~Two Weeks Later~
[HERMIONE GRANGER]
Green flame blasts merrily from the grate in the kitchen of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Hermione glances up from her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6, in time to see a mass of pale blonde hair topple gracelessly out of the hearth.
"Mfffftr fhhhhhhkng grhhhblll," Finnie spits her own hair out of her mouth along with a string of curses, doing her best to scramble to her feet.
"Zee most graceful 'eroine returns," Fleur drawls from the stove behind her.
Her hair still curtaining her face in tangles, Finnie stumps over to the bench and sits unhappily next to Ron, who is concentrating hard on his wizards' chess game with Ginny. Hermione finds herself momentarily distracted by the uncharacteristic solemnness in his profile.
The muffled thump of Finnie's forehead hitting the tabletop makes one of the pawns fall over. The little piece rolls and hops for a moment, like a turtle trying to get off its back. Ron rights it with a grin, and Hermione stares even harder at the new laugh lines on his freckled face.
Bollocks, Hermione thinks to herself.
"Don't mope, dear," Mrs. Weasley says, and Hermione nearly starts with confusion. Alas, the matronly witch was placing a cuppa in front of the despondent muggle. Regardless, a deep blush mars Hermione's cheeks at the thought of being caught admiring Ron.
"Tell us about your day," Mrs. Weasley smiles while Finnie wrinkles her nose, taking the tea, "I'm sure it can't have been all bad."
"Those women are vile," Finnie mutters, "Narcissa spent all her time in London in muggle boutiques, giving her card to beautiful young women, pretending to have jobs for them. God only knows what happens when they actually call her."
The blood suffusing Hermione's cheeks immediately drains down to her toes. How awful.
"Zat is unacceptable," Fleur snaps, flouncing her hair over one shoulder as she stirs, "I 'ope zat Mad-Eye or Remus weel intercept such distasteful—"
"What are we supposed to do?" Finnie growls back. "Report her to muggle police? Tell these wannabe models that they best avoid wealthy socialites because she'll sell them to her fucked up cult members?"
Fleur sighs angrily, apparently unwilling to continue.
A silence falls as Finnie pretends to drink the tea. She's grown a bit thinner, dark circles reigning under her eyes. The Order has had her working shifts at all hours, following Death Eaters in muggle areas to track their activities so that the Order can find opportunities to intercept their increasingly ugly agenda.
In the two weeks that Sirius has been gone, Finnie has been downright sullen. The only break in her moodiness was when she threw an unholy temper tantrum upon discovering he had taken the keys to his motorcycle – leaving her a rather romantic note (in Hermione's opinion) about wanting her to only ride it with him.
"Fuck him and his misogynistic, patronizing, grandpa ASS. I CAN RIDE A GODDAMN BIKE!" She had raged, muttering about hotwiring it because she'll be damned if she rides around on a Vespa.
"Are you going out again tonight, Fin?" Ginny asks softly as her queen happily trounces one of Ron's rooks with a roundhouse kick.
"Mhm," Finnie nods into her cup.
Hermione sighs and closes her book. Some flyaway curls escape her haphazard bun as she stoops to shove it back into her rucksack. As she sits back up, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ron quickly face back to the chessboard, as though he had been looking in her direction.
But when she sits up and regards him fully, he appears deep in concentration: his brow furrowed and his hand resting on his chin. Only Ginny's telltale smirk alludes to any break in his attention – and Hermione sighs again, this time internally.
"I swear to god Lois, if these guys don't show up soon, I want you to take my gun and tenderly bludgeon me to death."
I'm crouched in a dim alcove, adjacent to a dingy-ass avenue that's far enough out of London that I'm not certain if it still qualifies. The refuse and general muck beneath my boots is probably spawning the Resident Evil virus – or at the very least Hepatitis' A through Z.
Lois sniffs delicately. Her rough, no-nonsense voice is as soothing as a hyena in heat – a fact I delightedly told her the day we met.
It wasn't far from here, now that I think about it. We were fighting over half of a callously discarded Whopper Jr.
Burger King's sign – with approximately one-third of the lights working – flickers like a retired bug zapper.
" 'Twould be ignoble of me to do so, Missus. If I've learn'td anything in m'time here at court, it's tha' a fair bludgeon could ne'r be confused fer tender-" She pauses, disgust clear on her ageless face.
Our alley and its adjacent street are so quiet that the only sign of life is the occasional shuffle of either miniature rats or prehistoric cockroaches (OR docile squirrels, I choose to think). Inhaling through acne-scarred nostrils, my companion wetly hocks a loogie. Sadly, in her haste to clear her sinuses, she prematurely ejects her fresh chewing gum.
"OCH-?!" Lois splutters while her shorn grey locks jump about her ruddy face. I only smile instead of laughing outright in case she tries to stab me. I still haven't learned all of Lois' triggers.
Across the empty street, a seemingly vacant, taped-up shop door opens and spills an unholy amount of light onto the pavement. A suddenly audible ruckus reaches us, further confirming top-notch magical concealment. The sounds of bodies, jeers, and loud, unguarded conversations makes my muscles twitch.
I focus beneath my black hood, trying to take in as much as my shitty human eyes can process. The unnamed (alleged) death eater shuts the aluminum door behind him, silencing the neighborhood once more. A fraction of my tension eases; this is the first sign of life I've witnessed around this godforsaken strip mall in days.
