February 25th, 1891 — The Leaky Cauldron

February was a slow month for Ben, in his role as a promoter for a distillery. The distillery itself had plenty of standing contracts with the magical pubs around the British Isles, but most of Ben's work came from getting big event contracts, and the social season was slow and boring this time of year. It would have been the best time to go abroad and try to get them a few more international partner organizations and foreign contracts, but the news Melody had given him at the end of last month had derailed those sorts of plans. She wasn't well enough to travel, and he wouldn't leave her for anything more than a few hours at a time. Even the few hours he left during work stressed him out. He didn't feel as though the two of them were back on solid ground, yet, and the constant illness only made things worse. He couldn't talk to her, he couldn't do anything with her... nothing to do but wait.

(Wait, and see if she really was pregnant — Ben thought she was, but he suspected Art and maybe even Aldous still had their doubts. Maybe they were still hoping she wasn't).

So, anyway, he was in a lull — both personally and professionally. Jewell had sent him off to the Leaky Cauldron this afternoon to show off a few of the newer lines they were experimenting around with, but Ben suspected it was really more of a way to kill time than it was a serious prospect. The Leaky Cauldron was a little on the tamer side, as far as pubs went; they probably wouldn't pick up anything too new and adventurous until it had been in circulation for a while and they knew for sure that it wasn't going to light anyone's hair on fire when they drank it, or anything.

He'd arrived at the Leaky and was told the owner wasn't available right away, but could see him in thirty minutes or so. Fair enough; that was what he got for showing up with no notice. Ben bought himself a drink (it was good to buy a drink from pubs; like a show of good faith that you wanted their business to succeed just as much as your own) and took a seat at the bar. The woman next to him looked vaguely familiar, but it had been months (maybe over a year?) since he'd seen her, so it took him a second to realize who it was.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," he teased lightly, before he realized he probably ought not to strike up a conversation with her. This was the normal way of things, since he'd married; he started flirting without thinking about it and then had that nagging voice in the back of his head chime in a few seconds too late with What is Melody going to think?

Well, too late now.

Angie Swan @"Elsie Beauregard"

  

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Angie was just running a simple errand for the bank. She'd been out in muggle London for most of the day, making her way back through the Cauldron on her way back to the office. She was a little grumpy, as she was out of practice with city life, but she'd survived.

On her way back through to Diagon Alley, she thought she ought to eat something and so perched herself at the bar unceremoniously summoning the petite little brunette that worked there and ordered herself a beer and some stew. She was tucking her bag on the side of the chair when a voice from the past interrupted her thoughts.

She looked up with a smile. "I could say the same about you Crouch." Ang quirked an eyebrow at him. "Been a long time. Keeping busy?" Hadn't it, thought? Felt like a lifetime really since they'd last been in the same country.

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Busy was — a word for it. Not the word that he would have chosen, if someone had asked him to describe the past year, but it wasn't exactly the wrong word, either. Even when there wasn't anything dramatic going on (which was seldom; the past year had been full of unexpected dramatic turns, from the elopement to the death of Melody's cousin to the disaster at the Quidditch World Cup to the entire mess of January), he had been purposefully filling up his days with so much stuff just to keep afloat. It was easier to keep busy than it was to sit with something long enough to dissect it.

"Yeah, busy enough," he said vaguely. "Probably in less entertaining ways than you have. Where've you been?"

  

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Angie was not one to sit for too long, and so she leaned back against the bar casually, elbows on the edge as if she owned the place. She did come in often, when she was home, but that was neither here nor there. Basically she was enough of a regular that nobody would call her on it.

"That's not what I've heard," Angie motioned to the ring on his finger. She didn't know what exactly he'd been up to, but even she was not oblivious to the rumor mills. Angie didn't put any stock into them either, but it was kind of amusing when a familiar name popped up. Ben had a bit of a reputation to begin with, not that she'd known that until they were both back home after their last assignment together, but still.

"But Chile, and Greece before that. I haven't been in London for more than a week or two at a time since the summer of '89." It was how Angie preferred it most of the time. She could come home, check on Cash and Ash, make sure her roommate was still good with their arrangement and that was that.

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Ben followed her eyes down to the wedding band on his finger. He forgot about it most of the time, now that he'd gotten used to the feeling of it on his finger. Initially it had felt so strange to have something there, and he'd kept trying to itch at it but forcing himself not to. It was all part of the charade, after all; that he and Melody had been so madly in love they'd run away together. While the ring might have been a symbol of what he'd been occupied with over the past year, however, he still thought his statement stood. His marriage wasn't entertaining — at least, not to him. It was a mess, most of the time, and it was only holding steady for the moment because Melody was too sick to leave her room and fight with him.

"Well, maybe we've got different definitions of 'entertaining,'" he said a little wryly. He'd just ordered a beer, but as he turned his attention to the drink he wished he'd asked for a whiskey. It was still a bit early in the day for drinking whiskey, particularly given that he was still working, but there was something about this conversation that felt more fit to whiskey than to beer. Maybe it was the choice of conversation topic, or maybe it was just Angie herself.

"That explains why I haven't seen you," he said with a half-smile. "That's the way to do it, isn't it? I miss that."

