Everything was noise, color, and movement. It overwhelmed all five of his senses rendering him nearly paralyzed by the onslaught of it all. The colors were too bright, the sounds were too loud and happy, the crowds moved to quickly, and even the smells were too potent. He was jostled along by many elbows belonging to people whose faces blurred together in his memory leaving only the various bruises as a testiment to their presence.

Cecil Banister was overwhelmed.

And why shouldn't he be? He hadn't been exposed to this many people in over fifteen years. He hadn't even really been outside in that amount of time. The very light stung his eyes painfully. He must have been the most bizarre site in the alley as he stumbled along, and considering this was Diagon Alley a place where you might find barrel's of salamander tongues, exploding bon bons, and grown men wearing sparkly pink tutus this means more than on your typical London street. Upon first glance he seemed fairly normal. He wasn't repulsive looking, a bit on the short side with his hair cleanly shaven but his chin covered in at least two days of growth. His shoulders were hunched forward, in that perpetual slump that young people adopt as though they were carrying some great weight around all the time. Perhaps his was a bit more pronounced than normal but he certainly had no hunchback like the famed Quasimodo. He wore an unexciting grey teeshirt that promoted some varsity football team and worn looking jeans. It was nothing especially ragged, nor stylish. It was muggle clothing to be sure, and that might have stood out in an earlier day but not since Apollo Sinistra had propelled muggle fashions from a spare disguise to wizarding London's new haute couture.

No the true testiment to this overwhelmed creatures oddity was the very way he moved through the crowd. The clear anxiety that rolled off him in waves and crashed into the people who came into contact with him. That, and the wild look in his eyes. There was terror and there was curiosity.

And one couldn't help but wonder what he was doing there. Since he so clearly didn't really belong.

[snap. That reply never went through and I never noticed! Not only that.. but it's lost to time, too. augh. Rushed rewrites suck, but at least it gets things going?]

Muggle fashion might've been the rage, but for Alexandra.. it just didn't seem fitting. Not for work, at least. Of course this made her outdated- even a bit unfashionable.. but it really had never been quite a concern of hers. Besides, in this bustling crowd, no one really seemed to care about what the diminutive auror was wearing, or that she was as always leveling on distraction. In a crowd, she always avoided eye contact or letting her mind wander. It kept her talents at bay, and more specifically.. made it easier to make it through.

But when she saw the frantic, overwhelmed, average looking male in muggle clothing in front of her, she struck eye contact. It didn't take legilimens to see the look or feel of the young man, or that terror and curiosity coupled with vivid wildness. Whatever task she had, whatever purpose she'd started in on before seeing him was lost. She might've been an auror and by very nature distrusting, but there were always things that could be spotted by simple intuition. Cecil's reactions to the crowd and fearful look- along with a marked overwhelmed feeling- made it clear there was nothing directly threatening about this. Maybe indirectly, perhaps, but she'd deal with that when it came up- if it came up.

Something was up. Maybe not sinister, maybe not even important. But whoever he was, he didn't really belong... not yet, not completely. Her attetion gathered, she moved herself as best she could through the crowds and beside him, carefully doing her best to keep people from crashing into him, though it wasn't always the easiest.

"Do you need some help? I'm Alexandra..." She never had been the particular best with introductions or randomly starting up conversations- but it was the least she could do given the circumstances.