Diagon Alley served as one of Bradley's favorite haunts in the magical world partly because it always took him back to being eleven years old. This was the place where he had first truly discovered magic. Hogsmeade was a nice area too, with its convenient location right near Hogwarts, but on the weekends Bradley enjoyed whiling away his free time in London. His childhood home on the outskirts of Liverpool had been nothing compared to this -- mainly because this was the hub of all things magical: the whole street was lined with places he could very easily drop a small fortune on, if he had the money to spend in the first place. Since returning to Hogwarts to occupy his teaching position a few years ago, Bradley had quickly recognized what most people would consider common sense (and by now, he did too): Diagon Alley was to be avoided at all costs in the month of August. While it still did considerable amounts of business in the "off-season", as he liked to call it, August was the time when students and their parents flooded the street in search of their school supplies. For his part, Bradley hated crowds and preferred the comforts of Hogsmeade around that time, usually with Castiel accompanying him. The cat actually liked to go wherever he could with Bradley, which the man appreciated. His pet was definitely a cat, but sometimes it acted so much like a dog that he had to wonder. He'd never gotten along with dogs much either, but he was always amused to find the black cat following him wherever it could. And he couldn't imagine leaving Castiel holed up in his office at Hogwarts if he was going to be out spending the weekend in the fresh air.

Thus, fourteen pounds of black cat perched on his shoulder as he wove through Diagon Alley on this particular Sunday in November, a polished wooden pipe held in his teeth as if he were a modern Sherlock Holmes who had traded his trench coat for a sturdier, charcoal-hued wool. The air was chilly but Bradley was wrapped up in his overcoat, and Castiel didn't seem to mind the small gusts that cropped up here and there as they window-shopped. A smaller, out-of-the-way shop caught Bradley's eye with a display of books in the front window, and he angled himself toward it.

A bell chimed over their heads as Bradley pushed the door open, simultaneously giving Castiel a light scolding for trying to reach up and play with it. Tattered Pages had come a long way since the owners had bought it out and begun the laborious process of fixing it up; it was extremely homey, with an assurance of warm coffee or tea with any assortment of pastries at the counter in the back, and shelves of books covering the front of the place. As he stepped inside, the man caught sight of several stacks of books levitating themselves in midair, and he smiled. Even at thirty-five years old, magic still amused him. It was one of those things he would find joy in until the day he died, he knew already. "Hello?" he called. "Is it a bad time?" He couldn't see anyone else in the shop, but he could hear someone moving around between the shelves and assumed it would be either someone in charge or someone who knew where the person in charge happened to be. As he called out, Castiel leapt lightly down to the floor and began his routine of sniffing about, no doubt trying to pick up the scent of a mouse or other miniature quarry.

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The Shetland sheepdog that trundled toward them was not a stranger by any means; on the contrary, it was probably the only dog whose company Bradley would outright admit he enjoyed. He watched with a smile as the four-legged critters sniffed at each other -- for his part, Castiel barely batted an eyelash. His long tail flicked back and forth and he glanced this way and that, as if he were altogether uninterested in the dog's soft woofs. "Hey there, lovely girl," Bradley said, bending down to stroke the dog's ears. "How've you been?" A familiar voice, muffled by the numerous shelving units, made him straighten up again and move forward down the main aisle. Castiel trotted alongside him like a four-legged furry shadow, his ears swiveling back and forth to (presumably) keep track of Jessie and still seek out any mice who might be skittering beneath the floorboards or behind the walls.

Bradley stowed the pipe in his pocket. It had long since been snuffed out by the breeze, and he'd kept it in his mouth out of sheer habit up til now, realizing it wasn't currently serving a purpose of any importance. Makes you look elegant, though, he thought to himself. A smile lit his features as he stopped mid-step and backtracked one row to where Graham was settled on his ladder, shelving books. "Nothing important," he replied, opting to skip an actual greeting and formal niceties for the moment. "Just the usual -- unwinding for a few days, haunting small-time bookstores, you know." Bradley chuckled and glanced at the levitating stacks of books again. "Anything new today, or all refills?" he asked. It was fair to call Bradley a regular at Tattered Pages. He wasn't necessarily anal-retentive, but he liked to keep tabs on new releases compared to the vast number of books he'd already read. In his own eyes, he was and had always been the quintessential nerd: he'd been Sorted into Ravenclaw as a student and participated in several extracurricular activities (notably Quidditch), he enjoyed things like chess and writing, he was allergic to one of the weirdest things (mint), and he had always, always, always adored books.

The man strolled through the shelves at his leisure, puzzling over what particular genre he felt like diving into on his day off. It would definitely be leisure reading, because that was mainly the sort of reading he did when it came to anything outside the classroom. He'd read all the old classics over and over, so that meant it would probably be something more recent. It couldn't be a series of very many books -- as much as Bradley admired authors who were able to tie ten or twelve books together into the same series and maintain that level of continuity, he didn't have the attention span for it just now. But nor did he want something he would fly through in only a few hours' time. So you're looking for a book, probably fantasy at this rate, knowing you, and perhaps delving into folklore or some other such obscure thing, that is dense in its material and makes a solid, fine story. Best of luck with that, mate. "Although now that I think about it, tea sounds like a viable option if I'm going to while away my time in here," Bradley admitted aloud, wandering back toward where Graham was still busy with his book piles.

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