It had been a mercifully dry but cool January day. Sunday was tedious though, and as much as Lawrence had enjoyed a little insight into Willy's weird and wonderful breeding pairs in the rickerty stables at Godric's Hollow, he had other matters on his mind. Edwin's owl had reached the farmhouse in Godric's Hollow mid-afternoon. Willy's wife was out with their two children visiting her sister. Her husband, recently released from Azkaban for the fourth time in his life, was not invited. He'd missed Christmas again. The shorter, balding man was not flavour of the month in their penniless household, so whatever Musgrave could give him in terms of work or favours, he would seize with both hands. That, and the fact Shufflebottom was thick as two short planks.

For the sake of Mrs Shufflebottom's blood pressure and not causing a scene around the children, Lawrence had receded to the chilly stables to wait out the last half an hour between her return and their departure, leaning up against their elderly piebald cob for warmth. The mare did not seem at all bothered with the guest in her stable, and rested a hind foot while returning the favour with her weight against him. It gave him time to think things through alone.

They were a little late to reach the bottom of Edwin's garden in Guilden Morden across the country in Cambridgeshire. Mrs Shufflebottom had thrown a pan out after Willy, and Lawrence had nearly considered stunning her to interrupt, only with two children in the house, he held his patience... just. Edwin's rather larger, better maintained home just reflected the money he'd acquired through a long career with the Ministry and the past decade or whatever it must have been by now as a Department Head. How life worked out if you weren't caught, Lawrence had thought to himself while recovering from Bonfire night in Edwin's place a few days.

“Hang about where we can see you.” Lawrence instructed Willy as they neared Edwin's back door, and gestured to the patio before great glass windows overlooking the dining table.
“Right-o.” The other wizard replied, heading off obediently before pulling out his pipe to light it. Lawrence paused a moment in surprise that he would oblige so easily, but gave a shrug and pulled open Edwin's back door instead, stepping into the familiar kitchen.

“You're running late.” Edwin greeted, pouring coffee. Lawrence Musgrave always looked particularly scruffy the moment he entered his house. He broke the pleasant order and arrangement of his solitary bachelor life. Hopefully he wouldn't smell too badly today. It looked like he'd managed to acquire another coat over Christmas that didn't have suspect stains. “We agreed a time.”
 
“Yeah, well, here now. Quit moaning.” Lawrence retorted without a care, wandering through the kitchen without wiping his feet. He knew Edwin hated it, but it was only fair for that greeting. The mug of coffee shot out from where it had just been poured on the kitchen side. It stopped just before Lawrence who put away his wand before taking it out of mid-air and slurping. Quietly, the Department Head let out a sigh and poured another while Lawrence curled his lip at the bitter brew and wandered into the body of the house.

Mortimer loomed from the hallway, returning from using the facilities. Edwin could see him, but despite this did not hear his return. It took a moment for Lawrence to realise and he jumped, managing not to spill his coffee on one of Edwin's sofas. Edwin took delight in the scene, Mortimer had an unsettling quality he admired. Well, if Lawrence was going to be late...

“Shall we get down to business?” Edwin asked, approaching with a mug of coffee in both hands, leading the two wizards to the dining table. He caught sight of a dumpy figure on his patio as he did. The pipe smoke was streaming up into the night sky. “You brought a friend?”
“That's Willy.” Lawrence offered by means of explanation. Edwin glanced from the window  back to Lawrence, trying to recall the name before. “Shufflebottom.”
“Don't be ridiculous.” Edwin scoffed, “That's never his name.”

“It is, the third, if memory serves correct.” Mortimer assured Edwin placidly, approaching the dining table soundlessly behind them both. He had taken equal pleasure to Edwin in giving Lawrence a start a moment before. They were old friends, but Musgrave had always been a little big for his boots. It was good to know he could still be caught out by minor things, that beneath whatever he had become he was still human. That ridiculous, somewhat optimistic and engaged Gryffindor stalking around in red robes chasing dark wizards before becoming one.

He was however more than capable as a potential candidate for what Gamp and Glass had begun to investigate back in April[1] which was the reason he was here that evening after Edwin had been in touch.

