Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl. Walking to the Store

DISCLAIMER: Daria is the creation of Glen Eichler and is the property of MTV Viacom. Harry Potter is the creation of JK Rowling and is the property of JK Rowling, Wizarding World, and Warner Brothers. I own neither franchise and neither expect nor deserve any financial gain for this work of fiction.

Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl*Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl* Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl

Daria woke up not long after sunrise the next morning. Not that waking up that early made her an early-riser: the sun rose late and set early in this latitude.

To her relief, Anahita had left the glow-globes on. Daria sighed with relief: she did not like dressing in the dark. She put on her bathrobe and trudged to the bathroom. This time, circumstances had dealt her a mixed hand: the glow-globes were on, but the bathroom was damp and chilly, although the bathroom mirror was clear. She showered and rinsed her hair, then went back to Anahita's bedroom to dress.

Anahita, Dana, and Mrs. Waring were in the kitchen when she walked downstairs. They all smiled at her when she walked into the kitchen.

"Good morning, Sleepyhead!" said Mrs. Waring.

"Good morning," Daria replied, taking a seat across from Anahita.

"Good morning, Daria," said Anahita. Daria could see that Anahita had been up for a while.

"We've still got some breakfast left over," said Mrs. Waring. "It's on the counter. Take as much as you want. There's also some tea."

"Thank you," said Daria. She helped herself to some scrambled eggs and some orange slices. The eggs had somehow remained not only warm, but also moist. Magic, Daria guessed.

"Where's Mister Waring?" she said.

"Out running some chores," said Mrs. Waring. "He'll be back later."

Daria glanced out the window. It was cloudy outside, but it wasn't raining.

"So what's on today's agenda?" she asked.

"I know THAT you want to walk up to that Muggle store next to the main road," said Mrs. Waring. "We can definitely do that. What time do you want to set off?"

"How far away is it?" asked Daria.

"It's just under two miles from here," said Mrs. Waring.

So much for easy access, thought Daria. Maybe I should ask Mom and Dad about my getting a cell phone. "I think I'd probably like to start about one to one thirty in the afternoon," she said.

"Why not earlier?" said Dana.

"Because it's six hours earlier in Texas than it is here," Daria replied. "My Dad gets very upset when somebody calls him at three o'clock in the morning. My mother doesn't take it that well either."

Dana put on a slight frown while she figured it out.

"You know, time zones," Daria said gently.

"Oh," said Dana.

"Well, there's still time between now and the early afternoon. We can clean up and then I can show you my greenhouses. I've been meaning to show them to you since before you got here," said Mrs. Waring. She pulled out her wand and waved it at the glasses and dishes cluttering the breakfast room table. Daria watched in wonder as the plates and glassware rose from the table and floated over to the kitchen sinks and sank beneath the soapy water. I am so going to have to learn those spells, she thought.

Not that this was the first time that Daria had seen Mrs. Waring perform household magic. She'd used it the night Daria arrived, then again during Winter Solstice. It was far faster than clearing the table and washing the dishes by hand would have been, and it was fun to watch as well. She wondered if there was a way she could learn the charms by the end of Spring Term and if she could use them back in Highland. She suspected that the former was unlikely and the latter would get her in trouble with MACUSA's Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Mrs. Waring knew other charms, as Daria found out. Once the dishes and cookware were cleaned, dried, and put away, Mrs. Waring began to walk through the house setting other things to rights. Daria noted with envy than Anahita already knew some of the spells. Placemats and napkins gathered themselves up, chairs straightened up and the breakfast table centerpiece resumed its pride of place. The downstairs housework done, Mrs. Waring put on a big smile and said "So, let's see the greenhouses!" Anahita rolled her eyes; she did not share her mother's enthusiasm for her botanical projects.

Mrs. Waring's greenhouses were some forty feet or so from the main house. It was cold and windy, but Daria followed Mrs. Waring into the first greenhouse. She was relieved to see that it was warmer and much more pleasant inside. The greenhouse smelled of moisture and growing things.

There were certainly a lot of them; Daria could tell that there were a variety of species. She recognized a couple of them from Potions class and from Herbology; she'd used the dried leaves and roots for Potions classes. There were also a lot of plants she didn't recognize: some moved and some didn't, but Daria suspected that the ones that didn't move were magical just the same.

"Well, what do you think?" said Mrs. Waring.

"I recognize some of these from school," said Daria, "but I don't recognize most of the others. Are they edible? Do you use them for potions or condiments?"

Mrs. Waring laughed. "No, dear, I'm breeding lines of plants to absorb some of the poisons Muggles put into the soil around their factories and chemical works."

Daria was non-plussed. This was not what she was expecting. She'd begun to suspect that Wizarding Britain thought that the useful and practical was taboo. These plants could be useful. "No kidding?" she said.

"No kidding at all," said Mrs. Waring. "If the boundaries of magical and non-magical parts of Britain shift as they've done in the past, I want wizards and witches to be able to deal with some of the things left behind."

"That's a good idea," said Daria, thinking about some of the stuff that had been dumped into the soil around Highland and other parts of the Permian Basin during the oil boom seventy years ago, not to mention the stuff that was probably beneath the oil refinery north and east of town.

