Relentless Torment [Honey]

[aurelia edith flint]

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January 26th, 2026

She was breaking into her own shop. It felt dirty, mostly because she didn’t look like herself, but also because everyone assumed she was dead. Coming to terms over the last few weeks that nobody believed she was Rusti Flint, and instead a severely traumatized Isla MacKay, had been extremely difficult. She had to live in Isla’s apartment and pretend she had a horrible case of amnesia, playing it up so much that she made the Ministry employee assigned to her case direct her to Isla’s place. That didn’t mean that Rusti wanted to stay there the whole time though. There were things she still wanted from her own home, the one above the florist shop. Personal belongings that she felt she would completely fall apart during this nightmare if she didn’t have them with her. Obviously things like clothes didn’t really matter much, but if Dusti thought she was dead, eventually things would start getting filtered out once her twin worked through whatever traumatized state she was currently in. Rusti knew her sister well enough that it was absolutely happening right now, and there was nothing she could do about it whilst in Isla’s body.

Under the cover of night, she snuck up to the front door of her shop. She knew all of the security charms she had cast over it, and while not anything seriously hard to get by, there was still the chance that it would draw the attention of her neighbors. Thankfully not many of them lived above their stores like she did, and she doubted there were too many storeowners still wandering about at this hours. The only trick was that the locking charm she had on the door wasn’t reacting to Isla’s wand, which was something she had been worried about. That meant that it didn’t recognize her magic. There was another way in, fortunately, and it came in the form of a charmed key that only she and her sister would know of, sitting in the bottom of a window planter around the back of the store. Quickly checking her surroundings, she slunk around the side pathway and to the back courtyard, where she eyed the shoulder-high brick wall that blocked off her patio. The only way to get to the planter where the key was, was to hop that wall. Throwing her arms up and over, she awkwardly started to lift her new body over, just as she heard the sound of footsteps from out on the street…

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[honey satheesh varma]

January 26, 2026

Generally speaking, Honey wasn't someone who stayed out late. She was a homebody, much preferring a night in rather than a night out on the town. Unfortunately, she had been kept a little while later than was usual for her to be at the cat café that evening, because one of her employees had been off work due to illness. Ensuring that both the cats and her employees were happy and healthy was incredibly important to her, so Honey had taken it upon herself to ensure that everything was as it needed to be before she left for the night.

Since she only lived in Diagon Alley, Honey saw no harm in walking back from the café to her flat. It was a Monday night, so it wasn't exactly the time for anyone to be out for the sake of causing trouble. Being that it was a Monday, the chances of even running into someone too drunk and disorderly to be wandering around were slim, Honey felt. Still, because it was dark, she had the tip of her wand illuminated and held it out in front of herself so that she could see where she was going.

She had only just left the café when she began to hear some concerning noises coming from across the street. There was nothing that was suspicious on its own, yet she was left with the sort of sensation that there was something amiss. To her horror, Rusti Flint had reportedly died on a Herbology expedition to that new island that had been discovered, but there had been no word about what would happen to her shop following her passing. With its being public knowledge that Rusti was dead, Honey realized that the flower shop was probably a target for theft, but she wasn't sure what anyone would want to steal flowers for.

Cautiously, Honey moved her wand so that she could see the storefront. No one was attempting to burglarize the place from the front, from what she could tell; there was no smashed glass or anything of that nature. The noises had been coming from that direction, though; she was sure of it. She didn't want to wait around in case there were Dark wizards nearby, but maybe something had gotten into the rubbish somewhere? Knowing that she wasn't exactly the sort of person who could duel someone else, Honey couldn't just run towards potential danger, but she also couldn't raise any alarms about something without knowing what was going on. It was probably just some Crup that had gotten loose, she told herself. She took in a deep breath and made her way around the back of Forget-Me-Knot Florist.

aurelia edith flint

[aurelia edith flint]

▲

Even though she had been in Isla’s body for close to two weeks, there was still quite a bit that she wasn’t used to, like the decrease in height. She was almost half a foot shorter as Isla, and her internal calibration was completely off. Trying to pull herself over the wall was proving to be a lot more difficult than the one time she had to do it in her own body because she had locked herself out on accident. The wall was doing its job though, and as she grabbed onto the top of the bricks after a lurched jump at it, she could already feel the strain on her biceps. Pulling her way over was absolutely going to be harder than she had planned. It didn’t help that the footsteps that were approaching absolutely sounded like they were coming towards the alleyway now, and with her half-hug hold on the top of the wall, Rusti decided to inch her way back down and back to where she had been a few moments earlier.

At this hour, it was either an auror approaching from a report of a strange person lurking about, or someone that lived or worked nearby. It hadn’t been odd for her to be out this late when she was still herself, so she knew what the usual crowd was like. Even though she couldn’t see if she had brick dust or dirt on her, she brushed at her front and arms, feeling small specks and clumps coming off under her fingers, before she turned toward the main street and walked forward. The silhouette of the person she could see from around the front of the shop was hard to see fully, especially with the harsh glare from the lamp across the street from the shopfront. “Good evening,” Rusti called in her strongest Isla voice she could muster. The confidence in the Irish woman’s voice was familiar to her, but it was weird hearing it coming out of her own mouth. She held her hand above her eyes to try and cut down on the light and see if this person was someone she actually knew.