Normally, I wouldn't have continued wasting my energy on something so useless. But Bill swore that he had solid tips that this decaying collection of ex-massage parlors acts as a refuge for death eaters. Also, Lois told guys who vend street meat around the corner that I'm her social worker, and they give me free gyros. One of them, Claus, even told me to be careful; people keep disappearing in the neighborhood.
"Ladyfin."
This is Lois' idea of a nickname. I told her "Lady Finnie" sounded like a biblical shrew, and after not speaking to me for two days, she came back with a compromise.
Because we're friends.
She also bit me.
"No, I don't have any gum."
The pretty portrait of this openly intoxicated death eater – repeatedly singeing his mustache trying to light a cigarette – is about as entertaining as a recognizance shift gets. Lois should be taking notes.
"Donnae' be thinkin' you can fool a seasoned goat such as meself," she's shrill as fuck. "I've got eyes, I 'ave! I'VE GOT EYES ENOUGH TO SEE YOU CHEWIN' AWAY ON THAT ACURSED, SALMON-KNICKERED, PIECE O-"
I hiss, "OHMIGOD. Fine. FINE." I dig into my back pocket, angling past the handgun strapped to my back. She scoffs at the broken stick of gum I procure, probably because she doesn't like spearmint, but takes it all the same. I pointedly shift focus back to the figure across the street.
He's swaying while burning down half a Marlboro in one suck. Normally, the presence of a mustache would indicate a male subject, but magic is fucked and they could be disguised. My eyes narrow, and Lois shuffles uncomfortably.
"Is tha'…?"
"Yes," I grunt.
After a moment of quiet assessment, Lois mutters darkly," 'Ee looks like a fair mongrel…n'like a man who knows 'ee deserves a righ' whippin'." I'm biased and can't help but agree. Stained teeth flash, and our stalking subject grimaces as the cigarette burns down to the filter at his fingertips.
I mull over my options.
I could lure him into my alley. Maybe instill a hair of disquiet – quickly and efficiently, nothing too dramatic. I'd relocate his body afterwards so that no one realizes that the death eater ghetto clubhouse has been discovered.
Or I could watch him walk back into the shitty fortress of mysteries and continue my thankless vigil. A vigil so fucking boring I've resorted to pursuing an intimate friendship with a local, volatile nomad. Not to mention, I assume I've been assigned to this godforsaken alley (ME, specifically) to find opportunities to teach memorable lessons to those who need them.
Turns out that didn't require much mulling at all.
"Let's invite him over," I mutter to my fidgeting colleague. The (alleged) evil wizard was busy lighting another Marlboro with the tip of his now-alight thumb.
"Alrigh', yea. Except I donnae want t'be the yella-bellied, thin-bollock'd, useless—"
"Yes okay, fine," My anticipation rises, making me snap, "You can be the other one. Just make sure you fuck off if I tell you to, yeah?"
"Ladyfin. I'm righ' insulted you even think t'aSK ME SUCH A VARMINT-BRAINED—"
"OMIGOD. Okay. OKAY. I'm sorry. Just be quick, get farther away from the road."
My blood is moving faster in my veins already. I reach and tug Lois' jacketed arm with more strength than I had ninety seconds ago. As I kick aside pieces of trash, Lois limping heavily behind me, I reach up just above my forehead to the edge of my hood. In one fluid movement, I tug down the magically concealed mask and align it as it affixes gently to my face. Lois is practically vibrating with excitement (?), and she begins to hum-sing something that sounds vaguely like a dirge.
~~~~~~ Roughly half a block away, a stranger balances on the balls of his feet roughly five stories above street-level. He's crouched beside the tallest tower of a crumbling local cathedral, his pose relaxed and steady despite the dilapidated stonework. This vantage point allows him to have a view of both the row of abandoned shopfronts and the shadowy alleys pitting the opposite side of the street.
He lazily chews on a very old piece of Nicorette gum, closely studying the features of Quinneth Malfoy. A foreign cousin of Lucius, Quinneth was infamous for smuggling high-tax and illegal magical goods into Britain. The relatively young wizard has clearly seen better days – drunk and careless in a filthy, deserted street. This reeked of some kind of opportunity.
The stranger wizard adjusts his stance, squatting and resting his arms against his knees. The gutter beneath him groans.
Absentmindedly, he waves a stubby chestnut wand, "Wingardium Leviosa."
Before he could think any further about next steps, two things happened:
First was a smell, cloying and sweet, like rot. The smell was just short of making him gag; it made the very short hair on his head (oddly, the only hair on his body) prickle with anticipation. He scans the street quickly to try and make sense of what he's smelling. His senses hone as his adrenaline climbs, he focuses on a filthy alley directly across from the death eater.
Second, less than a minute after registering this mysterious threat, voices ring out from that very alley.
A girlish, sobbing voice, "P-P-PLEASE DON'T HURT MEE, I PROMISE I W-W-WONT TELL—"
"CROOSH-EEYO," a furious shriek of an Unforgiveable Curse resonates from that same shadowy alcove. The stranger stands fully, prepared to react. Its caster – is male or female? – he can't tell. Quinneth has dropped his lit cigarette in surprise.
"OI, NO SHITE YA WON' TELL YA FILTHY, CANKERSOME, LORD-A'CURSED MOGGLE!" the gravelly shouter is drowned out by a blood-curdling, but somehow still pathetic, scream from their captive.
The smell of rot intensifies, and the stranger's instincts have his muscles itching to disapparate away from whatever is producing it. But that's not his nature in the slightest.
The Malfoy has begun loping – unsteadily but determinedly – to the alley resonating with a Muggle girl's screams. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~