If one offered people free cake, they would show up. But that was not the (entire) reason she had poked around Alohomocha that morning. Even so, Eleanor (was pretty sure she) had managed to convince one supremely grumpy, fellow Gryffindor alum to surrender a free pastry. Or maybe it had been his idea. There was that possibility...

Whether he had offered her the cake or she had annoyed him into giving it to her, and whether this was proof that Lysander Blackwell had a soul, or just really good business skills... what mattered was the free cake friendly service. Also, the coffee she had bought from one of his more cheerful coworkers.

With caffeine bringing her to full wakefulness, Ellie was ready to tackle the weekend and bring a less sociable friend out of brooding amongst the flour and sugar to enjoy the world outside. If she could get someone like that squirrely Dotty woman to model for her in an impromptu photoshoot instead of getting them both arrested, she could get Lysander to have fun for an hour or two... and maybe smile at a flower or a baby or a puppy. Wishful thinking? No. Eleanor was determined.

“Merlin, what do you put in that cake? Drugs?” Ellie interrogated him lightly as they walked through the busy Diagon thoroughfare. He might not have known much about smiling (or he was hiding it well), but Blackwell could bake.

At her hip was a camera bag. Her hand was already hovering over it, ready to start snapping away for the day. She wondered how many photos she could get before the glare of judgement turned up in a frame. If she pretended she wasn’t going to take any photos of him, just their surroundings... Hmmm.

“Where do you want to go?" she asked, her eyes catching the Weasley shop's orange sign at quite a distance (it was impossibly hard to miss) before settling back on Lysander's face.

Since getting to know him post-graduation, she had discovered the extent of Lysander’s grumpiness-- but also a few redeeming qualities, though not because he had purposefully revealed those to her. But Eleanor had persisted, annoyingly, somewhat bossily, a strange fan of outliers, and a Gryffindor through and through.

Mondays were awful. Mondays would be the perfect theme for a blockbuster horror movie. But if Mondays were a bitch, nothing beat Saturdays. Working in a café on Saturdays was like having a constant Black Friday. Suddenly, everyone decided take Alohomocha by assault. Horny teenagers hoping to score by taking their dates out for desserts and loud, obnoxious girls taking their entire herd out for a coffee and those ridiculous hipsters seeking enlightening culture in the Alohomocha coffee. Sander despised working on Saturdays, ok?

So, when he was kindly—and by kindly I mean, loudly, barging in the kitchen like the four riders of Apocaylpse had just swooped into town, scared-the-living-crap-out-of-me, kindly informed by one vicious beast with questionable sandwhich-ing abilities that one Eleanour was looking for him, Sander took one moment to will his heart back in his chest before proceeding with a verbal diarrhea of profanities that would most certainly shame any sailor. Or Irishman.

Once his nostrils stopped flaring, he untied his apron and threw it on a counter, still cursing. He summoned one tiny dessert plate to him and a tiny fork and settled them on a counter. He opened the cupboard and took the tray with a superb Raspberry Dacquoise and released the stasis charm. He cut one perfectly triangular piece and settled it on the tiny plate before he sprinkled some mint leaves on it. Once the cake was back in stasis on its shelf he opened the doors of his laboratory and cursed before entering the scary real world (the actual café), but not before muttering a "On break" back to whatever pest was shuffling about.

Before he had time to actually realize what was happening, he was in the real real world with one Eleanor St. James. Traipsing through Diagon. When had this happened? There were monsters out here... Sander merely scowled at her suggestion of drugs in his works of art and for a second wanted to just stop, turn around and go back to the coffee shop and leave her there with her ignorance. Drugs... Sander pitied those unfortunate souls that could not understand the art of baking.

“Where do you want to go?"

This time he actually stopped and turned to look down at Ellie with a straight, completely unimpressed face, a weird twitch at the corner of his mouth, telling that he was desperately fighting his impulse to scowl and ask 'Were you dropped on your head as a child?'. Which was rich coming from him... Instead he just huffed once and squinted his eyes at her. He briefly wondered what sort of horrible thing had he done to deserve to be stuck with all these friends sorts of people that were the complete antithesis of all that Sander stood for.

