---

---

“There, just there.”

In the living room, the Fates, Balfour’s three nonchalant cats were feigning sleep, their ears twitching, eyes slipping open intermittently to regard the empty cluttered room around them. Their bellies were empty, but the routine was always similar. Good things came to cats who waited. At least, that’s what an observer might reason if the Fates were ordinary.

“Oh fuck,”

There was a sharp snap from the other end of the hallway, echoing off the walls and frames hanging between the doorways. Lying on the floor just outside Balfour’s study was Whiskey, a wizard’s best friend. His nose rested between his paws, belly flat, sprawled with a certain resignation. The German Shepherd’s nose pointed expectantly in the direction of the kitchen, but the cupboard containing both the cat and dog food remained shut, despite all the magic in the Atreus flat.[1]

“Yes, oh gods,”

The grandfather clock, sleeping in the corner of the study watched all. It had a face, but no means to show emotion, other than to move the many hands on its face. Rather than keeping time, the clock kept stock of the Spectre clan, its hands skimming over at irregular intervals throughout a working day. Right now, the littlest hand pointed to Atreus, confirming the location of the youngest Spectre.

Thud, thud, thud.

The Fates flinched, claws sinking into the upholstery at the noise. Curious eyes turned to the front door of the flat. It was still early in the working day, not too early to have fed them, but early all the same for a Thursday morning. How dare something from outside the flat threaten a further delay of breakfast?!


Whiskey’s head raised from the hallway floor, ears pricked. Bumps and bangs were not altogether unusual given his master’s lifestyle and the animal companions, but the dog's nose picked out a familiar scent, faint, but recognisable. It had been here before. It came here uninvited.

“… I love you, fuck m-”


The grandfather’s mechanism sprung into life, inching the littlest hand round the face. Not to the farm in Japan, not to the estate. Whiskey pulled himself up onto his haunches, glancing back into the study to heed the additional noise with a whine, not knowing what the clock conveyed as the littlest hand settled under mortal peril.

1.	Floorplan of the flat by Nuri

Thud, thud, thud.

Johann Storm was useful. Storm was a linguist. Storm was one of the few, if not the only, linguist with adequate knowledge of Ira Almasy's dealings. Storm was flexible with the law. Storm proved less troublesome alive than dead.

This is some of the many things he told himself on mornings like this, delivering another series of knocks at Flat 3A whilst trying to refrain from slipping into the thoughts of either men on the other side. Layton knew better now. One too many mental incursions into scenes of lustful escapades was more than enough for a lifetime. Not that this scenario was any better.

Did they not understand the comforts of a muffling charm?


Now, Spectre was less useful. That conspicuous Scotsman might have been a favourite with Layton's employer but his function was purely spectacle where real work was concerned. Spectre was expendable. Spectre was a name for headlines. Head of Beast Division. Found dead.



Layton took in a deep breath and reached for the door handle with his wand, undoing the lock with a master charm that would work on all apartments in Atreus. It clicked open before giving away to his shove.

That bloody dog was on its feet right away, low and guarded growl forced into a furious bark. The wizard shut the door behind him like it was the most natural thing to intrude - his mannerisms calm but his wand at hand. He dragged his gaze down the corridor and then abruptly turned it away.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Balfour Spectre's arse was not something Layton felt compelled to stare at, this moment.

M for mature language and sexual references


Fuck!

Balfour tore his wet mouth away from his lover's pale and slender neck, startled into awareness by Whisky's snarl. He was braced over Johann - framed by soft, crumpled sheets and the shy light of morning - but nearly lost balance in the surprise. Ah, Christ. Bal looked over his shoulder into the corridor beyond the open bedroom door, just in time to catch sight of Ira's lackey assistant glancing in their direction. If their eyes met, neither showed sign of it. He smirked at Layton's immediate reaction.

Well. That was one way to lose a hard-on in under three seconds.

