don't try it

“Uh…no?” Eloise said, looking at the toad with disgust she failed to hide. “It seems to like you, though. Sure it’s not yours?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure.” he lifted the load closer to his face, looking at it eye-to-eye. The thing obviously had no soul - its eyes were pitch black and awful. And Dom really fucking hated the bow tie. “Well, I don’t like it. Is there fuckin’- I dunno, somewhere I can put it? So it can stop following me?”

Someone inside the cafe cheered her on with her ouyburst, “Hell yeah, Kitty!” She made a motion to bow down with a satisfied smirk as the couple seem to get even more irritated. She snickered as Dom also intervened with their argument, even bringing up their little bet. “Oh come on, how is this not cheating?” she muttered but watched the rest of the incident quietly nonetheless. She groaned and threw her head back along with an eye roll as they all witnessed the loudest slap she heard in a while. “Ouch,” she commented, scrunching her nose. “You won, I’m surprised,” she nodded, pursing her lips together in surprise. She flagged down a waitress to order their drinks.

“No, the fire is not the part of the candle litting, by the way,” she replied to his question earlier. “I meant as in a fireplace, or a camp fire… Something cozy, y’know.” She shrugged, it wasn’t like she was going to get a date anytime soon to accomplish the dream scenario. “Two butterbeers,” she ordered once a girl in an apron with a notepad showed up.

“Think we kinda helped with my winning. I dunno if she’d’ve hit him if we let ‘em keep going.” Still, a victory was a victory, and he was damn proud that he’d bet on the right side of things. Even if it was technically cheating, who cared? A win was a win. “Your performance was great, though, so thanks for that.”

“So a campfire... Or a fireplace... With candles?” That felt like an excessive amount of things lit on fire, but if that was Kitty’s idea of a good date, alright then. Noted and put away for potential future reference. “Dunno, bet for students the best place t’go on a date would just be in the castle, s’not like anyone’s in there right now.” The waitress brought the butterbeers in record speed, probably thanks to Kitty’s loud intervention with the earlier argument. Dom took a large gulp of his drink, the foam leaving a mustache on his upper lip, “Y’ever been on a Hogsmeade date?”

‘Look-’ she handed him the one she took a bite out of.’ It is not salty at all, I promise I must have-’ realisation took upon her and she cursed under her breath. ‘ Carrots! This is why I should never bake cookies without Gideon, it’s um– I mixed two batches together by accident. Salty bad ones and good ones. I am a bloody idiot.’

He took the cookie from her but just looked at it - why would he eat a cookie Molly had already taken a bite out of? “Carrots? In the cookies?” Dom blinked, before realizing that carrots was just a weird expletive, “Oh, got it.” he nodded, mostly pleased that she wasn’t playing a weird prank on him. “Y’couldn’t just, fuckin’, I dunno, throw ‘em out? Why’d you keep ‘em at all?”

“Can’t really get used to it if it never - well, hardly ever - happens, you know?” Gideon heard how arrogant that sounded but after saying it, there really was no way back. 

“...Uh-huh. S’that a Gryffindor thing or a you thing? The sounding like a dick, I mean.” 

“Really, Dom?” Kitty shook her head at him with an expression of disbelief upon his ignorance. She sighed in annoyance as the couple got louder but she tried to ignore them for another moment as she focused on what he was saying. “Maybe,” she agreed with a shrug of her own. “Still though…” she made a face that indicated she still wasn’t too keen on the idea. “Why not take her somewhere fancy?” she offered. “A candle lit dinner, maybe some fire…” she was almost about to start daydreaming with the image she was putting in her own mind. But of course, the couple would not leave her to it.

“Hey!” she yelled across the cafe and got everyone’s attention, including the fighting couple. “Kiss or slap him already so we can go on with our days, will ya?” She motioned with her hand for them to hurry up. “You’re being too loud for my friend’s liking here,” she snapped, pointing a finger at Dom.

“What?” he asked genuinely; he didn’t think it was that bad that he didn’t know the two. They obviously weren’t worth knowing, anyway, based on her screeching and his half-assed attempts to calm her down. “Is the fire a part of the candle-lit dinner or is that something different?”

Dom watched in amazement as Kitty grabbed the attention of everyone in the cafe, nodding along with her as she pointed him out. “Yeah, ‘ve kinda got a drink riding on this, if you could just fuckin’ do something?” Apparently that was enough for the girl, because she screamed something about telling him she didn’t want to have this conversation in Hogsmeade of all places, gave him a very solid slap across the face, and stormed out.  

“Hey!” he grinned, clapping his hands once as they left. “Well done. That’s a butterbeer for me.”

Willow shook her head, “No, I definitely am not muggle studies.” She couldn’t express her disgust for the subject, though. That wouldn’t be very professional of her. Instead, she forced a smile onto her face, not letting her distaste show. “I can walk you there, if you’d like?”

“Right, yeah, figured s’much.” he nodded slowly. Dom was never the best around any sort of teacher, whether or not they were the one he was supposed to be meeting right now. She was probably going to dock more points off his quiz for being late. Was the professor even a she? Now that Dom thought about it, he genuinely couldn’t remember a single thing about the professor he was supposed to be meeting. “What? Oh, sure.” ...It had taken him a second to realize the professor actually there had spoken, and he didn’t even realize what he had agreed to until after he agreed to it. Was he supposed to make small talk with this lady now? He didn’t know if he was capable of that. “You’re not busy?”

