"No, it's not a foam number."  Jonas threw his hands up in the air, nearly toppling his recently-refilled pint with the show of exaggerated emotion.  "It's got bloody well nothing to do with foam, Pratt!  Phone number.  Phone," he repeated, drawing out the word for emphasis as he reclaimed his drink.  "Don't tell me that you lot in the north are so savage that you don't even have telephones, yeah?  She wrote her number on your hand because she wants you to give her a ring.  It's a Muggle mating ritual."

He gave a loud, exasperated sigh as he leaned back in his chair, raising his mug to take a drink.  Despite the act, he couldn't exactly complain about the other Auror's company.  Pratt was, for lack of a better insult, full and deserving of his surname.  He was an egotistical git whose Yorkshire speech patterns were incomprehensible at the best of times; at the worst, which usually included any instance when he had gotten more than a pint in him, Jonas could only understand every fifth word out of his mouth.  Since he had met the Northerner, Pratt had proceeded to insult his hair color, his own clipped Cornish accent, and his commitment to the Auror Corps every chance he got.  There were times when the red-headed Auror wanted nothing more than to slug his coworker in the gut and leave him tossed up somewhere in a dark corner of the Ministry rather than listen to another ginger joke.

But despite it all, Pratt was alright.  He was a smartarse.  Their prank on Radley had been nothing less than smashingly brilliant.  And at the moment, Jonas didn't have much else in the way of drinking companions -- with Adon still in Scotland and with Archer refusing to say more than five words at a time to them since he was still stewing over his birthday party, Pratt was the only option he had left.

It would be nice, though, if the other man weren't so obviously mired in the 'rebound' phase of his divorce.  Jonas knew what such an event felt like and he could certainly sympathize, but divorce wasn't something he necessarily wanted to talk about and even his sympathy had dwindled after the third twenty-minute abandonment while his companion went to 'fetch another pint.'

"Look, tell you what," he offered nicely, keeping any irritation out of his voice.  Maybe if Pratt thought he'd found the grail at the end of his quest, he'd stop abandoning his drinking companion to go head hunting.  "If you're not too knackered to make it into the office tomorrow morning, you and I can take lunch, and I'll let you use me phone to ring her then.  Only don't tell Eleor," he added with a bemused note.  "Don't know what he'd say if he found out he wasn't invited along on a date."

The thought of the approaching Monday morning and the return to the grind of the Auror office was enough to make Jonas instantly want to take another long drink.  The dark undercurrents that had been present when he'd first rejoined Level Two had erupted into a full-blown cataclysm over the past month.  The werewolf attacks, Tawse's terrorist organization, the assassination attempt, Adon's injury, Tait's murderer...and then the prior week had ended with another attack against one of their own.  Jonas truly, desperately did not want to think about it.  Whatever he had thought he was getting himself into -- much like the Muggle safari that he'd apparently inadvertently joined Pratt on for the evening -- this wasn't it.

"Be something to look forward to at least, yeah?" he asked nonchalantly, resting his fingers lightly around his glass.  It felt cool to the touch; he could focus on that.  "Reckon I can tell already that this next week's going to be another lovely stint in the office.  You blokes really know how to keep morale high."

As the jean and shirt clad auror made his way back to the table where his ginger incomprehensible colleague sat, his bright green eyes were staring down at what had been a bare and slightly hairy forearm with the sleeves of his dark shirt rolled up to his elbows. What now covered part of the once clean arm was some bright red lipstick in the shape of numbers. The dark haired beauty had instructed him that he ring her on it and instead of asking how he was supposed to ‘ring’ her through the lipstick on his arm, Eddie had grinned his usual grin and given her a wink before heading off with the pints in his hand.

In front of Jonas was placed a pint of sparkling cider, presently beautifully and effeminately with a pink straw and an umbrella. This was, as Eddie had been told, how Cornish pixies liked their alcohol. Fruity with an umbrella. Opposite Jonas, Ed sat down with his pint of ale and proceeded to mention the number he had just had written on his arm with the attractive woman’s lipstick and how she’d told him to ring her on her ‘foam number’. Muggles, they were as weird as a group of bald hags in wedding dresses and so was Jonas so he would certainly know how to ring someone. Well, he might know, but Ed had to be able to understand him if he tried explaining it.

