From: babalon	Date: January 15th, 2011 04:42 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Now at the door, Emilie opened it a crack, hoping she could keep him at bay with it somehow. He was dressed like he always was; button-up shirt, pressed slacks, Italian leather shoes... even on a day off with the family. She supposed that the lack of a blazer made it casual.

"Green again, Emilie?" Thomas raised an eyebrow at his daughter, looking rather unimpressed. "You know how your mother feels about the hair."

"Dad," She stared to argue, a scowl quick to form on her face. Emilie scoffed in frustration. It was no use to argue with him, he would always win. She learned from the best, but he would always be a little bit better.

After a couple of quick words in Latin, and a ruffle of her fingers through her hair-- she was back to her natural straw-blonde.

"Hey, cool." Her dad grinned, "That's a neat trick. Why don't you teach me how to do that sometime?" He joked.

"Why? You want to go blue on weekends?" Emilie smirked, and they both laughed. It was almost a perfectly normal family moment. Hallmark-worthy. That was until Thomas's smile dropped into a scowl. It was not unlike Emilie's, though her father's was more practiced, colder, worn.

"So where is he?" Thomas's voice grew as cold as the expression on his face.

"Where is who, Dad?" Emilie blinked at him, making a face as if he were asking something ridiculous and she didn't indeed have Ciaran stashed away in the closet.

"Don't lie to me, young lady." He pushed open the door and started to look around the room.

	From: cantspell	Date: January 15th, 2011 11:15 pm (UTC)		(Link)

His wand was somewhere in Emilie's room. Ciaran had been sure that he'd put it in his back pocket when he was getting dressed, but it wasn't there now so it must've fallen out. It certainly wasn't here with him, so that was the only place it could be.

If there was a god, his wand would have rolled under her bed. Not that Ciaran believed in said god, but his mother did and that had to count for something, didn't it?

He could hear the exchange of voices by the bedroom door, how the talking became laughter which became more serious talking. Not good. It occurred to Ciaran in this moment that he was standing in a room (that wasn't really a room) where the only escape was a door which would guarantee him a face to face meeting with Emilie's father; basically, was a coffin.

A coffin that smelt of rubber and talcum powder, but still a coffin in the sense that it was a box meant for a dead man.

He could only hope that Emilie's dad was terrible at hide and seek.

	From: babalon	Date: January 16th, 2011 12:17 am (UTC)		(Link)

Emilie watched helplessly from the door. She briefly considered hexing him, but it was something akin to pulling a gun on her dad. Something about it didn't sit quite right with her.

"See?" She insisted, still trying to feign innocence. What else could she do? Admit to the strange boy in her closet? He wasn't her boyfriend, she had no real obligation, but there was no real guarantee how her dad would react and… she did sorta liked Ciaran enough to not want terrible things to happen to him. "Nobody here but me."

"Not done looking," Thomas responded gruffly, flipping the mattress over to check under the bed.

"Dad!" Emilie almost yelled. "There is nobody here. Can you stop fucking with my shit now?"

"Watch your mouth," Thomas snapped back, glancing back to his daughter only for a moment. Something on the floor next to her bed had caught his eye. "What's this?"

He reached down to the floor and picked up a thin, light wand. Completely the opposite coloring of Emilie's.

"It's a wand," Emilie replied as if he were retarded. "What does it look like?"

"It doesn't look like yours," Thomas smiled at her. He knew. He knew just like she knew.

"I have two."

"No, you don't." Thomas was chuckling now, pointing at Emilie like she had just told him a good joke. "It looks a bit longer than yours," He noted, holding it as if he were testing the balance of a sword. "He tall, then?"

Emilie opened her mouth to say something, shutting it immediately. How did he? …Her mother was filling him in on the wizard world, no doubt. She scowled. Of course she was telling him about wizards. It fucking figured. Twelve years of silence, and now she was telling him goddamn everything.

"Oh, so he is?" Thomas grinned, nodding before raising his voice just a little bit louder. "You can come out now, son."

	From: cantspell	Date: January 16th, 2011 12:57 am (UTC)		(Link)

Busted.

Even though he'd phrased it in a polite way, Ciaran was well aware that what Emilie's dad had actually meant was more along the lines of get out or I will drag you out.

And as much as he would've liked to stay as far away from Emilie's dad as possible, he knew that compliance was a far lesser evil than rebellion when it concerned a girl's dad.

