Post Shopping Bliss

Shopping is exhausting, Makayla Hall thought tiredly as she ambled down Diagon Alley's wide streets. Holding on to her mother's hand for the first few hours, Makayla's eyes were wide as she observed all sorts of strange and wonderful things that were tucked away behind a brick wall in backyard of the Leaky Cauldron. She was just happy that her letter explained how she was supposed to get to Diagon Alley, for she and her parents had absolutely no idea.

Makayla was still getting used to the fact that she was a witch. At first, she thought the letter from Hogwarts was some sort of joke, but as she thought about all the strange things that happened to her when she was upset or angry, it started to make some sense.

Makayla was brought out her memories when she nearly bumped into someone leaving the ice-cream parlour. She excused herself, and moved out of the way, entering the shop after the person.

Makayla thought that the shop was just going to be an ordinary ice-cream parlour, but when she saw the flavours, she immediately countered her thinking. She was going to have to put aside her non-magic expectations if she was going to survive in a place like this. Everything was just so different.

Looking at flavours which were normal to Makayla such as chocolate and strawberry were fine, but to see Blood flavoured and Pepper Imps, (whatever they were), was just so strange.

She went safe and ordered a double fudge chocolate sundae with chopped nuts on top and took as seat with her ice-cream in one hand, and her coin bag in another.

Shopping was such a tedious task. Alli didn't enjoy it one bit. She envied people who could spend hours searching for the perfect gift or selecting the perfect outfit, but alas, she was not one of those people, and as such she slipped away from her mother while the elder witch was trying on what had to be the ugliest set of dress robes that Alli had ever seen (though of course she'd smiled and told her mother that they were lovely, as any good daughter would do).

She entered the ice cream shop and ordered her standard Vanilla Butterbeer Swirl with Chocolate Frog shavings and paid the bored looking teenager behind the counter.

She picked a seat at an empty table and sat, fishing through her pocket to see how much money she had on her. She'd seen a street vendor down the way with some interesting looking charms, though she knew from experience that you had to give the vendors the exact cost of the item or you'd never get your change.

Calculating the estimated cost in her head of the charm that had most caught her eye, Alli resolved that it was better to be safe than sorry. She looked around and saw a blonde girl sitting at the table beside hers. "Oi, have you got change for a galleon?" she asked, not wanting to get conned out of her change when she went to make her purchase.

Makayla was startled by the voice beside her table. A girl, of about her own age, was addressing her and Makayla had to recall the words she spoke. She had to think about it. What were the ratios for the Magical coins again? Makayla remembered the names, Galleons, Sickles and Knuts, but how many to each?

"Erm..." she mumbled. "I think I do." As she said this, Makayla poured out her money bag, and moved the silver coins around, thinking about whether it was seventeen Sickles to a Galleon, or was that 17 knuts to a Sickle? ... and why did the number twenty-nine, ring a bell as well?

Makayla smiled up at the girl sheepishly. "Little help?" she said.

Alli looked at the girl in disbelief. What kind of self-respecting witch didn't know how many sickles were in a galleon? She looked so dumb and lost that she might as well have grown a third arm and pranced around the shop claiming to be a unicorn.

Comprehension dawned on her. "Muggleborn," she said quietly.

"Right," she pulled her chair over to the other girl's table. "Listen carefully, because I'll only explain this once. This is a galleon," she pointed to the gold coin, "It is worth 17 sickles, which are these ones," she moved her finger to a silver coin. "A sickle is worth 29 knuts, which are the little bronze ones. Remember that."

She couldn't possibly fathom what the girl was doing here on her own. It was a miracle that she still had any money in the first place. There were all sorts of cunning, conniving misfits wandering around Diagon Alley looking for easy targets to pilfer from, although they tended to stay a bit closer to Knockturn Alley. "Another bit of advice, keep your money in your front pockets, unless you want it disappearing."

