[TTD] One lump or two..? [poesy]

"Why did I agree to this?" Hunter had muttered as he surveyed the scene before him. His adoptive Dad, Jimmy, had apparently got a 'really good deal' on a vanload of 'assorted goods'. Hunter, in his not-so-infinite wisdom, had agreed to sort through everything while Jimmy was running his market stall, which was why he was now standing in the basement of a supposedly empty tenement building in one of the less pleasant muggle areas of London staring at sundry items he didn't even have names for, let alone know how they worked.

Hunter had grown up with muggles, so he knew a lot about them, but there was a great deal he didn't know. He didn't know, for example, where the electricity actually came from or why some buildings had it and others didn't. He knew it powered muggle ovens, but he had laughed hysterically the first time Jimmy had shown him something called a microwave and heated a frozen dinner with it. Hunter had them put in a bar of chocolate and watched it melt, still laughing right up until the time said microwave had gone bang and splattered melted chocolate all over its own innards. It hadn't worked very well after that. So it was that as he sorted through the unlikely combination of items that Jimmy had bought, he wanted to know what everything was before trying to help sell it. Some things were obvious, though why anyone would want to buy a slightly faded orange lampshade was anyone's guess. Others he could guess at; he'd seen mobile phones so assumed that was what the things with coloured numbers on were. But then...

Some sort of jug thing, attached inside a machine of some kind. Okay, fine. Presumably it was for cooking something, but there were no instructions. Or boxes, because that would have been too easy. And there were twenty of the things, giving Hunter a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. How was he going to sell something if he didn't have a clue what it was?

Which was why, half an hour later, he found himself slipping into Diagon Alley with one of the things in a sack, looking for some sort of pub or friendly place who might be able to tell him what the thing was called. Of course, it still being reasonably early in the day the pubs weren't open yet; nor were there many people around. Even this far south winter's bite was making its presence felt; Hunter wished he'd thought to put a cloak over his grey sweater, though he rarely felt the cold. He passed one restaurant, a few people sitting and enjoying a late breakfast, but didn't fancy going in there. What he needed was something small, something friendly, something... like this new cafe he'd never seen before, tucked away at the far end of the street.

Deja Brew...he had the strangest feeling that he'd seen it somewhere before. Anyway, it had a nice feel so he pushed open the door with a smile, already pulling the weird apparatus out of the bag as he approached the green-aproned woman who looked like she must work there. "Hi, I wonder if you could tell me what this is..." he began, then trailed off as his smile widened. He knew this woman! They'd been in the same year at Hogwarts, and while they hadn't exactly been friends, they'd been friendly enough acquaintances "Wait...Poesy, right? I'm Hunter, remember me?" He still help the object in his hands, apparently entirely unconcerned at the strangeness of the situation.

@Poesy Darling

Cold, cold, cold.

With a grunt, Poesy blew into her hands and rubbed them together in annoyance. While she was a girl from The Valleys, winter was much different in the capital. The snow was pigeon-pocked and slimy. It wasn't exactly the gorgeous sugar dusted winter scene she'd seen on Christmas cards. All the same, business had been surprisingly strong.

Perhaps people were escaping the grey clouds to warm up with a cinnamon hot chocolate. Maybe they needed a break. All Poesy knew for sure was that it wasn't the smell her delectable baking because she'd just burned her croissants.

The door swung open and she turned. As the man bounded over to her, a look of confusion creased her pretty face. It wasn't until he introduced himself that Poesy smiled brightly. "Hunter!" She exclaimed, wiping her hands on her apron to cross the space and loop an arm around his neck in a quasi-embrace. "Of course I do!" She lied. Only partly because, now he was here, of course she remembered him. He looked so tall. Everyone she'd bumped into from school looked tall. Or maybe she was just titchy. "How are you? Let me take your cloak."

"Oh yes," she said cheerily as she looked at the contraption in his arms. "It's a --" trailing off, she frowned. "Fancy vase?" Poesy ventured, pulling a face at her stupid guess. "May I?" She asked, offering to take it. It looked familiar. She knew it was useful. It did look like a vase or an ornament, with all the glass and the plastic. She ran her hands over it, feeling confused and just a little bit anxious as her fingers encountered a series of buttons. Out of curiosity, she pressed one and found herself disappointed that something didn't happen.

