March 18th, 1890 — Mondragon Property - Hogsmeade

It was a bitterly cold night and Yuri could barely feel his fingers as he stood on the cold damp ground a few streets away from this evenings target building. It was a nice house, he didnt really know what it was he was intending to steal only that the house looked like a good target...like it would have rich pickings. He had ferreted through their rubbish for the evidence, nice food and broken objects which looked like they had once been nice. All of which boded well for the contents of the house. He rubbed his hands together with glee and to fend off the cold that nipped his fingertips - he was looking forward to this, he was sure get a good haul between the food and the other things which he would be able to sell or trade for things that he wanted. Maybe even some fancy bit of clothing, made of good thick wool, or a nice cloak, that would mean he could hold off having to go back to the home for a few days.  He could sleep out under it for a few nights before it got too wet and worn to do him any good. 

A stupid housemaid had left a basement window open before she had gone to bed.  He had seen her, beating the mat against the window frame, yawning widely before disappearing into the depths of the house. This was going to be a piece of cake! Oh cake! oh how he hoped that there would be cake! He pressed himself tight to the dirty brick work, lest someone see him from the street, before he pulled himself up on the window ledge and slipped through the frame.  It took him only a few moments to scurry from the basement up to the living levels of the house and slipped into the first room he found. 

Yuri’s feet made barely any noise as they hit the luxuriant carpet of the houses floor. It was a beautiful room, lovely proportioned and obviously decorated with taste and with wealth. He shouldn’t have, but he did spend a few minutes looking at the expensive artwork, the beautiful paintings and collected works of art that made up in the living room, or perhaps a study – he wasn’t entirely sure. He didn’t know what any of the works were,  and couldn’t tell their value from a something bought in a flea market. Paintings wern’t his interest, there would be no way of selling them on without drawing attention to himself.

His attention had been drawn to a number of drawers in a desk - those looked as promising a place to start as any. He had been about to lift it when there was the sound of a key in the lock, the faintest click that betrayed the fact he was no longer along. yuri looked around frantically for somewhere to hide, and scrambled desperately beneath the desk, hiding in the darkness his eyes, wide and staring.


Roberto Devine for Xavier Mondragon

  

---

MJ Made Beautiful Things!

It was a cold night and Xavier had made sure his father was comfortably warm, instructing the scullery maid to tend to the fire in the invalids room throughout the night. He then moved through the house since he was a party all night, sleep all day sort so he tended to be awake for most of the night no matter what. His staff had settled into their beds while others had gone off to do whatever it was they did in their own time. They worked for Xavier despite his less than stellar reputation and so he offered them a lot more freedom than most employers would.

Xavier had a bottle of booze in his hand and had already taken a good swig of it. He sat at his desk, intending to get some of the budget for his household done with so that he wouldn't have to worry about it for another month when long legs connected with soft flesh. Moving away from his desk, his eyes found the form of a young boy. For one brief moment, he thought he should probably drink less.

"Now then, who are you and why are you in my study? Nothing useful for sticky fingers in here, I'm afraid." Well, there was the paintings but who in the hell would want to buy portraits of his family members and their pets?

  

He hoped for a moment that the person might pick up something quickly and leave and he could grab something shiny and slip out, but as the feet approached around the side of the desk, and he watched them stop at the end of the desk. Yuri swore under his breath and gave a small oof when he was kicked by the long legs.

Yuri thought for a second he might be better off staying beneath the desk and pretending he wasn’t there. That was how it worked right? Closing your eyes and counting to 10 would make him go away. He didn’t want to go back to the bortstal – it hadn’t gone so well for him the first time. But there was something in the tone that gave him pause, and realising there was no where he could go he slid out from under the desk. He wasn’t sure of his best approach right now, brazen boldness, or the poor orphan. With men it could go either way.

Your rich – its always worth a check’ he muttered, not daring to look at the man, he shrugged diffidently and scuffed his foot onto the carpet. ’You gonna call the aurors?’ he asked, it was perhaps a little overblown to consider himself a ‘dark wizard’ but as far as he knew aurors were called for everything from dark wizards to petty little house breakers like himself.

