Sparklers [Cordelia]

[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

8 February 2027

So, having a job sucked when there were other things you wanted to do instead. Cheese had been dying to go see what all this lunar festival buzz was about, since he’d been hearing about it for ages now from work friends that had already gone. The Prophet had already sent somebody from Culture to report on it, and he'd read a little tidbit in the weekend edition of the paper. It sounded like good fun with stalls to buy food or souvenirs, and fireworks, and dancing (to watch, not to participate in). Which really, for anyone who had seen him dance before, was better for everybody involved. All in all, the festival included a million little things that would look amazing in his portfolio if Cheese could just make time to go and find something new to photograph besides shots of Diagon Alley and sunsets. But he had a job with somewhat irregular hours and a hectic schedule. It was hard to stick to a 9-to-5 when you could be called away on an assignment at any minute.

That made for an interesting adventure most of the time (and he preferred it over a simple desk job), but Cheese had been stuck in the Irish countryside for the weekend instead of exploring the Lunar New Year celebrations like he would’ve wanted. It wasn’t uncommon to work weekends as a way of ensuring he could make his deadlines, especially if his bosses didn’t like the angle or the lighting or the framing of whatever he’d already photographed (like really, it was a bowl of soup, how many different ways could it be photographed?). But that was the dangers of the Prophet’s cuisine section and their nitpicky staff. His girlfriend wasn’t such a big fan of Rafe’s weekend trips, but he was way too replaceable to risk saying no. Maybe someday he would become well-known enough that he could be a little pickier about his jobs, but he wasn't naïve. Most photographers never reached that point.

But okay -- it was a Monday night, work was done for the day, and Rafe was a free man until tomorrow morning. He’d mentioned the festival to his roommates the other night (naturally, they’d all already heard about it and even walked around) but Cordelia had agreed to go another time (because he wasn’t the only camera nerd around and it was fun to do stuff you liked with other people who liked it too). Awesome! Except he was so, so late (classic Cheese) and he almost bowled over a pair of goblins as he made a tight turn around a corner and into Horizont Alley. It wasn’t easy to search the tight crowd since there were way more people than he was expecting, but eventually he spotted the somewhat-familiar sight of the back of Cord’s head and made a beeline for it. “I’m…here…” Cheese wheezed as he set his camera bag down beside her and doubled over, hands on his knees as he tried to find his breath. “Prophet, soup…you know how it is,” he mumbled as an explanation for why he’d been so late before finally straightening to his full height to take a quick look around.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

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Living above the festivities of the Lunar New Year taking place on Horizont Alley had been fun the first two days. By Monday evening, today, Cordelia had started to grow tired of it. There had been just enough variation over the course of the festival to make each day sort of worth it throughout the weekend yet a lot was also the same. The vendors were making the same food and the crowds arrived way too early each day too. Trying to make it through to the shops and to the flat was almost impossible at certain points during the day, especially if there was an event taking over the entirety of the street. Unfortunately she was neither brave enough nor loud enough to tell the tourists to move so she could get to where she needed to go, so it had led to a lot of unwanted time spent down in the alley waiting until people cleared out so she could continue about her business.

Tonight, being the final night, she didn’t feel nearly as bad going out. Raphael had asked her if she wanted to go around taking photos with him, and she’d agreed as there really wasn’t much else to do on a Monday night. Anything weird she could snap would end up on the desk of her editor later this week anyways, a nonsensical article created from whatever was (or wasn’t) in the picture. That happened way more than she cared to admit. Being paid for a normal photograph that took zero effort was sort of nice though.

Not knowing where Raphael was coming from exactly, Cordelia stayed underneath a lamppost and away from the rest of the crowd. Getting caught up in the wave of bodies was one way to end up in the wrong place again. Catching the motion of a bag being set down next to her with her peripheral vision, she turned to see Raphael leaning over and out of breath. “P-Prophet soup?” she repeated. Was that some new way of fortune telling? Merlin, what a story for the Quibbler that would be if it were true! “Err…yeah…” Cordelia continued, though she absolutely did not know how a Prophet soup was. Tasty, hopefully?

