Johann propped his head upon his hand and his elbows upon the edge of the sticky table top. His dark blue eyes stared out of the window, and all in all he appeared somewhat glum. He was off food again, back on the sleeping potions and there were dark shadows reappearing beneath his eyes. Not quite the presentation of a man, newly engaged, happily planning a wedding.

Hamilton was making his life a misery, and this week Johann was far more inclined to crawl under his own desk than take a leaf out of Azize's book and give the man antlers in retaliation. Gabrielle had intervened, given the man an ear-bashing instead. Even so, Johann wasn't sure he was liking 2010 all that much, but today was a possibility of salvation.

It had been a while since he'd chatted with Aisling Knight from Catastrophes, which was a great shame. That Department told many good stories, and Aisling had the job of coming up with plausible and somewhat imaginative answers for Muggles who had come close to a magical accident, which made it even more interesting.

Her offer to meet, Johann anticipated might have something to do with the announcement in the paper, but it bothered him less from Aisling. She'd agreed to meet outside the Ministry, so he could slide away and hide for an hour. He'd chosen the cafe he'd once met Francis Pepper in, quite by accident, just round the corner from the visitor's entrance.

Spotting Aisling through the glass, Johann blinked and switched his expression, adopting his boyish grin and smiling, tossing aside a discarded copy of The Sun, a grotty tabloid newspaper, which someone had left behind, and he'd not been captivated by. He got to his feet respectfully to greet her.

"Hello, you managed to escape?" He asked, somewhat rhetorically. "Let me get the drinks," He continued, lowering his voice as he squeezed past her in the cramped space, "I changed some money."

Then realising that other people ate, on seeing a cafe full of Muggles with coffees and various sandwiches and snacks, he added,
"Er, were you going to eat something?" standing awkwardly before the counter.

Aisling had rather been intending to catch Johann Storm for lunch for some time now. Of course, with Christmas, most such plans had wound up delayed, and were it not for that disaster of a Prophet article[1], she would probably have delayed it a little longer.

But winding up that visible in the Prophet, regardless of the article's truth, was the sort of matter that tended to result in stress and angry letters from people who you had never before encountered.

Johann did seem cheery, and not too ill at ease. At least until he spoke, which quite shattered the impression. "Eating is rather a common consequence of meeting at places which serve food over lunch, is it not?" Her smile seemed completely nonplussed by his awkwardness, and she slipped over towards the counter. "It's most kind of you to manage the drinks. Let me take care of the food, then." She pulled her purse up and snapped it open. With her work, she usually had a bit of Muggle money on hand-especially when she was headed into Muggle areas.

1.	Disgraced Lycan Healer to Wed in Surprise Announcement

Aisling took it all in her stride. Johann envied her ease in these situations. He was ever the watcher, and amongst Muggles he was still rather unsure of how it changed social protocol, to fit in.

]"Eating is rather a common consequence of meeting at places which serve food over lunch, is it not? It's most kind of you to manage the drinks. Let me take care of the food, then."

He stared at her, mouth slightly open, caught off guard.
"Er, yes, right, but nothing for me thanks - don't let that stop you." He gestured to the counter.

A minute or two later and they had returned to the table Johann had previously occupied while he waited.

Johann stirred a cup of tea after shouldering off his coat, shirt and jacket beneath over his thin frame.
"Its been too long, we promised we'd do this months ago it seems." He looked apologetic, "Or was it Glass keeping you locked in the office to stop you fraternising with the other Departments?"

Johann turning down the food, atop forgetting about this concept called lunch, did induce a certain concern. Not that Aisling expected it would be of much aid to push, and so ordered some soup for herself before following him back to the table and slipping off her own coat. "It'd be difficult to do my work were I locked in the office. But October and November were rather busy, and then then holidays, and I found myself far too occupied."

She smiled softly. "It is good to see you again, though. I do believe that I still owe you a game of chess as well, though I'm not too keen to embarrass myself there." These days, she mostly played with Tarron. Something which brought its own challenges, given how well they knew each other.

"We will have to do it some other day." One where she wasn't tired and where everything was just a little less volatile. Though there was no need to dive into that particular subject right away.

"It is good to see you again, though. I do believe that I still owe you a game of chess as well, though I'm not too keen to embarrass myself there. We will have to do it some other day."

Johann managed a smile at that,
"I think you'd probably beat me this week." He admitted, fingertips testing the temperature of the mug the tea was in. Last time it had been a bit lukewarm, today was better. "I don't think I've played a game since moving to Britain, and that will have been a year now." The linguist looked surprised at himself, a year went by so very quickly.

