She had been in the UK for nearly two years now and she still wasn’t confident with her wand. Over a decade of living as a muggle was the only reason to explain her current quandary. Before the war? She’d had real expertise, her spells accurate and precise. Now? She was lucky to perform a decent wingardium leviosa.
Today she’d not even managed that.

Today, as she was wedged against the wall by the fallen bookcase, Eva decided that someone out there could make a ridiculous amount of money through providing refresher classes for witches and wizards returning to the magical world.

The morning had started out in a perfectly ordinary fashion. She’d woken, early as usual. Breakfast had comprised of fruit and yogurt accompanied with a cup of tea. Chou Fleur had been taken for a walk to the local park where he’d nearly been lost chasing a squirrel. All perfectly ordinary, mundane and decidedly muggle.

But her trip to Diagon Alley was where thing began to go downhill. Flourish and Blotts had always been Eva’s favourite place to be. Books were her life. Throughout her youth, she’d lost herself in the muggle tales of knights of the round table, sorcerers and dragons. Throughout Hogwarts, she’d thrown herself into textbooks about every element of magic she could possibly master and understand.

Today? Today she was looking for a book on how the power of divination could help you sleep. It was a last-ditch attempt to finally beat the nightmares despite divination seeming like a joke.

Unfortunately, ‘Divine Dreams’ was on the top shelf at the very back of the bookstore, evidently unimportant to the shop owners and decidedly unpopular. It was far too muggle to climb onto the shelf and just try to reach so Eva had tied to embrace the wand she still avoided using.

Even more unfortunately, a simple ‘wingardium leviosa’ had sent the bookcase careening towards her and the wall, causing books to cascade down on top of her. Most of the books had bounced off arms suddenly raised to protect her head but a loud cry had been emitted from her vocal chords as she was attacked by decidedly heavy hardback editions.

So, this was Evangeline’s current situation as she tried to calm her breathing. Her wand had been dropped in the shock, landing somewhere beneath the mass of books. She was trapped, caged in by the shelf leaning against the wall above her.

“Scheisse.” she muttered.

Jai never knew what to do with himself during his lunch break. It was a time he would rather work through, rather than try to occupy his thoughts for the 45 minutes that were left after he’d finished eating. The weather was getting better though - the long rainy season had kept Jai inside, even at night time. Casting spells to see stars through the clouds and fog seemed a bit silly when he had a laboratory filled with advanced astronomy equipment.

Once his foot hit the pavement he was forced to squint, since the sun was bright and shining this afternoon. The warm weather beckoned him outside, lifting his spirits a bit. His feet led him to Flourish & Blott’s - usually a dangerous option for anxiety-ridden, obsessive-compulsive Jai. However the evidence of spring had cheered him enough to take a look around the bookstore.

He wandered around the aisles, not really sure what he was looking for. His shopping was interrupted by the distinct sound of books falling, followed by a yelp. Jai glanced towards the employee behind the desk, who seemed only vaguely interested in what had caused the sound. Jai walked to the end of his aisle, towards where the sound had come from - and saw, in the back corner of the store, a lady beneath an avalanche of books.

“Hey, are you okay??” Jai blurted, walking over to the disaster. The only book left in the case was on the very top shelf. It was a copy of Divine Dreams, and judging by the way the shelves rejected her spell, Jai made a guess that this was the one she had been after. Being over six feet tall, Jai plucked the book from its place and with a quick flick of his wand, the books quickly rose and sorted themselves alphabetically before sliding back into the shelves. Before he had a chance to start rearranging them, he offered his hand to someone who looked somewhat familiar. He handed her Divine Dreams. "Is this what you wanted?"

“Hey, are you okay??” A voice came from the other side of the fallen bookshelf and Eva’s eyes closed for a moment, pushing back the overwhelming embarrassment. she needed to bloody well perfect her wand work sometime soon. It wouldn’t have been so bad had she not been capable before the war!

“I’m fine.” The witch lied, frowning as she tried to bend down to reach her wand from the ground. But she was trapped, unable to move. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

But the shelf started the move back off her and the books began to fly back up onto it. The hand offered was taken and she allowed herself to be pulled from her trap against the wall.

“Thanks,” came a mutter from Eva as she took the book and glanced down at the cause of the trouble. It probably wouldn’t solve anything, either. Her bright blue eyes then flashed up to the tall boy that had decided to help.

“Bookshelf must have been cursed.” She offered him a smirk and a wink before turning and reaching down to retrieve her dropped wand.

“Bookshelf must have been cursed.”

“Musta been,” Jai smirked. He tried not to stare as he attempted to place her, wondering where he recognized her from. The options were limited; Jai did not have much variety in his life. Besides that, he had suffered from amnesia six months earlier. He had noticed some residual memory loss, things that he knew he had once known - his aunts accused him of forgetting how to shave (which he had not) -  were no longer there.

“Do I…” This was always awkward. It had been worse before his memory started coming back. He scratched the back of his head. “Recognize… you…?” Somehow he felt like he was insulting her, but couldn’t decide if that was worse than claiming to already know a perfectly innocuous woman.