Numbers are Sexy (Dom)

[Billie Ackerman]

  Billie’s quill scrawled so hurriedly across the parchment you’d be forgiven for thinking she was writing in shorthand. Ordinarily studying in the Ravenclaw commonroom suited her fine, but why walk all the way back up to the castle when she could do everything here? Call it a need for a change of scene.

  The girl paused, absently putting the end of the sugar-quill in her mouth as she reread her work. Hmm, this was going to require more Butterbeer. Billie glanced up and signalled to the bartender on call. Seeing as the place wasn’t that busy she’d just sat herself at the bar right next to the wall earlier in the evening and hadn’t moved. Her black satchel schoolbag was lying on the ground before her and she’d already chewed through several pages of parchment.

  Right, here we go again. Billie inked her quill and set it back to paper, the only sign she was still with the world was a little inclination of her head as though startled every time someone made a loud noise.

  Lets see.

[/i][/ul][/font]
  Billie lifted the quill again, mentally running through the results. Huh. Interesting...
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[Dominic Spencer]

Somewhere off in the distance a ringing sounded, interrupting the tranquil bliss Dominic had been enjoying. The more the boy tried to ignore it the louder the ringing got. It took a few moments for him to realise that it was his alarm signalling the start of another day –or night in his case. Bleary eyed, the flaxen-haired vampire dragged himself out of bed and stumbled up the stairs of his basement to his main house. Still not quite awake he searched for clean clothes that looked good together. In the end he settled on his recently repaired bright yellow jeans and a plain black t-shirt.

Yawning still, Dom stretched and rubbed his still bruised abdomen. It twinged at his touch, reminding him of a woman lost and an ego damaged. The memory of his disastrous night with the half-vampire girl made the boy pout; there was nothing more that he hated then not being able to bed a woman. He sighed, he needed to rectify what had happened and prove to himself that his ability to seduce was fine and that Seph had simply overreacted to whatever it was that had scared her. But where to go in this small deadbeat village?

Part of the boy wished he was still back amongst the hustle and bustle of London. There was always something to do or somewhere to go in the city but in Hogsmeade there were two pubs and a shack that supposedly shrieked; not the most exciting places in the world. Oh well, he’d come here with the intentions to stick around for awhile so he couldn’t leave now. in the end the young vampire decided to try the Three Broomsticks pub since he hadn’t been there yet.

Lazily Dominic wandered through the sleepy magical village, ignoring a handful or drunken revellers who had not yet realised new years had been and gone. The men, not much older than the vampire appeared, jeered at his choice of pants and his pale appearance; calling him something along the lines of ‘emo’. What the hell did ‘emo’ mean Dom wondered. For the moment he shrugged it off as he entered the inn. Compared to the Hog’s Head the interior and atmosphere was a lot more cheerful and family friendly. No bloody swords covered in vampire blood here.

Before he settled himself at the bar he searched the place for any women on their own. The flaxen-haired vampire’s face lit up when he spotted one almost instantly. Her blue hair was like a beacon to him, and it wasn’t long before he took up a table nearby. Dom watched the girl intently as she mulled over whatever it was she was working on. ”What are you working on?” he asked finally, curiosity getting the better of him. Slowly he sidled his chair over closer to her table. ”The name’s Dom, do you need some help?” he introduced, holding out one of his hands.

