Some More Mischief

((Cool. I'm gonna keep it secret for now. It'll be cool.))

Jack could see him digesting her words, turning her idea over to see where the holes were and how possible it was. But he wasn't speaking his head, wasn't shaking his head. It was sinking in and he was making decisions. She had stumbled upon something, and she was proud of it. She hadn't been the girl with a plan when she was younger. She had always relied on improvisation, and it was nice to see that she had fleshed out that skill.

One had to have a plan of attack when one had kids. That's where the skill had developed.

He began to act and she poured herself a rum, switching drinks to her favorite. Whiskey took the edge off, but rum was just delicious.

Jack raised an eyebrow at his request. She wanted to make a marriage joke, but something told her it was not going to be in good taste. She ticked her head. "I can almost guarantee it. It'll be a stolen ring, but you'll have your pick."

((We can jump to the meeting, if you want. Jack can be hiding somewhere nearby.))

(ooc: that works)


Michael walked the deserted platform. There weren't many people in the station at all, and certainly not on Platform 9 1/2.  The wizarding platform wasn't open at all this time of year. He heard his shoes on the tile, echoing as he made a slow, strong stride that lied about how he felt on the inside  


He fiddled with the ring in his jacket pocket. He had settled on a very unusual black opal ring, set in gold flanked by diamonds.  It was old, he knew, and hot. He didn't care about the fact it was hot. Hell, that probably would have been the way he'd have gotten it and meant it anyway, if he'd really thought about it.  She wasn't used to things that were actually legitimate. He had trusted the tracking enchantment to Jack, his own mind too distracted for such a complicated spell that he didn't use that often. He was hoping beyond hope that Jack was going to get all she needed that they could track her.

He was trying to pull himself up to master the theater it was going to take to get her to buy that he really did finally intend to marry her. She knew that he was legally married to Maddie. Bah, she kept tabs on that, hoping he would ditch Maddie and come back to her. Funny, but what always frightened him the most was knowing he had to hurt someone he loved. He felt like he had so few he could be genuine with and he didn't like to lose a one.


He had not entered the station with Jack, but he didn't doubt she was there someplace. He started to hear the click of heels--pumps, against the tile, coming closer. He took a breath. Showtime.


She came around a pillar, and he stopped himself from casting a frown of disbelief at her. She had dressed as if she were out of a 1930's romance movie, overdone, over the top, oversized fashion, oversized jewelry, huge cartwheel hat that matched her dress, bright ruby red lipstick. She even had the blooming gloves.


Michael believed that being able to blend during a drop was critical. This was nowhere near blending. She would stick out like a sore thumb except perhaps at a muggle film studio.

She came up to him and took his face in her hands, much too happy and overconfident. She kissed him.


"Blend, Dear," he frowned. "Blend. What are you doing?"


"You worry too much," she said, still practicing her French accent.  "In a few hours..."


"Alete," he said softly, taking her hands and lowering them from her face. He had to try to get her to hear him. He felt a momentary panic that perhaps he could still talk to her, get her to reconsider. He was urgent now. "Listen," he pleaded. "You have to listen. This is going to us both killed..."


"Oh, you old worrywart..." she began.


"No, listen!" he heard himself getting upset. She looked at him wide eyed and stopped blathering.  "This won't work. You've got to give me the papers back! Please!..."


"I don't have them with me!" she frowned, now disgusted at his apparent lack of trust in her.  "I can't be carrying them until the buy! You know that! Just tell Robert..."

"I can't tell him anything! He's sworn his life to England.  He's not going to spare me and sacrifice England! Have you lost your mind!..."


"But for you, Mon Cher,..."


"For me, right now, he can do nothing! Don't you understand that? You tied his hands! Of all targets! Why him, Why the safe, why frame me? Dear God, Woman! This is going to kill us both! This is suicide!..."


"Look," she was narrowing her gaze, angry. "You need to trust me. I didn't get my name on your coattails...." No, but I've kept it for you, he thought. "Oh, there's no point in talking to you! You're never going to change..." she pulled away from him, intending to leave.


He felt himself shifting emotionally. He was done. Done trying, done pleading, done begging, done protecting her. His self preservation instincts kicked in and shouted into his brain to warn him that he was about to muck this all up, and he would lose his one chance to get out of this alive. He had to be willing to let her make her own choices. He had to reel this meeting in fast.


"Alright," he said softly, putting sufficient surrender in his voice. "Okay. You really think you can do this?"


"I know I can! Its my life! Of course I can..." the fire lit up in her eyes again, and then he saw it. The caper was her life. It wasn't him anymore. Her need to have the touch one last time had somehow become more important than he was now, and she was wiling to sacrifice him for it. 


"Okay," he said.  It was as final as any word he'd ever said.  He handed her a key.  "Don't go home. Go to Venice. Above Tobias's shop. There's a flat up on the third floor. You'll be safe there. Tobias will contact you."


"I knew you'd come through!" she kissed him again, delighted.  


