Wednesday August 22nd, 1923
It hadn’t taken much at all for Lovelace to sneak away from her parents. She’d kept an ear to their voices and tones as her eyes took in everything that her father had been hiding from her. Just a few minutes after entering this place, which felt like another planet entirely, the two were squabbling. A small smile had formed on her face as she’d slowly turned her head, just enough to make sure they hadn’t been looking at her, then slowly, carefully stepped away.
Making herself move slowly had been the hardest part; Lovelace wanted to run and skip and get lost in every single door she saw. It was difficult to not just stare at everything, looking for the magic. It used to be that she was always looking for the trick, and she knew she couldn’t lose that instinct for when she went back to her actual home, wherever her family in Australia was right now. But now, she could look for the real, actual wixcraft and all she wanted to do was catalogue it all. Unfortunately, her mother hadn’t let her bring her sketch pad, convinced she’d lose it, so Lovelace had to settle for mental images until she could actually try to sketch them all.
Unaware that her mouth had fallen open as she floated into the most vivid, multicolor shop she’d come across so far, Lovelace did still feel the sides of her lips curling as she realized she’d entered an ice cream shop. She paused just past the doorway to take in all the designs and patterns that seemed specifically designed to draw in kids like her. As soon as she was satisfied that she wouldn’t be kicking herself about not trying to memorize it, the smile spread as she practically skipped to look at all the flavors. She’d never seen so many ice cream tubs all in a row like that—the most she’d seen had never reached double digits, though she did have to admit that she never counted the sherbets.
Imagination and face running wild at each new flavor she came across, Lovelace practically pushed her face to the glass as she examined each ice cream carefully. Her breakfast was completely forgotten as though it wasn’t still digesting in her stomach, just trying to do her best to guess what each might taste like. She had to guess well, unless she came across any particularly tempting colors, textures, or names, because she was incredibly aware of the fact that the pocket change her father had pretended to pull out of her ear at the start of the day could only go so far until she returned to the adults. As soon as she’d done that, it’d be at least twice as hard to disappear again since her mother always seemed to think she was up to no good.
Lovelace was so distracted while shifting to the side to look at each new flavor head-on that she was surprised when she ran into someone. She jumped back a little as she started to exclaim, “ Bloo---” she broke off, hands raising to her face like she could shove the vowels back into her mouth as soon as she remembered she was supposed to be couth (she would not be making the mistake of telling her mother’s family what she thought that sounded like again) and polite. She redirected, raising her eyebrows, “ Blimey, mate, sorry about that, I didn’t even see ya there!” She remembered to modulate her voice around halfway through, hands lowering so she just looked like a goalie now as new thoughts formed and pushed out of her mouth, “ Are ya goin’ to Hogwarts this year?? Do ya have any tips, or advice, anything like that??” she asked, desperately shoving down the urge to ask about Quidditch, or wildlife, or the forest, or any of the other million thoughts running through her brain now that she no longer thought of herself as wandering alone.
Fiona had been very carefully deciding between the blackcurrant and something labeled Midsummer Fizz that had actual edible sparkles suspended in it (and she had nearly made her decision, which was obviously going to be the one with the sparkles) when someone ran directly into her.
“Oh!”
She stumbled sideways, one hand catching herself on the glass case, and turned to find a girl about her age looking like she was trying to swallow whatever she’d been about to say. Fiona straightened up and smoothed the front of her dress on instinct, which was something her mother did and she had apparently inherited without meaning to.
The girl was loud. Not unpleasantly so, but just a lot, all at once, the way that some people were. Fiona took her in: clocking her accent, the hands still hovering like she was bracing for something, the way her eyes had been going in six directions at once before she’d collided with her.
“Are ya goin’ to Hogwarts this year?? Do ya have any tips, or advice, anything like that??”
Something settled in Fiona’s chest. She stood up slightly straighter.
“I am,” she said, in the pleasant voice she used when she wanted to seem older than she was. Then, because she just couldn’t help it: “I’ve actually lived there for three years already. My father is the Deputy Headmaster and my mother is Head of Hufflepuff.”
She paused, for effect.
“I know quite a lot about it, actually.” Fiona looked at the girl with the expression of someone who had just realized they had something very useful. “Like I know that if you’re caught out past curfew, they throw you in the dungeons and not let you out. Sometimes they even forget about kids down there. That’s where some of the ghosts came from. What do you want to know?”
Watching the aftermath hitting the girl was certainly worse than the hit itself for Lovelace, which made her feel much worse. Her face twisted into an apologetic grimace even after her mouth had verbally moved on. That the other girl was responding seemed hopeful, though, and her eyebrows raised slightly in relief as she listened to her initial response. The continuation—that this was a first year who had lived at Hogwarts for three years—was enough to make her eyebrows climb higher, mouth untwisting into a small smile
“Wow,” Lovelace responded when the girl paused, because she seemed to expect some kind of response and Lovelace couldn’t think of another. As she tried to come up with something else to say about it, the girl continued and Lovelace’s smile grew. The dungeons sounded interesting, she’d have to remember about them if her sister suddenly went missing or something. “That makes sense.” she responded gravely, speaking about the dungeons while also adding the information to the part of her brain that might remember it.