[Billie Ackerman]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=background,http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss229/Ehetere/PostTags/BillieFlowersBG-1.png,true][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Billie/BillieFlowers_02.png][atrb=style,padding:0px 60px;background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;]   Ooh yay, there was the butterbeer! “Tab,” Billie mumbled in response to the waitress, who nodded and left her alone with her stacks of numbers.   Anyone else would call her nuts for working on something so simple – this was third year crap really – but Billie preferred to regularly refresh herself on knowledge from past years, especially when she suspected it was going to come up in a test. Good thing too, she’d almost forgotten all this. She could tackle Advanced Theory of Arithmanical Magical Physics later. If only Professor Grey wasn’t so damn biased over his house he’d see that she could run mental rings around all his blasted Puffs, she wasn’t best in his class for nothing!   “What are you working on?” said a voice behind her sharply and Billie actually started, her posture going rigid.   “Jesus you scared the crap out of me,” she grumbled, looking around at the blonde boy about her age that appeared to be the culprit. Automatically she assumed he was another seventh year. He dressed like the muggleborn kids and why else would he be talking to her about schoolwork? Gryffindor vibe, definitely. Okay fine, he had this coming.   “Use of Arithmancy in Numerology of Names. Revision,” she answered, turning around again to pick up the small pile of sheets and thrust them into his hand. “And yes I could actually,” she added large toothy grin on her face, moving her seat to face him better. “Give me your full name and I’ll read your personality. Hang on.” Billie snatched the sheets out of his hands again, reshuffled them to a new page and handed them back. “Then just crosscheck it back to see if I interpreted the numbers right. I swear to God it’s all bullshit, but I don’t pass if I don’t know it, sooo... just bear with me, okay?”

[Dominic Spencer]

”Haha sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” the boy grinned apologetically, sighing inwardly in relief as the girl didn’t shout at him to leave, not just yet anyway. So far so good, she was talking to him but what the hell was she going on about? Arithmancy, numerology, names, huh? Maths had never been Dom’s strong point, in fact he’d earned more than a few wraps across the knuckles with a ruler and a cane across the behind for skipping it when he’d been at school. The vampire decided against asking the girl what in God’s name Arithmancy for the moment, not that she gave him enough time to ask anyway.

On the verge of panicking slightly, Dom started to wonder why he’d asked if she needed help. She was from that school down the road, the magic school and magic was something he knew next to nothing about. ”I’ll try but I can’t say I’m very good at Arif-Arithmat-Arithmancy but I am good at giving my name. It’s Dominic Ezekiel Spencer,” he joked happily, the worry ebbing away slightly. He was actually rather interested in having his personality read by from what he could tell was magical mathematics. ”I can’t cross check if you don’t get started, I’m interested in what you’ll reveal my personality to be like. Speaking of revealing, I didn’t quite catch your name.”

[Billie Ackerman]

  “Alright Dom, let us unravel the mysteries of your miiiind,” she laughed in her best gypsy impression, waggling her fingers spookily. Considering the boys sudden confusion it seemed a fair bet that arithmancy wasn’t one of his subjects. Not a problem, he didn’t need to know it in order to help her out with this one.

  “It’s pretty easy. First I assign a number for each letter of your name. That’s up the top there–” she pointed at a section of letters and numbers at the top of the page. “Then I add them up in a number of ways to tell you your Character, Heart, and Social number. Then I use that to assess the three different facets of your personality, which issss–” she yanked the bottom page out from under his fingers and put it on top, “–right here. You don’t need to know the subject, just tell me if I get anything wrong.”

  Billie leaned back in her chair, picking her wand up from the table and resting the point on one of her fingers thoughtfully. “Hmm.” She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. “Dominic Spencer. D – O – M – I – N – I – C, S – P – E – N – C – E – R?” she spelled out, opening her right eye long enough for him to reply then closed it again, lifting her face as though looking at the ceiling.

  “Your name numbers aaaare...” Okay fuck she couldn’t stall now. She knew this. “4... 6 ― Damnit! Hang on.” Billie opened her eyes, looked straight again and lifted her wand. For a worrying moment it looked like she was aiming at Dominic’s face. Instead she just muttered “Flagrate,” under her breath and in the next second she was using her wand to write the numbers in thin air with fire-like strokes. To Dom, the whole thing would just look backwards. “4, 6... 4... 9... 5... 9...” she attempted; her brow furrowed as though struggling to remember while she wrote out the numbers as she said them. “3. 1... 7... 5... 5... 3... 5... 9!” she finished triumphantly.

