Claire had never moved house before and hadn't the foggiest idea what one was supposed to do in order to figure out whether moving was a good idea or not. She supposed it involved some sort of analysis about whether you liked the area you were in now, but what did that even entail? She'd been in Hogsmeade or the areas around it since she'd finished up at Hogwarts, and even then, she'd lived in the castle not too far off. It was a familiar place, and she was reluctant to leave, but there had recently been a fire and she wasn't sure that she wanted to stick around. Fires could happen anywhere, sure, but moving had been a possibility for a while now.

How was she supposed to tell whether she liked the area? Well, the most important thing to Claire was whether the surrounding pubs fit her standards. She had, of course, spent plenty of time in the bars before, but she had never really thought about their quality. Was she paying too much for drinks? Were the bartenders rude? These were all questions she couldn't answer. Probably because she'd been more focused on the "end" part of the means to an end.

"Whiskey on the rocks, please!" Claire announced as she entered the bar. She looked about the room as if she were a health inspector, even going so far as to slide her finger across the bar and analyze it for dust. Hmmm, was there enough dust at this dive? Claire liked her place of drink to be nice and seedy.

Hogsmeade wasn’t usually where Leon ended up, but he’d had to see a client and after a meeting which had dragged on so long he was sure that they were doing it deliberately, he needed a drink. Preferably a large one, and preferably a cheap one. He’d turned up late, because there was a crisis at Alohomocha, but it had only been ten minutes and they’d spent a good five complaining about it before they’d started proper discussion, and then continued to bring it up at every opportunity.

After all that hassle, even apparating seemed like far too much effort, which was why he’d made his way into the Hog’s head. It wasn’t classy, but that was fine. Leon was going to have a drink and go home – or that had been his plan, until he’d caught sight of Claire already at the bar, and made his way over to her instead.

They’d known each other at Hogwarts, their acquaintance beginning during Leon’s early destructive period and continuing after that had passed, and maintained (though slightly less closely) after they’d left Hogwarts. They were still close enough that Leon would consider her a friend, and felt no qualms about going up and tapping her on the shoulder, “cleaning the bar? Won’t you need a duster for that?”

Claire was just a few seconds into pondering the dust issue when she received a tap on the shoulder. Socializing was better than worrying about dust, that was certain, and so Claire was thankful for the escape. She became even more delighted when she realized it was a friendly face, and her enthusiasm showed on her face as her eyes lit up.

"Leon!" She hadn't seen her old pal from Hogwarts in what felt like years, but what had probably been more like weeks. "How ye been, mate?" Claire had already finished half of her whiskey after her first sip, miraculously able to tolerate the sharp sting. "No dustin' for me, just the opposite." She wasn't sure if Leon would understand her dirty bar theory and so she declined to provide more information.

Smile widening in the face of such a cheerful outburst, Leon quickly placed his own order, asking to have whatever Claire was having. Seeing her merited a longer stay in the pub and, as his smile attested, would do wonders for his mood.

“Busy,” Leon decided, “but good!” Things were generally rosy in his life, and although the afternoon hadn’t been fun, it was a dark cloud in a clear sky. “How about you?”

“You’re… adding dust?” Leon asked, confused. “What for?” The place hardly needed it, her finger didn’t look too clean after its contact with the bar. Nothing too awful, but some warm water and a cloth definitely wouldn’t hurt it or, failing that, a charm. Whatever charm you might use for dusting.

After downing the rest of her whiskey, Claire signaled to the bartender that she wanted another and turned back to her old classmate. He seemed confused by her response, and now that she thought about it a little more, she could understand why he didn't get it. In Claire's world, everyone always understood exactly what she was talking about, but in the real world, she often had to explain what she meant.

"I mean, I'm thinkin' o' movin'," Claire laughed and waved her hand at Leon. The bartender brought her the whiskey and she took another sip. "Just samplin' the pubs, seein' if I should leave here and go somewhere else." She'd spent a great bit of time in Muggle London lately, and there, everything seemed to be cheaper. At least when it came to alcohol. Apparently not having magical abilities made the muggles more avid drinkers. That was something Claire could appreciate.

"What are ye doin' round here? Do ye live in Hogsmeade as well?" Claire was surprised she hadn't seen her old pal before. He was a relatively quiet guy, at least back in their Hogwarts days, but it had been several years since then and everyone seemed to change and mature a little. Not Claire, of course. She might never grow up.

