Always Working

Jack sighed as he left the last building. He had been on the case of some new Dark wizard that was running around claiming to have killed over fifty muggles and a few wizards. A lot of it was probably smoke, but at the same time he had to investigate in case the facts did happen to be true. So far, he had gotten nowhere, but he had to keep going.

He put away his notepad and turned into a little coffee shop. he ordered a drink and he sat down at a table near a window so that he could have a view while reviewing his notes. He pulled out his notepad and his pen and looked over what he had so far while sipping his drink. It was a case that was probably going to go absolutely nowhere, but if he got anything on it, he would catch the unsub.

Jack was in a warm little coffee shop in Hogsmeade, glad to be out of the cold and sipping some warm hot chocolate- she found coffee wound her up to a point more than she or anyone else wanted to really deal with- and drumming her fingers on the table. She was a booth, but she was alone, as usual, because it was not like she had anyone to sit with.

She was apparently friends with Elijah, but not much had changed, except she minded her tongue in classes, holding back sarcasm directed at him. It was still difficult to see Chase in classes, but it was beginning to feel like a dull, numb pain, barely throbbing with occasional stinging pangs that racked her thoughts and her heart. And it was not like it would be normal to see her and Vito sitting in a booth and sipping coffee as though they were not deranged. The day that happened would be the day Vito proposed in the raining down cats and dogs...

Nevertheless, Jack had lived her life without people and now that she was alone again, she had almost adjusted to the seclusion she had once known and loved. However, it did come as a surprise when someone sat across from her, so involved in their notes of some kind to notice he had just joined her. She smirked. These sorts of meetings were always awkward, for the other person. "Why hello there."

The more he thought about something, the more it ate away at him. He did not like to not know something, he was a man who did not believe in the motto "Curiosity killed the cat". He had a weird impulse to be involved in everything no matter how small or how big it could potentially become. He did not particularly care to be at the center of attention, rather he just wanted to be informed about what was happening to the person in the center.

This is why when he received cases like this he almost pulled his hair out. Questions like: Is the person serious? Have these people actually been murdered? If so, where? Is the person dangerous? Would he be aggressive if confronted and discovered?.... The list could go on for days of the questions that ran through his head, and it only became worse the more he sat around and thought about it.

Almost as if on a timer, a voice snapped him to attention. His head shot up and he noticed a younger girl sitting across from him. He quickly thought back to if someone had been sitting there, and he was almost sure no one had been. None the less, he had been in this type of situation many times. He did this often, getting engulfed in his own thoughts and having no awareness whatsoever.

He flipped his notebook closed quickly, not really knowing why. The information he had out was not really pertinent, but it was a habit. Sometimes some of the things he had recorded were not to be seen by the general public, so like a reaction he always shut his notepad when he was talking to someone who he did not know.

He grinned big, knowing that this was probably a weird thing. He did not get ashamed very often, and in fact, liked to meet new people. He could not tell how old she was, but it was not like it mattered really. "How terribly rude of my to intrude on your..." He stole a look across the table to see what she was drinking before he continued on. "Oh... your hot chocolate. It must be weird for a stranger to just randomly sit down next to you." He stretched his arm across the table to greet her.

"Jack Wickim... now we aren't strangers anymore."

Jack's eyes strayed to the only thing of interest on the guy, which was the open notepad in front of him, which seemed to be the cause of the guy's furrowed brow, and the aura of frustration that was emanating from him, seeming to infect her with a restlessness. She began to bounce her knee beneath the booth table, and her eyes narrowed on the page of the source of unease.

A hand brought the cover of the notepad on top of the open page and Jack's eyes flicked back up to the newcomer, realizing she may have been stepping over a line by so rudely staring at his notepad. But he had sat down at her table, and though she knew it had been an accident- he looked so distracted that if she had not said anything, he would not have noticed- he had "crossed the line" that society had drawn up to keep everyone safe and sound in their little boxes.

