Who: Pepper and Jo When: Thursday early morning Where: Hogsmeade What: Thiefing Rating: PG-13 Status: Complete
This early in the morning, this far north, the shadows stretched out behind the buildings for some length, which at least made it easy to keep inside them. Pepper was standing against the wall of Roland's, in the alley next to the Healers, waiting for the patrol to amble back towards the other end of the village; annoyingly, that was where almost everything purist-owned sat except for the apothecary, but he was damned if he was going to run out of time before they got in here. Apothecaries, he suspected, ranked slightly higher than toy shops and cafes, tactically speaking, and that was even without Rufus' request for specific supplies.
He quashed a faint tremor in one hand by clenching the fist, glancing back at Jo with a bit of a grin. No matter how shit the last few weeks had been, it was always good to actually get to do something, and in his books this definitely counted as something. "Let's see about these wards, then."
They were still close enough to the smouldering remains of the Library, quiet in the early morning light, to still Jo's resolve for moments as she considered the great weight of what the loss of that structure meant to Rodolphus Lestrange. After a moment of caring, she gave the structure a very English 'up yours' and floated along behind her husband, her usually black hair a rather subtle shade of auburn for disguise's sake.
Not like they'd need one.
"Right." With the apothecary close and as the patrol swept away from them, she side-stepped Pepper and tested the wards. Strong, yes. But nothing was impregnable. She offered him a quick peck on the cheek as she stepped closer into the street, her wand waving like a conductor's baton as she tested the strands of magic and worked to unravel the complicated magical weavings.
A faint smile at the kiss; it was vaguely amusing to Pepper that even in the middle of something like this they could momentarily indulge in such slight displays of affection. They needed that, though, because that was where their strength came from, wasn't it? Senses alert, he felt almost uncomfortably aware of all the shapes and spectres around them as he moved to help her with the wards, fairly certain that he'd feel it if someone approached.
This was not how he'd imagined they'd end up using their training. He had to admit though... he didn't actually mind, much. Maybe he always had been a little wavery on the line between law and lawlessness. Mill had seen it.
He pushed the thought aside, wishing for half a second that Jo had chosen a different hair colour. There wasn't time for this distraction shit, they needed to get in and out as smoothly as possible. Luckily two people working in concert, with the wards training they had (hardly the level of a Cursebreaker, but still, practical enough), was a fairly adept team. They worked in silence for a few minutes, the seconds ticking by, before a hole in the shop's protection started to form, the edges weaker and easy to unravel.
With a lopsided grin, growing more excited by the second, Jo left the rest of the unraveling to her rather handsome conspirator and ducked her shoulders, hurtling herself through the hole with a silent Alohoroma aimed at the door.
And she was in.
The dark, quiet shoppe filled with the distinct odours of the ingredients in large barrels and laying on shelves, filled her senses and she paused for a moment to take it in. To remember, for once, the first time - eleven years old, in fact - when she stood in one of these shops and let the wonder of this new world bowl her over with excitement. Now she was stealing, it seemed, just to be allowed to maintain a presence in it. Ironic.
But a shrug brushed off that thought as she pulled out her knapsack and laid a bottle of pixie claws inside.
With a last check to make sure the wards wouldn't do anything nasty when their backs were turned, Pepper followed Jo inside, though without that moment of contemplation - he'd already had that outside, under the shadow of the library. It had been a rather less pleasantly nostalgic than Jo's, he suspected. Unlike her he had a list of ingredients in mind, prioritised above all else. He moved past her, following the logical layout of the store. Belladonna... puffer-fish eyes... spine of lionfish. Each container he emptied out, taking those around them as well though that was incidental, convenience, really.
The jar of jobberknoll feathers was empty, and he laid a hand on it with a faint scowl. "Out of stock" read the label in florid, obnoxious script, because that was just bloody typical. "Tell me if you see any dragon's blood," he said, tossing the comment over his shoulder as he moved on, though he knew that one was iffy. It was not exactly a common ingredient.
