Chapter Twenty-Eight - Receptive

Snape stood motionless in the shower, his hands clamped on the taps behind him as the frigid water sluiced down his body. He'd ceased to notice the perishingly low temperature of the water some minutes ago...he was too absorbed in keeping the freight train of his mind from skewing across several different tracks.

Immunity to magic? Not many creatures had that. Giants were amongst them, of course, but Parr was far from being a giant. Did all Strikers have this trait? Hagrid had not mentioned it, but then, there was probably plenty that Hagrid hadn't mentioned, and not through any reticence on his part. It was more likely forgetfulness.

Snape had decided to jog the memory of the Care of Magical Creatures teacher further through an imbalance of obligation. He hadn't given Hagrid the Pewtinellas for the scraps of information he'd managed to drag out of the half-giant's extensive, albeit ponderous recollections. The birds had been a metaphorical carrot to encourage Hagrid to find out more about Strikers on Snape's behalf. Not that Snape would ever outright admit that to Hagrid, or even suggest it. It was far more subtle to manipulate Hagrid's ingrained sense of fairness. Whilst he had little dealing with Hagrid on a day-to-day basis, Snape had noticed that the huge man had a very clear idea of right and wrong, fairness and injustice. It was a very simplified idea, certainly, and one that had gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion, but Hagrid stuck with it regardless.

Snape knew that Hagrid wasn't stupid, just honest and perhaps overly optimistic about the world around him. There was certainly no way that Hagrid was going to sit back and allow the overly-generous gift of the Pewtinellas to go unmatched by effort on his own part. It would be interesting to see what came of the manoeuvre.

Screwing his eyes closed against the rivulets of water running down his face, Snape turned his thoughts to Trint's earlier revelation that others were looking for Parr. Based on what the Headmaster had told him, Strikers were right in the line of sight of the Death Eaters, so that was most likely who also had their feelers out for contact with Strikers. However, was it Strikers in general, or Parr specifically that they were interested in? If her immunity to magic was idiosyncratic, it would explain why others were so keen to get their hands on her in particular. But was it to kill her or to yoke her? The incident at St Mungo's suggested the former, but that may have been at the behest of a different party. Parr was as gifted at putting other people's noses figuratively out of joint as she was at brawling. His mouth twisted at that thought.

The options were too varied for Snape's liking. One, Death Eaters were attempting to find Parr for some as yet unclear reason, though it may be linked to her immunity to magic. Two, some other party was looking for Parr in order to kill her, again for unknown reasons. Three, Strikers had their own internal politics that were unknown to any outside their own kind that could hinder the Order's overtures of alliance toward them, or assist the Death Eaters in pulling them apart into a confused and disunited group that would be easier to control and direct. Four, Macnair could possibly be involved with options one or two...it was indeterminate at this time which was the correct one. Five, Snape still didn't know the exact reason why Parr was here at the school. Dumbledore had said protection, but if that were the only reason, why was she enrolled as a student? She could simply remain within the walls of Hogwarts, hidden from the students and the faculty. The Headmaster had mentioned that Parr had asked a price for her assistance. What had that price been? Obviously one that the Ministry would have baulked at, but that wasn't saying much.

He sighed and turned the cold tap until the water stopped falling. Every time some new piece of information turned up, it caused a sprouting of more questions like weeds gone mad in fertile soil. It was aggravating to the extreme.

Snape waited until most of the water had drained off him before he stepped from the shower carefully. The circulation in his feet had almost stopped from the cold, so it was like walking on nerveless marble instead of flesh and bone. He scrubbed a towel briefly over his damp hair and scowled at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. The cold shower had pushed the colour of his already pale skin into the blue range, giving him a near ghostly appearance. He bared his teeth for a few seconds and then huffed. They were not yellow! Not much. Well, perhaps they were, he admitted angrily and wound the towel around his waist. It was that damned Polyjuice Potion that did it, and up until this point, Snape hadn't cared less if it made his teeth yellow, for the same reason he didn't care that his hair was greasy, his nose was too big, and his skin was too pale...hereditary blessings from his parents. He snorted and worked his left arm, trying to get both movement and feeling back into the elbow joint. He had managed to crack it fairly hard against the leg of the armchair at the safe house when Parr had leapt on him, and it had started to throb harshly even before he'd Apparated out of her reach. He rotated his arm to get a look at the bluish black bruise and sniffed, hoping that he'd managed to give her one just as large.

