"We were just meeting up near Ilkley. Third Sunday of the month. … Ex-Azzies Anonymous. It's a place where we meet up, talk about getting back into society…Only the anonymous part isn't so true when your face has been plastered on the front of the Daily Prophet." He gestured with his remaining hand to his own face, which had been in February. "Dementors must have thought we were so effing miserable they'd come for the tea and biscuits.” - You Have Your Hands Full, 20th July 2010

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Brighton, wizarding street, 7:30pm

There were three types of Ex-Azzies who attended these meetings, Lawrence decided:

The first were the inconspicuous ones, who were there to appeal to their bail conditions that they were quietly reforming, no longer proving fearsome to society. They shuffled into the venue with cloaks drawn up against the weather and nodded to others tenatively. They were cautious about talking to him when he’d attended in July, preferred to keep quiet and a good distance from anyone asking awkward questions.

The second were the proud ones, who marched in near wearing badges and t-shirts to proclaim their support for the group. They were in a minority, closer friends of the one that led the sessions as far as Lawrence could tell. The ones who had found love or in some cases religion. The ones who had just enough money to protect it. They paraded in with hoods down, noisily greeting each other as if these were thespians entering for rehearsal, not criminals the neighbours would watch cautiously behind curtains.

The third were under duress. If they could they apparate in without being seen at all they would. These were the ones ashamed, possibly desperate. They were most likely slipping back into old patterns and running out of luck with parole. They were desperate for any legitimate work and would make excuses to others for where they were going.

Lawrence had begun as part of the third, only to prey on those insecurities to lure them away. Skills, habits, connections, underemployed hands were what he had needed last summer to find someone suitable to work with dementors. Then he’d caught up with Shufflebottom right after he landed on the coast from the North Sea. It was good to have a few allies, or know who was about though. Who could stand up for themselves.

He’d left Shufflebottom behind today. Willy's long-suffering wife protested duties that her husband could not leave and they had been out only the night before[1] where the Three Broomsticks had suffered. He wasn’t there to ask questions or make friends - there were galleons attached to good information on his whereabouts by now. Just another experiment - and the outcome would prove useful in future.

The meeting safely installed in the Brighton wizarding pub, The Old Ocean, frequented by more than a few wizard pirates to Lawrence’s memory of his auror days, he got to work. Without Shufflebottom to mind his back with dragon patronus, Lawrence was far more exposed than the previous night, but he hadn’t far to bring them once they came. He could feel them approaching without the safety of the patronus, hear them, feel them.

As the doors opened on the pub and the first faces reappeared to the outside world at half-past eight, they swooped down in the direction of his outstretched wand in the street. Attendees scattered, and Lawrence laughed as he felt the dementors rush towards new souls to eat.

In his indulgent entertainment Lawrence hadn’t calculated that amongst the Ex-Azzies were two capable wands. But once a curse landed on him the dementors were quick to turn on them instead.

1.	15 Jan 2011 A Denser Darkness

Andromeda and Grace were in disguise. It was a long shot but worth a go. Musgrave had turned up here before. He had got to have someone helping him. Here were lots of potential people to recruit. Disguise was easy for Andromeda. She was a metamorphmagus. She could change her look any time. The support group went all to plan. They left the pub at 8:30 too. As soon as they left there were dementors. In the street people panicked. Andromeda summoned her patronus immediately. She shouted to Grace to do the same. Below the dementors was a figure. It was not scared. Andromeda attacked. She followed her gut instinct.

Three dementors filled the dark Brighton street, the pavement had iced over, and frost patterns crept up the window panes of the pub. The figures in the street scattered along the edge, throwing themselves flat against the buildings, and then making dashes, trying not to draw the dementors with the noise. Air seemed to have been sucked from the street, replaced by fear. Lungs burned with cold air as they dashed away, memories screaming in their minds.

Word about The Three Broomsticks[1] had hit the Daily Prophet that morning. Here the dementors were, the other end of the country, attacking yet another pub on a night. Only the patrons leaving this pub at this moment had a statistically lower chance of producing a patronus. Flanked by the dementors in the dark, Lawrence’s wand put out the streetlights - and they shattered and popped, cascading glass down from above.

