Jenny checks her pocket money, makes sure her cousin is free to babysit, then decides she can probably make it work as long as Miranda's mom picks her up. And of course Emma's owl just makes the whole thing that much better. She packs a bag and sends Emma a reply that just says Don't worry! I've got you covered. You're my favorite clueless witch ♥

Vivian tells her parents she's spending the day with friends, without saying with who, or where. Her parents immediately ask, because of course they do; she names Miranda, but claims that they're going sightseeing in Piccadilly. Her parents don't like that they haven't met Miranda, she can tell, but Showing Around Tourists isn't an activity they have a good objection to, and they don't like thinking about where she makes her friends, so they don't push to be introduced. Vivian sighs internally and asks to be picked up in Diagon Alley; she can get there by herself, at least, and then Miranda's mum won't have to interact with her parents.

Alli's mother doesn't even ask why she wants Floo powder. Alli dances internally on her way north. Scottish adventures!

So Miranda's mum picks up Jenny at home, and Vivian at Diagon Alley, and deposits them in the Floo station at Cross-Crosscauseway, where Miranda is already waiting.

Emma is offering Miranda a bag when the others appear- "Thanks for inviting me. I, um, I brought snacks-" when she sees Jenny. "Jenny! Do you have-"

"I tooold you I had it covered!" Jenny hums, and hands Emma a bag, smirking. Then she offers the other one to Alli. "This one's for you, I knew you'd need it."

While Emma digs in her bag, Alli eyes her own bag suspiciously. "What is this? Clothes? I'm already wearing clothes, babe."

"Um, no, those are robes," Emma points out. "You didn't remember we'd need Muggle clothes? That's why I asked-" then she pulls out the shirt Jenny brought her. "Jenny. This is pink."

Miranda, for her part, is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. And has loaned Karen a set of same, which don't fit her all that well but will serve. "I can go back and get a non-pink shirt for you to borrow if you need me to?"

Emma pulls the shirt out of the bag and holds it up. It is not just bright pink; there is a unicorn made out of purple sparkle gel on the front. She raises her eyebrows at Jenny.

Jenny looks at her innocently. "You asked for clothes. What did you think I owned?"

Alli solves the problem by swiping the shirt from Emma and throwing hers at Emma instead. Emma has to dodge to catch the shirt rather than having it land on her head. "Sparkles! Gimme!"

Emma inspects the replacement shirt. There's still a unicorn on the front, but it's not made of glitter and the shirt itself is black. She shrugs. "Good enough. Thanks Jenny." And then to Alli, "You're weird. You hate pink."

"It's sparkly," Alli says, as though it explains everything.

"Do literally all your shirts have unicorns on them, Jenny?"

"Of course not! Some of them just have horses. A couple have kittens."

"But they all have things you think are cute?"

"Er, not really? I had plenty of boring shirts, but those handed down to the ducklings when I left for school cause I started wearing robes, and the boys weren't interested in 'girly' shirts." She rolls her eyes tolerantly. "And now I mostly just have things they won't wear left. So- unicorns and ponies and kittens, oh my!"

"That makes sense."

"These trousers are so uncomfortable."

"I don't really have any skirts, sorry."

"They're not that bad," Alli says thoughtfully. "I mean, they're weirdly tight, but look!" She turns and wiggles. "My arse looks fantastic."

Vivian is not staring at people's trousers. She is not she is not she is not. Look at her over here not staring at anything.

"Ooh, we could-" Alli starts.

"-I'll go," Emma says over her. "No, Alli, you may not have Jenny make animal faces at the Muggles."

"We couldn't actually anyway," Alli pouts, but nods acquiescence.

"To be entirely clear: Jenny, don't make animal faces, or do any morphing at all, so that Muggles can see you," admonishes Renée, while Miranda takes up her post next to Alli. "Any last-minute questions before we leave the Floo station?"

"Don't worry!" Jenny says brightly. "I know the ruuuuules," she adds on a singsong in Alli's direction.

Humph.

Emma glares at both of them, then attempts a smile for Miranda's mum. "No, um- thank you, I think we're all set."

"Out we go, then!" says Renée, and she leads them into downtown Edinburgh.

"Oh Merlin it's so crowded," breathes Karen.

"I don't suppose it'll help if I say London gets more crowded?" Vivian offers weakly.

"Not really."

Vivian considers suggesting holding hands to avoid getting lost. Then discards this immediately as a bad idea. Then recons- no, no, bad idea. "Here," she says, and puts her hand tentatively on Karen's shoulder. "This way you'll know you won't lose track of me as we walk. It'll be okay."

"Good idea. Last thing I want is to be lost in a - a sea of - um, strangers."

