A Grave Encounter ((Simone))

[Fiona O'Reilly S5]

Fiona quickly made her way through the dirty muggle filled streets. She hated the fact that she couldn't Apparate yet. If only she was 17. She would have taken the Floo Network if they hadn't turned it off to Diagon Alley. Didn't want any Death Eaters to go through the network. Fiona didn't mind too much. After all, she had finally become happy again. The secret was almost too much to bear. If only she could see Maddie or Kennedy, maybe even Rosaliz. Her friends. She wanted to tell one of them, but would she get in trouble? That's all she needed was to break the promise she swore she would keep. It's not like some people didn't believe the secret was true, some had witnessed the appearance. Fiona shook her head of the thoughts as she continued down the dirty streets. She held her head high. She was better than these filthy muggles and they knew it just by looking at her. Everyone could tell that she was superior. Fiona smiled to herself at her thoughts. She was definitely her father's daughter.

Finally, Fiona reached the Leaky Cauldron. She quickly entered only to find a line leading to Diagon Alley. Oh, Bloody Hell! Fiona thought to herself. She had forgotten about the security checks. Last time it had taken her almost an hour to get through them and there looked to be more people today. Fiona cursed to herself as she stood in the line waiting. She hated these lines with a passion. Looking around she decided to make fun of the people in the line for fun to herself. One womans hat looked like a giant helmet. Fiona smiled to herself as she looked each person over until she came to the front of the line. Fiona smiled to herself when she saw the guards. They were obviously trying to pull off some kind of superior look, but they were failing miserably.

However, Fiona's smile faded within the first 5 minutes at the checkpoint. She was tired of being searched. All she wanted was to go Christmas shopping and that wasn't even something she wanted to do either. Her temper flared. "I've been here before! Just let me through!" Fiona exclaimed in frustration. "We're doing what we can, Miss. Just calm down!" the guard who was searching her said. After another few minutes the guard finally stopped using the different spells he had learned to search people and asked for her name. "O'Reilly, Fiona O'Reilly," she said with anger as she gave the guard a look that could kill. The guard took a step back and let her pass. The look in his face told her that he was pretty scared of her by then. She smiled evilly and then continued on to the next check point. That one didn't seem to take as long.

Fiona entered Diagon Alley and she sighed with relief. "If I have to go through those check points one more time I'm going to scream! Do you honestly think they'll attack the same place twice! You're so stupid," Fiona exclaimed out loud in frustration. Some people shopping turned to look at her and she glared at them. They returned to their shopping quickly. Fiona sighed in exasperation as she headed to Gringotts. Coming back out of Gringotts she looked at the galleons in her money pouch. Where to first? She needed to get a few gifts for her friends and of course someone she had no idea was back. Fiona smiled to herself. She wasn't alone after all. Her thoughts were interrupted as she saw a slight flash from her pocket. She quickly extracted the device and looked at it. She needed to be back in Ireland by 5 that night. She had about 5 hours since it was noon.

Fiona quickly headed to Knockturn Alley. She knew where she was headed. She just hoped that they would enjoy the gift. She walked straight into the jewelry store she had passed the other day when she had seen Mack. It had some dark jewelry inside for those dark wizards who came about. Fiona looked around at the rings inside. One caught her eye quickly. It was of a dragon curled up with it's mouth open. In it's mouth was an emerald bright and shining. It was a ring for those of dark decent. Fiona picked it up. He would love it. Especially since it was from her. Fiona quickly took it to the counter. "That ring is 20 galleons," the man behind the counter said. "I'll give you 10 for it," Fiona said with a glare. She knew it wasn't worth 20. She was smarter than he was. "Fifteen," the man said. "I'll give you 10," Fiona said her eyes narrowing and her voice deadly. "Ten it is," the man said. Fiona quickly paid and left the store putting the box inside her pocket. It would be safe there.

