The next morning, the trip to school went without problems. The school administrator had originally been confused when tall, dark, lithe Chessie walked into the office with pale, blonde, blue-eyed Rose, but the matter was quickly sorted out. Rose had Chessie walk her to class in a moment of doubt, but she seemed comfortable once inside with other children her age. She was already talking to another little girl- the name tag on her desk said 'Lisette'- as Chessie left.

Greyback would have a field day in here, she thought, but banished the thought quickly. Think happy thoughts, like how she had agreed to meet George for lunch in the Leaky Cauldron in a few hours. She wasn't sure what had brought that on.

He'd stammered slightly as he caught up with her right before she and Rose left for the walk to school. He had meant to be suave and come to a casual stop leaning against the wall beside her, but ended up slipping on the rug and rebounding off and around the corner. Chessie peaked around the corner at him as he got up awkwardly.

"Hey." He'd said after a few minutes. Chessie raised an eyebrow. She didn't really have time to spare.

"Yes?" she'd responded slightly too curtly, brushing the few wrinkles out of her khaki shirt as she stood up.

"Are you…that is…." He sighed. "Look, I had this all planned out. Can you look in another direction? I feel cornered."

Chessie decided not to point out that technically she was in the corner, and turned, looking at the clock resolutely. Rose slowed down the tying of her shoes, watching her grown-ups carefully. Something was about to happen. George was never clumsy with words, yet here he was stuttering.

"Would you be interested in meeting for lunch? At the…er, Leaky Cauldron?"

"You're inviting me to a pub?" Chessie grinned and turned around. George was blushing a little. He'd asked girls out before. She remembered him or his brother- she could tell them apart by scent now, but back then she couldn't- having a different girl every few weeks.

"Well, it's close, and sort of cheap."

"Ah. Well, I suppose so. Noon?" Chessie opened the door to walk down the stairs, and Rose slipped under her arm with the neatest shoelaces she'd ever deliberately retied four times.

"Sure." George's blush began to recede. "Great. Thanks. Um." He turned and walked away. A pale arm- Verity's- reached out from a doorway and smacked him upside the head.

"Way to go, Romeo." She said sarcastically. Fred's voice floated out as Chessie shut the door behind her.

"What's a Romeo?"

In retrospect, she could have handled that a little better. Poor George. She was irritated because of a letter she'd gotten from Tonks explaining that her house had been confiscated and her belongings liquidated. That had soured her mood somewhat, and she hadn't really meant to take it out on him. Oh well.

During daylight hours, the street the Leaky Cauldron was on was slightly less than nice. In its hayday, the street must have been amazing. There were a few broken streetlamps- not lights, lamps- here and there that had paint peeled off, and the stores on the street, while mostly occupied and dusted, were all in need of fresh paint or mortar. She wondered briefly how popular this road must once have been and how they could let it fall into disrepair, then banished such fancies from her mind. She left the daydreaming to Rose, and dealt with the cold hard world herself.

What to do until her da- lunch with George? There were still a few hours. Chessie's feet began taking her towards the part of London where she and Rose had been attacked by the two feral werewolves two weeks beforehand. It didn't take more than half an hour to find some of the streets they'd haunted, and in the bright morning light Chessie was startled to see how harsh the streets looked.

It's a miracle we didn't get knifed. Or worse. She may not be the prettiest young woman, but Chessie wasn't bad looking and that would have been more than enough for a lonely man. She shivered. Why does none of this occur to her before she does it?

She checked her watch and saw that it had been nearly an hour since she dropped Rose off. Glad of the excuse, Chessie headed back towards the heart of London to get some shopping done before her date.

"So," George said bemusedly as Chessie dashed in through the front door of the Leaky Cauldron.

"Sorry, so sorry! Stupid blighters that don't know how to get out of my way-." She almost fell into the seat across George. It was a small two-person table in the corner, out of the way of traffic in aisles and people whose chairs crowd each others'.

"It's okay. It's only-" he checked his watch, "-two after. Honestly, I just showed up myself. No one's even come to take orders yet."

Chessie studied him, her face unreadable. "Okay," she decided, and relaxed slightly. A youngish wizard came up to the table.

"D'you want anything to drink?" he asked Chessie, who didn't like how he was looking at her and was resolutely staring at the table, ignoring his gaze. "Water," she said bluntly.

"Firewhiskey," George shouted as the server dashed off. "Don't think he heard me."

"Don't worry about it," Chessie said. "I took his pad."

She held up a smallish yellow pad of paper. "We'll just add it on…" Taking off the quill, she wrote in 'Firewhiskey' in a scribble.

"And what would you like to eat tonight?" Chessie asked in a falsely perky voice, smirking at the redhead across the table. He pretended to intently study his menu, and sighed.

"Can't say I know what I want, do you have any suggestions?"

Chessie paused and glanced at the menu. "You want…soup."

"I do?" George raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"Yes. Potato soup." Chessie smiled brilliantly at him. "And I want…."

"The steak and salad." George said. She glanced at him skeptically. He shrugged. "You seem like a steak and salad kind of person."

"Okay?"

Before they could idly pursue that train of thought, the server came back with a pristine glass of water for Chessie and almost threw George's Firewhiskey at him.

"I noticed as soon as you left that you left your notepad thing here. We already ordered, but it's okay if you want us to wait." Chessie smiled sweetly- a look that George found extremely scary on her- and lied smoothly. The young man blushed.

"No- no, I'm terribly sorry, I didn't mean to- I'll get right on it- stay right here-." He almost ran off.

"That was evil." George commented after a few moments. "I underestimated you."

Chessie blinked. "How so?"

"Here I thought I was taking a nice girl to a bar, and she's leading poor innocent wizards on like a queen," He joked, smiling gently.

"It's his fault for thinking I'm interested."

"No, it's your fault for being so attractive."

It was too late; the words were already out. George and Chessie sat in shocked silence for a minute.

"Oh bugger," he said casually, looking around to see if anyone else had felt the earth stop rotating for a minute. No one had. It must have been metaphorical then. "I was planning on a smooth delivery and hitting on you gradually over the course of the meal. So… I guess Fred's the charismatic one after all."

"I don't know,," Chessie unfroze the deer-in-headlights look from her face and regained her composure minus a slight tremble in her voice. "That was pretty smooth."

The food came, and after a covetous glance at Chessie and a glare at George, the waiter kid left.

They didn't have nearly anything in common, as it turned out, except for maybe a few lingering memories of Hogwarts and some pranks on Slytherins that had unfortunately affected her too. But that didn't really seem to matter anymore.

Not after how he took her in. Not after how he brought her and Rose new clothes, and definitely not after how he'd taken care of her after the full moon.

Things had changed a lot.