Pre-Chapter Note/Exposition of previous story events: A few people anonymously reviewed asking after Amaryllis' reasoning for getting a job and 'acting like she was poor.' I apologize if I didn't explain it adequately in-story, so I'll do so again here: Amaryllis has never had a lot of money. Ever.

She's used to living with the Dursleys, and only having whatever levftover bits and pieces they deem useless enough to give her. So while, yes, she's just found out that her parents weren't drunken tramps without a dime to their name, and in fact left her a large pile of money, she can't really conceptualize that.

In her mind, as both an eleven-year-old-kid and someone who's never had any funds to speak of, 'a lot of money' just means enough to pay for things you need, like school and clothes and a roof over your head. She knows that her fist few years of school are already paid for, but what about after that?

What if, after Hogwarts, she wants to go to college, or University? She doesn't want to blow that by being what her relatives always told her she'd be – irresponsible, stupid, and dependent on the charity of others to get by. Thus, she's taking steps to ensure that that never happens, in large part because the worst thing that could ever happen, from her point of view, would be for the Dursleys to be right.

Because if they are right about one thing, who's to say that they aren't right about other things, too? So she gets a job and tries not to spend a lot, because, at the root of it all, she'd afraid. She's a little runaway kid who's facing a lot of uncertainty and change, and she just wants everything to be okay.

That being said, she's an eleven year old kid, so she's not totally responsible, which I hope the following chapter shows.

...

"Bought a beat up six string in a secondhand store
Didn't know how to play it, but he knew for sure

That one guitar, felt good in his hands
Didn't take long, to understand
Just one guitar, slung way down low
Was one way ticket, only one way to go

So he started rockin'
Ain't never gonna stop
Gotta keep on rockin'
Someday he's gonna make it to the top"

Amaryllis took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. Sighing, she opened them again, and straightened her shoulders. It was no big deal, she'd been there before. 84 Charring Cross Road, the music store. No reason to be so jittery. (Though, she wasn't sure if she was jittery because she was nervous about how much this would probably cost or because she was excited about going inside. How odd.)

Ring-ling! Amaryllis jerked, relaxing after a moment. She looked up at the bell above the record shop's door, and shook her head, grinning. Silly her, jumping at a stupid bell!

Unlike the day she'd met the Professor there, weeks ago, the record shop was nearly empty. Not terribly surprising, as it was mid-morning on a weekday. It hadn't been exactly bustling, then, but it had been busy.

Instruments still lined the walls, rows of records and sheet music still ran the length of the store, but, oddly, very few people were inside other than her and the boy reading a back issue of Rolling Stones Magazine behind the checkout counter.

Shrugging, Amaryllis waved cheerily to the boy, who nodded before returning to his magazine, and strode over to the brass instruments on the far right wall. There it was.

She grinned, lifting the trumpet from its hooks, inspecting the valve casings, the finger buttons, turning it over and looking down the bell. It was a gorgeous silver plated thing with the Yamaha brand name printed near the mouth piece, on the leadpipe, and Amaryllis thought it was beautiful. Ooh, how she missed playing!

"Erm, excuse me?" she called, looking over her shoulder at the clerk. "Can I test a few of the trumpets?" The boy looked up from his magazine again, pushing his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose with vague surprise, and blinking rapidly.

"Eh, I guess you might as well," he shrugged. "D'you play? I mean, have you played long? What sort are you looking for, student, intermediate? We don't carry the professional grade ones, not much cause to in a mostly record shop…"

He trailed off for a moment, then seemed to realize he should probably be overseeing a potential sale more closely, and got up from his seat, absently tugging at the bright red uniform vest he wore. As he came closer, Amaryllis could read the name 'Mickey' sewn into the top right breast. She smiled pleasantly at the boy, happy enough to have someone to talk to.

"Well, I've been playing trumpet for, er, four years now, I think it is," Amaryllis said, nodding her head in thought. "I started taking classes at school when I was seven… so, yeah, four years, now. I've only ever had the one from school to play with though, and now I'm going to secondary school and want to get my own." She beamed happily at the lanky boy's vaguely befuddled expression. "I'm thinking an intermediate one, now that I'm more experienced."

Mickey nodded, and picked up another trumpet, a bit higher up with red lacquer and a foot or so out of Amaryllis' reach. "Well, this one's pretty good, Miss Katzmeier plays this brand, and she owns the place, so she knows her music pretty well… Er, try it, and that one you've already got. They're both intermediate ones, the student ones are in the back, but they're sort of shoddy, when you compare them…"

Hiding a giggle at the boy's awkward mumbling, Amaryllis lifted the silver trumpet to her lips and started playing a few bars from Dizzy Gillepsie's 'Salt Peanuts' and the theme from Rocky to get an idea of its sound before returning it to its place on the wall. It was alright. The thumb rest was rather big for her hand, though, and she wasn't sure whether or not that would affect how well she played.

