A backless dress and some beat up sneaks
My discotheque Juliet teenage dream

7 April, 1890 — House of Lytton waiting room

Today was a normal Day in the Life for Juliana Binns. She'd followed Mr. Lytton around for an hour that morning taking notes as he made comments on the status of various high-profile projects that the seamstresses were working on, then written a series of letters to the clients with things ready to be picked up or delivered. The letters were all the same, because there were only so many ways to say come get your dress, but apparently the women who shopped here appreciated the personal touch. As long as Jules was getting paid, she didn't much mind what Mr. Lytton wanted her to do (within reason, of course).

The morning completed, they had transitioned into the appointment portion of the day. She wasn't required to be involved in most appointments, which was good since she knew so little about fashion and sewing. There was one on the books later in the afternoon to start planning an upcoming event, which she would have to go and take notes for and then send out relevant action items afterwards. Until then, her day consisted of greeting the clients who arrived and making them comfortable until they were ready to meet their stylist.

Two women were already engaged, and the next appointment wasn't scheduled until three o'clock. Jules had just gone to the window to see what was causing a noise in the street outside when the fireplace suddenly roared to life behind her, and she turned brightly to see a woman step out of the floo. "Welcome, welcome," she said as she approached and reached to remove the woman's coat, likely before she had even had a chance to get her bearings in the new space. "You're here quite early, but nevermind that. Would you care for a cup of tea?"

Jules already had her wand out and was casting the spell to heat the water as she turned to put the woman's coat in the guest closet. None of these ladies ever turned down tea. Sometimes the biscuits, if they were trying to watch their figures (which annoyed Jules, because she couldn't very well have biscuits if the customer wasn't having them, and it was so frustrating to have to make stupid small talk while looking at a full plate of biscuits the entire time they were sat there).

Jupiter Smith

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

The newly hired manager of Heavenly Antiques was woefully inept. He made countless mistakes that generally Jo wouldn't have cared about were she not replacing her twin for the time being. However, his ineptitude was causing mountains of work for her, some in ways she barely understood. Maintaining ledgers and balancing books weren't her strong suit, as she typically got distracted less than five minutes in. By the time Mars was ready to return to work it would look as though someone was embezzling from the shop, which was a ridiculous concept in itself considering how little the shop actually made.

But, Mars liked the guy. Just as Mars liked her gay husband and countless others she shouldn't have. Jo could scream sometimes at the lack of forethought her twin had when it came to business. Some random passerby looking for work did not equate to a fully formed manager. If anything, Mr. Lintor was more of a liability than anything else.

Jo stepped into the floo of Mars' home thoroughly aggravated and ready to drink and stepped out into... she didn't know. Before she could make sense of what was happening, some woman was removing her cloak and offering her tea. Supposedly, she was early for an appointment... and then she looked about the room, and no.

Jo definifely didn't have an appointment.

"Er...good afternoon." She returned as friendly as she was able given the circumstances. They were in a dress shop, and not just any dress shop but an expensive dress shop. "I think there's been a mistake..."

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   Juliana Ainsworth

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beautiful set by mj

Jules glanced at the nearest clock as the woman mentioned a mistake. It was only two-fifteen, which would put her a good deal ahead of schedule, but it wasn't egregious enough to merit turning around and going home again, unless she felt strongly about the matter. Whatever turn of fate had brought her here so early, Juliana felt it was probably best respected — but of course, she felt that about all turns of fate, no matter how inconvenient.

"It's no trouble," she said as she finished hanging the coat and shut the closet. "So don't mind it a bit. If you want to take a seat in one of the armchairs there, I'll have your tea in a moment. And you'll take biscuits, won't you? It seems such a long time to go with just tea," she added a bit wistfully, though whether she was lamenting the lack of biscuits for the customer or for herself was debatable. The kettle was just about ready; it was one of the magical ones that had water hot in almost an instant, which the customers appreciated. They were so often impatient, though Jules didn't know why; they always just ended up sitting around waiting for the appointment to start anyway, tea or no tea.

Humming slightly to herself, Jules bustled back to the tea station behind her desk and made up a tray, then turned to bring it out to her. She glanced down to check her appointment calendar as she passed it and her brow furrowed. "Oh," she said as she scanned the names for the rest of the page. "You're not Mrs. Evelyn Abercrombie," she said, pointing out the obvious. She may have been mistaken, but she didn't think this young woman was attached to any of the names on her appointment calendar for the day. "That's what you meant, I suppose, when you said there had been a mistake."

