tolerate it...

“Actually, there’s a guy who’s been following me around the halls for the past five minutes.” Penelope commented, looking over her shoulder to see if that was still the case. “Thought I would come over here and see if I’m being paranoid or not before giving him a piece of my mind. I hate the Ministry sometimes.” She sighed.

“Not everyone has one of those, but it does help when you do,” she nodded briefly in agreement. “Glad we see eye to eye on something like that.”

Celestina sipped on her morning coffee as she read the Daily Prophet. She did enjoy the morning routine they had, especially on weekends when they were more relaxed, “Smells good,” she said, turning to her cooking boyfriend, “What are you making?”

“Sorry, were you looking for me?” Celestina asked, looking up from her work, “I am up to my neck in paperwork, very caught up in it. Did you need something?”

“Wow, she looks more like you than the last time I saw her,” Celestina said when she spotted Caitlin with her former dormmate. Granted, she hadn’t seen the child in a long time and hadn’t one a regular basis but she was trying to be better and make conversation, “What are you guys up to today?”

“Oh I like this song,” Celestina said, moving along to the beat as she sipped on her drink, “I’ve never heard it before. Do you know this song?” She asked someone nearby.

“Oh my god, what is that?” Celestina asked, brow furrowed and eyes widened as she spotted the creature inside the cage, “I don’t remember learning about that at Hogwarts. Is that something you’re going to teach about?”

“When will governments actually represent the people? We may never know,” Chloé tsked with a shake of her head. While she came from a family of politicians, she was raised to never shy away from her opinions or stances on things. 

“Always been that way. I just occasionally enjoy winding you up and I know idiocy is probably one of the easiest ways to do that.” The grin he was wearing was wolfish and he chuckled at the question. “Strangely well rested. I think I just hit the deck when I got in and was spark out. What about you?”

“That’s…” Jace didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he wasn’t sure how to make her understand without sounding kind of mean unintentionally. He barely knew how to communicate with Lucy right now. “Okay,” he replied.

“I can sort of see where they’re coming from given that movie thrillers get you with the pacing, musical stings and so forth,” Alessandra replied, but was quick to add that she agreed with the other’s argument, “That being said, I think a written thriller being able to grip you is so much more powerful given that it’s up to the author’s writing and your imagination.”

“While I totally understand why you’d want to keep a clean record it’d be foolish of the Ministry to look down upon you when it’s clearly in self defense,” she replied. “They should be able to see reason in that, right?”

A chuckle left his lips and he took it off her, immediately taking a sip. Despite the scalding heat, he was grateful for it. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare. I mean, if I did, it might stop you from doing all these sweet things for me and then I’d be much worse off now wouldn’t I.”

She nodded briefly, not quite sure what to say in response to that. “Those are good choices. Thrillers you can’t put down are some of my absolute favorites,” Alessandra replied. 

“That all sounds really nice actually,” Alessandra admitted. “Do you have a favorite genre of literature?” she wondered curiously.