A short, black haired projectile shot down the street, head lowered but his eyes alert and watching his front and sides.
"Voleur!" Shouted an older gentlemen from the door of his shop, pointing at the rapidly disappearing projectile, his face reddened with anger. "He has some of my best produce!"
In the moments it took the general public to understand what the man meant and just who the theif was, the boy had tucked himself into an alley way between two large buildings, disappearing from sight immediately.
"Merde!" Murmured several disgruntled shop keepers, knowing that the child had one upped them once more, and that this would only encourage others to try their hands at a five finger discount.
"Reveille, boys!" Called a voice from the far side of a dimly lit, poorly kept, cement walled room.
"We got ourselves some fruit!" The voice called again, coaxing a group of eleven or twelve other shadows to join the voice on the far side of the room.
"What vendor did you lift these from, Scorp?" Queried a slightly deeper voice.
"The old Pourboire shop, Back o' Town. He saw me nick it, but that don't mean a thing." Dismissed the first voice.
"Y'up for a gout?" The first voice asks, offering the second a piece of the fruit.
"Let the littl'uns get some grub." The second voice declines, shaking his head.
Nodding, the first voice was quiet while handing out fruit among the younger children, who took it and ran off to various corners of the room.
"Anything come 'round while I was out?" The first voice inquires quietly to the second, who shakes his head in response.
"Still not a whisper about the elder'uns." The feelings of confusion and worry evident in the tone of the second voice.
"We'll get by. We have to." The first voice intones, the steel of his determination resonating throughout the slightly occupied room.
"Armand broke his knife." The second voice speaks out, his tone between mildly amused and slightly dismayed. "Ran it right into the bricks and it wouldn't come out til he snapped it off."
"What about the cards? Any of 'em shown potential?" The first voice asks, looking out among the others.
"Tomas is the closest, and he still can't even read the easy spreads." The voice replies, quiet and tense.
"They have to learn to run the marks, Coffy. If the elder'uns don't get back soon..." The voice trailed off, his eyes narrowing as something shot through a small gap in the boarded up windows.
"Waz'it?" The second voice peaks in curiosity at the narrowing of the eyes before he saw the bit of white flutter down onto the table in front of the pair.
Harry 'Scorpion' Potter,
Forty-Second Warehouse, New Orleans
Official Post of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry