Title taken from this pinterest quote.  Seemed Dosia appropriate.

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Peering out from underneath the wide brim of her hat, Dosia scanned the field with a wide smile.  She’d been dragged – at least that’s what she told Augustine – to this festival and while her sister was sipping champagne in the VIP tent, Dosia decided that she was going to cash in on the extra ticket one of her sister’s friends (were they friends?  Was anyone here really friends?) and owled it to a face she hadn’t seen in a hot second. 

Like just a few of his other classmates, Migs had elected to stay in England after the tournament.  He was working in the auror’s office now, if she remembered right, and if anyone could use a good weekend in the country listening to whatevr was being spun on the records of the huge stages with sonorous charms so loud the ground shook. 

It was, of course, a good time – and the amount of gillyweed being passed around ensured that.  If Migs was less of a cool person, Dosia might have worried about it, but honestly no one could have been less cool than her date from the previous evening, so even getting arrested for illegal substances was likely to be a better time than getting called ‘the fairer sex’ and having her knowledge of billiards questioned. 

Besides, Phantom Revolution was scheduled to play a set later in the day and she wanted to catch them before they were to perform at her sister’s event next week.  (They’d probably be drinking with one another already), but that wasn’t where all the fun was.  Here in the field with the weird group wearing unicorn horns playing with ribbons was much more fun. 

Readjusting her hat, Dosia strode toward the entrance of the festival grounds – spotting a familiar face.  Throwing her arms out wide, she expected to be embraced by the taller, broader young man.   “You made it!” she cried out, “Save me from these people,” she motioned around – completely unironically as the next fifteen witches in their immediate vicinity probably had on some variation of the same look as she did. 

It was hard to believe that an entire year had passed since Migs had left the familiarity of school and joined the Auror corps as a youthful grunt-in-training.  Caught in the day to day grind of running errands and trailing behind senior aurors like a cattle dog pup trying to keep up with its tried and true herding parents, those youthful school days felt like they belong to another era.  When they daily dust storm settled and Migs sat back to think, the preceding year seemed to have flickered by in the blink of an eye.

Not that their final year of school had been all that familiar to the senior Salemites that had voyaged across the sea to participate in the tetrawizard tournament.  Hogwarts, Scotland and London had been so different from the childhood Migs remembered.  But, regardless of cultural difference, it had still been school, free of all the mundane responsibilities and drudgery of Adulting.

So, Migs couldn’t resist the prospect of meeting up with a familiar face from his year at Hogwarts and taking a vacation from Adulting.  Especially when it involved some free time out in … well, in what the English seemed to think qualified as ‘in the country.’

Dressed in his usual ensemble of button up shirt, jeans (complete with rodeo medal belt buckle, of course), cowboy boots and hat, Migs weaved his way through the crowd, ignoring the usual curious glances cast his direction.  He had long since accepted that he could seem just as foreign to the local crowd as England often felt to him.  Luckily, the combination of height and boot heels helped the Ojibwe wizard peer over the crowd and located Dosia in short time.

Migs met the young woman with a broad grin and a tip of his hat, before wrapping her into a friendly hug.  “Of course, I made it,” he countered, his grin sliding into a smirk.  “Who else was going to come to your rescue?”  He straightened up and scanned the crowd, feigning being on the lookout for trouble.  He quickly abandoned the pretense and turned back to Dosia.

“It has been far too long!  How have you been?  Feeling like a proper mature adult, yet?  Any urges to tell everyone here off for their mischief?”

The charm in hanging around Migs was the fact that he was so unabashedly American.  The whole outfit was like something out of a comic book that she’d definitely seen one of the nerdy idiot boys (that she really adored) reading.  It was all well and good though, especially as he returned her greeting with warmth.  A self-satisfied grin found its way on her face, especially as looks were directed toward them. 

Dosia couldn’t care any less if she tried, though.  Truth be told, she rather liked the attention, no matter how much she said she hated it.  That was generally one of the most perplexing things about her: if she pretended to hate it, chances were there was some deep, deep part of her that was actually very excited about it. 

“I knew I could count on you to be my hero,” she let go of him and brushed her hand against her forehead in a faux swoon.  “I’ve always wanted my own personal auror for security purposes,” she added, dropping the act and her chin to give him a look through her thick(ened magically) eyelashes before she looped her arm through his and bumped her hip against his leg… given that her hip was nowhere near his.  It was such trouble being short and not able to wear heels in the festival fields.  She’d learned that lesson once.  It’d taken three whitening potions to fix the sweater she had been wearing.

