It was dark, cold, windy and wet[1] as he sat, ratty coat pulled around him, long, dark curled hair in his collar. His wand was in his coat, rather than in his hand. If he was hexed for being there, he was unarmed, it would not be in self-defence.

Admete Brown's doorstep wasn't a usual haunt by any means. Instead it was rather unusual for a newly released criminal to willingly seek out the abode of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement without having a particular death wish.

However Lawrence just wanted to see her face. He remembered Brown from her first few days as a trainee. He'd not been long qualified, about five years ahead of her at Hogwarts. In the years that followed, he'd flirted, attempted to befriend that younger colleague.

Until the war, Musgrave had been a team player, he'd clapped colleagues on shoulders after tricky cases came up trumps, propped the bar up on birthdays, dropped rude jokes and kept Magical Accidents busy like any other auror.

Brown had made Head of Law Enforcement not so long ago, he knew from skimming an archive of Daily Prophets in the public records. It had made for easier reading than the days of his own trial and the reports of his imprisonment. The loss of his hand had been rather swept under the carpet as an 'incident'. That had been the worst slight of all of the coverage.

Hearing a presence, Musgrave readied himself for a hex, a smirk growing on his face which remained as he greeted her, looking up through his straggly fringe from below.
"Brown. It's been a while, but you haven't aged a bit." The edge to his voice was anything but reassuring. 

1.	Weather Almanac

Of all the things Admete could have seen on her doorstep, this was a completely unexpected one. She hadn't seen Lawrence Musgrave since back when they put him in Azkaban, while she was still hobbling about after that battle at Hogwarts.

At least he wasn't pointing a wand at her. She lifted her left hand, motioning at her bodyguard to stay back, to not engage just yet as she slid her wand into her other hand.

"Musgrave." He hadn't gotten any better at compliments. Didn't help that he was a  piece of scum who'd up and betrayed the Auror Corps. "You look like shit." She wasn't going to hold her breath on the prospect of him not being full of it, either.

Hadn't been nearly long enough to forget.

"Why thank you darling," Lawrence drawled in return. He was leant beside her front door, arms folded.
"And here was me thinking you didn't like me like that any more." He grinned, though the way it grew from his face into a sneer was anything but friendly. His eyes, a little unfocused as if he'd been drinking, swept her up and down, the periphery of his vision taking in the figure behind her.

"All high and mighty Head of Department eh? For the cowardly one who didn't come back when we were taken over, hmm?" Lawrence asked, his shoulders remaining pressed against the wall.
"Left us to hold the fort against the Dark Lord and hid. Is that what gets you to be Department Head these days?" His lip curled in disgust. "While those of us who stayed, get thrown into exile."

This entire situation felt as if Admete were speaking to a bit of slime that had crept out from under her shoe and attempted conversation. Maybe she was, slime wasn't a bad word for Musgrave's sort. He wasn't a fellow Auror any longer, never really had been, with how it all turned out in the end. That he'd made it through Azkaban without torturing anyone else didn't exactly given him decent citizen credit.

She could hear Fuyuki moving behind her, making sure he had a good shot on Musgrave. Admete doubted that this was the sort of chat that made bodyguards comfortable.

Didn't make her too comfortable either. She put her off hand on her hip, wand still held at the ready in her other hand, and gave Lawrence Musgrave the sort of glare that, at one point, he had usually gotten for staring at her chest for too long. "You come all the way out here to ask me something?"

"No," Lawrence replied swiftly, leering, "I just wanted to see if you still had big tits as well as the bigwig role." He made it very plain that he was inspecting her bosom, his mouth curling into the smirk that had once been simple male admiration when they had been aurors together, but was now uncomfortable and disgusting.

"But it seems you have a puppy trailing you these days, pity. That be a sign of weakness, Admete, that you can't handle your own wand quick enough." He peered round her to the hitwizard, "but I suppose if you have to hire your own boyfriend, having a hitwizard is a reasonable choice." His lip curled.

"Why, do you want me to ask you something? If I can bury my face in your chest, or if I can beg for your forgiveness, or my job back?"

With a swift, sudden movement he was down on one knee, and seized her robe, wailing,
"Madam Brown! Forgive me for I have sinned!"
But as soon as he had done it, he was on his feet, taking advantage that the gesture had meant he had moved into Admete's personal bubble, and he met her eye for eye.

"No, because I enjoyed every moment of it," Musgrave informed her, high on the adrenaline rush and the alcohol before, "and I haven't forgotten any of their tricks."

Admete didn't flinch, didn't move, just stood there through the dramatics and waited.  Musgrave had forgotten a lot if he'd thought she'd snap at any of that. She'd been the one busy with battles while he was kissing the Death Eaters' robes.

And hey, she trusted Fuyuki.

The hitwizard didn't take kindly to a convicted monster pawing at her. There was a crack, and a burst of red light from Fuyuki's wand as Admete stepped backwards, unsurprised.

She simply turned and walked into her flat, her bodyguard a step behind her. His first obligation was to keep her safe.

In that flash of red, Lawrence ended up the in the bushes outside the building, groaning. The two on the doorstep unlocked the door and went inside, while the once-auror lay in the bushes laughing.

He was unarmed, and had remained so throughout the meeting, but instead of dealing with him or laughing in his face, she'd let her lapdog deal with him by wandpoint. Was she scared of him? Surely not - but perhaps he reminded her of things she kept locked away in the past. When she hid, and he complied to survive.

If Brown thought that was the last time she'd see him, she was wrong.

End