A/N: Ron Weasley, Madam Malkin, Diagon Alley and the Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour belong to JKR, while Spinner and the whole situation belong to Vega Blaiceck62. I thank them both deeply.

"It's been a terrible day!" The tall witch shook her head at the memory. "Terrible!"

The younger serving witch behind the counter looked up politely. "Oh?"

"Yes." Madam Malkin stabbed her spoon into the ice-cream sundae Aurora Fortescue passed to her, as if it was personally responsible for the terrible day. "It's been a busy day, of course, this time of year. I'm not complaining about that. Everybody getting ready for the social season, it's good time for business. But there we were, I and both my shop girls in the middle of fittings – extra work, you see, Mrs MacLaggan's having to have all her dress robes remade in purple for mourning colours, with her father choosing to die just now."

"Yes..." Aurora murmured sympathetically. Most inconsiderate of him to choose now, of course...

"And-" Madam Malkin practically quivered, "in comes this house elf!"

Florean Fortescue's oldest grand-daughter suppressed a sigh. "A house elf?" she repeated neutrally, studying the empty ice-cream parlour behind her customer for the number of tables she still had to scrub. Madam Malkin was frequently the last customer of the day, stopping by on her way home from work. When Cassandra, Aurora's younger sister, was on duty, Madam Malkin just took her ice-cream, passed a few pleasant remarks about how well the Fortescue girls had got their grandfather's business running again nowadays, and left like an ordinary customer. But before Aurora had become co-proprietor of the family ice-cream parlour, she had trained as a seamstress. A fact which seemed to qualify her in Madam Malkin's eyes as Kindred-Spirit-but-not-Competition: an ideal ear in which to unburden her day's woes (usual) and triumphs (occasional).

"Moaning Malkin," Aurora would sometimes remark to Cassandra after a particularly long recital.

"You shouldn't be rude about a customer," Cassandra would retort with a contradicting chuckle. "She seems a kind old soul."

Kind, yes – just long winded; and it wasn't Cassandra who got stuck for nearly an hour every Wednesday and Saturday nights. Cassandra was an actress. She was on stage Wednesday and Saturday nights, which left Aurora quite enough to do without listening – or pretending to listen – to a monologue like today's. Then she caught what Madam Malkin was saying...

A house elf had come into the robe shop. And demanded to buy dress robes. Right in front of all the other customers. Madam Malkin herself had had to come out to speak to her – for of course, being kind, you couldn't quite blame the house elf for not knowing any better. And Madam Malkin had explained - "kindly, my dear" - that house-elves didn't need dress robes, serving others was what would make them happy, not grand clothes. The little elf had been very rude, made a fuss, not left - "so embarrassing for all the customers..." And finally Madam Malkin had had to get quite cross, had to remind her of her place, before she'd leave.

But that hadn't been the end of the matter. Just when everybody was starting to get over the fuss, and poor Mrs MacLaggan's interrupted fitting had been finished, the elf had Come Back In. "Yes, my dear – Back In!" With the youngest Mr Weasley, and before Madam Malkin had been able to describe the disgraceful way the elf had just behaved, Mr Weasley had insisted, insisted, that the elf be sold the robes she wanted.

"He said he expected better of a witch Professor Dumbledore had trusted!" Madam Malkin exploded, setting her teaspoon down in the empty glass with an outraged clatter. "Better! I've nothing against house-elves, nor this business of freedom and pay for them since the War, but as for selling them fine dress robes way above their station-! It will just lead to discontent and unhappiness for them! I had the creature's best interests at heart! But Mr Weasley just would not see that! He just went on and on-" Her voice rose to staccato squeaks.

Aurora stood, as frozen as her ice-cream apart from one shaking hand clenched around the serving scoop. "A most unusual occurrence," she remarked coldly. "Will there be anything else, Madam Malkin? Then I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me: we don't have a house elf since our old one was killed. I've a lot of tables to wipe down."

The sign on the door was flipped round to 'Closed' behind the departing customer with more than usual vigour, and the senior proprietor of Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour fell on her tables with righteous anger. Nothing against house-elves... had to remind her of her place... had the creature's best interests at heart..!

"It- Is-" Aurora ground out with a vicious wand jab at a stubborn chocolate stain, "Just- Like- Marjorie!"

