31st December, 1890 — Hogsmeade Market

Later in the evening the High Street would be bursting building-to-building, Viola had no doubt, for the New Year’s festivities. For the moment, it was a slow afternoon in amongst the market stalls, quite the contrast to before Christmas when pretty debutantes, holidaying Hogwarts pupils and young men might pass through for gifts and a score of unusually-harried cooks were out sourcing produce for festive dinners.

Now, though, it was icily cold out, the booth-keepers were grumbling amongst themselves and Viola had plopped herself down on an upturned crate, perched behind a small table with the leftover products of her last busy fortnight, in which she had sewn up a small mountain of little dog-coats and cat-boots for the paws of her neighbours’ pets. Her attempts to sell the rest of them at the market had gone down well last time; this week she had yet to make a profit. And considering the fact she had bought herself a hot cocoa, currently serving to warm her hands, she supposed for the moment she had made a loss.

But winter was hardly over yet so all the miniature booties would still have some use, Viola was just considering, when the farmer’s cart she had set herself up next to backed into her little spot, jolting her over onto the slushy street - cocoa, collapsing table, array of handmade pet-shoes and all.

---

Ow, Viola mouthed, as the push from the cart saw her tumble and end up splayed out on the street. A little twinge in her back, a few grazes on her hands, a moment of pure dazedness - and then a hand to help her up. A hand attached to an arm attached to a man, and if a stranger had bothered to stop in the street to see if she was alright, he was undoubtedly a person worth knowing. 

She took the hand gratefully and sprang up with more gusto than she might have if she had been getting up by herself. For a moment, she wished she did not look so haphazard from the fall - but there was no saving that, was there?

“Never better, thank you,” she said instead, smiling at him and deciding it was better to joke about it than seem forlorn. “I suppose I did want warming up,” she added with a slight laugh, more to herself than anything, as she patted her front where the hot cocoa had splashed over her, still stained warm against the insidious wet chill of the rest of her, thanks to the slushy street.

Most likely it had been a sign from the universe to pack up and go home, Viola considered more half-heartedly, reaching over for a fallen basket in which she ought to begin packing up everything that was still worth rescuing.

---

“Oh, do you know a drying spell?” Viola asked, almost in delight. “That would be lovely. If you wouldn’t mind.” All that was coming to her mind was a flame-making spell, and she did not especially think it worth setting herself on fire for. She straightened up where she stood as if her posture would make it easier to reach the patches of wet all down her front, abruptly conscious of how she always slouched.

But the stranger had already stooped to begin picking up her kitten boots, and she hastened to make sure he did not feel obliged. “Never mind about them,” she said, flushing slightly and holding the basket to her hip. “I’ll just leave them by the stove and see if they dry out overnight. Everyone’s rather too busy to stop today, anyway, I think.” Even this gentleman had been dashing through - Viola eyed him discreetly, surprised that he was bothering to help her at all. (Pleasantly surprised, to be sure.)

---

“Truly,” Viola insisted, because he seemed so very sincere and in truth she had not meant to trouble him at all. He looked like he had been dashing through, after all. He must have more important places to be.

So she held out a damp spot on her skirt and with her other hand pinched out a patch of cocoa-slush wet on her chest, a little awkward about that patch but ultimately far more interested in witnessing the spell for herself. She bit her tongue for as long as she could for however long it would take so as not to interrupt him, but the longer she stood the more questions were planting themselves in her brain.

“Are you off to anywhere interesting today?” She asked, curious and a little wistful, the moment she could hold her peace no longer. She was quite aware that a strange gentleman had no obligation to tell her anything, but Viola was of the mind that everyone else’s lives were usually far more interesting than hers.

---

Viola felt the effects of the drying spell with an instant burst of warmth. “Thank you so much -” she began, but the direction of her thoughts changed at a hundred miles an hour as his answer fell into place. Hogwarts, he worked at Hogwarts. Talk about interesting places to be!

Don’t get out much! Easy for him to say; she didn’t think anyone got out as little as she did, but she beamed all the same. “Oh! You work there?” Stupid question, of course - he was no age to be a student, so he must be a professor or the groundskeeper or something like that; Viola surveyed him with still more curiosity now, trying to match him to one of the vague names or remarks she’d heard from all her sisters in turn about their teachers. She wanted to ask - but she also wanted to ask about a million more things, and he was probably in a rush anyway. So, she had to settle for twisting her mouth into a more lopsided smile, as if in teasing sympathy. “And they don’t even let you out for the New Year’s Eve celebrations in the village?”

(In truth, she would not have minded being stuck at Hogwarts all year long, if it meant she could have actually gone to Hogwarts.)

---

“Oh, then you must be Professor Skeeter,” Viola said brightly, almost immediately, and flushed a little because that had not been meant to come out aloud. “I don’t know much about Herbology, but,” she added, with a sheepish little shrug. Except now she probably sounded weird, to know his name but nothing about his subject - but she had quizzed her sisters extensively about Hogwarts, and Daisy was there at the moment, so she did have some awareness of the personalities up at the castle, if not the whole curriculum. (By the sound of it, Mr. Skeeter was one of the more fun professors.)

And one of the nice ones, too, it seemed. “- but that’s still awfully nice of you, to stay,” Viola finished, trying to recover her manners. It sounded a little sad when he said it like that, though, as if he had nowhere better to be.

---

He had asked about Hogwarts and hurried on, but this Professor Skeeter had been perfectly honest about his life so she felt bad just ignoring it, as much as she was chagrined by the answer she had to give. “Well, no,” Viola confessed, “I didn’t - but my sisters did, though they’ve mostly left by now, the Corner girls - but, anyway, I’m Viola Corner,” she introduced, still a touch sheepish. None of her sisters had done seven years, so she didn’t expect they were terribly memorable as pupils, but Daisy was still there. Nor could Viola explain - nor did she want to - that the reason she hadn’t gone was that they were poor, and had been especially poor in what should have been her September. Perhaps he would just imagine that she was of a delicate constitution and had been ill all her life, because at least that was an interesting reason compared to being penniless orphans.

“I suppose I should let you get on, then,” Viola said, smiling a little bit at her own thought that he almost sounded like more of a recluse, shut up in a castle most of the year, than she had been, shut up at home all her life. “But I hope they at least give you some time off in summer,” she added, with a brighter, more teasing smile. If he was the Herbology professor and studied plants, he was probably fonder of summer, anyway.

---

“Oh, you don’t mean that!” Viola said, trying good-naturedly to brush the offer away – as if she could hide the way she had bounced up on the balls of her feet, or the sudden restlessness of her hands, fingers tugging at the collar of her dress at the very thought.

She knew she oughtn’t be so ungrateful towards Audrey for all her efforts, but her sister’s makeshift curriculum was a far cry from lessons from a real professor. (He couldn’t possibly be offering that. Surely he had more important, more exciting, things to do with his summers.) “But thank you anyway,” she added shyly, which hopefully encompassed – everything.

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