A Little Party Never Killed Nobody

[Arthur Pettigrew]

11/18

This wasn't even his post-game party, and he didn't even know who had won, but of course Arthur had shown up at the Three Broomsticks when he was invited. The place was positively booming with activity and Arthur was hardly through the doors when someone had handed him a frothy beer.

He took a sip of it and moved through the crowds with the simple confidence of someone who was inherently good in crowds. His beer remained carefully balanced and the loud cheering of an Appleby player either answered the question of who had won the match or meant that someone had proposed a drinking game.

He sat on top of a table and chatted animatedly with Portree's second-string seeker until the younger man departed and Arthur was left to realize that there was no convenient way off of his perch if he did not want to step on anyone. He stood up on the table and shaded his eyes against the lamplight and wondered if he could launch himself from the table and land standing in an empty patch of floor.

No such luck.

Arthur sighed and sat down again and was somewhat startled to see the redhead who owned the pub in front of him.

"Miss - Lovegood!" he said, relieved to have remembered his name. He took another sip of his beer. "Looks like your place is quite the popular one tonight, then."

  

[Guest]

The crowd was getting a bit too rowdy for Alice's tastes. Men were sitting on tables and everyone was being loud and obnoxious. This was always the case on quidditch game nights, though things had gotten exceptionally worse since the Howlers had been formed. Now the patrons didn't stay in whatever town the game was being hosted in; instead they all came trotting into Alice's establishment, and if it weren't for the huge source of income she'd kick them all out.

She'd already kicked two people out for starting a fight and was looking to get rid of at least five more people within the next ten minutes when Arthur Pettigrew greeted her. "Mr. Pettigrew." Alice greeted with a smile. "Good to see you. Are you enjoying yourself?" Alice tried her very hardest to not glare at him sitting on her table, but a slight one escaped nonetheless. "If business stays like this I'll be able to expand the place sooner than expected."

For months she'd been itching for something to do, and when the idea came to build another floor of The Three Broomsticks Alice was hard pressed to forget it. She'd be able to host a club here potentially, or even create a game room to compete with the Casino in Irvingly. It'd only be for the elite, or perhaps the Hogwarts' children when they visited on the weekends (or both) and she'd be able to boost business that way. And in just a few more months she'd be able to afford it.

  

[Arthur Pettigrew]

Arthur smiled. "Quite," he said, tapping his fingers against the surface of her table in a bit of a drumroll, "Best part of pro Quidditch is the parties, hasn't anyone ever told you?" He actually preferred house parties to this sort of thing - mostly because people could get drunker and raunchier at house parties - but this was perfectly fine, too.

"What kind of expansion?" he asked. The Three Broomsticks was not his favorite bar - because he mostly went to bars for distraction from the urge to gamble and the Hog's Head provided cheaper distraction - but it was the only other bar in town, so of course Arthur wanted to know what was going to happen to it.

He also enjoyed knowing everything before anyone else did. It was exceedingly fun.

  

[Guest]

"I would've thought you liked the actual quidditch part of it." Alice grinned. "The parties can come and go, but the game never changes. But that's probably a bit too stable for someone like you." The drunker the crowd got the more Alice wanted to toss them all out on the street. Her business wouldn't suffer too terribly, and they'd hopefully go and destroy the Hog's Head for her.

She smirked and gestured for him to stop sitting on her table top. "The type that you'll enjoy once it's completed. Maybe. If things go the way I want them to."

  

[Arthur Pettigrew]

Art snorted. "I'm glad to know my terrible attention span is famous," he said, "Infamous? Still, quite exciting."

Half-reluctantly, Art slid off the tabletop and stood up, leaning against it instead. "Ahh," he said, "That sort of thing. It's a shame that the things I enjoy really aren't very good for me."

He maintained his cheerful tone - it would have been easy to be bitter, to resent himself, after he had lost all the money. Instead he had just sort of accepted it.