So much for the high-note he'd hoped to end his blight of a day on. The perverse satisfaction he'd gotten from preying on Parr's arachnophobia had been disappointingly fleeting. In the fracas that had followed, Snape had found himself ill-equipped to deal with a woman who harboured a startling physical strength and the hair-trigger temper to use it. He wasn't a person who had succumbed to an over-reliance on magic as a tool in his life, since there were other tools that were just as sharp and effective. However, none of them had been at hand when Parr had shrugged him off her back like an annoying child and turned on him with the promise of retribution in her eyes. He'd decided at that point to make a calculated retreat, comprehending the meaning behind Lupin's earlier comment back at Hogwarts about boundaries and unwilling to suffer any further nasty, unforeseen surprises.

Snape sneered at his reflection and walked out of the bathroom. He saw Folter standing by the trail of clothes he'd left on his hurried path to the bathroom, his coat in her hands. She was looking closely at the ripped seam on the shoulder, her calloused fingers poking through the hole curiously. He walked straight past the house-elf and over to the fireplace to warm up.

The souring of his day had contained a peculiar, though not unwelcome sting in its tail which had caught him unawares, tipping him between mild astonishment and suggestive captivation like a slowly rotating hourglass. Snape never feigned an interest in others unless it benefited himself in some way. He'd become selfish through his experiences and didn't care if people thought ill of him because of it. Such people were usually tediously dull, whiningly pathetic and terminally obtuse. Any investment on his part into interactions with others frequently weighed up as a bad deal, so what was the point?

A damp lock of hair clung to his face, so he pushed it behind his ear and wriggled his toes to try and get some feeling back into them. The heat from the fire was almost painful on his icy skin, but he remained where he was, staring at his feet.

Many people seemed fixated on trivialities, as if the minutiae of their lives were of importance to others. It was rare that anyone said anything to him that truly interested him, or even surprised him, so Snape trod through his days under sufferance of listening to people bleating on about wholly wearisome nonsense, leaving him wondering if this was the closest to the pinnacle of human interaction that he was ever going to experience. Most of him had a suspicion it was. After all, he could hardly immerse himself in the scholarly community with his reputation. As it was, anything he wrote at an intellectual level had to be done under a pseudonym for it to be even considered by editors and publishers and not burned to ash on the spot.

Being devoid of anything even remotely resembling a social circle, Snape's peers at Hogwarts were really the only adults he conversed with on a daily basis, but even they had their own little worlds of mediocrity that they revolved in like a roast on a spit. Dumbledore was something of an exception to this, but Snape found his conversations exasperating at times, especially when the they steered around to him and his lack of sleep, or the Dark Mark on his arm, or whether he was feeling all right... it went on and on like a litany of parental nagging. As if he didn't have enough to be paranoid about without Dumbledore bringing it up, fearing that Snape would forget what a totally harrowing situation he was in if not reminded of it at least twice a week! McGonagall was perhaps one of the most interesting to talk to, provided she didn't feel that her side of the conversation was being overridden by Snape's logic, because then she, too, would start harping on at him about how little he ate, or how ratty he sounded. He dreaded the day Dumbledore and McGonagall would team up and hammer him into the floor with seemingly solicitous comments that he was sure were engineered to drive him round the bend in order to shut him up about something that they didn't want to hear. Lupin was a pain in the backside, but at least he provided Snape with the entertainment of needling him until the werewolf's steely patience snapped; that was always fun, albeit brief. The rest of the faculty just wasted hot air talking to him, as far as he was concerned. Outside of Hogwarts, anyone he spoke to had some kind of agenda that they tried to measure him against or incorporate him into. Malfoy was like that, the aristocratic snob! His machinations were deadly and merciless, so Snape preferred any contact with him to be kept to the barest minimum. He could lump the rest of his adult contacts into a flipbook of disinterest and irritation. Merlin, it was depressing! And that was even before he took into account the sheer agony of having to deal with children five days of the week! He hissed and picked at his thumbnail at that thought.

