Katie Bell (silenced_bell) wrote in whatprice, @ 2009-07-13 22:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | adrian pucey, katie bell |
Lying in wait
Who: Katie Bell and Adrian Pucey
Where: Katy's flat - London
What: Adrian challenges the lion
When: Wednesday, 8 July 2009
With her fiddle case tucked securely under her arm, Katie unlocked the door to her flat and slipped inside, resetting her wards as she did so. The entryway was pitch dark, but she knew the layout well enough not to need a light. Making her way to the sitting room, she slipped off her light jacket and placed the fiddle case with her purse on the side table. She was about to turn back toward the bedroom, when a small sound made her stop short, all senses at the alert. Was that...someone breathing? It seemed to come from the easy chair near the side table. She hesitated, wondering whether she would be able to get to the front door before whoever it was could aim and fire a gun.
"I suggest you don't move," a drawling male voice said from the chair. "It would be unfortunate if I had to hex you into next week, Miss Bell."
Katie froze, eyes wide in terror. She started to stammer out who are you?, but the words caught in her throat as she realised what the man had actually said. "What did you say? Did you say hex?" Her voice trembled.
"You understood me, Miss Bell. Don't move, and if you have anything left in your hands, put it down." There was a whispered lumos and a bright beam of light, like an electric torch, was focused on her, keeping her from seeing whoever it was that had the drop on her.
She held up her hands; they were empty. "I'm unarmed."
"Very good." The beam rose, as the man stood up from the chair he'd been sitting in. "I'm sorry this was necessary, but one can never be too sure what one will encounter when one enters the home of an MI7 operative who also happens to be a witch."
Her expression went blank, but Adrian could see her breathing quicken. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't lie. I'll know. Especially not when it's as easy of a lie as that to see through. You're in a reasonably bad fix, Miss Bell. If I were your enemy, I'd already have done for you. I'm not; but I'm not willing to take the risk that you're not mine until I've taken your measure." The torch beam hadn't wavered in the slightest.
The blank expression turned to anger. "Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my flat?"
"I should think that last is rather obvious, Miss Bell. I tracked you down because I wanted to talk to you and find out what the hell you were doing working for, and with, the people who are destroying a society that's as much yours as mine. And right now I'm the bloke who has the drop on you, and until I'm satisfied you're not ringing up your employers, that's all you need to know."
"And now you're here to take my measure are you? Well, that's just brilliant, isn't it?" Her tone was icy. "And how do you propose doing so, my anonymous friend?" She crossed her arms in front of her chest, still breathing quickly and shallowly, her chin raised in defiance. After all she was doing to protect the wizarding world, putting her own life in danger time and again - who did this man think he was?
Behind his wand, Adrian grinned and considered telling Katie the truth: by reading her mind. The truth was, he didn't need to. Her demeanour under pressure was telling him most of what he needed to know. "I have my ways. But for now, you pass. After all, you did send along a message at an appropriate time, and it didn't turn out to be lure to draw people to their deaths."
She could hear the smile in his voice. His obvious arrogance made her want to slap it off of his face, but there was the small matter of having a wand pointed at her. "Once again, I have no idea what you're talking about. And you still haven't explained why you broke into my flat." Shit. Was he talking about Chris' wife? Hermione wouldn't have told anyone, she was sure of it.
"Do you really want to be seen with a wizard who might be under suspicion?" The tone was patient, as if he expected her to take a moment to follow his logic.
Katie found his tone patronising, which did little to help her attitude. "No, I don't. Nor do I want to have an unknown wizard pointing a wand at me in my own flat. If you wanted to talk to me, there are easier and more civilised ways of doing so."
His attitude was not being improved much by hers, either. "I've already seen what your colleagues leave, Miss Bell. I don't find it very civilised. I have no desire to end up shaved and chained like a dog on a transport to Azkaban, thanks."
"I wouldn't call them colleagues," she said through clenched teeth. "And it sounds like you're aware of that already."
"Yeah, except you work with them every day," Adrian scoffed. "Why did you send Warrington that note, Bell? Was it old friendship or just a guilty conscience?"
She considered continuing to plead ignorance, but that line was clearly not going to work. "Do you really expect me to answer that? I have no idea who you are. Why should I trust you?"
Adrian flipped the wand up enough to show his own face. "But you do. It's been a long time, but you do. Do you remember now?" This, he thought, was the dangerous moment. If she was going to turn on him, it would happen momentarily.
Katie stared; the fine boned face was familiar. It had been years, but... "Pucey? Adrian Pucey? What the hell?"
The fact that she hadn't gone for a weapon was a good sign. "I tracked you down because I wanted to talk to you. To find out why you warned Chris." And to extract any other useful information he could get for Penelope and Morag, not to mention to lay groundwork for helping Gus and possibly Phil, but Adrian wasn't ready to confess to that yet.
Her eyes flicked to the door, then back to Adrian. "We can talk, of course." She uncrossed her arms, and motioned toward the small couch next to the chair where Adrian had been seated. "Do you mind if I sit?"
"Go ahead." Adrian dismissed the spell. "You can turn on the lights, too, if you like."
She stepped to the wall and hit a switch that lit the small floor lamp, bathing the sitting room in a dim light. She considered offering him a drink, but was still ruffled by his attitude, and so merely came back to the couch and sat down stiffly. "I warned Chris because I was able to do so. I'm only sorry I was unable to give him more advanced warning." Had there been more warning, she may have been able to redirect Mrs Warrington's transport herself, but she was not willing to go that far with Pucey. Not until she knew how far she could trust him.
Adrian moved back to the chair and sprawled into it with a surprisingly easy grace. "You saved her life. They were taking her and another witch for liquidation. You may have saved Chris's life as well. I thought for a while there he was going to lose his mind. Now he and Vida and Astoria have a hard road ahead, but at least they have each other."
"I heard later about the other witch," she nodded, grimly. "I'm glad to hear they're recovering." Katie's brow furrowed, "I didn't know they had Chris' wife until I heard about the transfer. I'm so sorry he had to go through what he did." Her voice was thick with emotion, and she breathed slowly and deeply to try to calm herself.
"I won't say it's over, because it's not. But he's grateful. He won't let on." Which wasn't entirely true; if, as Adrian suspected, Katie found herself in the sort of position Adrian himself had been in after the last war, Chris would be a powerful ally.
"It's the least I could do." She knew as soon as she said it that she shouldn't have, but it was too late. Let Adrian's Slytherin brain make of it what he would.
"I'm sufficiently grateful that I won't mention that to his wife." Adrian gave Katie a thin smile and moved to rest his elbows on the arms of the chair, steepling his fingers over his midsection. "The question is, what now? For you, that is."
"What now? Now I try to stay alive on the inside of a very dangerous business. What's this to you?" Katie decided to let Adrian believe what he wanted about her and Chris. It was safer than the truth.
"A great deal, as it happens. I'm also in a rather dangerous business myself, or, rather several of them. I used to run a clinic where Muggles and wizards could be treated. An informer discovered the location of it and we had to close up shop. That kind of thing can be very tiresome." Adrian arched his eyebrows to be sure she was following his line of thinking.
Katie raised her own eyebrow in response. "And you think I can be some sort of help, because...?"
"You obviously have access to some information. There's all sorts of things I could do with it. Exactly how far are you willing to go to stop what's happening, Miss Bell?"
Damn it. DAMN IT. She was already doing more than she should, redirecting data as well as wizards to Sam for evacuation when simple data alterations wouldn't work. How much more could she do without being caught -- especially now. And when had Pucey ever given her a reason to trust him. With her life.
"I'm doing what I can, Mr Pucey. What else would you have me do?"
Adrian gave Katie another thin smile. "You're playing defence, Bell. Time to take it to offence. Time to go for the Snitch."
"I'm a Chaser, not a Seeker, and the comparison doesn't hold up." Why was it always like this talking to Slytherins? Did they drink obfuscation with their mother's milk, or was it something taught in their dungeon common room? "What is your Snitch now?"
"Bringing down MI7 without breaking the secrecy laws. Strangling them in their own bureaucracy. I worked at St Mungo's; it's not like I have no idea how to do that. And a truly good player can take any position at need. Unless you're telling me you don't have it in you." Adrian let that hang in the air between them like the gauntlet it was.
"You have no idea what I may or may not have in me, Mr Pucey." She was aware that he was trying to play her, and it was grating. However, if he had something in that complicated mind of his, she was willing to hear it. "How exactly do you propose to bring down the Organisation?"
"I've found myself in position to be an information broker. I know a lot of people in a lot of different places and a lot of different walks of life, on both sides of the secrecy laws. I know people involved in Muggle politics. Do you read the Telegraph, Miss Bell?"
"When I find it laying around a coffee shop. Why?"
Adrian's blue eyes met Katie's. "You should make it your business to read the paper more often. Suffice it to say that certain revelations about funding have been broken in that venue. That information came to me and I sent it where it could do the most good, which is out in the hands of Muggle troublemakers who don't like secret funding of so-called security operations. These people are the Death Eaters of the Muggle world; if they're exposed, they'll be out of business. Do you really think an apparatus this useful will only be restricted to wizarding enemies of the state?"
"Of course not. But do you honestly expect them to go out of business if this is exposed to the rest of the world? When you shine a torch on a roach, it finds a better place to hide." And that's what they were. A nest-full of roaches.
"So we have to stomp some of the bigger ones with our shoes to stop the rest of them." Adrian shrugged. "You can't get rid of people like that. What you can get rid of is their leaders. Then the rest of them will scuttle back under their rocks, yes, but if they're not murdering wizards, I think I can live with that. What other choice is there? Are you planning to eliminate every threatening Muggle. Because if you are, I know some people I could introduce you to that would be quite willing to take up that cause."
"If you think you have a way to stomp on the leaders of the Organisation, you have more brass than I thought," Katie said quietly. "But yes, if it stops them kidnapping and murdering my people, then I'm listening."
