The dark smoke and smell of cigarettes that hung in the air in this dingy pub nearly made him cough, the dank and smoky air seeming to cling to the insides of his throat. Tapendra did cough - and then shrank into himself, pulling his coat around himself a bit more tightly. He didn't want to draw attention to himself as he waited.

It had taken him only a few weeks to find her name and the instructions on how to find her, but it had felt like a year. Hogwarts, despite the overwhelming feel of doom that hung over it with the escape of Sirius Black, had become not just a home but a literal fortress. As scared as he had been over the whole business with the heir of Slytherin, Tapendra now had other things on his mind - things that made the mess over the muggleborns within Hogwarts seem minor. Almost.

That mess they had at least handled. They'd only traveled in groups, they didn't go anywhere after curfew, and generally they hid in their dorms and worried. There was a structure to that and the constant reassurance that people would take care of it. These days, those people seemed mean Harry Potter.

This - this no one would take care of. No one other than him. His friends knew how terrified he was, knew how much he dreaded what he felt sure was coming, but he hadn't been really that honest about just how desperate he was.

And now his mother was gone. Dead or simply run away, he didn't know. The baby was still in the mansion, and he had a feeling she was dead, too. And he'd be next if he didn't do something - and the something he wanted to do was so stupid it almost hurt.

But he was angry, too, and it was so easy to hang onto that anger. Wasn't that what Mum had told him - don't get scared, get angry? He was following that tenet now, and angry was what he was. He was going to die, he knew, but by Merlin he wasn't going to sit around and wait for it to come for him like some sort of sheep.

And so he'd dug through those papers he'd stolen, before handing them to Dumbledore's office for safekeeping - safely sealed away in a box. Hogsmeade trips had had him stalking the Hog's Head, and it hadn't been hard to find her name on the lips of the shadier sort that lingered there: Ira Almasy. She did things for people. But best of all - he'd never heard of her. He had to hope that meant that she and Prideaux were not associated.

No one knew where he was, he knew - not even his friends. He'd made some easy excuse, that he wanted to be alone for awhile, and it hadn't been too difficult to slip away from the Hogsmeade trip, through one of the floo fireplaces in the Broomsticks and into Diagon. And from there...

Knockturn was terrible. He crept through the muddy, dirty street and dodged those that reached out towards him, drawing the thin flannel coat he wore tighter around him. His out of uniform clothes were shabby and didn't fit, and thankfully he looked just old enough to pass as a recent graduate. Not that it mattered - would they really care about wandering children, here?

Best not to think about it. He knew the sort of care they showed here would probably send him into a Hag's oven.

The men in the Hog's Head had sent him to one of the many pubs in Knockturn. This one a little more upscale than the Hog's Head (it actually had a floor, by Merlin) but just as dark on the inside. When he opened the door, dark figures in the gloom turned to look at him. He considered closing the door again, for a moment. He had his wand, of course, but magic wasn't something he could use without the Ministry sweeping down. He had a knife, as much as that'd help him - and against the sorts that frequented this kind of place, it wouldn't help much.

He slipped inside, carefully navigating the mess of tables and looking for a specific table. Every step he took told him this was a terrible, terrible idea. But he let that anger and resolve grow in him, again - and it was then easy to walk to the bar, as he’d been instructed to do.

The barkeep’s expression was not friendly – but could he really expect it to be? There was an awkward moment of silence as Tapendra fought to find the right words, aware of what he’d been told – you have to bribe or silver-tongue your way in, kid. You can’t see her any other way.

Well…Tapendra did not have a silver tongue and had no illusions to the contrary. But he also didn’t have much money at all, either.

“I’m here to see Almasy,” he said finally, and he watched the man’s face shift, first to surprise and then to a kind of controlled but sneering amusement.

“No, I don’t think you are,” he said, picking up a pint glass and drawing his wand, cleaning it. His gaze was fixed on Tapendra the entire time. “Lot of people come in here who think they need t’see her, mind. But most of them know how this works-“

“I can pay,” Tapendra said, trying to echo the man’s fixed gaze and only halfway succeeding. The undercurrent of anger kept him firm on his feet, but his voice gave away some of his hesitation. The man looked him up and down again, and Tapendra hurriedly dug into his pockets, drawing out the few galleons he had.

