Country Park

He realize that they were walking back to the grounds of Alexandra's house. He turn back into an eagle and followed, leaving the dancing peddles that rain from the sky behind.

It was spring. It was sunny. Alexandra had a wand, was without wounds, was well-fed and had a decent night's sleep. Right, fair enough, she was still bandaged and walked with a limp but the bandages were confined to her right bicep and her limp was only apparent if she walked for more than ten minutes straight. A combination of resting, walking and healing potions from Diagon Alley had ensured her swift recovery. Speaking of which, she really did need to find Gail sometime to catch up with. Ouriel wouldn't mind to much as Gail was as much his friend as hers now.

She let out a quiet sigh of contentment and sat herself down on a bench. Meeting at the Order could wait a day. Now she could relax a while.

While she wanted to relax, Alexandra did not necessarily want to fall asleep in the sun. On an unlucky day, she had done precisely that and woken up with her face trying to peel itself off her while the rest of her body decided that for the next week acting like everything it touched was acid was normal. Not fun. So she stayed awake and watched the people around her enjoy themselves.

She wasn't particularly paying close attention to who they were though. Wiltshire had always been a safe enough place and so Alexandra was not worried about being attacked or anything of the sort. Besides, she could always apparate to her front door. And so she disregarded the familiar professor and friend nearing her bench.

Odd. That man was walking in circles. As this park generally was not home to the craziness that occasionally leaked out of London, it was more likely that he had no clue as to where on earth he was. As he turned towards her, his face became visible and Alexandra froze in her seat. It seemed that her planned day of resting would not be what she intended. She got up slowly, lingering on the warm oak bench.

"Luke?" she walked towards him with a reasonably steady gait.

The sudden brightening of his face and the joy in his voice combined with eager - though loud and water-logged - steps towards her came as a punch in the gut to Alexandra. This was the first person outside of her own brother who had seen her for the first time in months and accepted her so wholeheartedly and happily. There was no conditions to this outburst of glee and thus what little remained of her anger over his drugging Michelle when they had last spoken vanished.

A grin broke the porcelain mask her face had been just a moment ago. "It's been too long." she briskly stepped towards him to give him a tight hug. Alexandra shouldn't have been surprised by his sweat-soaked shirt but she was and so recoiled from him - disorientated confusion writ all over her. Taking a step back, she looked up at him - as tall as always of course - before asking why on earth he was so goddamn sweaty! It was spring in England after all and not summer in the tropics.

Actually looking at his face, the glasses perched on his nose took her by surprise. They looked pretty good, it gave him an air of maturity that he had not given off the last time she had seen him. Still, it was new.

They embraced, but Alexandra recoiled at the feel of his sweat soaked shirt. At the sight of her scrunched up confused face, like a cat not happy being bothered by his/her master, Luke let out a belt of laughter. "Sorry about that," he said glad that Alexandra did not want to squabble over passed actions, but like Luke, be in the here and now.

He took a step back to get a good look at her. She was not the girl he used to argue with in the Ravenclaw Common Rooms. She look more sophisticated, more refined, like a diamond after being polished for the hundredth time. Intellect and femininity, a deadly combination and Aly wore it well. "You look well," he said, the only appropriate compliment he could come up with.

Alexandra's stormy grey eyes flicked over his face. Not a sign of sarcasm or teasing on his face. She contented herself with merely cocking a brow at him. This was possibly the first time he'd complimented her without teasing her as well. A nice change in him though, perhaps he did not just seem older and more mature but had actually grown up himself.

"You look very smart yourself despite your sweatiness." the smile already on her face broadened further. Alexandra gestured for him to follow her towards the bench she had sat on only a few minutes ago. He looked like he could do with the rest and she really would prefer not to strain her neck looking up at him.
"What on earth are you doing all the way out here though? I thought it was still the school term..."

She frowned at him in confusion for a moment or two before she realized what he was requesting. What on earth did he want her to do? Oh. Couldn't he do that himself? No matter, Alexandra supposed, she really did not feel like arguing with him about his lack of effort to dry his own shirt. Shrugging, Alexandra tugged her wand out of a pocket in her shorts. The new ebony wood hummed beneath her fingers. It felt different to her previous hawthorn one - a steadier presence that did not jump around as much at the chance to do magic. It was a better match for her cores as well it seemed as the magic she produced now was far more focused and less prone to unexpected side-effects.

Quickly drying and cooling Luke off with a flick of her wand, Alexandra relaxed back into the bench.

"That's fair enough. Students being irritating?"

