“Shhhh” A skinny pale finger pressed itself carelessly against the filthy muggle’s lips as another hand tightly yanked a mop of shaggy ginger hair up, keeping the new pet’s pathetically pasty head in place. From the ground floor above the couple playing came a loud ringing as the bell in the entrance hall had been charmed back to life to announce a visitor at the front door requiring the attention of the manor house’s occupant. The pale finger swept across bloody lips slowly, magically sealing them together before the hair was released and the crumpled body fell once more to the ground, hands and feet magically bound together to prevent any sort of escape.

“You remain here; pet, while Mommy goes to see who dares disrupt playtime.” The witch registered a tear form in the corner of an alert green eye and it served to further fuel her eagerness to return and carry on with the delightful excitement they had been enjoying together in the badly lit and damp cellar. She sincerely hoped more of these tears rolled down the young girl’s cheeks before her return. Outer displays of sorrow and fear always excited this witch the most. And the strong, privately scared muggles? They were tremendously pleasing to fracture.

With a final glance at the girl lying on the cold stone floor, Nicola Randall departed the cell, threw the door closed with a loud, resounding bang and made her way up the damp, dark stairwell to reach the brighter, dusty entrance hall and the increasingly loud charmed bell.

With the door leading to the level below ground locked with a quick flick of her wand, Nicola paused in front of a mirror. Dark brown eyes shot like a nargle towards mistletoe to the few drops of blood drizzling down her neck to reach the long white dress presently cloaking her slender figure. A bony hand quickly reached up to that, wiping the small droplets onto her finger tips. She lifted her now rouged fingers to her lips and brushed a thirsty tongue over the droplets, lapping them up before Miss Randall finally stepped back from the mirror, satisfied with her appearance.

It took a few moments to stride to the large wooden front door. Nicola flicked her wand at the handle and watched the golden knob twist before the door began to pull back, hinges groaning with a lack of recent use and lubrication. The dark haired witch simply stood, wand poised and waited to analyse the unexpected visitor to her recently deceased father’s home.

Before her stood a tall skinny excuse for a wizard clad in robes Nicola had come to associate with trouble. Suddenly, the relatively pleasant expression that had stiffened the young witch’s pretty features flashed to a scowl.

“You’re disrupting vital animal training, Auror. Your presence is entirely undesirable.”

A lesser Wizard, maybe even a lesser Auror, would be apprehensive about entering the grounds of a house that seemed like it was built for the sole reasons of intimidating and scaremongering. But Honorius knew the occupant and he was not intimidated by the criminal in the slightest. Honorius stoic face hid his annoyance at this assignment, even though he had done everything he could to become Miss.Randall's ministry watcher. However her...connections in the criminal world were very valuable to Stilicho. He couldn't have another Auror throwing her into Azkaban for something as small as Muggle-baiting. So he had decided to give her some breathing space when it came to her little pets.

As he saw the woman he entered the house, not waiting for her permission. "Good, the day people like you look forward to seeing me is the day I retire," he looked her up and down with a mix of disgust and annoyance. Honorius hated being in her presence. He hated the Dark Arts and yet part of him wanted to torture a man for hours, days, before killing him. He told himself that it was fine, he was doing to to avenge his father, and it was a one off. But he also knew that the Dark Arts were a slippery slope. And rather addictive.

"I don't want to be here anymore than you want me to be. But when the Department of Magical Law Enforcement send you owls and you don't reply they usually send someone out to...check on you. After all we like to keep tabs on feeble Dark Witches like yourself." Their relationship was one of mutual need. Honorius needed her contacts and Randall wanted to continue training her so called pets without ministry interference. Honroius had no real problem with her little games as long as it didn't end up harming any law abiding wizards or withces.

The Auror wouldn't pretend that the didn't despise everything that Nicola Randall stood for. Infact he enjoyed telling her, even goading her.

Honorius had been ordered to check on Nicola Randall. However he had other business with the Witch. He needed her to help him find someone, and the fact he needed her assistance made him feel ill. He rarely asked anyone for help, even fellow Aurors, and asking a Dark Witch for help was something that went against everything he stood for. It should of been a wake up call. It should of been a slap in the face but he ignored the nagging feeling in the back of his mind.

