"Wiltshire," he says automatically, and then regrets it. Hopefully she'll associate it with the wizarding village near Stonehenge, and not the Malfoy estate. He tells himself there's no reason for her to know where the latter is, anyway, but he still tacks on: "For work. Research projects. For, uhm."

Smooth.

"Potions and counter-curses and things, I was trying to get an apprenticeship but they're all dreadful." And I'm being asked to go try for a spot at Hogwarts by a genocidal dictator, so there's that! That Severus is smarter than anyone who might give him a job can't be a surprise. He was always going to be in an odd position, for good or for ill.

Smalltalk feels suffocating. He looks at her for a moment, then back at the pans. He can't remember what it looked like.

"Eileen died."