𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐗 ☽ Harry Potter

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞

UNEXPECTED VISITOR

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

     In the middle of downtown London, sits a tiny bookshop with a brightly painted sign dubbing the store: Muggle's Book Shop. Two large windows show a labyrinth created by too full bookshelves and reading nooks. The front door was painted an emerald green with a daring serpent door handle provided entrance to the shop. Inside the shop, one would catch the scent of old books, coffee (snuck in by shoppers and the shop owner's daughter), and an undetectable tangy scent that only the two witches in the store could pick out as the after affect of many magical charms used.

     Those who were in the know of the bookshop's name, either laughed or sneered when they passed by. It was only the non-magical people who found the word Muggle simple and charming, on the outs that it was a quiet nod of obviousness toward who exactly the shop catered to.

     Owned by a secret witch and her daughter, the bookshop had been a complete mystery to the Londoners. At some point during the mid nineteen-eighties, the storefront had once been an abandoned boarded up building until — as if with magic  — a fully standing bookshop appeared.

     Charming, quaint, the store held the largest selection of books you could find in London. Shelves of fiction, non-fiction, mystery, fantasy, and educational books. Both new and used books were accepted into the store, just as both magical and non-magical people were. Although, those in the Wizarding world only visited the bookshop to gawk at the Muggles who enjoyed the fact that the London shop was the only place to find cheaply priced first editions and a good cup of tea.

     During the summer months, a young girl with a head of ebony curls and eyes the color of moonlight could be seen re-shelving books and reading furiously in a back corner of the store. Although, some days it was a girl with pale-blonde hair that fell in gentle waves down her petite back. On other days, it may be a girl with pink, violet, or even sky blue colored hair. But no matter what, her eyes stayed that beautiful, mesmerizing gray with flecks of white and blue.

     Today, the thirteen year old girl sat at the bookshop counter with a Steinbeck in her hands. Her eyes, the size of tea saucers, taking in the enthralling book of two families, the Trasks and Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories. Her ebony curls tied up in a messy bun, pieces of ringlets framing her heart shaped face as she read. Every now and then her perfectly arched eyebrows would furrow in concentration, followed with a scrunch of her button nose, and the worrying of her bottom lip by her upper teeth.

     She wore a red floral print summer dress that exposed her newly tanned skin. With a month already into summer, and a finished visit to Spain, the girl's nose and cheeks were sun kissed with freckles.

     "Effie! Did you throw away the rubbish?"

     The girl sat up to attention at the sound of her mother's voice. Looking wildly around her she took notice that it had grown considerably darker since she first sat down with her book. One quick glance to the front door proved that her mother had already placed the "closed" sign against the front door window and one guess was all it took to deduce that the mother had also asked her daughter to take out the trash before they left for home. A request that was probably met with an muttered reply of "sure" before she had returned back to her book.

     "Uh — yes mum!" Iphigenia, or Effie as she preferred, yelled back before hastily placing her bookmark and bolting to the back room.

     She could hear her mother in the small office counting the money from the day. A soft humming melody of a Muggle song coming from the open door followed by the shuffling of Muggle paper monetary. Quietly, the teenager moved to the two black plastic bags tied closed already and held her breath as she lifted them out of the room and to the back alley.