Turncoats And Cold Fire

“Well, bless my soul!”

“I hope you’re not saying that literally, Andarin, because I doubt there’s a deity on earth who’ll think your soul is clean enough to bless,” Liadawn said wearily, terminating the levitating spell on her trunk so it clunked loudly onto the scarred and well-worn wood floor. With a sigh, she leaned over the counter of the small bed-and-breakfast, and rested her chin on her folded hands as she regarded the owner of the place.

Andarin just stared at her in astonishment. She was perched on a high stool behind the counter with a magazine that had cheekily-grinning nearly naked pictures of men strutting around the pages balanced on one thigh, and a half-smoked lavender cigarette clenched, forgotten, in the fingers of her right hand. “It wouldn’t be as much as a miracle as you seem to think it would be, Liadawn,” she said after a long moment. “After all, you are standing here in my office! You! Liadawn! Good god…you’ve been gone, what, seventeen years?”

“Give or take,” she agreed. “Do you have a room available?” Liadawn quickly scanned the office-cum-hallway for people, and, not finding any, leaned farther over the counter and murmured, “A Warded one, hopefully?”

Andarin, still gaping at her, nodded. “Damn…a miracle happens, blows off my socks, and then is too tired to bring me up on the gossip, I suppose?”

“Gossip? Gossip? Bloody hell, no! If I even attempt to stand around and answer your multitude of nosy questions I’ll be out on the floor before we know it.”

“Thought so. Wanna drag?” She held out her cigarette to Liadawn.

“What’s it laced with?” Liadawn asked warily.

“Dunno. But it’s pretty good—I’ve been smoking these type of ‘em for the past three months and there’s very few side effects. It takes a bloody hour to clear my lungs in the morning but cigarettes aren’t supposed to be good for you.”

Liadawn seriously considered, feeling she needed some sort of lift, but then decided not to. She preferred to know what she was smoking—some things in the wizarding world were milder than tobacco, but others were far far worse and it was extremely hard to regulate it all because most of the ingredients were legitimate potions ingredients. Anyway, one kind of cigarette might be the greatest thing for one person, and another person might have serious allergies to it. “No, but thanks. A room is all I need now—sleep will cure most of what’s ailing me.”

Andarin nodded, disappointed she wasn’t able to chat with Liadawn, but twisted around and snagged a key from behind her with the cigarette-holding hand. She placed the bronze key in front of Liadawn’s nose on the counter, a thick line of smoke wafting into her face. “You know how it is—it glows green when it gets close to the room. But it’s your usual room anyhow. It hasn’t moved. I dunno if the things you put on it years ago are still holding, but at least me and my mum’s protections are holding.”

Liadawn smiled at the other woman. “And that counts for a lot—you ever had a mind to, you could go into a professional security business.”

Andarin smirked. “And loose all our money to taxes? No—I’ll stay a bed-and-breakfast hostess, thank you very much! Besides, as security VIPs you have all that legal Ministry mumbo-jumbo making your lips tighter than a zipper. This way its easy to get gossip, and easier to sell it. Besides, what would your sort do without my sort?” The woman winked. Then she gently waved Liadawn off. “Don’t fall asleep on my counter—you’ll be charged all the same, be it the hard cold floor or a nice soft bed you lie in if you’re under my roof.”

“Ok, Momma Range,” Liadawn said.

“That’s not me—Momma Range’s asleep in her bed right now. And not eternally asleep; I’ll have you know she’s just as alive and scary as ever!”

“I heard that!” a sudden voice, muffled by a few layers of wall, called down the stairs.

“I know, mum! Liadawn’s in her usual spot—don’t get a knife in your back by accidentally sleepwalking into her room, you hear?”

There was no answer, but the two grinned at each other. Then Liadawn got off the counter, grabbed her key, kicked her trunk into the chute that would take the thing up to her room, and plodded off down the hall.

“You owe me gossip in the morning, you know!” Liadawn was informed.

“Sure, if you can give me the same,” she called over her shoulder.

“Deal!”

“Have fun with your magazines,” she told her friend mischievously.

“Bitch.”

Liadawn laughed, and ascended the stairs.

Her room, like she’d been told, was the same one she usually had here, and before long she was securely locked in, with all magical protections activated, and was falling asleep into a soft (or, soft when compared to the cot she had on the ship) bed after a short debate on if she should find the bathing room first. Bathing could wait, though—with all the damnable rain she was clean enough, to her eye. At least she didn’t smell. Yes, bathing could wait until the morning. Like everything else…

* * * *

“So, where have you been all these years?” Andarin asked from behind Liadawn as she pulled a comb through Liadawn’s wet curls. For some witches, combing their hair would be a chore without an enchanted brush or comb, but long ago the two of them, jaded street-woman in every respect, had discovered that something as simple combing one another’s hair took the edge off of the usual people-hating paranoia they usually had to have just to survive in a cold world of lies, betrayal, and dark magic. Of course, it was also a good time to gossip, something no charm had ever been able to do without falling into the realm of the unforgivable curses.

