A Birth day

Ruby looked at Marcus and looked confused at him but then chuckled " hum maybe I will" she said as the food was dilivered and carved at the table before being plated and placed in front of them. She watched as Anise and Ginger asked about french table manners. She looked puzzled at him " I thought it was all the same?" she said and looked to Marcus " okay you need to teach me the diference" she said and looked over at him then to Angus.

Ruby looked at the table and the silver wear on it from the small forks to the three spoons on the top.

"Well, first, the table setting is a bit different here than at home," Marcus said. "Did you notice that the napkins are rolled here and kept in place in the center of the plate with a napkin ring? Not traditional to find them this way at home. The napkins at home are usually under the fork. The glasses are in a slightly different order. And, the table manners are different.

"In France, you never ask for butter for your bread. It just isn't done here. No eating with your fingers here, except if you're eating chips. If you want to be proper, the French do not say 'Bon Apetite' to each other. That's a low class thing now. If you ever get foi gra, do not ever spread it on your bread. Asking for seconds is considered extremely rude. You don't every want to cut your lettuce in your salad here. You simply fold the leaves as you eat it if its still too big for you to be comfortable. And there are a few other things, but that's the gist of it.

"God, I'd be considered vulgar, then," Anise sighed. Marcus and Angus laughed.

"Believe me, nearly everyone I know has committed some table manner vulgarity when they eat in France for the first time," Angus laughed. "You will be in good company with some of the finest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. You can learn this too. You'll learn to follow the lead of the people that you're with until it feels normal for you. I'll ask Evan how Evie and Faith learned. Maybe you can learn the same way."

"Can we take a walk down their wizard street...whatever that was called?" Ginger asked.

"Place Cachée," Angus replied. "Yes, we can, if you like. It doesn't look all that different from any other French street in a smaller town, really."

"Yeah, well, we haven't seen any of those either," Anise said. Marcus laughed out loud.

"She has you there, Angus," Marcus said.

"Yes, she does," Angus replied. "Okay. We'll go there after lunch. We aren't that far from it now. It's a little bit of a walk but not unreasonably so. And, if you want us to conjure your shoes to sneakers for now, I see no reason why you couldn't. You're not on display now. You can wear what you like."

"I might. Dress shoes are a pain in the butt," Anise said.

Ruby sat and listened to Marcus her mouth slightly open until she realized she was doing it and snapped it shut " wow I'd be positivly cave person going by all that." she added with a chuckle she let them continue and breathed out knowing that others were not as adept in french table manners ether.

Hearing Gingers request she nodded " would be nice to see a nother magical street other than ours" she said as she ate hr food being careful not to make any fopas while doing so. Hearing Anise she chuckled and nodded " oh please, do my shoes" she said softly to Angus trying to wiggle hr toes in the court shoes.

"Allow me," Marcus said. "Scoot your feet under the floor length tablecloth, please, Ladies." When they had complied, he made it look like he was merely putting his hand in his lap, but then he slipped the tablecloth up, slipped his hand beneath it and flicked his fingers at their feet to transfigure their shoes into plain white sneakers. Because he was making quick work of it, he merely used the same spell on each pair, making identical sneakers because it was easiest and fastest.

"There. Better?" Marcus asked. Anise moved her feet a little to test the shoes.

"I like these a lot. They're probably the most comfortable shoes I've ever had on. Can I keep 'em?" she asked.

"Sure," Marcus said. "I just won't change yours back."

"That leaves you with no dress shoes, then," Angus said.

"Oh, darn," Anise said sarcastically.

"Leave mine alone too. I like 'em," Ginger said.

"You're going to make me buy a lot more womens dress shoes, arent' you?" Angus pretended to be irked with Marcus and scowled at him.

"Maybe we wont' need dress shoes," Anise said.

"Did you forget what school you just enrolled in already?" Angus laughed.

"I suppose you all could borrow some of Khaat's dress heels for the next social occasion," Marcus teased.

"And have them all in casts from broken legs before they even got to the event? I would blame that squarely on you, Marcus," Angus said.

Ruby moved with the girls and chukled with relife feeling the shoes change to much more comfortable ones " oh I have to agree these are mush more comfortable, but I do like those shoes, I'll keep these till were home then you can change mine back" she said to Angus feeling more comfortable in the flats. Hearing Ginger and Anise she chuckled " well you can never have too many shoes, right?" she said with a wink.

Now done with her food she sat and sipped the last of her wine " this wine is nice, sweet and not too dry" she said and moved the botle to look at the lable then laughed turning it to show Angus it was from his own winery " I thought it tasted familier." she said chukaling.

"Well, maybe," Anise told her. "I think we could get to like having a lot of shoes, but until we moved in with you guys, we had two pairs of shoes each. One pair of sneakers for good weather, and a pair of boots for cold and wet weather. And that was it. When the pack lives on the run like we have to, we didn't have any sort of ability to have very many things, only the bare essentials and maybe one or two tiny little pleasurable things, like Ginger's lace making things because that's really small. Everything we owned was in the backpacks we brought, and now we have a whole room to put stuff in and a big closet and a big dresser full of all kinds of clothes. The women in our pack would think we were living a life of luxury."

