Honor Among Thieves

Michael had decided to take an evening walk. The night air was crisp and cold. He had chosen an old tan leather bomber jacket and had walked, whistling, down the main street of Hogsmeade. As he walked, he passed some Hogwarts students who had dashed out of Honeydukes much too quickly to be up to anything honest. They were giggling maliciously and Michael did not miss that their pockets were bulging. As they dashed past Michael, he took a moment to drop a tiny, lit firecracker into one lad's pocket. He decided the boy had to have been at least a 6th year, probably 7th, and well more than old enough to know better.

Michael kept walking leisurely and whistling, and in a few seconds, he heard a distinctive BANG!. The bang was followed by shrieks of alarm and a noticeable smell of singed clothing. He simply smiled, and kept walking, never losing a stride.

He entered the warm glow of the Three Broomsticks, and the bartender greeted him with a friendly shout in his deep Irish dialect. "Michael, me boy! What brings you out on this cold evening?" he asked.

"The craving for a hot buttered rum, Rufus," Michael said as his friend shook his hand. "Nobody makes them like you do. Can you muster one up for me?"

"No sooner said than done, my friend! It'll be my pleasure," Rufus smiled warmly. "I'll bring it to your table."

"Thank you," Michael said. He took a table in the corner, drew out his vintage Mershon pipe, filled it from the tobacco pouch in his pocket, and lit it with the end of his wand. He liked this particular blend of tobacco. He'd bought it in Germany and he found it was a cherry almond blend that had a particular nutty sweetness that he liked. He drew a long breath on the pipe and exhaled lazily into the air. For the moment, life was good.

Zara was dressed in one of her favorite outfits tonight, a simple black dress, with a belt around the middle. Her hair was pulled into a side pony, and seemed to cascade down to her shoulder, where it stopped. She strode up the cold street of Hogsmeade, knowing that it had been far to long since she had come up here, she hadn't been up here since she had nearly killed that little Ravenclaw mute girl. Zara didn't often think about the people she tortured, but that had been a different one anyway. Such a girl, it was odd, but she had gotten bored and disapparated before she had done to much damage.

Zara strode into the Three Broomsticks and looked around, at first glance it was filled with way to many people, then she let her eyes travel to each person individually. Finally her eyes rested on a rather familiar face. She had done business with him before, but hadn't actually talked to him. He had quite a few contacts that she had used over the years with great profits. Zara smiled and strode over to the table with a grin. "Why hello there." She said sitting down and pulling out an expensive looking cigarette. "Fancy seeing you here." She said leaning back in her chair and smiling at him. "Mind if I smoke?" She asked taking a long deep breath out of the cigarette, before letting her wrist rest on the edge of the table as she smiled at him.

"Well, fancy meeting you here,"he smiled. "Can I buy you a drink? You just missed the festivities. I never like to miss the opportunity to teach the youth of today an abiding lesson about not liberating something from anyone when you can jolly well afford to pay for it yourself. I can honestly say that's something I have never done. We must have a few scruples, after all.

"You're looking very well. It looks like the business is treating you kindly. I haven't seen our mutual friends in at least two months now, but I think they're used to that." He noticed her cigarettes. "Still smoking those cigarettes from Capri, are we? At least you always have had good taste. Some of the lot around here have taken to smoking some rather sad muggle things that smell like yeterday's rubbish. No respect for the finer things whatsoever.

"So tell me. What brings you back into these parts?" he asked. She was about the last person he had expected to see here in this tiny little wizarding hovel, but she was, as always, sharply dressed, looked well, and looked as if she had done very well for herself. A woman was unusual in Michael's line of work, and he respected her for being able to cut it. It certainly wasn't an easy task.

Rufus brought Michael's hot buttered rum to the table and put it in front of him. It smelled divine. "Oh well done, Rufus," Michael smiled. "Please, add whatever the lady would like to my tab."

"Of course," Rufus answered. "And what can I get for you, Miss?"

Zara watched him as he spoke for a moment before smiling slightly. "Yes, the business does treat me nicely, and thanks to you I have quite the profit from our friends." She said inhaling the smoke deeply."Ah yes, I don't know what is going on in their minds, the stuff they are smoking must be killing them a lot quicker too, this is at least clean." She said exhaling slowly, the smoke curling into the air around her head and she laughed lightly. "That is a good question, what brings me back to this hovel? Well maybe it's the memories from the past.. or maybe it's the knowledge that kids are good money makers." She said with a grin.

When the waiter came over, she looked at him critically. "I'll have whatever you made him." She said jerking her thumb at his drink and then leaning forward to smile at Michael, her cleavage showing rather well in the dress she was wearing. "So tell me Michael, how have you been doing? Trying to work out your life yet? Or have you realized that you're to addicted to the game to let it slip? I heard that you were going after some of the Death Eaters doing their jobs. You working for the Ministry now then?" She asked lightly flicking her ashes into an ashtray on the table before pulling the sweet smelling smoke back into her lungs.

"I heard about your fun adventure to get Felix Barker, got the better of you didn't he?" She laughed lightly. "But I guess, anything for the Minister eh?" She laughed a rather cold laugh, and smirked when she realized that people from the tables around them were looking at her with a hint of fear. She wasn't one to be reckoned with in these parts, a lot of people in this area had heard about little Salem Everwood, and she didn't care that the story had gotten out. She enjoyed the scared looks from the people who made her sick, it made her job worth it.

"Oh, my dear," Michael laughed good naturedly, "You really don't know me very well, do you? I'm actually doing very well. I'm quite happy these days. Semi-retirement is an excellent thing. I work when I want to, and the rest of the time, I enjoy life--go wherever I want and do whatever I please--which usually includes enjoying a good glass of top shelf firewhiskey, a good smoke, some first edition book or another, perhaps a nice steak. And the nice thing is that people around me just see me as about as harmless as some crotchety old college professor. They have a hard time wrapping their minds around the idea that even here in the wizarding world things aren't always as they seem." Michael could still slip up the side of a building in half the time of most of the "artists" Zara's age and into and back out of nearly anything. and he enjoyed that immensely. He loved the art of being elusive.

"But Death Eaters? Me?" he frowned deeply. "What the deuce would I be doing chasing Death Eaters? They haven't done anything to me, so as far as I'm concerned, I'm leaving them alone. You know me--live and let live. Besides that, I'd be a rather sorry sight as a whole battalion of one, now wouldn't I? I have no political ambitions whatsoever. Never have, except for myself. And that includes the Ministry. I've always been strictly freelance and I go wherever the highest bidder is. You know that. As I recall, your style wasn't all that different the last we met. If the Ministry hires me, then I go there until that job is over. If the Death Eaters hire me, I go there until I am paid. That's just the name of the game.

"Barker? Meh." He wrinkled his nose in distaste and waved thoughts of the boy away. "He ran like a scared jackrabbit when I caught up with him. I don't run from little boys who like teasing little girls. If you ask me, he just needs someone to box his ears a time or two. He's very spoiled, really. As for me, I was just earning my fee. It was a very nice little nest egg, that particular job. Maybe next time I find him I'll just take a switch to his bum. Boys like him don't generally learn the fist time. He'll be back, so I'm sure he and I will meet again. That's just how those things go. Besides that, his dog needs a bath."

Rufus brought Zara her hot buttered rum, deposited it in front of her, and he left again. Michael raised his tankard and took a drink. He sighed with satisfaction and put the tankard back on the heavy wooden table. "Rufus still makes the best hot buttered rum. I've missed them."