open//fast and furious

[Lexi Knight]

Lexi stood outside Quality Quidditch Supplies, her face so close to the display window that she was fogging up the glass. The Snott Rocket was at eye level, and was the object of her longing. Without tearing her eyes away, she reached down to her coin purse and gave it a little shake. The few coins inside jingled together pathetically, informing her that the broom of her dreams was out of her price range and mocking her for it. She sighed, the fog from her breath finally obscuring the broom from her vision, and turned away from the glass.

As she entered the shop, she took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of broom oil, dragon leather, and a mixture of other wonderful aromas that reminded her why this was her favorite shop.

[Isoba Dumisani Wyebourne]

It was an unfortunate day when a broom met its match. But the tree had been a worthy opponent and Isoba had learned a valuable lesson about letting the pleading faces of small children break his resolve and an equally valuable lesson in emergency bone setting. He hadn't done a half-bad job on Ivan, and he had warned the boy that his broom was much more susceptible to touch than the standard brooms children rode, but the reckless idiot had took off and nearly been drowned to death by a particularly depressed weeping willow, and sadly Isoba's broom hadn't been able to make it out before the water damage ruined it.

He had scoffed at it, of course, pretending no concern over a simple construction of wood when his little cousin was in such bad shape. He insisted on taking the broom home from the camping trip so as not to let any magic accidentally seep out and, in the dead of night when the rest of the house was asleep, he had given it a viking funeral as he set it to drift out to sea.

And now he was feeling rather proud that he had saved so much of the money from the odd jobs and birthdays and allowances of the past few years while his peers had let it drain so freely into trips to Hogsmeade and other such niches, because now he had enough money to buy the sleekest top of the line broom- The Snott Rocket and a new paddle on top of it and still have some galleons left over.

He entered the shop, prepared to make a beeline straight to the the Snott Rocket when he noticed a Hufflepuff close to his age and more or less tolerable on most days. "Hello, Lexi. How's your holiday going?"

[Lexi Knight]

Lexi was doting over a pair of new dragonhide gloves, high quality gloves that put her current pair to shame. The price tag was pretty steep, but she was sure she could afford it, with a little scrimping. She had just started counting the coins in her pouch, when the sound of her name distracted her.

Looking up, she saw Isoba, her friends and rival. "Hey!" Lexi exclaimed, grinning widely. "My holiday was great! The whole family went to Australia and we got to sew their team play at Ayers Rock! How was your summer? I hope you've Ben practicing, because Hufflepuff is going to smear the pitch with Slytherin this year!"

[Isoba Dumisani Wyebourne]

Isoba smiled slightly, which was a generous way of saying his lip quirked up. He knew that soon enough once they were back in school, taking lessons together and competing on the Quidditch field her constant chatter would end up grating on his nerves on a near daily basis, but after every summer it was always nice to hear her voice again. That, he supposed, made her a close friend.

"It's good to have dreams, Lexi." He responded, the implication of 'no matter how wild and unattainable they are' was in his tone. "My holiday was good. My family went to Nigeria to...connect to my roots." He grimaced, "somehow I failed to have the proper emotional response to it."

[Lexi Knight]

Lexi's eyes widened as Isoba told her about his holiday. "Nigeria! What's it like? I've never been there. Is it beautiful?" Suddenly, she realized talking a lot, and she knew it bugged Isoba when she did it. She just couldn't help herself; hearing about her friends' lives made her happy and excited.

She looked down at the gloves in her hand, and then held them up to show her friends. If there was any topic they could both agree on, it was Quidditch; in fact, it was one of the main reasons they were friends to begin with.

"Have you seen the new dragonhide gloves that just came out? They have perfect stitching, made from unicorn hair, so it's ten times stronger than the nylon stitching they used to use."