If their ultimate goal was Honeydukes, Blythe Blackwell wasn’t in a hurry. It wasn’t because Honeydukes wasn’t delicious (it was definitely worth the word expedition), it was just because the weekend meant strolling, sipping butterbeer in the sun until it went lukewarm, and not worrying about being at certain place before a professor took point.

Not that Blythe was uptight, in general. A couple of points could be earned back. They had all year. Or had had all year.

The weekend also pondering the secret charms on ancient witches’ bags with an easy-natured Gryffindor before landing in a random store that seemed to have one of everything. “There are toasters that double as espresso machines,” she observed. Though to be fair, Blythe was sure she had seen one of her cousins (not Lysander) toast… toast… with an iron. "We can’t escape education even here,” she joked in a quieter tone, but in a carrying enough voice still meant to be shared. It was good argument to let them go more often. An open pass on weekends would have been nice. But Blythe wasn’t sure anyone was cute enough to bring that up with McGonagall, even Bran. She could see the Headmistress’ face now, and she wasn’t even trying.

The Ravenclaw was in good company; she peeled eyes from a candlestick whose tag promised that it was charmed to light itself in certain levels of darkness (only mildly dangerous for anyone who ever left their house) and looked at Val. “Do you need socks that alert you to the presence of ghouls? Because that’s a great deal,” she said, straight faced as she pointed. She picked up a pair of said socks and tossed them to her friend.

Though Valerie enjoyed a weekend away from the castle as much as any witch her age, she would not have been a proponent of weekly Hogsmeade visits. She typically worked all summer to save up pocket money for the upcoming school year, and she was precious with her gold – at the end of the day, it amounted to all of her life savings, and there was a lot more gravity to that fact now that she had turned seventeen and was officially on her own... in a legal sense, anyway. She looked forward to being able to go out and get a butterbeer with friends every month or so – it was a teenage rite of passage, after all – so she budgeted for that. But every weekend? She didn't think she'd last, and she wasn't willing to dip into the little bit of gold she had in Gringotts to soothe a sweet tooth! This was the last Hogsmeade trip of the year, however, and she had been plied with a little bit of birthday money (most of which she intended to bring with her on the upcoming summer trip), so she wasn't feeling quite as money-anxious today. Plus, she didn't think she'd find anything in this particular establishment that would convince her to part with her gold – at least if the toaster/espresso machine was any indication of the sort of wares they were likely to find on the shelves.

That sad truth became even more obvious as she braced herself to catch the pair of socks that her friend was throwing her way. She giggled her telltale giggle as she turned them over in her hands and studied them, alerting the entire shop to her presence – though, after what was presumably a long morning full of similar antics and few purchases, the shop keeper didn't look particular perturbed, merely bored. “I can't say I've had a problem with ghouls, so the socks I've been wearing must be doing the trick!” she declared, walking around to replace the pair in the basket with the rest. “I'm sure I'll regret passing on these one day when I go to slip on my trainers and I find a ghoul inside,” she snorted playfully. “I reckon the company who makes them is called 'Gullible.'”

Everything in this shop may have been essentially useless to her so far, but it was all good for a laugh. All she had to do was turn her head to find herself face to face with another fascinatingly pointless object. Unfortunately, this time, having stepped away from the socks, she did more than turn her head. One stray, knobby elbow sent an entire bucket of charmed nail clippers skittering onto the floor, each them them chattering like a starved pair of wind-up dentures and eagerly gunning for the nearest pair of feet (where, presumably, there were toes – and where there were toes, there were toenails). “Help me!” she hissed desperately under her voice, as if it was possible that Blythe hadn't heard the dozen or so clippers clicking away... where they were currently swarming her. She rifled around on her person until she had her wand in hand, but once it was there... well... how did you contain a herd of angry nail clippers when you knew for a fact that you couldn't afford to damage the merchandise? She shot Blythe a look that was half desperate, half amused, unable to take this ridiculous situation completely seriously. Pressing her lips together to keep herself from bursting out laughing, she held her wand out like a useless appendage and shrugged.

“I don’t know, orange with… neon green… looks like your color… s.” Colors, plural. Blythe wasn’t one for pinpointing someone’s colors, really. She liked her blacks, grays, navies… neutral shades… and the occasional pop of color or pattern. She wasn’t fussy about clothes, she just liked what she liked. She was kidding, of course, about the admittedly ugly socks. Not that she wasn’t sure that Val could rock them in her own way. She grinned as the other girl went around to replace them, shrugging. “Break their hearts, then, why not?”

