shopping for supplies - frankiiieeee

[tanith]

Strictly speaking, Tanith was not supposed to be wandering aimlessly around Diagon Alley today. Her mum had only allowed her to go in the first place because she had promised explicitly to go to 'Madam Pimpernelle's Beautifying Potions' and only there, and to be back by floo by six o'clock. Oddly enough, it was Tanith who had suggested the trip alone to Pimpernelle's, which was unlike her to say the least. She couldn't stand the place, it reeked of rosewater and teenage desperation, and Madam Pimpernelle herself was the kind of shopkeeper whose selling technique was pointing out the flaws of the customer until they were tearful enough to spend a small fortune on her beautifying concoctions. Needless to say, Tan's mother was a regular customer, not that she needed it, and was pleasantly surprised at her daughter's suggestion to go to such a place, when normally she fought tooth and nail to avoid their mother-daughter Summer trips there. In fact Camille Malfoy expected Tanith to return magically (excuse the pun) mature and beautiful and beauty-potion expert by the time she returned.

Except that Tanith had no intention of going anywhere near Madam bloody Pimpernelle. She had made the excuse purely to get out of the house. She was going mad, with only the house-elves and her parents for company (and Hepzebah but she was not the most sociable cat at the best of times) and it was still another month before she could run away to school get back to her studies again. So a trip to London was necessary. Besides, it was nice to be left to her own devices for once, to travel without her parents breathing down her neck. And she was running low on supplies. In fact she'd made a list. The list (scrawled hastily on a scrap of parchment and hidden in her jeans pocket before leaving via the fireplace in her estate) included - treats for Hepzebah, Licquorice wands (her mother disapproved of spot-causing-sweets), Cigarettes, new notebooks, copious amounts of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, more cigarettes, and, regrettably, whatever was going cheap in Madam Pimpernelle's, so she had some evidence to hide her white lie about her afternoon. But that could wait.

Right now it was mid-afternoon and Tanith was enjoying having finished all of her real shopping. In fact she was currently strolling leisurely along the cobbled streets, swinging a heavy-sweet-laden satchel. Pausing opposite Gringotts, Tanith leaned against a wall to finish off another sticky liquorice wand and light her first cigarette since June, inadvertently blowing a large cloud of smoke into the face of a teenage boy passing. She was in too good a mood to apologise.

[frank]

He despised shopping. No matter what it was for if you where to ask Frank Longbottom if he would mind accompanying you his usual response would usually be along the lines of "I'd rather visit a muggle dentist and let them pull all my teeth out one by one with out any drugs" Not that he knew much about anesthetics but his Uncle and he had seen through a window how muggle had teeth removed during one of their trips to London; it was disgusting.

It was therefore no surprise to the 17 year old that after being dragged kicking and scream to Diagon Alley during his summer holidays no less! To be fitted for a pair of new dressrobes that his mother had finally tired of his sulking and sent him out with a pocket full of galleons and a smack across the back of the head and a warning not to get into any trouble while she finished ordering the rest of the clothing other family members had requested.
Not one to refuse extra pocket money Frank had grabbed the silk money sack held out to him and escaped the stuffy rode shop as quickly as his feet could carry him.

Moving away from the two woman he could hear talking even though the closed door Frank felt for the packet of white life saving sticks he knew he had about his person somewhere. He had since he had first tried one and become an addict.
"A-ha!" He cried out in triumph as his fingers closed around the packed he had been searching for. Wasting no time in pulling out and lighting the end of one Frank took a long slow inhalation off the end that didn't happen to be lit; believe or not had had made that mistake once or two times in his rush to have his little fix. Lowing the hand that held the cigarette the Gryffindor boy started toward the corner that he knew would take him onto the main part of Diagon Alley, hopefully the street wouldn't be too busy. He had no wish to suffer any polite conversation right now. He had just survived an hour of being poked by pins and being whacked by his mother as she demanded he stand up straight; didn't he deserve a break. 'Not even the prisoners of azkaban got it this bad!'

Ok that may have been a bit of an exaggeration he admitted to himself as rounded the corner next to Gringotts. Raising the cigarette to his open lips Frank frowned as his vision was suddenly interrupted by a puff of second hand smoke. Raising his free hand he turned to comment about the rudeness of this person only to have his plan thwarted as he felt a sharp burn on his palm. He had lower his waving arm onto the end of his lit cigarette "Damn " Lifting his hand so he could inspect it he offered the girl leaning casually against the bank wall a look of annoyance "Have you ever tried blowing the smoke out in shapes of farm animals?"
'Not what I wanted to say! Stupid mouth'

[tanith]

Despite it being thought of amongst many of the teenagers at Hogwarts as a 'cool' habit, Tanith herself had never made smoking look anything nearing cool. She didn't look like the girls who huddled together oestentatiously in the courtyards to blow smoke rings and somehow manage to never smudge their expensive lipsticks while doing so. She had never mastered the smoke-rings trick for starters. And she didn't wear lipstick. Instead she always looked rather furtive and desperate when she smoked, probably because she didn't get much occasion to enjoy sneaky cigarettes at home or school. Well, apart from now, when she didn't look quite so furtive. She had been trying the elusive smoke-ring trick when she inadvertently gassed a passer-by, incidentally. And had almost been there, or so she thought, but his cursing interrupted her concentration.

