22nd April, 1888 — Corridor Outside the Library
Kristoffer Lestrange

The library was not her natural habitat, despite the midnight blue on her robes suggesting otherwise, and the only thing about it Trixie found especially welcoming was the musty smell of age she associated with her family’s shop. And the slight undercurrent of damp but that didn’t greet her like an old friend so much as give her a sense of satisfaction that Hogwarts might be grand and many of the people within its walls might question her right to still be here but it could not stand up to time and the weather any better than their pokey shop in Knockturn Alley could.

It was unfortunate then that it was such a necessity in the run up to the fourth year exams that she spend quite so much time inside the dusty walls. It was the only place she could force herself to pay attention and even then it was an easily lost concentration: it barely mattered how well she did, her father would never allow her here past her OWLs and if he did it would only be because her intended allowed it.

Experimentally she scrawled the name Burke in the margin of the Arithmancy notes she was perusing and immediately scowled at it as though the paper were directly responsible for her future plight. Shoving it into her bag furiously she stormed from the library, pushing past two small Hufflepuff girls as she went and ignoring their protests.

She didn’t slow her pace when she reached the corridor and almost immediately found herself bashing into a much more substantial figure and flying to the ground. Ruffled and irritable she sat up, narrowing her eyes the moment she recognised him and resolutely refusing to be the one that apologised.

  

Kristoffer was headed towards the library, a destination he couldn't say he was keen to be arriving at. Unfortunately, he had run out of everything else to do to distract himself from the work that was piling up between essays and projects and ever-more-looming exams. Doing work out of sheer desperation, now that was a new low; it wasn't as though Kristoffer had ever needed good grades to prove himself. Proving himself was for the quidditch pitch, where the rest of the school would take actual note of his successes. What use were grades? Orphan he may be, but he was no charity scholarship case - though if he got Head Boy next year, he'd take that full scholarship just to boast about snatching it out of someone else's grasp. It wasn't as though he'd need a career to grind out a daily wage, either. So stuff grades; stuff homework.

If he was searching for distractions to save him from wasting away in boredom today, one such distraction had the good sense to run into him a little ways before the library doors. (Good sense? Bad sense? No sense?)

The girl had rammed right into him, and though it was by no means a bludger, it did wind him a little. He, however, remained steady on his feet while she caught the brunt of her mistake, tumbling back like a ragdoll. If he'd been a better person, he might have tried to stop her fall - oh, who was he kidding. This was as satisfying a result as any, he decided, as he surveyed her nonchalantly in her new spot on the corridor floor, like he'd accomplished something without even trying.

She was a year or two younger, a Ravenclaw. Rather pretty, even narrowing her eyes like that. Kristoffer raised an eyebrow, making no move to help her up. "Well?" He said, coolly expectant. "Are you blind? What's your excuse?" Not that blindness was any excuse. (Not that he could even fathom an excuse he'd accept.)

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   Elladora Black

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The infuriating entitlement of anybody that bore the name Lestrange put aside this was actually one of the genus that Trixie generally did not mind too much, although she largely put that down to his being a boy, and therefore having nothing to do with her, and him at least having the decency to live up to his auspicious name. He was so far up his own backside he could use his ribcage as a hat, had the vague whiff of somebody who would eventually marry a cousin and clearly thought everybody else was put on the earth to do his bidding. It was hard not to be somewhat pacified with a Lestrange that did exactly what it said on the tin.

Still, she was on her back in the hallway and feeling rather sore about it, so somebody was getting the brunt of her anger and Trixie was not nearly stupid enough to make it him.

“Stupid little Hufflepuffs in the way,” she snapped, getting to her feet and brushing off her robes, quite glad he had not offered his hand as that would have been even more mortifying. It was bad enough that he was halfway handsome and looking at her like she was a completely bloody idiot. Not that she cared about that of course, but things were hard enough for her without this getting out too. She scowled over her shoulder when, happily, the two Hufflepuffs from before care round the corner and immediately retreated with their eyes wide and faces pale.

“I think they jinxed me, I didn’t see you,” she lied smoothly, thinking the story just about help up. She was still not about to apologise though.

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   Elias Grimstone

There wasn't an excuse for her error, but suddenly Kristoffer thought he might be able to forgive her anyway.

Stupid little Hufflepuffs in the way, she had started, sounding resentful, and this reached his ears like music. Metaphorical music, like the satisfying crunch when a bludger hit someone smack in the nose. Like the fizzling sound of another Gryffindor melting their cauldron. Like the rush of a stinging hex in the air. His heart may even have had the audacity to skip a beat.

Kristoffer's eyes edged a fraction wider.

What was this girl's name again?

