Tentatively, he paced over to the chairs, taking a seat and the moment to focus on pouring a measure from the Firewhiskey instead of his other problems.

He exhaled slowly at her words. Now that the shock and the shame and the chagrin were settling into the dust, it was increasingly harder to ignore the truth of what she was saying.

Tybalt had known that all along, of course. The lines of propriety had been firmly drawn before their friendship had even had the mettle to test them, and it had taken careful manoeuvring to keep what they were doing a secret. Careful; Tybalt got as far as opening his mouth to point out that they had been careful, they had tried their best to be discreet, and had been succeeding at it... but he looked around where she had found them - in the library, unlocked door, middle of a party, middle of society - and promptly shut his mouth again.

"I know," he said, not having touched his Firewhiskey yet, just cradling the glass gloomily in his hands. "And I don't want to ruin her life, really I don't," he affirmed; Elsie had done most of the talking earlier, so he hoped her cousin knew that wasn't abusing Elsie's good nature, that he would've protested with all the same things.

Tybalt chewed on his lip for a moment before continuing. "But I don't want to lose her either. We barely get to see each other as it is." It sounded hopeless, he knew, and more than a little petulant. Tyb knew that was probably what he was supposed to do: he should leave her alone and let her live her life, free of fears of her reputation in peril. He just wasn't sure how capable he was of it. He'd regret it if something happened - something worse than this - but even that looming dread wasn't the inducement it should be. Did that mark him out as a horrible person? Selfish, more concerned with his own transient happiness than what was best for Elsie, whom he supposedly loved?

Surely that couldn't be the only way.

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   Elsie Kirke

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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."

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This was everything he'd been too afraid to think about.

It was everything he had liked about being with Elsie, the ease of it, no need for an endgame, no need for declarations or public arrangements or responsibility. Tybalt could almost convince himself of this, that that was all he had liked.

But if, if tonight was the end of that - what was he supposed to do, find some other girl to sneak around with until they got caught, too? It was not as though pretty unmarried brunettes were in short supply. Wasn't that half the point of being a quidditch player, anyway? Stumbling into the paths of girls like that at parties like this? (Tyb was sure he'd thought so, at fifteen.)  

That was what he would have to do, from here on out. Mrs. Cavanaugh seemed sure that things would change for Elsie, too. It was far easier imagining Elsie's future, because she'd go on happily enough with her library work or something equally as clever and bookish, and then would meet someone as clever and bookish and out of the blue she would find herself utterly in love with him and then maybe she wouldn't mind the thought of marriage any more. With that man, financial support wouldn't be a question. Nothing would be a question.

All Tybalt had to face was questions. What did he want? "That," he confessed before he even knew what exactly he was saying, just thinking sheepishly of being married and a house full of children and... "Her," Tyb said quietly, staring vacantly at a patch of air. "She's my best friend." And if she married someone else - by the time he could even consider marriage, properly - how would they still be able to see each other? Would they be able to settle back into being old friends? Reminisce about school and quietly erase the past few years? None of it would be the same.

But - and he was sure Elsie's cousin would tell him this plainly - that future wasn't even a possibility, and clearly not while he was living a life in the moment, clearly not without the sacrifices on his part. It happened all the time - men stopped playing quidditch, took up a Ministry career, saved up to provide for a family. He wasn't special. He wasn't exempt. He...

He took a swig of Firewhiskey, as if liquid courage would be enough to convince himself he could make that sort of commitment. "I - I don't know."

---

  

---

Lucinda smiled into her drink with some degree of smugness. She was right - and perhaps it would have been easier for Elsie if she wasn't, but this boy was so far in love with her cousin that he'd admit to it, mostly sober, after witnessing a Beauregard-family screaming match that had rebounded onto all involved. Lucinda pressed her index finger to her temple.

"That's what I expected," Lucinda said. She waved her hand at the spot where he and Elsie had been. Lucinda had once pushed a boy down the stairs so that he'd stop hassling her younger cousin; Bentley would have killed anyone who messed with her too badly; Elsie was soft. Elsie was gentle. Elsie had yelled at Lucinda to defend her objectively stupid relationship with a boy.

So because of that, Lucinda said, "Whether she'll admit it or not, she wants the same, underneath." She shrugged her shoulders.

"But the way things are, that won't make a difference. How are you going to get there?" A Quidditch player with no money sniffing around her younger cousin? Never mind Lucinda; if she told Stella, Stella would kill him. And she wasn't going to, but that didn't mean it wasn't an option.

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   Elias Grimstone, Elsie Kirke

It felt strange to have admitted that - to have said any of it out loud, in total honesty - since he'd never said as much to Elsie. Being in love was one thing, and saying that had an easy familiarity by now, but the rest of it? They'd never even talked about that. It had felt like a relief for these past few years, not to have to think about the future, but Tybalt would have been lying to pretend a fantasy of a happy future hadn't been growing quietly in a back corner of his mind. And Elsie wouldn't know that it had even crossed his mind.

She had a preconceived future all her own, though, a planned career and so on, so his eyes flickered up in haste when Elsie's cousin disputed that. She wants the same, she said. Tybalt wasn't sure. (He hoped so, but he wasn't sure.)