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Well, fuck. Her frayed cloak was in the closet amongst the immaculate clothing, likely dirtying the other garments simply by association. And the woman was going on about tea and bisquits as though Jo with her barely pinned bun and older gown belonged in such a place. Never, not even in their wealthiest moments, were the Smith's able to afford such luxurious garments. If not for this mistaken visit Jo might never even have stepped inside.

She remained standing with her hand outstretched to somehow correct the woman before she wandered away, presumably to get the tea. Jo's hand then fell back limply to her side. All thoughts of the manager forgotten as Jo raced to think of a way to retrieve her cloak and run — this time out the front door.

Finally, though, the woman seemed to catch on. "No, I'm not." Jo answered with a shrug. Whomever Mrs. Abercrombie was must have had standing appointments to be instantly recognizable by name alone. It was how Jo dreamt of being known in her profession. "I think there was a mishap with the floo... I'm Jo Smith — Miss Jupiter Smith." She corrected herself quickly as she once again remembered she couldn't just be Jo whilst in England.

  

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beautiful set by mj

A mishap with the floo. Ah, well; these things did happen. Jules nodded her head sympathetically and continued towards the small table where she typically set the tea tray. Aside from the brief pause over the appointment book, she was otherwise quite unperturbed.

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Smith," she said as she poured a cup of tea. "Won't you sit? Mistakes or no, I've gone and made an entire pot of tea now — and Mrs. Abercrombie won't be here for another half-hour at least, if she comes at all. She does tend to cancel," she explained. Moreso, at any rate, than their other clients did, but perhaps that was understandable. Mrs. Abercrombie ran a finishing school in addition to being a wife, which was the sole occupation of many of their clients; she must have been terribly busy by comparison.

"So if you don't stay for at least a cup it'll be a terrible waste," she continued, glancing back at Miss Smith briefly. "Do you take sugar?"

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Had this mishap occurred anywhere other than a wealthy dress shop (the makings of her nightmares, really) Jo might have been more amused by the situation. These are mishaps were why she avoided magical transportation as a whole whenever possible. Portkeys went astray, bodily parts went missing with apparating. It was all some big disaster waiting to happen. Jo was fortunate to have landed here instead of some stranger's front parlor. Explaining this to Mrs. Abercrombie as opposed to being momentarily mistaken for. her seemed the harder task.

Despite her discomfort, Jo found herself sitting opposite the (rather pretty) woman. This stranger couldn't possibly be hoping to make a customer of her, could she? Jo had little desire to be a pin cushion in a dress she would rip apart for bandages as needed. "No, thank you. As is is fine for me." Truthfully, Jo was a bit bewildered by this particular adventure, which was odd given her proclivities for wandering. Perhaps the opulence surrounding them was what triggered her.

"And you are...?" Jo asked after having been given her tea.

  

What a relief that she'd decided to stay! Juliana was firmly of the opinion that things did not happen by chance, and the proclivity of the rest of the world to rush off 'correcting' things that hadn't gone to plan had always frustrated her. They might miss out on so much, without ever realizing it. It was nice to see that at least this once, someone was willing to give the world a chance to just continue without interference for a moment.

"Juliana Binns," she said as she turned her attention to her own glass. "I work with Mr. Lytton. For Mr. Lytton, technically," she amended with a shrug and a half-smile. He wasn't very demanding, as far as bosses went, so sometimes she had a hard time thinking of him as one. Saying that she worked with Mr. Lytton helped, though, to differentiate her from the seamstresses and fashion designers that worked here. She could embroider and sew a little, but nowhere near well enough to actual construct a garment, and her fashion sense was — as she had been told by more than one surprised coworker — practically nonexistent.

"Do you like the tea? It's a black tea with bits of peach and ginger," she said, adding a large spoon of sugar to her own glass. "It's one of my favorites. It goes quite nicely with the biscuits, too, I think — those round ones, there, the ginger snaps," she clarified, though of course it wouldn't go poorly with any of the variety of biscuits laid out on the little plate.

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"Binns? As in Mr. Zechariah Binns?" Jo questioned in genuine surprise, for as far as she knew Mr. Binns resided in Hogsmeade presumably with his family. Their flirtation was mild, a few chance encounters globally and the singular run-in at Heavenly Antiques. Jo looked towards the woman's hand as discreetly as she could manage and saw no ring. A sibling, perhaps? They looked enough alike, she supposed, granted her vision of Mr. Binns was slightly skewed with this revelation. Had they mentioned their respective siblings whilst travelling? Jo didn't remember.

