11-29-2017, 04:16 PM
30th October
@'Valeria Greengrass'
The election had made October a busy month, and it appeared that it would only get busier as December crept closer. So there had been plenty for Jude to be occupied with on that front: currently, he had Scamander's campaign platform - that had been published in the Prophet only a couple of days ago - out in front of him on his table at the Augurey, not yet finished poring over the details of it in an attempt to extrapolate all the possible ramifications and potential directions of Mr. Scamander's policies. He had briefly stopped by the same man's campaign event yesterday, talked to a few people there; but although the donations were for a good cause, he hadn't had the chance to talk to Scamander in person, and actually riding a hippogriff had seemed - well - unnecessary to the cause. He'd liked Care of Magical Creatures well enough for the couple of years he'd taken it, but Jude hadn't ever taken to flying, particularly, so he figured he could live without trying it sitting on a hippogriff.@'Eaton Shelby'
The piece of parchment he was poring over wasn't anything to do with Scamander's campaign platform, though. Taking advantage of being alone in the café, he'd turned his attention towards T.'s last letter. Last in more ways than one; her latest reply had seemed very final. The physical letter had dissolved in front of him like all the rest, but this one had been so short he'd scarcely needed to make any mental notes of what she'd said: there had been a thank you, it had been exceedingly polite, but she had seemed to conclude with certainty that there was nothing she could do.
Still, it warranted a reply. Of some kind. There wasn't much he could argue to change her mind on that, especially when she had kept her identity private (whatever his suspicions); she had told him to begin with that she was in a difficult position, so plainly it had been a bad idea to get as carried away as he had. And he'd known it, and had pushed too far from talk to action, and stupidly mentioned their meetings -
What was he going to tell Kieran? The only worse dimension to the thought that he hadn't actually been of any use, hadn't really found a way to help her, was that this meant he'd failed in his favour. Kieran had trusted him with this and Jude probably hadn't made the faintest difference, had just let him down. (When had he started caring so much about what Kieran thought?)
Jude scratched out a word on the parchment and then watched an ink blot form from holding the nib there too long.
He glanced at the café's doorway.
The upside of today's date was that Kieran probably wasn't going to walk in the door any time this afternoon. It was the night before the full moon. He was presumably pre-emptively catching up on sleep.
The downside of knowing the moon's cycle and thus Kieran's activities for the next few nights was that it made Jude incurably restless. He'd made a bad case of grinding his teeth all day; couldn't stop fidgeting with his quill; could barely string out a legible sentence, and probably wouldn't be able to until that darkening cloud of disquiet had moved on for another month. If it moved on, at all - he wasn't sure whether he had any self-control, any more, when it came to thinking about Kieran. Or when it came to the clenched feeling in his chest.
So it came almost as a relief when the Augurey showed a sign of life at last, with a familiar face wandering through the door, a perfect distraction. Jude's gaze had been slow to reach him, but he recognised which friend it was by their trousers alone. Only Eaton. He fought against the gnawing worry by breaking into a brief smile of welcome as he shifted his spread-out things over more to his side of the table so Eaton would have room to sit down, balling up the unfinished bit of parchment into his fist and sweeping into his pocket to revisit later.
Honestly, he had meant to change tack entirely, clear his head with a fresh slate of conversation - the elections as usual, or asking how Eaton was, or greeting him, for Merlin's sake. Instead, Eaton had barely sat down and -
"Do you think I come on too strong?" Jude blurted out, without preamble.
@'Valeria Greengrass'