Who: Lily Evans and Presto What: Random encounter Where: Local coffee shop When: Recently Rating: G Status: Complete
Presto was fond of coffee, very, very fond of it, really. He had come to respect and like it a great deal as an alternative to ale. In his dreams, the Realm had never had anything like it, and he very much was enjoying the benefits of living in ‘civilization’... most of the time, anyway. He did wish for more of the magic that had been around every corner of the Realm, and the mysteries. He did not wish for the whole running for his life, or running into danger, or fighting for his life, which had been the facts of his situation for nearly every day of the four years his dream self had spent in the Realm.
Today, sitting at the shop and drinking coffee, black, he was enjoying himself as he squinted at the screen of his laptop. He put the cup of coffee down to the side… in mid-air, just above the table a few inches, and it stayed. Sometimes things just… worked, even without magical spells to make them happen, around him. For which he was grateful.
***
School was back in full swing, which meant her addiction to coffee was back. Lily was about to head home to an afternoon of studying and knew that she needed a little pick me-up before that happened. It was off to one of her usual coffee joint haunts and she wandered in trying to decide what exactly she wanted to have. It was a lot of paperwork tonight and she was hoping to not smash her head against the wall in frustration. Her feet lead her to the counter with a mind of their own and a hand reached up to brush some of the red curls out of her eyes.
Once her order was placed she turned to survey the people around her just to waste time. It always seemed a little weird to stare at your barista as they made your drink. It was probably a good thing she did because she noticed a levitating cup on a table and furrowed her brow. Her order was called and she was distracted, but once the cup was in her hands she moved towards the person with the floating cup.
***
Presto was frowning as he typed on the screen, having managed to completely sound like an idiot on the network again. It was something he was good at. He shook his head and reached out for his coffee and it zipped into his hand. He sipped it, then glanced up, and blinked at the woman bearing down on him.
“Er, hello?” He offered her a smile, and a wave, and canted his head to the side as he considered her. She looked vaguely familiar.
*** “Hi….” Lily spoke the word with a hint of a question. Hopefully she wasn’t interrupting him or anything like that, but she was just plain curious. Magic was very hush-hush in her world and she wasn’t used to anyone doing it in public around here and she was surprised that they weren’t keeping it quiet here either. At least there wasn’t some kind of consequence for anything.
“I saw your cup and I was just curious about how you did it,” might as well lay it out plain and simple. If he denied it then she would easily brush the question aside to save face. Or else if he wanted to talk about it then she at least opened the door for them.
***
“My cup? I… “ He stared at it, laughed, then gently put it down on the actual table. “Oops.” He sighed. “I’m a wizard and sometimes magic just… happens around me.” He smiled lopsidedly at her.
“Presto is the name, and magic is something new to me, really, but it seems to suddenly be very, ah… present in my life.”
***
“Oh,” Lily was surprised that he spoke so openly about it and it was most likely written on her face as well, “so magic just happens around you? Kind of like a static electrical field of some sort? I’m a witch, but I’ve never seen things like that really happen especially without thinking.” It happened to more advanced witches/wizards, but usually they had their wands on them.
***
“A little, yes. I also can use it with spells to make things happen.” He grinned at her, and nodded. “I take it magic is different on your world?”
Presto shook his head. “It just seems to be very strong around me.”
***
“Yeah, we tend to use wands. There’s a few people that can do wandless magic, but it’s certainly not as common. Your way seems far more interesting because I would get a lot more looks if I took out my wand and started saying incantations to get things to happen,” Lily smiled at the man and almost wanted to pull her wand out of her purse, but she had to get going soon, “Are you on a network called Valar, by any chance?”
***
Presto sat up, smiling. “Yes! Yes I am. You are too? Cool!” he grinned and extended his hand to her. “Presto is the name, at your service.” He smiled wider.
Her hovering made him think she maybe had to go, so he raised an eyebrow. “Maybe we can meet up and talk about magic more, sometime?”
***
“Lily, nice to meet you,” Lily took his hand in hers and shook firmly. It was always nice to meet up with other magic users and see how magic differed between them. Magnus got his powers from being a demon, so she was curious as to how this guy’s powers worked, “And yeah, that’d be great. I’ve gotta run, but you can hit me up on the network sometime.” That would work out nicely.
***
Presto stood, politely. “Sounds good. And I will! I hope you have a good day!” He smiled as he nodded to her, enthusiastically. He would go back to studying again, when she was gone. He had a lot to do. But he had enjoyed meeting a new spellcaster and learning more about magic. He hoped next time they would have time to talk.
***
“Thanks, you too!” Lily replied with a smile as she gave him a little wave and made her way out of the coffee shop. Studying was going to be a bit hard to handle now that she was excited to talk to someone about magic. She might have to tell Sirius and Remus about this when she saw them next.