"I know," he said calmly, trying to mask his own personal pain. "Oh, before you go, though, I have just a little something..." he rooted in his pocket. In her face was all the expectation of a new bride. He drew out the ring and slipped it on her finger. She looked at him questioningly. "What do you think it is?" he asked, trying to be rhetorical, unable to actually lie to her face. She threw herself around his neck and planted what was now an uncomfortably passionate kiss.


Dear God, Jack, make some sort of distraction because if you don't, I'm going to hurl right here, he was hoping that if he could only send Jack one telepathic message, it would be this one. He needed this to end. He needed Alete to go--now. Before he blew this all to hell. If Jack didn't step in somehow, his performance was just going to implode.

Jack had only loitered outside of the station long enough for Michael to think she was intent on respecting the privacy of this mission... and then she went in. OF course she wasn't going to miss this. Michael, meeting up with an old flame in an attempt to save his ass and all of England. There was no way she was going to miss out on that... Besides, she never let a man go into the thick of a battle without eyes on him. What if he needed back up?

With her collar up and beanie snugged, she donned some sunglasses. It made her look like she had something to hide, sure, but no one would recognize her. She carefully tucked her hair into her jacket as she slipped through the platform, glancing about. She could see the figures and she strolled away, keeping them within eye contact. She could see a guard at the end of the platform, routinely walking up and down the platform looking for trouble.

Jack waited for Michael to look uncomfortable. And suddenly, she saw him straighten up, look ill at ease. She grinned and turned to look at the guard. Looking him dead in the face, she jumped onto the tracks and began running.

"Hey!" A whistle. And the guard began running.

If that wasn't enough to break up their meeting, Jack didn't know what was.

Yes! The whistle and Jack's shouting sounded like freedom to Michael's ears.  A surge of something like electricity raced through him. He had glanced her way, and when he glanced back towards where Alete had been, she was gone. He looked up and saw the tail of her skirt disappearing through the stone arch. 


Damn! he thought, I didn't know she could still run, and she never did know how to run in heels. For a split second, a boyish grin crossed his face. In the next instant, a rush hit him, and his head spun for a moment. 

Air. It had been the sudden rush from finally taking a deep breath. A sigh of relief that felt like Jack had pulled him out from a riptide.  Hey, where was she, anyway? All he remembered was which direction she was headed. 


He heard more footsteps. The whistle had brought more guards. Great. Company. Improvise.  He slipped behind a column and let them run past, following Jack and the first guard. Then he grinned, unable to resist.  He used wandless magic and tossed a fireball down into the cinders beside the tracks.


The fireball went off with a bang and the guards turned back to see Michael standing on the platform, purposely looking guilty as hell. 


"Oi! You!" one of them shouted at him, sounding his whistle.


"Hurry up!" he motioned them to follow. "Old men run slow!" He was in for a good dash, and he purposely led them the other direction. He had no doubt Jack could surely outrun one muggle. And--if he wasn't all that slow, slow enough that the muggles really did catch his behind, then perhaps Jack would know to double back and help him lose them. After all, there was Alete to follow. 


Ah, but at the moment, the boy in him that was allergic to marriage, commitment, heartbreak, and, oh yeah, jail, was freer than he'd been in a long time.  


He made a mental note. Ask Jack why we can't just do this for the hell of it?

Jack enjoyed the run. Back before she had kids to tend to in the mornings, she had started off each day with a two-mile run, just to get her blood pumping for the day. Since then, she really only got a chance to run during Quidditch practices, and they rarely even had time for a full mile, choosing instead to sprints across the pitch to make sure they were all loose for the practice. She missed physical exertion beyond wrestling kids out of bed and into school clothes, keeping footstools from devouring the feet of visitors, balancing too many plates at dinner time. It was nice to be running from a bad guy.

Really, she and Michael were the trespassers. And she knew that. It also felt good to be stirring up trouble.

She glanced over her shoulder. She had all but lost the poor man on her case, but he continued to run, huffing and puffing. He was almost out of breath. She slowed, allowing the gap to get smaller and smaller. When he was about ten feet behind her, she suddenly veered, jumped back onto the platform, and did an about face. With a cheeky grin, she ran passed the man who was trying to clamber onto the platform and ran towards his friends.

She subtly pointed her wand towards Michael's pursuers, whispering a muffliato charm. With her own pursuer to out of breath and too far away to warn them, and with a ringing that prevented them from hearing her approach, Michael's men had no idea that she was fast approaching. Almost behind them, passing them, and then - she jumped back onto the tracks.

They all yelled in surprise, one of them actually tripping and tangling up with the other. Jack hurried towards Michael, catching up to him easily. "I should have done football," she said to him over the sounds of footfalls. She smirked, then lowered her voice. "Opposite ways, get behind pillars, apparate back to my place?"

He wanted to hug her, but he decided against it. Timing, Tremaine, Timing. She mentioned going back to Knockturn. Fine by him. With her tracking charm apparently in place, he had to defer finding Alete to her. That was fine, too. She was a good tracker. She had this in hand, he was sure.


He nodded.  He split off from her in one direction, leaving her to go off in the other.  His wand drawn now, he happened to have a new thought that was way too late. What if the muggles had security cameras here on the platform? He thought about that now? He groaned, frustrated at his own ineptness, missing a  fine point he'd never missed had he not let Alete toss him off his game.

