9 Sep 2022, 00:27
Right Where We Left Off
August 31, 2022 ☼ 5:00 p.m.
Tala Takagi had seen her best schoolfriend Méabh exactly eight times since their Hogwarts graduation in 2011.
The first time had been three months after graduation itself, to celebrate Tala's hiring as a Magizoologist. There had been Méabh's twentieth birthday in March of 2013... Tala's twenty-fifth in December 2017... a couple times of "I miss you, let's catch a drink and maybe a creature or two"... and then, most recently, over a year ago, an unofficial ten-year Hogwarts Class of 2011 reunion thrown by an old classmate. A perfectly acceptable, if slightly low, amount of times to have seen your schooltime best friend after graduation and moving to different parts of the world.
Except Tala and Méa hadn't just been your regular schooltime best friends. They'd practically been sisters, attached at the hip, all throughout their seven years at Hogwarts. Méabh's mischief and potioneering pranks combined with Tala's tact and nonconformist attitude had sometimes made people wonder if the respective Slytherin and Gryffindor had been Sorted into the opposite houses, and had certainly made for quite a load of laughs during school. Seeing Tala without Méabh, or Méabh without Tala, roaming the halls of Hogwarts had been an almost unknown sight to most of their classmates and professors. If you'd told any single person from the class of 2011 that Tala and Méa wouldn't have seen each other even a dozen times ten years after graduation, they'd have laughed in your face. But here Tala was, waiting for time #9 in August of 2022.
The new Care of Magical Creatures professor slipped, with her trademark catlike grace, into the Leaky Cauldron a few minutes before five on the day before the Hogwarts Express was to leave for a new school year. Sliding into a chair near the bar, Tala flagged down the bartender with a soft wave of her fingers. "Two butterbeers, please!"
The mugs of frothy golden liquid were delivered to her a few moments later, and Tala slid the necessary coins across the wooden bartop in response. One mug was for her, of course, and the other for her best-friend-turned-sister-from-another-mister, the only person Tala could ever really call her other half, since romance had never turned out in her cards. (Literally. But then again, she'd always kind of sucked at Divination.) Tala slipped off her shoes - she hated wearing them anyway, and now her toes could curl around the bar at the bottom of her stool, cold iron against warmth - and placed them on the empty seat next to her, just in case some miscreant tried to steal a spot that would so obviously be reserved by the ghost of a friend until the real friend showed up to take its place.
She sipped away at the butterbeer, and it was partially its sweet warmth and partially the realization scrawled across her mind that brought a smile to the woman's face. After all, this drink was just the beginning of a whole school year together - and, if some of the Hogwarts professors' tenures were anything to be looked at, maybe more than a single year. Teaching at the very school from which the girls had graduated was really about to be a Class of 2011 2.0, and Tala's heart beat excitedly against her chest, unable to wait for its next thump just as Tala was unable to wait for the reunion that would happen now... any second now... any second.
15 Sep 2022, 20:57
Right Where We Left Off
When Méabh stepped into the Leaky Cauldron, there were the remnants of a distinct scent still clinging to the fabric of her clothes. It was hard to describe, the peculiar scent of Knockturn Alley, but easy to identify if you had been there before. An unsavoury place, all in all, but the best source of some of the ingredients she needed, so it was impossible to avoid completely. It was also populated by rather fascinating characters, she had to admit, and for someone as interested in people as Méabh was, that itself was a temptation.
Not that the rest of the wizarding world was lacking in interesting people, she thought as she gave the doorman a smile then slipped through between the other guests who spent their Wednesday afternoon in a pub, towards the bar where she'd promised to meet her best friend.
It was a meeting long overdue, really. Odd how time flew; had it already been 12 years since they had graduated? They'd intended to meet more often, more regularly, but life, as it so often did, had gotten away from them. After they had left Hogwarts and Méabh had spent months all over South America looking for her father and his family while Tala had spent her time chasing after interesting magical creatures, those intentions had been left first delayed, then unfulfilled, then forgotten.
There was a thrum of excitement in her chest, a smile spreading on Méabh's face without her even realising as she spotted the back of Tala's head at the bar. Twelve years, but she'd still recognise her school-time best friend anywhere, would know it was her from just an arm or the tips of her hair vanishing around a corner. Some people were more familiar to you than you were to yourself, and for Méabh, Tala was one of those.
She paused for a moment, just steps off from the bar, and closed her eyes, recalling Tala's face, her features from when they'd last met just over a year ago. Willed her own face to change shape, hair turning from brown to black, her features turning slimmer, a little sharper.
The last few meters were crossed in quick strides, light on her feet, the memories of past mischief putting a childlike energy into her steps that had calmed down and matured a little over the last decade. Which didn't mean that Méabh had really matured all that much in other aspects. Coming up to her friend from behind, wearing Tala's own face, Méabh put her hands over Tala's eyes, leaning close to her ear. "Guess who?" she asked in her best imitation of Tala's voice, although the excitement let some traces of her natural Irish dialect slip through.
