Food Fixes Everything PV: Alan Finished

Interacting with @Alan Vanes

Willow's face faltered as she realized she had no idea how to throw a birthday party and it didn't seem like Alan did either. She had been to one birthday party, but shortly after entering had a full mental breakdown so she still had no clue what a birthday entailed. "I... think that's what you do? There are snacks maybe? Should we have games or something? Maybe we should just start with who we invite! Then move from there. If we know how many people we want then we can figure out what would be the best birthday to accommodate all those people!" She figured with her and Alan planning it, they could make it a lovely birthday for the both of them. Seemingly the first one they'd spend with friends.

She dug around in the picnic basket and pulled out a journal of hers and a quill. "I actually brought this along in case I wanted to draw later, so I can take notes! I have a few people I know right off the bat. Mildred, Lydia, Aaron, Opeila, and Astrea..." She nodded, writing their names down as she went, a thought of Flash popped in her mind but she quickly shook it off. As much as she missed him and wanted him there she was nowhere near forgiving him.

Suddenly an idea popped in her head as Alan mentioned her mom going even crazier with the flavors. "Alan! You're brilliant! What if for our birthday I have my mom make a bunch and send them, and people can play a game of guessing the flavor! It covers snacks and a game that people could play." Everyone loved her moms cooking, and her mom absolutely would adore cooking for her especially if friends were involved.

She paused her writing to return to her sandwich that she had quickly been abandoned in light of the exciting reveal of matching birthdays. She listened as Alan rambled off a few questions about muggle magic. They were pretty run of the mill for the spiel she always did about it, and she was always happy to answer questions about it. "Basically we do spells, much like potions class. We create mixtures to carry around, or we do rituals for spells. It doesn't involve a wand unless you want to use one. My family doesn't really use wands in our practice. Not all muggles do it, it's actually kind of hard to find other muggle witches. My family would always have to travel to do big holiday rituals with other rituals. It was nice to be in a gathering of so many, since there were none in my town. It's incredibly different. I could always do a spell with you if you'd like! I've done a couple while I've been at Hogwarts, and I could always use the company." A warm smile appeared on her face, she didn't like to show just anyone her magic but she would trust Alan with that information especially since he seemed genuinely interested in it.

She nodded in confirmation when Alan asked if she was completely muggle born, then leaned forward to look at his necklace a little better. "Oh, it's a penny! Honestly it took me a second to adjust to wizard money, it boggles me that there's just... coins. There's no paper money at all. If you ever have questions about muggle life, I'm also happy to answer them for you if they come up with I'm around, same with my home witchcraft."

Alan was nodding slightly in excitement when Willow began to speak about how they would need to plan their birthday. He was quite excited about this. "Y-Yeah y-yeah, w-we should!", he exclaimed, his eyes sparkling. Were his eyes brighter? Perhaps, but possibly it was just the light that caused the green of his iris to light up a nuance. It was nothing worth worrying about or extremely noticeable as that and Alan was not even aware of the fact that it happened, so he might as well just leave it as it was.

When the girl began to name people, she would like to invite, the third year nodded along happily, before he began to tap his chin in thought. Who would he himself want to invite, he wondered. But he did not have to think long, before a few names filled his thoughts and he began to list them. "H-Hmm. I w-would like to a-add R-Ruka a-and Flash...", he hummed in thought, before his smiled widened, "Th-Then maybe S-Santario, Jake a-and Scott A-Alexander!", he was pleased with his choice and hoped that it would be a good set of invites. He glanced over at Willow, to see whether she would approve and hoped that this would be fine with her as well. He knew that she has met Jake before, when they were working on the marzipan and Flash had confirmed that the two of them also knew each other, so Alan did not really saw a problem about inviting the Slytherin. Even though he had bee rather weird when the topic Willow had been addressed by Alan, but maybe Willow was willing to share more information on that?

Alan was excited about Willow's proposal with the game and snack in one, he just nodded and made it apparent that he was agreeing with the idea the Hufflepuff girl had, wondering already what ideas her mom would come up with that time. He was sure she must be a creative and smart woman to make it possible in the first place! And on top of that make it difficult like that to actually guess the flavor of the pies? Alan could not wait until their birthday to go and try what ideas and combinations he would find this time.

