not exactly fashion-conscious

[HEATHCOTE MYRON BARBARY]

The shop door opened and a jingle from a distant bell sounded as he stepped through the dark threshold. The difference in light was somewhat startling. Outside it was warm, sunny and cloudless, a beautiful day (for a change). When the door shut behind him, he had to pause and wait for his eyes to adjust.

Heath had been outside all day, wandering from spot to spot in Diagon Alley, busking. This was the perfect time of year for it. It wasn't too hot - the sun felt good on his back, and he quite fancied feeling like he was earning his money, a little sweat on his brow. Young, impressionable first years begging their parents for a handful of knuts to throw in his case, old professors recognizing him as they shopped for some odd or end, slipping him a galleon and a chocolate frog.

And he needed the money -- he had somehow spent his summer earnings on equipment, movie tickets, and ice cream runs, among various other summertime activities. It had occurred to his parents he'd sprung up a foot or so (early bloomer) and they'd given him money to buy new robes. It, however, had not hit him how desperately he needed those robes until he'd tried his old ones on, and by then he'd already spent that money on some new-to-him bongos.

And so, with money in his pocket and his guitar in its case, he peered around the cool, slightly musty shop, looking for a soul who could help him determine which among the used robes was the least horrifying to a vaguely discerning eye. It seemed, however, that there was no-one around. Very aware of his ineptness when it came to fashion, he began to browse the racks, looking for something in his size that was plain enough not to draw too much attention and cheap enough to leave him some change for a couple of quills.

[ELLE ALEXANDRA WALKER]

Thrift Store Junkie

Elle hadn't grown any, but she was in the market for a few new robes of varying colors. She was looking to spice up her causal-robe attire, maybe even find a decent used dress robe or two in case the occasion presented itself to her, and there was the fact that she would have holes in her current robes after sewing in her newly arrived Head Girl's badge.

Yes, the letter had come in that morning, and Elle had nearly feinted when the badge fell out of the letter. Head Girl. She was going to be Head Girl. No matter how many times she repeated it, or held the badge, or looked at the letter, she couldn't believe that she'd gotten the position. It was such an honor... her first goal was to memorize the name of every student at Hogwarts. It was a grand task, but she already knew almost every Hufflepuff, so she was 1/4 of the way there, right?

Her parents had agreed to give her a little bit of money as a reward for getting Head Girl, and she decided that she needed new clothes. Of course, she could’ve gone and gotten new robes, but then she could only get one dress robe and one causal one. If she came to a second hand robe shop, however… well, depending on the quality and the prices, she could probably leave with anywhere from four to 7 robes, if she was thrifty enough! And she was indeed thrifty enough. If there was one thing Elle got from her mother it was her knack for discount shopping and talking people down on prices.

Usually the stores like this were scarcely populated, so she wasn’t too surprised to see that there was only one other person in the store when she entered. It took her a moment to adjust to the poor lighting, reminding herself once more that if she just invested in a decent pair of sunglasses the difference between the outside and the inside wouldn’t be quite so devastating. Such was not the case, so it took her more than a moment to really be able to see who the other person was.

At first she had assumed he worked there, since he was the only person in sight, but spotting the guitar case and recognizing him to be rather young, she knew that he was just there shopping as well. His face was familiar, and she realized that she had passed him on the street when she’d first arrived – he’d been playing guitar, but she hadn’t been to the bank yet to get money, so she hadn’t anything to give him then.

“Hey!” she said, walking over to the boy. She knew he was a third year – he had been a first year her first year of being a Prefect, and she remembered him in the group of first years waiting to be sorted. But he wasn’t in her house… Gryffindor, maybe? Or Ravenclaw? “I saw you playing earlier, but I hadn’t gone to the bank yet. Here,” she said, taking out a galleon and handing them to him. “You were really great! I tried to learn the guitar once, but I don’t think it was meant to be,” she added with a laugh. Taking a glance at the rack he was looking at, he could use a little extra money for new robes. And she always loved donating money to musicians on the street back home, so she always felt extra-inclined to help out kids she recognized from school. Who knew? Maybe he’d be the next wizard rock sensation and he’d always remember that nice girl in the robe shop who gave him a galleon.

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[HEATHCOTE MYRON BARBARY]

"Hey!"

The bell had given away Elle's entrance, but Heath hadn't looked up. He just sort of stood there, dumbly, slouched and staring as the warmth from the outside came and left as the door opened and closed. He didn't look up when she spoke either. He wasn't trying to be rude, he was just... mesmerized. What was that? It looked like --

"I saw you playing earlier, but I hadn't gone to the bank yet. Here. You were really great! I tried to learn the guitar once, but I don't think it was meant to be."

