Stupid Wizards (Aldan and Nat)

It wasn't fair.

Nat kicked at a pile of gravel and tossed her dark brown hair. She still hadn't gotten her Hogwarts acceptance letter...how was it fair that her twenty-year-old sister got one but she hadn't?

Jealousy. That was it.

God, she thought angrily. If I see another wizard...

And then she bumped into someone. Who, incidentally, had a wand.

Dammit.

He'd once again snuck away from home and taken his dad's wand with him. Really now, you'd think they learned that he had the capability of leaving the manor and finding his way to Diagon Alley, and coincidentally the muggle world. It was how Alden learned about elektric stuff like those phellyphones.

He twirled the wand around merrily when he was bumped into, causing him to nearly drop the wand. He hastily stuffed it in his pocket and looked at the girl innocently.

"Sorry, my bad," he apologized, "Wasn't watching where I was standing, see?"

"ARGH!" Nat shrieked. "WIZARDS!" She kicked frustratedly at the stone wall besides her and glared at the boy, even though she knew that it wasn't his fault. "What're you, Gryffindor? Slytherin? That bunk? Stupid wizards!"

Then she felt bad. After all, she was overreacting. But she couldn't help it.

"And why're you playing with that wand?" she demanded. "If you curse me, you're gonna have it broken into tiny little bits."

"I'm not sorted yet," he said instantly, feeling a little defensive she was saying Wizards like his dad occasionally said the word mudblood around him. He rolled his eyes at her and wondered what had her panties in a knot.

"I wasn't playing with the wand," he said instantly, "I'm borrowing my dad's so that I can use it if I'm in trouble. See, smart. I wasn't going to curse you either. Why would I do that?"

Nat gave a pained smile, realizing that she sounded very very mean. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I'm a Muggle, y'see, and I've always wanted to go to Hogwarts...my sister was a witch. I'm Natasha Waterson. And you're...?"

"Aldan Chaos," he answered automatically, "though you can call me Danny. Hogwarts doesn't sound as fun as you think, so I wouldn't be too jealous. There's four houses and everyone is a bunch of prejudice idiots." He cocked his head to the side at her.

"So Natty, your sister. She's a muggleborn?"

Nat smiled at Aldan. "Danny. Alright then, I can remember that. But Hogwarts is...well...magic. Even if there are prejudiced idiots who'd love to call me Mudblood and other filthy names, I think I can deal with it for the pure sake of magic. To think! To have that..that power to create something that could otherwise not be able to been created..." She gave a bitter laugh, casting an eye over him. Messy, short dirty blonde hair, and...was that a scar on the side of his neck? For a guy, he was remarkably sexy.

She shook her head. Get those thoughts out of your head, she told herself sternly. "Yeah, I know the four houses. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. My sister was a Hufflepuff herself. Always got teased for being the muggleborn. I've been taught all the lingo but..." She shrugged. "No magic drop for me. And yeah, my sister's the muggleborn. She's twenty years old now, Ministry of Magic worker."

Nat gave him a slight grin. "So what're you? Half-blood, pure-blood, prejudiced idiot, muggleborn or what? Or a Squib, but if you were I doubt that you'd be carrying around a wand."

Aldan blinked. Well she certainly knew enough. So she was a muggle girl? Interesting... Maybe she could show him things about the muggle world. Having an eidetic memory didn't always help him out when he wanted to know new things about something.

"That power," he piped up, "isn't really what you think it is. Despite what you think, BattyNatty, wizards and witches can still get hurt and die, and everything else. Plus with magic a lot of folks become lazier." He shrugged carelessly.

"I'm a pureblood, every drop in me is magic," he said with a small proud smile. He may not desire to be everything his parents wanted that they couldn't with their first borns, but he did like being pure.

Nat had to give a smile. "Wizards and Muggles should trade places for a day," she said. "And I'm muggle, full muggle. Well, I have some Irish blood, so I'm not fully English...but I'm full Muggle." She suddenly gave a smile. "So, what would happen if someone had a half-blood as one parent, a pure-blood as another parent?"

Nat raised an eyebrow. "BattyNatty? Now where the heck did that come from, Danny-boy?"

Despite not even knowing him that much, Nat felt comfortable around him. "And well...yeah, of course they would become lazier....what a waste of power. And life's not life without death, eh?"

She smiled, suddenly. "So, being a wizard, do you have a telly? Or-or-a lightbulb?" Nat laughed. "I wonder what would happen if all the magic in the world disappeared."

"Nothing. They get called a halfblood still," he answered with a juvenile shrug and he started to walk along the pavement, glancing every now and then at something that would catch his eye. He knew the girl would follow, who wouldn't?

