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Emil smiled and clapped, "Perfect! Now all I have to do is get caught with the candy in one of his classes. Then he'll munch away until poof! He becomes a canary, the dummy won't know what hit him! I'm impressed, ma'am. I'll take four. There's a few more teachers that have been treating the children like lower life. I'll be happy to take one to each of them, disguising it as a gift from my rival at my school". Emil had a rival, which was ironic since his name meant rival. His rival was the same year as he was, and liked to out do him in everything. Including Quidditch, his favorite sport.

"Speaking of my rival..." A smirk formed across his face once more, like a crack in drywall. "I'll take this....Ton-Tongue Toffee. I know what this does, as my buddy had it specially ordered. He used it on the worthless 'teacher' that picks on me all the time". Emil lifted a few pieces from the box on the shelf, about six. He felt in his pocket for his sickle bag, taking it out. He also had knuts and galleons, all very shiny and new looking. He had a habit of washing coins to sparkle, it fascinated him.

Jack nodded, grinning as she did so, and began to gather the things that he wished to purchase and she took them up to the front. So, one Snackbox with half Fudge and half Pastilles...That was ten sickles. Six ton-tongue toffees, five sickles. Four Canary Creams, three sickles... "That'll be eighteen sickles, please."

She grinned at him, listening to his stories with interest, seeing as she had not met a Durmstrang student before, and it was intriguing to learn about their foreign brethren. Hogwarts did not learn much about Durmstrang nor Beauxbatons, and the only time the schools made contact was for Triwizard Tournaments.

She wondered... Hmmm. She cocked her head slightly and said to him, "So what's your name? What brings you all the way from wherever you live to humble ol' Diagon Alley?" She smirked slightly.

Emil fumbled with the clasp on his pouch. He gathered eighteen sickles, placing them one by one on the counter as he counted them in Bulgarian. He hardly noticed the big load of stuff he was to take with him, though after paying he instinctively grabbed for it. He heard her inquiry as he loaded the stuff into a small sack he carried with him. The sack bulged with items from various Diagon Alley shops, like wand polish from Ollivander's pre-ordered for maximum effectiveness on Emil's wand.

"My name is Emil Zukanov, I came here because I might have a chance to partake in the Triwizard Tournaments. I've got the qualifications; I'm old enough, I'm in great physical condition, I'm a top Quidditch player. Well, not the top, but one of them. My rival has one disadvantage to me, he's too scared to put his name in for Triwizards, even though he's old enough to do so. He's chicken". Emil had a habit of rambling on, even when he was saying something that had no point to it.

He started humming a song and moving his head up and down in a bobbing type motion without even realizing it. He stopped when he finally realized what he was doing. He pushed some brown curls from the front of his face, tucking them behind his ear ever so slightly, but they bounced back. Glancing out the window, a thunderstorm was about to brew. When Emil came to the store, he hadn't been wearing a coat since it looked so nice and washed out. Now, it was dull, dark and dreary. Rain fell in small pats, then larger drops tapped down. The roof was barraged with rain, creating soft notes with a undertone of dread.

"So, what might be the name of a charming young lady such as yourself?" Emil took Jack's hand into his own. He liked greeting strangers this way, to make them feel good about themselves.

Jack took the sickles and slipped them carefully into the till, handing him the items as he deposited each one into the already full sack he carried. It reminded her a lot of her own, which was crammed with food, clothes, and camping supplies. She usually had an enlargement charm on the bag to keep her from doing so.

Jack's eyebrows lifted. So he was here for the Triwizard Tournament. Jack knew that she was going to put her name in and she knew she met all the qualifications. Plus, the students at Hogwarts were, for the most part, pansies. She knew that she would be able to win and maybe even beat other champions. Though she better not get carried away.

"Cool. I'm definitely putting my name in for the Tournament. So a Quidditch player? Well you are talking to one of the best damn Beaters Hogwarts has ever seen." She flashed a toothy smile. She glanced up as she heard a distant rumble and saw that it had gotten dark from cloud cover that had rolled over the street.

She suddenly felt him take her hand and she turned back to him, raising one of her eyebrows and giving him a quizzical look. In a amused voice she said, "Charming? Ha!" She definitely had never been considered 'charming'... or even a 'lady.' She was more of a hooligan. She chuckled and firmly shook his hand. "Jack Dyllan's the name."

"Yes, I'm a Quidditch player, I'm one of the best Chasers that my team ever saw. Of course, Andrei had to foul my good record up by sabotaging me and being a good player himself. He's who the Ton-Tongue Toffee is for" Emil chuckled softly. The rain was much more intense than before, pouring down in what seemed like bucket fulls. The thunder started coming in now, a crack against the splashes and sound of falling drops. The real show stopper, though, was the lightning. The plasma strands beamed from the darkness of the clouds above, breaking it with flashes of it's illumination. A dark silhouette formed shadows in front of Emil and behind Jack.

