A Little Goes a Long Way

Again... Not my characters, except for Tyler.
Again... No promises on anything.
Again... Thanks madamshark and ladydeathfaerie!

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Tyler sat at the scrubbed wooden table in her sunny kitchen. She had a roll of parchment sitting in front of her and her ink well was unstoppered. She had been thinking of that blasted Harry Potter and his friend, Ron Weasley, since she had been introduced better than a fortnight ago. She had tried, innumerous times, to forget the flame-haired young man that was so eager to meet her, yet not. But, try as she might, she couldn\'t. She truly could not put her finger on what had drawn her to him.
She had been sitting in her roomy kitchen, staring across to the cheery little daisy plant on the window sill as she sighed and tried to start a letter to him again. As she stared blankly down at the parchment, the wad of wasted sheets cascading off the table and onto the floor drew her attention. She grumbled audibly as she surveyed the damage she had made to her floor. There were balls of crumpled parchment all around her chair and the better part of the table legs.
She stooped down to begin cleaning up her mess when she heard a familiar \'hoot\' from near the sink. She looked up to see Nimbus, her small burrowing owl. His little head was bobbing up and down happily as he ruffled his gray feathers, the brown tips almost invisible among the fluff. The only thing Tyler could really make out on him, other than his shiny black eyes, was the upside-down triangle just below them, his equally blackk.
k.
Laying near his tiny feet was a small package. She stood back up and picked her way across the sea of crumpled parchment to retrieve it. Picking up the little parcel, Tyler reached up onto the sill of the window, near the daisy, and brought forth a treat for Nimbus, which he ate happily. She cringed as she heard the audible *crunch crunch* of the beetle her little owl was contentedly munching on.
After picking her way back across the room, kicking balls of wasted parchment out of her way, rather than stepping around them, she sat back down at her table, pushing aside her fresh, blank roll. She laid the parcel down gingerly and began to untie the cord binding it closed. As the brown paper fell away, she gasped and smiled happily. Inside, wrapped in a small parchment note, was a purple velvet box, the size of a ring box. She pulled the note off from around it and spread it out to read:
Tyler, dearest,
I\'m sending this to you early because I didn\'t want to loose it.
I thought you could get more use out of it than I ever have.
I hope to see you during the holidays. Lots of love from gramps!
~Gran
Tyler beamed at the note. It was seldom she got messages from Gran and Gramps. But every time she did, she received her birthday gift as well. She chuckled, realizing that her birthday wasn\'t for another handful of months yet.
She opened the small box and, laying on the little protector inside, was the most stunning thing she had ever seen. The pendant was in the shape of a small dragon coiling back along himself, beautifully crafted aqua aura crystals making the whole of his body, with a dazzling ruby for his eye. She gingerly removed it from the casing to study it further.
As she held it up, the small dragon began to roil in her fingers, as if trying to get free of her grasp. She dropped it back onto the tabletop, where it abruptly quit moving. She peered quizzically down at the pendant, and as she watched, it began to move again, standing on its four little bejeweled talons. It looked up at her and blinked! Actually blinked! Tyler gasped and the little pendant dragon gasped as well.
Careful not to move too quickly, Tyler moved closer to the small dragon and spoke to it, \"Can you understand me?\"
The little pendant nodded.
\"Can you speak?\"
The little pendant nodded.
\"Can anyone else hear you?\"
Thime ime the little pendant shook it\'s tiny head.
\"Just me, huh,\" Tyler said, straightening back up and sitting down once again. \"So... What am I supposed to do with you,\" she asked no one in particular.
Nimbus hooted and hopped onto the window sill to search for more beetles and the little dragon began to speak. Inside her head, Tyler heard a voice that she could describe as nothing else but smoke. He was speaking right into her mind! The words formed and dissipated just as quickly, leaving her barely any time to understand him as he tried to communicate with her.
\"Whoa, whoa, little guy. I didn\'t catch anything of what you were trying to say to me. This is going to take a lot of practice. How about starting really simple?\"
The small dragon nodded and made to move toward her hand. Tyler instinctually pulled away as he got near, but then reached down and picked him up once again, sitting him in the palm of her left hand. By this time, the letter to Ronald Weasley was completely forgotten.

