1890 — Puddlemere Stadium, Sponsor's Box

During the first year of her marriage Dru had attended only one Quidditch game with her husband. Her brother-in-law's sponsorship of the team meant that they had easy access to games if they chose, but Albert Pettigrew was far less interested in the sport than his older brother, so he didn't ask her often. Since the first game had not been especially interesting, she'd used her pregnancy and then the baby to beg off the subsequent invitations. Now, though, the baby was usually packed off to the nursery and not taking much of her time or attention, and her best friend had recently left a man at the altar, so Dru was feeling the need to be overtly social for the sake of appearances. There was a danger, she realized, of shirking into anonymity after one married, made worse by the suggestion that the company she kept was not the sort society would approve of. So here she was, pretending to enjoy Quidditch. The box made it easier; she couldn't imagine having kept up the charade for an entire game in the stands, but here at least she could float between the refreshments table and the armchairs and the window, and avoid giving anything her attention for too long.

She thought she was giving a marvelous performance of enjoying Quidditch, and the question someone had just posed to her proved this wasn't wholly in her head. "Played?" she echoed, incredulous. However much she had given the impression of being invested in the game playing out, she thought this was still a rather ridiculous question. She laughed to punctuate the point. Her laughter had a musicality to it — she had rehearsed it one frenetic night after the death of her father where she'd found herself lying in bed at night and unable to stop laughing long enough to fall asleep, and had decided to capitalize on the bout of mania to sculpt her laugh into something she wanted to sound like — the way people sounded, she thought, when they were happy right down to their bones, when they had nothing weighing on their minds at all, no reason to suspect the situation could ever turn against them. "No, no. My experience on a broomstick began and ended with first year flying lessons."

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Open to anyone who might have been invited to Thom's box: UC, or associated with Quidditch, or friendly with Thom, or someone he might have been trying to impress for unrelated reasons. If you're not sure feel free to ask me!

  

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ty MJ <3

It was still a bit of a treat, to be invited into a private box to watch a professional quidditch match. Even as a lowly departmental employee (with his eye on a promotion eventually) he was quite enamored with the whole thing, even if he got to see quidditch matches often enough. He was playing neutral with his cheering, mostly watching for good gameplay, but had found himself quite content with a drink, in hand as he socialized around the box.

He only caught the tail end of the conversation happening nearby, the laughter catching him off guard. He didn't recognize the woman, but assumed she must have been the wife of someone higher up than himself. He wasn't sure why he thought the response a little... rude, but had decided to let it go. Women in quidditch was not new, nor something to look down one's nose at. There had been plenty of female players who had flown circles around him when he'd played at school and he'd been pretty good at it.

The other man nodded his agreement, which had Emmett rolling his eyes and snorting out a noise of derision into his gin.

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The man she had been talking to nodded and Dru smiled beatifically. This was the dance of social interactions; people, especially men, talked to her in order to give her an opportunity to be charming or witty, and when she performed to standards they acknowledged it with a gesture like this. Now it would be his turn to demonstrate that he was charming or witty — or something else, men had a wider selection of positive adjectives available to them — while she listened. This was a familiar cadence... which made the interruption to it all the more egregious. Dru cast a glance over her conversation partner's shoulder at the man who had snorted into his drink. He had a loutish build, but there was something strikingly familiar about his features. She knew him from school, she realized, though he had grown significantly since she had last crossed paths with him.

"Oh, I know you," she exclaimed, waving the man she had been talking with to the side so that she could fix them both properly in her field of view. "You're Eamon's baby brother, aren't you? I hardly recognized you."

The phrase baby brother was chosen purposefully; a push back for his having been eavesdropping, or for laughing.

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The following 1 user Likes Drusilla Pettigrew's post:1 user Likes Drusilla Pettigrew's post
   Emmett Harper

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ty MJ <3

Ahh, Emmett hadn't meant to draw her attention. There was something about the way she said his brother's name however, that made everything click together in his head. Now her comments made more sense. Drusilla Rowle, now Pettigrew. Emmett secretly thought, though it had been hard for his brother, that they escaped something there. His interactions with her had never been much of substance, but just the way she carried herself sometimes had him wondering what it was Eamon saw in her.

He hardly flinched at the baby brother part, as he was not the youngest and his brother was barely a year older. "Yes, well, wrong brother, I suppose." Thank Merlin for that. "You can be forgiven." Emmett wasn't usually quite so cold, but she had shattered his brother's heart all those years ago after all.

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Well, that was far more venom than was warranted. He ought to be careful. At least one person was listening — the gentleman she'd been talking to when he was eavesdropping — and if he kept on that way he might draw more attention to himself. She doubted very much that he wanted anyone asking why he'd decided to pick a fight with a young woman, and if push came to shove she suspected her future invitations to this box were far more secure than his were. He may have had a professional connection (she guessed; why else would he be here?) but she was family. If he'd been meaning to jab and retreat he'd picked the wrong target; she wasn't the sort to back down.

"Oh, may I," she oozed. "How utterly magnanimous of you. I hadn't realized it was your box." She also didn't know why he was picking fights at all — she'd have to ask Eamon about it, later. Whatever had she done to make him cranky? Maybe he needs a nap, she thought gleefully to herself, enjoying the continued play on the baby brother comment.

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ty MJ <3