"I would not counsel you to test it."

"...Right."

She does still want to get a look at the telescopes, and hopefully determine that they aren't shoddy worksmanship.  She's not sure she trusts someone with that aggressive of a sales policy to make or procure quality goods, when they could make more money by selling cheap shite.

The telescopes do look well-made, at least to the eye of a nonprofessional with extremely good attention to detail: nothing is chipped or bent or askew, joints and edges are consistently fastened with bolts and screws rather than clips and nails, time has clearly been taken to render edges smooth and comfortable, and so on.

Wiseacre is frowning suspiciously at Lily while she carefully-doesn't-touch a shelf of gently ticking watches. He pays very little attention to McGonagall, who has glided past, murmuring, "ah, and while we're here...." and gone to peer at a shelf of inscrutable mechanisms under the 'Home and Office' sign.

"...I'm going to need to do math about this, I think - whether a Muggle scope is cheaper, considering the conversion rate..."

"...Mr. Wiseacre, I imagine you're not an Astronomy specialist, but do you have an idea of what sort of other telescopes the ones you're selling compare to?  I've done enough reading about astronomy as Muggles practice it to know that they mostly disprefer spyglass-style optical stuff, but I'm guessing that you can do magic to solve the, chromatic aberration, problem?  And I'm pretty sure these are enchanted in some way, though I couldn't guess with what just yet."

Wiseacre squints at her in a deeply crotchety manner, and then addresses their supervisory adult. "Miss McGonagall, what nonsense is this?"

McGonagall smiles thinly and sets a small copper device on his sales counter. It is apparently a humidity detector, for a reason she does not deign to explain. "Professor, if you please."

"Professor McGonagall," he corrects himself, rolling his eyes while he processes the transaction. "I'm three times your age."

The device disappears into McGonagall's sleeve. "I did not contest it. Do you have the answer to Miss Prince's question or not?" 

He huffs. "Of course they're enchanted, child, what kind of hack do you take me for? I suppose you might be able to find something of comparable performance in a Muggle shop, Thuraya tells me they've gotten quite good at it, but I'd expect it to be twice the cost and thrice the size, without the spells and with less precise glasswork. She buys all her lenses from me, you know."

"I cannot imagine how I could possibly have failed to know," McGonagall says dryly.

"I don't take you for any kind of hack, Mr. Wiseacre; I previously took you for the owner of a generalist supply store, which can sometimes fall flat when procuring specialist goods, but having become aware that you are in fact a craftsman, I will certainly be seeking to purchase miscellaneous devices from you in the future; I can trust you do good work in them if Hogwarts herself would trust you with its students."

And a telescope she gets!

At that, a small but genuine smile may, possibly, be detectable under the wizened harrumph. 

Lily, who has been watching this interaction with glee, obtains without additional fanfare a telescope and a tiny pocket quill-sharpening device; once they leave, she wants to know what's this about Hogwarts students?

"Hmm?"

"You said something about Hogwarts trusting him with its students?"

"Oh; that was metaphor.  Or metonymy, or possibly both.  If the castle can think, as far as I know it hasn't said anything about school supplies.  No, the thing is, Professor McGonagall brought us there, and I trust her integrity to not take us somewhere we'd be knowingly ripped off.  And since Wiseacre apparently makes all his own products, I could trust Hogwarts' trust in him to make good ones, regardless of how much Professor McGonagall might or might not know about telescopes in particular."

What an extremely Ophelia way to say that sometimes people don't suck, maybe, if you consider it from a certain angle, possibly.

"Oh. Sure, okay." 

Time for ice cream!

It is indeed. 

"...You should get yourself something nice as well," she murmurs to the Professor, as they approach Fortescue's.  "He was rude to you.  I'm three times less your age and you respect my preferred forms of address; he shouldn't get away with not doing that.  It's quite - impolite."

"He did not get away with it," she points out, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly. "But yes. Wiseacre is rather known for his prodigious ability to find some way to be rude to anyone who steps foot in his shop. I am, I assure you, neither surprised nor particularly personally offended."

She will nevertheless take this suggestion in the spirit it was clearly intended, and purchase for herself an ice-cream sundae (Earl Grey and lavender flavored).

...That actually sounds like it would be very good, come to think of it, but she's having quite a time finding anything that would sensibly pair with the lavender.

Maybe...

Hm, yes.

Earl-grey-and-lavender, hot chocolate (one of the more wizard flavors of ice cream available), and strawberry sorbet, topped with a thorough drizzle of caramel, whipped-cream-and-a-cherry-on-top, and waffle cone pieces.

"What're you getting, Lily?"

"Chocolate chili and orange marmalade!" is apparently an option. "Oooh, and cinnamon bun."

"...I'll trade you a spoonful of the marmalade for a spoonful of one of mine?"

"Sure!"

Om nom delicious magic nonsense. Wizards have apparently fully solved the 'when you try to have a warm food and a cold food together they rapidly become a single lukewarm food' problem and this is awesome.

