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Sure, she was on the young side, but Marshall was really hitting it off with a girl at the Scorpion and the Toad, finally. She had a cute accent, had been suitably impressed with the sheer amount of school he had attended over the past few years, and hadn’t even run in the other direction when somehow a conversation about textbook carrying strategies segued abruptly into his favorite soliloquy on the noble Sasquatch.
“That’s absolutely fascinating!” she told him when he was finished, sipping her drink cautiously and possibly taking notes? With... a quill? “Would you say that mug-I mean, people’s stories about the creature are more the ‘urban legend’ type, or have they reached ‘mythical’ status yet?”
“Um,” said Marshall. “I just got out of a really long relationship.”
The girl blinked at him encouragingly.
“Uh. Conspiracy theory-level? Maybe.”
“Brilliant!” She took more notes. Marshall leaned over the bar to try to see what she was writing upside down, but in that moment of distraction, Barney swooped in.
“Doooo you like magic?”
Marshall had given up then and there, taking his glass to make as graceful an exit as was possible, when something strange happened. The girl didn’t say “yeah, I guess,” or “um, sure” or “do I ever!” like all those girls nights previous. Instead, she said nothing with a hand on her hip, raising one eyebrow, archly.
And Barney? Took a step back. He then shook his head a bit, cleared his throat, and fixed his already-centered tie.
“Sorry,” he offered. “My bad.” He walked away silently, no second glances, and not even any of the mock-vulnerability he put on when working his ‘hard to get’ angle.
Marshall turned to face Hermione, slowly. Suddenly it all made sense. All of it.
He nodded solemnly.
“You’re a witch.”
She smiled warily at him, reaching toward a long, thin stick she kept on the bar.
“Wait!” Marshall continued. “I just—before you charm away my memory of this or whatever it is you folks do to keep your magical community hidden from the world, can I just ask you something? Nessie. Is she- is she...?”
Hermione sighed.
“I’m probably violating three statutes, fourteen regulations, and at least one international treaty by saying this. But yes. The ‘Loch Ness Monster’ is real.” Marshall’s eyes lit up. “And,” she continued a bit more freely to her now-spellbound audience, “she rather prefers the name ‘Louise.’”
And that, kids, is how your Uncle Marshall became the first muggle to argue a case before the Wizengamot.