Thea walked into the store and was immediately struck in awe. She grew up in a book-loving household, where quite a lot of the space in both her house in Poland and her house in Britain was taken by bookshelves, whether it was Art History books that her father accumulated throughout the years, cooking books her mother and her sister used, or just fairytales and fantasy books you'd usually find Thea buried in - they had it all, and it was hard for her to not fall in love with books.

The girl just found it so magical, dare she'd say, more magical than the wizarding world she was now a part of, how one person can put down squiggles of ink on some paper, creating worlds, characters, cultures, and stories that could enchant millions of readers all around the world. She was now going through a phase of reading old books - the lesser known the author the better, and she was sure she would find mostly old volumes on the shelves here, but she was surprised with what she saw.

Instead of an old biography of a former Hogwarts headmaster - which she was sure existed somewhere, she saw a copy of a book "Magical Me" - an autobiography of a guy named Gilderoy Lockhart, who claimed his stories 100% true. Instead of grimoires filled with ancient spells and potion recipes, she found titles like "Magical Drafts and Potions" written by Arsenius Jigger and ones like "Charm Your Own Cheese" where a witch named Greta Catchlove revealed to the readers her most famous recipes. The store didn't lack things she expected - dusty history books, two of them - "Hogwarts, A History" - being on her school list.

Thea paid for her school books as soon as she found them and now was only exploring the bookstore whose name she already forgot - she was more focused on what was inside now and was now trying to search for any actual stories she could read. The soon-to-be Hogwarts student didn't doubt how interesting the story of the magical world was, but she didn't exactly only want to read what happened a couple hundred years ago.

While she was walking around the store, picking up more and more books, a book caught her eye, nearly making her drop the stack of books she was already holding. It was a bright blue, making it stand out, so she quickly walked up to it, putting her book stack down and read the title. "The one that let it snow". She reached for it and immediately realized that it wasn't just her that wanted the same copy, but also another witch or wizard.

The girl looked up to see who it was, figuring it was another girl, seemingly her age. Thea stuttered a bit, not sure what to say and just waited for the girl to reply and maybe get her out of the situation.

Unfortunately, Lily's father hadn't been free for the day to take her to get her supplies. She'd rather suspected that he wouldn't, scarcely a day passed when he wasn't gone for fourteen hours it seemed, but still. He did write down the names of the stores to get everything she needed and had taken her as far as the Leaky Cauldron, but she was on her own now. There were more people in the street than there were in her entire village, probably at least twenty times over. Everywhere she could see lying before her was one of the things she'd only read about. The outside world.

She'd been as methodical as she could about which supplies she ran around getting first. Although she felt relatively confident that her father had likely made this weird seemingly bottomless satchel large enough, she didn't want to push it. First had been the cauldron and potion ingredients, which proved to be no easy task. She dropped in the cauldron, and put the other things she needed inside of it. The plan had been to get books next, but she simply couldn't help herself, and went to Ollivander's instead. She dropped the fancy stick into her satchel, and headed for Flourish and Blotts.

The girl's eyes had very nearly popped out of their sockets as she stepped inside. She had never seen this many books in her life, much less all in one place! After a moment she stared to step, until she remembered what her father had said. He thought he had given her enough, but he wasn't entirely sure. So as tempting as all these books were, old and new, dark and colorful, dusty and clean, huge and small, written in so many different languages, she needed to focus on what was essential.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them was, however, proving rather difficult to find. At home, her mother's little library had been organized from the book that she liked the most to the book that she liked the least. So loved were those few thirty odd volumes of fantasies and romances and histories long ago, that all the words had worn off of their precious covers. She hadn't the faintest idea what 'Ju-Ko' was supposed to mean. So she'd been wandering around for quite some time now, looking for it with diminishing hope that she would find it.

Sure, she could ask, but... a part of her really didn't feel ready to talk yet. If only because she'd primarily been self-taught, due to coming from a deaf family in the middle of nowhere. Her thick Irish accent came out in everything she said, and some of her English was a little bit rocky. After all, the books at home were ancient enough that all of them were written in Gaelic. So she settled for just wandering around and looking for the book that way. After all, since she had all day, might as well kill some time before going home.

Her curious blue eyes had fallen on one book in particular, that was a vibrant light blue. She couldn't help herself but to look at it. It reminded her of something she hadn't seen in a very long time... but presently she noticed that another girl was looking at it, and her. Oh Merlin, I don't want to speak... I hope this comes out right. She shifted her weight a bit awkwardly on her crutches, and spoke, "I was jus' lookin'... that's a pritty lookin' book." Yeah, there's no way that that came out right... I'd better get back to looking.

Thea looked back at the girl. She had blue eyes, unnaturally red hair, and freckles all over face, most notably her cheeks and nose. She also had a rather heavy Irish accent, and you could hear she wasn't the most comfortable speaking. "No, don't worry. It's fine. Take it," Thea stepped away, sighing with a rather sour smile on her face. Looking around, she tried to find another copy of the same book lying around, although unfortunately for her, there didn't appear to be any except the one the other redhead was holding.

She looked back at the other girl with an awkward smile, hoping to seem more friendly. "Are you going to Hogwarts as well?" the girl asked, trying to break the silence that was between the two. She hoped the other girl was. Maybe they could be friends and Thea wouldn't have to start out the year as she spent most of her years in the muggle school she went to for most of her life - alone, in the corner, with her book or a bunch of pencils and a sketchpad.

It would be nice to have someone to talk to, and making friends before the school year even starts would be nice as well, especially since there were probably many "Muggle-borns" (as Thea learned the wizards called people like herself) like her who had no idea about the wizarding world before they received the letter, or so she was hoping.

She looked around the shop, still hoping that maybe wizards just organized things differently and she could find a copy somewhere at the opposite end of the store. She saw something that had the mainly same color, but she recognized it as the "Magical Me" book by that Gilderoy Lockhart guy she's seen earlier - and decided it was too boring - so she turned back to the girl and waited for her to reply, thinking of what to say next.

"No," Lily shook her head when the other girl told her to take it. She reached up and placed the pretty book back on the shelf, for the other girl to take or leave as she pleased. "I haven' got enough money fo' it. Take it." She said it without embarrassment, but very loudly either. It wasn't a carefully guarded secret, and neither was it something she wanted to advertise to the whole shop at large. Her vibrant blue eyes looked over the other girl, wondering out of just general curiosity if she was one of the snots she'd encountered earlier who cared about social class. 

If Lily did not have one thing in the world, it was a place in a higher social class. Her simple and country appearance suggested that. But this other girl didn't seem like the same sort that had called her a Mudblood earlier, which she wasn't as she put out stubbornly, which was somewhat reassuring. And for the moment she seemed friendly enough, but her aunt's words echoed in her mind, the world is not a friendly place, and you'd do well to remember that. Especially not towards people like you. But this was different, wasn't it..?

Well, she was about to find out, at any rate. She nodded a little bit when the other girl asked her if she was going to Hogwarts. "Yea, I am, but I haven' ben there befor." She still seemed to be at least slightly self-conscious about the way her words were coming out, and while she wasn't aware about her slightly odd pronunciation of words that had 'r' at the end, she could tell her 't' wasn't right. This other kid wasn't saying anything about it, though. Then again, they didn't sound Irish, so maybe it didn't matter all that much yet?

She shifted her weight to her left crutch, pushing her satchel a bit farther up on her right shoulder. It seemed almost as if she had no idea what she was going to say next... which was a fair assumption. After all, this was the first time she'd ever verbally met someone, as opposed to using sign language. And it was the first time she'd met anyone in about six odd years or so. Finally, it occurred to her what came next, and she tilted her head a little bit as she spoke, "my name is Lily."

"I probably don't have enough money either," Thea looked into the small wallet her dad gifted her the day after the representative from the magical academy came since "she had to be more independent now". There were a couple of the wizarding world coins she had to get from the bank, and some muggle money she had left over, so she maybe could get extra money, but going to the weird Goblin-filled bank didn't seem like the thing she wanted to do right now.

Well, the other redhead didn't need to know that. Trying to keep the conversation with the kind girl going, she looked around, putting her small wallet back into her pocket. "Me too. I didn't even know I was a witch before the Hogwarts representative person came to my house. I hope it won't be too confusing." she quickly replied, still looking around the store before turning her eyes back to the girl. She put the icy blue book back and looked at the stack she put down next to it. "I guess I'll have to put all of these back," she said, half to the other girl and half to herself, remembering the amount of money in her wallet, and then remembering the goblins from the bank.

Thea looked back at the girl, swinging back and forth on her feet. She started to look around the store again, as the redheaded girl introduced herself as Lily. "That's such a pretty name!" the girl replied, almost shouting, although she managed to shut her up before the entire store heard what she thought of the name. She liked her own name - it meant "goddess" after all, and how can you not like a name like that, but she was sometimes quite envious of people with different names, and Lily was one of them. "My name is Thea. Thea Knott." she extended her hand towards Lily, smiling. She was quite nice, and well, she made Thea feel included. I mean, there were only 2 of them, but still. She didn't have many friends, and she didn't really talk to people at her school or even at home, so talking to Lily was nice.

She smiled again.

Something about the fact that neither of them were getting the book seemed to ease the tension and awkwardness of the situation, and Lily visibly relaxed a bit. "My mum was magic, and my dad is. I didn' know i' existed until I was ten." Well... she'd never been able to put a name to it until she was ten, at any rate. The general idea that there was some rhyme or reason behind why her teddy plushie had crawled out from under her bed when she couldn't quite reach it. But she'd kept that information to herself. She'd have to remember to pack it when she went to this pig-themed school or whatever it was.

Vague curiosity washed over her as she wondered what it was like to have someone come and explain to you about all of this magic stuff. It didn't really seem to match up with the stories she'd read of beautiful elves in far away lands, meadows full of chipper fairies and graceful unicorns, and ferocious dragons guarding cursed treasure. She didn't see any ugly witches brewing death potions, or ancient old guys wielding carved staffs embedded with enchanted glowy crystal things. 

