A Birth day

"Abbey likes to help make those cookies," Angus told Ruby. "If you make some, be sure to have her over to help you. I'm sure your cookies will be just fine."

"Nicky was wondering where Abbey learned to be such good help in the kitchen," Khaat said. "He was going to make cookies fairly recently, and he found out that if he gave her the right measuring cup, she could measure out the flour and the sugar. She could stir, and she is actually good help with using a cookie cutter. He says Molly doesn't know any of those skills yet."

"That's because Abbey has been with me in the kitchen from day one," Angus said.

"Well, now Molly wants to learn what Abbey knows how to do."

"Abbey will teach her if Molly really wants to learn," Angus said.

"Michael is a regular here," Marcus said, finishing his kedgeree. "She knows what our organization does, and last Halloween, she sent a big batch of butterbeer with Michael to the kids in the Paris office. Let me tell you, there wasn't a drop left. That was a great breakfast, and I'm sure it will hold me probably til supper. Shall we head to work, then? I dont know if there are any clues to be found there, but I'm sure Ruby and Angus would like to be more in their element again if we can manage it. I'm ready if you are."

Ruby chuckled and nodded " of course she can help" she said then listened to Khaat and smiled loking at Angus as she spoke about how good she was in the kitchen " ah that would be Angus's influance and being good in the kitchen he a good skill to have" she said smiling to Khaat.

Aria smiled and chuckled " oh thats where that delishious butter beer came from, I kinda over induldged in that last year myself" she said and chuckled as he finished her food and sat back " yes , I think they must be ready to head back home." she said and placed down her napkin and stood up holding out her hand to him. " lets not wait any longer." she said

Marcus apparated them to St. Mungos, and he took Aria in the back way, the way Khaat usually came in. There were still plenty of reporters there. He noticed Moira there just like Angus had, and he deliberately kept Aria moving, not wanting Aria to be around Moira any longer than necessary. When they got inside, he made sure they were far enough away from the reporters before he spoke to her.

"That red haired woman. her name is Moira Crawford. She's trouble," Marcus told Aria. "I think that's a huge warning to us. Moira is James' second in command in his pack. She's the alpha female. Do not ever make the mistake of underestimating her. She's ruthless--as much a killer as James is but she's a hell of a lot smarter. And she's quick--really quick. When she doesn't have her claws, she likes blades--razor sharp ones. Don't let yourself get within arm's reach of her if you want to stay in one piece because she'll lop off some body part before you even know what hit you. If she's here, she's on some errand for James, you can be certain. And James only ever has one mission--to get Khaat. The risk to Khaat just went way up with Moira here. I think she's probably scouting out the place to see if there's any way she can use Robert's accident to get close to Khaat. We'll need to be on our toes. And if I can get her to deviate from her routine and get her to take some paperwork home and leave early, that would be the safest thing not only for her but for the employees that might be used as bargaining chips if James ever decided to try again to make a move for her here. Moira here is a very bad sign. We'd better hurry and get upstairs as soon as we can."

He took Aria's hand and hurried to get the two of them upstairs. When they hit the top floor, Marcus stopped at the secretary's desk, not going into Khaat's office yet, and asked the secretary if anyone had been able to assemble a list of what potions were taken. She nodded and handed Marcus a piece of paper with a list.

"Thank you," he said. He looked at the list and showed it to Aria. "That makes no sense. I expected pain potions, pepper uppers, sleeping potions, that sort of thing, but this list has a little bit of everything, even half a dozen rare things that they almost never get call for. I don't get it. This wasn't a normal theft. We need to see if we can find out who took these potions and why. Maybe we can get Kate to try to rifle through Robert's memory threads to get us an image and a description of the thieves. Might be worth a try. What do you think?"

Aria took Marcus' hand as he ported them to St Mungo's she looked around and saw a flash of red staying close to Marcus she made sure to keep her distance between the crowd and herself as they entered she heard Marcus start to explain and she listened as they walked up to the the top floor and Khaats office " oh don't worry I saw her and I won't get close to her" she said knowing if he said she was bad she was really bad to get close to.

