I do not own Harry Potter, I won't be making any money from this.

Please note, there is strong language and criminal activity in this story. Whether you take that as a warning or a promise is up to you.

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Chapter 10: Flying

I went up the cracked front walk of the white house. The bell was covered with a strip of tape with the word 'knock' handwritten on it in block capitals. Possibly formerly a muggle house then, with the electric bell never converted. Or simply a broken bell.

I knocked. I had to knock again before I heard thudding feet inside. The woman I had seen a few minutes before at the back pulled the door open quickly until it caught at the end of its chain.

"What d'ya want?" she said tiredly. In answer I opened my hand to show her one of the sample vials of ointment. For just a moment her eyes widened and the open, hungry look passed across her face. She looked up and peered at me closely.

"I'm the cooker. I want to see if we can make a deal. Just talk alright?" She was holding herself very still. She looked torn. I took my wand out carefully, handle away, set it down near the threshold and stepped back. She bit her lip.

"Alright, just talk." She bent down quickly and picked up my wand. The door swung closed for a moment while the chain rattled off. I wondered why she bothered with it. She had my wand aimed at me as she pulled the door back open a few feet. I felt my back tense. I had to remember that hungry look; I had something she wanted.

"Accio wand" she cast. Weak link or not, she wasn't stupid. The spell turned up nothing, of course. She stepped back from the door and jerked her head at me. I followed her into a small living room. A low black coffee table stood in front of a gray sofa on a rose-colored carpet. A stuffed chair was opposite. In the corner a large television sat darkly behind a salt-ward laid over the carpet. The whole room was dim in the yellowish diffuse light behind the closed paper blinds.

"You sit there," she pointed with my wand at the far corner of the gray sofa. I took my seat, leaning forward and carefully depositing my 'heavy' sample vial on the coffee table. She stood in front of the chair, but she was too restless and wary to sit. She kept glancing down at the vial.

"You guys already did a handoff, so what's this?"

"I liked what I got last night. Look, I could go into some bullshit about the quality of the stuff I got from you, try and get some better deal, but that's not why I came out here. I liked what I got; I could use a regular supply. And I know what I gave you is good quality. I don't know if you've got a market for it yet, but you'll get one. Once it gets around that it's the real shit, there'll be a market for it." I paused; she waited sullenly for me to go on.

"So, alright, here's how I operate, I'm no big organization, I just want to keep it simple. You've got something, I've got something, I want to deal, maybe you want to deal. I don't see why we've got to have a go-between, slowing everything down, transporting stuff, charging fees."

"How'd you get here?" she demanded.

"I followed the go-between. You're not the one who did the pickup."

"No, he's…" she stopped.

"Can I talk to you? Can I get a deal here or am I wasting my time?" I leaned forward towards the vial.

"No!" she said sharply, "I can talk… but you're not going to get an answer right now. You just give me your offer now. Then we'll tell you later." Her speech gained in confidence as she went along. Finally she sat in the chair across from me.

"Alright, I think I can give you a week turnaround on a dozen like I delivered last night. Depending what kind of market you got for it, we can go up to a couple a week if there's demand. Now the deal last night was three pairs. If we do this regular, I want to go up to four pairs. We're cutting out the go-between, so you're saving fees right there. And when you start marketing the stuff, your demand's just going to go up. 'Cause you're the only ones I'm dealing with. You're getting this exclusive. That's why I brought you this sample. You can try it; you'll see I'm the same cooker. You know no one else's got this."

She was looking down at the vial again. I went on. "But this is only going to work if you've got a real regular supply. I've tried getting parts before. I tell you, it's one part here, one part there, and then it dries up. You've got to have an ongoing supply or it's off."

"Oh yeah, we do," she said eagerly, it's real regular, we can always get them."

"You doing force breeding? Someone I know tried that, the quality goes right down after two generations."

"No," she was quick to reassure me, "we're getting new ones, real regular."

"Look, I'm not going to give you a lot of run-around. That's why I came out here right away. I think you've got what I want, I think it sounds good."

She was silent for a moment before she realized I was waiting for a response. "I told you, you're not getting an answer now, we'll get back to you."

"Why not, what else do you want to know? Just ask."

"It's not what I need to know, it's just…" her confidence was ebbing again, "he wouldn't like it."

"The one who did the pickup?" She nodded. "He likes paying go-between fees or something? What wouldn't he like?"

"It's… like you said; we don't know the demand yet. I've got to check first," she finished lamely.

"Fine," I shrugged and picked up the vial and started to tuck it away.

"Hey, wait a minute; you said that was a sample… to show you're the same cooker!" She was on her feet again.

"Look, you trust me or you don't, if we're not going to finish a deal…"

"We don't know you, we don't know you from anyone! What's your name?"

"I'm Mark."

"Ok, Mark, I've got to test it, I've got to make sure it's the same, like you said."

"Fine." I started to pull the vial back out.

"Uh-uh, uh-uh, you first." She waved my wand at me. I pulled out the light vial.

"I'll do a part-dose, or there won't be much left." She nodded. I let her see me put half a finger-full on the inside of my left wrist while I used my little finger to push the light vial back up my sleeve.

"Ok, now give it to me," she demanded. I handed her the heavy vial. She was looking closely at my eyes. When the room brightened sharply for me she gave a hiss of satisfaction.

"Now show me." I gave a bounce and left the ground. I wasn't very high but even the slight shift of perspective made the room seem like a doll's room far away. Her face broke into a wide smile and the hungry look was back in her eyes. I couldn't keep from smiling myself; I knew I had just won something with her.

