Trash or Treasure? (open)

Looking to make the most out of her final days before going back to Hogwarts, Anya had decided to explore Diagon Alley some more. While she enjoyed places such as the book shop and The Leaky Cauldron, the place that she found the most intriguing was the junk shop. As she made her way around the shop, curiosity built up inside of the young Hufflepuff. She wanted to know the backstory of every object she lay eyes on.

She wondered what those scales had been measuring at the exact moment in which they broke. Had the ingredient been too heavy, or had the scale simply been too old? And what were those seemingly random stains on the old robes scattered throughout the shop. The entire place seemed to be a "What not to do while potions making" ad.

'I bet this wand was being used to cast a very difficult spell,' She thought, studying a broken ebony wand. "The poor wand could not handle what the witch or wizard wielding it was asking, so it broke." Unsure of when her thoughts had turned into audible speech, Anya quickly placed her hand over her mouth. Her cheeks turned a bright colour of red as she hoped that nobody had been around to hear.

Just as Anya had feared, a younger boy with messy brown hair and a goofy half smile began to approach her. She recognized the boy from around the Hufflepuff common room. She recognized him as a first year going into second? Or possibly a second year going into third. Who knew? Maybe he was a first year who did not rank up.


"Talking to yourself is actually quite normal."


As it turned out, her first guess had been correct. He introduced himself as Humphrey Williams, a soon-to-be second year Hufflepuff. When Humphrey asked if she was in Hufflepuff as well, she nodded.


"I'm Anastasiya Viktorovna," She told him, regaining her Russian accent in full force as she stated her name. She looked at him in a moment of awkward silence. Seeing as there were no other Russians around her as far as she knew, Anya felt self-conscious about her accent. At the castle, she heard all kinds of accents, but none that sounded like hers. This made her feel as though she was separate from everyone else.


"Most people just call me Anya," She added, quieter than before. "What brings you to the junk shop?" She asked. The girl had not thought that anyone but herself would be intrigued by this shop. It was all junk to most people.

At the return of her own question, Anya gave the boy a half-smile. She never smiled fully, always halfway. She honestly had no idea why she never smiled with the entirety of her mouth, perhaps because she simply hadn't found something that made her that happy? After pondering it for a second, she figured that that was the reason. What other reason could there be?

"I was intrigued by the objects," She told him, maintaining the soft volume that her voice had been at previously. "I wanted to know the stories behind each broken item here. I was curious as to why those scales had broken, or what those peculiar stains on the robes may be. I came for the stories." She began to twirl a piece of brown hair around her finger as she thought more about what she had said. Most of what Anya did had to do with the stories behind certain things. She loved the idea of there being a reason for everything, because if there was a reason for everything, maybe there was a reason that her mother left.

Anya then pointed to a robe a few feet away that had an odd splotch of gold on the sleeve.
"I like to think that this robe was worn by someone rather desperate," she informed Humphrey. "He needed a good day and he needed it quickly, so he tried to whip up some felix felicis potion. He was a very skilled wizard, so he succeeded of course. As soon as he began to pour it into a bottle, though, he spilled the potion all over himself, leaving him unlucky and sad and leaving his robe with a golden stain."