jinxsley | [For Bo]

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bo cloggs

[For Bo]

Glancing out the window of the flat, Linden thought that London looked inviting today--vaguely overcast, but with the sun shafting through frequent breaks in the clouds. Bo should have had no trouble making his way into the city, and despite the irritating reason for their meeting, Linden was looking forward to it with more than a little anticipation. He was also going to be quite late if he didn't start walking, and so he closed the curtains against the weak sunlight and pulled on his coat as he navigated the narrow hallway.

He paused for a moment at the door to the sitting room and peered inside. The flat was a small and boxy thing, just two bedrooms, a sitting room, a single washroom and a kitchen. His mother had nevertheless succeeded in filling it past capacity with knick-knacks and clothing and playbills. Just now, Anne Jinxsley was sitting in her usual saggy chair of red velour, her spectacles hanging around her neck, yesterday's Times held perhaps half an inch from the tip of her nose. Bing Crosby sang smoothly over the radio set on a stool beside her chair. She paid Linden no mind, and he turned and eased open the outside door.

"You're going out," Anne said, in a tone laced with subtle hurt. "You're barely here a month, and you're always going out. I barely see you while you're here."

Linden drew in a breath before looking at her over one shoulder and summoning up a smile. "That's not true. I promised to meet someone. And I was home last night." Anne frowned at him over the top of the newspaper, and her lips tightened just enough that Linden had to suppress a flinch. "And the night before," he said.

"It's exactly true." The hurt in her voice adopted a edge of petulance. "I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to spend a little time with your own mother, Linden."

Exasperation triumphed over good sense. "Probably because we'd run mad after a day or three of sustained company?"

"That's terrible to say."

Only terrible because it was true, Linden suspected, but he had no intention of arguing the point. "Back before you have time to miss me," he said instead, and he slipped out the door to the punctuation of his mother's derisive snort.

He locked the door securely behind him, and with a flick of his wand, he took the extra precaution of fastening the chain on the inside. Anne would never do it herself, but Linden could endure accusations of paranoia so long as he felt she was safe. Glancing at his watch, he swore under his breath and took the stairs two at a time down to the first floor, where he headed out to the street and let the door swing shut behind him under its own momentum. Fortunately, the shop at which he had agreed to meet Bo wasn't far, and within ten minutes' brisk walk he had turned the last corner and could see the sign of the place at the end of the block. He was scarcely five minutes late, all in all, and he hoped that Bo knew him well enough by now to forgive him.

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Linden smiled, because that description suited things very well indeed. "I love her quite dearly, but sometimes I think she'll drive me thoroughly mad," he admitted. With a little regret for his superstitions--as Celestia Fancourt had termed them--he poured himself another cup of tea. "But I suspect that is the way things are meant to be, between parents and children." He added more sugar and a touch of cream.

"And what about your aunt?" Linden asked, after a sip from the cup. The balance of tea to sugar was a little off; he added more tea. "What is she like? A great deal of personality, or so you said."

The reverse is also true, Bo understands--when only scratching the surface, people and places can be utterly vile, and he has to choose the aspects of his aunt that he shares carefully, lest he do her that disservice. She's a member of his family, after all--if she isn't already part of him, she is, at least, something he could have been. "She's rather sure of herself," he says thoughtfully, fingers finding a place to rest around the delicate shape of his teacup. "Very competent when it comes to magic, too, but I guess the two go together," a guess that has never done him much good, all in all. "But she's never had quite the run of it she deserves, and she knows it, if that makes any sense. She's very good at looking after things, though, it's nice having her 'round."

Maybe Jinxsley is right, then, if he substitutes his aunt for parents. Bo isn't sure his father has the energy to drive anyone crazy, now, and he had always been patient, before. "Is your--" he hesitates to ask, though he certainly failed to hesitate before, "Is your father gone, then?"

Linden wished very much that he had expected that question, as he should have done, and that it did not still take him by surprise. "I wouldn't quite know," he admitted, and he lowered his eyes to his cup and added another unnecessary lump of sugar. "I'm afraid I've never had the pleasure." He smiled, though he guessed that the curve of it was a little strained at the edges.

Over the three and a half decades of Linden's life, his mother had told him a great many little details about his father, and the older Linden had grown, the better he had understood how poorly those details fit together. Perhaps she had forgotten the specifics by this late point, or perhaps she had meant to protect her son, but then again... Anne Jinxsley had always preferred the best story to the rawest truth.

