Talking her father into a shopping trip at a Muggle shop turned out to be a whole lot easier than getting him to agree to a visit to Wizarding London. Gail wanted to find some gifts for the baby - having been deprived of him for his first few months of life and being anxious to make up for that like a good Auntie should. Her father had a couple of business errands to take care of in London, and agreed to take Gail along and stop in at a shop she wanted to visit along the way. Apparently he could identify with the urge to spend on his new grandson.

While her father stood with a dazed sort of expression in front of an obscenely large variety of baby shoes, Gail picked her way through the racks of clothes and blankets and darling little hats. It was too bad that the baby was a boy, since more than three quarters of the shop was devoted to the most adorable little girl outfits ever seen by mortal eyes. She was busy wondering whether Michelle would object to putting Benjamin in a gown with that little tiny bit of scalloped pink trim if she used a good charm to make it blue, when Gail suddenly came face to face with someone whom she would have rather seen in the obituary pages.

"Woah!" A short laugh burst from her, followed closely by a muffled snickering as Gail looked Mack over. Mack was huge. As in . . . huge. There was no hiding the fact that the girl was knocked up in a serious way, and Gail's gleeful pleasure in seeing her enemy's condition was overshadowed only by her shock. Gail backed away a couple of steps, putting a table of blue and white sleeper sets between them, and glanced at her father, who was not far away and paying her less than half his attention.



The best things in life are free. The second best are very expensive.