Magical Hogwarts

15th february 2005

Charlie pulled the lace curtains aside to look out at the snow swirling around outside, at the white-covered rooftops of Hogsmeade village; it had been bastard cold in London when he’d left a minute ago, but just grey – not snowing. He took in the view one more time before stepping back and letting the curtains fall back into place.

He glanced around the kitchen as the smell hit him—Yorkshire Tea, first, and then sherbet—but it wasn’t Honey having a brew: there was a small cauldron bubbling away on the table, filling the flat with a scent that was familiar but in a way he hadn’t placed until right now. As though afraid of being caught out, he scanned the room, and the living area beyond, again – no one. He peered into the cauldron and saw the telltale sheen. For half a second he considered the possibility that Honey had been spiking his tea and whisk(e)y, but he’d fancied her since he was thirteen and not only was it unnecessary, it was highly unlikely that she’d been microdosing him since he was a teenager.

“Honey?” He walked through the flat now, poking his head into her bedroom in case she was napping or had decided to have a shower but, no, nothing – which meant she was still working. He sighed through his nostrils and strode towards the door— The handle wouldn’t turn, because of the bloody wards. He sighed openly now, agitated, and walked back to the kitchen to the spot he’d been told wouldn’t cause him immeasurable pain to apparate from, and disappeared.

He reappeared in the high street, and was almost immediately knocked off his feet by a gust of wind he hadn’t expected from the picturesque view he’d had from the upstairs window. If he could see further than a foot in front of him—his eyes were slits, blinking flurries of snowflakes away—he’d see the rest of the village was deserted. Charlie trudged towards the bright pink Honeydukes door (the pink made more sense in this weather) and sealed himself inside as quickly as possible. The bell tinkled overhead but nobody appeared to answer it, and his mild irritation shifted into something closer to concern.

He checked the kitchen first, then the owlery—she wasn’t in there, but every owl was, tucked under their own wings against the weather outside—

There was a loud sneeze from the room adjacent to the kitchen, and Charlie wrapped his knuckles lightly on the door before entering. His eyes settled on Honey and then went a little round in surprise: she looked awful. Wrapped up in what looked like two jumpers and a bulky scarf, with a pile of papers in front of her. “Erm, you alright?”

@Honey Bea Flume

Valentine’s Day had been shite, and not for the usual reasons. The snow–the blizzard, more like–had kept her customers away, which wouldn’t usually be a bad thing because there would always be plenty of owl orders to offset the numbers. But the wind blew the owls off course and the white out conditions had kept them from finding their way again. She had managed to get some orders down to London via the floo, then out through what post owls she could find, but– Valentine’s Day had been shite.

The usual lull the day after a major holiday was even more obvious with the weather. Honey had sent Caoimhe home once it was obvious there was nothing to do, but Honey had kept the shop open anyway because of course she did. She could hear the bell from anywhere in the shop, so it was just as well that she hole herself up in her office, get a head start on all the extra paperwork she needed to do, process the refunds and get them ready to go out once the storm had died down. It was cold in the office–it was a hardly used space, used mostly for storing years worth of account books and boxes full of old receipts–so she had put on an extra jumper. And a scarf for good measure, because it was February, in Scotland, during a blizzard. Not because she had fever chills.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep, or what had woken her up, but she was very sure that she had used her desk as a pillow, that she had to wipe the drool off her chin. It took her a second to remember it was the bell–someone in the shop–that had startled her awake, and Honey braced herself on the desk as she stood up– and quickly sat back down to make her head stop spinning. She weighed her options, settling on hoping whoever it was out there had stumbled in thinking this was the Three Broomsticks and would be leaving any second later now.

Honey sneezed, scrunching her eyes shut tight, her head pounding again.

There was a knock at the office door–someone was desperate enough for sweets they had tracked her down–and it took her a second longer than usual to look up, recognize that it was Charlie. She knew they had plans for later, so maybe he wasn’t desperate for sweets, but definitely desperate for something. Honey smirked, mostly, nodding belatedly as an answer to his question. “Aye,” she added after a second, pausing to sniffle as she spotted the snow in his hair. “I was going to owl you about the blizzard, but–” She waved a hand vaguely in the general direction of outside. “No owls wanted to go.”

It took her a few more seconds to catch up, remember their dinner plans, that she hadn’t seen her boyfriend in nearly a week. “Early dinner?” She asked, her priorities a little out of order.

With the state she was in, Honey’s smirk just made her look delirious. Charlie stood awkwardly for a second, wetting his lips, unsure if crouching down to her level was a bit much for the redhead (there had been several things he’d learnt to do for his last relationship that he was unlearning for this one).

