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Post by draco on Feb 4, 2011 11:55:29 GMT -5
Draco sat down opposite Blaise, without even bothering to wipe off the seat. He had house elves at home that would clean his suit the minute he took it off at night and it would be back in his closet before he woke up the next morning. He took his butterbeer from the waiter and drank a few sips before speaking up in response to what Blaise had mentioned about the lack of customers. "They're all probably too scared to leave their houses" he scoffed, pulling the paper towards him lazily.
The front page spoke about an apparent "gas explosion" in several muggle neighborhoods that had police stumped and even a few prominent wizards had been killed this past week. Draco gestured to the page to prove his point. "I'd be surprised to see anyone of anything less than pureblood out wandering the streets these days. As it should be." This last part was an afterthought.
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Post by Shalie Matsuoka on Feb 4, 2011 12:17:41 GMT -5
As if on cue, two people entered the Leaky Cauldron just then. Shalie, still walking somewhat in a daze, was a sharp contrast to the man with her. He was tall with greying hair and bright blue eyes, still quite youthful for being a grandfather. He smiled at the people in there. “Shalie, perhaps you should have a little something,” [/color] he said, not giving her a chance to answer before getting her a butterbeer. Apparently my characters are control freaks today. Blaise watched the two come in. At first sight, he didn't recognize the girl. It had been quite some time since their hatred had boiled over and he typically ignored her. But it didn't take long for it to register. “Well, then, prepare to be surprised.”[/color] She was a half-blood so not as bad as a muggleborn or a blood traitor. Still, brave to be wandering around like that. He thought with some annoyance it must mean that she was going to be attending Hogwarts this year. Shalie looked at her drink when it came, not looking around at the other customers. She felt further away than ever from her father, but not her father's death. It was an unfortunate side-effect that came along with a muggle parent being killed by magical extremists. She heard Blaise's voice, though, and looked over at last. Her stomach did a little unpleasant dive. Why was it she seemed to run into Slytherins so often? And one of them was Draco, who was the friend of the boy whose father killed hers. Terrific. She wondered what they were doing in a place like this anyway.[/blockquote]
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Post by draco on Feb 4, 2011 12:30:45 GMT -5
Draco, at first, didn't understand what in the blazes Blaise was going on about but he followed the other boy's gaze and it landed on a girl about their age and an old man as they entered the leaky cauldron. The old man bought his granddaughter (or else his very young girlfriend) a drink, seeming not to notice or pay attention to anyone else in the pub but the girl herself had noticed them. Draco lifted an eyebrow challengingly at her as if to say "do you have a problem?" Her facial expression indicated that she did. Have a problem, that is.
Then he turned back to his companion with a disgusted look. "Pathetic. What are they even doing here?"
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Post by Blaise Zabini on Feb 4, 2011 13:16:37 GMT -5
Blaise was pleased by Draco's reaction. He loved when his friends shared in his disgust of others. “I imagine that she's getting her school things,” [/color] he said, not completely sure if Draco even knew who the girl was. It didn't matter that much. When he looked more at the company she was keeping, he was fairly certain that he recognized the old man. But he couldn't place where that was from. It didn't matter though. Blaise saw countless nobodies in a day and didn't care to catalog them. Shalie watched as her grandfather got into conversation with a witch he seemed to know. She drank her butterbeer down a little bit before bravely deciding to speak with the Slytherin boys. She was at the somewhat hardy point in grieving, where she didn't particularly care what happened at the moment. She wasn't going to start anything but was sure they would once they realized that a non-Slytherin pureblood was talking to them. That or they would ignore her. “This seems an odd place for people like you to be,”[/color] she observed. [/blockquote]
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Post by draco on Feb 4, 2011 13:27:39 GMT -5
Blaise had barely responded to his question about the girl when she was heading their way. He drained the last of his butterbeer and rolled his eyes before looking back up at her calmly. "That depends on what you think people like us are." He regarded her skeptically. "I might say the same for you. An even odder place for you to be than us actually. Didn't your parents ever teach you about the dangers of wandering around alone in these times?" He cast a glance past her at the old man still talking to some random witch. His expression clearly stated that he doubted her companion was much protection.