“En Espanola,” Liadawn said.

“What?”

“Spain.”

The comb stopped tugging at her hair. “What?”

“Spain!”

“I heard that. But geeze—you’re so ethnocentric…how the hell did you survive? How the hell did you even learn the language? Why did you pick Spain of all places?”

Liadawn shrugged. “Figured a foreign non-English speaking country was the last place anyone who knew anything about me would look, so…yeah. And it sucked, majorly. Took me a good three years just to get ‘How much is the milk?’ down right—and similar stuff—and another five just to get rid of my damn accent and broaden my vocabulary so I wasn’t obviously a foreigner.”

“Where’d you stay? Did you visit Encantolupo Academy?”

“Encantolupo?”

“Spanish equivalent of Hogwarts—duh!”

“I know that. Why would I visit a witchcraft and wizardry school?”

“You’re a witch!”

“But…Encantolupo?”

“They’re a tourist attraction! They have some of the finest lycanthropologists there! The formula for the wolfsbane potion was made there! I know you’re a bookworm, Liadawn. How could you live in Spain for all those years, and not go there?” The comb resumed tugging at Liadawn’s hair, then stopped again. “Unless you weren’t really there?”

“Tu eres muy fea, y tu mamá es tambíen,” Liadawn said, making sure she had the accent perfectly right. “The only way I could speak a foreign language so well was if I were telling the truth. You know that. I just didn’t want to visit the Academy, that’s all. Werewolves creep me out.”

“You know—they had a werewolf as a professor at Hogwarts a year or two back.”

Liadawn started. “You’re kidding.”

“No! Was in the Daily Prophet and everything. Headmaster Dumbledore let him teach Defense Against The Dark Arts for a year, but when it came out the man was a werewolf, he was fired, or something. Poor guy.”

“Poor guy my ass—Werewolves are dangerous!” Liadawn spat.

“Dumbledore wouldn’t let a dangerous man teach,” Andarin argued.

“How do you know?”

“I went to Hogwarts, you know, unlike you! I was in Hufflepuff. Professor Dumbledore taught Transfiguration and Care of Magical Creatures when I was there. Wonderful man. Never begrudged a single moment spent with you, no matter how stupid your questions are.”

Twisting around at her friend’s tone of voice, Liadawn was astonished to see the woman blushing. “You’re sweet on him!”

“No! Not now.”

“Then you were.”

“Well…yeah. I guess. He had very beautiful kind blue eyes and positively smashing auburn hair. And I loved his nose.”

“His nose?”

“Yeah…it had this little crook at the top, and was long and thin. C’mon! Aren’t cool noses an attraction to you? I mean, look at your own beak. Not to mention your partner had quite a beak on him! Hmmm…speaking of beaks and Hogwarts Professors, I think your partner is a Hogwarts teacher. Of course I could be wrong—I can’t remember what his real name is, just the hoards of aliases you two fed me. If this prof is him, he’s called…Snape. Don’t know his first name. Teaches herbology, or potions, or history…something like that.”

“Not Defense Against the Dark Arts?”

“No—they’ve not been able to keep a Defense teacher for the past couple of years. The Herbology Master—or whatever he is—has been there for quite a few years. I think nearly as many as you’ve been in Spain. I never knew your partner liked children…”

Liadawn snorted. “Not unless his brain got scrambled by some hex when I wasn’t looking. Who would love the little monsters?”

Andarin, not a lover of children herself, was quiet, and so was Liadawn, who sat there on her bed, letting Andarin work through a particularly snarly patch of ringlets. Barely ten minutes into their gossip-filled conversation and already she had too much information whirling around her head. A werewolf professor? Insanity! And her partner a professor? Only as a cover, she was sure. Hogwarts was the premiere spot to spy at for—and against—Voldemort, and if he’d truly turned as she’d suspected, Hogwarts would be the best place to go, especially if Dumbledore was as soft-hearted as it seemed he was. Severus had always been able to put on a good act when he needed to. A natural talent of his. It’d been nothing for him—and her once he’d taught her how—to twist the glazes in the Death Eaters around his little finger with pretty—or not-so-pretty—words spoken gently in their eager trusting ears. Ears already trained to take in the nonsense Voldemort spread on the camp thickly like good jam. It would be a small matter to tell Dumbledore and Company the right lies to get accepted into their fold. She thought for a moment. Should she try to get into the fold? Or would she, say, blow her partner’s cover if she did so? From what information she had gotten from Charlie, it was obvious that they did know that Voldemort was back, probably more directly than she did. All she had to go on was the fact that the dark mark had burned a few days ago, summoning all the Death Eaters who weren’t in Azkaban to his side. She had not gone. Normally she wouldn’t of returned to England now, of all times, but one of the gypsies she had been staying with had done a reading on her and had told her that she had to go—and Liadawn trusted gypsy seers, who, unlike English fortune tellers, actually had a high rate of correctness. They had brought the art of divination up to as high an art or science as any other type of magic. The only problem was that they didn’t teach their ways to outsiders. Oh well—win some, loose some. Luckily, she herself had never wanted to learn that branch of magic.

