Skeletons in Your Closet

[Nolan Filibuster]

ooc: scenario 1: find a note w/ a secret in it

ic: Nolan exited the Daily Prophet building with a sigh. Everything had been absolutely bustling all day - that was what happened when someone had fucking assassinated the Minister - and frankly, he was thrilled to go home.

There was something sickening about a twenty year old Minister of Magic getting assassinated on his own doorstep. Didn't they have aurors who were supposed to stop this sort of thing from happening? Shouldn't the Minister have guards, or spells warding his home - and if he had either of them, what the hell had happened?

That was what he was thinking about when the note of paper flew against his shoes. Nolan grabbed it and read it - and then he laughed, the devious sort of laugh that only came from knowing a really good secret.

"Is this yours?" Nolan said with a huge smirk, extending the note to the person who had run up to him.

  

[Aletheia Galatea]

Aletheia knew it wasn't especially dignified but she still found herself hurrying down the High Street at slightly more than a trot. Under normal circumstances she would try not to make such a show of herself but of course, as usual, fate had been against her.

Walking home from Bartonburg was usually quite a pleasant affair. She dropped off the washing and mending she'd done for the ladies, taken next weeks - some of it helpfully shrunken down with one of the few spells she was good at - and decided she fancied a bit of a stroll amongst the crowds. Thaddeus would be at work for the rest of the afternoon and without Merry around there was precious little to fill her time during the day but work and she'd opted to take the long route.

Of course fate was against her slow, pleasant afternoon as she discovered when she reached into her basket only to have something escape the confines and blow ahead of her in the wind. She chased after it, knowing there were usually things in the pockets that the ladies didn't bother to remove, knowing as they did that it would mean nothing to her.

Eventually a young man picked it up and she could tell from his face that whatever was written on it was amusing.

"No!" She blurted before she could think, her cheeks flushing. "Well, it's not about me at any rate but I should take it back."

  

[Nolan Filibuster]

Nolan grinned cheekily at the woman but handed back the note. He honestly believed that it wasn’t about her. With her flushed cheeks, she didn’t look as though she was the sort to trade relations for cheap crates of opium. (With her husband’s blessing, no less!)

And she certainly didn’t look as though she had an attic in Bartonburg to store the shipment in.

“You should tell your friend to be more careful,” Nolan said, “It’s not very good to have things like that floating around.”

Nolan didn’t work under Pengloss, and he didn’t have any real stake in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, so he did not really care. Large portions of the opium would inevitably find their way into the Slums, but there was nothing to be done about that. If it didn’t come from this shipment, it would come from another one, and at least this one was bringing Nolan some level of personal amusement.

  

[Aletheia Galatea]

Aletheia clutched at the note, holding it upside down inadvertently and looking between it and the man smiling at her with consternation still. She didn’t know what it said but it was something that was clearly causing a great deal of amusement in the man if his ongoing grin was anything to go by.

“It wasn’t supposed to float around!”

She closed her eyes in a mild moment of despair before fixing her gaze upon him. The trouble was that she didn’t even know who the note was about; she had a vague idea given the pile of clothes it had come from but she had no way of knowing and therefore no way of making sure the secret was kept. And if the secret, whatever it was, wasn’t kept, then she could say goodbye to her job!

“Perhaps you shouldn’t read other people’s personal letters?”

  

[Nolan Filibuster]

Nolan knew, on some level, that he was almost definitely being an asshole about this. But it was also by far the most interesting thing that had happened to him all day, and it was good for thinking about something other than the Minister's assassination.

"I'm a reporter!" Nolan said, more bemused than defensive, "We can't help but find secrets, it's part of our Super Secret Daily Prophet training."

All right, now he was definitely being an asshole.

"Your friend's secret is safe with me," he said, changing lanes somewhat though he was still smirking, "She might want to watch where she writes her plans, though. And maybe consider not getting into that business in the first place."

  

[Aletheia Galatea]

A reporter! Oh dear sweet Lord she was going to be in so much trouble now! Journalists were sure to spread whatever dirt they found given what she had heard people say about the Prophet and now she learnt that they had a secret kind of training!

She shook her head in despair and looked down at the note, trying desperately to pick up some of the words she could read in the hope that she might be able to properly chastise him. For all she knew he was just mocking her about her employer buying two cakes rather than one and lying to her husband about it.

But no…that seemed quite unlikely. It must be something terrible and her curiousity was slightly roused given his elevated level of mirth.

“What business?” She asked tartly, as though it were an obvious lie. “It doesn’t say anything about a business.”

Not that she would know even if she could read give that the note was upside down.

  

[Nolan Filibuster]

"You should - um, flip that the other way around," Nolan said, unable to let that lie, either, though his tone lacked the mockery of his previous statements.

"And she's in the - well, the opium business," he added at a lower pitch, "So. Not necessarily illegal, I suppose, but - well." He smiled rather wryly.

Though Nolan was not entirely certain where the details of opium's legalities and illegalities were concerned. His law-related knowledge was entirely fireworks based. He just knew enough to know that he had - rather accidentally - stumbled upon a scandal, and surprise scandal was utterly hilarious.

  

[Aletheia Galatea]

Aletheia’s cheeks flushed bright red at the instruction and she did as he had advised, but there was no getting around the very obvious fact that she didn’t know at all what it said and this man was aware of that. She knew she was very far from being the only woman of her class who couldn’t read a word, but it didn’t stop it from being shameful in her eyes – she could learn of course, but Aletheia knew she would never be able to do it.

“Opium?” She asked with wide eyes, her embarrassment momentarily abated. “No, she can’t be, she doesn’t look like an addict and believe me,” she snorted with laughter and thought about the street she lived on. “I’ve seen a few in my time!”

She tried to look at the note again, before giving up with a frustrated groan.

“Is that really what it says? You’re not just winding me up?”

  

[Nolan Filibuster]

"Well, you're not wrong," Nolan said with a shrug of his shoulders, "It doesn't say that she's taking it." He would have been much less amused if that was the case - addiction was sad and boring - but this was, in Nolan's mind, infinitely more fun.

"She is selling it, though," Nolan said with a cheeky grin, "Or helping someone sell it. It was sort of a vague message." Though he supposed that things of that nature usually were. Ha.

  

[Aletheia Galatea]

Aletheia was far from reassured that her job was safe but at least this meant that he employer had enough to lose that she was probably safe. She even managed a small smile at the obvious amusement on the man’s face as she folded the note up neatly and returned it to the basket; hopefully this was something she could simply forget about – it wasn’t as though she could reread the note after all!

“You won’t say anything will you?” She furrowed her brow. “Was her name even on the note?”

  

[Nolan Filibuster]

Nolan shrugged then shook his head.

"Nah," he said with a grin, "It wasn't. And I have better things to do, anyways." He didn't, not really, but getting involved in a scandal like this also seemed like a great deal of work, and Nolan didn't particularly want to get entrenched in an extended project for work. Not when he was already so busy working on the fireworks anyways.

  

[Aletheia Galatea]

Aletheia breathed a sigh of relief at that and swung the basket higher up her arm, affixing it in place before she began the walk home. The last thing she needed was to lose it again, as with her luck she would come across somebody less forgiving who would sell it for their own ends…

Like she would do if she could be sure that she wouldn’t get caught out by her other employers!

“You’re not the only one,” she said with a sniff, before muttering a small “Thank you” towards the gentleman as she scurried on.