, merry at the prospect of a brand new year. She lacked the enthusiasm. However, she was looking forward to the walk home.

She liked winter. It seemed to surprise people, considering she had such a summery vibe about her. She liked the dark evenings and cloudy skies. She liked the cool winds. Most of all, she liked the nights. She loved the early morning hours, of two and three o'clock. Those sacred hours were for artists and dreamers, thinkers and doers. They were dark and they were quiet and they were perfect.

London was such a busy city. Though vibrant and beautiful, it could become claustrophobic and suffocating at times. Like a London cabbie, Foxglove knew her home town like the back of her hand. In fact, when she was younger, she'd decided to play along and take The Knowledge. And she'd passed.

It didn't scare her. It never had. She knew she shouldn't walk alone, that she should stick to well lit areas and not take any dubious shortcuts. However, she often did. It stemmed from a need to experience danger, excitement, to feel something. The streets were quiet tonight. Like every New Year, there were pockets of people dotted about, in bars and clubs and restaurants. People were at home, at parties, with their families. It painted a nice picture. That sort of life was always agonisingly close and within touching distance. The problem was that she was just too proud. The bridges she'd burned tended to light the way to new and even more bad decisions.

"Oh!" Foxy gasped, her chocolate coloured eyes wide in surprise as her heart leapt into her throat and she forgot to breathe. She felt cold in fear and then pleasantly warm as she realised the man wasn't going to rob her.

He had her keys. "Oh gosh, thank you," she gushed before slipping as she was bumped into. Swiftly, she dropped her art book and into a puddle. She winced. "Oh bollocks," she swore softly as she bent down to gingerly pick up the portfolio, her pretty face grimacing as she held it at arm's length. "Great," she sighed gently. The paper inside was already starting to curl up at the edges, the paint starting to seep and bleed. Typical. It was bloody typical.

The stress she'd been putting away in the back of her mind came flooding forward. Foxy closed her eyes and pressed a cool hand to her forehead before she pinched the bridge of her nose to stem the inevitable headache. The feeling of despair lasted briefly before she let out a laugh and rolled her eyes Heavenward, tilting her head back to watch her breath come out in little puffs, highlighted by the unflattering tone of the street light beside her.

She turned and she stilled as a face loomed in front of her own. He'd handed her the keys back, so why did she feel like he'd done something monumental? Foxy didn't say anything as she stared at him, her forehead creasing in confusion. The redhead stayed still, close enough to feel the residual heat clinging to the front of his jacket; she'd felt this before.

His eyes were an unusual colour, she'd noticed, even in the florescent light. Muddy but not quite. Like a river or a stream, dappled in sunlight. She knew those eyes. She'd drawn those eyes. She still hadn't said anything. Her thoughts were jumbled as she tried to sort through them. Goose bumps rose on the flesh of her forearms as she felt a trace of fingertips over her shoulder blades, a kiss behind her ear, the wild excitement of a teenage crush. The thrill of the unknown and the heartbreakingly sad realisation that it was a flash in time, a transient moment. She blinked three times in rapid succession. She needed to lay off the coffee, clearly.  A friend? No, she'd know his name. A relative of someone she knew? No, she'd remember. Someone she'd served coffee to before she left for the continent? That must be it.

Eventually, Foxy offered him a grin. "Sorry," she said with a gentle laugh. "You just looked really familiar," she said with a shake of her head, some of her copper coloured hair starting to unfurl from her braids. "Thanks," she told him again as she took the heavy bunch of worn steel keys and slotting one into the lock and twisting. There were about three keys on a loop and even more key rings. The boss and his family enclosed in a little clear plastic key ring, a small fluffy llama with one eye and a cracked one with the words "Greetings from Whitby!" printed on it.

"Sorry. Could you maybe just grab hold of this for me for one sec?" Foxy asked, holding out her sodden sketchbook as she turned back to the front door with a frown. "Sodding thing is so old," she grunted as she gritted her teeth and forced the key into the lock, wiggling it so they key rings clattered as she wrestled with the lock. Foxy tucked her coffee cup into the crook of her arm to free up her hand as she gripped the handle and yanked, finally hearing the metallic clunk as all of the locks clicked into place.