  “Okay, so–” she touched each of the numbers with her wand as she quickly counted them, and a few shook as though ticklish. “That equals 75. 7 + 5 = 12 and 1 + 2 = 3, so 3 is your Character number. That’s your overall personality. 3 indicates wholeness. Past-present-future, mind-body-spirit type thing. It means you’re easygoing, energetic and talented, it means you got a sense of humour and you don’t have trouble talking to people. You have potential to be highly successful but you’re also easily offended, unfocused and superficial.”

  “Errm, your Heart number isss–” Billie resumed her poking, taking her time choosing the numbers as though having to scrutinise which letters she was supposed to count. “Your vowels equal 34, and 3 + 4 = 7, so you’re a 7. Your Heart number is like, your inner life, desires and fears. 7 means you’re smart, and a serious under your exterior, so I think that means you’re carrying something with you. You like mystery and challenge and value originality and imagination more than money and having lots of stuff. But you can also be pessimistic and insecure.

  “Last one now and I’ll let you free,” she grinned, resuming her jabbing again as she counted out her fiery numbers which were now really starting to squirm. “41, so your Social number is a 5. Around people, you’re hyper, adventurous, and like taking risks. An extrovert basically. You like travelling and meeting people but you don’t stay in one place long – or don’t like to anyway. 5’s the number of instability, which indicates change, that’s why. On the negative side you can be irresponsible and impatient and a bit conceited.”

  With a flick of the wand the numbers floating in mid air vanished, and Billie crossed her legs before fixing Dom with her usual ear to ear grin. “So Sherlock, how did I do?”

[Dominic Spencer]

The answer to the question of her name never came. Instead the blue haired girl chattered on about lots of numbers and things Dom really didn’t understand. Trying to keep up with what she was going on about was giving him a headache. The boy suddenly remembered how much he hated maths and numbers. ”Enlighten me,” he chuckled as she went on. What could confusing numbers possibly reveal to her about his personality?

Dom followed on as best he could to make sure she was getting everything right but the problem was he didn’t know what wrong looked like. He nodded as the girl spoke, trying his best to look like he was helping in some way. The young vampire’s eyes crossed at the wand seemingly aimed at his face and then widened at the floating fire-like letters, magic never ceased to amaze him and it kind of made him jealous that he didn’t know how to do it.

”Talented, I like the sound of that. You’re actually fairly close to the mark, keep going,” the boy chattered excitedly, his curiosity thoroughly piqued as the girl hit relatively close to home with her Arithmancy stuff. What she named off as she continued was, again, shockingly close to the truth; all of it too including some points Dom knew were true but didn’t care to admit to. Yes he was a fan of originality and imagination, he was superficial at times, he was an extrovert and he was most definitely carrying something with him.

”Wow, I didn’t know numbers could do that. What you just said is accurate, scary accurate Watson,” the flaxen-haired boy answered her final question. He couldn’t resist adding his own lame Sherlock joke in at the end or returning her huge grin –though he made sure not to make his too big so as not to flash his fangs at the girl. ”Jeez all these numbers have given me a headache, Arithmancy –I said it right?- is complicated. You’re really good at it, really, really good at it,” Dom complimented, handing the girl back her parchment.