Marjorie was the Fortescue girls' oldest cousin. And a Squib. When Aurora and Cassandra had been little, she was already spoken of in the family as "just Marjorie," and expected to look after the younger children. When they had gone to Hogwarts, Marjorie, at a muggle comprehensive, had had to address them Miss Aurora and Miss Cassandra. At the earliest possible end of her schooling, Marjorie had 'just stayed home;' in reality shunted about the extended family as a nursery maid, child minder, home help – who worked for her board. She was all too terribly easy to forget.

When the War had ended, the Fortescue girls had come back to Diagon Alley to re-open the Ice-Cream Parlour. Marjorie, then 'out of a place,' had come to help them. It had been a shock, Aurora recalled, giving a final savage wand swipe to the tables and summoning the mop for the floor. Marjorie was only three years older than her, but had looked almost forty. And was pathetically, tragically, humble. There had been a terrible time before she could be persuaded to be paid for her devoted hours of scrubbing, cleaning, sorting – Marjorie protesting that it didn't count because she wasn't doing it by magic.

That had been nine years ago. Marjorie now worked as an assistant at Cassandra's theatre, where it didn't matter a bit if she was magical or not. Nobody there noticed; Marjorie had actually managed to stop being hopelessly grateful to the girls; but the rest of the family still said they were very kind, perhaps too kind...

Aurora tugged off her apron, and hit the top of the till sharply with her wand. The parchment strip of the day's takings fluttered out of her grasp, and she bent to snatch it off the floor. Twelve Galleons, three sickles: not bad for a week day. Nothing like the small fortune Madam Malkin had charged that elf...

The former Ravenclaw prefect stomped up the stairs. "Be too bigoted to serve her if you like," she remarked out loud to the landing. "Don't be 'very kind...'" She rolled back the top of the big bureau at the head of the stairs, and skewered the day's receipt onto the spike. Wednesday wasn't the night for figuring up. She and Cassandra did that together on Thursdays. The familiar, reassuring smell of parchment and beeswax polish drifted calmingly out, and Aurora rolled the lid down more gently. The cupboard on the landing which the old shop elf Scrubby had used to sleep in looked at her reproachfully for the stomping. Aurora ran her finger along the top of it. It was empty now: Scrubby had vanished in the same fight as Grandpa Florean.

In fact, this whole floor was empty now. While they owned the whole three storey building, the Ice-Cream Parlour only took up the ground floor. Most shops used their upper floors for storage, but ice-cream needed colder storage in the cellar. Ice-cream downstairs and dry ingredients upstairs didn't make sense, so these rooms just stood unused. Aurora crossed the landing and pushed open the door.

A flick of her wand lit the dingy lamp, and the string of cobwebs hanging from it. The hearth was cold, the mantelpiece clear apart from an empty can of Floo powder. No hearth rug or anything. Her footsteps echoed slightly on the bare, rough board floor. It was all just – empty. Two doors stood ajar in the far wall, showing two equally empty little rooms beyond them. Aurora paced softly down the room, stirring little clouds of dust. They'd have to come and clean up here again, soon...

When business was bad, Cassandra always said they ought to let these rooms. Aurora would just say "Mmmm..." Yes, the rooms were unused, and a hassle to keep clean. Yes, Diagon Alley was getting very crowded, and half the businesses were in basements below, or upper floors above, other people's shops. Even the Attic Theatre where Cassandra was an actress was named after the attic it squeezed into. Some more daring businesses had actually moved into Knockturn Alley since the war, just to get shop space.

But- the stairs up here were from a door at the end of the serving counter. Their main Floo connection was this fireplace up here. It wouldn't be nice to have another shop's customers trooping through the Ice-Cream Parlour, or to have to Floo in and out via somebody else's rooms.

When the sun came out and business picked up, Cassandra always acknowledged Aurora's points. The rooms stayed un-let. They just weren't her main reason for the non-committal 'mmmm...'

These rooms: the long, front-to-back one with the many-paned casement window overhanging Diagon Alley at the front, the two little rooms to the side of them; these were Aurora's dream. Ever since she had left Hogwarts and apprenticed at Twillfitt & Tatting's, Aurora had dreamed of these rooms fitted out as a dressmakers. The floor would shine with polish, smooth as glass for silks and satins of fine skirts and cloaks to glide over. A triple mirror would stand beside the front window, so customers could catch every bit of natural light, and see how beautifully their robes fitted. The back wall would be lined with bolts of fabric; the shabby, three legged chest of drawers that was currently the only furniture in the room would have its leg repaired, and be full of buttons and lace and trimmings. There would be rich velvet curtains over the doors to the small rooms, to give privacy but convenience as fitting rooms. There would be a stand, with the latest creation in dress robes upon it, and there would be her sewing table in pride of place, instead of being squashed in the spare bedroom at home, with piles of papers and the latest batch of kittens usually asleep upon it.