"I used to sit and play dominoes on an evening to be sociable with old wizards." He confessed, thinking back, "But then I marched to the beat of my own drummer, and not that of the Ministry." His shoulders gave a shrug and he gave a genuine smile to Aisling.

"It is good to see you too. How are things, how is Tarron, and Sophia, Rowena?" He might only have been told their names once back when they met, but he remembered.

Aisling watched Johann testing his tea over her own cup. The warmth felt even better in winter. "Perhaps next week then, or the week after. I should be quite caught up from the holidays by then." Perhaps his stress would have died down a little by then, at the least.

The principles of warmth applied even more to her soup, and so she fell into silence for a moment while she sipped at it. "They're all well. The girls got kittens for Christmas, so they were very excited." She brushed her hand over the coat lying next to her. "Think I managed to get the cat hair off everything, will need to put something up to repel it before they return from school." It took a little of the appeal away from the small furry things, though not much.

"How have you been, then? I'd hope your work has not been too difficult, though you make it sound almost...constraining." It might have been a more pointed question, were it offered in a fashion different than Aisling's soft tone. She turned her gaze downward, returning to the soup while waiting for his response.

"Perhaps next week then, or the week after. I should be quite caught up from the holidays by then." Johann nodded at the suggestion, watching the steam rise from his tea, his dark curls falling forward.

He listened somewhat attentively about the kittens and the hair. Moxy's dog hair turned up in surprising places, and she wasn't even that hairy. His keen eyes followed her hand brushing at the material, and then past to a Muggle mother lifting her young son out of his pushchair and into her arms where he gurgled, and she sniffed. His gaze lingered, eyebrows lowering as his eyes narrowed in confusion at the action.

Aisling posed a question, and as if she'd snapped her fingers in front of his eyes, he looked back and refocused.

"How have you been, then? I'd hope your work has not been too difficult, though you make it sound almost...constraining."

"Fine, everything's fine." Johann replied all too hastily and firmly. "Not that you haven't read the newspaper." He added with an edge of good-natured sarcasm and sipped his tea, giving a little sigh, his bony shoulders rising and falling.

"Work up to my eyeballs. Everyone took leave over Christmas, I took a bit, but there's a rush on now everyone's back. Things that have been sat before Christmas are now urgent, and its my fault, not theirs. Ugh, Merlin, sorry, I shouldn't moan. Trade documents aren't life and death and cover ups." Another, agitated sip. 

"I do have a guilty secret though," Johann told Aisling, meeting her eyes, mug still in his hand, halfway between mouth and table, "When I see in the Prophet you've given the Muggles an excuse, I like to nip out here and find a paper its covered in, to see what they make of it." His lips turned into a smirk, and the mug found the table top again.

Ah, and there it was. The hasty brush-off with the declaration of 'fine', the mention of the Prophet article. And a little more openness afterward. Aisling just listened for a bit, nodding once or twice to show attentiveness. The soup was better than she'd expected, and she was feeling a bit hungry.

"I did see that article, though I rather thought I was reading the Quibbler for a moment. Sometimes it seems that there is as much difference between the two as the Prophet would rather like us to think. You might be better off popping out to read more mundane papers." The Prophet still had its uses, of course, but that hardly made it reliable. "I'm not sure how interesting articles on genetically engineered plants and defective lamps are, though."

She set her spoon down with a small clink, then lifted her own mug. "And you're perfectly welcome to, as you say, 'moan'. This can be a busy time at the Ministry and it seems that you have enough stress outside of it." She lifted the mug to her lips and waited.

"I did see that article, though I rather thought I was reading the Quibbler for a moment."

"If only it had been." Johann added softly, not meaning to interrupt as she went on to mention lamps and plants.

"And you're perfectly welcome to, as you say, 'moan'. This can be a busy time at the Ministry and it seems that you have enough stress outside of it."

Johann's keen eyes regarded Aisling with surprise. He didn't moan usually and nor did anyone ever seem interested in him doing that. He tended to keep his grumps to himself, though occasionally they got out, like a moment ago. His patience was thinner that week for all the running around and the arguing, that was for sure.

"I try not to make a point of it." He assured his friend, who was sipping her own cup of tea. The soup had vanished very swiftly. His own stomach was complaining, but he didn't realise.
"Apologies." He dropped his gaze a moment to her tea mug, and then up again. "And that was a rather leading statement."

Johann raised an eyebrow and sat back, looking out of the window beside them for a moment.
"It has been a very odd week. Stressful, yes." His gaze returned to her, humour reaching his features, "Hiding in a cafe with a friend? Avoiding the return to my desk? My, that's very astute of you, Aisling." He toasted her a moment with his tea and chuckled bittersweetly. 

