3am

Knockturn Ally was freezing, and not dark enough to hide the form of Nathan Briggs.  The moon was nearly full and its light exposed every cobblestone of dim, dank Knockturn Ally in silver-blue light.  Old Sellaphix's lazy clerk was on a late night errand to obey his master's orders: 'Get rid of it. Tonight.  Hide it. And it's your hide if you loose it'.

It was the 13 ketchup bottles filled with Runespoor venom that had been under the sink next to the self-wringing sponges and the doxy powder when Skulk and Slithers was raided earlier in the summer and when plain clothes Aurors started snooping just earlier today.  Sellaphix Apothecary, while located in Knocturn Ally, wasn't an overtly dodgy place.  Sellaphix really did have respectable clients (mostly all delivery clients), and Old Sellaphix himself had a clean reputation.

'And I'd like to keep it that way!' Which is why Nathan "Nothing to Lose" Briggs was caught holding the bag tonight.

Not that he was at all nervous or feeling unprepared.  You might recall that Briggs is more intelligent than anyone else he knows of.  Hiding Runespoor venom was actually a pretty complex task.  Not everything could be vanished, or shrunk.  Magical stuff like runespoor venom was highly volatile and was highly disfiguring if enchanted, charmed or otherwise wand-handled in anyway.  The risk was so great that even levitating the crate of bottles could be too much for the stuff.  So Nate had to carry the box and would have to hide it in a very analog fashion.

He made is way down the winding Knockturn Ally from Sellaphix Apothecary at the mouth of the Ally and down down down towards the dead end at the Ally's termination.

His genius plan? Bury it under the rubbish dumpster around the side of the Black Chimaera.

Maggie really didn’t know what she was thinking. Unlike Nate, she was so nervous her fingers shook, and she’d considered going back home numerous times. What had she just lectured Niobe about? Oh, that’s right, poking her nose in places where it didn’t belong, without any kind of back up. Which was exactly what she was doing outside the Black Chimaera tonight.

“Friggin’ Niobe’s fault…” she grumbled under her breath, taking a quick glance around the building and then creeping up to the dusty window to attach something very small, dark, and mechanical looking. It could pass off as a miniature snitch, with translucent wings that fluttered every few moments. But it wasn’t. It was a bug, in every sense of the word. She could not believe she was attempting to bug the Black Chimaera at three in the morning, but here she was, clad in black like some Catwoman wannabe.

There. It was on the windowsill. With any luck, no one would even notice it. Maggie could go home now, and see if the bug picked up on anything… interesting.

With a smirk on her face, Maggie turned, thinking she was in the clear.

That’s when she heard the sound of footsteps and the clanking of bottles. She froze, hand reaching for her wand. What was she going to do? Stupefy the stockboy? No, she had to hide. Just before Nate appeared around the corner of the Chimaera, Maggie ducked by the side of the dumpster and held her breath.

More clanging of bottles. Curiosity got the better of her, so she decided to sneak a peek. To Maggie’s shock, a familiar face was just a few feet away!

“What the hell?” she blurted out in surprise, not thinking at all about the crate of ketchup bottles and what might happen to them if he jumped. “What are you doing here?” Maggie stepped out from her hiding place, gaping at him. Nate Briggs could ask her the same thing, of course.

"Shit!" Nate hissed out an exclamation and nearly dropped the box of bottles.  It took him a moment to realize who he was looking at.  And by then he realized how loud they'd both been, where they were and what he was carrying.  Not only was the runespoor venom dangerous, but it was worth a great deal.  The prices were sky high right now with the Ministry crackdown. The last thing Nate needed right now was the attention of his cut-throat neighbors.  Getting caught was a terrible thing to imagine.

He nearly pushed Maggie Groust back into the ally and hissed at her, "Shout your head off, for feck's sake!"  Nate looked out into Knockturn and at the windows in the Chimaera.  He couldn't see anything.

The stockboy, now on full alert, rounded on his old classmate.  They'd been chummy back when they were kids, and he'd seen her a few times since.  They'd even gone to Signature together during Remembering Day.  And even though they'd dated and tolerated each other, Nate was too startled to greet her properly.

