Naomi had briefly owled with Blake about what his family did to celebrate the spring season. And they didn't.

Outrageous!

The young Jamaican witch could hardly imagine what would happen during a season that wasn't properly commemorated or respected. Of course, Naomi Foley would find a reason to celebrate anything if she could get away with it. So the young witch decided to share some of her traditions with Blake, believing he had to do something--they were too young not to. So she arranged for them to meet after completing an errand for her mother.

Tucked away in a little backstreet niche of Diagon Alley, there was a wide shop with winding racks draped in assortments of bright, dull, and decorated fabrics nestled by lines spools of thread and other bobbles and things to tailor into clothing. Near the middle of the store Naomi stood at a counter, sporting her tangle of black curls, restrained in a dread-banded ponytail with a few bangs winding from the front of it. She pursed a distracted pout on a large spool of thread on the counter next to a large tomb of orders silently being traced with a monocle by a spindly old man.

She turned to look at the doorway, her curls shaking in her back with the frustration she refused to show. It was empty, luckily. She hoped to have finished the errand, but her mother was conveniently vague on exactly what she wanted on the first order, leaving Naomi to painstakingly pick out the spool on the counter.

"It doesn't say," the man's voice creaked with age.

Naomi turned back to the shopkeeper, "Oh," she responded dryly.

"But here's what you can do," and then he did it again, lifted his gaze from the book, met Naomi's (colored) eyes, adjusted his glasses and dove into an overly expansive explanation of the different types and combinations of threads she could choose. And, again, Naomi hid how absolutely clueless she was behind a tentative expression.

If the man hadn't had such a strange method of organizing his orders in every way except by customers, and other  time-consuming habits, she could be done by now, despite her mother making the errand even longer.

Her lids fell and her eyebrows rose, "Can I see all of  'em?" she sang innocently.

"Oh, of course," Naomi eyed him as he wandered back, spinning his order book towards herself as he got farther away, and then began leafing through it to find her mother's signature, so she could just decide everything at once and not bother with repeating everything over and over. She relaxed into leaning on the table, forgetting what she had stuffed in the magically altered pockets of her long hooded wrap, until it peeked its furry ears out. She leaned up and tried to cup the pocket, only to have the rabbit slip from her reach and hop behind her.

Naomi instinctively spun on her heel to catch sight of the fuzzy creature and its intended path, and then saw Blake standing by the door. She gestured at the rabbit, "Quick," she hummed through a hush, "Nab him 'fore he hides!" she tip toed closer to the the little runaway.

For the most part, Blake never really looked forward to returning home for breaks, even if it meant a break from classes. Being home with family did not mean a relaxing time at all. He felt ignored most of the time. His parents doted most on Callum and Imogen which left him to entertain himself. What was more, his family did not celebrate the holidays because of how staunchly pureblooded they were. After years of hearing his mugggleborn or halfblooded friends talk about their traditions, Blake wished that the Knight family was just a bit more....sentimental about family time.

Perhaps the only upside to his family's indifference was when he asked if he could go and meet Naomi for some shopping in Diagon Alley. Neither of his parents put up much of a fuss and he set off on the train for a day trip. He wasn't sure what he planned to buy, but he had his allowance stash filling his coat pockets.

Blake had taken his time getting to the store that Naomi had indicated, enjoying his little trip past the small shops or even the street vendors.

He arrived at the shop just as Naomi commanded him to snatch up a rabbit headed towards him. Without really thinking, Blake lurched forward and grabbed for the furry fellow. He hadn't planned to yank on its tail, but that's what ended up happening and it seemed to shock the rabbit almost as much as it shocked Blake. His eyes were wide with surprise and in a moment of quick thinking, he remembered that it was best to hold such an animal by the scruff of the neck. He awkwardly reached his other hand forward to take firm hold of the excess fur at the top of its back.

He let go of the tail and stood to walk towards his friend. The rabbit squirmed a bit but eventually seemed to give up the struggle. “So....um....are you planning to buy this little guy or what?”

Naomi sighed and put her wand away, and looked back at the shopkeeper, "Already did," she wrapper her hand around Blake's wrist, "Named him Rascal," she grabbed his other hand and then pulled both around his back and cupped his hands around the little fuzzball, before finally explaining with a guilty hitch to her accent, "just so happens he don't have a cage..."

The old shopkeeper returned with a handful of spools, and Naomi leaned onto the desk to look at them as they were carefully dumped on the counter. The man then turned back to his book, adjusted his glasses, and rambled on about the different types of thread, how they were woven, how she could weave them and whoops--the Jamaican witch 'accidentally' nudged a few of the threads off the counter and onto the elder's feet, "Oops, don't worry dear, I've got it."

As he ducked under the table for a moment and ceased talking, Naomi turned to speak to her friend again as her hands fiddled to divide up the threads, "got to pick some of those, for dresses to dance in back home." Once she was finished she moved all the threads she wanted to the middle of the counter and smiled satisfyingly at Blake, "'Den we can go find t'ings to feed to Rascal for Easter."

But then she paused and pursed her lips as her hazel gaze fell to the floor and then back at Blake, "Don't tell my mom 'bout it though..."

The relic behind the counter finally heaved himself up again, after having retrieved the threads and the younger witch smiled contently, mostly at the other man's expense, "Okay let's... oh, did you pick them all out already?" Naomi bobbed her head in response, "Oh well, ten galleons then"

She retrieved the coins from her pocket and put them back on the counter and the shopkeeper bid them farewell and disappeared in the back of the shop as pocketed all the spools into her sweater's loose and magically extended pocket.

