InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Crucio! "

“Flora, no, for Merlin’s sake, stop terrorizing your brother. Now go take the dog outside.” Shona told her four-year-old daughter sternly, complete with her hands on her hips and a steely glare learned from their formidable aunt. The young McGonagall gave her mother an innocent expression, which would have been much more effective if a) their father had caught them instead, and b) Flora wasn’t currently pushing Malcolm’s face into the couch cushions. “I see you, all right. Now go.”

Flora pouted, but released her brother from her clutches and began calling after their dog, who was likely hiding somehow from the madness. Young Malcolm attempted to sneak off when Shona called to Flora not to forget the lead, when she held out her arm to stop him from moving. “I saw you, too. No more stealing your sister’s dolls, aye?” Shona eyed him suspiciously.

“Aye, mum, fine,” Mal humphed, and then raced up the stairs after permission granted, likely to find Flora putting pigtails on the dog again.

“Sorry about that,” Shona apologized once her children were once more out of sight and hearing distance. “At least I can still threaten to take their Christmas presents away if things get really bad,” she flashed her cousin a grin over her shoulder, and Charmed the wine bottle, their glasses, and biscuits to arrange themselves on the coffee table. “Come, sit. Relax with me,” she patted the spot next to her, not all that distant from the location Malcolm’s head occupied only minutes ago.

Florrie settled into the spot on the sofa that Shona had indicated, noting carefully that there was no child drool on it to spoil her clothes before she did so. "And Mum wonders why I'm not anxious to leap into the world of domestic bliss," she said, with a wry glance at her cousin. "I think I'll just keep doing what I'm doing instead." She poured a little more wine for fortification and took a biscuit. "Do you want the highlights first, or shall I just let you ask all the questions and drag the dirty details out?"

“The highlights first, please,” she replied, and took a sip of her cabernet. “Today’s been one of those days I want to hang them by their toes, so. Really. You’ll get no hurrying from me.”

"There's not that much to tell, really. He asked me out, I said yes, we've been out a few times, and I left the gala with him. And apparently that's a bigger deal than I thought it was, but apparently everyone is enjoying my love life vicariously." Florrie shrugged and took a sip of her wine. "And now that I have housemates at the Cattery, I get to do the apparation of absolutely no shame home in the morning. Though whoever gave Portree a match the day after St Andrews must hate them. Drinking and dancing late and then playing a match hung over."

Shona took a bite of her biscuit, and washed it down with her wine, enjoying the savory sweet combination. “I just want you to be happy, whatever that means for you.” She reached over to pat her cousin on the arm. “Ha! Probably. Maybe we can blame Mel.” A shrug. He wasn’t here to defend himself, but whatever. She trusted Florrie not to tell.

Florrie snorted, amused, at the mention of the scheduler. They'd got the same raw deal with a short turnaround but at least it hadn't fallen on top of a Montrose event. She could only imagine how well Merc would have taken that.

"I am happy," was what Florrie said by way of response to the important part. "I mean, it's fun and we're having a good time, and that's all it needs to be. I don't think he's looking for more and I'm not either, Mum's perpetual hopes for getting me in the bridal tiara notwithstanding. Also it's not a good time for me to plan for commitments, since I'm in the first year at Montrose, I'm living in a women's boardinghouse, and I'm about to rent out my house for a year. Nothing is stable, which ought to sound frightening, but it's actually rather freeing." And on that thought she raised her glass to Shona.

“That’s fair,” she agreed, and responded in kind with her glass. “I admit, I prefer knowing what lays ahead, but I recognize that others find predictability a bit boring at times, so.” Shona shrugged. She’d always been a homebody and homemaker and knew this about herself. “But you know this about me, and I know that being adventurous is not the same as reckless, which you are definitely not doing.”

