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[salt-and-burn.livejournal.com]

Dean woke up feeling a little weird. Not hungover-weird, which he could deal with (actually, which he'd almost enjoy at the moment, as it would imply a recent consumption of alcohol), but... wanting-to-take-a-walk weird.

He hadn't had any particular desire to explore previously, but he could just be getting stir-crazy or something. That made sense. Maybe he'd go look for roller coasters.

...Except that when he stepped outside, he found himself heading straight for the entrance of the park, where he was pretty sure there were no roller coasters to be found. He tried changing courses a few times, but kept getting the sense that he was supposed to be heading toward...

He blinked when he finally came to the door he'd been inexplicably drawn to. An ice cream parlor?

Maybe his subconscious liked him, after all. Shrugging, he opened the door and stepped inside.

Comments

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

Lily, who'd be sleeping on the floor underneath one of the tables, was awoken by the sound of someone coming inside. Rubbing her eyes and hurriedly jumping, she shouted, "Who's -- OW!" She bumped her head on top of the table and, rubbing it, peeked out to see what was going on.

"Hi," she sai, a little sheepishly, when she caught sight of Dean. She forced her way all the way out from under the table and shot him a smile. "Did you want some ice cream?"

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Oh, his subconscious really liked him.

Still, something felt a little off about the whole situation (other than the fact that this girl looked decidedly underaged).

...Then again, ice cream sounded good. "Uh, yeah," he said, grinning sheepishly. "I guess so."

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"Did you want to get it, or -- ?" Lily stopped herself. Making your guests get their own food seemed rude, and she liked getting ice cream for people, anyway. And this guy seemed nice. She'd known him for all of a few minutes, granted, but still.

"Nevermind. I'll get you some. What kind would you like? Oh! And I'm Lily! It's nice to meet you."

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"Thanks," Dean said, giving her a charming smile. "The pleasure's all mine. I'm Dean." He leaned up against the counter. "So where are you from, Lily?"

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"London, England," Lily called over her shoulder from behind the counter, where she was making Dean's ice cream. When she turned around, it was to approach him offering a cone of vanilla. She never stopped smiling the entire time.

"What about you?" His accent, she thought, sounded American.

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"Thanks," Dean said, accepting the ice cream. He took a bite (yes, bite) of it, then smiled. "I'm from America," he replied. "Kansas."

Then a thought occured to him. He wasn't sure how many British people there were here, but it was possible that she knew this James person who Starbuck said was some sort of wizard. He'd wanted to investigate, and this was a possible lead...

"Do you happen to know a man named James?" he asked. "I heard he's from England, too."

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Lily froze. "James Potter?" she asked, her smiling finally fading. Her voice was a good deal more icy than it had been before. "Yes, I know him. Why do you ask?"

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Dean was glad to hear that she recognized the name, but her tone of voice didn't sound promising.

In any case, his curiosity was all the greater. And if James was announcing himself as a wizard and doing wizard-ly things, Dean might as well go the direct route. "Someone told me that he's... Uh, a wizard. Do you... know if that's true?" he asked, feeling only a bit silly.

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Lily looked like a deer in the headlights for a second, unsure how to handle this. Was this Dean bloke a Muggle? Or another wizard? The way he said Uh, a wizard. suggested Muggle.

A few people knew Lily was a witch already, but only because she'd arrived in her Hogwarts uniform and couldn't really hide it, all things considered.

"Who told you that?" the redhead said finally. "Was it Hiruma?" He was the only one who'd been asking about witches and magic wands outright, at least. Maybe he'd asked James, too.

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Dean frowned. "Hiruma? No." He hadn't met anyone with that name... Judging by Lily's demeanor, though, he wasn't sure if he ought to mention Starbuck. "Someone just said that James made something for them. Like with magic, or something. I don't know." He shrugged. He knew it sounded ridiculous, but then, where else could that punching bag have come from?

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"Oh." Lily wondered if James, like her, had arrived in a situation where he couldn't hide his magic and now some people knew, or if he was just being stupid.

Lily looked Dean straight in the eye, even if it mean she had to look up at him a little. "Listen...Dean. It's very important that you don't repeat what I'm going to tell you to anyone, all right?"

She wouldn't go on until she knew if he could keep his mouth shut.

