Absit Omen RPG
Role-Play Boards => London => Muggle London => Topic started by: Kurby Bagnold on April 02, 2019, 12:43:48 AM
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Monday, December 19
17:12 PM
Camden Market, London
The Muggle streets of Camden were all lit up tonight for the holiday crowd. Twinkling holiday lights illuminated the trees like glowing flecks of snow, and outlined most of the buildings so that they looked like they were made of frosted gingerbread. In most of the storefronts, one could make out the outline of a brightly lit Christmas tree, each one different from the next. Some were elegantly decorated in bright white lights accentuated by silver ornaments, while others were more of a hodgepodge of colorful decorations, pulled together with strands of cheerful, bright-colored lights.
It was the third day that he'd spent away from the Ministry, and Kurby had decided to spend the evening out walking. With all of the recent happenings near Camden, it had seemed like a good idea to spend some time meandering near there, exploring the narrow streets of the marketplaces and wandering near the Lock. If something happened near here again, he wanted to have a better map of the streets and alleyways in his head, much as how the Capture Unit spent time learning the terrain when they prepared to hunt down werewolves in rural locations.
Either way, though, it gave him an excuse to explore. Normally, Kurby felt slightly out-of-place wandering amongst Muggles, but here on the streets busy with holiday crowds, there were plenty of people dressed even more outlandishly than most wizards. Even though it was a Monday, most of the stalls were open to try and hawk their wares to last-minute shoppers, and practically every block, he encountered a street performer, a musician playing music or someone preparing to juggle in hopes of earning a coin from someone passing by.
As he rounded a corner alongside Camden Lock Market, he saw that a small crowd had gathered on the side of the street, clapping along as a small figure with a pointed black hat threw herself into a song on an accordion. Kurby stopped short, squinting through the crowd at the young musician. Although she was young, there was something about her voice that hinted at a deeper complexity to her talent, as if someone else were singing alongside her.
It had been over a week since the night in Knockturn Alley. He hadn't really been actively looking for the girl since then, but he also wasn't expecting to run into her here, plying her trade in the middle of Muggle London. Silently, the werewolf hunter crossed his arms against his chest, tapping his finger impatiently against his elbow as he waited for the song to finish.
He didn't recognize the song, but clearly a few in the small crowd did, because they joined her and sang along to the chorus. Nemo seemed entirely in her element, jamming along on her accordion. Apparently the loss of her glowing magical flute hadn't slowed her down at all in the musical department.
After another minute, the song came to an end, resulting in a round of enthusiastic applause. The small crowd of Muggles began to dissipate, a few dropping coins in the girl's collection, others chatting as they resumed their journeys to their destinations. Kurby waited near the back of the crowd, arms still crossed against his chest. He didn't step forward until they were nearly gone, and the young musician had ducked her head and begun to count her haul.
"Still on your holiday, then," he remarked, studying the girl with a cool, dark gaze. "And here I was thinkin' that if I didn't spot you around Knockturn, maybe you'd gone back to America for Christmas."
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It wasn't uncommon for audience members to come up and have a word with Nemo after a number. Her favorites were always the little girls who wanted to press a key on her accordion or try on her hat. Her least favorite visitors were creepy dudes who came with their unasked for advice or cringey compliments. But the man who'd approached her fell into a category all his own: surly wizards who minded others' business. Alternate title: fellow moth and total stranger Kurby Bagnold.
Nemo stood up and looked at him with tolerance despite his condescension. "Dude, are you stalking me?"
Then she paused. Wait, did he actually still think she was visiting? But more pressing in her mind wasn't Kuryb's confusion about her legal status in the UK; it was the dizzying jerk of remembering again the flute and the ledger and the hole and the ossuary under the tailor shop.[1] Distraction had been the only thing that worked. Distraction and gillyweed. If ever she left her mind or hands unattended, each sought the warmth of Grimshaw's or, indeed, the warmth of the bone flute she'd left behind.
"What do you need, Kurby? You look like shit." Nemo didn't want to lose her spot. She needed ears and eyeballs and some Christmas cash.
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The werewolf hunter flicked his eyes upwards in a show of annoyance. It was good to know that the American kid musician hadn’t lost any of her charm and wit just because they weren’t mired in some creepy, intrusive web woven with dark magic.
Her question, though, was enough to make him hesitate. What did he need? Or even, what did he want from this encounter? For the past week, the eerie events in Knockturn Alley on Friday night had largely been overshadowed by what had happened on Saturday. Aside from ambushing Briggs and getting a few scant details from Zelda Sellaphix, he hadn’t talked to anyone about what had happened at Grimshaw Tailoring. All things considered, he wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he wanted to.
