Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat

Chapter 30: Cov Ops

Crouching Tigress: You there, Fal?

Fallen Hawk: Yeah.

Crouching Tigress: Ha, thought so. I just saw your guy go into Triple-D.

Fallen Hawk: Is this Crouching Tigress?

Crouching Tigress: Yup.

Fallen Hawk: Is yours in there too?

Crouching Tigress: Since last night, yeah. It's Hermione Weasley.

Fallen Hawk: Well, here I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out why he'd be going in there. I wish somebody would've told me.

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha!

Fallen Hawk: This definitely hasn't been my morning. Have you ever tried to follow someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with the Public Portkey system halfway across England?

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha, no…. Where are you?

Fallen Hawk: You have to guess.

Crouching Tigress: Roof?

Fallen Hawk: Hell no, that would be too convenient.

Crouching Tigress: [laughing some more] I'm looking. It's got to be somewhere high up. Window sill?

Fallen Hawk: No, they're all spiked up and down this street.

Crouching Tigress: Some traveling pigeon-proofing salesman made good money one year, haha.

Fallen Hawk: Ha, bloody ha.

Crouching Tigress: So where are you?

Fallen Hawk: Look lower.

Crouching Tigress: Door frame?

Fallen Hawk: Lower.

Crouching Tigress: I still can't see you. Stair railing?

Fallen Hawk: Lower. You're not thinking low enough.

Crouching Tigress: Oh my god. You're on the sidewalk?! You?

Fallen Hawk: Don't you dare tell anyone about this.

Crouching Tigress: [laughing uncontrollably]

Fallen Hawk: I mean it.

Crouching Tigress: Wait… wait… which one are you?

Fallen Hawk: I'll never say.

Crouching Tigress: The ratty one with no tail feathers?

Fallen Hawk: No. You just wait until I catch you!

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha! And to think I wanted to get into the aerial reconnaissance program so badly when I was young. "Fallen Hawk" indeed.

Fallen Hawk: Grrrr!

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha!

Fallen Hawk: Uh oh - got to fly, he's coming out. Alone.

Crouching Tigress: Bye!

[a few minutes pass]

Crouching Tigress: Erm… why isn't he going anywhere? He's not waiting for the Portkey is he?

Fallen Hawk: Oh god. That's what it is! I can't believe it. We're going to be here for an hour and a half.

Crouching Tigress: Why doesn't he just catch the one on Channing? It's only about six blocks from here.

Fallen Hawk: Are you joking? Draco Malfoy trudge that far on his own feet? Heaven forbid. No no, he'll wait.

Crouching Tigress: And he's been doing this all morning? You poor dear!

Fallen Hawk: I'll live. I might strangle him, but I'll live.

[a pause]

Fallen Hawk: And you? Where are you?

Crouching Tigress: Guess.

Fallen Hawk: True. Hmm. Under the black van with no windows?

Crouching Tigress: Please. Too obvious.

Fallen Hawk: Hehe. Oh wait. I see you now. The rubbish bin just around the corner from Ernie's Café. I see your little stripey tail sticking - whoop, and now it's gone.

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha. Here comes my girl. Looks like she's going to stop and talk to him.

Fallen Hawk: They don't like each other at all, do they?

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha, no. Oh, she's going to Ernie's. Great, now I can't see a thing.

Fallen Hawk: So move.

Crouching Tigress. I am.

[after a few moments]

Fallen Hawk: Ha! Alley cat.

Crouching Tigress: Shush now. Alleys make perfectly good stakeout positions.

Fallen Hawk: If you like that sort of thing. But you know, women who lurk in alleys have the worst possible reputation.

Crouching Tigress: Come here and say that to my face, little bird.

Fallen Hawk: Ha, I'd like to see you try me. I'll peck your face off.

Crouching Tigress: She sat right near the window. I can see her perfectly from here. You know, she used to spend a lot of time at Ernie's, a while back.

Fallen Hawk: I believe it. She seems like the type. You should have seen the look on her face when Malfoy was manhandling his elf. Hahaha.

Crouching Tigress: Bleeding heart. The elves love it.

Fallen Hawk: Isn't that the truth.

[a bit of a wait]

Fallen Hawk: So when has Special Ops moved their raid up to? Have you heard?

Crouching Tigress: Rising Hawk hasn't told you?

Fallen Hawk: Hell no. Need-to-know and all that.

Crouching Tigress: It was supposed to be early Wednesday morning, 2:34AM. But they're talking about moving it up again, to early Tuesday morning, because they're hoping to take his Apparition license on Monday.

