November 1st, 1891 - Grimstone Residence
Elias Grimstone

It had taken Daffodil a lot longer than she would have liked to gather her wits about her enough to visit Mr. Grimstone. His letters had truly been a light in the darkness after the awkwardness with Noble in August and she desperately needed something to look forward to these days. Everything was just crumbling and though she knew it was probably unwise of her to spend this time with Mr. Grimstone, she couldn’t imagine staying away now. He was quite easy to be around, uncomplicated in every way, and frankly she found his work fascinating, despite her aversion to flying. If there was anything that Daff needed in life right now, it was fewer complications.

She had a bouquet of fresh carnations in a delightful red under one arm, along with a couple of other plants to add to Mr. Grimstone’s garden that would go nicely with his pumpkins. They were all easy to keep and better if planted in autumn, so this was perfect, even if it was a bit chilly. Daffy hadn’t even given a single concern to showing up at Mr. Grimstone’s residence unaccompanied as she was simply not in the mood to deal with it. It clearly looked like she was making a delivery and she was certain he was first and foremost a gentleman, and that he would likely have household staff lurking about and that was good enough for Daff.

Upon her arrival to the address she had been provided,  she took a moment to collect herself on the front stoop before knocking on the door. It was a bit of a task, as her rns were laden with flowers and a basket that contained the rest of the plants, but she managed. When it was Mr. Grimstone who answered the door, Daff chuckled; she hadn’t been expecting it to be him to be on the other side. ”I suppose it is not your garden gate, but close enough?” At least she hoped so anyway.

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   Elias Grimstone

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Elias was just shrugging on his coat in the hall on his way out, when a knock sounded – and, when he pulled the door open, it wasn’t to anyone he’d been expecting. Well, not expecting today, at any rate – and, although they had been writing still, Elias had begun to suppose that his invitation, meant sincerely, had been left to fall by the wayside for one reason or another. He had been a little disappointed, maybe, but hadn’t been going to hold it against her.

So this was a delightful surprise, and somehow even more welcome than he’d imagined – the bemused smile stretched across his face into genuine warmth at finding Daffodil Potts here at last in person. In one hand, she had a basket of plants – Merlin bless her, she really was going to take him up on the task of planting new things, wasn’t she? – and in the other, more perplexingly, a bouquet of red flowers. No time to question it yet; she might have come by perfectly empty handed and he would have still been as pleased.

“Close enough for me,” Elias agreed, letting all his plans for the day go out the door without regret. “And at least one of us even had the decency to knock,” he joked wryly, thinking of his much less graceful visit to her garden. “So where to, Miss Potts –” he asked, because he couldn’t keep her standing on the top doorstep with all that in her arms (and he certainly hoped she planned to stay for more than a moment), “– inside or out?”

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   Daffodil Grimstone

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"In first, if you don't mind. I do hope I'm not catching you at a bad time?" It appeared as if Mr. Grimstone had been on his way out and she would hate to be a pest. It would be a simple delivery if he didn't have time, but she was hoping to have a little visit; she needed the distraction and thoroughly enjoyed his company. Honestly she couldn't even remember the last time that she'd seen him in person. It had probably been at some event or another this summer, but toward September things had started to take a bit of a turn for the worst.

Things were looking up however, as she crossed the threshold into the house, she passed the carnations his way. "I am banned from visiting anywhere without fresh flowers, so these are for inside." She chuckled, amused that he'd already figured out she had things for both. The basket underhand had a small variety for the garden. Some turnips, spinach and a couple pea plants. All of them would be best planted this time of year and the spinach especially would thrive in the colder temperatures to bloom in the spring, ready to go.

"And these are for out, once I see these delightful pumpkins of yours." She added, raising the basket a little. It also contained her own trowel and a little sprinkle of magical fertilizer to help everything grow strong through the colder months.

