Begrudging Buys
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xx | When she had imagined doing all of her first-year purchases in preparation for her upcoming start at Hogwarts, Kahira Valerian had not imagined... this. Some elements were right: the late July date (so that she could attend the summer-camp and get her first glimpse at Hogwarts early), the lack of a parental figure hanging around, the fashionable green-and-black ensemble that would surely identify her to any onlookers as both a pureblood heiress and an incoming Slytherin (most certainly). But others were... well, perhaps not quite as up to snuff. For one, Kahira's dreams of a shopping spree had mostly featured her childhood best mate, @Nova Vancourt, as a companion - not... Jeremy. The two eleven-year-olds had been thrown together by their fathers, Aldric Valerian and Thomas Slater. Business partners of a sense (that sense being that Aldric occasionally relied upon Thomas for the acquisition of some of the rarer potions ingredients that the Valerian Consortium often needed), the two men had accompanied their young children to the alley so that they could discuss an upcoming business deal - something about a "unique" and "hard-to-find" breed of dragon for the powdering of claws. Whilst the pair of ex-Slytherins reviewed the finer points of their negotiation over drinks in the Leaky Cauldron, Kahira and Jeremy had been sent away with pocketfuls of Galleons to purchase their necessary school supplies, with Kahira's elder brother @Blaize Valerian (godmod perms given) as a sort of chaperone, probably so that Kahira didn't spend away the family fortune. Luckily, Blaize had been easy enough to lose in the crowd. Jeremy, not so much. There was also the issue of her fellow incoming first-year being a major nitwit, a bore, and a bit of a whiner to boot. Kahira wasn't particularly close with the Slater boy, but they had grown up with an occasional meeting, though she had never been fond of him due to the fact that his father was a half-blood and that, therefore, meant that Jeremy's blood ran as dirty as the Muggles who were standing in the currency exchange line at Gringotts on this very day. She had received plenty of lectures from her parents about treating Jeremy with "kindness", because despite the fact that his blood was impure his father was very good at his job and not the sort of business connection the Valerians wanted to lose. It was rare that Aldric and Eloise took such a stance on mudblood connections, but that didn't mean Kahira had to agree with them, and so she went into this forced trip barely holding back an eye-roll. He had taken positively forever at Flourish and Blotts. Kahira was a reader herself, and couldn't wait to dive voraciously into Magical Drafts and Potions just as soon as she returned to her room in Chipping Campden, but even she had to admit that Jeremy's obsession with literature was bordering on unhealthy. She had very nearly just abandoned him there, but after enough poking and prodding (some of it literal, some metaphorical) the brunet boy had finally come with her. "It certainly took you long enough," she sniffed rather haughtily as they proceeded down the cobblestoned street to the next shoppe and Kahira's personal favourite. Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions: her safe space. She didn't physically tug the taller boy in with her, but certainly would do so with her words: "Come on, now. I have simply been dying to get my new robes fitted, and after we spent all that time just moping around some dusty old books, I should dare say that you owe me one." |
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| kahira valerian second gen | _____________________ | shop | ___________________ |
Begrudging Buys
“Hey, I was reading that, you know,” Jeremy huffed, the slightest of pouts on his face, as he finally gave in and left the book shop, after what felt like no time at all to the boy (though it often felt like that when he was reading).
Jeremy NEEDED to have a SERIOUS talk with his father.
Sure, he KNEW that business meetings were important and all that. But this was the SECOND time this summer he had been cast off into the care of some random girl who he barely knew. Okay, fine, it wasn't like he'd been looking for any quality time or anything. He’d wanted independence from his dad to explore Diagon Alley, but not like THIS. HE was the one that was supposed to ignore his dad. Not the other way around!
Yes, as soon as they got home, he'd be having a talk about this. He would lay it out logically - with FACTS. He'd make a whole presentation if he had to. He'd call it “Why I’m old enough to go into Diagon Alley by myself, and not have to go with some random girl.” (If that failed, he’d settle for “Why I’m too young to go into Diagon Alley by myself, with just some random girl”. That wasn’t really the approach he wanted, but he'd take it, because the real problem was the random girl)
Ok, Kahira wasn’t REALLY a random girl. He DID know her... sorta. She was the daughter of one of his father’s business partners, and he'd been to her house before, but he’d never really paid attention to the other kids of his father's business partners cause he never really wanted to. He'd spent a whole lifetime trying to ignore them, and now TWICE. TWICE! He was just thrown off to them like they'd been friends for life. And Kahira was even pushier than JO had been. And that was saying a LOT. (Plus... he didn't really like the way she looked at him.)
