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Tweak says, "but I don't remember anymore"

Tristan Ellis Dunstan (elmlikedust) wrote in wished,
@ 2010-11-27 21:51:00

Entry tags:

!2003: 11, !incomplete, cho chang, tristan dunstan

Who: Tristan Dunstan & Cho Chang
What: Christmas shopping
Where: Zara, Regent St.
When: This evening
Warnings: None.

Sophie had said she wanted clothes. It was a particularly cruel thing to ask of Tristan even in normal circumstances - fashion wasn't his forte, and he knew it - but ever since he'd been written up in Witch Weekly as a makeover story, he'd been a mite touchy about it. It had been a well-intentioned request, however, and so he had decided that it wouldn't be too much to go to one of the larger shops and buy her some store credit. And so he found himself standing in a very long, very twisted queue under bright golden lighting, surrounded by innumerable satin jackets and spring coats and very, very tight jeans, and wondering whether he had counted the money out right.

He had; he managed to ask for credit - a gift card, it seemed - successfully; and he had it wrapped in glittering paper and a bit of ribbon and was stuffing it into his pocket when he finally escaped the shop. He stopped, ducking against the display window to keep out of the thick flow of foot traffic. He wasn't exactly sure where he was, and had a couple students he had wanted to shop for. Surely there would be somewhere around here where he could pick something up. He discreetly consulted his pocket map while trying not to elbow anyone.

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chineseveggies
2010-11-28 03:33 am UTC (link)

Cho had been in the shopping area for about an hour by now, picking out various gifts for her parents and the cousins she was actually close with - and, luckily for her wallet, there weren't too many of those. A tiny thing, Cho darted in and out of the crowd of people with relative ease; it helped that she was the size of most people's teenage children and somehow it made people less likely to try and knock her out of the way.

She shrugged her coat back a bit to check her watch. Fortunately, she had completed most of her tasks well ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, she wasn't entirely paying attention to where she was walking as she performed the time-check and looked up just in time to avoid crashing into Tristan and having her bags go flying. She stopped much like a train that had been going full-speed and then suddenly pushed on the brakes hard enough to stop and almost send the back of the train flying upside down over the front. "Oh sh--sorry!" She said quickly, flashing an apologetic smile.

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elmlikedust
2010-11-28 03:47 am UTC (link)

Tristan jumped, knocking his shoulder back against the thick glass - but he was ready with an apologetic smile before he had even looked up to see who had not-quite-collided with him. When he realized it was someone he knew - someone he'd been in school with, he was almost entirely sure - he relaxed a little. "No trouble." He couldn't put a name to the face immediately, but he saw it smiling up at him from the newspaper in full Quidditch garb, and ... could this really be the same person? She seemed a bit short.

Either way, he thought she looked like she knew her way better than he did, although perhaps it was just because she'd been moving so quickly. "Do you happen to know which way it is to Stratton Street? I'm ... a little turned around. It's - Chang, isn't it?" He hoped he wasn't putting his foot in his mouth. He paid so little attention to Quidditch, and there was really no excuse not to know.

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chineseveggies
2010-11-28 04:03 am UTC (link)

She didn't recognize him immediately; in fact, it wasn't until he'd asked her name that she started to very vaguely recall who he was, even though the name escaped her entirely. "Oh--yeah, yeah, I'm Cho. Cho Chang." She always felt incredibly odd and awkward when someone whose identity she wasn't entirely sure of knew her name, and it had happened more than a couple times since the World Cup. And she was also pretty sure that each time it happened, she probably made a ,really bad first impression.

"Ah... Stratton Street is right over there," she said, pointing to a large store that was situated at the end of the mall. "If you go through there and take the stairs up, it should take you right out to it. I think. Maybe. Probably." She coughed. "I'm sorry, you're... ah... I don't remember your name?"

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elmlikedust
2010-11-28 04:14 am UTC (link)

It was probably the first time Tristan had recognized a Quidditch player in his entire life. He allowed himself a brief, proud smile. It was no surprise at all that she shouldn't recognize him. He thought they might have overlapped a couple of years at Hogwarts, but she was clearly younger, and ... well, if even he knew her name, she was famous. "Dunstan," he said, pulling his map to his chest and nodding politely, all while trying to keep out of the way of the relentless crowd. "Tristan. And - I think you're right, actually." She might not have been; he was useless with maps, and all he knew was that it was where he needed to be to catch his train. "I don't come here nearly often enough. I always remember it as being so much less cramped than Diagon, but -" But the people who were very nearly walking on his toes were giving the lie to that.

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chineseveggies
2010-11-28 04:47 am UTC (link)

In truth Cho wasn't a professional player; she'd just done it for the summer because somehow she'd found herself recruited while in the middle of her first year of being a certified Auror. But the Cup had garnered her a little bit of renown and she certainly wasn't going to turn it away! "Tristan Dunstan?" She asked, repeating the name back to make sure she'd heard it right. "All right... I don't come this way often either, but I think that's the way I came from..."

She shifted her bags to make them easier to hold, even though they weren't too heavy.

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elmlikedust
2010-11-28 08:40 pm UTC (link)

"Yes," he said with a warm smile that he hoped conveyed that it was quite all right if she had never heard of him. "I'm only here because my sister likes to shop here - I thought I'd pick her up something for Christmas. She spends so much more time in this part of town than I do, though. ... I didn't realize there'd be quite this many people." And he hadn't expected to run into anyone magical, either, of course. "Well - I hope the season's going well," he said, meaning to be polite. He assumed she still played, having no reason to think otherwise, but couldn't have said what team she played for at all.

