To those who have commented so far, thank you.

VII

It was a nice enough place for a nightclub. The Northern Lights, it was called. Bellatrix could see that it was a place that thrived on the underbelly, and the people that wanted to be there - the slashers and the thieves and the people who pretended they were important but weren't, really.

It was also a place where you could get a good drink, she supposed. The place wasn't really considered open until eight at night, and it was only three in the afternoon - Bellatrix had had a long sleep and had also spent time getting ready for whatever she planned to do, which accounted for her lateness. She should have been there are noon.

Still, they let her in, because she asked, politely. Manners could get you anywhere.

She was let in by a thin woman in a long skirt, and was escorted to the owner, who must have lived somewhere nearby to be around so early. He had dark blonde hair and wore it in his eyes, and had the wasted look of a cocaine addict. They both took seats at the bar, and he ordered drinks for them.

"What can I do for you, miss?" he asked. His eyes passed briefly over her body before settling once again on her face. The cuts had disappeared overnight. "Are you looking for a job?"

"No," Bella said. She smiled a little at the girl, who set a shot glass of an amber-coloured liquid in front of her and the owner. "No. I'm looking for information, actually."

"Really." The owner lit a cigarette. "What kind of information? It's not really good policy for me to rat out my customers, if that's what you're aiming for."

"I'm sorry, but that's exactly what I'm aiming for," Bella said, dryly. "I'm not sure if you can actually help me, however. I'm looking for someone who came here several nights ago, and looked suspicious. But everyone looks suspicious here, I guess."

"Not really," the owner said mildly, tapping ash into the nearest ash tray. Bella found out later that his name was Daniel. "Most of the cunts who come in here, they all look suspicious because that's how they think they should look. But then you get the whackos, the real deal, and they fit right in. Are you looking for someone suspicious by the fact he doesn't look suspicious at all?"

"Probably," Bellatrix said. She was infuriated by her lack of information, but continued on. She could do this. She was smart. Wasn't she? "Did you see anyone who stood out from the crowd? And he would probably have taken a table with a few other people…"

"Like I said," Daniel said, waving his hand vaguely in no clear direction, "It wouldn't be good for me to sell information." Then he paused. "But it's not club policy for the girls to keep their traps shut."

"Oh." Bellatrix smiled. "Thank you."

"I got a question for you," Daniel said conversationally, stubbing the cigarette out in the tray. "Were you ever a dancer, an exotic one, I mean? A stripper, whatever." His tone was clear and courteous - not meant to be piggish, genuinely curious, businesslike. "It's just that you move like a cat when you walk. I get the impression you can move however you like, you just feel like moving like a cat right now. Haven't seen a girl walk like that in a decade. Beautiful balance."

Bellatrix laughed, sincerely amused. "No. I've done a lot of other things in my life, though. And I came from the sort of family where I had to balance books on my head. I've done all sorts of things."

"Are you a murderer?"

"Yes," Bellatrix said honestly, with a shrug.

"You're a smart girl," he said. "My name's Daniel. My girls are around, straightening the place out for tonight. If you come back tonight, the drinks are on me."
"Thanks," Bellatrix said, downing her glass and sliding off the barstool. The club was very large, she noticed, and had several stories that went up and up, floor after floor of intrigue and music.

Bellatrix wandered through the first section of the club, which took up most of the establishment, and its purpose was obviously just a place for people to dance and get drunk. But the next room was what she wanted - a place of tables and booths; a dining area. She moved over to a redhead, who was taking down chairs.

"Um, excuse me?" Bellatrix asked. The girl turned to look at her. She had to be in her twenties - over a decade younger than Bellatrix herself. "Were you working for the past month?"

"Yeah," the girl said. She had a moody, challenging look, as if she expected to be attacked at any time. "Why?"

"Well," Bella said, unsteadily. She wasn't nervous, but she didn't want to spook the girl into keeping her mouth shut. "I'm looking for someone who was here from the sixth to the eighth of July." The order to send a message had been relayed on the fifth and Rodolphus had died on the eighth. She wished she had not spent so long crying and moping and sulking; she wished she had leapt upon the trail immediately while it was still warm.

"How the fuck am I supposed to know that?" the redhead asked.

Bellatrix shrugged. "When people come here," she asked, "who sits where?"

There was always an order to these things. Some tables belonged to new groups, some to old groups. And there had to be a table in here which was reserved for some type of kingpin. Anyone, anything.

"Well," the redhead said, "I mean, the real hard asses sit over there," she pointed, "every Thursday night. You mean like that?"

"Yeah. If someone were to have a meeting, or whatever, maybe not necessarily regulars, but-?"

"Oh." The redhead pondered. "Then between the door and the back wall. The booths, I mean. They always go there. Don't want to be seen from the door, but don't want to be pinned to the wall because they don't own the place, and on the first floor because they want a way out."

"I see. Do you remember any of them?"

The redhead laughed, harshly. "Woman, you never remember faces here if you want to live, unless they're regulars and you're their favourite waitress."

"I see."

Then Bellatrix paused.

"Can I see the bills?" she asked.

"The what?"

"The bills. The bills from table order. From the sixth to the eighth of July. You keep them, don't you?"

The redhead shrugged a little.

Bellatrix reached into the back pocket of her jeans, and drew out a wallet, from which she took out three bills.

They were bills with large sums imprinted on them.

"This way," the waitress said. She pocketed the money, turned, and strode out back to the bar, and to the cupboards beneath the register. She opened a compartment there, and took out a locked box.

"Why the lock and key?"