"I live down here.  What are you doing here? And have you got any idea what I -" he clampled his mouth shut, nearly letting the cat out of the bag. Instead, he gritted his teeth and gave her a look of such vexation and skittish anger.

He tried to hold the box of bottles casually, as if he were just out for a late-night snack, but he itched to open the flaps and check on the cargo.  But he had to get rid of the freakin' Daily Prophet reporter.  Christ, Sellaphix was going to kill him!

“Merlin. Shut up, shut up!” She hissed back as he let out a loud curse and nearly jumped out of his skin. Her eyes widened and she was tempted to reach for her wand again when he made as if to push her back into the alley. She glowered at Nate, too anxious to process his atypical greeting, and kept glancing at the Black Chimaera as if she expected a legion of neo Death Eaters to spill out of it.

Nate Briggs. She knew he lived here, but he was one of the last people she’d expected to see. They’d been friendly at Hogwarts and even had a few awkward dates, but beyond that, she’d only seen him at the Signature party last year. She had no idea what he was up to these days, except he worked at Sellaphix’s. She thought.

Maggie crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, trying to wave off his very pertinent question. “I’m not doing anything. I’m taking a stroll, that’s all.” She kept her voice down this time and narrowed her eyes at the box he hugged to his chest. He’d just stopped in the middle of a sentence a moment earlier, and the look he gave her was both panicked and angry. Maggie raised her eyebrows, some of her anxiety seeping away at his curious reaction. 

“What, are you taking out the trash or something? Don’t tell me you’re working at the Chimaera now,” Maggie gave him a severe frown. She didn’t want to think that Nate was involved in whatever Cin was up to.

Something was off, however. Nate held the box almost gingerly, as if he was afraid of jostling it.

Maggie tilted her head and gestured towards the dumpster with a mocking smile. “Well, why don’t you throw it in, then?”

Nathan didn't buy for one moment that Margaret Groust was just minding her own business alone in Knockturn at witching hour. Not for a second.  She was a reporter: sure. Bold? Sure.  But off her nut? Certainly not! And that's what she'd have to be to be taking a bloody stroll down Knockturn Ally.

Nate wanted to argue with her on that point, but he had more pressing issues.  His runespoor venom was not in the ground.  It was clanking in his hands. And a reporter was asking him questions about it.  No one could know he had the stuff, let alone where it was hidden.  He had no idea if he could trust Maggie Groust to keep his secret.  Thousands of galleons, criminal charges and his job depended on it.

"No and no!" he whispered at her, protesting in general to everything she'd implicated him for.  He stepped further into the ally towards the dumpster and held the box closer to his chest.

"And put that wand up.  You want to be a puddle of bones, blood and hair? Yea? Me neither. So put it up," he said.

"And this -" he shrugged the box and the bottles jostled, "-is none of your business.  Get going and don't tell anyone you saw me."  He nodded his head back towards the main street.

"You don't want to be involved in this," he added more gently.

Not surprisingly, stubborn Maggie stayed right where she was. Though she did put her wand up like he’d told her to, Nate’s protests and claims that she didn’t want to be involved made her more curious than afraid. She couldn’t help it! It was like he put a big red button in front of her and then told her not to push it.

And if there was one thing she was good at, it was being pushy. Her old friend Nate didn’t know what he’d just gotten himself into.

“I never said I was going to run off and tell anyone,” she grumbled, inching towards the dumpster with him. She peeked over the edge of it and wrinkled her nose. “You’re not really planning on throwing the box in there, are you? ‘Cause that’s got to be the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Someone is bound to find it later,” Maggie raised her eyebrows at him and shook her head, as if they were back on chummy terms and hadn’t gone their separate ways after school.

Maybe if she helped him out a little (by critiquing what she thought was his plan, of course), he’d give her a clue. Maggie rubbed her arms, feeling a chill in the air, but at the moment she was too concerned about the contents of the box to pay proper attention to her surroundings.

