Shopping Partner?

[Alexandria Black]

"Yes mom! I will not tie the chair to my leg and drag it everywhere I go, like the last time!"

"And you promise to wait here till I return with the currency changed?" asked a very worried blonde woman, presumably, the brunette eleven year old girl's mother.

"Yes I do, mum! You are so worried! I will just wait here, kidnap any person I see my age and make him/her my partner!" the girl answered, a little miffed at the fact that her mother thought that she would run off and leave her here worried. Okay, so maybe Alex did have a slightly..... extremely slightly, curious nature and a short attention span and maybe she had once tied a chair to her leg and dragged it everywhere when her mother told her not to leave the chair, but that happened just once! And yeaaaaars ago! Okay, last week, but she was totally over it now!

"I still do not like this whole idea! Why can't you just shop with me?" Erelene, the lady asked. She wasn't just worried, she was also going to miss Alex a lot and she really did want to make memories to remember.

Alex smiled, she knew what this was about, her dad had told her all about it. Her dad knew Alex's short patience and knew she would be irritated by her mother's behavior, so he had warned her before, not hurt her mum's feelings.

"I'll be fine! Now go mum! Do you want to turn me into a 'mummy-girl' me?" she said as she slightly pushed her mum.

Erelene rolled her eyes as she left, clearly not getting why her daughter preferred to shop with complete strangers but not her.

Sighing, Alex settled into a seat as she waited for someone to pass by, singing a song as she waited, tapping her leg impatiently.

[Damian Black]

Damian walked down from the room he and his mother had rented in the wizarding pub. Since it was a few days before he had to leave and his mother had some business in Knockturn Alley with the most spineless man that Damian had ever seen. A look of disgust appeared on his face when he thought of the sniveling man who jumped at every sound. However, his disgust didn't last very long as he took out his new wand.

The wand was going to be fun for sure when he thought of all the things he could do but when he tried to hex a man with it the other day, it didn't work. Rolling his eyes, he walked over to the bar and thought of anything that he needed to do today but nothing came to his mind. Bored, he tapped his foot against the bar and smirked when it seemed to annoy the barman... this could be fun.

[Alexandria Black]

Alex was wondering just how many tennis balls she could fit in the dumb bartender's mouth, when her EXTREMELY important calculation was interrupted by someone's foot tapping. Someone other than herself's foot tapping that is.
Eyes narrowing, she turned to tell the person to stop doing that, when she got a major shock. When she had turned, she expected some middle aged guy trying to get the attention of the otherwise pretty much brain dead bartender, what she got was what she had been looking for all day. Someone her age, looking bored and wanting to do something.

"Hey! You wanna be my shopping partner? Its a whole scheme that my dad came up with! See, in school, I would have to do stuff on my own, but since this is my first visit to this place, and that I have a veeerry short attention span my parents did not want me to do my shopping completely alone! So would you do it?" In her usual, overwhelming way, Alex rushed through everything, not even pausing to fit in breaths, except at the ending, where she added, almost as an afterthought,

"Oh! And my name is Alex!"

[Damian Black]

Damian heard someone talking and looked to where the voice was coming from and saw a girl who looked about his age. he did his best to keep up with what she was saying and nodded. Yup, if this was her first time here and doing her shopping then she must have been his age. He was slightly amused by the girl's outburst and the way she was talking so fast the words seemed to almost spill out of her mouth.

He let out a small chuckle when she finished by stating her name. It was like she only thought of that after she spoke about shopping partners and other things that he just about understood.

"My name is Damian" he introduced himself with a slow nod. He didn't have anything else to do so he smiled.

"Alright, I'll be... er shopping partner was it?" he asked in amusement. "I have more things to get anyway" he said, he just didn't know exacly what those things were until he remembered.

[Alexandria Black]

Alex face-palmed, "You did not get much of what I said right? Clearly, I messed up again!" she said in a muffled, slightly disappointed voice. But then, this was Alex, she could not stay down or quiet for a long time, even if she wanted to. So, she stayed with her head down for a roundabout of one minute, after which her head snapped up and she literally jumped out of the chair, so bored she had been just sitting there doing nothing.

