toast to the setting sun [kendrick]

Even if Edith Holthouse had cancelled her plans to have a Ministry career, she could never cancel her plans to consume free alcohol. At the beginning of the previous week, she and Kendrick Silverman had been assigned to work another case together. It didn’t matter now what the case was as Edith had quit before finishing her paperwork -- the important part was that she had won their bet and Kendrick had owed her a pint or three. Actually, the actual important part was that Kendrick hadn’t cancelled on her even after she had quit, not citing some sort of unspoken rule about not having to follow through on the pay up if the winner was no longer employed by the DMA&C.

Of course, that could be because Edith hadn’t mentioned it to him yet. It hadn’t yet been a week, and it wasn’t like they had seen each other every day in the first place, only every so often placed together in the field. Plus, they were friends enough that her job or lack thereof shouldn’t really matter, right? She had thought of plenty of excuses for not telling people, her favorite one being that it was really nobody’s business but her own. That, and she had too many personal and emotional reasons she had for quitting and explaining them all (mostly) to Elias had been enough.

Drinking and pretending like nothing had changed was far easier. Despite no having anything else to do that day, Edith had arrived at the Leaky Cauldron only an hour before Kendrick, giving her a headstart of one pint. She was now an additional two pints in, and they had yet to even tiptoe toward the subject of her quitting. It was enough to encourage her toward a fourth pint, insisting that the next round was on her. They had caught up on their holidays and new office gossip (even after not being there for a week, Edith still had plenty stockpiled).

“Going away soon?” She nodded toward the barkeeper as he placed her new pint in front of her. Leaning on the bar with her elbow, she glanced sideways at Kendrick. “Not that I care about the fun you’re having, just the dog.” The (former) obliviator grinned, nodding as she started in on her drink.

"She what?" were the instantaneous, dumbfounded words out of Kendrick's mouth when the news had flown around the office the morning after that Edith had quit. The man had immediately stood up and walked to her desk, staring at surface now bare of her personal effects, lingering paperwork like an unwanted ghost hanging on the fringes. Callum had sympathetically passed him a biscuit from the break room as he turned back to his own desk, sitting down with a heavy sigh. Kendrick had other work friends, but not that many of them appreciated his terrible sense of humor, probably because half of them took after Liz. The field teams of Obliviators and AMR squadmembers tended to skew young due to the shift-based schedules, but there were still enough middle-aged folk for many of them to still be boring. And Edith and he had been becoming regular friends, too, through their "recovery excursions." He was going to miss her.

The worst part had been how sudden it was. Just two days before they'd been complaining about a heavy paperwork week, and they'd set up yet another drink-based bet after their last case, which the younger witch had won. He had to wonder whether it had been as sudden a decision as it had seemed. An accusatory question was threatening to burst from his lips as he arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, but Kendrick had learned in their previous outings that Edith was much more likely to talk if she had a few beers in her. Strategically, he exercised some self-control. Kendrick was going to act like nothing had happened until found an opportunity to
pounce upon the real subject.

He cocked his head, trying to remember if they had anything planned for the month of February. "Maybe Valentine's Day, but you don't want to be stuck alone with Bo and his excited throwup on Valentine's," he laughed. He didn't exactly know details about Edith's love life, but she was at the right age to have a nice night out with someone, he thought. Nodding at the drink that had arrived and referencing her insistence at buying this round, he added, "You know, you did win this bet, remember." He was suddenly struck by the idea that it had been their last bet ever. Taking a sip of his own, Kendrick looked at her slyly. "Decided to quit while you were ahead, did you?"

"Well, the offer still stands," Edith insisted with a shrug, reminding herself yet again to find out how Elias felt about dogs. Maybe it was better just not to ask at this point. It wasn't like they had any outstanding plans for Valentine's Day. That seemed like the sort of holiday that would make them both uncomfortable and with any luck, they would both let it pass by them without paying it any mind.  Plus, she had used her good idea for a gift for Christmas so she would really prefer the break -- but she was getting ahead of herself.

