(ok, so i just created a new position but for the right creative mind, this job might actually be fun. I think we could use a wizard version of Q. Oh, and awesome job on that post. Nice!
)
Rookwood's information did sound on the level. It made too much sense in light of what little bits of information Robert did know. Rookwood's bag had indeed been a boon of a bag.
Illegal potions dealings never surprised him. He honestly had to thank Rob Dent to some extent. The illegal potions lab that Rob had left behind, or more accurately, had been forced out of, had been very telling. It had been very revealing about how the illegals market worked. What Robert knew about it had been only expanded, and both times the lab had been destroyed, Robert had taken great revengeful delight in allowing himself to obliterate it using the anger that only a vengeful father could feel when he needed to get back at the groom who had promised never to hurt his father-in-law's pride and joy.
He had spit second visions of wanting to find the wizard who was creating so much destruction in this new vein of illegals by finding the lab and allowing himself to unhinge there and blow the place to bits. He particularly loved watching the brightly colored glass vials and colorful potions splatter as he exploded them. It was rather like fireworks but with a satisfying bitter edge to them that allowed him to release his venomous wrath at such evil. Violence for a good cause. Dumbledore would have approved, he was sure, because he had enjoyed such things like Robert did.
He remembered the black dementor-like cape and the enchanted death eater mask that replaced any view of his face with an image of a gaping black misty hole--the one that still gave Michael the shivers, even as fearless as Michael often was. Perhaps there would be use for it again. The last Robert had worn it was to help destroy James Blood's lair almost three years ago. The mission had been serious business, but there was some pleasure in being able to be more himself behind the mask than he'd ever have been able to do without it. It was who Robert had become--the man behind a usually-expressionless mask. Yes, the costume might be useful again with the obligatory seek-and-destroy mission that lay in front of them now. Robert didn't have time for the 'seek' portion. That would need to go to an Unspeakable, but Robert wanted to be in on the cathartic Destroy part. Definitely. He glanced towards Rick for a split second, and Rick clearly hadn't missed it.
"Well, I figured that the beast that Mr. Pierce created would grow tentacles," Robert sighed, annoyed that Pierce had managed to do so much damage and then literally slip away like a wisp of black smoke. "When things like that happen, sometimes we can only wait until they show up. Now that we know it, we can go wrestle it. That seems to be to obvious response, anyway. Every member of our wizarding society, regardless of magical ability, needs to be free from any residual damage that Mr. Pierce started. And besides that, I really just don't want my potions tinkered with any further. I hate potions identity theft." He wasn't going to get involved in the politically-correct verbage despute.
Frankly, though, he was such a rigid perfectionist with his potions that he truly deeply despised anyone swiping another potion maker's identity. Aside from being against magical law, it was against the unwritten ethical code between potions makers. It just wasn't done because it was ridiculously bad form. Besides that, it was bloody difficult to do and could only be done by someone with above Hogwarts grad level skills. Someone with perhaps Lorcan D'Eath's level of abilities? D'Eath was surely capable of it, but D'Eath was also a perfectionist, and he had that unfailing potions maker ethics. Robert didn't see D'Eath as being willing to defy that set of ethics. Not only did D'Eath appear to have a colossal ego that would keep his thinking from lowering himself to those standards, there wasn't much purpose in it for him. He'd wanted the marriage law stopped as much as any of them if not more. To do this would simply be against what Lorcan had fought for. Lorcan didn't want the number of magic toting wizards reduced. No, this sounded far more like Pierce's motivations to him. Pierce indeed new no bounds. There was no low to which he wasn't willing to stoop if he thought it would accomplish his purpose, but Robert didn't know if Pierce was capable of anything but rudimentary potions. It did beg the question, though. Annoyed further by his own private musings, Robert added another shot to his own firewhiskey glass.
As he watched this play out, Rick was going to do everything within his power to avoid being assigned a mission right now. Not until he'd cleaned up the mess in Istanbul. There was a price on his head now, and some very aggressive wizards who intended to find him. Not to mention they wanted what the believed he still had, what he'd almost died for. He didn't know Lupin well, but he did know one thing. Lupin was a spymaster who didn't know how to let things go--a chessmaster who refused to lose. He would strike back with whatever he had at his disposal, and Rick was feeling like the handiest thing currently in Lupin's field of vision. Uncomfortable, Rick quietly set the empty firewhiskey glass aside and got up.
"Going so soon?" Robert asked, turning to him.
"Yeah, I think I might. A shower seems in order," Rick said tiredly, hoping that Robert would get the hint that Rick was too tired to be immediately sent back out into the field.
"You don't have a wand," Robert cast him a bit of a cheeky grin. He'd figured that when he'd touched him. There was the absense of wand energy that told him Rick was wandless. Rick's eyes only flickered for a brief second in irritation that Robert had already figured out he couldn't just pop home and get out of this. "Go to the DM and see if they might have a spare go bag that you can use."
That was code for "Go to the Department of Mysteries to the Quartermaster for Unspeakables, Auror and Law Enforcement, and get the reserve go bag that you're all required to stash there with him. Go to the Auror training center, get your shower, and hang around. I'll get you a new wand when I get darned good and ready to give it to you, but don't go anywhere else. You're about to be assigned to a new mission, like it or not." Since Pierce's intrusion, Robert had done a bit of a redesign on the arsenal of Ministry magical weapons and equipment and had placed it under the supervision of a Quartermaster. He'd then placed the Quartermaster under the magical protections of the Department of Mysteries.
Shit, Rick thought. "Capital idea, Minister," Rick smiled gracefully. "Thank you." He nodded a silent farewell to the others and excused himself. It wasn't his pleasure, and he wasn't thankful. He opened the door and started out.
"And don't pilfer my cigarettes again from Liz on your way out," Robert called after him. Rick didn't answer but shut the door and left--for the moment, intending to make cigarette pilfering the first on his mind as his passive aggressive response. It sounded like a good idea in his head, anyway. Robert turned to Eli. "Rookwood has earned some sort of pay. We should entertain some ideas of what he had in mind, I think." He wanted Eli to assist in negotiating whatever price Rookwood was going to ask because Eli knew their informant better than he did. "What did you have in mind?" he asked Rookwood, inviting the man to cast his opening bid.