New places, old faces. (Jamie)

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Phil’s first attempt at leaving his greenhouses hadn’t gone amazing. Sure he had fun at the flower festival but he also made a bit of a fool of himself in front of Andy no less. Still it had been good to see her and Richard the Bowtruckle. It had been a few days later and he was almost back to his old routine of just hiding away in the greenhouses, experimenting with new plants. He knew if he didn’t leave the house he would eventually be back to where he was before. Spending endless hours lost in his own plant filled world. It was calm and peaceful but lonely as well. As if his mother was reading his thoughts she asked if he could pick up a number of things from Diagon and Horizon Alley. She would be busy with the Leaky Cauldron most of the day. Phil used to help out at the Inn but Andy also worked there at times. It started out with them just needing space and now it was just awkward to go there.

Receiving the laundry list of items he needed to get, his mother was soon off. He didn’t mind helping out till he scanned the list of items and how annoying it was all going to be. Still Phil agreed to it and was still always happy to help. He arrived in Diagon alley first with not much direction on where to start. He just picked items at random.

A few stores and items off his list he was now in front of Slug & Jigger’s. At least the possibility of plant based ingredients were exciting enough for the Longbottom. Opening the door the first thing that hit him was the smell. It wasn’t all bad, it was just strong and so many different ones at once. Phil walked the shop for a bit before giving up on his search and going toward the counter. The girl wasn’t looking his way and he only saw the back of her head which was full of blonde locks. “Excuse me, do you have any crocodile hearts around?” Phil asked with an awkward stiff tone for a moment, talking to new people always did that to him. “I’m asking for a- a friend.” He attempted to add a lame joke at the end, which he felt didn’t go well.

@jamie

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Working at the front of the apothecary wasn’t Jamie’s favorite thing to do – she much preferred being in the backroom, where it was just her, Sienna, and their potions. The front of the store was a different beast entirely, where there were ingredients galore and a smell that could wake the dead. But the store clerk had taken ill unexpectedly and no one else had been able to cover. Jamie had volunteered to take over the front of the store, since she didn’t mind people as much as her coworker seemed to, and all of her potions were in various states of waiting for new ingredients to be added.

Jamie was behind the counter, busy consulting the book of ingredients so she could try to remember at least some of the prices when people inevitably came to buy their own potions ingredients. She had just finished memorizing some of the more common ingredients when someone approached the counter, asking about crocodile hearts. Jamie turned around just as he said he was asking for a friend, her face lighting up. “Phil!” She wasn’t friends with Phil, exactly, but she was romantically entangled with his ex-girlfriend, and that bound people together, right? Besides, Phil was a sweetheart, and she didn’t expect many of those working in a customer service job.

“Yes, we do have crocodile hearts. Give me just a moment.” Jamie considered navigating through the crowded behind-the-counter area, but eventually gave up and jumped over the counter instead. No one was here, and Phil wasn’t going to rat her out, hopefully. “Follow me.” She began weaving through the shelves, towards a back nook of the store whose entrance was almost entirely obscured by a barrel of beetle eyes. “How have you been?” Jamie asked as she led him to the shelf with crocodile hearts.

@phil

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The person behind the counter turned around there was a moment where Phil recognized her, the name didn’t come to him right away. It probably would have if he wasn’t sudden stuck with a sense of confusion. He wasn’t expecting a familiar face to be in the other side of the counter. The girl said his name in an almost excited tone and he just smiled. In those seconds he got his bearing and realized it was Jamie. She was more Andy’s friend than his but they had met a number of times. Besides Phil was really a friend to anyone who would have him as one. “J-Jamie, Hey. I wasn’t expecting to run into someone I actually knew here.” Phil said not totally sure why, just making awkward conversation for a second.

Jamie explained that they indeed had some of the hearts and began to search for them behind the counter. She didn’t seem to be having any luck and he would have offered to help but this was behind the counter of a shop. Not a place for customers, he knew that. “Thanks, I’ve been tasked with shopping it seems from my family.” Phil joked while Jamie continued her search. It wasn’t long Into Jamie’s when she stopped looking and jumped over the counter, he just laughed a little to himself. Probably another thing someone shouldn’t be doing but who was he to tell on her. She told him to follow and Phil happily complied as she led him toward a harder to get to part of the store almost blocked off by a large barrel. She asked how he had been while she searched. “Good, I’ve been good. Mostly spending my days in the greenhouses experimenting with new and different types of plants.” He explained while he looked at some of the ingredients as they passed them. “It’s been exciting... well, exciting for me. How have you been?”

@jamie

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Phil, bless his heart, seemed a little taken aback by her presence in the apothecary, and Jamie almost felt bad when he stuttered out that he wasn’t expecting to meet someone he knew. “Normally you wouldn’t run into me, but our clerk called in sick today so I had to come up from the back,” she said apologetically. She wondered if he had visited before and not seen her – that would explain why he was so shocked by it.