“He is a neighbour of sorts in Godric's Hollow.” Mortimer explained to Edwin flatly. One had to put up with the less desirable ones in the village, though thankfully they were not too close. “He was in Azkaban, only out before Christmas?” He inclined his head a little to the right, hands clasped behind him as he studied Willy through the window, almost as if the wizard were an exhibit.

“What business have you bringing him here, Lawrence?”

1.	April 29, 2010 Nine Behind Three

Mortimer must have silencing charms on every pair of shoes, Lawrence rued as he was given a start by the wizard. He still looked and dressed like a ruddy undertaker. Nothing much changed. At least Edwin had been true to his word in persuading the unspeakable to join them. Lawrence knew Mortimer had finally made it to the top of the secretive tree in London as Head of his Department. Had he not fallen into habits with The Dark Lord, Lawrence wondered if he might be in Solomon Carstair's job at that moment.

Perish the thought. He considered, he'd have fancied Ed Pratt's post as Head Auror if anything. Still in crimson robes, not hob-nobbing with the Minister. But the three of them as Department Heads would have been a nice thought. The power... No. There would be enough power with two of them and Lawrence would have all the more if he succeeded. That was why he was here.

He nodded to Mortimer's observation of who Shufflebottom was and glanced from Edwin back to Mortimer as he finished the bitter coffee, ignoring how hungry he was.
“I need another pair of hands.” Lawrence explained, “I know he doesn't look like anything, but he has something I need.” The corners of his mouth curled at the thought, and his eyes took a strange glint that the other two observed with mutual suspicion.

“Alright,” Edwin replied after exchanging a glance with Mortimer, “Let him in.”

Lovely place Mr Glass had out here, Willy thought to himself. He had a good gawp towards the house, but the glass reflected back so he couldn't see in very clearly. Instead he busied himself with a good smoke of his favourite pipe, blowing clouds of galloping horses into the winter air as he surveyed the garden in the moonlight. He'd put a hen house over there where they wouldn't get too hot, and perhaps pigs down the bottom there, and the garden faced South so he could plant right up here, and...

Tap, tap

With a start, Willy turned round to the glass behind him, clasping his pipe out of his mouth. He could just about make out Mr Musgrave, hand on the glass, staring at him from within. He gestured with his hand in the direction of the back door.
“Me?” Willy asked altogether a little too loudly considering he was stood outside and this was meant to be covert. “Right-o.”

He tapped out his pipe before he hurried along the back of the house and seized the back door. Arriving inside the kitchen, he didn't look much better than his companion amongst Edwin's neat and tidy life. Shufflebottom's eyes swept over the scene. Mighty fine place indeed. Rather posh! No sign of Christmas though, not a Christmas card or a wreath in sight. No toys, no feminine touch. Mr Glass and his money must be very happy.

“Mr Gamp! Mr Glass!” He exclaimed to the two wizards with Lawrence. They were instantly recognisable. Willy hurried forwards with hands outstretched in an attempt to shake hands merrily with each of them in turn. Clever wizards these two – the best – Department Heads! Willy knew they were important, and he had no idea Mr Musgrave knew such important people. Perhaps everything would be alright and he could tell Gladys-May all would be well and they could buy enough to eat this week without going hungry for he sake of the children.

“Mr Musgrave's told me what's going on!” Willy gave a dramatic tap of his nose, lying was habit. He wanted desperately to be in with these three though. He didn't have much going for him since he'd just got back out of the North Sea. He had to prove to his wife he'd be there next Christmas for the kids.

“I haven't.” Mr Musgrave replied with a frown, and then gestured to Willy, “Show them your patronus.” At this demand Shufflebottom's face lit up like a child's at Christmas. Well, as far as he remembered, he'd missed the last two.
“Right-o Mr Musgrave!”

He stepped away a couple of paces and faced into Edwin's living room proper, closing his eyes just a moment to remember his happiest thoughts. Of getting hitched to Gladys-May, of holding little Jack and then little Susie for the first time, of them having enough to eat after slaughtering the pigs.