The ghouls would reign supreme for another day.

“Do you think Gullible actually makes money, though?” They must, if they were brave enough to make socks in those shades. Maybe it had something to do with the ghoul-finding charms.

As they browsed, the painfully nonchalant clerk paying them little mind (was he sleeping with his eyes open?), Blythe looked at the price tags with a bit of apprehension. People really would pay a lot for random things. Blythe had decent pocket money today, mostly because she saved, but her parents had four kids vying for gifts. She wasn’t really going to blow it on socks.

The great flood of nail clippers had already threatened a lot of damage by the time the Blackwell girl made it around the corner of the shelf and saw Val stranded in the midst of their teeth-like charms. Green eyes widened and Blythe pulled out her wand, too, but one look at the Gryffindor was enough to distract. It was hilarious, even if it was… mildly terrifying. As a clipper clacked away at her shoe, she came to her senses and cast a charm that sent them in a sweep back into the bucket. The upside to having so many siblings was that their father had instilled the importance of chore charms in each of them. Blythe, of course, had had to make due with manual labor, having not been of age in the summer. Her sister hadn’t let her forget it. But she’d learned the spell for dorm purposes. Minor spills of random belongings were a thing even for Ravenclaws.

As they all protested their return to their dungeon, Blythe quickly swished her wand again, setting it up right. The clippers still clipped away angrily, sounding like a heavy rain against a tin roof. The Ravenclaw was laughing now, pointedly avoiding the eye of the store clerk. “You really might need some new socks now.”

She waited for Val to straighten herself out before she carried on, toward a spinning rack of clothes. She pulled at the arm of a flannel shirt before letting it drop again. Then she found a shelf of hats and wandered over to those, picking one up. She set it on her head and glanced at herself in the mirror, grateful that neither her sister nor her cousin were here. It looked rather like the Sorting Hat, but more feminine shades, with flaps for winter. If it was charmed, Blythe hadn’t discovered how yet… “I’m almost afraid to take it off,” she admitted.

Valerie never thought of herself as the type of person who had 'a color.' She liked blue, she supposed, but every single human being on the planet liked the color blue. She wasn't fussy about clothes, or about matching her accessories to her eyes (because mud brown was a lovely color – not!), and she really didn't put thought into things like that. If she liked something, she'd wear it. If she didn't like something... she might still wear it, to be honest. If Valerie was already in possession of that neon pair of socks, there was no doubt that she would have worn them proudly without a second thought... but given the option to part with her gold or pass on the goofy socks, she decided that she was quite happy with the current state of her footwear, thank you.

“I'm sure Gullible is doing quite well. The elderly love things like this,” she snickered, knowing there was definitely some truth to that. This shop was like a geezer magnet! “Maybe I should buy a pair for Nana Quirke!” she exclaimed brightly, her words dissolving into giggles. Her carer's mother wasn't an old sort of grandmother type, but thinking of the woman walking around in a pair of loud, purportedly ghoul-repelling socks was still a lovely mental picture. She reached out and gave the pair of socks on the top of the pile a good, reassuring pat. “I'll be back for you next Christmas!”

If she survived until next Christmas, that was! She knew that the nail clippers weren't actually sentient, and that their intentions had been determined by a bit of spellwork and nothing more, but with their little mouths snapping, they really did seem to have it out for her! Both witches seemed to see the humor in the situation, though in Val's case she wasn't sure if it made more sense to laugh or cry. While she was panicking internally, trying to decide if 'finite incantatem' would render the merchandise unsellable, Blythe was doing the practical thing and simply gathering them up with a spell. The sound they made once they were back in the bin was more than enough to draw attention to the two of them, and she could feel her entire face go pink with embarrassment as the gyrating bucket was returned to its shelf. It was the combination of the noise and the simple solution that was slowly killing her on the inside. Granted, she'd never been allowed to use magic to do her chores, and most of the time she didn't even think to go for her wand when something fell over (unless it was something awful like a plant and all of the soil and gravel in the pot), so the solution wasn't innate – but still, she felt foolish. “Thanks,” she muttered, chagrined but recovering.