Pulling Damian by his arm, she almost skipped out of the place, with her mouth working all the time as her hair bounced behind.

"So Damian, do you have a last name? oh, and I think I figured what we should do! Lets go get the stuff you wanted first, and then we can check out the other shops for my stuff? And then we can go have something to eat! And.....can we finish the 'shopping' part real quick! 'Cause I don't really enjoy shopping that much. I m much more of a diner girl. Which, I guess explains why I kept food for the last! Something to sustain the trip by! And hey! Don't you have to go tell someone? Like, I dunno, your mum or dad maybe?" Suddenly, Alex drew to a stop, both walking wise and talking wise, the realization that her conscious attempt to talk more slowly had failed BIG time! In fact it had gotten worse, with her now smiling a whole lot and even adding hand gestures!

Sheepishly, she turned back and added, "I tried. I really did. Honest."

[Damian Black]

He almost stumbled at first when he was pulled but easily kept up with her then. He listened to her and smiled slightly while he nodded to everything she had said. He had never seen anyone so hyper in a long time but spending a lot of time with his cousin certainly helped in keeping up with what Alex said. Suddenly he was happy about the hyper cousin he had been stuck with all summer the previous year.

"It's fine" he said reasuringly then counted on his fingers as he began to talk. "My last name is Black. I am not too sure of what I need but alright. Get something to eat, sure. I think shopping is mostly boring so yeah, as quick as possible and my mother is shopping somewhere so as long as she doesn't get back to the pub early then it will be alright" he said. As he did so, he counted each thing of on his fingers to make sure he wasn't missing anything out.

"You get excited a lot dont you?" he asked amusedly while he went back to walking down the street and making sure they didn't knock into anyone at the same time.

[Alexandria Black]

"Black? That's funny! Mine's Black too! Coincidence?" Alex paused for effect before turning back and continuing in an adopted deep voice, "I think not!"

The effect, however, got ruined because the moment Alex turned around, she knocked into some one. In fact, so strongly, she got knocked down herself. Wincing a little, she got up, hurriedly said sorry to the person she knocked over, messing up her words in the hurry. She bent down, helped collect the packets and even dusted most of the dirt of them, all the while adding more sorry's and it-was-an-accident 's. The person obviously got creeped out, because he hurriedly took the packets and almost ran away.

Miffed, Alex turned around to answer Damian's question, "Yeah, Yeah I do. Do you?"

[Damian Black]

"Black is a common name so probably not" Damian shrugged while he walked. He stopped walking and turned around, seeing her on the floor next to someone with packages all over the ground. He snickered as he watched her helping him and saying what he could only hear was an apology to the poor guy. He snickered more when he saw the person looked creeped and walked off in a hurry.

"No, not really" he said when he heard her and continued walking. He glanced around them and saw a shop that had caught his eyes the moment he had first arived at the wizarding pub. "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes" he said with a grin.

[Alexandria Black]

Alex had heard him snickering, but just to tell that to Damian, she did a mild glare to him before continuing, "You have no imagination!" she said, waving a dismissive hand. "Think more on the lines of long lost siblings, unknown uncle's unknown family, brain transplants etc. etc.!" Alex added, waving her hand as she turned to him to check out his reaction.

"Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes..........they are a joke shop right? Cool! Lets go there first! I got to stock up! I do NOT think stuff quiet effective in muggle pranks would impress anyone out here! Lead the way!" she ended on a dramatic note, flourishing her hands forward to let Damian come up in front to show her the way.

[Damian Black]

Damian saw her glare but only smiled while he listened to her.

"Maybe" he shrugged since there was bound to be relatives he didn't know about. "Sounds like something you would see on one of those muggle soap opera things" he said while he looked at the joke shop. His mother had been hooked on those things a few years ago but he didn't see what was so interesting about them.

Nodding, he walked over to the shop. He could already see things in the window that he wanted to try. "Muggle pranks are no fun unless they are on pure bloods who dont understand them" he smirked.

[Alexandria Black]

Damian's shrug pretty much said that he thought the possibility of her theories coming true was extremely less, and Alex was going to start up on her lecture on how imagination is totally awesome. In fact, she had even got the her finger out and her mouth open, when she had to close it real quick as she heard him speak.