"Rude is contrary. I have no social objections to strangers," she shrugged, looking out the window, something different in her eyes. Gone was the mischievousness, leaving only a weariness of someone who was done with life. She glanced back, smirking at his mention of hot chocolate. "My hot chocolate will get over it soon enough, I'm sure." She chuckled.

"And surprisingly, it's not." If she was not approached by strangers, she would never have social contact. No one who knew her was stupid enough to strike up conversation with her. They did not seek hermits, who did? knowingly? Hence the importance of strangers ignorant to her true nature. She reached out a hand and shook his hand with the strength of something that was definitely not a seventeen-year-old girl. She smirked. "Jack Dyllan. Look at that, an ice breaker at the ready. Matching names. We could start a club."

Right off the bat Jack got the sense that he would get along with the girl. Most people whom he talked to did not really like his outgoing nature. Liking the solitude of their own little world. Everyone thought that everyone else was some sort of sick sadistic being who would take them for everything and leave them dead without a moments notice. Jack knew the world was, in fact, the opposite of this. He knew many more decent and honest people than he did pure evil, which was saying something because he was an auror and that was all he dealt with.

"Good, I was worried that your hot chocolate would hold it against me forever." He sighed and wiped his brow with a grin on his face. When she gripped his hand he immediately did what he did, began to create a profile. It was how he functioned, he always made a profile of everyone he met. Their actions, how they acted, things of that nature. He started doing it when he was little, for some unknown reason, and it had carried over into his adult life.

She was definitely mature, but how old she was was still a mystery. He could not come out and ask her age, that would be weird and definitely be over the line. He had to stop himself though, he always scolded himself for getting so ahead of himself and forgetting that she was a human and not someone who he could just make a mental profile of. "We do indeed have excellent names. Sadly though, I am already in the fan club. Started it back when I was like... I dunno... five. So you are kind of late to the party."

Leaning back, he put his notepad back into his robe pocket. If he kept it in front of him he would only want to look into it more. This was probably a good thing, he usually thought better when he was not so absorbed, so talking would take his mind off of things and hopefully he would be able to figure things out better afterwards.

"So Jack, what brings you here?"

She nodded, saying, "No, trust me, my hot chocolate will get over it. He's not much for grudges." That's right, continue to depend on sarcasm instead of having an actual conversation like you always do. She forced that voice in her brain that was always scolding, always scoffing, that seemed to be so close to be driving her to insanity to shut up. She did not need its criticisms.

She smirked at his comment about the fan club, trying to bring some of the light, some of the mischievousness into her eyes and failing. She said, "Ah, well, that's fine. I've never had a problem with party crashing before, so why would I start now. I can't be too far behind." She didn't know how much older he was, but she really did not care. She had once spent an entire day in the company of an elderly stranger and felt totally at ease. Jack did not think much of ages.

He asked what brought her here and she felt her eyes stray back to the window, realizing she was probably the only student inside. Everyone else would be enjoying the outside air, maybe forming snowballs in the small banks of sludge and messing around. She turned. "What brings anyone anywhere? Boredom and nothing better to do. And hot chocolate, of course." She sighed and then said, "And yourself? Coming to mull things over?" She would not deny having seen the notepad.

Jack smirked at her deflection at the question. Trying to answer it with standard answers and hot chocolate. She was sitting alone in a coffee shop with nothing but her thoughts, she was not there just because of boredom. But that was Jack's opinion, and he had been wrong many times before. At least in Jack's mind, he did not go anywhere and sit by himself unless something was eating at his mind. He would go to be alone so he could try and get the thoughts from his head.

"Boredom and hot chocolate?" He grinned before she asked him why he was there. He thought about it for a minute, maybe if he was honest with her she would open up a little to him. Jack was good at seeing who he could trust and who he couldn't. She was not nervous and did not have any of the warning signs that someone with something to hide would have. He figured he could let her in on it.

He reached into his robe and pulled his notepad back out and slid it across the table. It was on the page it had been, so she would be reading about what he had done so far, which was not much. If she turned the pages, she would come across the other Dark Wizards he had encountered and the five he had arrested. They were all closed cases, except the one she was looking at, so she had probably heard of all of them.

