It wasn’t intended.

Her pet had been whimpering of course. But all pets whimpered when their Mistress punished them. They whined and cried and begged to be left alone; for it to stop. The weakest ones screamed and sobbed and yelled and pleaded. The stronger pets tried to stay silent, to not bother their mistress; to behave and wait for the punishment to be over. Nicola had thought Squeaky had been a stronger one. He’d become silent. His whimpering had ceased fairly early on and Nicola had truly believed he’d accepted his punishment like a good pet.

But he’d been silent for a good half an hour before she’d realised he was dead!

Well Nicola hadn’t been sure what to do. Squeaky would soon start to smell when his flesh commenced decomposition. Rotting flesh was never a pleasant aroma. He certainly couldn’t be left tied up in the basement of her beautiful shop. Customers might wonder.
So Nicola had wrapped her pet in a blanket and waited for night to fall.

“Little squeaky…” She whispered when she dismounted the stairs later that evening. “You’re still dead, yes?” She approached the covered corpse of the muggle man carefully, wand extended. Bending her knees to get closer, the witch gave the corpse a poke with the end of her wand. No movement.

“Most inconvenient…” The statement was made calmly as the dark haired witch straightened back to her full height and flicked her wand. The muggle’s legs rose into the air and as Nicola walked towards the fireplace; the body dragged itself across the floor. “You did this on purpose, Squeaky. I hate it when my pets die. It’s not fair.”

A pinch of dust was taken from the pot beside the fireplace and thrown into the fire, causing flames to bust in the hearth.
“Bagnold Funeral Home.” Nicola stepped into the fireplace along with her dead pet.

A Few moments later she fell out, knocking into a table and the body rolled onto the floor, blanket coming loose to reveal her dead muggle. Yet Nicola didn’t notice. Instead she was glancing around the empty room for the witch she needed.

“MISS BAGNOLD” She yelled at the top of her voice. “I’ve a bequest for you!”

Dervla had locked up the shop for the night and had just settled into bed when she heard the commotion downstairs. Then there was yelling. She groaned. Damnit. She never should have connected to the floo network. She grumpily threw back her blankets, grabbed her wand, and slipped her feet into bedroom slippers and headed down the spiral staircase. The fireplace was on the second floor (she'd bricked up the one on the first floor that had been in her office area). Only to see Nicola Randall in her storage/clearance room, with... what appeared to be a dead body on the floor next to her.

"Randall!" she hissed. "You can't bring those kind of things through the floo network! Floos can be monitored by the ministry!" She used her wand to open float one of the caskets down to the floor. It was an old one with horrendous, gaudy satin on the inside and nobody had bought it since her funeral home had opened. She opened both lids so that the body could be moved inside.

"Get it out of the floor!" she said- an angry whisper. Nobody was at the home but the two of them, yet Dervla couldn't help but keep her voice down. The consequences of such careless transportation! "Put it in the coffin. We'll put it on the lift and take it to the basement."

Dervla didn't even have to ask what Nicola was doing here with a body. She didn't want to ask. She just wanted it out of the house-proper and into the basement where things like that belonged. Dervla didn't know how the man had died, but if he was being brought in like this, in secret, it had to have been under ... nefarious circumstances. "You can't just show up in my home with dead bodies if you're going to transport them so haphazard"!

Well wasn’t Miss Bagnold rude? Nicola stared with pursed lips as the dead body handler reprimanded her for her mode of transport, the pet being on the floor and her mode of transport again! When one normally had a visitor to their home, they offered tea, wine and a friendly smile. Not reprimands, demands and exclamations! Wasn’t this Dervla’s occupation after all? To rid people of their spare dead bodies so no traces were to be found?

“Dead body.” Nicola corrected. “Singular.” She hadn’t brought a whole litter of them after all. But perhaps her dear accomplice would have been more appreciative if she had?

“I can hardly have dragged it through the streets, my dear. That would probably have attracted far more attention.” Especially from an ex-azzie that was apparently clearing her reputation.

And then there was the coffin floating in the air. It looked horrendous and Miss Bagnold really wanted to put Nicola’s most recently deceased pet in it? It appeared to have been made for a hooker! The witch’s expression betrayed this opinion, her lip curling in distaste.

