Broken

Tom has seen the scenery too many times. Men are dumped; women always find a reason to dump them - because they forgot their birthday or stepped on their Persian cat - they always find a reason, and the poor blokes came here to cry their hearts out after gulping down a bottle of firewhiskey in one go, the occasional wizard even managing two bottles.

The blond man, with dishevelled hair and an untied shirt is no surprise for him. He has seen it all before. Soon ladies (the Knockturn Alley kind) will swamp him, but before he needs to talk to the guy himself. He's a bartender, it's his job. Besides, the blokes normally get sentimental at some point and give a drunken tip (the kind that pays for a meal in one of those fancy restaurants) and he feels like having Eggs Benedict, whatever that is, for breakfast.

"What happened to you, lad?" he asks, pretending to clean the counter. It's obvious that he isn't, but the man - soon to fall off his chair - is so beyond reality that he won't notice.

"I am a broken man!" he screams loudly, his voice breaking in the middle. Tom curses, 'So it's the other problem that this one has,' the kind that leaves no tip. Still, he might as well continue the conversation. Rubeus is in the other corner, and it is common knowledge that when he starts talking he doesn't shut up.

"You mean broke?"

"No. Broken! It's what she said." He spits the word 'she' as if it's venomous, and Tom smiles shamelessly (it's not as if the boy is paying attention), for he might be receiving a tip after all. "She said I was broken! And that she needed something new, that I am old. That I am predictable."

'And you are,' Tom thinks to himself, 'soon the blondes (fake blondes, but still with an apparent yellow hair colour, old as raptors but pretending to be fresh Hogwarts graduates) will come and you won't say no.' It's always the same.

Tom hands him another glass of firewhiskey. "Here boy, drink away."

Later someone comes for the blond, screaming is involved, but Tom only sees the twenty galleons left behind on the counter.


Words : 378

(re-uploaded after small edit - it was bugging me - I apologise! ;)