Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE: Welcome to England, Simon Cross
Simon Cross ran his finger down the worn edge of the envelope in his pocket. He contemplated taking it out, to check it one last time, but after twenty-odd readings in the last twenty-four hours, he doubted that the information had changed much. Still, in a world of magic and wizards and magical contracts that were written by wizards (some of whom had a rather sketchy view of honoring said contracts) there was every chance that the words had changed since the last time he had saw them. It was probably best to…
“Next!”
Simon hastily pulled his hand out of his pocket and walk up to the counter under the tacked up sign reading:
FLOO DEPARTURES (INTERNATIONAL (NORTHERN HEMISPHERE (THAT MEANS NOT AUSTRALIA (WE MEAN IT, IF YOU WANT TO GO TO AUSTRALIA GET IN THE OTHER BLOODY LINE (AUSTRIA IS FINE (WE CAN GET YOU TO AUSTRIA (JUST NOT AUSTRALIA (YES, AUSTRALIA IS THE ONE WITH THE KANGAROOS))))))).
The sign was falling apart in places, and it had grown so long that the last half had to be stuck to the wall running alongside the counter. Someone had drawn a picture of a happy, hopping kangaroo holding an Austrian flag down at the end. That had kept him entertained for all of fifteen minutes while he had been waiting.
But he had been waiting in line for the last two hours, he had no desire to be waiting any longer. He muttered a tired hello at the witch, hoping to move this along as quickly as possible. The witch at the counter didn’t even bother to look up, from the list she was holding, just waved her wand at sheet of paper suspended above the counter, facing out towards Simon.
“State your name and destination, then touch your wand to the parchment,” she said by rote, still not looking up or seeming to care what Simon was doing as long as he was following her directions.
Simon withdrew his wand and said, “Simon Cross; London, England.” He tapped his wand at the bottom of the paper.
He watched as ink bled onto the paper filling in the blank space with information.
NAME: SIMON ARTHUR CROSS
BORN: NOVEMBER 2, 1989
DIED: NOT YET
CITIZENSHIP: DUAL--BRITISH (BY BIRTH THROUGH MOTHER--DECEASED (FATHER UNKNOWN--PROBABLY A NO-GOOD POTIONS ADDICT)) AND AMERICAN (OBTAINED 1996 THROUGH GUARDIANSHIP OF UNCLE--WHO REALLY OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN SAINTED FOR TAKING IN SUCH A TROUBLESOME CHILD (REALLY WOULD IT HAVE KILLED YOU TO PICK UP YOUR SOCKS ONCE AND A WHILE? HE IS NOT YOUR HOUSE ELF, YOU KNOW))
LEAVING: SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FLOO STATION; SEATTLE, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ARRIVING: LONDON INTERNATIONAL FLOO STATION; LONDON, ENGLAND
REASON FOR TRAVEL: DESPERATELY TRYING TO ATTAIN DEFENSE MASTERY BY PROVING HIS IS NOT IN FACT A COMPLETE IDIOT. ALSO--BUSINESS.
RETURN DATE: UNKNOWN
APPROVAL: …
The ink was starting to cause a bit of a mess down at the bottom, were his APPROVAL was still pending. The dots started to get bigger and ink dripped down from two of them. Simon looked over at the witch, who was staring unblinking at the scroll in her hand. When Simon cleared his throat, trying to get her attention, the witch snorted and jerked her head up, shaking it like she was trying to clear her head. He cleared his throat again.
“What?” she snapped.
“The, um…” Simon pointed to the bottom of the paper. She glared at him. He tried smiling apologetically. “I’m on a bit of a tight schedule.”
She didn’t stop glaring, though the tips of her ears flushed pink at being caught out. “It takes as much time as it takes. Can’t rush these type of things.” The witch sniffed pointedly. “Security, you know.”
Afternoon naps, more like.
“Sure, sure,” Simon said. “But perhaps you could check that the security is now secure and I could keep my appointment?” And then you can go back to your nap, he didn’t say; he wasn’t stupid.
The witch pointedly spent a minute clearing her already clear desk before she waved her wand over the scroll in her hands. She hmmm’d thoughtfully for another couple of moments then reluctantly tapped the paper three times.
The floating parchment in front of Simon flashed green once and the ink-stained area under APPROVAL filled, finally.
Simon glared at the witch when he read it.
APPROVAL: APPROVED FOR TRAVEL (BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE); TRAVEL TIME 2:45 (TRAVEL TIMES CANNOT BE CHANGED, MOVED, OR SHUFFLED. IF YOU MISS YOUR LEAVE TIME YOU WILL HAVE TO ATTAIN A NEW ONE (NEXT OPEN SLOT IS NEXT TUESDAY (YOU BETTER HURRY))
HAVE A GOOD DAY, PLEASE COME AGAIN
The clock on the wall read 2:43.
Muttering a few well earned curses at the witch, Simon grabbed the paper and hurried to the departure room. Just as he passed under the sign marked DEPARTURES (NON-KANGAROO), he heard the witch’s snarky, “Next!”
