milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Luna comes into the bar, pink-cheeked from chilly air and quiet exuberance. Her very first trip into Hogsmeade Village has, in her opinion, been an overall success.

She has enjoyed herself immensely. She'd bought a candy-coated apple from a tiny street stall, sent off a few touristy cards from the post office, joined a handful of Beauxbatons students for a bit of an informal walking tour and, even though it's early, gotten some Christmas shopping done.

She had planned to finish up with a mug of butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. In fact, she had been several steps into Milliways before she realized that she was not in the Hogsmeade pub. But not matter. Milliways is just as good.

Luna sets several colorful shopping bags down on a table, and begins to unwind a long, plum-colored scarf from around her neck.

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There's someone nearby in Gryffindor colors. It's rather unintentional: he just likes red and yellow stripes a lot and happens to have a cherry-colored scarf.

He's tall now. Perhaps even taller than Luna. And his voice might be a hair deeper. He just stepped in himself so it might be kind of hard to tell who he is for a moment.

But once he takes the scarf off, it's pretty clear that Lucas, now thirteen years old, is in Milliways again. And though it's been a while for him, Luna is associated to some pretty strong memories.

"Luna?" he asks from a spot near her table.

He does look a bit different, but Luna shows no sign of confusion or uncertainty over this fact. Or over his identity.

"Hello, Lucas," she says.

"Have you taken an aging potion?"

It must be a good one if he did. Aging potions can be quite tricky. Long grey beards are not an uncommon side effect.

Lucas will probably be a bit confused when he realizes Luna looks the same as she did to him three years ago.

"I don't think so," he says.

But he smiles bright and says, "It's been a while since I've been here. I'm happy to see you."

"I'm glad to see you to, though it's not been that long of a while for me."

Luna plucks her knitted plum hat off of her head to join the scarf on the table, and begins to strip off her gloves.

"Time must have gone all strange for you, between your world and Milliways. I've heard that it can do that."

"I wonder why that keeps happening," he says, scratching his head. "Sooner or later time's gonna have to slow down for me or something."

He shakes his head and smiles again.

"Well, I was about ten when I first met you and I'm thirteen now, so I guess it's been three years."

"Perhaps if you ask at Bar, she can help see to it," Luna suggests. "Or at least pass a message on to someone who can."

Bar seems to be able to do most everything else.

Luna, for her part, is still in the first part of her third year at Hogwarts.

"Three years is quite some time. I hope things have gone better for you since you've been away."

"I've had my ups and downs. Some things have gotten easier and some haven't."

He folds up his scarf.

"Can I sit with you?"

"Of course. Just let me make some room."

Luna shifts her bags so that they're one one side of the table, one or two sitting in an empty chair.

"How is your family?" she asks, hanging her jacket on the back of her chair and sitting herself.

"Thank you."

He puts his scarf on the back of a chair and takes a seat.

"Grandpa lives in Tazmily now. He moved to the rest home with Mister Wess. It's easier for him to help out now that he's closer. And Dad comes by more and more lately."

Not enough it feels sometimes but it's better than it was.

"Comes by to see you?" Luna asks.

"You don't live with him, then?"

"He still goes out looking for Claus."

And Lucas isn't sure how he feels about that anymore. He misses his brother and he would be beyond happy to see him home but hope has dwindled away.

"I don't know if he'll ever stop searching for him."

"For three years. That's a very long time."

Especially to hold out hope for something missing.

"Still, sometimes people are gone for a very long time and then turn up in the most unexpected places."

"Maybe he's somewhere else entirely. In a place like Milliways."

"We'd all be pretty happy if that happened and we do find him."

They'd be a family again, in a way.

"What about you, Luna? What've you been up to? And where did all of those bags come from?"

"My mum always said that the things we lose have a way of coming back to us, if not always in the ways we expect."

That piece of wisdom has always been good enough for Luna.

Luna glances over at her bags.

"From Hogsmeade Village. It was my first trip there, today. We can only go once we're in our third year."

"I did some shopping for Christmas. It will be here before I know it."

"Hogsmeade Village? Was it nice?"

And he wants to hear more about Christmas since it's closer now.

"Oh, very."

"It's the only all-wizarding village in Britain, you know. And it was lovely to have a whole day to explore."

And all kinds of shops catering to wizard needs. Luna had found a self-heating tea mug for her father. She can't wait to give it to him.

"What sort of places are there? What kinds of shops?"

"Well, there are the usual places. Like the post office and the train station."

Things that no Muggle would bat an eye at.

"The Three Broomsticks--that's the pub. Zonko's Joke Shop is there; it's very popular with students, I hear. A quill shop, and herbology supply, and the greengrocer's."

"And Honeydukes, of course. Everyone from Hogwarts goes there. They sell all sorts of sweets. In fact..."

Luna reaches into her coat pocket, pulls out her wand, and waves it at her purchases. "Accio Every Flavor Beans."

A sack of candy pops out of one bag and flops onto the table.

"You should try some."

Lucas doesn't remember if he's seen Luna cast a spell before but it's amazing how the candy just jumps out.

"Every Flavor Beans?" he repeats, looking at the sack of candy. "I didn't know beans could come in different flavors."