“Expecto Patronus!” From the tip of his wand burst an enormous silvery whisp which grew and grew and grew until it took form. A giant dragon filled Edwin's living room, and Willy's grin grew from ear to ear. “Yer like it?”

Well he never! Mortimer kept a straight face, resisting shaking Shufflebottom's hand until the last moment. He tucked his right hand back behind himself after the interaction. The short wizard smelled faintly of animal manure which was hardly surprising given his menagerie on his land at Godric's Hollow. It was a curious choice of companion on the outset for Musgrave. He hadn't even measured William Shufflebottom to be of any great intelligence. The wizard spent most of his life on the poverty line with no real purpose or drive.

The ease the man conjured his patronus, and a corporeal one at that was staggering! Mortimer suddenly had a strange admiration for the wizard he thought a complete idiot. Not only was a patronus a spell he assumed was beyond his capabilities, but he doubted Willy's muddled and purposeless little life could contain enough happiness to draw upon. He had grossly underestimated Shufflebottom, and from Edwin's expression at the silvery dragon now dominating the living room, so had he.

“Useful.” Mortimer finally spoke, drawing closer to inspect the patronus as it remained. “Welsh Green?” He queried Willy who nodded vigorously.
“Right you are Mr Gamp, right you are.” How surprising indeed to come from such a wizard.

There was the most enormous dragon in his living room. Its head was curled just before the fireplace and its tail reached the kitchen. It was quite possibly the largest patronus he'd ever seen, and Edwin had seen a lot of patroni in his life. An awful lot in the past few months with containing dementors. His own was pretty sizeable, a bull, but not at all as big as a dragon. What a surprising little man. It appeared Mortimer shared the same underestimation, so at least he was not alone.

Sobering himself from the surprise, Edwin posed a far more serious question. Lawrence obviously meant that Willy would be a useful accomplice when dealing with dementors for the size and ease he could raise his patronus. However, they were in his living room the second day of the new year, with Christmas still fresh in their minds. This was not a suitable test situation.

“But has he cast it before dementors?” He asked Lawrence, choosing not to directly address Shufflebottom and his ridiculous grin.

Lawrence could hardly mask his smirk as Willy obliged them all with glee. He and Shufflebottom had gone to Hogwarts together, but had only really become friendly in their second year there. Lawrence had been in Gryffindor, and Shufflebottom in Hufflepuff. He hadn't seemed to fit his house at all well, but nor had he seemed to fit the others either. He was one of those students Professors insisted would grow into their house, the Sorting Hat always revered with great intelligence of the four founders. It was Lawrence's opinion that the hat had really got Willy wrong though. He would have made a fine Gryffindor, even if he wasn't particularly bright.

It was at school he'd come to find out about Willy's patronus. As a good all-rounder at his subjects, Lawrence had anticipated his OWLs with mild trepidation, keen to brush up on his weak areas but not struggling overall to keep up. Willy had floundered. He was always at the bottom of the class with marks and it was almost certain he would fail most of his OWLs. Despite this he was surprisingly upbeat as a teenager, rather more looking forward to getting out and going to help his father with their animals, which had been his passion. Still, despite this he and Lawrence exchanged bouts of duelling in empty classrooms to blow off steam and practice ahead of their wandwork exams.

The first time he'd seen the dragon patronus it had been fleeting, but he'd been so staggered by it he'd not forgotten. He and Willy had fallen out of touch as adults, what with his classmate leaving at the end of his fifth year. When Shufflebottom had been released from Azkaban the day after Boxing Day, Lawrence had made no delay in becoming reacquainted before Willy could catch up on the news that he was wanted by Level 2, and given him the exciting proposition.

“Yes Mr Glass, fifty of them in Cumbria just before new year.” Willy lied without flinching. Lawrence rolled his eyes.

“Five, and near Glasgow.” He corrected. “I wouldn't come unless I was sure we were up to the job.”