Heath laughed a little, but it was an awkward kind of laugh. He turned his head toward Elle, trying to pull his eyes away from the odd-looking, weirdly enchanting lace-like fabric that ran along the edge of the lime-green robe he was gaping at. His eyes would have none of it. This was no normal, oh-my-god-this-is-so-terrifyingly-ugly fixation. In fact, a weird feeling in his gut told him that this was beyond normal. Perhaps more magical than anything.

"Elle. It's Elle right? I am pretty sure I recognize your voice. If it is not you, I am so sorry miss. If you are not a miss, my sincerest apologies, sir. Thank you so much for the compliment, and I assume you are trying to give me money, and I am very grateful for that, but I think I am having a bit of a problem here. Could you perhaps give me a hand? And don't look at this robe, okay."

Heath searched his pockets, but realized he'd put his wand in his guitar case. He knelt down, patting the floor around him, trying to find the case without his eyes, which were busy following the various threads twirling around each other. Were they shimmering? He felt like he was on a trip; he'd seen the news, he'd heard about all of the popular drugs of the day and their effects. This seemed like what the news anchor was speaking of. The threads seemed to be alive. Pulsing?

"Do you see my guitar case anywhere?" he asked. He was calm and intrigued, his voice even. This was possibly the most unique situation he'd ever been in. However, he felt no desire to stare at this robe for the rest of his life, and would rather this encounter not have lasting effects on his brain (as those drugs on the news were purported to have).

[ELLE ALEXANDRA WALKER]

Thrift Store Junkie

There was certainly something strange about this boy. He was just standing there, not acknowledging her presence in the store at all. She figured he just hadn’t been paying attention when she had said ‘hey’, which wouldn’t have surprised her. After all, if you weren’t expecting someone to address you, then you weren’t really going to be listening for voices nearby. When she continued and he still remained impassive, though she wondered what was going on.

Maybe he was just a strange kid. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to her. Maybe he wanted to be alone, or he thought she was creepy for recognizing him and trying to give him money. The one thing his inability to respond gave her was time to remember his name. After running through several possibilities in her mind, Elle finally came up with Heath. That was it, she knew it was. Elle had gotten rather good at putting names to faces over the past few years, something she was rather proud of. She hadn’t been very good at it before.

Even though he wasn’t facing her, from the angle she was at she could see his face. He looked like he was in a trance. And then he laughed, which startled her. She hadn’t been expecting any noise at all from him, let alone a laugh. Noting that he appeared to try and look away but just couldn’t force himself to, Elle began to wonder. Was something wrong? Maybe he was one of those weird cases where people had seizures, but looked frozen on the outside! It was only when he began speaking that she felt a little better about the situation, though still on her guard.

“Yeah, it’s Elle. And you’re Heath, right? Are you okay?” Elle’s voice didn’t betray her concern, though she could definitely feel it rising up inside of her. It wasn’t until he told her to not look at the robe that she realized what must be going on. There was something enchanted about the robe his gaze was fixed on. She had read stories about objects that were cursed, or enchanted, people playing tricks or using them for ulterior motives. But unless she knew exactly what was wrong, she wasn’t going to be able to help the younger boy. A lot of those sorts of spells were very specific, and unless she knew which sort it was, the best she could do would be to try vague anti-hexes until something worked.

“Sure, what can I do?” She asked when Heath asked if she would give him a hand. He was searching for something, but whatever it was it wasn’t within his reach. When he asked for his guitar case she spotted it a few feet away from him, resting against a different rack of clothes. “Here,” she offered, picking it up and placing it into his reaching hands.


Part of Elle wanted to try and un-enchant him right away, but she knew that some people were really stubborn when it came to others helping them. She wouldn’t want him to think that she didn’t think he could take care of himself, after all. She knew that at his age she may have reacted that way. And from what she had read about enchantments like these, for the most part they were harmless as long as you weren’t stuck in them for too long. Since it had only been two or three minutes she wasn’t overly concerned and decided to let him try a little bit first, and if he couldn’t then she would step in and help.

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[HEATHCOTE MYRON BARBARY]

"Yes Elle, thanks, I'm fine, only..."

Heath felt around on the ground a little more before Elle handed the case to him. As he felt the coolness of the worn leather, he couldn't help but appreciate the familiarity of an old friend in a difficult situation. He began to undo the latches quickly; even without looking he knew exactly where everything was.

