bait_backup | Russian roulette is not the same without a gun

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Russian roulette is not the same without a gun

*Electricity is a funny thing. It can do so much, and yet it's so very easy to disrupt. Such are the woes of the proprietors of Maurice's, an upscale café that tries to look more edgy than fancy, and fails. It can't quite shake the air of snobbery infecting the area, the taint of We-Have-Too-Much-Money. Maybe it's the silk ascots; maybe it's the disproportionate number of Italian shoes. At any rate, no one thinks to notice the young man slipping out of the alley next to the building, in his new wingtips and old waistcoat, his button-down a bit rumpled and his trousers mended here and there. By the time anyone notices the breaker box on the back wall sparking and smoking, he's vanished into the crowds.

He takes the long way 'round back through some side-streets, timing it so that he walks up to Maurice's - again - about five minutes after he's agreed to meet Amrita there. Perfectly late, perfectly nonchalant, as he strolls up to the café, pretending to be unaware of the frustrated owners and the 'closed for maintenance' sign now hanging on the door.*

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It's home, is all.

*She shrugs, a little awkwardly. And of course to Amrita, now, it is. But the first time she'd woken up here it'd been blinding and startling and alien: high ceilings and a wall of windows and an awful lot of white, and peculiar art and artifacts everywhere--never mind how many times her little room at the Leaky could fit into it.

And it hasn't changed much since then: a few more bookshelves by a little chair for her to read in, an idol in one little nook that's probably the brightest thing in the room, and a circle of carpet that's almost-imperceptibly worn. And of course there's a handsome iron hook suspended from the ceiling, holding only a blameless plant in a hanging pot.

She drops her purse onto a table and crosses the room to the bar.*

Make yourself at home, now. It can get you just about anything--it actually made me coffee once but I was awfully upset, don't know if a repeat performance is in the cards--Iced tea for me, I think, please, with cardamom--

Remus?

*A semi-sentient bar. Fancy bit of spellwork, that, and Remus can't help but be rather impressed.*

Ah - darjeeling, please, if you have it.

*The bar clinks and chatters into activity before she's even spoken to it, and it produces a gently steaming cup of flawless tea--evidently anxious to make a good impression on this new friend of Amrita's.*

That was fast. Bit of milk and sugar, isn't it?

*She returns and extends the cup and saucer to Remus with the easy and workmanlike grace of someone who's served for a living--you can take the girl out of the pub, but--and settles into an armchair.

For all her blatant dismissal of his Muggle wife, Amrita's still obnoxiously lovesick. She can't help asking.*

You'll have to tell me how you and Hazel met. Was it very very romantic?

*Damn. He never should have given her a name, it humanized her, and now he's got to invent things - he's always been good off the cuff but it doesn't mean he likes it just now. The stakes are too high. So he just dives in, spinning out the kind of silly schoolgirl fancy she'd probably believe, too aware that it couldn't be less like the reality of his relationship with Sirius, from the framework up.*

She seems to think so. It was all a bit of a whirlwind - I was just at the market, you know, the open-air one by my old flat, and she tripped over a loose paving stone and dropped her shopping. Oranges everywhere, eggs broken, it was a right mess, and I happened to be passing and helped her, and - well.

*He puts on a small smile, trying to draw on real memories to make it look convincing - the nights spent up up in the Astronomy Tower with Padfoot, out of bed long after hours just to have a bit of time alone together. Or the smiles across the Gryffindor table at breakfast, layers of hidden meanings in them that everyone else was oblivious to, or the night of his eighteenth birthday, in the library - they were purely, truly happy memories, and good fuel for faking newly-in-love. Back at Hogwarts, the end of seventh year when they'd just finally figured things out and the war hadn't consumed their lives yet, when it was all stolen kisses and muffled laughter and tangled sheets on narrow beds. Remus wouldn't trade what they have now for anything - they're so solid, now, so steady and it's safe and it's home - but there's no denying that things were simpler, before. Happiness without the edge of fear. He tries to draw on that.*

*She sees it ever so vividly: oranges rolling everywhere on the cobblestones and poor hapless Hazel-the-Muggle (a pretty if slightly dumpy brunette, in Amrita's mind) fretting all over the place. And Remus, of course, to the rescue. The story is enough, but the little smile he's wearing clinches it, and Amrita lights up like a Christmas tree, right on cue.*

That's just wonderful. Ever the white-knight, I could just die.

