There was nothing interesting at the book store, and he didn't really want to spend what little money he had on candy and cheap pranks, but what else was there to buy? Mason wandered into Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop and looked around, tacky, frilly, he didn't mind. He sat down at a table by the window, wrapping his thin jacket tighter around him, it was the thickest coat he had, and he was wearing 3 layers underneath. He was really going to have to work, and work hard at the books store next summer, or he was going to freeze to death next year.

He rubbed his arms and legs. His hat tight over his head, his mother had attempted to knit a hat with a big blue pompom on top, it felt like a hat, and it fit, so Mason wore it, ignoring the odd looks and snide remarks about his financial standings. Mason read the Menu, and his stomach began rumbling. He had missed lunch, he looked at the different cafe style sandwiches they served.

A waitress with a curly blond pony tail came over, chomping on a piece of gum. She looked down at her notepad and asked, with a monotone voice that could only come from repetition. "Welcome to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, My name is Rebecca, how can I help you?"

Mason cleared his coughed, he had been fighting a cold since the day before. "I'll have a," He coughed violently into his sleeve, the waitress stepped back, disgusted. "I'll have an egg and cheese sandwich and a large Lemon Honey ginsing tea?"

The waitress scribbled the order down with her pen, and scurried off. Mason looked around the shop, a few young couples were kissing over their coffee and hot chocolate, others chatted avidly, and other single customers, drank their beverages, a blank look on their face.

It was warm in here, if Mason wasn't half way to and ice-pop and sick, he would have removed his hat, jacket and scarf. He played with the salt shaker a few minutes, pouring grains onto his palm and licking them off.

A familiar hair cut bounced passed the window. Mason tapped on the window, getting the girls attention. "Thea!" He said, gesturing her to come inside.

Thea meandered slowly throughout the streets of Hogsmeade, hands wrapped in mittens and shoved in the pockets of her thick wool coat. The air was infused with a snap of cold that stung her nose and chilled her lungs, and she licked her lips as a draft of wind blew across her small frame and sent gooseflesh rippling up her arms and legs. The November air was biting her through, and yet she couldn't help but grin. She turned her face up towards the pale sky, where the runny sun left a smudge between two cotton ball clouds.

She avoided the few people who were straggling around, mostly couples wrapped too tightly together to possibly be comfortable. Thea pursed her lips, the displays of affection making her feel awkward. She deduced that if these couples were becoming even more frequent than they were among other roads in this town, she had to be nearing her destination.

Sure enough, she heard a tapping on the window beside her, and turned to see Mason tapping on the glass and calling her name. She suppressed a grin at his goofy pom pom hat and pushed through the door, reveling in the feeling of warm, incensed air flooding over her. She unwound her scarf and avoided the many spindly legged tables and pouffy chairs to lower herself into the one across from him. "Hey, Mase." she greeted him. "How long have you been here?"

"I just ordered about a minute ago" Mason sneezed. "Sorry I've been tussling with this stupid illness since yesterday." His eyes were drained from coughing fits keeping him awake all the night before, his nose red and raw from hours of blowing and rubbing it. His face had thinned out a bit, and didn't even want to come to Hogsmeade that day, but did because Thea wanted him to.

"Did-did you-" He broke into a wild coughing fit that sounded like a gorilla choking and ostrich.[1] He cleared his throat, "Did you want something?" He had enough money to pay for both of them, even though he might not be awake when the food came.

"I am absolutely exhausted" He stated, putting his head down on the table.

1.	imagine that for a bit, if you will...

Thea recoiled slightly as Mason nearly hacked up a lung, his skin sallow and his eyes ringed with red. She called a waitress over and ordered a chocolate biscotti and two hot chocolates, sending a pointed look towards Mason. "I'm not letting you pay for me. You look like death himself. I could never take money from an invalid." she said frankly. Sympathy flooded through her, a fairly uncomfortable sensation, as he placed his head on the table.

"I'm sorry I made you come here..." she murmured, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. His obvious discomfort was making her squirm, and she was grateful for the distraction of their food arriving. She wrapped her hands around the warm mug of cocoa and inhaled the heady steam, the chocolate scent so rich that it managed to cut through even the perfumed air inside the tea shop. "We can go back if you'd like."