Maybe this was what he got for insisting on buying his own books. His father had told him that his sister already had old books, and she was graduating, so why not use hers? But Jeremy had insisted. He loved the way new books smelled, and besides, what if they had changed editions? The world could have learned a lot of stuff in seven years! Books got updated all the time. And now here he was...being tugged along, away from the most interesting place in Diagon Alley.
Maybe it was the words ‘dusty old books’ that REALLY got him mad, or maybe it was cause the last thing Jeremy felt was that he ‘owed her one’ (seriously?! That one made his jaw drop). But now everything she said was really starting to get on his nerves 'Ohhhh i’ve just simply been DYING to try on my new robes, aren’t you just totally positively DYING to?' Bah.
“Oh yea, I’ve been simply dyyying to get my new robes too,” Jeremy said, rolling his eyes, in case she couldn’t tell he was making fun of her. Jeremy didn’t like to make fun of people, because it was mean, but sometimes people just did stuff that you couldn’t HELP but roll your eyes at. He didn’t think it really counted in that case.
Kahira probably wasn’t lying, either. She probably really WAS dying to get her robes fitted. Jeremy could tell from the way she was dressed. Basically, she dressed like she actually TRIED to dress herself, like every single little bit of clothing she had was picked carefully and delicately, which was kind of a foreign concept to Jeremy. That might have just been a girl thing though, because his sister had been that way too. How did she even have time to do anything else? Jeremy was happy to let his Mum pick out his clothes, which saved a lot of time that could be spent on much more important things. He didn’t know how he knew but he was positive that Kahira picked whatever that was by herself.
“I’m coming already, jeez. At least books are interesting. Who cares about clothes?"
Jeremy HATED having clothes fitted. You had to stand there for what felt like forever, while somebody poked and prodded at you. It sounded like a nightmare, and he had JUST already gone through quite a lot of poking and prodding at the book store, from a certain someone. Being poked and prodded by Madame Malkin (if that was her real name) AND Kahira at the same time? Double nightmare.
Jeremy NEEDED to have a SERIOUS talk with his father.
Sure, he KNEW that business meetings were important and all that. But this was the SECOND time this summer he had been cast off into the care of some random girl who he barely knew. Okay, fine, it wasn't like he'd been looking for any quality time or anything. He’d wanted independence from his dad to explore Diagon Alley, but not like THIS. HE was the one that was supposed to ignore his dad. Not the other way around!
Yes, as soon as they got home, he'd be having a talk about this. He would lay it out logically - with FACTS. He'd make a whole presentation if he had to. He'd call it “Why I’m old enough to go into Diagon Alley by myself, and not have to go with some random girl.” (If that failed, he’d settle for “Why I’m too young to go into Diagon Alley by myself, with just some random girl”. That wasn’t really the approach he wanted, but he'd take it, because the real problem was the random girl)
Ok, Kahira wasn’t REALLY a random girl. He DID know her... sorta. She was the daughter of one of his father’s business partners, and he'd been to her house before, but he’d never really paid attention to the other kids of his father's business partners cause he never really wanted to. He'd spent a whole lifetime trying to ignore them, and now TWICE. TWICE! He was just thrown off to them like they'd been friends for life. And Kahira was even pushier than JO had been. And that was saying a LOT. (Plus... he didn't really like the way she looked at him.)
Maybe this was what he got for insisting on buying his own books. His father had told him that his sister already had old books, and she was graduating, so why not use hers? But Jeremy had insisted. He loved the way new books smelled, and besides, what if they had changed editions? The world could have learned a lot of stuff in seven years! Books got updated all the time. And now here he was...being tugged along, away from the most interesting place in Diagon Alley.
Maybe it was the words ‘dusty old books’ that REALLY got him mad, or maybe it was cause the last thing Jeremy felt was that he ‘owed her one’ (seriously?! That one made his jaw drop). But now everything she said was really starting to get on his nerves 'Ohhhh i’ve just simply been DYING to try on my new robes, aren’t you just totally positively DYING to?' Bah.