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Post by Shalie Matsuoka on Feb 4, 2011 14:08:36 GMT -5
Shalie glanced back at her grandfather, then looked back at Draco. She wasn't about to tell him that her grandfather was a squib, if he didn't already know, and prove his point further. She was still thinking it was amusing to refer to Draco as someone who was a pureblood might refer to someone else. You know 'people like them'. “'These times'... Oh, you mean because there are Death Eaters running around killing people? No,” [/color] Shalie said rather honestly, because her father had only started noticing things that were going on in the wizarding world shortly before he died. And her mother hadn't been around either to teach her anything. “Are you seventeen and still thinking that you need to follow your parents' every order? I meant that I thought you would be somewhere more high class. But I guess that every leash must end somewhere.”[/color] Blaise was confused by the way that Shalie was acting. Not only was she seeming to refuse to talk to him directly (which was one of the fun parts of fighting with someone), she wasn't being entirely unpleasant. Maybe she didn't want to make a scene in front of her father or grandfather or uncle or whatever he was. He leaned back in his chair and observed the situation. Hopefully she would end up getting thrown out of here by starting something. At this rate, though, to make things interesting it seemed that they were going to have to be the ones to retort first. [/blockquote]
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Post by draco on Feb 4, 2011 14:27:33 GMT -5
When she spoke of death eaters running around killing everyone, Draco's left hand automatically began flexing and unflexing. He wasn't really even aware he was doing it, despite the slight burn on his forearm as his closed fist stretched the skin around the brand. Being the newest death eater, he had a while to go before the dark mark was so engrained in his skin that he barely noticed or recognized it anymore.
He lifted an eyebrow coldly when she implied that he still had to follow his parents' orders at seventeen years of age. He glanced once to Blaise but the other slytherin boy seemed content to just sit there and watch. How helpful. Not liking the fact that he had to look up to see her, he scraped back his chair and got to his feet as well. "Firstly, I do not follow my parents' every order." His tone was indifferent. He could have added that his parents rarely gave orders anymore but just sort of stayed holed up in their room like he himself had been doing all summer but that would have been rather stupid to admit out loud. Instead he continued with, "And secondly, maybe you should worry about your own leash. You seem to have wandered quite a good deal away from your squib grandfather." Draco had no idea that the man was actually a squib, he just felt like tossing that out as an insult.
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Post by Shalie Matsuoka on Feb 4, 2011 14:47:40 GMT -5
Shalie shook her head then looked up at him. She hadn't actually meant that as an insult, had meant more that there was no reason to bring out the parent comments with someone who was of age. Actually Shalie knew that it was more likely that Shalie was older than either of them, because it was less likely that they were born in September. All that aside she didn't actually feel that confrontational at the moment. “Alright, I'm sorry.” [/color]She was startled indeed when he referred to her grandfather as a squib, but she tried her best not to show it. “I'm not on a leash with him.”[/color] She ignored them for a second, seeing the Daily Prophet. She hadn't read a wizard newspaper in quite a while, actually. “Can I borrow that?”[/color] Blaise looked at Shalie like she was an idiot. “What are you going to give us for it?” he asked with a smirk. Apparently the time to be quiet was over, though it wasn't much. [/blockquote]
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Post by draco on Feb 4, 2011 14:50:15 GMT -5
Had Draco been sitting, he would have fallen out of his chair. First, the girl appologized, which was nice and something she should do but he hadn't expected it, and then she didn't actually deny the squib jab so that meant he actually was a squib. A delighted smirk settled onto Draco's face as he watched Shalie and Blaise exchange words for the first time since she had wandered their way.
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Post by Shalie Matsuoka on Feb 4, 2011 15:12:14 GMT -5
Shalie thought that Blaise's reaction was terribly immature, something that would come from a child. Maybe the parents babysitting wasn't such a bad idea, or far from the realm of possibility. She shook her head. “I don't know. What do you want?” [/color] Blaise was again annoyed by the unpredictability. “What? Well... Another round of butterbeer to start,”[/color] he said, because he didn't want to be caught thinking too hard about it. He glanced down, noticed he still had some butterbeer, and drank it down. Shalie rolled her eyes and ordered them some more butterbeer. It was starting to feel better being away from her house, actually, even if it was around people like them. “Now can I look at that?”[/color] she asked Draco, because it was closer to where he was sitting before she came over. [/blockquote]
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Post by draco on Feb 4, 2011 15:19:36 GMT -5
Draco gave Blaise a "really? that's the best you could come up with?" look before lazily tossing the paper at Shalie. He had no use for it any more; nothing in it was new or terribly exciting. Just another day's work for the death eaters in the new world regime. "Sure, knock yourself out." He took the new mug of butterbeer from the passing waiter and drank about half of it in one gulp for something to do.
