Who: Kimb Baker and Barney Dunstan When: Wednesday, October 1 Where: Kimb's flat. What: Still recovering, Kimb needs some flapjacks. Warnings: None Rating: G Status: Private/Complete
Barney had combed his hair. Not that he didn't normally comb his hair or anything, but he usually did it once, after his morning shower. Today, however, before he left the house, he stood in front of a mirror and combed it again. No particular reason, he told himself, but it was nice to look smart, wasn't it?
He apparated over to Kimb's house, a box of flapjacks under one arm, and bounded down the path to her house. To be fair, Barney bounded most places. It wasn't that he couldn't walk slowly or gently, just that his default was to bounce. When he reached his destination, he raised an arm and knocked on the door, stepping slightly back from the threshold so as not to alarm whoever answered it. A broad and friendly smile was fixed on his face.
Kimb loved living near Regent's Park. It made her freetime so much better. Maybe she would go for a walk after dinner, or maybe she would stay in - but having it just around the corner gave her the option and she liked that. Lisa was at home visiting her family tonight and Kimb was lazing about the flat in a cotton knit dress and a fluffy cardigan. Maybe she would stay in - she was rather comfy now that she was out of her work robes. She pulled her hair up off her shoulders and into a messy bun and got herself a glass of water and had just sat down with a book when she heard a knock at the door. She frowned, wondering who it could be.
"Barney!" she cried in surprise, giving him a bright smile before stepping forward and hugging him briefly. "Come in! Oh, I'm glad you stopped by - I'm sorry I'm a mess!" Kimb tucked some straggling tufts of hairs behind her ears, feeling embarrassed, but also glad to see him. She liked Barney and his rambling good nature, and she was always glad to see him, even if she didn't have any makeup on.
Barney returned the hug as enthusiastically as ever. He had learned over the years not to squeeze delicate young women to death, but he was still a tight hugger.
"Thank you," he replied, stepping in behind her. "You're not a mess, you look lovely," he complimented her shyly, before exclaiming "Oh! I should have told you I was coming. I'm sorry. I can come back later if now is a bad time. I have flapjacks though." He held them out in front of him apologetically.
She was surprised by Barney's enthusiastic hug, but found she greatly liked it. After a moment she hugged him back just as tight, smoothing one of her hands over his shoulder in a way she realised might be a bit too familiar and hoped it didn't bother him. She couldn't really imagine that it would considering the way he was hugging her. She pulled away and flushed at his compliment and tucked her hair behind her ears nervously once more, internally convinced that it had to be sticking out like a mad woman (and though it was curling just above the ears where it escaped her ponytail, it was not the coif she imagined it to be.)
"Thank you Barney - and it's fine! I'm always glad to see you," she said with a smile, taking the flapjacks and placing them on the table in her entry hall. She'd freeze them at eat them slowly - it was sweet of him to bring her so many! "Oh! Are you thirsty? Um," she glanced about before leading him into the kitchen, hoping it wasn't terribly messy and relieved to see the stack of dirty breakfast dishes were the only things out of place. "I've got water and juice and such," she said, biting her lip. God, she sounded so dumb and blonde. He probably thought she was an idiot.
When she said it was fine, he believed her. He wasn't the sort to lie and he tended to assume other people were the same. He looked around curiously at her pad as they walked through. It was always interesting seeing somebody's living space for the first time. The place was cleaner and tidier than his home, which tended to have owl treats and Healing Journals cluttering up most surfaces, plus the accumulated mess of being a large and rambling house with a number of occupants. It was nice, though. He liked it.
"Huh?" he said, shaken from his contemplation by her offering of beverages. "Oh! Juice would be nice. I like juice. What kind of juice do you have?" Barney certainly didn't think she was an idiot. It would be tad hypocritical of him to do so, for a start. He also was lacking the self-consciousness that plagued most people, so although he sometimes winced at things he said, he stayed generally optimistic that people would not hold it against him. He wouldn't, after all.
"Cranberry," she said immediately, opening the fridge and peering inside, "Oh, and apple," she added with a smile. She poured him a glass when he specified which and led him back to the living room. "Please have a seat," she said sweetly, sitting beside him on the couch and giving him a smile. She still couldn't believe he'd really brought her flapjacks - of course, she was very glad he did. She liked Barney. He was sweet and very genuine.
"Did you find me okay?" she bit her lip before reaching for her water. She took a sip and set the glass back down before tucking her feet underneath the skirt of her sundress and smiling over to him. "I am glad you came, Barney," she said, flushing a bit but giving him a smile nonetheless. It didn't help that he was bloody adorable.