"Came up with it from your name, Nat," he answered her easily. "I like nicknames and that one struck my fancy. You're stuck with it, now." He didn't feel at all bothered with being called Danny-boy. No one had ever called him that, but it did feel like a cool name to be called. Maybe it was a muggle nickname?

"Of course," he agreed. "Life is also life without power. I personally don't see why you're so interested in the shite. But whatever helps you sleep at night I guess."

He turned to her, eyebrows raised. "In the Wizarding world, elektricaty isn't needed, we have magic for that. Plus we don't use tellies and litbalbs." He knew the words she said, knew what they did, and how to pronounce them. His only problem was that he himself couldn't pronounce the words right and he prayed she didn't notice.

"All the magic disappearing? We'd be muggles. I probably wouldn't have existed." he told her.

"Really?" Nat frowned. "Still a half-blood? How..unoriginal." She started to follow him as he walked away, a slight smile on her face. She didn't know why she followed him...was it because he was just too fun to talk to?

Possibly.

Probably.

Maybe.

Arrgh!

"I'm not that Batty," she countered. "You just...you just caught me at a bad time. And...um...no, I don't really get the whole "life is life without power" because .... what?"

Nat giggled, turning red. "Litbalbs? D-do you mean lightbulbs?" She laughed out loud, and then choked the laugh down. "Sorry. Forgot that you're a pureblood. You should take Muggle Studies in Hogwarts. And, well, electricity is cool! And Barbies are fun to play with if you're a kid...c'mon, what kind of fairy tales do you tell wizards when they're young?"

"And I didn't mean that the magic disappeared from all history...like, what if you suddenly, inexplicably couldn't use magic?"

Nat picked up her pace so that she was walking besides him now. She could see from the corner of her eye his profile; he was looking straight ahead. "And your family...what're they like?"

She was being nosy and Nat liked it.

"Yeah, still a halfblood," he confirmed absently as he spotted a museum. What sort was it? Interest piqued, he started for the door and then stopped as he heard her words. He gave her an indignant look and scowled.

"That's what I said, litbalbs." he argued and he sighed when he realized he couldn't say the darn word right. Damnit. "I don't need Muggle Studies, I know more than they do probably about muggles. I just can't ever pronounce words correctly, like the phellyphone. My dad pronounced the words to me when I was little and ever since then, I've rather gotten stuck on changing how I say them." He paused an raised an eyebrow, "What the hell are Barbies? If they're a destructive bomb or something I'd play with it, but I can't see a kid playing with them." He had never heard of the term Barbie. He wondered what they did if they were a kid's item.

"My family wouldn't notice if I fell off a cliff, unless it was announced in the papers," Aldan told her as he continued to think of these Barbie things. He blinked and realized he hadn't answered her other questions.

"I meant if we lost our magic, I don't think my parents would have met. Part of my raising up involved my parents meeting through pureblood parties I think. So magic has a big influence even if it isn't used. Also life can be life without power, I just don't feel like explaining these things to someone else." He turned and started to head inside the museum.

Nat looked at the museum sign as Danny walked in, and, with a sigh, followed him. "Well, you said telly right," she said. "And you said phone right. All you have to do is combine the two to make tellyphone, or telephone." She gave a smile as he tried and failed to pronounce 'lightbulbs' again.

"Barbies are like, plastic dolls," Nat said, using her hands expressively as they walked into the museum. A blast of cool air assaulted her, and she shivered slightly, wishing she'd worn a long-sleeved shirt. "They look like girls...when i was little I had tons of barbies. Cut their hair and popped off their heads; I was a real tormentor."

Nat frowned as he told her that his family wouldn't notice if he fell off a cliff. "I'm sure they would," she said falteringly. "I mean, they're your parents. They wouldn't have, erm, conceived you if they didn't like you." She half-reached out to pat him on the back, and her hand hung there awkwardly in the air before she pulled it back.

Nat dropped the subject about the whole life-is-life bit, but couldn't resist saying, "You said someone else. Who else have you explained the life bit to?"

Something occurred to her and she blurted out, "You aren't gay, are you?"

Turning bright red, she clapped her hand over her mouth. "I-I-I'm so sorry! I totally didn't mean it that way. Because..." she searched for a good word to express what she was trying to say. "It's like...all the good-looking guys are gay."

Then she realized that she only made it worse and turned even darker red. "I'm just going to quit while I'm ahead, yeah." To hide her embarrassment, she turned and looked around at the museum. A classic museum, with a huge statue of Teddy Roosevelt pointing at them with a phony cardboard sign clutched in one hand. It read, "HISTORY can be COOL to YOU!"

She snuck a look at Aldan, just to see what his expression was.

Aldan wrinkled his nose at the description of those plastic dolls and he vowed never to think of them again. He hated dolls, a neighbor had tried to get him to play with hers once and he never again wanted to repeat the experience. He did store the information, and pronunciation of muggle terms, in the back of his head to later think about.

