Beetle Eyes Conquest

Sunny finally arrived at the door of her aunt's shop, which was the loudest, brightest, and (in her expert opinion) best shop on the whole street. She threw the door open, and there sounded an old-timey car horn. AH-OOH-GAH. She shouted above the chaos of all of the busy shoppers, "Jack!"

One of the regular employees, Kirsty, caught sight of the two. "She's in the back room," she informed Sunny.

Sunny tugged Vivi towards the room and threw the door open. Her aunt was in the middle of tinkering with a firework. She looked up and -

BOOM.

All three of them were covered in ash and soot. Jack spit out some of the ash and reached up, wiping circles to clear her eyes. "Right." She said. Her eyes found Sunny. "You've been up to trouble. I told you to stay in the shop. What have you done instead?"

With brutal honesty, the girl spouted, "I went to the Apofcaree. I bought some beetle eyes and some stuff to make a potion! Vivi's going to help me, and so are you. Oh, you owe Vivi money for the potions stuff. Oh, and this is Vivi. She's my friend."

A billion things happened at once and if it weren't for Vivianna's impressive recovery time, she'd have been frozen for however long it took to process it all. As it was, the girl was unmoving for almost the entire time Sunny spent speaking. Sunny's Aunt was non other than Jack Dyllan. Well, that was unexpected. The famous Quidditch player, WWW owner, ex-Ministry, and Order-involved witch was stand in front of her, looking down at the exited child attached to her hand with a disapproving expression.

Being the Slytherin she was, and being incredibly glad that she wasn't wearing robes or a tie proclaiming so, Vivianna fully intended to use this if she could. But first, to correct Sunny.

Having already wiped as much ash off her face as possible with the heel of her palm, the teenager looked up at the tallest of the three redheads and said, "you don't owe me anything. Most of the stuff that I bought I was planning on getting anyway. I'm Vivianna Varnes, Hogwarts student, I ran into Sunny here at Jiggers."

Jack looked over her niece's new friend - it seemed she was doing that a lot lately. Jack considered herself a clever person, and yet, week after week, her six year old niece was able to outsmart her and escape. Every day, Sunny was bringing home a present or a friend, human and otherwise.

Sunny was still covered in ash, seemingly unshaken by the occurrence. Jack wiped off her hands and reached out a hand to the younger girl, who actually looked a lot like she had while she had been in Hogwarts. "Nice to meet you, Vivianna. I'm Jack." She released the girl's hand and pulled Sunny towards her, beginning to wipe her face off. "Please take the money - that way, when Sunny's spent all of our money and we're living on the streets, she'll have learned her lesson."

Having cleared Sunny's eyes, Jack found her wand, wiping the ash off. She flicked her wand and the ash and soot mostly disappeared from the room. She sighed. "Cleaning spells aren't my thing." She reached deep into her pocket and pulled out a handful of coins and held it out to Vivianna. "Take the coins or I'll make a scene." She smirked.

Sunny let out an exasperated sigh. "We wanna make the potion!"

Jack grinned. "Well it's a good thing you're in the this room." She explained to Vivianna, "This is my inventing room." She pointed to a small table in the corner, where a cauldron was already there. "There's a cauldron - we use that to concoct new batches of our WonderWitch products and whatnot."

When Jack told her to take the coins or risk a scene, Vivianna pursed her lips and reached out to take the money. Damn Gryffindors, couldn't they take a vacation from being noble just once? "Nice to meet you as well Jack," the girl said after a moment, completely unsure of what was expected from her in this situation.

Suddenly realizing that adult permission, or at least an explanation, was probably expected before brewing with the young child, Vivianna looked to Jack and began to talk, "Sunny wanted to brew something, and I figured why not? I went for the Wiggenweld Potion, figured that none of the steps are overly complicated, and it only needs a little bit of magic at the start. All things considered, it's one of the less dangerous things I could think of. I do hope that's alright."

It was odd, the teen had tutored many a student in her subject. Some of them, admittedly, only having about as much knowledge about potions as Sunny did. And as much as Vivianna wished it was, that was in no way an exaggeration. Sometimes people were just so dumb. But never in her entire life, had the female ever been so excited to brew a potion with another person. Not even with her cousins, whom she cared for more than almost anything. The feeling was a strange mixture of odd and refreshing, and the redhead couldn't bring herself to question it.

The girl took the money - she would understand perfectly when she was older that it seemed only natural to always make sure she was never a burden, no matter how light, on anyone else. It only seemed normal that Jack should pay so her niece could have the opportunity to make potions.

Jack supposed she should be much more concerned. Technically, Sunny was not allowed to meddle with any sort of magic art. But Jack did feel for the girl. Was it a tease, to allow the girl a glimpse into what she could not have, or would it be kind to allow her to do all she could do?