Alan listened to her explanations of Muggle Magic and was fascinated. He did not even know Muggles were capable of such things, so he could not help but listen to all the information he got. Muggles doing magic was just fascinating and he wondered whether Muggles could make things fly and how they had hidden these talents from the magical world. Maybe both worlds hid their magic from each other? He wondered if Muggle magic was also regulated, but was it even correct to call them Muggles anymore, if Muggles too could do magic? But not every Muggle practiced magic, which was kind of stupid, because why wouldn't you want to learn about it? It was dangerous to refuse to learn about magic, because what if a Muggle caused some accidental magic, just because they had been to stubborn to go to a magic school to learn it? Thinking about that, he wondered how magical schools in a Muggle world worked, he never really heard about these, but he also did not really know that much about Muggles so that could be why!

"H-How do you c-cast spell and how does a M-Muggle learn to do m-magic?", he asked and nodded, when she mentioned, that he could show him a spell. Maybe he could show the spell to a Muggle once. If he found a Muggle that could do magic of their own, was it allowed to show them your own magic too? It would be equal exchange of magical knowledge, so he wondered what the Ministry's regulations were about that.

"I am m-more confused by the paper money.... W-Why would you p-pay with something of so l-little value? C-Coins at l-least have worth, but you can g-get paper and color it a-anywhere!", he noted and shrugged lightly. Muggle money made little sense to him, even though Lamik once had tried to explain to him that it actually was not really possible or very difficult to make your own paper money. Still, Alan could not help but think it was dumb.

Interacting with @Alan Vanes

Willow happily started writing down names for Alan, she hadn't thought of Ruka at first because of the last time that they had seen each other but he seemed like he could possibly be good company. She was thankful a certain Jack wasn't named right after since they seemed to work hand in hand. The immediate next name made her stomach drop. 'Flash.' She paused on writing his name and wrote the rest that Alan named, she hoped he wouldn't notice.

At this point she had such complicated feelings about Flash, and she didn't want to to say anything to Alan about it because she honestly couldn't even formulate her thoughts around him. How did Alan even know Flash? Was Alan part of Flash's giant scheme that she still couldn't figure out, if there even was one. Her eyes stayed focused on the paper for a moment. She didn't know some of the other people Alan named, but it was really just that one name she had a problem with. Did she have the right to tell him that she didn't want him there? This was going to be their first birthdays with others. She decided maybe to skirt around the topic. "Oh, you know... Flash too?" Her voice was incredibly tense, a feeling emanating from her that she could run at any moment creeping up again.

She regained herself as Alan continued to talk about Muggle magic, that she could talk about easily. "Well, for me we learned from my grandma on my mom's side. There's a lot of resources on the internet and everything. It's just kind of communal learning about different spell methods and everything. But mainly learning what works best for your family. It's like... really hard to explain without just showing it. It's a lot of fun though." She seemed really confused, it was hard to really communicate what exactly it was, because to her it just existed. Having to explain it really threw her off.

A laugh burst out of her as Alan said that anyone could color money. She didn't mean to laugh so much, but it was just really funny. "Alan, there are certain special things within paper money that can't be recreated. Like security measures. You can't just make paper money. But, I guess the coins is better." She shrugged, tapping her quill idly on the her paper as she thought about having all coins in the muggle world too.

When Willow asked the third year, whether he knew Flash as well, he nodded. He would have nearly blurted out that he had seen her Quidditch game with him, but he was sure Flash did not want him to find out. Alan remembered the way he hid behind him, as soon as Willow had glanced at the stands and Alan still had not found out why. "I-Is he your f-friend?", he asked confused, since she reacted weird. At least weird in comparison to her usually so carefree demeanor.

He had no idea what she meant with internet...s and the resources that could be found there. Maybe that was the name of her town? Weird, he never had heard of this town before, even though his parents traveled a lot. But Willow also had mentioned that she lived in a small town, so he assumed that this was another reason why he might not have heard about the muggle witches who lived there. "C-Can I visit you i-in Interets some t-time? I a-am sure that w-would be fun a-and you c-could show me where y-you live!", he asked, curiosity written all over his face, as he asked her this.

"Y-You mean like sp-spells inside the paper m-money?", he wondered, glancing over at her curiously. Were it some spells that were kept a secret so that no one could make copies of the money? Suddenly muggle money made so much more sense to him. He always assumed it was stupid to have paper money, but if his assumption was true, then Muggles were so much smarter with their currency than he had first assumed. The third year glanced at the Hufflepuff, his face thoughtful as he thought about his theory.

