I'd been waiting for this day for years.
I was sitting in my usual booth in the Leaky Cauldron. It was June, 2003. And then he walked into the pub. He ordered a drink and then spotted me. His face was a picture as he ordered a second drink, came over to me and sat down, without an invitation or even a word exchanged. He didn't give me the second drink. He sat there, opposite me in the booth, and didn't say a word. I spoke first.
"It's good to see you," I started. "How long has it been?"
"Three years, as well you know, bitch," he said. I raised my eyebrows,
"Don't start throwing names around. You know how good you are at names," I said, cheekily.
The man was Grey. Josh Grey. He was in the same school year as me, in Hogwarts, but we were in different houses. We became good friends. He was fantastic at potions, and summoning, and charms. Producing things, basically. When he left school, he'd been in the Auror support staff for a while. But he'd found, like so many before him, that the black market was more lucrative.
"I'm sure I don't know quite as many names as you," he retorted.
That's my thing, by the way. I have contacts. I have friends in all sorts of places. Universal communication. Translator, messenger, rumour-monger, even medium. When I say universal communication, I do indeed mean universal. I know things. Ooh, all kinds of things.
"Well, how have you been?" I asked him, innocently.
"I've been in Azkaban, that's how I've been," he said. He was dressed in quite fine black clothes, with a silky eye patch over his left eye. His black hair had grown long, during his imprisonment, and he had a spiky goatee beard on his chin. He regarded me with those deep eyes of his.
I don't think it was the money that drew him to a life of crime, come to think of it. With the Ministry, he'd only been making protective amulets, locator rings, maybe the occasional invisibility cloak. But when he discovered self-employment, he could make what he wanted. His genius could run rampant, and he could always find a distributor. By which I mean, I could usually find someone who would want it. By which I actually mean that I could usually find someone willing to pay a lot of money (plus my handler's fee) for the things he came up with.
"They say Azkaban can do strange things to a man," I observed, continuing the conversation.
"Yes. They do. I seem to have got off lightly, with mere paranoia."
"Paranoia?"
"Maybe. But is it really paranoia, when people are really out to get you? When you've really been cruelly betrayed?" He had taken out his black ebony pipe, and was puffing sweet-smelling smoke into the air.
Oh, the things he came up with! Objects and potions that were unrivalled. He could make a luck potion that you'd barely believe. When it was a sportsman or woman who was after it, he actually had to dilute it; otherwise the effects would be too conspicuous. He made all kinds of charmed objects. He could build broomsticks that came close to the big-name brands, and they would have passed the safety inspections had they ever actually been inspected. He weaved magic carpets. He built magic mirrors, and strange little silver machines that he never really explained to anyone. He tried building a little time-turner once.
"Yes, it hurts to be betrayed, doesn't it," I replied, joy secretly jumping in my heart. My voice was still icy. I can hide my feelings like the best of them – Occlumency, that little-known art, is one of the things I'm best at.
"That's completely different," he snapped, "They took my eye!" He lifted his eye patch, and revealed the cursed scar underneath. It would never heal. He would never have a left eye ever again.
The time-turner actually worked. That was another thing – he built things that were both technically perfect, and also very beautiful. What is it, about men with skills and competence, that makes them so attractive? I suppose it indicates that they're good with their hands. Grey was one of the best, I don't mind telling you. Or maybe it feels good to be with a man who's better than me, in some way. A man I can actually respect for some reason, even if it's only mastery of his craft.
It really wasn't Josh's fault that the little time-turner made such a mess of some foolish wizard. The idiot had broken the thing himself. His lower half had been left behind by the time-bubble thing. One leg was skeletal, and the other was the leg of a small child. His upper half was found moving backwards through time, and had made it as far back as the fifteenth century. It could have been a lot worse, but I know Josh had felt bad about it.
The Ministry had come down on poor Josh like a tonne of bricks. Whether or not he'd broken the law was the subject of much debate. His smuggling wasn't provable, and none of his creations were actually illegal, per say. But when it comes down to it, the Ministry can be almost as pragmatic as me. They had threatened him with long, empty decades in Azkaban, surrounded by monsters, murderers, death-eaters and human wreckage. Empty threats, but he didn't know. He had named names, and places. They had still given him two years in that awful place. Meanwhile, the owners of the names he provided weren't too happy that they'd been mentioned, and had sought him out.
"I didn't know they would be that brutal," I replied, actually feeling slightly guilty, and consequently surprised. Unlike my poor, dear ex-boyfriend, I am not given to guilt.
"You knew they would hurt me," said Josh. "They broke every other bone in my body. They cut off both of my ears!" he whined, in hushed tones. Both his ears had apparently been grown back by the Healers, and clearly his bones had mended.
"I heard about that, yeah."
"I bet you laughed your socks off," he said, taking a huge gulp of his drink.
Until he was transferred to Azkaban, he was being kept under arrest in a very secret location. But like I said, secrets are my business. I know things, and I'm infamous for it. The big names came to me, to look for him.
"I wouldn't have wished all of that pain on you," I admitted, grudgingly. He looked at me, long and hard. To an outsider, it would look like he was reading my mind. But he didn't need to – he knew me so well, we had been so close, so intimate, he could tell what I was really thinking. Even deep down, on levels of thought that I've never told anyone about.
He had been arrested a year after we broke up. He also mentioned my name to the Ministry. Now, they need me just as much as everyone else does, as a channel of communication and source of news, so it didn't matter. I knew he was under a lot of pressure – the Ministry's wrath can be terrifying at times. But to try and turn me in! Me!
"Well, I suppose you wouldn't have," he admitted in turn. He was only halfway through his first drink, and still had the second beside it. He offered it to me. I accepted his gesture of goodwill, but didn't actually want the alcohol. "I wouldn't have wished any pain on me at all, in the first place," he added, "But there you go. It takes all sorts, they say. And I know I hurt you."
"Yes. You did. So what are you going to do now?" I asked. My forgiveness is something people have to earn. Taking revenge against someone is not the same as forgiving them. Not if their desire for my forgiveness, their guilt, is something I can exploit.
Of course, Josh is very forgiving. He lost his eye due to my telling people where he was going to be, en route to Azkaban, and he still thought it was his fault. He still felt guilty about me. Bless him. I was wondering what else he felt about me while he told me what he was going to be doing.
"I'm going on the straight and narrow," he said, proudly. I drank a bit of the drink he had bought me as he continued to talk, "I might apply to Hogwarts for a teaching job or something. I might even go back to the Ministry support staff, dashing off protection amulets and magical maps."
"That seems… worthwhile," I said, only slightly sarcastically. He was still rather handsome.
"I'm probably going to be under the attention of the Ministry, from now on. Casually, but even so – anything I make from now on is to have legal components, ingredients, and purpose. And just to be safe, I reckon I'll only make things for personal use."
"Surely not?" I asked. If I had to, I reckoned I could still seduce him. "Can I not be an exception to the rule?"
A thought struck me. It was only when I'd started drinking that these thoughts of handsomeness and seduction had sprung into my mind. And charm, too. He was quite charming.
Had he put something in my drink?
"Better safe than sorry, they say. If anyone asks, there are no exceptions, you understand?"
"If anyone asks?" I asked. I was trying to keep a little self-control, ask normal questions, keep a conversation going. But he must have noticed that something was wrong,
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"I'm thinking you put something in my drink," I replied. This surprised me. I hadn't intended to say that. It had just come out.
"What do you think it is?"
"I think you've dropped in some sort of aphrodisiac potion or something," I said again. This was getting very confusing. I felt very vulnerable.
"Aphrodisiac? Hah. Nope. Interesting you thought that, though. But Veritaserum? Yes."
He'd done what? Good grief. Suddenly I felt totally exposed. How could I be myself if I couldn't maintain my thick layers of lies, deceptions, manipulations and subterfuges?
"So I don't think you'll be going anywhere, then?" he asked. I remember thinking that maybe he could read my mind after all.
"No. It would be foolish. I might accidentally say something to the wrong person."
I was actually quite impressed. I would never say so, unless of course he asked, but maybe the two years in Azkaban had done him some good. I don't think any man has ever quite taken advantage of me. Ever. I wasn't expecting him to slip a potion into my drink. Talk about a changed man! Wow, talk about respect!
"Good. I thought not," he nodded, and puffed away on his pipe, "Now I just have a few questions for you…"
He asked his questions. He asked a lot of questions. He got a lot of answers. I spilled a lot of secrets. Halfway through asking all his questions, the potion wore off, but I kept telling him the truth anyway.
Afterwards, we had a few more drinks, and then went back to my place.