Everything old is new again

Keith hadn't realized how much he loved England until he had set foot back on the proud soil of his homeland. Nearly a year away had been torture, and he almost felt at home as he hurried through the crowded London streets, hands stuffed into his pockets.

The weather was its usual dreary self, foggy an dark with just a touch of rain, but even that couldn't get his spirits down. Because not only was Keith returning to his old country after an absence that had lasted far too long, he was returning to an old friend after an absence that had lasted even longer.

He stepped into the relative warmth and security provided by the Leaky Cauldron, shaking his head and letting the droplets of water that had collected in his hair to hit the wooden floor below. He tried to figure out how long it had been since he'd seen Jack. A year and half? Two years? Maybe more.

Some of that had been his fault - he was notoriously busy, after all - but some of that was her fault too. She had graduated from Hogwarts and apparated firmly out of his life, embroiling herself in grown-up problems and responsibilities. He had spent the next three or four years desperately trying to fill the void with drugs and gold and other questionable company. It had worked, of course, because he was a genius, but at the same time he couldn't help but wonder how his life would've turned out had Jack not graduated so soon.

He sat down at a table and ordered a butterbeer, stretching his arms out and smiling as his elbows gave a satisfying crack. Then he reached for a glass and promptly knocked it over, his smile quickly transitioning into a frown. Everything seemed way too close to him. He had grown, over the past year, arms and legs shooting out like weeds, and he couldn't get used to their new lengths for the life of him. He was always knocking things over, or bumping into them. He never would've thought he would miss being short, but he did. At least when he was short he hadn't moved like he was a poorly strung puppet.

The rain was chasing her, it seemed, and she was always close to outrunning it, but never quite fast enough. Quidditch practice that morning had been bleak and freezing, and she had sent everyone home early in the hopes of escaping a cold. Off to the Ministry she went next, happy to see that it was not pouring buckets there - however, as she left work, the rain had reached them there too. It was not raining over her home at Layabout Lane, but when she said good bye to family and turned herself towards London, she found herself in need of turning around and fetching a jacket before continuing her journey.

Very few things interrupted her routine nowadays. Her routine, of course, was not as cut and dry as those around her. With Quidditch practices in the morning, Unspeakable work moving into the afternoon, and then work either with The Knight's Watch or with werewolves, she found that her routine still kept her on her toes. Given that she now had three dependents in the house, (on top of Lize and Tomas showing up for family comforts more often than not) Jack was finding that being a twenty one year old girl felt a lot more like being a forty year old business executive turned mum.

Max was willing to watch Goose and Sunny, and Charlie was off at school. Jack would not usually have taken away her roommate-turned-husband's evening from him, but Keith Nicholas was back in the country (she had not even realized he had been gone) and they were getting a drink at the Leaky to catch up. Remembering his reaction to the last man in her life Keith had found out about, she figured bringing her husband and adopted children would be too much of a mind bend for him.

As she hurried down the street, rain spitefully falling upon her already frizzy hair, she tried to figure out exactly how she would catch her younger friend up with everything in her life. How much did he know about the marriage law? Had he ever known about her involvement with the Order? Did he know what happened with her and Ari, or with Vito, or Chase, or Nemo, or Andrew, or... anyone? As she prepared to talk to him, she found she wanted to abandon most topics of conversation. She could not get the image of the grinning fourth year out of her head, the newest keeper of the Marauder's Map, the heathen in training. All she could see is how much she had changed, and she was foolishly assuming she would be the only one.

She slipped into the pub and shook her arms, flinging droplets of rain in every direction. She fixed her collar and scanned the room, making her way towards the bar. A blonde mop of hair stopped her in her tracks. That couldn't be Keith. It was the same shade of hair, sure, and a familiar profile but... he was... he was taller than her. What? No. That... What?

She moved more slowly now. The bartender glanced up and saw her, lifting his chin in the silent question of what she wanted to drink. A regular, Jack nodded once, signalling her usual, as she stopped behind her Ravenclaw friend. "'Sup, shorty?"

It could not be helped. The irony was too great now.

"Sup, shorty?"

