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Post by Cyrus Shacklebolt on Feb 25, 2024 16:46:23 GMT -8
Sunday, Early Evening | Club Brielle There was a bitter irony in a person who had the skill, training, and talent to find meaning in the universe finding himself completely and utterly lost. He had quite literally created the events for himself that he feared. In an overwhelming need to protect his family, he lost them. And if the universe's enough of an adversary, Cyrus' very name was a milestone. The minute someone heard it, they had a specific set of expectations. The son of a popular minister for magic who was instrumental in defeating Voldemort, the same son who was the only news story for months after having been kidnapped by Death Eaters... that son must sure be successful and living a life of privilege. A man to know. A man in the know. Well, it was hard to imagine a reality further from the truth. Cyrus was running. From everything and everyone. He'd come to the conclusion that the only way to redefine himself on his own terms was to leave the country. The only thing stopping him was the thought of having an ocean between his kids. There were still a few years before they'd go off to Hogwarts. It was his last chance to be part of their day to day lives. Four years. He had four years where he could be useful and present with the twins. He could try somehow to get it together. That meant finding a respectable place to live, which meant a steady income. In his nearly three decades of life on this planet, he'd burned so many bridges he might be a top contributor toward global warming. There wasn't a place in Diagon Alley, Carkritt Market, Knockturn Alley, or Hogsmeade that would take a chance on him. Not only would they assume one day he just wouldn't show up, they also ran the risk of getting their establishment wrecked by angry people looking for him. His reputation preceded him, proceeded him, and just plan ceded his credibility. He was desperate. There was one last person he could think of who would give him a chance. He hated that he was still using his name to bend the ear of Lawrence. Desperate times. He just needed to get his foot in the door somewhere. Of all of his dad's advisors, Lawrence understood the world was gray, life was complicated. Cyrus appreciated that. The only hesitation he had was that he also knew Lawrence was kind. It wasn't his intention to take advantage of that. If the club owner had it in his heart to give him a job, no matter what it was, Cyrus was determined to do it right. If he was asked to bus tables, he'd do it. Walking up to the entrance of the club, Cyrus was impressed. It was clearly meant to attract a certain type of clientele. There was a time a place like Club Brielle would be seen as a place full of potential marks. People with disposable money who could easily be swayed with a smooth approach to voluntarily part with some galleons and involuntarily part with the rest. Pulling the doors open, those days were behind him. They had to be. Letting his eyes adjust to the lighting, Cyrus sized up the crowd. A little liquid courage would make his begging easily to accept. He found a spot at the bar and ordered two fingers of bourbon on ice. Tags: Lawrence Gable
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Year/Job
Owner of Club Brielle
He's good bad, but he's not evil. |
Travis
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Post by Lawrence Gable on Feb 26, 2024 23:06:47 GMT -8
Lawrence was still just a kid when he lined up his first real job. The Ministry internship was a sort of sweepstakes for recent graduates to put titles like Head Boy to good use, but Lawrence’s tenure at Hogwarts was too brief to accomplish more than a prefect position. No, he had to rely on his charm to secure such a coveted internship, and once he was inside he made the absolute most of it. Lawrence put in his time as the Minister’s errand boy, catching Shacklebolt’s attention with his eye for people’s needs and ability to make deals. That was how Lawrence became the youngest advisor on Minister Shacklebolt’s staff.
Lawrence earned a reputation as a kind of policy wunderkind whose media interest was only eclipsed by his young wife, Brielle, rising fast in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. The young voice with the Minister of Magic’s ear and the next generation of a Quidditch family empire, Lawrence and Brielle were an immediate power couple. Maybe that was why it was so surprising to people that Lawrence never had any ambition to sit in the Minister’s chair. Affecting change from behind the curtain was good enough for him. After all, Brielle was the one with designs to rule the world. Lawrence was just a simple country night club magnate.
