July 7th, 1895 — Mason Skeeter's Celebration of Life, Hogsmeade Hall

Chastity wondered if a person could ever get used to attending funerals. She'd been to her fair share, certainly, and it was always a depressing affair. She hadn't know Mr. Skeeter very well--she'd only had a year with him as her professor at Hogwarts, and he'd kindly helped her get the school garden up and running. And she'd only seen and spoken to him such a short while ago when she ran into him in Hogsmeade.

She had been making conversation with a few other people and feeling a little out of place. As she made her rounds, mostly gravitating towards people she knew, Chastity eventually ended up in the orbit of one of the family--a cousin, she thought. Chastity didn't know the man, but she'd been here long enough to make out who was who in that regard. "I'm so sorry for your loss," she said as she came upon the man.

---

Barnabas Skeeter

  

Barney is currently sporting a black eye and a split lip.

"Thank you," Barnabas said for what felt like the hundredth time–and very well could have been–he'd had no idea that his cousin had been so loved by the community. Mason had been alright enough, but between his students and friends coming out of the woodwork, there were more people here than he'd expected. Which didn't bode well for his lie-low and get in and out idea, but that had gone down the drain the day before anyhow.

The person who said it this time–woman, rather–was tiny. It reminded him of someone else he used to know (and the reason he now had a mark he hadn't been able to magically cover up on his face.) It may have been this, or simply the fact that she was lovely and also smaller than him, that he asked politely, "Did you know my cousin well?"

  

---

Barnabas walks with a cane • Set by the lovely Lady • plot with me

"Not well, I'm afraid," Chastity said. "I only had one year with him as a professor, though he helped me start a garden at the village school in Irvingly last summer." It was such a small blip in a person's life, all things considered. The whole thing was a terrible tragedy.

---

  

Barnabas nodded, "I'm not surprised to hear it. He was generous with his free time." Not that Barnabas knew much about his cousin. They hadn't been close at any point of their lives. Their personalities just didn't mesh well and neither had made the effort to get to know the other. But he did know that Mason was painfully, woefully single just like he was which meant that he had plenty of free time.

Though they were at his funeral, he didn't actually want to discuss Mason. Not when there was a prime opportunity to get to know an attractive (and seemingly) single woman. Surely she would be accompanied by her husband, if she'd had one. "Do you have a soft spot for Irvingly, Miss...?" He paused and waited for her to fill in her name. He couldn't imagine why she'd want the school there to have a garden, of all things.

  

---

Barnabas walks with a cane • Set by the lovely Lady • plot with me

"Bentley," Chastity said. "And you could say that," she said, a little wryly. "I am one of the teachers at the school there and have lived there for a few years now."

---

  

Miss Bentley. The family name wasn't familiar to him. Though Hogsmeade was a bustling village, it was really quite small when it came to family ties. It was rather boring to play games like six degrees of separation—especially so when the pureblood legacy families were factored in, such as the Lestranges and Malfoys. The fact that she taught at the Irvingly school had him suspecting that she was either from a small, unknown wizarding family who were muggle-friendly, or she came from a muggle family herself. Not that he was bothered either way. There were more important things to consider when it came to marrying a woman—such as her reputation, agreeability, and height (or rather, lack thereof.)

"Ah," He said as if he found her occupation admirable. He did not. Barnabas despised children and was bewildered someone would voluntarily spend the majority of their time with an entire herd of them. "It seems you take it quite seriously."

  

---

Barnabas walks with a cane • Set by the lovely Lady • plot with me

"Ah, well," Chastity inclined her head. "If I'm going to do a job, I'd rather do that job well, no matter what it is, I suppose." She hadn't become a teacher because she had a great passion for the subjects she taught, after all, or for caring for children in particular. She'd fallen into it because of circumstance and made the most of it.

---

  

Barnabas raised a blonde brow, impressed at her response. It wasn't often he came upon a woman who had the same sentiments toward work as he. Perhaps it meant she wasn't necessarily attached to being a schoolteacher (or the child aspect of it); it was simply a means to an end. "Well said," He found himself smiling—forgetting for a moment that they were presently at his own cousin's funeral. "You have an admirable work ethic, Miss Bentley." A compliment that he had never, not once, given anyone.

  

---

Barnabas walks with a cane • Set by the lovely Lady • plot with me