Fic: Dry-Mouth Morning (Ludo Bagman, PG)
For the December clean-up. I found no less than three unfinished omniocular fics on my hard drive; I don't even recall what challenge this one was originally intended for.
Title: Dry-Mouth Morning
Author: La Onza
Rating: PG
Length: 1300
Summary: Ludo Bagman still knows how to dodge a bludger. Set during OotP.
Time to get up, Ludo," the mirror was saying. The damned thing persisted in calling him by his real name, but at least it spoke softly, kindly, and anyway no one else was ever inside his room to hear it.
He tried to sit up, but his stomach would not have it, and he quickly fell back against his sweaty pillow. Cheap Muggle wine it had been, again, the little pile of metal screw-tops on his bureau considerably larger than it had been the day before. The stuff was crap on the old gut, but he hadn't dreamt of goblins.
"You'll be needing to get to work," the mirror coaxed. "Money in hand, my boy."
Work. Washing up in the tap room at the Black Eel for a handful of knuts. This is your life, now, Ludo, he told himself, for like the mirror he could not stop calling himself by the old name. He managed to sit up at last, and felt about for his clothes.
"That's the way," the mirror said.
You're still breathing, he told himself. Get yourself to the Eel, and tonight you'll be drinking. Maybe eating, if you've the stomach. Maybe fooling around with Abby, if she's not otherwise engaged. But drinking for a certainty.
It hadn't always been that way. He'd always enjoyed drinking, and eating, and all the pleasures that life had to offer, but all of those things had once just been the cherry on the sundae, the little benefits due a man who regularly faced down rivals at a hundred miles per hour, sixty feet in the air, knocking the breath from them to the roaring approval of the crowd.
In a way, that had been his ruin, for once the season was over, he had had to chase that feeling in other ways. But it was worth having fallen so low, to have been that high, once. Or so he firmly told himself, whenever his thoughts began to drift down dark paths.
As he dragged himself up the concrete steps to the back door of the Eel, he decided he absolutely had to have a sip of something to face the day. As Oba was an ogre about drinking on the job, he decided to slip up to Abby's room to say hello. She had been working the bar last night, but she'd be alone now, lounging about in her dressing gown.
He took the service lift up and tapped a quiet rhythm on her door. Their knock. "Come on in," she called, and he swung the door open to find her, dawdling at her dressing table, just as he had imagined. Somehow he found her morning blowsiness more attractive than her come-on nighttime look.
"Morning, Sport," she said, smiling at him in the mirror. She knew him only as Lewis, as the rest of the crowd at the Eel did, and knew nothing about his athletic triumphs, but somehow she had seized upon this nickname for him. It pleased him inordinately.
"Pour us one, would you?" he said, with his most engaging smile, or what was left of it.
"One of those dry-mouth mornings, eh?" she said cheerily. She got up and fetched her bottle from its place in her lingerie drawer as Ludo settled into the easy chair. Something poked him in the bum and he fished around until he found it - a cigarette pack, the kind made of stiff pasteboard.
"Want'em?" Abby asked, handing him a glass. "You know I never touch them."
"Think Himself will come back for them?" he asked, looking inside. "There's nearly a full measure here."
"Him? Nah." Her face twisted with wry humor, and she settled herself on her bed with a worldly self-effacing air. "I'll tell you how it was. Comedy of errors. Very slow last night, not a man in the place with any life in him. I was just about to call it for a loss and get a good eight hours for once, when suddenly this fellow trotted up, tall skinny jasper in a green Muggle suit, asking straight out if I had a room upstairs. One of those nervous ones, who comes on very brusque because he's scared and has to force himself. So I brought him up, though I didn't relish the thought, I can tell you."
She paused and took a swig. "Once he was inside he just sat there and fidgeted, not knowing what to do with himself, and I knew it was going to be pulling teeth all the way. But then there was a knock on the door, see? It was Tina, wanting to repay the five I'd loaned her last week. So after I'd talked to her, just a for moment because I told her I had a guest, I looked around, and…" She paused, as if inviting him to guess.
"Yeah?"
"He was gone. Out the window."
