What's the Password

It had taken all Michael could do to get Robert not to try to "work it out." The poison had made him sick, and actually, the antidote--despite saving his life--had made Robert temporarily even sicker.  Michael sometimes hated Robert's way of looking at things.  

You can't sit up. How are you going to work? Michael had asked.

If I don't, they'll think I'm sick.  I'll push through it. Robert had responded.

You are sick, Idiot. Michael had returned sarcasm to what he saw was complete lunacy. Didn't D'Eath say you were still at some risk for a few hours?


That probably isn't going to happen. His friend had shrugged it off.


Oh, and I feel so much better now. Michael sighed. Look, I'll go get your bag, and you can see if you can work from home. Where's your key to your office?

In my bag.

Where's your bag?


In my office.

Fabulous.

And so, Michael found himself trudging through an April thunderstorm to try to break into the office of the Minister of Magic.  By the time he got there, he was soaking wet, cold, tired, and frustrated.  He decided on a direct approach. He went up to the suite of offices Robert shared with Eli and Flora.  


He walked past Flora, waving at her, brandishing a leather case of lock picks.  He unzipped the case, knowing full well Flora's eyes were on him and selected a pick and began to work it in the keyhole to release the tumblers.

"Hey! What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Picking the lock," Michael replied. With a click, the lock yielded to him.

"You can't do that!"

"Oh, yes I can.  Didn't you watch me?" he asked, opening the door. "its rather simple, really."

"I'll go get Deputy Minister Krum if you don't stop!" she shrieked at him.

"Why don't you go do that?" he asked dryly.  He had no confidence whatsoever that it would happen. First, it was unlikely she knew where the devil he was.  And, the likelihood she'd be able to find her way there was even less. 

"I will! You'll see! You can't go in there!"

"I'm already in, Flora," he said, shutting the door behind him, and hearing her heels running on the marble floor as she dashed off.  He made a mental note to try to remember to check the broom closet by the lift to see if she had shut herself in there.  Now, where was that bloody bag?

“There’s a man!”

Elijah Krum looked up from the file in his lap, a cigarette dangling between his lips – a rare pleasure which he indulged in this time of night. He’d stopped, mind you. Working in government once more brought back the necessity of it but he replaced woody Bulgarian cigarettes with more extravagant ones to fit the pleasure of it. The decanter was open, the stopper resting on a bit of stray parchment, and a glass half full beside it of ruby port. Flora was an unwelcome disruption when Elijah was finishing up, hoping to go home to enjoy a few days of leave he could spend with his children uninterrupted. Evidently the Ministry wanted to throw him one last curveball.

Dropping his legs down from the desk, Elijah closed the folder and dropped it unceremoniously on the table. He rose, watching as Flora pulled back and forth on the door, as though ushering him into life and activity. Elijah regarded her coolly and approached, his hands loose in his pockets. He was a foot or so taller than her, imposing but with a soft and friendly gaze that didn’t set her into a tither as often as perhaps it would have had he been unfriendly. This time it did serve to unseat her further and she reached up, grabbing hold of the lapels of his jacket against all protocol and drew him near.

“There’s a man!” She repeated shrilly.

Elijah felt a smirk tickle across his lips. “Love, there are men all over the show. Comes with the territory.”

This was why his secretary was a young man called Barty – “Short for Bartholomew, please don’t call me that.” Barty was calm, collected and didn’t invade Elijah’s personal space. Barty, unfortunately, was at home with his better half, Elijah having sent him home early to have dinner at a more humane time of day instead of twelve midnight and gone with them having picked their way through a takeaway while discussing trade deals and other legislation going through the Wizengamot. Flora was a different kettle of fish entirely, though, and Elijah wasn’t entirely sure he liked her.

Shrugging out of her grasp, he righted his suit and suffered to follow the erratic witch, passing a look over at Barty’s desk and sorely wishing he could be there to prevent her from getting in his face or present what she wanted in a more civilised manner. Nevertheless, Elijah felt jovial – or perhaps inebriated – enough to indulge her and followed, Flora’s heels stammering their way across the tiles to the Minister’s office whose closed door made for an anti-climax.

“Is that it? A door? There’s no man, Flo.” Elijah complained sourly.

“Behind the door. Michael Tremaine no less!” She snapped.

Elijah sighed. Wonderful, he thought.

Striding forward, Elijah twisted the handle and opened the door. He leaned against the frame and cocked an expectant eyebrow in Michael’s direction, a wry sort of smile alighting on his face. Some things never changed.

“If you wanted a spare key then you could’ve just asked,” Elijah pointed out sagely.

"And here I didn't figure she'd make it past the broom closet," Michael said. "Ah well, maybe she's learning finally." He looked under Robert's desk. Nope--not there.


"I'll go get Elijah!" he mocked her now in a whiny, high pitched falsetto. "Pfft. If I'd wanted to be gone by now..." He looked in the file drawer in the desk. Nope. Not there either. He shut the drawer. "I would have been. But you know that."

