"Morning Dave! Let me give you a hand with that. " The figure said cheerfully, reaching for two of the smaller boxes from the top of the delivery man's pile. 

Dave, the apothecary's usual delivery man, looked up through the recently cleared line of vision, a befuddled expression on his face for a moment until he connected a memory with the face.

"Oh..morning Tommy! Er, thanks." He said, stepping into the shop.

Tommy, aka Jimmy, gave him a momentary look of amusement and then followed him through the door with his much lighter pile. He had no idea why the man insisted on calling him Tommy. He had even corrected him once, a long time ago before the need for anonymity was really established. Now, the man's reliable error gave him a little more security. If any auror ever asked Dave if he'd dealt with or seen a Jimmy at the Sellaphix's, he would very honestly answer no.

If you were very quick sighted, which luckily not many were, you might have spotted Jimmy slip a similar sized box in between the other two - to most others it looked as if it always belonged there. 

It was nearly eight twenty on a Monday morning, a time when the "legal" deliveries on both the alleys were commonplace. The sun was shining, the shoppers had already started arriving, plenty of light and plenty of witnesses, not the stereotypical time for a little illegal trading - but then that was the idea. Aurors watched out for lone figures sneaking up to back doors in the darkness with nothing but a wandlight to lead by. The best time to hide a shadow was once the sun was up.

"You alright Tommy? Nephew out of St. Mungo's yet? " Dave asked him once they were inside the shop.

"Huh..oh yes and much better, thanks." Jimmy told him pleasantly. His conversations with the delivery man were always a little surreal, perhaps more fun that way. Jimmy spent a interesting moment wondering exactly who he thought he was talking about.
     

Nate was both elbows deep in a cask of viscous beetle eyes.  When he heard the back door open and voices from the ally, he straightened up and eased his arms out of the glop.  The beetle eyes needed to be stirred and scraped from the sides of the cask every morning, so they stayed fresh and potent.  And the task fell on Sellaphix's unreliable stockboy Mr. Briggs.

Nate's arms were dripping with mucus and he held them a bit away from his sides as he went around the counter, and down the stairs to the back entrance.  There was Dave, an expected sight, with Sellaphix's shipment probably just come from the docks.  But Jim Haliwell was there as well, looking smug.

Nate casually flicked some of the beetle goop towards Jim as he greeted Dave.  "Alright, Dave? You're making more work for me.  Know who's got to unload all this? Not Sellaphix for sure."

Dave coughed wetly and laughed.  "My best to your wife, eh!" Dave said as he put a bit of parchment in Nate's slimy hand.  Then the delivery wizard left the way he came and left Nate and Jimmy in the dim back room.

Only then did Nate make any indication he knew Jimmy - a smile spread across his face.  "You cheeky bugger! Coming here in the morning-?" Nate shook his head and with a quick movement made to sock his mate in the shoulder with his sopping fist.

Jimmy had been glancing to his side as Nate had answered the door. Unable to jump out of the way with his precious and rather fragile delivery balanced in his hands,  he flinched a little and wrinkled his nose as a slither of beetle slime caught him in the ear.

It was only when he rested the packages on a shelf at the side of the room that he could use his robe sleeve to clear the goo away, with more than a little difficulty. Just that little flick had gone a long way.

It kept him preoccupied for the few moments it took Dave to set his deliveries down and settle his business and make his way back out. When the door closed behind him, Jimmy looked over at Nate, retuning his grin. 

"Yeah, well. No offence, but I've someone prettier I'd rather be spendin' my evenin's with.   

He told him with a small laugh. 
 
"An' you know what they say about the early snidget. Ay....!" He exclaimed, trying to dodge Nate's  hand with only partial success - he still ended up with yet more slime on his shoulder.

"Mate....nice. What is that stuff? Am I going to end up with an 'ole burned in me eardrum. " He asked him rather nonchalantly,  sniffing once or twice at his sleeve before he dabbed at his right ear once more.

 
 

"Comes off with water.  Just beetle jelly," Nate scoffed good-naturedly. "Poncy git..."

Now that Dave was out of their hair, Nate could find out what Jimmy had come vending.  He wiped his hands and arms down on his apron and went to the nondescript crate he'd seen Jimmy deposit onto a shelf in between a box of crystal vials and some tins of perforated mice.