She took another gulp of beer before nodding, adding a slight shrug. "It's one beer, don't read too far into it." Edith laughed as she set her glass on the bar in front of her, reaching up to get a nice stretch in. She stopped mid-stretch: "I did what?" But she had heard him perfectly. Relaxing, Edith turned to look at her now former-colleague, her expression a confused mix between a half smile, shock, and guilt. Her cheeks were flushed, either from the alcohol or from being called out, she wasn't sure. "I--" she started, shrugging to fill the silence. "I, yeah, I mean."

Of course he knew. She was dumb to think she wouldn't be talked about after leaving so suddenly. The people in the office were still talking about Roberto, and he had retired two years ago. "I had to go out on a high note didn't I?" She laughed nervously and caught his eye for just a second before averting her gaze, focusing on her beer instead. She took a sizable swallow, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand and blowing air through pursed lips.

"I didn't exactly plan to quit, y'know?" She hoped he knew, hoped she wouldn't have to explain it again. The boss, human resources, the boyfriend. She wasn't sure which explanation of her decision had been the worst. She drained her glass to the halfway mark, preparing herself to disappoint yet another person.

"I'll let her know," Kendrick said gravely, although he had no intention of actually accepting the offer. Then again, what if Edith didn't have anyone to see? Maybe the company of a puppy would be just the kind of Valentine's Day she wanted. Merlin knew how some of his friends had complained about how terrible it was to see couples everywhere when they were alone. Mostly his female friends, of course. It wasn't the sort of thing guys said to one another.

Watching her reaction as Edith cottoned on to his meaning, Kendrick congratulated himself for a moment for doing it so smoothly, but she looked pretty awkward about it, and he started to feel bad. He both thought he deserved a little explanation--after all, had she just been planning not to tell him at all?--and didn't want to upset her. It felt a little like trying to pry out details of how school was going from Briony those years after he had graduated, with her reluctance to talk about things like the basilisk loose her seventh year.

Kendrick frowned a little as she caught his glance and then dropped it again. "Hey, I didn't mean to make you feel bad," he said, using a casual tone that (he hoped) would be reassuring in its lack of accusation. "I was just surprised to hear, I guess." He swished a mouthful of beer around before regretting his decision, noting that the taste had not improved since two minutes prior, and swallowing. "I mean, I didn't think you did either, or maybe I wouldn't have had a last bet to lose," he laughed. Solemnly, he added, "I'll miss winning them, you know," using humor to cut the saccharine part of the sentiment. "Was it a work thing or a you thing?" he asked simply. Kendrick had never actually quit a job. He'd thought about it a few times back when he was an Obliviator, but mostly out of boredom. He didn't think the expression on her face was whimsical enough for that to be the driver.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Edith reassured him with a laugh, “I already feel terrible.” She shrugged and finished off her beer, setting it down on the bar loud enough to wordlessly order a refill. Of course she felt bad; she had quit her job without any forethought or having any sort of plan in place about what she would do next. Nothing Kendrick could say could possibly make her feel worse about it, so it was no matter, really. She was pleased to hear humor come back into play, appreciating that they had the unspoken understanding to keep their serious conversations to a minimum. It was for the best, because at five beers deep she would have seriously considered replying with truth.

She rolled her eyes, at Kendrick’s comment about all his wins rather than the new pint of beer being set down in front of her. “I had to let you win every once in a while,” she retorted with a nod. “Wouldn’t be very good for your self esteem otherwise, y’know?” She nodded again, so graciously admitting that she would have won every bet if she had put some effort into it.

But apparently, Kendrick had forgotten about their unspoken understanding to not be serious. She only hesitated for a second at his question, before replying with a simple “Yeah.” She looked away, suddenly intent on reading the label on each and every bottle of liquor behind the bar. “Something like that,” she continued, the alcohol convincing herself to say anything at all. She replayed the afternoon she had quit in her mind, one more time, both to gather reasons for Kendrick and to reassure herself that she had made the right decision.

