3 April 2012
7:30pm, a Tuesday
  Antik Kuno

It could be a strange thing to be acquainted with a journalist. They were never truly off the clock, many of them. Their ears always seemed to be perked up, their dowsing wands always trembling, questions on the tip of the tongue. Some could find this curiosity suspicious. Sometimes it could feel like you were being used, everyone a potential source, anything uttered liable to wind up in the Daily Prophet. Niobe Thursby wasn't an exception. Her friends seemed to accept it. Her acquaintances, however, may not have yet gotten used to it. If you had specialized knowledge or came from different circles than Niobe, it seemed only a matter of time before she came calling.

Entering Antik Kuno, the antiquities shop of Salma Smythson, Niobe shivvered off the uneasiness of Knockturn Ally. She didn't avoid the seedy district as a rule or anything, but she didn't like it. She'd been covering the Daily Prophet's crime beat now for a couple of years and so the hairs on the back of her neck were justified in standing up on these particular cobbly streets.

Salma's shop felt part store, part museum, part hedge-witch's caravan. It was unique in London and Niobe had only ever been one time. Her infrequency to her party-friend's place of business could be interpreted as an insincerity, so Niobe would have to build up some goodwill.

Niobe took her time moving down the long space, stopping often at the display cases to give items in the collection a pause and attention. All together they furnished in a physical form Salma's anti-colonial approach. Niobe was Irish, her family by way of Barbados, she avoided the topic with her mostly white friends and colleagues, who would never have brought it up on their own. It was usually Salma who did. It both relieved Niobe and made her anxious - she'd made compromises to achieve in her career, to rise through the ranks at the very conservative Daily Prophet. Pollux was always better at all of this.

She found the shopkeeper at the end of the path, working with her hands at the counter. Niobe adjusted her bag on her shoulder as she approached.

"What's the word," Niobe greeted.

            "Cusssstomer..." the voice murmured into her left ear before slithering behind Salma's neck. "Guessssst."

"Mm," the witch replied without looking up from her work. "Thank you Lucy."

To anyone besides her Krait snake, this response expressed itself as a sequence of soft hisses. Salma was examining a small pewter jewellery box using a loupe, dark eyes carefully going over the engraving to identify the runes hidden in the pattern.  She had acquired the the box from Borgin and Burkes, who were convinced of its cursed nature - but she had her own ideas, based on its place of origin.

            "Clossssser," Lucifer slipped down her arm to curl himself on the desk. His forked tongue tasted the air.

Salma put down the loupe in time to see a familiar face drawing close to her work counter. She was friendly with Niobe, who was one of few people she would join for a drink if she spotted them at a pub. On those rare occasions of alcoholic indulgence.

"The word is slow and..." she gestured at the shop, full of artefacts but bereft of patrons. "Empty."

It was possible that the Daily Prophet reporter was here to browse for magical trinkets to decorate her home. Salma doubted it. She switched off the light floating above her head and returned the jewellery box to its velvet tray, which she then slid aside.

"What brings you to my humble shop?" her tone was self-deprecating, at odds with her put-together appearance - curls combed into a topknot, eyeliner sharp.

Niobe noticed the snake. Unconsciously, she crossed her arms over her chest and took a step back. There were no snakes in Ireland, as it was well-known.

Salma was too the point, and must suspect Niobe wasn't there to shop. She'd done once before to find a Christmas gift for her girlfriend Foy, but not since.

"I'm working on a story," she began, a little smile touching the corners of her mouth. She always was. "Have you heard of the Knights?[1] Dead sleezey. They had a burglary last week, and I think ..."

She paused, considering. Then continued. "... there's something more to it. If you have a minute..."

Niobe lifted her eyebrows, hopeful.

1.	Old and wealthy pure-blood family. The Knights

Had she heard of the Knights? Well, any collector in London knew of the Knights - as well as other inbred gwailou families who thought it was in their realm of interest to collect artefacts that did not belong to them. She nodded, in a way that implied she would much rather roll her eyes.

            "They had a burglary last week, and I think ..."

"Ssssneaky Salma..." Lucy whispered over Niobe's words, and swiftly slithered under the desk after being shot a dry look.

One day she was going to come across another parseltongue and that snake of hers was going to get them into trouble. Salma liked Niobe but she didn't need the other witch to know about her hidden lifestyle - and certainly not about what she had taken from the Knights.

It didn't sound like the reporter was here to offer veiled threats or suspicions though, so Salma played it cool.

"More to it? Like what, insurance fraud?" she raised her own eyebrows, habitually tapping her pointed fingernails on the table. "Doesn't sound like an interesting read to me."

"Shite!" The snake made a noise and moved again; Niobe bit off an embarrassingly girlish noise, and quickly settled herself. "No more of that..." she muttered and put a hand to her hair.

"Oh, insurance fraud, that's likely with all of them," Niobe said, shrugging off the boring financial angle. Boring because looking into it was to get striped over with papercuts and wilt away under yellow lamplight. Boring because of the repetitive predictability of how rarely anyone got nabbed for insurance fraud.

"No, something better. Have a look."

Niobe produced from her jacket a color photograph. In its thick white margins were notations from the National Museum of Wizarding History where the subject of the photo had once been catalogued. The photo depicted a figurine in stone. On first look it seemed like a simple object, but if one gave it proper attention one would appreciate the artistry. The proportion, the repetition, the balance, and detail was masterfully done. It was work that would confound muggle tools, clearly spells were involved in the execution. The magical photography technique allowed light to interact with the figure, and it shimmered faintly as Niobe moved the photo round for Salma to see.

The National Museum had labeled it as being from Borneo. One of two.

"The Knights had one just like it, wee thing. This one wasn't theirs. They had this photo on hand from the museum and showed it the MLE. So I thought, I'll speak with the museum as they've got the other one, right? Well. They don't."

Niobe seemed to find this funny.