It took a moment for Leon to realise what Claire had said, and he was just about to ask why that meant she was checking how much dust there was when she explained. He got it, pubs were an important part of deciding where you wanted to live, but they weren’t enough to provoke you into moving. At least, they shouldn’t be. “Is it because of the fire? Or something else?”  he asked, frowning. That was certainly troubling, but it wasn’t like London was a haven free of crime and accidental fire.

“Nah, Londoner born and raised.” He liked the bustle of it too much to give it up, and although he’d considered moving to somewhere like Hogsmeade, where there were only wizards, there were too many things he appreciated that only electricity could provide. And even though Hogsmeade was technically a bustling commercial centre, it looked like a medieval village and didn’t have the same crowds.

“I was meeting a client. Nothing half so interesting as moving,” Leon prompted, smiling hopefully, "have you looked at the market at all?" Property prices in London were killer.

"Is it because of the fire? Or something else?"

To be quite honest, Claire had slept through the fire. This was not surprising if you knew Claire well. She was a heavy sleeper, and she had been shocked on her way to work the next morning. Seeing much of Hogsmeade in ruins -- it had been a while before she pieced together what had happened. "Eh, fires can happen anywhere," Claire said nonchalantly. It didn't occur to her that the fire could have been some sort of terrorist attack or omen of some kind... she tended not to think that way.

Claire had only been to London a few times, including her outing with Layla, but each time had been grand. Muggles had a peculiar way of getting around that Claire could definitely appreciate. Sometimes she marveled in awe of their accomplishments. Really -- who would have thought of lasers and slime but a muggle? Claire nodded approvingly at Leon's hometown. "I'm from Ireland, m'self," Claire revealed. As if it weren't obvious enough from her accent. She drank some more.

"I was thinking o' moving to London, been checkin' out a few places 'round there," Claire confessed. She wondered what sort of work Leon did nowadays that he had clients. Claire had never had such a fancy type of meeting. The closest thing she'd come to having a meeting with a client was privately interrogating a third-year Hogwarts student about why they'd attempted to shoplift from Zonko's.

That was true – and moving to London to be safer was a dumb idea to begin with. But Hogsmeade was a lot smaller, and although London might have a greater number of fires they’d never been anywhere near Leon. Still, he didn’t think he would decide to move just because of a fire; like Claire had said, fires could happen anywhere.  He took a gulp of his drink to clear his thoughts of such a morbid topic.

“Republic or Northern?” Leon asked, wary of assuming either way. He knew some people could tell the difference from the accent alone, but he wasn’t familiar enough to be able to do so, and he'd never met anyone from Northern Ireland who would call themselves British.

He grinned, “London’s great, if you’ve got the money. You haven’t been tempted to return home?” He’d grown up in London, and while he’d considered living elsewhere London was the only place in the UK which had muggles and wizards in significant numbers. And the idea of living in Hogsmeade, so close to where he’d gone to school, wasn’t exactly appealing. But his family living in London had definitely influenced his decision, even if now most of his siblings weren’t actually living in London for most of the year.

He took a sip before firing off his next questions, eyes bright with curiosity, “Which part of London? Do you know if you’re going muggle or magical?” Some wizards bought muggle houses and then converted them, but Leon was too attached to electricity to do that.

"From the green an' white army, the North a'course," Claire wondered how Leo hadn't figured that out in the years they'd spent together at school. Even though Claire felt like she was rapidly losing her accent, most people picked up on it right away. It was even more prominent when she was drinking, which reminded her -- she took another long sip of her whiskey. She didn't blame him -- Ireland was a drunken mess of accents and leprechauns, in the end.

"...You haven't been tempted to return home?"

Returning to Ireland absolutely crossed her mind through the years, but Claire felt more attached to Hogwarts and her times there than she'd ever expected to. Living in Hogsmeade was nice, while it lasted... but now Claire felt old around the students instead of inspired and amused by them. "I'm just lookin' for a change," Claire said, which was the best she could come up with. She downed the rest of her whiskey and tapped the bar for another.

Leon was firing some more questions about her move, but Claire wasn't even at that stage of the process yet. "Who knows? Who cares? The more important question is, are you ready to take some shots with me?" Claire was growing tired of her sobriety. Without bothering to wait for Leon's response she ordered up four shots of firewhiskey, classic Claire style. She pushed two over to Leon and raised her eyebrows, challenging him to make the night a little more interesting.