[Q.Apparel] Let the flames begin! (Jen)

[Professor Daniel Hubbles]

It had always been the way recently, Dan would actually have some time off and planned on spending some quality time with Dia, but she would have a lesson or a duty or a stack of work that simply could not be ignored. When this happened Dan would put on his jacket and walk out the door without a second thought to Hogsmeade and the local pub! He had become quite the local at the pubs again, his tab was slowly getting bigger and his antics (along with Professor Vaid) were becoming notorious. However today, just like Dia, Will was busy leaving Dan on his lonesome.

His well polished work shoes tapped out a steady rhythm on the cobblestones of Hogsmeade high street. The Three Broomsticks was too full for his liking so Dan was heading down to Hogshead when something caught his eyes…the lights were on in Queens Apparel. The headmaster stopped in his tracks and a grin filled his face. The company of happy-go-lucky, always smiling Jen would be far nicer then gangs of drunken wizards who never shower.

The little bell above the door gave a small tinkle as Dan entered the shop. It had been a while since he had been there, but it still brought back happy memories. Jen had been there for him when he needed a friend most of all and her friendship was one he treasured, so he could not help feel a little bit guilty as he stood in the empty shop thinking how long it had truly been.

“Jen?!” He stood with his hands on his hips amongst the racks of shirts, a small frown on his face. “Jennifer! Come out come out wherever you are?” Dan stalked forwards, as if he was a wolf stalking his prey, it was a game, which for the moment he was playing all by himself, and he had to admit that he was having more fun then he would have been had he been sitting in the pub listening to made up stories of the local tramp.

[Jennifer Queens]

Her illness had finally gone and she was back to full health again, much to her delight, but the thoughts of Russ just up and leaving her, and his shop were still prominent in her mind and she was still a mixed bag of emotions. One moment she was alright, and then the next she would see or hear something that reminded her of him. She had even begun smelling him around the apartment and as she did she would burst out into a fit of tears even if she had been laughing seconds before.

She was curled up in a pale wicker armchair with a thick pale blue blanket draped over her entire body, her face the only visible thing in the blue folds of the material. The tea was sat on the table and was beginning to go cold. She made it seem like she was still ill, when in fact she knew she was just heartbroken. An unlit cigarette lay on the table next to the mug as Jen simply stared into space.
She had no intentions of snapping out of her daydreams, simply lost in her own self pity and wondering what Russ was doing now. She was falling in love with him and she trusted him to not hurt her, yet she always fell for the bad guys.

It wasn’t until she heard a voice that she hadn’t heard for a few months that snapped her out of her daze. She felt too pathetic to move and as she tried to speak her voice was lost on her as she hadn’t spoken for days just because she was alone.

“Up here” she simply said, waiting to see his face emerge from the stairwell. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, willing the thoughts and emotions to go away. She hated seeming pathetic in front of people, and even though she was sat in the kitchen on her own in the quiet with a stone cold cup of tea and a cigarette that she couldn’t even bring herself to smoke to be slightly adventurous, not to mention a blanket covering herself entirely she hoped that if her face was showing no emotion that the rest of her would seem less pathetic.

[Professor Daniel Hubbles]

Dan carefully made his way up towards the counter, creeping slowly and occasionally glancing over is shoulder in fear that Jen would jump out from behind the display of hand tailored dresses and mob him. However nothing like that truly happened in fact he heard a distant call from up the stairs which took him by surprise, not because he had not been expecting it but because it did not sound like Jen at all. With a slightly bemused look Dan walked around the shop counter through the backroom and up the stairs to the flat where Jen lived.

He had only ever been up here once and that was too the kitchen and so he guessed that is where he would start looking as the chances were Jen was just making her self a cup of tea before she started work for the night. Dan had guessed right, she was in the kitchen but Jen looked like she was eighty. Sitting in a wicker chair with a blanket wrapped around her, her face pale and eyes blood shot, she truly did look ill.