I don't know about you but I'm a bit peckish, I was sort of counting on a pastry or two from Maurice's. Let me get us a little something, we've got fruit and scones and things--won't be a second--

*The smile vanishes the instant Amrita's gone, and he's off. He's only got a moment, he knows, so he makes it count - the place is too spotless to afford many hints as to where he might look for anything incriminating, so all he can do is start with the obvious. Tea cup still in hand in case she comes back early, he quickly crosses for the nearest thing with drawers - an old and expensive-looking credenza sitting tastefully off to one side. There are curios spaced attractively on top of it, but Remus spares them barely a glance. As quietly as possible he pulls open the first drawer, careful not to actually touch anything.*

*The credenza gives a little mutinous creak at his touch, seems to twitch a bit, but that's all. The drawer would certainly have bitten, or worse, if anything incriminating was in the drawer--but it contains only a pair of smooth and intricately-carved wands.*

So do you have a flat together?

*Amrita didn't do much more than help out with kitchen prep at the Leaky--the cook was an ancient and horrid woman she was obliged to call Miss Fletcher who was in the habit of complaining loudly about 'it' touching things when Tom wasn't around. But she remembers some, and makes short work and neat slices of a few nectarines and tangellas. But that won't do on its own, so she keeps on rummaging and calls over to Remus.*

In London, or--?

*So Sirius wasn't the only one to think to get secondary wands. It's hardly surprising - honestly, what Crouch thinks he's going to accomplish by these absurd regulations....

Shutting the drawer gently, he moves onto the next, setting his teacup down to open two at once this time. As long as he can hear movement in the kitchen, he reasons, he's fine.*

A bit out, yes, in Croydon.

*Sufficiently pedestrian and boring and lower-middle-class. He hopes.*

*The first drawer opens smoothly, revealing a dozen or so more wands, each carved and inlaid with infinitesmal chips of mirror. But it appears the credenza's had enough, because the next refuses to open at all. The wood gives another long creak, and it sounds more like a growl than anything else.*

Lovely. Did you have a housewarming? Goodness, I've really missed so much. Do you have all sorts of Muggle things in the kitchen?

*She's babbling, but a charming little fruit plate has taken shape, and the scones are busy toasting themselves, and where is the chocolate--*

I won't be a second, sorry!

*More sentient furniture? Why can't they just have a nice boring non-living side-table? If it won't open willingly, that's fine; he pushes the first drawer shut and slips his wand out a pocket stitched inside his waistcoat. First is a silencing spell, then a more forceful attempt at gaining entry.*

No, it's quite alright - and we do, there's a toaster and a blender and a coffee maker and everything. She can't very well do without them, I mean, so -

*The drawer opens, almost too-obediently--and then it snaps abruptly (and silently) shut, with sharp brass teeth that seem to have come out of nowhere.

For her part, Amrita is still rummaging, muttering to herself in a low undertone.*

*His eyebrows shoot up; it has teeth? Well, fine, there are more than one ways to skin a cat, and he hasn't got time to muck about with this. Crouching, he levels his wand at the drawer and tries simply vanishing the front panel of the wood itself.*

*Obligingly, the panel vanishes.*

*That was entirely too easy. Mistrustfully, Remus casts a wordless summoning charm on the contents, ready to jump back if he has to.*

*Instead of giving up its contents, the drawer spits a spray of small furniture tacks. They are brass, very small, and very sharp.

A half-second later, Amrita's puzzled voice filters over from the next room.*

--What on earth is a blender?

*Barely stifling a surprised noise, Remus falls back on his hands and then quickly gets up, Vanishing the tacks and replacing the missing panel. He glances toward the kitchen, then back at the drawer, narrowing his eyes. Next he tries forcibly removing the entire top of the cadenza - he carefully levitates all the curios into the air above it, then tries a few charms to try and detach the top surface from the rest of it altogether.*

It's a pitcher that has a blade in the bottom of it - you can liquify fruit and the like in it. Handy, really, if you haven't got a wand.

That's awfully ingenious of them--shit-

*One of the scones has started smoking, and she waves at it, fretfully. Ordinarily this would never give her trouble but she's under pressure and where is the damn chocolate--*

Er, one second!

*She's utterly unaware of the titanic man vs. furniture struggle happening not ten feet away. A few more tacks spit almost half-heartedly from the drawer, and there is a shudder that goes the whole length of the thing, but the top of the credenza finally parts and lifts.

In the now-roofless drawer they're visible: a sleek porcelain mask and, beneath it, a dragonskin folio.*

Take your time, it's alright!