"Who are pure bloods?" Alex thought out loud, with a curious, complete with the raised brows. She had never heard the term and for her life could not figure out what it meant.

[Damian Black]

Damian knew now that she must have been half blood or less when she asked that question. Well... she could have been a muggle born but he wasn't too sure.

"It's like a blood status" he said and tore his gaze away from the pranks and jokes and looked at her while he thought.

"Pure blood is like someone who has only wizard and witch parents, grandparents and so on" he said, waving his hand a little. "There is also muggle borns who come from none magic families and half bloods that come from a mixed blood family" he continued if she didn't know what they were either.

[Alexandria Black]

"Blood status?" Alex repeated blankly, as Damian explained about blood statuses. "But doesn't that make the magical world a class society? Where, let me take a wild guess, pure bloods rule and muggle-borns serve? That's not cool! And we live in the 21st century!" she almost burst out as she said those things. Alex hated discrimination, mainly because her class mated poked a whole lot of fun of her because she was 'different'. Sure, weird stuff happened around her, sure she was hyper and clumsy, sure she was adopted but that does NOT make it okay to call her the 'unwanted freak'!

She was quiet for a small while, remembering, before she turned from the pranks which she had been glancing blankly at, to ask Damian, "So what are you?"

[Damian Black]

"I guess you could put it like that but as far as I know, only a few pure bloods see it that way" Damian said and looked back at the pranks. He noticed by the way she was talking that she thought strongly about those types of things. He had only known a few people in his life who judged people on their blood status.

"My father told me it was a lot worse in the past" he said as he thought of the things his father told him about the old pure blood families. He had a crooked grin when he answered her question.

"I'm a half blood which I'm glad about since pure bloods are mostly inbred crazed" he said and smirked when his gaze fell on fireworks in the window.

[Alexandria Black]

"EEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Incest! Now that's just gross! I mean, the very thought makes me want to throw up! How can somebody even LOOK at their cuz or bro int his sorta way is BEYOND my imagination!" Alex grimaced as she stuck her finger down her throat.

"More bad in the past, huh? Well I know where we are going after this, to the book shop! I am not going to go around asking basic stuff like blood status to EVERYONE!!! Few people believe in blood supremacy? Well that's good to know! Any particular family I should avoid?" Alex asked, deciding to shift their conversation from outside the shop, to inside it.

"Aren't you going to ask me, what I am ? Or have you decided on a muggle born?" she asked, as she stepped in.

[Damian Black]

Damian chuckled at her reaction, it reminded him of his reaction when he first heard about it from his father. "All I know is that it was or is to keep their blood line pure" he said with disgust at the thought that was now is his head of brothers and sisters getting married. He thought for a moment at the old families he knew about. "I only know of two old pureblood families, the Lestranges and odd enough, the Blacks but only a few of them now" he said and walked into the shop too.

"I was thinking Muggle born or half blood in the muggle world, are you?" he asked.

[Alexandria Black]

"Lestranges and Blacks. Hey! If you break Lestranges, you get Le Stranges, which sounds like, The Stange! How weird s that!" Alex raised her eyebrow at the odds, thinking in her mind that the name fit them, seeing that what they were supposedly doing was strange and on the whole, SERIOUSLY creepy!

"Honestly I don't know." Alex answered with a shrug to Damian's reply/question. "My parents, foster parents, that is, found me wrapped in a blanket with a tag stating my name and date of birth, in a box on........let's skip the day......and then they took me to this local child care society kind of thing, where they splashed around pictures of me, wiht articles with headlines like, 'Come back! Your baby needs you!' End of story, no one claimed so I got custody with the Storms, my foster parents." she added as she walked to the counter to get the stuff cashed.

[Damian Black]

Damian nodded while he listened to her mix the name up and agreed. He had only visited the Lestange family once with his mother but had to admit, they were beyond strange. He listened to her talk about her past while he picked up a few things including the fireworks and frowned as he walked to the counter with her.

"That must suck" he said when she finished. "Although from what you said earlier, your foster parents must be nice which is better then possibly living with pure bloods" he said.

