| Details for Sykes Day Out |
| Summary: | Katherine meets with Ria and Kaiden to get their opinions on the possibility of running a dueling tournament at Hogwarts. |
| Date: | 1939-02-01 |
| Location: | Harkiss' Candy, Hogsmeade |
| Related: | None. |
| Characters |
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Even with all the glee and joy that smothers Harkiss' in the form of color and children'slaughter, Ria stands starkly against her surroundings. It's Saturday and from the moment she met up with her twin in Entry Hall, she's been rather tense. It's written all over the furrowed brow on her face. "Kat said here," she says to her twin, looking about the store as she dusts off her sleeves. Out from beneath her winter coat, she's wearing a severe and business-like brown tweed dress that fits as tightly as her demeanor. And then she scowls at Kaiden tip-toeing to comb his hair with her fingers, "Fix your hair."
"How about you fix your face?" Kaiden says off-handedly as he goes about undoing all the work that his sister has done. He grumbles and says, "So, why are we supposed to be waiting for Katherine?" While waiting for an answer he'll go about inspecting one of the shelves.
Katherine pops out from behind one of the rows of shelves. Pulling a lime sugar quill out of her mouth, the quill's color actually nicely matched to the green dress she's wearing today, she smirks a little at the twins, "Feeling a little violent today, Kaiden?"
Ria pouts, and they're back to being 8 years old, ready to lovingly rumble with one another. "Why don't you fix your libid- Oh! Kat!" she's ready to snap back at her twin, had not her cousin interjected. Despite being more uptight than usual today, she still finds it in her to smile for her cousin. A kiss on each cheek and she says, "You look lovely. Come let's sit at the bar." And a hand goes on Kaiden's shoulder to guide her twin over with her for some malt.
"I'm always violent when Ria's involved," Kaiden grumbles toward his twin before offering a smile to Katherine along with a polite dip of the head. He moves to have a seat at the bar, his fingertips drumming along the surface of it, saying, "Soooo…what are we doing here?"
Katherine follows the twins over to the bar, crunching on her sugar quill as she goes so that its gone by the time they are all sitting down. "Well, order what you want, it's on me. And I know you two are getting a little old for candy to be exciting but make sure to grab a bag of stuff on the way out too. If nothing else it can make foe decent bribes later on." She answer Kaiden only after taking a moment to look at the menu and deciding she wants a strawberry milk-shake, "And we are here because I wanted your opinions on the possibility of running another dueling tournament this year at Hogwarts, with a similar format to what Auror bates used last year."
Oh the offer is made and Ria will take it, gladly. "Thanks Kat. Three Golden Dreams, please," Ria waves three fingers at the malt man, automatically ordering for all of them. After dropping a sickle or two on the bar top for the worker, she delicately beings to pull of her leather gloves. "Another tournament? I think that's an excellent idea. I've got a few scores that Hogwarts regulations prevent me from settling. Will you be running it this time?" Ah! There's a speck of dust on Kaiden's shoulder. She immediately goes to wipe it off with a handkerchief.
"I can't imagine it would be a bad idea," Kaiden says as he bats Ria's hand away with another grumble. He eyes his twin for a moment and looks back to Katherine, continuing, "I'd definitely be interested in doing something like that. Didn't have a chance to, last year."
Katherine's smirk widens a bit at the twin's interplay, then she leans over to stage whisper at Ria, "He's a boy, you're being too fussy for him." Then she pushes Ria's money back along the counter top at her before putting out the necessary amount to pay for their order and give the server a healthy tip, "I'm paying today. Stop it. And yes, I would be the one running it. So, if you think its a good idea the next thing I wanted you to tell me was your ideas on things that could have been done better that can be fixed this time around?"