The ghosts weren’t new to her, but Lovelace hadn’t known whether to believe her father when he’d warned her about them, so that was good to know too. “I wanna know everythin’ I can,” she admitted with a sheepish smile, “I’ve never wanted to go to school before, but my father let me ride his old broom and at first that was all I wanted to do, so a’course I wanted to go to Hogwarts.” Her eyebrows raised as she realized she should finish the thought before the last, “But I do know I can’t just ask a buncha questions and expect everyone to answer.” she added, hoping to ward off reminders not to be rude, or just the other girl feeling like she was being rude.
The way that she’d noticed the other girl in the first place, running directly into the poor girl, completely forgotten, Lovelace smiled wider as a way to not be rude occurred to her. “I’m Lovelace, by the way!” she said quickly, a little too loud, since she wanted to head off the possibility that this girl might introduce herself first. “An’ it’s nice to meetcha…” she trailed off, realizing she probably should’ve said that after she’d learned the girl’s name. She was still pretty sure she’d been polite, though, so her mind moved on from pleasantries to the questions bubbling in the back of her mind. The girl seemed nice enough to maybe allow a non-Hogwarts related question, so she chanced one, “Whattya do when the words on a page start movin’, shiftin’ n’ stuff?” She’d been told she didn’t sit still enough, or that her eyes moved too much, but if she was supposed to read, how was she supposed to keep her eyes from moving??
“That makes sense.”
Her story landed, based on the girl’s smile and grave response. Fiona crossed herself like she’d seen some people do sometimes when something sad was mentioned, though she really had no idea what it meant.
“I wanna know everythin’ I can. I’ve never wanted to go to school before, but my father let me ride his old broom and at first that was all I wanted to do, so a’course I wanted to go to Hogwarts. But I do know I can’t just ask a buncha questions and expect everyone to answer.”
Fiona nodded in response, a serious look on her face. The girl introduced herself and Fiona thought Lovelace was kind of a strange name. She’d probably call her Love, or Lace. Or LL. She could always go LL if she felt extra lazy. “I’m Fiona,” she responded, nodding.
“Whattya do when the words on a page start movin’, shiftin’ n’ stuff?”
She considered the question about the moving words with the same serious expression on her face. “You just have to chase ‘em,” she said, very matter-of-factly. “They settle eventually. You just have to be faster than them at first.”
Her tone said that was obvious. Like everyone knew that. “If you’re not quick enough, sometimes they fly right off the page, and then you’re in a real pickle. The professors don’t have patience for slow students.”
Fiona turned back to the ice cream case, her decision made.
“I’m getting the Midsummer Fizz,” she announced to the worker. “It has edible sparkles,” she explained, looking back at Love. No, that sounded too familiar. Lace. She’d go with Lace.
“You should get something too and then I can tell you about the staircases.”
A few beats behind the other girl, having needed that time to realize what she was doing, Lovelace did her best to mimic the crossing. She always forgot which way you were supposed to start—left, right, up, down—so started at the bottom position and hoped for the best. Now that she’d seen a witch whose father was the headmaster at Hogwarts do the motion, she figured it must be a magic thing that muggles had just copied. Silly muggles.
When the other girl, Fiona, also gave her name, Lovelace nodded as though she’d only previously forgotten it. “Fiona.” she finished her sentiments at having met the other girl solemnly, Fiona’s serious expression catching. Her thoughts on the words moving on the page seemed to initially make sense, although Lovelace chasing the words had never seemed to work before. “Righto.” she responded, doing her best to seem confident about her ability to chase any words down until she could read them.
Lovelace’s confidence and posture deflated slightly when she heard that the professors didn’t have patience for slow students, but she nodded her head. She couldn’t feel the frown on her face because she was too busy worrying about how quickly one could get kicked out of Hogwarts for academic failure. After a few moments, though, her confidence started to trickle back in. She reminded herself that she’d been in tougher situations, and her sis would be there, so everything would be okay, no matter what happened.
Fiona moving on to the ice cream returned Lovelace to the moment abruptly, so making sense out the words took a few moments. She blinked as soon as it had all come together then smiled, remembering how appealing the Midsummer Fizz had looked to her. She grinned when Fiona looked at her, “Are we just assuming they’re edible, or do ya know it for a fact?” she joked, an eyebrow raising at her new friend. She nodded again when Fiona suggested she get something and turned to the worker again, trying not to focus too hard on moving staircases. Did you have to jump onto them?? Did you have to jump off of them? She stilled those thoughts by reminding herself that she would be having ice cream soon, taking a few moments to try to remember what had stuck out the most to her. Her face broke out into a grin again as the image and name returned to her and she raised her eyebrows, “The Unicorn Cack, please!” she demanded, then moved to watch the tubs get scooped from. The marshmallow ice cream would’ve been the draw for her, if not for the rainbow sugar cookie crumbles throughout. Lovelace did love a good rainbow.
