Talk About Old Friends...

Keith awoke to a very rude knock on his door. So forceful was the knock, in fact, that for a moment Keith felt like he was waking up in the middle of an earthquake. He was already halfway out of bed, destination and determination clearly in his mind, when he realized he wasn't in California anymore, and wasn't in danger of being swallowed up by the earth.

Therefore, the earthquake like shaking that was currently scaring him half to death had to be....Dani.

"Keith!" Came a voice from just outside his door. "Keith GET UP! What are you doing in there?!"

"Seizing the day," Keith muttered, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and fishing around for some pants. "Go away."

"Keith, we're already late! I told Brandon I'd meet him there at Eleven!"

"Relax," Keith called through the door, finding a suitable pair of pants and hopping into them. "You're only like-" he checked his clock "2 hours late."

"Keith! Nicholas! If you take one more second, I swear to God I am blowing this door of it's hinges!"

"Ah what's the point?" Keith asked, grabbing his wand and tucking it into his back pocket. "I can hear you, so you've already broken the silencing charm. That door is worthless."

There was a very large crunch from outside the door and Keith's room shook again - he realized that Dani had actually just tried to break his door down. Probably with the stool that sat outside his room. "Oh, never mind," Keith said. "It's still got the defensive barriers on it, so could you try not to break it down?"

"What is my father paying you for?" Dani asked. Keith opened the door with a grin. "Because I'm good at hitting bad guys?"

Dani was 15 years old, five foot nothing and a complete joke with a wand in her hand. She also happened to be the sole heiress to a rather large oil company, and attracted plenty of bad customers from both the magical and muggle worlds. In his 5 months playing bodyguard, Keith had foiled at least 6 assassination attempts and twice as many kidnappings. But the pay was decent, and there was free room and board, and Keith was kind of indebted to the father, so he stuck around.

He grabbed Dani's hand and hauled her to her feet. "Alright kid. Next stop - Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes." He smirked. "Maybe there you can see your boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend!" Dani protested a moment before the vanished.

Jack did not spend much time in Weasley's anymore- she was busy with her job as a Magizzologist and Magical Persons and Creatures Relations Official... Basically the girl that told the werewolves to stop noming and the wizards to stop telling muggles that hunting wolves was a good idea. She also made a point of regulating poltergesit activity. Some things never changed..

But today she had a special job. Every now and then, she put up a flyer advertising that inventors could come and pitch their ideas to her and her team. All hands were on deck, because they usually had a flood of shoppers beforehand as well, all trying to talk to the inventors just in case they ended up getting a deal and somehow become famous.

Augustine tagged along with her. A muggle boy immersed in the wizarding world, Goose was typically accepted, never having problems but with the purebloods. The staff of Weasley's adored him though. Now in the prime of puberty, the boy she had rescued from the muggle hospital bounded ahead of her into the throng of people, searching out Carson, who was regarded as the coolest guy around- eighteen and Jack's manager.

She worked her way through the throng of people, keeping an eye out for trouble, pickpocketing, and familiar faces, of course. Being a shop owner may not seem glamorous, but owning Weasley's was a different story... It was famous and this was the place to be today...

With an uncomfortably loud crack, Keith and Dani appeared in the middle of Hogsmead. Keith brushed his face to make sure he still had his nose and eyebrows, and Dani did likewise. "Am I good?" She asked.

"Yeah. Me?"

"No," she said, turning away from him and towards Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. "I think you lost your brain."

"Oh ha. Ha. Bravo," Keith said, rolling his eyes. He wasn't a very good apparater, it had taken him four tries to finally pass the damn test. Dani however, when she tried it, seemed to be a natural - she was only fifteen, but was already undergoing private lessons with a tutor her father had hired. She enjoyed being better than Keith at something, especially something as vital as apparation.

"Whatever," she said, pulling open the door. "Just try not to emberass me okay? Robert won't even talk to me after what you did to him."

"It was supposed to be a memory modification charm!" Keith protested. "I swear!"

Dani took a deep breath, ran her hands through her hair, and stepped inside. Keith shook his head and followed her. The place was packed, and Keith was immediately wary, but you'd have to be an idiot to attempt an attack in the middle of Hogsmeade. Dani was already weaving through the crowd towards a lanky boy with blonde hair - she smiled stupidly at him and Keith snorted.

Now, what to do until Dani was done with her little boytoy...

A few years ago, Keith would've never been bored in a place like Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. And even though pranking wasn't exactly his thing, there was still plenty of cool stuff in the store. Keith grabbed a packet of Peruvian instant darkness powder, checking the price. "Two Galleons? Of all the..." he turned. "Hey! Manager! What's with the price here?"

