Jonas smiled crookedly, his arms still crossed, stretching his legs out under the table.  The coffee sat abandoned on the table in front of him, the last wisps of steam still rising from the mug.  Somewhere behind him, he was certain that the magical coffee pot was probably unhappy that its hard work had gone to waste.

"Give me an answer I can use, other than you don't remember or you suddenly decided to play the sappy romantic hero," he said dryly.  "I'll take it to Rosier.  Once we've got an explanation we can buy into, we'll let your lawyer back us down.  You go to Azkaban -- I reckon there's no way out of that -- but we keep it close to the minimum term and you get your wand back when you get out."

He listed it off nonchalantly, matter-of-factly, but his eyes never left Briggs.  This was the harsh reality of the situation.  Briggs had made his choice; he'd violated his parole.  Even so, though, it didn't seem like getting off scott free was necessarily what the former errand boy wanted.  If the Ministry really wanted to be cruel, they didn't need to hold him until he confessed.  From what he had said earlier, all they had to do was turn him loose with barely a slap on the wrist and wait to see who came to collect their dues.

"In return, we do what we need to in order to protect you," Jonas continued easily.  "We keep your name out of the paper and make sure we're discreet in pursuing any leads.  If there's another arrest, it won't be linked back to you.  Between that and the prison term, no one'll have reason to think you yapped."  He ventured a dry smile.  "You stay where you're at in Knockturn's economy of reputation, and the Ministry will stay off your back. in the future.  Your wife doesn't get pulled into the mess at all.  A few months and your life is yours again, Mr Briggs."

Nate was disappointed.  He groaned and paced away a few steps, waving a hand dismissively at the reclining Auror and the words that hung in the air.

"That's not nice, mate..."

Probably was foolish to think the Auror actually had some rainbow bridge, but this just felt like square one and he was just as cornered as before. He shook his head.  Azkaban was a difficult potion to swallow and the very idea froze his blood in his veins. 

"I get what you're trying to do, but it's not going to work.  I'm to just give you want you want and then sit tight and trust that you'll do what you say?  You answer to Rosier! I don't bloody think he's as amiable as you, or that he owes Dazmond a favor.  All your good intentions don't mean shit to me - "

The door they'd come through had never been closed.  The Ministry was asleep, for the most part, and there had been no light or movement in the corridor.  His stressed pacing brought him into the door frame, where he stopped and leaned against the jamb.   Still quite literally testing the boundaries of this relationship.

He rubbed his hands over his face, and shook his head.  "I need something more than the word of an Auror.  What've you got at stake? Your conscious? Sleeping at night? It's all very nice, but you're not even on my case."

Part of Nate wanted to talk.  He was not a fan of Tawse's Wizarding Blood Alliance, or the rumors he'd heard about what had happened on the Ides of March.  Tawse back in Azkaban would make his life a whole lot easier and be better for the world - but he'd been impossible to catch.  He was a damn phantom.  Anything Nate did against him would only anger the beast of a wizard all the more. 

"What've I got at stake?" Jonas repeated, regarding Briggs with a thoughtful frown.

The younger man was searching.  Worrying at the situation, doubting it, testing it for some reason to hold on.  Jonas could guess what he'd do if he didn't find one -- probably bolt out the door, if the way he kept shifting closer and closer to it was any indication.  It wasn't that nothing ever came for free in Briggs' world.  There were good people there too -- he'd seen it with Dazmond, even with Tawse, although 'good' in the latter case certainly came with a few qualifiers. 

But the halls of the Ministry and the back alleys of Knockturn couldn't be more alien to each other.  Aurors and alley rats might occasionally share a common purpose, but such alliances were rare and defined.  Jonas had been just as suspicious of Tamis and Adon when he'd first started working the Runespoor case, and he'd known Tamis Raynor for most of his life.  He'd never even spoken to Nathan Briggs before.

"You mean aside from your wife owling me?" Jonas asked, his forehead creasing.  "When I was reading the case file, a few things caught me eye.  That Muhra glass, it isn't the sort of thing you can get away with hawking," he said, shaking his head.  "It's too rare to just sell in a dark alley somewhere, and you used to work in an apothecary shop -- I reckon if you wanted to nick something to turn a few quid, you'd have gone for an artifact a bit less easy to trace."

