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strangeness & charm.
act one, are you satisfied?
chapter three, bonnie taylor strikes again.

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THE LEAKY CAULDRON
july 1994

"AND SO I TOLD HER to stop being such a miserable cunt and make up her mind! Like, tell me, are you actually suffering from some wild phobia that doesn't exist or are you just a pussy?"

      "Huh?"

      Over the bar chatter, three firewhiskey shots in her system, the television loudly announcing the latest news in sports, and her turbulent internal monologue, Nora had only managed to catch the last five words of Bonnie's sentence.

      For a Thursday night, The Leaky Cauldron was bustling. When Nora and Bonnie had left work that afternoon, they'd made the brilliant, last-minute decision to get hammered on a work night. When they'd arrived at the tavern, their only company had been a group of nuns near the furthest wall. However, within the hour, the place had gone from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye. Servers dashed between tables like mice, dodging people and chairs with impressive ease.

      Where there was usually standing room near the television and lounging area, there appeared to be a dance battle to the Weird Sisters' latest release. (Nora wasn't quite sure when or where the Cauldron had acquired a muggle television, and she didn't think anybody else did either. This was apparent, as a trio of older men were being elbowed and kicked as they stood at the front of the dance battle, clearly mesmerized by the glowing pixels.)

      Bonnie scowled at her before becoming distracted by a passing server. After demanding another line of shots from him, she turned back to Nora.

      "Huh? Have you been listening to anything I've said in the last ten minutes?" Bonnie demanded.

      Nora's eyebrows shot upward, forming a clueless expression. To avoid her friend's blazing stare, she reached forward and stole a chip from the basket in front of them.

      "Definitely." Her response wasn't entirely convincing, she knew that herself, and thus chose to continue avoiding Bonnie's gaze by eating more chips.

      "Right," Bonnie sighed, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned back in her chair. Her eyes shot back toward the bar, where she caught sight of the server chatting up a customer sitting near the counter.

      "Oi! My fucking shots!"

      Bonnie's shrill outburst was somehow unnoticed by everyone but the server, who whipped around with the raw fear of god in his eyes and scurried away from the customer and behind the bar.

      Nora's head began to spin, so she leaned forward and tried her best to keep from swaying in her chair. "...Who were we talking about?"

      Bonnie's eyes snapped towards her with a ferocity that could have sent You-Know-Who to his grave. Well... again.

      "I hate you," Bonnie declared rightly, and when Nora reached for another chip, Bonnie snatched the basket away from her.

      "Oi! Oh please, I'm the love of your life," Nora insisted, eyeing Bonnie's hand as it continued to drag the basket of chips further and further away from her.

      Bonnie narrowed her eyes. "That's only because the last asshat that tried to go out with me ended up being a birdwatcher. I'm on a boy strike."

      Nora furrowed her eyebrows and promptly snatched the chip basket towards herself.

      "And what was so wrong with birdwatching?" She asked before shoving three chips in her mouth.

      Bonnie made a face at the eating display. "Uh... it's fucking weird."

      A commotion beside them drew the girls' attention to their server, who had finally returned from the depths of the bar with their new line of shots. Bonnie leveled a deathly glare on him as he made room on the table for the shot glasses. When he didn't move after serving the drinks, Bonnie hissed at him. As she watched his hurriedly retreating back, Nora suspected they wouldn't see much more of him the rest of the night.

      "And you're so perfectly unweird aren't you?" Nora continued, watching as Bonnie nonchalantly took one of the shots as if it were water, as if she, a human being, hadn't just hissed like a cat at their server.

      "You see, I'm allowed. Thirty-year-old men who still live with their mothers are not allowed to be weird. Or birdwatchers," Bonnie replied, slamming the shot glass down with unnecessary force.

      Nora winced at the impact and the searing throb the sound it made sent across the front of her skull. "Makes perfect sense."

      "Exactly."

      The two girls fell into a comfortable silence. Well, it was comfortable on Nora's part as she had finally sat against the backing of her chair, which resulted in the feeling of thousand-pound weights on her shoulders and a slight inclination to take a nap sitting upright. Her eyelids became obscenely heavy, and her shoulders relaxed–

      "So, have you filled out that application yet?"

