It was that time of the year again.  Students were rushing into Diagon Alley in droves with their parents, getting ready to go back to Hogwarts.  It wasn’t that far back that she remembered doing the same thing – though she’d never really had to go very far to get her supplies.  It was just a hop, skip, and jump away from the front door of Madame Malkin’s.   It was so busy that she could almost forget about the whirlwind of where she had been over the past couple of weeks

Today, the door was propped open and there were quite a few people milling about.  Cora was flitting around, supervising all of the students who were looking for their newest additions to their school uniforms.  One young man was arguing with his mother about the fit of his sweater and how the girls loved a bloke with a tight sweater.  Cora had to clap her hand over her mouth when the mother gave him a smart wallop behind the ear. 

It was nice to see some things would never change, year to year.  The boy looked only a little mortified by the experience and continued to browse with hunched shoulders.  No one was ready for measurements yet and Cora leaned against the counter, her pink measuring tape draped over her shoulders. 

Glancing over her shoulder, Cora’s lips pursed as she saw some little girls pulling at some robes they had no business pulling at.  “Hey!” she strode across the floor and wrinkled her pointed nose at them, “back to the school section, eh?  A little young for these dress robes yet,” she said through a very fake smile and readjusted the delicate fabric – trying to be discreet in checking for stains.  She didn’t want to have to deal with that right now.   

If Violet Islington was here no one would be touching her robes.  Watching the girls scurry away, Cora leaned against the rack with a heavy sigh.  She liked going back to school time, but sometimes… she shook her head.  Cora had some other clothing interests now that extended just a little beyond school robes…  As she rested her head against the cool metal, she lifted her head suddenly – thinking she heard her name.  “Yeh?” she called out, looking around for whoever had called for her. 

James really only had a few minor errands to run.  He did not expect such a swarm at the alley.  He was half-tempted to say $!@$% it and comeback later, but James had a schedule to keep.  Unfortunately, it did not seem like that was in the cards today.  James had been out of school for sometime now, and had never gone to Hogwarts.  Though he did recognize a few Ravenclaw robes because his brother used to wear them, he did not realize he came in one of the busiest times of the year. He had planned to simply come in, get out, and go on his merry way.  Somehow he had gotten shoved by the swarm of kids into the school robes section and back out into the dress robe section for females.  James was never much one for fashion.  He typically wore quality grey robes, or if he was feeling particularly flamboyant, quality light gray robes.

Figuring the shop crowds, he was not having much success.  He thought of a moment and wondered if there was some sort of Moses he could pull and part the ways, but James could not figure out a way to do it without attracting an undue amount of attention.    He was so caught up in his conundrum that he almost did not see who he bumped into.  While James was not surprised he bumped into a smaller than he, he still felt slightly bad about it.  After all, he had gotten maneuvered himself.

"My apologies," James offered.  Taking a look at the saleswoman, James decided she would fall somewhere between bang her while sober and claim to be drunk and bang her sober and claim to be slightly intoxicated.  Still, the lady seemed stressed  and he doubted she'd appreciate that sort of thing given the swarm of people present.  He did not bother to introduce himself, since it seemed like they were both short on time.

"Is it always this busy, or did I just come at the wrong time?" James asked, trying to figure  out why he was having difficulty getting his robes.  He kind of felt like he was on the pitch waiting for an opening in their defense to take a shot.  He idly wondered if there were any more parallels, but decided it really was not worth the effort.  After all, he was here to pick up robes, not lolly-gag.

Apparenly no one had called for her, which was of some annoyance to Cora who had just parked herself in an alcove of a rack that would keep her out of the way for a moment or two.  She was small as it was, even with the shoes, hard to see behind a rack, but she’d been pulled out and standing in the middle of the aisle, was without her great grandmother glaring for her or a customer who happened to know her by name looking around for a friendly face in the sea of children. 

Letting out a deep breath, she was about to roll her eyes and retreat back to her momentary hiding palace when someone who was much taller than her bumped into her, making her wobble on her wedges.  Her eyes narrowed as she regained her stance.  He apologized, though it hardly seemed sincere.  She ran her hands over herself (wrinkles were not tolerated) and ignored the fact that he gave her a once over without even pretending he wasn’t.  For good measure, Cora took a step back and cleared her throat.  “How can I help you?” she was clipped, still not exactly happy about being bumped into. 

As for his question about being busy, Cora raised an eyebrow.  It was one of the most famous robes store in Britain with connections to Paris and the rest of the wizarding fashion world.  Sure, they weren’t exactly known for couture anymore (much more marketable ready to wear designs, her great grandmother always boasted – taking cues from the runway for the every day witch or wizard), but it wasn’t anything to sniff at.  “Always busy,” she answered, putting on her salesgirl smile.  After all, she could practically hear it in her ear: ”sell, sell, sell.”

