The Shodding Arms Hotel, Knockurn Alley
Lobby bar
9pm; 20 November 2011


"I said shoe," Nate said to the ghostly bartender. The Shodding Arms was so deeply haunted, you never knew if there was going to be service or slaughter down in the dilapidated bar. This particular phantom was, apparently, hard of hearing in addition to lacking a tongue.

"Whaaaaaa...?"

"Sh - oh never mind."

Nate Briggs, known professionally as Hermes of late, was doing very well for himself, and he felt better than he had since getting out of Azkaban. Hermes had carefully cultivated a reputation as someone who can get what you need and do it discretely. He was taking a great deal of care to shield himself from his clients with middle-men. It was all dreadfully foolish, part of him knew. But little else in his life came close to the level of satisfaction when he successfully pulled a job. After years, he wasn't bored.

He was enjoying watch the Daily Prophet reporting his handiwork and seeing the confusion about whether all the burglaries were connected. Many of them were, he grinned to himself. What was helping a great deal was the absolutely diverse array of victims and property; he'd made sure to spread it out.

Sure, he felt bad. But no one was getting hurt. He didn't take jobs that carried that kind of risk. All the better to avoid the ravenous hunger of Level Two. He'd heard they'd put trainees on the Pilpher and Stride's job! That's the kind of law enforcement attention he liked.

The gig he'd been trying to tell the Gob-snip Barman was his most recent and by far the most bizarre. All they'd wanted was a shoe. A single, specific shoe.

'Don't touch anything else,' they'd said. 'Not a penny, not a paperclip. Don't break wards, don't break windows. Just the shoe. Quiet as a mouse.'

The other odd thing about this job? The details of it had been delivered piece-by-piece by seven different people and three notes hidden in bizarre locations. The shoe-drop had been similarly cryptic - he was to place it on a shelf in Pandora's Attic. And the payment, too, was spread out all over the city.

Probably the hardest part where the restrictions of how he could get in. He was becoming an expert ward-breaker. He'd had to case the apartment for a couple weeks, watching the comings and goings. One gentleman visitor, in particular, showed up like clockwork and often by night. Nate was rather proud of his clever notion to plant a Sleeping Sneaker in his jacket pocket.

On cue, it had escaped the pocket, hid itself, and when night fell, unlocked a high window. In and out.