"Well," she said from behind a cabinet, almost completely gleeful with the opportunity to do something, "I should think we could check the back room or behind the counter." And behind the counter was where she went, searching the more expensive ingredients for the jar of dragon's blood he requested.
Pepper nodded absently, trusting her to be plenty efficient in looting the place - no point covering the same shelves when they were short on time, and all, and with the veritaserum list worked through he could focus instead on picking out the most generally useful of everything else to hand. "The patrol should be past us down the east end in about three minutes, we can skirt round the south to get to the clump of shops at the other side. Might as well leave the cafes and toy shop til last, hit the practical shit first."
"That's my Pepper," came her voice from behind the counter, "always thinking." Dragon's blood, it seemed, was in no ordinate supply. But as she continued to rummage, she found a package of Lacewing Flies that could be very promising. "Dear Roland," she trilled, rolling the first letter of his name with mock gravity. "Keeping a key ingredient for Polyjuice behind the counter. Positively naughty."
"I'm pretty sure it's our patriotic duty to confiscate that," Pepper replied solemnly, taking half a moment to rearrange a few of the jars in his bag. They were hardy and charmed to be harder to break, but still, neatly packed was always preferable-- and oh, was that an almost-full container of pennyroyal? Excellent. He glanced around the room as he stashed that one carefully away as well, a wry grin at how quickly and efficiently they'd looted the place of all the most useful things. Oh, the staff was not going to be pleased when they came in to open the store.
From her bag she pulled a parchment - "These goods confiscated courtesy of the Army of Albion" - and placed it with some flourish on top of the cash register. "Too bad we can't nick the money, too," she chirped, but knew that they had plenty and these goods - when not given away - would be more useful than that.
Money, at least, was one thing they had in excess, though Pepper had to admit the temptation was still there. He wasn't sure why he was more fixated on this store than the others. Maybe because it was the apothecary, when he'd had such an interest in Potions at school. Maybe because he'd had extra instructions regarding it. Maybe because it was just across the street from where someone, someone who one day he would find out the name of, had murdered Millicent. Whatever it was, he wanted this store, above all the others, to take a blow from their activities today. "Most of it would've been cleared out when they closed last night anyway." He was as much telling himself that as Jo. Whatever sickles and knuts they got would be practically meaningless, a gesture of pure spite. Glancing at his watch again, he quickly did up the fastenings on his bag. "Time to move."
And move they did, making short work of their assignments. A few close calls, some breathless moments and heart quickening thrills were enough to electrify Jo's senses. This was, perhaps, the most useful she felt in the three months since the Ministry had fallen and they began their encampment. As the sun began to spill its pale rose light over the buildings, heralding the swift arrival of shop keepers and patrons, she shouldered her now quite full bag and looked to Pepper.
Again, they weren't far from the Library. If she would let her mind dwell on it, she could talk herself into still catching the old burnt odour of wood and parchment on the air. Pepper's reaction to being in the place where Millicent died was unreadable; she knew that he had to be smarting but was, like her, pushing her feelings aside to stay "to the job". But she wanted so, so desperately to (with her bundle over her shoulder like St. Nicholas), visit the site of Rodolphus's former pride and glory to spit her dirty Muggleborn germs upon its hallowed grounds.
Fuck it. "Let's go."
Unreadable was probably the right word for it. He couldn't afford to deal with this now, not when they were for once actually doing something, and probably later he'd suffer over this but right now... No. It was easier to push it into a box labeled "later", without really acknowledging to himself how far away later might be. He nodded at Jo as though this was nothing, a normal shopping trip, and then on impulse reached out to grasp her wrist as they Apparated back, as though to keep them in sync and close to each other across the vast distances. This far north, even as winter melted away the sun was sluggish in rising, and the shadows were even longer than they had been in Hogsmeade. Most of the camp was still unmoving.
"We should see if the others are back yet," he said, rather than voice the temptation to simply go back to bed now that they were done with the job. He was pretty sure he sounded about as enthusiastic as he felt, which wasn't very. "And do inventory."