Now he was talking through his reasoning -- laying out the case, the same as he might do to Adon or Archer.  Logical conclusions based on the evidence, with a few new bits thrown in based on what Briggs had already told him.  It was like the last chapter of a crime novel, running through the clues one last time so that the detective could gleefully reveal whodunnit. But like so many other times, he didn't know for certain.  All he could do was speculate.

"So I'd have to venture that someone wanted it because they knew what it was and intended to use it.  That's the bit that worries me," he admitted, his forehead creasing.  The underlying urgency had died down since Macduff's arrest, but the tension was still out there.  The attack on Cameron Rosier, complete with Polyjuice potion and Runespoor venom, had occurred a mere few days after the glass had been stolen.  "Tawse's group have been using potions in attacks and experiments.  Just off the top of me head, I can reckon on at least a couple of other organizations or people who might be interested in doing the same and might have reason to know of you.  Like I said, you worked for Sellaphix for years -- makes sense that someone would think you were a good choice to handle something like that, yeah?"

It went against all of Nate's better sense then to trust an Auror.  It wasn't that they themselves were necessarily horrible blokes, but it was the system they were a part of that circumvented any natural sense of justice or fairness they might have in them.  Sure Trevelyan wanted to pay off a favor with Daz, but it wasn't entirely in his control, was it.  Powers higher than an Auror could crack down at any time, and seeking the maximum sentence for someone like Nathan Briggs would be a feature in someone's tall pointed wizardly hat. 

But from what the Auror was saying, this time showing a touch of frustration with that furrowed brow, a touch of grief, they were closer than Nate would have hoped.  He'd had no idea how much progress they'd made against Tawse.  Did that mean that revealing the secret of the muhra glass would be the linchpin?  Probably bloody well not.  But was it worth it?  Was it worth sticking it to that guy? Was it worth it to save his skin?

"Shit." 

In a word he expressed the rock-hard feeling of dread that knitted up in his gut each time he let himself think about Azkaban.  But it was at the end of every road.  And though he wasn't in reality considering escape possible, Azkaban was probably at the end of that road too.  Living life as a wanted wizard was also a dreadful existence. 

He let his knees bend as he slid his back down the door jamb until he was squatting against it, his arms folded over his knees.  He scratched the back of his head and shook his head, resignation slowly sinking in.

"I know that Daz'll kill you if you screw me over."  It was kind of wonderful having a wife capable of murder sometimes.  So what if she monopolized the hearth they shared at the Sodding Arms? 

Nate's mind had been calculating, weighing the facts he held hidden at the bottom of his brain.  About how Cinaed had come to the apartment and suggested the robbery as a way Nate could pay his debt.  About how he'd convinced Finn Grosvenor it'd be a laugh - a fun adventure for the bored, rich youth.  About the night where he'd undid the lock and slunk into the shop.  About snatching the glass out of the air, and Vanishing it before the Hitwizard and Unspeakable could do anything to stop him.

What little detail could he provide, the least information possible,  something that would achieve the greatest effect and would be the most difficult to trace back to him.   He'd have to say as little as possible, but give Trevelyan a substantial lead. 

"You got something to write with?"

Jonas kept his gaze carefully on Briggs, noting the change in posture, the developing resignation in his expression.  The threat left him unperturbed -- these were the moments when just waiting helped.  Briggs might have dropped out of Hogwarts as a teenager, but it was clear that he was cerebral.  He was thinking his options through, coming to his own conclusions.  Judging by his Ministry record, the former stock boy didn't make the best decisions when he was pressured in the heat of the moment; Jonas's best bet was giving him a chance to process his options for himself.

And he did.  The Auror managed to keep from smiling at the question; instead, he merely raised his eyebrows.

"One minute," Jonas said, boosting himself carefully to his feet. Since returning to the Ministry, he had learned to make it a point to carry a couple of pens with him; he still hadn't reacclimatized to using a quill and ink pot again, and the messy blotches that consequently marked all of his papers and official forms just left Adon with more to complain about.

