& I SAW BLACK HELL WITHIN MY HEART

Lorcan wasn’t exactly a morning person and the cup of coffee in front of him wasn’t helping nearly as much as he would have liked. He had joined Alecto at the table she was sitting at a few minutes ago, partly because she had been sitting in the very back and partly because he wanted to avoid talking to anyone he didn’t know this early. She had given no indication of acknowledging his presence apart from a glance when he had first sat down and though usually he wouldn’t have liked having her attention so divided, he wasn’t yet fully awake to care about it all that much. It was why he was slightly surprised when she spoke. “Huh-” he said involuntarily as he pulled out a flask from his leather jacket, discreetly pouring some in his cup. Her words registered then and he shrugged indifferently. “Better safe than sorry or whatever,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand because those were words he had never cared for. Lorcan laughed as a thought occurred to him, “Though I guess it also gives Death Eaters ideas about where not to strike.” 

She didn’t even as much as like Lorcan in public. His vortex of a fame terrified her, while not much else managed to even phase her. The spotlight killing her shadow was something she usually summoned as prime argument against his company  — mostly in discussions with her own mind. This time, she chose to weakly tolerate it, sitting in perfect silence and unfolding her routine until something cracked in her reading. She gazed at a disinterested Lorcan for validation in her point. Her lips pursed together into a thin line as she folded the newspaper. “Chances are they’ll be sorry either way,“ her words ran indifferently, not even as a foreshadowed promise. She just knew the Death Eaters and she knew the sort of messages they liked to send, blood on newspapers rather than an actual article. “They don’t strike where the Prophet wants or doesn’t want them to. This could easily be Ministry manipulation if they read and followed, one way or another, these articles. I don’t know what it gives them, but I don’t like how every middle-class sheep listens blindly. I’m sure some moron is evacuating Leicester as we speak. Why are people so stupid?“ she pouted, knowing it for a fact in these moments that nobody should weep on certain graves. So what if they are at war? If it weren’t natural, it wouldn’t be called natural selection. “But you seem distracted. Did I interrupt the praying in your mind that the radio would finally put on Necks on you?“ Whether Alecto purposefully worded the wrong song title, mistaking ‘to’ for ‘on’, it was deeply subconscious. She never liked Lorcan’s music, denying vigorously the times it sounded alright, hummed right out of his throat live after there would be nothing left on the table to poison themselves with.

The pencil in his hand ran over the page, a picture coming to life as the minutes passed. Barty could so easily become caught up in what he was drawing, today being one of those days. He’d shut out the rest of the world around him, only to be brought back by a few simple words–Death Eaters. Mostly, from the randomness of the topic of conversation, realizing a moment into the woman that she was in fact only reading from the paper. He too had read it earlier in the day, leaving it behind to forget about the assumptions they must have received from rumors. “Yet somehow we all take the time to read it over.” Barty had been a culprit in such a thing himself, wondering if it had to do with needing to know or the amusement of what he might end up reading next. “They seem to be grasping for anything they can get a hold of. True or not.”

“It’s foolish to ignore the only remaining line of connection between wizards,“ she clicked her tongue in response, agreeing with the cynicism dedicated to the Prophet and their affiliates, but without the slightest intention of giving up her small habit. Perhaps it was a thing of routine to some extent as well. “The only thing more idiotic than reading this nonsense is ignoring it, in fact.“ Alecto weighed the page of paper with squinted eyes, trying to find the balance between mock indulgence and plain spite for the article and the publication as a whole. “Right now, they’re taking a guess, writing the most possible about as many things they suspect in hopes that at least some of it will come true.“ She carefully placed down the black and white lies and pinpointed it with her elbows against the table. “If I had a newspaper, I’d use it for true, exact information, like a prediction, except in the wrong order and at the wrong time. This, not bluffs, would finally scare the million wizards who don’t yet feel phased at all.“

Page after page, ridiculousness increased. Alecto took time from her every morning to get her two consecutive cups of coffee and a look at the latest lies the press mumbled onto cheap pages. It never once failed to annoy her, as they’d blow out of proportions in a bad light the slightest detail of her last night, but it was important to read and be informed. Still, one line too bad and she couldn’t bite her tongue and hold it in anymore, with an explosive sigh. Voice not particularly raised, but plenty disgusted, she turned to the first person to her right to quote the publication, intrigued though the taste in her mouth was bitter. "Beastly group, known as the Death Eaters, are assumed to strike Leicester in the following nights. Stay saf-" A cutting short chuckle served as final punctuation. With an eye roll, she glanced at her involuntary interlocutor.  "The world is burning because people don’t know how to write. And because they try to guess."