[Billie Ackerman]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=background,http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss229/Ehetere/PostTags/BillieFlowersBG-1.png,true][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Billie/BillieFlowers_02.png][atrb=style,padding:0px 60px;background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;]   “Top of the class,” Billie chirruped happily, and the only reason she wasn’t grinning wider was because it was physically impossible. “Or at least I was last time results were posted. There’s this one kid trying to overtake me but after this he is going to be so seriously owned,” she continued, a determined note in her voice as she rearranged her work again into neat ordered piles and put it back on the table.   “Anyway, that’s third year stuff,” she continued, deciding to take advantage of the fact the boy hadn’t run off screaming yet. Billie picked up the butterbeer and leaned back into her chair again, taking a quick drink. “Wait until you get into the serious stuff we’re learning now. Numbers are the basis of magical science, and using it to get information about you from your name is practically a parlour trick. Profressor Grey is running us through the Arithmancetical Values to explain Gamps Law of Elemental Transfiguration, then as part of our N.E.W.T exams we have to examine large amounts of code to help invent a new spell or use it to explain a magical theory.   “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, probably something practical like trying to use it to partly sequence either vampire or werewolf viral DNA. Wizards don’t have much to do with muggle stuff like that so I could probably really knock their socks off cause as far as I know they’re still working on that in St. Mungos.   “Grey said I should aim a bit lower, but screw that, I’m giving it a go. If not I’ll just do something with the Aethonans at home, maybe try and use arithmancy to explain their aerodynamics cause like, logically, horses aren’t built to fly and their wings don’t even have room for proper muscle attachment. Don’t even get me started on dragons, yikes, so much wrong there,” she scoffed, pausing only to take another drink.   “Anyway, I’d say we’re off to a good start. I know all about you, and you know nothing about me. What do you say champ? I think you’ve earned yourself a couple of questions.”

[Dominic Spencer]

That had been a good guess, when Dom had told the girl she was good at Arithmancy, he’d only guessed. He had no idea what was good along with what was right or wrong. ”I can tell,” the boy laughed, watching intently as she shuffled her papers. What was she going to do with him next? ”That was only third year stuff?” the vampire asked incredulously. Wow that magical school was cruel, making kids learn complicated magical maths. That was like, in-humane cruelty.

”I’m not even going to try and pretend like I understood half of all that stuff. I am so glad that I don’t have to do any of that,” he said with a mock sigh of relief. Wait a minute; he could have sworn he’d heard the word vampire in with all the nonsensical things. Though his attention had been waning slightly it was now back firmly on the blue haired girl. For the moment he ignored the stuff about winged horses, the vampire and werewolf stuff was far more interesting at the present time.

Dom pondered what questions to ask her, thinking he should probably try the name one again so as to avoid embarrassment in the future. ”Well I did ask you your name before but you didn’t answer; so there’s a question for you. And explain to me what does ‘partly sequence’ the viral DNA of a vampire mean? What would you hope to achieve by doing it? What do you think of vampires?” the blond asked inquisitively. So many questions from a being who stilled held most of his boyish curiosity.

[Billie Ackerman]

[atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=background,http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss229/Ehetere/PostTags/BillieFlowersBG-1.png,true][atrb=background,http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/1300666/Characters/Billie/BillieFlowers_02.png][atrb=style,padding:0px 60px;background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;]   Billie was starting to like this kid. Okay, so he’d practically just admitted that he was too dumb to do basic addition and consult a book, but the implication was that she could do stuff normal people couldn’t. She could live with that, for sure.   “I am so glad that I don’t have to do any of that,” the boy laughed, and Billie raised her butterbeer as though in mock-toast.   “Just stick with charms, huh? That’ll never steer you wrong.”   Dominic took her up on her offer and started asking questions. The fact most of them were about what she’d been saying was a good sign, it meant he’d been listening. Yep: she liked this kid. Definitely Gryffindor vibes.   “That’s four questions, but fine, I’ll play,” she replied, putting the butterbeer down on the table. “Billie Ackerman, 7th year Ravenclaw. Sorry for not telling you before, totally slipped my mind,” she apologised, laughing it off. She got a bit caught up in her work sometimes.   “Anyway, you know how like, vampirism and lycanthropy are caused by viruses right? They thought it was just something made from pure magic a while ago but now they’ve realised it’s just a disease. Took them a while, but that’s because most wizards know shit about muggle science so they never looked into it. Anyway, now there’s this big deal and they’re all looking into it, trying to find out how the virus works and how it infects host tissue as opposed to regular viruses and stuff. Then they can do what they like with it, maybe even find a cure, I don’t know.   “But yeah, I want to be a Healer after I graduate so I figure if I can work out even part of that, it might get me a boost to get me to start training as a Mediwitch. I want to go work under Magical Bugs and Diseases so it seems like a good thing to look at. Granted I have like no damn clue how, but next Holidays I’m going to take a trip up to see if I can talk to anyone. I have a backup if worst comes to worst. As I said most wizards are clueless on this stuff but I know quite a bit about biology, so yeah.   “Once they got all the DNA mapped out they may be able to make some nucleoside analogues to fuck with them during replication. Not ruling out a complete cure but like, in the short term they might figure something to stop the transformation before it happens. Like you get bitten by a werewolf, they jab you with something and as long as your first shift hasn’t happened yet you’ll be cool. Vampires are tricker but I don’t buy the ‘they’re dead’ shit. I mean, if your brain is still firing neurons I don’t care what you say, you’re alive, am I right?   “Werewolves are a ton easier though, all you gotta do is stop them turning. Vampires it’s like, I don’t know... but my theory is you suppress the virus screwing with the host cells and the body returns to normal. But that depends on if the original DNA is still in the body cells or not. It works a bit like AIDs I hear: goes straight for the immune system like bam,” she explained, miming with one hand making a beeline for and crashing into her other hand. “They really need to get more vampires and weres in to study all this cause no one wants to volunteer for medical experiments but they gotta work it all out somehow.”   Billie only trailed off long enough to have another drink of the butterbeer. “Anyway, this is all a number of years off. They still gotta work out vampire biology all the way – I mean, we know a lot on the macroscopic level but not what’s going on in the cellular level. Can’t go playing with the DNA before you know it’s not going to kill the subject. I guess that’s why they’re all scared to go in as cannon fodder. They made some nice breakthroughs with the werewolves though and—   “Oh fuck, sorry,” Billie laughed, shaking herself out of her tangent and leaned forwards to pat Dominic’s knee apologetically before leaning back again. “Totally trailed off there. Anyway. What I think about vampires. Honestly?” she laughed again, this time somewhat nervously, “They’re creepy as shit. Sorry, but it’s like, the blood thing? Not the blood thing, the fact that they’re like waiting for you outside your house to pounce and drain your fluids. They’re like muggers but they’re out for you instead of your wallet. Nothing against those that get their food consensually or anything, but the whole fact they’re out to break into your window to try and eat you is a bit... yeah.”

[Dominic Spencer]

Whoa, and he’d been told he talked a lot. ”Nice to meet you Billie.” was all Dom could say as the blue haired girl went into the details of what she had meant before. The boy found himself almost regretting asking her about the vampire thingy but only almost. As he listened it actually became quite interesting, fascinating actually. The vampire nodded along dutifully, showing he was actually listening and taking in what Billie was saying instead of just sitting there looking good. He was so talented he could do both at once.

”A cure, wow,” he whispered in awe, more to himself than Billie. She had no idea what her theories meant to the boy sitting with her. The prospect of a cure was incredible, it didn’t matter that it was far way off yet, he had all the time in the world what with being immortal and all. Musing on it made Dom’s face grow thoughtful. To be human again would be a dream come true, the first thing he’d do if he ever became mortal again was go into the sun and just laze in it or hours. Dom positively beamed when Billie said she didn’t believe vampires were dead, he was beginning to like this girl.

Well he had been until she told him what she thought of vampires. The boy’s face darkened slightly at an opinion he’d heard many times before. It was normal amongst the non-magical folk and now it seemed it was amongst the wizards and witches of the world also. ”Not all vampires do that and they can’t break in to homes, there’s that whole threshold thing; they can only go in if invited. And the blood thing? It’s not their fault that’s the only thing they can eat,” he said almost defensively, ”sorry, it’s just that I find them interesting. Your theories on a cure for vampirism, and for werewolves as well, sound awesome, I’m impressed. I’ll definitely be looking out for you as a Mediwitch when you- I mean when we’re older.” The flaxen-haired vampire was tempted to ask more but wasn’t sure his brain could take another overload of information.