Okay, Ed understood enough of the attempted English to grasp that Mr Trevelyan was calling Northerners savage. Ed picked up his pint and brought it to his lips. “What would I want a tellyfoam for? Me dad had one to talk to me grandparents and every time ye picked up the mouth thing and put it to yer ear it just buzzed. Bloody pointless if ye ask me, Paddy.” But that fit brunette had one. Maybe that was enough of a reason to get his hands on a foam and carve this number into it or whatever you did to get her piece of foam in contact with yours.

“Knew you two were close but jeez.” A grin sprang up on Ed’s lips at the thought of Trevelyan and Eleor on a date. “See you, I can imagine wearing pink and cheering the harpies on next to yer boyfriend before ye go and drink cider together and eat pasties and ice cream by the sea but the Israeli?” The man suppressed a shudder before taking another gulp of beer and placing his glass back down on the table a little hard.

The last week week had been getting worse as expected and it was a relief to come out for a drink before they started again in the morning for more. And although it was such a horrible thing to think, Ed was relieved it was Ackerley in this position instead of him. And for the first time since becoming an auror, he felt for the rule humping creep.
“And yer still ‘ere, Paddy. I’m pretty impressed to be honest.”

The cider paled -- literally -- next to the stout that he was in the process of finishing off.  Jonas eyed it for a long moment and then shot a suspicious look at Pratt, downing the rest of his beer.  He set the empty glass down on the table with a final-sounding thud, and then reached resignedly for the cider.  Yet another reason why Pratt shouldn't be allowed to leave the table for the rest of the night.

"Yeah, well," he said, sending the pink straw shooting across the table like a javelin.  It was too bad it would never get enough momentum to put Pratt's eye out.  "Reckoned it'd be more of a let-down for you lot if I wait until everything really goes to hell.  Cheers," he added dryly, raising the glass to take a wary sip.

It wasn't good, but it was alright.  Making a face, Jonas resignedly took a longer drink.  He wasn't going to let alcohol go to waste if Pratt was paying for it.

"Got to say, it's almost as if I never left, though," he remarked nicely, setting the pint back down on the table.  He pulled out the pink umbrella and began fiddling with it, trying to maneuver it so that he could flip it inside-out without ripping the paper.  "Everyone overworked, trouble everywhere you look, innocents getting tortured -- don't know how I went this long without it," he concluded cheerfully.  "Just like old times again.  All we need is a few floating green skulls and a kid with a scar, and we'll be right back where we were, eh?"

That was, he thought as he patiently pressed the umbrella ever in the direction that nature had not intended for it to go, really the heart of it.  When he'd first been back, Tamis had gone on and on about how things were different now -- settled, more civilized, with none of the threats of the past.  And Jonas could certainly see the differences.  A decade ago, the Auror Corps had been populated by fighters -- grizzled old veterans like Moody and MacDonell who would never back down from a fight.  There was none of that now.  With only a few exceptions, his coworkers seemed much weaker, softer -- police constables instead of soldiers.  He still wasn't sure what he thought of the evolution.

The pink umbrella finally folded the wrong way with a snap.  Smiling crookedly, Jonas examined it for a moment, and then tucked it behind his ear like a flower.

"You know," he said, lifting his pint again.  "There's a question for you."  He regarded Pratt with a cautious, steady gaze.  The blond Auror was occasionally incomprehensible and unfailingly an arse, but behind the insults and the apparent refusal to accept that Jonas was Not Irish, at least he was straightforward.  The constant runarounds and half-answers were beginning to press all of his wrong buttons.

"You were around for the end of the last war, yeah?" Jonas asked easily, raising the drink to take a sip.  "It ever get better in between?  Seems like it would really wear on you blokes, if it's been this bad for long."

“Well that depends on what ye mean by better don’t it, Paddy?” The auror responded without much thought before he lifted his ale to his lips once more and took a gulp in thought. Beer always aided thought rather beautifully in Edward Pratt’s esteemed and obviously always correct opinion. He didn’t really know how to answer this particular question too easily.

