Beetle Eyes Conquest

Sunny had separated from Jack almost immediately that day. Nearly every day that her aunt had to work in her own shop, Sunny was brought along as well. Sunny had initially tied an apron to her small waist and helped out in the shop - it being interesting enough as it was to hold her attention - but it hadn't taken long for Sunny's interest in adventuring out into the rest of this oddly magical street to spur her towards ditching.

She had pocketed a few of Jacks strange coins, and had ducked out when her aunt was dealing with a particularly difficult gaggle of customers. She walked the street, looking completely at peace on her own. Her innocent face was relaxed in an indifferent expression - she had seen this street several times now. Only now, it seemed much more accessible.

She stopped outside the shop that had interested her most. Slug's and Jigger's. She could not read the final word, a big word starting with the letter A. She had mentally labeled the store "Slug's and Jigger's Apocoppy." What had caught her eye was a huge jar in the front her aunt had identified as beetle's eyes.

Sunny didn't know what she would do with them - but she wanted some.

She slipped into the shop and squeezed through the crowd, hurrying towards the jar. It was on a tall table, out of her reach. She glanced about, and began to pull herself onto the table.

Vivianna strutted into Slug and Jigger's, pleased to finally be off work. Her last few hours at the Wand Shop had been more than trying. An elderly patron had entered the shop, and demanded to know why his wand was no-longer working properly. So Vivianna had taken the wand to the back and tested it, only to find that other than a few scratches the wand was exactly the same as the day the man had bought it. Informing the man that the reason for his spell malfunction had likely been his own fault, and not the fault of the wand, did not go over well.

However, the girl was free of that for now. Glancing down at the folded list in her hand, she began to mentally recite the ingredients she needed. The Slytherin loved potions, and often brewed in her own spare time. Due to this, it was not uncommon to see her in Diagon's Potion Apothecary. Vivianna glanced around, looking for the belladonna, sliverweed, and beetle eyes. How she had allowed herself to run out of beetle eyes of all things, was beyond her.

Quickly locating and picking up a suitable amount of the two more expensive ingredients, she turned to the massive jar of beetle eyes that she knew would be on a tall table, on the other side of the store. What she hadn't expected to see, was a young girl attempting to reach the jar. Vivianna smiled slightly, figuring that a parent had given their child a small task to get them out of the way while doing their shopping.

Quickly crossing the shop, the teenager saw that the child was now attempting to lift herself into the table. With the amount of glass around, that was far from a good idea. Reaching the girl, she gently placed a hand on the little red-head's shoulder and said, "hey there sweetie, are you trying to get some beetle eyes? I could help you, I need to get some for myself too." The student hadn't realized just how adorable the child was until now, or just how similar they were in appearance.

Sunny pulled herself up, pulling her knee up and flopping half of her leg onto the top of the table, digging her sneaker into the wood, as her other foot scrabbled against the table's leg for some sort of leverage. One hand gripped the table, while the other arm stretch for the lid of the jar. Her face was the picture of comical concentration - her brow pulled together in focus, her nose wrinkled, her tongue caught between her teeth as she strained to reach her prize.

She felt a hand upon her and she turned, craning her head. The girl was a teenager, but much taller. Sunny slipped from her perch and straightened up, looking at the ground. She heaved a heavy sigh, one that lifted her shoulders up to her ears before the dropped heavily. She looked up and said, "I guess you can help me. I pretty much had it, but your taller, so... I guess you earned it."

Sunny took a step back to allow the girl room to access the beetle eyes. The redheaded girl, like everyone else around here, had that funny little accent Sunny did not. She vaguely wondered if SHE were the one with the accent, coming from America and all. But that was preposterous. It had to be them that had the accent.

"I just want a little bit. I only have... um... one of the silver coins. I forgot the name."

Vivianna cracked a smile as the little girl reluctantly said she would accept help. Clearly the girl was an independent one, and was probably having a bit of fun attempting to reach the creature eyes. The teen notice that the little girl had an accent, an American one if she wasn't mistaken. Her curiosity was piqued, and she wondered what the little girl was doing on this side of the Atlantic.

The teen became even more curious when the child admitted to forgetting the name of Wizarding currency. The younger redhead didn't look surprised by the magical sights around her though, leading Vivianna to believe that she was a half-blood. A half-blood who lived in the muggle world, but wasn't a stranger to the magical one, it was the most logical assumption.

Smiling down at the younger girl, Vivianna found herself enraptured by the sparkle of excitement the her eyes. "The little silver coin you have is called a sickle, and a scoop of beetle eyes is 10 knuts. Knuts are the tiny bronze coins, so you have more than enough for a large scoop of beetle eyes. You could even look around for something else too if you like," the teenager explained to the younger redhead.

Picking up the metal scooper in anticipation of the response she was almost sure to receive, the Hogwarts student asked her little companion, "you're American aren't you? What are you doing on this side of the pond?"

Sickle! That was it! "Sickle," Sunny repeated, intent on remembering it the next time she was asked. "Sickle," she said, now just saying it because the word was fun to say. She liked the way it rolled around on her tongue. Her mouth twitched into a smile and she hopped from foot to foot, turning her head sideways. "Siiiiiiiickle!" She stood up straight and giggled, pleased with the word.