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However, back in the Burrow, the burgundy-haired Tyler was far from forgotten. In fact, Ron could think of nothing else. He walked around, most times, with a stupid look on his face as he replayed that day in Diagon Alley over and over, changing the ending so many times he almost forgot how the day had really ended.
Fred and George, Ron\'s older twin brothers, never let an opportunity to tease Ron about the encounter slip. \"Aw, poor Ronnyh coh couldn\'t even talk to her. Had to make Potty-wotty do it for him,\" Fred would jeer happily.
\"D-didn\'t want t-to st-tudder at s-such a pr-pretty thing, you know,\" added George, also happily antagonizing Ron.
Many times, Mrs. Weasley had gotten after the twins about tormenting Ron, but it never stopped them. On the contrary, it got worse. Fred would make wise-cracks like, \"Guess your dream girl wants to stay there, huh old boy?\" Or George would walk by, saying, \"Out of your league, old chap. Better sticking with someone like Parvati or Lavender.\"
After dealing with the twins for days on end, Ron just resigned to staying either in his room or far away from the house, just to find peace from his brothers. One particular afternoon, while he was hiding from them on Stoatshead Hill, Ron began to think that maybe they were right. Maybe she was too good for him. Maybe she would just be his fantasy girl. Just as he was beginning to resign to his fate once more, a tiny gray owl came rocketing out of the clouds at him, a roll of parchment almost twice the size of him dangling from a string in his beak. Ron squealed, his eyes popping as the small creature came plummeting down and, barely missing his head, landed softy on the grass next to him.
\"What the-!\" He cried out, sitting up and blinking wildly at the miniature cannon ball of an owl. \"Where\'d you come from?!\"
The minute owl hopped over and opened it\'s equally tiny beak, allowing the string to drop from it\'s mouth. Before Ron could even reach for the parchment, the little bird took flight and was gone. He shrugged and reached for the roll, pulling the string to untie it. What he read he could not believe! He jumped to his feet and flew back to the Burrow, his mood so light, he swore he had wings!
Ron burst into the Burrow, the roll of parchment clutched in one long, slender hand high above his head. He began bounding through the house, happily whooping and hollering, carrying on like a crazy person. As he flew back downstairs, thumping as he went, his heart couldn\'t have been lighter. He rounded the corner into the kitchen and practically collided with Mrs. Weasley, who had just come indoors to find out what all the ruckus was about.
\"Ronald Weasley! What are you going on about?!\"
Even the stern look on his mother\'s face didn\'t deter him. He leaned over and happily kissed her on the cheek, crying out, \"She wrote to me! She owled me! Lookit, mum!\" He brandished the letter in front of Mrs. Weasley like a conquering hero would his sword.
Mrs. Weasley made a deft grab at the parchment and snagged it from her youngest son\'s hand. She began to unroll it as he snatched it back, crying, \"Don\'t read it, mum! It\'s mine! It\'s from her!\" His mother sighed, but smiled happily as she turned around and headed back into the garden to finish the de-gnoming.
Hearing the maddening noise through the ceiling, Fred and George came downstairs to see what was happening. The sight that met them was Ron, jumping on the old armchair and then diving headlong onto the couch. The twins looked from one to the other and then back to their younger brother, an identical look of total bewilderment and mild cont on on both their faces. As Ron made to run by them, whooping and hollering like a banshee, they grabbed him and pinned him to the wall. \"Ronny, old boy, what are you on about?!\"
Happily, eyes still popped and ears as red as tomatoes, Ron again brandished the parchment, but this time he held on tighter than when showing it to his mother. He was not going to let either of these two take it from him. Both twins just looked at it, slight confusion shining in their eyes, so Ron cried ecstatically, \"It\'s from her! You were both wrong! She owled me! She remembers me!!\" With that, he pulled from their grasp and flew back up the stairs, slamming his bedroom door and magically locking it before throwing himself onto his bed. As he caught his breath, he unrolled the parchment and reread it, smiling like an idiot and happier than he could ever remember being.
He read it once silently, and then, in a hushed voice, so no one could hear, he read it aloud to himself:

Dear Ron,
I\'m sorry I did not write to you sooner. I wasn\'t sure as what to write. Yes, I do
reme you you from Diagon Alley. You were the flame-haired man hopping up
and down beside Ollivander\'s. I just wanted to let you know that I am doing well
and did not forget you, or Harry. I apologize for my actions that day. I had just
received some disturbing news and wasn\'t feeling myself. Please tell your friend
I am sorry as well. I am going into the Alley this weekend, maybe I\'ll see you. If
not, it was nice seeing you, as I didn\'t actually get to meet you. I hope everything
is well with you. Til we meet again.
~Tyler
Ron ran his fingers over the sparkly purple ink and smiled to himself. Just then he realized that, yet again, her last name still eluded him. Would he ever find out who she was? He decided he\'d just have to meet her in Diagon Alley this coming weekend. One way or another, he\'d find out who she was and where she was from.

