Late morning on Tuesday, 13 March
Just outside Hopworts Brewing Co.
Arch 22, Druid St
Bermondsey, London

"Oi!  Wait your turn, lad," Pollux grumbled at the extremely large, extremely round pigeon as he managed to heave another bag of spent grain into the large blue rubbish skip.

It was a foggy late morning in Bermondsey, which was about what he had come to expect in London this time of year.  The cobblestone streets that ran parallel and between the raised railway arches were fairly quiet. None of the breweries along the infamous Beer Mile would be open for service today; the only traffic came from industrial deliveries to the various warehouses or Muggles ducking into the specialty shops to pick up groceries.

Business at Hopworts had taken off since their second grand opening in December. These days, the little tasting room was packed brim to brim every Friday and Saturday. Orders from other magical pubs kept Pollux busy with brewing, keeping up with the demand for kegs of their four core beers. 

It was rare that he found time to simply experiment with recipes anymore unless he forced himself to make it, which was why he'd come in alone on this Tuesday. The idea of magical beers, which blending techniques from traditional brewing and potions-making, was intensely interesting to him, but also led to plenty of failed experiments. He'd been working for the past few weeks to develop a new beer recipe that he'd taken to calling Bockamy. Ultimately, the helles bock was supposed to mimic the choranaptyxic qualities of its namesake by causing the vessel that it was poured into to grow or shrink to fit the amount of beer inside it.

Unfortunately, Pollux's first attempt at brewing it had seemed ill-fated throughout the entire process. It had ultimately devolved into catastrophe when the tank holding the fermented liquid had suddenly shrank overnight to fit the amount of liquid inside it and then exploded from the pressure. This second attempt seemed to be going better so far: he'd made it all the way to the hopping stage without anything accidentally expanding or contracting.

The large skip was nearly full as Pollux heaved the last bag of spent grain over the edge and into it. The sliding metal door didn't quite bang closed as he let it go, leaving an opening for the eager pigeon.  Pollux sighed, giving it a rueful look as he wiped his hands on his pants.  Of all the pigeons in London, this one had settled into a happy life feasting on spent grain from the growing brewery scene in Bermondsey. It had kept getting rounder and rounder, and he was starting to wonder at what point it would lose the ability to lift itself aloft so that it could search out new feeding grounds.

"Don't gorge you too much, Murdoch," he told the pigeon dryly.

The pigeon let out a rumbling, deep-throated coo in response.  It was already nipping at one of the corners of the bag of mash, eager to get to the spent grain inside.

Shaking his head, Pollux turned to head back in through the vegan butchery, lips puckering as he whistled the melody to a Hawkshead Attacking Formation song. He was feeling chipper. He had a bit of time to wait before he needed to tend to the brewing again, which would be plenty long enough to enjoy a vegan sausage and a pint.

He didn't pay attention as Murdoch let out a sudden, startled coo. Behind him, where Pollux couldn't see, the already-large pigeon began to rapidly grow, quickly expanding to the size of a quaffle with no end to its sudden growth spurt in sight.

"I've got nothing against being vegan, obviously," Anton repeated, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of their destination.  He'd had no reservations about eating at this spot, so it should be obvious he had no qualms about the cuisine choice.  Chet didn't look convinced and Nigel still looked like he'd lost interest in the conversation, just as he had a good five minutes before.  The fingertips of Anton's other hand drummed impatiently against the football braced comfortably against his side. 

"All I'm saying is: embrace the veggie.  You don't butcher soy beans."

After a morning spent kicking around a football in dedicated study-procrastination, they'd settled on the little vegan butcher for a quick bite before parting ways to embrace their roles as dedicated students.  With two more papers due before the week's end, but no actual classes, Anton was capitalizing on the opportunity to catch up with some of his old sixth form classmates.   

"It's about cuisine - dishes - foods, not ingredients," Chet repeated as he walked on Anton's left, officially bringing the conversation full circle for the third time.  Given Nigel's bored sigh, he'd also kept count. 

