Closed Laser Tag

[Nathan Clarke]

Nate, honestly, was pretty surprised Natalia had agreed to hang out with him during the holiday break. It might have been because he hadn't been specific that this was a muggle thing they were doing, but she'd agreed all the same, and he wasn't about to tell her. He just had to wonder if she'd stick around the whole time. He didn't have friends in New Zealand. Since moving from Australia, the ones he'd grown up with had all become simply his online friends, people he gamed with and had group calls with, but none of them had parents who could afford a flight over the ocean just to see him. None of them seemed to want to if they could, not since he could only speak to them a few small months out of the year. It sucked, He thought about them a lot while he was stuck at Hogwarts with a bunch of people he couldn't really "get", but they seemed to be forgetting about him in his absence. And so, Natalia hadn't been Nate's first pick to use these tickets with, but she was the only one he could think of that he could use them with. He'd ordered them some greasy food while he waited, another thing he missed while stuck at wizard school, and listened idly to the obnoxiously loud arcade music that thumped through the area. He kept an eye on the nearby scoreboard for an ongoing lasertag session, keeping track of the current groups scores as they played, to get an idea of what kind of numbers he should try to beat.​

 

[Natalia Novak]

Nathan's invitation had been a bit of a shock for Natalia. She hadn't expected him to ask her to hang out over break, especially as he'd always given her the impression he had plenty of friends in the muggle world he would rather be hanging out with than with his classmates at Hogwarts. Natalia wasn't used to having to lie to her parents, but she knew they would never accept her going somewhere in the muggle world, with a muggleborn boy, to do muggle things. The mere idea of it was unthinkable. Yet... here she was. Natalia felt a thrill as she headed to the place they had agreed to meet. This was the sort of rebellious thing she would expect Isadora do to. But Natalia was sick and tired of being alone all the time. This was possibly the first time someone had invited her to hang out over break since she had started at Hogwarts, and Natalia was going to take this chance. Her parents didn't need to know.

She had dressed in muggle clothes under her cloak, something she had learned to do at Hogwarts on their many field trips. She put the cloak in her bag and headed towards the door of the place Nate had sent her. She hesitated a bit before entering, feeling completely out of her depth. It was noisy in there and there were a lot of bright lights. Natalia felt disoriented and it took her a moment to spot Nathan. Relieved, she headed over to him. "Hello." She said. "This place is rather noisy, isn't it?"