Gossipy Witches

Mum soon had both Fiona and her new friend out into Amethyst Alley. She then stopped as she recognised someone. Fiona groaned. "Mum's gonna be here forever," she whispered to Rene. She pointed to the other witch. "Those two talk for ages and ages every time they meet." She stepped back a small distance from the two adults reaching out to drag the boy with her.

"Whilst mum's talking I can point out where we'll be going. That over there is the wand shop but you've already been there haven't you? Well we can leave that one until you go. That's the bookshop. Have you seen the list of books we have to buy? I don't know where I'm going to put all mine. My bookcases are full of books I've never finished reading as it is. I think they have second hand books in there." She shot another look at her mother. How long was that going to take? Mum had been in a hurry but now she didn't look to be in much of a hurry at all.

"It will be so much more helpful if they do have second hand books." He said with a little embarrassment. "I'm really excited to get them though. They look really interesting." He said with a smile. "I wonder what it would be like to have classes at Beauxbatons, and to have a bed all to myself." He said grinning now. "I mean your own bed. You get to have it all to yourself! No sharing. Just yourself, it''s like a dream come true." He said and chuckled. "I mean not that I dislike sharing with my mum or sleeping on a couch, it's just I can't imagine how wonderful my own would be."

The description of his home life which Rene gave was becoming clearer and clearer to Fiona. He really was poor. "I guess it would if you don't normally have a bed to yourself," she replied. "You will have to share a room with someone though. I've never had to do that except on camping trips. It's going to be very strange to have to share a room with another girl." She wondered what her roommate will be like.

She bit her lip. "What will happen if they don't like how untidy I am? I just can't keep anything tidy." That was now beginning to worry the girl. Well maybe she should worry about it later and focus on the shops they would be going to instead. "You know how you need second hand stuff? Well I think there's a second hand robe shop around here somewhere. I can ask mum when she's finished talking to take us there if you like."

"I'm sure your dorm mate will like you, you're very, very nice, who knows, maybe you'll get a neat freak to counter act you untidiness." He said with a smile, thankful he wasn't the one displaying insecurity at this particular moment. "Is there a second hand robe shop around? It really would be helpful for her to take us there, thank you." He smiled a little less. Insecurities were now on his side of the court unfortunately. He wasn't as embarrassed as he must have looked because he could feel his ears going a little red, he was rarely so open about his lack of money especially around people who were so much more affluent.

A neat freak was someone Fiona didn't want at all. "My mum's one of those and she's always complaining about how untidy I am. So you see if there were another one then I'll never get away. Someone in the middle would be good. Not really messy but not super neat either." Did such a person exist? Fiona wasn't sure.

She nodded. "I'm pretty sure there is. Though not in Amethyst Alley. There's another one which I've never been down. It'll be there." She pointed out another shop. "That's where you get your potion ingredients. They can't be second hand but some equipment should be." The question was where. This going to be much harder than she originally thought.

"If I'm too much trouble, it's fine, I can try to figure it out on my own. I know it must be embarrassing for someone more affluent to be around someone more modest." He said, rubbing his arm. "I am a good finder, I think, and there should be street maps or something or I could ask someone because I don't want to be a bother. I'm sorry, if I've been a lot of trouble, I'm not trying to be. It's uh, hard to figure this place out when I've never been." He looked down, extremely embarrassed. He'd lost more than a couple muggle friends by not having money.

"Of course you're not too much trouble," Fiona replied firmly. She shrugged at being described as affluent. With the way her father often complained you'd think they were destined for life on the streets within a month. In the face of the reality of having less money she could see clearly that her father's complaints were just plain silly.

She lowered her voice as she leaned closer to Rene. "You're not causing trouble 'cause you're not the one wasting time with talking like they are." She pointed toward her mother and her mother's friend who were still deep in conversation. "I really don't know what they have to talk about when they only just met up yesterday."

"Okay." René nodded. "Thank you." He murmured quietly feeling a bit better. It was nice to have a friend. "Do you know any Spanish?" He asked curiously, thinking of a way to pass time while the adults talked. He knew Spanish very well, coming from a bilingual background and since his abuelos mostly spoke it. "It's really easy since you obviously already know French because they're both Romance Languages meaning that they're based off the language of Rome, Latin. There's Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. Then each of those has like their own sub-languages like Catalan and stuff." He said smiling.

"No," Fiona replied. "French and English are the only two languages I speak. I tried learning German once but I never was able to get past counting to five." It really was quite interesting what he said about languages. "We will sort of learn Latin at school because the spells are in Latin. Well not learn it the way we learn other languages. Just how to say the spells." She did wonder though what it'd be like to be able to speak a language other than the ones you'd learn to speak from babyhood. "Hey. I think mum's finished talking." Her mother then did something unexpected. She handed over the money she got from the bank and told Fiona to go off and do her own shopping.

"Well, shall we just do our own thing then?" René asked in a spurt of mild confidence. "I could teach you some Spanish if you want." He offered with a bright smile. "It's really not that hard." He promised and did a five second trilled 'r' as if to prove it. "See? Easy as pie." He grinned and did a longer trill. Maybe Fiona would make a pretty good friend. She was certainly nice enough to end up being his friend, but then again maybe he should offer to be sure. "Fiona? Would you want to be friends with me?" He asked extremely timidly and just loud enough for her to hear.

Fiona grinned and nodded.  "Yes. Doing our own thing sounds like the best thing in the world."  She nodded again and listened carefully to his 'r'. It didn't sound hard but when she tried it she sounded like a sick cat trying to bring up a hairball.  Fiona laughed and shrugged.  "I guess it might take you a little longer to teach me how to speak Spanish."

She laughed again.  "I thought we already were friends silly.  Come on now.  Let's go and see which shop we can raid first."  She urged him up the Alley.  Her last glimpse of her mother at that moment was her back as she re-entered the pub.  Fiona would drop her things back off with her later.