❝The war is won❞
Voldemort has been defeated by Harry Potter for good, and the Wizarding World has begun its healing. The paved streets of Diagon Alley are filled with people vanishing broken glass, fixing up robbed shops, and reinstating their bus...
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AUGUST 10, 1998
BILLIE
SHE HAD FOUND SOMEONE FOR THE JOB. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of unemployed young witches and wizards looking for jobs after the war. Within days, she had signed contracts with Hannah Abbott and Padma Patil, both recent gruaduates of Hogwarts. They had all agreed to work over the course of a year. However, Billie would have to work over Christmas, something she should've seen coming.
She'd put the two on their second or third solo shift, trusting them with the shop until she came back. Mister Erret's office was next to the Leaky Cauldron.
"Thirty Galleons," Billie said with a tight smile, dropping a pouch on Erret's desk. It was the month's rent.
"Thank you, Holt," Mister Erret leaned forward, examining the amount. "You been havin' any trouble?"
"No," she replied. Yes, she thought. "Everything's fine," I hate my fucking job.
"Very well. Good day, Holt," Erret waved her off dismissively, and Billie left the managing office with a pep in her step.
A gaggle of schoolgirls brushed past her.
"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes has self-inking quills!" one of them said excitedly as they rushed in the direction of the joke shop.
Self inking quills? Those did sound rather fascinating. They would make the progress of writing far faster. Billie wanted one.
She followed the girls up to the joke shop, narrowly avoiding a minature firecracker snapping near her ear as she drew closer. The girls from earlier were now distracted by a cloud of fairies fluttering around the entranceway. The double doors hung wide open, with crowds of people going out making way for the ones trying to get in. Billie blended in as she stepped—for the first time—into Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
And she was immediately hooked. The first thing that she saw were firework, real fireworks popping against the ceiling. Billie only ever saw fireworks once a year at Christmas when the Muggles would pop them over the Thames. They were every color of the rainbow, and seemed to never stop exploding. A boy shouldered past her. He was running towards a giant platter of suspiciously shiny black dust. Animated quills and Piffskeins chased each other around, and a ghoul was groaning prices of sweets to a teen.
"Some of this stuff is quite neat," Billie murmured offhandedly, examining a box of Extendable Ears. Those sounded handy. Not useful per se, but nice to own. And the Pygmy Puffs really were adorable.
"Isn't it, darling?" An extremely tall man with bright orange eyeshadow said, wearing bright magenta robes and a name tag that said Doris. "Here, let me show you the Pygmy Puff cage so you can pick one out yourself,"
Billie followed the employee up a level of stairs to a large golden cage, filled with what seemed to be pom-poms, but were little adorable creatures with long, long fur on closer inspection. As Billie pressed her hands against the cage, one of the smallest Puffs noticed her, squeaked, then prompty fell of its perch on a stick, tumbled towards the edge of the cage, and sniffed her hand.