      Bonnie's booming voice violently rattled Nora from her drowsiness, and her hands shot out to grip the edge of the table so tightly that her knuckles turned a ghastly shade of white.

      Eyes wide, Nora inhaled sharply as she tried to gain sense of herself. Bonnie stared at her, unimpressed. Clearing her throat, Nora released her fingers from the tabletop and straightened in her chair.

      She knew she was avoiding Bonnie's sharp gaze, and after a few seconds of dodging eye contact, Nora finally allowed her eyes to level with Bonnie's. Whatever was within the depths of her irises must have held a solid answer for her friend across the table. Before Nora could process the swift movement, Bonnie had leaned forward and pinched her friend roughly on the hand.

"Fucker!" Nora hissed, recoiling her wrist into her stomach to nurse her throbbing wound.

"Nora."

Nora indignantly scoffed. Her hand was throbbing so painfully that she swore her heartbeat was going to bust her wrist open.

"I'm still thinking about it!" She insisted and pushed away the nagging knowledge that she'd been procrastinating making a decision for the last three days.

Bonnie nearly had a conniption. "What is there to think about?! Leanne Midcroft literally handed you your dream on a silver platter and you're thinking about it?"

Nora swore her friend's eyes couldn't have grown to a larger size if God himself had physically forced them open.

"It's not that simple," She said, quieter now. Bonnie's gaze didn't soften.

"Enlighten me, then."

Nora's stomach tightened.

"I can't just leave, Bonnie," She began hesitantly, "my parents... I mean they've done everything for me. I couldn't just up and leave them, especially not with my aunt and the way she is. It's almost-"

"If you say selfish, I'll slap you into Merlin's asshole."

Nora rolled her eyes. There was nothing she could say to make Bonnie understand.

"It feels selfish."

Bonnie's gaze finally vanquished some of its ferocity.

"Bloody hell, so what?" Bonnie demanded with slightly less aggression. "You should be selfish. Gertrude's been dragging you through her teenage glory days for nineteen years. Do you even know how to make a decision?"

"Yes, you prat," Nora spat, the alcohol in her system deepening the wound of her friend's words.

The influence seemed to affect Bonnie just as well. She leaned across the table ever so slightly and caught Nora's eyes so sincerely it had Nora glued to her seat.

"Make one, then."

      The discomfort at the entire situation brewing in Nora's stomach grew to unbearable proportions, and before she could stop herself, she snatched a shot of firewhiskey and tipped the glass down her throat.

A laugh erupted from the back of Bonnie's throat as she watched Nora, whose years of experience taking shots could have fit into the palm of her hand, struggle to maintain her stature as the flames of firewhiskey burned her throat raw.

Nora opened her mouth to tell Bonnie to piss off, but the effect of the whiskey on her mouth made even the smallest word fall flat. Settling for a disgruntled glare across the table, Nora crossed her arms and looked around the room for something to bristle about.

Her eyes glided over the hurried servers, the table full of men who mostly certainly weren't going to be apparating home tonight, the television, the fly on an empty plate at the table beside them... then snapped back to the television. She couldn't have stopped her jaw from falling open if she'd tried.

Moving across the screen, dressed in red and black robes, hair swept back so perfectly that Nora thought she might puke, was Viktor Krum. With her eyes glued to the television, Nora watched as the frame panned from Krum to the interviewer Nora had heard hundreds of times on old Quidditch interview tapes her mum had stashed for her as a child.

Krum rustled in his seat as though mildly uncomfortable as the interviewer finally looked at him and began the interrogation. The only way Nora was able to know what she said was because of the small line of words that danced along the bottom of the screen. It was only then that she realized this must have been his pre-World Cup Interview. No fucking way.

"You're an international heartthrob. Tell us, do you have anyone special?"

The woman's smile was so obnoxious it made Nora's stomach churn. She wasn't sure why she'd suddenly developed a dislike for this woman, only that the way she looked at Krum (as though he were a piece of meat) made her nauseous. Nora's final straw was the small strand of hair that fell effortlessly across Krum's forehead as he opened his mouth to answer the question. Nora tore her eyes away from the screen and back to Bonnie, who had turned in her seat to see what had so intently captured her friend's attention.

