Two weeks ago it had been a very different scene in the Three Broomsticks. The pub had been raided by dementors, the roof had been on fire and a wall had been pulled down temporarily to help people flee. It was almost back to normal now, but the observant drinker might spot a few differences.

Ignan wasn't concerned with the state of the pub. It was Sunday night, and February was just round the corner. In two weeks it would be the worst part of February - Valentines Day, where teenagers turned feral and more ridiculous than ever.

The only consolation was that across the table from him was a face he'd seen far too little of for months now. This academic year, Tapendra had retreated back to Cambridge for as much time as possible, and his absence as a resident of the castle had been a great loss.

"I won't even place a bet on Sasha reinstalling himself on your classroom sofa once he finds out you've moved back in." Ignan grumbled. Uncharacteristically for him, he'd stopped referring to the Ravenclaw student by his surname since the Christmas holidays. It seemed vaguely cruel considering he'd buried Jacoba and was the last. There was an awkward moment between the two friends and Ignan looked away, taking a healthy sip of his pint.

"And I won't lie," he spoke again, dropping the half-full pint to the table before him, wedding ring catching the candlelight, "I've missed you." A vaguely pleased smile attempted to curl up the corners of the Deputy Headmaster's lips.

"I'd say you return a sanity to the place, but we know that's not true."

It had been a long year - though less stressful for him than for the others, he suspected. Until last January he'd been able to keep his titles at both his schools with relatively mild work for Cambridge; the Whites had held out well for him, there, and scholarly papers had done the job. But with the new year and a shuffling of the staff...

Going back to living in Cambridge had been hard. The house had seemed so empty with the girls still at school, and he'd hardly been a social man with the bizarre hours his late-night classes demanded. Often times he'd laid on the couch at home and pondered demanding a time-turner, but he'd known in his heart of hearts he'd experiment with the bloody thing. The urge would have been irresistible.

"I'm glad to be back, too," he said, and smiled - tiredly, of course. A day of moving back into the castle and dealing with paperwork had worn him out. He'd worked at Hogwarts for two years, now, and still he couldn't quite forgive whomever had built the Astronomy tower so damned high.

It'd worked off some of the weight he'd gained, at least. The muggle world had crisps and the Internet, and he was resultingly a bit tighter in his vests than he'd been the year before.

He wasn't glad to have missed most of the chaos of the year; instead it'd simmered, as Tapendra was always the sort to be sure he could have done something. But at least now a shift in job descriptors and a determined streak meant he was here and he could jam his nose into whatever nasty business happened next.

"Dementors, poisoning, marriage -" he looked pointedly at the ring on Ignan's finger, and smirked. "I think you owe me a beer just for that. That gave me more of a heart attack than the dementors did." At least Dementors you could hex. A married Storm was a different matter entirely.

While Tapendra had been moving himself back in, Ignan had been home in Godric's Hollow, doing what he could to appease Miranda and her desire to move out of the house. Her opinion on living there since Lawrence Musgrave's break-in hadn't changed. There was only so much Ignan could sensibly do to help alongside his professional duties and the same for her, running the hospital.

"Hmph." Ignan replied to Tappy's insistence that the news of the marriage had given the younger wizard a heart attack. "Has been quite the year. I'd have almost considered disappearing into the Muggle world to escape it too." He raised an eyebrow to Trishna, but neither his tone nor his expression suggested that he blamed the other man.

"When Miranda and I have recovered from the last set of guests you will be welcome for dinner." He added wryly. Tapendra knew of Miranda from the year she spent at Hogwarts as part of the Durmstrang visitors. Spending time with her had sort of replaced time socialising with Tapendra in a way.

"Has it been pleasant to live on the other side again?"

"I'll bring the girls." It was a threat, idle and bemused. Tapendra doubted Miranda'd find both of his outspoken family members particularly good dinner guests; gods knew Georgiana might fall asleep in the soup out of a sheer protest.

He drank before responding, considering the question. It was...a complex answer. He felt behind, inept and yet the house had been so quiet, so...relaxing. Even with all the things muggles cried about on the television or the internet, it hadn't seemed as immediate as the news from the Prophet.

"I suppose it has. It was definitely...different." It'd been like his transfer to Hogwarts in reverse; he'd had to learn to live largely magic-less again. "Stressful, for all it apparent downtime." On the buts Ignan would understand, anyhow.

