( continued from Devil Has A Smile )



“Liver? That’s no fun. At l-l-least it…at least it’s a sizable organ, anyway. Quite a bit of a liver in lots of things. My—my girlfrie—my ex-girlfriend – not even that, just this girl I was putting the blocks to who cooked for me sometimes – she’d…she’d buy a sheep’s head from the – haha! – specialty butcher way deep in Knockturn. And she’d cut out the eyes and fry them in a skillet on my stove. They…th-they’d be really crisp on the outside, and really soft on the inside and…like! Like potstickers, or gyoza if we’re b-being proper-like about it. Ha-have you ever--? Oh, you eat blood candy. Probably yes. And she had this way of going about extracting the bits under the skullcap t-too – she was trained in taxidermy, my Addie, lovely girl really – and she’d cook those. And she left lipstick stains on all my teacups. But…right. Cut a girl up a bit and she wants nothing to do with you.” 

He shrugged amicably.

Too pretty voice, too pretty laugh. The words rushed out of Phil as if some great dam inside of him had broken. It went on and on, soft and lyrical, dappled by much pawing at his red mouth like a little forest creature. He had such a placid smile plastered on his face, calm and pink cheeked as  a Botticelli cherub. Those big empty eyes swiveled down to Michael, and Phil cocked his head.


“Terribly sorry about the saltlick thing. How very r-rude of me. I would greatly prefer it if you never licked me anywhere, and I…I’m g-glad you feel the same.” He huddled down in his thin coat, and hid his nose back in its nest of heavy scarves. “Thank you ever so much for the food, though." He squinted into the distance for a moment, considering something. Or nothing at all, maybe, those eyes were so vacant.

" Oh dear…this would be an awful lot of effort to poison me, I s-suppose, so that may be out of the question when it comes to w-worrying about things.”


Phil words didn’t ever really stop, to himself anyway. In reality, though, or at least in Michael’s range of hearing, most of them were muffled by his scarves or never escaped the confines of his mouth at all. Philomenes seemed unfazed by talking a blue streak, even if it was just to the cold January air.

The ramble was mercifully broken by the ringing bell when Phil shouldered open the door of the door of Three Broomsticks. He held the door open like a good little gentleman – or at least leaned against it in an open position – but all the while his eyes were pinging about the place like shot marbles. He tugged down his scarves, there was suddenly lucid frown curving his lips.

“I do hope I don’t know anyone in here. I do hate meeting people I know on accident. They’re usually very d-d-disappointed.”

"Yum," said Michael appreciatively, running the tip of his tongue over his teeth lizard-quick. Others might be queasy, but not he. Oh, he used to be pickier, back when he could afford to be, but it was amazing how delicious anything and everything tasted now that he was out of Azkaban. Sheep's eyeballs sounded delicious. Waste not, want not - well, and he was hungry now, that didn't help. But now he frowned, and cocked his head to the side: "Cut a girl up a bit and she wants nothing to do with you."

"Of course not," he said, shaking his head. "Bloody stupid of you, bachgen. You don't go cutting up anyone you want to use afterwards - it ruins their concentration. Ha! Using some ickle little fishknife, I'd bet, were you not?" He clicked his tongue in a disapproving manner; for some reason, the subject seemed to agitate him, and amidst the clicking came a faint muttering. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and practiced looking murderous. It wasn't difficult to do when Phil was spewing tinkling words like vomit, stabbing at his disinterested ears.

He grew surly under the torrent, hunching his shoulders next; a shopper with an armful of gifts to return nearly bumped into him as they passed an alley, and received a wide-eyed snarl for her mistake.

"Don't worry about it," he growled, referring to the salt lick incident. And: "Gotta fatten you up so you don't blow away. Or die - " this was delivered as a long hiss, which abruptly snapped back to a more dismissive tone. "Whichever comes first. Now don't be ridiculous, you're not worth the dram of poison it'd take. No, don't worry." He gave Phil a sharp grin. "I'm not the poisoning type."

They entered the Three Broomsticks in a rush of warm air, and Michael let the smell of food and the busy chattering chase images of a dissected Audrey out of his head. He passed a trembling hand over his face, scraping hair out of his eyes and behind his ears, and then refocused on the present - finding a table - like a hawk zeroing in. He shouldered his way between the tables, ignoring the people around them, and didn't even notice Phil's oh-so-polite door-holding.

"Sorry to hear that," he said after they'd sat down, quite delayed. Michael really couldn't sympathize. He never had to look like anyone recognizable. He gave it his best shot anyways. "...Obliviate them?"

