It takes a Village
All Hallow’s Eve
Chapter two: It takes a Village
In a small room at the top of the stairs of a 2-bedroom apartment lay a 13 year old girl in a spaghetti strap cropped tank top and pajama pants tightened at the waist. Her head of jet-black curly hair covered the pages of a large textbook, as did her face. She was slowly acquiring a small drop of drool at the corner of her mouth where her lips rested on the pages. Her glasses were skewed across her forehead and there was a lamp shining atop a bedside table that complimented the full-sized bed that was pushed into to the corner of the room. Lying next to the girl was a dark russet colored cat curled into a circle in the bend of her knees. The cat was unfortunately ejected from this position by a rather rude push from a repositioning leg which caused him to get up and stretch. He slowly stretched his way closer to the head of the bed and began pushing his paws into the girl’s side and meowing. The girl rolled backwards with a groan, unsticking her face from the slightly wet parchment and resting her glasses back on her nose properly.
Kai looked at the alarm clock across the room, 2:36 glowed back at her in bright red lettering. She looked down at the book laid open on her pillow and sighed. Cherry crawled over and laid on top of it, leaning to the side to give Kaizimi the best view of his voluptuous belly. Kai pulled the book out from under the cat and put it on the stand next to lamp then tapped the base of the lamp which extinguished it.
“I know it’s late.” Kai said with a quiet laugh as she rubbed the kitten’s belly.
She scratched his ears and looked out the window at the almost full moon shining bright enough to see everything in her room. “Should we sleep now, Cherry?” she asked the cat that was now stretched luxuriously across the length of her pillow. The cat lifted it’s head to look at her. If she was good at reading cat expressions, she would say she looked exasperated. You would be irritated too if someone stayed up all night reading in your bed. Kai smiled as she laid down, smooshing Cherry over in the process and causing her to get up so they could curl up next to each other again. They were both were asleep in seconds, I wonder what cats dream of she thought as she fell back into the twisting chaos of her constantly changing dreams.
*****
Remus took a sip of coffee and peeked over the top of the Daily Prophet at Kai who was staring into her bowl of cereal with blank eyes. She took another bite, chewing slowly and then a sip of coffee. She let out a sigh.
“What’s up with you? You look like something’s bugging you.”
“Me?” Kaizimi asked startled. “I’m fine. Totally fine, why?”
“If you’re fine then what kept you up so late last night?” Remus said putting the paper down on the table and folding his hands on top of it.
“I was just reading, getting a head start on school, you know.” She said looking down at his hands. The truth was that while she may have been researching information through school texts, it had nothing to do with school. “I found some of your old textbooks on the book-shelf and I got distracted by them.” She said quickly, looking up to meet his eyes, they were clouded with worry, but he was smiling.
“There’s no reason for you to worry, Zimi, you’ll have plenty of sleepless nights studying soon enough.” He said with a laugh. “We’ll be going to Diagon Alley today anyway, we’ll be getting some books that are not quite so outdated.” The look on his face didn’t match his laughter, something was hard in his eyes and his jaw was clenched as he got up to clear his dishes from the table.
“What would you like today my dear? Floo Powder or should we apparate?”
“Floo Powder please, apparating always makes me feel ill.” Said Kai with a smile of relief.
“Well go on then and get ready.” Remus said over his shoulder as he began placing charms over the kitchen to clear their breakfast and clean the dishes.
Kai headed up the stairs to brush her teeth and change into more suitable clothing for the day. She found a black pleated skirt and a royal blue v neck sweater. It clung to her and she tucked the bottom into the waist of her skirt before pulling on socks and calf high leather boots and then finally her robe. She headed back downstairs to meet Remus at the fireplace where he was already standing. He had the Daily Prophet open again but quickly rolled it up and stuffed it into his pocket when she walked into the room.
“Alrighty my dear, I’ll have you go ahead of me. I’ll be there straight away. Do you remember what to do? Make sure you speak clearly so the Floo Network knows where to send you. Okay and step right in there.” Remus handed Kaizimi a handful of glittering green Floo Powder and instructed her “Now say Diagon Alley.”
Kai Rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve done this before Da.”
“Diagon Alley.” Kai says loudly before throwing the glittering powder at the ground and disappearing in an explosion of green flames.
******
Her feet landed hard on the stone floor, and she fell forward out of the fireplace, catching herself on her hands and knees. She stood up and brushed herself off turning around just in time to see Remus land in a cloud of green flames. Unlike Kai, Remus did not fall to the ground. He gracefully stepped out of the fireplace and brushed himself off.
“So where do you want to go first?” He asked.
“Well it says in my supply list that I’m going to need a few supplied for potions, including a cauldron, we could start there.”
She remembered the first brewing cauldron she’d ever gotten as a child from My First Brewery. It was small, much too small to bring to school and use for class, but it was one of her fondest gift’s she had ever received.
Remus led the way out of the Fyre-station into the loud busy streets of Diagon Alley. The street was full of locals on a normal day but today it was packed with young witches and wizards dragging their parents in and out of shops making sure they have any last-minute items they needed from their school list.
“They don’t allow ferrets as pets for school!” Said a girl crying outside of a pet-shop about 10 feet away from them. Kaizimi was glad that her familiar was a cat which was thankfully one of the allowable species of pets.
