Nicholas was hurrying down Charring Cross Road, the puddles were mostly gone after nearly a week of rain, which was why he had called his muggle friends in the first place.  He hadn't been about to pass up another nice day that he wasn't stuck under the Ministry. He didn't get to see his muggle friends all that often, and it had been a good chance to catch up over lunch.

It wasn't exactly fun lying and he had to be vague about most things.  But eight...seven years after being told he was a wizard and only occasionally seeing them, he'd gotten used to it. He did tell them about Peyton though.  And they didn't hesitate to take the piss out of him for actually dating someone. And if he slipped up and said broom, well they just thought he was boasting.

He wasn't paying much attention as he entered the Leaky Cauldron.  He apologized to the witch he bumped into and nodded to the bartender.  He would have stopped and gotten a butterbeer but all he had was muggle money in his pocket. For some reason he'd left all his sickles and galleons on his nightstand. Well, last time he'd gone out he'd nearly tried to pay with sickles.  Better safe than sorry.  Especially when it was his job to fix it when people weren't.

Stepping into the courtyard, Nicholas pulled out his wand and tapped the correct brick.  He might not be as impressed with the archway opening as he had been at eleven, but it was still a nice bit of magic.  He stepped through the opening, only to turn around when he heard someone else in the courtyard behind him.  "Merlin's beard, what the hell are you doing here?"  Why was Sasha's very muggle friend standing behind him looking into a very magical place.

For the last two weeks, Anton had been on a mission. 

He'd first heard about Diagon Alley from Virgil, with its mysterious farmer's markets.  Later that same afternoon, while trying to convince his mum that meeting an actual wizard hadn't been a horrid mistake, he'd learned that his mum had met someone who worked in Diagon Alley!  In a wand shop and had even gotten a business card.  Somehow, someway, he was determined to find this hidden treasure trove of magical and exciting things. 

Satiating his own curiosity was part of it.  But, it was more than that.  Mum, he knew, was worried about losing Micha to this big new world and wanted to turn a blind eye for as long as she could.  Anton felt it was important to understand as much as he could about this mystifying new world that they'd be sending Micha off into in a few months time.  Adjusting to new schools and new social groups was hard enough on its own; Anton had to believe that it would only help Micha to know they were all there with him. 

Armed with what he'd picked up from Virgil and what he'd gathered from the business card, Anton had gone in search of this hidden alley.  Gradually, he'd started to pick up on the fashion patterns that might indicate magical people pretending to be non-magical.  (And, to think, he'd just thought most of them were color-blind!) 

At first, he started with keeping an eye out for these peculiarly-fashioned folks and, once he spotted one, he'd follow them until he'd invariably lose them in the crowd.  Without fail.  No matter how careful he was to keep pace.  Pretty soon after, he started marking on a map on his phone where each of these oddly-dressed people disappeared.  Within a week, Anton started to notice specific 'hot spots' where a large number of the fancily-frocked vanished and he started loitering at those corners.  And watching.  Until, with a stroke of luck, he spotted someone he recognized approaching the corner. 

It was like the absolute best game of Where in The World Is Carmen San Diego?  Anton watched closely as Wizard Nick strolled up the street and fell into step a few paces behind the other young man.  Making sure he kept his eyes trained on Nick and ignoring the rest of his surroundings, he trailed behind until Nick suddenly turned to look at him in the midst of a small courtyard.

... with dancing, floating, portal-opening bricks. 

"Merlin's what?" Anton repeated, staring wide-eyed past Nick into the bustling, shop-filled alleyway behind him.  "Did you just say Merlin's Beard?" he repeated, grinning broadly as he finally tore his eyes away to look at Nick.  "Is that code for something?  A magic spell?"  Surely, Nick wasn't going to deny him this.  He seemed cool - and he was friends with Virgil and Sasha.  That had to be worth something.

And, he sort of had a right to be here, right?  Through his brother?  Well, half-brother.  And, step-mum.  "I'm here to pick up something from the market for my brother.  He's a sorcerer, too."  There it was.  The real code word.  It was like saying the secret word to get into the mob's club to play poker.  If that didn't work, maybe pleading would help.  "Come on, please.  I've got to see it.  I just want to peek around.  I can pretend to be a squib," he offered, whispering the last word. 