"Yes, but, when the dish is ribs, the ingredients are -"  Anton had reached for the tarnished brace doorknob when he'd chanced a peek through the small front window.  Through it, he caught a brief glimpse of a man's shadow and, behind him, the fruitless fluttering of wings.  The bird had already reached a size where the wing lift surface to body mass ratio no longer allowed for flight and was continuing to grow. 

Anton hesitated a brief moment, holding the door closed, before quickly improvising.  "Eek ... yuk," he said, turning to his mates with a shake of his head and wrinkled nose.  "Looks like someone's vegan Canadian bacon was too much for the building's old plumbing.  Poor guy at the counter looks like he has his hand's full.  Maybe we should head back to the train station and find a different spot." 

Thankfully, neither mate questioned his story nor felt compelled to offer help (as Anton had hoped when he'd settled on a sewage-related cover story) and the trio turned to head back in the direction they'd come.  After subtly guiding them around the corner, Anton hesitated and looked up at the sky with an exasperated sigh. 

"I might catch you all on Friday for lunch.  I've got ten more pages to write before tomorrow and it's all I can think about."  After a quick round of social negotiations, the three parted ways and Anton turned and casually made his way back towards the butcher.  There was no sign of him being followed by the time Anton had returned to the wooden door and he slipped inside, peering curiously towards the corner where he'd last seen the turkey-sized pigeon.   

"This place is starting to give off some very Sweeney Todd vibes," he offered the fellow. 

The vegan butchery was quiet today. A bored-looking woman was perched on the stool behind the counter, snapping a piece of gum as she read a thick-looking book. She was tall and lithe, with dark skin and thick, textured hair that bounced a little as she glanced up to catch his eye.

"What about ye, Naleda?" Pollux said cheerfully, flashing her a bright smile by way of greeting.

The Muggle woman arched an eyebrow, but she flashed him a smile a moment later. "Alright, Pollux," she replied amiably, as she turned a page in her book. "Hey, we're due for the next book club meeting in a couple of weeks," she informed him, her gaze now fully locked back on the page. "Did you mind hosting in the tasting room again?"

His stomach rumbled as Pollux stepped up to the counter. "So it is," he agreed, picking up one of the laminated menus to scan it over. "Aye, just so long as it's not one of the nights we're open. When would you like?" he asked, with a friendly smile to Naleda. "At least that'll set a deadline for me to catch up on the reading."

Just then, the door jangled and clanged as it opened. Out of habit, Pollux glanced back. It was a fair-skinned, honey blonde teenager that he didn't recognize, who wasted no time in opening his mouth.

The wizard blinked. "What?" he asked blankly, not getting the reference.

Before he could exchange a look with Naleda, before the teenager could respond, a deep, rumbling coo came from the alleyway behind the teenager.

Pollux's face went slightly gray.

"Ach!" he exclaimed, hurrying past the boy for the door.

In the street behind him, just next to the large trash skip where he'd left it, was Murdoch the pigeon. But the bird was no longer the small, slightly plump pest that it had been when he'd left it. Now enormous, it was still pecking furiously at the battered bag of grain, even though it now stood taller than the dumpster itself and appeared to still be growing.

It took Pollux half a moment to find his voice, and several beats longer to locate his wand.

"You gluttonous baste!" His fingers finally closed around the familiar wood, and he yanked it out of his pocket. "Finite incantatum! Surgito!" he cried, gesturing furiously at the monstrous pigeon. "Offero! Finite! Finite incantatum!"

Anton felt he had neither the time nor the need to explain how a rapidly-enlarging pigeon stabbing repeatedly at a burlap sack might resemble a homicidal barber.  The analogical plot similarities were of secondary importance to the ... inflating bird. 

All he had time for was a quick nod behind the fellow before the huge feathered grain-thief caught the man's attention.  And to stare, dumb-founded at the pigeon that defied logic.  Luckily, the man appeared to know what to do.  Anton took a step to the side, giving the other ample access to do ... whatever one did with a large bird. 

If it even qualified as a bird, anymore.  "I see the dinosaur," he murmured.  "Bloody hell." 

Trusting the other's confidence as an indication of safety, Anton followed a few steps behind.  At least, for now, the pigeon hadn't caught on to the idea that it could easily partake of foods much larger than grain.  "Don't get eaten," he offered as an entirely useless suggestion as the other man drew his wand. 

