Disclaimer: I do not own these characters; I'm just borrowing them for a while. Will return them whole (albeit a bit corrupted) when I'm done.

A/N: And all my reviewers scream in rage. Okay, I realize that this chapter seems completely and totally random and unrelated, but it'll all make sense in the end. And I also realize you wanted Lucius's reaction, well too bad– maybe next chapter. : - ) mwa ha ha ha. I am so evil, but there really is no better place to put this chapter, what with last chapter being such a fabulous cliffie. Let's just say this is a… erm… break in the episode, like in TV shows, for the moment. Promise next chapter will contain uber-Draco goodness.

"The District Attorney requested all the robbery victims to come to the police station to study a lineup of five people. He placed his suspect at the end of the line. Then he asked each to step forward and say, 'Give me all your money...and I need some change in quarters, nickels and dimes.' The first four did it right. However, when it was the last man's turn to recite, he broke the case by blurting out, 'That isn't what I said!'"

CHAPTER FIVE

INTERLUDE: A Mundungus Story

In which Dung gets lethally straddled and Ginger thinks too much...

September 20, 2003

"Fetch us anover roun' Gin'er!"

The girl called Ginger turned on her over-worn pumps and scurried away behind the dilapidated bar– perhaps a little too eagerly because a second later there was another uproar from the smoky haze that surrounded table two. She ignored it and continued filling the grimy mugs with firewhiskey. She looked at the clock– two a.m.– why wouldn't they just leave? Her shift had ended three hours ago, why weren't they in their own respectable homes? She would certainly like to be in her home, however disrespectable it may be. Why were they still there?

She tapped off the jug of frothing liquor and stowed it under the bar, stealing into the back room, where a heavy wooden door blocked out the clanging of glass on glass and unnecessarily loud shouts.

"Lumos" she muttered. Long shadows were strewn across jugs that were spewing smoke across the floor.

Firewhiskey? Who drank firewhiskey any more? They clearly weren't up to anything legal, no one who came to the Hog's Head ever was. So why were they drinking firewhiskey? Every other petty criminal would drink elixir of midnight, or essence of deadly nightshade, or something else that was simply, perfectly illegal. So why firewhiskey? Were they so stupid they thought they could redeem themselves, or so genius they knew it would drive her mad? She didn't want to think about that.

She grabbed another jug of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey and hauled it out into the din.

And if they were petty criminals why hadn't they tried to pull anything yet? They'd been there three hours, why hadn't they grabbed her skirt, her sleeve, her wrist? They'd been as well behaved as criminals could be, and better behaved then most were.

"'ats a wench Gin'er." She placed a mug of bubbling alcohol in front of a man clad in stolen-looking gray robes. He was smoking a very smelly pipe that was the cause of the filthy cloud that hovered around his head…. and his associates' heads, for that matter.

Mundungus "Dung" Fletcher regularly attempted to disguise his way into the Hog's Head. Any self-respecting barmaid knew him on sight, or smell. The three men sitting across from him and eyeing their firewhiskey apprehensively had never been into the Hog's Head; but that didn't mean that Ginger didn't know them. She'd never met one of them, but she'd never wanted to either. They were the reason Dung hadn't been kicked out at first glance.

They were all at least a head taller than the average man, and they'd all obviously encountered a good number of fights in their lifetimes- though judging by the fact that they were all sitting complacently in a bar in the wee hours of the morning they'd most likely won all such fights. They all had desert-tanned skin and large, beak-like noses. They all had the same, penetrating, deep black eyes that sent strangers on the street reeling in the other direction; and the smallest, the man in the center, had a pair of small red horns protruding from his forehead.

It was the horns that gave him away.

Theywere, of course,the product of an irreversible curse inflicted upon him when he was a young boy; but that didn't stop bored house wives and gypsies with far-too-large imaginations from associating him with El Diablo. The goatee didn't help either.

They were all clad in the deep purple and gold robes that denoted Basielle descent. The robes, on top of the fact that they were clearly brothers, lead to only one, reluctantly reached, conclusion. They were the only three heirs to an ancient criminal fortune that spanned over five continents and eleven centuries. They were Rothbart the Rude, Ali the Knife, and Gabhiri the Unmerciful Basielle, and for reasons unknown they were in Hogsmeade, drinking firewhiskey with Mundungus Fletcher.

"These… things are… fast?" Ali,he was the representative mouth of Basielle Enterprises,asked, twirling a sparkly galleon between his thumb and forefinger. He flipped the coin.

"Faster 'n a barmaid at the Hogs' Head," Dung replied, his eyes following the gold coin in its graceful arc over Ali's head and then back into his palm.

