blood moon rising.
The shop is gray and dismal looking beneath the cover of darkness, it's bright colors and cheery décor seeming almost less magical now that the entirety of the outfit had been upturned and strewn about the floors and countertops. It was like seeing a carnival in the daylight, all of the wonder sucked straight from the marrow of its enchanting bones. Papers drifted lazily in the air, swishing this way and that before finally finding the floor and rustling as noisily as they could manage beneath the rest of the commotion. Thick-soled boots stomped up and down the stairs, treading over the paperwork that had, at one point, been deemed important (that was of course until one Auror had rifled through the filing cabinets and strewn its contents over the floor and into the air). Displays had been knocked over, toys and jokes were still animated, showing off for what they presumed to be interested buyers. The contents of a box of rubber wands were bouncing around the shop, ricocheting off of the ceiling and becoming semi-harmful weapons.
There were several official personnel situated throughout the joke shop, overturning boxes and cases without a care for their contents and kicking them aside on the floor when they didn’t turn up with what they were looking for.
A pair of men stood amid the destruction, thick arms folded over their chests. One was significantly larger than the other, and seemed almost unsuited to his current profession due to his massive size. Thickly corded muscle snaking up their arms and bunching along his shoulders, meeting in a tight bundle at the neck where it made his clean-shaven head look a touch too small for the rest of him. The man beside him was smaller in build but what he lacked in size, he made up for in cleverness. His eyes were glassy and hazel in color, and they seemed affixed with a constant shrewd and calculating expression. The two men were scowling. An anonymous tip had lead them to the location but that wasn’t what they were upset about. They were upset because they had a damned werewolf uprising on their hands and the Minister wanted them to flounce about and comb for illegal contraband! Absurd. Abso-bloody-lutely absurd. The shorter man shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, turning away from the register with its draw hanging open (the cash inside untouched, of course). “Fucking unbelievable,” he muttered, and the larger man looked at him. Auror Davis reached out and closed the cash draw with one meaty paw. “What is?” He usually asked the questions.
“This!” Auror Fillerth exclaimed, spinning on the spot with his arms outstretched. They hadn’t bothered to turn on all of the lights, but the moon shone in through the windows. “Th’ fact tha’ some bloke would ‘ave th’ nerve t’ send an anonymous owl t’ the Ministry t’ insinuate tha’ Harry bloody Potter’s best mate is smugglin’ Wolfsbane. It’s unbelievable. As if th’ twerp could do an’thing ‘cept shit rainbows—“ he spewed, placing his hands on his hips. Fillerth was taking long strides around the room now, poking at overturned objects with the toes of his boots. Behind him, Davis was casually (but very carefully) inspecting the counter and the contents behind it. He was running his hands along the surface and then the shelves, bending lower until he encountered a slim, rectangular box, labeled ‘MARCHING MANTICORES’. Davis picked it up and set it on the counter. He frowned. The box itself was aged. A date stamp that’d clearly been overlooked marked the crate’s origin as the 1980’s. But the lid wasn’t dusty in the slightest. He looked up at Fillerth and watched as the smaller man punted a wastebin toward the door, sending the papery contents flying and he whirled, his coat swirling with the movement.
“Look,” Davis said. Fillerth settled almost immediately and strode forward, fingertips dancing along the edge of the counter while Davis pulled the lid from the crate. Pure intuition drove him to move aside the dated product, revealing the plethora of glass vials beneath, heavily weighted with the illegal potion.
“Ho-ly shite,” Fillerth breathed, a smile already working its way into his expression. “Looks like t’night jus’ got a helluva lot more innerestin’, right mate?”
