Never Mess With A Man's Firewhiskey

Robert had sent a message to Kari Fuhrmann. He didn't particularly like summoning her at this late hour, but this couldn't wait. He had put the whiskey bottles on the credenza behind his desk. He'd tested them countless times, hardly believing what he'd found. It infuriated him, and it had immense implications for international catastrophe. This had to be resolved quietly and quickly.

He was tired, damnit. He had gotten up at 4:30 the morning before, trained, made rounds at St. Mungos, arrived at the Ministry by 8, worked there til 4 when he'd gotten called back to St. Mungos, had been there all night with a critical case, had showered and changed and returned to the Ministry by 8 again. He'd swilled at least a pot or so of French roast all by himself since then, and he had just heard a clock chiming somewhere, reminding him that it was now officially past 3 in the morning. He turned towards the window, keen on firing at the offender to take it out but then coming to his senses and realizing it was Big Ben. There wouldn't be an easy way of explaining that he'd been passive aggressively coping with fatigue by taking out the most famous clock on the planet.

The bottles lined up on his credenza weren't an option. They were evidence. Instead, he tossed his tie on the desk, opening the top button on his shirt and he lit up a cigarette. He very rarely ever smoked, but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy them. He kept an antique cigarette case in his pocket with some of Michael's Italian cigarettes in them--just in case. He poured an aspirin powder into his coffee mug and poured more cold coffee from the carafe into his cup, not bothering heating it. He was becoming numb to whether it was heated or not. He was not , however, numb to the headache from lack of sleep.

“An interesting choice of pastime, Minister.”

The smooth voice, coloured with a variety of pleasant accents, floated across the office. Leaning against the doorway, Kari Fuhrmann was illuminated by the half-light from the lamps scattered on table tops around the office. Her hair looked like spun gold, softly resting on her shoulders with rogue tendrils escaping into curls to bob about her temples.

Her full lips pursed a little, betraying her slight frustration and her awareness that she needed to be elsewhere. In only a handful of hours’ time, she needed to be in the docklands, overseeing a shipment of potions being brought in the Muggle way so as to avoid the customs wizards. Merlin only knew what would be on it but she needed to be there, regardless.

She pushed away from the frame and stepped into the office, her tall heels clipping on the wood until the sounds were muffled by the carpets covering the floor. She paused in the middle, one hand falling down to the corresponding hip as she looked at him. Her gaze fell to credenza and she decided to help herself – propriety be damned.

“I’ve always been fond of Glen Els,” she commented, admiring one of the crystal-cut decanters as she considered which whisky to indulge in. “A pity you don’t have it.”

She settled for Firewhisky, pouring a generous amount into the glass she plucked from the side. She dispensed with ice and brought the drink to her lips. She let her eyes close at the feeling of the familiar burn clawing down her throat and she hummed appreciatively before stepping away from the credenza.

“You called, Minister?”

"You know your whiskies then. That'll help," Robert said, looking up to see the sultry blonde as she made herself at home. He watched her choice carefully to be sure she didn't misstep. "And you picked one of the ones that actually were safe to drink. That's obviously an asset. The ones still in their labeled bottles? Not so much. Let me show you something." He wouldn't have let her drink from one of the tainted ones, but he doubted that, as foul as some of these were, she might well have picked up on the difference herself before she'd actually drank any anyway.

He plucked one of the tainted bottles from the credenza, the worst offender of the bunch, uncorked it, and sniffed it again. The potionsmaster in him was revolted, and the whiskey drinker in him didn't like it any better.

"Smell that--carefully," he cautioned her, handing the bottle to her. "An informant delivered those to us earlier tonight. Not safe for wizards to drink. I daresay that won't hurt muggles or squibs, but I hesitate to what it would do to wizards with unsuspecting palates who drank it who ended up with dangerous potions they did not need.

"The problem is that exceptionally complicated potions are finding their way into the wrong hands by being slipped into otherwise harmless muggle whiskies. The potions are difficult and expensive. They're not easily reproduced. Whoever is doing it apparently doesn't realize the fine art of potions because I've never found a potionsmaker that didn't have some fine, rather elusive differences in their styles of formulating a potion. After awhile, it becomes easier to identify the maker, somewhat akin to distinguishing one oil painting from an imitation. Its all in the fine details. And what I can tell you for certain is that the potionsmaker, in this case, has nothing to do with the potions ending up in these bottles.

"The potions involved are quite clearly mine," he said. "I know my own work like I know my own signature. They have to have been smuggled or taken from St. Mungos stores where those particular potions are under magical locks and protections. I don't market my work otherwise. They've either been slowly ripping off my stores, which is possible, albeit remotely. Or--there's someone who has put great effort into analyzing my potions to replicate them down to the individual signature sorts of things. I've never seen it done before, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be 'created' if someone truly had a mind to.

"I want to know who the hell has been taking my potions or is pretty effectively 'signing' my name to this codswallop, and I want it stopped. And--I need the damned things back, as many tainted bottles as we can get, before it starts to become toxic for witches and wizards who end up drinking powerful remedies they don't need. Are you up for it? Might mean a bit of travel. This lot showed up rather randomly, or so we thought, in Boston, of all places."

The Minister for Magic was a highly intelligent man, not one to miss an avenue of intuition. It made the blonde woman wonder, however faintly, whether or not he was appealing to her as the Unspeakable or as the Smuggler. She supposed that it was some sort of torrid mix – much like, indeed, the potions – of the two.

With just a sniff she knew something was wrong. She had been around them long enough. Brennan had taught her everything he knew, after all. In between laughter and kisses, she’d not really listened. Something had kicked in as soon as she’d tumbled into his world, though. He had actually taught her. She had absorbed it. And she knew. She knew enough – enough to be useful to the highest office in the land.

Quirking an eyebrow up towards her hairline, Kari took a sip of the whisky. Boston. It was, indeed, as random as he had said. It was a long way from London, to say the least. It was almost too much effort. So there must have been something more at stake than defiling perfectly good whiskies. But what?

“Wielding such power attracts eclectic and resourceful enemies,” Kari’s voice emitted smoothly into the air, “but what, dear Minister, have you done to warrant this bizarre turn of criminality knocking on your door?”

“I’m definitely up for it,” she added, parroting his words with a smirk. “But what is in it for me?”