---

Approaching closing time.

Norman leaned up against the brickwork and adjusted his winter cloak around his shoulders. There had been a thick fog in London that morning, perfect for skulking round the back of Ollivanders, tickling the locks and seeking out escape routes and hidey-holes. The sun had only shown her face at eight, and taken a while to burn off the mist. Norman had burned off the morning with pipe tobacco. The stem held firmly between his teeth, his eyes rarely left Ollivanders just across the road.

This was Norman’s equivalent to studying for final exams. The others in the Alliance didn’t heed him much. Fair enough he’d done a little time in Azkaban, but he’d not done time. He didn’t have the marks of the long-term prisoner, or the credibility. Though not all in the Alliance had. In recent weeks Byddir had eyed him up hungrily more than once. He knew Bran from way back, both in Slytherin for a couple of years, though Bran was younger. When you reached 40 it didn’t count for anything though. Neither of them were well-off, but Norman held one thing over his acquaintance - a wand.

There were several who had come out of Azkaban who were restricted from holding one. Of course there were ways, but the Ministry also had ways to pick up on those traces, and turn up to ask you to empty your pockets at inconvenient moments. Use the same wand for too long and you might find yourself heading back, as Norman’s older brother had not so long ago. He wished Willy were still around, for all their lack of brain, the two of them muddled along well enough. Now Gladys-May wanted nothing to do with any living Shufflebottom after the whole Musgrave deal last year. There was a regret, Norman thought idly as he watched a couple leave, witch clutching a new wand box. He’d never got to meet Musgrave again. Given his reputation, he might have taught Norman a lot.

Norman’s pipe crackled and he lifted it from his mouth to spit on the floor. The witch and her partner were deep in busy conversation and didn’t notice him, which was exactly how he liked it. He’d watched them through the wand shop’s windows for almost an hour, sourcing a new wand with the current wandmaker in residence, Tamzin Ollivander.

There she was at the windows now, short bobbed hair, enough meat on her bones, neither tall nor fantastically short. Her form silhouetted against the lamplight of the shop as night drew in outside. Blind as a bat, as far as Norman knew, but not dim by any means. She had a reputation amongst the Alley as one of the do-gooders. As a pureblood, she showed no particular leanings towards the Alliance’s cause, no sympathies identified. If she stayed compliant and quiet, she would make a great contribution without any effort on her part, later this week.

Checking his pocketwatch, and placing the pipe back between his teeth, Norman’s upper lip curled with malintent.