"Are we just assuming they're edible, or do ya know it for a fact?"
“I know it for a fact,” Fiona responded, without hesitating, with the authority of someone who had absolutely never even considered the alternative until just now. But she’d had it before, and her insides had never been cut up by the pieces of glitter. So that meant it had to be fine.
Unicorn Cack. She pressed her lips together and looked very hard at the counter while the worker scooped. Cack. She was not going to laugh. She was eleven, not six.
She was almost certainly going to laugh.
She didn’t. It came out as a small noise that she managed to disguise as clearing her throat, and then her ice cream arrived. The thought of the silly word left her brain immediately because the sparkles caught the light in a way that was genuinely extraordinary and she spent a moment just tilting the cup slightly to watch them shift.
Even if magic wasn’t magic, glitter would surely be proof that magic existed. There was nothing quite like it.
“The staircases,” she said, remembering herself. She took a small bite of ice cream while she waited on Lace to receive hers. “Right, so. Some of them move. Like, while you’re on them. You have to learn which ones and when, otherwise you end up somewhere completely different from where you meant to go.” She took another bite from her spoon. “I ended up in the Astronomy Tower once when I was trying to get to the kitchens. I was nine.”
Her eyes then widened. Another fanciful story was incoming. “There was one term where the staircases got ornery and began moving so fast, kids were just flying all over the place. Thankfully my mum and dad were able to catch everyone,” she said, nodding solemnly.
Unable to keep the mischief from her voice, Lovelace raised the other eyebrow as she spoke again, “Well, good. And I’m holdin’ out hope the cack isn’t real unicorn cack n’ is actually edible, I’ll update ya on that one.” A thought occurred to her and she tilted her head to the side consideringly as she spoke it aloud, “Though you’ll probably be able to tell, just from whether I spit it out or not.”
As soon as she was finished getting mesmerized by the scooping of each of their frozen treats, which did admittedly last a little beyond the usage of the spoon, Lovelace blinked a few times then took the ice cream being offered to her greedily. She turned to look for Fiona then made her way back to her side, making sure not to run into her again this time and found herself nodding along with the information the other girl was sharing as though moving staircases were totally normal. The astronomy tower sounded like it could be interesting, though Lovelace’s stomach pulled her mouth in another direction, “Kitchens are high up? Wait, or Astronomy Tower isn’t as high as it sounds like it should be?” she asked, trying to get an idea of where to head when she was hungry. Another thought occurred to her, “Wait, or, you were on a staircase goin’ one way, started movin’ and ya went another??” she asked, starting to get excited by her imagination. It took a bit for Lovelace to realize that her imagination might be getting in the way of her stomach, which really wouldn’t do, so she added belatedly, “Any which way it is, I still think I should find out where the kitchens are.”
At Fiona’s next words, Lovelace’s jaw dropped. “Strike a light! Were they havin’ to spell each one?” she inquired, blinking at the other girl. She hadn’t seen much actual magic yet, so she still didn’t entirely understand how it all worked, or could work. Were there spells that could blanket an area like that? Her eyes mirrored Fiona’s when another thought came to her. “Wait, is there some kinda spell to turn floors bouncy?!” she asked, before it occurred to her that it wouldn’t make much sense for them to catch each individual kid if the floors were bouncy.
The idea of flight had caught her attention even more strongly, though, and as she dug her spoon around to find some of the hopefully fake cack, she considered the concept of being thrown by a staircase like that. “I suppose it was dangerous, the flying,” she mused before her eyebrows shot up. “But wait, what if they had brooms at the time??” she asked excitedly, sitting up as straight as she could. “Should I carry around a broom all the time, just to be on the safe side?” she suggested, hoping the other girl would say she should. It’d be a wonderful excuse to get her father to get her mother to buy her a broom, in case she didn’t make the quidditch team.
The questions came fast, quicker than Fiona expected. She let them wash over her, and nodded slightly at each one. She wouldn’t remember all of them, so wouldn’t be able to respond to everything, but she was going to try.
Something about the kitchens in the Astronomy Tower, which was preposterous. She ate on her ice cream as the other girl talked and talked. It almost reminded her of her little cousin Cai the way that she was talking.
"Should I carry around a broom all the time, just to be on the safe side?"
“Oh, absolutely not,” Fiona responded with great authority. “First years aren’t allowed brooms. If a professor caught you with one you’d be in detention for a week.” She took a solemn bite of her ice cream. “Maybe even two.”
Fiona paused, tilting her cup to watch the sparkles shift in the light.
“The kitchens are in the basement,” she added, as though this had been the thread of conversation all along. “You just tickle the pear.”
She then motioned for Lovelace to follow her outside. She took a seat at one of the benches. “There’s also the big lake, called the Black Lake, and there’s a giant squid in there. It’ll eat you if you go swimming in there, I’ve known kids who never returned,” she added.
Really, Fiona was having a blast sharing all of her ‘knowledge’ with the new girl.
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