The Gallivanting Bard, London

"Here we are, mate." Ira looked over her shoulder at Lawrence Musgrave as they turned into a narrow alley off a main street, where the air felt like it had been stagnant for decades. A dampness seem to prevail in spite of the dissimilar weather but she made no comment of it and lead them to a set of doors with a plain sign above it.

It read The Gallivanting Bard in black print and a comic image of the soused William Shakespeare laughed mutely at those passing beneath.

Ira paused at the door to knock a particular pattern. And then, glancing at Musgrave with a quick thumbs up she pushed in. The air inside was not any better - the lighting even worse, as feint sunlight came in through dusty windows to illuminate the deserted pub.The door shut behind them with a silent thud, a subtle reverberation of magic.

If Ira believed in divine gratification she would have thanked god at the relief of getting here.

"Finally," she growled in her own voice while Arrow Thatcher's pinched features melted into glacial countenance. Her wand was already in hand: she struck out immediately - infligo to send the wizard careening across the dark floors and then, with a twist of her wrist, laxus[1].

Ira ran a free hand through her hair as it regained is original colouring, a flash of blonde against the brown. She walked towards Musgrave slowly. A relaxed, restrained pace at odds with the taut arch of her brow. This had been waiting since she'd first heard of the bloody infraction of their werewolf ring.

She flicked her wand and caused his own atrocious weapon to slide away towards the bar.

"Lawrence, Lawrence." Ira cantillated, drawing closer. "It's been too long."

1.	Dead Limb Hex

It felt longer than Arrow had promised to reach The Gallivanting Bard. Lawrence had never heard of, and he'd never heard Arrow mention it, but the two of them didn't live in each other's pockets. There was plenty he didn't know about Arrow, from ridiculously trivial things like the number of siblings he did or didn't have, to where he was born.

The specific knock was a bit odd, for sure, Musgrave thought to himself, but Arrow would probably be up for the whole secret knock with a mate if he though he was being clever to hide Lawrence.

It wasn't as homely as Aunt Dorothea's, for sure, but it was somewhere the aurors weren't crawling. Glancing behind him before he entered, Lawrence withdrew his hand from the pocket on the stomach of the pink coloured hoodie. The stolen wand was in his remaining right hand, having clasped it all the walk should they meet trouble.

The door swung shut behind them, and Lawrence looked up and around himself, not seeing the danger until it was too late - Arrow's hand was pointed straight at his head and he was blown off his feet, sliding across the floor. As he hit the deck, the air was knocked out of his lungs and he gaped, winded, in the least graceful sprawl.

That really wasn't Arrow. He was a fucking idiot. He hadn't ever considered Ira Almasy would come and do her own dirty work. He tried in vain to push himself up with his left arm, devoid of hand, and use his stolen wand to throw up protection, but she had the upper hand - well, two of them - and he was hit with the full impact of Laxus rendering his right arm useless.

He fell onto his side, and a guttural groan escaped his lips, the wand flying from his fingers.
"Lawrence, Lawrence, It's been too long." Towering over him, in the same outfit Arrow had been wearing was the figure of the witch he had been hoping might pay him for acquiring quality Muggles for the fight, until he'd gone off-script.

"Almasy." He replied breathily, trying to move his arm, regarding her through a curtain of lank, brown curly hair. "Why didn't you say?" He asked more clearly, finally able to take a proper breath, eyes briefly looking to his arm which lay unresponsive and heavy before him. "Could have put the kettle on."

She didn't need a mirror to know that androgyny suited her. Ira unclasped the leather jacket she'd been wearing, smoothly falling into a crouch just out of the wizard's reach. He wasn't a genuine threat but most recipients of Almasy hospitality tended to lose their sense of speech in closer proximity.

"Tea and biscuits. I wouldn't advise it in this setting." Ira drawled as she stared into his eyes curiously. "But I am here to chat." And she was up again in a flash, turning on her heels to the closest bar stool. "You like to chat, don't you." The witch slid on to the stool and then indicated her wand.

