Discovering the Devil

T h i r t y - t w o

Harry was silent. Out of all the ghastly things he'd heard about himself, none of them had involved him being a predator.

"She's a pretty thing, that Charlotte. I was just wondering if it was true."

Without another word, Harry stood up and stormed away from the banquet hall. Blood whistled in his ears. One more moment and he might've turned Lord Beetlebub's face into a crater. Harry exited the hall and went into the night. He sank down against the wall and turned his face toward the sky. There was a waning moon tonight. After a few moments he heard the crunch of boots against the grass. Harry immediately stiffened, he did not know if he could suffer that odious man again. Surprisingly, the face that greeted him was not Lord Beetlebub, it was Solomon.

"Come to fetch me?" Harry asked.

Solomon shook his head. "I'm the last person who would come to fetch you."

"And yet here you are." Harry extracted a match and his pipe from his overcoat. "I know you saw me leave."

"You never should've come here."

Harry took a long draw of his pipe and sighed out the smoke. "I wonder how you don't get tired of antagonizing me. It seems exhausting."

"I should say the same of you," Solomon snarled. "You ruined my engagement ball. You took my fiancée. Worst of all, you wouldn't let me kill you properly."

"I'm sorry I didn't let you end my life peacefully," Harry drawled sarcastically. "And anyway, Solomon, I was invited."

"It does not matter if you were invited or not. You had to have known that your presence would detract from the ceremony itself—from the people that actually matter."

"Both the bride and groom wanted me here." Harry smirked. "They insisted on it, actually."

Solomon gave a cold, bitter smile of his own. "You know Miss Stone and Mr. Abernathy, then. And yet, you expect me to believe that there is nothing between you and Penelope."

A silence followed. Harry wondered if it was appropriate to reveal how he felt about Penelope. It wasn't as if Solomon had ever believed the truth in the first place, and would probably never believe it either. "It did not start out that way," he said finally.

"Of course it didn't," Solomon said sarcastically.

"Why are you here?"

"I wanted to know if you were really stewing over Beetlebub or if you were just having a smoke."

"What difference does it make to you if I'm affected by Beetlebub or not?"

"I didn't think you could let someone so trivial pester you."

"Trivial?" Harry echoed.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten about him."

"I don't have a long memory when it comes to members of society," Harry said dryly. "Actually I try very hard to forget about all of you."

"To remember Beeblebub, you must remember Lily." Solomon sank down beside him. "Don't tell me you've forgotten her too."

Harry did remember Lily. She had been a beautiful aubergine toned girl with the softest curves he'd seen to date. Almost every boy had fawned over her during their teenage years, Solomon included. "No, I remember her."

"Then you remember the gangly, short, bug-nosed creature that would not stop chasing her."

In a second, Harry's secondary years flashed before him with fresh clarity. He remembered a boy much smaller than the rest of them, who was getting picked on. One might feel sorry for him if he didn't deserve it, but the boy in question did little to improve his situation. Harry snapped his fingers. "Bitterbug!" he exclaimed.