Diagon Alley
He had the worst friends. Ever.
“Wilkes,” he hissed, trying for a good Spikey hiss and suspecting he mostly came off wet-cat, “I do not need to know what your lumpy gerbil of a boyfriend calls you in bed!”
“It’s sweet!” Wilkes insisted, which he could unfortunately hear because the thumbs-and-cartilage thing just didn’t work very well.
“That doesn’t make me want to hear it!” he insisted.
“Madam Fortescue,” Wilkes appealed to their hostess, who was passing with a tray of dirty plates from someone else’s table. The pot of what must have been firewhiskey-flavoured clotted cream steamed half-full against her tea tray, a cheerful, comforting black-cherry red with gold washed through it. The effect was very Gryffie, but she’d probably only coloured her china in tribute to firewhiskey and to fight the grizzly London grey sky. It wasn’t always the same.
Reg tried not to look too longingly at it. He’d settled for the clover-y tea and dandelion leaf sandwiches because Gildy had told him he was looking ‘almost as yellow as poor old Snape.’ Which he absolutely wasn’t, but he was looking a bit pale, and feeling a bit blue. His mother and Bella had both been on his back a bit about not getting out enough (they had quite different ideas about where he ought to be instead) while Dad was trying to teach him some things about dealing with Gringotts that… well, Reg supposed Binns might have covered it.
The problem with being in a rotation on the History of Magic note-taking front was that you were at risk of Thor Rowle being the note-taker on a day it really should have fallen to Rabastan. Or of Gilderoy taking notes on a day when Binns had covered anything important whatsoever.
And then the problem with having Spike explain the notes to you was, he’d realized in startlement some years later after watching Spike and Lucius have a flaming row over Gringotts was even a good idea for wizards, that Spike had been utterly clueless about money at school.
Well, about finances. Not about the book-money he’d found ways to get for himself, not for personal-accounting sort of things. But as for the way money moved? Reg didn’t think Spike understood it even now, and Lucius and Aunt Callisto had both sat him down repeatedly.
Which, as Regulus had tried to explain to his mother (not to Bella, who wasn’t interested in the Black finances anymore), meant that it was actually quite important for Reg to spend as much time as Dad thought he needed tucked up together in the study. And it was a much more time-sensitive sort of important than it was for him to go spend time with witches he either didn’t know or who had, at school, ignored him, treated him like a pet, treated him like a slimy Slytherin his wonderful brother hated, or been mostly interested in his surname.
She didn’t concede this, and Bella didn’t concede that he wasn’t going to be able to do the kinds of Ministry-wrangling that Voldemort clearly didn’t even really expect him to be any good at if he didn’t have a solid base in… well, in where he stood and how things worked. Bella kept saying he was too timid and needed to just plunge in.
It was all very stress-making, and while Reg definitely wasn’t yellow, he was prepared to concede that it might all have been making his skin a bit duller than he had to put up with. So: red clover tisane with burdock and cinnamon, and dandelion-leaf sandwiches, and no sugar in the tea because Wilkes would have laughed at him and he hadn’t felt it was worth it today. Only now he was sorry, and the firewhiskey clotted cream looked warm and, er, well, creamy, and comforting.
He was still fantasizing about snatching the half-eaten pot off Madam Fortescue’s tray when Wilkes made the woman agree that it was (ugh) darling of Pettigrew to call Wilkes Lucrezia. He only hoped Madam Fortescue didn’t know that the lump called Wilkes Lucy in public, just like everyone else who didn’t know better than to think she was a cute girl who could be called sweet little names like Lucy without making Spike look politely incredulous and disinterestedly sorry for your doomed stupidity.
He poked glumly at his sandwiches while Wilkes and Madam Fortescue chatted, and then looked up when he felt eyes on him. It was a bit like having Spike make decisions for him from a distance, only not so heavy-blanket-like.
When he did look up, it was just in time to see the Fortescue girl plop a cinnamon scone and a tasting pot of a slightly beige clotted cream with brown specks on his plate. “You don’t want that,” she nodded at his sandwiches with a little chin-point.
“Er… not really,” Reg confessed, trying not to look too abashed in front of the sixteen-year-old. “But I shouldn’t…”
She had sort of coppery eyes—or maybe he meant cidery, or toffee-coloured—that were judging him for his choices.
“I’ve been inside too much and thought I could use a skin-tonic,” he said lamely.
“It’s too clammy out for that,” she told him definitely. “You want something warm and chewy.”