Contrary to intention, incanting strangulo.

The invisible force found its grip on the man's throat - sudden and tight, so much so that she was almost envious that it wasn't her own hands doing the job. Generally speaking that brought up a conundrum: if it were her hands there was no guarantee Musgrave would survive. Ira never held herself accountable for anything that could be attributed to insobriety and asphyxiation felt into that category without a shade of doubt.

These thoughts passed through her mind in seconds, although relatively longer for the lump of flesh struggling on the floor.

"I can ask questions," she lowered her wand and rested her elbows along the bar. "Or you can tell me a story. It can be a game if you'd like, Lawrence. Every time I have to ask a question about what happened that night, you aren't allowed to breath. Doesn't that sound like fun?" Ira smiled down at him magnanimously, wan eyes glimmering. "We can both win."

"You like to chat, don't you." Lawrence drew breath just before the curse hit him, and as the pressure seized his throat, his muscles futilely attempted to bring his hand to it, as if to release the invisible force from it. Ira's earlier spell meant he couldn't move, and could only writhe in agony mostly below the waist, where his boots scraped at the floor, seeking some way to release the spell. His face was reddening, and his eyes were bulging as he gasped noiselessly for air.

Then it was gone again and he gasped for air like a drowned man on a riverbank, his weight moving forward so he saw more of the floor as he gasped, wide eyed, sides heaving, arms unresponsive.

"… every time I have to ask you a question about what happened that night, you aren't allowed to breathe. Doesn't that sound like fun? We can both win." Merlin, he didn't answer at first, gasping another ragged breath, trying to push himself back over on his side, his upper leg curling back so he could prop back on his side and look up at her.

"Fucking holiday." He managed to rasp and coughed, bringing up spittle caught in his throat from the curse. "Your fucking investment advisor got bit. That's the story." He blinked hard, trying to think as he spoke aloud, trying not to let Ira have a chance to ask a question - though not that she was going to play her own game.

"I got you three muggles, I was good to my word, Almasy. He got the wolf, that was the deal."

"I got you three muggles, I was good to my word, Almasy. He got the wolf, that was the deal."

Without missing a beat Ira adjusted the aim of her wand and resumed the strangulation hex. Her expression didn't convey vexation but she affected a mild smirk as invisible hands deprived Lawrence of his right to breathe once more. Insipid idiot. Sometimes she wondered at their association.

"I don't want to know about herding muggles." Ira informed him in a leisurely tone and tightened the hold on his neck with a delicate twist. "My wolf. My audience. Aurors. You're missing out all the important parts of the story." She directed the grip carefully to wrench the wizard off his side, slamming his limp form against the wall.

Ira cracked her neck and released the hex in an abrupt motion.

They still needed his voice. Unfortunately. "Shall we try that again?" she queried. "I know other games but I daresay you would find them less pleasant."
 

He should have known that was going to get him another bout of strangulation, but in honesty he'd been through worse in the North Sea. He was sure Ira Almasy was capable of far worse, but she wouldn't have gone to the trouble of luring him out here if she was just going to do away with him. She'd have done it in the flat and let Arrow take the blame.

"She's not your wolf." Lawrence gasped, and when was finally released once more coughed so hard it wounded like he was going to bring up his lungs. Considering his state of health and poor nutrition it sounded more like a death rattle than the average wizard. Merlin he was going to feel this for weeks, if she let him live. He was straining against the curses, but his arms refused to cooperate.

"Alright, alright. He got bit 'cause of me. He kidnapped my niece, eye for an eye. He'd be dead if I hadn't stopped her. Though now I think of it, that might have been the easier option." He wheezed and gasped for breath. "She was fighting the first Muggle, when I found out who she was," Lawrence let out strange growl of anger, "he flew through the balcony rail and joined the fight."

