glass half full [poe]

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After work, at the end of the week, Jess liked to go to the pub. Sometimes she went to a Muggle one near her house, sometimes the Leaky Cauldron, but today Jess was sitting at the bar of the Three Broomsticks, nursing a butterbeer and people-watching. Everyone seemed to already have someone to talk to, so she was quiet for the moment.

Until she spotted someone she hadn't seen in a while. She sat straighter and waved happily, trying to get his attention. "Poe!" she called, smiling.

@poet

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Poe didn't know why, as someone who disliked alcohol, he always found himself frequenting bars and pubs. He had several different theories, of course, most of them revolving around the fact that Poe was an inherently social person, and he liked being around people. There were always people at pubs, even when they were theoretically closed. The Three Broomsticks wasn't closed, though, so when Poe stepped through the door, he was instantly hit with a wave of chattering people and... energy. People were there, and they were happy, and he could feel all that. He was about to head for his table in the back so he could maybe jot down an idea for a poem or two, when he heard someone calling his name. After a half-second of looking, Poe found the source of the voice, and began making his way over to her. "Jess!" He responded jovially. "It's been forever!" Poe didn't thing he'd seen Jessica since before he'd left the country - it had been way too long. "Mind if I join you?" He asked, gesturing towards the empty bar stool beside her. He'd order a soda water or something to justify his sitting at the bar, Poe decided, but no alcohol.

@jessica

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"It really has been!" Poe was as glad to see her as she was to see him, which was good, because as much as she enjoyed people-watching and absorbing the atmosphere, she much preferred conversations with friends.

"Yes, sit!" she said, grinning, and flagging down a bartender so Poe could order whatever he liked. "Wasn't really expecting to see you, but I can't say I'm complaining. What have you been up to?" Last she heard he'd been one of the Aurors up at Hogwarts, but she doubted he'd be at The Three Broomsticks on a Friday night if that was still the case.

@poet

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Jess agreed enthusiastically that he ought to sit with her, and Poe crooked the corners of his lips up in a smile. He placed his order – just soda water – with the bartender, before turning back to the Obliviator. She, too, was radiating energy, and if Poe was honest, it was kind of intoxicating. He was an extrovert by nature, so locking himself in a room to work on poetry for the last week or so probably hadn’t been the healthiest thing for his psyche. Jess asked what he had been up to, and Poe couldn’t help but chuckle a little. “A lot.” He said, before elaborating. “I left for America in November, came back at the New Year, and started to live out my mother’s dream for me by being a poet.” And that was just the bare details! “What about you?” Poe asked, since he hated talking without listening a little, too.

@jessica

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Poe mentioned that he'd been to America and had quite the career change from Auroring. Jess let out a low whistle. "That's one hell of a career change." It also explained why she hadn't seen him at the Yule Ball. "I've been working away at keeping the Muggle and wizarding worlds seperate - with the notable exception of ballpoint pens, of course - and making friends in unlikely places." And yes, that was literally her day-to-day life long before November, but she wanted to hear more about Poe's adventures now.

"How was America? And how's the poet's life treating you?" She had no idea what the poet's life was like, but it sounded cool when she said it like that. Like pirates.

@poet

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Poe nodded when Jess said the change from Auror to poet was a big one. That was what everyone seemed to think, not that Poe could blame them. Not only were they different in the obvious ways, but they were different in the ways they required you to see the world. Aurors had to be realistic, whereas poets made their livings being fantastical. “Why not have both?” Poe joked, referencing a taco commercial that sometimes came on the television when he and his mother had watched cartoons when he was a kid – well, a teenager, but that was pretty much the same thing. He wondered whether or not Jess had ever seen that same commercial.

“America was great. I got to catch up with an old friend, so that was fun. And poetry is…good.” Poe said, figuring there wasn’t a less poetic word in the world to describe his new career. “It’s helped me figure out my own head a little more, which is also…good.” He had needed something to help him get his head on straight, so it was great that that happened to be what he was doing to make his living.

@jessica

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"Statute of Secrecy and the sheer logistics of trying not to fry computers are two good reasons. So the law and laziness, I guess?" Not that it was the real reason - it was fear of the unknown on both sides, and if they didn't know, people couldn't panic and do something stupid. She liked both, wouldn't give either of them up for anything, and she knew Poe was the same in that regard, but for the most part it really was the smoothest course of action. Even though it had always seemed so unfair that wizards and witches could have the Muggle world if they worked for it, but the opposite wasn't allowed.

"Great, and fun, and good?" Jess asked, raising her eyebrows disbelievingly. "I'm pretty sure I was told that those were words banned for being insufficiently descriptive back in primary school." She had yet to read a poem with something described as simply good. And a month or so in America surely merited more description than merely great. No matter if it was great or not.

@poet

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Poe let out a dry laugh when Jessica answered his somewhat rhetorical question seriously. He knew there were reasons that the Muggle and magical worlds hadn’t crossed over by now – they simply weren’t compatible, at least not technologically-wise. Muggles and wizards could be friends, though, could be lovers, could be family, could be anything. There was just one simple thing keeping them apart, and that was…well, the most important thing that there was. Magic.