She sipped her tea and eyed the various biscuits. Gingersnaps were hardly her favorite, but something about this woman made Jo disinclined to argue (hence why she had as of yet to ask for her cloak back and walk back home). "The tea is delicious." She answered with a smile. And while it wasn't her favorite (Jo preferred more spiced teas, similar to what she had whilst in India) it was good. She then reached for one of the indicated gingersnaps and bit into it. Yep. They still weren't her favorite biscuit.

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   Juliana Ainsworth

"Oh! Yes," Juliana said enthusiastically, smiling as she reached for a biscuit of her own. Although neither of her older siblings were recluses, by any means, it wasn't often that anyone made the connection between her and her older brother at work. Zach, she supposed, didn't flit about in the same sort of circles that the sorts of ladies who attended fashion shows did, and neither did Hugo (yet, anyway, though she suspected he might like to). It occurred to her as she took a bite that the way the girl had phrased the question might lend itself to multiple meanings, and she ought to clarify. Setting the half-eaten biscuit down on the edge of her tea plate hastily, she continued, "I mean — no, not as in... I mean, it's my own last name. He's my older brother."

That being settled, she picked her biscuit up again and nibbled the edge of it. It wasn't a very ladylike thing to nibble, but she had found it was the only reliable way to pace herself where gingersnaps were concerned. It was far more ladylike than stuffing her face full of sweets while the customers sat watching. "How do you know him? From the bookstore, I imagine? He spends so much of his time there," she added. "Not that I can blame him; I might, too, if I worked in a bookstore. Luckily, with a job like this, I'm never tempted to wait a minute past the end of the workday." This was delivered with a joking sort of smile, and then she added conspiratorially, "I can barely even sew; it's really quite ridiculous."

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Now that it was confirmed Jo could definitely see the resemblance to Mr. Binns. It wasn't odd per se that she hadn't known of his sister (sisters?) but she was rather certain she spoke of at least Saturn. Her brother was her traveling companion everywhere she went, it was a rare occasion indeed that he didn't come up in conversation. Then again, she only ran into Mr. Binns a handful of times, perhaps he was a more private man than she thought.

Jo chuckled softly at the correction and took another bite of the gingersnap. "Oh, no. Well, I guess, maybe? We met initially somewhere in the Americas. I don't remember exactly where. He was looking for some first edition book and I was making my way towards my excavation." She explained. "I trust he's well?"

  

In the Americas? Well, that was positively fascinating, because it put this woman's initial meeting with Zachariah firmly into the realm of happenstance, which was exactly what had brought about this meeting. It wasn't as though Zach ran off to the Americas every weekend, after all. Maybe this woman did, but if she spent a large amount of her time abroad it was just as serendipitous that she happened to be here at the moment as that Zachariah had been abroad when they'd first met. And the fact that she had arrived here after the floo had taken her to the wrong location could hardly be argued as anything other than chance.

"Mm, quiet well," she answered with a smile. She took a second to look the woman over with new curiosity. It wasn't that she had been disinterested before, but this obscure connection gave Jules a new reason to pay attention. There was something important about her, or there would be — otherwise fate would not have been working quite so hard to bring her into their lives, she thought.

"You're from England?" she asked politely. "Your accent is, I think. And my brother is as well, obviously. But you met him by accident halfway around the world," she pointed out. "And now you've met me quite by accident as well. Is this how you normally meet new people, Miss Smith?"

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

"Yes. I'm from London...speaking of, are we still in London?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. Magical transportation went awry more often than Jo cared to think of. Hadn't Earth mentioned something about debutantes being sent to Mongolia by portkey last year? If an odd looking trinket could do that, who knew what a fireplace could do? A glance out the window showed no obvious signs of it being London outside the doors, just another busy city street.

She took another sip of her tea before continuing on, "you meet all sorts of people in my profession, though I'd have to admit your brother had the tamest job of the lot." Jo laughed again. A book shop owner certainly faced less risks than a navy captain or cursebreaker, after all. The most danger Mr. Binns likely faced was getting a papercut from his books. "Not sure I'd consider meeting him an accident. Chance, maybe. Right place at the right time and all that." Jo looked to Ms. Binns once more as she explained. "The floo network sends people astray all the time, though. This was definitely a happy accident."