"Ow," she complained as she sucked on her thumb with another frown. Clumsy as she was, the sharp edge of the handle had dug into the pad of her thumb and the cold night air was making it sting a little. "Are you lost?" Foxy asked him with a kindly smile. Though not a million miles away from the city centre, he didn't seem that comfortable. "I can try and help. Do you need to use the phone?" She asked, taking the keys back out of her pocket and about to re open the door before she remembered he had hold of her book. "I can take that for you," she told him. "You'll get your coat wet."

"No don't apologise," he breathed, holding the keys out for her. "I'd recognise you though," he added as an afterthought. Her grin was gorgeous, he thought. "Oh yeah of course," he said hastily, taking whatever she needed him to while she locked the door. He tried not to stare, he really did. "Careful," he said automatically, nodding at her little injury while still clutching her damp art book. "No i'm not lost." Dennis laughed, mostly to himself. Lost? Really? "No I'm fine," he said, offering her things back.

He honestly felt a little high seeing her like this. His feelings weren't all positive, though. Seeing her here, not knowing who he was, was also kind of crushing. It reminded Dennis of all of the reasons that he hated the ministry and the school and aspects of the wizarding world. Didn't they realise that people were made from their memories? That memories were all anyone really had? Altering them and taking them away felt like it should be a crime. Dennis would rather take a hundred crucios rather than obliviate anyday, and yet the latter wasn't "unforgivable". It wasn't even illegal when it was used by the ministry.

McGonagall and the rest of the school board - and most of the professors, he should add - had been so kind to him. She'd told him he could sleep in whatever dorm he wanted when he came back to school. She'd written him a letter in support of his character when he'd broken the law last February. When he'd failed two of his OWL units, she'd been the one who wrote letters and secured him a scholarship so he could retake them over the summer at summer school. It was difficult, given all of this, to still hold an immense dislike for everything that she, the school board, and most of the professors, represented to him.

They were all intrinsic parts of a system that had hurt him. The school board had barely reached out to his family after his brother's death. Dennis almost didn't have any support from the magical world when he was considering whether or not he should return to Hogwarts. It was true that Dennis didn't know all that much about the inner workings of the minsitry of magic, or of the school, but as far as he was concerned they might as well be one monolithic power. McGonagall's kindness in particular made it difficult to hate her, but the bureaucracy of the school made it a little easier.

Especially standing here.

"I'm just meeting a friend," Dennis lied, blinking as if he hadn't rehearsed the way this would go a thousand times over the past year. Immediately after it had all happened, Dennis had been utterly devastated. Those few months had been dark, he thought. But then he'd gone back to real school after the summer and he'd met Clem and... yeah. That had happened. But sometimes he still thought of this redhead, and what he'd say to her if he ever saw her again. It was all a fantasy - or at least it was supposed to be. Now that he was here, he was already off-script. He didn't have a rehearsed line to say. He shouldn't be here.

"Are you heading out?" he asked politely, his cool demeanour masking the mild panic that had set in when he realised that she might just smile and say goodbye at any moment. Dennis wanted to know what was happening in her life. He'd thought about that a lot too; if she'd end up going to university, or if she'd go travelling like she'd wanted. He'd only met her once, and it had been relatively brief, but that night stood out to him as a glittering beacon compared to the dark months that surrounded it. Dennis had spent the months preceding that particular night drifting, untethered to himself or the world around him. It had passed in a dark, thick, foggy haze. Meeting her had been a steel knife to the chest in the most shocking and incredible way. "I'm going this way," he said, motioning, knowing that she was probably going this way too. He started walking slowly.

NPC; Foxglove Sharpe

Foxy offered him a bemused smile. She didn't think he was flirting with her, she wasn't that conceited but something felt a bit weird between them. She could only think she'd maybe served him in the café before or he might have been attending one of her lectures. She parted  her full lips, the need to ask him if they'd hooked up before was on the tip of her tongue before she closed her mouth and swallowed the question.

