Argus stayed in his room. Mother was having one of her fits again. It had been four years since her daughter Niobe had moved out and stopped speaking to her. It had been six years since her son Argus had chosen to attend muggle school. It had been fifteen years since her then-husband Alphycus had left them. It was as if everyone she had ever invested her heart in had tried to destroy her.
"Muggle school! Muggle school! When he knows-- when he knows he's a wizard! Wouldn't listen! Never listens! Sits in his room talking to that damned cat of his! Asks me! He asks me can I have friends over! Muggles in my house, like they were wizards! Well enough on their own, but never never in my house! Have their own world! Took my son! My son, my only son! Has his father's face--" which, Argus thought from upstairs, wasn't entirely true. His face and nose were long like his mother's. His eyes were round and blue like hers, though perhaps a shade brighter. You could argue that he had his father's ears or lips, but that hardly constituted his face.
"--Left me! For some, some awful ministry witch! Says he never would have stayed! Says it was the, says it was the children kept him there so long! Says Argy, Argy is two now, but he can't take it any longer! Says I'm a loon! Says to send him to Bath over the, over the god-dammed Summer! To visit him! To visit him, him! The nerve, the nerve! I ask him is he sure! He tells me, he has the nerve, the nerve to tell me that darling, darling Niobe is of course welcome as well!"
This was news. As his mother broke into defeated, furious sobs, Argus pondered, like he did from time to time, his father. He'd received letters from him on Holidays, and Argus always lied that he was attending Hogwarts. Made up how many O.W.L.'s gotten. His father was so proud. He was always proud, happy of Argus. Not just of his wizarding talent, of his wit, of his humor. His father liked him very much, but he had never so much as hinted at a visit. That explained it all. He's simply run away then, if he was welcome. School was almost over anyway.
"What do you think, Mrs. Filch?" he asked his cat, who had been lounging faithfully at his side. "Should we run away? Never speak to mother again, like Be did?" The cat blinked and rubbed her head against his arm. Her answer wasn't a 'Yes' or a 'No', it was an 'I'll follow you anywhere,' which was much better in Argus's books. Not that he had many books, he wasn't a big reader.