What Are The Odds? [Lucas]

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

13 September 2025

Aidan didn’t really know what to do with himself when he wasn’t visiting home or working at the reserve. He wasn’t much curious about exploring the mainland – it was probably just a vast collection of urban landscapes crowded with people and noise – so he typically stuck to the Hogsmeade area. It wasn’t so bad, as the village was completely magical and fairly quiet as far as non-druid settlements went. It wasn’t anything like Hy-Brasil, but he couldn’t go home every opportunity he had off-the-clock…his parents had made that clear enough.

On the bright side…he was enchanted with some of the stores Hogsmeade had to offer. There was a music store where he could sit for endless stretches of time to listen to the instruments playing slow melodies, and the pubs were quite enjoyable for a quick drink (when they weren’t crowded by Hogwarts students, at least). And Honeyduke’s – wow!!! Aidan didn’t usually enjoy artificial tastes, as his diet reflected most druids’ preference for natural ingredients, but he could make an exception for Honeyduke’s mind-boggling candy. It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to claim that most of the time, Aidan’s wanderings ended at Honeyduke’s.

That’s where Aidan found himself on a sleepy Saturday with nothing else to do. He wasn’t due at the reserve for a long stretch of time, but the thought of simply staying in bed didn’t sound appealing. So naturally he’d zipped off to his favorite store to hunt for his favorite chocolate. To be completely honest, Aidan relied more on the pictures to find what he liked rather than reading the English. He’d learned as a young boy how to read and speak, but he always avoided practicing and even after two years abroad only truly spoke English when it was absolutely necessary.

But this time he was looking for a specific type of chocolate the store offered with a strawberry filling – delicious! Some of the chocolate wrappers looked so similar, however, that Aidan pouted as he compared the almost indistinguishable bars with foreign-looking letters. This wouldn’t do – he needed some help. So Aidan scooped up a few different types of chocolate and his eyes fell on a nearby redhead (it was probably instinctual at this point for him to seek out other redheads for help). Aidan mentally practiced the words as he walked over. “Excuse me, what this says?” he asked in heavily-accented English, indicating the text on the wrapper describing the kind of chocolate. He fervently prayed to the chocolate gods that at least one of the bars he'd selected had the strawberry he wanted.

@luke

[Deleted]

Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn

any opportunity luke had to go back to honeydukes, he took. it wasn't as often as he liked so when he was able to he stocked up. it must have seemed like an excessive amount but he could justify it to himself and that was the important part. whether he used it to keep himself awake while he was staking a place out or whether he ate it while filling out paperwork and the other tedious jobs that happened to come with his, it was all used for good reasons. he grabbed some hard lollies off the shelf, looking quizzically at a flavour that he'd never seen before. it didn't really seem like something he'd be interested in so he didn't grab it. it hit him then that he should grab some things for virva, surprise her with them the next time he saw her. he tried to wrack his brains for what she might like. he grabbed some chocolates, a few of the hard candies and then he started looking for something strawberry.

he moved along the different selection of wrapped up chocolates, his eyes scanning for the ever elusive treat when he heard a voice next to him and he looked up into the face of someone whose hair was just as bright as his was. he could pick the accent almost straight away, it was the same that virv spoke with though hers was nowhere near as thick. "they're chocolates with coconut, pumpkin and strawberry." he said as he looked back at the chocolates. "where did you find this one?" he asked as he pointed to the strawberry chocolate. "i've been trying to find it."

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

Mission successful! The other wizard was plenty helpful, and Aidan smiled excitedly when he pointed out the coconut, pumpkin, and strawberry flavors. “Ah, I see! Strawberry,” he repeated the English word as he carefully examined the colorful little illustrations on the wrapper. He should have figured the pink filling was the one he was looking for, but when it came to chemical flavors…Aidan didn’t really trust what he saw so much as what he was told. But there was no reason for this very nice wizard to lie about something as important as chocolate, so Aidan carefully cradled the treasure in his hands.

Aidan nodded solemnly as the other guy mentioned trying to find it. “I see it over here,” Aidan pointed towards a box a few shelves away – it had been near the very bottom, clearly not a favorite for most buyers. Unless it was too popular and Honeyduke’s had been trying to hide it so it didn’t run out as fast. Was that a thing? It made sense to him. Aidan shoved the reject flavors back on the shelf since he’d really only come for one thing – but he didn’t want to end his first practice conversation today yet. How many times had he been scolded for not working on his English? “Very good, yes? My…what is the word? When I like it but I should not,” Aidan explained vaguely. It was on the tip of his tongue, he’d remember in a bit! “My family, they say Honeyduke’s is…not natural? We do not eat things like this.”