The hour was mid-morning, late and lit by the almost full moon. If it had been full, Ambrosio Dimas would not be slouched in a dark back street of Knockturn Alley, smoking a cigarette. No, instead he'd be settled in the mountains of Scotland, drinking wolfsbane and making the painful transition into an hombre-lobo. But at half past three in the morning, he was sitting in a dark street, smoking a cigarette, and staring at the wall. His mind wasn't really filled with much, except the smoke he was inhaling.

Taking the last bit he would get from his current cigarette, he dropped it, smashed it into the ground with his hand, and let the burn linger for a second before wiping his hand on his dirty jeans. His ears perked as he heard footsteps walking his way, and voices getting closer. One sounded rather familiar, a male. The other was a female, one he'd not heard before, or at least couldn't remember hearing. Catching his wind, he rose from the ground and pulled out the smashed pack of smokes from his back jeans pocket. Pulling one from the pack, he stuck it in his mouth and lit it, then walked towards the voices.

At the end of the street, he leaned against the wall, ears open for the impending encounter. He was a little weak from the moon being so close to full formation, so he doubted he'd be much of a threat to whoever it was that happened upon him. As he took another drag, as the smoke was addicting to him, he saw Nate Briggs and an unfamiliar female walk into view. Smirking, which made him look rather menacing, he dropped the cigarette, stomped it out, and walked around the corner he was leaning on.

In his thick Spanish accent, he approached the couple. "Hello, Mr. Briggs. Rare to see you out at such an hour." He looked at the girl with him, who he knew was not Briggs' betrothed. Looking her up and down, he half smiled, showing a sharper canine, before closing his mouth.

Nate was about to respond to Margaret and retort that he didn't need a rubbish specialist just now, when the acrid smell of tobacco smoke heralded the arrival of one of Nate's least favorite people.

"Shouldn't you be in some hole tonight, Dimas?" Nate said, returning the sneer.  Ambrosio Dimas was one of his Dazmond's wolfsbane clients.  And while Nate tried not to be prejudiced about werewolves.  But Ambrosio Dimas, the mangy hound, made it difficult.  He kept it under wraps, but Nate knew what Ambrosio took money for sometimes.  Nate kept his mouth shut about it like a good boy, but it didn't make him despite Dimas any less.

"Or have we decided that we'll be going about our bloody work this evening? Piss off."

Nate didn't let go of the box and the thirteen ketchup bottles inside it.  But he did shift it to one hip and one arm so his right arm was free to draw a wand.  Although any kind of wandfire would probably turn the entire ally into a pond of burning napalm or whatever horrible thing happened to runespoor venom when it came in contact with magic.

Then, in plain sight of Dimas, Nate performed a theatrical aside to Margaret.  He mouthed the word: werewolf.

It didn’t take a genius to understand the word Nate mouthed at her, and Maggie’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. Maggie generally tried to be open minded about werewolves, but she wasn’t a fool. Some of them, like the types that lurked around Knockturn Alley, resorted to crime just to make a living, and some of them learned to revel in it, wearing their outcast status with pride. She didn’t know if Dimas fit the dangerous stereotype, but he definitely looked the part. Lean, dark, and with a gaze that made Maggie feel like she was on the werewolf menu.

She scowled at him and met his eyes. Unfortunately, she didn’t recognize Dimas at all, and his accent made it seem like he definitely hadn’t gone to Hogwarts. Nate made his dislike of him clear, which was a bad sign, because he was usually accepting of people. Too accepting, in her opinion. He was also occupied with the volatile contents in the box, so it would be mostly up to her to defend them if this little meeting went badly.

Maggie began to regret sticking around. And did Nate have to be so bloody arrogant, telling a man who was one night away from transforming to ‘piss off’?

“Look,” she interjected, glancing at Dimas and keeping a firm grip on her wand. “Don’t mean to be rude, but we’re a bit busy right now, alright?”

