Outfit

Molly hitched the oven mitt on its little hook by the doorframe and opened a freshly-painted window to let in the summer sun (and if the lure of cakes and biscuits brought any neighborhood children or animals, she would plead innocence... even if she had fed at least one of the aforementioned group on more than one occasion). The screen would stop the kittens from getting out... or visitors from getting in.

She let the pan cool just a bit while she finished getting ready, and then piled its contents neatly into a translucent, pinkish container. Heading out the door, she bent to coddle the litter of kittens-- one fuzzy, mewing collective, all soft baby fur and harmless but swiping paws. Clover purred lazily from their center, not bothering to lift herself from Casper’s old shirt. (Molly had insisted she’d taken to the shirt because it smelled like him, and it was endearing. Whether Casper saw the gesture as similarly lovable remained to be seen.) “Be good!”

The walk to the cafe was short and pleasant; the weather was perfect in early August. Molly had already come to adore the neighborhood-- which was a given, considering how much effort and money she and Casper had both put into their little bungalow. Godric’s Hollow wasn’t as crowded or eventful as Diagon Alley, but it was full of witches and wizards who had grown up in the world both Casper and Molly knew well. Its inhabitants were as used to self-stirring cauldrons and owl post as they were front gardens and chimney smoke. They celebrated Halloween together, and they decorated the town square at Christmastime.

Approaching the other side of said square, Molly moved past the large front window of the cafe and reached for the door. Its familiar chime jingled above her head. Her honeyish eyes moved around the shop, finding the woman who had to be Una. Sid had described her perfectly in his Sid-ish way.

She moved toward the woman, hovering at a little distance from the table in front of the window. “Una?” She asked politely, shifting her bag and the box of biscuits to one arm. “I’m Molly. I’m so glad you could make it!”

Outfit

It was no secret that Una didn’t have many friends. Especially girl friends, which means she had pretty much no one to talk about boys men, beauty, clothes and a series of issues that only other women could understand. She definitely wouldn’t be wearing a dress with that color - so close to her hair and so odd to her skin - if she did have someone to give her some tips, and the same could be said about other choices she had made in her life on those matters. Nothing drastic, for sure; Una strongly believed that everything happens for a reason, so even things she had done that make her flush in shame today was necessary. Angels were everywhere around the universe, everyone naturally has one. But friends were visible, human angels, and she would never deny making a new one.

So it wasn’t the lack of interest that kept her away from other people, but circumstances and, deep inside herself, the constant fear of offend the others with her clumsiness. Everyone already belonged to a certain circle when she got out of her shell; invade that circles suddenly wasn’t something really possible on her mind. So, unlike most of the people, Una needed Sid, her lovely and careful special someone, to introduce her to a friend. It wasn’t something huge as it seemed to be to her some time ago. On the contrary, it took a simple suggestion from him and some minor actions, as apparate on Godric’s Hollow that Sunday and find the cafe (with the help of some adorable people that lived on the village).

Una sat there in from of the window, trying to catch a glimpse of Molly before she enters on the place. Just a few minutes later she saw the woman that had to be her - so simple and beautiful, so comfortable, and carrying a pinkish box. Two things Una haven’t expected: that she was so pretty and that she would bring something to her. By the time Molly opened the door, making the chime jingle, Una was already flushed, a little embarrassed for not having something to give to her in return.

“Una? I’m Molly. I’m so glad you could make it!”

Molly went straight to her, naturally. Una kinda felt that she was the strange element on that place. She smiled sweetly and rose from the chair, “Ja, and you should be Molly! So nice to meet you!” She confirmed, offering her hand for a brief handshake (she should get used to, she would get used to). “This seat is good for you or we should go to another table? I was… appreciating the view while waiting; you live in such a beautiful village!”

Molly accepted the hand, shaking Una’s gingerly and warmly. She shook her head, smiling. “No, this is perfect.” Molly liked being near the window; her imagination and habit of daydreaming both made an event of people-watching. She often spent evenings telling Casper all about the strangers she’d not technically met. A few of the more frequently-spied ones had little back stories. If Casper or the cats judged her, well. (They didn’t.)

“I've fallen in love with this place. It’s nice and quiet... but not too quiet.” It was why Molly had fallen in love with Godric’s Hollow (one of the many reasons, anyway.) “And there’s a bit more space than we had in our old place.” London, of course, was full of conveniences, but Molly didn’t mind traveling back and forth. She’d grown up in a very sparse place. Hogwarts had been a very new experience to the child version of Molly, despite her mother being a witch, and London an even more overwhelming-- but exciting-- place. This quaint village was a nice medium, picaresque and with friendly neighbors. “I know you work at the Ministry. Do you live in London?” Her brows lifted with interest.

