There was the smell of bacon wafting through the dusty main saloon bar of The Gallivanting Bard. The door behind the bar was ajar, and Lawrence Musgrave had his feet up on a mismatched chair, enjoying the fruits of that morning's very early labours. Bacon sandwiches only tasted this good when they were stolen, preferably from the 24hr Tescos not far from the disused pub.

"Mm, magnificent." He approved to the obedient figure nearby, who did not react. Her eyes had a certain glassy tint. "Clear up." He told her shoving the plate across the table. The one-handed former convict sat back, hawthorn wand twitching precisely. Hands scooped up the plate and away she went to the sink. Lawrence wiped the last of the bacon grease from his fingertips onto his jeans without thought. He was mildly preoccupied with directing the Muggle with her washing up.

He'd got a lot better than silly tricks like stacking milk bottles[1] in recent months. The stroke of genius to acquire food from Muggle means had meant in the past few weeks he'd quickly put on a little weight and no longer felt like he was easily at death's door for the cold weather. He was still gaunt, with hollowed eye sockets and a mop of brown hair that was streaked with the odd bit of grey, but his stamina was greatly improved. The ribs Hannah had healed at the start of November[2] were no longer troubling him, and as she had described, there was no scar from the knife that had embedded itself in his leg. Best of all, he was fully adjusted to the wand Edwin had procured him from Level Three's confiscated evidence[3].

Apart from the lack of original left wandhand, permanent address and the ability to walk the streets without being a wanted man, Lawrence felt as if life had not been better.

In the bar there was a familiar sound of someone using the knock to enter, and Lawrence's attention moved momentarily from the Muggle at the sink. She waited obediently, motionless. That knock was a little hesitant, but the door opened all the same. Not a usual occupant of Almasy's safehouse along with Lawrence. Under Layton, Musgrave had appointed himself in charge of the Bard, keen to secure it over winter and stay off the streets. For once, there had been a few other people bloody in the other room than him.

Lawrence sat still, listening to the footfalls. Long stride, not boots - shoes, tall, masculine. He waited for the silhouette to cross the doorway and his eyebrows raised in recognition. The Muggle dropped the plate, the hold on her slipping, and he frowned in irritation. As the sound had revealed a presence, he elected to invite.
"In here," Lawrence called out, extending his wand to the door between the bar and the kitchen in invitation. "Well, well. What brings you to the Bard?"

1.	10 April 2010, Fifty-Dozen Please
2.	5 Nov 2010 Shall I Place the Knife in Your Back or Your Leg?
3.	30 Sept 2010 Handed on a Silver Platter

He'd visited a number of 'safe houses' in the past couple of years up and down the country. Some had been Ministry owned to hide potential witnesses, or to sheltering asylum seekers from foreign climes that he had reassured in a common tongue. Then there had been the numerous other ones Vedir had owned, and Johann had even slept in, and more recently Ira's. The Gallivanting Bard was one of them, but not one he'd visited of late. He was rusty with the knock, but the doors gave way.

There was a strong smell of bacon, which woke Johann's empty stomach up. He'd got up long before Balfour, knowing he had to slip out with the minimum of observation from his lover. The less he saw, the less he worried and asked. It felt awful, but the work was confidential, and so was the identity of the client. He'd have to understand, even if he did not like or approve. Tramping around in the snow on a Friday morning before dawn was not great for his improving health.

To his left the sound of crockery in the sink indicated someone was behind the bar, presumably related to the smell of breakfast. The door came open further, and a voice beyond called out to him. It nudged a memory inside of him and his stomach twisted. He felt sick. The man beyond the door was not the one he'd come to see, but one he'd hoped had died since summer, so he never had to set eyes on him again.

He slid his wand out as he approached, eyes narrowed. At the sight of Lawrence sat with his feet up at a kitchen table, looking more alive than ever, his eyes widened.
"Well, well. What brings you to the Bard?"
"No business of yours," the younger wizard retorted, breathing quick and shallow. The sight of Lawrence bringing back July in crisp, horrible memories. However the man opposite him had allowed him to leave with his father bleeding profusely, he had still enabled the event.
"The moment you walked in the door it became my business."

How was it that Hannah's uncle was here, bold as brass, looking healthier than he'd ever seen him in photograph or in flesh, in Ira's safehouse? Did Almasy know he was here? Musgrave's queries suggested that he didn't know why Johann was here, so this was not necessarily an intended trap, but a coincidence.