So she hadn't seen him, but still, there was no need for him to stare, he reminded himself, watching dreamily as the Hufflepuffs in question skittered off in alarm. He forced that look back to his usual nonchalance as his eyes returned to her, and he finally gathered himself together enough to say something. "Idiots," he commented in casual agreement. "I'll track them down later, dock some points. Maybe get them a detention or two." Now that was hyperbole, and - given granting detentions required authority beyond his own - perhaps too far as a gesture of goodwill; but it never hurt to bandy about his power, especially not when he was trying to be impressive.

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   Elladora Black

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Reasonably sure that her robes were now clean enough Trixie brushed off the last visible speck of dust and turned her attention back to Mr Lestrange, a devious smirk coming to her lips as she thought of how pleasing it must be to have some power over the younger members of the school. The fear in their eyes would be ever-present, rather than her having to make an effort to obtain it. She wouldn’t have to remind them so often of what sort of things she could get her hands on in her father’s shop if she had a mind to: the fact that the old man would notice if even a candlestick was out of place was by-the-by. They didn’t need to know that part.

“It’s a shame they only let you dish out soft stuff really. My dad’s got all sorts of things in the cellar that would make them wet themselves,” she sniffed, it not having escaped her notice that of the students in question at least one of them was a mudblood. Why the Headmaster couldn’t just get rid of them, like he had tried to do with the halfbreeds, she didn’t know. Maybe his hands were tied? The Ministry was getting softer by the year, according to her father at least.

“Not that you’d need them of course,” she added with easy sincerity, telling the truth and knowing it would flatter.

  

Merlin, she was damnably pretty.

And it appeared she had some faculties of common sense, which was more than he expected of a lot of her sex. It took all he had not to split his face in a smile from her words: as someone who thought smiling at strangers - and smiling at girls - would make him look soft, Kris presumed the twitch upwards of the corner of his mouth would do to show his appreciation.

"I wouldn't need them," Kristoffer agreed, matter-of-factly, "but that doesn't mean it wouldn't make things more interesting." Fun for him, he meant, mostly. Though perhaps also more effective, he considered, as an afterthought. When had docking a few points ever truly changed anyone's attitude? "I know a few people here that could use a good fright." Putting the fear of Merlin into people, on the other hand? A little bit of roughing up? Would be nice.

"Miss... Borgin, wasn't it?" He inquired, his curiosity unusually earnest. He'd only gotten that far from the mention of her father, and the vague notion that the Borgins owned a shop. This would not have been anything to gloat about - Lestranges didn't associate with shopkeepers and their ilk, please - but the name Borgin and the girl's description of her father did call to mind a vision of ill-gotten goods and items of questionable use. So his interest was piqued.

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It was a rare experience for a girl like her to be noticed by a man of his station, even if she had essentially barrelled into him and give him no chance but to notice, and hearing her name come from his lips gave Trixie a curious, shuddery feeling through her whole body that was not entirely unwelcome even if it was unfamiliar. She took a moment to relish the feeling, telling herself that it was triumph. She had made an ally of Seneca Lestrange, no small feat, but the other girl had been aloof and frustratingly indifferent and pushing, Trixie knew all too well, would get her nowhere. She had to be cool and collected.

“For as long as I can keep it that way,” she said wryly, wondering how well he knew Burke. Her betrothed was perhaps more suited to the Slytherin dungeon than Mr Lestrange but only because in her estimation the hideous weasel deserved to be locked up forevermore and forgotten about. Perhaps he should be dropped into an oubliette instead? Then she wouldn’t have to think about Burke breathing the same air as someone who was his superior in every way and what he might be saying about her to the other boys in his dormitory.

“Don’t suppose you know a little weasel in your house called Burke? If anyone deserves a fright he does,” she smirked nastily, eyes flashing with malice. “Even if you frighten him to death I doubt anybody would mind apart from his mother.”

  

Kristoffer narrowed his eyes at her response, unpicking that answer as best he could to mean she’d be married off one day. He forgot that poor people bothered with that sort of thing, when inheritances and the like must amount to no more than a few sickles. (Though it was admirable, if it were about keeping bloodlines pure.)

Apparently she’d be a Burke one day. The Burke in Slytherin. “Mm, I know him,” Kristoffer said, his tone imbued with disdain. “Pasty looking fellow?” Between Burke and Merriweather Mulciber, it was a mercy people didn’t think living in the Slytherin dungeons caused a sunlight deficiency so bad that every student would kick the bucket before they even graduated!

“I’m sure that could be arranged,” Kristoffer replied, anyhow, not entirely convinced he was kidding about that. “He looks like one shock’d be enough to finish him off, frankly.” He added offhandedly, puffing up his chest to prove a nice case for comparison.

Was she asking him to bump him off? He wasn’t sure whether it was a sign of just how much he wanted to impress Miss Borgin that he’d definitely do it, or merely a sign of just how much he wanted an excuse to fuck someone up for real.