"Yes, your directions were very good," Barney enthused. "It was very easy to apparate here and then when I saw it I just knew it must be yours. Do you ever get that? Sometimes you just know stuff. Not always, but sometimes. Hey," he stopped, remembering his manners. "How are you feeling? Are you alright?" He looked at her with concern. He really did want to know, but she had looked so healthy when she opened the door that he had clean forgotten she'd been sick. That, and he tended to get distracted by whatever else came along in conversation. He scrutinised her carefully. She did look much better. There was a little more pink in her cheeks and her eyes were shinier. Barney had not picked up his mother's way with the sick, but he had cared for enough sick animals to know what to look for. With humans you didn't look to see if their coat was glossy, but other than that the principle was much the same.
Kimb smiled at his words. She'd never had that feeling exactly, but she'd heard others say it often enough. She wondered what it felt like and would it be easy to recognize the feeling if she ever had it - but of course it would, she thought, because she'd know, wouldn't she? She turned her gaze back to his at his question, her blue eyes frowning for a moment in distraction before she realized what he was talking about. She smiled brightly and nodded enthusiastically at the question, a bit impressed by his want and need to know and concern for her. "Oh, yes - I'm feeling much better. I really needed this rest. I've been trying to take it easy - and I got an assistant at work, so that really helps!"
"Oh, good!" Barney said. "That must make things a lot less stressful for you. I sort of got an assistant recently, except that he knows more than me about plants so it is more like having a consultant on the farm. My job's not really very stressful, though, but it's nice to have someone else's input on things, and he's very enthusiastic. What is your assistant like?" He settled back in his seat and took a drink. Talking was thirsty work.
"Oh, really? I bet that's nice!" Kimb smiled, playing absently with the large buttons on her cardigan. "I lucked out with Romilda - that's her name. She's very sweet and she and I have similar personalities, so it makes the day a lot less lonely because we talk... a lot." Kimb laughed and flushed a bit. She was a very serious girl at times, but if you got her started on a subject, it was easy to find that Kimb loved to talk. It was part of the reason she liked being friends with Barney - there was always conversation and she didn't have to feel like she was dominating it.
"Romilda? Not Romilda Vane, is that?" Barney asked. He liked Romilda. He didn't know her that well, but she always seemed very nice when he talked to her, and he had a habit of talking to pretty much everyone, so even though she was a few years below him and in a different house, he still knew her well enough to chat to. She could be a little confusing at times, but Barney found most people confusing at some point, so he wasn't fazed by it.
"Yes, that's her exactly," Kimb said with a smile. "She's sweet." Kimb liked Romilda and she certainly did brighten her office. "How are the ducks? And the cows? Oh, do you have kittens? I always imagined your farm as having a barn and kittens in the hayloft. I think that's a cozy picture, don't you? A cold morning, baby animals playing in the barn while you work? Then you could take a break from the cold and have a cup of hot cocoa. There would be a fire, of course, and a warm blanket." Kimb grinned. "I've always thought living on a farm would be charming."
Barney beamed. "The ducks are coming along nicely, thank you," he said. "At first they were a little confused but they soon started quacking along nicely. I'd put some nice plants in there for them and Neville - that's this bloke been helping me out - got some other nice ones to put in there, so we did that, and they seem quite happy. Keeping an eye on algae levels and that sort of thing, but it all seems to be going well so far." Barney paused to mentally move onto the next question she had asked. "And the cows are coming along nicely, too. I feel a bit badly for the muggle farms nearby, though, because there's this disease cows and pigs and stuff get called Foot-and-Mouth and there's been an outbreak of it in the muggle world, and of course, they don't know the spell to cure it. I keep wanting to cast it on their poor animals, but of course it would break the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy so I can't." Barney looked crest-fallen for a moment. He really did wish he could help muggles, and didn't really understand the reasoning behind the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, but as a good Hufflepuff he was confident the International Confederation of Wizards knew what they were doing, and so wouldn't break any rules.
"We don't have kittens at the moment but we do have cats. They run about the barn; some of them are quite wild but some of them are tame and come and sit in the kitchen by the fire. It is quite cosy." Barney was smiling again now. He did so love living on a farm. He knew most of his friends had moved out of their parents' house, and he was sure at some point he would have to - if and when he got married if nothing else - but he couldn't imagine not living in the country. "You should come and see the farm one day. We can sit by the fire and have cocoa if you like, and throw balls of wool for the cats." Barney blushed, wondering if this counted as asking her on a date or merely returning the invitation to visit.
