...

The South of France was as beautiful as Bertha had said in her letters, but it wasn't like home. In fairness, Johann didn't expect in a whole world tour, he would find anywhere more perfect than the lush forests of Bavaria. By this time next year, he supposed, he'd be able to say that with more confidence. He slumped his head into one hand on the breakfast table and limply held up a croissant with the other, gazing listlessly past it and out of the kitchen window while Bertha and her English husband, predictably called John, chatted idly in English. He was vaguely aware of John leaving the room to do something.

Suddenly, Bertha slammed her hand on the table in front of him. He clenched his fists in surprise, utterly crushing the croissant between his fingers with a small explosion of buttery pastry.
“What is with you?”
“Du sprichst doch Deutsch,” said Johann, standing up.
“And you speak English!” Bertha was distracted by the kettle whistling. There was no elf at her cottage, so she poured the coffee herself. Steam from the coffee cups shimmered in the air, as the tension lessened slightly.
“Schwarz,” Johann held his hand up to stop Bertha from adding milk. She glared at him. He was sure she practised her glare and a chill went up his spine to imagine he was one of her students. There was a pause, in which she mimed spoiling his coffee, and he relented with a reluctant grin, “Doch, black.”
“You need to practice your English anyway,” Bertha said, primly, though the delicacy was undermined slightly by her bellowing the word 'coffee' so John, doing whatever it was he was doing, could hear, “They won't speak German to you.”
“And why is that,” said Johann, sitting back down with a thump. It wasn't a question, “He doesn't either.”
“Ah, but Bertha is teaching me,” said John from behind, startling them both, “Anyway, Johann, drink up or leave it here. I have something to show you.”
Johann and Bertha exchanged a glance; she shrugged.

John led Johann outside. Even though Johann had spent most of the week at the little cottage his sister and brother-in-law owned just outside Toulouse, they had spent very little time alone together.
“I don't know if Bertha told you or not,” said John, heading straight into a nearby, slightly overgrown field, “But I was a decent duellist once,” following closely, Johann could see, both literally and figuratively, where this was going; a great duelling strip lay out before them in a clearing, a royal blue platform with symbols of the lunar cycle.
He couldn't help but grin as he pulled out his wand, a collossal unit that John had scarcely believed was real when he first saw it, “No, she didn't tell me,” Johann allowed himself to be invited to one end of the strip by his brother-in-law's arm gesture, and bowed, “Just remember I play German rules.”
“What are German rules?” asked John, before returning the bow.
“Win.”

Johann shot the first spell, a crackle of energy blistered through the air, ably deflected by John, who countered with a volley of weak but numerous hexes. Without batting an eyelid, Johann blocked each and every one. John's wandwork was as good as could be expected from a teacher, he supposed, but his footwork was sloppy and that was half the battle. They exchanged hexes for a few minutes until Johann was warmed up, and then he began the onslaught. Firing powerful curses in quick succession, he steadily forced his way up the duelling strip; with every step, John had less and less reaction time and each subsequent curse threw him off a little more and by the time Johann was half the way down the thirty-metre strip, he was barely managing to defend – all hope of countering was lost. Eventually, John simply wasn't quick enough, and was blasted off the strip. Victory to Johann. Maybe John wasn't so bad after all.

The late morning sun shone through the low hanging windows of the O'Lynch residence's washroom, but the main occupant of the household was too busy getting shooed along by his mother to pay any sort of attention to the environment. There he stood, clad in his usual "Muggle" attire of a t-shirt, cargo shorts, and open-toed sandals. One could almost confuse him for the world's shortest surfer at that point, and it drove his mother absolutely mad. All throughout breakfast and his shower, Logan could hear his mother frantically tossing clothes to and fro, what the woman called "Last minute packing" usually consisted of several hours of chaos, but the pint-sized Hufflepuff was used to it, seeing it almost like a yearly ceremony of sorts, it'd been done since his first year at Hogwarts, and hell would've frozen over if it didn't happen on his last year at Hogwarts, and now it was happening after he had graduated.

