Pre-Spring Cleaning

Slug’s and Jigger’s was sleeping, just like every other store in Diagon Alley. The sun had barely begun to touch the horizon but already, people were beginning to materialise on the streets of Diagon Alley. Alistair was one of them. Azkaban had left him with difficulty sleeping and though he’d managed to shrug that off in Hogwarts, the nightmares returned in full force once he was back home in Knockturn Alley. He was going to attempt something a bit more respectable for a career this time. The Dark Mark was still emblazoned on his forearm but after the failed attempt by Grindelwald at keeping Hogwarts under his control, Alistair decided to return to something he was actually quite proficient in - Potions. So, it was goodbye Hogwarts and hello Diagon Alley for the foreseeable future - until, that is, the idiot Aurors finally caught up with him.

It was his job to open up today and after having a brief conversation with the owner of the Ice Cream shop; Alistair unlocked the front door of the dusty apothecary and stepped over the threshold. The place had been in a perpetual state of disrepair since Alistair was a child and it seemed wrong to try and neaten the place up now. Still, a few cleaning spells wouldn’t go amiss and so with a few flicks of his wand, Alistair set to work the decrepit looking cleaning utensils, watching with satisfaction as the mop, sponges and buckets worked together to clean the shop.

He took to the back room, deciding to go in search of the stocks. What he found was mainly crates. Crate after crate of potions ingredients he rifled through, each box containing more and more ingredients that had gone bad after disuse. Alistair intended on making the apothecary important again to the wizards and witches that passed Diagon Alley. The problem was that he didn’t know how. One of the first things, though, was to make sure that good and bad ingredients were separated so a few spells were cast and Alistair watched, pleased with himself, as the vials began to sort themselves on the shelves. The ingredients that could be kept went on the shelves, the ones that couldn’t were tossed into an empty crate that was, much to Alistair’s dismay, being filled quite quickly.

Shaking his head, he walked back out into the main room, surprised to find that the front of the shop was a lot cleaner and brighter than he’d ever remembered it being. A hundred years worth of grime looked as if it had been scrubbed off of the floors, walls and surfaces. Alistair smiled and shed his outer robes to reveal a crisp white shirt and a tie loose around his neck. He draped the robes over the back of the chair behind the desk and put his hands on his hips, casting his eyes around the room in an attempt to decide what to do next.

Even though it was still quite early and the sun was barely out right now, Diagon Alley already seemed to be teeming with life. That was what Damitrius liked best about the place, it was hardly ever empty and there was always something going on. Damitrius always thought it funny that even though she hardly ever spent any time in that place she loved being there. That was exactly why she had decided to get a job in Diagon Alley.

She had always wanted a job there and now she finally got one. And it helped that she had gotten one in a place that had to do with one of her favorite subjects. Sure she was only a sales assistant there but she would definitely enjoy being near all the potions. Even though she thought that Slug's and Jigger's was still closed, she knew it wouldn't hurt to check. Even if it wasn't open yet, it wouldn't be a waste, at least she would have gotten the chance to walk through Diagon Alley.

Damitrius smiled as she approached the shop, noticing that it was in fact open. She wasn't sure if anyone would be expecting her to be there so early, but she couldn't help herself. The girl pushed the door open and stepped inside happily. "Hello?" she asked softly, looking around the shop a bit. Damitrius stepped further into the shop, gazing at everything that was there.

Alistair was careful not to roll up the sleeves of his shirt, conscious of the fact that the Dark Mark, though considerably faded, was still emblazoned across his sickly pale skin. Unconsciously, he rubbed his left forearm and for a few moments became fairly sombre. After recollecting, Alistair shook his head and straightened up, deciding to busy himself with sorting through the log books that seemed to be decades out of date. He picked up a raven-feather quill and flicked the top off of the ink well before taking a seat at the desk. He put the quill between his teeth and moved his hands across the desk, pushing paper and leather-bound books out of his way until he got to grips with the large, mauve rectangular log book of sales that seemed to be the newest of the lot. He opened it up, unsurprised to find little in the way of recent sales. With a frustrated sigh, Alistair got to work, thankful that cataloguing was one of his strengths.

By the time he’d sorted most of the desk, the cleaning utensils had moved onto the floors and had placed a hovering ottoman - though where they’d got it from, Alistair wasn’t sure - under his feet so the rags, buckets and scrubbing brushes could get the grime out of the wood. It was not ten minutes after he had the ottoman shoved under his feet that the door of the apothecary opened. Lifting his head, Alistair’s gaze fell on a young brunette with startling blue eyes. He placed the quill down and took his feet off of the ottoman, placing them down on the patch of floor that had already been cleaned and dried. He rose, moving to stand to the side of the desk and he looked upon her curiously, finding uncanny similarities in her that he couldn’t quite put to bed.