Reaching the floor she paused as he stopped at the secretary's desk and was handed a list of potions that had been taken "Distraction maybe?" she said "Take odd items to start an investigation that would lead to a dead end to distract from what their real goal is." she said looking at the list herself. " because your right it makes no sense as to why they took al this." she listened to him talk of kate and nodded " might find something he saw but didn't consciously see" she said.

"Yeah. I'll try to reach her on the floo in a bit and see if she can get anything helpful for us," Marcus said. "Might be a distraction. Or, maybe, James got wind of last night's events and, if he thought that there would be enough chaos for him to get in and take Khaat, he would certainly do it. So maybe he sent Moira in to see if she could get close to her. Maybe the theft wasn't related to James except it was enough to perhaps pique his curiosity. Either way, we'll all need to be on our toes. But still, this list of potions is just flat out weird. Let's go in."

He opened the door of Khaat's office and went in.

"Good morning," Marcus said in a chipper tone. "Miss us?"

"Were you gone?" Khaat teased.

"See? They've done such a good job, she didn't miss us," Marcus looked at Aria and laughed good naturedly. "We were just looking over the list of the stolen potions. What a bolloxed up mess. Who steals some of this stuff?"

"I've asked myself the same thing," Khaat said. Angus looked briefly at the list and then let Ruby take a look.

"Nobody's gonna get any sort of a high on half of this junk," Angus said.

"No, they're certainly not," Marcus agreed. "Be careful. Moira's here."

"We saw," Angus said. "She was here when we got here. Impersonating a reporter. As if I'd not recognize her."

"Keep Ruby close to you all the same. And, don't either of you ever let yourselves get within her reach or she'll slice you to ribbons," Marcus said.

"Oh, that's right. She likes blades," Angus remembered.

"She certainly does. Be very careful. And make sure you let us know when you're leaving," Marcus said. "I'm going to see if Kate can get anything from Robert's memory threads that might be helpful."

"We can ask her when we're done here if you like," Angus said.

"Alright. We'll leave that to you. Don't spend an inordinate amount of time here. What Kate can get from Robert might well be more important. And I don't want Moira to get a crack at you anyway. If you see Jess, do ask her to put a hospital security guard on the secretary in the outer office. If Moira gets upstairs, she'll simply do away with the secretary because she'll be in Moira's way. I'd like to not have that happen."

"Understood. We'll find her. So this started in A&E?" Angus said. He looked at Ruby.

"Yes," Khaat said. "He saw a pair, and each of them had a bag and had grabbed a bunch of potions and were heading downstairs to the basement area. He thought they were heading for the potions lab, so he went after them, and they shoved him down the stairs to the sub basement."

"Then we should start in A&E in that room she closed off," Angus told Ruby. "Shall we?"

Aria nodded taking and reading the list of potions she then followed him into the room smiling at how calm he was as he spoke to Khaat " I see that" she said with a smile as she chuckled. Then as he mentioned Moira, her face became serious and she looked to Ruby nodding her agreement.

Ruby stood up hearing the door open and relaxed seeing Aria and Marcus she chuckled as Angus spoke then looked to Aria who nodded when Moira was mentioned and blades Ruby glanced at Angus and then back to Marcus where he stood. When she was handed the list of things that were stolen she read them and looked confused "These individuals don't do anything." she said handing it to Aria and then looking at Angus again "Yes, that should be the first place we check" she said " there must be something else they took but Robert didn't see it" she said and moved to Angus side ready to head down to the closed A&E room.

Angus headed downstairs to the ground floor with Ruby, and he looked at her.

"What exactly did you mean that there must be something else they took that Robert didn't see?" he asked her. "We know they took a long list of rather random potions. I'm sure this list was compiled from what inventory the hospital found missing because I seriously doubt they stopped to let Robert inventory their bags. What else do you think they got? Do you know something I don't know?"

