WHO: Richenza Selwyn & Willy Locke WHAT: Two friends getting a drink. WHEN: December 21 WHERE: A Knockturn bar WARNINGS: Imperius
“William,” Richenza said by way of greeting as she slid into the bar stool next to Willy’s. To the bartender, she fluttered her eyelashes and said, “A Shirley Temple, if you please.” The bartender sighed, but she had the rest of the work day to contend with and she didn’t think the recent allowances made for purebloods extended to alcohol on her breath at work. The patients might complain.
“Wassat?” Willy slurred, turning to look at who sat besides him. He was well into his cups, and the low-candlelight of the Knockturn drinking establishment barely showed the massive shiner — courtesy of Rolf Scamander. “Oh. Sup, Ritchie.”
A muscle in Richenza’s jaw tensed at the nickname. She barely abided it from Robin. She certainly wasn’t going to accept it from Willy. “Richenza,” she corrected pleasantly, smiling as the bartender set her drink before her. She glanced at Willy, then, and squinted at the his eye. “Have you got a black eye?”
Oblivious to how close he’d come to losing his life over a nickname, Willy shrugged at the correction. “Yeah, I bloody do,” he lamented bitterly. A dirty glass was in his clutches, and he brought the putrid liquid to his lips. “Fucking Scamander,” he spat, and then took a drink.
Richenza took a prim sip of her drink and slanted a glance at the bartender. She tasted gin. “If you’d honored my favor, you wouldn’t be in this mess,” she said, shifting her gaze back to Willy and his black eye.
The grimy glass came down on the table with enough force to cause its contents to raise up and slop over the side where it sizzled upon coming into contact with the bar. “So its my fault, issit?” Willy slurred. He leaned closer, reeking of alcohol and himself, to Richenza despite his voice getting louder. “Everything’s my fault, is that it?”
The good-naturedness seeped from Richenza’s features and she merely raised an eyebrow at Willy. “When you don’t listen to me, it is.”
If Willy had any common sense to begin with it had left him with the alcohol giving him a sense of bravery. If he’d noticed change in Richenza’s mood he ignored it. “Oh c’mon, I told you to deal with it. It’s just Goldstein anyhow,” he retorted, thrusting a pointing finger accusingly at the woman.
“Oh? You told me to deal with it, did you?” There was a chill to Richenza’s tone that wasn’t there in the moments before and she raised her other eyebrow, her head tilting inquisitively. She glanced down at his finger and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
Willy snorted derisively. “Yup.”
“Well,” Richenza said.
The bartender sighed again and suddenly became very interested in something at the opposite end of the bar. So, when Richenza’s hand shot out and she bent Willy’s finger back as far as she could without breaking it, he could pretend he didn’t notice.
There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to numb the shooting pain as Locke’s finger, ensnared in Richenza’s vice-like grip after her snake-like strike, pressed backwards at an unnatural angle. “Ow, fuck, ow!” he swore before his words slurred into intelligible cries of pain. He curled his body forward as if the movement would somehow change the position his finger was in.
Richenza smiled sharply and, using the bar as cover, jabbed her wand into the soft part of Willy’s belly. She released his finger and, so he knew exactly what was about to happen, whispered close to his ear, “Imperio.”
Willy gasped in relief as his finger was spared and immediately withdrew his arm, curling it protectively towards his chest. That was when he truly realized that Richenza had her wand poking into his stomach. His eyes widened as his vision snapped up to his friend. “What are—”
He then settled as the dark spell wrapped and hooked it’s tendrils into his mind.
“You’re going to be nice to Francine,” Richenza said, leaning away from Willy just a bit.
“I love Francine.”
Richenza blinked at Willy. “Okay…” She was starting to wonder if Willy doth protest too much when it came to Francine. “Well, I’m leaving now. Pay for my drink.”
“Okay. Cya around,” Willy said, docile, while he reached into his pocket for his sickles.