“Oh yea, I’ve been simply dyyying to get my new robes too,” Jeremy said, rolling his eyes, in case she couldn’t tell he was making fun of her. Jeremy didn’t like to make fun of people, because it was mean, but sometimes people just did stuff that you couldn’t HELP but roll your eyes at. He didn’t think it really counted in that case.
Kahira probably wasn’t lying, either. She probably really WAS dying to get her robes fitted. Jeremy could tell from the way she was dressed. Basically, she dressed like she actually TRIED to dress herself, like every single little bit of clothing she had was picked carefully and delicately, which was kind of a foreign concept to Jeremy. That might have just been a girl thing though, because his sister had been that way too. How did she even have time to do anything else? Jeremy was happy to let his Mum pick out his clothes, which saved a lot of time that could be spent on much more important things. He didn’t know how he knew but he was positive that Kahira picked whatever that was by herself.
“I’m coming already, jeez. At least books are interesting. Who cares about clothes?"
Jeremy HATED having clothes fitted. You had to stand there for what felt like forever, while somebody poked and prodded at you. It sounded like a nightmare, and he had JUST already gone through quite a lot of poking and prodding at the book store, from a certain someone. Being poked and prodded by Madame Malkin (if that was her real name) AND Kahira at the same time? Double nightmare.
Begrudging Buys
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xx | To Kahira, it truly hadn't mattered if the boy was in the middle of reading something by the time she finally managed to get him to leave. She'd have left without him if she hadn't been so vastly concerned with following her father's directives (to a certain point - @Blaize Valerian likely wouldn't admit to Aldric that he had lost his little sister, but Jeremy was probably more of a tattletale, and Kahira wasn't going to risk that). The scarlet-haired soon-to-be-first-year knew full well that if left to his own devices her brunet companion would've simply tried to read the whole store, so it truly wasn't important if he had been in the middle of a book. If she had let him finish it, by the time she would have attempted again to leave, he would have already been in the middle of another one. So why he was being such a petulant brat was a complete mystery to her. At least he agreed with her on the topic of trying out new robes - that is, until Kahira heard the elongated form of barely-hidden sarcasm in his tone. She pursed her lips, trying to remember what her parents had told her: Kindness. Patience. (Two of her weaker suits.) "You could certainly use some," she muttered under her breath, sending a judgmental side glance at the boy's clothes. They weren't terrible, per se, but certainly didn't read couture. Had someone else chosen them for him, or was he just lacking talent when it came to styling himself? A jaunty cap like Kahira's own would have made a world of difference, for instance, or shoes that didn't look like they had come from some dusty Muggle's antique sale. He asked who cared about clothes, then, and Kahira barely held in a critical cackle. Cleary, the answer to that was not the boy in front of her. Within a few moments, the shoppe attendants had both of them up on pedestals; Kahira had carefully taken off her cardigan and folded it gently over the back of a nearby chair, then stood confidently and as tall as her diminutive stature could allow, obediently holding out her arms. She had learned long ago that freezing oneself into a statue was the way to avoid being pricked by the needles as the seamstresses draped her in fabric and pinned her exact measurements. Dark eyes cast a sneak peek over at Jeremy, who was likely not as used to receiving custom clothing. "You know, if you try to at least look like you enjoy it, they shan't prick you as often," she said, almost a joke, but not quite. "Why do you seem so miserable?" |
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@Jeremy Slater
| kahira valerian second gen | _____________________ | shop | ___________________ |
Begrudging Buys
“Huh?” Jeremy said, looking down to try to inspect his own clothes. They looked normal to him. A navy polo, brown trousers. His mum usually said he had to look a LITTLE nicer on days like this, because he was doing his school shopping, though Jeremy didn’t really get what one thing had to do with the other. He didn’t get what Kahira was talking about either. He looked fine! How bad could a person look, anyway? He had trousers, a shirt, socks and shoes, and what else did you need to do? “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” he accused, though half because just really didn’t know the answer.
He was pretty sure he was being insulted, though Merlin knew why.
Soon he found himself getting ready to have his robes fitted. Having to stand still while they poked and prodded and made him hold his arms up was enough to make him wish he could just tell them to give him whatever they had, and forget the whole measurement thing. It would probably be good enough, wouldn’t it? And then he wouldn’t have to stand here for (what felt like) five hours.
