Private message to Lucius Malfoy

[alt_selwyn]

I know you're more of a firewhiskey drinker, but do try the mead -- it's got a surprising kick to it. Do you know who supplied it? I might order a few bottles next year for holiday gifts.

Arista threw a fit when I left her behind today -- I was baffled as to why she thought she'd be coming with me to the Ministry Christmas party, of all things! Turns out she was confused. She's in one of the children's choirs that will perform at the Froste Faire, and she thought THAT was where I was going.

Comments

[alt_lucius]

Noted. Have only just arrived from Court; supposed to meet my clerk in a quarter-hour for some parchment he neglected to give me this morning.

(Happy to say that he has just informed me the fruits of my grooming have not been in vain. At least one of the factors limiting his performance has been cleared away.)

Did you tell her she'll have all the festivities she can stomach, come the weekend? You and Chloe are coming in the afternoon, are you not? Antonin Nikolaevich is expected as soon as the students have been packed away on the Hogwarts Express; Draco and Harry will join us once they are done with their duties in conducting the younger ones on the train.

[alt_selwyn]

We wouldn't miss it. She was temporarily unconsoled because she was convinced that THIS was the event she'd be singing at -- she doesn't want to shirk her responsibilities, that one.

Good news about your clerk.

[alt_lucius]

There seems to be something about the theatrical bent that engenders devotion, doesn't there? Perhaps it's akin to the artistic temperament.

Have they any collective talent, at all, or shall the Faire be another exercise in a fixed smile?

[alt_selwyn]

Your clerk is one of the ten thousand or so Weasley offspring, isn't he?

Stephen seemed quite pleased with his brother.

[alt_lucius]

So far as I know, the eldest brother has no romantic entanglements that might cause him embarrassment at his level. Sensibly so.

Knowing this one's ambitions, it was to his advantage to disengage himself from his inamorata. (Not that she herself was objectionable - though perhaps more suitable for a mistress than a wife, if one's taste led one to such things. But the family were, if possible, less socially acceptable than Weasley's own. Cannot imagine the lad speaking as seriously about their futures as he did while never having met her parents, for example. Entirely inappropriate.)

To say nothing of the fact that their somewhat unstable ... relationship ... required him to spend far too much time and energy devoting himself to its repair and maintenance, rather than to the demands of the realm.

Ah. I've spotted him.

[alt_selwyn]

Perhaps your Christmas gift to him ought to be a matchmaking service that specialises in finding suitable wives for ambitious purebloods who come from moderately disreputable (if nonetheless respectably old) families.

Though if he only just ended things with his lady-love, it's undoubtedly too soon.

You could make it a Spring Equinox gift.