March 9th, 1891 — Magical London

Forty-eight hours. It had been forty-eight hours since he'd ran out of the last vial of the ingredient he'd needed. Forty-eight hours since he'd raided the hospital potions cabinet, forty-eight hours since he'd left work early to visit the apothecary. Forty-eight hours had passed—forty-eight hours he hadn't been on the potion.

It was not usually this bad. He'd suffered from withdrawal before, but usually involved nothing more than muscle achiness, tiredness, irritation, and—at the worst—an itchiness in his stomach that was comparable to a nasty mosquito bite. Now ware worse. Now the achieness, tiredness, irritation, and itchiness was there, but there was also felt to be an irritation in his lungs that was effecting more than his breathing.

He was shaking. He was angry. He needed his ingredient and he needed it now, and if he'd realized that grew in Scotland in autumn he'd never had laced his potion with it. Now it was cold, wet, and anyone who'd had it in stock no longer had it.

And he was desperate. So desperate. So tired. So hungry.

The fucking apothecarist had had the gall to tell him to come back in six months, had dared to smile when Billy suggested that they import stock from somewhere it didn't get so cold. He'd then had the audacity to direct him to the library, as if some fucking book on some fucking place was going to make getting his hands on the vial any easier that day.

But he'd gone, not because the trusted to apothecarist's sense but because he had no other option, and it was there he'd discovered a herbologist in London held the record for possessing the most specimens of plants and potion ingredients in all of England.

So there he was, before the sun was up on a Tuesday morning, in some stranger's house without their knowledge, in a room with thousands—if not tens of thousands—of ingredients that would take days to go through. And now it was snowing. Blizzarding. The windows in the room were nearly as big as the walls themselves, and the streets of magical London were veiled by such a thick downpour of snow that Billy knew he wouldn't be able to navigate on foot.

In short: he was trapped.

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Fortitude Greengrass

  

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It was unusual that Ford had anything taking him out of the office this early in the morning. He had literally arrived at work mere moments ago, and was already flooing to someone's house. Normally he always sent an owl to warn them he was coming, because that was professional, and waited for either a response or a half-hour before he headed out. That, and he liked to schedule these things around the afternoon, so that he could work his lunch in either directly before or directly after. It was a nice change, to eat somewhere other than a Ministry break room — and it didn't involve the possibility of doors disappearing and being stuck in a room with Dorian Fisk, which was a bonus. This was a particularly important client, apparently — Ford had no idea what that meant, but probably that one of his superiors was either related to him or owed him money, and that got him priority treatment in dealing with his new spiritual resident. Even if that resident was... well, probably not even a real thing, in Ford's opinion. At least, he'd never encountered a ghost ashwinder before, and he was really hoping that he wouldn't today, either. Magical ghostly flames consuming the house every night could have been a bit of illusion work or a charm gone wrong — not his department, and probably much easier to fix than it would be to capture and relocate a phantom ashwinder.

The man who lived here had already said he would be out for the day, but that Ford had permission to search high and low in pursuit of the spirit, so when he arrived he set about doing that. He noticed with interest that it was snowing outside — the weather hadn't reached Hogsmeade, and it was novel for this time of year. He hadn't dressed for it today, but maybe it if lasted until tomorrow he could entice Grace or Verity to come down to London for some late-season ice skating.

The flames were most frequently sighted in the master bedroom, so that was Ford's first stop, but he found nothing of particular interest. The room directly below was attached to the large conservatory and used to store various plant-things — herbology had never been his specialty, but he thought as he wandered in that Noble might appreciate this room far more than he did. It was certainly a lot of stuff.

A noise startled him, and he wondered with some panic if there might be a real ashwinder down here somewhere, that was capable of knocking things over. Then he saw a fellow near one of the cabinets, and realized the noise must have come from him. "Oh, hello," Ford said cheerfully. He hadn't expected any company today, but he supposed in a house this big there must have been more than just one old man living in it all alone. "Do you live here? Oh —" he said, realizing that he recognized the person he'd walked in on, which answered his own question. "No, you don't. What are you doing here?"

  

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Set by Lady!

So he was trapped. But that was fine—really, it wasn't the worst thing in the world, because being trapped meant he didn't have to spend time worrying about the what ifs or the morality of his actions. He needed his ingredient, and there was nothing that would indicate that the herbologist would even notice if something was missing. How could he, with so many samples?

So he got to work. Fortunately having a Herbology NEWT meant being savvy enough with plans to be able to figure out the sections that he knew he could avoid. He wandered the observatory for time, but quickly discovered that he was walking in circles. Or triangles? Maybe he'd just walked back the way he came. He couldn't know for sure. He began looking for any familiar plants that he'd glanced over before, taking note of each pot's color and size as he passed by. Finally he recognized the fanged geranium and paused.