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   Beatrix Burke

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Beatrix wasn’t sure whether it was because she had Burke on her mind but the memory of his weedy, pale physique came into her came quite clearly and Merlin did he pale in comparison to Mr Lestrange. The beater wasn’t exactly huge but comparatively there was no contest between her pathetic intended and the specimen before her: he was practically Adonis next to Burke. If Trixie had it in her to blush she might have done at the thought but instead she raised an eyebrow and tilted her head coquettishly towards the boy.

“If only,” she quipped, having already tried several tricks on him during the long hours they were forced to work together by their fathers and while she had managed to make him look like he was about to piss himself he was still sadly in the land of the living. She had a brief and beautiful thought of Kristoffer Lestrange shutting Burke up in one of the vanishing cabinets, locking the door with his strong hands and looking at her in a way a boy like him never would at a girl like her.

“Believe me I’ve tried,” she said with a grim look into the middle distance. “The shop has plenty of things that would make it look like an accident,” she added, quite used to people assuming she was merely joking so not censoring her words especially well.

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   Kristoffer Lestrange

Usually Kristoffer zoned out for a good ninety-percent of anything anyone else was saying, which was all that he needed to come up with something dismissive, lewd, or otherwise rude to say. Not so with Miss Borgin, though: here, he was hanging on her every word, and wondering why on earth more people couldn't be just like her.

He gave a huff of laughter at the idea of making it look like an accident, though quietly hoped that was no exaggeration. If anything, he was yet more intrigued at these mysterious items to which she had access, and more seriously whipping up reasons to stop by.  

Or maybe he didn't really need an excuse, anyway. Nothing wrong with being forward. Proactive. Whatever you wanted to call it. "It's in London, isn't it, the shop?" Kristoffer asked, already musing. "I might have to come visit sometime," he said, straight out. It. Her. Burke, beat up Burke for a laugh, and then have her thank him for it? There was plenty of time to picture the possibilities before summer rolled around. Living at Uncle Lucius' house did make him conveniently placed for shady summer detours, he supposed. No one in the family ever seemed particularly invested in what he did with his life, anyway.

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For the first time in their conversation Trixie was at a loss for words. She hadn’t really thought that a Lestrange might show her the time of day, had assumed he was still here because of mutual dislike and not because he had any particular interest in her specifically. But he had known her name and knew where the shop was – which might have suggested as much interest in her father as in her, but Trixie was nothing is not prepared to see things her way until proven otherwise.

“I’ll let my father know, he’s not overly fond of strangers turning up without notice,” she offered conversationally, wondering how she could possibly frame it to her old man in such a way that he wouldn’t ask too many questions. The Lestranges, some of them at least, were hardly strangers to their door so it probably wouldn’t be too difficult but she hated the idea of him being anywhere near Mr Lestrange. Or rather she hated the thought of Mr Lestrange being around any of her thrice damned family.

“But I’d be more than happy to look after you,” she added as honestly as she ever got and with a glint in her eye Trixie didn’t fully realise she was throwing out.

  

"You do that," he hummed in agreement, jerking his chin up in an assured nod. She was a means to an end. A conveniently-placed pawn in the pursuit of some precious new possessions. At least, that was what he was trying to tell himself. That was how this encounter ought to have gone: he had realised her potential, and nothing more.

Except. He was still suffering a flicker of that feeling, the flutter in his chest. An itch of interest. Like he wouldn't hate spending some more time with her, and getting to hear her trash talk some more Hufflepuffs. That sort of thing. He pictured her showing him round the nooks and crannies of the - unquestionably dingy, she was presumably poor as dirt - shop with a faraway sort of smirk on his face.

He did his best to snap out of it. "I look forward to it," Kristoffer said anyway, a little too sincere for his usual modus operandi - but decisively, too, securing the arrangement in stone; he'd hold her to that, now, and that was all the excuse he needed. Hopefully Miss Borgin wouldn't disappoint.

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For a moment, though Trixie would probably deny it afterwards, she felt the sort of flutter she had heard other girls speaking of in hushed, girlish whispers when they watched the young men go by. The boys were of little interest to them, too short, too awkward, nothing at all like the men in the pages of Witch Weekly, but the young men of the sixth and seventh year…they were quite a different story. Full of vibrancy and vitality the likes of which they had never known in their life.

Trixie had thought it an absolute waste of time to dwell on such rubbish. Partly because she had never experienced anything like it herself, and partly because when her time came it would be Burke, whose chest would never exceed that of a sparrows. Not like Mr Lestrange’s broad, beater strength…

“You’d be right to,” she quipped back with a final smirk, heaving her bag a little higher and smoothing over her robes. “I’ll see you around before then I’m sure.”

wrap? :D

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   Elias Grimstone