Nora scoffed. "Good Merlin, he's an international Quidditch star not a member of bloody NSYNC. Nobody wants to hear about his love life."

Bonnie's eyebrows flew skyward. "Yeah, if they've been living beneath a rock. Everyone, their mother and the goat down the street wants to hear about his love life. Not everyone likes Quidditch for the game."

Nora scowled and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Oh, whatever. He's not even that good looking," She insisted and took immense joy in the shocked expression that immediately clouded Bonnie's features.

"Please. He could halfway look in your direction and you'd be on the floor," Bonnie countered.

Nora pursed her lips and definitively shook her head. "Absolutely not."

Cocking an eyebrow, Bonnie snorted.

"Not even if he smiled?" She asked, batting her lashes dramatically. Nora scrunched her nose in disgust.

"Nope."

"You wanna bet on that?"

Bonnie grinned mischievously. Nora stared at her with such an intensity it would have buckled any other person.

"How much are we talking?" Nora played along, tilting her head to the side.

Clicking her tongue in thought, Bonnie leaned forward on her elbows.

"Twenty galleons," She said at last, and watched Nora's expression carefully in an attempt to catch a glimpse of her friend caving, but she found no such thing. If anything, Nora's resolve had simply hardened.

"Done. That'll pay for half the broomstick I saw the other day in Diagon Alley," Nora declared, falling against the back of her seat firmly.

Bonnie laughed disbelievingly and couldn't stop the smile from easing its way onto her lips. This was going to be fun.

"In your dreams," the Taylor girl proclaimed.

Then, her eyes found Nora's.

"So does that mean you're filling out the application?"

....

It had been two weeks, and nothing.

The resident anxious pit in Nora's stomach had grown to gain her affection as without it, her body felt hollow and useless, almost like an empty shell. The hinges on her letterbox had grown rusty and now creaked each time it was opened (she was going to fix it...), and she and the regular postroom worker at the Ministry had become great friends (she'd stopped by at least three times a day for the last two weeks) and Nora was sure they'd have tea together soon.

The secret of Nora's fantastical offer had remained just that; the only people in her life who knew about it were Bonnie and Leanne, and that was enough for Nora. It had grown so wearisome that she had resorted to scheduling her lunch break at a different time than Bonnie's, and one day, she had fully ducked into the men's lavatory to avoid an approaching Leanne Midcroft. All in all, the idea of her potential addition to Viktor Krum's managerial staff was consuming so much of her life that Nora couldn't help but wonder what her life would be like if she were offered the position.

The true feat had been keeping all of it from her Aunt Gertrude. Twice a week since she'd graduated from Hogwarts, Nora retrieved her aunt's mail from her letterbox at the post office on the other side of London. It had once perplexed Nora due to her aunt's disdain for anything remotely muggle-like, but her aunt's hatred for owls (and animals in general, really) had been revealed as the reasoning behind it. Luckily for Nora, her aunt had not been home the majority of the times she'd stopped by to leave the mail as of late, and when she had briefly seen Gertrude, she had, as per usual, kept conversation substantially superficial.

Secretly, the most difficult part was hiding the situation from Nora's parents. Her mum, a squib, and her dad, a muggle, had no access to the magical aspects of Nora's life except through Gertrude, and even that was substantially limited as Nora's aunt did her best to avoid contact with them. Nora's mum understood aspects of it because of her childhood spent within the magical world, including Gertrude's schooling and Nora's magical grandparents.

Her dad, however, didn't understand any of it, and quite frankly, he had no interest in anything that didn't involve Nora. Gertrude had left a sour taste in his mouth about the wizarding community, and Nora couldn't blame him. The woman had a nasty habit of not knowing when too much was too much, and it didn't help that she was unable to talk about anything but herself.

Now, as Nora sat at the kitchen table in her childhood home, she found that the best way to keep the gut-wrenching bit at bay was to throw her attention into whatever issue her father was discussing (rather... yelling) over breakfast that morning even if she could hardly pay attention over the racket of her internal turmoil.

