A very dangerous thing was happening to Anadotti Squiggs. She was feeling sober.

Not the happy "it's been two months clean, here's a new medallion, try for four months, what don't you tell everyone how your life has changed in a little room filled with folding chairs" sober. No. This was "stone cold with withdrawal symptoms, feeling like a slab of meat fallen off the butcher's hook because the buzzing flies were like the scuzzing headache to the brain where you can't sleep, itch like crazy, watching the minutes twitch by" sober.

Dotty was in the urgent need of a fix without the resources to do so. And happy magical street alley whatever where the wizards lived wasn't the kind of place to cash in for a fix quickly. Daz had told her they had to cut down on the billywigs because the stings were becoming big ticketers these days (something about school kids in the north) but Dotty had yet to see any dough from that venture of watching jars of so-fast-they're-invisible insects all day. Her stream of revenue was in a drought and could do with a slush fund flood.

And she hated wizard money too. Not the jingle-jingle of it in a money bag when she had any, just the fact that it was so much weighted change. You had to count all the time and Dotty had done plumb pour the last time she had a standardized math test, so asking her addled mind at any stage to make change on counts of 17 and 29 were always going to make her loose money and upend the metaphorical half finished jigsaw puzzle in the lobby of the old folks home.

Give her cash! Nice crispy paper that was easy to store and hide (mainly the underwear regions) even if they called it pound notes over here in the land of tea and crumpets. What next, were distances measured by temperature degrees Celsius? Were pub pints labeled in hours and minutes? They weighted things with stones for frock coated sake, and stones'd was where Dotty was longing to return to.

---

So Dotty was several blocks removed from the magically hidden streets she had called 'crash zone' for the past several months, tucked out of sight from the drizzly street, where the last of the light from the day ended tonight.[1] She didn't hear much but the slosh of waters plodded through by pedestrians or from the main traffic roads on either end of the block.

Dotty's teeth were gritting in such a state they could mince garlic as she watched the muggles. Funny word that, she was muggle. Muggle born, whatever. All Dotty knew is that she was magical unlike her dumb siblings and the muggles rarely noticed when magic was used, so they were rich picketers. Rich picnics. Damnit, what was it? Rich Pickings!

There was a food vendor across the street, a steaming cart under an umbrella sending pungent odors into the air like the fart of a steak dinner in the same room as a hungry man, or the same street as a hungry witch like Dotty, but she wasn't ambitious enough to rob the dark skinned vendor out of cashbox and a #5 special with extra condiments. Plus, it was all foreign food, even for here. Fla-waffles and things and though hungry Dotty was not in a breakfast for supper mood. Plus plus, she didn't have the magical muster to cast off whatever was needed to rob a food vendor guy's cart (as that spell was not Salem's curriculum) so her magic would have to be more stealthy.

Dotty perked up from her hiding place. There was a hopeful mark at the food vendor's, passing bills for a kebob. As her eyes practically twitched in spirals she zero'd in on where the customer placed his billfold before biting into his purchase.

Dotty slunk out of sight when he crossed the street and walked away, Then she stalked after him, some guy bout her age or just older, with his hair shaved down to peach fuzz. Dotty stalked into range, then pulled out her wand and said a spell, softly but with purpose.

"Accio Wallet."

1.	Weather Almanac Jan 25

Everything about this country was disappointing.  The weather, the people, and right now in particular the food, which Aviad was not happy that he was having to spend a small fortune on when it should have cost maybe fifteen shekels back home.  Scowling, he'd opened his wallet and dumped a collection of change into his hand so that he could pick through it for the necessary strange British coins.  The food vendor looked all too amused by the delay.

"From out of town?" he asked, with only the slightest hint of an accent.

Aviad eyed him.

A few moments later, after he'd finally managed to separate his quid from his knuts and sickles, he'd started away down the street, with a shwarma for his troubles that was definitely not of the same quality or variety that he would have gotten back home.  He gave a heavy sigh, annoyed.  Now to find the nearest entrance to London's underground metro, which he knew were commonplace all over the world but still made him feel claustrophobic whenever he --

His thoughts of irritable misery as he bit into the shwarma were interrupted by the fact that his wallet chose that moment to escape from his pocket.

