February 20th, 1891 — Three Broomsticks

Alfred was smiling at nothing again when he walked into the pub that evening. His good mood had persisted throughout the day, surviving even Evander and the constant small reminder that Evander would be married before him. He'd been thinking, off and on, of writing Zelda a letter. He probably ought to apologize for showing up in her garden last night, and he certainly ought to reassure her that he had no intention of doing it again, drunk or otherwise. It was hard to regret it, though, with how well it had gone. Yes, they'd fought, but he'd been expecting them to fight. That had been the whole point in going, actually — in person she couldn't just send him a two-word letter and insist they were fine. Things spilled out, boiled over, but then they talked through them and ended up actually fine. So that was what he'd been expecting; that was his plan. He hadn't planned on anything that had happened afterwards, but neither did he regret it — and it was that smug smile that kept showing up on his face for no reason that he wouldn't have been able to put in a letter. Anything he said would've been an inadequate descriptor, or might've gotten her in trouble if anyone happened to be around when she got the mail, one or the other.

Not that he'd had time to write, anyway. He'd returned from his sailing venture with Evander late in the afternoon, with sea spray on his clothes and salt in his hair, and he'd needed to wash and change before setting out again to meet his uncle. He arrived first, chose a table, and ordered two pints. He didn't see his uncle half as often as he would have liked, but they did this frequently enough that he was well aware of the older man's drink preferences.

"Uncle H!" he called with a cheerful wave as he saw his uncle at the doorway. He raised the glasses he'd procured for both of them with a grin, so Hamish would know he could skip the bar on the way to the table.

"You've heard about Evander, I take it?" he asked when his uncle had settled into the seat across from him. Alfred hadn't been paying enough attention to the paper to know if it had been publicly announced yet or not, but since he'd been engaged nearly two months now Alfred assumed all the relevant parties had already been informed.

Hamish Darrow Aldous Crouch

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

The Darrows were a large brood. Hamish had many children, some of his children had children, his siblings had children, those children had children—and it was a lifestyle that suited Hamish very well indeed, as something of a patriarch for the horde. Between their sheer number, though, and the demands of his posting at Hogwarts, he did not get to see individual relations nearly so often as he would like; indeed, he had meant to have this particular sit-down with Alfred the better part of a month ago.

Ah well, Hamish thought, at least the lad's given me an opening!

"Indeed!" he answered brightly before taking a hearty sip from the glass before him. "Wonderful news indeed—it's been too long since we last had a wedding in the family!"

— J. Alfred Darrow —

  

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Alfred bit his tongue at this remark. A week ago, or even a day ago, the reminder would have irritated him (though of course he was publicly quite pleased with Evander's news), because he ought to have been getting married before Evander was. After the previous night, however, it was hard to take even the reminder that he remained single and had no imminent plans to fix the situation too poorly.

"Yeah, it's been a while," he said, taking a drink. "Though I doubt Evander's will be quite so exciting as Lorne's," he pointed out. Evander would probably prefer that — at cousin Lorne's wedding there had been two drunken brawls and one small fire before the night was through.

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   Hamish Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"For Evander's sake, I do hope not!" Hamish laughed. If memory served, poor Lorne had woken up in a pond the next morning, wedding altogether unconsummated. Rumour in the family was that it had taken two months for the lad to recover in the eyes of his new bride, and yet she mysteriously managed to produce a daughter in only four...

"I do hate to be nosy—" that much was true; Hamish had long been one to leave well enough alone. Alfred's courtship, though, was a special case; though professors were not supposed to admit to favourites, Zelda Fisk had always been one of his. If she would not settle with one of his sons, a nephew was the next best thing, but only if it was settled. "—but might I inquire after Miss Fisk?"

— J. Alfred Darrow —

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   J. Alfred Darrow

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Yes, he supposed for Evander's sake a peaceful wedding was best — though in his capacity as a guest Alfred did prefer there to be at least a little trouble. It made things interesting; weddings in general were dreadfully boring. (The only exception, he imagined, would be his own — he could never feel bored of anything when Zelda was around).

Speaking of Zelda — apparently they'd shifted conversation topics already. Alfred wasn't opposed to talking about Zelda (as a general rule, no matter who he was talking with) but he had expected Uncle H to be busy with the topic of Evander's upcoming wedding for at least a little longer.

