The Feather Tamer

thestoicwarrior

Chapter 1: Bloody men

"MARLENE! Have you seen my green blouse??" I yelled throughout the loft.

"No! I thought you wore that yesterday though," Marlene managed as she entered my room.

"I did, but it looks fabulous with my white skirt and I've got a date tonight."

"How come you always score the hot wizards?"

"Oh stop being sore missy. Come, help me find it."

We lived in downtown London. Alright, so the loft wasn't very fancy, nor was it even a magical apartment complex. That only meant we had to be careful with using spells and keeping the window shades up. Its enjoyable here.

I finally managed to find all of my outfit and Marlene even did my hair. It was mostly up with a few pieces hanging down in soft, auburn ringlets. It looked gorgeous.

This date, just like every other one since Hogwarts, I was bound to make work. He had to be the one. Before, in Hogwarts, I didn't date to see who I'd marry, but now it seemed as though I don't have much time left. It seemed as if all the good guys had been taken. After all, it has been 7 years since graduation.

I was applying the last bit of stay-forever witches lipstick (Magic make-up is not all it's cracked up to be. It will probably take me ten minutes of scrubbing with magic remover cloths to get the damn stuff off) when the doorbell rang. This was it. I knew it. Nothing could go wrong.

...

How very wrong I was.

Today sucked.

Sure, he was sweet and even brought me flowers. But how more stereotypical could you get? The only questions he asked me:

"So what do you do for a living?"

This one I knew well, "I invent different potions with the ministry."

"Interesting. So you just combine random ingredients and see what happens?"

Yes sir, that's exactly what I do. A little frogspan, some whiskers from an all black cat, some guts of a fish I found in the great lake. Then, I cross my fingers and hope it doesn't explode. If you think my job is bad, you should see the poor wizard we test everything on.

But I said, "No, I usually figure out what I'm trying to make and which ingredients have properties for that desired result. You also have to figure out if certain ingredients react differently when combined."

"Interesting," he was not interested at all.

He then talked about his job, "I work with the blah blah blah. It's all very interesting."

Okay, so that's not really what he said, but he might as well have.

"So do you come to this restaurant a lot?"

"Oh I love it here," I responded. "My roommate and I come all the time. Sometimes they'll have live bands set up over in the corner," I pointed to emphasize my point (I was determined to make this night more 'interesting'), "and everyone gets up and dances and sings. It's great."

"Interesting."

I swear, if he says 'interesting' one more time, I will back hand the bitch. No questions asked.

The rest of the time he just talked about himself. Turns out he does mostly paperwork stuff for the ministry. Department of Magical Awareness. Whatever that is. (I pretended that he really was an unspeakable and 'magical awareness' was his cover up. But alas, I knew that could never be.) Boring work for a boring man.

Really, by the time I left, I wanted to sob. He was terrible. What is wrong with me? How do I find all the wrong men? Or maybe it's me that's wrong and I just find guys like me?

I'd always figured I was relatively pretty. Auburn red hair, emerald green eyes, nice girly hips which lends to nice girly curves. You know, girl stuff.

It just seemed like lately I was having a tough time being okay with myself. What is it about this society that makes women question how they look?

So what did I do?

I left, told him thanks for the date (paid for it myself, thank you very much) and informed him I would show myself home. I don't see what the point in making him think I enjoyed tonight was. Then he'd be owling me and dropping by my department. Best to just cut it off clean. Or not clean, but hope he wasn't such a halfwit he didn't get the point.

Bloody men.

It seems every date has me more and more lonely. Utterly and completely lonely.

Every date I compare him to my last boyfriend it seems. One from 7 years ago. I really should just let him go.

Any guy would be better than someone who left me how that guy did.

Bloody men.

...

hugs and chocolate,

thestoicwarrior

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