“So, what else is up?” Liadawn asked after a while.

“Well, they had a Triwizard Tournament this year!”

“I heard about that—all over the news. But I didn’t get who won.”

“You didn’t hear? Harry Potter!”

“The underage kid?”

“Liadawn, don’t play stupid. If you don’t know who Harry Potter is—and I suspect you do, as he, in an indirect way, saved your rear, I think—I’ll eat all of London, brick by brick, board by board.”

Liadawn chuckled. “I’ll bet there were some underhanded things going on.”

“Considering that Dumbledore announced to the students that You-Know-Who was back after it was all over? I’ll not take your bet. I’d loose, and you’d have no qualms about robbing me of ten galleons!”

“Only taking back what you robbed me of!”

“I would say that I have to make a living too, but that’s cliché, and I’m much too proud to stoop to such a thing.”

Turning to peer over her shoulder, Liadawn chuckled.

“What else—besides avoiding Encantolupo Academy—have you been doing in the past decade and a half or so, then? Where’d you stay?”

“With the gypsies.”

“I hate you.”

“What?”

“Gypsies! You’ve been to Spain, learned about a whole new culture, learned a new language, been at least near Encantolupo Academy, and lived with gypsies and you’re only thirty-five! And me? I’ve learned how to run a bed-and-breakfast. I knew how to do that by the time I was twelve, just by watching mum. Golly gee wow, I can run a bed-and-breakfast. Oooh! Oooh! I also graduated from Hogwarts somewhere in the middle of my class. Oh yay. And as a Hufflepuff. I love my House to death, but it just doesn’t get the press the other three get. Gryffindor is home of the brave. Ravenclaw has all the smart people. Slytherin has the cunning and sneaky—like spies, sorta—and every so often they turn the world upside down by throwing out a bad witch or wizard. Hufflepuff? We’re the dependable hard-working monks. Never mind that every Slytherin who gets up in the world needs hard work and dedication, never mind that no Gryffindor got any awards without hard studying in something so they don’t go get themselves killed in their bravery.” Andarin sighed. “I do love my House. But it isn’t very glamorous. Anyway, you suck. Your life has at least been interesting. Mine is dull.”

Liadawn turned and smiled a little bit sadly at Andarin. “Don’t forget that I plunged headfirst into something I detested the thought of doing because I probably would have been killed had I not. Besides—I have a feeling things are going to get very interesting in the near future.”

“You do?”

“I have a Gypsy Seer’s word on it, unfortunately.”

“I still think you suck, no matter how hard you try to convince me otherwise.”

Liadawn, disliking the serious bent the conversation had taken, turned and grinned. “I rarely suck, but when I do I suck hard.”

“Liadawn!”

“I need a boyfriend to do that, I know, I know.”

“’DAWN! My mother’s up!”

“She is?” Wide-eyed innocence. Then she paid Andarin back fully for the pillow she got in the face.

* * * *

A thin line of blood oozed from her finger.

“Ow, dammit, ow,” Liadawn muttered to herself, sticking her finger into her mouth to suck on it. Her knives were sharp all right. Not that she’d doubted it, but it was a habit to test her Green Flame weapons whenever she had free time. Unfortunately, since she’d not handled her Claw since the last time she’d been in England, she’d forgotten exactly how sharp the damnable thing was. “At least it’s in good form,” she said out loud.

She was not dressed all in black, as it would stand out since it was daytime, but in dark blue pants and a shirt instead of the usual wizarding robe. The cut, however, was clearly a wizarding style, similar to old medieval muggle clothing but much more modern and stylish. The cloth was tightly-woven, to prevent the chance of leaving fibers behind to be found, and it clung closer to her body than a robe would, although not so close that a clearly human form would be seen should a light fall her direction when she was trying to hide in a shadow. A hood, buttoned onto the shirt, folded down her back. She didn’t like the hood being there, as it gave an attacker a handle to grab her by, but it was too useful in obscuring her face when she put it up to take off.

Quietly, alone in her room, she slipped the Claw, a finely-made three-bladed knife, into its sheath on her right arm. It was working correctly, its seemingly one blade springing into three positioned as “claws” with two parallel blades on the top like “fingers” and one on the bottom like a “thumb” at a touch of either a finger or a charm. The Claw would work with magic, but also could work in an environment where magic did not work by the means of a tiny well-made and strong network of springs and gears. It was a Green-Flame trademark weapon, which all Green Flames learned to use. Many an Auror had been killed by it, or had, at least, lost a chunk of their nose or face to it. In a culture where most crimes were committed with a wand, a physical knife attack was often unexpected, and often successful.

