He had been sure he'd forgotten how alcohol tasted after so long, so he tried quite a few.

The Hogs Head hadn't changed dramatically in the past decade, and was still a hiding hole for those who didn't need to hide completely, but didn't want the hustle and bustle of the popular pubs. Those who wanted to drink in solitude, only interrupted by another person being slammed across the bar when they brushed the arm of a stranger, where nobody batted an eyelid at a package or brown envelope crossing the table.

People here knew who he was well enough from his ugly mug being plastered against Jane Hunter's Daily Prophet Article[1] a few days before. They stared, but he could hazard a guess at the families of most and spot a few faces he'd either spoken with in those dark times or questioned before.

With nothing much to do than drink and brood - nobody keen to employ a recently released criminal, and no friends to speak of, Lawrence had been installed at one end of the bar for several hours glowering beneath his messy hair which was beginning to be streaked with grey.

A lack of alcohol meant his tolerance had almost been reset, combined with a lack of nourishment, lower body weight, he was pissed well before most in the pub and the nod of his head suggested it was time to take a break. The smash of glass on the floor even more so, and he swore, faces turned, expecting a fight to have begun.

"Bloody glasses, paint them with oil and dirt - yeah whadda you looking at?" He fumbled for his wand, reaching with his left hand instinctively, and becoming enraged. He'd held his wand in his left before Azkaban, but without a hand there any more he was getting accustomed to using his right.

"Look at that, if it wasn't enough they locked me away, the bastards took my wand hand. Where's the ruddy dignity in that?" Seizing the wand with his right hand, which had become his dominant and only hand for everything during his incarceration, he brandished it with an unsteady arm.

"I'll take more than just his hand if I ever ..." He curled his lip and mumbled the rest, turning back, forgetting the broken glass.

Lawrence tucked his left arm around his torso and hid the stump beneath the second hand jacket that had seen far better days, and rested his forehead in his right hand, hair falling around his face as he laughed to himself without any glee.

1.	Feb 2 Disgraced Auror Freed From Azkaban

The shattered glass had scattered across the dirty stone floor, and it said something about the quality of the establishment that the bartender hadn't yet stirred to sweep it up.  The broken shards crunched under Aviad's boots as he made his way to the counter, heralding his arrival even before he took firm hold of an empty barstool.

His position at the small, cramped table hadn't given him the best view of the source of the most recent soliloquy.  The interior of the Hog's Head wasn't designed for easy lines of sight; the dirty, dingy room was all hard corners and deep shadows, with an emphasis on forgettable faces and intentional anonymity.  It reminded Aviad of some unlicensed bar that he might find on the back streets of Ramallah or Amman, the sort of place that patrons only came when they wanted to make certain that no one would remember their name.

The man at the counter, though, was an exception.  Aviad gave him a good, hard look as he lowered himself to sit.  Lawrence Musgrave: Fallen Auror and reformed citizen, if the Daily Prophet was to be believed.  Eager and excited to reintegrate himself into magical society.  And now, unfortunate patron of the Hog's Head Inn, and evidently a solo performer on a night when the pub itself seemed far too quiet.

Aviad had emptied his glass while he'd still been waiting in the corner, silently evaluating the best way to begin. With Musgrave obviously out as well, that would hardly do for either of them; this was a conversation best had over a bitter, hops-filled pint.  The mage jerked his head towards the bartender, held up two fingers, and then nodded to Musgrave.  The old, bearded server eyed him for a moment, and then slowly but dutifully stirred, moving slowly as he began to prepare the two drinks.

"Well.  You know what they say.  One in the hand is worth..."  He smiled thinly, his dark, glittering eyes already locked on Musgrave's unruly head of hair.  "But you've heard that one before, yeh?"

"Well.  You know what they say.  One in the hand is worth... But you've heard that one before, yeh?"

Lawrence's head snapped up and his eyes glowered beneath the mop of scraggy hair. Beside him loomed a tall, slender man with darker skin that the ex convict, a sharp nose and eyes like ink.

"I'm not interested in bushes." He retorted to the stranger, and narrowed his eyes. "Metaphorical, physical, literal.. female…" He drew the last out in a quieter tone, eyes sliding past the stranger just in case. Never knew when someone was trying to get you to pay for a hag in here…

He drew himself a little further upright on the stool.
"Can I help you?"

The tone suggested Lawrence wanted to do anything but help the other wizard, at least in conventional ways.

The mage barked out a sharp laugh, white teeth flashing as he shot a grin at the older man.  Now that the bartender had started to move, he was quick.  Before long, two drinks had been dropped before him on the counter, and the old, bearded man was eyeing him again as he subsided back into inactivity behind the bar.

