Sugary Sweet (Open)

Faye walked into the sweet shop and looked around. There were so many options. She didn't know which one she wanted to chose.

She clunched to the few coins from her allowence possesivly. Her family never gave her much in this regard and she was always determined to strech it for as much as she could.

Walking among the large rows, her small frame getting hidden behind some of the displays, she got lost getting caught on everything before she stumbled into a display of chocolate wands knocking them all over the floor.

"Bugger all," she muttered, her face flooding with heat.

Roman was wandering through the store, marveling at all the sweets on display. His mother never allowed him sweets unless they were offered at a party, and he wanted everything in the store.

A loud crashing sound came from across the store. He curiously peeked around the corner of one of the aisles to see Faye standing over a huge pile of chocolate wands on the floor.

He walked over to Faye, smiling, "You need some help?"

At that moment, the man at the cashier walked up to him, his face red, "Hey! You're going to have to pay for that!" Roman looked at the ground again to see if any of them were salvageable. Unfortunately, most of them were either broken or covered with little pieces of dust.

Faye looked up from the mess she had made to see a familar face, "Roman, thank you-"

Her words were cut off as the man from the counter came over them. Faye on instinct shrunk away from the man's angry voice. She looked down at the floor and fold in on herself.

"I'm sorry sir," she more or less whispered, "I'll-I'll-"

The man ignored her stuttering and walked away, but Faye did not think that he was done with his order.

She bit her lip as she looked at the mess, the number she had knocked over.

"I don't think I have enough money for all this."

Roman saw Faye curl up on the floor, "Don't worry," he knelt down and put his hand on her shoulder, saying, "I can take care of this."

He walked back up to the cashier and placed a few galleons on the table, "Is this enough?"

The man grunted and took the money, "I'll send someone to clean it up."

Roman walked back to Faye, offering his hand to help her up, "Are you okay?"

Faye flushed as she was helped her up. God why was she always so...

"I am so sorry Roman, you shouldn't have had to," she shook her head and she fiddled around in her pocket for her change, "Let me pay you back. Its not a lot, probably not enough, but its all I got."

She seemed to realize one thing or another, and then ran a hand through her hair, looking down shyly again.

"I am fine, just... being clutzy and silly. Thank you Roman," she looked up a moment to give him a small semi-joking smile before looking back down with a flush, "I think this makes you my hero."

"No, no, please," Roman said shaking his head, "I need an excuse to spend some of my money. I should be thanking you."

He blushed at Faye's comment, scanning the shelves attentively, "It was the only decent thing to do."

He looked at her again, giving her a good-natured smile, "You seem to have an unfortunate habit of running into things."

"You need to spend your money?" she gave him a little smile, feeling brave enough to look up for a whole sentence. "I don't think I've heard that one before."

"Well I still thank you; there must be something I can do for you now."

Faye blused and gave a little laugh, "I do do that don't I? I really think it should be a medical condition - inability to walk without crashing into something."

Roman laughed nervously, he was never proud of having more money than other people.

"No, no. Please. There's nothing you can do for me- I mean. Uh... think nothing of it." If possible, he blushed harder.

Roman smiled at her comment, picking up some of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean from the shelf and looking at the package.

Faye although shy, and a tad bit socially awkward, could be very stuborn when she wanted to be. And right now she wanted to be.

"There must be something," she bit her lip. "I can't think nothing of it Roman. It may seem like nothing to you but if you hadn't come a long... I really do not think I had enough money for all that and... I do not respond well to angry people. I do not know what would have happened to me if I had been left alon to explain to that man I could not pay."

"Are you sure you won't let me off the hook this one time?" he smiled weakly.

Roman thought for a second, he didn't want to accept help from her, it felt wrong. But he knew that it would make Faye feel better. The problem was, he didn't need anything, and he didn't want Faye to feel like she was doing something for, well, nothing.

"Wait a second," he looked down at his injured hand. He had seen Faye walking out of a healing class a couple of weeks ago. He unwrapped the hastily tied bandages and held up the long gash on the back of his hand, "Do you think you could heal this?"

Faye gave a little smile, "I'm sure."

She waited patiently as the boy decided on an answer. When he held up the injured hand, she gave a little gasp and her sympathetic instincts took over, for once making her completely unshy.

She grabbed his hand, and gently looked over the gash.