The boy felt restless, and no matter how hard he tried to stand still he couldn’t help but fidget and kept getting poked. Kahira on the other hand, seemed perfectly in her element. She took the fitting with grace. HOW did she stand there like that? It was insane! It was unnatural really. She barely moved at all, like this was how she spent every day, and loved every minute of it. Jeremy just didn’t get it. They were kids! They weren’t supposed to be able to sit still. And Jeremy was an indoor kid. He didn’t even like to run or tussle or whatever boys were supposed to do. He thought he was pretty good at just sitting still and being quiet, and yet he was still having trouble while she was just standing there like the Queen of England, and she looked like she thought she was about as important as that too.
Maybe though she was right about one thing. Maybe Jeremy’s inability to stand still and be patient was darkened by his mood, which had grown sour from the moment he’d been sent off again this morning. Kahira didn’t seem to understand. Jeremy didn’t understand why SHE didn’t understand. Didn’t she realize they were just here getting stabbed a lot and poked and prodded and scolded, when he was BARELY even moving?
“Why do I seem miserable?! Ow—” Jeremy said, hissing as his swift turn around to Kahira did not go appreciated by the seamstress. “Sorry,” he mumbled to the lady, before shooting another glare at Kahira, this time with just his head. How was she NOT miserable? She hadn’t seemed to like this arrangement any more than he did, so why was he the only one complaining?
“Im miserable because my dad had to talk to your stupid dad, and now I’m stuck with you, and you called the books dusty, and you made fun of my clothes, and you keep talking like you’re sooo great even though you’re not,” he said, feeling a strange lump in his throat. He was surprised he was feeling so much, when nothing had been done to deserve it. Tearing up would be about the worst thing possible right now, but luckily he shook off the feeling. Jeremy didn’t get how he had gotten so unlucky. It had sounded like a nice enough day, but once again Dad’s business was more important than Jeremy. If he was gonna get put with random kids, couldn’t they at least be nice? He maybe hadn’t been so nice to Kahira either, but the difference was, that she had deserved it.
“I’m sorry I called your Dad stupid,” Jeremy said after a moment. “But the rest of it is still true.”
@Kahira Valerian
Soon he found himself getting ready to have his robes fitted. Having to stand still while they poked and prodded and made him hold his arms up was enough to make him wish he could just tell them to give him whatever they had, and forget the whole measurement thing. It would probably be good enough, wouldn’t it? And then he wouldn’t have to stand here for (what felt like) five hours.
The boy felt restless, and no matter how hard he tried to stand still he couldn’t help but fidget and kept getting poked. Kahira on the other hand, seemed perfectly in her element. She took the fitting with grace. HOW did she stand there like that? It was insane! It was unnatural really. She barely moved at all, like this was how she spent every day, and loved every minute of it. Jeremy just didn’t get it. They were kids! They weren’t supposed to be able to sit still. And Jeremy was an indoor kid. He didn’t even like to run or tussle or whatever boys were supposed to do. He thought he was pretty good at just sitting still and being quiet, and yet he was still having trouble while she was just standing there like the Queen of England, and she looked like she thought she was about as important as that too.
Maybe though she was right about one thing. Maybe Jeremy’s inability to stand still and be patient was darkened by his mood, which had grown sour from the moment he’d been sent off again this morning. Kahira didn’t seem to understand. Jeremy didn’t understand why SHE didn’t understand. Didn’t she realize they were just here getting stabbed a lot and poked and prodded and scolded, when he was BARELY even moving?
“Why do I seem miserable?! Ow—” Jeremy said, hissing as his swift turn around to Kahira did not go appreciated by the seamstress. “Sorry,” he mumbled to the lady, before shooting another glare at Kahira, this time with just his head. How was she NOT miserable? She hadn’t seemed to like this arrangement any more than he did, so why was he the only one complaining?
“Im miserable because my dad had to talk to your stupid dad, and now I’m stuck with you, and you called the books dusty, and you made fun of my clothes, and you keep talking like you’re sooo great even though you’re not,” he said, feeling a strange lump in his throat. He was surprised he was feeling so much, when nothing had been done to deserve it. Tearing up would be about the worst thing possible right now, but luckily he shook off the feeling. Jeremy didn’t get how he had gotten so unlucky. It had sounded like a nice enough day, but once again Dad’s business was more important than Jeremy. If he was gonna get put with random kids, couldn’t they at least be nice? He maybe hadn’t been so nice to Kahira either, but the difference was, that she had deserved it.
“I’m sorry I called your Dad stupid,” Jeremy said after a moment. “But the rest of it is still true.”
@Kahira Valerian