She laughed lightheartedly, shaking her head. “No worries, just make a mental note to double check before the next trip,” she offered, giving him a reassuring pat on the back. She then popped a lemon fuzzie in her mouth with a nod. “Yeah, because less stuff is new,” she theorized, speaking around the candy in her mouth. “By the time we’re sixth years, we’ve seen everything. The only thing different is the people.”

“S’what it is!” he pointed at her, a full eureka! moment happening. “I just thought Hogsmeade was getting shittier. Guess it’s just us.” Dom chuckled, actually quite glad to realize that the problem with the Hogmeade trips wasn’t Hogsmeade itself. “We’re just getting old as shit. Everything sucks when you’re ancient.” 

Mack: [screams]

“You forgot your cash before the first Hogsmeade trip of the year?” she asked skeptically before laughing. “I don’t know how you managed to do that.” She was obviously teasing, knowing she’s made similar mistakes. She then shrugged. “Eh, more now that I got my fuzzies,” she smiled, already starting to open the box. “How about you?”

“...Yeah.” Dom shot her a half-joking grimace, definitely aware of how stupid that was. He popped a chocoball in his mouth, now taking on the appearance of a gerbil with its mouth half-full, and his words came out muddled by the sweets, “Think the trip gets worse every year. Third year was the best, shit just goes downhill from there.”

‘‘Dominic!’‘ Mack yelled, catching sight of the boy out of the corner of his eye. He turned sharply on his heel, sparing no one as he shoved through the crowds of people towards his brother. He could feel his heart racing, pounding against his chest cavity as the tenseness and sheer terror of worry started fading away at seeing Dom safe inside the castle walls.

‘‘Dammit, Dom, I told you to stay put!’‘ Mack spoke sharply, grabbing hold of his younger brother’s shoulders tightly and shaking him. The chaos had spent Mack spinning, people running everywhere, the shouting and the not knowing. He had seen his brother, but Mack hadn’t stopped, only to tell him to stay there, Mack’s first priority had been to reach the others. He knew that Dominic could take care of himself. But when returning and seeing that Dom was nowhere to be seen, had spiked pure fear into Mack once again.

‘‘Why don’t you ever fucking listen to me!?’‘ @domyaxley​

Dom jumped at the sound of his name being shouted over the crowd. For just a brief second it sounded like their father, but just as quickly as the thought of his father entered his mind it left, as Mack was suddenly there shaking his shoulders very hard. “Shit, Mack-” he pushed his brother’s arms away. 

So maybe he immediately left where he was after Mack had seen him in the chaos of Hogsmeade fully out of spite, because why would he listen to him in the first place? There were professors everywhere ordering students back to the castle; Dom wasn’t going to get a detention just because his brother had told him not to move. 

“’Cause you’re not my fuckin’ boss, maybe?” He had meant for his words to come out angrier than they did; he hated how small he sounded. Maybe the incident had shaken him just a bit, so what?

“Pardon?” Voleta had been tucked away in a private alcove, her feet tucked neatly under her as she read a book she had borrowed from the library. She had been so engrossed in the words that she hadn’t realized someone was speaking to her. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“Yeah, just-” Dom sighed, not keen on repeating himself after going through all the work of getting his sentence out the first time. “Thought I left my Herbology book here. If you’ve seen it.”

Kitty turned her head to the side a little to see what he was pointing at. Oh, so this was where that obnoxious noise was coming from. “You’re on,” she nodded solemnly. “I don’t think she will. She has been pining after him for ages.” she dragged the last part of her sentence with a groan, the couple not interesting her enough. 

They were just another couple of dumbasses. Nothing Hogwarts hasn’t seen before. “I don’t get why this trip is such a hot time for the likes of those. If I were to date, a village full of hormonal teenagers wouldn’t be my go to.”

“They go to Hogwarts?” Dom raised an eyebrow, genuinely not having recognized the pair. In his defense, he probably couldn’t name half of his classmates if they stood right in front of him. The girl raised her voice again, somehow louder than she already was, but still no slap. He was going to be in more pain than either of them if this carried on much longer.

Gideon narrowed his eyes. “That was a mistake that will not be repeated.”

“Sure.” Dom nodded, not bothering to shoot back anything about Hufflepuff beating them - it wasn’t like he had much faith in his own team. “You’re not used to losing at this point?”

Sibella was craving some lemon fuzzies, and she always tried to grab herself a box on every trip. However, for some reason, the line was crazy long so she had all but given up until Dom called out to her. Perfect opportunity. “Sure, I’ll cover you,” she smiled, walking up to the front of the line and bringing out her money. She paid for both of their candies before whispering to him “It’s a small price to pay to skip the line, right?” She handed him his box and opened hers before saying “You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, thanks for that. Forgot all my cash - yeah.” Dom held up his box slightly, in a bit of a ‘cheers’ motion, grateful for the free chocolates. And she acknowledged that got something out of it too, so now he didn’t really feel like he had to pay her back, win-win-win. “Having fun?”