Perhaps if he'd had a different upbringing, he'd find that having better social and interpersonal skills to be of some advantage, but when you grew up in the household that he had, it was hard to see anyone else in anything except a suspicious light. Snape had heard his classmates whine on about their parents and families like the spoiled, over-protected brats that they were, never realising just how hideous their childhoods could have been. The way his had been. Coming to Hogwarts had seemed like a blessed escape from the coldness of his parents, but, just as with all things in his life, it hadn't been the shining salvation he had thought it would be. From the very first day there had been comments about his nose, snide remarks about his heritage, laughter at his awkwardness, bullying by older students...even the girls!...indifference from his teachers, isolation from his Housemates. Except for the actual learning, it had proved a heartbreaking disappointment. So, with study being the only thing that hadn't let him down, that's where his energies went. Anything else was a distraction and a potential threat to what was left of his dignity.

The end of the school year was a time of dread for him, for regardless of the bullying and the carping he suffered on a daily basis, it was nothing in comparison to the cold indifference or explosive brutality that would find him at home. Despite the fact he had no siblings, no relatives (none that visited, anyway), and almost no friends, Snape always knew that there was something profoundly wrong with the way his family operated. His mother was a witch and his father a Muggle, and ordinarily that would have caused some problems, but what went on between his parents was a mystery he was never able to solve to his satisfaction. There was an animosity that was so well-rehearsed that Snape had absolutely no clue as to why his parents had even considered pairing with each other, let alone actually marrying.

His father was a heavy-fisted, sour-faced and bitter-natured man who toiled at his job six days a week and spent most of the time remaining to him at the local pub. It was better that way, for the man seemed devoid of anything even remotely resembling compassion or empathy. He was the human version of the stone wheel in a mill, mindlessly grinding down the seeds of his day into a bland, uniform powder that had no substance, that blew away into cold air and vanished, only to be replaced by the flavourless dust of the following day. The rare times he blighted the house with his presence ended in one of three scenarios: a confrontation with his wife that involved a lot of shouting on his part that would degenerate into a physical abuse, the viciousness of which depended on the amount of alcohol he had consumed or the nature of the perceived infraction on the part of his wife; a relentless haranguing of his son who, like his mother, would stoically withstand at least one damaging blow to the face and try not to buckle under the vituperation on his filial shortcomings and inadequacies as a human being; or the man would lurk in the house, silent, glowering, radiating an edgy aura of pent up rage and frustration that could end in unforeseen ways – a broken window, a smashed table, a meal flung at the wall, or a beating delivered in a silence that was terrifying in its stark iciness and twisted malice. Inarguably, a man worthy of hatred. And fear.

Snape's mother had always been broken to him. Something inside her was ruined, something that he found whole in others, once he actually got to experience contact with other people. It wasn't until his teenage years that he could put a name to what it was. His mother's spirit was broken, fractured like brittle bone, the shards sharp and cruel, biting into the softness of her will and the fabric of her personality. Having never known his mother any other way, Snape couldn't tell if that breaking had been caused by his father, or by someone or something else. Perhaps she had always been that way.

Whilst at school, he found himself drawn to those who radiated an air he'd never experienced before, to their confidence and self-assuredness that came from an upbringing that he never had. It had simultaneously intrigued and shamed him. He had always disliked his parents, but then, he had begun to hate them. His father who was a mindless, brutal Muggle, and his mother, who could have struck her abusive husband down with her magic and yet never did. His mother, the broken one. His mother, who accepted her subservient role to a cruel, furious man. His mother, who made a mockery of her heritage by her weakness. His mother, the coward.

His pity turned to disgust, which then turned to shame, which then turned to contempt.

Thusly, warmth and affection had been foreign concepts to him, which made friendships nigh impossible, except for one, and that had ended sourly anyway. He didn't want to think about that now.

Snape turned away from the fire to allow the heat to dry his back and watched Folter pick his discarded clothing up off the floor.