"Mum, I swear I packed everything." The words probably sounded more like a gargled mess due to the toothbrush currently occupying Logan's mouth, but the huffs and puffs he heard from outside the bathroom door asserted that he had gotten his point across. Spitting the foamy mix of toothpaste and saliva into the sink and letting the faucet wash it down. "Now will you just let me get on with my life?" his tone was jovial enough, though his elder returned it with an expression of faux-glumness, the shorter of the duo retorted by sticking out his tongue, which never failed to get a laugh out of the homely Alice O'Lynch.

"I just can't believe you've finally graduated and are heading out on this foolish trip around the world nonsense." his mother handed him the enchanted turtle shell of a backpack that would act as his main storage system along the trip. "And please tell me you're bringing that mutt of a cat with you. You've only been here a week and I've already had to vacuum the furniture twice just to get the fur off." as if on cue, Taggart plopped down from the fireplace mantle in the living room and rubbed his head against Logan's lower leg.

"Mother, he is not a cat he's a purebred Kneazle." the part Leprechaun whined in exasperation as he picked up the animal in question and unceremoniously put his chin on top of his companion's head to give his mother a look of extraordinarily campy sadness. A pair of rolled eyes later, and Logan dropped Taggart to the ground, retrieving the small bowl of floo powder from the rather rustic fireplace while Taggart crawled into his pet carrier without being told to do so.

"Do have fun in Paris, and I better not get any phone-calls from a jailhouse in god knows what countries you'll be visiting about you doing something inanely stupid." His mother gave him a raised eyebrow and a stern look. "Promise me."

"I promise to not get into too much trouble." Logan threw the backpack around his left shoulder, kissed his mom on the cheek, and threw the floo powder into the fireplace, and the ashes expanded into emerald green flames. picking up and closing the pet carrier, Logan gave his mother one last wave before taking a step forward. "Clarbec de Traverse." he ducked into the flames (something he rarely got the opportunity to do.) hoping he pronounced the name correctly. He emerged in what seemed to be a small candy and joke shop. A shopkeeper looked to the fireplace. "Hello, hello! Welcome to Oglethorpe’s!" the overbearing French accent certainly was reassuring.

"Just trying to get to the Tower, this is Paris right?" Logan asked while fetching a couple Cauldron Cakes, not wanting to seem rude by not patronizing the store he all but crashed into.

"Indeed, is this your first time visiting France?"

"Pretty much." Logan slid the shopkeeper a few sickles.

"Enjoy the country."

"I certainly will." the two exchanged smiles as Logan began to unwrap one of the wizard pastries and make his way outside. It couldn't be too hard to find the bloody Eiffel tower now could it?

It was perhaps on the ferry to Calais that Leck realised she would never truly be a muggle. Stumbling around the deck on a particularly bumpy crossing, she crashed into muggle conversations with as much discretion as she was capable of. Unfortunately, she had by now run the gamut of non-magical chatter, chatting about football, popular muggle music and asking vague questions about the unsuspecting travellers about their holiday plans, even refraining from tapping her toe as they hesitated or failed to give specific questions: she would never have afforded magical folk the same patience. Still, she couldn't shake that cold feeling of dissatisfaction. Even though she had taken a NEWT in their analogue (but increasingly digital) culture, she had somehow failed to integrate. On the way back to the cabin, the ferry rocked and slammed her into a wall and an expletive, the foulest available, erupted from her mouth. A little boy, whose natural bounce and enthusiasm was apparently his own magical little talisman against the uneven British Channel, stared at her with an ashen face and unsure whether to laugh. At first, Leck assumed that he was simply taken aback by her foul language, but realised, as she walked away, with another little lurch, was that he had just seen a mostly-grown woman crash head-first into a wall.