Then, a voice.

His eyes snapped up, and he immediately recognized the man—not as the herbologist, but as Greengrass' brother. He wasn't friendly with Fortitude Greengrass, but he knew of him; he'd been a few years ahead of him, only in Hufflepuff instead of Gryffindor, and he knew he was the acting head of the Greengrass household now that their parent were dead. But none of that was important. Not really. He was more worried that he would go running off to tell Noble what he'd seen, and that could be the slippery slope that led to many, many issues.

So naturally, he did the one thing he could think of: he raised his wand wordlessly, pointed it towards Greengrass, and shot off a spell that flew by the man and locked the doors shut behind him.

Now, they were both trapped.

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It had not even occurred to Ford that he ought to be at all concerned about discovering Billy Darrow alone in the observatory of this empty London house. He'd assumed that he, like Ford, had some valid reason to be there. The fact that the owner of the house had invited Ford to come look for phantom ashwinders without even having been there to greet him when he arrived meant he was clearly quite a trusting gentleman, when it came to allowing strangers access to his house, so it didn't seem at all strange that someone else might be on the premises doing something. When he saw Darrow raise his wand at him, though, Ford's eyes widened in surprise and his heart stopped. Why the hell was Darrow pointing a wand at him?

A spell shot past him, and Ford didn't consciously realize that it hadn't been intended for him. He assumed Darrow had missed, and would probably try again. He didn't have the sort of reflexes that would allow him to get his own wand out to defend himself before Darrow could kill him, so instead he dropped to his knees and ducked behind the nearest cabinet. He wasn't sure if this cabinet was going to protect him from — whatever the fuck was going on — but at least it meant that Darrow didn't have a clear line of sight to him. Maybe he'd miss again. Or maybe he wouldn't, and Ford would just die. Noble was going to have a time of that — Ford being dead, and killed by one of his friends. Lots of mixed feelings about that one, he'd imagine.

  

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Set by Lady!

In hindsight it would have been better to offer some greeting and then trap him, but Billy only realized that (with a decent amount of annoyance) as Greengrass went wide-eyed and ducked behind a cabinet. Letting out an irritated sigh, Billy stomped towards the cabinet, wand still in his hand but not raised, until he was looking down at a very alarmed Ford Greengrass.

"Get up," he scoffed, shaking his head. He didn't put his wand away, if only because he assumed Greengrass might try something in return, but he held it against his thin in the least threatening manner that he could manage in his irritation. "You're not supposed to be here right now." Nobody was supposed to be home, save for the servants he'd been so carefully avoiding.

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Ford could hear the sounds of Darrow moving towards him, and scrambled to get his own wand out of his coat pocket. He hadn't gotten so far as to think what he might do with it by the time Darrow appeared, looking very annoyed but at least not murderous.

He furrowed his brow as he looked up at Darrow (since he had not opted to follow the direction he'd issued and was still sitting on the floor with his back pressed to the cabinet). What was that supposed to mean? Maybe this was all some sort of misunderstanding? Maybe Darrow was here regularly and he'd been surprised by Ford's entrance and mistaken him for an intruder? He didn't exactly know why Darrow would have been here regularly, but he also didn't know Darrow that well. Maybe he was an apprentice botanist in his free time, or maybe he was courting some girl who lived here. It was possible.

"No, I am," he insisted, scooting away from Darrow before climbing back to his feet. "I'm here on Ministry business. Mr. Brownhill asked me to come first thing this morning."

  

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Set by Lady!

Greengrass remained in his corner for half a second long enough for Darrow to annoyedly dub him a coward, but didn't say anything. No, he might have locked them in the room together, but it was better to keep Greengrass on his side if he could. Clearly he'd thought he'd been intending to attack, and therefore was not yet aware that the charm placed on the door was not one easily opened by alohomora. Yet Greengrass' temporary ignorance would not solve his problem: he'd broken into the observatory with no connection to Mr. Brownhill to weasel his way out of a trespassing charge if he was questioned, and he hadn't yet found his ingredient. He nearly responded with Mr. Brownhill didn't tell me that, but that would have been absurd to say, because Mr. Brownhill was a stranger and he wasn't prepared to try and make up lies that could be easily disproven by Greengrass, someone who apparently was acquainted with the man.

Instead, he glanced towards the windows, where the snow was coming down even heavier than it had moments before, before looking back to Greengrass, who was now standing. "The snow," he said, which he realized seconds later provided absolutely no explanation. His mouth was suddenly very dry, and he struggled to find the words to explain himself further. "I - I'm not supposed to be here," he amended. It was true, and by admitting that Greengrass might be more sympathetic to the words that followed. "But I can't apparate, and when the storm hit I didn't have anywhere to go. I knocked on the front door, but nobody answered, so I found the side door. I thought I'd find a floo and leave a few knuts for the trouble, but..." There were too many variables to this lie, he began to realize, but he was already talking and had already put an effort into appearing sincere.

