Ice-Cream Solves Everything (Aislinn and one of Hunter's characters)

Ice-cream! Shopping done, so like the sensible person she was, Aoife was going to get herself an ice-cream, right before she met up with her family for lunch in muggle London. It would be okay, she had a big appetite. A small three scoop ice totally wouldn't ruin her appetite. RebelAoife, going to get an ice-cream even though her mam would be really mad at her if she knew. She supposed it was good that her mother wouldn't know then. This time she would be sure to wipe the pink ice-cream from her mouth. Forgetting that she was a messy eater had been her mistake last time and got her a bit of a lecture.

The interior of the ice-cream parlour seemed very familiar. It was bigger than the Hogsmeade branch, but the big menu filled with flavours to choose from, the furniture and the counter were similar to the workplace that she had become so acquainted with in the past year. Now, the huge problem of deciding what to order. There was so much to pick from here. It was so much better than muggle ice-cream places, both the selection and the wonderful flavours. She decided on something that she hadn't tried yet. Strawberry (like usual, because strawberry was the best) but also a scoop of some breakfast flavour, which had bacon and eggs and tomatoes and stuff. Aoife didn't know why she hadn't already tried this wonderful thing, but now was the time. She couldn't go wrong with this.

Once she was sure this was her choice, she went to queue at the counter. It was busy, what with it being quite a hot day so people would be craving ice-cream. She'd have one whether it was sunny or snowy. She loved ice-cream.

Aislinn had been walking awhile, she was nervous of going back to Hogwarts after being away on family business for so long. It was already hard enough to make friends with her last name being 'Umbridge' and now missing the last few years of school would make it even harder. She was sweaty and tired and decided ice cream would make her feel a lot better.

She wore floral shorts that came mid thigh and a soft pink cami top which hugged her slim figure. Her long blonde hair was held up in a limp ponytail. As she entered the ice cream parlour, the bell on the door jangled and she heaved her backpack down beside a barstool. Finally, she took a seat beside a girl she remembered from her first year in Hogwarts. She believed she was a Gryffindor and her name was Aoife or something like that. She smiled meekly before turning to order chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

What year should she be now? Fourth? Was she gone for three years?

When a blonde girl took a seat next to her, Aoife looked up to see if it was anyone she knew or just a random girl, one of those people that would go up and talk to anyone without hesitation. Like she was. Sort of. Like she always used to be, and sometimes was now. It turned out to be a familiar face, that girl she had met in first year. "Aislinn!" she beamed. "Hi!" She tried a bit of her top scoop of ice-cream then. The breakfast one. And it was AMAZING! Almost as good as butterbeer, the second best flavour ever. After strawberry, which nothing could possibly beat,

"I haven't seen you in ages," she said. Not even seen her anywhere around the castle, let alone talked to her. While it was possible that the Hufflepuff girl was lost in the huge crowds of students and she hadn't been paying enough attention to notice her, they probably would have seen each other in one class or another. Had Aislinn not been in classes? Or not at Hogwarts? "Have you been at Hogwarts?" Aoife was too curious not to ask.

Aislinn smiled when the girl said her name. She noticed she had the odd breakfast flavoured ice cream. How could anyone actually eat that? "Hi." she said quietly while the girl rambled on. "No, actually I haven't for the last three years. I had to take a break for family business." she finished quickly. She didn't really want to talk about it, she was sure that Elita didn't either.

Hunter was almost through with shopping for his school supplies. They just had to stop at the bookstore, and then they'd be on their way back home. But of course, they couldn't pass the ice cream parlor without Lyn grabbing his arm and dragging him inside. Hunter didn't mind though - who would complain about getting ice cream? Especially ice cream from Florean's? Unfortunately, Jack had slipped away over an hour ago, so Hunter couldn't get him to try any terrible ice cream like he usually did. Oh well - he was running out of combinations, anyway.

As expected, it was crowded. And as expected, it would take the twins forever to decide what they wanted. So while he waited, Hunter turned to approach the counter and order something for himself. Except the counter wasn't empty - Aoife's red hair was impossible to miss. Hunter hesitated, unsure of whether he should retreat or not, but found that the frustrating feeling in the pit of his stomach from last year wasn't nearly as terrible. Maybe Jack was right - maybe the summer had done him some good.

Going to sit at the counter didn't seem all that daunting anymore, so Hunter approached and took a seat one away from Aoife - next to a pretty blonde girl - and ordered himself a toffee ice cream. He'd just ignore Aoife, and be nice to her if she wanted to talk. Not that she'd want to talk, so it wouldn't be a problem. But then he overheard her speaking to the blonde girl, and Hunter couldn't help but lean forward to get a look at the girl's face and interrupt their conversation. "Aislinn?" he said, a grin forming on his lips. "I haven't seen you in ages! How have you been?"

Aislinn looked up when she heard a guys voice. Her eyes growing wide at the sight of Hunter. She remembered him as well, she thought he was cute then, but now, as he's grown, he's so much cuter. Her face grew red as she smiled at him.

Brushing a piece of hair out of her face and twisting it around her finger, she looked down, "Fine and you?" There she was again, making a fool out of herself for a guy she thinks is cute who will probably never return the favour. She couldn't believe herself.

Ah, family business. That sounded, judging by her tone of voice, like it wasn't a good thing. Aoife wasn't so mean and blind to other people's emotions that she would ask Aislinn about that and push the subject. She just nodded and ate a bit of her breakfast ice-cream, which now tasted very bacon-like. Which was great obviously. "Do you think that will be difficult?" she asked sympathetically. "Coming back after so long? I mean, I'm sure that you'll be fine and everyone will still be your friends, but..." Oh, she was just digging herself deeper. She shut up then.