"Not according to the landlady." Johann replied, stood in the kitchen doorway. He gripped his wand tightly - the majority of his focus was on Lawrence but he risked a glance to the woman stood motionless at the sink. There was a frying pan beside it, which was probably the source of the bacon smell. There was something odd with her, the way she did not react, her Muggle attire, the empty packet of Tesco branded bacon.

If anything, it looked like his niece's little German friend had lost weight since summer. He looked just as meek, blue eyes twitching from Lawrence to the waiting Muggle and back again. It had not escaped the ex-auror's notice that the other wizard had drawn his wand by his side, but from what he'd seen of Johann's spellcasting, there was absolutely no concern. He was slow, sloppy and lacked any conviction. Though, perhaps with a little incentive he might be fun to play with.

Lawrence swung his legs off the chair and stood up, boots scuffing on the floor. He lifted his wand purposefully towards the muggle to set her washing the plate in the water. His action was visible just to see how Storm recoiled or not at the thought he was using magic.

"The landlady's not here to cry to, so you'll tell me what you're calling for." Lawrence reiterated, his nasal tone still somewhat relaxed, his confidence all suggesting Johann was in the wrong for withholding the information.

When no answer came, he gave a little sigh and curled his wand again. The Muggle stepped away from the sink, turned and proceeded to perform a series of haphazard somersaults towards the other wizard with a blank expression, landing two foot from him, glassy brown eyes staring straight at him as her hair settled.

"Reckon you can do backflips?" He asked Johann, tilting his head. "Only take a moment to find out."

Musgrave raised his wand purposefully, and in reflex action, Johann stepped his right foot back, bringing his ebony wand up jumpily. The other wizard was waving his at the woman by the sink as he continued to insist he knew what Johann was up to.

The linguist realised too late that the whole point of Musgrave waving his wand so visibly was to startle him into thinking he might bee attacked. It was all a bit much for a freezing cold Friday morning before work. Running into Musgrave again for the first time since July as enough of a misadventure, his heart was racing.

The woman began to wash dishes, commanded by Lawrence's wand. Johann made a calculation of steps in his mind. If he yanked the door of the kitchen shut and ran, would he managed to make it upstairs before Lawrence? Would he find who he was looking for when he got up there? Would Lawrence risk leaving this woman alone without his enchantment breaking - whatever it was.

Before he had a chance to act on any of his calculations, the woman by the sink was away, performing seemingly impossible feats of acrobatics, limbs flailing as she tumbled across the dusty kitchen floor towards him. Her cartwheel of limbs looked anything but graceful, and he feared she would not stop in time before she broke her neck. Instinctively, and fully distracted by her rather extravagant approach, Johann extended his wand out before him, though did not cast. Whoever this woman was, she was likely an innocent person and he did not want to hurt her unnecessarily.

All of a sudden she righted herself, breathing laboured, only a few feet from him. Up close, her eyes were glassy like marbles. She did not look at Johann but rather through him. He was almost certainly sure she had no conscious knowledge of what was happening to her which was very disconcerting. Had Musgrave used an unforgiveable on this woman? He knew Hannah's uncle had been an auror, and he could fight off a werewolf, but…

"Reckon you can do backflips?" The query had Johann's attention snap back to the other wizard. His pose was all relaxed, like this was an easy game. Johann felt like a coiled spring in a poorly constructed watch, that he might go off in the wrong direction, or behind the time. He did not want to find out if he could do backflips, or anything else at all, but the possibility of him fighting off Musgrave's attempt was minimal.

"F-"

His full verbal insult did not quite reach fruition. There was a loud bang like a thunderclap, and Johann pitched to his right, his hex going left. He met the corner of the kitchen table with his right hip. It was going to leave a cracking bruise, but at that moment there was little concern for a bruise. Lawrence was closing on him, and to his horror he found his right hand was stuck to the table top, complete with his wand and however much he hauled, he was tethered to the spot.

Far, far too slow, and such a disappointing effort. He had to stop himself from just knocking Johann out in simplicity. His stunner missed by an inch, he gave the linguist a slither of credit for being quicker than he looked, but his hex in return had not even gone near Lawrence, whatever the hex had been. Either way it didn't matter. He couldn't draw again, Storm was now stuck to the table with his wand hand.

Lawrence laughed and shook his head, smiling in the least welcoming way.
"It's a very simple question. Far easier to hear you say it than to prise it out your mind with whatever else I want…" He grinned and revealed lines of yellowed teeth. His wand closed in on Johann's temple with intent. The younger wizard was visibly shrinking, straining against his pinned hand, contorting, trying to move around the table as Lawrence leaned into press his wand tip against his head.

