"Very well, I take it back," he said. "You can speak if you wish to, I hear it. Why you would choose to express yourself like that I do not understand. That is the custom of your kind of people, perhaps."
Her performance caused him some confusion. What was she about? Living in her head, no doubt. Girls were like that.
He looked around the dirty cabin and then he regarded the child. Had she been sent to him to mark the end of his period of rightful self-loathing and general indulgence in melancholy? The young gentleman kicked a bottle out of his way and approached the door of the hunting lodge and swung it open. Light fell in and he grimaced.
"Mighty bright outside," he complained. And he complained some more, before he turned around to the girl and said: "Right, my sooty friend. Let us go to London. And we take the Floo, but not this one, mind you. We need to get to the house. I'm going to apparate."
He gesticulated towards her with an air of impatience.
"Are you coming? Give me your hand."
He gave her a handkerchief from his pocket.
"Wipe it on this first, will you?"

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