Vivian giggles, mentally filling Muggles. "We don't bite or anything, I promise."

"We?"

"I have spent more of my life being a-" she waves her hand, for lack of a good public-appropriate euphemism off the top of her head- "than I have at school. I can still say 'we' sometimes!"

"Yeah, but, if I say the wrong thing and you hear me it's not a question of whether you bite, because that's... not... a biting thing. If I say the wrong thing and some stranger hears me it is a question of whether they bite all of a sudden."

Jenny takes a brief respite from expounding to Emma on the virtues of Muggle zoos and their stellar qualities as tourist attractions to contribute, "Nooooo, no biting! Remember: if anyone is nuts enough to ask? It's a book. It's always a book. We're still in school, we can totally read weird books, it's totally a thing." Then she blinks. "Sorry, sorry! No more interrupting, I swear." She turns back to her original topic. "Seriously, Ems, you haven't seen a panda, I don't know how you've lived-"

Vivian laughs. "She's not wrong," she tells Karen. "Kids can talk about whatever, and there's lots of books and movies and such about magic. I mean, obviously be careful, but it's not the end of the world if you forget when chatting or something?"

"Okay. It's a book. I read weird books."

"And if all you're doing is talking you're fine even if you don't explain that it's a book," Miranda puts in. "It's not the end of the world if someone has to decide they misheard or that you're playing pretend."

"People are weird," Alli says, sounding entirely unconcerned. "Okay, Silverlight, you're the boss lady, where are we off to? Scottish adventures? Yes?"

"Mum is getting shoes and pens and in between she wants to look at everything interesting. As long as we're nearish we can do what we like. I don't know what looks interesting to you, it's all comparatively old hat to me, what do you want to see?"

Alli waves her arms around haphazardly, missing passersby pretty much entirely by luck. "I don't know! Scotland! Adventures!"

Emma and Jenny continue their zoo-related negotiations. Emma's position is less anti cute, fuzzy creatures than it is pro attractions that are actually nearby. Compromises are occurring.

"What about you? Anywhere you'd like to go?" Vivian asks Karen.

"I don't know! What's cool? What's that pointy dark thing over there?" she asks, pointing at the Scott Monument. "Is it cool?"

"Souvenir shop?" asks Miranda dryly, pointing at a place with plaid scarves prominently for sale.

Vivian laughs. "I have no idea, let's find out!"

Jenny has cornered an older couple walking past them and is asking them questions eagerly, while Emma stands beside her looking like she wants to melt in the floor. One answer in particular makes her perk up, and she waves at the group. "There's a cathedral!" she enthuses. "Come on, Emma, let's go, I wanna seeeeee. Later!"

"Well, um, looks like we'll see you all in a bit," she says, smiling after Jenny with fond resignation. "At least it's closer than the zoo!" she mouths at the others as she's dragged off.

"Done!" Alli says immediately. "I am buying the most obnoxiously tourist shit I can find and it will be great."

"Souvenir shop it is. Annoy all the Scottish kids with a wrong plaid or something."

"Yeah, those things are just scary. And they don't smell very nice. That's them, right?"

"I was scared of brooms at first, if it helps," Vivian says encouragingly. "They go so fast, and you could just- fall right off!"

"Yeah, but if somebody else hits you on a broom all you get hit with is a broom and a person. Not a... that."

"The cars will obey the lights," Vivian says, more firmly than she really feels. "Just follow me and the lights, okay?"

Nod nod.

The memorial is a little farther than the cathedral, but not by much. Vivian tries to stick to paths by parks when she can, to reduce the traffic.

Vivian looks around. This part of the path is nice. There are trees, there is shade. No cars. "Are... are you sure everything's okay?"

"Hm? Oh, it's nothing to do with, um, Edinburgh, it's only." Sigh.

"That's good? I suppose? I... Can I help?" Vivian asks tentatively.

"No, not really. Unless you find a potion to turn people widdershins. That'd be grand."

That was not at all what Vivian was expecting. Surprised, she stutters, "A potion to- wait, what?"

"Ugh, I'm sure it's impossible," groans Karen. "And she wouldn't take it, I bet! Unless she would. I don't know."

Vivian knows she shouldn't ask. There is no way having this question answered will end well. Karen is definitely not talking about her, and doesn't that just make her feel like her lungs are shriveling inside her chest? But she forces herself to breathe, and to ask the question. "Who wouldn't?"

"Well, lots of people probably, but Miranda."

"...I'm sorry."

"She wasn't sure," says Karen in a rush, "she said she didn't know yet she wasn't old enough to be positive, she said she would think about it and she told me and that if she was widdershins then of course, but, but she isn't. Turns out. It mentioned in her letter when she was inviting me here."