“Ask the Harcrofts and they’ll tell ye it’s always been treacherous. Reckon they see a murderer on every street corner and a terrorist in very shop on diagon alley. Ask Raynor and she’ll say it has. Ye’ll notice the amount of ‘peacetime’ aurors we got in our midst. Take Frizzy, me partner. Most action she’s seen is an arrest and a few training duels.” Ed frowned and took another swig of beer before placing it back down on the table. His bright eyes shot up to Jonas’s and he shrugged.

“It’s got better in the way we ‘ent looking over our shoulders waiting for someone or something to try and kill us all the bloody time but paranoia’s a good thing, I reckon. Keeps ye on yer toes, don’t it? Reckon all these new aurors aren’t paranoid enough. They ‘ent seen what the job does to ye yet.”

Taking a pause, Ed sat back and glanced down at his pint once more. “It ‘ent been this bad for a while. But ye don’t become an auror if stuff like this grates on ye so easily. Most know what they’re getting’ ‘emselves into or they find out pretty damn quick.” Ed frowned and picked up his pint again, eyeing the umbrella Trevelyan had pushed inside out and stuffed behind his ear. That man definitely bludgered for the other team. “I don’t blame Fox for resigning. That’s a shit position to be put in.” And with that final comment, another swig was taken from the pint of ale. This wasn’t going to last long. Then it was Jonas’s turn to buy again.

“Everyone’s forced to compromise summit for the job though, mate.” The auror shrugged once more. “Even if it’s yer sanity or yer resilience. It's bound to wear on ye no matter how bad, to be honest. Things cool down, it seems fine but ye always know it's gonna' get worse again don't ye?”

The bright red numbers scrawled on the other Auror's arm were slightly distracting as Jonas tried to focus on what the other man was saying.  He took a long sip of the cider, downing a good third of it as he listened.  The faster he finished the bloody thing, the quicker he'd be able to place an order for another stout.  Pratt could see how he liked it when Jonas ordered him nothing but American swill for the rest of the evening.

The words were nothing new.  He still wasn't entirely sure if he counted as a new Auror or not now.  The last war had been even worse than this, with shadowy enemies everywhere and a growing sense that there was nothing they could do but fight, but for all he knew, the current crisis was well on its way.  It was a disquieting feeling, not truly being certain if he was equal with any of his coworkers, if he was one of the 'peacetime' Aurors that Pratt could easily disregard.

"Yeah, the compromising wouldn't ever worry me, though," he started carefully.  That certainly wasn't what he wanted the other man to think.  He'd known what he was getting into when he took the badge up again, even if he'd forgotten how utterly and completely draining the job could be. 

Pratt was right that being an Auror had its price.  The past few weeks had left Jonas feeling constantly on the edge of being completely overwhelmed -- but then, he'd essentially been thrust headfirst into the case, without the resource of the man that he'd already grown use to working closely with as a partner.  Adon was due to be transferred back from Hogwarts soon.  Jonas had no doubt that his workload would improve tremendously once the Israeli made his blessed return to the office.  But there were other things that he'd given up by taking up a badge again.  Independence.  Privacy.  Freedom of movement, freedom of judgement, freedom from idiotic procedures.  Even the ability to completely disregard Tamis Raynor when she yelled at him over some action she didn't like.

The red-haired Auror shrugged, studying the bottom of his cider as if examining it for anything suspicious.  He downed the remaining liquid in a single swallow. 

"I knew what I was getting into when I decided to come back again," he said in a matter-of-fact tone, setting the empty glass down on the table with a click.  "And any of us could walk whenever we wanted if it really came down to it, so it's bloody stupid to sit about and whinge over it.  But it's not --" 

He broke off, pausing for a long moment as he searched for the proper sentiment. 

"What happened to Fox...that's a bit more than just demanding a compromise, though, innit?" he said slowly at last, his forehead creasing as he tested out the words.  "Seems a hell of a lot closer to some goddamned personal sort of warfare to me.  And how the hell do any of us prevent against that?" he asked, his jaw tightening.  He bit back on any plaintive note in his tone, intentionally trying to keep his words steady as he met Pratt's gaze.  "I bloody well can't.  Me wife and kids are all Muggles."