The red lacquered one was a bit better. It had a more comfortable thumb rest, though the valves were rather lighter than she was used to on the student trumpets in Primary. She tried a few more, before finally settling on a Bach Stradivarius-style model TR200S Bb trumpet in silver, with some sort of polished red stone insert on the finger buttons – Mickey began talking about semi-precious stones when she asked, but couldn't tell her what stones were used – and she absolutely loved it.

It wasn't that the sound was particularly warm, or bright, but it played well, and was middle-of-the-road enough that Amaryllis felt she would be able to play either end of the trumpeting spectrum without completely bungling it up.

Mickey also mentioned, while leading her over to get a trumpet case, that if she went a few streets over, she could get it lacquered for about fifty to a hundred pounds, depending on whether the lacquer was partial or full-out. Amaryllis said she'd think about it, but began wondering if there was some sort of color changing charm she could use instead. It would be cheaper, and she worried about how the lacquer might change the sound.

Half an hour later, Amaryllis was standing at the front counter, a faintly dubious looking Mickey behind the register, paying for her trumpet, case, and various accessories needed to play the instrument. She'd picked out a few different mouthpieces beyond the standard C cup for a little more than ten pounds each, and was looking forward to experimenting with it. She handed them and the valve oil over to the boy, who rang up the total.

"D'you have seven hundred an' forty-two pounds, sixty?" he asked dubiously.

Amaryllis blinked at the total, even though it was almost what she'd thought it up to be when she added everything up while she bought it – she'd forgotten to add the sales tax, oops – and was quite glad she'd remembered Mr Jones' old ramblings about the expense of repairing and replacing the instruments that students broke – she had thought she was paranoid when she changed a hundred and sixty galleons to pounds at Gringotts, but apparently not. That would just cover this, with maybe ten left over.

She nodded at him, and pulled out the bank notes from her pocket. Mickey eyed the eight with no small measure of suspicion, holding them up to the light and running a marker pen across the bottoms, to Amaryllis' discomfort. Lovely, the older boy thought she may be some sort of cheat. She plucked unhappily at the hem of her tie-dyed t-shirt.

Finally, Mickey seemed satisfied and handed Amaryllis her purchases, giving her a faint, somewhat embarrassed smile. She was about to turn and leave when he handed her the outdated copy of Rolling Stones he'd been reading. "Here," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry about the wait – there's just been a lot og worrying over counterfeit notes lately, and you – well, you don't look like a rich kid, and you don't have an adult with you, so – I wasn't – wasn't sure you had –"

Amaryllis shook her head, holding up a hand for him to stop. "It's fine," she lied, happy to see his shoulders relax. "I understand. Have a great day?" Mickey nodded, and Amaryllis left.

What's she'd said had been true – she did understand. If the wizarding world had half as many problems as the Muggles with counterfeit galleons or something, she would probably be helping Elphie detect counterfeits. As it was, though, she felt rather embarrassed by the whole situation. It made her glad that the goblins were so scary about the magical world's currency – she'd yet to hear of anyone trying to pass counterfeits around with them overseeing it all.

Goblins were scary.

She thought, though, about what he'd said, that she was just a kid. He was right, she realized with a small frown. It was funny to realize that, much as she was trying to be grown-up and responsible, she was only eleven. A kid. Not that she wasn't being responsible – she certainly thought she was, even if she had just spent over a hundred Galleons on a trumpet she didn't necessarily need. She wasn't getting everything she wanted. Just the trumpet, and a couple of things to go with it. That was responsible, wasn't it?

The idea of large bouts of spending, she realized, reminded her uncomfortably of the Dursley's extravagant spending sprees, and she didn't want to be like them at all. Visions of Dudley's second bedroom, filled to the brim with tbroken toys, and the attic, bursting with Ppetunia's old designer clothes, just a year out of date, made her feel a little sick. Thinking about Vernon's endless stream of new cars each year, and the new grills and televisions was just too much. Made her think that only getting some things instead of all of it was a good thing.

She still really wanted a guitar and records, though! And, hang on – what did Mickey mean, she looked odd?

.

"I stole behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve
She didn't recognize my face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried."