@luke

[Deleted]

Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn

it felt like a lightbulb going off in his head as the other redhead pointed out the strawberry chocolate. he didn't know whether to take it as a good sign or a bad sign that he hadn't been able to something that should have been in plain sight to him. he was training to notice things wasn't he? he ducked down quickly to grab the remaining chocolate out of the box and he dropped them carefully into his basket. "thank!" he said as he straightened and grinned a little. now he'd found things he thought virva would like, he'd spend a little more time looking for things he might like. after all he couldn't come to the shop and not grab anything for himself.

"uuh guilty pleasure i think?" luke laughed when he said that his family wouldn't like it because it wasn't natural. he did have to agree. "oh i'm pretty sure it's not natural. it's probably mostly magic with a touch of chocolate." he said as he swapped the basket from the hand it was in to the other. "i'm luke." he introduced himself simply. "your accent, it's similar to someone's i work with." he didn't know if that was something he could say but he was curious. it sounded like virva's but also different too. it was making him curious.

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

Aidan nodded enthusiastically at the familiar words. “Guilty pleasure,” he tried out, shaping the unfamiliar syllables carefully and repeating a few times to make sure he’d remember. He couldn’t wait until it was time to go to work – he’d be able to show off to all his coworkers the new (and fancy!) words he had learned today. They’d be sure to appreciate it as much as he did.

The other wizard agreed that Honeyduke’s wasn’t natural, but he mentioned a recipe of mostly magic with a little chocolate. That was okay to Aidan – he liked magic a lot, and he missed the feeling of being surrounded completely by it like he was in Hy-Brasil. Even Hogsmeade wasn’t as magical as he was used to, so magical chocolate sounded miraculous. He returned the other wizard’s greeting with the one he’d practiced many times before his first day of work. “I am Aidan,” he said with a smile. Both their hands were full, so he didn’t go for anything usual like a hug or a shoulder pat, which made the introduction feel incomplete. But that didn’t matter because Luke’s mention of his accent was extremely interesting.

“My accent?” Aidan repeated, wracking his brain to understand Luke’s hidden meaning. Aidan knew he didn’t work with the redhead, and he was certain that Luke was not a druid, so… “You work with druids?” he asked eagerly, excited at the thought. Sometimes druids left Hy-Brasil to work in the mainland, but it was rare. Aidan was excited to learn their name and make a new friend away from the island! Where did Luke work, he wondered. Herbology? Healing? Farming?

@luke

[Deleted]

Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn

he nodded a little when aidan repeated what he'd said. it was the accent more than anything that had made him think of virv but watching the other male move he could see it in certain mannerisms and the way he moved, the look in his eyes at the stuff in the store was somewhat similar to virv when he showed her something she'd never experienced before. and he was well aware it was probably the same when she showed him things and it did seem like she was showing him more than he was showing her.

"i work with a druid." he didn't know if there were other druids in the ministry but he doubted it from the way that virv spoke about their dislike of them. "her name is virvatuli." he didn't know if aidan would know virv, but from what she'd told him there wasn't a great population of druids so there was a small chance and if he didn't know here then it would be easy enough to move on from it. "we work in the same department." he wasn't going to blurt out loud in the middle of honeydukes which department he worked in but he felt like it was a little more information without giving too much away.

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

Aidan tilted his head curiously and waited on the (metaphorical) edge of his seat for Luke to explain more about the druid he worked with. It was rare for druids to leave their community and go to live among the mainland wizards. What tended to happen more often than not was for a druid to leave for a short amount of time to collect some experience – about magical creatures or Healing or whatever – and then bring that knowledge back to the island. That was definitely Aidan’s plan, since he was extremely uninterested in spending the rest of his life away from his family. In fact, that thought actually made him wilt whenever he thought about it too long.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise as Luke said Virva’s name. “Virvatuli?” he repeated. “Virvatuli Taikalainen?” He gave a laugh of delight at the odd coincidence. “My cousin!” he said eagerly. Then he hesitated, because he wasn’t sure he had said the right word in English, so he thought about it for a moment then brightened as he explained. “My mother, her father, they are brother and sister,” he said with a decisive nod. That was so fun that Luke knew Virva! Aidan loved his cousin and they saw each other more often than the others because Aidan’s family was centered around Hy-Brasil while Virva’s family lived in a small druid community in the north.