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Saturday, in the Alley, was proving to be a very nice day for Tyler. She had kept an eye out for Ronald Weasley, but hadn\'t seen the tall flame-haired man yet. She did, however, spot his twin brothers\'s joke shop. Against her better judgment, she turned and entered Weasley\'s Wizarding Wheezies just to pass some idle time. As she entered a little bell tinkled somewhere in the shop. Instead of heading to the counter, she just meandered the isles, noting the seemingly innocent products. She noticed Skiving Snackboxes in the second isle with the Disappearing Hats, and in the fifth, she ran across Fake Wands, which were near the Canary Creams. In the seventh isle, she came across seemingly normal looking crackers. She cautiously picked one up and studied it, not noticing Fred Weasley coming up from behind her.
He leaned over her shoulder, beaming his brightest smile at her as he said, \"Bloody good to see you, miss. Having a fantastic day, I hope.\" He noticed what she had in her hand and reached for it, remarking, \"Oh, no. You don\'t want to pop one of these buggers open. Specially not in here.\" Tyler gave him a perplexed look, so he continued by saying, \"This is an Enigmatic Essence Cracker. They seem normal enough, oh yes. In fact, in every respect, they are. Except that when someone pulls it, it releases a foul odor with a colored cloud of smoke. The brighter the color, the more noxious the smell. Real treats for those you have grudges against, I assure you. There is no amount of magicking or scrubbing to get rid of the smell. It has to go away on it\'s own. That\'s the beauty of it.\"
Tyler nodded, retrieving it and gingerly putting it back in it\'s proper container. She looked back at the Weasley twin before her, tilting her head to one side, considering him. His smile dimmed ever so slightly at this scrutiny. She smiled softly in response, and remarked, \"You must be Ronald\'s sibling.\"
It was obvious that she had caught him off-guard with this comment because he completely frowned then nodded, asking \"And you would be whom, exactly?\"
To this, Tyler turned around, retrieving what appeared to be a rubber chicken, but immediately released it when it began carrying on as if it were alive, commenting with wide eyes, \"I\'m Tyler.\"
She smiled to herself as she felt the excitement emanate from the Weasley twin at this news. She turned to look at him, finding, as she expected, an excited grin breaking across his face. She waited patiently to see what he would say or do next. She didn\'t have to wait long, however.
Fred grabbed her by the upper arm, completely unaware of the rubber chicken clucking at his feet, and bodily dragged her up to the counter where George was absentmindedly polishing it\'s smooth wooden surface. \"You\'ll never guess who I have here, Georgie-boy! Lookit!! See this? This is Tyler! Ronnie\'s Tyler!\"
Tyler giggled softly at this last bit and accepted the hand eagerly thrust at her. Smiling, she replied, \"Ronnie\'s Tyler, am I? Are you so sure about that? What makes you think so, at any rate?\"
Fred frowned and replied, \"Well, you did ask if I were Ron\'s brother.\"
To this she shrugged and said, \"It was simply an observation because of the extreme likeness. Anyone could hmademade it.\"
George also frowned at this statement, remarking, \"Yes, we are, but don\'t tell the whole worlWe dWe don\'t want everyone knowing. But, anyway, you are Ron\'s \'dream girl\', aren\'t you? The elusive Tyler with no last name?\"
Again, Tyler smiled, but nodded this time. \"Yes. I suppose I am. Tyler with no last name, at any rate. Anyone\'s dream girl, on the other hand, I would have to question. What makes you say that?\"
Ats, Fs, Fred and George exchanged knowing looks, identical smiles breaking across their faces, giving them the startling appearance of twin jack-o-lanterns. \"Oh, we have our suspicions, is all.\"
Tyler nodded at this and said rather quickly, “Well, I think I’ll be going now. Things to do today, you know. Perhaps I’ll stop in again before I leave.” With this, she nodded and headed toward the door, the rubber chicken still squawking in aisle seven.