Temporary Pleasure

3

Druella and Cygnus were engaged and to be wed before the end of the month.

The four friends, Rose, Druella, Marilyn and Doris went out shopping for dresses together in early September.

"How's this? But in coral?" Doris asked, holding a dress up. Rose squinted and tilted her head. "Coral is a bit bright, isn't it?"

"Well, that's the point," she said. "I want to stand out."

"I'm absolutely famished," Marilyn said. "Can we please go have lunch now?"

"Yes, let's go," Druella sighed, nodding at the tailor and setting up a future appointment with her.

They had lunch at their favourite cafe in Diagon Alley. Just as they were finishing up their teas, Rose caught sight of a familiar man walking down the Alley.

"Oh, dear me, is that the time?" Rose gasped, looking at the clock. "Please excuse me, I'm running very late for an appointment and must hurry. See you, girls!"

They barely got a word in before she left the cafe and hurried down the path she saw Tom take.

Rose scanned each shop through the windows but he wasn't in any of them. She continued the path that eventually led her to Knockturn Alley.

Oh, dear.

Tom was certainly fearless, so she had no doubt that he wouldn't mind doing business here. But Rose was warned her whole life against going down to Knockturn.

Yes, she grinned, her mother would be livid if she ever knew Rose stepped foot into Knockturn Alley. With that thought in mind, Rose went ahead.

She definitely stood out as someone who didn't belong. In the dreary Alley, she was the only bright thing, in her pale blue robes and dark red hair. Rose tried to make note of the names of the shops, to familiarize herself with it somewhat to not get lost. Just past Borgin and Burkes, she was pulled into a small, dark alleyway.

Rose was silenced before she could scream. Her wand was out to blast the stranger back, just as she was flipped around.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" Tom hissed. She let out a sigh of relief and he took the spell off her. "Don't you know this is no place for a girl like you?"

"What are you doing here?" she asked him.

His eyes turned cold, he hadn't looked at her this way since she was a first year getting into trouble. "What I do is none of your business."

"Then neither is what I do," she countered, crossing her arms.

"Rose," he growled. "Who are you here with?"

And then her stupidity caught up with her. What if he was busy? He was probably busy—he was a busy man! He wasn't going to clear his schedule just for her, she was no one to him but the naive girl who was a good lay.

"No one," she gulped. "I left my friends."

"You left your friends? Why would you do that?"

Why, indeed?

"They were going home, and I wasn't," Rose said, deciding to just go with lies. The truth was too humiliating.

"Oh, really?" he asked skeptically. "What other business do you have to do?"

"I... I have to buy shoes," she said.

"In Knockturn Alley?"

"I got lost."

"This is the only shopping district in England and you've been coming here your whole life to shop more than the average wizard. You lost your way in Diagon Alley?"