His Bristol home was snowed in, and the floo was offline, and the only reason Emrys wasn't there enjoying the blizzard from the comforts of his own home was that he'd happened to spend the night before snow started in an opium den in Lincolnshire. When he'd recovered his senses in the middle of the day on the 9th, he'd tried to floo home and had found he was unable to do so. This on its own wouldn't have bothered him that much — he could easily get a room somewhere for the day, or a few days, so that he didn't have to stay in the opium den. Or, honestly, he could have just stayed in the opium den — no one would have been any the wiser and might have just assumed he was stranded in Bristol. Shortly after he'd tried to go home, however, he'd received an owl — the first of three, so far — indicating that one of his ships was not faring well in the winter weather.
He didn't know for sure if they were
gone or only damaged, but in either case he'd lost his appetite for opium. He'd rented a room at the Sanditon and had ordered a few suits on emergency from a Hogsmeade store — of course, all of his usual vendors were in London because that was more fashionable, but they were out of commission now. A friend had suggested he attend this party to take his mind off of the potential loss of his ships, but he was the farthest possible thing from enjoying himself. It took some nerve for the Malfoys to have a snow-themed party when half the country was embroiled in a blizzard that was killing people (and hurting his business prospects, which was much closer to the point — if his ships hadn't been affected, he might have just spent the next three days walled up in his home drinking and smoking and enjoying the impromptu holiday). Emrys hardly thought this was cute — and his suit only sort of fit, it wasn't properly tailored and it wasn't comfortable — and he could not currently decide whether he would rather have left the party or surreptitiously lit something on fire.
This damn hedge maze wasn't cute, either. Emrys had just decided to pull his wand out and send the whole thing up in smoke (they would never know — they'd blame it on a malfunctioning weather charm, which happened all the time) when someone bumped into him from behind.
"
What?" he asked sharply as the woman waved her hand at him, as though trying to get his attention. It took him a moment to realize who it was that had bumped into him.
Lou made this! <3