Then HUNTER. That GIT. Why was he sitting down nearby? Was this another plot to make her jealous? Was he going to ask Aislinn out now? If he did, she was determined that it wouldn't upset her. Because she was over Hunter and she was going to be totally normal around him, even if they were like enemies at the minute. And he started talking to the Hufflepuff. Yep, this was definitely a MakeAoifeJealousPlan. Because he completely ignored her. How nice. She was stuck between being the mature one and saying hello or ignoring him back and continuing her conversation with Aislinn.

No, the mature thing sounded good. "Hi," she said confidently, with a nice touch of sarcasm.

Hunter grinned at the blonde girl when she turned toward him, but raised an eyebrow in slight confusion at the look he was getting. Why was she looking at him like that? Maybe she didn't remember him? After all, she'd changed a lot - enough that he might not have recognized her if he hadn't heard her talking to Aoife. Maybe he'd changed a lot, too. And they hadn't really talked all that much in their first year to begin with.

So just to clear things up in case that was the problem, he added, "It's Hunter." But when she responded, she smiled and looked down. Maybe she was just shy? She was a Hufflepuff like Lyn. Hunter decided not to think too much on it. "I've been... good." It was mostly true. "You'll be back at school this year, then?!" he asked her in a friendly tone. "That'll be great!"

A second later a far more familiar voice broke into his thoughts. Aoife. She was talking to him. How had he even decided to deal with her again? Oh yeah, he was just going to act normally. That could be harder than he thought, but hopefully not. He looked up when she said hello, and actually managed to grin pretty naturally at the sarcastic tone in her voice. "Hi Aoife." Sounded like old Aoife was back. And it felt like old Hunter was back. So maybe, just maybe, they could be friends again this year. But probably not, because Hunter was still not going to apologize. But he wasn't going to be as much of a git as he had been last term. "How's your summer been?"

Aislinn shrugged, "Honestly, I don't know. I'll probably just take a light courseload. I mean, I don't really have friends, so that's not something to worry about." She ate some more of her ice cream. She loved that wizard ice cream never melted.

"I know who you are Hunter, you git." she smiled. He was really so oblivious to flirting, or maybe she was bad at it. "Yeah, I'll be back at school. Not sure whether I'm excited, but I'll be there." Aislinn smiled her usual captivating smile. It was obvious she'd gotten the good looks rather than Ella or Elita. She was so much nicer than them as well.

As she ate her ice cream, she listened to Aoife and Hunter discuss their summers. She didn't have much to say about hers.

Light courseload. Aoife wasn’t entirely sure how easy that would be after Aislinn had missed a few years of school. Still. “What about next year?” Always thinking of the future, yeah. “It’s OWLs then,” she reminded her. But maybe the blonde would just take a couple of subjects and forget about her future, get a rubbish job somewhere stupid, hate her life. Whatever she wanted, of course. The redhead was going to take as many subjects as she could, most importantly COMC. Then she had so many options with her future, even though she was obviously going to have her three or four charities.

“And you so do have friends!” she exclaimed. Might not be true, but she didn’t want Aislinn sitting there feeling sorry for herself. That wouldn’t give her the attitude to actually make some friends. “Really good friends! Like me!” Not Hunter. Hunter would probably pretend to like her in a friend way, get really close then stab her in the back by asking her out, going all moody and asking her worst enemy out. He was like that. “Anyway, there are loads of awesome potential friends in our year!” She nodded. There was Victoria. And… Victoria. A lot of girls seemed to like Blake. Other than that, they weren’t a great year group.

The way Hunter said hello sounded like how OldHunter would say hello. Maybe there was still OldHunter somewhere, deep deep down and he’d just let that OldHunter in him come out for a moment. No, he must just have got his pronunciation wrong or something. “Good.” She could go into a long explanation about sheep and her sister and food, but they weren’t friends anymore so that wasn’t acceptable. “How was yours?”

Hunter listened to Aoife telling Aislinn about how she didn't have to worry about having friends. He snorted when she said there were tons of great people in their year. Was Aoife even friends with anyone in their year? Victoria, maybe. But that was it. Everyone else was friends with Hunter. Even Victoria was friends with Hunter. After everything that had happened last term, the year had sort of split in two. And Hunter almost felt a little bad that Aislinn would be returning to all the leftover drama from the year before.

Rather than point any of this out to Aislinn, he decided to just go along with Aoife. It was easier. "She's right, of course you'll have friends," he agreed. "You'll fit right back in, don't worry!" Was that even a good thing? Who would want to fit into the broken, messed up dynamic of the soon-to-be fourth year class? But with any luck, it wouldn't be as bad as last year. Maybe things could be more normal again.

"Why does everyone call me a git?" Hunter wondered out loud, his tone amused. "And I wasn't sure! I haven't seen you in a long time - and I hardly recognized you. So you could have not recognized me either," he said, grinning. "And I'm glad you're coming back," he told her, returning her smile. Because Hunter liked having friends. The more, the merrier. Unless he was in a bad mood. Then he hated people. It just depended.

Hunter's grin faltered slightly when Aoife replied so shortly, but he quickly plastered it back onto his face. He'd almost expected her to slip right back into their old ways, but that clearly wasn't going to happen. "Mine's been great," he told her, taking a bite from his ice cream and going on as though it was a normal conversation. "Though Jack makes me do almost all the work since I'm not there during the school year. I tried to put this fake mustache cream in his soap, but it didn't even work. I guess you aren't supposed to dilute it or something..." Hunter trailed off, realizing that he was rambling and that Aoife was probably not even listening considering that she hated him.