Gingerly, and with reluctance, he drew himself away from Johann to roll off the bed. "We have a guest!" Balfour exclaimed either angrily or incredulously as soon as he was on his feet. "Should I charge him for the show or do you think he's not seen enough?" he spoke loudly enough for his voice to carry down the passage.

“What?” Johann retorted, left sprawled on the bed, legs akimbo. He propped himself up on his elbows, blue eyes quickly focusing on the figure in the hallway. “Do you not know how to knock?!” Johann spat, glaring at Layton. In a flash, one of his pale arms shot out to draw the sheet over himself for modesty. It wasn’t that he was upset to be seen naked - just that any vulnerability in Layton’s presence was a mistake.

“Sorry, darling,” Johann uttered in a lower tone to Balfour, glancing apologetically in his direction. “Unscheduled meeting.” He had - as Layton might have either heard or even seen - been rather enjoying his time with Balfour that morning. Mornings like this when they both had time to indulge in pleasure before facing the working day always got the day off to a better start. For Balfour and Johann, it was with a great, noisy regularity. Layton was a constant disruption to this, with his out of hours demands for Ira.

With a huff, the linguist shuffled to the edge of the bed and got to his feet, tucking the sheet around him as best he could in the circumstances. It was particularly uncomfortable when one was still nearly at full mast. Charged up from interrupted lovemaking, Johann’s arrogance and irritation were unbridled when directed at the uninvited guest.

“Have you seen enough?” He asked Layton, raising his voice again as he approached the bedroom door. “You’ve a request, undoubtedly.”

Was there, he wondered, a patron saint of men who suffered fools? Specifically fools in love?

"If I'd knocked any harder, your neighbours would have answered their doors," he answered dryly.

Layton did what he often does in situations that try his patience - he breathed in and out slowly. Then he moved into the living room space, pointedly ignoring though keeping within sight of the corridor that led to a doorway which no doubt framed Storm's scantily clad figure. The dog followed him at a distance; its distrust was made obvious by a deep growl in its throat. Extremely similar to its owner.

              “Have you seen enough? You’ve a request, undoubtedly.”

He'd heard kings speak less haughtily than the German.

"I think she would phrase it as a command-" Layton called back as he turned away from examining the unlit fireplace. "- but I'm not here to mince words. Your job, remember?"

Balfour tightened the belt of his dressing robe - a new dark green one for the spring, in chambray - and smiled grimly to himself at Johann's verbal indignation, before reaching for the pack of cigarettes on their dressing table. He didn't take well to going from the sweet embrace of a lover to the sharp quips of... whatever Layton was. The Scotsman shook out a stick and lit it with his wand, which he slipped into his robe pocket within easy reach.

Just in case. There was no trusting Ira or anyone who respected Ira.

Unscheduled meetings, as Johann tactfully calls them, meant that the love of his life would be off on some dangerous and immoral task. And he would go where Balfour could not follow. That was always a hellish prospect.

Balfour drew in a breath of smoke and decided he would not be held prisoner in the bedroom of his own flat. "Coffee, my love?" he approached the dark haired wizard at the door while the third of their party was responding. "Or tea? I wish I could slip something nasty into his glass."

A brief kiss, into which he softly sighed. His hand found Johann's hip underneath the sheets and gave it a protective squeeze; he slipped past and headed towards the kitchen to start on something hot to drink. Poor substitute for a morning fuck (gods the thought made him both furious and aroused) but better than nothing at all.

A command. Johann’s blood boiled. It simmered for Balfour’s quiet interruption about coffee.
“Whatever’s quickest, I get the feeling I may be leaving shortly.” He grumbled quietly, returning the brief kiss a little more roughly than he intended with his burgeoning bad mood.

Layton had retreated into the living room. Johann retrieved his wand from the bedside table and tried the white cotton bedsheet more tightly around his lanky frame. Grumpily, he trod heavily down the hallway, past the kitchen, and into the living room. His black hair was still standing on end in peculiar shapes from being asleep and the crown of it rubbed against the mattress. Altogether, it was the least professional he’d looked for an exchange with Layton. He didn’t give a shit. It just ensured a further delay in leaving if Layton wanted him somewhere immediately. Besides, he’d have probably said outright to get dressed if he did.

He swept his gaze up and down Layton critically. This was about something time critical, so potentially about the last job. He’d tampered with export certificates for restricted goods one of Ira’s contacts wanted to expedite out of the country before a raid.
“Have they stopped the shipment at the border? Do you need me to go there?” Johann asked, his irritation at Layton shelved as his mind switched to business, and his terrible pleasure in outwitting the paper pushing customs officers of European Ministries bubbled to the surface.

A noise from Balfour in the kitchen punctuated the way his mind had jumped into action, considering how he might solve an issue which hadn’t yet been confirmed by Layton, reminding him that Ira’s work wasn’t legal. It wasn’t meant to be fun. Fun was rolling over the sheets with his knees up by Balfour’s ears. The thought coloured Johann’s cheeks without him realising.

Ah, wonderful. Storm wasn't even going to bother getting dressed.

Layton counted himself lucky that the other wizard had decided to put anything on at all - modesty was not one of Johann's strongest traits and they were in what some might consider his home territory. But that turbulent mind was already jumping to quick conclusions once they were within sight of one another; and as much as Layton wished to throttle the overenthusiastic couple, he was reassured by the grim pleasure taken in professional proclivities.

             "Have they stopped the shipment at the border? Do you need me to go there?"

"No," he began to answer and then nearly bit his tongue off as an image (with far greater detail than necessary) drifted from the dark head to his own - and Layton was treated to the other, more explicit side of the intercourse he'd just interrupted. All long, pale limbs or scarred tan ones. The perspiring brow of a dragon tamer.

No. Storm's mind was decidedly not a safe place to be.

Layton breathed in deeply to quell his irritation, glancing away from Johann and towards the kitchen archway. Sounds of burbling water.

"No," he repeated. "Not the shipment. A.... mutual friend, by the name of Fontaine, has refused a very basic request to speak." The name was more of a nickname that he and Johann casually used for a wizard who had crossed the both of them in a previous dealing. Very nearly cost them a deadline that would have meant putting off Ira's shipments for a month.

Spectre entered the living room, two mugs in hand. He handed one to his partner and sipped from the other before turning to take a seat by the windows at the far end. "Anything, Layton?" the Scotsman sat across from a small table with a chess set and a vacant chair. "Arsenic maybe?"

"I won't be long." Layton replied flatly and turned his attention back to Storm, hands going behind his back. "I can get him to speak. In French."

The glow of a blush on Johann’s cheeks faded almost as quickly as it grew, his attention focused on their uninvited guest. Layton did not normally address him directly before Balfour. Then again, Johann was normally properly clothed to address Layton directly. They had seen more of each other of late, and Johann had been doing his best to swallow down the dismay, boxing off all of him which was good and honest in self-preservation. Self-preservation against Ira and Layton deciding to do more than make holes in him, or harm Balfour, but self-preservation of what might happen if they were ever caught up with. Thankfully, Level 2 were still overstretched and maintained near misses, which if anything, made it more exciting for the worst parts of Johann’s personality. It made it a game.

“… mutual friend, by the name of Fontaine…” Johann’s brow creased ever deeper at the mention. The Fontaines were a traditionalist pureblood family from Savoie[1], who cropped up in the public eye. The most notable to Johann had once been Paul Fontaine, a French diplomat, his two granddaughters had competed in the Tetrawizard Tournament at Hogwarts the previous year.

Of late, it was less directly related member of the family, who wasn’t really a true Fontaine but had bought a business and still used the name to trade, had attempted to anonymously tip off the authorities rather than handle goods in France. He had claimed his fee was too low, cocky little bastard. He had been a reliable, obedient fence for a good six months on face value. They had abandoned their original attempt to move a collection of antique creature eggs, hiding amongst, a live Chimaera egg, a Class A Non Tradeable.