Afterall he was just avenging his dead father.

"Do you have any contacts in the Middle East? I need to find someone, and quickly"

The skinny, wrinkly auror stepped over the threshold to Nicola’s new adobe without waiting for her invitation and analysed her with a mixture of disgust and what Nicola was convinced she saw, a flash of interest. His greedy eyes took her in from the knee-length white dress to the black boots that had most definitely seen better days.

The auror was a resentful, slimy and impertinent creature that Nicola found herself loving to loathe. His meek, lanky, and bony frame contrasted with his insulting words and bright auror robes and Nicola often found herself wondering how much it would take to knock the talking skeleton over and kill him like she had years ago when she had taken an auror’s life. But the insults and intimidation weren’t enough to risk Azkaban again. She had to play nice. Or just play.

Owls from the ministry were sent everywhere. They had harassed her in Knockturn Alley, her cousin’s flat and now here. Nicola was as likely to respond to them as to take Stilicho in her arms and kiss the very life out of him. Each and every piece of parchment sent to her was set aflame and sometimes, the owl was given its own feathery bonfire as well.

Not taking her eyes off the auror, Nicola lifted her wand and tucked it behind her ear, brushing a mop of thick dark hair back from her eyes with it.

Stilicho got straight down to business and as he questioned her, the corners of Nicola’s pale lips twisted up to form a smirk. This wasn’t about checking up on her. It never was. Once more this senior auror required her assistance and Nicola suddenly grasped hold of the control she was quite convinced this gave her.

“The very reality, auror, that I am still being inundated with owls from your inept ministry is testament to the fact that your little red robed self is not holding up your part of our little agreement.” With a confident ease, Nicola crossed her arms over her stomach and it was her turn to look him up and down, eying the unwelcome visitor with an unpleasant mixture of distaste and amusement.

As the female Witch began to talk Honorius moved futher into the house. On a small table was a very expensive vase of some sort. He picked it up and examined it before putting it down in the same place. If he had his way then Nicola would be in Azkaban, or dead, but she was right. He needed her. However he knew that once his father's killer was dead she was next. An Auror wasn't supposed to use a known criminal in return for letting her off the ministry leesh. It was leverage over him that she could not keep and therefor she would either need to end up dead, her memory wiped or in some magic forsaken country in the Pacific.

"Quiet child. Letters, Owls and updates are something you should be able to deal with. Something you will have to deal with if you want to continue your little games with the less magically inclined. Personally I have no qualms with your pastime...however many at the ministry have a more Muggle tolerant view and the stuff you have been doing could see you with a prime cell overlooking the North Sea."

"I can do what I need to do without you. It is simply quicker using someone with your grubby little connections to do the job for me. You are a tiny dot on our radar. Compared to some criminals I have to keep hold of you are an insect. So I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you."

He continued. "I can slow down the owls. But stopping them, thats a problem. The ministry would also like it if all of their birds returned from your home."

"So. Are you going to help me or not?"  Throughout the entire conversation his voice barely changed in tone or volume.

A sense of loathing engulfed the young witch’s senses as she watched Stilicho greedily manhandle a vase from a small table near the bottom of the staircase. There weren’t many items like the one he eyed covetously in this house. It appeared the father that had always been affluent had descended into mild poverty during Nicola’s stretch in the sordid wizarding prison. She’d believed her father’s demise would solve any money concerns and cast her back into the riches she’d grown up with before signing her heart to William Tawse.

But the mansion was in a shocking state and Nicola remained impoverished.

Despite Nicola’s cool exterior, the taunting smirk playing her lips and reaching over her pale features to dark studious eyes, she found the auror’s words foreboding. He intimidated the thin witch from the extra foot he carried in height to the scarlet robes and the weight of his very accurate words. The ex-azzie was well aware he held the knowledge and the ability to get her thrown back into Azkaban. However at the same time, he had been covering up her less than legal actions for his own gain. Yet Nicola also held a weight over his undernourished, winkled and repulsive body.

