Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.

[baedalites]

Who: EVERYONE.
What: Swap meet.
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Sukkardi the 14th of Haneden
Notes:

• Swap Meet Spreadsheet: Pre-chosen swaps are green. Assigned are blue. There were a few characters that were selected more than once, so objects were assigned on a first-come first-serve basis. If you have any issues or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the mod team.
• For objects that might not be immediately apparent as belonging to their owners, there may be a picture or name attached, or players are welcome to have their characters ~just know~ it's for them. Drr drr drr, bb.
• Party post nights are a great time to come join the chatroom.
• The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread.

Warnings: None yet. Please put warnings up on individual threads.

The Apache is much the same as it always is: dimly lit, with the jukebox playing in the background, and the bartender serving whatever's on tap.

Comments

[leviohhhhsa]

She hears the cane and the footsteps before he speaks, and it's enough. Horribly.

Her hand is already inside her magically-expanded clutch, fingers against the wood of her wand, when she turns to face him- she reminds herself that he was pardoned, that he's a coward, disgraced and dismissed from society, that he's no threat to her. She also reminds herself that things are not as they were at home, and that his wand is in the handle of that ridiculous cane.

It's strange; she keeps running into people who once terrified her, and still do, but in new ways. Snape. Bellatrix. And now Lucius Malfoy.

But she's not seventeen and trembling anymore-

"Not long enough. For either of us, I should think."

-though her mouth is still prone to getting her into trouble. (Except it isn't rude if she's acknowledged that this dislike- to put it mildly- is mutual, right?) She tilts her chin up as haughtily as she can, though she's distracted; listening for the sounds of anyone he might have brought with him (would Lucius Malfoy attack alone when he must have Bellatrix on his side?) and thinking about where she'll Apparate to if she has to.

"What do you want?" she inquires, crisply and determinedly sharp, though it comes off as rather prissy.

(She's thinking about that bloody chandelier in his bloody drawing room, staring up at it over Bellatrix's shoulder and wondering if she was going to die).

[amourpropre]

She is a touch older, incongruous, Lucius thinks, when he was taken from his home, if not as much as Potter. He never did ask if his alternate had made a habit of befriending every future enemy he had, but it's a passing thought. He doesn't know that much about her and had never attempted to. Which doesn't stop him from being curious now.

About something specific, granted. If she is rude, it's-- well, expected, frankly. Lucius isn't going to pretend anything different.

He does answer her, but in his own way and on his own time. "From what I could make of Draco's various assessments of your person--" he starts, shifting the book out from under his arm to grip. It's heavy, his arm tense beneath the weight of it. "--you were, perhaps are, a bookish girl. But I wonder what someone like you would require of a book like this." The haughty look down his nose would probably work better without the bruised split across the bridge of it.

[leviohhhhsa]

She bristles at the mention of Draco, standing up even straighter with her chin lifted even higher, lofty and haughty- and then has to deflate slightly when she sees what he's holding.

Two things. One: the gods are cruel. Two: what is that?

Her eyes are glinting, but with worry, not excitement. She'd rather like to point out that the last time he gave anybody a book she ended up Petrified- but silly snarking suddenly seems like a bad idea. She just wants to go. Immediately.

That book doesn't look like something she wants.

"A book like what," she says, too flatly for a question mark, suspicion making her businesslike.

[amourpropre]

"A book of dark magic," Lucius says, dragging a few steps closer if only in a way to command the space they share. He is a relatively tall man, even if casting a shadow over twelve-year-olds is significantly easier than doing the same to someone of Hermione's age. "I shouldn't want to deny you its contents, of course; I'm an advocate of education."

The book is held out between them, balanced on his palm.

It's the kind of thing he might, admittedly, keep for himself, but he's contented himself with a brisk page through, not exactly lacking in this department.