A Wonderful Shop

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe was glad to have the distraction of going shopping today. Hogwarts was coming so close, but it still seemed like it was maddeningly far away. Her parents had noticed her bad mood and decided she was allowed to go out with them for a little while, as long as she behaved. And she had behaved, as much as Phoebe ever behaved, so she was allowed to go out on her own for a while while her parents and sisters enjoyed tea. It was a relief to be rid of her younger sisters for a moment, though she wished Rose was here. As much as she hated to admit it even to herself, she missed her older sister terribly. Her feelings about Rose shifted from anger to longing. Though she knew it wasn't fair to be angry at her sister for being born earlier and getting to school before her, she still felt it.

She wandered the streets, wondering what her older Rose was doing up at the castle right now. Probably learning fascinating things, spells and potions she would tell Phoebe about later but that Phoebe herself wouldn't learn for another whole year. It was so unfair, she knew she could learn these things even better and faster than Rose. It wasn't nice to think like that, but it was true in her mind that she was smarter than her older sister, even if she loved Rose to death.

Her attention was caught by an interesting looking shop she never paid much attention to. Now, she couldn't imagine how she had missed it before. The shop sign was the shape of a dragon and read "Vetrov & Brigham's Antiques & Curiosities", which alone was enough to make Phoebe curious. But what was behind the windows was even more intriguing. It was very bright and full looking with a few magical toys in front of the window that moved around as if played with by invisible children. Behind it, she could see a case with what looked like some sort of reptile inside it. Without another moment of hesitation, she stepped inside. If she couldn't impress Rose with her magic yet, she could at least make her jealous by owning something cool from this store that her sister didn't have.

 

[Bertie Brigham]

It was a shame, Bertie thought, that Mr. Vetrov should not be present in the shop that day, for the freshly-painted exterior had been attracting customers of every age and intention all morning. Of course, four customers was not many by the standards of Arcane Infinity, or perhaps the Crafty Gauntlet, but as far as Bertie was concerned he had been practically swept off his feet by morning's incursions. "I told Ermolai purple was the way to go, did I not?" he said to his son, Oswald, a touch of satisfaction in his voice. Hearing no response he stood up, curious as to why in nearly ten minutes of talking his son had not returned a single remark; and, seeing the boy's fingers poised over a small silver dagger, snapped, "Oswald! Must I tell you again to leave the displays alone? Merlin's beard, one of these days you will end up in St. Mungo's and I shall take none of the responsibility for it." Bertie checked his pocket watch, and with an air of reluctance addressed his son again. "You must mind the shop for me. Under absolutely no circumstances are you to touch that dagger. Understood? Good." With one last hesitant glance around the shop, Bertie ducked under the curtain divide and into the back room.

 

[Oswald Brigham]

Oswald had been fondly ignoring his father for the better part of an hour, offering 'Mm's and 'Yes Dad's where appropriate to satisfy him, until at last he had become so well absorbed in some romantic fantasy that he'd forgotten to reply in nearly ten minutes. His father's discourse now but a quiet a distant drone, he reached tentatively for the newest addition to the stock: a shiny, silver dagger, its hilt encrusted with glinting blue gems that may or may not have been genuine sapphires, but which, judging by the attached price, his father certainly hoped to claim in the affirmative. To Oswald, the dagger wasn't just a dagger - it was the fabled Dagger of the Seas, a powerful and mysterious artefact that would equip him with the power to slay giant sea-monsters and control the ocean's tide. His fingers were just millimetres away from glory when his father's severe reminder jerked him back into reality. He sighed, his shoulders falling. Back in the real world, he was just Oswald Brigham, the son of a lunatic who thought his shop was the talk of the village because he'd painted the outside of it purple.