The first words out of his colleague’s mouth after Ed had finished answering the question were a load of dragon shit in his opinion. But perhaps the other auror was right. Perhaps the compromising for the job didn’t worry him yet. But surely it would at some point. You couldn’t be a well established, battle hardened auror of many years and still have a fully functioning, fully established and happy family at the same time. The job demanded time, secrecy, lies and danger. Ed’s wife hadn’t been able to deal with it. After a decade the lies, stress and secrecy had grated on her too much.

Ed was fairly positive he wouldn’t find someone that could even last a decade of it like his ex-wife had. Sure, it was a great attraction for women as Pratt had found out in the past month. Women liked men willing to risk their lives and with the ability to kill and protect them. It was powerful. But they couldn’t put up with it for long.

Pratt watched as the empty pint glass which had held disgusting yellow cider was dumped on the table by a victorious red headed west country leprechaun. Then he mentioned personal warfare and letting him continue, Ed took a few large gulps of his ale. His eyes met Jonas’ gaze and he frowned.

“Muggles…shit.” The auror put his mug on the table, leaving the last few mouthfuls at the bottom of the glass for a moment. He wasn’t as eager to down his drink as his little buddy was. “Ye gotta keep them separate from work, then mate. It’s what I do. Me ex-wife weren’t bought to staff things. Only person in our office who’s met her and the kids is Radley cus he’s me youngest lad’s godfather.”

“Only way ye can try to prevent personal warfare’s to keep the personal well away from work. Yer family might resent ye for that, though, Paddy. Me ex thought she were being lied to all the damn time cus I wouldn’t introduce ‘er to anyone.”

Jonas made a face and leaned back in his chair, trying to gage the distance to the bar so that he could decide whether or not he really wanted to walk all the way over to it so that he could claim another round.  The complicated details of his family life were not something that he was particularly inclined to discuss with anyone, least of all Ed Pratt.  Lying to Anna, pushing her and the kids away -- he couldn't do it.  Not again.  Not after he'd seen how hard it had been on Gwenna and Artie the first time around.

Besides, giving up his family for the job felt wrong.  Jonas understood sacrifices; he was perfectly willing to take whatever ridiculous measures Adon or Dreogan recommended (well, at least some of the ones that Dreogan recommended; Adon's ideas were almost always both sensible and feasible) in order to keep everyone safe.  But there was a limit to how far he was willing to go.  He didn't want the kids to grow up thinking that they had to give up what mattered to do what was right.  There had to be some way to find a balance between the two.

"Yeah, well," he said with a shrug, returning his attention to his colleague.  "Don't reckon that's something I'm willing to compromise on.  Separate, yeah.  But I won't push 'em away."

The words sounded tired, even to his ears, so he picked up his last glass, tipping it back to take a drink just in case there were any drops left.  Unfortunately, there weren't.  Sighing, Jonas looked back to the bar, and then glanced at Pratt's drink, trying to judge how long it would take the other Auror to finish what was left.

"Besides, didn't work so well for Fox, did it?" he asked, returning his own empty mug to its place on the table.  "Barely heard the bloke say a word about his family, and look at what happened there.  You really think it's helped?" he asked cautiously, letting his gaze drift back to meet Pratt's.  "You've been at this a lot longer'n I have, mate.  Is it worth it, giving that up?"

Ed stared across the table at Jonas, his expression turning sour as green eyes analysed that of his red headed companion. That wasn’t what Ed had meant at all. He hadn’t meant to compromise his family. Pratt had never wanted to lose them. The fact that Jonas had thought that by keeping work and family separate was to push them away hit a nerve for the blond auror. The intention had never been to push Quincy and the kids away. But Quincy had always felt like that was it. He’d been a complete idiot towards her in the past. Arguments had started and Ed had just tried to stay away to avoid them. That was when problems happened. When he took the separation of work and home too far. When he ignored home. When he had pushed her away.

