February 3rd, 1893

Sometimes, Elliot was in Hogsmeade not because he had any reason to be in Hogsmeade, but he found himself there anyways, because — well, because he didn't have much to do. Elliot was sure that other "gentlemen of leisure" found ways to occupy their time, but Elliot felt uncomfortable in society, and his father did not need — (or did not want?) — intensive help running the estate.

So there was no particular reason he was in The Three Broomsticks that Saturday, except that he wanted the vague sense of almost-anonymity that came from being in a pub, and it was hard to get a decent butterbeer in Wales. Elliot was halfway through the beer and a good chunk into the start of his book when the bartender leaned towards him and said, "There's a ghost back there."

He started and dog-eared the page. Elliot turned to see the ghost, and recognized him — Victor Daphnel.

(He hadn't been afraid for Daphnel; he'd been worried for his wife, the former Miss Dempsey. It was interesting, how fate turned between the Sight and reality — but in Elliot's experience, people didn't like when he pointed this out.)

"Mr. Daphnel," he called, interested.

---

A month after his death, Victor had grown tired of lurking around the house, unsure whether he was in the way or out of place or actually wanted there. He had been offended at first by Desiderius Morgan's choice of phrasing when he had described Victor as haunting his own home, but it had started to feel like that sometimes — like he was just lingering, like nothing that went on there these days was actually his concern any more. It wasn't a good feeling, so he'd started to wander when he could. Tonight had brought him to the Three Broomsticks, someplace he'd seldom visited in life but in death seemed as good a place as any to seek out distractions.

People were looking at him in a way he didn't like, though. Not quite staring, but looking a second longer than they would have looked at him if he had been alive. He felt conspicuous and not at all distracted from the feeling he'd been trying to escape at home — that he no longer quite belonged in the world he existed in. He was considering leaving again when someone called his name. A mercy, to be called into a conversation, or was this going to end up just as painfully awkward as everything else today had felt?

"Mr. Carmichael," he replied, after taking just a second to put a name to the face. They had never been especially well-acquainted, which perhaps meant this conversation was likely to veer towards awkward. Victor glanced at the bar in front of the man. "Interesting book?"

---

"It's — muggle short stories," Elliot said, quirking an eyebrow at Daphnel to gauge his reaction. Purebloods could be — purebloods about it, but Elliot liked to keep abreast of fiction in the muggle world. They sometimes had interesting ideas about the future, or about death. "This one is — a little controversial, though." Elliot glanced down at the short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. It was perhaps inappropriate to tell someone dead about a short story where someone went mad. Although, Daphnel could go where he wished, to an extent.

"Do you — read?" Elliot asked. He wanted to ask more morbid questions, but should at least try to make small talk first. He would get there even if it made him uncomfortable. Because the thing with the dead was — it didn't really matter what they thought of him, did it?

---

Victor had nothing against the Muggle authorship, but did wrinkle his nose ever so slightly at the phrase short stories. His hobbies had been spell theory and mathematics, and his reading had been mostly in line with those interests — etymologies of spell incantations from various cultures, papers on the applications of imaginary numbers, that sort of thing. Very informative, very interesting, very dry (at least in the opinion of most people). Fiction in general had always seemed like more of a woman's hobby to him; short stories in particular carried all of the same stigma in his mind but additionally suggested the reader lacked the stamina or focus for a full-length novel. But he was hardly in a position to be judgemental of anyone's reading tastes now, when he couldn't so much as turn a page without the facilitation of someone with a body.

"Well, not anymore," he admitted with a frown. "And when I was alive I didn't spend much time on fiction, to be honest."

It would have been silly to claim that he'd spent his time on more important or useful pursuits, though. A few months ago he might have said that, but now his wand was useless for anything more than spinning between his fingers when he was trying to kill time. How important had spell theory really been, in the end?

---

"Right, pages," Elliot said, a little more flippant than was strictly polite. Being a ghost had to be frustrating. Elliot didn't think he would choose it, himself — but he had more of a window into death than anyone else he knew, except perhaps Zabini. "Are you in The Three Broomsticks often, then? I imagine it's difficult to fill all that time." Also blasé of him, but Elliot couldn't help it — he was interested, and this might segue them towards death.