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Well, that was alright with him. He was starting to regret letting the whole damned world know about the whole demon-hunting thing, to begin with. No sense in letting all his concerns become public knowledge.

"Sure," he said, nodding sincerely. "I won't say anything."

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"James and I are..." Lily took a deep breath. She was worried he'd either freak out or think she was crazy. But he seemed sincere. And he wouldn't be asking sincerely if he wasn't prepared to take it in stride, right? "James an I are wizards. Well, he's a wizard. I'm a witch. We went to school together, and that's how I know him."

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She was a witch? That piece of information cycled around through Dean's head a few times before he finally processed it.

He took a deep breath. Well, she didn't seem dangerous, that was for sure. And there were plenty of different interpretations of the word "witch," anyhow--not just the spell-casting, dead-rising old crone stories. "Witch" wasn't even usually the proper name for that sort; it was usually--well, in any case, that certainly wasn't what it meant here. The girl was probably just Wiccan or something, and Dean didn't have a problem with that. Most of those people had a few good ideas, particularly when it came to the whole pentagram thing. Those could come in handy.

Except, damn, that still didn't explain the punching bag.

"You mean like... magic wands and pointy hats?" he asked skeptically.

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

Lily giggled. "Sort of," she said with a smile. "Magic wands, definitely. Pointy hats, not so much. We do have brooms, though." She winked. "I could show you my wand, if you want..."

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There was something vaguely disconcerting about a teenage girl claiming to be a witch and giggling about showing Dean her wand. Not entirely off-putting, but disconcerting. Maybe she was just some kind of whack-job Harry Potter nut, or something.

She did seem serious, though. And there was that stupid punching bag to explain.

"Um. Yeah, okay," he agreed, smiling politely. "What kind of... magic stuff do you do?"

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

Lily went to the get her wand, which was buried beneath her other things -- oddly, she felt dizzy when she got too far from Dean, and stumbling a little, she hurried back as quickly as she could.

"Oh, just little things. I'm still in school." Lily pointed her wand at one of the chairs in the ice cream shop.

"Accio, chair!" she commanded, pointing her wand at it. Obediently, it slid toward the two of them.

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Dean felt an odd wave of nausea pass over him as soon as Lily stepped away. That was strange. Just a coincidence, though, right? Not some sort of freaky magic at all.

"School?" Dean repeated. "Like... Magic school?" He tried not to sound sarcastic, but he'd had years of experience in sarcasm.

His eyes widened, though, when he saw the chair slide across the floor. "Geez," he said softly.

Really, he didn't know why he was so freaked out. He'd seen much more horrifying supernatural things in his life. Most of them just hadn't been done by cheerful teenage girls. In Dean's world, supernatural pretty much always meant bad, but he had a hard time seeing Lily as some sort of evil-doer. "Are there... uh, lots of... witches and wizards where you come from?" he asked, hoping rather fervently for another parallel-universe answer.

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Lily said, almost sheepishly. "Magic school." He sounded sarcastic, disbelieving, but she couldn't really blame him. The poor bloke looked almost frightened, but for a Muggle, he was still taking this rather well.

"I... I guess this must seem pretty strange to you, huh?" the girl continued quietly.

Where she came from? Did he mean London? Lily nodded. "Well, yes, I guess so. The Muggle still outnumber us, so we have to stay hidden, but there's enough us to have a school and a town and a Ministry."

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"Muggles?" he repeated. Oh, no fucking way. "Please tell me you learned that word within the past... Say, 10 years?" he asked hopefully.

Like, from a book, maybe? A book about--he paused, almost reflectively. Magic school. Not that he'd read the damned books, but he was a conscious human being living in the modern world, after all.

And no, he wasn't quietly freaking out. Not at all.

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Lily bit her lip. Math wasn't her strong point. "I, uh, I guess so?" she said. "I was eleven when I learned it and I'm seventeen now, so really..."

"Hey, are you okay? You don't look very good, Dean." Maybe he was having the weird dizzy feeling now.

[salt-and-burn.livejournal.com]

Eleven? Well, fuck, that didn't prove anything. And regardless, it wasn't like he was going to find out that she was actually just a perfectly normal human girl--he'd just seen her summon a chair.

