Essence of a Random Stranger

Brian leaned down and kissed the exotic looking woman with chestnut red hair gently, listening to the laughter of children. The woman's lily perfume rose up to him and reassured him he wasn't trespassing.

"Not your best look," he said to her softly in her ear. "You do know I prefer blondes. Or one particular blonde." She was about to reply when a squeal from Abbey jolted the woman hard enough that she jumped noticeably.

"Daddy! Looky! Bunnies!" It was Abbey. She was delighted with Babbity's and all the wonderful magic it had for little ones. Brian smiled. This was the first they had dared to even consider taking all the children out together. Abbey, Dakota, the triplets--Robert, Michael and Julia, and the twins--Daniel and Benjamin. They certainly hadn't been able to juggle seven toddlers alone. Hadn't tried. Angus had come, and if not a bit inconveniently, two Michael Tremaines, and Marcus Belby. Angus and one of the Michael's appeared to be herding tiny Lupins to keep them from skittering away. It looked a lot like herding cats. Belby was not paying attention to the wee ones. He was scanning, watchful, looking at every movement, ever shadow. This, to him, was high risk, even in a place that was supposed to be so secure. Michael 2 was at the hostess stand, picking up a couple books of matches.

"I'll go," Brian looked back at the redhead. "Relax. This is supposed to be fun." He gave her a reassuring smile and walked towards the children, leaving her momentarily sitting at the table with the twins in a double stroller less than an arm's reach from Belby. Brian's eyes connected with Belby's, who merely nodded. He had this. Brian shifted his attention to the five little ones who were joyfully dashing about in the restaurant's play space.

Marcus looked at Khaat. She'd taken a huge risk. She had found the long red hairs on her cloak after an outing with Marcus, and she'd dropped them into bottle of polyjuice. Marcus didn't like her drinking "Essence-of-a-Random-Stranger" but, she was rather pleased with the outcome. She was surprised that the stranger wasn't quite so random after all The woman she'd borrowed was one no one would look for. The woman had been a potionswench with no friends or family who had worked for Rob at one time. Never mind that the woman was dead now. It had taken her a moment to get past the rather gruesome realization that she was using a dead woman, but, with better clothes and hair, the poor potionswench looked actually stunning.

Khaat did feel a bit of twinge that the woman herself never had seen that beauty in herself, but, the polyjuice would only last a short time. Being out made her anxious. Insecure, and for a multitude of reasons. It started with the disfigurement that made her reach to borrow someone else's face, and went ahead to the risk of all the business with the Ministry being revealed prematurely and deeping the troubles for all of England, and then it all circled back around in her head to James and how he haunted her every move. She wasn't safe anywhere, and the less she looked or acted like Khaat, the better everyone was.

"You bring your cigarettes?" she asked Belby. Marcus cast a frown at her.

"You don't smoke," he said.

"Not normally, but she does," she replied. "I need a cigarette." Looking the part made sense to him. He drew out the cigarette case from inside his jacket, took a cigarette and lit it, and then handed the lit cigarette to her.

"Don't go any farther overboard," Belby said very quietly to her. "You aren't her. Its just a costume, you know. Not espionage. What do you want to drink? French roast?"

"She didn't drink it. Pumpkin juice spritzer with a twist of orange."

He wrinkled his nose. "Ew," he said. "Sounds perfectly disgusting."

"Not really," she said. "Or so I've heard. We're about to find out." He turned to flag a server to order some beverages.

“Dad, dad, dad!”

Troubled with the excitement of children who could hold, quite comfortably, a conversation, Elijah Krum found himself sat in the midst of high activity in the middle of Babbity Rabbity’s. Stumbling towards him as fast as his legs could carry him, Caelum Krum bore a wicked expression on his face having just robbed his brother of his most desired toy. Elijah caught the blonde haired boy under the arms and turned him around sitting him in his lap, plying from his little firsts the toy in question.