“Whoa Jen, you look terrible.” Blunt but truthful but in true Dan Hubbles fashion it was said with a cheeky grin on his face. Pulling another chair out from underneath the kitchen table Dan sat down without and invitation and folded his arms as he looked quizzically over at Jen. “Really doll what had happened to you?”

Dan was unsure whether he should be worried or not, the cold cup of tea, the un-smoked cigarette …this was not his Jennifer Queens! He remembered the girl from Paris, the half eaten trifle, the laughs in the pub and in the shop, that kiss…she was acting like he did when they met again…heartbroken.

“Oh no.” Everything clicked into place and all Dan could do was look on at his friend. Stunned into silence, not even words of sympathy could be found, nothing this terrible should happen to Jen, she was the loveliest person in the world, this was not fair.

[Jennifer Queens]

With a small cough after she spoke to clear the glug in her throat that was emotional torture, her eyes flickered out of their trance as Dan ascended the stairs and Jen simply watched as his face dropped at how monstrous her face had become. She had let herself go, and for a woman who was in fashion and made her own clothes, that was never a good advert for her business. As she began softly breathing in and out, her eyes followed Dan as he pulled out a chair and asked what happened to her. Her response was slow coming, and she slowly sniffled before blinking incredibly slowly.

It seemed to sink in pretty quickly for Dan, which was good because she was sure if it was the other way around it would have taken her longer to guess. It was strange how well Dan knew her already in their short space of time of being friends.
“Yeah” she said sarcastically as she subtly rolled her eyes. This was not Jen at all. She was never sarcastic without it being playful. The disappearance of Russ had hit her harder than she had realised, and Jen thought for just a split second that she may not ever recover from the nightmare she was stuck in.

She felt safe in her little cocoon, all nice and warm and protected. Like nothing could penetrate it, it was her own safety blanket, literally. All she could think was how Russ was her lover and her best friend all wrapped into one, and how rosy things were. A few months down the line it felt like she needed to go into heartbroken anonymous or into some sort of rehab for the broken hearted. Urgh, how pathetic she had become, and that made her even worse.

“Damn” she sniffed before cracking a small smile daring not to look Dan in the eyes yet as her emotions had risen and met their peak.
“Eh, it always happens to me doesn’t it? Typical really...” she said with a hefty sigh.
“Still, you...how’s married life?” she said leaning over and poking Dan in the chest lightly without even unwrapping her arm from the blanket. Her eyes gave a faint sign of a sparkle as she talked to her first friend since her arrival in Hogsmeade.

[Professor Daniel Hubbles]

Dan got it wrong, seeing Jen like this was not heartbreaking, it was soul destroying. She was not meant to be like this, she was the happy one, she was the one who Dan could blabber away to and she would give amazing advice. Anger built up inside of the Hufflepuff, his loyalty to his friend was showing true and all he wanted to go was storm out of the shop, kick down the door to the Quidditch shop and hex Russ to the next millennium! This however most likely would not help Jen at all and only end up getting Dan into trouble which he was sure Dia would not be all to happy about or Newton for that matter.

“Honestly Jen if there is anything I could do, you only have to ask.”

His eyes were filled with concern as he watched the beautiful woman (despite the fact she looked rather rough Dan still thought this!) in front of him go through the motions. By the end of it she was trying to hide the fact she was hurting, but Dan dared not try and make her take a back track he learnt the hard way what it was like to be lumped with a broken heart. So instead he just smiled softly at her joke of ’why is it always me’, he guessed in this situation lots of people thought that and so as the conversation moved on Dan was only slightly happy with the topic.

A few very silent seconds past after Jen asked the question about how married life was, much too long in fact for a man who should be happily married. He wanted to say ‘perfect’, ‘just as I imagined how I would spend the rest of my days with the woman I love’ but instead something very different escaped the man and it was not the first time he had said something like this.

“Overrated. Honestly Jen, single life has so many more perks.” There was a hint of envy in his words. “I was happier before I got married, but then I was not headmaster then either. I do not know, I love Dia with all my heart but I…I have responsibilities now and it just means we do not get to quality spend time together.”