"Ach!"  In the sudden rush of confusion, he nearly dropped his food, which would have surely put him in an even worse mood.  What the hell?!  But yes -- even as he tried to swipe for the leather billfold, it was zooming away down the street, heedless of the miserable, drizzly weather or the fact that its rightful owner was still several meters behind, and was now even more annoyed than he'd been mere moments before.

-SLUP!- Into Dotty's wet mitts. Not that she was wearing mitts but her sleeve was soaked. With a successful catch she cackled. Yes, not just laughed, cackled the way young witches and wizards would be warned as a sign of Hags in the area as she immediately ripped open the contents of the swiped wallet.

Only to stop cackling and groan with the spit of disgust. More frocking coins! The bill count was low and there are more metal versions of paper hole punch-out confetti. Dotty was so disappointed she didn't recognize the significance of the missed muggle and magical coinage, instead dropping the wallet so the coins scattered.

With that dumped and the bills crammed into an internal hiding place, Dotty proceed to get the tango out of Dodge. Only, this was London. There wasn't even an imported Dodge Rover nearby for the analogy to make sense.

Warning - language, albeit in Hebrew.

HaTihat harah!  The quality of vocabulary running through Aviad's mind right now would certainly have been inappropriate in any language, but somehow the added weight of angry Hebrew made it sound that much more formidable.  With a snarl, he scrambled after his unexpectedly airborne wallet, even though it had already gone zooming away down the street.

Someone was going to die.  Preferably the witch or wizard who had stupidly decided to pickpocket him -- because he'd realized, seconds into his flight, that no mundane thief would be able to make his wallet take on such a life of its own.

These days, it was rare that he used his wand, but Aviad didn't stop to think of the consequences, not even in the middle of a Muggle street.  His shwarma was already falling to pieces; he grabbed for the oft-forgotten wooden shaft with his free hand and aimed it at the small figure that was now dashing away down the street.  "Accido!"[1]

1.

Trip Jinx

A sprint through this meteorological spritzer was all Dotty believed kept her from escaping and trying this same tactic a half hour or so later several blocks away, maybe even robbing the next food cart or truck in the process.

Not so.

Her boots were high, her skirts over fishnets short, and jackets baggy so that she had free movement, not even to trip on her shoelaces if her boots were untied. Yet trip Dotty did, in the exact same nature as the cartoon character given the vaudevillian cane to be forced to exit stage right. Only the aforementioned invisible cane analogy to catch her by the shins and not the neck.

"Frockin!" was the timber to her fall, as she continued forward without realizing that her feet were momentarily unresponsive. Dotty just had time to have her arms braced when she fell of the sidewalk into the babbling runoff brook aiming for the gutter. Whereas she had been drizzly before, now she was soaked. And not in the fun way as in sliding down the long plastic sheet slide combined with a hose summertime favorite combo.

Her hands and joints stung from the collapse but Dotty crawled out of the street. She was heading for another alley but with lost time that gave her unknown (as she hadn't turned around) pursuer an opportunity to catch up.

The girl -- the witch -- ahead of him had gone tumbling into the gutter, and Aviad poured on the speed that he needed to catch up.  Even from behind, she was a dirty, squirrely looking thing, with gnarled hair and bedraggled clothes.  The hex had ended her flight by foot, but even without normal powers of locomotion, she was still scrambling to escape, dragging and clawing and fighting toward the alleyway.

Aviad put a stop to any forward momentum when he snatched her by the back of her shirt.  Freeing both hands meant giving up on the remains of his lunch, which would surely be added to the grungy little thief's account, but at least it meant he was free to yank her upwards.  He gave the girl an unfriendly shake, baring his teeth in a snarl as he aimed his wand deliberately at her face.

"What the hell?!"  He shook her violently again, totally oblivious to the fact that somewhere down the street, the food vendor was watching.  "You thought that you could steal from me?  My wallet?  G'nevet tepesha!  You stupid little thief!"

With sudden immediacy Dotty was hauled up by the neckline. Thankfully not the hair. Now she was bad brreadth smelling (probably hers) close to the face of the short buzzed haired and scruffy foreign looking fellow who also had a wand. Ship ship ship ship ships on the griddle!

He rattled her around, wand pointing at her face. A constapated look crossed Dotty's face. Come on, change, change! No use. Dotty was only a semi-decent animagus and couldn't change when caught off guard, hurt, and running on empty in the tank stomach.

