Dark arts and dealing.

Keith shouldered the small pack and set out a a brisk walk down the hall, carefully remembering what was in the bag.

Some of his regular wares, from Honeydukes and Weasley Wizarding Wheezes. Harmless stuff, mainly. Alexa liked it, and that's who he was meeting with now.

The more...dangerous stuff was what he was nervous about. 2 bottles of firewhiskey and a calming drought he had nicked from the potions room. that was for Christy, if he could find her; she seemed to have developed a taste for the stuff since she and Nick had broken up. And that was it.

Or so he thought.

He reached the door and glanced left and right, finally entering the deserted classroom. Alexa should be here in a few minutes. He began unpakcing the Honeydukes stuff, mainly chocolate, with some sugar quills, some BBEF beans, and even a few things of mint floss. There was money to be made.

Alexa walked down the hallway. She was going to meet Keith to look at his joke products. She was surprised she liked them, but hey. Sometimes, you gotta be a little wild.

"Hey Keith! Whatcha got?" Alexa smiled at him. He always carried the best jokes! She ran her hands over the objects, inspecting them. "Hey, whats this?" She picked up a circular object that was covered with... jems?

Keith stared at the small round ball. Strange. he didn't remember that. Unless...

Scene shift: 1 week ago, Ravenclaw Boys Dorm

Keith walked through the mess, careful not to step in anything too gross. It seemed to him that Hogwarts didn't have enough House elves.

He walked past James' bed, which was always messy, no matter when the rest of the room was clean. Maybe he told the house elves to stay away from it. He was about to leave the dormitory when a glimmer caught his eye.

he bent down and picked up a small black ball that looked like it was covered in...gemstones. Huh. Weird. Must be James'.

Then again....It was on the ground, and therefore, fair game in Keith's eye. He grinned. It was a pretty little bauble. Some girl would probably take it off his hands. He laughed and tucked the thing in his pocket.

Scene shift: present day

Keith grinned. "What, that? It's just a little trinket from uh...Hogsmead. Yeah. Pretty thing, huh? You like it?" He examined it. "You know what? You can have it. For only 2 galleons." his smile widened, as if this was the best news in the world. "Bargain, right? What do you say?"

"Hmmm... What the hey?" Alexa took two galleons out of her pocket. "Here you are!" She picked up the ball. I wonder what it does? She tossed it in-between her hands. Nothing happened. "It seems safe. But what prank will it pull?" Maybe if she put it on the gound, she could pull that old pants ripping thing...

Alright. Now which hallway was it again?

Mordecai stood in the middle of a corridor, looking both left and right. There was no doubt about it. He was well and truly lost. First day on the job and already he had blundered. Oh this wasn't going to go well with the Headmaster...if and when he finally managed to find the man's office and talk to him. Bloody hell, trekking his way across the Australian Outback without a wand was less complicated than finding his way around this bloody castle.

"I hate castles. I really do." He growled to himself as he ran a hand through his hair in order to get some wayward strands out of his eyes. He never was one for great big drafty buildings. He was the type who was at home in the wilderness with nothing but a mud hut or empty cave to keep the elements off his back. Lucky him, he was employed by a place that was neither empty nor huttish.

Mordecai heaves a sigh and decided to go left. Why? Because he had been going right so far and all that has done for him is get him lost in a secret passageway, or at least he thought it was a secret passageway, and nearly break his neck when he stepped on a step that had someone vanished beneath him. And then there was the moving staircase fiasco. Better not go there.

"You sir! Stand and fight I say!" Yelled a voice.

Mordecai spun around with his wand in his hand, looking for the person but all he saw was an empty corridor.

"This is not my day." He growled as he eyed the walls, ready and waiting for something to come springing out at him.

"Day sir! Indeed I shall have my day! Have at thee!" The voice challenged.

Mordecai glared out of the corner of his eye as he caught some sort of movement from behind. His travelling cloak billowed out around him as he brought his wand to bare and was ready to give whoever was talking a piece of his mind. Only it wasn't a person per say. Mordecai actually blinked in surprise as the figure of a knight in heavy armor clanked around a woven tapestry, wielding a large sword that seemed to be far too heavy for him. Behind the knight a fat pony grazed, completely ignoring his rider.

"You got to be kidding me." Mordecai huffed as he watched the knight take a swing at him and keel over backwards under his own momentum.

"Kid you? I kid you not sire! However there are children hiding in the empty room to the left. Wrong-doings a going on, mark my words sir!" The knight barked as he flipped his visor open and glared up at Mordecai.

Children? Students! They would know their way around the castle.

"Thanks mate." Mordecai pocketed his wand and left the knight to his business.

"Mate?! Excuse me sah, I am not your mate! Good heavens!"

But Mordecai ignored the outcry. He moved quietly, as to not startle the students, and stopped when he heard someone mention something about a prank. Hmmm, what were these little sprites up to?

"And what sort of prank would that be now?" He asked as he swung open the door and stepped into the classroom. He gave the room a quick once over before his gaze settled onto the boy and girl. He knew he must look a sight, looking like some sort of wayward traveler in his mismatched robes and Quidditch jersey.