That was the only reason Dan could think of why his gaze was starting to wonder yet again, he could not believe that after only nine months of marriage he was ready to walk out the door and leave Dia simply because he was bored. He knew he was shallow but not that shallow…although there was the matter of Vicky. Maybe even by his standards Dan was in over his head!

[Jennifer Queens]

It was obvious to anybody who had just met Jen even once that she was never normally like this, a melancholy being that looked like a complete fruit just sat huddled up in their kitchen and going off into a dream world at every given opportunity. Jen wasn’t exactly the life and soul of a party, but she was the sort who would always be wearing a smile and offering friendly greetings to everyone who was there, even the idiots.

Looking back up to Dan with empty eyes, she sighed.
“Thanks Dan, but I just need to get over that jerk. I don’t think there’s anything you can do that I haven’t already thought about” she said, offering him a weak smile before she gave a sniffle.

Minutes seemed to past by even though in reality it was just seconds before Dan finally answered her question about how married life measured up. She studied his face for a reaction but his brain seemed to be thinking of other things before he finally piped up to respond, she could almost hear the cogs whirling in his mind. She was unsure whether he was going to lie and give Jen slight hope or whether he was going to tell the truth, whether it was good or bad, still Jen knew Dan quite well considering and she knew well enough that he would not lie to her.

His response was surprising for Jen to hear, and with this, her face gave her thoughts away.
“Really? Gosh, I would of honestly thought after all the heartache you went through with Dia that somehow you would easily fit together again” she replied before being stunned into silence for a moment.

“I guess marriage isn’t for everyone” she said bleakly.
“Oh! Congratulations on making headmaster by the way! Did you get the card I owled to you? I hope you did, but that owl is so unreliable, bless him. He’s on his last legs” Jen remarked as she stood up, drooping the duvet over the chair and grabbing the mug of cold tea before pouring it down the sink. Her hair was tied high into a messy bun on her head and she was wearing pyjama bottoms and an old wizard rock band t-shirt that she liked to sleep in.

“Sorry Dan, make yourself at home. I hope you don’t mind me grabbing a quick shower? I feel it’s time to get my life back on track”

[Professor Daniel Hubbles]

Dan nodded slowly, it was true marriage was not for everyone but when he looked into those stunning blue eyes of Dia and held her tightly in his arms he knew that she was the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with! And that just made his current phase even more baffling, he was deeply in love but could not help his gaze to wonder over towards other women. Why was he even sitting here? Why was he in Jen’s kitchen, a woman who he was attracted to and who he had a past history with!

It was the sound of Jen’s sweet voice woke him up from his deep confusion and his response showed that he was slightly out of it. “Yeah, I did get it….Thanks Jen it was thoughtful.” All thought it did not sound like it, Dan meant it, it was the small things that mattered in his mind and even a small letter was enough to bring a smile to the man’s face.

At the sound of the wooden kitchen chair scrapping on the floor the quilt cocoon that Jen had been protecting herself with dell away, revealing to Dan the frail, yet elegant figure of Jennifer Queens. When she mentioned about going for a shower he dared not argue, it was her flat after all and he was just waltzed in so he was truly in no position to argue. The only problem was that as he watched his dearest friend his heart bled for her, although he may have had a reputation as a womanizer and a bit of a ladies man Dan did have a heart and before he knew what he was doing he had risen to his feet. Soon he was standing next to Jen, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close towards him.

“You don’t have to do this alone Jen” Dan reassured “I will always be here for you, anytime, any day for anything. Whether it is changing a light bulb or cleaning the loo!”

If he could not play the protective older brother with Girty he might as well look after another one of his main ladies. His arms tightened around her, he could feel the warmth of her breath upon him which sent a shiver up his spine and the hairs on his arm stand on end. The thought of being this close and intimate with someone was thrilling it was…was…selfish! Shaking these thoughts away Dan turned his attention back to the beautiful, heartbroken woman he had in his arms. “Anything.” He muttered this simple, reassuring word once more and he sealed this agreement of protection by planting a gentle kiss on the top of her head.