He supposed that he should have put off Bo's question, or found an answer more suitably vague, but he would prefer not to lie. He had learned that much from his mother's example.

His fingers tighten on the cup; when at a loss for what to do with himself, how to react, Bo settles for stillness. If he can just let the world keep moving without him for a minute, he starts to see it better, but in the shop it isn't moving much at all. Flurrit remains on his perch, Bo's tea continues to go cold in the cup, Jinxsley's reply hangs over them the way so many of their words tend to--like there's always a net drawn tense between to catch what is said, sift it up out of everything that is never said so that Bo feels more aware of both.

And it should be unpleasant, really. He should hate to be sitting here at tea finding out his professor's never met his father, hate himself for asking, but what else has he got? Jinxsley's already tired of London and planning to leave, to hate the outing would be to waste it, as surely as he's wasting the tea. Relaxing his grip, he lifts the cup, drinks it bitter, steeped too long and only just warm, but doesn't hate that either.

"We're going to need something stronger than tea, at this rate." He's doesn't want to apologize for the question, to shy away from the answer, but he's hardly thick enough to press the subject. "Maybe next time," he adds wryly: for all the opportunities he's had, he's yet to taste alcohol that wasn't on someone else's breath. God only knows what stupid questions he'd ask then.

Linden's chuckle had a wild edge. This was suddenly going badly, because he had never once meant to make Bo uncomfortable, and he now suspected that his road to hell would be paved with very good but essentially useless intentions indeed. "I don't think I want to be responsible for that," he said. Swallowing the rest of his tea, he twirled the empty cup back and forth between his fingers but tried to decide what best to say.

Apology seemed appropriate. "I'm sorry. That wasn't at all the right way to answer you."

"You'd hardly be responsible," Bo assures him, quite sure that, so inclined, he could get himself into trouble as easily as he keeps himself out of it. He is, after all, responsible for the question, watching the cup move in Jinxsley's hands as he apologizes. "I shouldn't have asked, it's not your fault you don't know the answer."

Dropping his gaze back to the table, he at least manages to keep it on Jinxsley's side. He doesn't know what it is, that he can feel bold enough to keep speaking, but not to lift his head just that little bit when he does it. "You don't have to treat me nice if I'm bothering you, I'd rather know so I can stop."

"You're not," Linden said in immediate protest. His fingers twitched against the cup, an instinctive impetus toward touch working through the joints, but he knew that would pass the narrow line of propriety. He tapped the pads of his fingers against the porcelain, instead. "Truly. You couldn't, so don't you dare fret over that." He managed a real smile this time, trying to meet Bo's eyes.

Bo worried too much, about things over which he had so little control, and Linden felt a familiar stirring of discomfort in the space behind his ribs. Bo was so willing to assume--or perhaps so accustomed to assuming--responsibility that he seemed to do so subconsciously. Linden would far rather not add to all those burdens with his own breed of nonsense.

It's a lovely thing to hear. Bo wants to leave it at that, let it be lovely, but he knows better than Jinxsley how bothersome he could be, just from how the statement tugs at him.

If he keeps his head though, if he doesn't let anyone scratch the surface of that feeling, Jinxsley never has to know. A glance is the best he can manage at the man's face before the smile drives him away again, too easily embarrassed for someone his age. "I won't," he promises, but he knows better than to believe that either. "Alright, I will, but you can tell me, if you don't want to talk about something." He overstepped a line somewhere today, and he doesn't know yet where the next one is.

Something in their dynamic was changing, and Linden struggled for a moment between proper dismay and characteristic fascination before finally surrendering to both. The balance was an uneasy one, but he considered himself surefooted enough to find it. "We'll both hold to that rule, then," he said, "and that should keep us on...the right path."

He had almost said out of danger, but that seemed rather extreme.

Searching for a safer subject, Linden considered and discarded a handful of impersonal topics: coursework, weather, Ramita's snake, the terrible events of the last year. Certainly not. Perhaps he should ask what he most wanted to know, then. "Are you glad to be a prefect?" he said. The question itself was a definite non sequitur, but it spoke to the most immediate of his concerns. Bo was hardly the sort to lust over the supposed prestige of the title, and Linden had occasionally wondered if Bo had embraced the position out of real desire or out of expected duty.