Blake was rendered speechless as it started to sink in that what his friend might be doing wasn't necessarily a squeaky clean operation. Not only that, but she began to make him an accomplice! He would panic, but the idea of doing something that he wasn't supposed to be doing was actually a little exciting. So Blake played along and accepted her explanation for “Rascal” and tried to hold the squirming rabbit behind him as the shopkeeper came back.

Blake tried to smile at the man without looking too guilty. He imagined his still baby-faced cuteness made that a little easier. The man barely looked at him very long before settling his gaze back on Naomi.

He just nodded at Naomi's plan for the rest of the day and finally caught a bit of what might be guilt about what she was doing. But Blake was actually impressed with his friend's craftiness. When she told him not to tell her mum about this little escapade, Blake just shrugged.

Once her transaction was completed, Blake turned and headed out of the shop with her. He brought the rabbit out in front of him and readjusted the creature so as to pet him between the ears. “What do you feed him for...Easter?”

Naomi finished stuffing her pockets and turned to hugged her chin to her shoulder as she looked at Blake, ''Pends on what you want t' come out th' other end," she said with peeking obviousness as if he knew that she wasn't talking about poop. Her green eyes fell on Rascal as she shrugged and then backpedaled towards the exit, "Ferst he'll be making explosive eggs--somethin' else 'dat's just between me and you," her finger tilted between her and Blake as her hand caught the handle of the shop door and she paused for a moment. Then she pointed to the rabbit, "and him."

As if on cue, the rabbit's ears lifted its head curiously with wide-eyed innocence and Naomi smirked and pushed open the door for her friend to follow after, "You never made an Easter Egg 'fore Blake? It's a Russian thing," she turned into the street and began to walk forward again.

"Rabbits laying eggs is a funny German, Russian, and Egyptian culture mush..." her eyes fell towards their avenue of Diagon Alley, again, searching for the apothecary's, "Muggles spend a fortune making a fuss 'bout it and deir religion, even though s'got nothing to do wit' either-or."

The young witch's lips pursed into a devilish smirk as she looked back at her friend. "s'like Christmas," and getting on her mother's nerves was always a great present for her to give herself.

Blake raised his brows at Naomi's response about what they were to do with the rabbit. It was partly out of confusion and partly out of interest. He shrugged and said, "Wh-ohkay....sure." Make rabbits produce explosive eggs? That would be fine with him. Blake was tired of being considered the squeaky clean Knight anyway and this excursion out away from the family was intended to include some fun.

He kept hold of Rascal and headed towards the exit with her. He shook his head in response to her question. "Nope. No Easter eggs, ever. My family is not into that sort of thing." That's an understatement, he thought to himself. Anything Muggle related was off limits in the Knight household. That was a no brainer. And if Blake had ever brought anything even remotely related to that lifestyle home, he was sure to get a razzing from the likes of Callum that would make him wish he hadn't. So he avoided it at all costs.

Still, Blake was interested in Muggle traditions and artifacts. So he listened to what Naomi said with wide eyes. "Christmas, huh? In April? Sounds a little crazy if you ask me...."

Naomi slid a suspicious pout towards Blake, "My fun," she said sporting the creeping white of a smirk, "I'll play th' name my way. 'Less you want to be my official accomplice, Mr. Knight?" She raised her eyebrows with a pinch ofjest; as if they could ever be that formal.

She began to favor her path along one side of the street as they approached an apothecary with stairs winding up towards the entrance, "Now muggles, would make 'deir birthdays into an official break, given th' choice," not that wizards couldn't pull it off as well, but they weren't so easily convinced as the magic-less species seemed to be for such things.

Her hand reached up on the twisting rail garnishing the stairs and she pulled herself up onto the edge of the steps, "Weird t'ing they'd do: get word of what we done, traditions, habits--d'en put 'em together for a week or so and boom!" she swung herself under the railing and planted herself on the steps, "Everyone's got a week off with plenty of options for wastin' money," at least that was her casual observation of their methods.

A rather posh and and conservatively dressed witch descended the winding entrance, nearly mowing down Naomi, who just leaned forward on the railing and out of the way of the woman, with a glaring beat of her eyelids. The young witch took the opportunity to lean over the railing, her swirls of hair hanging off her shoulder as she continued with a dismissive nudge of her shoulder, "Part of what probably drove th' worlds apart," Her voice drew out in a long hushed husk, almost wishful, but she just shook her head and rolled her eyes towards the sky.

"Traditions started to clash wit' business, business started to capitalize on holidays, nothing was sacred no more, 'den just stuff..." She didn't really know what 'stuff' entailed, the young witch could only iterate the bare bones of what she was taught and understood about the falling out of that relationship. She sighed and leaned back onto the steps, "Somet'ing gave n' got--and laddi dadi da," she sang with a more festive air as she turned to climb the steps into the shop, "but 'dere are proper ways to celebrate th' coming spring..."

With a quick shot around the interior of the store Naomi's tone rose to happily claim, "Mine's wit' a bang," then she rushed through a list, "firefly larvae in pixie dust and sugar, and... somet'in' else." It was simple for Naomi to figure out how to accomplish the coloring and explosive details of coating the firefly larvae in pixie dust and sugar, all in one step, but not what to feed the bugs to make them explosive after traveling through Rascal's respiratory system, details Blake surely picked up on. He was a Ravenclaw for a reason, afterall.