Post by Dana Coran on Sept 17, 2009 11:29:36 GMT -5
Dana huddled on the floor before her grand-fathers desk in her office above the book-store of rarities. She had felt fine in the morning. There had been the beginnings of a mild headache gnawing at the back of her scull, but she had simply pushed the feeling back. Besides the smell of old books – the dusky scent of yellowed paper, well-oiled leather and wax and harsh string – had always soothed and comforted her. She needed to work anyway. It was time for the half-year review of all her five book stores and the rarities store she had left last as it was her favourite. She hunted down the most rare books in the world and some not so rare, had them protected and on display. Few had money to shop here with ease and some of the star-examples of her collection here were priceless. At least they were priceless for her. But yes, everything had been alright in the morning. She had greeted Marie and Jacques, helped them open the store and had then come upstairs to her office with firm orders to not have anyone disrupt her during the day.
As the hours ticked past, the day had slowly turned worse. First it had been her ponytail that had been pulling on just one strand of hair and no matter what she did she couldn’t loosen the tension or even break that strand. Finally she had yanked her ponytail loose only to have her hair continuously fall forward to obstruct her view. And the temperature of the office seemed to be steadily rising as well as if there wasn’t a spell to control the temperature in the room. She had tried opening the window, but that had only let the noise of the outside world in and stopped her from concentrating. So she had closed the window again and when she couldn’t bear the stifling heat in the room anymore she had simply yanked off her soft baby-blue sweater and irritably chucked it across the writing table, leaving her seated in a deep red leather chair in a pair of white suit-pants, smart grey shoes and a blue bra. She had always been proud of having been a Ravenclaw, Dana decided absently as she fixed a bra-strap on her shoulder before attempting to have another go with her work. She didn’t seem to be doing much progress so she finally snapped her head up in pure irritation. Her neck groaned at the sudden movement, but she carefully and calmly closed her account books and placed her pencils properly side-by-side in the proper holder meant just for them. The familiar meticulous movements were comforting. Perhaps she should brew herself a headache potion though, she decided. She had recently acquired a copy of a potions book that even had some customer already if she remembered correctly what Jacques had told her earlier, but she wasn’t too sure about selling yet as she hadn’t had time to properly check and verify the book yet anyway. Either way she had a book and it was bound to have some headache potions in it. She also had the basic spread of potion ingredients in the office as Dana was a firm believer of always being prepared.
Raising, she opened the door to her office just a crack to have a light breeze wafting through the room, coming from the hallway and staircase and going out the window. This story of the store held only special sealed rooms to preserve some books and her office and neither of her two employees would be coming up here today. Enjoying the light breeze brushing her bare skin, Dana hoped it would carry away the heat in the room soon. She’d have to check on the temperature wards too. Just like potions tended to need chillier surroundings, which is why the class was held in the dungeons at Hogwarts, rare books didn’t take too kindly to heat and humidity either. But for now she was considering a head-ache potion. Opening the cupboard where she kept her small store, Dana fished out her latest find. She opened the book and turned the pages with care and respect due to such an old tome, but without much interest of the contents. She merely wanted a headache potion, not something flashy and expensive. She wouldn’t have the supplies for something flashy and expensive anyway. Finally finding the page she had been hoping for, Dana traced the scrawled lines in handwriting – the book dated back to before printing had been discovered – with her eyes before setting to work.
Her first attempt was doomed to failure when a sneeze caught her unaware and had her sneeze straight into the boiling cauldron. With a sigh, Dana waved her wand at the contents of the cauldron before wearily wiping her forehead with her arm. The breeze wafting through the room seemed to have heated up as well and the sheen of sweat covering her made her hair stick to her face and neck and shoulders. She was starting to feel almost feverish as the heat got to her. With a deep sigh, she start all over again, ignoring her slightly shaking hands as she went to add violet petals rubbed to powder between her palms. Instead of the described pale-blue the potion turned olive though. Staring morosely at the bubbling cauldron, her wand held limply in her hand, Dana had to blink a couple of times as the cauldron seemed to start swimming before her eyes. She would need to start over, but she needed a bit of a break before that.