Having drunk her toast, Florrie took another biscuit. "Well, I know what lies at the end of the road, most likely, for everything but the man. So that does make it easier," Florrie confessed. "Either Montrose works out and I sell the house in London and buy something in Scotland, or for whatever reason it doesn't and I go back to Mungo's, probably to do something in Quidditch medicine or training, which last was the sort of thing I was looking at before if I didn't want to be Head of Department. So it's a transitional period but I'm not without fallbacks if it turns out to be wrong for me."

Shona lifted a shoulder in acknowledgment. “Like I said. You’re being adventurous. Nothing wrong with that.”

Florrie shrugged. She didn't feel as though changing jobs and having a few dates was a big adventure, and moving close to home and her family certainly wasn't. "Now that the war is over, I feel like I can do adventurous things again. It wasn't a luxury I've had until now, not for a long time."

“It’s nice to worry about little things, like whether or not the dishes are done, instead of...some of the more complicated issues,” she nodded, sighing. “I feel like I haven’t talked about it, much. The war. Which is strange, because it used to be the only thing to talk about.” Of course, there was the Muggleborns’ movement and she completely supported it, but a peacetime country was different from a wartime one, and in many ways, Shona still felt like she was readjusting after so long.

What Shona called living adventurously was what Florrie thought of as the fruits of winning the war. "You'd like to think there's nothing to talk about, except there so obviously is. But it took how many centuries from the time of the Statute to get to now? So there's going to be a long time undoing what was done in all those years. Decades. Centuries, even." Another savoury biscuit found its way into Florrie's mouth.

Shona drank some more wine, feeling this conversation settle in like the way tiredness crept into your bones after a long day. “There’s a lot to talk about.” She drained her glass and reached for more. “I feel like I don’t even know where to start, but I feel like I should be doing something. You know?”

"I think the best thing I can do right now is wait for Jason and his friends to decide how they want my support, and then lend it to them. Da died because of this--because he supported Nobby Leach, which is the same thing--though I'd be with them all the way even without that." How many of her old friends from school had died in the two wars was a list so long that Florrie couldn't even count them off on both hands. "I don't think it's my time to lead any more. I think, for once, I can pass that baton.

"Not that we should ever tolerate open bigotry, or even the dragon-whistling, but we didn't anyway. It's just that as far as open statements go, I feel as though it's Jason and his friends who should make the decisions, and we who should listen and follow through. For a change."

“No, you’re right.” Shona replied in a quiet, distant voice, though she was present enough to reach over and squeeze Florrie’s hand at the mention of Uncle Robert. And Florrie was right; these thoughts were hardly new concepts to Shona, but they Gryffindors, and more than that, McGonagalls, and to say that they were natural leaders was a bit of understatement.

But it was time for the next generation to take over the fight, and Shona had to reconcile with that, as much as her instincts urged her to lead the figurative crusade.

"I told Jason I would support them when he asked, and he hasn't yet." Florrie flashed a smile at her cousin. "I'm getting impatient too, but fortunately I've been busy enough with moving into the Cattery that it hasn't chafed too much."

Instead of commenting further, Shona made a sympathetic noise and latched onto the new potential topic. “How is that turning out for you, so far? Do you like it?”

"Isnae so bad," Florrie said. "I'm a bit old for it, really, but it's fun to play at it for a while. Also Meaghan and Joy--she's the Aussie--need a house mum and I'm well suited for it. I think that's half of why Catriona had me there. The other half being something to do with the war work, Meaghan's and mine." The details of that weren't clear to her so she didn't elaborate.

Shona grinned. “A bit like having bairns of your own, eh?” Being a house mum to Quidditch players and the mum to preschoolers weren’t really that different.

"I know Maggie MacDougal throws a bad idea party every year in the runup to Christmas and I expect that half of Portree will go along. Which is typical of how the girls do things. But we're going to throw a housewarming before Christmas for the three of us and, I think, so everyone can meet Dave." Florrie nodded her head. "The tree is named Dave." They were exactly like small children, except with brooms and lots of ready cash.

“Well, of course. Everyone needs to meet Dave the Christmas Tree.” Shona nodded gravely.