"... but I didn't. I've just been waiting for the snow to pass." He hadn't thought of any of this through, but he would have to hope that Greengrass did not think on it too hard.

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Ford had been all too ready to believe that there was some reasonable explanation for Darrow's presence in the house, which made what followed all the more confusing. He'd... broken into someone house, rather than walked through the snow? Sure, it was snowing, but it wasn't like it was totally impassable — not yet, anyway, though it seemed to be picking up and it might get that way before long. He thought Darrow lived in Hogsmeade like he did, so he might have been sympathetic to the idea of getting caught in unexpected inclement weather, but he would have just walked to any of the numerous places around London that one could find a public floo, not broken into someone's house. The Ministry was one option — they had floos all over the Atrium that they wouldn't even charge for. The Leaky Cauldron was another, or the Swan and Crown — the list went on. Plenty of preferable options to sneaking through someone's house.

And this didn't explain, either, why Darrow had gone shooting spells at him.

Ford shifted uneasily and rubbed his thumb over the shaft of his wand, wondering if he might be called upon to use it at some point during this interaction. He hoped not, but he didn't move to put it away, just in case. Darrow still had his out, too. "Well," he said in a tone that was forcibly neutral, "I came through the floo twenty minutes ago. So you could go."

  

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Set by Lady!

His breath caught in his throat. Of course there would be some easy remedy to his problem—he had picked such a plain one to lie about. Finding a floo was just a matter of going down the hall, probably, and he might of had he found the ingredient.

But he hadn't, so he couldn't continue down his path of lies. If given enough time to think, he might have found a way out of it, but he had only a brief moment between the time the last word left Greengrass' mouth and the moment it became apparent something was off. So rather than allow an air of awkwardness to settle between them, he did the next logical thing and made a hasty move to stand between Greengrass and the only entrance and lifted his wand by an inch.

"I'm afraid I can't," he said, his tone wavering, "and I'm afraid that you can't, either. Not yet."

And then, without another moment's notice, he attempted to disarm Greengrass.

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Ford had enough time to think yeah, alright, what the fuck? before suddenly Billy Darrow was leaping at him. If ever there had been a time for dueling magic this was probably it, but Ford hadn't dueled since his fifth year at Hogwarts and in the split second that he still had his feet beneath him his mind went entirely blank on offensive magic. Darrow was trying to get his wand, he realized, though why he was physically grabbing at it when he could have just used the disarming spell was beyond Ford — and in theory Ford could have just used the disarming spell now, and then at least he'd only have to contend with Darrow and not with his spells, except fuck, what was the bloody incantation for it? This was not a difficult thing, it was a thing he knew, but he couldn't come up with it when Darrow's hands were on him.

He kept his grip on his wand and tried to push Darrow back from him, but he'd been caught off guard by his sudden assault and he was off his balance. He wasn't going to win this, he didn't think. Darrow was going to get his wand out of his hands any second now, because he had the advantage, but Ford wasn't keen on being so entirely outmatched when he still had no idea what Darrow was doing here, what he wanted, or why he was apparently willing to attack Ford to get it.

With a grunt, Ford elbowed Darrow in the nose and squirmed away from him. Property damage wasn't really his thing, generally speaking, but these were dire circumstances — he pushed a tall vase full of some sort of dried flowers over in Darrow's direction and sprinted off into the rest of the observatory. Not that he had any idea where he was planning to go, with the door behind him and Darrow still armed with a wand and for fuck's sake, why didn't he remember what the bloody disarming charm was?

  

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Set by Lady!

The struggle that ensued was quick but not painless; Billy gasped as a knee connected with his his hip, and then hissed as something in his elbow popped when Greengrass slid under him in a way that through him off balance. Greengrass wasn't stronger than him, but he was impressively good at keeping his wand out of reach as Billy continued to reach for it with the hand he wasn't holding his wand with. It was only when an elbow connected to his nose that he recoiled backwards, giving Greengrass enough time to slip out underneath him and flee deeper into the rows of plants.

"I don't want to hurt you," he called out, his voice cracking on the last syllable. Panic had invaded his tone, and it wasn't clear whether it was an honest statement or an insinuated threat. He couldn't see Greengrass anymore, but he could hear him; the observatory was quiet but the floors were hard and smooth, causing each click of his shoes to echo as he fled. He began to follow, trying to keep his own steps quiet. He knew that there was a chance that, in following Greengrass, he could get lost and give the other man time to figure out what charm he'd placed on the door.

"I don't," he repeated, a bit more sincerity in his voice this time. "You wouldn't understand why, but I can't let you go yet. But I will, I promise. I won't hurt you. Just - Just stop."