"I don't even know why I'm here" he finally said, glowering at her. He saw a young couple being very openly intimate with each other out of the corner of his eye and his entire face turned into a grimace and then he just took off with big strides, as if the pavement itself had insulted his mother. He had no idea where he was going, but suddenly they were in front a pet shop and there was a kitten in the window and Sander would never, not in a million years admit that he just wanted to go in, take the little thing in his arms and bury his face in its fur with a face that said pure bliss. Instead, he turned to his left, hoping Eleanor would be there and glowered in the distance. "Public display of affection should be outlawed" he grunted, before huffing again. "I hate Saturdays" he added as if he had been talking about Saturdays for hours.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Even if he wasn’t looking directly at her. “I meant it’s addictive.” It was a compliment. (Because everyone wanted to be asked whether they’d drugged their food.) “I don’t know anyone else who can make something that tastes like that. You have to have a secret ingredient...” She waited for him to elaborate, even if she knew it was vain.

The next judgmental look he gave her was almost subtle, but subtle in the secretly so-scathing way that she was kind of surprised there wasn’t smoke coming out of his head. There might be, soon enough, the way he smoked.

“I don’t speak troll,” she quipped at his grunt. But then he elaborated, and Ellie began to explain. “You’re here because you need to have fun, and I need to have fun, and we’re friends, and that’s what friends--”

But he’d already taken off, and his long strides meant that he covered ground almost as fast as a troll could, too. (Not really.) If he didn’t have that ever-so-expressive face, she might suspect he was related to someone in the mountains that surrounded Hogwarts.

Hurrying after, him she abandoned the idea of pulling out her camera for the moment. She had missed the couple who had propelled him forward. “You didn’t answer my question,” she accused in a carrying voice. Finally, she caught up, slowing her pace just a bit until Sander stopped in front of the pet shop. She was barely able to catch a glimpse of the adorable kitten begging to be held when he began to speak again. “We weren’t engaging in PDA. Trust me, you’d know if I were trying to sn-” But then spotted the offenders back in the invisible dust of Lysander’s strides. She almost/sort-of-really-did roll her eyes. But she knew he had... issues. “You could always look the other way,” she reasoned. She smiled a shruggy, slighty-raised-eyebrows smile that suggested it was easy to follow suggestions.

“Or if you want, I can summon an auror,” she teased, though she obviously had plans to do no such thing, as evidenced by her beeline for the pet shop door. She’d grabbed his arm and was tugging. “Come on, let’s meet this kitten. I doubt its name is Saturday.” That was good news, wasn’t it? And suddenly Ellie’s free fingers were back to their task of retrieving her camera.

Sander didn't even bat a lash at being called a troll. He'd been called so much worse, and still he couldn't help but  roll his eyes and proceed to ignore her. Sander was good at ignoring. Usually. It wasn't his damn fault that everyone he knew had inhuman amounts of time to spend pestering him. He was only human.

"Ingredients" Sander muttered, but really, really his face was channeling his inner Lester and he could just hear his stupid little brother's voice saying 'So... I'm not saying you're stupid—but are you stupid?'. "It depends" he finally said, with effort. And that was that, he wasn't about to start telling her how each recipe had its own little glitches that could be exploited for a more unique taste, while still remaining true to the original. How with each time he constructed another confection he battled a dozen ideas at a time about how to improve it. How he spent months of sleepless night to perfect the meringue that made up the Dacquoise she had just had... No. Lysander Blackwell would not share his work with nobody, not even the plebes that knew nothing of deserts.

"Why should I have to look away" he muttered. "Why should everyone be subjected to having to see the battle of the tongues? Drool included?" he asked, voice a pitch higher, brows forming one single V and arms crossed across his chest. "For God's sake there's children around" he grunted as he jerked his head to the right where a group of children were doing anything but paying attention to the indecent couple.

Lysander turned to look at Ellie, all serious and nodded once at her suggestion of calling an Auror. "Do it" he said, simply. Sometimes jokes didn't make it past his brain... But then his arm was being used as a leash and he was being dragged inside the pet store and he was suddenly horrified. Once inside, Sander attempted to make himself small, very small, and he was suddenly feeling like his clothes were too tight (which—no, old, raggedy jeans and hoodie over a simple white shirt, could never mean tight) and he just wanted to take all the little critters and gather them up in his arms, and make a mountain of furry little things to cuddle with, and rub his face aga—Jesus Christ, no!