Aurora half-closed her eyes and breathed in her dream gently. It was very real, so real that she hardly ever dared come up here and dream it, even when Cassandra was out. Handle it too often, and the gossamer silk might vanish, like a patronus that had delivered its message. She had kept the dream shop for ten years. It was the only link at present to her chosen career. People had thought being a seamstress was an odd choice, for a Ravenclaw. But being clever didn't just mean you had to live among books. You could be clever with fabric too. Grandpa Florean had backed her in that. It was one of the reasons she hadn't minded giving up her Twillfitts job to reopen the Ice-Cream Parlour. It was Grandpa Florean's dream, it what defined the Fortescues: losing it would have been giving in to the Dark Side even with You-Know- Voldemort – dead.

Yes, she missed the pleasure of the cloth and the satisfaction of a beautiful set of robes all done by your own hand – but she didn't miss the fittings. Twillfitt and Tatting's aimed to be 'exclusive,' to cater to the 'upper classes.' And the 'upper classes,' like Mrs Fudge and – Aurora shuddered - Narcissa Malfoy, liked their fittings done at home. In their eyes, the seamstress witch who came to do the fittings was a servant. Either practically furniture, or someone they took a patronising "interest in." When the patronising ones found out she was Florean Fortescue's grand-daughter, they would be 'kind' to a tradesman's family, and offer her lunch - in the kitchen. As if she was a house-elf.

Madam Malkin's tale came rushing back with the very words, a surge of empathising anger on the house elf's behalf charging after it. The dream shop faded at the image of that poor elf, being pushed and pummelled and over-charged for fitting by people who had only sold her robes because they had been made to-

And Aurora caught her breath. She blinked. And she looked about this long, bare, dusty room.

A major practical argument against her dream shop, the wise Ravenclaw argument she never allowed to surface while she was dreaming, was that the rooms were too small. Madam Malkin's had a double shop front; so did Twillfitt & Tatting's; so did Gladrags Wizard Wear in Hogsmeade. Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour wasn't a very wide shop, or very deep. That was why they put tables and parasols out in the Alley. There wasn't really room for a customer to trail up and down satisfactorily in full dress robes, certainly not several customers. The end wall wouldn't really hold enough bolts of enough variety of fabrics. The chest of drawers would only fit a limited choice of trimmings. The fitting rooms would, really, be a bit cramped. And besides, 'nice' customers, wanting quality robes, wouldn't really want to go to a room above Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour. And how would she find the time, while still serving ice-cream?

But- what if the customers weren't really very big? What if the robes didn't need vast lengths of fabric, or miles of trimmings? What if the customers didn't have airs and graces that made them think they were too good to shop over an ice-cream parlour? And robes that size wouldn't take her hours to make...

Aurora stood quite still in the empty, dusty room, and took a deep breath. The thing had to be thought over calmly. Quite, quite calmly. She was a Ravenclaw. She must be wise. She must think. The first thing, of course, was to find out exactly what had happened.

"Mr Weasley! Mr Weasley!"

She had been waiting for that red head to go past all day. Aurora dived out of the shop door as Ron Weasley looked round, startled.

"Mr Weasley, er-" Aurora hesitated, "er- would you be averse to giving me a moment of your time for an ice-cream sundae?"

Double chocolate, walnuts, cherries. The basic elements of a Weasley's favourite sundae never altered, no matter which Weasley it was, and a surprised grin spread across Ron's freckled face as Aurora pushed the dish across the counter to him. She smiled back. She liked the Weasleys – their joke shop made you smile every time you walked past, but she'd always liked this youngest, tallest one, from his first appearance beside Harry Potter at Hogwarts, when she'd been a sixth-year. She took a deep breath. "I wonder if you can tell me something, without betraying any confidences." He looked anxious, but she ploughed on. "Yesterday, I believe you met a house-elf in Madam Malkin's?"