He limped over to the counter, rooted around until he found a paper napkin.  That would be enough; the act of scribbling down a few notes was usually enough to allow him to remember it later, and Jonas had over a decade's worth of practice at recalling detailed conversations as a private investigator.  But that wasn't something that he necessarily needed to advertise with a man who was just barely willing to talk to him.

"Alright, mate, go ahead."  He uncapped the pen and waited, ready to record. "What do you know?"

As the Auror got up to find something to write on, Nate got up.  He'd set a ball rolling now, but it wasn't a spell cast; he could still pull it back.  He could still change his mind and clam back up again.  And although this Auror Trevelyan appeared to be the patron saint of patience, Nate didn't figure the Auror'd feel like another dance round the block.  He'd have to follow through.

He met the Auror back at the table.

"What do you know?"

"A whole hell of a lot more than you..." he grumbled, taking the piss.  "Here."

He took the pen out of the Auror's hand and slid the napkin around his way.  He did a quick circular scribble to make sure the ink was flowing, and the point dragged a little on the rough, flimsy napkin.


Nate wrote three numbers big in the middle and then looked at Trevelyan levelly, searchingly.  Would that be enough?  "Think you can do something with that, Trevelyan?  Say... it was found when I got searched.  Maybe I put my fingerprints all over it, fold it in half.  It's my hand-writing."

He kept his eyes on the Auror's, hoping to say something without saying anything.  It was his best idea, but it wouldn't work if the Auror needed a confession, or needed it spelled out. 

8-1-0.  Jonas read over the numbers silently, his eyes following the big, rounded digits of Briggs' handwriting.  Eight hundred and ten, or eight-one-zero -- either variation was presumably workable.  They weren't the answer to life, the universe, or everything, and they were unlikely to cause a transatlantic airplane flight to come crashing from the sky. 

It could be anything.  A date.  A time. An address. A person.  Plot points from old movies, bad crime novels that he'd half forgotten, danced through his memory.  A locker in a train station somewhere -- he'd have to check on King's Cross, since it seemed to be the venue of choice for most wizards.  A vault in Gringotts, although with a number that low, it was likely to belong to a relatively old pureblooded family. 

"It is, innit?"  He studied the numbers for a beat longer, and then gave Briggs a wan smile.  This was fun.  Moments like these, when he felt like he was on the verge of minding the gap on the Orient Express or taking a stroll down to chat with Sam Spade, were why he liked being an Auror.

"Think I wouldn't be worth much if I can't come up with something," he replied cheerfully.  His eyes were still cool, but his thoughts were obviously already racing.  Leads to invent and then follow up on.  Contacts to run down.  It was the best kind of mystery, one that was tantalizingly out of reach but still seemed possible to break open with a few smart ideas and some work on the streets.

It occurred to him somewhat belatedly that that could be the point of it.  It wasn't exactly that hard to guess at his love of puzzles.  He'd played cloak-and-dagger with Briggs tonight, and for all he knew, the former stock boy was playing them right back again.  Maybe he was sending him off on a wild goose chase; maybe he was setting him up for something more insidious.  The thought of it was enough to bring him back down to earth.  Jonas swallowed, considered, and then mentally set the suspicion aside.  It was something to keep in mind, but this was still worth following up on.

"Thanks.  Briggs."  He regarded the younger man for a moment, his face nearly expressionless once more in the late night shadows.  "I'll talk to Rosier.  Tell your lawyer you want to plead.  I dunno how much I can get them to come down, but I'll see what I can do."

Oh thank Merlin for this one.  As he watched the Auror look at his little work of art he allowed himself to close his eyes.  He was going for it.  Nate could see that the wizard was thinking - actually pleased with the clue.  The napkin and numbers was enough.  Sufficient to propel their deal.

Trevelyan seemed damn giddy again, but Nate standing next to that table in the strange midnight meeting room in the striped tunic of a prisoner was less emotive.  He ran a hand over his beard and looked a mixture of relief and foreboding. 

He picked up the napkin and handled it liberally as he folded it twice.  Into a casual little square suitable for hiding in pockets, or forgetting on the floor as rubbish.  He let it drop onto he table again. 