Knowing his luck, they wouldn’t be enough. He put them on the bar, and the man stared at them for a moment – counting. The he looked up at Tapendra, frowning. The silence that followed seemed to stretch out for longer than it really did.

 “Eh. Good enough. Not like it’s my problem if she doesn’t like you.” He nodded his head towards the room in the back of the bar. “Knock on the door in the back there and she’ll see you,” he said, and rather abruptly he took the galleons and lost interest – his heavy browed gaze falling to the bar and away from Tapendra.

Tapendra hesitated, and then headed towards the door in the back – pausing in front of it. It was a line in the sand, he knew…but he also knew he wasn’t any safer on this side of it. Best to do down fighting, even if it was stupid.

He looked up, and knocked.

Her surroundings were meagre, murky.

Ira Almasy sat back tastefully, a spindly figure draped in winter blue and shadowy black. Her frame was sharp - though not as it would be in approaching years - and softened by fine ringlets of damask blonde. A cigarette held itself at the mercy of long fingers, trails of coiling smoke drifting across the small and dark room. There was only her.

This was how it must be, she knew, how it would be. Solitude. Not yet. Niet there were still friends in Moscow but they dwindled by the skin of their worthless necks. England was a recourse-  her cousin expected daughters and such children would be better off raised by mutts than the sordid mudblood who bore them[1].

Knock, Knock

Pale green eyes awoke from contemplation and Ira extended her unoccupied hand before twisting it towards herself- after a brief pause, the heavy door crooned inwards. It revealed a shape that the Russian aristocrat had not expected. But she was new still to these shores and those who came to her during such an hour were, more often than not, received.

"Privyet." Ira deliberated the tall wizard appraisingly, expression cold with curiousity. The door slammed shut behind him without warning and she shifted her gaze to a vacant chair at the table, indicating that he sit. "Please."

1.	Eliza, Raine Almasy's muggleborn mother.

The woman who stood in the doorway was not quite what he had been expecting. Her features were sharp, her eyes pale and cold and yet somehow the sharpest part of her. That - that he’d expected. The two years spent in the company of Prideaux and the man’s associates had made the experience and appearance of such people almost mundane.

Almost.

No – what caught him off guard was the bright, curly hair and the dress, which he could only think of as bouncy. Despite its dark color, the trim spoke of a more cheerful look. The light color of her cloak helped too, of course.

Silently, he stepped into the room, forcing from his conscious any fear of what might happen to him within its confines. He’d already gone too far to go back – if not in reality, then in his mind.

Tapendra jumped when the door slammed, the obvious twitching giving away his nervousness more than anything. The world rarely working in sync with his thoughts, but today it seemed to be doing so. He looked at the dark wooden door in surprise for a moment longer than he should have, Ira’s voice making him turn, collect himself, and follow her towards the desk.

She spoke in Russian, and he looked at her somewhat blankly as he racked his brain for the proper response, pausing with his hand on the back of the chair. The word was a greeting, he knew. He settled for a quiet but polite “Hallo,” in response, before sitting down in the wooden chair across from her.

There was a long moment where he was unsure what to say – exactly how did one have these sorts of conversations? His experiences with Prideaux did him no good, here. There had always been orders involved, there, not requests – not business arrangements.

The urge to fidget was almost overwhelming. He settled for gripping his knees, his gaze on her face steady.

“I apologize if this imposes on time more valuably spent,” he said, going to his automatic pattern of politeness. “I was informed you would be the ideal person to contact for getting jobs done…discreetly.” And discretion was something he would need, he knew, but what he wanted might also be a difficult proposition.

A curious creature- inexperienced, yes, but only a touch of the innocent in him. Innocence had no place before her.

Ira flicked the tip of her cigarette, ash falling silently to the floor as she observed the bespectacled youth with appraising eyes. He was keen not to offend. Khorosho. The apologies slipped by unnoticed as she drew in a breath of smoke and leaned back, an arm across the table. Sharp fingernails drummed rhythmically across the wood.

