August 2nd, 1889 — Padmore Park

Clue had coerced Mrs Spragg into letting him visit Hogsmeade for a top-up of parchments, potions and other such notions. He could not finish his summer homework without these things. Thus he found himself quietly roaming the greens of Padmore Park, off the manicured track and around patches of wildflowers, far from the shops where he was supposed to be procuring homework supplies.

It was not long before Clue sat cross-legged beneath an oak tree, watching with hushed affection as an incy wincy spider climbed the arm of his oversized white jumper. As the orphan befriended the arachnid, the afternoon sun blinked above them and gave way to a light drizzle. But some like the gloom.

Sloane Bixby (@"ELSIE BEAUREGARD")

  

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The beauty of living in Hogsmeade proper was that there was always something to do or somewhere to go. The caveat was trying to corral one of her brothers into taking her when she wanted to go somewhere. Fortunately Alvin was easily bullied most of the time, though today it was Harry who had agreed to accompany her into town, citing a need to pick something up. Sloane thought now that he'd graduated he was a little lost, but she didn't know how to tell him that. At least he'd agreed to come with her and they could spend a little time together. It was odd to the youngest Bixby that only she and Wally would be headed back to Hogwarts in a few week's time, maybe Harry was feeling that.

They'd dipped into the book store and Honeyduke's and had agreed to take the long way through the park to get home when her brother was distracted by a pretty girl and therefore Sloane took the moment to wander nearby. Boys. Honestly. The fact that it got a little misty was nothing to Sloane, but her brother and his company had moved to take shelter under a large tree and so Sloane moved to do the same, though found this particular spot already occupied- and by someone familiar at that!

"Hello there!" She chirped, albeit more quietly than normal as the boy looked quite lost in thought. She was terrible with names, as he wasn't in her house, but that rarely stopped Sloane from being friendly

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Sometimes, perhaps once in a blue moon, someone would walk up to him and speak to him as if he wasn’t Clue Leverett. It wasn’t that he was well-known, or any semblance of that; it was just that he was different, and evidently so. A strange, quirky little loner, who looked like a girl, sitting on the grass in the drizzle and playing with a spider. Anyone who approached Clue was quite different themselves.

Through long strands of platinum hair, Clue looked up at the approaching girl. He recognised her freckled face and vibrant aura, but did not know her name. ”It’s beginning to rain”, he observed in case she hadn’t noticed, alerting her to the possibility that she might want to flee for cover.

He was under a tree, and that was cover — but nobody chose Clue Leverett over familiar grounds. Not until that blue moon shows up again.

  

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"Little bit," She agreed with a little shrug. "I was trying to get out of it myself, do you mind sharing the tree?" The thought of crossing the grass back to where Harry was no doubt horribly flirting with that pretty girl was not appealing to Sloane who would rather be on a broomstick chasing snitches in this kind of weather. It was good practice for games at school, after all!

It was then that Sloane noticed the wee spider on the boy's arm and she inched closer to get a look. Bugs did not bother Sloane in the slightest, she was not one of those girls. "Whossat you got there?" She asked, genuinely curious.

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Both parties were small and would fit beneath the tree easily enough, but, after a pause, Clue moved up a bit as a gesture. Yes she could share his tree; though would still be dampened by the odd flurry of drizzle. Clue found it refreshing.

”A friend”, he replied when asked about the spider. He glanced from the twisty black arachnid on his sleeve, back up to his unexpected companion. ”Do you have any friends?” It was a genuinely innocent question.

  

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Sloane scooted a little more securely under the tree; it wasn't hard, she didn't take up much room at all. Eyeing the little spider more closely, Sloane almost thought it was kind of cute. A little fuzzy, those little tiny eyeballs looking all around. Her schoolmate's question caught her off guard. It also struck her as an odd sort of thing ot ask, but as her mother always said, she could talk a lamppost into bending, so she just flowed with it.

"If you mean small ones, yes, I have a rat." Sloane opened a little pocket in her skirt to reveal the sleeping rodent. "His name is Barnabas." She smiled openly. An owl may have been more practical, but when she'd been in the pet store ready to pick one out, the little rats had stolen her ten year old heart. "I suppose I have human ones too." She chuckled good-naturedly. She was a social person indeed, always had been. Then again growing up in a family of boys kind of forced her to seek out girls to play with as a young child. When the need had arisen anyway. It was more a desire for people her own age, rather than bothering her older brothers all the time. Just happened that the friends she'd found were mostly female. 

