The whole situation still did feel rather iffy to Alaric, but he did have to admit he was rather curious about the cards the boy held in his hands. (It couldn't hurt to be curious just once or twice, right?)

He raised an eyebrow as the other boy turned over the first card, leaning forwards a little to get a clear view. "...Strong leadership or marrying someone rich," the boy responded rather flatly (although his tone was starting to border on sounding just a little incredulous). After a moment of silence, he continued (although it was more muttering to himself than actually directed towards the other boy). "The second one, definitely. I'm sorry, brother, but you were never much of a leader."

Alaric shook his head as the boy turned over the second card. "New beginnings... school, yes. Of course," he continued to mumble (mostly) to himself, "Don't wait too long to say yes...?" Alaric trailed off mid sentence, sounding like he was lost in his own thoughts for a moment.

Then he snapped back to attention as the blue haired boy flipped over the next card. And started to look slightly perplexed as he watched him... talk to the cards? [i]Someone's a little loony,[/i] he couldn't help but think somewhat snidely, [i]These people sure are[/i] weird [i], aren't they?[/i]

Although the last two cards did seem a little... concerning, if anything. (Even though Alaric was fairly confident these sort of things were just superstition, the fact that someone was telling him people were going to be backstabbing him wasn't particularly reassuring.) And shrewdness towards his goals... what goals? As far as he was concerned, he didn't have anything particularly big planned for himself right now. 

...Now that he thought about it, actually, what kind of goals would need hiding in the first place, anyway? (Alaric actually considered voicing all these questions for a moment, but then he remembered questions always dug him into trouble. Trouble and nothing else. So he just tried to shove them to the back of his mind.)

"...So Nathaniel, is this what you usually do?" Alaric mused out loud, eyeing the other boy, "Just barge into places and ask people if they want to 'have their cards read'?" That did seem rather... odd to Alaric, but to be fair, his brother did warn him these people did tend to be [i]unusual[/i], to say the least. So he supposed this wasn't too out of line, considering.

A growing part of Alaric was starting to nag him to check if the other boy was a mudblood or not before just casually striking up a conversation like this, but it wasn't like he was going to stay here for too long or anything, right? ...Then again, he'd been sitting around him for a while now. A little too long, actually.

After a moment or two of shuffling awkwardly in his seat, the boy decided he couldn't hold the question in anymore. "You're not a mudblood, are you?" he blurted out, words jumbling a little as they left his mouth.