Hogsmeade Spring Festival Pt. i

---

[ outfit. ]

Beckett was one of those students who participated in things for the fun of it, to see what he could get his greasy paws into. No one was really surprised when he joined in on the festival planning, that's just what he did. Normally, sitting in on these types of meetings meant just dicking around in a classroom while people talked about boring things and he got very bored and they were were very boring. Festivals, however, had an array of possibilities. Ways to extort things out of people, like their trinkets and valuables. In the past, he had ran a "fortune telling" booth, where people admitted secret things about themselves to him, and he sat there with a hand on his cheek and a wicked smile tainting his lips. Beckett didn't share other people's stories, but he certainly enjoyed listening to them. He was a storyteller, after all.

And that was sort of what he had planned for this festival, except, perhaps, everyone realized that Beckett is shit at that kind of stuff. And, at any rate, they all seemed keen on him doing something more "out in the open". Someone brought up the idea of a kissing booth, and he sat there twirling a pen in his fingers, and everyone turned and looked at him expectantly.

It was pretty easy to assume Beck was sleazy. He really wasn't. "Oh. Yeah, I can do that," He told them. It wasn't the type of fun he was looking forward to, but he ran by a motto: Who gives a shit? He certainly didn't. If people wanted him to run the kissing booth, he'd run the dang kissing booth. Being who he was, it could turn out to be an interesting endeavor either way.

"Getta kiss for two sickles, two sickles for a kiss!" Leaning over the counter, Beckett rang a tambourine sporadically, enticing passerby to the brightly colored booth. The idea of kissing random people for cash didn't sit particularly well with him on its own, so he worked around special permissions for their work. Namely, he was donating a chunk of his earnings to a no-kill animal shelter he knew of in Glasgow, the rest being thrown into the pot for regular Hogwarts festivities. Lord fuckin' knew that they sort of needed that kind of student governed support.

"Get these lips all over yer face; legitimatize my whorin' for just two sickles, much obliged~!" He added, receiving a few disapproving glances from older folk nearby. Beckett ducked back into the booth with a sheepish smirk, taking note to keep his tongue in check to keep their booth in business.

just ignore the text

Was he the only one creeped out by Hogsmeade this time of year? The flowers, what he hoped was an engorged snail, even the Hog's Head had a wreath nailed to the door. The whole thing gave off a trying-too-hard-to-be-cheerful vibe.

Beck Urquart, or however his name was pronounced, was also giving off a trying too hard to be cheerful vibe, though of an entirely different sort. Lachlan's previously aimless stroll veered in his direction.

He had been intending to suggest that Beckett ought to be offering to pay others for the privilege of kissing them, but then Beck just had to go and mention whoring. Damn him. Now Lachlan had nothing witty to say.

"No aliens requiring your services today?" he asked instead. Yeah, that was lame.

Pulling a pack of spearmint gum from his pocket, Beckett shoved a stick into his mouth and slapped the rest on the counter. "If ye' cheeky gals needa pick-me-up," He offered his fellow kissers with a smile, chewing against the elasticity like a Normal Human Being. However, inwardly, there was a twist in his gut and he was looking to distract it with the false pretense of food. Beckett Urquhart didn't get nervous, as far as anyone else was concerned. Nothing new for a Gryffindor. But the thought of people up on his junk face? It wasn't great. He could kiss like the best of them, but he was a fuckin' wuss in the end. No one really knew this about him and he preferred it that way.

A pinkish figure approached the booth and the boyish Gryffindor leaned his chin on his palm, eyeing them up and down. There was a chance the two had met before, but Beckett was falling on a blank. It was nothing personal, purely just Beckett's own problem with never keeping tabs on people. He didn't really need to, for the most part. A simple, "Oh, hey you!" could trick anyone.

"No aliens requiring your services today?"

