26th October, 1890 — Crowdy Memorial Library, London

Working the night shifts and living above the shop in Knockturn Alley always felt comfortably removed from the real world. Jay appreciated this for more than its worth in gold, had grown used to this, liked the comfort of the dark and the quiet and being almost the only person to exist.

But sometimes, still, there was a need to venture out into the rest of London, writhing mass of people that it was, even when he stuck to wizarding streets. He had slipped out on personal business, though he had not seen anyone to remark upon his going; even then, the library was one of the places he didn’t mind haunting from time to time. It was easy to blend in here, bowing over books, when everyone was more interested in their own research.

Jay had found himself a table and had piled a few books beside him, and had been poring over the open pages around him - a few tomes each on travel and cursebreaking - with a determined focus, for it was research he needed for a letter. He had been taking notes in a meticulous - almost illegibly cramped - hand, and perhaps it was the heated air in this building or the fact that late afternoon was unseasonably early for him or even the stress of selling an elaborate, decades-long lie, but somewhere amongst all that he had slumped forwards on the open pages, and fallen into a deep doze for a long while - far too long - until a touch finally startled him awake.

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It was certainly the loveliest weather for running deliveries, she thought as a torrential rain pummeled down. Of course, it had been clear a few moments before. Meri always did her best to keep higher than the average eyesight as to not attract too much attention, though this evening was harder than usual seeing as the torrential downpour forced her to keep closer to rooftops. As she did her best to keep herself dry with her wand from the ropes of rain, the familiar glow of the library caught her eye.

Banking a right turn, Meri hovered down to park her broomstick underneath the covered part of the roof. Hopping off, she unstrapped the basket of her remaining delivery and entered the library. With her magical learning being cut off at 15, Meri had gotten a lot of her education from learning as well as the boys at the shop however one thing she'd always wanted to do was travel the world. For obvious reasons that wasn't possible, so she settled for books instead.

After realizing the book wasn't there, she settled for scanning the book on tables and eventually spotted it...buried under a few other books and a sleeping man. While she would hate to bother the poor man, her need to get a move on to her last delivery won out her timidness in the form of a slight touch on the shoulder.

He must have been in a much deeper sleep than she thought, as he jerked awake causing her to leap back, an apologetic look on her face. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, fumbling with her breadbasket as a few loaves tumbled out onto the table.

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He might have startled at the lightest touch even when he was awake, so the fleeting tap on his shoulder lurched him from his doze almost immediately, and he straightened up in the chair in something close to panic.

“Where m’I?” Jay mumbled in spite of himself, blinking the dust out of his eyes to dispel the last of the dream-vision, in which he had been far away in one of the countries he had been reading about, the sun beating down - but now he heard the rain again. At the touch, he’d supposed he was in the flat and he’d overslept and Eli or Mr. Fox had sidled in to shake him awake - but no, this wasn’t his room, and - she was not either of the above. He didn’t know who she was.

He tried to murmur an apology, himself, for having startled her the same, but he had only gotten as far as clutching the edge of the table to centre himself and recognising the books before him when he also saw... “Bread?” This was a puzzle, and to Jay’s still-bleary brain it all made very little sense, but he inhaled the strangely fresh scent of it deeply in spite of that.

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"Er - yes, bread." Meri said, laughing slightly thinking of how odd the man might think of being awoken by bread. "I apologize, I'm hoping to deliver these soon." She reached out to pick up the pieces of her order, setting the basket down on the table.

The man looked quite disheveled, and Meri wasn't entirely sure laughing was appropriate in this situation. Still, glancing at the clock, she figured she had a few moments to spare and furrowed her brows in apology. "I wanted to ask if you were wanting to keep that book." She paused from gathering her inventory to point at the book in question.

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Jay did not know when he had begun it - the moment he had ended up on the streets, he supposed - but he could not look a stranger in the face without consciously assessing them.

She did not look like a threat, the woman before him. Pointless to judge on appearances, he knew - Florence was deceptively sneaky and Hestia impossibly quick and Imogen surprisingly strong, for her size - and there was nothing that could possibly mark a person out as perfectly trustworthy, however much he wanted it... although the warming smell of fresh bread around them was working its own sort of magic. And not all the people in London were Foxes, were they? Between the smell and her light laugh, Jay offered a small, bemused smile, and did not immediately flee.

“Oh,” Jay said, as she explained the bread; she picked them back up for the basket and he joined in by tidying some of the mess of books on which he’d been sleeping, feeling similarly embarrassed about how she had found him. “Oh, sorry,” he said swiftly, peering at the book in question and pausing for a moment. The truth was he had not quite finished with it, but it was a fact of his life that he tried to slip through the outside world like water or a ghost, touching nothing, being nowhere, making no impressions where he trod. Refusing her would make him more memorable. “No -” He began, a little belatedly, “- no, you can have it - ” He reached for it to try and hand it over, but he was not quite awake, for it tipped over the edge of the table and thudded awkwardly under his chair.