Setting her things in the chair and on the side of the table opposite Una, she looked over her shoulder to the counter where a cashier and barista waited. “Have you ordered?” She asked, looking back to the petite blonde with a smile. “Their tea is lovely, and I always bring fresh leaves home for Casper.”

And then, remembering: “Oooh, that’s my husband, by the way.” Her smile was still warm, and vaguely apologetically. “But you might have met my brother, Frank! Or perhaps heard of him.” It had been a hectic... Summer? Spring and summer? Half a year. Undoubtedly Sid had told her something, since he’d had to explain Molly, too. The Pratts were a healthily-sized group, and they came in many a temperament. “He's how I know Sid.” Even if it were obvious, Molly pointed it out, settling into chatting now. It wouldn't do to trail off, especially when she was prone to innocent little tangents or quirky quips.

“I know you work at the Ministry. Do you live in London?”

“Ah… no, I actually live a little far from London, on the North… I live with my parents, in a kind of… countryside cottage. It’s pretty far from… other people. Unlike here. Sometimes I wish I could have lived in a place like this, but I can’t deny that live in a rural area has some benefits…” at least for her; at least to have a good garden and good plants to work with. Besides, Una still thought that was almost an act of bravery, to live so close of Muggles. She was having a little hard time to get used to them and their things, which Sid enjoyed so much and insisted on introduce to her. TV, video games, computer… interesting? Ja! But still crazy stuff on her mind.

“Have you ordered? Their tea is lovely, and I always bring fresh leaves home for Casper. Oooh, that’s my husband, by the way. But you might have met my brother, Frank! Or perhaps heard of him. He's how I know Sid.”

Una looked at her for some seconds with a polite smile on her lips, seeming to need that time to process everything Molly said so quickly. Actually, she didn’t; the speed of Molly’s mind was somehow easy to follow and all her manners were lovely and gracious to Una. But she did need time to understand that she was being all nice and spontaneous to her, who she had just met. That was a little amazing - Una wasn’t used to deal with someone so easy and open. Shaking her head briefly to come back to earth, she sat back on the chair.

“Ah… no, I haven’t ordered yet. I was waiting for you. It seems to be a right decision I’ve made, this tea you said should be really lovely!” She smiled to Molly, now a little more comfortable with her, but it was with a shy gesture that she called back the barista. “And, ah… I think Sid mentioned Casper, but I honestly don’t know much about you…” Una admitted, blushing just slightly. She should have asked more about Molly before. “And Frank, ja, he seems to be great… I met him just briefly, but I hope to know him better soon. Sid likes him very much.”

“But, tell me more about you. Do you work for… an important person, right?” Sid told her, but Una couldn’t remember the name of the woman. It sounded like she was important and famous, and at first she feared that Molly could be someone important and famous too. Or someone so used to deal with this kind of people that she would be scandalized with Una’s lack of… anything in common with them. Then she remembered that Molly was Sid’s friend, and he was just like her on some critical aspects. That was a relief. “It should be exciting, to work for someone like this.” She concluded, sincerely, at the end.

“The countryside is beautiful, though. I grew up in the middle of nowhere... it forces you to find new ways to entertain yourself,” Molly laughed. It became harder to justify playing in the garden with the cats as one came of age. “How long has your family been in the U.K.?”

Una’s shyness was as refreshing and welcome as anything else, and so Molly took a smile for a smile. A familiar face came around the back of the coffee bar (one of the couple of regular employees who kept the cafe running). Molly greeted her and ordered a pot of tea to share. “Would you like coffee, too? Some dessert?”

Her eyes roamed to the container by her elbow and she was reminded of the biscuits. “Ah! I forgot I brought you these! I made them just a while ago.” She slid them toward Una, smiling somewhat abashedly.

“And, ah… I think Sid mentioned Casper, but I honestly don’t know much about you…”

“There isn’t much to know,” she laughed. She didn’t mean it disparagingly toward herself-- Molly was just used to her own life and its quirks. But she supposed Una wasn’t (which she had more or less just said.)

