WHO: Grayson Wilkes & Alecto Carrow
WHAT: Bullying little girls
WHEN: August '78
WHERE: Agrippa's Apothecary

It was boring, work, but Alecto Carrow took it with a good amount of seriousness on most days. She was proud of having her own shop, she was proud that she could support herself, she was proud that she didn't need Amycus and his bloody 'smart' marriage to keep her 'taken care of' (stupid pompous fuck). But that didn't mean that keeping Agrippa's Apothecary up and running and stocked wasn't the most tedious and banal thing she'd ever done in her life. That was why she'd hired Vincent for stock, so that she wouldn't have to take care of the organization and restocking and would be able to just focus on the financial side.

However, that wasn't much to do, and oftentimes left her as she was now, sitting at the counter, tapping her nails against the hardwood, wondering how in the world work could have gotten any more obnoxiously dull. It was an extremely slow day, with only a few customers even coming in the door, and Alecto was beginning to become tempted to just get up and close the shop for the day when she heard a rattling at the door (dried frog's heads, they were good in potions as well as in thresholds). Looking up from her Witch Weekly (some Quidditch player and some bird frolicing around, she didn't really care), Alecto's eyes widened in mild surprise.

"Grayson Wilkes," she greeted, the name sliding off her tongue with ease of rememberance. He was indeed well known in the Wizarding World. "What brings you in here?"

Well, in the wizarding world that Alecto frequented, at least.

Grayson was here for a reason, naturally. Not the usual reason - some potion ingredient or another - but a reason much more important, aside from personal satisfaction. He flexed his gloved hands and approached the counter, giving her a polite nod of greeting and a smile that only touched the corner of his lips and not his eyes. He didn't doubt that if he went about this the wrong way Alecto would end up over the counter with her nails at his throat, and that wasn't something that he wanted to have to deal with.

"Good afternoon, Miss Carrow. And I'm here for a great many things, I'm sure you can imagine." If it had been anyone else it would have been suggestive, but coming from Grayson it was too bland to be so. He nodded behind her. "Powdered bicorn horn, a half-galleon's worth." Well, he was running low on that. Polyjuice potions routinely decreased his supply of it. He paused, tapping his forefinger on the table once.

"And how is Amycus?"

Alecto closed the magazine and pushed it under the counter, sliding off her stool to reach for the ingredient that he requested. As she turned back towards him and began to fill a small brown bag full a galleon's worth of the bicorn horn, her brother's name reached her ears. It took all of her willpower to not react, and she buried her head down into the project at hand to hide the sudden grimace on her lips.

Her last encounter with her brother, more than a month ago--she honestly didn't even remember how long it had been--had been horrible in two ways. One, in that they had tried to hex each other's throats clean open, two, in that their conversation had ended with his continuing intention to marry that slag Avery as quickly as possible.

Although it did quirk her lips up a bit whenever she remembered that that plan hadn't exactly gone according to plan.

"With all due respect, I have no idea and I couldn't give a shit," she answered casually. "I'd imagine you see him more often than I do, in any case."

The grin that had touched his lips moved into a full-on smirk when he saw the way that Alecto pushed all of her attention onto the bag of bicorn horn despite the fact that the task didn't require all that much effort. Of course, he wouldn't be so hasty as to say that Alecto and her brother were shagging. He'd need something more concrete than this.

He leaned forward on the counter with a slight shake of his head. "I'm sorry to hear that, Alecto. It's such a shame when siblings aren't close. Of course, the last time that I saw him I seem to recall him asking about you, although I'm not quite sure why he thought I'd be seeing you regularly. Still, here I'd thought that you were ignoring your ... dear little brother."

There was a twinge of suspicion that acted up at Grayson's words, which Alecto immediately shoved to the back of her mind. Right, like Grayson Wilkes of all people would have any idea that--although even thinking it right now felt dangerous, so she pushed that away too.

Folding the bag over, she set it on the scale and waited for the amount to register, taking her sweet time with the question--of course he had no idea, but... it wouldn't hurt to practice some caution just in case. "My brother and I have not been close for nearly a year now, although I doubt that our family dynamic is any of your concern," she answered cooly. The scale balanced out and she took the bag off, folding it over and pushing it forward on the counter towards Grayson. "Will that be all for you?"

Grayson didn't doubt that Alecto's shop was the most private place he could think of to speak to her. And he did have a job to do, after all. "As a matter of fact, there's something that I'd like to speak to you about." He set his galleon on the table while he spoke, hoping to keep the 'casual' vibe up for as long as possible. Of course, considering his sparkling people skills, that wasn't likely to last for more than a few minutes.

"And I'm sure that's not true, Alecto." He clicked his tongue. "Amycus would surely wither and die without your doting attentions." He laughed quietly and glanced over to the woman, licking his lips. "And your family dynamic ... yes, about that. It's rather ... interesting."

The twinge of suspicion returned full-force, now accompanied by a pang of fear. Deep, dark, overwhelming fear, because it was evident now that her instinct had been right--fuck Merlin and Circe, how did he--

Her hand halted over the galleon, the tips of her fingers barely grazing the gold surface. Her green eyes were off in another place entirely although from passing glance it would seem that she was merely enamored in the metal piece she stared in the direction of. Silence befell the shop, the whole world seemingly, for what could have only been an eternity. When Alecto opened her mouth again, it was in a dangerous, venomous, and yet deeply pained whisper.

"I swear to Merlin if you don't tell me where you learned of this I am going to hex you into a thousand tiny pieces, you son of a bitch."