The internship was just a first act for Lawrence, the groundwork for his real career. What Lawrence had figured out as early as Hogwarts was that the secret to surviving in his line of work, his true line of work, was networking. It had always been about meeting the right people, and once he had those connections he was free to pursue his real passion. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to guess that Lawrence knew more people than anyone in Magical Great Britain, and few had the nerve to go head to head with him anymore. It meant that he could operate his business beneath the business with little hassle from Ministry officials.
In all his years and all the people he’d met, Lawrence had never forgotten a face. When he spotted Cyrus sitting at the bar, he excused himself from his conversation with the night’s entertainment—a wizard crooner who was working through his sound test—to float over to the bar and greet Cyrus. He took the glass of bourbon from his bartender and placed it down in front of Cyrus.
“Old friends don’t pay here,” he said. “On me.”
Cyrus Shacklebolt
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Post by Cyrus Shacklebolt on Mar 2, 2024 16:13:03 GMT -8
While waiting for his drink, Cyrus eyed a newspaper. Maybe the classified ads would have some options if Lawrence didn't want to complicate his relationship with the former minister by employing the washed out, criminal son in need of an intervention. Then again, there was one massive world Cyrus hadn't considered. The muggle world. He could certainly make a pile of pounds before anyone knew what had happened. He could bounce around the major cities. Play the muggle markets, find some gambling establishments. The key would be not sticking around for too long.
When the drink was set down in front of him, Cyrus felt heat rise up. He hadn't been prepared just yet to face the man he had come to see. He planned to watch for patterns, figure out the flow of information. Sitting back, he nodded his thanks. Old friends. They had history, that was for sure. Lawrence been the only person in the minister's orbit that hadn't treated him like he was fragile when he'd been rescued by the aurors. Cyrus never forgot that. When his parents were talking around him, Lawrence would talk to him.
Taking a sip from the drink, Cyrus appreciated the quality and felt some guilt getting it on the house. "Life after the ministry appears to suit you," he said realizing that in the process of running away from England, Cyrus had lost track of Lawrence. He understood he left for the states but that was all the intel his sister had ever mentioned. Cleio was never interested in collecting data and information like he had been.
Notes: taking some liberties with the timeline... Cyrus would have been kidnapped in 2011. It looks like that would make Lawrence 27? I sounds like he would have still been at the ministry? But I did try to keep it general enough to not lock that in
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Year/Job
Owner of Club Brielle
He's good bad, but he's not evil. |
Travis
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Post by Lawrence Gable on Mar 5, 2024 15:31:58 GMT -8
Lawrence had been through tragedy before, losing his father as an infant. He’d been raised by a single mother and as a kid he refused to be coddled. Refused, of course, in the kindest way possible. Why should he treat the Minister’s kid any different just because of the circumstances? He had known Cyrus as a bright young wizard who wouldn’t want his life derailed because of a single incident. Lawrence still remembered the four day scramble to bring the kid home, how Shacklebolt later had wrestled with transferring him from Hogwarts before ultimately deferring to Cyrus. Lawrence did very little advising on personal matters like that, but he did appreciate Shacklebolt’s decision. Lawrence himself has been pulled from his first school and moved across an ocean without a single concern for his opinion. It had worked out, of course, but it still hadn’t felt good in that moment.
Enough time had passed that it might have been surprising that Lawrence recognized Cyrus. The thing was that the kids of Ministers had a habit of growing up to become Ministers themselves. Even though Cyrus was just a young teenager when Lawrence had last seen him, he made it a point to remember the important details of his face. Not that he had expected the former Minister’s son to sit down at his bar, and he wouldn’t turn him away when he learned what Cyrus had been up to.
“Thanks,” Lawrence smiled. “It was never really for me. Just needed a job so I could get my name out there, meet the right people. I always believed in your father. I don’t think I could work for another Minister.” That part was a bit of a half truth. Brielle had had her eye on the Minister’s office for years, and they had schemed together to get her there. The plan had always been to continue advising Brielle from an unofficial position, still running the club while she ran the world, but the plan seemed to be on hold now while they disputed petty details like who gets the kids.