No, it hadn’t worked for Fox. But Fox was worse than Ed. They weren’t the same. Fox never seemed to bother with his family. Ed did. Ed still loved his family. And if anyone tried to do what they’d done to Fox’s... Ed would want to murder them, not hand in his badge. He would already happily hex Graham Bombay to the ends of the earth and this bloke had only tried to get with Quincy. If someone tried to harm her and his kids...

Jonas was questioning the motives of keeping a personal life separate. He was practically saying it was idiotic. He was criticising a way that Edward Pratt had lived for over ten years. Pratt liked this as much as he liked Cinaed Tawse.

"You've been at this a lot longer'n I have, mate.  Is it worth it, giving that up?"

Pratt’s eyes darkened. He took the pint of ale in his hand, lifted it to his lips and swallowed the final third of the liquid in one. He put the empty glass on the table between them before looking back at the red head.
“It’s your round.”

Under normal circumstances, the change in Pratt's general demeanor would have been enough to make him pry.  He'd clearly struck a nerve.  Judging by his coworker's response and the scant facts Jonas knew about the other man's -- recent?  second? -- divorce, it appeared that any rewards that came of Aurordom were generally not worth what he had had to give up.  All the talk of sacrifice and compromise had come from the very real price that Edward Pratt had had to pay.

But the night had become fuzzy enough that for once, he was perfectly happy to let it go.  Battling Pratt's demons meant admitting his own slight concerns, and Jonas was not particularly prepared to broach that subject with a man who still referred to him as a leprechaun on a regular basis.  Let Pratt sulk; it was evident that whatever answers he had, Jonas didn't want them.  He wouldn't compromise; not again.  There had to be some other option.

The red-haired man let out a long-suffering sigh, giving his coworker an indulging look as he levered himself carefully to his feet.

"Yeah, so it is," he agreed, looking back to the bar.  It certainly hadn't gotten any closer, but at least there was the promise of a decent pint once he'd reached it.  Maybe he could just buy two for himself, and save the hassle of Pratt bringing back another cider.  "What were you drinking?" he asked cheerfully as he limped around the side of the table.  "Something American, innit?"

Following Edward Pratt was relatively simple. Something Dugan had not expected since the man was not only an auror but was likely fully aware that he had threatened Fox. But most of the aurors had been easy to spy on so far, as well as other members of the ministry. The auror had been in Diagon with his children, eventually seeing them off through the floo at the Leaky Cauldron, and Dugan had followed Pratt from the Leaky Cauldron through Muggle London to their current destination.

Dugan had been lurking quietly in the corner. Muggle London was not somewhere that he felt at home- and he stood out. Not many people were as tall and as large as Dugan MacDuff happened to be. Something women still noticed- no matter how much you tried to hide. But Dugan had more self respect than to even entertain the idea of flirting with a muggle woman. It was inappropriate. Yet here was that auror, so blatantly intermingling, accepting of them... Disgusting.

But the one auror- Pratt- had been going out a lot lately. Dugan wondered, then, if the picture he currently had in his pocket of the man's family would do any good. Obviously he was on the outs with the wife, would he care if Dugan threatened to gobble her up? He supposed that he would find out.

The man had been biding his time, waiting for the time to approach. Dugan wanted to be sure they'd had enough alcohol to give him the advantage- but not so much they would become careless. After watching them for a while he approached the bar, ordered a pitcher of beer, picked up three glasses, and arrived at their table just as the redhead was getting up. Dugan set down the glasses, plopped the pitcher on the table, pushed Jonas back into his chair, and then settled himself in one of the empty seats. "This round's on me," he said, pouring himself a beer from the pitcher and taking a long swallow- just to prove he hadn't poisoned it.

"Evening, gents," he greeted, resting his glass on the table and wiping his mouth. "Interesting place for aurors to be meeting after hours. Undercover?" he asked amiably, seeming quite non threatening at the moment.

“I ‘ent drinking no American piss water.” Pratt objected instantaneously. Paddy was not going to get him a pint of Budweiser or whatever urine scented rubbish these muggle bars shipped over from the united states. Ed would have rather been digested by a giant troll and burned in stomach acid than willingly put that into his mouth. Paddy was far from funny. “Return with hick urine, Paddy and you’ll be shown just how it handles as shampoo.” Ed’s lips twisted slightly into a smirk as he watched Trevelyan. The ale was starting to take effect. About time too!