Oh yeah. She was talking to someone.

Her smile faded and she looked back up at the girl, trying to figure out the math - though, or course, it was mostly lost on her. She furrowed her brow and tried to calculate, "Ten knuts for beetle's eyes. And one sickle... is more than ten of the little knut-things?" Sunny was always confused with money - and having to adjust from dollars, nickels, and quarters was proving to be frustrating.

The girl asked her about being American, saying she came from across a pond. Sunny's brow furrowed again. In a sweet manner that sounded as though she were correcting the other girl, she said, "It's actually an ocean - it's the Atlantic ocean." She smiled - ah, the literal mind of a child. "Yes, I'm from America."

Vivianna giggled softly as the young girl repeated the name of the sliver coin, clearly taking amusement from saying the, frankly peculiar, word. The little girl's eyebrows scrunched adorably as she attempted to figure out Wizarding money, and just how much she had.

"Yes, the beetle eyes are ten knuts, and there are 27 knuts in a sickle. So if you get the beetle eyes you'll have 17 knuts let over to spend on whatever you like," Vivianna explained with a soft smile. This little girl really was just too precious. Back in the days where the Slytherin had longed for a sibling, a girl not too dissimilar to this one had often appeared in her dreams.

"Yes, my mistake, of course it's an ocean," the fifteen year old said absently, not about to attempt to explain the expression she'd used to one so young. "So what's your name Little Miss Beetle Eyes?" Vivianna asked teasingly. If she was going to go about holding a conversation with someone, she figured a name might be helpful.

The girl giggled as she sang about the name of the silver coin which, of course, only encouraged Sunny more and made her feel more endeared to the girl. Though she was her father's daughter (and had, she supposed, inherited some of his serious nature) she was also her aunt's niece, and did take pleasure in sharing what she considered her amazing sense of humor.

Sunny screwed her eyes up in concentration, though it was no use. She could not do what she considered big subtraction without some paper. She was just learning it, after all, and she wasn't a genius. She couldn't subtract ten from twenty seven all willy-nilly like that. She would just have to take this girl's word for it. She nodded her understanding.

The girl corrected herself and Sunny smiled. "It's okay. I always get turtles and frogs mixed up." The girl asked for her name and Sunny held out a hand to shake, copying her aunt's habit. "My name is Sunny Paige Dyllan-Thomas. Who are you?"

When the little girl seriously informed Vivianna that she often got turtles and frogs mixed up, Vivianna had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. To hear such a statement said so seriously, made the teenager want to laugh more than anything else in their conversation had.

The urge to laugh hardly faded as the young girl stuck a hand straight out and introduced herself by her full name, continuing to look very serious while doing so. "Well it's nice to meet you Sunny Paige," Vivianna informed the girl whilst shaking a small hand, using both the redheads first and middle names because of how nicely they rolled off the tongue together, "I'm Vivianna Varnes, but some of my friends shorten my name, you can too if you like."

"So, what about those beetle eyes?" the Hogwarts student asked, bringing the conversation back to the problem at hand. The witch wondered if Sunny would want anything else as well. The potions nerd would be more than happy to show the child around the store, pointing out the cool or pretty ingredients that could be purchased with the remainder of her money.

The older girl took Sunny's hand and Sunny jerked her shoulder up and down twice, giving the girl a nice little handshake. She called her Sunny Paige, and Sunny's face expressed confusion. No one had ever called her Sunny Paige (except her mother, the two times her mother had ever been mad enough to yell at her and use her full name) so she was unaccustomed to it.

"You can call me Sunny," she responded serenely. The older girl gave her name and Sunny nodded. "May I call you Vivi - actually, yes, I am going to call you Vivi. I like it." She smiled. Bless the young and their insolence to assume they could do whatever they were truly pleased to do.

Vivi reminded Sunny of the almost-forgotten beetle eyes. "Oh yeah!" she exclaimed, looking back up. She placed her hands on the table and hopped up and down with anticipation. "Just one scoop, please. I just want them, I don't need them for anything. I don't even know what you use them for. I don't even know what an 'Apocoppy' is."

"Alright, I'll call you Sunny then." the teenager informed the big honest eyes. It was a fair enough thing to say, Vivianna had nicknames she'd disliked as well. The last person to call her Anna had ended up in the school's hospital wing, it hadn't happened again since. "And of course you can call me Vivi, I like it too," the older redhead informed the younger. Only a handful of people called her by the nickname, and she was fond of it. The way that Sunny had asked, or told her more like, reminded the witch of innocent days where one could be on top of the world with a blink. The saying innocence is bliss came to mind.

"One scoop it is," the Hogwarts student announced, shoveling one scoop of eyes into a clear bag as she spoke. Chuckling lightly at the naïveté of the child in front of her, Vivianna figured she might as well explain, "this shop is called an Apothecary, and this is where you can buy all sorts of ingredients, like beetle eyes, to make into potions."

Tying the top of the bag quickly so that none of the eyes would spill out, Vivianna handed the bag to Sunny. "I'm here because I want to buy ingredients for a potion, since I noticed yesterday that I didn't have everything I needed," the Slytherin stated, simplifying the truth, before turning back to gather some eyes for herself.