If she’d met Frank, well, there was one tip of the iceberg. She nodded. “I work for Dolly St. James, the novelist.” Her eyes went a little bit bigger as she said this. Molly was still waiting for some of that suavity to rub off on her; so far, though, she was content just doing a good job. Dolly was a very sweet person, and fewer people knew that better than Molly. “I’m her assistant. She’s wonderful! Some of the fans can be a bit...” Terrifying. “Well, it’s an experience, definitely. I think she’s helped me as much as I’ve helped her. I also love to paint, but it’s hard to pay for a house that way.” She was beginning to do small, local work, or help Frank here and there if he asked her (it was more of a favor to her, really), but she was getting somewhere.

“The countryside is beautiful, though. I grew up in the middle of nowhere... it forces you to find new ways to entertain yourself. How long has your family been in the U.K.?”

“Ah, ja! I have a great garden there, you should see it! It’s not really… entertainment. But consumes a good part of my free time since I was little, fotunately. I love to spend my time there!” Una’s eyes twinkled as she spoke about her passion, her garden. Even though she was getting more and more used to urban life, between Muggles’ conveniences, inside their grayish buildings, the witch was still happier between plants on an open field. She hoped someday Sid (or his allergies) could get used to it. “We live here for thirteen years now… ” she finally answered Molly’s question, without knowing if she was so obviously foreign or if Sid told her previously. “But my father’s family lived here once…” some centuries ago, truth be told, but that was almost an excuse for be there. “And I feel more comfortable here.” That was for sure. Una smiled sweetly by the end.

“Would you like coffee, too? Some dessert?”

Molly asked after ordering a pot of tea to the girl who approached to attend them. “Ahn… not now, thank you very much. A pot of tea is just perfect!” Una’s smile became really bashful when Molly remembered about the biscuits and slid the beautiful, sweet scented box towards her. “Oh, thank you so, so much Molly, it looks delicious…” She wasn’t used to receive gifts, hadn’t brought any to her companion (though she would most definitely send her some flowers later) and didn’t know what to do with it. So she did what she thought was natural: opened the box and put it on the center of the table. “I think it will be amazing to share it with you and, ah… biscuits match perfectly with tea.” She giggled out of embarrassment; that looked like a silly idea, actually...

“There isn’t much to know.”

“Oh…” Una flushed a little in front of that straight answer. She didn’t mean to cross any line or be intrusive as it could have sounded. Or maybe she had just misunderstood what Molly said. In any case, she added: “I was just curious about how you two met and… ended up living together in such a beautiful village.” Because that sounded to her like a love history in realistic standards. Something that was now really interesting – hear about happy endings when you’re on a happy beginning is good to know there are possibilities of keeping everything going well. Good examples and maybe good tips were welcome.

As she described Dolly St. James so brightly, Una couldn’t avoid but smile with her. She could feel her admiration was true and that was good. “She should be a really gifted person… to be beautiful, talented, famous, and also described as wonderful by you.” Una felt a bit envious, deep inside herself. Not that she meant any bad for Dolly, but every time she heard about powerful, talented and beautiful women on the outside and on the inside, she felt that way besides the obvious fear of belittlement.

“Oh, I want to see your paintings someday! I’m more used to illustrations, you know, books... but I’m sure you make some beautiful things… my father appreciates arts very much as well; I can show him something you did… or buy a painting for him someday, that’s if you sell them, of course. ” Una’s enthusiasm was for real. Actually, that was one of the spontaneous moments she always feared. She never knew when that was too much. Still, she didn’t refrained herself this time. “What else do you like to do? Do you dream about something? I mean, dream about achieving something, like a job or get famous as an artist?”

She tilted her head. “Do you grow your own ingredients? For your work, I mean...?” Maybe it was her family’s line of work. Vegetables, spices, flowers... Molly thought wistfully about devoting more time to a garden. She wondered if Casper would be too terribly annoyed if she asked him to buy a giant shovel and start digging. (Probably not. Or if he was, he would do it anyway, she thought. Molly wasn’t sure how to gauge a lot of people, but Casper... she could spend hours convincing or trying to dissuade him of things; it was a game and a way of life, and more often than he was trying to dissuade her from bringing home another homeless animal.)

Molly smiled. Even if venue management and hoteliers and high-end dressers raised eyebrows when she (often bashfully) introduced herself as Dolly St. James’ assistant (yes, the Dolly St. James, and yes, she would need that suite booked by tomorrow), people rarely gave her looks when she offered them sweets. To be fair, she seemed more suited to baking than aggressively arguing booking terms with the social elite-- but she was learning to multitask, and Dolly had helped heaps. She was already comfortable with Una, and glad that she agreed with biscuits. But not many people didn’t, and those who did made Molly blink a little.