“I just --” she started and paused, glancing sideways at her mate before dropping her gaze back to her glass and taking another swallow of beer. She turned on her stool to look at Kendrick properly before she finished her thought: “We shouldn’t be doing that. Obliviating, I mean.” She should have dropped her voice lower than its conversational volume, but as she was no longer employed with the Ministry, she didn’t mind if she was overheard. “It’s too much, y’know?” Again, she hoped he knew, though at this point she would have no trouble explaining herself. “I guess I could have transferred, but --” she shrugged, finishing with a silent I’d just find something else I didn’t agree with. She needed to completely remove herself from the Ministry, not just switch departments.

Kendrick (and other important-to-her people) were still employed by the Ministry, after all, and she wasn’t quite yet to the point of trying to make other people rethink their life decisions, too. “Just easier this way, I guess.”

"Guess I'm off the hook then," he chuckled. "And keep telling yourself that. Let's not forget which of us is the experienced one here," he grinned. Kendrick had spent about two years as an Obliviator, which wasn't far off Edith's experience. The truth was that he wasn't nearly as good at it as Edith had been--he hadn't felt nearly as free to let loose with the job, nor did he think he had a particularly deft hand with the memory stuff. Jo was the one who knew mind magic; Kendrick was more of a blunt knife, figuring that the mind's natural resilience would do most of the job that he couldn't.

Kendrick tilted his head as Edith suddenly became very focused on the liquor in front of them, realizing that this was bigger than just having gotten bored or frustrated at work. People did that all the time at the Ministry, especially in more entry-level positions. He never thought too much of it--after all, he'd thought about it before himself. Who hadn't? But the undercurrent of struggle in her was clear to him, something bobbing at the surface for him to fish out and read. Kendrick was in the Order of the Phoenix, after all. So many of those he knew had wrestled deeply with their courses of action, twisting in the confines of law and family and safety and honor.

Her reason made him sit back thoughtfully. He was a little taken aback, perhaps because he had grown up immersed in a culture so shaped by the Statute of Secrecy. Muggleborns had always had to struggle more with the idea of secrets, their families taken into the small sphere of Muggles who were assumed safe due to their bonds of loyalty to their wizarding children or siblings or, if all else failed, their own reputation for sanity. Obliviation was one of those 'greater good' things you didn't think too much of, and what was the real harm done, really, if someone thought they had seen a cat instead of a kneazle, a dog instead of a crup, an aeroplane instead of a Welsh Green? But there was a world in which Albus Dumbledore had once believed that Muggles should be dominated for the same greater good, and while Kendrick thought the Dumbledore he had known had done the best he had known how to, it was an idea that made him pause.

He nodded slowly, glancing around at the other patrons of the Cauldron briefly before an internal shrug. Kendrick had never been particularly good at hiding his opinion unless it seemed really important, and he didn't think anyone was going to order his firing for being willing to discuss an ethical question. His lips flattened, his expression acknowledging her point. "What should we do, though?" He didn't know if Edith had a good answer to the question--he certainly didn't. Muggles knowing about wizards would be worse. Wizards isolating themselves even more than they did...Kendrick had always thought the vast majority of Statute breakers were complete idiots, but were they supposed to lock up everyone above the age of 100? What about the children? Kendrick imagined his future children playing in their yard and then imagined erecting a vast wall around them. To keep others out or fence them in?

"I don't blame you, though," he said quietly. "I think things have been getting better--" she would understand, the Ministry was changing under the influence of less corruption and more leadership, no one could deny it was moving in a direction, albeit slowly, "but maybe that's not something you can hope for from inside." It was easy to feel less complicit if you were working for change--or if you were in a renegade organization--but maybe that was just rationalizing.

Edith drained her glass as Kendrick did nothing more than nod and stare, not offering a word either for or against her. But this time, she was happy with the silence. At least he wasn’t immediately telling her what a horrible decision she had made, how she must think it’s a good idea now but would only come to regret it later, what must her parents think? She had gone over every possible reaction from every possible person she was going to have to tell about quitting, and she was certainly appreciating this silent treatment.