What's done was done.

"Right.  Yea, you do that.  Throw me some details when you can.  Hate to be surprised when I inevitably go before the Wizengamot."

He grinned for a moment, in spite of the grimness of all of this.  This was crazy.  Insane.

Still standing by the table, his fate sealed up in a napkin and an Auror's grin, Nate said, "So what did Dazmond do you for you?"

Any remaining humor in Jonas's expression faded as he blinked at the younger man.  His face a carefully-concealing mask, he regarded Briggs silently for a moment, shifting to lean against the counter.

"Well, she helped a friend of mine, like I said," he remarked neutrally.  "Struck me as the sort who goes out of her way to look after others.  I like folks like that -- it doesn't matter what side of the law they're on."

But that was only part of the answer.  He didn't owe anything to Briggs, least of all the truth; he'd be putting his neck on the line enough explaining this one to Rosier, although the new Department Head had so far proven to like efficiency and effectiveness even more than he did procedural paperwork.  Leaving it like that, though, as if he'd only watched Dazmond from afar as she'd gone muddling about as some sort of charitable do-gooder, struck him as unbearably, unbelievably false. 

"I met her last fall.  I was working as a private detective then; I wasn't with the Ministry." Jonas shrugged nonchalantly, keeping his gaze on Briggs without really meeting the younger man's eyes. "That bloke who held her all summer -- the one who gave you lot the bag of galleons -- hired me to track her down.  I didn't know what I was getting into."  That was part lie, part understatement.   Just like when he'd agreed to help Tawse, he'd known very well that he was getting in over his head in a morally ambiguous situation; cackling super villains didn't walk out of Republic Serials every day, after all.  But what he hadn't realized or considered what would happen to the people on the other side.

He raised his eyebrows at Briggs.  "Not that that's an excuse," he said mildly.  "But I reckon I might owe her a hand at staying out of more trouble."

Well wasn't this an interesting picture?  The Happy Auror didn't look so happy all of a sudden.  Nate had figured that Trevelyan had been a client of some kind.  Or that Dazmond had tipped him off about some of her competitors.  That was the typical kinds of favors she did people.  Rush jobs, discounts, under-the-table-vials.  Maybe patching up a hole you didn't want the stand-up Healers at Mungo's to see. 

But Trevelyan didn't owe Dazmond a favor - this was atonement.  Nate frowned.  Dazmond could handle herself, he had to remember.  But mention of the summer Dazmond had gone missing and the fat sack of galleons and that this Auror had been on the wrong side of it. 

He was looking hard at the Auror now.  What was that expression on his face.  Why say anything? He could've just lied or shut the conversation off.  He was the Auror here afterall.  He wasn't obliged to answer any questions.  Must be because Trevelyan was feeling guilty, Nate resolved and a small curl of his lip. 

"Reckon you do," he echoed his tone icy.  Nate took a few steps towards the Auror to share the Counter of Leaning.  He in his stripes and the other in crimson.  He just stared at him. 

"I'm not in any position to threaten you.  But I'd like to.  Dazmond, she can take of herself.  And she'll have to.  Hell, she takes damn good care of us all.  But me and her, we already should've made you pay up for what you apparently had a part in, that business.  That shitting mess.  But she never said anything about you to me.  Because she's nice."

He scoffed and shook his head.  "I'm not nice.  I'm not nice about Azkaban.  And I'm not nice about mercs hunting my family.   Don't screw this up."

Nate shook his head again.  He was super loose, almost too calm.  Too level for what he was saying and feeling.  But he had to keep that level because to rise an inch meant combustion.  And that would set off a chain of events that would end any mutually beneficial relationship with this Auror. 

"This is banjaxed."

Jonas let out a slow breath, focusing on that, on the air as it left his lungs.  The threat was fair.  The sentiment wasn't uncalled for.  If their positions had been reversed -- if he'd found out that Briggs was responsible for harassing his wife, his family -- he would have quite happily punched the man without giving a second thought.  With a concentrated effort, he let it go, let go of any tension that might have formed at the younger wizard's words. 