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   Arthur Pettigrew

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Angie tutted in disapproval. "I think you know me better than that," She had been lightly teasing him, the rumors she'd heard weren't exactly funny or entertaining. In fact, to her, they were wildly out of character for him. They'd had enough pillow talk over the course of their... situation, for her to have an idea of how he actually felt about the whole marriage thing. Who knew though, they'd never gotten particularly deep on the subject, but had lived enough of a similar lifestyle and mindset that to hear he'd up and eloped had caused some confusion. She wasn't here to rub his nose in anything, however.

Even if she'd been in town much over the last year, they wouldn't have seen much of one another anyway, according to his new life situation. Clearly their agreement had come to an unspoken end, even if it had been a while since they'd enjoyed one another's company. Pity, she'd enjoyed it while it lasted. Still, it wasn't like she was some broken-hearted lover; she'd find another if she felt the need. "New job too I see?" Maybe that was a better topic of conversation.

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"Yeah," Ben said with a nod, glad for the change of topic. He could say all the same madly in love type of stuff about Melody that he'd been saying for the past year, if he needed to, but he thought Angie might think it was a little suspect. She knew him better than that, and he'd never been a particularly sentimental sort.

"Not quite so recently," he said with a shrug. Not that a year-old marriage counted as recent, really, but his marriage to Melody existed in that weird place in time and space where it seemed like it had existed forever and simultaneously only happened a day ago; it had always felt that way, ever since coming back from Paris. Just depended on his mood, really. The promoter gig had been nearly a year before that, though, so it was certainly old news. It was the first steady, respectable job he'd gotten after he stopped cursebreaking; before then, he'd been mainly subsisting off of skimming gambling debts from his wealthier and stupider friends.

"I stopped cursebreaking after Canada," he said, taking a drink. He hoped she had heard enough through the rumor mill that he didn't have to elaborate on Canada. "Now I sell fancy liquor to rich people. And occasionally pubs," he said, with a vague gesture at the space behind the bar. "This is a pretty relaxed gig, but I do miss the travel."

  

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Ang supposed that she was gone so often, she could have missed this swap of career for him, but then again she honestly couldn't remember the last time they'd run into one another. "Pity, you were pretty good at it." Life had a funny way of diverging from what people thought it should. Angie had fully expected him to keep up the career, but clearly that hadn't happened. Then again Angie was supposed to pursue the debutante life after school, that hadn't happened either.

"Can't go wrong with fancy liquor, though my tastes are typically less strict." Nice liquor was not in her budget, unless Cash needed an Emergency Bourbon night, but then it was on him and he could certainly afford it. Ang drank what was available without much fuss about it and she only drank socially for the most part, unless she had a long day at the "office." She eyed him with a hint of mischief to her smile, "Keeps you busy I assume?" That was the important part, in her opinion anyway.

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Ben shrugged, and smiled. It had always been easy to talk to her, and no less so now despite everything that had changed since they'd last interacted. That was part of what he'd always enjoyed about traveling; meeting different people from different walks of life, most of whom were easier to talk to than the English society types. He could exist perfectly well in that world, too, of course — and before his marriage he'd had a way of weaseling his way in to parties that he didn't really have any right to be at just for the sake of flirting with rich girls — but this was different, and decidedly nice. It was like a comfortable robe instead of a tailored suit, or riding his reliable old broomstick, worn as she was, instead of some fancy new model straight from the store.

"I'm good at this, too," he joked lightly. He tipped his glass towards her a little suggestively, then said, "I could probably send you some free samples, if you want to try. I do remember that you had some... more adventurous tastes," he teased. "When the opportunity presented itself."

  

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"I can see that," He'd always been a smooth talker, capable of easing his way in and out of a lot of different situations with minimal effort. It was probably a good skill that carried over to promoting booze. Certainly not a skill to scoff at.

If Angie were the blushing type, she may have felt the color rise to her cheeks, but it took quite a bit to fluster Ang in any way. "Bourbon girl at heart," Though she only drank that with Cash. That was their thing and nobody could have it. She liked wine too, but only the darker stuff. Frankly Angie would drink just about whatever was available to her, if she mood struck her or the situation was right. Ben knew that of course, as the the opportunity had presented itself in his company regularly.

"I'll take anything that'll fit in a rucksack, probably won't be here for too long." She assured him with a casual shrug.

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"No, you never are, are you?" Ben said, with undisguised envy. He missed traveling, even though it had been years now since he'd been able to do it as often as he liked. That had been the only thing that had ever really appealed to him after he left Quidditch, though; the job itself was immaterial if he got to travel for it.

"Oh — looks like duty calls," he pointed out, as he saw the man he'd been waiting to speak to emerge from the door to the back office. He took another hearty sip of his drink, but still hadn't finished it and would leave a few inches left in the bottom of the pint when he headed off to his business deal. "See you around, then," he said, though he had no idea whether he would or not. It had taken long enough for their paths to cross in the first place, now that he wasn't sleeping with her any more, so it might be an age before they saw each other again. The last time they spoke he hadn't been married — who knew what life would bring the next time he ran into her?

  

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