“But, doesn’t mean I can’t help you out.  Are you looking for anything in particular?” she hoped he had a distinct idea of what he was looking for because she was pretty much running the front of house and with the students in, it was always a bit of a gamble – especially with the hats out.  She flicked her wand at a pair of boys trying on some dress hats, desperately wishing she could send a little stinging hex at them, but settled for putting the hats back on the rack.  “Unless you’re going to a garden lunch in the courtyard,” she turned her head to look fully at them, “hands off the hats.” 

The pair laughed and walked away before turning back to him, needing to glance up to appear interested in whatever he was looking for. “Sorry. You were saying?” her eyes were still wandering though – had to keep an eye out while she listened. 

As the young lady took a step back from him, he frowned slightly.  One of the nice perks about being taller than most girls was that you could look at their cleavage and their face at the same time while still pretending to be polite.  Unfortunately, the dress she was wearing looked like something her mother approved of, and left far more to the imagination than James would have liked.  Still, she seemed professional enough.  Especially after he had bumped into her.  James would always respect professionalism, especially since he knew it was probably one of the few things that kept his long and prosperous, though not-so-illustrious career alive. 

He was slightly impressed by the way she handled the little ones, and made a mental note that they actually had a court yard.  It was good to know these things.  Especially since offering to meet  a girl for lunch in a courtyard sounded like a good way to get into a lot of witches' knickers.  Admittedly, now was not the time to make use of that knowledge, but he would at least ask the salesperson to point it out to him later.  Without thinking much further on the subject, James answered her question.

"I actually just came in here to pick up some gray dress robes.  As you can see though, I'm having a bit of trouble getting through the maddening crowd, and I'm not in the habit of accoing things through a crowd like this.  Though admittedly, today I am sorely tempted." James gestured towards the maddening crowd, full of different people of all shapes and sizes.  James then noticed something coming his way at a decent clip.  The speed of the object was well below anything found on a professional quidditch pitch, but given the location James was kind of surprised to see an object flying through the air.  Years of training and conditioning took over, and he reflexively caught the object. 

<SMACK> the sound of cloth hitting hand was heard in his immediate vicinity.  The item he caught was cloth so a large noise was not made.  However, a large number of people had seen the flying object, which lead to a number of eyes focusing on the pair.  James felt he had to say something.  The item in question appeared to be a large hat, one would typically find on a witch. 

"You know, I am used to girls hitting on me, though usually they are more subtle," James joked.  His grin vanished after a second, and he held out the hat to the woman.

"I presume this belongs to the store.  Hmm, there finally seems to be an opening," James commented and began walking towards the mens section.  James was using the distraction to make his getaway way through the store.  Somewhat aware of his surroundings, he wondered if the salesman would follow him or follow up on the hat incident.  He was kind of interested to see how she handled it. 

“Grey dress robes?” Cora repeated back blandly, that was easy enough.  “Men’s section – once the crowd thins you’ll find an easier way of getting about.  I don’t recommend accio, might snag them on something and if you rip it, it’s yours,” she explained and pointed her wand toward the corner of the store where the men’s wear was located.  It was a much smaller selection, at least out front – and though Cora was usually very willing to point it out, there were a lot of people milling about and it was school robes season.  Anyone else who came in took a back burner to the store’s biggest income push for the entire year.  They never struggled, hardly even a little, but the boost at the end of the summer did wonders for the fabric selection she could go through and the designs they’d be putting out for winter.  They’d collected quite the selection at Which Witch? earlier in the spring, so the witch fashion took up a much more sizable portion of the displayed area of the store.

She found the shop fairly easy to navigate even in at its busiest, but Cora knew every little path through the entire place.  She spent more hours here than she did anywhere else, sometimes she found herself forgetting where things were in her own apartment because of how seldom she was there.   That was partially why she didn’t think twice about summoning the hat after the boys had been playing with it and was prepared to get it herself when it was snatched out of the air by the grey robes seeking wizard across from her.  Pursing her lips, she was going to tersely thank him for catching it for her (even though she was completely capable) when he extended the hat toward her and suggested that she was hitting on him.  As if.

“Imagine that,” her professional smile had disappeared long since and did not reappear.  She took the sturdy hat in hand and carefully smoothed out the edge from where he’d caught it.  The fabric was resilient, that was true, but it was not made to be grasped like a snitch.  She cared about these things, helped craft them and her name was on them – they deserved respect.  “If you need any assistance, don’t hesitate to ask any employee near the section,” she imagined that would be her great grandmother – since Cora didn’t see her anywhere near the front.   She imagined he wouldn't have anything outrageous to say to the older woman.  Madame Malkin would certainly give him a piece of her mind, were it the case.  Cora had to be a little more reserved in that way: her professional reputation was just beginning in a big way. 