He was inches away from the kittens cage, and one adorable white puff with big blue eyes was nosing between the bars of the cage and before he could stop himself, his hand was already going for the little pink nose, his face - pulling back into an awed expression—and then someone squeed (actually squeed) really loudly behind him and his hand retreated like burned. He wiped the hand on his pants and cleared his throat before reverting his face to it's usual mix of glower-scowl. Sander couldn't have nice things. No. There was manpain to be had.

A man of few words. And oh, how vague they were. She waited, eyes widening a bit, face dipping as she listened. She made the sort of facial gestures one made when they expected to hear more. Maybe she ought to toss in some words. “It depends,” she echoed. “Well, that explains everything.” And then: “I’m going with gillyweed, then.” She knew he hadn’t added anything of the sort-- would never ruin his concoctions that way, but if he wasn’t going to be chatty, Eleanor would spin the tale for him. And she knew thought he wasn’t going to like it, which was exactly the point. Tough love.

“Just pretend they’re wagging their tongues at your mystery cake.” She grinned, looking once more at the couple of love birds. Children? Really? Children had seen more scandalous things on the bottoms of their shoes. “It’s a big city, Sander, they’re used to it.” His bitterness was almost funny, but Ellie had to wonder when he’d last been properly kissed. Or even patted on the back. “I think you’re more shocked than the kids are.” She refrained from mirroring his cross-armed stance, though she was tempted.

The shop was warm compared to the street, where even the crowd couldn’t generate enough heat to make them forget that it was January. Ellie loosened her scarf after making sure she had pulled Sander all the way into the shop. If he abandoned her, she was going to go demand more free cake and throw it in his face. She could tell by looking that he was out of his element. But when wasn’t he? Besides the few times Ellie found a way to poke her head in the kitchen despite not being employed by Alohomocha, she didn’t know if she’d ever seen him entirely in his element.

“You’ve got the same eyes,” she said, eyeing the cat that had obviously, miraculously caught Sander’s attention. She hovered beside him, peaking past his shoulder at the fluffy little thing, reaching out to pet it, too.

... And then she blinked rapidly at his withdrawn hand, the strange retreat into Usual Lysander. “Hi, hello, there’s the most adorable kitten in the world right there.” She looked at him incredulously. Who did that? Was he afraid of it?

Ellie reached into the cage and gingerly plucked the mewing kitten from its place. It mewed further at this new angle, and she was fairly certain she hadn't seen anything so cute since the new year. She scratched the kitten’s tummy, her grin a melty thing. “Open your hands,” she demanded, glancing up at Sander.

'Heathen' was the instant thought that came to his mind. Sander almost choked on air at hearing gillyweed. No. Just no. That was just dreadful. His mind did not even want to go there so instead he just scowled and rolled his eyes... eloquently. Sometimes he felt lonely in a world where no one understood what difference three extra grains of sugar did to a recipe.

"There's nothing mysterious about Raspberry Dacquoise, Eleanor" he barked at her and ended with a grand huff. Then, miraculously, a tiny smirk tugged at his lips. "You can google it" he continued, microscopic smirk still in place, because he always relished at the thought of his technological retardism being positively genial in the wizard world. Truth be told the only reason Sander actually knew of the existence of the internet was because of Lester - the little shit - and his being a true child of the internet as he called himself. Whatever the bloody hell that meant...

Sander turned to glare at Ellie—because she was Ellie only in his mind. God forbid he ever used a nickname on people. Only Leon got those and that was only when they were alone... where people couldn't witness him having a soul. Anyway, he glared at her, hoping to God the effect of his deathly glare was not somehow ruined by his obvious flush, because yes he just might've been more shocked than the children. But the point was, that children should not be exposed to acts of public indecency which, shoving your tongue down another's throat, surely was. So he glowered.