She set her glass down with a dull thud, catching the bartender’s eye before giving her attention back to her friend and now former colleague. “What do we do?” Edith repeated his question back to him, hoping to buy herself a bit more time before having to formulate an answer. He wasn’t the first person to wonder that aloud, nor did she think he would be the last. “We--” she started, pausing to swallow. “I--.” She had thought about it. Maybe they could obliviate the wizards as well, but that was only playing into the ‘separate but equal’ world that she didn’t want to be a part of.

She knew the spiel: The International Statute of Secrecy was for their own good. There seemed to be only two choices for them: remain in hiding or all out war. There was no in between, apparently, even though the last time they had attempted it had been over three hundred years ago. Muggles had more conveniences now -- some even better than wizards did it (hello electricity and television and the internet) -- so maybe things wouldn’t be like they used to be, with muggles ‘demanding’ things from their magical counterparts.

But Edith was also a realist. She knew that her leaving the Ministry would have little to no effect on anything. Her position had probably even been filled already with another young and eager witch, one who would have no qualms about accidentally modifying a memory that had nothing to do with a magical incident.

“I don’t know,” she said finally, though she had only been silent for a couple seconds. “I don’t know,” she repeated with a bit more force and bitterness to her voice. She hated that she didn’t know. She just knew that she didn’t want to be a part of it.

His next few words lifted her spirits, albeit just the tiniest bit. “Thanks,” she muttered, her eyes back on the bottles of liquor behind the bar, both elbows propped up with her chin resting in one hand. “It’s hard to hope for it from the outside, too.” She swallowed, stopping herself from getting too close to ‘feelings’ territory. She knew from experience that it was difficult to explain what it was like to live in both the muggle and the wizarding worlds, besides the more obvious things like wearing jeans to the Leaky Cauldron, which she was doing in that very moment.

“I expect you to not have any more fun at work now,” she offered, hoping to lighten the mood if she could.

Kendrick let the silence hang between them for a little after Edith uttered her second 'I don't know,' his gaze unfocused somewhere between the bar under his elbow and the liquor in the back. She was at least somewhat angry, and Kendrick wanted to give that anger the space it needed. Her reaction was sobering; the thirty-year-old was trying to square the Edith who laughingly made Muggle teens remember frolicking with corgis with the one who couldn't live with touching their minds. He took a drink instead. It still tasted terrible, but there was something connective about it, like he was drinking in thousands of years of humans trying to make things a little easier.

"Do you think we could ever--" he said, stopping abruptly. "I mean, if wizards can't even treat each other equally," he tried again. Kendrick lowered his eyes, a little embarrassed in the presence of someone who had been through as much as Edith had in the name of their inability to treat each other as one, no matter what he'd done to try and help. "Would it ever be safe? Not even just for us." Voldemort hadn't hesitated to kill Muggles, but who knew how many more wizards would feel justified in joining him in that if they felt threatened? There could be hundreds of people, carrying a whole arsenal in a stick of wood.

Kendrick laughed a little, a little dryly but also a little honestly. Fundamentally, Kendrick was an optimist. There was no way he would have made it through the war without losing his mind if he wasn't. "It's okay, whenever you feel like wizards will definitely never change just remember what I told you at Christmas about us shitting on the floor not three hundred years ago." On second thought, that might not be so reassuring, considering how long it had taken them to embrace the change. Cars had turned into a secret obsession much more quickly, though. "That might be a little too slow for comfort, but..." he shrugged. "Things are changing. I still prefer pants, despite that dreaded work uniform you don't have to suffer anymore. And there are less and less purebloods all the time." Kendrick himself was, in an amusing way, himself responsible for stemming one of those lines. Jo's children would definitely not be purebloods--much to the disgust of at least one of her great-aunts on the Molony side.

He pretended to be seriously confused. "You mean you thought I had fun with you around? More like had to temper all my worst ideas to avoid collateral damage to someone I actually liked. Now Percy can suffer my sowing discord all the time," he joked. "What about you? Your next gig going to have as much creative potential?"