Lawrence spotted the classifieds in Cryus’ hand, though his face didn’t betray the gears starting to spin in his head. “Hope you’ve been keeping out of trouble,” he said, still continuing to smile. Cyrus Shacklebolt Note: Timelines are flexible! Totally cool
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Post by Cyrus Shacklebolt on Mar 23, 2024 13:34:14 GMT -8
Cyrus nodded and, in an effort to hide his emotions, took a drink when his father was invoked. Cyrus loved the man and respected the minister. Kingsley lead their entire world out of the darkness of war. He made everyone feel safe. He was the first ministry in decades, maybe even centuries, to lead the ministry without a scandal. If there was a scandal to find, it was probably with his son plodding through life, liberating fools from their money. Cyrus never felt able to live up to the expectations of living in the shadow of such greatness. His hand twitched after Lawrence noticed the classified. He wasn't doing anything wrong. Just disappointing.
"Minister Shacklebolt is one of a kind," Cyrus finally said. Lawrence might have been the son his dad never had. A trusted confidant. Responsible. Capable. Reliable. It took some of the edge off Cyrus' guilt knowing Kinglsey had people like Lawrence in his orbit. "He was lucky to have you." He nearly suggested that Lawrence should see his former boss enjoying retirement and then he realized he had no reason to believe the two weren't in regular communication. It wasn't a topic of conversation that happened when Cyrus visited his parents. Most of it was a workshop to fix Cyrus.
Lifting his hand, he let the classifieds see the light of the bar. "I was considering an honest days work. Merlin knows I've tried every other way to live. I've not see an ad for professional disappointment. Or contract arithmancer. Then I saw the bar and thought I could find some liquid courage." Cyrus hated how self loathing it had sounded. It was likely the most honest way to express his current state. He had the opportunity to have the life he always wanted. And he had no one else to blame for losing it all. He hadn't intended to unpack it in front of Lawrence.
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Year/Job
Owner of Club Brielle
He's good bad, but he's not evil. |
Travis
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Post by Lawrence Gable on Apr 9, 2024 19:48:37 GMT -8
Whatever guilt Cyrus had felt about the way his life was turning out, certainly Lawrence felt something like that too. Cyrus’ father had a way of pulling people into his orbit, a matter of speaking that made you believe every word he said—what was important was that he believed those words too. Kingsley wasn’t like other politicians who found value in knowing which parts to say out loud. Shacklebolt never played an angle, never compromised to get what he wanted. Lawrence had never intended to stay on the straight and narrow. He didn’t dream of following in Shacklebolt’s footsteps.
The truth was that Lawrence had enough political savvy to make a real go at politics. Kinglsey had even encouraged him to stay the course. That was where Lawrence felt guilty. Shacklebolt was one of a handful of surrogate fathers who had believed in and encouraged Lawrence, taught him everything they knew just for Lawrence to use that knowledge in as disreputable way as they could imagine. If Shacklebolt knew the worlds that Lawrence was mixed up in, he’d surely be disappointed. But Lawrence’s guilt didn’t go beyond the shame a kid might feel in disappointing their father. He’d been in the empire business since he was sixteen years old and he wasn’t going to let anyone make him feel bad about what he’d built.
Lawrence wondered what kind of business Cyrus had dreamed of as a kid, if any. Did he want to succeed his father in the way Kinglsey had encouraged Lawrence to? Honest work could mean simply tending bar. Cyrus was too gifted to waste his life in blue collar hell, at least there Lawrence would agree with his father.
“Minister Shacklebolt is one of a kind. He was lucky to have you.”