He hadn’t been in England since he was eleven, but he suddenly felt a distinct longing for the far-off country. Or maybe just a desire to be as far as humanly possible from here. Either way, it was where he was going and now there was no going back.
As the green fire flashed around him, he found himself really smiling for the first time all day.
*****
His small room, above the bar of the Leaky Cauldron, was rather dreary. Even if he had replaced the dark wood boarding, the dilapidated wallpaper--with no fewer than two and a half dozen dark stains of dubious origin--and the drooping window coverings, Simon doubted that much of the dreary would have been improved. The room had spent too much time dreary, too many witches and wizard had walked in this room, commented on said dreariness and had gone on contributing to the sad state, for there to ever be any real improvement. For all he knew, the room had started off as dark and dreary as it was when Simon first walked into it, and would go one being so until Time herself got fed up with the state of matters and caused the whole building to collapse upon itself, thereby improving the general mood of Diagon Alley by a whole seventy-third of a fraction.
Compared to the light and airy rooms at Applecross College, back home, Simon was feeling decidedly unwelcome and alone in his new, temporary room. But, luckily enough, they were in fact temporary, and he would only be there till the end of the week when he would be taking the floo to Hogsmeade. If his luck held out, he would then be moving into guest quarters in the school, and would never ever have to come back to these dreary rooms over this grimy pub again.
If that wasn’t incentive enough to make a good showing at his interview on Saturday, he didn’t know what was. Well, other than the fact that returning to Applecross having lost the rights to the Hogwarts contract--after five years of jumping through hoops of all shapes and sizes--would mean that there was not a doxy’s chance in hell of him finally attaining his Mastery. So...two reasons not to completely fuck up on Saturday.
But he wasn’t worried. No, not a bit. Because he knew he was the best for the job. Knew that his plans were better than all the other’s submitted. Knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the name Simon Cross was going to go down in history as the man who revolutionized the way defensive magic was used in the United Kingdom.
First, though, he was going to have to go get him some decent robes. Even from casual observance he could see that his wizard robes were not the thing here in England. They’d pass well among the wizards in the west-coast of America, but there was a certain reserve to the clothing here in England that he was not used to. Robes here were decidedly...old school. More restrictive, and certainly just more. Maybe it was the lack of sun. Applecross wasn’t in California, but neither was it Seattle. Simon had a feeling that he would be longing for blue-sky and days spent among his trees soon enough.
Applecross would never be the making of Simon Cross, though, for all that it did have a substantial part in molding him. There was nothing there for him to add. No improvements to show his talents to their full potential. He could learn there, teach there, but he would never shine there. Too many suns, he guessed.
Hogwarts, though. There, there he could blaze. And prove once and for all that he had been the correct choice for this position. And not just because his English birth gave the wizards here an excuse to include his proposition for updating the defense and shielding of the school's wards. Simon might have been born English, but he was raised a Cross. He had every intention of showing the world what a Cross could do.
*****
Four hours later, robes full of shrunken packages from various shops along the Alley, Simon found himself in the corner of a sparsely populated café enjoying a well deserved cup of coffee and a plate of several types of cookie. While his stops at Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop for some spare stationary, and Flourish and Blotts for a book or two to pass the time between now and Saturday, had been easily accomplished, his trip into Twilfitt and Tattings had been the stuff of nightmares. Well, Simon’s nightmares, anyways; he loathed shops--and shopkeepers--so snobbish that they saw even their very customers as below noticing. He would have never even gone there, but he had been assured that they had the very best, and the very best is what he needed. Too bad the service was so wanting.
First he had been sneered at by two rather pointed matrons--with necklines so severe it was lucky any blood was making it to their brains--before he had even stepped more than three feet into the shop. Then the man at the counter had taken one look at him and had gestured vaguely down the street, saying that Madam Malkin’s would be a much better fit for his type of custom. And even after Simon had made clear that, no, he would much rather shop here and wished to be shown their line of male business robes, the man spent the entire time subtly suggesting that their work was far out of Simon’s pocketbook--and class--and would he please stop wasting everyone’s time.
Simon, spiting his face something awful, took nearly three times as long to settle on a the cut, color, and lines of his new robes than what he would have preferred. In the end, Simon had spent more than he wished, the clerk had to endure his presence for longer than he could stand, and both had parted with barely mumbled cures to the other’s health.
He did now possess a new set of truly fine robes, though. He decided to call that a win.
Deciding that his boots would do alright with his new robes, Simon had cut his shopping short of visiting a cordwainer, and opted for refreshments instead.
So here he was, with coffee, a snack, and absolutely nowhere to go for the next three days. If he wished, he could spend that time going over his proposal, but to be honest he just didn’t have the energy or the inclination. Instead he retrieved one of the books he had purchased--an updated and newly published book on the history of the school he would soon be visiting--and settled further into his comfy chair to read.
England was turning out to be rather enjoyable, he thought, hours later. At least when one was not forced to be in the company of the English.