[1]

Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl
With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there
- Copacabana; Barry Manilow

Late Evening

On the dance floor of Le Masquerade, Picasso undulated. He spun, he shimmied, he threw his masked head back and laughed a full-throated sound of pure joy and ecstasy. His body glimmered in the flickering lights of the strobe. Three Owl Standard - a true throwback - blared magically throughout the room, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. He opened his mouth and belted out the hook to Fever Spell along with the rest of the people there for 'guilty pleasures' night and slipped a nip from his hidden flask. The drinks at Le Masqe weren't quite potent enough for him. 

Like one of the masterpieces of his namesake, Picasso wasn't a person - he was an abstract. From the outside, there was no mistaking his humanity, but deep within, Picasso was a mess. It was like someone had taken his soul and tore it into pieces, then reassembled it bit by bloody bit in the best way they knew how, leaving things not quite right.

Outside of Le Masquerade, that holy den of blues and golds, Pentameter Puddifoot kept those pieces tightly bound, hiding away the flaws like a cracked vase turned so only the unblemished showed. Pentameter put on a front for the rest of the world, pretending like he didn't have intimacy issues, like he wasn't still holding out hope for a love long lost, like he wasn't drowning in the depths of his own self-importance. But here, with a mask covering his features and no one knowing who he was, Picasso could just be free.

As the song began to fade into another, slower beat, Picasso gave one final flourish and sashayed his way off the dance floor, making his way toward the stairs to the second floor, flashing a smile and a hidden sign at the stairway's gatekeeper. Picasso had been coming to Le Masquerade since they were exclusive - he'd gained access to the VIP section long ago. He passed it, and the staff rooms, right on by.

After slipping through an unmarked door leading to a hidden stairwell to the roof, Pentameter put away the parts of himself that were Picasso and brought forth the parts that were Unspeakable - those pieces of him trained in secrecy and evasion. He would need those skills this evening, engaging in activities best left to the shadows.

Though Le Masquerade had long ago dropped its exclusive nature, his date for the evening would have stuck out like a monk at an orgy. Anadotti Squiggs was not exactly Le Masquerade chic.

Tam removed his mask with a flourish upon stepping through the door to the rooftop and called out, looking around, "I was wondering how you'd manage to get up here tonight,"

"I considered apparation, though I'm not sure how you'd get through the wards," He smiled as he continued searching for his clandestine companion, "Or did you fly? But how did you avoid notice?"

1.

Lotophagi

What could Anadotti Squiggs even say about her life right now. Oh, stellar this one. She wasn't feckin' drunk enough to take this venue with their masked-charades seriously. Who the frock gets VIP, livin' life in luxury?[1] She didn't care, beauty queen she ain't!

Well, for the witch who looked to have woken up from the wrong side of the tracks regardless of what side of the ocean she was on, she might have given three-quarters to crashing a party here. But not the full 9. She'd gotten peeks into the club through the windows, clambering up the side of the building as a squirrel. Couldn't figure out who was who but it was getting prestigious enough for her to gag, compared to the lower level street chic she represented. Yet another Knockturn Alley lowlife, although this one had an obnoxiously whiny American accent. They probably didn't even serve cocktail weenies!

Whatever. It was a different venue than where she usually met Mr. Iambic Pentameter so he could get his poetic license out on the dance floor. Yet only one of them could make the guest list. He'd been talking about something big. Party boy was taking his sweet @$$ time to meet up.

Which had allowed Dotty to change back from her animagus form un-accosted. Revealing the self-professed lower class lout who had her own fever. And the only prescription was more cowbell, scratch that, the jangling of hard coins in her pocket. If she ran out on this cig she was going to charge him extra!

Dotty's problem was that she could never stay still. She was always jittery, a wild-eyed wild-haired dark arts junkie with way too long raven tresses. Even leaning against the skylight, trying to follow the party along, her foot was tapping as she flicked her lighter. One finger toying with her tongue piercing. The rest of her asethic was scuffed leather jacket, torn fishnet stockings, trashy band shirts with suspicious stains, and platform boots to make up for being five foot zilch. She swore the land of tea and crumpets was making her lose two inches of height.