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[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

In hindsight, Rafe hadn’t been very clear at all about what he’d been doing for the last several hours. But in his defense, he was just so tired of soup and talking about soup and thinking about soup that he’d been eager to put the work day behind him and enjoy roommate bonding night with Cord. He liked his roommates a lot, but he hadn’t spent much quality time with each of them. There’d been some late-night conversations with Blair about tattoo art, and naturally he and Cord spent a lot of time taking turns to use the dark room for their photography. And as far as he could tell, being the newest roommate, there was something between Cord and Eli – although he didn’t know if that was a relationship or if Eli was just Cord’s pet.

Either way, he was looking forward to a chill night. “Yeah…soup,” Cheese said with a sheepish laugh, “One of the ladies in the culinary section, she’s positively ancient, couldn’t decide between two of my pictures. I could swear on Morgana’s pointed hat they’re the same picture, but I guess she’s just passionate about soup.” He’d never been so relieved to leave the Daily Prophet headquarters, and he’d zoomed out of there faster than a niffler following a scent of gold. He’d never realized how boring a job could be, even a job in a field he loved. There was an annoying amount of red tape, and assignments that he didn’t want to do, and late hours that he spent working instead of spending time with his girlfriend or the few friends that had stuck around London.

Now that he’d finally caught his breath, Cheese picked up his bag again and slung it over his shoulder. Since he was so much taller than a lot of the crowd, he had a pretty good vantage point and he marveled at the bursts of color around him. It reminded him of the time he’d gone to visit Ella at her circus – there was the same amount of chaos and dazzling magic swirling around him, and he was excited to take a look around. “So what’s first? You’re the boss,” he said eagerly as he hovered by Cordelia’s side. She’d already visited the festival and walked around a bit, plus he’d heard plenty of stories from Jimmie about how she was twice the photographer he was and wouldn’t complain so much about the assignments she’d hand out, et cetera et cetera.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

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An old witch that judged pictures of soup…no wonder Raphael was calling her a prophet! That sounded like an extremely difficult job, and Cordelia nodded her head vigorously to show that she understood what he was getting at. The picture thing was a dilemma that she ran into often, weirdly enough, though the issues her editor had were usually the kinds that came with creatures that quite literally didn’t exist in the photo or they took an accidentally blurry shot and claimed it was exactly what they were looking for. Cordelia hadn’t decided yet if everyone at the Quibbler was stark-raving mad or if they were all in on the same joke and were just waiting for her to ask before they brought her in on it too. And then there was the third option where they were all completely insane but didn’t realize it. She’d contemplated the last one a few times because it definitely made the most sense so far.

Seeing that Raphael was rearing to go again, she was given responsibility on where they went first. Now that was definitely a predicament, considering she’d been the boss of herself for the past three days and taken it upon herself to photograph literally everyone and everything possible. There was one thing she hadn’t managed to accomplish yet though, and it took a little more precision and timing in order to accomplish it. “D-Do you know if any b-buildings around here have r-rooftop access?” she asked Raphael as she stared up past the strands of dancing lights and decorations. Horizont had barely been recognizable for the last few days and even know she wasn’t one-hundred percent on where they were standing. “F-For a shot of a p-parade from above.” Cordelia finished her explanation. Couldn’t they theoretically snag some of the brooms that were shoved into the closet at the flat and levitate them to the roof of their own building? As long as that didn’t break their lease, she was fine with it. Though she hoped Raphael had a better idea they could follow. Whatever worked as long as she got the shot she wanted in the end.

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[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

Cord didn’t tell him off for being late or look at him like he was mad for going on about soup. Although given her job, Cheese figured, she must see loads of things that looked more crazy than he did in the moment. He hadn’t quite gotten the nerve to ask Cordelia if she actually believed in what the Quibbler wrote, or if this was just a job to her. They couldn’t exactly be picky sometimes about what they did, although the Hufflepuff in him didn’t want to offend her by asking if she believed in…imaginary creatures. So he was waiting patiently for one of the other roommates to drop a hint about it, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask. In the meantime, he fiddled with the strap of his camera bag and tried to pick one thing to focus on at a time.

