Young Justice: Gotham

September 30th, 2010

I stood at the center of what had once been the pub’s secondary dining room, my wand twirling through the air in smooth, gentle arcs like a conductor’s baton. Brushes, buckets, rollers, razor blades, rolls of wallpaper, and a plethora of other tools danced around me, animation charms transforming a task that would take multiple muggles an entire day into the work of an afternoon.

The room looked nothing like it had back when I’d first chosen this place in July. I had cleared out all the rubbish, stripped the room down to the foundation, fully separated it from the rest of the first floor, covered the bare walls, floor, and ceiling with runes, and then expanded it until it was more than four times as large as it once had been.

Once that was finished and the magic had time to stabilize, I’d put in a new floor––gorgeous pale yew that matched my wand in color––and now I was putting up wallpaper. That had been a surprisingly difficult thing to find. It seemed as though wallpaper had somewhat fallen out of fashion in the past decades in favor of simply painting the walls and ceiling in a single color, but eventually I’d managed to track down a distributor and selected a lovely pattern for the room.

As much as it would have been easier to simply paint the walls, that would interfere with the spells and wards I’d cast over the room. There were runes drawn all across the walls, floor, and ceiling that were necessary to stabilize the space-expansion charms and tie all the defenses, climate control spells, and other charms into the rest of the house.

Covering those runes with paint would potentially damage them and make the magic go out of control––a worrying proposition when it came to expansion magic. Plus, it would make it nearly impossible to make tweaks or changes without simply replacing the entire setup. It was much safer and more practical to just put up wall paper over them without damaging any of the symbols.

I hummed softly to myself as I directed another freshly-cut sheet of paper into place, laying it out perfectly adjacent to the sheet behind it. Tools floated forward, smoothing the sheet out and pressing it against the wall so that it lay flat. This was not the most efficient way of doing things, but there was something satisfying about it nonetheless.

I had no doubts that a specialist would know some spell that would do all of this at once without needing to individually charm every tool and roll, but this worked well enough and it wasn’t like I’d ever expected that I would need to do this myself. In any case, the challenge of it all––directing and tweaking dozens of individual charms all at once––was rather satisfying and good practice for using such spells in combat or other more stressful circumstances.

There was a soft knock on the door behind me and I mentally lowered the silencing magic surrounding the room. “Yes?” I called out, turning my head to look at the doorway even as I continued to direct the tools around me. The next roll of paper began to unfurl above me and a razor blade flashed through the air, neatly slicing the next sheet of perfectly to size.

One of the two doors slid open slightly, several inches of as-of-yet undecorated wood vanishing into the recess cut into the doorframe. Blake stuck her head through the gap and looked around curiously at the floating tools before focusing on me. “Huh, I thought Glynda said she was going to do this room.”

“She’s working downstairs and I want to get this done as soon as possible,” I said curtly. The magic was taking most of my focus, leaving only a fraction of my attention for the conversation. “Do you need something?”

She shook her head. “No, no. I just wanted to let you know that Zatanna will be home soon. Raven just left to get her. You said you wanted a heads up when she was done with school.”

Was it really four o’clock already? How time flew sometimes. I looked around the room. I was making good progress, but there was still a good twenty or thirty minutes of work left to do. Thankfully, I actually did know the right charm for this. I learned it for potions practice, but it worked perfectly well for things like this too.

“Thanks Blake, I’ll be out in just a minute.”

She nodded, “Okay, I’ll let them know you’re coming if they’re back before you’re done.” Then she looked around the room one more time, pulled her head back, and shut the door behind her.

I turned back to my work and swiftly finished putting the curret sheet of wallpaper into place. Once that was done however, instead of cutting the next piece I twirled my wand in a tight, horizontal circle, then finished the wand motions with an upward flourish. “Prandium intermissio!” I cast.

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The many floating objects around me swiftly arranged themselves into neat rows, then froze in mid air. They’d stay like that for about an hour, or until I came back and undid the spell. It was a handy bit of magic, temporarily pausing but not dispelling many simple charms and ensuring that mundane materials didn’t dry out, get soggy, or otherwise become ruined. It didn’t work on anything with a lot of magic in it, but if you were just working with basic potion ingredients or equipment, it let you step away for a bit without ruining your hard work.