Ria acks as her hand is swatted away. "Am not! I've been doing this for years," she explains to Kat, but what's that she sees? Tinted lip salve on Kaiden's collar. Frowning she tries to scratch it away with her thumb nail. "Kaiden, if you're going to whore about, at least mind your clothes," she frowns. Ria does ponder over her cousin's question however. "It was all run pretty smoothly, only I found it somewhat dull going against the younger years during the earlier rounds. Perhaps it would be best if we divided competition based on groups of years."
The three golden dreams are delivered - Chocolate malts the color of liquid gold served with gem-like sprinkles mixed in, rubies, sapphires, emeralds. A thick red straw sticks out.
"I didn't really pay all that much attention to it, if I'm honest," remarks Kaiden in reference to the previous year's tournament. He shrugs a bit, but his attention is sequestered by Ria's scratching of his clothes, "Yes, well /you/ would know how to hide it, wouldn't you?"
Katherine takes a sip from her drink, which although not a strawberry shake, is still an excellent choice. "Kaiden, have fun while you can. Uncle Arlo might very well pick someone for you when you least expect it and there go your chances to have fun. But ria has a point, don't make it too obvious if you start having /lots/ of fun." She winks at her younger cousin then goes back to business, "That is actually a really good point. Elimination rounds within the years then the top three contestants for each year get thrown into a free-for-all bracket. I was also planning on having a primer similar to the one Auror Bates held last year too. A dueling workshop, if you will."
Ria narrows her eyes somewhat at Kaiden as she releases his collar and slides over the malts. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she insists and takes a hefty gulp of gold. Heftier than she usually takes. Heftier than the portions she takes when she's stressed out during exam time. "The free-for-all bracket would certainly be interesting. How will you go about dividing the years? Tier 3: 1st and 2nd years, Tier 2: 3rd through 5th, Tier 1: 6th and 7th?"
Kaiden rolls his eyes at Ria and takes a sip from the malt. He mmmmm's happily and nods to Katherine, "I do think that that would be the way to go. Take a little confusion out of the equation."
Katherine, unlike Ria, is taking dainty little sips through her straw and trying to mess her lipstick up as little as possible in the process. Nodding she says, "That sounds like a great way to break them down. And I think the rules on what kind of spells are allowed need to be outlined better. Someone cast a blasting spell last year, right?"
Ria happily happily inhales her drink smiling in a self-pleased manner to Kaiden. "Good, no?" she says to him. She may make a fuss over her brother, but she does have good taste! "Yes!" she practically exclaims at Kat's proposal, a heated fire in her eyes, "Last year Chris Weaver nearly blasted Luc-erm another student apart, and we was disqualified over it. But if you ask me he should have been expelled. No one in their right mind would even think of using that in a student tournament." She huffs and puffs, but eventually calms the fuck down.
Kaiden grunts in affirmation to Ria before setting the glass down and looking towards the two of them, resting his head on his fist, "Oh, yeah. I think I was there for the end of that little bout. Bloody foolish, he was." Kaiden just shakes his head, resigning now to only add a little bit of commentary.
Katherine tilts her head a bit to the side, straw still in her mouth. As she slowly sips at her drink she considers Ria's reaction and her smirk starts to widen into a real smile. Finally she takes her lips away from the straw, leaving little red lipstick marks on it, and asks, "So by the strength of your reaction I should guess that this Luc-erm is something other than a friend? What do you think Kaiden? Is Luc-erm worthy of our little Ria?"
"Well, dear father doesn't seem to think so." Kaiden pauses for a moment, looking over to Ria and giving her a pat on the arm, "But I think that he's quite deserving up her. It's a shame they're not an item any more."
"If 'something other than a friend' quantifies as a colleague and a housemate, then sure - he's something other than a friend," Ria rolls her eyes as she hunches over her dink. Her golden shake comes to an end with a bubbling sound through the straw. With a huff, she deems that's not enough for a stressful moment like this and therefore pick's Kaiden's up as well to partake in. He set it down, thus it's fair game. "We're not an item anymore," she both asserts and confirms her twin's statement. "We're getting off topic anyway. Will you be dueling against Dumbledore, just like Auror Bates?"