Her other weapons were already in place: her backup knife was in a sheath at the small of her back; a band of throwing knives were on her left arm, tucked around her extra wand; her real wand was in her right sleeve, next to the Claw, a garrote was hidden in her hair, and her boots were snugly on her feet, the blades concealed in the thick soles of them out of sight for the time being. She had had a few problems with them, but that wasn’t surprising considering how long it’d been since she’d dared to wear the outfit of a Green Flame. The knives in the boots probably hadn’t been meant to lie in the bottom of a trunk for so many years unused, and even with prevention spells, the grit and grime from the few times she had worn them had probably gotten into the backup gear-works that let the blades slide out easily from the soles when a null-magic spell was around her. Still, only one thing out of so many malfunctioning was pretty good. Besides, unlike her partner, her martial arts skills were better than her knife skills. If the odds of her surviving in a fight against a skilled knife-fighter with her bare hands and feet had been better, she’d never have bothered to learn knife-fighting. But, no matter how good she was at martial arts, a good fighter with a knife or sword would always best her, especially if they were bigger than her, male, and knew exactly what advantages they had over her in such a fight.

Liadawn sighed. She was ready to go out, fully armed as a Green Flame, but she wished she wasn’t alone. Truthfully, she’d never gone into Green Flame mode without her partner being some part of the scheme of things; nearly all Green Flames had had a partner or two, closer than siblings, in Voldemort’s forces. They were mental rocks, things a Green Flame, when reeling from rationality into some uncontrollable emotion or mental state, could reach out to and hold on to. When a Green Flame had been lost, killed, or sent to Azkaban, it had not been overly surprising to have his partner suicide, especially if there was only one partner rather than two. Voldemort didn’t like it, and didn’t tolerate such things from any other kind of Death Eater, but he didn’t try to stop it; he had known, when he created the Green Flames, that they’d need privileges other Death Eaters could do without, and that the cost of those privileges would be far less than what an intelligent, fully-trained Green Flame could do for him. A Green Flame who had lost their hold on rationality was very dangerous to him, and if a few “perks” could prevent some of that, so be it.

Of course, she was not one of Voldemort’s minions now. Hopefully. If she could avoid being drawn into his fold again. But her years and training still had a hold on her—she felt a bit of shame at being a “Bachelor” Green Flame. Especially since her partner was still alive! How could they not be partners, if they were both still alive? She was almost dreading a meeting with him. The conditions of them separating had been very confusing, strange, and unusual. She still wasn’t sure what had happened, besides the fact that she suspected he’d had some change of mind on where in the world he stood, and what he wanted to do.

Maybe he really did take a liking to children, and hared off to go teach little witches and wizards the wonderful art of Potions. For, despite Andarin’s confusion on what subject he taught, she knew what magic he did best. Maybe he’s one of the best teachers there at Hogwarts, her mind told her facetiously. Suure. She still thought that was hogwash—no pun intended—no matter that a sudden change of mind was often the sort of thing that happened to most professors and teachers and urged them onto such a track. Severus Snape getting the urge to be a little father-in-heart to basketfuls of dewy-eyed children? Ha! That couldn’t be true. Or is it your mind refusing to think he thought teaching kids was more important than being your Green Flame partner in Voldemort’s circle of death and destruction? Complications, complications. Why did unresolved issues always come back to haunt you?

She wouldn’t try to join Dumbledore’s fold, she decided. There were issues still standing between her and her partner, but there was a chance they were ones of confusion rather than hard feelings of some sort. She wouldn’t step on his toes and possibly ruin whatever scheme he was putting into play right now.

How do I know he’s playing a scheme? She asked herself. Because what other part than the spy would he be playing for Dumbledore? Her mind replied. What other skills does he have that would put him into some other activity? No, spying or a similar thing was what he’d have to be doing, now that Voldemort was around again. Just like her. She, too, was reactivating her net of eyes and ears. For what purpose, she was not sure, but anything that had to do with Voldemort had to do with her. She might now regret the Dark Mark branded permanently in her arm, but it was a fact that since the day she ran away from home and joined his forces her life was tied to the Dark Lord’s. And she didn’t want to be caught napping when some mistake made years and years ago came to slice her throat open. The meeting with Charlie, and the unresolved threads of who exactly had sent him, was enough to harden her resolve into cold steel in this matter. The next person might not be as easy to take down as Charlie. She was a Green Flame—they’d send the best next time, if they really wanted to be rid of her.

So…she had to figure out who had known she was coming back to England. That was her priority. She supposed there was a chance that someone had just been looking for a Death Eater in general if it was well-known that Voldemort had returned, but that didn’t explain the picture of her partner. The picture seemed to indicate that Charlie had been targeted towards her specifically. But…Charlie? Unless he was a phenomenally good actor, and wanted her to think he was as young as he’d seemed, he was out of his depth in this sort of thing. He lost his invisibility cloak to her, and from what she had been able to see today, hadn’t even placed protection hexes on it! Invisibility cloaks were super-rare; there’d only been one in Voldemort’s camp, and that was only used in Green Flame training and on a select few missions. She knew this wasn’t that one—it had a different maker-mark on it. That Charlie had lost it didn’t speak well of any training he had, if he were, say, an apprentice spy.

A thought occurred to her—if Severus were a professor at Hogwarts, perhaps he’d recognize the name Weasley? Nearly all the wizarding folk in England (and most of Scotland and Wales too) went to Hogwarts for their magical education. Surely he’d taught Charlie, or one of his siblings.

She shook her head. No, she would not contact the man at all. People were probably looking for contact between them—with more than fifteen years to go through the ruins of Voldemort’s Death Eater camps, files or something else might have been found to connect the two of them.

A soft sigh escaped her lips. She didn’t have enough information to run on, so it was time to gather more. Andarin, while thick with gossip about the everyday stuff, and willing to answer what would be silly, stupid, or suspicious questions about everyday things, was not a good source for specifics. She played the Neutral-Ground Keeper, knowing enough to help sometimes but not knowing enough that one side or another would start threatening or bribing her for her knowledge. She was good at it too, which was why Liadawn was staying here. True NG Keepers were hard to find.

Mentally reviewing her list of old contacts, she sifted through names and memories until she could decide which ones were a: still in England, and b: willing to tell her the information she needed. Madam Zelna’s name came to the top of the list, but she disregarded it on the fact that the woman was extremely paranoid with female patrons—it had taken all the years Liadawn’d been in Voldemort’s service to come to a reasonable standoff—and that had been with her partner hanging around. That standoff would be non-existent now.

Ollivander came to mind next, but as this was the end of the school year, he would have a lot of people in his store when mothers came in to buy wands for their younger children after picking up their older ones. Perhaps in a few weeks she could go talk to him, once the mothers and families had cleared out of London. She wanted to discuss the merits of getting a gypsy-made wand with a core of sphinx feathers or hair anyway. He hated giving advice on wands made with materials he did not use, but when he did give advice, it was always sound. Most materials that he did not use he didn’t only because the cost of importing the ingredients was high enough that the sickles or galleons the wands fetched didn’t cover the cost of the materials, much less any of his shop keeping or living expenses.

Tinve Kard came to mind after Ollivander. He had extremely limited information—mostly stuff regarding the street-level crime done by young punk warlocks—but it sometimes pointed to happenings higher up. When an expendable wizard was needed to do something, someone rich or powerful people made offers to street wizards that they could not refuse…and usually the street wizards were never heard from again, if they accepted. When a lot of this sort of disappearance happened, it was a sure indicator something big and dirty was going on up top. It would, at least, give her a place to possibly start at, and while Charlie hadn’t had the feel of a street wizard to her, he might have been part of a similar kind of thing. Get someone whose death won’t bother you to do the dangerous dirty work. That’s how the ruthless operated.

That’s how she had to operate. Her life wasn’t worth a sneer if Voldemort got his hands on her. His handsome lips would smile at her, then he’d simply snuff her life out—if he wasn’t in a bad mood. If he was, the crucio curse would come to play on her delicate hide a few times, then possibly some more mundane type of tortures would be shown to her, then after a long horrible time, death. Alone and in a dark, dank cell, if she were “lucky”. Buried alive with wards that prohibited one to Apparate out if she were not.

With those grim thoughts growing in her brain like an evil sort of ivy, Liadawn left the bed-and-breakfast and went to find Diagon Alley, from which all the other Alleys of the Wizarding world came off of.

She had been right about the hoard of mothers and fathers, she knew when she got there and looked around. Most of them were witches and wizards like their children, but here and there were muggle-dressed adults, looking a bit confused, if charmed by their surroundings. One Muggle couple, in charge of a tiny little witch who’d just probably graduated from her first year, were arguing loudly, first with each other—“How did Erdine get a D+ in Potions? She was a straight-A student in primary school!” “It’s ok, hon. Everyone has their bad years!”—and then with one of the witches from the Ministry who were stationed here and there to help along Muggle families who had a young wizard or two in them around the Alley. Liadawn chuckled to herself. If Dumbledore had actually announced that Voldemort was back, it either hadn’t sifted down to the common ears just yet, or those who did know had already gone home. Everyone was as cheerful as normal on this first day of summer break, at least in Diagon Alley. In Knockturn, or Horizont Alley, she was sure less people would be out, and those who were would be grimmer. Those in Verdict Alley—the Alley where most of the Ministry offices were—would be forcibly cheerful, since as she knew it they weren’t admitting the Dark Lord had risen again.

Liadawn strode past all the people, sliding through tight places with a few muttered courtesies. As she kept walking and walking, past Ollivander's, Flourish and Blotts, and Madam Zelna’s, the crowd thinned. Finally she found a side-street that connected her to Knockturn Alley, and after passing a group of rowdy-looking witches with low-cut robes, passed out of the reputable side of Wizarding London. Now, instead of smiling politely at people, she glared at them, cautioning them to watch out. She also raised her hood. She doubted that many of the people around now would recognize her as an old Voldemort supporter, but it would be her bad luck that one of them did and she was summoned before she could figure out what exactly she was going to do now she “really” was a traitor. Before she had just run off to another country—now she was back, and gearing up to lie to the lovely face of domination. Both acts were traitorous, but coming back so brazenly was a worse act of treason against the Dark Lord than just running. Coming back and not answering his summons could mean only one thing—she was going to work against him. He killed people who did that.

