A Chance Encounter [Kyle]

Hogsmeade. Timothy both loved an hated the little village. It was quaint and charming without a doubt. But there's always a spectacle, crowded with the locals, the students, and any others who wish to make a day of it. Timothy hardly ever came down to the village for leisure purposes. He usually came down with the students to supervise. However today Timothy was allowing himself to take a breather for an afternoon. Classes had been draining Timothy's energy more and more lately. He received treatments for his sever injuries from the forbidden forest attack under the dome, but the injuries still hadn't healed. But that came down to Timothy's reluctance to take any sort of medication. Timothy managed to go on through his pain, not bringing much attention to it. The only noticeable thing from the outside is his limp, but he mostly ignored it.

Timothy rounded the corner and entered a book shop. It wasn't as large as Flourish and Blotts but Timothy preferred this shop's range of more uncommon books. He nodded at the desk clerk as he walked in and headed toward the back of the story. He came to the shelf that held books related to history. Though Timothy was a proud Arithmancy professor, he had a soft spot for magical history. It was all so fascinating. But sometimes Timothy forgot that he, like so many others, was a living part of history. Timothy's involvement in the war as the captain of a small team tasked with tracking movements of the Death Eaters was dangerous work. He engaged in combat hundreds of times over the course of the war and participated in three major battles. There wasn't much in the way of visible injury from the war. The damage laid inside, on his heart and his mind. But that was precisely why he came to do things like this, to occupy himself. But sometimes, old memories presented themselves.

Timothy pulled one of the books off of the shelf and blew the slight curtain of dust from the cover. He opened it and took a peek through the contents. It seemed to be very interesting, talking about the start of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Timothy closed the cover and looked up. Standing at the other end of the shelf was someone who was familiar to Timothy. He tossed it around in his mind for a moment trying to place a name with the face. And then it hit him: Kyle Gibbes. Timothy never taught Kyle but he had spoken with him in the past. Timothy knew most of the students in the building so this wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was that Kyle was here, in such close proximity to Hogwarts. Timothy knew that Kyle had a rocky history with the school so he was a bit confused by seeing him. However that very quickly faded away to happiness at seeing him here.

Timothy tucked the book under his shoulder and walked down the aisle way. He arrived next to Kyle. "Excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you but...you're Kyle Gibbes correct? You were enrolled at Hogwarts. I must say I'm a bit surprise to see you here." Timothy flashed that boyish smile he never could seem to ditch. He wore his feelings on his face and he was feeling happy to see a familiar face in all the bustle of Hogsmeade

@Michael

Kyle had woken early, never able to sleep all too well in the lumpy beds at the Cauldron. It had been over a month since he had been able to make it back to Inverness to spend time at his shrine and even longer since he had been home. The search for information on Linnet’s condition had consumed him. He hadn’t found any rationale for why she had been affected so by the poison. That being said, he had requested several books the last time he had been up at Hogwarts. A few days before, he had received an owl from the owner of the small book shop up there that some of them had arrived. As soon as he heard, Kyle began his trip north to the small wizarding village.

Unlike most wizards, travelling for Kyle was a little bit of a process. He had to find a fire place connected to the floo network and travel from there to London and then follow on from London to Hogsmeade. Kyle rarely saw his inability to use magic as a crutch, but he was somewhat envious of his full wizarding counterparts who could pop from one place to another in a matter of seconds rather than the detailed planning required on his part to do any kind of travel, domestically or otherwise. As he rolled out of the bed and grabbed the few things he had brought with him, Kyle made his way down the rickety stairs and into the main pub of the Leaky Cauldron. Requesting a fire from the barkeep, Kyle reached into a bag he had purchased at Diagon Alley and produced a small handful of floo powder. This stuff had become so much a part of his normal routine for travel that Kyle hardly even felt strange using it at this point. From the time he had left Hogwarts and started bouncing around the magical world looking for information, he had put a serious dent in his floo powder stores. Tossing the powder into the flames and waiting for the fire to turn green, Kyle stepped into the fire and said clearly, “The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade” and like that, the trip began.

No matter how many times he traveled by floo network, Kyle never got used to the sensation of the spinning. It was as if he had been trapped on one of those muggle carnival rides that spun him for no reason other than to see if it could make him sick. Keeping his eyes closed for fear of actually becoming sick, Kyle braced his knees for the drop he knew would come sooner or later and come it did. After another minute or two Kyle felt his feel strike the solid ground of the hearth at the Leaky Cauldron in the small village of Hogsmeade. Stepping out of the fire and brushing himself off, Kyle smiled at the bar woman and made his way out onto the crowded streets, it was a Hogwarts weekend Kyle bemoaned silently. He had just wanted to pop over and grab his books, see if anything else was available in the shop, and head back to London, but that would obviously not be happening.

Stepping into the shop, Kyle thank to owner for getting the books in and asked him to hold onto them until he could do a quick look through the shop and see if he needed to pick up anything else. Heading towards the section on wizarding history, as he often did, Kyle began perusing the topics that could be even remotely related to his search. He had hardly been looking at the books for five minutes when he heard a voice from the other end of the aisle. Looking up from the book he had been searching through, Kyle nodded as politely as he could being taken by such surprise. “Yes, I am Kyle, and yes, I was here at Hogwarts, I withdrew two years ago. I am sorry, you seem to know me, but I don’t know who you are. Mr…” Kyle politely extended his hand to shake the other man’s hand, recovering from his earlier shock.

Timothy noticed that Kyle didn't seem to remember Timothy but that isn't a surprise. Timothy never taught Kyle but he had met and spoken with Kyle before. But he knew most about Kyle through a few meetings with the staff about the plight of himself and a few other students in the building in the wake of the wild events that had been plaguing Hogwarts. Timothy shook the young man's hand and smiled. "Winchester. Timothy Winchester. I am the Arithmancy professor at the school. I know this is a strange way to reintroduce but I understand it's necessary. I was never a professor of yours but we met just a few times. I know you most through your withdrawal. We were briefed about you and a few other students that had t leave."

Timothy, surprised to see Kyle there, was still happy to see him. Though there was little to no chance of Kyle returning to the school, Timothy felt that it was an important step in whatever journey Kyle had undertaken to be this close to the school. He imagined it had been inconvenient for Kyle considering this was a Hogwarts weekend but he thankfully didn't seem to be too bothered by it all. Timothy was very curious as to what Kyle had been up to. He knew Kyle had a rough go of it but he hadn't heard anything more than he left under pressured circumstances. Though he didn't know exactly what had been happening in the young man's life, Timothy read his face and sensed stress, sensed tiredness. Being as he is, this concerned Timothy even though he hardly knew Kyle. It bothered him to see others bothered.

Timothy thought for a moment about what he would say. What could he? It was of course a strange meeting and Timothy knew that he could possibly be making Kyle uncomfortable, but that was of course not his intent. Timothy was helplessly quizzical. He often pondered the mysteries of the people that surrounded him. Especially when he knew that there were complications. He had always been so fascinated by the human condition and the air of the aura of people. It stemmed from his mother's love of Divination, a subject he had mastered by his third year at Hogwarts (a fact his mother was very proud of). Timothy tossed this around and settled on a simple approach. He was simply going to ask Kyle how things had been and see where the conversation steered.

"Pardon my asking but...how are you, Kyle? I've been told of your troubles at the school but I don't know any specifics. And I'm not exactly asking for specifics. I just want to know if you're doing alright. We've not heard anything about any of the students that had to leave and we're all, especially me, curious to how life's been treating those few of you. I don't mean to be invasive, just curious."