So when Tam emerged to call out to her she bolted up from her hidey-hole, coughing on the cig. "Finally! Kept me waiting up here long enough, having your jollies. The two things going for this joint are the music and that it wasn't raining!"

"I was driving in a limozeen. How about you stop caring about how I got up here?" Dotty would claim she was sauntering over, but she wasn't coordinated enough to pull of sultry tonight. She crossed her arms, listing to one side. "I don't ask why you prance around in be-dazzlingly migraine-inducing garb."

"So spill it, Bic. Not my 'sulting fee, though, give it already." Dotty gestured with a grabby hand, expectant fingers clapping her palm. Tam knew the rule: score her a swanky drink from downstairs before they talked shop.

1.	Various lines sampled from Cascada's "Fever" (Oct 2009)

Tam knew several squirrels gophers operating in the shadows of London, but Dotty was by far his favorite. As an Unspeakable stationed in the Ever-Locked Room in the Department of Mysteries, Pentameter Puddifoot knew the value of having someone who could fetch, and fetch well, on your side. Sometimes, even when a person might have every legal means to obtain an item, it was best to keep one's hands clean. The personality... well that was just icing on the cake.

With a flick of the wrist, Tam tossed his mask atop a stack of crates discarded by the door and brought his other hand from behind his back. Balanced in that hand was not one, not two, but three drinks. At 6'4, Tam was a tall man with large hands and feet, but balancing the long-stemmed glass full of a black liquid and two shots had been a challenge even for him. He upended one of the shots himself, scrunching his face at the instant burn, and proffered the others to his companion, "Ogdens' firewhiskey and a twisted dementor - I don't know what the hell they put in it, but they call it that because it's so bloody strong that after one, you'll feel like you could never be unhappy again - like a dementor, but twisted,"

He sat the shot glass on the crates beside his mask and started counting off on his fingers, "First off, you couldn't have been waiting up here for more than five minutes judging by the amount of cigarette you have left, and if you think for one second that you are more important to me than Dennis Creevy, you are dead wrong," Tam had always had an unhealthy crush on the lead singer of 3OS and he wasn't afraid to admit it.

"Secondly, there's not been an enchantment yet that's gotten past Urania, I doubt Blue Silver has come up with a model that could fool her," The doors to Le Masquerade were guarded by the nine muses and Urania, muse of astronomy, kept her eyes forever toward the sky. They weren't the real muses, of course, but their ability to watch and protect the venue was real enough.

"And finally," He said, raising a third finger and poking a glittering heel from beneath his robes, "these are sapphire and moonstone studded, not bedazzled, I'll have you know, and if you'd just add a dash of colour to your wardrobe, you might not look like a goth vampire from a raunchy romance novel - a nice bright lime, perhaps?"

With a smile and a twinkle in his eye, it was obvious he was just engaging in some cheeky banter - lime would, of course, be an awful color for a person like Anadotti Squiggs. As he finished speaking, he lowered the first and last finger he'd raised, leaving only the middle left pointing proudly into the air.

"But really," He said, lowering the rude gesture after a moment and folding his arms across his chest, "where ya been, Dots? Old Felt said you'd skipped town, but Felt'll tell you anything for a knut and a smile - can't believe a word the old goat says," The Unspeakable was eager to get down to business, but he was a social creature - manners demanded small talk to give his companion a chance to sip her drink - despite the shady nature of their rendezvous.

Ogdens' was one the local prats marveled. Dotty sniffed it, trying to detect hints if it was the Black Label introduced the year after her untimely Isles arrival.

"Twisted dementor?" she almost spat into the drink, until catching onto the intended effect of it being opposite a dementing. Which would be a plus. Too many bad memories for Dotty, from narrowly escaping ghouls to guilty reminders of killing another student at Salem's. Never Being Unhappy Again was a heckin' sweet byline for a cocktail.

She took a noisy sip as Tam prattled on. Creevy music, astrological muses, the new magic cars, just shut up already! "You're a chatty drunk, Bic." Or high off his hifalutin club duds.

