The seen was a small little cafe in Diagon Alley.

"What the frock is this?" Dotty demanded of a man behind the counter. "I wanted the hot dog!"

Amongst all the other things Dotty[1] lacked, the biggest was income. Money did not flow her way consistently. You could say she 'worked' for Dietrich at The Inkwell but that was not a monetary agreement. Rather one of 'you do this and this, I let you crash in the attic.' Any food she couldn't mooch off of the shop she had to get her own way, usually through lots of nicking. But should coin land in her pocket it needed to be immediately spent, so she would buy food the proper way on occasion. This was already going to be a waste of precious Knuts, she could tell.

"You ordered a number two, that's the soup special."

"What kind of soup is this, it's cold! Give me my money back so I can buy the hot dog."

"It's gazpacho it's meant to be cold. And no refunds, this is an eatery not a ticket office. That's not even a 'hot dog'--"

"Oh forget it! Fine!" Dotty scowled over her bowl of gauze-poncho or whatever it was called, leaving the shop for a table out front. She wrinkled her nose at what looked like dull red paint in the bowl. Paint would have been more fun, though you had to make sure it was lead free. She took a spoonful and gagged. Yuck! If she wanted cold stale spagetti-ohs minus the 'ohs' she would have robbed a grocery store and save herself the spare change.

The temperature was the first thing to switch to make this slop consumable. So she lit on fire with her wand.

The flames soon overtook not only the bowl of soup but the tablecloth, the candle, and the napkin dispenser.

"Jeep!" Dotty skidded back with her chair in shock. That hadn't been her intent, but now that a fire was burning and her knees were away from being burned she smiled wickedly. Screw the guy and his frozen soup. She shuffled through her pockets, looking for something. Score! Still half a bag left.

Dotty managed to conjure some sticks. Now she was roasting marshmallows over the burning tablecloth. The table was still structurally sound, in case you were wondering, because it was made out of metal. But why were people running away?

1.

getup

Berkeley was walking casually down Diagon Alley hoping to get to her small apartment at a decent time - which to be honest would have been sometime the night before. She had taken on extra duties at the office and was pushing as much paperwork as she could manage. She suspected that Rosier wouldn't be happy with the amount of hours she was pulling but with her small stature and affinity for keeping to herself not many of the other Aurors even noticed the long hours she had been keeping. Ever since the mess with MacDuff Berkeley had been making any excuse not to go home. She just didn't really feel comfortable on her own anymore but she wasn't about to go back home to her dad's either and so her solution had been to stay as long as possible at the office. Which was why she was now shuffling down the cobblestone in a near zombie like state.

As Berkeley passed the small food stand she had to take a double to make sure she was seeing things right. She paused outside the gathering of tables for those that had actually purchased food and tilted her head at the sight of the flaming table and a young woman roasting marshmellows over it. For a moment Berkeley suspected she had fallen asleep at her desk and was only dreaming that she was walking home but the smell of toasted sugar was enough to make her believe this was actually happening. She let out a soft sigh. Her muscles were screaming for her to get into to bed but the weight of her auror badge at her hip was enough to keep her in place.

She weaved through the tables and fleeing patrons to reach the young woman, "Do I even have to ask?" She placed her hand on her hip pulling back the light sweater she had to reveal the badge hooked there.

Two sides looking brown, time to flip, when Dotty noticed someone standing next to her. "Do I even have to ask?"

"Ask what?" she asked in reply. Dotty was not at the capacity to determine what this mysterious unsaid question was. The woman herself had asked it in a question so maybe that should fulfill he requirements.

"You don't need to ask. There's always statements, parti-supple phrases, exclamations, it all uses different punctuation. What do you have to ask for?" The heck--? Anadotti was not one for metaphysical philosophy. This was like stoner talk! Had she been stoning? No sore throat on recollection, and while she had been hungry it wasn't out of want of munchies.

The flashed badge wasn't missed but the impact of such was not hitting home just yet. She squished a marshmallow with her fingers, testing. "Tell you what, one--no, half a one for free and then the next one's 5 Sickles. I'm low on cash."

Berkeley was way too tired for this sh-

She straightened up slightly, her hand still on her hip with her badge in plain sight. She was technically 'off duty' but when it came down to it an Auror was never off duty unless they were dead. That was all pit and parcel of the job description. As much as her bed was screaming out for her she couldn't just walk away even if this one seemed completely harmless. The unfortunate part was that she actually recognized the woman. She was small time really, never anything major. Berkeley had never actually met the woman but her face had come up more than once in the case notes she had been going over during her extra hours at work.

"Ms. Squiggs I am not in the mood to be panhandled."

Instead Berkeley slipped her wand out of the holster and extinguished the fire. She grit her teeth slightly wondering how to best word her next question, "Any particular reason you felt like roasting marshmallows in the middle of the street?"

"Your loss, I burn them up good." The marshmallow had gotten stuck to her fingers and it took her a moment to shake it loose.

"Yeah, the best reason, because I'm hungry, and this place," she pointed to the joint, "is freaking highway robbery! They sell frozen soup for a leg an an arm! Honestly, I was just heating it at first."

She chewed one of her marshmallows off its stick, talking with her mouth half sealed shut. "Hey! I've still got a bag here. You didn't have to extinguish it yet."

She finally recognized the badge, this woman was one of the oh-roar type cops around here. "You could arrest the guy for false advertisement or something."