---

  

---

MJ Made Beautiful Things!

Xavier laughed boisterously at the brazen boldness of the boys reply. He was right about that, he supposed. He would have had better luck in one of the other rooms. But unfortunately it had been the study that the young boy had decided to try and rob.

"The aurors! Why, have you hidden a body somewhere in here?" He could not help but tease. A constable was who he likely would have called but he was in a jovial mood. And not on good terms with the constabulary himself. "Are you hungry?"

---

  

Yuri, taking the request at face value, shook his head adamantly- he hand't hurt anyone in getting into the house, but it changed to a frantic nod when the strange tall man asked if he was hungry. This seemed to be going well, there didn't tend to be offers of food if you planned on throwing someone into the gaol. 'Yeah Been a couple of days' he admitted before his stomach betrayed him with an angry and loud growl. It had been more than a few days, it was now verging on 3 days since last he had managed to wrestle a stale loaf from the bakers pigs. He gave a grin, that had been intended to be sheepish rather than wolfish.

'Might be a bit 'ungry' he admitted, the man didn't seem totally awful. Not like the usual toffs.

---

  

---

MJ Made Beautiful Things!

Xavier did his best not to crack a smile when the boy shook his head adamantly. His conscience prickled when the boys tummy sounded in the room loud enough that he was sure anyone in the next room heard it. He had so much and this poor welp had not even a fully tummy in days. "Well, I am not one to enjoy the thought of starving children when I have food to give. Have you ever had something called bacon?" He knew it was considered a luxury for most of the boys ilk.

---

  

He had heard of it, smelt it, the paying students at the school for inconvenient children got it on the third Sunday of every month, the charity students would be forced to sit at the scullary room table watching the hank of bacon as it rested before being brought up to the dining room to be carved by the school master. In theory, the charity students were supposed to get whatever was left over, but there was seldom anything, by the time the scullery maids snuck the best of the left over hanks into hankerchefs to be pressed into the hands of their various mothers or some young man or other they were trying to impress, there was never anything left for the charity students, those who's upkeep cost the school money rather than contributing to it. Yuri would have happily chewed the gristle but the dogs got those more often than not.

No Yuri had never managed to get his hungry mouth onto bacon, and he practically started to salivate at the prospect. 'never 'ad bacun' he answered, half in awe, the sounds harsh in his thick accent. 'But eye'd eat about anyfin'' he answered honestly. It was a sad indictment of the state of the care for the young and the poor in England that a child who had, at times, been difficult to care for had spent much of his young life starving on the streets of a town that was, for the most part, untouched by famine and want.

---

  

---

MJ Made Beautiful Things!

Never had bacon! Xavier could not let this travesty continue. And never mind the fact, this child had been intending to rob him. He was already seen as weird by society anyway. They would probably just assume Yuri to be his bastard or some such. Which Xavier did not wholly mind. For all he knew, he really did have a bastard somewhere in the world.

"Then come on, Yuri. You are about to have a veritable feast." Getting up, he moved to the study doors and waited for the urchin to follow.

---

  

Yuri's eyes lit up at the prospect of food, especially nice food! Food that he hadn't had to wrestle from the butchers pigs - heck if he was getting bacon he was getting one of the butchers pigs! Something as sumptuous as bacon was too good to pass up and while it might a small lizard part of his brain was telling him to not trust this adult - his stomach was commanding him to take anything the man was prepared to give him. last time he had listened to his stomach he had ended up a statue for 10 years. His bare feet padded over the opulent carpeting of the study behind the strange rich man who seemed less inclined to punish him as feed him.


This was going to be interesting -and fun - and tasty!

---

[end?]

  

---

MJ Made Beautiful Things!

Luckily for Yuri Podsnapper, Xaviers eccentricities did not extend to turning little boys into stone statues. Closing the door behind them, he let the boy to the kitchens where he served up some food. This boy was amusing - an opinion that only deepened the more he listened to whatever the boy had to say. Perhaps he would take him in as a sort of sponsor, Xavier thought.