When Casey entered Flourish and Blotts, the dust of old books hit him. Dust, and a dank fragrance like several brands of perfume dumped down the sink. In the name of Salazar, didn't anyone air this place out? If this was Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore with the most traffic on the alley, what of Obscurus or the other places? Casey sniffed. He'd probably die of coughing entering one of those establishments.

Although the book he was after may very well be labeled 'obscure' something not on the Hogwarts textbook list. The Invisible Book of Invisibility.[1] One of the infamous tales of missed opportunities in the O'Doherty family was when they almost were able to buyout Flourish and Blotts. In 1990 the store ordered a large shipment of The Invisible Book of Invisibility and then most of them disappeared. The store lost a lot of money, nearly went bankrupt. Ainbheartach and Casey's father Martin, having just graduated, were working on the paperwork to acquire the deed to the building but uncle Torna, still in school and jealous of missing a chance in business, blundered his way into things so that Flourish and Blotts was able to recover and was no longer on the market.

This little story told Casey two things: that his uncle was an idiot, which he already knew, and that there was a chance Flourish and Blotts might still have the lost copies about. The details of how the order was lost were sketchy. One employee said he left them in the stockroom, another swore he had begun putting them on shelves.

Casey was interested in invisibility and what that would mean for increasing his own might. He was scouring the market for an Invisibility Cloak but the things were very rare and hard to come by for obvious reasons. He had learned some of his best magic from books that got to the point, so knowing other ways of invisibility would be useful. If he could find the book.

The search began on the upper floor, by the shelves seldom frequented. Unless the books were lost to the bowels of the shop, there was the slim possibility that some had been stocked. He looked at the tops of the shelves and gaps, anything that looked untouched. Obviously the store owners hadn't looked too hard for the things back in the 90s or in an unorganized method like a augrey running around with its head cut off.

Casey moved a ladder -- one of those 'Please Let Store Employee Find Your Book' labeled things -- and climbed to an upper shelf. There had to be a quicker way to search. Perhaps a summoning, or flashing lights in the gaps to see if the lighting became distorted.

The bump to the ladder below was unexpected. Casey, caught off guard, was nearly flung from the top.

1.

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[General idea of her outfit.]

When Wren was lost in a book, she was completely oblivious to the rest of the world. Sitting in an alcove between two shelves, with a huge book in her lap, she idly twisted the ends of her long, freshly dyed, braided hair.  She didn't know how long she had sat reading the old tome, but she was supposed to be shopping for school books. Her teeth tugged at the unfamiliar feeling of the metal stud in her lower lip, unconsciously twisting it in her mouth.

As she sat reading, she mused on the idea of the new year. Just this morning, she had dyed her hair and pierced her lip, in an attempt to bring herself out of the woodwork more. She didn't really have any close friends at school, and she thought maybe, if she were more exciting and noticeable, she would attract more attention. Now that she'd done it, she kinda regretted it. She'd yet to see a student, as she had gone into the shop fairly early, right as the shops began to open. She was sure some had passed her, she just had ignored them.

She flipped a few pages, then shut the book, sighing. She was sure she'd been there for far too many hours already. Her mother, Annabeth, had been left at the Leaky Cauldron with a bottle of butterbeer and a muggle novel about pirates, with the reassurance that her daughter wouldn't take long. Blasted books anyways. They always distracted her to no end.

She stood up from her hiding place, bumping a ladder inadvertently as she replaced the monstrous tome on the shelf. As she stepped away, she heard a noise above her. Glancing up, she saw a boy dangling from the ladder. She squeaked, covering her mouth, panicked as to what to do. Backing up, she bumped against a bookshelf, causing it to wobble as well.

Casey managed to grab with one hand the bookshelf, the other hand the ladder rung. He may be called puny but years of drilled wand wavering had given him strong fingertips.

What in blazes was going on down there? Once sure footing was confirmed, Casey peered out from the crook of his elbow. Someone he didn't recognize. Not that it would stop him from being cross at the girl dressed with black lace, neon hair and a pierced lip. An outlandish costume by O'Doherty standards.

"Hey! Watch where you're yeti stomping around down there! I tend to injure easily and I doubt you could handle the lawsuit."

Wren winced as he shouted at her. She didn't like confrontation, and here she had one. She blinked, as she recognized the Slytherin boy from her year. He seemed to have gotten a steady grip up there, so she tactfully tried to change the subject off her nearly knocking him down. Yeti indeed.

"You're Casey, right?" she asked, trying to be outgoing, "Casey O'Doherty? W-weren't you the one who killed the Herbology greenhouse?" She swore internally at the slight stutter. She clasped her hands behind her back and tilted her head, quizzically looking up at him.

If there was disbelief on Casey's face it passed in the swiftest fraction of a second. She knew him? Well duh, that was what a reputation did for you. But what was this nonsense about killing a greenhouse, some small part of his brain said...until one particular memory constantly removed and re-added to his brain has he practiced with the Pensieve finally slid into place.

