Argus Filch: Something More

7: Unforeseen

Cecilia never did receive a lesson from the Legilimens, though she did happen to see him many times after the early morning in the Hog's Head. On the following Saturday, she met him again in the pub.

"You're that Legilimens, aren't you?"

"And you're that girl who cannot keep her nose in her own business."

She sat down across from him. "It's not like Legilimens can mind their own business, either, with all that mind-reading going on."

"Actually, we can mind our 'own business', thank you very much." He swallowed a quick drink of whiskey, most likely, and offered her a drink. She declined. He gave her a smile. "I knew the answer before you speak, it's not necessary to waste your precious youth on simple things like speaking to a person like me."

"It really does feel like I'm slowly losing my youth, though I wouldn't consider it precious. That man you call foolish is - was - I'm not sure what he is or was exactly, but we met right outside this pub and we became acquainted."

"Just acquainted?" The man raised an eyebrow.

"Do I really have to answer that, because I don't know myself?" 

"So, you have absolute not a single idea in that mind of yours as to whether or not you and that - that gentle fool - were acquainted or lovers or whatnot? I'm certain you know the answer, you're just not going to tell me. I can deal with that." The Legilimens pulled out a wand and muttered a word Cecilia did not quite catch.

Suddenly, the interior of the pub - the bar, tables, chairs, and the animal heads fastened upon the walls - drifted and swirled into a clearer picture. The room darkened. The man before her changed. His hair lightened into a gray and grew a good amount of inches. His nose grew and bent, his eyes became farther back into his head but still held a shininess in their depths. He smiled at her and took a long, hefty drink of the beverage in his hand. 

Filch said, "On the fifth day of Christmas, my bartender gave to me-" a rather loud burp escaped from his throat. He continued. "My bartender sir gave to me another rrrrround of Firewhiskeeeey!" His off-key voice went up to a somewhat in-tune attempt at ending the phrase on a high note. 

Cecilia smiled at him The bartender, however, did not. 

"Nobody's gonna get you any 'rounds' of Firewhiskey besides yourself, and that's if you have the Sickles for it."

Cecilia laughed as if the bartender had uttered some hilarious joke. "Filch, Filthy Filch, with his smokin' Firewhiskey..."

Filch downed the said drink in a matter of seconds. He used his sleeve as a napkin for his mouth. Saliva stuck to it in a drizzling trail. 

"Smoky, smokin' Firewhiskin'," Filch sang. 

The scene blurred and focused in a place much more familiar than the pub. On the patched couch lied Argus, eyes closed as he slept on. Cecilia watched as he muttered, "No, whiskin the fire, Firewhiskey..."

A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders from behind and dragged her into the kitchen. Her headache increased, and she pressed a hand to it that did nothing to soothe the pain. 

Her brother said in a voice low enough for Filch not to hear: "Tell me why I woke up to discover you on the porch with a man equally as drunk as yourself."

"I - I cannot remember, I don't know, Henry."

"You never drink, you told me you would never, our parents were killed due to an alcoholic!"

"Alcohol had nothing to do with it," she snapped. "It was that bastard some people idolize and others fear. It just occurred he had drunken a bit too much - the alcohol had nothing to do with it! He was messed up in the head enough, all power crazy and hungry for more of it."