But he'd never find out, not really, unless he did something. And Mrs. Cavanaugh had made it clear: it was time to stop acting like children. He nodded along to show that he understood that much, but the question of how was a harder one, not a single idea softened by the champagne before or the whiskey now.

He'd quit. He'd quit, and he'd - find something else, some flashy, well-paid job in Ministry robes. There was Magical Games and Sports, he supposed, or Accidents and Catastrophes, or something else with transfiguration or potions or creatures or - Merlin, did he need good NEWTs for these things? Tybalt could barely remember the subjects he'd taken, never mind anything of them. And his results weren't... well.

But it was the change he had to make, there had to be something. If he made it through an internship, then at least he'd have something stable to show for it, could maybe make a proper suit to Elsie and her family without trying to like this, empty-pocketed and shame-faced. It'd only be a year or two until he was in a better place, someone with Real Prospects... And the season had just ended; was there even a more perfect time than now?  

But if he... quit now, then... that was it. His quidditch career over. Already. He'd never get to play a professional game again. Panic wracked his insides, wrapped itself around his chest. "I get it. I just - I need some time to think, I guess. To - figure out a plan." He tore his gaze away from Elsie's cousin, pulling a face. Couldn't she just... tell him what to do next? Sort out his life for him?

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   Elsie Kirke

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He looked rather liked she'd sent him a howler, and a kinder woman would have just left it at this. Lucinda took another sip of her drink. A kinder woman would not have yelled at Elsie; a kinder woman probably would have closed the library door and gone to tell someone else, or pretended that she never saw it. Lucinda was not the kindest person in the Beauregard family, and she still felt rather burned, having been condescended to about love and marriage and her place in the world.

"I suppose the alternative is hoping she marries someone else and having a torrid affair that results in curly-haired Gryffindor babies," Lucinda added cheerfully, more to get a reaction than anything else. She gave a light laugh, one that echoed around the library. Honestly. She really ought to just solve everyone's romantic disasters for them.

---

  

The bubble of stress pressing in on him exploded into the air at hearing her next words. Tybalt, who'd just taken another draught of Firewhiskey, spluttered aloud in shock, having to cover his mouth with the back of his hand to stop himself from a fit of choking. He set his glass down with a loud clink. And then let out an abrupt laugh, despite himself.

"There is that," Tyb agreed in jest, suddenly feeling remarkably and inexplicably lighter about the whole catastrophic thing. He slumped backwards in his chair, the movement of his shoulders mirroring his laughter, letting the tension in them dissipate amidst all the surrealism of this scene.

It was a undoubtedly a joke on her part; and in all seriousness on his, not at all what he wanted the future to look like, if he was forced to choose. But - at least he knew that, now? He didn't want to have to be consigned to secrecy for the rest of his life, settling for stealth and sneaking about, whether or not there was a chance of a torrid affair or curly-haired Gryffindor babies.

Not that he had an actual plan for an alternative, yet. But there was, maybe, a seed of one.  

A little while after his grinning had faded into pensiveness, he glanced at Mrs. Cavanaugh again. Weirdly, he kind of liked Elsie's cousin, he did. She had stormed in without warning and laid waste to everything and yelled at Elsie (and he hadn't forgotten that, couldn't forgive her that) but she was clearly doing what she thought was in Elsie's best interests. And she seemed like a cool person. Completely terrifying, but also cool.

He opened his mouth again, returning to something from that was still weighing on his mind, though this time he submitted it as a simple question rather than a plea not to. Doing anything in the long run, really, depended on how ruined things turned out now. "Are you going to tell her parents?"

---

  

---

Lucinda was nursing her own drink, musing on the disaster they had on the table, when he asked her. She looked up and smirked at him, sort of wry. "No," she said, "Her mother would never let her out again, and that's not good for the family, either." A girl trapped in a tower raised red flags.

"Besides," she said, in a more genuine tone, "Elsie would never forgive me."

That might not even be possible now. And Lucinda wanted her to, eventually. Even though her feelings were hurt and she was still stubbornly convinced that she was right - they had gotten very lucky, and talking smugly about love was no way to handle being caught. But... Elsie still might never forgive her.

---

  

He let out a slow breath of relief, that at least it could be worse than how things were now. And so what if she wasn't doing it out of any kindness or clemency to them or pity for Elsie, but for how it would look - what did that matter? Neither he nor Elsie were in any position to argue.

It still felt awful, though, however not-bad it was. Things would have to change. Things were already changed, irreversibly. Of course, if Elsie's cousin kept this quiet, that at least gave him room to work things out, a chance to make official first impressions on his own time and preferably not in a "groping in someone else's library" kind of way.  

If the evening hadn't unfolded how it had, Tyb might have had no trouble in making some sort of counter about Elsie being just about the gentlest and most forgiving person he knew. But - that was before he'd heard the way she'd talked to her cousin, and that Elsie seemed a lot more uncompromising. He had to suppress the faint smile at the memory, at the thrill and privilege of having gotten to see such a mythical moment, by lifting his glass again. "Maybe not," he hummed into it, not wanting to offend her by agreeing outright, but.

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   Elsie Kirke

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