Dragonflies and Macaroons

Paris. It was a nice change of pace. He slipped his jacket on over the pewter colored polo and tucked a lighter in his jeans pocket. It did seem odd to have it be a request to not wear his usual suit here. It was also odd to have his skills diverted from guarding Khaat for a few days. Well, she was home anyway, and Robert had made sure she had all she needed to work from home. He went out the front door of the flat, picking up the morning newspaper, and smelled the morning air. It made him smile.. This was one of the older, narrower streets in Paris, and he could smell the bread baking from the little shop farther down the block. He perched himself on the wide granite banister that led from the street up to the front door of the flat, and he lit a cigarette, opened the newspaper and scanned the headlines.

This was, at the moment, the assignment. Robert said he'd sent Millie the necklace, and he'd been sure Millie would figure it out easily. It had been a very unusual blue moonstone, it's setting designed to make the moonstone look like water in a little pool, bordered by teensy tiny silver flowers, and at the 10 o'clock position, there was an elegant silver dragonfly encircling the moonstone pool. The dragonfly had an unusually tiny pointed tail. The necklace was, of course, her portkey.

Marcus had seen the note that Robert had sent with it. It had been only slightly cryptic, but if Millie were clever, she'd figure out the entire message. The little pointed tail rested at an 7'o clock position on the necklace, the creature's head pointed towards the east.  Robert's handwritten script had said. "Good morning! Have you ever noticed the prettiest dragonflies are in the east?"

If Millie turned the dragonfly a quarter of a turn, so that the head of the bug rested at 3 'o clock, straight East, then the necklace became a portkey. If she were, perhaps, brilliant, then she'd chance that the point on the tail was important and she might take the portkey at 7, and that would put her arriving here any time now. Marcus, personally, had faith that Millie knew Robert's penchant for secrecy and would fiddle with the thing enough to figure it out.

If not, Marcus had time to read the morning paper, but he was betting more on Millie than the newspaper..

Portkey would never be Millie’s favoured mode of transportation. It was a rush that painfully upset her stomach and had always made the idea of relieving it of its contents preferable to anything else in the first few moments after landing. That morning was sweetly different, however. As soon as her feet found the pavement and the smells and sounds invaded her senses, any notion of sickness abandoned her entirely. Her mind sparked alight with the familiarity of her surroundings and she opened her eyes, finding Paris waking up around her in amidst the dew and the morning light.

Emerging from the chilly, shadowed alley that she had arrived in, Millie immersed herself in the increasing throng of weary people. In a stark contrast, she felt more alert than she had done in weeks – not least because she had spotted a small coffee stand. A half-smile lit up her face and she ambled across the road. She ordered an espresso for Marcus, whom she knew she was supposed to be meeting first, and asked for a mocha for herself. Then, after getting a collection of pastries, not sure what he liked, she paid the vendor and went to take her things.

Then, her traitorous mind betrayed her again with a single, stray thought. Keiran would love this.

“Madame?” The vendor asked, his voice tinged with worry. “Are you alright?” He reached forward, his hand finding hers. “You made a sound – as if you were in pain.”

Her head snapped up and she opened her mouth, ushering out hurried French to commune that she was fine. Stealing the things she had bought and entirely abandoning her change, Millie turned away from the stand and made her way across to the bench she had spotted Marcus sitting on behind a newspaper. It had been the barest of glances but she had been glad to see him. She forced her mind back on point. She tried in vain to get her heart to settle and she steeled herself. Focus.

“Bonjour,” she announced, forcing a smile as she sat down beside him. “Espresso?” She held up the little cup to him. “I also have some croissants here … amongst other bits and bobs.”

"Bonjour," he smiled, putting out his cigarette. "Merci." He set the paper aside and took the espresso. "Hanging around Khaat has made me far more of a coffee fan than I ever thought I would be." He inhaled, loving everything about the deep, nutty aroma of a really good Parisian espresso. The fact was, there were few places that were better to wake up in than Paris. He loved just about everything about it, and he'd found that the sounds and the smells of this old neighborhood were far more enticing than the muggle ideal of modern sounds and styles. "Don't let those blokes inside know you have pastries. You won't have them for long."

"I had no doubt you'd figure out the necklace," he said. "That's meant for you to keep. We all have one." He showed her the gold chain around his own neck, the gold doubloon hanging from it. "It can help keep you safe once you know all its little tricks. Looks like Robert is evolving into better looking jewelry, though. Nice.

"This is where he's intended for you to get the next part of your training because what he wants to teach you isn't exactly on the Auror curriculum. He's had part ownership of this flat since around 1980, more or less. And he and Kate have owned it entirely since, I think, the late 1990's. He told me he was bringing you into the 'inner circle,' and since he's brought you here, he's clearly doing that. That necklace is pretty much an all access pass. There are a lot of history to this place, but we'll get to that.

"For now, anyone you meet inside is someone that you can trust," he said. "And you'll find no shortage of people to train with at just about any hour. You're free to make yourself at home. They're a rather disciplined lot, so they tend to fall into a lot of naval terminology. It takes a bit of getting used to. Perhaps you'd like the 2 cent tour before you and I get down to business?"

