muggle world date (marilyn)

Wade was at the old bat's house around ten o'clock. The door had been left open for him and he was now sitting in her crummy sitting room waiting for Marilyn to get there through the floo network, which she'd be able to get to using the address he'd given her yesterday. The old woman herself wasn't around: most likely in another part of the cottage, but he wasn't bothered about her. All he was bothered about was getting Marilyn past his house to Clacton seafront without any of his family noticing.

Then, and only then, he could relax a bit.

The entire cottage smelt funny. It hadn't smelt funny the first time he'd gone there, so he wondered whether the woman was doing it on purpose. Although he'd only briefly met her, he got the idea that she enjoyed pissing him off. Hopefully Marilyn wouldn't be too put off by that: they could leave as soon as she arrived anyway.

@Marilyn Grayson

Looking in the mirror, Marilyn flattened out the more noticeable wrinkles in her primrose yellow tank top and applied a salve to prevent sunburn. She couldn't wait to see Wade, his town, and possibly some of his family! He was obviously more familiar than hers, so it was about time that she got to know his!

She exited out of her room and said her goodbyes to her family before leaping into the fireplace and calling out the floo address her boyfriend had given her. Before she knew it, she was in a cottage with a strange odor?

Stepping out, Marilyn jumped in excitement and squealed, "Wade!" He was so hunky and dreamy as always, her quidditch star, Wadeykins! "I can't wait to see the shore with you!" It'd be so romantic to walk down it... It was probably less busy than Blackrock too!

@Wade MacKenna

When the flames turned green, Wade watched as Marilyn exited the hearth. There was something about his expression that suggested he was going to give her a compliment, but he also managed to be scowling at the same time, like he was battling over whether to say it or not. She looked... summery. It sounded stupid inside his head, so it would probably sound even stupider being spoken aloud.

So instead he said: "Hey. Yeah. It aint a paradise - but I ain't shown anyone like us where I live. This ain't it, by the way. This is just the old bag's house."

He smiled slightly.

"Let's get outta this place."

Taking her hand, he steered them quickly outside. The muggle street loomed beyond. It was a wide, cemented road with rises and cracks and large, uncovered potholes. Either side of the road were the houses: cramped tightly together and semi-detached, all with chicken wire fences in varying states of decline. Someone still had their christmas lights up attached to their roof. There was a moaning cry of a police siren in the background. Someone had graffitied a row of garages, and some looked as though they'd been caved in and entered forcibly.

"This is my street where I live," he told her, keeping hold of her hand. "Just stay close an' don't look at no one. We'll get to the front in ten and it'll be better."

@Marilyn Grayson

It did seem like more of an old grandmother's house than some place he'd live in... Nonetheless, Marilyn was still smiling as she got to spend the day with her handsome Wadeykins. Her prince, knight in denim armor!

"Okay, Wade! You're so hunky!"

As she walked out with him, a part of her was experiencing some kind of culture shock? Marilyn didn't realize just how brutal and dilapidated the neighborhood would be. It was very... She didn't know the word! Or phrase. Or anything that could've come to mind. Don't look at anyone????

Now her expression had become somewhat frightened, but she was comforted at being told to stay close. Staying close was perfectly fine with her!

"Is that noise bad?"

The siren that wailed sounded so strange to her!

@Wade MacKenna

"Ya ain't been to the muh-- these places before? Not even London?"

It was strange that he assumed she had. A lot of students at Hogwarts had never been to muggle places, although some of them lived in the vicinity of muggles. But to not know what that siren was...

"It's fine. Just the police. Prolly been a muh--" Both the words muggle and mugging he couldn't say, for different reasons. One was a breach of the Wizard's code or whatever it was, the other was because he didn't want to frighten her any more than she looked. "-- somethin' they need to check on."

The street was long and his house was at the other end of it, so Wade tore down there at a quickened pace. Muggers, drug addicts and scum were the least of his worries: he just didn't want Marilyn to see his family.

@Marilyn Grayson

"Not much of London! I saw a huge Ferris Wheel in the sky!"

The Daily Prophet headquarters just happened to be nearby, so her muggle world experiences were minimal at best.

"There's so much more people there than in Diagon! Have you been there?!"

Marilyn sped up her run of sorts as they made their way down the road. "How long until we get to the seafront?" Underneath her outfit was a cute, modest bikini ready to enjoy some of the ocean waters.

@Wade MacKenna

"Ain't far."

At this point he was usually chatting to her about something, but Wade was very quiet. He kept looking about over the fences, hoping there wouldn't be anyone coming outside who he didn't want to see.

