Month: April 2021

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VBDF: C6 Driving to the Burrow

Petunia Dursley was not entirely comfortable driving Vernon’s new company car. Mister Grunnings was quite happy with Vernon’s performance, especially after he’d found those illicit transfers of funds by his predecessor. Old Mister Grunnings had personally delivered the Jaguar Sovereign to Privet drive, and insisted that Petunia try out the very comfortable seats. Petunia admitted that she like the seats on the new car. In fact, she’d found them more comfortable than some seats in the house lately, and the sound reduction by closing and locking herself in the Sovereign, well it had been a refuge from her since Dudley and Harry had left. She hadn’t realized how much she relied on her oldest son and nephew.

Vernon might like the responsiveness of the Jaguar, but Petunia was long used to the much more sluggish 1974 Triumph 2500 Estate that was the Dursley’s primary car before. Vernon didn’t trust the 2500 for longer distances, hence his insistence that Petunia take the Sovereign to the Devon home of the Weasleys. Petunia was very glad that they were off the A30. It might not be the M3, or even the M25, but Petunia swore that at least three lorries were trying to run her off the road.

A glance at the mirror revealed that Iris, Primrose, and Violet were behaving themselves for once. Lily had earned the front seat. One girl trying to fill Dudley and Harry’s shoes wasn’t easy, but she was trying. Petunia caught Lily’s look to her out of the corner of her eye. “You’re really looking forward to seeing Ginny again, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Lily said. “And seeing the magical place she lives at too. I nearly can’t believe some of her descriptions.”

Petunia turned off the road into an opening between two walls one of which had a sign that said “The Burrow” on it. “Well, Lily, it looks like we’re here.”

Petunia came to a stop as soon as the vehicle was fully in the clearing that the house was built in. Molly had said that most wizarding families didn’t have driveways, but Arthur was obsessed with muggles, and had a Ford something or rather. Molly wasn’t sure what model it was. Petunia applied the parking brake, undid her seat belt, and existed the vehicle, for the first time getting a look at the Burrow.

The Burrow was magic. It was obvious that the house wouldn’t stay up without magic. The base was a typical cottage, with some of it’s original thatched roof poking out between the extensions that had been stacked on top. The first floor was perhaps the most sensible of the stacked on floors, almost being on top of the ground floor, though the space between the two sections was a bit off centered. The second floor, though, that’s where things really got off. It was about forty-five degrees out of alignment with the floor below, with two corners touching the two sections of the first floor. Petunia had no idea how it was really supported. Then there was the third floor which was a tall section with a very peaked roof over the least supported section of the third floor. Petunia figured if the magic ever failed that section was going to topple off right onto the garden shed.

Lily was already running up to the front door by the time Iris, Primrose, and Violet got out of the Sovereign. Petunia held Primrose’s hand as they approached the Burrow. The door open, and Ginny Weasley darted out of it towards Lily. The two met in what could only be described as a twirling crash, as they embraced at speed and spin around, with big grins on their faces.

Molly Weasley followed in her daughter’s wake. “It looks like our daughters were a bit eager to meet again,” the Devonshire house witch remarked.

Petunia looked at were Iris and Violet had joined the two red headed girls. “I’d say so. It looks like Ginny is planning on showing my girls around, though my little Primrose here, still suffering from spraining her ankle yesterday. The pain medicine has made her a bit drowsy. That being said, it’s one less direction for me to be pulled in.”

“Poor girl,” Molly replied. “Even magical potions don’t seem to do so well with sprained ankles. Ginny used to have a real problem with them, trying to follow her older brothers around.”

“Well, today she’s the eldest, so we’ll see what turnabout does,” Petunia replied.

Molly smiled, then cocked her head briefly. “Come on in, I made some biscuits, and the kettle is on for some tea. I can show you around my domain while Ginny pounds up the stairs with your children. My second son Charlie arrived a little while ago, and my eldest Bill said he was coming from Hogwarts this afternoon. He’s the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. I never thought I’d have a son teaching at Hogwarts.”

“So we might get an honest opinion on how our children are doing in their first year,” Petunia said, following Molly into the kitchen door. “Harry’s writing, but he’s always been a rose-colored glasses boy.”

“Oh, we might have to ply him with some tarts, there has only been one time, maybe two, that Bill has been able to hide what was going on from me,” Molly said.

“I hate to say it, Mum, but Bill’s a lot more successful than you think,” a young man with the same red shade of hair as his mother said as he came down the spiral stair case into the kitchen. The young man held out hand, “I’m Charlie, dragon wrangler.”

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Endeavor’s Insecurity: C2 Markovic

Lieutenant Bojan Markovic pressed the announce button next to the door to the Ready Room. He straightened his uniform again, as he waited for a reply, knowing that it had rung the captain inside. He still harbored a few regrets about the fact that it was blue, not the red that it had been when he graduated from the Academy. He did not attempt to straighten his once dark hair that was graying at the edges.