"I want my tea, Abby!" Mason said, using the nickname that he alone used. "I'm not going until I lick every drop of tea out of this very odd mug." he picked up the mug, it seemed to have teeth, he hoped it didn't bite. He took a sip, "Warm, lemony, honey-ey, ginsing-y" he said his laugh sounding like an elderly man on a respirator.

He took a bite of his sandwich, "I really needed to get out of the castle, I'm kind of tired being stuck up there all the time, I just wanna get out and do something. We could go to the candy shop if you want, after we have our food, of course." He said, thinking he would have enough to spend on a few lemon drops or peppermint sticks to help his sore throat.

"Are you liking the whole 'foreigners' thing in our class? I mean, I know it's different, but I never asked you what you thought about the Tetrawizard Tournament." Mason said, trying to break the awkward.

Thea cringed at the nickname. In first year, when she'd begun growing closer to Mason, she'd let slip her real name. And now, throughout their entire time at Hogwarts, he took any opportunity he could to use the moniker that was reminiscent of it. She picked up her mug--thankfully without teeth--and looked at Mason over the rim, smiling secretly as he fervently denied the opportunity to return to the school, gulping tea and exclaiming over it's deliciousness and wheezing in a rather alarming manner that she assumed was a laugh, a sound that made her giggle a bit as well.

"I really needed to get out of the castle, I'm kind of tired being stuck up there all the time, I just wanna get out and do something. We could go to the candy shop if you want, after we have our food, of course."

"I agree. It's getting stuffy, and it's so crowded with all the visitors. The candy shop sounds lovely. And I was thinking maybe we could stop by the potion supply store." she frowned a little, as she always did at the prospect of spending money on frivolous things like "shredded boomslang skin" and spellbooks. "I'm running low on ingredients and we're not even halfway through the year."

She considered his question for a moment. "I think the Tetrawizard Tournament is dangerous. They're going to get themselves murdered for no reason. And I can't say I'm a fan of the castle being flooded with these people. Especially the ones like that Salem boy in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. They just came here to stir up trouble." she sniffed.

"Yep, and Yep, I agree. Waitress, check please!" He muffled a few coughs with his sleeve and the waitress eventually wandered over, "What?" She said, shoving another piece of gum into her mouth. "Check- check please." Mason repeated. "Oh, well then, here you go" She put down the slip of paper and Mason put a few sickles on the table and downed the rest of the tea, leaving a pleasant tingle in the back of his throat.

 He wrapped his sandwich in a napkin and bit into it was the two walked out of the tea shop and back into the cold. "Okay, Honeydukes is thataway, follow dear Abby" He said, marching towards the candy store, munching on his egg and cheese sandwich.

Thea rolled her eyes good-naturedly and put a skip in her step to keep up with Mason's strides towards the glowing window of Honeyduke's. When she had fallen into step beside him, she observed the way he was chowing down on his sandwich and shook her head in mock dismay. "Oh, Mase, how can you eat that greasy thing?" She nibbled politely on her biscotti as though to make a point, keeping her eyes slanted his way. "You're only going to make yourself sicker."

The air swirled around them, containing a few small white flakes that melted before they hit the ground. Thea frowned. "Oh, look. Snow." She disliked snow, had for as long as she could remember--although one of her nannies was fond of recounting a story in which Thea had supposedly stayed out all day making snowmen and angels. If it was true,
Thea had no idea where that attitude had gone. All she thought now when she saw it was that it was cold and wet, in that order.

Mason chomped on his sandwich anyways. "It's warm, and I can swallow it without too much difficulty, so, there" A few snowflakes passed by his grey eyes. 

"Oh, look. Snow."

"SNOW!" Mason loved snow, like loved snow. He tossed the last few bites of sandwich into a trash bin and started jumping around like a child on their birthday. "One day, when the snow is right, we should build an igloo, it's nice and warm, and it would be so much easier with a few basic spells!" Mason ran and jumped in the snow as if fell harder and harder, until he could barely see three feet in front of him.

"Thea! Thea, where'd you go?" He asked, his hand on the handle of  Honeydukes door.

