New Word

It was the proper thing for a girlfriend to do. Buy her boyfriend something for his birthday. It wasn't quite August yet, so she had time to send out her pleasantries ( Mostly potions things and the sorts, but she had a certain pair of women's garments stashed at the bottom for a joke.)

Her shopping almost done, she walked down the street proudly. Her classic white dress and heels were her normal attire, despite the fact she dressed a bit more fancy than the rest of the street.

Avoiding a puddle, he sidestepped and brushed against a boy abut her age. "Oh, sorry- Damian?" she blinked. No, this wasn't her Dame. It was a.... a...

"What are you?"

Dawson blinked down at the girl, eyeing her with curiousity. "What do you mean, what am I? Italian?" He asked with an easy smile. "I'm Zander. Zander Dawson." He was easily 5'11, but she was... around 5 foot. Admirably so. He could tell almost instantly that her personality was not fit to her height at all. He knew it as soon as he saw her. This girl would be powerful.

With a shrug, he looked away from her, brown eyes gleaming. "Sorry for not being whoever your looking for." He apologized sincerely.

Iva huffed at the man, tilting her head back to gaze at his face. The aspects of Damian were there- blue eyes, eyebrows, those funny little creases when he smile- but the way he moved and spoke was anything but her love. She looked at this Zander with disgust, her small body incapible of showing her true feelings.

"You look just like my boyfriend," she explained hastily, "Expect he is smaller- for now. You look like him. You are..."

She struggled for the word. Hand on her hip, she scrunched her big lips in confusion. She looked up at last, blue eyes matching a serene lake.

"A double-ganger," The Russian nodded.

Dawson blinked at her, a small smile tugging at his lips as he sat down on the edge of the fountain. English being nowhere near his first language, he had absolutely no idea what she had said. "Double-ganger?" He asked, eyes sparkling in confusion. He thought for a moment, before snapping his fingers.

"You mean Doppelganger... dvoĭnik, no?" He nodded, far more comfortable with Russian or French than the posh English language. "You speak Russian, or French?"

Damian was set to enjoy a day in Azorat, contingent until his behaving himself. It wouldn't be a problem. Azorat was big and really, who would there be to pick a fight with? Damian wasn't that temperamental. In fact, it had been some time since he took a swing at anything sentient outside of training.

Breathing in the air as he left the establishment he had flooed into, Damian glanced about the surrounding area. A smile pulled at his lips as he managed to spot a familiar figure. Damian started to stroll towards the girl, pausing halfway there as he noted that she was talking to some guy.

Jaw setting in a distinctly unamused expression, Damian stalked the remaining distance, hand coming to wrap around Iva's wrist. He tugged her back a bit, gently, but his point was made. His blue eyes remained fixed on the stranger.

"Friend of yours, Tiya?" Damian asked, tone clearly stating that he knew otherwise. He took his gaze from the guy dismissively, to look at Iva, instead. "I was hoping I'd see you here, today, but didn't think I would."

Iva nodded. Doopel, double. Same difference. She thought it was understandable, but apparently Zander was not as smart as she thought. Running a hand through her hair, she gave a placid look to the boy.

"Французский для идиотов." she replied flatly. French? Her accent wasn't even remotely french! That was insulting! "Русский язык является реальным языком."

An approaching figure caught her eye. Turning to face her boyfriend, bewilderment crossed her face. The boy was truly odd at times; she spoke his name and he simply appeared! In a fit of panic, she hid the bag from his view.

"Demushka! You surprised me!" she purred. Placing a kiss on his cheek, the Russian moved closer to the boy to calm his jealous state. "Ack, Damian! Look at this boy! He looks just like you!" She pointed, "See?"

(French is for losers. Russian is a real language.)

Dawson blinked at the girl, cocking his head to the side as a smirk flit over his lips. "YA znal, chto ty russkiĭ yazyk, ya byl prosto interesno, yesli vy govorili po-frantsuzski , a takzhe. Konechno, kto-to zhe krasivoĭ, kak vam govoryat bolyee chem na dvukh yazykakh ? Angliĭskiĭ ... Russkaya ... Prosto interesno, chtodrugie byli."

He cocked his head to the side as the boy who was appearantly his twin popped up, a slight raise of one of his eyebrows the only indication that he understood anything being said at all. Crossing his legs at his ankles and leaning backward slightly he eyed them both, his gaze lingering on the boys face. Something about his features reminisced of his father but that could just be coincidence. Lots of strangers looked alike.