"They're not really beans. They're just candy in the rough shape of beans."

Beans are really rather shapeless items when you get right down to it.

"Though some of them taste like beans. Bertie Botts prides itself on making them in every flavor. My dad has an odd fondness for the sausage flavored ones."

Mr. Lovegood has no problem getting the sausage ones all to himself when he and his daughter share a bag.

"Oh, I get it. I guess it's kinda like how the bakery can make loaves of bread that look like shafts of wheat."

Which actually sounds pretty good with some butter and some stew for dinner.

"Like that," Luna agrees.

There could be beans that taste like bread. Or wheat. Or butter for that matter.

She picks up a dull yellow bean and nibbles the end experimentally.

"Mustard," she says, before popping the bean in her mouth.

She nudges the bag a bit toward Lucas, encouraging him to try some.

He glances into the bag and picks one out, a tan one. He pops it into his mouth and smiles before saying, "Peanut butter."

He gets a small handful and starts picking them out, one by one.

"I'm surprised nobody at home sells anything like this. These are good."

He tries a green one next. He's not sure but he thinks it's parsley.

"What sorts of candy do they have in your world?"

Luna picks a lurid purple on next. Grape jelly.

"We have cookies, chocolates, caramel, cake, and sweets like that."

Lucas eats one that's white-ish and makes an odd face.

"I usually like cheese but this is kinda weird as a bean."

"Some of the Muggle born kids I know say that they're an acquired taste."

"I tried some jelly beans once. From a Muggle store? My friend, Archie, gave them to me. They were all flavored like fruit and the like. They were good, but not terribly interesting."

"Like slitherhens. Not the house at your school but the snake creatures that nip at my sheep."

He had a somewhat confusing conversation with Lily Evans before it got out that Lucas was talking about snakes with chicken heads.

"I probably won't run into any slitherhen-flavored beans, will I?"

The word does raise Luna's eyebrows a tiny bit, but the explanation helps.

"No, I don't think so. But I don't know what a slitherhen," Luna carefully sounds out the odd yet very familiar word, "would taste like, so I can't say for sure."

"They do sound quite like Slitherins. How very funny."

"Yeah, kinda peculiar," he says, nibbling on a grey one to discover that it's black pepper. He decides to eat the whole thing but waves over a waitrat so they can get some drinks.

"Slitherhens taste a little more like chicken than other snakes, which I guess makes sense 'cause they look like snakes with chicken heads. So they're slither-hens."

"They sound almost like a cousin of a basilisk."

"They're great serpents, hatched from chicken eggs placed beneath toads. They're quite fearsome. They can kill with just a look."

"There was one loose in my school the year before last."

"Slitherhens aren't nearly as fearsome so much as they're pesky. I have snares for them in my yard so they don't bother my sheep and Boney takes care of whichever ones manage to wiggle out."

Lucas orders a root beer for himself and the waitrat waits for Luna's order.

"Hot butterbeer, please," Luna tells the waitrat.

"Like garden gnomes," she adds, nodding.

"Most wizards view them as pests, but Dad and I like to watch them out in the yard. They can bit if you stick you hand in the wrong place, but they're fairly harmless."

The waitrat goes off to fill the order.

Lucas finds another bean, this one kind of pink and multicolored. He pops it into his mouth without trying the edge and immediately rushes for the napkins to spit it out. He didn't really want to know what a vomit flavored bean tastes like.

"That's awful nice of your dad. And if they're not doing anything to your yard, there's not much point in bothering them."

"Oh, they're very good luck. Well worth some disruption of the flower beds."

"Dad got a nasty bite off of one last summer. One built a den in one of Dad's rubber boots that he left out on the stoop, and Dad didn't realize it before he put them on."

"But it healed up just fine. And besides, gnome saliva is quite beneficial."

Luna watches Lucas expel the bean.

"Did you get a nasty one, then?"

Lucas nods and is very grateful when the waitrat comes shortly after with their drinks. He takes a sip of root beer before he speaks again.

"Yeah. It tasted of sick."

He's going to be careful of the pink and spotty ones from now on.

"I suppose that's what your dad gets for leaving his boots out. I don't know who would've had it worse, your dad or the gnome."

Lucas is pretty sure he wouldn't want a giant foot invading his den or something living in his shoe to take a bite on him.

"Does your dad work in the garden often?"

"Vomit, then. That's one of the nastiest. So is earwax. I'm not terribly fond of farm dirt, either."

Luna takes a sip of her hot butterbeer.

"He likes to, sometimes. He says it helps him think. But mostly we let things grow as they please. You get such interesting things that way."

"Mom liked that about gardening, too. She planted a lot of garden boxes in the city. It's one of the few things about Tazmily that hasn't really changed."

"What did she like to plant?"

There are all sorts of possibilities when it comes to gardens.

Even among non-wizards.

"Gardenias and sunflowers. She always liked to keep some on the table. There's a field of sunflowers not too far from Tazmily and Dad would sometimes find the biggest ones he can, taller than Claus and me, to bring back to her."

There's no denying that Lucas's parents were really in love. Most people in town said their love made even the little birds in the trees jealous.

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