"Finley!"
She snapped awake, she was at Fortesque's ice cream shop in the mostly empty street of Diagon Alley, in front of her was Astoria who gave her a worried glance while holding two small cups of ice cream. She looked around to see people going on with their day, she didn't stand up from her seat, ignoring the pounding headache she had from when she stood up too quickly. Securing her hand on the table, preventing herself from falling.
"This is why you shouldn't be staying up all night," Astoria scolds her, placing the ice cream cups on the table in front of Finley before forcing her to sit back down. "You can never get drunk sure, but doesn't give you the excuse to stay out whenever you like," the younger girl added, sliding a pumpkin flavoured ice cream.
"I'm fine," Finley shook her head, taking a bit of ice cream from the cup and allowing herself to accept the cool dessert in her mouth. Her headache subsiding slightly which was great for her as she had been suffering this headache since she woke up from endless broken sleep, not that she could do anything about it either. The longest eye shut she's ever had since the start of summer was 4 hours, she believes that its gotten better unlike last year with 2 hours or less. "You should take better care of yourself," Astoria frowns.
Witnessing Finley's little to no care for her health worried her, sure she had two more lives but there was no saying that Finley couldn't die with poor health. As much as the younger girl wanted to help, both girls knew that sleep was not an easy thing to come by especially in these dreadful times. It didn't help that Finley was more worried for her wandering brother who grew to free ride in trains to who knows where for fun.
"Would you like to head in with me to the Book keep? I needed to buy a few more books," Astoria suggested. "It's not that far from the Weasley's shop so we can stop by as soon as we're done."
Finishing the ice cream, wouldn't really hurt to go to a books shop before seeing her other friends again. She finished her ice cream whilst nodding her head, "Of course."
"Good," Astoria smiled as she gently held onto Finley's gloved hand, walking towards a bookshop that Finley just recently noticed.
It had dark paint and a bit foggy windows, but you could tell that it was just as big as Flourishing and Blotts, if not more. The moment the both of them opened the doors she was instantly engulfed with the smell of old books and ink that smelled oddly therapeutic to her. All the shelves were lined properly unlike the book shop she's been going in for 5 years, this shop had a system. From History to the Greatest wizards and their achievements, Old spell books to the origins of magic volumes that Finley didn't know existed, and potion ingredients to extremely advanced potions books.
"I'll just be in Dragons section," Astoria tells Finley as she pointed at a section going deeper into the shop. "I'll see you by the counter, okay?"
"Sure," Finley replied as she watched Astoria walk ahead towards the said section while she made her way to the potions area. She didn't know what she expected when going into the store, but she certainly didn't expect a couple hundred more potion books that she hasn't read yet. All of them looked like they were in their best condition despite the dust on the paper, all of them were sorted alphabetically and in volumes.
Taking a bluish covered one, opening it to an illustration of a sleeping dragon, Finley narrowed her eyes at it. She couldn't read the title of it, but by the ingredients alone it looked like a more concentrated sleeping potion for dragons.
"Don't even think about it," Finley scolded herself, closing the book and placing it back on space she took it from. Walking down the shelves some more, she discovered more concentrated potion books. One for illusions by scent alone, an antidote that can counter certain poisons without the use of a bezoar, and a highly lethal potion of the living dead.
"Felix Felicis," she read out loud as she concentrated on the page, an illustration of a small vial. Ingredients containing things that she has yet to see, and procedures she things to be too difficult. Flipping through pages to see what it does, the more she read the more interested she became.
'What if,' she thought to herself as a bubble of confidence appeared inside her, closing the book. Tucking it in her arm she walked towards the counter, taking a decent amount of money from her pocket making sure it was enough for the book.
"Aren't you a little too young to brew Liquid Luck?"
"Excuse me?" Finley slightly frowns as she faced a boy around her age on the counter who was stacking large books. Black slightly curled hair, black eyes, lean build yet his large slightly outdated clothes made him look like he was drowning in them. He wasn't familiar to her, maybe he went to a different school who knows? But what did bother Finley was how this boy could just simply look down on her, did she look like an amateur?