As Keith turned around, he wasn't sure exactly what he was expecting. It had been a long time since he and Jack had seen each other, sure. And he had definitely changed a lot - if he held a picture of himself two years ago up against his reflection in the mirror, he doubted he'd be able to tell it was the same person. But Jack was an adult, and adults didn't change as much as kids did - that was a well documented fact.

And a well documented fact it might've been, but as Keith turned around and saw his friend for the first time in a very long time, he remembered that just because Jack was older than him didn't mean she was an adult.

"Oh God," were the first words out of his mouth, "you shrunk."

It took him much longer than it should have to realize that Jack's height hadn't been the one subject to change. Good Lord, he was tall. Looking down at people wasn't something he was used to, and it was almost nauseating to do it to Jack, who he had spent so much time looking up to (both figuratively and literally). He briefly touched a hand to the warm, solid wood of the bar, steadying himself.

Okay. Back on his feet. The relative position of Jack's head wasn't the only thing that had changed about his friend. She seemed...more settled. There were lines in her face that hadn't been there before. Not old person lines, just natural lines, the kind that settled in naturally and enhanced the overall look of a person's face. She certainly wasn't seventeen anymore. (Christ, he was the same age she had been when they had met for the first time, five years ago. It made the whole thing kind of fitting.)

He was relieved to see that he hadn't over or underdressed, at least. Keith's fashion sense had come a long way since he considered a ratty t-shirt and jeans to be the pinnacle of men's apparel, but he still had issues deciding which ensemble was right for which situation. He felt he had picked relatively well.

It was at about that point that he realized the last words out of his mouth had been "you shrunk," and so he quickly followed up with, "I mean, that's cool and all, it's a life choice. I was just wondering how work at the chocolate factory was going." He grinned. "Even though I don't know how you fit it into your busy schedule. You play Quidditch, do Ministry work - I don't get into the workforce for another two years, but jeez Dyllan, leave something for me, would ya?"

He seemed to be just as surprised at his new height as she was. It was incredibly odd, tilting her head upwards to look at Keith. Jack had always been relatively short, but there was this odd phenomenon in which short people became unaware of their need to look up to meet the eyes of their acquaintances. She did not notice having to tilt her head up when she was near Max to meet his eyes. She was barely conscience of the fact that her younger cousin Charlie had outgrown her now. But one constant about Keith had always been that she never had to tilt, never had to lean, never had to crane to meet his gaze. Perhaps this is why he had always seemed so young to her, so much more of a child than she knew he really was. Now, her perspective had been given a switch, and the adjustment was becoming harder to comprehend than she had originally guessed.

Still, his words tempted a wry grin onto her face. Keith had never been one to think thoroughly before speaking, and it had always made him seem more genuine, even if he wasn’t necessarily polite. His dress, however, was much more becoming than his words, which was a strange new change. It suddenly struck her that Keith was a handsome sixteen year old boy. He would be affected by this marriage law. He could be paired with her seventeen year old cousin. If there was ever a weirder thought than that, Jack would not have been able to summon it.

She had to drop that line of thinking, though, for it was much too of a mind boggle. She could work with his snark, but not with the idea that Keith Nicholas was at the age where dating was a thing. She ticked her head, saying, “Might have shrunk, but I’ll never be too short to do this.” And in a swift move, she rubbed her knuckles against the top of his head, mussing up his hair. She dropped into her spot, her rum and coke slid towards her by the amiable bartender. She scooped up the glass and took a drink, rolling the flavor between her lips. Another change that was not one you easily introduced : I’m basically an alcoholic, Keith.

She shrugged at his comments, saying, “I’d be worried, but aren’t you a bum in training? I thought you were going the Lost Boy route, refusing to grow up.”

“Might have shrunk, but I’ll never be too short to do this.” And in a swift move, Jack rubbed her knuckles against the top of his head, mussing up his hair.

"Ack," Keith sputtered, swiping his now messy hair over to one side. It was a rush job, but it would have to do for now. Jack practically feel onto her stool and he sat next to her, nursing his butterbeer as she took a long sip of rum and coke.

"I'm not completely hopeless," he said when she mentioned his job prospects. "It turns out I'm pretty good at potions. There's always money in potions work, right?" He grinned. "Besides, I'm not doing too bad for myself nowadays."