"Yes, Dad," he said obediently, the glum curve of his shoulders disguising a happy glint in his eye. The moment his dad had disappeared into the back of the shop, Oswald sprung up at once, dashing across to an old coat stand and hauling a great velvet cloak from it. He wrapped this around his shoulders, a surplus of fabric trailing around on the dusty floor behind him, and retrieved a wooden bow and sheathe of arrows from an umbrella stand. If he couldn't touch the Dagger of the Seas, he would have to make do with ducking around cabinets and shooting at the stuffed animal heads that hung up and down the walls, and at the giant model dragons hanging from the ceiling. So engrossed in his game was he that when he emerged from behind a dresser, bow pulled taut and arrow aimed directly at the door, he nearly let the thing fly in surprise at seeing somebody stood inside it. Wide-eyed, he straightened up, lowering the arrow. "O-oh," he said. "Sorry. I nearly shot you."

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe hadn't been sure what exactly to expect when she walked into an odd shop like this one, but a boy in an old cloak with an arrow pointed at her wasn't it. She stared at him and then cocked her head when he apologized. "I can see that. " She said in reply to him before she glanced around the room, spotting a few arrows sticking out of odd places. "Is this a weapons shop? Is that why you are shooting things?" She gasped when a new possibility entered her mind. "Or are you trying to mug the shop? Because I don't think those arrows are the most efficient weapon for that. And I think you wouldn't be apologizing to people you nearly shot if you were." She added thoughtfully. She looked around again, a small frown on her face. There were so many different things inside this shop that she couldn't make sense of it. "This is a shop, isn't it? The sign outside said it was, but it doesn't look like any shopI know. Are you a customer? Are you buying the arrows and trying them out first? Why are you wearing that cloak? Isn't it way too big?" When Phoebe entered a new situation she always wanted to know everything at once, so the questions kept popping into her head and she kept asking them without giving him a chance to reply. "What's your name? How old are you? Not Hogwarts age, surely."

 

[Oswald Brigham]

Oswald tilted his head. "It's not a weapons shop," he said when at last the girl stopped talking, setting the bow and arrow down on a nearby crate. "It's an antique shop. Antiques and curiosities. Although... what a 'curiosity' is might be open for interpretation." He shrugged off his cloak and hung it up, moving over to a mahogany cabinet and pressing his finger up to the glass. On the shelf behind it there sat a skull, perched on top of a brass stand. "This, for instance. I mean, it's probably really old. But is it an antique, or a curiosity?" The shopkeeper's son shrugged and stepped back to give the girl a better look. He was really quite interested to hear her opinion; he'd been puzzling over it himself for weeks. "I'm Oswald Brigham. My dad runs the shop with his friend. What are you doing here?"

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe shrugged. "Well you were pointing a weapon at me, so it was understandable of me to conclude this shop would sell them. But I suppose they are a curiosity? Or are they antique arrows?" She followed the boy to the cabinet, curious what he would show her. A skull hadn't been what she expected, but it was pretty cool. Why would a shop sell a skull? "I don't know if body parts can be classified as antiques, really,and it's definitely making me curious. Maybe a very old curiosity? An antique curiosity even?" She grinned at him. "Can it be both?" She held out her hand to shake as he introduced himself. "I'm Phoebe Holland. So, why do you have a skull in this shop? Why sell it? Who would buy it? Who was it? I mean, did they agree to have their skull sold beforehand? Is a shop just allowed to sell any old skull? What uses does it have?" She paused, considering. "And how much does it cost?"

 

[Oswald Brigham]

Oswald considered Phoebe's point. "Yes, I suppose that probably was a reasonable assumption," he conceded. "The arrows are definitely curiosities. My dad bought them from a Muggle who was out hunting where he was looking for dragons." He said this very casually, as if dragon-hunting were as unexciting as reorganising a sock drawer. "But this skull simply has me flummoxed." Seeing Phoebe's hand extend toward him, Oswald shook it. "Pleasure to meet you." There wasn't much time to say anything else before Phoebe launched into another long string of questions, only half of which Oswald had the capacity to answer. "I don't know where it came from," he said. "Ermolai and my dad buy stuff from all over the world. I'm pretty sure it's just for decoration. And it's..." Oswald peered at the price label. "Wow - fifty galleons! It must have been someone really important." He stepped back from the cabinet again. "I bet they didn't agree anybody could sell their skull. I mean, would you?"

