Meeting at The Crossroads.

Abraxas was having a shit day, there was no other way to put it. Malfoy enterprises was in debt. About £10,000 in debt and his wife Celeste was moaning about not having enough money for shoes. Shoes were more important to her then her husbands sanity. He apparated to a dingy side street somewhere in muggle London. No chance of being recognised here. Sure he'd still be noticed, after all he was a Malfoy. The platinum hair and strong bone structure screams for attention. However here no one would approach him about his failing company. Or about the gossip columns in the paper. Celeste wasn't even hiding her affairs now, being photographed with men out in the open. It pissed him off and crushed him in equal measures.

He shuffled down the dark cobbled alleyway. The old crooked houses reached up to the sky. The roofs disintegrated with age giving up their goal. Sagging back inwards towards the cobbled floor. The street so dilapidated and unstable with one loud shout it would crumble in a top of him. Leaving him how he felt at that moment, alone and broken. There was one flickering lamp post standing at the end of the street. Mist floating around obscuring it from view and making it look more faded and lost then it was. As he reached the lamp post he stopped to look up and admire it. It had strong elegant metal with swirls of detail and the old lanterns glass smashed and missing. The black paint coating it cracked and peeling away. He sighed and reached up, picking of a piece of peeling paint and chucking it to the ground with a flick of his hand. Everything around him fell apart.

He heard drunken yelling and looked up ahead of him. A group of young men fell out of one of the old buildings doorways. The windows omitting a soft glow, cigarette smoke rolling out of the doorway after them. A misty hand bidding them goodbye. A soft creaking sound echoed down the alley towards him and he noticed the old wooden swinging sign. The metal bar holding it up barely hanging on the buildings wall. The faded black paint said, "The Olde Crossroad". The words written in curving font with a large black cross underneath it. Abraxas drawled in a breath and walked towards the establishment. It was eerily silent down the rest of the street. The only sound his black leather brogues clacking against the worn cobbles. He reached the front of the pub, the windows blocked by smoke and condensation his only view in was the still open doorway. The wooden door rotting away, barely hanging on to its hinges. Inside amongst the smoke he could work out figures. People crouched crowding over tables and nursing their drinks. One lone woman sitting at the bar.

He stood in the doorway and watched her. She was leaning lazily with one elbow on the bar, her face held into the curve of her hand. She was only wearing a small black dress, obviously expensive fabric because of the way it clung to her. Her ankles crossed with her black high heels dangling from the bar stool. He knew from one look at her she was the type of woman his wife would tear apart just from jealousy. He found it odd that with a pub crowded of men she was sitting at the bar alone. Not even being approached. He scanned the room and the men seemed to shun her, not even making eye contact. Almost like they were afraid to look at her. He chuckled to himself, he knew how to deal with women other men were afraid off, after all his wife was one of them.

He straightened his tie and strolled forward. Pulling out the stool one away from the unapproachable woman. Abraxas glanced down the bar and waved a hand at the bar tender. She was an old wrinkly specimen, folding in on herself her spine curving outwards. Her eyes glazed over and grey hair matted into a bun on the top of her head. She wore grey frayed clothes that hung limply off her body. As if they were cobwebs growing around her. She shuffled up to Abraxas and stood up on a groaning wooden stool so she was eye level to him. "what will it be wayward man?" she rasped out, spittle flying from her lips. He grimaced and leaned back from her protruding face, putting some distance from his porcelain skin and her warty nose. Abraxas sniffed and smoothed down the lapels of his jacket. "A glass of your strongest liquor will have to do." He drawled as he opened his wallet and slid some muggle money across the bar so as not to touch her hands. She gave him a glare like she could see straight into his soul. She already called him wayward, knew he didn't belong here, what else could she see? He didn't want to find out and abruptly broke eye contact with the ruin of a woman. She took the money and shoved it into a box beneath the bar. She then grabbed an old dusty bottle from a bottom shelf and slammed it down in front of him with a glass. It was so dirty it had some sort of dead shrivelled insect lying in the bottom of it. As the old woman hobbled away to the other side of the bar Abraxas subtly waved his hand over the glass. He scourgified it and removing the dead insect. Happy with his now clean glassware he filled it to the brim with the alcohol that had been given to him.

"Tough day at the office?" A lilting voice called from the right of him. He jumped at the voice, he wasn't expecting the unapproachable woman to speak to him. He turned towards her, taking in her features now he could see the front of her. She was terrifyingly beautiful. Long black hair curled and pinned to the back of her head, a couple of spirals escaping and stroking down her long elegant neck. Her eyes were sharp and angled, so dark, almost black. He could get lost in them and never return if he stared too long, her top lip was thin with the bottom one full and pouty. Her skin dark, deep and beautiful. The two strangers were stark opposites sitting near each other, for as pale and porcelain as Abraxas was the woman was dark and mysterious. She was elegant yet he felt he should not turn his back on her, for fear of what she would do. He glanced down and saw her glass was just as full as his. Abraxas cleared his throat, "Yes, i think tough would be a light way to describe it. How about you, drowning your stress or sorrow?" She chuckled at that, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear and frowning, her delicate eyebrows drawing together.