Berkeley resisted rolling her eyes. The woman was more of a nuisance than a menace. She was almost tempted to just walk away from this one but his inner Auror would never have allowed it despite how tired she was. At least this would be over quickly, she was very much looking forward to having a hot shower and collapsing in her bed for the foreseeable future.

Berkeley disregarded her comment about having extinguished the fire early, mildly bewildered at the fact that the woman expected her to let the fire rage long enough for her to get a sugar high. She nodded ever so slightly and walked past the woman to speak with the owner of the eatery booth. Berkeley nodded along as the man spoke, rather upset about his patio set being set on fire. Once she got him calmed down she was able to get the whole story (or his side of it) She thanked him for his time and returned to the street urchin.

"Alright Miss Squiggs, I'm going to have to ask you to head back to whichever alley you're making your home right now. The owner's not going to report it, so you won't have to worry about going back to the Ministry with me. However," Berkeley removed an enchanted pad of parchment out of the inside of her sweater and flipped it to an empty sheet. She whispered softly to the pad and an official set of calligraphed words appeared, "there will be a minor fine for the  misuse of an incendiary charm in a public setting. Find somewhere else to roast your marshmallows next time, yeah?" She ripped the parchment out of the pad (which would send an exact copy to the sister pad she had in her desk back at the office for easy filing) and handed it to the young woman.

"What the --!" Dotty flipped out at the citation flipped to her. Her last marshmallow coughed down her throat in a half-choke. " 'Minor Fine?' This is three, FIVE times as much as that stiff's stupid uncooked soup. I can't pay this, I'm broke!"

With only three coins to jingle in a pocket, Dotty considered that to be broke. "He already sucked unwarranted money out of me from his incorrectly labeled menu, I ain't giving him any more." She had every intention of chewing this citation to bits with her squirrely teeth. It would be tastier than red paint slop, too.

"I'll head back to whichever alley I've crawled from, as you've insinuated," she pushed the fine across the table, "and you mail it to me later."  What was this misuse in a public setting nonsense? Public things were owned by everyone, so things she did in private she should still be able to do in her slice of the public setting.

Berkeley restrained herself from rolling her eyes. Growing up everyone had always thought of the Aurors as being this big unstoppable force, this glorious job where you took down evil lords and dark wizard, Protecting Truth, Justice and the Wizarding way. No one ever told you about the desk work, the mounds of paperwork and the ridiculous petty criminals that tried to talk their way out of anything you made them do. Berkeley wanted nothing more than to hex the woman and be done with it but she'd likely get a citation herself for it, not to mention some kind of suspension. She couldn't afford any time off work despite how tempting it was.

"I can always arrest you instead." She offered with a fake smile.

Perhaps she had been out of line to insult the woman however true the statement may have been but she wasn't about to back down from this either. Despite the fatigue settling in to every muscle and bone in her body she wasn't going to let someone like Squiggs be the one she was lenient with. The only person she had ever given slack to was Deus but only because he was a good kid in his own way. Somewhere along the line Squiggs had just gone wrong, not necessarily bad but just wrong.

"We could take a little walk back to Level Two, I can make an official report, or you can take the fine be on your merry way and pay it when you do have the money."

"Arrest? No, no thank you, I'm allergic to handcuffs." Fierce straightforward threats like those Dotty always respected. American cops had many ways to play the figurative hardball, sometimes without a wall or squash racket. She also wasn't inebriated enough to take an unpleasant choice like arrest on purpose.

Her hand swatted the paper as if it was a bug you could squish and get rid of. She held it in front of her face. Still big fine and all the other scratched gibberish. While Dotty's face was covered reading the citation her lips curled into a brief grin. Pay it when you do have the money. And since this amount was more than she could ever keep in a pocket for longer than a day, Dotty was sure that she would never make enough money to pay their stinkin' fine. Hah!

"Once you get passed Level Two," Dotty took this for some video game level like the gameboy she and her siblings always fought over, "You can make it official that that guy serves crud food." Whether or not she got around to paying unneeded fines for little campfires, her opinions of the guy that skimmed her low quality high class soup were not going to change.

Berkeley nodded once again hiding her smirk. She knew damn well the street urchin wasn't going to pay the fine but the man in the booth didn't need to know that. As far as he was concerned the girl got what was coming to her and that was good enough for Berkeley. Not to mention that a copy of the fine and full report would be waiting for her at her desk for tomorrow. At least it gave them something. If Squiggs was ever suspected of doing something real nasty or being involved with all the wrong people they could bring her in for unpaid fines and then question her on the important stuff.

"I'll keep that in mind." She took her hand from her hip no longer needing to flash her badge and straightened her sweater. The thought of a hot shower and her own bed was like ambrosia. She didn't want to wait any longer, "Next time, try not to set the furniture on fire, I'm sure no one will care if you lit up a dumpster or two though." She once again nodded to the girl, business finished, time to move on.

She made her way out of the gated eating area and back onto the main cobbled street of Diagon, her zombie like body making it back to her apartment operating purely on auto pilot.

Just like that, Dotty knew if you ignored the problem enough the cops would just go away. Another opponent felled by her powers of misdirection!

As Berkeley left Dotty realize how she shuffled like a zombie. The Hell-? She'd just been citationed by a talking undead. Unbelievable. When Dotty revived something dead she didn't let it talk. Well then, humans had never been a strong point. But roadkill, easy peasy. She could still zombify roadkill, right?

That put a dangerous thought into her head. Dotty would try it when she got the chance. She was swayed by the comment about dumpsters. Dotty would set one on fire. But only if the contents held no awesome loot or comfortable and relatively smell free to sleep in.