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe could see that her questions were a bit much for this boy, but she couldn't help herself. She had almost never been in a situation quite as interesting as this one. A skull, wow! She listened eagerly to his answers and sighed a bit when she heard how expensive it was. "Maybe its an enchanted skull, or the skull of a king or powerful wizard. You should ask your dad!" She smiled. "And then tell me."

About his question if she would sell their skull she had to think hard. "I don't think I'd give permission to sell it to just anyone, but if it was to do experiments on it to understand it better I would. Muggles do that, you know? They can donate their bodies to science after they die, how cool is that?!" She had tried to get her sisters to understand how awesome something like that was but Rose hadn't quite matched her enthusiasm. "I would do it if it was that. Though I'm not sure if a skull is the most useful part of the body for that."

"What else do you have in here?" She asked eagerly, looking around. "Anything that's less expensive than that skull but twice as cool? I want to show my sister when she's home from school."

 

[Oswald Brigham]

"I think you're right," said Oswald, a shiver of excitement riding up his spine at the thought that this might be some powerful wizard's skull. "I'll definitely ask him. And then I'll owl you!" Of course, he could have gone to the back of the shop and asked his dad right away, but then his time alone with this interesting girl would have been robbed from him, and he'd have had to suffer another lecture about not touching any of the displays. It wasn't as if they were hurting anybody.

The young boy listened to Phoebe, tilting his head. "Really?" He shuddered. "What would they want somebody's body for? Isn't it a bit useless once it's dead?" In comparison, wizards selling other people's skulls didn't seem so bad at all.

Oswald followed Phoebe's gaze around the shop, biting his lip. There were all sorts of treasures piled right up to the ceiling, but getting at them without knocking everything over could be a challenge. Suddenly he had an idea. "Oh! How about this?" He beckoned Phoebe over to another display case, behind the glass of which sat a small white salamander skeleton, resting in a miniature display case of its own. "It's a salamander. And it's only eight galleons - but I think you could get it for five."

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe was excited by the fact that this boy seemed just as curious about this skull as she was and that he agreed to ask his dad. She beamed. "Please owl me, I'd love to know." She assumed his dad must be out, though would he leave this young boy in charge of the shop? If so, Phoebe was a little jealous. Her parents would never let her do anything like this, they still treated her like she was a small child and couldn't do anything herself. Oswalds father must be very cool indeed, this entire store was proof of that.

It was a tad disappointing that this boy didn't seem to think that was cool either. Why did only Phoebe appreciate things like this? "Well, they can study it and see how the body works and learn from it. They don't have magic for healing so they have to figure out how to make people better without it." Phoebe had read all this in a book and it remained one of her favorite facts about muggles. She wanted to learn more about muggle science and how they did things, she never understood why other wizards seemed to dismiss muggle technology without thinking about it.

She followed Oswald, looking around at the amazing things in this store piled everywhere. "Do you live above the shop?" She asked, feeling a bit envious. This feeling disappeared when she laid eyes on the salamander skeleton in the display case and was replaced by awe. "Wow!" She didn't know why they had so many skeletons and bones here but she didn't mind, she wasn't scared of things like that. "For five? Really?" She grinned. "Wow! I've wanted a pet lizard for ages but my parents won't let me. But this they can't object against." A thought entered her head. "Maybe one day when I'm powerful in magic I can try to reanimate it in some way. Though I don't know if that's possible."

 

[Oswald Brigham]

Oswald loved to write, but rarely had anybody to write to, so he was thrilled when Phoebe replied eagerly to his suggestion. Besides, his dad's owl could have used a good reason to stretch her wings. She was beautiful, snowy kind, and seeing her stuck in her cage all day made Oswald feel sad.