“That he is,” Lawrence said, sensing a bit of apprehension in the way Cyrus spoke about his father. He waved his hand at the compliment, “I was just there to soak up whatever he could teach me. If he’d really listened to me, London would be burning.” Lawrence laughed, though secretly he wondered if Shacklebolt could have learned something from him. Maybe if he allowed room for compromise, he would still be Minister for Magic.
“Job hunt’s not going so well then?” Lawrence frowned. “If you need to bridge a gap between now and your career, I’m sure I can find something for you here at the club if you’d like. I could maybe use some muscle to keep these damn Hogwarts kids from sneaking in. Or, you know, name the job and I can give it to you.”
Cyrus Shacklebolt
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Post by Cyrus Shacklebolt on Apr 14, 2024 11:14:05 GMT -8
Most people in his dad's orbit took the opportunity seriously. Used the time to learn and make connections. It was probably the height of Cyrus' foolishness to not take the time to learn what made the minister so respected. There was what the history books said, of course, and then there was what could be gleaned from the man not the myth. Cyrus took a drink as Lawrence made his offer. He nearly choked on the bourbon. Setting the glass down, Cyrus really studied Lawrence. On one hand, this was the most generous offer he would get anywhere. Particularly from someone who knew his history. On the other hand, Cyrus had yet to prove to himself that he was capable of not disappointing the people who gave him a shot. He didn't want Lawrence to pay for his kindness.
Rubbing his neck, Cyrus motioned around at the sophisticated club, "I am skilled at making people run from me. I could certainly keep a few students away," he said, trying to keep it light. If that was the paycheck he could get, he'd take it. He also wanted to make sure the offer would be worth Lawrence's while. Even if it was temporary. "Or. You might have a use for someone who can interpret the market for you. Read the odds. Or star charts if your needs are more esoteric. I mastered arithmancy at a monastery in Uagadou. It hasn't worked out well for me personally. People aren't typically happy when someone parts them from their money on a routine basis. Maybe," he leaned forward to keep is voice low, "I'm better suited for macroeconomics not micro." As he finished his offer, he waited to gage the reaction. Maybe he should have agreed to be the muscle. Would Lawrence find such dealings unethical? Nothing he did was cheating, not as he saw it. It was skill. And maybe a small does of divinations from his mum. If it could be useful and not a liability, Cyrus was sure he could throw himself into the work.
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Year/Job
Owner of Club Brielle
He's good bad, but he's not evil. |
Travis
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Post by Lawrence Gable on Apr 23, 2024 11:09:35 GMT -8
It wasn’t Lawrence’s intention to pull a good friend’s son into his business without knowing for certain that it was something that he wanted to get himself into. Shacklebolt didn’t have to know, Cyrus was an adult and he could and had made his own choices. If Cyrus was worried about disappointing Lawrence, he shouldn’t have been. Some of his new guys were hopeless in the ways of good business, but he was constantly shifting them around to find a place for them. No one is a failure, Lawrence thought, there’s only a business’ failure to find the right fit.
Still, even after Cyrus had brought up macroeconomics, Lawrence felt a healthy need to play it cautiously. He leaned forward with his elbows on the bartop and he said with a hushed voice and a nod, “I might have need for that kind of skillset, sure. But now you know what you’re supposed to say in these situations.”
Lawrence trusted Cyrus’ father completely. If Kinglsey knew about the business that Lawrence was running, he was kind enough to overlook it while the Ministry pursued more immediate criminal concerns. But Lawrence had enemies in the Ministry just like anywhere else, and who’s to say that an old Shacklebolt staffer who had stuck around in the Ministry after his administration wouldn’t try to use a trusted son of an old friend to put the squeeze on him.
Then Lawrence smiled. Just a dumb criminal goof, of course he knew Cyrus wasn’t there to spy on him.
“Do you know what kind of business I do, Cyrus?” he asked.
