24 May 1894 — Whitby Residence; Hogsmeade
Tess Whitby

Saffron was quite used to being sent everywhere and anywhere within the Ministry, of that she was proud of. What she wasn’t entirely keen on was being sent on wild goose chases (unfortunately, something that comprised of at least 50% of her job, if not more; if she had a sickle for every time she was sent after multiple different leads, she’d be rich thrice over). Coming home was always the highlight of her day, specifically coming home from a long day of work. It may run her ragged, but it was inevitable and if she had to be tired from work, Saffy knew she’d chose no other place to be after that than home with her sisters.

Of course, life didn’t dole out trouble in small doses.

Once she got home, Saffron realized she’d forgotten her key. And her wand was down at the bottom of her bag amidst a bunch of papers and scrolls that she’d so meticulously organized before she exited the office. Letting out a small growl of frustration, Saffy realized the only thing left was to try the windows. With the shop facing high street, she didn’t want to kick up any gossip by trying any of the windows there (if Tess was in the printing shop using the press, Saffy wasn’t sure if she’d be able to hear someone at the window anyways); and Saffy was so extraordinarily not in the mood to encounter any potential patrons of the shop, so she went around back, pressing on any of the windows to see if one of them would give.

Eventually one did, and Saffron gave a hiss of triumph before reaching up to fiddle with it. The window was still elevated above the alley but it wasn’t impossible. After easing the window open, Saffron hoisted herself up onto the already precarious flower box and scooted closer to the sill. She looked around to make sure no one was watching then, shuffling her skirts as modestly as she could, she swung a leg through the window. “Tess?” She hollered, in case her sister was preoccupied with the printing press. “SageMiaAmber?” The rest of the names followed in a string of grunts as Saffy struggled to right herself. “Declan?!”

The whole ordeal earlier with not wanting to mess with the order of her bag might as well have been made moot, because once she leaned forward, her bag swung and immediately pitched her off balance. Emitting a sound like a strangled squawk, the witch tumbled through the window in a mess of skirts, brown hair, hairpins, scrolls and ink bottles as everything from her bag was deposited in a disorderly fashion along with its carrier onto the floor below the window sill.

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Just a quick cat nap – her eyes had been hurting too much to do a last proof for misprints anyway – and then Tess would go back to do some overnight work on the presses for delivery at dawn. That was the plan; she had just collapsed onto her bed in her narrow room (the girls’ rooms were all built less comfortably than prison cells, though Mia had double the space in their shared room whilst Amber was at school) and faceplanted straight into a doze when –

Yelling from downstairs. The place better be on fire. (Better not be, but.) “What is it?” Tess hollered back, her face pink from being smushed into the pillow and her hair going every-which-way about her face. “Saff –” she started, once she’d registered who it was yelling and where it had come... from.

Well, wasn’t this a scene. Tess had to bite down on the inside of her cheek, hard, and shake her head so as not to laugh out loud. “Some burglar you’d make, hm.” She commented, seeing the evident path sister had taken, toppling through the window – she was only missing the logic of it. She would rag at her after, but first things first, check she hadn’t broken a limb, probably. “Are you alright?”

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She’d ended up on her back, facing the cieling and a perfect position to see the amused expression of her sister as she took in the sight before her. “Oh, do shove off,” she snapped with barely any heat in her voice as the flush of embarrassment rose in her cheeks. Slowly sitting up, she saw the results of her antics, and groaned at having to rearrange the scrolls again. And of course, there was Saffy’s wand; lying on the floor as innocently as the day she’d gotten it, as if it wasn’t the root of her troubles (never mind the fact that she’d been the one to put it at the bottom of her bag in the first place.)

“I am, but my pride isn’t,” She replied from her position on the floor. She snatched up her wand, the traitorous thing, and waved it to assemble all the contents of her bag. And once that was complete, she began the task of actually standing up. But not before noticing how awful her sister looked. As if she’d just woken up from a nap. Saffy narrowed her eyes. “You’re planning on working through the night again, aren’t you?”

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Tess would have helped in the clear-up, but Saffron had been too quick for her, and waved her wand to reassemble all her junk. (Important junk, probably; Tess meant it lovingly, though she would not have been able to stomach the career of a Ministerial secretary.)

She narrowed her eyes back, cocking her head defiantly. “Tsk. We weren’t talking about me – we were talking about your bruised pride,” Tess said sweetly, because Saffy wasn’t about to get to change the subject so easily, and because she wasn’t about to take advice from her younger sister. It was her prerogative, as the eldest, to dole out advice and not to take it, thank you very much. “So tell me. Why the window?”

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Saffron knew an evasion tactic when she saw one. But Tess truly wasn’t to be swayed when it came to work, so there was only so much that Saffy could do. Plus, she was quite right, they had been talking about her bruised pride. She prayed that her memory would serve her well and remind her to prod at Tess later about work. Sighing, she reached her hand out to grasp her sister’s and placed the other on the window sill to get herself into a standing position.

“It’s a simple matter, really.” She said dryly, letting go of both the sill and her sister. “I forgot my key. My wand was at the bottom of my bag, and I didn’t want to get it out because that would mess up my scrolls that I’d so meticulously organized at the end of the day. So, the next best option to avoid risking waking you up was the window.” Saffy let out a sigh and cast Tess an annoyed look that was not at all meant to be directed at her. “As you can see, that whole mess of logic was doomed to fail.”

  

Tess laughed, though by the time Saffy was upright and had explained her antics, her expression had softened into sympathy. She reached out to rub her soothingly on the shoulder, a silent way to say take the weight off; you can relax now but – because she was resolved to be a menace, and because she knew Saff would give as good as she got back, added, “I get it, Saff. You use up all your brainpower and your powers of coordination at the Ministry, trying to keep up with all those quidditch players all day.” She was teasing, obviously. (She didn’t think that much of quidditch or the people Saffron beat into shape worked for, generally.) “And when you get home you’ve got nothing left.” Just clumsiness, clearly.

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