Wilkes was watching them with interest, and now she was judging him for his choices, too. In advance. With sparkly glee-eyes.
“I suppose I do,” he gave up, and took a bite of dubious cream and scone. Surprised, he said, “This is good!”
“Honey and nutmeg,” the girl said smugly, swinging her ankles between the legs of the chair she’d pulled over. “See, mum? I told you we should be doing hot chocolate today.”
“It’s August, dear,” Madam Fortescue said with a long-suffering share-my-pain look at Reg. “We wouldn’t sell enough to make it worthwhile in summer, even on a nasty day like today.”
“If we—” the girl started mulishly. Reg didn’t know what she was going to say, but he could tell it was going to end in some variant of like I wanted or I told you so.
“I’m sure we don’t need to bore the customers, dear,” Madam Fortesque said repressively.
“I’m not bored,” Wilkes put in brightly.
“We have a billiwig in our bonnet about being more like a bakery,” Madam Fortescue explained wearily. “There isn’t room in the back for an oven.”
Wilkes eyed her own scones suspiciously.
“You don’t make scones in an oven!” The girl sounded offended, in the way that, Reg was sure, meant that plenty of people did make scones in an oven and were Very Wrong. Whether or not there was any real problem with it. At least, that’s what that tone would have meant on Spike or Narcissa or Lucius. “We have a stone counter.”
Apparently, that was meant to explain everything.
Apparently, her mother also thought it explained everything.
Regulus sighed a little to himself. He was, of course, perfectly accustomed to ‘explanations’ from people who assumed everyone knew what they knew and were as smart as they were. You had to either clarify life to them repeatedly or give in on caring whether you could actually follow them. Evan kept encouraging him to do the first, for Severus’s good as much as his own, but it was gloomy and grey and clammy out and it wouldn’t be polite with someone he didn’t know so well.
“It’s the traditional way, to cook them on a hot stone,” the girl said.
Reg blinked at her, surprised. She’d said it straight to him, not to Wilkes or to them both. She must have seen him looking lost. “It’s Flora, isn’t it?” he asked. “In Hufflepuff?”
“That’s right,” said Madam Fortescue.
“Florean,” the girl said crossly. But the crossness was for her mother, not for Reg.
“Not while you’re still in school, dear,” Madam Fortescue said wearily.
Possibly due to seeing Reg (and now Wilkes) look lost again, Flora-or-Florean explained, “I’m taking Ambarella when I graduate.”
Wilkes looked interested. Reg couldn’t tell whether she actually was; Wilkes was areally good gossip. In some ways he thought she was better than Narcissa, although Narcissa was safer as long as she liked you. They were both worlds better than the stories he’d heard about Bertha Jorkins, who’d had a reputation for being pushily curious with no discretion, although Reg didn’t know the witch himself except from wincing House legend. “Have you tried it before?”
She got an eager nod. “I got to stay under for almost all summer this year.”
“For doing so well on her OWLs,” Madam Fortescue told Reg fondly, even though it’d been Wilkes who’d asked. “We can’t usually let her have that long; profits are generally down in spring and summer, and it doesn't have much of a shelf life. But we started saving early last year; we were that sure she'd do well. I might have let her stay Florean all summer, but we agreed she needed to get used to her center of balance again before hopping on one of those ancient school brooms.”
“I don’t see why I couldn’t just stay under at school,” Florean said mutinously.
“It’s probably because Hogwarts was built and bespelled before anyone could get to Melanesia for ambarella flowers,” Reg said, a little wearily. He then had to explain, “Our friend Snape will tell you more about potions than you ever thought anyone would want to know, if you give him half a chance.”
“A quarter of a chance,” Wilkes agreed, rolling her eyes. “A hundredth. And not just potions. You weren’t in our year, Black; you think you know but you don’t.”
“What does when Hogwarts was built have to do with it?” Florean asked, half grumpy and half keenly interested.
“I’m just guessing,” Reg explained, trying not to shrink back under copper-bright eyes.
“I expect he’s right, though,” Wilkes told Florean. “No one ever gets to change who their roommates are once they’ve been Sorted and settled.” Regretfully, she finished, “The stairways won’t let boys into the girls’ dorms. Sprout might have let you if you’d been born a boy; she’s always seemed a quite reasonable sort to me; but she might not be able to, this way.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Reg asked Madam Fortescue diffidently, and not because he thought Wilkes needed a rescue from the slightly scandalized look the older witch was giving her. He wasn’t sure whether Wilkes never noticed scandalized looks or kept a victorious tally of them, but either way, she didn’t need rescuing. “What’s wrong with just using Florean for a name regardless?”