[M for language]

"Yes, I said Merlin's beard, it doesn't mean anything."  Nicholas said while thinking through the problem at hand.  Virgil had told him that Anton knew.  But a muggle in Diagon Alley without a wizard family member.  He was pretty sure this was covered in a subparagraph of a subsection of an addendum to a policy but he couldn't remember what he was supposed to do.

But he also wasn't going to just obliviate Anton without being sure.  Especially since he was pretty sure Virgil had slept with him the night they'd all met him.  "You and Virgil are trying to get my fired, right?  That's what this really is."  Nicholas let out a long sigh.  He wasn't going to blend in as a squib if he called his brother a sorcerer.

"He's a wizard.  We aren't sorcerers."  Educating muggle was not in his job description.  Actually it was the opposite of his job description.  "If you and Virgil are going to be fucking, he needs to do a better job teaching you to blend in."  Nicholas wasn't sure that his flatmate had gone home with the muggle that night, but Virgil hadn't come back to the flat either.  And Virgil could be priggish at times.

"Come on," he said reaching out to grab Anton's arm and lead him away from the entrance.  If they stood there any longer talking it would draw attention.  Which Nicholas didn't want to do.  He also wasn't going to let a muggle wander around without an escort.  He'd end up cursed by a hag if he was lucky, worse if he wasn't.

"If anyone asks, don't say anything about being a muggle or a squib.  And don't pull out any money.  Or anything electronic.  Just don't be obvious. I'm going to get fired for this, I know it."

"Then, why did you say it?  Is it just like some exclamation?" Anton asked, his attention shifted back to Nicholas for just long enough to appear somewhat engaged before turning back to alley of all things fantastic behind him.  That must be it, giving the linguistic context of the phrase. 

Yet another new thing he'd learned about this magical world: instead of curse words, match a famous wizard with a noun.  Anton could do that.  "Gandalf's hat, no!"  Again, his attention flickered towards Nick just long enough to see if he'd scored points with that phrase.  "I know I'm not trying to get you fired."  It hadn't even occurred to Anton that he could get Nicholas the wizard, not sorcerer, fired.  "I don't even know what you do and I can't speak for Virgil, but I don't see why he'd want to." 

So, job security aside, Virgil's night spent away from the roommates' flat hadn't gone unnoticed.  His lips stretched into a broad, sly grin, eyebrows waggling to punctuate the expression.  "We were a bit too preoccupied for any formal educating.  Besides, he didn't let me in on the secret until the next morning.  Though-" Anton felt obligated to tag on.  "I'd appreciate if you'd keep a little discrete about the matter."

Anton suspected he'd never know if it was the secret code word or the pleading that had worked but, in the end, it didn't matter.  With a tug at his elbow, Nick led Anton to the right side of the demo-tetris brick wall which, primly slid back into place after they'd passed through. 

"Right.  I won't say anything and you're buying.  I can do that."  Not staring at the wall like an idiot was probably a good first step - which was easy to do, given all the different distractions up and down the alley.  Anton turned away from the wall, his gaze shifting from the rickety old buildings, to the array of costumes everyone was wearing and back to the window displays.  "Ganz verrückt, he breathed, nudging Nick with his elbow and trying to point as subtly as he could towards the array of cauldrons outside the shop.  "Is that for real?  That's so MacBeth!" he leaned towards Nick to whisper. 

"Who the hell is Gandalf?"  Nicholas asked.  He rubbed his hand over his face.  Of course Virgil's boytoy would think Virgil wasn't actually terrible.  Nicholas liked Virgil and all, but that didn't stop him from accepting that his flatmate was terrible.  Even if sometimes he tried to change that.  He was also only a little disappointed that he hadn't gotten to sleep with Anton.

"he shouldn't have let you in on the secret at all."  Of course, Virgil had been in Anton's head.  Among other body parts probably.  Somehow, that seemed even worse than when Virgil was in his head.  But he couldn't really say anything about that.  It was his job to get into muggle heads and erase things they shouldn't know about.  Sometimes, he wasn't sure about anything.  And some of that was Virgil's fault.  And this particular situation was definitely Virgil's fault.

"Discreet about what?  That you shouldn't be here,"  he said lowering his voice, "or about who you are fu–sleeping with?"  He could be discreet about the former, the latter well he kinda wanted to high five Virgil.

"Right.  I won't say anything and you're buying.  I can do that."