"Thanks so much, you're aces. Thing is, I am pretty sure I have been bewitched so that I cannot look away from this god-awful, tacky robe. Do you think I'd get in trouble if I blew it up? The only spell I can think of right now is Bombarda." Heath laughed a little at his situation, eyes still following the imagined movement of the threads. "Or, maybe vanishing it would do the trick. What d'you reckon?" Fumbling around with a tricky latch, he finally managed to open his case and retrieve his wand. But what to do with it? He'd never been a situation like this, and of course, of all the things he'd learned so far, he hadn't learned the spell that nixes an unwanted fascination with a gaudy robe.

Heath stood back up, dusting off his dark denim jeans. He wracked his brain for some spell that could help him, but came up with little more than his gut instincts. Suddenly he was very glad Elle had come into the shop - not that he wasn't glad before - but he knew there were things a seventh year was bound to know that a lowly third year would not. Hopefully Elle had passed her 'Uncursing Cursed Garments' test. Hopefully people took tests like that.

Come to think of it, how had this robe made its way onto the shelf? Heath had been coming to this shop since his first year at Hogwarts. The owner was a thorough old witch who undercharged and over-inspected. Perhaps someone had planted it there on the rack... but for what purpose, Heath couldn't imagine. There was too much going on at the moment to think on it properly, he decided, and cleaned his wand off with the red sleeve of his baseball shirt.

[ELLE ALEXANDRA WALKER]

“I’ve never seen a Bedazzling Hex is person before,” she admitted, more than a little excited and intrigued. Elle took a moment to assess the situation again, making sure she wasn’t missing any details. Yes, somebody had placed some sort of fixation hex on this garment, which was father unfortunate because it wasn’t even a very appealing piece of fabric. But he didn’t seem particularly worried or bothered by the events, so she decided to let them play out. After all, Heath seemed to know what he was doing. That was, until he admitted that he really didn’t know what he was doing.

“You’re welcome. It is a rather unfortunate robe, isn’t it?” she added, glancing at it out of the corner of her eye but careful not to make direct eye-contact with it so that they weren’t both bewitched. "It’s hard to believe that someone actually bought this new and wore it around at one time, for it to be second-hand now. I’m pretty sure no one would fault you for setting this particular piece on fire, though. The owner may make you pay for it, however, and I doubt you want to spend any money on… this, of all robes.” Elle had pocketed the galleon she was trying to give him before, and made a mental note to remember to give it to him after this little enchantment fiasco was settled.

Heath had gotten his wand out finally, which was a step in the right direction. Elle had done her researching on these enchantments for Charms class, so she knew that this particular one wasn’t going to put him into any immediate danger. Which was why she felt so comfortable letting him figure it out on his own. “You could try to vanish it, but I’m pretty sure you would still see it, or at least think you’re seeing it.” Thinking back to her third year Elle was certain that they had definitely never covered this topic.

Heath had gone to cleaning off his wand on the sleeve of his shirt, and Elle deducted that he was out of ideas by this point. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “How about you try this little gem. Make an upside-down triangle with your wand and say, ‘desino pestis’.” She wanted him to be able to get himself out of this if he could. She had no doubts that he could easily perform the spell with enough accuracy to at least be able to look away, even if he wasn’t able to fully disarm the enchantment. She could always do the finishing touches. But something she learned from her past six years of Hogwarts experience is that if you’re ever going to learn things, it is often best to learn from experience. And one never learned as much having others do it for them than they did if they had to do it themselves.

Of course, had there been some sort of serious emergency then she would’ve skipped the mini-lesson and gone straight to helping him, but this was a situation that Heath could easily tackle himself. After all, he had been of the calm presence of mind to ask for his wand and try to think of solutions, which just proved that he was more than capable to deal with the robe’s challenges.

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[HEATHCOTE MYRON BARBARY]

“I’ve never seen a Bedazzling Hex is person before."

Heath let out a laugh after she spoke.

"A what? A bedazzling hex?" That was about the best name for a hex he'd ever heard in his life. Wasn't a bedazzler... "Isn't a bedazzler a muggle invention that helps stick sparkly things on jean jackets?" Heath would have doubled over, if he were capable of it. As it was, he laughed while staring at the robe, imagining a ten year old witch with braids, wearing a jean jacket with a rhinestone unicorn on the back, futzing around with her mother's wand and accidentally inventing a new hex. She would later be hailed as a genius by the Daily Prophet in the article that reveals the creation of the Bedazzling Hex, as named by the little witch after her American cousin's cool new toy.

“You’re welcome. It is a rather unfortunate robe, isn’t it? It’s hard to believe that someone actually bought this new and wore it around at one time, for it to be second-hand now. I’m pretty sure no one would fault you for setting this particular piece on fire, though. The owner may make you pay for it, however, and I doubt you want to spend any money on… this, of all robes. You could try to vanish it, but I’m pretty sure you would still see it, or at least think you’re seeing it..."