She let her gaze drift back over to Kendrick as he started to ask another question, her hands still wrapped around her empty glass. Frowning, she filled in the blanks even as he stopped his words. If wizards can’t even treat each other equally then how could muggles ever be included? At least he wasn’t going the anti-muggle route that seemed too common, even if it was as simple as not sharing magic if not straight out destroying them all with it. There was no good option, apparently.

Edith shrugged. “No. Of course it’ll never be safe.” But she was tired of being a part of it, she supposed. “Basically, we’re all fucked.” Her refill was perfectly timed, and she offered a grateful smile to the bartender before taking a long draw from her glass. She had no other solution to propose -- it was out of her hands -- and she didn’t want to go into any more details. She trusted Kendrick to make the right assumptions.

She turned to rest her head in her hand, her elbow propped up on the bar, a small smile working its way back onto her lips. “That’s very comforting,” she reassured him, recalling his ‘fun fact’ about wizards and their lack of plumbing. “Y’know, you can wear pants under your robes.” She nodded again, keeping her mind well out of the gutter.

His next sentence caught her off guard and she laughed, feeling her cheeks warm. “All the time.” She was apparently an active part in thinning down those bloodlines, but it didn’t seem like this was another one of his not-so-subtle hints at secret knowledge he had about her. She shrugged again. “I know you only had fun while I was there.” She looked just as serious as he did. She did appreciate the humor, however. She wasn’t quite back to joking with Elias yet, and she hadn’t even thought about how to tell Darla about all of this so she had just been avoiding her. So, this was nice.

“Then I fully expect you to make Percy beg me to come back, if only to keep you in your place,” she concluded with another nod, knowing full well that conversation would never happen. “For my next trick Iiii--” Edith drew out the syllable and shrugged. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.” She laughed, though it was finally starting to sink in that maybe she could have thought through all of this a little bit more. “I’ve applied to a couple places, but I sort of focused on getting that Ministry job while in school, and I don’t have any muggle education so my options are a smidge limited.”

She shrugged again, shifting in her seat. “I’ll figure something out. I’ve made it longer without a job.” She drained half her pint rather than elaborate on her meaning, that she hadn’t been allowed to start her job on the agreed upon date because they had suddenly decided she was stealing her magic. “Dog sitting is looking a lot more appealing.”

Kendrick barked a laugh. "Well, we knew that already," he said with a little smirk. It was the kind of thing that people his age said all the time, at least when it didn't seem to hit too close to home. It might for Edith right now, but for Kendrick few things hit too close to home that didn't involve an immediate chance of death for innocent people. He had an urge to hug her; like her friend Darla - though less, given their work connection - she sometimes seemed like another little sister, but she didn't seem to want to dwell on the emotional stuff right now.

Ken choked on his drink. "Yes, I do prefer not freezing my ass off in the winter," he joked, intentionally leaving out any mention of the summer. "But it's hardly defying tradition if no one can see it, hmm?" Kendrick did, in fact, usually wear basketball shorts under his robes in the summer--anything else was not particularly comfortable--but he was still wearing robes.

He chuckled. "Actually, y'know, I heard we're hiring a new guy with a real reputation for troublemaking. Maybe I'll make him my protege. Percy'll never know what hit him." Their thirty days of pranks had been terribly entertaining. Sometimes he felt a little bit bad. Percy was a good boss even if he was incredibly uptight; but he also thought that he probably understood that the antics Kendrick got up to were usually good for general morale. Kendrick himself would feel badly if he was actually a negative influence on his coworkers. The AMRS was mostly a job for younger people who could pull shift work and didn't mind field work and being sent out to deal with ridiculous situations, and tended to be skewed young in age. Even thirty-year-old Kendrick was a little looked up to, even though he wasn't at the top of the totem pole just yet, nor particularly aspired to be. The more power one accumulated the more work there was, and Jo's position as Lead Auror was already a lot of work for a couple with a puppy and thinking about children.

Kendrick groaned. "Well, none of us have any Muggle education either, I mean, have you seen how slowly people count change around here?" It was true the Kendrick had only gotten an A in his Muggle Studies NEWT but that was mostly because he had other things to study for. He'd been through places like the Underground before, though, where the Muggles had machines do it, and been duly impressed. "On the plus side, sometimes we're pretty slow about bills too. If it gets tight just blame it on their owls getting lost," he winked. One thing a Ministry job taught you very early on was that bureaucracy was a bit of a disaster.