Fiona looked back around Knockturn Alley. She didn't know what her friends would want. She decided to check Diagon Alley's options. She headed out of the place and looked down the long shops. Nothing seemed too interesting so she decided to stop by the bookstore, but she stopped. Diagon Alley had been attacked the last time she was in the bookstore. She had almost died right outside of it. She didn't feel like going back inside, but they would never strike the same place twice. They were like lightning. Fiona looked around and decided to head to the Quidditch shop. She stopped at the window and checked out the latest Firebolt edition. It looked fast. Real fast. It was here when someone dropped a galleon near her. She picked it up and turned to see whose it was.

[simone]

Simone stretched out lazily – glad to be in her own home for once. “Oi.” She said tiredly nudging her best friend Wesley with her toe, as he lay asleep on the floor of her family room. They had been up most of the night watching classic Christmas movies before she feel asleep on the couch and he did on the floor. “Oi, Brat. It’s morning. I’m going shopping in Diagon; need to get something for mum. Wanna come?” She said to him as he swat at hand at her and rolled over. “Fine. You would think you would still be excited about all this magic stuff but whatever. Stay here long as you like – you know that – I should be home soon enough.”

She left him there as she went up to her room and changed out of yesterday’s clothes into today’s. She pulled her hair out of it’s ponytail – taking a good few knotted strands with it. She knew she shouldn’t sleep with her up but she never remembered to take it out – plus she didn’t like watching television with her hair down. After brushing her hair and putting it back up Simone applied a small amount of lip-gloss before grabbing her backpack and dumping it out on her bed. She put her wallet back in along with a brush, some gum, and her house key. She left everything that was in the front pocket too but all her books and things she just left on her bed.

Simone lived in a fairly usual fairly muggle home even though both her parents were magical. Her mum was a muggleborns though, making Simone a half blood, and they had raised her in the muggle world. She had always known she was a witch but she still went to public school until she was eleven and started at Hogwarts. Simone walked into her dad’s office and took some strange powder out of what looked like an urn to muggles off the mantle. “The Leaky Cauldron” she said as she stepped into the emerald flames that resulted from her throwing the powder into the fire.

She spun a few moments before landing in a pub and brushed the ash off herself. It took a bit in line to get checked but it wasn’t too bad. All they did was walk you through a secrecy sensor and check some ID to make sure they know who all is in the alley. What should she get her mum? A book perhaps… Or some new robes… Maybe a rare bracelet? Simone thought as she walked down the busy alley looking in shop windows that she passed.

One store looked like it had some nice knickknacks and Simone peeked in there for a moment. Nothing seemed just right though and she left. She was walking passed the Quidditch shop when suddenly a girl near her spun around, a galleon in her hand, and Simone accidentally bumped into her. “Op, sorry” Simone said and kept walking.

((Okay just a few things. Sorry it took me so much longer than expected to reply. I got so wrapped up in the Christmas stuff and how erratic my sleep has been that I hadn’t gotten a chance to work on replies yet. As well, I know my post doesn’t exactly fit with yours and I wanted to offer a few explanations because I know how annoying it is to feel like someone did not read your post before they replied – or worse they did read it and just decided to go against what you said. About the security, I just couldn’t justify it to myself writing the security process differently in two different threads especially when this is the way I see it happening. As well, I interpreted it as you wanting Simone to be the person with the galleon but that just doesn’t work for me. Simone is not the kind of person to carry around loose change in her hand – it’s always in her wallet which today is in her backpack and will therefore not be dropping money. So I just wanted to offer some explanations for what I did )

[Fiona O'Reilly S5]

Fiona turned around in time to be hit by a girl crossing her path. She stumbled back a bit and dropped the galleon that she had just picked up. She quickly regained her balance and quickly picked the galleon back off. She noticed the owner standing not far from her and she rolled her eyes at them and threw the coin back on the ground. They could pick up their own damn money. She wasn't going to hand it to them. She should have just kept it, but at the moment she needed to turn her attention back to the girl that had just ran into her. She turned away from the coin and the owner seemed to notice Fiona's reaction to the girl and quickly grabbed the galleon from the ground and ran.