Hand still wildly patting at his jeans, he turned to roll his eyes at her and stutter on something that never actually left his mouth, because—yes. All the yes! That was the most adorable kitten in the world, right there, indeed. But knowing himself, he'd just instantly make it hate him... And there it was, all cute and adorable and probably the moment he touched it, it would turn into some vicious creature that wanted to claw his eyes out.  Or worse, he'd drop it and everyone in the store would look at him like he had just kicked a puppy, or he'd hold it too tight and it would just drop there and die. Or—

But then his internal thrumming into the world of full-mode panic was squashed, horribly! Because there was a white ball of fluff in his arms—and how did that even happen?! And just like his hands had unconsciously darted forward to receive the bundle of cuteness overload (and he only knew those words because he had secretly watched Lester at the computer go through loads of pages of adorable kittens and saying them repeatedly, while squeeing) his hands now wrapped tightly around the little thing and hugged. And then he heard a small whimper and he would never—and I mean never, admit that he had been the origin of the sound.

He gave a tentative scratch at the kitten's head and before he could even process the bubble of bliss that instantly popped inside of him, his face was buried into a handful of soft fur and he was smiling at the ticklish feel of it on his face. I mean—what? He moved the kitten that was now purring contently an inch to the left so it was settled in the crook of his neck and looked at Ellie. His smiling vanished to be replaced with one lethal glare. "If you say anything, I will murder you. Slowly." And then he was back to smiling contently into the cat's fur.

"There's nothing mysterious about Raspberry Dacquoise, Eleanor”

“Are you sure?” She challenged. Something about the way he said 'raspberry dacquoise,' so defensive, was absolutely hilarious. It was one of those things that made her not give up on trying to befriend Lysander Blackwell. Baby steps, though. He’d called her Eleanor— he always called her Eleanor.

His smirk was apparently well-timed, because her own confident smile— the one obviously brimming to mention the next step up from gillyweed, something harder— faded into confusion. Google? “I can what?” Was it an edgy new expletive? But how Sander heard it first, when he spent so much time in the kitchen not talking to people? “Are you cursing at me, Lysander Blackwell, or is that an actual curse?” The word sounded like someone had forgot to finish naming it, if it were a curse. The Google Hex…

“You’re blushing,” she said, delightedly. She would remember to thank the snogging couple for the moment, but, well, they’d probably still be at it when they walked by again. If they walked by again. She wouldn’t put it past Sander to have some back-alley, people-free way of returning to Alohomocha.

The kitten’s effect on him was on another level. She wished he would calm down with the jean patting. He was no professional dancer, and he wasn’t on fire (easily imagined thoughts of his head smoking with anger aside).

The only thing more shocking than Sander retreating from the kitten as if it were a stove was Sander demonstrating his obvious adoration. His face was practically congealed into the thing’s fur. And that smile. Eleanor had never seen him smile that, and she had praised plenty of his pastries. But in comes a fluffy little feline, small enough to fit in one’s cupped hands, and… That happened.

Triumphant and nearly annoyed that it had been that easy, she placed her now-empty hands on her hips. So this is what tugged at his heartstrings. Her grin disappeared with his threat, but she didn’t look overly surprised. Instead of an ’I don’t plan to be murdered’ or a ’You take that back right now, mister’, she shook her head in mild disbelief at what she was willing to put up with and said, quite casually, “I am such a good friend."

It was hard to take such a threat seriously from a smiling, kitten-toting version of the grumpy young man who had been standing in Sander's place thirty seconds ago. She again longed to pull out her camera, after spending a while fiddling with the straps of the bag, waiting for the opportune time. And now here was the jackpot, and Ellie knew she’d be toast if she tried it. Besides, Lysander and the kitten deserved their moment together.

And there was always later…

“Are you going to adopt him, then?” She asked, bringing a hand back up to pet the kitten’s cheek where Sander wasn’t smothering it with his grin.

Oooh, here came the full name. Sander stifled a chuckle and rolled his eyes, following with a deep dramatic sigh. "Google, Eleanor. It's a web search engine" he said as if he actually knew what he was talking about, which, he didn't. He only knew how to go to the page, input the keywords to whatever recipe he was struggling with and ta-da. "It's muggle technology" he dead-panned on seeing her deeply confused face. This wasn't even fun anymore. He couldn't even rub it in her face—she had no idea what he was on about.

He raised her head to look at her, suspiciously. He knew there was something else on the tip of her tongue and he wanted to dare her to say it. Just so he could be entitled to throwing a fit. But instead, he relaxed and gave her a tentative smile, because, yes she was a good friend. For all his bitching and moaning, Sander knew he was lucky to have the people he had in his life. Knew that those that had stuck around despite his many—okay, his shitload of shortcomings, had to be super-humans. Because, in all honesty, if Sander got to know himself outside of his own body... he'd punch himself. Repeatedly. And relish in it.