Ken didn't miss her meaning. He wasn't that oblivious; even if it hadn't meant anything to him then, he'd seen her name on an internal memo about the offers they'd sent out, and if he hadn't remembered it when she hadn't showed up that fall, he did remember it when she showed up the next. He looked down at the bar, eyes tracing a weird knot in the wood but mind not there. He wondered suddenly if magic had failed Edith. In all the air of secrecy there was a kind of intimated superiority; that they, wizards, were the ones who were able to see things as they truly were, and Muggles, who could not see dementors or ghosts, were the ones living in a half world. But who would Edith have been if she hadn't come to Hogwarts? He didn't know what her passions would have been, but one thing was by default true: she would not have seen nearly as many people die. There were several years of students where nearly all of them could see thestrals now.

"We should be doing better," he said simply, to summarize all that. Pity was not a good look on a friend, nor was it what he really felt. "Well, as a good, upstanding member of society who is completely free of bias and corruption and whose social circles are positively ancient compared to yours..." he was getting called old all the time by his younger colleagues now, after passing thirty, "...do let me know if you would like to take advantage of that wonderful social skill they call networking," he grinned. "Or, you know, if you'd like me to manufacture excuses to be out of town. On second thought, Bo does need to meet other people or he'll think we're the only humans in the world. Seems like a misconception we ought to correct, right?"

He had a point, but was still sort of missing her point. She wasn’t competing with other witches and wizards for muggle jobs -- if that was the case, she felt like she would be getting nothing but offers -- but going up against muggles with muggle education. That brought her options down to shopwork, which honestly wasn’t sounding too terrible, if she didn’t think about the ‘interaction with people’ bit. But that wasn’t his point. “Yeah, you’d think they’d have tried to make it a bit easier, like ten knuts to a sickle, and such, but--” she shrugged, suppressing a grin.

We should be doing better. He wasn’t stupid; he had made the connection between her long stints of unemployment and the reasons behind it, apparently. “We should,” Edith agreed without looking up from her pint. This certainly wasn’t the time to get into all the things that could be done better -- the Leaky Cauldron would need to close before Edith had exhausted all her opinions -- but that one statement seemed to be as far into it that he was going to get.

Edith looked up then, offering a knowing smile as he implied just how incredibly old he was. “I’m not that desperate,” she laughed and shrugged one shoulder. “Not quite yet. It’s only been a week.” She wasn’t giving up hope that quickly; she hadn’t even heard resounding ‘no’s from the few places she had applied -- all muggle shops so far -- and there was the small part of her that hated to already be asking favors from the colleagues she had left behind.

“I was very serious about the dog thing, mind. Poor Bo doesn’t know what he’s missing out on, spending all his time with you.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder as if she were the perfect example of ‘other people’. “And speaking of,” Edith tilted her left wrist towards her as she checked her watch. “Bo’s probably wondering where you are.” That, and Elias would be getting home soon and despite how weirdly cautious he was being around her the past week, she was eager to see him.

She drained her glass and set the empty back on the bar, turning to face Kendrick. “We’ll do this again,” she said, more for her own benefit than his. She didn’t think that these work-related bets were the only things holding them together, but she still wanted some sort of reassurance that she hadn’t lost him as a result of her job change. The fact that he showed up tonight should have told her something to that effect, but she was about three beers past sound logic.

"Come on, don't you like prime numbers? Actually I had a theory when I was about fourteen that it was a conspiracy by the goblins to ensure they'd always have a venerated place here." He grinned. Kendrick was aware that there were some darker implications there; they weren't exactly good to other beings all the time--didn't that sound familiar today?--but maybe the idea of himself as a teenage conspiracy theorist would make Edith laugh.

