All Grown Up Now

Christy walked into the Leaky Cauldron. She had just gotten done seeing Oded and sending him to do that mission she desperately needed done. She smoothed down her skirt as she took a seat at a table in a corner all by her self as one of the waitresses walked up. "I'll take a glass of wine so long as it isn't dry, and a small greek salad please." she said with a small smile. After these years of having to feed herself, she still had yet to learn how to cook anything. Much less she hadn't figured out how to even make a salad without cutting her fingers.

It wasn't that she couldn't handle being around knives. She could throw them all day long, with fairly decent accuracy thanks to her twin brother. It was that she had never had the need to learn how to use them to cook with. She laughed to herself. Guess I'll have to eventually learn how to fend for myself. she thought to herself.

As the waitress brought her, her wine and salad she smiled. "Thanks. Just keep the tab open for now."

Matt pulled off his cloak as the all too familiar smell of the Leaky Cauldron hit his nose. It was different everyday depending on the special except for that consistent stench of wizards who hadn't showered in days. He took a moment to look over the surroundings and nodded to the bartender. It was the same man who had served him before he had disappeared. He nodded to the man and immediately the bartender poured him a scotch, no ice. That was definitely some memory. He walked over to the counter and thanked the man as he picked it up and made his way over to a table.

He placed his jacket on the back of his chair and pulled out a leather bound book from his jacket pocket and sprawled it out across the table. He pulled a few loose papers out of the book and spread them across the table. He looked at all the papers and tried to put all the strings together. He picked up his glass to take a drink and he took his eyes off the papers for one single moment and looked up.

Now there are several things that Matt could have seen that would cause him to react the way he did;

His dead wife, Emmy and their twins, also dead.

His dead Aunt Bellatrix Lestrange

Christbelle Whittle, presumed dead, and old friend

Guess which one he saw?

He dropped his glass and it hit the floor with a loud shatter that would have drawn the attention of anyone around him. It didn't dawn on him at any point that Christy might not recognize him. It had been many years after all. He quickly pulled out his wand and pointed it at the mess. It cleaned itself up and the glass was repaired. He apologized to the bartender of course and was soon rewarding with another drink on the counter. He quickly turned to grab it in hopes that he could have a minute to compose himself before speaking with Christy.

"Holy sh*t!" was the only thing running through his brain.

Christy pulled out a journal and began to write in it. She still had to take care of business back in Germany. Someone had to after all. At the tender age of now twenty-five, she had spent her years of what should have been youthful bliss learning how to maneuver the political world and play the game. It was a game she was beginning to play well. Especially with Godric gone, but he really wasn’t. She knew that now. Her goal now was to find him…well after successfully leading a coup in her ministry back home.

She barely paid any attention to the wizard that had walked in through the door, however she was observant enough to notice that the bartender had already had their drink ready by the time they had gotten to the bar. Christy put the fork in her mouth full of food as she heard the glass break.

She quickly jerked her head up in surprise, just as the man was pulling out his wand to pick it up. She threw her blonde curls over her shoulder and resumed her meal and to do list. It was one of the few times she had today to actually work on her list of things that needed to be done…mainly cleaning house at her Ministry. Those who weren’t going to be loyal to her…well they would have to be removed.

She was learning the hard way how to get things done, but this time she was learning from the best teacher in the world, although he didn’t know it. She heard the voice from the man, just faintly. It sounded familiar, almost as if it could have been from another lifetime. Was it? She had fell out of touch with so many people in Britain with her sudden leave and not a word sent to them in the past few years. She figured some of them would have considered her dead. But she wasn’t. She was alive and thriving, and much more grown up than the little girl who had come here for her final year of school.