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“Mr. Dursley?”
Dudley winced. It still felt weird to hear people younger than him call him “mister,” but telling the fresh-faced intern (who was probably only about five years younger than he was) to just call him by his first name would probably make the poor bloke uncomfortable.
“Yes… John?” He really did try to remember all of his coworkers' names, but keeping track of all these new interns with his poor memory was hard. And speaking of new interns-
“There’s a woman who’s been standing outside for the past twenty minutes. Steve says it’s probably nothing, but told me to ask you to check it out, just in case.”
Dudley was tempted to ask why the surveillance monitor wanted him to deal with this, but it wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened. Most of the employees here were young women while he was definitely the biggest, most intimidating-looking man in the building. It was still very early in the day, and the actual security guard wouldn’t be here for another half-hour.
“Tell Steve I’ll deal with it,” he said, pushing back from his desk and standing up.
He might as well get this over with.
Cho leaned her head back and took a deep breath.
She was just so tired of it all. Of her loving and well-meaning parents who didn’t understand, who wanted her to just find a new job or apply for a position on some other team.
All Cho had ever really wanted to do was play Quidditch. She’d been a reservist Seeker with the Tornados for four years. Then Bailywick had retired, and she’d moved up to first line. She’d had two nearly perfect seasons– other than that nasty bludger hit she’d taken at the end of last season, the one that had cost her team their chance at playing for the National Cup.
Every Healer she’d seen had sworn up, down, and sideways that all the injuries she’d taken in that game had been totally healed and shouldn’t have caused any lasting damage. But the fact was that her team had only won two games in the past year; the first due more to the fantastic talents of their Chasers and the rival team’s Seeker’s apparent inability to check the scoreboard before instinctively chasing after the snitch, and the other to the Cannons (a feat which required no further explanation).
It wasn’t that any of her flying abilities had been impaired– at least, not that she’d noticed– and she didn’t feel like she’d lost any of the sharp wit or intelligence her House was famed for. It was just that she was a drop… slower now. Or rather, the whole world seemed to be moving just a bit faster than it had for the first twenty-six years of her life. Not enough to make any huge differences in her life, there were very few things that required perfectly precise timing… it just so happened that spotting and catching the Snitch before the other team’s Seeker was one of them.
Of course her contract with the Tutshill Tornadoes hadn’t been renewed. And contrary to what her parents might suggest, she knew no other team was about to sign her on, either.
She’d moved back in with her parents after getting cut from the team, feeling awkward about splitting a flat with women who would always be her friends but were no longer her teammates. It hadn't been intended as a long-term plan, any more than the joblessness.
But last night, when she'd tried to open up about her struggles in figuring out what came next, her parents had been ripe with encouragement yet clearly failed to understand. Of course she was welcome to stay as long as she needed and of course she'd be brilliant at anything she tried, and, if she did still want to play Quidditch, of course there would be some other team happy to sign her on.
None of which had been at all what she actually wanted to hear at that moment, and she'd wound up shouting at them, storming out, and catching the Knight Bus to London and sleeping over the Leaky Caldron.
She really did feel bad– her parents had always loved and supported her and they were trying to help, even if they didn't understand at all where she was coming from. She'd go back home tonight and apologize and try to explain. But right now, she was content to lean against this random tree in front of a random building on a random street somewhere in Muggle London, just a few blocks away from Diagon Alley.
She was considering whether to stay here a bit longer or continue her wanderings in a city she'd never spent much time in but had a sudden craving to explore. As she rolled her options around in her mind, the door to the building she was standing in front of opened and a burly blond man about her age stepped out.
“Might I ask-” he paused whatever he'd planned to ask as he fully took her appearance in.
“Yes?” Cho said, feeling as free to look him over as he apparently felt examining her.
He was built like the most stereotypical Beater, large in a way that suggested both muscle and fat without overindulging in either. He was almost certainly a Muggle, which meant he'd probably never set foot on a Quidditch pitch, but she was aware Muggles did have their own sports. She'd guess he'd probably played one of them in the past, and possibly even still did. He was handsome, if one fancied the blond and broad-shouldered look. Personally, Cho’s boyfriends in the past had tended toward the dark-haired and slender (they'd also all been wizards), but there was certainly something attractive about him in a way she hadn't really noticed in any man for at least three years. (Not that there'd been much time for dating once she'd made first line. She supposed that was one more thing she could change now that she seemed to have all of this free time.)
“-I suppose you are a bit early, but of course you can come in, and I'll be happy to show you around.”
He was talking, she realized, suddenly mortified. He was trying to tell her something, and she'd been too busy, as her American-raised (former) teammate and flatmate would say, “checking him out” to actually hear what he'd been saying.