---

The phrase all that time struck a nerve. Victor pressed his lips together and tried to avoid looking caught by it. All that time, yes; there was more time in a day now than he'd ever imagined when he was alive. Of course the time itself hadn't actually changed, but the ways in which he spent it had dramatically shifted. Spirits didn't need to sleep (though apparently some still did, out of either habit or sheer boredom); he no longer worked; he couldn't engage in any of his hobbies. The only things he could actually do was hold conversations with the living and drift around exploring the town, and twenty-four hours in a day was an awfully lot of time to spend on that. And that didn't even begin to touch on all that time that was to come — how would he occupy himself when he'd lost touch with the people who cared about him, when they had moved on or grown old or died and gone? The concept of eternity was deeply unsettling to him, and so far he'd dealt with that mostly by avoiding thinking about it whenever he could.

"I don't know if it's often," he said with a shrug that he hoped looked casual, not as though he was trying to cover his unease. "I didn't come here when I was alive except to meet friends for lunch, sometimes. So a pub at this time of night is a little new to me. I'm, ah — exploring a bit more now than I did before," he admitted. "With all the — extra — time."

---

"You can watch the crowds shift through the day," Elliot said thoughtfully, although he was thinking more of himself than of Daphnel. Elliot found the movement of groups of people to be interesting; his Sight had, among everything else, given him the gift of curiosity in average people that he often thought other heirs lacked. "I have some questions for you," he added, "But I suspect they're less rude if you know — any of the rumors about me, and I'm not sure that you do."

---

Victor wasn't at all sure how he ought to feel about Carmichael having questions for him, or about the intimation of rumors.

"I'm sure I don't," he agreed. He knew a handful of things about the man, but none that seemed particularly relevant to the situation. He was wealthy, had a younger sister, perhaps had worked at the Ministry once upon a time? — but Victor would not have sworn to the last. Really, the acquaintance ran no deeper than recognizing his name and face when their paths crossed at the odd social gathering here and there, but Carmichael had hardly been a society staple, at least as far as Victor knew, so that wasn't often.

---

"I'm a Seer," Elliot said evenly. "Which — do you believe in the sight, Mr. Daphnel? Stranger things have happened." There were people who didn't believe; surely the Sight was more commonly faked than it was real, but Elliot knew plenty of people who had the real touch for it. And — well never mind himself.

---

Victor had never particularly respected divination as a branch of magic, but now that he knew that Carmichael considered himself a Seer he could think of no polite way to say so, and this seemed an odd juncture of the conversation to start burning bridges. "Ah," he said, which was his attempt to be polite by saying nothing. "I — well. I never had any personal experiences with it. I don't think I ever gave it much thought."

---

Elliot hid a smile behind his drink. He knew the type. "The trouble with Divination is that it's not entirely reliable," Elliot said, "Fates change, and — human behavior is hard to predict. But I'm not teaching a class right now, so —" He moved one hand in a general, lazy wave.

"My Sight has always been related to — well, death."

---

The first part of Carmichael's response seemed to be the same sort of nonsense Victor had always heard about divination, and he was not inclined to put much weight to it. Anything that was not an exact science was, in his estimation, probably not a science at all. What followed brought him up short, though, and stopped the polite-but-disinterested nod. Whether it was an exact science or not — even whether it was a respectable branch of magic or not — if Carmichael had Seen something related to Victor's death, that could certainly complicate things.

Was he about to be blackmailed? Surely not in the middle of a pub? And what would Carmichael even want from him, anyway? His family still had money and influence, of course, but Victor himself was — a footnote, at this point.

"Oh," was all he said.

---

Elliot nodded. "But the Sight is vague," he added, "It's usually just a feeling. It doesn't give me anything concrete." Well — usually. The trouble with concrete visions was having them be believed; and some did not come true despite that.

"Your wife had an aura of — ill fate coming near her," Elliot added. He'd had a sense that someone was ill, or doomed — but nothing had seemed solid until Daphnel was dead. Elliot was not sure what that meant for Daphnel's death, or his fate. (It had only barely occurred to him that the ghost seemed uncomfortable.)

---

"My wife had nothing to do with my death," Victor said immediately, and surprised himself with how vehemently the words came out. He'd been thinking tread carefully, admit to nothing just a second ago, but at the mention of Christabel he had felt a surge of unexpected defensiveness. He didn't even know what Carmichael was trying to say about her, if anything at all, but — he didn't like it, whatever it was.

---

Victor made an effort to relax his posture when Carmichael assured him he hadn't meant to say Christabel was involved. He ought not to have jumped to conclusions — he oughtn't to be jumpy about the subject of his death at all, to avoid anything spending too long thinking about it. Though perhaps being a bit touchy about one's death was understandable, with it being so recent. It was still recent.

He didn't like to think of his death as something that had happened to Christabel, even though it was hard to deny at this point that it had affected her more than he'd ever realized it would. He shifted uncomfortably in the air. "Right, well," he said. "Got it right, I suppose." Good for you.

---