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Though he looked completely harmless, Meri couldn't help but feel like she was being assessed in some way or another. Whether or not she was correct in her assumptions, it was perfectly fine with her. She knew strangers held depths that she could not fathom, just as she held the very same.

She offered a kind smile in return. "Are you quite sure?" she inquired, eyeing the marked page in the book. "I can always return later, it looked like you had made good progress in it after all." Even as she was prepared to back away and settle for returning later, the book flopped onto the floor with a loud bang — well, at least it seemed like one in somewhere as quiet and echo-y as a library.

Meri jumped at the sound, reflexively clutching her basket. "Here, let me!" she exclaimed, hastening to put the bread basket down and pick up the book for him. Merlin, he looked so tired she feared he would topple over should he attempt to retrieve the tome.

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   Jay Fox

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He flushed at his clumsiness, half surprised by it. He usually took more care. She seemed to have startled at the sound more than he did, but was faster than him at retrieving it - he shifted his chair out of the way and leant down to fetch it, but she was already there.

From the other side of it, he pressed it more securely into her hand. She seemed nice.

“You take it,” Jay insisted when he found his voice again, in spite of her politeness - she seemed to have been looking for this title particularly, and it was not as though he was actually going travelling around the world soon in the flesh. “I’ve gotten enough of what I needed for now. Have it first.” He did not know how long it would take her, but if he needed it for another letter, he could always wait until it had been returned. He tried to return her considerate smile, to say that he didn’t mind, half in hope that this encounter would be over.

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As he handed the book to her, Meredith sighed half in defeat, half with gratitude. At his justification for giving the book to her instead of keeping it, Meri's eyes caught the scribbled notes on the table. By the look of it, he may have been deep in research, though she wasn't going to prod any further. "Thank you so much," she said with another smile. He didn't seem like too much of a talkative fellow. While she usually liked to stay and make small talk (it was what she did for a living at the Tearoom after all), perhaps it was best if she took her leave.

Her curiosity was getting the better of her though, so she made do with the energy and wrapped her arms around the book instead. "I've been waiting for this for a while, but I promise I'll return it as soon as I can so you can pick up where you left off."

It occurred to her that she wanted to give him something in return as thanks. Setting the book down next to her basket, she took a few rolls and wrapped them in some extra brown paper she had. "Here," she said, wrapping them with twine and handing them to him. "I had extra from the deliveries, it's no trouble."

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She was really quite friendly, really rather sweet: Jay thought this, caught himself thinking this, and then shoved the thought down. Sweetness was no measure of anything useful.

But now she was giving him bread out of gratitude? For passing on a book? He could hardly say he was starving, these days, but he had been starving once, out on the streets, huddled up in Knockturn Alley before Mr. Fox had taken him under his wing. “Thank you,” Jay blurted out, befuddled by her kindness, but shifting the bread into his hands without protest. “Do you work at a bakery nearby?”

He had not meant to ask, but - too late.

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He seemed a bit flummoxed by the gesture, which Meri also tried to not focus on too much with a curious gaze. She couldn't stop her mind from being curious, however. Perhaps he was just not used to kindness. Meri of all people knew the world could be incredibly cruel to those who hadn't even lifted a malicious finger, and so she tried to brush off her mounting curiosity instead.

"I work at the Ivy Leaf here in London. And another one in Hogsmeade too that we just opened." she raised her hand a fraction and gestured out the window as if that was any indication of what direction he could find both the tea shop and Hogsmeade. "I was just finishing up the deliveries for the night." she patted the breadbasket on the table.

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The Ivy Leaf: Jay gave a nod of faint recognition, sure that he had seen the shopfront somewhere nearby - not on Knockturn, of course - though whether he had ever actually been in, or just smelled a wafting fresh scent in the mornings and evenings when he tended to venture out remained a question.

“You must be busy with that,” Jay said - her life certainly sounded eventful, busy, running about making deliveries and making library stops and reading books about travel, apparently - without the faintest idea why he had not stopped making smalltalk. To seem normal, maybe, rather than cagey and suspicious? Only Jay talked to so few people with any regularity that he wasn’t sure he was managing normal, either. “They smell delicious,” he added, of the loaves she had bundled towards him. “I’m sure I’ll have to come to the bakery again.” Er. Not again. That was not what he had meant.

And he suspected he would never have a good excuse to go stopping by London bakeries, but it was nice to pretend for a moment that he was the sort of person who did.