Kurby regarded the kid silently for a moment, his jaw set, but with the faintest hint of uncertainty to his expression. Nemo — whatever the hell kind of name that was supposed to be — had been ready to run headfirst into the tailor shop that night, but she’d also been quick to apparate away once things had gotten beyond the point of weird. She wasn’t a grown witch or wizard who dealt with dark magic as even a tangential part of her job. She was just some street kid, a teenager who made a living by camping out on corners playing Muggle music. It wasn’t fair to keep her mired in this just because he didn’t know what to do.
He kicked at the ground, scuffing the toe of his boot.
“Nothin’,” he said, starting to turn away. “It’s grand to know you can find places to play that aren’t the middle of Diagon durin’ a full moon.”
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Nemo regarded him with a kind of amused, confused, standoffishness. The happy holiday crowds kept flowing around them, Nemo aware of their passing attention. She and Kurby, they hadn't exactly become fast friends that night, so Kurby finding her here happenstance or not was unexpected. Had he come looking, or had he just seen her and decided to say hello. Kurby Bagnold didn't seem the type to say hello.
She narrowed her eyes. He'd just come over for 'nothing'. He waited until she was done played, said something rude, didn't need anything, and now he was just going to go. Was this him checking on her? Was that last comment supposed to be some kind of, 'good that you're okay'?
Then it struck her. It was still with him, too. Nemo hadn't been able to stop thinking about that night, not for a minute. It was suddenly clear - Kurby was as spooked still as she was. On an impulse, Nemo began to quickly pack up her things.
"Hey, you wanna buy me a coffee?"
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Kurby stopped short, giving a short huff of breath that spiraled like smoke through the cold air. With his back to the girl, he silently considered his options.
“Do I want to buy you a coffee?” he echoed sardonically, arching one eyebrow as he glanced back at her. Rolling his eyes, he huffed out another sigh before she could respond, kicking at an invisible rock on the ground.
“C’mon, then,” he said shortly, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets. “You pick the place.”
The girl had chosen a Muggle chai and coffee house not too far from where they’d started. It was located in an old warehouse-like building made out of gray stone bricks. Inside, the coffee shop was mostly unadorned, with a high, uninsulated ceiling and simple wooden chairs and tables, each decorated with a green succulent plant in an orange pot as a centerpiece.
Kurby had let the girl order whatever she wanted. He had to fumble through his money pouch for the Muggle bills that he’d tucked away there a couple of years ago; luckily, once he’d puzzled through how much each one was worth, he had enough to cover the purchase.
It was much warmer inside the coffee shop than it had been outside. Kurby pressed his fingers against the hot mug, raising it to take a sip of the plain black coffee that he’d ordered. It tasted strong and warm and bitter as he swallowed, with a rich undertone like chocolate and cherries.
“What was the song you were playin’ when I walked up?” he asked after a beat, glancing over cautiously at the American teen. “It was from a Muggle musician?”
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Nemo quite enjoyed quietly watching Kurby shuffle through his muggle money, she stood at his flank with a grin but saved him the ordeal of teasing him about it. London wix were so helpless.
Back at the table, she picked the good parts off her pistachio muffin and sipped her giant coffee from the silly giant mug, which reminded her of Friends.
"Johnny Cash," she said, supplying the name of the artist. "American country singer. Folk. Gospel. Cocaine."
She might have talked more about it, but it was strange sitting with someone who very clearly didn't want to be here. Or at the least, was very uncomfortable with it. Nemo didn't know him well enough to guess if this was just how he always was or if something else was going on. It was a mystery to her why he agreed to hang out for a while if he didn't want to. Nemo was perplexed but her self-worth didn't hinge on this guy liking her.
"Why so sullen, sunshine?" she asked, changing the subject. She didn't want to talk about Johnny Cash. She was holding back asking him about Grimshaw's and the flute and the dreams and the bones. She hadn't been back to Diagon Alley because she didn't know what's she'd do if she was down there again.
"Why'd you come find me? Or are you going to pretend you weren't looking for me?"
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He'd been so jittery about everything else a week ago that he hadn't paid much attention to the young musician who'd been drawn into Grimshaw's alongside him, but now he was starting to build a profile for her. Young, American, seemingly Muggleborn -- or at least extremely comfortable around Muggles. Kurby mentally filed the information away, alongside the note that she'd gotten annoyed when he'd called her a tourist. He'd have to ask his sister if she knew anything about the singer Johnny Cash, assuming he managed to remember the name.
The girl's questions made him blink.
"I wasn't lookin' for you," Kurby replied, his brows furrowing. He wasn't exactly about to explain why he'd been wandering around the neighborhood; Nemo didn't need to know about the direwolves, or his suspicions involving recent patterns. "The hat and the music together are a bit of a giveaway."
That wasn't entirely a straight answer, though. Nor had he given her a real response earlier. The werewolf hunter hedged for a moment, considering, and then decided to hell with it.
"Have you been back to Knockturn?" he asked bluntly, watching her carefully.