"If exposing their organisation and destroying it doesn't finish them, then the leaders must otherwise be eliminated. I'd send them to Azkaban, myself, but when we win, I'm looking forward to salting whatever earth there is on that rock. But first we have to bring MI7 down. They operate in secrecy, so we expose them to the light--preferably with evidence of what they're doing to Muggles, so we don't have to further breach the secrecy laws. We know they're shipping people to Azkaban, or were, until we took the Seeker down. We know they're spying on people. There's no way they're reserving their work to wizards. This is like the year the Death Eaters took over the government. They didn't tell anyone what they'd done to Scrimgeour and certainly not to Thicknesse because people wouldn't have stood for it. Are you going to tell me Muggles are different?" Adrian arched his eyebrows at Katie curiously.
"I used to think there was no way they could be anything like the Death Eaters," Katie shuddered, remembering the cursed necklace and her long recovery from such a minor touch. Her voice turned cold. "I've since changed my mind." She leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees and took a deep breath, having come to a decision.
"Of course I have access to information, and some of it may be helpful in incriminating the Organisation. I've already been doing what I can, without getting myself killed in the process, and I believe I've been of some small help to a number of wizards who may well have been on their way to a jail cell, or worse." She watched Adrian's eyes, looking for a glimpse of what he might do with that piece of data. "If you have a suggestion as to what other information might be helpful to...a resistance effort, I would be willing to become involved." She didn't add until they catch and kill me, but it was formost in her thoughts.
Adrian was not, as it happened, reading her mind. "You're working with the Dumbledore camp." There was a certain dismissiveness in the way he said the former Headmaster's name. "Good to hear they're up to something more useful than blowing up clock towers. I'm approaching from a different angle. We know how they're funding themselves, at least in part. Making the connection between that and what they're actually doing. Proven breaches of Muggle law that can be published to discredit them. That's the sort of thing we're looking for. I want to throttle them in their own red tape; that should slow them down long enough to finish the organisation."
"I'm working alone, as it happens." She didn't count Sam as being part of the game, and she had tried to keep Hermione out of her dealings with MI7. "The clock tower was just as much a surprise to me as to the rest of the muggles. But I can look for funding data, if you think it will be that useful." She shrugged, "It's not my department, so it may be harder than finding and altering transfer data, but it may not be impossible." God, she hoped he wasn't an agent for the Organisation. This would be the perfect way to entrap her, but the temptation to bring the whole thing down was just too important to pass up.
"Funding information would be a place to start, if you can get it without excessive risk." Adrian wouldn't say with no risk because there was risk inherent in the procedure. He unsteepled his hands and began ticking off points on his fingers. "I know there's utility in that. Names, dates, information, physical paperwork. Tying information we already have about MI7 into the sorts of inquiries that are already going on into Muggle atrocities in the name of terrorism prevention."
"And once I procure all of this critical information?" Katie sounded tired, but her weariness was more than just the late hour. First the priest and now Pucey? What was shs supposed to be, the source of all MI7 information? And how many factions were there at this point? "What then? Do I transfer it to you somehow? Do you have an encrypted email account?"
"What do I look like? I don't even have an email account at all." Technically, this was untrue. Miranda had helped Adrian obtain one as part of his research. But he checked it so irregularly that he might as well not have one. "I'll take it and put it in the hands of someone who can do good with it."
"And how do I get it to you? Or will I have the occasional surprise visitor to my flat?" The tone was pure Slytherin, which was something of an incongruity, but might be put down to Gryffindor irritation.
Adrian gave Katie a thin smile of his own. "That's one way of doing it. Unless you're willing to risk being seen with wizards or witches."
Was that a fishing expedition? Well, she'd be damned if she would name names for Adrian Pucey, not without proof of his allegiance. "Oh come now, a smart man like you? You must be able to come up with another option." Her smile matched his, but showed a bit of tooth.
"I would prefer not to endanger my friends, or yours." There was a quick shake of his head. "And I may become a target of investigation myself. I've got a Muggle identity, but it's tied too closely to people under suspicion already."
"So I'm stuck with random visitations, then?" She sounded dubious. "No offense, Mr Pucey, but you can see how this might make me uncomfortable." It also reminded her how vulnerable she was to MI7 operatives if they were to pull the same manoeuvre. She would have to rethink her warding schedule. Or possibly change addresses. Damn.
"I don't mind a planned schedule. I'm just not keen on there being a public link between the two of us, one that might get into your monitoring systems." Adrian thought of Lucius Malfoy, who was already convinced he had a source inside MI7. "The fewer people who can make the connexion between us, the better."
Katie nodded, satisfied at this logic. "I don't know how easy it will be for me to get what you need, not without trying a few possible entry methods. Give me two weeks. If I have something by then, I'll have a better idea of how often I'll be able to get more. If I don't," she shrugged, "then we'll at least know that extracting the information is harder than we thought. Either way, we can decide the next meeting at that time." She looked at Adrian once again for agreement.
"I believe we have a plan, Miss Bell." If he'd had a drink, Adrian would have raised it to her. As it was, he merely gave her a satisfied smile.