Aviad gave him a brisk nod, and then reached for the second of the two drinks.  "Me?" he asked, flashing a sharp smirk as he slid it down the counter to the one-handed man.  "No one can help me, brother.  Which," he added conversationally, picking up his own drink by the rim, "is maybe why I'm not so big on help." 

He took a long sip from it, eying Musgrave over the glass rim.  Disheveled, uncouth...hardly the sort of man who was in the middle of making his fresh start anew.  The world was a cold, cruel place in the best of times; it was hardly going to be kinder to Lawrence Musgrave for his stumble.

"You know what else they say, besides."  He shrugged again, though his eyes darted quickly back to Musgrave as he took another sip.  "Give a man a fish...I don't really remember the rest," he admitted with a smirk.  "But I think it ends with something like, Cut off a man's appendage, and maybe it wouldn't hurt for someone to buy him a beer."  He held up his left hand, all fingers spread, as if to ward off any protestations.  "No strings.  Consider it a welcome back into the world."

Lawrence's eyes slid suspiciously from the stranger to the drink and back again. He shrugged, scooped it up with his one remaining hand and toasted the other man. It was the closest he'd get to 'thanks'. His gaze didn't deviate from the other man, being in such close proximity with another wizard, while still fumbling for his wand with the wrong hand, and worse for wear, he didn't have a great deal of trust in strangers.

"I will find the wizard who did it." He continued his earlier moaning, "Its inhumane." He gestured with his stump in a mildly agressive manner before shoving it back into his second hand jacket. The scraggly ex inmate took a generous sip after a smaller one which confirmed the beer was all as it seemed.

"Who do you need to know about?" He asked the stranger, still eyeing the other wizard suspiciously. "I was given messages, but only for those who are meant to hear them."

Aviad smirked slightly, his eyebrows quirking as he regarded the other man.  Pressing his mouth shut, he glanced sidelong at the bartender.  Now that the drinks were delivered, the old wizard had resumed his normal slouch behind the bar.  Judging by his dull-eyed expression, he was paying attention to nothing and no one all around him -- but even so, caution was paramount.

"You wound me, brother."  He smirked as Musgrave, meeting the recent inmate's eyes directly, as he pressed a hand idly to his beer.  Here in England, everything was close to room temperature, but condensation still beaded as he rubbed a finger against the grimy glass.  "I said no strings, yeh?  Can't a man do another a good turn without expecting something in return?"

The surface of the bar was as dirty as the glassware; if it had been cleaned at all in the past fortnight, the effort didn't show.  Aviad smiled grimly as he let go of the glass. Without looking down, he dropped his hand back to the bar, pressing his finger against the soiled wood.

"Must've been a hard few years for you."  He kept his voice light, and he hadn't glanced down yet.  Aviad's gaze was still locked on Musgrave, his dark eyes sharp, but his finger was lightly tracing lines against the counter.  Quickly, purposely, the condensation showing lightly and briefly against the wood before it vanished again.  "I think you'll find it's different out here, though.  Once you find a friend, the world's not half as bad as you'd think."

"No sh.. " Musgrave's retort petered out before it got any speed. His eyes narrowed, watered a little and he was forced to blink.

"Nobody wants to be friends with me." He assured the stranger. "I lost all my friends when they threw me in. And my family won't talk to me either." Well, save for his niece, who was something entirely golden, and always had been his favourite relative.

"The only people who could possibly want to be friends with me, just want the information." He turned a shoulder momentarily, but kept a weary eye in the other man's direction and took a long pull of beer from the glass before turning back.

"Why, you want to be my friend? Nobody love you either?" He slurred ever so slightly.

He'd been so pleased with himself for being clever, for inventing a way to spell out the name without that damned nosy bartender knowing.  But apparently he'd been so clever that Musgrave hadn't realized it either.  Aviad's expression darkened, and for a moment, he eyed the one-handed wizard with distaste.

But that wasn't why he was here.  He hadn't come to this dismal place so that this sad, failed Auror could be amazed by his wit; he'd come with a very specific purpose in mind.  And so just as quickly, Aviad did his best to mask his annoyance and gave a shrug, tipping his head toward Musgrave as he raised his glass to take a sip.

"Yeh, you got me."  He flashed the other man a thin smirk.  "No friends at all. It's funny, though," he remarked, cocking a brow quizzically at Musgrave.  "From reading the paper, I'd think you'd have all kinds of friends.  You had enough nice things to say about the Ministry."

"They're only friends if they're convenient for me, or have something of value." He explained to Cohen and leered over at him, wrinkling his nose before leaning back and composing his features, much as he had when addressing the Daily Prophet on his release.

"The Ministry of Magic," he began in a rather formal, smooth tone, "do a very fine job indeed. Where would we be without those fine aurors to incarcerate terrible criminals much like myself? They'd be roaming the streets…" He reached out with his stump, quite forgetting in the moment that his hand was missing, but not entirely caring, and patted Aviad in a mock-friendly manner.
"… or filling this pub."