The new intern was pretty, Dudley admitted to himself as he led her inside the building. She was tall for a woman (though still a good head shorter than him), and had a slender build, although something about the way she moved suggested well-developed muscle. He'd bet his next paycheck she'd been trained as an athlete, and he wondered what sport she'd played in university, and if she still played recreationally. She was certainly punctual. (Some people might say coming two hours early on one's first day– an hour before the supervisor was even in– was a bit absurd, and until five minutes ago, he would have been one of them, but there was something about this particular situation that made it seem charming.)
All of the new interns were recent graduates, which meant she was probably somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-three, so not too much younger than him.
He still wouldn't feel right asking her on a date or even casually flirting with her. (Not that that was something he did often– he'd been on two awkward dates in uni that some of his friends had set up, but other than that he had very little experience with women outside of the friendly but still strictly professional connections he had with his coworkers.) He might not be her direct supervisor, but most of the new batch of interns reported to him in some capacity or another, and he wouldn't risk making her uncomfortable.
He showed her around the office, making sure to point out the restrooms, the break room and kettle, the desks of the most senior employees.
The young woman was polite, nodding along at appropriate intervals and not interrupting, but neither did she ask any questions– or even say much at all.
“It can all be a bit overwhelming, I know,” said Dudley, hoping to draw her out of her shell. “But I'm certain that before long, you'll feel right at home.”
“That should be everything,” said the man whose name she still didn't know. “Mrs Kensworth won't be in for another half hour, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you sat and waited in her office. Or you could sit at one of the unoccupied desks near mine. Whichever is more comfortable for you, Miss Shi.”
For a moment, Cho found herself caught up in the awkward yet polite manner in which he'd presented the two options. It was the same way he'd been speaking to her for the past half hour or so. He clearly felt a bit uncomfortable showing her around the building, and yet he'd done it anyway (for reasons she still didn't know, and at this point, felt like she really had no reasonable way of asking without sounding absurd).
It was rather charming, honestly. Perhaps she'd simply spent too much time around Quidditch players, many of whom had (often well-deserved) strong senses of self-confidence. This adorable self-consciousness was different.
And then the moment passed, and she realized what else he had just said.
“I'm sorry, what did you just call me?” Cho asked, even more confused.
“Miss Shi?” The young man said, sounding rather confused himself. “Would you prefer to be called by your first name? Or is it Mrs Shi? I'm sorry, I didn't see a ring, so I just assumed-”
“No, I'm not married,” Cho said, interrupting him to address that last bit first. “But my last name isn't ‘Shi,’ either. I'm sorry, but I think you might have confused me with someone else?”
Dudley stared with rapidly growing horror at the woman he'd suddenly realized was, in fact, not Lin Shi, the intern who wasn't actually supposed to arrive for at least another hour.
Instead, he had apparently strong-armed some random woman who happened to be out enjoying the weather into a tour of the office for absolutely no reason, making a complete fool of himself in the process.
Not like that's very hard, said an internal voice that sounded an awful lot like his cousin.
“I am so sorry, Miss-”
“Chang,” she said, actually smiling at him. “I'm Cho Chang. And don't worry about it, um… I'm sorry, I'm afraid I missed the very beginning of our conversation, which is how this all started.”
“Dudley Dursley,” he said, shaking his head. “I'm afraid I have a tendency to be a bit unaware of my surroundings, and I'm sure I've just spent the past half hour boring you to death.” Who would want to waste time wandering around a random office building?
“Not at all,” Miss Chang– or would she prefer Cho?-- insisted. “I found it fascinating. I've never been inside one of these places, and I will admit I have wondered what they were like a time or two. Your explanations were extremely interesting, and I enjoyed the company as well, so thank you very much.”
She didn't sound like she was saying that just to soothe his feelings. (Although he did wonder how she could have reached… whatever age she actually was– he wouldn't dream of asking– without ever setting foot in a basic office building.)
“Thank you,” Dudley said, walking her to the door. He opened it for her, and she stepped out and started walking away.
She turned to look back at him, and he realized, with sudden clarity, that if he didn't say or do something right now, he'd likely never see Cho Chang again.
“Er, Cho?” Dudley called, and she smiled. “Would you, uh, maybe like to go out with me sometime?”
Dudley seemed a bit confused when she informed him that she didn't have a “mobile” (whatever that was) or even a “landline,” but they arranged a time and place to meet the next night. He apparently had a prior commitment for that evening, or she would have been glad to get dinner that very same day.
Cho smiled to herself as she walked back to the Leaky Caldron, where she planned to pack up the few things she’d brought with her before she would Apparate home and resolve things with her parents.
She still didn't know where she was going to live, or what kind of job she wanted to pursue next.
But she did have a date planned with a nice man and the dawning awareness that, in fact, there were still new and interesting experiences waiting out there for her– even after Quidditch.