July 2025.

The two had sat at a community theater sage at one of the parks in London. Simon had been attempting to expose Clara that summer to "exploration days" where he'd focus on various aspects of modern life to hopefully help her become adjusted to life in London. There had been Everyday Shopping Days where he tried to get her to understand how stores worked and how to buy things. There had been Food and Culture days where she experienced diversity and hte joy of shared meals - eating different cuisines or visiting local farmers markets or food festivals. There had been City Basics Days - where he attempted to get her more comfortable navigating the big city, reading street signs, using crosswalks, visiting the places around London and showing how to use public transportation to get there. It was easier when Simon was around, as he was her trust person, but thankfully she seemed to now also place trust in Aunt Maggie, Uncle Mark, and in some of his muggle friends that she had been introduced to during some of these ventures out.

Some of those friends were with them that evening. They were all attending the laid back open mic night that was hosted by a local arts center. Simon thought this would be a good way to expose Clara to more of the English language through music, the spoken word, and maybe some amateur acting - whatever was going to be presented that night.

Clara sat between Simon and Gabe Evans, Simon's longtime childhood best friend, but her attention was fixated on a teenager that was delivering a rhythmic poem full of feeling and emotion. Before the teen, when they had arrived, there had been a woman playing a flute. "Is this a ceremony?" Clara asked Simon in a soft whisper, leaning closer to him to ask her question. Simon didn't think she knew yet public niceties of being a good audience and that's why she kept the low voice but figured it was more of not wanting Gabe or anyone else to hear her question. She didn't like feeling as though she was the odd one out - although she often times was.

Simon looked over to her and debated his answer. He often tried to explain things to Clara in a way she could understand them and knew that meant simplifying it. "Well, sort of. It's a community gathering called Open Mic Night. People get up on that sage and can perform whatever they like - deliever whatever is on their mind. They talk into that thing called a microphone, or mic; it makes their voice louder so it can be heard by more."

"They share their hearts aloud and no one stops them?" she asked, taking on her own meaning from what he said.

Simon thought about that. It was a time for people to get together and be given the opportunity to share something from inside themselves where no one interrupted and everyone listened. Simon nodded and smiled over to Clara and he thought that was such a nice way of putting it. "Exactly," he answered her. Sometimes it was refreshing to hear how Clara worded things, whether it was her outlook on life or just how she processed her language into his own. He was glad that even when he returned to Hogwarts, the two promised to write one another often. He'd like to keep some insight into her world. He'd like to her to continue to share her heart aloud.

A few acts later, an older woman with big glasses came onto the sage and asked if anyone else was brave enough to try something. "You don't have to be an expert. Even a story or poem is welcome!" the woman said and looked out to those in the seats. Simon saw Clara shoot up from her seat as she started to wave a hand back and forth in the air for attention, quickly. It was a silent sort of plea saying: "Pick me, Pick me!"

"What are you doing?" Simon asked in a whisper, his tone curious. It obviously seemed as if she was volunteering but was she volunteering? Normally Clara did what she could to blend in and going on stage, in front of an audience, would be the opposite of doing so.

"Sharing a heart aloud," she said to him before tucking a bit of hair behind her ear and rushing up before he could even say "Clara, you don't have to........"

The woman from the arts center on the stage was beaming and motioning Clara to join her on stage. "Come on up, love!" she encouraged her and Clara hurried up the steps at the edge of the sage and then came to join the woman.

Simon watched as she looked out to the crowd, scanning it, as if looking for something, and when she found him, her gaze remained locked there. "In my village, we told stories at night when the fire was low. I'll tell one now," she began.

Mia Anderson, who sat behind Simon, tapped him on the shoulder and smiled. "Look at our girl, go," she whispered to him.

"In a village that stood between fields and forests, where the clouds blanketed low, lived a girl unlike the others. While the villagers bowed their heads and headed to each custom, doing all that they should do exactly as they should, she asked questions that no one dared to ask. She wondered what lay beyond the river and she dreamed of a world wider than the wheat fields and the quiet hills. She was alone in her wondering, for curiosity was a dangerous notion in her village."

"One evening, as the lowering sun beckonede her home, the wind called for her to stay out just a little longer - to envy the birds that flew beyond where she could see and wonder where they went. It was on that evening that she found him - an angel fallen from above. He was hurt, his invisible wings seemed torn and blooded as his body. He did not glow like the stories said angels should but there was still something about him that held light."

"The girl helped him. She cleaned his wounds with water from the river and whispered stories to soothe his pain. In secrecy, she visited him each day and a quiet friendship grew between them: between the girl who dreamed and the angel who had fallen."

....She was talking about her. She was talking gabout him. Simon was impressed by her grasp on the English language and how well she was telling her tale. It seemed others were too, as not a person in the audience was having a private conversation and all attention was directed up on the stage to Clara.

"Months passed and the village spoke in hushed tones of the next messenger - when one of pure soul would be given to the fire to protect them all. The girl's heart sank when she heard her name called. She was chosen, as was her best friend before her and as her sister was long before that. Dressed in white, crowned with adornments, she was to be the sacrifice."

"It was to be an honor to be chosen, and yet.....the girl questioned that as she had questioned so much. She was afraid."

"But the angel came to her, just as the full chill of Winter began to set in. Trust me, he said, I will bring you to safety......not on the night of the fire, but long before - and though she did not know where safety lay, she trusted him. He might not have been from heaven's heights but he was still her angel - the one who saved her when she needed it most."

She moved across the stage as she spoke and projected her voice outward to the audience but her eyes always found him.

"Together they slipped quietly from the village, away from the borders she had been told to never cross. A world beyond - vast, strange, beautiful - unfolded before her eyes."

"Though the angel was not the heavenly being she once believed, in her heart he would always be her angel - for he gave her more than life; he gave her freedom; he gave her the world. And sometimes, when the wind stirs the grass, the trees, the leaves - and calls to her; the girl wonders quietly to herself who will the angel find next? Which heart will he touch with hope?"

After a few short seconds passed without more words, there was applause from the crowd and Simon too clapped his hands, amazed by her. It was like watching s omeone he knew turn into someone else. When Clara came down from the stage and dropped back onto the chair beside him, he smiled. "That was incredible," he said to her.

"Thank you. I never thought I could do that," she said and was congratulated by Gabe and Mia for such spectacular storytelling. Simon looked over, loving that she wasn't just being someone to watch what was going on around her but was becoming an active participant. Maybe she was finally starting to not feel like such an outsider in the big city of London.

"What do you want to explore next, Clara?" Simon asked her, wondering if she had any ideas for their next exploration day. "I'm not sure, but I'm ready to find my own stories to tell from here, from now."

Simon smiled at that. "That sounds absolutely perfect. I'll be hereto help you every way that I can."