Plundering for Pirate Books

Amelia gave Peter a quizzical look as he muttered something under his breath, something she hadn’t managed to catch. She hadn’t noticed the encounter he had had with the man, but she could deduce it from the way Peter’s hand was on his shoulder and the man who caught her attention even though he was already significantly separated from them. She suppressed the urge to fling a spell at the man’s receding form – her redheaded temper could flare up at times – mostly because the man was much larger than she, and unless her spell was enough to incapacitate him for a significant amount of time, that was not a battle she was going to win.

Peter, unsurprisingly, had taken an altogether different perspective on the whole situation, and although he had originally looked shaken, he was soon making a joke of the situation, and the pun was so bad that Amelia actually let a tinkling of a giggle pass her lips before she caught herself. The boy clearly had no qualms about making a fool of himself – which was one of Amelia’s greatest fears, and definitely the one she encountered most – and he seemed to do whatever came most naturally to him.

I wonder what that feels like… Amelia’s subconscious asked sarcastically, the irony of the situation being that Amelia almost never did what she wanted, but rather focused on what needed to be done.

As her laughter died away, Amelia shook her head at the absurdity of the situation: her being in Diagon Alley with a boy she had met only days earlier, and on the quidditch pitch no less. His personality only added to the illogicality, because if Amelia had been forced to pick a companion out of a lineup, she was not at all certain she would have picked Peter. It wasn’t that she found him unlikable, but rather that he had a personality so drastically different from her own that she would not have thought them to have any common ground to stand on.

At her prompt for breakfast, Peter seemed to be in agreement that food was in order, and Amelia nodded decisively and changed their direction to a path that would lead them toward the bakery cart. The woman standing behind the cart was the same graying lady that had stood there every time Amelia had come for something to satiate her hunger. Whether for an afternoon snack or a pastry in the morning, this cart always had just what she wanted.

“Could I have a pumpkin scone?” Amelia asked the woman after scanning the pastries through the glass on top of the cart. The woman nodded in a motherly way and produced the scone for Amelia, partially wrapping it in wax paper. Amelia traded the pastry for a few knuts and stepped away to allow Peter access to the cart, already scanning the area for a bench to sit on while they ate. Amelia wasn’t much for eating and walking, for it could only lead to crumbs.

Peter waited right behind Amelia for access to the baked goods cart and he felt as though he were ten feet tall. He had managed to make Amelia laugh; first a smile and now a full-out, however quickly stifled, giggle at his joke... He was used to people laughing at his jokes, but he had not really heard Amelia laugh since he had met her, and it was quite the accomplishment, in his opinion.

She ordered a pumpkin scone and quickly paid for it, before scooting away so that he had full access to the humble little cart. The old woman's face crinkled pleasantly as she turned to him, a little plastic pair of prongs gripped in her right hand, ready to pick up whatever he asked for. Peter felt a warm smile come onto his face as he began to fish out his coins.

"Um, a couple gingersnaps, please," he said, "Madam?" He wanted to be polite, for the woman exuded a very respectable aura that he felt demanded his respect. She honored his requested and he traded the coins for the gingersnaps before walking back to Amelia, and then motioning towards a bench, where he plopped down and began to nibble on a gingersnap.

Amelia could hear Peter’s order from behind her as she scanned the area, and she turned back to him in time to see him take a few small, brown cookies into his gloved hands. He then left the cart and moved toward and then past her, motioning toward a bench in the shade of a tree whose leaves had already turned a violent shade of orange. It seemed he had the same idea Amelia did, and she did not hesitate to follow him.

When she reached the bench, however, Amelia was caught at a crossroads – the bench was very wide, which mean that when Peter had sat down near one edge, he had left her with a lot of space and a lot more indecision about just how much space to leave between herself and Peter. She was not used to sharing a space with another person, at least not on frequent enough a basis to have developed a consistent level of comfort, and thus she hesitated for a moment, her eyes measuring the available space and trying to come up with some sort of equation to tell her where to sit.

I don’t think Newtonian physics is going to be applicable here, Amelia’s subconscious cut in dryly, Just sit.

Sit where?

On the bench.

But where on the bench?

On the seat.

Perfect. That makes everything so much clearer, Amelia thought sarcastically, as though speaking to one’s subconscious were a totally normal endeavor. But although this brief discourse had made Amelia’s act of sitting down take far longer than it should have, it did actually force her to finally sit down next to Peter, far enough away that they would not be touching, but not so far as to suggest that he smelled.

Now that she had overcome the obstacle of where to sit – an unnecessarily high obstacle, all things considered – Amelia unwrapped the end of her scone from the wax paper and bit into it, letting the warm pastry dissolve in her mouth. She took another bite to give herself time to think of something appropriate to say, and chewed slowly, mulling it over. As she swallowed, she cleared her throat, turning herself slightly toward Peter as she spoke.