"I'm Casey O'Doherty, yes," he said loud enough to suggest that those were the only words worth repeating. He couldn't place her, though, and he wouldn't have forgotten someone as distinctive looking as her from school. Like that girl that dyed her hair with spots, or that froggy girl that sometimes ran into the underwater windows of the Slytherin common room, or that albino Ravenclaw prefect. Come to think of it, this girl was dressed like a Ravenclaw, the whole house was crammed with girls that must be trying to outdo each other with casual wear bought from the thrift shop.

"So what were you doing, then?" he asked, keeping pressure on her to come up with answers while he strived to place her face.

He didn't acknowledge her referencing of the Herbology incident. She guessed he didn't like talking about it, due to the loss of fifty valuable house points during the incident. She imagined the other Slytherins had heckled him throughout the last couple days of school, and the train ride home. Kinda sad how people get uptight about such things, and don't think about the other person's feelings, she thought to herself.

The boy confirmed that he was indeed Casey O'Doherty, relieving Wren from the thought that she'd gotten his name wrong. After all, she didn't know him personally, and wasn't in his house, so it wasn't like she'd been around him a lot. She still hated when she mixed people up, though.

When he asked what she had been doing, she immediately blushed. She hated the burning feeling in her cheeks and ears that signified to others her guilt or embarrassment.

"Well," she began, "I was reading this b-book..." There was that blasted stutter again. Why could she not speak normally? She tried to begin again.

"IwasreadingthisbookandwhenIstooduptoputitawayIbumpedtheladder." The sentence came out as a single word.[1] No stutter, though!

1.	I was reading this book and when I stood up to put it away I bumped the ladder.

Casey blinked. While having someone knocked down a peg was always good for the ego, that was dramatically too easy. Dressed like any other Ravenclaw punk rocker or whatever the current fashion trend was, he had expected more of a retaliation. But she had wilted like a wallflower, which spoke of Hufflepuff but you didn't find standouts like her in that house. There was something he wasn't putting together.

"So, reading a book in a bookstore. Cover to cover? I think the point is that they want you to buy something. This isn't a library."

Wait just a moment. That burbling noise she made. He stared at her closer, ignoring the hair color.

"Spicer?"

He didn't know which was more unbelievable, that this was her or that he actually remembered her name. That was it, one of those forgettable names that just filled the class roster in Casey's opinion. One of the Hufflepuff crowd, a quiet one in class except the occasional stutter or burble.

Well. She looked different.

The blush remained as he berated her for reading in the bookstore. She hadn't been reading the entire book, just the, well, the majority of it.

"I was deciding if I wanted to purchase it..." She looked at the ground, mumbling, until she heard him say her last name.

She looked up at him, "Yes?" His voice had the slight tinge of recognition, and she suddenly realized that he hadn't realized who she was until that moment. She stifled a small giggle, biting her lip.

Casey did not comprehend those that needed to read almost half the book in order to determine whether or not they liked it. He typically skimmed the summary, not even that much, to figure out what point the book had. So anything beyond a spellbook suffered immense scrutiny. While reading about magic was fun for him, in the technical use of the term, he did not read FOR fun.

He paused to check the gap whiole he was up here but his fingers meet nothing but air, nothing solid. He turned back to Wren, choosing a point halfway down the ladder to sit. Now he could fully appreciate the realization of a Hufflepuff nobody that decided to pull a stylistic shift that he assumed was a desperate cry for attention.

But what was so funny?

He took in the hair and piercing. "So, is dipping your head in salamander blood and chewing on barbed wire going to be a thing for you now?" he smirked. Hyperbole was one of the greatest tools in his arsenal.

Wren blinked. Salamander blood? Barbed wire? She touched a finger to the rounded stud in her lip, not barbed wiry at all, she thought. She glanced down at her firetruck red braids.

"S-salamander blood is a c-completely different shade of red," she informed Casey, "A-and this is n-nothing like b-barbed wire." She pointed to her lip. She wondered how he would react to the spike stud she had, or her lippy loop. They could both be considered barbed wiry.

"I highly doubt that a muggle beauty shop would carry Salamander blood for hair dying purposes..." she was off on a tangent now, without realizing it, "Though this colour is supposedly the color of Vampires' blood. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be the blood a Vampire drinks, or the actual blood inside one--" She suddenly realized she was rambling and shut her mouth.

One would normally expect, if you told a girl they were dunking their hair in animal blood, that they would find that disgusting. Having the argument that the hue of color was wrong, while not farfetched when it came to girls, was not what Casey had betted would be the retaliatory logic that came first.

"Well, you must have chewed something sharp or however they drive those things in there," he said about the piercing.

It was doubtful a muggle establishment would have access to salamander blood. If they did, it would probably burn the building down. "So there is, legitimately, so many shades of blood red that they need it classified by the blood of different creatures? Next you'll be trying to pass off dragon's blood with the same lot, only in most cases it's dark green."