"A bit of both I think". She stretched out a hand glancing down at a ring on her left hand. Abraxas looked at the ring and sighed, "ah marriage troubles, well I understand that." She nodded in reply and took a sip of her drink, "Well technically not married, just married to my job. People seem to think of me as this evil overlord when really I'm just there in peoples most dire moments. It does become draining, being hated." Her face fell as she looked towards the ground her shoulders sagging with grief. Abraxas felt his heart twinge for the woman. He got up and moved to the stool next to her putting a hand over hers, he looked straight into her eyes, excepting the darkness he felt there, "I know how you feel. My wife hates me, my business associates despise me. It's lonely. And if your going to be hated I don't think its something to go through alone." She suddenly sat up, an evil grin spreading across her sinful lips. Her black eyes flashing at his. "Your right Abraxas Malfoy i don't think I should." She suddenly grabbed his hand with both of hers pulling in towards her chest. Abraxas stuttered, shocked. "how..how do you know my name?". She opened one of the hands that clasped over his turning it upwards, palm showing. He saw his name in script writing, curving across her palm, a deep red like someone had carved it in with a knife. "Your name is one of the many that has appeared on my palm Abraxas, however I feel you make be worth keeping around." Abraxas felt a tugging feeling in his stomach and watched as the pub around him spun, disappearing as his whole world turned to black.

Abraxas woke in a black leather chair facing a desk, not unlike the one he had in his own office. He frowned and took in the room around him. It was very, very dark. Black walls, dark wooden flooring and a large deep mahogany desk. The only source of light coming from the fireplace and overhead chandelier. He turned back to face the desk and jumped as he saw the unapproachable woman . She was sitting there in a black shirt and black pencil skirt. A business version of the silky black dress she was wearing in the pub. She leaned back in her chair and lit a long black cigarette.

"I don't normally make a point of talking to mortals Abraxas but something you said to me struck a chord." Abraxas snorted affronted. "I am not some mere mortal, woman I am a wizard." He pronounced proudly. The woman chuckled, eyes twinkling at him. "I find you entertaining Abraxas I would like to offer you a deal, a business contract if you like." Abraxas nodded to her, taking one of her cigarettes off the desk and lighting it for himself. "I would like you to do part of my job for me, that way I can sit at my desk and enjoy the paper work without the messiness of having to actually deal with...people." She spat out the last word as though it offended her. "In exchange" she carried on "I will make sure you are always financially stable and live a long happy life."

Abraxas chuckled humouring her, "So in exchange for this very long happy life what will i have to do for these people." The woman took a long drag from her cigarette and said simply, "you will just have to collect their souls when they die and help them move onto their next journey." Abraxas choked on the inhale of his cigarette, doubling over coughing. "wh..what?!" he stammered. She stood up and leaned over the desk, offering him a hand to shake, her lips tilting upwards in humour.

"The names Dea, short for Death." She smirked as Abraxas sat there dumbfounded, not moving to reach for her hand. Dea shrugged and fell dramatically back into her chair. "My job is essentially to be there when people die and take them to wherever they're moving onto next. Sometimes its straight into another body to be born again, sometimes its up to the big guy. Speaking of the big guy he's the one who gave me this ring, the ring has the power to carve a persons name into my palm, when a name appears i find that person and go and collect their soul. Simple, really." She spoke very quickly, practised, all while inspecting her nails. Abraxas regained his composure, his curiosity piquing, "So who's the big guy? God, Merlin?". Dea chuckled and spun around in her chair, where a small table with a bottle and two glasses appeared out of thin air. She spoke calmly, pouring two drinks while she did, "Oh trust me you do not want to know who the big guy is. Maybe when your family gains my trust ill let you in on the little secret, but until then I'm afraid you'll have to be ignorant." She passed the now full glass over to Abraxas, he gratefully took it and drank down a large gulp. "What does my family have to do with this?" He asked, dreading the answer. Dea sipped her drink and stared straight into his eyes. "If you agree to this contract, you will be my best friend, my partner in crime, my confidant. You will reap souls for me for the rest of your life and when it is finally your time to pass your first born will take your place. And so it will go on. Your family will never be poor, will always be happy and the first born will always live a long life and I will never be without a friend. It works out both ways i think." Abraxas closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, a sudden thought occurred to him. His eyes snapped open and he leaned forward. "My name was on your palm." He whispered, more to himself then to Dea. Dea leaned forward and took his hand in hers and spoke softly, "You were supposed to die in that horrid place, it was why I was there. Your wife had paid one of the low lifers to stab you in the alley when you left." Dea sighed "I'm not supposed to meddle in mortal life like this. But if you sign this contract you will be mine, you will die when it is right, when your old in bed surrounded by family. However if you decide not to sign, I will have to drop you back to that place and let fate take its course." Abraxas nodded solemnly. "And what of my dear wife?" he asked sarcastically, taking another drink. Dea smirked sliding across a contract and a quill, "She will get whats coming to her." Abraxas smirked back at his new friend Death and picked up the quill, "To a long happy life…"