“Mum thinks it would be too hard to explain to my Muggleborn friends,” Florean said, eyes rolling expressively.
Reg frowned. “They agreed to go to Hogwarts,” he said, a little stiffly, to the teapot. “Nobody should stop being a wizard just because some people don’t bother to find out we’re not the same as muggles.”
Wilkes kicked his foot under the table, hard. He blinked at her, and she said, “Even Cissa doesn’t rag on Lily Potter out loud in front of Snape, Black.”
Reg had to admit it was a fair kick. “Okay,” he agreed. “Sorry for criticizing your friends, Florean. I still say ‘they agreed to go to a wizarding school,’ though. Besides,” he turned to Madam Fortescue, “It’s not as if Florean’s a name like Brutus. It’s more French than anything, isn’t it? …Er, isn’t it?” he asked uncertainly, because the older witch was regarding him with the kind of Interested Evaluating Look he would have backed away from at any party, at speed.
He checked with Wilkes, who was looking highly amused with him and deeply disinclined to be helpful, and slid a cautious look at Florean, who was a bit too bright-eyed and kneazle-smiling for his entire comfort. Helplessly, he tried, “No?”
“I’m not sure what the Headmaster would think of it,” Madam Fortescue said with an air of generously taking pity on him.
“Is it his business, if you’re not trying to actually change school records?” Reg asked, feeling his eyebrows slide up a bit. Voldemort’s scorn about anyone felt less relevant to him these days, but Dumbledore hadn’t been particularly well thought of in the Slytherin Common Room, either. He was pleasant enough when you were talking to him, but he’d never been any help whatever. To anyone. The poor old Tartan had been completely in over her head doing his old jobs, and as far as anyone could tell Dumbledore had never even given her a hint. “Teachers call everyone by their surnames anyway.”
“Besides, the old bumblebee’s not so bad,” Wilkes put in. “He’s got a sense of humour, at least. He never minds when anyone makes fun of him as long as it isn’t,” she waved a hand.
“Disrespectful?” Madam Fortescue asked, her brow crinkling like a witch who’d never heard about Narcissa’s poetry reading.
“Nasty,” Wilkes decided. “There are even some kinds of disrespectful he doesn’t mind. That friend we mentioned used to howl at him sometimes. And Snape can yell when he thinks you’re wrong, believe me.”
“Talk to the Sprout if you’re worried about it,” Reg suggested to Florean.
Wilkes glittered evil merriment. “And if she gives you any grief, owl me. I know her niece.”
“I’m sure she won’t,” Reg said reproachfully. “Professor Sprout is a sane person.”
“Your best friends are Bast Lestrange, Gildyteeth Look-at-me, and Spike Snape,” Wilkes ribbed him with a tilty smile. “How would you recognize one?”
Reg stuck out his tongue at her before remembering where he was. It wasn’t true, anyway; he had plenty of sane friends, like Becca Goldstein and Marielle Selwyn, even if you didn’t count his cousins. Then he did remember. Sheepishly, he uttered, “Er.”
“I think you’d better kick the kitten out before he really embarrasses himself,” Wilkes told the Fortescues wickedly, rising. Reg reached for his moneybag reluctantly; he’d finished his scone and was not desperately attached to what he’d actually ordered, but it looked so ugly and raw outside. “Stop looking like the wet week it is, Giraffe, you promised you’d walk me as far as Amanuensis,” she ordered amiably.
“Make sure to come back before September,” Florean told him with a bright smile. “You can help me convince Mum we should try to have ice cream by next summer. I’m trying out loads of flavours for it in the clotted cream.”
“I expect I will,” he agreed, and nodded at the dregs of honey and nutmeg cream. “That was quite good.”
Florean actually beamed up at him, which was odd. But you had to expect a complete lack of public face when you were talking to Hufflepuffs. And it was a good smile. Not as pretty as Gildy’s, obviously, but at least it seemed to be sharing some part of Reg’s planet and reality.
“Lovely tea,” Wilkes said as they walked out into the grey, skirting the buildings closely to stay under the brightly coloured Diagon awnings and their waterproofing spells. Diagon was better at bad weather than Hogsmeade; the awnings all connected up, so as long as you stayed near the buildings you didn’t even have to take out your wand to stay dry. “I’ll chaperone you anytime you like, Pussyfoot.”
