Brandon Blake and His Milk Fed, Barely Hominoid Assistant, Danny

Jasper was just about to take a consoling sip of tea when he heard the sound of knuckles on glass from downstairs. Bloody hell, you couldn't even count on this Department of Whateveritwas to attend to things days late like a respectable government agency. Punctuality was the last thing he needed. He snatched a clean set of robes from the back of his chair, hurriedly fastening them to hide last night's rumpled trousers and jacket, and took the stairs two at a time. Behind him, Ivory meowed plaintively in hopes of a late breakfast. When he got to the bottom, he realized he was still barefoot and muttered a quick Accio shoes before crossing the room. On his way he picked up the Divining Diamonds placard and shoved it into the interior pocket of his robes. Ruffling his hair a final time, he opened the door with a flourish of the wrist.

There was a young woman outside, looking harried and serious; Jasper noted, with a hint of depression, that she was carrying a clipboard. Never a good sign. People who accessorized with clipboards never seemed to appreciate the finer points of jewels; the way a truly well cut diamond caught the light, or the strange, murky appeal of opals. He sized her up, discerning what sort of thing would be to her taste. She was pretty enough, if she'd bothered to put the effort forth. Her drab hairstyle and gloomy, frumpy robes didn't do much for her though. His imagination offered up amethyst robes with white gold-no, yellow, earrings and a bracelet...

He realized that he had studied her a moment too long and switched on the toothy, lopsided grin that won over so many customers. Stepping gracefully back from the door, he gestured her inside then closed it firmly, offering his hand simultaneously. As they shook he noticed that she wasn't wearing any rings, especially on the all-important left hand finger. Must be quite dedicated to her job, he thought. Sad, rather. Jasper had a hard time imagining a life consumed by work; he loved his shop, but he also loved his raucous friends and lavish holidays and a good vintage bottle of Firewhiskey. Maybe he should break one of those out, loosen her up a bit...

Jasper Christie, he said, eyes twinkling. Welcome to my shop. I wish we'd met under more frivolous circumstances, Miss...

He waited for her to offer her name, noticing the steely set of her face. Oh dear, one of these. Takes the job seriously, thinks being pleasant is beneath them ethically. He sighed. He'd seen the type before and he always succeeded. Sparkly things (of which he had an abundance, including his smile), were hard to resist.

((Tried to write this as a comment, but apparently it was too long, so here it is. Be gentle, I'm rusty :P))

Tuesdays were an especially hateful day, in Amy MacKenzie's eyes. Not one positive thing had ever happened to her on a Tuesday, she was sure of it. It was much too early in the week to start thinking about your weekend, but it lacked the feeling of distinct relief that so often arrived at 4:55 on a Monday afternoon. And by then everyone was over the weekend, as well, and you were actually expected to put forth a modicum of effort. At some intrinsic level she suspected that this was an entirely irrational complaint. Amy wasn't a social recluse by any means, but neither did she regard weekends as a 48-hour chance for massive substance abuse, no sleep and that feeling of dread that comes with waking up one morning and realising that you have no memory of the previous night. A perfectly valid view, in her opinion, but apparently a minority one among her other colleagues in their early twenties. There was something about office work, she supposed. The tedium and sheer crushing banality of it all built up until only two days of near-insanity could save you from cracking. Lucky, then, that she had a job which took her into the outside world fairly regularly.

At least that was the theory. Travelling around Britain, investigating criminals, it had all seemed so glamorous and exciting. Until Amy actually started doing it. It didn't help that any trip into the outside world generally had to be preceded by approximately seven square miles of paperwork - all of which had to be filled in and filed correctly before her superiors would even begin to consider letting her escape for a few hours. And as for the criminals themselves... well deadly duels in back-alleys and death-defying broomstick chases through the streets of London were rarely on the agenda. No, typically the sort of felonious mastermind they were dealing with would be a shifty-looking wizard in patched robes, selling home made 'Genuine difensive charms' from the back of a muggle car. And they were always surprised that you'd caught them. Perhaps the more senior investigators got their pick of the better cases.

Amy sighed irritably and glared at a passer-by for no other reason than that he'd been unfortunate enough to be present. She was currently striding briskly down Diagon Alley, brooding, and the weather was frankly a disgrace. Turning her bright blue eyes back to the scrap of parchment clutched in one hand, the girl frowned for perhaps the sixth of seventh time that day. Yes, it was true that her usual target wasn't terribly challenging stuff. Hell, some of them were cropping up often enough that she was on first-name terms with a couple. This new one though.. this one is different. Amy had a naturally suspicious nature, and a somewhat cynical view of the typical efficiency of an office full of bureaucrats, and thus she was beginning to wonder whether this information was correct at all. The address was a shop - a legitimate retail shop - and one that sold fairly expensive goods at that. Unusual to say the least.

In fact, despite it all seeming rather unlikely, Amy's ingenerate curiosity was getting the better of her. She had always possessed something of an overactive imagination, and now it was conjuring up images of a huge criminal organization and their wildly successful security scam. The shopkeeper would be a front, of course, selling defective home security systems to vulnerable elderly witches and then handing their details over to a ruthless band of veteran burglars for a cut of the profits. The notion only lasted a few glorious moments, before suffering its usual fate of being deflated by logic and common sense. Whoever this J. Christie was (the office had failed to provide either a picture or a first name in a characteristic fit of inefficiency) he ran a business selling rather valuable, expensive items for a lot of money. Not the sort likely to throw his lot in with the underworld. And besides, even if he was, Amy's superiors would almost certainly have sent the man one of those oh-so-helpful letters warning him of the impending investigation. The ineptitude would almost be comical, were it not so bloody irritating.

Amy realised with a start that her rapid pace had already delivered her to the store in question - a typical Diagon Alley building wedged into an entire row of typical Diagon Alley buildings. And the lights were out. For a second the wild visions returned - J. Christie reading his letter and racing away in a panic overnight, fleeing the country in the wake of her fearsome investigation. Then her eyes caught a neatly-written notice by the door, which informed all who passed by that the shop was closed on Tuesdays. Shit. Just my luck and he's out. Still, it would be a waste not to at least try. The girl quickly checked her appearance in the darkened shop window and came away vaguely dissatisfied as she always did. Amy didn't consider herself especially attractive, but apparently this opinion wasn't shared by a reasonable number of persistent and irritating young men, so when working she made a determined effort not to dress in a manner that would enhance... anything too much. People had an appalling habit of not taking pretty young women seriously. She finally conceded that things were about as good as they were going to get, and knocked sharply on the door. Ten minutes early, but what difference could that make? 

Jasper Christie closed his shop on Tuesdays. Everyone in Diagon Alley knew that. There wasn't any particular reason to be closed on Tuesday, and most shops picked Sunday because it was the day Muggle shops didn't open, but Jasper thought that was a stupid reason. When he'd made up the sign for his shop window he hadn't been able to decide when to close, so he'd ended up throwing a dart at the calendar. It landed on a Tuesday so he wrote CLOSED in neat capitals in the appropriate place on the sign and never looked back. Unless the sign happened to be next to a mirror, in which case he looked back only to make sure there wasn't any lint on his lapels.

Today was Tuesday, so the shades stayed down in the little shop across the street from Madam Malkin's. The intricate sign which read "Jasper Christie: Jewels for Discerning Witches and Wizards" swung gently back and forth above the door, the jewels that accented the letters glimmering in the surprisingly strong autumn sun. Madam Malkin's and the other neighboring shops had been open for hours when Jasper awoke, squinting at the clock nex to his bed to discover that it was 11:47. Earlier than usual, he thought, but he'd had a quiet night. Some people had been out of town so there had only been around twelve people over for dinner, and they'd departed by 3:30. Pathetic, really. Jasper made a mental note to invite more amusing people to his weekly gathering next time. These things happened, he supposed; all but the most interesting ones had a shelf life of about 3 months.

Shrugging on last night's black velvet blazer, he padded down the endless, windy stairs. His house,wedged between the other aging buildings in the district was four crooked stories tall; he lived in the top three and kept his sparkling shop on the bottom. A pile of mail, shoved under the door by various owls, awaited him at the shop front. He scooped it up and paused at a case which held rubies and emeralds, appealingly arranged on white silk. As he sorted the envelopes his reflection grinned back at him in the immaculate glass. Dark, wavy hair and impish eyes that matched his quick smile. He thought himself handsome in an unassuming way, and his customers seemed to agree. The witches at least; they frequently left with an extra bracelet or nine after Jasper's easy, flattering air and carelessly (artfully, in truth) rumpled hair worked on them. They were as much a part of his marketing scheme as the plush furniture and elegant lighting in the shop, and he'd spent just as much time engineering them.

After throwing away the majority of the mail (Jasper didn't forsee himself needing 10% Off Potions Textbooks at Flourish and Blotts, nor did he want a free three issue trial of Celestina Warbeck Monthly), he retreated upstairs to read the rest at his desk, a massive mahogany affair that he was quite proud of. The drawers were currently full of coins; the Christmas rush was already beginning and he really needed to get to Gringott's before the profits forced the desk through the floor and into the shop below. He flicked his wand and a cup of tea appeared on the desk. His cat, sleek and black and named, with Jasper's love of cold irony, Ivory, appeared as well, sliding fluidly around his legs as he slit open letters with a jeweled letter opener.

Invitation to the Black family Christmas party. Ugh, dreadful. Bellatrix Lestrange would be there, slithering around like an overindulged eel. He flicked the gilt edged invitation into the fire.

Floo Network bill. Sigh.

The bottom of the stack was an official looking envelope, embossed with the Ministry seal. He slit it open curiously.


Dear Mr. Christie,
I am writing to inform you that you are a current subject in the ongoing investigation of the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects Office. It has come to the attention of the Ministry that various articles available for purchase in your business establishment may be of question in regards to the stipulations of the Act for the Regulation of Protective Objects, Article 6, Section 3. Please be informed that an officer of the department will be visiting your place of business today, November 15, at precisely 12:20 PM to conduct a more detailed investigation into the matter.

A signature that Jasper didn't bother to read finished the letter. He glanced up at the clock on the mantle. 12:09. Fuck. Maybe time to move the whole case, but he wasn't sure. Better to just talk down whoever they sent. Pack them off with something sparkly tucked into one of his signature red shopping bags and a nice, neat form filled out with nothing but comments about how law-abiding, charming, and devastatingly handsome he was.

His mind rested for a moment on a prominently placed case downstairs. Divining Diamonds: A Witch's Best Friend. They'd been flying out of the shop like migrating hippogriffs, helped along by Jasper's fluid sales pitch about their invaluable protective powers. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, wondering whether platinum or white gold made for better bribery.