14th August, 1893 — Twilfit & Tatting’s, Hogsmeade

It was an entirely dull errand, but one that could not be done without her in body. Mattie was obligingly here with a housemaid in tow, getting all her hems altered, dresses and robes one by one. She had only gotten slightly taller in the last year, and everyone said it was doubtful she would grow anymore, but she was inching ever close to her debut, and her hems were getting lowered, gradually, on the way from being a girl to being a woman.

There was only so long she could stand on the stool and wait for seams to be unpicked and fabric to be pinned over and over, and Mattie had already tired of sending Betsy to fetch gloves and parasols from across the shop for her to decide between. So, when she spotted a familiar face from school, her face lit up. A timely distraction indeed!

“Miss Potts! Millie!” she called, standing upon her tiptoes, never mind the seamstress at her feet, to follow the younger Ravenclaw’s progress through the racks and waving her over to this section of the shop. “What are you doing here?” The same sort of thing, probably, perhaps; but Mattie grinned all the same and said, in a more confidential whisper, “I’m dying of boredom. I’ve been up here for ever. How’s your summer been?”

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Millie Potts

  

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Another summer brought with it another round of visits to the shops for 'back to school' purposes. Millie didn't entirely understand the flurry and fervor of the August rush, it gave her the impression of some impending doom or madness. This year didn't feel that way to her, nor did the young witch want it to be. She was a fourth year now, and Millie was determined to make that into a proper adventure.

Step one of which was apparently looking the part. That didn't seem very adventurous to the young witch, someday she wished to have a perfectly-curated wardrobe like so many characters in her novels did. Then she could simply stroll out the door with the proper attire, rather than visiting Twilfit & Tatting to get hers adjusted.

"Miss Potts! Millie!”

The bright voice drew her attention away from the errand for a moment, and Millie spied a pinned-up Miss Farris waving for her attention. She dipped her head politely, the seventh-year girl always seemed so much easier to admire from afar. Standing on a stool at the center of attention, Mattie Farris looked far too much on display to approach.

"What are you doing here? I’m dying of boredom. I’ve been up here for ever. How’s your summer been?”

Millie looked up at the older girl with her radiant figure and beaming confidence, fighting every urge inside her to quietly observe. Her fingers found the silver necklace at her throat, softly brushing across the familiar texture of the links under the pad of her thumb. She thought she could be safe enough answering the first question. "I came to pick up the robes I was having adjusted."

The seamstress underneath Mattie's skirts poked her head up and made a studied stare of Millie's presence. Then she remarked in a voice that made the young witch blush, "You didn't stop growing, did you? Well they won't be right now, you'll have to stand for measuring again."

Millie tried not to meet Mattie's gaze, looking off to the side. This adventure was not beginning very well at all, she decided.

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   Matilda Farris

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Mattie did her best to hide a smile at the seamstress’ remark, because Millie seemed a little chagrined by it. “Well, hop on up,” Mattie said, conspiratorially cheerful, because the company was convenient for her even it was a pain for her housemate. She nodded her head at the stool beside them as the seamstress shook her head and went off to fetch the robes in question.

She watched Millie in appraisal, narrowing her eyes to discern how much she had changed over the summer. (She was at that awkward age where there were a few changes, so she wouldn’t be surprised if Miss Potts was a little self-conscious. Plenty of girls were.) “Are you taller than me yet?” she teased, and then gave a small mock-pout. “I think you will be, eventually.”

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Just hop on up.

It was a simple task with a seemingly-simple result, one that Millie eyed dubiously. That meant getting up on the same level with Miss Faris, and that was a prospect the young witch did not think she was ready for. Her hands felt damp atop her skirts as she hoisted them, and herself, up onto the stool neighboring Mattie's. When she stood at her full height, resisting the urge to slouch or stoop in the presence of the seamstress witch, she found herself not quite eye to eye with the older girl.

She nearly stumbled right off the stool for shock.

"Almost nearly, I suppose." Millie had hardly been planning on doing any supposing today. This was meant to be the simplest of errands, and now here she was. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Mattie Faris of all people, chattering away about nothing to fill the air and relieve the boredom of the intimidatingly-gorgeous older girl.

Millie opened her mouth to fulfill her part of the bargain. Only nothing came out. How could it? Mattie was everything she wanted to see in herself. Older. Taller with all her curves filled out. And even the mole on her face looked just as beautiful as the rest of her. What could Millie say that Mattie hadn't already heard or considered?

"Do you have all your books yet?"

Does she have all her books yet? Millie looked aside, reconsidering how intelligent she thought of herself. Mattie was a seventh year, repeating the same NEWTs classes of last year. It wasn't as if the curriculum changed so quickly as to make her books obsolete already. Of course she had all of her books, last year already!

The young witch truly hoped her sizing companion didn't think too poorly of her stupid question.

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Almost nearly was right: Mattie could barely see over Miss Potts’ head any more. Thank Merlin there would be tiny new first years about to make her feel tall, still, at Hogwarts. By next year, when she was out in the world, Matilda would be resigned to being the youngest again, no longer looking down from on high as the eldest students could.

But Millie was hardly too young to be uninteresting any more; she could hold a proper conversation... Well, usually. Mattie laughed. “Well, I didn’t need too many more,” she replied, quirking a brow over at the other girl but otherwise happy to run with the subject, “but I did get a new one for History of Magic, and I needed some new Potions scales. And I’ve bought some new fiction, for Book Club,” she added brightly, because that was fun reading. She didn’t know if any would be quite right for Book Club – because she could get away with reading adult books nowadays, and wasn’t always concerned about them having the appropriate moral lessons in them – but she might suggest them anyway, just to see. “Have you read anything good lately?”