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[honey satheesh varma]

January 26, 2026

"Good evening," came the sound of a voice as she neared the back of the shop. It was slightly disarming, but that was only because of how pleasant it was. It was a woman's voice, Honey realized. It was a woman's voice with an Irish accent, and it wasn't what Honey would have expected of someone who seemed to be trying to break and enter Rusti's shop.

Not sure how else to respond to someone wishing her a good evening, though, Honey found herself replying in kind. "Good evening…" she repeated back to the stranger, though the way in which her voice faded away was probably as good an indication as any that she was puzzled about the situation in which she'd found herself. She'd expected something different, although she hadn't known exactly what that would have been, in theory. A duel had seemed more likely, anyway, than small talk.

Gathering the courage to say something else, Honey was hesitant but managed to continue speaking. "Who are you?" she questioned, though it probably wasn't the best thing that she could have asked. A criminal wasn't going to identify themselves as a criminal, but she wasn't sure what else to do in that moment. She certainly wasn't going to use a spell first.

aurelia edith flint

[aurelia edith flint]

▲

Her head was buzzing with adrenaline from both attempting and failing at jumping her back wall, and the intrusion of this mysterious shadow figure. The amount of awkward movement it took to function Isla’s body still had her second guessing if making a run for it was the smartest thing she could do right now. Technically her escape route was blocked too. The only other option was to try and go over the wall again, exposing her back to the unknown person, and probably making herself look like she was up to some nefarious business when she really wasn’t. Or at least Rusti on the inside wasn’t. Isla’s body certainly was from how others would view it.

The person responded with their own good evening, and she felt a wave of relief pass over as she realized that she recognized the voice: it was Honey! Rusti had to immediately stop herself from exclaiming that it was just her and that she had lost her key and was trying to go in the back way, because from the world’s perspective she had been dead already for a week. It was the first true interaction she had held so far with someone she knew and saw almost on a daily basis, and it immediately made her ache that she was going to have to lie to Honey.

At the same time, this was Honey she was talking about. The other woman wasn’t exactly the confrontational type and Rusti was pretty sure if she needed to forcefully get around her (while it would absolutely suck to have to do that to her), she definitely could even in Isla’s body. But that could wait until it looked like there weren’t any other options left. Honey was reasonable, and telling her the truth about who she was (Isla) wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. If she had read the papers at all recently, she’d know who Isla was and at the very least chalk this weird attempted break-in as an attempt to take care of the plants. Maybe.

“Errm…I’m Isla?” Rusti stated, though her voice wavered a bit when not saying her actual name. “I’m Rusti’s mentor…err, was her mentor. I wanted to make sure the plants were getting taken care of until her sister could get things worked out,” she continued as she stepped closer towards Honey, enough so that the glare of the streetlamp wasn’t obscuring her face anymore. This next part was definitely going to go over well too. “There’s a spare key in the back there, but I had to hop the wall. So yeah…” Yup. She was absolutely going to convince Honey.

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[honey satheesh varma]

January 26, 2026

The woman said that she was "Isla", as though Honey was supposed to know who "Isla" was. "I’m Rusti's mentor," she added—or she clarified that she had been Rusti's mentor before she had died. "I wanted to make sure the plants were getting taken care of until her sister could get things worked out." That sort of made sense, but couldn't Rusti's sister have let her in or something? "There's a spare key in the back there, but I had to hop the wall. So yeah…"

"Erm…" Honey literally didn't know what to say. She'd never met Isla before, so she had no way to confirm that she was the person she said she was. Then again, she'd seen the papers… There had been an Isla on that trip with Rusti, hadn't there? She was the one who had come back alive. If anyone were going to take something of someone else's to add to Polyjuice Potion, Honey didn't think that they would turn into a Herbologist. The Flints had had money; they were well-known pure-bloods, but Rusti had never seemed to be rolling in Galleons.

What was something that only someone close enough to Rusti would know that she also knew? Wasn't that how she was supposed to figure out something like that? Honey didn't exactly have Veritaserum on hand, nor did she have the authority to use such a thing. She had to think.

Wait! An idea suddenly came to her. "If there's a key there, and you said you know there's a key there," supposed Honey, "couldn't you just… summon it?" That assumed that Isla would know what the key looked like in order to use a Summoning Charm on it, so it wasn't a perfect idea, but it was better than nothing. And it was better than trying to climb over a wall, by far.

aurelia edith flint

[aurelia edith flint]

▲

Merlin she was bad at convincing people of her intentions. It didn’t help that this was Honey, who Rusti was fairly certain didn’t have a bad bone or thought in her entire body. That made this encounter that much harder to lie about. At the same time, bursting out and saying she was actually Rusti all along and simply in the wrong body would have the mediwizards carting her away before she could even get through the entire explanation. No one believed her, and while Honey was a great human, everyone had a limit for crazy.

Except it sort of seemed that the other shopkeeper was intent on helping her out? Offering up advice on summoning the key over the wall was certainly a great idea, and one that Rusti hadn’t immediately thought about. “But I think it’s for the back door only,” she instantly replied. Summoning it wouldn’t have been difficult, as she knew where and what the key looked like. Trying to explain that as Isla would be tough to do though, who supposedly only knew how to climb the wall and where to go once she was on the other side. “See how that sort of makes it still look like I’m trying to break in?” And she wasn’t helping herself by saying that either.

That really only left one option left: to summon the key that Isla wouldn’t know of, to prove that she indeed knew what she was looking for, just so the authorities weren’t called on her. Having given her name already (or Isla’s, rather) meant that she had very little left in the way of convincing Honey that she was supposed to be here. “I can try summoning it though?” Producing her wand, she thought hard on the location of the key and what it looked like. “Accio back door key,” Rusti stated resolutely. A shuffle from the other side of the wall and the sound of dirt hitting the ground told her that the key was definitely rising from the bottom of it. In the future she was going to have to cast a charm on it to make it un-summonable, assuming she ended up back in her own body. As she thought about this, a tiny speck of yellow levitated over the wall and came down into her hands. The dirty, sunflower shaped key finally made itself useful!

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[honey satheesh varma]

January 26, 2026

Knowing well enough to know that the woman would have to know what the key looked like to summon it, Honey watched as the key came as called, the small object entering the other woman's hand. Magic wasn't perfect, but there were enough rules around it—in the sense of what it could and couldn't do, not laws, although there were also a lot of those—that she didn't think that any person off the street would have been able to summon that key. Otherwise, no one would be able to hide a spare key anywhere without putting countless additional security measures in place, and that sort of defeated the purpose of having a key.

"I'm not sure if there's, er, an easier way through the back…" Honey considered, trying to be helpful but not really sure what else to offer. She couldn't recall there being a gate, but there must have been. Then again, she'd never had any reason to go around the back where she was, and she'd only really seen Rusti use the front door of the shop. "You could try, though? Or check the front door of the shop and give it a go?" (Honey began to wish that she were one of those people with a photographic memory, but alas!) She hadn't known Rusti well enough to know which keys she had for which doors. Then again, she also hadn't anticipated that Rusti would end up dead, so why would she have needed to know any of that? Being more observant about little details like that could have made things so much simpler.

aurelia edith flint

[aurelia edith flint]

▲

Oh the show she was willing to put on to keep the Aurors from being called on her. They already thought she (as Isla) was bonkers from what had happened on the island, and a good old breaking and entering charge was going to seal the deal for sure. Getting locked up in the psychiatric ward of Mungo’s with wizards that had huffed too many potions over their past century of life was not how she planned on putting everything back the way it was supposed to be. Obviously she didn’t know what that was yet, but being comfortable around her own belongings was a step toward thinking clearly on what had transpired.

It was hard to tell if Honey was convinced, but Rusti knew that a summoning charm like that was a good start to it at least. Her credibility wasn’t completely shot after attempting to climb the wall. Her fellow shopkeeper proposed the idea of testing the key on the front door, just in case, and Rusti stared down at the metal sunflower in her hands. She knew it wasn’t going to work, but this performance was necessary. “Couldn’t hurt I guess?” she responded as she made her way back out onto the main street and up to the front door. The key was too thick for the lock to begin with, but Honey didn’t know that, so she purposely made it look like it got in a little bit before it was ultimately rejected. Her two different keys were charmed for their respective doors after all, and this one would only work on the back garden one. “Well, I tried,” she shrugged. “You wouldn’t mind helping me, you know,” she made a motion with her hand to mime that she wanted to hop the wall now. The only worry she had now was that Honey would bring her sister up and how it would be easier to just wait for her to show up eventually. A grand idea, but she was pretty sure her twin was not in the condition to be doing anything around the shop right now. Her plants deserved actual care.

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[honey satheesh varma]

January 26, 2026

The key that Isla tried to use apparently didn't work in the lock on the front door, which Honey supposed did make sense. Why wouldn't Rusti have put the spare key closer to the door that it went with? Not knowing if there happened to be a key hidden somewhere that would work for the front door—and not wanting to go looking for it herself in case it looked suspicious—she realized that Isla might have had the right idea from the start.

"You wouldn't mind helping me, you know," Isla requested, gesturing for assistance in getting over the wall she had been trying to scale before. It would look a bit weird; Honey was certain of that, but at least she didn't think that either of them looked like the type of people who were there to burgle the place.

Honey knew that she probably wasn't the best person to be providing someone else with any sort of help in climbing over a wall. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to tell Isla that, though, so she realized that she was stuck. At least she wouldn't be the one climbing over; she just had to make it easier. Admittedly, though, Honey wasn't sure how she was supposed to do that, either. She wasn't physically strong enough to lift Isla, even as thin as she was.

"Er, should I just…" Levitating her up and over would work, but it would be a bit risky, especially with making sure that Isla would land on her feet. Maybe it would be better not to use magic. "Should I get on my hands and knees, or…?"

aurelia edith flint