"Discreet, da. When I must. " Ira paused to meet the boy in the eye. "You possess a problem, then, that requires discretion." This wasn't a question. "If one comes to see me here, you either have a problem or you are the problem." Her gaze narrowed at him.

There was a special pleasure in exterminating those so young. You took more potential of life than life itself- but here was perhaps not a good mark. Niet, she could not evoke the image. And to what end, even if she could?

"You also have a story..." the witch placed down her cigarette and it began to die in a flicker of embers. "It is on your face, and you are fortunate. Today I can afford to listen." Ira glanced up with a faint smile that had little to do with good intention. "Tell me."

She was silent, stoic and terribly unreadable – just the thing to erode his confidence. It was the thought that that very erosion was the point of her stoic indifference that made him keep going. He was determined, in a stubborn sort of way, not to be intimidated by it.

Suitably cautious, however – that he could be. He considered her simple words well before he answered, thick lips pressed together, biting his lower lip as he considered. His bright blue gaze was drawn to the rhythmic drumming of her manicured fingers, watching her nails flash in the dim light as they tapped against the desk.

He smiled, the smile slight, rather dull, and definitely rueful. “I am not the problem,” he clarified, and her manner kept him from adding for now. Best not to let her know of future business opportunities. “But I certainly possess a problem, yes.”

Her own smile made him think shark – there was an edge to it that made him think of fins cutting through the water. Thankfully, this story was not one he could tell, much less to someone like her.

“My parents made bad choices both in their own life choices and in whom they trusted,” he said, simply, adding they had me, for one in his head. “And now they have left me to sort their problems out for myself. Unfortunately, they also left me nothing.” He gave her his best appraising look, carefully masked. “I cannot pay you in money, but-“

He let his breath out. “But I know things that may be of value to you, or your clients. I was hoping that you might accept that as an exchange of sorts.” It was rather why he’d gone to Almasy as opposed to some of the other names he knew of – they took cash and turned it into dead bodies. She…seemed to have a broader range of clientele and expertise.

Information?

In Moscow, valuable, but here in this dank and unimportant room the offer reeked of a poor man's desperation. Ira enjoyed the desperation of other beings, deeply. It was a dark cloud with pinpricks of opportunity. The woman paused for effect and set down her cigarette; it dissolved into powdery ash without indication.

"An exchange..." she breathed out in a tone sharpened by disappointment yet not altogether dangerous. "Meagre. Like everything else about this putrid place."

England was not her first choice, niet, but there was - even now she knew - an era soon coming where it might be her last.

"I think, a higher price." Ira allowed her lips to pull into a smile and it softened her countenance. "I will extract a favour from you in the future. In return, now, I help. Do these conditions appeal to you?" The air in the room seemed to center its focus on the young wizard- so close to the whetted jaws of a contract.

Tapendra swallowed, the movement and sound obvious in the strange, dusty silence that pervaded this room. Her words chilled him to the bone, the way she spoke them so coldly and placidly, her judgment simple and damning. His offer was, in truth, all he really had. He had no money, no real possessions. He had his life and what he knew, which was best described as too much.

Admitting he knew too much to a woman like this seemed rather like cutting himself and hopping into a tank with a shark. A foolish and dangerous notion.

He sat silently, unsure what to say to her words. He longed to drop his gaze but dared not - instinct told him to keep this woman in his sights. She was not obviously dangerous, but everything about her broadcasted it, made it clear that he might be lucky indeed to walk out of here alive.

Was this how the purebloods dealt? Did they walk into these exchanges, so over assured of their own safety that they didn't find her demeanor worrying in the slightest? If so, they were idiots, plain and simple.

At the words a higher price he froze, entirely still in the chair as he listened intently to her words. He did not miss the significance of her choice in them, and could think of no reply to her at first. His eyes, large and uncertain, searched her slightly softened face for some clue to what sort of favor she wanted. He found none.

"I-" He started, and cut himself off, chewing the inside of his lip as he considered. Did he have any choice but to agree? He knew of no other information dealers that he could safely go to. This woman was new, and (he hoped) would not yet have the connections that would let her deduce his head might be of more value than any information he could provide.

