Supply Shopping (Open)

So far, Aoife’s summer had been awesome, even though it had only been a few days since she finished at school. After picking her up from the train station, her family took a bit of a holiday staying with relatives in London. They’d just relaxed after a busy term, going out a couple of times for ice-cream or a trip to the park. In her opinion, she’d hidden what had happened at Hogwarts pretty well from her family. Other than her sister, who knew everything and regularly tried to talk about her feelings with her. That was annoying.

On the subject of her feelings, although she hadn’t shared very much with Claire, she was totally over Hunter. After a lot of thinking and talking to Jack on the platform, she’d realised he was a hopelessly stupid git who didn’t deserve her time or attention. It was embarrassing to think back to just a few weeks ago when she’d been crying over him asking Seren out. Now, she was certain she’d be able to look him in the eyes and actually hold a conversation with him. Avoiding him did no good. She was stronger than that.

Now, she was ready to go out to Diagon Alley and buy school supplies for herself. First, though, came her awesome cool gift from her parents. A wizard camera. Aoife had read about them and the potion she needed to make to develop pictures. Since her father had just got a new job, the family had a lot more money and she had apparently done well at school, she deserved it as a reward. They were quick into a shop to grab and pay for the camera. Then once she’d hugged her mother and sister, they were off to shop in muggle London with the promise of meeting up for lunch soon.

Without hesitation, she rushed towards the first shop she saw. Flourish and Blotts. Arguably, the books were the most important part of her school supplies. This year, she was working really hard with her schoolwork. It wasn’t like she had much else to do. And doing well in school, beating classmates with a lot of her scores, that was like winning. She liked winning. Obviously, sometimes you didn’t win, but whenever you could, you should.

Glancing down at the list in her hand, she scanned the shelves for the right books for fourth-year. Bloody hell, she was fourteen now. That was not good. Or maybe it was, maybe it meant she was zooming through her teenage years nice and quickly. Still, Aoife didn’t exactly want to be an adult because adults were usually boring, everyone knew that.

“The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, where are you?” she murmured. She couldn’t see it anywhere.

Naturally, when Matthew had received his Hogwarts letter, he was completely ecstatic. Because for the past two years, he'd had to stay home with his boring family while his favorite person, friend and brother Ollie got to go off to the magical school of adventure and excitement. And it wasn't fair! Matthew should have been able to go, too. Or Ollie should have had to wait until Matt was old enough. And then they could have gone together!

But at least now, as they walked through Diagon Alley, they weren't only shopping for Ollie. Matthew got to shop, too! Well, not that much actually, because he was using most of Oliver's old school things. But he did get to finally get his own wand, and that was the most exciting part anyway! He'd had tons of fun waving Ollie's around at home - until he'd gotten in trouble for igniting the tablecloth. His parents were no fun.

Unfortunately, before he could get his wand, they had to stop in literally every store along the way. Matt had tried to slip away but was caught by his father as usual. So he begrudgingly stepped into the bookstore with the rest of his family. He didn't need books and he didn't like books, so what was he supposed to do? Wait patiently for them to be done? Matthew didn't think so. Those bookshelves looked alright for climbing though, didn't they?!

Matthew was an expert tree climber. So bookshelf climbing couldn't be much harder. After retreating to a back corner, where his parents wouldn't see him, he started his trek. He was like an epic mountain climber, only there was no mountain. And with ease, he made it up to the top! It wasn't nearly as exciting as Matt had hoped. He didn't just want to climb down because that was boring. Oh, but he could climb over it!

Brilliant! So Matthew quickly threw his body over the top of the bookshelf with the intention of repelling epically down the other side. Only his hands slipped, and his descent was far less than epic. Instead, he tumbled down from the top of the bookshelf - oh, and there was someone standing there! Well, at least they'd broken his fall! "Sorry!" he exclaimed, trying to untangle his limbs and pull himself to his feet. Though he wasn't that sorry unless they were hurt.

Finally, after a long while of pulling out books to get a look at the titles, she came across the Dark Forces book. It was on its own and it looked like it was the last one on the shelf. No wonder it had been so difficult to come across. Grinning, satisfied with herself, Aoife flicked through the first couple of pages eagerly. DADA was not her strongest subject - but then again, neither were most subjects - but with this thing she could amaze Leo by being the second best in the class! Obviously she was never going to beat Morgana.
 
Then a book fell from the shelf and landed on her head. She frowned. What had she done to deserve that? With a shake of her head at the mean little thing, she crouched down to pick it up from where it had ended up on the floor. Then a shadow blocked her view. Was that someone… on the bookcase? “What are you do-” There was no time to finish her sentence because then the idiot fell, knocked her over and elbowed her in the nose.
 
Her nose hurt. At least this small child had the decency to apologise. But she wasn’t exactly going to forgive him straight away, was she? Aoife was no pushover. “Ow,” she mumbled as she climbed up from the ground, leaning on the bookshelf for support. She brought her hand up to her nose. It wasn’t bleeding. And it wasn’t bent into a weird shape like Hunter’s had been when she hit it with a bludger. It was probably alright, then. The kid was lucky. If her nose was broken, she would have broken his neck. Well, maybe not. She was nice deep down.