They walked past one of the pet-shop windows that was full of owls in cages and Kai felt a pang of sadness. She hated the idea of any creature tied down and unable to go where they please, especially one that could fly if they wanted but not when they wanted.
She stopped and stared at a large snow-white owl which stared back at her with large sad eyes. Kai turned away and ran right into a soft warm wall. She almost fell back in surprise, but she was kept upright by 2 giant hands on her shoulders.
“Hagrid!” She shouted with joy as she wrapped her arms around his impossibly big waist and was enveloped by his hug. “I thought I wouldn’t get to see you until I got to school, what brings you out and about around here?”
“Oh ye’ know. Dumbledore’s always got a lil o’ this n’ tha’ for me to ta be takin’ care of.” Hagrid said with a mischievous smile. “You’ll be seein’ me for sure up at Hogwarts but today I’ve got ‘ter pick up a few thin’s, you know. I was just thinkin’ I might need to get a gift or somethin’ so I came to see what creatures we might choose from.”
“You’re picking out a pet for someone as a gift?” Kai asked thinking about Hagrid’s affinity for interesting but often dangerous magical creatures.
“Well sure, seems like the best gif’ I could choose, what wit’ me being a bit of an expert with the care o’ magical creatures and all.”
Kai looked back at the owl in the window, “you should get them that one.” She said pointing to the sad snowy owl. “She deserves to be given a better home than sitting in a cage with people staring at her all day.” She said sadly.
Hagrid looked at Kai for a moment and then looked at the owl in the window, “this one eh?” he asked “excellent choice miss Kaizimi, I better go pick her out before anyone else does, she’s a beaut’”
Kai smiled up at him, “thank you” she said feeling some relief, “I need to catch up with Dad, I’ll see you at school. Bye Hagrid!” she said walking away down the street as Hagrid turned to enter the pet shop.
*****
Remus was waiting a little ways down the road, outside of a book shop. “Here we are, your favorite.” He said with a chuckle. “Now before you pick out anything in here, I need to find these textbooks, then we can talk about pleasure reading.”
“No problem, Dad.” I said, standing on my tippy toes looking past him into the bookshop. He opened the shop door for Kai to lead the way and she almost ran past him. He walked in behind her and followed her through the winding aisles until they had acquired all the recommended texts. They kept going through an exhausting amount of aisles before Remus reminded her that she wouldn’t be able to fit her robes into her trunk if she got anymore books ‘just in case she gets bored at school’.
They headed to a few more shops after that, gathering potions equipment as well as a wand, robes, and writing supplies. They were almost back to the Fyre-station when Remus noticed Kaizimi lagging behind. “Come along, darling, we mustn’t linger here any longer. We still have plenty to do before tonight.”
Kai picked up her step as she had really only been day dreaming and they stepped into the Fyre-station, both laid up with their packages.
“Let me go ahead with the parcels, dear.” Remus gathered up all their spoils of the day and grabbed a handful of Floo Powder from the pot beside an open fireplace. “17 Fairfield House.” He said dropping his handful of powder and disappearing into the roar of the flames.
Kaizimi gathered her Floo Powder and stepped into the fireplace after him, she repeated the address and threw down her handful of glittering powder just as she thought she heard someone say “Kai!”. She saw no one as she was swallowed at the same moment and ended up falling out of their fireplace at home in confusion. Remus looked at her in confusion from the dining table where he was laying out their items.
“I thought I heard my name.” she said dusting herself off and getting up from the floor. “I tried to look for them and forgot to feel for my landing.” She said with a grunt walking over to the table to gather up all of her things so she could bring them upstairs and finish her packing.
Remus looked at her with a guilty expression on his face. “Well I’m sure it was nothing, be careful Kai, you know how easily you bruise.” Remus looked down and Kai’s eyebrows furrowed
“Is there something else?” She asked wondering why he looked like he didn’t want to say what he was about to say. “Well I didn’t want to worry you but I wanted to tell you something before you go finish packing. He’s coming to pick you up… tonight.” He said, struggling to look her in the eyes.
She looked at him, “I thought I didn’t need to leave until tomorrow and by then I’ll be on the train on my way to school. Why am I leaving a day early?” she asked, swallowing hard.
“It’s nothing to worry about but with the proximity of this particular full moon, we just wanted to be extra careful and get you out of the house for tonight. I’m fine, we just figured it couldn’t hurt to have him pick you up a little early this month.”
Kaizimi looked at him with worry, “you promise you’re not hiding anything from me? Why didn’t you bring it up sooner?
“We decided this plan only a couple of days ago and I forgot to bring it up, do you mind Zimi?”
Do I mind? She thought of course I mind. Kai hated last minute plans but she smiled up at Remus and grabbed the rest of her things “If you say so, I had better pack quickly. When will Uncle Sev be here?”
Remus looked at her with relief and sagged into a chair running his hands through his hair which seemed to be gathering a few more patches of grey. “Severus will be here around 9 so you still have a bit of time and I’ll be getting supper together in a short bit so you two won’t have to worry about what to make tonight.”
Kaizimi nodded thanks to Remus before taking all her things up to her room to finish packing for school.