Russian roulette is not the same without a gun

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*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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[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*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.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*Obligingly, the panel vanishes.*

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

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

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*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?

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*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.

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

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.*

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

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.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*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--

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*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 -

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

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--

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*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.

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

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.*

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*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.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*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.

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*He doesn't bother trying to hide his surprise. Eyebrows raising, he looks at her over his teacup for a long moment, and he can't quite help the mild disapproval in his voice. It's not that he'd begrudge a friend having an easier time of it; God knows he wishes he could have one. But Amrita isn't a friend, and people like her - people with her views on their condition - are precisely why the Registry exists.*

...Well. That's quite a perk, isn't it.

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*Well that's reading loud and clear. Amrita feels a little flare of irritation, and she speaks composedly, but a little too quickly.*

That's one way of putting it.

I don't know whether you read the Quibbler, but what they print about werewolves is true, every word of it, and if Evan hadn't, do you think I'd even be sitting here--

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*He's overstepped, and whatever it might cost his pride to fix this, he can't let it cost the mission to not fix it. Setting down his cup, he raises both hands a little in supplication and speaks over her gently.*

Okay - alright, I'm sorry, I just - that was petty of me...however much I hate going in it's no call for jealousy. I'm glad you're out of it. Truly, Amrita, I'm sorry.

*Lies, all of it; she's becoming precisely the kind of monster that needs those checks and balances, while he plays by the rules and suffers for it. The contrition in his voice and face does, indeed, cost dearly.*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*And there it is, inevitably: a bitter little pill of guilt. Of course he's jealous. Remus still has to go in every month; Remus is still subject to that kind of danger and degradation, and he's a little shabby and the flat is so nice and he's so earnestly apologetic, now, that she almost groans aloud.*

No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump down your throat, it's only--it's not just a lark, for me. Or a perk. It's-

*She looks up directly into his eyes, then, and for a minute she's as hollow and unhappy as the barmaid he first befriended.*

I, ah, lied before. I didn't lose my wand.

[dapperdeath.livejournal.com]

*Evan has been busy all day, but his last appointment was surprisingly brief--the shoddy underground wandmaker, instead of being ready for a round of fierce negotiation in which he tried to raise his prices yet again, was actually just dead in his little dingy office. Evan covers his tracks--and the tracks of Rosier & Sons, with a quick glance over the man's correspondence--and makes his way home an hour early.

The door opens silently when he presses his hand to it, and shuts behind him with a quiet click.*

Darling?

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

*And that's thrown cold water on her little germinating confession before anything else can come of it. At his voice, Amrita jumps, as if someone's dropped a crystal ball on the hardwood floor. But she recovers quickly enough: a genuine smile blooms on her face, and she calls to him.*

Hello Evan, I've got Remus over, Maurice's was closed because of the plugs or something and it's been terrible out today--

[dapperdeath.livejournal.com]

Oh, dreadful. Well, I'm through for the afternoon, and I'm glad I'm just in before the rain.

*He emerges, looking at their guest perhaps too warmly. It's the perfect opportunity, after all, and he doesn't intend to waste it.*

Hello, Lupin. So sorry to intrude.

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

*Nothing good ever comes of a Death Eater looking quite so pleased to see someone, but it at least serves as a distraction from his disgust over the Registry. Rosier himself was not part of the plan, and this whole endeavor just got exponentially more dangerous; he'll have to tread carefully, and it's ruined any idea of poking about more.*

Not at all! It's good to see you.

*Would be better to see him in shackles headed to Azkaban, of course, but....*

[cellarandmoon.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you two remember one another, from school--

*She's sitting up very straight, now, and pointing a bright please get along smile at each of them in turn.*

[looneyloopy.livejournal.com]

Of course, we were both prefects.

*There was also the time Rosier had tried to pay him. And then, of course, there were all the times that they'd probably nearly killed each other in running battles. Also that.*

[dapperdeath.livejournal.com]

I think I remember being rather hard on you and your friends. I do hope there's no hard feelings now.

*It's innocent enough, but the hidden meaning is clear enough to anyone who lived it: You'd do well to remember how I used to put your friends in their place every chance I got.*

In fact, why don't you come out to dinner with us? We can catch up. We were planning on heading out just after I got home, but I shouldn't want to cut your visit short just on my account.