“Come!” the Captain’s voice echoed from the door. He wondered if she knew that she spoke it with the same note as her adopted father, though a octave higher. The door opened and he enter the Ready Room.

There was quite a bit of difference between Marrissa of the first time he’d seen her and the now Captain Picard he served under. He still recalled the first time he’d seen her in his class on the Enterprise-D, with that long pony tail and pink jumpsuit. She’d barely had any sign of her development, and had been a good couple decimeters shorter than him. Even seated, Markovic could tell that she was still shorter than him, but she wasn’t the preteen that had sat in the center seat anymore. She was the Captain, and he would have to remember that.

The pony tail was gone, replaced with shoulder length hair, not quite perfectly arranged, with almost no bangs at all. The Captain was no little girl anymore, though it appeared that her favorite juice, strawberry, still had it’s place on her desk. Her soft smile had not changed, nor had the particular sigh she made as she put down a PADD and looked up. “Lieutenant Markovic, it has been a long time,” she said.

“It has, Captain,” Markovic acknowledged.

“I have to admit that I expected you to be in red the next time I saw you after the Enterprise crashed,” the Captain said, picking up another PADD. “I certainly didn’t expect you to still be a Lieutenant. Not with this record. Fortunately, there is good reason to rectify that today.”

“Sir?” Markovic asked.

“Lieutenant Commander Ursel has asked to be relieved of his post as Chief Science Officer,” the Captain said. “I’ve chosen to grant his request, and promote you, as his current second in command, into that post. Furthermore, after reviewing your record, I am promoting you, effective immediately, to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. While I don’t recommend it until you’ve settled into your new post, I would highly suggest that once you do settle in, you offer yourself for a limited number of shifts as Officer of the Deck. I have no idea why you stopped doing that.”

“Captain Katsuragi didn’t let anyone outside of the command and operations divisions work as Officer of the Deck,” Markovic responded.

“Well, that is going to change,” the Captain said. “I am a big believer in a regular rotation of Officers of the Deck. There were a total of thirty-five of them on the Stargazer in a crew half the size. Now there is a couple things you should know as my Chief Science Officer. I consider you as an integral part of my command team, this is a science vessel, so you can expect Jay to make sure you’re attending key meetings. I’m not yet sure on the cadence of those meetings, but I’m also not quite sure of my whole team yet. Outside of that, you can expect me to draw some lab time myself. A recent visit to Stellar Cartography has brought a few of my old projects to mind, and the new data is fascinating. That being said, do something about Doctors Danner and Faust. I’m so tempted to lock them in a room until one or both of them dies.”

“I’ll see what I can do, sir,” Markovic said. He’d heard about the fight, and their mutually cancelling sensor requests were legend. “Personally, I’m in favor of quantum torpedic evacuation as the extreme solution.”

“That is a favorite,” the Captain said with a big smile. “I’ve even figured out how to make them land successfully on the front lawn of the C and C’s residence.” There was even a twinkle in her deep amethyst eyes. “Not that I personally am responsible for any such case you may have heard of.”

“Of course not Captain,” Markovic said. He’d heard about two officers who had left the Stargazer that way. He’d also heard that the C and C had been amused.

“I am a big fan of a more collegial command team, and given this vessel’s designation as a diversified science vessel, I think it is appropriate that I have semi regular meetings with the various Science team’s head, but I do not want to step on your position,” the Captain said. “So, I need to know a bit about how you intend to organize and work with your fellow Scientists before I add my twist to the Science Sections.”

Markovic took a moment to think, and it appeared that his new Captain was willing to let him do so. That was an improvement on the little girl he’d once taught, who once she got over her shyness was unable to let there be that silence. “I expect to have a daily status update at the beginning of Alpha Shift, which should catch the late night Delta shift group. There are always a few night owls in Science, Lieutenant Marshall in Gaseous Anomalies is one of them. I do have a regular poker night with several of them, as a sort of informal way. No uniforms allowed.”

“That sounds like a good mix of formal and informal, something that took me quite some time to learn when I took over Security. In fact I’m not quite sure I really ever got it right when I was a department chief,” the Captain said.

“I understand you are a fair poker player,” Markovic offered, letting himself break out of what he had just realized was a self-imposed limitation on the conversation. “Leave the uniform behind, but don’t go either princess or whatever that was that you wore at that dance back before you were adopted.”

“It was a silk camiknicker, and you know I had no idea that it was supposed to be something you slept in, not danced in,” Marrissa shot back. “I was ten at the time and Jay has always had a poker face that can’t be broken. That being said, I think I can find something that doesn’t scream Captain or Princess.”

“Then I extend an invitation to my Probability Studies at 1700 hours in two days,” Markovic said.

Marrissa looked at her PADD, tapped it a couple times, before replying. “I should be able to make that, unless something comes up. Since we’re charting gaseous anomalies away from any known border by a considerable distance, I’m not expecting a sudden red alert. Tell me, Lieutenant, have you always listed your poker night as Probability Studies on your schedule.”

“Since I was at the academy,” Markovic replied.