Jack could not deny her niece this pleasure. She smiled a little. "That sounds perfectly acceptable to me. I'll continue my work here, and you two can use the cauldron all you wish."

Sunny shrieked her pleasure and circled around Vivianna, putting her hands on the older girl's back, pushing her towards the cauldron.

Vivianna gave Jack a smile and a grateful nod, before turning to the child attempting to push her towards the caldron. "Alright, I'm going," the teenager laughed out in response to the persistent shoves.

Pulling up another chair in front of the prep table, the two redheaded girls situated themselves comfortably. Carefully setting out all the ingredients on top of the table, the witch allowed Sunny to pull out a few and help as well.

Turning to the little girl, Vivianna took tiny hand in hers and looked Sunny straight in the eyes. "Potions can be really fun, but they can also be dangerous if you don't listen very carefully when I tell you to do something, or not to do something. So you'll have to be really good, or we might mess up the potion or get hurt. Okay, Sunny?" the redhead said, completely serious for one of the first times since she'd met the child.

Turning to Jack, Vivianna went from the one in charge, to someone who could be kicked out by this adult at a moment's notice. Providing she did something the Dyllan didn't like. "We just need about half a caldron of water, and a low flame. Then we won't bother you until we're done," the Slytherin informed the adult with a charming smile. Vivianna had no idea how good the woman was with potions, and therefore just assumed that the Hogwarts graduate wouldn't have the potion's instructions memorized as she did. It was a safe enough presumption.

Jack smiled a bit, glad to see Sunny had found a friend who seemed happy to put up with her nonsense. On occasion, she could see exasperation in the faces of those Sunny had taken on as acquaintances and friends. Alright, she usually saw such expressions on the people Sunny hung out with.

The girls got situated and Jack took her seat at the crafting table, sweeping the blown up firework into the rubbish bin. She began tinkering with her own work - she loved fixing and adjusting the Weasley line of fireworks.

Sunny sat in her chair, energetically bobbing up and down with earnest enthusiasm as the task before her. She wobbled her head back and forth in agreement. "Yes, yes, of course! I'll be an angel!" She giggled before her face suddenly became incredibly serious. "I'll do as you say, commander." She giggled.

Who could predict the thoughts of a child?

Vivianna got Jack's attention and Jack sprang up. "Certainly." She was in a pretty good mood as the day had been going fairly well for her - the shop was doing well, practice had been fulfilling, and Sunny was happily occupied. She stepped over and flicked her wand. A stream of water sprouted from it and began filling the cauldron. Once full, Jack pocketed her wand and patted Sunny's head. "Enjoy - don't blow anything up," she expressed to her niece. "Thanks for putting up with this punk, Vivianna," Jack said, though she passed a kind over said punk. She returned back to her work.

"You'd better," Vivianna said seriously back at Sunny, before turning her head to the side to giggle. The little girl was a riot, or perhaps the Slytherin just needed to laugh more.

"Thanks," the teenager directed at the adult as water began to stream into the caldron. The student would have done it herself, but magic wasn't allowed to be used outside of school. Oh, how the girl hated that law. "No problem at all," Vivianna responded to Jack with a grin. Leaning away from Sunny, and lowering her voice to a stage-whisper, the young witch added, "I blame it on the puppy eyes."

Clearing her throat, the teen turned back to the caldron like the child hadn't heard her, "now, the first ingredient we need is the Salamander blood. I showed it to you earlier, think you can remember which one it is, Sunny?"

Jack laughed as Sunny put her hands on her hips, a serious(ly hilarious) expression of indignation forming on her round, youthful features. She turned to Vivianna and, her voice full of sass, said, "And what is THAT to supposed to mean? I think I'm just so cool people like to help me out!"

And with a haughty humph she turned back to the cauldron.

Vivianna was quick to distract the little girl though. Sunny turned and began rifling through the things inside. She found a vial containing a brownish-red liquid. "This?"

Jaw clenching almost painfully in an attempt not to laugh at the indignant child, Vivianna nodded when Sunny picked up the correct vial. "That's right," the teenager informed her student, "we only need eight drops of the Salamander blood though, which means we're going to need to be very careful that we don't pour too much."

Taking the blood from Sunny and un-corking it deftly, the Slytherin added, "How about I let you add it, but with my help, that way you can do it yourself next time?" It was phrased as a question, but the Hogwarts student knew that the child would agree, and therefore didn't wait for an answer before starting to move. Handing the vial back to Sunny, the teenager covered the smaller hand with her own, before directing it towards the caldron. Keeping the little hand steady as the vial was tipped, Vivianna began to count the slow drops aloud.

((OOC: I can change the minor god-mod, but I left plenty room for you to work there if you want. Oh, and how do we want the draught to turn out?))