One of Ira’s little businesses was the ability to put buyers and sellers in connection for rare, ridiculously expensive and untradeable goods. René was meant to handle the receipt and swiftly send it on with new papers within France. Instead, a young British Ministry customs officer had turned up sniffing at paperwork in a Diagon Alley office on a tip which it later transpired René may have kindly disclosed under a pseudonym. Not enough money talked, he’d inferred. Luckily other connections in Southern France were able to do his job and profited an excess for the short notice. Altogether it had been a stressful forty-eight hours for both Layton and Johann as they reworked the route.

It wasn’t their only suspicion regarding Fontaine, though, so to hear he was refusing to speak, suggested Layton had decided enough was enough. Johann’s right hand clenched around the handle of his wand, mind already running through the list of possible other hiccups they had noted in recent months.

“That fucker…” Johann breathed, the venom vanishing in an instant from his voice as Balfour appeared. His clenched left hand relaxed to receive a mug of tea, with a glance to his lover, his reasonable side fighting with his suppressed deviant personality which Layton elicited. Balfour gave the visitor a far less interested reception, offering to poison him. Layton gave him the briefest of acknowledgements for the punctation in their conversation and then fixed his gaze back on Johann.

“I can get him to speak. In French.”

Johann’s shoulders dropped just enough to be noticeable. He was trying not to look at Balfour, though he observed his body language in the periphery of his vision.
“And you’re hoping it’s not just ‘arrête de tordre mes couilles!’” Johann asked, flippantly, tendons showing in his hand again as he gripped the mug. “‘Stop twisting my bollocks’,” he clarified, sighing grumpily.

“Where is he? What state is he in? I can’t abscond from London today.”

Johann shook his head and raised the mug of tea to his lips to blow on it gently before trying to sip it gingerly. Yes whatever Ira commanded was his job to do if he wanted to live, but if he started behaving erratically at the Ministry he would arouse suspicion at exactly the wrong time. Gabrielle was about to go on leave and pop a small human being out from between her legs and Johann was in at the top as an advisor to her temporary successor. He would be more useful than ever to Ira, surely she could understand that? Then he didn’t doubt that Fontaine could be dripping blood somewhere after round one with Layton, and the clock was ticking.

1.	From Cécile Fontaine’s Biography and La Fontaine Famille (retired characters)

Balfour was not enjoying the distance between himself and his lover, at present. Nor Johann's physical proximity to their house guest. His every nerve was awake to the possibility of pain and danger: of anything going to hell at any moment because as important as they might be to Ira Almasy, they were still at the mercy of the heartless.

The Scotsman drank his tea with a watchful eye on either wizard in their living room.

He trusted Johann with his life (and more) but what trace amounts of vitriol he had caught in the exchange was worrying. It exhibited a love of danger and action that they both shared... except nobody knew better than Balfour how perilous that love could be. The situations it could lead to.

             "And you’re hoping it’s not just ‘arrête de tordre mes couilles!’"

Balfour snorted into his tea, choking softly at this flippancy. He hid his amusement by glancing out of the window momentarily - muggle Knightsbridge going about its morning business as if though murderers weren't plotting havoc above their unsuspecting heads.

What anxiety he felt was eased by knowing that Johann didn't intend to leave London for this task. Layton appeared to be deliberating, eyes narrowed.

         "His bones are intact. He isn't bleeding out." Their landlord's assistant informed, tersely.
"Lucky him," Balfour muttered and continued to drink at what might be an alarming rate for a hot beverage.
           "Extremely lucky," Layton agreed even though it didn't sound like he was agreeing. "And you won't have to set a foot out of town."

This was all directed at Johann; glances were not spared in Bal's direction. He was definitely more of a commentary than an active participant in this prelude to torture. Gods. Torture. That was what Johann was going to walk into, another man's pain. Balfour could only hope the 'fucker' deserved it.

Layton continued, moving away from the mantle in the living room with the air of a someone who has had their fill of company. "Meet me at the old Aldgate tunnel." And now he did finally shoot Balfour a stoney look. "Alone."