Leaving the cauldron as it was, Dana retreated a couple of steps to before her desk and crumpled down to sit on the lush carpet. Sitting was taxing as well though, so after a few moments she let herself slid fully onto her side as she lay down on the floor and with a pitiful little groan closed her eyes. She was most certainly feeling feverish by now. She wasn’t even sure how long she stayed there as the next thing she was aware of was a cool hand on her brow. Her head was aching and she was so very cold and it hurt-hurt-hurt, and oh god, the hand was so blessedly cool… Still curled into a tight ball, she instinctively turned towards the smooth hand on her brow, a ragged breath escaping her. She could hear that someone talking to her, but the words made no sense over the roar of blood in her ears and he had removed his hand, she realised with a whimper escaping her as she curled up tighter. She could hear steps and shuffling in the room, but all he wanted was to get warm again and have his cool hand soothing her face and be left alone and in quiet and none of it made any sense. Something warm and heavy dropped on her and she clutched it closer to herself, wriggling into the fabric that felt almost scratchy against her bare skin and hiding her face in it, deeply inhaling the peculiar scent of eucalypt, cinnamon, old smoking log, cheese, and a beetle. Holding the fabric around her, she felt the sounds of the room fading from her again. When she came to next, it was with a whimper of protest rising to her lips as the fabric was pulled from her and she was made to sit up. A goblet was placed at her mouth and a persistent hand at the back of her head didn’t let her go until she had drank the contents of the goblet, no matter how much she spluttered or her stomach churned. And then she was allowed to slip away again. She could faintly feel hands gathering her together and lifting her and herself curling into the source of the smell that had been so very present on the fabric, a cloak, before as well, before sleep fully claimed her.
She came too slowly. Blinking hazily, she opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling for a few long heartbeats, before turning her head. She has been placed on the short couch in her office above the rare books store. Her legs lightly cramped, she slowly sat up and massaged them, noting that her shoes had been removed almost absently, as her attention focused on the black cloak that had been covering her. Her fingers had clamped around the fabric in a death-grip that left her knuckles white and made her wince as she straightened and flexed her fingers now. Had anyone tried to remove the fabric from her earlier, the fabric would have probably torn before she would have parted from it. Her eyes quickly swept over the room – the window and the door had been closed, the potions ingredients and cauldron cleaned and put away, even her sweater had been folded and now lay on her chair at the table. The potion’s book she had been using was closed and leaned on the engraved reading stand. She never used it herself out of fear of the books outweighing themselves and falling apart with half of it falling off, half remaining on the stand. Returning her attention to the decidedly masculine cloak in her hands, she took a long while to consider. It was only when her eyes fell on the clock that showed that she had been out of it for 6 hours before she stsarted moving again. Standing swiftly, Dana walked to her desk and lifted the potions book off the reading stand and then pulled on her sweater and slipped her shoes back on. Still holding the cloak in her hands, she hurried downstairs just in time to see Jacques leaving after having locked the store up. “Ah, Dana, finished working! Did you finish all the business with the gentlemen wanting Virol’s Potion’s Book? He was up in the office with you rather long,” Jacques chattered on excitedly. “We didn’t quite finalise the deal,” Dana stated slowly, deciding it wiser not to tell Jacques she had been out cold most of the time. She had been sick and it was rather obvious the man had taken no advantage, so why make him worry without a reason, ”Tell me, what do you know of him?” “Him? Well, he seems to have a very bad hair problem. Maybe that’s why he wants the potions book? Reminded me a bit of a tiny ketchup vampire fluttering around the place. Or maybe about the evil instructor at the exam you forgot to study for. Not much really.” Jacques was clearly itching to go so Dana waved her off and returned upstairs. There was only one man on her mind who could brew a potion strong enough to get her perfectly healthy again in just a couple of hours from her meagre supplies, who wore black, might smell like potion ingredients and be after a rare potion book. In her mind there was no hesitation who the man had been, but it raised so many question.
Setting the cloak down on the couch, Dana returned to her desk and simple looked at it for a long time. Recalling classes, games of truth and dare, memories, brief exchanges of verbs, all the little and brief events there were to remember. Almost slender hands with long fingers. Almost translucent skin. Crooked nose. Dark, glinting eyes that more often than not were wary and tired than malevolent. But anger was always the more easier emotion to handle. Dark hair to frame a thin voice, space-efficient spidery crawl, grace that didn’t make unnecessary movements. A honed mind and wit. It took the better part of an hour for her to mull over her childhood crush. To realise that she had never really given up on it over the years. Oh, she had dated and she had had partner, but no one had gotten as deep, no one had even came close to. Dana stood slowly and packed the rare potion’s book as it was. Without rebinding, re-evaluating, working on the stains of time. She merely packed it in simple brown paper and slipped it in a bag charmed to make its contents weigh less, before gently waking her old eagle-owl. She glanced at the cloak, but only for the briefest of moments, knowing that she wasn’t ready to owl it back to its owner. She would use it to allow herself to sink into memories tonight in a final attempt to face up to the inevitable she – nor he – would do nothing about or finally let go and move on. Even if the fleeting thought what he had thought of the view on her without her sweater flashed through her head before she could help it. For now, she merely fed her owl a treat, before holding out the bag for it as she walked to the window and opened it, letting the owl hop onto the window-sill. The owl hooted at her almost questioningly and Dana slowly stroked the smooth head, before whispering the name.
