You're Like Me. I'm Never Satisfied.

@Phaedra Rosier

Keiran sat at the counter of Flourish and Blotts, journal open in front of him and a fork in hand as he read over the words he had left there before taking a bite of the cake slice Avery had brought him during lunch. The project wasn't one that he had mentioned to anyone, mainly because he didn't think he would finish it in the end, but it certainly helped the time pass while he was waiting on news. Jack, Frank, and so on were probably up to something, and he hadn't quite decided if he was going to be as well. He was already keeping enough secrets from everyone, perhaps another wouldn't be too difficult.

When the door opened, he almost didn't look up, instead setting his fork down to grab his quill and edit one of his sentences. But then he did, and a slight frown took over his features when he tried to offer a greeting. He wasn't sure, but something about the woman's face was familiar. It must have been years, though, because he couldn't remember her name. And he wasn't really the sort to ask, considering he had a shocking number of names and faces to remember already.

That thought made him want to laugh, though, so he offered a nod and transformed his confused look into a closed-lip smile for her.  He nearly went back to work, but supposed that he had to make up for the strange look he had given a potential customer who also happened to be a potential former-acquaintance.

"Is there anything I can help you find?"

The Leaky Cauldron had much to commend it to London’s wizarding folk, but its food and beds were not two such examples. It was acceptable enough, Phaedra supposed, for someone of a more common temperament. But for one such as her, accustomed to silk sheets and gourmet breakfasts, to wealth and all its attendants, such a drastic change was not so easily swallowed.

She could not fault the hospitality of the owners, who’d ensured she had every comfort necessary for a decent night’s sleep. The comforts themselves, however, were far from faultless. And so Phaedra found herself lying awake in the early hours of the morning, after tossing and turning on a lumpy mattress, staring at the stained ceiling and wishing herself elsewhere. Once she heard the first cries of the street below coming to life, she dressed for the day, taking an early breakfast and embarking on the errands she’d prioritised upon her wakening.

The first call of business: a visit to Flourish and Blotts for two books she couldn’t do without in the quest to uncover her uncle’s demons and lay her own to rest. The latter she’d been steadily ignoring for the better part of four years, while the former she’d not had any indication of until her arrival a few days earlier, when her world had finally completed its total collapse around her. Still, she couldn’t help the annoyance at herself for not seeing fit to procure the books somehow before leaving her maternal family home, thus saving herself the extra expense. No matter that she’d not intended on embarking on either mission until that very morning. Her funds, never impressive to begin with, would be running dry in months at most, weeks if she had to spare expense for books.

To look at her, one would not know of her dire financial situation. She glanced at her reflection as she pushed open the door and couldn’t help the satisfaction that rose in her. Immaculately dressed, as always, and perfectly groomed. The years in a warmer climate had granted her a golden complexion and burnished her hair, rendering her almost a different person to the one who’d fled in the midst of sickness and fear.

She punctuated her entrance with a brief nod toward the shopkeeper, who offered one in return. It might have been left at that had he not followed with a smile, which was what made her look closer, analysing the features for any hint of familiarity. For half a second she mirrored his earlier confusion, before recognition washed over her. A trait invaluable to the social success of any society miss- Phaedra rarely forgot a name, and never forgot a face. Even if neither was particularly worth remembering, as she suspected the case was with this one.

However, a name did pop into her head at that moment, though not one belonging to the man in front of her. A name she hadn’t thought of in years but one whose owner may prove useful once again.  Aiden Hayes. In a sudden flash of inspiration, she knew that if she played her cards right, she may not have call for out-of-pocket expenses after all.

“Yes, actually. Your father.”

[ooc: My character, Declan, owns the Leaky. Rofl. He's not there right now, but if you need her to have a contact there you can have him ]

Keiran was surprised to see the way the woman looked at him. It was so similar to the thought process he had gone through, wasn't it? It sure seemed that way. Hoping he had misunderstood and read too much into it, he waited for her response. When it came, his gaze hardened immediately. His jaw set, Keiran shot her a wary look as his eyes narrowed.

"My father died two years ago," he informed her coldly, still trying to work out why this woman would be looking for his da. "He was killed."

If she knew Aiden, that meant she somehow knew his family. Keiran continued to stare at her, trying to piece it together. She knew Aiden. But not recently enough to know that he was gone. So at least two years but probably more. Slowly, his face fell, the aggression lingering behind his eyes but a realization of sorts was clouding that.

"I know you," he declared finally, tilting his head slightly to one side. "Why do I know you?"

He nearly left the question to linger in the air but then he shook his head and stood up, closing the journal without thinking. His palms flattened out on the countertop as he leaned forward. "What did you need from him?" Despite how wary he felt and how put off he probably seemed, there was also the absolutely desperate need to understand. He hadn't felt a connection to his father outside of that library since the night it had happened, unless he counted his mother when she wanted to talk about Aiden.

