Venturing Forth

"But why not?" Sirius whined, casting another look towards the window. The day was that of a typical British summer…after an initial ten minutes of sunshine, it was now pouring with rain.

Remus sighed and explained again. "Muggles manage without charms to repel the rain, so can you."

"But it's slinging it down!"

"Unless you're forfeiting the bet, then tough luck." Remus smirked and watched the indecision flicker over his friend's face as he looked out at the steady downpour again.

"We've got a couple of muggle umbrellas in the hall closet," Peter commented. "You can use them if you like."

"Thanks," James grinned at him and dashed to the closet, Sirius close on his heels.

A few moments later and the sounds of complaining were once again heard.

"I want that one!"

"I got it first."

"But this one's for a girl."

"They both work the same way."

"But this one's pink and has stupid looking kittens on it."

"If it keeps you dry, what does it matter?"

"Can't you swap?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to have the girly one."

"But neither do I?"

"Then I guess you'll get wet."

"It's not fair!"

Remus looked at Peter who was grinning widely at the argument. He smirked back. If girlishness was defined by whining then both of their friends should be carrying pink, kitten-covered umbrellas.

"Do you think they know how to open them?" Remus asked.

A moment later that question was answered by the sound of a cry of pain followed by James apologising. "I swear I didn't know it would do that when I pressed the button."

"Ruddy dangerous contraptions," Sirius muttered as he stalked back into the living room and threw the pink umbrella onto the sofa. "Moony, it's just one little charm…"

"No."

"You'd better hurry if you want to get the bus," Peter advised. "We're a bit out of the way here so they only come by once an hour."

"Guess you're getting wet then," James smirked, his own umbrella open and resting casually on his shoulder.

"You do know that's bad luck?" Peter asked, pointing at the umbrella.

"What is?"

"Putting an umbrella up in the house."

"It is?" James squeaked, dropping the umbrella and jumping away from it as though it had suddenly sprouted fangs.

"Guess we're both getting wet," Sirius commented, pulling his cloak off of the peg.

"Does that cloak have any warming charms on it?" Remus asked suspiciously.

"Er…"

"Muggle clothes only," Remus stated.

Sirius looked sulky but put the cloak back on the peg and took down an oversized jacket instead.

--xXx--

"This bet's going to be a doddle," Sirius commented as they walked down the road, keeping an eye open for the bus.

"Yeah," James agreed. "But it'll be nice when we can use magic again."

"Here's the bus," Sirius said, pointing to the muggle bus coming up behind them.

"How do muggles stop it without a wand?"

"Dunno."

"Perhaps we should wave or something?"

Sirius nodded and began waving as soon as he thought the bus was close enough that the driver would see him. Having travelled on the Knight Bus on several occasions, he wasn't too worried that the bus wasn't slowing down as it approached him. He knew that muggle buses must have brakes, just like the Knight Bus.

He was still waving at the bus, leaning into the road, when he realised that it wasn't stopping at all. Thankfully James was rather more observant and pulled him back just in the nick of time.

"How rude!" Sirius exclaimed, making a particularly rude gesture of his own towards the back of the bus.

"How far did Wormtail say it was to the shopping centre?"

"A couple of miles."

James looked back towards the house and wondered whether it might be better to put off the shopping trip until a sunny day. Then he caught a glimpse of Remus and Peter watching them from the vantage point of an upstairs window. He didn't need to be in the room with them to be able to tell that they were both laughing uproariously at what they'd just seen.

"Let's start walking," James stated, walking determinedly down the road, not waiting to see if Sirius was following after him.

They had been walking for about five minutes when they saw a second muggle bus, this one going in the opposite direction. Sirius scowled at the contraption and kicked a stone out of his way. He wasn't looking when the bus pulled up on the other side of the road.

"Looks like they do stop sometimes," James commented. Sirius looked up to see a couple of women stepping off the bus and an elderly man climbing aboard. A minute later and the bus began moving again, revealing the small brick shelter with the words 'BUS STOP' painted on the side.

"They only stop in certain places," Sirius exclaimed as realisation dawned.

"You do know we've passed two of those shelters since we left the house?" James asked. "The first one before we even saw the bus coming?"

"No wonder they were laughing at us."

"We might as well keep walking," James muttered. "Wormtail said the buses were every hour and the rain seems to be abating a bit anyway."

Sirius nodded and they continued on their way.

"Wormtail was right about the shopping centre," James said as they arrived in the nearby town. The shopping centre was clearly sign posted and it wasn't long before they were inside and consulting their shopping list.