This knowledge of her own power over the auror was what allowed her to seem confident in his presence. The pathetic excuse for a ministry official could bully his criminal ward all he wished, but to carry out these threats would mean to lose his job, his comfortable life and the chance to catch whoever he was after. After all, how would the ministry react to his cover-ups?

Slowly, Nicola unfolded her arms and lifted a hand to brush more of her long, dark hair back from over her sinister, makeup smudged eyes. A blood smeared barefoot eased forward followed by the next as Randall moved nearer to her corrupt ministry supervisor, closing the gap between them to mere inches. The head of black hair tilted back slowly so her eyes could once more meet his.

“I have never paid such an insignificant insect as much mind as you pay myself, Honorius” The witch spoke slowly, quietly before using his name barely above a whisper, still ignoring his question. “If I truly am as insignificant as you wish for me to believe, I question why I am not already locked away in the middle of the sea...Sir.”

"Flies, bacterium and beetles are tiny things. They are small and [/i]insignificant[/i] and yet they clear up the messes of the world. Dung, dead bodies etc. Without such creatures our world would be a filthy down trodden place. Decaying under the stench of death...a little like this old place," he didn't look at Nicola as he spoke. Instead he gazed around the house. It seemed like he was addressing some unseen force. "your kind feed on the stench of this world. You dwell in places full of evil and you breed like rats. You spread your ways like a virus. Yet rarely, once in a blue moon, you have your uses. You can be used to clean up one of the messes of the world."

Honorius rarely laughed or smiled. But a tiny and short chuckle escaped his lips as he continued. "I would appeal to your human side but we both know that part of you died years ago; if you ever had one in the first place."

"Our little relationship is symbiotic. Simply put I am better off with you outside of Azkaban. Although I would gain a vast amount of pleasure from seeing your very soul tormented by dementors; there are more important things in life than pleasure." He sighed before he continued. "There is a way I could help you leave the ministry crystal ball. But it would require you to leave this, simply stunning mansion. I could kill you. Unfortunately you wouldn't really be dead. But say I cam knocking while you were torturing some poor innocent muggle. Naturally I'd have to bring you into the ministry," he was now pacing back and forth as he talked, "but you pull your wand on me and we get into a duel. Sadly I am forced to kill you. The ministry would assume you were dead. And we don't keep tabs on the deceased."

"Unless you have a better idea?"

"Anyway. If you want my help then you have to find someone for me. A suspected murder and dark Wizard. I have tried more conventional means but the DIMC wasn't much use. But if you had contacts in the Middle East. Maybe they could be persuaded to hand over his location."

Whether due to the fact Nicola wanted to infuriate her ministry supervisor or she just didn’t hear his request for help for the third time, Nicola acted ignorant of it. Instead she frowned, shaking her head at the auror pacing before her, rubbing his grubby boots all over her hard wood floor. He was a corrupt disgusting law enforcement official and his very presence in her newly acquired home made the witch’s skin crawl. He always gave her the very sensation blood sucking leeches enveloping her living corpse would. The auror was no better than blood sucking leeches.

“A muggle would have an idea far superior to that pathetic suggestion, auror.” The witch’s voice smoothly left her vocal chords and filled the hallway as her bare feet began to gracefully carry her into the dark towards the kitchen at the end of the dusty, cobweb covered corridor.

“You don’t have the magical capability to kill me. Or that is what most will believe. There was a time your imbecilic government was under the senseless illusion that pretty little me savagely executed one of you.” A quick laugh erupted, echoing in the dark as a door’s hinges squeaked, audibly announcing the chink of light that filtered into the narrow corridor.

Nicola stepped down into her kitchen and looked around, fully expecting the auror to have followed her. “And death is glorified, auror. It is utterly unnecessary in such a situation as this while also being a grave inconvenience. I don’t wish to be dead whether in reality or in the minds of the trolls you compliment with the name colleagues. I like my home and I enjoy the freedom it offers me. Besides, auror, the deceased don’t often find employment, do they?”

 “It’s always customary, auror, to discuss business over light refreshments.” The corners of the witch’s pale lips twitched playfully to form an expression dangerously hovering between a smirk and a smile. “Tea?”