Brave New World (Jory/Hyacinth)

[Jory Addison]

"Purring, yeah," Jory said. Seeing Hyacinth so bright and cheery brought a smile to Jory's face as he watched. "They're, like, the cutest things ever. I see first years show up with them all the time and I'm always so jealous." Maybe he just needed to get one and be done with it.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"Ah, but you should not covet," Hyacinth said, the words a gentle tease more than anything. Jory was far too nice and too helpful to dislike, and everyone had moments of temptation. "You are purring," he told the creature, trying out the word. "I would like very much to take you, but magic must stay at Hogwarts. And in magic alley," he added, smiling up at Jory. "This is very cute!"

[Jory Addison]

"You could take it home with you, or you could find someone to care for it while you went home," Jory said. He liked Hyacinth. The guy was so...was innocent the right word? Yes, he thought so. But the naivete had a certain charm to it. Jory thought his new position as Hyacinth's mentor would be a fun adventure.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"I could not take it home," Hyacinth said, raising suddenly serious eyes. "I am not to tell my family about these things, and must leave my school behind fully when I go home." He held up the little puff with one hand to look at it as he pet it with the other, its soft purring very comforting somehow.

A sudden thought had him blinking and lifting his head to scan the shop. "The list wrote that I might bring a cat. Are cats here which are not magic?" Yes, he liked the little purring creature quite a bit, but he would miss it terribly if he had to leave it behind.

[Jory Addison]

Jory thought Hyacinth's restriction was strange, but decided it better not to comment on it, considering the religious motions he had already seen. "Yeah, some of them might be part kneazle, but you can't tell, they're just smarter than regular cats." He reluctantly put his puff back in the crate and motioned for Hyacinth to follow him as he headed toward the opposite wall, where a few kennels of cats were lined up.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"What is a kneazle?" Hyacinth asked, though once he was close enough to see them, he noticed the odd, lion-like tails and overlarge ears that some of the animals had. "Those are kneazles? And they are very smart?" He looked at the others, some of which were climbing around their enclosure while others sat patiently and watched back.

[Jory Addison]

"Yeah," Jory said, nodding. "They look just like cats. To own a full blood you have to have a license, but mostly they're all bred to cats, anyway. It, like, makes them calmer or something." He stuck his fingers through the cage that held the kittens and was greeted by a few quizzical noses.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"There are kittens also!" he exclaimed. "I like the animals, I am strange!" Strange probably wasn't the right word, but Hyacinth didn't take the time to correct himself, distracted by a tiny kitten with fluffy, silver-white fur, pale stripes, and large ears, which seemed to be watching him. It opened its mouth wide and let out a mew so high-pitched that it was nearly inaudible. Hyacinth responded with a long awww. "Look, Jory! It is very small!"

[Jory Addison]

"You're not strange," Jory said, grinning. "I'm, like, at least ten times as strange as you are." Then his attention was grabbed by the kitten Hyacinth was talking about and an aww of his own escaped. "Oh my gosh, I didn't think you could get kittens that small!"

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"It is like the purring ball, but it is a cat!" Hyacinth realized he was speaking the obvious, but he didn't have words in English for how tiny the kitten was. Soon the shopkeeper had approached, drawn by the boys' obvious interest, and lifted out the wide-eyed animal for an equally wide-eyed Hyacinth to cup in his hands.

[Jory Addison]

"You have to get that," Jory said. It looked like the two were made for each other. Of course, Hyacinth looked like he was about to implode from the cuteness of the tiny animal. "Is it a boy or a girl or what?" he asked, pulling his eyes away from the kitten for a moment to glance up at the shopkeeper.

[Hyacinth Duprel]

The kitten was not only female, but part kneazle as well, and at nearly six months old had been passed over by countless customers who weren't willing to take their chances on something so small and vulnerable. That, of course, on top of Jory's encouragement and his own desires, was enough to bring a nod and a smile that threatened to make his jaw ache.

It was everything Hyacinth could do to follow along with the shopkeeper's English once the decision was made, and the choosing of a few necessities was done in an excited whir. He was far too giddy about the little cat riding atop a stack of socks he'd padded his pewter cauldron with, settled in a cloth bag declaring the cauldron shop's name. The things which had been in it, glass phials, brass scales, and the like, were placed into a cat carrier, tucked against his other cat purchases.

It took some rearranging to be able to carry everything, even with Jory's helpful hands, but he could see his kitten as they stepped back into Diagon Alley, and he was talking happily, if in bursts around words he wasn't sure of.

"It is true that I can change color of cat necklace?" he asked. His hair had shifted through brown and blonde to a grey-streaked white precisely the shade of said cat, whose paws rested on the edge of the cauldron as she peeked out.

[Jory Addison]

Jory nodded, "Yeah Professor Dare Blackwood-Hardt is the Transfiguration professor, he's super good at it. You'll learn a lot from him. Come on, let's get you a trunk so we can put all this stuff up." He reached over and scratched gently at the cat's ears. "Oh, and it's called a collar."

[Hyacinth Duprel]

"Collar," Hyacinth repeated with a nod. "Thank you, Jory. Do all magic people have interesting names? Jory, and Dare Blackwood-Hardt are unusual." There! He'd gotten the right word that time, he was sure of it! He would have gladly pulled out his list again to remind himself what Transfiguration meant, but his right hand was full of cat and cauldron, and his left full of carrier, with bags looped around his arm. He would simply have to make note of as many things as possible within his own mind.

[Jory Addison]

"Well, they tend to. Most of the older generation is kind of old fashioned still, like, stuck in the 1600s or something, so we get some weird names. If I remember right, though, Dare was Blackwood and Michael was Hardt, and when they had their partnership ceremony they just combined the names," Jory said, squinting a little as he searched his mind. He started directing them toward a thrift store to get Hyacinth a trunk.