Still smiling an awkward, humbled smile at Blythe's sock comment, she followed the ravenclaw to the display of hats, happy to leave the nippy clippers far behind. She still had trouble taking hats on witches seriously.  All of them looked a bit silly to her, much like halloween props, and any time she tried one on – even seriously – she felt like a child playing dress up and soon abandoned it. This was all for fun, however, so she was on board with Operation Dress Up, and grinned at Blythe's reflection in the mirror. 

“There's a tag!” she informed her, reaching out to try and read the little card of information that was dangling off of the back of the brim with a string and a pin. Cupping it in her palm, she looked it over. “Oh, it's nothing,” she insisted with some relief, “It's only self-warming. That sounds quite nice, actually. I wish it looked, erm...” she trailed off, trying to find the words to not insult the piece of headgear, “well, not so much like that,” she chuckled.

Wanting to join in on the impromptu game of dress up, she picked up a very different looking hat for herself. This one was less formal, and had a great, big purple flower on it. Glancing at the tag to be sure that she wasn't about to subject herself to anything horrible (again), she settled it on her head. “This one's supposed to alert you to the presence of weeds and gnomes,” she explained, making a kissy face at herself in the mirror. “I think it suits!”

It was true: old people did love their overly safe contraptions and warnings systems. With giant buttons, usually. “What does it say about us, that we ended up here? That we’re good gift-givers or secretly old people?” Definitely not the latter.

Blythe tried to stifle her laughter and tore her gaze pointedly away from poor Valerie, whose pink face was betraying her. But the Ravenclaw thought she’d come out just fine, so she only threw her occasional glances from the side until it was safe, the bucket behind them and their control over their reactions restored. The clerk stopped giving dirty looks, eventually.

The Blackwell girl stood as still as she could when Val inspected the tag— who knew in this place what one wrong move would do? They didn’t need scissors following the clippers. Her sister might be proud if a pair of tweezers managed to reach her, though.

“Oh,” she said, blinking and moving a bit. If that was all, she could look it over from a few angles, the terribly clashing, ill-fitted thing that it was. “I don’t know, it just needs a little love, Val,” she lied. Or the right seventh year wearing it in a corridor. And the school would be filled with self-warming hats in late spring. She grinned at the other girl in the mirror and started to remove it, raking a hand through thick, straight hair. “Such a timeless idea, wasted on…” She held it out and shrugged at it before returning it to its hook.

She spun to look at her friend’s choice and laughed. “That should definitely be useful at Hogwarts.” It was much nicer than the one she’d just put back, she had to admit. “It goes with your hair, somehow, I think.”

Her next choice was a seemingly normal black beanie, whose tag promised…

Yep.

As Blythe put it on, both of the hat’s special states sprung up at once: a pair of red horns, and a hovering halo of light. “Looks like I’m a mystery,” she said, joining her friend in the mirror.

“We're good for nothing ragamuffins with nothing better to do,” Valerie announced quite confidently, “That's what it says about us!” The gryffindor grinned. She was fairly sure that the comatose shop keeper would agree, particularly after the clippers were knocked over and then restored with all of the rattling and blushing in between. It was probably the most exciting thing that had happened in the shop all day, if not all year. Blythe did not seem at all shaken, which helped to convince Valerie that she could remain in the store without dying of humiliation – ironic, as they immediately moved on to the 'Funny Hat' portion of the afternoon's shopping exploits.

Val touched the brim of her odd gardening hat self consciously when Blythe suggested that it went with her hair. Honestly, she knew nothing about that. Some girls seemed to naturally drift toward fashion and makeup and grooming, and appeared to know exactly what to do with implements for hair or cosmetics that Valerie couldn't even name. She'd never woken up with sudden, unexplained knowledge about eyelash curling or coordinating accessories, and she hadn't been particularly eager to go seek it out. When she was younger there had been times when she felt like less because of it, but these days she was happy in her skin, even if she didn't know what shade of foundation went with it. “I wonder how it alerts you to the weeds,” she mused as she continued to study herself in the hat, touching the floppy brim with both hands. Adult witches wore hats like these everyday, she thought. That was just one more reason why growing up was a terrible idea.