It was true. There was always money in potions work, especially when that potions work was actually the creation and distribution of an illegal drug. Keith had stepped back on the whole Spice business ever since Wally had left Hogwarts, unwilling to front the work, but he still made solid money, especially for a sixteen year old. But he wasn't sure how willing he was to share that part of his life with Jack. She had been his mentor, and probably his best friend, but she had always strayed a little too close to the goody two shoes kind of thing. Working for the Ministry, for example.

"Anyway," he said, "you've been here in England full time, yeah? So you got walloped by that marriage statute." The marriage laws had actually been the reason behind his most recent disappearance. With his mother hysterical about what a forced marriage could do to the family, and his father convinced the country had been going downhill since Jess Potter was Minister, they had elected to move to France, sending him to school at Beauxbatons with his sister for the last half of last year. It had been...brutal, but at least he had avoided getting paired off at sixteen.

Jack, of course, was probably not so lucky. "So who is he? Is it truuuuuuue loooooove?" He asked, drawing the words out to emphasize his disdain for the notion.

There had always been something between Jack and Keith that was very much like siblings, though it was a very relaxed siblingship if it was one. And even though Jack was definitely the elder, it was mostly out of the amount of stacked experience on one side. Jack could only recall ever being fed up with the younger Ravenclaw once, and that had been because he had announced her romantic entanglements to the school, rather than talked with her. Besides, she had not been very angry for long, as the actual entanglement itself ended up being more difficult to maneuver than she had originally guessed.

Keith responded very much like a brother to her affectionate tussle of hair, helping ease the pain of the void that her real brother had once held in her life.

She lifted an eyebrow at his mention of potions. Jack worked for the Ministry; of course she knew about Sugar and Spice. Her mind had jumped to him not out of suspicion, but out of familiarity - besides her cousin, she did not have many strong ties to Hogwarts anymore. She had been curious about how much he knew about the drugs, how involved he might be. Jack also could not help but wonder, considering she had lived with an addict, and she distinctly remembered Nemo calling his dealer a kid once or twice. Jack would not press, but she certainly was curious.

"Always money in potions," she said. "I'm always looking for potionmakers to keep me stocked on medical stuff and wolfsbane. I might have to hire you out. And I still have contacts over at Wheezes - they have a sizable potions department." She felt a gnawing suspicion that she might have mentioned this before to him, and she could not help but throw job offers at a familiar face. She liked working with people she knew she could trust. It was a welcome change from working with people she KNEW she couldn't trust.

And, like that, they were on the topic of marriage. Oh boy. The wedding ring she kept on a chain beneath her shirt laid heavily against her chest and she took a deep, deep drink of her rum. Right after her marriage, it would have been easy to say 'It means nothing.' It was harder when you actually liked your husband.

"I ended up just marrying my flatmate. He and I had already been living together for a year, y'know, and it was easy 'cause he's a stranger I know how to deal with. I was planning on just going French on the Ministry, viv la revolution style, but I'm a guardian now, and I couldn't do that to my girls." She shook her head, grinning ironically. "Shit, I sound so domestic."

Keith nodded politely at the job offer. It was...interesting. He could see himself going legit, at least partially. Maybe build some connections into the professional world. He filed that note away for future use.

Then Jack mentioned guardianship. "Hold on," Keith said, sticking his finger in his ear and pretending to dig something out of it. "Sorry, I must've misheard you, because for a second there I was pretty sure you had said you were a guardian."

He shook his head in disbelief. Jack wasn't the type of person who settled down. Or at least, she hadn't been when he had seen her last. She wasn't the type of person who became a guardian, or married her flatmate just because the Ministry told her to. The more she talked, the more Keith realized that he didn't really know her at all. Did he know about this flatmate? About her wards? About her friends? Did he know anything about her entire life after leaving Hogwarts?

Actually, the more he talked, the more he realized she didn't really know him at all. Did she know about Spice? About Wally? About Alice Longbottom, gasping for breath on the floor of the Room of Requirement, her eyes an unreal-blue? Did she know anything about his life back at Hogwarts.