"Buggar," he muttered. While Jack might well think of it, Michael held himself accountable for being the one who was supposed to think of it. Well, Magical Accidents spent too much time on their arses anyway, didn't they? They might as well be out of bed too, mightn't they? He figured the aurors were on his tail by now, might as well wake up the whole bloody government. Why not?

He spun around in a full circle, looking for cameras.  Muggles didn't trust anything and had cameras every place.  Surely they were here someplace.

"Hello, Robert," he said, feeling cheeky as he spotted one security camera that was supposed to be hidden but was certainly not. "Check, Mate." He fired his wand at the camera with a hex he'd designed to cause a shortage to travel up the wires back to the computer and the server and short out the whole works. The camera shorted out with a pop. He heard a satisfying pop, and another, as they shorted out one by one.

Now, a louder, more general security alarm began to sound.

"Time to go," Michael decided, apparating out and back to the security of Knockturn.

She felt him move from her side and she continued for just a few feet more, before taking a running leap for the platform. She managed to turn it into a roll - holy crap, that was cool - and leapt up. She could hear the whistles of more alarms being set off but she wasn't too horribly worried. She already had quite the head start on them, as her legs were aching to be stretched, aching to carry her off into the distance. And that's what they seemingly planned on doing.

She angled herself towards the door and managed her way out, just as a man heroically slid towards third plate, as it were. She hopped over his grasp and zipped out the door, waving at the guards who could not catch her.

She managed to turn around into an alley and apparated outside of Satan's, laughing loudly.

"You know I'll be summoned to the Headmaster's office for that," he said, walking up to Jack, laughing, and having a good idea of how Robert's reprimand was going to go just for this shenanigan alone. "Merlin, life's been dull! I've been good much too long."  


He looked at her, "You were brilliant, you know. Thank you.  Its the first my head was clear all night. Having a hard time wrapping my head around Alete, though, really. She did like old melodrama films, but, hell, I didn't know she wanted to be one. Please don't let me do Bogart again. I'm just so bad at it, and she's no Bergman. Shoot me first, would you?"


"I'm officially done with love, marriage, dating, and women in general,...present company excepted...and jail. Not in the mood for it."  He checked his watch. "5:17. We've got a little time before daylight. Let's go warm up, and you can tell me what our next step is. Besides, I finally remembered to bring you your Christmas present, about 6 months late. Hiss is guarding it for me in my pack."

Jack smirked at Michael as he approached, heaving in breath now that she had pulled off that feat of endurance and agility. "If I don't get you in a little trouble, I'm probably not doing my job right," she laughed again, wincing as her ribs throbbed with pain. Still, she managed to get out the words, "Good? No - lazy." She smirked at him, assuring her old friend that she was teasing him. It was nice to be sharing a joke with somebody again. It felt normal, even if their reasons were not so orthodox.

She smiled at his words. "Thanks for giving me the chance to be badass. I don't get it much anymore. There's more paperwork as an Unspeakable than you mentioned." She raised an eyebrow, mockingly accusing him. "And next time I see you being that disgustingly romantic, you bet I'll shoot you. Don't we have rules against that or something? We should."

She led the way back into the club, rolling her eyes at his words against the female sex. She was sure someone would surprise him. If it happened for her, it would happen for him. Some international spy or some tough lawyer type. Some lady would give him a run for his money. Jack scoffed. "I don't need a Christmas gift. Your other one is still devouring every sock it finds."

She pushed her way back into her room, crossing to pour some Butterbeers - with a nip of whiskey in both, of course, to strengthen in. But the Butterbeers would warm them up quick. She handed him off a drink and sipped her own. She would wait on showing him her tracking device - she was sure they needed to wait anyway.

Michael hadn't had a butterbeer since his Hogwarts days, but he had to admit, he did like it with the whiskey as an addition.  It was lovely. It gave the drink a warm smoothness and a richness that was very adult and perfect for the slightly rattled nerves that he didn't really want to let Jack in on.


"God, this is nice," he said. Michael had a fine palate, and he did very much like this. "I've not had this before."  He followed her upstairs.


"I've got more of those sock eaters if you want one," he laughed. "By the way, they will eat pantyhose, I discovered. Otto ate a pair of Maddie's. Slurped it up like spaghetti.  I'd have stopped him but I was too busy laughing. I couldn't help myself."


He opened his pack and fished out a delicate little platinum necklace. The sparkling chain held a small platinum charm in the shape of a drawstring marble bag.  The charm was set with tiny multicolored semiprecious stones to simulate the marbles. He did like the way each teeny tiny stone seemed to twinkle in the room's light.


"Its got a couple tricks to it," he said. "Push that green stone right in the center of the bag, and it will act exactly as the same sort of distress signal that the ministry uses.  I've got the other signal on my watch.  But, the drawstrings will pull out like a watchstem if you choose. If you pull the strings,  and it acts very much like a portkey.  It can bring me to you, wherever you are, so long as its in the same range as a portkey.  I know you may never use it.  But, a little insurance never hurts. Merry Christmas about six months late."