Chapter 25: Muggle London
The four of us did our school shopping together in Diagon Alley that year. Unfortunately, our usual pastime of traumatizing small wizard children by making their ice cream fall on the ground wasn't enough to satisfy Sirius anymore. He was soon bored, which is always dangerous. We had bought all of our supplies, and still had plenty of time left over.
"Well, what should we do?" asked James. Sirius's eyes light up and that all too familiar grin formed on his face. I frowned.
"We could go to muggle London," he said. I shook my head. I'd only been there twice before, and that was when I was little, with my parents.
"Yeah," said James, who'd lived on Diagon Alley and been there plenty of times. Before I could object, we were headed directly into muggle London. I read the signs of muggle shops as we walked down the streets.
Bertha's Bakery was a small shop, with donuts, breads, and muffins displayed in the window. George's Grocery was a store where muggles bought their food. It had isles filled with shelves and shelves of muggle food. Professional Photography displayed pictures in the front windows, the kind that Sirius had told us about, that didn't move. The Petshop sold only cats, dogs, and goldfish. Latest Technology Electronics had twenty tv's (muggle picture boxes) displayed in the front window. The Teacup was a small café that served tea as well as other things. It had tables out front where muggles sat, eating. There was even a muggle bank, which was very different from Gringotts, which I was used to. I watched several muggles get money. They didn't go down to their vault, the banker just brought them their money. It was really weird.
We turned onto a different street. Tattoos and Piercing was a rundown looking little shop. There were displays of large dragons in the window, and we could see a muggle man sitting inside the shop. He had more tattoos and piercings than I'd ever seen on a person before, and he was smoking a cigarette. I walked faster, wanting to get away from that particular shop, but before I knew what was going on, Sirius had left our group and entered the shop.
"No! Sirius!" I called after him. He didn't listen. James and Peter sat down on the curb to wait, without even an attempt to stop him. It would have been a useless effort anyway. Sirius always had indestructible determination. So, in my boredom I spotted a street vendor selling fountain Pepsi, and decided to buy some. Sirius had gotten me addicted to caffeine back in third year, and Pepsi was my favorite. Since it was a muggle drink, I rarely got to have it.
"I'd like some pepsi," I said. The woman working the stand got the Pepsi.
"No kidding, how much?" she asked.
"What?" I replied.
"We've got small, medium, and large. What do you want?" she asked impatiently.
"Er, large," I replied.
"That'll be one pound," she said, slapping the drink onto the counter top. I stared at the bit of muggle money in my hands, feeling quite puzzled.
"I'm sorry," I said to her. "I'm an American, and I'm not sure about this British money," I tried to do my best American accent, which wasn't very convincing. She gave me an odd look, then selected a pound from my hand.
"Thanks," I said and turned to go back to James and Peter, drinking the Pepsi. There is nothing better than Pepsi to make you hyper, I mean nothing. James and Peter frowned when they saw me with Pepsi.
"Uh-oh," said James. "Moony on a caffeine high." I did my best evil laugh. We waited for a few more minutes until Sirius finally came out of the shop. I was relieved to see that he still looked the same.
"Hi guys," he said, brushing his hair back to reveal a gold loop earring in his right ear.
"Sirius!" I shouted. "What the hell were you thinking! You can't just get an earring like that! What Erin say?" Sirius shrugged.
"And you just wait until I tell Addi," I threatened.
"I don't care," he said.
"Why'd you do it?" asked Peter.
"It looked fun," said Sirius.
"Only you would find that fun," said James. "What do you think my mum's going to say when she sees you?"
"If this is going to scare her, wait until she sees what else I did," said Sirius, grinning.
"Oh God, you didn't!" I moaned. Sirius rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a large black dog.
"Well, it looks like you," commented James.
Needless to say, James' mum wasn't too pleased to find out that we'd gone to Muggle London. She had forbidden us to ever go again, but other than that, she didn't say much about Sirius' tattoo and earring.