They laughed for a good five minutes over it.
Around noon, he was whisking empty glasses and trash off one of the tables when a discarded copy of the Prophet caught his eye. Or rather, a particular line of type did: green suit of Muggle clothes. "A tall skinny jasper in a green Muggle suit," Abby had said, and now here was a story about…
About a wizard found dead in an alley, believed to have been the victim of a powerful Stunning spell gone wrong. The motive for the attack was assumed to be robbery, as all of the man's personal possessions were missing.
He looked at the location; a few blocks from the Eel. That meant Aurors would be around asking questions soon. He took a quick look around. Oba the Ogre was busy talking to a patron. He could slip away and his absence would not be noticed for twenty minutes, maybe. He may have come down in the world, by he still knew how to dodge a bludger, and damn the man who said he didn't.
But he wanted to talk to Abby first, warn her. He took the back stairs this time, huffing a little, cursing under his breath, and rapped sharply on the door, then slipped inside, not waiting for an answer.
The room was a shambles, drawers up-ended, Abby's clothes dragged from the closet and strewn about. He didn't see Abby at first, and then he did, lying across the bed amidst the scattered clothes, her face looking aged and puttyish in death.
It took him perhaps ten minutes to get back to his rented room and retrieve his worldly possessions. He left the big mirror with some regret, for it had been a good one. In another ten minutes he was safely cosseted in another cheap room under another invented name. Only then did he take the cigarette pack from his pocket and begin systematically dismantling it.
All he found was a slip of paper, rolled up tight and secreted in the hollowed-out filter of one of the ciggies. He unrolled it and read, "The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London."
It didn't look like much to him. But neither had the list he had quietly removed from his father's desk, some fifteen years ago, in exchange for the forgiveness of a rather bothersome debt. People killed for such things. It was beyond him.
It did occur to him, though, that as someone evidently wanted this bit of paper very badly, if he knew the right party to approach…
He could be a player again.
But then it would all begin again, all of it, and maybe it wasn't worth it, after all. He touched the tip of his wand to the innocuous little scrap and dropped it. It flared and turned to ash before it even hit the stained carpet.
Then he went out to find a drink.
Title: Dry-Mouth Morning
Author: La Onza
Rating: PG
Length: 1300
Summary: Ludo Bagman still knows how to dodge a bludger. Set during OotP.
Time to get up, Ludo," the mirror was saying. The damned thing persisted in calling him by his real name, but at least it spoke softly, kindly, and anyway no one else was ever inside his room to hear it.
He tried to sit up, but his stomach would not have it, and he quickly fell back against his sweaty pillow. Cheap Muggle wine it had been, again, the little pile of metal screw-tops on his bureau considerably larger than it had been the day before. The stuff was crap on the old gut, but he hadn't dreamt of goblins.
"You'll be needing to get to work," the mirror coaxed. "Money in hand, my boy."
Work. Washing up in the tap room at the Black Eel for a handful of knuts. This is your life, now, Ludo, he told himself, for like the mirror he could not stop calling himself by the old name. He managed to sit up at last, and felt about for his clothes.
"That's the way," the mirror said.
You're still breathing, he told himself. Get yourself to the Eel, and tonight you'll be drinking. Maybe eating, if you've the stomach. Maybe fooling around with Abby, if she's not otherwise engaged. But drinking for a certainty.
It hadn't always been that way. He'd always enjoyed drinking, and eating, and all the pleasures that life had to offer, but all of those things had once just been the cherry on the sundae, the little benefits due a man who regularly faced down rivals at a hundred miles per hour, sixty feet in the air, knocking the breath from them to the roaring approval of the crowd.
In a way, that had been his ruin, for once the season was over, he had had to chase that feeling in other ways. But it was worth having fallen so low, to have been that high, once. Or so he firmly told himself, whenever his thoughts began to drift down dark paths.
As he dragged himself up the concrete steps to the back door of the Eel, he decided he absolutely had to have a sip of something to face the day. As Oba was an ogre about drinking on the job, he decided to slip up to Abby's room to say hello. She had been working the bar last night, but she'd be alone now, lounging about in her dressing gown.