Balfour vocalised what Johann thought to Layton’s description of the state of the captive wizard. His blue eyes glanced in his lover’s direction, acknowledging his presence more visibly with the movement. Layton didn’t flinch but did respond this time. Johann looked back, poised, waiting for a verdict. He exhaled as it came, lips passing uneasily over each other, lubricated by hot tea.

At the demand, Johann remained staring where Layton had been, tea raised halfway up, jaw muscles taught. His mind was busy beneath his messy head of dark brown hair.
“I’ll be there within the hour. But I cannot stay long.” He turned a little to look to Layton as he crossed Balfour’s living room, “Not that I anticipate we… you will need that much time.”


Johann blinked hard, dismissing the delighted voices invading his subconscious. They were brought on by the rise in stress, the strong emotions against an already busy day ahead. Much as he delighted in working, anxiety could plague his early waking, rob him of remaining sleep. The wizard draining hot tea at the one end of the room knew an efficient method to release the tension, his opponent knew better how to add and manipulate Johann using it. Tempt out the worst. For someone supposedly so clever, Johann was predictable to those closest to him, and those who watched.

“Alright?” Johann asked tersely, rounding on Layton, insinuating both with tone and body language within the bedsheet that it was time he left.

Once the unwelcome figure ceased imposing, Balfour’s dog traced his nose for scent of where the threat had been, tail at half-mast, agitated along with the rest of his little pack. The occupants of the flat seemed to take a fresh breath of air, as if holding it while something evil stood within the walls. Johann remained staring at the closed front door, lost in his thoughts, teacup drooping in his grasp.

Balfour’s owl hooted from the study, a welcome signal in the morning routine of the arrival of the Daily Prophet. It brought Johann back to earth with a bump and he turned, righting his teacup to save it slopping and lifting his gaze to Balfour, expression grim, but more recognisably the reasonable side to his personality again than the one he presented to Layton. He regretted that the man he loved above all else in the world had to witness that. That he had ever got involved and that each time he and Layton worked together, it clawed a little more at Balfour, wore at their love. It was poison. Ira Almasy was poison.

“We can’t stop him doing that, can we?” Johann spoke at last, gently gesturing back to the door with one pale arm. Of course they couldn’t. Not if they were here, in her house.

“I won’t go… if you don’t want me to…” he offered, tone wavering. Of course he was going to go. They were here in her house.

He left, and yet his absence carried a noxious suggestion in it. That this place is and was never really Balfour's home.

The Fates were everywhere at once - one of them having hopped on to the mantle that Layton had been standing at - with the bristling tails and territorial purrs. A lingering peppery scent that might have been a cologne. Morning light greyer than it had been not fifteen minutes ago, when it had cast warmer rays across rumpled bedsheets. Something different in the air of their cosy living room.

And in the middle of it all, the stark figure of Johann Storm staring at the front door with his back to the Scotsman. Balfour put down his mug and rose quietly as the familiar call of Freja's arrival reached them from the study. It brought his lover back to him, turning around and looking as beautiful as ever.

But still, draped in pale sheets, like the lost schoolboy they both sometimes resembled. "We can’t stop him doing that, can we?"

Balfour shook his head head sadly and approached the other wizard at a slow, careful pace. He didn't answer the futile question except to very gently lean in and kiss the side of Johann's face. Maybe once, not long ago, it would have driven him into despondency to have witnessed this scene. 

"Do what you have to do," he murmured and reached down to take Johann's free hand in his, "and I'll do what I have to do. Which means being here for you, always."

Balfour squeezed reassuringly before drawing close for another kiss - this time a chaste one to the lips. He pressed his forehead to Johann's temple, sighing softly. "Please be careful. I love you, don't you know?"

A faint smile; but of course they both knew. It was only his way of saying come back to me, I couldn't bear it if you didn't.

Johann closed his eyes as he felt Balfour kiss him gently. He wanted to stay in that moment, however melancholy it was. The smell of his lover drowned out Layton’s lingering shadow. His lips downturned as he knew Balfour’s reply was entirely true. Their hands were tied, their own fault, independent of each other. This was how they had to live to survive until they could find a way out.