Blythe's newest piece of headgear elicited a balk from Valerie, who wasn't sure what to make of it. She settled for the old standby – giggling until she could find words. “What's that one really supposed to do?” she asked – judge moral character? If so, it would only be the second hat she'd ever encountered with such an ability – the first being the actual sorting hat, which was clearly much better at the job. As she looked at both reflections in the mirror, she couldn't help but notice a few figures entering the shop behind them, accompanied by the gentle ringing of the bell over the shop's door. The sun was behind them, and it took a moment before their features came into view, but when they did...

“No!” she whispered, her voice a near hiss as she spoke to her friend's reflection, “I used to fancy him when I was younger!” she explained frantically, her voice soft and laced with both strife and giggles as she gestured to the new arrivals with a subtle jerk of her head. She was quick to remove the hat, only to reveal hair that was considerably more frizzy than it was prior to playing dress up, which she attempted to tame with desperate, frazzled finger-combing. “I don't want to talk to him now!” she went on, her voice soft. “I humiliated myself before the Yule Ball trying to flirt or something,” she winced, shoving the goofy hat back where it came from, “I don't know what I was trying to do! Goodness!” She sucked on her lower lip for a moment, trying to evaluate the situation.

“Can we escape?” she asked hopefully. Why, oh, why did they have to be at the very back of the shop?!

“Ragamuffin is kind of catchy,” Blythe admitted, her face calm and slightly blinking as she considered it. It also suited the pair of them remarkably well, even if they had better judgement than to walk out of the store with arms full of ragamuffin accessories. Did ragamuffins even do that? “As long as it doesn’t mean we get chased by armies of nail clipper on a regular basis.”

While a fan of working out puzzles, Blythe wasn’t sure she could begin to hazard the magic behind weed-detecting hats. Particularly because the chance of the hat on Val’s head working properly was dubious. “The world may never know.”

She could, however, explain the half-baked horns on hers. “It’s supposed to tell you if behaving or being bad, based on your intention and sincerity and the act itself,” she said, summarizing the tag with the same convincing tone the printed words conveyed. Only more serenely, and less convincing. “Like a mood ring… sort of. So I guess I’m… semi-bad, but it knows I’m salvageable. That’s what I get for peer pressure.”

She was cut off the by the sun’s reflection, but it was just as well. She was still trying to figure out exactly what the hat said about the excursion. Val’s desperate whisper made her turn, and Blythe stared at her friend for a few moments before throwing the boy a look.

She would have felt the same way, all things considered. Blythe was terrible at flirting, worse at discussing her attempts.

“Right… right, we can just.” She pulled her own hat off slowly, tossing it into place and then backstepping and trying to straighten a little. She looked over her shoulder again as she thought it over. Her eyes darted to the front corner, opposite of where the boy seemed to be headed. “If we duck behind those—“ She said, pointing to a cluster of obscenely tall mannequins flanked by smaller, oddly shaped mannequins. (It seemed the store sold all sorts of things that weren’t limited to the human crowd).

As the boy seemed to turn, suddenly, in their direction, Blythe sunk in front of the next best thing, much closer: a round, spinning rack of clothing. She looked up and around, and gestured hurriedly for Val to join her. “Er… We just have to get… past…” All of that open space. She held back a laugh. They were stranded for a moment.  “The good news is, you have good taste.” She could admit that much easily enough. Besides, Val looked like she could use some kind of reassurance. Blythe peaked between a pair of musty old cardigans, using her wand to poke at the ones opposite and see if she could see him.

Only the flower hat knew how the flower hat worked – and, considering the shop the two girls found themselves occupying, the answer was 'not at all.' Setting the hat back down on the dressing table, Valerie ducked so that she was out of view of the wizards who'd just entered, putting her squarely at eye level with the large, purple flower that had been adorning her head just moments earlier. She remained very still while Blythe, the more brilliant mind out of the two (she was, after all, a Ravenclaw, and that had to mean something) attempted to devise a plan.

As soon as Valerie turned her head to take a look at the mannequins that her friend was referencing, the hat seemed to mistake her for a gnome – which was insulting, mostly because the only garden gnomes that she had ever seen looked quite a bit like animate potatoes. All at once the hat's mechanism revealed itself, as a stream of water came squirting out of the center of the flower, blessedly missing her head but instead arching high over where she was ducking like a rogue water fountain stream or a pound shop water pistol. “Goodness!” she squeaked, her whole face wrinkling up painfully as she attempted to wish herself invisible, crawling under the arch of water and over to Blythe's hiding spot on all fours. The boy and his friends had turned to look, and were craning their necks perplexedly in search of the source of the spontaneous water show.