The smirk was very quickly wiped off Ed’s lips as they were joined at the table. First the glasses were placed on the table. Next the picture. Then a hand pushed Jonas back onto his stool and Ed’s eyes shot across to see none other than Dugan MacDuff lower himself into the spare chair at the table and Ed’s stomach sank.

American beer had suddenly become the least of his worries.

“Yer certainly the least likely person I’d expect to buy a pair of aurors a drink, MacDuff.” Edward responded carefully as his eyes flashed to Jonas and back to their unwelcome companion. But what did one do about such a situation in a muggle pub?  “Feeling flush? Or guilty?” They needed to apprehend him. Ed’s slightly alcohol affected brain began to move faster but unfortunately not fast enough.

Green eyes momentarily scanned the pitcher before he once more addressed MacDuff. “Ye drink piss water as well I see. I guessed as much.”

Just as quickly as he'd stood up, his momentum had suddenly reversed itself.  Jonas hissed in a breath as he was forced back into the chair, his knee buckling beneath him.  The pain was sharp enough that he almost missed the deposition of the glasses, the arrival of the pitcher of dark beer -- but there was no way to miss the huge, hulking figure that had now joined them at their table.

The sight of Dugan Macduff cut through any comfortable haze.  Jonas sat there, blinking, as icy sobriety cut through him.  He kept his mouth firmly shut, eyes flickering to Eddie, and then quietly glanced over the rest of the crowd.  The pub wasn't packed, but there was enough of a crowd that flinging magic around was out of the question.  They'd have to empty the room or risk yet another uncomfortable visit to the Head of Catastrophe's office.

Jonas leaned back in the chair, his expression still tense, glancing first at Macduff and then letting his gaze slide past him.  The nearest fire alarm was a decent distance away; that wasn't going to be the easy solution.  Hell; he couldn't even say for sure that there weren't other WBA members disguised in the crowd.  They knew that Tawse liked Polyjuice.  For all they could tell, half the room had slipped in after them with wands.

"He's got better taste in beer than you, mate," he informed Pratt nicely, eyeing the dark-colored liquid inside the pitcher.  This hardly felt like a friendly fireside conversation, but so far, Tawse's lot hadn't shown any inclination to break the Statute of Secrecy.  Kidnapping Akiva, the murders -- from what he knew from the Adani investigation, even the Muggle deaths had been carefully set up to look like reasonable accidents.  If Macduff was approaching them in the middle of a Muggle pub, he probably wasn't here to instigate a firefight.

Jonas shifted his attention back to the bigger man, regarding him warily for a moment, and then carefully reached out for the pitcher.  "Yeah, undercover," he agreed, picking up one of the glasses and tilting it to pour the beer.  "Spent fourteen months getting set up for this operation, and you rattled us within the hour.  Good on you, mate.  Reckon that'll be the end of the Ministry, yeah?  You can go run to Tawse and tell 'im that you felled it single-handedly."

Dugan frowned at Pratt. "I always make it a point to buy the drinks at a business meeting, " he informed both of them. "It's good form. And you will drink and you will like it, until I'm done talking at least."

He watched as the two of them peered at their surroundings, and Dugan could just see the little auror wheels turning. A muggle pub was not the place to be apprehending a man like Dugan MacDuff. "I'd also appreciate if you don't try any funny business," he added. "I sure would hate for the blood of a muggle to be on your hands, gentlemen. And I'm not above killing all of them if I have to."

Dugan laughed when Cinaed was mentioned. "Barkin' up the wrong tree there, Trevelyan. We may be family, but that doesn't mean I know how to find him. Besides, only family member I've got interest in finding is Raynor- and she's not that hard to track. Pretty woman. Dainty, even. I like 'em dainty. From what I can tell she's only got one of you out to protect her- and I'm bigger than he is."