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It was still doubtful that this thirty-something glorified hall monitor hadn't sought her out, but Nemo opted to let the claim stand. He clearly saw her as a child, and okay okay she was sorta, and she'd wanted to pop him in the throat for correcting her grammar earlier same as when he invented a curfew for her. She was actually surprised she was here hanging out with an older dude who was essentially a stranger. Normally she'd never in a million years; it was deeply unsafe. But he'd rescued her from the hungry ossuary. Sort of. And even as they sat here, it seemed like he still somehow wanted nothing to do with her.
"Hang on." Even if he didn't intend to mess with her, she figured she should text someone. Abby. She took out her old-ass flip phone and shot a quick text to their apparent mutual acquaintance.
19 Dec @5:44pm - Guess who I'm with.
She flipped the phone shut and set it next to her coffee. The text had given her a quick moment to think of her response.
"Hell no, dude. Are you kidding?" She bit her lip and leaned forward. "But I want to. I just ... have you been having dreams?"
Dear God, had she just asked Kurby Bagnold if he's been having dreams? Prick response in three, two, one ...
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”Hang on.”
Kurby blinked, brows knitting as the kid paused the conversation to pull out...some sort of Muggle handheld telephone?...and began tapping away at it. Perplexed, he sat back in his chair. He wasn’t sure if this was a Muggleborn thing, a teenaged thing, or an American thing, but it seemed a little strangely rude to interrupt the discussion so that one could tap furiously at the buttons on the device.
It occurred to him suddenly that here he was, out alone in a Muggle area of London where he knew enemies had been active, with a strange teenager that he didn’t know well at all. The werewolf hunter shifted, giving a surreptitious glance at their surroundings, and adjusted his position so that he was sitting sideways on his chair, with one elbow on the table and his back to the wall behind him. Rosheen had a Muggle phone that she used to send written messages back and forth with her Muggle boyfriend. He doubted that Tawse would ever resort to communicating with that sort of thing, but Kurby would much rather be careful than dead.
Nemo finished her...whatever she was doing....and resumed the conversation like nothing had happened.
She hadn’t been back. If she was here now, he wouldn’t have guessed that she had been; something told him that whatever the shop wanted, it probably didn’t involve the two of them resuming their normal routine without harm. Nemo bit her lip and leaned towards him. “I just...have you been having dreams?”
Wait, did she actually just ask him that? He paused, trying to decide how much of an arsehole to be in his response — he had, but really — when the weird Muggle device sitting on the table next to Nemo suddenly erupted into a furious, frantic buzzing.
Kurby started as if a spell had backfired.
“What the hell is that?” He jerked back away from the table as if the Muggle device was going to leap across the succulent centerpiece to personally attack him.
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Abby's flurry of texts interrupted them and Kurby about lost his skin. Nemo quickly picked up the phone where it wouldn't buzz too loudly against the table and looked around the shop to see if anyone had noticed a grown-ass man have a good startle over a vibration setting.
"Oh my god, you are hopeless!" she giggled. "It's a phone, dude."
She quickly skimmed them and smirked at all of Abby's absurd guesses.
an elf! (w pointy ears)
an LOTR elf (taller and cute w pointy ears)
Gimli the dwarf!
a goblin?
a pack of hip.grffs!
a pack of traveling troubadours!
your delightfully weird self!
The Doctor! (who) xmas special!
"I just texted my friend in case you kidnapped me." She then flipped open the phone and took a grainy picture to send back to Abby. Nemo figured she recognize Kurby Bagnold's scruffy, long-suffering, uncomfortable face. She was still grinning to herself. Dude was way jumpier than his gruff facade let on, than his dangerous profession might indicate.
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Kurby stared back at her, his brows furrowed. He knew what a phone was, but that didn’t explain the sudden, startling eruption of noise, or what Nemo was doing with it now, holding it out in front of her. Uncomfortably, he edged his chair an inch further away from the table, crossing his arms against his chest so that he could avoid resting an elbow on the same surface that the Muggle phone had been sharing.
“Texting is...sendin’ written messages?” he asked, a bit uncertainly.
Muggles seemed to have far more options when it came to communications. In the magical world, they generally had to choose between sending letters via owl, sending a Patronus — assuming the wizard could cast it, and that they didn’t need their wand for something else in the meanwhile — and sending up a spray of Red Sparks, in case of an emergency. Even if they made unnecessarily startling noise, he could somewhat see the advantage of the Muggle method, if this kid could use it to send a written letter to her friend while sitting unassumingly at the table with him.
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Nemo gave him a solid slow blink. How had Kurby survived this long in the world? Didn't know what texting was.
"I am not explaining phones to you," she said. What even was her life. Her phone buzzed again.
Good ol Baggynold! :pouting_cat:
where are you?? A cafe?
