April 5th, 1889 — Denbright's

It was shaping up to be a pretty good weekend with his parents having taken him out of the home for the next two days because of some family matter. He hadn't paid attention much to what it was all about. The important thing was that he was now being brought to Denbrights. He wanted to restock his art supplies though he supposed his father would want him to get a kite or something. Actually, he wouldn't be opposed to that, he thought as he looked them over. They came in a variety of colors and designs which suited Apollo's artistically wired mind perfectly. Plucking one out of the basin, he was alarmed to find that it was tangled with another kite that someone else was trying to get freed.

  

It seemed as though Isaac had been mopey lately — or maybe just lost in thought. Either way, he'd been quieter than usual, and Kate felt that he might benefit from a pick-me-up. She'd left him at home with the chaperone, then, and headed off to Denbright's to find something he might enjoy. Hopefully they had a good range of toys and she would be able to find something that would appeal to an eleven-year-old, not just things that Isaac would find too babyish.

The kites caught her eye immediately, and she went to lift one out to examine it further, only to find herself involved in an impromptu tug-of-war. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, trying to reach down to untangle the strings and dropping her kite in the process, which only made the knot worse.

  

The person who's kite was all tangled up with his was a girl that looked to be a few olders than he was. "You made it worse," he said in that accusing way that only kids seemed to have before reverting to 'this persons older than me so probably knows what to do'. "Do you think we'll need the strings cut if they stay tangled up like that?"

  

"I'm sure there's a way to fix it," Kate said, flustered. She tugged at a loop of kite tail that was sticking out from the knot. She couldn't see where to start with it, but she couldn't believe that such a simple motion had ruined them irreparably. If they did need to be cut, would she have to buy the kite that she'd ruined? Would it still fly if it didn't have a tail? She didn't actually know what the purpose of the tail was. Did it affect the way it flew, like making it more stable, or was it just for show?

"Here, let me see that," she said, holding her hand out for his kite. It seemed there was a way to make the knot a little looser, at least, if not to untangle it entirely, but it would require forcing his kite through the loop of string that she had created by trying to tug the knot free.

  

Apollo watched a little grumpily as the girl tried fixing the tangle. Truly, he knew nothing about how a kite worked, just the basics of it. Apollo handed over his kite when she asked for it and he watched intently as she took it, wondering what idea she had in her head. "Does it look like it can be detangled?" He asked, not quite able to decide for himself from his own angle.

  

Kate had to wiggle the edges of his kite inward a bit to force it through the tangle of string, but she managed to pull it through the other side. The knot wasn't entirely undone, but she was starting to see how it might be untangled. Instead of a small, tight wad of string, it had become several large loops.

"A spell might be faster," Kate said, frowning at the kites. "Here — hold these a minute," she said, handing both kites to the younger boy and turning to dig her wand out of a small handbag. She was entirely unaware of England's restriction on the use of underaged magic.

  

Apollo watched, a little worried that she was going to damage the kites. Thankfully she didn't, and the knot now looked like an easier task at hand to boot without being all tight together like it had been. Apollo took the kites as she handed them to him, having no reason to really think that the girl wasn't seventeen or over. To Apollo, she just looked 'older'.

  

Kate performed the spell without interruption, and the tails did indeed disentangle themselves much more quickly with the help of magic. She was rather proud of herself. She didn't have much opportunity to use magic on the spur-of-the-moment, and she wasn't entirely confident in her ability to select the proper spell for the proper task. She'd been privately tutored, after all, which lead to a bit more limited focus. Mostly, she used spells for small household tasks like mending dresses or warming up tea, which were things she'd done a thousand times before. She was pleased to find she remembered the spell for disentangling knots at all, and that she'd performed it correctly.

"There," she said proudly, reaching out to take back the kite that she'd originally had. "Good as new, and no one the wiser. Have you had one before? Do they fly very well?"

  

"Thanks, Miss!" Apollo said as she literally worked her magic on detangling things tthe rest of the way. He took the kite he had picked out in hand and made sure nothing else was loose that could get tangled up. "I've never had one before or flown one," he admitted easily enough when she asked. "But they seem to work fine from what I've seen in the Park."

  

"I'm hoping my brother will like it," Kate commented. The review she'd received from the other boy wasn't very informative, as it turned out, but it wasn't as though she really needed to know much about it in order to purchase it. It was a kite; how different could one kite really be from another? And even if there were a wide range of differences, how would Kate know which was which? She'd likely end up being tricked into spending more money for a product that wasn't any better if she tried to buy something fancy. "It's just a muggle kite, isn't it? My brother doesn't do magic yet — he's just starting Hogwarts this fall," she explained.

  

"I think they're a mix. Some of them are muggle and some are magical. But for kids so I don't think we need to be allowed to do magic to use them." Apollo said, indicating a kite that had a tag that said something like "enchanted to not get tangled!" and another that professed to have a self-winding spool.

  

"That's a relief," Kate said warmly, reading the tags as he indicated them. The one that she'd grabbed didn't have any of the magical accoutrements, but hopefully Isaac would still like it. They could fly it in the park — and maybe they'd meet some other little boys that Isaac could be friends with. Children, she thought, were unlikely to recognize the pair of them, or at least less likely than adults were.

"Well, I'm sorry again about the tangle. Enjoy your kite," she said in parting, as she headed to the counter.