Thea hid a grin as she watched Mason bouncing through the snow like a puppy, his antics accompanied by giddy suggestions all in the vein of spending more time in the snow than she would've preferred. And at the mention of spells, Thea blanched. "Right, well you can cast those..." she murmured, then gave a little wave that she knew Mase wouldn't see, and ducked through the door of Honeyduke's, watching her friend leap about in the driving snow.

Mason looked around little bit, trying to find Thea, then gave up and went into the sweet shop. The warm scent of caramel wafted into his nose. Peppermint, chocolate, pumpkin, butter, cinnamon, lemon, butterscotch. A game of volleyball bounced around in Mason's nose as he walk farther and farther into the store.

Thea was already inside, looking at a display. Sugar quills, peppermint frogs, pink coconut ice, and a chocolate wand all ended up in Mason's shopping basket, more than he had intended to buy, but he was feeling rich today, he would also have enough galleons in his pocket to buy a few bits and bops at the potion supply store.

He candy floss as he came up behind Thea, he realized that he was still a little bit taller than her. He leaned up against the wall so he could face her. "You know you look very pretty with snow in your hair."

Thea wandered through the aisles, avoiding the many excitable patrons that populated the shop aside from her. The bright colors swirled around her, shiny wrappers and thin strings of sugar and chocolate. The air was thick with the scents of caramel and molasses and vanilla and a hundred other scents that left her feeling as if she could nearly taste the sweets meting on her tongue. She reached a hand into her pocket, swirling the few galleons that remained and considering what she should buy here versus at the potion store.

She sensed a prescense behind her but jumped anyway when she felt Mason's breath on the back of her neck, the sound of his voice startling her. She glanced up at him, her cheeks flushing a light pink that she cursed as it betrayed her emotions. "Really?" She said, barely holding on to the sense of aloofness. "I can't say I did." She looked up at him, still taller than her. His prancing in the snow had flushed his cheeks, taking away some of the paleness that had seeped into his skin with illness. His eyes danced and he too had tiny melting points of white standing out in sharp contrast to his hair. "You're not too bad yourself." 

"Uh, thanks." Mason face turned bright red as he smiled shyly. He held out his blue cotton candy. "Candy floss? it's soft and fluffy, melts on your tongue..." He said, holding the puff on a stick out to her, tempting her to take some. "You know you want it..." He teased.

He took a fizzing whizzbee into his mouth, it popped and crackled in his mouth, it was delicious, his feet rose a few inches, he loved fizzing whizzbees he could throw a few in his mouth and be taller than anyone he wanted, also why he was buying a few for Rohan.

"So what are you getting? I already got a basket full of stomach ache to last me a few weeks. At least two and a half I'd say." He pinched another bit of cotton candy and placed it on his already blue tongue. "Swee? It meolts!"

Tension zipped over Thea's skin like a current. You're not too bad yourself , she repeated in her mind, and almost cringed. What was that? Who said ridiculous things like that? She had to restrain from emitting an audible sigh of relief when Mason offered his blue candy floss, pitching it like a salesman on late night TV. He waved it around like a cat's toy, and she raised an eyebrow as if to say "really?" before reaching out and snatching a bit.

She placed it carefully in her mouth and frowned as it was instantly reduced to a sugary puddle on her tongue, far less than she would've thought from the amount she'd taken. "Rather anticlimactic." she pointed out, laughing a little as Mase levitated off the floor. "Great, just what you need." she said wryly. "To be that much taller than me."

Absently running her hand over the fat glass jars that lined part of the wall they stood against, enjoying the cool, smooth sensation, Thea shrugged. "I don't really know. Maybe I'll just mooch off you..." she peeked in his basket to observe his selection. "I mean, I could make it work." Grimacing, she recoiled in mock horror when Mase stuck his tongue out to show her the melting candy floss. "Yes, lovely."

Mason rolled his tongue back into his mouth and pulled his hat over his eyes, "Thank you, and you're welcome to any of my selection", he said, taking a large bit of cotton candy from the paper stick, "If we're set, I guess we're outta here? Where to next? Potion supply store?" Mason asked over his shoulder, as he walked to the front of the store.

He bought his sweets and out down one galleon, eleven sickles, and twenty knuts. He still had three galleons, six sickles and two knuts, the muggle equivalent of about thirty five American dollars. He tossed his change into his wallet and walked back out into the snow, that had slowed up since they went in. "You coming Abby?"