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Post by Skylar Constantine on Jun 6, 2013 19:17:19 GMT -5
"Ember's a mark," Skylar said, lowering his voice. He glanced around to be sure no one was in earshot and threw a friendly smile at a woman across the room who'd caught his eye. Then he looked away from her so she wouldn't take it as an invitation.
"It's a long story," Skylar said, "and I don't want to get into it, but her mom was a halfblood." Enough said, in his opinion. Michael would get it.
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Post by Michael Blackwood-Hardt on Jun 6, 2013 19:30:22 GMT -5
Michale nodded and looked over at the twins. His own joining had been pushed due to his relationship with the daughter of Aurors. Now, with his relationship with Dare, it was always possible the whole family would be a mark. "That whole lifestyle, it's poison," he said, shaking his head. "It never quite goes away. It gets better, though. Slowly." Very slowly.
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Post by Skylar Constantine on Jun 6, 2013 19:37:31 GMT -5
"It was fine where I've been," Skylar said, his casual tone forced. "Just fine, but I missed home." He scoffed at his own words. "Sentimentality is for the birds. I'd take her off again, but I've got unfinished business and I don't know how bad it is yet." Which was why he was looking for somewhere safe.
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Post by Michael Blackwood-Hardt on Jun 6, 2013 19:45:34 GMT -5
"There's nothing wrong with sentimentality," Michael said, though he fell silent after. He supposed it wasn't entirely true, sentimentality could go too far. He mulled it over for a bit, remembering times when softness and sentiment had caused more trouble than it was worth. "What kind of unfinished business?" he asked, looking over at Skylar again.
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Post by Skylar Constantine on Jun 6, 2013 19:52:02 GMT -5
Skylar gave Michael a long, appraising look before deciding what to say. "My dad left everything to me," he said carefully. "That means it's hers, but there are people who might not like knowing she's still around." He looked casually around the bookstore as parents chatted and kids grouped up for story time.
"I want what's mine," he said.
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Post by Michael Blackwood-Hardt on Jun 6, 2013 20:02:48 GMT -5
Michael nodded in understanding. "There isn't any simple way to explain my family right now, though I suppose my father is dead and left everything to my mother is the best way." Which meant, in essence, that he would end up with quite the inheritance anyway, even with his sister. "Why don't you have your inheritance already?"
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Post by Skylar Constantine on Jun 6, 2013 20:11:26 GMT -5
"I left before they could give it to me," Skylar said. His lips wanted to quirk at how appropriately he'd phrased that, but he resisted on the grounds that he didn't want any awkward questions.
"If I'd stayed, they'd have killed her, and probably me too. I went my Gringotts on my way out, took what I could fit in my coin pouch, and disappeared off the face of the earth. Haven't been gone long enough to be declared dead yet, though."
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Post by Michael Blackwood-Hardt on Jun 6, 2013 20:19:00 GMT -5
What had happened to make Skylar so insistent on disappearing? Michael avoided asking, at least for now. Maybe it was better for him not to know. "Do you think you'll have any luck getting it? If they wanted you dead then, what makes you think they won't do the same now?" he asked as he watched the twins surprisingly show a bit of patience sitting next to one another while waiting for reading to actually start.
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Post by Skylar Constantine on Jun 6, 2013 20:25:14 GMT -5
"That's why I'm still hiding out," Skylar said. He had to drop his voice to a near whisper now that polite chatter was dying down. "I can't wait for them to declare me dead," he said, "but I had to see for myself first whether it's safe. They don't know where I've been. If it's still bad, I'll just disappear again." And what had he done right off the bat? Run into another Death Eater.
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Post by Michael Blackwood-Hardt on Jun 6, 2013 20:29:37 GMT -5
Michael shifted his weight and slid his hands into his pockets. "I can't tell you whether it's safe or not, it sounds like you're in more trouble than I ever was. For me it's about as safe as I'll ever be. For you? I don't know." He still couldn't believe who he was talking to. He had never been close with Skylar, though he suppose that made it a little easier.
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Post by Skylar Constantine on Jun 6, 2013 20:39:00 GMT -5
That was too bloody bad, but Michael had already been more help than Skylar would have imagined. He watched Ember for a moment, and at a glance from her, he gestured for her to sit down. She did, and soon enough he was forgotten.
His gaze swung back to Michael. "Do you know anyone I could talk to?" he asked. "Anyone I could trust not to turn me in?" Michael had always been connected. He'd been at the top of the Social Heap in a way Skylar never could have been. He'd been on the fringes at best, and a couple years older, and already rebelling against the upper class just for something to rebel against. But Michael had known people.
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Post by Michael Blackwood-Hardt on Jun 6, 2013 20:45:25 GMT -5
Michael was silent as he considered. Yes, he knew some people, but he wasn't sure if they would be completely willing to get involved. "I know some people I could talk to to see if they're willing," he said. "I can't guarantee anything, though. I don't know you very well, and I don't know what you've done to get yourself into so much trouble."
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Post by Skylar Constantine on Jun 6, 2013 20:55:05 GMT -5
Skylar's jaw set, but he wouldn't argue. He knew what he'd done, and he knew that no matter which side you looked at things from, karma owed him some punishment. He gave a brief nod.
"I want to stay out of things," he said, though he didn't have much in the way of proof of it. "That's why I grabbed Ember when I saw you. I'm out for good. Anything you've got I'll owe you for. I don't forget favors." He couldn't afford to, if he was coming back. He needed his own connections, not his old ones and not his father's. He'd start wherever he could.
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Post by Michael Blackwood-Hardt on Jun 6, 2013 21:05:31 GMT -5
Michael couldn't believe he was considering this with so little information, but at the same time he knew what it was like to be out of the ranks and trying to get things back together. "I can talk to some people, see if there's anything I can do to help," he said. It was all he could guarantee right now. "I'll send you an owl when I find something out, whichever way it goes."
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Post by Skylar Constantine on Jun 6, 2013 21:12:51 GMT -5
Skylar gave another nod. "I owe you one, either way," he said. He knew better than Michael just how risky this was, but he had to start someplace. Where better than with someone who had as much to lose as he did?
He didn't ask where Michael was living and didn't volunteer where he'd been staying either, but he decided that picking up a newspaper might work out for him. If there was a free Death Eater writing it, he wondered what he could learn.
He said his goodbyes and slipped away to catch up his daughter. He sat with her on his lap to listen to the story, as though he'd been talking about nothing more serious than the book store's hours.
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