A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
~Robert Frost

~3pm

He didn’t always have the luxury of sneaking away in the middle of the afternoon, but it was a Tuesday and his class load was light. So, with a box wrapped in bright colored paper in hand, Isaac had carefully snuck away to Hogsmeade to floo to London.  Today was Teagan’s birthday and he wanted to deliver her gift to her in person.

He was relieved to find the shop open; having made the trip in the late afternoon instead of waiting for the early evening in hopes of making sure he caught the adorable clerk before she might head out to celebrate.  He had enlisted a little help from his friend Anna in picking something out.  He felt he had been lucky at Christmas with his gift choice, but he had been unsure about being able to find something appropriate that Teagan would like a second time.

He had to also admit he had been a bit reclusive lately in trying to get a complete first draft of his book finished.  He was getting close, and a lot of good work had been done so far.  It was his hope that by the end of the month he might have something to bring to his publisher.  He felt bad his visits to Scribbulus hadn’t been as frequent as of late.  Of course he knew a lot of that had to do with the slight crush he seemed to have developed towards the bubbly Teagan Murphy.    They were just friends though, and there were times he was convinced his shy personality would mean they would remain simply that.

 He took a breath before opening the door to the shop, hearing the familiar jingle of the bell as he stepped inside.  He hid the present behind his back, scanning the shop to find the brunette.

Birthdays gave Teagan this surreal feeling. She always went to bed the night before with the childish belief that she would wake up the next morning with this definite feeling of being older. As though age was something that happened instantaneously instead of this thing that slowly accumulated, day by day, experience by experience. But of course things didn't happen that way, so instead she always woke up feeling more or less the same as she always had.

For instance, waking up on the morning of her twenty-fourth birthday Teagan still felt exactly as she had felt when she was twenty-three years, eleven months, twenty-seven days, twenty-three hours, and thirty-nine minutes before, when she'd turning her reading lamp off and settled comfortably under the covers. She'd woken up still sleepy and a little anxious, like maybe there was something wrong with her for not thinking being another year older was that big of a deal. Maybe if she was doing more with her life, something more important than selling stationary supplies, she would feel like a birthday meant something.

But that, Teagan had reminded herself as she got out of bed and dressed for the day, was stupid. It wasn't like she didn't enjoy her work. Teagan was fortunate enough to enjoy what she did for a living, and how many people could say that? Plus, everyone needed parchment, ink, and quills. She was helping provide that. And, okay, it may have been totally dorky, but the former Hufflepuff loved office supplies. There was just something about a blank roll of parchment or an unused quill that held so much promise, you know? You never knew what was going to end up being written on it.

So her pensive, dissatisfied birthday mood was successfully shaken off. They fortunately very rarely lasted longer than an hour or two, and by the time she'd stepped into work that morning Teagan had decided that she had every reason to be cheerful. Maybe she didn't feel any older, and maybe it didn't feel momentous, but this was her day, and she had decided she was going to enjoy it. To be honest? She had. It hadn't been very eventful, but the weather outside was slowly-but-surely warming up, she had a sufficient stream of customers to keep her occupied but not overwhelmed, and the owners had instructed her to close up a little early and go out and have some fun.

She was in the very early stages of closing up, just wandering through the shop and straightening items on the shelf, when the little bell over the door rang again. The brunette quickly tucked a stray quill back in it's place before hurrying towards the front of the shop. Her standard greeting died on her lips and the polite smile she'd put in place slipped into something more genuine as pleasant surprise lit up her face.

"Isaac!" She exclaimed, quickly stepping forward with a bright grin and trying to ignore the giddy little flutter her heart was experience. There'd been a few weeks, back around the holidays, when she'd thought maybe there was something there, about to develop between them. But nothing had happened, so she'd squashed down her crush - or at least she'd thought she had. It had been quite a while since she had seen him last, and somehow during the meantime it had apparently resurfaced. Stupid crush. "This is a pleasant surprise. What brings you to London? How is the book going?"

He had written her birthday on his calendar months ago, sometime over the holidays.  Then writing the draft took over and he'd suddenly found himself staring at the date wondering how it was he had allowed so much time to pass without making a visit to see her.  Part of him was well aware of what exactly had happened.  He was developing a bit of a crush on her, and the book was an excuse to hide from it.  It was a safe excuse to shut himself away.  It was not one of his finer habits, the act of shutting himself away to avoid the possibility of getting hurt.  Certainly he had been busy, but he could have made time to venture into London or at least send a note to her.

Returning the grin, he felt his stomach flutter a bit.  He hadn’t really given much thought to how much time had passed until he looked at his calendar, his subconscious working against him.  It was a flaw.  He had made himself a promise that he would try to be more aware in the future to avoid months passing without contacting friends outside the school.  Over the holidays he had dared to allow himself to hope that his friendship with Teagan might develop into something more and if he wasn’t careful he’d allow the chance to slip through his fingers.

“The book is going well,” he told her.  “I’m almost done with the first draft…which is a bit of a relief.  I’m a little ashamed to admit that I’ve allowed the majority of my free time lately to be taken up completely by the project.”

He had been practically ordered by Anna to go off school property and get his mind off of the book for a while.  When he saw the date it hadn’t taken much more convincing for him to actually take that advice to heart.

“Anyway, about a week ago I was looking at my calendar and I noticed on today’s date I had made note of a friend’s birthday,” he continued his smile turning a little sheepish as he fought back a blush.  The visit to London was for one purpose only…to see Teagan and give her gift to her in person.  “And, seeing as I’ve been a bit of a hermit lately, I thought it best to hand deliver your present and wish you a happy birthday in person.”

He produced the gift from behind his back.  The ostrich had simply been a continuation of the little running joke between them.  The plush toy he had found sat perfectly in a basket he had brought back from Africa.  It had been hand made by a woman from one of the tribes he had studied.  However, the real gift he had chosen was the necklace he had secured around the ostrich’s neck.  His stomach fluttered again as he waited, trying to judge her reaction.