Gads, he still had a foot on her even with lifts! Dotty scratched her lip. That 'will he or not grow a mustache' on his lip wasn't nearly as attractive as he thought, but there was always something about Poetry in Motion. A consistent client. And if Dotty was still fuzzy and four-pawed, she'd be humping his leg this very moment. What fleek did they put in this drink?

"I've got plenty of color," she protested. "Maroon, green, that bruisy blue that's gonna turn pretty quick if you don't tell me what this big request is already." She slugged back the firewhiskey. "Scratched velvet doesn't know jack about all I'm doin'. You should know better. Trappin' fairy hearts takes time." Among other weird things she sourced.

Dotty calling Tam a chatty drunk was not only incredibly rude, but wildly inaccurate - Tam was always chatty. He would have called her out on it, but that would have been even more chatty, and it was never wise to give Anadotti Squiggs ammunition.

Tam had long grown accustomed to Dotty's interesting nicknames for himself - he actually didn't mind 'Bic' too much, not that he'd ever tell her that. The name she gave for Knockturn's resident layabout, however, earned the witch a hearty chuckle.

"Lotophagi," the Unspeakable said without preamble, pulling a heavy bag of coins from within his robes. The pouch made a satisfying clink as he tossed it toward his companion - quite a few more galleons were stuffed within than normal. This wasn't Dotty's consultation fee, just a bribe for information - there would be several more transactions between the pair before their business was through. "What do you know about it?" He'd have to circle back around to the fairy hearts - those could come in handy.

Okay, stupidly exclusive Knocturn Alley night club certainly got their drinks the right kind of jacked. This Twisty Dementor -Fun-mentor?- was making Dotty positively giddy with an ozone layer of chill. The vibes, not the temperature. It was that or rather a bad idea to have crossed with Ogden’s fire whiskey, if her liver gave out in the next five minutes.

Even Dotty’s inherent nastiness was becoming more childish, but then that was always under the surface for the emotionally shallow criminal stateside reject. “After this I wanna break one of those stupid crane games. Or go skydiving. Actually, cocktail weenies or those little hamburgers would go fantastical with this.”

“Lotto what?” She wiggled a finger in her ear, blitzed out. “They let you say that now? I thought they took the word back.” The linguistics roots of barely soundalike words was not Dotty’s trump suit. To her, Greek antiquities was the state of the pita wrap petrified to the wall of her last hideout.

The allure of Tam’s coin was a prime motivator as Dotty slapped her own hand away. “Powerball? Mega-Millions? No, wait I should know this one…” Her thought process was silent yet highly animated with gestures, expressions, and keeping the drink balanced, all trying to rack her once drug-addled brain for more information.

This would be one spelling bee she’d be destined to lose. “Can you use it in a sentc, er, drug binge?” Like, some years the street value of what Tam requested was more noted. “It’s a white bush? No, shrub…”

Tam just laughed and shook his head. Either the drink was getting to Dotty or she was fucking with him because he'd never known Anadotti Squiggs to be ignorant in regard to recreational substances.

What he was after wasn't as common as streeler venom and was far less exciting than venus nipple 'shrooms, but properly cured and dried Lotophagi leaf was a powerful hallucinogenic and its highly addictive nature ensured the drug would retain a high value on the black market.

"Lot-o-pha-gi,"Tam repeated slowly, enunciating each syllable carefully. He tried to come up with a sentence, but Dotty had already made the only joke worth making on the subject. "It's a stubby little tree, nearly a shrub - and it's pink,"

"The leaves are white though, you were right about that," He continued helpfully, "Maybe you're more familiar with its other name: the lotus tree?"

"Oh, and the word you were looking for is sliders," Little hamburgers? Seriously?

“Oh, Lotus Trees,” the depiction of the petals had cinched it. “You get some of that good $#!T and you come out of it with no aches or pains.” Even when it sounded like Dotty was actually swearing, it wasn’t quite the way you’d expect the words to be said.