Charlie’s eyes shot upward, from where he’d been staring at her very red nose, as if he could see what she was looking at – before she mentioned the blizzard and he realised he had snow in his hair. He ran a hand through it and nodded. “Yeah, don’t blame ‘em,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t voluntarily go out in it,” he continued, a little snark in his tone; he’d only done so because she hadn’t thought to add him to the wards, as if he was going to come and steal her stock of parma violets or something.

His brow furrowed. “Er, no, I’m… on time,” he answered gently, still puzzling through his approach to an obviously-sick-but-not-admitting-it Honey (he was assuming that, like most women, she’d be more likely to snap at him if she was unwell). He held a hand out for her to pull her upright, lure her out of her work. “Are you sure you want to go out?” he asked, bringing his other hand in when he realised she needed the extra help. He brought her into a loose embrace and at this closer proximity he could see the extent of her watery eyes, rosy cheeks, sniffly nose. “I— You don’t look well,” he told her. “Think we should just go upstairs.”

Well if he wouldn’t voluntarily go out in it, then why did he? But she was too tired to ask him that aloud, or point out the obvious, or argue with him about it.

He said he was on time. Honey looked at her wrist, as if she had suddenly decided to start wearing a wristwatch for the first time in her life. She nodded instead, dropping her hand to her lap and looking up at Charlie again. “Right.” She knew that. He was on time. She hadn’t fallen asleep at her desk unexpectedly for however long.

Charlie offered his hand and Honey assumed that was her cue to get up. She reached for him while shaking her head. “I’m not cooking,” she said. They would have to go out or limit themselves to what she had in stock upstairs. Crackers, probably, because she ran out of biscuits yesterday.  She held out her other hand, signaling for some extra help. Charlie pulled her to her feet and she didn’t make any move to step away from him, staying put in his arms. She didn’t look well, apparently— she scowled at him, keeping the expression in place as he suggested they go upstairs, and not for any fun reasons. “I’m fine,” she said, unconvincingly.

Honey held in a sneeze long enough to bring her hand up between them, pushing her scarf up to cover her mouth and nose. Her head started pounding too hard for her to consider how attractive she must be. “Okay,” she started, eyes closed. “I’m only going because I want to.” Upstairs was a good idea, unfortunately.

She opened her eyes, blinking slowly. “Can you bring that?” She asked, pointing at the scatter of parchment on her desk, not pointing at anything specific or helpful to him figuring out what she wanted. She just knew there was so much left to do after the disaster that was Valentine’s Day. She stepped around him and headed out of the office, out of the kitchen, paying attention enough to flip the door sign to ‘closed’—as if anyone would notice—with a wave of her hand as she started up the stairs.

Once in her flat, Honey flopped face first onto her sofa, angling herself so her feet were hanging off the edge of the cushions, her boots still laced up tight. She heard Charlie behind her and waved her hand in the vague direction of the kitchen, the cauldron, the aroma of burnt potion. “Can you bin that?”

Right, she said. Right, he thought. Honey informed him she wasn’t cooking, and again Charlie thought neither was he (here – he’d gotten better at doing something when they were at his, but she never had anything to actually cook with, nevermind his lingering hesitance about the flukes he’d had with her ‘appliances’ thus far).

But she was fine. Charlie rolled his eyes, unable to let that one slide (women).

Honey’s hand shot up between them warningly, and he arched his back slightly to give himself more room as he watched her, concerned. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her this sick – hungover? Yes. Actually sick? No. They were going upstairs but only because she wanted to; good to know she was just as stubborn—possibly more—when she was unwell.

She pointed at some paperwork on the desk and Charlie half-heartedly peered at whatever it was – too much for someone to be doing in this state, probably. He was sure she only wasn’t actually making sweets because of the germiness, which, honestly, he wasn’t appreciating either. “Yeah,” he agreed, deciding he’d come back for the paperwork (or not) once he’d escorted her upstairs. Honey hadn’t stuck around to hear him, already stepping around him and out into the shop. Charlie followed, slower, trying to figure out what he was meant to do in this situation for a girlfriend that was far more independent (read: stubborn) than his last had been.

He arrived in the living area in time to see her flop onto the settee and he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, ruminating. Can you bin that? came her next request, and he looked behind himself to the cauldron in the kitchen. He turned back to her confused. “Are you sure, don’t you need it?” He’d rather look like a twat and ask than just tip it out to find she’d meant something else, or her cold had muddled her thoughts, and look like an even bigger twat – and why spend time brewing it just to pour it away? If he had to guess he figured it must be for a new product. Stalling for a response he came closer and crouched, undoing the laces of her boots to help her out of them.

