THC: Round 2

House: Ravenclaw

Class subject: Herbology

Story Category: drabble

Prompt(s): [object] antique plate set

Word count: 956

Notes: Takes place around 1978-1979ish before she goes to ask Dumbledore for a job but right after she had graduated from Hogwarts and married her husband. I found the plates on this website called Gentle Rattle of China so if you wanna know what they look like I think you can just search Samuel Alcock "Horn of Plenty molding, Flower study" they should pop up.

Porcelain Dreams

The wind whipped at Sybill's face as she pushed through a crowd of people winding her way down the pathway. She clutched the box in her hands for dear life as she approached a weathered brick building. It was of a modest height with an accruement of objects displayed in the windows and an awning over the front of the building. Pippin's Emporium was written in a messy scrawl on the door, and Sybill opened the door clumsily as she balanced the box in one arm on top of her leg.

She loathed the sight of the building, having seen it far too many times over the past few months, selling away all of her possessions to the craggily old man who ran the store. After her divorce, she hadn't been able to find a means to support herself. She tried in the Wizarding World only to be met with ridicule, and the Muggle World was difficult to navigate. Her education hadn't progressed past Hogwarts, which showed up as a Muggle school whenever people asked, and it made it so she couldn't really do anything.

All of her furniture sat in this store, a good portion of her books, some of her nicer jewelry, and well anything that was in decent condition. Of course, magical possessions were sold off in Diagon Alley.

The cardboard box she held so dearly was filled with something she truly did not want to let go of, but she had no choice. It contained a plate set that had been passed through multiple generations of her mother's family. The beautiful plates had come into her family's possession around the 1840s and had always been proudly displayed in a glass cabinet in her home growing up. When she married and moved in with her husband (well her ex-husband now), she had inherited the plates. There were four of them, all hand-painted, the midnight blue edge was accompanied by gold detailing and a unique flower in the middle of each. Sybill's heart panged at the thought of having to sell them, but they were the last thing she had.

And she knew Pippin, the decrepit man, would salivate at the sight of the plates and hopefully pay her enough money to get her through the winter.

"Back again, lass?" His voice croaked and grated against Sybill's ears.

"Unfortunately." Defeated, she walked up to his counter. The wood was unnervingly sticky and stained, and Sybill grimaced as she touched it. "I have some plates to sell you."

Pippin gingerly opened the box and let out a wheezy-sounding gasp at the sight of it. "Do you know what these are?"

"Some antique plates?" Sybill quirked her eyebrow. "I mean it's a complete set as far as I know and they're from the 1840s, but that's it."

"These are Samuel Alcock plates." He picked one up with his gloved hands holding it tightly but with a delicate grasp. "I haven't seen one of these up close, only at auctions."

"Which means?" She knew they were special plates by the way her family had taken care of them over the years, but she didn't know they were something to behold with such fascination.

"The molding is exquisite. Modeled after a horn of plenty and the colors are still so vibrant after over a hundred years. You have the daffodil, poppy, rose, and the daisy which I haven't seen before." Pippin's eyes were wide with a childlike whimsy so unlike the man Sybill had come to know.

"Pippin, how much are they worth?" She tapped her foot nervously against the equally as sticky floor.

"Well, dear, I'm not exactly sure." Sybill had never heard him utter such a phrase. He had a number set from the moment she set foot into his shop, and he never let her bargain for anything more. "I'd have to find someone to appraise them."

"And how long will that take." She was tired.

Sybill was tired of this. Of selling everything, she owned to pull herself through this wicked world. Wanted it to be over and done with. Above all, Sybill wanted a sense of security she had lost.

"I am not sure." Pippin shot her a look she couldn't decipher. She could almost describe it as melancholy. "I can give you a small sum of money until I know the true amount."

"How much?" The weight of everything crashed upon Sybill. The true question she should have asked was how long will I have to fight to survive?

"A couple of hundred pounds." Pippin assessed the plates again. "Think of it as a deposit."

"Fine." Sybill eyed the plates wistfully. "I'll be back in a week for an update."

She was met with the horrendous wind again. Instead of dry, wind-burnt cheeks, it was met with tear-stained ones. Her hair stuck in the tear tracks as she walked back to her shabby apartment. Dead leaves spiraled in the midst of the road, the most life they'd had since they fell from their respective trees. Sybill envied them.

There were bills piled on her table, the paint peeling off the walls, it was cold and damp in her one-room apartment, and it sucked the life out of her. She placed the money from Pippin down onto her splintered table and sectioned it into piles. It might last her long enough to cover rent and some groceries.

The place on her counter where the plates used to sit proudly looked pathetic now. Empty and sullen like the rest of her life. The apartment was colorless now, filled with only muted grays and dull woods.

"It'll get better," she whispered to herself as she hugged her knees for warmth. "It has to get better."