Heath, being the young, impatient third year that he was, had heard enough. He'd been weighing his options since she'd started to speak. Blowing it up seemed like the funnest option, and so...

"Bombardo!" Heath said the word firmly, sharply, unintentionally cutting Elle off mid-thought. The robe tore in all directions, flying across the shop and covering the both of them in green threads. "Oh... sorry, I thought you were out of ideas too." He smiled sheepishly.

Just then, Glinda Burkey, the shop owner, entered the room.

"What in the world is going on?" She asked, muttering something that caused all of the threads to fly to a pile on the ground, where they rested momentarily before the broom dusted them into a dustpan, and the dustpan emptied them into the garbage pail. Looking at Heath suspiciously, she raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.

"Oh, well, er... the robe was hexed, I couldn't look away from it, so I... sort of... blew it up." Heath explained, running a hand through his hair.

"Heathcote Barbary, you can't just go around blowing up hexed robes willy nilly. Or, wait, maybe you can, I'm not familiar with the law on the subject. But you can't in this shop. You're lucky I know you're not just some hoodlum."

And he was lucky, he knew it - the fact that he knew her was what allowed him to make the decision he did. It also allowed him to tease her a little.

"Well, perhaps if you wouldn't sell hexed robes I wouldn't be blowing them up. How did that happen anyway, do you suppose?" Heath walked up to the counter that Glinda had made her way behind, leaning on it as she began to fold and price garments.

"I hired a new assistant," she said with a sigh. "Perhaps I should fire him..." And she continued on working.

"Well, there you have it," he said, looking over to Elle. "Thanks for your... er... assistance. I may or may have jumped the gun a little there - what were you saying?" He hoped she didn't think him rude. After all, she had been a prefect the previous year - she could make life difficult for him if she wished.

[ELLE ALEXANDRA WALKER]

Elle laughed along with Heath. She hadn’t stopped to think about the name of these hexes before that moment. Really, when you’re sitting in class transfixed to an object you don’t usually have the presence of mind to analyze name double-meanings while you’re being graded. That was the one thing she hated about classes – the stress and the pressure that took away from the fun of learning something new. “You’re right. I think some of my muggle cousins were playing with one last Christmas!”

There were many approaches that Heath could’ve taken in this situation. She had been about to give him the proper spell to use to get rid of the hex when mid-sentence Heath decided that the cursed robe had existed long enough for his liking. Elle jumped a little as the robe was torn to pieces by the invisible force that was the third year’s spell. Thread was everywhere, but at least the disaster of fabric that had been called a robe was gone.

“Hah, don’t worry about it,” she said, pulling a long string of green from her hair. “It’s probably for the best. You saved some poor soul from purchasing that robe in the future,” Elle pointed out. “You should probably be given some sort of medal.” While she may have agreed with Heath’s method of defending himself, Glinda Burkey quite obviously did not. She shot the shop owner a smile and gave her a knowing look at she turned on Heath about the mini-explosion. Elle knew that she wouldn’t blame him after knowing what had happened. Elle had been buying robes here forever, and even if she had tried to blame things on Heath, Elle knew she would’ve been able to diffuse the situation.

Standing back and crossing her arms, she watched as Heath teased and talked his way out of the situation. Never a dull moment around these parts, that was for sure. She hadn’t been expecting this much excitement from her second hand robe shopping, but it was always a welcome addition. If there was one thing Elle could’ve used more of in her life it was excitement, some adventure and spontaneity.
“You’re welcome, though I didn’t do much. I was about to tell you the counter-charm, but I think your way worked better.” Elle shook her head slightly, remembering how excited she was by the idea of being able to use simple spells like Bombardo when she was a third year. Only two years of formal schooling under his belt, maybe just two years of magical knowledge at all if Heath was a muggle born, and already he was exploding things. Part of her wondered why they still taught spells like that to the young students, who often misused them. Not that Heath misused it, not at all, but the younger students tended to get a little overboard with those sorts of things.

“Oh, and here! I almost forgot, what with all of the excitement.” Elle reached a hand into her pocket and pulled out a galleon. She extended her hand out to him, offering the money, explaining again in case he had been too zoned out before to really hear her. ”I saw you playing earlier, but I hadn’t been by Gringtott’s yet so I didn’t have any money on me. You were really great! How long have you been playing?.”

Elle loved to get to know everyone at school better when she got the chance, and this seemed like a pretty good opportunity. If he was willing to talk, he could always look at robes as he did so. Or if not, she wouldn’t be offended. But why pass up the opportunity?

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