Pet Smuggler?

Andrea was fascinated by animals. She couldn't say she loved them. She didn't know if that were true or not. But she was fascinated by them. This fascination was born out of her aunt's dislike of them and Andrea vaguely recalled her father hadn't been much in favour of her having a pet either. Ritter family trait? That was something she hadn't considered asking her aunt about. There were some things you just didn't question when it came to Aunt Lisa.

Two years in a row Andrea had walked past this shop with no satisfaction of feeding her curiosity. Aunt Lisa wouldn't let her enter. Told her that since she wasn't getting a pet there was no point of going in. Today though with Andrea now being thirteen Aunt Lisa just handed over her money and told her she was plenty old enough to do her own school shopping. With such riches Andrea quickly bought everything she needed and then marched into De Beaux Animaux to satisfy her hunger to know what exactly was being sold there for the student allowed to have a pet. Rumours and seeing animals around the school didn't make some of the believable enough for her. She needed to know.

"The owl and the pussy cat," she quoted with a grin. Those two she already knew to be true. You couldn't miss the number of cats and owls around the place. Her eyes settled on a bundle of odd looking creatures, some pink and others purple. Now here was something totally unbelievable but true. Andrea had seem some students around the school with them but she'd thought they weren't living creatures. She gently poked one and jumped back. Apparently she was wrong.

She reached out to grab the arm of someone passing by. "Do you think it is possible to hide one of these creatures in a house where pets weren't allowed?" she asked.

Max liked the pet store. He knew he wasn't allowed to have a pet for many reasons. One, because his mom wouldn't appreciate it. Two, because one of his best friends was almost deathly allergic. Three, Carlie would be jealous. And four, Garnet just hated animals. But that didn't stop him from browsing. There certainly wasn't anything stopping him from petting the kittens or poking the Pygmy Puffs. Max thought that maybe he'd enjoy a job at De Beaux Animaux after he graduated, but he didn't want to get too practical. He wanted a job that sounded fake and made people jealous.

He was walking through to the puppies, when a girl grabbed his arm. He quickly recognized her as one of the announcers, though he didn't know her by name. "Oh, a Pygmy Puff? Sure! They eat pretty much all scraps and they're loads of fun to throw around. They don't make much noise, either. They don't do much, though, since they're little puff balls. Not much interaction, but if you're into that, go for it," Max answered. "Why? Planning to keep a secret?"

"If I want a pet I have to keep it a secret." Andrea didn't think twice about answering the boy truthfully. The likelihood of this getting back to her Aunt Lisa was practically zero. There had to be some advantage to coming from a non wizarding background. The pygmy puffs did look kinda boring but the boy did mention the fun of throwing one around. They looked throwable and potentially unlikely to get hurt.

"So they're easy to feed and keep quiet and are small." She ticked off all the positive traits of buying one with her left over money. And cheap she added mentally. Uncle Erik might not question her spending too closely. Of course there was also the advantage of the currency being totally out of his realm of expertise. She went over the pros and cons of such a deception in such a way her cousin would be proud. If Aunt Lisa did find out then maybe she would believe it was a stuffed toy. An animated stuff toy because magic... But again they did look rather boring compared to some of the other animals in this shop. "Do you know of anything else here which would be as easy to hide?"