A Shopper's Delight[open]

[claudia]

A day off in the life of an Auror these days was something to be treasured and that was something that Claudia was all to willing to do. She was exhausted, but she would not allow the day to pass by idly. Every moment of her day, almost right down to the last second was planned on how she was going to spend the day and most of that time was allocated to shopping. Dressed in a warm, beige figure hugging, turtle neck and long black pants, with a black pair of ankle high boots and finished off with a black wizard robe; Claudia grabbed her keys from the side table by her front door, careful to lock the door behind her she disapparated from her doorstep and appeared on the cobble street of Diagon Alley.

Looking up toward the sky, she noted the darkness that seemed to be descending. It was obvious that there was a storm coming, but Claudia wasn’t at all concerned. The particular robe that she was wearing was charmed to prevent her from getting drenched and getting what it had been charmed to consider was too cold. Claudia didn’t want to think about anything related to anything that had the world on edge. She didn’t want to think about the whole Auror business and Death Eater business. She didn’t want to think about the foul world that she had gotten her brother involved in. Claudia wanted to merely relax. This was her day off and bloody hell she was going to have a day off. A day off from everything. Everything that made her mind go round and round and round in circles with no end in sight and tired her to no end. Today she was going to be free.

Pulling a sterling silver cigarette holder from the inside pocket of her robe she pressed open its latch with one hand and with two of her dainty fingers helped herself to one cigarette and with two quick movements closed the holder and placed it in the pocket once more. Then she pulled her wand from the holder on her pants, as she placed the cigarette in her mouth and lit it with the tip of her wand and a simple silent charm before she returned the wand back to safety in its holder. She inhaled a long breadth of the cigarette before she took the cigarette from her lightly glossed lips and blew a long line of smoke in front of her before she started moving forward along the cobble street.

It wasn’t long before Claudia stopped in front of the Apothecary. She was out of a few much needed items. Her stock was down on bezour, boomslang parts, black beetle parts, ginger, horn slugs and quite a few other ingredients. Enough so that she had ensured that her first stop off on her shopping trip would be at the Apothecary’s. Taking a few more inhalations of her cigarette and blowing out a few rings of smoke, Claudia dropped the half used cigarette to the floor, killing it with the tip of her boot, before she stepped forth into the little shop. When the smell of all the ingredients met her nose, instinctively she felt like pulling up her nose in disgust, but she held back the need to revolt against the odd smell and merely made her way over to where the runespoor eggs where being kept, mindful to great the store clerk on her way.

[kath]

Currently Astoria basically lurked around a near silent office with movement that seemed nearly systematic, almost unreal and nearly otherworldly, as if the staff were vampires understanding the motions of the human nature but even then the world seemed to slow. Still checking the notice board for any cases, the only ones they seemed to get anymore weren't really her usual department. Although she currently searched for a chance to obtain a jewel she currently had no interest in infiltrating the department of international cooperation. Or maybe she did and just started to lose interest in the assignment, maybe even that she was visiting her family this person that Astoria was tracking was visiting family. That was something that Astoria just honestly didn't want to see or have anything to do with seeing someone in possession of something she didn't have. After she was married to such a powerful man Astoria had enjoyed some pleasures in life that she never even got a chance at as a child. The ability to have pets was one she quite enjoyed, and then later the thing called the family came along. She honestly didn't understand how to react to children and often found herself interrogating her husband about the strange little pink things they were caring for. This pale smile started to part across her face as she avoided a gathering of water on the cobblestone path.

Since her children left the house she felt as if she walked in some sort of fog around her mind, making it extremely difficult to feel motivated. Her educated side told her she had some form of depression even if the irrational human nature wanted to stab any thinking that made sense in the back. For some reason she felt as if she deserved to feel miserable, something that she pondered while she ambled down Diagon Alley. Shaking her head for a moment when she nearly thought to turn into Knockturn alley, silently telling herself of for not thinking clearly. After all, she, Astoria Helena Malfoy was the wife of a death eater the least she could do was ensure a full head of alertness. The last thing she needed was to be put up for ransom with an already scattered husband. Neither of them had been the same since the blasted order twisted the minds of their children, tearing them from a family that Astoria and Draco so desperately tried to have. Sighing once she peered down her wrist watch, it was going to be hours until she needed to board that plane. Even then this still meant that she needed something to keep her occupied, which meant considerable effort not to dwell on certain issues that she frankly didn't want to think about.