It's very delicious.  And Lily having fun like this is so cute endearing good.

Ophelia delicately carves off a spoonful of the orange marmalade icecream and trades it for a spoonful of her hot-chocolate flavor, then tries a little bit of it in combination with each of hers.

"...Hm, I think I was right about the lavender being a bit odd to pair with orange.  This is delicious, though.  Thank you, Professor McGonagall.  You didn't have to bring us here."

"No, I didn't," she agrees. "But I am glad of it. I have had many worse afternoons."

(And what, after all, is the point of fighting a war, if not to protect moments like this, where children are safe and happy?)

Eventually, though, they must go. It's a moderate-length trip back to Spinner's End when your destination doesn't have Floo and your charges are too young to be safely Side-Alonged, but she moves through it briskly. Her pointy hat is temporarily transfigured into a slightly less pointy hat for the duration, which due to her fundamental nature doesn't really make her look detectably less witchy but does at least make her look minimally plausibly deniable enough to avoid actual comment by passers-by. Soon enough, she is depositing Lily and Ophelia back at the Evanses' house, with their Hogwarts Express tickets and a stern reminder that they are not allowed to use their wands until they get to school.

"...under what circumstances, ma'am, would it be permissible to do so despite the normal contraindication inherent in Secrecy?  I...don't want to stand by and watch as bad things happen."

"The law permits exceptions to the restrictions on underage sorcery only in case of clear and imment danger to your own person or to the Statute."

If Ophelia is still like this by the time she's thirteen or fourteen and has learned any spells, especially if at that point there's still a war on, Minerva may be forced to quietly suggest that, technically, the Misuse of Magic Office cannot really tell the difference between Eileen Prince doing magic and Ophelia Prince doing magic, if they're anywhere near each other. But this child, however clever and determined, is eleven. 

"And while I commend your desire to help others," she adds, because if Ophelia manages to die in the next three weeks of somehow locating Abraxas Malfoy to tell him his politics are objectively illogical or something she is going to feel personally responsible, "I have found that many problems are quickest solved by giving yourself time to be ready before you begin to solve them." 

And then, with a tip of her witchy hat, she's gone.

Well.  In a mixed blessing, she's already figured something similar out.

"I see.  Thank you, Professor, for - everything, and the advice.  ...I hope I needn't make use of that exception anytime soon."

And she, with a respectful nod back, heads...housewards.  It has been a long day.

...Unfortunately, because it has been a long day, she misses the step in her plan for this trip where she leaves her wizard things in Lily's house and changes back into boyish trousers.

Fortunately, it is at least the - alleged - mother of Severus Snape who encounters 'him' heading to 'his' room, a miserable little garret; Tobias won't be home for a while yet.

Unfortunately, her complete inability to process the mere existence of Ophelia enough to care about that whatsoever really doesn't help as much as one might think.

"Severus, what are you doing in that outfit!  Are you trying to dress like a wizard?!  You know your stupid brute of a father didn't give you the smarts to be as good a mage as I am, so stop putting on airs and go change already!"

To put it simply, Eileen Prince is...very obsessed with Slytherin-typical status-seeking, much to her detriment.

This is additionally comorbid with her constant experience of vast cognitive dissonance, by virtue of holding the viewpoint that she, herself, is inherently high-status by virtue of her magic, despite living in a Muggle house, paid for by a Muggle husband, that abuses her, as she refuses to do any magic whatsoever about this.

It's quite possible that she will later scream at Tobias to stop 'enabling' 'Severus' with fancy Muggle clothing, again, and cause bigger problems thereby - because she'll remember the skirt, even if she calls it a "stupid Muggle half-robe", and Tobias is strongly possessed of the belief that 'male' effeminacy is weakness of the mind that must be removed by all available means.  He's not exactly keen on female effeminacy, either, though he much more despises women "acting like" men.  (Ophelia brought up the topic of queerness, once.  The resulting stream of slurs and threats convinced her to never mention its personal relevance.)

Unfortunately, this is rather typical for her alleged mother.

Alleged.

She read that word in the newspaper, once, then found it in the library's dictionary.

It means that something has been presented as true, but yet to be confirmed.

Thus, Ophelia's inner monologue, insofar as she has one, refers to her alleged parents, almost constantly.

Speaking of which, she had best placate the one that's screaming at her while she stares directly into the middle distance, nothing on her face.

"I wore what fine clothes I could find because Hogwarts is a fine institution, mother, and I wouldn't wish to shame us in front of it by failing to live up to expectations I could meet, no matter how much I might fail later.  Doesn't that make sense?"

...Her acacia-vine wand thrums in her hand, from where she holds it ready to hopefully levitate her trunk to her room if her 'accidental' magic fails mid-process, and something bursts from her towards Eileen, a pressure she felt behind her eyes as she formulated her response vanishing, leaving her wishing to sag from her stance, but unable.