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Clue was quietly interested when she implied her key companion was a little rat, and he peered at Barnabas with a softness in his eyes.

But then, it transpired, she had human friends, and all of a sudden she was less relatable. That didn't make her any less likeable, of course; it just meant she was gliding around on a different plane to the likes of Clue Leverett.

"I haven't given my spider a name", he mused hazily as he watched the insect thoughtfully, thinking that Barnabas was indeed a fine name for a rat. "But then" he added, "they don't live very long."

  

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Barnabas peered up at being peered at, and stuck his nose out of Sloane's pocket to investigate the intrusion. The Gryffindor offered him a hand out while he sniffed at their new company. "Ach, but that doesn't mean you can't become acquainted with a name." She reasoned with a small shrug. Rats didn't have terribly long lives either, but that didn't stop Sloane from loving Barnabas any less.

Taking a look across the grass at her brother, Sloane realized that she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon and since at least they were dry, she may as well get comfortable. "Speaking of names, I'm Sloane by the way." She added as an afterthought, unsure as to whether or not she knew her schoolmate's or not, but decided she should at least be up front about it.

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Clue watched the rat quietly, thinking it sweet. He liked animals, and they liked him. It was a good sign that animals liked Sloane too — or at least Barnabas did, and there was no reason why he couldn't be assumed a good judge of character.

"My name is Clue", he gave his oddity of a moniker. "And you are right. I'll call the spider Rain."

Sloane... "I've been to a place called Sloane before. Sloane Square. But... I didn't like it", he remembered dully. "Are you named after the place?"

  

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Clue? What a delightfully different name!

"Really? I've never heard of it," Sloane was not even sure she knew what her name meant, let alone where it came from. She made a mental note to ask her mother sometime. "Not that I know of. I had a twin named Sawyer as a babe, I think my mom thought the double S was cute." Unfortunately it hadn't lasted.

She cocked her head to the side as if to think more on the Sloane Square. "Where was this square though? And why didn't you like it?"

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Sloane and Sawyer... they sounded like names from an adventure book, and Clue could not help but like that. It gave the girl some otherworldly dimension, as if she belonged in some story yet to be told.

"Sloane Square is in London", he replied tonelessly, returning his eyes to his friend Rain, the spider. "I stayed there once, when I was little. Nobody nice lives there, not a soul. They don't like children." Or, at least, they didn't like the child that had been Clue.

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   Sloane Bixby

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"Hmm, well that's no fun." Still it would be amusing to see a place with her name on it. "I don't go there much, even though my mum works there." She mused, thinking that outside of Diagon Alley she probably hadn't ventured anywhere else in London itself.

"Are you from there? London that is." Now she was intrigued. In thinking about it, her hair tinted itself a little yellow, sunny against the raining backdrop of the day. It wasn't of her own volition, but sometimes it happened when lost in thought- the yellow anyway. Her hair often betrayed her emotions when she least expected it.

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Her mum worked in... Sloane Square? Surely not? Clue's eyes widened briefly as he thought of the butcher, and wondered irresistibly if Sloane's mother worked right there in the butcher, perhaps selling pork chops behind the counter or cleaning out the meat fridge...

No no, he mustn't make dark associations like that. Besides, as ignorant as he was of society and its ways, he knew Sloane did not dress or behave like a girl whose mother worked in a butcher shop.

"I'm from all over", Clue replied dully, fiddling with a dandelion in the grass. "Someone once told me I was born in Blackpool, but I don't know where that is. It sounds haunted. Then I was moved to Coventry. I know where that is. Then... well, then London. But now I'm somewhere better", his grey eyes lifted to the distant sight between the trees — Hogwarts castle. Sanctuary.

That, at last, was something they had very much in common: Hogwarts. And so the two children and the quaint little spider remained beneath the tree for a short while longer, speaking of school and classes and books and Houses until the rain eased and sun spilled through.

-fade out-

  

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