Enter in Anticipation

[Veronica Willows]

Veronica peered nervously out of the fireplace, both excited and nervous to take the first step into Phoebe's home. She'd been to friend's houses before, but Phoebe was different. If Veronica really thought about it, she was sure Phoebe was the best friend she'd ever had and she really hoped today would be a wonderful day for both of them. Caught up in thinking all of this, Veronica might have stayed in the grate longer, only she suddenly had the alarming thought that she might catch her clothes on fire as the Floo powder ran out, and so stepped hurriedly onto the hearth. She had a small bag with her, slung across her chest, and Veronica gripped at the strap, hoping that she wasn't too late or too early. She'd never Flooed on her own before, and she wasn't sure if there were differences in the travelling time between fireplaces - she had just been in Auckland after all, and now she was all the way down in Queenstown. Perhaps what had felt like seconds had taken minutes. Veronica began to become lost in thought. There would be a way to test something like that, surely.

 

[Diana Hollis]

Diana was on her way to the kitchen when she noticed the girl. There were lots of girls in the house right now, even more than normal, but she didn't recognize this one. She tilted her head and then remembered Phoebe had a friend coming over. Diana had teased her for only inviting one friend after Rose had so many over last holiday, and then Phoebe had told her she would have no friends when she went to school. She scowled, Phoebe could be such a jerk.

This girl clearly didn't know that yet, though. Diana would do her a favor. She smiled innocently as she headed over. "Hi! You're Phoebe's friend, right? She must have forgotten to tell you but she's out today, she was going to reschedule this visit you know but she's sooo scatterbrained sometimes and--"

 

[Rose Holland]

Rose knew the moment she heard Diana's sweet and innocent voice that the girl was up to no good. It was the voice she only used when she was lying or trying to get her way. She cleared her throat as she came up behind the girl and ruffled her hair as she cut her off. "Nah, silly, did you get the days mixed up?" She laughed, giving Diana a plausible reason that wasn't silly revenge on Phoebe. "Hi Veronica, I'm Rose. I think I've seen you around at school before. Phoebe's in her room I think. I could show you to her room? I think she lost track of time working on something."

 

[Veronica Willows]

Distracted by thinking through the mechanics of the Floo system, Veronica was caught off-guard by the voice that addressed her and she looked up from her shoes to blink at a younger-looking girl. Phoebe had mentioned that she had quite a few sisters, and Veronica supposed that this was one of them. She had just opened her mouth to introduce herself, when the girl gave her a sweet little smile... and the worst news of her life. Well, it certainly felt like it anyway. Phoebe wasn't even here? And Veronica had just wandered into the house, completely unexpected! She could feel herself going bright red as she stumbled over her words. "Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't - I mean, I thought - I -" Whatever it was she had been trying to say never made it to a full sentence, however, as she was soon interrupted by the arrival of someone else. Veronica had been vaguely aware of Rose at school, and hearing the older girl confirm that the she had actually arrived on the right day made her sigh with relief. "Thank you, that would be - thank you," she said, smiling at Rose gratefully. The older girl seemed nice, but Veronica would feel much more comfortable once she had found Phoebe.

 

[Rose Holland]

Rose could see Diana was disappointed that her little plan hadn't worked but the younger girl just shrugged and walked off. Rose would have a talk with her later. She could see the girl was shaken by the little prank and she felt for her. "It's okay." She told her with a bright smile. "Phoebe has been very excited for you to visit, she hasn't talked about much else lately." She walked with Veronica to Phoebe's room, showing her the way. "She's right in here." She smiled. "That's where you'll be sleeping too!"

She knocked on Phoebe's door. "PHEEBS! Your friend's here!" She shouted.

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe was bent over her notebook, writing down all the ideas she had for things she wanted to do with Veronica. The most important one was try to make a potion, but she knew that her parents would nip that in the bud. Instead she had a bunch of ideas for exploring outside, trying to build things, maybe practice second year spells in secret (even if they weren't technically allowed to use magic over the holidays), or some sort of prank to pull on her sisters. She had been brainstorming all morning, and her face and hands were covered in ink splotches.

She frowned in frustration when Rose's loud voice pulled her out of her concentration. She turned her head to the door, ready to snap at her when her words registered. Veronica was here? Already? A glance at the clock told her that it was way later than she thought it was. Nearly knocking over her chair, she rushed to the door and opened it. "Veronica!" She said in delight. "Oh I'm sorry! I forgot the time." She glanced at Rose. "Thanks." She told her sister before gesturing for Veronica to join her in her room.

 

[Veronica Willows]

Veronica smiled as Rose told her that Phoebe had been looking forward to seeing her. She had been excited for this day ever since she and Phoebe had first planned it, and it was nice to know that her friend was just as excited as she was. It was one of the things Veronica liked most about her - she never felt like she was wasting Phoebe's time with her brainstorming and general chatter, like she sometimes did when talking to other people. Following Rose, Veronica bounced a little as she walked, casting curious glances around the home in which her friend had grown up. Questions formed on the tip of her tongue, but she managed to keep them in check, wanting to wait to ask Phoebe instead of her sister. Thankfully it wasn't long until they reached her friend's room, so Veronica actually managed to still remember half of the questions - and her initially small and nervous smile widened at the enthusiasm of Phoebe's greeting. "No, it's fine, really!" she assured her friend. Prompted by Phoebe's thanks, Veronica turned to bob her head at Rose. "Thank you!" she echoed, before stepping into Phoebe's room. She spent a few seconds looking around, taking in all the nooks and crannies and interesting things that were in sight before she turned to beam at her friend. "I did bring a few things in my bag, but I didn't really know what we would be doing, so hopefully they're not the wrong things..." Although Veronica wouldn't mind too much if they were - today was going to be wonderful no matter what they did.