Kimb wondered the same thing, actually - was that a date, or just a courtesy? She smiled at his blush and thought maybe it was the former. She bit her lip before braving up and reaching out to touch his knee. "I'd really like that, Barney." She smiled at him, leaving her hand on his knee for a moment. She probably shouldn't have, but she found that she really couldn't help herself. He was sweet and he'd been concerned enough about her to come and visit her - and that meant something, right? Truth be told, Kimb hadn't really paid attention to boys in year and there was something nice and homey about Barney that she liked. She blushed and pulled her hand away, feeling like a fourteen year old. She smiled up at him before taking a long sip of her water. God, she was being very silly over a boy visiting her - she must be lonely, she rationalized, because otherwise there was no reason to be silly over a boy being nice to her.
Barney was a little startled by Kimb touching his knee and tried, probably unsuccessfully, not to show it. He was a fairly tactile person himself, but with girls he kept the areas of touching quite limited for fear or being misunderstood or, even worse, upsetting anybody. It was not often a girl touched him on the knee. He blushed even redder and smiled back at her shyly - quite an achievement given that he was generally really not shy at all. "I would like it, too," he said. And he would. She was so pretty and sweet, and he would very much like to spend more time with her. When she pulled her hand away he sat up straighter and cleared his throat, smiling back at her as she sipped at her drink. He considered asking her if she wanted to come this weekend, but thought that might be a little forward, so instead tried another direction.
"Have you been to farms before?" he asked. He thought she probably had, but knew some people who lived in the city didn't.
Kimb pursed her lips, wondering how best to answer that question - she had certainly been to a farm, numerous times. Oliver's Gram had sheep and a cow and chickens - even a horse - but Kimb didn't want to talk about her ex-boyfriend with Barney.
"One of my good friends grew up in the country," she said after a moment's hesitation. "His grandfather was Muggleborn and they ran their farm very Muggle." She'd liked that about it. No magic, just hard work and sweat. She imagine Barney probably did a good bit of magic on the farm, but she also imagined he was a very hands on person. He seemed to be, at least. She thought about asking when she could come visit, but she had plans with Theo and then with Romilda this weekend, so she thought it best to save it for another day. Maybe she could come by after work one day? She bit her lip, giving Barney her trademark, crooked lip-biting smile.
"I'm sure yours is different though," she said with a smile. "I bet it suits you. Was it nice growing up there?"
Barney grinned. "It was wonderful," he replied enthusiastically. "We used to run and roll around all through the fields and play Sardines and Tag in the barn and play Quidditch and Swivenhodge outside and it was great. It wasn't a proper farm then, though. I mean, we had the fields and the barn and everything but the only animals about were the owls and the cats. My dad trains owls for a living. But now I am getting in animals so it is more like a proper farm, and plants as well, some anyway. Vegetables and such. I don't think I'll go commercial on that just yet. I'll set up the milk first and see how that goes on and maybe I will have to hire in some help if it all gets running." Barney paused for breath, realising that he was rambling about the farm again. He didn't mean to bore people with it, but he found it all so very exciting. He decided he should say something else about growing up. "There were five of us all together, which is a great number for games. It was always fun at my house. What about you? Where did you grow up?"
Kimb just listened politely, grinning at the excited look that crossed his features as he talked. It all sounded wonderful and she could only imagine what it had been like to grow up there and play all those games. She especially liked the part about the siblings.
"Oh, I grew up in Bristol," she said, shrugging softly. It had been fun growing up there. She'd had some great friends in primary school. "I went to Muggle school before Hogwarts, which was fun - and we took field trips to the country, but I never really lived outside of town. It was just me and Kristine, Kitty and Grandpa." Kimb paused, biting her lip as she realized Barney hadn't a clue who she was talking about. "Kristine's my mum and Kitty is my grandmum. They don't like being called Mum and Grandmum, really." Kimb shrugged again, giving Barney a bit of a smile. She realized how odd that probably sounded to him. He seemed very family oriented, but even the other only children she knew had called their mums Mum and their grandmums Grandmum. "I bet having siblings is fun!" she said, smiling wider, handing the conversation back to Barney eagerly. She didn't much like explaining her family to other people.
Barney was a little puzzled by Kimb's description of her family, but most other people's families confused him, so he didn't bother trying to get her to explain it any more. It was how she said it was, and that was what it was. His parents had always been Mum and Dad, his siblings had their real names, and everything was very straightforward. Complications existed elsewhere, he knew, but he didn't want to have to work too hard to understand them all, so just accepted them.
"Oh, yes, I love having siblings!" Barney agreed. "There was always someone to play with - still is, really, as even those of us who don't live at home visit an awful lot. I always thought it must be strange being an only child and then going somewhere like Hogwarts where you have to share a dorm with people and be around other people all the time. I bet muggle primary school was interesting, though. Did you know lots of muggles and do all muggle subjects like...," Barney furrowed his brow for a moment. "That one that's full of numbers, a bit like Arithmancy?"