Nemo quickly responded with an affirmative and the name of the cafe and then pocketed the phone. It was clearly too much for Kurby to deal with. Again, she wondered, how? She might have happily showed him how it all worked, but not today. Maybe he'd be more sedate in his own element; in this muggle cafe he seemed like a fish out of water. His posture was nothing but on guard. Noting that gave Nemo paused. Should she be worried? Was this just Kurby being Super Basic Kurby or was this about Grimshaw's? Hell if she could figure that out. He'd been plenty moody when they'd met, but he'd been at least confident telling her off.
She returned to her dinner and decided moving forward she wasn't going to be such an ass to him. He clearly had some problems and she didn't need to be one of them.
"I'm serious though. You spooked as I am about the tailor shop? I keep thinking I hear that voice on the air." She really did believe that's why they'd found each other, even if he didn't really know. She wasn't aware of his other reasons for lurking in Camden.
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Days were already ticking down until January’s full moon, and one of the things that concerned him the most about it was Tawse’s ability to block their communications. Firing off Red Sparks and apparating from place to place had worked well for them for years, until suddenly they hadn’t. He’d been trying to think about what kind of plan they might put into place instead — had even considered seeing if Pratt would go with him to approach Level Nine, to see if there was some kind of new spell they might be able to develop — but now a much simpler solution was right in front of him.
Kurby had been about to ask to see Nemo’s phone — to see if the American could show him how it worked — when she abruptly put an end to that, typed out another message, and then slipped the device away. The werewolf hunter frowned, but decided to let it go. There were several Muggleborns that he knew well at the Ministry, including Trevelyan, Blake, and even Harris. They might have better ideas about how such a device could be adapted or mimicked to suit their purposes, anyway.
Swallowing, Kurby refocused on what the kid was saying.
“I’m not...spooked,” he said slowly. Frowning slightly, he considered how best to phrase this; the desire to be a smartarse had somewhat faded when he’d gotten distracted by the phone, so being direct seemed like the best option.
“But yeah — I keep havin’ dreams about it, too. The same thing, with the breeze and the skulls and somebody laughing.” He rolled his shoulders in a shrug, gaze flicking over to her. “I feel like I forget most of it when I wake up, though.”
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Nemo lifted her eyebrows, a bit surprised at a straightforward response, and not really comforted by the answer. She'd almost preferred if it was just her, but this was confirmation they were both beset by something. She wrapped her hands around the warm coffee and took a deep breath.
"I keep feeling like I need to go back. A pull, like there'd be something wonderful waiting for me, but ..." she shook her head with a wrinkled nose and a cringe. She didn't like Knockturn Ally and she was deeply wary of anything that felt this good. The draw was haunted at the edges by something dreadful and sinister. She couldn't forget the pit of bones. The whole in the floor that had just gulped her down, swallowed her up.
"Have you been back?" Even now, something in her wanted to jump up from the chair, grab Kurby by the collar and haul him to Knockturn. Just to see, the voice said. Just to see.
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The werewolf hunter shook his head. “Naw,” he said, tapping absently on his arm. It wasn’t that he hadn’t considered it, just to see if the shop was all boarded up like usual, but the past week hadn’t left him with much free time and he knew himself well enough to recognize that he needed the weekend away.
Besides, walking into some sort of eerily enchanted shop without knowing what he was getting himself into sounded like a definitively bad idea. It was probably nearly as stupid as springing a werewolf-baited trap in the middle of London at night during a full moon, and he’d learned his lesson with how that had turned out. He wasn’t about to let someone or something else take another cheap shot at him until he had a better idea of what he was walking into.
He hesitated, glancing at Nemo. He hadn’t decided if he wanted to share all of this information, but the kid made it sound as if she was feeling the same sort of pull that he had been. As much as he liked to keep his cards to himself, he liked the idea of a mouthy teenager going up against some unseen force without any information whatsoever to protect herself even less.
“I’ve been doin’ a bit of diggin’, though,” he said, a beat more quietly. “I tracked down Nathan Briggs last week, the arse whose name was on the last line of the ledger.[1] He admitted that he was there on the eleventh of November makin’ a sale. He called the place ‘neutral ground’ — said as far as he knows, there’s no shopkeeper, and the building is always deserted and empty, so the Knockturn crowd uses it sometimes for illegal tradin’.”
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He hadn't gone back. He hadn't gone back. Nemo didn't know how she felt about it. On one hand good; they were being lured, she knew it. On the other, if he had? She knew she'd be some kind of monstrously jealous. He might not be spooked, and he might not have gone back, but he wasn't letting it lie. Nemo had been trying to put it in the past, make it just another story about strange and fantastical magical London. But Kurby, he was digging.
Nemo picked at the muffin, eating it in little pieces.
"Hmm," she said, remembering the name. Briggs. Right there at the end alongside Lorelei Hunt. He called him an ass and Nemo absently clocked that Kurby must know him. She furrowed her brow at the claim it was never open for anyone else. Kurby had said that when they were there, that he'd never seen it open.
"It lit up just for us," she said looking at her pastry with a frown. She lifted her eyes.