Surely getting to know someone who had known him would give him another way in. Wouldn't it? At least he could know what someone wanted from him, and that was something. It still suggested a relevance that he'd felt was gone since his father had tried to save everyone after he felt he had failed his son. Trying to temper the offended part of himself, Keiran let his shoulders relax, attempting to look more welcoming to whatever she would choose to tell him.

[Haha, up your standards, Dec! She is not impressed ]

The harshness of his reaction took Phaedra by surprise. But if his hard face was unexpected, the words that accompanied it were more so. She was unprepared for the sudden drop in her stomach as a trapdoor seemed to open beneath her feet. For that was what it felt like, a cheap trick designed to draw laughter from a clueless audience. But Phaedra was anything but amused.

As she observed his reaction more closely, gauging the iciness of his tone and the caution that rose with his hackles, her own annoyance deflated. This was no cruel joke or imprudent lie. The potions master really was dead and now his son looked at her with something akin to suspicion. Was it suspicion?

At that moment, Phaedra didn’t care what it was. She hadn’t been very close to Aiden Hayes- he was a bloodtraitor, after all- but he’d been an invaluable source of information once, and a familiar face that might look at her now with something other than dislike or pity. In any other circumstance, calm surprise might have been the full extent of her reaction, but as it was, she was sick to death of loss. And here was another name to add the list of phantoms of her previous life. Truth be told, she felt a little ill. Which was perhaps why her response had less of the bite it might otherwise have had at his abrupt demand, and more of a careful reticence.

“I apprenticed under him.”

Still, her shock was not such that she’d stoop to introducing herself again to someone she’d already met. Let him have the responsibility of figuring it out. Already the conversation was getting entirely too intrusive and intense for her tastes. His study of her face had left her unimpressed rather than uncomfortable, not seeing cause for such acute confusion nor particularly willing to save him from his apparent imperceptiveness.

Mustering all of her characteristic haughtiness and certainty, she looked up and met his gaze as he rose to his full height. If intimidation was his aim, she’d make very clear he hadn’t succeeded.

“A book. I trust that’s not cause enough to put me in cuffs?”

Belatedly, his previous words repeated in her head. Killed. And despite herself, she found that her indignation was already being tempered by sympathy and the tiniest tinge of guilt. She was only too well acquainted with loss, after all, and thus found herself offering a wholly unexpected (and perhaps unimpressive) expression of commiseration.

“I’m sorry. Why…” Why would anyone want to kill him?, was what she wanted to ask. He hadn't seemed the type to look for that sort of trouble. And yet she found herself answering her own question. She couldn’t pretend not to know the many reasons someone a little less tolerant could come up with for disposing of a man such as Aiden Hayes. Instead, she settled for a less inane and more abrupt “What happened?”

As entirely helpful as her sentence was, the only thing that Keiran actually understood was that the woman was named Rosier. The rest - as in, the first name - was beyond him. But that wasn't the part that set him off. She didn't seem to care, despite her apparent past with his family. Merlin, if his father were here now. Or his mother, for that matter.

Hell, she would've been luckier if Keiran himself hadn't been there.

"...Not yet," he replied slowly, his lack of amusement undoubtedly quite obvious. He half wanted to ask her to leave, but then she changed directions and the chance was gone. The ire had no excuse to remain after she calmed and appeared to at least be trying to show him some sort of sympathy.

It felt ridiculous, actually, to be as upset as he was. But most everyone knew better than to bring it up in front of him now. The only people who could get away with that were family, regardless of how many of those he seemed to have.

"Well, we don't actually know. The theory is that he was murdered for trying to combat the Marriage Law in secret," he answered hesitantly, wondering if he would regret bringing it up or telling the truth. "Can't say he didn't have his reasons for it."

Keiran shook his head, looking towards the bookshelves rather than at her. "What book did you need?"

He half expected it to be a lie, something brought up by someone who wanted to hurt him and was using this woman to do it. They probably didn't even have it if it was something she would have gone to his father for. He particularly hated that idea, thinking that they would have to figure out where to order it from and then she would have to come back on and off to check if it had arrived.


[ooc: I had the most brilliantly painful idea. You can make up a book title or just pretend she says it or whatever. But it's gonna be great. XD]

His unamused face did little to appease or upset Phaedra either way, for she herself found nothing about this situation the slightest bit entertaining. If anything, the sick feeling in her stomach was stubbornly lingering, now accented by a burgeoning disbelief.

Aiden Hayes was dead. And not as the result of a potions experiment gone wrong or running afoul of Death-Eaters as she might have expected. No, for doing something dangerous and a little foolish, but admirable in its cunning. For someone she’d assumed too noble to stoop to underhandedness, who she herself had deceived quiet comfortably… Phaedra found herself surprised but also impressed.

