Loser, Whatever!

My dad and brother seemed unperturbed the next morning, so I knew they had no idea about my appearence in the media, and the owls were less frequent, so my mom was able to pass those off as something, but she wouldn't tell me what.

I decided to go to the Ministry and get my apparation test over with, and to my surprise, my mom volunteered to accompany me. It was a silent trip there, my mom apparated us to the Atrium, then we took the elevators to the Magical Transportation floor.

The test was pretty straightforward, they just had me apparated down the hall, which I managed without difficulty. We walked away with a brand new Apparation license and I was starting to feel of age, even though I've only been of age for two days.

My mom surprised me again by taking me out to lunch. Nothing fancy, just a little cafe down the street from the Ministry. I couldn't decide which was more unlike her, taking me out to lunch or eating ina Muggle restaurant. Something was going on. And I soon found out.

"Bridgette, we need to talk about something." I stopped in mid-sip of my iced tea. Was she going all mother-daughter freaky talk on me?

"Uh, about what mom?" I tried to hide my intense curiosity and took another sip of my drink.

"About this Oliver business," Oh crap, "You need to know that the only reason your father and I approve of him is because of your change in personality. You're smiling and you're happy. When you're happy, it makes us proud to be your parents and doesn't make us feel like utter failures like you're previous dark behaviour has." She paused to take a sip of her green tea.

"Is that it?" I knew it wasn't, but it didn't hurt to ask.

"No, the episode yesterday proved that your dating Oliver has it's disadvantages and I have to know, why?" She begged.

"Why he has his disadvantages?" She wasn't making any sense.

"No, why you're sticking with him." She clarified.

"Oh, um, I don't know. I guess there's a lot more to him than a Quidditch player and I want to get to know that person better." I felt my face burn. Why was she doing this to me? Everyone knows it's extremely awkward to talk to a parent about this sort of thing! I counted my blessings, at least it wasn't my father. She looked dubvious.

"Are you sure?" She asked. That made me mad. I honestly don't know why, maybe it was because she was prying too much. It could have been that she never cared about my life since Kurt was born adn now all of a sudden I had a boyfriend and I was interesting.

"Look, mom. I appreciate your concern, but this is my..." What was the right word here? "Situation. It's really none of your business, or dad's, why I choose certain boys over others. Could you please back off a bit?" Why was I talking to her like this? I never talked to anyone like this. Was Oliver showing me the outside world and teaching me how to stand up for myself? It sure seemed that way, and it was definately good for me, and my parents. As for the certain boys over others, we all knew that was a huge lie. I had no boys interested in he ever, so of course, this was probably the only chance I would ever get and I didn't want to blow it.

"If that's the way you feel about it." She sniffed, put some Muggle money on the table and we got up. As soon as we were a safe distance from any Muggles, We apparated separately home.

I looked at the kitchen clock. Quarter to one. I had enough time to change. I put on my pair of light brown knee-length shorts I wore on Friday and a grey tank-top underneath a plainolive green t-shirt. I loved layers. I threw some stuff around until I found my black messenger bag. I put in it some money, both wizard and muggle as I had no idea where he was taking me. I was looking for my sunglasses when the doorbell rang. I spotted them on my dresser, grabbed them and raced for the door. I couldn't risk my dad being the one who answered it.

"Hey!" He greeted me when I opened the door. He was wearing baggy blue acid-washed jeans with a white shirt and a navy blue short-sleeved dress shirt with the buttons undone on top of it, "Ready to go?"

"Definitely." I closed the door behind me and he took my hand as we walked down the street, "So where are you taking me?" I asked.

"Can you apparate?"

"Just got my license this morning." I informed him.

"Congratulations! Great, then I'll only be guiding you." He praised me. We looked around as we reached the end of the street for Muggles, then we spun on his count to three.

I opened my eyes to another Muggle village. It was old-fashioned with cobblestones on the roads and thatched rooves. It hadlittle shops lining the road with a variety of things on display. The only give-away that we hadn't travelled back in time were the pedestrians wearing their modern clothes.

"Wow, this is so cool!" I said as we continued down the sidewalk.

"It's called Ambleside. I love it here." He squeezed my hand, "Do you mind if we window shop for a bit?"

"Not at all." The next hour or so was devoted to walking down the main street and occasionaly stopping to closely inspect something that had caught either of our eyes.

"Ooh! Look at that!" We stopped outside a clothing boutique. In the window on display was a knee-length sleeveless dress. It looked very comfortable and it was a lighter shade of green than the greens I usually wore. I love green! Actually, that was basically the only reason I pointed it out in the first place.

"I think you should at least try it on." Oliver suggested.

"Are you sure?" We hadn't actually been inside any stores yet today.

"Of course I am, that's why I suggested it." He pulled me into the store and explained to the young girl behind the counter that I wanted to try the green dress in the window on.

"Hmm, you look about a size six..." She mumbled to herself as she selected the proper dress and size from the racks, "The change rooms are over there."

"Thank you." I said as Oliver and I headedin the direction she pointed to.

"I'll just be right here." Oliver sat down in one of the comfortable couches designed for unfortunated husbands and boyfriends forced to come shopping. I felt a pang of guilt as I walked into the change room and put the dress on. I inspected myself in the mirror before I headed out to show Oliver. I looked good. I never wore dresses before, so I guess it sort of made sense that the girl staring back at me was a complete stranger. I sighed and opened the door.

"Hey! You look great!" Oliver ran his eyes over my body, perhaps lingering a millisecond longer than he should have on my bare legs, "I think you should buy it."

"Really? But where would I wear it?" That was another issue.

"Actually,I was recently asked to join the England National team for the World Cup, and there's a dinner in a week or so for the team and all the old people that organize it. I wouldn't want to look like I total idiot if I didn't bring a date. You could wear it there."

"Oliver! That's so great! I can't believe they want you to be on the team!" I hugged him and he squeezed me back, he seemed reluctant to let me go as I went back to the change room to put my normal clothes back on.

We headed back to the girl to pay for the dress. I was rummaging for some money when Oliver stopped me.

"Don't worry about it! I haven't given you your birthday present yet." He said.

"You don't have to. And didn't you say you already got me something?" I reminded him.

"Yeah, but I didn't give it to you yet." He pointed out. I found my debit card and handed it to the girl. Oliver stared at it, incredulous.

"What was that?" He asked as we exited the store.

"It's a debit card." I told him.

"What does it do?" He was so curious!

"It lets me use the money I have in the bank. It's like a representative that proves I have money in the bank, but not on me at the time. It saves time running back and forth to the bank." I explained.

"Wow, Gringotts should get something like that." He mused. I laughed and switched the bag my new dress was in to my right hand so he could hold my left.