[thd/ddc] look how they shine for you [aideen]

Although her pockets were empty, Éilís couldn't resist going along for the first Hogsmeade trip of the year. She'd walked down with Jacqueline and Meredith, as per usual, but had wanted to get away on her own for a while. The Three Broomsticks was incredibly crowded, and she felt a bit silly sitting there without a butterbeer of her own. Someone had offered to buy her one, but she'd insisted she didn't need one. It was embarrassing enough to not be able to buy one, but having someone else treat her without any cause for it was even worse.

So she had wandered off alone, ending up in a tiny fashion shop at the end of one of the side streets. Éilís had never been inside before, but it was quiet and nearly empty, so it fit her needs. She'd promised to rejoin the others later at Merry's family's shop, but she had a couple of hours to recover from all the noise and awkwardness of the pub. Even though she had no need (or budget) for new clothes, she wanted to give the impression of being a potential customer. She stood in front of a mirror, trying on a rather-pointy witch's hat that was probably meant for someone much older than herself. Not that she really knew; witching fashion was even more foreign to her than the regular stuff. As she shifted to look at the hat from another angle, she caught sight of a girl from her year in the mirror.

"Oh," Éilís exclaimed quietly, whipping the hat off her head at once. What a silly thing to be caught doing.

@Michaela

Aideen had been wandering around Hogsmeade for the better part of an hour looking for @Peter Willow, and not having been able to spot him anywhere, she’d wandered into one of the last few places that she hadn’t bothered to look originally. This was a robes shop, and Aideen had no expectation of finding him here, and she didn’t instead she stumbled across Eilis trying on hats in a mirror.

Seeing that the other fourth year was a little embarrassed about being caught in the act, Aideen offered her a tiny wave “That one’s a bit too tall, if you ask” she said as she wandered a bit closer, still looking for Peter. “Listen, you haven’t seen Peter Willow around, have you? I’m looking for him.” She didn’t mean to dump her problems on Eilis, but she wasn’t sure what else they could talk about all together. But just as she was about to give up and look elsewhere, the shops proprietor had come over and placed a silly looking hat on her head. Aideen pretended to look in the mirror, and then wanting to make the woman go away so she could escape, asked for another from the back of the shop. “Why are you in here, anyway?” She asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. 

"Oh," Éilís repeated, putting the hat back on the shelf at once so that it was clear she was taking the girl's advice. "I didn't really want it," she clarified, hoping Aideen wouldn't think she was ridiculous. It made the situation a bit less awkward when the sales witch dashed over to put a hat on the Slytherin's head as well. Perhaps Aideen would assume the same thing had happened to her.

"Er -- no, sorry," she admitted. Éilís knew a few of her friends were friendly with Peter, but she'd never spoken to him herself. It would have been nice to be helpful, though. Especially considering the direction the conversation subsequently took. "Oh," she began again, realizing how frequently she'd uttered the syllable and flushing slightly. "I was just looking around." She wondered whether she could come up with any better reason than that. "It was just a bit noisy in the Three Broomsticks, you know. I'm meeting back up with some of the others later." Eager to get the conversation back away from herself, Éilís continued: "Did you want help looking for him? I'm not really doing anything." They could always move on to some other shops. This was for the most part, new territory for Éilís, given that much of third year had meant staying inside the castle at all times. There hadn't been much time to explore Hogsmeade like the older students had had.

While she didn’t mean to be mean, all Aideen couldn’t think of anything to say while Eilis was rambling on about different things, so she just sort of blinked and stared, waiting for the obviously nervous girl to finish. When she offered to help find Peter, Aideen did not see why it would be a problem to have a second set of eyes. It wasn’t dire that she find her housemate, but she was getting bored wandering around by herself, and wanted to catch up with her friend “Sure, I don’t see why not.” She said as she shot a glance toward the back of the shop where she could hear the shopkeeper rummaging around.

Placing the hat that had been on her head back where it belonged on the shelf, Aideen gestured to Eilis and made her escape out the front door of the shop. “Is this your first time in Hogsmeade?” She questioned conversationally as she turned and continued down the street aiming for Zonko’s this time, still not sure she’d find the boy there, either. She supposed she could point the best spots in Hogsmeade out as they walked by if it ws Eilis’ first time, but the brunette hoped her companion liked books and Quidditch.

"Alright," Éilís agreed with relief, glad of an excuse to get out of the shop and distance herself from the stupid hats that she couldn't even afford. Éilís followed Aideen out, trusting the other girl to lead the way since she still hadn't completely mastered the layout of the village. And besides, she had no idea where Aideen had already looked. "My second," Éilís told her. She supposed some of the others in her year might have gone more times in the spring term, what with the Dome having fallen, but Éilís hadn't really had the motivation to go out more than once. The summer away on the island had been what she really needed to reset her mind and get back into 'school-mode' again. "I've only seen a few of the shops."

The one they were approaching, Zonko's, was certainly new to Éilís. She was hardly a prankster, given that anything that might draw attention to her was pretty much automatically a bad thing. But she wasn't going to argue. Éilís stepped through the shop doors after the Slytherin. Her eyes widened immediately with surprise: it was no wonder now that students seemed to love the place. There was a full rainbow of colors in every direction and the shop was filled with whizzes and bangs, not to mention a fair number of fireworks going off indoors. The place was packed with Hogwarts students eager to replenish their supplies of trick potions and naughty quills after a summer away.

"Do you want to try them?" Éilís offered, pointing at the display of sample fireworks that were in the center of the shop. A spot opened up by the table and Éilís moved forward to fill it. There was a box of self-spelling sparklers sitting open for customers to try. "You could write Peter's name out and then see if he sees it? I suppose it's the only way we'd find him in here."

Eilis wasn’t wrong, they could do it that way, although she couldn’t see Peter as it was, so it was likely that he wouldn’t see it if he wasn’t in the near vicinity. Shrugging lightly, the Slytherin decided it wasn’t such a bad idea to start with, anyway she slid up to the table next to Eilis, grabbed a sparkler and penned her friends name, feeling incredibly foolish in the process. She watched the name hang in the air for a moment before something else on a table nearby caught her eye.

Abandoning the sparklers without so much as a backward glance, Aideen saw dragonsnaps on display, and for customer testing. Dragonsnaps were colorful firecracker type fireworks that smoked all different colors, and sent a firework dragon of matching color roaring around the room when it exploded. Much more interesting, the brunette decided. There were only a few left, so Aideen motioned Eilis over “Have you tried one of these before?” she asked, knowing that the answer was probably no “I think you should light one, they’re pretty cool, and mostly harmless.”

Aideen wasn’t usually the type to push or make her friends do things they wanted to do, but Eilis seemed afraid of her own shadow, and that was no way to live, according to Aideen’s logic. Picking up one of the small stick like fireworks, Aideen pointed it ceilingward and lit it with her wand, and watched as a black and green dragon swung around the room, around them, roaring all the while. “Alright, your turn” Eilis didn’t have a choice, it would be good for her. If she got too worried, they could find her a calming potion somewhere.