If Tam was mentioning this for a job, the rarity of said plant would have soured her mood if it wasn’t for the anti-Dementor twist. Gads, that must be how Lem @$$quaraders kept the exclusive clientele coming back. “You know that stuff is rare, right? Makes the big waves whenever it hits the streets. This one grouchy dude used to feed them to his dove.”

A vast oversimplification on Dotty’s part for a bird related to doves and phoenixes. Since she’d picked up poaching, one of the other regulars kept going on about his big score would be this white mythical bird. Like that Moby’s book about the whales, not dicks.

Dotty threw back the rest of the drink. “And I flippin’ know what sliders are! I’ve seen grey, black, redwall and beige castles since I’ve been here. But no White Castles!” Cheap, trashy and 4 for $6, a description to fit Dotty’s muggle siblings too if Joe & Steph Squiggs had ever had a fourth kid.

Sometimes the things Dotty said went right over Tam's head - like her comment about birds? - but thankfully, he'd spent some time in Vegas recently and so he was uncomfortably familiar with the muggle "fast food" chain. Tam wasn't sure any of it was actual food, but it tasted pretty damn good.

"I'm not looking for a quick fix, Dots," the unspeakable said, growing serious. Fruit, flowers, leaves - hell, even bark and branches would be easy for him to acquire without needing to resort to such... unlawful means. As a highly ranked member of the Ever-Locked Room, he had access to a wider range of substances than almost anyone else in the UK.

What he was looking for was unheard of - the results of his experimentation could harm the tree and so he couldn't take the risk of being detained by red tape.

"I need to know how good you really are," this accompanied with a sly smile, "can you get access to a tree? Not some dried-up-dime-bag-fairy-dust-cut bullshit found on these pungent streets?"

"No doi," Dotty replied to Tam's downplay of needing a quick fix. There wouldn't have been all this nonsense to meet at the roof of a swanky club or ply her with exclusive drinks. Much as she was appreciating it until the inevitable hangover.

Never-Being-Unhappy-Again & Tonic sure was keeping her chipper about this whole request. Even her eyebrows couldn't completely stitch together into a frown. "Are you asking for the whole Frockin' TREE?!"

Challenging her capabilities was worse than crack to someone as stupidly overconfident as Anadotti Squiggs. Yet she was abuzz with energy at the thought of pulling off such a theft to prove her other naysayers wrong. Much like the sensation of when she caught her tongue piercing on a battery. Heff it, she'd been pulling off poaching jobs without losing a limb and this was a mystical tree. Not a flesh warping or whumpin' one. Could you poach a plant?

"Where would you even find one, this ain't Sicily," the only island in the Mediterranean she could remember. One primal fear was sobering enough against the Twisted Dementor to let her scowl at the taller Tam with big goo-goo eyes. She thrust a finger at him. "And you better not say the one at Mango's Hospital. I've seen the news sheets. I ain't stepping foot in there when it's invested with ghouls."[1]

1.	Referring to the Daily Prophet's coverage of Over My Dead Body

Tam shrugged and laughed musically, offering the petty criminal a shrug, sequins from his outfit glimmering in the dim lighting. "Not the whole tree, no," though he wouldn't turn down a sapling if Anadotti managed to procure one somehow, "Just a little root,"

The properties of the root of the Lotophagi tree were relatively unexplored, but Pentameter had heard whispers, and those whispers had given him some ideas. "Well, maybe not so little. I need about a metre in length, about fifteen centimetres in diameter. The closer to the trunk, the better,"

Then he waved his hand dismissively, "The where is part of your problem, Dots," he said, "avoid Mungo's if you want - they got rid of the ghoul, though," Dotty seemed like the type to only scan the front page, so she had likely missed the resolution mentioned behind the headlines[1]. Ghouls weren't interested in the living, but Tam didn't blame the witch for being cautious.

"You could try Hogwarts," the Brit said to the American, realizing Squiggs was unlikely to know about the one tended by the school's herbology department. "There's a mature tree in one of the greenhouses - can't remember which one,"

1.	Beyond the Front Page