"After the castle, coming back to the empty house was a mite depressing, I admit. I wouldn't call it an escape as much as a change, though." He smirked. "I work two jobs, you recall. Two sets of students? I'm quite happy to be back to just the one, rowdy as our lot tend to be."

"I prefer it when they are rowdy," Ignan replied, rubbing at the shadow on his chin with his right hand, gaze falling between their glasses. "When they're quiet, something is usually wrong."

He looked up to Tapendra and raised his pint again, sitting back. "What is it like, teaching Muggles?" He asked, curious. "Is it much different, what with the enchanted fishtanks - televisions," he followed quickly to prove he had learned, but was willing to poke mild humour at his own shortcomings from a first visit to Tapendra's home in Cambridge where he hadn't understood what it was.

"That and those computer things? I heard those are increasingly important to Mugges."

Tapendra considered this. Wizards didn't truly have a...college concept, but it wasn't so foreign he hadn't understood it when first introduced. He sipped his beer and shrugged.

"Easier," he said finally, putting the glass down. "Defense likely has this issue too, but here I have been struggling with...concept levels. Some students are already fully aware of the concepts I teach - to others, I may as well be speaking goldfish. At Cambridge, there's no such gap - they've all had to pass strict tests to reach where I work." He smiled. "And the muggles are older - they've sought out a career path rather than been forced to a dull lecture late at night, so they're rather more receptive. No fearful 13 year olds."

Though what they got up to after hours....well, Hogwarts students had done similar things, hadn't they. He hadn't been the first or the last student to slip away to the Quidditch pitch and try gillyweed, and with the castle's recent troubles he doubted that number had declined.

And of course, college students generally didn't try necromancy. At least not in his department.

"As for computers? Oh, yes. As indispensable as a wand is, really. They allow for so many things." His eyes sparkled; it was clear he was fighting the urge to gush. Tapendra could go on about computers til he was blue in the gums. But he controlled himself a moment later. "I'd rather missed them, to tell you the truth. We just don't really have an equivalent."

Ignan's eyebrows rose in surprise at Tapendra's assessment that it was easier, but his good friend put it into context for him.
"No fearful 13 year olds."
"No, they're older, aren't they, after the age we have them, Sasha did explain it to me…" He trailed off thoughtfully studying his glass.

"… as indispensable as a wand is, really…" Ignan steeled himself for another Trishna spiel about the Muggle world which would use words he didn't recognise and just make him feel ignorant. But it didn't come, Tapendra was wise to that expression in Ignan in return it seemed, and was kind. "… don't really have an equivalent."

"Should we?" Ignan asked, being brave. He winced, "Go on, better I learn from you than I do one of the students." Ignan gestured, settling back, blue eyes ever so slightly narrowed in consideration. "I know one can write a letter on them, like a typewriter, and send it like an owl, only there isn't the requirement of an owl. It just… does it another way." He paused, "And I know one can play games. Quite coveted from what I recall[1]. I've probably achieved troll level for Muggle Studies I realise. Have mercy with me." Ignan smirked.

1.	23rd July, 2009 Drive My Car - Cyhirae and Georgiana squabble over the xBox when Ignan visits, much to his confusion

OOC: Sorry for the delay!! Thought I posted to this ((

Tapendra paused, eyed the wince as he held his glass at his lips. He could feel the effects of it already; but this was Tapendra, and the warm fuzzy feeling of tpisiness merely made him more likely to blab than to remain thoughtfully silent.

"Well -" He started, frowned. He worked closely with computers, studied the stars with them, used them for....well, bloody everything these days. But he hadn't truly grasp what they were, not really. Some deep-seated part of him just couldn't quite grasp how one made metal and electricity think.

"I think so, but I don't know how we'd reach it. They're...hard to explain simply. Machines that think? They...perform operations in a millisecond that would take a human mind an hour. They make it possible to have an index of a hundred billion stars and be able to, with the press of a few buttons, access all the information on any single one. They've made it possible to send humans to visit the moon, to talk in real time across the world...stuff like that."

This was Ignan; Tapendra could be honest. Regardless, he lowered his voice. "I like the things, but they're a bit, you know..." He seemed to hunker down, as if being overheard might get back to someone. "I don't understand how they work."

