June, 1883 — Dempsey Estate, Ireland
Eldritch Morgan was newly twenty and not-newly frustrated with the current direction of his life. He'd spent most of his teen years envisioning that he would become an auror, because of his namesake, and while he'd never been particularly excited by the idea he also hadn't planned for anything else. If all had gone according to plan he would have been entering his final year of the auror training program that fall. Instead, he'd just crossed the midway point in his journey to become a lawyer. He thought he'd be a good lawyer once he made it there, but there was still the sense that he wasn't growing up fast enough. Working in the Law Enforcement department on menial tasks while studying for upcoming exams in all his spare time made his life too similar to what it had looked like at fifteen, when he'd taken internships in the summer and lived at Hogwarts during the school year, except with slightly less freedom, since he lived with his parents the whole year round. Shouldn't he have achieved something by now? Shouldn't he have crossed the bar into adulthood?
The one part of his life that had changed was that now he was invited to parties like this. The invitations had started coming after he'd graduated, but only sparsely — he'd still felt more like a kid being included on the invitation for his parent's sake than a guest in his own right, in most cases. Recently, he'd started getting invitations that actually seemed to be for him, and he'd seized on socializing as one way to establish that he was a real person, independent from his family name and his parent's whims. He accepted every invitation. He made friends aggressively. When he came home at night after an event he wrote down the names of people he'd met in the same way that he would take notes while studying. He didn't revisit the notes or remember many of the names, but it still gave him a sense of pride all the same. He was part of Society; people cared enough to invite him, people liked him, people remembered him and invited him to things again.
He wasn't intimately familiar with any of the Dempseys, but he'd merited an invitation to their latest daughter's debut, which he was pleased by. Don Juan Dempsey was a similar age but they had never been close, so this was another sign that he must have been viewed by someone as a Adult member of Society. He hadn't been to many debuts — since he was clearly in no position to marry and wasn't well-connected enough on the social scene to be otherwise useful — so when he found himself, through the course of the evening, face to face with the lady of the hour he had very little idea what to do with himself. Should he tell her that she looked beautiful? She did — not that any debutante would look anything less on the day of her debut — but he wasn't sure if issuing compliments was the expected, polite thing to do or would be seen as flirtatious overstepping.
"I don't think I want to know how long it took for them to do your hair that way," he ended up saying, which was probably the worst of both worlds. He'd intended it to come across as a subtle sort of compliment, but who knew how she would take it. Was he making himself look foolish? He twirled the champagne flute in his hand nervously. "I, ah. It looks good," he added.
The one part of his life that had changed was that now he was invited to parties like this. The invitations had started coming after he'd graduated, but only sparsely — he'd still felt more like a kid being included on the invitation for his parent's sake than a guest in his own right, in most cases. Recently, he'd started getting invitations that actually seemed to be for him, and he'd seized on socializing as one way to establish that he was a real person, independent from his family name and his parent's whims. He accepted every invitation. He made friends aggressively. When he came home at night after an event he wrote down the names of people he'd met in the same way that he would take notes while studying. He didn't revisit the notes or remember many of the names, but it still gave him a sense of pride all the same. He was part of Society; people cared enough to invite him, people liked him, people remembered him and invited him to things again.
He wasn't intimately familiar with any of the Dempseys, but he'd merited an invitation to their latest daughter's debut, which he was pleased by. Don Juan Dempsey was a similar age but they had never been close, so this was another sign that he must have been viewed by someone as a Adult member of Society. He hadn't been to many debuts — since he was clearly in no position to marry and wasn't well-connected enough on the social scene to be otherwise useful — so when he found himself, through the course of the evening, face to face with the lady of the hour he had very little idea what to do with himself. Should he tell her that she looked beautiful? She did — not that any debutante would look anything less on the day of her debut — but he wasn't sure if issuing compliments was the expected, polite thing to do or would be seen as flirtatious overstepping.
"I don't think I want to know how long it took for them to do your hair that way," he ended up saying, which was probably the worst of both worlds. He'd intended it to come across as a subtle sort of compliment, but who knew how she would take it. Was he making himself look foolish? He twirled the champagne flute in his hand nervously. "I, ah. It looks good," he added.
![[Image: x2GW7DK.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x2GW7DK.png)