Post by Amos Patroclus Diggory on Feb 9, 2012 0:27:12 GMT 1
Honestly. The way the women looked at him in here, Amos was beginning to think they’d never seen a man shopping before. Well, that or they’d never seen a man shopping for baby clothes before. Or that he looked particularly ridiculous in his attempt to do just that.
Admittedly, it didn’t look very manly. If any of his old friends saw him in here Amos would certainly go as red as … well, as red as these odd booty things he was currently holding in his hands – possibly baby shoes? (They had little red dragons emblazoned on them, charmed to occasionally ‘breathe fire’ embroidered in golden thread, which perhaps made it a little more manly). Certainly, shopping for baby clothes for an impending first arrival seemed to be a mother’s job, but Amos couldn’t resist just nipping in to have a look around when he saw the infant-sized Quidditch shirt in the window, just to see if they had a Wimbourne Wasps one like it, to surprise Nessa with (though really, it was his own indulgence, one of the few gooey excited ‘ickly baby’ moments he’d been having lately amid his usual first parent nerves).
Amos had thought he’d be able to fit in and look around unnoticed, but first there was the amused and overly helpful shop assistant who seemed to grin so widely at the presence of the “Proud Father” in the corner – as she insisted on referring to him as – that he became uncharacteristically embarrassed and stumbled over his words until he could fob her off. Then there was the mother and daughter near the baby bottles who kept glancing over their shoulders at him and giggling. In fact, if it mightn’t have dented his pride so much, Amos would have gone back on the idea of surprising Nessa and their expected Wimbourne-Wasps lifetime fan and quickly scuttled out of the shop and cut his lunch hour short to head back to the Ministry.
But having already embarrassed himself, Amos straightened his back and decided to stay, ignore the gossiping mother-daughter couple and the giggling shop assistants and browse in a cool disinterested way instead. Hence his current examination of the red dragon… booties. They were really more for a boy perhaps, he thought to himself, turning them over in his hands and trying not to feel daunted by how tiny they looked (surely their child, when it arrived would be less terrifyingly small?). Although girls could like dragons too, maybe. Amos was fairly certain that he was anticipating the arrival of a son, even though it hadn’t been confirmed either way. Though he told Nessa he would be happy girl or boy, so long as it was healthy, and he did mean it, nonetheless he harboured secret daydreams of long afternoon spent watching Quidditch matches with his little boy, as his own father had done with him.
To the matter currently at hand though. Having decided that the booties were too lurid and overpriced, Amos set them back down carelessly (chuffed to have evoked a derisive sniff from the shop assistant at that) and moved instead to look at blankets, one of which was in the Wimbourne Wasps colours of yellow and black. He was much happier browsing here, at least the blankets weren’t alarmingly small – and, kneeling down in the middle of the aisle, he began to sift through the different colours in earnest, getting in the way of mothers and other shoppers alike in his concentration.
Admittedly, it didn’t look very manly. If any of his old friends saw him in here Amos would certainly go as red as … well, as red as these odd booty things he was currently holding in his hands – possibly baby shoes? (They had little red dragons emblazoned on them, charmed to occasionally ‘breathe fire’ embroidered in golden thread, which perhaps made it a little more manly). Certainly, shopping for baby clothes for an impending first arrival seemed to be a mother’s job, but Amos couldn’t resist just nipping in to have a look around when he saw the infant-sized Quidditch shirt in the window, just to see if they had a Wimbourne Wasps one like it, to surprise Nessa with (though really, it was his own indulgence, one of the few gooey excited ‘ickly baby’ moments he’d been having lately amid his usual first parent nerves).
Amos had thought he’d be able to fit in and look around unnoticed, but first there was the amused and overly helpful shop assistant who seemed to grin so widely at the presence of the “Proud Father” in the corner – as she insisted on referring to him as – that he became uncharacteristically embarrassed and stumbled over his words until he could fob her off. Then there was the mother and daughter near the baby bottles who kept glancing over their shoulders at him and giggling. In fact, if it mightn’t have dented his pride so much, Amos would have gone back on the idea of surprising Nessa and their expected Wimbourne-Wasps lifetime fan and quickly scuttled out of the shop and cut his lunch hour short to head back to the Ministry.
But having already embarrassed himself, Amos straightened his back and decided to stay, ignore the gossiping mother-daughter couple and the giggling shop assistants and browse in a cool disinterested way instead. Hence his current examination of the red dragon… booties. They were really more for a boy perhaps, he thought to himself, turning them over in his hands and trying not to feel daunted by how tiny they looked (surely their child, when it arrived would be less terrifyingly small?). Although girls could like dragons too, maybe. Amos was fairly certain that he was anticipating the arrival of a son, even though it hadn’t been confirmed either way. Though he told Nessa he would be happy girl or boy, so long as it was healthy, and he did mean it, nonetheless he harboured secret daydreams of long afternoon spent watching Quidditch matches with his little boy, as his own father had done with him.
To the matter currently at hand though. Having decided that the booties were too lurid and overpriced, Amos set them back down carelessly (chuffed to have evoked a derisive sniff from the shop assistant at that) and moved instead to look at blankets, one of which was in the Wimbourne Wasps colours of yellow and black. He was much happier browsing here, at least the blankets weren’t alarmingly small – and, kneeling down in the middle of the aisle, he began to sift through the different colours in earnest, getting in the way of mothers and other shoppers alike in his concentration.