"I bet if we went back it'd be open again," she said seriously. "Maybe there'd be new names in the book. Maybe ... what if our names are in it now."
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Kurby opened his mouth and then shut it. Would their names be in the book if they’d only visited? They hadn’t gone there to complete a transaction...although, the thought struck him guiltily, he hadn’t entirely left empty-hand. It was a tempting thought: to go back and see if the ledger was still there, if there was anything else that he might find. If there was anything else that it might want to show him, if he just took a few moments to look.
Except no. No matter how much it might decide to siren-call him, he was not walking back into that place until he knew more about what he was up against. Even werewolves and giant Scottish terrorist wizards were relatively straightforward. He had no bleeding clue what to expect from a giant underground cellar filled with bones except something bad.
”No,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “No bleedin’ way. I’ve made my share of goddamned idiotic decisions this week, but there’s no way in hell that I’m walkin’ back into that place until I know more about what it’s after.”
The look on Nemo’s face was giving him a bad feeling. The kid was even less his problem than the other teens who had been giving him headaches lately, but he’d gotten dragged into this mess with her, and she apparently wasn’t willing to look out for her own best interests.
“And neither should you,” he added, giving her a sharp look. “This isn’t runnin’ away to London or temptin’ fate by playing on the street during a full moon. That place is tryin’ to get its hooks in you, and it sure as hell isn’t after your best interests.”
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There he was, the Kurby who Nemo had first met. She rolled her eyes and sat back not keen to endure another lecture from a guy who couldn't help but find a way to push her buttons at every chance. Unprovoked, she'd like to note for the record. She'd been nothing but nice. Probably ought to release herself from any obligation of making him comfortable.
"I wasn't going to," she said in a little huff.
"I'm not bleedin' stupid. I was thinking out loud."
She bit her tongue against a comeback of few about which of the two of them was having trouble reconciling life choices. As usual, she was pressed to be the adult in this discussion. Which she was plenty capable of. Nemo had a drink of her coffee and leaned forward on her elbows.
"So. What do we do now? You get any leads from that guy Briggs? Someone else we can talk to. Does the government have records or files or anything? Like, I dunno, blue prints or titles or something. You work at the Ministry."
Nemo lifted her eyebrows. Was he going to be grown up about this, or mention the full moon again or snip at her about tourism again or try to give her orders again, as if he had any authority up in here.
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Nemo gave a little huff, and he could practically imagine a hair toss identical to the ones that Blake had given in the old days. But he didn't believe her denial. Thinking out loud was dangerously close to considering something as an option, and he wasn't willing to take that step, not when he didn't know how the magic from the tailor shop might be influencing either of them.
"Don't think about it, then," he retorted, giving the kid a cautioning look.
He considered her next set of questions, running a hand tiredly over his face. Now that the phone had gone a few minutes without buzzing unexpectedly, he risked resting his elbow back on the table again.
"Nothin' else useful from Briggs," he said, giving a quick shake of his head. "Except for the fact that there's others in Knockturn who use it, but I reckon I could spend weeks rattlin' cages and still not hit on anyone who knows more about it."
He paused, pressing his tongue against his teeth for a moment as he decided how much he wanted to say. The particular identity of this informant wasn't really relevant to the greater point.
"I've also got a friend who works in another shop in Knockturn," he said after a beat. "Up until a couple of years ago, I guess someone was usin' Grimshaw's name to place orders for stuff. Lots of odds and ends, different things. The deliveries were always to different locations, and they only met the witch supposedly placin' the orders once. Said she looked like an old sorceress, ready to crumble to dust."
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Hm! Nemo frowned approvingly. Boyo had been doing his homework while she'd been trying to get on with life. Shaking down hustlers and getting inside information from black market traders. Nemo felt slightly amateur. Here she thought Kurby'd been dicking around, but nah. He had information.
When everyone else only seemed to know the shop as an abandoned squat for shady deals, Kurby'd found someone with something different to tell. On the one hand it seemed obvious to Nemo that whoever was ordering on behalf of Grimshaw was lying to stay anonymous, but on the other a sorceress destroyed and recreated to an ashen husk sounded rather on brand for the mysterious shop.
"Holy shit...," she muttered, thinking. It was good information but it wasn't enough for Kurby to want to get anywhere close again. And you don't want to go back either, shit-fer-brains, she firmly reminded herself.
She did note that he'd breezed by her suggestions about digging up government files. Not cool.
"If you won't want to look into the Ministry angle, that's fine. I'll do it. I know someone. And I can always just use your name, right?"
Nemo hid behind a drink of coffee as she watched him.
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I know someone. Sure she did. Kurby flashed the kid a wolfish grin. This little street musician, living seemingly all alone in London and getting lured by brilliant lights into strange dark places, didn't seem the sort to have powerful connections at the Ministry.