So, she had to settle for being short, and all short people had to be content with knowing they could never really bump hips.  Even dancing tended to be tricky – unless, of course, your partner was on a chair.  She managed that quite well, at least.  “I’ve given up feeling like an adult this weekend!” she informed him.  “No babysitting my sister – avoiding terrible dates,” gesturing to the crowd, “I just want to take questionable substances offered by complete strangers,” she looked at him with doe-eyes, “for which you would not arrest me, of course,” she offered a wide, cheeky smile in lieu of payment, “and, of course, dance.”

She leaned away from him for the moment, sort of hanging off his arm as she did.  “Does all of that sound acceptable, officer?”

“Now wait a minute…”  Migs arched an eyebrow in a poor attempt at faked annoyance as he looked down at Dosia.  He lifted on hand, palm up, as if weighing an invisible object.  “You want a personal Auror bodyguard.”  He lifted the other hand, mirroring the other’s scale-like gesture.  “But, you don’t want me fulfilling my important and noble Auror duties.  If you keep waffling back and forth, you’re going to give me an identity crisis.” 

With a broad, toothy grin, Migs dropped his hands and the charade.  His arms were much better served looped with Dosia’s than mimicking some lawyer or politician symbol, anyway.

“Does all of that sound acceptable, officer?”

“No playing sheriff, I swear.” Using his free hand, he extended the offer of a pinky swear.  "I promise to make no arrests.  Not even a brief interrogation.  I’m happy to put report writing, mistake explaining and life-choice-question answering aside, as well.  Though, babysitting does sound fun.”  Which, of course, was probably a simple matter of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence.  As, the youngest of five, he’d been spared the task of supervising his siblings but there was now a browning abundance of little nieces and nephews that he needed to get home to see. 

But, it was hard to overlook a particularly emphatic emphasis.  “Avoiding terrible dates,” he repeated.  “I assume that’s some weird, random, groundless phobia of yours?  You couldn’t possibly be speaking from experience.  One would have to actively try to have a terrible date with you.” 

 “I’d have guessed you were a barrister and not an auror,” Dosia rolled her eyes and pat his forearm as he tried to be completely serious about this whole situation.  She knew he didn’t mean it, of course, because he would have already arrested like… ten wizards upon entry for smoking.  The smell was really hard to miss, after all. 

But, he didn’t – and wouldn’t – because, of course, Migs wasn’t a totally jerk off.  Unlike some wizards!  “I have full faith in you,” she beamed up at him and

Everything that had happened the evening before… it made Dosia yearn for the company of a young man who was not a complete idiot.  Honestly, it was a large part of why she invited Migs.  She’d have invited Jai, but he was like a giant teddy bear.  You could totally sleep cuddled up to him, but if you rubbed up against him in the wrong way, you’d just feel dirty the next day.  Migs was less teddy and much more… well, Migs (not to be mistaken for a bad thing – it was, in fact, a very good thing).  Plus, he was tall and if she couldn’t see over the crowd she knew she could demand a shoulder ride and he would oblige. 

“You would be so surprised!” Dosia laughed as Migs pointed out how impossible it had to be (because it was, indeed, impossible to not have a good time with her).  “I swear, last night…” her eyes rolled so far into the back of her head she actually thought she might have seen her brain.  “It was like stepping back into the middle ages or something!” completely inaccurate, but the sentiment was there, “and not in the cool like… chivalrous going to ride a dragon and save you from a horse beast kind of thing,” that might have been backwards… but it totally sounded right… and she was a little high.  “More like a woman can read?! Blasphemy! sort of thing!” she wiggled her fingers at him,  attempting to be spooky, but really just succeeding in underscoring how absolutely ridiculous the entire scenario had been. 

Letting out a deep, over dramatic sigh, Dosia tilted her head to rest it upon his arm and gazed up at him.  “Which really only serves to make me really want a mimosa right now.” 

“A barrister?”  Migs brows knitted together in confusion as he glanced down at the witch.  He knew he’d heard the word somewhere but couldn’t place it.  He didn’t think it was a wizarding term, but … wait…  Now, he remembered!  Law and Order UK.  “Oh right, lawyers with funny accents and wigs!  I’m not sure I could pull off the look.  My hair doesn’t take to being restrained very well.”
 
“Either way, I’m off the clock.”
 
As implausible as a bad date with Dosia seemed, it was quite apparent that it had happened.  And, just the night before.  Which explained more than a few things.  One eyebrow gradually hitched towards Migs’ hairline as the witch recounted her eventful evening.  Several important points seemed to stand out in the retelling.  One, they needed alcohol.  Two, that guy must have been very insecure.  Three, riding dragons made for some interesting edits to country songs.
 
“Save a dragon, ride a cowboy,” Migs sang, nodding his head to the beat of a song that few probably knew in the surrounding British witch and wizard crowd.  His witticisms seemed to always fall victim to cultural differences.  “I think I saw food and drink stands back that way.  Do your festivals usually serve mimosas?  Ours are considered fancy if they serve anything beyond Bud.”
 
