Needing a few drinks

"Yeah I don't blame you, I would do the same thing if it were Sophia." James said looking at Brian. "Your welcome I'm glad that I could help you out with that. Most of the time I'm using it on some of the people who help me with the dragons at the ministry."

"Yeah, they already have me wrapped around their fingers. I don't understand how a man can leave his wife and newborn baby girl like that. Well I'm glad that you took her in and gave them a home." James laughed softly at his final words. "It never usually works that way, sometimes fate has a way of leading you towards something not even you knew you wanted." He smiled and remembered the quote he told Soph when he had taken her back to his home. "Sometimes kids hit you like a ton of bricks that you never expected. Doesn't matter than your the only dad she knows, all you have to know is that she's your little girl regardless of blood."

"Sounds like fun, when do you want to do it? Oh and I'm really good at making no noise even if the floorboards are squeaky. I've had to deal with sleeping dragons before and they are not the kind you wanna accidentally wake up. I'm all for some fun scaring someone," He said grinning widely at the challenge that Brian was telling him about. "I've always loved a challenge when it comes to doing something sneaky."

Brian smiled now. There was only one Soph. Only one that he knew of anyway.

"I know Soph fairly well. Used to work with her at St. Mungos when I worked as a healer there," Brian said. "My wife still works there. Haven't seen Soph in a long time."

Now he changed the subject a bit seeing that James was in the mood for a prank. "The man who has the boggart is my wife's godfather. He lives in a very enchanted house, so we'll have to bribe the hat rack and the footstools. That's easy enough. But unless the hat rack knows where the boggart is now, we'll have to hunt for it and not wake up Michael--if we go when he's home. If we wake him up, he will mercilessly prank both of us when we least expect it. He lives in Hogsmeade, and he works at the ministry.

"If we get the boggart while Michael's at work, there's a more than excellent chance my father in law will help us get into Michael's office at the ministry to do this in broad daylight. My father in law would gladly help anyone who wants to try to put one over on Michael.

"I don't care when we do this. Either during the day when he's at work or later when he's asleep. My schedule is fairly free, so whatever works best for you is fine. "

James smiled at his comment, "Yeah? Do you want me to let her know that you said hello? What's your wife's name? She might have fixed me up once before before I met Soph. I tended to be a frequent visitor to the Hospital because of some ornery dragons who like knocking me on my back." He laughed softly at those words.

"I always love a challenge, how do you bribe the hat rack and footstools? Sounds like an interesting challenge when it comes to not waking him. Wait you said Michael? Michael Tremaine? If that's who your talking about I'm definitely in. If we're caught though I have a feeling he'll get me when I'm at work." James said laughing as he took another drink from his glass. "I'm actually off for the next two days because I traded with someone else. Whenever within those days works great for me."

"I'm already having too much fun with this." He said as he laughed more about everything. "When shall we prank him? Work or home?" His eyes were alight with humor and mischief.

"You can, yeah," he said. "My wife is Khaat Lupin--she's the director of the hospital--Robert is my father in law. And he would take great joy in anyone that could put one over on Michael Tremaine.

"Snidely--the hat rack, is a bit of a kleptomaniac. We just need to put something in our pockets he'd like. I'll tuck a deck of poker cards in my pocket. He also loves a good game of poker. So a new deck should please him.

"The dogs. Um...might have to go to Madam Malkins for a few pair of argyle socks. They only eat black socks, but black argyles are like biscuits for them. But the dogs have just had a litter of puppies. We'll have to cut a pair up into tiny bits. The puppies are too tiny to eat whole socks. Once they get full stomachs, the dogs will all nap. They won't make a peep.

"You are right, though. If Michael catches us, he won't just make our lives miserable at work, the pranking paybacks will be utter hell," he grinned. "But nothing would annoy him more than if we were to manage to pull it off while he was home--right under his nose. And that will not at all be easy."

"I've heard of her around the hospital but I've never encountered her face to face. I'd probably get told off because I wait too long to get treated for my burns. I'm really stubborn when it comes to things like that, I'm not entirely fond of hospitals." James said smiling as he remembered the last time he had to go to a healer for his wounds. He can still remember the reprimand that he got for not getting there sooner. "Well I would love to get one over on him, he always seems like he's too serious most of the time. I've never seen the man smile at work but then again it is a throne in the side working there at times."

"Poker? That's interesting to say the least, how many decks does he own?" James asked grinning at the thought of a hat rack playing poker. "Actually I have a ton of brand new ones from there that I will never wear. I can get them for the dogs, not too much of an issue there. I'll make sure some of them are cut up really small for the pups."

"Yeah well I guess we'll have to make sure that we don't get caught." He said laughing softly to himself. "I've always been fond of a challenge when it comes to making sure people don't know i'm there. I've done it with my sister Anya and she doesn't sleep, so this will be fun. Now is he a light sleeper or is he a deep sleeper?" He began to think of ways to get in the house while the man was sleeping. "You know this is gonna have to be an in depth plan to pull it off." James said looking him with a mischievous smile on his face.

"Khaat's been rather isolated since this business with the werewolf," Brian said.