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Elias merely shook his head easily at her first question; he had only been going out for errands, and his errands could certainly wait, and he was sure his smile said at much. In any case, he stepped back to pull the door wider open for her to come up into the house, casually shrugging his coat back off and hanging it back up on the coatstand. Which was about when she handed him the bouquet of flowers.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, eyes widening. Elias had supposed those were for her next delivery today, and she was just stopping by on her way there, not that she had brought them for him. The garden plants made sense, of course, they had talked about that – but these, he thought, burying his face in their fresh scent, were quite the surprise. “Well, thank you,” he said, returning a little laugh at anyone having given him flowers – he fancied Miss Potts was the first, and he felt a little bad for not having anything for her – and grinning still in bemused appreciation, “I’ll have to put them in the workshop, I think, so I get to see enough of them while they’re in full bloom.”

For the moment, though, he led her into the house itself and the much-less-used sitting room, gesturing that she ought to put the basket down anywhere – he wasn’t precious about a little bit of soil on the floor, though he supposed his maid-of-all-work who came in the mornings to do the dusting would have a little more to say on that – before he summoned a few things in from the kitchen, including an empty pitcher to use for a vase. “Though I truly don’t know how I’m going to repay you for any of this,” Elias said eventually, as he set down a plate of tea and biscuits between them, only partially teasing. “You’re very kind.” He did feel a little bad, looking at all she’d brought by just to humour him – that she had even bothered with this, after she hadn’t even been feeling well for so long. Still, he cast her a smile, finally able to survey her a little better once he had stopped pottering about and sat down. She looked well enough now, at least, which was a relief.

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There were few things Daffy enjoyed more than watching someone's reaction to getting a fresh bouquet. His reaction did not disappoint and she chuckled to herself, clearly pleased. "You are very welcome." She passed him a genuine smile, eyes meeting his just briefly before she followed him into the sitting room.

At the mention of his workshop, Daff's eyes lit up, intrigued off the cuff. She really was quite interested in how brooms were made, now that she'd done all the reading she possibly could. Perhaps it was the Ravenclaw in her, but once she had an inkling, it was nearly impossible to stop her. Her thoughts wandered even as she perched herself on the offered seat and he summoned tea and biscuits from the kitchen. She hadn't meant to put him out, though she supposed she had practically invited herself over, they had been speaking of it in their letters, so she supposed he wasn't surprised? He didn't seem to mind, which was a relief.

"Tea and biscuits is a good start," She shrugged her shoulders a little to emphasize her point. "Plus you're going to let me putter around your garden, and maybe, if I ask nicely, see your workshop?" Was it even here at the house? That thought came to mind a little too late, but she rather thought it was a possibility. "You'll have to forgive me, I am innately curious by nature, a Ravenclaw through and through." It was a flimsy excuse, but true. To give herself pause in her ramblings, Daff leaned forward to fix herself a cup of tea, since it was there and she could use a little warm up after the chilly walk over. This was the perfect distraction indeed.

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She had asked about broommaking in their letters, and had even seem interested the first time they’d met, but every time she did Elias was still a little surprised by it. But it was impossible to think it insincere or ascribe it to mere politeness, not when Miss Potts was here right in front of him, tone earnest and eyes alight.

Besides, he talked about broommaking often enough in his life to usually discern between genuine interest and sincere exasperation with him. “What’s there to forgive?” Elias countered pointedly, with a wide smile. “The garden and the workshop it is,” he said, with a wave of his hand to say they could do one and then the other in whichever order she pleased, since they were both adjoined to the house, “– you can putter anywhere you like, Miss Potts. Stay all day.” (He was only half-teasing.) She was a Ravenclaw, then. It made perfect sense.

“Though I was wondering, a little, why anyone who says they haven’t flown since first year could be so interested in brooms.” She’d been doing some reading already, she said, and she seemed eager to take a look around – if it weren’t all curiosity, and she didn’t already have her flowers, he’d have almost thought she were looking for an apprenticeship. “But Ravenclaw – I suppose that explains it.”

