July 5th, 1892 — Daphnel Dinner Party, Wellingtonshire

Victor was well aware that tonight wasn't for him, because this wasn't the first time they'd done some variation on this exact same event. It was hard to deny that Beatrice stood little chance of capturing someone's attention in a typical ballroom setting, but whether dinner parties and parlor games were any more likely to suit her was yet to be determined, as far as Victor was concerned. They'd been throwing dinner parties and game nights and that sort of 'intimate' gathering for two years already, and Bea wasn't married yet. She hadn't even had an offer that Victor was aware of — and he doubted anyone had expressed an interest by sending a letter to his chronically absent father, so if there had been an offer he was sure he would have been aware. Anyway, tonight was for Bea, but that didn't mean that Victor had a pass. He had promised his mother that she wouldn't have to worry about his prospects when it came to romance, and he was determined to keep his word on that front — which meant he couldn't spend the night watching Beatrice like a hawk and trying to prod her towards conversation whenever he could. He needed to actually put forth an effort to meet someone.

If only that someone didn't have to be a debutante. Presumably some of these women must have been interesting, if one got to know them in any other context than brief society encounters, but devil help him if he was meant to know which ones. All debutantes seemed the same from his perspective... which made the task of trying to choose one of them a daunting one.

"Are you musically inclined?" Victor asked the young woman he'd found himself talking to, already sensing that he would forget her answer within two minutes of hearing it. He only had... four to six more hours of this to go. They hadn't even sat down to dinner yet.

---

Instruments, she said, but didn't specify which. Probably all of them, at least on paper. She probably spoke three languages, too, but only one or two of them well. That seemed to be the way of things for debutantes; they racked up accomplishments so that they could secure a marriage, without ever having any real interest in or passion for any of them.

"I had piano lessons as a child, but I haven't touched it since Hogwarts," he admitted. He'd dropped music in third year, as soon as he was able to replace it with something more serious on his course roster. Music may have been useful for women, to some extent, but aside from being able to appreciate an occasional concert and recognize the tempo of a dance it had little bearing on the life of a gentleman.

"What is it you play?" he asked, less because he wanted to know and more because he couldn't think of any better questions.

---

The Chinese instrument was at least original enough to be moderately interesting, though he wasn't sure he'd be able to ask many questions about it given his general lack of musical inclination. Before he could think it through and ask anything, though, she had changed the subject — or rather, twisted it slightly.

"Being a gracious conversationalist," he replied, unfazed by what he interpreted as a hint of accusation in her question. "If I started conversations with subjects that were of most interest to me, most young women would have nothing to say."

---

What was this, an interrogation? Miss F (they had been introduced but now he couldn't recall if she was a Fawley or Farley or something else) had seized upon this issue with vigor, apparently determined to find something they could bond over. He supposed he had to admire her tenacity... or would have, had he not been on the receiving end of it.

"And you have a reserve of interesting opinions on all of those subjects, I suppose?" he asked, sardonic. It was a rhetorical question; he didn't doubt that she'd been coached in opinions on everything, or that she found them all sufficiently deep, only that they would prove at all interesting to him.

"I prefer theater to opera and comedies to tragedies. The last book I read was Fine's Treatise of Advanced Mathematics and its influence on Magical Theory. What I'm reading now is Lockthwaite's Unintended Consequences of Experimental Spellwork. I enjoy chess. I ride horses but usually don't play polo unless prevailed upon." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Have I passed your inspection?"

---

What did she mean, likely not? What could he possibly have said that she would find questionable? His taste was impeccable and his intellectual curiosities were fascinating. If she didn't think so, that most likely meant that she wasn't well-read enough to follow along. On its own it wasn't damning; he didn't expect women to share his intellectual interests. If she felt threatened by someone who was smarter than her, though, they clearly could share nothing beyond a dance. Perhaps he'd do better to end this conversation sooner rather than later and invest his time elsewhere.

"...of Experiential Spellwork, yes," he said, with slight impatience. "It's a professional interest. I'm a healer."

---

Her response hadn't made him feel any more invested in the conversation, but it did make the prospect of enduring it a few minutes more slightly more appealing. She'd shown an appropriate level of interest in and respect for his profession, and she was apparently willing to turn the talking over to him to ramble on about spell effects if he desired. Cynically, he suspected this was less out of graciousness or genuine interest and more because she felt it was safer to let him speak than try to force any more common ground to rise up between them, but no matter. It wasn't the worst topic he'd ever been asked to expand on.

"I'm Assistant Head of Spell Damage," he responded. "Some of the best are the ironic ones. People tinkering with spells to try and get a bigger effect, and inadvertently giving themselves exactly the opposite."

---

Victor's smile faltered slightly when she asked him for the silliest thing he had seen. He didn't consider his profession silly, and it would have been grating to answer a question which framed any of his work as frivolous. This wasn't a lady's needlework hobby; people's health and occasionally their lives were on the line. Miss F amended her question to most memorable quickly enough that he was appeased, however, so his smile returned as he considered his answer.

"I shouldn't really say. Our patients trust us to keep things confidential," Victor began, though he fully intended to tell her something; he just hadn't decided on which story. "But we had one bloke trying to make himself taller by adding a few inches to each of his legs, and he accidentally disappeared one entirely, so that his ankle was coming straight off his hip. That was certainly memorable. We set him to rights," Victor added. "And he may have actually ended up an inch or two taller by the time we were done. It's not as though any of us knew how tall he was supposed to be."

---

Well, obviously. You aren't a healer, Victor thought, a little unkindly. She probably meant nothing by it, or had even intended it as a compliment. Enough people in his past had shrugged off his profession like it was easy, though, that comments like this tended to irk him now. It wasn't as though everyone with a NEWT in Charms could walk into the hospital and set things to rights — and when they tried to correct their own mistakes at home, they usually made things worse.

"So what's the last book you've read?" he asked. He was aware that he'd been talking about himself for a stretch and ought to pass the baton back to her, and with this question there was at least a chance that he'd care about the answer.

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