“Do you usually climb bookcases in your free time?” Obviously, she wasn’t amused by what had happened. Except maybe she was a little bit. She might be laughing if her nose wasn’t shaking madly. Noses weren’t meant to shake. That was why she wasn’t laughing. The shaking had started rapidly decreasing and her nose was almost back to normal now.

Matthew got his feet beneath him and jumped back up into a standing position in a matter of seconds. He was only eleven after all, so he could be all springy and just bounce up - and then bounce a few more times, just for fun - without anyone judging him. Oh, yeah, he'd just fallen on someone - conclude bouncing. Who had he fallen on? A girl! With red hair. "Your hair is like fire!" Matthew said appreciatively. Because he liked fire. Every time he'd displayed any magical ability, it involved fire. Like the time he'd set flames to that woman's hair at King's Cross.

"Are you hurt?" Matthew asked, though more with curiosity than sympathy. She'd said ow, which usually symbolized pain. But she didn't look very hurt. She was holding her nose though. "Let me see!" Matt demanded, peering up at her to see if he could affirm that it was broken or not. "I can't tell - it looks a little weird, but I'm not sure if it's because I hit you or if it's because that's just how your nose looks." She probably just had a weird looking nose.

Did he usually climb bookcases. "No, of course not!" Matthew said slowly, as if worried that she wouldn't understand. After all, if she thought that he climbed bookshelves all the time, she couldn't be that smart. Nobody climbed bookshelves all the time. "I climb trees in my free time," he told her. "Or set things on fire. But this isn't my free time," he added, scrunching up his face.

"My parents are so unfair. They said we have to shop for my brother first since he's older and I'm getting all his old things and he needs a lot more." It was stupid, really. That wasn't a very good excuse to shop for him first. "But I just want to get my wand! And they won't let me until we've been everywhere else," Matt complained. "It's an injustice."

Fire? Fire. Was that a compliment? Fire was nice. Pretty. But dangerous. And cruel. So how could her hair be both pretty and dangerous? He was very small and young. His words most likely didn’t have as much deep meaning as she was reading. “Uh… thank you,” Aoife shrugged. It was best to take stuff as compliments rather than insults when you weren’t sure. “You look like a sheep!” Oops, he might not have the same reasoning as she had. Even though that was her highest form of praise and her biggest compliment. She was grinning though. That could be a good indication.

It wasn’t that bad. Not even a minor injury! She wasn’t going to look cowardly and weak in front of a small child who should be following her example in later life. “No, I’m fine.” Then he was saying something about her nose looking funny. “It’s not weird, just UNIQUE!” she added. There was a big difference. “I wouldn’t want to have a boring nose that looked the same as everyone else’s!” It only added to her beautiful incredible beauty, her original looking nose.

Oh, so now she was the stupid one. The child who had just fallen off a bookcase and told her that her hair was like fire was patronisingly acting like she wouldn’t understand. WELL. “I like climbing trees. But always remember that sheep can’t climb trees.” Useful words of advice. Aoife knew from  experience because she had excitedly encouraged Cloudy and many of her other sheep friends to follow her up that huge oak tree on the farm. They just stood at the bottom and didn't listen to her. “Why do you set things on fire?” she asked, slightly concerned. “Do you get angry? Or do you accidentally light matches?” Strange child, who liked setting things on fire in his free time.

“Ah, are you the youngest one?” she asked sympathetically. Being the baby sucked. Because your older brothers and sister could boss you about and stamp all over you. At least, try to. And you got hand-me-downs. That was probably much worse with wizard stuff. “Who’s your brother?” If he went to Hogwarts, she might know him. “You’re right, that’s not fair! Because what is a wizard without their wand? Nothing! Unless they double as a sheep farmer, but that’s different…” She got the best of both worlds. “But be patient, because getting a stick of wood is actually worth it.”

"You're welcome!" Matthew exclaimed brightly, glad that the older girl had enough common sense to realize that having fire hair was a good thing. "It makes you way cooler than you would be without it!" he added enthusiastically. Was that a compliment? Matthew wasn't actually all that sure. Maybe it was supposed to be, but it had come out like an insult? Or maybe it was an insult that sounded a bit like a compliment. It didn't matter, it was true either way.

Wait, what did she say he looked like? A sheep? "I look like a sheep..." he repeated thoughtfully, thinking very hard about what that was supposed to mean. Sheep were kind of weird. But they were also fluffy and seemed pretty nice. And he had a pretty cool sweater made out of wool, which was from sheep. So it was probably a good comment. "Thank you," he finally responded with a very serious, sincere nod.

"No, unique is when something different about you makes you better than everyone else," Matthew informed the girl. "Like your hair. Trust me, your nose is weird. But don't worry, I'm sure there's a spell to reshape it." He was just being nice and telling her the truth. Matthew furrowed his brow at her words of advice about sheep and trees. "Why would I need to get a sheep to climb a tree?" he asked questioningly.