"Oi, nob end! Oi, MacKenna. MacKennaaaaaa."

Fuck sake.

Wade turned. It was that prick, Jon Prestleton. He was thirty-five and had already gone bald.

"What?!"

"Tell ya brother he owes me fifty quid."

"Fuck off, you tell him," he grunted, then kept walking.

"Oi, don't ya fuckin' walk away from me!"

"Just keep walking," Wade urged her, holding tightly onto her hand.

@Marilyn Grayson

Fifty quid? Was that a lot of money?

As they got past that neighbor, Marilyn looked over at Wade and asked, "Who was that?"

But then she felt his hand squeeze hers tighter, and she couldn't help but to dreamily sigh.

Oh, Wade...

He was so romantic, holding onto her like that!

She kept looking out towards the horizon, squinting as some of the sunlight hit her eyes just right.

@Wade MacKenna

"Just some prick no one cares about," he explained, and they were finally getting to the bottom of the street.

His house was just across the road: layers of peeling paint crackling audibly in the sun and dense slits in the brickwork that indicated heavy subsidence. There was a faded recycling bag fluttering ominously in the branches of a tree, and below that some discarded kitchen countertop that his siblings had mutilated in various ways over the years. The grass was thirst-quenched and long, but flattened by the parades of feet that went over it daily. There was a sun-baked-in splatter over their front scuffed front door that looked like someone had lobbed a coke at it a fair few months ago.

He didn't want to say it was his house.

"Hi Wade."

Shit...

At least it was Sharn, though. She was leaning up against the fence outside as various voices barked through the house beyond. One of them he recognised as his Mum's, the other was his other sister, Lisa. Wearing a short tee and stained cycling shorts, his thirteen-year-old kid sister stopped mid-way through her rocket lolly to look at them.

"Ya with Cheggar's sister again?" she asked, eyes sweeping over Marilyn.

"She ain't Cheggar's sister - she's Marilyn. From school."

Sharn seemed even more interested now, and was oogling at her. "Marilyn like Monroe and that? Hiya," she added to Marilyn, "I'm Sharn."

@Marilyn Grayson

A prick? That was good enough for her to know! If only they could avoid those types as easily back at school... Oh well, at least she has the school newspaper to call them out!

She was joyfully walking down the street and, of course, very eager to reach the shore with her Wadeykins when they ended up being stopped by another person. At least this girl seemed friendly? Marilyn glanced at her and gave an assertive look, just in case she was trying to steal her boyfriend. No way any other girl was getting a slice of her hunky dreamboat!

"Cheggar? Who's Cheggar?"

It sounded like Cheddar. Did Cheggar make cheese?

"I don't know him, I'm not his sister!"

She cringed seeing the other girl with the lolli. It reminded her slightly of the sluttiest Ridfle. Yuck!

Marilyn pulled herself closer to Wade and replied, "Marilyn. Marilyn Grayson."

Ugh, the Statute of Secrecy was going to make talking about herself so difficult! How did Wade,  Jerome, Cherry, and the other muggleborns manage it?

@Wade MacKenna

"Duane Cheggar, another prick."

Sharn was still oogling in fascination at Marilyn, like she expected tentacles to suddenly spew out from her limbs or something.

"So yeah, we're goin' down the front so--"

"Oi. Did ya remember t'get gas an' electric?" she pressed him "If ya ain't, Lisa will be out for ya balls. She's already pissed off that her B&H went missin', an' Bradley shat himself again 'cause she wouldn' let him ga dan the park, an' a tenner's gone from her room even though it ain't been her room for seven years."

"Tell Mum to get her own fuckin' electric. Or Lisa. She's just moochin' off Mum anyway."

"Yeah. Just warnin' ya. Gehme a stick of rock though." She handed some money to him, and Wade pocketed it. That brought her attention back to Marilyn. "Ya well pretty, too good for this prick."

"Shut up. Let's go, Marilyn."

@Marilyn Grayson

"Is your neighborhood full of them?"

It was sounding like it! No wonder why her Wadey was in such a hurry to go to the beach to spend time with her! D'awww!

Marilyn looked at Sharm? dumbfoundedly almost as if she was speaking a whole different language. Gas and electric? She knew those were muggle things, especially electric, but why did Wadey have to get it himself?

As they finally departed, Marilyn glanced over at Wade and asked, "She's your sister?! She was speaking so oddly! Why did she want you to get gas and electric?"

At least they were finally going to get to enjoy a fun, sweet day in the sun!

@Wade MacKenna