HELP! MY MUM IS MAKING ME TAKE MEASUREMENTS!

Leeann Henderson was always a determined woman. Even when eight months pregnant, she still wouldn't stop trying to make her daughter do things that she didn't want to. That was one of the things Kyra disliked about her mother. She would force her to wear dresses around Grandpa and Grammy, just for the heck of it. "You're so pretty when you wear dresses!" she had said. Kyra hated dressing up and Leeann knew it, but completely ignored the fact.

When she decided to take Kyra to Madam Malkin's for a robe fitting, it was the last straw. "MUM! PLEASE just let me do things for myself!" the girl screeched before entering the shop. "I hate shopping," she muttered as she was led to a pedestal-like raise in the floor. She stepped up warily and Madam Malkin took out her measuring tape, measuring every angle of the poor girl. She felt a pinch and glared at the woman. "Sheesh, first I'm forced into this shop, then I'm poked. How could this day get any better?"

She was surprised by Madam Malkin's arrival with another kid.

Eli was confused by the clothing shop even more than he was confused by the rest of the shops in this strange alley. He didn't know that he would have to be fitted for robes when he got there. A woman led him to the back where there was a girl standing there getting measured. She didn't look very happy to be there, which was much how he felt. "Er, hi," he said awkwardly. Maybe if he talked to her it would help her get through the torture a little more easily, and she might return the favor for him. "I'm Eli." The four words he said to her were more than he'd said to anyone in the alley willingly so far. He was on a roll.

"Er, hi," the boy Madam Malkin led to the back of the shop said, looking quite nervous and awkward. "I'm Eli."

"Hi Eli. I'm Kyra. You're going to Hogwarts too, I assume? First year maybe?" she said to Eli, trying to make pleasant conversation to distract her from the awkwardness that was getting measured. She felt the measuring tape squeeze much too hard on her armpit. "Ouch!" she exclaimed. She would have moved her hand to rub the hurt area, but seeing how she was getting measured and couldn't, it was no use. "I hate shopping so much," she muttered once again.