"Well, Guh-nu velvet your t'pessha!" Dotty retorted, not knowing what language she was being shouted in at but recognizing the tonality from experience. "Not your wallet, bubsy, I just needed some quick cash. Your wallet's there, and there, and there..." ash she checked off all the places the scattered coinage had rolled.

It didn't help that his breath sounded smelled like recent edibles. Dotty could feel her tongue coating in saliva. "And I object to two of those last three." She thought a moment. "Well, one, I know I'm short ok?"

"And you are stupid!"  Aviad shook the young woman again, his hand wrapped in her shirt, even though rattling her brain wasn't doing any good besides making him feel less affronted.  Baring his teeth, he yanked her higher, pointing the tip of his wand dead between her eyes.

It was the indignity of it that enraged him.  This little rodent-like thief, snatching his money away like he was some common Muggle.  Aviad would have rattled her again, except doing so wasn't doing him any good.  His money was scattered, his lunch lost, and all he had to show for it was a smelly little captive whose face was twisted up like she was in dire need of a toilet.

"Tell me," he growled through gritted teeth, "why I should not hex you where you stand."  Movement out of the corner of his eye -- Aviad nearly whipped his head around, but stopped himself just in time.  The Azazel-cursed falafel seller.  He could have sworn.  Instead, he aimed a withering look at the girl, as if he could perform Avada Kedavra through sheer force of his gaze.  "You ruined my lunch!"

It was like crossed-eye-o'vision trying to track where is stick was pointing as she found herself higher and more choking on the brick wall after that last brain shake. No not that stick his wand.

"I'll do anything you want!" pulled up from the ol' file of tricks in panic'd response. Not Dotty's favorite but got the job down getting her out of a jam and jelly jar. "Least you can afford lunch man that's all I want. I'll do anything mista'."

'Mista'? Was that too early-80s-New Jerseyian floozy? Queenzelish? Way to date the time era of your block busted video that caused extra fines at the video rental store because on the way back to return it you got into shove matches with your siblings?

In the haze of vision blurring from suspension she noticed dude from under the vending umbrella, probably coming from down the street to see what was the matter. "Hey bud, mind--urghha!" Whatever plea got strangled in her throat from all this unusual altitude and method of being lifted there.

His options had very quickly limited themselves.  Even if he'd wanted to hex the girl, with that nosy falafel vendor staring them down, now he couldn't; the stigma against performing magic in front of Muggles was too deeply ingrained.  Aviad let out a low growl, clenching his teeth.

"I should make you swear an Unbreakable Vow on that, rat girl," he growled at the thief.  Even so, he relaxed his grip ever so slightly, allowing her enough space between her collar and her neck that she could resume breathing.  However he decided to enact revenge, it was not in his best interest to continue this conversation in full view of the Muggle public. 

"Come on," he ordered her irritably.  He still had hold of her shirt, and now he yanked her irritably toward the alley that had been the earlier target of her escape.  Once they were out of sight, he could shout more freely.  A large part of him still wanted to throttle the little thief, to doom her to a painful and ignoble death, but a much smaller, slightly less prone to overreacting part was beginning to put forth the notion that there might be another purpose that could come out of this.  Scowling, he gave her the most withering look he could.  "If I am going to have to buy you lunch too, then you are going to owe me twice as much."

What was going to be worse, choking or the wedgie she was going to get from sliding down the wall? With a wail-ish much needed deposit of air Dotty slumped some, submissive at this point as the delayed kick to the lower half wasn't going to do much anyways.

"Even I know you need a third on that," she said, rubbing the spot where his wand had left a skin indent. That was one of the first things she tried with Stacey Rebecca Donna and Annette back in school before some of their various other mischief and that night Stacey died. Turns out trying an Unbreakable Vow doesn't make anything more secure. Or make a Vow, but luckily Dotty had managed to convince them it had.

Dotty barely had time to reorientate herself before being further dragged into the alley. This time by the good graces to not have it be the hair. It sounded like the ol' panic'd standby had kept the skin of her neck out of the proverbial teeth or however idiotic idioms went.

She was almost going to suggestion accio-ing the rest of his spare change off the sidewalk but owning the guy for two whatever burrito-shaped things he was eating (or was that three with him buying two again in the near future?) but she wasn't going to be in debt to the guy for that long.

Right?


Done