Sneaking Off

@silence - Open

Silence was bored. Bored, bored, bored. They had done what they came to do and now her grandfather was sitting in the Leaky Cauldron - talking about herbs with some random bloke who Silence did not know. She had wiggled in her seat and sullenly sipped her pumpkin juice. She wanted to go back home now the fun part of the day was over. A part of her had hoped they would go looking at shops together - Silence was already eager to start buying things for Hogwarts despite the fact that she had not even recieved the letter yet. But apparantly it was not to be so.

"Silence, watch what you're doing," said her grandfather in an even - almost disinterested kind of way that suggested he often had to say that. "Huh?" Silence awoke from her school-supply daydream with a start and the glass of pumpkin juice - which she had already been absentmindedly pushing towards the table edge with her elbow, received a blow which caused the glass to tip over. Pumkin juice spilled onto the table and the glass rolled off it entirely and landed on the floor with a distinct crack. "Silence!" her grandfather admonished while he began clearing the spill with his wand and the other man dried his sleeve.

Silence remained.... Well... Silent. That was hardly her fault. "If you cannot sit properly," her grandfather began without any hint of actual annoyance before pausing and seemingly reconsidering something. "Alright dear, you may go outside if you like... But stay in the yard. I want to be able to find you again." Silence did not need to be told twice. She jumped up from her seat and hugged what was really just her grandfather's arm with a bright smile. It clearly did not surprise him and he simply smiled and waved her on her way. Of course Silence went straight out back where she knew the entrance to Diagon Alley was.  She touched the brick wall.

If only she could get through then she could go explore by herself. Yes, her grandfather had said to only be there in the yard but that was going to be pretty boring after a while. The wall felt so cold and yet somehow alive. Wait... It actually was moving. She stepped backwards with wide eyes and watched as a witch came through from the other side. There was not really any time to consider it and before Silence knew it she had slipped past the witch and into Diagon Alley. She knew exactly where she wanted to go. Determined, she set her cource for the Magical Menagerie. Silence had always wanted a pet but never been allowed one.

She pushed the doors open with a little difficulty and and stepped inside - instantly excited by the noise of the animals which were kept here. They could have pets at Hogwarts couldn't they? Maybe her guardian would let her if she kept it at school! Of course, Silence carried no money but that really did not stop her from looking around. She did not even really know what she wanted but just walked over to a corner where several cats purred, played and slept in their cages. "Hey, kitty!" she coo'd at a pretty white one throught the bars. "Do you want to play?" she said as she opened the lock on the cage. To her surprise the cat flew striaght out of the cage right at someone else behind her.

Animals were nice and all, but they were also pretty expensive. Or so Christine had found out ever since Catherine and Marianne had got a cat, and her daughters sent her regular requests for some sort of food or all sort of toys whose in her opinion could just as well be played by a ball of wool. But apparently her daughters’ cat needed the best of everything. The good thing was that she could buy the owl cakes here too and didn’t need to go to Eeylops. In addition, things in the Magical Menagerie were cheaper, not much but in the long run she did save a lot of money. It did increasingly annoy her that she couldn’t afford to keep enough owls herself for sending bills and ordering fabric. It meant that one of her employees had to run to the post about twice a day. But she didn’t want that many owls around. The one she used to send messages to her daughters was enough for her. She looked at the cakes on offer. They might be cheaper here, but there was also far less variety. But the owl wasn’t that picky. She took up a handful and moved to the counter. She counted out the Sickles and Knuts and thanked the woman at the counter. She had made her shopping for today, so she could get back to herself. She really didn’t like being away from there although she knew that she could trust her employees. But she didn’t feel comfortable away from her shop while they were opened. She was maybe a control freak, but she couldn’t and wouldn’t help it.

She was putting the cakes in her bag and not really looking around as she headed to the exit. So when something jumped at her, she gasped and threw her hands up, the cakes and toy mouse for the cat falling to the floor and the bag sliding down to her elbow. A moment later, she recognized what the white bundle that was thrashing around in her hands was. A cat. It was just a cat. Her breathing slowly calmed down and she put the cat closer the her chest. Her eyes wandered down and caught the sight of a little girl. She raised her eyebrows and freed one hand to move the bag to her shoulder before she gripped the cat with both hands again. “Back inside with you,” she said, forcing the wriggling cat back into its cage and closing the lock. Hands on her hips, she turned to the girl that she supposed had been playing with the lock. “Who allowed you to let the cat out?” She looked around the shop in search for anybody who looked as if they should be the responsible for the little girl in front of her. She certainly had never let her children run rampage — or she had at least done her best to keep them from doing so. But even the woman at the counter seemed to have left her position at the moment to go somewhere in the back of the shop. There was nobody else here. “Where have you left your parents, sweetheart?” Most likely the girl had run away, Marianne was exactly like that too with the exception that she was finally off to Hogwarts and less often going on her nerves. That meant that somewhere in Diagon Alley, parents were now searching for their little troublemaker. Some children could really do with a leash.