So the old man had had it in him after all. She knew his reasons for opposing the law were in all likelihood worlds apart from her own, but she couldn’t help feeling a grudging respect for him. A strange sense of pride informed her subsequent silence, the only curiosity displayed at these mysterious ‘reasons’ being a silent arch of her brow.

She didn’t express any of these thoughts to his son, however.

When he took the force of his gaze off her, rather than feeling relieved as she should have, Phaedra found that the sickening sensation of loss had just been amplified instead. Not that she particularly desired this near-stranger’s attention. No, she had more sense than that. But to be so easily dismissed, so quickly deemed irrelevant -even if that relevance had been suspicion- hit a sore spot. Too many people had seemed to measure her importance and deem it lacking recently for her liking. And then for a halfblood and a stranger to treat her with wariness and- was it disgust?

She’d never needed others’ validation to bolster her confidence. But given its less than convenient timing, she found that this dismissal tasted bitterer than it ought.

“Moste Potente Potions, by Phineas Bourne. 12th edition. Expanded."

She couldn't help taking some satisfaction in tacking on the last word, knowing the obscurity of the particular copy she sought. In truth, it was only one of the books she required for her research. But her irritation at what should have been a simple errand becoming rather too prickly an exchange prevented her from adding further requests, instead wanting to take the book and leave, expenses be damned. The galleons were just another loss- minuscule in the grand scheme of things, after all.

Keiran had to actively hold back the urge he felt, wanting to roll his eyes at the superior way she requested the ridiculously uncommon tome. He knew exactly where a copy of that text sat, though not particularly because he wanted to know so much as he couldn't get it out of his head.

A heavy sigh escaped as he tried to decide what he wanted to do. It would take ages to find the book. She would come back and harass him for it, or, perhaps even worse, he would spend a great deal to get his hands on it and she would end up going elsewhere because she didn't want to wait long enough.

He furrowed his brow, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at her again. "Are you looking for something specific within the text? Or just the whole of it? I do know where one copy is, but I seriously doubt the owner would want to sell it. They might, however, let you stop by to look through it. Depending."

He didn't finish his sentence, but he felt the implication was obvious. It would depend on whether or not she could behave herself. He wasn't about to invite her into Bridget's house only to have her be rude to his mother and end up getting kicked out before she came anywhere near that book.

Still, she had worked with his father. Surely she had been around the house. Bridget might even remember her, depending on how often the Rosier woman had come by and how she had carried herself. So Keiran determined that, provided she didn't insult his family, he would be accepting of her presence in his father's library.

[Sorry for the chunky post. Always an element of surprise, this one! Such a headache to work through all her baggage, but getting there
Edit: Feel the need to apologize for the edit. She's impossible, and I have no control.]

Despite her dismissive- some would say thoughtless- nature, Phaedra wasn’t unperceptive. No-one became as much of a social success as she’d been in her previous life without some inkling of social cues and subtle mannerisms. So when he crossed his arms, looking entirely displeased with his own offer, she recognised his words for what they were, and for a second she froze, bristling a little at the implication.

She had never taken kindly to warnings or ultimatums, being raised with the expectation of receiving whatever she wanted, whenever she asked for it. So for a moment after his words, her irritation was so peaked she was tempted to simply turn around and walk away, head held high, purse intact, dignity restored. This was not the way she’d envisioned her morning unfolding. There was much to be said for Slytherin cunning and the opportunities it got you, but today scheming and strategizing had failed her spectacularly.

Well- not necessarily. If her estimations were right, and the copy was the one previously belonging to Aiden, it was evidently within reach. He didn’t voice the conditions, but she could guess those on which the favour depended. For it was a favour, after all- as he seemed all too willing to impress upon her. Obviously, he wasn’t yet over his father, and she’d done herself no favours in dredging that up. Though she’d not intended to prod that sensitive spot- or even been aware of its existence- it had happened.

Her confidence in her social adeptness faltered, here. Not entirely, but enough to make her re-evaluate her words over the past few minutes, and reach a conclusion. Evidently, the reserved, stiff formality that was a skill and an asset in higher society circles was far from a success in this context. It had clearly caused some kind of offence. Phaedra had always taken pride in her manners, careful to conduct herself with grace and charm in the company of others. Those she disliked rarely knew it, and if they did, she didn’t give them opportunity to retaliate without making fools of themselves. She’d lost everything, but she still had her breeding. And she’d be damned if she wouldn’t maintain that grace and poise even in a different habitat to her natural one. If it required altering her mannerisms slightly to fit that new definition, so be it.

