Chapter 7
Friday Night Fever
"Fenrir!" Derek, the landlord of the Fox and Hare, waved in his favourite patron, "we'd been beginning to wonder if you were showing up tonight!"
"No worries, Derek," Greyback seated himself at the bar, "you know I always turn up for Karaoke Night, unless it falls on the one night a month I have to...work."
"You mean you always turn up to get out of your face, grab the microphone and yell until we're all deaf," Derek pulled Greyback a pint, "then the rest of us who are sober chuck you out into the street."
He passed him the glass, "I'll add that to the tab, I take it?"
"You guessed right," Greyback gulped down the beer and turned to face the stage set up for Karaoke. A small audience was gathered already, one man at the back so obliterated by alcohol intake that he was laughing at the meat pie a nervous looking waitress had just served him.
"Well, my audience awaits..." Greyback rubbed his hands together. He leapt up onto the stage, gave the karaoke machine a kick to start it up and grabbed the microphone.
Meanwhile, somewhere outside, a man and a woman walked across the road, in the direction Greyback had come from. They both wore hoods, to mask their identities, even though they didn't really need to as it was pitch black outside and no one had heard of Lucius Malfoy or Bellatrix Lestrange in Carlton Road, Islington.
"Why are we here again?" Bellatrix merely sounded bored. She fiddled with the video camera she held in her hands, "and why do we need this? Because if this is to make some sort of sick porn film, I wouldn't do it for all the gold in this world."
"We're following Greyback," hissed Lucius, nodding towards the pub, "he went into that building over there. I brought you because you know how to work that damn Muggle device. If I knew, I wouldn't have asked you. We'll catch him in whatever secret meeting he's at and use this...camera thing as evidence to show to the Dark Lord that werewolves cannot be trusted."
"Oh...very well, then," Bellatrix didn't seem convinced, but she followed him inside anyway.
They took down their hoods as they walked in. They immediately wished they hadn't, as the most awful off-key singing blared from the corner of the room. Lucius turned to go to the bar, but Bellatrix pulled him back by his jacket sleeve and pointed at the stage, stifling cackles.
There, swaying to the tune of We Are the Champions, was Greyback.
"And we'll keep on fighting to the eeennnd!" he slurred into the microphone, "we are the champions, we are the champions, no time for losers, 'cause we are the champions...of the world!"
Lucius, startled by what he had just seen, took about a second to decide he needed a drink, so he walked to the bar. He sat down and Derek walked up.
"What would you like?"
"Firewhiskey," Lucius replied.
"Um...what?" Derek barked a laugh, "we don't serve that brand, sorry, mate."
"Just any whiskey then," Lucius' voice became sharp, then he mumbled to himself, "I think I'm going to need it tonight."
Raising his eyebrows at the peculiar customer, he nodded over to Bellatrix, who was busy filming Greyback swagger around and almost fall of the stage, "Anything for your lady friend?"
It was Lucius' turn to laugh, "The last thing my sister in law needs is alcohol."
"Fair enough," the woman did look a bit...off as it was, in Derek's opinion. He served him his drink, "anything else?"
"No," Lucius snapped, downing the whiskey, even though it burned his throat.
"Bella? Lucy?" a drunk voice called through the speakers, "whaddaryou doing 'ere?"
"We've come to see what you were up to, Greyback!" Lucius yelled back.
"I've got you on video! You're going on the Internet!" Bellatrix jumped up and down like an excited child, waving the camera.
Greyback froze for a few seconds, then jumped off the stage and ran down between the tables, pushing people out of the way as he went. He wrestled the camera from Bellatrix, pushed open the door of the pub and fled outside, Lucius and Bellatrix hot on his heels.
They got to the pavement, when Greyback began a run up, adopted a Superman pose and leapt off the kerb.
"I can fly!" he cried, but instead of zooming away as his inebriated mind had foreseen, he slammed painfully into the road.
Rolling their eyes, Lucius and Bellatrix hoisted the werewolf, each carrying him either side by lifting him under his arms.
"You know...you're my best friend, you are..."he smiled sheepishly at Bellatrix and then he turned to Lucius.
"I...I think you're beautiful," he grinned, showing what was left of his teeth, "I'm in love with you..."
Then there was uncomfortable silence. Before Greyback slapped himself in the forehead.
"Wait! Other way round, other way round, I meant those things that I said just now..."
"Not much better..."Lucius muttered to Bellatrix, who simply pulled a face.
"No more Karaoke Night for him, deal?" she asked, to which Lucius simply nodded.