The Forest - R.L.

Chapter 5 - The Girl

"Excuse me." Abbey said, trying to get the woman at the counter's attention.

"How can I help you?" she replied, looking up from her paperwork. She had a thick accent that Grace had never encountered before, which made her very hard to understand.

"Are the Firefoxes over there for sale?" Abbey asked her, pointing to the cage.

"Not the mother," she replied, shortly "The cubs are for sale. 8 galleons each."
Abbey looked at her mother, who sighed and reached into her purse. She pulled out the eight galleons and laid them on the counter. The woman pocketed the coins and led the two over to the cage.
"Which one?"

Abbey knelt down in front of the cage so that she could get a better view of the fox cubs. "That one, please," she said, pointing to the smaller cub that sat watching its two siblings cub.
The woman nodded "His name is Charlie. You can change it if you want." Abbey shook her head "I like the name Charlie."

The woman smiled down at her, before walking back over to the counter. She bent down and pulled out a form from underneath the counter.
"Fill this out. I will drop the cub and the required equipment at your home in two days. Okay?"
"Yes, that's good, thank you." Abbey's mother replied.

Grace, who had been busy exploring the store, took this as her opportunity to make another friend.

"Are you going to Hogwarts too?" she asked Abbey, taking a step towards her.
"Yep! I'm just about to start my first year!"
Grace gasped "Me too! I'm Grace, by the way."

"Abbey Pinehood," she replied, before furrowing her eyebrows "Where are you from? You have an accent."

"Oh! I'm Australian! We moved here because my dad's going to teach Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts," Grace stated proudly. "Wow! Really? At Hogwarts!?" "Yep."

The two smiled at each other, before Abbey's mum interrupted them "Abigail, we need to get going now, your father will be wondering where we are."

Abbey looked at bit disappointed "Okay. By Grace! I'll... see you at Hogwarts?"

"Yeah! Bye Abbey!" She waved at them as they left the shop before turning to her parents. Her father said "Well, maybe we should get going too. We still have a lot to get." Grace nodded, and the three of them left as well, thanking the woman at the counter.

They headed to Flourish and Blotts to purchase all the books that Grace would need for the year. It was nearly midday, so the bookstore was beginning to get quite busy and there was a queue for the counter. Alexander offered to line up and purchase Grace's books for her, giving her some time to browse through a few of the large rows of bookshelves that filled the shop.

She was looking at the small section of muggle books that the store owned when she saw a familiar head of messy brown hair. "Remus!"

He looked up from the tattered book that he was holding "Grace?"

She ran over to him and threw her arms around him "How've you been?" He stood still for a few seconds, still processing what had just happened, before hugging her back "You just saw me yesterday!"

As they both pulled back, Grace laughed. "Well, how've you been since yesterday?"
"Good, I suppose. You?"
"Great! This morning, my dad took us to this shop, and they had these foxes that could-"

"Remus?" A man's voice called, making the two of them turn in that direction.
"Ah, there you are." A middle aged man came towards them, with curly brown hair and kind blue eyes. "Who is this?" he asked, gesturing towards Grace, with a very surprised look on his face. His son was usually extremely quiet, and avoided others at all costs, yet here he was, laughing away with a young girl.

"Grace Thorne. Are you Remus' dad?"
Grace answered "Yeah, he is. Grace's is starting at Hogwarts too, dad. She's Australian," Remus replied, smiling at his father.
"That's great! Well, I'm sorry to interrupt the two of you, but we really should be going. Mum's already waiting outside."

Remus sighed, and turned back to her "Okay. Bye Grace!" "See you at school!" She waved as they left the shop, before going off to see if her father had bought her books yet.

---

Grace collapsed onto the small brown couch as soon as they arrived back at the cottage two hours later, exhausted.
Her grandfather looked up from the book he had been reading, startled by her sudden entrance "Grace?" She sat up.

"So, how was it?"
"It was amazing, Pa. Dad took us to this shop with all these magical creatures, and there were Firefoxes! They're foxes that can light themselves on fire!" she stated, proudly "And we also went to this gigantic bookshop."

"That's great dear," he smiled at her, before her parents burst through the door, each carrying a large amount of bags. "Grace? A hand please?" She groaned, before jumping off the couch to help them with the bags.

Ten minutes later, Grace, her parents and her grandparents were all seated around the fire with a hot drink. "So, Grace, are you excited for school?" Mary asked her. "Absolutely! And I already know two people that are going to be in my year level!" Mary smiled at her granddaughter "Oh really? How exciting," she nodded her head.

"Yeah! I met this girl called Abbey whilst I we were at the Magical Menagarie." Mary chuckled "Oh of course your father took you to that place," she smiled at Alexander.
Grace turned to her grandfather "She bought one of those Firefoxes I was telling you about before. And then there's Remus. I saw him today, actually. At the bookstore."

"Remus?" her father looked confused. "Yeah, the boy in the forest," she told him, before noticing that her father was still confused and adding "Did I not tell you about him?"
"No, I don't think so dear."
"I met him yesterday, when I went exploring in the forest. He's going to Hogwarts too. Apparently, he lives in the house that's behind them."

"The Lupin boy?" William asked, turning to his wife "Must be." she replied. "What a busy day you've had, Grace. And another busy one tomorrow. You should probably be getting off to bed."

Grace sighed. "Yeah, okay. Goodnight everyone."

"Goodnight."