Tricky Transitions

Jack couldn’t ask Charlie. The girl had finally managed to get her little group together to go backpacking across Scotland, and Jack wasn’t going to be the person to keep her cousin from enjoying her youth. The younger redhead had given a lot up in the past, and Jack had taken her in with the promise of giving her more opportunities, not forcing her to be nanny for the rest of her days. Still, before she knew about the trip, back when she thought she had been given no choice, she had set to turning her office in the greenhouse into a bedroom, certain Charlie would prefer privacy to her old room. Besides, Goose needed his own room, and Goose was practically living in a closet.

It felt like Jack was constantly re-assembling the versatile little cottage at Layabout Lane.

In the meantime, Gabby had actually… been a decent friend. Jack supposed it had something to do with missing Max, but the werewolf had been watching the kids when Jack went into the office to make some arrangements for herself. Eight year old Sunny still loved everyone and seemed to be very kind to the tired old werewolf, as they both desperately missed their floppy-haired companion. Goose had not warmed to Gabby, finding him too goofy and to sharp-tongued towards Jack. The yen year old didn’t like anyone, but he was very protective of Jack, and he didn’t quite understand that Jack was used to Gabby being a little disrespectful. It was their relationship. And now he couldn’t look at her without thinking his friend would be closer at hand if she hadn’t stolen him for so many months.

She wasn’t about to argue with him either.

She came home after a long day, dropping her work bag onto a kitchen chair. Eliot came padding in, looking older and more tired. It was hard to believe that the dog had stuck around for six years, and that he hadn’t devoured the loud-mouthed Jarvey or the sock-eating Ottomon. He had been one of the only constants in her life, perhaps one of the only companions she could rely on to greet her at the end of a long day.

Goose came storming in from the living room and threw himself into a chair, arms folded tightly over his chest. Jack held in the sigh and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“He’s obnoxious,” Goose stated. He reached across the table and picked up a forgotten butter knife, beginning to stab the spaces between his fingers. “Sunny thinks he’s so funny – he’s a total moron.”

Jack swiped the knife out of his hand and deposited it into the sink, beginning to look through the cupboards. “It won’t be long-“

“What happens when you go back to work?’ Goose said, spinning in his chair to narrow his eyes.

Jack began to search through the fridge in vain. “I’m working-“

“Not really. Quidditch season is going to get busy. And you’re barely going into the Ministry. What happens to us then? Nanny McAnnoying isn’t staying around here-“

Jack turned around, meeting the defiant little boy’s eyes, realizing he was thinking less and less like a little boy. “Who put you in charge?”

He swelled, his face still set. “If I have to be the man of the house with Max gone-“ Jack couldn’t help it. She laughed. He immediately bit the words back, looking angry and embarrassed. “What?” he snapped.

Jack shook her head. “This isn’t a house that has a man of the house. I don’t know where you’ve been living. But all you have to do is be a ten year old kid.” She closed the fridge. “Where is all the food? I was going to make macaroni and cheese.”

Goose stood up, shoving the chair in place. He turned and stalked out, muttering, “Ask Nanny McAsshole about the macaroni.”

Jack sighed as he exited, knowing this was much harder on him than he was willing to admit, but what was she going to do about it? They needed Gabby and there was no way the pair of them were going to get along. She would have to just figure something out and let Goose pout in the meantime.

It didn’t take long to find the macaroni. One step into the living room and she saw it all – painted bright sheens of purple and orange and glued to every surface of the coffee table. An idea conceived by the ever artistic Sunny and encouraged by the ever conniving Gabby. She glared at the mess.

“Goose. Let’s go to the grocery store!”


She left Gabby and Sunny to continue gluing macaroni all over Sunny’s furniture. Goose and Jack had picked up some groceries at the corner mart but Jack really wasn’t ready to continue dealing with Gabby’s antics, so she decided to stop by the apothecary. Goose loved the weird jellied creatures, and she had some wolfsbane ingredients running low. So she sent the groceries home and apparated to Diagon, hoping desperately to not run into anyone. It was too soon to be asked how she was doing. She really wanted to have an answer.

She stepped into the shop and realized life wasn’t exactly fair to her, but at least it was throwing her a soft curve. Because if she had to run into anyone, she figured Viviana Varnes really wasn’t the worst.

It had been three days since Vivianna had left her flat. Which, in the grand scheme of things really wasn’t that long at all. She’d lived for thousands and thousands of days, at this point, what was three? Besides, it wasn’t as though she’d wasted them. The girl, for she was still a girl, really, in age if nothing else, had been brewing. Vivianna enjoyed rolling her eyes at all her peers who had pranced around proclaiming themselves adults the moment they had turned seventeen years of age. That’s hardly how adulthood worked. If anything, the need to proclaim adulthood did nothing but prove the lack of it.