But that was just impossible – there was too much going on. Over the top of the crowd, Cheese could see the packed booths selling all kinds of trinkets. There was also a smell wafting through the air that pierced straight to his stomach, so Cheese ignored that by looking around at all the magic. There were young children with sparklers, and preteens doing the same with their wands. That didn’t even begin to touch on all the displays of the festival and the dancing that was apparently going to happen later. He snapped back to attention as Cordelia haltingly asked about rooftop access, and Rafe sent out a searching glance over the crowd.

He grinned as he noticed the fire escapes. “We could climb up,” he offered, reminded of all the times he’d tried to climb trees in Godric’s Hollow without catching his mum’s attention. It wasn’t an elegant solution – Cordelia probably had a million better ideas – but then again he was a simple person with a straightforward mind. Cheese wondered if it would be considered trespassing if they were only borrowing the route to climb up, but the only other thing he could think of was trying to levitate himself up. And while they’d done plenty of human transfiguration in class, he’d never actually tried that before. He took out his wand as he made a vague motion with his free hand and offered, “Or, er, I could try and…y’know. Give you a boost.”

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

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The concept of climbing onto the rooftops hadn’t really crossed her mind, as the legal approach of asking and getting permission was the only one she’d ever thought of using. She blankly stared at Raphael as her brain processed all the options he provided her with. Being levitated several stories into the air in the middle of a street festival was not going to go over well with the security that the Ministry was providing, and she was sure to get tangled up in the string lights and decorations if she made it past that point. Basically the cons outweighed the pros by a lot, and she really only trusted herself in levitation spell work. So if it came down to that being the only option, she preferred to be the one sending Raphael up to the roofs instead of the proposed way.

Matching the scan of the alley that her friend had done moments earlier, and which led to the floating idea, Cordelia frowned. She wasn’t tall enough to see a lot of things and spent more time looking through her viewfinder than not these days. Knowing what the upper levels of Horizont looked like was sort of difficult for her to imagine, especially when it came to getting up to them. Raphael’s mention of climbing made sense once she saw the fire escapes, causing her to point at the closest one. “I think I c-could go up one of those,” she stated as her gaze drifted up towards the top of the building. It was dizzyingly high from where they currently stood. As long as she didn’t look down whilst climbing up it, she’d probably be fine. “The parades b-bottleneck further down though…” Cordelia added quickly, shifting the finger she had been pointing with towards a spot closer to the center of the alleyway. “B-By Blishwicks, I-I think.”

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[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

Cheese didn’t blame Cord for not saying anything immediately to his rather unorthodox solution. Merlin’s sake, he’d been the one to suggest it and he didn’t really trust himself to get them safely up via wand. Charms had never been his strong suit in school – a lot of spells required willpower and force to work, and poor Rafe didn’t quite have those in spades. His spellwork had always been tentative, hesitant, like it was almost afraid of itself or the effect it would cause. No, his strength had always been in the forms of magic that didn’t rely on innate inner talent. Herbology could be learned, Potions could be mastered. As long as you practiced enough, and had the right equipment (in other words, don’t try and prune a murderous plant without gloves!).

Cord had a thoughtful expression on her face, a little frown on her lips as she considered the problem. Cheese glanced around, hands protectively cradling his camera bag in case anyone got a bright idea to try and filch it in the middle of the packed festival. She finally chose one of the nearest fire escapes as a possible starting point, and Cheese nodded vigorously to show he preferred that solution too. “I can take your bag, if you’d like,” he offered with a little gesture to her own bag slung over her shoulder. He knew Cord was perfectly capable of lugging her equipment around on her own, but he was bigger and very used to being used as a pack mule by Addy and Brígh – so he didn’t mind, really.