He slid his wand out with his right hand and passed it once over the bar between them, glancing down before scuffing it out with the sleeve of his coat.

"I might have something for you, I suppose." He shrugged and looked disinterested a moment, all very much put on.

"You know some weird people yourself." He frowned, and beckoned for Aviad to lean a little closer so he could speak in his ear the news he had of the name he had traced. In his low voice, he spoke carefully again, to be understood. Sure that it had sunk in, and not prepared to speak it again, he leaned away, and took a healthy gulp from his glass.

"I know so much more, you know," he explained softly and wiped a trace of the beer head from his shadowed lips. "I've always had a good memory, with being an auror, you see." He made level eye-contact.

"If that was of interest to those weird people you know?"

He was losing patience quickly, even if he was trying not to show it.  Musgrave's words might have -- might have -- been a warning, but the mage was too busy trying not to look irritated to notice.  If this turned out to be nothing more than a fool's errand, then all of the work he'd put into tracking Musgrave down would go to waste.  Perhaps his intelligence was wrong -- perhaps the man was nothing more than a broken, fallen Auror, useless as anything other than a patsy in the storm that was building.

Aviad raised his drink to take a long swallow, his expression sour, and almost missed Musgrave freeing his wand.  He wouldn't have thought twice about it -- wouldn't have noticed the casting -- until the wizard spoke again, beckoned him forward, and began to speak in a low voice.

The mage froze.  In an instant, his eyes had darted back to Musgrave.  He stared hard at the other man, the line of his jaw tight, his mouth clamped tightly shut as he listened, listened silently.

Musgrave was close enough that he could smell him; old alcohol and sweat masking his breath.  Aviad's gaze was nearly murderous as the man leaned back again.  This was what he'd come for -- the words, the connection -- but even the realization that Musgrave wasn't useless, that he'd been playing him for --

"We'll see."  There was no trace of a smile on Aviad's face now; his face felt as though it might be burning, and his neck and shoulders were too tight.  He forced out a breath, forced out the tension and forced himself to look away as he held his glass loosely between two fingers.  Whether or not Musgrave had gotten the better of this exchange, whether he'd won a game that Aviad hadn't even known they were playing, it didn't matter.  He'd gotten what he'd come here for, hadn't he?  Even so, it tasted bitter.

With one motion, he finished the rest of his drink, and returned the dirty glass to the counter.  He tossed some coins down after it; the amount didn't matter.

"You know," he informed Musgrave as he rose to his feet, "if you want to make friends, there are better places to drink."  His gaze found the other man's once more for an instant, dark and intent.  "Maybe you'd like to stop in and join us sometime, yeh?"

"Maybe." Lawrence agreed, pinching his nose a moment after, dispelling a drip that had been forming as he had leaned forward to utter the messages to Aviad.

If he cared more than he did, he'd consider not raising another drink, but he cared very little at that moment, other than he'd lightened the load of messages by a few at last.

"And if I were to raise a pint with friends where would I find them?" He asked Aviad, "And who invited me?" For throughout their queer little conversation, they hadn't actually introduced each other - though Musgrave wasn't hard to recognise from the newspapers.

The bartender had turned his back on them, returning his barely-cleaned glasses to the shelves above the bar.  He could very well have still been listening; at this point, it mattered not.  Maybe he'd lost interest; maybe he'd decided that this was no more than any of the other shady encounters that took place in the Hogshead a dozen time a day.

Aviad gave the other man a bitter, pointed smile as he tucked a hand deep in his pocket.  "Aviad," he replied nicely.  "And I'm sure you can find it.  Put all of that red robe knowledge to good use, yeh, brother?  So long as you don't mind spiders."

He had what he'd come here for.  One more wheel set in moton.  Time to pass Musgrave's message along; to see what the next move was going to be.  If this fallen former Auror decided that he wanted to play, he'd find his way to the Black Widow.  This wasn't an invitation so much as it was enticement.

He glanced at Musgrave, one brow cocked, and then pulled his cloak around his shoulders as he headed for the door and beyond it, into the cold outside.

"Spiders eh?" Musgrave replied, and nodded. "I ate 'em for breakfast." He chuckled, "Scuttle along now Aviad. Cheers." He raised an empty glass in genuine thanks for the drink before.

He watched Aviad disappear with his cloak around his shoulders and mulled over things. That was a genuine offer of somewhere to go, that was a suggestion he might be welcome. Despite his time away, despite what he had done in the occupation, he still feared that what he had been would stop him being accepted at all by the part of the wizarding world who would contemplate employing him at all - the ones who had probably occupied cells adjacent to him in Azkaban.

He didn't mind spiders at all.

End