Draco looked hurriedly – but with dignity, like his Father told him to – looked over his shoulder. He didn't see her… But this was Mother. Not seeing her didn't mean she wasn't there. He looked around for a moment before ducking in between some apothecary and a rune crafter's, down the steps to Knockturn Alley.

So distracted was he, as he looked once more over his shoulder to make sure that Mother really wasn't about to catch him sneaking away from her, that he didn't notice the girl coming onto the stairs from a side alleyway until he ran into her.

"Oof!"

"Ouch!"

"What in the–?"

"Oi, watch where you're–!"

Amaryllis stepped backward, struggling to keep her balance and juggle the two large jars of fire crab venom she'd been carrying before some blond duffer had knocked into her; twit hadn't been looking where he was going… Amaryllis finally steadied herself and, clutching the large jars tightly in her arms, looked down at the boy sprawled on the stairs.

"Oh, are you okay?! Here, let me help you up!" she exclaimed, setting the venom down on the steps and pulling the boy to his feet, brushing some mud off of the side of his robe as she did so. She picked the jars up again and gave him a sheepish smile. "Sorry 'bout that, you sorta popped up out of nowhere. G'bye!"

She'd gone down maybe three steps before there was a tug on her sleeve and the boy was beside her again. "What are you even doing?" he asked, looking pointedly at the jars in her arms. Amaryllis shrugged, watching him a bit before answering. He kept looking back up the Alley, toward Diagon.

"I'm a messenger and runner for old Mr Mulpepper. Are you hiding from someone?" she asked. "I haven't seen you around Knockturne before." She would almost think he was a runaway, like her, with how nervous he was acting, but she wasn't quite sure…

In fact, the boy seemed insulted by her suggestion he may even be hiding, let alone a runaway. "I beg your pardon!" he squawked, affronted. "I'm not hiding from anybody! And what do you mean, you're a messenger?" he asked, watching her curiously. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Eleven. You?"

"The same. But – if you're eleven, does that mean you're apprenticing instead of going to Hogwarts?" he sniffed disdainfully at the very notion. "My Father says that any witch or wizard in all of England that doesn't go to Hogwarts isn't fit to hold a wand. If you're not going, you must be a street urchin, aren't you?"

Amaryllis eyed him weirdly. It wasn't uncommon at all for kids around eleven or twelve, if they didn't go to Hogwarts, to enter an apprenticeship. She'd never heard it talked about badly before – most tended to be very pleased if they or their children were accepted by a master.

"Erm… no. I'm going to Hogwarts in September, the same as you. Your Dad's barmy if he thinks apprenticeships are anything less than a privilege. And at any rate, what's it matter? Either way you learn magic, and take your OWLs at the very least. Most apprenticeships require NEWTs anyway, or farther. Usually the best people in their fields had early apprenticeships."

The boy seemed unsure of himself for a minute, and didn't say anything as they took the right of the fork toward Mulpepper's Knockturn apothecary. This did not last for long, however. "My name's Malfoy," he said pompously, sticking out his hand. "Draco Malfoy."

She held back a giggle, and shifted a jar from one arm to the other to shake his hand. "Bond, James Bond," she said snootily, and snickered.

This led to Amaryllis having a vastly confused pureblood on her hands as she explained that, no, she was not a boy, she was making a joke, and that James Bond was an amazing super spy in Muggle fiction, which Malfoy was dubious about, and that her name was in fact Jones, Riley Jones. Pleasure's yours. That made the blond boy sputter for a moment as they walked into the apothecary, and Amaryllis waved to Elphie while she put up the venom.

Probably best not to tell the older girl how close she'd come to dropping it – firecrab venom was highly reactive, with fiery explosions when it came in contact with the air, which was why fire crabs had a sort of airtight second bladder to hold it in before squirting it out to defend themselves, causing their well-known explosive tail fires.

Fire farts, she remembered a five-year-old wizard exclaiming happily to his mum, the owner of Castor's Candles down the lane from Borgin and Burke's, a few days back when she'd put in an order for some to make the potion for her firecracker candlewicks. Those were great hits at parties and festivals – little firework candles. It was amazing.

And Mrs Castor was so nice. Whenever Amaryllis delivered her the reagents she ordered or had messages to deliver, she offered some of her white chocolate fudge, which was delicious.

Yum, fudge.

Umm... just to note, no plans in he works for a Draco/Amaryllis romance, despite the context of Dan Fogelberg's 'Same Old Lang Syne.' That verse was just one Ii found fitting for the situation.

10:28 PM, 22 November, 2013

PS - 50th anniversary of the JFK's assassination. Moment of silence, if you would?