“Aye,” she said, her voice somewhat muffled by the couch cushion. She was sure she didn’t need it. She turned her head so she was only laying on the side of her face, then sniffled, pulling her scarf up to cover her nose. Charlie left the kitchen and came over to her, so she went on, figuring he wanted to talk about it some more. She tried to get ahead of him: “Must’ve gone off while I was downstairs.” Asleep, working, whatever. She wasn’t about to tell him that despite hundreds of attempts–year after year because without fail, someone would always ask about it around Valentine’s Day–she couldn’t brew a stupid love potion. It would always end up like that, failing the same way since she was sixteen, smelling like burnt fruit.

But Charlie was untying her boot, not talking about the potion. “Thanks,” she told him, unsure which part she was thanking him for, of no mind to figure it out now.

Honey angled her foot–as helpful as ever–as Charlie maneuvered her boot off. Her other ankle didn’t really bend like that, though, so she pushed herself up to a sitting position, moving slowly but not slowly enough to ward off the headache. She lifted her foot onto the couch and loosened her laces the rest of the way, tossing her boot to the side  once she had pulled it off.

She made eye contact with him after a second, figuring there was really no way to salvage this now– he had to help her out of her shoes and she was pretty sure she had sneezed on him at some point. “I think I’ve got a cold,” she said, as if that was the first time it had crossed her mind.

Honey thought it had gone off, and now her asking him to tip it away made more sense – she thought it had spoiled. “Think your nose is blocked,” he told her, his tone not unkind but not completely lacking in mockery either.

“S’alright,” he replied quietly, trying to focus on what he was doing instead of what he was doing (acting like a real boyfriend, almost). Charlie pulled at her boot, changed angle to counteract the angle she’d chosen, and kept tugging until between the two of them they finally got it off. Honey seemed to realise that that had been more hassle than it was worth and sat up to remove her other shoe on her own. Charlie watched, still crouched in front of her, until she had thrown her boot aside.

She met his eyes and he met hers, and they did that for a moment. I think I’ve got a cold. Charlie’s eyebrows rose softly. “No shit.” He pushed himself upright—knees clicking quietly—and went over to the fireplace, half to have something useful to do and half to— Well, warm the place up a bit for her. He picked up the stoker and prodded the slow burning logs, then grabbed another two and added them to the fire. He had come here with a different itinerary in mind, but he wasn’t about to just go home, either. He was allowed to care about her – why else would she have wanted them to do this properly?

“You want a blanket or something?” he asked as he turned back to the room, and her, where they lingered for a long second. His eyes scanned the immediate vicinity for a rug or a throw, and spied a lovely tartan one on the armchair beside him. He collected it and brought it over to Honey, passing it to her rather than giving her the full turndown service. “I can pop over the road and get us summat,”  he said, circling back to their dinner plans – she’d brought him food from the Thistle and the Three Broomsticks when he’d been housebound, so it wasn’t without precedent. “D’you need anything else?” He glanced at the clock on the other wall and confirmed that it was too late for the apothecary to be open now, even if Honey wasn’t too stubborn to take something.

In the kitchen Charlie glanced at the cauldron again, and it still looked exactly like it ought to – like he remembered from N.E.W.T. potions. He wet his lips. “It smells alright to me,” he called back to the lounge cautiously, knowing he was opening himself up to the possibility of her asking him what exactly it smelled like, but he figured if she was suddenly alert enough to work that out, he’d just be vague – he was good at doing that when he wanted to be. “Have you got something to put it in?” he asked, looking around the countertops for some sort of container in which to put the potion.

No shit, he said, and she pursed her lips– then opened her mouth again so she could breathe. She watched him walk away, start tending to the fire. Domestic, like. She smiled before she realized what she was doing; she relaxed her face and dropped her gaze to his backside, trying to keep this as close to normal as possible.

Honey flicked her gaze back up to Charlie’s face, nodding after a second. “Aye.” A blanket would be nice. She half expected him to lob it at her, but he handed it to her; at least he didn’t attempt a turndown service– she wasn’t the invalid that he had been when she had been on blanket duty the year before. “Thanks,” she said again, taking the blanket and pausing a beat before unfolding it. She shifted the pillow a bit, attempted to get comfortable rather than just accept that she was going to lay wherever she had first fallen down. The final move was unzipping her jeans, expelling the last of her energy.

