Closed Getting in the Christmas Spirit

[Victoria de Lacey]

Though Christmas was still over a month away, Tori had plans. She had gifts to get for her friends and she hadn't been able to get what she wanted over the break. Now she had more of an idea and honestly she'd wanted to see what the dynamics were for everything before she considered getting them something, not that she wanted to make sure they were still friends, but she wanted to make sure they still liked the same things. She would have hated to get them something outdated. "Have you got any ideas Soos? I know what I'm getting everyone and I already have your gift stashed away so you can't peek when we're here." She said, giggling lightly at her friend. She liked Susie, she'd liked her since they met on the train, but she didn't get to spend as much time with her as she liked. "I think I'll get a star map for Lili." She had already decided on a name for her, maybe she could reveal it with the star map for Christmas? She was still trying to think of what to get Jasper, but she'd think of something, she was sure.

@Susie Lagowski​

 

[Susie Lagowski]

Susie still felt like she was floating on a cloud as she strolled into Brightstone village, one pocket full of sickles and the other stuffed with her fist. If she didn't keep her hands contained, they were bound to start flying around when she talked, and the last thing she wanted to do was frighten Tori off with her keenness. Play it cool. She invited you, right? She wants to hang out. Susie knew this, logically, and yet she couldn't quieten the little voice of doubt - the voice that said Tori was only tolerating her, and Susie was one wrong move away from blowing their whole friendship. Her solution so far had been to let Tori do most of the talking, which had also allowed Susie to enjoy the giddy feeling she got when she was around her, but she feared if she kept it up much longer, Tori was going to ask why she was so quiet.

"You got something for me?" Susie said, fluttering back to her senses. "Aw, Tori. You're so nice. I actually got something for you, too, but... it's kinda small. My aunt used to give me pocket money, but nowadays, I have to do chores for it, and I got kinda lazy. Oh, and I still have to get something for my little brothers and sister." She walked along the narrow stone kerb like a tight-rope as she said this, holding her arms out for balance. "A star map? That's so cool. Can I be there when she opens it?" She hopped down onto the street. "I'm gonna buy some sweets, and then split them up, and put them in these test tubes I found, with little corks in. Do you think that's a good idea?" It wasn't much, but it was pretty much all she could afford.

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

"Of course I got you something, you're one of the first friends I made at Hogwarts!" She wasn't the oldest friend, because that title belonged to Nox and Lumos, but she was the oldest that she hadn't known before Hogwarts and maybe it wasn't saying much since it had only been a little over a year, but that was important for Tori, it meant something to her even if it didn't mean much to other people. "I think that whatever you do for people will be amazing and they're gonna love it, I know I definitely will, and I hope you like what I got you too." She said, before moving to copy Susie but tightroping the side of the path. "I like Brightstone because there's so many options, you know, and we can sort of just walk around and get what we want, we don't have to be back for aaaaages." She listened as Susie said what she was going to do for presents and she nodded. "I think that's really sweet, who doesn't like sweets right?" She was always good for snacks, Tori had noticed, so if she was ever stressed out and needed something to chew on, she always knew who she could go to, honestly Susie should set up a shop, she wasn't sure where her friend got them all.​

 

[Susie Lagowski]

"Aw. Honestly, for a while, I didn't even know if you liked me," Susie admitted. "I can be kind of annoying. But I'm working on it." The whole thinking-before-speaking thing was hard work, but she was determined to master it. Maybe then someone would finally want her to be their best friend, instead of the person they went to when everybody else was busy.

"Are you kidding? It's a gift from you. Whatever it is, it's gonna be awesome, and I'm gonna treasure it forever. Unless it's food. I mean, that would still be awesome, but I probably won't treasure it for very long, cus, you know, it'd be rude to let it go stale." She grinned, hopping over a crack in the path. There was a faint tinkle as several sickles jumped out of her pocket, but she was too distracted to notice. "Yeah! We can stay here for hours. We should get some candy for us, too. What's your favourite? I like Winegums. I used to like Bertie Bott's, but then I got a brussel sprout flavoured one, and I started choking and coughed so hard it came out of my nose."