Jess began to drill him about his word choice, and Poe shrugged. “I can only be a poet so many hours of the day, my friend.” He teased with a smile. That wasn’t really it, though, and Poe was pretty sure that both of them knew it. He loved poetry, but Poe…wasn’t the kind of person that could sit down behind a desk all day. His nighttime excursions to save the world were fun, but they weren’t enough. An hour of adrenaline a day wasn’t enough. “I just wonder if…something’s missing.” Poe sighed. He hoped that Jess didn’t take it the wrong way, as a romantic overture or something, because of all the things missing in Poe’s life, romance was the least important. He had a prospect, but he was dancing around that in a way that most would probably deem unhealthy. It was the lack of excitement that was going to do Poe in.

@jessica

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Poe laughed drily at her glib analysis of why the magic and Muggle worlds were seperated, and Jess grinned.

At Poe's sigh, Jess's grin faded, though. "I'm glad it's helped you get your head together, but I'm sorry to say I think poetry isn't your true calling if that's the case." Both the hours in the day for excellent words, and the feeling of missing something. The point of career switches, as far as Jess knew, was to find something that was a better fit, and if it wasn't, then it was time to keep looking. And it was hard to picture Poe doing anything solitary. He was the kind of person who looked at home in a crowd, and she'd yet to hear of a poem written in a crowd.

@poet

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Poe nodded when Jess said that poetry probably wasn’t his true calling. He had wanted so badly to believe that it was, especially since his mother was thrilled that her name for him had actually turned into something more than just a name, but there was an itch that he just hadn’t been able to scratch since leaving the Ministry. “Is this just a clever way for you to get me back into the Ministry with you?” Poe asked with a wink. He thought too well of people to believe they would give him advice without his best intentions in mind, but he wasn’t going to pretend that he and Jess didn’t enjoy getting to work together when they got the chance. “I just don’t like the idea of going back there with my tail between my legs and apologizing for leaving when it was really what was best for me and for the department.” Poe hadn’t told anyone his real reason for leaving, citing burnout instead of a confused love life, and he was sure that both he and Rai were better off for being apart, but coming back was going to be a lot more difficult than leaving.

@jessica

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"I would never,” she answered with a smile. She understood that feeling of dreading the return to something they’d left behind – she’d felt that way every time she went back home after a year at Hogwarts. It had been worth it, but it had been hard. It had always helped her to know she had options, though, so she tried to offer Poe some easier ones.

"Well, if Auror-ing wasn't the right thing, I bet the hitwizards would be happy to have you. Or the Obliviators," she said, falsely nonchalant, "and that is me trying to get you back to work with me." She grinned brightly and sipped at her butterbeer - it would be fun to have him on her team but she didn't actually expect he'd go for it.

@poet

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Poe laughed when Jess said that she would never try to persuade him to go back to the Ministry. She continued to say something about being an Auror not being the right choice, and Poe shook his head. It wasn’t the career that was wrong for him – it was just the circumstances. Never had he had a trainee be turned into a vampire… And never before had he felt the way about one of his trainees the way he had felt about Rai. But that was all behind him now, because Rai had left, and he was almost through with the guilt and fear of not being able to protect one of his students. “If I ever did go back, it would have to be as an Auror.” Poe said firmly. He wasn’t going to uproot his life again for anything less than the best thing, and he didn’t want his former colleagues to think that he had abandoned them for something easier or more interesting.

@jessica

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Poe was shaking his head and saying that if he went back it would be as an Auror almost before Jess had finished offering some options. Well, it wasn't like she was surprised by that. "Have to are dangerous words," she offered, "but I couldn't see myself as anything other than an Obliviator either." And she could well believe that for Poe, being an Auror was the same way.

She had another sip and smiled. "So what brings a poet and former, soon-to-be Auror to the Three Broomsticks tonight?"

@poet

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Poe smirked when Jess said that the words ‘have to’ were dangerous. They were, of course, but how could one become an Auror without liking at least a little danger? And the danger of the words seemed more benign than the other kinds of danger Poe regularly subjected himself to. Appearances could be deceiving, though. Jess asked what he was doing at the Three Broomsticks, and Poe chuckled to himself. “Hemingway once said to write drunk and edit sober.” Poe quoted, though he was still nursing a soda water instead of anything alcoholic. “I just like people.” He decided as a more adequate answer. People always had this energy about them that he fed off of. “What about you?” Hopefully she wasn’t drinking to forget a problem… that would be more ironic than even he was comfortable with.

@jessica

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Smirking about danger - if she didn't know better, she'd think Poe was a Gryffindor. And really, that Hemmingway quote? She'd done similar things before, and the results were often... interesting, to say the least. "It'll be a neat trick getting drunk on soda water," she countered, though her Butterbeer was hardly any more alcoholic.

As for what she was doing at the Three Broomsticks - "I just like people," she repeated back at him with a smirk of her own. "End of the work week, letting hair down, enjoying the atmosphere," she added, because she didn't actually intend to be difficult.

@poet