“So I guess neither one of us will be competing in the Hogwarts Tournament,” she said, basically stating the obvious.

Not really a question, her subconscious reminded her.

“Do you know the Beauxbaton’s champion well?” Amelia asked, remembering the blonde girl that had strode toward the front of the Great Hall when her name, Selene, had been announced.

Amelia sat on the bench next to him, allowing room for both of them to be able to eat without awkwardly knocking elbows as they ate. He balanced the napkin full of cookies on his knee and slowly pulled off his gloves, resting them on his other knee and gathering the napkin back into his hand, He unwrapped the napkin and picked up the first cookie.

It may not be exactly the healthiest thing for breakfast, but the gingersnaps were not exactly unhealthy either. They were better than greasy bacon and sausage or something. And then, his day was hopefully going to be a fun one, and the best way to start off a fun day was with some fun sort of breakfast. And gingersnaps perfectly fit that bill.

One bite of the first gingersnap and Peter would have swore that he was in heaven. He knew someone of the pickier Beauxbatons students had complained about the British cuisine, but if any of them had so much as tried one of the treats from the cart, they would have had to promptly shut their mouths. He could not help but say, "Mmmmm" content with the baked goods.

He continued eating and Amelia said that neither of them would be competing in the Triwizard Tournament, the only reason the two of them had even really met. He chuckled, brushing his hair out of his eyes and saying, "Yes... Sort of a secret relief on my end, really. I 'ave a feeling ze champions are going to be starting to look frazzled soon."

Amelia asked if he knew the champion well. He nodded, taking another bite and then swallowing, brushing a stray crumb from his lip. "Yes, Selene and I 'ave been friends since first year, actually. We are not very close but we talk often. Same group of friends and what not." He sighed. "Now she is no fun and all tournament." He rolled his eyes slightly. "And you? Do you know ze Hogwarts champion?"

Peter seemed to be completely unperturbed by the fact that he was not the Beauxbaton’s champion, which was unsurprising to Amelia both because of what she understood of his personality from the time she had had to observe him, and also because he had stated outright that he wasn’t overly interested in being a champion in the first place. Amelia offered up a half-smile in response to his laughter, and nodded as he mentioned that the champion’s state of stress was likely to rise exponentially as the tournament tasks grew closer.

Perhaps it is best that you are not the champion… Amelia’s mind encouraged her, adding that to the mental list she was making for herself of all the reasons not to worry about the tournament any longer. It was out of her hands, and the time had passed. Her name was not the one pulled from the goblet… because she had never put it in in the first place.

That, more than anything, was what was making Amelia’s thoughts dwell on the tournament. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been chosen – it was that she hadn’t even tried. Her success last year at having her name chosen from the goblet had been quickly thwarted by her mother, who had removed her not only from the tournament but also from Hogwarts itself. Although Amelia had entered last year as a way to prove to her parents and to herself that she could do things on her own, think on her feet, be stronger than they and even she expected, she had never gotten the chance. “Undignified,” her mother had called it, but in truth, Amelia knew that Antoinette had just not wanted Amelia to be an embarrassment if she failed. Her parents had pushed her all her life to be the best, and then when she got the chance to prove that she was, they pulled it out from under her feet at the mere thought of the idea that she might not be.

And then there was Raoul. He had all but demanded that Amelia re-enter the tournament this year. He had driven a hard bargain: enter the tournament and get his communication back, or fail to enter and go back to living in the silent-treatment that he had put her in since she had allowed Antoinette to remove her from the tournament last year. Raoul simply didn’t understand why Amelia couldn’t just do what he did: get up and get out. Leave and never look back. But for Amelia, it wasn’t that easy. He hadn’t been around to watch the disappointment their parents had felt when he left, all the trouble they now went through to pretend they didn’t even have a son, if only to save themselves the embarrassment of having to admit that they didn’t know where he was, what he was doing, or even if he was alive.

But Amelia knew he was alive. That much she knew because he had responded to her last letter. In it, she had told him she had not been chosen as the Hogwarts champion. She had not told him, however, that she hadn’t entered at all. It was difficult to lie to Raoul, the one person she had ever gotten to be fully open with, but she couldn’t stand the thought of losing him again. When he had distanced himself from her after last year’s debacle, it had felt like him leaving all over again. It was probably best that their only means of communication was via owl, because if they were speaking face-to-face, Raoul would have seen right through her. He had always had a knack for knowing when she was lying, even lying by omission, and he wouldn’t have let her get away with it.

Amelia was wrapped up in her own thoughts, almost so much that she missed Peter’s answer to her second question, but she came back to the present in time to hear the bulk of his response and the question that followed. The redhead nodded when he asked if she knew the Hogwarts Champion, though she was hesitant with her answer, taking another bite of scone before speaking.

