Ira Almasy enjoys surprises when she is on the right side of giving them. And she was not this time.

Her contracted flock of wizards had gone to tidy the month's werewolf game in a timely fashion and they had very nearly found themselves face-to-face with the Ministry's finest red robed constabularies rather than the carnage of a bloodied muggle. Nearly. Reports of the incident[1] varied but Ira did so hate to piece together truths.

She knew at least one responsible who could elucidate entirely what had to be known - and then some.

Pity she needed to take on such crass appearance to confront him[2]. The hallway floors of Dorothea's apartments creaked noisily beneath her boots as she carried herself to the second floor, posture changing from one of neutrality to that cocky gait of Thatcher's.

She encountered nobody on the way and paused, listening, before trying the door to the apartment with a master key.

"Musgrave!" Ira called in a tense, gravelly voice as the door swung inwards. "Still here, mate?"

1.	Sink Your Teeth In, July 26th
2.	Note: Ira is a Metamorphmagus and has disguised herself as Arrow Thatcher.

It was impossible to sleep much while Arrow as out. It was ridiculous to think that his mate could provide any reassurance to a grown man of almost fifty, but the mere presence of another set of eyes helped. Being alone, and confined gave Lawrence a lot of time to think, about everything from Hannah and her reaction to what Knox might do with his wand, to whether grisly, ugly Wolfgang would survive the night, and his lack of report for parole.

This has all rather messed up his plans to keep an innocent impression up to Level 2 while he chipped away and got his kicks. He was about to throw the persona he'd generated from his repentant release in February down the toilet.

On the other hand, Lawrence's conscious had reasoned, eyes preoccupied with keeping watch at the door, he had little to keep it up for. His sister wanted nothing to do with him even if he was alluding to going straight, and his niece, the only person who had given half a crap, now wanted him dead. He was broke, homeless, and was barely clothed with a stolen, rubbish wand.

When Arrow reappeared - a little sooner than Lawrence had anticipated, he hadn't time to consider accurately how the other man was dressed, though his subconscious did nag dimly. He had brandished the awful wand at his friend, only dipping it on recognition.
"Yeh, what's occurring?" He replied, "Didn't expect you back so soon mate."

It took a measure of restraint not to react to the wand - rationally she knew nobody could so quickly judge the credibility of the guise. Lawrence did not look in any position to put up great resistance but she'd made that mistake with others before. Ira leaned against the door jamb with crossed arms, an attempt to affect terseness.

"Aurors crawling all over the place, that's what's occurring-" she slid her gaze to meet Musgrave's eyes, feigning wariness. "- you need to leave." A noise outside, purely incidental, caused her to stride across the room to look out the window. The front door shut. Staring at the street below, she added: "We need to leave."

The tension in her voice wasn't altogether false. Arrow could return within the hour and the last thing she needed in this situation is a doppelgänger and Musgrave on-alert.

Ira glanced over her shoulder at the other man.  "You got everything?" she looked him up and down. "I know a place."

"Aurors crawling all over the place…"

Lawrence swore aloud, annoyed that aurors could get so close without him realising or sensing. Even if Arrow were exaggerating about the aurors, it was too close, too soon.

"We need to leave."
"You don't need to go with me, Thatcher, just stick to what we agreed - you haven't seen me-."
"You got everything? I know a place." Lawrence stopped and stared at Arrow - he'd had some time to think too, by the sound of it, over considering what girl he'd like to bring home.

He gestured with his remaining hand and the end of his arm to his appearance - a slightly pink coloured hoodie (swiped the day before to cover his torn and bloodied t-shirt), jeans, boots and the stolen black walnut wand. His expression was as if to say 'for real, mate?' He hadn't turned up with anything else.

"Where's the place, Thatcher? Is it far? When you say these aurors are close, how close we talking?" He pulled the hood of the sweatshirt up over his lank curls wand between his fingers as he did. It wasn't his best look by a long stretch.

Ira ran her eyes over the indicated ensemble and she tried not to raise her brow, remembering that it was unlikely for this to be the first time Arrow had noticed the wizard's candidly ridiculous appearance. In her determination to get Musgrave out of the building she'd missed it altogether.

But it suited him. She wouldn't discount the merits of pink against that skin tone.

"I'm not going to leave you in a lurch, alright?" Ira turned away from the window, relaxing a bit as she tried to get a sense of the dynamic between the two men. "The aurors are..." she feigned thoughtfulness and shrugged. "Recognised 'bout two, three of 'em crawling round Brixton. I give it the hour if they've been tipped off."

Which was the actual case - only it was Ira's informer who had been told. She wouldn't be surprised if there were in fact aurors close on Musgrave's tail and it was at least in both their interest to get him out of here.

"There's a pub. The Gallivanting Bard. I know the owner," Ira leaned against a chair with hands in her pockets. "Not ten minutes away if we're quick about it, mate."

In the circumstances, Lawrence thought Arrow was just trying to be clever, rather than Arrow wasn't Arrow. He was friends with the younger wizard enough to crash there, but he'd never really taken the time to study the bloke in any detail. Lawrence's situation meant he was more regularly on edge about his entire surroundings - no crimson robes to ward off passing danger.

As Arrow informed him of where they were off to, Lawrence muttered the name to himself, not familiar with the place. That put him a little on edge, but in contrast to two recognised aurors in the area, he'd take his chances. Even if it was somewhere Muggle, it was somewhere away from here. He was going to have to make a move at some point soon as it was.

"Sounds romantic, Thatcher." Musgrave sneered. He pulled at the strings for the hood of the sweatshirt, despite the warm weather, he was more than willing to try and pass himself off as a girl with his long brown hair, and the colour of the jumper.

He stalked to the door, wand in hand, and cracked it open, listening to the hallway beyond for sounds of feet on creaky floorboards, or smothered breath from a hiding place. He pushed it closed and held it with one hand, looking back to Arrow.
"Move your arse then!"

"Sounds romantic, Thatcher."

Ira smirked, truer to her disguise in that expression than she had been in mannerism all this time. She was back on her feet in a flash and trying not to express distaste at Musgrave's language as he finally made it to the door. A wave of impatience passed through her as she walked past him to take the door.

The less time spent in this cretinous body, the better.

"Moving, moving!" she muttered and did her own precautionary glance of the corridor - no doppelgängers in sight. "We're good."