He shrugged. "Door's always open. I'm told it feels less gross and more like using your resources against a rather biased system the older you get." Kendrick had never really had to use it--like many in the Ministry, he'd only moved internally, and then only once--but he knew people who had. "The longest week of my working life," he insisted, gesturing dramatically with his beer. "Feels like you've been unemployed for years, really," he teased. He hoped she wasn't too anxious about it yet. He didn't think she'd really end up homeless or anything of the sort.

"Aw, am I not a good example of a normal human being?" Kendrick pouted. Glancing at his watch as she did, he blinked twice and nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right. I let him out before we came but if Jo got held up at work things could get bad." Looking at his glass, he shook his head. It was still too full for him to drain it, so he just pushed it over next to hers and gave Edith a serious, real smile. "Yeah, we will. And you can come visit Bo whenever you want, for free even," he winked.

"Hey," he added, "Thanks for trying to explain. Talking about stuff like this..." he shrugged. "Not popular, but it's important. For what it's worth." He slid off the barstool and grabbed his jacket, tossing it over his shoulder. Reaching for a pocket, he fished out some Galleons. "You know, there's the other thing, I tip way better when I'm too lazy to subdivide my Galleons..." he commented, covering all the drinks they'd ordered and leaving a generous tip for Tom. "Paper money like the Muggles though, that's the dream," he said, hefting his noticeably lighter wallet.

"Shall we head out then?" Kendrick asked, pushing open the door and turning right. Edith didn't live too far from here, and he usually walked back with her. It wasn't as though she couldn't protect herself, she was more than capable, but it still felt like a good thing to do.

Edith snorted into her beer at his little conspiracy theory; not like she could very well blame the goblins or anything, considering they’d had it even worse than she had for most of the time, but she couldn’t help but smile at him. Normally it was Edith trying to lighten the mood, not the one bringing everyone down, and she appreciated him taking on the job when she forgot her place. “They might benefit from teaching us some basic maths then if they’re going to be so stubborn with their conversion rates.” Edith rolled her eyes as she took another sip.

“Right, well I’ll let you know when I’m so old that it doesn’t feel gross. Ten, twenty years?” She couldn’t see herself ever working for the Ministry again, but she wasn’t about to get into the details of how she had technically broken contract to quit without notice, even if she had been able to do it without penalty. She couldn’t foresee anyone wanting to hire her, really. “Yeah, do you know how boring not working anywhere else but at work is?” She sighed, not pretending like she had been an overachiever at work in the first place. She had done the minimum, almost always.

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, smirking a little at the thought of Kendrick not being a good example of a normal human being. “Infer what you will, mate.” Her eyes dropped to his glass as he pushed it towards her, and she returned his smile when she looked back up -- only half of the smile was because of the free beer. She took a large sip, nearly snorting again as he talked about Bo. “For free? Wow, you’re so kind.” She laughed before finishing off his beer; it was moments like these that reassured her not to make fun of anyone for being a lightweight because it only meant more for her.

Edith didn’t say anything, watching him slip off his stool and replaying his words back to her instead. Not popular, but it’s important. Sure, but it was a rare person who wanted to listen to her -- not that she often tried to do this sort of talking, rather than forcing her opinions on people without any regard for tact. “Yeah.” She returned his shrug, shaking her head as she stood, the rush of alcohol to her brain a very welcome feeling. “Well we are due for a big change in the world, maybe it’ll be paper money; who knows?” She laughed as she pulled on her jacket, offering Tom a smile before following Kendrick out the door.

“Er.” He had turned right, and she had stopped and spoken up before she could stop herself. She could have just let him walk her home, like he usually did, and then apparated to her current home -- yes, that would have been the smart idea -- but the too-many-to-remember beers were clouding her judgement. “I moved, actually.” She swallowed hard and pointed a thumb over her shoulder, in the opposite direction. “Closer now, though, so way less work for you and your chivalry.” She grinned, stopping herself short of offering him any more information. Edith stuffed her hands in her pockets, warming up quickly, and turned on her foot to walk the other way, to Elias’s apartment.

“Dunno why I didn’t tell you,” she lied. “Could’ve sworn I did.”

