"It'll just be a bit of fun." They'd all said it, Elixa, her son, Balfour… she had looked at them sceptically at first, but well, what was there to lose? Just her dignity. She'd not navigated conversation like this since the early seventies! No, she'd approach it just for the enjoyment of meeting a few more people. Things were still a little raw, and probably would be for a very long time, but it didn't stop her socialising and perhaps finding a friend or two.

There had been at least one glass of wine consumed ahead of the proceedings before they found their pair, and Camille circled tables to find the right one. Heavens, she'd ended up with a young man who couldn't be any older than her son, or perhaps even younger. She tried not to blush and feel a little sorry for him. He probably had come to find someone to perhaps see again, and here she was potentially spoiling his night.

"Hello there," she extended a hand - perhaps a little formally, would it be more appropriate to exchange a kiss on the cheek as she might abroad? She had no idea until he opened his mouth if he were British or otherwise, and she was resisting the temptation to calculate from his name.

"Camille," she introduced herself, deciding not to even venture to her surname. It would just be her luck if he knew Johann and that would make it even more awkward. If that were possible. He had the most striking eyes!

"Pleasure to meet you. Gosh, my, I've never done anything like this - have you?"

Go speed dating, they said. It will be fun, they said.

Never again was he going to listen to Logan Radley's advice. Nate suspected that it was revenge for tricking him into going rock climbing. This orchestrated affair seemed more awkward than anything else. Some people,he supposed,would have fun with it-- but instead all he could think of was how Jilly would have scoffed at the idea of desperate souls flocking together in hopes of finding a connection. But, Jilly was gone now. And he knew was time to move on.

... But not with the woman before him. She was about his mother's age. While she was beautiful, Nate preferred people who were not from a vastly different generation. He already had the culture clash to deal with.

"It's nice to meet you, Camille." Nate replied politely, "I'm Nathaniel. Nate." He let out a laugh to relieve tension, "I don't usually do this sort of thing either. My time is usually spent working or with my daughter." He had a one night stand last month, but that was totally out of the ordinary for him.  "She's almost five years old." He offered, as if this stranger would be interested in hearing about his kid.

Was that an American accent? Well at least she wasn't the only foreigner in these parts that evening. He was a dashing chap, he'd do well tonight once they could swap round, she was sure. There were pretty young witches here.

"Five, that's a wonderful age," Camille exclaimed, "what's her name?" The arithmancy professor's expression brightened. "Long time since my son was five." Her cheeks coloured, but she felt it was polite to disclose since he had so readily. Thirty years, more exactly, but they wouldn't go there.

She smiled invitingly to Nate to encourage him to talk a little more about himself. The least she could do was to give him a decent conversation until it was time to move round.
"What do you do?" She asked and blinked as he explained, "What does that involve?"

"Her name is Calliope." Nate replied, "We named her after a type of hummingbird." Family tradition. His middle name was Merlin, not because of the famous wizard, but because of the bird. His father was named Peregrine. Besides, Callie was a cute nickname. It suited her. "She's creative. Right now she wants to be a unicorn queen when she grows up. I'm not sure what she means by that, but it's adorable." He realized that he was rambling on. The subject seemed welcomed, though. "She looks like a little girl more than a baby now. Next thing I know, she'll be at Hogwarts."

"What do you do?"

Nate let out a nervous laugh, lacing his fingers together and placing them in his lap. "I'm a lawyer. My office is in Diagon." Actually, it was in the part of Diagon that was uncomfortably close to Knockturn. "What do you do?"

Pretty name, Camille thought, echoing the name to herself to feel how it rolled off the tongue.
"… wants to be a unicorn queen when she grows up…" Nate explained, and Camille was momentarily puzzled until he clarified he didn't know any better either. When one was five, one knew no boundaries of logic and reason and it was liberating. Boundless imagination, beautiful thing.

"I teach Artihmancy," Camille explained, unaware of the events which had occurred that afternoon in Hogsmeade and the missing students. She had been non-contactable during the afternoon into the evening and hadn't heard the news. "Have since September. Before that a career in finance, nothing of great conversation. Teaching has been a new, and well needed challenge." She lifted her glass, pausing before she took a sip to ask more of Nate, feeling the need to pose questions than answer them.