This game was growing tiresome at an expeditious rate.

Not her wolf. Laughable. At the expense and cost she had gone through to organise the Werewolf ring, they all felt like her wolves. Born or infected for some other purpose but caught purely for the profit and enjoyment of avid spectators. With a look of annoyance, Ira flicked her wand and blasted Musgrave to the right of the window - smashing him into the bar, glasses shattering - and then forcefully to the left where she pinned him up against the wall: a moth fastened to its setting board.

Ira stood, sauntering in his direction as she stared up at that categorically execrable face.

"You're right," she affirmed in a pleasant voice. "It would have been the easier option. But I don't care about Wolfgang Storm. Or your niece - thank you for that information, by the way." A lull as she drew herself up to Musgrave - towering over him by means perhaps more elaborate than natural height. He was going to obey, regardless of this little dance.

But she could stand to express herself more clearly. Ira turned her wand in a quick gesture and-- Crack, once and then-- CRACK again, the impact of the bone breaking hex bearing down on the wizard's ulna and radius. Quick, clean fractures.

A refreshing reprieve from the strangulation. "Tell me about the aurors."

Thrown against the wall, Lawrence thought, not for the first time, that if Ira did kill him there, in that pub, it would at least be release from the hell he was in. He'd not had much time to think his way out of the corner, and now, immobilised, thrown through glass, he was entirely at her mercy.

He'd been through denial, isolation, and anger. That was two, or three stages through already. As he heard the bones in his right arm crack, he let out an ungodly, rasping howl, eyes screwing up, watering. He could feel blood trickling down the back of his neck from the glass. His breaths were shuddering. Sweet mercy, couldn't she have knocked him out?

"Tell me about the aurors."

"What aurors?" He gasped, genuinely confused.

She put pressure on the break and he screamed, tears, sweat, blood, dirt - they combined to a tang in his mouth as he howled.

"There were no aurors!" He yelled, feeling his vision narrowing with the pain, consciousness ebbing in self-preservation. "No aurors, I just - I JUST MADE THEM THINK THERE WERE! Oh merlin, please, please, what do you want, what could you possibly want from me Almasy?"

Bargaining had begun.

"You... ruined my Werewolf Ring because of your moon addled niece and imaginary aurors?"

Ira feigned blindness to his suffering, continuing as they might have over tea at the Opera House. Her hand moved slowly to the wizard's face, manicured fingernails scrapping against the skin of his jowl as she stared down with a delicate expression. She dug into his neck - not quite throttling but rich with the threat of it.

It had been a sublime and simple idea. They would not soon find another like it that would efficiently cater to the prejudices against wolf and muggle alike.

"My assistant tells me I ought to kill you." Ira breathed in and tasted, as you do, the fragrance of fresh blood. It had been too long since she had done this herself. "But you will forgive him, he does have to clean up after your mess." Even if there had been little to clean up ever since Layton discovered the site crawling with Ministry officials. Something would have to be done about that, and the means of it was before her. Unappealing as he might be.

She tightened her grasp on Musgrave's neck as a subdued warning for him to offer a direct answer.

"Tell me how they were there so soon. Magical Accidents." Ira tilted her head to the side, considering this conundrum of a non-existent aurors clearing out the area of its audience. "That was you?"

"My assistant tells me I ought to kill you."

Sweet mercy if you did, Lawrence thought to himself. He was as good as dead. Bargaining hadn't even raised a glimmer in her eyes. Depression had set in.

"Tell me how they were there so soon. Magical Accidents. That was you?" Ira asked, so very close to him, and her hand around his neck. Every breath from him was ragged and rapid and he had to try to swallow and lick his lips to find enough air to answer her. His body was screaming for his arm.

"The disapparition." Lawrence strained to say, "It would have shown up. To the night shift. Large magi- magical spike in a muggle area."

She might find out about the note if she had moles, but he had to trust that his old friend Edwin would do him justice and delay any reveal unless absolutely necessary.