"I mean..." Kendrick pretended to look thoughtful. "You know I couldn't really ever see Albus putting maths on the curriculum, but maybe Professor McGonagall might be open to it. You should owl her, appeal to that practicality of hers." Kendrick had never gotten over calling her Professor McGonagall even as he'd changed his names for everyone else. Maybe it was the memory of her face when he lost points for Gryffindor for some stupid (but, to this day, highly amusing) stunt, or when she turned over his Transfiguration essays in fourth year with a dry "You can do better, Silverman."

Kendrick chuckled. "You know I can't not admire that Gryffindor tenacity. Just remember you might be doing them a favor. Poor struggling thirty-year-olds trying to get their little businesses off the ground and all," he laughed. "You have no idea. There's been a whole string of cases lately, a bunch of underage kids got their hands on some kind of toy at Zonko's and they keep sending Obliviators out to make sure the neighbor kids don't get too suspicious. Same thing over and over."

"What can I say, I'm a generous guy," he laughed. He'd gotten a little hammered the other night with Charlie for the sake of the bet and he had no desire to repeat the experience for another few months. "Anyway, maybe if we only get a big change once in a while paper money shouldn't be that high on the priority list," he admitted.

Already three long strides in the wrong direction, Kendrick twirled around like a bit of an idiot, surprised and walking back to where she was standing. "Oh!" He squinted a little. "When? Wait, why? You've been living there forever. Like, I'm pretty sure as long as I've known you." He remembered that Edith had even talked about how hard it was to find a new roommate; it didn't sound like she could afford a big move or anything. Catching up to her, he looked around, curious to see this new place. Part of him was wondering if there was someone involved, but the nosy part of Kendrick didn't want Edith to bolt too soon.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” Edith rolled her eyes, but it was mostly good-naturedly. She wasn’t exactly in constant contact with the current headmistress, and it wasn’t like she really had any sort of Ministry leverage anymore, but Edith had been liked enough, she supposed. Eh, maybe later. She was embracing her unemployment, not doing anything more than necessary -- it was basically just like being employed.

She shrugged off any continued talk of her trying to get a job. It was necessary, sure, but she certainly wasn’t in the mood to really network or schmooze or put herself out there at all, really. Edith returned the laugh, though the idea that she would have been one of those obliviators being sent out over and over again to erase memories from neighbor kids was more than off-putting. She didn’t want to lose the one colleague and friend she felt was actually on her side -- or at least not totally against her in all of this -- by starting an argument now. She could save that for later.

Edith laughed again as Kendrick turned around, surprised that he had remained upright throughout his one-eighty. “A couple weeks ago,” she shrugged, turning and walking in the correct direction without waiting for him to catch up. “Claudine moved in with son, wanted to be closer to the grandkids or something.” She shrugged again, offering a half smile once Kendrick was next to her. “And it turns out the landlord wasn’t charging us full rent because he was in looove with her,” she laughed again and freed her hands from her pockets to wiggle her fingers in the air for a bit of comedic effect. “And he did not have those same feelings about me and I couldn’t afford the full rent, so…” She trailed off with another shrug.

This was the part in the story where she stopped explaining; she and Elias had agreed -- without really speaking about it -- that they wouldn’t be a couple at work. Even while getting drinks after work hadn’t been too hard to manage like they were friends; Edith still wasn’t a very touchy person, and he knew well enough by now how many drinks it took her to change her mind on that, and he could usually escort her home like the proper gentleman he was before anything got too obvious. At least, if anyone at work had noticed, they had been too nice to say anything; knowing the people she worked with, she didn’t think that was really the case.

But she didn’t work with Kendrick anymore, did she? “Y’know where Elias lives?” Everyone knew where everyone lived; real estate was one of those very boring ‘adult’ topics her coworkers liked to talk about. “It’s over there.” She nodded, continuing to look forward. “Same building.” Doing everything to not smile. “Same flat.” Ugh she could feel her cheeks getting warmer; thank god for the January chill and the general lack of sunlight to make it a little less noticeable. “Could’ve sworn I told you,” she lied again, glancing over with another shrug.