[Alexandria Black]

"It didn't, I mean not that much as people think it must have. But clearly, see, my biological parents or parent didn't want me, so chances are, even if they HAD kept me, I would have been miserable with them. And well my mum and dad are great! I mean, they wanted a kid and I needed a home, it was a perfect match! Like........dunno.....fate? Serendipity? Of course, there are a few times that I think back and wonder what my life would have been with my bio 'rents, sometimes when I feel mum and dad just don't get it! But, honestly, they are very, very, very, very few!" Alex answered a she paid for her purchases and began to move out. Suddenly, she stopped short, studying a sign that read 'Portable Swamp on Special Order'

"I wonder how much they cost? Or how long will it take for the order to be sent home?"

[Damian Black]

Damian listened and paid for his things after her. he kind of understood what she meant. It would not be the best family if they even thought of giving you up as a baby. He wondered if his mother ever had thoughts like that when he was young but he didn't think much into it because as annoying as she was at times, he was glad he had her.

He walked out of the shop and looked to the sign she asked about and smirked. "not sure but it would be fun setting one of those off in the school corridors" he said as he thought about the teachers going crazy about it. "Owls on their own would take a few days unless they use the Floo Network" he said. He looked up and saw the book shop.

"you wanted to go there right? you might even see some history books on pureblood families including the Blacks" he said.

[Alexandria Black]

"Hold up! Whats the Floo Network? But you know we could totally get it! That coupled with the instant darkness powder I bought........EPIIIIIIIC!!!!! We could totally set it off! First lets go back in, place the order and then come out, get some extra books, and my school course books, and then.................where to then? I am thinking of getting a pet or something, what do you say? Would you rather do something else, I mean, technically, its your turn to pick." Alex blasted off, cheering up considerably at the thought of a swamp in the dark! It would help them escape, and cause more confusion! Diabolical!

[Damian Black]

"The Floo Network is a way to travel. A fireplace is hooked up to the Floo Network and you can use it to get to other places that have fireplaces" Damian explained, only then realising how weird it sounded. "Let me rephrase that, you walk into say a house fireplace with Floo Powder and by saying the name, you can travel to another fireplace like the ones in the Leaky Cauldron" he said.

"We can go to the pet store after getting the books" he nodded and walked back into the shop. He grinned at the idea of setting off the portable swamp and instant darkness powder at the same time. "I could just see some poor student walking right into the swamp water" he grinned.

[Alexandria Black]

Alex nodded as Damian explained what Floo Powder was, she found it highly intriguing, to see that Damian knew so much about the magical world, while she knew so little. In a way, having him around was like some kind of tour, and she was glad for it. "You know! That's just, creepily awesome! I've gotta try it one day! And about the portable swamp, we are totally w=getting! It would be soo cool!" she added as she lifted her hand for a five.

"The prob is, who buys it? Or shall we both buy it?"

[Damian Black]

Damian looked at her curiously when she lifted her hand, wondering what she was doing. He hadn't really seen anyone do that before which was interesting. He smirked when he heard her question though.

"How about we buy one each. We could set them up far away from each other at the same time so the teachers wont know what to do and it will take longer for them to get rid of them" he said. "Unless the teachers are near both of the swamps when they are set..." he trailed off while he thought.

[Alexandria Black]

Rolling her eyes at his curious look on seeing her raised hand, she lifted up his hand, kept it steady, and then slapped her hand onto his. "And that, dear friend, is called a five!" she stated in a matter of fact tome before turning her attention to his query.

"That's a cool idea! And don't worry about the teachers, I mean, we're not just gonna set up the swamps under their noses, we will do it discreetly! AFTER checking out the area and making sure no tattle tale is around. For best results, we should chose somewhere where traffic would be guaranteed! Like.......like......wait...! I got it!" her eyes shined as an idea formed in her head, it was kid of perfect, but would need some serious execution.

"We could do this! Mix some Puking Pastilles in the food of our first dinner, and THEN set up the swamps on the bathroom on the floor with the dining area. I take the girls, you take the boys! What say?" she asked, raising her hand for another five, partly because the plan was awesome, and partly because she wanted to check if he got what a five was.

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