Disclaimer: I own nothing except my imagination and internet connection. That is all.
I actually have nothing of value to say yet, so please read & review (destroy to pieces if you have to, I'm not gonna get offended) for a free cyber cookie!
- Ana
Nikita strode through the streets of London, umbrella in hand, her head slightly tilted forward to avoid sudden gusts of wind blowing rain droplets into her glasses. Although she supposed it was her own fault. She just HAD to pick this day to forget to put in her contact lenses, not to mention that glasses weren't exactly a safe choice, considering what her job entailed.
She paused slightly on the sidewalk to zip up her leather jacket, attempting to position her umbrella between her neck and shoulder in order to free both her hands.
The weather was definitely not on her side today. It had been sunny for the past two weeks, which was partly why she hadn't bothered to check the forecast for today. Which, if her wet hair and soaked through jeans were any indication, was a rather dumb idea.
She cursed, as a bout of wind overturned her umbrella, causing her to take a few sideways steps to regain her balance. In her struggle to stabilize herself, it was only then did she notice that something had fallen out of her back pocket when it had landed on the pavement with a 'clang' and was rolling away down the street.
Crap. Not that.
She quickly leaned down to pick it up without anyone noticing, but it was too late. A hand reached out with her own to snatch up the object, and they managed to get to it first.
Nikita straightened out, determined to fight for it if she had to, but there was no need. The stranger was already standing up, his head cocked slightly to the side as he seemed to be carefully examining her with his blue eyes, the object clutched tightly in his left hand.
He cleared his throat slightly.
"Here's your uhh...stick".
She considered him for a second, then held her hand out for the object.
"Thanks", she muttered as he placed it into her palm.
"Sure thing", he said. "Have a nice day".
Nikita nodded at him and dropped the object into her purse, making sure to zip it tightly to prevent any future incidents. When she straightened out once more, the man was nowhere in sight. She shrugged and continued her journey towards a pub where she could kill a few hours before coming back to work.
The Leaky Cauldron was generally empty this time of day, save for a couple of unemployed Hogwarts graduates and some housewives taking a break from their mid-day shopping. Which was probably why Nikita's appearance in the bar wasn't noticed by many, despite the distinctive uniform and the confident stare of the young auror. It wasn't that aurors weren't welcome at the bar; however their appearance often meant that trouble was well on its way. Ever since the end of the Second Wizarding War, an auror became something to be feared rather than admired, much like the unspeakables in the previous century. Perhaps because of their fierce contribution during the War, much of which was passed by tongue rather than written word, the auror's image morphed into that of an unstoppable killing machine, determined to do the right thing by the means of murder and sabotage. The public was convinced that peacekeeping was a second rank job to the aurors, their primary objective was to find crime and punish it with merciless severity. Their weariness of aurors was not quite unfounded; in the aftermath of War it wasn't uncommon for an auror squad to appear in the middle of Diagon Alley in pursuit of some criminal, breaking windows with stray curses and often accidentally hitting civilians with one spell or another. Needless to say St. Mungo's was quite busy patching up the accidental targets.
In reality however, being an auror took both guts and a great chunk of responsibility. Nikita knew that well enough, and chose to ignore the unfriendly stares she got from the public eye. While the muggle police force was divided into definitive ranks and departments where each person did their own 'thing', the auror office both looked and operated somewhat differently. The aurors, instead of being divided by task, were divided temporarily by separate teams being assigned different murder cases, which involved everything from going out on the field to track down the guilty party, to the mundane hours of paperwork and old evidence collection. At times it was dangerous and at times utterly boring, but either way it was overwhelmingly rewarding, and that was why Nikita loved her job.
She sat down at the bar and asked old Tom for a firewhiskey. Unlike muggle cop etiquette, it wasn't against the law for aurors to drink on the job. For some, alcohol was the equivalent of a calming draft after long nights of pursuit, attacks and defences, and more often than not the rain itself caused the aurors to reach for the glass of throat-burning liquid. It was their constant therapy and often the only thing to stay in their lives long enough. This wasn't quite the case for Nikita, but at the moment she was freezing cold and needed to feel the warmth of firewhiskey spreading through her body.
She had spent the morning trailing a suspect through muggle London, hoping to come across any suspicious behaviour on his part, but she hadn't gotten much out of her adventure. He was a rather boring man, who had spent two hours browsing the atlas section in a muggle bookstore, which ended in his leaving the shop carrying twelve different atlases, and Nikita buying the first murder mystery novel she had seen on the shelf in order to avoid looking suspicious. She hadn't even looked at the cover before shoving the book into her bag and had continued her spying game well into the afternoon, when she was met by a fellow auror Jackson who muttered a quiet "I'll take it from here, Dan wants you to take a two hour break".
So here she was, taking her break at the Leaky, with nothing to do but drink and wait for two hours to tick away. She used to just skip her breaks, but lately Dan had been strict about policy, and enforced the break protocol on all his employees. Oh well, she'd just have to wait. Tom brought her another drink and Nikita reached into her bag to fish out a couple galleons, when she realized that she did have something to do to pass time. Her book lay there, gleaming red in the dimly lit pub, the gold letters clearly making out When it Comes to Slaughter by Richard Castle.
She took it out and flipped to the last page where the author description was written on the inside fold of the cover. It was a weird habit of hers to read author descriptions before she read the actual book. Richard Castle. She looked at the picture above the description and her eyes widened slightly. She had seen that man before. She recognized the handsome man in the picture, with his neatly combed hair and a somewhat sly, crooked grin as the face of the man who had handed her back her wand not a full hour ago.
Well, she mused, she had met Richard Castle.