It did take her a minute to understand what exactly she was supposed to do with Thea's outstretched hand. She really didn't get out much, at all, and she had to search through her memory to come up with how to respond. But after she had stood there with a puzzled expression on her face for long enough, it did occur to her, and her right hand came off the crutch handle to shake Thea's outstretched one. "Nice to mee' you, Thea." That was the proper response, right? She'd watched someone do it earlier, so she hoped that it was and she didn't look crazy.

Her eyes wandered from Thea around the room full of books with nothing sort of complete wonder and almost uncontainable curiosity. It didn't seem quite right, to have all of these books here, sitting on shelves, collecting dust and tempting people like herself who couldn't have them. But, such was the way it was. The idea of there being a library full of books at Hogwarts was something to look forward to, if it had lots of books like this. Presently, though, she looked back at Thea. "Do you like to read? You have go' a lo' of books there."

The girl in front of Thea visibly relaxed. She explained her coming to Hogwarts, and Thea smiled. The topic of the family came up with the girl explaining how her mother "was" also a witch, but that she had no idea what magic was before she was ten, which made Thea visibly relax as well. "No one in my family was magical. Ever. I think. Maybe they were, but I don't know... I don't keep in touch with most of my family," she replied, basically repeating herself.

Thea got lost in thought for a bit after that, waiting for the girl to respond. She wondered how people like her - whose parents, grandparents, and generations back didn't have any bit of magic in them -could suddenly become witches and wizard without any warning. Nothing. Ancient magic ancestors? How did no one before her from her family become wizards or witches? Was her sister magical? She was asking her questions all the time after the magical academy's representative came to 'explain'. Did people who had one magical parent also got this treatment? She was confused.

Soon after Thea extended her hand, there was silence between Lily and her. She blinked her eyes a couple times and looked at Lily concerned for a couple seconds before the girl finally took Lily's hand came off one of the crutches' handle's to meet Thea's outstretched one. The girl shook it with excitement and chuckled. "It's magical to meet you." she chuckled at the girl's a bit slowed down response, letting of her hand after shaking it, realizing how uncomfortable it could've been since the girl was on crutches.

Thea looked curiously at the crutches. She obviously had seen them before, but she's only met a few people who needed them, and even then, it was still a bit confusing. What if it was something magical problem. Before she could ask anything, Lily took notice of the stack of books behind her. "Yeah. My family loooooves books. Any kind." she smiled again. "I'm pretty sure that they hold the most of the place in my house, although my mom's instruments and my sister's dance equipment are both at a really close second," she added.

Lily's gaze averted slightly when Thea said that she had lots of books in her house. The girl couldn't help but wonder exactly how many was lots, since until about when she'd wandered in here about half an hour ago, she'd always thought that thirty three was quite a large amount of books. That probably said something about how dated and poor her family was in relation to Thea's, but at the same time she didn't really want to assume something that she hoped wouldn't end up having any application. With that thought in mind, her gaze fell back upon Thea.

The idea that instruments actually existed struck her as an odd one. She'd always thought that it was just something out of a storybook, like knights slaying dragons to rescue princesses, although... less dramatic. Then again, she'd also thought that magic was only in storybooks, so apparently that wasn't the greatest point of reference. But the word 'instrument' in and of itself didn't mean anything to her really, since she'd never heard one before. That was probably a rather unusual situation to be in, so she decided not to comment on the books or on the instruments, whatever those were.

She did, however, comment on the dance equipment, "I did' know you needed equipmen' to dance. I though' you jus'..." she looked down at her legs and crutches blankly, "moved." That was it, wasn't it? Or was that something else, when people spun around in a bunch of crazy patterns and things? She wasn't quite sure, but there was enough that she wasn't quite sure about already, and it was making her a little uncomfortable. Father hadn't said that the world would be this different from how things were at home. Her gaze came up from her lower body to the other girl once more.

Thea took a closer look at her surroundings, putting a book from her stack back on a shelf with it, fortunately, being close to the light blue book. She had no money to buy them anyway, or at least couldn't be bothered to convert all her muggle money to whatever the wizard coins were called.

She looked back at the girl as she started talking. "Oh. Well, you're... sorta right. My sister calls them dance equipment specifically, but I'm pretty sure it's more-so sports and gymnastics," the girl quickly explained herself almost without spacing her words. "But, again, I'm not the person to ask," she added with a chuckle.

Dancing, or any sport for that matter, never really interested her. She tried it - she had to, with her mother wanting both of her precious daughters to do it - along with many other activities - but she never got into any of them. And it wasn't just sports either. Instruments and music didn't interest her. Singing was a failure. So, Thea didn't have many interests except the one thing she succeeded in - art, which her dad taught her, and reading which she started to do at a younger than most kids age.

She looked back at Lily and took a closer look at her. She was really pretty, like the flower she was probably named after and was really nice too. This was probably the longest exchange that she's had with someone her age in a while, even if her peers didn't dislike her, they wouldn't talk to her too much either, so it was nice talking to her. She looked back at the stack and awaited the girl's response.