Reg blinked at her in confusion, but she just laughed at him and yanked him down by the ear to ruffle his hair. She wouldn’t even have been able to reach that if she hadn’t been wearing terrifying shoes, so he felt obliged to let her.
“So,” she went on, rather to his relief, “did you know your brother’s fighting with his pet dishrag, then?”
“Er… was I supposed to?”
“Petey won’t tell me what it’s about, exactly,” she went on blithely, “yet. I think ol’ Frivolous is just making a pest of himself, but it doesn’t sound much as if Loopy’s planning to let him off the hook anytime soon.”
“Sirius has a name, Wilkes,” he sighed.
“So does Severus,” she replied, sharp as broken phials for just a moment. “And while they’re both annoying busybodies with the attention span of rabid chipmunks, only one of them says he’s ours and we’re his.”
One of Reg’s shoulders hunched, miserably.
She didn’t pat him or anything like that, but she wasn’t snapping anymore when she said airily, “I just thought you’d like to know.”
“You just thought who’d like to know?” he asked, sighing.
She considered. “Probably Cissa. She can tell Malfoy herself.”
“I don’t know why you don’t just—”
“Sure you do, Giraffe,” she contradicted him cheerfully. “All Peter’s friends are expert stalkers. Just because he doesn’t think they’ve found out he’s dating a Slytherin yet doesn’t mean I should go and be conspicuously friendly with Malfoys. Malfoy makes people think he’s up to something just by saying hullo; he’s worse than Snape.”
“Should you be conspicuously friendly with me, then?” he asked tentatively.
He got back one of the most cynical smiles he’d ever seen off of Spike’s face. “Oh, but your brother thinks you’re ‘salvageable,’” she told him.
“That’s what Pettigrew says, is it?” Reg bristled, both his shoulders hunching now.
“He does, but Cissa always thought so, too,” she shrugged. “He’s always thought if he could get you away from Snape and Bellatrix he could, I don’t know, make you into a more bullyable version of him. Or something like that.”
Reg frowned, but not in annoyance, or not mostly. Spike was away for a few weeks, it occurred to him. But then again, actually talking to Sirius… never went well.
“How long did you say the crazy-eyes are away for?” Wilkes asked, not pretending very hard that it was apropos of nothing.
“I didn’t,” Reg scowled at her, “and I’m sure I don’t know who you could possibly mean.”
She patted his arm unsympathetically.
He left her with the stationer as promised and wandered off in the direction of Gringotts. It was too raw a day out to expose himself to goblins sneering at him from their high chairs at their high marble counters, even if Granddad would probably have liked him to drop in and make sure nothing strange had happened to the interest rates while he was in the Alley.
Gringotts was, however, next to the quidditch supply store. It was always nice to get birthday shopping out of the way, and October wasn’t so very far off anymore.
Because he tried to be a good friend, the first thing Reg did (after inhaling the comfortable smells of charmed leather and potion-soaked ashwood) was to make a beeline for the Silver Arrow on display and ask the floorwizard a lot of loud, admiring questions about its construction. He didn’t think Severus actually got any royalties when the things were sold (because Spike had a combination of stiff-necked pride and instinctive good manners, when he wasn’t narked off or desperate and it didn’t involve proving he was more right than everyone about potions, that made him really unbelievably pathetic at the grindelow pond that was business), but he’d still appreciate Reg stirring up business for a broom his work had gone into.
He got a test ride out of it, too. There were always kids around even in the first half of August—not just locals but kids whose parents wanted to avoid the teeming mobs of the last two weeks. You could, if you wanted and were old enough or your parents would let you, tell the floorwizard to turn on the lights on under the strip of green oil and purple water embedded in the walls (the Quality Quidditch people having decided that wearing Wembley Wyvern colors would start fewer fights in their Diagon location than even the red and white of the national team, since plenty of Irish kids did go to Hogwarts), and then kids would swarm up to the roof with you to throw bludgers at you while you tried your broom out.
Not actual bludgers, of course; the QQ owners wouldn’t have risked unsold or display brooms around actual loose bludgers any more than they would have allowed two fliers at once. But the beanbags were enchanted to take a good few swings at anyone in the arena before falling, and they were big enough to sting and leave a big red spot, or even bruise a bag of bones like Spike.