It had always been rare that someone of the opposite sex piqued his interest, but whenever they had, it was often on the basis of him being outdone in some fashion. Admittedly, it did seem a peculiar form of attraction, but considering the female role model he grew up with, it was a wonder it wasn't something more stunted or perverse. Anything that his mother was repelled him, so seeing aspects of her in other women was at best a turn-off and at worst an instigator of contempt. Crying was a stellar example of something that made him want to turn on his heel and head in the opposite direction, but this was not to say that Snape found all instances of crying pointless or aggravating...just most of them. Being stuck in an environment such as Hogwarts meant that there were frequent tears, the causes of which seemed so trivial as to be laughable. Teenage girls cried at anything...studies, arguments, hair, who sat next to whom at lunch, being popular, being unpopular... it was mind-boggling. Snape recalled a protracted drama that he was forced to try and rectify between three of his female House students that appeared, to him at least, to revolve around outrage at someone borrowing someone else's hairbrush that then jack-knifed into a squabble about inappropriate smiling at certain members of the opposite sex and who had the shortest skirt. Snape had been flummoxed as to why the situation warranted his time being wasted and said as much. That just made all three girls cry at once, confirming his suspicion that it was an unspoken tactic to punish him for not being able to navigate his way through the convoluted maze of the female mind.

The infrequent times he did understand tears shed made such squabbles seem even more pathetic and annoying.

Snape was much more receptive to a woman pitching an anger fit over something. Not the sort of insane conniption that Bellatrix Lestrange tended to manifest. He might be emotionally stunted, but he was able to tell the difference between temper and certified madness. He liked strong women, women who could hold their own in a conversation by using their brains and not their appearance, women who weren't afraid of challenge. He knew they existed and most likely in large numbers. He just hadn't experienced that many, and perhaps it was that faux scarcity that had made the enjoyment develop into something beyond an intellectual form. Snape rolled his eyes at that thought. Just as likely it was down to some idiosyncratic emotional dysfunction on his part. Either way, the result was the same...the harder they pushed at him, the more interested he was. It had caused problems for him. There were numerous times where getting into a verbal contest with McGonagall had left him glad he was sitting down, and he'd never been attracted to her in that way. The first time it had happened, he hadn't even realised that he'd been smiling slightly at her until she snapped at him for smirking, so ever since then he'd been careful to keep his face as neutral as possible. When it got too much for him, he would feign ill-humour and retreat before the situation became too awkward. Sometimes he'd instigate the conflict simply because he felt like it, and he soon realised that repetition didn't dampen the resulting reaction in him, especially since McGonagall was sharp-tongued and fiery-tempered when the mood took her.

Snape supposed there were worse things to be stimulated by. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, staring blankly at the wall.

He'd never been bested physically by a woman before. It was definitely a new experience for him, and he realised he liked it. A lot. He had cynical thoughts about what that said about him, but his body really didn't care what his mind theorised. He sighed and walked back to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

Folter jumped slightly as the door banged shut. She draped the clothing over the arm of a chair and tucked a strand of hair behind her large ear with a faintly surprised look on her narrow face as she heard the water falling in the bathroom again. It was merely a slight accentuation of her normal expression, but for once the house-elf was surprised.

She had served at Hogwarts her entire life, as her mother had before her, and her mother before that. Folter wondered if her mother had been somewhat disappointed with her daughter. Her skills must have fallen short in some fashion, for her mother frequently berated her up until her death some years ago.

"Folter is not fast enough... Folter doesn't show enough respect... Folter's bows are too shallow... Folter calls this clean?... Folter smiles at the wrong times... Folter's attention wanders too much... stop embarrassing the rest of us with your questions... practical jokes are not house-elfin... Folter's cooking has no flair..." It went on and on.

Folter was never trusted with anything important. Deemed a maverick by the other house-elves, she was relegated to the most menial of tasks and told that she should be grateful for it. It didn't matter to Folter. She just did what she was told but suspected that the others expected her to feel shamed that she was not allowed to interact with any of the castle's human inhabitants. It was a matter of pride amongst the house-elves that they were responsible for the care of those that dwelt in the school. House-elves were meant to feel honour to serve any, but there was no pride as great as what came from being personally assigned to one of the faculty.

Many years ago, whilst assigned to scrubbing floors by hand in the kitchens, Folter had been in a prime position to witness an unusual burst of concern amongst the house-elves when one of them had returned to the kitchen in a state of extreme agitation. Despite her proximity, she had been unable to make out what they were all whispering about and thought no more of it. The following day, the same thing occurred, but this time with a different house-elf...one of the more senior and experienced of them. There had been much hand-wringing and lamentation that Folter thought was overly dramatic, even for house-elves. The same thing happened the next day, and the day after that. A lengthy meeting had then occurred amongst the senior house-elves that Folter had been ignorant of until she was dragged unceremoniously into it by Kapshot, the Chief Allocator, and told that she had been assigned elsewhere. Folter knew that the rather furtive looks from the other house-elves boded ill for her, but she said nothing.