“Oof, that’s never fun.” Jamie was lucky that her mother was particular about her shopping and didn’t often ask Jamie to accompany her. The rest of her family she didn’t live with, so any shopping she did for them was voluntary, and normally included birthday or holiday gifts. Phil followed her back to the crocodile hearts, and thankfully said he had been good since they last spoke – which had been a surprisingly long time. Jamie smiled when he said he was experimenting with different kinds of plants; she hadn’t expected anything less from him, given his reputation with Herbology.

“I’ve been up, down, and around, but I’m better now,” Jamie said, smiling. “I’ve been doing with Potions what you’ve been doing with plants. I’m lucky to still have both my eyebrows.” She was careful when brewing, of course, but accidents still happened. Merlin knew more than one cauldron had been melted or exploded when they were in Potions class in Hogwarts, and that was with clearly-written instructions in front of them. “Speaking of, do you happen to know anything about the valerian plant? I’ve been working on some potions that include its root, and I need some herbological wisdom.” Sienna had done research about all of the Wolfsbane ingredients, of course, but asking for a second opinion was never amiss.

@phil

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“So I was this close to saying hi and never did because you happened to be in the back room.” Phil got out, he didn’t come to the Apothecary often as he tried to grow everything he possibly needed. It was fun for him but sometimes Ingredients came from creatures or were just something he couldn’t grow. “Now I feel bad.” He added, if he had known he would have at least attempted to say hi, while she was still mostly Andy’s friend they were close enough to the point he could say hi and not feel weird about it. Especially if he had come into this store a few times at least.

“No, it’s not fun but I needed an excuse to keep me out of the greenhouses for a bit and back into the real world so this would do.” Phil explained watching on as Jamie searched, “I just wish the list wasn’t so long and involved so many stops. Still I got to run into you so it was worth it.” Phil added as it was always nice to see a familiar and smiling face in his life. He really needed to keep going out and seeing people, plants were nice but they didn’t talk back and it got a little lonely at times.

Jamie explained how she had been and it sounded a little familiar to Phil, he doubted his life had been as bad as anyone else’s. He just locked himself in his greenhouse so nothing really happened to him besides getting lonely from time to time. Jamie on the other hand probably had actual issues she had to deal with. Yet, it was good to hear she was doing better now. “That’s great to hear. That you’re doing better I mean. N-not the up and down part.” Phil added almost as awkwardly as possibly as she continued. Jamie explained she had been experimenting with potion like he had with plants. “Yes, do be careful and not just of your eyebrows.” Phil attempted to joke but he was worried about anyone’s safety when doing something that could get them hurt, especially a friend. “I actually have a pair really big tongs if you want to add ingredients from far away. They come in handy more often than you think.” He suggested with a small laugh even if it wasn’t a lie in the slightest. They had been his fathers for some reason, possibly the same reason Phil just mentioned.

“The valerian plant is typically used for all things sleepy.” Phil got out as he should have just said it acted like a sedative, he wouldn’t have sounded like an idiot a moment ago. “Some people like to let the root dissolve to a type of liquid before use, others just cut it into squares and use as is. Yet you probably already know all that” She was a potioneer after all, Jamie would know something like that but he didn’t have much else to offer about the plant.

@jamie

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Jamie nodded when Phil said he had been close to getting to see her and had missed out because she was in the back room. She didn’t doubt the same was true for several of her old Hogwarts classmates; it was impossible to believe none of them had stopped in for a headache cure or something of the sort while she was working in the back. Jamie was glad if she had to talk to someone from school it was Phil, though – he had always intrigued her, if only because of his close proximity to Andy, and getting to talk to him was interesting. “You don’t need to,” Jamie said, waving off his feeling bad quickly. She didn’t like it when people hurt on her account. “There’s no way for you to have known.” It wasn’t like the apothecary offered a window or anything to see into the back room. Jamie was glad they didn’t; she’d have felt more like a show animal than an employee if that were the truth.

“Cons of having a big family?” Jamie asked when Phil mentioned his list had many stops. With so many people in different professions and with different interests and needs, it was only natural that there would be a lot of different places Phil had to visit. “You’re too kind,” she added, flushing slightly when Phil said running into her was worth all of the errands he had to do. Coming from anyone else it might’ve seemed like flirting, but Jamie couldn’t think of Phil flirting with her, so it was just a kind thing to say.

She managed a small chuckle at Phil’s stumbling over his words. “I get it. And thank you.” She was still a little stunned how many people were happy to hear her life was looking up. It wasn’t that Jamie thought people wanted her to be miserable – she just didn’t realize that many people cared at all. “I don’t think there’s anything more important in life than eyebrows,” she said, voice dripping with faux-seriousness. “That’s what Wingardium Leviosa is for,” she added when Phil mentioned the tongs. If she really didn’t want to be near a potion, she could just levitate the ingredients in.

“It’s used in Wolfsbane,” Jamie explained. “My coworker and I are doing a bit of a project with the potion, so I wanted to see if there were any herbology insights we missed out on.” Phil hadn’t asked why she needed to know, but she wanted to tell him anyways. “I did know most of it, but it does beg the question of whether dissolving it or adding it directly would be more useful…” She’d raise the question to Sienna the next time they had a Wolfsbane-related meeting.

@phil