Usually Remus tried to avoid the more popular stores in Diagon Alley when looking for employment. There was nothing quite like the quiet judgement and unasked questions when one of his old schoolmates ran into him, former prefect and diligent student with the OWLs and NEWTs to prove it, working in some shop dusting and restocking shelves. So he found himself in an odds and ends shop tucked into an alcove. It didn’t seem to have any particular specialty like many of the other businesses, but Remus supposed that was what kept the clientele so regular. Always friends of the owner or a handful of younger witches and wizards who had been visiting the shop since they were children with their parents.
He was nearing the end of his shift though, and didn’t mind the quiet. It would be nice if he could go the last while without any interruptions. And then the sound of the bell at the door drew Remus from his thoughts, and he cursed and hurried to finish restocking a wall of differently colored rolls of parchment. “Just a second,” he called. “Looking for anything in particular?” Dusting his hands on his robes, he walked to peer over the railing of the second floor loft to the individual below.
Regulus pressed forward, the deep headache behind his left eye unrelenting as he strode through the bitter sleet. The sky above London was a roiling black bruise of dark clouds that sent the wind rattling at the windows like teeth. He clenched and unclenched his fists inside the leather of his gloves, recalling on loop the muggle woman who had begged him with tears in her rich brown eyes to strip the magic from her memory, who had gladly accepted one of his cigarettes and took her tea with no sugar and lots of milk. This morning, his mind reminded him belatedly, that was just this morning.
The sleet began to worsen and he felt the icy trickle of rain water slip down the back of his neck, without a thought he ducked into the nearest doorway which displayed an almost gratingly cheerful ‘open’ sign. Reg sighed and let his wand slip from the holster from his forearm, a non-verbal drying charm leaving his hair bouncing, embarrassingly fluffy from the sudden lack of moisture. From the depths of the crowded shelving someone called out to him.
“Bollocks.” He hissed under his breath before he could stop himself. Not you. There are four silhouettes that are immediately obvious to Reg even from afar, burned as they are into his frontal cortex by his own eyes from years of refining his probing stares across the Hogwarts courtyard. “Just looking.” He managed to grit out at a better volume, eyes tracking slowly up from Lupin’s feet to his quiff.
