5 January, 1895 — Diagon Alley

Ezra had spent all yesterday holed up in his bedroom, surrounded by books, trying to figure out what was the matter with him. What was newly the matter with him, that was. All of the usual things still applied, but this week had been nearly unmanageable from a social standpoint. He was offending people by being too blunt, or burning bridges when he gave an honest opinion instead of a polite deflection. The best defense he'd found was simply to avoid speaking at all. He'd pretended a hangover at work on Friday so that no one would try to ask him questions. This was, obviously, not sustainable. He thought he'd pinned it down to the woman with the pop-up stall — another damn curse? — but pinning the source down didn't help him in the slightest when she and her wares had vanished into thin air. He'd spent Saturday guessing what she might have done and trying out counter-curses on himself, then dropping in on one of his siblings to test whether it had worked. Ask me something invasive, he would say, and then after he had blurted out a too-honest answer he would flush and retreat to his bedroom again. He had exhausted his own collection of relevant books, so today was earmarked for finding others. He was heading to Flourish & Blott's first, then the library — the library probably had a larger assortment of useful books, but if he wanted to get into the higher levels he wouldn't be able to take them home with him unless he had a valid work reason, and he didn't. Given how uncomfortable it was to be out in public at the moment, anything he could buy was a safer bet than something he had to read at a table.

He'd timed it poorly; it was early afternoon when he was emerging from the shop with an armful of books with curse in the title, and the street was awash with people either in search of lunch or off on their weekend errands. He should have gotten here earlier to reduce his odds of seeing someone he would be obliged to converse with. Someone like —

Rosalie Hunniford. She was right there, an arm's reach away. He was absolutely not obliged to talk to her and no one would fault him for just pressing on without a second glance. Don't say something stupid. Talking to her, of all people, would be disastrous. And there was nothing to say, because they hadn't seen each other since — well, she hadn't seen him since August.

"I saw you," he said — why the hell was he talking — "At the mistletoe." — and why that? It was so much worse than saying he'd seen her at the Minister's Winter Ball. He flushed and considered the merits of disapparating on the spot.

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