And...with what he had planned, did any favor she'd expect to be fulfilled by him seem so daunting? He was a skinny, mangy teenager with more freckles than common sense. Surely she could not expect anything too...difficult.
Of course, it didn't have to be difficult to be a terrible price indeed.

Tapendra set his jaw. Whatever came after this wasn't important. He was already tumbling head over heels  into the rabbit hole; did it matter how far he went, if he got what he wanted?

"Yes," he said at last.

"Yes."

That was all she needed. Ira bowed her head once, slowly, lips spreading into a predatory smile- she was planting a flag. Presumably this boy would some day become a man and who knew, then, what favours would be necessary? Potential was the most parlous of magics.

"Horosho[1]. Then I require details of services I may render..." the witch paused as a spindly hand stole into her robes to retrieve a minute roll of parchment, no greater than a coil of tobacco sheet. "I also require your name and your hand. There is no, how do you call it? Gentleman's agreement?"

The parchment rolled forward with a flick of the finger and unfurled across the other end of her table. It was concisely written in vague but compromising terms- at the very end was an elaborate coat of arms and the name  Almasy  neatly printed. This was a contract.

Ira crossed her legs elegantly and sat back with an unblinking, attentive expression.

1.	Good in Russian

Tapendra could not help the instinct to shrink back into the chair at her smile. He was going to regret this, he just knew it. But that was optimistic thinking, wasn't it? That implied he was going to survive the coming months at all, much less survive with his scruples intact. People like this would be the end of him, sooner rather than later.

So long as he could be the end of one of them and get the bloody baby out, it might be worth it.

She summoned a parchment, the tiny scroll more terrifying than any smile. It was also assuring - at first. Contracts had terms, terms he could hold her against - but as he read it (it seemed very silly indeed to simply sign such a thing) the terms were so vague and damning it was forcing him to agree to just about anything.

Could he argue against it? Her smile made him doubt it. And if he wanted to get this done...

He put the scroll down, looking at it as he spoke. It seemed so tiny, innocuous - even a bit cute, really, when sat on the desk by itself.

"I need - well." He sucked his breath in. It seemed so silly now, to say it out loud. "I need a gun," he said. "Shotgun, pump-action, with plenty of ammo to reload it. It's a - it's a muggle thing." He looked up, to see if she understood. "A muggle weapon. And very illegal in this country." Yet Ryan had mentioned them quite a bit; they couldn't be impossible to find, surely. Just because something was illegal, it was by no means rare - even in the wizarding world they were constantly worried about runespoors, and Tapendra assumed live snakes were harder to hide than simple metal tubes.

He wasn't sure why she'd need his hand, but he waited to extend it or give his name.

There were few words that did not come her way in conversation - not many at all, in fact - but certainly gun was one of them.

"A muggle weapon." Ira repeated dryly as she raised her brow at the young man, unimpressed. He did not appear familiar with her particular contract process either. With unexpectedly maternal approach, she rose and the chair moved back on its own silent accord.

What were they teaching them in these British schools?

"Da. I know the weapon," the witch imperilled his end of the table and fashioned an eagle feather quill with a turn of the wrist. "Your name first-" her tone turned businesslike, losing its menacing undertone. "- and then your finger. It will hurt a little but do not pull away."[1]

Ira handed him the quill, an amused tilt to the cut of her lips.

"This gun," she added. "You desire only one?" It was more practical to acquire such things in greater quantities- but a single piece was not difficult, that is, if a single piece was all the boy would need. The doubt would go unexpressed.

1.	The parchment will draw a thumb or fingerprint of blood, for ink.

Her judgment was something he set his jaw at. He had his reasons for wanting such a thing, their ability to be enchanted and the way their payload was unstoppable with magic one of the major factors. Most of Prideaux's guards wouldn't recognize one, either, which was helpful. Despite his fear, he met her raised eyebrow with a steady but defiant gaze. It was standing up for himself, yes, but in a way that betrayed his youth.

She produced a quill, Tapendra trying not to move away as she approached. A contract sealed in blood, then; a nasty business, doubly so in the wizarding world. A contract in blood was a contract that stayed with you.

As he signed the contract, his loopy handwriting neat and then circled as was his habit, he fought down the feeling this was a mistake.

