March 13th, 1891 - Teacup Transfiguration Trials [standing crowd]

Without a Howlers game to be in today, Art had decided a week or so ago that he was going to go to the Teapot Transfiguration Trials. He'd been once before, several years ago - not as a competitor, but because one of his at-the-time flatmates had been competing and Art had been trying to remain in their good graces enough to avoid moving again. Hogsmeade sounded like it would be a much more interesting crowd, and it was so close to him that what else would he do with his weekend? He thought about bringing Gwenog with him, but eventually decided against it - if the Transfiguration went wrong it might be sort of gruesome, and he didn't want to explain that to Desdemona. (He actually believed this was his full reasoning, too.)

He'd gotten a ticket for the standing crowd, and was milling about near the start of the race, hoping to see some early carnage. Art was bouncing on the balls of his feet waiting for things to actually start when he heard a familiar sound and startled - a man (someone from Excalibur's, maybe) was collecting bets on the competitors.

Art stopped bouncing, stood still - stared at the notebook collecting bets in the man's hands from several yards away. His mouth went a little dry. He could have easily stared for a while, but someone brushed his shoulder - "Sorry," Art said, breaking his gaze to look at them, instead.

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March challenge thread!

  

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set by MJ <3

It was rare that Hogsmeade weekends coincided with anything exciting, and despite not having any vested interest in the Teacup Transfiguration Trials Frida could not resist the opportunity to attend. It would be only a matter of months before outings like this was expected to her, so she'd eventually have to get used to being around adults, right? Right?

Up until the moment she'd actually arrived, though, she'd had no clue what the trials actually entailed, and was quite horrified to find that participants had been forced to sign a document that said the organizers of the event were not responsible for transfusions of teacups to body parts, drowning, missing limbs, or accidental death. No wonder it was mostly men—not women—who were participating. She could only imagine how difficult it would be to find a husband with a teacup fused to her shoulder!

Gruesome injuries a possibility or not, she was not about to waste her afternoon in the park without actually being able to see the action. It took a bit of effort for her to get through the crowd, which mostly consisted of rowdy men, and she was certain she would return to the castle with a bruise on her shoulder after a gentleman had backed into her. She persevered, though, and finally could see the beginning point of the race through the cracks between people as they passed in front of her.

Then, she was there—or almost there, because as she tried to walk around the last man in her way she noticed who he was. Someone walked behind her and knocked her forward, causing her to touch him, and her eyes widened. He looked down at her and, whoops, it was definitely him.

"Arthur," she greeted uncomfortably, stepping back to put a good foot between them (which is about as much as she could without anyone walking in-between them in an attempt to find a good spot).

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— set by mj  —

Arthur blinked at the girl. She was definitely a Lestrange - in addition to calling him Arthur, there was her hair, eyebrows, nose, et cetera - but he didn't recognize her. He tended to be iffy on the younger generation, having spent much of their lives conspicuously not invited to most minor family events - and on occasions when he was at a Lestrange gathering, Arthur's interest mostly lay in being very quiet and pretending that he did not exist. Certainly not in talking to teenagers - one of Lucius' girls had tried to bait him into saying things he shouldn't, last time he was invited.

"Which one are you?" he asked; his words were rude but his tone was not.

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set by MJ <3

Frida blinked at the bluntness of his words, but did not make a face that suggested she was angered by them. She shouldn't expect him to know her—he was the notorious one, and most mentions of his name in her family had been to warn her of his antics. He did not look like some terrible failure, though; he was dressed decently, had brushed his hair, and did not stink of whiskey as she distinctly remembered thinking he would when she saw him at cousin Claude's wedding to cousin Ellory.

"Um - Frida. Orestes' daughter," she said. They were first cousins—closer by blood than she even was to Seneca or Sage. It didn't feel like that, though. He was a stranger in all but name, and she could not recall a moment she'd spoken to him. Ever.