Reg told himself he was just being nice to the kids, but actually he had a great time, ducking and weaving and rolling and catching beanbags. When he started to feel that the bludger-bags were being thrown at him with a bit less force, he landed and wrote up a few IOUs for his three best assailants to show at Gambol and Japes and Sugarplum’s—for a cream tea for two at Fortescue’s rather than a set amount, in the case of the probably-a-fifth-or-sixth-year who’d clearly been showing off for her girlfriend.
He didn’t examine why he was sending business to Fortescue’s rather than Madam Puddifoot’s in Hogsmeade, or the Three Broomsticks. The witches were clearly old enough to be allowed Hogsmeade visits, but he told himself it was nicer to get your prize on the day you’d won.
The floorwizard tried to get him to buy the wretched thing, of course—well, it wasn’t really wretched, it was an excellent broom. Reg had to explain that he wasn’t broomshopping today and he already had one; he was just friends with a bloke who’d helped in the design and had thought it would be nice to show it off.
The floorwizard got a knowing, conspiratorial look, and asked if he’d like to buy a button or some Merrymen gear, if he wanted to help advertise for his friend.
Reg did not buy a button. It wasn’t even a tasteful button. There was nothing tasteful about a broom handle with a lot of grey arrows coming out of the end where the bristles should be, in his opinion. And no matter what the floorwizard said, it did not bring out his eyes.
He did, however, pick up a set of Swivenhodge balls and racquets in Wimborne colours with cuddly-looking… the iconic mascot looked, on these, more like a honeybee than a wasp, and a honeybee in desperate need of a lovely post-prandial nap, at that. It was enough of a surprise that they had gear for games that weren’t Quidditch in Quidditch colours that he decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth—especially while he was buying gifts.
He’d let Lucius buy the boy a toy broom himself when Narcissa decided Draco was old enough, even if that was a traditional present for babies who, in Reg’s admittedly uneducated opinion, were far too young to be on one. If he knew Lucius, though, the man was going to be at a complete loss for things to do with Draco until the boy was old enough to take care of his own Abraxan. A practical suggestion ought to make a good birthday present, and since the balls were just stuffed with fluff soaked in billiwig extract, Narcissa wouldn’t take Reg’s head off for giving Lucius a suggestion she’d think was dangerous for a baby.
Not but what Reg thought Lucius would go through several balls ‘practicing in anticipation so he could train Draco’s hand and eye well to prepare for Quidditch’ long before she let him teach Draco how to use the racquets. Still, they were nice racquets, two big ones with mean-looking wasps (in case she wanted to join in even though she wasn’t much for sport. Or, more likely, for when Lucius dragged Reg or Severus or even Evan in to play), and one toddler-sized one with the stoned honeybee on.
On the way to the counter, Reg turned around and bought a Wembley racket and a Nottingham one, too. Evan would probably be perfectly happy waving gold and black stripes around, and would probably think very soppy things about blonds and black-haired blokes while he did it, knowing Evan. He, however, did not want to play with a Wimborne racquet.
Severus wouldn’t admit to caring what racquet he played with. He also wasn’t going to want to play. Spike was always a wet blanket about playing anything unless you got him to feel competitive or he thought you were in trouble. He wasn’t going to think Draco was in trouble because of fluffballs, so defending his team’s reputation was probably the only way to draw him in without Lucius having to push past hours of grumbling and this-is-stupid.
The wizard behind the counter was Bryn Llewelyn, which would have surprised Reg more Reg if he hadn’t made a practice of watching the other House teams try out at school.
He’d never gone alone, but he might as well have for all the good it’d done him. Evan and Severus had been paying attention really, but Evan had always gotten away with it by pretending to be asleep, and Severus had skipped the Gryffindor tryouts and brought books and homework to all the rest—and actually read them. Narcissa had clearly been there just to show willing, while Wilkes had only been technically accompanying them, her attention being very much on the prospective players, and had never hesitated to abandon the rest of them as soon as someone noticed that a big-eyed girl who looked like a china doll was cheering them with all the enthusiasm of a rabid ferret. Gilderoy had been just as bad.
Reg hadn’t encouraged any of his other yearmates to come, because Thor was Quidditch-happy in the way that tended to make problems when he encountered other teams that weren’t his, and the one time Bast had come he got them all summarily thrown out for hexing the Bludgers (he’d tried the brooms first, but the brooms hadn’t noticed). Becca couldn’t have cared less if someone had paid her not to, Selwyn couldn’t stop shouting advice at the prospective Beaters, and the company of the Carrows was just not fun for Reg.