Rolling her eyes at herself, she ferreted in her jeans pocket for keys to the cabin, and burst through the door as the boat tipped her yet again, “Christ, it stinks in here,” she said, glaring accusingly into a thick fug of cigarette smoke floating above, within which she could just make out a human silhouette. She waved her wand and muttered the vanishing incantation to reveal Michael Adams sitting on the bed, poring over a book on some intricate aspect of, well, something and still frantically scribbling notes directly into it even as he looked up to her apologetically. He had the same expression, Leck couldn't help but notice, as her French bulldog when caught red-handed stealing food. The smoke detector, hanging limply by its wires, lifeless and not a little battered-looking, directly above Michael's head, didn't help, nor did the slightly yellowed pallor of his already pale face. Her inner critic conjured thoughts about the effects of smoking, but she was feeling a little queasy herself and she supposed this bloody voyage was at least partly responsible for his current state, too. A small bucket of something that smelled worryingly of stomach acid sat on the floor beside him and when he caught her looking, he vanished it before she could ask any questions.

“How'd you get on?” he asked, obviously changing the subject, and, in a surprising act of sociability, put the book down. It was propped open on its own pages. She threw herself onto her own bed with a huff, “As well as that?”
“They're not very talkative, are they?”
“If they're having a rough time up there, I'm not surprised. It's not much better down here.”
“But,” she protested, “I did all the stuff you're supposed to. I even tried talking about celebrities to them at one point when I saw one woman reading one of those glistening magazines.”
“Glossy,” corrected Michael automatically, “Glossy magazines. Wait. Were you just going up to complete strangers and talking to them about whatever they were doing?”
“Well, yeah,” Leck threw her head back onto the pillow as Michael shrugged. He didn't need to say anything else. She didn't have the vernacular or the references to proactively ingratiate herself amongst the muggles. By trying to integrate, she was guaranteeing that she wouldn't, “Why did we book an overnight bloody ferry?”
“I booked an overnight ferry,” said Michael, “Because the first rule of Muggle Club is everything takes ages and you might as well learn that lesson now,” it would only be much later that he would reveal that she had made her Galleon-to-Stirling conversions catastrophically wrong and he had practically paid for the journey out of his own pocket.
“What's the second rule?” there was a bitterness in her voice.
“The second rule of Muggle Club? The second rule of Muggle Club is that you don't talk about Muggle Club,” when Leck looked at him quizzically, he shook his head and chuckled into the pages of the book he had, inevitably, returned to.

Michael wasn't her first choice of travelling partner. Well, actually, he had been, but the options had been slim. He was the only person on the pilgrimage with a full muggle-grounding. She had the impression he was muggle-born but didn't know what his story was – his general demeanour didn't really encourage personal questions – but she had figured that if anybody would be able to give her the full experience, he would be her best bet. There were some half-bloods, sure, but they'd be used to the short-cuts. The plan had been that they would do whatever wasn't in their comfort zone: he would book the portkey to Dover while she would book the ferry itself. The plan had somewhat fallen apart when the computer she had had delivered by a team of slightly disgruntled-looking owls required electricity. She supposed that that might be a given for muggles, but the Bellowes' mansion had a distinct absence of those facilities. At one point, she tried to hook it up to a car battery she had forbidden her mother from vanishing, but that didn't work either. In the end, she had thrown in the towel and Michael had agreeably booked the whole damn voyage by himself, insisting it wasn't a problem. He had even arranged to catch the portkey from a hill just five minutes' walk from the Bellowes and met her there promptly that morning, having flown across the county.

Her father had insisted that he accompany her to the portkey, against her violent protestations: he was under the impression that she was flying over the channel with a confident young wizard, not the muggle-tastic ferry specialist Michael. It wasn't in her instinct to lie, but she thought it might have been neater to spare her parents the worry. As it happened, the plan had backfired spectacularly, since her famed lack of broom proficiency had had them up in arms. Her father had announced that he would see her off at the portkey, which he immediately admitted meant he would be checking out her 'flying partner' – who was totally ignorant of the deception at play. She squirmed as they shook hands on the hill, her father jovial, cheerful, and, yes, a little teary, before he shook his head and jabbed her playfully in the ribs.
“Watch out for this one, Michael. She's a dreadful flyer.”
Michael didn't bat an eyelid when he caught Leck's imploring gaze, “I wouldn't worry, Mr. Bellowes. It's not too long a journey and I'll keep an eye on her.”
“Thanks Michael, but call me Regis,” Leck shuddered at that noun, which she knew to be as fake as their surname, “Anyway, it looks like you two had better be off. Remember to hold on-”
“Thanks, Dad. I know.”
“Goodbye Mist-, I mean, Regis.”
“Look after yourself, son. Leck, behave.”
The portkey spat them out unceremoniously on the beach. When they had both recovered, and climbed to their feet, Michael asked the inevitable.
“What was all that talk about flying?”
“My parents don't trust muggle technology,” she answered, diplomatically, and changed the subject.

