"All right, what else do you wanna do? Ooh, bookstore. You probably don't want to go in the bookstore."

"Meh, you suffered through my plaid, I can manage a bookstore."

"All right. You can amuse yourself with the fantasy section, maybe. Or look at pictures of space."

"Yes, well, they don't break the bank to pay the cover artists for romance novels."

"But if they did, how could we laugh at these?" Alli asks, waving the book at Miranda more vehemently. "Miranda. He is holding a sword. Look at where he is holding his sword. Merlin's beard, people must buy these just for the covers!"

"They probably sometimes do."

"Well, good on them, then. The world needs more ridiculous covers." She puts down the book in her hands and prowls towards the nearest bookshelf. "There's gotta be more covers this ridiculous. And I will find them."

"Romance novel section is over there."

Alli plops herself down in the indicated section and gets to browsing. It's not nearly as large as she would like, and she ends up branching out into nearby sections, wandering back and forth between the shelves and accumulating small piles next to her as she goes. Whenever Miranda seems to have a lull in her browsing, Alli will pop over and wave a random book from one of her piles in Miranda's face, accompanied by random asides- "how does she even get that dress on?!" or "look what they named it, it's absurd" and so on. She knows it's not exactly the usual way to amuse yourself in a bookstore, but hey. She's having fun.

"I'm glad you're so entertained. Mum will probably complain if you want to buy any, they have smut in them usually."

Alli eyes them consideringly, but shakes her head. "I already have enough bloody reading to do for school," she says decisively. "And anything with a cover like that can't be good. Hysterically bad, maybe." She ignores the shop owner's attempts to direct her to some author named Heyer; that is missing the point of no books. "And anyway, your mum is nice. I suppose I can spare her. This time."

"There's a saying, don't judge a book by its cover, but you're probably actually right about those."

"...is that a Muggle thing? Because whoever came up with that saying? They've definitely never heard of Edwardus Lima."

"Who?"

"Uh. Writes crazy weird books? Like the one they used to have for creatures class?" Alli makes snappy clapping motions with her hands at Miranda.

"I never got a close look at one of those. But yeah, it's just a - local saying."

"Right. Local." Alli looks at her piles; one has a woman draped in an anatomically improbable fashion over a man whose arms look inflated, and the other is entitled The Feral Goats of Goatfell: A History (which she had almost skipped over before she realized it was being serious). "If all the- local- stuff is like this? I'm sticking to my judging. It's working out so far."

"The local stuff isn't all romance novels! I could recommend you some things but I actually don't know a lot about your taste in recreational books."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Alli tells her, making a face at the pile of books. "Mocking, yes. Reading, no. Besides, my free time belongs to-" she glances at the shopkeeper, "-brooms."

"Ah yes, your demanding chore rotation," says Miranda dryly. "Well, mock to your heart's content."

"Don't worry, I will," Alli says cheerfully. "Found anything for yourself yet?"

"Doctor Dolittle. And I know Mum's going to get me local textbooks for the new semester, she always does, wants me to be well-rounded."

Alli glances at the cover. "Bet Jenny will ask to borrow it," she predicts. "Let me know when you're ready to go, I'll be here mocking till you're done."

"I think I'll just get the Dr. Dolittle books I didn't have already and we can go find something else." She tips three off the shelf into her arms and makes for the register.