au_hogwarts | The Three Broomsticks; Late Night

Jo looked up from her scroll, her shoulder shaking as she suppressed laughter, as she tilted her head mockingly drawing her eyebrows together. "Wait. Who are you again?"

There is a wand between his fingers, flicking to silence the music even as he patiently sighs at her.

And crosses the space to steal the hat off her head, plopping it onto his own with a satisfied smile. "I can't believe you still have this thing. When are you going to buy me one?"

"Why would I buy you something you could transform a bowl into without blinking, dear?" Jo said snarkily, reaching up to at least flatten down the wisps of blonde he pulls free with the hat.

After that she reached out to tilt the hat so it sits right on his head. God. It's really been far too long. Really.

It really has. Even as he wrinkles his nose at her in not-entirely-playing-at disgust. "I appreciate your faith in my transfiguring abilities. But not the implication that you'd like to watch me try and turn a bowl into a hat."

He pauses, patiently waiting for hat adjustment, and seems more satisfied for her attentions. "Besides, it's always nicer to have a thing that was only ever one thing. What if the bowl always wanted to be a bowl? It was meant to hold flour and eggs and not my hair.

"Also," arms are held out, grinning again, "hi."

Jo laughed. "Ever my lazy freak."

And grabbed the lapels of his cloak to pull him to the counter and hug him, without having to get off it. He even got a kiss on his cheek, even though there wasn't much focus on it aside from making it own a dramatically loud "SMACK" sound.

"Was your life truly so dead and dull without me?"

That just pulls more laughter out of him, loud enough to fill the room. And even if she won't throw herself at him, he's happy to wrap her up in a true hug, laughing more with his kiss. Dramatic and brassy and over the top, he has the best friends.

Her question just leads to further grinning, adjusting his/her hat. "It really was. I had to come back a whole half-day early or risk infecting all the new firsties with my grumpiness. Of course, if you really wanted to improve my travels, you'd have something fascinating waiting for me in all those papers. So I don't have to amuse myself with term papers in my very first week back."

"How did you ever manage before now? Did they have to force feed you happiness potions?"

"They?" Sokka demands, lifting an eyebrow and smirking. "There's a reason I work in the dungeons, Josephine, and that reason is not fire whiskey hidden in the spare cauldrons.

"...that's what I have you for."

"Well -- now."

There's almost a sigh.
Pouring drinks rather than --

But she covers that though with sticking out her tongue at them. Who said besties every had to grow up when they were with each other? They kept each other from becoming the fuddy-duddies they swore they'd never be when they were first years.

"One fire whiskey." Her eyes shifted and a bottle levitated toward him. Silent spell with only the smallest shift of the wand laying on the thigh of her jeans.

His nose wrinkled at her, even as his lips quirked in a smile. "Show-off."

Constantly using elegant wand work and nonverbals.

But he pulled something from his jumper anyway, sitting to sparkle prettily in his palm.

"In exchange, dearest."

That was part of it.

The other part was how she aced all her O.W.L.S and N.E.W.T's, and everyone knew it was truly her skills, even if she spent most of her time figuring out who to prank next. She was just good at school.

She needed to be.

Literally freaked if she failed anything.
As thought the world really would be ending now.

"You really didn't have to." She had raised her eyebrows, but she was reaching out for it at the same second. "What is it?"

"There is this super amazing and incredible magical technique I've only just discovered," Sokka intones, leaning in and lowering his voice, eyes wide with wonder and hands lifted with fingers spread in near-worshipful pose. "You take your fingers and you bend and twist them in very precise ways to peel sparkly paper away from objects hidden inside and then you identify the objects with your eyesight."

Pause.

"I'm thinking of patenting the process. I call it Open The Freaking Present, Josephine Harvelle. Too wordy?"

Jo scrunched up her nose. "I hate you. Maybe I'll leave you for five years next time."

But she's totally starting to rip the paper open now.

"You couldn't live without me."

Even if she'd done so quite successfully, when she wanted to. But she hadn't mind when he'd forcefully inserted himself later on.

Inside sparkly paper is a small box, wooden and intricately carved, that sits neatly in the palm of her hand.

"I totally--"

She was going to say could. She'd proved it. A lot over the last few years. But they hadn't been the best years. Or the most fun. And Sokka had been there since her first train.

But the box stole her breath.

"It's beautiful."

He's just going to bask in the glory of that reaction for a moment or two. At least before leaning over the bar to steal a shot glass and pick up the bottle she'd gotten down for him.

Until he just can't hold it in anymore.

"Close your fingers around it tight and think the proper password - I bought it new and tested it out already, it's attuned to you already. And when you're done, open it up and shove something in there - it's really for letters and papers but I reckon you could fit any number of smaller objects in there, the length doesn't matter, just the width - then you close the top again and put it away and no matter who gets it where or why, no one can ever open it unless you hold it tight in your hand and think the password."

It's sitting in the palm of her hand. And he's saying papers or letters. And she's thinking she could shrink anything to fit in there really. Or put a really good extendable charm on the inside already.

Looking at it with this mesmerized tiny smile.

"What's the password?"

A box that tiny, of course there's an extendable charm on it.

And he is beaming.

"'Professor Sokka Aquam is perfection personified.' Once it's open you can change it, but you have to open it first."

Jo's escape snort, turned into a laugh. And she back handed one of his arms. Not too hard. Since he was still so close.

"I don't know about perfection personified, but I still think he's pretty cool." She tilted her face to look at him again. "Even if he does look dorky in his miss-matched Brit Muggle Clothes and cowboy hat."

"I love this hat," Sokka points out, perhaps unnecessarily after all this time, gaze lifted to the brim and beaming as he reaches up to adjust it. "I love these clothes, too. I need to show you the scarf I picked up in Guatemala! I think they discovered new colors down there and put them in clothes. Is there such a thing as color magic? There should be a class on color magic. I need to talk to the headmaster."

Jo laughed, listening to him.

"Color magic. The muggles love that idea, you know."

"Muggles are brilliant, too," Sokka points out, amused. "Oh! Oh! I got this, too!"

She is proudly presented with a large, fat, antique wooden compass.

That is spinning wildly out of control on magical grounds.

Oh. Sokka.

Jo looks so amused.
And utterly unsurprised.

"Look! It's a compass."

"It's a wooden compass!" he enthuses, practically glittering with excitement. "Look, it works with magnets!

"...oh." Suddenly noticing the spinning. "Well, it would work with magnets, if the magnets were working."

Jo patted his head, through her hat.

"It'll work on your next trip."

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