CH2

Walking through their hall I took stock of the suspects, almost all of them had it in for my client, he'd seemingly completed the impossible. Ancient magic and all that bullshit. Ancient magic was a bit like a virginity, talked about in hushed tones but when you actually face it, nothin' too scary.

I didn't care about the looks the kids were givin' me. It was the ones who weren't and the ones who'd taken a look and returned to their eating. The clever ones or those under the thumb of their mummies and daddies who'd been schooled in how to behave. Those were the best to get information from, they had all sorts of issues that could be exploited. If you what to do.

The dames from that other school Beauxbatons, they weren't involved in this, that was for sure. I'd done some work for people related to them in the past.

Sure, there were rotten apples on every tree, but the monster of a woman watching over her flock was hard to corrupt, I knew that when I tried.

The other guy from that other school, he was a different story, but it didn't feel right. Not for how this played out. There was something about him, touch of the old stuff, but not with this.

As I lit up and breathed out the smoke in the middle of the room I watched the school masters sittin' up on their high table and thought; one of em sent my client to the hangman's noose.

Now I had to work out which one, even it it meant beating it out of all of them.

-/

I dunno how long I stood in the middle of the room, their great hall. It was pretty impressive if you were into shit like floating candles and the sky.

It'd seen way too much sky, out on stakeouts waiting for some pieces of shit to close on their businesses.

I wasn't just standing there having a good smoke to piss off the headmaster, the one who thought to have a rummage around in my head.

But that was fun too.

It was to see who'd react, see who was playing whom, as they, the fancy ones liked to say.

I left before they were finished eating.

There were a handful of men up there at the front table that was uncomfortable.

Which was good, I hated ta have to interrogate a woman.

Couldn't remember a time that waking up in a strange bed wasn't out of sorts. Usually it was some whore's bed that I'd bedded down. Or sometimes a mistress, looking for a bit of fun of her own. Maybe a wife, though those usually lost me clients. I'd had more than one crucio aimed my way for my wandering cock.

The pub in the village was better than some shit-holes I'd stayed in in the past, though like all bars good and bad they'd serve you the strong stuff in the morning.

Always the best start to the day, a stiff drink and an owl waiting for me. They always stared indignantly, like a dame you'd left in the night and returned stinking of cider and blood.

Inside the scroll something a mole had found for me. It'd cost me a pricely sum, but my client had paid handsomely and more so for my troubles. To get him out of the issues he was in.

It revealed exactly what the fuck-up of a 'Tournament' was going to be about.

There was a boxing match I frequented, and to the detriment of my accounts bet on, boxing, by wizards. There was something primal about magic people hitting each other. It got the ladies really rilled up and ready for a night on the town, and in bed. Prudes, some of them called it barbaric.

That was what this was. Dragons. Muggles thought them of legend, more so than wizards. Dragons had always existed.

But setting kids against em, that was barbaric.

I left before the end, I had an appointment with the potions man, who wasn't at the tournament.

I had to rough him up a bit first, just to show him I meant business, and to show others I meant it too. That's where the butt of a muggle gun comes in useful. Wizards aren't used to the feel of that hitting them.

"Using muggle techniques, how very droll." He said as he spat out blood.

I didn't need to rough him further, I already knew he wasn't my guy. Though he did hate my client's guts for some reason.

I didn't tell him why I continued to rough him up. There's certain places to hit a wizard, that can't be fixed easily by spells and potions. It was less painful to let them heal naturally.

I also wanted the one after my client to think I was going after the obvious choice.

A stupid dick might even fall for it, especially with one of those tattoos on the arm.

-/

I hated myself for not working it out sooner, still 3 days on the job was quicker than some of my cases.

I didn't tell anyone but my client, policing was the authorities job, not that of a private dick.

Seemed he was reconsidering his options.

Maybe it was the blood drinker filling him in on the seedier side of life, I know I've always found it more interesting on the grey side of things.

Or maybe that was just the smoke on the walls, greying up the world.

My client had his answers, including on magical contracts, thanks to a few more contacts I'd used up and a few more I'd put in contact with my client to sort the legal side of things.

It seemed my client was reconsidering his options, he was keepin' me on retainer in case there were any other issues.

Money comin' in, that was always good.

-/

A/N:

I know it seems like a rushed to an ending with this, but it's a style that I couldn't sustain very well.

The character of (unnamed) private detective I couldn't get back into after I wrote the first chapter and a half, and when finishing this had to pay attention to how I was writing to prevent slippage of the character.

The style and the character is more important than the story, and even then I think the first chapter is better written than the second. The second I wrote about a week later and the muse from the first had mostly deserted me