She was glad there was clothing rack right there. She had no problem crawling straight into it, ducking on the ground beneath where the clothing hung and blushing a vibrant pink. She stuck her face out from between two sets of very heavy robes and looked the ravenclaw girl in the face. “If you never want to hang out again, I understand,” she informed her, before letting go of the drape-like garments and allowing them to envelop her like a shroud of shame. Already feeling utterly ridiculous, Blythe's remark about having good taste sent her over the edge, and the clothing rack began to giggle. It wasn't conservative giggling, either. It was a twitter that quickly transitioned into a belly laugh that, soon enough, involved tears and breathlessness, and by the time the ridiculous gryffindor had given up entirely and rolled like a log into the middle of the floor (and right into a puddle of hat water), the jingling of the bell informed them that the boys were gone.

Rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling, Valerie sighed, finally taking in a good breath. She looked more like a ragamuffin than ever with her mussed hair and damp jeans, her face a blotchy mask of damp and giggles past. “Just leave me here to die,” she encouraged Blythe, wiping the back of her hand across her cheeks, grinning dumbly at the shop's ceiling. “I wonder why I haven't got a boyfriend.”

The sudden development of a wearable fountain raining down on heaps of dry cloth and teenage girls desperate to be inconspicuous was not the sort of hidden oasis Blythe had had in mind as she ducked and charted their map. The (in some cases) dusty material on the rack before them seemed to shiver— as much out of laughter as the inanimate collection’s sudden bath.

Blythe narrowly missed the bulk of the street, and was only dotted a little with streaks of water as she balanced her laughter, her fear, and her planning. (The last of which had certainly been put on hold to accommodate the others.)

As she shifted to peak through the clothes, a sleeve conveniently flopping over her face to hide it, she saw the group looking in their direction. Their expressions had nothing on Val’s blush. Blythe felt true sympathy for her friend, and a little admiration for the perfect puzzle to draw the boy's attention, however unintentionally. If the devil horns had been eye-catching, it was the weeding hat that had brought the boys to the… indoor yard.

“This is way better than not hanging out with you and spending all day dodging clerks and people’s ex crushes on my own,” she assured Val, a smile stretching on her face, close-mouthed and tranquil despite the situation. It was soon broken by more giggles, and the pain to keep them in was too much to bare. The clothing rack continued to shake and make noise, drawing the attention of the boys as they (thankfully) exited the shop.

Relief left her with laugh-ridden sigh and Blythe poked her head out through yet another set of jackets. “I can’t do that. You have to make it through summer, at least. I can’t use you as an excuse to avoid splitting chores with Charlie if you’re left for dead.” Blythe shot her another smile as she finally made it out of the rack and onto the floor, settling on her knees and looking Val over for signs of damage. Aside the damp pants, she seemed alright. “Boyfriends sound like a lot of effort you could put into… sweets.” Or something like that. Blythe had her wand in hand again, holding it out with a vague offer to help mop. “Or maybe you just need one who will do the weeding for you.”

The shopkeeper seemed to finally have enough of being useless. As he approached, Blythe went to work on fixing the hat situation, deciding her friend would probably forgive her for not helping with her jeans first. “We might still need that escape plan."

Valerie had never been what you might call 'conventionally boy crazy'. She'd never taken to altering her appearance for the purpose of getting boys to notice her, she talked about things other than crushes and dating, and she'd never had boyfriends. That didn't mean that she wasn't interested in boys, however, or that she didn't think highly of relationships. On the contrary, relationships were incredibly appealing to the perpetually single witch. Valerie craved stability, and a relationship seemed secure and comforting – like not only having a best friend, but a super best friend. Partners had the potential to become family. Thus, she took the idea of dating and relationships seriously... just not seriously enough to actually experience them. She didn't know how to talk to boys in a romantic way. Even her most honest attempts seemed to land her in a damp heap on the floor of a magical knick knack shop sometime down the road. It was funny and utterly ridiculous in every way, but she'd be lying if she said it didn't break her heart a little bit. She still grinned like a loon. She had to smile or she'd lose her mind.