He took another deep breath. There was no sense getting all... panicked about this. "I'm fine," he said, smiling. "Just--uh, surprised. I've never met a witch before." He realized belatedly that his ice cream was rapidly melting, and he licked some of it away. "So--um, tell me about this school you go to," he ventured, not entirely sure he wanted to know what she would say.

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

Lily nodded understandingly. "You're taking it a lot better than my sister did," she told him, "if that helps at all." She could imagine it was a lot to take in for someone who'd never encountered magic before.

"Hogwarts," said Lily, blinking. "Why do you ask?"

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Dean slowly felt the last shred of mental stability he had been clinging to slip away.

"Uh..." he tried to respond, but there really wasn't anything he could say to that. Maybe--maybe Harry Potter was real in a parallel universe, or something? Just when he'd thought he was getting good at the whole supernatural thing, something like this had to happen.

"No reason," he finally managed. "It's not important." He smiled. He needed to get away and find out what the hell was going on, here. "You know, I should probably be going... It was nice meeting you, and thanks for the ice cream." He stood up to leave, got almost to the door, and was suddenly overcome with dizziness and nausea.

What the hell? He turned around and stepped back toward Lily, and the symptoms went away. "Did you...?" he asked vaguely, not sure what he was even trying to ask.

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

Lily, feeling dizzy herself, swayed a little until Dean was closer to her. "No," she said. "I felt it too. And I felt it earlier, when I went to get my wand. I don't know what's causing it."

She hoped whatever it was would go away. It was an unpleasant feeling, to be sure.

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Dean frowned, beginning to feel uneasy about the situation. It seemed almost as if it happened whenever they got a few feet away from each other, although he couldn't imagine...

He walked over until he was directly in front of Lily, then slowly began to take steps backwards, counting. One... Two... Three... Four.. Five... Si--

Somewhere between the fifth and sixth step, the nausea hit again, and he quickly stepped forward. "Looks like we're going to have to stick together for a while," he said, leaning on a nearby table for support from the recently-passed nausea.

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

Lily puts a hand to her head. "Why is this happening?" she asked Dean, although she didn't really expect him to know anymore than she did. "I don't understand what's going on."

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"No idea," Dean responded gruffly. "Some kind of curse, maybe?" A temporary one, he hoped. Lily seemed like a nice girl, and there were definitely less attractive people whose company he could be stuck in, but--five feet? That was going to be a problem.

"Got any ideas?" he asked. She'd been here longer than he had, after all--maybe this sort of this was to be expected. There wasn't too much that could suprise him, now.

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Lily looked thoughtful. "I guess we could look around and see if this is happening to other people or just us," she said. "I mean, that might give us some insight as to why..."

She blinked and her mouth formed a little 'o' as she remembered something she'd been told upon her arrival.

"Mr. Crowley said sometimes weird things happen here. Like, one day he woke up with dreadlocks? I wonder if that's what it is..."

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"Crowley with dreadlocks? That'd be something worth seeing," Dean said, grinning. "Yeah, I wouldn't put it past this place..." He shook his head, annoyed. "Does that mean it should just... wear off, then? Or did he have to do something to fix it?"

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

"He said it was gone the next day," said Lily with a shrug. "Maybe this will be the same way?" The nervousness was evident both in her voice and on her face. She really hoped it would go away. Dean was very nice, but she didn't want to be stuck so closely to anyone forever.

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"A day, huh?" Well, that made sense as much as anything, Dean figured. "Alright, then. We'll just... stick together for the day, I guess."

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"Sounds good," Lily told him, with a slight sigh. But then she smiled once again. "Where do you want to go first?"

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Go? "Uh..." he said, scratching his head. "Well, I was trying to go look for roller coasters this morning, but I ended up here instead." He shrugged. "You like roller coasters?"

[notpotteryet.livejournal.com]

"Yes!" said Lily cheerfully. "I love them! You want to go?"

((So sorry. >< I thought I already replied, but I guess not.))

[salt-and-burn.livejournal.com]

So they knew what roller coasters were in whatever freaky Harry-Potter-world Lily was from. That was a good sign, Dean figured. "Yeah, alright," he agreed. "I haven't really gotten a chance to look around much, though. You know where to go?"