"But I'm not here to discuss that. I got personal business with you, Auror Pratt," Dugan stated simply, taking another drink of his beer. "We could discuss it in private if you'd prefer. I got enough time to wait on him to limp away."

The urge to dump the pint down the front of Macduff's shirt was growing steadily stronger as the big man started to speak, but Jonas resisted nevertheless.  As inebriated as he may or may not be, initiating a fight when the other wizard had come to talk -- even if the talk was likely to be about what they needed to do to not fall victim to the same fate as Fox -- did not strike him as the smartest way to end his evening.

But the thought of Fox made it harder to resist.  The look on the other man's face when he'd walked into Tamis's office, the hush that had fallen over the rest of the Auror Corps -- Jonas knew it too well.  He remembered what it was like to feel that hopeless, to know that resignation was the only recourse.  He had never known Ackerly Fox well, and there had been a ten-year gap in his interactions with the older Auror, but it still stung.  Macduff had made the current war personal for the first time, and that meant that they'd all be likely to escape unscathed.

Except apparently it had already been personal for some.  Jonas had passed the first beer to Eddie and been about to start pouring the second when their visitor rattled off his surname and then remarked on the extended Tawse-Macduff family.  Blinking, Jonas glanced up sharply at the other man, frowning at him in surprise for a moment before he managed to regain control over his expression.

That was interesting.  Jonas's thoughts snapped back to a snowy day in London[1].  Apparently there had been more to that story as well.  He bit his tongue and concentrated on pouring the second pint, not daring to look and see what Pratt had thought of the mention. 

And then they got to the point of the current visit.  Pratt.  Not him.  Jonas nearly held his breath.  He could swallow the insult to his leg, swallow the apparent dismissal.  If Macduff didn't want to talk to him...

Taking a deep breath, he pushed his chair back away from the table.

"Yeah, well," he said, rising unsteadily to his feet.  He avoided Pratt's gaze, kept his eyes well away from Macduff.  Gave an uncomfortable shrug.  Surrendered.  Defeated.  "If this isn't to do with me, then this is probably that bit we talked about, Pratt.  Where I seize me chance and just walk."

He scooped up the second beer, not looking either man in the face as he gave them a quick nod.  The bar wasn't packed, but it was crowded enough, and this was Muggle turf.  Even if Macduff had allies here, he could probably make it to the fire alarm before -- ...but there was probably a better way to manage this.

Fingers already itching for his phone, he headed for the back of the room to lose himself in the milling crowd.

1.	Referring to the conversation that took place during The Adventure of the Speckled Band.

“Never tried to be funny, MacDuff.” Pratt muttered carefully, not taking his bright green eyes off of the intruder. Why had he been drinking? His head was so fuzzy and now was certainly the time to have a fully functioning mind! Dugan MacDuff was sat at their table in a muggle pub having just bought them a pitcher of beer and the statute of secrecy was going to make this particular ‘business meeting’ very complicated. Ed took the proffered beer off Jonas and took a small sip to show willing. He’d seen Dugan have a swig and even despite an auror’s paranoia, one had to take a risk when in certain situations. Being sat in a muggle bar with a wanted wizard was one of those situations.

" I got personal business with you, Auror Pratt,"

The blonde auror felt his stomach hit the floor. Any colour that had been in his alcohol and heat affected cheeks vanished in a flash. Green eyes didn’t dare stray away from the werewolf but they increased in intensity as his jaw locked tight. Ed didn’t do personal business. Especially with a wizard he’d much rather throw into a ministry cell and let rot.

MacDuff offered Trevelyan an escape opportunity and the grubby Cornish wizard took it. “I expected it a few weeks ago.” Pratt muttered as he continued to glare across the table at MacDuff. Either Paddy would leave the pub and find a way to call in reinforcements or he’d bail. Ed, for his and his kids sake hoped it would be the former. He’d spent enough time with Trevelyan recently to start to show a bit of trust in the other auror. If this went down badly, Ed would be murdering Paddy himself.

With Jonas gone, Ed took another swig of beer, trying to look as comfortable as he could at that moment in time. “I must admit, MacDuff, I don’t do the whole, soul divergin’, personal shit if that’s what yer after.”