Summer was settling and Nico wasn't too happy about it. The scorching beams had a taste of her skin and she had been trying to soothe the wound for a little while. On her cheek, she put a bandaid. It looked rather random to have an injury there but her make-up wasn't enough to mask it.

She sighed and pulled her wide straw hat further over her face. Wearing a floral blue dress, royal blue knee high socks and brown mary janes, Nico arrived at the bookstore. She wasn't really a book person, but she liked pictures and books that intrigued her. Since she met a rather interesting Huffelpuff at the Library, she was looking for the 'Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland'.

Summer was long, she had plenty of time to read up about some scaley beasts. Since, she was kicked out from the ROAM program, for the time being she tried to find alternatives to learn about creatures from the Wizard world. Pushing open the door, the thick, dusty smell of leathery covers and yellow pages, filled her nose. Oh gosh..

'..a-ACHOO!' Nico averted her gaze into her elbow and sneezed away from her hands. Her mother told her it was more hygienic if you did that. It didn't cover your hands, just your elbows. And who was gonna shake someones hand with their elbow, right?

Everyone in the store looked at her direction. 'A-Ah. Excuse me.. Hah..' Embarassing. Quickly she shuffled over the dusty planks to one of the bookshelves. They were pretty high. 'What a pain..' She sighed softly, miserably. She'd have to pick a chair or a small stepping ladder to reach any of the higher ones. Maybe she should leave and come back later with someone else... Ehm... Hugh or something! He's tall. He'd reach up there no problem.

No. She wouldn't flee cowardly from this challenge. She had to stay strong and keep her chin up. She'd find a way. But first... she had to locate the book she had chosen to find today. The one... for dragon lovers. Carefully Nico took a step back to have a better look at the shelf. Something somewhere in there was what she was looking for.

Ana was soooooooooooooo ready to go back to Hogwarts. She had gotten sick right before exams, and she hadn't gotten to take them. That made the little nerd deeply sad. Additionally, she was getting bloody sick and tired of her parents. They had somehow gotten more overbearing and obnoxious than over Christmas. She'd barely been able to convince them to let her go to the bookshop by herself. They were somewhere else, shopping for silk or luggage or some other rich person thing. Ana didn't know and she didn't much care. 

Stepping into the familiar shop, she inhaled happily. Nothing was better than the smell of a book store. Alright, chocolate was better but other than that. She saw another girl that looked vaguely familiar enter the store and was rather jealous of how she was dressed. Compared to the other girl, Ana was a porcelain doll - complete with the fair skin, prim little pink dress, and matching perfectly tied ribbons on the ends of her irritatingly perfect braids. The other girl looked a tad messy to be sure, but far more comfortable than Ana felt. 

Unintentionally, as Ana made her way into the store, she watched the other girl. It was rather jarring to see someone who actually acted like a child after the weeks with her parents. Trying not to seem creepy, she turned away and selected a book from the shelves. A loud sneeze caused the Gryffindor's head to whip around. It was the girl from before. Ana smiled slightly at the thought of her parents' faces if that had been her. They would scold her, and tell her that she really ought to have used her stupid embroidered handkerchief which reeked of roses. 

She needed a book from that section anyway, so she made her way over and began scanning the shelves for it. Finding it, she realized it was far too high for her to reach. She scowled and wished that Hugh was there. She'd been thinking about him quite a bit lately and wished that she could write to him. She sighed and glanced at the other girl, hoping she was taller and would be able to reach it. Unfortunately, Ana was definitely the taller of the two, and she hadn't a hope of reaching it. The other girl seemed to be in a similar predicament. "I have a friend who would be extraordinarily helpful right about now," Ana stated to the other girl, without realizing she had decided to converse with the girl. 

As she peeked at the high shelves, squinting her eyes, reading every back of every book, a blonde girl came to stand beside her. Abit uncomfortable, Nico took a quick glance at the girl. She looked familiar. Like a faint memory that she couldn't put her finger on. That didn't really matter. She needed to find this book and get out of this dusty store. Nico really didn't want to stay here any longer than she needed to.

"I have a friend who would be extraordinarily helpful right about now,"

Usually, the prefect didn't know how to react to strangers who suddenly talked loud. Loud enough so others couldn't possibly ignore them. And that's exactly what she was experiencing right now. With a nervous smile, the redhead looked over at her. Carefully, making awkward eyecontact. 'I-... haha... Yes. I know someone aswell.' Now that she had an excuse to take a good look at the maiden, Nico coudln't take her eyes of the rather unusual attire she wore. A dress that she would expect to be worn by an old. The kind she once saw at her grandmothers house. They looked super creepy but... The pink colour and frills didn't make the rather rich girl look scary at all. It sort of fitted her. She had the whole outfit. Cute braids and all.

