Serpentine Shadows [Evy]

[nessa abigael byrne]

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April 27, 2029

Was this what having a friend was supposed to be like? Nessa constantly wondered that, her own distorted view on friendship being built up and torn down by Nate over the entirety of her life. But with the way she and Evy had become better acquainted whilst at Beauxbatons, it had somehow expanded beyond that. Now they were getting drinks after work at the Hounds Lounge, and bitching to one another about their day-to-day problems. Actually, that hadn’t changed much from while they were stuck at the French school. That was what had kicked off their mutual understanding of one another. Nessa had learned that not everyone was out to get her, and liked to think that being forced to attend there during that final year had been beyond beneficial for her. At least now she understood what an awful influence Nate had over her.

”Supposedly summer is going to be hell. With all of the summer school programs trying to bring kids by,” Nessa explained about the Merlin museum. Her coworkers had been complaining about it more and more as the end of the traditional school year was only a few months away. Preparations had already begun on ‘summer-fying’ exhibits and making sure the grubby little hands of young witches and wizards couldn’t grab hold of anything priceless. As an archive assistant, Nessa had spent quite a bit of time acting as if she was one of those children. At first, she had thought it beyond stupid, until she realized that at such a low level, everything could topple down with one wrong move. The more she knew, the better she was at her job.

She took a sip of her wine before staring into it. Having since lived with Xiulan for close to a year, she had started to appreciate the finer things in life. That was what happened once she started living in a fancy townhouse and actually had money to spend on the things she wanted. ”I’ve polished about two dozen sets of armor used in the goblin rebellions from the seventeenth century. If any children smudge them, I might end up in Azkaban.”

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[evelyn rhea oliveira]

And if walls could speak I'd pray

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April 27, 2029
nessa abigael byrne

A look of utter displeasure appeared on Evy’s face at the thought. ”That sounds bloody awful.” Evy set her wine glass back down, avoiding the urge to drink her glass all at once as she pictured her mother doing. Nessa, of all people, had encouraged Evy to try different wines based on her suggestion. And by encouragement, that meant a drink was ordered for her, but what did Evy care as long as it took the edge of a long day or a long week? Besides, it felt like a very grown-up thing to do. And then she could save the more unrefined behavior of back-to-back tequila shots for emergencies—which typically involved one Nathaniel Forrester.

Growing up in a large family with a nephew had not endeared Evy much to large groups of children, especially before they were young enough to attend Hogwarts. Then again, the actions of a few of her colleagues at The Daily Prophet left her questioning who threw the bigger tantrum—them or her eight-year-old nephew? She sipped again. ”I’ll have to apologize ahead of time for whatever my nephew may do if he attends.” She supposed it would depend on whether Sarah or Ares took Sebastian to the museum. Ultimately, Callisto had the best luck keeping him in line, usually with just a look.

And just like most boys his age, swords or anything of the sort were the most fascinating thing in the world. ”Don’t they have spells for that?” Or maybe not. Evy had let her brain empty itself of irrelevant information after leaving school. And she hadn’t read over any articles involving goblins yet. ”I think I might need something stronger than this. Jimmie didn’t appreciate my notes on her recent article.” Evy sighed heavily. One would have thought Evy had told her to rewrite the article rather than make a few corrections. That was her job, after all. Fact-checking was not easy work, but it was necessary for their work.

And in terms of the remainder of her work, politics was mainly focused on HOWL which hadn’t changed all that much in the last month or so. Sometimes, she wished more would happen with HOWL or some minor scandal at the Ministry so Evy could get more journalistic experience, but she didn’t appreciate how the changes affected her oldest sister.

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[nessa abigael byrne]

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Nessa made a scoffing-snort of a noise at Evy's comment. That was an incredible understatement. She could barely deal with the screechy talk of her former classmates, never mind that of children. From her understanding though, she was only going to be required to interact in the same space as them if something went incredibly wrong in an exhibit. Meaning if one of the little cretins yanked a priceless tapestry off a wall or knocked over a four-thousand year old pot. She had seen the way kids were in muggle museums, no thanks to the yearly trip by the orphanage to give them all the chance to stretch their legs in the real world. Scuttling off with Nate was very typical at the time, hoping to find a place to kill time and smoke. But she was always around long enough to see the chaos that ensued once the beasts were released. It was not fun.

"As long as he's supervised..." Nessa warned as she took another sip of wine. This really was a good red wine. She'd had her fair amount now to know what was quality and what was essentially watered down grape juice. Nate would have laughed at her if he saw her right now. The mere thought made her curl her lip in disgust as she finished her drinking.

Nessa shook her head to the side at the possibility of using magic on the armor. "They're still imbued with goblin magic. Resistant to virtually all basic charms and spells. So that means it has to be done by hand." And by the newest member of the team, which meant her. Apparently everyone had to do it once or twice before another apprentice was brought on. Nessa honestly didn't care too much. It was cool to think that whomever the suits of armor used to belong to had probably killed a person or two in their time. Now that, was history.

She held her tongue at the mention of the Blishwick girl. Did she ever appreciate anything? Nessa was positive that rich people only seemed to get other rich people. Except Xiulan. She seemed to be the exception to quite a lot of the pre-conceived notions Nessa had on the wealthy. "Her dad probably bought her that job with all those ads he's always running," she said nonchalantly, staring back into her wine glass again.

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