*Please, please take your time-

Working more quickly now, Remus steps forward again and peers into the drawer. The mask is at once unmistakable and unsurprising - so at least one of them is a Death Eater; no shock there. It's the folio he wants. Keeping everything else still suspended mid-air, he levitates that, too, and flips it open without actually touching it.*

*It's not a smoking gun. It's not even close. It's an almost completely predictable series of paints and prints of women in various states of undress: women who are fauns and mermaids and sphinxes and not women at all, women lounging on snarling bearskin rugs or pursued by serpents and chained to rocks, women bloody-mouthed and white-eyed, women bound in their own long, long hair. And in the very back of the folio is an acid-green Ministry file, tucked there with a bhang-laced laugh only the day before yesterday by its subject. Who is, at this very moment, giving a laugh of her own as she uncovers the chocolate in the back of the cupboard.*

Found it, aha, all right, plates, hold on--

*Evan Rosier's stash of wank material - because this couldn't be anything but - is not on the list of things Remus was digging for. In fact it's not on the list of things he ever wanted to see in his entire life. He's by no means prudish, but the particular spin of the images makes him quickly and distinctly uncomfortable. The last straw is the bloody ones; he's woken up with his own mouth full of blood too many times to not be disturbed by that, and he quickly flips past the rest of the pictures.

The file surprises him. It shouldn't, probably; the Rosiers have high connections, and it makes sense that Evan would have Amrita's file, but what is it doing in this folio?

It's another answer he wishes, very quickly, that he had not found. The pictures on top when he opens it show parts of Amrita - lovely though she is - that Remus hadn't particularly wanted to see. He's almost grateful when she speaks up again, and hastily closes everything, putting back the folio and the cadenza lid and the curios, and vanishing the rest of the tacks. He only sounds, he hopes, a fraction as caught off-guard as he feels.*

- Really, you needn't go to any trouble -

Oh hush--

*She emerges at last, a little breathlessly, with a tray that is certainly overkill and possibly even ridiculous: there's the sliced nectarines and tangellas, and a bit of chocolate laid out in neat little squares, and scones and butter and two small plates. In her high-necked dress and transparent, almost childlike anxiousness to please, she couldn't be more different from the girl in the pictures, wearing the savage tracery of scars on her hips and thighs as if they were silk stockings and laughing cheekily into the camera in a way that couldn't be less meant for Remus.

But of course she has no idea, as she takes a bit of tangella and gestures eagerly for him to do the same. Why should she?*

It's nothing, don't be silly, and I'm the peckish one anyway--

*Pasting on a smile, he studiously avoids looking at any part of Amrita that isn't her face or possibly her hands, and picks up a square of chocolate. Really, it's not even the fact that there were pictures of her in the folio - she is Evan's wife - but why was her Registry folder in there? That's what's so starkly uncomfortable, that conflation of institutional humiliation and 'wank folder'. (And that is, of course, to say nothing of the rest of the contents, which are a level of disturbing unto themselves.)

And then, beyond the embarrassment, is an even more unsettling question: if Rosier had access to Amrita's file, whose else might he have access to?*

Ah - thanks.

Are you all right?

*Amrita produces her walnut wand from the clever pocket in her dress and wordlessly Summons them a pair of cloth napkins. They arrive at once, neatly and briskly arranging themselves on the glass table.*

You look a bit like a goose walked over your grave.

--ah, there it goes. It's a good thing we came inside, don't you think?

*Outside, it's finally started to rain. The windows on the far wall are practically floor-to-ceiling and make this amply clear.*

*Sliding Amrita's chair out with a flick of his wand, Remus takes a seat himself and buys a few seconds with another sip of tea. He's got to get it together, he tells himself sternly; this is no time to get squeamish and distracted.

Playing a hunch, he shrugs and smiles again, a bit more calmly.*

I'm fine, just thinking ahead. I've got to go into the Ministry tomorrow. When's your appointment?

*Because something's going on there, he can just feel it. He just can't put his finger on what.*

*The rain's suddenly very loud. Amrita, too, buys herself time with a sip of her drink, with a nibble of chocolate. This was always going to come up--Remus is one of very few who knows the truth about her, anyway. So the truth is what's needed here. Or as much of it as possible. Eyes lowered, she begins carefully.*

Ah. I don't--I don't do the Registry anymore.

I don't exist anymore, technically. I'm only a foreign bride, now.

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