Cyrus Shacklebolt
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Post by Cyrus Shacklebolt on May 2, 2024 19:23:41 GMT -8
The cagey nature of Lawrence's answer wasn't expected, but it wasn't shocking either. The odds of a club running a side business were high. It could be as minor as tax evasion, as common as underground gambling, or as nefarious as dealing in cursed objects. None of that really bothered Cyrus. Not even the latter as long as the dangerous items didn't lead to innocent victims. Of course there were no guarantees, but one could get a sense if a criminal was a sociopath or a followed a code. There were choices that could be made about what type of criminal one did business with. Cyrus understood the subtext. "I would know what to say. I've been telling my parents cover stories my whole life," he admitted. "I can't say that I know what ways you might supplement your business. I'm not opposed to creative accounting."
Cyrus leaned in. He knew Lawrence was a good man. He wouldn't put himself in a position where innocent people might get hurt. Not intentionally. "I've learned that living outside the law means you don't get the benefit of the protections by the law. You need people you trust to make sure things don't get... out of hand." Cyrus knew trusting him could lead to mixed results. His soon to be ex-wife could enumerate the ways he couldn't be counted on.
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Year/Job
Owner of Club Brielle
He's good bad, but he's not evil. |
Travis
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Post by Lawrence Gable on May 3, 2024 8:55:30 GMT -8
The answer was most of the above. A little bit of tax evasion, a little bit of gambling, a whole lot of smuggling. Though Lawrence didn’t deal much in cursed objects, there were others in the criminal underworld who satisfied that interest. Anytime something cursed came along his smuggling networks, he would always kick it over to a friendly rival. Should Lawrence feel shame for admitting his criminal business to an old straight arrow’s son? Probably, but this was who Lawrence had always been, going back to his days at Hogwarts.
“Truthfully, we do a little bit of everything,” Lawrence said. “With the Caspars out of business there’s a lot of holes in the market and opportunity everywhere.” He paused for a moment, considering the reason that the Caspars were out of business to begin with. The murder of Marcus Caspar had been a massive and unexpected shakeup to the criminal underworld, but he didn’t want to give Cyrus the impression that he’d had anything to do with it. “I run a family business, Cyrus,” Lawrence said. “Everyone says ‘the family,’ and you know what that means, but I really mean it’s a family. Everyone just wants to make their money and be a little better off, there’s no reason anyone has to get hurt.” He paused for another moment as he picked up a glass from the bar and started to clean it. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t benefit when I see an opportunity, you know what I mean?”
Lawrence pulled a rag up from behind the bar and slipped it into the freshly cleaned glass, turning it around in his hands.
“Of course, Club Brielle is my dream. It’s a legitimate business. If you want to work here that’s fine, but I think it would be a shame to waste your talent on heavy work at the door. So, where do you see yourself in this business?”
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Post by Cyrus Shacklebolt on May 4, 2024 16:25:55 GMT -8
Cyrus wasn't completely in the loop on the power struggles within the criminal networks. It felt like politics. Cyrus hated politics. He appreciated people who could navigate the space so he wouldn't have to. Still, anyone who was paying attention knew the name Marcus Caspar. And anyone trying to make a living under the tables knew the disruptive force his murder had in the dark economy Cryus weaved in and out of so seamlessly. A family business. That had multiple meanings for Cyrus. Hurt. Disappointment. Expectations. It would be nice to be part of a family that didn't expect him to fail before he even tried to be better. "I can see more opportunities for you. I'd... I'd like to do that for you. If you'd have me," he said cautiously. "If you think my family name wouldn't be a liability."
Lawrence would know better than most what the name Shacklebolt did to a room. "I'm not entirely equipped for covert operations, if you know what I mean," Cyrus acknowledged. He held his breath. It had been a while since he saw possibilities. Ages since he thought he could find a purpose. He desperately wanted to provide for his twins. To make his wife... his ex-wife comfortable. She deserved for life to be easier. "I want to provide for my family. And if I can do that being part of yours, I'd be grateful for the chance."
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