So he hadn’t had very good company to distract him from the actual tryouts (Narcissa had usually brought her homework, too), and remembered quite a lot from them. One of the things he remembered was that Bryn had all the Quidditch-passion you’d have expected from a great-great-whatever of Dangerous Dai, and none of the talent. He’d tried out for the Gryffindor team four years running.
Reg had wondered at the time what percentage of his enthusiasm had been made of his family’s expectations, especially since his big sister had won trophies before going to work at St. Mungo’s. Here he was, though, working at Quality Quidditch like someone who’d never had any secret rebellious thoughts about what else he might do with himself at all.
Having been in Reg’s year, Bryn knew him just about well enough to be able to work out that his purchases were a gift and who for, even though they’d worn green and red scarves respectively. Reg had had more than a little protection from the House situation, between Sirius threatening everyone who so much as made eye contact with him for any reason (which he weirdly sort of missed now), everyone with any sense being afraid of either Narcissa or Severus hexing their faces off for moving too fast around him or whatever it was Severus actually worried about, and Reg himself not actually wanting any part of the whole miserable business, since Severus wasn’t accepting even the most impersonal help until Reg had started OWL study.
It hadn’t been too bad in his year anyway, although Merlin only knew what went on in witch politics. Bast and Amycus and even Thor didn’t help Slytherin’s reputation much, but they didn’t create blood-enemies by concentrating on anyone in particular, and Reg thought everyone had been able to see he wanted nothing to do with any of it. Gilderoy just assumed everyone loved him and therefore treated everyone nicely ‘back,’ which had worked well enough to make Reggie’s eyes cross.
The thing about Bryn was, he always thought he could make up for everything with enthusiasm, which probably worked better for him in sales than it had on the pitch. Reg, however, still didn’t want any buttons, or keychains, or rosettes, or ridiculously overpriced pocketwatches, and he didn’t want the balls and racquets gift-wrapped, either.
It took a lot of sidestepping to shake Bryn on the gift-wrapping, since Bryn knew enough about the Blacks to be pretty sure Reggie didn’t mean to do it himself, and Reg didn’t really want to just come right out and say Your wrapping is ugly and my house elf will do it better. He really didn’t want to, since they were still pretending Kreacher was dead and he would have had to chat about the new elf he didn’t have. If it hadn’t been a present for Lucius he would have said he planned to use one of his and Narcissa’s elves, but that was out, obviously, and Linkin wasn’t actually all that available to Reg with Evan out of the country, even though Linkin himself hadn’t gone.
Maybe another Slytherin wouldn’t have let the facts bother him, since Bryn probably didn’t know them, would have just had Kreacher re-wrap everything nicely. While Reg didn’t have the same sort of moral whateveritwas about just up and lying that Severus did, though, he’d gotten Spike Being Stern About Saying Provably False Things often enough that just the idea made him quail a bit.
Finally he did get out, though, Lucius’s gifts safe in his robes. He thought he might swing by Fortescue’s—not to go in again so soon, just to see if those witches were using his IOU, make sure they weren’t having any trouble with it. There wasn’t any reason to think they would, since he’d sealed it with his ring. It couldn’t hurt to make sure, though.
The rain had been gusting heavy and lightening off all day, and it was light right now. So when, with a queer feeling of disappointment, he glanced in the tisanery’s big window and saw the girls having their tea with clearly no problems in life whatsoever, he took advantage of the spurt of relative good weather.
Flourish & Blotts had a great cookbook section, and he thought it would be nice to bring Kreacher back some recipes. The elf had been going a bit mental cooped up in the house with all the groceries coming by owl order, and he’d enjoy the chance to get one up on Spike by trying to improve the foreign food Spike was eating right now.
Flourish & Blotts didn’t have anything worth speaking of when it came to Balkan food, but they did have a name for him. When he stepped out of the store, he had a slip with ‘Dining at Durmstrang, E. Küchemaus’ written on it.
He also had a sky full of, apparently, open hosepipes to contend with now, but he’d already made up his mind. With a sigh, he flipped the hood up on his cloak, and left the security of the awnings to pelt for Moribund’s, which had a much better selection when it came to things like travel guides. Flourish & Blotts, Reg thought with a little Spike-flavored amusement (though not so cynical, he hoped) shared the Gryff-and-puff view that if it wasn’t in Britain it wasn’t very interesting.
He didn’t make it to Moribund’s. He’d barely stepped onto the stones of Knockturn Alley at all, in fact, before a hand in a gold-trimmed brown sleeve was propelling him into a wall and roughly snatching his wand away.