Ciaran opened the closet door and stepped into Emilie's room again. He glanced briefly at Emilie...who was blonde now, before turning his attention to her father. "Hello...sir."

	From: babalon	Date: January 16th, 2011 11:19 pm (UTC)		(Link)

"Nice of you to finally join us," Her father replied, still grinning; though that grin seemed anything but friendly.

Emilie watched their interaction cautiously. "Dad, leave him alone."

"Now, Emilie. We're just talking." Thomas crossed the room, eyeing Ciaran as he got closer. The teenager had a few inches on him as far as height was concerned, but Thomas Devlin was not a small man. Older he may have been, but he wasn't frail.

"Thomas Devlin," He introduced himself, offering his free hand to shake. In the other, Ciaran's wand remained balled up in his fist like an unsheathed knife, the tip pointed at the ceiling.

"What's your name, son?"

	From: cantspell	Date: January 16th, 2011 11:41 pm (UTC)		(Link)

They were just talking, were they? Well that was news to Ciaran. He was sure he'd just been ordered out of a closet and was now being forced into conversation by a man looked like he'd much prefer to strangle Ciaran than have a little chat.

At least he had societal convention on his side. For now.

"Ciaran Stoyanov," he replied shaking the man's hand. Ciaran's eyes flicked across to Thomas' other hand. That...was his wand. His brow creased just slightly at the way the older man was holding it. That wasn't how a wizard gripped a wand, either his own or someone else's. Even if you wanted to hex someone into the ground, that was...that was all wrong.

Emilie's dad was a muggle then? Hopefully he woudln't damage it; muggles could be pretty hamfisted with magical items.

"I was looking for that," Ciaran said. "It must've fallen out of my pocket."

	From: babalon	Date: January 17th, 2011 12:57 am (UTC)		(Link)

"Oh this?" Thomas asked, holding the wand to the side to take a better look at it, though he only glanced at it for a moment.

"How rude of me." His smile dropped, and he made no move to return the wand to its rightful owner. " I suppose you'll be wanting it back then? ...But you see, Ciaran. I'm not so sure I can do that."

"Dad," Emilie protested again, but Thomas spoke over her.

"By coming into my home unannounced-- without my permission, you have disrespected me, you have disrespected my daughter, and you have broken the law. Why should I extend common courtesy when you refuse to do the same?"

	From: cantspell	Date: January 17th, 2011 01:48 am (UTC)		(Link)

Yeah, definitely a muggle. Ciaran shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the wand in Emilie's father's hand. "Accio."

The wand tremored and fought against the fingers wrapped around it, determined to return to its owner.

Handing it back would've been easier, but clearly that would've fucked with Mr Devlin's plans to go all Godfather on him, wouldn't it?

Fuck it, he wasn't taking shit like that.

"Emilie invited me in. I didn't disrespect her and I didn't disrespect you, but if people can only get into this place by your permission then maybe you shouldn't let your daughter have friends."

Ciaran tilted his chin up, looking down at Mr Devlin. "And I haven't broken the law."

	From: babalon	Date: January 17th, 2011 02:44 am (UTC)		(Link)

Thomas's eyes narrowed and his jaw set into a scowl that Emilie recognized as quite similar to her own.

As if things couldn't get any worse. Emilie realized she didn't know Ciaran well enough to know if he wasn't about to actually do something intensely stupid. She knew her dad well enough to know that, yes, he probably was. As soon as the wand touched Ciaran's hand, Emilie's own wand was drawn.

She hadn't even noticed the footsteps thundering down the hall before her mother's voice rang out from behind her.

"Just what the hell do you think you are all doing?" Samantha Devlin commanded from the doorway, her blonde hair whipping into her eyes from the momentum of the hallway run.

Fucking great, the queen bitch has arrived.

	From: cantspell	Date: January 17th, 2011 03:10 am (UTC)		(Link)

Ciaran turned to face the person who'd spoken and...woah. That was Emilie's mother?! She was...well...Ciaran's mother certainly didn't look like that. Not that he'd really want her to because that would be weird, but...fuck. She had to have been a teenager when she had Emilie; either that or she was aging really, really well.

He slipped his wand into his back pocket. Not ideal, but he could move it again later. The main objective was to not look like he was about to use magic on a muggle...which he wasn't...but maybe it didn't look that way to an outsider.

"I...think I was just leaving," Ciaran muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets.