"Yes," he agreed, thoughtlessly. He caught on to what was happening and tried to prevent saying too much by adding a truthful-but-irrelevant statement, something she might see as an explanation even though it had nothing to do with his current area of research: "I'm an Unspeakable."

This was an excellent thing to say in that it meant most people would immediately stop asking questions, and with his condition the way it was he really needed to avoid being asked questions whenever he could. It was also a dangerous thing to say, because for some small-but-nonzero percentage of the population it was interpreted as an invitation to ask him more questions, and if he wasn't careful he might end up accidentally telling her something that would guarantee her a visit from their pet obliviator later that week. He was really trying to avoid that. Memory was fragile enough as it was; he didn't need to go inflicting memory-meddling on innocent bystanders without cause.

---