He couldn’t avoid a little wince as Cordelia pointed out Blishwick’s further down. Because okay, Cheese knew the chances of Jimmie actually being at her father’s matchmaking service were extremely low – but he didn’t want to see the ex-Gryffindor outside of work when she already did a neat job terrifying him during work hours. “Oh, er, let’s climb up here. We can jump over if we wanna go further down. Easier than getting pushed around by this lot, at least.” Rafe was extremely impressed with the festival, but he couldn’t deny that he was already tired of the crowd. Yeah, he was eager to find a good place to set up and snap some shots without constant elbows to his back or ribcage.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

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Raphael offered to carry her bag for her, and it made her pause for a moment. Climbing the ladder was already going to be difficult as it was for her. Having a little more freedom without the weight of the bag over her shoulder would definitely make it easier. It didn't cross her mind that he was just being genuinely courteous, as the first thought had more to do with general efficiency of getting onto the rooftops. Deciding it was a good idea for her own safety, she popped her camera into its bag and handed the entire thing over to Raphael. "Thanks," she said briefly. Not having the bag made her feel naked. There were more times where she was out and about with it on her person than not, and especially over the last several days in this crowd. It felt wrong and she almost asked for it back, but decided against it since he had offered.

She didn't fight against the decision to climb up here, as getting all the way down to Blishwick's would end up as a feat in itself. With people already lining up on the sidewalks to have front row view of the next parade and lines clumped at the vendors behind them, that only left going down the middle of the street. And doing that and ending up in the correct spot was extremely difficult. Not to mention freeing oneself from it. The crowd functioned like a riptide, pulling bodies deeper into the alleyway with very few chances to escape. Cordelia wasn't nearly strong enough to body her way out of a crowd. Having Raphael ahead of her would probably work, or even Lily, but there was no telling where they'd end up if they didn't get on the roof now. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop wasn't the most pleasing thought to her but she'd do what was necessary to get the best photographs.

"Should I g-go first?" she asked as she started heading towards the ladder. The chances of falling were probably slim, but she didn't want to take that unless there was a safety net below her. She knew she could catch Raphael with a charm if necessary, and hoped the same could be said if she ended up slipping off a rung.

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[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

Cheese easily accepted the bag from Cord and slung it over his shoulder – really, he was just grateful she didn’t seem to like lugging rocks around with her. Speaking from experience, that seemed to be Brígh and Addy’s favorite thing to buy during their shopping outings, based on the weight of the bags he carried as he walked behind them. It was either that or Addy was buying some new Muggle machine one piece at a time to tinker with and enchant. He cradled both bags close to his chest as he pushed after Cordelia in the crowd, trying his best not to elbow anyone even as he got a stray elbow back in turn. The only way to see beauty was to accept a little pain, he supposed. Although maybe he was just becoming afraid of crowds in his old age (post-graduation, of course).

“Yeah, give it a go,” he agreed as Cord tentatively studied the fire escape. Cheese squinted at it as he worked out the math in his head of how to ascend with two camera bags, but it wasn’t the hardest thing he’d tried before. All his experiences in Art Club had taught him that photography nerds were willing to try anything if it promised a good picture, and Hogwarts was a rather dangerous place when you stopped to think about it. It was kind of amazing he’d never been eaten by a gargoyle in all his time there. “I bet the sparklers look cool from above,” he noted happily as he followed a few rungs after Cordelia on the ladder. His gaze pulled down to glance at his feet as he squarely climbed each rung, and he felt the reassuring thud of the bags on either side as he climbed. The only thing he mourned was the growing distance between them and the food – he didn’t know exactly what was being served in the lunar festival, but it smelled good.

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

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Forgetting that there was a street festival below her was the key to safely climbing the ladder without getting cold feet. That and completely dismissing whether or not they should be doing this in the first place. She doubted that the shipowners would truly care about them going into the rooftops, and she was fairly sure this building was the florist owned by Aurelia Flint. They had basically been classmates, only a year difference, and Cordelia was sure that the girl wouldn't be upset about it. Maybe. She couldn't really shake the indecisiveness off right now with all of her focus set on putting her hands and feet safely onto the ladder rungs. It was too late anyways, as she was pretty sure she was more than halfway up at this point. Getting pictures superseded any criminal acts the two of them were currently committing.