"Alecto," he drawled lazily, making sure that his wand was within easy reach without pausing in his glances to the woman, "That's where you are very wrong. I'd hate to think what would happen if this sensitive bit of information was ... leaked to an unfortunate source. The Daily Prophet or worse ... I can only think of the reprecussions. It would be awful, wouldn't it?" His smirk turned to a nasty grin and he leaned back again, bringing a fingertip to his lip.

"But ... I am struck with an idea. One that will benefit everyone in the long run - because you know, I'm a caring guy." He leaned against the edge of the counter. "If you're interested, of course."

Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him, he knew exactly what he was doing--who had told him--what possibly fucking motive could he--had Amycus told him? No, no, Amycus wouldn't have, he was even more afraid than her of information of their... intimacy... getting out, but who else--who fucking else knew about it!

She was going to find out, she had to, because Alecto was determined to drain the blood out of whoever had discovered them and make sure they didn't utter a word of it to anyone else.

Her hand closed around the coin, stiffly after having been frozen in the same position for so long, and she pocketed it. Alecto's eyes slowly turned upon her customer, livid and craving rebellion, indignant that he was winning over her. They both knew that she would listen if she wanted what was best for herself. "Tell me."

"My employer is seeking your help, Alecto." He paused a moment, "And I'm sure that you wouldn't find your service all that unpleasant. After all, your stance on the Blood Status situation should be blatantly obvious..."

He trailed off and turned to the side a moment later, thinking of how it was best to phrase this. "There would be an initiation, of course, and there's the details to work through ... but I assure you that you're a very promising candidate. You would have my fullest assurances that none of this ... questionable family bonding would hit the newspapers or any other person's ears, naturally."

And Grayson's word did actually mean things.

Alecto wanted to kill him now, even more than before. She wasn't so naive as to not understand who he meant by his employer. Voldemort. He wanted her to be a Death Eater, like himself. Like Amycus. To immerse herself in the Dark Arts and rejoice in the killing of the lesser beings of the world. She wanted to kill him, because the one thing she had always maintained was that she would present herself as, and stay, uninvolved.

She wasn't supposed to have had a problem with that. They had her brother, she was a bloody woman for Merlin's sake--this was going far out on a limb, for the Dark Lord to want her. It was intriguing, she couldn't deny, but suspicious and confusing even moreso.

"Is your employer really running out of big burly men so badly that he needs to run around bullying little girls into doing his dirty work?" Alecto asked tightly.

"Surely you can think of several uses for attractive young women in the service of anyone at all, Alecto." And if she thought that being a women was a hinderance with the Dark Lord, she obviously hadn't met Bellatrix (or that Privet woman, for that matter). He quirked a brow at her and slipped a gloved hand out, waiting for his change. "It's really far easier to let our females coax difficult ... clients into doing what they ought to."

Not that he hadn't experienced that sort of job first hand with his last 'personal' side problem. Ugh, he felt nauseous at the thought of it. "Now, you ought to feel honored that He would go to such trouble to procure your services, Alecto. Flattered, even."

"Don't play me dumb, Wilkes. You know as well as I that He doesn't force two from the same family, and that it's not normal practice to put a woman in his ranks," she answered skeptically. "And I severely doubt that He really needs me that much when he's got His little pet Lestrange at his side."

That was another thing--the Dark Lord didn't need another woman besides Bellatrix, at least didn't need them enough to go out and recruit them in. Everyone knew that, even the people at the Auror office (even if they would never be able to prove it).

"And perhaps, as a hint, I would be more flattered if you were not threatening to reveal such a delicate secret." It was true, she didn't feel flattered in the least... the emotion was more like hopelessly trapped.

"Then perhaps I'm wasting your time and I ought to simply go to the presses with an overexaggerated story about you shagging your brother into a wall." Grayson was pleased that it came out as deadpan as he was hoping to. "But I'd like my change first, at least."

He knew that she was trapped, and he also knew that the chances of her letting him leave without making him swear not to tell a soul about her (apparently completely non-fictional) relationship with her brother, so he could afford to be a cocky bastard.

"And I wouldn't hesitate to agree that He doesn't need another woman over Bellatrix, but she is a rather dear friend of mine, so perhaps I'm just being loyal."

It was sheer disappointment in herself that she felt, over even the fury, when his blunt words caused her to whiten her knuckles with a grip on the counter. If he hadn't known he had her before, he did now--the look on her face did not betray the fear that was strangling her like a noose... like Amycus's hand in his anger at seeing her again.

That last thought, that last flash of memory was too much to take, and she turned away from Grayson in the process of trying to ignore the stinging feeling in her eyes. She fucking hated them, she hated them all... the Death Eaters, Grayson, their fucking master, and above all, her brother. They could all go straight to hell for this, dirty bastards, all of them.

"Next time we speak of this, you will not come here. And you won't utter a word of this until then or thereafter. Do you fucking understand me?" Alecto grabbed the change from the register. "Now fuck off," she spat, nearly throwing the money at him.

As soon as she threw the money (or pracically did) toward him, Grayson tucked it neatly into his pocket and gave her a slight smirk. "You really ought to learn not to be so demanding, Alecto. It's not an attractive quality."

All right, so he did feel some measure of sympathy for Alecto and Amycus, but it wasn't as if he really had a reason other than the fact that he loved his eldest sister. Granted, that was a fairly good reason. He adjusted his collar with his gloved hands and then nodded toward Alecto as he stepped out. "I look forward to speaking to you again soon." Right.