"It's definitely nice," she told Hunter with a firm nod of her head, her eyes widening as she gripped the handle of the glass contraption and picked it up. It came loose and it was heavy and Poesy blinked at it as the gears in her brain kicked into place. She examined it, possibly taking the task too seriously as she turned it over in her hands. "Looks a bit like a teapot," she suggested to Hunter before she figured it out.

"It is a teapot! Look!" With that, Poesy flicked her fingers against the glass as a clear ding! echoed. She grinned at him, pleased as punch as she narrowly missed the mark. "But I don't know why it wouldn't be a china pot?" She frowned. "China and porcelain keep tea much warmer for longer. Seems a bit weird to watch a tea bag float around, doesn't it?"

With a bemused shake of her head, she noticed odd shaped holes in the back of the contraption. "Oh," she mused as she chewed on her lower lip. "I think it must use electrickery," she deduced. "You could probably just stick your wand in it?" She offered to Hunter with a shrug, still a bit baffled. "That might kickstart it into doing something. Though I'm still not sure what these buttons do," she concluded, pressing another one.

In the first few seconds of their reacquaintance Hunter had taken in the pretty surroundings of the shop, the fact that Poesy seemed to be the only one in here...and the unmistakeable smell of burnt baked goods. These things were enough that he drew a conclusion and asked "So, you run this place? Nice." While naturally open and chatty, Hunter had never been one for superfluous words, especially given his upbringing. Much of his early childhood had been spent moving from one squat to another, occasionally in the middle of the night, so he'd learnt from his fellow Londoners how to convey information in the minimum number of words, a habit he didn't seem able to break. Not that he'd tried very hard. Right now though, he was glad to meet someone familiar who clearly was quite happy to help him figure out what this thing was. He handed it over and was impressed that the young woman immediately tried pressing the buttons.

Why hadn't he tried that? Obviously nothing was going to happen, not unless you found one of those long plastic wires with the special end that you pushed into the wall and made the electricity work. But Hunter was unimpressed that he hadn't at least thought of trying. "Oh, wait..." he began as Poesy pulled the jug part free from the rest of the contraption, thinking that it had happened by accident and she might hurt herself. It wouldn't have been the first time that Jimmy had bought a consignment of stuff that turned out to be worthless or broken. But she'd picked up the glass part and was examining it, and almost at the same time, Hunter exclaimed "S'a teapot!"

Then he laughed, leaning over as she turned it over and looked at it more closely, relieved that the mystery had been at least partially solved. Especially when she mentioned electricity. Hunter wasn't keen on the idea of using his wand for that, though. Jimmy had got very cross when he'd tried sticking his wand into one of those white holes that muggles had in the walls of their houses when he'd come back after his first year at Hogwarts. Apparently it was dangerous or something, which had led twelve year old Hunter to imagine electricity as a swarm of angry wasps that would fly out of the holes if anyone annoyed them.

"Wait - I know! The different buttons must be to get different kinds of tea! You know - one for ordinary tea, one for peppermint tea, one for lemon tea, something like that. If only..." he trailed off thoughtfully as his eyes drifted in the direction of the cafe window. If his memory was serving him correctly there was another entrance to Diagon Alley near here. "Have you got a minute? I think we can get out into muggle London along that passageway, right?" he suggested, pointing to a tiny alley, barely four feet wide that could just be seen between nearby two shops. Excited now, and not waiting for an answer the former Gryffindor headed back out of the cafe and down the passageway, wand out and for the moment forgetting that he'd left the mystery teapot in Poesy's keeping, assuming that she would follow him. Down the passageway and straight out into muggle London - he'd been right!

He also regretted his actions immediately, because he'd darted straight out of what must look to muggles like an abandoned building and the next thing Hunter knew, he was on the ground with a painful ankle. "What the..?" he groaned, looking up just in time to see someone getting back onto a bicycle, swearing loudly about idiots who didn't look where they were going. Struggling to sit up, Hunter found himself surrounded by well-meaning muggles, all wanting to know if he was alright and should they call a doctor. One of them pulled out a black box with numbered buttons and started talking into it. Still feeling dazed, Hunter nonetheless retained enough sense to tuck his wand up his sleeve, hoping that Poesy would be along any minute.