" 'This boy's name is Zander. Zander Dawson." He said easily, looking off into the crowd, slight unease flit over his expression before the easy smile was back. He'd only been imagining it that time, but still, he should probably go soon.

Really, Really soon.

Returning his eyes to the couple, he grinned again. "Nice to meet you both." He said. Not that he actually knew their names... but whatever.

Spoiler:

Damian's posture shifted slightly as Iva moved closer to him, muscles relaxing just a bit. He tilted his head to cast a pointed look at the bag Iva didn't want him to pay much attention to, raising a brow inquisitively.

Blue eyes went to the other boy, studying him neutrally. He was about three or four inches taller than Damian was, hair a bit shorter. There was some resemblance to himself that he could see, or to his father, in any case. Some of the features were unmistakably alike.

It wasn't Donovon Gray's eyes that Damian saw, however.

"Damian Gray," he supplied, looking away from the stranger to look at Iva. "He looks nothing like me."

Iva wrapped an arm around Damian's waist as she addressed Zander, not to show her affection, but simply because she felt more comfortable in this position. Her lips twitched into a smile over the "beautiful" comment, but she remained serious overall.

"I speak Ukrainian, Belarusian, and a bit of German," she responded, "And I was going to learn Estonian, but I was too lazy."

The little Russian moved the bag again to be out of Damian's gaze, giving him an annoyed little 'hmpf.' Her hip swung into his, a way to make the boy stay on topic mentally. "I am Innokentiya. Most people call me Iva,

"Demushka," she said curtly, "If you do not see it, you are blind," she chuckled a bit before unwrapping her hand from his waist, "Or do you not look in the mirror?"

Zander nodded at her words, but said nothing in response, doing nothing more than offering her a secretive smile. He shrugged looking from one to the other, before back into the crowd. His posture changed slightly, shoulders hunching, his gaze shifting to the lower left as his focus went to the cobblestone street.

"It was nice to meet you..."

"ALEXANDER DAWSON WHAT IN HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!" The resounding smack through the air barely registered to the boy, only moving his head to the side with the motion because he knew that should he not, the average height, brown haired woman with the bob cut and 9 inch heels would get even angrier.

"Sorry, Auntie."

"You'd better be sorry. Up, up! Let's go. We have places to go!" Zander rose easily to his full height, though his posture was one adapted to making him seem smaller. His Aunt, for her part, was glaring up at him with bright blue eyes, tapping her toe on the ground. Her focus only moved to the other two briefly as she made to leave, eyes sliding over Iva and narrowing as she got to Damian. Recognition flashed. "You."

Damian chuckled in amusement as Iva bumped his hip with an annoyed harrumph. He wasn't really going to try to see what she was so intent upon keeping from him, but it was fun to pretend. His hand stroked fondly over her hair.

The boy very nearly sighed. Of course he saw some, resemblance - Damian was nothing if not observant - but seeing Theo's eyes in a stranger's face was the deal breaker. He had no intention to acknowledge it. Instead of continuing to deny the unmistakable similarities, Damian went with a different tact instead.

"Why would I waste time looking at myself?" he queried, stroking the side of her face with one hand. "I've got better things to look at."

Damian had heard the woman coming before she started screeching. The distinctive click of heels making a direct route towards them had made his posture back to one more defensive.

He hadn't expected her to slap the other boy.

The boy's jaw set mulishly, chin raising and eyes gleaming in defiance. Arms folding across his chest and shoulders squaring, Damian gazed straight back at the woman. If there was one thing Damian had gained from being on the short end of the height chart most of his life, it was the ability to make his presence seem larger than he was physically.

Damian gazed at her a long moment before his own recognition hit. "You're the woman who was yelling at my dad," he declared. "Eight years ago, London zoo. It was my birthday."

Just as she was falling into her usual flirtatious, submissive self that appeared around Damian, the chipping of plastic on cobblestone caught her attention. For the moment, she desired to ignore it and enjoy the company of two attractive men.

"Oh, Damian, you are so-" The slap echoed in her ears, a sound that caused more annoyance than fingers on a chalkboard. She turned to the woman, aghast. Hitting a child? Even the mob hadn't sunken that low.

"Excuse me? Are you stupid?" she sneered. She did not have the same attention grabbing stance of Damian, but one of importance, power, and displeasure. "Obviously, since you matched those shoes with that skirt. Now, do that again and you'll find yourself at the bottom of a lake faster than you can say 'Privet', okay?"

She was about to continue, when the hufflepuff and the woman seemed to recognize each other.