Kimb laughed softly. "That's Math," she said with a smile, nodding. "And yes, I did them all. We studied science, which is like potions, and we had history, of course, but we also studied literature and grammar. It was nice. I had lots of friends, but yes, going to Hogwarts was very different. I had always had my own room before!" It had been a terrible shock, but she'd managed. She'd liked having dorm mates. It as about as close to siblings as she was ever going to get.
"Do you have many siblings?" she asked, cocking her head a bit as she listened to him.
"Four!" Barney announced proudly, as though it were some kind of achievement. "There's Brad, Bernard, Beatrice, me and Bamber. Bamber's the only one younger than me, the others are all older. You might have seen them around school. You should meet them though, they are all very nice. And I'm sure they'd like you." He went slightly red at this point, aware that if he was asking her on a date, suggesting she meet his family might be a little forward. Hurriedly, he changed the subject back to her schooldays.
"How can a subject be like Potions unless it's actually Potions?" he asked curiously.
"That's wonderful! I'm jealous," she said with a little laugh. Four siblings! His mother must have been a saint. Kimb couldn't imagine having one sibling let alone four. She would have liked it, though. She grinned a bit at his words, then more when he turned red. Barney was too cute, she decided. She shook her head, laughing softly. "Well, there is a bit of chemistry involved. You mix things and add things. You study how they work - but, there's no magic involved, so I supposed that's the difference." Kimb shrugged.
Barney sat and thought about that for a minute. "So, like, you'd add stuff together but there wouldn't be any magic words?" He reflected still more on this. "I bet that hardly ever works. It must be hard to be a muggle, not being able to use magic. I don't know how they cope."
Barney had never really understood muggles. He found them interesting, but not so much that he took Muggle Studies, or rather, he doubted he would be any good at it, so he didn't take Muggle Studies. He wasn't bloodist, though, by any means, having a great respect for muggle-borns - who adjusted remarkably well to wizarding society as far as he could see - and a sort of vague protective affection for muggle neighbours.
Kimb laughed and shook her head. She supposed it would be hard to understand for someone who'd always had magic in their life. It had been hard for her to grasp using magic in her studies, but she'd adapted. She was sure Barney would understand if he were around Muggles more often.
"It works well enough," Kimb continued. "We've done quite well without magic. You should visit some of our Museums - we've got museums of science and history and art. I think you'd like it." Kimb smiled, biting her lip and hesitating before continuing. "Let me know if you'd like to go. I'd be happy to take you."
Barney smiled back. "I'd like that," he replied. "Would I have to wear special clothes or anything?" He often heard people talk about 'muggle clothing' but it seemed to encompass everything except robes, so he had no idea what one would actually wear to blend in with the muggle world. Possibly the sort of clothes his farming neighbours wore wouldn't be the same as the sort of clothes people in museums wore. He had no idea. But he liked the idea of going to a muggle museum, as long as he had somebody with him to tell him if he started to behave inappropriately. He didn't tend to be very good at picking up what was appropriate behaviour.
"Oh, you'll be fine!" Kimb reassured. "Muggle clothing is easy enough. You just want to keep it simple. Nothing too fancy, no robes." Kimb licked her lips, thinking for a moment. "It's not too different," she said with a smile. Barney didn't dress like some of the older witches and wizards in Britain. Still, Oliver had grown up with a Muggleborn grandfather and had still had a bit of trouble figuring it out sometimes. "I'd tell you if you looked silly," she said sincerely, giving him a smile.
"Thank you," Barney replied. "Let's do that then. Maybe I should show you what I'm going to wear beforehand so you can tell me it looks silly before I turn up in it. Because that wouldn't be so good. I would have to go and find somewhere to change and it could get confusing if the things I had brought to change into also looked silly." He pulled a face. "I don't like to think about it, actually. Let's move on. Hey, you know what? I'm not sure I fit in the wizarding world that well either. Do you think I look silly now?" He looked down at his clothes: he'd worn clothes he could do stuff round the farm in, but, knowing he was going out, had made sure they were nice ones and weren't torn or anything. Fairly simple, loose trousers, and a stripey long-sleeved top.
"You look completely normal, Barney - but then again, I'm a biased Muggleborn," she said, laughing softly, reaching out a hand to tug on the sleeve of his top. "I feel like most witches and wizards wear some sort of outer robe no matter what, but this is fine, too. Might want to throw on a black day robe if you go into Gringott's, but then you can always stow it away if you want to head into the Muggle world - wizards and Muggles won't know the difference." She gave him a reassuring nod before taking the last sip of her water. She should probably set the flapjacks to freeze. She wasn't hungry just yet, but she knew she would love some in the mornings and it would do better to freeze them and thaw them as needed. She wondered if Barney was hungry or if he had somewhere to be, which she soon voiced to him, giving him a pleasant smile.