Prolouge
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I'm a poor little nutter who owns peanuts and a cat. The credit for the Harry Potter franchise goes to JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, and God knows how many other lucky sods who aren't me. Happy reading!
Love has never been considered an exact art. It's a heady potion brewed by Fate, Mother Nature, and Time in the very beginning-one of the oldest practices of magic, the fine art of ardor. Humans were never meant to understand it, much less try to twist it to our liking. Even us Wizarding folk would be hard-pressed to comprehend so much as a quarter of what makes chemistry between two beings smoulder and last a lifetime. And the ones that try those supposed "love potions" all willy nilly like? Well, let's just say that as soon as the phremones run their course, that ain't a room you would want to be in.
I've come in on many of those rows, in fact. My pub seems to a magnet for that type of nonsense, as much as it is a haven for the broken and battered. Poor sods, most of them practically staggering into the bloody doorway, racked with some pain or other. As soon as they sit down in a tattered bar stool, I ask them all the same question-"Girl, home, or work?" This one gruff query is three questions in one, and serves to help most of the poor lads feel understood. Most of them manage to answer that it's one of the three which is currently the bane of their existence, and I simply leave it at that. If they want to talk more, I let it happen naturally, and consider helping these young prats part of my job.
Most of these situations are not very memorable- I'm such an old bat, and have served so many young ones, it's physically impossible to remember the majority of them all. However, there are a few who stick out of the woodwork, so to speak...
He had flaming red hair. It was a glorious, whooping orange-reminded me of a Cannons uniform, in fact. That was the first thing I noticed about him, aside from the fact he was a tall and gangly lad. "Can I help you son?" I asked kindly, wiping a mug.
The poor kid nodded his ginger head, smiling at me with a waning brightness that made my heart ache. "Hello there-just a firewhiskey please." He looked no older than 20, young and full of life normally, I take it. At the moment though, he simply looked beaten and peaked-fragile, if you will.
I decided to hit him with my normal question. "Girl, home, or work?" If I were a betting man, I'd say it was a girl.
Placing with a napkin, the sod looked up and fixed me with one of the most pitiful looks in his blue eyes I'd ever seen. "Girl...a certain girl, to be exact..."
I nodded. The fairer sex can do things to a man that nothing else can, not a fight with your old man, or a mountain load of paperwork in some stuffy office even. "Plan to do anything about it?" I asked brusquely, placing the order in front of him.
Not even bothering to answer me, the kid simply tipped his head back and drained his mug in one swig.
'Wow, whoever the lady friend is, she certainly did a number on him...' I thought, keepign my mouth shut and going back to my own business of cleaning glasses.
(AN: Like the fic so far? Comments or questions? Then review! I happily accept any criticism thrown my way, so long as you're nice about voicing your opinion)