“Two questions: how were you not arrested for cursing the fellow?  And, how did you end up going on a date with this guy in the first place?  It doesn’t sound like he’s good at hiding his jerkishness.  I hope, at least, he was a stand in for a Chippendale.”  Presumably, something must have prompted this rendezvous.  If it wasn't personality, it had to be appearance. 

Dosia reached around his back and played with the ends of his long hair with a giggle.  “Maybe we could just curl yours and add a bit of powder.  You’d be amazing in hot rollers,” she laughed aloud as the image fully materialized in her brain.  For some reason, it came with the addition of a very satin-y robe and a gooey, green face mask.  Maybe a cat or two (though that was rather unpleasant for Dosia, who did not take to animals quite so readily as her sister. 

She hated that dog.  And her pig.  And whatever else she would try to bring into the house.  Thankfully, she’d gotten another friend to stop in and check on the beasts for the festival.

It was her turn to raise her eyebrows as Migs started to sing – she couldn’t help but burst into laughter.  How ridiculous.  That song sounded terrible..   It had to be something American: with him, it usually was. “You Americans,” she rolled her eyes exaggeratedly while shaking her head.  “We don’t need to do the regular stands,” she held up her bracelet which was a holographic, glimmering sort of thing and then motioned to his.  “VIP passes.” 

Entwining her hand with his, she took the lead toward the exclusive tents.  Sure, she totally wanted to come back out and be in the regular crowd for the experience, but when it came to waiting in lines?  Perks always won.  “Mimosas are just the beginning,” she added with a mischievous wink over her shoulder.  There’d be quite a few options in the tent, especially as one of the festival supporters was a new brand of Firewhiskey: Scorched.  She’d heard it was especially fantastic mixed with a hard cider. 

“But I was convinced into it by a friend,” she explained it away easily, “He was handsome but ugh, raised by trolls probably!”  Puffing up like a prideful peacock, Dosia had to let him know, “I was the better person – and he narrowly avoided cursing with an apology and free drinks.”  She ducked through a group of people about their age sporting unicorn headbands and saw the paid security at the tent, sponsors name glittering in red and orange letters above the entrance.

She tugged him along even faster now, the promise of drinks too tempting to ignore.  “But if it was a competition you’re obviously winning,” she dragged it out with a laugh and waved her bracelet as she flounced inside.  The booths were set, there were trays of drinks floating and appetizers making their way around.  It was a veritable playground – and luckily, Augustine was nowhere near her.  “See anything you like, Migs?” 

Migs wrinkled his nose and gave his head a vigorous shake, sending copious strands of long black hair flying.  “Rollers and powder?”  He’d never considered himself to be vain, precisely; he certainly wasn’t one to spend copious amounts of time priming himself and ensuring his clothing ensemble was perfectly arranged.  He had a style and most of his wardrobe tended to support that style but he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of binding and powdering his hair. 

“Not sure it would work, anyway,” he offered, smoothing his hair back into place with his fingers.  “It has always been resistant to styling.  Some of it is genetics, I think.  My sisters are always complaining that they can never get their hair to do anything but fall straight.  But, some of it might be magic.  One of my muggle teachers at the Res school kept trying to chop it off and it’d grow back within a week.  Drove him nuts.”

It had always delighted Migs, though.  The disbelieving disappointment on the old man’s face had always been the highlight of history class.

“Well, looky there!”  Migs lifted an eyebrow as he rotated the bracelet around Dosia’s wrist.  “I had no idea.  Here I was thinking I was just part of the regular crowd and now I’m getting sneaked in to the special Whos Who tent.  I should have known better.” 

Sparing only a brief, self-conscious thought for his roughened, ranch-calloused knuckles as Dosia took his hand, Migs followed her lead through the crowd.  “Ah.  Blind date, then.”  A curious tradition that Migs had never quite understood.  “So, I take it the blind date didn’t leave you with plans for a second?  No secret plans to elope to Venice?”  He smirked, half-expecting the curse that this apparently date-challenged fellow had dodged. 

“Hmm…”  Migs eyed the trays as they meandered slowly by, considering his options.  One particular tray floated by within easy reach, carefully balancing an assortment of drink-filled flute glasses and Migs managed to retrieve a mimosas for Dosia without toppling the rest of the drinks.  He knew what he was craving once he spotted the two elements but he’d been in England long enough to know his choice was likely to raise a few eyebrows.  “Don’t judge me,” he said, preemptively.  A tall glass of ice was plucked from one tray just in time for Migs to pick up a steaming pot of tea from another.  The ice creaked in protest as it transformed the very British pot of tea into a very American glass of iced tea. 

“So, who's playing at this thing?  Anyone I'd know?"