Nicholas sighed, was Virgil at the flat?  Or Ari.  If he was going to end up giving a down-low tour of Diagon, he might as well go get some galleons and show Anton Gringott's.  But that was...  "I don't have any galleons or sickles.  I was out with my muggle friends."

Anton was looking at a shop behind him, Nicholas glanced at the potions shop and the display of cauldrons.  He let out a longer sigh, "Yes, it's for real.  It's not Shakespearean, its magic.  And it's real.  Don't gawk. Let's go,  I need to go to the bank."

"Only the greatest wizard of all time!" Anton quipped, feigning a look of complete disbelief.  Of course, it was a completely baseless quip; Anton was only enough of a nerd to be familiar with the contenders in the fictional wizards' Oscars; he wasn't enough of one to have a serious preference as to who actually won.  But, he wasn't about to turn his back on an opportunity to give Nicholas grief when the opportunity presented itself so perfectly.  "Unless you're a Melisandre or Jafar fan." 

Slowly, Anton shrugged his shoulders, only sparing a momentary glance towards Nicholas before turning back to scan the alley.  "In all fairness, the only secret he let me in on was that you all were sorc- wizards.  My mum had already told us about magic existing."  To be honest, that was the weirdest part of all of this, feeling like an intrusive illegal migrant in a world that was so closely knitted into his own. 

"And, I'm glad he did; my brother needs more support and exposure with all of this than my mom can offer.  So, what's really the harm?" 

It wasn't like he was there to cause trouble.  Sure, he was likely to come across a bit as the confused tourist but that was because he was a confused tourist.  A confused tourist who was legitimately curious and wanted to learn from the source. 

So, he ignored Nicholas' comment about how he wasn't supposed to be there and turned his attention to the more important matter.  "Yes.  That," he confirmed, pointing at Nicholas just as the other mentioned Anton's recent bedtime companion.  "I haven't precisely talked to Rudi about it - or any of this and-"  He hesitated a moment, trying to figure out the best phrasing.  "As you know, he can be particular." 

At least, he assumed Nicholas knew. 

"Galleons and sickles," Anton repeated.  "Money, right?" he leaned in towards Nicholas to ask.  That seemed to be what the context clues were point to.  "And, is that just Britain?  Did they opt out of the ... Merlin Euro like we did?"  It still seemed strange that this wizarding world mirrored the one he knew in almost every way imaginable.  Banks.  Schools.  He really wanted to know if there were magical supermarkets and farms and ... well ... utility offices.

"And, what is this job of yours that I might get you fired from?"

Nicholas rolled his eyes at the fictional wizards that Anton named. He only knew Jafar so he assumed the other two were fake as well. He seemed to want everyone to hear that he wasn't actually a wizard. Best case they'd assume he was a muggle-born who hadn't let go of the muggle world.

"Yeah, family is allowed to know.  My mum was told when I was." He remembered what it was like being let in on the secret.  Though, unlike Anton, he was told he could actually participate.  Not just know about it.  He'd fallen in love with magic almost immediately.  And he'd jumped in head-first.  Maybe Anton's brother wasn't so eager. "There's plenty of harm.  But it won't be that bad for him.  I was muggle-born too. My family are all muggles. Well I have a cousin who also ended up a witch."  He grinned and added, "And I turned out just fine."

Rudi...Who? Oh...right...Sasha. "Particular is a word to describe him. What's he going to do?  You are all adults."  Besides, anything that pushed Sasha's buttons was okay in his book.  The more buttons pushed the better.

"Merlin Euro?"  Nicholas asked incredulously. He doubted the goblins would ever let anything like that happen.  "No, just Britain.  I think everyone has their own money.  Haven't really gone anywhere where I had to deal with that yet." He'd have to remedy that.  Go on holiday once work would let him.

"And, what is this job of yours that I might get you fired from?"

"I work for the Ministry. In the department that keeps us hidden from you." Nicholas paused before deciding to tell Anton what they did to those who found out.  "When we have to, the office I work in is in charge of erasing memories of things muggles shouldn't have seen."

"Really?" Anton replied, sounding equally excited and intrigued by Nicholas being muggleborn.  "Was it ever weird, though - having your family know but never really being a part of it?  We're still figuring it out but we want to be more than spectators in his life, you know?" 

Anton knew that was the part his mum was struggling with the most. 

"Oh.  I think Micha's going to have a blast; he's going to love it.  In some ways, I think he's more than ready to dive in.  It's my mum who's not ready to cut the string, yet.  I wanted to check this place out so I could, maybe, bring him one day."  He understood why things were unfolding the way they were but he had a feeling their mum's nerves were rubbing off on Micha. 

