It wasn't that Higgs had asked Lydia out because of some sort of secret agenda, hardly. He enjoyed Lydia's company a lot. Nonetheless, it would also be unfair to not admit that he had strongly been inspired to ask if she wanted to meet after talking to Alicia about her potential friendship with Weasley. Higgs didn't really presume that they were in the same boat with this. His past with both Alicia and Weasley was very different from that Lydia had with Weasley. But Lydia was also Higgs' friend, the only one of his friends who knew the full story, even if by chance rather than design. And he really felt that he needed to talk about it to someone who wasn't going to take his side just because they were his friend (and not the friend of anyone else involved, which was pretty much where the rest of Higgs' friends were at, perhaps with the exception of Ashleigh and it seemed rather unfair to put her in that position).
Higgs had finished slightly early so he wouldn't have to make Lydia wait for long whilst he made his way through the Ministry. "Hey," he replied with a smile when she spotted him. "More exciting than some other days," Higgs replied with a small shrug. It had been a reasonably exciting day, involving tracking down leads on the Gringotts' break-in, but Higgs couldn't really discuss it because the case was still active and also it seemed in rather poor taste to discuss it with someone who had been there. "Couple of weeks ago we were sent out to raid a presumed drug den and it turned out that they were just breeding unlicensed puffskeins. That was probably the most exciting day all month," Higgs told her instead because a) he could talk about that and also he did have pictures involving a lot of tiny balls of fluff.
As they made their way out of the Ministry and towards the pub (which Higgs really hoped was going to be rather empty on an early Wednesday evening), he glanced over at Lydia. "What about you? Exciting day at work?" He asked returning the question with a smirk that implied he was aware that he had just parroted her question back at her.