October 25th, 1891 - Pennyworth

Ivy didn't want to go to sleep, because that way laid only dreams of Baxter's Knoll. She'd woken up that morning with the taste of blood in her mouth, and while that was probably just because she'd bitten her tongue in her sleep — one couldn't be sure.

So she was sitting on her front stoop in her coat in the chilled fall air, drinking from a beer and reading that day's Daily Prophet, long after dinnertime. The sound of footsteps on the cobblestones caught her attention, and Ivy looked up, a flash of alarm in her chest before she recognized him.

"Jack Dorset! Home from the constabulary?" she asked, quirking her eyebrow at her neighbor. Ivy had tutored him in Potions when they were at Hogwarts, but their relationship now was that of amicable neighbors. "If you sit with me, I'll give you a beer." She thought he might take her up on it — and the longer they talked, the less likely it was she'd have to sleep.

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"Just about!"  he replied back easily as he strolled up the road.  Point of fact, she'd called out before he'd actually made it home.  "With an offer like that, who would say no?" and his steps turned towards her stoop as easily as if that was where he'd been headed the whole time. It was funny how small the world seemed to him sometimes.  They'd gone to school together, she'd tried to help him survive potions, and now they were neighbors all these years later.

He came to a stop, a short space in front of her.  Taking in her seating choices and the fact that she was still wearing her coat, he reached for his wand.  "Can I offer you a chair?...at your own house?" His wide smile making it clear that he saw the irony and loved it, frankly. 

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She'd brought a few other beers out with her, not because she intended on drinking all of them or because she had planned on having a guest, but because it seemed like the Done Thing when one was sitting on a stoop. Ivy grabbed one of the unopened bottles and held it out to Dorset in offering.

She smirked at him. "The steps aren't good enough?" Ivy asked, quirking an eyebrow.

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"Not at all." he said, accepting the beer gladly. He went about lowering himself down on to the steps, making a bit of a show of it, until he was sat beside her.  Nearly shoulder to shoulder, he smirked and gave her a look as if to say their proximity was entirely her fault.

He raised his bottle to her in cheers.  "Long day?" he asked conversationally.

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Ivy shrugged in response to his smirk. They were close — physically, if not emotionally — but today, maybe she preferred that.

"One of those weeks," she said. "Octobers are always like that, I think." Octobers were always like that because of Baxter's Knoll, but — an October that dragged them there was particularly bad. They were lucky to have survived it. She wasn't going to tell Dorset about all that, but she could admit to this: she hated Autumn.

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   Jack Dorset

Jack made a noncommittal sort of noise of maybe-agreement before raising the bottle to his lips to take a swig.  He wasn't sure he actually had any opinions on how long Octobers felt in general but that wasn't the point and he knew it.  He rested his forearms over his knees, letting his hands and the bottle dangle aimlessly in front of him.

After a few contemplative moments he realized it was possibly the first time he'd been still and quiet in hours... and immediately broke that quiet with a soft huff of a laugh to himself.  It was unexpectedly nice to just sit there with her.  "At least it's nearly over?" it was a weak, half hearted consolation but Jack never claimed to be much good at small talk. 

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"You're right," Ivy said, "Just the night left." It got dark too early in Scotland in the fall, and stayed dark too late. If she was going to wake up in the middle of the night, she generally preferred it to happen when sunrise was close-by. She leaned against the railing of her stairs and pulled her coat tighter around herself. She was going to have to pull something together in the way of entertainment — otherwise Dorset might get bored and leave, or worse, be concerned.

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Jack blinked  in confusion for a moment before giving it a mental shrug and taking another drink.  Did it honestly matter if they were talking about the end of this day or the month of October in general?  Nope. 

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye in the least subtle way possible but rather than say anything he reached into his coat pocket and fished out a sweet roll that had clearly been working very hard to escape its paper wrapping.  "Split it with you?"

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A smile flashed onto Ivy's face for the first time in their whole conversation when Dorset pulled out a sweet roll. "I'd love to," she said. She held her hand out, palm up, for whatever portion of the roll he saw fit to give her.

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Jack raised his brows in surprise at her ready smile.  Had he ever seen her smile before?  Looking quite pleased with himself  he tore the roll roughly in half and placed one in her hand.  "This is going to make our beers taste terrible" he remarked, licking his fingers clean of the icing from tearing it in half. 

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Ivy watched Dorset lick the icing from his fingers. He was one of the most carefree people she had ever met, she realized — not careless, but carefree. She found she was jealous of him, or something like jealousy. She wanted to be more like him. But it was too late for that, so maybe proximity was enough.

She took a bite of the roll and bit her lip to scrape the spare icing off of it. "Think of the beer as a chaser," she suggested, tone more playful than she felt. She took a sip of it as if to provide an example, and immediately found herself wrinkling her nose at the contrast.

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He momentarily considered saving his half for later - it really was going to ruin the beer - but apparently they were now having dinner together as well and he couldn't let her eat alone.  He took his own bite, watching her take hers.  He couldn't put his finger on it but for all their lukewarm interactions in the past this whole thing felt a little different.  Maybe that's just what happens when you share a doorstep, beer, and sweet roll with a person all at the same time. 

He raised his brows, impressed at her fearlessness as she took a drink mere moments after scraping sweet icing off her own lips.  He couldn't help the bark of delighted laughter at her wrinkled nose but soon followed with his own swig in solidarity.  His own revulsion came in the form of an involuntary shiver that seemed to start in his stomach, rise up through his torso, and travel all the way out to his finger tips.  "Worst chaser ever"

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Ivy laughed, a genuine surprised sound that came out of her chest, and reached with her fingertips to touch them to Dorset's shivering shoulder, just for a second. "I'm sure there are worse chasers in Hogsmeade," she said, "But I'd be hesitant to try them."

The mixture of sweet roll and beer was still better than the taste she remembered every time she woke up from a nightmare — blood from the sky, landing on her lips and seeping in. But that didn't mean it tasted good.

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He beamed at her laugh, feeling gratified for some reason.  If he wasn't sure he'd ever seen her smile, he'd definitely never heard her laugh, and he certainly never expected to play any part in that.

It felt like her fingers on his shoulder signaled the fall whatever invisible divider was left between them.  He leaned to bump her with his shoulder playfully, still chuckling as he took another drink.  It was only slightly better this time. 

"Miss Sandow, are you a light weight?" he asked in mock shock.

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Ivy grinned, her eyes crinkling up at the corners, when Dorset bumped into her shoulder. It was like they were friends. And it wasn't that Ivy didn't have friends — she very much did — but so many of her friendships were weighed down by Unbreakable Vows and the expectation that they were all going to die. And this — wasn't.

"I've been out here for a while," she said, voice full of false-indignation. "But — maybe a little."

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   Jack Dorset

"I guess I should have left work sooner." he said with a grin, tilting his head towards her in an impish way.  He kind of wanted to see if he could make her laugh again. 

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