Charlie offered to get us summat and it took Honey a second to translate that into an offer to pick up dinner. “Mm,” she said, noncommittal, trying to think of something she might actually want to eat and coming up short. But did she need anything else? There was exactly half a second where she thought about saying something other than ‘no’ but she very quickly pulled that urge back. Somehow, she didn’t think she could manage being even half as sexy as usual.

“No,” Honey said before turning over, facing the back of the couch, not wanting Charlie to see the mouth breather she had become.

She didn’t know what he was going on about–it smelled alright to him–but she said, “Okay,” all the same. And did she have something to put it in? Aye, don’t I? she thought, smirking to herself, hoping she would remember her joke when she was feeling better. She rolled over slowly and looked at him without lifting her head off the pillow– ah. The potion, still. She didn’t much feel like arguing with him–it required effort to not let him get the upper hand–so she figured she could just tip it down the drain once she left. Never mind arguing about it; she didn’t want to talk about it, either, the one potion she couldn’t manage to get right. She sighed. “Erm, mug’s on the shelf, babe,” she said, closing her eyes and rolling back onto her other side.

Anywhere between two and two million minutes passed before Honey sat up again, deciding she would never get comfortable. She stood up slowly and–blanket wrapped around her shoulders–shuffled over to the kitchen table, sitting down across from where Charlie was standing over the small cauldron. “Just noodling on ideas for next year,” she said, resting her chin in her hand after a vague wave in his general direction.

Honey very helpfully responded with an ‘mm’ to his question and he realised how annoying it must be when he did that (but he wasn’t about to stop, either). She didn’t need anything else. Charlie nodded once, at a bit of a loss of what to do—how did one entertain themselves when sick without modern conveniences like television? Especially when one also did not read—but he’d cross that bridge when they got to it – judging by the look of her it’d be dinner and a kip, so he’d just have to entertain himself.

Charlie looked over towards the tartan lump on the settee and saw Honey’s face peering back at him. Mugs— Babe. He blinked, still staring at Honey as she rolled over, either unaware of what she’d said or hyperaware and hiding her face – he wasn’t sure which option he preferred, but he cleared his throat as a sort of response. “Alright.” He started rummaging through cupboards to find something bigger than a mug—also thinking ahead to when he’d want a cup of tea and all the mugs were in use—and what if she didn’t wash them properly and there was like, residue inside next time? He didn’t want to act like a fucking twat because he was under the influence of a love potion.

He found a couple of plastic containers with lids and was halfway through turning them over, curious how they had ended up here before he remembered the many takeaways they had enjoyed, the leftovers she had taken home from his. His lips pulled into a subconscious smile before he heard her rustling on the couch and he stopped doing that (smiling).

Honey got to her feet and shuffled over, wrapped in her blanket. He smiled now, allowing himself to because it felt more warranted after looking at the state she was in. “Noodling,” he repeated amusedly in his Yorkshire drawl. He picked up the ladle and started pouring it into the containers carefully, feeling more wizardy than he had since he’d last touched a cauldron in the Hogwarts dungeons. “Had me worried for a second there,” he joked, flicking his eyes to meet hers briefly before focusing back on the task at hand. “That you were bewitching me,” he smirked.

Honey shot Charlie a look, some sort of sleepy, sick scowl at his noodling, offering him no response otherwise. She relaxed her face after a few seconds–her headache clouding her brain and helping her forget she was annoyed–and watched him ladle the potion out into the containers, her thoughts drifting towards soup.

He had been worried, he said, and Honey raised her eyebrows. She had admitted she was sick, sure, but she didn’t think it was anything to actually worry about, but– oh. She offered him something between a smile and a smirk, as if she needed to use amortentia on him. “You’re already obsessed with me,” she said, and like, clearly so. He hadn’t taken one look at her–sneezing and so attractive–and that might have been why she thought he was talking about that in the first place. She wasn’t thinking clearly, anyway.

“You seem keen on saving it,” she said casually, glancing up from the cauldron. “Should I be worried?” She asked, smirking (before she had to open her mouth to breathe, again).

She thought she might need to explain herself, minus the part about her not making a passable potion. “I always get questions around Valentine’s,” she said with a shrug. “Selling it,” she clarified. She hadn’t had the chance to tell him about the holiday being (more) terrible (than usual); she took a breath before getting into it. “Only three people came to the shop yesterday.” And one of those people was Caoimhe. “So I had some time.” She glanced at the window with a frown before looking back to Charlie with another vague wave of her hand.

“Was working on all the refunds–” for the undelivered orders– “when you got here.” Of course she’d still sell things to people if they wanted them, but she’d have to discount it if she wanted them to order again for Easter (and beyond).