  

Jules smiled as the other woman laughed and cupped her hands further around her tea cup. "Yes, most of his adventures are fictional," she agreed. Not that she considered that a bad thing, personally; although she was a Gryffindor herself she had never had a problem spending an afternoon deeply engaged in a book, or even an entire day if the mood struck her. She did tend towards nonfiction more often, however, which was sort of a way of enjoying the experiences of others vicariously. That was the whole point of publishing research, she thought; some people were fortunate enough to go out and have experiences that changed the way they thought about the world, and they were able to go and share those experiences with others who couldn't, for reasons of time or finance or feasibility, repeat those same sorts of things. The entire world was the better for it — but only if people actually took the time to read them, of course.

"This is Diagon Alley," she added in response to the woman's question about whether they were still in London. She did have to wonder what had brought Miss Smith to London, though — she had said excavation earlier which lead Jules to believe she was an archaeologist. There were other types of professions that might find work at an excavation, of course, but none of them seemed to line up very well with the assumptions she could make about the woman in front of her. She didn't look, for instance, like someone who specialized in moving large quantities of dirt around through magic.

"Are you just here to visit family?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. "Or are you involved in that Pictish thing the Muggles found near Hogsmeade? I'd thought they'd had that all wrapped up, but — with all of the artifacts popping up in the news lately, perhaps not," she reflected. It was the only excavation she knew of in the British Isles, and since she regularly read various research journals as they were published, she did think she might have heard of something if a new one had opened up, even though archaeology was hardly her field. Unless Miss Smith was working on something brand new? How curious!

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Well, at least she was still in London, even if Diagon Alley was over an hour's walk from home without distractions. Perhaps she would call upon the Knight Bus, loathe as she was to spend the money when she had two perfectly capable legs. "I've never taken note of this shop." Jo shrugged. Dress shops were generally not her destination, though, so her lack of retention really wasn't that surprising. Sometimes she visited Gladrags, and even that was only at Mother's insistence.

"Oh, no. Definitely not involved in the Pictish curse madness." What a relief that was, too, considering Alfred's unfortunate deal. The help she tried to shove in Zelda's direction had backfired tremendously, too. Jo now understood it as a sign she wasn't meant to be involved. "My twin sister's husband passed tragically a few months ago. I came home to help her." Jo couldn't wait for Mars' baby to come so she could leave once more. This was looking to be her longest stay in England since she graduated from school, and she despised it.

  

Oh, my. Juliana certainly hadn't been expecting to hear that someone had died. For one thing, it didn't happen all that often (well, it did in the grand scale, but not in the individual lives of private citizens), and for another, it wasn't the sort of thing that casual acquaintances tended to bring up over tea. And it would be a stretch to call the two of them even casual acquaintances, really; they had exchanged names and now could not properly be strangers, but they had only met a moment ago, after all.

"How frightful," she said sympathetically, though did not think it prudent to say more on the subject. She had said her brother-in-law had died tragically, after all, which, depending on the exact circumstances, might be all she was comfortable saying on the subject. On the other hand, if she was willing to bring up her recently deceased brother-in-law at all, maybe she was willing to say more on the matter than the average woman might do over tea. Which... might be good or bad, really. Juliana would have to admit she was vaguely interested to know what tragic meant, but she was not particularly fond of gory details, so... perhaps it would be best avoided.

There was another interesting thing that the woman had said, though, and so Jules decided to pick that up as the new conversation thread. "You said your twin sister? I don't know whether I've met someone with a twin before... though I suppose perhaps I have and didn't know it at the time," she reflected. "They say that twins are terribly unlucky. Do you think that's true? Have you ever felt yourself to be an unlucky person, Miss Smith?"

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

If not for their physical similarities, Jo often thought most would never be able to identify them as twins. They were polar opposites and could rarely interact without consequence (these last few months aside). However, Jo had never truly given thought to whether she and Mars were unlucky. Mars might be, given her circumstances, but even she was better off than most. Some widows were left destitute with no family to rely upon. At least Mars had the parade of Smith's willing to stand by and support her however necessary.

"I wouldn't say so, no." Jo answered confidently. Everyone — twin or not had their fair share of luck and unluck. Just because she shared a womb with someone didn't mean there was some curse placed upon her damning her to a life of ill fortune. If it had Jo wouldn't have been able to follow her dreams or live her life as freely as she did. "Luck is what you make it, is it not? A twin doesn't dictate fate."