Foxglove didn't really have "exes". She wasn't that kind of girl. She didn't like getting tangled up in feelings and emotions and she was far too young to be tied down. Sebastian had been a mistake. As if on cue, her mobile phone buzzed again and she promptly ignored it. His comment to be careful made her smile gently. In the stark lighting, there was a deep red imprint on the side of her thumb that throbbed suddenly but she shrugged it off. "It's okay," she said gently, holding up her hand to show him the mark. "No blood, no foul," she joked.

"Right. Of course," she said with a nod as she took her sketchpad back from him. It made sense that he'd be meeting someone. Tonight was kind of a big deal for meeting up with friends and lovers. The minutes until midnight were ticking by and Foxy felt troubled and it showed on her face. She chewed on her lower lip, a crease appearing on her smooth forehead as she wondered if she should go back to Sebastian. She didn't want to spend the stroke of midnight by herself but she also didn't want to spent the start of the new year with the wrong person.

She gave a soft sigh as her phone bleeped again. She slipped a pale hand into her pocket and extracted it. Her fingers moved to the keyboard before she stopped herself. Feeling annoyed and a little bit weak, she turned the phone off and dropped it back into her pocket.

"I was," the tall redhead said brightly as she made sure the keys were slipped securely into her little bag. "I had a party to go to but there are a few people attending that I think I'd like to swerve," Foxglove said, her smile not quite as carefree as she'd like to think it was. "I was just going to head home," she said as she watched the red streak that a car's tail lights left in the dark night. Sighing gently, she huddled back down into her scarf as she shoved her hands into her coat pockets. She offered the boy and apologetic smile. "And it's my birthday tomorrow. It's not my favourite time of the year."

He moved to walk and she took a step towards him without meaning to. She paused. "Oh me too," she added hastily as she jogged up catch up, her warm breath coming out in little puffs as the temperature dropped further still. She fell into step with him easily, keeping her eyes focused on the still-wet floor. "I've kind of gotten myself into a lot of shit with my parents," she told him with a wan smile. "I sort of went travelling without telling them. They thought I was in university when actually, I was in Budapest. I should be away now but they found out and all Hell broke loose," Foxy explained, her eyes wide as she remembered the noise her mother had made.

There was something about the dead of night that awarded Foxglove with a warped sense of anonymity. She didn't know this boy. She'd never see him again. She couldn't be honest with her friends. They'd been close once upon a time but university was ripping them apart. They didn't know why she rebelled, why she couldn't sit still or behave. They didn't understand her fierce wanderlust and her desire to make her mark on this world before she died. Time was so fleeting and the world was such a big place; she couldn't be kept in her little box forever.

She was so restless because she didn't have anyone similar to her in her life. She needed someone crazy and dynamic, someone reckless, someone brave. They walked a little further on in silence. "I found out my boyfriend was cheating," Foxglove added. She didn't sound that sad, she just sounded a bit…mystified. "I can't wait for this year to be over," she concluded with a hollow laugh, sighing heavily as she looked up at the inky blue sky. It'd be a nice night for the fireworks, she thought absently.

He was attractive. The thought had been bouncing around her head for a while now. He had the sort of look that she liked. That tall, lanky thing. He looked underfed and troubled, the sort of vibe she was attracted to, like a tortured soul. She liked complicated people. She liked introverts, which seemed odd due to her outgoing personality. She liked people she could have a deep and meaningful conversation with. It was just a shame that most people her age were into hook ups and drinking and not so much the works of Shakespeare and astronomy. But he could like those things.

A sudden thought struck her. "I'm Foxglove," she introduced herself, shifting her book to hold her left hand for him to shake. "Foxy, really. Starving artist, tattoo aficionado, daydreamer and all round disappointment. Nice to meet you," she said brightly, her honey coloured eyes sparkling as her left cheek dimpled. In the yellow light of the street lamp, there was a white scar that ran down the length of her index finger, from tip to her knuckle. She'd been debating getting it covered with a tattoo of some sort. A foxglove in bloom, perhaps.

Fundamentally, Foxy liked scars. She liked the stories and the body's ability to heal and move on. It was like life's little road map. "Would your friend mind if you were a little bit late?" The redhead asked, hope written all over her face. "Because I was maybe going to watch the fireworks from somewhere."