"I just do," he said slowly when asked why he lit things on fire. "The first magic I ever did was set a lady's hair on fire," he told her proudly, beaming. "She screamed really loud! It was great! Fire is great! Like your hair!" Angry? Matches? "I don't get angry! And I light matches on purpose." What a weird girl. Who lit matches on accident?

"Yes, it's no fair!" Matthew said immediately when she asked if he was the youngest. Then she was asking about his brother. "Ollie!" Matthew exclaimed proudly. "He's the best! We're basically best friends! Do you know him? Does he talk about me all the time?" Ollie had to talk about Matthew all the time. They were the coolest brothers ever. "Oh yeah, I'm Matthew!" he exclaimed. "What's your name? How old are you? You look really old."

So… this time, it sounded a lot more like an insult and was a lot harder to shrug off because he was only a little kid. Without having red hair, she’d be ugly. Or just a lot less pretty in general. No, Aoife wasn’t going to take it as an insult. Because it actually helped her a lot. If she didn’t have fire hair, she wouldn’t be pretty. And that would stop gits like Hunter from deciding that she was so pretty, they wanted to ask her out. Jack had said that more boys would be like Hunter, but they wouldn’t if she was ugly. “Thank you,” she said again. Because now she knew that she should die her hair, blonde or brown or green. But she had always been fond of her hair colour. It was much more exciting than other natural hair colours. This was important though.

“I have lots of unique things about me, then,” she nodded. This child had a very nice definition of unique. It sounded much more positive now. It was positive that she was unique and she was better than everyone else. She had fire hair, liked sheep, didn’t like being asked out, didn’t like most girls her own age. But did the last two make her better than everyone else? “Yes, I’ll look that up in my fourth-year spellbook.” Big beam, FantasticFourthYearAoife. So grown-up. “Because it’s an adventure to climb a tree. And sheep deserve to share in the adventure.”

Aw, what a sweet, adorable little PYROMANIAC. What was wrong with him? Why was he so proud that he terrified a lady and made her scream when he set her hair on fire? “Was she okay?” Aoife asked, very concerned for the poor random lady. “There are some really cool fire spells, by the way,” she added enthusiastically. If she couldn’t stop his dangerous obsession with fire, she may as well encourage him in it. There was bluebell flames and the three types of incendio…

“It’s not that bad being the youngest,” she shrugged. And little Matthew was lucky because he was close in age with his brother. Her twenty-seven year old brother was boring and she never got to be best friends with him. “I know him!” Oliver, another strange child. It made sense that they were related. “But I haven’t talked to him that much before. So I haven’t heard him talk about you, no,” she said apologetically. Ollie probably talked about Matthew all the time to his close friends, so it was fine.

Old, that was so weird. She was always the one to call people old and here she was, being called old. Fair enough. But weird. “I’m Aoife!” she beamed. “I’m fourteen. So I’m not that old. But I suppose… I’m actually really really old. When you get to my age, you’ll understand how it sucks to be old.” Wise words from one of his old wise elders there.

"Exactly, you're very unique!" Matthew beamed, glad that she understood how awesome that was. Some people were stupid and didn't get it and thought it was cool to be just like everybody else. "Normal is boring," he added randomly. Kind of like how most things were boring, but were much cooler and more interesting when they were set aflame.

"I guess so," Matthew said in response to her sheep-climbing-trees thing. "But there are lots of cool things sheep get to do that we don't do, too! So it's not just one sided, you know! Like sheep can... they can..." What could sheep do that humans couldn't that was awesome? "They can grow wool," he said, not able to think of anything else. "And they love the taste of grass. So they always have something awesome to eat. It's like having constant access to your absolutely favorite meal, all the time!" There, that was a good one! "So really, if your most favorite food ever was always right there for you to eat, right on the ground, why would you ever want to climb a tree? Eating is better than tree climbing, even though tree climbing is cool."

Why did she seem so surprised that he'd set a woman's hair on fire? "Oh, she was fine! It was on the platform after Ollie left on the train for Hogwarts, so someone put it out right away!" Other people just couldn't appreciate how cool fire was and had to go around putting it out all the time. "Dad was mad, but he couldn't punish me because I didn't mean to! But he said it was a good thing it didn't happen once we'd left the platform because of all the muggles. And then they would have needed an obliveriatorerer or something like that to fix everyone's memories." His eyes widened when the girl told him that there were awesome fire spells. "What are they?! I'll do them right away when I get my wand!"

"It's alright but right now it's no fun," he said. Oh, this awesome girl did know his brother! But she didn't talk to him? Then she was stupid. "Ollie's the best person ever! He's so cool! You should be friends with him, since you're pretty cool too! And then you could hang out with me and Ollie! We're going to hang out all the time now that I'll be at Hogwarts too!" It would be so much fun!

"That's a weird name," he said instantly, testing it out in his head. "But it's cool," he decided. Much cooler than Matthew, which was boring. Maybe he'd change his name when he got to school. It could be something really weird like Octavius. "Fourteen," he repeated. "You're ancient. I'm surprised you don't have wrinkles and stuff. That's a whole year older than Ollie!" He listened to what she said, scrunching up his face. "Yeah, being old could suck. But you can also do more things, so it will be worth it I think. Ollie gets to do so much more than me because he's older!"