So they were behind the Glasgow disturbance a few days ago. Ah, well that was a little insight he had not anticipated to find out so soon. The I.D.R.E.A.D response had sent only the advance team, the Dementors were already retreating away from harm's way by the time they arrived on the scene. A relief to the team who had been anticipating a fight soon after Christmas excess, but curious to Mortimer who with the unspeakables studying the dementors saw this immediately as unusual behaviour.

Lawrence's attempts to control dementors up until now were known to him, but usually he was well clear of the scene by the time the Ministry appeared, being ever so careful. Instead, from what Mortimer knew of Level Two, he'd got himself caught up with the Trumble kidnapping.

“Were you successful in controlling them?” Mortimer asked Lawrence with intense curiosity. From what they had observed, they had been to some extent. He needed to know how.

Willy's patronus was fading as Mortimer and Edwin became more interested in Lawrence rather than the dragon. With attention off his accomplice, Lawrence kept a wary eye on him for doing something silly to regain attention like a disobedient dog. With Willy's hair, it wasn't a far stretch of the imagination, and even with his limited intelligence he got bored easily.

“It's a work in progress...” Lawrence replied evasively, and then glanced between his two old friends, unable to not let his pride swell, “But yes, more than before.”

“How?” Edwin's face lit up with excitement at the other end of the dining table. The pair had spoken in November about the dementors and about how Lawrence might control them. It had made for good conversation once Lawrence had recovered from his bonfire night injuries[1] and Edwin had filled him with a bit of food to improve his strength. The challenge posed had explained a little towards Edwin's strange hospitality and the risk of hiding him in his own home while he was a wanted criminal.

“I'm not going to tell you everything -” Lawrence began and then swung round, hand to his wand, glaring, voice dark: “Mortimer get out my head, I won't hesitate to break yours.” He could feel a legilimens on the edge of his consciousness. Although not occlumens, he knew what it felt like to be invaded, and his retaliation was always a curse.

1.	November 6, 2010 The Moon is Half Awake

At the sudden movement of Mr Musgrave to his own wand, Willy leapt back to attention. His patronus vanished in an instant and he brandished his wand instead at Mr Gamp before he realised what he was doing. It was an act of solidarity with Lawrence who had employed him to watch his back over dementors, but to Willy he took the role as meaning he should do it at all times.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mr Glass give a sigh and extended his own wand over the dining room table. Four chairs drew out from it, and he took one, settling down.
“Sit down.” Glass snapped at them all as if he were addressing dogs.

Willy glanced to Mr Musgrave for what he did before following without much disagreement, taking the seat opposite Mr Glass, placing his short wand on the table top. Mr Musgrave joined him in the seat beside, still staring firmly at Mr Gamp who sat down last. It felt like one of the worst family dinners with Gladys-May's family, Willy thought to himself. His eyes glanced from one to the other of them all, not sure what was going to happen next.

“Why are you following him around anyway?” Mr Glass asked him directly. Willy drew himself up straighter and tried to answer sensibly. This rarely turned out well.
“He pays me.”

“I don't,” Lawrence corrected yet again, Willy blinked as if he was confused that he'd lied at all, “he just steals wallets and purses while I watch his back. We've done the odd job together for contacts so far this week, but he only got out on Monday after Christmas.”
“Right-o I did just.” Willy confirmed, telling one of the few truths since stepping foot inside Edwin's house that evening.

It appeared Shufflebottom was prone to exaggeration, though not for the size of his patronus. Any wizard usually exaggerated that, but Willy did not need to. Edwin decided it would be easier just to talk directly to Lawrence for a straight answer, and that was saying something these days. Lawrence's name was increasingly mentioned down in London in relation to all manner of things that Edwin knew better to be Almasy's work. Still, that might well be part of her plan to distract and give a name to deeds so that she could remain in the shadows for longer. He admired her greatly.

Shufflebottom better be worth his patronus Edwin thought to himself as he shifted beside Mortimer who sat rigidly still on his dining chair. At least he was not trying to invade Lawrence's mind still, that would only end up in a fight and it had been a long time since he'd seen Mortimer raise his wand in anger. It was more likely Mortimer had unspeakables to do it for him these days. Edwin took a swig of his cooling coffee and considered matters.

