Apathy and Urgency [Hadley]

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Xavier thanked the cashier before levitating the cursed book into the bag he’d brought with him and closing it. Knockturn Alley had always been known as the place to go for items of a darker nature, manned by the most unsavory people. He’d been coming to the dark alley for weeks now looking for the perfect item to test a few of his new spells on. The spells he’d come up with ran through a variety of types, detection, amplification, and even a spell that might be able to harness the magic that the cursed item held. When he’d found the perfect item, he’d had to dip into the saved money he had as well as ask his parents for money, begrudgingly, and with a bit of persuasion and lying, the item was now in his possession. Borgin and Burke’s carried all manner of antic items so he knew he’d find what he wanted in there. It was an cursed book on old magic that was said to have originally belonged to the Carrow family. He didn’t really care about that part, he just wanted to know what the curse that was on it was because the person behind the counter didn’t know. Nor did anyone they knew. He’d figure it out no problem. With a bit of testing and tweaking he would not only know why type of curse it was, he would be able to remove it and place it on something or someone else. Luckily enough it was the summer. He had plenty of time to play around with it. He put the bag on his shoulder, grabbing it by the strap to make sure that there was space between himself and the bag at all times. Just in case. With a final nod to the cashier, he walked out of the door of the shop only to narrowly miss being ran over by a passerby. "You might want to watch where you’re going" he said, furrowing his brow and narrowing his eyes. He figured people around here would at least know better.

Tag; @hadley

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Most people didn’t expect a Muggleborn to go traipsing into Knockturn Alley without a care in the world, but most people had not met Hallie Barbados. Hallie, in her search for another adventure, had abandoned her old haunt of Diagon Alley in favor of something a little more dangerous – and therefore a lot more fun. She was surprised to find that no one in the alley immediately attacked her or anything, though she also supposed that it wasn’t like she had the word ‘Muggleborn’ tattooed on her forehead. Everything was about attitude, as far as Hallie was concerned, and she had the right attitude to be in Knockturn Alley, though perhaps with a little too much bravado to really be healthy. Hallie wasn’t concerned with being safe or healthy, though. She was more interested in having fun.

Hallie was still just meandering, trying to find something worth doing, when she heard a voice sound from across the street – a boy not much older than her reprimanding someone who had almost knocked into him. It sounded like a fight waiting to happen, and Hallie crossed the street none too surreptitiously, moving so that she was as close to the pair of people that she could get without being creepy. It was definitely obvious that she was watching them, but she didn’t really care. Hallie was planning to intervene anyways, as soon as she could think of a zippy one-liner like all of the superheroes in comics did. “You might want to watch your mouth!” Hallie half-said, half-shouted as she stepped in between the redhead boy and his potential victim. Yup, that was the perfect way to start a fight. Hallie hoped she got to punch the look of disgust right off the boy’s face.

@xavier

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Xavier adjusted the bag on his shoulder that held the questionable book, it having been knocked slightly off kilter by his quick movement to avoid being knocked over. The passerby had turned to him after his call out though and seemingly gave an uncaring look, as if they figured he wouldn’t do anything or just didn’t care if he did. "Seriously, watch where you’re going or you might end up dead." And he meant that in more ways than one, whether that be by his own hand or by their stupidity. One wrong move and that cursed book could be in someone’s lap. His own lap. He wasn’t willing to die or be blamed for someone’s death because of their carelessness. The passerby seemed as if they were going to say something before someone stepped between the two of them. The passerby shared the same look of confused disbelief that he had on his face at the random interruption. The person, a girl, yelped out message of warning and Xavier’s eyebrows, wondering if the girl was serious and if she, too, had forgotten where she was. She didn’t look like any of the seedier patrons who frequented this part of the wizarding shopping district but then again, neither did he, in his opinion. The look of confidence on her face was what gave her away. She didn’t look like she had anything to hide. The passerby gave a smug look before slipping away, clearly leaving him to deal with the problem that had presented. "Are you stupid enough to intentionally draw this much attention to yourself in this area?" he asked with genuine curiosity before giving a look around to see if anyone was staring yet.