"They do sometimes get frustrated with everything being so primitive," Ginger agreed. "I really would like to put a box of some holiday treats for the pack families. Things they wouldn't get, like chocolates, and some really good cookies. Maybe some Christmas candies. Maybe include some sort of nice warm gloves. There are somehow never enough hats and gloves in the winter."

"We can give them almost anything you want," Angus told them. "I think that's a good idea."

"Well, most of them don't really believe in Christmas, except to acknowledge it as a winter feast day," Ginger said. "But the ones that do believe in Christmas miss not being able to do much to celebrate it."

"Well, take your time, give it some thought, and we'll help you put together some gift boxes for them. You have my word," Angus told them. They seemed to brighten. "How's your lunch?"

"Great," Anise said. "Although, I do like your tartare better."

"Well, thank you. I'm happy to make it for you whenever you like," he said.

"What do they do for dessert here?"

"Sorbet, chocolate souffle, tarte tatin--a fancy apple pie, basically, clafoutis--a fancy sort of fluffy pancake filled with a cherry filling, and a really nice hazelnut cake called a dacquoise," he said. "I think you'd like any of them."

"Someday, I'm going to come into a place like this and order just dessert--one of each," Anise said. That made Ginger laugh.

"All five?" she asked.

"Yep. Screw the healthy stuff. Just give me all the desserts," she nodded.

"I think I can safely say that Sam and Victor would happily join you for that," Angus laughed.

Ruby smiled and nodded to them both as they spoke about shoes and how they only had two pairs when they leaft their pack to live with them. Ruby listene to Angus and chuckled as he told them the difrent deserts. " well I think I'll just have some dacquoise for my desert, please" she said smiling to him a she sat and listened to every one then laughed as Anise said she would one day like to walk in to a fancy restaraunt and order nothing but deserts.

" that I do agree with " she said and chuckled at Amngus words to her. " oh and how they would , sweet tooth dosn't aply to those two." she said rembering how they ate three cinimon rolls as she had just made them with white icing on top.

When the server came to take dessert orders, Ginger ordered the chocolate souffle, Anise ordered some strawberry sorbet, Marcus ordered a lemon sorbet, and Angus ordered tarte tatin, and ordered Ruby's dacquoise for her. Angus believed the desserts were probably the best prepared dishes of the entire meal. It had all been good, but the desserts were perfection.

Angus paid the tab when they were finished, and he asked the girls if they still wanted to go to Place Cachee. They absolutely did. It was several blocks from the restaurant and through some alleyways and side streets to get from the muggle neighborhood to the wizard street. It looked like a quaint old Paris village street, and Madame Maxime had been right. There were not very many people here, and Angus understood why. it made sense that there was not such a high need since the students were in school.

As they were walking down the street, Angus caught a glimpse of one of Tom Gelding's thugs, and the man had a child by the arm. Angus turned sharply to go after the thug but by the time he got to them, the thug had taken the child into an alleyway. When Angus turned the corner, the thug and the child were both gone. Angus sighed, frustrated. He made a mental note to talk to Owens to give him the details of what he had seen. Hopefully this was a child they could recover in their next attempts to stop Gelding's next auction.

Ruby enjoyed her dessert and savoured every bite she took untill it was gone . she wiped her mouth and placed the napkin in her bowl sigling she ws finished. Once Angus had paid she stood with the girls and chuckled as they both said at the same time they wanted to see Place Cachee. Now Ruby once Angus had finished paying took hold of his hand and walked with him but let go when she saw what was happening with a man and child.

She stayed with Ginger and Anise as she watched Angus take off after them only to see his look of dispare at not catching the man. " we can report it to Owens, Im sure he can fine the child and return him or her home." she said to him softly with a soft smile.

Angus nodded. Ruby was right. He looked at the girls.

"Look, I know 5hiw is a really pretty place. And I know you're only a couple years from being adults, but promise me that until that day comes, neither of you will come here alone," he told them. "If you want to come shopping here, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that, but do not come here without Marcus or Evan or me or your grandfather. This is totally different than Diagon Alley. This is almost spitting distance from Gelding's house, and that makes this place very dangerous for you or any underage person to come here unless you have an adult right beside you. Tom's men move fast. You saw how fast that happened. Mere seconds."

"We won't," Anise agreed for her and Ginger.

"Yeah, we both already know what it's like to be taken, and we aren't really excited about it happening again, Ginger told him.

"Understood," he agreed.

The girls wanted to go into a crafts supply shop, and Angus went along. At the back of the store, they had a lot of fabrics, all on sale. The girls decided to be a wide assortment of fabrics, thinking about Halloween costumes. They weren't sure what they wanted to be, but the prices on the fabrics were so low, they saw no harm in buying lots of it.

"You might have to add a sewing room, Mate," Marcus teased Angus.

"Well, there's room in Edward's cellar. I suppose he might let me put it there--maybe," Angus shrugged. "Remember how cobbled together the Weasley house was? Do not let me make a cobbled up mess of the duplex, will you?" That made Marcus laugh.