The evil ivy of worry growing in her mind told her that her partner had been on Voldemort’s death list for years now. If he, who’d never grown up with what she had, could do that without taking his own life in pure fear and guilt, so could she. That’s the spirit; pretend it’s all a who-can-piss-farther contest with Severus.

Frowning to herself in thought (and to ward off human predators), she passed a bunch of small, run down old stores, and loads of graffiti spelled onto the walls of abandoned potions warehouses. Most of it was junk made by mediocre gang-artists, but she did pass by one that was animated, and rather funny if crude. It was signed “Hoshea Liang” in purple and black sharp-edged letters. It was all rather sad—when she’d last been in England, this area had been thriving with jobs and small businesses. Now it was just an extension of the worst parts of Knockturn Alley. She hoped Tinve Kard still was around, and hadn’t moved elsewhere. It would be a lot of work she didn’t want to do if he had moved to get his new address, and if he didn’t have any information for her in the end, it would be a lot of work that would have gone to waste, never mind that digging for information was sure to alert people she was around again.

She was in luck, though—right where she remembered it being, hidden next to the big sign of a grocery store, was Tinve’s sign: Dimwit Alley. It was a play on all the silly names the Wizarding alleys had, but it wasn’t too clever. Or was it, she wondered as she stared at it and its badly-painted Tragedy mask. Oh well; like she cared anyway what he called his place.

Going up the tired old stairs of the grocery store, Liadawn peeked through a oval-shaped clean spot a disintegrating automatic cleaning spell had ground into the dirt of the window. The sight wasn’t very spectacular; just the usual old shelves with stuff displayed on them. She could only see a corner of the sales counter from here. No people were in sight. Sighing she curled her hand around the door handle and pressed the little lever to open the door.

Bells jangled above her head as she entered the store. Normal, rusty, everyday bells. Amused, she took note that they worked just as well as any spell. Her training in the Green Flames had ruined her, she sometimes felt. As part of it being taught to think differently from the normal people and therefore act unpredictably in their eyes, she was taught to look at ordinary muggle objects and think of how they could be used as weapons or substituted for magic. The glazes in the Death Eaters had always taunted the Green Flames about that—how they weren’t really Death Eaters because they loved muggle objects so much. Sometimes she wished she had been brought up in a more normal manner, so she would for once feel a simple gawking amazement at silly little things from the muggle culture. Or even—her partner would gape—as a witch in a muggle family, so she could feel wonder at anything magic. The way she was now it all was common and ordinary. Not much could surprise her anymore. Her life had been too unstable for that.

“Like my bells, Death Eater?”

Liadawn turned her head to focus on a skinny medium-sized man with dark red stubble prickling out from his jaw line. Tinve Kard.

She didn’t dispute the title of Death Eater, just as she had never agreed to it or disputed it in the past. Oh how easily old habits came back. She was glad of it, though. “Rusting muggle technology in a store full of rusted wizarding technology.” She said after a moment, tugging the door shut with a jerk as the early summer humidity made it stick.

“Poetic.” He stood leaning against a shelf, arms folded across his chest.

“I’m sure.” She made sure he was aware that she was unimpressed.

“More poetry than I usually hear, then.”

“Go read a book.”

“Tried that once, in the restricted section of Sundrake Wizardry School. It bit me.”

“And then died from food poisoning.”

Neither one of them laughed for a second, then Liadawn couldn’t help but quirk a corner of her mouth upwards in humor. They both were playing the macho-man act, and they both knew it.

“At least my mirror didn’t crack the last time I stubbed my toe near it.”

“So that’s why I’ve never seen any mirrors around here, is it?” she replied. “Said too much profanity near them when you got a boo boo? You’ve got to study up on your insults, my dear man. You might have just called me pug-ugly or something. Like I care if you think I have a dirty mouth. As long as the milk doesn’t curdle when I drink it, it’s all fine by me.”

He chuckled. “Why are you here, Lady Eater?”

Now that was a nickname she didn’t like. She didn’t react to it though—it’d only egg the man on. Anyway, Lady Death would almost be as bad. Lady Death Eater was just a mouthful, and silly. If he called her that he’d deserve a knife in the stomach, or at least a kick in the balls. If she was being creative, she might knee him in the balls and then, when his head came down as he curled over, slam his face into a hard sharp object like the corner of a windowsill. Creativity and violence mix, but only if you’re not on the receiving end. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“Because you’re an idiot.” His hooded blue eyes were direct.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Where ever you were, you should have stayed there. I’m considering leaving myself. Get lost down under in the outback, or at least in America. Alaska might be nice.” Idly he picked under a fingernail, scraping out some black dirt.