“That coffin is hideous. You can’t be serious, darling. I’d not burn my worst enemy in that atrocity.”

"Semantics," she replied. "Point is- I don't want you making a habit of it." She couldn't have a lot of bodies coming through the floo network. She was trying to operate under the radar, supposedly on the up and up, within the precise laws, guidelines, and restrictions applicable to her line of work. This was just unacceptable.

Dervla grunted. "Of course it's hideous, it's why nobody has bought it. And yes, I am serious, it's the best way to get the body downstairs and out of sight." Since Randall didn't seem very keen on actually helping with this part, Dervla floated the body on her own, and lowered it carefully into the casket. Then she dropped both lids, and locked them.

She floated the coffin toward the lift, and motioned for Randall to follow her. "Do I even want to know who this is?" she asked. Once they were on the casket lift, she lowered it down into the basement. The cart she had put the casket on rolled along behind her as she moved into the work rooms of the basement.

"Burn it?" Dervla asked. "You want me to burn fresh supplies for my work? I thought it was a gift." She looked offended. She opened the casket, and got a better look at the body. "It's in rough shape," she said. "But useable."

They were in the lift travelling down when Bagnold asked about the origin of the corpse. It was appreciated that she wasn’t full of questions. Nicola didn’t have plenty of answers, anyhow. She knew where she’d found Squeaky and that was about it. After he’d blathered on about having a wife at home who was going to be contacting the Polish, Nicola had put a tongue tying curse on the pet to stop him from giving her a headache. And why the Polish would care about him going missing, she really had no idea. Strangely, it hadn’t been the first time a pet had brought up the Polish when they’d awoken in her cellar.

“No. Best you don’t.” Nicola muttered quietly, eyeing up the casket where within lay her pet. It truly was disappointing when they gave up with such little fight. Did these muggles not value life and everything it could give them? Did they not see the beauty of time spent with a good mistress who could make them a better pet, one to be proud of?

“Oh it is a gift, Miss Bagnold.” The coffin floated from the lift and Nicola followed the procession towards Squeaky’s final resting place. When they stopped, she too studied the body. Her hand outstretched and a finger rubbed over his lips, wiping blood from them. The man himself had been well built and what one might class as attractive. His muscles and dishevelled hair had been the draw for Nicola to capture him. His cheekbones were chiselled and eyes a dark green while his ears were boyish and stuck out from his head. His skin, pale and lifeless, appeared taut across his face due to weeks of malnutrition and his clothing was torn and dirty, bloody slashes across the shirt.

Squeaky looked like he’d been punished, yes. He’d needed to be broken in well. But to say he was in rough shape?
“He’s fresh.” The witch stated calmly, as if trying to ply a product to a house holder. “…practically. A little cleaning up and he’ll be bright as new for you to…” she pulled a face “to do whatever it is you do with dead bodies.” That didn’t bear thinking about.

A gift! Dervla was ecstatic. Her fresh supplies had been less and less lately. Her usual "deliveries" from a few friends here and there had ceased- she didn't know why, she didn't ask. It was best to pretend that sort of thing didn't happen unless it was happening in the moment. But Nicola had come through.

"Yes, you're right, very fresh." Sometimes fresh was all that she needed. It was a shame he wasn't fresher. Just on the brink. Dervla had been wanting to experiment with some information she'd read on creating a ghost. But killing someone for research was outside of her realm of (questionable) ethics. Taking donations, however, was a different story.

Cleaning up. "Wonderful idea, Miss Randall." She floated the coffin over to the large metal table and moved the body onto it. With a flick of her wand the shower head turned on and began to move methodically over the table, washing the body off.

"Whatever it is I do," she repeated with a scoff. "I research. I learn. I educate. I make great strides in magic. The ministry doesn't understand how important it is to know how to do the things I do. Running me off for doing things under their supposed supervision..." Dervla was muttering under breath now. She was still a little bitter about it. "How can you fight this kind of magic if you can't even understand how to do it." Not that she had altruistic intentions anymore.

She looked back at Nicola. "Do you suppose there are any internal injuries?" she asked. "Serious ones? A bit of bruising and swelling is fine. But busted organs won't do me much good."