"My parents really wouldn't notice. I'm here in the muggleworld and they have no idea," he informed her triumphantly, rather proud he could do so but at the same time, annoyed by his parents always forgetting their youngest son.

"Well I've explained a handful of theories to other people I've met and it's all ended with them the equivalent of a deer in the headlights," he said with a frown and he turned to look at a cool looking sculpture when he stopped dead and turned to her with a surprised look. She did not just...

"You think I'm gay?" he spluttered indignantly. What the hell? Aldan was very much straight, he even found those muggle bikini-clad girl magazines and kept them hidden in his room to look at all the time. He knew he was definitely into girls and not blokes, so to be called gay all of a sudden was certainly surprising.

He listened to her explanation and raised both eyebrows even more in surprise. Oh, so she thought he was good looking? He wouldn't argue with that one, even though she seemed to think he was gay because of it.

"I'm not gay," he told her immediately. "I'm perfectly into girls and I'm not taken. I'm only 10, about to turn 11. I don't see why I should start dating chicks right away. That's your hypothesis, not conclusion Batty, so I wouldn't say things without thinking if I were you." He tried not to sound threatening, but getting called gay for looking good didn't sound much like a compliment to him.

He felt sour as he looked at the paintings now.

Nat couldn't help it, she started laughing at one look at his bewildered/mad face. "Sorry," she sputtered out. "Sorry. OKay, so you're not gay. You're straight. I'm straight. And you're a wizard. That's still not fair at all."

Suddenly, something occurred to her.

"You don't smile, you know that?" she said, staring at the statue that Aldan was currently inspecting. "You never do. I haven't seen you smile once. Or laugh. Damnit, man, do you ever smile?"

She gave him a criticizing glance. "I've decided! It's going to be my mission to make you smile. Ha-ha-ha!"

When his lips didn't even twitch, she scowled. "Fine. I'm going to go give you a tour of this 'Muggle Place' right after you finish looking at this museum. No more leading me around, ta-ta!"

Nat waved her hand in front of his face. "Kapish?"

Aldan rolled his eyes at her words and was about to return to his musings when she pointed out he didn't smile or laugh. He did, he'd smiled for the woman who'd joined him in his hobo searching, but it was true he didn't do much of either unless he was pranking someone or with a good friend.

Upon hearing her question, he toyed with her and shook his head, a blank face now appearing. At least his parents did teach him that part. When she declared her "mission" he decided she was definitely insane and deserved to be called Batty.

"Right," he said slowly, wondering what she was planning to show him when he finished his look. He shrugged and grabbed a pamphlet, glancing at the rather book-looking pamphlet with ease, his eyes quickly skimming the entire thing and he looked up a few minutes later.

"Done," he told her, putting the thing down now that it was stored away in his head. The fun of having a photographic memory... Though he often hated learning, he liked to learn about muggles.

"Done?"

Nat stared at him, open-mouth. "How can you be- Ugh, never mind. Guess where we're going?" BEfore he could respond, she said, "To the park!"

Yes, the park.

"The park is amazing," Nat said. "And since you're a wizard and everything, we are going on an ENTIRELY mundane tour. No magic, whatsoever. No Ministry, nothing." She jiggled her money bag in front of his face, it clinked. "And we're eating mundane food."

She grinned. This was going to be fun.

Aldan opened his mouth to possibly insult or critize how someone can't finish, but she quickly recovered it seemed and ordered him to the park. He rolled his eyes at her enthusiasm, but followed her nonetheless. He had the day to himself before his parents got home and finally realized he hadn't been there with them --again.

"Joy," he said sarcastically at her words. "An entirely mundane tour? I find myself lacking interest all of a sudden. Perhaps I should hex a cricket into a swan and watch him create havoc on the town?" He didn't admit he was tempted to do so. He realized that she must not know the term muggle.

"You do realize mundane and muggle are two entirely different terms, right? Muggle is a nonmagical folk, like you. Mundane is the term ordinary. What's ordinary to you is unusual to me." he corrected her.

"You don't have to sound all snippy about it," Natasha replied casually, and the frowned. "Yes, I know that mundane and muglosh or whatever..." she turned a bit red and looked away. "Muggla? Urgh! You wizards and your stupid fancy terms!" Her voice dropped suddenly so that the people around them couldn't hear the word 'wizard'.

"So, Danny," continued Nat. "What is 'normal' for you? For me, normal is sitting around and reading a book, going out and running around with my friends. Normal is getting grounded, etcetera." She shoved her hands into her pocket. "For you...I can't fathom how normal would be." She shrugged. "I'm sorry. My sister rarely talked about Hogwarts and other stuff, only the basics."

Nat coughed, waiting for his reply.