“Is everyone else haring off?”

He sighed. “Half my regulars are gone, replaced with folk like you. If things were crazy fifteen years ago, they’re worse now, what with people firming up old reputations and establishing new ones in the time he’s been gone. No one’s sure who’s who.”

“So street wizards are disappearing?”

“I don’t know.”

She gave him a look of disbelief.

“No, really. After the Ministry got my name and showed up here during a gang peace meeting—and arrested them all—they stayed away from me. That was, oh, seven years ago.”

“Didn’t your business suffer? I thought they were your main customers.”

“No, they weren’t. Not really. Anyone who can be part of a viable working clan has some sort of social skill. I always catered to those who were the outcasts of the outcasts. They weren’t here that night, and even if some had been, others would still have stuck around.”

Liadawn realized she’d never known exactly what he sold, besides the very basic role of a local grocery store. Obviously it was something that would appeal to the outcasts of the fringe societies, and also something that would cause the Ministry to show up at his store.

“Come here.”

She glanced up sharply at his words, even though they had been spoken normally without any dangerous inflection.

He grinned at her. “Jumpy?”

“I’ll let one time pass,” Liadawn said. “Next time you try to play with me, you’ll get your kneecap kicked out.”

He winced. “Why not a knife in the crotch?”

“I might miss and sever the femoral artery and kill you. If you die, I can’t talk to you. Unless you’d prefer that…?”

“That you can’t talk to me, or that I die? I wouldn’t really fancy either. But come here—I want to show you what I sell. In case you need to find something.”

Liadawn thought for a moment, then decided to follow him. What else could she do?

Kard’s store was long and thin, built in what used to be an alley between two old warehouses. Liadawn carefully walked behind the man as he crossed the store past shelves of food and other daily necessities, and to a door at the back. She saw him pull out his wand and unlock the door, and then they descended some old wooden stairs to a small room under the store.

It was dark, but not really damp like many basements in this part of London were. Musty was the word, as if thousands of old papers and ingredients were stored here. Or, beyond another door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw protection spells, many much more advanced than the degenerating ones on the store above, deactivate at Tinve’s presence. There was only one door that she could see in this room, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others, hidden in the rough dusty logs that made the walls of this room.

Another muttered spell that she didn’t catch opened a small thin door hidden between two of the logs. She grunted to herself, and Tinve turned to look at her for a second before sucking in his small gut and going sideways through the opening. She gazed back calmly. The room had screamed hidden doorways, although she supposed that if all the protections on the rooms went off at once, there’d not be any time before one died to figure out where the doorways were.

Liadawn opted to not go down the hallway sideways, even if the close walls snagged her sleeves and she had to shrug her shoulders in to pass through. Tinve grinned at her in the soft light that lit the hall and seemed to come from nowhere in particular, and sidestepped his way through. “Made this when I was a bit younger and not as fat,” he explained.

The smell of old parchment and paper got stronger, and then just as a tiny breeze of warm air touched her face, they emerged into another long room that was about the size of the store above, even though she was sure they weren’t directly below it. Cobbles paved the floor underfoot, as if this was maybe an old wizarding alley that had sunken and had been built over, and something that looked like a bricked-over window reinforced the idea. Shelves lined most of the walls, covered in junk, and it seemed, at the far end, that there was a few tables with rickety tables and stools where a handful of other patrons sat.

She raised an eyebrow at Tinve.

“I collect and sell junk,” he explained. “Cursed things with the curses partially broken, bits of parchment with what might be notes on spells or just the homework of some long-dead bloke. Once in a while I’ll get a gem, but mostly none of it makes any sense, except to a learned witch or wizard.” He smiled at her. “I expect to be paid well, though, for whatever you may find by digging through here. One of those ‘gems’ was a nice little spell that tells me how much you value a thing. If you really want it, the price will go up, even if you pretend you’re just taking it home as an oddity. And even if most of it is junk to me, I still have a good eye for what might potentially be useful to someone more learned than I am.”

“Who supplies you with all of this, then?” Liadawn asked, interest pricked. If she knew where this stuff came from, then perhaps she could find something useful here. Of course, what she really wanted was information, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to look around to see if there was something she could use.

“Places. Rebellious house elves bring some of it, when their masters tell them to get rid of ‘evidence’. They hope the ‘evidence’ will turn around and bite their masters, if they put it in a place where it is likely to be picked up by someone. Sewer-rats bring other things, stuff that was flushed or lost down the drain. Reject and sub-standard potions from the factories make their way here, sometimes, as do damaged or defective textbooks for Hogwarts.”

She suddenly felt like drooling. Hogwarts textbooks? She probably already knew much of what was in them, but she’d love to get her hands on one just to see what she might have missed; so many times she’d run into a tiny simple school spell that she couldn’t get rid of because she’d never been taught the antidote when she’d trained as a Green Flame Death Eater. And, she bet, they’d probably cost an arm and a leg more from Tinve than if she just bought them new, since she wanted one so much. But, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had a surplus of them here, since most witches and wizards would just have their old ones from their school days, and so wouldn’t want to take damaged copies home with them.

