A gunbarrel floated around in midair, looking for its intended target. A man in a fancy suit sporting a trilby was walking by, seeming unawares-
"Obliviate!"
The gunbarrel swung around hazily, before drifting to the side of the screen, focusing in on a button of an elevator being pressed…
"Only gave him one day off yesterday, and he's late the next." Bond drummed his fingers on his desk. "That's not like ol' Barty, standing me up like that. Wanted to discuss that business in the Swiss Alps."
"Late?" Moneypenny said, who was currently serving him his breakfast. "Your meeting isn't for another five minutes."
"Mmmmm. Lovely toast. What I meant to say was that this is late for him." Commander Bond said. "You can set your clock to the man - ten minutes to nine, that's when he shows up to anything. Makes the rest of us look bad. I think he doesn't like me, that's what it is."
"No, no, I'm sure that isn't it." Moneypenny offered a cup of coffee which Commander Bond gratefully accepted.
"Ah, just one sugar, if you please." Bond asked. "Do you know Mr. Crouch personally?"
"Does anyone? You look at his desk, there's only a calendar and a quill." Miss Moneypenny shrugged. "I see the man every day, he puts his hat on the rack, he asks for his assignments, then that married man buggers off with nary a question about my dating life. Unusual for a famous up-and-coming Auror."
"Fair enough." Bond said. "Not much of a talker. I was acquainted with Abraham Crouch, though. Protected him during a conference in Sydney when I worked in the branch down under. His papa wasn't exactly easy on the ears, always was on my case about something or the other. You dropped my luggage, Bond! You misplaced my skis, Bond! You served my martini wrong, Bond! It's supposed to be stirred, not shaken!"
"I seem to recall his order being shaken, not stirred." Moneypenny mused.
"Oh, well, he didn't have to bite my head off. What's the difference, really?" Bond shrugged.
Moneypenny decided to further educate Bond on the subtle details of mixology on some other occasion, in the interim offering him a grapefruit.
At 11:09 the "late" Bartemius Crouch "finally" arrived, looking rather pale and gaunt with his harsh cheekbones protruding. Alongside he was dragging with him a corpse.
"Sorry, Mr. Reaper, The Grim. I'd like to go with you, but I'm a bureaucrat, they won't let me go until I finish this paperwork. I've no time to die." Bond smirked, laughing at his own bad joke to the utter obliviousness of his employee and the playful disdain of Moneypenny.
"Bartemius Isaac Crouch, reporting for duty, sir." Crouch sniffled, dabbing at his nose with a handkerchief.
"Yeah, yeah, I know your name. At ease. Crikey, Barty, you look terrible." Bond said. "What happened to you?"
"I took a day off at my wife's insistence." Crouch responded. "Didn't care for it."
"Ah. I presume it's why you're-"
"It was our anniversary." Crouch continued.
"You did? That sounds lovely." Bond seemed to perk up a bit. "Congratulations to you and Irma."
"Most women give men ties for their anniversary." Moneypenny said. "Yours gives you a cadaver. Clearly, a woman after my own heart."
"I became ill yesterday." Crouch said. "It was probably the waiter, didn't like the looks of him. I went to Saint Mungo's to pick up a pepperup potion, but then someone tried to kidnap me and blackmail my family. It did not work."
"Try being the key word." Bond stared at the would-be mugger. "Y'know, Barty, we do have a license to kill, but we also have a license to not kill as well. Could have pumped him for information as to who hired him, or if he was flying solo."
"Noted. I found on his person documents and literature that points to him being acquainted with several subversive elements." Crouch loudly blew his nose.
"We'll start there, then." Bond said. "Moneypenny, get the gloves. We've got a live one, here."
Bond chuckled to himself as Crouch blew his nose again and Moneypenny affixed Bond with a look of incredulity.
"Crouch, I must insist you head home now." Bond said. "If not for yourself, then for us. You've just experienced a near-death - ah - experience. And you're green around the gills, you're sure to make us ill too."
"I can still work." Crouch said. "I'll simply keep my distance and put up a bubble-head charm. And there is nowhere safer for me than the Ministry."
"And your family?" Bond asked. "Should I send a detail to protect them?"
"Done and done." Crouch said.
"Still, don't you want to go home, let your wife and son know you're alright?" Bond said. "You spend all your waking hours here every other day of the year and we have people to help pick up the slack, surely-"
"It's like my family's crest. We have all the time in the world." Crouch responded curtly.
"You'd think." Bond allowed a furtive glance at the pictures on his desk. "All right. If you think it's best."
"Very good. Commander." Crouch gestured as if to shake Bond's hand, but upon seeing the cringing look of disgust upon his superior's face, seemed to think better of it. He left, the cadaver being carried off as well."
"Hmmm." Bond said, sitting back in his chair and finishing off some leftover bacon. "We have no time to die; we have all the time in the world."
He affixed his gaze on the watchful eye of the portrait of his predecessor.
"This never happened to the other fellow."
Not Quite The End
Auror 007 will return in the next Fanfiction thriller… "The Auror Who Loved Me"
Starring Roger Moore, James Payton and Lisa Wood