He turned back towards Blaise, his need for knowing things that others didn't and then spreading them around to make himself feel important taking over. "So Professor Snape came to my house the other week and told me something pretty interesting about the staffing changes at Hogwarts this year." Although his main focus was on Blaise, his eyes flickered to Shalie for the briefest of seconds to see how she would react.
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Post by Shalie Matsuoka on Feb 4, 2011 15:39:29 GMT -5
Shalie smirked very slightly at the look at Draco gave Blaise, but having been given permission to look at the paper she took it and started to scan through the pages. “Thanks.” [/color] There wasn't a lot going on with people that she knew but that was actually a good thing. She had wanted to know what was going on in this world but also had hoped that it wouldn't be that much. It seemed quite unlikely that anything particularly good would have happened. Blaise thought it was creepy to have a professor in your house, even if it was Snape. He raised his eyebrows a little bit. “Staffing changes? Well of course they would change the staff. We've been waiting years for a replacement for some of those inept 'professors'.”[/color] He hoped that Professor McGonagall was one of the teachers that were going to be taken from their post. Of course, they needed a new Headmaster. At this point Blaise didn't know about that part. Meanwhile, Shalie was busy reading through the articles and not listening initially. At hearing something about Snape and staffing she remembered her conversation with Harry about Headmasters and decided to listen in – with the paper shielding most of her face to hide the interest. [/blockquote]
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Post by draco on Feb 4, 2011 15:45:41 GMT -5
"Of course" Draco drawled in agreement about the "inept" professors. "Personally I don't know how some of them were ever hired in the first place. But anyways" he went on importantly. "Professor Snape said that two new teachers were going to be brought in and that some of the classes that used to be optional are now mandatory. He also said that a few of the classes' names were to be changed around a bit." This was all the information that Draco knew to be one hundred percent true. But from late night conferences between the dark lord and snape and then shouting matches between snape and his aunt, he had gathered that Professor Snape was to now be called Headmaster Snape, but he decided to keep that part out for now and use it as a dramatic ending once he had everyone's rapt attention. Not just Shalie and Blaise but everyone in the pub as others were beginning to show interest in what he was saying as well. No doubt they had kids who would be attending Hogwarts and they wanted to know what to expect.
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Post by Shalie Matsuoka on Feb 4, 2011 15:54:27 GMT -5
Shalie was very uncomfortable with what Draco was saying about the school. She didn't want to think about it. Still, her curiosity got the best of her and she addressed him anyway. “Making some optional classes mandatory? I'm assuming also that they're dropping classes that they think are worthless or a threat to them?” [/color] she asked somewhat quietly. She knew that there were a lot of people listening in. And her grandfather was probably one of them. She didn't want him to think that she was trying to start trouble because she really was curious. “Do you know who the Headmaster is going to be?”[/color] she added. Blaise wanted to know the answers to the questions that Shalie asked but still gave her an evil look for having the nerve to ask. Didn't she know that she should have shut up and enjoyed that paper she wanted so badly? He took a drink, set it down loudly, and cleared his throat. “I don't think that people like you should be attending anyway, Matsuoka.”[/color] Since there weren't that many purebloods around like he and Malfoy, they were probably going to let half-bloods in. He didn't want her there though. [/blockquote]
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Post by draco on Feb 7, 2011 4:01:47 GMT -5
Draco was inwardly thrilled that she asked but made no sign of that on his face which held the same contempted look as Blaise, wondering why she had the nerve to interrupt an important, pure-blooded conversation. He paused dramatically and then went about answering all but her last question, as though he had forgotten it. "I suppose they will be, yes. Like that oaf's class, I suspect. I never understood why we needed to take it in the first place. Talk about inept professors." He snorted.
He turned back to Blaise, pretending not to notice how many of the pub's inhabitants were staring at him now. "I agree with you Blaise. With all the filthy mudbloods in hiding, it will be the half-bloods who get picked on in classes instead. Why she would want that is beyond me. I thought Ravenclaws were supposed to be the bright ones." He rolled his eyes.
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