Alli didn't know why she was telling the blonde girl these things. Perhaps it was the helpless look the girl had given her, or possibly it was how obviously naive she was, but either way, Alli felt a little proud of herself for steering the girl in the right direction. Her mother would be proud. Her father would be annoyed. Helping a muggleborn was not high on his list of priorities. Alli didn't really care one way or another, as long as the girl wasn't an idiot, which remained to be seen.

Makayla was grateful for the help and hoped that she wasn't annoying the girl with her blatant inability to work out the money. She listened intently as the girl explained the amounts to each coin, nodding. She knew that twenty nine was used somewhere.

"Thanks for that," Makayla said, handing the girl seventeen of her sickles and moved her coin purse to the front of her body, taking heed of the girl's advice. "My name's Makayla Hall. I'm pretty new to all of this," she blushed, "as you can clearly see. I don't mean to be a bother."

Makayla smiled at her. "Would you like to join me?" She was eager to have a chat with someone who knew there way around the Magical world, and perhaps make a friend, along the way.

Alli waved the girl's humble words away. It really hadn't taken her long to explain and now there was one less idiot in the world thanks to her.

She hesitated at the invitation to stay. Did she want to make friends with a clueless bumble? She sighed, but kept her seat where it was. Perhaps if she could bump the girl up to being a knowledgable person, it wouldn't be so bad. Besides, helping was good, right?

"Alli, Alli Walker," she gave the girl a slight smile and leaned back in her chair. "So I was right? Muggleborn, yeah? You're going to be a Puff, I can just tell. I can practically feel the Puffleness rolling off you."

Makalya smiled again as the girl decided to stay, or at least, she decided to stay for the time being.

"Nice to meet you, Alli," she said, digging her spoon into her melting ice-cream and placing the now full spoon into her mouth, almost sighing as the flavour hit her. How delightful.

Makayla looked up at the word, "Muggleborn?" she asked, "I guess so, if being a Muggleborn is me not knowing about being a witch before about ten days ago, then yes. I assume that you are not, and if you are, then I am jealous at the amount of knowledge you already have."

Makayla didn't know what a Puff or Puffle was, and the girl's tone of voice didn't help Makayla to determine if it was a good or a bad thing. She decided to ask, as asking helped her before.

"Erm... A what?"

"Nothing wrong with being a Muggleborn. It just means that your parents are Muggles, meaning they're not magical. I'm a Pureblood, meaning my parents are magical, and their parents were magical, and their parents were magical, all the way back as far as we can remember," Alli devoured about half of her ice cream, not about to let it go to waste because some girl she'd just met needed to have her ignorance removed. A painless procedure really, although side effects could include melted ice cream if she wasn't careful. "When Dad gets into one of his moods, he starts lecturing the whole house on how Muggles pose a threat to magical society. Then Mum tells him that he's being a daft old codger and he shuts up. At least you're not a Squib. That would suck."

She should have known that Makayla wouldn't know what a Hufflepuff was if she was a Muggleborn. Come to think of it, Alli didn't really know what a Hufflepuff was. They were just sort of... Puffley, although she had heard that they were particularly good finders.

"Sorry, Puff is short for Hufflepuff. It's one of the houses at Hogwarts. There's Gryffindor, for the brave, stupid ones, there's Ravenclaw, which is the one for the nerdy smart ones, there's Slytherin, which is for the cunning and sly ones, and then there's Hufflepuff, which is for the... nice, polite, trusting ones?" she finished on a slightly unsure note. It was as close to explaining a Hufflepuff as she could get.

Makayla nodded; it seemed to be the only thing she was doing, as the girl talked. She tried to absorb the information as Alli was telling it to her, some words such as Squib, she blinked at, but was sure that she'd understand what that meant in time.

"Ah. Okay," Makayla said, thinking it nice that the girl thought she was a Hufflepuff, if they were the nice, polite and trusting ones. She hadn't really given Hogwarts much though, but was now regretted that she didn't research it a little bit. Perhaps she would do some afterwards.

"What house would you like to be in?" she asked the Pureblood.

