May 21st, 1890 — Diagon Alley

Eloquence twirled her parasol absentmindedly as the sun beat down a veritable heaven's glow on Diagon Alley. She was re-reading the crumpled letter in her hand as she turned the corner, heading for Lytton's where she'd be meeting her lady's maid. But then she looked up — and it happened. Rats. Everywhere! She was often quick to react to unexpected happenings, but those happenings were normally social and not riddled with fleas. So the young debutante took a frozen wide-eyed moment to observe the bizarre hordes of vermin still cascading up from the sewers and into the streets, and by the time that moment was over there were rats wriggling at the hem of her dress.

She could not hold in a squeal of distress as she backed off and climbed up onto an upturned milk crate. Loq stuffed the letter into her purse and gathered up her skirts, but with the other hand still grasping her parasol she had no hands left to grab her wand. Panic had swept over her like a plague.

  

---

Alexander had been minding his own business - and also playing hooky from work - in Diagon Alley. It was a fine afternoon and it felt a shame to waste it in that dingy little office. It was seemingly an unassuming day otherwise until everywhere he looked, there were rats. Alexander didn't have a particular problem with rodents but he did have issue with so many in one place.

He noticed a young woman up on a crate and deciding to be chivalrous or at least something of the sort, he nudged the rodents away from around her crate with his foot. Which felt rather pointless when the rodents just kept filling up newly freed space. "Are you all right, miss? None have bitten you?"

---

  

There was an unknown voice in the chaos — masculine, and frustratingly calm — and it was everything Eloquence could do not to shriek "of course I'm not alright, I'm surrounded by actual rats!"

Though her tone was not that much more ladylike as she gasped out; "I have no idea if they've bitten me, sir!" There was far too much going on. "Where's my wand", she muttered frantically to herself, finally abandoning her parasol in the panic.

  

---

"Would you like me to carry you?" Not a wholly proper suggestion but the circumstances seemed to call for it. His boots were reasonably solid against rat teeth compared to her more feminine footwear.

---

  

Although the stranger looked young and strong at first glance, Eloquence was not the slightest of girls, and all but balked at the suggestion. "Is there... is there no alternative?" she asked desperately, glancing around for some answer — but everyone else was fleeing in panic, and she and the stranger were becoming more and more crowded by the vermin. "My wand must be around here somewhere..."

Before realising that she had dropped her wand, and it was somewhere in there... covered by swarming, squirming rats.

  

---

"You could go on my back but your dress might make that unwieldly," Alexander said, trying to come up with alternatives. He wasn't the brightest bulb in the world though so ideas were usually not his strong suit. In fact, he tended to have terrible ones such as the one that had ended with a dragon lighting his hair on fire that one time. Or ending up with that pet goat.

"I'll try and find it! Once you have it, perhaps you could make yourself a path through them." He pushed as much of the rats around with his feet as he could, eyes open for a wand.

---

  

Despite the fog of panic in her head, Loq mustered enough wherewithal to conclude that this young man was unfortunately a squib. It was the only way to explain why he was rummaging around a bunch of rats with a foot instead of a wand, and offering her a piggy-back — an offer that she downright ignored. She would rather suffer a few rat bites and scuffs than the scandalous indignity of being carried away by a strange man.

But she took a breath and made an effort to quell her frustration; for it wasn't his fault that he was a squib. And besides, he was trying to help. So Eloquence glanced around frantically for her wand as well.

"Oh — there!" she squeaked, pointing wildly towards the corner of the cobbled street, where a rat was not just sniffing at her fallen wand... but picking it up in its teeth!

  

---

Alexander spotted the rodent as she pointed at it and pretty much dove for it, lacking the presence of mind to just summon the damn thing to him with his own wand. His methods, while unconventional, did reward him with a rat in hand, however. But his reward was a bite on his cheek as he got back up and handed the wand over to her. Unbeknownst to the useless, would-be hero, he was beginning to sprout the sort of whiskers a rat might have. "My face feels itchy," he announced like it was something she needed to know. "With your wand, you could make yourself a path of sorts over the rats?" His stomach could not handle the thought of a bunch of deadified rats.

---

  

Loq stretched out her hand desperately for the wand her "hero" had managed to procure, teetering dangerously on the upturned milk crate. But she flinched and very nearly failed to grab the wand when she saw the state of the fellow's otherwise handsome face — it had whiskers growing on it! They protruded from his cheeks in a most horrifying manner.

But her wand had been returned safely to her hand, and she was so relieved that she failed to thank him. A path over the rats, he suggested... "actually, I've every intention of apparating straight out of here", she declared honestly, and would've done so immediately if it weren't for one issue. "Are you... are you going to be okay?" She couldn't leave a squib out here to fend for himself... especially as he was beginning to sprout ratty features that could leave him in danger of vanishing into the writhing, squeaking masses...

  

---

Alexander nodded when she said that she would be apparating. "Oh, there's an idea. I suppose I will apparate as well." Except where was his wand? Usually he had it on the inside of his cloak but that had been left in his last shopping location. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." Aside from rapidly becoming a rat-man, that was.

---

  

Eloquence blinked at the... squib? A squib who could apparate? Loq was momentarily bewildered, but shook it off and decided to think on it later. She had to get out of here. "Alright, well do get yourself to St Mungo's, I'm positive they can help you there", she advised, alarmed by the increasingly rat-like visage before her. "Er, thank you for your help, sir", she managed, but that was the only remaining pleasantry she had time for.

Trying to firm her quivering grip on her wand, Loq focussed and, with a crack!, transported herself home. A blessedly rat-free home where she would be resolutely scrubbing away the afternoon's horrors in a four-hour bath.

  

---

"You're welcome!" Alexander squeaked out, staying to make sure she truly did safely apparate out to safety. It was only then that Alexander moved in the direction of St. Mungos. He would later also eventually be reunited with his wand. He was utterly clueless that the young woman had gone away with the assumption that he was a squib.