Ok…this might be a very warped protective brother situation and this was only confirmed by Dan’s sudden want of trifle!

[Jennifer Queens]

Enough was enough now, Jen had never felt so bad in her life but she never let it affect the way she looked. It was her job as a tailor and a shop keeper to look respectable at all times and now if she were to look in the mirror now, she would certainly not recognise herself. Her hair was tied up extremely messily into a bun on the top of her head, her vest and pyjama bottoms were oversized and ugly, not exactly fashionable at the worst of times, and her eyes wore nothing but dark bags under them, a sign that she hadn't worn makeup in weeks.
"I'm glad you got it. The owl I used from the post office was rather decrepit, I thought maybe he might of just given up on his flight" she said before pausing and staring down into her cold tea, a small smile slowly emerged before a small giggles escaped her, a small sign that she was getting back to normal. What she said clearly tickled her at least.

As Jen stood up letting the quilt fall to the floor in a big pile, she stretched and was then smothered by Dan's shoulder before giving an 'Ooof' as he hugged her. He said how he was there for her, and she knew that but when he had just become Headmaster, he didn't want his friends pety worries to deal with too, did he?
"I know Dan, I know. Thanks, but you have enough to deal with as it is. It won't take me long to get back to normal" she said, patting him on the back before smiling and plodding off for a quick shower.

As she showered the words that had come from Dan replayed in her head over and over. Trying to shake them, she continued and got dressed in a pair of jeans and a tight vest top before casting a quick dry spell on her hair, then a quick curling beauty spell before applying a little makeup. Looking in the mirror for the first time in weeks, Jen looked back at herself and smiled. Giving a go-getter sigh, she stood up and made her way back to Dan in the kitchen, his words still racing around her mind like the words were imprinted in her blood somehow, they were all she could focus on.

'Single life has so many more perks' 'I was happier before I got married'
Jen suddenly focused on Dan as the words continued to rush around, it was fueling her and right now she was ready to go. Walking over to him, she looked into his eyes before smirked and pulling at his tie and she led him backwards without saying a word.

[Professor Daniel Hubbles]

It was reassuring to hear Jen say that she would be alright, he cared for her too much for her to be that heartbroken zombie she had been the past few weeks. And so as she slipped away to have a shower and get herself ready Dan did what he always used to do in women’s kitchens…he made himself at home. Unlike in previous experiences Dan did actually know his way around this particular kitchen and so was able to get him a fresh cup of tea and the all important chocolate biscuit.

The sound of the running water from the shower filled the emptiness of the flat and as he leaned back on the hind legs of the old wooden kitchen chair he whistled himself a small tune in between sips of his brew. This was Dan’s attempt to escape everything, escape the stresses of work, the pressures of his marriage, the stupid affair with Vicky, by being here in Jen’s kitchen reminded him of happier times…of old time and by god did it remind him of that night in Paris.

It was blurred memories of that night seven years ago that were being replayed in his mind when he realised he was no longer alone in the room and that Jen had entered once more. Placing his empty mug on the table and quickly standing up Dan tried to get a better look of Jen, his eyes moving up and down her body taking in all her curves. The flat was now deadly silent with only the outside noise from the small high street floating in through the window…and then Jen started to walk towards him.

His heart began to beat faster and faster as if it was anticipating something that his brain had not cottoned onto yet. His breath was catching in his throat and his tongue tied up leaving the man standing their struck dumb and this goddess took hold of his tie, before she began to walk backwards tugging him along. This was when he should have stopped, he should have undone his tie to escape her grasp and clearly stated. ’I am a married man!’

“Whoa Jen, stop.” His hand reached out, carefully unlocking hers from his tie, but he did not let go of her. Instead he pulled her closer, his free hand gently cupped the side of her face, and his cool blue eyes were filled with such tenderness and love for his friend and his lips…well when they met hers they explained a lot! He may have been a married man, but then this was Dan Hubbles standing here and he would never turn down an offer like this.