The air smelled of something Ambrosio hadn't ever come in contact with. He didn't really know if it was perfume worn by this Groust girl or something to do with whatever Briggs carried, but it smelled delectable, at least to his canine senses. He stepped closer to the pair, one hand on his smoker and the other in his pocket, where his wand rested in place. He could tell they were tense, ready to shout a curse at him if he tried anything. However, even if he was rather weak, he knew he could probably rip them both a new face in a matter of minutes, and they were definitely in fear. At least Groust was. Briggs, however, was pissing him off.

"Oh, Briggs." He gave a slight chuckle. "Don't try to anger me. You know your wife gives me some slack, so the least you could do is lighten up." He dragged on his cigarette again, taking in this one a little longer than the rest, and then exhaling it in a perfect circle ring. "Lovely." He said this out loud, smiling at the smoke ring. He walked closer, sensing more tension and tighter grips on wands all around, even his own.

He glanced back to Groust. "Besides…" He paused, "I'm not going to harm you. It is way to close to la luna llena for me to make any rash decisions, and I don't want any trouble." He sighed, always getting the discrimination. Well, it was his fault, he laughed in his head, because he did play up the part rather well. Hell, he loved what he was, even if it was torture on his back. "So, Briggs, what's in your box?"

"Cat poop."

Nate raised his eyebrows, daring the werewolf to prove him wrong.  But that lie didn't have the feet to carry itself very far.  Also, as arrogant as Nathan was, the smoke-ring blowing, chain-smoking lycanthrope had money behind his nonchalant, easy-going threats.  Ambrosio seemed to take his constant sickliness as a fair price for his ability to completely tear a person to pieces if he felt like it. And that scared the cat poop out of Nate.

Nate, however, felt differently about rash decisions that Ambrosio.  And this errand was lasting far too long.  Neither Maggie or Ambrosio was just going to waltz off and leave him to his business unless Nate got nasty about it, and shouting would not do him any good.  And wandfire would get them all killed.

"Look," he finally said, "Look, I've got to hide this stuff for my Old Man," meaning of course, Old Man Sellaphix, his boss at the apothecary up the road.  "I'm going to bury it back here and be on my way."

He knelt down and set the box down carefully beside him and looked up at Maggie and Ambrosio.

"There mystery solved.  Nate's going to dig a hole and hide some shite.  You gonna watch?"

He didn't like being this rude to Maggie, but he knew she was the type of person not to think much of it.  They had both really appreciated the others' frankness back in the day.  And being rude to Dimas was the only way Nate had to communicate with that suave son of a bitch.

Nate’s ‘old man’? Maggie gave him a skeptical look. At least he wasn’t just going to throw the box in the dumpster. Burying it wasn’t a much better plan, but for once, Maggie kept her mouth shut and let him finish talking.

Now he was practically handing her an invitation! She didn’t care if he meant to be rude or sarcastic. To Maggie, this was an opportunity to find out what he was hiding.

The only problem was… Dimas. She’d rolled her eyes at the fancy smoke rings, and watched him warily as he’d walked closer. He claimed that he didn’t want any trouble, but Nate’s strong reaction to him made her think otherwise. Still, if she left now, she knew she’d be up all night wondering what she had missed out on.

“Why not,” she threw Nate a grin, leaning casually against the alley wall. She kept her wand in her hand and glanced at Dimas, curious if he’d stay or leave.

When Maggie and Ambrosio didn't show any signs of leaving him be, Nate decided it would be a greater risk to stand out here arguing in the middle of the night than to just get down to business.  It wasn't as if the bottles were labeled as High Valuable, Highly Volatile Runespoor Venom. Actually they all said Big Tomato Spicy Catsup. They wanted to watch him bury fancy ketchup, fine.

He set the box down and then heaved to against the giant metal dumpster.  It had wheels, but clearly they were completely cosmetic.  They didn't budge a titch and Nate had to shove the whole thing bodily just a few feet.  He really wanted to take his wand out and do it properly, but he didn't want to risk flooding the ally with any magic whatsoever.  So good old magic-free, labor-intensive pushing.

He took up the shovel, a rickety old spade and started to turn over the loose, crumbling cobbles.  Underneath the earth was very hard packed at first, but with all the crap that got dumped back here the earth had started to loosen and degrade.  It only took him several scoops to make a pocket large enough for the crate of 13 bottles.

