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.