To his left, a great panther patronus[2] burst forth, snarling at the nearest dementor which reached its bony hand out towards a thin, wailing man covering his face. One who had not long be released by Lawrence’s reckoning, too thin to have put on any weight, self-confidence at a distinct low. The dementor swooped away, the patronus getting between it and its prey. Lawrence felt the frustration and sent them after the unprotected to his right, firing Devinctus at the figure standing proudly beyond the patronus. It had to be that same auror he’d cursed in London when they’d tried to move a dementor on earlier in the week[3].

1.	15 Jan 2011 A Denser Darkness
2.	Andromeda’s patronus
3.	11 Jan 2011 And Fate Disposes

Andromeda's patronus could not defend her in time. She had to throw up another shield instead. The panther puffed into smoke. Her knees buckled from the curse but she did not fall. Crouched, Andromeda cast inflingo in the direction the curse had come. She hoped Grace could hold her patronus and keep the dementors away. They were under attack from someone else!

A swan patronus[1] swooped around Lawrence in the gloomy street. The dementors swiped at it as it slid majestically through the air, their hands like claws as it bothered them. One of the dementors had found suitable prey out of Lawrence's sight - he could feel it drinking in on the edge of his mind and hear the blood-curdling scream of the woman.

The panther patronus puffed into smoke as his curse hit, but the wand stayed with his opponent to his irritation. Another shield had been thrown up in replacement. With both of them against him, one could maintain the patronus and the other could engage in combat. When he had just come down to prove to the dementors he could work alone and find them an easy meal, these two - aurors he surmised - were unwelcome guests. Still, he couldn't back away so easily, the dementors would not see him as one to follow, or at least he believed so in that exact moment as inflingo smacked straight into his own shield like a battering ram and he felt his boots scrape a few inches backwards on the road.

He parried with Extorqueo, slung low across the ground, aiming for feet before he fired Inflingo at the second figure in hope of knocking the younger auror over.

1.	Grace's Patronus according to bio/animagus notes

Andromeda saw the thin jet of purple light and tried to dodge. She cast Impedimentia at their target. She heard Grace fall[1] and moved in front of her partner to protect her. "Stupefy!"

1.	Erika is inactive sorry if this is not ok

His second curse to the auror’s partner met its mark.[1] The first shot two at him and repositioned. Lawrence countered as best he could, now able to make out the witch as her spell hit his shield with a bang.

She had youth and enthusiasm, and potentially a lot more energy to run about, but he had experience and dementors. Unfortunately, the non-beings were more interested in eating what they could of the people in the street than helping him out with this curse-throwing irritation.

That gave him an idea.

“Caecus!"

1.	Seems reasonable to me, Erika can always jump in if she returns

All of a sudden the world went dark. Andromeda waved her hand in front of her face. She could hear people moving. She could hear things the dementors made her hear. It took her too long to realise it was just for her. Another curse hit her and she stumbled. On her hands and knees she cast Purgo Oculus.
"Grace! Are you ok?" Andromeda blinked hard.

Lawrence’s curse landed, and he followed it with another for good measure - both of the aurors soon on the floor. The dementors seemed content with what they had, unbothered by two patroni, and as much as Lawrence’s hand itched to do some lasting damage to the aurors for interrupting his fun, it wasn’t them he was here for and it was a risk he didn’t need to take. But still….

He raised his hand again to blast them one last time when the swan patronus swooped up once more and rushed at him. The dementors behind him scattered left and right as it flashed towards them, long neck outstretched and wings in full extension.

Enough, he had proved enough for now before more arrived. Twisting on the spot, Lawrence vanished with a crack.

The streetlights began to flicker back on in turn.

Exit Lawrence

Andromeda swore. The attacker had got away. Grace's patronus chased the dementors. Andromeda felt too angry at herself to cast hers. She was glad Grace was ok.
"That had to be him!!" Andromeda exclaimed. She got back up. There were a lot of scared people around them. This was going to take time to clean up. Then she had a lot of reports to write. Her bosses were not going to be pleased.

-END-