"— she's well," Alfred said uncertainly, not sure what sort of update his uncle was really expecting. He clearly could not say anything about his most recent encounter with her, without getting them into a great deal of trouble, but that was the only thing on his mind at the moment.

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   Zelda Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Hamish took another sip to give Alfred a chance to elaborate, but the lad did not seem to be feeling particularly prolific. Oh dear—he hoped he hadn't made his nephew uncomfortable!

"I know that it is not any of my business, but, well, when two of one's favourite people form an attachment, one tends to have thoughts on the matter," the wizard offered sheepishly by way of apology. "It's only that I cannot help but worry—as a father might, or an uncle—that a long courtship is not in her best interests. Have you... given serious thought as to whether Miss Fisk would make you happy as your wife?"

— J. Alfred Darrow —

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   Cassius Lestrange, J. Alfred Darrow

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Alfred's cheeks flushed the moment he realized where this was going, but he didn't interrupt. He wasn't really sure what to say, exactly, except that Uncle H had it all wrong — but he had no particular evidence to support that except his words. Hopefully that would be enough to convince him (he was reminded, suddenly and uncomfortably, of his conversation in the hospital supply closet with Ari Fisk, during which words alone had not proved as convincing as he would have liked).

"I'm not dallying with her," he insisted. "If that's what you thought. I'm very serious. I mean, I have given it serious thought." Which begged the question, of course: if he was so sure, why hadn't he proposed yet? If they weren't somewhere quite so public he might have told Hamish the truth — that he proposed more or less every time he saw her, these days, because he wanted her to know that he was absolutely willing to run away with her at the drop of a hat — but if rumors like that started it would do neither him nor Zelda any favors.

He picked up a finger and ran it along the edge of his beer mug while he considered how best to phrase this. "If you want to propose you need a father's blessing," he said after a moment. "And I haven't got it."

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Though the wizard loved his nephew dearly and greatly enjoyed his company, he was not so blinded by familial loyalty as to think Alfred a catch, per se. As a father of daughters, he saw quite clearly the lad's deficits, but those deficits were not, he thought, entirely insurmountable.

"Well then you must double your efforts to earn it," Hamish replied as if it were the simplest thing of the world and a smile that said he had every confidence in his nephew. "That, or sever ties now with Miss Fisk so that she might find a gentleman more likely to receive that blessing. If you two do care for one another, though, I hope ardently that you choose the former."

Hamish was a man thrice married—and thrice made a widower—and each union had come about under different circumstances. He did not, however, have regrets about any of his unions and, indeed, hoped to woo and wed a fourth, that his final years would not prove lonely. If he were to have any hope of himself accomplishing such a feat, he must maintain his hope that the young(er) and in love could do so even more easily still.

— J. Alfred Darrow —

  

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Redoubling his efforts to win over the Fisks was much easier said than done. It wasn't as though Alfred hadn't been trying, through all of his interactions with them throughout the coming months, but he was working from quite a deficit given the way that the courtship had begun. His uncle wouldn't know about that, though, and Alfred had no intention of telling him. Zelda believed that her family would eventually get over it and get used to him, and he had to believe that she knew her family better than he did (and certainly better than Uncle H did).

The second part of his uncle's comment shocked him, however. It was not that he had never considered that Zelda might be just as happy or perhaps even happier with someone else. After his supply closet conversation with Ari Fisk he'd managed to convince himself of it, in fact, which was why he'd spent months casually avoiding her in the hopes that she might move on and pin her hopes on someone more suitable. And he knew how it looked, to her father and to everyone else — one of the Fisk daughters had married the literal Minister of Magic, and Alfred was a sailor who was still believed, in some circles, to have either become a cannibal or given his soul away in some obscure tribal magic ritual — she could certainly do better. Probably literally anyone else would have been better for her, at least as far as her family was concerned.

It had been a long time since Alfred had thought like that, though. When they'd agreed to start courting, the fact that they would eventually end up married had seemed like an inevitability. There had been a few close calls through the season and the fall where he felt he'd overstepped too much and her family would never come around to the idea of him, but being able to see her at Christmas and talking so boldly about the future together had bolstered his spirits. Evander's news had, admittedly, dampened them again somewhat, but then last night...