He wasn’t quite offering an olive branch, and Phaedra’s pride stood sentinel at her lips refusing to let any grovelling pass. But she didn’t dislike the Hayes’. They were entirely the wrong sort of people, and not her usual or preferred company, but if she had to swallow her misgivings and treat them with another form of her usual decorum, she’d do it. And if it got her near that blasted book, all the better. So, dropping her cold reserve for the slightest second, she spoke instead with all the genuineness she was unused to mustering, tempering her haughtiness this time.

“It's important to me. If you could connect me with this copy… I would be much obliged.”

Her words sounded odd after the long pause, and they did not sound like her own. She was unsurprised to find that her pride felt remarkably bitter as she tried to swallow it. It caught in her throat, almost refusing to let her finish her sentence. In the immediate aftermath, she felt mortified. She swallowed that, too, and the anger she felt at tiptoeing around other people’s losses when her innumerable ones still hung like a black cloud around her. Apologising for other people’s sorrow when they likely couldn’t even fathom the scale of her own. And the fact that the sorrow behind her search for this book was her greatest one of all…the irony was almost painful.

But it was that grief that held her pride down, if only for those two sentences. She’d been unlucky, she supposed, in walking straight into someone else’s black cloud in all her crafty ignorance. And she’d been unlucky that its owner was entirely disagreeable. But hurt was a tunnel vision experience, after all, and this time, it wasn’t her loss. She felt like adding that it wasn’t she who had caused Aiden’s death, that all she wanted was a blasted book. The last thing she wanted was to rub salt in a wound she had nothing to do with and no interest or benefit in deepening.

And she was tired. She hadn’t been back a week but every corner she turned seemed to carry ghosts of a past life. She’d not had contact with any of her remaining family members, she was alarmingly low on funds- she didn’t even have an owl. And now, what should have been a simple errand was becoming another challenge to overcome, as if she didn’t have enough of those already. And despite all the glamour charms and the artful makeup, she felt sure others could see this tiredness too and she hated that thought most of all. Retreating to the safe grounds of propriety was as much for her benefit as his own. There was nothing else she could do.

So she held her tongue, and waited. Still keeping a firm grip on her customary dignity, still doing her best to wipe the lingering traces of discomfort off her face. She held his gaze unfalteringly. She needed that book, but she wouldn't bow and scrape. And if he didn’t recognise her concession for what it was, she’d simply walk out and never allow the name “Hayes” to cross her mind ever again, books be damned.

Keiran wasn't sure what he thought about her reply, but in the end he supposed it didn't matter. There was something to her stance, her reaction to him, that implied that she, too, hadn't had the easiest life in the world. He didn't think he liked her very much, and wondered what on earth his father had thought when he allowed her to work with him.

But Keiran had always trusted his da, perhaps more than his mother. Though that change had come about rather recently, thanks to a certain Rookwood.

She was being polite, and it would be a lie to say that Keiran had been the nicest person in the world, besides. He could pass the store off to Oliver, who was out at lunch, and could ensure that this woman was nothing but nice to his mother. Thus, he caved, so to speak.

"I can give you access to it. But I'm not selling it. The book's on my father's old bookshelf, and I'm not convinced I won't regret it, but if you want to speak to my mum about it, she may let you come around whenever you need it, or let you stay for a while to find the parts most relevant to you." Keiran had to keep himself from frowning at the idea of this woman in his father's library.

It was unfair of him to judge her as he had done to Simon. He had been proven wrong, in that case, so it would undoubtedly be in his best interest to keep from making the same mistake.

"If you're interested, I can close the shop up until my co-worker returns and take you there."

Besides feeling a slight sense of gratification at his offer, Phaedra didn’t feel much of any way about it. There were now the familiar stirrings of dread at the thought of actually revisiting her oldest demon, and they held back any other sort of satisfaction at successfully gaining access to the book.

Briefly, it occurred to her that it was entirely unprecedented of him to assist her in such a way, not knowing her and likely not caring to after their little interaction. Altruism was not something that confused her, since she’d seen it displayed and exhibited it herself on occasion. Given the right circumstances, she was capable of kindness. But was it altruism that drove his actions? Or was it a lingering suspicion? She couldn’t tell, and that puzzled her.

She ignored the comment about possible regret, not seeing fit to acknowledge his misgivings about her. He was being honest, really, but his personal feelings concerning her were entirely irrelevant. What was important was that he was heeding her request. She was not in the habit of putting much stock in other people’s qualms about her. With a family name and history such as hers, and the way the wizarding world’s tide of opinion so often turned against them, she didn’t know many of her sort who cared what ordinary magical folk thought of them. They couldn’t afford to.

“Yes, please.”

The response was clipped, tone carefully neutral. His willingness to close the shop during working hours for a stranger further puzzled her, but his business decisions were none of her concern, so she shrugged the thought off. She had no problems dealing with his mother or relaying her request to her. Having never been anything less than cordial to either of his parents, she suspected it would be an easier exchange with Bridget Hayes than with her son.