"I hadda convince 'em to let me go, actually," Beckett replied without hesitation, smirking devilishly at the younger student, "'It's fer charity,' I told 'em. Took a bit, but they 'ventually dropped me off once I promised we'd use the probe tonight." It wasn't until after his retort that he considered what the hell the guy was on about. It was a vague remembrance, however; he told someone about his fascination with aliens and it just kind of rolled from there. A lot of late night channel surfing back home led to him finding wacko fanfics of people claiming they had families with extraterrestrials. Beckett became obsessed with it all, the idea that people could talk about their "blue eyed alien children" and people would believe them. Yeah, he, too, totally bonked an alien and they'd been dating ever since. "You don't know my boyfriend, he's from outer space," kind of thing.

Flicking his empty tip jar with a clink, Beckett's gaze didn't break from the Slytherin's.

[ outfit. ]

Ren hated downtime. If he wasn't drunk or consistently drowning in schoolwork, he grew agitated pretty fast. Incidentally, he had no work to do, and the festival meant that everyone was out and about. Without him. Sober. It was an unpleasant thought. But, he decided to give himself a makeshift goal: Participate in as many activities as he could. This meant doing stuff he wouldn't otherwise do, but that was fine, he supposed. He did, however, give himself a free pass to skip the kissing booth, because he wasn't about to spend cash on an awkward kiss to his cheek when he could do that and then some while smashed out of his mind at some party-- for free, nonetheless.

Fingers clasping a pocket-sized pad, he glanced down the list of possibilities. Namely, he would drop everything and join the Witch Hunt once it started, but for now he had an array of choices. It was a typical tactic for him to treat himself to his favorite things last, so that he had proper motivation to do the things he had no interest in. However, as he passed the Fortune Teller's booth, his paused in his steps.

He didn't even think that Kei would be working it... Not that really mattered, did it?

He told himself this, but drifted toward the professor nonetheless.

Shoving the notebook away, his hands stayed stuffed in his jacket pockets as the Divination professor gave his whole spiel. As much as Ren would love to have his fortune taken by a professional, he was absolutely, painfully poor. Especially ever since he had to replace his broom after an unfortunate duke out with a miffed Ravenclaw the year before.

"One of the school groups." Ren repeated this with a tinge of a grin on his face, tone incredulous. He was legitimately amused by the man's forgetfulness, but "patronizing" was the gentlest of terms that could be used to describe Ren, despite his good intentions. Pulling his coin purse from an inner pocket in his coat, the Slytherin procured a lonely six sickles. He knew very well he would do better to save the coin, but... When did Ren ever treat himself? He killed himself constantly, over and over, for reasons he didn't even know.

"How about a palm reading then?" Dark eyes traced Kei's expression, outstretched hand offering his payment, "If you'll have me, professor."

Decisions, Decisions.

All Patricia wanted to do was drink something ice cold. She took note of the fortune telling. Ooh la la that was always interesting and then she took notice of the kissing booth. She slowly shook her head at Noah as she walked up. She waved to Liz and went to go wave to Beckett when she thought she heard something about probes tonight. What. Why?

She stared blankly at the two gentlemen for a minute. Now Patricia was as free of a spirit as anyone but what on earth had brought that up. Slowly gathering herself in an attempt not to be rude she quickly turned her attention to Noah.

"Okay, let's just get this over quickly and do not, whatever you do make it odd afterwards."

All in all the donations were for a good cause right? Also with all these hormonal kids running around a girl kissing another girl was like last year's news.

"Besides I need to leave before Cadence shows up,"

She was not avoiding him really. Well yeah she was, since it was just best.

"Charity," Lachlan said.

This was like a challenge. A staring competition. Now that would make a good stall.

"I didn't know aliens had a concept of charity," he went on.

He leant on the edge of the booth and smiled at the Gryffindor.

"I suppose it was charitable of you to promise to use the probe, though. Perhaps you introduced a new concept to their culture."

"Are you really worth two whole sickles?"

Once the student spoke he remembered the kid’s name Ren, Ren Kim. Without his ring on he could see the kid downing alcohol by the bottle, apparently alcoholism was in the kids future. Or at least, was likely. As he asked about a palm reading Mirai smiled.

“Of course,” he said, “But first off, I will warn you that I am actually looking. So if there are things you don’t want to know, I suggest you try the kissing booth instead, or just drown yourself in alcohol at the Hogs Head."

