~ Serenata~ And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know... [Alfie]

...my weakness I feel I must finally show.

Whenever Seva was getting tired of studying at home, or working or when Flourish and Blotts or the Leaky Cauldron got old, Seva would come to Serenata and sit there for hours. She would down latte after latte, or her favorite the Macchiato Burrobirra; she loved the butterbeer syrup and a quiver of delight usually ran through her after her first sip of every drink, even if was her fourth consecutive cup in a row. She also loved the little rock candy wand that came with the Machiato and would stir it unnecessarily just to coat the sugary goodness with the beverage so it would get even sweeter still.

Today Seva was sitting in the store-font of Serenata with her hands wrapped around a tall glass mug of Machiato Burrobirra to keep her warm. It wasn't necessarily cold in the shop but whenever the door opened a cool fall breeze blew in and sent a chill through Seva's body.  She was wearing a denim shirt dress, black skinny jeans and black biker boots and was sporting a thin olive parka over it all. It was certainly a beautiful day and she was enjoying it so far. What she was not enjoying however, was the fact that her drink was running low and from the way her coin purse was jostling around in her pocket, she didn't have a whole lot to spare at the moment. Reaching into the pocket of her jacket, she drew out the drawstring pouch and counted out her money. Three galleons, two sickles and eight knuts. More than I thought I had. Seva put her purse back into her pocket and shrugged off her parka since she was planning staying for a while. Her jacket fell form her shoulders and landed unceremoniously with a soft whisper on the chair behind her. 

Seva smiled winningly, to no one in particular and began going over all of her books, of which she'd bought many and planned on reading through all of them today. What she didn't plan on doing was 1) spending all of her money or 2) drinking much more caffeine. Pretty soon she'd be switching to tea and that would hopefully solve some of her jitteriness. Her left eye twitched then and she nearly dropped her book in surprise. Perhaps she better cut out the caffeine sooner rather than later. But, maybe one more Burrobirra...

Seva got up from her seat and joined the queue, joining the end and waiting patiently to be served. Her coins chinked merrily in her pocket and she relished in the sound. It was nice to have pocket money again, business had picked up at the menagerie during the rush to get cats, toads, owls and other animals for the new Hogwarts students that were going off to the school in the last weeks of August. There were also some stragglers that came the day before the Express was to leave and those transactions had been handled brusquely by the parents and pleasantly by Seva. She always tried to be the best business woman possible and did her utmost to be respectful.

When it was her turn on line, Seva smiled at the barista who knew she was a regular and ordered her fifth Burrobirra. I will have to "cut you off' after this, you know that right? Your eye is twitching, Seva The young healer nodded at the barista and stepped off to the side to wait for her drink. "Thanks," she offered, shrugging off the pleasantry and trying to stop her eye from twitching.

Alfred Hawking had just introduced himself to coffee last week, but he had already consumed enough to last a lifetime. He had greatly underestimated the amount of work that would go with his healing education; Hogwarts was a cakewalk compared to this. Alfie was positively twitchy, shocking his system with all the caffeine he needed to stay awake. True, it was a much more primitive approach to avoiding sleep than a HyperPotion, but it was also much easier to obtain. And espresso was the sole reason he found himself in Serenata. Under Alfie’s normal conditions, he would not venture into a place with so many people, so many opportunities to swap germs with other folks.
   
But he had discovered the glorious, wonderful thing that was espresso. How had he not before? His friends, his family, surely, they were all holding out on him. He sat at a four-top table, having just finished his third drink of the night.  His books and homework were spread out around him, and he didn’t mind throwing dirty looks at anyone who showed any sight of annoyance at his one person using the space for four. Even though he was learning about the healing profession, a profession that specialized in caring for people, Alfie had started caring less and less about what other people think. He was going to succeed. He just had to.

And to do that, he needed another coffee. Yes. That would do it. Then he could stay up a little longer, study a bit more, do better than everyone else in his class, get the best shadowing position in a couple years, and come out ahead of everyone. Then he would get the highest paying job and eventually be the best healer the wizarding world had ever seen. And it all relied on this next coffee.

He joined the end of the line; after a few minutes he was no longer the last as he was joined by a witch dressed like a muggle. He ordered his coffee and proceeded to the till, only to come to the most terrible realization: Alfie had spent his last sickles on the previous coffee. Oh no.

Normally, Alfie would do his best not to rely on other people for his happiness. He was a realist, after all. But he really wanted that coffee, and they had already made it, and he would hate for it to go to waste, right? Sighing heavily, the former Ravenclaw turned to his right, looking to that Muggle clothing clad witch behind him with what he hoped was a a pleading look on his face. “Excuse me,” he cleared his throat, “I seem to be a sickle short.” In truth, it was more like three sickles, but he would get to that point soon. “Would you mind…?” He voice trailed off as he looked at her, trying to arrange his face into the saddest look he could manage, like his life depended on this one act of kindness.

“Wait a minute!”

Seva sidled back to stand in front of the cashier and locked eyes with the barista who was marking up a to-go cup for another customer. She was standing elbow to elbow with a boy who’d just stepped up to the cashier. Seva cocked her head to the side and made a point of hitting her pocket, letting the wizarding coins jingle together in her as if to say ‘hey look at me, a paying customer. She wasn’t an irate customer, per se, but she was a being a little pissy. What nerve to say she was being cut off! At first she’d shrugged off the comment because she didn’t really realize what she barista meant by it but after thinking about it for a moment, she was a little taken aback. Moreover, she didn’t think it was even possible to be cut off from caffeine. Both hands stuffed in her pockets, she flapped her arms and resisted the urge to stomp her feet unless she look like a petulant child.

“Last I checked this was a café and not a bar, right? How can you ‘cut me off’” She added air quotes then, “from caffeine. I need it, dammit!”

When the boy spoke, Seva almost whacked him in the stomach with her bent elbow, he’d startled her so. She blinked owlishly and turned to him, regarding him with a puzzled expression. For a moment, his words didn’t register with her. The barista took this opportunity to run away, leaving the poor cashier standing there to watch this exchange and hope that Seva didn’t turn back to dig into her. Seva was over caffeinated and certainly was twitchy and it didn’t help that the young man had happened upon her when she was busy bitching someone out. For that reason, Seva took several calming breaths and tried very hard to soften her features. When she was confident that she wouldn’t bite his head off, she offered a sweet smile.

“Well, hello there.” Seva said, looking him up and down. He wasn’t handsome, but he wasn’t tragic looking either. Seva’s smile widened either way and she raised an eyebrow slyly, considering what he was asking for. “I can spare a lot more than a sickle, I just got paid…but if that’s really all you need.”

Seva reached into her pocket and drew out the coins she’d taken out of her coin purse earlier. She called it her coffee stash; she always made sure she separated out at least three galleons of her paycheck solely dedicated to the nectar of the gods. It was literally her life blood; she needed it to function, especially considering she had school and potentially a second job if her old boss was serious about needing some extra help to train the new employee. She was half dead already, nothing a mocha or burrobirra couldn’t fix. As she looked at the boy, pressing a coin into his hands, her right eye twitched and then her left. She snorted in laughter and quickly went to cover her mouth  out of embarrassment.

“I never do that!” She said, her face flushing. “I just thought it was ironic t hat I do a double eye twitch after arguing that I don’t need to be cut off.”