"Sure, if you want to end up in a holdin' cell," he retorted.
Thinking about this as a problem to investigate made the whole thing feel less overwhelming. He'd had plenty of practice at ferreting out the answers to seemingly inscrutable mysteries, even if he were normally after more mundane things like the identity of a rampaging werewolf, not the explanation behind an eerie Knockturn shop. But the same sort of strategies still applied: run down leads and tenaciously dig into the details like a terrier after a hidden treat, refusing to relent until he had enough pieces to make sense of the whole picture.
He leaned back in his chair, his posture much more relaxed than it had been a few moments before, snapping his fingers absently as he thought.
"I still want to get my hands on the casefile for that girl who was found dead in Grimshaw's a couple of years ago, but I've been callin' in too many favors with the Aurors recently," he said matter-of-factly, arching an eyebrow at Nemo. "I need to give it a couple of weeks before I ask 'em for anything else."
His cousin Nate had given him information on Nathan Briggs, he'd passed on Figaro's Runespoor tip to Trevelyan, and who knew what else he might need related to Tawse. Asking for too much too quickly would attract attention. But if Nemo 'knew someone,' then let the kid focus her energy on that. The worst that happened was that she dropped his name to someone she shouldn't and he had to deny knowing her.
"As far as records go, the Ministry's got some, but we might be able to find copies somewhere else." He half-smirked as he considered, staring distantly across the Muggle coffee shop. "Or maybe somethin' like a history of Knockturn, old advertisements in the Prophet, that sort of thing. Might even be able to place when it was last active based on the style of the clothing in that front room."
He paused, glancing across the table at Nemo again. There were a couple of other obvious lines of inquiry that could be followed up on. The first of them was one that he didn't feel ready to think about yet. But the other might give the American kid something to do besides thinking wistfully about returning to the tailor shop and bothering her 'someone' at the Ministry.
"Then there's that flute." Kurby raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. "How'd you end up with it, again?"
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A holding cell, huh? Kurby and his authority. Nemo returned the smirk. She could handle cops. Well, she could if she could quiet the 'I Dare You' quills that sometimes barbed when someone tried to tell her no. But Abby, sweet Abby, she was as smooth as an ermine.
Kurby clicked along a plan, easy with detail and picking up steam. Nemo had noted his lift in demeanor, but the phrase 'girl found dead' stopped her ears. Kurby moved past it towards the Daily Prophet, historical documents, and the bone flute.
Her eyes glazed over, the image of a girl her age with a long brown braid standing stock still in the ossuary where she'd left the flute. The flute. The flute?
"Huh?" Dead air signaled a question she didn't answer.
"I bought it," she answered flatly. "At Pandora's Attic."
Nemo got lost in thought again, her blue-eyed gaze getting lost in the deep woodgrain of the table. Hadn't she? She'd intended to. Buy it. Now she couldn't remember if she'd paid.
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Nemo, who had been goading him a moment ago with threats to drop his name at the Ministry, was suddenly distracted again, lost in examining the table. Kurby regarded her silently, his brows knitting together.
Whatever was sentient in that shop had obviously intentionally goaded him, drawn him in with the ledger and teased him with the key. But Nemo had been the one who had already been connected to it through her shining flute, who seemed to be of the same age and general demographic as the girl who'd been found dead there two years ago. As far as he knew, she was all on her own here in London.
All of those skulls down in the ossuary under Grimshaw Tailoring must have belonged to living people: Muggles or witches and wizards. It was impossible not to wonder how many of them might have been like Nemo, with no one to miss them after they disappeared.
He paused, pressing his mouth shut as he considered. Maybe he would have been better pressed to try and scare the girl away, rather than include her as he thought through how to investigate the shop. But Nemo didn't seem the type to let herself be run off. Even if he tried to force her out of this, she'd surely find a way back in again, except then he'd never know it.
"That's the shop in Diagon Alley, aye?" he asked after a beat, his brows furrowing. "I don't think I've ever been there. What's it like inside?"
-
Nemo looked up and put a smile on her face. Kurby was watching her closely; she could feel him scrutinizing her. He was better when he was talking because at least then he was readable. Otherwise, Nemo couldn't be sure if he was stewing on trying to send her to bed.
He tucked back into the muffin and had more of her coffee.
"Aye. Just a junk shop," she said. "Really cluttered, shelves and drawers of unfindable things. There's no real system to it. A lot of it doesn't have a price tag, you just make an offer. Get some mis-matched pint glasses, a clockwork lunar calendar, goblin erotica..."
Nemo winked.
Then she continued, with a little shrug and tucked some hair behind her ear. "And cute little hand-carved ivory flutes. It was that same day. I went over after lunch rush. It was there in a box. The fingerholes were just right."
She winced trying to remember, then shook her head frustrated. "Dude, I can't remember buying it. I just - I remember remembering but now it's not there. Maybe I shouldn't have left it down there. Now I can't get it back."