She didn't wait for a reply, dropping her hands and slipping into the seat next to Tala. "Hey, stranger," she said, winking in a manner that was decidedly un-Tala-like. "Fancy meeting you here."
Raphael Aveline | Méabh Regan | Dealla Prince |
20 Oct 2022, 22:20
Right Where We Left Off
It only took a few minutes for light, quick footsteps to approach Tala from behind, and the new Care of Magical Creatures professor couldn't help but feel an apprehensive, thrilled smile begin to quirk at the corners of her lips. She had built a living on noticing small details. Though it was usually ones about creatures - this hedgehog attacks you when given a snack, so it must be a knarl, or this stick has hands, so it must be a Bowtruckle, etc. - Tala was also quite skilled at noticing small details about people, when she wanted to be. The Takagi daughter had always walked a fine line between being completely oblivious and being the most aware person in the room.
And right now, she was quite aware of the footsteps behind her - and, more importantly, exactly to whom they belonged. These were footsteps who had snuck out of the Gryffindor dormitory past curfew, stopping only by Tala's bedside to shake her awake. These were footsteps who had sprinted after Tala in the halls when she'd gotten too lost in her thoughts and almost walked straight into a third-floor corridor window. These were footsteps who had a tendency to approach her from behind, though the face she greeted when she turned around was rarely the same one.
Méa could change her face, but she couldn't change her footsteps.
Before Tala could swivel to greet her - she really only had time to put down the butterbeer the bartender had slid her earlier, complete with its untouched companion by the stool next to her - a pair of hands covered her eyes, and an accent that was very obviously Irish-but-pretending-to-be-British whispered words into her ear. Tala cracked a real grin this time as Méa dropped into the chair next to her and winked, because she was practically staring in a mirror.
A mirror of a year ago, maybe - the Tala in front of her was just a little less harried than the Tala that Tala had spotted in the mirror this morning when she'd been getting ready for the day. If the real Tala had to guess, the fake Tala also didn't have white scars raking down her back like bursts of lightning, but the devil didn't always have to be in the details, and for a moment, Tala quite liked the idea of a version of herself from before the accident existing in the world. She shook her head in that very amused Tala manner she'd always had when faced with her best friend's pranks, pushing the spare Butterbeer Méa's way.
"This is for you. And I think you're sitting on my shoes," she said, not even bothering with a greeting; they'd been friends far too long for hellos and heys and how-are-yous. "Also, you still can't get my nose right. How long have you been doing this again?"
Even wearing Tala's own face, Méa was still the prettiest person in the room, and looking at her too long was always hard; it was like staring into the sun, the way she shined. Suddenly, Tala's Butterbeer got a lot more interesting, and she felt the need to study her own reflection - slightly older, more haggard, though still a youth of twenty-nine, so really not that much - in the shimmer of the golden liquid in her mug.
30 Oct 2022, 15:39
Right Where We Left Off
Tala's grin was mirrored by the one on Méabh's face, wide and genuine and comfortable in the way that you really only ever smiled at those you feel most at ease with, and it didn't fade even when Méabh caught the butterbeer before it could slide past her and gave an affronted huff. "I can so get your nose right," she replied, fishing Tala's shoes from out under her and dropping them to the floor between their seats. "I was thinking that stool was extraordinarily bumpy, thanks for clearing up that mystery."
Narrowing her eyes slightly, she stared at Tala's nose, now in profile since her friend had turned towards her own drink. In what world could she not get her best friend's nose right? But she'd done a hasty job of it, and Tala hiding in her glass didn't help her confirm that her impression was, in fact, accurate. With an impatient noise, Méabh reached out to turn Tala's face back towards her to get a better look, fingers cupping her Tala's chin and leaning in close. Fine, okay, maybe the width of the bridge was a smidgen too wide, but she fixed that with a flex of her will, adjusting the detail just so.
Pausing for a second, Méabh imprinted the feel of it in her memory, then let go of Tala's face at the same time she let her hand sink, sighing in content as her features melted back into her own. "How's your back?" she asked, a bit more quiet, a bit more subdued, and lifted her own glass for a sip. The two hadn't seen each other since Tala's accident, and the responsibility for that sat firmly on Méabh's shoulders. She hadn't heard immediately, years of little contact would do that, and then she'd been too holed up, up to 90 in her admittedly stressful job, and when a week had turned into two, the urgency had faded. It was a clear sign if she'd needed any that it was beyond time to make a change, and she'd made good on that, but that didn't lessen the twist of guilt in her gut about failing to visit her friend when she'd been hurt badly enough to be stuck in St. Mungo's for months. The trip certainly wouldn't have been impossible to make.
She hadn't quite figured out how Tala felt about it. Hadn't had much opportunity to, their communication, the decision to both apply for a professor post at Hogwarts had happened via letter. More than likely, Tala wasn't mad at all, probably hadn't wasted half as much time thinking about it as Méabh had, but that didn't help with the weight of it. This was a tentative prod to garner a reaction, find out what Tala thought, but either way, Méabh was determined to make it up to her. At least now she might get the opportunity to.
@Tala Takagi
Raphael Aveline | Méabh Regan | Dealla Prince |