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— set by mj  —

"Oh," Arthur said, blinking his surprise at her. He couldn't stop himself from asking: "How old are you?" He didn't remember any of Orestes' children well - Orestes had been kind of a dick, as far as Art could remember, and without the pull that Lucius had on the family - but remembered all of them being young. Frida, so he'd been in Hogwarts when she was born, hadn't he?

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set by MJ <3

Of course, it was perfectly logical that Arthur Pettigrew didn't keep tabs on his cousins anymore—she hadn't spoken to him in years, either, and it dawned on her that she wasn't sure how old he was either. "Seventeen, almost eighteen," she responded, trying to smile. He had to be nearly thirty at this point, didn't he? She remembered he was married—and to a halfblood, too, which Frida didn't care about but knew her family did—and had a child.

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"Oh, damn, that's a whole adult," Art said, unable to contain the swear or the note of surprise. "I remember you being small." He was not sure that he did remember this but that was the done thing, to say that you remembered when your cousins were little even if you didn't. Frida hadn't said anything rude to him yet, which was genuinely unusual for most Lestranges, and so he didn't mind extending this olive branch of politeness to her.

"Are you here with your friends, or something?"

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set by MJ <3

Frida blinked, and the next second a quiet laugh escaped her lips. She supposed she was an adult now—and had been for nearly a year, but it didn't feel right, and she didn't think it would until she debuted. "I'd be lying if I said I remembered you," she admitted, her tone not at all unkind, "but I do recognize you."

Even so, he felt like a complete stranger next to her. She was closer to Sage and Seneca, who by blood were even less related to her. And yet, she found herself letting her guard down, if only because she new about how he'd disappointed the family. It was a feeling she could share in, could relate to—even if it recent months had proven that she was not quite the disappointment she'd thought herself.

"I - was," she replied, instinctively glancing around as if in search of them. As head girl, she was rarely directly chaperoned anymore, and in fact was usually left to play temporary chaperon to a gaggle of younger girls while the matron or professors took a breather themselves. Still, it was probably in her best interest to figure out where they were, even if she she was not with them. "It's a Hogsmeade weekend," she explained, uncomfortable with the lapse of silence. "My friends - they have a habit of leaving me behind. I don't mind, though. I wanted to watch."

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— set by mj  —

"You should get better friends," Art said, without any real malice in his tone; he wasn't even really thinking about the rudeness of his tone, still too fixated on the prospect of betting to actually think about being charming and affable. He wasn't thinking about whether or not he wanted to be rude to her or be charming, but rather about the bet - Flora was a side attraction to the main event in Art's thoughts.

"Listen," Art said, "If you were going to place a bet on one of the competitors here, which one would you pick?"

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set by MJ <3

Frida thought her friends were just fine—just a little absent-minded at times. It wasn't as if Jemima and Darling were anything like Seneca and Gretchen, who actively sought to tease or terrorize her at times. She merely smiled and let her eyes wander to the starting line as she tried to remember than names of all the competitors. There was Mr. Pyrites, Mr. Zabini, and Miss Whitledge among others, as well as handful of other people she'd never seen or heard of before. "I would put my money on Mr. Fraser," she said lightly, "He is on the charms committee, after all." She looked to him with a raised brow, as if asking if her thought process was sound.

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Arthur stood on his toes as if that would let him see Mr. Fraser &mbsp; it didn't &mbsp; and considered. "That makes sense to me," he said, "I think I'll bet on it. We'll see if you're right." It didn't really count as betting if he was using someone else's reasoning, right? Right. This made sense to Art.

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set by MJ <3

It seemed strange to Frida, to bet on a name that a near-stranger had chosen out of the blue, completely uninformed. However, she did not know him well enough to chastise him about it, and instead offered an uncomfortable smile.

"Well, I hope you'll let me know how that goes the next time we speak." Which might be her own wedding, for all she knew; it was not very often Frida and Arthur Pettigrew were in the same room together. "But I must be going to find my friends now—goodbye, cousin."

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