Here's to a New Life

[Killian Cox]

It was nothing like Killian had ever seen before. To the left and right quaint little shops stretched away into the distance, their wonky roofs illuminated by the crisp autumn sunlight. Glinting shop windows boasted extravagant displays of polished brass instruments, glass phials, and ornate, leather bound books - most of which were set on plump satin pillows. Witches and wizards dressed in thick velvet cloaks shuffled along the narrow, cobbled street, occasionally throwing Killian dirty looks for being out of school. They needn't have used the energy it took them to frown; the young, curly haired boy was feeling equally as crestfallen at having to spend the remainder of his year outside of Hogwarts. Five months. That was how long Killian had to wait until the start of term, and he'd been counting off the days since his dad had finally agreed to let him go. He could have punched the air with excitement, but he didn't, because he still wasn't guaranteed a place in New Zealand's wizarding school. Merlin, he sure hoped he got in.

Rounding the corner (and carefully dodging another daggers look from an old wizard in a bright green cloak), the hopeful student swung his head this way and that in the hopes of finding the shop he was looking for. It was strange, not having Julian there to look after him, but the stubborn wizard had insisted he had more important matters to attend to. "More important than making sure your fourteen year old brother doesn't get kidnapped by one of these weirdos, huh?" muttered Killian under his breath, suddenly realising he'd reached the end of the street. What the? Where was Madam Malkin's? Bewildered, he pulled the slightly crumpled map from his trouser pocket, flicked a small piece of banana off it, and opened it up. Apparently, he'd already strolled right past it three times, but Killian hadn't seen so much as a hint of a swinging sign. He sighed and shoved the useless piece of parchment back in his pocket. It was no good; he was going to have to ask someone for directions. With an air of reluctance, he approached the back of a wizard of similar height and cleared his throat. "'Scuse me, do you know where Madam Malkin's is please?"

 

[Alexander Fontaine]

Alexander Carter walked through the dusty streets of Brightstone Village. It was a quaint place, but a nice place; he genuinely felt at home here and that was nice. His parents had been less then accommodating him for basically his entire life, and it wasn't really something that he generally enjoyed about them because they always made him feel bad about wanting or even needing things from them. He had had to take care of himself for the solid part of around 8-9 years of his life, and he couldn't wait to finally get away and attend Hogwarts and maybe finally find some people who were like him and could relate to him; it would be nice to genuinely be somewhere that he belonged, because home wasn't that for him anymore. He didn't even like calling it home.

Today he had come to get an early start on his school supplies, and to get away from his troubles for an hour or two, it would be a lot nicer then sitting at home moping. He turned around when somebody asked him something, he seemed to be his own height. He glanced around, spotting Madam Malkin's straight away. He gestured in the direction of it and smiled. "It's just over there, but I'm heading there myself anyway, did you want to come with me?" Alex asked, noting that the young boy seemed nice enough, and best of all; he was his age! Maybe it would be a nice day after all?

 

[Killian Cox]

Killian's blue eyes blinked rapidly. He had not been expecting such an obliging response, and as a result he looked distinctly perturbed. The boy before him, who, if looks were not deceiving, could have been no older than himself, wore a friendly smile that looked almost out of place amongst the assemblage of frowning wizards. Killian didn't mind, though; in fact he could hardly believe his luck, and for the boy's kindness he responded with a smile of gratitude and relief. Now this was the sort of wizard he had endeavoured to meet; kind, and amicable. Nothing like the rabble he was expected to accommodate at home (and he was undoubtedly including his brother in that). He was so pleased to have bumped into a friendly soul that he did not even stop to feel embarrassed about his terrible navigational skills before saying, "Really? Cool, thanks!"

They had just begun heading toward Madam Malkin's when a thought struck him. "How come you're not at school?" he asked, and any rudeness in his tone was unintentional. One of the many inconveniences that came with living with such vile and callous men (he used that word loosely; pigs would have been more suiting) was that he was liable to slip into their obnoxious manner of speaking. On the occasion that he did, however, he would quickly try to rectify his tone - as far as he was concerned, the habit couldn't have been stamped out of him fast enough if it had been trampled upon by a herd of enraged elephants.

 

[Alexander Fontaine]

Alex held back a chuckle; he felt he had a fair few similarities with this boy, he felt taken aback, if not surprised with the kindness that he had offered towards him, and that was something that Alex had suffered with for a long time now; nobody seemed kind at a glance to him because he was so used to everyone in his life being hurtful and mean. He smiled as he accepted his offer, and started walking towards Madam Malkins', he frowned a little bit when he aimed his next question towards him; he wasn't sure how to proceed with answering this question. He sighed a little bit. "I wasn't allowed until now, and I'm pretty sure they're still not happy with me going. I've been home schooled until now, but it wasn-" Alex tripped, landing flat on his face.

Just great, I should have known something would happen eventually.. Alex thought to himself, getting back up and wiping the dust off of him and quickly checking for any signs of bleeding; his nose felt a little weird to him. He sighed, and looked back over to the boy, managing a quick smile. "Sorry about that, it happens a lot.." He said, feeling his cheeks redden a small bit. "Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah.. the home schooling wasn't really going well because both of my parents aren't as smart as they think they are so I finally managed to convince them to let me go to Hogwarts." Alex said, with a smile. He gestured in the direction of Madam Malkins', wanting to forget about that quickly.