He took the service lift up and tapped a quiet rhythm on her door. Their knock. "Come on in," she called, and he swung the door open to find her, dawdling at her dressing table, just as he had imagined. Somehow he found her morning blowsiness more attractive than her come-on nighttime look.
"Morning, Sport," she said, smiling at him in the mirror. She knew him only as Lewis, as the rest of the crowd at the Eel did, and knew nothing about his athletic triumphs, but somehow she had seized upon this nickname for him. It pleased him inordinately.
"Pour us one, would you?" he said, with his most engaging smile, or what was left of it.
"One of those dry-mouth mornings, eh?" she said cheerily. She got up and fetched her bottle from its place in her lingerie drawer as Ludo settled into the easy chair. Something poked him in the bum and he fished around until he found it - a cigarette pack, the kind made of stiff pasteboard.
"Want'em?" Abby asked, handing him a glass. "You know I never touch them."
"Think Himself will come back for them?" he asked, looking inside. "There's nearly a full measure here."
"Him? Nah." Her face twisted with wry humor, and she settled herself on her bed with a worldly self-effacing air. "I'll tell you how it was. Comedy of errors. Very slow last night, not a man in the place with any life in him. I was just about to call it for a loss and get a good eight hours for once, when suddenly this fellow trotted up, tall skinny jasper in a green Muggle suit, asking straight out if I had a room upstairs. One of those nervous ones, who comes on very brusque because he's scared and has to force himself. So I brought him up, though I didn't relish the thought, I can tell you."
She paused and took a swig. "Once he was inside he just sat there and fidgeted, not knowing what to do with himself, and I knew it was going to be pulling teeth all the way. But then there was a knock on the door, see? It was Tina, wanting to repay the five I'd loaned her last week. So after I'd talked to her, just a for moment because I told her I had a guest, I looked around, and…" She paused, as if inviting him to guess.
"Yeah?"
"He was gone. Out the window."
They laughed for a good five minutes over it.
Around noon, he was whisking empty glasses and trash off one of the tables when a discarded copy of the Prophet caught his eye. Or rather, a particular line of type did: green suit of Muggle clothes. "A tall skinny jasper in a green Muggle suit," Abby had said, and now here was a story about…
About a wizard found dead in an alley, believed to have been the victim of a powerful Stunning spell gone wrong. The motive for the attack was assumed to be robbery, as all of the man's personal possessions were missing.
He looked at the location; a few blocks from the Eel. That meant Aurors would be around asking questions soon. He took a quick look around. Oba the Ogre was busy talking to a patron. He could slip away and his absence would not be noticed for twenty minutes, maybe. He may have come down in the world, by he still knew how to dodge a bludger, and damn the man who said he didn't.
But he wanted to talk to Abby first, warn her. He took the back stairs this time, huffing a little, cursing under his breath, and rapped sharply on the door, then slipped inside, not waiting for an answer.
The room was a shambles, drawers up-ended, Abby's clothes dragged from the closet and strewn about. He didn't see Abby at first, and then he did, lying across the bed amidst the scattered clothes, her face looking aged and puttyish in death.
It took him perhaps ten minutes to get back to his rented room and retrieve his worldly possessions. He left the big mirror with some regret, for it had been a good one. In another ten minutes he was safely cosseted in another cheap room under another invented name. Only then did he take the cigarette pack from his pocket and begin systematically dismantling it.
All he found was a slip of paper, rolled up tight and secreted in the hollowed-out filter of one of the ciggies. He unrolled it and read, "The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London."
It didn't look like much to him. But neither had the list he had quietly removed from his father's desk, some fifteen years ago, in exchange for the forgiveness of a rather bothersome debt. People killed for such things. It was beyond him.
It did occur to him, though, that as someone evidently wanted this bit of paper very badly, if he knew the right party to approach…
He could be a player again.
But then it would all begin again, all of it, and maybe it wasn't worth it, after all. He touched the tip of his wand to the innocuous little scrap and dropped it. It flared and turned to ash before it even hit the stained carpet.
Then he went out to find a drink.