“Oooh, we met in school,” she explained. “We... Casper was kind of stubborn when he was a boy...” And Molly had been in her own world, and had tried repeatedly to drag him into it, make him get his toes wet. He had come around after a few sessions of tutoring (his tutoring her,  that was), but there had been the usual teenage heartache and gradual (sometimes rapid) closeness that had made a girl Molly’s heart flutter. “He... our families are very different... but that didn’t stop us. We were very close by the time we both started working.” He was the only person Molly had been in a serious relationship with. They fit together well. Even if, from the outside, people wondered how two such people had ended up together. “We’ve been wanting a house for ages, and we finally found the perfect one.” They’d also been saving for ages, and would be starting over again now that things like mortgage were in the picture.

She nodded at Una’s summary of Dolly, adding, with a little laugh, “She doesn’t always know it, but she gives great lessons, too.” Some of Dolly’s most candid conversation was a wise lesson in disguise. Of course, she never shied away from boosting people with confidence, and Molly adored her for it.

Excited now, feeling chatty, she went on, “Book art is some of my favorite,” she agreed. “I’d love to get my hands on some of the ancient covers Frank finds... but really, they’re best in their natural state.” With careful, minimal restorations, of course. But she could dream. She brightened further at the mention of Una’s father being interested. Molly had not sold many of her paintings, but the prospect was brilliant. “That would be great! My room’s a bit of a mess right now...” By that, she meant her studio, the spare room where all of her paints were kept. While Casper was the methodical one, the person who should paint living rooms and prevent curtain catastrophes, Molly’s... Mollyness... meant that her own brand of painting was more... well. More something. “I really just want to be able to pay bills from doing what I love,” she laughed. “But any added benefits would be...” Something to aim for.

“Do you grow your own ingredients? For your work, I mean...?”

“Yes, I do!” Una was already starting to feel more comfortable, but talk about her work… about the part she could actually talk about, really, just made her feel better. “All I can grow I do. I prefer to do it myself, plants are living creatures, you have to take a great care all the way if you want them to grow in their full potential. It’s not only thrown the seeds on the ground and cast one or two spells, you know. It’s a work of love; you have to nurture them with the right feelings so their quintessences can be used for good things. Even poisonous plants. Everything has its use in Alchemy, that’s the beauty of it…” The passion in her eyes suddenly fainted as Una realized that maybe Molly wasn’t so interested on that. But instead of bashfully shrink on her chair and fall in silence, Una giggled, much less confident though, “Sorry, I can… ramble sometimes. You can tell me when it’s too much.”

She tilted her head, lips drawing a mute exclamation out of admiration when Molly told her history with Casper. It seemed they had gone a long way with that family thing to be together, and that was really romantic and even dream-like to Una. “But it is much to know! On a good way, of course. I’m glad you’re together, you’re lucky to have a husband capable of fighting for you.” She was nothing but sincere about that. Molly seemed to be someone who deserves all kind of happiness for the little Una could gather. Being Sid’s friend, that was more likely to be the simple truth.

“Sid must have told you about how we met. He went down to my lab at the Department of Mysteries to fix something and ended up putting racks and racks of plants down. He got nervous… he said later it was because of me, but I’m not sure.[1]” Una blushed at the remembrance, she still wasn’t capable to really believe she was capable of causing that to someone, but if Sid’s version of the history was true, it just meant he was even more loveable. “He stood there to put things in order. And he was so… cute and shy and caring that I couldn’t say no when he asked me out.” That was another subject that made her speak up with no fear, giggling sometimes like a younger girl. “Where did you meet him? Hogwarts?” She asked, simple, just for the sake of curiosity.

“I really just want to be able to pay bills from doing what I love. But any added benefits would be...”

“Oh, but I think that’s what everyone should want. It’s a very honorable dream, I think. Send me something of your work that is… sendable, if you have. My father will sure appreciate. And he appreciating, I can guarantee you will have some buyers on Germany.  He likes to share good findings with his old friends.” Una’s smile was reassuring. She liked to feel the passion on Molly’s voice when talking about her art. She wished she could hear the same passion on Sid’s voice about something of his own, still she strongly believed that day would come at the right time. Now she was available to help Molly if she wanted. “And hey, I have tons of old books if you want some borrowed… for inspiration.” She added, even knowing that the other witch would probably be highly respectful with her paper babies.

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