Wren had talked smoother the more she talked, although her early stuttering hadn't been missed by Casey. "Been eating Hiccough Sweets?"

"They used a hollow needle," she completely ignored the insult, going to the factual response, "They marked me carefully, then stuck the needle through quickly, then threaded the jewelry through. Getting the jewelry in actually hurt more than the actual piercing process."[1]

She shrugged, "I suppose the classification as "vampire" is supposed to appeal to those who like darker, more gothic things." If she didn't think about it, she didn't seem to stutter nearly as much. Too bad she thought about how she wasn't stuttering after that last sentence.

"H-hic-ccough sw-sweets?" and there it was again. If she could have a physical manifestation of her stutter, she swore she would strangle it.

1.	True story.

"You wanted them to stick you with a needle?" Casey asked in disbelief. He was used to the pain of easily broken bones and lingering jinxes, but never did he ask to get hurt on purpose. Piercing ears was one thing, not that he was interested. The thought of having a needle jammed into your mouth or any other body parts gave him a shiver.

"Sounds like one of those muggle medical practices, like shots and stitches. Though if you like having numerous tiny holes poked into you, there's a spot in Knockturn that opened up for your lot."[1] The thought of someone like Wren Spicer, who normally had the trepidation of a rabbit, going into Knockturn, gave him rare gleeful giggles. He would pay to see it happen. He easily could, and an very very very small fraction of the O'Doherty wealth that payment would be, and still it would be more than people realized.

"It can't be the vampires having flaming blood hair, or people would notice them more easily. Let me know what vampire's blood looks like the day they offer to turn you."

His giggling became more pronounced when she started stammering again. "Yes, Hiccough Sweets, joke candy, gives you the hiccups because they are so well named. I suggest this year you stop eating them in class. Or rather, before class, since most of the professors don't allow anything chewable as they lecture."

1.	The Inkwell

"Well, y-yes." She'd secretly wanted the piercing for a couple of years, having seen some older girls at school (and elsewhere) with various piercings, "I th-think it looks cute." She pouted her lips slightly, crossing her eyes in an attempt to see her piercing.

"Shots aren't bad; gets the m-meds to the blood stream faster. Oh, and if you don't have magical powers then stitches are a much better solution than bleeding out." She leaned down and pulled up her pants leg and pulled down her sock, to show a small scar on her ankle, "If it weren't for stitches, this would look much worse. I also had to get a tetanus shot that day." The small scar amused her. It was actually two scars, close together, almost in a lightning bolt. When she had learned about the famous Harry Potter's scar, it made her feel as though her scar meant something. Well, it's not like she had defeated some dark lord, she'd just fallen out of a tree onto a rusted wheelbarrow.

"Kn-nockturn?" She'd never been to that area, "What kind of place? Like a piercing and tattoo parlor?" She hadn't known wizards had such establishments. Well, she supposed they must, if she'd seen some pierced girls in her school. Pureblooded witches weren't likely to go to a muggle piercing place, she supposed.

The boy was giggling now. She didn't know if she'd ever seen him giggle like that before. She'd never had this long of a conversation with him either. She looked askance, as he mentioned flaming haired vampires, and their future offer to turn her.

"I highly doubt that I would be given the offer to become a v-vampire,"  she frowned slightly, thoughtful, "I imagine it'd be a sudden thing, without warning."

Her stuttering appeared to incense his giggles. "I d-don-n't e-e-e-eat th-th-them b-before c-class." That was horrible. Her face was suddenly matching her hair, and she covered her face with her hands. She hated that blasted stutter.

Finding something disgusting 'cute'? She was starting to sound like that pale faced Ravenclaw prefect. If Wren kept this up next she'll be wearing black dresses and lugging around a stuffed vulture.

What would look worse? Casey had to blink, making sure he was understanding that statement. There was an involuntary spasm when she went for her ankle. Was she going for a knife, a backup wand? No, only to show off her ankle. What kind of girl did that? He was beginning to wonder if she liked showing off the funny little details about her that with two seconds of imagination would turn into a ready insult.

And the scar was a zid-zag, like the famous scar of a certain Mr. Potter. Salazar's Shiny Pate, Wren Spicer was becoming more interesting then he had though possible. First another heap of sarcasm. "So, is that from kicking a Dark Lord in the face when you were a toddler? I must admit it's slightly more inconspicuous than having it gouged on your head."

"If the vampire doesn't like you, no, you wouldn't get the offer. A vampire sucking your blood leads to new vampire or empty lifeless husk, so that lands you in the latter category. Vampires aren't like werewolves, where every successful bite makes a new one. Otherwise the ministry would legalize vampire hunting." There was some legal mumbo-jumbo about Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans he'd seen in his father's law books.

But now to the pinnacle. The realization of her stutter had her squirming with embarrassment. He grinned snidely. "You mean you don't eat Hiccough Sweets? Then what possible explanation is there for when a teacher launches a pop question on you in class and out comes a line of repetitive, random syllables?"