Angus wasn't really expecting to find much of anything more at this late time. After all, it had been well over twelve hours since Robert's accident. And while the A&E room had been cordoned off, the stairways had been trampled over more than once before they'd been sealed off. Any evidence they found in the stairway now would surely be contaminated and not valid. He honestly didn't think the potions thefts were done by James or James's pack either one. He was guessing that Moira was only here because she was trying to find a weak link for James to exploit in order to get to Khaat.

Ruby followed Angus when he stoped to talk to her she listened and spoke softly to him " no what I was meaning that those could have been a distraction for something else they took, something Robert couldn't see becuse it was some place else that they wanted him away from so they could get to other than Khaat, a file maybe or a peice of equipment they needed him out of the way so they could move." she sumized hoping he would understand. " its just too convinient, the random potions and his fall, its too ...random" she said as she looked at Angus.

"You get what I mean?" she said " my gut is telling me the potions were just smoke and mirrors for something else, why else would we not have figured it out by now why they need them, random healing potions that on their own mean nothing." she stood loking at him " I think we should check other area for things misplaced or missing equipment, I have a feeling thats where we'll find the true reason behind Roberts fall."

"Well, maybe," Angus said. "I suppose that's possible. That's a theory we should maybe put Jess or Khaat onto. We aren't going to have time, just the two of us, to search the whole hospital. But, if we put Jess or Khaat onto it, they can have some trusted staff members to keep a look out for anything missing. Let's stop off at the floos and see if we can't get Kate to see if she can do a sketch or two."

The hospital had a number of floos in the main lobby because it was such a standard way of transportation, and they weren't all that far from the A&E unit. Angus stopped there, found a floo that was relatively out of the way, and he opened it to the main house. He got Michael.

"How's the search going?" Michael asked.

"Nothing yet. Just getting started. Had to wait for Marcus and Aria to relieve us," Angus said. "I was going to ask Kate if she might talk to Robert about a sketch of the suspects."

"Already done," Michael said. "I put her onto that straight after breakfast. And as it so happens, Sam was just in here. Kate put him onto finding some more wood lice for the bowtruckles, and he was bringing her a jar of them and happened to see her sketches. Sam says he recognizes these two. Says they were fifth year Hogwarts drop outs a year or two back. He says they were, maybe, a year or so behind him and Victor. Says their names are Hugo Plumstone and Archer Littletree. I haven't done anything with his information yet, but I suppose I should give it to the aurors, by rights."

"No. Not yet. Give us a little," Angus said. "Brian still trains for the ministry. If worse comes to worse, we could ask him to try to pull a favor or two and see if he's got a mate there who would do a records check for us."

"I'll wait on you, then," Michael said.

"By the way, Michael, have Jack make sure all the shields are up. Moira Crawford has been here all day, impersonating a Daily Prophet reporter."

"Oh, that can't be good," Michael said. "I'll get him on that straight away. Thanks for the warning. Be careful. You know she's not to be trifled with."

"Oh, yes. I know," Angus said. He closed the floo and looked at Ruby. "So we've got a couple of Hogwarts dropouts--juveniles who are willing to commit some large types of theft. But for what reason. Or maybe I should be asking for whom? They'd have to be 16 or 17 now, but as dropouts, there aren't a lot of good career roads for them. They'd have to be desperate for cash, I should think."

Ruby nodded toAngus and folowed him to the out of the way floo where she stood guard as he lit it and spoke to Michael she heard what he had said and was slightly relives but as he said Sam had recognised them she loked to Angus and could not disagree with him over who they were working for. She stood looking down the corridor to make sure they were not over heard . Once he was finished she turned to look at him and listened to him talk and nodded. " agreed , maybe James is involved or Rob?" she said having a feeling it may even have just been a robbery of opertulity so they could set up their own potions hide out.