I double checked that everything was in order, then stepped out of the room and into the entry hall. This was another one of the rooms that still needed a lot of work. The eventual plan was to separate it into several distinct spaces, but for now it was one big work in progress. Only a small patch by the door was in any way organized, with the rest of the walls bare and much of the floor already ripped away.

I ignored the mess for now, instead heading down the stairs to the basement. That too was still a work in progress, but it was where we’d set up our current kitchen, dining area, and the mostly-furnished library. I made it down just in time to see Raven and Zatanna step out of one of Raven’s portals, the red gateway swiftly closing behind them. Glynda––who was sitting at our dinner table with a cup of tea in one hand and a folder full of documents in the other––briefly glanced up at them, raised her cup in greeting, then returned to her reading.

I paused at the foot of the stairs, silently watching the three women. Zatanna sighed heavily and dropped her brand new backpack onto the floor, then collapsed bonelessly into a chair. “Ugggggh,” she groaned, her head thumping lightly against the table. “Why the fuck did I say I was going to keep doing this again?” she mumbled rhetorically to herself.

Glynda and Raven exchanged looks and a second teacup floated silently out of the cabinet we’d set up, settling down safely out of the way of Zatanna’s head but still well within her reach. The cup was swiftly filled with tea from the pot beside Glynda, and then was joined by a small plate of fresh scones, a container of cream cheese, and a small pot of maple syrup. It was a slightly heretical combination, but it made Zatanna happy so I wouldn’t judge her poor taste too harshly.

A moment later, another cup of tea and plate of scones was laid out on the opposite side of the table, and Glynda, not even bothering to look up at me, inclined her head towards it meaningfully.

I smiled and stepped fully into the room, heading towards where Zatanna was sitting. “It sounds like someone had a long day.”

Zatanna groaned again, not bothering to raise her head from the table as she answered. “It was terrible. I got yelled at for ‘losing’ my math homework, Mrs. Sullivan had us doing group work, and Chastity god-damn Brown wouldn’t stop asking me questions about the ‘sexy lady’ that picked me up from school yesterday!”

I stopped behind her and leaned down to wrap my arms around her shoulders. Her body relaxed slightly at the contact, a long, soft sigh slipping from her lips. “That’s unfortunate. Well, it's already Thursday. One more day and then you’ll have the whole weekend to relax.”

Zatanna snorted “Relax? Yeah right.”

“You know,” I clicked my tongue loudly. “Fair. Very fair.” We had a lot to do this weekend, not to mention all the school work Zatanna needed to take care of. “Look on the bright side. Kent managed to go and get your school backpack and a few other things from Shadowcrest this morning. He wasn’t able to get into your room, but he still managed to find some of your things.”

Zatanna sighed again. She’d been doing a lot of that these last two days. “I guess that’s something. At least I won’t have to keep making excuses for why I don’t have my books and stuff. I guess I chose a good day to do my homework in the dining room.”

I tightened my grip, hugging her against my chest and pulling her up into a sitting position. “Sometimes, it's the little things that count.”

Zatanna turned her body to the side and awkwardly wrapped an arm around my waist. We stayed like that for nearly a full minute, just silently enjoying each other’s company. Eventually, I nodded towards the plates beside her. “Glynda made you some tea. You should enjoy it while it's hot.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” She slowly picked up the cup and brought it to her lips, taking a single sip before setting it back down. “Thank’s Glynda.” She sounded tired. It hurt to see her like this. I was doing my best to comfort her, keep her busy, and shower her with attention, but there was only so much I could manage. It was clear that the argument she’d had with her father was still weighing heavily on her.

I’d tried to reach out to Giovanni yesterday, but all my efforts so far had been in vain. He completely ignored the messages I tried to pass along to him, and the charms on the letter I’d left outside Shadowcrest told me it had been incinerated without being opened.

I silently took a seat across the table from Zatanna and began to carefully prepare my scone, slicing the pasty in half and filling it with a layer of jam and clotted cream. There was so much to do. So little time to do it. But spending time with Zatanna now was more important than that, at least for now. My work could wait a little while, Zatanna needed me now. Plus, it really was high time for afternoon tea. And Glynda, as it turned out, was an excellent baker.