Nemo shook her head again. No.
"What was it about a girl who died? I feel like you kind of just rolled through that real casual a little bit." She walked her fingers across the air between them.
-
The werewolf hunter blinked, frowning back at her -- although the expression was much more deliberative than annoyed.
"It was a couple of years back," he said after a beat. "I don't remember all of the details. One or another of the Aurors was lookin' into something that involved Grimshaw's, and while they were there, they found a dead girl in one of the back rooms."
Trevelyan had been asking around about it for a bit afterwards, and word had gotten around, but Kurby hadn't paid any attention to it. There was always some strange mess or another associated with Level Two, and as long as they didn't involve furry folks or chew toys, he didn't really consider the mysteries to be any of his business.
"I just remember hearin' that she was pretty young. Somethin' like a runaway." He rolled his shoulders in a shrug, still keeping a careful eye on Nemo as he raised his coffee to take a sip. "That's why I wanted to try and see the Aurors' case file, to see if any of this might be connected."
-
Nemo stared back at Kurby as he explained, and by the end of it she was sunk down in her chair arms crossed.
"Dude."
She seemed rattled, but a slight curl of her crooked lip indicated layers of annoyance were in play. She might have snipped at him that this would have been something to bring up as she was careening viscera-first into a building that apparently eats the youths, but it would probably be unproductive. They'd both popped some stupid pills that night.
After a moment, she pulled out her phone again and flipped it open. There were a few of Abby's texts waiting.
Good ol Baggynold! :pouting_cat:
where are you?? A cafe?
Nemo tapped a few texts back, fully aware it probably irritated Kurby.
yah charlottes.
you free later? i need a favor.
"I'll get the file," she said firmly as she typed.
-
Kurby regarded the kid a bit skeptically as she pulled out her phone and began typing away again, but he mentally shrugged and let it go. At the very least, sending Nemo after the case file would give the kid something to do and take one potential task off his list. If she actually managed to get her hands on it, he'd either be impressed at her connections or finding a way to warn Pratt that he had a leak on Level Two.
"Alright," he agreed simply. "I'll see what I can find on the records front."
Digging through old files was hardly his favorite part of an investigation -- that was Auror territory, as far as he was concerned -- nor was it something that he really had time for with January's full moon inching closer, but he figured that he had a better chance of navigating things than Nemo probably did. At least the upcoming week at work was likely to be less stressful than the previous one. He could afford to take a night off to see what he could turn up.
"There's the question of that shop, too," he pointed out, taking a moment to check his pockets. No quill, and he'd probably look like an idiot for pulling one out in the middle of a Muggle cafe, anyhow. "I'd be curious to know if anyone remembers the flute bein' brought in or if they have anything else that might be from Grimshaw's. Don't have a, uh, pen on you, do you?"
-
Nemo had grown accustomed at the lack of any positive or friendly emotive feedback from Kurby Bagnold. Most of the time he looked at her aghast or like she was about to do something mad. Not the worst reaction she could get from someone like him, and it was starting to become endearing. He was absolutely a bamf Ministry field agent, but also, uh, slightly useless. She wanted to pinch his scruffy cheek.
The pull to go back to Pandora's Attic tugged at her, a bizarre expectation that maybe the flute would be back there. But also that roll of her stomach that she didn't really remember anymore what had happened there. Nemo sighed the feeling away, steady for now that her path was taking her to the Ministry with Abby. She'd never been - avoiding the place in the last year as her status in this country was not exactly well-documented.
Kurby asked for her pen. Nemo looked at him like her teachers always had when she didn't have her book, but yeah, she did. She put her phone away again and dug in her bag and pulled out a handful of brightly colored clicky-pens and laid them by the potted plant with a clatter. She paused a moment then pulled out a notebook as well. A little one with a gold Gustav Klimt cover. She slid it over.
"So how am I supposed to find you?" she asked. Once they parted ways.
-
Apparently his young conspirator carried an entire complement of Muggle pens. Kurby regarded them dubiously, studying the broad selection of colors as if they were going to bite him.
Carefully, he chose the one that seemed the closest to a normal black ink. Picking it up with his left hand, he pulled the notebook towards him and flipped it open to a blank page. But when he attempted to write with the Muggle pen, nothing showed up on the page. Kurby eyed the tip of it suspiciously for a moment, until Nemo reached over and clicked a button on the back end of the pen with a sigh, causing a silver nub to spring out at the other end.
How the hell did anyone ever understand Muggle technology? Kurby shot the kid a look, and then sourly began to scribble something in her notebook.
"That's my address," he said at last, pushing the notebook back over to her. He inspected the pen for a moment, and then tossed it down on the table, deciding he didn't want to deal with the strange system of clicking again. "I've got a flat in Diagon Alley. You need to get ahold of me, writin' me there's probably the best way to do it."
