Discourteous Caterpillar

Wednesday. Midweek limbo. It's the thorn wedged obtrusively in the middle of the week. Monday drinks are acceptable as a crutch for coping with the commencement of another string of days, painfully similar to the ones that came before. It says something about the sorry state of humanity that we collectively detest Mondays. Shouldn't we be excited to have another week of life at our disposal?

Drinks at the end of the week are not only acceptable, it's tradition. It's expected. Wednesday drinks though, they're for people who are really struggling with making it through the seven day long haul. Wednesday is the worst day to be working at the Three Broomsticks. The hours seem to drag into eternity. I feel like I'm perpetually in the state of Wednesday. All other days feel like wishful dreams brewed to cope with the twilight of the eternal shift.

My hand pushes a tired rag in loose rotations over the bar top. I'm not really doing anything to remove the dust, I'm just pushing it somewhere else, where it'll be less obvious. A reasonable method for dealing with any problem, I find. Unfortunately I can't seem to push the haunting image of Sirius' smile from my mind. I don't enjoy his smile. There's nothing nice about it. It's a smile devoid of decency. There's something almost satanic in his smile's origins of selfish pleasure. It doesn't haunt me because it's pleasant. It haunts me because it's terrifying.

I bang my head repeatedly on the bar top, berating myself for allocating this much thought to the way Sirius inclines his lips. Madame Rosmerta saunters pass so I adapt my head banging into a sweeping motion of the forehead, as if I'm trying out an innovative new way of dusting. She continues into the backroom, taking her disapproving stare with her. I don't think she's too fond of me.

After checking that my high heeled, lipstick smothered boss isn't about to emerge from the back room I bend down and extract my personal contraband list. Shielded by the overhang of the bar top I inscribe Sirius Black into the parchment. As an afterthought I add his smile on another branch of the growing tree of contraband things. As an after afterthought I underline smile.

Speaking of the satanic smile possessing devil, Sirius meanders into the bar. I shove my list back into the confines of my sock as he sinks into the stool in front of me, on the opposite side of the bar. Sirius is one that regularly seeks the solace of a mid week drink. A dazed film of boredom prevents his smile from breaking through. His cheek slouches against his hand, his fatigued head threatening to drop on to the bar top.

"You've got dust on your forehead," he points out blankly. I find myself channeling Skively as I shrug defiantly. For all he knows dust has amazing skin purifying properties and all the face conscious girls are sporting a layer of dust nowadays. He turns away for a moment and I furtively wipe the dust away with my sleeve.

"Since when do you work here?" He demands shortly.

"Since last year."

"Oh. I guess I never noticed you until you were a rude cow to me."

I was hardly a rude cow when I first met him. I was slightly blunt, yes. Not particularly forthcoming, sure. But I don't think I qualified as rude cow status. Discourteous caterpillar, maybe.

"Does this mean you can give me free drinks?" He asks, his expression lifting momentarily.

"No," I answer curtly, dashing his unfounded hope. I'm not sure if this whole 'friend' arrangement requires me to be nice. Sure, I might hire out my friendship for the greater cause but I do possess some morals. Feigning niceties is not within my capacity. Unless I get paid extra. I wish he'd clarify the whole situation with some sort of contract, one that stipulates the method of payment. Do I get paid by the hour? Or just every time he attempts to storm my fortress?

"You're antisocial," he infers frankly. This isn't how this is supposed to work. I'm the one that points out flaws in peoples' personalities. They're not supposed to do it back to me.

"No I'm not," I refute him somewhat unwillingly. "I communicated with Mafalda Hopkirk earlier today."

"Oh yeah?" His eyebrows perk.

"Yeah. She asked me what I thought of her hair."

"And?"

"And I told her it looked like a ferret had vomited on her head," I shrug.

"Charming," he rolls his eyes lazily. "Somehow I don't think that counts as being social."

"Why not? It involved a civil exchange of words."

"Civil?" He questions pointedly.

"Well, honest at least. Let's not confuse honesty with being cruel." It's a common mistake. He wouldn't be the first to make it.

"It doesn't hurt to flirt with the truth now and then, Florence. Be a bit coy with it. I guarantee you'll get a bit further in life if you sprinkle your words with a touch of glitter," Sirius counsels me as he fans his fingers out behind his head. Glitter is trashy and deceitful. A troll smothered in glitter is still a fat, unbecoming troll. Except shinier.

Sirius rests his foot on the bar and pushes back so his stool is leaning at a precarious angle. He hooks a lazy finger in the scoop of his shirt, dragging his collar down slightly. He pokes his tongue in the cave of his cheek in a mindless, irritable fashion.

"Why don't you go hassle one your real friends? I'm trying to work." I push the rag around in a weak rotation to prove my point.

"They've recently become somewhat disposable. They've acquired a newfound obsession with studying and the like. Final year fever I guess. I prefer to spend my time doing something a bit more thrilling."

I glance around the exciting events unfolding in the Three Broomsticks. Otto is trying to sell some comical novelty glasses to a nasty looking hag in one corner. Skively is purposefully missing as he pelts nuts towards the bowl. He's creating more work for me, bless him. Willy Wagstaff is trying to snort someone's spilt sherbert from the grooves in his table's slats.

"You sure know how to have a good time," I scoff.

Sirius drops his foot suddenly, lunging over the bar so that his eyes are flashing dangerously close to my face. He tucks a stray curl back behind my ear. As his finger grazes the slope from the tip to the lobe an unknown entity rustles in the pit of my stomach.

"Don't even begin to insinuate I don't know how to have a good time," he warns with quiet ferocity. I reach for a bottle of Gilwaddle's magical cleaning fluid and spray him so that he recoils swiftly. I etch a line in the dust on the bar top.

"This is the flirting barrier. Stay on the friendship side," I instruct sternly. Maybe I should carry a squirt bottle with me permanently. This whole 'arrangement' is highly reminiscent of training Fifi's shag frenzied miniature poodle. He removes the potent drops of liquid from his face with a skilful flick.

"I can't help it. We have compatible body parts. Flirting occurs naturally," Sirius says, relaxing back into his leaning chair of unstableness.

"Just because any old letter fits in a mail slot doesn't mean the Postman has to put it there. There's a proper address for every package." I advise him wisely.

"So my package isn't addressed to your mail slot?" He snorts.

"It most certainly is not."

"You devastate me," he says flatly.

"You should pay me," I reply in kind.

Sirius freezes for a moment. His expression is caught somewhere between amusement and an unknown location. Finally he flicks a coin across the counter. I accept it gratefully, tucking it under my collar and into the seclusion of my bra.

"What?" I challenge Sirius' inquisitive stare. "My socks are full."

"My socks are full, indeed," he shakes his head. "I'll meet you after your shift," he says extending into upright position.

"You will? Why?"

"Because, Florence, you deeply offended me. I now need to prove myself to you by showing you a good time." As he stands up to leave he wipes his hand across the dust frosted counter, destroying the line I'd drawn between us. My hand clicks into overdrive as I wipe faster and faster in rapid rotations.