It was worse than she had dreamed. Aurora stabbed the ice-cream scoop viciously into the boxes several times before the tale was done. The poor, poor creature... If that hadn't spoiled the pleasure of her new dress robes, it wasn't for want of any stupid dressmakers trying. She pulled out a small, deep-freezing-charmed box of chocolate ice-cream, and passed it over. "Thank you very much for telling me. No, no payment. Yes, really. I'm sure there's a girl in your life who'll help you lick the spoon; spend your money on her." She laughed at his blush – but Granger/Weasley was a solid fact now, not Diagon Alley gossip - and bowed him out.

Scrunched-up balls of scribbled out parchment littered the landing floor around the bureau before Aurora felt even remotely satisfied with the next step of her plan. Did freed house-elves have surnames? And what if the poor creature never wanted anything to do with magical dressmakers and fine robes ever again? And would she just be opening up a wound? And what if-

Aurora choked off the storm of questions, and made herself read the latest effort out loud.

Dear Miss Spinner, If it would be convenient to you, could you please call one evening at the Ice-Cream Parlour? I have an important matter which I was hoping you could give me some advice for. Sincerely, Aurora Fortescue

Horribly stiff. But she didn't want to be presumptuous, or patronising, or 'very kind...' She just needed – a bit of help. Of an elf-ish kind. More particularly: size. Aurora slipped the note for 'Miss Spinner, The Leaky Cauldron,' into the stack for Cassandra to take to the post office later, and went thoughtfully downstairs. All she could do now was wait.

The treads of the stairs were not too deep, but the handle on the door between the Ice-Cream Parlour and the stairs was very high...

There was a knock at the door, Wednesday evening. Aurora abandoned her table scrubbing and hurried to answer it. It was too late to be a customer, and Cassandra had already gone off to the theatre – unless, of course, she'd left something behind-

"Madam Fortescue?"

A squeaky voice - a house elf! "It's Miss Spinner, isn't it!" Aurora exclaimed. "You got the note, then. Do come in." She suddenly felt anxious, but at least the elf didn't look as crushed as Marjorie had used to. "What do you like for ice-cream?"

Spinner just shook her head. "No thank you, Madam Fortescue."

Aurora got out two sundae dishes. "It's on the house. When Fortescue girls ask people round, they feed them ice-cream – it's in my nature. And by the way, Please call me Aurora, or at least Miss not Madam – you remind me that I'm over thirty. And you must have a favourite flavour."

Chocolate and cherries, apparently. "Same as Ron Weasley," Aurora remarked. "And Ron Weasley's the reason I asked you to call. He – told me, about your new dress robes. And I hope you won't think me patronising, but I understood about your dream of robes, because I have a dream too... May I tell you?"

They went upstairs to look at it, witch and elf. Aurora had scrubbed the floor and vanished the cobwebs, but the rest of it was still a dream shop. It was the first time she had shared the dream shop with another person. Yes, Madam Malkin, with your talk of 'unnatural creatures' – a Person.

And when she had finished, the gossamer fabric of the dream shop was still there. Perhaps even stronger because two people now could see it. The elf's eyes were bright and shining; she had even clapped her hands once in delight. "But I don't know elfish proportions," Aurora explained. "So will you help me? To come up with some patterns, and be my fitting model for some trial robes?"

They looked at the pattern books; they took Spinner's measurements; they pored over the fan of fabric samples. There weren't very many, because it was only the one sample fan of dress robe fabrics Aurora had appropriated as a memento when she had left Twillfitt and Tatting's, but Spinner's fingers ran again and again over a fine silk, as blue as the sky.

"We'll start with silk dress robes for a display model, then," said Aurora with a smile. "Which colour?"

It was after eleven before Spinner left, hurrying up the Alley in case Hannah should be worried about her whereabouts. "A fortnight for the fitting," Aurora called after her.

"Certainly, Miss Fortescue. Good night!"

Aurora shut the door and sank down at a marble topped table, giddy with relief and delight. Spinner had come. Spinner had understood. Spinner would help. And so- She tugged a roll of parchment and a quill out of her apron pocket. In a week's waiting, she had planned and figured, looked up suppliers, found a triple mirror listed in an upcoming Bring-and-Fly sale, but she hadn't dared put it down on parchment. So, one of the first things to start with was to draw-

"Hello! Aurora?"

Of course, the other thing to start with was to tell-

"Hello?" Cassandra's cheery voice rang out again from the back kitchen door. She usually came in that way from an evening's work at the theatre. "Sis? There you are!" Cassandra pushed open the swing gate at the end of the serving counter, swiping a cherry out of the tub as she passed, and came over to the table.