Interacting with @Alan Vanes

'Is he my friend?' This question bounced around in her head, and it was a lot more complicated than she expected at this point. She didn't want to alarm Alan and make him think that he couldn't invite a friend if he did like Flash. With a small smile she tried to lie through her teeth, something she was an expert in when telling her parents that school was fine and she had stayed after school to study. "Ah, it's just complicated right now. I'm not really sure... where we're at." She looked down at her notebook, she knew exactly where they were at. Not speaking. Betrayed. Hurt. But for the right reasons? She still didn't know. "But he can totally come! Everything will be fine with that, I promise." The hope that Alan couldn't see through her was sky high, she hadn't had to lie in awhile but it felt like a skill that was similar to riding a bike. You never forget.

Alan continued to confuse her with his lack of muggle knowledge, she didn't realize purebloods were this sheltered from everything muggle related. He didn't know what internet is? How do you even explain something like computers... and the internet. "I don't... live in the internet. I live in a town called Willen. The internet is like a... giant... source of knowledge on a computer. Um, if you visit me over the summer, I can definitely show you everything. It's kind of hard to explain." She had no idea that there was so little information about muggles and how they lived. It kind of upset her in a way, they were easily forgotten as wizards lived a wonderful lavish life.

She wanted to bang her head against the tree they were under. She really didn't have any of the words to explain muggle things. "Nope, no magic. It's like sensors and certain... secret things that appear under light. I really don't know how they do it. It's just there. But it's not magic, it's machinery." She would have to teach Alan so much if he were to visit, and it stressed her out. It would probably also stress her parents out to some degree. It would be fine, that's not something she had to worry about for awhile.

Alan nodded slightly, not even wondering much about it. Both of them did not seem to like sharing more about their current relationship and it was not in Alan's nature to poke them for more answers than they were comfortable to freely give him. "O-Okay, I am g-glad that he c-can be invited then, b-because he is a f-friend of mine", he told her with a slight smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. He was looking forward to inviting him actually and there were more people he would love to invite, but he was not quite sure if they wanted to be invited since he actually did not know them so well.

Alan lightly pinched his lower lip between his teeth looking guilty and confused as he listened to Willow explain more about Muggles. He had not meant to get it wrong, he simply did not know much about this technology thing that Muggles were so obsessed with. Alone the fact that it was useless in Alan's household, because there were too many magical artifacts that would disrupt the technology and probably destroy it. Whenever his cousins had to visit they left all of their Muggle stuff in Germany, because it would not work in the house Alan grew up in. Since it was not working there never had been a reason for him to be even remotely interested in it. It was knowledge he would never use after all, so why drill the knowledge into his head, if he could focus on more important things? "I c-can visit?", he asked surprised, eyes widened hopefully as he stared at the girl with a bright smile, his worries quickly forgotten.

After a while of them sitting and chatting while eating the snacks in front of them, he noticed that it was getting a bit late and he wondered how much time they actually had just spend there enjoying the late afternoon hours. Alan certainly was glad that the two of them got along well enough to forget time. Absentmindedly he grabbed for his Gryffindor cup and took a few sips, emptying it, before gently placing it back onto the blanket. "D-Do you know anything f-fun we could d-do at our p-party?", he wondered. He had no idea what to do on a fun birthday, but he assumed that Willow knew some things that were considered fun to do!

Interacting with @Alan Vanes

Finally her hand moved to write Flash's name in their guest list, it was a pretty good guest list in her professional party planning experience, which was none. Hopefully it was better than the one that came together at Pei's birthday party. There were so many hard feelings between that group, hopefully this wouldn't be the same case. She nodded slowly as Alan spoke, "I can't think of anyone else, but I think this is a pretty great group of people to celebrate with if you're ok with this group." She handed her journal over to Alan for him to double check the list. Taking the opportunity to munch on some cheese and crackers.

Usually she was pretty good at keeping other people's feelings in mind when speaking, but this time it completely fell through the cracks as she returned her eyes to meet Alan's while talking about muggle things. She had definitely messed up. It just completely threw her off how little people knew about muggles, but what did she know about wizard life? She couldn't expect that from Alan if that's not even an expectation she had for herself to know about him. Although a lot of her time since coming here had been researching wizard culture. Sometimes it deeply upset her that wizards barely took time to learn about muggles in return. It was a frustration that she kept pushing back in her head, but as of late it seemed to keep popping up. For now she tried to reign in that frustration, and remembered that she was talking to someone.

