3 PM Meeting

Ana laced her fingers together on top of her desk, frowning at the door. The last meeting had gone... terribly, for lack of a better word, and she was just not in the mood to deal with another meeting. She had this one and then one more before she was officially finished. Then she could turn in her reports to the Ministry and see what was to be done. She, of course, wouldn't be in charge of the retribution for the girl who had refused to show up for her meeting. But that didn't mean that she wasn't annoyed and didn't want her to be found.

Needless to say, Ana was not impressed. She would not be taking any sort of attitude during the next meeting, regardless of if the students got along or didn't. This was what she had been assigned to do, and this was the person they were assigned to be with and there was no getting out of it now unless they were already engaged or married, which was relatively unlikely. It had only happened a handful of times and even those were being looked into to make sure they weren't lying.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and pulled out the files for the next two students - a Gryffindor and a Slytherin? Fabulous. It couldn't really get more frustrating than this, Ana decided. She was already dealing with a failed meeting and now she would have to put up with a inter-house feud? No, that was not something she wanted to do today. Absolutely not.

A frown fell across her face before she flipped through the pages and tried to push back the anger. It wouldn't help anyone if she was already in a bad mood at the start of the meeting. She was supposed to be the mediator and keep everyone calm and in line. Especially at Hogwarts, where the students were underage and would really have little choice regarding the law. She closed the files and just hoped that it would be a more normal meeting, even though she didn't expect it to actually happen.

Winter break had come and gone, fairly uneventfully – well, in the eyes of those around her. Unfortunately, Nessarose had been unable to escape Hogwarts in order to attend school with Professor Hayes. After her encounter with Dylan, Nessa was certain that someone was going to find out, and send her away regardless. The real question was how the Ministry didn’t know about the plan for this school for Half-breeds (as the Ministry called them) and those who chose to attend. How had word failed to get around? Or did all of the students know already? If so, Nessa had a feeling that her meeting would be a rough one. The moment the Ministry found out, they could potentially find reason to get any and all involved into serious trouble.

Frankly, though, Nessa didn’t see what the problem was. Was there a law against there being a second school? Probably not. But maybe if it meant defying some part of the Ministry’s laws they could come after Mr. Hayes and those who were helping him.

Her thoughts had been occupied by these questions all day, regardless of the fact that her meeting was in a mere five minutes. Frown in place, Nessa ascended the stairs to the second floor, glancing about in an attempt to catch the right label designating a room as the ‘Guidance Office.’ What a stupid name. They wouldn’t be given guidance so much as a life sentence. How thoroughly painful.

Knocking lightly at the door, Nessa waited until the female voice inside replied, then let herself in. The brunette sitting across the desk from her appeared to be massively put out, so while Nessarose was entirely furious herself, she was loathe to come off as a threat immediately. “Afternoon,” she offered vaguely, sinking into the first chair she laid eyes on.

“Afternoon, Miss Bridgewood. We’ll give your match a few minutes to arrive.” Ana replied, hardly offering any attention. The woman’s eyes were downcast, focused on her paperwork, whatever it was. Nessa pursed her lips but said nothing, crossing her legs and settling in to wait.

Payment into his Gringott’s account wouldn’t be made until the weekend after next and Baldric was down to the scraps of his penultimate packet of tobacco. With the filter tip between his lips, Baldric spread out the tobacco across the paper and sighed a little, the air not quite passing his lips but the sound rumbling through him regardless. Bobbing from one foot to the other, Baldric could not settle himself. There was nothing that Bentley had been able to do either which, to give the man his due credit, had been an extensive endeavour. Baldric had instead turned to his least favourite pass time. Thankfully, he’d ceased to indulge quite as much as he used to but his favourite perch was still the counter in their kitchen where he had spent most of that morning, reducing himself to a chimney until he had been coaxed to eat and drink something.

The majority of the packet of his tobacco had been gotten rid of this morning through a systematic roll, smoke and repeat timeline which Bae hadn’t enjoyed per se but had certainly realised the merits of indulging in. It had given his hands something to do and ultimately he felt as though he was light headed enough to deal with any obstacle. He’d been dropped off in Hogsmeade and the walk up to Hogwarts had been one that he hadn’t imagined himself taking again. He hadn’t wholly explained what exactly was going on with his schooling – he’d been as vague as he’d been when he’d tried to get to the bottom of his problem with his father – but religiously he went out for every class that was being run by Keiran and Millie. He was trying, genuinely.

The Guidance Office was down the hall, a few metres away. After finishing rolling up his cigarette, Baldric tucked it behind his ear and shoved the trappings of his art form into the pockets of his leather jacket. He’d bought it with the first salary that Puddlemere United had given him. They’d demanded he quit and he’d certainly tried. He would give up cold turkey after the meeting, he’d decided. Then, on the quiet he’d see to the exploration of a few magical universities where he hoped to install himself as an undergraduate within a few years – hopefully studying history. However, the youth team was paying for him to be there and he wasn’t going to jeopardise an income which he and Bentley could enjoy in the meantime. Essentially, Baldric’s was disposable. They could fritter it away on the silly things they didn’t need but seemed like a fantastic idea at the time. Though of course, Baldric still saved some – some in his bank, some in their rainy day marmalade jar in the snack cupboard.