Emil couldn't help but laugh when Jack shook his hand firmly, "You know, Jack, I've never felt such a firm handshake around here in this part of the Wizard World, especially by those of the fairer sex. Well, except for one lady, or...I think it was a lady. It had animal ears and a tail. It had a funny name which I can't recall, either. Handshakes like those are very rare in women, usually they're so dainty and settle for me holding their hand for a moment of introduction. Usually, only men would turn it into a handshake. The companion of that...thing that shook my hand didn't turn it though. He just let me hold his hand while he introduced himself, as did the little one that they were walking with. I never seen a girl with dark skin like hers. What a weird family, that kid must be adopted. The older ones didn't seem like they were married, though, or engaged. They didn't even seem...together".

The sack that Emil had been carrying was splitting a little at the seams, which were worn out and freshly sewed in many places. He was used to carrying the damn thing, but it got in his way when it started making holes in itself, basically screaming "no more!" as clear as a bell's ring. The normally strong burlap was giving way quickly now that it was old enough. It'd been in the attic of the Zukanov home for a good two-hundred years or more. It was hard to tell exactly the right age of it. The burlap was previously dyed an azure, but had faded to a bleach-white over the years. The dye used was most likely caustic, and the process could not be repeated due to the age of the article.

"Anyway, I should've double bagged this stuff, it's probably going to fall out. I just picked this bag out of about a million up in my attic. I've grown an attachment to it, but now I think it should be retired after this one last load of stuff".

Jack grinned at his Quidditch confidence, understand that completely. She, herself, had bragged a big game since she had discovered her talent for it, which was around third or fourth year when she had received her first broom, which happened to be the same Comet 260 she used to this day. It was one of the oldest brooms used in Hogwarts and yet she managed to still outfly people.

As he started talking, she grinned at his comment on her firm handshake. "Well, I'm not a weakling." She chuckled happily and listened to his little story. He sure had a tendency to ramble. He began to talk about a girl that Jack thought had to be only one person; she did not know of any one like this person.

The more he talked, he more she affirmed that he must be talking about Brienne and her shadows, Daniel and Luna. No way was their any trio who matched that description- a half-wolf girl, a girlish guy, and a dark-skinned young girl. She chuckled and said, "Yeah, I know them. I go to school with Brienne, the girl with the ears and tail, and Luna, the young one. Daniel is like Brienne's best friend."

She saw his bag begin to disintegrate. She reached out and took it from him. "Here, this is what I do." First, she waved her wand and mended the seams that were stretching and falling apart. Then she poked her wand inside and performed the enlarging spell. She smiled and handed it back to him. "There, it should be better now."

"Brienne has a weird name, and she's way too smart. She uses huge words, and I don't like her", Emil replied, "I have a really bad feeling about her, as if she is going to attack me at any moment. The dark-skinned girl is cute though, for a little one. The boy though, he looks so...angelic. It would be perfect if Brienne wasn't there, she fouled their image with her presence", Emil stated matter-of-factly, but not meaning to be rude. He shuddered at the thought of those ears and that....tail. How they seemed to waggle and such. It freaked him out a lot. "Her ears and tail freak me out too, I think it's because I'm afraid of dogs".

Emil certainly was afraid of dogs, specifically big black ones. Think Sirius Black - like dogs. Those were the types that freaked him out the most. Such a foul cur bit him, mauling and tearing its way into Emil. Fangs spilling blood, piercing skin down to bone. Searing pain through synapses of nerve tissues, burning and engulfing with pain. The kind of pain only third degree burns on small patches of skin could match. Errant claws and fangs slicing him open, to near death. He still had scars. Sure, the physical ones were healed, but not the mental ones, those would remain for the rest of his life, indelible by time. Indelible to new experiences that contradicted. Only the strongest of memory wipes could pull them clean.

Remembering the terrible pain caused him to clench his stomach, where those scars remained. But only briefly. Rationality took the wheel once more, and he concentrated on the disintegrating bag. The way Jack worked her wand to mend it was impressive to say the least. He'd never learned mending spells, only useful ones for other types of work ("boy's work"). He'd always been taught by his father and mother that a woman in his life was all that he needed, all that he should want, to do such things as washing clothes or mending sewables.

The weather outside was calming down a little bit, but only that little bit. Then, it came back with twice the fury. Thunder killed the dead silence that would've otherwise punctuated speech, lightning made violently bright light capable of blinding those foolish enough to look into it. Emil was startled by those horrid sounds, they reminded him of that night when he was mauled. It'd been just this type of weather, maybe more intense. Whatever it was, the poor boy seemed frightened.