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Wingardium Leviosa is a first year spell, one Lily's had down for years now, simple levitation.

Still, it's good to practice the basics sometimes.

Which is why there's a small brown teapot (empty, of course) hovering about five feet above a table tonight.

And below it, a redheaded witch with her wand out, watching it slowly spin in the air.

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"You must have started working there when you were young," Lily says.

He doesn't look much older than she is, and he's talking about years in a bakery.

"What do you do now, instead?"

"I haven't decided yet."

His entire life is planned for him now.

Both in the fact he can do whatever he wants, in the smallest, most microscopic sense (even if it is great in comparison to the life of the boy eating stale bread), and he has a life-time of expectancies before him (being remembered and training other children to go do what he just did).

"Bake breads from other places to pass the time."

And to pay respects to the lives he can't forget.
And keep himself from sleeping, because sleep was worse.

Edited 2010-12-16 02:52 (UTC)

"It's all right. I haven't decided what I want to do, either, really.

"Maybe I'll try some different things and see how they go.

"Probably not baking, though. I can boil water to make tea, and that's just about the limits of my skill in the kitchen, much to my mother's despair."

Peeta laughed, and attempting some slight step.

"You couldn't just flick your wrist now and make it happen?"

There's a telling glance toward the...wand on the table.

"You can't create food with magic. It's one of the rules. I could summon it to me, I could increase what I had, or I could change it, which would include cooking or putting ingredients together with magic, I suppose ... "

She's never thought about it before.

Peeta shook his head, listening to the list. It's....well, magic. It's hard to fathom. And it's easy to be leery of. Too easy. Except Lily is being incredibly nice and open. In a superficial fashion.

"That's a lot of things you could do right there."

"As long as you have something to start with," Lily says.

"Do you want to see?"

It's a little hard to be entirely excited about. She could do anything. But she is asking, and Peeta nodded, interest showing far more than any of the uncertainty. "Okay."

Lily thinks for a moment, then says, "May I use one of your rolls?"

Edited 2010-12-16 03:33 (UTC)

Peeta reached out and plucked out off the top few on the pile and held it out to her. There's a surreptitious edge of course. It's all about learning more.

But it's more, too. It always is, isn't it?

"Thank you."

She takes the lid off the teapot, and then picks up her wand.

Aguamenti, first, to fill the teapot with water.

And then she hold the roll above it, and, face showing rather more concentration that she has needed yet this evening, she transfigures it into a small green fish that slips from her fingers and into water below.

Where it swims in the small circle that it can manage in the teapot.

It's amazing. It could be terribly dangerous -- not what she's doing, but what she could do.

It wouldn't be polite to ask what the worst thing she could do is (theses hexes and curses?) but there'd be no reason to believe entirely any answer a question might garner. They don't know each other.

And the fish-that-was-a-roll-he-made-with-his-hands is still swimming around and around in the teapot-that-was-flying-above-her-head originally, while wide blue eyes are watching her and it and processing all of this.

In spite of all of that, he's got an odd smile, "There is nothing like that in my world."

She smiles back at him.

"I use magic every day when I'm at school, it's part of who I am, but every so often, even now after years of knowing about it and studying it, I have a moment of just pure wonder at it all.

"Would you like to keep the fish?"

"I'd love to." Comes out without him realizing it, except on the moment he's saying it, as he's pushing out of his chair, new leg and movement all forgotten, for peering down into the tea pot.

"I mean," a little flustered, but suddenly brighter. "Thank you. Too."

Beat. "Shouldn't we name him, then, if he's staying?"

"You're very welcome," she says.

"And, yes, I definitely think he needs a name."

"It shouldn't have a District 4 name."
He was never naming anything after Finnick Odair.

"What kinds of names do fish get where you're from?"

"Let's see. Names inspired by the colors they are, sometimes. So something green, for this one.

"I named my cat after someone I found mentioned in my first Potions book.

"Her name's Hesper."

It's light, a laugh when he says, "I don't what that is at all," this time.

Edited 2010-12-16 04:18 (UTC)

"Hesper?

"She was a witch who studied how the phase of the moon affected potion making.

"Hesper Starky.

"I just thought it was a pretty name, and it suits my cat."

He knows little about those things, but Prim has a cat, Buttercup, that he sees skulking about in Victor's Village now and then. He sees a lot of the Everdeen's lives.

Potentially a lot more than he wants to right now.
That happens when you live right next door to someone.

"What kind of green names are there?" He was peering down, again. "And do we need to know if it's a boy or girl, while making this choice? Just choose something that fits either?"

"I don't know how to tell a boy fish from a girl fish," Lily says. "I don't think most people do. Maybe you just pick the name you like best and then use the appropriate pronoun for the name.

"Green things ... well, all kinds of plants, obviously. Ferns and moss and so on. And green gems, like emerald and jade."

Lily looks down into the teapot at the little fish.

It's a little sudden, but he shakes his head, saying, "Not plants."

Not plants. Not -- it was too alive. Swimming little rippling circles.

"All right," Lily says.

"Well, I suppose we could pick something related to teapots or bread, in honor of its beginning."

"It's not very sweet looking," he said, looking up.
More toward the whole cookie and cake referencing.

"He'd be a terrible 'Frosting.'"

And a bad joke she wouldn't get.

(And he couldn't live with.)

Edited 2010-12-16 04:46 (UTC)

"No, he's not a Frosting," Lily agrees.

She watches the fish swim dart around in circles, and then looks up at Peeta, giggling.

"You could name him Tempest."