The cat was now cradled in his arms, sleeping on its back, purring contently and Sander was just smiling at it. "I couldn't. I can barely keep myself and Les afloat... And neither of us is home enough" he said in a voice that almost sounded sad. He gently moved the kitten on one arm, before picking it with his other hand and putting it back in the cage with a brokenhearted face. "He's better off with someone that can actually care for him and raise him properly" he finished, lips held in a tight line as his mind somehow went to his younger brother. He still had that nagging feeling at the back of his head, that he was failing terribly with Lester... He might be the oldest sibling, but he was nowhere near capable of being a parent or even a guardian, and Lester was such a troubled kid.

He quickly pushed those thoughts as far deep as he could and turn to look at Elie with impatience, but, also, a hint of curiosity. "Where to, now?" he asked frowning, half scared of giving her the lead and finding himself God knew where and half outraged that he was actually enjoying the little outing.

Eleanor’s face was all sorts of confusion. Knitted brows beneath swept away fringe and lashes blinking over clear blue eyes. Her mouth had paused in forming words, was slightly rounded in very obvious puzzlement. Lysander had a way words that explained absolutely nothing. “First troll, now Mermish. Why did you become a pastry chef and not a Ministry translator, again?” Mermish, in this case, was actually Muggle. The muggles she encountered on a daily basis spoke English and shared everything from a train station to thrift shops with London’s wizarding community (without even knowing it), but they might have been from another world when it came to their technology and Eleanor’s understanding of it. It was interesting, sometimes cute, but totally baffling despite the fact that she was learning-- at a glacial pace-- from the non-Purebloods who comprised a huge chunk of her life. But Google still sounded like a hex.

She was glad that he seemed to agree with her analysis. Putting up with Lysander was a task and a half sometimes, but it paid off. Even if he would never claim to actually like anyone, she was pretty sure he enjoyed her company. Or put up with it. And, hey, the kitten wasn’t the only thing he could smile at, even if the smile was now hesitant.

Ellie was the baby of her family. Her parents expected things of her, but she was generally treated with a softer hand than the others, could get away with things that her brothers probably couldn’t (though photographer had not been Mum and Dad’s ideal for their youngest daughter, and they reminded her frequently). That Lysander had taken it upon himself to make sure his younger brother turned out alright was another reminder that the boy had a heart, cared about things and people. Ellie had never been in the position he was in, and watching him smile sadly at the kitten made her want to argue with him until he took it home. Some things were good for the soul, even if they weren’t practical.

But she knew he was being serious, responsible, a good brother, and that any amount hardheadedness from her on the topic would probably end a stalemate (though she would never admit this). “There’s always later,” she reasoned, watching the kitten mew as it was returned to its cage.

A change of scenery would do them good.

“Weasley’s.” And then she was leading the way again, looking over her shoulder here and there to make sure Sander hadn’t changed his mind.

When they arrived in the shop that was obviously made of the dreams of twelve-year-olds and perfectly immature adult men, Eleanor wasted no time plucking a pair of charmed sunglasses from a levitating display of assorted types. The ones she’d picked had lenses shaped like triangles and, when she put them on, made everything look like a trippy kaleidoscope. Lysander multiplied, suddenly, his face weaving in and out of itself. “You sort of look like you’ve been decorated with sprinkles.” She tilted her chin down, looking over the brim of the glasses to see Normal Sander again. She grinned and pulled out her camera, adjusting the lens.

Ellie's hopelessness on anything muggle was generally rather adorable, but there were times when it was bordering on severely obnoxious. Being stuck between the two worlds was not fun, not that Sander knew anything about fun... Pfft, fun. No. So he merely settled on taking a hand to his face and shaking his head.

He nodded absentmindedly. There was later indeed. He just hoped Lester would be nowhere near his place when he'd decide to adopt. Sander was beyond scared of what Les could do to a poor kitten, or what a kitten might do to Les. Or what a kitten might do to the cardboard box they called an apartment...