"I can hardly think of a reason why it's any of your business," she tells him, placing the book on the counter with a soft thud. Not bothering to look up at the boy again as she proceeded to get more coins from her pocket.
"To be young and arrogant, you don't have much time do you?"
Finley paused, snapping up to meet the boy's gaze. "Who are you?" Finley angrily frowns, jaw clenched as she glared at him who didn't even look as bothered at the sight of the angry girl. He wrapped the book in a brown bag, "I'm a humble book keeper," he tells her as he tied the book with twine.
"And you are?" He asked no curiosity in his tone, "Why bother, I already know who you are," the boy sarcastically scoffed handing the wrapped book to Finley with a smug grin.
"Finley Evans, Slytherin's very own Half-blood princess? Or was it Sprite light?" The boy grinned leaning on the counter as if he was mocking Finley even further. "Oh was it Finley Potter? The one who died in the tri-wizard tournament that no one gave a shit about last year."
"Why you're absolutely—"
"Blythe Zabini then?" The boy smiled, obvious that he was enjoying the fact that he was getting a reaction out of Finley who looked she was going to throw the book at him. "Frankly I don't know who you are anymore, you tend to change your identities a lot. So which is it? Hm?"
"Why should I answer you?" Finley sneered, "if you think I'm some sort of fool to you, I hope you know that I can seriously sock this book down your throat."
"That's so scary, you're scaring the dust bunnies," the boy smirked at her, causing her to glow red in anger. The infuriating part of this was that she doesn't know who this boy was and he had the audacity to mock her, she could feel her blood boiling as she stared furiously at the boy behind the counter who seemed to be having fun with messing with her.
"What are you going to do now? Punch the daylights out of me like what you did with Bennett?" He smiled, "that was rather attractive really, to see someone much less a girl like you to punch a guy who was a foot taller than her," he says extending his hand towards Finley with a grin on his face.
"Are you trying to shake my hand? Right after insulting me?" Finley frowned displeased at the boy who chuckled at her retort towards him, yet did not make a move to take away his hand.
"I know, the audacity," he says, "Now my arm might fall off you know, so shake on it."
"I don't even know who you are."
"Nicholas," he answers. "Nicholas Collins, or Nick if you want to be informal," he winks.
"Not bloody likely," Finley frowned, before she could say anything else Astoria came up holding two books in her arms with a smile on her face.
"These two please," the younger girl says as she placed down her payment before turning to Finley who kept glaring at Nicholas. "Is something bothering you Finley?"
"Not at all," Finley replied, gripping her newly bought book a tad bit tighter to relieve her stress. "Are you sure?" Tori asks, worried for her friend who seemed worse than what she originally was feeling before they came in the shop.
"I'm sure, I'll wait for you outside," Finley tells Astoria as she walked out, Nicholas' gaze still lingering at the back of her head making her want to hurt him physically with the book in her hand. Only she didn't want to seem too temperamental with Astoria around, bad enough that she's been missing for most of the vacation she didn't want the younger girl to think she went completely insane during her absence either.
Walking out the shop, she hadn't realised how warm it was in the shop that she felt a strong cold breeze fly past her causing her to shiver slightly. Hugging her new book in her arms, from across the street she could see the Weasley's Wheezes shop that she helped the twins prepare for. Helping them with buying the shop building with her wealth and Harry's tri-wizard prize, the three story shop slash apartment was filled with customers. The sight was familiar as that had been diagon alley all those years ago before the dark lord was reborn. Leaning on the wall to admire the shop, it was the only thing alive in the area.
It felt like yesterday when she came down the alley looking for shops to get her things, Madam Malkin's for her robes, the Companions shop for her cat Cassian whom she had not seen in a while. And finally Ollivander's wand shop for her very first wand, but unfortunately it was gone. Destroyed due to a death eater's raid to kidnap the old man Ollivander, glancing at the shop that was not far from where she was. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of three figures heading towards the ruined shop.
"What do you think they're planning?" A voice spoke beside her, realising that her reflection was giddily looking at the three figures ahead.
"I don't know, but I don't like it one bit," she says as she walks on ahead. Hoping that Tory would assume that she went ahead to the Weasley's shop without her.
Hey!
This is a treat because why not?
Rayah!