“Severus Snape.”
((Don't ask. Don't. But... she's still stuck on her and this isn't even proof-read. But... *whimpers and clutches a plushie* SEVVIE!))
As the hours ticked past, the day had slowly turned worse. First it had been her ponytail that had been pulling on just one strand of hair and no matter what she did she couldn’t loosen the tension or even break that strand. Finally she had yanked her ponytail loose only to have her hair continuously fall forward to obstruct her view. And the temperature of the office seemed to be steadily rising as well as if there wasn’t a spell to control the temperature in the room. She had tried opening the window, but that had only let the noise of the outside world in and stopped her from concentrating. So she had closed the window again and when she couldn’t bear the stifling heat in the room anymore she had simply yanked off her soft baby-blue sweater and irritably chucked it across the writing table, leaving her seated in a deep red leather chair in a pair of white suit-pants, smart grey shoes and a blue bra. She had always been proud of having been a Ravenclaw, Dana decided absently as she fixed a bra-strap on her shoulder before attempting to have another go with her work. She didn’t seem to be doing much progress so she finally snapped her head up in pure irritation. Her neck groaned at the sudden movement, but she carefully and calmly closed her account books and placed her pencils properly side-by-side in the proper holder meant just for them. The familiar meticulous movements were comforting. Perhaps she should brew herself a headache potion though, she decided. She had recently acquired a copy of a potions book that even had some customer already if she remembered correctly what Jacques had told her earlier, but she wasn’t too sure about selling yet as she hadn’t had time to properly check and verify the book yet anyway. Either way she had a book and it was bound to have some headache potions in it. She also had the basic spread of potion ingredients in the office as Dana was a firm believer of always being prepared.
Raising, she opened the door to her office just a crack to have a light breeze wafting through the room, coming from the hallway and staircase and going out the window. This story of the store held only special sealed rooms to preserve some books and her office and neither of her two employees would be coming up here today. Enjoying the light breeze brushing her bare skin, Dana hoped it would carry away the heat in the room soon. She’d have to check on the temperature wards too. Just like potions tended to need chillier surroundings, which is why the class was held in the dungeons at Hogwarts, rare books didn’t take too kindly to heat and humidity either. But for now she was considering a head-ache potion. Opening the cupboard where she kept her small store, Dana fished out her latest find. She opened the book and turned the pages with care and respect due to such an old tome, but without much interest of the contents. She merely wanted a headache potion, not something flashy and expensive. She wouldn’t have the supplies for something flashy and expensive anyway. Finally finding the page she had been hoping for, Dana traced the scrawled lines in handwriting – the book dated back to before printing had been discovered – with her eyes before setting to work.
Her first attempt was doomed to failure when a sneeze caught her unaware and had her sneeze straight into the boiling cauldron. With a sigh, Dana waved her wand at the contents of the cauldron before wearily wiping her forehead with her arm. The breeze wafting through the room seemed to have heated up as well and the sheen of sweat covering her made her hair stick to her face and neck and shoulders. She was starting to feel almost feverish as the heat got to her. With a deep sigh, she start all over again, ignoring her slightly shaking hands as she went to add violet petals rubbed to powder between her palms. Instead of the described pale-blue the potion turned olive though. Staring morosely at the bubbling cauldron, her wand held limply in her hand, Dana had to blink a couple of times as the cauldron seemed to start swimming before her eyes. She would need to start over, but she needed a bit of a break before that.
Leaving the cauldron as it was, Dana retreated a couple of steps to before her desk and crumpled down to sit on the lush carpet. Sitting was taxing as well though, so after a few moments she let herself slid fully onto her side as she lay down on the floor and with a pitiful little groan closed her eyes. She was most certainly feeling feverish by now. She wasn’t even sure how long she stayed there as the next thing she was aware of was a cool hand on her brow. Her head was aching and she was so very cold and it hurt-hurt-hurt, and oh god, the hand was so blessedly cool… Still curled into a tight ball, she instinctively turned towards the smooth hand on her brow, a ragged breath escaping her. She could hear that someone talking to her, but the words made no sense over the roar of blood in her ears and he had removed his hand, she realised with a whimper escaping her as she curled up tighter. She could hear steps and shuffling in the room, but all he wanted was to get warm again and have his cool hand soothing her face and be left alone and in quiet and none of it made any sense. Something warm and heavy dropped on her and she clutched it closer to herself, wriggling into the fabric that felt almost scratchy against her bare skin and hiding her face in it, deeply inhaling the peculiar scent of eucalypt, cinnamon, old smoking log, cheese, and a beetle. Holding the fabric around her, she felt the sounds of the room fading from her again. When she came to next, it was with a whimper of protest rising to her lips as the fabric was pulled from her and she was made to sit up. A goblet was placed at her mouth and a persistent hand at the back of her head didn’t let her go until she had drank the contents of the goblet, no matter how much she spluttered or her stomach churned. And then she was allowed to slip away again. She could faintly feel hands gathering her together and lifting her and herself curling into the source of the smell that had been so very present on the fabric, a cloak, before as well, before sleep fully claimed her.
