November 15th, 1891 - The Three Broomsticks

The good thing about being friends with healers was that their work schedules were odd, so sometimes Noble could see them in the middle of the day on what was a workday for most middle class people. (Well — Ford and other Ministry workers, at least. The bulk of Noble's friendly acquaintances seemed to be Ministry or Hospital workers, and he could not begin to describe the schedules of other people.) The good thing about being a potioneer was that, as he was essentially his own boss, Noble could do what he wanted in terms of his own schedule. And an unfortunate part of being an adult was that it became difficult to arrange conversations with one's friends of the opposite sex. He didn't want to have people, especially not women, over in the house that his entire family lived in — especially not when they were planning a wedding — and his workshop was too private for that to be comfortable. Balls and other events were too public, and too incidental.

This was how he ended up sitting in a booth across from Tilda MacFusty at the Three Broomsticks in the middle of a Monday afternoon. Noble took a sip from his pint after they engaged the usual pleasantries. He'd asked her to meet to catch up, but he didn't know where to begin — he'd been having a hell of a time for the past few months, (and, really, ever since his father had died,) but he couldn't exactly catch her up on any of that. Did that mean he should just lead with why he wanted to talk to her?

There had to be more pleasantries first. He was desperate for some way to make up for his September sins, but he couldn't just lead with that. Especially not when verbalizing his thoughts would make everything more — real. Once things were said, he owed some action to the dead.

"My sister is getting married — Verity, that is — to a lawyer," Noble said, by way of continued brief small talk, "But I suppose that's my only news. Has anything new happened with your family?"

---