The warmth within the walls of The Three Broomsticks was a staggering improvement to the January gale whipping the air chilled outside. In here there was smoke, and fire, and bodies, and beer. He liked all of those things, especially so keyed up as he was. Well, perhaps he could do without the people. And by the anxious little glances shot their way, Phil supposed the people could do without them, too.

Phil shook his head, peering down at Michael owlishly. “Sectumsepra,” he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. In a way he supposed it was. Addie hurt Phil, Phil hurt Addie, Addie finally managed to rub her two lonely brain cells together enough to leave Phil. The end.

“It was odd. I miss her.” He paused, beetled his pale brows in thought. “Not really. ‘sides, I’d used all there was of her to use.”This was a lie. There was plenty more of Addie Phil would love to use. For one, all of her reproductive bits still worked and --

“No real loss. Though I wouldn’t mind fu--” his tongue tangled back on itself, trying to swallow the half-formed word. Phil pinched his moony eyes shut.“S-sorry. Yes. No real loss.”

A disgruntled chirrup clicked in his throat when a young couple swung open the doors, letting in a fresh blast of frigid air. Phil huddled down in his chair and set about unraveling the scarves that mummified his face. Strange trinkets on chains jingled about his neck; one an amber spyglass, one a gold locket the size of a child’s hand, another a knotted sprig of birch on a shoe string.

His jittery fingers traced the whorls in the table, nerves too alight to hold Michael’s oddly intense eyes for more than a moment. Many people found it unnerving, a pinball gaze like that.

“I..I...I dunno. Could get in t-trouble, doing something like that, heh...wiping brains, I mean. Doesn’t mean I h-haven’t, b-but...I just wouldn’t c-call it practical. Sometimes I suppose you just -- oh, pardon me, dear.” Phil flagged down a nervous-looking waitress with a flutter of his hand.

“Yes, love, ah...butterbeer, please, hot as hell. Oh, and...and that lovely chowder you lot have. And! And, ah, coffee. Black as night and sweet as sin. Please and thank you kindly.”

Sectumsepra. He clicked his tongue again - disapproval. "Lovely little spell, quick as can be, but so impersonal. Hardly an act worth thinking about, done like that. But - " He gave an easy shrug under his own layers, unburdened as he was by mystic talismans, the light glinting off which his eyes were very much drawn. "To each man his own."

Missing, missing - Michael didn't miss anyone. Well, he missed the feel of Audrey under his hands, so shivery sweet and hotly his. So he supposed they had that in common. It was not a welcome thought, having anything in common with this shuddering wasted slip of a boy, but he bore it better than he had Phil's earlier ramblings. The Three Broomsticks was full of people, lively living lying people, and it lulled him into quiet. Phil found himself released of that gimlet stare as Michael tracked eager eyes over the crowd.

He did not care much for the boy's sob story. He continued watching the crowd instead, eyes child-wide to drink in every last drop of imitation companionship, until Phil bit his tongue and Michael rounded back on him with a lip-curling sneer for his mistake.

"I don't give a fuck about your romantic entanglements, bachgen," he hissed, and his smooth upper-class intonation crackled with sudden heat. "Now or erstwhile. If you used her up, leave her be, at least until your sad stomach has been filled." He subsided into his chair, filling it up with his cloak and sprawling limbs. The fire in his eyes died, but left behind a shivery twitching to match Phil's own. Michael had never smoked, not continuously, minor acts of rebellion in his youth, waste of money in his adulthood, but there had been cigarettes traded in Azkaban through Merlin-knew what channels and his fingers itched for one now. They went together, imprisonment, bitterness, smoke curling lung-deep and the scent of burning skin. He was restless without activity. But pull a knife in here and disguise-face or not someone would start screaming.

He leaned over the table. "Got a light?" Then the smile - almost pleasant, conspiratory, but too quick to pin down. "...And a smoke?"

He'd have to start carrying things in his pockets again.

"On the contrary," he started, a minute later. "Wiping brains is very practical, most practical, as long as you're not caught. Hypocrites, the Ministry anyways - oblivation is government-sponsored. Think of the poor ickle muggle-sheep. Brains wiped daily, and the lot's happier than clams."

Phil flagged down a waitress; Michael was hungry but didn't want to eat. Still: "Bread," he ordered, on the heels of the boy. Cold bit at his fingertips, timed to the draft of the door; his mouth ached for something bitter. "And coffee, black no sugar."