Saturday evening, 7:23 PM
Ravenclaw Tower, Common Room
Ezra Lien
“Where are we going?” Ezra asks mildly.
“Secret,“ Alex says simply.
"Rude,” Ezra signs, but obligingly takes the broomstick her friend offers her.
They fly in silence out of one of Ravenclaw Tower’s many, many windows, Ezra assumes to avoid running into any prefects on the way out of the castle. When they land on the Quidditch field, several others appear out of the darkness.
Ezra doesn’t recognize most of them, as they are primarily upper years, and mostly from other Houses.
“Everyone here already?” Alex whispers.
Someone shakes his (her? it’s difficult to see in the murky darkness) head.
“Who’s missing?” Alex hisses, sounding both impatient and vaguely impressed.
“Who dares be later than Alex?” Ezra adds dryly, under her breath.
The person shrugs. Ezra thinks she might have seen them in Ravenclaw Tower several times in passing, but doesn’t recognise them. "Dunno,“ they whisper, "but we were expecting around dozen and you two make ten and eleven.”
As if on cue, someone spirals out of the air, lands, and staggers. “Sorry, sorry!” the straggler apologizes, loudly, to shooshing hisses from everyone around them.
“That’s everyone, let’s go,” the upperclassman from Ravenclaw whispers shortly, ignoring the now whispered apologies.
Ezra clambers back into the air aboard her borrowed broomstick. “You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” she says to Alex over the whistling wind.
“You’ll see,” Alex whisper-shouts back.
When they fly past Hogsmeade, Ezra allows herself to drop, kicking Alex lightly in the back. She pays for her action by tumbling a little, yelping as she struggles to right herself over Alex’s indignant shout: “Bugger, what was that for?”
“Never said we were going off the grounds, twat,” Ezra pants back, narrowly dodging around the straggler and pulling up behind and under Alex.
“Oh, there’s a Muggle town that we go to,” the straggler fills in helpfully. “This your first trip?”
Ezra’s eyebrows shoot to her hairline. “What.”
Alex spares a disdainful look at the straggler. “And that’s why it was a secret,” she sighs mournfully.
“Alex,” Ezra warns, or whines.
“Look, mate, I decided it was well past time to treat you to some Muggle culture.” Alex offers a wolfish grin as she looks over her shoulder back at Ezra. “We’re going to the movies.”
Ezra frowns, processing. “Those hours-long portraits?” she finally asks, skeptically.
“They’re not portraits,” Alex explains, sounding slightly exasperated. “They are so much better than portraits! They’ve got plot and characters and everything!”
“What, like a book?” Ezra asks flatly.
Alex sighs, loud and long. “Like a cross between a portrait and a book, I suppose,” she allows. “Ooh, we’re almost there, look!”
Ezra squints. “Those lights?” she asks.
“Yup,” Alex hums, sounding pleased. “Aaaand, yes, we’re descending. Keep up!”
The twelve of them take about twenty minutes to trek to the town after stowing their broomsticks in a shed near where they land. Ezra takes the time to check her watch. (Just past 8.) Most of the stores in the town are still open, and they peel off in threes and fours.
“Dark Owl Records” denotes the store in which four of the others wander into. When Ezra peers through the windows curiously, she sees rows upon rows of little plastic cases.
“CDs,” Alex whispers. “Fit into Muggle radios and play music. That lot likes to browse the movie and telly section, as well. The clerk recognizes them, too.”
“Mooveys? Like the thing we’re seeing?” Ezra asks.
“Portable movies. We’re going to the theatre, in a bit, after we regroup, the showing’s not til, oh, half past. Here, let’s grab some snacks.”
Ezra follows Alex into a brightly and unnaturally lit corner shop. “That is not candlelight,” she states, blinking and squinting up at the fluorescent lights of the convenience store.
“No, it is not,” Alex agrees, sounding amused. She picks up a bag of crisps and tosses it at Ezra in the same motion.
Ezra juggles the bag for a moment, nearly dropping it before essentially crushing it against her hip to keep it from falling. “McCoy’s?” she reads off the bag.
“Salted,” Alex elaborates cheerfully. “Figure your first taste of Muggle food should be a classic and an original.” She shakes her head pityingly. “Still don’t understand how you’re so sheltered that you’ve never had McCoy’s.”
“Oy, Happy Turn rice crackers are Muggle and delicious,” Ezra objects.
“And Japanese.” Alex pauses in the middle of removing two temporary coffee cups from a stack. “Why Japanese?”
“Of course he did,” Alex mutters, sticking one of the empty coffee cups under the faucet of a hot chocolate dispenser and punching the button. “Take,” she says after a moment, carefully offering the filled cup to Ezra, who takes it gingerly. “Don’t start drinking it until we pay,” she adds.
Ezra makes a face. “It’s too hot to drink right away anyway.”
“Weakling,” Alex scoffs, eyes fixed on the filling second cup.
“It’s quarter past, we should get to that moovey,” Ezra tells Alex, ignoring the jab, her head twisted to the side to peer at the face of her watch.
“Right,” Alex says, releasing the button on the contraption spewing liquid into her cup. Hot chocolate continues to sputter for a moment even as Alex shepherds Ezra to the counter and pays with Muggle money while Ezra does her best not to seem overly fascinated with the strange currency.
Moments later, they are back out in the chilly October night, plastic bag with the plastic bag full of crisps dangling noisily from Alex’s wrist as they both cradle their drinks.
“It occurs to me that we’re missing dinner for this,” Ezra observes belatedly.
“There’s an excellent 24-hour diner that this lot goes to traditionally after the movie of the night,” Alex explains. “‘Sides, we’ve got the crisps.”
“Crisps do not make a meal,” Ezra says, exasperated. She sniffs at her hot chocolate suspiciously. “Also, what did this come out of.”
Alex rolls her eyes. “It’s perfectly safe,” she says indulgently. “Come on, the theatre is an outdoor one, and if I remember right the regulars set up a lovely heated space on the grass.”
She remembered right, of course.
Ezra tries to remain skeptical through the movie and fails spectacularly.
“I need to watch that again,” she whispers softly halfway through dinner, having been stunned into silence.
“Don’t we all!” Alex exclaims, to general consensus.
“I don’t even know what inception means,” Ezra whispers again, absently toying with a bit of omelet on her plate.
Alex snorts. “I’m surprised you remember the name,” she comments, before stuffing a forkful of her own meal into her mouth.
“You lot have said it enough,” Ezra retorts, lamely. She finally takes a bite of her meal. “Oh, this is good,” she says blankly, staring down at the plate.
“There’s a reason we come here,” the Gryffindor sitting across from Ezra explains, grinning across the table at her.
“I don’t think I can finish,” Ezra says sadly.
“That’s what to-go boxes are for,” the Ravenclaw from before says serenely from the other side of Alex and around a mouthful of pancake.
