&& it’s a work thing
marcus-mck-innon:
As he steered her away, he smirked to himself after catching a glance of the look on the guy who he had stolen her from’s face. He was clearly taken aback and irritated that Marcus had been able to come along and whisk Cressida away, but whether she knew it or not, the guy had been attempting to flirt and both he and the guy knew that she could do better. He had known her for many years, since the days when their parents hosted parties together, to sitting together in classes at Hogwarts to stealing each other for coffee breaks without permission. She was one of his oldest and closest friends and though he suspected everyone nowadays of perhaps not being on the same side as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to indulge the idea that she would, so he forced himself into a state of denial and kept himself there.
“You’re welcome” he murmured as she clutched his arm. “How did you get talking to that creep?” he asked, curiously, a smirk of amusement on his face as he looked down at her. When she grabbed the drink from his hand sighed and shook his head, “It’s yours now, I didn’t want it after your germs have been all over it” he said, making a soft retching noise, as a joke, though he knew it would wind her up a little. The look on her face when she pretended to be offended by anything he did was priceless, it only served to amuse him. As a house elf walked past with a tray of drinks, he took one with a hastily muttered thank you and continued walking with Cece until they were on the other side of the room, out of most direct eye lines of sight. He took a sip of his own before she had the chance to steal this one as well. “So, how did they manage to rope you into this... ‘party’?”
For the first year of her employment at the Ministry, Cece had been more or less alone. She had family friends, knew people who knew people who worked in offices near her, but for an 18-year-old new graduate, she couldn’t have been more lonely. So, when Marcus, one of her nearest and dearest friends from school, told her that he’d be coming to work at the Ministry, Cece was delighted. On his first day, she made sure to drop by his new desk, and steal him away for drinks after work. Since then, she’d come by as often as she could, without shirking her work, and it had become a ritual ever since.
“Cornered me on my way in. He’s not the bad sort, but a bloody bore.” Cressida took a long, indulgent sip of the drink she’d stolen, and made a face at Marcus. “Oh, that’s nice! Where’d you learn to talk to a lady, Care of Magical Creatures class?” She playfully batted at his arm, and took another sip. “One would almost assume you didn’t like me, McKinnon. And after all these years, too.” The two slipped into a lesser populated area of the room, gratefully, out of sight of the man who had already monopolized so much of her time. “Bosses invited me; couldn’t blow it off, it would look impolite. Besides,” Cressida hesitated, adjusting her robes again, “it’s not the worst place I could be, is it? I’ve found a friend in the room, haven’t I? What about you? Peer pressured into it?”

