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Delighted and relieved that Mr. Grimstone seemed quite apt to abandon his plans to entertain her, Daffy rather thought he was taking her intrusion into his home better than she had his, which was saying something; she had quite enjoyed their visit.

Flushing over her teacup, Daffy didn't much enjoy the tale of how she had thoroughly embarrassed herself in her very first flying lesson, but she supposed if anyone would be sympathetic, it was the man who had crash-landed in her pumpkin plants. She sighed and led with, "Promise not to laugh," Daff smiled and shook her head at the memory. "I was very excited for my first flying lesson, as you can imagine," That much had been very clear. "Probably a little too enthusiastic really, I lost control after we kicked off and let's just say I wound up in a nearby tree, upside down with my hems around my ears."Her knickers out in full glory for her entire class to see. "Not to mention I fractured my wrist on the final fall." She took a sip of her tea, giving Mr. Grimstone a pointed look over the rim as this was where he wasn't supposed to laugh.

"And needless to say I have developed a fear of heights and am not brave enough to try again." She was one-and-twenty now, certainly she was not overcoming that at this point in her life. "My youngest sister, Calla, flies beautifully though, she plays as a chaser for Hufflepuff right now." It never failed to amuse her how the seven of them were all quite different.

His actual question was much easier to answer however, but she shrugged slightly. "Well, they are made of wood and trees are plants, so it isn't too far of a stretch if you think about it." Everything about magical plants, including magical trees, fascinated her. To be able to take a branch and turn it into a wand or a broom with its own magical use was absolutely intriguing to her. "The whole process is utterly alluring to me." Certainly he must have thought so too, to make them a career out of them!

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   Elias Grimstone

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Promise not to laugh was a rather damning challenge, for once the words were said – and the way she was flushing in premature embarrassment – it was already difficult to keep a straight face.

All the same, Elias tried his level best, but very soon he was – silently – chuckling, his face creased in delight and shoulders hunching from trying to stop himself letting the laugh out. The look, and the downside of an injury, reined him in enough that he would bite his lip to regain his composure, and by the time Miss Potts had finished her story Elias felt sure he was performing an admirable impression of someone entirely sympathetic, and no-more-than-appropriately-amused.

He sighed, though. “Oh, but it’s a pity you still don’t,” he protested – gently, though, with no real force in it. A shame she couldn’t see some of the sights that were best from the air – whether it was other people’s gardens, or things further afield. “There’s just something about seeing the forest canopies from above –” Elias said, moving a hand as if he could describe the landscapes from above, and then he grinned at her, innocently. “Though I suppose upside-down in a tree would be a remarkable view too.”

He raised his hands in hasty surrender to acknowledge that he had had his own fair share of flying mishaps, so could hardly talk. “Still, you ought to have your sister coach you. That is – you are well again, I hope?” Miss Potts hadn’t explained what the matter had been in their letters, but something or other about her health had seemed amiss, and he wasn’t going to joke about overcoming old fears if she already had serious problems on her plate to be getting on with.

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Daffy appreciated Mr. Grimstone's attempts to at least appear sympathetic. His amusement was subtle, but still there. She supposed it was a funny story now, over a decade after the fact. "One I care not to repeat any time soon unless you can guarantee I will not fall off." She loved Calla dearly, but having her younger sister teacher her how to fly did not seem like a good idea. Then again, she supposed with Mr. Grimstone's track record, he didn't either, but he seemed a least a little more responsible than her teenaged sister.

His inquiry to her health left her briefly puzzled, but she quickly recovered. "Oh yes, just a late summer something. I haven't been sleeping well, which certainly didn't help." In fact it was the source of the fiasco in general, but she needn't saddle Mr. Grimstone with those details. "Quite recovered though, thank you for asking." She was touched he'd remembered. Taking a sip of her tea, she gave herself a moment to round out how to steer the conversation next.