"That is… fast?" Ali asked, once again twirling the coin.

"Let's ask Gin'er herself, shall we?" Dung grinned amicably and waved the grumpy-looking barmaid over.

"This had better be good Fletcher," she snapped as she slammed down the issue of "Witch Weekly" she'd been perusing and strode over to their table.

"Don't worry Gin'er, it's good. See my friend Ali here..." He gestured towards the purple-robed wizard, "was wondering…"

"Fair maiden..." Ali nodded at Ginger, who suddenly became very flustered, "I was simply wondering if this-" He flipped his wrist around to reveal a large golden necklace where the galleon had been, "was yours.".

"Yes… I do, I do think that is mine," she replied, flipping a long plait of auburn over her shoulder.

"But how can I be certain?" He smiled, revealing oddly even teeth. "How do I know that this is not another one of these lovely women's? I'm sure they would like it."

"We could go… try it on, upstairs." Ginger smiled, nodding towards the rickety-looking staircase tucked away in the corner.

"There is a mirror there?" Ali asked.

"Yes, in the bedroom," she replied, absent-mindedly fingering the fringe on her skirt.

"Well then, we will go." He nodded, and followed her languidly up the steps.

"That is fast," Rothbart, or at least Dung was almost certain it was Rothbart, acknowledged approvingly.

"Our brother is stupid." Gabhiri spat, slamming his mug onto the table.

"Gabhiri…" Rothbart hissed, glancing around the room nervously.

"He is! That woman would have gone for money! Even athome he insists on turning galleons into necklaces, he is flimsy and weak."

"He is a good leader," Rothbart mumbled, talking more to his mug than to Gabhiri.

"He is a self-centered ass!" Gabhiri screeched.

"He is…"

"He does not care about you! Why do you protect him? He will kill you! He is the oldest,you cannot succeed the fortune,you will be poor when he is leader.You will die."

"You would speak so ill of he who is your brother?"

"I would, and you would not stop me." Gabhiri grabbed a bottle from the next table over and cracked it on Rothbart's head. Luckily for Rothbart, he did not only look thick-headed, he was.

"BAR FIGHT!" a drunkard two tables away hollered, smashing his bottle on the bar.

Dung never was certain how he'd ended up in the alley behind the Hog's Head; but he was certain that's where he ended up, he'd recognize that alley anywhere. "Well," he said to the night air, "that went well." He wiped his hands on his robe (which only served to make them dirtier) and made to reach for his wand in his pocket. It wasn't there.

Next second, he was laying on his back in the mud, a strong knee pressed into his chest and a broadsword pressed to his neck.

"This meeting tonight has cost my family one-million galleons, Fletcher," Layla the Lethal Basielle hissed, her voice was like dark chocolate, rich and smooth and too, too strong for two in the morning. Dung groaned inwardly, that had not gone well at all. "My brothers are dead," she continued, not sounding remorseful at all, "I am now an heiress, did you know that Dung?"

"No," he managed. She pressed the blade more firmly against his collar.

"Did you know that Dung?" she repeated.

"Yes?" he whispered hoarsely, hoping against hope that it was what she wanted to hear.

"Good." She did not relax her force on the blade. "Now Dung, make any attempt to move your head and I kill you right here and now," she hissed. She reached her free hand into her pocket and drew out a small vial, she uncorked it with her teeth and then held the mouth of the vial very close to Dung's lips. It was too dark to see but Dung was certain she was smiling in sadistic pleasure.

"I suppose, Fletcher, that you know my choice method of killing, no? I said don't move your head." Dung stopped himself mid-nod. he continued, "This vial is filled with one dram of a mixture known as Pirate's Tears." Dung whimpered. She ignored him. "Naturally, it is not the tears of actual pirates, I assure you that while a pirate's tears may give you an enviable stomach ache it would not, in fact, be nearly as lethal as this. No, Pirate's Tears..." She was speaking barely above a whisper but he could hear every word "...is pure, undiluted hate." He whimpered again.

"One drop would kill you instantly. Two would kill you instantly, and then revive you, and then kill you again in horrible, gruesome, painful ways. Three would kill you in such a state of pain that you would hallucinate for weeks before the pain finally ended in the final cacophony of death. Four would kill you instantly, but would keep you in such a state of pain that even after death you would writhe in your coffin. Just a whiff would send a man into cardiac arrest. You have by your lips a full dram, do you know how many drops are in a dram Dung?" She leaned forward so he could see the lights from across the street glittering like tiny bonfires in her eyes, he gulped.

"You don't? Well then, I suppose you wouldn't want to find out any time soon."