She came too slowly. Blinking hazily, she opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling for a few long heartbeats, before turning her head. She has been placed on the short couch in her office above the rare books store. Her legs lightly cramped, she slowly sat up and massaged them, noting that her shoes had been removed almost absently, as her attention focused on the black cloak that had been covering her. Her fingers had clamped around the fabric in a death-grip that left her knuckles white and made her wince as she straightened and flexed her fingers now. Had anyone tried to remove the fabric from her earlier, the fabric would have probably torn before she would have parted from it. Her eyes quickly swept over the room – the window and the door had been closed, the potions ingredients and cauldron cleaned and put away, even her sweater had been folded and now lay on her chair at the table. The potion’s book she had been using was closed and leaned on the engraved reading stand. She never used it herself out of fear of the books outweighing themselves and falling apart with half of it falling off, half remaining on the stand. Returning her attention to the decidedly masculine cloak in her hands, she took a long while to consider. It was only when her eyes fell on the clock that showed that she had been out of it for 6 hours before she stsarted moving again. Standing swiftly, Dana walked to her desk and lifted the potions book off the reading stand and then pulled on her sweater and slipped her shoes back on. Still holding the cloak in her hands, she hurried downstairs just in time to see Jacques leaving after having locked the store up. “Ah, Dana, finished working! Did you finish all the business with the gentlemen wanting Virol’s Potion’s Book? He was up in the office with you rather long,” Jacques chattered on excitedly. “We didn’t quite finalise the deal,” Dana stated slowly, deciding it wiser not to tell Jacques she had been out cold most of the time. She had been sick and it was rather obvious the man had taken no advantage, so why make him worry without a reason, ”Tell me, what do you know of him?” “Him? Well, he seems to have a very bad hair problem. Maybe that’s why he wants the potions book? Reminded me a bit of a tiny ketchup vampire fluttering around the place. Or maybe about the evil instructor at the exam you forgot to study for. Not much really.” Jacques was clearly itching to go so Dana waved her off and returned upstairs. There was only one man on her mind who could brew a potion strong enough to get her perfectly healthy again in just a couple of hours from her meagre supplies, who wore black, might smell like potion ingredients and be after a rare potion book. In her mind there was no hesitation who the man had been, but it raised so many question.
Setting the cloak down on the couch, Dana returned to her desk and simple looked at it for a long time. Recalling classes, games of truth and dare, memories, brief exchanges of verbs, all the little and brief events there were to remember. Almost slender hands with long fingers. Almost translucent skin. Crooked nose. Dark, glinting eyes that more often than not were wary and tired than malevolent. But anger was always the more easier emotion to handle. Dark hair to frame a thin voice, space-efficient spidery crawl, grace that didn’t make unnecessary movements. A honed mind and wit. It took the better part of an hour for her to mull over her childhood crush. To realise that she had never really given up on it over the years. Oh, she had dated and she had had partner, but no one had gotten as deep, no one had even came close to. Dana stood slowly and packed the rare potion’s book as it was. Without rebinding, re-evaluating, working on the stains of time. She merely packed it in simple brown paper and slipped it in a bag charmed to make its contents weigh less, before gently waking her old eagle-owl. She glanced at the cloak, but only for the briefest of moments, knowing that she wasn’t ready to owl it back to its owner. She would use it to allow herself to sink into memories tonight in a final attempt to face up to the inevitable she – nor he – would do nothing about or finally let go and move on. Even if the fleeting thought what he had thought of the view on her without her sweater flashed through her head before she could help it. For now, she merely fed her owl a treat, before holding out the bag for it as she walked to the window and opened it, letting the owl hop onto the window-sill. The owl hooted at her almost questioningly and Dana slowly stroked the smooth head, before whispering the name.
“Severus Snape.”
((Don't ask. Don't. But... she's still stuck on her and this isn't even proof-read. But... *whimpers and clutches a plushie* SEVVIE!))