Once she was happy with the shape of the brim, she looked up.  “Good luck with finding your grey robes,” she said by way of departure and could not lie to herself: relief flooded once he walked away.  Presumptuous people didn’t do much for her and she was happy to put the hat back on the display it belonged to – children who had been playing with it aside. 

It was time for some back-to-school shopping.  Her father was picking up her new textbooks and running a few errands while he set Juni free to do whatever tasks needed to get done, with a purse full of galleons. Obviously, she wanted to look at clothes first. Besides, after her growth spurt over the summer, the Ravenclaw needed new robes and some new, basic clothing. While some of her favorites had already been altered to fit better, the rest were donated to charity or given away to friends and relatives.

While there were some fabulous tailors in the area, Cora had always been Juni's favorite. The robes she made were not only comfortable, but they looked good-- or as good as plain, boring, uniformy robes could possibly look.

She had been browsing the racks, and after a few minutes, she had a hefty selection of merchandise hanging off her arm. There were a few things that Juni wanted, but couldn't find in her size-- so she wove through the crowd of people-- only to be stuck behind some guy who had just been talking to her favorite tailor of all time. "Get out of my way, asstaco." She demanded, thrusting her elbow at his side as she squeezed past him.  "Merlin's balls, could you be any slower?! I will write glam-rock-anthems about your cringe-worthy lead feet--especially after your demise is met with the joy and laughter of all who knew you."

Juni hmmphed before making her way to Coralie, "Do you have-- this?" She held up a lacey skirt, "In a large?"

Unlike the majority of his peers, Malkins was not Bastian’s port of call when he found himself in need of new clothing. His mother would never miss the opportunity to go clothes shopping in Paris, so the question had simply never arisen. In fact, it was one of the few shops on Diagon Alley that Bastian had never ventured inside, something he hadn’t realised until he’d seen Juni head inside and had paused. But refusing to see his dear friend just because she had entered an establishment Bastian might, in his heart of hearts, not entirely approve of, was entirely ridiculous! His love for Juni could overcome any barrier between them.

He shoved the doors open, possibly with a little more force than was strictly necessary, and followed his friend. Or tried to – the shop was heaving, with tiny little children and their not so tiny parents. Juni was somewhere in the crowd, he assumed, but – ah. Talking to the divinely beautiful lady with the blonde hair, and waving a skirt around.

Unable to swan due to the unpleasant number of people filling the shop, Bastian instead moved forward with the utmost care and grace, only to get fed up and just move as quickly as possible. What if Juni moved away again! Actually, he should try to get her attention. “JUNI,” he bellowed, the volume sufficient to attract several stares, and coincidentally meaning that it was far easier to get people to move aside.

He beamed as he arrived, “Juni! Light of my life! How are you?” He turned to the lady with her, smile still in force, “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt. Please, don’t mind me.”

Due to the impossibility of the busy day, it wasn’t a surprise that as soon as she left one customer, another appeared within seconds.  Cora was glad she had made the choice at lunch to grab a coffee (even if she didn’t particularly like the taste) because it was probably going to be non-stop until closing.  Though she couldn’t exactly remember the girl’s name, she knew she was a fairly regular customer over the summer and any holiday breaks, appeared in front of her (after being rather rude – which made Cora have to cover her mouth to hide her laugh).  Plus, freckles – and a mouth - like that was not necessarily one that was going to be forgotten. 

She looked at the skirt in the girl’s hand and furrowed her brows.  “You know…” she was about to say she might have to look when another young person (presumably a student) walked up and screamed what had to be her name – Juni (that sounded familiar) and got his way through the crowd.  Kudos to the child! 

Of course, he did interrupt her and Cora, ever pleasant, wasn’t necessarily mad, but she wanted to help out and not listen to small talk of children.  She liked them well enough, but to listen to them for extended periods of time?  No.  “It’s fine!” she chirped in a voice that was probably as forced as the young man’s smile – he didn’t look like he was particularly thrilled with the hustle and bustle of the shop. 

“Let me check the back,” she smiled at the girl and grabbed the skirt out of her hand.  “Be back in two flicks of a wand,” she added and shuffled herself off toward the back.  Of course, she didn’t actually go to the back.  Checking right now would be a waste of time – since she’d have to fight all the way through the back.  She just resized the garment with a simple incantation (out of sight from the customer, of course) and turned to go back – sighing heavily as the same mother and son pair she’d snorted at earlier were now blocking her way.