“Your choice of friends is questionable,” Val informed Blythe bluntly and with a quick snort, “But if you keep me around, I owe you.” She remained ducked in the clothing rack until the coast was perfectly clear, at which point the rolling and giggle-snorting and eyeball condensation became all consuming. Some people thought Valerie was laid back, but next to the world's most Zen ravenclaw, the description was laughable. She was laying on her back, but that wasn't quite the same thing.

Just when she thought she'd finally caught her breath and could go about her life without brain damage caused by giggle-related oxygen deprivation, Blythe made a remark that started her up again. “So that's why you keep me around!” she burst out teasingly, her voice louder than she'd anticipated, “I get you out of chores?!” She lifted her hands and covered her eyes, trying, once and for all, to quell her shoulder-shaking laughter as she writhed about in her puddle.

At last she peeked through her fingers, releasing a deep sigh. Laughter was exhausting in quantity, and her diaphragm was getting quite the workout. “I think I'd make a fine spinster,” she declared as she gazed upward, “I have plenty of experience. I've never been married in my life!” She smiled a crinkle eyed smile up toward the ceiling. Valerie knew more than one unmarried adult witch. Her carers were part of a sort of unofficial coven of musical magic users, including her fantastic tutor Auntie Kate, who'd taught her in her home when Val was young. Intellectually Val knew that there were worse things in the world than remaining unmarried, but the fear of never really having a family of her own complicated things. She craved more security than that. She was only recently seventeen and she already felt like she was out to sea. There was a pressure to figure things out – to quit rolling on the floor and to sort out her life before it was too late. That, it turned out, was easier said than done.

As if her life wasn't already in awkward shambles, the shopkeeper was quick to cast his shadow over her prone form, and she scrambled to her feet as quickly as she possibly could, all traces of her easy grin slipping from her face. “Goodness,” she muttered under her breath, “Goodness!” Considering Valerie wasn't a troublemaker, she feared authority. She squirmed under the wizard's gaze. “Really sorry,” she told him, her brow crumpling. She managed to look genuinely apologetic – surprising because she technically hadn't done anything other than generally make a nuisance of herself. It wasn't like there were any customers for her to scare off! “I imagine it'd be best if we leave,” she insisted, shooting a look at her friend before she could get too comfortable in her tinkering.

Val wasted no time. As it turned out, the best 'escape plan,' as Blythe may have called it, was running like hell. She dashed through the store, weaving around racks and shelves, thankful for once for her narrow hips and lithe frame, and once she was out on the high street it was miraculous that she didn't drop to her knees and kiss the ground. Instead she did what she did best and laughed herself into a stomach cramp, relying on the brick of the shopfront to keep her upright for a change. It was only once she'd caught her breath that she thought to make sure that Blythe was with her.

“Is it? Have you met my family?” Blythe challenged. And then: “Kidding. My older brother is awesome and my cousins are even better.” Gwendolyn and Charlie, though. Could someone do something about that? “And I didn’t even choose them. My friends,” she continued, casual, as if considering what to have for lunch. “They’re pretty alright.” She offered Val another serene smile. “So you’re stuck with me. But if you really want to owe me…”

She didn’t mind.

And then she was caught.

Laughing now, she opened her mouth and paused before any words came out. “I mean, it’s not the best part of having you around, but it… definitely helps.”

Spinsterhood was an unpleasant term, but the logistics were not terrible. Especially since they didn’t live in the 1800s. Blythe knew she was planning to get hitched any time soon, either, so that made two of them who were ill-experienced in matrimony. “Hey, we have decades to get married. Maybe get your hat under control and go talk to what’s-his-face first. Maybe he’ll be on our way to Honeydukes.”

Nodding quickly in agreement with Val’s apologies, Blythe let her friend do the talking as they were judged by the shopkeeper. Her own face held an expression adopted from Bran, though it undoubtedly looked better on him. The angelic thing had almost worked better when she could still count her age on one hand, even if, when standing beside Bran today, they still made quite the pair.

But they didn’t need those faces to escape! Just some thought. Or feet. She followed quickly after Val, bursting through the door and laughing, too. “We survived,” she chanted, garnering a look from a passing stranger. Blythe offered her a smile and took her time straightening up. She closed the space between herself and friend, peering over Val’s shoulder to make sure she wasn’t choking. “So now, those sweets, or…” She pointed across the way, to a sign that advertised a gardening convention. Of all the goings-on in Hogsmeade… “I think you forgot to tell me you have some place to be.”