Despite that, Vivianna did consider herself more adult than girl. She had been old enough to practice magic outside of school for a while now, had graduated Hogwarts, had seen and done more than most, was living on her own, and was relatively self-sufficient. So what if, occasionally, the girl would jolt out of her head, and stumble towards her tiny kitchen only to realize there wasn’t anything that could be considered anywhere near a full meal to be found. I wasn’t like she was starving. She was paying her rent- on time, if not early, every month, and was doing fine for herself. She was.

Alright, so occasionally the witch found herself frowning down at her finances, and knowing that she’d need to choose between dinner that night and a fresh supply of moonseed. And, okay, to most that would be somewhat of a no-brainer, but it wasn’t like Vivianna had ever been into the whole regular meals thing anyway. Besides, it wasn’t always like that. Some months were much better, great, even. The witch sold all sorts of potions, some standard, some a little more... experimental. Which was wonderful, it really was, it just meant that she didn’t always have the steadiest of incomes.

And then, of course, there were the little numbers on her finance sheet which always got written down last, but never failed to make it onto the list. The cost of a certain set of ingredients. Ingredients that didn’t get factored into her experimental budget or her orders budget, but got a little category all of their own. Addiction, her mind would whisper. Vivianna had gotten pretty good at ignoring it.

But none of that mattered, not for a few hours at least, because this was a good week, and Vivianna had plenty of ideas. Ideas that she needed supplies for. So to the apothecary it was.
The witch was flitting from one end of the shop to the other, with a familiarity usually only seen in those whom had worked there for at least a few weeks, trying to decide if substituting flitterby wings for standard moth wings would make her potion more potent, when her eyes were drawn to the door.

Jack Dyllan. It had been, well, a while was something of an understatement. Vivianna felt her fingers twitch, suddenly wishing she’d waited a few hours to go shopping. At least she’d thought to bathe before leaving the flat this time. The teenager hesitated a moment, mentally calculating how minuscule the odds were that the older witch wouldn’t notice her, before rolling her eyes at herself and striding over with a smile.

“Jack, it’s been… ages,” Vivianna stated. Eyes flicking down towards the young boy by her side the witch added, “and who’s this?”

They made eye contact mere moments after the bell of the shop tinkled and for a second, it was as though they were waiting for the mirage to disappear. But it didn’t. And Goose was a little disconcerted at Jack’s sudden unwillingness to move out of the door, looking up at her with a confused look. He followed her gaze and looked between them, carefully following her gaze to a… mini-Jack? Goose had seen pictures of young Jack. That looked like her.

Goose’s eyes squinted. Now, he knew time travel was possible… Was this evidence?

Jack stepped forward, Goose slowly following after, his eyes suspiciously narrowed on the younger female. Jack’s smile was small and sincere, but the restraint, the inability to smile wide, was apparent. “It’s been much too long, Viv,” she said. She glanced down at Goose, double taking at his weird expression. She gave him a playful shove and said, “This is Goose.”

“I’m a stray,” he explained.

“Shut up,” Jack said, rolling his eyes.

Goose stepped forward, peering up at Viv. “I know where you come from,” he said in a dangerous whisper.

“Alright, creep,” Jack said. “Go mess something up.” She gave him another shove and rolled her eyes. “Conspiracy theories, his new thing. What’s going on with you? You graduated, right?”

Vivianna looked down at the young boy and almost laughed because a stray, of course he was, Viv didn't know why she would have expected anything else of Jack. The woman before her had always been good at picking up the lost ones, in her own experience. Vivianna blinked a few times at the boy's whispered words but ultimately thought little of them. Despite his tone, he wasn't the dangerous one here.

"It has. Yeah," Vivianna said with a nod and a smile, "graduated," as if she still didn't occasionally make her way to the end of Hogsmeade closest to the school and the climb trees there just to stare at the grounds that had once been, but were no longer, her home. "I've got myself a little flat now," the witch added, smile twisting into something little more real.

"I can spend loads more time brewing now that I'm free from all the assignments," the redhead admitted. Not that the work hadn't payed off, she done fairly well on her NEWTs. Only what was she going to do with a Charms NEWT, honestly.

"And I still take the occasional shift in the wand shop I worked in worked in while still at Hogwarts. The owner is struggling to find a decent replacement, and I don't mind the change of pace every once in a while," the witch continued, before her eyes were caught by something on the shelf to her right, and she reached over to grab the jar of ground bicorn horn. She wasn't low on it or anything, but Vivianna did go through the stuff faster than one would expect.