Standing in front of her new charge later that day, she wondered if it would've been wiser to have said something when she'd had the chance. He'd stared at her with a barely concealed annoyance that left her unsure of how to proceed. Her lack of experience in dealing with humans directly gave her nothing to fall back on, so she stood in his long shadow and kept her mouth closed. It turned out to have been a wise move as he tersely informed her that she was the fifth in a line of eventual disappointments that seemed to have trouble performing tasks to his satisfaction, and that she would most likely be succeeded by a sixth by the end of the day. Folter tried to ignore the repeating recitation of her faults spoken in her mother's voice that echoed through her head and did her best. She got a lot wrong, and as the sun set she had resigned herself to scrubbing kitchen floors again.

Her mother had been outraged that her misfit and slapdash daughter had been foolishly assigned to a faculty member and had browbeaten Kapshot into revoking her decision to assign Folter to serve Professor Snape. Folter had just shrugged and went back to her scrubbing brush, allowing the sound of her mother's continued harping to roll over her like steam.3

The next day, her replacement had trailed into the kitchen behind Professor Snape, head down and hands twisting the fabric of his flour sack attire in consternation.

"I don't want this one," the Professor had told Kapshot acerbically. "Where's the one I had yesterday?"

"Ah, Folter has been assigned to tasks more suited to her abilities, Professor," Kapshot had replied nervously, rather wild-eyed at his question.

Snape's head had swivelled unerringly in Folter's direction where she was stoically attempting to remove a beetroot stain from the stone next to one of the preparation benches, and then back to Kapshot again. "She is sufficient. Please find someone else to attend to the crucial task of floor scrubbing." With that, he had left, and Folter hadn't scrubbed floors again.

The first week had been a challenge, to say the least. He was unfailingly picky, frequently cantankerous, and occasionally contrary. Folter tried her best to get things right and anticipate his needs, but she wasn't certain she was succeeding. She expected to be back in the kitchens again at any given moment.

The first week turned into the second, and the second turned into a third. It was the fourth week that cemented her permanence.

"Why do you never speak?" he'd asked her. "Are you mute?"

Folter had tucked her hair behind her ear, giving herself a moment to phrase her first vocal response.

"No, Professor, but Folter has been told that she is incapable of appropriate conversation," she replied hesitantly.

He'd raised an eyebrow at that. "Appropriate by whose definition?"

Folter guessed, correctly, that it was a rhetorical question.

After the teething problems had gone away, she found her assignment quite simple. The Professor liked routine, didn't prevaricate, and proved capable of attending to some of his own needs without her assistance. He accepted her reticence, and it got to the stage where, occasionally, neither of them had to speak at all. Usually it was because there was nothing to say, but sometimes it was because Folter didn't know what to say. House-elves were tight lipped about and to those they served, for that was part of their service and their loyalty to their masters, but Folter wondered if perhaps she should have spoken. Her mother's voice echoed with disapproval inside her head: house-elves did not ask unnecessary questions; they just did as they were told.

Folter had a suspicion about her charge, something that took her a while to pin down, but once she had, it certainly explained a number of things. Folter was not like other house-elves...she was too curious, too interested in knowing the why of things, too ready to step outside the accepted behaviour of her kind, but she also knew when to keep silent. That didn't mean she always followed that instinct, but to the best of her ability at self-restraint she did. The questions would still form though, teetering on the edge of being spoken when she saw that he slept poorly or couldn't sleep at all, when he isolated himself from others and lost himself in his work for hours at a time, when he forgot to eat or failed to notice the position of the sun outside the castle walls, when he'd disappear for days and then return in a state of physical deterioration that he feigned not to notice even as Folter held his head whilst his body tried to turn itself inside out through his mouth or when she tended an injury he couldn't reach.