"What's my dear hard working sister up to at present? Whassat you're drawing?"

Aurora shook her head and screened the parchment with her hand as Cassandra peered. "Mm mm. Just a minute."

"Okay, okay, so it's secret..." Cassandra laughed teasingly, and sank down in the opposite chair with her hands over her eyes. "Tell me when I can look..."

Aurora finished her calligraphy with a couple more swift strokes, and pushed the design for her new shop notice across for her younger sister to see. Cassandra opened her mouth. And shut it. And opened it: "You're nuts."

It was an expression the Fortescue girls used often – the result of endless days sprinkling chopped pecan, hazel, walnut, or pistachio on endless ice-cream sundaes. The usual answer was "Ah, go choke on an almond..." - but this matter was important.

Aurora slammed her quill down. "I Am Not! The way people treat house-elves is disgusting! It's like they're an entire population of Cousin Marjories! They're expected to be humble and grateful and servile, and now they can be freed and be paid, they're supposed to just be happy with that! Not do anything with the money: Madam Malkin refused to sell a house-elf dress robes, until Ron Weasley made her! And that's not fair!"

The senior Ravenclaw prefect picked up the quill again and pointed it fiercely at Cassandra. "If people refused to sell Marjorie clothes 'cause she's a squib, we wouldn't just let her go round starkers. And the same goes for house-elves. People dress them in tea towels and pillow cases and table cloths – the Ollivanders used to make theirs wear a candlewick bedspread! Even when they set them free, it's with old clothes. It's not on – and they're not going to be stuck with that. If old Moaning Malkin doesn't want their custom, well, I trained as a dressmaker, and I do! Got it?"

"It sounds like I'm getting it whether I like it or not," Cassandra retorted with a chuckle. "Do you want a hand scrubbing the floor?"

"Done that."

"Measuring up for curtains?"

"Done that."

"Clearing all the clutter off your sewing table at home to move it here?"

"Done that."

Cassandra stood up. "You ought to have been in Hufflepuff," she said with mock severity. "That level of organisation is disgusting in a Ravenclaw. Is there anything left that I can do to help?"

"You can move that disgusting stash of Honeydukes Finest Chocolate Bars of yours that I discovered hidden in Scrubby's old cupboard," said Aurora briskly, turning over her parchment to start making 'To Do' lists. "Because I'll want that cupboard to store things in."

The dream shop had vanished by the evening two weeks later when Aurora's first customer came back for her fitting. The dress robes were cut from a real roll of sky blue silk, pulled down from shelves full of fine fabrics covering the back wall. They were adjusted in the little dressing room behind a real maroon velvet curtain-door. Spinner trailed elegantly up and down the long room, the robe skirts gliding over the floor and reflecting in the glass-like polish almost as much as in the triple mirror. The final trimmings were Summoned from a now four-legged chest of drawers, and when they were done, the robes draped showily on a neat stand beside a clutter-and-kitten-free seamstress's table.

Aurora handed Spinner her jacket, and shook her hand. "Thank you very, very much. And please tell any elves you know."

"Yes, Miss Fortescue." Spinner's eyes lingered on the robes.

"I won't sell them," said Aurora, hoping desperately she sounded business-like, not patronising. "Spinner – if I had asked Hannah to help even partly as much as you have, to realise my dream, the robes would be hers, at a thirty percent discount, when she was ready for them. Will- will you do me the honour of the same?"

A business deal was a business deal, with both party's hands upon it. Aurora opened the door and bowed the little elf out with all the dignity she would have bowed Harry Potter himself out with. It was only a shame Madam Malkin wasn't going past to see. But she would see... she would. The sandwich board stood just inside the door, ready to go out in the morning; the inside door leading to the stairs had the same sign on it:

Fortescue's: Speciality Elfish Outfitters – Everyday and Dress Wear.

Aurora ran one finger thoughtfully down the sign, and then bent to open the specially low handle they'd had installed. Upstairs, the lamps were still on, the room full of the pleasurable quiet of fabric. She sat down gently at the work bench. On the stand opposite hung Spinner's dress robes, shimmering richly in the golden light. The stuff – the sky blue silken stuff – of an elfish dream made incarnate. Aurora pulled out the shears, and a bolt of turquoise silk, and began to make another one.