"I'm going to marry her," he insisted, but with less confidence in his tone than he'd held a moment before.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"I am glad to hear it," Hamish answered warmly, reaching for his glass but finding, with some surprise, that it had seemingly emptied itself. (He always had had a bit of a thirst on him.) "I just hope that you will not tarry too long in this in-between state—for the sake of your own future, as well as dear Miss Fisk's."

— J. Alfred Darrow —

  

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— set by the long-lost bex —

"Well, I'll endeavor not to," Alfred said, catching the eye of the bartender and motioning for another drink. He was only halfway through his own pint, but he could polish it off if needed to keep up with his uncle. He was a sailor; he was hardly going to let an old professor out-drink him. At least not now that his mild hangover from that morning was little more than a distant memory.

He didn't know what more he could do to speed things along, with Zelda, but he supposed he'd have to give the matter some thought. He'd tried just being around and hoping they got used to the idea of him, with only marginal success over the past several months. Some of Zelda's siblings seemed more inclined to tolerate him than others, but at the end of the day it was her father's opinion he needed to win over, and Brannon Fisk had shown absolutely no indication that he had reconsidered any of the points from his speech on the subject at Passover in 1889. And he didn't chaperone Zelda, generally, so it wasn't as though he was going to be won over by Alfred's good behavior when they were out at society events.

"Let's talk about something else," Alfred decided, as the next round was delivered to the table.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Hamish opened his mouth as though to argue—he was not convinced he had quite gotten through to his nephew as he had wished—but thought better of it, instead doing precisely as the lad asked.

"Tell me, has your brother let you take young Miss Lloyd out upon the high seas yet?"

— J. Alfred Darrow —

  

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Alfred grinned widely. "Well, it might be a bit of a stretch to say he let me," he admitted, leaning forward to sip the foam off the top of his newly delivered beer so that it didn't spill over onto the table. "But yes, she's been sailing. And Evander has, too, believe it or not," he continued. "This afternoon. That's where I was right before this, actually. I offered to teach him to sail when he started courting Miss Delaney, on account of her family owning a shipping company, but I suppose he only decided he was serious enough about her after they'd gotten engaged," he joked. "It takes quite a bit of commitment to get Evander out onto the ocean. Although both times were just at the Sanditon — hardly 'the high seas,' but a good enough start," he grinned.

The Sanditon was the Respectable version of sailing, Alfred though idly. Which, actually, gave him something of an idea. Brannon Fisk was not at all interested in letting Zelda marry a sailor, but perhaps he could be convinced if Alfred could dress it up a bit more respectably...

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   Hamish Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"To those not accustomed to the sea," Hamish pointed out with an amiable chuckle, "the Sanditon is something of an adventure—a respectable one, too, though I daresay Evander would not have seen it that way where Miss Lloyd was concerned!"

— J. Alfred Darrow —

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   Elon Wildsmith

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Alfred nodded. Evander had something in common with Brannon Fisk in that regard; he was of the parenting school that believed the best way to protect a child was to prevent them from ever doing anything which you as a parent did not have a great deal of personal experience with. Alfred wasn't sure where Evander got that from, because neither of their parents had been particularly strict (obviously, given the way Alfred had turned out), but he could say fairly confidently that it didn't work. Zelda, anyway, still got into her fair share of trouble, although hopefully her father wouldn't ever know about any of that. If he did — well, Alfred's profession would not even make the top five list for reasons why he would never be allowed to marry her.

"People do seem to like the Sanditon, don't they?" he asked with a half-smile. "It's tame. And very English. Oh, but don't tell Mr. Fudge I said that," he said, with a grin. "He might think I meant it as an insult, and haunt me."

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   Hamish Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"Herbert Fudge was never the sort to carry a grudge!" Hamish laughed. "You forget—I taught the lad, though his history skills were lacking, to say the least. Indeed, I find myself inclined to agree with you—the Sanditon is a breath of fresh air for most of the society types, but I would wager the greatest danger is getting trodden upon in a dance. Even the current, I'm given to understand, is not so much a consideration within the charmed waters."

— J. Alfred Darrow —

  

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— set by the long-lost bex —