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

"What?" Tori almost ran into Susie she was so shocked. "Why did you think that? You didn't think it anymore right? I'm sorry, that's not true at all, I promise, if I didn't like you I would tell you," she didn't know what she had done that would make Susie think that was the case, but it definitely wasn't true, she really liked Susie and she felt that she was a good friend. Was it because they hadn't spent much time together lately? That was why she'd decided to bring Susie with her today, she didn't like that she hadn't spent much time with her friend, but between all the friends she had being in different houses and the stuff with Professor Zumwalt and Jasper, she did't have a lot of time for much anymore. Not to mention Heta Omega and SDA. She clearly needed to pay more attention to Susie in that case. "And I don't really think you're annoying, and if someone tells you that I'm gonna hit'em." Tori couldn't stand bullies.

"No, it's not food although now I'm thinking I should get you something edible to go with it as well, otherwise you might be disappointed." She'd got her thinking about it now and she started to wonder if Susie's idea of the lollies wasn't a bad one at all, but maybe a smart one. Instant gratification and all that. She was about to warn her friend that all of her sickles were bouncing out of her pocket, when she looked down and noticed that they'd fallen in a drain along the ground. Oh no, how much money did Susie have left? She quickly bent down pulling her wand out of her pocket. "Soos, you're dropping your sickles everywhere!" She said, pointing her wand at the drain. "Accio sickles!"​

 

[Susie Lagowski]

"Well... maybe a little," Susie said. "I don't know. I always feel like people like me, but they don't really like me. It's hard to explain. Do you ever get that?" She probably just sounded like a loser, but she trusted Tori not to judge her. Tori seemed pretty trustworthy. Although the idea of her hitting somebody did make Susie laugh. "Nah. No-one's said it for ages. At my last school, they said it a lot. I just ignored them." Except that she hadn't ignored them, not really, because it was still bothering her now, two years later. She'd always banked on her sense of humour making up for all the annoying things about her, but as she'd got older, she'd started to worry she wasn't even funny either. Her jokes were silly and childish and she always picked the wrong moments to goof around. Growing up was so complicated.

"No! You don't have to get me anything else. Trust me, I won't be disappointed," Susie said quickly. She couldn't afford to get Tori a second present, and she was already going to feel terrible if the Gryffindor had spent more than a few sickles on her. Speaking of which...

"Oh, shoot." How many had she lost? That was her friends' Christmas presents rolling down the drain! She scrabbled to gather up as many coins as she could. But it was Tori's quick thinking that saved most of them. "Oh my gosh. Thank you. You seriously just saved my life. Are they all gross? Hey, it's OK - I can wipe them on the grass."

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori nodded, she understood a bit of what Susie was saying since she was constantly sure she had to fight for people to like her, or for people to even just realise she existed sometimes, but she didn’t want to be that vulnerable right now, not here. She hadn’t really ever told anyone about her home life, and she didn’t want it to be the topic of conversation now. “I’m glad you ignored them, because I definitely don’t think it’s true. I think everyone gets annoyed at things sometimes, but I don’t think I could ever find you annoyed, even if sometimes I get annoyed in general,” she said, because honestly there were some times when the whole world was annoying, and she knew she had a tendency to take that stuff out on her friends. Though she really endeavoured not to do so. “I’ll punch someone if they call you annoying again, so you just come and tell me,” she couldn’t quite tell if she was serious about that to be honest.

“Okay, I hope you like what I have for you then, I’m really excited about it,” she knew she was going to have to get her some chocolates now though, because she did like Susie a lot. “Do you know the spell, the cleaning one? No you wouldn’t yet because we haven’t learned it yet,” she was pretty sure she’d seen it on the list of spells they would be learning next semester, so it was a real damn shame that it wasn’t second semester yet or she might have been able to clean off these coins so much easier. “I don’t think they’re too bad thankfully, they should be pretty good, all the ick just kind of slides right off anyway,”​