"You don't-" Ignan lowered his voice to match Tapendra's, taking note of his friend's wish not to be overheard, "You don't understand how they work?" He was surprised at this. "But I thought that was one of your niche bits of knowledge for the Muggle world - well, other than stars of course, but that was always obvious." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Though I agreed, sometimes it's rather nice not to know. Ignorance is bliss. Seems to work for a good proportion of the wizarding world, and they sleep well at night." He checked the time, thinking of Miranda. Although Musgrave hadn't put in another appearance to her, he found himself concerned for her well-being on a far more regular basis.

"Useful things then. More than writing letters and sending them without owls at least. I am newly informed. Another?" He gestured to their glasses. "I've not got the first years until nine o'clock." Ignan added by way of justification of a second.

There was still a minor amount of animosity at the bar from other drinkers when he approached. Maya and Grace at the start of the month, and then dementors had been here.
"Professor." a chap with ginger hair[1] raised his drink in abnormally pleased greeting. Ignan stared at him a moment before nodding mutely in response before ordering. Something to do with the floo network, he recalled, otherwise entirely uninteresting wizard.

"Nasty business with Musgrave." Merlin. It was trying to make conversation. Ignan willed drinks to come faster, giving a non-committal hmm in response to the relative stranger. "Mrs Storm alright now?"
"Perfectly." Ignan replied all too hastily, depositing the correct amount in the upturned hand of the witch behind the bar and turning away to return to Tapendra.

"One bad thing about drinking here more regularly is people recognise me." He grumbled, setting both drinks down and himself back opposite his friend. "Then they feel drawn to make conversation." He sighed.

"Did I mention I had a drink with Grace Eddy a few weeks ago? Picking up some healer training with the auror training. Feels like yesterday I was docking points from Gryffindor. Oh, and Bert Hughes turned up on my doorstep as an auror earlier this week. Back playing auror." The Deputy Headmaster shook his head at the thought. "It was rather blissful knowing hardly anyone a few years ago when we first started drinking here together. Have you seen any old faces of late?"

1.	George Higgins

Tapendra nodded his agreement, though his first mug remained unfinished. He drank deeply from it as Ignan headed or the bar...a mistake that left him coughing and patting his chest. He was finishing as Ignan came back and cleared his throat, shaking his head.

"Did you?" he said, weakly, even as he took the second mug offered. Gods almighty, his throat burned. "Gods, I can't believe - it's been nearly two years, hasn't it." Oddly, it felt longer - perhaps it was all the excitement, or that contrasted with the long weeks of similar days. "Now you know half the bar, and -" he raised his glass with a smile - "If you keep this up it'll be half the town in a few years. The little buggers grow up so fast." He was going to have to give Cyhirae her NEWT talk, and Georgiana graduated in a few months...

At that thought, he took another drink.

"I can't say I have - not that many of the more recent graduates were, ah..." He shrugged sheepishly, "Favorites. I surprised most of them, after all." Switching curriculum suddenly tended to make one unpopular; thankfully the students had been rather understanding, on the whole.

Happier things. He leaned forward, some level of conspiracy in his mien. "Come on, then; you've gone and gotten married." Any bitterness he felt on his mother's behalf he shoved aside to ask: "And to the famed Miranda. How's it treating you?"

“The famed Miranda?” Ignan echoed, surprised at that expression in relation to his other half. “Ugh, if you’re referring to that excuse for a magazine…” He scowled at the memory. “Press interest aside, no different than it had before. She works all hours of the day, I’m up here all hours of the day, and we barely see each other. Some might suggest that makes for a happier marriage.” The older wizard shuffled his fingers around the base of his glass in thought. “I won’t say it is easy, because it isn’t. But, she appears a worthy match for me, if I am not the same for her.”

He paused, conscious that his decision to do that, and the distance between him and Tapendra for a good portion of the previous year might have made the other wizard think the worse of him. That bungled moment when he’d seen Azorma for the first time in years had led to rash thinking. Time since had shown him that he wasn’t the wizard he had once been in Italy, and if anything he needed to keep a great distance between his old life and the new. The old threatened the new like a psychopathic ex-girlfriend. Literally.

“Don’t tell me your lack of romantic interest since Aileen Reid’s departure has made you desperate enough to take interest,” He suggested, taking a sly poke at Tapendra’s enduring romantic endeavours which had not come to any serious fruition as far as he’d observed.

End