His smile turned a little darker at that. Not that he was poking fun, he’d seen plenty of people’s secrets and other not so much secrets to understand circumstance. He wasn’t one to judge. But he could be one to tease, though he probably should do that to students. You’re a professor, flirting with students is wrong. He reminded himself.

“If you do want to know about your future however,” he said holding his hands out, “I’ll be reading your left hand first.”

He wasn’t sure how much Ren knew about palmistry but he was set to do a full reading, which started with the left hand. As the saying goes, “the left is what the gods give you, the right is what you do with it.” Mirai held with that belief.

Noah looked at Patricia.

Noah
"Never pegged you to be the kiss and run type,"

she said as she motioned her hand towards Lachlan and Beck's direction. The truth was she would kiss the girl for free but money needed to be made.

Noah
"Four sickles gets you two minutes in the amusement park ride that is my mouth."

She was serious. Amusement park rides were fun but they never lasted long. Something you could experience and never have any regrets about it.

Noah
"Take it or leave it,"

She slightly shrugged.

Noah
"What's it going to be sweetheart? This gum is only going to last for so long."

@pat

One of those school groups.. Charity...

Right.

As if any of those things could possibly be true. Dale had been lurking, mostly unnoticed within the crowd that slowly began to form in the typically busy streets of Hogsmeade. He'd heard about the event, something about fun and sillyness for a wizarding family, though he shuddered at the thought of a kissing booth being part of a cultural tradition. Kissing booth he scoffed, boredly looking over at the booth that he now stood before. He was interested alright, but not in the way you'd expect. You see, there was nothing more interesting to Dale than the prospect of shutting down anything particularly offensive, illegal, or just plain right wrong.

Edging himself to the kissing booth, he pretended not to notice Ms. Ravenmore's remarkably red lips, or the captain of the gryffindor quidditch teams sultry stare. Okay so maybe he was a little bit interested in those 'other things'. But he refused to allow himself to give in quite so easily.

ughh. LIFE.

"So err.." Dale began, focusing on Beckett, the safer of the bunch, instead of the two babes girls. "where exactly does this money go to?" curing squibs from their inability to 'function' magically... fighting for elfish rights... feeding the poor in.. uhm.. Africa? If it was one of those things, he mused to himself, well maybe participating in such a shameless game might actually be a good thing.

( Beckett Urquhart && the kissing booth squad)

The other student went on a thing about how alien culture didn't include charity, and Beckett's lips fell into a faux frown. "Aye, my lovely trisket, aliens are more generous than ye' would think," Beckett told him, "Where'd ye' think Stonehenge came from?" Smiling again, he pushed himself back off the counter. He wondered if he could charge the guy for talking to him, kind of like one of those host clubs. That would make this whole booth so much easier. But, forcing someone to pay to speak to him was ridiculous for multiple reasons. 1.) It was rude, 2.) Beckett yapped his ass off for free all the time. It wasn't like the Gryffindor was struggling. Nor was a line forming, really.

"Are you really worth two whole sickles?"

"This is a charity," Beckett began, head tilting, "Ye' gotta give the people the chance, else it defeats the purpose, eh? No prince could afford these prices." He pointed up and down his torso jokingly, nothing notable in regards to sex appeal. But that was beside the point. Beckett would make a fortune and eat a lot of pizza if he could stomach it.

Liz showed her face and Beckett's attention fell on the tiny lil' rascal that approached the booth. Very well, anyway. Maybe the tiny thing was looking for his first rodeo. Whatever.

"Where exactly does this money go to?"

"If our tongues twist, all my money goes to local no-kill shelters. I save pussy cats and all that," Beckett told him, eyes bouncing between his housemates as they chatted with the patrons, "You'll have to ask the ladies what they're donatin' to, though. We're unaffiliated, if ye' will, and I didn't do my research." He leaned in with a wink, as if the coerce the kid closer. He knew very well what this all was, now that he spoke, and Beckett would flick the flea away from the girls if need be.