'I-I'm sorry. I couldn't help but wonder... I think I've met you before. Is that possible?' Her ice blue eyes cautiously looked at the maidens features. Funnily enough it was rather rare these days to see a pretty girl with hazel brown eyes. Usually they had these light colours like green and blue. The rarity became the general. Nico was absolutely sure she had encountered this girl before. But now that they weren't inside the castle walls, she had a hard time figuring out where...

Ana smiled and laughed softly at the girl's reaction. She seemed rather like a deer in the headlights, as the muggle expression went. She also knew she definitely recognized the girl. After a moment, it struck her, and she mentally resolved not to bring it up. Their meeting had involved Ana tackling a raven and also this girl, whose name still hadn't come to her. Still, Anastasia looked completely different now than she had then - her Gryffindor robes and wild hair were nowhere to be seen, so maybe the ginger wouldn't recognize her. She sincerely hoped that she wouldn't since she remembered that she had been rather rude and the other girl had been alright.

When the other girl mentioned that she also had a friend like that, Ana wanted to laugh again. Everyone had at least one tall friend. Ana suspected she would need more than that if her growth was as stunted by her constant consumption of coffee as her parents warned it would be. She didn't relish the idea of being short, but she liked the idea of drinking less coffee even less. Coffee was her life force. She was certain at this point if she went without it for more than 24 hours, she would fall down dead. 

The ginger's eyes were strikingly blue. Ana rather wondered if they were totally natural. In any event, she rather liked then. She was quite fond of her own brown eyes, but if she had to change them, she would definitely pick blue. She just felt that having blue eyes would make her death glare even more effective than it already was. "I'm sure we have if you go to Hogwarts," Anastasia told the other girl. She was praying to all the gods she could think of that the girl wouldn't remember their encounter, as that would be rather awkward. "I'm Anastasia."

'Anastasia... It rings a bell...' Nico's gaze looked elsewhere, trying to place that name somewhere in her dusty memory archive. No luck. Maybe she walked into her before in the Corridors or something? That's usually how these things went... Or something.

'Eh... I'm sure it will come to me at some point. Not alot of people have that name. Not at Hogwarts atleast. I-I'm Nico!' Good. Don't forget to introduce yourself back. Being rude is what she absolutely didn't want to be. 'So... What brings you here? Something for school?' It kinda sucked that the first thing she could come up with, was something related to school. Maybe this girl had an entirely different reason to be here. It's summer vacation, for crying out loud. Maybe she just wanted to find a book that she could peacefully read in a park nearby or she wanted to find a gift for her mother or... anything else. Asking that, Nico took another glance at the shelves infront of them, awaiting for Ana's reply.

There were so many books here... and even more bookshelves. Maybe the dhampir could bring back more than one book. Maybe something spell related? Or... maybe something about wizard fairytales? Wait, are there even fairytales in the Wizard World? Everything she saw in her books back home, was actually alive and ... existing in this world. Life was weird like that. She could still abrely fathom that this place wasn't just some sort of themepark where everyone were actors... Just playing their part.

"Lovely to meet you, Nico!" Ana said brightly. She didn't remark on her name ringing a bell. First off, there were plenty of Anastasia's at school, so it might not have even been her that Nico was thinking of. Secondly, with Ana's abrupt departure before school was ended, she was sure there were all sorts of rumors flying around that she didn't care to learn about at the moment.

"I-um- no, actually, I suppose I'm just browsing," Ana replied. She wasn't sure exactly why she had chosen the bookstore that day. The Beckett library was fairly extensive, and it was still a long while until Ana would need to start her back to school shopping. Not to mention, she'd heard her parents talking about taking her out of school until Christmas to travel, so there was really no telling if she would actually need school books at any point in the near future. "And yourself? What brings you here?"

Ana fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment. This stupid frock was terribly itchy, and it certainly wasn't improved by the warmth of summer. Her mother would have scolded her about how she looked like "a demented snake with a tick", but Ana really didn't care. Like at all. After a moment, she was still and glanced back at the other girl. "So, you said you go to Hogwarts, right? What house are you? I'm a Gryffindor. Just finished my first year," Ana told the other girl. It was likely that her parents would be wrapping up their shopping, but Ana was determined to stay away from them as long as she possibly could.