That was a risk, giving someone he didn't really know his address like that, but it wasn't as if she or anyone else couldn't figure it out if they really tried. Besides, something felt wrong about leaving Nemo without a way to ask for help if she needed it. He still didn't know what the hell was going on with the Grimshaw tailoring shop, but he felt far less confident about her chances to navigate it independently than he did his own.
"Might be good to set up a time to check in, though," he remarked, arching an eyebrow at her. The holidays were fast approaching, but he didn't necessarily want to rely on this kid finding him or him having to hunt her down randomly on the streets of London again. "Reckon you want to try to chat again on Friday after work? We can see what we can both find by then."
-
Nemo had not expected to get the guy's home address. She'd figured on something to do with his office at the Ministry or wherever werewolf hunters did their paperwork; a home address, really? Then she realized - Kurby didn't want work knowing about this. She breathed out a single, "huh!" and then stowed her pens and notebooks away. Nemo would decide later if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
Friday after work, he probably meant after six, which was, you know, sort of when she would be wanting to get started. People out to dinner, doing shopping, making merry and all that. She wouldn't have cared much if she knew things were going to die down after the holidays.
"Uh, like, what time? Friday nights are kind of busy for me." She interrupted herself with a click of her tongue and a shake of her head. "Actually whenever's fine. But I'm not going to your house."
She stood and hoisted her case onto her back. Taking one last bite of muffin. "Like seven? I'll just meet you down at Grimshaw's." She dead-panned it for a good two seconds, then leaned forward to cuff him on the shoulder.
"Joking. Leaky Cauldron? Seven? Friday?"
-
There was a part of him that almost wanted to agree: that wanted to say to hell with it all, throw caution aside, and head immediately back to Grimshaw's to see what they could find there. He had no way of even knowing if that night had been something unique, if he'd never see the shop lit up like that again, if he'd missed his chance to venture deeper into the ossuary and find out what the hell it had wanted from them.
But that wasn't what he needed to be saying to Nemo, not when the kid had clearly already been entertaining the idea. And, Kurby thought at himself forcefully, no matter how tempting it might be to risk venturing back again, the smart thing to do was to find out as much as he could about the tailor shop and what kind of hold it might have on them both, and then make a reasoned decision about what to do next. If they were both obviously yearning to go back, that was probably a sign that they shouldn't.
At least Nemo had apparently decided to make time in her busy social calendar to meet up with him on Friday. Seven at the Leaky Cauldron would work, as long as he could find a place to sit where he could keep his back to the wall.
"Sounds grand," he agreed, inclining his head to her. "And how do I get ahold of you if I need to, Nemo-who-isn't-on-holiday?" He nodded to her Muggle phone. "That thing has numbers, doesn't it?"
-
Oh my god. He'd half-looked like he would just meet her at the cursed old shop; but if he wasn't going to be the adult in the room, then who would? Before she could let herself entertain that brashness again, Kurby surprised her.
Nemo set back on her heels and marveled at him. She furrowed her eyebrows, oh the dear man was trying, she shouldn't laugh. It was hard because he was such a grouch, a grouch who by his job description faced down poor cursed beasts and couldn't manage a clicky pen. But he'd saved her life and bought her a muffin and looked huggable. So she didn't laugh.
"Yeah, dude, it has numbers," she said with a little smile. Nemo got her notebook and pen out again and wrote down her number for Kurby. She folded it up real tiny like they used to do in school, and presented it.
"Congratulations. I don't answer my phone so, like, call twice in a row and I'll know its you."
She looked at him and wondered how he planned to find a phone to use, if he'd dare using a public one.
"Alright, I'm gonna go. Friday. Leaky."
-
"Seven," the werewolf hunter concurred, giving her a brisk nod.
He took the tiny piece of folded paper, regarding it with a slightly bewildered look for a moment, and then slipped it into his pocket. Most of what the kid said seemed like Muggle gibberish, but he assumed that if he needed to get ahold of her, he could relay it to Rosheen or someone like Blake, and his more Muggle-friendly associates would be able to help him decipher it. As it was, at least he had a theoretical way to get in touch with her.
Up until now, his inquiries about Grimshaw's over the past week had felt more like dabbling: something he'd been doing on the side in his free time, mostly to satisfy his own curiosity and without a solid end in mind. But having a set date to meet again and a committed collaborator made the whole thing feel a bit too uncomfortably real.
Sighing, Kurby eyed the remnants of his coffee, and then stood up to go. At least it would hopefully be a relatively uneventful week at work after the unending pressure of the prior week. He could start to pull together a semblance of a plan for January's full moon, see what he could round up on the Grimshaw's front during his spare time one evening, and then compare notes with Nemo before rolling into the holiday this weekend, with at least a few things off his plate.
Hypothetically, it sounded like a good plan. He dumped the empty plate and mugs into the tray where the Muggles seemed to stack their dishes, and then headed back onto the streets of Camden.
Fin.