“I do know Jaquellene,” Amelia answered, “albeit very briefly. She and I met over the summer and have a few classes together, but I wouldn’t say we are close by any means. She has a personality that is a bit… louder and more… erratic than my own, though I am sure she feels the same that our personalities are very different,” Amelia added, pushing a stray bit of hair behind her ear.

“She is an intense person, in a different way than I am,” Amelia continued, picturing Jack in her mind as she spoke, “But I am certain she will represent Hogwarts well. Her energy alone might ensure her success,” the Ravenclaw finished, thinking of the aura Jack carried around her as though she was constantly bouncing, even when she wasn’t doing so physically.

Peter sat in silence, listening to Amelia's words as he nibbled on his gingersnaps, not wanting to pig out like he did with Adam. He had met Jack because, for some odd reason, Adam liked to hang out with her, and as his best friend, he had found himself in her presence, though he did not understand why the two got along. He swallowed another cookie down as she finished.

"She frightens me." He chuckled. Amelia did not seem to fond of her, though not particularly against her, which was his opinion too. She was just a little over the top for him, and this was coming from him, the pirate-prat extrodinaire. He shook his head and said, "I cannot see how she can be so loud and so small. Eet eez a feat."

He smiled but began searching for a new subject; he did not want to discuss the odd Hogwarts student, he wanted to focus on Amelia. He munched on his last gingersnap and looked down at the crumb-ridden napkin and crumpled it, slipping it into his pocket before turning to look at her. "I am ready whenever you are. Pirate books are calling my name!" He smiled.

((muse... dead... agh...))

Amelia smiled slightly at Peter’s admission that he found Jack frightening, and his description of the paradox of her size versus her volume. It was a trait of hers that Amelia had not failed to notice either, and she was not surprised to find Peter equally perceptive in that area. Amelia had a feeling that most people that met Jack would feel a similar amount of confusion about her personality as opposed to her physical appearance, because although the redheaded Gryffindor looked small, she had enough personality to fill the Durmstrang ship to the point of sinking.

Her scone was almost completely gone now, and Amelia took the last few bites with as much grace as was possibly when trying to eat every last bit of flaky, buttery goodness. Just as she was folding up her wax paper into small fourths, Peter demolished the last of his cookies and announced that he was ready to go to the bookstore. Nodding with a slight smirk – she still couldn’t believe the enthusiasm with which Peter reacted whenever pirates were involved. She didn’t find it offputting, but merely surprising in that she had never met anyone else with that much vigor for swashbucklers – Amelia stood up from the bench and deposited her trash in the rubbish bin next to the bench.

“Then off we go,” Amelia said, gesturing for Peter to follow her as she walked back toward the sidewalk they had been following before stopping for breakfast. The book store was not far down now, and with the light foot traffic the pair of them reached the store in no time, for which Amelia was grateful because she was not forced to make idle small talk in the way she would have if the store had been further away. Pulling the door open, Amelia held it open and held her arm out in a sweeping gesture toward the door and made a small gesture of deference to Peter.

“After you,” she said, already able to smell the scent of books that had always been so intrinsically appealing to her that even her amortentia smelled of them.

She stood and he fell into step with her, pushing his bangs back before pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, puckering his lips and then whistling a jaunty little tune as they walked in a comfortable silence. Peter was often surrounded by his group of popular friends, who gaged the entertainment value of a situation on how loud everyone was being. This had always been sort of tiring for Peter, so the quiet was appreciated.

They reached the shop and Peter stopped outside of it, leaning back on the ball of his heels and tilting his head to get the full affect of the shop. Amelia opened the door and ushered him in. He sent her a small smile and ducked his head, slipping inside and minding the doorway- as someone of a tall height, he had grown used to being extra careful when entering buildings and rooms. It was never a very fun situation to hit one's head and deal with the embarrassment afterward...

He entered inside and found the shop very warm and welcoming as he scooted to the side to ensure that he was not blocking the door for Amelia. He licked his lips slightly and pulled at the scarf so that it was not so tight around his neck; there was no need. As his eyes turned side to side, he pulled off his gloves and carefully slipped them into sweater pocket and then slipped of his sweater, draping it over his arm.

He looked around and took a step toward the nearest bookshelf, cocking his head as his hair slipped and fell in a sheet down his face. He blinked and pulled his arm up, stretching one of his large hands up to the shelf, thumbing along the spines. He inhaled. What a great smell! He stroked the spine of a book with one of his long, thin fingers before turning back to Amelia. "What a wonderful place!"

Amelia could tell even before Peter entered the shop that he was in full appreciation of the store. Just the way he leaned back to get full view of it, the way his characteristic grin as he moved into the store, all of it let her know that he hadn’t merely suggested this trip as an excuse to pick her brain. It actually put Amelia slightly more at ease to know that Peter was interested in what lie inside the shop, if only because it took the pressure off Amelia to know that he wasn’t totally consumed with the idea of what was inside her head. Those secrets she held much closer to her heart than the location of the best bookstores.