Tinve saw her lustful look, and chuckled before he turned away to go tend the other customers at the far end.

The shelf closest to her was covered in papers, and, after hesitating to make sure there was nothing that looked like it would be an object with a partly-broken curse on it, started to rustle through the mess.

Her eyes skimmed the words. My Theorie On the Exorcist Potion; First Draft. Good grief, I can’t think of anything to write! Besides how ugly my professor is…ugh…I wonder if it’s true Emily has a crush on him? Liadawn tossed this one to the side. The Exorcist Potion was a fake potion, reputed to chase demons out of people who were possessed, but really only contributing to the person’s twitching and frothing before making an illusionary ghost-like apparition pour out of their noses as it wore off and their twitching stopped. Fakers used to use it a few centuries ago, before the symptoms of its use became widely known, to perform “miracles”. Since it was a legitimately-made potion, it had fooled wizards and muggles alike, since exorcisms were hard to perform and had no one certain way to be done. It just caused twitching and frothing for a short while, instead of actually getting rid of a demon.

Another bit of parchment. The Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries. Name: John Trinket. Date: April 5th, 1976. Position: Second Asst. Coroner. Item Borrowed: Loving the Dead, a Guide to People Who Love Ghosts and Other Unusual Practices. Liadawn wrinkled her nose. Ew. The paper didn’t have anything else on it—it seemed to be a docket of some sort, probably taken out of the files so John Trinket’s interest in necrophilia and the such wasn’t spotted—after all, it did say he was a Coroner. People wouldn’t be happy if they thought he was…uh…doing stuff with their loved one’s corpses.

She read another one. One pound of flour, one ounce of kiteweed nettles, and a sugar quill for Ruby. A grocery list, it seemed.

After a bit more sifting, Liadawn gave up on the first shelf and went on. It was probably picked-over, anyways, since it was so close to the door. She kept one eye on Tinve, who was over at the far end talking to the other people, and ringing one out on an old muggle cash register.

The next shelf had a lot of old books, it looked like. She bit her lip and picked one up. The Invisible Book of Invisibility, it said, obviously damaged since it was hardly invisible. She snorted and set it aside. There were very few ways to become truly invisible. Invisibility cloaks made from the hair of certain rare magical creatures were the most common way, with potions coming next and high-level charms last. Cloaks were hard to make and expensive, potions were hard to make and had expensive ingredients, and charms were dangerous. An aging Monster Book of Monsters with a silvering spine quivered, afraid of her, in a corner, and some book by Gilderoy Lockhart lay near it, a little nibbled on. Neither interested her. Greek letters splayed across the leather cover of another book, and she picked that one up and flipped through it. Wardings and magical shields seemed to be the subject, or so she judged by an illustration of a great slavering beast being held at bay by a sparkling veil. Tapping her lips with a finger, she decided to hang on to it, and tucked it into a pocket.

Most of the stuff was junk, as she soon came to see, but she found a few more interesting things to hold on to. An old wand, broken with the core peeking out from under the dark wood, a dirty dented metal circlet that looked like a Celtic torc (she hoped it didn’t have a curse on it), a fairly recent Hogwarts Class List (for if she ever needed to know what Professors were currently teaching at Hogwarts—and her suspicion that Severus taught Potions was confirmed), and a complete set of self-sew needles. It would be interesting to strip them of their charms, and see if she could re-charm them herself. She also grabbed a small crate of rejected potions. They probably would not do anything, but like with the needles, it would be interesting to play with them.

Tinve looked sour as the price-spell he used picked up that she really could go on without any of the things she wanted, and thus charged her low, but he turned gleeful when it tried to charge her a good handful of galleons for the potions.

“That’s crazy!” she hissed at him. “For reject potions? I’m sure most of them will be as effective as throwing water at a squid!”

He smirked. “It’s only your own mind that’s pushing the price up, dear. If you didn’t want them so badly, they wouldn’t be so expensive.”

And what galled her was that she had no clue as to why the spell was pretending that—oh, all right, why she really did want the potions. Surely, if it was just because she wanted to expand her knowledge with them as she did with the charmed needles, it would have made the needles expensive too. She pondered accusing Tinve of having another spell to push up a price if the rest were going low, but decided against it. This…hall of junk really was full of garbage, but it was true gems sometimes joined the garbage, discernable only by an eye that could use them. She also wondered if she should just leave the potions—but if the spell was right, there was a big reason she wanted the potions. And she hated it when she kept secrets from herself.

She paid.

None of the other customers paid attention to her as she made her purchases, and she found nothing remarkable about them. She didn’t want to question Tinve in front of other people, and the slight desperation she saw in him when she paid made her feel that he was telling the truth about the underground of the underground being in an uproar because of Voldemort’s return, and that he really didn’t have any info.

She’d have to go elsewhere for what she needed to know.