"Meaning I also did my fair share of sitting for a while, which I am terrible at to begin with; would you mind terribly showing me your workshop?" It was far more exciting for her than quickly tossing the plants she'd brought into his garden. That wouldn't take too long and then she could get out of his hair if he was so inclined.

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“Perhaps that’s why you never took to flying, if sitting isn’t your cup of tea,” Elias mused, lightly teasing. At any rate – “I’d be glad to,” he said with a smile, to her workshop request. (He fancied neither of them were quite in their element, sitting indoors in company; rather, the workshop was his natural element as much as the garden must be hers. “Follow me.” In any case, he stood up and led her back round to the workshop door the outside way, rather than by the inside stairs – more proper, obviously, but also the better to drop off her basketful of plants in the garden on the way, not far off the pumpkin patch. (Which he could see from the workshop’s back window, as it happened.)

Propping open the front door with a wooden doorstop – Penny wasn’t working today, so all was still and quiet in there – Elias waved her into the workshop ahead of him, the space laid out simply enough to explore without needing a guided tour. A few finished models towards the front, varnished and hung upon hooks on the wall; the workbenches further back, woodworking tools, drawers, stools and stacked pots of varnish, a testing station and another mess of things left out from the last bit of work he’d done this morning. One of the stray cats Penny had forced him to take in would probably slink in sooner or later, now that someone was in. Much as Elias wanted to watch her reaction, there was a hum of self-consciousness in his head at what she would think. He wasn’t certain why it mattered, only – she had sounded so enthusiastic that he hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed in it. (And, well, brooms being his life’s work, people’s judgement did feel a little personal.)

“What do you think?” he asked carefully, glancing over at Miss Potts as he preoccupied himself setting up the pitcher of red carnations she’d brought on the back windowsill, where the faint autumn light spilled onto the worktable beneath it.

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Daff highly suspected that she would not be getting or needing flying lessons any time soon, but it was not entirely off the table, should Mr. Grimstone keep it low. That was for another time however, and so when he agreed to show her his workshop, Daffy nearly jumped from the couch. Managing to keep from looking too eager, she placed her teacup on the table and followed closely outside to put down the plants.

Passing him an easy smile, Daff made her way into the workshop itself and was immediately awed by the space. It very much reminded her of Thistle's workshop below the florist, but this was a tad warmer, obviously less green, but cozy and obviously well-loved. Though she did not know Mr. Grimstone all that well (yet), it was unequivocally him.

Every nook and cranny seemed to have something useful in it and Daff wandered through the space with her hands hovering just above the surfaces, not daring to touch anything, lest she make a mess or ruin something, but she took in each tool, each half-finished design and the plans to go with them, peering closely as she kept her hair from her face with both hands. She hadn't the foggiest what she was looking at half the time, but it was clearly a labor of love and it showed in the finished products on the wall.

When she looked up to see him setting her carnations in the space, she felt her heart skip a little beat. She paused, across the room from him now, hands resting gently on the workbench. "It's delightful," she breathed out, a genuine smile creeping back across her features. "I don't really know what I'm looking at," she admitted with a sheepish shrug, but she loved it. "A person's workspace says a lot about them. It's so fascinating." Daff was thoroughly enthralled with the whole thing, she could truthfully spend hours in here looking at everything.

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“You don’t have to be delicate with it,” Elias added mildly – and a little belated, having gotten caught up in watching her polite, reserved reverence with something near amusement. (And maybe a little fondness.) But it was only a workshop, after all, where things went wrong twice as often as they went right – and he was a craftsman, not some genius artist or a grand architect. For all intents and purposes, it was an oversized, glorified garden shed in which he did a little woodworking.

But she had paused now, letting her hands drop from where she had been keeping stray strands of hair from falling in her face; she remained where she was, across the room from him. The workshop almost felt like an entirely different place.

