FicWad

Things calmed down after the owl invasion - as it had become known among the gang at the shop. It was so calm that it would be considered boring, if her father and step-mother's business and friends didn't supply ample amusement.

there were no spontaneously exploding dishes. No snakes sought her out to have a chat after explaining their owners. Nothing started floating around when the adults in her life weren't looking. It seemed like the strangeness that had followed her for as long as she could remember decided to take a long-deserved break.

Until one afternoon at the beginning of August.

Christine was in the shop that day, since it was quiet. Underneath an old motorcycle, watching her father fiddle with a gear that was giving trouble and listening to him explain the problem as he fixed.

Everything was going swimmingly, until Jessie walked up to where the bike was rigged up and tapped Christine's father's leg lightly with her foot. Her father rolled his backboard out to see what his wife wanted. Christine followed his lead and looked up at her step-mother curiously. She rarely interrupted his work. Usually, she was elbow deep in an engine herself, and too busy to distract anyone else.

Christine was glad she did. Jessie looked confused and worried. Not a typical combination for her. Her step-mother was rarely confused by anything. And it was even less common for her to be really worried by something. Most situations tended to roll off her, like water off a raincoat.

Her father was evidently thinking along the same lines as Christine, because he shot his wife a concerned look.

"Sup Jess?"

"There's a woman out front, says she wants to talk to you about Kalo."

Now that was confusing. Christine couldn't think of any reason some strange woman would want to talk to her father about her, of all things. She just hoped it wasn't a social worker. Those people had a nasty habit of thinking her family were deadbeats because of their profession and their association with her father's people.

Safe to say, neither Christine nor her parents like them very much.

"Who's she?" her father asked, voicing the bewilderment they were all feeling.

"No clue. But she's wiggin out the customers, so take her to the break room and see what she wants."

Her father hauled himself up and placed a quick kiss on Jessie's cheek. Then reached out a hand to help Christine to her feet as well. She brushed off some scraps of metal shavings off her jeans, then gave her step-mother a quick hug.

"Kalo, head to the break room, I'll be there in a minute. I'll go get her, so you and everyone else can get back to work, Jess."

"Right Dom, but if you leave any bloodstains in the break room I'm not cleaning it up," Jess warned playfully and returned to the Ducati she was tuning up.

Christine was a little disappointed she had to go to the back room. The racing bike was awesome. She'd much rather play around with it than sit through another meeting with a stuff, haggard social worker. Still, she went, as her father told her to.

Experience told her that playing the good, obedient little girl would make this go a lot more smoothly. They didn't really care how happy living with her father made her. Social workers only cared about whether or not she was attending school, and not becoming a budding criminal.

She waited for her father to come back with the woman. Pretending to be patient. Which was rather difficult, because she was very eager to get this over with already. And they hadn't even started yet.

Her forced patience paid off. Because her father came in with the woman after a few minutes. Although, he still looked confused by her.

Christine could see why. She was more than a little confused by the woman herself.

She was an older woman. Well past retirement age, by the looks of it. Age aside, she looked like a formidable woman. She had a stern, authoritative air about her. Which was furthered by the tight, perfect bun that her greying black hair was twisted up into at the top of her head, and the set of her thin lips. It was obvious, even to Christine, a child, that this woman was used to being listened to unquestioningly.

But she didn't look like any social worker Christine had ever met.

She was stern, yes. But behind her stately bearing and glasses, she had a kind look in her eyes. And a slight upturn to her mouth that softened her face just enough to be approachable.

She'd never met a government official who bothered to look any way kindly.

And she was dressed rather strangely for a government worker. She wore a bottle green skirt that reached her ankles. Shiny, black high heeled leather boots with gleaming silver buckles that looked like something out of the British Museum. And a tailored tartan coat made of thick wool.

It was a strange choice of attire for the middle of summer. Especially with the heatwave London was going through the last few weeks.

The woman looked a little surprised to see Christine waiting for her. Though, it appeared to be a pleasant surprise, given the twitch of her lips at the sight of her.

"This must be Christine," the woman stated pleasantly, speaking to Christine's father, "I'm glad you thought to include her in our chat, Mr. Rumancek."

Christine was a little surprised that the woman addressed her father by his real name. Most people preferred to overlook it, or forget about it completely, and call him by the name he used in all his business dealings. Mr. Dominic Taylor. This woman, however, didn't seem at all uncomfortable addressing him by the name Rumancek.

"Yeah, it is," he answered her and offered her the most untattered and unstained chair in the break room with a wave, "Chris, this's Ms. McGonagall."

In the presence of a stranger, even on as strange as McGonagall, he wouldn't use her Roma name. It was theirs, and he was always wary of letting outsiders have it.

The woman sat down and corrected Dominic kindly, "Professor McGonagall, actually Mr. Rumancek. I am the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts."

That was surprising and extremely puzzling. Christine had never heard of any school called 'Hogwarts'. A quick look at her father told her that he had no idea what she was on about either. On top of that, Christine had no idea why a teacher was going so much out of her way to talk to her and her father.

She had a feeling that weird was about to come back in force.