The second the W word left Eleanor's mouth Sander went into full-body lock down and refused to move from the spot for a handful of seconds. That was no man's land, that was a bloody battlefield of horrors. That shop was the cause of many of Sander's injuries, because putting Weasley's in the same sentence as the young Blackwells was a catastrophe of epic proportions waiting to happen. Still locked into his own brain, going over the many atrocities Weasley products had brought upon his own person, Sander literally jumped on the spot upon seeing that he was actually inside of it.

He turned to look at Eleanor with obvious panic in his eyes. He could feel his palms starting to sweat, various parts of his body twitch desperately and his brain was screaming at him to run for his life and never look back. "Sprinkles..." he muttered absentmindedly as his glare was slowly returning on seeing a couple of idiotic teenagers with their heads fuming. "Don't you dare, St. James or I will cause you severe bodily harm. With my nails" he suddenly grunted through clenched teeth as he saw her taking out the camera, possible hazardous joke store all but forgotten in the face of the nightmare of being photographed. He turned around, fuming and glared at some poor little child until it all but ran crying and screaming for his mommy.

Sander, at turns rigid and jumpy, made Ellie smile. The shop was full of witches and wizards and children, all of whom, with the exception of one irritable pâtissier having a panic attack, were engaged in the endless entertainment of charmed pocket watches, toy wands, and somewhat sketchy confectioneries. If there was an eyeroll lurking beneath the smile, threatening to have a go, she still couldn’t help being endeared by his out-of-placeness, the complete bewilderment of Lysander Blackwell in a joke shop.

She let his muttering go for a moment and continued to play the camera’s lens and knobs, smiling pleasantly all the while, like a mother in ‘that’s nice, honey’ mode. “Don’t I dare what?” She asked, finishing the adjustments, and pushing the glasses back up her nose as she raised her head toward him again. Her smile redoubled as she stared right at him through shifting, many-hued lenses. She knew what he meant, and she knew he knew she knew what he meant, but Ellie played innocent as a first year.

He had turned his back, which gave her ample time to grab another pair of sunglasses at random. Then she took hold of his arm from behind and leaned up to say: “Stop making kids cry, you Dementor.” She rounded on him quickly, standing on the toes of her shoes to (gently) force the mystery shades onto his face. They were navy and polka-dotted cat-eyed frames with rose-tinted lenses. Back on her feet, she admired her handy work for a moment, biting her bottom lip. “Look, you were made to model sunglasses.” She didn’t ask him what he saw— not yet—, but turned fast and raised the camera above them both, holding onto Lysander with her free arm to keep him in the frame. She had a feel by now for how to blindly aim the lens; not every photograph required her eye. Some things were just for fun. “Smile!” She was certainly smiling. A small cloud of purple smoke went up just after the flash, contrasting wonderfully with the orange hues of the massive joke shop.

"You know what" he muttered still glaring at the spot the kid had cleared moments before. "What do you mean, Demen—" he sputtered, feeling her leaning up and knowing he had probably started flushing horribly from the contact. But then she was forcing a pair of glasses on him and suddenly the world was... pink. And rather hazy. And sparkly.

He completely waved off her ludicrous remark about modelling sunglasses because everything was so damn... creepy. It was like a really bad cheesy romantic comedy where people's eyes sparkled and the level of blushing would indicate a severe blood disease, and once he focused on something, the subject was suddenly in slow motion and grinning like those demented baby dolls his grandparents had in their attic. Were—were those... flowers blooming  at their feet?

But before he could will his gravity-defying frown off his face and shut his mouth, he was being wrestled into a hold and Eleanor suddenly mover her free hand up in the air, and the idiot that he was, he of course followed it to see what she was pointing—"Son of a—Do you plan to blind me, woman?" he shrieked, sneaking one hand under the rim of the glasses to rub at his eye while the other flailed wildly at the purple smoke of a camera going off.

"You did not!" he suddenly stopped and looked at her incredulously. Which was—ridiculous. There were flowers in her hair and her eyes had that impossible sparkle, and there was a faint blush and her smile was... radiant. He stared a few seconds, dumfounded and mouth agape feeling his cheeks tinge. He shook his head twice and removed the glasses as if they were trying to burn themselves into his skin. He put them on the first shelf with obvious disgust. Crossing his arms, Sander put on his serial killer face (which he managed very well, thank you) and directed his glare at Ellie.

"Give me the camera and nobody gets hurt" he said threateningly.