Katherine can't help but laugh at both Kaiden and Ria's responses to her question. But she's nice enough not to follow up on it and go back to business, as requested, with an even bigger laugh,"I know my limitations and I know I need more practice… A lot more practice before I can consider the idea of dueling with Dumbledore. If the suggestion comes from him I'm not going to say no but its definitely not coming from me."
Kaiden grins at Ria's explanation before taking another sip from his malt and leaning back on the stool. He goes back to drumming the bar and says, "Well, I think I'm gonna slip out for now. Lots to do."
And after Ria's demolished Kaiden's drink as well, she resorts to picking at the gem sprinkles with a spoon. "Are you sure about that? Maybe he'll go easy on you, I mean … how often do you get to duel with the great Albus Dumbledore?" she offers with a smirk and quirked brow. Not exactly her favorite professor, but there's no denying he's a great wizard. "Go on then. You cause me nothing but trouble and heartache," she shoos Kaiden away, but not before combing his unruly hair down the best she can with her hands.
Katherine leans over to give Kaiden a peck on the cheek, "Have fun and don't break too many hearts." *wink* Then she focuses again on Ria while keeping one had firmly wrapped around the stem of her own, still half full glass, "If I'm going to duel Dumbledore I'm not going to ask him to go easy and I would be a little insulted if he did. I mean, what's the fun in that? So what happened with Luc-erm? Was he not meeting your needs appropriately?" The last is delivered with a salacious little smirk that leave little doubt about what she's getting at. Yep, at least one person sees Ria as a woman already.
Kaiden gives his twin a peck on the top of the head before moving to hug Katherine, "I shall see you lovely ladies again, soon, yes?" He straightens his pea-coat and continues, "And if you don't rig it so that I win this competition, I won't love you anymore, Kat." After that, he's on his way out of the door.
Ria welcomes the loving peck and watches her twin walk off, frowning to Katherine. "Honestly, the girls he's seen with every few month. Each one less tolerable than the last," she comments, but her cousin successfully corrals her back into the former topic. "Meeting my … what?" Ria turns a shade of red, half hiding her face behind the cup, "No. It's not-we're not like that or anything…" In all her fluster, the present tense slips from her mouth.
This reaction pulls out the biggest laugh yet out of Kat. Once she's got her breath back she says, "Ria! Honey! You need to learn to unbend a little bit, sweetly. Sometimes its hard to believe you and Jo are sisters… Although you are much more like Uncle Arlo than Jo is. And I'm not… OK, maaaaybe the two of us are black sheep. But we are a lot of fun at least." The mention of Jo sobers her up pretty quick, which she covers by taking another sip of her drink, "So have you kept practicing this year. You did pretty well in the last few tournaments you were in, right?"
"As you've already said, I'm my father's daughter, and I can't help it. Sometimes I'd like to be more fun, but I've got a lot riding on me. Jo was blessed enough with flying talents that she's found her niche. And mine? Mine is keeping up the tradition. After I graduate, I'm taking over the book keeping for the family's assets. Father already began to train me over winter holiday," Ria divulges to her cousin, among candy and sweets. She stirs the left over contents of her drink with the straw and sighs, "When I came to Hogwarts, I intended to focus. Boys weren't part of the plan. So when any one of them shows actual interest in me … well I just don't know how to handle it as smoothly as you and Jo."
A talk of more interesting topic does ease her up a bit though. "I did alright last time. Got knocked out sheer bad luck by that dirty half-blood Mabel Hawker last year. But if you were to run it again, I'd no doubt be much more prepared."
Katherine sucks up the last bit of her shake leaving just enough in the bottom so that she doesn't make a whole lot of obnoxious noise. "Luck is part of dueling, a small part but still a part. But yes, if I end up running it this year the format will hopefully make it as skill based as possible." Getting up she motions for Ria to follow, "Now, let see about getting you a good stash of bribe candy to take back to the castle with you."