Zander shrunk lower, looking up at the boy and girl with something between surprise and worry. "Don't-"

"Oh yes, I know your father very well, stuck me with this one, didn't he?" Snapped his aunt, interrupting him. "Is it my fault that he can't keep one of his lives straight? No!" The brown haired woman glared from one boy to the other, as Zander blinked in shock.

"What?" He asked, forgetting himself for that one moment and rising to his full height. "What did you say?" His brown eyes looked furious with this new information, and the idea that his father could have raised someone else in the same way he raised him- it had him nearly enraged.

"Get over yourself, Dawson. Look at him, obviously your father liked his family better." Gesturing to Damian, the woman sneered at them both, but Zander had looked at the boy - his brother? - and seen that should her words be true, that was too. As always, someone else was better than him, and that was just where he was supposed to be. Shrinking back into himself, the boy's brown eyes stayed on the cobblestones this time, waiting patiently for their conversation to end.

The woman had turned to Iva, almost addressing her, before seeming to decide that the girl was not worth it - Zander was glad; he didn't want to have to step in - and turned to Damian again. "Next time you see your father, tell him to take his other son back. I'm sick of having to deal with him." Turning from both, she grabbed Zander by the shirt and yanked him after her, clicking her way out of sight.

Walking behind her, obviously used to this kind of treatment, the boy himself shoved a hand into his jeans pocket, raising the other in a half wave before shoving it in his pocket and continuing into the crowd with her.

It was seldom a good sign when Damian took such a tone from a complete stranger silently. The boy was far too opinionated and headstrong for that. Usually, it meant that his temper had started boiling. The way that his jaw was set, this was precisely the case.

Damian did tug Iva back a bit, not even consciously aware of the gesture. An amused glint flashed across the boy's eyes at her words, but otherwise, Damian remained still.

His teeth ground audibly together as the woman dragged the other boy behind her. There was brief moment in which Damian tried to convince himself not to pursue trouble for once in his life before he strode quickly after them. With the deft use of a pressure point, Damian pried the woman's hand from Zander's shirt, shouldering the boy behind him.

"My father?" Damian demanded of the woman with a snarl. It was at that moment, caught up in his temper, that Damian revealed that which he had not even mentioned to Asric or Iva. "You mean the filthy wizard-hater who threatened to kill me if he ever saw me, again? Is that who you're talking about? I hate to break it to you, but he doesn't want the son he does have - and there is only one of them."

Sparing but a brief glance for Zander as he turned away, Damian stalked back to Iva and took her by the hand. "Let's go," he said.

Iva glanced between the three of them- submissive Zander, infuriated Damian, and the bitch. The usually snarky Russian fell silent, unsure of how to react to the situation. It was against her nature to stay silent, but this wasn't her family. Anyway, standing by the scene they were causing was the more traditional, Russian approach.

Taking Damian's hand, she gave Zander a final smile before following along. Turning to her boyfriend, her smile soon faded.

"Why didn't you tell me that?" she whispered, nuzzling her face into his shoulder like a toddler, "I could have..." She trailed off, "I could have done something,"

Damian's steps faltered and his face went entirely expressionless. Well, fuck. He hadn't meant to reveal that.

Jaw setting in a manner which meant he was probably going to be uncooperative, Damian shrugged. "Wasn't important," he muttered. "Not like I see the stupid muggle, anyway. It was all the way at the start of last year, anyway. Doesn't matter."

Iva stared at the boy who had happened to obtain her affection and felt a tiny bit of herself break over this comment. Part of her longed to comfort the hurt boy, but the other part of her felt abused itself. Keeping her pace quick, her head tilted forward Iva nanaged a nod.

"I see,"

After a moment, she let out a breath of air, her annoyance showing. "I could've... I could..." Her sentence trailed off. There wasn't anything she could've done, really. "You should have told me," she croaked out.

She was hurt. Damian knew the girl well enough that he could tell she was hurt. Why was she hurt? Yeah, he could have told her, but then she would have been hurt and angry on his behalf, anyway.

A pained expression briefly crossed his face as her voice broke.

"Iva." Damian stopped, taking Iva by the shoulders to turn her to face him. "I... Look, I'm sorry, yeah? Maybe I should have told you, but I didn't tell anyone, okay? I didn't even tell Asric. It just... It's not like I have to go back there. What are the odds he'll ever have the chance to come after me? He's just a muggle."

He pulled her into a hug. "Don't be hurt or mad. I'm sorry. I won't keep things from you, next time."