There was something about young love that Lucinda had never been able to fathom.
When she left Hogwarts, there was no money for her to debut, so instead she had thrown herself into vibrantly working for Mr. Pettigrew. And there was no romantic love for him - platonic love, sure, droves of it - because she knew too much about him and his nature. Her love was Quidditch, her love was the business. When she met Wesley standing in Thom's Quidditch box as she took notes on the in-game performance of new gloves, she didn't think of romance. She didn't even think of marriage until months later, and mostly repressed that until he asked her. It was still all business: she didn't think she'd really started to love him until their engagement.
She'd never personally experienced this head-over-heels affection, the romance where you had to be touching at all times, where you stepped around the bonds of propriety and hoped for the best. She saw it plenty, though, had second-hand experience in buckets, enough to press reasoned judgments in a screeching tone, as she'd proven.
Elsie had never been this girl before.
"I wasn't lying when I said you needed an end-game," Lucinda said, measured but equally gloomy, "She might not want to get married now, might quash the idea of kids and say she doesn't need the financial support, but things change." Lucinda knew that well enough.
"So what do you want? Five years from now? Because it won't be like this."
When she left Hogwarts, there was no money for her to debut, so instead she had thrown herself into vibrantly working for Mr. Pettigrew. And there was no romantic love for him - platonic love, sure, droves of it - because she knew too much about him and his nature. Her love was Quidditch, her love was the business. When she met Wesley standing in Thom's Quidditch box as she took notes on the in-game performance of new gloves, she didn't think of romance. She didn't even think of marriage until months later, and mostly repressed that until he asked her. It was still all business: she didn't think she'd really started to love him until their engagement.
She'd never personally experienced this head-over-heels affection, the romance where you had to be touching at all times, where you stepped around the bonds of propriety and hoped for the best. She saw it plenty, though, had second-hand experience in buckets, enough to press reasoned judgments in a screeching tone, as she'd proven.
Elsie had never been this girl before.
"I wasn't lying when I said you needed an end-game," Lucinda said, measured but equally gloomy, "She might not want to get married now, might quash the idea of kids and say she doesn't need the financial support, but things change." Lucinda knew that well enough.
"So what do you want? Five years from now? Because it won't be like this."