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Expelliarmus, that was the bloody word. It occurred to him too late, though, because now he'd ducked behind another cabinet full of assorted herbology things and his line of sight to Darrow was broken. He wasn't going to go back towards him and potentially put himself in harm's way just to maybe fire off a disarming spell before Darrow could send something at his way. He didn't trust his reflexes — he might lose, and then he'd be... well, he didn't know what. Dead, maybe. Darrow said he had no intention of hurting Ford, but for a myriad of reasons Ford was finding that rather difficult to believe.

He wished he knew a spell to turn himself invisible. He'd slowed down when he got out of sight, to the point where he could hear Darrow following him, closing in. He wasn't going to be able to hide forever and he wasn't sure how he might go about signaling for help. Fight or flight, but Darrow had made it clear he had no intention of letting Ford leave... so really just fight.

This was not the sort of moment where Ford excelled. He was not a fighter. He did not want to be here.

"What do you want?" Ford asked, moving to a new row in case Darrow hearing his voice would have given away his location. He stood by the question, though, because Ford was not at all above bargaining with a madman if necessary. It wasn't like he was attached to anything in Mr. Brownhill's home, so maybe if he made it clear that he wasn't going to stop Darrow from... doing whatever it was he wanted to do, he would leave him alone?

Unless Darrow was here to murder someone, he supposed. He probably couldn't just stand by and watch that. Of course, if Darrow was here to murder someone he might as well just murder Ford, too, so it probably wouldn't matter much whether or not Ford offered to forgive and forget.

  

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Set by Lady!

Billy ran through his options, because at this point the idea that he would somehow just grab Greengrass and expect him to go along with his plans was out the window. He could either tell him the truth—or a modified truth—or he could try and play for sympathy, which admittedly seemed like the less likely option at this point. He didn't know where in the observatory he was heading, or how close Greengrass was to the exit, but he had to do what he had to do to keep the other man trapped inside with him.

"I'm looking for something—a rare ingredient," he admitted, deciding that a modified truth would be the for the best, but before he could stop himself there he slipped out another lie, another attempt to gain sympathy. It seemed like he would be pursuing both options. "I have a patient who's dying, and I can't find it anywhere. I - I need to find it or else I'll be in trouble."

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That didn't sound right, for a few different reasons. If Darrow was here on official hospital business and it was a life-or-death matter, wouldn't Mr. Brownhill have just gone and retrieved the ingredient himself instead of sending a hapless healer into look through all of the shelves? And Darrow had said a moment ago that he wasn't supposed to be here, and was just looking for the floo.

"You're stealing," Ford said matter-of-factly. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that that was the case, and whether it was for some dying patient at the hospital or for himself or for some shady black market arrangement, Ford didn't really care. He wasn't going to die trying to protect a bunch of plant stuff that belonged to a botanist he didn't actually know from one of Noble's (apparently insane) friends.

"Fine," he called, moving in what he thought was vaguely the direction of Darrow. "I won't stop you, alright? Just — you have to put your wand away. And you can't touch me again."

  

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Set by Lady!

Yeah, he was fucking stealing—but how could he respond to that? Really it was best not to. Trying to justify it would be as incriminating as simply agreeing that he was, especially if Greengrass intended to report him to the authorities after this.

He heard footsteps again, causing him to freeze in place. The request Greengrass was making was... reasonable, but Billy had his reasons for being wary of it. "I won't touch you, but I don't trust you enough to put my wand away," he responded, which was the first truly truthful thing he'd said in a while. Even if he did manage to find his ingredient, he knew he had to come up with some way to stop Greengrass from talking when this was all over. Obviously memory charms were an option, but they were difficult and unpredictable, and on top if that they required the victim to stay relatively still to have their intended effect. The other choice was - blackmail, and Billy's knowledge of Fortitude Greengrass didn't suggest that there was much to work with there.

"You need to help me," he said resolutely, "You need to help me with my problem. I won't hurt you, I won't touch you, I won't do anything—and then we'll get out of here."

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Ford had thought his terms were relatively easy ones; he just wanted to lose this clawing feeling that Darrow might be about to hurt him at any moment. That was why he'd started walking in Darrow's direction. His agreement was a foregone conclusion in Ford's mind, now that he'd announced he wasn't going to stop him. The refusal to put his wand away stopped Ford in his tracks, however, and he tightened his grip on his own wand. He still didn't know exactly where Darrow was, nor what he would do if the two suddenly stumbled upon each other.

"I'm not going to help you steal things," Ford replied, voice sounding far calmer than he felt. "I'm certainly not going to do it at wandpoint."

Should he have said that last bit? He definitely didn't want to do anything by wandpoint, but maybe it was unwise to suggest he wouldn't. It might him desperate, and Ford wasn't sure he wanted to see what Darrow was capable of when he was desperate.

  

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Set by Lady!