He went to the office closet and tried the knob. Locked. He sighed and rolled his eyes.  "Damnit, Robert. There are more international secrets in that bag than in Whitehall. How can you lock your keys for the office and the bloody closet in the bag and then lock the bag in the office, in the closet? Who does that, anyway?"


He glanced back at Eli. "Remind me to kill him, if he survives this. You did hear, I presume? Oh. I have her dossier.  I will be needing it, as she's my next assignment. And do you or do you not have a ruddy closet key?" Well, Eli didn't need to know that Robert hadn't assigned him anything.  Michael was making this his next assignment.  As for the closet door, he knew he could break out the lockpicks again, but it sounded like it would be so much more satisfying to blow the door off the hinges.  "Nah. Tired of screwing with it. I'll blow it up," he decided, pointing his wand at the door and preparing to blow the door to smithereens.

“I think she’s hiding under her desk at the moment,” Elijah joked, glancing over his shoulder. Flora wasn’t under her desk – rather, sat at it primly – but he felt he’d scored points in that he was at least half right. She was certainly at her desk.

It had been quiet in the Minister’s offices until a harried looking messenger had broken the news to the Deputy Minister. Elijah, to his credit, had remained cool and collected and had continued doing what he was doing, knowing that come hell or high water he needed to have their ship in order. There had been around forty minutes of panic. Ever since then, it had been calm, collected and the Ministry seemed ready for any eventuality, even if the place and now all London was crawling with Aurors – that always got Elijah’s back up just a bit.

“I do have the key, yes,” Elijah smiled, pushing himself away from the door. He’d stubbed the cigarette out before following Flora but now he regretted that choice and sorely wanted it. His hand reached into his pocket and produced the key in question, having called it to him when he’d figured out what it was Michael was after.

Elijah held it up. “But shall I let you blow the door off anyway? You look as though you need to de-stress.”

Regardless, Elijah stepped into the office, padding across the familiar floor in expensive shoes he wasn’t entirely sure he liked in a suit that felt a little too unbecoming on him. He was so much more at home in jeans and a t-shirt but now all this had happened, Elijah felt he’d be yearning after that for a lot longer before he could have his time off. He was just glad Stelladora and the new girl he’d hired to take over from his all-intents-and-purposes-mother loved his children as much as he did so it wasn’t a chore to be with them. Elijah’s heart hammered for the same luxury.

“Is it really as bad as everyone’s been saying?” Elijah asked, coming up beside Michael. He held out the key as an alternative to splintered wood, a half-smile playing on his features. “He is going to live, isn’t he?”

"Leave her under there, shall you? I might be tempted to make her a guppy and put her in Millie's old fishbowl," Michael said, taking the key from Eli. "She could sit on your desk then and not get lost."
He unlocked the door and opened the closet.  Cloaks. More cloaks. Black wool topcoats.  Fedoras.  What? No old black messenger bag? He was about to be even more frustrated when he noticed one of Khaat's long white cloaks, and on the same hanger, a drawstring white velvet clutch size bag that seemed to be pleasingly plumb.  Michael sighed.

"Oh for Pete's sakes," he sighed.  "Not very original of you, Robert." He opened the bag and, with a bit of patience, drew out the large old, worn messenger bag that had been hidden magically in the small clutch.  He decided, after all the trouble, to make sure it was the right bag.  He reached for the latch on the bag, and the bag promptly bit him.

"Naughty!" Michael scowled.  He tried again and the bag leaped, snapping, at him and at Eli. "Oi! Behave yourself." He flicked his wand at the latch, and it gave him a light red glow.  He looked at Eli. "This cheeky thing has an enchantment on it apparently. It seems to not want to open without the proper password.  Knowing Robert, that could be anything.

"I don't know that he's going to give the password to me today.  It was a close shave.  He thought he was going to work today, but he looks like hell. This is my way of pacifying him for a few hours. From what I understand from D'Eath, if Robert had had any more of the pint than what he did, or if D'Eath hadn't been there, its most probable Robert would be dead by now. At the moment, he's looking like a knackered old dishrag. The antitoxin, as it goes, appears to have some demons of its own.  He's not complaining, mind you, but if he's passive enough to not give a fig, then he's not right yet. I'm waiting for him to get back to his snarky old self."

"Ah well, I should get this nasty looking old bag...."  Michael began. The bag seemed to take offense at Michael's namecalling and began to shriek and screech and curse at him.  He scowled at it.  "Oh Lord, it sounds just like Walburga," he sighed.  At the mention of Walburga, one of the latches opened.  Michael's interest was peaked. "Well, well. Robert Thomas Lupin, how perfectly foul of you.  Walburga Black!"  At the mention of the old hag's name, the old bag opened.

"He named the old bag after the old bag herself," he grinned, peaking inside to see that all the right papers were there and then snapped it shut again.