"Particular is a word to describe him. What's he going to do?  You are all adults." 

Yet again, Anton was starting to realize that Sasha's difficulties in connecting with classmates had transcended both the magical and non-magical worlds.  "The particularity and other unmentioned descriptive words aren't unwarranted," Anton offered along with a placating shrug.  He wasn't so dense as to not understand it; he regularly wondered if he'd have developed such a strong friendship with Sasha if he'd met the guy at an older age and without the interference of parents.  "But, if you've ever been on the receiving end of one of his lecture's, you'd understand." 

"That must make exchange rates a bitch," Anton pondered aloud as he walked next Nick, trying his hardest not to rubberneck every five steps.  "And, it seems unbelievable that you manage to keep all this hidden!  It's like an entire bloody neighborhood.  In the middle of London.  The physics just doesn't make sense, man."  Hiding things was one thing.  Modifying memories is another entirely.  "Seriously?  You're a brain-wiper?  And, that's ... that's legal?  But, that must be like a completely rare occurrence; that can't happen on a regular basis." 

Except, if it was, how would anyone know?  It could have happened to him and he would never have known it.  Had it happened to him?  Is that why he knew nothing about Sasha?  Feeling a moment of sudden alarm, he stopped and turned towards Nick, reaching out to hold him gently by the elbow.  "Are there records of when you do that?  Is there a way to know if it had ever happened to me?"

It was a bizarre juxtaposition.  Talking about all this serious governmental mind wiping work while walking by the fantastical knick knacks and whatzamadingles in all the shop windows.  Such as right this moment.  They were walking by a ... magical.  Pet.  Shop.  Anton stopped in his tracks and glanced from the window display to Nick and back.  "You can't just go and to me say no," he pleaded, intentionally intensifying his German accent.  Maybe he could safely play tourist if he came off as a more acceptable form of tourist.  "Ours little village in ze Alps just doesn't have zis sort of ting.  Only very basics.  Toads and corn and beets only." 

Nodding his head pointedly towards the shop's open door, he widened his eyes and batted his lashes in the most unapologetic doe-y eyed expression he could manage. 

Nicholas frowned at the question.  Was it weird that his mum wasn't also a witch?  Maybe.  A little.  "Yeah, its weird sometimes.  She doesn't always grasp that I won't follow a muggle path.  Not going to university still confuses her."  Owl post still confused her as well. But he wasn't about to explain that to Anton.  If someone else hadn't already, he'd leave it for anyone else.

He couldn't hold back a laugh at Anton bringing his brother to Diagon Alley.  Sure, Anton could help him get to Charing Cross Road, but the rest would all be Micha taking Anton through.  "Well, once he gets his wand he can certainly take you," he said kindly, hopefully taking any sting out of laughing at the idea.  He'd never thought about it from the other side of the muggle-born equation.

"I've received many lectures," Nicholas said with a grin, "most of them rolled right off.  I couldn't even tell you if he gave me one.  We weren't in the same house.  But my prefects gave me plenty."  And none of them had an effect past the last word.  How life had changed.  He certainly listened to the ones his bosses and senior obliviators gave.  But they were rarely trying to make him live the boring life that Sasha or Josh had.

He shrugged about the money.  He wasn't about to accuse the goblins of cheating him and trusted them to at least appear not to.  The rest though.  There was a whole department for that.  And it was amazing.  And a shit-ton of work.  "It happens somewhat regularly.  Mostly to do with creatures. People and beings know better.  Though they screw up too."

Feeling Anton grab his arm, he turned and stopped.  He wasn't surprised by the question.  It would be one of his firsts too. "Yes there are records, if it was official and sanctioned.  We do occasionally have to follow up. Otherwise its hard to tell.  If it was done well its hard to tell for most people.  How do you know something is missing if you don't remember enough to know anything is missing."  They weren't supposed to leave chunks of missing time.  Though it could happen in a rush.

"I could check though, at least for official obliviations."  Not that that would find anything if Sasha had erased anything from his friend's mind.  But he wasn't that much of an ass to plant that thought about Sasha in Anton's mind.

Nicholas shook his head and let out a heavy sigh as Anton threw on the accent.  "Really?"  He really didn't want to admit that the Menagerie had a whole toad section.