It was as he went to prick his finger than she spoke again, and he looked up at her. Without the benefit of knowing where one got these things, he had assumed getting just the one would be difficult. Getting more than one was...tempting. He frowned, pen poised near his fingers.

"If I say more than one, does that...change anything?" He asked, gesturing at the contract. His uncertainty was obvious. Having more than one kind of gun would be...useful, wouldn't it?

There was something familiar about the boy.

In that single look, defiant, she distinguished resolve: he would accomplish his goal or die in the attempt. Ira had been both aim and source of such a thing before and it was no trifling matter. From his signature she made out the name Trishna.

"No," the witch's gaze flickered, parchment to face. Her certitude was piercing. "Unless you wish to equip an armada- it changes nothing. These terms are approximate and binding, although  you will find that I am generous to my clients."

Fear was an effective incentive but often it could paralyse rather then spur. Better, then, to feed a recognized hunger.

"Your welfare is a concern, Mister Trishna. I do not sign contracts with dead men."

Surprised as he was by her words, the smile that broke across Tapendra's face was not a nice one; it was a smirk, wry and dark. Oh, she might not do it - but here she was, signing a contract with a very dead man. Even if this worked, he never expected to truly get away with it. They'd let him go, let him drop his guard, and then zap.

All the more reason to be prepared, right?

"If that's the case," he said, after a few moment's consideration. "A few more wouldn't hurt, I suppose..." He tried to remember the types of gun Ryan had described to him, lips pressing together. Muggles seemed to have a lot of names for a metal tube that shot little balls, and he wasn't quite sure what the various difference between them were.

He ran a hand over his face. "The powerful ones?" He said, vaguely, as he struggled with the names. Ryan had said types and names, and now he was struggling to remember which was which. "Shotguns, handguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, submachine guns, Kalashnikovs," he said, largely to himself, drumming his fingers on his face. That last one didn't sound right. Was it a name?

He wished he could ask Ryan about this more directly, but none of his friends could know. They'd try to stop him.
Finally, he looked up at Ira. "One of each type, then, yes," he said. He'd figure out where he'd hide them later. One man held them, so guns couldn't be that big, could they? "If that's not too much to ask," he added, after a moment.

He did not appear thoroughly educated on the subject matter of muggle fire arms but it was plain to see that the boy knew what he wanted: the means to a specific end. Ira smiled coldly at the kalash.

"You ask-" she held out the pale palms of her spindly hands in a gesture of generosity, "- and I will deliver. One of each."

Her personal experience with the weapons was paltry; still she knew that more was not necessarily better. There was also the fact that he was not familiar to handling guns and would need some... form of instruction. A mild look of distaste crossed the witch's aristocratic features as she retreated to her seat.

"A man will come to you very soon." Ira lowered herself on to the chair and glanced pointedly at the parchment that Trishna had not yet marked. "Elsegood is his name. He will surrender these weapons and advise you to their use."

Another cigarette appeared between her fingers, lit. Aged tobacco pervaded the dank room- with it, a strange perfume of blood and oud.

"If you must speak to me again, it is through him." The tone of her voice made it obvious that this was unlikely. "Are these arrangements to your satisfaction?"

One of each. He hoped they didn't break when enchanted; he'd have to secret them into his Hogwarts trunk somehow, or - he'd think about it. Either way, he'd have to get them while still at Hogwarts, and hide them while under the Trace. It was tricky.

"Yes. They are," he said, and looked down at the quill in his hands. He'd been twirling it, fidgeting; now he looked at it, aware that it had probably sold him off to something. His own fault, naturally, but...his gaze darted to the signature he'd written on the contract before darting up to Ira.

"I'm still - I'm still in school," he said, to make sure he could be clear. " Hogsmeade would be ideal as a meeting point, if that helps." Naturally, helping was foremost in his mind. He needed to get this over with, and fast. The other alternative was breaking into Hogwarts, and with the uproar currently going on...he wasn't sure if one of the men in this woman's employ could get in. No doubt they could, if they tried hard enough. It was best not to risk it.

He stood, still holding the quill, his other hand holding the chair to try to avoid the screech of wood on wood. "Thank you," he said, and made to put the quill down on the desk.