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   Millie Potts

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Millie instinctively ducked as the older girl's appraising eye looked her over. She was hardly comfortable with her own height, between her boots and the stool she now stood at a dizzying distance from the floor. Many boys and men were taller, and the young witch couldn't fathom how they managed it. What the world might be like to a giant of a man, or a true giant for that matter, sent her thoughts reeling.

Somehow she stayed upright, much to her own surprise. There was a thrill to this height as well, which buoyed the young witch against her own misspoken inquiry to Mattie. She needn't have even fretted so, the older girl gave an easy answer to her question as if it was nothing more than misread weather. Millie happily settled in for more pleasant chatter, especially concerning more interesting books for reading.

"Oh, I did," Millie nodded, eager to share with someone who wasn't a mousy-haired miscreant at least. "I just finished a Muggle novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Have you read it?"

Now that she said it, Millie wasn't entirely sure how thrilled she should be about the book. It wasn't the sort of thing her parents thought was enriching for a young lady of her age, particularly Muggle stories. Not that they supervised her reading anymore like they used to. Perhaps Mattie would think it a bit uncouth, and she added hastily, "It is quite the peculiar book. I might not have read it if I had known, though I am glad I did."

That seemed like a safe enough comment to make, particularly here where others could overhear. Millie longed for the sanctity of their book club meetings again, where opinions and deeper discussion flourished. The young witch knew that she might only blink and school would be here again, yet she still willed it to come faster still.

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Mattie squinted. She had diverse enough reading tastes, magical and muggle alike, non-fiction and fiction, adventures and romances and a little tragedy too to spice things up, to recognise the name, though she wasn’t sure she had. “Stevenson, isn’t it?” she tried, mouth slipping into a more intrigued smile with Millie’s strange assessment of it. Peculiar, indeed.

“I’ve only read Treasure Island. Tell me about it,” she insisted, though she edged a little nearer to Millie, and dropped her tone slightly in case there was anything truly contentious about the so-called ‘Strange Case’. “Not the ending, but just a little to whet my appetite.” She would make Miss Potts lend it to her, of course. For ‘might not have read it if I had known’ was challenge enough to her that Mattie was resolved to dive into it regardless of anything.

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"Oh yes, that's him," Millie nodded, eager now that she noticed Mattie intrigued by the tale. She was always cautious about Muggle books, hesitating to recommend them when there were so many written by Magical authors instead. Her relief turned to astonishment when the older girl got close, suddenly timid as she recalled how larger than life Mattie seemed to her otherwise.

"Well, it starts out talking about an odd sort of gentleman, the type to get himself in drunken rows and the like." Millie began slowly, trying to remember the exact start of the tale. The twist had been so shocking to her, so revealing, that it was a struggle to remember how she had felt about the book before that moment. On another day, to another friend, the young witch might have remarked how innocent and carefree she had been before that moment as well. With Mattie, whose presence threatened to take her breath away, Millie felt the need to temper herself.

"But," she put in, unable to keep from adding just a touch of intrigue to her telling, "somehow he manages to smooth them all over with money. And no one seems to quite know how such a rough man has that kind of fortune."

Now that she had said it, Millie realized the book seemed more like it was about money than the mystery of Mr. Hyde's nighttime proclivities. "Oh, he's just such an odd character. Not quite evil, as one might think, just..." She stopped herself, about to spill too many of the details that would preclude Mattie from reading it herself. She found herself grinning at the older girl, "You'll have to read it, really. I can't say any more!"

"I dare say you've said quite enough for this shop," the seamstress was back, carrying a bundle of robes in her arms. Millie closed her mouth, turning her head away from the woman to hide the grin on her face. Only Mattie was in sight of her expression as the young witch tried to act more properly in the presence of an adult once more.

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Mattie’s expression grew more and more quizzical at Millie’s description of this odd ungentlemanly gentleman and in his rowdy antics, and by Millie’s grin when she trailed off, she was quite taken in by it. “What a tease,” she said, grinning back once the seamstress was too busy to notice, and prodded Millie gently in the arm before they were separated by all the robe-adjusting.

“I simply must read it,” she whispered across, over the seamstress’ head. “Will you recommend it to the book club or shall I?”

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The young witch was easily cowed into silence as the seamstress busied herself in front of them once more. The witch's command was something of a blessing, perhaps, saving her from gossip getting back out of the shop itself. A Potts girl who couldn't hold her tongue, now that was something Millie really didn't care to be known for.

Still, it was hard to ignore the prodding from Mattie when the wary witch was tied up in her own fuss. While suppressing a giggle, Millie decided that a few more words couldn't hurt after all.

"Oh, I suppose I can," she relented, trying hard to keep her feet in place. Her stomach nearly did a flip on its own, as her insides bunched up with the warmth of eagerness Millie didn't want to let show. The older girl could have been asking the world from her, and she would have said yes.

Then her stomach flattened into a pancake. Before she knew what had happened, Millie found herself whispering back, "But only if you recommend one of yours."

Millie could hardly believe her own audacity. She had just made a demand of Mattie Farris, a seventh year, and a prefect to boot. Her eyes found the robes of the seamstress, begging them to turn around just to have an excuse not to talk again. Had the young witch been able to spell her own robes to size, she would have made them large enough to bury her embarrassment right then and there.

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If Millie Potts appeared almost to have shocked herself by that last, Mattie didn’t bat an eye at it. She was quite used to challenging people about things – always in a friendly way of course – but she was always pleased to be given a challenge in return.

Even one as straightforward as this. “You have yourself a deal,” she returned, grinning even as the seamstress tugged her back and told her off for talking, again.

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