Opening the door in a rather unceremonious fashion, Baldric found he’d announced himself mid-conversation between the two women. He sighed, letting the door slam shut behind him. He recognised immediately that he was being childish and he could hear his father berating him in the back of his head. Nevertheless, Baldric felt he was entirely justified. There was a wedge being poked between himself and Bentley – himself and the life he’d settled happily into.

“Can we make this speedy?” Baldric spoke, trying to keep his voice as even and airy as possible. Impossible. “I’ve got somewhere to be.”

(ooc: this is post-Nessa being turned. Wolfie present for ya.)

Ana watched with ill-suppressed interest as the brunette’s face fell upon seeing the Gryffindor walk through the entryway. Clearly Nessarose knew who he was and wasn’t pleased. Well this would be either completely awful or rather amusing. Ana couldn’t decide if she preferred dealing with annoyed students or frightened ones. Provided the annoyed ones weren’t too vocal, she found that she didn’t quite mind their opinions showing on their faces or in their stances.

“Apologies, Mr. Wood. Meetings don’t usually last the full hour, but it’s entirely possible that it will continue on if we don’t get started. Do sit down.” Ana gestured to the chair left open for him.

Glancing between the two, Ana acted like she didn’t notice Nessa crossing her arms and huffing to herself. Clearly the girl held the typical Slytherin prejudices against Gryffindors. Or perhaps she knew the boy and wanted none of it. Then again, she hadn’t seemed interested at all thus far, so it was unlikely that anyone walking through the door could have evoked a different reaction.

“First things first, you two may understand the rules already because of your friends or otherwise, but I’m meant to explain regardless. Two weeks from today, you’ll need to set the date for your wedding, which must take place by the end of thirty days. I’m sure you know about the requirement for children, so I won’t go into that except to say that we’ll need to take care of fertility tests for the both of you before you leave.” Ana flicked through their files with one hand, not actually looking at the pages. She was entirely done with giving the same speech over and over, especially after these two had probably heard about everything from their housemates or friends.

Nessa released a quiet grumble under her breath, knowing that no matter how tempted she was to back-talk this woman, she needed to keep her head low. They didn’t know about Dylan accidentally turning her, or her being more or less tricked into working with Moira. She wanted to keep it that way, too, if she could help it. Her road to discovering the truth about the Bridgewood daughter would be one where she needed to keep things to herself. Nessa really needed to give the girl a fake name; it would be so much easier than saying the full thing every time. She settled on Rachel for the moment, but passed over that as her thoughts traveled.

No matter how badly she wanted to ask Mrs. Levski if Baldric had attended the wrong meeting – for Nessa certainly was not a fan of his Gryffindor, Quidditch-playing self – she had to hold her tongue. Passing a glare at the boy, she decided to sit back and hope he dug his own grave.

Reluctantly, Baldric had taken a seat and had endeavoured to listen to what Ana had to say. He was privy to what the law entailed, of course, but when her words struck at his ears he found that he was at a loss of where his own had gone. Marriage. Children. Mentions of those two things had whipped away any drastically witty retort that he had hidden in his belt. He had come to accept that both were going to pass him by. He recognised that he should have been happy but, make no mistake, he certainly was not. He would have been a heinous liar, however, if he sat and protested that he wanted neither. He did want the whole package and he always had done but he had never wanted it unless he was with someone he wanted to be with and who wanted to be with him. He’d never found that with another woman, with whom the marriage and babies scenario usually played out, and instead he had come to terms and had made peace with the idea that it would, indeed, be something he couldn’t quite have. Nevertheless, he still wasn’t entirely enamoured with the idea of the Ministry offering it up to him on a platter. As pretty as Nessarose was, he saw nothing that encouraged in him the idea that the marriage – and, especially the children part – could ever be a reality. She wasn’t right and, from the look on her face, he certainly wasn’t right for her, either. So, at least they both knew where they stood, it appeared.

Baldric bit his lip a little, unsure whether he really wanted to go through with this. Actually no, scratch that, he didn’t want to go through with it at all. There was a part of him that wanted to own up to his preferences and declare that, for the sake of the birthing clause, they had better find someone else. Of course, it wasn’t his best excuse in the whole wide world, either, so he kept quiet. He knew he couldn’t fight it. He didn’t have any one else to marry in order to get out of it because regardless of whether or not you married someone who wasn’t your match, the clause still held and thus whether you were Kieran and Millie or Sonia and Baird, you still had to produce children. Baldric couldn’t get out of it, this he knew, and he didn’t know why but he felt as though he needed to fight in order to feel as though he’d achieved something, anything, at all. However, he wasn’t one with words, usually, our Baldric, and so when he opened his mouth, the first thing that came out was the following:

“I’m infertile, Mrs Levski,” Baldric coughed a little and brought his hand to his mouth, surprised at his own words but thankfully, the cough distracted him enough. He cleared his throat and looked about furtively, trying to plaster a look of utter shame and sadness on his face. “I’m afraid there’ll be no need for a fertility test,” he added, looking up. He wasn’t going to get away with it, he didn’t think. Still, it was better than nothing. There was a chance in it, of that he was certain. Still, whether there was or wasn’t, he was vaguely sure that still would have come out of his mouth. Easily the worst thing he’d ever said, ever, in the history of the worst things he’d ever said, Baldric couldn’t back out now.

“So, uh, that doesn’t really endear me to the rest of the law does it?” He queried with a weak smile, rising from his chair. “I’ve wasted your time really so I’ll be off then, shall I?”