Squinting, Tanith waved away some of the smoke cloud, looking marginally irritated. She would have been properly irritated if she wasn't in such a rare good mood. In fact at school she would have been properly irritated, and depending on whether the person she accosted was frightening or not, either horribly rude or stammering and apologetic. There was no real middle ground of normal social interaction with her at school, she wasn't the best at that most of the time. When the cloud had dissipated abit Tanith saw that the passer-by was smoking too, which is probably why the smoke was denser than usual. Unsurprisingly, he looked irritated too, but surprisingly, she found him strangely familiar. He looked near her own age, so she quickly figured it may well have been from seeing him around Hogwarts, but she couldn't place a name. He definitely wasn't in her House at least, probably not her year or she would have seen him in classes. Despite not having a wide range of friends at Hogwarts, Tan was pretty observant albeit rather quiet, so she recognised a fair amount of people, even if she had never spoken to them in her life. She personally thought most people underestimated the value of watching and listening over talking all the time. In fact she got most of her best spying observing done when having solitary smokes. Not today though, obviously.

At the boy's 'damn' and irritated expression she mumbled a begrudging "Sorry.. didn't see you" and tapped the ash from the end of her cigarette. He was older and taller and they weren't in school where strict rules could generally stop arguments getting too heated if needs be, so the Slytherin was naturally cautious. But then at the not-quite-stranger's next words she judged him as less of a threat. He may have escaped from St. Mungo's closed ward, with small-talk like that, but he definitely didn't seem like he was going to hex her. Not that talking to a crazy person seemed much of an improvement. She raised a brow, inhaling another stream of smoke with a skeptical expression. "Er, what? Is that a joke or something?" Really, she didn't mean it to sound so accusatory. A little skeptical yes but not quite so scathing. She had never been good at small talk though, even one-on-one with those she knew well. With potentially nutcase strangers in a crowded London street, it was probablya bit worse.

[frank]

Resisting the urge to kiss the slightly red skin on his palm Frank slowly curled his injured hand into a fist and pulled it to his chest. He knew he wasn't a child anymore but still whenever he accidentally hurt himself the 17 year old still expected his moth to come running at him waving a copy of 'How to deal with accident prone children' A book he had seen so many times between the ages of 3 and 13 that it sometimes featured somewhere in his dreams; not that he would mention that to anyone.

But the point is he still expected his mother to come running around the corner though now she had a different book 'How to deal with a self-mutilating teenager' that Frank was starting to detest because it seemed that for every injury he had there was a page for it in that book followed by a passage about why he would possibly fnlickt that injury upon himself, how and in small print it would point out the possibility of school bullies...He knew because he had 'borrowed-with-the-intention-to-burn' the deamon book as soon as he had first seen it.

With his cigarette held loosely in his other hand Frank took in the vision of the girl before him. 'Tanith Malfoy' His subconscious provided after a second. He also knew without further thought that he had never spoken to this girl before, not because he had never seen her around but because he was usually on his way somewhere (like his next class) whenever he did see her. Flicking the foam filter of his cigarette Frank shifted his feet slightly to avoid the fall of ash this action produced from the edge of his addiction.

"No joke" He answered finally as the pressure of their mutual silence pressed on him "I'm generally asking if you can blow smoke animals. Any self respecting smoker should be able to at least release their smoke in the shape of a hippogriff" He stated; nodding his head as if to agree with himself though silently he was pointing out (to himself obviously) that he couldn't even produce a snake in smoke form never mind a dangerous animal.

[tanith]

Tanith's skepticism didn't lift much at how long it took the stranger to reply to her query. He seemed to take his time, inhale, tap ash onto the pavement, as though considering what to say next. To pass the time while she waited for her strange new conversational partner to respond Tanith mirrored his actions, taking another drag from her cigarette and fiddling with it, twiddling between her fingers. It gave her time, she supposed, to try to work out who the Hippogriff-smoker was, with renewed concentration. He was, as she had noted before, familiar. And he didn't look much older than herself, so she reasoned he was a Hogwarts student. Not a Slytherin probably, she would have at least seen him around the dungeons. Dammit. Perhaps she was less perceptive than she liked to think herself. And the smoke-screen-silence wasn't helping the apparent mental blockage. Finally, after what seemed like an age, the boy (who she was mentally referring to as 'smoke-ring weirdo'), broke the silence.

Although he assured that there was 'no joke', Tanith still couldn't be sure if he was being entirely serious in his observations about blowing smoke-ring Hippogriffs. If it wasn't joke, she was reasonably sure that it wasn't a snide remark, like the humour Slytherins preferred. And perhaps it was the injection of some long-overdue nicotine, or the good weather, but she found her lip twitching appreciatively at the observation, even managing a snort of laughter that was obscured by some decidedly shapeless smoke clouds. "Oh. Well no, blowing hippogriffs is not a talent of mine." She quirked a brow at the strangers own smoke-rings, unable to resist adding sarcastically. "Something you've never mastered either I gather" She nodded belatedly again towards his the shapeless smog surrounding smoke-ring-weirdo. And referring to him mentally by this new-nickname seemed to remind Tanith that she still didn't know who this was. Or maybe she did and her attentions were too focused on sweets and nicotine and just couldn't remember him.

Normally, given that the topic of conversation was a strange one, and she couldn't place the person she was having the conversation with, this would be Tan's cue to leave. At school, it would definitely be her course of action, instead finding another alcove to enjoy cigarette breaks alone. But again, perhaps the good weather had temporarily rendered her uncharacteristically cheerful. Well, relatively cheerful; enough to at least not to avoid social interactions like Dragon Flu. "I don't actually know who you are" Nethertheless, her blunt if awkward mannerisms remained. Quickly she corrected herself, realising this could be construed as rude. "I mean." The explanation didn't get anywhere from there, so instead she shrugged and tapped ash on the pavement again. "I'm Tanith."