"Let's get the food first, then have a look round for other stuff," Sirius suggested. "I wouldn't mind looking for some muggle music like Wormtail's got."

James nodded and they made their way towards the supermarket.

"This is so easy," Sirius crowed as they filled up their trolley with items from their list and anything else that happened to catch their eyes.

"You've got the easy bit," James complained.

"You were the one who wanted to push the trolley."

"I didn't know the thing would have a mind of its own."

"It's just a bit of a dodgy wheel."

"Then how about you push it for a bit?"

"Can't, I've got the list."

"You could pass me the list."

"Nah, I'm enjoying this."

James scowled as Sirius threw a tub of chocolate chip ice cream into the trolley, breaking the eggs in the process.

"Sirius!" James glared at the dark-haired boy, who at least had the sense to look sheepish.

"Did we really need those?" Sirius asked as he tossed the broken eggs onto the nearest shelf and they hurried away from the mess they'd made on the floor.

"Don't know," James shrugged. "I can't remember what stuff on the list was from the recipe book and what we just added because we wanted to."

"Never mind, we can always make something else instead."

"You think we've got enough money for all this stuff?" James asked.

"You got Wormtail to give you some muggle money, didn't you?"

"Yeah, he came through for us with that one. Slipped it to me while Remus was in the bathroom."

"How much do we have?"

"He said it's a couple of hundred dollars, though I didn't have time to count it before Remus came back."

"Should be more than enough," Sirius said as he tried to mentally add up the price of the goods in their trolley. "Let's go pay."

After only two wrong turns down the aisles, the boys finally found the checkout and began piling their goods onto the conveyor.

James rolled his eyes as Sirius began flirting outrageously with the checkout girl.

"That'll be forty eight pounds and ninety seven and a half pence, please," she said with a smile.

"Here you go," James said as he handed her two notes marked twenty, and one marked ten.

"Er…what's this?" the girl asked as she looked closely at the first of the notes.

"That should be fifty," James said.

"These are US dollars."

"Huh?"

"US dollars, they're not legal tender in England."

"But, it's muggle money," James said, barely able to understand a word the girl was saying.

"Muggle?"

"Your money, er…" He looked at Sirius pleadingly, unfortunately the other boy looked as confused as he was.

"Look," the girl said as she passed the notes back over. "This is American money, you can't spend it here. You need to get it exchanged."

"But you don't accept galleons."

"Galleons?" The girl now looked as confused as the two boys.

"Our money is galleons, sickles and knuts," Sirius explained. "We thought this was your money."

"This is a joke, right?" the girl asked, her face breaking into a wide grin. "This is like that old Candid Camera show. Where's it hidden?"

James and Sirius watched as the girl started looking wildly around the supermarket, apparently looking for a camera.

"Look," Sirius said, bringing the girl's attention back to him. "We just want to buy our shopping. If this money isn't any good, just tell us what is…please?"

The girl looked a little crestfallen at the news that she wasn't going to be seen on television. She sighed and pulled out some money. "We use pounds and pence, though why you don't know this when you're clearly English is a mystery to me. You need to get it exchanged."

James looked closely at the coins. "So when could we use these?" He waved the notes in front of her again.

"In America," replied the girl, impatience now very evident in her tone.

"Guess Wormtail isn't as up on muggle money as he'd like us to think," Sirius commented. "How about I wait here and you go find a bank to exchange it?"

"How about I wait here and you find a bank?" James argued.

"How about you both get out the way of actual paying customers," a rather irate customer directly behind them in the queue chimed in.

The boys glared at the customer but moved out the way, their trolley of goods being taken aside by an assistant who pointed them towards the door.

"Well, that was a waste of an hour," James muttered. "Any ideas where the nearest bank is?"

"Do muggle banks even exchange different sorts of money?"

"Don't know."

"Why can't they just have one sort of money, like we do?"

"Don't know."

"Do you know anything?"

"I know we're getting stared at by that bloke with 'SECURITY' written on his jacket."

James and Sirius both looked at the guard, who was now eyeing them very suspiciously, before making a rapid exit from the area.

A/N: Confession time now - how many of you initially complained/grumbled to yourself when you read the word dollars? Perhaps thinking this drippy author doesn't know what currency the English use.

On an unrelated note - although this isn't a slash story, I know a few of the readers of this story ship the puppies and would like to invite you to my new puppy shippers forum. Everyone is welcome.