A smile quickly appeared on Alan's face when she offered to have him come visit her, she didn't think her home could bring so much happiness to someone before he had even seen it. Quickly she nodded, trying to make up for her previous zoning out. "Of course! I think my mom would absolutely love you, so would my dad. Honestly, you'd fit right into our family. I could show you so many muggle things! I would love to have you visit over the summer." Her parents were about to be shellshocked with how many friends she was inviting to their home, being that she had never brought someone to her house before and now there was a long guest list of friends that could probably take up the whole summer of just visitors. But, for once she was excited about showing off her family.

It had been a way more peaceful afternoon than she planned, it was easy to talk to Alan. While she had her stumbles, she felt at ease around him. Much like she did with Flash, she was grateful for the peace they always seemed to bring along with them. A thought floated in her head of if she could ever bring that peace to herself without outside help. Idle chatter filled their hours of company, and at some point she reached for some food to realize that they had gone through most of it. Not only did her belly feel full from the food, it felt full of love and comfort as well. Something that often went hand and hand with her mom's cooking. She moved to lay out on the picnic blanket and look up at the sky to watch the day slowly turn to night.

Her head lazily turned over to Alan as he brought up another question about what they would exactly do at their birthday. There were so many details to think of, how did people do this every year? She took a moment to think about it. "Mm.. I'm not sure. I mean we'll be making s'mores... maybe we can put our feet in the lake at some point if it's not too cold, but I don't really know what games people do. I was just imagining all of us hanging out around a fire. Maybe we could tell scary fire stories?" She was glad to have Alan with her to help plan this, if she was going to try and do this by herself she would've been completely lost.

He agreed that the list of people invited was great enough for their birthday. He would have liked to add some more names, but was unsure whether he should even send them something. Maybe they did not even want an invitation so the safest bet was to send them to people Alan was sure would love to come or were his friends.

Alan was excited and thrilled by the fact that Willow believed that her family would like him. He could not wait to meet them either and was sure that they could only be awesome, if they raised someone like Willow. He was looking forward to meeting the woman who could bake such delicious treats and learn more about Muggles. There was little he would learn from class and Muggle Studies was not his favorite class at all. He preferred stories rather than those confusing things the professor had to talk about. Why couldn't the professor just be like Willow and teach him about the fact that Muggles were actually magicians of their own sort?

The third year just nodded along, when the younger girl began to explain what activities they could do. He actually had little plan of what most of them entailed but he trusted the girl with it. He was quite confident that this would be the best birthday they could organize and was looking forward to it a lot. "S-Scary fire st-stories?", he wondered, but then nodded quickly. That sounded exciting and he was sure everyone could enjoy that. Well maybe except for Jake, but he hoped the kid might bring Freddie so he could get some comfort should they actually tell each other scary stories.

He believed that the birthday would be quite fun to do and plan and he was confident that nothing would go bad. The castle was right there and it was not like they were planning to break any rules. Scott would be there and he was a prefect after all! Then again Scott did not really seem like he cared much for rules himself, so it could go either way after that, he supposed. But he would not intend to break curfew, but he would not stop it from happening if it was a fun evening! "W-We should b-bring blankets", he murmured in thought. If they were outside and in the evening on top, they would need a place where they could sit down and relax after all they could not be standing the whole time!

Interacting with @Alan Vanes

There was a warmth that filled her heart when she was with Alan, and easiness of conversation and friendship that came with his presence. Not to mention becoming friends over home cooked food was the sure fire way to create an everlasting bond. At least it was in her opinion. Cooking and eating was always something her family did communally, at the end of the day they would all sit together and enjoy a meal together. It was the best way to de-stress from the day. The afternoon was only made better by figuring out that her and Alan even shared a common birthday and that her first one would be spent with friends that she already adored so dearly.

Slowly she started to pack up the picnic as they had come to an end with stuffing themselves full of food, and there was still some left. She would have to put it in the common room for the rest of the badgers to go to town on. Snacks were one of their weaknesses after all. Willow nodded slowly as Alan mentioned scary stories, "Yeah like ghosts, ghouls, monsters, that kind of stuff. Although, I giess those are kind of more real now knowing that those things... exist." She scrunched up her face in thought before shrugging it off. Willow closed up the basket and looked over to Alan one more time. "I have a ton of blankets I can bring so everyone can be comfortable around the fire and by the lake." She pushed herself off the ground and smoothed out her clothes. "I do think I should head out for the afternoon. I still have a ton of homework to catch up on before this week. But I'm sure I'll talk to you later to finish out the details about the party!" She crouched back next to him to give him an awkward positioned hug, and hoisted the basket onto her elbow. "See you later Alan!" With that she skipped off towards the castle.

Willow has exited the thread.