As soon as Peter had moved past her, Amelia stepped into the warm shop and let the door fall closed behind her. Immediately, she felt the chill disappear from the air and she unzipped her jacket unwound the scarf once from her neck, leaving it hanging long over her clavicle. She could smell books, coffee – from the small stand at the back of the store – and the cologne of one of the shopkeepers, which seemed to be omnipresent, even when the man that owned it was not. It was not an offensive smell, but in such large quantities, it could be an assault on the senses. Today, it was less permissive, suggesting that he was not actually in the store, but perhaps had worked a late shift last night.

Amelia lingered near the doorway as she watched Peter’s reaction to the shop, taking off her gloves slowly as an excuse to observe him instead of going straight for the books herself. He too was removing a few of his layers, which was fitting because the shop was about 20 degrees warmer than the chilly morning air they had just come through. When he was down to just his shirt, however, he moved toward the bookshelves, and choosing seemingly at random, he seemed ran his fingers along the spines of the book. Amelia was familiar with this gesture; it was a kind of way of getting to know the books, a gesture she found herself doing absentmindedly when she wasn’t sure exactly what she was in the mood for. Although Amelia had already deduced that Peter was at least satisfied with the shop, his words proved that he was very pleased, and Amelia found herself smiling in response to his enthusiasm.

“It is, isn’t it?” Amelia asked rhetorically through a smile that almost – almost – showed teeth. A moment later, however, Amelia had realized she was smiling stupidly, and that Peter would obviously need ushering around the shop if he was to find what he was looking for, and she pushed her long hair back away from her face and stepped further into the shop, moving toward the isle next to the one Peter was currently in.

“The pirate books are this way,” Amelia said over her shoulder as she gestured for Peter to follow her. She didn’t typically come to the shop with any company, nor did she typically speak to anyone while she was here. She would occasionally speak with the shop owner or a keeper when she needed assistance, and there had been the time she had met that boy Rafael here, but aside from those few exceptions, the Black Raven was a place of solitude for Amelia. It was unusual to be here in the company of Peter, but she hadn’t found him to be a hindrance as of yet, so she wasn’t overly disappointed to have brought him along.

“Just… here,” Amelia said as she stopped in front of a shelf full of books with spines that looked slightly more worn than the tomes on the adjacent shelves. The shelf was so full that there were even a few stacks of books on the floor in front of the shelf, and Amelia bent down to pick up the top book on a particularly tipsy looking pile. Although Amelia would usually question such organizational methods as haphazard piles, in the case of this bookshop, she made an exception.

“Bloody Jack,” Amelia read aloud from the cover, which was a slightly worn paperback with a watercolor drawing of a girl and an older man standing on the helm of a ship, “Sound like something you would be interested in?” Amelia inquired, extending the book toward Peter, who had followed behind her into the isle.

“It is, isn’t it?” Peter smiled and turned to see Amelia, who was smiling. His heart skipped slightly; he had found it to be a marvelous sight to see her smile, for she did it rarely and yet she always looked so nice when she did. He smiled back at her, immensely glad that she had shown him this bookshop and that he had decided to go flying that day...

She then looked as though it were time to get about to the business of tracking down some pirate books to fuel his odd little obsession. "You realize you are being an enabler?" he said, joking, as he followed her, his tone quieter though not exactly a whisper, the voice people who enjoyed books employed when in bookstores or libraries, as though not wanting to disturb the characters and the stories around them. It was true that his friends talked about pirates as though it were an addiction of his. If they had to say the word, they would often his 'you know... P-I-R-A-T-E as though he would not understand. Then again, he and his friends had always been jokesters.

They stopped in an aisle that had shelves packed full of books and books even scattered in piles on the ground. Peter's eyes widened and he said, "Wow." He squatted, reaching a hand out to grab one of the lower shelves to keep him from falling over while he tried to get his balance. He squinted and his eyes scanned the rows of titles.

Amelia read out one title and handed him a book. He too it from her and turned it over, rocking back and then sitting down, crossing his legs and reading the back of the book, finding the plot rather drawing. He turned it over and scoured the picture. The girl was staring at the man as though he were the coolest thing alive. The man exuded this strength and bravery, as though all he needed were himself, though he did not mind the girl. He looked at the girl again, thinking the man was the luckiest man alive and then vaguely, randomly wondered if that could ever be him and Amelia. Then he realized, it was. But the roles were flipped. She was the captain.

He was the girl.

He could not look at the picture now and he turned it over again, his brain laughing at his stupidity. He said, "It does sound interesting, I theenk. But I will keep looking, as well. I theenk I can buy two or three books."