Early Afternoon

"Thank you!" Raine Almasy called back over her shoulder as she stepped out of Flourish & Botts with a thin hardback in one hand.

Merlin, it felt good to have free time on her hands! There was nothing in the world she would rather have been doing than training to become an Auror but it was very hard work and, sometimes, even the former Gryffindor wanted to sit down to a quiet day free of hexes or duels or Solomon Carstairs fixing her with the evil eye. She glanced down at the mystery novel she'd just purchased, and then looked up to make her way to Alohomocha.

Coffee, murder, more coffee. All a witch needed.

Raine was on the very precipice of fulfilling her plans by turning into the cafe when she caught sight of a face that shoved all thoughts of peace and quiet out of her head. They were replaced by the memory of a set of throwing knives at the bottom of her Hogwarts trunk. Was that... was that who she supposed it to be? Before her eyes could confirm it, she found herself reaching out to rest an apprehending hand on the shoulder of Nightingale Kesali, walking in the other direction.

"Professor?" her voice came out a little strangled and mostly surprised.

Sometimes he lived in his dreams, both of the night and of the day, but part of his counseling had been to learn to separate them from the reality of the world before him...no matter how hard that seemed when one was living  a life inside of a reality where magic was nothing more than a slight of hand. Sometimes he felt as though he was living a double life as his mortal body betrayed him and the magic saved him, but for the young professor, he wasn't willing to give in without a fight.

And yet her hand and his name on her lips felt as strange to him as when the nights felt endless and the sun was on the rise.

"Miss Almasy," He did not touch her hand on his shoulder, that would have been too intimate, but he did raise his fingers to touch her elbow, as though to acknowledge that she had his attention.

"What a pleasant surprise," He said simply, but the look he gave her said everything his voice would not, You have been busy.

             "What a pleasant surprise," said the wizard she hadn't seen in what felt like a small eternity!

Raine laughed incredulously and shook her head, "It really is you! Professor Kesali!" she offered her hand for him to shake. Something in his eye told her that he was not insensible to recent headlines to do with her late aunt - although the former Gryffindor suspected she read this in most interactions. After a while it was easy to get paranoid. Her surname would be a curse for many months, if not years, to come.

"Where have you been all this time?" Raine asked partly out of politeness and partly out of curiosity. "You missed our year's graduation," her red eyebrows rose archly, "And some excitement this year that was better off missed."

He simply could not help the smile that spread upon his lips as he listened to her observations and how it almost sounded as though she....missed him.

"I was there in spirit, but I had some very important family emergencies to take care of." Family as in his whole household went up in numbers.

"I am fostering five children right now and I could not have possibly been the best for you. Though..." He paused a moment and leaned in a little so that he could lower his words to a whisper, "You have been busy no?"

Fostering five children right now...

He said that so easily that, for a few seconds, all Raine could do was stare at him. Professor Kesali had a way with students at Hogwarts but she found it difficult to picture him in the role of a father. Perhaps that had more to do with the fact that their past conversations mostly involved Charms, Defences, or Storm. They were lucky children to have him, no doubt. It was easy to see that he was the kind of person who cared.

She quickly snapped out of her surprise when he lowered his voice to ask his own question. One that was full of implication.

"I... have. I'm sure you've read the papers," Raine glanced around them, self-consciously, at the comings and goings of Diagon Alley. "I'm also training to become an Auror now. I miss Hogwarts already but it's easier to ignore the Ministry's gossip vines. Will you be going back? To school?"