“Always,” Johann confirmed, wrapping his arms around Balfour, pulling him closer to hold him, teacup still in hand, carefully held away. “And I will, I always am. I promise.” Even though a moment ago it would be clear he could get caught up in a common goal with Layton. He left gentle kisses below Balfour’s earlobe, rubbed his free hand gently between the stronger man’s shoulder blades. “I’ll let you know I’m back safe at the office.”

He released Balfour and downed the last of the tea, mind already busy considering what best to wear, what method of transport and what route to take to reach Layton. It was clear a lot was going on behind his eyes by the way they didn’t quite focus on anything around them.
“Sooner I go…” he uttered, though he sounded resigned.

Taking a route through the kitchen to leave the cup by the sink, Johann obliged to Freja’s hoots in the study, untying the rolled up newspaper from her leg, smoothing her feathers gently with his pale fingers in a distracted fashion. The paper unrolled in his hand. The sight of the face on the front page was not unusual - it had been there before, but the news stopped Johann in his tracks.

“Shit…”

When he had heard the truth about how Ignan had nearly died, about how Hannah had come to the cottage in Hogsmeade, convinced Miranda and Ignan that Lawrence an inebriated Johann, he had been livid. He did not doubt his source, Ignan had told him with regret, concern. He’d not known how to process the information. Hannah had been his closest friend - albeit intermittent due to their respective distances. She had put him back together in January, not asked questions despite his frantic, bloodied state, drugged him up enough to get to Edinburgh. She’d camped out on his doorstep before that - the night the Cauldron had gone up.

The only thing he could bear to think, was that Lawrence had put Hannah up to it all. He was deranged, Johann knew from meeting him in the Gallivanting Bard on business for Ira. Regardless of the fact he had allowed Johann to evacuate his late father from the swimming baths in Birmingham, got Hannah to safety that night, he had purposely tried to kill Wolfgang, threatened Johann, and was a wanted man. He’d imperioed a Muggle to make him a bacon sandwich, he had to have imperioed Hannah. He couldn’t tell Ignan that suspicion, he had to remain just a shocked friend who had once been due to marry a witch held in custody for murder conspiracy. It had kept him awake beside Balfour trying to work it out.

Maybe they were all just trapped.

Johann read the article in a flash, one hand to the back of his head in a daze. He hadn’t seen this coming.

“Shit… this might not … or might be… Balfour, Lawrence Musgrave’s surrendered.” He hurried from the study to the hallway, holding up the paper so the other wizard could see the headline. “This could mean Hannah… I wonder if Layton knows? He’s surrendered, gods knows what he could be saying…” Johann considered himself way down the list of things Hannah’s uncle should be talking to aurors about, but it gave him a very uneasy feeling. “Wonder how long he’ll stay alive.”

He had not realised that he was in need of soothing, until he felt Johann's mouth pressed to the side of his face... Johann's hand working down the length of his spine... Johann's voice uttering a sweet promise to return...

Balfour stopped himself from sighing as his partner drew away. In spite of reassurances it was obvious that the mind beneath those dark curls was chipping away at a multitude of problems; unsolvable for many but not for Johann Storm. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his robe and watched helplessly while the other wizard went about the business of starting one's day. It felt incredibly unfair.

They had been interrupted in their love-making rather early in the day and so Balfour decided to linger in the living room, lowering himself into an armchair by the dormant fireplace while one of the cats hopped on to his lap; purring.

His eyes closed and he focused on Johann's footsteps making their way through the flat. Kitchen, corridor, study, thoughtful silence. Maybe too long a silence. Bal wanted to simply doze off and avoid the entire day, except he was so keyed up it would be impossible. Hurried, urgent steps caused him to look up - just in time to catch sight of Johann in the passageway: holding up a copy of the morning paper.

Atropos found herself dislodged as the Scotsman rose in a hurry, emitting an affront mewl.