Alli didn't even have to think about the answer to Makayla's question. "Either Slytherin or Ravenclaw. Gryffindors are dumb, and I'm just... not a Puff, so that leaves 2 options. Dad was a Slytherin. Mum was a Ravenclaw. I might like Slytherin a bit more though. Mum said Ravenclaw's common room doesn't give a password to get in. It gives out riddles instead, and that's just too much work when I'm tired and want to go to bed."

She polished off the rest of her ice cream. "So what's it like in the Muggle world?" she asked, genuinely curious. Her mother had taken her around Muggle London a little bit, but she'd been a lot younger and her dad was weary of more trips.

Makayla frowned. The more Alli spoke about the houses (especially the Ravenclaw Common Room) the more Makayla was nervous about it. She didn't think that she belonged in any of the houses, not being particularly brave, smart or sly. Perhaps she did belong in Hufflepuff. That didn't seem too bad, in Makayla's eyes.

Makayla thought about her question. She remembered that being Muggle meant having no Magical ability, and then really had to think about how to answer her. What was the Muggle world like to someone who hasn't lived it? The only word that came to mind, when compared to the wonderful magical world was... boring.

"I cannot believe that I contently lived in the Muggle world for eleven years," she said, shaking her head. "This place is amazing. There is nothing exciting about being a Muggle. Trust me."

"I can believe that. I mean, it just sounds so... blah. The brooms don't even fly! What kind of crap is that?" Alli shook her head.

A small nagging thought in the back of her mind told her that she might be offending the girl, but she shrugged it off. After all, she had admitted that the magical world was better, so it probably wouldn't offend her too much. If it did, then she was more of a Puff than Alli took her for.

"I can't even begin to imagine growing up like that. No house elves, no going to Quidditch matches, nothing fun at all," she listed. "And automo-whatsits! Why would you want one of those and have to travel along the ground when you could have a flying carpet? Absolutely ridiculous."

Makayla laughed. "I know. When I heard that people flew around on brooms, I immediately thought of my old broom that I clean the floor with at home. The actual flying brooms seem much nicer."

She listened to the girl, her eyes widening as Alli said that magic carpets really exist. Makayla only thought that things like that existed in Disney movies, such as Aladdin.

"I didn't really know anything else existed apart from boring old Muggle life, so it wasn't so bad being in the Muggle world, I guess. I would have loved to grow up here though."

Makayla blinked. What on Earth was Quid.. She couldn't even remember the name of it. "I must sound so silly, but what's Quid-thingybob?"

Gwen walked in and ordered popcorn flavoured ice cream and decided to say hi to the girls. "Hi, mind if i join you?" She asked. She had heard the Squib and Gryffindor comments but decided not to say anything to the fact that she was going to be a Lion or that her Brother was a squib. Friendly as always she smiled, "Oh, I´m Gwen Caldwe- Gwen Cooper." She said. Sometimes she still used her old name but now she was adopted and wanted to use her new one.

Alli had to resist the urge to wring the other girl's neck. She's a muggle born, she's a muggle born... she reminded herself.

"Quidditch is only the best sport ever. So there are two teams with sev-" another girl came up to the table and asked to join them. Alli waved her hand lazily. She didn't really care if the new girl joined them or not; she was too busy trying to explain Quidditch. "Like I was saying, there are two teams with seven players each: three chasers, two beaters, a keeper, and a seeker. You play with 4 balls. The big red ball is the Quaffle. The chasers score goals with that by getting it through one of the hoops at the end of the pitch. The keeper defends their teams hoops. With me so far?" Alli didn't want to confuse Makayla. Quidditch was too important in the wizarding world for her to not understand it.

Gwen smiled at the blonde girl reassuringly hoping she'd know that not all things in the wizarding world were complicated.
"Oh are you talking quidditch? I loved last game Puddlmere totally crushed Royale." She smiled. Puddlmere was her favorite team ever. If she noticed the blond girl get lost she'd help her, she thought with a smile.

"That's because Royale are a bunch of pansies," Alli rolled her eyes at the new girl. She couldn't take anything she said seriously, especially considering that she had stumbled on her own name. What kind of idiot didn't know their own name? "Puddlemere doesn't stand a chance of winning the cup. Mark my words, they're going to lose to the Tornados by at least two hundred points."

