Philip smiled. A perfunctory smile, not his own, neither in pleasure or in anger: just a bland, close-mouthed, meaningless reflex. Well enough. Well enough was always much too well.
“Oh, tremendously,” he answered. There were things Philip might have deigned to talk about, if he had had even an ounce of trust or affection for his hideous progenitor. His wife was pregnant with another child – but he had no intention of breaking that news: the gossip mill or his siblings would have to do that for him, before Algernon Rowle thought he had any claim upon his grandchildren.
And he would have rather discussed his quidditch team than anything else, purely from knowing that it would rile the man – but there was also some crude fun in pretending to be the son his father had so desperately shaped him to be. Just for a moment. “You know the thing about Research,” Philip remarked, leaning back more idly in his chair as his father turned more attention to his account books. “It never ends.”
His father had not been in the Research Committee at the Ministry – but he had chosen it for Philip and puppeteered him through his committee years, so he really ought to have more thoughts on the topic than Philip did, and be keen to hear all about it.
“Oh, tremendously,” he answered. There were things Philip might have deigned to talk about, if he had had even an ounce of trust or affection for his hideous progenitor. His wife was pregnant with another child – but he had no intention of breaking that news: the gossip mill or his siblings would have to do that for him, before Algernon Rowle thought he had any claim upon his grandchildren.
And he would have rather discussed his quidditch team than anything else, purely from knowing that it would rile the man – but there was also some crude fun in pretending to be the son his father had so desperately shaped him to be. Just for a moment. “You know the thing about Research,” Philip remarked, leaning back more idly in his chair as his father turned more attention to his account books. “It never ends.”
His father had not been in the Research Committee at the Ministry – but he had chosen it for Philip and puppeteered him through his committee years, so he really ought to have more thoughts on the topic than Philip did, and be keen to hear all about it.