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Busy would be an understatement, seeing as there wasn't nearly enough time in the day to breathe. If it were humanly possible, Meri wouldn't be surprised if her entire lung capacity was taken up by flour at this point. "Deliveries are a staple to the business," she replied crisply as if reciting it from memory; and she was, though Meri couldn't remember where she heard it. "Although my poor broom has seen better days." She giggled, thinking of her poor battered broom; soon she wouldn't be surprised if it started smoking within the next year.

The thought of new visitors brought another smile to her face and she nodded eagerly. "Oh, you're most welcome if you come across it, though you must be busy throughout your day," Meri found that sometimes the hardest working of people dozed off occasionally. He seemed a nice fellow, so he must have a busy job, mustn't he? "I'd be happy to show you more of our delicious pastries; these are just some staple foods to get this family through the next week." Meri again motioned to her basket.

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He caught himself smiling sympathetically at her giggle about the broom, and... See, this was why he usually slipped away before he could get caught up in talking to real people. She was too nice, so now of course she was talking about showing him pastries and thinking he was probably too busy, as if that was the issue -

Jay couldn’t say he worked the night shift in Knockturn Alley, living under the shadow of dubious and often illegal business dealings. That was certain. (Even if he could have - he would not have wanted to, because she worked at a bakery and seemed happy and would not be laughing anymore at that, and it was nice to sit in the feeling of someone being nice, even if it was just for a minute more.)

“Oh, I’d - like that,” Jay found himself saying, letting her carry on with her sales pitch in spite of himself. “Maybe I will sometime,” he said with a careful smile, though the prospect of disappointing her was a discomforting one by not meaning it. “It’s not that I’m busy, but I’m often - away from London. Cursebreaking.” He was used to the lie, very used to writing it in letters, had spent too many years constructing a life from things like the book she was about to read, but - saying it out loud was new.

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At his acceptance, Meri beamed, clasping her hands together in glee at having convinced someone to come by the shop. This was part of why she loved her job; working always led her to the most interesting people. After all, she'd been in the process of delivering baked goods to the ABC when she'd come across her friends now. And perhaps she would see him, perhaps she wouldn't. Given his profession, it sounded like he travelled a great deal. "Cursebreaking, it must be so exciting!" she gushed, though in the back of her mind she wasn't entirely sure what curse breaking entailed other than, well...breaking curses. But, she wanted to ask, did he encounter many dangers? Was it at all like the work aurors did? Perhaps their paths crossed. And did him being a curse breaker mean he worked for the Ministry?

The witch was about to open her mouth to ask any one of the multitudes of questions that had spilled forth in her mind when a clock chimed in the distance. Her original goal of making this a timely visit came crashing down on her and she gasped, suddenly becoming a flurry of motion. "Oh dear that can't be the time, it's too gruesome!" Meri cried, scrambling to pick up her basket. "I'm terribly sorry I really must go I have to deliver this, oh they've likely fallen asleep by now, I can't believe it....I'll have to throw in some extra things in their next delivery..." She trailed off as she tucked the basked under her arm.

"I'm so terribly sorry, please forgive me. But do stop by the Ivy Leaf if you are ever around!" she apologized, before hurrying off. It was only a few seconds before Meri realized she'd forgotten something and she whirled back around to pop back around the corner. "I'm so sorry, I forgot to ask: what's your name?" She smiled apologetically at him.

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Jay faltered for a moment, silently berating himself for having this conversation at all, but, blessedly, he was prevented from the depths of panic by her sudden fit of it. Thank goodness for that - in her flurry of movement and the already-late-delivery, Jay could remain where he was, dwelling on his own mistake without her having occasion to notice it.

He had only just begun to breathe a sigh of relief, watching her go and supposing he never had to see her or the Ivy Leaf again in his life if he were careful about it - she would forget this meeting in the blink of an eye; she surely met enough people in her day-to-day - when she reappeared.

Jay froze halfway through anxiously running a hand through his hair, looked at her wide-eyed. His name. It should not be a hard question, but - well, he could not say Fox, because he didn’t want her to know where to find him, the real him, but he could not just say Suraj Dalal because he had no claim to that name either, had not in many years. “Oh - Jay,” he said, hoping she was in too much of a hurry to ask for more than that, and settled for smiling instead of adding a surname. “And - yours?”

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She’d never met anyone with the name Jay before. Perhaps it was short for something, like how they called Kieran Key sometimes. In any case, Meri was too short on time to ask him anymore about his name. When he inquired about hers, she beamed at him and gave a little bob where she stood.

”Meredith!” she responded, impulsively reaching into her basket and tossing him another bread loaf. What was one more from her basket? She was going to have to bring the family more tomorrow anyways to make up for her tardiness tonight. ”Meredith. My friends call me Meri. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Jay.”

As much as she wanted to stay and chat, she couldn’t, and she tossed the man an apologetic glance. ”I hope to see you around!”  Meri tossed him a smile before turning and leaving; the tome she’d come to originally borrow was left completely forgotten on the table.

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