April 12th, 1890 — London Streets

Juliana was quite religious about checking the post box she kept at the Diagon Alley post office, because she never knew when one of her subjects might have some sort of crisis that required her attention (or, more accurately, she never knew when they might write and request her attention; their crises, due to the nature of their affliction, tended to happen at one fairly predictable time of the month). Between that and the potential for new subjects to write in at any point, since she renewed her advertisement in the classifieds of the Daily Prophet every few months, she made it a point to check the box every day, even on the weekends. Besides, it was nice to have an excuse to get out of the house and go for a walk. It gave some minor structure to what otherwise could easily have become a forty-eight hour period of burying herself in work and forgetting to eat or brush her hair.

Respectably dressed and groomed, then, she'd set off, but the box had been empty today. She was walking the very familiar route back to her parents' house when she noticed something quite unfamiliar on the side of one of the buildings: a large, painted sigil of some kind, which appeared to be glowing.

"That's magical," she observed to herself. It was worth observing because she was currently in the midst of a very Muggle street, though no one seemed to have noticed it just yet — whether because of a typical lack of traffic on Sunday morning or because it had some quality which prevented it from being observed by Muggles, she wasn't sure. "And certainly wasn't there yesterday."

(@"Elsie Beauregard")

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Babies, though they were her life's work, had the absolute worst timing. Ever.

Win had been roused from sleep shortly after midnight by an emergent summons to London. One of her charges, only in her thirty-sixth week, was laboring- and harshly. Fortunately Bronwyn was a meticulous creature, her bag always packed and read to go at a moment's notice and so was she. Had there ever been a time when she hadn't slept in her clothes just to be prepared? Thank Merlin for magic. Having grown up largely without it, it certainly made her job that much easier and she could apparate to and fro at her whim (or that of the newborns trying to make their way into the world)!

Fortunately for all involved, though Winnie had to do a few well-practiced maneuvers to get the babe out safely, both mom and little girl were doing fine and she would check in with them first thing tomorrow. This was not a first time mother, nor a first time nanny and Win had confidence they could handle a night without her. Or the day. Both really.

Sunday, it was Sunday right. Instead of apparating straight home, Winnie decided to take advantage of her spot in London and visit a nearby bakery that had both delicious tea and scones. Though she no longer had any traces of blood on her person, Winnie was still a little disheveled from the long restless night. Her brown waves were frizzed and falling out of her usually tight bun, but she couldn't be arsed today. With her bag over her shoulder, Win moved down the townhouse steps and onto the mostly-empty street.

Humming to herself, Winnie was passing by another lass on the street when she distinctly caught the word magic. "Careful tossing that word around." She observed without even pausing her stride.

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Juliana probably ought to have been more careful with what she said (she had a bad but at this point very much ingrained habit of making observations aloud), but as long as no one was passing nearby it wasn't as though there was any harm in it. Only someone was passing nearby, as it turned out; they were coming up behind her, and Jules hadn't even noticed them until they responded. Whoops. Luckily, she didn't seem to be a Muggle — or if she was, she was a very blasé one.

Probably the former, though. At least, Jules was going to work under that assumption until given some evidence to the contrary, she decided. "Well, whoever put that up ought to be careful throwing about glowing sigils."

It wasn't exactly subtle; it covered the entire brick wall of the side of the building. And while the glow wasn't blindingly bright, it was certainly steadier and lighter than anything that could be contributed to a glint of reflected sunlight. It looked as though it was in use, she thought — or at least, that was what the glow implied to Juliana. But in use for what?

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Naturally a curious person, Winnie did pause this time, the response from the lass standing before the wall not at all what she expected. Intrigued now, though absolutely knackered, Win thought she could spare another moment or two to before heading home for nap. A nice long nap.

"Ach aye, but that sort-" Meaning muggles. "Don't exactly pay very good attention." Win wasn't quite sure that she was speaking with a fellow witch just yet, so she was speaking loosely still. "Any idea what it might be?" She inquired, unfamiliar with the symbol herself, but curious to know why somebody thought it might be a good idea to slap a giant one up on a fairly visible spot.

Brushing her hair from her face with one hand, Winnie  peered at the wall with a little more intent, thinking whatever it was that the symbol was painted with, was far more interesting than the image itself.