"Yeah. It kind of helps. Like, it's not that she doesn't like me, or something."

"Yeah." Not being liked back is awful. She could write whole essays on the subject, at the moment. "See? You're awesome, and she knows you're awesome?" she attempts. "That's just- bad luck, really."

"Yeah. I almost didn't come along today, but." Shrug.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Vivian asks. "Distract you with castles or plaid or bagpipes, or something?"

"Heh. I'll be okay. Just don't let me get hit by a..." gesture at cars, "one of those."

"I actually ate haggis once. My dad's friend's -" She looks at a passing Muggle. "- cook made it."

"Cook?" Vivian starts, then gets it. "Oh." She tilts her head curiously at Karen. Focus on me and Scotland and weird food. Don't be sad. "...did you like it?"

"It wasn't awful but I haven't asked to have it again."

"Probably a good choice."

"I don't know how things like that become popular in the first place!"

"So... want to explain Bertie Bott's then?"

"They're surprising, people dare each other to eat them, and the good ones are really good! And you don't sit down and have them for dinner as a main course."

"Those... are actually really good points, if you remember that earwax exists," she laughs. "I think haggis was probably a thing about food options, though? 'This is what we have to eat and we are hungry so we will eat it', that kind."

"I suppose. That's no reason to carry on eating it though."

"There's a joke about stubborn Scots in here somewhere, I'm pretty sure."

"Stubborn Scots with no tastebuds."

"You're hilariously mismatched. You could probably start a clan war if you traveled to the wrong era."

"Hey, if people are fighting over me, I'm doing it right," she informs Miranda loftily, striking a pose in her plaid. Behind Miranda, the shopkeeper fails to be subtle enough as he makes a face. Alli talks herself out of cursing him- points for honesty, or something- and sticks out her tongue instead, then heads for the door. "I give up, I fail at shopping. Onwards!"

"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.

Alli abandons her piles of ridiculous books willingly enough, and follows Miranda to queue for the register. And they do actually get in a queue; the front of the store has more of the tourist crowd, and there's only the one woman behind the counter, so it's starting to back up.

Alli blinks at her, confused. "I put down that weird goat book? We got in the queue? You're still buying the animal book, right?"

"You were memory charmed."

"Huh?" Alli looks thoughtful. "Really? ...did anything cool happen?"

"No. I'll tell you about it when we're somewhere else."

Alli shrugs and nods agreement. "Works for me. I want the whole story though! Bah. I can't believe I missed it."

"Another bloody statement from me, probably. He'll be lucky if I don't hex him on seeing him again instead."

"I'll do it!" Alli says immediately. "...I mean. No one at the Ministry cares if I'm being a little shit, but you run around Silverlighting?"

"I don't know if he can be prosecuted for Memory Charming you. I'm sure he can't be for the Muggles and it'd be hard to prove he tried it on me. Prosecution's better than a hex."

"Yeah. And I know bloody well nothing about getting arrested, except for that period of 'do not ever because Death Eaters', so I will be no help. Sorry."

"I'll ask around."

"Do you want to do anything about it now?" Alli asks uncertainly.

"Not right this minute. Unless he does it again, but I bet he's scared off for at least the rest of the day."

"Do we need to, I don't know, tell your mum or something?" Miranda looks so solemn. (More so than usual, anyway.) And Alli's usual methods of cheering people usually involve more magic than she can get away with here; she's at a bit of a loss. This is not her forte, help.

"We could look for her, but I don't think there's much she could do about it, either."

"So." Alli casts about. "...hat?" She offers the plaid atrocity to Miranda. "Embrace the Scotland!"

Miranda sighs, and puts on the hat.

Alli puts an arm over her shoulders. "See? You look like a Scot already. C'mon, let's go. We'll find a ghost to talk to, get all the good Scottish gossip."

Miranda sighs and follows along. "Finding one of those might be hard."

After a few days, a familiar face will be waiting for her outside of her father's house.

"What, on the path?" he says, unbothered. "Public path, y'know." He looks at her curiously. "No thoughts on the Nicaraguan decision, Miss Swan? Can't tell me it's not a disappointment."

Russell has no problem continuing to wait for Miss Swan. He can't stay himself, always; he has other articles to write. But that's what junior reporters are for. If Miss Swan comes out in the next few days, he can be waiting for her.

Miss Swan doesn't recognize the junior reporters. She will try going out if Peasegood himself is not in evidence.

Well, he's not quite fast enough to be waiting right in front of the house- no good place to Apparate, not in a Muggle neighborhod- but he comes around the corner. "Miss Swan! A moment?"

Miss Swan cannot walk faster, but she can utterly fail to acknowledge his existence.

"Just a few words about Nicaragua!"

No. Not any words about Nicaragua.