Marked

The Associate

Chapter 5: The Associate

Theo paused to straighten his tie before opening the door, only to realize the moment that he walked through it that he was wildly out of place.

There were only a handful of people in the dark, damp pub, and they were mostly larger men - not surprising, considering the generally bulky stature of the Durmstrang students he'd met during his fourth year. Despite the fact that it was late afternoon, there were a variety of empty tankards sitting around, indicating that most of the patrons had been there for several hours. While most of the men were located in the center of the room, seated around a large, Bavarian style bench, Theo's eyes flicked uneasily to the hulking forms of solitary men in the corners. In the event of an ambush he would be cornered, and given his own slender frame and his expensive London robes, he doubted anyone would think twice to name him a target.

"Um," he said uneasily. "Ich . . . ich suche Gregorovitch." He tried to think of the German word for wand, but failed, instead pulling out his own. As he retrieved it, he realized the motion had startled his audience, all of whom leapt to their feet and brandished their own wands, toppling several pewter tankards in the process and strewing flatware across the table.

"No, no," Theo said quickly, raising his hands in a gesture of good will. "Gregorovitch Zauberstabe - Mykew Gregorovitch - "

"Not here," the bartender informed him gruffly, and the remaining men grunted their agreement, slowly returning to their seats.

Theo walked quickly to the bar, sidestepping the blatant stares and the various items littered across the floor from the pub's patrons. "Do you know where I can find him?"

The bartender had a long, dark beard, dark brown eyes, and appeared to be in his mid-forties. "No," he said after a moment, and although his tone was not necessarily rude, his demeanor was distinctly unfriendly.

Theo drew himself up to his full height, channeling every ounce of superiority he possessed and hoping it was sufficiently intimidating. It had already taken him quite a while to track this place down, and he knew that if he left here without any answers or clues, he would be at a dead end, and that was the last thing he could take back to the Dark Lord. "Did you find him?" "Nope, the guy's a fucking ghost." "Then let me do the same for you."

It had been no simple feat, finding this place - or more accurately, uncovering the rumor that led to the finding of this place. Gregorovitch wasn't a particularly public person to begin with, and on top of that, Ollivander's disappearance the previous year had left most wandmakers wary. Nobody really knew what Voldemort had wanted with Ollivander - Theo certainly didn't know, as the events preceded his involvement - but many wandmakers took the hint to go into hiding. Gregorovitch was particularly difficult; it had taken a matter of about a week and a hefty amount of gold to identify the last place he was seen, but here the trail went cold.

"Are you sure?" Theo said, channeling every ounce of his long-buried aristocracy and staring down the slightly shorter man.

The bartender snorted impatiently, unaffected by Theo's ineffective method of persuasion. "Ja, I'm sure," he replied, his thick German accent containing a trace of mocking laughter. "Go somewhere else, little boy - shoo."

Theo bristled, his fingers angrily tightening on his wand. Though he was not a particularly prideful person - a quality that differentiated him from Draco, and from other hot-tempered idiots like Potter - he was also not a person who took kindly to being treated like a child.

"If I were you," Theo began, his voice adopting a low, menacing snarl, "I would be a little more careful to watch where I tread."

The bartender's eyes narrowed angrily and he opened his mouth to respond, but they were both interrupted by a voice to their left.