“Oh?” Elias echoed at her pronouncement. It felt almost forward to ask it, as if he was fishing for something and not just curious. But he was sure Miss Potts was sincere with most everything she said, and he couldn’t bring himself to mind her wandering through his space, and there was a slow smile creeping in at the corner of his mouth in return, whatever she thought about him. “And what does all this say about me?” (With any luck, not just that he was a haphazard mess.)

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" Oh no, I would hate to mess anything up." Daff was likely to knock something over or make a mess if she touched anything. There were so many tools she didn't even know where to start. "It reminds of my sister Thistle's workshop." She indulged and carefully picked up what must have been some kind of gouge, careful of the sharp edge, before looking at what must have been a product sketch with notes.

Gently she traced the lines with a fingertip, smiling softly. "Clearly you enjoy your work," She quirked an eyebrow at him. He'd said as much of course, but it showed here too. "It's a bit untidy, but I hear that's a sign of intelligence." Not perhaps the straightforward academic type, though he very well may have been, but she rather thought he was was more of the practical, problem-solving kind of smart.

"I should think you like to keep your hands busy, but also value the small touches; everything is in the details." Certainly that had to do with the vast amount of different things she saw. Of course Daffy was the same way with her work, her arrangements and anything else she tried. It was always why her sketches were never quite up to her own expectations. "But I could be totally wrong." She chuckled trying not to be too weird about it. Daff had never quite been one to filter what she said anyway. 

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   Elias Grimstone

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He ambled back over to her again, on the pretence of seeing which sketch she was looking at; most of his attention, however, was still affixed to her. He tilted his head in confession at the quirk of her brow; grinned at untidiness and intelligence; felt suddenly aware of his hands as he neared her, enough that he picked up a brush and ran his thumb across the bristles of it, a little dried varnish still upon them.

And he didn’t know if he was imagining things where they weren’t, but – although she had likened here to Thistle’s workshop – Elias couldn’t help but feel that there was something of herself in her description, too. Value the small touches, everything in the details, liking to keep busy; he felt more understood in it than he had expected.

“No,” Elias said slowly, once he’d reached her side again. “No, you’re not, I think you have me in one.” He cast her a look – a warm look, because it felt, somehow, like he had known Miss Potts longer and better than he did. She had been kind enough; and it was hard not to feel pleased, for his workshop was the best of him, clearly what he was proudest of. But never mind that – her presence was so airy and bright and natural here that he wished he had some excuse to spin out this moment for a little longer.

“But best judge me on this and not the garden,” he added instead, with a crooked smile. “That still needs a little rescuing.”

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Daffy had preoccupied herself with looking at the sketch beneath her fingertips, truly enthralled by each stroke of the charcoal, that she hardly noticed him approach until he was right next to her. She had been listening, albeit absentmindedly, smiling to herself when he mentioned she hadn't missed the mark with her assumptions.

"Oh it's not my place to judge," Daffy assured him as she turned wide blue eyes on his. There was an unexpected flip-flop of her heartbeat, a flutter of something she had not felt in a long, long time. Honestly, she hadn't expected to ever feel it again, but as she met Mr. Grimstone's warm gaze, it was almost as if some part of her that had stopped working suddenly lurched into motion again.

Thrown off by the influx of emotions, Daffy managed to keep a knowing smile affixed to her lips, but just barely. "Lucky for you, I can patch up a garden better than I can patch up people." It was just a little too easy to tease him about that. "Shall we, before I break something?" Though she was loathe to leave the workshop, Daffy rather thought she could use the cold air to help her sort her head.

The original purpose of her visit had been unclear to her, Daffy was starting to think she would be leaving with more questions than answers today. Though she had known she'd wanted to stop by of course, because she enjoyed Mr. Grimstone's company immensely, it suddenly seemed a little more complicated... In a good way. It certainly would leave her with a lot to think about, later, after gardening. One thing she did know was that she couldn't wait to come back.

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