"Almasy's sent me!" Finally some sense, though nothing he didn't already surmise, "And she'll know you have delayed me." It was a rushed declaration and Lawrence leaned in, his face a foot away from the visitor's.
"And she'll know that you gave up her information in just a mo-"

The screaming began with a wail, and increased in volume behind him, both wizards startled.

The threat first of being controlled had been uncomfortable enough, but Lawrence had happened upon a deeper fear in Johann. Pinned to the kitchen table he could only tug and try and pull it with him to get out of range of the hawthorn wand pressing into his skull painfully. Lawrence could wipe his whole mind in just a moment if he knew. The thought left Johann reeling and he felt as if his knees would give way at any second.

His exclamation about Almasy was weak and desperate. He had in the past spoken secrets out of turn and paid the consequence but never for Almasy. He regretted the vague information the moment he yelped it. Within his swirling, panicked mind he was trying his hardest to find that sense of calm he'd found while forging documents against the clock at the start of the month. He wasn't showing off his intelligence now though, he was genuinely unsettled by Musgrave. He'd seemed somewhat compassionate as he'd let Johann and Wolfgang escape back in July. There was no sign of that man now.

In the nick of time, the Muggle, who had acrobatic skill beyond that she knew, had became self-aware. Johann's hex which had shot to the left had hit her instead. From school, he had been proficient at one hex in particular - the pig-snout hex. What with the bacon, and the fact he'd given it to Lawrence's sister once when she had threatened to oblivate him over a wedding dress, it had seemed apt in a split second.

Lawrence's preoccupation with arrogantly toying with Johann on a stomach full of bacon sandwiches had let him lose his grip on the woman. It was a stupid mistake, and he realised in an instant, whirling around the spot. The tip of his wand lifted from Johann's head. She bolted out through the open door into the bar, still shrieking, and although he raise his wand there was no clear line to hit her with a curse at the angle she'd vanished, so he had to pursue her.

Rather than curse her, he initially tried to regain control of her, but it was like chasing the reins of a startled horse, the grip yanked from his mental grasp the moment he thought he had it. There were heavy feet on the stairs.

Petrificus totalus sent her sprawling, and just as Lawrence was about to bind her well enough to leave a moment to return to Johann, a curse hit the Muggle's head with such precision and speed that Lawrence had no time to recoil. In an instant, he and the furniture around him was covered in a mist of blood, fragments of brain and skull shards.

When his eyes snapped open again and he blinked away the blood dripping from his eyelashes, he saw last night's arrival. The bloke hadn't spoken a word, was strangely simple, hadn't understood a word Lawrence had said it seemed but Layton had met him, not that either of them had said a word before him either then. His wand hand snapped to retaliate, but something about the way the other wizard held himself and observed made him think twice. This was definitely no simpleton wizard, more a hired wand.

The moment the woman bolted and Lawrence shot after her, Johann heard heavy feet on floorboards above the kitchen. The other occupants of the safehouse raised by the noise. 

Seizing the opportunity of the distraction, Johann used his left hand to yank his wand out from beneath his right hand, and cast with his left to release himself as quickly as he could. He could try the back door, but Almasy had sent him here on a time sensitive task, he didn't have time for Lawrence to get in the way.

The screaming next door had stopped, and he cautiously stepped through to stand behind the bar, eyes widening at the scene. Whereas the tables and chairs out there had just been dusty as he'd come in, now there was a red haze, and a great mess on the floor. As he stepped forward to try and pass through the gap in the bar he saw what remained of the Muggle and recoiled. There was nothing above the head and Musgrave was covered in blood, seething.

His attention finally moved to the third wizard stood very calmly, completely clean, but wand in hand. He peered at the body with an indifferent expression, but on hearing Johann looked up and addressed him in the Durmstrang tongue.
"About time."
"My apologies, I was needlessly delayed." Johann replied in the same, and gestured to Lawrence who wiped at his face as they spoke, but did not interrupt.

Undoubtedly the former auror had no idea what was being said, but strangely did not want to become involved now, and instead watched in stony silence, blood dripping off the end of his nose as Johann climbed the stairs behind the other safehouse occupant, leaving him and what remained of the muggle behind.

By the time he left, there was not a sign that anything had happened downstairs, no body, no blood, and no sign of Musgrave. The only thing that confirmed to Johann that anything had happened at all were his bruises and the lingering smell of the frying pan.

Though however hungry he was for missing breakfast, he decided he couldn't face a bacon sandwich once he finally got to work.

End