Naturally, since they had both chosen to spend some time away from home, they had more opportunities to spend time together.
That thought made him dim slightly, because it reminded him where exactly Virva worked. And Luke had just said he and Virva worked in the same department. “Oh, you are Ministry,” he grumbled. That was too bad. Luke seemed like a nice guy, and he had helped Aidan read the labels on the chocolate. But Ministry workers were trouble, and their policies toward everything that mattered – magic, creatures, druids – were problematic.

@luke

[Deleted]

Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn

he'd not quite mastered how to say virv's last name, though if he was honest he didn't really hear it said out loud all that often. he only knew that when he did try, he always felt like he was close to being laughed at or hit because he butchered it that badly. thankfully it hadn't happened yet. "that's her name." he said as a grin crossed onto his face. so this was her cousin was it? small world if he was running into her kin on the mainland when she'd told him that most of her family hadn't ventured this way apart from her brother. "yeah, that's a cousin." he should know the definition, he had a huge number of them though he didn't know it it quite rivaled virva's family.

and there it was. what virv had told him in sauna was the truth. they really didn't like the ministry. he could see it on his face, in his stance and he could hear it in his voice when he said the word, almost like it tasted sour leaving his mouth. "yeah, i work in the same area as virv." he said as he shifted the basket from one hand to another to stop it digging too deeply into his palm. "she told me her people didn't like the ministry." he said as he rocked back on his heels a little before trying to change the subject. he wasn't going to jump into a spiel where he defended the ministry. they had their faults and they had their positives but he didn't want to fight it out there and then. "do you need to find anything else?"

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

Aidan nodded thoughtfully as he mentally added the word ‘cousin’ to his vocabulary. He had definitely learned the word before, but the nature of learning a language meant that he would learn it, then forget, then learn it again. Rinse and repeat that process a few times until it finally stuck in his brain. That had been most of his experience on the mainland – not bad, per se, but enough that even his optimism sometimes got replaced by an intense desire to bang his head on the table repeatedly.

Luke confirmed that he was indeed, as Aidan had oh-so-cleverly deduced, a Ministry worker. It was a shame, because he really did seem like a nice guy. Maybe he just didn’t know his Ministry’s past with the druids – it wouldn’t surprise Aidan because really, the Ministry didn’t have much to be proud about in that area. Centuries of pestering them to conform after they’d only isolated themselves due to the rampant persecution they’d encountered in the first place. Luke commented on it, something along the lines that Virva had told him that druids didn’t like the Ministry. Aidan just shrugged. “You start it first,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Why Ministry not just leave us alone?” It seemed like the simplest solution, really, and it would solve a lot of the animosity between them. Druids knew how to manage their own affairs, after all, and Aidan didn’t have a problem with the mainlander Ministry – as long as it stayed far, far away from Hy-Brasil.

Aidan nodded vigorously. “Yes yes, I hear about…sugar quill? It sound good,” he said eagerly, making a vague shape with his hands to indicate the size of this candy he had heard about. It had sugar in the name, so really how bad could it be?

@luke

[Deleted]

Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn

well it didn't seem that aidan pulled his punches and luke couldn't fault him for it. he knew some of what had happened between the ministry and the druids but most of it had been learned from virva and not from the ministry themselves so he hadn't really been able to form something of an opinion on it. "you'd have to ask them." he said with a small shrug of one shoulder. he didn't know why they'd kept imposing themselves onto the druids who lived on hybrasil and in other places in the world and until he knew he was determined to stay something neutral. he was angry that virva had had to go through what she had at the hands of people who weren't from her lands and he wished he could make that better but he was trying not to fall victim to his temper and emotions so much these days. he was trying his hardest to be rational.

ah. so the sugar quills were on his radar. they'd been something of a favourite of his when he'd been younger and he was still a little partial to them if he was honest. "them i can help with." he said with a grin as he took a few steps back to a gap in the shelves and he ducked down it, moving down one of the aisles till the sought after candy was in sight. "they're here." he said as he pulled one of them off the shelf. "between the candied pumpkin and the sugar mice."

