Trouble and Solace

9 September 1942

Lilah has suggested, rather less gently than last time, that I get a job. I don't want to exhaust her patience, but my prospects don't look good. Of course, my parents want me to come home. I'd rather enlist. I'd rather enlist with the Muggles than go back there. But surely it won't come to that. There has to be something. I could go and stay with Walsingham for a while--he'll want company, Miss Dashwood finally jilted him--but even though it wouldn't cost me a Knut, it wouldn't precisely be free. How I envy the Dashwoods and their jiltiness--first Endymion Fairlight, and then Maria! I wouldn't get away with that if I tried it back home.

I am just glad, I suppose, that Carey isn't at Mungo's any more. His parents say they'll get me on at the Ministry before the last of this year's money runs out; they're grateful to me and to Lilah for helping with him. Carey thinks we can get jobs somewhere else, he's got a lead on something quite sub rosa with a woman called Kerensky. I know what Carey's luck is like, but it's got to be more sure than the Ministry, which is run by a lot of old men who are perfectly willing to let me blow them but not to let me fetch their tea or take their correspondence. They like the Patils well enough, but the Patils are all Special. I know I'm not Marco Zabini or Dominic Reed, and I know I'm a colonial, but. If Viresh Patil can keep a job, with his personality, surely I ought to be able to get one with mine...

Current Mood: depressed