WHO: Angelina Johnson & Willy Locke WHAT: Not shopping! WHEN: April 21, evening WHERE: Knockturn WARNINGS: Violence, Death
Willy Locke had lived his entire life in Knockturn. It was his home; he knew the community and all the regulars even if they didn’t particularly like him. It was obvious to him when there were outsiders among them going about their shopping needs -- usually for illicit things they didn’t want to be tied to -- and, with typical assholery, he sneered at them.
“Watch where yer going!” he spat, shoving a turban-wearing poser to the side and into the grimy, damp gutter. Death Eater or not, Snatcher or not, Willy was living the high life right now. All he had to do was name drop someone important — Graham Montague — and people backed down. It was great.
Angelina — the aforementioned turban-wearing poser — stumbled over the murk in the gutter and listed hard into a brick wall, her parcel held protectively away from the grime. Shoulder smarting where it’d scraped against the brick, she wheeled around to see who’d shoved her and something blistering and furious and altogether foolish clenched in her chest when she saw a familiar head of greasy hair.
With her turban askew and her giant sunglasses laying in the gutter, her wand was out without another moment’s consideration and she sent a tripping jinx at Willy’s feet.
Willy’s feet crossed at the witch’s jinx, and he went down hard onto the pavement. His chin slammed into the ground, and his teeth bit sharply into his tongue drawing blood. Despite the daze, he pushed himself to his knees and looked back to see who dared.
Oh.
Of course.
“Johnson!” he spat, quite literally spitting out a glob of blood onto the pavement. His wand was out in an instant then, his arm coming around with a curse he’d been practicing for quite some time.
Nothing seemed to happen and she barked a laugh at him. But Angelina realized, as the sound began to die in her throat, that she wasn’t just being warmed by the fires of her anger anymore. She listed into the wall again, feeling suddenly light-headed as her skin flushed red with boiling hot blood. It hurt in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on and made her even more angry.
“You cock,” she ground out through her teeth, flinging several slicing curses at Willy to break his concentration while her temperature climbed higher.
Willy staggered to his feet now as he kept his wand trained on one of the horrid Gryffindors from his year in school. The tip was still glowing an ugly shade of pink signifying the curse was still going strong when one of Angelina’s slicing curses caught him in the stomach, cutting through his shirt and into his flesh. Instantly, his clothing around the wound turned red. It wasn’t likely as bad as it looked, but it certainly caught the Slytherin’s attention, and his curse dropped as he gasped, taking a few steps back himself.
“You bloody —” he gaped, sentence unfinished as his cheeks flushed pink with anger. “I’m gonna bring you to Graham and he’ll make you really hurt.” But first, it seemed he had another idea. His wand sliced through the air as he spoke an incantation he’d only tried a few times. “Disseco Decorio!”
His words did more damage than his curse, the smallest swath of skin peeling away from the side of her neck. Her shoulder hurt worse. But the idea of him taking her anywhere made Angelina’s entire body go tense. “Please,” she said, forcing herself to sound unfazed, “Montague doesn’t scare me.” Losing her freedom did, though. Whatever the ubiquitous they might’ve had in store for her did, too.
Her fist tightened around her wand and she sent a volley of arrows at him before he could react to anything she’d said.
A scowl and a venomous insult was on Willy’s lips about how Johnson should be scared of Graham, about how she should take this — and him — seriously.
But it died there as the blurry rush of arrows left his opponent’s wand.
Willy gasped, and his lips went taught, body straining although he wasn’t sure why. He looked down to see several shafts protruding from his chest, and one so very near to his heart. A surreal experience, all things considered; there was no pain, although he had time enough to register the issue. He stared towards Angelina with a look of fear spreading on his face as he started to tip forward, falling over.
He was dead before he hit the ground, landing face first with the audible snapping of the arrows’ shafts under his weight.
And then he didn’t move.
A murmur rustled through the people who’d been openly watching them.
“Get up,” Angelina demanded, trying to ignore the look she’d seen on Willy’s face before he — “Get up, you —” She couldn’t bring herself to insult him now so she sucked in a breath and stalked forward, her gait unsteady still from the blood boiling curse. The turban finally fell from her head and rolled into the gutter with her sunglasses.
She kept her wand trained on him as she shoved the toe of her shoe under his shoulder and turned him over, his eyes wide and empty and staring, another ‘Get up’ as dead on her lips as Willy was. A wave of something like nausea washed over her and she looked up, meeting a stranger’s eye, before she apparated away.