“Not fair,” Caelum pouted, holding out his hands expectantly for it.

Elijah smirked and handed the toy over to a passing child who gratefully tore off back to her parents much to the hearty dismay of both blondes who, thankfully, found something else to do. They wandered off without further reproach and Elijah bent over the little one in front of him. Alice was drawing away aimless, colourful lines across the sketchbook before her and upon sensing Elijah behind her she turned and smiled broadly at him.

“What’re you drawing, beautiful?” He asked softly, leaning forward to inspect her drawing. “Oh, look at that,” he whispered. “It’s lovely.”

He left her alone after that though she didn’t move. He sat back on the floor, casting his eyes around the room, spotting Prim and the twins making mischief while his own half-siblings, babes in arms still, tottered around. Petre was with his mother, sat in her easy embrace at their table though she herself was fit to bursting. Marko and Gabriel were old enough to make their own adventures much to his and Irina’s concern. At Babbity’s they were safe, though. Where were Thierry and Fauve, you ask? They were with Stelladora, buying Hogwarts things.

It was while he was casting his eyes around that he spotted something a little bit different. Marcus. And Brian. And a redheaded witch. Elijah rolled his eyes and got to his feet, scooping up Alice along with him, ignoring her little indignant cry.

“C’mon, baby,” he murmured to her, plopping her onto his hip. “We’re going to go and talk to your relatives, okay?”

Elijah crossed the room, making his way over to Marcus and co. amidst the rushing bodies of the children and once he got there his expression changed from bemused to utterly openly amused at the sight of who he presumed to be Khaat considering that the potionswoman she looked like was, according to the civil coroner, in an ice box in south London.

“I like what you did with your hair, Khaat,” Elijah commented airily as his opening gambit. “It's nice.”

Eli. Khaat felt a wide mix of emotions at seeing him. They all bombarded her at once. Part of her was, to her dismay, still delighted at seeing him. There was a larger part of her, though, that was feeling hurt and bitter. He had done, predictably, what he had always done. He had taken care of Number One. Himself.

She had offered him family, connections, affection. In the end, though, he had behaved, in her estimation, a bit too much like Viktor. He had gone back to hang out with biological family, "his own kind", and had seemingly forgotten much of what she thought she had attempted to give him.

He had, predictably, walked away from the Ministry, walked away from her father. That much she could have predicted would happen sooner or later. Eli never had understood her father, and apparently had never wanted to. Not really.

But what hurt her was that he had utterly walked away from her. He hadn't been there when she truly had needed him. He just apparently couldn't be bothered.

Lee Shepherd had shown up and had, actually, been running England when she and her father were in critical condition and Eli just could not be found. Lee had had no real authorization to do so, but those who had responded had simply recognized Lee and had followed his guidance in those frightening hours.

Eli hadn't been there when her father had nearly died. He hadn't been there when she had nearly died. The only reason he seemed to be here now was that they had both shown up in Babbity's at the same time by utter coincidence.

He hadn't met the triplets, not so far as she remembered, and they were three now. He hadn't seen the new twins either. She had lost track of how many children he had or how old they were. He had a little girl with him though, a daughter, whatever her name was.

Still, she managed a smile when he'd spoken to her, mentioning the red hair--the polyjuice.

"The only one who wasn't put out with me for it was my father," she shrugged. "It was an interesting experiment, though. Plucked the hairs off my cloak. Wasn't sure who they belonged to. And honestly I don't know what they're more irked about--the choice of hair, the cigarettes, or the pumpkin spritzer to try to stay halfways consistent with my alter ego."

Marcus took the drinks of the server's tray and put the pumpkin spritzer in front of her, saying nothing but thinking pumpkin spritzer, on the whole, was revolting.

"I should have my own cigarettes, Marcus," she told him.

"You aren't going to smoke that many while you're here," Marcus said.

"She would have," she shrugged. She looked back at Eli. "How have you been?"