Fiona watched the owner of the galleon out of the corner of her eye. She was battling a smile that had played across her lips. She loved making people weary of her. However, she needed to focus her attention on to the girl that had just walked into her, apologized briefly, and then walked off again. The girl didn't even seem to realize who she had just ran into. Fiona quickly brushed herself off and addressed the girl rudely, "Who do you think you are? Just walking into me like that, are you blind? Did you not notice that I was standing here?" Fiona called after the girl with anger. She had no idea if the girl would even acknowledge the fact that Fiona was addressing her, but that wasn't the point. The point was the Fiona didn't want to be made to look like a fool in public. The girl needed to be taught a lesson.

((That's cool about your plot. I don't really care, it makes things more interesting when people decide to take the road less traveled. Anyway, I don't really know what else to say. It's all based on your reaction to me whether or not some things get put in there. So sorry it's short. Trying to get back into the swing of things.))

[simone]

The girl Simone had bumped into suddenly started hollering and Simone turned to her. She took a step back over toward the girl so she wouldn’t have to shout. “Well maybe if you had been moving forward and not spinning like a top I would not have bumped into you. If you haven’t noticed it’s not exactly deserted out here or are you the one who’s blind? And honestly, you need to get a handle on your temper. Who flies off the handle at something as trivial as this? If you ask me I think you are overcompensating for something.” Simone retorted with a smirk in calm tones. The girl appeared to be a tad bit younger than her though not enough to say for sure. But she must have been because chances were the girl went to Hogwarts as well and she certainly wasn’t in Simone’s year.

Of course Simone assumed the head case would like to reply so she decided not to walk away just yet – it wouldn’t do to go back and forward all the time. So instead she looked into the nearby shop windows with a bored look on her face. Honestly though, who lost their temper at being bumped into? That girl must be mental and though Simone wasn’t one for fighting a good argument was always fun. Especially with those arrogant enough to think they owned the pathways or something.

[Fiona O'Reilly S5]

Fiona shuddered with rage of the comment from the girl about overcompensation. Overcompensation! I'm damn near perfect, if not completely! Fiona thought to herself. Maybe she was a tad bit arrogant, but she had the right to be. She was just about perfect in every aspect, especially now that her life was finally getting back in order. She would be able to do whatever she wanted soon and those oaf of an uncle and aunt she had would soon be no more. Fiona pushed the glorifying thought from her head as she placed her attention back on the events happening in the here and now. She glared at the girl for her comments and was about to start shouting again when a familiar thought entered her mind. An old proverb her mother used to say, "Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world. You only need to feel it's power to recognize it. Don't waste it on beings of little intelligence for they will get their pain in the end. Use it to manipulate those that are around you if you want to use them, else wise a subtle insult should do the trick." Pain and happiness hit Fiona at that moment. Her ma had been so truthful and she had tried to teach Fiona the asset of controlling anger, but since her death Fiona has found little time to think about such a comment. Now it seemed so important, not trivial like she had always thought it to be.

Fiona bit her tongue to try to subside some of her anger. Then she looked at the girl deciding to chose her words carefully. She wasn't sure what she wanted to say, whether she wanted to befriend this girl or else give her a piece of her mind. Finally she forced a smile. "Forgive me you were right. I did turn a bit too quickly, it would have taken anyone off guard. Unfortunately my lack of control seemed to have wiped away my manners. You must go to Hogwarts, right? Fiona O'Reilly the last of the O'Reilly clan. You are?" Fiona asked as she stuck out her hand. She quieted the thoughts of disgust at her own words. However, she had little time to think about this as she wondered how exactly this girl would take her new reaction. Some people would think her strange, especially since she had a reputation as being one to fly off the handle. Hopefully her reputation did not proceed her in this instant.

((Sorry it took so long. You know how school is. Anyway...changed my approach a bit, hope you don't mind, but Fiona was in need of a bit of color instead of the black and white picture all the time. Not as long as I would have liked, but I've been gone a while, so I hope it's not too awful. Hope you enjoy.))