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chineseveggies
2010-11-28 11:23 pm UTC (link)

"Ah... I don't play anymore," she said, shrugging casually. "I'm actually with law enforcement full-time. I only played during the summer. Kind of found myself recruited in the middle of my first year after training." She wasn't nearly daft enough to actually mention her profession by name, especially surrounded by Muggles, but it wasn't like it was hard to figure out.

Cho looked around at all the people going by and smiled a bit; it gave her a little bit of hope to see that at least some people were having an easy time of things.

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elmlikedust
2010-11-28 11:44 pm UTC (link)

"Oh - I'm sorry. I don't really pay very close attention." Obviously. He looked mildly embarrassed, but he was used to it by now, and her real profession was a lot more interesting - if just as distant from things he usually concerned himself with. Now that he thought of it, he remembered hearing something about her working in the Auror department. "That must be a little less ... well, not quite as public. Although there's been a lot in the news, hasn't there." How did you make polite conversation about someone's work in law enforcement?

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chineseveggies
2010-11-29 12:35 am UTC (link)

"Don't worry about it," Cho said with a graceful smile; it wasn't like she discussed her career very often with those who weren't involved in MLE, and especially not out here, in public, with Muggles. Maybe being an Auror was more interesting - if by interesting, you meant life-threatening, but none of that bothered her, because sitting by on the sidelines would have bothered her more. "I suppose it is less public, most of the time." Her face became somber for a moment, and her gaze fell away into a moment of silence, but just as quickly as the friendly smile had fallen, it was replaced by another, and she continued, "There is always much in the news. Sometimes too much. What's important is .... making sure there isn't any more news than there has to be."

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elmlikedust
2010-11-29 03:30 am UTC (link)

"Well - that's a very good way to think of it, yes." And if he were honest with himself, he would admit that he found being an Auror an infinitely more important thing to do, too. How could it not be? It was hard not to admire someone who worked at such a job, even if he couldn't imagine filling it himself. "But there's only so much one person can do, I'm sure. Considering." Considering all the people who were still free and who were bent on making trouble, he meant to say, but he didn't really want to talk or think about them. It was bad enough thinking about what they'd done the first time.

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chineseveggies
2010-11-29 04:41 am UTC (link)

She'd had to find a positive way to look at it, otherwise thoughts and guilt would have completely consumed her. Being an Auror wasn't easy by any definition, but, thinking on it, there weren't many other careers she could really see for herself. She nodded and made a non-committal sound to signify she'd been paying attention. This wasn't something she really wanted to talk about either.

"Well. So!" Cho said, quickly putting a happy grin on her face and clapping her hands together excitedly, "What year were you again? I finished in '97." It was only now that she actually got a better look at Tristan and realized he was a little older than she was. And that he had a nice face. But she kept that part to herself.

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elmlikedust
2010-11-30 05:18 am UTC (link)

"Ninety-three," Tristan said, jumping on the change of subject as nimbly as he could. He saw no problem at all with letting people sweep things under the rug every now and again, and was bad enough at conversation that he almost never risked derailing them by insisting on anything. "And then up and left the country for a while, I'm afraid. Nothing quite as productive as what you've been up to." That would have been difficult, though, by the sound of it. "It's good to be back - it's much warmer here - even if it's hard to believe it's been ten years." Well, it wasn't that hard to believe; parts of it had felt like an eternity. He found he appreciated her steering the conversation away from some of that. It was comforting to be around cheerful people. He rather liked talking to her.

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chineseveggies
2010-11-30 06:32 am UTC (link)

"Ah..." She got a faraway look on her face for a moment, though not at all an unpleasant one, as she imagined traveling all around Europe and South America and into rural China and the Australian outback. Sometimes Cho wished she could have just left the country and traveled, but she had her duties here, and that was more important. "I'm jealous you got to go around the world a bit. Where did you go to? I've not even been to France, and they're right across the Channel..."

Cho pulled her hand through her short hair, mussing up her bangs, although they still fell just as carelessly in front of her eyes as they had before. "It has been a very long while, I suppose... Strange, how time goes by so quickly when we're not fully paying attention." Although she had to admit, it was odd to think of England as being 'warmer' than anywhere else, especially with the bitter cold that was quickly approaching with December.

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elmlikedust
2010-12-17 04:06 am UTC (link)

"Oh, not really around the world - mostly Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, a bit of time in Russia." At least here he almost never had to shovel snow, and he had the luxury of splitting firewood with a wand rather than having to put on a show for Muggles. "Everyone should get out every now and then. It's really quite inexpensive, if you don't mind staying in frigid lodges and such." He smiled. "Too much time really can go by without noticing. I mean, I've not left England for years, and I'm sure I could carry on this way for just as long, if I didn't stop to think about it."

Perhaps he did need to get away. Too much had happened at home since he'd come back. It would be nice to leave everything behind for a while.

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chineseveggies
2010-12-17 04:57 am UTC (link)

"That's more places than I've been to," Cho smiled, playfully nudging him with her elbow. She was naturally an outgoing, friendly person and the action came as naturally as breathing. "I was in China some years ago for some political nonsense," she said with an easy smile, "but... clearly I returned home!" She shrugged, again shifting the things she was holding. She'd been here through everything and while sometimes it felt like she wanted to just get away, it was hard to think of what she would do with her life otherwise.

"We all probably could. It's so easy to get caught up in the daily to-do... If you don't take time to stop and notice things, we'd blink and ... poof."

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