The trippy kaleidoscope glasses could have been a blindfold and Ellie would probably be able to guess with impressive accuracy the level of disapproval on Sander's face. She turned toward him after the flash went off, and, look at that, a frown-- but only a glimpse because his expression had changed fast to some kind of suspended disbelief or... "Did I blind you?" She resisted the urge to poke him.

A flushing, cat-eye-shade-clad Sander making that face was almost well worth the impending struggle to determine the photo's fate. But she felt kind of bad, too, because he looked adorable and upset and ever in need of a hug. (She knew better.)

"Those must be fun," she guessed, eying the polka dotted shades as he pulled them off. "What do they do?" She took her own sunglasses off and looked at him properly-- his expression had changed again and she knew that would mean defending her camera's honor.

"You're probably frowning in it-- definitely frowning in it--" she corrected, having not seen him rub his eye. "Nothing out of the ordinary. At least let me develop it first." She put on a beggy expression, a contrast to his murderous one, but was prepared to further defend the camera's honor by dodging around grandmothers and display cases.  "Let's try some sweets," she suggested sweetly, trying to distract him though she knew it was in vain.

Sander scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest eyeing her suspiciously, one disbelieving eyebrow arched high and his mouth set in a tight, puckered line. With five younger siblings, of which one a teenager, and another, a young adult, Sander was well versed in evasive maneuvers, so he merely settled for slowly extending one hand forward and beckoning for the camera.

"They're the dream of every teenage girl. A horror of pink and sparkles. I can almost see Edward Cullen being the main inspiration for them" he rolled his eyes. And Sander only knew about Edward Cullen because of Lester's constant mumbling about the atrocities of Meyer ruining the legacy of Anne Rice. And Layla, of course, that sung praise to Robert Pattinson for weeks after the release. One day they could hear her mumble from below about sparkly vampires being the fore bringers of literary apocalypse, the next it was all "Team Edward".

Sander rubbed his temple with his other hand and gave a deep sigh followed by a roll of his eyes. "No. Frown or no frown, that picture will not see the red light of a darkroom" he muttered and insisted, waving his other hand. "I don't want sweets, woman. I loathe sweets. I make them for a living, or have you forgotten in your sad attempts at distraction" he said, seriously pissed by now, a weird twitch under his left eye.

"Give me" he grunted, flaring his nostrils and huffing.

She saw his hand reach out and wait impatiently for the camera, but Ellie continued to stare at his face. She kept the thing cradled near the back side of her bag. There was no way he was getting it without a chase. “I have no idea who Edward Cullen is." That was sort of a lie, because she, like Sander, had heard Layla go on about him. But it seemed like a good idea to keep up the mask of innocence. “But now I’d really like to see those.” She gestured toward the glasses. Her hands were a bit full, though. And some things were more important. “Maybe they make camera lenses…” Her expression became contemplative. She’d try the the glasses and make inquiries later. “You know what else teenage girls dream about? Seeing one proper picture of you.”

She had to make her case.

“I don’t have any photos of you from the front,” she argued. He was uncooperative and so she’d had to resort to other angles. 

And she’d lock the door of the dark room if she ever got there, so good luck to him. Now it was a matter of winning the gold in the Wizarding Olympics. “I haven’t forgotten. What kind of pastry chef hates sweets?” The Lysander kind. She shook her head, both at that peculiarity, and at his demand. She looked to one side, and then other, weighing her options. “Alright. You can have it.” She lifted the camera as if she were going to give it to him, and then she smiled. Instead of forfeiting it, she snapped another photo. And then ran.

She dodged around the sunglasses, and a collection of magic hats that did all sorts of things. The sweets section was a whirlwind: a huge shelf of Skiving Snackboxes, some exploding pastries in a display case, and rainbow-colored milkshakes beneath taps of soda syrup. She flew toward a shelved spectacle of love potions and charmed quills— things meant for those rose-tinted-glasses-wearing teenaged girls Sander had grumbled about— and jumped onto a wheeled ladder meant to help people to the tippy shelves. Only, Ellie road it sideways, jumping off at the end and frantically searching for Sander, who was sure to be after her. She was standing beside a cage of pygmy puffs some few meters from the door, ready to take another photo before she continued her marathon. She thought she had become a quicker runner since becoming a full-time photographer.