Can't Choose Your Family

[J. Alfred Darrow]

6th November.

They'd had this 'family dinner' planned since he'd moved out of Evander's house two weeks ago, and even then it had seemed a little pointless and awkward. It wasn't as though the two brothers had a good deal to say to each other. Most of the things that they had in common had died during the time Alfred had been away. The plans, too, had come before the little incident at the Halloween party. Honestly, Alfred would have assumed that Evander's anger over his next expedition trumped dinner plans they'd made over a week before that, especially given that the two hadn't spoken since. Evander was, however, nothing if not Extremely British, and Alfred supposed that dissolving dinner plans wasn't really in his nature. At least, that was what he'd assumed when he got a little card the day before to confirm the time he'd be arriving and realized that he was, in fact, still supposed to come to dinner.

Even after confirming the time the day before, he'd still arrived late. Not a glowing start, but his errands in Hogsmeade that afternoon had taken longer than he'd anticipated, after spending some time getting lost and then having been temporarily derailed by that woman with the magazine. Speaking of which... he wondered if that sort of news would have reached Evander. He had no illusions that his brother was the sort to read magazines, but his wife might be--despite having lived with her for two weeks, Alfred still knew exactly zero things about Evander's new wife. Whoops.

Since he was late, he went straight in to dinner, where he made some rather transparent excuses and Evander and his wife pretended not to mind. After he'd sat down he immediately started fidgeting with his sleeve, though he didn't realize he was doing it; his right sleeve was unbuttoned and hanging loose in less than a minute. Since he hadn't really expected to end up having to go to this dinner, he hadn't thought of anything to talk about; the expedition had consumed most of his time, and was pretty clearly off limits, if their last conversation was any indication. He probably should have asked about Evander's job, except that he didn't care, and couldn't imagine he had anything very interesting to say about it, anyway.

Well. Listening to Evander say things that weren't interesting was better than just sitting in awkward silence, he supposed. "How's work?"

(What did Evander even do at the Ministry? Alfred couldn't really remember. Something to do with education. Like the less interesting version of becoming a professor.)

@'Evander Darrow' @'Laura Darrow' @'Cassius Lestrange' @'Souri Avninder'

  

[Evander Darrow]

Evander had almost hoped that Johnny wouldn't show up, but he had, and now he was sitting at a painstakingly awkward dinner. This would have been significantly less awkward if fewer members of their family were dead; it also would have been less awkward if Evander was not just sitting here thinking of Johnny's stupid South American tattoos. He was painfully curious about them.

He also rather wanted to fix his brother's sleeve.

Evander was startled by Johnny's question; he did not recall his brother ever asking about his job before. "Work is fine," he said, shifting in his seat as if that would make anything about this any less unpleasant, "The half-breed ban is still a problem."

  

[J. Alfred Darrow]

If Alfred had been a little more in-tune with British society, the mention of the half-breed ban might have tipped him off to what Evander's work was, but he was about five years out of the loop on anything that concerned the citizenship back home in England and the month he'd been back hadn't really been sufficient to catch up on anything outside the bounds of his personal life. He was vaguely aware that there was an election on; nothing more than that. As such, he assumed maybe the half-breed ban had something to do with magical creatures -- which didn't make a bit of sense, as he didn't even think Evander had taken Care of Magical Creatures or Ghoul Studies or anything relevant at all in Hogwarts. Well. Best avoid that, then.

Not being able to talk about Evander's work, however, left Alfred with no idea what to talk about; it seemed as though his brother didn't want to hear about any of the sorts of things that interested him, and Alfred wasn't much inclined to monologue about them, anyway. He hadn't ever really been the sort to talk about himself if he didn't have anything necessary to say. Even when he'd been stranded with Paul for actual years, it had taken the other man months before he felt like he'd gotten to know Alfred at all.

He considered asking Evander's wife a question, but he really didn't know anything about her. Did she work? That seemed unlikely. So what was there to ask about? What did married women with no jobs and no children do with their days?

"Have you been involved in the election at all?" he asked; not because he cared, but because it was just another thing to ask about.