Fallen Hawk: Who told you that?

Crouching Tigress: Angel Dust.

Fallen Hawk: Well, Angel Dust would know.

Crouching Tigress: Yeah. And - holy moly, this guy drinks like a fish.

Fallen Hawk: Tell me.

Crouching Tigress: It's not even 7AM for cripe's sake. What's he got in that flask? Vodka?

Fallen Hawk: It's whiskey. Ogden's Old Extra Special.

Crouching Tigress: Woo. Out of my price range.

Fallen Hawk: Hahaha, too true. Mine also.

Crouching Tigress: They keep looking at each other through the window.

Fallen Hawk: Haha, I know.

Crouching Tigress: They better watch out or some nosy reporter type is going to print a story about their love affair.

Fallen Hawk: [bursts out in laughter]

Crouching Tigress: Aha, I know which you are now! The one with the gray body and the white wings.

Fallen Hawk: This time. Has to be different every time.

Crouching Tigress: Really?

Fallen Hawk: He pays too much attention to birds. It doesn't seem like it, but he does. When I try to go back looking the same, he stares at me oddly, like he remembers me from before.

Crouching Tigress: But he doesn't know?

Fallen Hawk: Not really. Just notices.

Crouching Tigress: Flies too.

Fallen Hawk: What?

Crouching Tigress: He notices flies too. I've seen him staring at them a couple of times, when we were waiting for Weasley to show up.

Fallen Hawk: Weird.

Crouching Tigress: Maybe all those Death Eater combat drugs all these years have been eating into his brain.

Fallen Hawk: Hahaha I wouldn't doubt it. Psychedelic, man.

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha!

Fallen Hawk: I don't do bugs too often. That's Firebird's gig.

Crouching Tigress: Yeah, I don't do bugs at all. It's the six legs that gets me. I just freeze up and don't know what to do next.

Fallen Hawk: I just don't walk in bug form.

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha. Well true, you can fly.

Fallen Hawk: I stick with two-winged insects though. The ones with four wings are confusing. They haven't even let me solo as a four-winger yet.

Crouching Tigress: So how long you been on Malfoy?

Fallen Hawk: Since they started Operation First Strike.

Crouching Tigress: So, three months, something?

Fallen Hawk: Something like that. And you? I thought you were in Egypt.

Crouching Tigress: They just put me on Weasley two days ago.

Fallen Hawk: I'm surprised they'd put someone of your calibre on her. She's not exactly a challenge is she?

Crouching Tigress: Actually they brought me back here just for this. Apparently they've been having a remarkably difficult time tracking her.

Fallen Hawk: Really!

Crouching Tigress: They go hours at a time having no idea where she is. Like she'll set off on her broom, and they've got a tracing charm on her broom, but then suddenly her dot will vanish right off the maps. But no Apparition record or anything.

Fallen Hawk: Portkey?

Crouching Tigress: Maybe. But owls can't find her either. And they ransacked her house completely last night, after they got the husband out of the way, and didn't find a single Portkey in the entire place.

Fallen Hawk: Animagus?

Crouching Tigress: Maybe, but it's not just when she's flying. They have a whole crew doing an exhaustive search of the records - apparently she sometimes doesn't come out the other side of a Floo when she goes in, or comes out of a floo she never went into. I'm not sure being an Animagus would explain that.

Fallen Hawk: How odd. Extraplanar travel maybe?

Crouching Tigress: She told her boss she was suffering from temporary losses of existential coherence.

Fallen Hawk: Hahaha! You're kidding.

Crouching Tigress: I think she was joking, but her boss really believed it.

Fallen Hawk: That is too funny. I'll have to try that one next time I want to skive off work.

Crouching Tigress: I'll get to the bottom of it though. Once they give me the rest of the data from the records.

Fallen Hawk: Well if anybody can, you can.

Crouching Tigress: Did you hear that?

Fallen Hawk: Hear what?

Crouching Tigress: I just got a relay from Tomcat. He says they're planning to Apparate to St. Mungo's from here. Weasley is going to give Malfoy a ride.

Fallen Hawk: Thank god, he must have been making even himself desperate with that Public Portkey business.

Crouching Tigress: Hahaha.

Fallen Hawk: And here they come.

Crouching Tigress: See you there?

Fallen Hawk: Dunno, I just got a relay from Thunderbird that I need to check in at base.

Crouching Tigress: Well, maybe then. Got to go.

Fallen Hawk: Me too. Maybe I'll see you around.

Crouching Tigress: I suspect you will!