"I am mulling things over. I am on the hunt for an alleged Death Eater who has been going on a killing spree. Happens a lot, someone who does not have anything will go around boasting about killing wizards and witches, and they will turn up being some guy with nothing to his name." He grinned, and looked across the table at her. She seemed like the kind of girl who would be interested in that type of thing from her curiosity.

"Now why are you really here? Boyfriend break up with you? Get into a fight with someone? Or do you just enjoy sitting inside and watching people come and go?"

Jack listened to his words, eyebrows raised impressively, her smirk the stamp of approval as she bobbed her head a little. Tracking down a possible serial killer Death Eater. Well, that was a very adequate reason for being so lost in your thoughts as to sit down with a complete and utter stranger. She nodded and said, "Nice. If you need help, I don't look like much, but I can be handy in a tough situation." She grinned. She had helped Michael track down Khaat. She had her uses.

At his question about the boyfriend, she threw her head back and laughed. He was trying to being shrewd and understand her, but here was the problem. No on understood her brain. The thought of her and a boyfriend was enough to make her cackle like a mad woman. She was always in a "fight" with someone, because when it came down to it, people just did not like her and she just did not like people. And he was also assuming she had a reason for being here. She never had reasons for the things she did. She just did them.

"Honestly? I was stuck in Hogsmeade with my Zonko's stuff purchased and I did not want to see the faces of all the prats I deal with everyday, so I found the least crowded coffee shop, and hid." She smirked and took a drink of her hot cocoa, leaning back a bit. She set down her cocoa. "Oh." She let herself swing forward a bit. "And the 'give information to get information' trick is good, but that's my lingo." She smirked. It was true. The only reason she ever disclosed information was to get something out of someone.

Jack sat back and grinned widely at her rebuttle. She was strong willed and level headed, at least that was how she portrayed herself. Jack automatically thought that the Ministry could use someone exactly like her. They were full of arrogant and power hungry monguls and had too few people who actually had an interest and a drive to just be good at catching Dark Wizards, or serving the people. That was what Jack was about, and he wished other shared the same view.

He threw his hands up and he laughed, "Fair enough, you win." He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table and gave a quick run through of the coffee shop. It was fairly empty, something he had not noticed earlier. The fact that he sat down at the one table with someone sitting at it was quite amusing. "As for helping me.... Well I would feel bad if such a young and helpless female such as yourself caught yourself in such a dangerous situation and ended up hurt... or dead."

He laughed and quickly spoke so as not to upset her. "I am joking. The fact is, I would not mind if you tagged along but the fact of the matter is this: it is just some guy blowing a lot of smoke. Lets say we actually find this guy, or girl. More than likely it would be just fellow who would piss his pants and beg us not to haul him off to Azkaban." He laughed at the thought of it. Picturing some guy crouching in a corner and begging to be left alone. It may have been overdone in his mind, but it was more or less true.

"You can come along and take notes if you want?" He grinned again.

Jack scoffed and rolled her eyes, but kept her joking smirk on her face as she said, "Pssht, helpless? You really do not know who you are talking to, do you?" She laughed heartily and cradled her cup of hot chocolate between her palms, warming them up with the warm container holding the hot liquid. When the temptation was too great, she lifted it to her lips and drank.

At his words, she nodded, carefully lowering her mug back down to the table, wiping to bottom so that cocoa would not form a chocolate ring on the tabletop. "Yes, that makes sense. I've heard rumors but not actual proof of things happening. Except that Barker guy kidnapping people. Now, some Slytherin girl is missing. But most of the stuff I hear is hearsay."

He said that she could follow along and she grinned, leaning back and smirking, "I would... but I probably shouldn't. I'm Quidditch captain for Gryffindor this year and I have the tournament to prepare for." She grinned widely. She was not going to pretend that it was possible to be modest about those things. It really was pointless to try.