"Because it's evidential proof," the girl grinned. "When there's a crime, some people will pay thousands of dollars for these bills whenever there's a court case."

"Ah."

"The criminals, I mean, not the government itself, or whatever the hell goes on for trials. Enemies and allies of the condemned always want these." She separated a pad of paper from the rest and handed it to Bellatrix.

Bellatrix took it and she flipped through, her eyes searching for something, anything even remotely familiar.

And then she saw it.

RL, MF, in messy waitress writing.

"I have a question," Bella said, suddenly. The redhead, with money in her pocket, looked alert. Bella handed the bill to her. "Do you remember that order?"

The girl studied it. "I do," she said. "Three men, dark-looking. One of them grabbed at my ass and he smelt like compost," she added, "that's how I remembered. Ordered a margarita. Said his name was Dung, I thought it must have been some stupid fake name he made up while he was drunk."

"I have another question. Do you always serve food here, or is it just alcohol?"

"Well, yeah. Food, I mean. That's what the booths are originally for, for diners. There's more private dining upstairs for the, well, you know. The more important people."

"So you have cutlery?"

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

The waitress thought for a bit. "Sterling silver, I think. Danny only wants the best, even if the crowd is less than stellar."

"Was there anything unusual about the men and the cutlery?"

The girl didn't seemed bothered by how odd the questions were. Bella had practically bribed her with three decent night's wages. "They didn't order food, so I had to clear it all away."

"Alright," Bella said. "Well, thanks a lot. And do me a favour and not tell anyone about me."

The girl shrugged. "Why not? Some fellow walks in and hands me more bills than you have, what am I to do? I'm a working girl."

"And those men probably killed my husband," Bellatrix said, "I'm trying to do something about that."

"Oh." The waitress gave Bella a surprisingly penetrating look. "And you loved him?"

"Of course."

"And he loved you?"

"I took him to Hell and back and he never once complained," Bellatrix said.

"Ah." The girl left the bar and went back to the other side of the large room, taking down chairs. "Maybe I'll keep my mouth shut, then."

x

Fucking werewolf.

MF and RL. Remus Lupin and… Mundungus Fletcher. That had to be it. Bellatrix wasn't stupid, she knew crime, though not as well as she used to. Fletcher was clever and he was well-known. He was crafty, too. But Bellatrix's best friend from her schooldays had been Lucius Malfoy, and because of him, she could be pretty crafty as well.

And Lupin…

She didn't like thinking about Lupin.

x

It was raining. Lupin walked through it in a sort of self-destructive misery. He had been unable to find Mundungus. Lupin also knew his own disappearance from the meeting was suspicious, but he was only trying to look out for his fellow Order members. But Mundungus was an idiot; sometimes Lupin wondered how the man had managed to stay alive for so long.

Mundungus, however, was a streetwise man for all his idiocy. He knew how to play around with words, he knew his way through the wizarding Black Market, he knew a lot of things. Unfortunately, Mundungus probably wouldn't know that Bellatrix was a deadly enemy.

Lupin ducked into a store to get out of the rain. He smelt incense, and tea. It was one of those shops, an earthy sort of shop, that gave off an impression of dried flowers.

Lupin's overcoat was damp. He had flipped the collars up while he was outside, and now flipped them down. Then he turned on his heel and he saw Severus Snape of all people near the back of the shop where several books were on sale, holding a rosary.

Severus had never struck Remus as a religious man, and he was very correct in this diagnosis. But that didn't explain the rosary. Lupin made his way past displays of aromatherapy candles and scented oils towards the other man.

Severus didn't once look Lupin's way, but Severus knew the werewolf was there in that uncanny way of his; like how Severus knew there was someone behind a corner before he turned it. "Moody thinks you're trouble," Severus commented, twisting the beads of the rosary around his long, thin, brittle-looking fingers. "But Moody thinks everything is trouble. Especially the weather."

"It's raining," Lupin said, mildly. "You converting?"

"No." Severus said. Then he smiled. It was grim looking.

Severus looked severely out of place in the almost friendly shop, dressed in his usual black, somewhat damp and smelling of rain and, to Lupin's sharp nose, liquor. But Severus was anything but drunk. He was too paranoid to risk becoming inebriated.

"You disturb people," Lupin said suddenly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his caramel-coloured coat. "And you aggravate people. And you do a lot of other things to people. So why are you still alive?"

"Why are you?" Severus replied.

Lupin would have responded, but just then a woman walked up. Her dark skin had an almost leathery look to it. "Mr Snape," she greeted, her voice thick and rich. Her eyes flickered towards Lupin, puzzled but friendly. "I didn't know you were bringing company."

"He is not with me," Severus stated flatly. "And I have your rosary."

"Yes. Yes, so you do," the woman smiled. She had a trace of unease about her. "Shall we talk?"

"Yes, we shall," Severus said. He looked to Lupin; then, just as quickly, dismissed the other. Lupin smiled thinly as he watched the woman lead Severus through a back door, wondering what the hell was going on.

Lupin looked at the bookshelves. Several of the books were laid flat so that he could look at the front covers rather than just the spines. One book had a picture of what looked to be the Aztec calendar on the front. Time was running out, Lupin remembered, his smile fading. He wandered back to the front of the store, looking out the window, ignoring the other customers, who ignored him.

It was still raining, but Lupin went outside anyway. The rain felt good on his face.

Outside, he bumped into a priest. He was getting his fill of religious things today, wasn't he - first Severus with a rosary and now running face-first into a crisp white collar.

He apologized, and moved on - failing to notice, in his preoccupied way, the flash of red eyes as the priest turned away, scattering droplets of water from his black umbrella.