"... and after I told Jeremy to bake five batches instead of three, you wanna know what he did? The twit went and baked three. Three! I'm at the fuckin' cafe across town getting myself a nice americano as I should be able to do - all I ever do is work! - and Rose busts the door down all red faced and puffy - you know how she gets-"

The sharp turn in her father's voice signified to Nora that he'd turned toward her, and she offered a small lift of her eyebrows to show her acknowledgement; she had never met Rose, whoever she was, in her life.

"- and she's going on about how we're out of cranberry scones and how Jeremy didn't bake enough, so I have to leave my beautiful steaming americano on the counter - hadn't even paid for it yet - and go down to the bakery and bust Jeremy's ass because the customers are pissed and yelling about who knows what. And y'know, I don't blame 'em because if Jeremy had paid any fucking attention, we wouldn't have had a problem in the first place!"

Frankie Cleary owned a bakery, Sivvy's Bread & Butter, in Greenwich; he'd bought the empty shop only weeks after he and Nora's mum had married without telling her mum about the purchase. When Siobhan had learned of it, she'd been furious, and to make up for it, Frankie had named the bakery after her - or the nickname he so affectionately called her.

Nora's fingers curled around her warm coffee mug and she watched her dad's stressed expression twist as he took a hard, angry sip of his black coffee. Footsteps sounded, signaling the presence of Nora's mother as she rounded the kitchen counter with a tray of toast and bacon perched in her fingertips. The moment Siobhan had placed the tray on the tabletop, Nora's dad snatched a strip of bacon and nearly swallowed it whole. Nora and her mum made weary eye contact before Siobhan took a seat beside her husband.

"Isn't that the second time you've had issues with Jeremy?" Siobhan asked as she fixed her plate of toast and bacon.

Frankie nodded stoutly. "Gotta be the millionth time."

"Why not fire him?" Nora spoke up, trying to bring some kind of logic into the situation. Her dad snorted.

"Tried. He came back the next day like nothing ever happened."

Nora grimaced. "Well, then."

Her dad merely grunted in response.

Silence fell over the trio as they dug into the breakfast in front of them with their only companions being the birds chirping their early morning songs. Nora didn't often stay the night at her childhood home. Her parents lived only seven miles away from her own flat, but with her work schedule and Aunt Gertrude breathing down her neck, she hardly had energy to cook dinner for herself, nevermind make a trip across town. This particular occurrence was due to her mum's persistent letters detailing how long it had been since Nora had graced her parents with her presence.

Siobhan finished swallowing the toast she'd bitten into before turning to face Nora.

"So," She began, and Nora, mid-chew, froze, before quickly clearing her throat of bacon. "Tell us about work."

Without permission, Nora's heartbeat quickened. She swallowed thickly.

"...Work."

Her mouth opened, then closed, and she made every attempt to steel her tongue.

"Speaking of," Frankie interjected suddenly, interrupting Nora's internal efforts to hold herself together. "Keith down at the bakery hand to god swears he saw a shoe walking by itself in front of that telephone booth - y'know the one your people use - and I told him to get his eyes checked, but you gotta be careful, Nora. People are starting to believe this stuff these d-"

"I-" The outburst exploded from her mouth like a time bomb that could wait no longer, and Nora winced. Her parents both watched her intently in surprise; worry traced Siobhan's brow as she observed her daughter squirm beneath her gaze.

"Sorry. I'll-I'll be careful, dad, but uhm... I... appliedforamanagerialpositiononViktorKrum's quidditchstaffinBulgaria."

Nora's lips tightened together, and the anxious pit in her stomach nearly engulfed the house around her; and then...it felt as though the pit had simply unraveled and fluttered away like a million butterflies, and all that remained was complete and utter relief. She nearly laughed at the sensation.

"What?" Siobhan asked, her brows furrowed in confusion.

"I... applied for a managerial position on Viktor Krum's quidditch staff in Bulgaria."

"The Bulgarian team competes in the Quidditch World Cup in a few weeks. They're like... the magical version of the Shamrock Rovers," Nora elaborated, upon seeing her parents' perplexed expressions. Frankie harrumphed in understanding at the mention of his favored football team.