Alistair pursed his lips as he tried to figure out where he’d seen her before. “Oh,” He murmured to himself after a moment. “Of course you are, aren’t you?” He spoke louder, for her to hear. “Another D’Eath to join something rapidly becoming the family business. Damitrius, I presume? I’m Alistair. Your, uh, older brother, I suppose. Small world, ain’t it? How’s Hogwarts treating you? Figure I might as well be an attentive brother while you’re here. Fancy a cup of tea?”

Damitrius stood with her hands crossed in front of her, the bag that was slung over her shoulder sliding down her arm to her elbow. She stared at the man at the desk as he rose from it and said nothing. She wondered if she already done something wrong as he looked at her with a curious look and she felt herself frown a bit. The girl shifted somewhat uncomfortably on her feet, dropping her gaze to the floor now.

Her gaze remained on the floor as he spoke, giving a small nod when he asked if her name was Damitrius, until she heard him say he was her older brother. This immediately caught her attention and her head whipped up as she looked at him with slightly widened eyes. "Brother?" Damitrius question without thought. She had an older brother? How come she had never heard of him? She blinked a couple of times in confusion as she stared at him questioningly. She began to wonder if Alexis knew about him and had never told her anything, not that she would ask her.

Even with her confusion, Damitrius found herself smiling at him. Well having another brother couldn't be bad, right? The girl nodded and let out a small laugh. "I suppose it is. Hogwarts is fine, I have plenty of friends and I do well in my classes." she told Alistair. "If it's not to much of a bother." she responded to his offer of a cup of tea.

It was just one Christmas dinner, but Damien had already become smitten with his elder half-brother. For a boy whose mother had failed him in her disgraceful marriage to a muggle-born, he had turned his hopes to his father as he went on a search for a model of power in his life. Too bad, once again, Lorcan D'Eath had nothing on his mind but his obsessions with women and money. Damien had become disillusioned even with the older Slytherin students in school, only because he felt the very tangible difference between him and them. Unlike them, the D'Eath name was neither genuinely wealthy nor powerful. Sure, Lorcan enjoyed basking in his self-made wealth and appeal, but even the appearances he strived to upkeep were just that --- appearances. Damien had worked, too, to play out those appearances in what he thought were convincing. Unfortunately, people knew. The D'Eaths were new money, and Lorcan was just an acceptable character in the books of the old,wealthy, powerful, and established families - nothing more. Lorcan knew how to be likeable, but he was far from being respectable. Of course, this fell on Damien's head in school. He was close to exasperation now.

The appearance of Alistair, however, made Damien hope again. His brother's seemingly elusive past and Azkaban experience had intrigued him. The younger boy, after all, was gripped by romanticised ideas of power and, for the lack of a better word, evil. Although Damien had dreaded Christmas dinner at the D'Eaths', the company of Alistair had changed the evening for him. Since then, the younger boy had the older D'Eath boy placed on a pedestal, expecting a relationship of sorts to sprout from then, as if Damien was certain that he would be properly guided now by his older brother. Finally, there was going to be a decent mentor of sorts who might care only because he should, seeing that Damien was, after all, his younger brother. Of course, these were the naive assumptions in the mind of the fifteen year old boy, disillusioned but not broken about his dreams to be more than the performance he was compelled to sustain all his life. Alistair was his breath of fresh air. And so, when the older D'Eath mentioned the vacant position at Slug's and Jigger's where he worked himself, Damien rushed for the opportunity to work alongside his brother. Little did he know that Lorcan had plans concerning the Apothecary, and that it was soon going to be a D'Eath establishment. Of course, what mattered the most was that Damien did not expect to see Damitrius.

As soon as Damien stepped into the shop, however, he froze in his tracks. His eyes had, of course, found the figure of his half-sister. Her presence alone was enough to alter his initial pleasant mood. He had no reason, really, to dislike her. Little did the boy realise that, just as much as he found the appearances he had to upkeep superficial and tedious, he too believed in them. He detested Gryffindors, because. Naturally, then, he loathed Damitrius. Damien narrowed his eyes, but decided that confrontation was not going to be worth it anyway, and moved on to walk closer to Alistair to acknowledge him; in the process, ignoring the girl. Despite the deliberate snubbing he effected, Damien was thoroughly confused about the situation. And then, because he could no contain himself, the boy spoke coldly to his sister.

"Looking for something, Damitrius? Didn't think you'd require Potions materials for school. Gryffindors are meant to be stupid. Why bother attempting to change that by trying?"