"Roman," she said softly, "What did you do?"

"I-I.... well I may have unintentionally agreed to have a duel with some fifth years..." he smiled apologetically, the jerks deserved to be beaten, though, "And I can't exactly go to the infirmary. They have a nasty habit of always asking how something happened."

Faye raised an eyebrow, "You may have unintentionally agreed to a duel."

She bit her lip as she continued to look at the wound.

"That doesn't sound like a very fair duel then... and you're lucky its only a gash on your hand. You know people get serious injuries from duels and then they could end up..." she looked up with a blush and shook her head. She didn't really know why she cared so much about this suddenly... maybe it just reminded her too much of her brother, "Sorry... you asked me so you didn't have to hear the don't get yourself in trouble rant."

Roman shook his head, "The duel itself I agreed to... just not the amount of people."

He shrugged, "It's a little easier to listen to when it comes from a friend."

"The amount of people? So this duel turned into one on...?" she trailed off questioningly waiting to let Roman fill in the blank.

"Well then as a friend," she stated with a shy - yet someone how stern - smile, "No more duels. I don't have many friends, it would be a shame for me to lose one of the ones I have."

Having finished looking at the wound she fiddled in her pocket for her wand and gave the boy another nervous glance, "I'll try... I'm not very good at magic you know. This could be a high risk on your part."

Roman thought for a moment, "Last I counted... seven I think, if you count the jerks that joined in while I was running away..."

He looked at Faye solemnly, "I promise. No more duels," then allowed himself a wry smile, "That is, unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Give it your best shot. If anything bad happens, at least then I'll have a valid excuse to go the the Infirmary."

Faye grimanced. That certainly fair - that also sounded like something her brother would do. "Well that is certianly not fair at all. I am sorry."

"Good," she nodded her face just as solemn but here eyes sparking just slightly. She raised an eyebrow, "And just what would make a duel absolutly necessary?"

"Yes, you can just say you let that vile Faye Hansoff near you with a wand."

She gave a rueful little smirk as she straightend her wand and cleared her throat.

She spent a long moment centering herself, feeling the magic and desire to do something - and trying to feel self consious that it was taking her this long to do such a thing.

"Well here goes nothing," she raised her wand once more. "Episkey."

Roman shrugged, "Well, I mean a life-or-death situation.... not that it's likely so... I guess it really wouldn't ever be necessary anyway...."

Roman shook his head, smiling. The girl was hopeless.

Seeing Faye ready her wand, he drew in a breath and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the spell.

Roman felt a sharp pain in his hand and involuntarily gasped. He looked down, "Not bad."

Faye jumped slightly at the gasp, to wired up to use logic and actually look at what she had done - or remember how the spell was supposed to work, "Oh god did I hurt you. I'm so sorry I never should have, I told you-"

Not Bad?

She calmed down enough to actually look at what the spell had done instead of panicking unnecessarily. The gash was more or less gone. Her spell had reduced it to a thin red line, a scrap almost healed.

A smile broke out on her face. She had did it. Sure the spell should have worked better than that, but compared to her usual attemps.

"Oh my it worked," she more or less squeal and then out of excitment - and complete lack of thinking - she threw her arms around the boy in front of her, "It actually worked and I didn't accidently kill you! I don't know if I've ever got a spell to work before - not really well!"

At first, Roman was a little worried by her reaction. He didn't want her to feel bad. She had done him a huge favor.

Then, he smiled, and started laughing. His laughter increased even more as she spontaneously hugged him. "Of course it worked!"

"Maybe you work best in real-life situations. All the greatest wizards do," he said, once they had parted. He didn't really know that, but it seemed to make sense, and the spell did work extremely well, so Faye deserved the compliment, whether it was completely true or not.

"So, are we even?" he hoped she wouldn't insist on doing him any more favors. She had already done more than enough. He was ready to buy her a whole shelf of candy just to thank her.

Faye pulled back, her senses returning to her, she looked at her feet with a blush again. She probably shouldn't have done that.

"Sorry," she apologized, glancing up as she nervously tucked a strain of her hair behind her ear. "What so funny?"

"Greatest wizards?" she scoffed and shook her head, "Thank you, but I'm no great wizard, or witch... I'm just Faye."

Faye pretended to think about this one for a long time, "Well, I guess so."