Boggarts. He had known that, because someone else had already mentioned it, but he caught on her description. "Interesting," he echoed, as though she had said a word in a language he didn't understand and he was trying to parse out the meaning from context clues. He wouldn't characterize anyone's greatest fears as interesting, he didn't think. The last time he had seen a boggart in the flesh was back in Hogwarts, as part of Defense class — presumably her experience of it was the same. In that vein maybe he could forgive the word interesting; at thirteen, all of the manifestations the boggarts took on had been little more than interesting, he supposed. Childish, rudimentary, caricatures of bogeymen. None of them had known what real fear was, at that point in their lives. Ezra hadn't learned until years later. He knew now.

I wonder, he thought, glancing back to Rosalie's face for a moment, would talking to her still drive them off? He couldn't test it; he'd played a game only a few hours ago and he hadn't caught a glimpse of one of his shadows for hours. No data to compare against. But he wondered.

Things had gotten dark after she'd left him. He had been halfway to going mad — maybe more than half — and not terribly far from driving his body so ragged that it gave up on him entirely. He was better now, or was getting better, and it was not because of her. He suddenly felt guilty — disloyal, in a way — for even having wondered. Rosalie had not been the one to save him, in the end.

"It's an interesting party," he said briskly. "Did you want something, particularly?"

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