Randomalia

Copyright & Credit: Suse Hammond-Pears (Sylvie)
Copyright & Credit: Sarah Watkins (Anders)

[The Guild of Curse Breakers and Trap Springers Building, London. December 1997]

Internal Memorandum

To: Sylvie Redfearn
From: Bill Weasley
Date: 10 December 1997
Re: Review Meeting

Sylvie

I would be very grateful if you could attend a meeting with me in my office
on 11 December 1997 at 9.00am to review the status of your position.

I look forward to seeing you then.

B. Weasley
President

This was the memo that swooped into Anders and Sylvie’s tiny office that morning, folded neatly into the shape of a paper aeroplane and enchanted to get to its destination. Like the Ministry of Magic, Bill had advocated the use of this method inside the building instead of owls which were, when all was said and done, filthy creatures.

Anders had not been in the office that week: he was presently somewhere in Eastern Europe, attempting a Break on a sarcophagus that had been found. He was due back in the next day or two, however.

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Copyright & Credit: Suse Hammond-Pears (Sylvie)
Copyright & Credit: Sarah Watkins (Anders)

The Grimalkin family home had been a poorly-maintained terrace in the Welsh valleys, until Anders had started making money. Then he’d bought an old farmhouse, paid for it to be done up and settled his mother into it. It was in a beautiful spot, overlooking a lake, and it was onto that hillside that Sylvie and Anders popped into existence.

He was shaking like a leaf and was so white she thought for a moment he was going to faint.

He was a lot taller than her, but she had grown up learning to wrestle broomsticks, hold down bludgers and swing a Beating club with wild abandon. When she got her arm around him, there was no doubt that she could steady him.

“Anders.”

As if in a daze, he looked down at her and slowly began to compose himself. He breathed deeply and gradually, some of the colour came back into his cheeks. “I’m…scared,” he said, eventually. “She’s only forty one years old, Sylvie, and she looked about seventy the last time I saw her.”

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Copyright & Credit: Suse Hammond-Pears (Sylvie)
Copyright & Credit: Sarah Watkins (Anders)

[December 2]

By 10.00am, Anders still hadn’t surfaced.

Calmly, as if this was something she did for her boss every morning, Sylvie took up a breakfast tray.

She wasn’t at all surprised to discover that his lack of presence down at the breakfast table was not due to him sleeping, but rather him having his nose buried in a book at the desk in his bedroom.

Anders’ bedroom was more or less identical to his office. Papers, books, scrolls, bits of wood and stone everywhere. He was at the desk, his glasses and hat in place (she rather suspected he’d not actually removed them), wearing a pair of black jeans and an orange Chudley Cannons t-shirt. He was well and truly absorbed.

One moment he was staring at a complex list of instructions written in some obscure dialect, the next his vision was interrupted by a plate of bacon, fried egg, some black pudding and toast as Sylvie put the tray without warning right on top of what he was looking at.

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Copyright & Credit: Suse Hammond-Pears (Sylvie)
Copyright & Credit: Sarah Watkins (Anders)

[Timestamp: December 16 1997 - just before Anders’ 25th birthday on 17th]

Since the visit of Sylvie’s friend Greg, Astrid Grimalkin had picked up remarkably well, and by mid-November, Anders was back at work. The day he returned, Bill Weasley pulled him in and gave him the most stern talking-to Anders could ever remember having been given. It actually left him in tears.

By the end of November, Anders was brighter and more alert than any of his colleagues could ever remember seeing him. As his mother improved, so did he. Under Sylvie’s watchful eye, he began to learn to take a step back from time to time and even diaried out a day off a month. Sylvie had tried to get him to commit to a day off a week - but fairy steps were better than no steps.

It was now December, and he was back in his (very nicely organised) office. He was actually singing softly to himself as he worked. The Eyeglasses and Hat were still a more or less permanent fixture. Nothing Sylvie said would make him part with them.

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Copyright & Credit: Sarah Watkins (Anders)

After a decent meal had been thrust down his throat by Tom the barman, Anders headed out to the Guild. By now, it was very late and there were only one or two die-hards like himself still working. He responded to their murmured greetings with murmured greetings of his own and made his way to his small office.

?Alohomora,? he said, pointing his wand at the door which sprang open. He reached forward with his wand and pushed it forwards a little, into the door space. Immediately, a spark of blue light caused him to withdraw quickly. Good. Sylvie had remembered to put the extra security up. He flicked his wand again and confidently strode into the room. He didn?t fry to a crisp.

(Which he wouldn?t have done anyway: it was based on a simple Repel charm and would merely have succeeded in sending an intruder flying several feet in the opposite direction).

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