However, it was not all maudlin. Once the Professor had discovered Folter's penchant for mischievous behaviour...an instance that Folter honestly believed would see her kicked out of Hogwarts in disgrace, but she hadn't been able to help herself...coupled with the perfectly composed expression of innocence on her face whilst being blasted by his ire, she found herself carrying out all manner of misconduct on his behalf. It was never blatantly asked of her, coming normally in an aloud musing as to the solution of a hypothetical problem that involved another person being, in the Professor's opinion, uncooperative. It was a competition to see who could come up with the most innovative solution that, of course, remained hypothetical right up until the moment Folter executed it. The latest seemed to involve spiders.

She took a close look at the torn seam of the Professor's coat and wondered what had caused it. Except for his teaching robes which Folter had to repair the hem of on a weekly basis, he was never hard on his clothing, and if anything, seemed inordinately prissy about it. Folter had seen the huge bruise on the back of his left arm and concluded that he must have gotten into a brawl, which seemed extremely out of character. He was also eating more in a week than he would normally in four and seemed to be relapsing into nightmares.

Folter shrugged to herself and ran her finger along the split seam which knitted itself together tightly. Her mother would have made her use a needle and thread, which Folter always found pointless when house-elf magic was just as effective and a lot quicker. Giving the coat the once over to remove any dirt or debris, she then draped it back across the arm of the chair, and left to fetch the Professor something to eat. If he ever got out of the shower.

"Well, if it isn't the Ministry's Chief Executioner," Greyback rumbled, picking his teeth with a ragged fingernail. "What brings you down here to grace us mere mortals with your illustrious, moustachioed presence?"

Macnair pretended to ignore the laughter behind him and stared impassively at the werewolf sprawled in the chair before him. The place stank like an animal's den, and most likely hadn't seen daylight for some years judging from the smattering of toadstools that marked the wavering path of rising damp along the bottom of the walls. What looked like an old leg bone was rammed into the brickwork, with a piece of rotten, oil-soaked cloth wrapped around the end of it and lit to provide a lurching, flickering light that threw jagged shadows along the floor and twisted the faces of those around him into an even more ugly façade than normal.

Greyback stared back at Macnair from under his straggling brows, looking for the entire world like he was the senior of the two of them. Perhaps he believed that, but then Greyback always had been arrogant and stupid. Tonight had been a supreme example of that.

"I fail to see the advantage of killing Brunton," Macnair mentioned stonily. "And even less at dumping him where he could have been found."

Greyback snorted and flicked whatever disgusting thing he had picked out from between his teeth at Macnair's feet.

"Brunton? Who's that, then?"

Macnair's moustache jumped as his lip curled in contempt. "Don't play the ignoramus, Greyback. I know perfectly well you were responsible. I want to know why."

Greyback bared his nasty teeth in a parody of a smile, as if he'd never understood the mechanics of the expression and was approximating with what little knowledge he had.

"The world's full of incomprehensible actions, Macnair. That's what makes it so interesting."

"Surely you're not so feeble-minded as to expect that murdering a Ministry employee will go either unnoticed or uninvestigated, you noxious, tick-ridden cur," Macnair snapped.

Greyback was up out of his chair like a shot, his brutish face pushed forcefully into Macnair's, his foul breath gusting into the other's nostrils.

"You would be wise to temper that snobbish mouth of yours!" the werewolf hissed, splattering little flecks of saliva on to Macnair's skin. "This is not your territory, and you have no authority here!"

Macnair steeled himself to remain as still and unyielding as possible, despite the fact that the stench of the werewolf's halitosis was making his stomach roil.

"The Ministry is my territory, Greyback, so I think the issue at hand is your rather fluid notion of where your territory ends," Macnair pointed out, trying not to inhale. "Your little penchant for throat ripping could quite possibly have placed our plan in jeopardy."

Greyback laughed heartily. "How fortunate for us, then, that we have such a superlative diplomat in you to smooth things over," he retorted sarcastically and returned to his chair with a nonchalance that Macnair knew was a sham. He felt those behind him press a little closer, and it made his skin crawl. Angry as he was at Greyback, he knew the werewolf was right. This was his territory, and Macnair would have to tread carefully if he was to leave with his skin still attached.

Taking a moment to scratch his armpit with a graceless gusto, Greyback settled back into his chair with one leg flung over the arm.