Raphael was saying something about the sparklers looking different from an aerial view, and Cordelia muttered some non-word back in agreement as she continued to maintain her focus on the ladder. It felt like she'd been climbing forever, yet she didn't dare look up or down to see her progress made. Heights had never been a problem before, some of the more daring photographs she'd taken at Hogwarts having been from odd angles in the towers or moving staircases. Just as she was starting to become aware of the height - a tiny breeze blowing strands of hair into her face - the end of the ladder and rooftop came into view. The scramble to get herself all the way onto a secure surface was accompanied by slight panic, as she suddenly realized that she was at the top of the building. Pulling herself all the way up was a relief, and she turned around to wait for Raphael. There wasn't much she could do until he got up since he had her camera.

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Having been put on a broomstick since before he could properly walk by his overbearing father – Cheese didn’t have a problem with heights. He liked the way the world could disappear from under his feet the further up he went, and if he looked up then all he could see was endless sky that stretched across him in every direction. So that had always been an advantage in Art Club, since Rafe didn’t shy away from doing tricky things like hanging out a window to get the perfect shot. And learning how to balance on a broom without his hands meant he could even bring his camera with him if he went slow enough – which would do until he could figure out how to enchant the camera to zoom around on its own. That might even revolutionize pro-Quidditch matches if you could enchant a camera without creating another makeshift bludger for the players to avoid.

There was one moment that Rafe thought Cord might fall as she scrambled over the top of the ladder and onto the roof, but he followed her over the top once it was obvious that all feet were on solid ground where they belonged. A few beats later, he was standing by her and looking out over the sprawling mass of the lunar festival. Cheese let out a low whistle and squinted to get a better look at whatever he was seeing on the ground. “It looks like an actual dragon,” he said in awe as he finally processed the dazzling magic in the far-off distance. It reminded him of his past trips to the carnival, although those exhibits had all been meant for shock and entertainment. This was more like…an expression of culture. He fumbled with the straps of his bag as he tried to disentangle it from Cordelia’s, although it took a few more moments before he could hand it off to her. “I wish I’d brought a tripod,” he lamented, “Or I could’ve shot some video.”

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

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Deep breathes and a pounding heartbeat had her slowly walking away from the edge of the building. She needed a few moments of not looking down to acclimate herself to the new height. The last look down she'd had as she pulled her unathletic body over and off the ladder had been dizzying in a way that she did not like. Climbing up here was a bold move, far out of her comfort zone and definitely something that would make her mum question if she was even the same girl anymore. But these were the sorts of things that helped her the most. And she would do anything to get the shot. A little nudging from Raphael and here she was.

Turning around in time to see that he had also managed to get to the top, Cordelia took another moment before heading towards him to retrieve her camera. He was saying that something looked like a dragon, but she was still not in the right space to take a glance over the edge. That could wait until she had the viewfinder in front of her eye. Somehow, and she had no idea why it worked this way, it would make everything easier for her. It was probably because she found comfort in her camera, and not having it felt like she was missing a piece of her.

Raphael was still untangling their respective cameras as she took a brave step towards the lip of the roof to look over. Now she knew what he was talking about: some sort of sequence of lights did look like a dragon. No one would have ever noticed without being up here. "D-Do you have anything you can transfigure?" she responded, before slowly backing away to where she'd been originally. That was the only thought she had about getting a tripod out of the blue. It would be impossible to summon it from the apartment all the way here, not to mention dangerous to have it flying through the crowd.

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[Raphael Caelan McLaggen]

Stumbling onto Puff Palace had been one of the only things keeping Cheese sane since his (somewhat explosive) graduation from Hogwarts. The sudden transition from the castle to the real world had been jarring, going from an insulated world of classes and Quidditch and teenage drama to the big wide world of magic that they’d all been thrown into. But this concept of bunking with other Hufflepuffs that sorta knew what was going on in his head? That was at least pretty similar to the whole common room set-up and Rafe took a lot of comfort in that fact. The place was always noisy, there was almost no privacy at all, and he wasn’t 100% sure what Eli’s role in the whole place was, but it’d become home.