Keith let out a yelp and tried to reach for his wand, stuff his wares into his sack, run left, run right, and headbutt the teacher. All simultaneously.

Needless to say, this didn't turn out too well. Somewhere along the way his left foot tripped over his right, sending him sprawling to the ground. His wand, which was half out, impaled him in the stomach, and the sack full of pranks and chocolates fell on top of his head. The firewhiskey and draught of peace also fell out, and Keith hurriedly stuffed those into the bag again. He grinned in a Hey what's up no you didn't just see that kind of way and sat up, rubbing his head. The bottom of the bottle of firewhiskey had hit him, and there was a tender spot the size of a basketball. He knew that come tomorrow, there would be a bruise the size of a basketball.

Alexa was so surprised by the sudden turn of events that she dropped the jewel-ball. A crack appered where it hit the ground. "Oh no!" Alexa quickly picked the ball back up, and looked at the crack. It was big, but did not look very deep. "How on earth did it stay in one piece?" Alexa asked. While she was talking, a transparent mist was flowing out of the crack, not to be seen.

"Whoa!"

Mordecai quickly stepped to the side in order to avoid getting trampled by the boy who took off like a kangaroo with its tail on fire. One minute the boy was standing and the next he was sprawled face first on the hard stone floor with the contents of his sack scattered willy nilly.

"Take it easy there lad. No need to go off to the races now." Mordecai chuckled as he plunked his heavy canvas sailors bag onto an empty desk and knelt down to help the boy to his feet. He offered his hand to the lad while he gave him a quick once over. In his life of work Mordecai could spot an injury no matter how insignificant it may be a mile away. All part and parcel of having speeding missiles chucked at you at 90 miles an hour.

"You alright? Didn't mean to startle you, just wanted to ask you two a question." He smiled as his blue-grey eyes swept over to the girl and then back to the boy. "I'm not interrupting anything am I?"

Well, thank you Captain Obvious.

Mordecai's friendly smile turn into a knowing grin as he reached for the boy's bag and picked it up. He arched an eyebrow at the kid and weighed it in his hand. Hmmmm, seemed a little on the heavy side. Too heavy for a sprite like Keith.

"May I ask what a joey like you would be doing with something like this?" He asked curiously as he reached into the bag and pulled out the heavy liquor bottle. Mordecai didn't have to look at it to know what it was. He had plenty of these beauts back at his flat but how on earth did a kid get a hold of one of these? One? Wait, there were two bottles. Hmmm, some teacher around here was going to be in for a nasty surprise once they discovered that their secret stash had been raided. Mordecai glanced into the bag and took stock of what he found. Most of it was kids stuff and other harmless artifacts. Well he couldn't blame the scrub for trying to make an extra bob on the side. Respectable work even if it was frowned upon. Mordecai had done plenty worse in his day.

"I think this belongs to a certain potions master eh?" He placed the firewhiskey on the floor and took out the small fragile bottle that contained what looked to be a peace draught. Hard to make and quite on the pricey side. Most students wouldn't have the means to make something like this outside of a potions class, that much he was certain of.

Mordecai was about to say something else to the boy when the girl spoke up. He glanced at the item she held and a first thought nothing of it. Just a pretty bauble of some sort, probably snitched from some girl's jewlery collection. However he couldn't ignore the tell-tale tingling feeling that was starting to come over him. It always started in his shoulders and worked its way down, making the hairs on his neck and arms stand on end.

That was a bad sign.

Keith bit his lip, a habit from when he was a toddler, and rocked back and forth on his heels, trying to think up a good lie. Finally he decided to tell the truth.

Well, part of it anyway.

"Well sir, that's uh- for a friend," He said. Not entirely untrue. Christy was a friend...Kind of. No, not really. He decided he didn't really like her after all. Keith finished this thought by telling himself if he got out of this, Christy was paying double for her alcohol and potions. "She's been feeling...Well not good lately. She told me that this stuff will make her better, if she takes it often enough." Good. Play the ignorant little kid angle. Though this professor looked a shade to street smart to not see past that particular little ruse, it never hurt to try.

All throughout his little conversation, a tingle was going up Keith's spine. If he had been a more astute person, he would have realized it was coming from the small gem studded ball laying on the floor. Also, he would've noticed a faint, near invisible clear mist smelling faintly of paint. He would then have deduced that the mist was most likely some kind of dark magic, and it was targeting his nervous system, hence the tingles. He then would've picked it up and chucked it out the window, into the lake, before it could spread and do any real harm.

Yeah, it was too bad Keith wasn't a very astute person.

Alexa was about to make up some very believable excuse(she was good at making up those), when she smelled paint. Hmmm... I wonder if somebody is painting outside of the classroom. She then opened her mouth to make the excuse, but found nothing came out. Her tongue was fine, her throat was not hurting, and it was not closed up or puffy. She did not even think to look to the ball leaking mist in her hands that would eventually spread to Keith and the teacher.