"What have we got..." he mumbled.  Nate held his wand like a pencil, drawing up the tack-nails that held the crate lid down.  Once it was open, he passed the lid off to Jimmy.  At seeing what was inside, he put his hands up in surrender and stepped back.

"Are you kidding me, mate?," he almost gasped.  Nate looked like he'd won a sweepstakes on the WWW, his face incredulous.  "You've got those? How have you got those?  I'm impressed - now a felon having seen these - but impressed!"

Jimmy had done quite a bit of business for Sellaphix before - this old apothecary was a regular.  But this was probably one of the craziest crates of merchandise that had come through the shop since Nate had ever heard about.

Jimmy looked up from his sleeve and chuckled.

"You never know for sure in here mate. " He replied, abandoning the attempts to clean his ear now that he knew it wouldn't damage him.

He leaned over the crate as Nate started to open it up. Not that he needed to see its contents, he already knew what was inside having checked the stock personally last night. All was how it should be, as it needed to be. If things messed up, he didn't get paid...and he really needed to be paid this week. 

"Felon? Nah...and I'm sure whoever buys these will go on to make cracking potions for the good of all wizardkind. " He told him, with a small smirk.

" Aint no harm in that."

"And the how's not so hard if you know who and what price....apparently." He admitted, with a rueful smile. He didnt know who had organised and smuggled them to the coast and he didn't wanted to - the less he knew, if this case, the better. His job had been to simply pick them up and bring one of them here.

He glanced up then, suddenly alert, his head turned towards the direction of the shop floor. He'd heard a noise out front.

"Whats that? You got customers?" He asked Nate, his hand already closing the lid to the crate in front of them.
   

Nate pushed the crate lid open again, against Jimmy's efforts to close it.  The Roonspoor egg looked like hundreds of golden galleons sitting there in its wood-shaving nest.  Dazmond would pay just to see one.  The ingredients derived from a roonspoor were just so potent - a drop or chip or flake of it went a long way.  An entire egg would fence for pounds and pounds of golden galleons.

"Whoever it is can wait," Nate said, finally allowing the lid to close.  He went to a chopping table and tore off a bit of towel and began scribbling a note. 

As he wrote, he quizzed his buddy.  "Sellaphix sure as hell didn't order this, did he?  Who're we holding it for - anyone specific? Or Bourgin just wants to fence it through our shop?"

At that, he bit his lip and made a sharp whistle.  An small owl winged in and offered his leg.  Nate loaded him up with a little letter and opened the back door for him.  He told the owl to deliver to Dazmond.  "She won't be up yet, but she's going to want to see this."

Then Nate heard it too, from the front of the shop.  He rolled his eyes.  "One minute!" he hollered.

Jimmy slid another small box on top of the box and then leant back a little, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was out front He couldnt see through to the shop floor from where he was standing and was a little reassured by that. He figured that also meant they couldnt see him.

"Huh?" He said, realising that Nate was talking to him.

"Oh..friend of your boss maybe..I dunno. " He shrugged with a wry smile.

"Don't get told details and don't ask. " He told him with a wry smile, leaning back onto one of the work surfaces in a gesture of relaxation though occasionally his eyes flicked towards the front of the shop.  

"Bourgin's got a hand in, as always, but I don't think he's more than sidelining in this and thats enough to get him nervous enough." He told him, his voice lower this time.

He watched Nate send the note out by owl with a little uneasiness. He trusted his friend but the ministry had intercepted some of their communications lately, or so he'd heard. Though he supposed they should have little reason to be expecting them here and now.  

"This stuff's pretty hot at the moment. A delivery was interrupted just over a week back  - a group of lads found a whole team of aurors waiting for em. Though the group was led by Tiverton and he's a bit of a cocky pillock. " He told him, as if by way of an explanation.

"Obviously pulled off too close a switch this time."

Tiverton was another smuggler, just a few years older than Jimmy but also well known in the circle for his cockiness and arrogance, not two attributes that Jimmy connected with himself, though it had been said to him before - you weren't cocky just because you knew you were good, right?  

"Did Sellaphix leave anything for me to collect? " Jimmy asked him casually. He had been told to expect a package in return.