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Juliana couldn't contest the woman's first statement, since she didn't have very much in the way of first hand experiences with Muggles. She passed them on the street every day as she made her way through London, but it wasn't as though she had regular conversations with them, or anything. She didn't frequent Muggle establishments (or, really, any kind of establishment at all other than the Crowdy Library, the post office, and her place of employment), so whether they were or weren't likely to notice things was outside of her area of expertise. Still, the statement seemed inherently off to Jules, perhaps because it was so general. Surely not all Muggles were by nature less observant than all wizards?

No one had noticed it yet, though, so maybe she was onto something.

"It looks... a little familiar," Jules remarked with a frown. "But I've never been much good with runes. It takes me hours to translate anything, if I need to, no matter how many times I've seen them before," she admitted. She hadn't even taken Ancient Runes at Hogwarts, and she hadn't gotten OWLs in anything at Hogwarts before she'd been expelled, so this sort of brute-academia had always been difficult for her. Things with no direct application to ordinary, modern life just drifted out of her head right after she'd learned them, no matter how many times she tried. She even had a few friends who were willing to help her along, and she was still rubbish at it.

"I think it must be part of a spell someone's casting right now, though," she commented. "Otherwise, why would it be glowing like that?"

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

Winnie hadn't taken Runes at Hogwarts either, but it had intrigued her. There was something to be said about those ancient magicks and how they were still relevant today. The more she looked at it and listened to the woman explain her thoughts, Winnie rather thought that a current spell being cast might make a whole lot of sense.

"I don't know if it's related or not, but I just delivered a healthy- albeit early, infant in this particular building." Perhaps a family member had cast something on the building to help with the delivery? A protection spell or blessing of sorts would fit, she supposed. Or she could be completely off base and it may be unrelated entirely. It was far out of her realm of expertise per ce, but it if was related, she would be curious if it was and if it helped. Perhaps she'd ask about it on her follow up visit tomorrow.

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"A baby!" Juliana said with undisguised wonder. She did not ever expect to be a mother herself, and the birth of her nieces and nephew had been so long ago that she had been a child when Rosie had gone into labor. The entire process was rather mysterious to her, and therefore seemed inherently mystical, whether the mother and baby involved were magical or not.

Since she knew nothing at all about childbirth and next to nothing about babies, she entirely misinterpreted the intention of the woman's comment, and assumed she meant the birth itself might have caused this big glowing rune. She'd never heard of that happening before, and she definitely thought it would have come up at some prior moment in her life if that was a normal thing. People had babies all the time, after all, and she hadn't ever seen a house glowing like that before, even in Hogsmeade. Unless the woman meant to imply that perhaps it was like a burst of accidental magic... from the baby?

Juliana furrowed her brow doubtfully. "Doesn't that seem rather... big for a baby?" she asked. She had no experience in child-rearing, but thought random acts of magic tended to be both much smaller, and to happen much later than the very first day the baby was alive.

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules

The woman's response wasn't quite what Winnie expected, causing her to quirk an eyebrow in misunderstanding. Big for a baby? Winnie supposed that it was rather large, but she hadn't the faintest idea what it actually was, so couldn't properly gauge the size. "I assume some kind of blessing or for protection over the building? If it's related to the birth that is?" She really hadn't the foggiest.

Frankly, though she had done alright in school itself, Winnie excelled most in household spells and potions. Runes like this were not something she'd ever really done anything with. Perhaps it would be worth checking a book out of the library on. Who knew, it could be interesting. In all of her spare time. Win had always liked the grounded version of magic, the more Pagan views, fewer flourishes and more earthy.

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Oh, Juliana realized; she didn't mean that it had come from the baby, but rather that it would be for the baby. That made a lot more sense. Thinking that it had something to do with protection over the building made sense, too, given its size and its position. She was still intrigued, but wasn't sure how much more could really be gained by blind speculation — which was all either of them were doing, really. They had very few clues to go on, and she wasn't sure whether the other woman was even as interested in this as she was or whether she'd just been caught by Juliana's comment as she'd been passing by.

Before she could think of what else to say, however, the glyph started to fade. "Oh!" she exclaimed softly, as the light turned to dull brick once again. "Well," she said, watching the wall as though expecting it to return. "I suppose that's that."

They'd likely never know what it was... but it probably didn't matter, anyway, so it wasn't the sort of thing she was likely to lose sleep over. An amusig anecdote to tell Zach or Rosie, maybe, but nothing much more than that.

  

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Prof. Marlowe Forfang

Jules