"Lawyer sounds fascinating though, what sort of cases do you take on? Or can't you say?"

"A teacher! Hopefully you'll still be teaching when Callie goes to Hogwarts. I heard a rumor that all the positions were cursed." There was an awful large turnover when it came to the staff. It apparently had started with the Defense Against the Dark Arts position, but spread to other staff members. Though, if he had heard correctly... Now the DADA position was one of the few that no longer seemed cursed.

Or perhaps the reason was simple-- teaching was a high stress job, and new teachers were more likely to get burned out. He'd seen it in his profession.

"I like to take cases for beings-- specifically werewolves." Nate explained, "My-- late wife was one, and I think that directed me to this line of work." His parents were activists when it came to Sasquatch rights, so from a young age a sense of justice was fostered in him.

"Cursed?" Camille asked, "Well, perhaps, maybe." She'd heard enough of the stories that the positions were. If fate meant that it was, well, then she was determined to make a good go at it.

"Oh." Camille's response fell out of her mouth before she realised what she was doing. It sounded like she had been winded by something. "We, erhm." It was too late to backtrack now she realised by the way Nate was looking at her, so she drew breath. "We have more in common than we realised perhaps. My late husband was also a werewolf, though not long turned before he passed."

She finished her glass of wine, brightened her face on purpose and remembered that she could at least lighten the tone to give Nate a pleasant conversation rather than bring it down. "Now, if you enjoy origami and playing piano I will retract my suspicions this pairing was entirely random." The Arithmancy Professor set aside the glass. "What did you do before?"

They were both widowed. Both their partners had been werewolves, and they were both from a different country. He was not a man who dabbled in divination or arithmancy, but he couldn't help but feel like there was too much in common for this meeting to be by chance. The magical world worked in mysterious ways, and this was more than a coincidence.

"Well, I grew up with Sasquatches." He began, "My parents are Sasqualogists. I learned Sasqueech before I learned English. I grew up helping them with their research, and we lived simply. When I was old enough I went to Douglas Fir's School of Sorcery,played some quodpot...." He hoped she knew what quodpot was.  "When I graduated I assisted my parents. We were having problems with dragons destroying the Sasquatches' habitat and picking them off oneby one, so some dragon handlers came in. Jillian-my wife- was one of them. We married quickly, and then I moved here. I apprenticed under some other lawyers at the ministry for a few years. And now, here I am."

He didn't mean to tell her his whole life story, but there it was.

"And you? What did you do before teaching at Hogwarts?" 

"… grew up with Sasquatches." Nate explained with ease, though Camille tried the word on her tongue under her breath in an effort to decode it.

"… I went to Douglas Fir's School of Sorcery, played some quodpot…" Despite not understanding all that many words suddenly, Camille nodded along, feigning understanding.

"And you? What did you do before teaching at Hogwarts?"

"Finance," the Belgian answered simply, "for an overseas competitor to Gringotts. I specialised in personal finance rather than business, had to divine the likelihood of someone paying back a loan, and such like. Stable, yet not always morally fulfilling." She shrugged, and resumed a smile at Nate.

"I have to ask Nate, what is a sasq.. sascatch? I might not know the English word for what you mean."

Finance. She worked in finance. He didn't really know what to think of that, except that he wasn't really good with numbers except for the bare minimum to run his household. Numbers had never been his strong point, nor were they particularly interesting to him.

Sasquatches, however, were. When Camille asked what they were, his eyes light up. Leaning forward, Nate was eager to share all he knew about Sasquatches, their habitats, and social interactions. He would make it clear that there was a difference between sasquatches and their more violent, yeti cousins. He would even attempt to teach her a few words in Sasqueech, if she was willing.

Although he wasn't paired with someone his own age, Nate found that he enjoyed Camille's company, and hoped that she'd still be around to teach at Hogwarts when it was time for his daughter to go.

End