Somehow, it's those words more than anything that set Bo at ease. It's easier at school, where he already knows the rules, knows them so well he's been asked to pass them on, hold his peers to them outside of class. While the question that follows strikes him as odd, it's like a box being offered, something to neaten up the outing. A box where he's having tea with his professor outside of school but--they're at least discussing it.

"It's an honor," he says, tone twisting with hesitance because it seems obvious. It's the sort of thing anyone would be glad to be picked for, even if they didn't want it. "I mean, I imagine Ramita's just too busy learning to save the world, but I was really happy to be picked." It had been a moment of clarity, as if he could see how the roles worked, how the skills had been distributed: he wasn't brilliant or inventive, but he didn't suffer the faults of those either. He could just be good, he could excel at that, finally, without trying so hard. "I like helping," but that doesn't sound quite right, quite the spirit of the thing. "I like to be useful," he corrects, head canting to the side as he muddles it out, "It's a selfish feeling, really."

"Not so selfish," Linden says, although he understands the basic truth on which Bo is touching. In a way, he feels similarly toward teaching--passing his knowledge along gives him some sense of purpose in a life full of otherwise undeniable meandering. He supposes that he could have done a number of things after graduation, but he had drifted back around to education again and again. He had enjoyed his time as a prefect, too, but he had never considered himself particularly good at it--at least, not at the points where he was meant to keep his fellow students out of trouble.

He had been rather more inclined toward helping them sneak into the kitchens at half-past two in the morning. And charming frogs to sit quietly in his professors' teacups until said cups were lifted for a sip.

Smiling, he fills his cup again, though their tea is turning rather tepid. "I have to admit, I don't think of selfishness as a particularly dominant trait in your personality." And he doubts that he could understate the matter any more if he actually tried.

"Dominant personality traits are for the other houses," he reminds him, inclining his head in thanks as the tea is poured. "I'm sure I could be very selfish if I tried," though it goes without saying that he's little inclination to apply himself there.

Circumstances being what they are, Bo can only imagine he'd be dreadfully unhappy, if he gave himself the time for it like that. He'd be, well, his aunt. It's easier not to want things for himself, especially things he can't have--but those are thoughts best left for later. If he follows them now, sitting where he is, he's likely to start sighing into his tea.

"Don't you like being head of house," he asks instead, knowing the levels of responsibility are hardly the same.

Linden laughs, but he's pleased that he can answer without the slightest hesitation. "I do," he replies, nipping up a cube of sugar with his fingers and holding it up to Flurrit. Without opening his eyes, the owl twists just enough on the perch to snap it up and scatter sugar all over the floor in devouring it. "It's an honor, too," Linden says with a narrow grin as he wipes his fingers on a napkin. "I couldn't quite believe they asked me, in fact, and I thought they might be making some sort of mistake." Actually, he had thought they'd run out of any other viable options, and he isn't sure yet that they would have chosen him, otherwise.

"I like to be useful, too," he reflects. "And I like helping everyone learn to get along well. Although I rather think I have an easy job of that, compared to other Houses." No need to specify which. "Although... I do think I disappoint Hooch, at least, when I'm not quite so competitive as she would prefer." Hooch would prefer that he stand up in the middle of every game and start screaming insults at the other House Heads, or so he tends to imagine. With or without the Quidditch Cup, however, Hufflepuff has never had any trouble collecting--or keeping--their points throughout the year.

"It's not as if they asked you to be in charge of Gryffindor," Bo reminds him, eyes tracking between the owl, the mess, and finally, finally landing and staying on Jinxsley's face. He's always skating the edge of rudeness around him, staring into his tea or out the window like it fascinates him more than his professor. It's almost laughable, how untrue that is.

It's almost laughable how nervous it's always made him, that bright, handsome face, because he looks at it now and only wonders if Jinxsley looked--tired--tired must be the word, tired for him, anyway--before or after the start of their meeting. Bo wonders how much he meant it, when he said he was jumping at shadows.

He wonders if he could ask, if asking would even matter when all he has to offer is, well, a tin of pies and hardly as much insight as one of Jinxsley's peers. Folding his hands on the table, he tries to carry on as if he hadn't noticed: "Sometimes I'm not sure how Hooch didn't end up in their tower as it is," which isn't so much a dig at their own house--he loves his house dearly--but speaking to the fact that she rather terrifies him. He manages a laugh, "Edgar, 'round the pitch, he's always after me to play," as if it hadn't ended in disaster for him.

