Confused Beauty

Sleep Deprived

"So what time did you come in last night?" Phillip asks me as he sets a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me, taking a seat next to me with his own plate.

"Around midnight, I think," I reply, smiling at him while I secretly think of how I am going to get out of our day off.

Every Sunday we closed the shop. Not because either of us were practically religious, but more because it seemed like the only reasonable day to close the store. That made Sunday the day we went to Veneficia Lane to stock up on supplies, went to lunch with the Wilkins, went grocery shopping for muggle items, and then Sunday night was always our date night. Usually I loved Sundays but I hated this Sunday. I want to be doing our regular Sunday routine with Phillip, and not coming up with an alibi to get out of this whole week with him. A whole week and probably more.

"You should have woken me up, the day wasn't that hard at the store." He takes my left hand as my right brings a piece of bacon to my mouth. After swallowing I tell him I was too tired to do that. "So what did the doctor tell you?"

"Just that it was from the alcohol. They gave me a potion and I felt fine afterwards." I say the lie easily, I knew what he wanted to hear so I told him it. I wasn't sure how easily I could lie about having to go back to London though. I still didn't know what I was going to say. "But-"

**tap**tap**tap**

Confused, Phillip and I turn to see a large grey and black owl that I've never seen before tapping on our kitchen's window. It perched on our window sill and stared at the two of us with big yellow eyes. The bird was pretty intimidating.

Looking towards Phillip, I see he seems confused by the bird too, but stands up and opens the window. It flew to the chair next to me, showing its white spotted wings that were as large as Great Grey Owl would have, but this owl was much scarier than those owls kind ones at Hogwarts. That's why I wasn't embarrassed when I shot up from my chair when it landed so close to me.

"Who's owl is it?" I ask Phillip as he inches closer to it, snatching the parchment from its talons.

"I think I recognize it. The owl." He stares at the owl for a second longer, before the owl launches into the air and leaves, not expecting a reply. Phillip nods, as if that confirmed his suspicion. He unrolled the parchment and read it by the window as I wrapped my arms around my stomach. Summer's in Australia were never particularly warm, but still warmer than London.

"Phillip?" I ask as I see his posture tense and scowl at the parchment. I walk to him slowly, but he finishes reading it and throws it on the ground practically growling as he does it. He marches out of the room, his heavy footfalls echoing in the apartment. I stand where I am for a second not sure what could have made Phillip so angry. I'm tempted to read the parchment, but know I need to go comfort Phillip over whatever he read.

I run down the hall and turn into the bedroom, stopping suddenly in the door way when I see Phillip throwing clothes into a bag angrily. The bag is already half full because things are just randomly placed in it. "Phillip what's wrong?" I say softly, but apparently to quietly because he doesn't acknowledge me. "Phillip, are you ok?" "Phillip where are you going?" No reply. He has a strange green glow around him that I notice as one of his shirts goes flying over his shoulder, but disappears into ashes. His magic was going out of control.

Phillip was level-headed, at least with me and the Wilkins. With everyone else he automatically expects them to be working against him, something that I noticed but never brought up. His magic was always under control though, it was only mine that went out of control when I was too excited or I got angry. To see him with out of control magic scared me.

"PHILLIP!" I screech, pointing a wand at him. I would never harm Phillip, but he needed to explain to me what was going on. Everything around him started moving on its own. The clothes in the bag folded themselves, the bed made itself, and the drawers of our dresser closed themselves with a loud snap. The only thing that wasn't doing what it was supposed to was the black shirt in Phillip's hand. It was moving by itself, but Phillip gripped it tightly as he turned towards me. He was angry, with me or with what he read I couldn't tell.