"If only it had been."

Aisling nodded, softly. Johann hardly had the air of someone excited for his upcoming wedding. Not that such lacked stress, but he still seemed off.

"It's a good thing you're here, then. Your desk can manage without you for a bit." With these sorts of moods his coworkers probably could as well, but that would be quite impolite to say. And would likely be of little help to the situation.

Her bowl had emptied quite quickly, and she had to cast her thoughts back to make sure that she had eaten breakfast. Of course she had.

She toasted him back, took a few sips, then set the mug down. A few  quiet moments of watching him, thinking, before she spoke again. "What happened, then, if I may ask?" The counter drew her eye, quickly, and she wondered if perhaps she should have ordered a sandwich as well. While Johann was eating nothing. "I quite understand if you don't wish to speak of it."

"The engagement?" He asked, almost rhetorically, and inspected the bottom of his cup of tea before placing the mug down beside his friend's.

"Proposed on Christmas Day, in front of her parents." The wizard explained, "Didn't have a ring, wasn't quite how I'd anticipated it would go, if I'm honest. Her mother was bowled over, but we didn't stay long." The memory of Hannah rushing him from the Bombay household after the event returned to his mind's eye.

"Next thing I know the Prophet seller in the atrium is giving me a free paper because he figures I'll want a spare copy. Ugh." Johann rubbed his face with both hands, the shame of not knowing when everyone was pointing and looking at him after reading it was humiliating.

"It went down like a lead balloon with my parents. My father's very anti-werewolf, made his feeling impeccably clear. Still, got Hannah a ring, it wasn't all bad." He shrugged and looked up at Aisling, giving her the ghost of a smile, glad to explain even the outline of the events to someone.

"Probably not the proper way, hmm? Propose to your best friend and get disowned." He shrugged. "Did you want another tea?"

Johann speaking more openly about the situation was hardly something Aisling wished to interrupt, and so she just waited, enjoying the last of her tea until he had finished. It did rather explain why he seemed so bothered by the situation.

"Probably not the proper way, hmm? Propose to your best friend and get disowned."

"Perhaps not, but I could hardly condemn it. Tarron was disowned for marrying me, and we have both managed despite it." There was something sad to her smile, certainly, but just a touch of it.

"Did you want another tea?"

"It would be most appreciated." She leaned back and eyed her now empty cup. Then lifted her eyes to meet Johann's. "That sort of reaction says far more about your parents than about you. Though it hardly makes matters easy."

"...Tarron was disowned for marrying me, and we have both managed despite it."

Johann's blue eyes looked up from their dismay, surprised to hear that. The Head of the Wizengamot had been disowned from his own family for marrying Aisling Knight?

"That sort of reaction says far more about your parents than about you. Though it hardly makes matters easy."

"No..." Johann replied, not quite committing to the syllable, his mind busy examining that new bit of information. Distracted, he seized her mug and returned to the counter, ordering them a second round of tea, and bringing it back a minute or so later, still looking thoughtful.

"Tarron was disowned?" He asked, his whole expression a mix of confusion and deep thought, "I had no idea, you're not a werewolf, you're a highly respected member of the Ministry. Why would they do that?" He didn't realise how personal the question might be. "How did it happen?"

"Thank you," Aisling said when Johann returned with the tea. It was better to manage this topic, this scar with at least small comforts.

The questions might have seemed awkward from someone else, but with Johann in the middle of something similar, she could hardly fault him for grabbing on to it. But she still looked down, away when she started to speak. "My parents are Muggles. To his family, that was more than enough cause."

She looked up to meet Johann's eyes. "It happened when we announced our engagement. The wedding was rather small." There was some bitter amusement in her voice, her smile, and she lifted her cup just to hold it there before taking a sip.

That was not all the details of it, of course, but it seemed all that was needed. She nestled her hands together and leaned forward.

Johann stared across the table top unblinking at Aisling explained. He wrapped his long fingers around the new cup of tea on the table top.

"When you announced your engagement?" He echoed, eyes drifting momentarily from her face as he thought through this. "But this was over a decade ago, right, you two were married before you had the twins, weren't you?" That seemed to be the norm, not not always. Tarron Knight didn't seem to be a non-traditionalist, what with leading the Wizengamot to keep Hannah and Knox's sentence as it was.

"Hannah told me she was sorry about my parents reacting badly. We didn't actually post the news in the paper, her parents did. My mother seemed to be coming round to the idea. Was there no chance to appeal to them for either of you?" He asked softly, both of them leaning forward over the table opposite each other, helping to prevent the conversation being overheard by the Muggles sat around them. Suddenly he wasn't distracted at all by the noises and movement around them.