This was getting depressing fast. He did his best to keep it off his face. "Domestics not a...totally bad thing," he said, shrugging his shoulders, but even he could tell that his heart wasn't really in the lie. "I guess I've got to revise my earlier statement. You play Quidditch, do Ministry work, and you're a Mom." He raised his bottle in a mock salute. "You sound like a character out of a muggle sitcom. Just how do you keep it all together?"

She should have known there would be no casually bringing up anything of her new life, especially not the fact that she was now a legal guardian. It was more likely for her to take on a ragtag group of kids under her wing than to become a legal guardian and, to be fair, she had done a little bit of both. But, naturally, the first one to have fallen under one of her wings would be curious to know how others had followed, and how it had become legitimate.

"You don't think I'm responsible enough to be a guardian? Don't answer that," she added quickly, ready for a snarky response out of his mouth. "I sort of got saddled with my six year old niece. She's the Queen of the house now though. And then my long-lost, newly orphaned cousin came out of the works - my life the soap opera, I know. And then I met this kid at a muggle hospital who was terminal but I knew magic would help, but I couldn't help without being his guardian so... just... a lot of stuff randomly happened."

She could not help the ghost of a smile that flickered onto her lips, so she hid it by lifting her drink to her lips and taking another deep drink. Truth be told, she could not imagine her life without children screaming early in the morning, moody teenagers locking themselves behind bedroom doors, macaroni always cooking on the stove. It was insane, absolutely insane, and she thrived on it.

She smirked at his words, summing it up for him. "So, yes, I still work on kicking ass." His question was a good one, really. How did she do it? It wasn't easy. She was always exhausted, always felt a little unhealthy, always ready to drop. "Sleep goes first, then sanity, then the need for either." She shrugged. "When you like everything you're doing, you don't want to spend 8 hours a night apart from it."

She thought through the words, curious. Were they true? Was it the work she loved? Or was it the people that made up for it?

She turned her attention to her not-so-short friend. "But what have you been up to? Hogwarts always means adventures of some kind - and you've been at large abroad? There's got to be stories."

"You don't think I'm responsible enough to be a guardian?" Jack asked

"Well-"

"Don't answer that," she added quickly. Keith immediately shut his mouth over the truly excellent metaphor he was about to use. Another time then.

Once comfortably assured there would be no sass and that his silence was more than temporary, Jack continued talking about how she had come to be the person now standing in front of him. Niece, long-lost cousin, terminal kid - it was all a bit surreal, but Keith had never expected anything less of Jack. She joked about it, but her life had always been somewhere on the other side of normal.

Not that he could really say his life was any different - he didn't exactly live an average, mundane life himself, even by wizarding standards. Maybe it was something about Hogwarts, something that took young, normal children and turned their lives upside down until it was suitably strange.

"But what have you been up to? Hogwarts always means adventures of some kind - and you've been at large abroad? There's got to be stories."

Her questions pulled him back to reality. "Ah. Yeah," he said, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. "To be honest, I haven't spent as much time at Hogwarts recently as I might've liked. My grandmother died, and she was like, old school Pureblood, like, put on some black robes and knock a muggleborn's door down kinda stuff. So there was this big thing. Everyone got together and fought over the estate and the fifty different exotic beasts she was illegally keeping on the grounds. It was kind of a nightmare." He rubbed at his eyes. It made him tired just to think of the funeral and the family squabbling that had followed it - his grandmother had been the epitome of an angry Scotswoman, and the hotheadedness seemed to run on his mother's side of the family.

"And then the marriage statues went down, and unlike you I didn't have a conveniently placed roommate to shack up with...is that a pun? I didn't mean to pun. I'm very anti-pun currently." He shook his head. "Mom decided that this was the perfect chance to ship me off to France, with my sister." He fixed Jack with a level gaze and pulled a small plastic bag full of rich brown candies out of his back pocket. "I don't even speak French, Jack. Do you know what these are? Languazenges. Candies imbued with a language - as long as you suck on them, you can speak French, or German, or Spanish, depending on the flavor. I had to order them in bulk because I couldn't understand crap without them." He grinned. "Anyway, I knew that wasn't gonna work out, so I joined the Quidditch team and helped start a riot. A small riot, but it had heart, and I wasn't asked to return this year, if you get my drift. So I'm back at Hogwarts." He shrugged. "Not as exciting as kids and a steady job, but I manage."