He set the box down into the hole and used his boot to kick the dirt over the top. 

"Just so you both know - I get wind that anyone found anything interesting in this Ally before I can come back and dig it up myself, you two will be the first to regret it." He looked pointedly at Ambrosio.

"You know my secret, Dimas.  And I know yours." So what if Dimas was one of Dazmond's favorite customers.  Unregistered werewolves like Dimas had that one major weakness.  Blackmail.

Nate wasn't hard as nails enough to threaten Maggie but he did say, "I see anything about anything in the Prophet I'll consider it quite the breach of trust, my friend.  I'd hate for our relationship to end on a sour note like that. Me in Azkaban - you suffering my wife's wrath."

Overhead and to the left of the clandestine gang, back towards the main Knockturn Alley drag, there was a grating of metal against metal as a window latch was freed from it's finding.  The heavy, wooden window swung open, letting the smoke and music laden air vent out into the side alley.  The last customer had left, the inn's tenants had retired to their rooms and  Cináed was busy closing the place down.  In turn, the other two windows lining the side of the building were thrown open to let the stale air vent out, to be replaced by fresh, clean, night air.  As fresh as one could find in Knockturn. 

As  Cináed passed by the open windows, his deep, husky voice could be heard joining in, on occasion, with the song's chorus. 

The hinges of the front, french doors of the pub creaked as one half swung open and then slammed as they fell closed again.  For a few moments, the pub fell quiet again, save the music that continued to drift through the doors. 

The layer of dirt that lined the alley and large soft paws muffled the heavy footsteps of the fawn mastiff as he meandered down Knockturn, lazily finding the optimum spot to do his business for the night.  As he passed the foot of the side alley, his nose caught the scent, first, of the Ambrosio and, then, the two other visitors. 

Curious and optimistic about the prospects of a little belly scratching, the dog padded slowly down the side alley towards the trio, his tail wagging lazily and the top of his head wrinkled as he approached the woman, first.  At almost three feet at the whithers, the dog's head was easily at hand-height as he stepped up alongside the woman, letting his head, strategically, slide under the woman's fingertips. 

(ooc: the song playing from the pub - the lyrics for those curious)

The sudden noise from the Black Chimaera startled Nate from his posturing threats.  He dropped what he was doing immediately and pasted himself the the wall beneath the windows.  The box of ketchup bottles was left in a shallow grave, only partially covered with  dirt.  The broken cobblesstones lay around it, like a shattered headstone.

Cinead Tawse would firstly completely over react to someone fecking about near his bin.  And if he found out what Nate was burying, he'd no doubt try to take it for himself.  Each bottle was worth a couple hundred gold, maybe more considering how high the demand was for the illegal, syrupy Runespoor venom.  And as self-assured Nate was that Cinaed was nothing more than a wandless thug, Nate was very aware of how dangerous he was.

He hissed an order at Maggie and Ambrosio to shut up and hide, but it was only half a moment later when he heard the front doors open.  Without remembering what the potential consequences might be, Nate drew his wand, ready to 'negotiate' his way out of the ally.

Nate watched as Tawse's giant mastiff came padding down the ally at them.  He went to Maggie and rubbed against her for pets.  Immediately, Nate hissed at the dog to "go! Go home! C'mon, get!"

But the big old dog just looked at Nate with his big brown eyes, opened his mouth in a grin, and moved towards Nate.  He lolled his wrinkly head against Nate, nudging at his hand and elbows.  "No!" he whispered earnestly again.  But Seamus the dog persisted.  Nate pushed at his great bulk and kept denying the dog any affection.

All of a sudden, perhaps out of frustration, Seamus let out a deep, staccato bark.

This startled Nate so much that his wand let loose a fizzling crackle.  He was so pumped up on adreneline, the chances for inadvertant wand firing was much higher, even in a trained wizard.  Nate didn't notice then, but the cardboard box behind him in the ground next to the dumpster started to hiss and fizzle quietly.