She shook her head, then went back to explaining to Makayla. The girl hadn't spoken so she assumed that she understood. "Then, there are two bludgers. They're the small dark ones. Made of iron, and let me tell you, they hurt if you get hit with one. The beaters have bats and they're supposed to keep the bludgers away from their teammates and hit them at the other team," she paused to take a breath. "The last ball is the golden snitch. It's really little and the Seeker has to catch it. Whichever seeker gets it wins 150 points for their team, so they usually win."

She smiled as she finished. She loved Quidditch. Her father played professionally for the Wimbourne Wasps for nearly 15 years before she'd been born, and as such, he'd passed his love for the game down to her.

Okay. Gwen was a really tolerent person. But this girl was pushing even her patience. She felt sorry for the blond girl.
"Meh, Not sure about that. I saw the last tornados game, wasn´t their best. Then again i think their seeker was ill. Meh, we´ll see." She shrugged. Normally she would have left the babbling girl immedietly but she didn't want to leave the blond girl alone with her (she kinda feared for her) so she stayed and smiled. But she had to hand it to her, Alli seemed to really love quidditch. And that was always a good sign, right?

Makayla listened to Alli as she explained this game and then smiled when another girl joined them. She noticed that the girl stumbled over her name, and wondered why that was.

Makayla looked from Alli to the girl named Gwen and then back to Alli again. She didn't really know what to say, but she could sense some tension between them.

"Thanks for explaining that, Alli. I think I get it. Seven players, 150 points. Sounds like fun. I think I'd rather watch than play though. Not a huge fan of heights and being on a broom, fifty feet in the air doesn't sound all that pleasant to me."

She looked at Gwen, "I'm Makalya, by the way. Nice to meet you. Are you going to Hogwarts this year too?" she asked her.

Gwen smiled and nodded, "Nice to meet you too. And yeah, I can´t wait. It might be weird at first though, cause my parents work there." She said smiling, but it´ll definately be awesome." She grinned.

"Both your parents work there?" she asked her, reiterating what she already told her. "Are they both teachers?"

Makayla, who's parents were both teachers in the Muggle world, was fascinated that Gwen's parents were Magical teachers. Their teaching styles and syllabus would be vastly different.

"I'm looking forward for classes to start too. Studying magic sounds like something out of a fairy tale. I'm still getting used to this all being very real."

Gwen nodded sheepishly, "Yeah, my Mom teaches Herbology and my Dad is Headmaster." She said softly. "Do you know about the different classes yet?" She asked more than happy to explain if needed. "Yeah, some things out of the muggle world sound pretty surreal to me too."

"Headmaster? Wow. That would be weird," she said, smiling. She wondered what it would be like trying to have fun with parents always there to keep a close eye on you. Makayla felt for the girl.

"I know the names of the classes, because of the book list we got in our letters from Hogwarts, but I have no real idea what the classes cover, content wise. I just hope that they're fascinating. I'm taking, Divination, Astronomy, Potions, History of Magic and Care of Magical Creatures. What about you two?" she asked, addressing the two girls.

"Have you two met any other students going to Hogwarts as well?" she asked, happy to chat the day away with the two fellow first years.

Gwen nodded, "Cool, we´ll definately see each other then. I´m taking CoMC, HoM, Charms, Figgie and potions. I think. Oh and Herbo. And don´t worry, they are fascinating." she smiled, "I´ve met a few that are really nice." She smiled as the tension dissolved.

Alli listened silently to the conversation that took place; she had absolutely no desire to contribute anything to the girl who couldn't remember her own name until she heard her say that her mother taught Herbology and her father was the Headmaster. The freakin' Headmaster!

A bloody teacher's pet, that's who they were sitting with. She'd probably skate through Hogwarts without having to try at all. She made a face of distaste but kept her thoughts to herself. She didn't see anything to be gained by voicing her opinions at that moment.