Artemis was not delighted.

It had been weeks since her last job and, therefore, weeks since she last went food shopping. It was hard to buy groceries when you were dirt broke. She was ravenous and extremely bored, and Killian was away doing some weird Irish thing. (He'd actually just gone away for a few days to see his brother. It wasn't that unusual or that uncommon. It wasn't weird and the only thing that technically made it “Irish” were Killian and his brother's accents – but Artemis had decided to make it a little more interesting in her mind – she had a lot of spare time to use her imagination.) Whatever it was that he was doing, it wasn't getting drunk with Artemis, so that left her totally bored out of her mind and pretty horny, as well.

To fill her time and maybe get lucky, she decided to forget about any chance of food shopping and to abandon the “saving money” concept completely. To the bar she was off, after changing into the outfit that showed off her figure (and boobs) the best and spending extra time on her makeup. Killian was away, they had no commitment to each other, and Artemis had nothing better to do. At the very least, she could get drunk and with a little bit of luck, find someone to talk to.

Honestly, Artemis wasn't sure what she wanted to happen tonight, but it still felt good to get out of her tiny apartment. There wasn't much to do there besides write letters, read a book she'd already read, talk to Zeus (her cat), or sleep. For some reason, home was a lot more interesting when she had a job to do. Hours went by quickly wen she was plotting entrances and practicing anti-security spells. It was also way more fascinating when you had the money for some mind-altering potions to play with.

Artemis walked through the front door of the Hogshead and made a beeline for the bartender.

“Red wine,” Artemis said, the words rolling smoothly out of her thin lips, the corner of her mouth curling into a small smirk after she'd completed her order. She turned to face the rest of the room so that she could analyze her hopes of having an interesting night.

Vasily's last minute of his shift officially ended, and the tall, sloping Ukrainian wanted to escape as soon as possible. His present life was dominated by the Three Broomsticks, and even his one vice, a good drink, ended up being at that very place. He was determined to go and get absolutely plastered - no familiar faces, no friendliness, no fake laughter. Vasily grabbed his coat and quickly threw it on, giving a small nod to the landlady as he milled through the crowds. Another Hogsmeade weekend was coming up, and he was dreading it: the usual gaggle in the pub were either cocky fifteen year old lads that deserved a good punch or seventh year females that spent their evening ogling the Durmstrang from across the room. Vasily was known for having a short (and explosive temper) and for some reason, he'd managed to put a lid on it. This restraint however, was inevitably temporary.

He always needed a release of some sorts, and this urge was becoming more tempting by the day. Vasily just needed a fight, or some similar minds to conspire with - something less orthodox and clean-cut than the path his Uncle Ignan reluctantly guided Vasily upon. His sister was becoming even more obnoxious, and the power vacuum that had begun when the younger Volkov brother left Kiev was officially over: Valentina was victorious, and all of his troops had began running for the most power-hungry, brutal witch Vasily knew. There was a new queen of the Ukrainian criminal underworld, and Vasily would do almost anything to reclaim his former glory.

A fellow bartender had told Vasily about the Hogsmeade - a bit of a dive, but any alternative to the Three Broomsticks was a welcome alternative. It had been easy enough to find, and he trotted through the rather shabby looking door. With upturned collar, only a few faces turned. Well, it was worlds apart from his place of work, and extremely quieter. Not bothering to make any sort of welcoming expression to the handful of witches and wizards sat in there, Vasily moved straight to the bar, neither smiling nor nodding, he merely threw a few coins across the counter.
"Firewhiskey, please," he said, his accent tinged with his Eastern European bloodline, a deliberate pause between the two words further highlighting his difference in Hogsmeade. Vasily's large brown eyes fell on to the squat barkeeper, and then onto his drink, which he clasped with one hand and took a large, satisfying gulp of alcohol that would make even the hardest of boozers croak.

His eyes began to wander further, and fell upon something quite astonishing also at the bar a few metres down. She was a witch, and probably the only beautiful thing in that hellhole - Vasily immediately eyed her for a few seconds, noticing the regal goblet of red wine in front of her.
"I'm sure a harder drink would be of more benefit?" he asked, giving the woman a dangerous smirk and raising an eyebrow.

Moments after ordering her red wine, Artemis realized that ordering red wine in a place as seedy as the Hogshead was a rookie mistake. She knew that it was going to be heavy on the vinegar before she even had her first sip – a sip that she immediately spit out.

“Ugh!” she groaned, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. As she did that, a young man sauntered up to her and said something that Artemis hadn't heard at all because of the awful tasting wine. “Give me a firewhiskey. And you need to get rid of all of that wine. It's terrible.” Of course, now she realized that she was going to have to pay for this wine, so she forced some more down, wincing as she did it. There was no way that her money was going to go to waste. Realizing that someone had just stared talking to her, she took another small sip of her wine before turning to them again.

She coughed. “Sorry, what was that? I missed it,” Artemis wrinkled her nose at her wine glass, which was chipped and a bit scratched. “Really bad wine,” she added, for explanation. She gave the man before her a quick up-and-down, determining that he was very handsome, but probably younger. He was a bit pale, sort of tired-looking, but still overall good-looking. That's really all that she could tell about him. He seemed interesting.

The bartender sent a glass of firewhiskey headed her way, and she immediately took a huge gulp. Yes, she was double-fisting it now, but she didn't care; she had to get rid of the taste of that wine. It tasted like vinegar with a drop of grape juice mixed with a whole bunch of alcohol. The fact that it was absurdly cheap wine was painfully obvious. There was a good chance that she'd be drunk tonight if she kept this up, but now that she knew that the wine wasn't even close to being decent, she'd stick with something a little harder to mess up.

James needed to think.  He had heard that the front office had been busy, and that generally meant one of two things to people in his position: someone was going to axed or traded in the near future.  Since the Black Chimera had not been open in sometime, and James did not feel like dealing with the maddening crowd in London, the young wizard decided to head North and find a decent place to nurse a drink or two.  He was about as unrecognizable as he could make himself, wearing gray work robes that he typically used when mixing nutrient potions.  With all the mess going around in the front office, it was doubtful that he would even be able to act on the opportunity if it showed up. 

James would have probably drifted off further introspectiveness had he not heard someone physically spit out a glass of wine.  Turning his attention to the couple gathered at the bar, he noticed that the lady was either trying to be picked up, or they were on a date.  Since he doubted this venue led itself to too many hookups (though Cinaed's dive seemed to be the exception to that).  As he thought about his future for the moment, he took another sip of his whiskey.

James was looking to become a regular someplace else besides the Chimaera, this place did not seem like a good fit.  It was a dive, but it seemed to lack the camarderie or revelry that was typically found in teams and bars.  Wondering if that should be a retirement project of his, James wondered if he'd make a decent bartender.  He doubted it, but figured he had made enough money to try one way or the other.  James noticed that the girl was now double fisting, so James decided to leave the couple to their own devices.  It was doubtful either of them would be able to help him out one way or the other, and he was fairly sure the reverse was true as well.  He took another sip of his whiskey, and let his thoughts stray.