"She certainly has the outright boldness for it," Linden agrees, but privately he thinks that Xiomara Hooch suits their House quite well indeed--her just and loyal heart makes her fiercer than any lion.

He arches his eyebrows at the mention of their Quidditch ghost, however, as Bo's ancestry in that regard has not escaped him. "He's disturbingly enthusiastic about it, yes," Linden says with a definitely wry smile. He can't quite bring himself to laugh. "I suppose he gets after everyone that way, but I imagine things are worse for you." Now he chuckles, just a bit. "I was never much for Quidditch, but I did try out in my third year when a great lot of the team had graduated. They made me Seeker because I caught the snitch at tryouts, but it was nothing but luck--I never caught it again. I lasted two and a half games before my Head of House took me very nicely aside and asked me if I wouldn't be better off in the stands."

He had been better off, at that.

Bo hasn't the heart to tell Edgar that no one in his family has picked up a broom since the accident. His feelings on that would be mixed if, when faced with lessons in his first year he hadn't stood there, holding out his hand as if he'd been asked to grab a snake and saying up while in his heart begging the broom not to move. He's not sure anymore what he was so afraid of--flying itself, or being chosen to break the mold, to have an aptitude for something his family didn't approve of.

Well, the living parts of it. Before last year, he'd thought it a bit nice, in a childish way. Getting to stay at Hogwarts forever, tied to something you liked that much. But that's not how it works, he knows, just like he learned to stop wondering why his mother hadn't stayed as well. It isn't the same, it isn't worth it, even if there's a comfort in having Edgar at school with him.

At the very least he always provides a story to tell, though Jinxsley's is the one that makes him really smile, forget all of those things in favor of trying to picture it. His professor at thirteen, given the position that requires the greatest amount of focus. "If only they'd let you use a wand, or build something to catch it for you," he offers, "Or you could send Flurrit after it." The owl, however, seems so happy to not be moving that he may be actively disagreeing with the idea, and considering the last few days, Bo has to agree that it's pretty terrible. "Alright, maybe a different owl. A sleeker one."

Linden laughs and shakes his head. "Well, maybe. But once I flew headfirst into the hoop, I think they were decided against me." Just a minor concussion, but the impact had put him right out for a couple of hours. Reaching up, he ruffles the feathers along Flurrit's chest, and the owl chirrs in peaceful appreciation. "Flurrit wasn't with me, back then. Barn owls are a little shorter-lived than other species, I am truly sorry to say." Flurrit is six; he might hopefully live another fifteen or sixteen years.

"In school I had a little featherball of a thing." He grins. "A scops owl named Rebecca. The snitch would have been nearly as large as she, I think." She had maintained a much greater dignity than Flurrit ever would, although she had developed an irritating affinity for keeping owl nuts in reserve and then eating them right over his bed. "I'm not sure you could say that I've ever had a proper owl," he adds. Flurrit makes a little squawk and nips his finger in retaliation.

Bo nearly remarks that he doesn't think any owl would stay proper around Jinxsley for very long, after all the sugar cubes and students feathering nests for them, or, possibly, just from too many pokes between the eyes. He thinks better of it though, unsure if he could get the proper sentiment across or simply sound rude--it's always hard to say things like that and convince people that he likes those things, he likes people so removed from how he's always acted.

Especially this one, especially his improper, silly owl. Bo smiles at Flurrit's protests, another fleeting smile open around a quiet laugh before both are gone, smoothed away like an owl's ruffled feathers.

Teacup emptied once more, it doesn't occur to him to wait for Jinxsley to take up the pot again; his practicality, however, is rewarded only with the slow-dripping dregs of their tea. His brow arches and a disappointed oh gets lost in the rattle of returning the pot to its tray. It's hardly the tea he's sorry to lose--sipping at it black and barely tasting it through the winding course of the conversation. It's just nice, having tea with someone, even if they are a teacher, even if they make him feel ridiculous and fizzy inside, run late, get sugar on the floor.