 

[Killian Cox]

A nod here, an "Mm," there: Killian was listening intently to what Alex had to say, when all of a sudden he was gone. It took him several seconds to realise that he hadn't vanished into thin air, and was in fact sprawled across the path in an ungainly manner, by which point he was almost back on his feet. "Are you OK?" asked Killian, stifling a giggle. He was not laughing at poor Alex, rather with joy that he had stumbled across a wizard as accident prone as himself. And in the middle of the street, of all places! Once it had been confirmed that none of the bones in his nose had been broken (though several tissues and a few minutes' sit down were in order to quell the brunt of the bleeding), the two continued on their way to Madam Malkins, their pockets stuffed with soiled red tissues. "I know what you mean," said Killian as they walked. "My Dad and my Brother taught me till now. Sometimes it amazes me that I can even read and write English." He laughed like this was a joke, but sadly, he was quite serious.

There was not much opportunity for conversation after that, for the moment they entered the dusty little shop they were whisked away to opposite ends for fitting. Over the course of the next thirty minutes, Killian was poked, prodded and probed at with wands and tape measures alike. He could only assume that Alex was receiving the same treatment - there were several racks of long robes concealing him from Killian's view. A little while later he became the proud owner of his very own set of school robes, which he paid sixty-five galleons for and decided to wear straight away. "Daylight robbery!" he could almost hear his Father saying in the back of his head, and strangely, it made him smile. The Cox family was hardly strapped for cash, and it never failed to amuse Killian how pedantically frugal his Dad was. On the other end of the spectrum, Jude quite frankly couldn't give a damn, and he demonstrated this clearly and frequently with his excessive spending habits (much to the annoyance of Father).

Since Alex was still undergoing the probe-treatment, Killian waited by the door, occasionally throwing his new friend reassuring smiles from across the shop floor. When he was done, that smile doubled in width. "You wanna go somewhere else now?" he said politely as they stepped out onto the street. Though he did not plan on returning home with his arms slung with bags of shopping and gifts for his family, he wouldn't have minded strolling through Brighstone Village a little longer, if only to spend some more time with Alex.

 

[Alexander Fontaine]

Alex was happy that the boy hadn't thought much of his fall, and had even helped him out! Friends were possibly the coolest thing ever! Soon enough the nose bleed which he had gained from the fall had left him and him and his friend would be able to continue on their quest to get new robes, many wouldn't call it a quest but Alex thought it was fun to call it such a thing. The word 'quest' was possibly one of Alex's favourite words; and he was almost certain that he would be comfortable in saying it all day long! He smiled, holding back a few laughs as he watched his new friend being fitted by the shopkeeper at Madam Malkins', just happy that it was one of the assistants because he had heard some nasty stories about the Shopkeeper that stemmed from his time at the Hogwarts castle. He shuddered at the thought.

When they were finished he headed outside with his friend and considered his question, he would definitely like to spend more time with him, he was only getting started with the fun. "Was there anything you wanted to do?" Alex asked the boy, he hoped that he didn't want to leave him already. "Wait, we should go look at the pets!" Alex grabbed his arm and started running towards the pet shop.

 

[Killian Cox]

If there had been something Killian felt like doing, he would not have been able to voice it, for not three seconds after he'd been asked he was being dragged away by the cuff of his sleeve. He opened his mouth to protest (those were new school robes!), but then couldn't quite bring himself to follow through. Such a complaint would have been petty, and something his Father would say. So instead, through a mouthful of wind, he said: "Sure!"

There were several occasions along the way that Killian almost tripped up on the billowing trails of his robes as they threshed at his ankles, but eventually, the two boys made it to the pet shop accident-free. By the time they reached the jaunty shop door, Killian was panting. "I really... need... more exercise..." he said between gasps, bending over and resting his hands above his knees to catch his breath. A few minutes later they went inside.

It was like walking into a (noisy) fairytale. There were cats and dogs and rats and all of the other mundane pets that Muggles liked to keep. And then there were toads and salamanders and puffskeins and owls - owls! Rows and rows of them, lined up along shelves in small cages with white bars. There were tawny ones, snowy ones, spotted ones; Killian hadn't even realised so many breeds existed! He gaped, swinging his head this way and that as he went down an isle. For half a moment he even forgot about his friend, until he saw something that he just had to share. "Alex!" he hissed excitedly, spinning around and tapping his shoulder frantically. "Look! Look at the dragons!" In a tank on a nearby counter top, a dozen miniature dragons were perched on a display of rocks, hissing and spitting tiny balls of fire at each other. Killian hadn't realised he'd been moving closer until his face was practically pressed up against the glass. Two circles of condensation appeared where he breathed. "I want one!"

 

[Alexander Fontaine]

Alex hoped that the other boy didn't overly mind that he had been basically dragged along to the pet store with little to no choice in the matter, he didn't mean to be so pushy he just hadn't been to the pet store in the long time and he definitely hadn't had a friend with him any of those times so this was a great experience for him. He smiled to himself as they ran, sort of, at least he ran and his friend sort of flailed alongside him. He chuckled a little bit at this, and wondered if he was being to pushy of a person. He smiled at his friend when they got outside of the pet store. He was excited to look around.

He smiled when they got inside, though it was quite noisy! He looked around and grinned at all of the things inside of the shop, it looked so cool in here and there was so many choices! He walked over to the dragons as his friend walked over there and wanted his attention, and be grew really excited! They all looked so cool! They were like the coolest thing he had ever seen! "Dude! These are like the coolest things ever!" He said, grinning brightly. This could be the best day ever.