It took almost eighteen hours for the ferry to cross the channel, and, toward the end, it was even getting to Michael. Eventually, Leck's patience with his twitching, tutting, and drumming fingers, was so thin that she explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that, while it was very gentlemanly of him to abstain from smoking for her benefit, he had better bloody have one. At one point she had made the mistake of challenging him to a game of wizard's chess to distract them, and, although he mated her in fewer than twenty moves, he tended to take about five minutes each turn to finally decide on a strategy, and made nothing-comments about seeing “what she was trying to do” - not that she had a clue herself. When they finally landed in Calais, they sought out the second portkey to take them to Paris, where they awkwardly parted company. She had arranged to meet Grant at the tower, while Mr. Social had an important date with the library – not a fortnight away from school. She was almost jealous of the dedication he clearly had for, well, whatever it was that he did. Slightly tarnished by the journey, she decided to save sightseeing for another day, and headed straight to the Eiffel Tower, finding a bench on the Champ de Mars, not even looking at the metal obelisk behind her, half-wishing that she'd asked to borrow a smoke herself.

Janine scrambled at the last minute, shoving bundles of clothes into the messenger bag at her hip. The hem of her light pink pleated skirt flitted about as she spun from one corner of her bedroom to another. "Janine!" her mother called into the bedroom, her voice flat and uninterested. She stood in the doorway, bracing her weight on the frame and watching her daughter scramble about for her clothing. "Huh? What?" Janine muttered, wrapping both her arms around a pile of clothes on her bed and shoving them into her bag, disappearing into the small white fabric. She turned to face her mother, smoothing her hair back with a white headband and pulling her bangs out with her hand before forcing a smile to her mother. "See? Presentable." she insisted, motioning down her sides with her hands for her mother to examine her choice of clothing. She wore a sleeveless white denim vest adorned with a feminine touch of sequins near the shoulders on top of a plain white tank top. Her pleated skirt rest at about halfway down her thigh leading down her slim legs to the white ankle boots she wore.

"Yes, yes. Presentable enough.." Nora droned, glancing down as Sadie rubbed past her calf. "I assume you'll be taking Sadie with you. Such a shame. I'd love to breed her with one of the others." Her voice perked up slightly at the end of her statement, the corner of her mouth twitching into a semblance of a smile. As soon as the words left her mouth, Sadie scampered across the floor, hopping up onto the foot of Janines bed. "Mother! Sadie is mine. And we had an agreement." she insisted, swooping her companion into her arms. Rolling her eyes, Nora strode to her daughter and placed her hands firmly on her shoulders. "I'm sure you have everything you need. You double checked and triple checked just yesterday. Go on. Have fun." she whispered, her voice cracking as raw emotion threatened to escape. "Be safe."

Janine let Sadie snuggle into her chest as she gave her mother a one armed hug. Her mother had been different ever since her father had passed but, they'd managed to get by. Taking a step back, Janine grabbed her wand from her nightstand and clung a bit more tightly to Sadie. "Right. Well. Paris, here I come." she mumbled giving her mother one last smile before feeling the suction of apparating consume her.

Before she could begin to feel nauseous, Janine felt herself being spit out in front of a gift shop she'd recalled from one of the wizard photos in the paper. Readjusting her skirt and tucking her wand into her bag, she massaged her fingertips into Sadie's fur, knowing the cat would be unsettled from the apparition. She felt a vibration of a purr, letting her know her actions did not go unnoticed. "Don't worry Sadie. Hopefully, we won't have to do too much of that." she whispered to her feline friend, turning down the street towards the large silhouette of a tower in the distance.