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe honestly felt bad for forgetting her friend, even for a moment. Veronica must have been expecting her and had gotten Rose instead. Not that Rose was all that bad, but still... She glanced around at her room, wondering what it would look like to Veronica who was there for the very first time. She watched her take it in, hoping she was impressed by it even if it wasn't that big. She had worked hard to make it her own, putting up copies of illustrations from books she found interesting and hanging a few models of magical creatures from the ceiling. A big rusty cauldron was took up most of the space next between her desk and the wall, she used it to store some of her books and other oddities, it was way past its days of being useful for potions but Phoebe had wanted to use it in some way. Crumpled up pieces of parchment and paper littered the floor, and there were pens and pencils on every surface as Phoebe often had ideas in the middle of whatever she was doing that she needed to write down now.

"I hope Rose didn't bother you with some boring story about what she and her friends get up to at Hogwarts." Phoebe said with a shrug. Truthfully, she was grateful Rose had intercepted Veronica instead of Diana. She and Phoebe were having a fight, as usual, and Diana would probably not be very nice to her friend. "I had something cool planned but my cousin ruined it." She said with a sigh. "She caught me as I was testing it. I was thinking we could see how different potions ingredients react when in direct contact with a flame, instead of being heated indirectly in a potion. I was just using a candle to burn small amounts of some things my dad had lying around but Grace just had to come in and ruin it. She said it was dangerous, as if those ingredients aren't heated in the most common potions without explosions happening all the time." She scoffed, barely pausing before she continued with her rant. "I only got to do a few, but didn't see any reactions I found too interesting yet, the crushed up beetle eyes I was sprinkling in the flame seemed for a moment to spark green but that was when she came in and took my candle away." She took a breath. "I'm lucky you were still allowed to come over since they got pretty mad, but I'm not allowed candles in my room anymore." She glanced curiously at Veronica's bag. " What sort of things did you bring? I bet we can do something awesome with them, you always have the coolest things. Is it something you made?" She was eager to see it, hoping it was something Veronica built. Phoebe was always more of an idea person, and liked to conduct odd experiments she came up with, but the more technical of the two was definitely Veronica. The way she built things from scraps and gears made Phoebe a little jealous, but she mostly admired it and wanted to learn from her friend.

 

[Veronica Willows]

Veronica smiled and shook her head. "No, she didn't - Rose is nice." Veronica didn't have any sisters, so she thought Phoebe was lucky to have so many. Brothers were a completely different story - her own were very noisy and messy, and she was glad to be able to get some peace away from them for the day. She listened to Phoebe's description of her experiment with enraptured surprise, both shocked that Phoebe would have dared to try such a thing and yet not at all surprised that her friend had done so. Phoebe was much braver than Veronica would ever be, a fact that had already become quite apparent the more she got to know the other girl. Veronica admired her for it, though - she certainly never would have thought of such an experiment. "I'm sorry you weren't able to find anything out," she said as Phoebe finished her tale. Even without being treated to her friend's outburst about it, Veronica knew how frustrated she must be - although she couldn't quite bring herself to disagree with the cousin's objection herself, however traitorous it felt to think that in Phoebe's presence.

Therefore it was with relief that Phoebe changed the subject to ask about the contents of her bag. "Um, I brought some of those clockwork cars I made my brothers that I told you about, and... some gears, some string... a jar of screws, a measuring tape, um... I have wire, and a new, um... well I don't have a name for it yet, but a thing that..." Veronica broke off as she rummaged around her bag for the latest invention she had come up with. Pulling out a clunky machine on wheels with a flat top, she held it out on her palms for Phoebe's inspection. "It's supposed to carry things and move along the workbench with you - I want to make it able to follow you through the air as well, if you need it to, but the easiest way to do that is a levitation charm, of course, and it would need to be a suspended one - except we can't do magic, and I don't think I'm good enough to give it that much power yet either." Breaking off from her rambling, Veronica looked up to see Phoebe's reaction. "We're going to have to get really good at magic if we want to make it work."

 

[Phoebe Holland]

Phoebe was glad to hear Veronica liked Rose. As much as Phoebe liked to complain about her older sister, she was definitely the sister Phoebe felt closest to. She was starting to feel bad and a bit silly for being so distant during the past year, but before going to Hogwarts herself it had felt like a life and death sort of situation. She knew that Rose couldn't really help going a year earlier, but it had still stung a lot. And Phoebe wasn't good at letting things go. Veronica didn't say much about her experiment, and Phoebe sighed. It really was a failure, but she may have to recreate the idea once she was at Hogwarts. The castle had a lot of candles, after all.

She eagerly looked into Veronica's bag as the girl rummaged into it, grinning as she listed off everything she brought. "That's awesome." She said, looking at the new machine she had made with amazement. "I really don't know how you do it, Veronica. Does it work on flat surfaces already? Is it just the levitation spell you need? Or is there more?" That spell was a favorite of Phoebe's, though she wasn't quite sure how to use it in the way Veronica would need for this. She laughed away Veronica's concerns about their magic skills. "Please, that's not even up for debate." She said, grinning at her and nudging her. "You've seen how we did in Charms last year, both of us! Compared to some of the others, we're already geniuses. That will only become more obvious as we learn more. Believe me." There was no doubt in her voice, as she was extremely confident about her abilities in this subject.