At once she was working at the stopper of the vial. She took a considerably heavier dose of two fingers, holding my wand awkwardly under her arm. I began to come back down to the ground. She looked like she weighed about 58 kilos, that dose was going to hit her hard.

I could see her pupils growing wider and wider, to wet black wells. She made a low "oh," that seemed to come from far away. I didn't want her to go too far.

"What's your name?" I asked quietly.

"Jody."

"Jody…what?"

"Just Jody." She wasn't gone far enough to forget she shouldn't give her whole name.

"Ok, Jody," I brought her back to our earlier conversation. "If we do a deal, I need to know you have a regular supply. How are you getting them?" I asked her slowly.

"They all sign up with us, it's so easy because they want a family," she gave a short laugh.

"Who's the family?"

"I am. I mean we are."

"You and…"

"Lee, Lee and me. I've got hair, I saved lots of hair from back then."

"What?"

"I just juice up and I'm pregnant again and we're a family. Then they all want to sign up." She laughed again.

"You use hair from when you were pregnant… to polyjuice yourself?"

Her voice dropped to a whisper and she pulled me close by the front of my sweatshirt. "I felt him kick once, really! Lee said I was crazy." She sagged momentarily, then turned the movement into a slow spin. "Flying!" She laughed. I took her by the shoulder to stop her spin.

"After they sign up, Jody, what then?"

"They come across on their own. They want to - we just tell them where to come and they come to us! It's supposed to be our new house, for our family. When they come there, we put them in our service. Then Lee takes them someplace."

"And where is that?"

"I was there once, but I don't go there. It's a big… it's a big warehouse. That's where they are, they set it up." I was getting lost in all the 'theys.'

"Who set it up?"

"Lee's… a whole lot of them." She raised her arms and started to spin again. My wand fell to the carpet. I stooped and grabbed it quickly before she stepped on it. I took her by the shoulder again.

"Hold on, Jody."

"Hold on, hold on, that's what they said to me." She was really losing herself now; she wouldn't be much use at answers. I held her steady by her chin and cast legilimens. Her pupils expanded and expanded and swallowed the world in their black.

"Hold on, hold on!" Lee was saying. He was gripping our hand. A desperate cry forced its way out of us, we were trying but something was going so wrong…

I pulled hard back to blackness, I had to focus her.

"What's your name, Jody?" My voice came from far away, but it reached us. I saw a woman in a yellow and white skirt next to a mailbox by a front-yard gate, summer. The reflective letters on the mailbox read 'Garner.'

"What's Lee's name?" We were in bed with him, so close, but he wouldn't quite look at us. He was talking, his shoulders hunched up and his head half-turned away.

"It doesn't even matter, it's not like I know them, I don't even remember them. And obviously they didn't want me anyway." We wanted to reach out and hold him…

We were sitting next to him in a waiting room. He was filling out a form 'Lee Smith.' I tried another question.

"Where's the house you use as the new house?"

We were sitting in a bright living room. There was a small table and a few chairs, but mostly a lot of moving boxes. Even though we knew it was fake, it made us so happy; it was a real family home. A little house elf bowed in front of us, so pleased, it wanted to be there, everyone was happy there!

"The house, Jody…" I tried to focus her, but I only got a brief glimpse of the outside, a small yellow wood-sided house, before it spun away into darkness.

"Where is the house, where is it?"

We were in the front seat of a moving vehicle. We could see a faded red bonnet in front of us. There was a hollow sound behind us; it was a large vehicle, a van or a lorry. We were on a narrow road through the woods. Lee was driving. We swung left onto a one-lane gravel drive. We had to stop briefly at a green metal gate with 'No Trespassing' signs. We got out and opened it while Lee drove through, then latched it shut and ran to get back in the lorry.

An uneasy feeling was growing in us. It blossomed into dread as we came up a short rise to a graveled lot in front of a small warehouse. We hated it, its white cinderblock walls and sloping metal roof. "I don't like it," we said to Lee.

"Alright, so stay in the truck," he said with an edge of irritation in his voice, "you don't have to go in, we're just dropping it off, they'll take care of it." He slammed the door and started towards the back of the lorry. We leaned back and closed our eyes. In the darkness we weren't in the lorry anymore, we could feel the soft spinning lightness of flying.

I didn't think I could get much more out of her, but I had to try one more question. "Who are they, Jody, the ones who set up the warehouse?"

We were in a dim corridor, a cinderblock wall near our shoulder. There was a short dark shape ahead of us, moving so very fast. I could just see long, pointed ears. Then it was past us.

"No, Jody, not the house elves, who are the ones who set up the warehouse?"

We were sitting at the kitchen table and Lee was speaking. "They're keeping Anno with them."

"What, for how long?" Lee shrugged.

"But your… Anno's all right, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, Anno's fine, they won't do anything." He tugged at a lock of his hair. He looked, all at once, like a little boy.

"Anno?" I asked, "Jody, who's Anno?"

But then we were just back in that summer day with the mailbox and the bright grass, and we were flying above it, above a little girl with her mother, wheeling high in the sky.

I forced myself to pull away. There was the black pool, then the gray iris, like a ring of bright water. Her lashes were the reeds on the shore, then I was out again, standing above her, holding her chin. She was staring up at me with a look of open hope on her face.

"We're flying," she said.

"Yes." I let go of her and she started to spin.

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A/N: Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think!