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

Aidan made a face as Luke suggested that he would have to talk to the Ministry. It wasn’t a bad face per se, definitely not one of hatred. No, it was the same kind of face he pulled whenever his ma ordered him to go help his dad with the chores that still needed to be done around the farm, or whenever one of his teachers would assign heaps of homework. As in, something unpleasant that needed to be done, but really, in Aidan’s well-informed opinion, didn’t actually have to be done at all. The idea of talking to a Ministry representative sounded extremely distasteful, and anyway it wouldn’t give him any answers that Aidan didn’t already know. The situation seemed clear enough, as did the solution. And Aidan hoped he wouldn’t see any other Ministry workers for a long, long time.

His eyes lit up as Luke seemed to recognize what he’d meant about the sugar quills, and he gave a gasp of delight at the mention of other sweets too. “Sugar…mice?” Aidan repeated in awe, eyes scanning the shelves to take in everything at once. Luke had pulled a box of sugar quills off the shelf, and Aidan reached up so he could take one too and stare appreciatively at the picture on the side of the box. He saw the resemblance to an owl feather immediately, and he absolutely loved the idea of candy modeled after creatures. At the mention of sugar mice, Aidan automatically began to scan the shelves again until he spotted a picture of the animal and pulled that box off the shelf too. Without thinking, he returned Luke’s grin with a pleased one of his own. “This store…amazing. Best in Hogsmeade,” he said definitively, no room for argument. “Why more people not here?”

@luke

[Deleted]

Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn

he had to ignore the face that aiden had pulled because he didn't have an answer. he had no idea why the ministry felt the way they did about druids and their way of life. he did have an opinion or two but he didn't think he was educated on the issue enough to make an actual guess as to why and he doubted the ministry would answer any questions he had. that mood however didn't last long as the idea of candied quills was enough to change the subject to something that was much better and that happened to be sweets. As he walked around the shelves there was a lift of thickness from the air, as if the mood had lightened some and he nodded a little. "yes, sugar mice. you need to be careful or they'll run away. just like the chocolate frogs." he confirmed as he stopped in front of the quills. the mice had been spelled like the chocolate frogs and it was usually amusing to watch someone try and eat them for the first time. he'd used them once before to try and play a trick on his sisters but then had been given a stern speaking to by his mother about scaring ondina. it had been something of a blessing in disguise though because they were much more enjoyable to eat than they were to play pranks with.

"i think so to." he said as he looked around the shop fondly. it had been something of a comfort while he'd been away from home the first time at hogwarts. even though he'd been excited to go to the school and to be out of the house after having been the only kid at home for a year and to see most of his family a lot more than he had since they'd all started school before him. it had been thrilling because he'd been anxious to see what the outside world was like, his home had been somewhat limiting growing up and he'd just wanted to see what the world could offer him. so far he hadn't really been disappointed. "just wait until the students from hogwarts come down. there won't be any room to move in here." it was still a favourite with the students today.

[Aidan Evander Ó Cuinn]

Okay, if there was one thing that the mainland really knew how to do…it was their candy! Hy-Brasil was all about natural foods, growing your own produce and being completely self-sufficient. It was a beautiful way to live in balance with the natural world, and it meant the druid diet was fundamentally healthy and delicious. Aidan had certainly been suffering with processed foods ever since he had come to Hogsmeade, and he never ate as much here as he did when visiting home. But candy. Hy-Brasil didn’t have anything nearly comparable to Honeyduke’s, and he had definitely spent more than his fair share of sickles on snacks that weren’t anything his ma would approve of. Luke explained the deal with sugar mice – eat them fast or watch them escape! Aidan nodded wisely, as if this was completely natural. “If mice run away, they deserve freedom,” he decided, as if the sugar mice were real creatures and not magicked candy. That wouldn’t stop him from buying several boxes, though.

He gave a hum of contemplation as Luke mentioned Hogwarts and the students that came down to Hogsmeade occasionally. Aidan had seen the crowds of people before – teenagers dressed in different-colored robes and packing into the shops in a tight fit. He’d never really approached any of them before. He didn’t have anything to do with mainlander wizards, outside of his friends at the nature reserve, and besides…he’d only visited Hogwarts twice in his life before. Once to take his OWLs, and once for the NEWTs. He didn’t remember much about the castle besides the fact that it was dark. Definitely not any details like the names of the Houses or what it meant. The amount of students at Hogwarts was ridiculously large compared to class sizes on Hy-Brasil -- there, Aidan had known not only everybody in his class but all the students ahead and behind as well. There was a lot he still didn't understand about Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. “Hogwarts students not visit every day,” he observed, picking a random box off the shelf to examine the picture before putting it back. “Actually…” Aidan thought out-loud, “Almost never. One time in month. Why? I think I go every day if I was student!”

@luke