“What does Almasy think to him?” He asked Lawrence, eyes not leaving the ex-auror's face diagonally over the table.
“She doesn't.” The other wizard replied, and swept back his curly brown hair, sitting back in the dining chair. The tension that had suddenly flared between them all seemed to ease with the movement. “They've not met... yet... Dementors?”

Shame, it would have only taken a moment to slip into Musgrave's mind and prise out the scene at Glasgow. Another time, perhaps with the combined cooperation Edwin hoped to broker, they would have all the data they needed sooner than later to deal with the dementors, and to capture a few. Mortimer and his team of unspeakables had plans for them, but they would need more of them. It was a tiresome effort to fetch them in while cooperating with the other departments.

The mention of Almasy was not a surprise. Although he and Musgrave had not seen anything much of each other, Edwin had disclosed to Mortimer mid-December the developments. Almasy had been of minor surprise back then, but her name had come up in tenuous links with some of his unspeakables in the past. Nothing to get Level Two's attention to his knowledge. He was not alarmed by what he had heard from Edwin, quite the opposite by the way Glass had spoken of her. In time they would undoubtedly meet, Mortimer might have a proposition for her if Musgrave were not able to meet it alone.

“I wonder if I can cross a dementor with something,” Willy interrupted them suddenly, just as Musgrave brought them back to the topic they had come to discuss. “Imagine a demiguise and a dementor - the saddest invisibility cloak you ever seen...” He held out his hands before himself gesturing and imagining the beast there on the dining table, eyes wide, prominent forehead wrinkling.

Mortimer frowned from the other side of the table and finally reached for the coffee Edwin had made.
“You can't breed a dementor.” He corrected the idiot tersely.
“I heard they can't die.” Willy persevered despite being corrected. It was an impressive talent, Mortimer thought, it was as if he wasn't bothered by being wrong, to the point he believed he was right. Still...
“About the only thing you've got right since getting here.” Mortimer remarked, studying the short wizard, perplexed. Willy took it proudly, chest swelling as he tapped his head and grinned, elbowing Lawrence.
“See not as daft as I look!”

When Lawrence had posed dementors as the return to subject, he had not anticipated Willy taking it to heart with his specialist subject of magical creatures. He did however, seem to find a strange common ground with Mortimer from the expression that crossed the old man's face. The thought of those two working together was beyond imagining, if they did manage they would create terrible beasts, but if not, Mortimer would probably eat Willy alive in that deadly department.

He despaired of the offshoots to the conversation in hand and appealed to Edwin in a louder voice.
“So I guide them away. That's what your official line prefers?” Edwin had explained back in November what the Ministry's usual intention was with dementors and how to control them. It was a fruitless task, regular deployments up and down the country to try and persuade dementors away with varying success, sometimes including members of the public en masse.

“Out to sea if you can.” Glass confirmed with a nod.
“That's no fun at all!” Lawrence complained, gesturing with his remaining hand in protest.
“I would like a few for my Department's research.” Mortimer interjected, setting down his coffee cup, fixing Lawrence with another of those intense stares. Lawrence returned it with equal vigour, anticipating another legilimency attempt.
“So do we get one of your nets?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mr Gamp had complimented him! He felt awfully clever, and sat up straight in his chair beside Lawrence, not managing to sit quite as tall as the former auror, but he felt damned important all the same for being one quarter of the meeting at the dining table. His wife would never believe him if he told her where he'd been. She thought he was down the pub.

At the mention of the net, he brightened further – he'd heard about it in the paper – there had been some photos of it in the last week and an article with long words that had discussed why they hadn't seen it again recently. The Ministry didn't want to talk about the net.
“Ooh saw the net in the paper! Catching dementors like fish!” He exclaimed, impressed at the magic, “But why not just get a big hoover?”

Diagonally opposite him, Mr Gamp stared at him, a look of genuine confusion across his ancient face.
“A hoover?” Willy repeated, wondering if Mr Gamp was getting deaf in his old age and had missed his comment. Beside him, Lawrence clapped his remaining hand to his face and started laughing.