All he could do was stand next to the man and spread his arms, hoping to prevent the pigeon from making a break for the door if it got spooked.   

True to form, to Anton's dismay, the pigeon reacted as all birds did to people running towards it, flailing and shouting.  It leapt back, bumping into the wall of the alley and stretched enormous wings in an attempt to take flight.  There were few places in London that could have accommodated the pigeon's wing span.  The unfolding wings were hindered by the surroundings and the sudden feeling of entrapment sent the bird into a full panic as it sought desperately to find an escape. 

"I can't ... uh ... I'm not magically gifted.  But, what can I do to help," he asked, looking between the man and the other woman in the shop. 

Murdoch had always struck Pollux as a bit of a lazy beast, but the now-enormous pigeon now looked anything but. As it gave a frantic flap of its monstrous wings, the burst of air that it generated was nearly strong enough to knock him back; as it was, the gust blasted his hat off his head, sending it tumbling back towards where Naleda stood speechless in the door of the shop.

"Murdoch!" Pollux shouted over the beating of the monstrous wings. "Heel! Oi, ye baste!"

But the enormous pigeon was not interested in heeling, although it thankfully appeared to have grown too big to effectively propel itself into the air. Agitated, it tried to lumber on top of the trash skip, as if all it needed to take to the air was a few feet of clearance and not, as was probably more likely, a two-mile runway.

At least his flurry of spells appeared to have arrested Murdoch's rapid growth spurt. But, Pollux realized with a quickly sinking feeling, the fact that the pigeon had only grown to the size of a large lorry instead of continuing to expand until it rivaled the London Eye wasn't going to make much of a difference if word of this disaster got back to the Ministry.

The blond lad who'd first drawn his attention to the Great Murdoch Disaster had yet to flee the scene. Pollux stared at him for a moment, and then pulled himself together.

"Quick!" he exclaimed, shouting to make himself heard over the beating of the wings as he pointed back to the door of the vegan butchery. "Fetch a baguette! If you can calm the monster down, I'll see if I can't return it to itself again!"

So, the pigeon had a name.  Should they live to see another day, rather than be mistaken for very large crumbs of stale bread, Anton would have to ask the wizard how a pigeon comes upon a name as epic-worthy as ‘Murdoch’.  But, alas, they had to survive the encounter first. 

At least one could find some comfort in the man’s surety in the pigeon’s capacity to follow commands.  Even if the commands went unheeded by the bird. 

Anton glanced from the disobedient pigeon to Murdoch only to find the older wizard staring at him.  Was he looking to Anton for help?  Advice?  “Maybe its range of hearing changed,” Anton offered with a slow shrug.  It seemed as reasonable a theory as any and it was comforting to think the lack of obedience was due to a communication issue rather than pliability.  “You know.  Ear drum got a lot bigger so maybe it can only hear lower frequency?  Like … speaking humpback.”

Dory could talk to the pigeon.

Apparently, that wasn’t the direction the wizard intended to go.  Assuming the wizard knew best (after all, this wasn’t exactly something they’d studied at Sixth Form), Anton accepted the recommendation without a second thought. 

“Baguette.  Right.  Distraction-loaf.”  Anton turned and darted towards the door.  With Siri as his co-pilot, Anton raced towards the closest bakery and ordered a discounted day-old baguette with an urgency that clearly baffled the poor clerk.  Then, back to the butcher with carb-rich ammo. 

Alright.  Time to assume the role of Anton The Pigeon Hunter.  “Tchk tchk tchk,” Anton clucked, using universal old-man-on-a-bench-feeding-birds dialect.  Slowly, he approached the bird, tearing off a chunk of bread and tossing it towards the ground next to the rubbage bins.  ”Oi, aren’t you the most beautiful creature in the world,” Anton feigned excitement in a (bad) Australian accent.  If Steve Irwin could do this with a man-eating crocodile, surely Anton Schäfer could do this with a pigeon.

The pigeon paused in its flailing and turned towards the Muggle.  It’s gaze darted towards the chunk of bread and it bobbed it’s head with a loud, low cooo.