She nodded, understanding his desire to change the subject even if Alexandra was not entirely eager to talk about the past few months of her life herself. There were blurs of darkness, the burn of an empty stomach, sharp gasps as punches landed and the lingering laughter of a man's joy. It was just as well that she had become more in control of her ability or Luke would have seen the grey of her eyes fade into white and red. Though the pain had left her, Alexandra's feelings towards her captors had not. Thus she proceeded to lightly describe her 'trip' to northern Scotland with a smile on her lips. She just could not have him know. Not now anyways. Maybe one day.

"Trekking through Scottish countryside and living in isolation for the most part." it helped when she remembered Gail and Ms Morgan's kindness. "Ouriel and I were injured but luckily another hiker came across us and helped heal us up and such. Since I've gotten back, I've just been relaxing really."

Alexandra gave a quiet huff, lips twitching into a smile. What on earth had brought on this sudden change of mood? She had forgotten exactly how much his emotions fluctuated almost randomly. A shadow had passed over his face one instant and was gone in the next, replaced by a euphoric grin. What an odd collection of friends and acquaintances she had.

Letting herself be pulled to her feet, she watched Luke with a gleam of amusement in her grey eyes. Whatever was about to happen next, she sincerely hoped that it would not get them into the same amount of trouble that they could have done at Hogwarts if their sparring had been discovered. But they had been very lucky and/or smart enough to keep an eye out for teachers or loose-lipped students. The point remained the same however: with Luke's company there was much potential trouble to be had.

Odd. She had not thought of her life at Hogwarts for a while. The mix of nostalgic fondness, relief that it was over, and the mild desire to wince on occasion had taken her by surprise.

Alexandra did her best to extricate herself from Luke's eager hold. It was not that he was gripping too harshly, it was just that she had to go at an uncomfortable half-jog, half-fast walk to keep up with him properly when he was tugging her along in such a manner. It would be much easier to move if she could dictate the pace without also having to drag him back to slow down.
Fortunately, she did not have any urgent appointments at this moment in time. Her little birds were gathering seeds of information for her before she visited Emile's family. So for now, she could play at being carefree for half a day. Maybe if she tried hard enough, pretending would become reality for that short while.

The corners of her eyes crinkled as she snickered at Luke's play-acting. He had always been the dramatic one of them, "Yes, yes, well let's just make sure we have tons of fun then shall we?"

(I thought we rpied before Alexandra went back to the Order?)

Alexander was in a fit of glee. Thousands of scenarios ran through his head and half of them would have the full force of the ministry out after them that made him jump for joy. Seeing as how Alexandra was a “professional” he highly doubt any of his scenarios would be approved by her. It was disappointing, but his best friend was back. That was all that matter to Luke.

He let go of Alexandra’s hand, seeing as how she was trying to pull away from his grip. He turn around and started to walk backwards, trying to glim any idea on what to do next by staring at Alexandra. No ideas came to him, so he asked her. “What do you want to do?”

(Oh dear. Why that signature?XD
I thought we'd agreed it would be after it..? Is it ok if we just pretend it's after it?)

Despite his having let go of her hand, Luke was watching her very intently. Alexandra fidgeted under the strength of his stare even as she replied to his query. Between his bouncing all over the park and an oddly focused look, it was then that she realized he almost seemed to have two halves that seemed to be opposite with themselves. There was his child-like side which had grown with his relationship with Cazz, something that he seemed to have lacked when they first met. Then there was his more killer-like half which had been most of what she had seen of him when he was fourteen. It drove him to seek vengeance for what happened to his parents and gave him the passion and obstinence to pursue those who had wronged people he cared for. It was odd how she had never really seen Luke that way before. Yet here he was, embodying those two sides.

"Whatever you want to do. As long as we can get ourselves out of trouble anyways." she grinned as she added the qualifier.

At being told she was not helping, Alexandra just shrugged a bit and grinned. She could have teased him a bit about being given all this freedom and not knowing what to do with it, but decided that it was one of those things that was funnier if she kept it to herself. Luke was supposed to be the joker and she the serious one anyways. So instead of doing that, Alexandra waited patiently, following in Luke's footsteps and watching the clouds drift hither and fro. She didn't look to see what shapes they formed so much as how they moved and changed, manipulating the light as they passed above her. One of the only things that had given her any comfort during her trek through Scotland and England was watching the sky. Alexandra knew that when she got home to Wiltshire and the Order that she would rarely be watching the constellations in the night. She hadn't even gone back to the radio station at Hogsmeade in a year.

She started at his question, having forgot for a moment that they were sort of in the midst of a conversation while watching the sky. Turning back to face him, Alexandra grimaced. It was probably best to be honest here, it wasn't exactly classified information.
"The list of people is longer then you'd think... I haven't really seen any of our friends in a long time."