Briggs had said his piece.  Fair enough.  They both knew where the other stood.

"Not going to argue with you there, mate," he said, giving an easy shrug.  His expression was still unchanged, but there was a stiffness to his posture now, one that he tried to eliminate as he let out another breath and forced himself to relax.  "And I wasn't planning on it.  Be at a bit of a cross-purpose, that would."

The halls of Level Ten were still eerily empty, but he had no idea when the guards down here made their rounds.  Suddenly self-conscious, he glanced at the door.  It was incredible how quickly a sense of exhaustion could set in.  He wanted nothing more than to be back home, back in his bed.  It made him feel oddly guilty that the man standing next to him didn't have that option.

"Shall we, then?" he asked, casting a sidelong look toward Briggs.  "You want to take your coffee along, you're welcome to it.  That'll be a lark for the Hitwizards to explain for themselves in the morning."

The Auror was too damn agreeable.  Nate swore again and stood away from the wand-wielding wizard and the counter top to take a few paces solo.   He didn't feel better, he felt worse.  Before tonight and this bizarre little palaver he'd been in a sort of bored, anguished state of nothingness and waiting.  His fate had been out of his control and there was nothing he could do to turn it this way or that.  There was a desperate solace in that.  But the grass was always greener.  Now, it all felt like he knew too much, if only that light had been shed on a problem and he could see every way it could to wrong and now could watch and see how if it went down in flames, it would be on his own head. 

He spat on the ground at mention of Hitwizards.  He hated Hitwizards.  He had never fully squared off in his whole love just what their job was, if not just to be stomping, violent boars. 

An anxiety was growing in him, fighting against an intellectual need to feel at peace, sorted out.  He took a couple of steps and reached for his coffee cup.  Instead of picking it up, he swiped at it, caught the handle and flung it against the stone wall.  It made a noise far louder than their quiet conversation had been, smashing in half against the wall and then to more pieces on the floor.

"This it, then?  Last I hear from you?"

He wasn't really interested in going back to the cell and he couldn't decide if he appreciated or loathed the Auror for making it seem like he had a choice. 

Jonas managed to stop himself from jumping at the sound of shattering ceramic.  He raised his eyebrows, glancing first at the broken remains of the mug, and then back at the younger man.  If the Hitwizards on overnight duty hadn't already been aware that there were people about on Level Ten, they surely would be now.

"Very possibly, if you manage to bring all of the Ministry down on our heads," he replied, forehead creasing as he regarded Briggs. "Otherwise, I wasn't planning on it.  The only way that anything gets done around here is if someone takes a personal interest in it."

He'd already stood up from the counter.  His wand wasn't yet in hand, but his expression was sharp as he watched the younger man.  Adon had told him about what had happened the last time he'd tried to have a chat with the former clerk; it had concluded with Briggs on the wrong side of a Hitwizard, and the Hitwizard on the wrong side of an extremely irritated Israeli.  He wasn't particularly looking forward to repeating the process, but if that was what made the point, so be it.  There was nothing he could do to force Briggs to willingly cooperate.  Either the man would or he wouldn't.

There it was.  Both wizards were standing upright, staring at each other, and finally the Auror looked like an Auror.  He had a warning look on, and seemed... perturbed or something close.  Nate didn't regret raising the ruckus at all.  He now had another read, however small, on this crimson devil he'd made a pact with.   And that, somehow, made him feel more grounded.

He shrugged, relaxation again coming to his bones. 

"Alright then, mate," he said.  "So long as we have an understanding."  And Nate was as sure as he could be that they did.  Trevelyan'd follow up.  Open up the tiny hole in the case the Napkin and Numbers opened up.  And in exchange for pointing them to the location of the muhra glass and maybe the wizard who put him up to it Dazmond would be left alone and Nate would get off with the lightest sentence possible.  Maybe even keep his wand.  All of this... or else.  Else some vague threat.  There was no 'or else'. 

Trevelyan had proved, at least in this past half hour, to be atypical of his breed.  And that was what Nate had to trust in.

He then approached the Auror, but before he reached him, he turned his back to him and touched his fists to the small of his back.

"May as well keep up appearances."