"Any woman who survived the mauling James Blood gave her last year has every right to not want to go out of the house again," the bartender said to Brian. "I saw those picture in the Daily Prophet." He looked at James. "Scarred the whole side of her face, her neck, her shoulder, and paralyzed her arm. No wonder she doesn't go out. And no wonder he chases werewolves," he gestured at Brian. "Don't know if I'd be brave enough to do that or not. But then again, I don't know that I'm brave enough to prank Michael Tremaine either."

Brian laughed. "It won't be so bad. All we have to do is not get caught. Let me see now--Snidely? Um...he has two decks of poker cards, I think, but they're well worn. I've heard he plays with the wing chairs and the hall table, but Michael says the hall table cheats--sticks extra cards in its drawer. That usually starts a fight, and, well, I think the cards get more worn from the fighting than the playing.

"You're good on socks? Great. Michael has really irregular sleeping habits, but when he does get a chance to sleep, its fairly sound. Might be able to cast a bit of a sleep spell on him if we need to.

"If we get there towards midnight, Snidely will let the dogs out once more for the night around then. We can bribe the hat rack, and he'll overdose the dogs on socks. They'll go to sleep fat and happy. Then, once Michael is asleep, we should be good. Hopefully. Do you think I missed anything?"

"I would be the same if it was me, I know someone who's isolated herself. My sister Anya she was bitten by a vampire well that vampire is now hunting her because she turned." James said understanding the need to be isolated from that dangerous person.

"Yeah I think I saw that in the prophet, I don't really read much of newspapers anymore. I tend to keep things that are flammable out of the house." He said to the bartender nodded at the man's words. "Well I've been chasing the vampire that bit Anya since he started hunting her. Well it takes a lot of guts to take on a werewolf just as much to take on Michael Tremaine."

"Well it will be easy as long as he stays asleep throughout it. Will the other furniture be a problem with us being in the house?" James asked looking at Brian. "I want to make sure that we cover all the bases and don't tip off Michael prematurely." He began going through scenarios in his head.

"Yes I have more socks that I have room for, my mother feels the need to buy hundreds for my siblings and myself. The more I can get rid of the better," He said shaking his head remembering when Christmas came around. Well we might cast one on him just in case to make sure that it gives us a little more advantage over everything."

"Midnight sounds perfect but we need to make sure that it's a cloudy night before we go there. We don't want the moonlight to give us away if he happens to wake after us getting out of the house. I think that we covered everything but we need to make sure it's just the dogs and Snidely that we need to worry about." James said thinking about everything that they would need to get into the house. "Which way will we be going in? Also is there any spells on the house?"

"I don't think the rest of the furniture will be an issue. Actually the enchantment on the house happened because of a magical spell that went rather sideways years ago--before Michael rented the house. And when Michael rented it, Khaat insisted that Michael not change the furniture back or hurt it. It took Michael some getting used to, but now he likes it--so long as the furniture behaves. I think it'll behave for us. The dogs and the hat rack are the biggest obstacles, but it sounds like we have that covered.

"I think we can go in the front door, really. Snidely will hear us no matter what anyway. So, yeah. Bribery works wonders.

"If your sister is really feeling like the vampire is giving her an issue, Khaat has a friend that is a vampire that likes to take care of odd bits of business for her. I don't ask how he does it. I don't want to know. But there are times when he does seem to get things handled. And he's been rather helpful in keeping her safe from James Blood. After all, vampires and werewolves just don't get along. If your sister wants a bit of additional help, I can ask Khaat to contact him if you want."

ooc: I do have an npc vampire if you ever see need for him with anya. haven't made him a playing character b/c i don't use him often enough. but, yeah. i do have one.

"Excellent, I think I'm going to enjoy this very much so." James said laughing softly. "Well I think Khaat did something good with keeping the house as it was. I would love to have something like that with my house. Unfortunately though one of the dragons might decide that it looks like a chew toy." He grimaced at those words as he thought about some of the things that they chewed on. "Well whenever you want to play this trick I'll be ready."

"Well that will make things simple considering everything. As long as we don't get caught by Michael everything should run smoothly." James said with a huge grin on his face.

"Well that's the thing Anya has some contacts with other Vampires about the one who's hunting her. The only thing she's having trouble with is the fact that she doesn't know much about being a vampire." He said taking a large swig from the bottle in front of him. "She's been a vampire for five years but she doesn't like asking for help often. Lately though she's been asking because she's had no choice in the matter. I've been trying to find out things about her being a vampire but so far it's been slow going." He looked at Brian and smiled softly. "I'll talk to Anya about it and see what she thinks. In all honesty I've been thinking that there is more than one that's been after her. The movement is too scattered and it's always a little different each time."

((OOC: I think I may take you up on the offer. Pm me a little more about him and i'll see what I can come up with.))

"Michael used to threaten to make Snidely into a pool cue, and it used to scare Snidely into behaving.  Now Snidely just pretty much blows Michael off.  The last time I saw Michael threaten Snidely, Snidely just blew raspberries at him. So, I can't imagine Snidely won't be in on this with us."

So, Anya was a relatively new vampire.  It took awhile for anyone to adjust to their lives being turned upside down.  

"I don't know if it helps, but St. Mungos supplies vampires with blood so they don't have to hunt in order to feed. If your sister needs additional support, she should see Khaat or her father.  I know they're both experienced in the differences in body chemistry between humans and vampires."  As a healer, Brian had done some work with vampires but not extensively.

"So, what do you think? Perhaps tomorrow night to visit our dear friend Michael?"