It was easy to apparate from the Merlin campus to Hogsmeade and Evan arrived near enough to the shop that it wouldn't take very long to walk there. As he pulled his scarf closer to protect himself from the cold wind, Jim appeared next to Evan, giving a loud meow. "Do you stalk me?" Evan asked frowning at his cat, but the only response he got was another meow which really could've been both an agreement and a disagreement (Evan suspected the former). They quickly reached to music shop and Evan pushed the door open, instantly realising that if Andrew was to get a lunch break, it wasn't going to be right now because the shop was absolutely packed.
Jim made his way across the shop, toward the window display where a Santa had been set up with a guitar. Evan wasn't sure whether the cat felt personally insulted by it, but he did jump on top of the display drum set, settling down to watch people in the shop. "Is that your cat?" Someone asked and it took Evan a moment to realise where the voice came from because it was very low down. Looking down at the tiny girl whose eyes were more on Jim, Evan nodded. "Yeah," he replied. "His name's Jim," he told her, the cat, in response, flashed his red eyes at the girl and she giggled, which made Evan laugh, because Jim looked personally offended at his laser eyes having received a giggle in return from this tiny human.
"What's your name?" Evan asked sitting down on the floor near the window display, it wasn't going to be in the way of any shoppers and did allow Evan to actually look at the tiny human. "Layia," the girl replied. "I'm five," she informed Evan and he nodded. "I'm Evan," he told her. "And I'm twenty," he added since apparently this was the sort of information they were sharing. Layia nodded, which to Evan implied that it had been very important for them to establish this information about each other. "I like ladybugs," Layia told him, pointing at the jumper she was wearing, which did, indeed, have ladybugs on them.
"Did you know that the spots on ladybugs fade as they get older?" Evan asked and Layia nodded before he'd even finished the question. "I did know," she confirmed. "Birds won't eat them because bright colours," she informed Evan. "So in this jumper, birds won't eat me," she added managing to make it sound like she was telling Evan a secret. "Is being eaten by birds a worry you experience often?" He asked tilting his head at Layia. She was rather small so perhaps it was likely that a bird could eat her. It'd have to be a big bird. "You have to be safe," she told Evan. "Safer better than sorrier," Layia noted and Evan nodded. That made sense. Whilst perhaps Layia didn't encounter many bird-related problems she was definitely less likely to encounter them if she looked like a ladybug. "Clever," he told her and the girl beamed at him.
Looking at Jim, Layia gave another giggle when the cat flashed its eyes at her again. "Can I pet him?" She asked turning to Evan and he gave a small shrug. "Ask him," Evan told her but before Layia could, Jim had already jumped off the drums and walked over to the girl, tilting his back so she could run her tiny hands over his fur. Jim was definitely an attention whore. "Layia?" Someone called and Evan looked up at presumably Layia's mother who offered Evan an apology for her daughter disturbing him. "We talked about ladybugs," Evan replied as if that somehow automatically meant he hadn't been disturbed. When the mother informed Layia they had to go, she gave a sad look to both Evan and Jim (but mostly Jim), before waving at them. "Bye Jim, bye Evan," she called and Evan offered a 'bye Layia' to Jim's 'meow', which probably carried a similar sentiment.
Then, when Evan looked up, he discovered that during his conversation about birds snatching little girls, the shop had mostly cleared out and he grinned at Andrew across the room. "Hey," Evan greeted and Jim meowed.