Seated on that bench in the beginnings of spring warmth, it occurred to Millie for the first time since Robert had offered her the position that she was indeed entering his inner circle. She tugged her coat a little tighter around her to ward off the faint breeze that was doing its hardest to thwart Paris’s attempts at regaining its heat and considered the situation. This really was what was happening. She was passing through a door into something completely, irrevocably different.

And it was exactly what she needed.

“Coffee is life’s blood,” Millie told him with a small smile as she brought her cup towards her pert, pink lips. The warm, caffeinated drink passed over her tongue and she hummed contentedly. Coffee had turned into the life’s blood of them all, it seemed. Only Peter could sleep at night, it felt like. Though, he had many more demons than she and Baldric did. He had made peace with them, so why couldn’t he this? It is simpler when your soul is darker.

“I’m happy to share,” she added after swallowing, her tongue radiating pleasantly with the taste of vanilla which was laced through the coffee. It was part of the reason why she had purchased as many as she had. She did want to give some sort of olive branch. She had understood that she wasn’t alone in this business, as it were, and she didn’t want anyone to think of her poorly. She wanted friends, and if not friends then allies, out of these people.

She nodded, putting to memory his words about the necklaces. She had thought that there was more to it than just a Portkey. She hadn’t been certain, though, and she was glad to think that she knew something of Robert’s mind on matters like these.

She was excited, too. Excited to start this. She knew what her father would have said. He wouldn’t have approved, either. He would have been all for a similar episode of running away that she had conducted and completed in the aftermath of his death. Putting herself willingly in harm’s way was not what Seamus would have called a coping mechanism. But she couldn’t up and leave, could she? She had others to think of. She also knew she couldn’t spend her days teaching Divination and trying in vain to construct a life around the enormous, Keiran-shaped gap in their lives.

She needed something else.

She needed it like air to breath.

Not least because she couldn’t, yet, imagine a time when she would be content without him.

She also knew how it would all end.

The children would grow up, forget their father, and it would be Peter they called ‘daddy.’ She had the presence of mind to know that this wasn’t such a shame. At least they would have a Hayes man in their lives as a father. Merlin knew they’d also have Baldric and Theodore and Eli and everyone else who pottered in and out of her life and who mattered to her. But she couldn’t face it. Not yet. She needed something else. So there was this.

“Let’s go.”

"Let's go in, then. Oh, and if the door asks you what your rank is, you're a bilge rat, like most of the rest of us. The door used to belong on an admiral's townhouse, so the old charms on it seems to have given it an attitude. I've been trying to get it to promote me for at least a year, and I'm still a bilge rat." He got up and walked up to the door with the stained glass rendering of a mermaid. "Bilge Rat reporting for duty," he said. "By the way, I've found that if its an emergency, 'Open the damned door' really does work. He heard the door unlock. "After you," he said to Millie, opening the door.

The place was still another world in its own way. It was filled with dark woods, old world nautical decor and antiques that muggle museums would have swooned for. It reminded him of walking onto an old 18th century ship, and in some way, it was like every little boy's dreams of ships and pirates come to life. It had always been a bit of a mancave, the whole place, so far as Marcus knew, but then again, the women who were part of this place weren't exactly ballerinas themselves.

Inside the dark wood entry all was a room to the left and one to the right, with a large handcarved wood stairway on the left that went up to the second floor.

"Main living space to your left," he told her. "Dining hall to your right..." He glanced into the dining room where a man in his late 30's was wiping the large wood tables. "Owens? You wipe tables now?"

"I wipe tables, sweep floors, haul out trash...whatever needs doing," the man said, dropping the wet cloth into a scrub bucket.

"Millie," Marcus said, " this is Patrick Owens. He manages the place for Robert. What's your rank now, Owens?"

"Depends on whether you're asking Brian or the door. Brian says I'm the Quartermaster. The door says..."

"Bilge rat," they said together, shaking their heads.

"Owens," Marcus finished the introduction, "this is Mrs. Millie Hayes."

"Oh yes," Owens said, "welcome, Mrs. Hayes. Everyone just calls me Owens. You're welcome to make yourself at home, and if there's anything you can't find, just ask. Its probably here somewhere. Your quarters are upstairs on the second floor, number 3. Depending on how rugged you are, you're welcome to take the fire escape from your window up to the roof. Otherwise, you'll have to go the long way around like the rest of us. Its one of the favorite hangouts around here."

"She'll get to see it for herself. Robert wants her starting her training in the attic. Anyway, Millie, further down the hall is the Captain's office, sickbay, bathroom--or the head, kitchen, and pantry. Second floor is mainly for quarters for those who are staying here. Third floor is the training room, and the kitchen, common room, bathrooms, and dormitories for the ones they rescue until they can be returned home. Up from that is the attic and the rooftop. Cellar is what, again, Owens?"

"Arsenal, quartermaster's office, storage, laundry, potions lab, nothing exciting," Owens said.

"Anything you'd like to see first, Millie?" Marcus asked.