He almost didn't want to do this at all, and now he's sitting there, wanting it not to end. There is the option of carrying on, opening up a new topic and doggedly pursuing it until both forget the empty pot, but Bo isn't sure he can do that properly either, if he can prolong this without seeming, somehow, desperate. And he never wants to seem that. The best option, he finds, is to gather up his cup and saucer and place it on the tray, as if it's no bother to him at all. "That was lovely," he says, "Thank you for having me."

"Oh," Linden says as well, because he can't quite imagine that too much time has passed, but a glance at his watch confirms the hour and a half that has somehow slipped away. "Of course." He smiles to hide an unexpected surge of disappointment. While he always enjoys Bo's company, this visit upset a familiar balance between them, and he can't deny his curiosity over where the weights might eventually resettle. At the very least, they can carry on a conversation of reasonable depth despite the barrier that separates them--age and experience and social positions all tangled together. In spite of that bad moment, to Linden's painful relief.

"Thank you for having my owl," he chuckles. When he holds out his arm, Flurrit steps willingly over onto his shoulder despite wounded pride, and Linden offers him another sugar cube as compensation. The result is a great lot of sugar scattered in the ends of his hair, and Linden stands up to disperse the rest with a brief shake. Now he's stuck, or rather they both are, since Bo can hardly remain sitting when he's already stood, and Linden's disappointment becomes just a little keener, until he can taste the bitter ends of it at the back of his tongue.

For all that he gives farewells so often, he never enjoys them until afterward, when sorrow gives way to a sense of liberation. That is a selfish feeling, too.

That settles it then. Bo almost feels guilty, having somehow brought it all to a sudden halt, but he's relieved too. It feels a bit like he's gotten away with something--he managed to sit here, asking daft questions and learning rather more than he set out to, and still. Still there is a neat bow to tie on it with a thank you and a see you at school, and he can walk away like the next month isn't going to be that much harder to wait through.

This is ridiculous, he reminds himself, finding the coins in his pocket and, despite their agreement, doing his best to secret them onto the tray. Maybe not enough for the tea but enough to make up for whoever has to clean up the sugar, perhaps. "Like I said," he assures Jinxsley, "I like him. It was no trouble."

Gathering himself up, he stands and finds himself rather close; Flurrit finds the gap sufficiently small to lean across and nudge him in the head. What nerves he'd otherwise have dissolve in the moment, a proper laugh driven out of all the tension. He remembers that there's still a shop to walk out of and a corner to part at, but it's suddenly alright, suddenly more blessing than curse. "There's still time to change my mind," he warns the owl, moving to push his chair back in and give them room to leave.

Flurrit looks far more pleased with himself than any owl ever should, and he utters a distinctive krurrrew as smug punctuation. "He likes you too, of course," Linden says with a smirk of his own. "He just has the most peculiar way of showing it." Flurrit winks one eye and then the other, before he starts rummaging around the collar of Linden's coat in search of lingering sugar bits.

Rather familiar with sleight-of-hand, Linden does note the silent depositing of the coins on the table, but if Bo feels more comfortable contributing a little bit, then Linden isn't about to question him. He sets his own handful of coins on the tray, instead, and without any excuse to do otherwise, he heads toward the door and holds it open for Bo to precede him.

Outside, the warm humidity of the air settles against his skin, and the clouds have broken up to show blue tracts of sky. "I'm glad you're liking the book," Linden says. He should take more care, but he can't quite help adding, "Perhaps we'll see each other again before the start of term."

The street is that much brighter for their time in the dim of the shop (Bo is never certain if it's the tendency of their kind to work out of very old structures or a natural inclination toward it--the dimness of most Wizarding shops, of the school), and he slides a bit blind through the door. He feels better in the sun, even if the streets of London could hardly be called fresh air, like a plant in the garden his thoughts turn to as he sees the weather turning.

Or maybe it's just that it's over, and in the final moments of the outing he can blink the glare out of his eyes and smile over his shoulder at Jinxsley, less worried about what is said or unsaid as they start to walk away. "Next time you're in London," he offers, knowing he'll fret over it later the way he knows he'll be spending the afternoon hunting for weeds.

Turning and wandering a few steps back on his heels, he's letting momentum carry him away before they get stuck again, hand lifted in a wave as he calls, "If she won't think it daft, give your mother my best wishes and some pies; just keep a few of both for yourself." The street's as crowded as it is bright, though, and he can only go so far before passerby cut between them and he has to turn to watch his step, disappearing almost gratefully into the scuttling mess of people.

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