"It's a full-time position and it would require me to relocate," She continued. Her gaze drifted towards Siobhan, who held her eyes as though a magnet hovered in the air between them.

"Isn't quidditch that game where those muscled-up guys play with the balls on brooms–?" Frankie asked and successfully broke the intense eye contact between the two women.

Siobhan chuckled with a sigh."Girls can play too, Fran-"

"Aye, aye, but isn't that-"

"Yes, it's the game where those muscled-up guys play with... balls on broomsticks," Nora answered, her left eye twitching slightly as she did her best to keep a straight face.

"Ah, knew that was the one," Frankie declared with a grin.

"But I don't have to go," Nora continued quickly, her heart pounding. "I'd be thousands of miles away."

Her father harrumphed. "What the shit are you on about? Of course you have to go."

Nora's brows drew together, and she began to shake her head. "Dad–"

"Well, do you want to?" He asked, leaning forward.

Her stomach contracted again. As though the question had to be asked. As though she hadn't dreamed of an opportunity like this her entire life. Of course, she wanted to, without a doubt. And yet...

"Well, I mean, yes, but I can't just leave you both here."

It was Siobhan's turn to interject. She nodded her head fervently. "Oh yes, you can, and you will."

Nora sighed deeply, regret twinging her heart. Her mum reached across the tabletop and took her hand gently, forcing Nora's eyes to drift up and meet hers.

"Nora, all you've ever known has been the four walls of a building - Hogwarts, the ministry, your Aunt's..." Siobhan trailed off, and her eyes clouded momentarily before she appeared to shake the thoughts that ailed her. "You should go. Experience something new. Hell, learn to ride a broomstick!"

Her mum paused, and a sadness entered her expression at her own words. "I never could. So, if won't do it for yourself, do it for me."

Nora's throat was surely a desert; her airway felt constricted, and she struggled to control her body as it nearly trembled beneath her mother's watchful eye. This is everything you want, a voice whispered. Then, You can't - another voice. She had a right idea of whose voice it was - the same voice that had occupied her for nearly eighteen years, and oh, how ready she was to break free. Yet, despite it all, the idea of leaving her parents thousands of miles away made her feel sick with guilt.

"Another opportunity would arise, and I just- I couldn't live with myself if I up and abandoned you." Nora felt her voice weaken and crack before she heard it do so.

Siobhan and Frankie, almost as if divinely connected, shook their heads in unison as if she'd proposed the most preposterous thing they'd ever heard.

"That's nonsense and you know it, Nora," Frankie declared roughly before he looked upon his daughter gently. "We are adults, and we've lived. The things we've seen and experienced - it would be cruel of us to refuse you your turn to do the same. Also, you have magic, and that's pretty damn cool, so you'd better use it."

Nora snorted softly. Then, she inhaled deeply for what seemed like the millionth time, and it suddenly irritated her that the air never seemed to reach the depths of her lungs when she commanded it to.

"I haven't heard back, yet. This is all still hypothetical."

Frankie laughed softly before reaching for her other hand and patted the back of it. "Then, hypothetically, you should go home and start packing, because they'd have to be the biggest pack of fools to pass on Nora Cleary."

Nora nearly laughed. Then, she nearly cried. All she could muster was a smile so wide it nearly hurt. A thought waded to the front of her mind, and her eyes lit up.

"Oh — I can't take Bagel, either-" She said suddenly.

Siobhan released a hearty chuckle."Bring the lad to us! We'll have a grand time. I assume he still likes bagels?"

Nora laughed. "I don't believe he'll ever give them up."

"Brilliant."

As their laughter mellowed, Nora straightened in her seat and flipped both of her hands over to link them with her parents' hands.

"I really want this." Her sentence caught in her throat.

Siobhan squeezed her daughter's hand. "Then go get it. And write to us, for God's sake. I must hear all about the guys and their balls."

author's note.

yay! guys & their balls!

frankie cleary is my proudest creation
thank u & goodnight. the hundreds
messages between clinquaant and I planning
his character should actually be criminal 🫣
(& a special shout-out to katie for the inspo
push I needed to post this chap, ily)

thank you for reading!