            "This could mean Hannah… I wonder if Layton knows? He’s surrendered, gods knows what he could be saying…Wonder how long he’ll stay alive."

Balfour took the paper, quickly scanning the article while Johann mused away. Even in print Carstairs still managed to sound like a snot. It wasn't a long read anyway and he handed the prophet back, earlier melancholy lost to an active worry upon his brow. A surrender? That looked suspicious to say the least.

"Wouldn't be surprised if he was choking on poison this very minute. Are we sure this isn't one of her plans?" he met Johann in the eye, jaw drawn taut. "That basta-- Layton, I mean. He didn't say anything. Not that I imagine we're privy to his concerns." Bal snorted softly and then ran his hand across his face in an attempt to wake himself up further.

Musgrave knew things. Not, he hoped, things he would easily confess. Either way Balfour was going to be on high alert at work today. "Do you think we should go to Edinburgh for a few nights? Just in case?"

It would be harder for Ira - or the Ministry - to get them there, than it would be here.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if he was choking on poison this very minute.”
“Hrmm.”
“Are we sure this isn’t one of her plans?”

Balfour’s eyes met Johann’s, and the marginally younger wizard considered the possibility. It was the surrender that was the oddest thing. Ira could very easily - or Layton rather - have turned Lawrence into a corpse long before Level 2 found him. The fact he was in the Gallivanting Bard in late December suggested he was still in cahoots with both of them well enough to live there. Since then, well, it appeared Lawrence had probably gone off piste. But the only reason to let him wander would be to appeal to Ira’s dramatic sense of humour.

“Not that I imagine we’re privy to his concerns.”
“No,” Johann agreed, gaze re-engaging with his lover’s.
“Do you think we should go to Edinburgh for a few nights? Just in case?”

“It pays to be prepared.” Johann suggested, his tone indicating the jury was still out on that for him until later. “I might take Layton’s temperature. It’ll be the last thing the aurors would ask him, but snitching on other people is a bargain. Eleor’s been bloody close more than once.” He rubbed at his chin, leaned over to peck Balfour on the lips again merely for the fact they were in close proximity again and it would be rude not to.

“Anyhow, I’ve got an idiot to interrogate, and doesn’t pay to be late for Layton.” Giving Balfour a pleasant, upbeat smile which contrasted the worry across his brow a moment before, Johann turned on his heel.


-


Old Aldgate never smelled any better for a repeat visit. Johann’s feet stumbled on arrival in the dank air, never sure of his footing in the disused tunnel. Muggles broke in at times to squat, and nature and animals took over otherwise. The sound of his apparation had sent rats scurrying, he could hear them, and Merlin, smell them too. Layton picked some beautiful spots to meet, Johann grumbled internally, he better not stink later. He didn’t anticipate having enough time to change fully before meetings at the office. It was warm enough now not to wear a coat, and tunnels, when they were sealed, were like caves and kept a steady temperature.

Wand lit, Johann moved forwards in the direction he anticipated he would find Layton, picking his feet carefully, doing his best to ignore the darting movements at the periphery of his vision. Some of those rats were as big as Balfour’s cats, he swore. If some were gnawing at Fontaine’s limbs he wouldn’t stop them though. Descending some dusty, long abandoned stairs down towards abandoned platforms and tunnels before the station moved. Everything above was gone since the 1950s. One day all of this might be gone thanks to Muggles.

At the bottom where the tunnel levelled out, he stopped. There was a shadow in the tunnel ahead, but not recognisably a figure. No, Johann realised as he raised his wand, rather an inverted human. This was not an unusual sight in this spot, but still made Johann swallow. Glad it wasn’t him, again.

The presence of a wandlight in the otherwise dark tunnel triggered the figure suspended upside-down to struggle in the binds, hands tied behind his back, black hair on end, trailing inches from the dusty floor. Layton’s spider-prey couldn’t yet see him, but Fontaine knew someone was there, and he twisted in the ropes as best he could to try and see.