It was so easy, to slip into an easy pattern of conversation, as if he came home to her every day, and had - not out of necessity, but out of desire - for the better parts of his life. And perhaps it was desire; when anything slightly remarkable occurred at work, he’d make a note to tell Rory, sometimes going so far as to physically jot it down upon a piece of paper and stuff it into his pocket to act as a reminder of stories which needed to be told later on. He found himself eager to return home, to her, for a multitude of reasons; necessity, of course, was that he protect her, though she was not the sort of woman who needed protection. Edgar was not the sort to resort to violence, but he found himself holding his wand a little tighter nowadays. And necessity gave way to desire; it was easier and easier to loosen the tightness between his shoulders when she was around, as if her presence was exactly what lessened the burden that mounted during the daytime.
Chagrined, he looked down to his bag as she hid her hands from view; he should have known better than to so openly point it out, he knew. “Ah, well -” he cleared his throat, setting himself to rummaging absently through his bag for nothing in particular, “- he and the girl from Madam Malkins disappeared for an entire evening - Donna nearly set the entire department looking for him, though I’ve never been much of a sleuth myself. Not the best at puzzles - but you know that; remember that puzzle I did in sixth? Took the whole term to -” he cleared his throat again, shaking his head with a good-natured laugh, “- anyway, it turns out the two of them had snuck away, gotten drunk off their arses, and broke into Twilfitt and Tattings. It was the betrayal of the century, apparently.” He shot Rory a humorous look, theatrically rolling his eyes and giving a heaving shrug. Surely she didn’t care this much - he just so often found himself rambling to her that he could hardly help it.
“But that’s all you missed, really; since I’d skipped out on the hunt, I had to be caught up, apparently,” he snorted, “crucial information. Obviously not as important as what you’ve been doing - appease the curmudgeon, and he’ll see reason. He’s got to listen to you eventually. You are right, after all.” Edgar knew very little of potions, but had paid close enough attention to Rory to know what was right and what was wrong; the curmudgeon in question, undoubtedly, was wrong.
“Do you, er,” he suggested, looking down to his bag, then up once more, “need me to fetch the salve? The potioneer deserves a break. And some tea, maybe - does tea sound as good to you as it does to me?” Another win for domesticity; the sharing of tea was a sacred ritual indeed.
The reasoning behind her timidness had always seemed to elude her- in no other aspects of her life did she find this dryness of mouth, the aversion of eye contact, the weird trembling that held itself at the bottom of her spine. But his attention to her fingers, which felt gnarled and coarse in the folds of fabric, was not what he wanted to look at. Perhaps her eyes, which she lined once he’d left in the hope that he’d appreciate it-- or her lips, which she fastidiously applied lipstick to, only to clean it off ten minutes before he came home in the fear of looking like a clown. It was hard enough for her to look inside of herself and see the defects of her own soul- to have him see its faults reflected on her skin sent her teetering in a very un-Rory like manner.
“Uh-huh” She followed his story as animatedly as she could,trying to not let her mind diverge in the thousands of directions that it threatened to beckon her. With his rambling it was easy to see that where one of them tried to stay on track, the other was too easily persuaded off of it-- she fought the urge to cluck her tongue and comment on how precious it made his actually seem. (Especially because she did remember the puzzle he’d done in Sixth.) “Betrayal of the Century, huh? Makes me feel a bit cross that I’ve been dethroned so quickly.” She quirked her lips allowing herself to joke, for probably the first time, about the situation that had left them in this room together.
“Don’t be silly, Ed. I’m sure your papers are worth more than the cauldrons I’ve been scorching all day. Though I have managed to upgrade those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we’ve been eating- you’ll never guess how.” She allowed herself, if only for a moment, to open herself to him, letting him into the world where she tinkered around with her sandwiches, unafraid of what judgment would come with it. “That er- sounds just right, if you wouldn’t mind. The salve is above the sink.” If Rory was being honest, Edgar’s assistance would be more than welcome; she didn’t want to think about what a mess she’d make trying to heal her own fingers.
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