"I grow tired of waiting for you to inch your way towards being useful, Macnair," he growled, squinting his bloodshot eyes. "I have also noticed that I seem to be doing the lion's share of the dangerous work, which leads me to wonder if your participation in this little endeavour is really necessary."

"If you feel my protection from the Ministry is of little importance to you, Greyback, then by all means, forge on ahead without me," Macnair said with a sniff. He flicked his eyes over to where a fat, bald man crouched over what looked like a pile of rags. "I cannot say how long you'd last without it, though." That made Greyback's eyes go flat. "I would have had the information we needed from the Obliviation department without having to resort to an artless killing."

"Squeamish, are you?" Greyback jeered, eliciting another round of sniggers from his followers that hemmed Macnair in and away from the room's only exit.

"No, just more capable," Macnair replied with an unmistakeable tone of scorn in his voice. "I sincerely hope the death was worth it, Greyback."

The werewolf ran his tongue over his teeth slowly. "It always is, Macnair, even if the man was deficient in the required information."

"Something that I could have told you if you had had the common sense to inform me of your intentions," Macnair pointed out. "Brunton was too junior to have been privy to any information about the incident at St Mungo's."

"Well, if you want something done, it seems you have to do it yourself these days, regardless of the consequences," Greyback noted in a bored tone. "If everything were left to you, we'd still be flapping our lips ten moons from now."

"I had made it extremely clear to you that I was going to handle the St Mungo's incident!" Macnair snapped.

"Oh really?" Greyback replied with a cold glare. "Then I am eager to hear where the man you sent to kill the Striker has disappeared to! What has it been? Three... four months? Swift progress indeed!"

"Perhaps if you hadn't allowed her to escape in the first place, we wouldn't be in this mess!" Macnair countered.

Greyback made a dismissive sound and spat a glob of phlegm on the floor.

Macnair looked over at the bald man again. He was pouring out a liquid from a small glass bottle on to a wad of linen, sweat running down his chubby face and soaking into his green robes. "I can see you're making stellar progress," Macnair noted sarcastically.

"You see what I want you to see, Macnair," Greyback replied calmly, but the glint in his eye betrayed the even tone. "While you sit on your plump backside, I have been busy with my side of the bargain. I don't like having to point out that you're woefully behind in executing yours." He folded his arms. "And you have a hell of a lot more to lose than I do."

It was at that moment that the bald, sweating man stood up and shuffled over, his eyes fixed on the floor in order to avoid tripping over the litter and debris, a sizeable portion of which seemed to be made up of human bones.

"So, Toadianus," Greyback began, emphasizing a portion of the man's name that he found amusing. "I trust you have found a way to revive our guest?"

The fat man flicked a nervous glance at the werewolf and then one at the pile of rags in the corner.

"Possibly," he replied cautiously, twisting a signet ring around his finger with a stubby thumb.

Greyback blinked. "Well, that doesn't sound very convincing," he said tersely.

"What I meant to say is, I do have a way, if I can secure the ingredients I need," Todianus clarified quickly.

Greyback clacked his teeth together a few times and scratched his chin with a dirty finger that had dried blood caked under the nail. "Lucky, then, that you are in a supreme position to do so."

"Just so," Todianus agreed with a little bow in the werewolf's direction. "However..." He paused as Greyback's eyes widened dangerously. "... there is the matter of the account." He bobbed and puffed apologetically. "I am experiencing difficulties in securing certain items due to... cash flow issues."

"Spare me the jeremiad, Toadianus," Greyback snarled. "I recall your brother whining about such trivial issues a few too many times for my liking. If you want to get paid, speak to the Ministry boy about opening his purse. He's pretty quick to do so when he wants to go whoring."

Macnair felt the blood rush to his face in anger like a flower blooming. "How dare you..."

"That's not the only thing I'll dare!" Greyback shouted, surging out of his chair. "Until you can prove to me you are making a concerted effort in making this plan work, I will see to it that every whore you fuck turns up dead with your stink still on her!" He leered at Macnair. "I can't imagine you being able to escape from that unscathed."

"Unlike some, I can control my urges when it's required, Greyback," Macnair retorted hoarsely through gritted teeth.

The werewolf bared his splintered teeth. "We shall see. Now get out and take the fat man with you."