"Your assistant is probably right, you ought to kill me, I'm useless to you. Should I be flattered you went to the trouble to do it in person?" The arrogance was a last-ditch attempt of self-preservation, though there was one clear thought in his head - the ruddy face of Edwin Glass.

"The disapparition. It would have shown up. To the night shift. Large magi- magical spike in a muggle area."

If he had continued in that line or left it at that, she might have believed the wizard. The turn of conversation towards a more distracting and self-deprecating tone was enough for Ira to recognise deflection. She didn't appreciate his trying. It made her wonder if she would actually have to kill him in the distant future - or offer her assistant the opportunity as some reward.

Ira released Musgrave and crept her hand up to the side of his face, frowning. Her skill in occlumency was formidable but she was unpracticed in the penetration of thoughts; certainly of guarded thoughts. Somehow she felt it unlikely that her quarry was a great Leglimens. She concentrated--

-- while in her mind's eye, swam the haze of another's consciousness. Vague colours, murmurs, a sense of emotion correlated to pain. And an image. This she saw clearly.

More than saw, she recognised. "It is Edwin Glass who must be flattered, to exist foremost in your thoughts at so dire a moment, Lawrence." Ira pinched his cheek a touch too sharply. "Friends, are you?" she searched his face and kept her own expression calm, hiding the real strain of attempting leglimency.

The logic was easily followed. Musgrave needed the actual presence of Ministry officials to substantiate his false Auror raid.

"You must agree, any friend of yours is a friend of mine."

"You must agree, any friend of yours is a friend of mine."

"Oh we are," Lawrence replied, though the strength and note of his voice was wavering between a howl and a whimper as the pain from her clawing or the pressure on his arm broke through his concentration.

It was utterly, ridiculously scary that Ira could read thoughts as well as do him an injury like this. Though he'd faced many like her back in the day, and shared the rock on the North sea with them, so he could muster courage and bravado where necessary.

Really he preferred to be on her 'good' side, or certainly the less deadly one, failing that.

"Friends." He clarified in a gasp, "He should have been in Azkaban with me." Lawrence added, "Can I introduce you?" He tried to add in a far more reasonable tone, "After a wash, like?"

Ira didn't reply immediately, her gaze focused first on his face and then on a point beyond his shoulder that indicated she was caught by an internal realisation.

There was somebody outside. Layton. His impatience was nearly palpable: a fledgling Occlumens could have felt it.

She turned away from Lawrence and unbound the charm that kept him pinned to the wall, letting him slump gracelessly to the floor; petulant child already bored with a toy. Facial features shifted - a blunter profile, darker eyes. Not entirely irrecognisable but you would not have picked her out as the Ira Almasy of high society. A bronze sheen bloomed across her face.

"Entreat Mr Glass to be in touch," Ira undid the buttons of the leather coat as her shoulders broadened. "I will call on you again. Do find something appropriate to wear by then," she glanced back as if though the ill-gotten clothes were the most unsightly aspect of his being.

The pub was a safe space for the time being and she imagined that he would need it to collect himself after their meeting. Even the likes of Arrow Thatcher had their limits in harbouring wanted men. It was to all their interest that Lawrence Musgrave remained both alive as well as outside the custody of the MLE.

Ira had other plans for them.

"Always a pleasure."

---

The drop to the floor was sudden and Lawrence's legs didn't have time to get under him before he hit the deck. He let out a cry of pain and swore.

"… Do find something appropriate to wear by then… "

And she was gone, as easily as she had arrived. Lawrence let out the noises caught in his throat, vocalising the pain he was in, face screwed up. He was lucky to have escaped alive and with both legs still working.

As he brought his voice under control and panted, he listened for any signs he was no longer alone. Dragging his feet beneath him, he hauled his battered form up from the floor.

Time to find that wand and see if he could wield it with his teeth.

He didn't fancy his chances.



End