"I'm glad somebody approves," said Mrs. Waring, looking at her eldest daughter

"Well, it does seem a lot of bother," said Anahita.

"I might not worry about it too much either except that some idiots let uranium get into the town water supply back home," said Daria.

"Uranium?" said Anahita. "You're joking."

"I wish I was," said Daria. "That's why my parents are big on bottled water."

-(((O-O)))—

They set off for the phone after a light lunch: they being Daria, Anahita, and Dana. Passing around the side of the Waring's house, Daria was able to see the small cluster of houses where the Warings and several other wizarding families lived. It reminded Daria of a couple of small crossroads towns she'd seen out in west Texas, except that this neighborhood lacked a post office and a gas station. And a crossroads, for that matter. Most of the houses looked like they belonged there and that they'd been there for centuries.

The road that led to the main highway started just past the far edge of the hamlet. To Daria's mind, the road was more of what her friend Farrah's grandfather would have called a track: it resembled a long, narrow, unpaved driveway instead of a street, marked by wheel marks, bumps and the occasional chuck-hole. It was mostly dirt, although someone had once strewn gravel here and there: much of what little there was had either sunk below the surface drifted to its shoulders. Definitely off the beaten track, Daria mused.

The road had drainage ditches instead of curbs. Its sides were mostly lined by hedges. Most of these were too tall to look over and too thick to peer through, but Daria and the girls were able to peer through the occasional wooden gate to see what was beyond them . Anahita told Daria that most of fields nearest her village were owned by her neighbors and other wizarding folk while the ones closer to the highway were owned by Muggles. Anahita also told her that the road ran through one of the boundaries between Wizarding and Muggle Britain. Daria was unable to sense just where that boundary was and wondered why she couldn't see it. It wasn't until she started to see metal gates and wire fencing that she realized that she'd crossed over. Seeing wire fencing made her smile and caused her to tell her the story about Cuthbert and the Bob wire, causing all three girls to laugh. The car noises from the roadway were much louder now. The girls then walked under an electric power line. Someone had set up a tin shed in the distance. Daria checked her purse once again: yes, she did have credit cards and pound notes and she'd be able to do more than just window-shop.

The road to Anahita's village ended as a driveway running between an automobile junkyard and some sort of rural farm and garden supply store. Civilization, so called, thought Daria. Anahita pointed to the right and Daria saw a large mini-mart. She guided Anahita and Dana to the sidewalk: no use in getting run down in the parking lot. Daria studied the front of the mini-mart and saw the familiar shape of pay telephone stands.

Daria told the Waring sisters that she'd like to do a little shopping and all three girls went inside. The store was a world of neon lighting, metal shelving, and tile floors. After the stone walls and wooden furniture of Hogwarts it seemed tawdry. That didn't stop Daria from indulging in her vices and grabbing a couple of liter-bottles of cola, telling Anahita that pumpkin juice was overrated. The store also sold letter-sized legal pads and cheap ballpoint pens: she grabbed those too. She started towards the cash register, then paused when Dana took interest in some small stuffed animals hanging from a display. There was a tiny magazine rack that sold newspapers and a couple of tabloids by the cash register, all Muggle. Daria picked up a newspaper that had international stories and a gossip tabloid that had an article about Proserpina Darling's mother, a minor movie actress.

The sales clerk was not particularly friendly. He looked over Daria and the Waring sisters, then frowned. "You with them?" he said.

"Yeah," said Daria.

"You lot buying anything or just standing around?" he said, eying the Waring sisters.

"We're buying," said Daria. She frowned at him, then pushed her purchases forward. Anahita was curious about a brand of soda and Dana wanted to try a couple of the cookies.

"You're not from around here," said the clerk.

"Nope," said Daria. "I'm staying with them."

The sales clerk rewarded Daria with a frown, then rang them up. Daria insisted on having part of her change in coin, then put her purchases in the cloth bag she'd borrowed from Mrs. Waring. She and the Waring sisters walked outside and went over to the pay phone, Daria wishing that these guys had an old-fashioned telephone booth.

She took one look at the pay phone and burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" asked Anahita.

Daria didn't reply but pointed at the pay phone. Anahita looked at the phone and read the Southwestern Bell marked on the telephone's coin box.

"What's Southwestern Bell?" she said.

"Southwestern Bell is the telephone company that serves Highland and Texas," said Daria, no longer laughing but still smiling. "I don't think they serve the UK. These guys must have picked up some used pay phones from the US and set them up over here."

"I know you," said Anahita. "There's more, isn't there?"

"I hope you all just got the machines and not the phone operators," said Daria. "Otherwise people around here will have to deal with Texas accents." She'd been buzzed by some of her schoolmates about her Texas accent and didn't like it. Turnabout would have been fair play.

She looked at her watch. It was about half-past eight in Highland. She picked up the pay phone's receiver, put coins into the slot, then started dialing.

Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl*Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl* Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl

Author's notes: Daria's encounter with the American pay phones is drawn from real life: I actually encountered a pay telephone in a small town in Wales in 1993 that had seen service with Southwestern Bell, then somehow wafted across the Atlantic Ocean. Fortunately for resolute defenders of the Queen's English, the telephone operators and their American accents remained back in the US.