Winifred Gwartney found herself, yet again, in one of her favorite spots. It was funny that she seemed drawn here, like tether and cord, to this spot where she had visited so many times last year on her weekends spent in Hogsmeade. Sugar and Spice. Wini had thought it was another bakery going in when she had first heard of it, wondering how it would ever make money since the Crust and Crumbs bakery was also in Hogsmeade, but she had been pleasantly surprised. As in really, really, really surprised and excited and ecstatic and jump-around-the-common-room kind of happy when someone had told her there were unicorns at this shop.
Unicorns. The only downside was that you had to pay to visit.
The Hufflepuff had been pretty broke all of last year because of this shop. And she had loved every minute of it.
Now, leaning against the paddock fence, her arms resting on the tallest horizontal beam, she leaned her chin on her forearm, her brown eyes on the creatures she loved so much. It was summer, the school term would be starting before she knew it, but this little visit to Hogsmeade with her father... step-father.. William, she corrected in her mind, was a great excuse to stop by Sugar and Spice before she was officially a fifth year. She wasn't even really sure why she loved them so much, but she hadn't stopped since, as a first year, she had realized they were real and not just part of the fairytales she had grown up with. Wini had been embarrassed at first, telling only her best friend Marin, where she was going on her Hogsmeade visits, because somehow she had it in her head that her obsession, to put it mildly, was childish. She frowned at the thought, still in doubt over that opinion. She was mostly okay with it these days, but some tendrils of doubt still lingered.
But still she came. She was pretty sure she was one of their best customers, using every spare sickle and knut she had to see the unicorns during their weekend Hogsmeade trips. She wistfully wished the creatures would come closer, that she might be able to stroke their backs with a gentle hand, but they seemed pretty content where they were and Wini tried to be content with that too.
Hearing footsteps behind her, she wondered who else might have ventured away from all the kittens and kneazles and pygmy puffs inside to see the unicorns. She recognized the tall man immediately, smiling warmly if not a little nervously at him in greeting. The shop owner.
Is he going to kick me out? she thought worriedly, wondering what she could have done wrong. She didn't want to go yet. "Hello, how are you?" Wini asked in her most polite voice.
@Jonathan Emerson 
