Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, Diagon Alley
11.47 AM, December 10, 1981
@prodigious--skill
"Over there — Welsh Green.”
“Chinese Fireball,” Charlie disagreed, craning precariously around Gideon’s head for a better look at the back of a heavily balding head that was swiftly escaping into the crowds. “Look at the fringe,” a meagre hairline the man had attempted to comb back over his bald spot but had been blown into disarray by the wind, “Come on, he’s getting away.”
Charlie was getting too big for this. While he’d yet to sprout upwards like his more gangly brother, he was a solid creature, built like a wrecking ball and containing more enthusiasm than anything Gideon had encountered that didn’t come in a set of two. Still, he wasn’t nine yet and the best vantage point for their current game remained atop Gideon’s shoulders, towering over the veritable sea of Christmas shoppers the alley had to offer.
The distinct shade of scarlet rising up the back of the man’s neck suggested there was a reason their prey was in such a hurry, but Gideon loped after him regardless, listening intently as Charlie rattled off a list of distinguishing traits. “—Mostly pigs and— left, Uncle Gid, he went to the—”
The howling of cats from the Menagerie started up the moment they rounded the bend in pursuit, dutifully ignored in favour of the sudden slamming of Gideon’s heartbeat in his ears. The question of why they had stopped lingered, Gideon’s eyes caught on a familiar profile seated outside of Fortescue’s despite the seasonal cold, as if she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy even the warmth the indoors provided with any of the riffraff who might stumble inside. “Uncle Gid why are we—”
“Hebridean Black,” he offered, loudly as veered off course in a beeline for the table perched beneath the eves of the shop because you may not be able to lead a Black to riffraff but the riffraff could descend upon them, determination squaring his shoulders as he blatantly ignored the whisper of, terrible idea at the back of his head. An unspoken agreement not to cross paths was being violated here, but the chair opposite hers was already scraping across cobblestones, his lips curled in a wild and not overly friendly smile as Charlie offered a blunt correction of, “Hungarian Horntail,” from his precarious position on Gideon’s shoulders, staring curiously down at the stranger with wide admiring eyes from the higher ground.
Anything worth doing started as a terrible idea.
Gideon dropped unceremoniously into the chair, Charlie wobbling with the shift in balance and scrambling to clamber down off Gideon’s back as he reached over to hook a finger to the edge of Bellatrix’s bowl and drag it into the centre of the table, glancing up to make eye contact for a moment before conceding, “Probably a Horntail,” and wrinkling his nose. Snagging a wafer out of the ice cream and unceremoniously digging it into the slowly melting ice cream with great concentration and the scandalised question of, “Is this vanilla?” drawing a slow, judgemental look from the eight year old looming over his shoulder.