Tag; @hadley

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The redhead and the person he was talking to both looked shocked by her appearance, and Hallie rolled her eyes at them. Had they never heard of superheroes? Probably not. Most people who came to Knockturn Alley were more the supervillain type, which was why Hallie was there in the first place. The person who wasn’t red-haired slipped away, which Hallie didn’t mind. She’d rather not be outnumbered in a fight if it came to that, so having one less opponent was great for her. The first words out of the boy’s mouth weren’t a retort to her witty statement, like Hallie had hoped. Didn’t everyone know that you were supposed to have a snark battle before actually fighting? The boy wasn’t being snarky – he was just being mean, and that put Hallie in an even fouler mood. He asked if she was stupid since she was drawing attention to herself, and that was just rude. “I’m not the one who was making death threats to strangers.” Hallie said, the confident jut in her chin not fading even as she spoke. Death threats had to be weightier than just sarcastic snippets. “Didn’t your mother teach you that was rude?” Hallie asked. She was, on some level, curious as to some people got to Knockturn Alley, especially people like the boy – who was a boy, not even a full-grown wizard capable of making stupid decisions with a fully-developed frontal cortex. He wasn’t fighting crime like Hallie, which meant that he was creating crime, and that just wasn’t cool, not at their age.

@xavier

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No, the crowd didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the two of them. Yet. Then again ‘crowd’ wasn’t the correct word to use when it came to the occasional sprinkle of people that walked by. He’d turned back to her just as she mentioned something about a death threat. Death threat? His skin of his forehead crumpled one again. Death threats weren’t really his thing. If she was referring to what he’d just said earlier, she was mistaken. He wasn’t really in the business of making threats. Considering she was still talking to him with nothing but confidence and still at a volume that would catch attention, he could only conclude that, yes, she was stupid. He’d almost repeated his question to her, a bit more forcefully to get his point across, but he didn’t like repeating himself. The thought crossed his mind to just walk away then. He gave her a once over, eyes traveling from her head to about knee level before his nostrils flared. What were the chances of her trying to follow him if he attempted to walk away from her now? She hadn’t even turned around when the other person left, hadn’t even looked in their direction. He tried not to let his paranoia flair up but he had no control over it. Either she was actually, purely stupid and didn’t even know they were gone. Or she was here for him. Had she been following him? What did she want? Xavier inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly though his eyes didn’t move away from her. "And you’re here, why?" He knew that he’d bypassed any of the questions that she she’d asked but they were probably rhetorical anyway. There was no point in beating around the bush. If she was there for him he wanted to know why. Did someone know what he had planned? His hand gripped tighter around the bag for just a moment but he forced himself to look relaxed. His wand was gentle weight pressed up against his leg, easy enough to reach. He ran through his mental inventory of experimental spells, thinking of things he could use to make a quick get away if he needed to. Maybe he’d been wrong before. Maybe he was wrong now. Either way, he was going to get out of there.

Tag; @hadley

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Apparently, this guy knew absolutely nothing about superheroes. If he had even a cursory knowledge of what happened when superheroes confronted criminals, then he would have known that Hallie was the superhero, and he was the criminal. Honestly, for all they claimed to be superior to Muggles, Hallie thought that wizards were, all in all, quite thick. The redhead also didn’t seem to know anything about manners whatsoever, because not only had he been making death threats, but he also continued to ignore Hallie’s various questions. Her plan was to cut off whatever he was going to say to tell him it didn’t matter, but then he didn’t say anything, which totally destroyed her vibe. Hallie wondered if she should even bother responding to his question, since he was being so rude. “Why do you think I’m here?” She asked after a moment, blinking up at the boy. He looked mildly uncomfortable, but she had no idea why. Hallie was still working on her intimidation factor, so she didn’t think she was good enough to make anyone quake in their boots – yet. Besides, maybe she would get some useful information from the boy’s answer.

@xavier

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She answered his question with one of her own, her face absent of any intelligence. She almost look innocent but he didn’t believe it. She wouldn’t have been there in Knockturn if she was that innocent. She meant her question as something that would make him give away his thoughts, which made him think even more so she was there for him. How long had she been trailing him? Had he really been that careless today? His fixation got the best of him again to the point of him not paying attention to his surroundings, it seemed, and now he had to pay the consequence. He kept the bag gripped tightly in one hand and slid the other casually into his pocket where his wand sat. "I don’t know," he shrugged his shoulders and adjusted the bag as he did so, "I’m not your caretaker. Nor am I a Legilimens so I can’t read your mind to find out." It was a skill he planned to learn, but he didn’t need to tell her that. And now wasn’t a good time to practice it either, lest he look like a fool if it didn’t work. Maybe now would be the time to start learning. After he finished experimenting with his new spell. He didn’t think to turn his back to her for even a moment; he didn’t want to give her a chance to attack him. So he just stared at her expectantly, waiting for her to do something. Walk away. Answer his question and then walk away. Attack him, which would be a mistake on her part. "So?"

Tag; @hadley