Jack lost track of Goose, who had had his attention caught by someone asking for the manager. Jack had trained Goose well, so he walked up to the man, who was younger than Jack but older than him and asked him, "Need help?" He caught sight of the price tag and immediately understood, because just a few days ago, the powder had been much cheaper. He turned and shouted, "Hey Jack!"

Jack had always let Goose call her by her first name. She was too young to be his mother, so there was no reason to treat her like one. She turned at his call and scanned the crowd. She saw a young kid walking by, slipping his hand conspicuously into his pocket. Her hand shot out like an attacking cobra and caught around his wrist.

"Thieves, sir, are not in the interest of fun." She pointed at a sign she had posted that read 'If it's fun for everyone, let the games begin.' She gave him a serious look, scrutinizing his face. "It's your first time; next time, we will have fun with you."

He disposed of the stolen goods in her hand and she tucked them into the robes she had donned on entering to restock later. She spotted Goose and beelined for him. "What's going on?" she said, looking at him.

"The price on this Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder is wrong."

"Son of a- that new clerk is killin' me! I'm sorry, I-" she looked at the man wanting to purchase the powder and her mouth tipped open. She smirked, "Well, well, well... If it isn't Keith Nicholas!" And, very professionally, she pulled him into a headlock.

Keith flinched back, but it didn't stop Jack from putting him in a headlock. "Ack."

Ah yes. Keith Nicholas, master of quick wit. Truly and ack for the ages.

At first, Keith didn't recognize Jack. It had been a while since they had last seen each other - Keith had left for America immediately after graduating and only returned a few months ago. In that time, Jack had...changed.

But he had changed too. He was taller now, by a lot - he really hit his growth spirt while in America, and was now at least 6 feet tall. One eye, instead of being brown, was an some weird dull green. (The medic who had grown it back had been tired, and distracted, and Keith hadn't had the money to get it changed so he just left it) "Jack," he said with a grin, attempting to worm his head out from under her arm. "Long time no see huh?"

Jack felt Keith begin to squirm and she swung her arm away, releasing him and letting his recover his posture and dignity. She grinned widely while Goose watched the interaction with his mouth open ever so slightly; she had told him many times that the look made him look stupid, not that he listened ever really to her when she told him so.

"Seriously," she said, looking him up and down really quick. "You're not a midget anymore," she smirked as she said it, reaching out to tussle his hair. They had both grown up, though him more literally. She was still short, just older looking now. Longer nose, sharper eyes, higher cheekbones, more proportionate limbs and body. Same short red hair, same mischevious look, same bad attitude.

Goose coughed and Jack nodded. "Right. This is Goose- er, Augustine."

"Jack's my adopted mom."

It always sounded strange when that word was used. They were almost like siblings rather than child and guardian, but then again, Jack's relationships were never exactly normal either. She grinned and crossed her arms. "So how have you been? What are you up to?"

Keith smirked as Jack mentioned his height - he noticed she hadn't grown at all since they had last seen each other. Ha. Keith liked being tall, though it was a little harder to hide in crowds. He nodded politely to Goose. (Keith refused, on principle, to make any child suffer through a name like Augustine anymore than they had to)

"So how have you been?" Jack asked, still smiling. "What are you up to?"

"I've been...about as well as can be expected?" Keith said, rubbing the back of his head. "After I graduated I took some time off. Went back to America - I lived there before I went to Hogwarts so it was nice seeing everything again. It's a very different take on magic they've got - it's sort of cool, a little more modern, but I can see why my dad decided to send me to England for my magical education." He shrugged. "Anyway. While I was over there some people got pissy about some of the things I was doing and beat me up pretty bad. Little miss snorts-a-lot's dad," he said, jerking a thumb towards Dani, "took me a to a hospital and asked me if I wanted a job back in the UK. I said yes, and now I'm stuck playing bodyguard to his spoiled little girl," he said with a rueful grin. "It's not too bad. She's the exact opposite of me - it's always study study study. Shame she has no talent to back it up with. What about Goose? What year is he in?"

Jack grinned, listening to Keith's story, not at all surprised that Keith had had a very strange and interesting time since his graduation. She would have been disappointed to find out he had done something normal. Of course, her apprentice slash prodigy did not let her down. She smirked, glad to see he had found his match. She hoped Dani was giving him hell. Anything else would be tragic.

Keith asked what year Goose was in and she reached up to scratch her head, glancing over towards Goose who seemed to fit in well enough, but did have a bit of a lost look in his eyes, to those who knew him well enough. Jack momentarily pursed her lips before turning her gaze back to her old school mate.

"Goose is a muggle," she said. "Adopted. He has a terminal disease and I thought St Mungo's might help. They couldn't. He's more like a Squib, though, without the embarrassment of failure." She smiled slightly. "He's grown up around magic, he'll just never be able to do it." She shrugged. "He's tough though." She didn't know what more to say.