Astoria soon thought to actually pay attention to her surroundings mainly because she nearly passed her the Apothecary, turning on her one in a half inch heels she continued into the store. Beginning to glance around once she entered into the store to place the owner she greeted with a warm smile. Moving with a certain way about her she could hardly believe she nearly forgot to get ingredients for the polyjuice potion, although this didn't mean she bought all in one location. At the end of the week she would have bought them all by then, which would hopefully make asking Draco just a little easier, considering there wouldn't be much work. Browsing over the selections she soon sighed, usually she picked whatever ingredients looked nicest in each shop until she had them all but it looked like a few weren't in and leaving only old stock on the shelf. Reaching up for a moment to check the state of one particular boxed brand she ended up stumbling backwards into what she thought was someone else. Still when she turned she realized that there was and apologized, "My deepest apologies." With a British tongue considering she looked as she usually would in the country she and her husband were currently situated. She had to be careful though, one usually wouldn't trust her if her accent sounded any different she tried to recall which Queen said that. To never trust one who changes their accent so readily, was it Victoria? Astoria found herself lost in her thoughts without warning trying her best to get back, which she did right away.
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Click me for the Outfit

[claudia]

Having just had a cigarette one would think that it would at least be an hour or so later before Claudia would crave another, but the blasted muggle addiction was not something that she found herself capable of going without very long and was already considering leaving the store again to take another one from her case and have a pull from the little slim, white, nicotine devil. It was a struggle for her not to walk out of the Apothecary shop she had just walked into, but Claudia didn’t allow herself to fall slave to her addiction though for the most part of any other day one could consider her exactly that. Instead she took a step toward the cabinet that held the more uncommon items on her list of things she required from the Apothecary.

As she made her way over to the cabinet to get her required items she found herself being bumped into, almost having herself knocked over, yet she was able to keep herself on solid ground with the use of her wand, having quickly removed it from its holster and muttering a spell to ensure she didn’t lose her footing. One thing about being an auror meant that you were always ready and had remarkable speed when it came to spells and charms and drawing your wand. Well at least Claudia considered most of her colleagues to be rather fast on their feet, though she had always been nifty when it came to wand-work.

Every fibre of her being wanted to turn around and hex the person behind her, but she knew that it could have easily been a mistake. Plus she was aware that she was feeling slightly nastier than her norm because of her longing for another cigarette that she was still fighting off. It was lucky too that she didn’t do what she felt like doing otherwise she would have found herself in a predicament, especially since the person who had made a bumbling fool of herself had made the apology straight after. Claudia turned to face the voice that seemed to speak in an almost practiced British accent, though Claudia couldn’t be all too sure. It was good enough to go for her real accent, and perhaps it was and Claudia was looking for something that wasn’t there.

She looked the woman before her over; she didn’t even bother hiding it and then smiled, while smirked. Claudia wasn’t very good with smiling, that was something her brother did. Her brother was the people person; Claudia preferred time to herself, solitude as it were. That was always the way she was and things only seemed to have gotten worse during the later years of her life. “No harm, no foul or so the saying goes.” She straightened herself up and then looked into the face of the woman before her, who seemed to look oddly familiar to her. Then she looked back down to the woman’s shoes that had caught her attention before, when she had given her the once over. “I am concerned that if heels of only that height give you a problem with keeping your footing then perhaps you should consider shoes with no heels at all.” Then she returned her gaze back to that of the woman’s face. “Not that you require the additional height.” She didn’t mean for it to come out as rude, but as she said it she knew it would sound as that. She was merely stating a few things on her mind.