"Oh," he said, giving fresh consideration to the muggle way of learning things. "That must be really hard. Not having magic, I mean. What do muggles do when they get a cold?" Having never lived beyond a magical community, Oswald knew very little of the muggle world, but he was curious to learn. He wondered briefly if Phoebe was muggle-born - perhaps that was how she knew so much about them, and why she had so many questions about the shop - but then concluded that she couldn't be, because she spoke of their kind as if they were some exotic species from another planet.

Oswald nodded casually. "Yeah. It's OK." Really, he envied the children who lived in normal houses with normal families, but he wasn't in much of a position to complain. He smiled. "I think so. My dad drives a hard bargain, but he's had that salamander for ages." He frowned, thinking about Phoebe's next comment. "Why won't they let you get a lizard?" he asked, looking at her. "My dad has lots of lizards. They're not that hard to look after." Animating a skeleton sounded like a lot of fun. Oswald grinned. "Anything is possible if you want it hard enough."

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe hadn't considered what muggles might do if they get a cold. "No clue, I'll see if I can find out! Then I have something to write you about too!" Phoebe liked to go to the library and read books about random information. Though she often skimmed large parts of them, books didn't tend to hold her attention for very long. "Rose, my sister, she wrote that muggle studies isn't something you learn until third year and only if you pick it but I think I will." She said, smiling. "Are you going to go to Hogwarts too?" She assumed so, but maybe he wasn't? It would be nice to know someone there when the time came.

She sighed when he asked why she couldn't have a lizard. "They think I'm not "responsible" enough." She said, making air quotes with her hands. "But I think its really that if I get a pet, all my sisters will want one too and then they have four animals running around and they don't want to deal with it." She wasn't sure if that was the whole reason, but it was probably something like that.

 

[Oswald Brigham]

"Awesome!" said Oswald, now thoroughly looking forward to talking to his dad. He didn't often like to ask him questions about the stock - he didn't always get the answer he was hoping for - but now that he knew he would be exchanging information with Phoebe, he knew he wouldn't even hesitate to pester him the moment she left. "You can study muggles?" he said. "Cool! I've never met a muggle before. Have you?" Oswald nodded. "Yep. I'm starting in September. Are we going to be in the same year?" He hoped so; he only knew one other person who was going to Hogwarts that year, which was mostly because he only had one friend.

"Eugh," he said, rolling his eyes when Phoebe told him about her parents' opinion on getting a lizard. Three sisters! That must have been a lot of fun. Oswald had Ermie, but whilst they'd grown up together, he wasn't a real brother. "Wow. What's it like having so many sisters?" he asked, heading over to the counter and ducking beneath the hatch. From a drawer behind it he took a ring of keys, being careful not to jingle them and alert his father. He brought these back to the display case and began trying each one in turn, sure he'd find the correct fit eventually.

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe nodded eagerly when he asked about Hogwarts, she was always eager to show off how much she knew. "I've met loads, I go to the muggle shops with my mother sometimes. But I can't really ask them anything interesting because they have to think I'm a muggle too. It's so annoying. But yes! It's a class in Hogwarts." She smiled. "I'm finally starting in September too! I can't wait." She grinned. "Do you know what House you want to be in? I don't really mind. My sister Rose says Gryffindor is the best but she is obviously biased. I really can't wait to see what we'll learn."

It was nice to see Oswald agreeing that her parents were being ridiculous about the lizard thing, and his fascination with her sisters made her smile. "It's alright, most of the time. I'm the second oldest, my older sister Rose is at Hogwarts right now, but we're only a year apart so its almost like we're the same age." She shrugged. "Diana and Alice are younger, though not that much. Still, they aren't allowed to go out on their own yet." Her chest puffed up a bit with pride, she was glad to have that privilege now. Being the oldest at home now did have some upsides, but she still would have preferred to be at Hogwarts with Rose. She watched curiously as Oswald tried all the keys on the case, she wondered why he didn't seem to know which one it was but then again, it must be hard to remember with all these cases around. "Do you have siblings?" She asked as he worked on opening the case.