And hey, now he had a roommate who was also willing to do semi-crazy things to get the perfect shot. Cheese spent another few moments admiring the light show from afar before he turned to see where Cordelia had gone off to. She was still firmly planted in the middle of the roof, eyes focused on one point like she was willing herself to look up, and he frowned a little at the thought that she looked uncomfortable. He backed away from the roof a little so he could stand next to her, casually disentangling the straps from his shoulder until he was holding one bag in each hand. “Oh yeah, maybe. Looks like Transfiguration does have real-life applications,” Rafe observed with a sheepish smile, since he’d often wondered out-loud during classes about when he’d have to use ‘owl to opera glasses’ after school.

He began to rifle through his bag, but after a moment his eyes caught on a tree that was half-bent over the building like some witch or wizard had decided to magick the tree into their flat and then given up halfway through. He flicked his wand and yelped as a thin branch whipped towards him more quickly than he’d expected and caught him in the stomach. A moment later, he snapped it off, swished his wand again, and watched it slowly elongate into a rigid-looking wooden-patterned tripod. “Twig to tripod,” he said happily as he set it on the ground and sat down heavily to start fiddling with it. His Transfiguration wasn’t quite complete, but it was better than nothing. He set about straightening one of the little legs and asked absentmindedly, “So anyway, how’s the Quibbler?”

cordelia regan smith

[cordelia regan smith]

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Transfiguration unfortunately was sort of like math when it came to application. Those that really knew the spell work could do anything with it, and then everyone else sort of just kept it to a minimum. Personally, she preferred her charms. Everything she needed could be used through them, and there was almost never a need to transfigure an object. This was one of those instances where it had a reason to be useful though. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd used a transfiguration spell. Maybe to turn a water glass into a tea cup because she couldn't find an extra? It was certainly never for anything complicated, and remembering to change the object back was more important than anything else. Especially if she didn't put down a reminder on her desk or in her phone. Changing tea cups and water glasses back and forth got old, though it did guarantee always having enough of them.

With the twig changed into a wooden tripod, she watched as Raphael got set up. It was a fairly impressive change, keeping all of its functionality but looking like it fit in with nature still somehow. No one ever said that it had to look pretty. Only professors and perfectionists cared about those sorts of things. As he was doing this, Cordelia had inched closer to the edge of the roof. There was a sizable ledge around the lip of the building, which meant she'd have to be fairly clumsy to go catapulting over the edge. Knowing how caught up she got whilst staring through her camera, it was a good thing to keep in mind while snapping away. "Its weird," she responded honestly about her employer as she backed away and towards the safety of the middle of the roof again. "They d-don't mind me being quiet...but the assignments never m-make sense." Hunting down magical creatures that have either never existed or are in places that they shouldn't be was absurd. On top of all of the other oddities The Quibbler, of course.

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The wooden tripod was still more twig than camera equipment in its unwieldy legs, and Cheese worried for a second that one would snap off while he fiddled with it. Transfiguration had never been his strongest subject, since the equations all sort of muddled together in his head and confused him. But he could grasp the basics after a while and working in a quiet environment always helped. Even though the streets were noisy with the usual sounds of a large celebration, they were somewhat removed from it all high up on the rooftops. He could see the festival booths lined up and down the street, and he could still hear the crowds of people and bursts of magic. But watching from above added another element of distance that made you feel like you were in a bubble.

‘Weird’ was exactly the word that came to mind for the Quibbler, so Cheese nodded along as he finally decided to stop fiddling with the tripod before it actually broke and they’d be back to square one. He set it down and tilted his head as he wondered what kind of people (besides Cordelia) chose to work there. “What sort of assignments?” he asked with a sort of morbid curiosity. He’d never flipped through an issue, but he’d heard people chuckle about it in the halls of Hogwarts. “Finding a leprechaun?” he tried, although that didn’t sound so odd so as to warrant the attention of the Quibbler. They existed, and weren’t too tricky to find if you knew where to look. Actually, it sounded like it would be an interesting sort of holiday. “Sounds different than the Prophet. I just do the fluff pieces, though. There’s a warlock in Southend whose fingernails never stop growing.” He shrugged slightly and wrinkled his nose as he plopped down besides the tripod and peered over the edge at the crowds below.

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