"Nel, what are you going to do to him?"
Nelson ignored him. He only lowered his head and stared at the bearded man. He reached out and lightly traced his fingers over the man's bald head; the sensation of his nails scraping across skin made the bearded man's scalp crawl. He strained to lift his eyes, looking up at Nelson as if he were rolling them back. Seeing that he was watching him, Nelson stopped and met the bearded man's gaze. The stare made the bearded man's skin prickle, and he struggled with his mouth shut, making muffled noises.
Nelson wiped his hand on the tablecloth, then smiled and shook his head, which made the bearded man's skin crawl even more.
He thought of the ridiculous reason Jonas had been attacked. It was so absurd that even he hardly dared believe it was true. He had always thought some enormous secret might be hidden behind Jonas's murder—perhaps it had to do with those reports of his, perhaps some people wanted him silenced, or perhaps it had even been aimed at Nelson himself, because of those past affairs of his father's generation that he knew nothing about... He had long since prepared himself to face a far more powerful enemy, yet the truth of the matter was unexpectedly simple—
This murderer's mind had basically already been destroyed by alcohol and his own mediocrity. Nelson did not even need Legilimency, nor Veritaserum. He did not even need the simplest verbal tricks to see through everything in this greasy, stupid brain. This was exactly the sort of impulsive brute whose body moved faster than his mind, who parroted whatever others said. He really had attacked Jonas simply because he happened to run into a German on the road.
"I always thought," Nelson said,